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Or hack into a bank without getting caught. If you're careful, you'll probably find a noticable demand for your services in certain circles.

Of course, statute of limitations does eventually run out, if you stay within the country and don't get caught; something like three years for grand theft, five years for wire fraud, and six years for the tax evasion on your illegal "income". Of course, some vary from state to state, and I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know what other charges they might throw at you.

No, I have no intention of discussing my personal retirement plans with you. =)

If it can prevent crimes/terrorism, or at give the authorities a clue on who did sent what, i dont have a problem about getting my picture take.. Its already on dozens of other surveillance videos, and I havent seen people complaining about that..

Is that sarcasm that I'm missing, a troll, or simple ignorance?

No, cameras don't significantly prevent crimes. Giving the state the ability to track citizen's communications is a bad idea, sure to be abused. And if you haven't seen people complaining about the growing surveillance culture, you need to open your eyes.

Are we one step closer to having Mechs' ala MechWarrior?

No, but between ASIMO's upgrades and these robots that can power themselves by "eating" organic material, we're two steps closer to having the Matrix-- or would that be, two steps closer to the Matrix having us?

~Philly

Senator Orrin Hatch (Disney-Utah) thanked Mr. Scala for helping to prove his point that P2P was all about molestation and vowed to redouble his efforts to eliminate this erototoxin-spreading technology from the face of the earth.

"First Napster - encouraging the taking of naps, a clear incitement to sloth. Now MoleSter - whose purpose is obvious to anyone who reads its name. And these demon-possessed perverts even have languages for it now; they write in 'python' - the language of the Serpent, and they write in 'perl' - a blasphemous reference to the Biblical story of casting pearls before swine. When, oh, when, will our cries be heard? When, oh, when will we be permitted to protect our citizens from such debauchery? When, oh, when, will the check from MPAA and RIAA clear? We must fight terroristm, because it's for the children!"

from http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,66034,00 .html?tw=wn_tophead_2/
"These people are parasites leeching off the creativity of others," said Malcolm. "They generate ad revenues by way of pop-up ads (and) banner ads, and they solicit online donations."

so the advice to Tracker Operators is "Don't solicit donations!?"

So they can take a bunch of rat neurons and hook them up to a flight simulator and teach it (them?) to fly with success. Now we've got heart parts from rat cells. Awesome. I for one welcome Pinky and the Brain. Ruling, er.

However, the Wikipedia article on Bomis, Wales' company, mentions that they also sell "erotic images" over the internet. Several non-WorkSafe links off the article to computers off Bomis.com are persuasive evidence.

That's perfectly correct, but it didn't stop the DVD CCA from trying to claim it anyway.

In other news... Another anal cyst... err, umm I mean analyst at Frost & Sullivan discovered that the centralized data stored in a PC user's address book can be exploited by virus and Trojan writers. The anal cyst... err, analyst, stated that "This data provides a list of valid email addresses that could be exploited to spread a virus or worm. It's just a matter of time."

--
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Apple outsourced most of the hardware and firmware design, (aside from the iTunes components) and they don't even manufacture them.
see here
and here.

It wasn't even Apple's idea to unify the player and the store.
As time progresses, Apple will become more of a software company and a brand. That may not be a bad thing, but credit where credit is due: Apple knows how to _identify_ a good product.

Soundjam, which Apple bought to make iTunes, had many more features and a substantially different interface than iTunes does. It didn't have any of the library management and browsing features that make iTunes such a joy to use. So, I'd say that Apple definitely gets the credit for iTunes in terms of UI.

As for the hardware, it's clear that Apple was using a reference design and chipset from PortalPlayer, but the following article says that took an 80% finished reference design and did the UI in-house and final hardware design in-house:

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,64286,00.html ?tw=wn_story_related

So yes, I think you can use the iPod and iTunes as examples of Apple's uniqueness in good interface design.

Information obtained unlawfully never stands in court. Because the Constitution is a living document that must be updated to take into account changing technologies, however, the definition of "unlawful" must change.

