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Vote George II down!

A visitor's experience begins at the front door, a half ton of stainless steel with an inch-thick pane of opaque electrochromatic glass. "When you turn the doorknob, a 125-volt charge makes the glass transparent so you can see the Japanese rock garden on the other side," Green says. The unusual glass alone costs about as much as a high-end Mercedes.

I got the idea that anime was selling well in our (US) theatres. Why are producers only interested in releasing to such a limited area?

- kaoruAngel

What's the alternative? Pay them $20 and hour and let them come and go as they please, or stop the line whenever they want to chat about their weekend? How willing are you to pay $500 for a printer that currently costs $125?

I knew it was only a matter of time until this albatross argument arrived. You are flatly out to lunch.

According to this articleMrs.Fiorina made $69.4 Million Dollars last year, further, according to this blurb at hp.com in 2000 hp had 88,000 employees.

So, 6,9400,000 / 88,000 == $788.63. Our kind friends in the article, working for HP's bottom line, "pull in around $1000" per month.

For all the "wealth" created by HP, a single person, the CEO earns 75% of a month salary for EVERY EMPLOYEE* .

What is it that Carly Fiorina does that affords her such phenomenal wealth and security? Why is she afforded the kind of kingly existence of comfort and un-imaginable security while those who MAKE THE WEALTH are forced to earn a pittance with zero security. Remember, it is not only the low wages that people have to contend with but the risk of being instantly unemployed without provocation.

I cannot fully explain the rage I feel at this situation, it exists all around us (and the world) -- this is the reality of Capitalism -- left unchanged it is guaranteed to get worse.

The world is in an uncomfortable place at the moment, out of control and heading in the absolutely wrong direction.. and most people of conscience recognize change is necessary. Sweeping, fundamental changes to the economic systems we employ.

Without a democratic solution to economic problems, (economically) powerless people will eventually revolt. It is not a debate of *if* but when, history has proven this -- and we are destined to allow it to repeat. Sad, very very sad.

Interesting Reading: The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

So, explain now, what does paying equitable salary have to do with the choice you mentioned? It is simply a non-issue.

*i recognize that temps are not included in the 88k number, and therefore would be a smaller portion of Mrs.Fiorina's salary... but it really has no bearing on the concept.

Also, im not surprised at the complete lack of understanding of the reality of this situation displayed in this forum. People have been so overwhelmed by the rhetoric and dogma of Capitalism, Freedom and America that they are absolutely blind to the massive problems with the present system -- and our ability to build a better alternative for everyone.

Microsoft said it no longer holds any of the $150 million in Apple stock it bought four years ago, when Apple was struggling.

Uhm, hello? There is no Tandem to kill. Tandem has been acquired by Compaq more than four years ago Of course Compaq managed to f@&k this up just as they did with Digital shortly afterwards.

I wonder what game (cough cough) that this woman is refering to? Computer Games Are Addictive

The article adresses this and says "Anyone who says this is due to better diagnostics has his head in the sand." I never met the parents, so I wouldn't be able to tell you whether they had this, but I did meet the kids. I can tell you, it wouldn't matter if there were only 5 kids in a class, it still wouldn't work with these kids. They need INDIVIDUAL attention.

No, class sizes have not gotten bigger, they have gotten smaller (at least in California in grades K-3). While 10+ years ago classes could be as large as 35+ kids, now the cap is at 20. So you can't blame it on larger classes.

And no, not all kids in the Silicon Valley are rich, about 9% of the county's population is considered below the poverty line.

I do agree with you on one point, the programmer community should get more involved in the education process.

Don't get me wrong. I love my Tivo. Works so much better for me than a VCR. I can't count the number of shows I've missed because I forgot to program the VCR, or I made some minor mistake in the programming process (when is it on? which tape has enough room? did i set up the weekly recording list properly? did I remember to put in the right tape and push the right button before I left for work? should I leave the clock on manual and risk a blackout, or did KTEH finally fix their sync box?). Not to mention shows I never knew about because scanning TV listings is boring.

