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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology /circuits/02next.html?ex=1251777600&en=1cb1803faa0 2fdd0&;ei=5090&partner=rssuserland">sto ry link</a>

<URL:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology/ circuits/02next.html?ex=1251777600&en=1cb1803faa02 fdd0&;ei=5090&partner=rssuserland>

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology /circuits/02next.html?ex=1251777600&en=1cb1803faa0 2fdd0&;ei=5090&partner=rssuserland">sto ry link</a>

<URL:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology/ circuits/02next.html?ex=1251777600&en=1cb1803faa02 fdd0&;ei=5090&partner=rssuserland>

As a Clickable link.

The funny thing is: the republicans dont need
to publish the name of democratic voters.
They just "clear" the voting lists - or send
in the police directly ...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60 E15F73C5A0C708EDDA10894DC404482

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation and is demanding records regarding Internet postings by critics of the Bush administration that list the names of Republican delegates and urge protesters to give them an unwelcome reception in New York City.

...

The Indy Media site is run by the NYC Independent Media Center, which describes itself as a grass-roots group committed to using media tools "for promoting social and economic justice in the New York City area." The site includes several lists containing the names of many delegates to the Republican convention, along with e-mail addresses, phone numbers and the hotels where some were expected to stay, as well as links to a site called rncdelegates.com. Most of the lists were posted anonymously or by demonstrators calling themselves the RNC Delegates Working Group. One list includes more than 2,200 delegates, or nearly half the expected total. In publicizing the information, organizers said in a posting that they were trying to supply groups opposed to the Republican National Committee "with data on the delegates to use in whatever way they see fit."

The story goes on to point out that the ACLU is upset about the investigation, and that the federal courts have taken a very narrow view of what is not protected speech in similar cases:

Officials at the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Calyx, the Internet service provider, said they were aware of no postings that encouraged violence or intimidation of Republican delegates, and they said the site contained political dialogue and information that was protected by the First Amendment.

"We can't see any legitimate purpose behind this investigation, and it looks to us like another attempt to repress legitimate political dissent," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

The obvious although not perfect analogy is the anti-abortion activist web site controversy of a few years ago, that the article also mentions:

Federal courts have traditionally set a high bar in deciding what constitutes threatening speech that goes beyond First Amendment protections, saying the threat of lawlessness must be specific and imminent.

In one significant case, a jury in Oregon ordered a group of anti-abortion activists to pay $109 million in damages after posting an Old West-style wanted poster, portraying named abortion doctors as "baby butchers." But an appellate court reversed the award. Parts of the case are pending.

The ACLU in that case took the position that this was not constitutionally protected free speech:

We view the jury's verdict as a clarion call to remove violence and the threat of violence from the political debate over abortion. Many Americans disagree about the wisdom and morality of abortion. But violence and the threat of violence against providers of abortion services should not be allowed to determine the outcome of that debate.

To their credit, the ACLU also argued that "that the defendants' intent to threaten the abortion providers must also be proven...."

The "Nuremberg Files" site

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation and is demanding records regarding Internet postings by critics of the Bush administration that list the names of Republican delegates and urge protesters to give them an unwelcome reception in New York City.

...

The Indy Media site is run by the NYC Independent Media Center, which describes itself as a grass-roots group committed to using media tools "for promoting social and economic justice in the New York City area." The site includes several lists containing the names of many delegates to the Republican convention, along with e-mail addresses, phone numbers and the hotels where some were expected to stay, as well as links to a site called rncdelegates.com. Most of the lists were posted anonymously or by demonstrators calling themselves the RNC Delegates Working Group. One list includes more than 2,200 delegates, or nearly half the expected total. In publicizing the information, organizers said in a posting that they were trying to supply groups opposed to the Republican National Committee "with data on the delegates to use in whatever way they see fit."

The story goes on to point out that the ACLU is upset about the investigation, and that the federal courts have taken a very narrow view of what is not protected speech in similar cases:

Officials at the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Calyx, the Internet service provider, said they were aware of no postings that encouraged violence or intimidation of Republican delegates, and they said the site contained political dialogue and information that was protected by the First Amendment.

"We can't see any legitimate purpose behind this investigation, and it looks to us like another attempt to repress legitimate political dissent," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

The obvious although not perfect analogy is the anti-abortion activist web site controversy of a few years ago, that the article also mentions:

Federal courts have traditionally set a high bar in deciding what constitutes threatening speech that goes beyond First Amendment protections, saying the threat of lawlessness must be specific and imminent.

