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All comments about the Stryker aside, maybe the Army's trying to learn something from the Navy. I'd like to think that leaving the cruiser USS Yorktown dead in the water for 2 1/2 hours due to a divide by zero error would motivate a switch from microsoft to something more robust. I'd also like to think asses of the dimbulbs in charge are still smarting from the cornholing courtmartial they received, but they probably got promoted instead.

• Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist" plug-in;
• Simon Willison's Blacklisting Comment Spam;
• Scripty-goddess' Anti-Comment Spam Tactics;
• BurningBird's Comment Spam Quick Fix;
• Kalsey Consulting's ideas on dealing with Comment spam; or
• even my own observations and suggestions on the topic

If you're interested, Wired wrote up about Gold's theory a while back.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Thanks for bringing up Thomas Gold. There is really little evidence to go along with the fossil theory of petroleum, and increasingly more to support Thomas Gold. See this link

I submitted this last week with a link to the Wired article that can be found here.

I think this is a wonderful concept because of the bad reputation that we Americans (and other countries as well) get because of our governments being essentially our "representatives" to the rest of the world. Also, distance plays a factor as well. I think that if we could have a "face-to-face" with the people from other countries, we could see that we are not all that different from each other. Certainly the language barriers still exist, but that can be overcome as well. I think this has a lot of possibilities.

And about the flashing: That will definitely come from the brits. They seem to be really crazy about the sport. Definitely more so than other countries.

linky

Students already can scan the books manually and share the electronic text. Of course, we can't argue that this new technology will have no effect at all, but I don't think it will be significant. And in any case, we need to look at the Big Picture. Giving students free access to textbook is basically an investment into the future economy. They say every dollar you spend on education provides 10$ return in the future. That must also mean that every dollar you don't spend on education (because you get that product/service for free) also provides a 10$ return.

One of the best things would be to create a free online library of all books ever created, a feat which can probably be done for less than $100 mln. Imagine the effect of MIT free course library squared or cubed. If people everywhere would have unlimited free access to books, that would help solve a lot of our problems. "Ipsa scientia potestas est" (Knowledge itself is power), as Bacon said. Sadly, building a stealth fighter with that money is seen as more important...

Amazon requires that you supply your CC number before you can search. (Probably happens automatically for those who already have an account.) Then there's a limit on the nuymber of pages per book they'll show you (up to 20%). So to get the whole book you'd have to have at least 5 separate accounts and 5 separate CC numbers. This Wired article has more.

oops overestimated the intelligence of the slashdot system.
here are the htmlized links:

Silicon Film site (amazingly, still up)

Wired Vaporware 2002 list

Dpreview news roundup

Scientists are actually working on a blood subsitutie, also called a Hemoglobin Based Oxygen Carrier, derived from cow blood. Biopure Corporation calls its product Hemopure. The company has a fairly inofrmative website here. Wired Magazine had another decent piece. Currently it is in human trials in South Africa where AIDS has decimated the blood supply.

The problem with pure hemoglobin is that it falls apart in the blood when not in a blood cell and becomes poisonous. Hemopure is cross linked with polymers within its structure to make it stay togeather and to increase it's oxygen carrying capbilites. Super cow blood, one might say.

Hydrogen is not an energy source. You have to make it, which takes more energy than you get back when burning the hydrogen. Considerably more.

But Rifkin writes about it as if it is an actual energy source. He even talks about fuel cells creating hydrogen, which is backwards.

Here's an excerpt from a totally bogus article from Wired on the "hydrogen economy", written by an investor in some hydrogen company:

• But where will the hydrogen come from? Ironically, while hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe, it rarely appears in its pure form. It must be extracted from substances that contain it, like fossil fuels and water. The problem is that the extraction itself requires power. Currently, the least expensive method is a process known as steam reforming, in which natural gas reacts chemically with steam to produce hydrogen and carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Far preferable would be to use carbon-free resources like solar, wind, and hydropower to produce electricity for electrolysis, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen would make renewable energy practical, acting as a storage medium for the modest amounts of energy such resources produce. Wind power, especially, lends itself to this sort of use. This and other renewables should receive $10 billion as a seed for long-term development.

