Slashdot Mirror

...if the power keeps going out every other day in Athens.

- A.P.

Here are a few:

http://www.freep.com/news/nw/pat14_20040714.htm

http://www.wcpo.com/news/2004/local/07/15/patriot_ act.html

http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=2041760

http://www.iht.com/articles/529347.html

Armed with an almanac? The FBI has its eye on you
The FBI is warning police officials across the United States to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books -- covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends -- could be used for terrorist planning. In a bulletin sent Christmas Eve to about 18,000 police organizations, the FBI said terrorists might use almanacs ''to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning.'' It urged officers to watch during searches, traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if the books are annotated in suspicious ways. ''The practice of researching potential targets is consistent with known methods of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations that seek to maximize the likelihood of operational success through careful planning,'' the FBI wrote. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the bulletin this week and verified its authenticity. The FBI noted that use of almanacs or maps may be innocent, ''the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities.'' But it warned that when combined with suspicious behavior -- such as apparent surveillance -- a person with an almanac ''may point to possible terrorist planning.'' The publisher for ''The Old Farmers Almanac'' said Monday that terrorists would probably find statistical reference books more useful than the collections of Americana in his famous publication of weather predictions and witticisms. ''While we doubt that our editorial content would be of particular interest to people who would wish to do us harm, we will certainly cooperate to the fullest with national authorities at any level they deem appropriate,'' said John Pierce, the almanac's publisher. The FBI said information typically found in almanacs that could be useful for terrorists includes profiles of cities and states and information about waterways, bridges, dams, reservoirs, tunnels, buildings and landmarks. It said this information is often accompanied by photographs and maps. The FBI urged police officers to report such discoveries to the local U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Now that Bush is actively stopping these attacks--not just preventing, STOPPING them in the act--people, er, I mean liberals, are up in arms about their civil liberties being "violated".

You're failed to prove that Bush is actually stopping anyone.

If nothing happens it could be because Bush & Co. are stopping it. On the other hand, it could be because al Queda is merely planning the Next Big Thing and hasn't acted. Considering the lack of press conferences by Ashcroft in an election year when he needs something to show an increasingly skeptical country, I suspect the latter.

There's nothing wrong with failing to exercise your own civil rights. Don't deny me mine just because you suck at logic.

Hmm. To me it seems a bit of revisionist history to credit Reagan with ending the cold war. It was Gorby who made all the peace overtures and changed things in the Soviet Union. Remember "Perestroika"?

Reagan, reluctantly, went along for the ride.

Here's an interesting article by Gorby in The International Herald Tribune. It's very generous to Reagan, but even in saying nice things about the late president, you can read between the lines that Reagan's attitude to the Soviets changed fundamentally between his first and second term. It was Gorby's reforms that forced the U.S. to acknowledge that the Soviets really wanted peace.

Toyota doesn't mess around. They've also sold the hybrid technology to ford. Let's not forget that toyota is also releasing a hybrid which does 0-60 in 4.03 seconds and tops out around 155mph. Don't walk away from this thinking Toyota is maniacally evil, if anything, they've got their shit together more than most automotive companies.

Sorry for being a toyhead, they please me immensely. Something tells me, if the author of the article was driving a volta, miles per gallon would be the least of his worries. I think toyota pretty much tops the list of fuel economy, on any playing field. Prius wins in my mind, not strictly because of fuel consumption, but by the name that's behind it.

Shouldn't have this been in the control of at least some kind of Iraqi authority in the first place?

In the Neocon world, the .iq being held by a private American company is perfectly logical. They've been busy privatizing Iraq - selling off previously government owned industries, mostly to their friends and family.

Well, once Bill C-250 gets passed, that'll no longer be the case. It adds 'sexual orientation' to the hate speech law, which means any public criticism of homosexuality will be a crime in Canada.

Or maybe it's not so free already, even before that law passes:

The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruled that a newspaper ad listing biblical passages that oppose homosexuality was a human-rights offense. The commission ordered the paper and Hugh Owens, the man who placed the ad, to pay $1,500 each to three gay men who objected to it.