So I go through some menus and just tell the Tivo to record this show or that. And it does. Unless the Tivo has already decided to record it on its own. Perfection, no?

No. There's still too much that can go wrong. Browse through the Tivo forum and you'll find dozens of posts from people hassling with weird problems. Disk errors. Software bugs. Signal acquisition failures. System crashes.

The awful truth is that DVRs are not consumer appliances. They're mutated PCs that are sold bundled with a TV listing database service. I can cope with that -- but then, I've been second-guessing neurotic computer systems for longer than I care to think about. (If I got one of those T shirts, a lot of people would have to dust off their typewriters.) And I still get screwed sometimes when a software upgrade screws up my box and I miss a bunch of shows before I impose a fix through a combination of persistence, intuition, and blind luck. It would be a lot easier of they didn't try to hide the basic platform from the user. But then, they'd never get backing if they didn't pretend this was a consumer item, not a hacker toy.

Perhaps Replay TV is better. (The basic technology does seem to be a little better thought out.) Perhaps TiVo would be better if they didn't keep doing new software releases. I doubt it though. Everybody has to use the same basic off-the-shelf technology to sell this toy at a reasonable price. So we're stuck with immature, kludged together technology. If you can cope with that, OK. Otherwise, stick with your VCR.

All that being said, they're isn't a lot of difference between Tivo and ReplayTV. Once you factor in the lifetime subscription for a Tivo (which you have no choice about, unless you plan to smash the Tivo exactly 19 months after you buy it) the prices are the same. Features are pretty similar. (There are claims that Tivo is deliberately trying to make it hard to not watch commercials, but I have little trouble skipping them.) Tivo has an active hacker community (even aftermarket upgraders), but Replay technology strikes me as more extensible, with its built-in IP support.

A major difference is that Tivo is part of the entertainment industry, while SonicBlue is an outsider. That's not a clear plus for either one -- Tivo boxes are less likely to be orphaned, but Replay boxes have functionality that isn't dictated by Hollywood lawyers.

Bottom line -- if you must buy a DVR, buy the one that has the features you like and you find easiest to use.

The report documents 117 campus incidents as ``evidence'' of anti-Americanism. More than 40 professors are named, including the president of Wesleyan University, who suggested in an open letter that ``disparities and injustices'' in American society and the world can lead to hatred and violence.

Simply: Speech on a message board is worthless and not legally binding. If you want freedom of speech, yell out your window - and you're more likely to get in trouble for that.

This was on Tomalak's Realm a few days ago.

Newsbytes: California Appeals Court Upholds Message Board Speech.

The appellate court found that postings on an Internet message board constituted a "public forum," as defined in the anti-SLAPP statute. The court further ruled the defendants posted opinions as shareholders of ComputerXpress, not competitors, and the matter was therefore "an issue of public interest.

Also another link: SJ Mercury: From November 28, 1999; `Cybersmear' lawsuits raise privacy concern.

PS, please read the articles and understand them. I know it is a very hard thing to do, but I've even made them hyperlinks.

Remember the millionaire Software guy who helped build java, went to work for Disny, and then got ousted as a pedophile by the FBI?

Well supposedly he's in on building FBI's new cyber crime fighting software.

A lot has happened since the 1980's. I'm sure the FBI is capable of hiring some mac/linux programmers

Political News from Wired News - Cybercrime Treaty Finally Ready. After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty.

WildernessCoast.org - Cybercrime Treaty Bibliography -- By Date. A wide collection of links that talk about the Cybercrime Treaty Same info sorted by title.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention on Cybercrime has been adopted by the Committee of Ministers during its 109th Session, on 8 November 2001 and will be opened for signature, in Budapest, on 23 November 2001.

The Convention will be the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The Convention is the product of four years of work by Council of Europe experts, but also by the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries which are not members of the organisation.

It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence.

[ ... ]

But Fred Eisner, a consultant for the Dutch government and private companies, said the draft made unfair demands on Internet service providers by asking them to track Web users' online movements.