  This suggests a role for a clean, efficient, and much neglected energy source: nuclear. Like the fuel cell, the nuclear generator is a technology ripe for exploitation. Unlike the solid-core reactors of the past, pebble-bed modular reactors such as the one at Koeberg, South Africa, don't get hot enough to risk melting down. Koeberg uses small graphite-covered uranium balls rather than plutonium rods, and the reactor's cooled by helium rather than water. This new design is so efficient, it might make nuclear competitive with coal and oil. In any event, the nuclear power industry is in dire need of research for everything, from generation to waste treatment. Thus, $10 billion should be allocated to developing and securing nuclear technology that can power the hydrogen revolution.

  Nuclear power will serve as a stopgap, enabling the US to achieve energy independence while allowing wind, solar, and hydropower a chance to mature. Given the choice between powering the carbon-free hydrogen economy with fossil fuels or nuclear energy, even Greenpeace might embrace nuke plants as the lesser evil.

  As all the various subsidies kindle a self-sustaining economy, they should be tapered and the money shunted to the other major power in the conversion from oil to hydrogen: electric utilities. Within a decade, outlays to power companies should be aimed at connecting hydrogen pipelines to the power stations.

OK, what's wrong here?

The real energy sources proposed here are wind, solar, hydropower, and nuclear. Hydropower is a mature industry; all the good dam sites are taken. (All the really good dam sites, like Hoover Dam, were taken by 1940). Wind is site-specific, too; there are a limited number of places like Pacheco Pass where a steady wind is funneled through a narrow pass by a mountain range. Solar power is stuck at around 14% efficiency. We've been hearing how solar panels are going to get cheaper or more efficient for 40 years now. There's been some progress, but not much. The "amorphous silicon" approach turned out to be much less efficient than crystalline solar cells, and the amorphous panels wear out faster. Gallium arsenide cells are far too expensive. Real Goods, California's leading solar dealer, has backed off from selling solar power systems t

The previously noted and much more informative Wired article explains how this is prevented:

The archive is intentionally crippled. A search brings back not text, but pictures -- pictures of pages. You can find the page that responds to your query, read it on your screen, and browse a few pages backward and forward. But you cannot download, copy, or read the book from beginning to end. There is no way to link directly to any page of a book. If you want to read an extensive excerpt, you must turn to the physical volume -- which, of course, you can conveniently purchase from Amazon. Users will be asked to give their credit card number before looking at pages in the archive, and they won't be able to view more than a few thousand pages per month, or more than 20 percent of any single book.

The half dozen or so hydrogen stations in California will extract their hydrogen from natural gas. Read here

Article in December Wired talks about Amazon's book scanning, how they legally do it, who does it, how many books so far, and protections.

The point being, if you boycott with integrity, you'd probably have to include all the major players in any given market for one reason or another. But most people just "boycott" what's convenient and feels good. And it's hard to blame them - Amazon does have lower shipping charges.

I dont know what exactly you mean by "intelligent" person. But according to this article, even the manager of a 6 billion dollar mutual fund had placed orders for "penis enlargement pills".

Well that cheap ass company got exactly what they deserve. When will companies learn that pretty much anything goes once you leave the aegis of American Law system? Sure you'll save a few bucks but how can you trust private data with a company in the third world?

Here is an article on Wired which panders the need for 3rd world workers.

A Case for Coolie Labor

You may want to ask how it might impact your health. Google it to find articles like this one in Wired.

I remember reading this story in Wired some years ago about electric vehicle drag racing. The article talks about the National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA), among other things.

Some of these cars are what you think of when you think of drag racing; some of them aren't, like this street legal 1972 Datsun 1200 "White Zombie" mentioned in the Wired story. Some people build electric motorcycles too; check out the KillaCycle .

The rest of the above article is available at this Wired page. So it sounds like it's mostly legend, although the remote possibility does exist.

-a

link to the picutre.

"Our New York-based cover girl, Cammy Kinney, sat for hours half-naked and nursing a cold (she's feeling much better now, thank you)."

