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I.M.F. Says U.S. Debts Threaten World Economy
" The International Monetary Fund Wednesday urged the Bush administration to develop a plan to balance the federal budget, saying tax cuts had given the economy only a modest lift, and warning that widening fiscal deficits held dangers for domestic and global growth."

I always thought the IMF warned countries like Argentina for their spending behavior.
My 2 cents,

http://www.bushin30seconds.org/view/01_large.shtml
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/view/06_large.shtml

don't forget new tactics like sites that won't display their content if you DON'T allow popups from their site; NY Times being an example of this type of behavior. I know, you can't have something for nothing, and they make money on their ads, but still, there should be some middle ground, otherwise it's just time to start blocking all URLs that server ads.

CB

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/19/technology/19eco m.html?ex=1389934800&en=5b1cf221151d8850&ei=5007&p artner=GOOGLE">its gonna get much worse

Beginning tomorrow, more than a dozen Web sites, including MSN, ESPN, Lycos and iVillage, will run full-motion video commercials from Pepsi, AT&T, Honda, Vonage and Warner Brothers, in a six-week test that some analysts and online executives say could herald the start of a new era of Internet advertising.

The new ad technology, from Unicast, an advertising company based in New York, invisibly loads the commercial while unwitting users read a Web page, then displays the ad across the entire browser area when users click to a new page. The resulting ad is identical to TV, whether the user has a high- or low-speed connection. The company says the technology evades pop-up blockers, but the person can skip the ad by clicking a box.

thanks, no need to remind me to add your servers to the Hostfile Project

William Smith doesn't have a forehead, he's got a fivehead!

• Amtrak Helps DEA Hunt Drug Couriers, Albuquerque Journal, April 11, 2001. (Ed.: link broken)
• Amtrak shares passenger info with DEA for drug prosecutions, Declan
  McCullagh's politechbot.com, April 11, 2001.
• Your Rights Online: Keeping DEA In The Loop About Amtrak Travelers, Slashdot, April 15, 2001.
• Amtrak 'Sharing' Information With D.E.A., New York Times, April 15, 2001 (registration required).

That way, people don't have to be worried about "loopholes" in privacy policies such as the one indicated in a NYT article on the same subject:

The company said in a statement: "Our privacy policy commits Northwest not to sell passenger information to third parties for marketing purposes. This situation was entirely different, as we were providing the data to a government agency to conduct specific scientific research related to aviation security and we were confident that the privacy of passenger information would be maintained."

According to for example Norwegian law, this transfer would be unlawful unless the data subjects consented to the transfer.

Here's a Google-partnered link to the referenced NYTimes artical.

It was expensive ($14B USD).

This kind of failed project makes me wonder about the health of China's economy in general. There's talk of an investment bubble in China right now with huge amounts of money going into projects that don't make a lot of sense. This maglev train seems like just one of many examples.

According to this NY Times article ...$200 million worth of instruments that had been built to be added in the later shuttle mission will also be left on the ground...

It also notes that a service mission costs around $500 million. If we have already invested 40% of the price of a service mission on parts we might want to consider actually using them.

However, just the shuttle mission alone is a $500m price tag, so I don't think it's fair to say that we're "only $40m away" from anything.

Your other point, about deorbiting Hubble, is addressed in the NYT story. Basically, with all future shuttle visits to Hubble ruled out, they have committed to designing and launching a special-purpose rocket that will latch onto Hubble and safely deorbit it (crashing into the Pacific).

A sad, sad day, all around.

-renard

An additional note from today's news:

Bypassing Congress, Bush Installs Judge on Federal Appeals Court

That's right. Bush bypassed Congress to install a federal appeal court judge (5th circuit). Doesn't that at least make you question the other circuit courts?

Not www.goatse.cx.

