Friday, May 31, 2002

Where piracy and profits converge

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Ice reservoirs found on Mars Water-ice has been found in vast quantities just below the surface across great swathes of the planet Mars.

Towel Day

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

Yahoo! News - Rescuers Pull Vehicle from Ark. River

ScienceDaily Magazine -- Nanotube-Laced Epoxy: Three Times Harder, Far Better At Conducting Heat

Yahoo! News - Extinct Tasmanian Tiger One Step Closer to Cloning Australian scientists announced on Tuesday a breakthrough in efforts to clone the extinct Tasmanian Tiger, saying they had replicated some of the animal's genes using DNA extracted from preserved male and female pups.

VHJ: What Next?

US military helicopters clash with Abu Sayyaf rebels in Philippines

Two US Pave Hawk helicopters exchanged fire with a band of suspected Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas in the southern Philippine island of Basilan, local military officials said.
There were no reports of any casualties on the side of the American soldiers who were flying supplies into Basilan when the incident occurred late Monday, local military commander Colonel Alexander Aleo said.
It was the first incident of direct combat between the US troops in Basilan and suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim armed group believed linked to the al-Qaeda terror network of Osama bin Laden, suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Military reports said about 10 gunmen believed to be Abu Sayyaf members opened fire on the HH-60 helicopters as they were flying over the town of Tuburan, prompting the US troops aboard to return fire with the helicopters' machineguns.

Amid the Universe's Chaos, a Few Habitable Places

Friday, May 24, 2002

Linux Gaming: Is SDL The Answer


Why do I put up with Windows, even though I am totally angered at Microsoft corporate policies? Games. That is the primary reason. I think Windows XP is bloated spyware that shoves all things "Microsoft" down your gullet. I think that Windows 2000 Professional is pretty close to awesome, but it still does not have all the peripheral and gaming performance I would like. I stick with Windows 98 SE for simplicity and compatibility, not to mention raw speed. Almost all of my games play great on 98 SE, and I'm not about to upgrade if I have to leave my games behind.

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Smart chimps get their reward The way chimpanzees in West Africa use stone tools to crack open nuts for food and pass on the trick to their offspring has been revealed in an intriguing study published in the journal Science

BBC News | SCI/TECH | 'Solar cloth' offers moveable power Textiles which incorporate solar cells could allow some travellers to dispense with batteries altogether, predict scientists.
Researchers at the School of Textiles at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland say they may be able to produce fabrics carrying solar cells.

BBC News | SCI/TECH | DNA traces found in ancient rock Scientists say they have found traces of ancient bacterial DNA that are dozens of millions of years old.

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Evolution of supercats


Anyone who has ever owned a cat will know that there is no limit to feline charm.
But now a US psychologist has come up with evidence that nature is giving a helping hand.
Nicholas Nicastro, of Cornell University, believes moggies are evolving into supercats that are better able to exploit humans.

He says cats have learned what buttons to press to please their owners after 5,000 years of living with us. Apparently, it is all down to the miaows they choose to get want they want.

The rewards are clear - more pampering, tastier food and a seat in the comfiest chair. But not all scientists are convinced.

Everything Space A model of a system for growing plants to plan biological experiments in space has just left the company of ROVSING, in Ballerup near Copenhagen, on its way to ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands.
The full name of this experiment reference model is European Modular Cultivation System Experiment Reference Model (EMCS ERM). This will be used at ESTEC to plan and carry out experiments for growing plants in space. Then in 2003 the EMCS Flight Model will be flown to the International Space Station (ISS) where the experiments will be repeated in space.

From database to 3D, a new vision thing - Tech News - CNET.com Though scientists have long used computers to run virtual experiments and map new areas of research, such as human DNA, until now it was not technically or financially practical to turn the results of an experiment into anything more than a small 3D image.
The hardware needed to generate giant 3D pictures can still fill a room, but it's getting much cheaper now than it has ever been thanks to the advent of the Linux operating system and low-cost, rack-mountable servers.
"I don't know if four or five years ago (this) would have been reasonable to do," Bresnahan said.

Everything Space Australian telescopes have helped provide the clinching evidence that gamma-ray bursts - the biggest bangs in the Universe - are produced when massive stars explode and their cores collapse to form black holes.
An international team of astronomers led by Professor Shri Kulkarni of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) got their proof from a gamma-ray burst that occurred last November, GRB 011121.

Everything Space Intriguingly, when combined with existing information on the CMB, they seem to show just how much the growth of the Universe itself (and of structures in it) is controlled by matter and how much by the mysterious dark energy that is now thought to pervade the vacuum of space.

Everything Space ESA's solar satellite, SOHO, has become the best comet spotter the world has ever known. When SOHO's latest solar images are posted on the Internet, astronomers and space enthusiasts alike are thrilled when they spot evidence of new comets that have never been seen before as they pass close to the Sun. Since SOHO's launch in 1995, 435 new comets have been discovered. And, in the very near future, the 500th new comet will be found.

Everything Space Slowly but Surely - Artemis Heads Towards its Working Position
May 19, 2002

Asian Aerospace 2002: Boeing in no hurry on Sonic Cruiser Having started with a blank computer screen and a generous specification spread of 100 to 300 seats and range of 7,000 to 9,000 mi, Boeing engineers now have narrowed their studies to 200 to 250 seats with range beginning at 6,500 nm, according to Dan Mooney, Boeing Commercial Airplanes product-development vice president.

The company is working with engine manufacturers and a number of “customers” to refine the initial configuration, which involves a canard configuration with engines buried deep in pods that flank two tailfins above the trailing edge of a sharply swept wing.

Mooney said that adoption of a common twin-aisle cabin cross-section, which could be used for a new Boeing “family,” has proved a breakthrough. “We do not have to work with the area-ruling that appeared in previous high-speed designs,” he said. Boeing is making extensive use of computational fluid dynamics to understand likely aerodynamic behavior and expects advanced composites materials to be required to meet (unspecified) weight targets.