In one significant case, a jury in Oregon ordered a group of anti-abortion activists to pay $109 million in damages after posting an Old West-style wanted poster, portraying named abortion doctors as "baby butchers." But an appellate court reversed the award. Parts of the case are pending.

The ACLU in that case took the position that this was not constitutionally protected free speech:

We view the jury's verdict as a clarion call to remove violence and the threat of violence from the political debate over abortion. Many Americans disagree about the wisdom and morality of abortion. But violence and the threat of violence against providers of abortion services should not be allowed to determine the outcome of that debate.

To their credit, the ACLU also argued that "that the defendants' intent to threaten the abortion providers must also be proven...."

The "Nuremberg Files" site

Discussed in this recent article.

My experience has been that people with IT jobs that pay anything tolerable are glad they even have a job.

First, the .com and telecom overcapacity meltdown that led into the 2001 recession, then the growing outsourcing trend.

Meanwhile, "do more, better, faster, cheaper" mantra still plays with management and has continued to load too many additional chores onto people with no reasonable alternative in job choice. People have complained about the workload to a management that is completely out of touch with the problems and concerns of their employees.

As others have noted, the pent-up demand will lead to a spike in turnover if the economy ever gets into more than first gear.

More importantly, though, is what's happening right now.

• Job stress, life stress
• low morale, depression,
• anger and resentment.

Not a pretty picture.

If I were a CIO I'd be looking to make my org a nicer place to work right now so that my reputation for attracting and retaining good people would be in place when the herd starts to stampede.

Ah, quoting the American Spectator, which quotes an unnamed "another Kerry advisor".

The Washington Post reports that a longtime Bush lawyer has quit his campaign after his advice to the Swifties was revealed. He doesn't even appear in this otherwise illuminating graph from the NY Times.

The Swifties themselves were first hired by Nixon for dirty tricks against Kerry, when Nixon was threatened by the truth about the dirty war he was running with concientious soldiers like Kerry. They served the country both under command in the field, and back home to end the vicious war. Who do the Swifties serve?

Yup, they not make this move to challenge the military absentee ballots, mainly because they didn't want to look like assholes to the military and folks support the troops above all. However, they probably should have at least challenged some of those ballots - those that were postmarked later (by days and sometimes weeks), those that had both major candidates marked, those that had questionable markings etc. The NY Times did some actual investigative work and found Bush's tiny margin of victory would've been eliminated, and Gore the winner, had those absentee ballots been counted as the law decreed prior to the election.

I'm all for the military having full, enfranchised rights to vote. I'm not for them (or anyone else) having the right to vote after Election Day is completed for the rest of us.

An avid reader growing up, I decided that there were two types of children's books: call it ''Little Women'' versus ''Phantom Tollbooth.'' The first type was usually foisted on you by nostalgic grown-ups. These were books populated by snivelers and goody-two-shoes, the most saintly of whom were sure to die in some tediously drawn-out scene. When the characters weren't dying or performing acts of charity or thawing the hearts of mean old gentlemen, they mostly just hung around the house, thinking about how they felt about their relatives.

A little behind. If this could have been posted before the NY Times article went archival...

The F.B.I. conducted a covert investigation by loading two computers with copyrighted material and joining the Underground Network, a move that let it identify five hub computers that coordinated the file sharing. An F.B.I. agent then downloaded 84 movies, 40 software programs, 13 games and 178 songs from the network.

The network operates a Web site - www.udgnet.com - that is registered to an address in San Antonio. A man who answered the telephone at the number associated with the domain, who declined to give his name, said the government's charges were baseless. The Underground Network, he said, is an online community that is used for social communication and to share tips. It is used by people involved in file sharing and others, he said, but the network itself is not involved in trading files.

From the above, it looks like some members AND the FBI uploaded files to a common space then the FBI blamed the network. The implications are that any network must monitor it's content and may be responsible for what people do there.

The potential for abuse is large. Imagine if I were able to walk into a building, do something wrong, and then use that as grounds to obtain warrent to search everyone in the building! I also wonder if it is possible to anonymously share any kind of material without being harassed. If you can't, then there is no anonymous speech on the internet and the internet is not free.

