os2man writes "ApacheCon Europe 2008, the official user conference of the Apache Software Foundation will be held 7 April through 11 April in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Some of the tracks will be broadcasted via live streaming: System Administration (Wednesday), Web Security (Thursday) and Web Services and Web 2.0 (Friday). There's a 99 euros registration fee for the tracks, although all keynote sessions and the opening plenary are available free of charge."
dstates writes "The Washington Post is reporting that some Internet Service Providers (ISP) have been using deep-packet inspection to spy on the communications of more than 100,000 US customers. Deep packet inspection allows the ISP to read the content of communications including every Web page visited, every e-mail sent and every search entered, in short every click and keystroke that comes down the line. The companies involved assert that customers' privacy is protected because no personally identifying details are released, but they make money from advertisers who use the information to target their online pitches. Deep packet inspection is a significant expansion over tools like cookie in the ability to track a user. Critics liken it to a phone company listening in on conversations."
CHESAPEAKE - Harold Frank "Hal" Otto, 87, passed away March 30, 2008. Mr. Otto was a retired United States Air Force pilot. He flew in World War II and the Korean War, as well as with the U.S. Air Force in Europe (U.S.A.F.E.) in the 1950s. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 5 Apr 2008 | 1:00 pm
The chief executive officer of Portfolio Recovery Associates received nearly $1.3 million in compensation last year, including a $550,000 bonus, according to a proxy statement filed Friday by the company. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 5 Apr 2008 | 1:00 pm
COLUMBUS, Ohio | Low-cost carrier Skybus Airlines is shutting down today and plans to file for bankruptcy protection next week, becoming the latest of the nation's airlines to fall because of rising fuel costs and a slowing economy. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 5 Apr 2008 | 1:00 pm
Dana Dunne is spreading the word about AOL and its $850m purchase of Bebo, a move that he sees as a return to AOL's roots. By James Moore A dayin thelife of ... 5.30am The beginning of Dana Dunne's day will be familiar to many. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 5 Apr 2008 | 1:00 pm
f8d noted a beeb bit on the fact that the pizza.com domain name was sold for a ridiculous $2.6m bucks. Can their be a bubble and a recession at the same time, or do the two cancel each other out like Penn & Teller?
Microsoft's efforts to get businesses to adopt Vista may come to a screeching halt now that Bill Gates has announced "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version", referring to Windows 7, the next expected version of the company's flagship desktop operating system.With a new version available soon, many organizations may decide to wait and see if they can avoid the pain of a Vista rollout altogether.
Text of report by Raheed Ejaz headlined "India's violation of water sharing deal hampers irrigation" published Bangladeshi newspaper New Age website on 5 April New Delhi deprives Dhaka of its agreed share of the Ganges [river] water, as stipulated by the Gangers Water Sharing Treaty 1996, causing the tributaries to dry up and seriously hampering irrigation in the south-west. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Apr 2008 | 11:00 am
This Ann Arbor, MI Craiglist "missed connections" ad is a sincere and lovely note of thanks from one toker to another: I called you from my cell phone but had completely forgot who I was calling by... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 10:04 am
This Ann Arbor, MI Craiglist "missed connections" ad is a sincere and lovely note of thanks from one toker to another:
I called you from my cell phone but had completely forgot who I was calling by the time you answered the phone. Of course, you were also baked to bajeezus and forgot to tell me that I had called Cottage Inn.
When you answered and said, “Whatsup?” I thought about it, and after a 20 second pause I told you that was hungry. You suggested I try a pizza, and I agreed that it was probably a good idea.
Then I asked you if you sold pizza and you said that you could make me one. I said I wanted anchovies and something else on my pizza. You asked me what that something else was.
We spent five minutes listing toppings until we figured out that I was trying to remember how to say: “Sun dried Tomatoes.” When you said: “We'll bake that right up for you,” we both started laughing uncontrollably.
It was the best pizza I ever had; I just wanted to thank you for helping me out.