Cosmiverse - The Space Portal

Thursday, May 23, 2002

For half a century, scholars have searched in vain for the source of the jade that the early civilizations of the Americas prized above all else and fashioned into precious objects of worship, trade and adornment.
.
The searchers found some clues to the source of jadeite, as the precious rock is known, for the Olmecs and Mayas. But no lost mines came to light.
.
Now, scientists exploring the wilds of Guatemala say they have found the mother lode - a mountainous region strewn with huge jade boulders, other rocky treasures and signs of ancient mining. It was discovered after a hurricane tore through the landscape and exposed the veins of jade, some of which turned up in stores, arousing the curiosity of scientists.
.
The find includes large outcroppings of blue jade, the gemstone of the Olmecs, the mysterious people who created the first complex culture in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, the region that encompasses much of Mexico and Central America. It also includes an ancient road of stone, 1,600 meters (5,200 feet) above sea level, that runs for kilometers through the densely forested region.
.
The deposits rival the world's leading source of mined jade today, in Burma, the experts say.
.
The implications for history, archaeology and anthropology are just starting to emerge. For one thing, the scientists say, the find suggests that the Olmecs, who flourished on the southern Gulf Coast of Mexico, exerted wide influence in the Guatemalan highlands

Denver Post.com - INS confirms border incident with Mexico Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., accused the Mexican army Tuesday of staging a "military incursion" Friday night into southern Arizona that ended with Mexican soldiers firing shots at a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle.
Lori Haley, an Immigration and Naturalization spokeswoman, confirmed that an incident occurred in a remote area near Ajo, Ariz.
A U.S. agent spotted three Mexican soldiers in a Mexican Humvee on U.S. soil and was attempting to leave the area when the rear window of his vehicle was apparently shattered by gunfire, she said. The agent was leaving the area "in an effort to avoid a confrontation" with the Mexicans, she said.

Salon.com Technology | Give it away now At FightCloud.com, the price is right. Scalfani sells CDs for free. That is, if you don't count the $4.95 "shipping" charge. Of course, that would be a mistake. Buried in the shipping charge is the secret ingredient: a modest profit. Less costs of $2.31, the company nets $2.64 on each "free" disc, half of which goes to the artist. But with only 1,000 or so CDs shipped to date, no one's getting rich. Yet.

All Motorcycle Bodywork worlds largest manufacturer of exotic motorcycle bodywork

Baja Designs Motorcycle Store: H.I.D. Lighting Systems

John Dreuning sidecar and Yamaha GTS1000 site

Open-Source Fight Flares At Pentagon
Microsoft Lobbies Hard Against Free Software


Microsoft Corp. is aggressively lobbying the Pentagon to squelch its growing use of freely distributed computer software and switch to proprietary systems such as those sold by the software giant, according to officials familiar with the campaign.

In what one military source called a "barrage" of contacts with officials at the Defense Information Systems Agency and the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over the past few months, the company said "open source" software threatens security and its intellectual property.

But the effort may have backfired. A May 10 report prepared for the Defense Department concluded that open source often results in more secure, less expensive applications and that, if anything, its use should be expanded.

Popular Science | Silicon is Slow Factoring 15 is a problem fit for grade school students and cheap calculators, but it's not the size or speed of the calculation, merely the fact of it that matters in this case. Chuang's seven-"qubit" quantum computer, at the moment the most powerful one ever built, provides concrete evidence of a proposition that scientists just a few years ago thought unworkable: that the properties of atoms at the quantum level can reliably be exploited for the brains of a working computer. Indeed, the work of Chuang and others suggests that quantum machines may one day be capable of massively parallel computing, in which billions of calculations happen at once—a feat that will never be possible with silicon chips.

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

FT.com Home US The Bush administration accused Iran on Tuesday of being "the most active state sponsor of terrorism" while offering modest praise to Libya and Sudan for reducing their support for international terrorists.
In its annual report on global terrorism, the US state department said Iran had supplied Lebanese and Palestinian groups with arms, training and finance to attack Israel.

Wearable Computer Laboratory

Welcome to the projects section of the Wearable Computer Laboratory website. Here you will find some information about what we do at the lab.
Tinmith Evo 5
ARQuake




Tinmith Evo 5
The Tinmith system is a complete software architecture designed to develop Augmented Reality and other software that deals with trackers, input devices, and graphics. Tinmith is based on a completely free software system comprising the Linux kernel, GNU tools and libraries, the GNU C/C compiler, XFree86 graphics server, GGI graphics interface, OpenGL 3D renderer, PostgreSQL database, and Freetype font renderer. The current version of Tinmith is "Evo 5" - click here for more information

Ensenada: Border Getaway

Mexico Directory of Wholesale Suppliers and Sources

ArsWare: It ain't your mama's software Dead Man's Switch
Whatever gets your attention. Anyway, there was a thread last week about what would happen if one of us were to shuffle off to that Great Motherboard in the Sky. Software which would act as a proverbial "Dead Man's Switch" came up, which is basically a system that, if not reset by a given time, will automatically carry out a series of tasks, such as posting messages to websites like Ars, sending e-mails to loved ones (or hated ones), and encrypting or destroying sensitive files (*cough* pr0n *cough*). Interest was expressed for the creation of such software, and well, here it is.



Panoram Computer




  • Current Speed

  • Average Speed

  • Maximum Speed

  • Distance

  • Odometer (track total miles)

  • Riding Time

  • Trip Time - stop watch

  • Accumulated riding time (track total hours)

  • Clock

  • Lubrication reminder

  • Maintenance reminder

  • Backlit for nighttime use

  • Scratch resistant lens

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

Installing A Sigma Sport BC800 Bike Computer

Sigma Bicycle Computer Install

By Richard Stallman (LinuxWorld)


-- Since Joe Barr's article criticized my dealings with SIGLINUX, I would like to set the record straight about what actually occurred, and state my reasons.
When SIGLINUX invited me to speak, it was a "Linux User Group"; that is, a group for users of the GNU/Linux system which calls the whole system "Linux". So I replied politely that if they'd like someone from the GNU Project to give a speech for them, they ought to treat the GNU Project right, and call the system "GNU/Linux". The system is a variant of GNU, and the GNU Project is its principal developer, so social convention says to call it by the name we chose. Unless there are powerful reasons for an exception, I usually decline to give speeches for organizations that won't give GNU proper credit in this way. I respect their freedom of speech, but I also have the freedom not to give a speech.
Subsequently, Jeff Strunk of SIGLINUX tried to change the group's policy, and asked the FSF to list his group in our page of GNU/Linux user groups. Our webmaster told him that we would not list it under the name "SIGLINUX" because that name implies that the group is about Linux. Strunk proposed to change the name to "SIGFREE", and our webmaster agreed that would be fine. (Barr's article said we rejected this proposal.) However, the group ultimately decided to stay with "SIGLINUX".
At that point, the matter came to my attention again, and I suggested they consider

Slashdot | Interview with Dr. Villanueva The Doctor's letter is more than impressive. His point by point rebuttal of Microsoft's falacies was both thorough and consise. He clearly called out the internal contradictions that are so common in Microsoft's arguments. I was stunned by how well he made his points.
For anyone who hasn't read it, regardless of your position on the issue, you should.

Slashdot | Interview with Dr. Villanueva I wish this guy was an element in the US government. Instead, we're stuck with Fritz "Freling" Hollings' caricature of how technology can / should be used to serve his supposed constituents. Which is laughable at best, since it seems to be more focused on eviscerating digital rights /privacy and handing them out to corporations wholesale.

Good to see digital democracy is alive and well in Peru. Sorry I can't say the same about things back home, though........

