Yahoo! News - Government Computer Blunders Are Common

'Dangerous' Global Warming Possible by 2026 - WWF I am so glad that the World Wrestling Federation has finally thrown their weight into this issue.

Tablet PC bug 'fills computer with ink' | The Register: "The tale raises two questions. Firstly, are so few people using Tablet PCs that this doesn't rank on Redmond's radar? The concept has promise, but Tablets only seem to be finding a home in vertical industry niches. Secondly, do Windows PCs stay up for such short periods of time that huge memory leaks aren't considered a serious issue by product managers? That would seem to define 'low expectations'. In the Mac world, a month's uptime isn't unusual (although there too, cruft accumulates). That's because Apple computers go to sleep and resume very quickly and reliably. So is it a case of one Windows bug - unreliable resume - concealing another? And how many more heap geysers would we discover if Windows were ever to reach an acceptable level of uptime? And what constitutes acceptable uptime?"

A 'Genuine' Pain in the Neck: "The chances of me finding a flashlight, putting on my glasses, getting down on my knees and crawling under my desk, then tilting the machine so I can read the numbers out loud for someone else to write down are almost precisely zero."

DHS classified briefings leaked through Energy system DOH!

GNU/Linux And Open Source Medical Software News (Open Source in Medicine)

FreeMED.org :: FreeMED Project (Open Source)

CARE2X Integrated Healthcare Environment (Formerly: Care 2X Integrated Hospital Information System or Care 2002) founded by Elpidio Latorilla (Open Source)

HP denies rumors of CEO shift | CNET News.com

AXIS Video ServerPenquins!

The Linux Cookbook (LinuxWorld): "Forty years ago the United States was the greatest producer society in the world. What happened in that interval and how does it relate to Linux? Part of that transformative shift was the adoption of the view that computer programs were objects that you bought at the store, that they were somehow new 'technology' to bank on. This obscured what they really were - written works to be published and examined and read, as well as performed by the hardware. When you remove that from the culture and only sell it as a sealed object in the box, you have a fairy-tale economy and a culture that is sliding into irrelevance, decadence, and decay. Linux is a return to the old tradition, to the individual inventor-scientist and industrial entrepreneur as the productive member of an educated populace. That's what so exciting about it."

Microsoft Lays Off Windows Testers You mean... They actually HAD testers? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

New York City - Health and Science: "Dr. Carlos Cardon-Cardo, a molecular pathologist at the cancer center and a senior author of the research, defined Pokemon as an oncogene, which means it is capable of causing cancer. Dozens of oncogenes have been discovered over the past 25 years. But unlike the others, Cardon-Cardo said Pokemon has a governing role - it is needed for other genes to function. Eliminate Pokemon, he said, and you stop the activity of other cancer-causing genes."

The Cell Processor Explained, Part 4: Cell V's the PC: "Game on You could argue gamers will still drive PC performance up but Sony could always pull a fast one and produce a PS3 on a card for the PC. Since it would not depend on the PC's computational or memory resources it's irrelevant how weak or strong they are. Sony could produce a card which turns even the lowest performance PC into a high end gaming machine, If such a product sold in large numbers studios developing for PS3 already may decide they not need to develop a separate version for the PC, the resulting effect on the PC games market could be catastrophic. While you could use an emulated OS it's always preferable to have a native OS. There's always Linux However Linux isn't really a consumer OS and seems to be having something of a struggle becoming one. There is however another very much consumer ready OS which already runs on a 'Power Architecture' CPU: OS X."

Linux Inc. Great article on the current status of Linux and Open Source.

Outlook Subscription Service: Will Folks Bite?: "We've been confused about 'Microsoft Office Outlook Live' since word first leaked about it last year. Now that the subscription service has been announced, we're even more confused. Who is the audience for this? Are there really a lot of Hotmail power users who don't already own Office and who would be willing to pay $59.95 a year in order to use Outlook 2003's to manage their messages, contacts and calendars? Why not just use the MSN Outlook Connector that's part of MSN Premium? Microsoft says this is first (of what one would assume will be several) Office-based subscription services. Perhaps the next will make more sense (to us, at least)." Ooops I quoted the whole article. Exactly my thoughts though. I'm expecting any time now to see some signs of desparation on the part of Microsoft. Sure they can salvage a contract here or there by practically giving the product away, and they can even shuffle the numbers around to make everything look solid for a while. Having the CFO leave makes you wonder whether all that can be legally done along those lines is in the past though. They need something though, whether it's the Xbox or those stupid notepad things to zoom into the stratosphere of ubiquity, and so far, nothing has. Having to give away so much Hotmail disk space can't have helped mattters. Having an online subscription version of Office actually makes a lot of sense, but of course, as soon as MS admits this, they will have competitors doing it better and cheaper. Not clear that they will have an unfair advantage that they seem to need in order to make such a move.