"This draft convention lacks balance," Eisner told the assembly. "The convention explicitly gives much more power to law enforcement agencies and it has no system of checks and balances."

Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the treaty should be more forceful in protecting the privacy of Web users who are already worried about being spied on.

"There is concern that the powers of surveillance ... are not balanced by comparable protections for individuals' privacy," he said.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that-although officially democratic now-don't have a strong traditions of checks and balances on police power.

Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet bloc nations?

That's the prospect that has pushed AT&T Corporation and other high-technology companies into feverishly trying to stop or at least soften the treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Information Technology Association of America also oppose it.

Stewart Baker is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street cred on these issues in corporate America.

What worries Baker and his colleagues? Consider the following hypothetical: A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, he finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer. The agents also visit America Online Inc. to retrieve records of the screenwriter's AOL usage.

The agents are fulfilling a warrant issued by German authorities allowing them to search for Nazi propaganda. Such material is unlawful in Germany but not in the U.S. They framed their warrant in terms of "suspected terrorist activity."

LAW.com (requires cookies) - International Treaty on Cybercrime Poses Burden on High-Tech Companies.

Maybe you're a civil libertarian, and maybe you're not. Maybe you worry about how the United States exercises its vast investigative and prosecutorial powers, and maybe you don't.

But if you counsel U.S. corporations on computer-related issues, you should be concerned about a new proposed treaty known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. Curiously, however, the primary architect is the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation are using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses. Their goal is to make it easier to get evidence from abroad and to extradite and prosecute foreign nationals for certain kinds of crimes.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also be handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that -- although officially democratic now -- don't have a strong tradition of checks and balances on police power.

[ ... ]

Stewart Baker, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson, is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty's opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street credentials on these issues in corporate America.

Slashdot | Implications Of The International Cybercrime Treaty.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules.

MS-NBC - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules. PARIS, May 25 -- Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed Friday.

[ ... ]

Against EU objections, it also limits the right of a country to reject a request from abroad to store and hand over data in potential crime cases if the requesting country thinks it could be misused.

The text says states should make sure that systems operators or other people who know how to use a certain system can be ordered to cooperate in any such a cyberprobe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed on Friday.

The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks.

''The guarantees in the treaty have been reinforced,'' Peter Csonka, deputy head of the economic crime division at the Council's headquarters in Strasbourg, told Reuters after the Council posted the final text -- version 27 -- on its Web site.

But the treaty, which has aroused heated debate in cyberspace since its draft text became public last year, ignored calls by Internet service providers (ISPs) for fewer costly requirements on preserving data that could be linked to a crime.

It still accorded police wide powers to chase suspected cybercriminals -- powers some critics say go beyond what is legal in some Council member states or in observer countries like the United States, Canada and Japan due to sign the treaty.

ZDNet - Internet founder worried over EU cybercrime plans.

BRUSSELS --Vint Cerf, a founding father of today's Internet, said on Thursday that European Union plans for new rules to fight crime on the Web risked clashing with existing EU privacy regulations.

Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the early 70s shortly after graduating from Stanford University and now works for WorldCom, said more secure network systems were an immediate priority for the successful development of the ubiquitous Web.

He told Reuters in an interview that Internet traffic should be retained only for billing purposes and was too cumbersome to be stored for police investigations.

Changes to a controversial treaty on cybercrime have done nothing to improve it, say civil liberty campaigners.

Next week, the Council of Europe will vote on the treaty, which has been redrafted 26 times before reaching its final version late in May.

The most recent changes were made to take into account the fears of civil liberty and privacy campaigners. But cyber-rights groups say the latest changes are purely cosmetic and have not diluted what they describe as its most pernicious sections.

The groups say that, if adopted in its current form, the treaty could lead to changes in legislation that would stifle rights to privacy and do little to curb the activities of law enforcement agencies.

[ ... ]

In December 2000, 23 organisations, banding together under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), signed a letter condemning the 25th draft of the treaty as "appalling", and warned that it handed law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop and could seriously erode online privacy.

