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To avoid kidney donation to NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/technology/circu its/08cell.html?ex=1082001600&en=348516b568cf570e& ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Can't believe I forgot to link the manufacturer's web site in my post! Here it is again:

The NYT article (available here reg-free (thanks, guys!)) is short on details, but the manufacturer's web site has much more detail.

Some interesting notes:

* Their technology currently only works on GSM phones, so here in the US, it'll only block T-Mobile customers. No more Catherine Zeta-Jones hollering "Stop!" in the middle of your bowling tournament. I hate it when that happens.

* The company is Canada-based, so they're outside the reach of Ashcroft & co. The NYT article quotes the company's founder as saying that the technology is useful in mosques... if the founder is indeed Muslim, he's probably wary of landing on Ashcroft's little Enemies List. Heck, I'm worried myself, 'cause I'm not sure what he thinks of Methodists these days!

The NYT article (available here reg-free (thanks, guys!)) is short on details, but the manufacturer's web site has much more detail.

Some interesting notes:

* Their technology currently only works on GSM phones, so here in the US, it'll only block T-Mobile customers. No more Catherine Zeta-Jones hollering "Stop!" in the middle of your bowling tournament. I hate it when that happens.

* The company is Canada-based, so they're outside the reach of Ashcroft & co. The NYT article quotes the company's founder as saying that the technology is useful in mosques... if the founder is indeed Muslim, he's probably wary of landing on Ashcroft's little Enemies List. Heck, I'm worried myself, 'cause I'm not sure what he thinks of Methodists these days!

In Soviet Russia, link follows you!

But not by invasion. Saddam was a problem because he could jerk around the price of oil by posturing, he was trying to be a rallying point and inspiration for Muslim anti-Western sentiments, and he was funding terrorism against one of our allies (Israel). Even if he hadn't been bluffing about WMD (I think he assumed that sowing doubt about whether he had them or not would make an invasion look too costly), he wasn't a military threat to the U.S., or even any of his neighbors.

Game it out. He was doing pretty well where he was (though Iraq's general populace of course was not); if he'd attacked a neighbor, it would have been Gulf War II with a real coalition and his neighbors footing the bill for most of it. If he'd attacked Israel in earnest, I think they might well have nuked him. Attack the U.S. directly? It is to laugh.

What about supplying terrorists with WMD? First, of course, he didn't have them, but let's assume for the sake of discussion that the top Bushies really thought he did. Game that out from Saddam's perspective. Let's say he hands over some kind of Anthrax or poison gas to a terrorist group, and they actually use it on the U.S.

What if it's traced back to him? No matter how careful he is, there's a significant chance of this. At that point, the U.S. goes in, guns blazing, with actual international support, or at least not active opposition.

Saddam's best course of action was to maintain the status quo as an irritant. And he might be a ruthless, evil SOB, but he's not stupid. He knew that.

I think Bush (or at least some of the people in Bush's cabinet) understood this. But they wanted to invade anyway (they have for a long time), and they jumped on the 9/11 thing as a good excuse. Now we have an actual war (not just a rhetorical 'war' on terror) on two fronts (remember Afghanistan? Bush forgot...) , international scorn, and we're bleeding billions into maintaining this effort while the economy is, at best, stagnant.

It just stuns me that anyone is actually going to vote for this schmuck...

Well, almost no impact. According to a new study, "downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero". Monday's NYTimes (free registration) describes the study, in which two economists analyzed file-sharing and sales data over a 17-week period in 2002, using "complex mathematical formulas" to determine that "spikes in downloading had almost no discernible effect on sales", and estimating that "it would take 5000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one copy". Naturally, some organizations disagree. Also, according to the RIAA's 2003 year end numbers [PDF], sales of CD singles were up 84% from 2002, while overall revenue shrunk from $11.55 to $11.05 billion... which makes perfect sense when you consider economic tendencies since 9/11.

News of the Harvard study which seemed to rule out piracy as a economic factor was carried earlier on Slashdot, but even the NY Times picked it up.

NYTimes article TechnologyReview article

No reg link

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/06/science/06MATH.h tml regfree link

How about this: a Google partner link to the story - no registration required.

The article calls it "the Navy's ship", but it's leased from an Australian shipbuilder for $21M. Per year? With the Navy, more like per mile, nautical or otherwise. And why does the US government not just buy it, rather than assume the cost of financing? Is it corporate welfare, or more Bollinger pork? Yet another tax cheat? Or just a worthwhile diversion of money to offshore allies in Iraq War Jr, while bankrupting American promises to "support our troops"? Maybe Halliburton's got an Australian shipyard to catch some of the bankrupt US Treasury money that somehow escapes the Iraqmire...

Also remember the trucks that were found which were a portable chemical lab?