Google.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/15/opinion/15DAVI.h tml?ex=1074747600&en=60630c5edf30aefa&ei=5062&part ner=GOOGLE

The New York Times, for one... hardly a fan of Mr. Bush. (In fact, the headline last month said something about some aspect of the economy being the best in decades)

Heretic! Dubbya wants you to get married. Also, this money can help other geeks to find someone to get married with too, you insenitive clods...

As far as I know, no rental companies over here do this though.

We have 60 million people here, and 4 million CCTV cameras. We also have numberplate recognition systems operating on main routes into London as well as in some police cars (it looks at every car it sees and alerts the police driver if it sees a 'wanted' vehicle). We have the Official Secrets Act where you have FOIA. We have D-Notices to keep the press quiet, and our right to silence when under arrest was removed a few years ago.

Still, at least we have leader elected by millions of citizens rather than by nine judges :)

"...any more than your cheese with holes in it could flow down a funnel."

I bet it could flow down this funnel!

That's weird - simoniker slightly different headline but the rest of it is identical to the submitted post.

2004-01-14 21:33:38 It's Official: USA to the Moon and Mars by 2015 (articles,space) (rejected)

This afternoon George Bush announced space exploration plans for the USA to return to the Moon by 2015, the design and construction of a new space vehicle fleet by 2014 (called the Crew Exploration Vehicle) to replace the aging space shuttles which will be retired in 2010, and the construction of a permanent Moon base, followed by manned missions to Mars. The initiative begins with a $1 billion increase to NASA's budget and $12 billion in new space exploration money over next five years. However Congress is concerned about how to pay for the new space policy, initiative in the face of a $500 billion national budget deficit. AP via Yahoo has a Moon/Mars/space policy FAQ. NASA Chief Scientist/Astronaut Dr. John Grunsfeld will discuss U.S. Space Policy today at 5pm (ET) in an online chat. They want questions. More at NASA and the New York Times among others.

I know this comment may be somewhat OT but I had to add a comment. Anyone know what's going on with this? Maybe related to the many 500-class errors I've been getting lately?

And if a married couple goes up together NASA gets $1.5 billion more!

pulled off a flight recently because of wires sticking out of a motorcycle jacket?

NYtimes article (no reg required).

Wonder what they'd do to you if you were wearing one of these? Interrogation? Beatings? Electrodes on your nipples?

No wonder no one believes the US labor statistics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/business/12jobs. html

It makes you wonder what else they are lying about, other than unemployment and what weapons Iraq has. One statistic ripe for obfuscation is the amount of debt the Federal Government is carrying. We could be a lot closer to Argentian style meltdown than we think.

Good tip. :-) There is of course also the version for super lazy geeks. :-)

Here's the NYTimes artical for those that don't have a free NYT account:

Click here

Partner link for the NYT article.

It's technically a bit offtopic, but apparently MS was taken by surprise by the HP/Apple announcement, and wasn't able to put together a good spin quickly enough. The snip below is from a NY Times article:

Thursday the company appeared unprepared for the Apple-Hewlett agreement, which clearly stung Microsoft executives. They said the agreement would limit choice and harm consumers.

"Windows is about choice, you can mix and match all of this stuff," said David Fester, general manager of Microsoft's Windows digital media division. "We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services."

Priceless... :)

The N.Y. Times article that I read said the installation of the system cost $50,000 (according to the designer's approximation). So much for not too expensive. The article is here.

This apartment was also covered in a recent New York Times article entitled "Let There Be L.E.D.'s".

The article noted that the apartment's lighting system cost an estimated $50,000. That probably accounts for the lack of popularity of LEDs for home lighting.

An alternative to LEDs are Organic LEDs, a much cheaper, plastic-based technology. Unfortunately, they are not yet ready for prime time.

NYTimes had an article about this company on thursday here is the
Google link.

you mean this article I can't get without paying?

here is intels official site: Intel LCoS

The article in NYtimes made claims that this would produce sub 1000 dollar RPTVs by Christmas 04' I think this is a bit optimistic however it does bode well for us avgeeks.