Artist Gerald Scarfe created this chair/sculpture that looks like Chairman Mao (by way of Jabba the Hutt), so you can be cushioned by the gentle curves of the Great Helmsman as you play on your Xbox.
Link
Artist Gerald Scarfe created this chair/sculpture that looks like Chairman Mao (by way of Jabba the Hutt), so you can be cushioned by the gentle curves of the Great Helmsman as you play on your Xbox... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 10:01 am
In July, 1961, Popular Mechanix brought its readers "a life-size, remote-controlled servomechanical robot built by Vienna engineer Claus Scholz.
The MM47 can do almost anything from housework to handling radioactive materials or fighting fires from the inside while the operator stays at a safe distance. The 105-pound plastic robot cost about $760 to build."
In July, 1961, Popular Mechanix brought its readers "a life-size, remote-controlled servomechanical robot built by Vienna engineer Claus Scholz. The MM47 can do almost anything from housework to handling... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 9:59 am
Merlin Mann's hilarious steampunk comedy monologue had me laughing hard enough to burst my gauges. Link Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 9:57 am
Ryan Thomas Grace of Omaha filed this patent application with the USPTO as a means of proposing to his girlfriend:
The purpose of this invention is to provide an improved method of proposing marriage to an individual. The method of proposing to an individual generally comprising the steps of meeting the individual; exchanging names with the individual; dating the individual (not necessary); drafting a government document having a proposal to marry the individual incorporated therein; and showing the government document to the individual. The government document may be a patent application. The patent application may claim the method by which the proposor will make a marriage proposal to the individual. The proposor could then use the method claimed in the patent application to propose to the individual. The patent application could be the actual marriage proposal.
Ryan Thomas Grace of Omaha filed this patent application with the USPTO as a means of proposing to his girlfriend: The purpose of this invention is to provide an improved method of proposing marriage... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 9:55 am
eldavojohn writes "For violating two Alcatel-Lucent patents in its Windows user interface, Microsoft was ordered to pay Alcatel-Lucent $367 Million Friday. From the article, 'Microsoft, which will seek to have the verdict overturned, said Alcatel-Lucent was seeking $1.5 billion in damages related to the four patents named in the case. Microsoft said the jury found that Microsoft did not infringe on Alcatel's video decoding technology patent. The fourth patent in the lawsuit was asserted only against Dell Inc, which was found not to have infringed, according to Microsoft.'"
MySpace, which has lured millions of big acts and garage bands alike to build profiles on the popular social networking website to attract fans, will turn those pages into... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 9:29 am
A meteorite is expected to fetch 500,000 at auction in New York this month. Weighing more than 925lbs, the object was discovered eight years ago in China's Xinjiang... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 9:29 am
San Francisco based Powerset will be publicly launching a long-awaited beta version of the service in the coming weeks, the company told me yesterday. They are working on a new kind of search engine that... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 9:13 am
By Gelinas, Tom While some fleets are simply accepting that corrosion will prevent them from getting the full design life out of components; others are actively taking steps to minimize costs associated with corrosion $30,000,000,000! For the economically challenged, that reads thirty billion dollars. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Apr 2008 | 8:00 am
By Campbell, Dan Alto Dairy Cooperative, operated as a farmer-owned cooperative in Wisconsin for 114 years, has announced that its members have approved the sale of its assets to Saputo Cheese USA Inc. in a deal worth $160 million. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Apr 2008 | 8:00 am
By JANE DeGEORGE Graves Mountain Lodge's annual Kids Day fishing event has been given a makeover. Besides being pushed forward a few weeks, the popular Madison County trout-fishing affair has been expanded to include a variety of educational offerings for families. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Apr 2008 | 8:00 am
By Jerry Siebenmark, The Wichita Eagle, Kan. Apr. 5--Elizabeth Auer was not just the leader of the Small Business Administration in most of Kansas. She took her duties to heart. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Apr 2008 | 8:00 am
By La Crosse Tribune, Wis. Apr. 5--As part of National Public Health Week, the La Crosse County Health Department will offer well water tests for coliform bacteria and nitrate at a reduced price next week. The department will conduct both tests for $23 -- a savings of $22. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Apr 2008 | 8:00 am
