Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents - New York Times: "I have not seen the software in use. But if I were in a position to make a ruling, and even if I accepted the originality claim on its face, I would process these swiftly: Rejected. Microsoft's other pending applications - 3,368 at last count - should receive the same treatment. And while tidying up, let's also toss out the 3,955 patents that Microsoft has already been issued."

Patent examiners battle stress

Steve Gillmor's Inforouter | ZDNet.com: "Sorry, no posts matched your criteria. WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'ORDER BY post_date ASC LIMIT 0,1' at line 1] SELECT ID,post_title FROM gillmor_posts WHERE post_date > '' AND post_date_gmt < '2005-07-29 12:43:41' AND post_status = 'publish' AND ID != ORDER BY post_date ASC LIMIT 0,1" Well, here is a little clue about how ZDNet operates. Oh for the days when programers checked return codes (and subprograms provided them).

Mini-Microsoft: Great! Amazing! Innovate! Huge!: "I can only guess that this is laying the stage for the Financial Analysts Meeting coming up at Microsoft this Thursday. Oh, if I could only get there in time to put up all sorts of questions these analysts need to be drilling Microsoft about. But I'm hoping that crowd is bringing both hip waders and BS detectors and won't be shy to call BS."

The Wilson-Plame-Novak-Rove Blame Game - FactCheck.org Nice timeline for the forgetful.

The Counterterrorism Blog: "The first multi-expert blog dedicated solely to counterterrorism issues, serving as a gateway to the community for policymakers and serious researchers. Designed to provide realtime information about cases and policy developments."

The table of equivalents / replacements / analogs of Windows software in Linux. (Official site of the table) VERY handy list.

Martin Doors - New Vista Windows!: " # Easy to change design # Easy to clean # Easy removal" Looking forward to being able to easily remove the new Windows!

Apple's Colossal Disappointment "Unfortunately, I was disappointed with Apple's actual announcement on Monday, which revealed not a bold strategy embracing the openness movement but confirmation that Apple is still a company locked in the time warp of the go-it-alone '70s. Apple agreed to switch from processors made by IBM to special processors made from Intel over the next two years - that's it."

USA PATRIOT Act (H.R. 3162) Handy non-PDF version, although I don't know how up to date it is. I got a kick out of this: "SEC. 418. PREVENTION OF CONSULATE SHOPPING. (a) REVIEW- The Secretary of State shall review how consular officers issue visas to determine if consular shopping is a problem. (b) ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN- If the Secretary of State determines under subsection (a) that consular shopping is a problem, the Secretary shall take steps to address the problem and shall submit a report to Congress describing what action was taken. " How many of us know people who would be aghast at the thought that our country would ban SHOPPING! (**) Looking for items that have the left all up in arms I find it difficult to find all that many. Which is not to say there are not some. If anyone wants to seriously debate the act, who not start with some specifics. Once debated, why not end with an amended act? Of course if your aim is to Bash Bush, you don't have time for all this work. Easier to equate the entire act to "digging though our panty drawers". (**) NB: Consulate shopping (or consular shopping) is the practice of making multiple attempts to obtain a visa to enter the US in the hopes that you will stumble upon a consulate or consular officer who is not doing their job properly. Nothing about the act changes anything happening over at the Department of State. This represents no more than a "goosing" of the DoS to focus on one of their existing activities with renewed enthusiasm. Much of the act in fact is along this same line.

KurzweilAI.net - Will Machines Reach Human Levels of Intelligence? Next few (below) links related.

Wired 8.04: Why the future doesn't need us.

Gilder Technology Report

Kinsley Expected to Lose Top Edit Page Post, But Remain at 'L.A. Times' What is the fascination with this guy? He was the liberal half of Crossfire back when the program was popular. Before that I don't think anyone had ever heard of him. he got some sort of disease and sympathy pored out for a while. Microsoft hired him to run Slate. Slate declined, but that was probably inevitable and had nothing to do with his tenure. He still spouts the Dem party line, and in spite of working at Microsoft has proven his lack of understanding of technology at the LA Times. *yawn*

The Cost of Software Monopoly: "In the software market, as in the telecommunications market, a single, powerful and well-leveraged vendor can cause the reduction of real competition and the corralling of almost all consumers into a single monopolistic platform situation. This causes significant reduction in choice, price competitiveness and innovation. Cybersource calls upon the ACCC to rectify this situation for the benefit of the local Information Technology industry and of all Australian IT consumers."

