Slashdot Mirror

The same commentary showed up in the Milwaukee Journal in early June. (note, not from Milwaukee, I think an Elizabeth Smart article actually had the link, but I can't find it)

The Washington Post wrote about ittwo weeks ago.

This isn't really insightful. It's doesn't really have a /. slant to it, or any new information - quite a few people have said it before. A Google search for alexis patterson media coverage pretty much tells all. I'm sure you could get more by playing with the search terms.

Every weekday Howard Kurtz (author of Spin Cycle), runs a column in the Washington Post called Media Notes. He summarizes the reporting on big and small issues, and provides great context to the media in general. He wrote about the Elizabeth Smart / Alexis Patterson issue over a week ago. He's very balanced, so don't go expecting either side of the Crossfire type of approach. All in all, I highly recommend his column if you're in to this kind of stuff.

I would post examples from The NYTimes, but they don't let you see previous issues of the paper online for free. However, as I recall their picks closely mirrored The Washington Post's:

The Washington Post
Top Story: Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared
No. 2 Story: SEC Charges WorldCom With Fraud
No. 3 Story: U.S. Court Votes to Bar Pledge of Allegiance

The Los angeles Times
Top Story: 'Tweens: From Dolls to Thongs
One of the store mannequins wears a fringed denim skirt riding low on the hips and a top pushed high on the midriff. Another has shorts that roll down on the tummy and a one-shoulder top.
No. 2 Story: Pledge of Allegiance Violates Constitution, Court Declares
No. 3 Story: WorldCom Hit With Federal Fraud Lawsuit

The Los Angeles Times shows a consistent bias toward "Reader's Digest" type stories that are entertaining and give you something to gossip about but don't really tell you anything of value. I also get the sense that many LA Times reporters are really failed screenplay writers who can't let go of the need to create drama. However, they do occasionally print something worth reading.

The LA Times is owned by The Chicago Tribune , which puts even less original content on its Web site and is more "in-your-face" about pressuring you to subscribe.

I suspect Slashdot would link to The Wall Street Journal more often if the paper made more than 1% of its content available to non-paying subscribers. (I had a paid subscription to wsj.com for about a year, but I no longer do because it's just not worth that much to me.)

I'd like to read Le Monde , but the French refuse to publish an English version. Go figure.

All of Knight-Ridder's newspapers (The San Jose Mercury News , Miami Herald , Philadelphia Inquirer , et al) have been crippled by the "RealCities Network" which forces all of its sites to use the same content-poor, ad-rich design. The saddest story of the group is the SJMercury though, which has just fallen apart since the parent company began slashing costs and forcing the RealCities conformity on its once industry-leading site. The Miami Herald is an unofficial training school for future Washington Post reporters, but that doesn't matter if you can't find their content on the Web.

Slashdot doesn't link to the Financial Times often (ever?), though it's a great paper. It just doesn't turn out a lot of unique content that's of interest to most Slashdot readers.

Newspapers aside, Slashdot has linked to CNN and the BBC in the past, though not the CBC . ABC, CBS and NBC generally provide watered down news for people who don't like to read newspapers -- not Slashdot readers.

Slashdot often links to MSNBC , but I expect that will begin to decline -- MSNBC.com's founding editor (Merrill Brown, a former Washington Post reporter) recently announced that he's resigning after 6 years to pursue other, undisclosed "opportunities." The New York Times noted on June 12 (you'll have to pay for the archived version of the story) that he offhandedly mentioned that MSNBC.com is about to be swallowed by MSN for economic reasons. (In other words, Microsoft put its foot down and said financial concerns outweigh editorial concerns.)

The International Herald-Tribune writes some of its own content, but a lot of the paper is an amalgamation of New York Times and Washington Post stories.

I haven't read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or the Seattle Times in a while, but you may find some good technology stories there.

