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You probably saw this on PBS's Scientific American Frontiers. Funny coincidence, I just watched this episode last night... To watch it online, follow this link.

This seems remarkably similar to what the doctor in the article called "the first [procedure] to reverse blindness in patients without eyes." The difference may be that the technique shown on Scientific Frontiers was for patients with Retinitis Pigmentosa, an inherited, degenerative disease, while the article describes returning sight to a patient who lost her sight in a car accident. However, I can't see why the technique shown on Scientific Frontiers can't be used for those types of patients too, since the electrodes effectively act as rods and cones who's signal is sent directly to the optical nerve behind the eyes. The article seems to suggest that the electrodes in the new technique send signals directly to the visual cortex at the back of your brain ("An electrode inside the skull stimulates the back of the brain, which creates visuals images").

You probably saw this on PBS's Scientific American Frontiers. Funny coincidence, I just watched this episode last night... To watch it online, follow this link.

This seems remarkably similar to what the doctor in the article called "the first [procedure] to reverse blindness in patients without eyes." The difference may be that the technique shown on Scientific Frontiers was for patients with Retinitis Pigmentosa, an inherited, degenerative disease, while the article describes returning sight to a patient who lost her sight in a car accident. However, I can't see why the technique shown on Scientific Frontiers can't be used for those types of patients too, since the electrodes effectively act as rods and cones who's signal is sent directly to the optical nerve behind the eyes. The article seems to suggest that the electrodes in the new technique send signals directly to the visual cortex at the back of your brain ("An electrode inside the skull stimulates the back of the brain, which creates visuals images").

And this would differ from today's situation, how exactly? We are already at this point. What we're looking at is different ways of funding production of Passion of the Christ 4 that do NOT rely on there being a technological barrier för copying it, because that barrier is long gone and it ain't coming back. Putting up laws to simulate that barrier was a stop-gap measure, at best. At worst, it has wrecked the morality of an entire generation. That needs to be fixed, fixed good and fixed now.

To do that, we need to find alternative ways of funding, ways that do not rely on selling the license to use a specific copy of a work. Maybe the solution is streaming and pay-for-view as Lessig suggested, but it seems to me that people still want to buy stuff, not rent it as they go along. That means we need to use the power of peer to peer to distribute stuff, and it means that Robert X. Cringely is right. And, it means that we need to find ways to make it real easy for people to pay for what they listen to, read or watch.

Our stop-gap measure is to allow a five-year commercial copyright.The exact number of years is of course arbitrary and up for debate, the point is that it needs to go down from current levels, drastically. What we'd love to see is a sustainable system where there is no need for copyrights anymore. Artists could get paid anyway. Lots of things are being made without copy protection and the creators get their salaries from other revenue streams (which incidentally aren't as sensitive to technical changes as the copyright model is) like selling t-shirts, signed prints/discs, going on tours and generally working for their money, like normal people do.

Doing one good thing and then sitting on your ass waiting for the royalties to roll in should not be a viable business model.

Don't blame Democrats for the falloff in new nuclear plant construction. Nuclear plant construction fell to almost nothing during the Ford administration.

And you're joking about blocking ethanol, right? The only reason it's cost-effective now is a 55 cent per gallon subsidy. To pitch growing corn as the solution to global warming is pretty cynical; it's never going to be an effective way to reduce emissions substantially and its primary goal, as everyone knows, is wealth transfer to farmers.

Giving away products for free in order to kill off another ISV that they decide to compete with. Of course, VMware has only itself to blame: this is what you get when you grow your market share enough to attract Microsoft's attention.

But seriously, in a normal market with healthy competition among OS makers, Microsoft would leave VMware alone and be happy that they're doing so well, selling products that work with Windows. However, this is not a normal market and Microsoft is a monopolist by any definition but their own. Therefore, VMware must die. Ho-hum.

Let's hope that nice lawyer lady from Iowa that Cringely was talking about last week drags them into court again soon.

aired in feb on Nova,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/neutrino/missing.html
story of Ray Davis and John Bahcall.

1. U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789
2. Torture Victim Prevention Act (TVPA) of 1991

The family of the reporter arrested by the Chinese Gestapo can sue Yahoo! under both laws. They enable foreigners, in an American court, to sue foreign entities which commit violations of human rights.

I have one word of advice to the family. Namely, the family can (under both laws) and should sue Jerry Yang, in addition to Yahoo!. Yang expressly supported the actions of the company and has repeatedly bragged about Yahoo!'s entry into China. Yang also has $1 billion of net worth.

Show, to Yahoo! and Jerry Yang, the same mercy that Yahoo! and Yang showed to the reported arrested and tortured by Beijing.