Techworld.com - Microsoft introduces compulsory Windows piracy checks: "To get the free version of Windows, a customer must fill out a counterfeit report identifying the source of the software, provide a proof of purchase and send in a counterfeit CD of the software. If customers don't have all of that information, they can still fill out a counterfeit report and receive a copy of Windows XP Home Edition for $99 or a copy of Windows XP Professional Edition for $149, Lazar said."

MS Windows what? | Computerworld Blogs: "Windows is the brand, not the 2006, that's just the version. What about Vista says 'for systems other than servers'? What about it says 'for consumers'? It evokes natural landscapes, mountain views, blue skies, etc. Hardly makes me think 'high quality operating system.'" I vote for "Windows Shitza".

After London, Tough Questions for Muslims

Linux in Government: You Can Use the Desktop on a Laptop Now | Linux Journal Use yes, install no. Government workers are incapable of installing any software (unless it is a game or porno).

still another Linux blog: Manners Idiot!

Microsoft takes on Google with Virtual Earth | InfoWorld Can MS chalk up a win against Google? This might be fun to watch.

Government aide posed as his ex online: "Before he was a lawmaker, Cuellar was a lawyer, and in a statement he said that although the law of the land was that a person was innocent until proven guilty, he would not tolerate anyone in his employ to be under a cloud of suspicion." HUH?

TERROR: IT'S WORLD WAR III AND THE EXTREMISTS ARE WINNING, EXPERT SAYS: "'Something has to change. We have to understand that this is the third world war and they are winning.'"

USNews.com: The Pentagon has a secret new strategy for taking on terrorists--and taking them down (8/1/05) Let's hope.

AOL, Ask Jeeves Gain on Google Search - Yahoo! News

Open source's new weapon: The law? | CNET News.com hmmmm I guess that was old news. Stupid Salon and blogs.

Salon.com Technology | Buy Linux. It's the law: "'If the state of California is saying [to Microsoft], you are a monopolist and you are hurting the people of California,' Pennington says, 'its purchasing policy should be in line with that.' "

ONLamp.com: Calculating the True Price of Software Refer OSS=noncapitalist bigots here.

Microsoft frowned at for smiley patent - ZDNet UK News: "He said the patent could be particularly problematic as it covers basic human communication. 'Emoticons are a form of language, and a precedent allowing patenting of language constructs is very dangerous indeed,' said Taylor."

City girl at home at beach home - - delmarvanow.com

U.S. Will Offer Doctors Free Electronic Records System - New York Times: "The Vista project began a few years ago when Medicare officials realized that help for small medical practices was in its own backyard. The federal government had already paid hundreds of millions of dollars to develop Vista, and now uses it in the Veterans Administration's 1,300 inpatient and outpatient facilities, which maintain more than 10 million records and treat more than five million veterans a year. Why not give Vista to doctors? In fact, though few knew, Vista had been available all along to anyone who submitted a Freedom of Information Act request." Why?

BoreAmerica.com: Monitoring Air America Radio, Franken, Garofalo, Rhodes, Springer O my!

Comic Strip 117 : vendetta of Robert Scoble by Comic Strip Blogger

Sony gets Unreal 3 engine for PlayStation 3

SCO: Fish or Cut Bait: "Three years later, in 2002, SCO developer Michael Davidson reviewed the 1999 study's results. His conclusions? 'There is, indeed, a lot of code that is common between Unix and Linux (all of the X Windows system, for example) but invariably it turned out that the common code was something that both we (SCO) and the Linux community had obtained (legitimately) from some third party.'"

CNN.com - Atta's father praises London bombs - Jul 20, 2005: "El-Amir said the attacks in the United States and the July 7 attacks in London were the beginning of what would be a 50-year religious war, in which there would be many more fighters like his son."

Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | A family in anguish: "Asked why his son was seen on video at Boston airport on the same day of the attacks, Atta replied: 'I have strong evidence that this video recording was forged. The man in the video is bigger than my son. Moreover, the Saudi national [El-Emari] who appeared behind my son in the shots was in Riyadh at the time of the attacks and is still alive. Now, you tell me how this could all be authentic.' Atta Sr accused the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, of being behind the New York and Washington attacks."

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Father insists alleged leader of attack on WTC is still alive: "'As I saw the picture of my son,' he said, 'I knew that he hadn't done it. My son called me the day after the attacks on September 12 at around midday. We spoke for two minutes about this and that. 'He didn't tell me where he was calling from. At that time neither of us knew anything about the attacks.' Mr Atta said he did not condone the attacks, but could understand the hijackers' motivation. 'Every day our Palestinian brothers are being murdered, their houses destroyed. If their relatives were to fly a plane into the Empire State Building I couldn't hold it against them,' he added."

Amassing a Treasury of Photography - New York Times

Open Sense Store - the LINI? PC $649.00

Hardware Review: Lini Desktop | Linux Journal Looks good!

Comic Strip 112 : meet next president of USA : Hillary Clinton by Comic Strip BloggerR-rated, but on target...

Making Your Own Coffee-Table Book

Perna steps down as info manager at IBM - Computerworld Happy retirement. You did a great job!

Write down your password today | The Register Better yet, BLOG your password for quick and easy reference! Pick something hard to foil those bad guys. Mine is: df87$!76BWpo and I use a secret mnemonic to remember it. But now I can just cut-and-paste it from here. YAY! How clever I am!

Linux in Government: Outside the US, People Get It | Linux Journal: "Finally, one might consider that by destroying its competitors, Microsoft has weakened the US technology sector rather than strengthening it. Look around and we see a technology sector suffering so badly that US universities have seen enrollment in computer sciences drop to nil. Additionally, the once well-trained US information technology workforce has aged, moved into other industries and suffered from the influx of foreign competitors." (related to item a few stories down).

Microsoft sues over Google hire | CNET News.com: "update Opening a new chapter in its rivalry with Google, Microsoft on Tuesday sued the search giant and a former Microsoft executive who has been tapped by Google to run its China operations." Pathetic.

Pogue's Song Spoofs For the techmusically inclined.

Users' group urges IBM to make OS/2 open source: " Schindler believes there may be OS/2 supporters who feel vindicated by the recent settlement of IBM's ongoing dispute with Microsoft, and may be wondering what's the payoff for them. Meanwhile, she said, IBM may assess the impact of a move upon what it perceives to be OS/2's customer base--not individual supporters, but the banks and insurance companies who still maintain an investment in the operating system. "

Due Diligence: "Longhorn is tactically and strategically compromised. Tactically because it is grossly late, and keeps shedding features. Any venture that relied on it has already died on the road somewhere. Any business or product plan based on it has serious cred problems. Longhorn is strategically compromised because it is still fundamentally a play on the desktop. It's been a decade since a major change erupted as a consequence of innovation on the desktop PC. That's a decade that's been marked by functionality moving off the PC and into the network, and now by user interfaces being partitioned from the desktop onto mobile devices. Intel has figured out that it can no longer rely on innovation on the desktop to drive the Moore's Law investment cycle, but Microsoft still seems to believe that its hegemony in that sector is a bankable asset." One good thing about Scoble is that he sometimes links to interesting people although he aren't one. The quoted paragraph above I think pairs well with the recent Gates erruption: Newsday.com: Gates puzzled why more students don't choose computer science: "'It's such a paradox,' Gates said. 'If you say to a kid, 'Yeah, what are the 10 coolest products you use that your parents are clueless about, that you're good at using,' I don't think they're going to say, 'Oh, you know, it's this new breakfast cereal. And I want to go work in agriculture and invent new cereals or something.' ... I think 10 out of 10 would be things that are software-driven.' " Would someone please reattach this man's drool cup?

pr05_vx50_s4881_m4881: "SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF SEVERELY POWERFUL 8-WAY SERVER PLATFORM AND SYSTEM" OK.

