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Bandwidth really is cheap. And it is economically feasible for our ISP's to give us the bandwidth they desire. We need to have networks built like Sweden. In Portland, OR the city is thinking about putting in Fiber to everyone as a tax.

http://blog.oregonlive.com/siliconforest/2007/10/fcc_commissioner_will_hear_abo.html

I feel like we live in an idiocracy where people don't realize that we're taking steps backwards in technology with all of this quota is fair argument.

I want a future where everything is totally interactive and high quality. The technologies are here, we have cheapish fiber and DWDM, we have all kinds of network load balancing hardware available. ISPs in America just need to get with it. Are we becoming a third world country?

So, how exactly is revealing a password any more incriminating than say, allowing police into your home -which is "standard practice"?

-Don't tell us that you killed her -which would be incriminating, just tell us your password -which is something absolutely neutral.

I live in Oregon, and let me say, things are still a huge mess around here. Although I personally didn't need rescuing (although someone I know did!), I must say that the HAM operators are an invaluable asset in an event like this. On the coast, communications are still spotty, if existent at all. There was an article in the Oregonian today about how some places on the coast don't even have 911 service, since all of the fiber links for phones are out, and the 911 center doesn't have power anyway - the gas for the generator ran out. It's situations like this where HAM radio operators are particularly useful.

It's still a mess out here. Lots of roads are still closed - Interstate 5 is closed in Washington, effectively cutting off all transportation between Portland and Seattle. Thousands of cars, and most importantly, trucks, travel[ed] this highway daily. The train tracks are closed too, so there's no amtrak or freight trains. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens... things are improving, but in no speedy fashion.

I'm sorry to disturb the parallel parking conveniences day dreaming of some, but the real advantage is the elimination of blind spots. For starters, if every SUV (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/22/earlyshow/living/parenting/main526462.shtml), truck (http://www.oregonlive.com/metro/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1192245943100770.xml&coll=7), tractor (http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1440-1754.1998.00177.x?cookieSet=1) or van had such a device, thousands of lives around the globe would be saved each year.

I didn't say, and I'm not saying, that shouldn't be happening. Rather, I was trying to underscore the completely distorted emphasis on what is, after all, a minor event in the scheme of things.

Thanks to an ongoing PR blitzkrieg in the mainstream media, duping music in any way, shape or form is coming to be regarded as a major crime and police forces are being suborned by the entertainment industries to act as copyright cops and in the process, they're being stopped from dealing with far more important incidents.

Counterfeiters are lumped together with file sharers under the now-generic term 'piracy,' which makes it much easier for the Big 4 - EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) - to drag innocent men, women and children into court, accusing them of being thieves and criminals of the same ilk as the counterfeiters. But there's no similarity whatsoever. And not one of these approximately 30,000 cases has yet been decided, and no one has yet been found guilty of the non-existent crime of file sharing, or anything else.

Sharing means exactly that. Sharing. No one has deprived of something he she used to own, no money has changed hands and it's often argued that file sharing is, in fact, an invaluable form of viral marketing.

The Big 4 use their so-called trade organisations such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) or, CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America), to name but a few, to suggest files share shared equal sales lost, and that sharing is exactly the same as someone walking into a retail outlet and shoplifting ------- or duplicating a disc and selling it in a flea market.

The story I refer to, published in The Oregonian, says police grabbed, "50,000 items worth about $758,000". The implication is this was all music industry 'product'. But also mentioned, though only in passing, are, "knockoff designer purses, sunglasses and clothing, and counterfeit brand-name toys".

The owners of these items would no doubt love to see the police giving the same kind of undivided attention to their products as the CDs and DVDs. But that isn't happening.

The story says Beaverton police, "got a tip about counterfeit items being sold at a Beaverton market in December, and the investigation led them to the Hillsboro flea markets".

No prizes for guessing where the tip came from, and about "20 recording and movie industry investigators" arrived from California to "help" police (who numbered in their dozens, according to the story) identify counterfeit items.

