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I don't know about the NRA, but at least one lawsuit has been filed by an individual appearing in the film.

those that base their religion/philosophies on Science Fiction books.

Probably the biggest recent purported example of this is Osama Bin Laden's fascination with Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy. When it was translated to arabic, it was titled "Al-Qaida".

For reference, take a look at All Your Base... or War of the worlds. The original story was in the Ottawa Citizen (I couldn't find a link to the article).

Scary stuff when a 50 year old Sci-Fi novel could be considered as the base for a terrorist philosophy.

myke

I remember reading on some astronomy site a while back about the phenomonon(sp?) that occurs when some meteorites hit the atmosphere. Actually had it occur to me once thats why I was interested, in anycase.

Sometimes when the meteorite hits the atmosphere, the thing excites the region around it so much that you get bursts of RF, these can cause some material dozens of miles away (earth) to act as transducers, and these vibrate and produce honest to goodness sound.

Was wierd to look up see a meteorite streak by, and at the same time hear it almost instantly... Knowing full well it was many miles away. After reading that article (ahh here's on that covers it: Sound of Shooting Stars) I realized that the hair in my ear (yes, i'm getting around that age) produced the sound...

POINT IS: Just because there is no air, doesn't mean there is no sound produced...

Doom on iPAQ is all very well, but wouldn't you rather play an FPS on your PC ? I would. The real issue with games content is exploiting the potential of having a hi-res motion control system as standard. This article in The Guardian mentions that a game-oriented release of the device is being considered. If this rumour has any basis in fact then I suspect we can look forward to something a bit more interesting than ports of Doom <yawn>.

Doom on iPAQ is all very well, but wouldn't you rather play an FPS on your PC ? I would. The real issue with games content is exploiting the potential of having a hi-res motion control system as standard. This article in The Guardian mentions that a game-oriented release of the device is being considered. If this rumour has any basis in fact then I suspect we can look forward to something a bit more interesting than ports of Doom <yawn>.

I'm sorry, but you are the one who is wrong. At no point did the UN security council give authorization for the use of force against Iraq. Have you actually read the text of resolution 1441, and of those that went before it; or have you instead been obediently suckling at the 'fair and balanced' teat of the neo-con media sow? UN resolutions are very specific when the authorize force; the words 'by all means necessary' are often used. There is no such phrase, or one equivalent to it, anywhere in 1441 or prior resolutions.

And if you think that the strong wording in 1441 was sufficient to authorize invasion, then tell me this: why Israel hasn't been invaded, based on the plethora of resolutions since 1967?

And if you think there was a moral case for invading Iraq, tell me this: why is Bush providing support, both diplomatic and military, for a dictator who likes to boil to death those who oppose him?

New York and Washington in time of high alert might be able to respond in time, but off the top of my head i can't think of another city in the world (baghdad?) that would be protected.

I was about to say Moscow, but then I remembered that in 1987 some German dude flew a Cessna right into Red Square. (Well technically he landed nearby and taxied to Red Square.)

Dropping a hydrogen bomb on Boca Raton, FL. would cut my inbox by half.

I'm sure its a very nice place - warm, sunny and everything Britain isn't in early December, but first of all it gave us the IBM PC and now spam.

You don't think Buffy put the Hellmouth on the wrong coast do you?

Best wishes,
Mike.

Have you forgotten Westminster City Council? Dame Shirley Porter is still refusing to repay a penny of the 30 million or so she spent evicting poor people from marginal wards [Hansard (page down if you find juicy scandals more entertaining than the Fishery Limits amendment they were supposed to be debating)]. Not that that was the Electoral Commission's doing, mind you.

The Riaa is on to Kazaa. Hell they probably have everyone's ip number from that P2p. Try these alternatives !!

hide you IP number . Very easy for them to bill you.

Use anonymous P2P.

