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All my underseas cable knowledge comes from Neal Stephenson's article, but I imagine there's quite a bit of slack built into these cables. They have to pull them to the surface to repair them, so there's at least enough for that.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html

Nothing to see here...

I remember reading about blue laser storage technology in 1998. The Blu-Ray format was not agreed upon until 2003, Blu-Ray players were demoed at CES in 2004, the first retail unit shipped in 2006, and it took until mid to late 2007 for the early-adoption phase and format wars to end. One could argue that we are still in the early-adoption phase, since prices are still slightly out of reach for many consumers.

Even under ideal circumstances, this new technology will not be realized as a production-ready proof of concept for 1-2 years, take another 2-3 years to go to market, and then another 2-3 years for full market penetration, right about the time you start seeing off-brand 17" combo Blu-Ray/LCD TVs for $199 at Costco.

Besides, Blu-Ray is backwards compatible with DVDs and CDs, why would this be any different?

why does the CA legislature even care about this?

Because they trust doctors more then patients apparently.

See here:

Last Monday, the state's laboratory field services group issued thirteen cease-and-desist letters to genetic testing companies including personal genomics companies 23andMe and Navigenics as well as DNATraits.com, which gives would-be parental couples information about genetic disorders their children could inherit...

Health Department spokeswoman Lea Brooks responded to Wired.com's request for comment saying that the businesses would have a chance to come into compliance with California state law, which requires that a doctor sign off on any laboratory testing.

"The cease-and-desist letters direct the businesses to submit a plan of correction to the California Department of Public Health 14 days from the date the letters were mailed," Brooks wrote in an email. "Each plan of correction must show how the business will come into compliance with California laboratory law. CDPH will review the plans of corrections and respond accordingly."

Or here:

California regulators warned 13 genetic testing companies, including Knome Inc. in Cambridge, to stop marketing their products in California unless they comply with state licensing and testing laws.

The California Department of Public Health warned the companies that they must obtain a clinical laboratory license before conducting medical tests for Californians. In addition, the agency said the companies cannot offer laboratory tests directly to California consumers without a doctor's order.

"Knome is in violation of California law," the agency warned. "Genetic tests are not exempt" from rules requiring a physician's approval, it said.

In which the hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, acquainting himself with the customs and dialects of the exotic Manhole Villagers of Thailand, the U-Turn Tunnelers of the Nile Delta, the Cable Nomads of Lan tao Island, the Slack Control Wizards of Chelmsford, the Subterranean Ex-Telegraphers of Cornwall, and other previously unknown and unchronicled folk; also, biographical sketches of the two long-dead Supreme Ninja Hacker Mage Lords of global telecommunications, and other material pertaining to the business and technology of Undersea Fiber-Optic Cables, as well as an account of the laying of the longest wire on Earth

it's a great read.

Which is excellent BTW

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html

It also resulted in one of the thickest copies of Wired ever produced (seriously, it was like a friggin' phone book.)

These telcoms have millions of dollars worth of lawyers on retainer for situations like this. They knew they where breaking the law. The presidential administration can't make them do anything illegal. In fact some of the telcoms told the bush administration NO [wired.com].

Mod parent down - wrong.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/reiser-defense.html

"Hans and Nina met in 1998, in Russia, when he was overseas hiring programmers. He picked her out of a mail-order bride catalog, where she was advertised as "5279 Nina.""

Then why did he bring multiple witnesses to suggest otherwise?

Thanks for the correction. Yes, only after Reiser's testimony had totally backfired, they brought in some shrinks to suggest he "may have" aspergers, based on tangential evidence. If he clearly had a mental illness, why wasn't he directly evaluated, and why wasn't this brought up before hand? Hmmm.

Shows what you know about Asperger's Syndrome. Being articulate does not rule you out. Those with Asperger's are often highly articulate when talking about their particular areas of focus.

Did Reiser have a particular focus on wife murdering? Because he seems pretty bad at it to me.

He wasn't talking about his filesystem on the stand for weeks you know.

This is pretty much a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

Maybe so, but your rebutall is completely illogical.

Reiser's attorney flat out denied that he had Aspberger's, Reiser never once raised any sort of mental illness defense.

Then why did he bring multiple witnesses to suggest otherwise?

Furthermore, his speech skills were fine, he is actually very articulate. I find it hard to believe that he had any sort of autism-related mental illness.