A British Columbia court upheld the one-month suspension, without pay, of a high school teacher who wrote letters to a local paper arguing that homosexuality is not a fixed orientation but a condition that can and should be treated. The teacher, Chris Kempling, was not accused of discrimination, merely of expressing thoughts that the state defines as improper.

Even reporters aren't safe in Canada:

TORONTO -- Officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have raided the home and newspaper office of a reporter for The Ottawa Citizen in an effort to learn how she obtained secret documents concerning a Syrian-born immigrant who was arrested in the United States as a suspected terrorist.

The incident Wednesday immediately became the biggest constitutional challenge to freedom of the press in Canada in decades, with the reporter, Juliet O'Neill, now facing possible criminal charges for violating Section 4 of the Security of Information Act, one of several sweeping measures passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Micheal Moore's film is entertaining, sensational, contains snippets of facts taken out of context that are artfully woven together to provoke an emotional response, convincing people of a position by means other than careful, rational analysis.

That is to say, his approach is the same abominable approach use by the right wring ideologues that dominate so much of popular media (talk radio, Newscorp).

I sympathisize with Moore's position, but decry the use of those tactics in his film. It is good that he will provoke debate; but it is bad that opponents, while mixing jibes about his weight problem and how he looks like a homeless person, will have an opportunity to counter his film by logical analysis.

If you want to see a more compelling and credible advocate than Micheal Moore, then I suggest you consider the Nobel laureates concerns about science policy of the current administration and the group of former ambassadors and high-ranking military officers (from both parties) concerns about what the current foreign policies are doing to the United States interests abroad, and not see F9/11. (Unless you won't take it seriously and consider rather as entertainment in the same vein as listening to Rush Limbaugh is entertaining).

The problem is that most devices that rely on Java like Cellphones don't have a large enough screen to make 3D really useable.

Perhaps you missed the 3-D Gaming on Your Cellphone story that appeared on Slashdot some time ago. Unfortunately, since it is old, the link in the story takes you to NYTimes.com's archive where you have to pay to view the article. Here is another copy, but no pictures.

I don't get it.

IHT has this article on low grade sadism of a bullying boss.

Here's a perfectly good article--NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED--from International Herald Tribune:

IHT: In Japan, a look beyond HDTV

Would a screenshot then be enough to compromise your system? I recall reading a story on /. about monitors being viewed remotely somehow from like vans parked outside. Put the two together and I would be scared for my network. Another question would be why we haven't heard much in the last 2 years since Microsoft has been working on this same technology?

Many (maybe most) experts agree that Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Iniative helped spread nuclear weapons. It was meant to help other nations learn to use nuclear power for civilian purposes, buy many say that it helped train foreign scientist that would go on to develop nuclear weapons. NPR had a really good story on it

They assume we dump all the nuclear waste into the nation's beer supply
Nobody thinks that. They do think it is inevitable that leaks will occur. It is also well documented that leaks HAVE occurred. hanford, frankfurt, and of course chernoble.

It's like comparing against an oil economy where it's assumed that 99% of the oil is dumped raw into the ocean.
This I agree with. Lovelock may have a point that that fossil fuel would kill more than nuclear fuel. But just dismissing all of the down sides of nuclear power doesn't help your cause. Instead of arguing that nuclear power is totally safe, the better arguement is that it is safer than fossil fuels.

It's old news but it's relevant. George W Bush kept Area 51's environmental secrets classified for yet another year. This keeps them exempt from environmental laws.

It is highly possible that our government could be working with aliens at Area 51 and/or Wright Patterson AFB. Why? The answer is simple. It's what Chris Carter, creator of the X-Files calls,"The truth hidden in plain sight." The X-files is not quite as sci-fi as you might want to believe; there are unexplained events that the government calls "x-files". The psychological trickery and mind games used to hide secrets is typical for people arrested at Area 51.
If UFO's and aliens are made to look ridiculous in the eyes of science, then anyone who were to witness such things would be immediately discreditted. The truth is hidden in plain sight and the government has pulled the right psychological strings to prevent even eye witnesses from being believed.