I wouldn't mind that as long as the execs of the UK companies/politicians who built Falluja 2 and US companies/politicians who supplied Iraq with chemical/biological weapons are dealth with as well.

Also don't forget that while we (the working class) are being worked to death to feed our family AND taxed until we bleed, the rich instead get tax refund !
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,682 157,00.html

The politicians are not going to do anything about it, not when you can buy favors from them (hint: read Greg Palast's book "The best democracy money can buy")

The mind boggles.

Ummm... What planet are you from? The economy is doing fine, and on its way up. Despite what the nine dweebs running for the office say, We actually have about 1.5 million more jobs now than when Bush took office.

Bush sucks. He whores for the big corporations and Jesus freaks, and doesn't give a fuck about anyone else. As Zappa said:

"Whats they do in Washington
they just takes care of number one.
And number one ain't you
you ain't even number two."

Try reading a newspaper outside the US like the Toronto Sun or the Guardian and find out what's really going on in the US and the world.

Fucking coppertop.

According to The Guardian "In his pre-trial interview, the cannibal said that after eating Brandes he felt much better and more stable. Brandes spoke good English, he said, and since eating him his English had improved."

Please note, outsourcing of IT jobs to India is not fault of indians, but it is your own capitalism and globalization

Let me remind you about the shady deal involving Bechtel (one of the mentioned corporations) and Iraq. In November 1983, Secretary of State (and former Bechtel president) George Schultz received an intelligence report describing Saddam Hussein's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons. He took no action. In December 1983, Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld was sent to meet with Saddam. They discussed a possible oil pipeline from Iraq to Jordan, to be constructed by Bechtel. Have you ever seen that photo of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam? That's when they met.

The US. eventually condemned Iraq's use of WMDs, but the Pipeline talks continued until 1985, when the deal fell apart, reportedly because Saddam felt that Bechtel was overpricing the job. However, Bechtel managed to secure a contract with Saddam in 1988, to build a Chemical plane outside of Baghdad. Did nobody suspect that it could be used for evil, or was money more important? Anyway, the construction was halted after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Now, in 2003, Rumsfeld is secretary of Defense, Saddam is gone, and George Schultz is a board member of Bechtel- which has just been awarded in April 2003 a $680 Million Iraq reconstruction contract! Stuff like this is why people hate corporations.

"You must not live in the U.S. Dissent is bigger than ever, and unstifled."

*cough*

Just take a pen and swap 'N' with 'S' and 'S' with 'N'.

Just a bit of advice: You may also want to relabel the East and West indicators or you will find yourself being very confused. Granted, in the case of Magnetic Reversal, you may end up more than just confused.

Think back to when Chiang Kai-Shek took over China: before that no one worked, everyone was poor, morale was nonexistent. Under the benevolent dictator, a term used to describe Linus Torvalds, Kai-Shek ensured that everyone worked, and everyone had a purpose.

Describing Kai-Shek as a benevolent dictator is a bit of a stretch. I'm not saying he was any worse than Mao or the communists, but it's on the record that he also engaged in the darker sides of dictatorship: torturing enemy soldiers, disappearing political dissidents, etc.

An example from this Guardian story details how his wife suggested at a dinner with the Roosevelts that her husband would deal with a wartime strike of coalminers by executing the strikers.

Perhaps these measures were necessary for him and the Kuomintang to retain power, and perhaps it was for the best that they did (well, in Taiwan anyway). But I don't think you can call him 'benevolent'.

Except for the French, who have the policy "welcome our invading German overlords, ply them with wine and cheese, and rub their feet after they march down the Champs Elysees".

Oh, wait, actually it's been revised. Now it's "welcome any third-rate dictator who the US dislikes, regardless of how repugnant that person actually is, since tweaking the US is the most important thing for France to do." (vis Mugable.)

A free press is good except if it's arabic and critizes US policy then you should shut them down or bomb them.

Who says they have to be arabic?

You must have had a tough first grade class.