Shows what you know about Asperger's Syndrome. Being articulate does not rule you out. Those with Asperger's are often highly articulate when talking about their particular areas of focus.

The myth that every nerd who programs computers has some sort of "cool" mental defect really needs to die. A lot of you are just poorly socialized and stupid, that is all.

Way to exaggerate there pal.

I think the current best way to save someone from hypothermia is to have them hold one of those gloves mentioned here:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore_pr.html

And have it set on "heat" rather than "cool". See the last bit.

Lastly without ex Nazis the USA's aerospace and nuclear tech would not have advanced as fast.

Those scientists were humans (with good and bad) as well as good tools (good scientists and engineers) used for both good and evil.

This quote from the April 28 Wired article supports what you're saying:

The turning point in the trial came when Reiser took the stand in his own defense March 3.

In his 11 days of testimony, Reiser offered lengthy and verbose explanations for every piece of circumstantial evidence. But Reiser's version of events often drew disbelieving head shakes from jurors -- and occasional smirks from the trial judge.

It seems his own actions resulted in the correct verdict.

Newly declassified Pentagon report, February 2008, Bioeffects of Selected Non-Lethal Weapons , obtained under the Freedom of Information Act http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/report-nonletha.html "The "Voice of God" device, which creates voices in people's heads. As the report notes, "Application of the microwave hearing technology could facilitate a private message transmission. It may be useful to provide a disruptive condition to a person not aware of the technology. Not only might it be disruptive to the sense of hearing, it could be psychologically devastating if one suddenly heard 'voices within one's head.'"

Compare:
http://blog.wired.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/07/02/vw_one_liter_concept01_2.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.com/member_images/4/web/2416000-2416999/2416491_569_full.jpg

I don't understand why they would even bother with making a few of these by 2010 when the appeal of the diesel hybrid Golf seems so much more apparent. Bring out the diesel hybrids already!

The main article is slashdotted, here's the summary article for the "Totemcrappen" which has a picture. Notice the priceless licensence plate which is Leet speak "Wobbly".

Interestingly the car was desinged 6 years ago but the 2012 was the release date as the prices would fall far enough to manufacture it. But they decided to roll is out 2 years early.

Looking at the photo of the cockpit, there seemed to be some "foot-pegs" on the side walls of the car *in front* of the drivers seat. So perhaps the passenger actually straddles the drivers seat? In that case the passenger would have a lot of leg room length. But still .. mighty uncomfortable for a long trip.

I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free

Yeah, sure. Like being arrested because you're demonstrating peacefully against the worst president your country ever had.
Or maybe being handcuffed and arrested after police breaks one of your legs because you were marching for your rights.
Or maybe like being beaten for no reason by a wannabe Rambo in a place you already have no way to escape from.

Do the world a favor: shut up and go back cleaning your rifle and thumping your bible! You haven't the slightest idea about what the word freedom means. Especially from the ways you export it.

If that's freedom for you, well, then today you are celebrating the wrong thing.

I call it a flip, since McCain's political opinion was, on 21 May 2008, "John McCain would not support immunity for the telecoms that aided the Bush administration's warrantless spying program, unless there were revealing Congressional hearings and heartfelt repentance from those telephone and internet companies"; but then on 23 May 2008 became, "The Senator still supports unconditional amnesty for telecoms that helped the government spy on Americans, without being given court orders" [emphasis added]. If it's unconditional, I suppose there's no need for hearings and tearful remorse.

Those quotes are from a Wired blog: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/telecom-amnesty.html

... and since IANAL reading the ruling won't do me much more good than a lawyer reading uncommented source code.

Read it. It's in english.

Seriously, the day you don't understand court rulings that affect you should be the day you break out your rifle and take to the hills.

There is no Rule of Law anymore at that point.

OK, I'm back. There's no way to say it nice, so I'll not mince words - the summary is inflamatory garbage. TFA says

Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google's liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.

It doesn't say why Viacom needs user names; maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet, but TFA is pretty light on details too, and since IANAL reading the ruling won't do me much more good than a lawyer reading uncommented source code.

TFA says the EFF is getting involved.

You mean sometimes there are comments in source code?! Someone needs to tell my former co-workers.

OK, I'm back. There's no way to say it nice, so I'll not mince words - the summary is inflamatory garbage. TFA says

Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google's liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.

