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Here's a link to a detailed list of features that can be used to make currency more accessible to the visually impaired. There's a discussion of pros and cons for each. (For example--Braille or other raised markings seem like a good idea, but they can wear off. Also, when stacking large amounts of currency, raised markings can cause trouble.)

The Appendix to the report also has a list of features that were rejected outright for practical reasons. These include (among many) microencapsulated odorants (different denominations smell different) and acoustic effects from the edge of the bill (different denominations sound different when you blow across their edges.)

Here's a link to a detailed list of features that can be used to make currency more accessible to the visually impaired. There's a discussion of pros and cons for each. (For example--Braille or other raised markings seem like a good idea, but they can wear off. Also, when stacking large amounts of currency, raised markings can cause trouble.)

The Appendix to the report also has a list of features that were rejected outright for practical reasons. These include (among many) microencapsulated odorants (different denominations smell different) and acoustic effects from the edge of the bill (different denominations sound different when you blow across their edges.)

In a CNN interview on 9 March 2000, Al Gore claimed "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Was Al Gore really the "Father of the Internet"? Well, no. Albert Gore, Junior, was not elected to Congress until 1976, although his father Albert Gore, Senior, was previously a Senator. Junior represented Tennesee's Fourth District in the House of Representatives, then was elected to the US Senate in 1984. (Source: "Current Biography Yearbook 1987", page 213, edited by Charles Moritz, published by The H.H. Wilson Company, NY, copyright 1987 and 1988.) The Pentagon funded the original development of the Internet, and the military contracting company Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) began constructing it in 1969. (Source: see the Internet history FAQ pages listed below.) It was originally called ARPAnet, since the agency that funded it was named ARPA. By 1973 it was a modest success.

Wired News does a nice job of debunking Gore's claim.

The CNN interview in which Al Gore claimed that he created the Internet:

• CNN transcript of Gore interview
• RealAudio audio-video file of Gore CNN interview

Internet history FAQ pages:

• The History of the Internet
• Internet Society (ISOC) All About the Internet
• Evolution of the Internet

One excellent and scientifically trustworthy source for polygraph information is from a committee put together by the National Academy of Sciences to study the scientific validity of the polygraph and related lie-detection methodologies, both in the lab and out in the real world. If you want to read the report, you can find it online through the NAS's publishing website.

Another excellent work on the uses and abuses of the polygraph is a book by David Lykken called "A Tremor in the Blood". Lykken is a well respected researcher in the field of physiological detection of deception, and has spent a lot of time trying to bring to light the troubling science behind the polygraph.

Recently, however, there was a committee put together by the National Academy of Sciences to study the scientific validity of the polygraph and related lie-detection methodologies, both in the lab and out in the real world. If you want to read the report, you can find it online through the NAS's publishing website.

As for what the report says about micro-expressions (from page 164), it notes that previous studies of micro-expression detection were able to achieve rates of up to 75% accuracy, far better than chance. It goes on to note that such methods, at the time of the report's writing, were labor intensive but that recent work in automating the process held promise. It seems that this new AI work is showing that promise to be well founded.

While 75% accuracy is good, it is nowhere near what would be needed in a diagnostic tool. Even 95% accuracy isn't good. (Note, according to signal detection theory, we really should be talking about percentages of false positives and false negatives, but I digress; let's assume the accuracy works the same for both error types.) 95% accuracy would mean that for every 100 truthful people interviewed, 5 would be judged as liars. For every 1,000 people, 50. Inasmuch as such false positives can ruin lives, careers, marriages, reputations, etc., that rate is too high. Likewise, if 5 out of 100 liars slip through, that isn't a test I feel confident using for national security concerns. Even "good science" needs to be damned good to fill the shoes made for the "lie-detector".

-tcp

The reference you refer to is To Err is Human, a report put out by the Institute of Medicine, which estimates that between 44,000-98,000 people die every year from medical errors. Slightly over half of these were considered to be "preventable." The link to the full text of the report is here.

Caffeine has certainly been considered. For instance, see Caffeine for the Sustainment of Mental Task Performance: Formulations for Military Operations (2001). So three or four cups of coffee does help! No...really..it HheElLpPsS MmeE tTHhiINnkK!