Look up 'metaphor' sometime

BTW, you really should look up plagiarize.

'Plagiarise' is the conventional English spelling, 'plagiarize' is an alternative which arises in the American dialect. An example of the former can be found in the title of this article from The Observer (one of the UK Sunday broadsheets).

As I live and breathe...the real life Wesley Crusher.

Wow, you know sarcasm! But can you do irony?

Europe is noted for it's centuries old habit of anti-semitism.
I am an anti-zionist. I am not an anti semite which is what most EUasins are. I wish the Jews no ill will. I do wish my government would do more to stop the violence and have called my Congress person and Senators but they are going to do nothing. I want Isreal to treat the Palestinians as humans and stop this fratricidal confilict they have with their brothers and sister in Palestine.
Most of the people in the EU use the Isreali occupation of lands that are not theirs and oppression of the Palestinians as a convient cover for their Jew hating.
Germany is the only country were this is not so.

As far as you representation of how people in the UK feel about Bush and the war in Iraq. The Guardian did a survey "Protests begin but majority backs Bush visit as support for war surges." It appears you are wrong according to the quite liberal UK Guardian

More inforamtion on Zionism and "greater Isreal" Alfred Lilienthal

Yea, adopting a simple black and white mentality sure makes this an easy issue to deal with. The way you worded the above paragraph gives the impression that you think acts of agression seem to originate solely from the Palestinian side and the Israeli government (and extremists, yes there are Israeli terrorists as well you know) is left high and dry trying to defend its citizens. Blowing up a Starbucks is definetly not a counter attack but why don't you point your finger at Israel as well? Are you telling me that they haven't inticed violence at all or overreacted in any way by killing innocent Palestinians?

• http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=54872
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,5247 00,00.html
• http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001/09/04/vigi lantes.htm

My point isn't that the Palestinians are being treated unfairly (eventhough I feel they are). It is that people like you need to adopt a more balanced view regarding this situation. Both sides are equally guilty for committing atrocious crimes and that the blame should be shared equally.

The 2000 election, as far as Florida was concerned, was a sham. In addition to the people who weren't allowed to vote, you had a supreme court picked by Bush's brother making a decision to stop a recount that could have changed everything. There has never been a full hand recount, any sources that claim they have a figure are extrapolating from limited samples of the votes that did get counted.

Jesus, I know more about your political system than you.

But the theory of evolution and the big-bang theory are taught in schools.

Maybe thats just me being misinformed then. I imagined that stories like this and also this were correct.

the creation story is not taught in public schools anywhere in the US.

What? You don't have religous studies classes? That disturbs me somewhat, though it would explain americas attitudes to other religions. I mean if you dont get taught about the of more than 75% of your population what chance have you got of knowing about things like Judaism and Islam?

I am not sure about this whole deterministic computer thing. I mean, I keep hearing a lot about this new quantum computer thing. I am going to keep using paper and pencil until this quantum v.s. deterministic silicon thing plays out... This is just like VHS v.s. Beta. Oh wait..Not sure about the pencil. I hear the pen might win. I think I'll wait on that too. P.S. - Someone please make a slashdot filter that prevents any post that says VHS and Beta from showing up anywhere at any level. The comparison almost never really applies (and in fact it does not really even apply to VHS and Beta the way people think it does). http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/comment/story/0,1 2449,881780,00.html

The reason gaming will take a long time to break into the mainstream consciousness as a 'sport' is the same reason any new traditional sport takes a while to get popular. The rules need to be explained to the audience. In a gaming context, the rules are really the control system used by the players - the set of choices they have at any moment and the amount of time they have to make those choices.

For Fightbox the controls are at the same time apparently simple, and obscured from the audience. The producers don't trust the audience with the rules. Unsurprisingly Fightbox is a ratings flop. The results seem essentially random, and the game just doesn't have enough depth. In particular, it is not a team game.