Boston.com / News / Local / Mass. / Sen. Clinton urges use of faith-based initiatives: "On the eve of the presidential inauguration, US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton last night embraced an issue some pundits say helped seal a second term for George W. Bush: acceptance of the role of faith in addressing social ills. In a speech at a fund-raising dinner for a Boston-based organization that promotes faith-based solutions to social problems, Clinton said there has been a 'false division' between faith-based approaches to social problems and respect for the separation of church of state. 'There is no contradiction between support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our constitutional principles,' said Clinton, a New York Democrat who often is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008." In related news: Hell freezes over.

Yahoo! News - More smoke than fire: "Of course, the feds will then have to find other ways to cover the full cost of the rest of the budget, as well as raise extra billions to redeem the trust fund bonds. But that's just another reason why it would have been smart not to pile up so much federal debt in recent years. Indeed, it might well have been wise, back when the overall budget was moving into the black, as 'that president' Bill Clinton (news - web sites) then proposed, to put some fund surpluses into private accounts, if only to keep the pols from using them for income tax cuts and other spending."

Tricks Used by Infrequent Visitors to the Senate to Stay Awake

U.S. to add tsunami buoys Oh Buoy.

Yahoo, Verizon ink Web tie-in | CNET News.com: "The deal represents a competitive win for Yahoo because it replaces Microsoft's MSN as the default Web portal for new Verizon customers. MSN and Verizon struck their original agreement in June 2002, but the combined service was slow to get off the ground." Yes, because it was a piece of CRAP! When I found out that I HAD to install Verizon/MSN software on a PC just to set up my DSL account I used a PC that I was about to re-format anyway. ID and password set up, I programmed them into my router and accessed DSL from a pristeen Linux machine. It was fun to read in the support newsgroups about all the trouble Windows users where having though. Pity them.

Neoware Products - Capio One with Linuxhmmmm, maybe I'll get one of these instead of a Mac-mini.

WSJ.com - The Office PC Slims Down: "The Pentagon is also turning to thin clients to improve security, switching some 30,000 users in various intelligence services from Windows-based servers to Sun Microsystems thin clients. Ryan Durante, program manager, says that currently, some users have up to '13 different Dells or Compaqs under their desks,' each connected to a computer network with a different level of security. Every group of coalition allies has its own secure network, and every new network requires a new PC. After the transition to thin clients, users will simply have a Sun Ray thin client and a PC that connects to the Internet. Mr. Durante says that users are initially alarmed when they lose their myriad PCs, but when they see 'all the networks on the screen at the same time, the reaction is, 'Holy Cow!' '" THIRTEEN computers. Holy Cow indeed.

WSJ.com - The Office PC Slims Down: "For computer-industry veterans, the growing interest in thin clients sounds like back to the future. Before the International Business Machines Corp. PC came along in 1981, virtually all corporate desktop computers were terminals networked to central mainframes or minicomputers. Documents were produced on back-room printers" And BY GOD we'll do it that way again eventually! hehe.

WSJ.com - Microsoft's Finance Chief Quits To Join Venture-Capital Firm: "John Connors, the Microsoft Corp. finance chief who guided the software giant through a historic transition to a more mature organization, is leaving to join a venture-capital firm. Microsoft said it is searching for a successor for Mr. Connors, who said he expects to remain as chief financial officer until April and that he is leaving voluntarily. The company is considering candidates both inside and outside Microsoft." I'm always suspicious when CFOs leave, "voluntarily" or otherwise.

Streamload - Trash Can 10 Gig of "free" storage, that as far as I can tell is practically impossible to use. I hate these bait and switch deals.