Because it is squishy, there is a lot of room for psyhologists to push a diagnosis one way or the other essentially based on gut feel. I've had at least on psychologist boast to me that she and her colleagues work hard to over-diagnose cases so that kids suffering from PDD in any form whatsoever can get the treatment that they so desperately need. However, there is NO evidence that the treatment is either safe or effective. For example, even the "definitive" work on autism admits that all of the treatments are essentially untested -- the evidence that they help anyone is no greater than the evidence that they hurt anyone. After admitting this, they go into page upon page of recommendations for treatment. (This is why Psychology is a pretend science -- they never let a lack controlled studies get in the way.)

I am also knowledgable on the subject. My son has been diagnosed by a number of psychologists, and the results vary all over the map. The most empirical pschologist of the lot, judged by a Medline search of her papers (she looks at outcomes! And tests significance!) and medical reputation, told us to go away -- our son is fine, just a little language delayed which is not atypical in very bright children. The least empirical psychologist diagnosed straight-out autism -- a check of her writeup showed that she had purely fabricated stuff, no doubt in order to support her gut feel. (This will be aggressively pursued with our state's licensing board).

This strange disparity in diagnoses led me to do a good bit of research on the area of PDDs -- I've been in another part of the medical field for a while, and have published in peer-reviewed journals, run clinical trials, participated in big multi-center studies, and so forth, so I believe that I know my way around medicine and science. There is really almost no science on the PDD field. Really apalling.

So, until there is some actual science here, my hypothesis, which is just as well proved as any oter, is that most, but not all kids being diagnosed with PDDs, particularly the oft-diagnosed offspring of geeks, are simply shy/introspective/bright. This over-diagnosis would explain the interesting statistics out of California.

Mostly, it would really be good if some folks did some real research on this. Using science and everything. But the number of Psychologists who understand the scientific method can probably be counted on one hand.

Finally, my heart goes out to you. Good luck to you and your son. This is tough stuff to navigate.

I'm surprised that none of the very-bright folks that comprise /. have pointed out the following: The diagnosis of autism has jumped by 3x. Not necessarily the actual incidence of autism. Real prevalence and diagnosed prevalence are often very close to each other -- for example, in cancer and other diseases that are diagnosed through actual science.

In the case of autism, which seems to have followed ADHD as the psychological pathology du jour, real and diagnosed prevalence may be *very* different. I've had the opportunity to research the subject lately, and the lack of science in the area is astonishing, even by the pathetic standards of the field of psychology/psychiatry.

The standards for diagnosing Autism (DSM-IV)are extraordinarily subjective, and thus very open to interpretation. The tests used to try to get a handle on certain aspects of development in an attempt to make a diagnosis are known to be very unreliable -- different folks giving the same test to the same child will typically get very different results.

At least one Psychologist has boasted to me that they, and others, make sure to over-diagnose children so that the children can get the marvelous benefits of the treatment, often comprising 25 hours of one-on-one time with a trained educator.

The problem is that the treatments have not been shown to be safe or effective. To my knowledge, there are NO controlled studies that have shown that any treatment for autism is either safe, or effective. See for yourself, search PubMed. Or look at this a grudging admission from the definitive book in the field, Educating Children With Autism, an otherwise evil little piece of work.

So, we have a nasty diagnosis being pinned on all sorts of kids, and very expensive treatments that, in my opinion, are as likely to drive the kids batty as to help them.

Very sad, particularly when all of this money and energy could be used to better help the folks that really do need it.

I'm surprised that none of the very-bright folks that comprise /. have pointed out the following: The diagnosis of autism has jumped by 3x. Not necessarily the actual incidence of autism. Real prevalence and diagnosed prevalence are often very close to each other -- for example, in cancer and other diseases that are diagnosed through actual science.

In the case of autism, which seems to have followed ADHD as the psychological pathology du jour, real and diagnosed prevalence may be *very* different. I've had the opportunity to research the subject lately, and the lack of science in the area is astonishing, even by the pathetic standards of the field of psychology/psychiatry.

The standards for diagnosing Autism (DSM-IV)are extraordinarily subjective, and thus very open to interpretation. The tests used to try to get a handle on certain aspects of development in an attempt to make a diagnosis are known to be very unreliable -- different folks giving the same test to the same child will typically get very different results.

At least one Psychologist has boasted to me that they, and others, make sure to over-diagnose children so that the children can get the marvelous benefits of the treatment, often comprising 25 hours of one-on-one time with a trained educator.

