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This comes as a second setback to the uber-greens in so many months. First their much-touted ethanol turns out to be not just more expensive, but also more polluting than gasoline. I mean, just they as seemed to have prevailed over the vast right-wing — err, scratch that for a second — vast oil-companies' conspiracy against ethanol, out come these nasty findings, and — to add a good insult to the injury — that awesome fella on the island near Florida comes out raging against using food (corn) to run cars. Not that the fella or his island are going to get hurt any more than they are already hurting, mind you, but a good friend of his, who can't be talking on these issues himself due to, uhm, a conflict of interest, certainly appreciates any sympathetic concern.

And now the, supposedly, ultra-efficient hybrid cars turn out to be along the lines of the decent non-hybrid gasoline and diesel ones in fuel economy, while lagging in internal space and ease of maintenance, and being thousands of dollars more expensive...

Not that I don't share their concerns for the environment, mind you, but many of these people's methods and other goals make it rather hard not to gloat.

i would like to know the long term side effects of this.

Yes, why switch to something new when we have a well-tested system, blood donations, that is totally free of long term side effects, and has always been 100% safe.

I just can't make stuff up fast enough to match the EU :(

EU to finance Galileo satellite program
By Judy Dempsey
Published: May 10, 2007

BERLIN: The European Commission said Thursday that the troubled Galileo satellite navigation system would be financed wholly by public money after the industrial consortium chosen to build and operate the ambitious technological project failed to reach terms.

Which changes the question from "Why does Sun think it can compete with Apple" to "Why does Sun think there's room in the market for another Phone OS?" Carriers are already complaining that there are too many.

Queen Elizabeth II visits the WShite House

The link you provided starts with "Al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri said a US congressional bill calling for a troop withdrawal from Iraq was proof of Washington's defeat, according to a web video posted on Saturday." that is hardly support for bush's policies. I doubt al-qeda would oppose their own victory. I also do not think al-qeda is an iraqi nationalist group since they consist mostly of foreign whabbist fighters and that has been a source of tension with actual nationalists. al-zawarhi that is in the article you linked to is Egyptian. Al-qeda is a sunni arab group. iraq is a majority shia arab and sunni kurd country.

I oppose islamic radicals and i see there is a disturbing link between democrats and them.

First islamic congressman was elected a democrat in 06. This guy is a former nation of islam member (they think non-blacks and non-muslims are "potential humans" that is a malcom X quote google it )
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6127234.stm

Islamic theocratic rulers celebrated in iran "this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation." ..."
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/khameni-calls-d emocrat-victory-a-victory-for-iran

Al-qeda welcomes democratic victory
http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20061121-083639-1 601r.htm

everyone else
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1738183/p osts

Shite radicals chant death to america while supporting the democratic bill
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/10/africa/web- 0410iraq.php

If this were WWII and the nazis and japanese were praising one parties policies over anothers like this, people would have reacted differently. These days it seems people cant see the obvious.

Can you show me anything where terrorists groups oppose democratic policy on the war? in the link you provided they are basically saying you have admitted defeat and now we want to kill more of you. Im sure if they cant kill more infidels in iraq they will move to another country and resume there.

Except the Walkman and photography.

Huh, I guess I wasn't paying attention to when Slashdot turned into Digg, even though I read both. Here's a link to the original article, rather than what might be a splog. Especially since the article text was copied verbatim.

The International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/01/news/magazi ne.phparticle about it makes a good comment. Business 2.0 has drawn attention for skewering firms, including, occasionally, other magazines, in its annual list of the "101 Dumbest Moments in Business." I wonder if will include itself in the upcoming one? They should also have remembered the old saying "There are two types of computer users, those who have lost data and those who are about to..."

According to a Bloomberg News article I found, the global cellphone market is forecast to grow 12% over the previous year and reach 1.14 billion units in 2007.

The same article describes how Motorola grabbed 4% more of the market,with Sony Ericcsson the star performer grabbing 8%.

Sony Ericcsson models (at least the one with music that I wanted to buy) when I looked cost about $500 bucks. These things aren't subsidized either. You pay a chunk up front and then a chunk all along.

So Ballmer says Apple will grab 2%? Wow. 2% of 1.14 billion is 22.8 million units. At $500 each, that's over 11 billion dollars. Apple's sales for the fiscal year ending Sept. 2006 was$19 billion. So Ballmer says they are going to have *only* this incredible success, whereas if Apple pulls anything at all interesting out of this hat it has a chance at going like Sony Ericcson, which actually has worse design and features than the iPhone?