The F.B.I. conducted a covert investigation by loading two computers with copyrighted material and joining the Underground Network, a move that let it identify five hub computers that coordinated the file sharing. An F.B.I. agent then downloaded 84 movies, 40 software programs, 13 games and 178 songs from the network.

The network operates a Web site - www.udgnet.com - that is registered to an address in San Antonio. A man who answered the telephone at the number associated with the domain, who declined to give his name, said the government's charges were baseless. The Underground Network, he said, is an online community that is used for social communication and to share tips. It is used by people involved in file sharing and others, he said, but the network itself is not involved in trading files.

From the above, it looks like some members AND the FBI uploaded files to a common space then the FBI blamed the network. The implications are that any network must monitor it's content and may be responsible for what people do there.

The potential for abuse is large. Imagine if I were able to walk into a building, do something wrong, and then use that as grounds to obtain warrent to search everyone in the building! I also wonder if it is possible to anonymously share any kind of material without being harassed. If you can't, then there is no anonymous speech on the internet and the internet is not free.

• Nearly everything those veterans have said about Kerry is, according to both the U.S. Navy and the folks who were there at the time, a lie.
• Those veterans lied about themselves.
• Bush's friends financed it and his advisors both appeared in the commercials and provided legal advice to the group.
• The Swift Boat book is co-authored by Jerome Corsi who has said anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic things on a right-wing Website.

• Nearly everything those veterans have said about Kerry is, according to both the U.S. Navy and the folks who were there at the time, a lie.
• Those veterans lied about themselves.
• Bush's friends financed it and his advisors both appeared in the commercials and provided legal advice to the group.
• The Swift Boat book is co-authored by Jerome Corsi who has said anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic things on a right-wing Website.

• Nearly everything those veterans have said about Kerry is, according to both the U.S. Navy and the folks who were there at the time, a lie.
• Those veterans lied about themselves.
• Bush's friends financed it and his advisors both appeared in the commercials and provided legal advice to the group.
• The Swift Boat book is co-authored by Jerome Corsi who has said anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic things on a right-wing Website.

• Nearly everything those veterans have said about Kerry is, according to both the U.S. Navy and the folks who were there at the time, a lie.
• Those veterans lied about themselves.
• Bush's friends financed it and his advisors both appeared in the commercials and provided legal advice to the group.
• The Swift Boat book is co-authored by Jerome Corsi who has said anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic things on a right-wing Website.

ederal and state law enforcement agencies have quietly arrested or charged dozens of people with crimes related to junk e-mail, identity theft and other online scams in recent weeks, according to several people involved in the actions.

The cases, which have been brought by law enforcement offices around the country, are expected to be announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft in a news conference in Washington on Thursday.

Federal authorities have stepped up their efforts to crack down on junk e-mail messages, or spam, since Congress passed a law last December criminalizing fraudulent and deceptive e-mail practices. The law subjects spammers to fines and jail terms of up to five years.

So far, the law has had little noticeable effect. Spam represents 65 percent of all e-mail, up from 58 percent when the law was passed, according to Symantec, a company that makes a widely used spam filter.

The new cases are also expected to involve charges of credit card fraud, computer crime and other offenses that carry significant penalties. Many of the cases were developed by an unusual investigative team that combined federal law enforcement officials and executives from industries that do business through the Internet. Nearly two dozen investigators work in an office in Pittsburgh operated by the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, a nonprofit organization with close ties to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Much of the financing for the efforts, known as Operation Slam Spam, comes from the Direct Marketing Association, a trade group that wants to promote what it sees as the legitimate use of e-mail marketing.

"We felt that the key to the new law was enforcement," said H. Robert Wientzen, who recently stepped down as the president of the marketing association and is still involved in the antispam campaign. "We want spammers to realize that spam is not a free game for them and that they face real penalties if they continue."

The operation has built a database of known spammers, drawing from law enforcement agencies and from private companies that are investigating and bringing civil suits against some of the biggest users of junk e-mail messages. It has also deployed online decoys to catch spammers and has purchased products advertised in spam messages so that the financial records can be traced to the ultimate source of the message.

As the cases have been developed, the Pittsburgh group has used its information to persuade prosecutors to devote some resources to bringing cases against junk e-mail companies and other abusers of the Internet.

Law enforcement agencies have only recently taken an interest in fighting the spam problem. It is a series of small crimes, often without clear victims, that is hard to investigate.