NIC - Mapping the Global Future Interesting source for world data.

New York fumes over online loss of ciggy taxes | The Register: "This situation is the result of a lawsuit against now defunct Cigs4Cheap.com in which the city was able to obtain the names of smokers who had purchased cigarettes online. New York forbids online sellers to ship cigarettes to its residents, avoiding a $3 per pack tax. New York, in October of 2003, sued 7 online cigarette sellers, including Cigs4Cheap.com." HEY no fair going out of business, who's gonna pay for all our waste, fraud and abuse?

No More Internet for Them Windows Users: Don't ride your tricycles on the highway. Send a little note to Bill Gates thanking him for so equiping you.

LCD sales to falter during 2005: "Nevertheless, Samsung made a full year profit of around $10.3 billion, making it more profitable than either Microsoft ($8.1 billion profit) and Intel ($7.5 billion net profit)."

Red Hat tries again with Linux enthusiasts | CNET News.com: "Red Hat will hold its first-ever Fedora User and Developer Conference--FUDcon--at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Feb. 18 and 19, right after the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Boston." FUDcon? What a bad acronym. They need to change one of those words.

ABC News: Kennedy: Democrats Need Progressive Agenda"Kennedy also mangled the name of the Democrats' new star, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, calling him "Osama bin ? Osama ? Obama."

BBC NEWS | UK | Harry says sorry for Nazi costume Past time for the British to do away with this anachronism.

The problem with webcams installed at businesses:

FOXNews.com - Politics - Berger Heist In Front of Grand Jury"Berger admits removing 40 to 50 top-secret documents from the archives, but claims it was an "honest mistake" made while he vetted documents for the 9/11 commission's probe into the Twin Towers attacks. Berger has also acknowledged that he destroyed some documents ? he says by accident." Informed sources also indicate that berger received third degree burns trying to ride and Acme rocket, broke both arms after a fall from a cliff after trying to push a large bolder from said cliff. Mr. Berger appeared in court with head bandaged, claiming that he fell faster than the bolder and was subsequently totally crushed by it. Road Runner was unavailable for comment.

Apple - Mac mini I think this may be my next computer.

Gates taking a seat in your den | Newsmakers | CNET News.com He'd better bring his own cleaning supplies. I'm not feeding him either. He should have stayed in school when he had the chance. Id rather he sponge off his parents though now that his empire is colapsing. (I never RTFAs at cnet, just the cutesy headlines)

johnny.ihackstuff.com :: I'm j0hnny. I hack stuff.from here

Google Search: inurl:indexFrame.shtml Axis neato

Google exposes web surveillance cams | The Register

PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column: "8) Desktop Linux will finally make some serious inroads as Linspire sets the trend for how to make Linux more user-friendly. There will undoubtedly be other players in this space, but they'll just be emulating Linspire (formerly Lindows). Now if Linspire could only manage a one-click installation of MythTV." I wish everyone would stop making these Desktop Linux predictions. However I predict an increased number of them.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Gates unveils his digital vision: "'People are online and playing together and that really points to the future,' he said." Uh, yeah.

Edmonton Journal - canada.com network: "I am so amazed that you did this - the people of America; that you voted for this film,' said a laughing Moore as the audience cheered wildly. 'I'm honoured and gratified.' He dedicated the award to those who are fighting in Iraq." I'm amazed too. So much so that I am pre-awarding Moore my Butthole of the Century award now rather than waithing untill 2099 as I would usually do. Yes, I saw the movie. It sucked.

Yahoo! News - Internal U.N. Audits Ignite Debate: "But the United Nations had refused access to congressional investigators until Volcker's panel sent them copies on Friday. A congressional aide provided the AP with copies of three of the 56 audits, including one that found that the United Nations was billed over several years for 31 days of work in June, which only has 30 days." Now Volker on the payroll too?

Yahoo! News - New York Times Mulls Charging Web ReadersOh the Insanity! Make my day NYT. Make my bloody day.

