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"...the Soyuz rockets that take like 90% of all stuff to and from ISS."

This is a significant problem. According to this NPR feature, bringing things DOWN is harder that bringing them UP, and some kind of shuttle (not necesarily manned) is the only way to that. The Soyuz does not have nearly enough RETURN capacity for what they want to do in the future.

The media accounts are wrong. Microsoft is pushing a processor cycles idea. The NPR interview with Ryan Hamlin the GM of the anti-spam division is a more accurate example of what they have presented.

The accreditation scheme that Microsoft and Yahoo are considering mean you pay for sending spam. You do not pay for sending email. It is like ironport bonded sender, you spam, you forfeit part of your bond. You no spam you no pay.

Ryan was pushing the computational scheme hardest. But the basic scheme is, you stop impersonation spam so you know where the message comes from, then you act on what you know about that person. It authentication and accreditation.

Reading the headline reminded me that I heard a story on NPR while laying in bed this morning about ways to go about eliminating spam on the internet.

Not sure if it contains any "new" information, but it might be worth a listen.

It's worth a listen.

As mentioned in my rejected story sub from last week, several other states are already participating in MATRIX.

For more information, you can look at the MATRIX homepage, listen to an NPR program, read some newspaper columns, a findlaw article, and a politechbot writup.

The list of participating states can be found here.

dude, a lot more than 500 PEOPLE died over there...

Well, duh, I knew that when I posted. But I was trying to post about the space program and the concept of relative risk. I simply wanted to point out that US leadership has no problem expending a lot of lives for a goal with dubious merit. Look where it got me -- an instant +5, then a kick back down to 3 by knee-jerk anti-politicos. It's as if I linked to some radical country group, for crying out loud. :)

For the record:

* 500 troops vastly understates the issue, even if all you care about are US casualties. Last I heard, there were 2000+ troops injured, and we're talking debilitating injuries like limbs, eyes, and parts of brains blown away. Give Bush enough time, and he'll top the WTC numbers.

* Of course, Bush has clearly topped the WTC tally when you count the number of Iraqis killed since we invaded. But relatively few of those deaths are due to direct US action -- they're mostly due to the chaos we caused by invading.

* Even so, it may yet turn out that the 5-year death toll among Iraqis is less than it would have been under Saddam, who was an unmitigated bastard.

* But even if Saddam was a bastard, Bush could have tried not lying about WMDs, and he sure as heck could have planned ahead for the complete lack of order everyone knew our entry would cause. He could have simply asked NPR's Anne Garrels, whose book shows that she had better on-the-ground intelligence than Bush's sources.

* No thanks to Bush, the troops are performing as well as can be expected in the situation they've been ordered into.

So, in your esteemed opinion, have I redeemed my Green Party credentials?

How come Homer and Krusty look like clones?

In an interview on the NPR show "Fresh Air", Matt Groening explained that when they created Krusty he was supposed to simply be a clown version of Homer. The irony being that Bart looked up to Krusty while having no respect for his father. Groening went on to say that nobody really got the connection, so Krusty began to just take on a life of his own instead. You can listen to the archived shows on the NPR website.

http://freshair.npr.org/

"The median standard of living in the EU is higher than in the US."

Out of curiousity, by who's standard?

"I think this is a major reason why Europeans view the US as "backwards"."

Is it well-deserved, or is it simply hearsay? From what I've read and heard recently, for example, it sounds like a lot of Europeans would be surprised to hear that the "backwards, conservative" US has the largest percentage of college-aged citizens enrolled in university (heard at end of link) and is on the verge of becoming the first country in history where the majority of adults have a college degree (heard elsewhere).

(By the way, a warning to fellow USA-ians: Be prepared to want to throttle any nearby Britons upon hearing the above radio article. Seriously.)

"Yes, both the US and the EU have economies that have solved the problems of food, shelter, and medicine."

Again, are citizens of EU members really better off in these areas, or are you basing this on comments made, for example, by politicians (US or EU) trying to paint a nightmare scenario in the US to justify their own positions?

"Things like social nets and environmental protections interfere with the ability of the (total) economy to grow at the fastest rate possible, so they must be inherently bad. This is the unifying economic philosophy of the conservative Republicans: government itself is inherently bad precisely because it siphons money (taxes) away from investment and consumption."

First off, you haven't been paying much attention to the Republicans in Washington in the past few months.

