PalmSource Linux Phone Due Next Year - Forbes.com

OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan: "What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water?" Noonan hits several home runs with one up-at-bat here. Obama, Clintons, Congresmen and Justices, wham, all out of the park. Make that four home runs. Is that possible?

The Nation | Comment: "It's easy...to say that we really have no interests in who lives in this or that valley in Bosnia, or who owns a strip of brushland in the Horn of Africa, or some piece of parched earth by the Jordan River. But the true measure of our interests lies not in how small or distant these places are, or in whether we have trouble pronouncing their names. The question we must ask is, what are the consequences to our security of letting conflicts fester and spread. We cannot, indeed, we should not, do everything or be everywhere. But where our values and our interests are at stake, and where we can make a difference, we must be prepared to do so"

Web Only News: "In Brazil, It's PCs to the People"

LXer: Following Bill Gates' Linux Attack Money: "Few people who have researched the company believe that Microsoft ran afoul of the Feds. How could a company that owns the Feds run afoul of them? Microsoft wields more power than the Federal government. Reading the following, you will notice just a single handful of people who have vested interests in making sure the Federal government stays out of Microsoft's business."

Ankle Biting Pundits - Dem Rove Apology Demand Is A Terrible Strategic Blunder: "3. It?s a fairly obvious and lame attempt to retaliate for the Durbin drubbing. After insisting for a week that Dick Durbin was right and had no reason to apologize for his hateful comments (he compared Americans to Nazis), the Illinois Senator tearfully took to the Senate floor and pretended to admit that he was wrong. Ever since, the Left has been scrounging for a Republican moral equivalence. They tried to blow up Howard Dean?s recent comment in Boston in which the embattled DNC Chair said, ?I don?t care if Dick Cheney likes my mother or not ?? Only Dick Cheney didn't say anything nasty about Howard Dean?s mother, only that she probably loved her son. So they are digging a little deeper by going after Rove. What the Left is ignoring, of course, is that what Durbin said was offensive and incorrect. What Rove said is not offensive and is easily substantiated (see Clinton quote above.)"

NewsFactor Network - Science & Innovation - Panel Finds Shuttle Not Ready for Flight: "A safety panel ruled Monday that NASA has failed to take three steps critical to returning the space shuttle to orbit, despite the space agency's assurances that it would do so. Nevertheless, panel members said they consider the shuttle safe enough to fly again." Apparently NASA's plan is to "fly" these things until there are none left. We have more than enough astronauts I guess.

O'Reilly: Building My MythTV Box, Part 1: Hardware: "For now, the good news is that it is still legal to put together your own home-theater PC." ... and sad that such a statement must need serious consideration in America. (more info)

Bee Can't Verify 43 Sources in Columns: "A newspaper investigation of a former columnist for The Sacramento Bee could not verify 43 sources she used in a sampling of 12 years of her work."

How to Watch July 4 Comet Impact

Freestar Media, LLC: "Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land." Find every Liberal you can and tell them which justices supported this nonsense. They will probably be surprised.

Google Earth - Common Questions I think Google is in league with the Devil, err, Microsoft. More and more of their new goodies only work with Windows, with, at best, vague future plans for other OSs. FSCK you Google.

STEVEN SPIELBERG - SPIELBERG CONFUSED BY DECREASE IN UFO SIGHTINGS: "Oscar-winning director STEVEN SPIELBERG is baffled that fewer UFO sightings are made now than were made twenty years ago - because the technology to record would-be aliens is so commonplace today." I guess some of them DO eat the dog food.

Chinese might buy Microsoft: "Already Universal Studios and Pebble Beach are being considered, but Microsoft?" Fine by me, they can HAVE them. Hey didn't the Japanese buy Pebble beach a few years ago, AND Radio City Music Hall AND a few other "choice" properties? All to be sold back to someone (was it the Saudis?) later at a huge loss. Yeah, I can imagine that happening with Microsoft (except I hope we don't buy them back!) No returns! No exchanges! No tickee no crashee!

Longhorn from Microsoft to Embed New Feature: RSS - Softpedia News: "Abiding to their usual habit of feeding us just bits and pieces of information about Longhorn, Microsoft?s officials declared yesterday that the Internet Explorer embedded in the next OS to emerge from Redmond will include RSS technology. " Could it be that they feed it about as fast as they figure it out themselves? Whoopdeedoo, RSS feeds. Is that new or something? Do we know if the browser will have tabs yet? Do we care? Not I.