Um, you are aware that even Colin Powell has admitted that those trucks weren't mobile weapons labs, yes?

Heres another link about the barrels of 'pesticide' with better pictures in case you forgot. Any readers out there please explain one thing: why is this in the middle of the desert with no agriculture for miles around? the only reason i can think of is it was the ingredients for some weapons. it certainly wasnt going to kill aphids in the middle of the desert with no farmland anywhere near... It may possibly be hidden underground to keep it out of the hot desert sun, but i cannot figure out why you would keep pesticide so far away from any area it could possibly be used in a legit way.

which is why I'm glad there was a $1.5 million settlement against Taco Bell last year. What if the jury only awarded what was taken? Then companies would just keep doing it and consider the lawsuits just part of doing business.

Instead they should make every lawsuit worth at least 10,000 times more than the money taken. That should make other companies think twice about stealing from employees.

This story is a great example of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

More coverage (copied from USF site):
NY Times,
C|Net,
San Jose Business Journal,
NPR,
UK PC Pro
USF News

Here's a link that should work for everybody: Linky

Here's a better link. Ads suck.

brought to you by google
linky linky

Heh, I just posted the non-registation link.

Here's a non-account link to the article. Robo-Cars Make Cruise Control So Last Century

And the text of a Times article from last September, here. Looks like there's been a mechanical garage working in Hoboken since at least back then.

Here is why I carry a gaming laptop. mmmmmm, mmorg.

but if I were a teen today I don't think my parents would buy me a $3199 laptop for playing games. linky

Yeah, this is probably off-topic... (Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn! Meshugganah brats... *grumble*)

PS If your kid is saying "It works as good as a normal computer" perhaps games shouldn't be a priority. I'm just sayin'.

Here's the next step. So very cyberpunk, isn't it?

====---====

The NY Times Tom Friedman has written many articles arguing a similar point.

Actually for a few minutes I thought it was a joke also.

However:

It was originally posted on March 31, not April 1.

The original article linked to an NY Times article (Also dated 3/31). Somehow I doubt the NY Times posts many April Fool Jokes.

With Google coming out with a later press release stressing that the mail service is not a joke, they would end up losing a lot of credibility and have user backlash if it turns out to be a hoax.

Call me a fool if you want, but I can't wait to sign up for the service.

NYTimes -- via CNET -- published the story on March 31, though, and explicity mentions 1GB storage.

It's also on The New York Times' website.

Is that John Markoff fell for it

Here is a link to the article that doesn't require registration.

No, here :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/technology/29guy .html?ex=1081227600&en=c35258cb827360be&ei=5062&pa rtner=AL_QUEDA

Article

...can be found here.

But are the people responsible for slashdot's content responsible for its bandwidth bill?

I believe they are, or were, at one point. OSDN may pay the bandwidth fees now. I remember reading an article about it in NY Times. It's in the archive now, though.

Still, keeping costs low for their owners is a good thing for them to do.

I'm sure the UN will handle domain names as skillfully and impartially as they handled the Iraqi oil-for-food program.

How about this: George Walker Bush is an asshole who should be fired immediately, who never should have been appointed President. You, Anonymous Coward, are too childish to notice the facts and logic when someone calls an asshole an asshole, while documenting his atrocious behavior. Don't ask me to be nice when he's killing people every day, while robbing the survivors of liberty, economy and dignity. Oh, and you get one too: Even people who like Dubya call him "Junior". Only a twit would get hung up on the nickname his own father called him, Dubya, in a debate about life, death, and American National Security.

No, you can't see beyond your own projected racism to understand that your strawman lies are about Jews, when you hide behind the lie about their somehow "controlling everything". Nor do the Saudis, among the greatest opressors of Arabs, unless you're talking about their control of BushCo. You don't really understand racism, so you jump at the chance to libel someone with the charge, even when it's totally inappropriate.

Don't give me that weasel crap about the bin Laden's family being so large - Osama's immediate family was on those flights out, while thousands of Americans, Arab and otherwise, were stranded without a direct line to their "public servants".

We'll just have to disagree that propping up the Saudis at every turn, propping up Saddam while convenient, creating bin Laden's Afghani mujahideen and turning them loose, backing the murder twins Sharon and Arafat with politics, money and weapons, the Iran part of the Contras and their Hezbollah front, ignoring Syria's Hamas war on Israel and subjugation of Lebanon - the snakepit is bottomless - is demented.

The WMD Rumsfeld sold to Iraq during the Reagan/Bush 1980s were 1st used up on Kurds, then destroyed during the ongoing Clinton war putting teeth into the UN inspection regime. They count against your specious argument that your BushCo boys somehow protects us from them, while peddling them, but they don't count towards invading Iraq, because by then they didn't exist. It is only you who's both sucking and blowing on WMDs (and Cheney - nice company you keep there, AC). They hid the WMDs, and my foot tapping is keeping you safe from tigers. Send me a check when you get a chance, true believer.

