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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/21/technology/21NIN T.html?ex=1033444800&en=c4f426ba46654ccb&ei=5062&p artner=GOOGLE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/21/t echnology/21DOMA.html?ex=1033444800&en=6801004e6a7 e4479&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Asscroft: However, if you throw one or two armed and trained undercover sky marshals on every flight you'd actually do a lot more to counter real threats of safety,
That's what YOU think. Read this Op-Ed in today's NY Times.

I joined Netflix, one of the first of the DVD rental mailer companies, a long time ago and like it a lot. I was interested, then, to read a rough calculation that, in terms of 190,000 MPEG-2 format DVDs, Netflix's daily bandwidth totals 1.5 TB. This is a sizable fraction of the current total estimated Internet daily bandwidth: somewhere between 2-4 TB. Of course, Peter Wayner's calculations do not allow for the online delivery of movies in more compression-efficient formats, such as the MPEG-4-derived DIVX, where a typical 4-7 GB DVD can be reduced to around 700 MB with minimal quality loss.

I guess the CD manufacturers also thought they were safe, when a typical CD occupied 700MB of data in an era of mainly dialup connections. Then along came MP3 with its one-tenth compression ratio and so much for that idea. Netflix's current success is a temporary artifact of our restricted bandwidth and lack of suitable MPEG-4 hardware players.

And I found out from some surfing that some Netflix competitors, such as CafeDVD, QwikFlicks, and DVD Avenue, are cheaper and offer porn, something Netflix avoids.

As NYTimes allows Google News to link directly to its articles (no registration)... Here you go.

The New York Times has a story claiming that Netflix ships almost as much information as the Internet does. (1500 terabytes versus 2000-4000 terabytes.) So who needs wired broadband?

Some sites (typically newspapers) charge for historical research/reproduction of articles. So it's free and searchable for a month or two, but then you have to pay for the results of the search. For info on the NY Times archiving you can click here and for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News you can look here.
If you start interfering with their cash flow, you might be hearing from them.
Funny enough, this stuff is still free in a library.

If it gets past the DMCA, I'm sure the "clean" movies crowd (CleanCut Cinemas and MyCleanFlicks to name a few) will love this. There was an excellent article in the New York Times Online (free subscription required, blah-de-blah) last Thursday discussing such things.

Like all cool things, really scary too.

--j

If it gets past the DMCA, I'm sure the "clean" movies crowd (CleanCut Cinemas and MyCleanFlicks to name a few) will love this. There was an excellent article in the New York Times Online (free subscription required, blah-de-blah) last Thursday discussing such things.

Like all cool things, really scary too.

--j

You can now:

Michelob Ultra.

"Michelob Ultra is a smooth, refreshing lager with 96 calories, 4.1 percent alcohol by volume and 2.9 grams of carbohydrates per 12-oz. serving."

And personal note: I've been on Atkins for two months (since the Atkins NYT Article previously discussed here) and have lost 25 pounds as of today. No ill effects. And for the first diet in my life, I haven't felt "starved" or "deprived" once.

Boy, if only they had put this much criticism into the so-called "Food Pyramid" which doesn't make one whit of distinction between a slice of white bread and a slice of whole-grain, maybe we wouldn't be in this ****ing mess.

Of course there isn't any correlation between our governments lack of intervention in this scientific experimental disaster in which our populace played the part of the guinea pig and the fact that carbohydrates are dirt-cheap to manufacture and have the largest markup. We all know that our politicans are honest and would never, ever vote anything but their conscience no matter how much money you threw at them.

Looked at the price of a box of cerial lately?

If the low-carb craze wasn't pushed through (the sortid details are outlined in the original NYT article) by a lot of money provided by those who stood to gain, it sure as hell was kept there by it.

Frankly, I know the right way to eat. Just look at any bodybuilder. No, I'm not suggesting that you should want to look like one, but Jesus, if anyone knows how to eat properly, find one and ask, it's no secret. Skinless chicken, baked potatoes with the skin still on, brown rice. Lather, rinse, repeat. Doesn't mean you have to be this extreme, but there is your foundation. Eliminate soda from your diet alone and you'll probably lose all the weight you want.