How Can Anyone Oppose Internet Sales Tax? Easy: We have too many taxes already! Not only should we not have any new ones, some of the old ones should be ended. There is an old Monty Python skit about taxing "poo poos" and I guess when that comes to pass in real life David Coursey will think that it is a grand idea. Let's tax reading David Coursey articles. At a buck a read I think that should pretty much end his carreer, or what's left of it.

Intel Doubles Down on Linux: "The chip giant recently pulled its disparate efforts to work with the operating system." "Pulled" as in ended? "Pooled together"? more and more I can't understand half of what modern journalists write. Either their spell checkers are making nonsense out of it, or, more likely, it was nonsense to begin with. Anyway, I guess this is CNet's obligatory weekly article that contains the words "Linux" and "Intel" in the title. Make of it what you can.

360hacker.net - First Xbox 360 seen in the wild Apparently newly minted Microsoft employees can't afford furniture.

Andrew C. McCarthy on Valerie Plame on National Review Online: "Is that hyperbole? You be the judge. Have you heard that the CIA is actually the source responsible for exposing Plame's covert status? Not Karl Rove, not Bob Novak, not the sinister administration cabal du jour of Fourth Estate fantasy, but the CIA itself? Had you heard that Plame's cover has actually been blown for a decade ? i.e., since about seven years before Novak ever wrote a syllable about her? Had you heard not only that no crime was committed in the communication of information between Bush administration officials and Novak, but that no crime could have been committed because the governing law gives a person a complete defense if an agent's status has already been compromised by the government? No, you say, you hadn't heard any of that. You heard that this was the crime of the century. A sort of Robert-Hanssen-meets-Watergate in which Rove is already cooked and we're all just waiting for the other shoe ? or shoes ? to drop on the den of corruption we know as the Bush administration. That, after all, is the inescapable impression from all the media coverage. So who is saying different?"

Study Says Ethanol Not Worth the Energy - Yahoo! News: "Farmers, businesses and state officials are investing millions of dollars in ethanol and biofuel plants as renewable energy sources, but a new study says the alternative fuels burn more energy than they produce." Please! Do not confuse us with the facts. This easy-way-out mentality is essential to our feeling of well being. Repeat after me: Ohmmmmmmmmmm..

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Microsoft's plans don't worry IBM: "The customers are looking for predictability and value today. They've become particularly jaded on all the vendor talk about things coming but coming in the distant future ? you know, it's Longhorn when? We're still waiting for Cairo. We're waiting for lots of things that are part of a long list of code names and initiatives that Microsoft has been coming out with for the last decade."

Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster - New York Times: "While no figures are available on the ranks of those jettisoning their PC's, the scourge of unwanted software is widely felt. This month the Pew group published a study in which 43 percent of the 2,001 adult Internet users polled said they had been confronted with spyware or adware, collectively known as malware. Forty-eight percent said they had stopped visiting Web sites that might deposit unwanted programs on their PC's. Moreover, 68 percent said they had had computer trouble in the last year consistent with the problems caused by spyware or adware, though 60 percent of those were unsure of the problems' origins. Twenty percent of those who tried to fix the problem said it had not been solved; among those who spent money seeking a remedy, the average outlay was $129."

In Plame Leaks, Long ShadowsArticle, with pictures!

Memo May Hold Key to CIA Leak: "After getting Armitage's request, the State Department's then-intelligence chief, Carl Ford, ordered the original memo ? along with the analyst's notes about that meeting ? to be sent to Powell, the former official said. Ordinarily, the memo would have been transmitted directly to Powell over the State Department's secure communications lines. But because Powell was traveling with Bush, the memo was transmitted via the White House operations center"