And it's easy. This is the kind of thing that computers are really good at; collecting vast quantities of mindless data and doing statistical analyses. Someone notices that a peak in rush-hour train times correlates with a peak slightly later in McDonald's sales near stations --- hey, there's an opportunity there! Open fast-food franchises in the stations and make a mint.

And, of course, with enough information you can identify individuals. You don't care who they are --- all you care about is what they're likely to spend money on. A surveillance system notices that customer #282712 is passing your restaurant --- your database notices that it's near suppertime, he eats out frequently and he's particularly fond of spaghetti bolognase. Quick! Change that sign --- yes, that one there, in his line of sight --- there's a special on!

But here's the kicker: this is unavoidable. It's unavoidable because it's profitable, and in a capitalist society, profit is king. Database aggregation and automated identification systems gives you targeted advertising like never before, and unlike most advertising, it's something the customers actually want, because you're advertising something they're interested in. It's the holy grail of marketing. You can legislate against this sort of thing if you like, but advertisers have big money, and money makes the laws.

But let's say by some miracle you do manage to pass a law prohibiting, say, automated face recognition. Do you really this is going to make a difference? If my local takeaway can buy a system that sits on the counter and reliably recognises customers, so that they knew what I was likely to want whenever I walked in, don't you think they'd be tempted? It gives me better service, which makes me more likely to spend money there. Or a night club; put the camera somewhere near the entrance so it alerts the bouncers whenever known troublemakers come near. How do you know they're troublemakers? All the nightclubs in the district pass round lists. Illegally, of course, but they'll do it.

All this is inevitable. We are all going to be watched; information is going to be collected about is; that information is going to be aggregated. The only question is, when, and who gets access first. Legislate against it and you're just going to drive it underground. When you can build mechanical flies that can send HDTV images back to a base station, they're going to be used, legally or otherwise. They'll be used from everything from watching football matches, to getting a bank's safe combination, to busting organised crime rings, to spying on your local politician to see what deals he's making, to watching the girl next door showering, to checking up on your husband, to child-minding...

Privacy is dying. It's not dead yet, but it's dying. Currently we can expect to be watched whenever we go out in public. Within ten to twenty years, I expect most people in cities will assume that they can be watched at any time. This is going to change things.

For better or for worse, I don't know. On the plus side, there's accountability. If the police are watched, all the time, then they'll be forced to be honest. On the minus side, there are no secrets. Let's say you start going out with someone the same sex you are, but don't want your family to know --- well, they will know. If they look.

This side of things has been better explored by people other than myself. Try David Brin's The Transparent Society, or Arthur C Clarke's The Light of Other Days. I don't know whether I'd like to live there; for someone who grew up in normal Western society, I think it would

Microsoft's comments are especially ironic considering this.

http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60899,00.htm l?tw=wn_tophead_6

Professor Goodwin, U of I, in 1981?!? Your history isn't even close. Here's the real story of Godwin's Law, written by Mike Godwin himself.

QED

Actually, Wired News did this story two weeks ago.

And if you think Sanford Wallace was the original "Spam King", you need to read some even older stories.

Why. Why isn't a paper trail, that the voter SEES being printed insufficient. Such a paper trail would provide more accountability than even the open code because 99% of voters could decipher the paper trail while only (number pulled out of a hat) about 2% could make heads or tails out of the code.

Here's some information, straight from the EFF.
Under "Fair Use", it says, "A use will be less likely to be fair where it replaces or supersedes the demand for the original work, or a foreseeable derivative product (a product based on the original)."

Free copies floating around on the net obviously hurts demand for the original CD. Anyone who argues otherwise is only kidding himself. Hell, I'll admit that I have copied a CD whereas I would have purchased it if copying weren't possible.

Here's an article that covers what's allowed in regards to the radio.

-Lucas

Put it like this. You know when you get the occasional search results even in Kazaa Lite K++ that for some reason are always remotely queued, and the host disappears, or might not even be publicly routable or a transient BGP? You know that strange traffic between supernodes?

That's us. We are direct action anti-RIAA activists, using vulnerabilities in the Fasttrack protocol to poison the Kazaa network's results just enough to throw doubt into the mix. We may or may not be doing the same for Gnutella, though we hear Shareaza's G2 is good.