The problem is that the treatments have not been shown to be safe or effective. To my knowledge, there are NO controlled studies that have shown that any treatment for autism is either safe, or effective. See for yourself, search PubMed. Or look at this a grudging admission from the definitive book in the field, Educating Children With Autism, an otherwise evil little piece of work.

So, we have a nasty diagnosis being pinned on all sorts of kids, and very expensive treatments that, in my opinion, are as likely to drive the kids batty as to help them.

Very sad, particularly when all of this money and energy could be used to better help the folks that really do need it.

I like the declaration of rights as far as it goes, but I should have been for going further. For instance, the following alterations and additons would have pleased me... Article 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding ___ years, but for no longer term, and for no other purpose.

Letter from Jefferson to James Madison, 1789

The ___ years is in there because Jefferson hasn't figured out what that term should be.

Certainly an inventor ought to be allowed a right to the benefit of his invention for some certain time. It is equally certain it ought not to be perpetual; for to embarrass society with monopolies for every utensil existing, and in all the details of life, would be more injurious to them than had the supposed inventors never existed; because the natural understanding of its members would have suggested the same things or others as good. How long the term should be, is the difficult question. Our legislators have copied the English estimate of the term, perhaps without sufficiently considering how much longer, in a country so much more sparsely settled, it takes for an invention to become known, and used to an extent profitable to the inventor. Nobody wishes more than I do that ingenuity should receive a liberal encouragement.

Letter from Jefferson to Oliver Evans, 1807

In a series of letters between Jefferson and James Madison (Madison as well as George Washington supported copyrights) prior to the adoption of the Bill of Rights, Jefferson agreed that a limited term for copyrights was OK. Jefferson's difficulty lay in figuring out what that limit should be. He tried to solve the problem at one point by basing the length of the term on statistical mortality tables, arriving at a term of 19 years. Using Jefferson's formula with today's actuarial tables results in a term of 30-35 years.

I doubt that you (the_2nd_coming) have more than a superficial understanding of Jefferson's views based on sound bites rather than real research.

If you care about this issue and want to really educate yourself about it, there is a whole branch of Economics known as Information Economics that tries to understand the effects of copyright and other IP protections. Try this for a very quick intro.

I'm curious so I googled (sorry no academic indices handy) and found this newspaper story. It's outdated, but supports the less than 5% percentage contention.

For more recent data you can consult this study from the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. It suggests that only 1.5% of web sites are devoted to the porn industry. This is a pain to browse, but informative. You'll find the details in chapter 3.

The article doesn't go into much detail about the discussions, and leaves a lot of questionable assertions dangling. For example, the claim that "Going too far one way would restrict freedom of choice, while the opposite could foster organized crime." The more you restrict freedom of choice, the more actions become criminal. And doesn't organize crime really take a foothold when undue restrictions are imposed upon the masses? The Prohibition in the United States is/was a pretty stark example.

That aside, check out the conference website for a full list of the subjects they're covering. You might also be interested in reading an interesting report from the US National Research Council and Eric Schmidt (the CEO of Google) about how the Internet is growing up, so to speak.

For starters, I would stay away from all commerically funded media. I prefer sources from within the scientific community and from non-profits with clearly stated goals of objectivity. Specifically, I've been impressed with the work of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Their document "Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions" is available for download here. This is an excellent introduction to the current state of the climate change debate.

If only everyone were as motivated to seek out the truth for themselves as you are. sigh.

DARPA has been funding in one way or another the premiere researchers in speech recognition, Dr. James and Dr. Janet Baker. Perhaps DARPA should have shown a little more foresight before the Bakers were permitted to sell off Dragon Systems to the Belgian corporation Lernout & Hauspie, which subsequently collapsed in bankruptcy amid fraud allegations, auctioning off assets such as Dragon Systems to ScanSoft, a Xerox spinoff.

If DARPA doesn't in the name of national security (look at the languages that are the candidates for the initial Babylon competitors) simply override what noncompete clauses, patents, etc. that would keep the Bakers from working full-time on this project then they have learned nothing from almost decades of the Bakers' kicking the ass of the entire speech recognition community with their superior statistical approach. Unfortunately I suspect that various government regulations would not permit DARPA to pay a fair market value for the Bakers' services. This to me illustrates how far the United States has fallen from any capacity to mobilize the scientific and engineering community for modern equivalents to the Manhattan Project, except for medical technology.