Allchin: Disclosure May Endanger U.S. May 13, 2002
Allchin: Disclosure May Endanger U.S.
By Caron Carlson

A senior Microsoft Corp. executive told a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed.

Proprietary Software and Less-Developed Countries The way proprietary software is brought to market has deep and perverse consequences regarding the chances of growth for less developed countries. Current patent and copyright law in most countries, developed or not, allow authors to license the right of use of commercial software under very restrictive terms, which in effect prevent users and potential competitors from accessing the source code of the software they are using. This limitations produce various degrees of damage all over the world (witness the Microsoft antitrust trial), but for poor countries the consequences are devastating, as proprietary software effectively acts as an unsurmountable barrier to entry into the market, which gives them little chance of accessing the benefits of the IT revolution. The virtual monopoly that big corporations have established in the market has created very difficult conditions for poor countries to overcome the costs and serious setbacks that are inherent to proprietary software, and from developing any serious software industry beyond the export of labour. The simplest solution for this problem is the widespread adoption of free software.
We hope the data from this document will shed some light on these issues.

Linux Today - Update: Ending Microsoft FUD: An Interview with Peruvian Congressman Villanueva Peruvian Congressman Villanueva's reply, written on April 8, 2002, has raised him practically to folk hero status amongst the open source community almost overnight. With eloquence and a strong attention to fact and detail, this letter manages to point by point rebut the many incorrect and even conflicting assertions made by González. Dr. Villanueva uses a matter-of-fact approach that simply tells it like it is, and is difficult to argue with--especially since the letter contains a reminder of Microsoft's own conviction of software piracy in France in 2001, which had until now escaped the attention of the North American press.

The OS Blues Be All You Can
The one operating system of recent years that has turned heads was BeOS. Here was an OS designed from the ground up to be modern. It was designed with graphics and sound in mind. It was a spiritual successor to both the original Apple MacOS and the Amiga all rolled into one. That Be failed is heartbreaking.

Borealis' Principal Technologies
Chorus® Motor: The Borealis Chorus® Motor is a radically improved electric motor that uses electromagnetic harmonics to greatly increase the motor's output, or torque. A Chorus® Motor and drive is smaller, lighter, and costs much less to build and operate than a conventional motor with the same output. It is ideal for traction applications such as electric cars and trains.
Cool Chips™: Cool Chips™ are solid-state devices that pump heat to produce cooling, refrigeration, or air conditioning. They are small, lightweight, nonpolluting and noncorrosive and are projected to be more efficient than any existing thermal management technology.
Power Chips™: Power Chips™ are similar devices that absorb heat to produce electrical power. They are silent, nonpolluting, scalable, portable, and can operate anywhere there is a source of heat. We expect them to replace most existing technologies for generating electricity.
Solar: Photon Chips™ absorb photons from sunlight, in a direct photoelectric conversion to generate electricity.
Steel: Borealis' Green Steel™ Technology is an entirely new method for manufacturing steel. It is expected to be less expensive than current methods and will produce no smokestack emissions.
Minerals: Borealis' Roche Bay Magnetite Deposits are the world's largest known undeveloped deposits of iron ore. Located in northern Canada, they contain 4.3 billion tonnes of magnetite ore and 1.6

Gallery :: your photos on your website Gallery is a slick web based photo album written using PHP. Easy to install (it includes a config wizard), it provides users with the ability to create and maintain their own albums in the album collection via an intuitive web interface. Photo management includes automatic thumbnail creation, image resizing, rotation, ordering, captioning, searching and more.

Chain lubricating systems

Monday, May 20, 2002

Giali Heated and Protective Clothing

Nano breakthrough charges science world - Tech News - CNET.com IBM researchers have created transistors out of carbon nanotubes that can outperform similar silicon transistors, a development that helps build the case that carbon may one day become a building block of computing.
In an article to be published on Monday in the journal Applied Physics Letters, IBM researchers outline how transistors made of carbon nanotubes--long, thin strands of carbon molecules--delivered more than twice the amount of electrical current at a faster rate than cutting-edge transistors made from silicon and metal, the basis for chips today.

Yahoo! Groups : vstrom Messages :2024-2038 of 2113 From: moriartpat@a...
Date: Fri May 17, 2002 11:28am
Subject: Re: Scraping pegs, riding poorly, crashing

"Dan Arnold" writes:
<
error, but I cranked up the preload and road another 1400 miles, tho not

with confidence.>>

Yea, regaining confidence is a challenge. I had a bad accident in 97',
hit an Armco guard rail (compound fracture to Tibia) then flew over
the rail and fell 225 ft. (free fall) to a boulder strewn creek below.
Very lucky to have survived. After seven operations, a two year
recovery and over $190,000 in medical bills, I was
back riding but not riding well at all. (motorcycle riding can be dangerous
and yes, I know several good orthopedic doc's)

The 50cc Ironbutt Ride


The 50cc ride is the brainchild of Iron Butt Association member Dave McQueeney. It was designed for those riders not wanting to make the New York to San Francisco Guinness run yet looking for a challenge for crossing the country from coast to coast. You may choose any two coast cities (obviously, one on the Atlantic Ocean and the other on the Pacific Ocean) you wish (Jacksonville, Florida to San Diego, California is the most popular) and use the rules that follow to document your ride.
While the Iron Butt Association rules give the rider some leeway with documentation requirements in start and end cities, we do ask you to consider this viewpoint of a multi-time 50cc finisher as related by Iron Butt Association Web Master Dale Wilson:
I recall several years ago, when Ron Major had just finished installing his aux cell in my brand new '95 ST1100 at his house, we got to talking about some of his IBA rides and accomplishments over the years. He mentioned that the 50CC was an intriguing ride if one did it as a "pure coast-to-coast" ride, and went on explain what he meant. That was the first time I ever heard him describe the act of touching the water on both oceans as being a critical and spiritual part of The Ride.
He led me inside his den and showed me an entire wall jam packed with trophies and finisher plaques. One bookshelf had little 10-milliliter red-stoppered chemistry vials that contained equal parts of sand and water. Each one was marked with2

BBC News | SCI/TECH | China sets date for the Moon China says it is planning to establish a base on the Moon to exploit its mineral resources.

Times Online Blair condemns protesters who thwart science
by Philip Webster, Political Editor, and Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent



TONY BLAIR has promised to break down the “anti- science fashion” in Britain, declaring that the Government will never give way to misguided protesters who stand in the way of medical and economic advance.
The Prime Minister said in an interview with The Times that there should be a more mature attitude to science in Britain. “It is time to speak up for science,” he said in advance of a substantial speech on the subject on Thursday.
Mr Blair gave warning that research work would be lost to Britain and Europe and go elsewhere in the world if animal welfare activists and other protesters were allowed to get away with stopping projects that could save lives. He called for an end to the air of suspicion and mistrust that sometimes surrounded the work of scientists and the misplaced fears and ignorance it often generated. Mr Blair said there were huge opportunities in science, for medical progress and for dealing with some of the great environmental and economic challenges.