Bottom Line: Slashdot links to a disproportionate number of New York Times and Washington Post stories because both papers' sites post a lot of content and that content is top notch. It also helps that they're among the most recognizable names in journalism, but the Slashdot system is set up to allow editors to pick from the best stories that are submitted, regardless of the content provider's brand recognition. If you read a good story somewhere, submit it -- the quality of the story is more important than the misguided registration policies of the content provider. And if I've missed a good site people should be reading, reply to this message and let people know.

I would post examples from The NYTimes, but they don't let you see previous issues of the paper online for free. However, as I recall their picks closely mirrored The Washington Post's:

The Washington Post
Top Story: Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared
No. 2 Story: SEC Charges WorldCom With Fraud
No. 3 Story: U.S. Court Votes to Bar Pledge of Allegiance

The Los angeles Times
Top Story: 'Tweens: From Dolls to Thongs
One of the store mannequins wears a fringed denim skirt riding low on the hips and a top pushed high on the midriff. Another has shorts that roll down on the tummy and a one-shoulder top.
No. 2 Story: Pledge of Allegiance Violates Constitution, Court Declares
No. 3 Story: WorldCom Hit With Federal Fraud Lawsuit

The Los Angeles Times shows a consistent bias toward "Reader's Digest" type stories that are entertaining and give you something to gossip about but don't really tell you anything of value. I also get the sense that many LA Times reporters are really failed screenplay writers who can't let go of the need to create drama. However, they do occasionally print something worth reading.

The LA Times is owned by The Chicago Tribune , which puts even less original content on its Web site and is more "in-your-face" about pressuring you to subscribe.

I suspect Slashdot would link to The Wall Street Journal more often if the paper made more than 1% of its content available to non-paying subscribers. (I had a paid subscription to wsj.com for about a year, but I no longer do because it's just not worth that much to me.)

I'd like to read Le Monde , but the French refuse to publish an English version. Go figure.

All of Knight-Ridder's newspapers (The San Jose Mercury News , Miami Herald , Philadelphia Inquirer , et al) have been crippled by the "RealCities Network" which forces all of its sites to use the same content-poor, ad-rich design. The saddest story of the group is the SJMercury though, which has just fallen apart since the parent company began slashing costs and forcing the RealCities conformity on its once industry-leading site. The Miami Herald is an unofficial training school for future Washington Post reporters, but that doesn't matter if you can't find their content on the Web.

Slashdot doesn't link to the Financial Times often (ever?), though it's a great paper. It just doesn't turn out a lot of unique content that's of interest to most Slashdot readers.

Newspapers aside, Slashdot has linked to CNN and the BBC in the past, though not the CBC . ABC, CBS and NBC generally provide watered down news for people who don't like to read newspapers -- not Slashdot readers.

Slashdot often links to MSNBC , but I expect that will begin to decline -- MSNBC.com's founding editor (Merrill Brown, a former Washington Post reporter) recently announced that he's resigning after 6 years to pursue other, undisclosed "opportunities." The New York Times noted on June 12 (you'll have to pay for the archived version of the story) that he offhandedly mentioned that MSNBC.com is about to be swallowed by MSN for economic reasons. (In other words, Microsoft put its foot down and said financial concerns outweigh editorial concerns.)

The International Herald-Tribune writes some of its own content, but a lot of the paper is an amalgamation of New York Times and Washington Post stories.

I haven't read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or the Seattle Times in a while, but you may find some good technology stories there.

Bottom Line: Slashdot links to a disproportionate number of New York Times and Washington Post stories because both papers' sites post a lot of content and that content is top notch. It also helps that they're among the most recognizable names in journalism, but the Slashdot system is set up to allow editors to pick from the best stories that are submitted, regardless of the content provider's brand recognition. If you read a good story somewhere, submit it -- the quality of the story is more important than the misguided registration policies of the content provider. And if I've missed a good site people should be reading, reply to this message and let people know.