Secondly, there's a disconnect between these two sentences. You seem to automatically assume that "social safety net" = "government" by definition. Must altruism be government-mandated, where humans are so inherently selfish that they must be forced to help others? If so, how is a government that is "of the people, by the people, for the people" somehow better at being altruistic if those very same people that vote for them are so selfish? Divine right of Congress?

And, if so, why must it be the national government instead of state/provincial governments?

"But in the real world, it leads to a morally bankrupt society obsessed with money."

There's more to the US than Wall Street and Hollywood, though I can easily understand your confusion...

Responding to your .sig...

How come Homer and Krusty look like clones

Matt Groening did a Fresh Air interview in which he said that the resemblance between Homer & Krusty isn't a coincidence. Originally, the joke was that Bart had absolutely no respect for his own father, but he completely idolized this television clown that in many ways is exactly like Homer -- including the uncanny resemblance between the two.

The interview was really interesting stuff. If you have a RealAudio player available, you can listen to the show from the above link.

Perhaps, but if Beagle came looking for Spirit, "Supreme Commander" Charles Tilford of the South Bay Robo-Warriors puts his money on the "Yankee ingenuity" and maneuverability of the American rover. That's what this Battlebots contestant told NPR's Robert Siegel on Friday's radio broadcast of "All Things Considered." You can listen to it in streaming audio here.

I'd have to go with Tilford on this one. Beagle may have gotten a piece of Spirit, but I bet Beagle got trounced in the end. U-S-A! U-S-A!

The original poster does have a point though, if you interpret his recommendation to boycot WalMart to mean that we (the consumers) should change our habits so that we don't shop there as long as they don't care about us or our privacy. In other words, make it so that respecting customers translates into profits. And that's perfectly valid, actually the preferred, way for consumers to change behaviour of corporations in capitalistic system.

Let me start off by saying that I am neither an employee, stockholder, or even a regular customer of WalMart. Now, having already made up half of your minds on what I'm going to say, I'll present my argument to the half that is willing to listen to annother person's view.

I love the WalMart business model. They control many different markets at once, in fact, as stated in an NPR article , "It now has more revenue and more employees than any other U.S. company". WalMart has taken mom-and-pop shops out of business, Immediately everyone jumps to the conclusion that, elimination of competition, this is evil! But in fact, by controlling alot of consumer markets, WalMart is able to negotiate lower prices with distributers. We typically see monopolous corporations as evil, but I don't see WalMart in the same way as the rest. WalMart's stategy has always been to reduce costs, in effect, raising wages for employees and cutting prices for consumers. Unlike many other companies, WalMart has successfully and honestly worked it's way to the top. Bush Sr. even gave the founder of WalMart a "Medal of Freedom", the highest award given to a civilian. Don't get me wrong, i'm not arguing that US government is free from corruption, far from it; But personally, I see WalMart as a wonderful company.

I couldn't have said it better myself. If you want real news, try NPR or Democracy Now. The rest are just one giant fsck'n commercial. But seriously, learn to think for your self and interpret information intelligently, regardless of the source.

I'm disgusted that the average citizen allows this. ... Both the Democrats and Republicans have lied and lied, and neither is going to help us stabilize the economy

I generally agree. So what is the average citizen supposed to do about it? I wouldn't say the media entirely ignores the subject, so I wouldn't blame this favorite scapegoat for not bringing the problem to the attention of the average citizen. Furthermore, a quick google finds "And a majority of Americans (55%) considers government corruption a very important problem (another 34% think it is a somewhat important problem, and only 9% think it is not very important or not important at all).", so I wouldn't say that most Americans aren't aware of the problem. So when you say you're disgusted the average citizen allows this -- Well, it wasn't contingent upon the average citizens approval either. Again - what am I supposed to do? Vote? I'm trying that, but it's not working out too well, since every choice except the blank line lies to me. Am I supposed to complain when they're in office? I try that too, which generally results in a diplomatic reply that, when distilled, says "I didn't want your opinion anyhow, now bugger off and vote for me next cycle." Perhaps I'm supposed to pray - but I somehow doubt that'll be any more effective than voting and writing.

You might be interested to know (or you might already know, actually :>), that "The Handmaid's Tale" was recently created in opera form.

With the recent $200M bequest from Ray Kroc's widow, hopefully that will change.

Analog radio has gotten excruciatingly annoying the last decade or so.