Dude, Apple is now officially a x86 platform. It runs any x86 OS without restrictions... Even at that time, Apple was selling a whole solution (Hardware and software), whereas microsoft was selling an OS on "generic x86 hardware". Even if Apple could be ruled as a monopoly, it wasn't abusing its power, or at least there were not complaints to back such a position.

Also, to clear it up more:

The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA vs MICROSOFT CORPORATION complaint

Some interesting points:

35. Microsoft's exclusionary contracting practices have had the effect of excluding competitors on a basis other than competition on the merits and have thereby allowed Microsoft illegally to perpetuate its monopoly in the PC operating system market. 36. Through the unlawful acts and practices described above Microsoft has harmed competition, consumers and innovation: a. Microsoft has unlawfully maintained a monopoly in the PC operating system market. b. Microsoft's exclusionary conduct has significantly impeded the ability of rival operating systems to compete in the PC operating system market. Competitors find it more difficult to convince OEMs to offer and/or promote their product and must incur greater marketing expenses to penetrate the market. Microsoft raised hurdles to fair competition even higher through unreasonably restrictive non-disclosure agreements. c. Microsoft's exclusionary licenses deprive rival PC operating systems of a significant number of sales that they might otherwise secure. These lost sales impede the ability of PC operating systems to develop an installed base sufficient to convince OEMs to bundle the new system with their hardware, to convince ISVs to write applications that run on the new system, and to convince users that the system is, and will remain, a viable alternative to the existing MS-DOS and Windows standard. d. Microsoft's conduct also substantially lengthens the period of time required for competitors to recover their development costs and earn a profit, and increases the risk that an entry attempt will fail. In combination, all of these factors deter entry by competitors and thus harm competition. 37. The harm to competition caused by Microsoft's unlawful conduct harms consumers. OEMs that do offer customers a choice of operating systems may charge customers a higher price for PCs with non-Microsoft operating systems in order to be able to pay the double royalty necessitated by the Microsoft per processor agreements. Thus, users who do not receive a Microsoft operating system are still, indirectly, paying Microsoft. 38. In addition, Microsoft's unlawful conduct has deterred the development of competing operating systems, depriving consumers of a choice of systems with possibly superior features. Similarly, the slower growth of competing operating systems has slowed the development and diffusion of applications designed to work on non-Microsoft operating systems and has limited choices of consumers and users of PCs.

And:

The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA vs MICROSOFT CORPORATION ruling

Some interesting points:

b. Disclosure of APIs, Communications Interfaces and Technical Information. Microsoft shall disclose to ISVs, IHVs, and OEMs in a Timely Manner, in whatever media Microsoft disseminates such information to its own personnel, all APIs, Technical Information and Communications Interfaces that Microsoft employs to enable - i. Microsoft applications to interoperate with Microsoft Platform Software installed on the same Personal Computer, or ii. a Microsoft Middleware Product to interoperate with Windows Operating System software (or Middleware distributed with such Operating System) installed on the same Personal Computer, or iii. any Microsoft software installed on one computer (including but not limited to server Operating Systems and operating system

So if it were up to these "concerned taxpayers", the gov't wouldn't spend any money, because if any company received money that would be considered pork. Because here's the deal: Some projects are worthwile, take a gander at the list, many are military related. Are these folks saying they don't want to support the troops?

Another example is DARPA. There was a great program on PBS about the unmanned robot challenge, in which Stanford's "Stanley" and 4 other 'bots went the entire 100 mile plus route, when the previous year the top showing was 7 miles. That is pretty fantastic stuff. I believe the Carnegie-Mellon team got about $2 million or so from the military, I'm sure that is classified as pork, but this could have significant consequences on future battlefields. Don't forget DARPA funded the internet too. Sometimes "concerned taxpayers" have to think out a little farther out.

As for the water-free urinals, the CNET article insinuates that Falcon is not a world leader as they claim, but provide no evidence for this assertion. Also there was just an article here about a company trying to build a skyscraper with water-free urinals, to save 1.6 million gallons. That's a good thing. $100-$200/per toilet per year saved. Not bad. Certainly not pork - how much money would be saved if those were installed in every gov't institution - considering the fact that the govt is probably the largest employer in the U.S., for example? Granted, it no-bid contracts, and even bid contracts are probably corrupt, but this is chump change compared to the *billions* thrown at Halliburton & Bechtel & KBR, etc. This is the 80-20 rule, fix that leak first.

seemed to think that tech related homeland security projects were waning

I shouldn't even be wasting my time replying to your post. Watch the PBS NOVA documentary, Why the Towers Fell.