But prosecutors and investigators are starting to become more aggressive as the volume of spam continues to increase and as the messages that spammers send are being used more often to perpetrate other crimes, including identity theft and credit card fraud.

And the authorities have become increasingly concerned about the spammers' use of computer viruses to hijack millions of desktop computers, using them to relay their messages and hide their true identities.

The Justice Department announcement expected on Thursday is meant to highlight several different government actions related to computer crime. The department has conducted a handful of similar operations in the past, calling them cyber sweeps, but the crackdown to be disclosed this week is thought to be the biggest by far.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to com

When the repair mission is complete, the part of the service craft containing the old instruments and the robot would detach from Hubble and burn up in the atmosphere, leaving the new propulsion unit on the telescope to maintain it in its 275-mile-high orbit until ready to bring it down. [emphasis added]

[PP's involvment in space-shuttle catastrophe]

Microsoft officials, of course, beg to differ. Simon Marks, the product manager for PowerPoint, counters that Tufte is a fan of ''information density,'' shoving tons of data at an audience. You could do that with PowerPoint, he says, but it's a matter of choice. ''If people were told they were going to have to sit through an incredibly dense presentation,'' he adds, ''they wouldn't want it.'' And PowerPoint still has fans in the highest corridors of power: Colin Powell used a slideware presentation in February when he made his case to the United Nations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

• Ms. Sandlin is so devoted to [Firefox] that she has taped a note to her monitor warning guests not to click on the desktop shortcut to Internet Explorer. "Do not touch the blue E!" the note says.

• Using Microsofts Internet Explorer Web browser to surf the Internet has become a marked risk even with the latest security patches installed.

• The US Government has sent out a warning out to internet users through its Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), pleading users to stop using Microsofts Internet Explorer.

• [A]ll-conquering Internet Explorer has been stuck in the mud for the past year, as Microsoft stopped delivering new versions. The company now rolls out only an occasional fix as part of its Windows updates. Gates and company won the browser war, so why keep fighting it?

Hey, that was a good post. Thanks for taking the time out.

Yes I criticize a lot - I know. But the 'head of the class' should be the head because he is the wisest, not because he is the biggest. The bully mentality alienates your friends and enrage your enemies. This is already happening big time.

I haven't heard about the election-fraud accusations in Germany, but we've had them in my country (Denmark). There is no doubt nor dispute about who got the votes in neither Germany nor my country though and you cannot imagine a society that has no corrupted individuals. You are right, Italy seems a farce under Berlosconi, and I really do NOT wanna turn this into a 'XX is better than YY' type thing, EU is far from any paradise, and we've certainly got our shit to work out.

However since you do the comparison, neither Germany nor Italy engages in preemptive warfare (thnx in big part to the US), but the US does. At least that is the impression you are left with if you first read PNAC and then consider who the prominent PNAC members are (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz...).

Oh, I don't believe for one second that these guys are stupid. Bonkers they may be - but stupid they're not. They know very well what they're doing. I am not sure they quite realise what their actions might entail (nor do I for that matter), but I am also not sure that they care too much.

No - what I meant when I said bonkers was you guys - the ones who lives in US, the real US. The ones whose votes will determine life and death matters all over the world. The ones whose votes will shape the international climate, the ones who won't vote because they 'it does not matter, nothing can be done anyways, I am not willing to waste my time trying'. That really seems odd.

US is so big, and you're probably right, we don't have diversity in the face the way you do. I am posting this from rather comfortable little DK (best place in the world, then our right wing took over), I am not in Romania or Albania or on the Balkans, I am not even in Italy. It's easy for me to sit here and be high-strung. That however, does not alter the fact that you guys really need to DO something. I just hope that this one time your apathy will be left at home when you go voting and that your election will end with the only reasonable outcome.

US is NOT the moral leader of the world, it's just the biggest military force in existence. A lot of US folks may not realise that, but that's how everybody else sees it. You can change that...

Here's a video for you

I am sorry if I come off staunch, I am just soo fucking amazed by the beast that is the US. The whole Swift-boat-liars-for-whatever affair, FOX news, Bush in general, Fahrenheit 9/11 etc...