FRIEDMAN NIGHT: "Moreover -- a point very dear to Milton's heart -- the very act of submitting to public schooling tames young spirits to associate public enterprises with correct social enterprise. It is a contaminating experience, he holds -- a breeding ground of budget allocations by political bodies, submission to cartels of union-bound teachers, and a spiritual acclimation to a norm which, far from being competitive, encourages the kind of mediocrity that is associated with corporate goals set by remote agencies."

raving lunacy: Microsoft and RSS

CRN | News | Microsoft's 'Tailwind' Reorg Aims For Growth: "Microsoft is undertaking a major U.S. sales reorganization that aligns its internal and partner resources by industry segment." Microsoft, sales force, "tailwind", sounds like another way to spell "farting" to me.

Blogger Help : How do I post pictures? Geeze! About time!

RatcliffeBlog?Mitch's Open Notebook: A bone-jarring Ah-ha moment: How Microsoft wins the Game Wars: "This all makes perfect sense. Xbox as a system is a PC without the choice in OS, since the software running the console is intricately tied up with the box. In a way, it's Microsoft finally coming round to Steve Jobs' approach to building PCs?deep integration removes convenient alternatives in software, opening a larger ongoing revenue stream from each customer, who can be marketed to through your device." Of course it also places Microsoft on a level playing field with the likes of Sony or anyone else capable of fielding such a device (I can think of a few). MS doesn't like level playing fields. But it may have no choice eventually.

September 11 News.com - September 11, 2001 News Archives - The 9/11/2001 Terrorist Attack on America. Archives in Images, Photos, & Newspapers from the September 11th, 2001 Attacks at the WTC & Pentagon.

The LCD industry has totally lost it

PolyGram Holding, Inc., et al. - Complaint Too many lawyers. Far far too many.

Comic Strip Blog

local6.com - News - Florida Democratic Party Faces IRS Lien; $900,000 ShortageAt Last! A group of Democrats who beleive in tax cuts!

Sen. Durbin Apologizes for Gitmo Remarks - Yahoo! News: "On Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley - a fellow Democrat - added his voice to the chorus of criticism, saying, 'I think it's a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military would act like that.' Durbin said in his apology: 'I made reference to Nazis, to Soviets, and other repressive regimes. Mr. President, I've come to understand that's a very poor choice of words.'" Have people missed that he is apologizing to the wrong people, or at least he owes a second apology? Yes, he did engage in dirty politics. Yes, his insinuation that anything done by Americans, including those two bombs dropped by a Democrat president on Japan, come close to the atrocities of the Nazis, or the Camer Rouge, or Stalin. So who really deserves his apology, assuming he is only going to make one, and a weasel worded one at that? I vote that he owes his one apology to the victims of these regimes, who have had their loss trivialized, once again, for someone's short term political objectives. This man has no business in public office. And for that, I'll go out on a limb and award him my Fuckwit of the Year award for 2005. I think I'm safe in that. Congratulations Senator Durbin.

Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out - New York Times: "Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in hordes. The tedious particulars of keeping ourselves alive, comfortable and free are being taken offline to countries where people are happy to sweat the details, as long as we have some foreign exchange left to send their way. Nothing is more seductive than to think that we, like the Jedi, could be masters of the most advanced technologies while living simple lives: to have a geek standard of living and spend our copious leisure time vegging out."

Common virus kills cancer, study finds: "'Our results suggest that adeno-associated virus type 2, which infects the majority of the population but has no known ill effects, kills multiple types of cancer cells yet has no effect on healthy cells,' said Craig Meyers, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania."

IT Manager's Journal | Apple drops single-processor Power Macs: "Apple did not cite specific reasons for the decision." Firesale!

local6.com - News - Researcher: 'Killer Bees' May Spread Throughout Fla.: "Glenn Hall said African honeybees have been found and stopped at ports in Jacksonville, Miami and Tampa since 1987." People are "importing" bees? Why?

Patent Law Harmonization: "'We are very disappointed with the outcome of last week's Standing Committee meeting,' noted Jon Dudas, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property." Well, in that case, I'm thrilled about it!

Microsoft Puts Roadblock in Front of Open-Sourcing Avalon and Indigo: "The Mono group, led by the famous open-source programmer Miguel de Icaza, has been successful in bringing the most important parts of .Net Linux and Mac OS X developers. Since Mono is open-source, it can be moved to other operating systems as well." Wasn't this rather predictable? Seems so to me.