I'd really like to see lower barriers to entry - the local college station gets close to 90% of my radio listening time anymore as the conglomerate controlled outlets play all the same demographically-profiled comfortable pap.

Umm, you don't *have* to listen to ClearChannel, ya know. Ever hear of NPR? They still have good programming, IMO.

Already done.

this show only lasts about 2 minutes per week, but you can hear some good examples of it at NPR at anytime.

Go to NPR and search for "Jim Nayder" (use the quotes)

you will find many examples of archived Weekend Edition shows with "special" Annoying Music Show sets you can listen to (Real Audio or WMP, sorry...)

I am seeing cases where the environmental movement is wilfully exaggerating how bad things are, and is arguing that no matter what the choice, the environment is both the first and the only thing.

I am becoming more and more skeptical of the environmental movement. Too much of it seems to be pushing an anti-capitalist morality with which I do not agree....

The other side of the issue is that powerful economic interests in the USA are capable of buying legislation which sells out the public interest to protect their profits, and they are just as capable of manipulating the press, think tank reports and other coverage to blunt public backlash against them. Just because the watermelons are for something isn't necessarily a reason to oppose it; you have to look carefully at everything, preferably with an understanding of the underlying reasons and mechanisms. If you don't have this understanding yourself, take your cues from someone who both has one and has taken the time to explain it in ways which can be checked. Dogma is the enemy, we need to fight it with reason. I've read Lomborg's book, and it is very long on endnotes and short on real supporting evidence; worse, the researchers cited by Lomborg have often disagreed violently with the conclusions he reaches based on their work. This reflects poorly on Lomborg.

(OT re command economies and authoritarian regimes: China's pall of pollution is so bad that it is affecting crop yields. The sources I can find mention pollutants such as ozone and SO2, but I recall reading that soot directly reduces plant growth by cutting off the supply of energy (sunlight) to the plants. China in particular still uses lots of coal in individual coal stoves, leading to the same emissions which caused the killer fog in London in 1952 (here's the NPR feature). These emissions would be drastically reduced if China gasified that same coal in a central plant and piped it through cities as "town gas".)

Well, since we're on the topic of recycled sound effects, The Evil Dead (1982) has a sound of eerie wind wich is used in many other movies. It is mentioned in another NPR interview The reference is about 8 and a half minutes into the clip.

(note: The Real version didn't work for me, but I think it's because of my company's overly anal firewall policies).

this popped up after i posted the npr link...the story mentioned that most of the eye-witness accounts of whitehead's flight were given 80 yrs after the fact;-) but the wrights did abandon engineering to pursue legal claims...they never left the kite design...

NPR did a nice piece during the morning drive time.

but there's no question that the Wright brothers built the first airplane that a pilot could control and fly. The basic principles that were built into the Wright Flyer remain a part of every aircraft flying today.

Competing claims aside, I think we can all agree this was a great moment in American history at least.

NPR did a nice piece during the morning drive time.

but there's no question that the Wright brothers built the first airplane that a pilot could control and fly. The basic principles that were built into the Wright Flyer remain a part of every aircraft flying today.

Competing claims aside, I think we can all agree this was a great moment in American history at least.

Seriously, what if the majority of riders are listening to truly non-commercial stations like student stations e.g. ones with voice id's like "WCBN 88.3 FM - at the far left of your radio dial" or "Radio Free Ann Arbor". Would the billboard show an ad for a state or city park or a free concert? Or just tell people to bike to work?

Virtually no Americans (Canadians maybe?) believe Hussein planned the 9/11 attack. We are not stupid.

As for the Bush government *saying* that Saddam was involved in 9/11, no, no one associated with the Bush government ever actually said it. But they sure did imply it. Here's links to the implications. Remember, when in doubt try the facts, they're much better than your faith in the Bush government, if a bit less comfortable to begin with.

• The old tell the lie loud, issue a quiet retraction ploy
  
• more on the whole thing here complete with quotes from members of the Bush government. The quotes start about halfway down the page.
  

I heard about this first on Science Friday on the December 12th show. When I heard them mention the bacteria making electricity I though of the "Proto-Culture" from Robotech. When I was a kid I used to think it was an electricity producing life-form that they found on the SDF-1 ... of course my memories are mostly of Robotech season three... "Genesis Climber Mospeada"

It would be hilarious if science fact would follow this particular fiction and lead to...
<Announcer Voice>
"the awesome power of RoboTech!"
</Announcer Voice>

The page linking to the NPR audio is here

How can you say that the Republican's reduced medicare benefits?
What are you, stoned?
So if the Republicans did only Republican-like things, you'd critique them for it. And when they do Democrat-like things, you critique them for it.
No wonder people are leaving the Democrat party in droves.