BY JAMES TARANTO Friday, May 17, 2002 2:11 p.m. EDT


The Phantom Menace
By all means, let's have an investigation of any intelligence shortcomings that may have helped make the Sept. 11 atrocity possible. But there's something awfully unseemly about the way some Democrats have been strutting about, patting themselves on the back for their 20/20 hindsight.
On Wednesday CBS News reported that President Bush received an intelligence briefing in August that mentioned that al Qaeda terrorists might hijack airplanes. As the New York Times reports, the warning was hardly news:
The information Mr. Bush received in the Aug. 6 briefing had been public for months. The Federal Aviation Administration published a report called Criminal Acts Against Aviation on its Web site in 2001 before the hijackings that said that although Osama bin Laden "is not known to have attacked civil aviation, he has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so." It added, "Bin Laden's anti-Western and anti-American attitudes make him and his followers a significant threat to civil aviation, particularly to U.S. civil aviation."
Nonetheless, some Democrats suggested that President Bush was somehow complicit in Sept. 11: "I think what we have to do now is to find out what the president, what the White House knew about the events leading up to 9/11, when they knew it and, most importantly, what was done about it at that time," said Rep. Dick Gephardt, the House minority leader.

Bush's Failure


It is clear that the Bush Administration failed to take warnings from the prior Clinton administration about the possibility of a terrorist attack.
It is not possible for me to know why the Bush administration failed to heed what now seem to be ample and numerous warnings, however on the face of it at least a portion of the blame for the 9/11 attack must be placed on the current administrations stupidity and arrogance.

Hindsight is of course always clear.

Newsweek Cover: 'What Bush Knew'


-- Phoenix FBI Agent Behind Warning About Arabs at Flight Schools is 'Superstar' Who Found Key Witness in Oklahoma City Bombing; CIA Warns of A 'Series of Explosions Using 'Low Charge' Nuclear Weapons' FBI Forced to Shut Down 10 to 20 Wiretaps of Qaeda-Related Suspects After A Judge Learned of AN Official Who was Misrepresenting Petitions for Taps of Terror Suspects Ashcroft Turned Down Request for Hundreds More Counterintelligence Agents; Treasury Not Hot on Money-Laundering Probes Between June and Sept. 11, As Many As 10-12 FAA Warnings Were Issued to All American Airlines, Major Airports; More Than Two Specifically Mentioned the Possibility of Planes Being Hijacked.



Story Filed: Sunday, May 19, 2002 11:32 AM EST

NEW YORK, May 19, 2002 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The FBI agent who made the link between Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons at a Phoenix training school and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network was described by one official as a "superstar," Newsweek reports in the May 27 issue (on newsstands Monday, May 20). Kenneth Williams, a family man who coaches Little League, previously tracked down Michael Fortier, Timothy McVeigh's former Army buddy. "Anything he says you can take to the bank," says a former agent.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020519/NYSU011 )

According to the cover story by Senior Editor Michael Hirsh and Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff, it was back in July, 2001, that Bill Kurtz, a hard-driven supervisor in the FBI's Phoenix office, was overseeing an investigation at an Arizona flight school and Williams, a sharp, 41-year-old counterterror agent on his team, noticed something odd: a large number of Middle Eastern men were signing up to take courses in how to fly airplanes. The agent's suspicions were raised when he heard that some of the men at local Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University were also asking a lot of questions about airport security.

Kurtz, who had previously worked on the Osama bin Laden unit of the FBI's international terrorism section, was convinced he and his colleagues might have stumbled on a terrorist plot. "He thinks of everything in terms of bin Laden," one colleague recalled. Kurtz's team fired off a lengthy memo raising the possibility that bin Laden might be using U.S. flight schools to infiltrate the country's aviation system. The memo outlined a proposal for the FBI to monitor "civil aviation colleges/universities around the country."

But higher up the FBI ladder, Newsweek reports, an agent's warning is often likely to be dismissed as "chatter." And agents poke fun at the sometimes obsessive quirks of their colleagues. "If a confidential memorandum comes from a guy out in, say Phoenix, the first thing goes up line, 'That's Harry again. He's like a broken clock twice a day,'" one former agent says. Even today, long after 9-11, streams of new threats pass unnoticed through Washington. In recent weeks, for instance, the FBI has gotten specific threats about a car-or-truck bomb attack on an "all-glass" building near the U.S. Capitol, and another threat against a Celebrity cruise ship off Florida. Neither was corroborated or publicized, Hirsh and Isikoff report. Newsweek has also learned of a recent CIA warning of a "series of explosions using 'low charge' nuclear weapons."

While FBI director Robert Mueller is said by associates to be furious over the bureau's internal handling of the Phoenix memo, at the time, little of what the agents in Phoenix reported seemed to make a difference back in Washington. Not only were they not believed, they were ignored altogether. The FBI was concerned about racial profiling. Moreover, it was not used to gathering intelligence, especially domestically, given American sensitivities about intrusive government and civil liberties. And under Attorney General John Ashcroft, the department was being prodded back into its old law-and-order, mindset: violent crime, drugs, child porn, and away from new-fangled concerns like counterterrorism that had become the obsession of the Clintonites. Ashcroft, who has been front and center in beefing up counterterrorism efforts since Sept. 11, turned back a request for hundreds more counterintelligence agents, even as he began, quietly, to take a privately charted jet for his own security reasons, Newsweek reports.

Newsweek has also learned there was one other major complication as America heading into that threat-spiked summer. In Washington, Royce Lamberth, chief judge of the special federal court that reviews national-security wiretaps, erupted in anger when he found that an FBI official was misrepresenting petitions for taps on terror suspects. Lamberth prodded Ashcroft to launch an investigation, which reverberated throughout the bureau. From the summer of 2000 on into the following year, sources said, the FBI was forced to shut down wiretaps of Qaeda-related suspects connected to the 1998 African embassy bombing investigation. "It was a major problem," said one source familiar with the case, who estimated that 10 to 20 Qaeda wiretaps had to be shut down, as well as wiretaps into a separate New York investigation of Hamas. The effect was to stymie terror surveillance at exactly the moment it was needed most: requests from both Phoenix and Minneapolis for wiretaps were turned down.

The attorney general was hardly alone in de-emphasizing terror in the new Bush administration, which was barely six months old. Over at the Pentagon, new Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld elected not to relaunch a surveillance plane that had been tracking bin Laden, and also vetoed a request to plow $800 million more into counterterror by diverting it to missile defense.

