Using a mobile phone while driving could be as dangerous as being under the influence of alcohol, according to a new study, reports FreshNews. "In fact, the study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 9:21 am
Lev13than writes "Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs said the iPhone won't be using Adobe Systems' Inc.'s popular Flash media player any time soon, saying the technology doesn't meet his company's performance standards for video. Jobs said the version of Flash formatted to personal computers is too slow on the iPhone while the mobile version of the media player is "is not capable of being used with the web." The comments come a day before Apple is set to introduce the company's plan for iPhone SDK, the software developers kit which will allow third-party developers to create applications that can work in conjunction with the popular handheld device."
By Evan Ackerman This is Dead Buddy. He’s dead. He’s got speakers in his feet. He’s $40. That is all. [ Dead Bbudd ] VIA [ Technabob ] Audio Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 9:12 am
A chain text message bombarded Kuwaiti mobile phones, calling on Kuwaiti youths to "boycott coffee shops, malls, shopping complexes, restaurants and even co-ops to fight price inflation on March 6". The... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 9:12 am
A research project aimed at martens has turned up a bigger prize: a picture of a wolverine, an elusive animal scientists feared may have been driven out of the Sierra Nevada long ago by... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:40 am
One of the annoying things about getting in the shower is making sure that the water is the right temperature. This is especially annoying if your shower takes a minute or two to get warm. Sure, you could... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:32 am
I’ll admit that my desk always has a bit of clutter on it. It’s a rather large desk without drawers, so it becomes something of a catch-all for random things while I’m working. I try... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:30 am
BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing is seeking weather forecasters from home and abroad to provide hourly bulletins in three languages for every event of the Olympics in August, China's top... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:06 am
This Friday marks the beginning of South by Southwest in Austin, starting with the Interactive Festival. Every year, geeks galore descend on my hometown, only to be replaced by filmmakers and then musicians... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
Regulatory News: Technip (Paris:TEC) (ISIN:FR0000131708) has been awarded by Petrofac Energy Developments Ltd (Petrofac) a contract, worth approximately €36 million, for the development of the Don West and Don South West oil fields. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By John Stamper, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky. Mar. 6--FRANKFORT -- A bill that would ban coal operators from filling creeks and valleys with excess waste will get a vote in the House budget committee, but not until all members are present. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By OUTDOORS JIM MORRIS OK, fishing fans. It's past March 1, so we can officially start thinking about frolicking among our finny friends again. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By Andy Mead, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky. Mar. 6--FRANKFORT -- Louisville Water Co., which wants to sell some of its excess water capacity to Lexington and Central Kentucky, finally got a chance to make its case before the Public Service Commission on Wednesday. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By Terry Rindfleisch, La Crosse Tribune, Wis. Mar. 6--A movement has begun in the La Crosse area to create aging-friendly communities. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By Annie Calovich, The Wichita Eagle, Kan. Mar. 6--The plant buying has already begun. Brandi Pappan of Derby saw Tangerine geraniums blooming Wednesday at the Wichita Garden Show and, like several flower lovers before her, had to have one. "I just love that color. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By La Crosse Tribune, Wis. Mar. 6--A group is forming to support two referendum questions the La Crosse School District will put to voters April 1. The La Crosse Vote Yes group will hold its first meeting at 6:30 p.m. today at the Southside Neighborhood Center, 1307 S. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By Dion Lefler, The Wichita Eagle, Kan. Mar. 6--Stinging over the tanker contract that got away, Sedgwick County is hoping tobeat the United States Air Force. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By Jim DeBrosse Staff Writer BELLBROOK -- At Bellbrook High School these days, "everybody has their (political) opinion -- I hear it every day when I walk the halls at school," said Giles Allen, a Bellbrook senior and a volunteer for John McCain. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By Zainul Ariffin THE campaigning for the 13th general election, to be held at the latest by 2013, will start this Sunday, soon after the results of the current election makes it to the morning newspapers. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By John Cheves, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky. Mar. 6--A bill filed in the House would keep Kentuckians from posting anonymous comments to Web sites. House Bill 775, filed Tuesday by Rep. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By Izwan Ismail THE upcoming general election has seen how the Internet plays its role, a very effective one that is, in disseminating political parties' and politicians' messages. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By Chandra Devi; Hazimin Sulaiman CONVENTIONAL television was once seen as the one and only effective propaganda tool for politicians. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