In brief, "Anything not nailed down is ours. Anything we can pry loose is not nailed down!"

Meantime, the US has had this since 2001, so it's not like Australia's move towards normalizing law enforcement techniques to modern standards is anything new.

Is it newsworthy? Well maybe not for the nerdy slashdot masses, but I found the article useful. My girlfriend is doing her student teaching in a small middle level (grades 6-8) school with a very limited budget. All of the students are given iBooks to use in and out of class, and they were looking at buying licenses for MS Office for all of these computers. I've been trying to get my girlfriend to bring up OpenOffice as an alternative, and this article stresses some important points that may grab the attention of those in charge of deciding what gets installed on these laptops.

You seem perfectly capable of looking up your own reference materials.

Here's the clues you need:

biodiesel.org Though they are just a front for the SoyBean farmers association but plenty of resources for you to check out.

Central Intelligence Agency These guys have all sorts of info about agricultural output in USA and other nations.

Wired Magazine Do a search on biodiesel to verify the quotation.

Search Google News for Biodiesel Now click on the little News Alerts icon and subscribe to that search... you'll get all the news on biodiesel that's fit to publish as a current event and learn about how many organizations in US and around world are in fact mongin forward with serious biodiesel plans. Tell you what, there are a whole hell of a lot more actual implementations happening that for any other alternative fuel... happening now.

FYI reality is "socially constructed". Public opinion will wish oilseed crops into existence.. much like it wished electricity infrastructure into existence, wished a global communications system into existence... it's called Supply and Demand.. yeah I know it's just a theory and all but the basic idea is that when enough people want something to happen a Demand is created, which in turn prompts a Supply to come into existence through the efforts of entrepeneurs and business interests who seek to satisfy that Demand.

Technically it is already done. Refining apparatus that is reasonably efficient, and only needs economies of scale to become sufficiently efficient, is in use. New improvements are being researched and tested as we speak..

Energetically biodiesel contains as much or more available energy for combustion than petrol diesel. The plants used for oilseed require minimal energy input from people.. plant and grow.. that's why they love plants like soybeans even though they produce less oil than some alternatives like Castor plants which require more human intervention. On the other hand.. if the price is right the best plant for the job will be planted.

Ecologically... ;-p so you'd prefer the alternative? Which one? You can't take energy out of a system without impacting it. Use solar power and you're cooling off the atmosphere and pulling solar radiation out of the ecology. Use hydro and you're pulling the energy out of the water cycle... screwing with weather patterns by creating new evaporation points, etc. Use tidal power and you mess with ocean currents and tidal changes that maintain coastal ecologies... Hydrogen power has to come from somewhere, it's just a storage medium.. not a source of power.. so think coal, nuclear, etc. Biodiesel looks to have the least impact... carbon is grown, carbon is burned, carbon returns to the ecosystem, carbon is resequesterd through absorption of CO2 by plants... the same plants that are grown for the next generation of fuel.

Heres a great link for info about that from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Socially it's a slam dunk. Reduced dependence on cartel producers. Environmentally benign compared to current fuels. Renewable resource that provides jobs. It can use the already available infrastructure with zero change and is usable in available vehicles with zero change. Take a look at the initiatives already happening across the nation and the positive reaction coming from every single one.. then look at what's happening in India, Maylasia, and on and on.

Bah, Too early to be posting on a Sunday, here's the other URL direct to more inf oand pics of the 2002 Clamshell iBook.

The Link(TM)

This was performed (not to this great an extent I admit) back in 2001/2002. I would post more details in comparison but we seem to have /.'d the macmod site and Google's Cache is having issues...

The link

Be True, Unbeliever

Let's try actual, real, safe, affordable Nuclear Pebble Bed Reactors.

Players include Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak (shown at far left), who owns more than his fair share of Segway's inventory; at last count, he had 10. Let's hope Woz has a few 50,000-mile warranties and helmets to go with them.