LCoS is Liquid Crystal on Silicon. The best way to describe it would be a cross between DLP and LCD without the colorwheel and micromirrors of a DLP system.
I would also like to note that this technology has nothing to do with flat panel displays(LCD/Plasma)
More Links
Yahoo Article
CNET Article

I don't think they're LCD's, but something similar to DLP's. It was in the New York Times, but I haven't heard anything about it from the CES reports yet, and the Times article is no longer available on the web. Too bad...can't wait to hear about it.

> What I am saying is that one shouldn't accept such
> a disfunctional signal-to-noise ratio. I teach
> comp at the University of Michigan, so I am saying
> this from deep within the jungle. 90% (or more) of
> what is talked about in the humanities could
> qualify as grade-a crap. That scares me. I think
> something needs to be done.

I think nothing needs to be done, because this type of literary criticism 'theory' is rapidly going out of vogue. The fashion has to eventually implode sometime.

See Theory Is Finished" in the NY Times 'The Year In Ideas' feature.

This time last year at least 3-4 A list games had been announched. There was Zelda on the horizon, FFX2 was starting to rear its ugly head, Knights of the Old republic, I mean hell, its was a unavoidable release orgy. By March I was budgetting 3-400$ just for games as presents there were 5 months away. I don't want to know what I spent on myself.

Now we have (supposedly) FF12 and (probably) GTA5. Thats about it. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot Crystal Chronicles.

GTA5 hasn't officially been announced yet, and given some of the troubles take two is facing, GTA5 could face delays in the making. Or at least in release, so its not going to pull a night trap or something.

Myself, I want to see Nintendo get off its ass and start making more BroadBand enabled games. Crystal Chronicles is cool and all, but finding 4 friends to play a RPG for X # of hours is going to be a hurdle I might not clear.

Oh and BTW we'll find them WMD 3Q2004

Really? How are they going to do that, seeing as how they're withdrawing the military units responsible for finding WMD?

Oh, nevermind, I forgot that the Bush cabal is always justified in its actions, and never, ever wrong.

Move along, citizen.

Why yes, that is the sound of my eyes rolling.

In other news... the International Monetary Fund released a report yesterday that said U.S. deficits are threatening the world economy. They are worried that the unprecedented massive deficits and trade imbalances may cause the dollar to undergo a "disorderly plunge". Which makes this talk of space trips seem a little surreal.

A rat done bit my sister Nell with Dubya on the moon.
Her face and arms began to swell and Dubya's on the moon.
I can't pay no doctor bills but Dubya's on the moon.
Ten years from now I'll be paying still while Dubya's on the moon.

From the New York Times :

In November, the last month with government figures available, unemployment in the former East Germany averaged 17.4 percent, more than double the 8.1 percent rate in the former West Germany. In the town of Forst, however, unemployment rose to 22.5 percent, up from 20.9 percent a year earlier.

So our unemployment the last time I checked was around 5% or so. In the former East Germany almost 1 out of every 4 people is unemployed.

I think things are going to get a lot worse for us before they get better. The only problem I have with this is that unlike Europe, we do not have the extensive social programs that they do and as a result we are going to bleed alot more than they do.

clever criminals don't get caught so you don't hear about them

Are you prepared to say that, as long as it saves the employer costs, then outsourcing every non-on-site-req'd job is a net good? Have you considered that technology, by enabling doing this, has undermined an assumption or two supporting free trade?

Read this (if it fails hit refresh). I've skimmed alot of /. discussions on the topic and read all the recent NY Times op-eds pieces on the subject and this info was new to me.

Why is it that when scientists need a medium-large object to compare with the size of a rock, it is always "the size of a Volkswagen"? It's even worse than using football-fields to measure distance.

However, if they get these mini-iPods at a price point of around $120-150, they will crush the competition because of what the competition is selling pricewise.

