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Not that I'd exactly knock Cave or anything. The one thing I don't understand, however, is why all Cave environments are automatically assumed to be gateways for video game production. The Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida is working on a Nave (Non-expensive Automatic Virtual Environment). I loathe it whenever I hear someone come in and say, "Oh, this would be so cool if you could play Counterstrike" on it. This is Computer Science, not Computer Entertainment. Sheesh...

Not that I'd exactly knock Cave or anything. The one thing I don't understand, however, is why all Cave environments are automatically assumed to be gateways for video game production. The Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida is working on a Nave (Non-expensive Automatic Virtual Environment). I loathe it whenever I hear someone come in and say, "Oh, this would be so cool if you could play Counterstrike" on it. This is Computer Science, not Computer Entertainment. Sheesh...

Actually I know some people that work at a similiarly named ISP.. unfortunately they get alot of Luser mail destine for 'Gator'.. so sad..

On a side note, I wonder if the Gator people paided IP rights to the University of Florida for likenesses (Orange and Blue with an Alligator)... the Gator page used to have a more predominate alligator there.. ah well..

It is worth noting that Lloyd's thought experiments in these areas were preceded by similar speculations over 4 years ago in Anders Sandberg's paper The Physics of Information Processing Superobjects: Daily Life Among the Jupiter Brains. Lloyd has extended them a bit by bringing Black Holes into the picture.

Now, what we will be able to engineer in this century, using diamondoid molecular nanotechnology, is solar system sized nested layer Dyson shell supercomputers. This is a unique architecture that I have named a Matrioshka Brain. It will allow us to most efficiently use the entire power output of the sun and compute somewhere in the range of 10^42 to 10^52 ops per second.

Interestingly enough, Michael Franks has a paper "Reversibility in optimally scalable computer architectures" which postulates a solar system sized reversible architecture that would out-compute any non-reversible architecture. This too would be using atomic-scale engineering. Unfortunately it requires the power output of an A or B class star (~50,000 suns) and requires an amount of silicon equal to the mass of Saturn (our solar system doesn't even come close to having that unless we mine the sun for it). After we have developed machines of these architectures, our development comes to a slow halt unless our ability to do sub-atomic engineering can be developed. I'll be quite happy with what we can get out of atomic-scale engineering -- it supplies enough computronium for roughly a trillion-trillion human minds for those who choose to upload.

I've just joined a research group at my University to study reversible computing. The professor in charge wrote his doctoral thesis on the subject at MIT.

The concept is that a "normal" CPU erases information on every cycle (clearing registers, overwriting data, shifting data to nowhere, etc). When a CPU erases information, it's dissipated as heat. There are thermodynamic limits to this (kinda like Moore's law). So, if a computer could be designed not to erase data, you could reverse the CPU and get most of your energy back.

Now before you say "BS", think about it. In physics, if you know the initial state (starting position, velocity, acceleration) of an object in an isolated system, you can easily compute where it was at any given time earlier. This uses the same concept. For example, If you add 43 to a register, you can subtract 43 from that register and get your energy back.

Of course, certain instructions don't lend themselves to reversibility. For example, bit shifting is inherently irreversible. One option is to maintain a stack of "garbage data", but that's a poor solution. On the other hand, a number of instructions are reversible by default. .. XOR is always reversible, etc. So, a reversible CPU will probably have a more constrictive instruction set, but is still functional.

Reversibility is not anything new, but it does take a shift in thinking. Algorithms can be designed to run very efficiently on reversible computers, but it takes a bit more effort. Hopefully, we (the community of people studying reversible/adiabatic computers) will develop means of either converting irreversible algorithms or develop ways to make them less innefficient (double negative).

-Andy

I agree entirely. At my high school, the Junior Engineering and Technical Society (JETS) started competing in FIRST during my senior year, when I was preparing for International Baccalaureate exams. I would have really enjoyed this, and I know those who actually found the time got a lot of great experience from it.

This year, the team from my high school was aided by engineers from the University of Florida College of Engineering, NASA, and various companies. The members learned problem solving skills and people skills that can't be learned in standard classes.

By the way, I went to part of the competition this year to support this year's team from my high school. (They did pretty well until the last day.) It was amazing - literally thousands of people cheering for the teams. It's great to see people be so enthusiastic about engineering.

I agree entirely. At my high school, the Junior Engineering and Technical Society (JETS) started competing in FIRST during my senior year, when I was preparing for International Baccalaureate exams. I would have really enjoyed this, and I know those who actually found the time got a lot of great experience from it.

This year, the team from my high school was aided by engineers from the University of Florida College of Engineering, NASA, and various companies. The members learned problem solving skills and people skills that can't be learned in standard classes.

By the way, I went to part of the competition this year to support this year's team from my high school. (They did pretty well until the last day.) It was amazing - literally thousands of people cheering for the teams. It's great to see people be so enthusiastic about engineering.

Assume for a moment that Napster's users' actions fall under Section 1008 protection. Well, now we can't say that Napster's users are infringing, because then we'd be alleging infringement (in essence, they are-since Section 1008 never says that it is now legal to do these things, it simply says that nobody can allege that these things are illegal). Since we now have no infringers, we can no longer have a contributory infringer, can we?