Gates touts TiVo deal at CES | CNET News.com "Gates started out by giving an overview of Microsoft's digital media strategy, assisted by talk show host Conan O'Brien. Gates said Microsoft would continue to make it easier to unite digital experiences. 'If you look at today's living room, you have five remote controls and you still can't get your music where you want it,' Gates said." Blah blah blah blah blah. Didn't he say this 5 years ago? Actually you CAN get your music where you want for acouple hundred dollars if you are of a mind to do so. Do I want to spend $1000 or more for a Microsoft solution? Probably not. Those five remotes don't get viruses... "The presentation was marred by several technical glitches, including a Windows XP Media Center slide show that couldn't be launched and an Xbox game demonstration that abruptly ended with a blue-screen memory error." Uh huh, like we said.

Laws And Regulations It's the LAW. In China.

Melanie Phillips's Articles: The Reporting of Iraq and Israel: An Abuse of Media Power

NewsForge | Building a distro Interesting.

Mitch Kapor's Weblog: When Browsers Grow Up Well, I'm not sure during that whole 25 year period I ever thoguht that PCs had surpassed mainframes in their ability to get USEFUL work done. I jumped feet first into the PC world quite a while back, allowing my mainframe skills to wither. Sometimes I'm not too sure it was a wise move.

orkut - server error in application Orkut continues to suck badly. Not that I ever had much use for it, other than comparing notes with other Gmail users. Could it be that it's the only Google application that runs on Windows servers?

Everybody Is Crazy-Why bandwidth should scare Microsoft

The Care and Feeding of FOSS: The Lifecycle of Software Technology: "Did you ever sign a license agreement that banned you from reverse-engineering your car? No. It's the difference between information and bricks: Information costs essentially zero to copy, but every brick costs the same as the last one. Once a manufacturer designs a new car, they have to invest a billion dollars or so building a REALLY big factory to manufacture them. By contrast, once you design your software, you (or anybody else) can manufacture it for virtually nothing. This is true of all products that consist of information rather than things: books, movies, music, encyclopedias, stock predictions and newspapers, and is the foundation of the current crisis of rampant information theft on the internet. This is the critical difference between 'traditional' businesses and software: Software costs virtually nothing to manufacture. It is hard to emphasize this point enough, for it is the key to the last two stages of the software lifecycle, and the key to understanding the business itself."

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > Terminating Spyware With Extreme Prejudice: "For now, though, computing experts recommend what they call a 'multilayered approach' - translation: ad hoc, complicated and largely ineffective."... "He recommended I talk to his friend Larry Wagner, an independent technology consultant who has become a self-styled sherpa in hard-drive erasure. At last count, he had helped six other people (including his in-laws, his parents, a colleague from work and my friend) deal with spyware problems. Mr. Wagner is particularly enthusiastic about deleting - and upon hearing my sordid tale, requested that I wipe my hard drive under his auspices."... "Two weeks later, still no spyware. Yes, it was a huge production, but after struggling with spyware for the last six months, I have to say it was well worth it."

INDUSTORIOUS CLOCK ||| MONO*CRAFTS

Grandfather Economic Report - Home Page - by MWHodges Cleaning up my bookmarks. Found this. Great intor to the real world for Liberals (lots of pictures!)

USNews.com: Health: In Brief: Seniors' Health: Longevity (12/31/04): "It must be the chocolate...or the cheese...or the Alpine air...or the fierce independence. People in Switzerland are more likely to make it to 100 than people in any other European country. Researchers in France and in Lausanne, on the shores of Lake Geneva, looked at patterns of age in Switzerland." Definitely, HAS to be the chocolate.

IBM hands Lenovo billion-dollar PC loser | The Register

Philips DVP642 DVD player brings MPEG4 to the masses

The Seattle Times: Pacific Northwest Magazine An article well worth reading in its entirety at some point.

Ernie The Attorney: Windows error messages make me feel at home Don't tell me that all the news stories detailing commuter delays over the holidays forgot to mention that it was a WINDOWS problem!

Web3D Consortium - Open Standards for Real-Time 3D Communication

The Flux Papers"In my world view, the best and surest path to making money with real time interactive 3D over the long haul requires standards. Are they sufficient? Of course not. But they are absolutely necessary. Without standards, the market will never reach an interesting enough size. Without standards, customers will never invest in a new technology like real time 3D, unless of course it is supplied by you-know-who, and they don?t seem to be in much of a hurry. (The latest estimates I?ve heard place spinning boxes in the operating system by 2007. Sorry, Bill, but the world isn?t going to wait that long.) Without standards, real time 3D will continue wandering about its own version of the Balkans, with rich content trapped in $20,000 CAD design seats or withering away on proprietary vines, unplayable because the player company is out of business or changed its mind to meet the fashion of the day."