City auto auction moves to Saturday The city of Long Beach invites the general public to the first City of Long Beach Saturday Auto Auction today. The auction takes place at the city's Towing Yard at 3111 E. Willow St., between Redondo and Temple avenues. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Apr 2008 | 8:00 am
By Tom Held, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Apr. 5--Plans to expand 35 miles of I-94 from six lanes to eight between Milwaukee and Illinois moved closer to final approval Friday with a report that declared the project would comply with federal environmental laws. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Apr 2008 | 8:00 am
By Crable, Ad What's in your water? In Lititz Run, where treated sewage from the Lititz-Warwick treatment plant is discharged, it's drugs from mood stabilizers, blood pressure medicine, painkillers and antibiotics used for bee hives. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Apr 2008 | 8:00 am
By Mike Nichols, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Apr. 5--There is a long history of attorneys being mistaken for fish, and vice-versa, in this state. Everyone knows the tales of courtrooms peopled with sharks feasting on defenseless suckers. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Apr 2008 | 8:00 am
schliz writes to tell us that a new computer system using the "Logistic Regression Markov Chain" (LRMC) has proven to be the most efficient system at predicting sporting event outcomes. The system was tested on the 2008 US NCAA basketball season and picked all four of the finalists. "Similar to other rankings systems, LRMC uses the quality of each NCAA team's results and the strength of each team's schedule to rank teams. The method has been designed to use only basic scoreboard data, including which teams played, which team had home court advantage and the margin of victory."
Lots of reports today on the Microsoft-Yahoo negotiations, which is now in its third month of drama and appears to be being negotiated primarily through the media. The WSJ in particular is serving as... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:05 am
By JoAnne Poindexter joanne.poindexter@roanoke.com 981-3232 Bob Crawshaw is new to the Roanoke Valley, and -- being a Navy veteran -- he's volunteering at the Military Family Support Center in Salem. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
By Ryan Muldoon There is a single question - "What are your influences?" - that is so cliched and overused as to be groan-inducing to artists and journalists alike. But that doesn't make it unanswerable. Perhaps the question needs a 21st-century face-lift. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
Family and friends of servicemen and women who died or vanished in the Vietnam War no longer have to travel to Washington to pay their respects at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
Comcast Corp. will start offering faster Internet services in Minnesota's Twin Cities region today, with plans to extend that type of next-generation system to its entire service area by 2010. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
By Zurier, Steve Builders who use Chief Architect's CAD software may now download Chief's latest XI.4 upgrade for free on the company's home page. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
By Curry, Pat ONLINE MARKETING A California builder gets serious about social networking. THE NEXT TIME YOU'RE ON My Space, check out my buddy Barratt American. According to his profile, Barratt is 28, from the U.S., single, an Aquarius, and male. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
The 4,000-year-old necklace is 600 years older than the previous record-holder. Arizona archaeologists found it in a tiny village near Lake Titicaca. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
It's 4,000 years old, 600 years older than the previous record-holder. Arizona archaeologists found it in a tiny village in Peru near Lake Titicaca. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
Douglas Merrill remembers driving past the Capitol Records Tower at Hollywood and Vine and wishing he could stop in and look around. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
Harvard University researchers have discovered hundreds of bacteria in soil that literally gobble up antibiotics, able to thrive with the potent drugs as their sole source of nutrition, they reported Friday... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
Loss of a cash infusion raises the chance GM will have to boost aid to its parts supplier. An investment deal... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
It says it will use the spectrum won in an FCC auction to speed up wireless Internet. The highest bidder in the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
Techies at a Silicon Valley software firm vow to stay stubbly until a crucial product launch. In the peach-fuzz... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