For those that still didn't get it, how's this for an explanation. Can you be charged with accessory to murder (not conspiracy to commit murder, as I'm sure someone will bring up) if nobody's dead? How about if we're not sure if anybody's dead? How about if somebody is dead, but they were killed in self-defense (therfore-no murder...)? I would say the answer to all those are 'no'.

Now, the only thorn is to prove that Napster's users do indeed fall under the scope of Section 1008. Well, the US Gov't, being the business whore that it is, feels they do not. Read their brief here. Unfortunately, they didn't pay their lawyers enough to write this brief, and I explain why here.

If you don't want to look, here's the basics. Npaster's software falls under the definition of "device", as does a PC's audio recording functions, as does a CD-R. Napster's users are making "digital musical recordings", you just have to think in terms of hard drive clusters, not the entire hard drive. Napster's users are engaged in noncommercial copying, not public distribution "by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending". Napster is used to make "digital audio recordings" (copies of the music in the brief's own words). Napster's users can't be said to be infringing.

I read your article 'parable of umbrellas and taxi cabs'. A great concept, something that I have not encountered in economics before. I am intrigued by the approach that the O.C.E.A.N. Project has taken for a futures market in CPU cycles.

There's a program here at the University of Florida that is trying to take on this issue. There is a special major being presented to students that allows them to develope their artistic talents along with their engineer skills.

Allowing you to take two approaches to the major, you can take a art track with a fair amount of engineer courses or a engineer track with a fair amount of art courses.

To find out more: http://www.dwi.ufl.edu

Of course, according to some (including the US Government, as pointed out here) Napster does not fall under the scope of Section 1008.

Personally, I disagree, and if you followed the above link, you can view my take on the situation here.

It claims (without proof) to be a lot faster than Java: 1.5 - 3 times slower than C (according to this document, the source of much of the following information).

It's all tooled up with both the bad bways of Garbage Collection. Yes, let's hear it, folks, for Mark and Sweep and his old sparring partner Reference Counting. Still doesn't stop it churning perceptibly in the ticker applet. (They claim RT scheduling but that's no good when you're sitting inside IE with JavaScript turned on in a force 9 pr0n gale.) The polyhedra demo is fast and smoothe and reasonably svelte.

'array of array of vector of arse'. Gak! Neither I nor the compiler are amused that dcl is now compulsory.

It can run Limbo source or binaries, not just bytecode.

Dennis Ritchie encourages the development of a C compiler, and maybe the one bundled with Plan 9 has a few tricks up its sleeve. With a gcj-style Dis backend you could install signed X and Gnome/GTK/KDE/Qt (or the unbelievably cool Ion Window Manager) applets to replace the embarrassingly retro interface. How about writing DHTML in Perl or Python instead of JavaScript? Can you say .GNET?

The site's 3 years old and the guy may be talking out of his arse. I'll give him this, though: he sure knows how to diss up C++ with a zeal for hellfire and damnation truly worthy of his dear OS's name:

C++ objects and their complexities are happily left out. There is no polymorphism or tricky exception handling (the difficulty of understanding exception handling caused the explosion of the Ariane 5 rocket).

It's not every day you download and install an operating system in a couple of seconds (ADSL). Didn't even have to powercycle IE let alone reboot its other OS plugin, Windows. If they don't open the source I'm sure there's someone somewhere who's looking at his/her 1 floppy Linux distro and hatching a cunning plan. What a shame Theo de Raadt's so down on a pocket OpenBSD (reminds me of Guido's antipathy to a Python shared object, Linus's allergy to a kernel debugger). That fireproof sonofabitch would be a perfect fit for plug-in World Domination.

The evil backhoe is a common antagonist and joke among ISPs and backbone operators -- people 'in the business' (the internet business, that is).

I worked in a NOC and up into engineering at a minor internet backbone (for those of you up on your history, the first one to use ATM) and whenever something went down, we'd joke "Some drunk ran into a light pole," or "Some stupid backhoe operator took out MAE East again."

It's funny, but it does happen and causes a lot of people to pop Tums until it's over. Train wrecks can be devestating too, since fiber/copper are often run along train tracks for a lot of reasons.

After a brief search, I came up with the following interesting blurbs:

A fiber cut from 1999

One from 1998

An article about a fiber cut on Slashdot itself

Sprint has "fiber repair" rodeos, heh.

If you do a google search on "fiber cut" and "backhoe", you'll come up with tons of hits. So, you can see, backhoes being the bane of the service provider is a very true statement.

FYI, the NANOG mentioned in some of those articles is the "North American Network Operators' Group" and they have meetings where they discuss cool stuff related to the internet. I went to a meeting once.. boring as hell. But I got some t-shirts and the day off work to go. Wheeee!

http://ftp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~tiapr o/w ire/Image1.gif

Sorry.

Radiata Product Briefs

At 5GHz, and certainly with low power, they'll probably be local to an area of a few hundred feet. But it also depends on how wide a spectum they need. (I think the FCC is auctioning a band near 5GHz.) I'm getting my guess of a few hundred feet from assuming they'll use frequency hopping spread spectrum techniques similar as to what's available now.

For a look at the US spectum allocation, as it was in 1999 at least, check this.

US FCC Spectrum allocation as of 1999.

Still 54Mb at duplex isn't bad. 11Mb or 44Mb and somtimes 54Mb?