"The impact of unions and PACs has been negated by the McCain-Feingold prohibition against soft money donations to candidates and parties."

Unfortunately, nothing could be farther from the truth

Actually a simple search on the NPR website for "McCain Feingold" will reveal the entire story as it's developed over the past week, and how already the money has funelled around the law.

There was a recent NPR story on the recent rise of GPS usage amongst company cars. Interesting stuff, and they mention a little about unions' concern as well.

Listen, here's the thing: less taxes would be good if there was also less spending. This president has spent more than any other before, and continues to spend and promise to spend. This is nothing like the "small government" of your traditional conservatives. Witness this.
Witness the latest spending on Medicare.

If you're interested in one explanation for why the current administration is cutting taxes so much while boosting spending (on everything, including, it now looks like, going to the moon), please google around for Grover Norquist's strategy to budgeting that he calls "starve the beast." Or, listen to this interview. It's pretty scary.

I find it disturbing that the RIAA is claiming it is acting on behalf of record labels that it doesn't even represent.

NPR radio has a story about several record labels (notably Fat Wreck Chords, one of my personal favs) that had to fight for years to get their names removed from the list of labels the RIAA claims to represent, since they do not want to be represented by them.

I find it disturbing that the RIAA is claiming it is acting on behalf of record labels that it doesn't even represent.

NPR radio has a story about several record labels (notably Fat Wreck Chords, one of my personal favs) that had to fight for years to get their names removed from the list of labels the RIAA claims to represent, since they do not want to be represented by them.

One reason why we don't have trains is because of AMTRAK. Sad to say even Mr. Dukakis as captain couldn't solve it (surprising?)

The CEO of JetBlue (a low cost airline) claims this is because of AMTRAK's government affiliation, and in particular because local politicians insist on running routes to non-profitable and perhaps non-interesting destinations. link to JetBlue interview

And you'll see that in the US, the alternatives seem to be working OK. We spend billions of dollars on highways and I can fly 500 miles on Southwest Airlines for $26 each way.

As I drove back from class today, I wished I could be a benevolent dictator and build mass transit everywhere. Yet I agree with earlier posts in that the public desire just doesn't exist at this point. For a case study, check out Orange County, CA, where the City of Irvine voted down plans to have a light-rail system connecting to its university. You don't have to look too much further down to South OC to see the consequences of exclusive car dependence. These are the kinds of attitudes that motivate my desire to live somewhere else.

What I want to know is this:
How can we get people to move via public transport?
It seems there are only two ways to go with this.
a) Make public transport more appealing
b) Make car travel less appealing

I'm not sure (b) is working out. The summed costs of cars are enormous--$200/mo for insurance, $60/mo for parking, ~$60/mo for gas, and then however much you pay to lease/finance the car and the possible risk of an accident, etc. And these are the only ones I can measure..

NPR has a series of informative programs on the Guantanamo Bay situation.

Treatment of Guantanamo Detainees Questioned

This article, if it's the one I think it is, talks about US interrogation methods. They don't involve physical torture, so much as disorienting tactics such as screwing with the lighting to give prisoners a distorted sense of time, playing loud noises at various intervals, and making every possible choice of sitting/reclining hopelessly uncomfortable (presumably setting the mind to solving an unsolvable problem).

You can find other stories on the situation here

-Roxton

NPR has a series of informative programs on the Guantanamo Bay situation.

Treatment of Guantanamo Detainees Questioned

This article, if it's the one I think it is, talks about US interrogation methods. They don't involve physical torture, so much as disorienting tactics such as screwing with the lighting to give prisoners a distorted sense of time, playing loud noises at various intervals, and making every possible choice of sitting/reclining hopelessly uncomfortable (presumably setting the mind to solving an unsolvable problem).

You can find other stories on the situation here

-Roxton

The statement wasn't that the blackout had a connection to solar flares - but others have.

There was an omission in the data about the blackout - widely reported - that the underlying cause of what first caused the lines to overheat and expand in Ohio when they were not operating at peak capacity has not been found. The grid had "unusual stresses" on it that day.