While not really affecting the users of the network, try asking Overpeer, Mediaforce and so on why they've been getting all these bogus results. In fact, try asking where the hell Mac Granny came from, how, and why.

The doubt isn't usually enough to impinge on a civil case, sadly, they don't actually need proof for that just a preponderance of evidence, it could probably never be unless we flooded the network into oblivion... (the Mac Granny was, we feel, us getting lucky or the RIAA slipping up) but ask yourself why the RIAA aren't using the NET Act for criminal prosecutions? Because they can't PROVE anything. They don't even download the files to check; if they did, they'd find they were garbage, but apparently shared by a legitimate user who's turned off sharing. And remember: "For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement." - 17 U.S.C. sub.sec. 506(a)(2)

The P2P networks' greatest weaknesses and vulnerabilities, in the absence of anonymity, can be their strength. They seek to drive the pirates underground, back into their little blacknet cells... but today's blacknets are tomorrow's release groups in training.

And once a good anonymous p2p system eventually comes along (obviously not Freenet, and even more obviously not ES5), one that hits critical mass like Napster and Kazaa did, with the peak speed of BitTorrent but virtually firewall-proof, highly attack-resistant and virtually untraceable... what will be our enemies' recourse then, now that their tactics have trained new cells of hardcore pirates releasing even more quality material impossibly early for the masses to leech anonymously?

What are they going to do? Sue themselves for, by litigation, finally evolving a p2p network they can't fight? No, they're going to threaten the users, whether they know they're sharing or not. That's where we come in again... and where I sign out.

Wired had this story regarding warning letters vs. supoenas.

It seems to me that it's irrelevent whether the machines run operating systems by Microsoft, IBM, or Uncle Tom Cobley.

It seems to me that it's irrelevent that the software has security flaws.

These issues are distractions. There's a very good probability on the evidence that I can see that these issues just divert your attention from the probability that the systems are working as their makers intend - to deliver election results in favour of the party they, the makers, support.

I mean, let's face it, if you were going to set out to rig election in this electronic age, how would you do it? You'd take control of the vote collecting and counting process. That's what Diebold have effectively done. This is an issue at the very heart of democracy itself: quis custodiet ipsos voting machines?

That's why a recent delegation of representatives didn't stay overnight in Iraq; they were flown back to Kuwait each night, according to James Pinkerton (who was in the first Bush administration).

That's why the airport is still closed because of the threat of missile attack. (You might have to skim a little to find that.)

That's why the war in Iraq has been great for Al Qaeda recruiting. And we're giving them plenty of great practice, like the Soviets did in Afghanistan.

So how is this good again?

In this article the author states basically the same thing as above, but for a different reason. Apparently, it has been known for quite some time that tall people are paid more, but this journalist opened a slightly bigger door to the reasons being. Quick summary: Tall people are more confident. Confidence pays. But that can't be the only reason can it? One can't deny there is negative media, societal pressures, and even evolution to blame here. So what can we short people do? Well this, or just live with it. Money is just money.

Mama mia! That's a hefty injection of legitmate traffic for P2P networks!
Nice to see auntie beeb giving back to the PD!

= 9J =

Security focus article on MP3 vuln

Wired article on the same...

There's already been such a study. Cancer and AIDs patients were split into two groups. Both were told they would be prayed for, but only one group actually received "prayer". Initially, the results showed those actually prayed for fared better, but under closer scruiteny, it didn't hold up. You can read about the study in Wired's "Science and Religion" issue (Wired 10.12).

Sorry I don't have a link. Maybe a friend has a copy laying around?

...When Targ and Sicher wrote the paper that made her famous, they let the reader assume that all along their study had been designed to measure the 23 AIDS-related illnesses - even though they're careful never to say so. They never mentioned that this was the last in a long list of endpoints they looked at, or that it was data collected after an unblinding.