I think gaming on TV might work in a sports format if the rules are known. To put Counter-strike on TV would be quite easy because it is a fairly 'traditional' FPS game. It is also made up of quick rounds. The violence might be a problem, of course; this is a side issue.

But it would take a brave producer to take the step of actually displaying gaming as a sport; and an intelligent one to make it watchable. Although (NFL) football is complicated, NFL spectators are a sophisticated audience. They know what a pooch kick is, for example, and why you might want to use that play. The commentary generally reflects this sophistication. Similarly, gaming on TV needs a game which the audience can and will grasp, and it needs to be presented accordingly, in all its detail.

On the other hand, they look pretty cool. More photos here.

I think I'll add them to my Christmas wish list. :-)

And to go with these red-glowing GloFish, maybe I'll add some of these green-glowing Night Perls from Taiwan:
news story picture.

Like that stops anyone

Perhaps Ashcroft could anoint you with cooking oil or some monitor cleaning fluid. Or at least give you a blast in the forehead with one of those duster cans. Although you might want to close your eyes before being blasted.

"Ahhhh, my eyes! I'm blind," you scream.
"Blinded by the rapture of the Lord. Now speak in tongues lest ye get another blast," says Ashcroft.

Read about the fall of the world's most dangerous politician in the United Kingdom

Cheers,
Kilgore Trout

Electric power is a basic necessity...

Absolutely, and it's interesting to note that planned US spending on electrical infrastructure to 2005 is 71 cents per American per year. Meanwhile, the US gov. plans to spend $255 per citizen in Iraq! (Health spending plans are also illuminating : $38 per capita on hospitals in Iraq versus $3.30 in the US).

If I was a US citizen, I would be furious about this failure to invest my tax dollars in my own country's infrastructure.

The average citizen in France doesn't waste energy like the average American.

No, and when it hits 80 degrees, 14,000 people die. But hey, I'm sure you saved a lot of money.

Knowing the US legal system (as an outsider, not as a lawyer), it wouldn't surprise me if SCO wins a few cases. Since they seem to be suing a whole hoard of people for many different things (IBM violation; GPL is a threat; customer of Linux (I wonder who this is?); etc), the chances are they will win some cases. Just like the recent Microsoft Internet Explorer loss against some bogus lawsuit.

IBM likely won't lose (since it spends a ton of money on lawyers and has the legal system "under its wraps") but some of the other parties that are caught up may lose. If SCO sues Linus Torvalds (it's not clear if they are or not), what are the chances of Linus losing? Much higher than most people here think. I know the open source organization is paying for his lawyers but I highly doubt they are as good as SCO's lawyers.

The legal system in developed countries basically come down to who is richer and can afford the best lawyers. One just needs to look at OJ Simpson, Robert Durst, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, G.E., ExonnMobil, BP, Enron, Arthur Anderson, etc. They can still be convicted but with lower terms, if not freed outright. Does anyone think the Enron and Arthur Anderson criminals will get more than 5 years? The latest case seems to be Robert Durst. Now, someone explain to me if this guy would have been freed if he were not rich and had the best lawyers? If it were me, I would get jailed for sure. If anything, I would get some jail term for chopping up the body and hiding it.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

It was previously covered here last month. The original article was rather interesting.

What the hell would I want to watch on TV?

Nothing at all. I was just wondering if your parents censor that because of stuff like Baywatch and the Sopranos? And how about books? Presumably almost all of the great 20th century fiction would be impermissable because there are 'impolite' words in almost all of them.

While I was writing this stuff, I thought I'd pop in to my daughter's room, because she was laughing her ass off, so I wanted to see what she was checking out.

She'd just discovered the movie section at b3ta.com. I guess this is the sort of thing that strict parents must object to, but really, these are exactly the same sort of jokes and humour that kids tell each other verbally and you've got no chance at all of protecting them from that -- nor would you want to, unless you were deliberately trying to raise some antisocial supergeek. The only difference here is that the communication is mediated by computers.