That, plus the trend for phones toward full browsers, larger screens and music. Maybe not in the U.S. where people don't spend money and are happy with motorola bricks, but there is a distinct possibility the iPhone could grab market overseas too.

My forecast is Microsoft needs to start ordering in chairs by the busload.

I think you will find that there are factories in China making pirate DVDs that get shipped in bulk to just about every other country in the world. There are factories in Hong Kong that start printing the retail DVDs to stock up for the retail release, of course this printing is done while the movie is still in theatres, but often theses Hong Kong factories are also the source of the early DVD rips where rogue employees get a copy out of the factory somehow.

Counterfeiting is also big in China. There they even managed to set up a whole fake NEC organisation that was buying from the same suppliers that the real NEC did, see http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/27/business/ne c.php. They even print foreign food labels and put in on local produce. It's amazing stuff. There was even a case where they set up a car factory right next to a GM factory and were churning out the same car. Check this out http://www.automotoportal.com/article/chinese-rip- offs-of-western-automakers Makes a truck of burnt DVDs look like childs play.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/22/news/wirele ss23.php

the study in question had nothing to do with mobile phones and was actually investigating the influence of electromagnetic fields, especially those used by cordless phones that work on fixed-line networks, on the learning ability of bees.

***

So was it a reasonable scientific investigation hyped by a reporter and picked up by Luddites who blamed technology.
SSDD. Sigh.

At least, not in the longer term...

They are right now creating their own currency for trading oil. What this means is that we will all have to buy their currency in order to pay them for their oil. Essentially they'll get paid twice for the oil.

e.g.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/30/business/gu lf.php

The problem is that none of the game design studios thought Wii would take off. Now they're playing catchup. Give it a few months. And in the meantime, take up golf. I mean, what's the use of owning a groundbreaking, innovative game console if you're just going to use it to play the same old couch-potato crap?

1)Holocaust denial. That one was easy. Do I need to develop this further, or do you understand the implications of someone's sanity/grasp on reality when they deny a hugely-documented recent historical event?

2)The man was a member of the Basiji Force (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/19/news/tehra n.php), which considers itself the judge, jury and executioner. They believe that they have authority to find and kill people who are unholy (as you read in the article, this includes such things so despicable as a couple walking down a street hand-in-hand).

So are you asking me whether or not this man will hold back extreme force in the face of what he considers immoral?

Maybe it is?

They got caught lying on the issue several times before and no longer allow foreign inspectors to check their sites. At least one research facility was not only completely razed before inspectors were allowed to visit it, its top soil was removed and carried away into direction unknown...

But yes, maybe, it is a purely peaceful research. Right...

There are ways to develop nuclear technology for energy production without raising suspicions. Iran is, quite obviously, hiding something.

They are not going to be so stupid as to actually use a nuke, but they will threaten Israel with it, allowing Israel's neighbors to make another attempt to wipe the little country off the map again. These attempts stopped in the 20th century, when Israel hinted at their own nukes — Iran is now seeking the dubious glory of tipping the balance back again...

Every time a news of shooting breaks out, I always wonder why the possession of firearms is not banned entirely in this country. I am native of Japan, and where I grew up nobody but cops were allowed to carry guns. I live in New Jersey now, and I really miss a sense of security I used to have back home. Back there I never worried about getting killed and such, whereas I feel physically threatened where I live now since there have been a number of incidents of armed robberies on campus at Rutgers and in my neighborhood. (My own apartment was robbed several years ago, too.) Seriously, it makes a huge difference when I have to take into consideration the possibility of the possession of firearms when some strangers attacked me. I am aware that there are gun lobbies working against the ban of firearms, but it never made any sense to me. Could anybody enlighten me as to why people want to carry guns at all?

Perhaps the mayor of Nagasaki would disagree that a firearms ban is really all that effective in Japan considering he was shot dead today. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/17/news/nagasa ki.php

Doubtful that this guy bought the guns for the massacre.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/17/america/ NA-GEN-US-University-Shooting-Weapons.php

As to feeling scared all the time, that's just you.

I grew up in Detroit during the 80's. I went to school in Flint, MI. and lived in what most would consider a violent crime ridden ghetto. I can probably count the number of times I've felt scared of a stranger in my life with on 1 hand. And at the time, that was the "Murder Capital" of the U.S.

I've never seen a gun drawn in anger.

Most people in general are not out to kill you. Even when you're in a Ghetto full of people that look different than you.

Most people in the U.S. don't walk around carrying arms. And in general, those few that do, particularily those that legally do, have had very good training about when to pull a weapon, almost never, and how to use if if needed.

Oh, but they do! See here or here.

And so do the Canadians -- see here.