Prank Against Tom Cruise Leads to Arrest - Yahoo! News Flash: Jerk calls jerk a jerk.

The Intellectual ActivistHmmmm

Microsoft Begs To Be Hacked - Yahoo! News: "The engineers realized that hackers are no longer geeky teenagers with nothing better to do, but educated and seasoned technology professionals just like themselves. Likewise, security researchers gained a better perspective of the processes Microsoft engineers must go through when faced with vulnerabilities divulged by the hacking community."

iowahawk: From the Desk of Senator Dick

GAO gives US.gov D- for security | The Register Hmmmm. Sounds like things have improved!

The Proceedings of the Friesian School

Mars Rover looks back at where it got stuck And I'm wondering why it got stuck there. It looks no different from ground it is easily rolling over now. To me the Martian surface looks like my end-tables. Dust on top of dust. Not sand, but dust. Packed tightly in some places, fluffed up in others. The distance between the top of the dust down to solid ground could be inches in some places, or yards in others. Maybe these deep dust areas are going to be harder to drive over. Like my end-tables.

The View From 1776

Ian Murdock?s Weblog - Debian: Where should wewe should go from here? My idea is that Debian should CRUSH APPLE! and CRUSH STEVE JOBS! They must be CRUSHED NOW! Ooops, sorry. I'm still steamed over this whole Apple thing.

Socialism: The Price of Idiot Proofing America by JB Williams - political writer.: "Overseeing our nation's security interests, our infrastructure, protecting and defending our Constitution and way of life, these things do not demand the full-time attention of our elected officials, nor would they suck the lifeblood from an enormously successful capitalist society. Idiot proofing America: Now that's a full-time job and there is no end in sight to the expense of such a proposition."

Sand-box posting... Read in a blog somewhere: "How do you convince a CTO to throw out a DOS app that's working just fine? I haven't found the trick yet." Why on earth would you want to? --- The answer to all such questions is found in Monty Python sketches: Devious: (reading script) 'The vicar sits'. (The vicar sits.) Vicar: It's about this letter you sent me regarding my insurance claim. Devious: Oh, yeah, yeah - well, you see, it's just that we're not... as yet ... totally satisfied with the grounds of your claim. Vicar: But it says something about filling my mouth in with cement. Devious: Oh well, that's just insurance jargon, you know. Vicar: But my car was hit by a lorry while standing in the garage and you refuse to pay my claim. Devious: (rising and crossing to a filing cabinet) Oh well, Reverend Morrison ... in your policy... in your policy... (he opens the drawer of the filing cabins and takes out a shabby old sports jacket; he feels in the pocket and pulls out a crumpled dog-eared piece of paper then puts the coat back and shuts the ftling cabinet).... here we are. It states quite clearly that no claim you make will be paid. Vicar: Oh dear. Devious: You see, you unfortunately plumped for our 'Neverpay' policy, which, you know, if you never claim is very worthwhile ... but you had to claim, and, well, there it is. Vicar: Oh dear, oh dear. Devious: Still, never mind - could be worse. How's the nude lady? Vicar: Oh, she's fine. (he begins to sob) Devious: Look... Rev... I hate to see a man cry, so shove off out' the office. There's a good chap. --- It's hard to find instances when Microsoft risks its bottom line for the welfare of their customers. Oh they give to charities, donate software to libraries and third world counties to get them hooked too, but the notion that "Hey, we have to support DOS ANYWAY, lets just give it away to our old customers that don't need anything else." That ain't gonna happen until (if) Apple or Linux starts to pose a real threat. What I think is more likely to happen is that Microsoft and Intel will take the whole US tech industry down the tubes with themselves. The "bottom" of the food chain is already gone in case you haven't noticed. We don't actually MAKE anything here any more and with fewer and fewer of even the design decisions being made here it's only a matter of time before someone comes up with that $200 machine that Balmer wishes for. Like so many of the gadgets that you have to go to Tokyo to buy, we'll have to clamor for that new laptop with some unheard of processor in it running something that sort of looks like Windows, or Linux or OS X, but it boots out of ROM and is totally impervious to viruses, has connectivity, word processing, the whole works, and will probably let you install another operating system on it too, but why bother, as long as it will do what you are doing, and boot up so fast, and rarely crash, and if you drop it, you get another one, because all your important stuff is on the net anyway. Let's not quibble about inovation. We all know that Microsoft doesn't do the sort of innovation that billions of dollars pay for. Why? Because it's too risky and even when it pays off it doesn't have the profit margins that software does. I'd like to see MS dump tons of money into fabrication research, hardware design, and the sort of things that IBM Research Division still does (even with a decreasing portion of the pie that they have). Hopefully they will hit enough jackpots to keep us in the game. But the future of American technology is for sure not writing software for the rest of the world. Now run along, I hate to see a fading monopolist cry.