It doesn't say why Viacom needs user names; maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet, but TFA is pretty light on details too, and since IANAL reading the ruling won't do me much more good than a lawyer reading uncommented source code.

TFA says the EFF is getting involved.

Yeah maybe someday we can upgrade to something we can adjust.

90% efficiency when running (want to stay cool - stuff stops working well when the temperature goes up[1]), and 10% efficient when sitting on the couch watching TV - to stay warm and not get fat after eating all that junk food.

[1] "muscles tire because they get too hot"
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore_pr.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2354135.stm

As for monkeys this has been tried many times. Sadly some of the monkeys I saw had degrees in computer science. Good thing about these degree monkeys - they did not defecate on the keyboard (at least the ones I knew did not) which the real monkeys did when confronted with similarly daunting task: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/multimedia/2003/05/58790

It may be just a hunch but I think the parallel processing will take some time and brain power to use properly and it is going to stay this way for a while.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/aids-didnt-come.html Presented for the record. It's not a crazy theory, but it happens to be wrong.

Before he had said he was absolutely against retroactive telecom immunity. Now he says he will vote for the bill even if it has the immunity in it. It is that simple. He flip-flopped

This attitude is an absolutely moronic anti-knowledge mind virus that's a plague to functioning democracy. You say that Obama must vote no if he's against telecom immunity. I guess he must also vote yes if he supports something in the bill. Tell me, if he supports one thing and is against another in the same bill, as is the case here, what happens? Does the flow of time grind to a halt to preserve the validity of your idiot-logic?

Let's take a look at what Obama actually said about this:

Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.

The above information is what people don't seek out when they believe what they hear in 30-second attack ads is enough to conclude somebody is a hypocrite or a flip-flopper. Please stop spreading your anti-knowledge attitude. The coming election is very important, and it's absolutely critical that we stop being idiots and start thinking by election day.

Apple's idiocy in restricting the hell out of it

Really, are you completely oblivious to the fact that restrictions such as "don't use VoIP over your data plan" aren't dictated by Apple but by the telcos? It's probably part of the contract and if it weren't Apple wouldn't have a network for people to use iPhones on. Have you seen how badly Verizon cripple all their phones?

To push the previous point a little further, you also have to keep in mind how many concessions Apple has managed to force on AT&T. Apple has - literally - changed the industry in many positive ways. Here's a very interesting article I'd recommend reading: The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry.

At the expense of sounding like an Apple fanboi myself (I like their products, but I think I'm generally fairly objective) I'm guessing that you're on the opposite end of fanboi-ism and it makes you feel smart: in the same way that fanbois think they're superior because they use Apple products, you think you're smarter than they are because you don't. I think both sides - fanbois and anti-fanbois - should try to be more objective and recognize Apple for their good things - design, innovation, user interface, and in this situation changing the wireless industry - and their bad things - hype, pricing, etc.

Gotta love capitalism! Besides, you can avoid the hardware now anyway between VMs and straight up x86 ports of OSX.

Links:
[[1]]
[[2]]
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[[5]]

and that's secure, like that 17gb torrent that was floating around recently with all the "friends only" pictures they collected from everyone's profiles.

ICANN is a TERRIBLY badly managed organization, in my opinion.

I'm keeping a list of stories about GoDaddy on Slashdot, in order by date:
Go Daddy Usurps Network Solutions (2005-05-04)
GoDaddy Serves Blank Pages to Safari & Opera (2005-12-08)
GoDaddy.com Dumps Linux for Microsoft (2006-03-23)
GoDaddy Holds Domains Hostage (2006-06-17)
GoDaddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat (2006-09-16)
MySpace and GoDaddy Shut Down Security Site (2007-01-26)
That incident prompted this web site:
Exposing the Many Reasons Not to Trust GoDaddy with Your Domain Names. According to this March 11, 2008 story in Wired, GoDaddy shut down an entire web site of 250,000 pages because of one archived mailing list comment: GoDaddy Silences Police-Watchdog Site RateMyCop.com. See below for Slashdot's story about RateMyCop.com.
Alternative Registrars to GoDaddy? (2007-02-03)
GoDaddy Bobbles DST Changeover? (2007-03-11)
850K RegisterFly Domains Moved To GoDaddy (2007-05-29)
GoDaddy Silences RateMyCop.com (2008-03-12)
ICANN Moves Against GoDaddy Domain Lockdowns (2008-04-08)
GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers (2008-06-29)

Any error or stories not included?