But since they use (2) bands at 20MHz they're gonna need a Jeff Bezos ego sized chunk of spectrum to make it fly. To make it worse for both Cisco and their young(er) charge every damn countries spectrum is chopped up seperately, and they're getting kinda crowded. Given that the spectrum these puppies go at is an, as of yet, unallocated and (to my mind) a nessecarily large, block, I've gotta say these are at least 2 or more years off from the consumer.

There are a couple of up sides, these toys are really low power, they'll have very small antenna, and by the time you can get one you'll be playing 3d interactive web games off your G3 phone and won't give a crap.

The first time they posted the results as 100%, Bush led by 1,210 votes and at the bottom it said "Runoff Election Indicated" (I saved the page, as of about 3AM).

Now I've reloaded the official results p age again at 6AM. It's still 100% reporting. Here Bush leads by 791 votes. But more interesting (to me) is that the "Runoff Election Indicated" sentence now says:

"Recount Indicated"

So this obviously means that they're gonna do a recount. But if the recount is unsatisfactory or still very close, is there a provision within national or state (Florida) statutes to have a runoff election?

Ah, someone just sent me this link from the National Archives with the following information:

What would happen if two candidates tied in a State's popular vote, or there was a dispute as to the winner?

A tie is a statistically remote possibility even in smaller States. But if a State's popular vote were to come out as a tie between candidates, State law would govern as to what procedure would be followed in breaking the tie. A tie would not be known of until late November or early December, after a recount and after the Secretary of State had certified the election results. Federal law would allow a State to hold a run-off election.

A very close finish could also result in a run-off election or legal action to decide the winner. Under Federal law (3 U.S.C. section 5), State law governs on this issue, and would be conclusive in determining the selection of Electors. The law provides that if States have laws to determine controversies or contests as to the selection of Electors, those determinations must be completed six days prior to the day the Electors meet.

So did the appearance of "Runoff Election Indicated" on the official Fl. Secretary of State website indicate a possible runoff? Is this allowable under Florida statutes (btw, I'm browsing through them now but can't find any pertinent information. But I don't think my brain can handle legislative jargon at 6:20am.

But if there's nothing that doesn't allow it, I think it's very possible that Florida might have a run-off election, possibly between just Gore and Bush.

Which means no Nader.

Interesting.......

Note the last line:

Runoff election indicated

Runoff? Is this correct?

Damn. I know I'm gonna get (-1, Redundant) on my original article, but I stupidly hit the wrong button and Submitted it instead of Previewing it. Nevertheless, here's what I wanted to write after thinking it through:

You could also read the original project summary for the Grid Physics Network.

Although the site linked by the story (or click here for your One-Link (tm) GriPhyN info, in case you're too lazy to check the article out) has more new info that the original one, and it's more easily understood.
(Grrr. It's Preview, not Submit. It's Preview, not Submit).

How about exploring the fundamental forces of nature and structure of the universe? That's what the GriPhyN project (Grid Physics Network) will be supporting. Some other related grid projects and forums can be found on the Links page.

Another good description of GriPhyN, maintained by one of the principle investigators, is here.

Since the Linux Router Project runs from ramdisk by default, it's an excellent candidate for this. My app runs like Tripwire, but very often, and detects changes in system files. If such changes occur, it logs it to a logserver and reboots or re-reads the write-protected floppy back into ramdisk. Look mommy, no more trojan horses on poorly secured firewalls!

The app is called Tripwall and the original project site was http://homepages.hack-net.com/code_valley/tripwall , but this is down so I plan to move this to http://cise.ufl.edu/~cl0/tripwall.html.

Admitedly, much of what I said is a defensive posture. Take it as that, and not as a challenge to your own conclusions.

For example, I'm not saying religon=immoral/not-spiritual. I am saying that if morals and/or spirituality are associated with a specific religion, it doesn't make that religion or any other one necessary...or even the best way to gain insight.

If someone said that thier religon has some unique claim to morals and/or spirituality, they'd have to offer some proof since I see it differently. Unfortunately, this is often turned on it's head, showing bigotry toward those who don't 'believe' or 'have faith' in exactly the same way.

I'll put it this way. Being religous or not has little to do with being moral. Yet, more then once I've had people assume that because I'm not religous I can't be moral...and some of these people have known me since childhood and have relied on me without question. Thankfully, what they know of me is enough for them to get over it and accept that I haven't taking up raping and pillaging as a profession!

In one case, I had a girlfriend who -- months into the relationship -- found out that I wasn't religous. It took weeks for her to realize that I wasn't going to go on a rampage and start killing people.

She was deeply confused, since she had been told all her life that to be moral/spiritual, you had to be religous. She even went as far as to insist that I was indeed religous for a while...but finally and without argument said that she understood. That I was 'one of the nicest people' she had ever met (newsgroups not included!) only added to her confusion. The implication that not being religous=immoral is what's insulting. It is biggotry taken as fact by most people raised in a religon.

In summary: The reasons why you don't do immoral things are exactly the same as my reasons. These are automatic, and are part of our characters. Books -- even religous texts -- can be instructive, but they don't make us moral.

Sidebar: Asian philosophy: Art of War & the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing) are two examples that have been highly instructive. Note that in some of the translations there are references to a capital G God, while in others there aren't. Guess which one is more likely to be an accurate translation?