Adobe AtmosphereOUCH! I really liked this program. Excep they became too dependant on Windows and IE.

My Way News: "Egeland told reporters on Tuesday: 'I've been misinterpreted when I yesterday said that I believed that rich countries in general can be more generous.'" No, Fire this guy.

U.N. official slams U.S. as 'stingy' over aid - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - December 28, 2004UN: Fire this guy!

Block I Apollo Guidance Computer Replica

New World Notes: THE NINE SOULS OF WILDE CUNNINGHAM, PART I

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Scientists get to the root of colour loss: "The scientists traced the greying process to the demise of a type of stem cell in the skin. These make a continuous supply of melanocytes, cells which produce pigments in skin and hair. These stem cells not only get depleted over time, they also start making mistakes, turning into melanocytes in the wrong place in the hair follicle where they are unable to colour the hair."

Next IBM-Apple chip getting high-end feature | CNET News.com: "The technology, called partitioning, relies on a concept called virtualization that breaks the hard link between an operating system and the underlying hardware. Partitioning is available today only on servers using IBM's higher-end Power4 and Power5 processors and in competing server designs from Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Intel." Can ya dig it?

Salt Lake Tribune - Breaking: Corporate ousters at SCO parent company At lat this disgusting debacle draws to a close!

The Linux Link: Portal To Linux Web Radio Shows

LugRadio.org - Home page

Google Pictures: Chris Breikss and Google Adwords Team Members Is it just me or is there a bit of nepotism going on here?

Torvalds: A Solaris skeptic | Newsmakers | CNET News.com: "That's why I think the commercial desktop is important: It's what made DOS (and later Windows) feel familiar to people, and I think that's where the more general desktop push ends up happening. But it's going to take years" I'm glad he said that.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Washington Post buys Slate online magazine: "Microsoft Corp. sold its popular Slate online magazine Tuesday to The Washington Post Co., a move that makes Slate's political commentary and quirky feature articles more broadly available across the Internet." Now I find this an odd statement, true though it may be, that content owned by a traditional print media company has a better chance of being broadly available on the Internet than it has in the hands of a major, no THE major software company of our time. It says a lot about the nature of Microsoft.

Walmart.com debuts sub-$500 Linux laptop It's a sad day when you can buy a laptop computer for less than the cost of a limited palmtop device. Gradually these price inequities are being erased. Now for another round of price cutting on desktop systems, and more pressure on software companies to admit that they have long ago amortized their development costs or come out with something that is actually new and innovative. For that last item we won't be holding our breath.

On-demand publishing for books, music, images: Lulu.com

Linux Opinion: An Open Letter to a Digital World (LinuxWorld)(Printview): "The clean up from these types of infections is great fun. I spent not less than 5 hours running about every spyware prevention program known to man. Each one searching for those pesky files and registry settings. The worst thing of all was that, once I cleared them off the disk, simply starting Internet Explorer would reinfect the whole system. Seriously, it was great fun and I did, eventually, have the satisfaction of beating the problem. That's right - a system administrator for 10 years with a degree in computer science and a RHCE CAN clean up a single spyware infection in 5 hours." Maybe the ACLU should sue Microsoft. Two sources of evil in perpetual death grip. Worse could happen.

ACLU members cry foul over its data collection - The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA Maybe they should sue themselves?

OfB.biz: Open for Business - Perspectives on KDE Multimedia: "The second question, however, is much harder. 'What goals are those and how do we decide which applications best fulfill those?' That's something that I think traditional development models would answer with 'Here's the application that you'll use, because it's, well, the only one that we're giving you.' I must say that at times the simplicity of such is appealing. But we're more or less forced into an evolutionary approach, which I think has some nice side effects as well."

BOFH gets into the Xmas spirit | The Register

Moore's Law turns into Moron's Law

OhmyNews International Interesting.

Wired News: Linux: Fewer Bugs Than Rivals From the We Think We Already Knew This department.