The parent poster mentioned only part of the story. The fire was to blame in part, yes, but also the unique design of the WTC buildings. Jesus Christ, for all the coverage over the past 5 years, you don't know this? Do you read much beyond the back of your cereal box in the morning?

No steel framed buildings have EVER collapsed due to fire before 9/11 even though much fiercer and hotter fires have occurred within them.

Exactly. But you didn't finish the sentence (because you don't have a clue what you're talking about). I'll do it for you:

No steel framed buildings have EVER collapsed due to fire before 9/11 even though much fiercer and hotter fires have occurred within them, BECAUSE NONE OF THOSE FIRE-AFFLICTED BUILDINGS HAD THE SAME, UNIQUE STRUCTURAL DESIGN USED IN THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BUILDINGS, NOR DID ANY OF THEM HAVE THE FIREPROOFING BLOWN OFF OF MULTIPLE FLOORS BECAUSE A FREAKING JET WAS BLASTED INTO THEM.

To have written what you wrote ... wow, you're just not very bright.

The design of the WTC, with a central core of supports and an outer shell of supports -- with open space between -- is another major part of the story here. No other building of that design had been through "much fiercer and hotter fires". And there has never been another building of the WTC design and size on fire as a result of an impact with a passenger jet. The planes punctured the outer shell, weakening the structure. The shockwave from the initial impact blew the fire-proofing off horizontal steel girders on the impact floors. The fuel from the planes burned only for a short time. But the massive amounts of paper, office furniture and other combustibles that were present in the buildings continued to fuel an inferno, further weakening the already damaged structures.

No warping of the buildings structure was observable before collapse.

There is no hope for you. If you can write that sentence after 5 years of accounts from people who were actually there who have said otherwise ... yeah, there's no hope for you. If you care -- and I doubt you do because it will ruin your spooky conspiracy theory -- you can start by reading the firefighter and office-worker accounts of obvious changes to the weight distribution of the buildings inside the stairwells. Then go and read about the analysis of the video taken that day that shows the exterior of the building buckling before the collapse.

I can't believe you wrote that crap. Seriously. How can you apparently be interested in this subject and have clearly read so little, after all this time?

The Wal*Mart Phenomenon is quite real and well documented. The PBS investigative journalism show FRONTLINE paints a very telling picture of Wal*Mart's economic strategies in the show "Is Wal*Mart Good For America?"

Click the 'View This Program Online' link on the episode's homepage.

FRONTLINE the relationship between U.S. job losses and the American consumer's insatiable desire for bargains. Through interviews with retail executives, product manufacturers, economists, and trade experts, correspondent Hedrick Smith examines the growing controversy over the Wal-Mart way of doing business and asks whether a single retail giant has changed the American economy.

While I'm link-whoring, here's some more stuff if you want insight on the guy: Doyle's homepage, another eWeek interview "Browser Victory Shouldn't Alter HTML", and an article from I, Cringely that was one of the first media pieces on the whole issue. More can be found on Google and Wikipedia, of course.

Regardless of Doyle's intentions, I'm against the whole software and business-method patenting regimes. It's been said many times before, but patenting software or business-methods is as ludicrous as patenting story ideas in literature.

Over seventy percent of all products sold at Wal-Mart are made in China. In 2004 it was estimated that $18 billion of WM's stock was of Chinese origin.

Check out the Frontline PBS special on the trade defecit. I don't think it's exaggerated by any means.

Check your PBS schedule here: http://www.pbs.org/tvschedules/

I'm sure they will replay it. Dear god man, do you know how many times I've seen "Jewel of the Earth"?

Also, check out this links.

Hel-Mart

Sprawl Busters

PBS Store Wars- Facts About Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Blows.com

Wal-Mart Litigation Project

Wal-Mart Movie

Wal-Mart Sucks.org

Wal-Mart Watch

Wal-Mart vs Women

Something that could have been brought to my attention yesterday!

Seriously though, I'd been hoping someone would be putting together something like this (though I'd been expecting it form Discovery or TLC - yay for public television). Fortunately, it is available online for those of us who missed it.

Let PBS know what you thought about the format, show, or anything else.

-Ian

1. Doug Lenat 's AI program EURISKO (search for "tournament", middle of page) computed that a fleet of small, nimble craft would quickly decimate any other type of fleet:
   

   Lenat and EURISKO entered the 1981 national Traveller TCS tournament with a strange-looking fleet. The other contestants laughed at it, then lost to it. The Lenat/EURISKO fleet won every round, emerging as the national champion. As Lenat notes, "This win is made more significant by the fact that no one connected with the program had ever played this game before the tournament, or seen it played, and there were no practice rounds."
   