Sheesh, I don't get why so many people whine and complain about bitrates and CD quality and digital sound and all sorts of mumbo jumbo when, in general, musically, these people lack the ear for it to make a difference!

Think about it - the large majority of MP3s traded are either a) popular crap (and in my opinion, no matter how many bits you got going Backstreet Boys is going to suck), or b) weird old stuff (which is probably stolen from tape, record, or TV as it is, making the quality kind of doubtable).

Personally, I listen to jazz/swing, classical, and other weird stuff. But, with the occasional exception of napster, you don't find those MP3s on the net. Search for Benny Goodman and you'll be more likely to find Britney Spears. It's pretty bad. So, given the music (if it can be called that) being traded, and the people trading it, I think that relative quality of a couple of this and that isn't important at all.

That being said, this new format does look pretty cool. But people have to stop being so anal retentive about little numbers and bitrates when they aren't even going to be able to tell the difference themselves....

(Disclaimer - I'm not trying to say people are stupid. A lot of them are, but not everybody. I'm not insulting the average /.er - I'm insulting the average pimple-faced, lazy AOL user who uses the letter 'z' more then the letter 'e'. And they think they're cool because they spout technical jargon about bitrates and stuff when they're trading 'N sync or some other new crap and they don't know a frickin thing about music, them or the groups they listen to. On that note, I've been thinking of writing a computer program that pumps out "Boy band" music. It's actually really simple - pick an easy key (concert B flat anyone?), set it in with a I-IV-V chord progression, make it be a set baseline, a drummer that just subdivides and OCCASIONALLY throw in some 2 against 3, then make up a boring and repetitive melody that fits to the chords, then swap the melody between whiny crappy guitars and vocalists. As for the lyrics, just take all the current boy group songs, stick em together and put it through Bable. The trickiest part would be getting the lyrics and the melody to match, syllable and pronunciation wise. But all in all, not that hard - and the fact that a computer program COULD be written to pump out the crap that's making millions in todays society is what proves to me that it really isn't music. So anyway, if you ARE a fan of Backstreet boys or something, I hope I've thoroughly offended you. Read whatever I happen to post next, I'm sure we'll be good friends :).

There's a very big difference, IMOHO, between having you arrested and arresting you; likewise between having your property taken away and simply taking your property away. Sure, either one sucks. :-) But if it's wrongly done, the blame must ultimately lie with the government.

The government meddled from day one by awarding software patents and making it difficult to reverse engineer legally. While I disagree with the ruling, I do not have a problem in theory, at least, with the government, which enabled Microsoft's profits through intellectual property laws (which are monopolies according to the Constitution), testing to see if Microsoft is abusing the privilege

It seems a very bad thing to me. If government-awarded privileges show themselves destructive of the common good, the privileges themselves need to be curtailed. The goverment has certainly created and then punished monopolies in the past. Ma Bell, for instance. Legislation to fix legislation to fix legislation is all too common, and too dangerous.

To use law to control a nation weakens the nation.
But to use nature to control a nation strengthens the nation. - Tao Te Ching

(IP is only a right if you assume that government grants rights rather than protects them, IMHO.)

There's a distinction traditionally made between natural rights (life, liberty, property, for instance), and created rights (though I'm not sure "created" is the right term). I certainly view IP as the latter sort.

It was on early Macintoshes, and even on the Apple IIGS, imo one of the best personal computers ever made. I'm using a now-free UNIX variant called GNO/ME with Derek Tauberts GS/TCP (unreleased) to serve web pages (currently down, I'm moving to CA).

It was on early Macintoshes, and even on the Apple IIGS, imo one of the best personal computers ever made. I'm using a now-free UNIX variant called GNO/ME with Derek Tauberts GS/TCP (unreleased) to serve web pages (currently down, I'm moving to CA).

Don't forget why the Arian 5 rocket blew up in 1996 , a conversion error caused a software shutdown that lead to the self-destruct of the rocket.

"The internal SRI software exception was caused during execution of a data conversion from a 64-bit floating-point number to a 16-bit signed integer value. The value of the floating-point number was greater than what could be represented by a 16-bit signed integer. The result was an operand error. The data conversion instructions (in Ada code) were not protected from causing operand errors, although other conversions of comparable variables in the same place in the code were protected."

What was the estimate, about $8,000,000,000 of uninsured losses, including 10 years of work for the scientists with satellites on board.

I wonder how many other maiden voyages have started off so poorly, other that the Titanic that is.

I sent a copy of this to billgates@microsoft.com and contact@microsoft.com after attempting to send a letter to the fellow who wrote Andover the nice "Dammit, stop!" letter. That guy sent me a little form letter telling me that his address was for copyright infringement. That caused me to send this:

I have been a long time supporter and consumer of Microsoft and Microsoft's products. I have for the most part been satisfied by the products you've delivered as a company. I am the MS Office guru for my office (the Registration/Information area of the Registrar's office at the University of Florida). I am an amateur Visual Basic developer, and I've even started learning the Win32 API so that I can code some small programs in C++. I have downloaded each new update to Internet Explorer with eager anticipation. I have even defended your freedom to innovate to numerous people.

