Obama making little sense, Keyes making none. Obama argues that gays should have the same civil rights as other citizens, which means I guess that he thinks they do not now have those rights? Keyes makes me think that a psychiatric eval. should be required of everyone running for political office.
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Keyes-Obama debate 3 (Religion and Gay marriage)
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Thursday, October 28, 2004
London continues to be flooded by sewage
London continues to be flooded by sewage: "LONDONERS faced with many tons of sewage being dumped in their streets and parks whenever it rains too much are likely to get scant re-assurance from Watervoice today, which claims to be a 'strong voice' representing water and sewage customers in the UK."
BBC NEWS
BBC NEWS- US Elections MapVery impressive summary of the US election.
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Politics
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BBC NEWS | Americas | Florida ballot papers go missing
BBC NEWS | Americas | Florida ballot papers go missing: "Some 60,000 absentee ballots were despatched by authorities in Broward County, north of Miami, this month.
However, only 2,000 of them have been delivered.
Florida was the centre of controversies which delayed the result in 2000, with George W Bush eventually declared the winner in the state by 537 votes."
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Vacation Network, Inc - decided to sell our timeshare - I have called many times to find out why it has not sold and all I ever get is the run around: "Several years ago my husband and I decided to sell our timeshare through a company called Vacation Network, Inc. I beleive that we listed our timeshare with them five years ago to be exact and they have not done a thing to sell it, rent it or even contact us.
"
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
PRATT & WHITNEY THERMAL NUCLEAR ROCKET ENTRY: TRITON
This engine is not a jet, however and is powered by Nuclear Fission. It seems that P&W has responded to the need for Mars transportation by inventing the first commercially viable nuclear thermal rocket. They have improved upon the NERVA NRX design from the 60's, and have even solved the graphite ablation problem! This engine makes an "inexpensive" trip to Mars is possible."
Sunday, October 24, 2004
The New York Times > Business > Record Labels Said to Be Next on Spitzer List for Scrutiny
The New York Times > Business > Record Labels Said to Be Next on Spitzer List for Scrutiny: "liot Spitzer, the New York State attorney general, has recently taken on a procession of corporate powers from Wall Street analysts to mutual funds to insurance brokers. Now he is casting his eyes on the music industry, particularly its practices for influencing what songs are heard on the public airwaves.
According to several people involved, investigators in Mr. Spitzer's office have served subpoenas on the four major record corporations - the Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the EMI Group and the Warner Music Group - seeking copies of contracts, billing records and other information detailing their ties to independent middlemen who pitch new songs to radio programmers in New York State.
The inquiry encompasses all the major radio formats and is not aiming at any individual record promoter, these people said. Mr. Spitzer and representatives for the record companies declined to comment."
Wired News: When War Games Meet Video Games
Wired News: When War Games Meet Video Games: "War games that consider these scenarios are not new for the military, but they have never been attempted on such a grand scale, according to Blank. For instance, the simulation that JFCom is currently testing allows enemy forces (the 'red team') to hide up to 3,000 operatives in any of 65,000 buildings. The opposing 'blue team,' meanwhile, controls about 300 agents who use various tools to track the enemies.
The trick to keeping all this in motion is running the program on two Linux-based supercomputers, one at the Maui High Performance Computing Center in Hawaii and the other at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, and using concepts borrowed from artificial intelligence research to allow many of the characters in the simulation to make their own decisions without human input. This allows JFCom to run the simulations with only 30 or so human players at a time. These players consist mainly of retired military leaders and contractors who consult for the Department of Defense."
Salon.com Life | Would you drink this water?
Salon.com Life | Would you drink this water?: "NEWater looks like any other glacier-clear bottled H20. Except it gushes from the toilets of Singapore instead of a bubbling spring."
Feature Article
Titan Calling In a collaboration with the European Space Agency, Cassini, in addition to its own suite of scientific instruments designed to scan Saturn and its moons, carries a hitchhiker—a lander probe called Huygens. A stubby cone 3 meters across, Huygens was built for a single purpose: to pierce the cloaking methane atmosphere of Titan and report its findings back to Cassini for relay to Earth.
So it was quite a shock when Boris Smeds, a graying, Swedish, 26-year ESA veteran [see photo, "Unsung Hero"], who normally specializes in solving problems related to the agency's network of ground stations, discovered in early 2000 that Cassini's receiver was in danger of scrambling Huygens's data beyond recognition.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Scientists slice graphite into atom-thick sheets | The Register
Scientists slice graphite into atom-thick sheets | The Register: "An international team of scientists has made a new material just one atom thick, by extracting a single plane of carbon from a graphite crystal. Known as graphene, the new fabric effectively exists in just two dimensions, and could pave the way for computers built from single molecules.