Which scientists? The IPCC? That was mostly signed by environmentalists and politicians. There was a whopping 1 climate scientist that signed it. On the other hand, this petition [oism.org], signed by over 15,000 scientists suggests otherwise.

Perhaps your unaware of the state of environmental science, but the Bush adminstration asked the National Academy of Sciences to evalute the IPCC (which is very different to your FUD) claims, and they found in favour of the global warming. (Link)

Meanwhile the global warming petition is just a PR exercise. Science is done by a bunch of non-specialists (I'm not a climate scientist, yet my qualifications would put allow me to add my name to the petition) voting on it. Especially, when parts of the petition's supporting information are boarderline fraud.

Since you're too lazy to get the full story I also used google, check this. Or don't you trust Nature. And this followup.

This myth has persisted for so long its amazing. The satellite data did not take into account the orbital decay of the sensor platforms.

The agendas exist everywhere, and while this data may be published on sites who have an agenda, or are hired for a public image, the facts presented there dont change. The link contains references to where the data is from. Can you find any links debunking the actual data?

The actual data isn't a problem. But rather the data which is collected is one-sided, ignores research which doesn't support their case, and misintrepretes the orginal researchers conclusions (without stating this). For the best overall review of the science, you should check out the IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences, rather than a industry funded lobbey group.

Actually, that's pretty far from the truth. Check out the IPCC report and the NAS report. Both say that global warming is happening, and that it is likely to be partially caused by human activities.

Some selections from the NAS report:

Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last few decades are most likely due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability

The NAS, god bless 'em, tend to make their books available to the great unwashed; you have signed on for email updates, haven't you?
Well, just in case you haven't the draft report is available for online perusal here

PS I said NAS, not NSA. Just to be clear.

I was part of the pitch that UCLA made to attempt to get this institute located at their campus. The idea was that UCLA's contacts with the visual effects community would be helpful in building these simulation games. Unfortunately for UCLA, their perennial cross-town rival USC made a better presentation.

It was weird to see a group of relatively high-level military people sitting around the conference table talking about writing next-generation video games; in dead earnest.

thad

As nuclear and fossil fuels become harder to find, beaming solar power from space will become feasible. When that happens, the companies and governments which have developed the necessary technologies will reap the rewards. An analysis of NASA's attempts to do so can be found at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309075971/html/. This is the document mentioned in the Space.com article. Check out The SSP Monitor for more space solar power information

http://www.nap.edu/books/0309060370/html/110.html

The National Academy of Sciences' official page about evolution

Perhaps it's not modded up because it mischaracterized the findings of the NAS. The NAS most emphatically did not agree on the global warming issue.

If you simply look at the actual report (rather than the press kit summary), you will see that they said there is no consensus and no certainty concerning the conventional wisdom of CO2 causing catastrophic global warming.

Here is what the NAS actually said:

Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).

That's from page 1 of the report. If you click here you can order a copy the 28-page report yourself. As shot as it is, the word "uncertain" or "uncertainty" appears 43 times.

Or you can go here and read how two actual participants in the study reacted to the massive distortion of their findings by the global-warming crowd and their cheerleaders in the media. It's loaded with actual facts about the NAS findings, something the global warming debate could use a lot more of.

On a more theoretical note, Amdahl's law states that if a code has any serial portions, then the speedup limit is function of the code and not of the number of processors. For instance, if 0.1% (measured in single processor execution time) of the code does not parallelize, then regardless of how many cpu's you throw at the problem, the maximum speed up compared to a single cpu is 1000. Therefore fast VPP is the way to get more performace.

Then of course, there's the human resource issue. It's a real challenge to find skilled software engineers and then to convince them to accept low-paying government salaries.

On a more theoretical note, Amdahl's law states that if a code has any serial portions, then the speedup limit is function of the code and not of the number of processors. For instance, if 0.1% (measured in single processor execution time) of the code does not parallelize, then regardless of how many cpu's you throw at the problem, the maximum speed up compared to a single cpu is 1000. Therefore fast VPP is the way to get more performace.

Then of course, there's the human resource issue. It's a real challenge to find skilled software engineers and then to convince them to accept low-paying government salaries.

In keeping with national policy, the study did not consider offensive biological weapons; however, the committee believes that all biotechnology development should be undertaken with defenses against such weapons in mind.

______________

>> I honestly believe that the best way to tackle the drug war would
>> be to legalize it.. Put strict taxes on all drugs (except
>> Marijuana) and sell them
>
> That's called surrender. You don't win like that. Also the attendant
> social problems.