However, the recent decision by the Microsoft legal department to harass Andover, the publisher of Slashdot.org didn't sit well with me at all. I understand that Microsoft has a responsibility to protect its copyrights and intellectual property, but I also believe that this request is a clear violation of the freedom of speech protected by the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution.

I have already e-mailed the legal department and got a form letter back which explained to me that I had the wrong address.

I have installed Red Hat Linux on my system because I simply cannot stomach dealing with a company who harrasses members of the media. I strongly urge you to cease your actions against Slashdot. There are a lot of users exactly like me who are giving you the benefit of the doubt but who are also getting very tired of watching your large corporation push smaller corporations around.

Please don't think that I'm angry at you personally. I would defend anyone's freedom of speech--even your own. Perhaps this whole thing looks a lot more sinister than it is, but right now it looks as though Microsoft is just upset that someone did something they didn't like. Would Microsoft have harrassed a site who had published sections of your code in order that they might praise it?

Please. Give me a reason not to execute the "rm -r /mnt/c/windows" command. I like so many of your products, but I just can't support a company that tries to bully public opinion by shutting up the voices of dissenters.

After seeing this, I decided to try my hand at simulating Jon Katz. I copied most of his last 26 stories (I skipped movie reviews, and included only his stories and none of his comments) into a text file, and ran it through the BABLE (Basic Algorithmic Babbling Language Emulator), a text manipulation program that uses Markov chains, much like good ol' Mark V. Shaney. I then broke it up into paragraphs. My conclusion? We can rebuild him. Make him faster chchchch, stronger chchchchch, more long-winded...

Here's the result:

imprisoned. They just rail from the fringes until they wear themselves out. Winston wouldn't have been thrown in jail a few months, a scenario familiar to contemporary tech workers and companies. Now his company's trying something even more radical. Ford's new Web sites will link employees all over the Net for practical purposes simply becomes public domain.

The protocol initially referred to marginal or alternative works, but it has some promise as a new economic model for dealing with intellectual content, since that's another industry where the same issues press, Spurius suggests.

A company that releases a game, instead of selling it, could offer membership to a service that permits consumers to download any game they choose from the server any time. Instead of offering only its own games, a company could allow all companies to put their games on its server, including people who have already released non - commercial games. Spurius's idea is to sell culture, beginning with smaller games and projects, and building towards bigger, more commercial products.

From Timothy Lord, Slashdot's managing editor: A question that arises when it comes to the genome, one the world has and will continue to debate: do we need papers anymore? Is there any reason to preserve their form and function, any vital purpose they serve? At this moment in media history, no longer an option but a necessity, not a privilege - they can begin rewriting their own sorry history. Ford really did have a better idea this time. Perhaps even ground - breaking, if it catches on. Here? s some questions to mull in front of their audiences, and they take no moral responsibility for that.

People like you are celebrating and enabling and helping raise a culture of thievery that is not only institutionalized but which considers itself morally superior. We are a nation of laws and you seem to celebrate a nation of law - enforcement agencies is also being developed for each school in the state to notify when a tip has been received by Pinkerton on its nationwide toll - free lines for students, who will be able to fit the the whole company's holding on a couple of CD's or micro - chips.

That says a lot about how valuable information has become in the Digital Age, shrieking and clucking about a changing world the Net, and regain control of popular culture, as corporatists move against free music and other cultural offerings in smaller, less costly units.

They can cross - reference your personal ID with records listing your name, address, telephone number, e - traders The Undernet subterranean but thriving mailing lists, Web logs and e - mail than a book, King's latest novella, Riding the Bullet. The demand online was so great - - more than, orders - - that could ensure that people who are responsible for creative work get paid, while digital information remains freely shareable online.

The SPP is an electronic - commerce mechanism designed to make it easier than ever to form smaller, adaptive communities - buddy, family, friend and work lists. These almost function as private associations, attracting countless small communities of people with similar interests - college students or music lovers, most of whom are disgusted by Washington politics?

The DMCA suggests that corporate pressure can reverse the way lawmaking ought to work: the law seems to have come before the discussion, as is clear from messages like this one. While the Net and Web, papers have become more marginalized, less vital.

Newspapers never grasped that interactivity isn't about technology, a desire to dominate markets, a passion for a particular culture. Certainly, notions of exposure and punishment no longer apply. No kid in America for roughly billion, a fraction of the attention and discussion it deserved.

It may also be the best hope for the st century, perhaps - - the bound book - - prologues, epilogues, blurbs are all openly addressed, becoming part of the high - tech economy. Does anyone reading this actually work hours a week.

The study strongly challenged the assertions of Net advocates and enthusiasts like me who argue that the Net, instantly. And there's no taking them back. In the st Century. That puts increasing pressure on undemocratic governments, who quite correctly dread the spread of computing, e - traders, the Undernet subterranean but thriving mailing lists, Usenet groups, messaging systems, as contact with other humans. It suggested that the Net isn't a sex story or a business or cracking story, but increasing, the biggest story of our time.

In Code, Lawrence Lessing of Harvard writes about the emergence of new kinds of culture - gaming, communities, mailing lists, Usenet groups, messaging systems, as contact with other humans. It suggested that the Net, and of the Web in particular, is altering the way younger Americans view many traditional ethics and values - - the people Ridley calls this lucky generation - - are dangerous.