In the latest edition of Science, published tomorrow, the scientists from Manchester University and Chernogolovka, Russia, explain that the atomic sheet is a fullerene molecule. Fullerenes are a class of carbon molecules discovered in the last twenty years. The first, the famous football-shaped Carbon-60 molecule, was named for architect Buckminster Fuller, because of its resemblance to his geodesic dome structures."
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
OBERON - OBERON - OBERON - OBERON - DL1000 V-Strom
OBERON - OBERON - OBERON - OBERON - DL1000 V-Strom: "DL1000 Bar End Weights "
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Circular Work in Carpentry and Joinery - Jeff Greef Woodworking
Circular Work in Carpentry and Joinery - Jeff Greef Woodworking: "This book was originally published in London over 100 years ago, and is probably the best treatise available on the subject. The focus is not furniture, rather it covers architectural work such as windows and roof construction. However, the geometric wizardry in this book applies equally well for both subjects.
"
Monday, October 18, 2004
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Saturday, October 16, 2004
uwnews.org - News and Information from the University of Washington
uwnews.org - News and Information from the University of Washington: "A new means of propelling spacecraft being developed at the University of Washington could dramatically cut the time needed for astronauts to travel to and from Mars and could make humans a permanent fixture in space.
In fact, with magnetized-beam plasma propulsion, or mag-beam, quick trips to distant parts of the solar system could become routine, said Robert Winglee, a UW Earth and space sciences professor who is leading the project.
Currently, using conventional technology and adjusting for the orbits of both the Earth and Mars around the sun, it would take astronauts about 2.5 years to travel to Mars, conduct their scientific mission and return.
'We're trying to get to Mars and back in 90 days,' Winglee said. 'Our philosophy is that, if it's going to take two-and-a-half years, the chances of a successful mission are pretty low.'
Mag-beam is one of 12 proposals that this month began receiving support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Institute for Advanced Concepts. Each gets $75,000 for a six-month study to validate the concept and identify challenges in developing it. Projects that make it through that phase are eligible for as much as $400,000 more over two years."
Friday, October 15, 2004
Article: Genesis crash linked to upside-down design?| New Scientist
Article: Genesis crash linked to upside-down design?| New Scientist: "The sensors, which are estimated to be less than an inch (2.5 centimetres) wide, were apparently installed in a circuit board in the wrong orientation - rotated 180? from the correct direction. But the problem stemmed not from the installation but the design, by Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, Maryland."
Wired News: All-Science TV Network Kicks Off
Wired News: All-Science TV Network Kicks Off: "Just in time for a close presidential election in which science policy could actually influence the outcome, an all-science, all-the-time television network has launched its first broadcast, which tackles the hot topic of stem-cell research.
The Science Network's first show is a seminar featuring the world's pre-eminent embryonic-stem-cell researchers, including Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep, and Jamie Thomson, who isolated the first embryonic stem cell. It airs throughout October on UCTV, the University of California's television network."
NewsForge | ZoneMinder: Linux home security par excellence
NewsForge | ZoneMinder: Linux home security par excellence: "I recently installed a remote home camera security system using wireless Internet cameras and a fine free software application for Linux called ZoneMinder. The cameras are installed at a friend's house, and the application runs at mine. ZoneMinder is powerful, feature-rich, and sophisticated."
Thursday, October 14, 2004
GRITS - A celebration of Southern cooking and kitchen traditions
GRITS - A celebration of Southern cooking and kitchen traditions: "Directions
We in the south make the best iced tea you'll find. Maybe it's how it's done, or maybe it is the water in the south, or maybe it's just that a southern belle has put a lot of TLC into making the tea. Who knows!
We recommend Luzianne Tea Bags if available.
Place the two cups water in a pot and add the tea bags. Bring to a boil, do not continue boiling. Remove from heat and let steep. Pour warm tea into empty pitcher. Add the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Fill remaining pitcher with cold water.
Optional - some women say they use less water and add ice to the tea."