Also, Michael Crichgaugh tells Agent Mulder about Roswell and how it served as a diversion from the cold war. Crichgaugh also explained to Mulder how war was the excuse our government used to keep going after WW II. That's how the government kept the economy going. It justified spending more money on war even though there was no war.

The reason the government would want the existence of extraterrestrial life to be kept secret is simple IMHO. The government is a parent and society is the child. Until the child has matured enough to handle the truth, it will not be allowed to know about it.

The King of Shopping Carts and Malls - Michael Moore no longer is on anyones pay roll:

Michael Moore announced that Disney had officially prohibited Miramax from releasing the [latest] film and expressed his frustration that the film was being stifled. Disney said that the decision had been made a year before"

and

...no other documentary director packs a wallop like Michael Moore, who has arrived in Cannes for the screening of his "Fahrenheit 9/11.

It's not just SciAm that has observed this creeping Lysenkoism either -- see also the International Herald Tribune, and that bastion of left-leaning reporting, the Washington Post (with the sub-head, "Changes Renew Criticism That the President Puts Politics Ahead of Science").

And by the way, do you consider any and all criticism of the President in an election year invalid by virtue of perceived politicking? Sometimes things are just wrong at any time.

Actually, it's even worse - 25,000 cotton farmers in the U.S. and $2 billion in subsidies. source.

I don't feel that the cotton ruling by the WTO violates national soverignty any more than dumping subsidized cotton into poor countries markets do. I might have more sympathy for American farmers if their cotton was only being used domestically, and not undermining the world cotton market.

amazingly, it seems that this new n-gage will not be 100% compatible with v1 games, and/or vice versa. From this off-site link (Raiskinen is the Senior VP of Games at Nokia):

Raiskinen said several games were being developed for the new device, most of which will be compatible with both the original N-Gage and the QD version.

The original N-Gage has more than 10 games already available, with more coming. An additional 50 are in development for QD, and most will be compatible between the two devices.

so add "guaranteed shelf life of at least 3 months" to that growing list of reasons to own an n-gage.

SMS may be the real revolutionary technology. They have recently been a huge factor in the upset in the Spanish election. Flash mobs have also demonstrated their power in producing spontantenous actions that are utterly unpredictable by the people in power.

It may not serve to get foreign ideas into a populace, but it can greatly accelerate the spread of ideas in a way that is uncontrollable.

I'm optimistic for the future.

This sort of thing simply exemplifies the sad state of science education in the general public. People when presented with the most superficial of data will adopt as truth the most extreme or absurd of claims with no critical assessment.

I don't think it's a question of science education. Just look at how easy it was for this guy to pull the wool over the eyes of most of the solid state physics community. Science is full of dogma, unfounded beliefs, lack of proof, unstated assumptions, errors, etc. And science education usually does no more to address these problems than other academic disciplines.

Most people are gullible and don't think critically, whether they are scientists or not. The education system could help with that. But teaching critical thinking isn't tied to any particular subject: you can teach critical thinking in subjects like literature, history, philosophy, economics, or even physical education. All of those have assumptions that can be challenged and problems people can think through for themselves.

Science, if anything, is probably a bad subject to teach critical thinking because there is so much complexity to be mastered before you can even start thinking for yourself. Students can reasonably discuss different approaches to historical analysis without years of education because they can relate to it; students cannot meaningfully discuss the foundations of quantum mechanics or the meaning of general relativity or the possibility of the existence of life on other planets because that takes an enormous background of scientific knowledge and skills.

If the news is anything to go by we might be coming to liberate you !

It pisses me off that no American company today would ever do something like this.

That is because Wall Street is so concerned with short-term profits. Gasoline is at an all-time high while Toyota/Honda are the only companies that had the patience to develop a profitable solution to the problem. In 1997 when Toyota introduced the hybrid, they were losing lots of money on every unit sold. Now, they are selling that same technology to US-based companies.

Now, Ford isn't buying Toyota technology because it makes environmental sense. Rather, they are doing it because it makes sense for short-term profits - the same mindset that got them into this situation in the first place. This mentality will catch up to the US sooner or later. And where is solar energy?