You're surrendering to who? To the mafia? Once legalized, they wouldn't have any source of income anymore. To the drug users? They don't fight, they're just victims here.

As long as drugs are very well available on the black market, do you think anyone is protecting your childs? I don't. Only when the market those things are available on is controllable, we can try to protect our children. That's not possible on the black market.

>> The fairy tale that if it were legalized everyone would do it is
>> false.
>
> Since we don't have a nice statistical correlate for American
> behaviour and we don't have a nice contemporary example I can't
> believe this. I am a serious person after all.

In Holland, cannabis products are available for sale, and free to use. They have about 2.5% cannabis users. In America, you can get a life sentence for dealing with cannabis -- still, 5% of all americans are regularily using cannabis.

http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/bookstore/20.html
http://www.csdp.org/research/us_euro.pdf

And if you want to have facts about america alone -- during the prohibition of alcohol, the use of alcohol *rose*. The effects of the prohibition are well-known. Gangsters fighting on open streets, corrupt policemen, etc. The alcohol consumed was bad self-made stuff, instead of good wine or beer. Only after the prohibition, the use of alcohol began to decline again. I think this is a pretty good evidence that prohibition is not the ultimate answer to problems.

>> I truly believe that a good majority of drug use is harmless.
>
> hard data is needed not just by people from California who want to
> totally decriminalize all drugs

At least for Cannabis, here you are: http://books.nap.edu/html/marimed/

Just a few excerpts: "... few marijuana users develop dependence ...", "There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.", etc.

Please also note the following reports, only available on paper:

• Roques, B., et al.: Problèmes posées par la dangerosité des drogues. Rapport du professeur Bernard Roques au Secrétaire d'Etat à la Santé. Paris 1998. (french report about cannabis)
• Auswirkungen des Cannabiskonsums. Dieter Kleiber, Karl-Artur Kovar (german report about cannabis effects)

Almost all major reports issued by governments all over the world come to the conclusion that cannabis is one of the most harmless drugs available. The war on drugs and the whole illegalization causes a lot more harm, death and destroyed lifes and families than cannabis ever could.

> Nothing positive can come from drugs.

The most negative thing that comes from drugs is the total devotion to ideals, even if they're proved wrong.

"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither"
-- Thomas Jefferson

Greetings,
-- Jorgen

• Australian University
• American High School
• 4 year college
• 2 year college
• Online college
• Museum, no school
• Professional Academic Organization, no school
• Academic Information, no school
• Academic Press (journals, etc.), no school

American Society for MicroBiology
The ASM believes that labeling on the basis of process is not scientifically warranted. Genetic modification has long been used to enhance the production of plants and animals for food. Indeed it is doubtful that there exists any agriculturally important product that can be labeled as not genetically modified by traditional breeding procedures or otherwise. Biotechnology as practiced in agriculture today is part of a continuum of ever more refined attempts to breed better plants and animals for food or show.

American Society for Cell Biology
Many individuals and groups have raised concerns about the safety of transgenic BT crops despite the fact that the bacteria that naturally produce BT have been applied directly to crops as a form of organic pest control for over 40 years. Transgenic BT crops have passed rigorous testing in the US, Canada, and Japan, and they have been found to pose no threat to other insects, animals, or humans. The primary alternative to BT is large-scale spraying of pesticides which kills both beneficial and harmful insects and has other negative environmental consequences.

National Academy of Sciences
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309069300/html/

Since the National Academy of Sciences is the nations premier scientific organization, they best represent the current scientific consensus in the field, so I will quote from their report, first stated in a 1987 white paper and reitterated April 2000:

• There is no evidence that unique hazards exist either in the use of rDNA techniques or in the movement of genes between unrelated organisms.
• The risks associated with the introduction of rDNA-engineered organisms are the same in kind as those associated with the introduction of unmodified organisms and organisms modified by other methods.
• Assesment of the risks of introducing rDNA-engineered organisms into the environment should be based on the nature of the organism and the environment into which it is introduced, not on the method by which it was produced.

If it were just a matter of producing some proteins and seperating them from a mixture, you could genetically engineer bacteria to do it.

Actually, they did. I don't have a link to the original article, but there's mention of it here.

There's a nice very in-depth paper regarding self-assembling biomolecular structures here. Figure 6 is especially pertinent, since it shows the current model for how the glycine and alanine residues are oriented in spider silk.