   In 1982 the competition sponsors changed the rules. Lenat and EURISKO entered a very different fleet. Other contestants again laughed at it, then lost. Lenat and EURISKO again won the national championship.
   
   In 1983 the competition sponsors told Lenat that if he entered and won again, the competition would be canceled. Lenat bowed out.
   

   
   
2. In Millennium Challenge 2002, a $250 million war game

   Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, former president of the Marine Corps University, was asked to command the "enemy" forces. In the first days of that mock battle, he used unconventional methods, including a preemptive attack that featured air-, sea-, and ground-launched cruise missiles to sink 16 American ships. After the American forces decided to refloat the ships and restart the game, Van Riper stepped aside from his role, contending that the rest of the game was scripted for American victory.

   
   

   So once again our military is preparing for past wars.

Don't they realize that Volcanic Energy has directly caused more deaths than Nuclear Energy?

When will people learn that there is no safe form of energy?!

The volcano gods are gonna be so angered when they find out Iceland is mooching the heat. If I know my mythology, nothing (and I mean nothing) pisses a god off like free stuff for humans. We should just rename Iceland to New Pompeii right now.

The idea is not entirely dead yet, and so the opposition continues its histerical "criticism" of it...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2704stock market.html

This was the wrongful draining of south east asia, including Indonesia which by the CIA data, is 88% muslim.

News agencies such as ABC and CNN did stories on the damage being felt by the people of Indoensia. Mothers couldn't afford to buy baby formula for their babies. The indonesian people knew they had a corrupt government but knew it was the Americans draining their economy, theu just didn't know how. Probably because the money was vanishing from their economy and the local governemnt, no matter how corrupt, wouldn't degrade it own living standard.

Of course the world bank stepped in with an offer to loan them money to over come this drain, but at an interest rate, which is considered by all four major religions as usery. Not to mention the fact that the world bank is run by the US and the drain was wrong. The offer from the world bank didn't go over well at all.

Read the transcript and you learn moe, but during the war drum banging ABC removed their story from the web. CNN however, did not. You might still be able to find it.

It wasn't just Indonesia but all of south east asia and reprocussions were felt world wide with the exception of one major country, China. The proof the world economic problems were in fact cause buy this nickle and dime thieft. You see China wasn't playing this stock market game, so they were uneffected (but gained insight from Britians lease on Hong Kong ending).

Look at the timing of events! The World Trade Center was attacked once before 9/11, but it was a failure. Certainly there was enough real reason to retailate, to promote and gain followers, etc.. WTC, Pentagon, white house targets.... wrongful manipulation of world economy politically controlled military backed.

Ted Turner publicly said 9/11 was an act of desparation, but then later retracted that, said he was sorry. But then even later he said the human race, as we know it, will distroy itself in 50 year, given the insanity of what been going on.

He was probably threated with anthrax, like the rest of the media. By of course the us military, or more precisely the non-conspiracy act of only one high enough ranking military official to obtain the anthrax without question (from that us military base), know how to handle it and have an address list. Plausable deniability for teh rest of the government, but who is stupid enough to not know the bush administration would fall all over themselves using that for war drum banging? Getting th media to do as they were told to do, or else...

A trillion dollars, that way to much to write off as appearting out of nowher and vanishing into nowhere. We know where it came from, but where did it go? To know the answer Read the transcript. three and a half years of pure success followed by threes and a half years complete failure, and the billion dollar requirement and terms.

The ones who benefited included investors who dumped easy come into the dot com boom that eventually busted (easy go). Some of the losers includes the likes of enron, worldcom, etc... and taxpayers who's money was used to help cushion the fall.

Iraq, it was just a public distraction from the real issues, attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Of couse there are other lessor but related timeline facets, one being the dropping of interest rates. Even still you can find 0% interest rates for credit cards but teh second option is beginning to go up, the low rate for the life of that transfer amount.

Even still there are reprocussion being felt. Postage stamps recentlty went up, not because USPS needed it, but because the US governemnt wanted the USPS to put some 1.4 billion into escrow taht the governemnt was supposed to define how they would use it within 18 months (whaich is way past that now, and they still haven't defined its use - they should put it into social security a

I'd have to say somewhere in between. They have found that it lays a great theoretical framework in which it could unify all the known forces within the universe. The major problem is that the mathematics involved are so extremely complex that we can only use it in extremely simplified form, which leaves us with a very basic understanding. One of the pioneers in the field is a man named Ed Witten, who is regarded by many to possibly be one of the smartest men alive. There were many problems with string theory originally, namely 5 different versions of them - Ed unified them all into one framework which he dubbed M-theory.