Ex-Microsophist My guess is that Microsoft can't REALLY take critisism, at least REAL critisism, from its employees. Empty jabs of the Scoble variety followed by heapings of praise, THAT they can deal with.

CPSC Staff Powered Scooter Study Shows Just 4 in 10 Victims Wore Helmets I call upon the US govermint to just get it over with and require everyone to wear a helmet ALL the time. Maybe they should just be attached at birth. Oh, and knee and elbow pads too. Member of congress are obviously exempted. They must wear Mickey Mouse ears instead.

Should I Be Spanked?: "I won't even broach the issue of whether anyone would suggest a male columnist be 'spanked' for daring to rage against the Microsoft marketing machine. That's the subject for another column. Or 20. Or 50."... "Our takeaway from all of this? Microsoft and its fan boys/girls should stop confusing the message with the messenger. Instead of spanking the folks who are setting the record straight about Longhorn, why not cast blame on those who confused the messaging in the first place?" Sexist? Homophobes? Keep up the good work MS. Time for Balmer to issue some more "clarifying" memos.

'Think Again' camp opens for wounded Apple iLemmings | The Register: "Any doubt anyone ever had about Jobs' business acumen - and the genius of his oracle, Walt Mossberg - must fade after last week's announcement of the PPCicide. No other chief executive would have the raw guts to sell out such a loyal customer base. And for what? A hundred million or so in Intel co-marketing dollars? Because that's surely all that stopped AMD from winning the gig."

Prices of Tech Items Seem to Keep Falling -- With a Few Exceptions: "Another example, of course, is software. Microsoft, for one, seems to be in no particular hurry to cut the price of Windows. Ten years ago, an upgrade version of Windows 95, then fresh from the labs in Redmond, Wash., was being sold in most stores for $89.95. If you shop online for Windows XP Home, the third-generation successor to Windows 95, you'll find it in the same ballpark." He claims you can get a basic PC for $300 now. I know this is true, but such things aren't COMMON. The middlemen keep coming up with ways to bump that price back up over $1K. There is something to be said for the comparison with audio equipment, which I have made before. But do you see names like Dell and HP on audio equipment? Ah there you go, you will know when PC prices are approaching commodity levels when the only brands you see at the store are Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, get the picture? Of course if some of the American companies would stop pretending they actually make the things we could get to these prices sooner. You also have to get rid of that Microsoft tax of course.

Apple's New Benchmarks Don't miss this.

WSJ.com - The Laptop Trail As mentioned previously, the sooner we cut out the middlemen the better. Don't feel sorry for anyone at Dell or HP, they were laid off long ago. Do you REALLY care what logo is on your laptop? Wouldn't you rather select the best from the companies that actually MAKE the machine rather than the best marketing machine? I would. I wonder what would happen if we were forced to re-invent our own laptop manufacturing capability... imagine some huge Soviet looking thing being the result. Sad huh?

Add-on PlayStation 3 HDD will run Linux - News at GameSpot Now if someone would just repackage this as a laptop I can replace my obsolete (6-month old) Powerbook.

PBS | I, Cringely . June 9, 2005 - Going for Broke: "Apple and Intel are merging." It really wouldn't surprise me at this point.

Microsoft has Mono! Oh wait. Monad. Something. Well don't tell Bill. He hates command line interfaces no matter what disease they are named after. Point and click, point and click, weeeee!

MoveOn protest targets wrong congressman: "'It's unfortunate that they made an error,' said Bill Rittenberg, a protest organizer. Democrat Bob Alexander, who ran against Michigan?s Rogers in 2004, also participated in the event. 'It's unfortunate that we had this inaccuracy,' Alexander said. 'We didn't attempt to mislead anyone.'" Well DUH!