GoDaddy's reputation is not just one of a negative stories. In my opinion, GoDaddy tries to confuse non-technical people by offering services they don't need that are presented as valuable.

Here are some of the opinions of Bob Parsons, the owner of GoDaddy. He is pro-violence: Close Gitmo? No way!!

They generally seem to not like it. But ten to one if someone consistently delivered this kind of retribution against privacy-violating politicians, they'd find themselves in jail, because that's one of those things they'll make sure is written into the law: they can do it, but you can't. Since we're all "working together to end terrorism" now, anybody actively opposing such good-willed spying will be classified as a terrorist and silenced in one way or another.

By Odin's beard, I sure am cynical today.

See original slashdot article and wired writeup of the publication. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/13/2052206 http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_decision

Some issues are fabulous at this. I've got a copy of 5.08 sitting here, the front cover of which suggests Linux is dying, Gary Reback will take down Microsoft, and internet 'malls' are the future. My favourite line is 'Linux might become just another honest freeware Mosaic wiped out by a slick commercial Netscape'...

I've got a copy of the one that celebrates the coming of the 'push' internet somewhere too.

The image in the middle of the article, with two pairs of TIE fighter images side by side appears to actually be two stereoscopic pairs, arranged for cross-eyed viewing.

I didn't find a caption or any other explanation, but give it a try. The video is great at showing how real the object seems from a rotational perspective, but viewing the still-frame of the TIE in 3D really drove it home for me.

If none of that makes any sense, try google's help.

"the compromised PINs seem to have been used at ATMs in 7-Eleven stores"

The PINs were stolen "in an attack on a server that processes transactions from Citi-branded ATMs at 7-Eleven"

"Citibank is regularly the target of hackers/phishers"

Except in this case the servers got hacked ..

"a hacker managed to steal customer-account numbers and PIN codes, in an attack on a server that processes transactions from Citi-branded ATMs"

After about 18 months in L.A., you begin to understand the more serious problems. The L.A. culture is even more disfunctional than the culture where you lived before. It gets seriously lonely, living in Los Angeles, even though there are people all around you.

I think that's true of every major city. It certainly is in London.

Remember all the publicity about sequencing the human genome? A lot of taxpayers paid a lot of money for that. Then, it was revealed, that, so sorry, the epigenome is a lot more complex, very influential, and almost completely unknown.

To be fair, there's no way they could have known that without all the genetic work that was done. Until the sequencing was done and the number of human genes found to be much much lower than expected, there was no reason to discount the one-gene-per-function paradigm, since it does work pretty well in simpler organisms.

Every time you play a video game, you are spending time learning about a fantasy world, when you could be learning about the real world. If you study the real world, you can discover that "anti-aging" is a HUGE business, funded largely by people who have more money than scientific knowledge, and hope not to die.

You're bascially right, but there is a discipline which IMO is worthwhile, and that is trying to promote successful ageing. This means learning what you can do to age with less disability and impairment, and exploring how best to use the new lifespan we're all going to have. Human lifespan is going up by two years every decade with no sign of a natural limit and we need to be trying to make those extra years as worthwhile as possible.

Yes, I know how to spell disfunctional. I just don't like that spelling, and I made my own.

And I know how to spell ag(e)ing.

I'm as pleased as anybody that the development of large pools of widely accessible data may lead scientists to find and consider correlations which may not otherwise have observed.

However, Wired does tend to breathlessly enthuse when it comes to stories about how the Internet has changed everything, everywhere, forever and ever! (Look back 11 years at "The Long Boom" for an example of this unbridled enthusiasm. Today, to our great sorrow, this seems a bit ... overoptimistic.)

In the current political climate, any claim that the Internet has made information universally available is hopelessly naive. And the veracity of the information that is available is, at best, mixed.

This is not to say that scientists would resort to sources such as Wikipedia for their sole source of information. Even so, statistical modeling is not a new science. If the emerging massive data cloud makes this kind of research an increasingly important scientific tool, it is cause for optimism.

However, anybody who claims that his/her hypothesis does not require testing, verification and review--or that scientific hypotheses in general have become obsolete--cannot be taken seriously.

