Dan Danner: ObamaCare vs. Small Business - WSJ.com

Dan Danner: ObamaCare vs. Small Business - WSJ.com

Supporters say the law will significantly help small businesses, focusing on the much-talked about small business tax credit. But the reality is that the tax credit is complex and very limited because firms qualify based on number of employees and average wages. The credit, which is only available for a maximum of six years, puts small business owners through a series of complicated "tests" to determine if they qualify and how much they will receive. Fewer than one-third of small businesses even pass the first three (of four) tests to qualify: have 25 employees or less, provide health insurance, and pay 50% of the cost of that insurance. More importantly, the credit is temporary, but health-care cost increases are permanent. When the credit ends, small businesses will be left paying full price. They'll also be forced to deal with all sorts of new taxes, fees and mandates buried in this 2,000-page law. One of these new taxes is a so-called health insurance fee. It's a massive $8 billion tax (that escalates to $14.3 billion by 2018) on insurance companies based on their market share. This tax will be paid almost exclusively by small businesses and individuals because the law specifically excludes self-insured plans, the plans that most big businesses and labor unions offer, from having to pay the tax.

Lessons From a Torpedo - WSJ.com

"South Korea formally announced Thursday that one of its warships was sunk, and 46 of its sailors murdered, by a North Korean torpedo on March 26. The news itself comes as no surprise. What would be a surprise—a welcome one—is if the U.S. and its allies drew the appropriate conclusions about how to deal with Pyongyang going forward."

John Fund: Tea Parties vs. Unions in November - WSJ.com

John Fund: Tea Parties vs. Unions in November - WSJ.com

In contrast to the tea party, there has been far too little scrutiny of the SEIU, whose membership of government and health-care workers is the fastest-growing of any union in the country. Andy Stern, the just retired head of the SEIU, was found to be the most frequent guest at the Obama White House last year, stopping by 22 times between January and September, more than all congressional leaders and cabinet members. The SEIU's close ties to the discredited group Acorn have largely been ignored. The same is true for the violence perpetrated by some of its members.

Rumor: Microsoft set for vast data-center push

"I've also heard that people may be 'stunned' about the extent to which Microsoft will embrace open-source software and interoperability in its plan. We shall see."

The only thing that will "stun" people is if they populate these data centers with Linux servers.

I don't think it beyond the realm of possibility either. Consider the alternative. Last time I worked with Microsoft servers it was still a royal pain in the backside to configure them remotely. Microsoft was just getting around to vending a tool (name of which I've forgotten) to allow for such things, but it worked poorly. No doubt it has improved, but my guess is that it takes more flunkies per gigahertz to run a Windows server farm than any other variety, and that doesn't count all the flunkies that have to go around repairing and re-installing software on end-user's desks. All well and good when it is an invisibly small part of your product line. But imagine all the companies that will line up to get rid of their own computer rooms and have Microsoft provide that service to them. These companies, some of which may remember that they actually spent less when they were dependent on the big bad mainframe, won't mind paying a premium to get themselves out of the computer maintenance business again.

Timesharing2.0 here we come!

But when it gets rolling, it will no longer matter to Microsoft that they set an example, "eating their own dog food" so to speak with Windows server, which has eaten (no pun intended) about as far into the Unix and Mainframe server markets as it is going to. Microsoft is going to be focused on saving Kilowatts, efficient and transparent virtualization, and most of all, centers that can run with almost no personnel on hand, be administered from Redmond, or India, or anywhere, including a web page at the customer site. They may, in the long run, even see some advantages in vending cheap thin clients to their customers, because, after all, they will be responsible for keeping these machines up to date and virus free and we all know that's almost impossible with Windows. Deals they have with Novell and Citrix may well grease the skids for this thing being an almost totally transparent switch from the hokey mostly client paradigm we suffer under now to something that resembles the true client/server model we talked about in the 90s.

I promise not to be stunned.

WSJ.com - The Real Gas Gougers

"Mark this 'gouging' law down as the first step back toward the oil and gas price controls of the 1970s. We know that chapter of history ended poorly for American consumers -- with supply disruptions, gas lines, and increased dependence on foreign oil. Under Congress's new brainchild, the next time there is a gasoline supply disruption, service station owners may well hold prices artificially low to avoid jail sentences. As night follows day, that will lead to shortages, lines and stranded motorists. So if Congress thinks that voters are in a foul mood now, wait until their price-control scheme offers them no gas at 'non-gouging' prices." test

Cafe Sole - Where It's Always a Sunny Day!