And at Treasury, Secretary Paul O'Neill wanted to roll back attempts to track money-laundering and tax havens of the kind used by terrorists. In self-absorbed Washington, the Phoenix memo never made it senior levels. Nor did it get transmitted to the CIA, which has long had a difficult relationship with the FBI

-- and whose director, George Tenet, one of the few Clinton hold-overs, was
issuing so many warnings that bin Laden's global terror network was "the most immediate" threat to Americans that he was hardly heeded any longer. In fact, as early as Jan. 26, 2001 -- six days after Bush took office -- an FBI document shows that authorities believed they had clear evidence linking the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole to Al Qaeda. Yet the new administration mounted no retaliation of its own.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice last week disclosed that during the course of last summer, the Federal Aviation Administration issues several "information circulars" warning the aviation industry of possible terror attacks. Newsweek has now learned that as many as 10 to 12 such warnings were issued to all American airlines and major airports in the period between June 2001 and September 11. According to two sources who have read the warnings, more than two specifically mentioned the possibility of airplanes being hijacked. Together these clues suggest that, at least, U.S. airports should have been on high alert on Sept. 11. They weren't. Indeed, the two airlines involved in the hijackings say they were barely aware of the FAA warnings.

Early efforts by the Bush administration to investigate terror links were marginalized. By the end of the Clinton administration, then-National Security Advisor Sandy Berger had become "totally preoccupied" with fears of a domestic terror attack, a colleague recalls. When in January 2001, Berger gave Rice her handover briefing, he covered the bin Laden threat in detail, and, sources say, warned her: "You will be spending more time on this issue than on any other." Rice was alarmed by what she heard, and asked for a strategic review. But the effort was scarcely mentioned in ensuing months as the administration committed itself to other priorities.


(Read Newsweek's news releases at

http://www.Newsweek.MSNBC.com. Click "Pressroom.")

Friday, May 17, 2002

EE Times - Organic polymers would connect prosthesis to nerves

Polymer breakthrough could foster Warwick cyberman dreams THERE'S AN INTERESTING REPORT at Electronic Times saying that two Swedish boffins have made breakthroughs in the organic polymer sphere.
According to the report, scientists at Linkoping University are creating organic polymer components that, for example, could unite human nerves with prosthetic limbs.
The polymers use plastic 20 micron channels coated in a conductive polymer casing and using a protein that would allow nerves to connect to the structures.
The piece also says that the organic polymers can also be used in light diodes and in solar cells, the report says.
You can find the article here. µ

Inside the Ring -- The Washington Times China's military has sold Iran high-speed catamaran missile patrol boats, according to defense and intelligence officials.
The first of the new C-14 patrol boats was observed by U.S. military intelligence recently inside an Iranian port, according to officials familiar with intelligence reports.
According to the officials, China recently sent a delegation of technicians to Iran to help the Iranian navy train and equip the new boats.

NYPOST.COM Entertainment: CROWD WOWED BY ECLECTIC SHOCKED By DAN AQUILANTE


THERE was a key moment at the Michelle Shocked Village Underground concert Wednesday.
She had just completed playing "Strawberry Jam" where she pulled amateur musicians from the crowd to play mandolins, spare guitars and anything that could make music.
In her best I-got-something-to-say voice, the diminutive Texan told the audience "music is like politics, it's too important to be left in the hands of professionals."
That's the way Shocked entered music - as an amateur who loved to play - and despite how good she's gotten strumming 'n' humming in a variety of styles, at heart she's a campfire singer who believes everybody is in the jam, not the players on stage.

eastsidejournal.com - 'Soft Talk: New Hotmail settings might share your info, addresses


The latest is a doozy. Yesterday an irate reader tipped me off to the fact that Microsoft has changed the privacy settings for Hotmail.
What that means for subscribers to Microsoft's Internet service and millions more who use its free Hotmail e-mail service is that the company can share a Hotmail address with its partner Web sites.
In short, if you are already signed up for and use Hotmail, Microsoft has given itself the right to share your e-mail address and other data with outside companies -- even if you explicitly told Microsoft not to do so when you signed up.

Thursday, May 16, 2002

14 May 2002 COOL CHIPS DISCLOSES APPLICATION OF QUANTUM MECHANICS IN HIGH-EFFICIENCY NANOTECH COOLING DEVICES Cool Chips plc (COLCF) said that its Cool Chips(tm), wafer-thin discs designed to produce cooling or refrigeration more efficiently than any competing technology, use quantum mechanical electron tunneling as the primary cooling mechanism. The Cool Chip is one of the first transformative technologies to emerge from the nanotechnology revolution.

The Cool Chip technology could eventually replace nearly every existing form of cooling, air conditioning, and thermal management. Prototype devices are being shown publicly for the first time at the Nanotech Planet Conference in San Jose, California, that begins today. The company has not previously disclosed the full scientific basis for its technology.

Because of the inherent advantages in cooling across a gap using electron tunneling, Cool Chips are projected to attain efficiencies much higher than those previously available in cooling systems, and they are much less than 10% of the size and weight of compressors. Cool Chips are modular, and can be packaged in arrays to cool virtually any size heat load.

Boeing news release: Boeing Completes Evaluation of Borealis Cool Chips™ Technology Cool Chips™ are a form of vacuum diode that pumps heat from one side of the chip to the other to provide localized cooling and refrigeration. The technology is solid state and operates silently without the use of motors or environmentally unfriendly fluids.
Because they are smaller and lighter than competing technologies, and promise greater efficiency, Cool Chips have potential applications for thermal management in aircraft and spacecraft, where size, weight and power requirements are at a premium. Such applications include the cooling of avionics, sensors, environmental air and galleys.
The Cool Chips evaluation was conducted by the Boeing Phantom Works, the advanced R&D unit of Boeing. Under the terms of the agreement with Cool Chips plc, Boeing has the right of first refusal on this new technology for aerospace applications.

Wednesday, May 15, 2002


Mary and the baby's with family. Posted by Hello

alpinestarsMotorcycle clothing.

Motorcycle Clothing: What to wear when All Weather Dressing
This story is far from finished. I'm gonna tell ya how I dress and if you're so inclined take a moment to e mail me at info@soundrider.com and tell me how you dress. I might not have all the answers but if I can help one soul keep from freezing up this winter or enjoy their summer ride more by not overheating than I've done something right.




$179.00

Motorcycle Online: Product Review: Aerostich Roadcrafter Suit

Motorcycle Online: Dainese Inflatable Vest







Suggested retail price is $399.


Motorcycle Online: Product Review: Kushitani KS-2000

Cordura All-Weather Jacket
By Philip Strauss
Torrance, California, January 4, 2001 -- What is waterproof, has a zip-out liner, is made out of a combination of two layers of Cordura, a Reissa membrane and strategically placed patches of leather, has nine pockets, CE body armor, lots of snaps and Velcro and is amazingly comfortable to wear? If you are thinking something out of the Victoria Secret's catalogue, then get your mind back on motorcycling. I'm referring to Kushitani's new KS-2000 Cordura All-Weather Jacket.