I would post examples from The NYTimes, but they don't let you see previous issues of the paper online for free. However, as I recall their picks closely mirrored The Washington Post's:

The Washington Post
Top Story: Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared
No. 2 Story: SEC Charges WorldCom With Fraud
No. 3 Story: U.S. Court Votes to Bar Pledge of Allegiance

The Los angeles Times
Top Story: 'Tweens: From Dolls to Thongs
One of the store mannequins wears a fringed denim skirt riding low on the hips and a top pushed high on the midriff. Another has shorts that roll down on the tummy and a one-shoulder top.
No. 2 Story: Pledge of Allegiance Violates Constitution, Court Declares
No. 3 Story: WorldCom Hit With Federal Fraud Lawsuit

The Los Angeles Times shows a consistent bias toward "Reader's Digest" type stories that are entertaining and give you something to gossip about but don't really tell you anything of value. I also get the sense that many LA Times reporters are really failed screenplay writers who can't let go of the need to create drama. However, they do occasionally print something worth reading.

The LA Times is owned by The Chicago Tribune , which puts even less original content on its Web site and is more "in-your-face" about pressuring you to subscribe.

I suspect Slashdot would link to The Wall Street Journal more often if the paper made more than 1% of its content available to non-paying subscribers. (I had a paid subscription to wsj.com for about a year, but I no longer do because it's just not worth that much to me.)

I'd like to read Le Monde , but the French refuse to publish an English version. Go figure.

All of Knight-Ridder's newspapers (The San Jose Mercury News , Miami Herald , Philadelphia Inquirer , et al) have been crippled by the "RealCities Network" which forces all of its sites to use the same content-poor, ad-rich design. The saddest story of the group is the SJMercury though, which has just fallen apart since the parent company began slashing costs and forcing the RealCities conformity on its once industry-leading site. The Miami Herald is an unofficial training school for future Washington Post reporters, but that doesn't matter if you can't find their content on the Web.

Slashdot doesn't link to the Financial Times often (ever?), though it's a great paper. It just doesn't turn out a lot of unique content that's of interest to most Slashdot readers.

Newspapers aside, Slashdot has linked to CNN and the BBC in the past, though not the CBC . ABC, CBS and NBC generally provide watered down news for people who don't like to read newspapers -- not Slashdot readers.

Slashdot often links to MSNBC , but I expect that will begin to decline -- MSNBC.com's founding editor (Merrill Brown, a former Washington Post reporter) recently announced that he's resigning after 6 years to pursue other, undisclosed "opportunities." The New York Times noted on June 12 (you'll have to pay for the archived version of the story) that he offhandedly mentioned that MSNBC.com is about to be swallowed by MSN for economic reasons. (In other words, Microsoft put its foot down and said financial concerns outweigh editorial concerns.)

The International Herald-Tribune writes some of its own content, but a lot of the paper is an amalgamation of New York Times and Washington Post stories.

I haven't read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or the Seattle Times in a while, but you may find some good technology stories there.

Bottom Line: Slashdot links to a disproportionate number of New York Times and Washington Post stories because both papers' sites post a lot of content and that content is top notch. It also helps that they're among the most recognizable names in journalism, but the Slashdot system is set up to allow editors to pick from the best stories that are submitted, regardless of the content provider's brand recognition. If you read a good story somewhere, submit it -- the quality of the story is more important than the misguided registration policies of the content provider. And if I've missed a good site people should be reading, reply to this message and let people know.

I would post examples from The NYTimes, but they don't let you see previous issues of the paper online for free. However, as I recall their picks closely mirrored The Washington Post's:

The Washington Post
Top Story: Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared
No. 2 Story: SEC Charges WorldCom With Fraud
No. 3 Story: U.S. Court Votes to Bar Pledge of Allegiance

The Los angeles Times
Top Story: 'Tweens: From Dolls to Thongs
One of the store mannequins wears a fringed denim skirt riding low on the hips and a top pushed high on the midriff. Another has shorts that roll down on the tummy and a one-shoulder top.
No. 2 Story: Pledge of Allegiance Violates Constitution, Court Declares
No. 3 Story: WorldCom Hit With Federal Fraud Lawsuit

The Los Angeles Times shows a consistent bias toward "Reader's Digest" type stories that are entertaining and give you something to gossip about but don't really tell you anything of value. I also get the sense that many LA Times reporters are really failed screenplay writers who can't let go of the need to create drama. However, they do occasionally print something worth reading.