Thnx for your post, it was a good read and I'd mod u up if I could.

oh, for heaven's sake; I'm as wild-eyed a leftist as the next peacenik, but this is a low blow; check out this editorial in today's Times from a front-line soldier conservative in iraq. most of these guys out there on the lines are conservatives -- and, yes, I know that the fact that most soldiers are righties doesn't mean that most righties are brave enough to fight; but perhaps it would encourage us to discuss our differences without demonizing the Other.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/magazine/22IDEA. html?pagewanted=print&position=

Coincidently, New York Times Magazine is also publishing a story about ICT in this weekend's edition:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/magazine/22GAMES .html

Despite all of this, I am pulled out of every single line in every airport I ever go through and my bags are generally searched thoroughly if not emptied entirely. Why is that? I am a short white glasses wearing female computer technician.

There are relatively few jobs other than airport security screeners that have minimal requirements, have had to hire a ton of people extremely rapidly in a short period of time, and allow hirees to pat down choice females from a line.

the Iran Contra scandal which dragged on for six years and resulted in only 3 convictions upheld

Maybe that was because George Bush Sr. pardoned Casper Weinberger and 5 others, effectively preventing Weinberger from ever having to testify (and possibly incriminating Bush himself).

And people complain about Clinton's pardons while completely ignoring Bush's horrendous abuse of power.

The problem, however, is that this is not an isolated incident due to a single visa issue. There's a broader pattern of similar behavior on the part of US authorities.

Please read it, it's enlightening. Note that the article was written this month.

Another interesting point is that some venture capitalist firms pulled the stock they were going to sell. Did they know something the public doesn't?

From http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/18/technology/18CND -GOOGLE.html:
Two of Google's big early investors, the storied Silicon Valley venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital, decided to withdraw their combined 4.5 million shares from the auction early yesterday, betting they can get a better price at some point in the future.

Because Google's product isn't their search engine, it's what the search engine is running on. We're talking a huge server clustering engine ...

"Because Google arose after the Internet bubble, they were able to acquire a very strong technical team," Mr. Brewer said. "The irony is that they are really more of an advertising company than a search engine company today."
-- So Google Is Almost Public. Now Comes the Hard Part.

When Hussein accused UN weapons inspectors of being US spies in 1998...

Um...they actually were spies.

But all this stuff misses the main point about Iraq. Saddam was contained by the sanctions. He wasn't particularly punished by them (he didn't miss any meals) but look at hii options post-9/11, pre-war:

• Attack one or more of his Islamic neighbors.

  Result: Gulf War II with full international support.

• Attack Israel, either conventionally or with WMD.

  Result: War. Quite possibly a glowing crater where Bagdhad once was.

• Attack the United States, either conventionally or with WMD.

  Result: it is to laugh. Iraq is stomped even worse than it actually was. Perhaps even a glowing crater. (If he actually posed any real military threat to us, the war might conceivably have been justified... but nobody thought that.)

• Give, say, Al-Quaeda WMDs.

  The only real terrorism Saddam has been tied to, the stipends for families of suicide bombers in Israel, was very public... because he was doing it for publicity. He doesn't gain a lot from attacking the U.S. by proxy, and if it's ever traced back to him (a significant probability, though far from a sure thing), we're back to a full-on military onslaught with widespread international support.

• Maintain the status quo.

  Result: pretty good for Saddam. He's still in charge of the county, livin' large, and he can tweak around oil prices and hurt the U.S. a bit by saber-rattling from time to time.

If we really wanted to supress "Panislamic radicalism", screw Saudi Arabia or China or whatever, we could have done it better in Afghanistan. We had international support and clear moral grounding, a populace that actually didn't like the ruling regime and really did mostly welcome us, etc. If we'd spent the kind of dough and deployed the kind of troops there that we're currently throwing at Iraq, we might actually have been able to do some real nation-building.

Just think, a democratic Islamic state. Nothing better to scare the thugocracies of the Middle East, and perhaps even inspire their people. Yes, it would have attracted the same foreign insurgents there that Iraq has, but the native populace didn't get introduced to us by infrastructure bombing. The Soviets did that, and we helped the Afghanis against them.

How much money did Bush allocate for Afghanistan in the 2004 budget? Nothing. Not a damn thing. They forgot about it.

Okay, let me ask you this: If after Sept. 11th, the airlines weren't asking for peoples IDs, what do you think people would say? They'd be going nuts. They'd be up in arms about how dangerous the airlines are and how they're not taking the threat of terrorism seriously enough.