The Osborne Effect spooks Apple | The Register: "However Apple's share price has sagged on the news, because the company still faces a painful migration. Apple has vowed to support PPC Macs for a long time, but that isn't the issue. Put simply, who in their right minds would buy a Power-based Mac now, or in the next eighteen months? Unlike commodity PCs, Macs retain their resale value better, and Apple owners keep their machines longer, which makes for a more enduring investment. Casting back five years, to the summer of 2000, we see Apple was selling machines which still run Mac OS X very capably today. The dual 500Mhz PowerMacs and the 450Mhz G4 Cube all need stuffing with RAM, but thanks to the performance improvements in OS X Panther and Tiger, these five year old machines do the job. Who, buying a PPC Mac this year, will be able to say the same of their machine in 2010?" Ah, good to know not everyone writing about this is singing the party line.

Epic has first 'PlayStation 3 hardware': "Some top notch game developers such as Epic gamers have already received their first Playstation 3 hardware. This occurred about two and a half months ago. Sony is definitely after the content as it needs as many cool games as possible" I don't know that this should come as such a surprise. Back a few years ago when competition between the current game consoles was still hot (both Xbox and Playstation are a bit long in the tooth these days) Sony was floating articles about their next design. They gave out enough information that you could practically have built one then, except that nobody had fabricated the chips yet. I really don't know who "invented" the cell concept, but it was being described by Sony long ago. Why didn't they come out with it sooner? The article I read was very clear on this: They didn't have to. They were already beating the XBox, making a profit at it while MS was losing money. But they knew where they were going and were prepared to come out with something as soon as MS did. Will they lose some momentum being 6 months behind Microsoft? Maybe. On the other hand, if MS is still selling Xboxes at a loss, why not let them lose money faster for a while. MS predicts the XBox division will turn profitable next year. Making it up in volume I guess. It will be fun to watch. I have no interest in a game machine, except maybe turning one of the PS3s into a Linux machine (I have to wait and see how loud the fan is first).

[yellowdog-announce] Concerning YDL and Apple's switch to Intel CPUs: 2005 06/06: "I apologize for the delay in responding to the news concerning Apple's switch to Intel. I am in Barcelona, Spain for the IBM power.org conference, and was just settling into my hotel when I received calls from my associates back home. I have required a few hours to review email and websites before offering this brief communication." A man who knows where his priorities are, and should be.

O'Reilly Radar > Word on the Street at WWDC: "Carbon (probably C) apps require more work, because the language is closer to the bare bones of the machine. I think the average developer has shrugged and said, 'oh well, I'll worry about it when I actually have an Intel box in my hands.'" Yeah, that's the impression I get. Apple users only worry about things after they hit them upside the head. Anticipate gnashing of teeth in about a year (maybe less).

Yale grades portray Kerry as a lackluster student: "Based on what Smith recalls teaching that year, Kerry scored a 71 and 79 in two of Smith's courses. When Smith was told those scores, he responded: ''Uh, oh. I thought he was good student. Those aren't very good grades.' To put the grades in perspective, Smith said that he had a well-earned reputation for being tough, and noted that such grades would probably be about 10 points higher in a similar class today because of the impact of what he called ''grade inflation.'" Selective memory of a liberal perhaps? Meanwhile, the mugshot they used of Kerry for the article somehow reminds me of John Candy's character laughing nervously after being caught in a lie...

Longhorn Outruns XP, Threatens Tiger - Yahoo! News: "Security is one area where Longhorn is more sophisticated than Tiger. For instance, Internet Explorer will run in a 'containment area' that will attempt to keep worms and spyware out of Windows." Crapping in your own swimming pool is sophisticated?

MSN flaw put Hotmail accounts at risk | CNET News.com: "The Hotmail and MSN flap comes within a week after Microsoft acknowledged that its South Korean MSN Web site had been hacked. Attackers placed malicious software on the news section of MSN Korea in an attempt to steal passwords for 'Lineage,' a popular online game in Asia." Yeah. Didn't they blame that Korean hackage as sloppy procedures by the hired help? Hmmmm.

Ballmer Beats Drum for IT Workers: "This new world of work includes improving customer satisfaction, improving personal productivity, finding the right information and engaging in the business process, Ballmer said." New World of Work? Get out he party hats.

Linux in Government: Major Breakthrough in Linux Technology | Linux Journal: "In the era of information overload, perhaps some people think of new technology as another thing with which they have to cope. They immediately put it off until tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes, so they put it to the side. The same phenomenon occurs within the media. Many writers do not understand their beats. Instead, they regurgitate press releases, opinions of people in their networks and the insights of others." Or blog them so that other blogger can blog their blogs. But still there is hope that the best technology, and maybe by extension that which is most unincumbered will eventually prevail.