The LA Times is owned by The Chicago Tribune , which puts even less original content on its Web site and is more "in-your-face" about pressuring you to subscribe.

I suspect Slashdot would link to The Wall Street Journal more often if the paper made more than 1% of its content available to non-paying subscribers. (I had a paid subscription to wsj.com for about a year, but I no longer do because it's just not worth that much to me.)

I'd like to read Le Monde , but the French refuse to publish an English version. Go figure.

All of Knight-Ridder's newspapers (The San Jose Mercury News , Miami Herald , Philadelphia Inquirer , et al) have been crippled by the "RealCities Network" which forces all of its sites to use the same content-poor, ad-rich design. The saddest story of the group is the SJMercury though, which has just fallen apart since the parent company began slashing costs and forcing the RealCities conformity on its once industry-leading site. The Miami Herald is an unofficial training school for future Washington Post reporters, but that doesn't matter if you can't find their content on the Web.

Slashdot doesn't link to the Financial Times often (ever?), though it's a great paper. It just doesn't turn out a lot of unique content that's of interest to most Slashdot readers.

Newspapers aside, Slashdot has linked to CNN and the BBC in the past, though not the CBC . ABC, CBS and NBC generally provide watered down news for people who don't like to read newspapers -- not Slashdot readers.

Slashdot often links to MSNBC , but I expect that will begin to decline -- MSNBC.com's founding editor (Merrill Brown, a former Washington Post reporter) recently announced that he's resigning after 6 years to pursue other, undisclosed "opportunities." The New York Times noted on June 12 (you'll have to pay for the archived version of the story) that he offhandedly mentioned that MSNBC.com is about to be swallowed by MSN for economic reasons. (In other words, Microsoft put its foot down and said financial concerns outweigh editorial concerns.)

The International Herald-Tribune writes some of its own content, but a lot of the paper is an amalgamation of New York Times and Washington Post stories.

I haven't read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or the Seattle Times in a while, but you may find some good technology stories there.

Bottom Line: Slashdot links to a disproportionate number of New York Times and Washington Post stories because both papers' sites post a lot of content and that content is top notch. It also helps that they're among the most recognizable names in journalism, but the Slashdot system is set up to allow editors to pick from the best stories that are submitted, regardless of the content provider's brand recognition. If you read a good story somewhere, submit it -- the quality of the story is more important than the misguided registration policies of the content provider. And if I've missed a good site people should be reading, reply to this message and let people know.

Why do we jump to have the government certify our electronic devices, standards, and protocols? Why can't we merely rely on the private sector to develop sound products?

Just because you don't trust the government doesn't mean we should trust the private sector.
That's all I'm saying.

Arthur Andersen
Enron
IM Clone
Worldcom
Xerox

And just because this is Slashdot:
MS Windows

Why do we jump to have the government certify our electronic devices, standards, and protocols? Why can't we merely rely on the private sector to develop sound products?

Just because you don't trust the government doesn't mean we should trust the private sector.
That's all I'm saying.

Arthur Andersen
Enron
IM Clone
Worldcom
Xerox

And just because this is Slashdot:
MS Windows

Why do we jump to have the government certify our electronic devices, standards, and protocols? Why can't we merely rely on the private sector to develop sound products?

Just because you don't trust the government doesn't mean we should trust the private sector.
That's all I'm saying.

Arthur Andersen
Enron
IM Clone
Worldcom
Xerox

And just because this is Slashdot:
MS Windows

Why do we jump to have the government certify our electronic devices, standards, and protocols? Why can't we merely rely on the private sector to develop sound products?