And yes, I'm on the Atkins diet. Why?

First, I believe that when you eliminate fats, you throw out the good as well as the bad. Actually, that's certain.

Second, I have no gastrointestinal problems, ever. I had a pretty hard stomach to begin with, but it could be upset and to be blunt, zero gas now. None.

Third, no sugar swings. This means I don't crash mid-day or ever, for that matter. I get hungry but it's more of an "oh, I'm hungry" sort of thing as opposed to "dear god I can't even think unless I get something to eat." I eat whenever I'm hungry and sometimes that is 2x a day (my meals are about 400 calories each) and sometimes it's 5x a day.

No, I don't have constipation, though I don't doubt that some do. No, I don't smell funny, or at least the girlfriend has never thought so. Anyway, I'm rambling now.

Does it help people lose weight? Of course it does. If you cannot eat bread, bagels, cake, cookies, ice cream, candy, crackers, muffins, sugary soft drinks, pasta, rice, most fruits and many vegetables, you will almost certainly consume fewer calories. Any diet will result in weight loss if it eliminates calories that previously were overconsumed.

I eat just as much on the atkins diet as I did before it, if not more. Now instead of consuming calories from carbohydrates, I get them from fat and protein. Fat is much denser in calories than carbohydrates are, unless you're talking about pure sugar.

And hey, what the hell does this paragraph say?

But in a major report last week, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies emphasized the importance of balance of nutrients, with carbohydrates -- starches and sugars -- making up 45 percent to and 65 percent of daily calories and fats, 20 percent to 35 percent. The panel of 21 scientists also urged Americans to keep as low as possible their consumption of saturated fats, the foods Dr. Atkins recommends as his diet's main components.

"...with carbohydrates -- starches and sugars -- making up 45 percent to and 65 percent of daily calories and fats, 20 percent to 35 percent." Nice ringrish there, sister. I've tried and tried to decipher what this is supposed to say. Does this mean that carbs make up 45 to 65 percent of your ideal diet, and fats should be 20 to 35 percent? Why the spurious "and"? For that matter, the first occurence of "percent" is unnecessary.

That's not an inaccuracy of fact, it's just an occurrect of stupidity.

One question I'd like to see answered is how long anyone can stay on such a scheme and what happens when you start adding back some of the wholesome foods limited or forbidden on this diet, like sweet corn, grapes, watermelons, potatoes, carrots, beets or oatmeal.

The answer: Forever. Some people have been on this diet all their lives, healthily. It's used to control seizures. Do some research before you write an article for the New York Times.

Second, what makes you say those foods are so wholesome? Sweet corn is laden with sugar, hence the sweetness. Watermelons are little more than water and sugar. Potatoes are a ton of ready carbs, they're white starch; All of those carbs hit your bloodstream at the same time and get turned into glucose very rapidly.

What is surprising is that after three decades of simmering and soaring popularity, the Atkins diet has yet to be tested for long-term safety and effectiveness.

What's surprising is that people in countries who ate this way in the first place didn't convince you. A dramatically better article (and not coincidentally one I agree with), What if it's all been a big fat lie? (Also in the NYT, free reg. req. etc) points out that people in Italy and the Carribean who ate a lot of starch (classically) tended towards obesity, and other people (who generally ate meat and veggies) did not. Seems simple to me. Being fat is unhealthy.

Dr. Abby Block, nutritionist at the foundation, said studies of the Atkins diet lasting six months to a year and extensive clinical experience, have shown consistent improvements in blood lipids and glucose levels, suggesting that the diet can improve health despite its high levels of saturated fats and cholesterol, long associated with heart disease risks.