No one is immune to such aberrant behaviour.

In Soviet Russia, you don't observe Red Square, but Red Square observes you.

"Oh yeah, how many websites on the Armenian genocide can you bring up in Turkey?"

How about every single one of them? Actually, none of the websites about the genocide are banned. It is not illegal to talk about the genocide, nor to accept it. The crushing majority still denies it, and would hate your guts if you supported the claims, but they can't legally do anything.

No journalist have gone to prison for reporting on Armenian genocide. Hrant Dink got convicted of "insulting turkishness" because of a misinterpretation of a article he wrote in newspaper. His sentence was "postponed", which really meant that he wouldn't really serve it if he didn't get convicted of the same charges. (Since it was a misinterpretation, it was unlikely)

Coincidentally, he was talking about how the Armenians should leave aside the bad blood between Turks and them. (The mistranslation was kind of like "Armenians should get rid of the bad blood of Turks in their veins.)

It wasn't the state who prosecuted Hrant Dink, it was a private lawyer called Kemal Kerincsiz, a fascist jackass who only pressed charges to draw attention to himself. He also pressed charges against other prominent public figures who supported the Genocide. Nevertheless, all these charges were dismissed by the courts, since article 301 is very vague and doesn't really say anything about genocide. This in turn put Hrant in the crosshairs of an über-nationalistic minority, and he got murdered.

While everybody knows that he got murdered, no one here really mentions that more than 50.000 people marched in his funeral, shouting out "We're all Hrant, we're all armenians!". That's the single most number of people attending a civilian funeral in Turkey. (barring aside the ex presidents and such.) (link : http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/2 3/1530254)

Denying the genocide doesn't make it go away, but making it illegal to say that it didn't happen doesn't necesserally make it right neither, as in France. (link : http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/19/opinion/edk inik.php)

Freedom of speech means you have to be willing to hear both sides, right or wrong.

Joining in name calling does not make it better though. Gore certainly caveats that no one hurricane can be attributed to global warming so the question is are Gray's cycles overlaid by the effects of warming? The data are begining to look convincing that this is the case http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/01/europe/E U-GEN-France-Climate-Change-Hurricanes.php. Now, we could call Gore prescient and Gray out of touch or something but so long as we are entertaining the notion that the question is not settled, our bad manners are also less than helpful on making progress since they add to prejudice.

Most if not all Step it Up http://stepitup2007.org/ event will be followed up with meetings with representatives so you may have a good chance to get involved there. I hope the packing goes smoothly. Perhaps the move gets you out of the inversion?

Being more persuaded, I do use strong language myself http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/.

You aren't allowed to once through water and dump it out anymore, it's called thermal pollution.

Really? You can't get a permit or something?

The Dalles, OR is just a few miles from where the Columbia dumps out into the Pacific Ocean, and the Columbia is a frakkin big river, so not even then?

But I'm sure you are right: I just did a Google search and found this:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/13/business/se arch.php

"twin four-story cooling towers"

They wouldn't bother to build those if they were going to once-through river water.

because most of the things around his office were protected by copyright.

You can't copyright a functional mechanical part. That's why there's a third-party auto parts industry. The author of the original article (free link) apparently has a desk full of promotional items, some of which might be copyrighted designs. That's the only reason he has copyright problems.

The article is really just a product review of a low-end 3D scanner. Not a very good one. Sounds worse than the low-end Roland scanners.

3D prototyping is still an expensive way to make mediocre parts. Most of the people enthused about it don't really have a clue about how manufactured goods are made. Making homogeneous solid objects in quantity is an incredibly cheap operation.

The real breakthrough with this technology is making objects with internal structure. The gecko robots from Stanford are made by loading up a stereolithography machine with several materials of different properties (flexible, stiff, conductive, insulating...) and building something that's almost organic in nature.

Oh, the EU has fined so many companies for price fixing, I don't even know where to begin--Bayer & Chemtura, Siemens, Dow, escalator firms, Heineken, Aventis, animal feed companies, the Deutsche Post, many vitamin producers, Nintendo and, of course, the well known case of Microsoft.

I'm not saying that none of these fines are unjustified but I am saying that, if I may opine, the EU has been issuing a lot of fines. With this recent Apple one, it does seem as though Apple had no choice and if they aren't given an alternative to losing their contracts with record companies for the sake of running one Europe encompassing store, then I don't blame them. On the surface, the EU Commissions seem to be discouraging big businesses from selling things like XBoxes, PS3s or iTunes inside all of the countries. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I guess time will tell ...

Right. The problem is that evolution goes really, really slow. We can't see hit happen in real-time, so it's hard for some people to see what is happening. The exact same thing happened before, when religious poeple were prosecuting scientists who said that the earth was not flat.