Just because you don't trust the government doesn't mean we should trust the private sector.
That's all I'm saying.

Arthur Andersen
Enron
IM Clone
Worldcom
Xerox

And just because this is Slashdot:
MS Windows

Why do we jump to have the government certify our electronic devices, standards, and protocols? Why can't we merely rely on the private sector to develop sound products?

Just because you don't trust the government doesn't mean we should trust the private sector.
That's all I'm saying.

Arthur Andersen
Enron
IM Clone
Worldcom
Xerox

And just because this is Slashdot:
MS Windows

Well, I guess that this and this says a lot about the EU stance on these issues. Democracy may not be needed here (and no - the EU structure is certainly not democratic) - only people like Mario Monti, who certainly can't be accused for just following the big business (look at the GE-Honeywell merger and several other cases).

Not any more. The 9th District Court of Appeals ruled earlier this week that the Pledge of Alegience is unconstitutional because it violates church-state separation due to the inclusion (from the 50s, thanks to Macarthyism) of the phrase "under God."

We are, once again, godless, at least in the 9th Circuit.

The combatants, disguised as federal judges in black robes, were flown directly to Guantanamo Bay for detention.

Poster must be from Alabama. Governor Fob James once said that the Constitution could not forbid school prayer because the Constitution did not apply to the states.

Read this:

"A court's inquiry should come to an end once the military has shown ... that it has determined that the detainee is an enemy combatant. ... [T]he court may not second-guess the military's enemy-combatant determination."

This was written by the Department of Justice. In plain English it says that the military may keep someone locked up for as long as they want, without trial. Even if they're an American citizen. Article available here.

And FYI: The recent arrest announced by Ashcroft was against a US citizen who they had kept in custody for over a month before announcing it. All based on their good word.

Which is, I hope you'll agree, somewhat suspect if for no other reason than they are humans, and are therefore fallible.

I don't really understand where everybody is getting this idea that RIAA is trying to launch a DOS on p2p users. From what I could tell from actually READING the article from the Washington Post they don't seem to be launching a DOS attack... just merely throwing a bunch of corrupt files and such. I don't think that doing that is going to be denying anybody any service... just making them search longer to get the latest Eminem cd.
So what I'm trying to say is I don't think that this proposal by Berman would conflict with the UK law, IMHO.

Jeez, I have a busy day at work and as a result have to wait utill tomorrow to find out my advisor's company has been slashdotted :-]

The foils work like this:

When two elements mix together they will all either give off energy or suck up energy. If two elements give off energy when they mix then they mix exothermically. In the case of solids, it's usually not possible to take advantage of this energy because it's very difficult to get to chunks of differnet elements to mix together on the atomic level. However advances in computer chip fabrication methods have made this energy accessible.

The energy of mixing is made available by creating very thin alternating layers of two materials with a very high heat of mixing. Right now work working with a thickness of 50nm per two layers (that's 50nm for one layer of material A plus one layer of material B). When the layers are that thick, it's possible for atoms of the two layers to actually diffuse into each other due thermal diffusion when they get hot enough.

Right now we're using a 30V spark to get them hot. The spark will get a very small section of the foil hot enough to have the two layers diffuse into each other. When this happens a lot of heat is released (since they mix very exothermically). This heat energy is enough to make the atoms all around the sparked area start to interdiffuse, which gives off heat, which causes more atoms to interdiffuse, etc. The reaction moves through the foil very quickly (around 1 m/sec) and generates enough heat to get the foil up to very high temperatures (our current system gets to around 1200 deg C). As you can see, all the heat actually does come from inside the foil. This rapidly generated heat can be used to melt a strong, high temperature solder known as a braize that's attached to the two parts you are joining. Normally the only way to melt this braize is to put it in an oven at 800 deg C or higher, which is what leads to the high thermal mismatch of metal-ceramic joins. If the foil is used to join the two materials, they won't get hotter than ~100 deg C, resulting in very low thermal mismatch. And thanks to all the work from the IC industry the technology to make these foils, which expensive to buy, is very cheap and easy to operate, allowing us to make the foils inexpensively.