Why hasn't the government tested it? One possible reason is that it is unlikely to be approved by any review committee, given what is known about the effects of animal fats and cholesterol on the risk of heart disease, strokes and some cancers, as well as accumulating evidence that diets rich in fruits and vegetables and moderate in protein and fat can prevent diseases like high blood pressure, prostate cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

"high levels of saturated fats and cholesterol, long associated with heart disease risks."? Let's talk about how high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol became associated with heart disease risks. As per the NYT article I cite above, the last time the government spent our money studying fat, they spend several hundred million dollars trying to prove a link between fat/cholesterol intake and heart disease. They managed to prove only that treating cholesterol with drugs lowered the risk of heart failure. THAT'S IT. From that we got the food pyramid, which puts carbohydrates at the base. Eating tons of ready carbs means your insulin level spikes, and that's hard on the pancreas. And any time insulin levels are above a certain point, you store unused carbohydrates as FAT. You don't have to eat any fat whatsoever to get fat, which I think we all agree is unhealthy.

So in other words, the US government is the last group I'd trust to do a study like that. Last time they tried to prove a link between cholesterol and heart disease, they pushed a bunch of carbs on us and may very well be responsible for early onset diabetes and the american obesity epidemic.

The Atkins diet is shy on several vital nutrients, including the B vitamins and vitamins A, C and D, antioxidants that slow the effects of aging, and calcium. And, a diet rich in animal protein can draw calcium from the bones, increasing the risk of osteoporosis and hip fractures.

Wow, it sure is a good thing that "they" invented vitamin supplements. Otherwise that might be a real problem, eh?

When nutrition experts began urging Americans to cut back on fats, many filled in by eating more carbohydrates -- a lot more than anyone recommended. Food producers jumped on the bandwagon to produce low-fat snacks and desserts, and Americans went hog wild, eating as much of them as they wanted.

You know, that's what we were told to do. The government as much as told us that it was fat that made you fat, and we responded by eating carbs. Anything with "low fat" on it sold like, er, hotcakes. Which are made out of refined flour, which is the same as sugar once you have digested it.

Dr. Denke concurred: "No matter what anyone tells you, it's calories that count. Carefully controlled metabolic studies show that it doesn't matter where extra calories come from. Eat more calories than you expend and you'll gain weight."

This is horseshit too. While you are in ketosis, you do not store fat. When you have unburned fat, you remove it from your body by an ancient process known today (medically) as a bowel movement. You don't gain it as weight.

Hence the Atkins diet makes it completely unimportant to count your calories, except to make sure you have enough. As long as you don't eat carbs, your insulin level stays low, which means you don't leave the state of ketosis. Ketosis also has benefits to health, including slowing the rate of lean muscle loss. Furthermore, as I alluded to above, the reduced glucose levels inhibit stroke activity, and the reduced load on the pancreas dramatically reduces the risk of diabetes.

Mankind did not evolve to eat carbohydrates in any significant quantity. We grew up eating meat, vegetable-type plants which are not generally high in carbs (Except from fiber, which is indigestible), and limited quantities of carbohydrates.

I want to know which cracker and chip company commissioned this FUD.

"Our long experience with these very difficult experiments warns that antihydrogen may not have really been produced."

We've produced antihydrogen... just kidding!

I think you're hopelessly misguided if you believe nobody cares. The Times has one of the largest readerships in the world, and if you look at who is included, you'll see some interesting things, like:

A New York Times reader is about 36% more likely than the average affluent head of household to hold a college or postgraduate degree; 34% more likely to have a household income exceeding $100,000 and is 49% more likely to be a top manager.

These are the people who can actually do something about introducing linux into a company. Remember, there's no such thing as bad publicity, so if you even just make them aware that alternatives exist, that's a start. Providing a positive review is just bonus.

Good article about it here. Don't worry, this is the printer friendly version, so you don't have to register.

The New York Times article,
The New Sun Ready to Push Linux as Alternative to Microsoft, emphasizes the push for Linux and StarOffice, without any mention of hardware. All of these articles are guessing what Sun is going to say tomorrow, when the offical announcement is to be made.