Beaverton's population in 2006 was, says the Wikipedia, estimated at 84,270. So you'd hardly call it a major city. Nonetheless, the movie and music cartels assigned 20, TWENTY!, 'investigators' with "dozens of police officers" taking part in the raid?

The report says the CDs were going for $4.50 each, and the DVDs for between $4 and $12. But let's deduct, say, $10,000 for the sunglasses, etc. That leaves $748,000 for 50,000 (or so) DVDs and CDs, which also means the $4.50 to $12.00 claim doesn't compute.

Meanwhile, the issue isn't whether or not counterfeiting is illegal, or if police

"A tip-off on fake CDs is that they will have 20 to 24 tracks each, instead of 12 or 14," says Marcus Cohen anti-piracy counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America.

Yes, sir, and beware of one-pound cans of coffee that contain sixteen ounces instead of thirteen, sleazy operators that will sell you a four by four by eight foot "cord" of wood, and call the cops if your bag of a dozen bagels turns out to contain thirteen.

Short measure, your infallible sign of genuine U. S. music industry product.

You might as well sue the friday night cover bands at the local watering holes.

Beaverton is already fighting one of its police officers about this very thing.

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index. ssf?/base/metro_west_news/117471759957650.xml&coll =7

It's becoming standard. Heck, my CITY is going wireless, and this article says the building I work in will be covered by MetroFi in the next 4 months.

The amount of mercury released into the air because of burning coal to make electricity is far larger (about a ton per year in Oregon) than the amount of mercury in the compact fluorescent bulbs. The bulbs use 1/4 the electricity, which means 1/4 the mercury released because of providing electricity for lighting.

Because that's what consumers demand. They'd rather have features than durability, probably because by the time the gadget breaks, there's a better, cheaper one available.

Why does Walmart import tons of cheap Chinese goods? Because customers want them.

And apparently the consumers also like Massive death clouds of pollution which is the other cost of our exporting our manufacturing base to China.

You mean this article?
http://www.blogs.oregonlive.com/oregonian/newsupda tes/default.asp?item=214112

It clearly states that he didn't pay ASCAP and that is why he faces a lawsuit:
Because his place features local musicians and covers are rare, he didn't think he had to pay the musicians and publishers group an estimated $2,000 to cover performances of copyrighted tunes.

Hoax? I think not.

Here in Oregon, I voted at my dining room table last week. It was fun and relaxing, plus I got to show my kids how the whole voting process works. Plus it's cheaper, as you don't have to transport polling equipment around and hire so many people to manage it.

Fortunately it sounds like the idea might be catching on other places. There's a Vote By Mail Project that discusses the idea, plus some politicians are talking about it to other folks too. Interesting times.

Well, for $5 a month, Sprint offers a full replacement plan. If someone steals your phone, they void the ESN of the stolen receiver, and they send you a new one. problem solved

Quote from this one: "We maybe had a false sense of security," O'Meara said.

Whoa, maybe. Y'think?

The Trojan horse gathered the equivalent of 7,000 text pages of data.
  Somewhere a scammer is very, very busy.

A friend of mine lives over in Verizon-land on the other side of town and he just got FIOS at 5Mbps for about half the cost of cable. I got a notice in the mail yesterday saying that Comcast was upgrading the cable broadband to 6Mbps. The latency on the fiber is way lower than on Cable Modem, though. Unfortunately, I live in Qwests area, so I'm screwed for Fiber. Oh well, $20 wireless is coming to town anyways.

This is a bit off topic, but the Trojan nuclear power plant's cooling tower was demolished yesterday. Our local paper's web site has a nice spread of photos covering the event.

Ballmer to Oregon: Open-source lacks innovation and creates few jobs

In Portland today to help dedicate Portland State University's new engineering building, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said Oregon needs to continue investing in higher education if the state wants to be competitive globally in attracting technology jobs -- and he downplayed open-source software as a minor economic contributor.