That would be a typical Wired overstatement.

I have to agree with you there after reading this. They truely have some retards working at Fox and it's funny the message they put out is the exact opposite Fox sends with the rest of its broadcasting.

Quote: "I live in LA. I was a little surprised when I moved here five years ago to discover that the normals outnumber the weirdos by a dramatic margin."

It's just that the weirdos and shysters get more publicity than normal people.

After about 18 months in L.A., you begin to understand the more serious problems. The L.A. culture is even more disfunctional than the culture where you lived before. It gets seriously lonely, living in Los Angeles, even though there are people all around you.

Fraud Alert! In my opinion, this Slashdot story is about an almost purely fraudulent subject, with insignificant truth. Many people want to believe, and my guess is that the leaders of "anti-aging" efforts want to take the money of the believers. Here's where they ask for money: At present, a $100 donation (enough for a free signed copy of "Ending Aging") is leveraged to $150!.

The real science in this is in the VERY early stages. It's a wild guess, but a somewhat educated wild guess, that perhaps one one-thousandth is known about body chemistry that would need to be known to "cure" aging.

There have been some successes, if you can call them that. This paper talks about extending the life span of fruit flies by 7%: Extension of Drosophila Lifespan by Rhodiola rosea Through an Anti-oxidant Independent Mechanism. This sentence is interesting: "We evaluated a new formulation of R. rosea (SHR-5) which contains elevated levels of the putative active compounds (rosin, rosarin, and rosavin), and found that it could extend mean life span by 43%." The interesting word, in that sentence, in my opinion, is "could". Not "extended the life span by 43%", but "could". And the active compounds are "putative"; that means "commonly regarded as such; reputed; supposed". How "commonly regarded" can it be when it is a "new formulation"?

If you follow experiments like this, you already know that "extending the life span of fruit flies" is rather common. If I were to try to extend the life of fruit flies myself, I would start by taking them out of their tiny cages in the laboratory and letting them fly more freely. Maybe now they just get depressed and commit suicide. (I find it difficult to be serious about that "research" paper.)

Right now, 2008-06-27, 01:13 AM PDT, Slashdot is second on the list of Blog Coverage (bottom of the left-hand column):
* Digg
* Slashdot
* Center for Society and Genetics
* Depressed Metabolism

I wonder if they will eliminate the link to this Slashdot story when they discover that not all Slashdot readers are ignorant about science?

Remember all the publicity about sequencing the human genome? A lot of taxpayers paid a lot of money for that. Then, it was revealed, that, so sorry, the epigenome is a lot more complex, very influential, and almost completely unknown.

I would like Slashdot editors to provide an assurance at the end of every story they run that no one they know got money or any other benefit because of running the story.

Every time you play a video game, you are spending time learning about a fantasy world, when you could be learning about the real world. If you study the real world, you can discover that "anti-aging" is a HUGE business, funded largely by people who have more money than scientific knowledge, and hope not to die.

Yes, I know how to spell disfunctional. I just don't like that spelling, and I made my own.

now, don't get me wrong. this is a cool bird. but I wouldn't say it was cooler than the SR-71.

I've found a few better articles and videos, here, here , here & here.

It's probably designed to be the replacement for the "blackstar" program, which doesn't exist, but is hands-down the very coolest thing out there, the only thing cooler would be a functioning Orion spacecraft.

But this looks like it might have the capability of taking the place of the blackstar "mothership", although I bet with less performance & payload; as this isn't designed to be a Mach 3+ cruise nuclear bomber, that's understandable. but those cold-war birds have got to be tired by now, and looking forward to retirement. i think one would look great in my driveway as a static display.

I do wonder what they are going to use to replace the orbital component, which was probably based on the X-20. Maybe a NASP? The X-43?

http://news.google.com/news?q=blackswift

I'm somewhat confused as to what has been "unveiled".
Everything I've read so far says that this plane is still in the "sketches and mock-ups" stage.

Though I guess someone found the time to do a slick render.
Maybe the PR push is an attempt to keep Congress from cutting their funding.

It's no secret, nor is it new...

http://www.darpa.mil/tto/programs/Falcon.htm

August 2007
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/08/blackswift-retu.html

March 2008
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/11/darpa_hypersonic_blackswift_details_released/

It's also been on the Military Channel, and Discovery...