Computer Security, Encryption, Legal Help - Axsmith.net

Former co-worker doing well.

Business Opportunities Weblog | How Much Is My Blog Worth

My blog is worth $1,129.08.
How much is your blog worth?

Well, I guess this has to do with it being my first Blogspot thingy, even though I'm not using it so much these days. I wonder what my home based blog would be worth? Might be hard to measure as I've taken it down. All, moot of course as nobody would actually PAY anything for them.

WEES Radio 107.9 FM

WEES Radio 107.9 FM

Dan's 20th Century Abandonware - Home Page

Heh.

TEXTKIT - Greek and Latin Learning Tools

Ooooo, neato.

Debcon 5 Videos

Comparing BibleTranslations: Textual Criticism and Interpretation

Los Lunas: Small Town Lifestyle, Big City Convenience

Map 1

Map 2 Map 3

VDH's Private Papers::The Forbidden History: "One has only to read the historical record, read the words of the Koran and the hadiths (sayings attributed to the Prophet), and read the centuries of interpretations in Muslim theology and jurisprudence, to know that today?s jihadists have not ?highjacked? or ?distorted? Islam but are simply traditionalists, squarely in line with Islam?s historical identity."

My Big Fat American Summer

The Myths of Open Source - Open Source - CIO Magazine Mar 1,2004 (oldie, but goodie)

1999 Budgeting for flood control: "Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity (hurricane protection), Louisiana- The Committee recommendation concurs with the House allowance of $11,848,000 for the Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity (hurricane protection), Louisiana project. In addition, in light of recent devastating flooding, the Corps is directed to evaluate the feasibility of expediting the remaining features of the project in the vicinity of St. Charles Parish, and to provide the Committee with an accelerated construction schedule and funding profile through project completion, along with the feasibility and impacts of incorporating four additional pumping stations, and other needed structures, in the New Orleans west unit, St. Charles Parish levee part of the project. Lake Pontchartrain storm water discharge, Louisiana- The Committee has included $850,000 to continue the development of this project. Further, the facility owners shall receive credit for design and construction, compatible with project requirements, accomplished by the facility owner prior to execution of the necessary agreements with the non-Federal sponsor. Ouachita River levees, Louisiana- The Committee recommends an appropriation of $2,300,000 for the Corps of Engineers to complete the rehabilitation or replacement of deteriorated drainage structures in the Ouachita River levee system in Louisiana."

Example of MSN Spaces Sucking: "Server Application Unavailable The web application you are attempting to access on this web server is currently unavailable. Please hit the 'Refresh' button in your web browser to retry your request. Administrator Note: An error message detailing the cause of this specific request failure can be found in the application event log of the web server. Please review this log entry to discover what caused this error to occur."

WSJ.com - Case of the Vanishing X-rays: "When Judge Jack brought this troubling fact up again in last week's hearing, Mr. Laminack shocked everyone by explaining that he doubts his clients ever had asbestosis. Put another way, so eager was Mr. Laminack to support the credibility of his silicosis claims that he admitted in federal court that he believed his clients had previously filed fraudulent asbestos claims. His admission is all the more notable because Mr. Laminack was indicting some of the lions of the asbestos bar -- Dickie Scruggs, for instance -- who (according to defense attorneys) were among those filing 'Alexander' asbestos claims."

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (Katrina and the Waves): "Louisiana isn't a major U.S. supplier of coffee in the sense that beans for the popular beverage are grown there, but New Orleans is a major port of entry for coffee (about a sixth of the coffee imported into the U.S. is stored there), and supplies of the product warehoused in New Oreleans may have been damaged by Hurricane Katrina. (The Chicago Board of Trade has said there were almost 733,000 bags of coffee, each weighing 132 or 150 pounds, in storage in New Orleans on the day Katrina moved ashore.) However, rumors about coffee price increases remain largely speculative until coffee-storing New Orleans warehouses are inventoried and assessed for damage." Truely disturbing news.

Creation Magazine Archive

AMD ahead of Intel on low power | CNET News.com

The reinvention of Texas Instruments | Newsmakers | CNET News.com

Andyco.com: "PowerHouse: Breaking the cycle of PowerPoint addiction."