"All the great technology centers are characterized by great technology universities," Ballmer said in an interview this morning.

Microsoft donated $200,000 toward a $53 million upgrade to PSU's Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, which includes the brand-new $35 million engineering building dedicated this morning and a new Microsoft lab. Ballmer said Oregon has the necessary ingredients for an increasingly robust high-tech economy -- given the large presence of Intel and other technology companies in the state -- but needs to continue investing in higher education to capitalize on that opportunity.

Oregon is a hub for open source software development, which is created collaboratively and generally given away free. An open source operating system called Linux is the chief rival to Microsoft's Windows. In this morning's interview, Ballmer said open source has a role in the technology world but that it hasn't contributed much to innovation or to economic achievement.

"There aren't that many jobs being created by anything out of open source," Ballmer said. In contrast, he cited a study commission by Microsoft that indicates the company and its partners contribute $3 billion to Oregon's economy.

"There's no innovation that we've seen come out of at least Linux," Ballmer said. "Linux is a clone of a 30-year-operating system."

- Mike Rogoway

There was a recent string of articles in the Oregonian about the perception of callers feeling that they were treated rudely by the dispatchers. I don't think I've ever had to call 911, now that I think about it. Seeing these articles sounds like they are at least aware of it and it's an issue for them in training.

A

Ward Cunningham is no longer there:

http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/b usiness/1134801095290920.xml?oregonian?fnfp&coll=7

In the meantime, China seems to be the only large country that's actually working on decreasing CO2 output.

There are some grass roots changes happening elsewhere that are very hard to measure, let alone assess the results. Although the USA federal government rejected Kyoto, several states have adopted Kyoto goals for environmental policies (example: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware have created the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative). Some USA municipalities have made significant changes in their infrastructure to comply with the Kyoto Protocol (example: Portland Oregon has met the first Kyoto goal of rolling back CO2 releases to pre-1990 levels. Other USA cities are beginning to recognize that encouraging their residents to adopt better habits wrt recycling, transportation, and so on not only generates lots of warm, fuzzy feelings but improves the local economy.

The Kyoto Protocol has been having a significant effect on public policy even within nations that didn't sign it. I'm personally pessimistic about whether any of this will avert the coming catastrophe (somehow the 6 billion people on earth today has to be reduced to the 2 billion that seems to be the earth's sustainable carrying capacity-- call me Malthus). But on the positive side, those who survive the next 50 years are likely to have habits wrt to reduce-reuse-recycle and mass transit that will be as significant in their new world as sanitation facilities are in today's cities.

I wasn't questioning the assertion of the Grandparent post that criminal charges were being considered, just that the evidence offered to support it was poor. The post undermined its' own argument; that's all I was pointing out.

Okay, so where are the Oregon jobs listed? I would gladly get the hell out of Silicon Valley and move to Portland where I can buy a house.

The PGE coal plant, constructed 30 years ago with controls then considered current, does not have to comply with federal Clean Air Act rules that would apply to plants built today. It received an exemption from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1975 two weeks before sweeping regulations went into effect. That exemption was later declared by EPA in a related court proceeding to be a mistake. The power plant is now among the dirtiest in the region, lacking scrubbers that are typically standard on such plants built today. Let's sugarcoat the dirty coal plants, please. It doesn't do much but harm.

• Jobs
• Liberty (Big Brother discovers GPS)
• Punishing the appropriate people. (Another take. Oh, maybe we can find a home for people with allergies who illegally obtain Sudafed)

It is only a few theaters in Portland. Most coming from the ever popular and expanding McMenamins. Also today, other theaters are pressuring the OLCC to allow them to sell beer as well. Link: http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index .ssf?/base/news-10/111685918055290.xml&storylist=o rlocal

I dont know, maybe if the government would continue the $2000 tax exemption for hybrid cars, yak, which use about 50 mpg, and eliminated the $100,000 tax exemption for business buying SUVs, yeeps!, which use about 10-12mpg would be a BIG improvement. but you know, maybe now that they are coming out with hybrid trucks, c00lz ,they might be able to get the $100,000 tax exemption on those too. Still. its retarded. just my ~$8,750 worth (but hey, at least they still get the title fee w00t).