I just found that PBS has done a wonderful thing and provided The Elegant Universe online as streaming video. Check it out - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html and it will explain a lot of the details of the theory. Brian Greene has done an excellent job of explaining it all very well while abstracting away all the mathematical complexities, so non-scientific people can understand it without much difficulty.

Yeah, GUT is something they've been working on for awhile. The most promising candidate for unification is string theory. You might have been referring to the PBS NOVA special called The Elegant Universe, although I think it was a lot more recent than 10 years ago. Quite a good special - I'd recommend watching it if you havn't... might be able to find a torrent of the show, or Brian Greene's book is also an excellent read.

>Perhaps the most interesting engine to flock to would be http://www.majestic12.co.uk/, a seti@home style distributed indexing system.

Now that is an interesting concept. Indexing the web would seem to be the kind of parallel operation ideally suited for distributed computing. You'd still need a central server to search the index and provide results quickly. (Okay, I decided to RTFL rather than just speculate, and I see that's what they're doing.) My initial assessment is that this is the most credible medium term threat to Google I've seen.

>...the fairness of their ranking algorithms are open to view and discuss -- perhaps with time such closed algorithms could be viewed with as much dislike as Microsoft's closed OS sources

Another excellent point. I wish I still had mod points. The closed nature of Google's ranking algorithms has disgruntled some folks, and an open system could become popular. Robert Cringely did a series on the mysterious workings of the AdWords algorithm, and whether Google is using the algorithms to "unfair" advantage. "Unfair" being quoted because even if they are doing it, it is not illegal, and perhaps not even unethical. But they could be deceiving or "gouging" (another loaded term) their advertisers, and it could be seen as counter to "Don't be evil". Cringely includes Google responses.

The point is, the advantages of open algorithms are pretty obvious.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050922. html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051006. html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051013. html

>Perhaps the most interesting engine to flock to would be http://www.majestic12.co.uk/, a seti@home style distributed indexing system.

Now that is an interesting concept. Indexing the web would seem to be the kind of parallel operation ideally suited for distributed computing. You'd still need a central server to search the index and provide results quickly. (Okay, I decided to RTFL rather than just speculate, and I see that's what they're doing.) My initial assessment is that this is the most credible medium term threat to Google I've seen.

>...the fairness of their ranking algorithms are open to view and discuss -- perhaps with time such closed algorithms could be viewed with as much dislike as Microsoft's closed OS sources

Another excellent point. I wish I still had mod points. The closed nature of Google's ranking algorithms has disgruntled some folks, and an open system could become popular. Robert Cringely did a series on the mysterious workings of the AdWords algorithm, and whether Google is using the algorithms to "unfair" advantage. "Unfair" being quoted because even if they are doing it, it is not illegal, and perhaps not even unethical. But they could be deceiving or "gouging" (another loaded term) their advertisers, and it could be seen as counter to "Don't be evil". Cringely includes Google responses.

The point is, the advantages of open algorithms are pretty obvious.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050922. html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051006. html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051013. html

>Perhaps the most interesting engine to flock to would be http://www.majestic12.co.uk/, a seti@home style distributed indexing system.

Now that is an interesting concept. Indexing the web would seem to be the kind of parallel operation ideally suited for distributed computing. You'd still need a central server to search the index and provide results quickly. (Okay, I decided to RTFL rather than just speculate, and I see that's what they're doing.) My initial assessment is that this is the most credible medium term threat to Google I've seen.

>...the fairness of their ranking algorithms are open to view and discuss -- perhaps with time such closed algorithms could be viewed with as much dislike as Microsoft's closed OS sources

Another excellent point. I wish I still had mod points. The closed nature of Google's ranking algorithms has disgruntled some folks, and an open system could become popular. Robert Cringely did a series on the mysterious workings of the AdWords algorithm, and whether Google is using the algorithms to "unfair" advantage. "Unfair" being quoted because even if they are doing it, it is not illegal, and perhaps not even unethical. But they could be deceiving or "gouging" (another loaded term) their advertisers, and it could be seen as counter to "Don't be evil". Cringely includes Google responses.

The point is, the advantages of open algorithms are pretty obvious.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050922. html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051006. html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051013. html

If you believe Bob Cringley, Google is building another backbone to the internet already, which it will use to make everyone's connections faster (through caching); this could work to counteract a 2-tiered "pay for better access" internet that the Telcos and their FCC whores are thinking of building.

By Choosing Where NOT to Compete, Google Can Win the Broadband Game
Taking over the digital world four ounces at a time.

Let's just hope Bob's right about this one, and that Google won't charge us for usage of their boxen.