"Imagine what higher-ups at the Post must have thought when focus-group participants declared they wouldn't accept a Washington Post subscription even if it were free. The main reason (and I'm not making this up): They didn't like the idea of old newspapers piling up in their houses."

British Telecom deserve a mention, after all they did invent a little thing called the hyperlink..

Tweaking Java test?: Sun Microsystems has been accused of manipulating Java benchmark software and using the results to state that its Solaris "runs Java applications 50 percent faster than Windows NT." Pendragon Software, maker of the benchmark software CaffeineMark, has put out a press release that claims Sun found a way to cheat on the benchmark tests, and then advertised the bogus scores. Sun has since removed the Java compiler from its download page, Pendragon says, but the original press release remains on the Sun site.

Sun admits Java testing error

Sun Microsystems (SUNW) today conceded errors in the results of recent tests involving its Java programming language.

The company erred in not admitting that it matched code from a Java benchmark tool for one of its own Java compilers, Sun Software president Janpieter Scheerder said today. A benchmark is a battery of tests that measures the speed and performance of software running in various configurations.

Kicking off the "Inside Sun Software Day," Scheerder began his remarks with a mea culpa for Sun's actions, revealed last week in a report by CNET's NEWS.COM. At that time, Pendragon Software, makers of the CaffeineMark Java benchmark test, accused Sun of taking code from the CaffeineMark software and adding it to a beta version of the Solaris 2.6 Java just-in-time compiler. CaffeineMark is one of several developers that have created Java benchmarks.

Last week, Brian Croll--director of product marketing for Solaris, Sun's flavor of the Unix operating system--denied that Sun lifted the code. Today, however, Scheerder made it clear that Sun had made a big mistake.

"Nobody was trying to do anything malicious," Scheerder said. "We just optimized [the Solaris Java compiler] too much."

A Sun public relations manager called the episode a "big-time organizational breakdown" in which an engineering prototype that was never meant to go public was posted on the Web with all attendant documentation, along with a press release that touted the software's performance. Sun has also posted an explanation on its Web site.

"Sun committed an unintentional error when we published Java performance numbers for an engineering prototype that included code that specifically looked for a piece of code in the Caffeinemark 3.0 benchmark," according to a company statement.

In a release dated October 20, Sun bragged that, according to the CaffeineMark 3.0 test, Solaris 2.6 ran Java applications 50 percent faster than Windows NT. But it neglected to say that it had set the compiler to look specifically for a chunk of code from CaffeineMark. Reusing such a large chunk of specific code risks diverting too much of the compiler's resources, resulting in lower performance once the compiler is deployed in the real world, said Ivan Phillips, president of Pendragon.

After taking issue with Sun's test results, Phillips said he asked Sun to retract its claims and remove the compiler from its Web site. As of last week, Sun had not retracted its claims, so Phillips went public with his accusations.

Scheerder stressed today that the compiler, which was part of the Solaris 2.6 Java Development Kit 1.1.4 beta, was not shipping product. The company pulled it from its Web site soon after Phillips contacted them last month.

The news comes four days before the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) decides if Sun is qualified to be the official submitter of Java technology if and when Java becomes an international standard.

The official submitter has the responsibility to gather industry consensus and present it to the ISO's technical committee for consideration. There is some concern that Sun, which owns Java, might not be a neutral submitter. So far, 11 countries have voted yes on Sun's bid and one country--the United States--has voted no. A total of 27 countries are scheduled to vote by Friday.

Bacteria detect this critical density by sensing molecular emissions from other bacteria. If you make a molecular antagonist for the receptor site that is used to sense these molecules (a molecule which binds to the receptor but does not activate it, like Naloxone binds to opiate receptor sites without activating them) you can shut down the molecular signalling and stop the problematic bacterial behavior. This doesn't kill the bacteria so much as it leaves them with their defenses down.

For a bit more information on this, see this Wired article.