I'm sure I could have done a better job of explaining the foil, but at least I have more info than the blurb. BTW, there's a better version of the article here.

Mr. Spey

For a bunch of technophiles we sure are afraid of new technologies...

These technologies are dangerous to us whether they work or they fail.

We are afraid of being attacked by uniformed thugs at airports and soon, bus stations and shopping malls because the biometric system came up with yet another false positive. Like to be mistaken for bin Laden and have your shopping trip be interrupted by a SWAT team?

We are concerned about our privacy being invaded (ever been stalked?) for personal or political reasons. America is now a land where the government can take anyone, declare that person a "terrorist", and detain that person indefinitely without a trial or even an attorney. Should we want that government to know where we are at all times?

We are concerned because we know that this stuff is NOT ready for prime time but is being sold to PHB types who can easily be scammed and to journalists who don't have the tech skills or knowledge to be know when they're being snowed as a "solution" to protect us from terrorists and criminals. The biometrics companies aren't doing this out of interest in public safety, they are doing this in hopes of an IPO and a quick cash-out..

Which category do you fall into? PHB? Tech-illiterate journalist? Or are you a shill for a biometrics company?

Easy ways to defeat biometrics

Face/iris scanner failures.

If Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) has his way

Particularly of interest were these paragraphs:
To phase out the penny, Kolbe said, cash transactions would be rounded up or down a nickel over a transition period before removing it from circulation. But Americans for Common Cents (ACC), a group dedicated to keeping the penny, said Kolbe's rounding proposal would hurt Americans, particularly the poor, because companies would round in their favor.

"Corporations have a profit margin and will have a tendency to round up," said Mark Weller, ACC's executive director and senior vice president of the Sagamore Group lobby shop. "There will be a disproportionate effect on those who can afford it least."


Since businesses run this country anyways this is probably inevitable, but it would really hurt the consumer in the long run. A penny isn't much by itself, but over a lifetime that is a huge loss...

This article doesn't look like it's been listed here in the comments but if it has forgive me.

Here's a quote:
"If these forecasts are true, most small webcasters would have to shut down, and Web radio would walk the same dreary path of corporate consolidation as commercial FM."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A827 1-2002May25.html

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

Most (all?) search engines provide information on how to specifically exclude their spiders (while allowing everyone else). Just go to the engine's site and search for info on how they treat robots.txt.

W.T.F. ???

The Washington Post says:

"Its mail-and-newsgroups module offers limited support for multiple mail accounts and weak filtering options compared with Eudora or Outlook Express."

Excuse me? I've got 3 email accounts and 2 newsgroups setup on my Mozilla mail, and its "weak filtering" is correctly deleting some 30 spam per day, something which Outlook Express never managed to do.

"The ChatZilla instant-messaging program connects only to Internet Relay Chat networks, not the more popular systems of AOL, MSN and Yahoo."

Right. So it only supports the 600,000 people on DALnet, to name just one of the tens of thousands of IRC servers available, each of which is the equivalent of Yahoo!Chat...

Some surprise they didn't support these other advertising-supported networks then, given their history of changing protocols to try and make 3rd party clients break. (lookup the GAIM history as one example, or see the prominent, flashing advertising banners on Yahoo's own chat client)

"Future versions of Mozilla may fix these problems"

I sincerely hope not. I hope they work on the IRC client, rather than wasting their time on Yahoo. I hope they keep the filtering pretty much as it is, and continue their support for multiple email clients.

The only feature I really miss is having "popunder" tabs like in Galeon, so you can open a whole array of links without having to switch back to your original window. Being able to filter flash animations would be good too, although kudos for filtering the signal-to-noise ratio of most sites by removing animations, doubleclick banners, and popup windows.

And at only 15Mb, no excuses for not taking ten minutes to install it!