Friction Zone—Your Motorcycle Lifestyle Magazine | Product Reviews

Candlepower Headlight Bulbs




S-MX Goretex Boots $279.95


Alpinestars S-MX Goretex Boots - Ridegear.com


Unique semi-rear zippered opening closure system.
Smaller and lighter, three color molded shin plate.
Alpinestars exlusive compound sole includes two color designs.
All new external ankle support system with memory shock absorbing heel cup with a 270° injected design.
Wrapping leather toe guard with an all new flexible and replaceable toe slider and an all new full covered shifter pad which extends to the end of the boot.
Shank is contoured steek, black upper and leather lining; includes ventilated leather with cabrelle on all high wear areas.
A wrapping injection molded section connects the ankle to the calf anatomically.
Reflective material on heel.

TourMaster®
Cortech 3/4 II Jacket $242.95
TourMaster Cortech 3/4 II Jacket -- Chrome World

Tuesday, May 14, 2002

Headline news from Sky News - Witness the event

Neanderthal Man 'Attacked'

A 36,000-year-old Neanderthal whose skull was cracked by a blow on the head was attacked deliberately with a sharp implement, scientists say.
The discovery provides only the second clear clue that Neanderthals, a prehistoric people who vanished about 27,000 years ago, fought each other with weapons.

Swiss and French scientists discovered the wound after carrying out a three dimensional computer reconstruction of the skull.

Political Money Line

Opensecrets.org--Money in politics data

Kevin's Motorcycle Homepage!!!

grass

Hypothesis on MATTER


This is an alternative concept to explain all physical phenomena of matter by using same principle and under same basic laws. This "hypothesis on matter" provides simple and logical explanation to all physical phenomena related to matter. These include most unexplained or wrongly explained phenomena. Any logical reasoning has some elementary postulations / assumptions on which reasoning is based. Whole of this hypothesis is developed from assumption of only one particle – basic energy particle - with definite properties. It is also assumed that basic energy particles fill the entire space. No other assumed effects or virtual particles are needed to explain any phenomena of matter or its interactions. Matter is inert and it cannot interact through empty space. So there is a functional entity interlinking matter particles, making it possible for their interaction. Both, matter and interlinking entity are made up of basic energy particles. All natural forces are different manifestation of same basic force. Since matter is inert, this basic force is a product of interlinking functional entity. There are no forces with mysterious properties or spooky action at a distance.

Latest privacy threat: Monitor glow - Tech News - CNET.com


While Kuhn calculated that the technique could be used at a range of 50 meters at twilight using a small telescope, a satellite with the appropriate sensors could, theoretically, detect the patterns from orbit, said several security experts

Can the Athlon XP utilize DDR333




This seems to be a ‘HOT’ topic in the Legion Hardware forums at the moment, as many members are asking if DDR333 is the way to go with their new AMD Athlon XP system. People want to know whether DDR333 chipsets are the way to go and what they have to offer in the way of performance over the DDR266 chipsets. However I feel the question should not be asking whether or not the chipsets can provide the performance, but more can the Athlon XP utilize DDR333? I am aware the majority of you have figured out this answer by now, however there still seems to be quite a few still a little confused to why DDR333 hasn’t brought a huge performance boost to their new systems. This isn’t going to be a long article exploring the XP processor and its chipsets, instead I’m going to take one XP processor along with one KT333 chipset and run a few tests. Obviously we will be looking for the performance difference between DDR266 and DDR333 to see how efficiently the AMD Athlon XP processor utilizes the memory bandwidth.

HardwareZone.com :: Articles - Coolest Hardware, Hottest Reviews





So, what can the Parhelia offer? There are certainly lots of rumors going around the web and some of you might have seen photos of demonstrations sneaked out from one of those Parhelia demos that Matrox have been doing this couple of weeks. We're pretty glad that Matrox gave us a preview of the Parhelia in a closed door session just last week.

Since Matrox is still pretty much involved in fine tuning the product before mass production, what we saw at the announcement was pretty much the final product. It was a full working demo and boy, we were awed by its performance. Not only that its performance was good, the card showed a lot of potential - in terms of its technology and usability.

BBC News | Nasa searches web for shuttle parts





The American space agency (Nasa) has begun trawling the internet for spare parts for its shuttles, according to United Space Alliance, the company that runs the shuttle fleet.
The shuttles, first launched in 1981, often rely on computer components that are so out of date, they are no longer made.
The orbiters even use a type of computer disk drive that was outmoded by the end of the 1970s.

Sky Operating System V3

OSNews.com - Exploring the Future of Computing One and a half months ago, we were among the first to report about an operating system which would combine the strengths of Linux & AtheOS and that would breath a new kind of life back to BeOS. Today, we are happy to host an exclusive interview with the architect of the combined OS, Bill Hayden. Dubbed "Cosmoe", the OS not only will feature support for the AtheOS, Linux and BeOS APIs, but also for... Macintosh's Carbon! Read on for more surprises!

Monday, May 13, 2002

This forum is for Suzuki V-Strom owners and potential owners to discuss their machines and rides. Bashing of other bikes will not be allowed but thoughtful comparisons are welcome. Feel free to post your modifications, trip plans and experiences.

Surplus Catalog 2000

Hydroponics Online!

Article from the Bangor Daily News


Only twice in the past five years have I seen an audience burst into applause at the end of a movie. The first time was in 1997, when George Lucas rereleased “Star Wars” on the big screen for a new generation of fans, and the second time was last Friday at the end of a sold-out showing of Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man.”

Film Threat - Interviews Did Marvel Comic legend Stan Lee help write or contribute any advice to the making of Spider-Man?
Stan wasn't involved in the writing of this particular piece. However, everything is based on the 40 years of Stan Lee comic books that he wrote along with many other great Marvel writers.

The Story of Strangelets At the moment, the world is not known to be a very strange place. But the possibility of a strange Universe has not been ruled out. This strangeness could occur at many levels, from forming heavier than usual isotopes of common elements, to larger strange `nuggets,' to entire stars composed largely of strange matter. I outline the ways in which strangeness may occur, the possible mechanisms for the formation of strange matter, and current searches for the various forms.

Strangelets are Strange but not Dangerous Strangelets are hypothetical stable or semi-stable particles which contain strange quarks. Theorists have predicted that such entities could survive for long periods inside neutron stars and might be produced in the type of heavy ion collisions going on at the RHIC machine at Brookhaven. Fears that the production of strangelets would lead to some runaway reaction in which more and more ordinary matter would be turned into strange matter, with catastrophic effects for our planet, have been largely dispelled (Dar et al., Physics Letters B, 16 December 1999; and Jaffe et al., Review of Modern Physics, Oct 2000; Select Articles) partly by pointing to the fact that nature has always been producing heavy-ion collisions in amid cosmic ray interactions.