WSJ.com - What Women Want: "When it comes to single-parent families, Everybody's Doing It. That, it seems, is the received wisdom -- but it's not true. As Charles Murray noticed decades ago and demographers have known for some time, the structure of families has diverged drastically by social class. The out-of-wedlock birth rate among women with no more than a high-school education has skyrocketed since the 1960s but remains very low among college graduates. Divorce has declined among the well-off but is climbing among the unskilled. Although almost all college graduates still marry eventually, marriage rates are dropping steadily among those without a high-school degree."

DRUDGE REPORT from the Wayback Machine

The Ergosphere

Winds of Change.NET

Frames of Reference Interesting Biblical reference.

"Law is whatever is RIGHT, not what lawyers say. Business is that stuff that gets in the way of doing what is RIGHT. Economics is what interferes with doing the RIGHT thing, which is giving everything away." Anonymous Slashdot post. I think this sums up left wing politics.

WorldNetDaily: Hannity electrifies 'Marketing of Evil'

Sneaking Suspicions Home Page Interesting Delaware blog.

Legal disassembly | The Register

Ocean City Hotels, Golf, Travel, Maryland - New OC Restaurants Open Doors to Beachgoers on OceanCity.com

Blogger BuzzBlog about blogging from blogger, errr

Gas price increases spur interest in telecommuting - Computerworld Finally 1975 has arrived!

Ariz. High School Trades Books for Laptops: "'Because most schools are not starting from scratch ... most districts are using a blended approach now and will phase out their printed textbooks,' he said. For example, in the Henrico County school system near Richmond, Va., students in 23 middle and high schools will be using laptops for the fifth straight year, though teachers still use textbooks, said spokesman Mychael Dickerson. Many publishers of traditional textbooks are offering digital formats to address the growing use of computers, and that provided some of the material for Empire High's curriculum. Teachers also used subscription services and free Web resources. Students get the materials over the school's wireless Internet network. The school has a central filtering system that limits what can be downloaded on campus. The system also controls chat room visits and instant messaging that might otherwise distract wired students. Students can turn in homework online. A Web program checks against Internet sources for plagiarized material and against the work of other students, Baker said. 'If you copy from your buddy, it's going to get caught,' he said."

USATODAY.com - 'I'd leave here broke': "In a letter to the homeowners' lawyer a year ago, the development corporation justified its behavior by saying, 'We know that your clients did not expect to live in city-owned property for free.' Well, they might have expected not to be bullied for exercising their right to be heard in court."

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Bombs explode across Bangladesh

New worms hit U.S. media outlets, companies

Pardon for 'sex slave' executed for killing her abusive captor: "The trial of Ms Baker was set for 14 August 1944. On that day, an all-white, all-male jury was picked, the trial was held, a verdict of murder was reached, and the judge pronounced the death sentence. No forensic evidence was presented, Ms Baker's state appointed lawyer called no outside witnesses in her defence, and hearsay evidence against her was allowed."

Bill Clinton's Post-Presidency - A Plan for World Domination: "Clinton is still a man of huge public-service aspirations. He?s still adored abroad. And he?s still considered president by the nation?s estranged, bluer half. Yet he?s also still deeply wounded, burdened by a sense of both underappreciation and unrealized promise. Much more than his successor, Clinton understood exactly which direction the world was headed when he twice took the oath of office, yet he didn?t, for reasons both circumstantial and of his own unlovely making, deliver some of the things he valued most: universal health care, a shored-up system of social security, energy independence, security at home and in the Middle East. He can?t rest on his laurels. So what does a man do with all this feral hunger?to do more, to set the record straight?and all this hurt, God, so much hurt, which steams off him with such intensity it practically blurs the air?"

Taking on record companies: "Santangelo was sued by several record companies in U.S. District Court in White Plains in February. The record companies said Santangelo's home computer and Internet account were used to illegally trade copyrighted song files. The record companies say people like Santangelo are destroying the multibillion-dollar industry." Where is my violin?