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson

those of you who endorse this kind of brownshirt behavior make me want to puke. orwell's vision is well on its way, as this story confirms:

Federal authorities have acknowledged for the first time that Brandon Mayfield was the target of electronic surveillance and that agents secretly took DNA samples and other items from his home last year as part of the probe into a deadly bombing in Madrid.

The court documents filed last year detailed the information that originally raised suspicions about Mayfield. In those filings, federal prosecutors said agents had determined that Mayfield's computer was used to search for airline schedules for travel from Portland to Madrid. It also was used to search Web sites on rental housing in Spain and to surf a site "apparently sponsored" by the Spanish passenger rail system. The agents found a handwritten note with a Spanish telephone number.

The lawyers said the Internet research done on travel to Spain was his daughter's middle school class assignment. They said Mayfield's daughter also wrote a so-called pro-Taliban letter -- two sentences questioning U.S. bombing of Afghanistan. They said the so-called classified national defense document was a U.S. Army manual from Mayfield's days in the service.

when they come for you kissing bush's fascist behind, i won't shed many tears. you are contemptable quislings who have let the liberties that tens of thousands of our citizens gave their lives to protect be destroyed.

mismoderators of this post will burn in hell.

Actually, Oregon and Washington have existing power plants that burn methane emissions generated by decomposing garbage at landfills:

http://www.oregonlive.com/printer2.ssf?/business/o regonian/01/02/fn_11enrgy04.frame

If half of organic wastes are decomposed after twenty years, then you have that much fresh space to re-fill with municipal waste. Given that the base useful life of a landfill is 20 to 30 years, this would essentially solve the issue of landfill space for any community that doesn't have significant population growth.

86 billion over the next 5 years. Their budget is an average of around 17 billion per year.

Oh, and meanwhile, the current cost of the Iraq war, ignoring debt interest, collateral costs (like the cost of society for guardsmen to be called up or the cost to society of having the wounded for the rest of their lives), etc, is 152 billion dollars, and the US just announced we'll be keeping high troop levels for a minimum of two more years (likely many more unless they cut and run). Just showing a budgetary priority comparison here.

Is it complaining when I mention that I submitted this story yesterday but it was rejected? And I got the original link from the Oregonian, too. I'm not bitter - perhaps my comments were not pithy enough for you - but I'd like some credit, too.

I Feel Safer(TM) already.

You're not disillusioned a bit are you?

Very- I voted FOR Bush in 2000.

Um, the unions are still Democrat.

I suspect that modern organized crime is on the other side of the paycheck. It's far more lucrative to skim off the top.

I don't see it. I hope you're wrong.

The sad part is that it's not limited to the Presidential race, to any one location, or to either side. The problem is nationwide, covers almost all races, and is getting uglier by the day. A few examples (so far, pre-election, it's pretty much been limited to PROPERTY damage as opposed to personal damage, but that could easily change quickly):
http://www.sungazette.com/letters/letter_details.a sp?letterID=2888&postdate=10/14/2004
http://bakersfield.com/elections/story/4975842p-50 38992c.html
http://www.coloradoan.com/news/stories/20041019/ne ws/1438518.html
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/june_2004/recal l5.htm
http://www.eagletribune.com/news/stories/20040326/ NH_004.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1236613/p osts
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf ?/base/front_page/1096459546252200.xml

My area is in that last section- and is particularily bad across the rural/urban divide.

I have a friend who uses biofuels in his Jetta. He made the headlines in the local paper too.