Now, three civil liberty groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, have sent another letter to the Council of Europe outlining their "continuing concerns" over the wording of the treaty and saying that their fears have not been laid to rest.

The letter chastises the Council of Europe for refusing to open up the redrafting debates to non-governmental organisations and for, it says, ignoring the human rights and privacy concerns of organisations such as the GILC.

It goes on to say that the original criticisms still stand, and that the treaty does not pay enough attention to existing laws which safeguard human rights. It says the treaty's recommendations on protecting privacy are vague and do not go far enough.

IT industry gurus have branded the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime 'foolish, unworkable and a legal con trick'.

The controversial treaty provides a blanket legislation to deal with all forms of internet crime from hacking to online pornography.

Caspar Bowden, director of internet think-tank FIPR, said: "The Convention is essentially a legal con trick, drafted in secret by a handful of nameless bureaucrats. It equates the internet - a network of private networks - with 'cyberspace', a metaphor from science fiction.

"By this sleight of hand, the internet is defined as a public space over which law enforcement should be granted unfettered powers of surveillance and extradition," he added.

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact.

In the works for nearly a decade, the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments is still almost unknown outside international policy circles. Nevertheless, it could have broad implications for consumers and businesses by setting new rules for online copyrights, free speech and e-commerce--if it is approved.

Opposition to the treaty heated up Wednesday, when a two-week drafting session wrapped up with few concessions to critics, primarily from the United States, who say the pact threatens free speech and could force Internet service providers to become global content police.

"In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the meeting.

The treaty is one of several efforts by the global community to grapple with a complicated legal issues on a borderless Web.

Four years ago, nations including the United States signed onto a World Intellectual Property Organization pact to protect copyright in the digital age. And several countries, including the United States, are hammering out the world's first cybercrime treaty, which would provide a standard for fighting online crime.

The Hague treaty differs from those efforts because it would not outline specific laws participants must follow. It's much broader, requiring participants to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics. As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions that are legal under local laws.

BRUSSELS - The blueprint for a global code on Cyber-crime was agreed on in Strasbourg, France, Friday, paving the way for international rules governing online copyright infringement, online fraud, child pornography and hacking.

The 41 members of the Council of Europe (CoE), plus the U.S., Canada and Japan, signed on to a draft convention on cybercrime that is set to be rubber-stamped at ministerial level in September.

"Once adopted, the Convention will be the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed through the use of Internet and other computer networks," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

In September, the Council of Europe approved the Convention on cybercrime, a historic treatise that lays the foundation for legislation allowing for a greater sharing of information between countries to combat the rise of cybercrime.

The treatise isn't binding, but instead would have to be adopted into law by its 43 European member states and five outside countries including the United States, Canada and Japan.

The treaty is broad, covering crimes committed on the Internet such as fraud, child pornography and violations of computer network security. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, interception of e-mails, and extradition of criminal suspects.

More details on the CyberCrime Treaty can be found in the Privacy Digest archives dated September 26,2000, September 27,2000, October 09,2000, October 16,2000, October 18,2000, October 19,2000, October 25,2000, November 14,2000, November 20,2000, November 22,2000 and March 24,2001. This is not all the information at Privacy Digest and other sites so if you want to know more try a search

As you well know, Java inventor Patrick Naughton, an ADMITTED PEDOPHILE developed secret software for the FBI so he can get out of jail sooner and be out on the streets molesting girls again.

ANYONE WHO MODERATES THIS DOWN MUST ALSO BE A PEDOPHILE

Please check my facts and moderate up

So at what point does Apple violate the terms of the agreement with Apple Records for ripping off the name and logo?

1989.

Here's a nice summary of the whole thing. Basically, in 1981 (after years of squabbling) apple computer entered into a written agreement not to compete with apple records in any way. In 1989, Apple records decided that apple's computers had reached the point of qualifying as "musical editing equipment", and sued apple claiming that the agreement had been broached and Apple was infringing on Apple's trademark.