The story of Mel, a Real Programmer from FOLDOC

TimesDispatch.com | PHOTOS: iBook sale frenzy HAHA! Got this from:News.com

The Southwest Florida GNU/Linux Users Group - Seagate warranty -- not recommended for professional use: "As I write this now (Sunday afternoon or more affectionately known as day 5), I'm still waiting for a replacement drive from Seagate. I'm not holding my breath, as I wrote earlier, I've already arranged for a replacement from my vendor. I just cannot believe that this is how Seagate responds to warranty claims for their higher end products. This is not a run-of-the-mill IDE drive that came with my ordinary workstation. This is a server quality hot swappable SCSI 320 hard drive. This is the kind of hardware you'd regularly find in a server running someone's business."

Clinton: I Would Have Attacked Bin Laden: "'I desperately wish that I had been president when the FBI and CIA finally confirmed, officially, that bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole,' Clinton tells New York magazine this week. 'Then we could have launched an attack on Afghanistan early.'" Yeah. Pull the other one.

vb developers embrace linux... say what???

Mac Rumors: Apple and Google Partnership? Yawn.

Vista Gives the Linux Desktop a Chance: "Microsoft isn't saying how it ended up with corrupted files on the Microsoft Download Center. That sure doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy about Microsoft's protection today or tomorrow. Come on, Linux desktop guys. There's a golden opportunity to take the wind out of Microsoft's sales sails here. All you need do is to keep making the Linux desktop better. Microsoft is already doing its part to make itself an also-ran."

Video Without Boundaries, Inc. MediaREADY? 5000 Advanced Digital Media Center

A Sense of Deja Boom - Yahoo! News: "Yet listen closely, and there's a forlorn quiver in her voice--indeed in the voices of many of this state's half-million hard-boiled residents. Dating back to the 1920s, there's never been an energy boom in Wyoming without a bust trailing behind it."

PBS | I, Cringely . August 11, 2005 - The Gloves Come Off: "This is why the cable TV companies are all ramping-up their Internet bandwidth. For the moment, they still have an advantage, but in another year or two that will be lost, so they are trying to bulk-up now, hoping customers will later be too lazy to switch."

The Future Of Radio

GrayLady.com: NY Times explodes wall between print, Web

DavidByrne.com - home page

Falsifiability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Paul Feyerabend examined the history of science with a more critical eye, and ultimately rejected any prescriptive methodology at all. He went beyond Lakatos? argument for ad hoc hypothesis, to say that science would not have progressed without making use of any and all available methods to support new theories. He rejected any reliance on a scientific method, along with any special authority for science that might derive from such a method. Rather, he claimed, ironically, that if one is keen to have a universally valid methodological rule, anything goes would be the only candidate. For Feyerabend, any special status that science might have derives from the social and physical value of the results of science rather than its method. Following from Feyerabend, the whole 'Popper project' to define science around one particular methodology?which accepts nothing except itself?is a perverse example of what he supposedly decried: a closed circle argument. Moreover, it makes Popper effectively a philosophical nominalist, which has nothing to do with empirical sciences at all. Although Popper's claim of the singular characteristic of falsifiability does provide a way to replace invalid inductive thinking (empiricism) with deductive, falsifiable reasoning, it appeared to Feyerabend that doing so is neither necessary for, nor conducive to, scientific progress."

Falsifiability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SupInfoCom - Arles

Discovery Lands Safely in California: "Discovery swooped through the predawn darkness and landed at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert at 5:11 a.m. PDT, concluding the conclusion of the first shuttle re-entry since Columbia's tragic return." I'm glad it has concluded,

MS nixes Google hire | The Register: "'Lee is not a search expert,' they state, pretty baldly. 'throughout his career ... Lee was an executive who managed groups developing technologies in the area of speech engines and enhancing the user interface.' All his triumphs were someone else's work, they insist. And Lee didn't know anything about the commercial sphere, either. Hey, welcome to Google, you phoney. In fact the whole lawsuit reads like a work of fiction, and deserves to be forgetten fairly quickly. Two questions can't be, though - why did Microsoft push back now, with Lee? And how significant is this hiring spree? Is Google trophy hunting or are these make-or-break hires? The latter is a very good question, and it's worth looking at how much value media-visible rocket scientists have contributed. Recent evidence suggests not."

Acer Ferrari 4000 notebook | The Register: "When it came to raw power under SYSmark 2002 I expected the Acer to trail the Samsung slightly. After all, the Samsung had a 2GHz Pentium M chip compared to the 1.8GHz Turion in the Acer. However, I was proved wrong, with the Ferrari 4000 edging ahead of the X50 with a score of 252 compared to 241. The X50 did seem to have the edge when it came to PCMark 05 though, turning in an overall score of 2791, while the Ferrari 4000 could only manage 2661."