I applaud episodes like "Good Milk Gone Bad" and "The Other Red Meat" that focus on lower fat and cholesterol foods. But many of your recipes call for butter, oil, cream, and other less than healthful foods (even bacon grease!). What do you think about some of the substitutes out there, or using ingredients like applesauce to replace butter?

Apparently you haven't read What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?.

Pardon me, I'm going to go replace my applesauce with butter.

Registration-free link courtesy of asahi.com/english/nyt

Ever since the 1970's, the US government has been recommending a diet high in grains and low in fat. Up until then, they were recommending things like beef and eggs a lot. The New York Times Magazine about 2 months ago did a really good story (all your free reg are belong to us) about how nutritionists questioning the low-fat diet - most prominently Dr. Atkins of the famous Atkins Diet - have been denied government funding, even though they have a pretty good case.

I seriously recommend that NY Times story, though. If they're right, it's beyond a scandal.

The Reuters article is currently be carried at the NY Times as well in a much longer form than the MSNBC article. Check it out if you want more than the MSNBC short version!

There is also a NYT Article.

This New York Times story (free registration required, someone else post the no-reg link, yadda yadda) chronicles the squabble between two Warner execs, one of whom wanted to do the darker Batman vs. Superman movie, the other who wanted to do a lighter, more feel-good trilogy of Superman movies instead.

Frankly, I think they should put Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, the geniuses behind the animated Batman/Superman/Batman Beyond/Justice League, in the driver's seat. They've done a wonderful job of reinventing the characters for animation.

The NY Times had a good article on this last year.

[...]
Now a dispute is churning around credit for a modern scientific breakthrough: packet switching, the technology that breaks all data that travels over the Internet into discrete bundles that are then sent along various paths around the network and reassembled at their destination.

Aside from computer scientists, few people had heard of packet switching, much less its 1960's origins, until the 1990's. Then the Internet moved from academia into the home and the office, and histories of its development began to appear.

It was about that time that Leonard Kleinrock, a computer scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, began to stake his claim to having been the father of packet switching. In 1996 he set up a Web page on the university's site that describes him as the "Inventor of the Internet Technology" and credits him with "having created the basic principles of packet switching."
[...]

But, don't skip what the counterpoint from those in the know said, printed a few weeks later in the Letters section to the Times.

The NY Times had a good article on this last year.

[...]
Now a dispute is churning around credit for a modern scientific breakthrough: packet switching, the technology that breaks all data that travels over the Internet into discrete bundles that are then sent along various paths around the network and reassembled at their destination.

Aside from computer scientists, few people had heard of packet switching, much less its 1960's origins, until the 1990's. Then the Internet moved from academia into the home and the office, and histories of its development began to appear.

It was about that time that Leonard Kleinrock, a computer scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, began to stake his claim to having been the father of packet switching. In 1996 he set up a Web page on the university's site that describes him as the "Inventor of the Internet Technology" and credits him with "having created the basic principles of packet switching."
[...]

But, don't skip what the counterpoint from those in the know said, printed a few weeks later in the Letters section to the Times.

Hey dudes, I found an NYT article that illustrates the basics to any good scifi movie here. Get those pencils going, it's easier than you think!

Now if we can just get them to recognize that the legitimate government of China sits in Taipei....

Now if we can just get them to recognize that the legitimate government of China sits in Taipei....

Here's the link... http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/10/opinion/10KRUG.h tml

Neither through threats or transgressions.
There is evidence of a lot of things out there, but I guess it just sounds more 'patriotic' to only follow the weak leads these days. Myself, I prefer a more discriminating attitude towards the facts and fantasies..