Setting Scoble's record on Technorati straight | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com: "Finally, I'd like to touch on the blogging/journalism thing because this is a real good case study. In a prior blog, Scoble defends his own methodology for writing, saying that he never claimed to be a journalist but that 'I do occassionally do journalism here.' Perhaps we could use a little icon so we know how to recognize when he's doing it. He goes on to talk about how he sometimes gets in wrong and that his cell phone number is on the home page of his blog to make it easy for people to call him with corrections. He concludes by saying 'I agree that corrections don't always cut it. I too wish for a more accurate reporting system, but this system is pretty darn good at self correcting. So far I've been watching for factual mistakes where Microsoft is concerned and there hasn't been that many.' What about factual mistakes where Microsoft isn't concerned?" The only reason I read Scoble is to get pissed off. He is not a journalist. He is not a programmer. He doesn't want to be labeled as a marketing droid. But Microsoft pays him. To do what? I already know that Microsoft is incompetent at much of what they do. They need a specialist to put daily proof out there? Duh.

The Sun News | 07/16/2005 | Film role casts doubt on McCain judgment: "Will the right laugh off the senator's latest cameo as just that? Or will they ask what he was thinking when, having campaigned against R-rated films marketed to kids, he agreed to appear in one"

Telegraph | News | We're better than the British, says Chirac Let's see. Does the test include speaking French and eating slimey things found in the garden?

Mac Beach: Apple Spin Machine Melts Down A great blog entry, if I do say so myself. Now if we could just melt down the blogsphere. I'm doing my part.

XML's quirky namespaces | InfoWorld: "That's good news in the long run. We'll increasingly want to mix and remix XML data, and to do so we'll need to master namespaces. In the short run, though, I expect more of the turbulence we ran into this week when Sam Ruby and Mark Pilgrim, co-developers of the RSS/Atom Feed Validator and contributors to the Atom specification, found problems with Apple's specification of an iTunes namespace, and with Apple's -- and other podcast publishers' -- use of that namespace. These folks should have known better. But they weren't the first to be bitten by the quirkiness of XML namespaces, and they won't be the last."

Open source collaboration server gets a lift | InfoWorld: "'The more Novell and Red Hat do to create bundles of open source products that provide all the benefits of open source as well as the benefits of integration, ease of deployment, ease in licensing, and purchasing and support, the better off it is for them,' said Dana Gardner, principal analyst with InterArbor Solutions. "

SCO Couldn't Find A Smoking Linux Gun - Forbes.com I guess Forbes reads Groklaw.

Rove Learned CIA Agent's Name From Novak: "In an interview on CNN earlier Thursday before the latest revelation, Wilson kept up his criticism of the White House, saying Rove's conduct was an 'outrageous abuse of power ... certainly worthy of frog-marching out of the White House.' But at the same time, Wilson acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak's column first identified her. 'My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity,' he said. Federal law prohibits government officials from divulging the identity of an undercover intelligence officer. But in order to bring charges, prosecutors must prove the official knew the officer was covert and nonetheless knowingly outed his or her identity." So why is the country wasting its time on this? So Wilson can write another book?

ETCSLhomepage: "The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) is based at the University of Oxford. So far it has made accessible, via the World Wide Web, more than 350 literary works composed in the Sumerian language in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) during the late third and early second millennia BCE."

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger hates MSN Messenger?: "I hate MSN Messenger. Everytime I start it up people IM me and distract me." I've noticed Scoble doesn't badmouth MS products anymore, except for little bait and switch teesers like this. Maybe they sat him down and gave him some "advice" about his blog.

CIO Today - Worldwide Technology - After Apple, IBM Remains Focused on Chip Development: "Large firms like Sony, Microsoft and Comcast are betting that a home-entertainment device, evolved from a game console or set-top box, will replace many of the PC's functions. IBM plans to be inside these new systems."

Freestar Media, LLC Below is our press release on the Lost Liberty Hotel Project.

Linux News: Open Source: Proprietary Software Can't Control the World: "'This is a Fisher Space Pen,' he said -- a pen developed for NASA Latest News about NASA astronauts in space, a pen with ink that just keeps on flowing. A pen able to write upside down and even underwater. 'It's sophisticated, it's costly, it's very nice and very shiny,' Geck said. Geck is chief technology officer at SuSE Latest News about SuSE Linux, an open-source Latest News about open source software outfit now owned by Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL), and he's about to make his point: 'The Russians just used a pencil.'"