PowWeb Hosting - Full Service Web Hosting For Only $7.77 / month!

Microsoft was found guilty of software piracy last year by a French court, according to facts unearthed today by the geek community.
But the Redmond giant's conviction and three million franc (£285,000) fine somehow managed to escape the headlines. In fact, until today the only place the story has appeared is in French newspaper Le Monde Informatique.
And the only person who noticed the irony of the world's most aggressive anti-piracy firm being fined for piracy was Peruvian congressman Edgar David Villanueva Nunez.
Nunez inadvertently became a hero of the open source movement last month when he penned a letter to Juan Alberto Gonzalez, general manager of Microsoft Peru, arguing that the free software model does not break any intellectual property laws.
His letter was in reply to a complaint by Gonzalez over the proposal of a bill that would require the Peruvian government to only use free software.
In his argument, Gonzalez had claimed that the Peruvian bill "imposes the use of open source software without considering the dangers that this can bring from the point of view of security, guarantee, and possible violation of the intellectual property rights of third parties".
But Nunez retaliated: "The inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed as one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software community; whereas, unfortunately, it has been in the area of proprietary software.
"[An example is] the cond

vnunet.com Big Blue's grid guns for gamers Super powerful grid computing is in the firing line as the first ever computing grid to support the online gaming sector goes live.
IBM launched the backbone for what may well be the next-generation internet late last year, setting up a grid computing data centre in Oxford.
Grid computing works on the same principle as distributed computing programs like SETI@home, except that enormously powerful data centres are linked up around the globe instead of desktop machines.

MicaPeak


A WebSite for motorcyclists. Providing World Wide Web and electronic mailing list services to the motorcycling public of planet Earth (and particularly the Pacific Rim of North America).

Sunday, May 12, 2002

Thursday, May 09, 2002

Yahoo! News - Bionic Retina Gives 6 Patients Partial Sight


The microchips, surgically implanted behind the retina, are smaller than the head of a pin and about half the thickness of a sheet of paper. They work by converting light into electrical impulses.

AbiWord AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. It is suitable for typing papers, letters, reports, memos, and so forth.


Download AbiWord 1.0.1

Sun will use AMD Opterons But on my travels I met someone from Sun Microsystems who tipped me the wink about the "close connection" between it and AMD.
He told me, and said that I should keep it quiet, that Sun will definitely use Opterons when the CPUs formerly known as Sledgehammer launch

Newisys - Integrity and Innovation Newisys, Inc.

Newisys was founded in July, 2000 in Austin, Texas by a uniquely qualified management and technical team to develop server technology and systems. This team has been assembled to develop new server technology in partnership with industry leaders.

Looking for a new position? Click Here.

Newisys, AMD, and Dell A source has pointed me to a company working very closely with AMD called Newisys. From what I'm told Newisys is developing 4-16 way Opteron systems including interconnect chipsets for what appears to be 'extremely large-scaleout type SMP boxes'.
You can find their job posting here and here. These and other listings lean towards Linux and server management technologies I'm told.
There are also 'Extremely strong ties to both Dell and IBM.'

Wednesday, May 08, 2002

New Scientist An ancient computer virus has infiltrated the latest fast spreading email scourge to create a nasty "double-infected" virus.
Anti-virus software makers say some versions of the widespread computer virus Klez.h hide a mutation of a very destructive virus first seen in 1998 and known as Chernobyl or CIH. The Chernobyl virus variant automatically infects files and programs files on computers running Microsoft Windows.

Peruvian Activism

EcoGenics Research Center, your guide to aesthetic survivial!

Architekturbüro Vetsch

TwoMobile.com - Featured: Estari to Launch Dual-Screen Laptop The laptop version will have two, full-sized 15” diagonal screens and a Microsoft Windows XP

Heated Grip Kit

Rainier Cycle Sports

Cycle Trader-- Dealer Site

PWM Motor Speed Controller / DC Light Dimmer

Tuesday, May 07, 2002

Recipes for Whole Wheat Bread, Pancakes, and Muffins

Bread Mixer Comparison

Dimension 2000 Mixer available through Urban Homemaker

Bosch Universal Kitchen Machine

The Bosch Universal Kitchen System

Obadiah's Storehouse - Appliances - Many brands including Omega, Bosch, Grain Master, Whisper Mill, Zojirushi, Country Living Grain Mill

The BOSCH Universal

CookingWithPam ... Bosch Magic White Bread recipe from the kitchen of Pamela Rice Hahn

100,000 recipes, a software, games, quiz, poll

Tips & FAQs Quality is EVERYTHING.
The most important aspect in cooking is the quality of the ingredients that are used. I am very particular especially about the quality of grains I select. For example, I currently only use Wheat Montana because I feel that it is just exceptional.
The same holds true with the other grains. It is important to find a reliable source for your grains because using fresh, high quality grains can make the difference in the end result being great or inferior. We sell only the finest grains. Click here for our list of grains.

The Country Baker

Bosch Mixer Bosch Concept 7 Bosch Mixer Bosch Universal Mixer Pleasant Hill Grain

The Register Compulsory Windows: for Macs, and people without PCs?
By John Lettice
Posted: 07/05/2002 at 13:08 GMT


Microsoft has come up with another novel way to make its software compulsory - an annual subscription licensing system for schools where you have to pay for all of the computers you're using, even if you don't want them to run the Microsoft software you're licensing. This includes Macs, and although the Ts & Cs of the agreement don't make it entirely clear what you're supposed to do with the Windows upgrades you end up buying for these machines, we bet putting them on E-bay isn't a recommended option.

The Register Undetectable 'son of cookie' system wins grant
By John Lettice
Posted: 07/05/2002 at 16:02 GMT


The developers of a 'son of cookie' web monitoring system have received a Proof of Concept grant from Scottish Enterprise to commercialise the system. Their non-cookie based web monitoring software does not (as indeed the name suggests) rely on cookies, but instead is intended to replace them with something far more powerful.

It has, as the features list makes clear, great privacy-invading potential. The "sensors" it uses:
- can be individually customised for any web visitor;
- can collect information rather than return pre-downloaded data.
- can be reconfigured remotely;
- are difficult to detect and delete;
- can be used to block access to sites, documents, data, emails, etc., based on content,
- can be preferentially customised for each user.

BBC News | EUROPE | Dutch press in shock The Dutch press expresses the nation's shock at the assassination of far-right politician Pim Fortuyn

SOHO is a cooperative mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Motorcycle Online: Manufacturer's Row

Sportbike World - A community for Sportbike Riders, by Sportbike Riders!