Seriously. Everybody is talking about how Apple is used to having a large margin, but if you corner the market like this and sell 10 million worldwide (hell at ~$125 you could sell 10 million is the US alone after a couple years) while still making maybe $20 dollars per unit, that $200 million dollars profit that Apple was not making before.

Take away even 20% of sales from people who would have bought more expensive iPods, and that's still $160 million dollars profit.

Consider that Apple probably made $30+ Million and a ~5% gross income/net profit last year, they could raise profits by 25%. That's an easy easy decision by Jobs. Maybe 10 million is too much to conjecture on, but they would sell a lot of them.

See Stephen Pelletiere's Op-Ed article from the New York Times on 31 January, 2003 A War Crime or an Act of War:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60 816FC3D5C0C728FDDA80894DB404482

An excerpt: "This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target. And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle, the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas. The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent -- that is, a cyanide-based gas -- which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time. These facts have long been in the public domain but, extraordinarily, as often as the Halabja affair is cited, they are rarely mentioned. A much-discussed article in The New Yorker last March did not make reference to the Defense Intelligence Agency report or consider that Iranian gas might have killed the Kurds. On the rare occasions the report is brought up, there is usually speculation, with no proof, that it was skewed out of American political favoritism toward Iraq in its war against Iran."

I was going to post a comment on this very question. If they are unlicensed, is it not possible to ask the chains to stop selling them or sue them?

Take a look at the licensing website of philips. There are 76 licensees of dvd players in china.
Would it not be easy to spot the licensed and unlicensed players from their price difference itself?
Take a look at this article-nytimes.

Try this link. However, for what it's worth, the editorial can be summarised to "Congress' new law won't work. Won't somebody think of the children!"

for the tin-foil hat crowd, posted AC to avoid Karma-whoring, here.

click here for google link

Why can't people just do this by default? It took me 2 seconds to find...

Here is the NYTimes Google Affiliate link, for those who don't want to register.

No need for the karma, I'm just glad I can help the Slashdot community!

Our brainy heroine and penguin loving paralegal babe, PJ at Groklaw, posted an article covering some New Year's trend spotting. Some of the goodies:

1. Invester's Business Daily makes up its Top 10 Tech Stories of the year without mentioning Microsoft in any context.

2. A speculation comes from Chris Gulker in an IT Managers Journal article that Microsoft will introduce an MSLinux when Longhorn turns out to be unsellable. (Good thing or bad thing? I think good, if it happened.)

3. The example of Smart Displays, where per-user licensing inhibits even Microsoft's innovation, as cited in a Register article:

"The final nail in its coffin was Microsoft's absurd decision to kow-tow to the tin god of its licensing agreements. If you took your smart display downstairs, nobody in the den with the computer could use it. Single user licence, repeated Microsoft marketing droids. 'We can't compromise our standard licensing policy."

4. From the counter example of what can be, in the MagicBike project of the Parsons School of Design, PJ muses: "The idea is, when everyone gets to play, innovation is the result. Innovation doesn't come from money or walled-in projects, although money can help implement ideas. Innovation comes from people, and as George Bernard Shaw once pointed out, talent can show up simply anywhere, where you least expect it. The lower the barrier to entry, the more likely you are to get wonderful ideas. It's one reason I keep it possible to leave anonymous comments on Groklaw, despite the down side to that."

5. Vince Cerf's vision of the ubiquitous net is cited, reaching even to other planets.

PJ concludes: "Yes, [Microsoft] must adapt in order to be part of the future. I think it's a given that no one wants a wireless product that can only legally connect to one PC predetermined during setup. Not after somebody sent the mayor an email from a bike in Union Square station in NYC. Or even read about it. Once you have the concept and you see what is possible, you know what you know, and Brand X doesn't work for you after that. Like the song says, there's nothing like the real thing."

I know most of these points have been previously featured on /., but I like the compilation of them as a converging threat to Microsoft's paradigms that may cause significant rethinking in 2004.

Besides, I think I have a crush on PJ... :-)