As I mentioned elsewhere, even people who like Dubya call him "Junior". You're lagging behind your own old-boy network.

If you don't call countless missiles fired at Iraqi forces in the 1990s agressive, enforcing actual UN resolutions, with actual results in containing and disarming Iraq, then you should march right to the front lines in Iraq, where the passive "nation building" is chewing up hundreds of Americans, thousands of Iraqis, all while Junior's war is "over". You'll be just as safe as the Iraqis were under Clinton.

WHERE ARE THE WMDS? Your lies ring so hollow, you should be embarrassed by now. Except of course you don't really care about WMDs, you're just a shameless warmonger whose fix is threatened.

Your Blix/German/Nazi comment is beneath contempt. Take off the tinfoil hat and try catching up with civilization, which abhors war, especially now that we've all had a taste of it.

You can only deny that BushCo was fixed on invading Iraq if you're totally out of touch, or just lying to convince yourself. Al Qaeda attacked us, Bush used it as a pretext to attack Iraq, and now everybody is screwed. When the Spanish tried that crap with their ETA enemies last week, they got what Bush has coming to him, minus the treason charges. The PNAC thirst for a Pearl Harbor event to justify the invasion of Iraq is documented in their own published blueprints, and they brutally followed their own scripts when their own ignorance of their own intelligence bore al Qaeda fruit. All this is documented by the evildoers themselves - nobody buys your childish cries of denial. And your impugning the bias of the documentation of Rice's lies about Clarke is the same useless character assassination Rice herself is fumbling. The self-contradictory quotes and disproving evidence speaks for themselves. Now relax your grip on that flag you're wrapped in, and get with the program, as we flush the parasites from the White House, and get a regime that protects America from our enemies. Or keep saluting the scoundrels and contributing to your own selfdestruction.

Non-reg link: here

'there is no "Bush Jr". However, since you love to lie about him, you probably do not know that.'

Even people who like Dubya call him "Junior".

I do. The Related Links slashbox has a link (and a previous slashdotter has this one) that portray him as more interested in Technology than the average **AA pawn that chases 12 year old downloaders with reckless abandon.

As the article mentions, this bill is aimed at people sharing 2,500 or more pieces of content," or "distributes content that hasn't been released in wide distribution .

I was also encouraged by the remarks on Leahy's site. Under current law, the Attorney General can only bring criminal copyright cases, which can be difficult to prosecute because, . . . The Leahy-Hatch bill would allow the Attorney General to file civil claims that could include damages and restitution without criminal penalties.

Seems like this is a good thing - taking the jail sentance out of p2p cases that don't warrant them.

I am from Vermont, and thus am biased towards the only Democrat elected by that state ever, but a glance at his Current Legislation doesn't give me reason to change that yet.

What little faith I had in the US Government is now completely shattered. I expect this out of Hatch, that SOB authored the DMCA, but Leahy!?! Every time I see his name pop up on Slashdot, he's doing something right. I thank $DEITY that there is someone up there on the hill that actually has a clue. Back during the Napster hearings he said,

This could be a brilliant 19-year-old in a college dorm figuring out Gnutella or some like it. You can't stop it. You couldn't stop it even if you wanted to. What we need to do, I think, is make sure copyrights and patent laws actually reflect the new reality.

But that's all gone now. Apparently he's had a change of heart in the past few years. Now, instead of likening P2P to the VCR, he sees 60 million Americans as a gigantic cartel.

The very ease of duplication and distribution that is the hallmark of digital content has meant that piracy of that content is just as easy. The very real - and often realized - threat that creative works will simply be duplicated and distributed freely online has restricted, rather than enhanced, the amount and variety of creative works one can receive over the Internet.

Without reading the text of the act, I can only speculate... but it appears that he is willing to hand the RIAA keys to a bottomless warchest to aid in their crusade against little girls. Until now I had a great deal of respect for the man. Seeing him 'turn to the dark side' is causing my faith in the system to go from shaken to crumbling. If Leahy bows to them, then who's left up there to speak for us?