How Linux beats Windows in ID management ease: "Pop quiz: What's the hardest thing to do in Windows systems management? Backups, you say? Yes, well, I wanted something people actually do."

Discovery Institute - News - Professors Defend Ohio Grad Student Under Attack by Darwinists

Dr. Macro Old Celebrity Photos!

BBC - OpenSource Well since PBS used to "liberally" sponge off of BBC content maybe they should copy this idea too.

Hacking NetFlix : Glitch Exposes "Netflix Player"

The Hedy Lamarr Foundation Vision: "1980s, Lamarr and Antheil's invention took on new significance. Instead of 'frequency hopping,' today's term is 'spread spectrum' but the basic idea is the same. The FCC recently allotted a special section of the radio spectrum for an experiment using the spread spectrum idea in a test designed to make cell phone calls more secure. A lot of corporate dollars have been invested in this process which has allowed more cell phone users to use the existing frequency spectrum." (2nd source)

Hedy Lamarr - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil received patent number 2,292,387 for their 'Secret Communications System.' This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or to jam. The patent was little-known until recently because Lamarr applied for it under her then-married name of Hedy Kiesler Markey. Neither Lamarr nor Antheil made any money from the patent. The U.S. military did not adopt this technology until 1962. Lamarr's frequency hopping technology served as the basis for modern 'spread-spectrum wireless' technology used in devices ranging from cordless phones to WiFi internet connections. Lamarr wanted to join the National Inventors Council but was told she could better help the war effort by using her celebrity status to sell war bonds. She once raised $7,000,000 at one event. In 2003 Boeing ran a series of recruitment ads featuring Hedy Lamarr as a woman of science. No reference to her film career was made in the ads."

MIT Media Lab: $100 Laptop New try at an old idea. Maybe it will happen this time.

Slashdot | Why Doesn't the Itanium Get the Respect It's Due?: "'Windows is a 32-bit extension to a 16-bit graphical shell for an 8-bit operating system originally coded for a 4-bit microprocessor by a 2-bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition.'"

Inside the big switch: the iPod and the future of Apple Computer: "One of the major factors in the switch was something that's often been discussed here at Ars and elsewhere: Apple's mercurial and high-handed relationship with its chip suppliers. I've been told that the following user post on Groklaw is a fairly accurate reflection of the bind that Apple put itself in with IBM:"

The Volokh Conspiracy - Justices' Changes of View on Big Issues:

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Glurge Gallery (Jobs Report): "I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it." Hmmm. Maybe they need to give him another dose.

Guest Posting: The Muslim Community of London | Bayosphere: "I talked to many of the young Muslim lads I've known since they were babies, and I talked to their parents. And guess what? The parents are shocked, the youngsters gleeful. Go figure. The leaders of the Muslim Council of Britain can issue as many statements of solidarity and sympathy as they like; the facts are that many of their children rejoiced after the carnage in New York and they rejoiced after the slaughter in London yesterday."

IFR News Release - Humble spud sprouts surprise Nice to know all that potato salad does more than just make me fat.

Matt Cooper's Source - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com: "Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame's name or knew she was a covert operative. Nonetheless, it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak's column appeared; in other words, before Plame's identity had been published. "

Google Blog: The platypus of the Internet

Milwaukee's black leaders say the enemy is within: "Milwaukee, with 583,624 residents, 37 percent of whom are black, is the country's 22nd-largest city. It remains deeply segregated, civil rights activists say."

Crooked Timber

Genesi - Corporate Information

Mercury Computer Systems : Media Center : Press Releases: Mercury Computer Systems Teams with IBM to Build Cell Processor-Based Systems Screw Apple. Some people will be building REAL computers! YEEEAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHH

Deficit tide ebbing"The good news this week is the unexpected surge in federal tax revenues that is slashing the federal budget deficit by about $100 billion. This is especially welcome news to supply-side tax-cutters who argued all along that lower tax rates spur stronger economic growth, which, in turn, creates more jobs that increases tax revenues. That is happening now. It's embarrassing news for President Bush's diehard Democratic critics, who predicted his tax cuts would worsen the budget deficits and drive the government deeper into debt. They argued throughout last year's elections that the tax cuts failed to grow the economy, create jobs or improve fiscal health. "

SPIEGEL Interview with African Economics Expert: "For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!" - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem."