So the editors are trolls now? For every scientific study "proving" that prayer doesn't work, there's one proving that it does. For example, look at this Wired article which talks about a faith healing study done at UC San Francisco Medical Center. It's just one of many. Nobody who believes in prayer will be swayed by this report, and those who don't believe won't be swayed by the one I linked to. Pointless article in a slow news week.

also with the conclusion that healing by prayer is basically a load of bollox.

The EFF has taken on defense of another alleged filesharer. Here is a snippet:
Los Angeles, California - EFF today announced that it will defend Ross Plank of Playa Del Rey, California, against a wrongly filed complaint, among the 261 copyright infringement lawsuits the recording industry has filed against individuals.

The federal lawsuit filed against Plank in Los Angeles accuses him of making hundreds of Latin songs available using KaZaA filesharing software earlier this summer. Plank does not speak Spanish and does not listen to Latin music. More importantly, his computer did not even have KaZaA installed during the period when the investigation occurred.

More articles on Ross Plank and his 'wrongful accusal' at Wired, The Reg, The Inq, DSP Reports, and p2pnet.net.

I saw Linus staring up at me from the cover of Wired at the newstand this morning with "Leader of the Free World" written across his face.

He looked stoned.

He is the blonde dude, not the blue halloween penguin.

The money being collected through this levy here in Canada is NOT being distributed according to this article
here dated January 2003. Not sure if this has changed since then, but I doubt it.

"At the meeting, tech industry groups are likely to point out that the CPCC has not yet distributed a cent of the millions it has collected in fees over the years to musicians.

Since 1999, the CPCC has collected more than CN$28 million in copyright compensation fees. It expects to collect more than CN$100 million in levies next year. "

So somebody somewhere is racking up a lot of interest payments on the musicians money, I wonder if they'll see that too?.

"The CPCC is poised to begin making payments in 2003," a statement from the organization reads.

I bet it will be delivered by the flying pig too.

Having said that, I'd argue that it's unfair and legally sketchy for a Canadian online company to restrict your ability to use your online music purchases. Puretracks.com makes a big deal out of being Canada-only at the moment, which means that they should be more tuned in to Canadian copyright regulation. The thing is, because of CD taxation, Canadians are allowed to make as many copies as they want for personal use. Restricting the number of copies you can make via DRM prevents you from exercising that right. Note that this is completely separate from the question of whether the personal-use argument applies to P2P networks -- with Puretracks, you've already paid to get the songs digitally.

It'd be interesting to see if anyone challenges their DRM restrictions legally based on these arguments. I'd suspect it's something they'll inevitably see this issue raised sooner or later ... Canadians haven't been too happy about the CD tax in general (especially when they see Americans getting blank CDs for free or almost free after rebate); at least before they were getting something in return for the extra price. If precendents like this continue to be set, the CD tax is just going to be free music industry money without returning any value to the consumer.

Granted, this currently only applies to sneakernet and the application of this argument to peer-to-peer networks has yet to be tested in court. This is IMHO a very important point that needs to be clarified in Canadian law for the good of the public. Otherwise, everyone there runs the risk of having to double-pay for every song they get online -- once to download the song, and once again to burn it onto CD.

A quick Google search turned up this.

Summary: Pedophile rapes/kills 10-year-old boy. Turns out he was a fan of NAMBLA. So, family of boy decides to sue NAMBLA.

Personally, while I obviouly agree that NAMBLA is sick and twisted, I think the ACLU was completely right in defending them here. It's not NAMBLA's fault if someone who reads their page goes out and commits murder. NAMBLA may avocate things which are illegal and immoral (note that murder is not among them), but it wasn't NAMBLA that committed the crime. It looks like the parents, being understandably blind with rage, just wanted to sue anyone they could, and figured that NAMBLA was the sort of target that no judge or jury would rule in favor of.

The ACLU wasn't defending NAMBLA's right to have sex with kids. It was defending NAMBLA's right to say whatever it wants on its web page. The whole point of free speech is that people should be allowed to say things even if they are sick and twisted.

Similarily, it's not a video game maker's fault if a fan of their game decides to go on a real-life killing spree. It's not the game's fault that the kid was insane.

It's also news for brights. Hopefully, a majority of "nerds" are brights.

While we're on the topic of new words, I want to introduce the word "dafts".