The Tele Columbus Group, Germany's third-largest cable operator, announces that it will now protect its independent networks with conditional access technology from leading international solutions provider NDS (NASDAQ:NNDS). Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
Do You Know?Which state has the smallest population?The Answer Is:Wyoming, with a population of less than half a million people, has the smallest population of any state in the United States. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
A man-made flood is unleashed from a dam near the Utah border in hopes of restoring the area's ecosystem. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
Industry groups are vigorously fighting a proposal for an Internet site where complaints about products, such as toys, could be posted. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
Donald S. Lopez, a World War II fighter ace who became a test pilot and spacecraft engineer and had a significant role in planning the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, died Monday at the Duke... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 8:00 am
By Andrew Liszewski As a guy who hates talking to people, particularly strangers knocking on my door, I really like this idea. It’s basically a small black and white video camera with a wide angle... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 7:54 am
The Czech government on Wednesday urged the European Union to slowly phase in a scheme to set up a market in greenhouse gas emission quotas, citing the danger of a sharp rise in power... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 7:48 am
By Andrew Liszewski One of the keys to healthy eating is to simply not eat so much. Believe it or not most people don’t need to consume half a chicken at dinner in order to have enough energy to... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 7:38 am
The Operation MySpace concert for U.S. soldiers in Kuwait next week (see ridiculous video below) is getting lots of press, but it’s all around who’s performing: Pussycat Dolls, Jessica Simpson,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 7:21 am
Spotted on Just Another Mobile Phone Blog, the latest mobile phone watch from China. It has a simple design and features bluetooth and a relatively large touchscreen. It comes in black, pink or white... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 7:09 am
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Consumer electronics giant Toshiba Corp said on Thursday it had launched a new company in the United States to enhance its nuclear power businesses. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 6:30 am
coondoggie writes "NASA this will show off the first mock up of its Orion space capsule ahead of the capsule's first emergency astronaut escape system test. NASA said it will jettison the full-size structural model off a simulated launch pad at the US Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The launch escape vehicle sits atop the Orion capsule which is slated to be bolted on an Ares rocket. The escape vehicle is made up of three solid rocket motors as well as separation mechanisms and canards, and should offer the crew an escape capability in the event of an emergency during launch, according to NASA."
By Charles Kochakian THE proposal to use ground-up rubber tires as sidewalk material in New Haven is extremely worrisome. Ground-up rubber tires contain zinc as well as numerous toxic chemicals. The excess amount of zinc from the tire material is capable of leaching. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Mar 2008 | 5:00 am
By Cara Baruzzi NEW YORK -- Wall Street closed mixed Tuesday, recuperating from a sharp plunge as investors snapped up bargain stocks on rumors that a bond insurer rescue plan is progressing and on upbeat comments from Cisco Systems Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Mar 2008 | 5:00 am
By Luther Turmelle By Luther Turmelle North Bureau Chief CHESHIRE -- Tom Hearn had an inkling that his son Grady might have a knack for drawing when, at 5 years old, the boy was creating drawings of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on his father's computer. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Mar 2008 | 5:00 am
IBM (NYSE: IBM) Researchers today announced a discovery that combats one of the industry's most perplexing problems in using graphite -- the same material found inside pencils -- as a material for building nanoelectonic circuits vastly smaller than those found in today's silicon based computer chips. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Mar 2008 | 5:00 am
By Mary OLeary By Mary E. O'Leary Register Topics Editor NEW HAVEN -- State police have finished analyzing the computer of a Yale University student charged with voyeurism and the case is expected to be back in court next month. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Mar 2008 | 5:00 am
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like SCO will be emerging from the almost dead soon, with new owners and $100 million on board. SNCP is adjusting the business strategy, according to this report on TG Daily, SCO is saying goodbye to CEO Darl McBride and is also preparing to appeal the summary judgments in the cases against Novell and IBM. If you have thought the chapter was closed, think again. Those $100 million can go a long way (even if SCO has to pay 17% interest on it)."