Eric Raymond - Armed and Dangerous - Punishment, Coercion, and Revenge

KRT Wire | 07/06/2005 | Legal world offers different types of conservative philosophies Good reading on the coming up war of words.

Mac Rumors: Apple's Q3 2005 Financial Result Webcast: "# 07/05 : 500 Millionth iTunes Song Promo # 07/05 : Apple's Q3 2005 Financial Result Webcast # 07/03 : Motorola E790 iTunes Phone (Photo) [Updated] # 07/01 : HP Now Selling iPod shuffle # 07/01 : Apple, Motorola, Cingular, and iTunes Phone... Ready? (Updated) # 07/01 : Podcast Subscriptions Top One Million # 06/30 : Apple and IBM's PowerPC Potential # 06/30 : 2GB and 4GB iPod Shuffles? # 06/28 : Apple Merges iPod and iPod Photo Line [Updated] # 06/28 : iTunes 4.9 Now Available" I wonder how long it will be before people actually have rumors about their computers again? Maybe never would be my guess.

Miracle in Redmond! Tablet PC memory bug fixed | The Register

Microsoft to Detail Its New Sales Matrix What? They have something agains growing diagonally? And what about that troublesome Z-axis. Well I just hope this shallow two dimensionl thinking doesn't hold them back.

Fujitsu Automation HOAP-3 :: TechJapan :: English news on technology from JapanNew robot to run Linux.

WSJ.com - Time's Cooper Agrees To Testify in Leak Case: "WASHINGTON -- Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper, facing the possibility of going to jail, told a federal district judge that his source has released him from a confidentiality agreement, allowing him to testify about the source's identity." This version of the story should worry anyone who thinks that Karl Rove is the source. My guess is that the press, as they so often do, went with weak data. When such stories are investigated in the open the faults of the press are quicky found out. Secret sources give them a blank check to do sloppy work.

Time Reporter to Testify in CIA Leak Case - Yahoo! News About time they ended this charade.

Property seizure backlash - Yahoo! News: "In Congress, Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record) (R) of Texas has introduced the protection of homes, small businesses, and private property act. A similar, bipartisan bill has been introduced in the House. 'The power of eminent domain should not be used simply to further private economic development,' said Mr. Cornyn in a statement. The bill would bar federal funds for state and local governments that seize land for private development."

Linux in Government: Understanding Federated Identity Management | Linux Journal: "We all might find some difficulty in finalizing our thoughts on federated identity management. Perhaps the momentum behind the standards and the technology could change, and we might wind up with a totally different solution that the ones existing today. Most people in the technology field will say that once people start down a certain road, though, they seem compelled to stay on it. I tend to think that the three standards will merge or learn to co-exist."

AIBS: Press Release: Fuel ethanol cannot alleviate US dependence on petroleum: "The authors of the study assessed the energy required to produce the crops and to manufacture and distribute the resulting fuels. In the United States, ethanol yielded only about 10 percent more energy than was required to produce it; in Brazil, where a different process is used, ethanol yielded 3.7 times more energy than was used to produce it. The researchers, Marcelo E. Dias de Oliveira, Burton E. Vaughan, and Edward J. Rykiel, Jr., also weighed effects of fuel ethanol use on carbon dioxide emissions, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, and water and air pollution, assuming vehicles representative of each country. Specialized software was used to analyze the sensitivity of the conclusions to diverse assumptions in the analysis. "

Globetechnology: 12 minutes to PC infection: "The speed with which machines can become infected has shortened, virus-watchers at Sophos, based in England, say, because they have detected 7,944 new viruses in the first half of 2005, a 59-per-cent increase over the same time span last year."