For example:

Every other day Iraqi's fire upon US airplanes patrolling the no-fly zones

Hitting other points,

There is evidence Iraq funded the Al Quaieda network

I can't really comment on the 'This Week..' statement, as I'm unable to find any direct statements of threat referenced in the NY Times or in CNN's archives. Perhaps Uttles is referring to the statements from the Iraqi VP urging

"all the Arab masses" to "confront the material and human interests of the aggressors wherever they are found."
-Reuters 9/10/02, cited from New York Times archived article

Wrapping up with the statement

There is evidence Saddam is researching intercontinental missiles

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) says the CIA has "absolutely no evidence" that Iraq possesses or will soon possess nuclear weapons.
http://www.moveon.org/nowar/

In closing, threats aren't enough, and transgressions aren't enough.. Even to quote Kissinger (hardly a dove)

"The notion of justified pre- emption runs counter to modern international law, which sanctions the use of force in self-defense only against actual -- not potential -- threats."
(same as previous)

we will all see when this is all over with.

Why not? Some people are willing to give up their livelihood for Linux.

The main significance of the article is that this is another major media source citing widespread corporate support for Linux. (Just the title of today's NYTimes article, "Balancing Linux and Microsoft" is another major indicator)This is great news for many of us (who's us?)! Personally, I think this is great because it means more job opportunities working with Linux (which I much prefer working with and supporting over MS products).

I think MS is probably too big and too slow to fight something this large and this widespread. Granted, they will fight dirty, and we should be aware of anywhere that they threaten our rights to choose, or abuse their power to influence political decisions, But, for the most part, I think the merits of Open Source and Linux will be obvious to enough business managers that it will continue to act as serious competition.

Now if we can only convince Environmentalists that wind power is a good idea.

Think I'm smoking crack? Well check out this story from the NY Times about the enviro fight against windmills in Cherry Valley, NY:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/28/nyregion/28WIND. html?ex=1031568343&ei=1&en=0920b9cbdc48601 9

And there is this story about enviros against wind power in Moosic Mountain Ridge, Philadelphia
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/3693755.htm

If you want a good site to view on how the Enviromentalists have shifted from Science to Socialistic Demigogery check out this site from GreenPeace co-founder Patrick Moore:
http://www.fcpp.org/publications/conversations/pat rickmoore.html

I love this quote from Dr. Moore:
"Many factors including a lack of science education, a need to perpetuate themselves and "means justifies the end" thinking. The worst aspect is what I describe as the environmental movement has been hijacked by political activists who are using green rhetoric to cloak agendas that have more to do with anti-corporatism and class warfare than with ecology or the environment."

Remember this is the co-founder of Greenpeace. Not exactly your average "evil right-wing" nutcase.

Brian Ellenberger

North Dakota voters overwhelmingly approve statewide referendum requiring banks and credit unions to obtain customers' permission before selling their personal data; outcome is lauded by privacy advocates, who say it will send message nationwide; 72 percent of those casting ballots favored tightening of privacy law; referendum is first giving voters chance to take stand on 1999 federal banking law that adopted national 'opt out' standard but permitted states to impose more stringent privacy protections; privacy advocates and banking industry officials comment

• Lameness filters (It blocks a lot of legitmate posts)
  
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• Broken moderation system, The whole point is to sort the gems from the crap, yet a lot of posts designed to make a LIVELY DISCUSSION are MODERATED as flamebait! Come on, not everyone likes X, but just because some one bashes it dosent mean its Flamebait. Flame bait is more useful for DIRECT INSULTS and not legitmate discussions.
  

• Crapfloods, a meaningless flood of random letters or text, which the lameness filter does a crappy job at trying to stop, besides trolls have written tools using the opensource slashcode to generate crapfloods which bypass the filter
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Well, after telling its wireless customers for the past few weeks that it will be the first to offer GSM on the east coast of the US, ATT Wireless finally did it.

Hmm. First of all not only was ATT not the first to use this technology on the east coast [Voicestream, Verizon, and even Nextel have been using it for quite some time now], but they are also trying to get people to pay $40 a month to use it...

The story is here.

I personally use Nextel. They have the IDEN network, which is more secure than GSM and CDMA, but also support GSM [on certian phones] for use internationally.

I don't want to answer for the poster to whom you are replying to, but there are some flaws in your post.

As for the tax cuts hurting the economy, I'm not a economist, and don't really know a great deal about economics, so as a arguement from authority, I would like to present Paul Krugmen as person who does argue (with a straight face) that the taxcuts do hurt the economy. This NYT article [reg required etc etc etc] give some of his views on the Bush tax cuts.