Coming in out of the cold: Cold fusion, for real | csmonitor.com: "Unlike some previous claims of room-temperature fusion, this one makes intuitive sense: its just another way to get atoms close enough together for the strong force to take over and do the rest. Once the reaction got going, the scientists observed not only the production of helium nuclei, but other tell-tale signs of fusion such as free neutrons and high energy radiation. This experiment has been repeated successfully and other scientists have reviewed the results: it looks like the real thing this time."

AOL Offers Free, Web-Based E-Mail - Yahoo! News: "DULLES, Va. - America Online Inc. launched a free, Web-based e-mail service on Monday, departing for the first time from a fee-based subscription model as it moves to compete with free, and increasingly large, e-mail accounts offered by the likes of Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news)" Whoa!

FOUL FELT - Yahoo! News: "Now Mr. Felt steps forward and says that it was he who in effect staged the end of the Nixon administration. What he did, over a period of months, was to report to two industrious journalists at The Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, everything that came to his attention through the fish-eye lens. Mr. Felt wanted to know everything about the traffic of dollars to and from the Committee to Re-Elect the President, and everything about the background and the activities of everyone associated with the White House, from the attorney general down to the plumbers. As evidence accumulated of wrongdoing and crime, he reported not to the director of the FBI (his immediate superior), not to the Justice Department, but to the two journalists."

Apple to Use Intel Microprocessors Beginning in 2006 Reading it and weeping. As far as I'm concerned Apple is history at this point. People have been predicting a surprising end to the Apple/Microsoft war for several years now. This certainly qualifies. Apple computers will have all the hardware disadvantages associated with the Wintel architecture and will STILL cost more and will STILL be incompatible. Non-techies may see this as some shrewd business move for a while, but eventually the reality will catch up with them. They won't finish there transition plan before the world realizes this was a huge mistake. By that time I think it will be too late to correct. That's my opinion anyway.

DUI Defendants Skip Charge By Asking How Test Works: From The Tampa Tribune Interesting.

palmOne - LifeDrive Mobile Manager - Product Features and Specifications Is this new? Or has this pending Apple announcement got my antennae tuned to the totally bonehead corporate executive channel? Get them while they last! For only $700 you can get a tiny little color display (same resolution Palm has been using since the mid 1800s) using an operating system they plan to drop soon (in favor of Linux they say). Yeah! For the price of a laptop you can get a system that needs a magnifying glass to read, has a six minute battery life and is compatible with Mac OS X, oh ooops... WAS compatible with the older Mac systems, but will be compatible with the new Intel models in six or seven years. Oh, but for $700 you can go by one of the old Mac systems. They'll be practically giving them away until 2006 because nobody in their right mind would want to be stuck with one. The real question: After Apple's stock price drops through the floor will they have enough ooomph to actually get the new systems out the door. Jobs is gonna be scratchin' his ass wondering "wha happened?" again. Too sad. Too too sad. Oh. If I'm going to spend $700 for a "palmtop" device, I think I'll wait for the Nokia Linux machine (although I won't be first in line for that either). Tomorrow, Black Monday will be the day the American computer industry officially became irrelevant. Ta ta!

Conservatives see liberal bias in class - and mobilize | csmonitor.com: "So far this year, at least 14 state legislatures have considered bills aimed at colleges that would restrict professors and establish grievance procedures for students who perceive political bias in teaching. None have become law, but the movement has momentum: Four state universities in Colorado, for instance, adopted the principles under legislative pressure in 2004."

baltimoresun.com | bay & beach

Apple to switch to Intel chips starting in '06-CNET - Yahoo! News Funy how the bloggers are all reporting this same rumor over and over AND indicating that it seems ever more likely, but when you read the base article it all goes back to CNet. Boy are they going to have a big black eye if this is wrong... and Apple will have one if it's right.

The Ergosphere: "What conclusion is the reader supposed to draw? How about 'Oh my god, sustainable society is just code for MASS DEATH! We can't even think of going down that path!' Or, 'We can't live through the changes coming. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.' In other words, action is futile. The product: paralysis. Might as well go along with the status quo... enriching the current crop of oil barons. They can't take it with them either, so it doesn't matter. Does it? Well, yes. It does."