But seriously, a lot of people worry about "PM2.5" (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter) potentially being the major component of air pollution leading to chronic (as versus acute) death - there is still controversy in the area though. Look up "Six Cities Study" and the HEI reanalysis

It is true that nanotubes and buckyballs are found in ordinary soot: however, at very low concentrations. It is also true that they are likely inert. This doesn't mean that they can't cause lung damage - small sharp rods that get sucked into your alveoli could do nasty things. One study shows oddly conflicting results: high acute death with no long term impact, because if the nanotubes don't kill the rat fast, then they clump up and become big enough for the lungs to handle them like large-size soot particles.

The summary: what a good scientist always recommends - more research needed! =)

-Marcus

p.s. My personal belief is that I think nanotubes will turn out to be fine - however, I would like them to be thoroughly examined before becoming available in products for mass consumption.

>> Why do people like iTunes and Napster restrict
>> service like that?

Do you think for a moment that either of these companies wouldn't jump in to an otherwise untapped market for their product if they could?

Both companies have publically acknowledged they're fighting to launch in Europe

More Info!

As much as I d onot think that ours is the government that it should be (see U.S. Constitution), I still think it beats any other form out there today.

1. Dave Barry wrote an important piece concerning nanotube application (in layperson's terms , carbon nanotubes are nanotubes made of carbon)
It also talks about those dummy close door elevator buttons (whose cousins, the crosswalk buttons were talked about a lot)

2. the original title was Dave Barry: Lawyers needed, many, to test space elevator , i'll get to that in a second.


OK let sum it up
youv'e got

a - a women suing her successfull son for slander (or ST) trying to get rich.
b - a women pretrnding to fall over in a day after Xmas DVD sale to sue the company (didn't it turn out that it was the 16th time she sued them ... (while being employed))
c - companies patenting facts, ideas , linux code.
d- a women suing (and winning) a department store claiming she sprained her arm tripping over a toddler (her own child)
e - a man suing his neighbor (and getting 5 figures) claiming the dog attacked him (which is true except that "he started it" by repeatedly shooting the dog with a BB gun)
(i appologize for not citing the reference but you can google for outrageous lawsuits to see that i downtoned)
These are syndromes of a society with too many lawyers, coupled with distorted get rich quick ideas


------ why don't all these people just meet up with wealthy nigerian businessmen/inheritors and split the $20,000,000,023.85 that just needs a resourceful individual like yourself ..

I'm republican moron, and I don't need anonyminity to post my feelings. I would never vote for Bush as a REPUBLICAN. But if you think I'm the only one who feels this way think again.

<a href="http://www.iht.com/ihtsearch.php?id=122598&o wner=(International%20Herald%20Tribune)&date=20031 225142337">a very happy family</a>

1) It's Windows. Forget "open".

Who gives a fuck. People working in an office (or even an overwhelming majority of home users) dont get paid to fuck with the source code, nor would most of them even want to. Only programmers care about that shit, and at least 99% of computer users are not programmers.

2) It's Windows. Forget "stable".

If Win2k or XP are unstable, your computer is a piece of shit. Your poor choices in hardware arent Microsoft's responsibility; stop buying Packard Bell.

3) It's Windows. Forget "drivers" without a dozen driver install disks...

A. d00d, turn off the 8-track; drivers come on CD's these days
B. Again, get out of the 60s. On Win2k/XP you rarely need drivers which arent provided (especially XP).

4) It's Windows. Forget "Source code".

A. I beg to differ
B. See statements regarding #1.

5) It's Windows... most apps won't run without registry editing and all kinds of other crap.

I dont have to edit the registry, or anything else, to get my applications to run. And if you do, than whoever put together your install package is a retard (I should know, Ive put several install packages together). But actually, isnt getting applications to run on Linux a bit of a chore, depending on your distro?

All in all, a pretty weak troll attempt. I give it 2 out of a possible 10. You are going to have to try way harder than that around here.