The survival rate is much higher among mice that go without food before chemo -- and they don't suffer the side effects of the other surviving mice with cancer. A human trial is planned. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and other Internet search-engine providers must cut the time they retain users' online records to comply with European Union privacy laws, advisors to regulators... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
Microsoft Corp. is reevaluating its bid for Yahoo Inc. because the Internet company might have lost value since it made its offer, a person familiar with the matter said Friday. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 7:00 am
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Amazon relaunched its Latin music store Friday, with video content from top artists, more bilingual product descriptions and a selection that's grown by at least... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 6:40 am
A dethroner reader sent in a link to The Drops a toilet odor eliminator. I guess the idea is that in the event you predict or routinely present above average post-defecatory bouquet you can simply press... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 6:11 am
DENVER (Billboard) - A stark truth facing any aspiring digital music service these days is that working with record labels is going to carry a hefty price. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 5:59 am
(TrendHunter.com) We've seen shirts that fake preppy and business apparel, but these handcuff shirts fake a badass situation, for lack of better words. The T-shirts are part of an ad campaign for radio... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 5:57 am
HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities appeared to have lifted a block on the English-language version of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, but politically sensitive topics such as... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 5:42 am
Linux.com has an interesting look at Granular Linux, a desktop-oriented distribution that's primary goal is to be easy to use. "With a single CD's worth of included programs, Granular Linux manages to cover a significant portion of normal end user needs, and those applications not already installed can be easily added through Synaptic. The slight problem with video and more serious problem with sound of my machine suggest that Granular is not without its issues, especially when most other distributions work properly on this hardware, but as this is a preview release of version 1.0 I think it can be more or less forgiven. I'd definitely recommend Granular to anyone with an interest in trying out a new distribution. "
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea on Saturday reported a suspected outbreak of the H5 strain of bird flu at a farm in the southwest of the country, near another farm that authorities said... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 3:35 am
ZDOne writes "In a few years' time, almost all businesses will use open source, according to analyst Gartner — which has up to now been fairly cautious, or downright negative, in its previous predictions about community developed software. '"By 2012, more than 90 percent of enterprises will use open source in direct or embedded forms,' predicts a Gartner report, The State of Open Source 2008, which sees a 'stealth' impact for the technology in embedded form: "Users who reject open source for technical, legal or business reasons might find themselves unintentionally using open source despite their opposition.'"
My friend Craig showed me this utterly fascinating archive of Mike Wallace Interview videos from the 1950s, which are hosted online by The School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin.
It's astonishing to watch television in which the host asks real questions and the guests answer in full sentences. Wallace never lets people off the hook and he smokes cigarettes like the world is ending tomorrow, piling on fulsome praise for his beloved Winstons before each interview begins.
And what a list of guests! He interviews Frank Lloyd Wright, Salvadore Dali, Leonard Ross (a 12-year-old California school boy who won a total of $164,000 on the game shows The Big Surprise and The Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Challenge), Aldous Huxley, Gloria Swanson, Tony Perkins, Eldon Edwards (Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan), Philip Wylie, Jean Seberg, Earl Browder (former head of the Communist Party in the United States), Mary Margaret McBride (the "First Lady of Radio"), David Hawkins (the youngest of 20 prisoners to defect during the Korean War), Dr. Henry Kissinger, and many more.
Mike Wallace rose to prominence in 1956 with the New York City television interview program, Night-Beat, which soon developed into the nationally televised prime-time program, The Mike Wallace Interview. Well prepared with extensive research, Wallace asked probing questions of guests framed in tight close-ups. The result was a series of compelling and revealing interviews with some of the most interesting and important people of the day.