If you believe Bob Cringley, Google is building another backbone to the internet already, which it will use to make everyone's connections faster (through caching); this could work to counteract a 2-tiered "pay for better access" internet that the Telcos and their FCC whores are thinking of building.

By Choosing Where NOT to Compete, Google Can Win the Broadband Game
Taking over the digital world four ounces at a time.

Let's just hope Bob's right about this one, and that Google won't charge us for usage of their boxen.

"... Maybe instead of spending $2 Trillion on Iraq (which is creating a terrorist breeding ground that wasn't there before), we should spend a few million to bring the main US domestic police force against terrorism into this century."

you may want to read this: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Artic les/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp

the lead paragraph:

"THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials."

but maybe you only read the WashPost and NYT, so feel you have all the facts. Was it the center of Terrorism? No, there is no center. But to say "[iraq] wasn't a terrorist breeding ground" ignores facts. Beyond what's linked above, consider:

Sadam's payouts to Palestinian suicide bombers.

Or maybe you say: "TWS, that's a righT wing mag, it must be fake" [You should 'really' be asking: 'why didn't the networks pick this up?'] - even so, check this out: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunn ing/interviews/khodada.html

straight from a trainer at terrorist camps' mouth.

and if you like big pictures with your text, this one should make you happy: http://www.husseinandterror.com/

so, like it or not, saying there were no terror ties in Iraq before the 2003 invastion is now no longer a question of ignorance, just stupidity; or, if like some on the left, a blind rage in hating Bush that would drive you to ignore these facts.

Is it messy? Yes. Is it costly? Yes. But don't trumpet Gore/Kennedy/Kerry blindly and reinvent history just to have a handy cocktail party agrument to denounce the guy you didn't vote for.

Right now, there is in the U.S. venture capital community about $25 billion that remains uninvested from funds that will end their lifespans in the next 12-18 months. If the VCs return those funds to investors they'll also have to return $3 billion in already-spent management fees. Alternately, they can invest the money -- even if they invest it in bad deals -- and NOT have to cough-up that $3 billion. So the VCs have to find in the next few months places to throw that $25 billion. They waited this long in hopes that the economy would improve and that technical trends would become clear so they could do their typical lemming-like jump off the same investment cliff as all the other VCs. Well, we're at the edge of the cliff, so get ready for the most furious venture investing cycle in history.

While I'm sure this happens over and over again in the US, one fairly well-known episode occured in Rockdale County, Georgia which Frontline covered. Maybe the one you're thinking of.

1) Bio-panel - a panel that uses algae to produce either hydrogen or bio-deisel oil based
off hybrid algae, a variant replacement for conventional solar panels .

My idea based on already known uses for algae .

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54456, 00.html

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

2) Nanite memory - non-volatile ram that is 10 - 20 times faster than current DD2,
and and Ipod could have 10 Tera-bytes of a module the size of a sugar cube .
No power required to maintain the bit state either .

http://www.nantero.com/

3) Growing human organs with the recepients DNA markers on the backs of mice,
already been done, think it through to its full possibilities .

3rd pic down http://www.pbs.org/saf/1107/features/body.htm

4) Next Gen Fuel Cell vehicles .

http://www.japancorp.net/Article.asp?Art_ID=11628

5) LED based wall projectors to reduce electrical power usage world wide .
Imagine all display systems in the world going from 100 wats plus to 1- 3 watts .

http://www.lightblueoptics.com/

6 billion ppl, probably over 2 billion display systems world wide with a over
100 fold reduction in power usage, it could have a major impact . (Tv's, monitors, etc )

Ex-MislTech

Frontline did a cool piece about 2 years ago. They hit upon a number of things, one of which was CD sales.

WatchOnline:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/musi c/view/

The music industry has never really been a giant money maker. However, massive corporations bought into the industry during a weird peek time. Hip Hop and Rap were becoming popular and something completely new was being marketed. Moreover, many people were replacing their vinyl and cassettes.

Now that has leveled off, and they're bitching and complaining. We haven't seen anything remarkably "new" in a long long time, and many of us don't need to repurchase our old albums in order to fill our iPods.

There are more than 220 million guns in the U.S. There are a LOT of private gun owners in the U.S.

Unless the military wants to nuke the whole country, they will not be successful.

Ironically, we were stationed in Rampart. We had people coming up to us all the time to thank us for protecting them from the police. At the time I thought it was odd (and sad), until I found out they had very good reason to be afraid.

Try going up to someone and saying that you're going to kill them.

I have personally told over 100 people I was going to kill them. In fact, I actually beat the stew out of a few of those people. Other times it was a joke. The point being, I HAVE done it - and I WILL do it again.