No sane religious person will argue that the earth is flat now, and hopefully the same will be the end of the story with this resistance to the results of extended and detailed scientific study into about how natural life on earth evolves.

The vatican gets it, but I guess the people who don't get it are the same people who think that being religious and being pro any kind of war can mix.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10101394/
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/18/news/evolut ion.php

Once the FSB determines who the troublemakers are, the Kremlin orders its loyalists in the city governments to suppress dissent. In fact, on March 24, Russian authorities arrested all the peaceful protestors before they could begin their rally.

Will Washington follow in the footsteps of Moscow and go to the next logical step after spying? I hope that the answer is "no", but I cannot be 100% certain that the answer is "no".

That narrow interpretation of the Second Amendment just went up in smoke.

As a test on Sunday, organizers boarded more than 500 people onto the aircraft using two jetways with an impressive time of less than 20 minutes.

Yes, you are absolutely correct, a modern army has no trouble at all keeping urban populations under control..

Widespread civil resistance, especially when well armed, eventually makes control too hard and too expensive to maintain.
I ought also to add that here you are talking about urban resistance in the USA - Uncle Sam pays his soldiers with resources from the mighty US economy, and so he really can't afford to start nuking cities. And I think it might play badly in the polls.

At my commencement (not at Harvard, at a relatively small school in Pennsylvania), we had the guy from Adelphia Cable speak and he received an honorary Doctor of Public Services degree.

Oops.

I don't remember much about what he said, so hopefully I won't end up like he did...

The biggest anti-competetive fine EU has handed down so for went to the german company ThyssenKrupp: 479 million ($630 million). And a lot of smaller companies got heavy fines in the same judgement. Anyone claiming protectionism should try to back it up with facts. And, oh yeah, this investigation into Microsoft didn't originate within the EU... it wsa a complaint filed by SUN (which you all know is very much a US company).

See http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/21/business/ca rtel.php

• Brazil, and other Latin American countries, can count on technology and heavy investments from the US if they produce big amounts of ethanol. Ethanol is a temporary solution, which can not replace fossil fuel, but developing countries are changing the function of their fields from food production to fuel production for the US and the EU. Several countries are now protesting against the switch to biofuel (these are, "ironically", mostly fossil fuel producing countries like Venezuela).
• In the 20th century food production has been greatly industrialized. Most food we eat has been heavily processed, and species diversity has greatly diminished. Our diet started consisting largely of processed corn, soybeans, wheat and rice. The US has a giant overweight and obesity problem. How does the food industry respond? They take their heavily processed, non diverse products, and add "healthy" nutrients to them, depending on the current hype (currently being Omega 3).
  With the current switch to biofuel, I don't see this improving. A very interesting article about this appeared in the International Harold Tribune: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/28/healthscien ce/web.0128foodMAGAZINE.php?page=1/.
• Let's also not forget the impact of this industrialization and lack of diversity on the quality of the soil: the monoculture and the massive use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers and irrigation water will become problematic, certainly for developing countries. Again, food prices will go up. And let's not forget what those pesticides and fertilizers are made of... Yup: fossil fuels.

The free market can be a good thing, but it has a problem: it works with a short term vision, it wants quick results. We will survive when biofuel doesn't suffice, we will find solutions, I am sure of that, but let's not forget about the footprint we leave, and the impact we have on less fortunate countries. It is not only the law of the strongest that should count.

So, will the astronauts keep their base clean using autonomous robotic, magnetic vacuum cleaners called Moonbas?

Even better, why not send up a Super Model?

Recommendation: The committee suggests exploring whether or not the notion of copy is an appropriate foundation for copyright law, and whether a new foundation can be constructed for copyright, based on the goal set forth in the Constitution ("promote the progress of science and the useful arts") and a tactic by which it is achieved, namely, providing incentive to authors and publishers. In this framework, the question would not be whether a copy had been made, but whether a use of a work was consistent with the goal and tactic (i.e., did it contribute to the desired "progress" and was it destructive, when taken alone or aggregated with other similar copies, of an author's incentive?). This concept is similar to fair use but broader in scope, as it requires considering the range of factors by which to measure the impact of the activity on authors, publishers, and others.

Copyright was originally the grant of a temporary government-supported monopoly on copying a work, not a property right. Its sole purpose was to encourage the circulation of ideas by giving creators and publishers a short-term incentive to disseminate their work. Over the past 50 years, as a result of heavy lobbying by content industries, copyright has grown to such ludicrous proportions that it now often inhibits rather than promotes the circulation of ideas, leaving thousands of old movies, records and books languishing behind a legal barrier.