Incidentally, molecular jamming appears to be able to defeat certain antibiotic resistance mechanisms. One can imagine a triple-threat treatment for resistant infections: antibiotic, biofilm and antibiotic resistance jammers and viral bacteriophages. The staphyllococci wouldn't know what hit them.

"The critical question is, How good and different are [the cold fusion researchers'] new results?" says Allen Bard, a chemist at the University of Texas at Austin. "If they are saying, 'We are now able to reproduce our results,' that's not good enough. But if they are saying, 'We are getting 10 times as much heat out now, and we understand things,' that would be interesting. I don't see anything wrong with giving these people a new hearing." In ERAB's cold fusion review in 1989, he adds, "there were phenomena described to us where you could not offer alternative, more reasonable explanations. You could not explain it away like UFOs."

Isn't this basically a smoking gun? New fundamentl physics is often revealed by results that differ by as little as one part in a million from preditictions of current theory, or one part in whatever. If there is any discrepancy, whatsoever, within the statistical and systematic errors, that is enough. Your old theory is incorrect. This is completely bonkers. He is saying that consistent excess heat production is not enough, unless it is bigger than before.

Personally I suspsect the writer of this article, Toni Feder, intentionally tricked Dr. Bard into revealing this on the record. That last bit -- about phenomena that you can't just "explain away" -- seems as though Dr. Bard thinks he is speaking to a member of the group that is sympatico to repressing cold fusion research, doesn't it?

There is known to have been disputes between editorial staff and management at Physics Today over the coverage given to less mainstream areas of research. The following exerpt from a letter to the American Institute of Physics, which publishes Physics Today, protests the treatment suffered by a past editor, Jeff Scmidt:

Indeed, we understand that you were displeased with Jeff's workplace activism and had tried to silence him through a number of very repressive measures short of dismissal.

As you know, Jeff worked with other Physics Today staff members to ... increase staff participation in decision-making, broaden the narrow range of viewpoints allowed in the magazine ...

By the way, Jeff Schmidt is the author of Disciplined Minds [disciplined-minds.com], and I think this book includes more coverage of this editorial dispute at Physics Today.

Back to the question of how anomalous the results have to be, we move from the comments of scientists to the behavior of the reporters, in this case Gary Taubes, with What If Cold Fusion Is Real?, Wired, November 1998:

Meanwhile, electrochemist John Bockris announced that one of his graduate students at Texas A&M, Nigel Packham, had collaborated on a successful cold fusion experiment. Packham had even detected small amounts of tritium, a radioactive by-product virtually guaranteeing that fusion had taken place.

A science writer named Gary Taubes, who has written two books and several articles investigating allegations of fraudulent activity in science, went to Texas A&M on a fact-finding mission.

"We thought Taubes was genuine at first," Bockris told me recently, speaking in a clipped, precise British accent that he acquired before he moved to the U

Hack your iPod, go to jail. OK, it's not jail, just getting yanked from eBay. But, if that kind of baseless PTO abuse is accepted, how long before corporate cops, waving the DMCA, drag you off to a consumer reeducation camp?

try telling that to the kneejerk reaction anti nuclear fanatics who can't see the wood for their own foolishly planted trees

My favorite issue of all time. Also has good articles on ReBoot (cartoon) and a great interview with Tim Berners-Lee.
W: Do you wish you'd started the Web as a business?
TBL: If I'd started "Web Inc." it would have been just another proprietary system. You wouldn't have had this universality. For something like the Web to exist, it has to be based on public, nonproprietary standards.

From wired 1995:

SGI's Challenge XL server will be used for the Time Warner Cable trial in Orlando, Florida, which was scheduled to begin late in 1994 and will service a total of 4,000 homes. Customers will have a powerful set-top box, built by SGI and Scientific-Atlanta.

Never quite worked, though :)

CC.