What about South Park? Would your parents have kittens if they thought that you were watching South Park? Would they assume that Satan had captured your soul and pack you off to one of those concentration camps for troubled teens?

Oh for certain! I'm a bit tense over this one, especially after reading this. Personally I'd prefer it if our President wouldn't engage in such risky behaviour. I find it hard to believe that his cabinet has kept him so sheltered that he doesn't realize he's made a lot of people from other nations very angry.

I see the problem with it. I'm perfectly fine with the idea of ID cards in general (actually, as a frequent traveller within Europe I would very much like to have the ability to acquire one of these French/German style ID cards that functions as a sort of cut-down passport, principally for security reasons...) and somewhat less fine with the idea of compulsory ID cards. I'm not in the least convinced of the argument for them, other than the ability to stop random people in the street and demand to see their ID, which will result in one of a few scenarios,

1) being 'I have it, here it is' (somewhat unlikely - you can prove your identity for video rental with something called a video club card after the initial effort, for example, so there's not much incentive to carry around fourty pounds (sixty dollars, ish) worth of ID card just so some prick can hit you over the head and nick it),

2) being an honest 'I left it at home', in which case the police will have to give you a reasonable time period to go home, get it, and present it to them, thus putting you to some inconvenience for your honesty,

or 3) being a dishonest 'I left it at home', in which case the police will give you a similar grace period, and you, being not a stupid illegal immigrant/criminal/whatever, will be unlikely to go back to the police station and admit it.

And I'm totally creeped out by the idea that Blunkett and his Orwellian pals are demanding compulsory biometric registration. Biometrics isn't something to use lightly, even if it is a popular element in buzzword bingo. In summary, it could be stated that whilst, for example, EU-acceptable ID cards would be very handy, and whilst a national ID system would perhaps be a good thing - solving the 'proof of age' problem, for example - this ID card system is not really about that sort of solution. Blunkett is probably not really after making European travellers' lives easier, so much as he is after that lovely-sounding Gattaca-style database of All The Biometric Information of Every Citizen And Visitor.

I'm aware that there are arguments for the retention of biometric information. But I've worked in areas where there's an astonishing quantity of crime, and our problem has never been proving the ID of the criminal, so much as the fact that the criminals are either underage or consider themselves so far outside the law that nothing short of a prison sentence can stop them. ID is easy to establish where you have a photo or a fingerprint (this is presumably where biometric info 'helps'), and is hard to establish where you have neither and rely on witness identification or less (biometric info isn't going to help you here...) In short, unless the government were to come up with some very good reasons for force-collecting that information from every citizen, they shouldn't be permitted to go through with it. It could be harmful, it isn't much help, and given things like his fabulous extradition agreement, it is extremely hard to see why anybody would consider Blunkett an even mildly trustworthy individual.

Previously, many people in the UK have had the comforting illusion that the country, unlike certain others, did not display the 'you want human rights? Prove your entitlement first' attitude. Blunkett, (the prick), is proving otherwise. Sensibly, many people have the unsurprising opinion that Blunkett can fuck off.

It's not just the oil:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,107 9575,00.html

"America remains the sweet land of liberty in comparison to the rest of the world."

Riiight. I know things aren't perfect in the UK but at least we haven't set up anything like what you have at Guantanamo Bay, where the usual notions of justice don't even apply:Confess or die, US tells jailed Britons

The "iterative" and "task-based" nature of things gets to be kind of interesting. Rather than opening an app, you might pick (from a "start" menu that takes up a third of the screen), for example, a "photo" section (or "activity center," as Microsoft was calling them back in the late '90s). What's that get you? A UI (quite possibly full-screen) that looks a little like a website, with a list of places you might Want To Go Today[tm]. Maybe you want to import photos, maybe you want to print photos, maybe you want to organize photos, etc. Thus the "task-based" part. You click on what you want, and it gives you step-by-step "iterative" stuff, like a "wizard." Or... well... DOS. :)