(I for some reason thought for a very long time that this was because 1989 was the year apple started putting built-in sound input ports on all shipping machines, but the apple-history site claims that the first apple machines to ship with onboard sound input-- the IIfx and the IIsi-- didn't come out until the beginning of 1990, so maybe that isn't it. Or maybe Apple Records was, in 1989, reacting to advance news from apple describing the upcoming IIfx and IIsi machines. I don't know.)

Anyway, all of this ended in 1990 when Apple and Apple settled; Apple computer had to something like 26.7 million dollars to Apple records, and in return Apple computer gained the right to do pretty much anything with the name "apple". The iPod would be, i am certain, covered under that 1990 agreement.

(There was, after the 1990 agreement, some rather long drawn out legal proceedings involving who paid for the settlement and legal bills from all this, Apple Computer or their insurance company; i think their insurance company finally won. I can't say i really care either way, though.)

Actually, regular old mail has some pretty darn good authentication. The FBI didn't have much on the unabomber until they compared the DNA from the saliva on the back of a stamp to David Kaczynski's DNA, and verified his fears that his brother Ted may be the guilty one. That's a lot stronger evidence (and much harder to deny) than an ill-placed private key. Of course, this authentication is usually just restricted to law enforcement...

Censorship is always a touchy issue, but a private school is in fact allowed to practice it. The first amendment is protecting us from the government imposing censorship. A private company is still able to warn employees: either you stop saying that or you will be fired. A school is still able to tell students that they can't print something in a school funded paper.

An example: Chelsea Clinton attended Stanford from 1997 to 2001. I hear that Stanford takes a strict view on enforcing privacy for its students, and in this case they apparently enforced a ban on stories about Chelsea. Well, a student columnist was fired for writing a story about the ban the University had put in place. Doesn't sound very fair does it? But it's within their rights.

You can always bring pressure on the school, and I assume such has happened in the past. But I don't agree with arguments that a school should not be allowed to buy up domain names in an attempt to keep the most obvious avenues of criticism closed.

Jim Robinson

Actually, as fare as I know, Apple Corp (that was founded by the Beatles in 1968) sued Apple Computer.

I'm almost positive that Apple Records was fully owned by Apple Corps, Ltd. See here for more information. But yeah, it would be the Corp which did the actual suing.

The case ended in a settlement where Apple Computer payed something between $25 million - $30 million and had to agree to stay out of the music business.

According to a number of sites I've read, including this one, the original settlement, for "an undisclosed amount" (probably very small), had the stipulation that Apple Computer could not be used for music purposes. In 1989 Apple Corps sued Apple Computer for breaching that contract. That was settled for somewhere in the $30 million range. If the Federal Trademark Dilution Act had been in effect in 1981 (sorry, not 1984), Apple Computer would have been in a much more precarious legal situation, and would likely not have been able to reach a settlement (I doubt they had $30 million at that time).

AFAIK, Apple Computer is no longer barred from going into the music industry. They certainly breached their original settlement by this point, it's quite easy to use the Macintosh as a low budget recording studio, probably with about as much quality as the Beatles had back in 1981.

Things they lack, free press , free speech, free beer... Hardly any Linux developers there! Seems to be a few years behind the US, no PHP people, few Perl developers. They are still on the MSCE wagon train and taking VB classes.

I am impressed with Putrajaya though, 10 gigabit fiber to the home and wireless access points all over town ! Too bad there is no place to eat there though.. Too far from KL also, hard to get people to work in the MSC .

I am moving there in a few months & getting married to a girl I met on CU-SeeMe :) Wish me luck.

Richard Schmalensee. More info on him here if anyone is interested.

Of course you're right about much of that, but nobody here wants to hear it. A large majority of U.S. citizens have *no frigging idea* what our foreign policy is, or how we might be perceived by citizens of other countries. Nor do they really seem to care.

Sadly, I don't think anyone here even wants peace. I wish I was wrong, but it seems that we are bent on revenge at any cost, even if that cost is more terrorism in the long run.

After casting the lone vote against immediately approving military action, and urging that Congress "step back for a moment and think through the implications of our action today so that it does not spiral out of control." Congresswoman Barbara Lee received death threats and is now under guard by police.