Really, could someone think before posting these ridiculous stories?

You want a real issue? Let's talk about the FBI investigating college students planning to protest the GOP convention. I mean, that to me is a serious waste of taxpayer money and is a much more real "big brother" issue than this stupid airline stuff.

Where in the constitution or bill of rights does it say you have the right to travel anonymously. Get over it. We live in a different world now. You want to complain, go to complain to the terrorists. They're the reason we have to do all this stuff. Whether or not it's entirely effective, the fact is, if they weren't doing it, people would be complaining.

You don't want to show your ID? Fine. Get a job and buy a car. But stop complaining about your "right" to travel anonymously.

No-Reg Link

Um, guys, doesn't IPv6 require encryption? So as IPv6 is rolled out, and IPsec becomes the default way to go (certainly for business use), what exactly is the FCC-mandated access going to buy them?

Of course, with an administration opposed to science, it might be a small step to also oppose foundational technology like IPv6. But can they do that without creating a lot bigger fuss - what with that leaving our infrastructure open to terrorists and hackers, and impeding sale of already-engineered American products?

• Argentine Ants Invasion: Success Tied to Reduced Genetic Variation
• Supercolony of ants found (Europe; Mirrored articles: #1 and #2)
• Invading Ants Press United Front in California
• Argentine Ants Threaten Californian Horned Lizards
• It's the weather
• Giant mutant ant colony found in Australia (similar story.
• Might not be 'supercolony' after all: #1 and #2.

Actually, Wal Mart may be the only existing Megacorp that doesn't have some sort of hiden agenda(patents and stuff)... And the only one who don't think of getting more money from screwing customers, but instead aim for higher sales numbers...

they are MUCH better than a lot of corporation in the sense they don't charge the customer, but pressure the distribution and manifacturing level

Actually, Wal Mart may be the only existing Megacorp that doesn't have some sort of hiden agenda(patents and stuff)... And the only one who don't think of getting more money from screwing customers, but instead aim for higher sales numbers...

they are MUCH better than a lot of corporation in the sense they don't charge the customer, but pressure the distribution and manifacturing level

Actually, Wal Mart may be the only existing Megacorp that doesn't have some sort of hiden agenda(patents and stuff)... And the only one who don't think of getting more money from screwing customers, but instead aim for higher sales numbers...

they are MUCH better than a lot of corporation in the sense they don't charge the customer, but pressure the distribution and manifacturing level

Better systems for single-seat races are Approval or Condorcet (which you can find more about at ElectionMethods.org) and Proportional Representation would be great for Congress (our checks and balances work pretty well, so there's no need to move to a Parliamentary system). Another informative site (albeit somewhat confusing to navigate) is Accurate Democracy.

This is not something either party wants, so it will be a long, uphill battle. But neither party wanted campaign finance reform either, so enough popular support can get anything done (although 527s are bad, they're not as bad as soft money, and indeed, at least they help pull power away from the two big parties).

Reg-Free Link

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to? OSDN == Offshore Software Development NOW!!! Read how OSDN is helping to offshore American High-Tech to the Third World!

The number of jobs is always created at a faster rateaverage annual percentage growth) under Democratic Presidents then Republican Presidents

Here's another chart with the same data

You can get the raw BLS Establishment survey data here

The romance of the ocean isn't dead. If anything, it's just starting. In someways it was a little unfair to put these two articles together, since the implication for Alvin was all wrong. It's not being decommissioned, they have just announced plans to replace it.

Woods hole, the makers of Alvin, are buliding a new a sub that can go about 5,000ft deeper, which means that crews can access 99% of the ocean floor as opposed to ~68% they have accessable with Alvin. They are also building a ROV that descend the full length of the Marinara trench. Alvin still works great, but is just too old and cramped, and doesn't compare to the modern research subs operating out of Europe and Japan, which puts American researchers at a disadvantage. In fact, the operators of Alvin have not decided whether or not to decomission it. They might still decide to continue to run it after 2008 in the "shallow" waters that it accesses today in conjunction with the new submarine.

Plus, it's going to be bigger and roomier, one of the researchers compared it to "buying a new cadillac when you have a chevy in the garage."

Sounds like more of a new dawn than the death of oceanography to me. Of course, the Slashdot headline was mis-leading, but that's why we love it ;)

You can find more information here
and here

Some forms of basic research should be publicly funded because they have no inherent reward. For example, Research on Black Holes.