SEATTLE - A jury on Friday ordered Microsoft Corp. to pay US$367.4 million to Alcatel-Lucent for infringing on two patents, a decision the software maker vowed to appeal. The U.S.... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 1:31 am
Wall Street hacker Steve Steinberg, a former BB guest-blogger, has finally started a blog. From his teenage days with legendary hacker gang Legion of Doom, to his influential Worm and Intertek zines, to his years at Wired, Steve has always managed to grok complex technologies and illuminate them for the lay-person. He really gets what's going on under the hood of the tech itself but also how it may intersect with culture and business. He is a master at showing why most conventional wisdom is anything but wise, and he does it without the typical snarkiness of most tech trendspotters. Steve's new blog is called .csv, for "comma separated values." From his latest post, on the buzz around "crowd dynamics":
The tools and theories needed to analyze social interactions are just now reaching the level of sophistication — in accuracy, in robustness – necessary to leave the lab and enter commercial duty. We are in a period analogous to the early 1970s, when developments like the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Black-Scholes equation transformed finance, changing it from an art to a science, and opening enormous new markets in the process. Now, new equations describing “crowd dynamics” are about to change our lives. And not always for the better. This is one of the most significant technology trends I have seen in years; it may also be one of the most pernicious....
It wasn’t long after the 2003 invasion of Iraq that US military theorists began to realize that our soldiers were completely lost amidst the country’s byzantine tribal structures, religious factions, and internecine feuds. They needed tools to help navigate these social structures that were as effective as their GPS devices and laser-designators were at guiding them through the local geography. DARPA moved quickly, creating a half-dozen social science programs, all of them focused on near-term research with mostly tangible deliverables. The mission became known as “human terrain mapping”, sure to be one of the most important neologisms of this decade.
It’s interesting, if unsurprising, that DARPA had focused on the social sciences only once before: in 1962, during the Vietnam War.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to a new lawsuit, taking notes in class is copyright infringement. Of course, it's not quite that simple. The professor is partnered with an E-book maker that wants to sell the material themselves, and the people taking notes pay students to take good ones, then sell copies to everyone else. But that just means that the case will hinge upon whether or not lecture notes are fair use. Either way, I wonder how long it will be before you will have to sign a EULA whenever you walk into class"
The site known for its music reviews turns its tastemakers' attention to video, serving up high-quality original interviews and performances by bands that matter. Wired.com gets an exclusive preview.
A jury on Friday ordered Microsoft Corp. to pay $367.4 million to Alcatel-Lucent for infringing on two patents, a decision the software maker vowed to appeal. The U.S. District Court... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 12:52 am
SEATTLE - A person familiar with Microsoft's bid for Yahoo said Friday the software company is evaluating its offer in light of the economic climate and the Internet pioneer's... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Apr 2008 | 12:34 am
Scott says: "This is a great commentary on the 40th anniversary of Kubrick's masterpiece."
The site includes this YouTube clip from an interview with Kubrick.
The famously sniffish Renata Adler got to weigh in during her short-lived reign at the New York Times: "There is one ultimate science-fiction voyage of a man (Keir Dullea) through outer and inner space, through the phases of his own life in time thrown out of phase by some higher intelligence, to his death and rebirth in what looked like an intergalactic embryo... Its real energy seem to derive from that bespectacled prodigy reading comic books around the block. The whole sensibility is intellectual fifties child: chess games, bodybuilding exercises, beds on the spacecraft that look like camp bunks, other beds that look like Egyptian mummies, Richard Strauss music, time games, Strauss waltzes, Howard Johnson's, birthday phone calls... [T]he uncompromising slowness of the movie makes it hard to sit through without talking—and people on all sides when I saw it were talking almost throughout the film. Very annoying. With all its attention to detail—a kind of reveling in its own I.Q.—the movie acknowledged no obligation to validate its conclusion for those, me for example, who are not science-fiction buffs. By the end, three unreconciled plot lines—the slabs, Dullea's aging, the period bedroom—are simply left there like a Rorschach, with murky implications of theology. This is a long step outside the convention, some extra scripts seem required, and the all-purpose answer, 'relativity,' does not really serve unless it can be verbalized."