Google Link here:
CLICKY
Other articles here and here

Although it may be more "standard compliant", it is not as forgiving as IE in terms of bad HTML. I still get many sites that don't work in Mozilla - and because I know how HTML works and know the whole history behind W3C compatability standards I'll launch IE and look at the site with that. my mother would probably think the website was screwed. The sad fact of the matter is that there are a myriad of WYSIWYG HTML authoring tools that produde non-compliant HTML and to use the argument that they should fix their problems and Mozilla is god because it adheres to standards is horribly narrow-minded.

The gecko engine is a best effort with respect to approaching IE. It already does a lot of things which aren't in the standards per se. It has two different rendering modes which aren't standards compliant for pages that are buggy. The problem is that making a browser that acts just like IE is a HUGE waste of development resources. IE is a moving target. You'd always be playing catch up. And for what? If your engine is EXACTLY like the IE engine, why not embed that? And it really has to be EXACTLY like the IE engine before all sites will work, because a lot of sites depend on the bugs in the IE engine in order for them to show up correctly.

Even big sites like the internation herald tribune depend on IE bugs to render correctly. (Load it up in mozilla and due to mozilla actually interpreting the html and css correctly you'll get overlap between the image at the top and the text next to it.)

Also, we're just now getting the web dev tools vendors to output standards. Dreamweaver mx now produces good clean standards-compliant code. Frontpage 2003 has much improved standards support. The various blogging tools play MUCH nicer with respect to standards. We're finally seeing the tide change wrt getting people to use standards, and now you propose to throw that away and give the web to microsoft. Why?!?

"China lost 16 million manufacturing jobs, a decline of 15 percent, between 1995 and 2002, according to a recent study of manufacturing jobs in the 20 largest economies by Joe Carson, director of economic research at Alliance Capital Management. In that same time, U.S. factory employment shrank by 2 million, or 11 percent"

And yes, some industries (software, in particular) are maturing and are no longer high-tech. However as these jobs become commodities, other high-skilled and high-paying jobs in what I like to think of as the new high tech are quickly replacing them. If you don't believe there are good paying jobs around here, explain the still expensive housing prices.

Or, here's a link to a non-NYT version at the International Herald-Tribune. Enjoy!

Here is a Washington Times summary that doesn't require registration.

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040202-1 23126-8662r.htm

And here is a IHT article which appears to feature the same quote as the NYT article. Same article? I won't register...

http://www.iht.com/articles/127677.html

Josh.

More on the battle between google and microsoft can be found in the international herald tribune piece.

Gotta lova the last line:

Now is a time to remember that sometimes our spooks get it right in a big way.

Gee, I wonder what he's talking about...

Thomas Miconi

I purchased a used Pascal book in the early '80s and when I took my first Pascal class in 1991 - that book had just been eliminated from the course. The trend to bundle CDs with the required books just drives up the price, and some classes, especially high-schools and elementary schools, the subjects don't change from one year to the next. English and Math do evolve obviously, but is there such a drastic change occuring for school districts to purchase new books each year? At the college level I can see a greater possibilty for new books, but the cost has always surpassed the value.

Obviously everyone who visits this site does some amount of reading, but I imagine that we all have always found webpages and scrolling a little more of a hassle than regular books.

As a small time web developer and former page layout guy I have been watching with great interest to see how web-based reading models develop. My personal favorite thus far is without a doubt The Internation Herald Tribune. The full text is loaded, but there is no scolling to reach the next column of paragraphs. Just a click. I find that it is not only very easy to read, but also much better than scrolling either by scrollbar or wheel. This website has a masthead an other distractions, imagine what it would be like if the only other thing besides the text was a page number. As displays increase in size, so will the usability of web-based text books. The additional ability of hyperliking text within each book would obviously revolutionize reading a great deal. If hyperlinks within the text had multiple possible contextual destinations - everyone could learn more, faster. IMHO.

According to this article, the iraqi state oil marketing agency imports their gas from Turkey for 98 cents a gallon.

Someone earlier commented on the cost of bringing coals to Newcastle.

Of course, you know that Schlumberger is the major global competitor to Halliburton. Why didn't they get to bid on the delivery? Maybe it has something to do with their Paris headquarters...