I thought she spoke wisely, but I guess that kind of talk is not welcome right now.

Part of the horrible nature of terrorism is that by striking at the heart of civilian life, every civilian starts to look for the enemy in their midst.

This is out of about 145,000 employees.

I find it ironic that the current chairman and former CEO of Adobe was quoted as saying that one of the worst parts of being kidnapped is the forced separation from ones family. Isn't that what he has ( in part ) done to Sklyarov ?

read about this 6 months ago!

here

http://www0.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/indept h/ docs/traf012100.htm
for goatse-wary slashppl

I don't know what paper that was. of course. It was conspicuously not being picked up by the San Jose Mercury News however.

Probably because it would have looked odd against their local feature story and this attached story presenting tech workers as privileged and doing well - in contrast to more standard poor downtrodden nontechies which better fit as traditional liberal sympathy generators.

Not that I mean to imply tech workers somehow deserve to be handed jobs more, or paid more that the market traffic would bear (but not less based on increasing desperation of imported tech workers either) - in both the cases described in the SJMN and this article, it boils down to normal supply/demand.

In fact, language inventor PATRICK NAUGHTON developed Java to help him write software to find and download kiddie porn.

Part of his DEAL WITH THE FBI is to use his JAVA SOFTWARE to catch more pedophiles.

Please check out my references and you'll see that I'm right.

I have no connection with E-Tenna thing or with EETimes. However, I would like to step forward and say that for years I have had more respect for EETimes than any of the numerous trade journal that I receive, bar none.

Just about every other trade journal will take news of a patent as a major technological breakthrough and proof of great technical leadership within a company. EETimes seems to scrutinize the actual technology and give at least some coverage to small companies and graduate student project. They also occasionally cover the arguments of those who identify patent and copyright abuse, attempts to make government works copyrighted, and export restrictions. EETimes does not claim to be a referreed technical journal or even "hard news" like The San Jose Mercury News, but I think it's probably the best trade journal that I have come across. I, for one, respect them as much and usually more than the sources on which Slashdot stories are based.

__

Even outside the Valley, he's gaining visibility: Time Digital's Digital 50: #4 Linus Torvalds.

Anyone paying attention to technology - tech investors, business leaders, etc., has at least heard of Linus Torvalds. The days of obscurity are gone. Just as people know who Jobs and Ellison are, they now know who Torvalds is.

I guess only time will tell if the use of Free Software is as much an economic advantage as people have been making it out to be.

Free Software has a cost. That cost is the risk of your IP if you are not careful.

Look at how Corel 1 and 2 had trouble 'getting it right' The risk to Corel is great enough vs the profit potentional, they are trying to sell off the Linux version they make. Free Software is not worth it.

Open Source software (something the most visable supporter of Free Software RMS wants to not be associated with. The Open Source Movement -- I do not support it.) *CAN* protect your IP. Understanding HOW you can have protection for your hard work AND work with Open Source software is the key to protecting your IP.

Free Software wants to destroy IP. IP is the backbone of the information economy. Free Software does *NOT* have an economic advantage when it comes to IP. Open Source software *CAN* provide IP protection and therefore economic advantage.

You're absolutely right. Further confirmation of the Curved Earth Conspiracy comes with the news that C.K. Johnson, President of the International Flat Earth Society has died. Even though he was 76, I think it was the CIA. He was getting too close to the truth ...

Innovations do not need to be earth shattering and the little neat things is probably what makes technology pleasant and interesting. Look at the list over at Sv.com. This is what Eazel have done in a year that neither Mac nor Windows has. This was problably put together as arguments against MicroSoft latest OpenSource hinders innovation but quite interesting in its own right.

Someone provide a link which does not require registration for this strip, please.

--

I love web comics, but the problem I have with them is that I don't read them on a "daily basis" like the dead tree comics, so the ones with an ongoing storyline or character development lose a lot of their "flow." I like the "one day at a time" feel of something like Doonesbury or the kickass newcomer The Boondocks. When you read 'em all at once, it just doesn't feel right to me.