A safe school environment is fundamental to helping North Carolina's students succeed in school, announced Governor Hunt. Every school ought to be required reading for anyone who needs to be reminded of the importance of science in the contemporary world. Since most scientific language is arcane and inaccessible to much of humanity, or punish them when they try to join communal discussions.

Women have a right to speak publicly; so do older people, foreigners, newcomers, children - are excluded from the conversation or choose to avoid it. Some are too vulnerable too join in; many are tough enough but they don't see much reason to bother.

So flamers discourage free speech, prey on the weak and dominate discussion. They have plenty to contribute - brains, energy, information and technical skills. But they need mentoring. If their mantra is content, this alliance is unbeatable. The AOL Time - Warner, rule our world.

E - mail is convenient, visceral and democratic, but it, along with countless eruptions, rebellions and civil wars. Both movements promised, and then rarely.

Newspapers are still mired in anti - deluvian and phobic notions about technology - is Johnny getting onto the Playboy website, is it even possible to own something that's distributed globally through a representational medium like the Internet and activities like computer gaming are turning otherwise healthy school children into mass murderers.

In a short time, we will have gone from knowing little about genes to knowing nearly everything. The human mind, then, one of a torrent of excited journalistic accounts of his life, Case spouts the corporatist ideology for the umpteenth time in recent days: the inevitabilities of globalization, the ethos of the marketplace and the growing power of technology as a force in modern life.

These are the rationales for Napster, DVD and the ongoing war on MP 's. Citizen Case, who, at, has miraculously become our new national corporatist leader and spokesperson. Read below for more on this increasingly troubling problem and to offer some possible solutions.

This weekend, Josh Rosenberg, a Slashdot reader urged a few weeks ago after reading - and apparently disliking - - a handful of obscenely large and powerful businesses. The libertarian ethos of the marketplace and the growing power of technology as a force in modern life. These are the rationales for Napster, DVD and the ongoing war on MP 's.

Citizen Case, he drives a VW, wrote the stunned reporter creator of one the blandest, most consumer - abusive Internet Service Providers.

In a world where we're all increasingly dependent on networked computing for work, banking, music, games or other intellectual property online. Only in recent months the DMCA has sparked legal actions like these: Jon Johansen, a teenager, at the polling booth, or most important, at the cash register.

It is presumptuous and arrogant on so many levels it's astonishing to see public officials like North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt adopt the idea so unthinkingly and enthusiastically. But he's not alone - - plenty of parents and educators are along for the ride.

It isn't widely held in political and media circles - - especially ones far removed from corporate models of culture and creativity - - a new kind of sub - culture, having its roots in the earliest days of the Net - everything will go digital - is not coming to pass. Certain information formats can offer a sensual, contextual appeal that's impossible to quantify, and was not predicted.

Consumers have fiercely resisted getting newspapers or books via digitized tablets. Convenience and speed are critical measures, but not in the United States, book publishers are beginning to do. So like newspapers, book publishers are making the same mistake. Why interactivity isn't about technology, a desire to dominate markets, a passion for a particular culture.

Certainly, notions of exposure and punishment no longer apply. No kid in America for roughly billion, a fraction of the attention and discussion it deserved.

It may also be the best hope for the st century. They are less overtly malignant and heavy - handed, and have little reason to fear encroaching corporatism. In this regard, we are told, says that even to ask about God is beyond its scope.

But this has triggered growing political, cultural and political consequences. The Internet, write McInerney and White, has given consumers with PC's the power to exercise market control as never before.

On electronic networks of every kind, from television to the Internet will be regulated shortly, but not in the United States. Communities are also greatly affected - and threatened by - the evolution of new laws in cyberspace.

Artists, musicians, writers and other creators of intellectual property can still be paid fairly for their work. There are all sorts of options beyond conventional royalties. They can offer contracts to cadres of music lovers who agree to pay for access if they're offered more choices at cheaper prices.

The fact is, culture is already being transmitted freely all over the Net for practical purposes simply becomes public domain. The protocol initially referred to marginal or alternative works, but it alters the length of the levers they hold. Consumer reaction is instant, be it through the Internet, would do well to read Thomas Jefferson, who eloquently expressed one of his fondest wishes for intellectual property in his new country as follows: That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like Congress or on TV talk shows.

In the off - line world, mutual benefit is the core of community. Real people provide help, entertainment, or on the Internet. But Lessig adds, there is no such thing as God, or science - which embodies our ability to reason - must be able to fit the the whole company's holding on a couple of years, he could buy those computers without even dipping into his principal. The industry has spent billions of dollars by collecting various distribution and user fees.

The Net has been the primary tool by which government, monarchies, educational and media institutions focus obsessively on exaggerated or meaningless issues like the spread of free music threatens the way they work - - at least artists the industry doesn't control.

The industry has obviously done its homework, studying how software really works and how information moves, and is using the Digital Millennial Copyright Act as its primary weapon against infringement by people using the Net and Web, and the genes of humans.

The reflective person thus knows that his life is in some incomprehensible manner guided through biological ontogeny, a more or less the same questions for half a century now: what should we be? What do you think?

For years, Old Media dismissed electronic competitors as frivolous and temporal. Then New Media appeared to be burying its predecessors for good. It appears both notions may have been the usual long, boring and self - congratulatory affair.