WSJ.com - The Theology of Global Warming: "First, the 'consensus' is ostensibly based upon the several Assessment Reports of the IPCC. One must bear in mind that the summary reports are political documents put together by government policy makers, who, to put it mildly, treat rather cavalierly the expressed uncertainties and caveats in the underlying scientific reports. Moreover, the IPCC was created to support a specific political goal. It is directed to support the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. In turn, the Convention calls for an effective international response to deal with 'the common concern of all mankind' -- in short, to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Statements by the leaders of the IPCC have been uninhibitedly political. Second, science is not a matter of consensus, as the histories of Galileo, Copernicus, Pasteur, Einstein and others will attest. Science depends not on speculation but on conclusions verified through experiment. Verification is more than computer simulations -- whose conclusions mirror the assumptions built in the model. Irrespective of the repeated assertions regarding a 'scientific consensus,' there is neither a consensus nor is consensus science."

WSJ.com - The Novak Exception, Again: "As long ago as February 2004 ('The Novak Exception'), we warned that the media would regret their demand for a special counsel to discover Mr. Novak's sources, since that same counsel would eventually turn on them. And so the special counsel has, sending Judith Miller of the New York Times to jail for contempt. The members of the liberal press pack owe Mr. Novak an apology, not vice versa."

Commerce Dept. Signs up For Red Hat

Microsoft Shops at Wal-Mart for an Operating Chief - New York Times Gees. Isn't this headline about 3-days old? NYT needs to go back to making up the news so they can get out ahead of everyone else.

Worm risk over Win2K flaw | The Register: "'Whilst news of this latest Microsoft flaw is presently fairly opaque to the industry, we cannot expect that it is, or will remain secret from the so-called 'black hats'. One can expect one or more worms to exploit this flaw as an attack vector very shortly,' said Tom Newton, product development manager of firewall developer SmoothWall."

Fireplaces by Heat & Glo: Gas Fireplaces, Wood Fireplaces, Electric Fireplaces Too bad this website is running Windows on an old 486. Might be easier to go there on a real road as opposed to the "information superhighway".

Developing alien technology? MS can help | The Register: "We're not quite sure what the difference is between 'redaction' and 'deleting' here, but presumably if we could work it out an MS black ops team would storm the building and erase our memories with an MIB-style device. Still, it's better to be safe than sorry, even if Microsoft does add the following caveat: **We recommend that you carefully review any documents redacted using this tool to confirm that all the information that you intended to redact was successfully redacted**. Yes, then eat the original, set fire to the building and kill yourself using the 'Redmond Blue Pill' as supplied with your end user licence. Thank you. Bootnote: *In our dictionary, 'redaction' is simply preparing for publication, or editing. Mind you, it is an 1873 edition - printed long before Microsoft redefined the English language paradigm with its magnificent Encarta offering."

Download details: Office 2003 Add-in: Word Redaction: "The Microsoft Office Word 2003 Redaction Add-in makes it easy for you to mark sections of a document for redaction. You can then redact the document so that the sections you specified are blacked out. You can either print the redacted document or use it electronically." Or you can simply redact Word from your computer and be done with it.

U.S., U.K. Airlift Robots to Help Russian Submariners: "The situation is atypical,'' Alexander Kosolapov head of the Pacific Fleet's press service, told Rossiya Television after the accident was first announced this morning. "But it's not worth dramatizing.'' What is it with these Russians? They are so "I can handle it, I can handle it!" and then so "Ooops, I can't handle it!"

First potential virus risk for Windows Vista found | CNET News.com: "A virus writer has published the first examples of malicious code that targets Microsoft's upcoming command-line shell, code-named Monad, according to Finnish antivirus maker F-Secure. If the technology is included in Windows Vista, these could be one of the first viruses to target the new operating system formerly known as Longhorn, F-Secure said Thursday." The thing isn't even out yet and there are viruses for it? Way to go Microsoft!

Microsoft develops new 'Super' language | The Register: "Describing the importance of indexed search and retrieval in Windows at last month's partner conference in Minnesota, Ballmer went one further, by describing the capability as not just 'super' important or even 'super, super' important, but, he ruminated: 'Super, super important, super important.' Watch out for next year's analysts? summit."