I see a distinct value in affirming author's moral rights; to be recognized as the author/creator and to be able to prevent misuse of their works, such as them being used to promote values clearly not in line with the author's.

If the reason is to create artificial scarcity in an effort to maintain a certain type of private monopoly, I see no societal use for copyrights whatsoever.

US copyright has good fair use, European copyrights have good moral rights. I'd like to see those two combined and the rest stripped away as much as possible.

Here's a piece to think about: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/07/opinion/eds miers.php

This conversation is meaningless to me anyway, I don't have any morals ... or even believe in their honest existence. Living organisms are just goal-oriented preprogrammed systems -- we do what's ultimately in our own interest (even if that's as hazy as fulfulling a subconscious desire to "be a good boy" like our parents told us to).

I was just posing a question. Everyone is jumping on their anti-gestapo soapboxes.

And rightfully so, if the Indian gov't is going to run around arresting people for insulting public figures like Egypt, a US ally I might add. Aren't we huge hypocrites?

But the article mentioned that some of the sites of interest were fan sites of Indian mobsters, and that some of these fan sites had never-before seen pictures of mobsters uploaded to them. This would obviously imply that the site's writer knew the mobster personally; isn't that a legitimate reason to investigate them?

yes -> "As for the military presence that's a completely different thing."....so I said no, it is a direct energy cost. It isn't different at all, it is a cost for making sure that some big US oil companies can continue with their energy cartel action. They get a massive mercenary force to protect their interests paid for by the US tax payer and wrapped up in a flag and false patriotism, encouraged by media propaganda and bribed off "energy insiders" government sock puppets at the very highest levels. And they are this close right now to ripping off the bulk of iraq's oil instead of letting the poor people there use it for their rebuilding.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/13/opinion/edj uhasz.php

If you meant something different, sure, I missed it, and you can enlighten me so I can understand better, but that is how I read it for my response.

Sadly, by the time enough proof is available millions will be DEAD. How about we let Japan or the EU launch the Deep Space Climate Observatory but no-- Bush does not want the USA to contribute anything.

Lets stop the fags from getting married so we can decrease asthma, acid rain, smog, severe weather, mad cow, etc. because god is causing those to punish us for tolerating our neighbors.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/07/news/asians .php

This is a recent article regarding affirmative action, and a strict meritocracy enrollment, in some colleges today.

From the link: "But 10 years after California passed Proposition 209, voting to eliminate racial preferences in the public sector, university administrators find such balance harder to attain. At the same time, affirmative action is being challenged on a number of new fronts, in court and at state ballot boxes. And elite colleges have recently come under attack for practicing it -- specifically, for ignoring highly qualified Asian-American applicants in favor of other minorities with less stellar test scores and grades."

More from the article: "What is troubling to some is that the big public school on the hill does not mirror the ethnic face of California, which is 12 percent Asian, already more than twice the national average. But it is the new face of the state's vaunted public university system. Asians make up the largest single ethnic group, 37 percent, at its nine undergraduate campuses."

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/14/business /LA-FIN-Venezuela-Nationalizations.php

But you'd probably do better by recycling the waste to create other materials, and using sources such as solar and wind for electricity generation.

conservative values call for open and unfettered competition

In an astonishing move, Mr. Gates has rejected the proposal!

I wonder if Mr. Gates gets a stiffy by a brutal demonstration of his powers, by crushing the life of a simple teacher.

From another source, it would seem Microsoft is not interested in helping Gorbachev...

"Microsoft on Monday rebuffed a public appeal by Mikhail Gorbachev for its chairman, Bill Gates, to intervene on behalf of a Russian school principal charged with software piracy." - http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/05/business/pi rate.php

In an astonishing move, Mr. Gates has rejected the proposal!

I wonder if Mr. Gates gets a stiffy by a brutal demonstration of his powers, by crushing the life of a simple teacher.

The disaster occurred as the company, Lapindo Brantas, drilled thousands of feet to tap natural gas and used practices that geologists, mining engineers and Indonesian officials described as faulty.

Eight villages are completely or partly submerged, with homes and more than 20 factories buried to the rooftops. Some 13,000 people have been evacuated. The four-lane highway west of here has been cut in two, as has the rail line, dealing a serious blow to the economy of this region in East Java, an area vital to the country's economy. The muck has already inundated an area covering one and a half square miles.

But as the liabilities have escalated, Lapindo was sold - for $2 - last month to an offshore company, owned by the Bakrie Group, and many fear it will declare bankruptcy, allowing its owners to walk away.