But the gist of it is that push-media and multicast are either a thankfully-dead-fad, or are a technology whose time has yet to come. Push media, in particular, was salivated over quite a bit in the late 90's (eg. see Wired's 1997 cover article on it), so it's not as if it's a new idea. Despite this, push and multicast haven't gained wide success yet. Lots of people have various reasons why, and some of them are actually quite insightful. Google more if you want, but at least be aware that if one simply repeats the thoughts of the past in this area, one isn't likely to be successful.

I can't help but disagree with most of the responses to this point. In my opinion China is rapidly improving in many ways - just look at their progress within the last decade.

Arguably the two biggest problems facing their country - overpopulation and pollution - are slowly coming to an end (still decades though). What makes this case interesting is that the same government that has censorship to retain control can swiftly implement strategies to solve problems. By limiting families to one child by law - the population is remaining manageably steady at 0.57% growth (2004 est). Not that I'm promoting communism - but if the US suddenly faced a problem of overpopulation how long would it be before protesting and ignorance tapered done enough for our government to implement an obviously necessary law?

To the contrary, all available evidence shows that Malthus was mistaken to extend his results to humans. Julian Simon, the Doomslayer, proved the folly of applying Malthus to human population.

advances in technology over the past 150 years or so have simply forestalled what is otherwise inevitable.

More than mere forstalling, advances in technology have radically improved the quality of human life with no end in sight.

stop creating new North Americans / Western Europeans).

Your prayers have been answered, at least in Europe (and Japan). The U.S., though, is projected to see about a 50% population growth over the next 30 years.

you have a juicy government contracting job

and are spamming one of those pyramid-free-iPod schemes

Interesting. On an unrelated note, did you know that the Slammer virus that crippled the internet exploited a flaw for which a patch had been available for nearly 6 months?

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Get a free LCD monitor!

Not everyone agrees. Kaitlin Duck Sherwood of San Francisco, author of a popular how-to manual on effective e-mail, argued in an interview that exclamation points could help convey intonation, thereby avoiding confusion in some e-mail.

"If you want to indicate stronger emphasis, use all capital letters and toss in some extra exclamation points," Sherwood advises in her guide...

Personally I like the other person's suggestion that you should be allowed only two exclamation points in [your] whole life. I've seen SO MANY DAMN CAPS and exclamation points!!! that I WANT TO SHOOT SOMEONE!!!!!

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Why does it seem like anyone who wants the U.S. to spend assloads of money to reduce greenhouse gasses is also adamantly opposed to building new nuclear power plants? You know, technology has come a long way in the last 60 years. A new generation of high tech nuclear power plants could dramatically reduce the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and go a long way toward energy independence. China knows this and is preparing to build a whole bunch of pebble-bed reactors. But just try to build a nuclear power plant in the U.S. You'll have thousands of lawsuits, thousands of NIMBYs, and thousands of protesters doing everything they can to stop it. (Who remembers Diablo Canyon in the 70's? Never mind the fact that Diablo Canyon saved California's bacon during the rolloing blackouts.) The U.S. had better wake up to modern nuclear power or else be left in the dust.

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,37963,00.ht ml

Turns out that before Sanjay Amin founded abika.com ("an online e-book retailer" according to Wired), he was busy defrauding investors with a perpetual energy source scam! Looks like Sanjay is all done with Entropy Systems (the name of company hawking said scam, founded by him in Youngstown, Ohio in 1994), but he himself is far from done defrauding the general public.

I agree. This type of scare mongering is, in my opinion, very dangerous to our society. The Berkeley study got a lot of hype (not enough for most liberals), yet their study has been thoroughly DEBUNKED.

Here's a choice quote from one of the debunking statisticians: "If I were to get this article as (an academic) reviewer, I would turn it around and say they were fishing to find a result," Stewart said. "I know of no theory or no prior set of intuitions that would have led me to run the analysis they ran."

Talk about timely, the Economist magazine is this week running an article about the extreme liberal bias of American academia, and the hypocrisy of it. (think: we love diversity, so long as you are a liberal). I say ENOUGH of the rabble rousing crap. I've had enough of the academic liberal elites using their credentials to foist lies on the American people.