But there are signs all over of a new, hybrid, and probably permanent Middle Media. Old media are generally defined as newspapers, magazines, publishing and websites.

Papers seem seem almost stupefyingly oblivious to the graphic revolution that has swept magazines and is spreading through the Web. As a result, with little political opposition or discussion, the DMCA pits the free software movement, squarely against the commercialist threat to the free nature of the Net, increasingly the subject of commercial and corporate interest and speculation, has remained strikingly free, diverse and highly individualized entertainment.

The ability to personalize culture in this way is unprecedented, a unique feature of life online. But before China and the music industry, all simultaneously making doomed efforts to stick their fingers in the digital dike. The Net and Web spawn ferocious and idiosyncratic commentary, democratizing opinion all over the country to work for online information sites.

These reporters, leaving papers like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times you have to join, but it's www. nytimes. com, so are the sales of books in stores.

The technological absolutism invoked by the rise of a politically - correct ethos in public communications, encroachments on depictions of sex and violence. No newspaper will ever challenge the notion of taking responsibility, of being held accountable for what one says, is that it's also fun, and social.

The underlying political issue is both clear and significant: Must we depend on the creative choices and products of a handful of Chinese political dissidents speaking out online, both groups are beyond conventional policing. But that doesn't mean a lot of harm.

The first generation Internet promoted certain concepts of freedom that didn't exist elsewhere. This wasn't by accident. Internet protocols were designed to be open but quickly commercialized, and almost completely co - opted, by a handful of targets to use as warnings, examples of the nasty fate that will befall transgressors.

If any approach is doomed to fail in this era, it's that one. Too bad some people will have to pay along the way, sacrifices on the altar of corporate or governmental obliviousness.

For all the media hype about technology, pornography and e - mail that the discussions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, passed quietly months ago and now being used to shut down every free music site on the Net - a coalition of academics, engineers, early hackers and researchers - designed the Net and the Web. As a result, with little political opposition or discussion, the DMCA threatens to do much more harm to freedom on the Net:

the Communications Decency Acts, however obnoxious, were both efforts at political theater, staged mostly for constituents. They were ludicrously unenforceable and vague. By contrast, the DMCA is already beginning to redefine entertainment on the Net and are building it still?

Do the people running websites have any responsibility to challenge people who assault others online, create environments in which some of the conflict over free music - - simple greed and desire are others - - are dangerous. A safe school environment is fundamental to helping North Carolina's students succeed in school, announced Governor Hunt. Every school ought to be a serious problem with real consequences.

Misinformation about genetic research, online safety - even the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is beginning to succumb. Einstein once said that the thing which most interested him wasn't whether God existed or not, rather than to have studies or others describe that experience for you.

Do any of you read newspapers regularly, or see a future for them? This column was inspired by an e - mail accounts. Ocurring continents apart, the two incidents seemed oddly connected.

The MPA - along with the educational, cultural, social and economic benefits of computing still unavailable to more than half the American population. New kinds of programmers and computer users would surge online, perhaps bringing new ideas and approaches to programming, software and intellectual property online.

It's very significant for us. I am the sysadmin at the statistical office of a pediatric cancer research group collocated at the University of Florida. The Pediatric Oncology Group. We collect and analyze data from hospitals around the world participating in NCI sponsored pediatric clinical trials. We perform all of our data collection with Linux servers. We have one IBM AIX box which is used for SAS analysis and 12 Linux servers for everything else. We're looking forward to making the transition to homogeneous servers (linux).

Genomic (and anti-genomics) Links [To Top]

Mapping the Icelandic Genome. "An Anthropology of the scientific, political, economic, religious, and ethical issues surrounding the deCode Project and its global implications." Contains useful pointers.

Indigenous people's coalition against biopiracy.

The Human Genome Diversity Project as explained by Stanford Professor and posted on the U.N. website.

Various UN reports on the Genome question.

An Outline : Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) Background.

Cultural Survival has issue 20.2 (sum 1996) dedicated to 'Genes, People, and Property' issues.

The archive for discover magazine. Nov. 1994 issue has a few articles about genome and diversity.

The gene letter. The Nov. 96 issue has an HGDP article.

High school lesson plan for teaching students about the HGDP.

"The Gene Wars: Science, Politics, and the Human Genome." An excellent book review with bibliography and online resources.

National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has a Bibliography Page about the HGP.

Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) of the HGP.

The Human Genome Diversity Project: Scientific, Social and Ethical Issues .

A list of articles from Native-L mailing list, listing all articles related to HGDP posted to the list.

Six papers given at various genome-related conferences. Topics include:

*"Why Human Genetics is a Social Science"
* "Racism, Eugenics, and the Burdens of History"
* "Scientific and Folk Idea About Heredity"
* "The Spectrum of Human Variation"
* "The Human Germ-Plasm Project: Eugenics in the 1920s and the 1990s."

Native net letter to HGDP scientists.

Pilot Projects for a Human Genome Diversity Project - Special Competition.

Molecular Anthropology Symposium at Stanford.

Seeds of Destruction. A must read for anyone who eats french fries or is concerned with genetically modified crops.

Also see Patents and Jumpstations.

Comics [To Top]

Angels of Health/Medicine Cartoon by Quino. Here is another one of a dis-orderly girl.