its next-generation web browser Wednesday and said Internet Explorer 8 will adhere to the same standards as competitors' programs. Microsoft's browsers, including the current Internet... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 3:04 am
GENEVA, March 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), a world leader in semiconductors for automotive applications, today announced that its Cartesio... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 3:00 am
SANTA CLARA, California (Reuters) - Intel Corp Chief Executive Paul Otellini said on Wednesday the company has seen price erosion for certain memory chips in the first quarter that is... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 2:47 am
LONDON, March 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Europe's Largest XML Publishing and Component CMS (CCMS) Conference announces leading XML solutions provider JustSystems will be Gold Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 2:30 am
A research project aimed at martens has turned up a bigger prize: a picture of a wolverine, an elusive animal scientists feared may have been driven out of the Sierra Nevada long ago by... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 2:20 am
vowed Wednesday to shore up the company's defences against steep drops in memory chip prices that forced it to lower its profit forecast for the current quarter. Price erosion for NAND Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 2:13 am
Ideologically pure and physically tough, Valentina Tereshkova is the perfect candidate for the Soviet Union's goal of being first to put a woman into orbit.
alexj33 writes "Will humans ever really go to Mars? Let's face it, the obstacles are quite daunting. Not only are there numerous, difficult, technical issues to overcome, but the political will and perseverance of any one nation to undertake such an arduous task is huge. However, one former NASA engineer believes a human mission to Mars is quite possible, and such an event would unify the world as never before. But Jim McLane's proposal includes a couple of major caveats: the trip to Mars should be one-way, and have a crew of only one person."
10 Zen Monkeys has a fun list of five controversial moments in the life of William F. Buckley.
Buckley famously smoked marijuana — after sailing his boat outside the U.S. territorial limits, where it would no longer be illegal. Finally at the age of 78, Buckley wrote an editorial for the National Review decrying the war on pot.
"Legal practices should be informed by realities," Buckley argued, citing 700,000 pot arrests each year, 87% of which involved only possession of small amounts. "This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10-15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone."
But would America ever rise up and demand a change in marijuana laws?
It is happening, but ever so gradually. Two of every five Americans, according to a 2003 Zogby poll cited by Dr. Nadelmann, believe "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and make it illegal only for children". The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson.
Buckley's position was unexpected, but it offered an honorable example of his real commitment to intellectualism. He began his essay by writing that "Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great."
His son said Buckley died "with his boots on," according to BBC News — writing at his desk. "If he had been given a choice on how to depart this world," the National Review wrote, "I suspect that would have been exactly it. At home, still devoted to the war of ideas."
The fight over the future of Scrabulous, the latest bane of office productivity, may come down to a question of how many zeroes all the sides can score. The legal fight over the virtual knockoff of the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 1:36 am
Advanced Micro Devices said Tuesday that it was closing a technology gap with its rival Intel, cutting about in half the time required to move to a new manufacturing process. The company also said it... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 1:36 am
UPDATE: Edited to incorporate comments from readers reminding me about YouTube video on the iPhone. Also see note at end from Google There are a couple of announcements Tuesday that point to a major technological... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 1:36 am
I HATE being addressed by machines. We have a microwave that says, Enjoy your meal! when the bell goes off, even if you have only warmed up a cup of coffee. I tell the microwave to shut up, though not... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 1:36 am
There is no better sign that we have entered an era of total media convergence than the decision by The Washington Post and Newsweek to host live video broadcasts on the Web of the presidential primary... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 1:36 am
BPO Management Services of Anaheim, Calif., wants small to midsize companies to hand over their confidential files and corporate documents. So does Cloudworks, of Thousand Oaks, Calif. Docstoc.com of Beverly... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Mar 2008 | 1:36 am
Today at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference, I attended Jane Swarm and John Storm's talk, "Of Necessity and Humanity: What Cuba Can Teach Us About Ourselves and Our Own Technology," a fascinating talk about the technology lessons to be learned from the largely technology-free Special Period in Cuban history, about the hacker culture that inspired, and about what's likely to come of it in the future as technology floods into Cuba.
Tech emerges from Grey Market
* Resolver: excuse to be illegal to make ends meet
* Buying PC parts out of the back door of a gov't facility, assemble PC, sell
back to gov't
* In Cuba all goods constantly circulate
* Inventar: improvise from limited resources
* Everything is misc and modular
* New means new config of existing parts
* A cinderblock house can be built ina week -- what's what's "new"
* Barter:
* Man wants wood for a raft for Miami, traded laptop -- political freedom for
national freedom
Snip from post by Kevin Poulsen, at Wired Threat Level blog.
A U.S. government office in Quantico, Virginia, has direct, high-speed access to a major wireless carrier's systems, exposing customers' voice calls, data packets and physical movements to uncontrolled surveillance, according to a computer security consultant who says he worked for the carrier in late 2003.