Pretending this is true for a moment,

You don't need to pretend, the other posters comment "Global warming is accepted by the majority of mainstream scientists as being scientific fact" is factually correct (assuming that one assumes that s/he is talking about climatic scientists). It is the global warming skeptics who lack scientific experience (with only a handful of exceptions such as Richard Lindzen and Patrick Michaels).

that still doesn't mean that Kyoto is a good idea. To do that you need to show that the benefits outweigh the costs.

If you want to research more on this, I would suggest this report.

Environmentalists have not done this; instead they've resorted to the "we're all gonna die!" fear-mongering that they've been using for decades.

Perhaps you should stop basing your opinions on organisations like GreenPeace, who know how (and are willing to) play the PR game, and look at the work (preferable the peer reviewed stuff) done by environomental scientists.

• Lameness filters (It blocks a lot of legitmate posts)
  
• Unnessary posting delays. Hasnt taco learned to touch type? A lot of posts are typed in less than 20 seconds and it is a ANNOYING DELAY! 2 minute ban? Come on, so some are faster then others, big deal, some people have more to say than others
  
• Broken moderation system, The whole point is to sort the gems from the crap, yet a lot of posts designed to make a LIVELY DISCUSSION are MODERATED as flamebait! Come on, not everyone likes X, but just because some one bashes it dosent mean its Flamebait. Flame bait is more useful for DIRECT INSULTS and not legitmate discussions.
  

• Crapfloods, a meaningless flood of random letters or text, which the lameness filter does a crappy job at trying to stop, besides trolls have written tools using the opensource slashcode to generate crapfloods which bypass the filter
• Links to offensive websites, the most common one is known a http://www.goatse.cx, a awful site which shows a bleeding anus being stretched on the front page. Trolls sneak these links in by posting messages that look legitimate, but infact are sneaky redirects to the site. Common examples include rd.yahoo.com, www.linux-kernel.tk, goatsex.cjb.net, and googles "Im feeling lucky".
• Trying to break slashdot, this is actually a good thing, as it helps test slashdot for bugs. Famous examples include the goatse.cx javascript pop-up, the pagewidening post and the browser crashing post!
  

Based on recent events, I would definatly say that the exec's and chiefs, are more interested in their personal gains then in bragging over who is spending more. Article in NYtimes (Free registration- fee required to read full text- over 30 days old) about Adelphia Exec's getting arrested for fraud. One of which spent 14 million on a golf course. And finally, pull up ANY search engine and put the words "WorldCom" in it..... Need I say more?

Unless you're poor, black, and live in Tulia, Texas.

Fortunately, while the people in the database are poor and black, they're living in Delaware. Phew.

1. Keeping a DNA database of the innocent.
2. Scaling back efforts to force false confessions, letting both innocent and guilty individuals go free.

Scientists at Rockefeller University in New York announced today in the journal Nature that a protein used by a bacteriophage (a virus that kills bacteria) can be used to quickly detect and kill anthrax. Last year, it took days to check a building for anthrax spores, but this method of causing the bacteria's cell wall to burst and yield an easily-detectible dye would cut the uncertainty to a period of minutes. It can also be used in a drug to kill strains of anthrax that have grown resistant to antibiotics. Rockefeller University has additional info, and the NYTimes has an article.

The Nature article also mentions an interesting tidbit about a difference between Western and Russian medicine: "Such 'phage therapy' is routine in Russia - the concept is over 80 years old - but was ousted by antibiotics in the West." A nice reminder that ignoring one approach in favor of another can have disastrous results."

Human activity is now effecting the planet's ecology at levels never seen before NYTIMES: Forget Nature. Even Eden is Engineered..