I agree we should always try to find flaws in any voter-related processes (electronic or otherwise). But spreading lies to undermine an election is tantamount to treason, in my book.

It's so bad that Wired says it works.

To quote a few users from the article :

"I had a good idea what the Marketscore software does, though I didn't read the entire user agreement"
"I can't surf the web and I can't trade files if I uninstall the spyware."
"I can't afford a subscription to keep my antivirus software updated. Marketscore doesn't charge any fees."
"They said they'd opted to install it on their computers because they wanted the eWallet application that stores passwords and credit card numbers, entering them into web forms with one click. The users said you have to get the adware if you want the eWallet."
"In Hungary, many people who grew up under communist rule came to accept government interference in every aspect of their lives as inescapable. They were too tired to fight anymore, so they convinced themselves that communism was OK and even a benefit."

For those of you on the "Steam Rules" side of the debate: "Any of that sound familiar?"

THIS is the reason those of us on the "Steam Sucks" side of the HL2 debate have taken the stand we've chosen to take. We're not warez d00dz. And we recognize that Vivendi are a bunch of middlemen who aren't worthy to fellate a goat. And we acknowledge that Valve has gone to the dark side (as Kazaa and the other P2P apps did) of spywaredom - at least not yet.

But we see Valve's solution as a cure that's worse than the disease of piracy. And we see the main arguments of Steam's proponents as eerily reminiscent of the examples of clueless luserdom shown in the Wired article. And we ask: can your system's integrity be that easily sold?

Every time a Steam defender speaks, he or she should take a very close look at his or her argument... and the arguments presented by the spyware defenders in the Wired article, and ask yourself: but for the grace of Gabe, there go ye?

The link in the summary is incorrect, the story is at http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65906, 00.html.

Hillary's right, it does "take a village", but not "to raise a kid". It takes a village to pay for a kid. Parents, think about that the next time you're lobbying for new additions to the local school, or for speed bumps every 10 feet because you're afraid your kid will get run over, etc. We child-free folks pay just as much as you do for those items (ie, in most states property taxes are used to pay for public schooling, and the amount of property tax you pay relies only on the value of your property and not the number of children you have attending a public school), and we don't use the provided services nearly as much as the childed. Consider the catch-22 of moving to a new community because it has a "better" school. Chances are, in many cases that's because the community and school are small, with a low number of students per teacher so that teachers can spend more time per student. You see that and drag in your three progeny. Others do the same and before you know it the school with an average class size of 16 has now skyrocketed to an average size of 35-40, hemmoraging teachers left and right because of the added stress, increasing property taxes to pay for school additions and increased community infrastructure (more/wider roads so all of your huge SUVs can drive junior to school in the morning), etc. Of course, then you start complaining about how bad the school is, or how the community is no longer the quaint place you thought you were moving into, or that you're getting reamed by property taxes. Here's a little video worth watching. (warning: this will likely offend parents, and it's definitely an example of an extreme belief, but the concept is still sound and the video is funny, IMHO)

As for "family values", can anyone define "family values" for me? I'm not considered a family (single, no kids), so why should I embrace "family values"? Who says what a family is, anyway? Is a childless married couple a family? What about a single father with custody of his kid(s)? What about a same-sex domestic partnership (with or without children)? Are those families? If not, why should they "act in ways that value families?" There's nothing in it for them.

(Note: I read your post to be in jest, making fun of Hillary, anti-gun nuts, etc. I just decided to rant.)

Photographers who lack the inclination or the clout to persuade Adobe to publish Photoshop for the Linux platform, but care enough to take a hostile attitude when GIMP is mentioned as a potentially useful tool.

I was not trying to take a hostile attitude, if my posts came off as such then I appologize. I was just trying to point out one of the reasons why professional photographers would not be likely to use the GIMP.

That doesn't mean that the GIMP doesn't have other great uses outside of professional photography. From what I've seen it's good at what it does and you can't beat the price.