Harvard University Library: "Harvard Libraries and Google Announce Pilot Digitization Project with Potential Benefits to Scholars Worldwide"

InformationWeek > Browser Security > Penn State Tells 80,000 Students To Chuck IE > December 10, 2004: "'The University computing community [should] use standards-based Web browsers other than Internet Explorer to help minimize exposure to attacks that occur through browser vulnerabilities,' added ITS." Who knows. Could a standards based operating system be next?

Wintasks 5 Professional: A Windows background boffin Windows: A popular computer operating system of the late 20th century known for including things not normally thought to belong in an operating system and yet still leaving out basic things like complete task monitoring.

Forbes.com: The Battle Of The DVD: "The consortiums backing both are marching on, despite the fact that the duel between the VHS and Betamax video tape formats is cited ad nauseum as a textbook example of a costly business blunder that angered consumers and held back the technology's adoption." Note to media giants: F-you!

IEEE Spectrum Careers"In particular, Smucker's claimed that Albie's had infringed Smucker's recently granted U.S. Patent No. 6004596, which gives the Orrville, Ohio, company broad protection on its "sealed crustless sandwich." In a move that undoubtedly surprised the jam magnates, Albie's decided to defend itself in federal court. Albie's law firm noted in its filings that the "pasty"?a meat pie with crimped edges?has been popular fare in northern Michigan since the immigration of copper and iron miners from Cornwall, England, in the 19th century. A battle in federal court over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches may seem merely funny and a little pathetic. But it is symptomatic of the larger and more profound problems with the U.S. patent system. We have reached the point where serious lawyers are being paid serious fees by a big company to shut down the PB&J operation of a grocery store."

USATODAY.com - Deciphered chicken genome sheds light on human DNA: "Not surprisingly, chickens were found to lack any version of the human genes for milk, saliva and tooth enamel. These genes were, as the scientists put it in a presentation for reporters, as rare as hen's teeth. Unfortunately, the new analysis shed no light on a mystery that has long bedeviled humanity: Why does the chicken cross the road? 'That question,' Wilson observed in an interview, 'is still out there to be answered.'"

Apple of IBM's eye? | The Registermmmm-meby.

Is IBM PC sell off preparation for a Power chip attack? | The Register *nods*

MSNBC - Bloggerman by Keith Olbermann"If untold numbers of operatives really were dispatched to polling places around the country to enact the most nefarious political plot in this country?s history, why would the ring-leaders reveal to any of them any of the following: * The total amount spent on the plan (Madsen drops the $29 million dollar figure in the first sentence)? * The primary source of the carefully laundered cash (Madsen sites ?Five Star Trust?)? * The sources of ?other money used to fund the election rigging? (Madsen lists ?siphoned Enron money stored away in accounts in the Cook Islands?)? Most importantly, having told their minions all of this damning information, having sent them out on an evil mission that if exposed could overturn an election and require the building of extra prisons just to hold all those who would be convicted in such an overarching scheme, why on earth would they try toget away with not paying them?" Other good thoughts there too.

The New Yorker: The Perfect Mystery"He had been investigating the whereabouts of an archive of Conan Doyle?s papers, which he believed had been stolen. At the same time, he hinted that there had been threats to his life and that he was being followed; soon afterward, he was found garroted in his room, surrounded by Sherlock Holmes books and posters, with a cord around his neck."

Coastal drowning scenario? Interesting info on other topics too.

Lawmakers Want MLB to Fix Steroid Woes"Sen. John McCain, the driving force behind changing how baseball polices performance-enhancing drug use, said Sunday he believes President Bush would sign a bill into law." Drudge had a good idea about this... How about mandatory drug tests for Congresspeople. Makes perfect sense to me. Baseball players can take all the drugs they want as far as I care.

AMD projects January Shock'n'Awe

MSNBC - The Airbus Showdown: "It's time to stop the subsidy game. The Bush administration proposed a pragmatic bargain: all past subsidies would be accepted; future subsidies would be banned. Airbus plans a direct competitor plane to the 7E7 (to be called the A350) and wants more subsidies. These would be prohibited. If Boeing countered the A380 with an improved version of its jumbo 747, it would be barred from subsidies."

flotilla

flotilla,
originally uploaded by macb.

Really huge flotilla of seagulls a few hundred yards off the beach. Has been out there for at least an hour.