But don't get me wrong, I very much agree with you that going from a bunch of subunits to a strand of silk isn't as simple as they make it sound. I can only assume that the researchers have found some way to make it work (no other reason to spend all the time and money making the goats) but are keeping it secret, probably because they're not quite ready to publish yet.

---

(*) The current cost per pound is about $5,000 per pound (See this excellent National Academy of Sciences Report). Assuming no improvement in launch technologies, the launch cost for a typical person would be more like $1 Million.

(*) According the the same NAS report, the cost may go down to hundreds of dollars by 2020. This improvement would be necessary to get the ticket price down into the range suggested. However, the report emphasizes that revolutionary breakthroughs are needed.

Note that if the only purpose of these launches would be to ferry civilians into space, the gross amount of revenue per launch, at $26,000 a head, would be only about $1 M total for all 50 passengers. This is comparable (to within a factor a few) of the gross amount of revenue of a single large overseas jet flight. However, there are a LOT, LOT more people able to pay about $500 - $1,000 for such a flight than $26,000 for a space flight, even if revolutionary breakthroughs happen. With none of the enormous research and development involved, the ordinary overseas airline business is a much better business to be in. This is basically the same reason why supersonic airline travel is still today no more commonplace than twenty years ago, and why the next generation of SST jets have been largely orphaned in the research phase.

Bob

... all these "environmentalists" were, even then, claiming that all the pollutantants that we're spewing into the atmosphere was going to drastically affect the global climate. Tricky bit was, the doomsayers were NOT talking about global warming... they were saying that industrial soceity was bringing about global COOLING!!! ...

Well, come on guys... which is it?

You can't have it both ways.

If environmentalists were predicting a climate change 50 years ago that's actually pretty insightful. That the direction of the change was wrong is hardly surprising, given the massive complexity to predicting weather. We can't even reliably predict the weather for the next day! What would have been clear 50 years ago was that we were pumping massive amounts of waste into the atmosphere (and rivers etc.), so much that we were changing its composition. It's good to know that some people back then had the foresight to realise that this may have effects on the climate.

As for all the comments that doubt that global warming is going on, you only have to do a simple web search to find some statistics on how the mean temperature has risen over the past 100 years.

Here's a few links I just found:
This graph of the mean world temperature over the last 150 years
From this report
Global Temperatures
A paper from the Proceedings of National Academy of Science

And there is heaps and heaps more evidence if you care to look.

The fact that the world leaders had a conference in Kyoto to discuss global warming means that the evidence is clear enough to worry them. It should probably worry everyone else too.

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

For a recent, interesting handling of IP issues, see http://www.nap.edu/books/0309064996/html/ .

Seriously, you have two realistic options: Inmarsat and cellular. Either way you're using a modem and getting a slow connection. Inmarsat is expensive, as in an investment that becomes part of the boat. Probably beyond your vacation budget. As some others have speculated, I can confirm that this is what the Navy uses for unclassified Internet email on all but its largest ships. Alternatively, Cellular is probably the most cost-effective and easy to use option. The downside is the range is limited to about 10-15 miles offshore, depending on conditions. You will want to use a marine-grade cell phone, rather than a hand-held, in order to get the best range. You can probably rent one of these.

Even more seriously, doesn't email sort of defeat the whole purpose of sailing as a vacation?

"What I cannot create, I do not understand."

The US Army is looking to forge links to the entertainment industry, to do a better job at this. I worked with UCLA; in the attempt to entice them to build a center there. It turns out that they went to USC, instead.

It's amazing to see how many different fields are affected by PC games. Graphics hardware, CPU development, and home high-speed networks are driven primarily by games, and now the military is being driven by them too.

We live in interesting times.

thad

Speaking as a layperson, is it the tools that characterise cyberterrorism or the intent of the individual/group/state that matters? Take a look at Peters' "Our New Old Enemies." Summer 1999 of Parameters. pp. 22-37 for some background.

It is easy to focus on the big baddies like chemical, biological, nuclear weapons as they are tangible tools and computer/communications infrastructure is going to occupy a Frankenstein niche for a while until people realise to balance between potential risks and rewards (after all we still use cars despite the high road carnage). Judging from history though, I would guess that white collar crime by individuals or small groups would be much more likely than state-sponsored subversion as the economic payoffs are much more obvious and direct. To postulate one example, the electricity market is shifting towards greater deregulation and adopting the use of complex derivatives to smooth out the supply/demand curves. Speculation becomes a moral risk if you know or even prearrange certain effects such as sabotaging a critical transmission pylon and clean up on placing a "sure" bet. Expanding this to a mass scale as in an entire industry sector or nation is much harder as it becomes beyond the means and abilities of individuals. The more people that know, the more likely something will slip up leading to discovery and nullation.