Irish Times Article - It's big bread if you want street cred Motorcycles Funding fantasies

Riderhaus

Friction Zone—Your Motorcycle Lifestyle Magazine | 2002 Suzuki V-Strom1000

Monday, May 06, 2002

Geek.com Geek News - Signs of the times: high-tech on eBay ClipDoc is a program that claims to be the next logical step in instant messenger evolution. The program synchronizes two users' screens in several ways that allow the users to communicate in ways current instant messenger programs do not. The two users can concurrently view programs other than the instant messenger together; for instance, they can open a Word document and view the contents at the same time. What's more, while viewing the Word documents they can write or draw on the screen as though it were a whiteboard, and both users will see the writing. Synchronized Web surfing works nicely as well. The tool promises to be a powerful aid to long-distance collaboration.

ClipDoc has existed for some time, but failed to catch on in the competitive instant messenger market. In an effort to get noticed, programmer and owner Chris Majors has put the technology up for sale on eBay in an auction called "World's first graphical instant-messenger." Majors describes the program, all its capabilities, a short bit about why he thinks it's a worthy investment, and a starting bid of US$1.5 million.

Google Search: This is a Windows VBScript I created to remove the click-through
End-User License Agreements from retail software I install. EULAs are
getting unacceptably intrusive and restrictive, and I for one have had
enough. In my opinion, manufacturers have no business putting extra
restrictions on how I use something after I have already paid for it.
While this script is no great programming achievement, its purpose is
twofold: (1) to make a point about the absurdity of hidden "agreements"
that buyers cannot know about until after sale, and (2) to be able to
honestly say that I never accepted any EULA, and thus my use of the
software is limited only by copyright law, just like a book or a CD.

Copy the following into a file called NoMoreEULA.vbs, further
instructions are in the comments at the top:

CEXX.ORG's Software Vendor License Agreement

The Register Awsome.

Great & Powerful Ozz (washingtonpost.com) By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 6, 2002; Page C01

NewsForge: The Online Newspaper of Record for Linux and Open Source Sputnik lets you turn an ordinary PC into a dedicated 802.11b wireless access point (WAP). In the future, Sputnik will be able to run as a daemon on Linux systems and will also support the faster (54Mbps vs. 802.11b's 11Mbps) 802.11a wireless protocol. While this GPL project is still in beta, there's enough there to see that Sputnik will achieve a successful launch.

NewsForge: The Online Newspaper of Record for Linux and Open Source Microsoft has been telling schools who get used PCs donated to them that removing Windows is illegal. Call it marketing, call it a bold-faced lie. After The Register caught Microsoft in the fib, our favorite monopolist revised its stance just a bit.

Sunday, May 05, 2002

The Globe and Mail: Search Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months. Some of them world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others, experts in the theory of bioterrorism.

News Release - Tungsten photonic lattice This would raise the efficiency of an incandescent electric bulb from 5 percent to greater than 60 percent.

Friday, May 03, 2002

WWWW - the WORLD WIDE WEB WORM The Worm is scouring the Web and has found almost all Web resources that are out there. We present the resources in several ways and provide you with search capabilities on this valuable database of over 100,000 multimedia objects. The Worm was last run on March 7. WWWW was accessed 61,488 times between then and April 22.

Hypertextual Libraries

PhysicsWeb - The most beautiful experiment... In most scientific discoveries, one feels that even if the actual discoverers had missed the boat, the discoveries themselves would still have been made eventually. But this one is different. One physicist later wrote that, had Maurice Goldhaber not existed, "I am not sure that the helicity of the neutrino would ever have been measured".

SUBTERFUGUE motivation The primary goal of SUBTERFUGUE is to help you keep control of your computer. It can do this not only by flagging and blocking errant application behavior, but also by allowing you to subvert the goals of the application in a more general way by controlling its reality. It's not meant as a replacement for using free software, which is a key way for you to maintain control of your computer, but it can help you to detect perfidy and regain control over any software, free or not.

Scottoiler - Automatic Chain Lubrication System

Wednesday, May 01, 2002

m13 1.3. Causality Violation

Converted WP file quinterf The Double Slit Experiment Revisited

Quantum foam Is the fabric of the Universe a seething mass of black holes and wormholes? We may soon be able to venture into this maelstrom in search of the theory of everything, reports Michael Brooks

Theories with problems: by Keith Mayes The Big Bang, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Time, Light Speed, Gravity, Electromagnetism, all have their theories that attempt to explain why these things are the way they are. These theories form part of our understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe, but are of course unable to provide all the answers.
All theories have problems in as much they can not be proven to be correct, theories are only theories, not proven laws. They do not necessarily accurately describe the way things really are, they are constructed as a working model that is a useful aid to our understanding, and as a method of predicting future outcomes. When a theory is found to be wrong, it is either discarded, or as is more generally the case, modified, until it again appears to match the observations. A theory, no matter how well it appears to accurately describe any phenomenon, is provisional, it can never be proven to be correct, but it may be proven wrong. It will therefore always be impossible to claim a final theoretical solution to anything.

Alternate View Column AV-16 Quantum mechanics is weird. It has led respectable physicists to spin theories about cats that are half alive and half dead, about worlds which split into alternate universes with each quantum event, about a reality altered because an intelligent observer watches it, about mathematical equations describing "knowledge" rather than physical reality. This month's AV is about my own work, a new interpretation of quantum mechanics which seeks to dispell this weirdness by depicting each quantum event as a "transaction", a sort of handshake across space-time. A long description of this "Transactional Interpretation" has just been published in the July Reviews of Modern Physics (available at most university and major public libraries). It challenges the standard Copenhagen Interpretation of Bohr and Heisenberg which has maintained a shaky dominance as the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics for over fifty years.

Consciousness and the New Physics Physicist Nick Herbert, in his book Quantum Reality, describes eight possible interpretations: there is no underlying reality; reality is created by observation; reality is an undivided wholeness; there are actually many-worlds; the world obeys a non-human kind of reasoning; the world is made of ordinary objects; consciousness creates reality; unmeasured quantum reality exists only in potential. Each of these interpretations poses its own paradoxes. Given Bell's Theorem and the EPR effect, all of them must allow for non-local (or superluminal) interactions.

NewsForge: The Online Newspaper of Record for Linux and Open Source Wal-Mart site currently lists 14 machines without an operating system. All are listed under the Microtel brand, and include a selection of Celeron, Duron, Athlon, and Pentium 4 processors ranging from 1 to 2 GHz. The prices range from a consumer-friendly U.S. $398 for a 1 GHz Duron or Celeron box, to a top-end 2 GHz Pentium 4 at U.S. $868.

Synchronicity - F David Peat

Amit Goswami: The Self-Aware Universe

John Dobson of The Sidewalk Astronomers

Quantum Science Meet Honors John Wheeler's Birthday

Desert Kingsnake

LandAndFarm.com - Land for Sale! -Kona Hawaii Oceanfront Estate - 45 ACRES - Hawaii COUNTY, Hawaii, United States

Edward A. Villarreal. Powered by Blogger.

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