Try sending an email to the white house with a death threat.

You can do it, but then you pay the consequences. Show me any country where you can send a deaththreat to its leader and not be investigated. I am also willing to bet that there are plenty of letters going to the president wishing he was dead. Is that a death threat? Or are we up to your interpretation of free speech?

Try putting a notice in the local paper saying you are looking for people to help you plant bombs and overthrow the government.

Shit, the newspaper is private, and what you are saying is equivalent to purchasing advertising. No paper has to sell you advertising. Your example is broken.

Try posting kiddie pr0n on the net under the guise of "free speech".

I see you are not familiar with this case, more on it here. Or with the organization NAMBLA, which I believe is a little more than posting.

As for addressing the substance - concrete examples are much better than a bunch of hand-waving over the ususal hypothetical "what-if" that usually passes as "informed discussion" on the net.

Heres a what if for you. What if a Black, a Jew, an Asian, an Arab, or a Latino attacks or speaks poorly about white people? Not covered by the "Hate Speech" laws. In fact, not covered by "Hate Crime" laws either. It is common in America for Minority leaders to use speech that would be considered "Hate Speech" if it was a white speaking it.

You have no fucking idea what free speech is you asshole. You understand it as anything that might upset your delicate sensibilities shouldn't be protected. You're a fucking douche bag The only reason you can say what you're saying is because it hasn't upset anybody yet, trust me - your turn is coming. Yet, seeing as you are a blind follower, you will probably agree with the powers when they take it away.

Studies have indeed shown a causal relationship between video games and hyperactivity, attention deficit, and violence.

You know, I get really, really tired of people pulling the "studies have shown" card. It would be nice (better than nice, it would decrease the flow of FUD on the internet and IRL) if people were held to the same standards that people publishing scholarly papers were held to; namely, publishing your sources. Watch and learn, kids:

Most studies found a correlation, not a causal relationship, which means the research could simply show that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment.

Yes, I'm drumming the words of Henry Jenkins. But perhaps this will help? Or this? I mean, try these phrases on for size:

Even if we accept that there is a correlation between amount of time spent playing (violent) video games and aggressive behavior, there is no reason to think that games are the cause of aggression.

However, the correlational nature of Study 1 means that causal statements are risky at best. It could be that obtained video game game violence links to aggressive and nonaggressive delinquency are wholly due to the fact that highly aggressive individuals are especially are especially attracted to violent video games.

Now, I could attack your argument (and in a way, at least, I have) but I take issue mostly with the bandying of the phrase "studies have shown" without so much as a reference to the studies in question. It is the worst kind of sloppy intellectualism that presumes all people everywhere are aware of these studies and that their validity is a foregone conclusion; indeed, it smacks of my mother-in-law forwarding her latest round of AOL-Microsoft mergers and get-rich-quick email forwarding scams.

Quote from that page:
Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it - namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign.

The European gene pool had little to do with their spread. Read

• Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

or watch it on PBS. Basically everyone was equal, but some had better resources / environment.

• Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

...you have to knowingly commit yourself into service in the united states military. When you do so, you are made to understand that your life no longer belongs to you at that point.

Sure. That's all fine for the soldiers, but what about the increasing number of private soldiers and civilians on duty in such conflicts? Have they also signed their lives away? What about those who work for defense contractors back on U.S. territory? We shouldn't hurt their morale, either, should we? Such tactics were precisely what allowed Hitler to commit the atrocities he did. He didn't start off with "hey, let's kill the Jews", he started with "don't question Hitler, because it's bad for national morale."

Rush is ... an idiot [who] isn't constantly saying "Pull the troops out now, they're fighting an illegal war, etc, etc".

You're right, he's not. Instead he's saying "we shouldn't be saying this because it's bad for soldiers' morale". So not only can citizens not say it on the mainland, but anyone who does dare to say it isn't heard by soldiers anyway, however logical the arguments.

- RG>

--
Proud to not be from the US, but still ashamed of living in the western hemisphere.

...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2704stock market.html

And 6 grand is what in comparison?

The fact of the matter is that when you screw other over badly enough you can expect relalition.
And thats whats going on, The Bush Administration is parionoid because they are becomming aware of how damn much they have screwed others over.

WTC came was attacked once before 9/11 and targets of WTC, Pentagon, White House say what?

Wrongful manipulation of world economy with political and military backing..

So now the world stock markets must be terrorist activity, considering how its manipulation resulted in dotcom boom (easy winnings had to be put somewhere) and buts (easy come easy go) and the losers, worldcom, enron, etc.. whom still haven't told the american public what they were really doing.