So... basically, Microsoft is working on making the system extremely easy to use for people who have absolutely no clue what they're doing. They're aiming at folks who are going to do one thing at a time, more or less. Perhaps they'll still have a "classic" interface available for people who've actually used a computer for more than a week, since a "task-based" "iterative" interface would be absolutely maddening for many of us. :)

Historically, there's been this zeitgeist of "Windows is somewhat hard to use, but it's cheap, and you can do so much with it!" First UNIX-like OSes became cheaper than Windows, then Macs became price-competitive, and now Microsoft wants Longhorn to be the OS of choice for clueless newbies. Earth's magnetic poles should be flipping any day now...

Rupert Murdoch of the UK's SKY, and the US's Fox is out to crush the BBC's website, along with others, strangely and disturbingly including the respected Left-Wing Guardian Newspaper. Here's one of their hatchet articles.

These companies want to ruin it for everyone, to serve their own selfish interests.

A recent review by the UK government took place. Let's hope they aren't swayed by these bodies, and leave the BBC's internet arm alone.

I know that much of my license fee's value comes from the BBC website, their news, features [like this Dr.Who thing] and radio, rather than tv (of which I seem to watch less and less.) Any reduction in it's scope would be a Bad Thing(TM).

Rupert Murdoch of the UK's SKY, and the US's Fox is out to crush the BBC's website, along with others, strangely and disturbingly including the respected Left-Wing Guardian Newspaper. Here's one of their hatchet articles.

These companies want to ruin it for everyone, to serve their own selfish interests.

A recent review by the UK government took place. Let's hope they aren't swayed by these bodies, and leave the BBC's internet arm alone.

I know that much of my license fee's value comes from the BBC website, their news, features [like this Dr.Who thing] and radio, rather than tv (of which I seem to watch less and less.) Any reduction in it's scope would be a Bad Thing(TM).

The deep, repetitive da-na-na-nnn, da-na-na-nnn, ...

There is a story behind the music. It was written by Delia Derbyshire, who was working for the BBC Radiophonics workshop. She was an absolute pioneer in electronic music, who worked by physically cutting, pasting, splicing and stretching pieces of tape to creat some real groundbreaking noises.

Her work was hugely influential on modern music - you can see her influence in The Beatles, and many fashionable young electronics gurus cite her (e.g Aphex Twin, Autechre).

I guess this is one of the things that makes a cult program - all the stories and folklore that enshroud it.

Where someone was acquitted for hacking the Port of Houston using the defence that his computer was infected by a Trojan that was used as a springboard. Information here, I feel I have to apologise for the idiot journalist who wrote this; 'Trojanism - computer language for an outside takeover of his PC'

Electronic voting is screwy but, IMHO, The guy is just a little too out there on some stuff to be an effective spokesperson. If you google around you'll see.

For Example
America's most controversial writer Gore Vidal has launched the most scathing attack to date on George W Bush's Presidency, calling for an investigation into the events of 9/11 to discover whether the Bush administration deliberately chose not to act on warnings of Al-Qaeda's plans.

Vidal's highly controversial 7000 word polemic titled 'The Enemy Within' - published in the print edition of The Observer today - argues that what he calls a 'Bush junta' used the terrorist attacks as a pretext to enact a pre-existing agenda to invade Afghanistan and crack down on civil liberties at home

"...a lemming is a little mole-like creature that once in a while commits a mass cuicide."

This article points out that lemmings "do not, however, commit mass suicide by leaping off cliffs, a myth compounded 45 years ago by Walt Disney's White Wilderness film - which showed lemmings apparently going to their doom."

It's been said many times before, but it bears repeating:

First, they ignore you,

Then they laugh at you,

Then they fight you,

Then you win.

- Mahatma Ghandi