My Way News: "'This is not a sequel. It's not based on a comic book and a young fan-based property. This is based on a 100-year-old literary property,' Friedman said. Spielberg and Cruise's 'movies tend to play longer, stay in the marketplace longer, so I think as it relates to 'Spider-Man 2,' we'll have to wait and see what the long haul brings.'" Yeah, 100-year-old literary property that was pretty damned good until Hollywood ruined it.

XP Starter under the gun | CNET News.com: "To offer Starter Edition for far less than other versions of Windows XP without hurting its existing business, Microsoft imposed a number of restrictions, such as the fact the program can only open three windows at a time." *shakes head*

Troll XP This is funny too.

Troll XP OK, this is pretty funny.

Red Light Cameras Now Illegal in Virginia: "City officials in the Northern Virginian communities will be lobbying for a reinstatement of the state's red light camera law, but members of the state House of Delegates have been consistently unimpressed with the performance of cameras having turned back several attempts to extend and preserve the program. Legislators pointed to the recent study by sponsored by the Virginia Department of Transportation as a primary reason for rejecting the devices. The study concluded, 'The cameras are correlated with an increase in total injury crashes, with the increase being between 7% and 24%."

Linux Today - Editor's Note: Microsoft Support? Ha! Better Use Linux Instead: "Oh, I got information all right, but every single one of the solutions needed the recovery console, which I could not get to thanks to the blue screen of stupid. Then, I tried broadening the search, and hit the jackpot. Apparently, there's a wonderful utility out there that will fix a corrupt NTFS table with a single command. Is it buried in Microsoft's labrynthian support site? Is it a third-part fix offered by those who profit from the 'all-powerful' Windows? Is it even something that Microsoft might have thought would be useful to have on it's own perfectly bootable install disk? No. It was ntfsfix, and it resides on, among other Live CD distros, Knoppix."

Tampa Bay's 10 News - Shark Attacks: "Experts point out that shark attacks are rare, pointing out that there were only 30 in 2003 among the millions of people who hit the state's beaches." Rare? Yeah, only once a day or so lately. Let's have a wade out into the surf party for all the experts. How about open season on sharks that hang around near beaches. I get sick every time I hears about some group trying to protect sharks. The ocean is full of them. They COMPETE with us on the food chain. We needn't hunt them to extinction, but hunting them until they are rare (and hence making shark attacks actually rare again) sounds like a good idea to me.

WSJ.com - Microsoft to Pay $775 Million To Settle IBM Antitrust Claim: "Microsoft Corp. agreed to pay $775 million and provide software to International Business Machines Corp. to settle a long-running antitrust dispute between the giants." Sounds like a bargain for Microsoft to me. How do they get away with all these sub-billion settlements? Only Sun got close to $2 billion. And where's mine? Since I was one of those few Windows users who always PAID for my copy of Windows rather than stealing the latest version from work, I'd like, for starters, to have all (or much of) that money back. Then I'd like to get recovery costs for all the time that Windows lost data, and wasted valuable time for me. So far, only the people of California have won such reimbursements, and only after filling out onerous paperwork, and after that they get a hundred dollars or so. Hardly enough. If commercial operating systems provide all the risk reducing potential that Microsoft claims, then there must be a corresponding risk to the producer of that software for poor performance and shoddy workmanship. Thus far we have not seen that mechanism in action. ime to pay up. By zeroing out that hefty bank balance of theirs if necessary. many of us may choose to stay away from future Microsoft products due to past experiences. Those refunds we receive can be used to support companies that perform to our level of expectation. That's how the marketplace is SUPPOSED to work.

RSS in Longhorn: The Security Question: "Because Microsoft is embracing the use of enclosures to deliver attachments in RSS feeds, there is also a risk that rigged media files and other attachment types can find their way on a user's desktop. 'We're seeing Podcasts become quite popular, and we already know that media player flaws can cause serious damage. Put them together and you will inevitably have problems,' Pescatore added." Maybe for Windows they should just call it the Wormcast.

The Downside of Embedding RSS in Longhorn: "Microsoft watchers are thinking through the security implications of Microsoft's plan to embed RSS in Longhorn. T" Why should they do that? Why not wait 'till it's been out a few years like they've always done before?