Guardian Unlimited | Life | Journey to the centre of Earth: "The team wants to retrieve samples from the mantle, six miles down, to learn more about what triggers undersea earthquakes, such as the one off Sumatra that caused the Boxing Day tsunami. " Wouldn't it be something if they discover that undersea earthquakes are triggered by drilling holes into the mantle?

Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | CNET News.com If true, this will go down as one of the stupidest moves any technology company has ever made. I can just see the mock switch adds now. They will never live this down.

Powerbook G5 Next Tuesday? : Gizmodo: "There is every reason in the world that this could be fake, but it won?t hurt to go ahead and put those Powerbooks on eBay." Um, yeah sure. Battery life is expected to be on the order of 45 seconds. Apple recommends connecting the back of the Powerbook to a vacuum cleaner to get enough airflow to avoid the processor melting throught the bottom of the unit. Pricing starts at $9599. Which reminds me, there were interesting benchmark numbers on Slashdot today that showed the PowerPC running circles around Intel and AMD, except that the Apple OS slows things down so much that it ends up coming out behind. Another benchmark comparing OS X to Linux on the G5 claimed that Linux was in some cases FIVE TIMES FASTER! Well, I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy the next version of OS X anyway. For one thing the Installation disk that came with the Powerbook is not a regular install disk I found out. It's a "special" recovery disk sort of thing. Apples plays the same games as Microsoft, because, deep down inside they want to be Microsoft. So I'll get a full install disk, partition the machine with about a third of it for OS X (if that) and put Debian (or maybe Yellow-Dog) on the rest of it. This machine has been totally reliable, and the speed is good enough, but I guess that's more due to the hardware than the software. I can hardly wait to get Linux on it though. The best hardware and the best software...together at last!

Microsoft vs. Linux: Execs Talk Detente: "'Microsoft reached out to me as president of the OSI, and they basically said they wanted to begin a productive conversation, and we agreed to take that at face value,' Tiemann told eWEEK in an interview at the Red Hat Summit here Thursday." Just tell them to SHOO!, Skeedadle!, GIT! or you'll put a mess-o-whupass on them.

Airbags associated with increased probability of death in automobile accidents, according to new UGA study Who, me? Oh I bet they are talking about Congress.

Ben Stein -The American Spectator: "Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad? Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable."

Protect your Mac on the Internet: "Viruses don't discriminate Many viruses, including cross-platform viruses, can infect Macs. Viruses attack applications such as Outlook Express, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, or PowerPoint, all of which exist on both platforms. Furthermore, platform-independent viruses can easily infect your Mac, spread from PCs via email from friends and colleagues." HAHA, I found this funny. BE VERY afraid if you are an Apple user... at least if you are running MS applications on it!

Security Awareness for Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless (aka: Windows users)

Microsophist: The mythical man month at Microsoft: "There are at least 6 layers of management helping us work 'better together', and at least one psychopathic VP who sees to it that everyone who comes before him is properly shamed and humiliated. When a decision needs to be made or something needs to get done, there are 183 people involved. And what do we do when we realize that we're falling behind schedule? Hire more people of course." On the other hand, maybe Microsoft has become like Congress, the less they do the better it is for those they "serve".

Judge Rules That Gillette Ads Are False - Yahoo! News: "ST. LOUIS - Gillette Co. ads claiming its M3Power razor raises hair up and away from the skin are 'unsubstantiated and inaccurate,' a federal judge said in siding with Gillette's chief competitor, Schick-Wilkinson Sword." Another firmly held religious belief bites the dust.

How to make money from Open source: Builder AU: Manage: "Open sourcing your code is not a panacea, nor is it guaranteed to work in every case, but then again, building and trying to sell closed-source apps carries no guarantee of success either, and the financial investment stakes therein are much, much higher."

In the Prelude to Publication, Intrigue Worthy of Deep Throat - New York Times: "On Wednesday, word came that the family of Mr. Felt, the ailing, 91-year-old former No. 2 official of the F.B.I., had sought payment in vain for his story after failing to reach a collaborative agreement with Mr. Woodward - not only from Vanity Fair, but also from People magazine and HarperCollins Books. They are apparently still determined to claim their share of the story that helped make Mr. Woodward a famous millionaire. 'It's doing me good,' Mr. Felt told reporters outside his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., when asked how he was reacting to the publicity. 'I'll arrange to write a book or something, and collect all the money I can.'" Uh huh.