Sir, your emotional rant has induced me to inform the public on the falsehood of your statements. While I do not want to change YOUR opinions, I can not allow these OPINIONS to be propagated as FACTS. As follows:

And if they weren't trying to remove israel from the face of the Earth,

If israeli settlers weren't trying to remove palestinians from THEIR land:

Total settler population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip:
1972: 1,500
1983: 29,090
1992: 109,784
2001: 213,672

Total settler population in East Jerusalem:
1972: 6,900
1992: 141,000
2000: 170,400

which is well documented by JEWISH human rights organizations:
The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
settlers, whom even JEWS want to pull out:
Brit Tzedek v'Shalom - Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace - for the sake of Israel's security, bring the settlers home
settlers, who sometimes aren't even Semites:
(When a delegation of rabbis travelled to Lima to convert a group of South American Indians to Judaism, they added just one condition: come and live with us in Israel. As soon as these new Jews arrived in the country, they were bussed straight to settlements in the disputed territories. )

* * * * * * *
they would be welcome to participate in the economic, social, and political makeup of the society at large...

such a change of policy is highly questionable. the opposite is taking place right now:

While the settlers benefit from an unlimited quantity of running water - including filling swimming pools and watering lawns, the Palestinian towns and villages suffer a severe shortage of running water, even for drinking and bathing.

Ever heard of Nuremberg Laws? Israeli Parliament votes to block Palestinians who marry Israelis from becoming Israeli citizens or residents,[...] supporters of bill call it necessary bulwark against infiltration by terrorists, as well as way to preserve Israel's Jewish majority; opponents call it racist measure

Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions - Israel Destroys Palestinian Infrastructure

* * * * * * *
Can't embrace my brother if he chooses to kill me and my people to get his political message across...

let us compare who is killing whom:
In the Palestinian terrorist attacks, about 920 Israelis were killed (up to 2.1.2004), and 4,400 were wounded (source: Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs). [...]
Following statistics of the Palestine Red Crescent Society 2,417 Palestinians were killed and 22,233 were wounded from September 29, 2000, to August 1, 2003, due to the Israeli military operations.

* * * * * * *
Better to contain and kill the MF'ers...
in the ghetto?

* * * * * * *
(In regard to removing Israel from the face of the earth, that's their STATED GOAL my friends. TAUGHT to SCHOOL CHILDREN!)

i can not verify what is beeing taught in schools, because I have never been there. have you? OTOH i can tell for sure what the Israeli public is discussing.

well, Israel is considering removing of all Palestinians into Jordan. In other countries this is called ETHNIC CLEANSING.
( King Abdullah has rejected the idea of permanently settling Palestinians outside their

Tim

The US has a long history using it's combined power of trade, diplomacy and intelligence/espionage to further it's goals and the goals of it's private corporation.

(Disclaimer: links below are from various Google searches and are there to give context. They do not necessarily express my views, or even agree with me.)

Echeleon was used in corporate espionage to benefit private US corporation, to the detriment of corporations from US allies.

The US complained to the WTO about the EU policy of banning genetically modified foods. The issue is not yet fully resolved, but looks like the EU must eventually let GM-foods in. US companies are very strong in GM-foods and gene technology in general.

The US (and the EU, Japan and others) oppose a developing nation's right the apply protectionistic economic policies. That's, IMHO, what's really behind the Cancun failure and the Singapore issues (PDF). It's also two-faced, disgusting and imperialistic as about anything in the world today.

The US is using strongarm tactics in exporting it's brand of copyright laws.

The US has by no means limited it's interference to humans rights or other laudable goals. To suggest so it at best naive, but maybe "willfully ignorant to the point of being harmful to the world around" would be closer.

--Flam

I think we all know who the real bad guy is. But this guy was asking for it. On the bright side, perhaps we will get some kind of ruling out of this to clarify the keylogger-wiretap legal grey area. Related Article

What you are referring to is enforceability of those laws. True, the US may not be able to enforce its laws against those resident in other countries who do not have presence or assets in the USA.

But it means anyone connected with such an operation better not have assets in the US. Or even visit the US.

And, depending on how the law is drafted, perhaps no person in the US (or with assets there) better use such an operation to *send* spam, or face being prosecuted, or other consequences. Vide internet gambling.

So that US laws, alone, could stop (a) American spammers; and (b) anyone in or doing business with America or visiting America or with assets there (NYSE shares, anyone?) from *using* overseas spammers who do not comply with US law.

And for those that are left, the US can just lean on other countries to enact similar laws, either as part of international treaties (GATT and TRIPS, anyone?) or bilateral trade treaties, or just by leaning on them.

Methinks that would do a great deal to cut down on spam...

If you doubt this, see how effectively the US is able to export its copyright laws to other countries. Or Sarbanes-Oxley, as applied to foreign lawyers or accountants. And how it is now doing the same thing with bank secrecy laws (with an emphasis on terrorism; it has done the same previously with respect to evasion of US taxes). There are many relevant links.

Again, NO. Read a more informative version of the article, like the one at the NY Times. Free registration required for more accurate reporting. :)

They already went down that path. The result (or lack thereof) was what prompted MS to dump all the money into their own search technology in the first place. Much like Ford did to Ferrari in the 60's, MS is hoping to out spend Google (which they'll probably succeed in doing).