OTTAWA - The Canadian Association of Internet Providers wants the CRTC to direct Bell Canada (TSX:BCE) to stop a practice known as "traffic shaping" which, the association says, has... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 4 Apr 2008 | 11:39 pm
An anonymous reader writes "Lawrence Roberts, co-founder of ARPANET and inventor of packet switching, today published an article in which he claims to solve the congestion control problem on the Internet. Roberts says, contrary to popular belief, the problem with congestion is the networks, not Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). Rather than overhaul TCP, he says, we need to deploy flow management, and selectively discard no more than one packet per TCP cycle. Flow management is the only alternative to peering into everyone's network, he says, and it's the only way to fairly distribute Internet capacity."
A person familiar with Microsoft's bid for Yahoo says the software company is evaluating its offer in light of the economic climate and the Internet pioneer's deteriorating business.
In this BBtv vlog episode, Xeni speaks with Tibetan human rights worker Lhakpa Kyizom about reported abuses against so-called "wired monks" in Tibet, by PRC military and police. Using cellphones, these monks photographed dead and injured participants in nonviolent, pro-Tibetan sovereignty protests that took place in March. The monks then disseminated these images to supporters outside Tibet, using connected computers and mobile devices.
After the images spread worldwide, and their origin became known to authorities in the tightly-controlled, tense, post-protest environment in Tibet, Kyizom says, military forces invaded the monastery, confiscated all communications tools, and detained nearly 600 monks in political retaliation.
Kyizom works as a radio producer for Tibet Connection, and is a trainer with the Active Nonviolence Education Center in the Northern Indian town of Dharamshala, also home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.
Link to Boing Boing tv episode, with discussion, downloadable video, transcript of Kyizom's account, and links to related reports.
Update: Nathan Freitas says, "The unfortunate aftermath of the incidents your video covered...."
Two monks commit suicide in Amdo Ngaba According to confirm information received by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), two monks committed suicide in Amdo Ngaba (Ch: Aba) as a direct result of relentless oppression by the Chinese security forces after the series of peaceful protests.
Update 2: Chinese military police killed 8 Tibetans today, after shooting on hundreds of Tibetan monks and villagers in a monastery:
Witnesses said the clash – in which dozens were wounded – erupted late last night after a government inspection team entered a monastery in the Chinese province of Sichuan trying to confiscate pictures of the Dalai Lama.
Officials searched the room of every monk in the Donggu monastery, a sprawling 15th century edifice in Ganzi, southwestern Sichuan, confiscating all mobile phones as well as the pictures.
When the inspectors tore up the photographs and threw them on the floor, a 74-year-old monk, identified as Cicheng Danzeng, tried to stop an act seen as a desecration by Tibetans who revere the Dalai Lama as their god king
Still stacking your comics in a cardboard box in Uncle Joe’s attic? Get with
the geek program. Learn the proper techniques for bagging, sorting and
storing your four-color collectors items.
Glassware and fancy silverware are out, plastic cups and cheap flatware are in as U.S. airlines shave every ounce of excess weight in a mad dash to cut fuel costs.
An administration complaint about two abortion articles indexed by a U.S.-funded health search engine led to the blocking of nearly 25,000 others, according to U.S. officials and the dean of the university that runs the site.
This mini-gallery showcases the inventions of the wacky mix of French tinkerers, Italian inventors and Spanish visionaries that the 36th International Exhibition of Inventions drew to Geneva this year.
Artist Gerald Scarfe created this chair/sculpture that looks like Chairman Mao (by way of Jabba the Hutt), so you can be cushioned by the gentle curves of the Great Helmsman as you play on your Xbox.
Link
Mike Wallace rose to prominence in 1956 with the New York City television interview program, Night-Beat, which soon developed into the nationally televised prime-time program, The Mike Wallace Interview. Well prepared with extensive research, Wallace asked probing questions of guests framed in tight close-ups. The result was a series of compelling and revealing interviews with some of the most interesting and important people of the day.