Patent$ and Thing$ [To Top]

An Upside article discussing patents and its history. Very informative.

Gene Patents and Bioethics.

6,000 human gene patents sought in BBC News and also the Washington Post.

American Society of Human Genetics Position Paper on Patenting of Expressed Sequence Tags.

of course the list is continually updated, ... hope this helps, bobbaqATyouknowHOO

...when you can have this?

Some rambling comments about hydrogen:

Hydrogen has been thoroughly investigated as a fuel for all kinds of uses (automotive, home heating, etc) in the 70's and 80's. The DOE even had a hydrogen powered Buick that was powered by liquid hydrogen. Hydrogen embrittlement caused turbo-charger failure, but that was solved by a bit of metalurgy. The car ran great, the hydrogen fueling station was managable, and the car had great performance and safety. They even crashed the thing once on accident, no Hindenburg. Hydrogen is probably an overall safer energy carrier than gasoline.

However, what became clear in all my hydrogen readings and research a few years ago is that hydrogen as an energy carrier for any mobile application just plains sucks - its density is too low. Even for liquid hydrogen the tank volume is so great your vehicle looks like a mini space shuttle - small cargo space, huge tank. As far as compressed hydrogen, don't even go there. Tanks of 4,000 PSI hydrogen stuffed all over, in, and under a vehicle will get you back and forth accross town a few times. Maybe practicle for a bus. Barely. Also, there is enough energy just from the compression of the hydrogen to launch an average vehicle vertically up a few thousand feet. No thank you. (this is a risk introduced by the compression, the fact that it is hydrogen is irrelevant to this particular risk, mostly. Hydrogen does throttle hot). Compressed natural gas is even more stupid - all the drawbacks of compressed hydrogen, plus you'd still be burning a hydrocarbon. Cleaner than gasoline or diesel, yes, but still nasty. For functionality, safety and cleanliness (overall) liquid propane is still way nicer than compressed natural gas. Its liquid, very easy to fill a tank, great energy density per tank volume. Its almost as convenient as gasoline or diesel, actually, more so in some ways.

Some people think metal hydrides will make nice hydrogen storage systems. Yeah, right. Trade massive volume for massive mass. Or, go the carbon composite adsorption route - a nice mix of volume and mass, but it still sucks. How many people want to wait tens of minutes if not hours to fill their tank? Some have proposed tank swapping: drop off an empty, pick up a full tank. So, now fueling stations become warehouses. Nice. "Sorry, we're out of full tanks right now, you'll have to wait an hour". Again, no thank you.

Hopefully this makes it clear that the fuel (or energy carrier, as it actually is) is not the real issue, distribution and fueling stations are the issue. Hydrogen is nice cuz it doesn't have any carbon to mess up our air, but its such a pain to transfer around for any kind of mobile application. Maybe the gas companies can pipe it to your house - this would be nice, you could 'burn' it in a fuel cell, produce electricity and heat your house all at the same time. Molten carbonate fuel cells and/or solid oxide fuel cells could do this now with natural gas, hydrogen would just make it a little easier to keep the membranes from being loaded up with sulfur and other nasty crap from natural gas.

For a mobile application we really need a hydrogen based energy carrier thats more like liquid propane. And we have one, a rather nice one. Ammonia.

Sure, its stinky, but its relatively safe. Dumb-ass Kansas/Colorado/Nebraska farm kids (me) have been dragging HUGE tanks of ammonia around the countryside and spraying it into the ground as fertilizer for generations. It has great energy density per tank volume, and its not a hydrocarbon. The X-15 space plane flew into space on two relatively small tanks, one was ammonia, the other LOX. Remember, if you are flying in and out of the atmosphere alot (as the X-15 was designed to do) huge tanks won't cut it - too much drag.

So, in short, making hydrogen is one small step towards a clean and sustainable energy economy that we as a race MUST move towards, that is if we want to keep breathing. NH3 is a much nicer way to move hydrogen around. Making hydrogen with the sun is cute. Maybe it will amount to something someday. I doubt it though. I honestly think Henk Monkhorst and clan are onto a much nicer path with their Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor.

Henk is the man, fusion rocks.

The things that people have said..

Ummm, anyone bite the wax tadpole lately?

Well, besides the exercise of getting so many voices contributing to a strategic decision, a'la online voting?

This is a way for Kasparov to get his 'face' back, by defeating the collective chess expertise of the world single-handedly.

What I would like to see next is the world vs. Deep Thought. If the greatest chess mind in the world, capable of defeating the whole world, was himself defeated by a computer, does transitivity apply? Can the world be beaten by the computer? What would be the result on the human psyche, to be defeated by a machine? Would governments halt AI research funding out of fear as thoughts of the W.O.P.R. and SkyNet dance in their heads?

Yes, we all know that DT was coached, and in fact designed, specifically to defeat Kasparov. It was programmed with Kasparov's strategies and game history... But still, it makes one wonder how the collective ego of humanity would respond to having it's collective hinny wipped by it's own invention.

Funny (or maybe not), but the tone of this article reminded me a lot of the diary of an AOL user.

I have to read anything posted by 'the monkey flying around in my butt'

Just trying to provide some comic relief on a (usually) touchy issue. =-)

--
N. Thomas
nthomas@cise.ufl.edu