Ahh.. the Senator from Ohio and a real live supporter.

You know, I could almost think about looking at him seriously.. until..

I heard him on the air on Talk of the Nation last week.

After a few minutes of his typical stuff, the host asks him point blank: Do you believe in Evil?

He literally hemmed and hawed for a bit, and decided that some people have different world views, and those different world views need understanding and insight to recognize and value properly.

But his essential answer can then only be left at no.

Listen to it on NPR.

I hope you dont support this guy for President, because at the end of the day, no matter who you want to win, it shouldn't be someone who fundamentally refuses to acknowlegde the presense of evil in the world. Evil people, evil actions, evil intentions, evil results. Evil exisits, and living in the real world dictates that you acknowledge it, accept it, and deal with it.

That was NPR. PBS still needs your support.

Yesterday, NPR's All Things Considered did a nice piece on it, you can download it here

How about NPR, and the govt pays for that.

Oh really? Are you sure about that?

On this subject, today, All Things Consitered on NPR reported that the FCC requires 99.99+% reliability on land lines. In cell phones, however, reliability was not required in order to promote competition, which is why we have so many problems with cell phone service.

It's an interesting story, and they did a good job on the subject. Scroll down in the link above to read it.

On this subject, today, All Things Consitered on NPR reported that the FCC requires 99.99+% reliability on land lines. In cell phones, however, reliability was not required in order to promote competition, which is why we have so many problems with cell phone service.

It's an interesting story, and they did a good job on the subject. Scroll down in the link above to read it.

Think about it - when was the last time you actually *looked forward* to something on the radio?

Every. Damn. Week. So many of This American Life's shows have just been completely superb, it's by far my favorite running show of any genre or any medium. Funny. Sad. Uplifting. Depressing. Unforgettable.

Car Talk is great too, but the main emotional appeal there is "side-splittingly funny". Not that there's anything wrong with that, but TAL can do that when they feel like it, and they branch off in lots of other directions too. (They do get points for the very useful website though -- need to find a reputable mechanic in your area?). (Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is also very funny, but smug -- sometimes charmingly, sometimes smarmily -- and with humor that will mostly go stale in well under a week. Still worth listening to though.)

So there's good stuff on the radio -- just not on the commercial stations. And I don't know of any show anywhere that's even half as impressive as TAL has more or less consistently been for the past seven years or so.

And when was the lst time on TV?

...okay, you've got me there. Is anything on PBS as good as the stuff NPR/PRI has been doing? There's NOVA, and "Masterpiece Theatre", and lots of kids shows, but beyond that I'm not aware of what they're offering, and none of it wins me over the way TAL has.

However, the US and the European Commission are staunchly defending the Icann model, which is based on minimal regulation and commercial principles. Icann members are predominantly drawn from industrialised countries and the established internet community.

So now, we're rooting for the much-maligned ICANN institution... I guess that's not such a cognitive dissonance now that they've actually faced up to Verisign -- though the end of that story is yet to be written.

Interesting that this should come up on the same day that NPR's Morning Edition (just audio, sorry) reported that the US is blocking an attempt by UNESCO to allow countries to subsidize their national film industries to preserve cultural identity.

In one corner, we have the US: protector of political free speech and homogenous corporate culture.

In the other, we have the rest of the world: protector of political speech restriction and diverse cultural heritage.

Damn, it's hard to know what side to root for these days.

Univision is owned by NBC, and thus General Electric. They're just as tainted as FOX or CNN.

Also, I believe it's Deutsche Welle . The pronounciation sounds like "wella" in English, but it's an -e, not a -a, in German.

If anyone owns DW or al-Jazeera, I don't currently know about it. But then, neither of them has much of a presence in North America, and of the ones that are available, they're almost all part of one or another conglomerate. The main exceptions I can think of would be PBS, NPR, and (if your area or cable provider offers access) BBC World -- but then people. But then, they're driving under the influence, too...

That's why I run an icecast station - if I want to hear it, it goes on the 'radio'.

More seriously, though, there is the odd radio program worth hearing. I try to catch Ideas on a regular basis. There's also stuff like Public Radio that'll often air interesting stuff.

All Things Considered ran a good overview tonight of the Diebold story.

Cited are critiques of security and even poor code quality, the guts of internal memos now floating around, Diebold's threats against ISPs, and comments from the EFF.

(Runtime, 4:50; RealPlayer or WMP required)