How about Boston Globe or USA Today? Maybe San Jose Mercury News? Or heck, even MSNBC a site co-owned by NBS and Microsoft?

Also, Washington Post ran their own story over the weekend.

So, yeah, looks like the AP does go out to lots of places besides CNN, huh?

The Washington Post has a favorable review of Mozilla 1.0 as well, with I though was interesting because a) it's read by politicians among others, and b) it is a review of Mozilla and not Nutscrape.

Anyway, here is the link. One of his favorite features was the ability to block ads. He even tells people how to turn that feature on.

-Pete

here.

The real problem (well, mostly for "them") is that their radar cannot track an 800MPH bird if it doesn't know where to look first.

It's been proven that even the Stealth Fighter (F/A 117) can be lit by radar and taken down by enemy fire.

They were able to shoot that plane down only because they knew where it would be since the planes flew the same route repeatedly.

I also remember reading that a British radar "painted" a Stealth Fighter under similar circumstances. I did a quick google search but couldn't find a reference.

But there haven't been any other combat losses (to my knowledge - correct me if I'm wrong) when proper tactics were employed.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Some months back Pat Schroeder, on behalf of the AAP, went on the warpath against libraries for "giving away" copyrighted works. If the AAP has their way, libraries might very well end up paying for those additional pages.

Thank you. Do you have a source where I can read up on it, since the US media can't be bothered to keep us informed?

The Washington Post and others have had coverage of this over the last day and a half.

I certainly agree that a SCOTUS review of the current case would be reasonable, and expect that we may well see one -- remember that while Mr. al-Mujahir and his lawyer have not yet contested his case being transferred to military jurisdiction (and chose not to at the time), they may well do so in the days ahead. It is still quite early in this case.

Actually there is a charity that does this already for crack mothers:

here

The astonsihing thing? $200 is what they give, and they have people lined up!

On the other hand, maybe you have some proof that Jane's Information Group is too "left-wing" to provide reliable information on such matters. Maybe, just maybe, there's a widespread leftist conspiracy going on and I've been fooled by it.

First of all, Michael is right..."blog" has become extremely overused, much like "P2P." But that's besides the point.

Merely linking to news does not equal journalism. Slashdot isn't journalism. Kuro5hin isn't journalism. Yahoo's Full Coverage site isn't journalism. Hell, Fark isn't journalism. They are link farms. They find and post links to actual news stories across the world. While this makes for an easy-to-read digest of news and information, it does not mean the site becomes a seeming bastion of original journalism.

Real journalism, IMHO (speaking as one), is going out, researching a story, interviewing people, and putting together a concise unbiased story (keep your media bias arguments until the end of class kids). Journalism is not posting a link to a news story elsewhere, and then adding your own personal opinions or thoughts. While the Berkeley school is trying to avoid this, putting a "blog" label on it won't make any difference. Major news sites, like the New York Times and the Washington Post already post their news to the Internet in real time. Some even include "Comment on this story" links as well.

Take away the personal opinions and rambling links, and you don't have a so-called "blog." You have an online news site, just like the big boys. Calling it a "blog" doesn't give any more "hipness" or credibility.

I wish everyone would get over this stupid "BLOGS ARE THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM" crap. You know what? They aren't.

Sheesh, STARS must be bad if people are recommending Amtrak as a safer alternative.

Here is the Washington Post article. No registration necessary.

in last weeks paper. It's online. Geared more toward consumer electronics but more interesting then wired's column.

There was an old crack-pot scientist Tom Gold who had a theory that oil is being produced as a by-product of deep-underground microbes, and is a renewable resource.

In April, there was a study that revealed that a number of previously capped oil wells around the Gulf of Mexico are "mysteriously" refilling. As my sister (a chemical engineer) explained to me, underground oil is trapped at a very high pressure; this is why oil fields can get at the oil so easily, these are spots where the pressure is literally squeezing the oil out of the ground. After a while, the pressure equalizes with respect to the admosphere, and you actually have to work to get the oil out. After more time, it becomes too cost prohibitive to remove the oil, and the well is capped (even if there is still more oil to gather!).