The INQUIRER guide to roadmaps Very handy reference.

Darknet: "Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation is a new book that offers first-person accounts of how the personal media revolution will impact movies, music, computing, television and games. Released May 2005."

Gore gored on new TV network | News.blog | CNET News.com: "It's not Blogma's intention to make routinely sarcastic comments about politicians who claim to be Web-savvy. (Honest.) Yet we couldn't help but notice the less-than-flattering blogger reviews of Al Gore's latest 'invention.'"

MercuryNews.com | 08/03/2005 | VCs party like it's 1999 with Brilliant Shopper deal: "Because it's hot, and VCs are the lemmings. Google and Yahoo started making money hand over fist, because of all the advertisers wanting to pay big bucks to list ads beside search results. And now a whole industry of others are trying to replicate that success -- either with an advertising model, or seeking another way to get a cut."

Microsoft Vista means you need new monitors: "The missing technology is Protected Video Path - Output Protection Management and while it is a de facto standard for display copy-protection in televisions, so far it has not made much of an impact in the computer display market. Amongst those that will not have it are the people who spent shedloads impressing their friends with their new Dell UltraSharp super sexy 2405FPW widescreen display." I can hardly wait. Oh... I can wait. I don't use Winderz. I'm still thinking about getting one of those Penguin AMD-64 workstations with Red Hat pre-inwstalled that I saw when I went to check on the blade servers (below).

LINUXWORLD SF: Penguin adds new 64-bit BladeRunners - Computerworld: "AUGUST 03, 2005 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Linux hardware and clustering company Penguin Computing Inc. is releasing two new blade servers in its BladeRunner family, the 4130 and the 4140, based on 64-bit chips from Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., respectively. Penguin will be showing off the blades at the LinuxWorld show taking place in San Francisco from Monday to Thursday." Hmmm. I thought Bladerunner went out of business. maybe they just got baught or something.

Comic Strip Blog: NASA dumps space shuttle design and goes back to primitive rockets I remember having arguments about this back in the 80s. Sometimes an idea just has to be tried and seen to fail before people will accept that it was a bad idea. There are a lot of notions that come to my mind that fit this mold. So why are people always so unwilling to try new ideas? And once they ARE dragged along why are both proponents and oponents often so reluctant to simply record the results and move on?

The Final Theory: Interesting.

Science that Backs Up Faith - Christianity Today Magazine

A Convert With a Crush on His Mac - Computerworld: "One of the main reasons for my initial interest in the Mac was security. Having spent countless hours repairing my family's, friends' and co-workers' computers after the ravages of malware, it occurred to me that there must be a better alternative. With its Unix core, the Mac OS X operating system was very appealing to me."

Understanding the TCP/IP protocol, Part 1 - Computerworld

Linux vendors cozy up to Debian to push into enterprise - Computerworld

Muslim-American Scholars Issue Fatwa Condemning Terrorism- U.S. Department Of State

? Respecting licenses goes both ways | Open Source | ZDNet.com

Funds of a Bronx Youth Group Allegedly Lent to Air America - August 1, 2005 - The New York Sun - NY Newspaper: "The top executive at a Bronx youth organization said yesterday that the former director of Air America Radio received more than $800,000 in loans for himself and the radio network from the nonprofit organization while serving as its development director." Looks like a nice place to work. I wonder if they have dental.

Hacker forced new planet discovery out of the closet: "It transpired that Brown and his friends had been sitting on the information since 2003 when they snapped it with a 122cm telescope at the Palomar Observatory. However they couldn?t confirm much about it until it was analysed again last January. So in the time honoured tradition of boffins everywhere they decided to keep the data from the common people until they knew a bit more. Brown said that data is still being processed and it will take at least six months before astronomers can determine the planet?s exact size. The planet seems to be about 1.5 times the size of Pluto, which is usually dubbed a planetoid because it is so small." That's allright, the hackers probably have faster computers and aren't running Windows. Maybe they can release the info on the planet's size sooner.

corante.com : "The world?s first blog media company, Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, science and business that?s authored by highly respected thinkers, commentators and journalists; read by many of the sector's top entrepreneurs, executives, funders and followers; and is helping to lead the emergence of blogging as an influential and important form of reportage, analysis and commentary"

EFF: DeepLinks - Microsoft Sells Out the Public on CGMS-A

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?

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.