The total world-wide human environmental footprint is now so large that we use up resources at a rate faster than the biosphere can regenerate. The original report at the PNAS is here (you need a subscription to read the entire text) Tracking the Ecological Overshoot of the human economy. The story was summarized in news papers about a month or so ago (sorry, can't find now) but the basic message is that overall we are annually using up 120% of what the earth can regenerate. The typical American is using up 22 acres of resources, topping the list by far. If everyone on the planet lived like an American, we would need a biosphere at least 5 times as large. For comparison, there are only 4.5 acres per person for use given our *current* population.

To learn more about sustainable living, check out Redifining Progress.

Glaciers and large meteors are also forces of nature and look what they have done. I personally can make choices and so can you. I'm in the process of a massive yet completely doable and non-ascetic lifestyle change by selling my oversized mansion of a house, moving onto a bus line and close to an in-city farmer's market. According to the Ecological Footprint Quiz at earthday.org, the differences between my old and new dwelling, my car vs. bus use and shopping habits will have me reduce my footprint from 33 (!!) acres to 14. (I probably still fly too much on airplanes).

here

NY Times says it's faster. Maybe I'll try it in September.

Finally, the Washington Post (probably one of the last articles we post from their site, as they go registration-required) Oh, right, because we all know that Slashdot never posts articles from The New York Times, which is also registration-required.

• Lameness filters (It blocks a lot of legitmate posts)
  
• Unnessary posting delays. Hasnt taco learned to touch type? A lot of posts are typed in less than 20 seconds and it is a ANNOYING DELAY! 2 minute ban? Come on, so some are faster then others, big deal, some people have more to say than others
  
• Broken moderation system, The whole point is to sort the gems from the crap, yet a lot of posts designed to make a LIVELY DISCUSSION are MODERATED as flamebait! Come on, not everyone likes X, but just because some one bashes it dosent mean its Flamebait. Flame bait is more useful for DIRECT INSULTS and not legitmate discussions.
  

• Crapfloods, a meaningless flood of random letters or text, which the lameness filter does a crappy job at trying to stop, besides trolls have written tools using the opensource slashcode to generate crapfloods which bypass the filter
• Links to offensive websites, the most common one is known a http://www.goatse.cx, a awful site which shows a bleeding anus being stretched on the front page. Trolls sneak these links in by posting messages that look legitimate, but infact are sneaky redirects to the site. Common examples include rd.yahoo.com, www.linux-kernel.tk, goatsex.cjb.net, and googles "Im feeling lucky".
• Trying to break slashdot, this is actually a good thing, as it helps test slashdot for bugs. Famous examples include the goatse.cx javascript pop-up, the pagewidening post and the browser crashing post!
  

or does the notion of playing a game of simulating a terrorist attack seem sick?

Game is just the term used to describe a simulated situation in which all variables are free to move within constraints and the outcomes, combinations and emergent properties aren't scripted or known in advance. There branch of math for studying systems like this is called game theory.

It's not a "game" in that it's played for fun, although it has characteristics in common with games that are played for fun. After all, something like this is really just chess on a grand scale.

i'd appreciate being allowed to talk on a cell phone as long as i'm not unnecessarily loud or obnoxious about it.

"everyone says Brave New World is supposed to be a totalitarian nightmare, a vicious indictment of society, but that's hypocritical bullshit. Brave New World is our idea of heaven: genetic manipulation, sexual liberation, the war against age, the leisure society. This is precisely the world we have tried - and so far failed - to create"

Link to this article, no registration required.

Apple's Chief in the Risky Land of the Handhelds

from the Article

The chief information officer of the state of Utah, Phillip J. Windley, wrote Mr. Jones about his interest in using the symbols in state office buildings. "I was struck immediately when I was reading about war chalking that it was a way to solve a problem that we had, which is we have 22,000 people going to conference rooms in buildings that they don't necessarily work in every day," Mr. Windley said in an interview. "How do you tell them that there's wireless there?"

Mr. Windley also likes the viruslike nature of the idea -- users will teach one another the symbols. Mr. Windley said he is already planning the signs as he prepares to deploy Wi-Fi in the most heavily trafficked buildings. "As we roll networks out, we'll put the signage out with the networks," he said.