South east asia, indonesia is 88 percent muslin (CIA info).

All it took to help set off the war drums on iraq was one lone high ranking enough, military official, who would not be questioned about there entry into a US military base containing anthrax stores, knowledge how to handle it and newsmedia addresses....

who would be stupid enough to not know the bush administration would fall all over themselves abusing the anthrax events
to get the media to bang war drums for bush?

Who are the real terrorost?

The most terrorism I have seen is not the WTC comming down but the very long running war drum banging of the bush administration against a country that most certainly did not have anything to do with WTC...

Prove that god doesn't exist? You can't as that is a scientific impossibility. So was proving Iraq didn'[t have any weapons of mass destruction. And teh US hasn't been able to find any.

Remember the smallpox threat that was use in all this?

The truth is. :

http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/theme_a/mod02 /www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/

The question is:

Why are we not doing what we know how to, have the resources and man power to genuinely remove what terrorist use to gain support and followers?

The real terrorist are the ones parionoid of retailation, because they have been so damn fucking bad on others.

I disagree.

There are two cases where details of individual lives are very valuable historically:

1. Family genealogy.

It is valuable to know something about your distant ancestors. The lack of data that surrounds your ancestors (say in 1800s) leaves much to be desired. If you know which school they went to, who their friends are, what they did for a living, something about their temper, interests, ...etc, that would shed some light on them. Chances are most people only know names, date of birth/marriage/death, a picture and that is about it.

Consider 50 or 100 or 200 years from now. Say your descendants search The-All-Encompassing-Knowledge-Repository (privacy issues aside), and find out that posted on Slashdot, then they research what Slashdot was, deduce that you are an Open Source fan, ...etc. If they have interest to dig deeper, they can know what songs you listened to, who you chat with, which things you bought.

2. Archeology.

The lives of a single person in some remote past can be a gold mine of information. Think about Otzi the ice man for example. We know what he ate, we know the weapons and implements he carried, and know what he was dressed in. We speculate about the tatooes on his body, and whether he was involved in a skirmish/fight before he died. If we had a recording of the language he used we would know a lot. In any case, he himself is not important, not being a king, conqueror, or author, but the info gleaned from the life of that individual is priceless, and tells a lot about the age.

This is why "Digital Archeology" is so important for the future.

Bob Cringely had the same problem with a mountain and put up a passive repeater instead. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020207. html

> How is treating ordinary people like criminals going to solve your particular problem, just because they have a cold or flu and want over the counter medicine?

The parent post mischaracterizes the issue (the change is to sell previously off the shelf cold medicine over the counter). The inconvenience of getting non-prescription cold medicine OTC instead of off the shelf is inconsequential compared to the amount of good it does to stem 'smurfing' for home-lab production of meth. Getting cold medicine from a pharmacist isn't treating ordinary people like criminals. Your freedom is not being abridged. Warrantless wiretaps abridge your freedom (to freely associate and to be secure in your personal affects), buying cold medicine over the counter without a prescription doesn't. However, if you are against the control of all substances, then I guess your position is tenable (e.g.: Why shouldn't free citizens be able to make their own cold medicine at home?! How can possession of any chemical infringe the rights of others and therefore necessitate State intervention?!). This also goes for each sibling reply about how hard it is to get Sudafed. Give me a break.

Here's a great one-stop resource to get you started: Frontline episode about the meth epidemic.

My local PBS broadcasted a two part series last night on the struggle between Keynes and Hayek economic theories that discussed exactly this. While no global economy is anywhere near 100% capitalist (including the US and GB), it's obvious that the Keynesians (economists who held that the economy was a machine whose mechanisms could be/should be adjusted by governments) have been ultimately (and decidedly) proved wrong.

Never argue with a man that has a death ray.

The printing press was "Evil" from a Catholic perspective because it opposed the church and eventually help strip their authority on "educating" the masses:

http://www.pbs.org/empires/medici/renaissance/coun ter.html (pbs documentary)

"With the advent of the printing press Luther's manifesto spread far and wide and garnered widespread support. The challenge from Luther caught the Pope by surprise. The leaders of the Catholic Church were also frightened by how confidently the Princes of Germany resisted Vatican pressure. These leaders, supposedly subject to the authority of the Church, now declared themselves independent of Vatican rule. Ultimately the Princes' defiance ensured Luther's survival,and prompted the birth of a Catholic movement known as the Counter-Reformation."

PBS' Frontline also had a show on sex slavery in eastern Europe. Coincidentally, that story also involved women going to Turkey. A good program, and one that will freak you out about things that happen in the world (if all the other stuff wasn't enough).