Research on stock markets, is a whole different kettle of fish. He who achieves a superior understanding of the operation of markets may choose the nature and amount of his reward. This type of research will be amply funded by the private sector, and it is. Every major bank employs a large staff of PhD's in Finance, Economics, Physics, and Math, to research these issues. They are handsomly paid and very well supported. (one of these banks is the biggest APL shop around).

Dr. Mandelbrodt's request that the SEC should use public money to fund research on markets shows that he does not understand the distinction between these types of research. The SEC should not use money as he proposed. The SEC should use money to help it discharge its fundamental duty, which is the protection of investors.

A couple of prominent recent examples are high pressure sales of investments to soldiers and selling non-tradeable real estate trust shares to retirees [the Wall Street journal Story was much better, but is on their subscription only site that I cannot hack]. When the SEC figures out how to spot these types of scams before the newspapers, which are reactive organisms too, then they can start worrying about esoterica like the underlying mathmatcal basis of markets. Of course, by then chickens will have lips.

Some forms of basic research should be publicly funded because they have no inherent reward. For example, Research on Black Holes.

Research on stock markets, is a whole different kettle of fish. He who achieves a superior understanding of the operation of markets may choose the nature and amount of his reward. This type of research will be amply funded by the private sector, and it is. Every major bank employs a large staff of PhD's in Finance, Economics, Physics, and Math, to research these issues. They are handsomly paid and very well supported. (one of these banks is the biggest APL shop around).

Dr. Mandelbrodt's request that the SEC should use public money to fund research on markets shows that he does not understand the distinction between these types of research. The SEC should not use money as he proposed. The SEC should use money to help it discharge its fundamental duty, which is the protection of investors.

A couple of prominent recent examples are high pressure sales of investments to soldiers and selling non-tradeable real estate trust shares to retirees [the Wall Street journal Story was much better, but is on their subscription only site that I cannot hack]. When the SEC figures out how to spot these types of scams before the newspapers, which are reactive organisms too, then they can start worrying about esoterica like the underlying mathmatcal basis of markets. Of course, by then chickens will have lips.

Some forms of basic research should be publicly funded because they have no inherent reward. For example, Research on Black Holes.

Research on stock markets, is a whole different kettle of fish. He who achieves a superior understanding of the operation of markets may choose the nature and amount of his reward. This type of research will be amply funded by the private sector, and it is. Every major bank employs a large staff of PhD's in Finance, Economics, Physics, and Math, to research these issues. They are handsomly paid and very well supported. (one of these banks is the biggest APL shop around).

Dr. Mandelbrodt's request that the SEC should use public money to fund research on markets shows that he does not understand the distinction between these types of research. The SEC should not use money as he proposed. The SEC should use money to help it discharge its fundamental duty, which is the protection of investors.

A couple of prominent recent examples are high pressure sales of investments to soldiers and selling non-tradeable real estate trust shares to retirees [the Wall Street journal Story was much better, but is on their subscription only site that I cannot hack]. When the SEC figures out how to spot these types of scams before the newspapers, which are reactive organisms too, then they can start worrying about esoterica like the underlying mathmatcal basis of markets. Of course, by then chickens will have lips.

There's a very good reason one is call rings and one is called belts. Look at the picture. Sure it's possible to have a radiation ring and a rock/ice belt, but that doesn't change the fact that a radiation belt was found.

link to the picture only:
http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/08/04/tec hnology/05disn.gif

OK, maybe it's just that I hang out with weirdos. However, most of the liberals I hang out with will oft breifly tune in to FoxNews to see what the conservatives are frothing about, and a right wing nut job who routinely checks the editorials page of the NYTimes web site for further proof of how stupid the biased liberal media is (are?).

It seems to me that, while they don't usually put in great effort to seek it out regularly, most people LIKE encountering the occaisional wildly opposite opinion, so as to confirm their bias that people who don't agree with them are "a load of useless bloody loonies!" Which means, that a news search site that occaisionally provide such a story in with any others, will have happier people and thus retain more traffic.

Of course, I am a loonie, so what do I know.

I notice that you currently own the name "slashdot.org". Our research shows you never trademarked this name.

Last week, I applied for a trademark on the terms "slashdot", "slashdot.org" and "slashdot.com" and these have been granted.