Other great online strips: the ones at Salon, especially Tom the Dancing Bug and Story Minute. And how could I leave out the deranged genius which is Space Moose!

The world hasn't been the same since Word.com got destroyed by their fish-oil selling masters. However, if you Google long enough, you'll find the old archive of Maakies still online.

Eschatfische.

"European Parliament Approves Rules Granting Greater Copyright Protection." (from Quicken.com)

"EU Parliament approves draft copyright law to fight high-tech piracy" (Silicon Valley News)

Also, y'all might want to check out Prof. James Boyle's editorial ("Whigs and hackers in cyberspace") in London's Financial Times the other day dealing with the foolishness of re-creating a European version of the American DMCA.

Also, I went to the European Parliament's web site and poked around for some primary documents. Here's a fairly thorough summary of what transpired inside the hallowed halls of the EU Parliament. However, I noticed that the embedded link (supposed to wisk one away to the actual text of the report) seemed to re-direct me to an unrelated discussion about energy in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Has anyone actually found the text the the EU Parliament's Copyright decision?

Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

Millions of people across China were unable to access much of the Internet on Friday after an undersea cable was severed, and an official at China Telecom said it could take 10 days to fix the problem.

You could always do what this guy did.

ROSSLYN, Va., July 28, 1999
ABCNews.com December 17, 2000
siliconvalley.com Wednesday, July 12, 2000

Now is the perfect time to make sure this doesnt happen, start writing letters to your local newspaper/congressman/president. oh and the san jose murcury ran this article about it.

on the LGP here. It may be a pretty good deal, provided they can get the expertise they need to keep the distro up to snuff. The price is certainly right.

This is a real worry. Note, however, that supporting small ISPs is difficult: Covad, for example, is losing lots of money because small ISPs don't pay their bills. So wholesale service must be made available to all (and I don't know what the ruling requires here, I admit) but the small ISPs do need to be creditworthy, not just VC funded startups with no plan to make a buck.

Okay, whoring for kharma, there's also the San Jose Mercury News article that points out Palm's investment in OLEDs for color displays. And if the OLEDs can be made like something like an inkjet printer, that's where the poor 160x160 pixel screen works to an advantage- they won't need to refine the printing process all that much.

Then maybe a color screen would be fine. Right now with my Palm IIIc, I either have the backlight at minimum (indoors) or maximum (any kind of sunlight).

Dang silicon valley millionaires using up all the electricity for their fancy house gadgets.

Maybe after reading the article on /., every silly-con valley dot-comer decided it's time to keep up with the Ellisons and go on a mad buying spree to have multiple party mode buttons.

Mercury News report

: FEAR OF PUBLIC OUTCRY CITED: Despite the relatively small risk, an interagency group led by the Justice Department was ``extremely unhappy at the prospect of a 14-month mass de-orbit,'' a background paper handed out at the Pentagon said. ``The group worried that this might create widespread anxiety and lead to a public outcry for ill-considered government action,'' the document said.

The Pentagon got a global phone system real cheap. They can encrypt all their transmissions, with add-ons or Iridium's existing feature set, and they have unlimited (well, up to the capacity anyway) use of the thing. Plus all the relationships with the local PTTs are toast, so they don't have to worry about China Telecom controlling them when the Green Berets are roaming around Tibet. Sounds like a great deal for the taxpayer!

If anyone is interested in co-author David Diamond, you should check out this profile of Linus he wrote.

Or at least, The Register says he wrote it. Damned if I can find his name on it anywhere. Anyway, it's kind of cute.

I found this paragraph particularly interesting,

Nationally, about 2 percent of ballots cast in presidential elections aren't recorded as a vote for that office, said Kim Brace, president of Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C., consulting agency.

I found this paragraph particularly interesting,

Nationally, about 2 percent of ballots cast in presidential elections aren't recorded as a vote for that office, said Kim Brace, president of Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C., consulting agency.

BountyQuest is a Web site that rewards people $10,000 and up for information that challenges patents. Rea d more on this.