Since I'm a Mac user I'm not very likely to use the GIMP because it runs in a non-native X-Windows environment. But, being that I'm also a developer, porting the GIMP to a native Mac OS X Cocoa environment is something that interests me and someday I might want to sratch that itch. If I ever decide to sratch that itch then I might also help add support for 16-bit images (unless someone else has beaten me to the punch).

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(Posting as AC for privacy reasons.)

1) Jay Patel is an alias for Sanjay Amin. (More on this in a bit)
2) Sanjay Amin started out a company called Entropy Systems, which offered a perpetual motion machine to paying customers. This was after he defaulted from school loans at the University of Minnesota. (He left the university and the state due to some disagreements with the university about his engine)
3) Using the millions of dollars he bilked out of various people and organizations primarily in the Youngstown area, Entropy Systems disappeared and became www.abika.com, a site that offered free eBooks. See the Wired article for details about the transition.
4) After deciding that free eBooks weren't very profitable, Abika.com went through various transformations until it made it to its current state of being a background investigation website.
5) To avoid connections with his questionable past, Mr. Amin now goes by the name Jay Patel.
6) Abika.com sells a combination of reports from an astrology CD-ROM that Mr. Amin has, plus actual reports from private investigators that he re-sells (without a license).

So how about that, Sanjay? How do you like your privacy now?

(Posting as AC for privacy reasons.)

1) Jay Patel is an alias for Sanjay Amin. (More on this in a bit)
2) Sanjay Amin started out a company called Entropy Systems, which offered a perpetual motion machine to paying customers. This was after he defaulted from school loans at the University of Minnesota. (He left the university and the state due to some disagreements with the university about his engine)
3) Using the millions of dollars he bilked out of various people and organizations primarily in the Youngstown area, Entropy Systems disappeared and became www.abika.com, a site that offered free eBooks. See the Wired article for details about the transition.
4) After deciding that free eBooks weren't very profitable, Abika.com went through various transformations until it made it to its current state of being a background investigation website.
5) To avoid connections with his questionable past, Mr. Amin now goes by the name Jay Patel.
6) Abika.com sells a combination of reports from an astrology CD-ROM that Mr. Amin has, plus actual reports from private investigators that he re-sells (without a license).

So how about that, Sanjay? How do you like your privacy now?

But I missed the part where anyone, ever, asserted that GIMP was created as a tool for professional photographers to use.

Since the topic is Professional Photographers Using Linux? I assumed that we were talking about professional tools. The GIMP is a great tool at a great price, but it's just not there yet for the professional photographer. It'll probably get there some day though.

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> Currently the gimp is only 8 bit color.

I agree that GIMP isn't the tool for a professional photographer (and I'd argue that a Beseler and a Swiss 4x5 are the main tools, still), but my understanding is that GIMP has been 24-bit in RGB and 32-bit in RGBA for quite some time, and that the coming version will be 48-bit Float in RGB, and 128-bit Float in RGBA.

What he means is that the GIMP is 8-bits per component == RGB8 == 3 Components * 8-bits == 24-bits per pixel. Or RGBA8 == 4 Components * 8-bits == 32-bits per pixel. One of the bigger gripes among professional users is that the GIMP doesn't support 16-bits per component (RGB16) which is more common when converting RAW images to TIFF. Since professional photographers are probably shooting exclusively in the RAW formats for anything that they would sell then the GIMP is a tool that they cannot use.

As to the "48-bit Float" comment I assume you mean 96-bit Float for RGB (3 components * 32-bits = 96-bit) since the "float" type is 32-bits.
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Here.

This problem was addressed in the most recent issue of Wired (which is all about exploration) In fact, NASA has a whole department for making sure contamination of other planets or of earth doesnt occur. This link is from 2001, not the same story but related. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42667, 00.html?tw=wn_story_related

The plus side of MIT's operation was that they worked as a team. Teams are much harder to spot by the casino staff than a single card-counter, so they managed to make a lot before being spotted. Wired's story.