Well, since you've been pumping all this liquid out of the ground, there is now low pressure in the well with respect to the oil that has been dissolved into the rocks around the reservoir, and oil will seep back into the well, so that the liquid pressures are equalized... and viola, the well refills!

John Lennon did actually record a track called "Two minutes of Silence", which has been covered by several bands including Soundgarden.

17 years earlier John Cage wrote "433", a work for no instruments which required the performer to walk onstage and do nothing for 4 minutes 33 seconds, there is an excellent introduction to Cage's work in this field in this Washington Post Article.

The Washington Post's got a story up too: Article

Maybe someone should tell these guys it doesn't work, as they seem to have so much hope in such a useless thing. Two interesting quotes:

I think it's great. It's a good safety precaution that is definitely necessary

and the better of the two:

I've got nothing to hide, and neither should anyone else

Either the reporters looked real hard to find these comments or (fill in the blank with anything)

Not only will they have to reinvent themselves, but they will have to dodge falling satallites.

On the other hand, The New York Times seems to confirm McIndoe knows something about Echelon (though it doesn't call him the architect): "...Mr. McIndoe, who previously helped develop the National Security Agency's Echelon II program and also founded a company that develops computer intelligence-gathering systems." That seems to me like a pretty major claim (in light of the insistence that Echelon doesn't exist) and the reporter should qualify the source of his info, but he doesn't.

The Washington Post ran one of its standard "check out this company" profiles on iJet, though it makes no mention of Echelon or McIndoe's intelligence background. It's still an interesting read.

The Washington Post also writes about the Army's exhibition at E3 expo. Read it here.

Email: letters@washpost.com
Snail:
Jonathan Krim
C/O The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20071

Worth a read is this article in today's Washington Post. Nice to see that someone (Bret Lovejoy in this instance) has more guts to stand up to lawmakers than the guy running Six Flags.

Here is a Newsbytes story on the ruling. A little bit more hard-news information about the decision and its likely impact.

According to researchers at the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab, voice-recognition will never play an important part in our interaction with Information Technology because we construct our spoken communication in the "short-term" part of our memory.

This recent /. thread, discusses a Washington Post article, "A Visual Rather Than a Verbal Future", which details their work.

The Washington Post's Hank Stuever said it well: There's no point telling SW fans to "Get a life."

They have one. This is it.

People are entitled to their interests. You like programming? Fine. I like star trek. My friend likes star wars. The guy next to me in math class likes wrestling. So what?

The best, from The Washington Post

It's too long, it's too dull, it's too lame.
But the mythic source he seems to have based this episode on is . . . "The McLaughlin Group"

It's like reading the latest dispatch on the Mongolian parliament, as reported by Elizabeth Drew in a really cranky mood.

the master Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and his young mentee, Anakin Skywalker (played by 'N Sync star Justin Timberlake - no, no, played by Hayden Christensen, who looks like an 'N Sync kid but doesn't have as much talent).

I'll tell you one thing: no star system central, as in, say, MGM, would have built a movie around the dim Americans who haunt this one. In fact, the movie is kind of a laboratory on American vs. British technique. Score: Brits 10, Yanks 0.

even an actual great actor, Samuel L. Jackson, seems ridiculous. He never looks comfortable as the Jedi Mace Windu, in robes and boots, and there's nothing he can do at all with a line like "The Genosians aren't warriors. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Genosians!"

The 'N Sync kid is even worse. He seems to have wandered in from a Pepsi commercial. No, that would have been Justin Timberlake. Who knows where this dreary boy has been?

Salon.com hates it. The Onion isn't impressed, and Adequacy rips it as well.

Ninja Yoda sounds fun though.

Did anyone see the pithy review in the Washington Post? It almost seems like something that comedian Dennis Miller would write.

Did anyone see the pithy review in the Washington Post? It almost seems like something that comedian Dennis Miller would write.