Chris Anderson
has foreseen the most profound change since the age of reason. Man has
reached the point where his "understanding" can impede evolution. It is
time to concede that some processes may be beyond our
comprehension.

Research in the area of Artificial General Intelligence provides a
crystal clear demonstration of the problem. A half century of research
has led to "intelligent" data mining and voice response systems and
very little else.

However, Koza, Fogel
and many others have observed evolutionary computation machines
creating solutions to real world problems. In some cases these
are patentable solutions beyond previous human achievement, and some of
them defy understanding.

Unless you have unlimited funding and lots of time, it's not necessary
to understand why every complex solution works. It may not even be
possible.

A million MRI's of functioning brains are not likely to result in any
Lisp program for AGI, so the search for AGI seems to be coming full
circle back to the "baby bootstrap". Even Ben Goertzel
is looking to virtual babies to mine the clouds.

Like others who have managed to see beyond the horizon, Anderson will
be widely misunderstood. He is not rejecting scientific method, he is
simply showing us its limitations.

I know lots of people have gotten the short attention span sickness, which most Americans have. Still i am dissapointed, even on slashdot.
But this stuff is not new.

Just some links about this technology, from 2006:
http://blog.wired.com/music/2006/11/acoustic_recogn.html
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19225780.159-big-brother-is-listening-to-you.html

One of the companies responsible for this was founded in 2000:
http://www.soundintel.com/

more links wanted? go to http://www.rug.nl/scholieren/adamsAppel/archief2007/afl11 [dutch]

**** Knowing is less important then Remembering. ****

Sometimes life is a lot like open source development. If you want it that bad, quit your whining and write it yourself ;) Or you could start an open book and start contributing...

Slashdot material will also cover accusations of LimitNone being a M$ proxy and the perills of non free software in general. The senseless accusations you are talking about will be half covered by the Wintel trade press as they did with the SCO case.

The statement:

People need to realize that Google is just another large publicly traded corporation that will do whatever it takes to increase its revenue, even if that means risking its reputation among developers." is right out of the M$ FUD book.

The alleged theft is laughable:

The lawsuit alleges that Google's product, called "Google Email Uploader" steals gMove's look, feel and functionality.

There were also Vague accusations of "trade secret theft" but there are several excellent free software tools that have been getting this kind of information for years. No further details were given by business wire. Let's look for more, shall we?

• Wired, same stuff Google has not had time to look over the suit and comment.
• CNet, same kind of thing with market size and potential price thrown in for fun.
• TechTree bare facts, no Google comment.
• The Inquirer does better with a brief statement of facts, without Google comment.
• The Wall Street Journal adds insight by noticing that there is a conflict of interest between small companies and large ones in any business relationship but only applies this wisdom to Google. No comment from Google.
• There are many echos in other papers and blog space which contain even less information than the Slashdot summary.
• Something to spook clueless investors about "another" billion dollar suit for Google without background information about the frequency of such things.

So, we see a one sided media blitz, complete with stock market "advice", but completely lacking in input from Google, technical insight and other information. These are M$ hallmarks.

In the FISA courts the government still has to show that they had a good faith belief that the correspondence was relevant to an investigation. The fact that they put a splitter on the backbone means that they are tapping the calls of millions of people. There's no way that they have a good faith belief that every one of those millions of calls is relevant to anything.

There's one problem:
Wachovia tells their users to enter their credentials on the unsecured front page, which then submits to a secure script processing said credentials.
What you might be forgetting: What if I set up interception on my shared WiFi (or somewhere at the backbone of the hypothetical ISP I might be working for) to grab all HTTP requests for / going to r3wec01.wachovia.com and add a tiny bit of JavaScript that, in addition to the page working as it usually does, posts all keypresses to a script of my choosing?
Without access to WB's certificate, I couldn't do that on a properly secured HTTPS site. Thanks to unencrypted HTTP, it's pretty trivial.

After claiming to be against immunity and against this bill, will Obama actually show up and participate in the voting? Or is he "too busy campaigning?"

Oh, wait. He supports the bill now. Can't you just fell the change we can believe in?

And on that first question, apparently Obama is currently campaigning in Las Vegas, although given the second point, maybe that's just as well.

http://www.wired.com/culture/art/news/2008/06/secret_satellites