Most of the current transnational conflicts at the moment tend to be between states of low-medium technological sophistication. Despite trade friction and rhetoric, it's hard to see 2 first world countries like say Canada and US slagging it out, especially given the high level of C4I capabilities. Given today's modern capital markets, any signs of potential political conflict leads to rather rapid flight of money and vocal outcries from the citizens. However, unscrupulous subgroups may elect to target high capacity limited infrastructure (e.g. robot subs to cut underwater cables) if they think they could get away with it.

The only two other groups I can think of that would have the motive and mindset for mass disruption through cyberterrorism would be closed religious or fanatical groups whose value systems are so out of sync with mainstream that they feel threatened enough to take as much of the world with them as they "go under". The other would be individuals or companies on the fringe of legal juristictions deploying modern equivalents of extortion (threatening to disrupt business or services), theft (altering electronic records of property rights such as land titles or share quity ownership), fraud (diverting goods/money to different addresses), or systematic standover tactics to control and maintain monopoly profits (wreck reputations, steal customers by price dumping, fostering unwanted goods by scare-mongering, hire/scare away talented staff, etc). Old tactics in new guises and using computer leverage to accelerate the process. The biggest problem is that the larger it becomes, the more visible a target the group becomes to law enforcement agencies which, if necessary, can redefine what is lawful to control perceived excesses (e.g. RICO act against mob). IT is only a step up from indust rial espionage to industrial sabotage. For example, supposing someone wanted to compete against Amazon or Ebay, then by hiring insiders to sabotage equipment or arms-length outsiders to disrupt activities, can gain a temporary advantage. You can extend this to more critical and irreplaceable functions like financial clearance houses, genetic/fingerprint banks, blood records, tax history (now that would be an interesting target), credit checks, pension funds, international settlements, GPS maps etc. The other nasty trick is to insert fake data such as insurance scams then collecting on fake policies, falsify employment/death records to gain benefits, rig electronic lottery/gambling events, etc. However, this would require systematic planning and quite detailed inside process knowledge which would cut down on the list of suspects.

Mass terror, on the other hand, as a random and emotional act to demonstrate the lack of control and powerlessness of governments is IMHO harder to scale up to. The AIDS epidemic, while quite hyped by the press has settled into the background on the media horizon which shows that it is difficult to sustain a fear campaign across a wide geographical and temporal scope (even guns is an intermitent issue). The fear of nanotechnology (a la grey gloop) or the equivalent of the blob is probably a little too fanciful for the average joe unlike the persistant public fear of mutual assured destruction where everyone could look at the result of Japan. After all, turning a threat into execution is rather irreversible as it is hard to extort advantage from people that have reverted to stone age and any ongoing nebulous threat could quite likely be nullified given the usual capitalistic incentives. A series of ongoing semi-random cyber-attacks could be one possibility as it would force a country to spend on costly defences in depth across a range of infrastructure such that the economic costs are high enough to hurt. But being deprived of their MTV or other creature comforts is not the same as being physically threatened by fertiliser bombs so I suspect people (outside computer security experts) would eventually become rather blase about it. If the terror is suppose to obtain a political end, the sheer stubbonness of the human mind (e.g. reaction to bombing in Ireland) is enough to cause enough backlash to twart the original aim and thus force resolution through the normal political process.

On the other hand, it is much more feasible for a high-tech country to threaten or dominate a low-tech one (who knows that self-destruct signals are in the microchip they ship?) as the information asymmetry creates a significant disadvantage. From the point of view of the smaller country, cyberterrorism is probably all too real. Unforunately, technology is no substitute for trust.

LL

• scientific data should be priced at cost of distribution
  
• if the distributor subsequently adds value to the data, then the price should be no higher than the marginal cost of adding value
  
• advocate the incorporation of equivalents of "fair use" as part of any regulatory structure applying to databases as such
  

"the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range tolerated for other medications. Thus, the safety issues associated with marijuana do not preclude some medical uses."
-- Summary and Conclusions, p.125