I don't have the numbers handy-but the Pacific Northwest has been wacked even harder than California. Unemployment isn't really a good metric here. You also need to look at things like hunger(which is quite a bit higher in the Northwest). Unemployment figures tend mostly to count people that are collecting unemployment insurance-lots of folks drop though the cracks. The PNW had it share of dot cons-but the dot con thing is only part of the story. You also need to look at places where the H-1b fad has been big--and that is NYC/California. H-1b/L-1 have been a much bigger factor in displacing US workers than the dot com crash _and_ outsourcing _and_ the business cycle put together--Just look at the number of visas issued--and the number of jobs lost. By 2002(according to Norm Matloff), there were over 400K H-1b workers--and that doesn't count the folks on the other visas--or the folks that got green cards--and the fact that H-1b/L-1 are often used to facilitate outsourcing.

Normally the Oregonian is nothing to brag about, but damn if this wasn't the lead article
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf ?/base/front_page/1095508748276280.xml
on Saturday morning.

Makes me feel good to live in this town (Portland, aka Stumptown, aka River City aka the Rose City aka "the city that works") where the most important news in the world is that the locks we all use to secure our bikes aren't technically "locks." at all.

PDX is one two wheelin' city.

uh, a liberal democracy?

What have you been smoking lately?

You might want to look at this,
this and you might want to read up on how they shut Al Jazeera down.

http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/ind ex.ssf?/base/exclude/1094298930270760.xml/

As an American, it is perfectly alright for me to vote with MY conscience. if you don't agree with me that's fine, that's what your vote is for. However, belittling anothers opinion because you don't agree with it is a sign of ineffectual debating skills and an inability to construct a logical argument.

Here are some odds and probablities as compiled by the oddities who write The Edge for The Oregonian (Portland, OR newspaper). Short version: it is actually more likely that the Earth will be smacked by a large asteroid in your lifetime than you becoming a professional athelete.

And remember, before you try to beat the odds, make sure you can survive the odds beating you.

FUCKING PAY ATTENTION, AMERICA!

I swear to God, ignorance and apathy in America is what is dooming us. You don't watch the news because "it doesn't affect you", and then use that position of ignorance to claim that nothing bad has happened, and thus it doesn't affect you. WAKE UP.

Innocent man targeted with PATRIOT powers.
Immigrants detained without charges, abused.
PATRIOT used in non-terrorism investigations.

I don't have time to do any more googling. You should have already known about this. Mayfield was only a month ago. The report of abuses is new.

PAY ATTENTION, or you're going to get fucked while you're not looking.

So, Nextel a mere $1.6 billion for bandwidth rights which should've cost somewhere between $3 billion or $5 billion.
"Oh, the poor emergency responders! Of course we'll trade bandwidth with you... it's for the good of the nation."
Give me a break!

Verizon must be pissed.

Here in Portland, we firebomb new Starbucks facilities. Fuck you and your corporate coffee. Quit Walmarting the good old coffee shops out of existence.

They've just opened another one across the street from the tiny espresso shack I love to frequent in the mornings. If she ends up going under because of it, I think I might get in the mood for a little firebombing myself...

Oregonian Article

You could always run away from society and live like this Father and Daughter did for four years. No mass media, no electricity, just books and a camp in Oregon's largest city park. There are PLENTY of open spaces left in the Pacific Northwest where this would be easy to do. They'd still be there if it wasn't for a busybody of a hiker turning them in to the police.

Somehow I don't think they're going to ignore a guy mugging an old lady because they won't be able to write a report about it afterward.

or vice versa

Heh. You just pwned that guy. This is the most informative article. You were off slightly with the ages; the one the cops beat up was 71, and the mother was 94. I also didn't find any sources saying the mother was mistreated.

I repeat, the overtime rules were reworked at the last minute!

The Bush administration on Tuesday pulled back from a planned overhaul of the nation's overtime rules, allowing more white-collar workers -- including those earning as much as $100,000 a year -- to continue collecting premium pay if they log more than 40 hours a week.

From The Oregonian

It's on The Oregonian's movie page for Revolutions.

Too late, citizen! Papers, please.