Here are two articles about the reclassification:

NY Times

International Herald Tribune

That's if you include reliance on donations to keep your job (an employer used to paying $2.13 an hour is not suddenly going to drop their pants and pay you thrice that if business levels). I personally don't count those, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

What donations? They are REQUIRED BY LAW to pay at least $6.75. Let me explain this to you again since you didn't get it the first time. They can pay $6.75, or pay $2.13 to workers who make the majority of their income in tips. If the tips plus the $2.13 do not equal $6.75 per hour, the employer is REQUIRED BY LAW to pay the difference. You can not make less than $6.75 either way. Not legally. Employers are not 'used to' paying $2.13. They've always had to operate this way.

Then the typical Chinese company operates outside the law.

They often do. Chinese labor laws, while on the books, are for the most part not enforced. Here's another article, from the Washington Post.. (Mirrored elsewhere, the Post charges money for archived stories beyond 2 weeks).

This company is marketing a service (covered in this NYT article (cached at the IHT)) that tracks phones on which it's java app has been installed. The service is being marketed to parents and employers and allows access to the location information via a website. They'll also send email alerts whenever a phone travels outside a predefined set of boundaries (a "geofence"). Pretty cool.

This article from Kofi Annan seems to state ideas far away from what has been discussed here, basically. Maybe is just media-talk and what lies behind is a different story... but doesn't seem like it.

A Google Search provides 13,000 hits, with hoary Rothschild references. They claim $160,000,000,000 managed assests, but is the kind of thing really big dumb companies eat for breakfast. Like any other big dumb company Schroders has a bunch of overpaid executives but this one's tast in boats makes Jim Clark's look rational. Shiver me timbers!

The full article over at The International Herald Tribune.

The govt is spending a lot on military hardware & supplies for current activity as well as getting readiness back up (Clinton's DOD shot a lot of cruise missles in Bosia and at other things whenever there was a scandal). Most of the budget increases are due to congressional pork frenzies which along with the tax cuts, do also help. A weak dollar helps US manufacturing because it makes our products cheaper in foreign markets, which helps drive consumption & production of those goods. What are the rational reasons behind any of the up & down cycles of the economy?

What are you basing your democratic population stats on? Registered voters or the results of the last election? The latter just means that Gore had a better turnout in the states that he won, than Bush did. According to this, the counties that Bush won had more population and are growing faster than the counties Gore won. Other maps show the pop densities and the strength of each win. Combined with the shifting of electorial votes towards Republican-friendly states, I would guess a Bush win would probably be bigger than last time.

Just like that tax cut he promised!!
The ones that he passed in the middle of soaring deffecits? Any economics 101 student will tell you how smart that is...

Just like the prescription drug benefit he promised!!!
Same idea... spending, spending, spending... borrow and spend... reminds me of what Argentina was doing, didn't turn out too well for them, though...

Just like that War on Terrorism!!!
Killing somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 Iraqis, raising anti-U.S. sentiments to unbelievable heights (I wish there were a way to measure it...), and tying up the US in a lengthy occupation that will probably end up another failure.

As was said, all hat no saddle. He sais he does the things he does, but terrorist threat is greater now than it was ever before, the tax cuts are going to hurt the economy more than anything else he could have done, and if you went out and researched anything beyond what Bush tells you, you'd realize how unbelievably full of shit he is.

If Brazil remains a locus of "grayhat" activity, could this mean more resources will be put toward finding Linux exploits? Certainly on the whole Linux is more secure than Microsoft's offerings, but I imagine most would agree that its small userbase has played a part in limiting the number of exploits uncovered.

IHT Article

Why? Because it may reveal that one Sheriff Garrett was really a murderer, covering his crime with wild claims. This would serve justice to his victim. The effort will be made to verify the claims of Brushy Bill Roberts of Texas who died at the age of 90 claiming to be the muderous outlaw. If this man is Billy the Kid, is it so distasteful to disturb his grave, seeing as how he sent so many people to their graves? To exhume the man who claimed to be Billy The Kid would dispoil the grave of an killer or a fraud claiming to be an killer. Besides, if Roberts is the Kid, I'm sure he'd gladly oblige anyone who clould prove his claim. If not, then to disturb his rest would merely be an exercise in situational irony.

But, my goodness, that poor lady!