"What I thought was alarming is how this carrier ended up essentially allowing a third party outside their organization to have unfettered access to their environment," Babak Pasdar, CTO of New Jersey-based IGXglobal told Threat Level. "I wanted to put some access controls around it; they vehemently denied it. And when I wanted to put some logging around it, they denied that."
Pasdar won't name the wireless carrier in question, but his claims are nearly identical to unsourced allegations made in a federal lawsuit filed in 2006 against four phone companies and the U.S. government for alleged privacy violations. That suit names Verizon Wireless as the culprit.
Wired contacted Verizon, and a company spokesperson declined to comment:
"What you're talking about sounds as if it would be classified and involving national security, so I wouldn't be able to find out the facts."
Update: A BB commenter points to a related Slashdot thread. Snip:
It's very likely this is to meet the realtime reporting/relay requirements of the CALEA statue which governs lawful intercept of voice and data communications.
When your hard drive fills up and your apps get sluggish, don't panic or curse Steve Jobs. Bring your slow Mac back to life by following our guide on Wired's How-To Wiki.
The Vanishing Point, a site dedicated to urban exploration and secrets of the built environment, has a page about the massive abandoned Tailrace tunnel at Niagara Falls. (The entire Vanishing Point site is mesmerizing, rich with great writing and fantastic photography.) Part of the decommissioned Toronto Power Co. hydroelectric plant, the tunnel is ten stories underground and only accessible through a hidden slit in the ceiling. From Vanishing Point:
Lying below a river that will relentlessly tear into the bedrock until all has been obliterated from Queenston to Erie, this tunnel thirty-three feet in diameter is imprinted into my being forever. A swirling army of red brick millions strong, the eye of a petrified hurricane leading us right into the centre of the stalled but fighting storm that is Niagara Falls. Standing in its back-blast, in a place far deeper and darker than any middling storm sewer, I breathed and drank from the fount of the universe and swam closer to its centre than I ever will again.
Today, electronic noses are used in applications from air quality monitoring to food flavor research. The problem though is that they cost $5000 to $10,000. However, printable organic electronics could bring the cost down to tens of dollars, leading to a slew of new applications like refrigerators that sniff out spoiled food, pest-detectors for gardens, and pocket-sized medical diagnostic devices that can smell disease. The new issue of IEEE Spectrum looks at the latest in electronic nose research. The article was written by Josephine B. Chang, a former UC Berkeley student, and Berkeley professor Vivek Subramanian, whose early work on e-noses I wrote about in Lab Notes here. From their IEEE Spectrum article:
This e-nose will be the culmination of decades of work at countless laboratories, where researchers have sought to create a tiny, cheap, automatic sniffer that would let wine bottles monitor the aging of their contents, allow meat packages to flag spoilage, and enable mailboxes to check for bombs. Imagine barroom coasters that double as Breathalyzers, bumper stickers that monitor car emissions...
Rather than developing one nose for wine monitoring and a different one to detect bad fish, the same piece of hardware could be trained separately for different tasks. Imagine an electronic-nose system shipped with standard pattern-recognition libraries. Load up one for the refrigerator and the system will sniff for spoiling foodstuffs; load up a different one for the garden and the system searches instead for the telltale odors of snails and other pests. And what if you want the e-nose to learn the difference between Grandma's apple pie and Mom's? Well, chances are the manufacturers will have never met Grandma or Mom or sampled the output of their ovens. But they may have included software for generating new pattern-recognition libraries. If so, you would hook up the nose to the training system, introduce it to one apple pie at a time, and find out if the pies generate distinguishable responses in the array. If they do, then generate a new library, load it up, and you've got a personalized apple- pie connoisseur.
An anonymous reader writes "An unnamed U.S. wireless carrier maintains an unfiltered, unmonitored DS-3 line from its internal network to a facility in Quantico, Virginia, according to Babak Pasdar, a computer security consultant who did work for the company in 2003. Customer voice calls, billing records, location information and data traffic are all allegedly exposed. A similar claim was leveled against Verizon Wireless in a 2006 lawsuit."
Kinescope writes "The motion picture industry has said that its profits are at risk due to piracy, but a record-setting 2007 box office has some wondering if the industry is crying 'wolf.' Last year, the US box office totaled $9.63 billion, a 5.4% increase over 2006. 'Piracy is so bad, according to the MPAA, that we need special legislation to target the dastardly college pirates who are destroying the business. It's so bad that Weekly Reader subscribers will learn about the $7 billion a year "lost" to Internet piracy. It's so bad that the MPAA wants ISPs to ignore years of common carrier law and the promises of "safe harbor" and start filtering their traffic, looking for copyright violations. The real world isn't quite this simple, of course. It turns out that the MPAA's college numbers were off by a factor of three, a revelation that came after years of hiding the study's methodology but continuing to lobby Congress with its numbers.'"
To pay tribute to Gary Gygax, the recently deceased father of D&D, we broke out the graph paper and whipped our logo into a dungeon. Get out your +1 magic pencils and cast a Spell of Conjuring -- or create your own Wired.com dungeon.
AVIDJockey writes "In a pleasantly surprising move, AOL has changed its tune when it comes to third-party access to the company's chat network. America Online has recently launched a service called OpenAIM 2.0, which provides open, uninhibited access to services like Meebo, or all-in-one IM clients like Pidgin, allowing them to freely and easily use the AIM instant messaging network. 'At the moment, multi-platform IM desktop clients like Pidgin or Adium (the popular Mac client) generally rely on hacking and reverse engineering access to chat networks run by AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft and others. Not only is that bad for developers since it means more work, it also means that such clients often can't use all the features of a particular network.'"
A tourist in Australia's Northern Territory teasing a crocodile beside his boat annoyed the animal so much that it jumped out of the water at him. The man escaped. From The Telegraph:
"I began playing with it for a photo,'' Mr Mashiah said. "I was pointing at it when it suddenly jumped up at me - I didn't realise that crocs were so aggressive.''
The "saltie" – which experts believe probably approached the boat in search of a free feed of fish – propelled itself out of the water with terrifying speed. After narrowly missing its prey, it smashed into the side of the small metal boat before plunging back into the water.
Steve Lodefink (left) is guestblogging at Dinosaurs and Robots, a new blog about extraordinary objects that Mister Jalopy and I started.
An inveterate tinkerer and "broad-spectrum hobbyist," Steve just can't say no to a cool project. At 3, he was already reverse-engineering the peanut butter and jelly sandwich: "I figured out where all of the parts were, found a good tool, and built one. I've been doing it ever since." He lives in Seattle with his wife and two sons, two cats, five tarantulas, and 24 African cichlids, and thinks that one of life's great pleasures is a really sharp aged cheddar cheese. "I'm a simple man," he says. He looks at life's debris at finkbuilt.com.
Although coconut shells do have some well established niche market uses such as novelty tableware and small caged-pet shelters, I can't help but to feel as though too many of them are going to waste.
The New Altoids Tin?
No I don't mean as a mint holder, but as an improvised homebrew electronics project enclosure. The Altoids tin does make a nice project case. It has a hinged lid, giving you easy access to your business, a great pocketable form factor, and of course they are everywhere for free. But despite these merits, I think that the ubiquitous mint tin has been used to excess, and its use may be nearing the saturation point. I have a hunch that the coconut shell might just turn out to be the next big thing.
When I was recently trying find an enclosure for the ukulele amp that I was building, a coconut came to mind, and I don't think that I could have found a better case. In addition to the obvious thematic tie-in with the ukulele, the coconut shell has a number of other redeeming qualities.
The shell is hard and durable, easily machined, has a pleasing organic texture which can be left hairy, sanded smooth, or anything in-between. The little brown dome of a half-shell is cute as a bug, bringing a smile to all who see it. The dome shape is extremely stable and tip resistant. I could go on all day.
Today at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference, I attended the Electronic Frontier Foundation's panel, "On a Brighter Note...", a talk about why we should be optimistic about the future of technological liberty. I took a ton of notes and uploaded them.
John Perry Barlow, EFF co-founder: I am still optimistic. I didn't expect that
the entire wealth of the industrial period would gracefully allow us to render
them irrelevant. They're putting up a spirited fight, but I don't think they'll
win. Victory comes to the patient. The content industry used to call me the
devil, now the same people come to me for advice on how to make it work for
them, they're abandoning their King Canute strategy. I don't think there's proof
that downloading has cost the record industry billions, for the same reason that
hearing a song on the radio doesn't cost a sale. There are lots of studies, but
no one can say for sure. Last year I asked Cary Sherman if he'd co-design a
study with EFF to give fair insight into what the losses or gains are from
downloading. He said, "I don't think we can do that. I don't believe my
constituents would allow that because it might turn out that you're right."
Wouldn't they want to know? "No, I don't think it's like that with them." It's a
matter of religious belief. They're near retirement, they can have any religion
they want. They'll be replaced by the electronic Hisbollah they've created with
their Draconian strategies, the wild-eyed 17-year-olds who hack DRM will beat
the 55 year olds in posh cars in Bel Air.
Can we come up with a regime for regulating the economy of ideas and the way of
getting paid for work you do with your mind that doesn't treat thought as a noun
and therefore subject to being treated as property.
The IP system is a gigantic kludge of patches that have been laid on in
different regimes, as it all goes to bits, it needs to be harmonized with a
regime that recognizes that this regulates the relationship of the creator and
the audience.
The TSA has designed a miraculous, terrorism-proof laptop bag that will prevent planes from being exploded by word-processing. Now they want some sucker to build it for them.
• The carrying bag cannot exceed any one of the proposed dimensions – 16 inches in height, 24 inches wide and 36 inches long.
• The materials that make up the bag cannot degrade the quality of the X-ray image of the laptop.
• No straps, pockets, zippers, handles or closures of the bag can interfere with the image of the laptop.
• No electronics, chargers, batteries, wires, paper products, pens or other contents of the bag can shield the image of the laptop.
TSA is inviting bag designers and manufacturers to come up with creative ways to meet these design requirements, but it has also suggested three concepts of its own:
• A bag that would open completely, and lie horizontally on the X-ray belt, such that one side with hold only the laptop.
• A bag that would open completely, leaving the laptop standing vertically, supported by clips.
• A bag that would pull apart in separate compartments, with one compartment containing only the laptop.
An anonymous reader writes "The number of undergraduate computer science degrees awarded last year hit a new low with the Class of 2007. The degrees awarded, 8,000, as tracked by the Computing Research Association, is only half of what it was five years ago. In 2003-04 — the high point of this decade — 14,185 students were awarded bachelors degrees in computer science from the 170 PhD granting universities tracked by the CRA. That said, after a decade of severe declines, the number of students at top universities declaring themselves as computer science majors is finally seeing an increase. Though it's only a small increase, it's an increase nonetheless. Experts attribute the shift to changes in job market, and also to changes in curriculum and the marketing of comp sci programs."
Slingshot Press is selling a signed and numbered print of my illustration "Map of Everthing." It costs $50 and is limited to 50 copies.
Here at Slingshot! Press, it is our goal to make art affordable for everyone so we have teamed up with 50 of your favorite artists to bring you 50
signed and numbered limited edition prints for the price of only $50 each. Doesn’t get much simpler than that! We will be releasing one new print each week over the course of the year.
Every print from Slingshot! Press is a gallery quality print on 100% archival acid-free velvet cotton rag paper. We use only archival inks utilizing a professional 8-color process. The final print is trimmed to size, protected in an acid-free poly cover and shipped in a flat box to preserve the print and protect it during shipping.
coondoggie passed us another NetworkWorld link, this one discussing the banning of a shady telecom tycoon convicted for 'cramming'. "The owner of three companies that billed more than $30 million in bogus collect call charges, an activity known as cramming, to millions of consumers throughout the country, has been banned forever from all billing on local telephone bills. Willoughby Farr agreed to the lifetime ban as part of a federal court order settling Federal Trade Commission charges that he directed a massive unauthorized billing scam for more than two and a half years. The settlement contains a monetary judgment of $34,547,140, which will be partially satisfied by Farr's transfer to the Commission of all but $7,500 of his frozen assets, the FTC said."
An anonymous reader writes ""The Web Standards Project has announced the release of Acid3, the latest test designed to expose flaws in the implementation of mature Web standards in browsers. 'By making sure their software adheres to the test, the creators of these products can be more confident that their software will display and function with Web pages correctly both now and with Web pages of the future. The Acid3 Test is designed to test specifications for Web 2.0, and exposes potential flaws in implementations of the public ECMAScript 262 and W3C Document Object Model 2 standards.' Screenshots at the Drunken Fist site show the success of Safari 3 (which originally scored 31, but is now Scoring 87/100) IE6, and IE7 (massive fail, of course)'." There are additional discussions of the new test happening around the web.
Comment by Paul Alan Levy Public Citizen Litigation Group
Buckley famously smoked marijuana — after sailing his boat outside the U.S. territorial limits, where it would no longer be illegal. Finally at the age of 78, Buckley wrote an editorial for the National Review decrying the war on pot.
"I began playing with it for a photo,'' Mr Mashiah said. "I was pointing at it when it suddenly jumped up at me - I didn't realise that crocs were so aggressive.''