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Heimidal.net
Heimidal.net: "Internet Explorer Sucks
IE logo
Many web developers have argued over the past few years that Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser is one of the worst-supported applications available on any platform. This doesn't negate the fact that IE for Windows is the single most widely used piece of software in existence today. This article is meant to illustrate a few key points:"
Man jailed for publishing web demo pics
Man jailed for publishing web demo pics: "A KURDISH Syrian journalism student has been jailed for three years for reporting on a pro-Kurdish demonstration on his website. Massud Hamed posted pictures of the demo on the website and was promply charged by a state security court with 'belonging to a secret organisation' and 'attempting to attach part of Syrian territory to a third country'."
Discount Air Tickets for Japan
Discount Air Tickets for Japan
While regular airfares on domestic routes remain high (see map at the bottom of the page), a wide array of discount offers has made domestic air travel very attractive and competitive in recent years. In fact, there so many discount plans, that only very few travelers are ever paying regular fares.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Microsoft scuttles around court ruling
Microsoft scuttles around court ruling: "Microsoft scuttles around court ruling "
Monday, October 11, 2004
flight
Boat Designs from the 1940's: Treasures from the Past
Flight is a 19' 6" outboard cruiser that evokes the mahogany era when Chris Craft and Century boats were rumbling about on lakes across the US. Restored today, these inboard and outboard cruisers often sell for $10,000 and upward--if you can find one. My Radcraft is an outboard runabout from two decades later, but it still has some of the same qualities. I know that every time I take her out cruising, people wave and gawk--while at the same time, they don't give a second glance to a high cost fiberglass boat that's rushing by. While my old 30 hp. Johnson can't push me above 25 mph, it's plenty of motor for the 1/4" mahogany ply skin on a choppy lake.
Sunday, October 10, 2004
PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column
PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column: "And Microsoft could use the help since it continues to have the daylights beat out of it in court by little Burst.com. As you may recall from earlier columns, Burst, a two-person dot-com survivor from Santa Rosa, Calif., where I used to live, has been suing Microsoft for two years for anti-trust, breach of contract, restraint of trade, and patent infringement. In the great panoply of Microsoft civil anti-trust lawsuits, Burst's might be the last, and for Microsoft, it has to be the worst because Redmond looks so bad. This week, the news from recently unsealed court documents is that Microsoft may have deliberately lied not only to Burst, but also to the other anti-trust litigants right up to and including the U.S. Department of Justice."
researchpaperSANE.pdf (application/pdf Object)
researchpaperSANE.pdf (application/pdf Object)"Members of the Bits of Freedom group conducted a test to see how much it would take for a service provider to take down a website hosting public domain material, and have published their results. They signed up with 10 providers and put online a work by Dutch author Multatuli, who died over 100 years ago. They stated that the work was in the public domain, and that it was written in 1871. They then set up a fake society to claim to be the copyright holders of the work. From a Hotmail address, they sent out complaints to all 10 of the providers. 7 out of 10 complied and removed the site, one within just 3 hours.
The Austin Chronicle: News: The Hightower Report
The Austin Chronicle: News: The Hightower Report Trust us, plead the makers of electronic voting machines – our touch-screen systems are state-of-the-art, foolproof marvels!
But – oops – in a couple of recent, high-profile tests, the computers glitched and the makers of the machines had virtual egg all over their faces. First up was Sequoia Voting Systems. Boasting that its machines deliver "nothing less than 100% accuracy," it held a demonstration of its newest technology for California senate staffers in August.
Imagine Sequoia's 100% embarrassment when its machine balked during demonstration votes on a Spanish-language ballot. The testers punched in their votes on the touch screen ... but – oops – the machine did not record the votes, apparently having lost them somewhere in cyberspace. Luckily, this was a test of Sequoia's new system that includes a paper record of every vote – and the paper trail revealed the computer's error, which otherwise would have been undetected, disenfranchising the voter.
The lesson is obvious: These machines must have a paper backup.
The Austin Chronicle: News: The Hightower Report
The Austin Chronicle: News: The Hightower Report
HOME: OCTOBER 8, 2004: NEWS: THE HIGHTOWER REPORT
The Hightower Report
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
NEW YORK'S GOOBERHEAD MAYOR
Time for another Gooberhead Award – presented periodically to those in the news who have their tongues going 100 miles an hour ... but who forgot to put their brains in gear.
Today's Goober is Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of the Big Apple. Hizzoner was in the national spotlight during August's Republican National Convention in New York City – and the glare revealed some very ugly wrinkles inside his soul. Bloomberg showed himself to be stunningly callous to our country's most fundamental liberty – the right to assemble in public and speak out about any and all policies with which we disagree. He used the New York police as a bludgeon to crack down on dissenters who were engaged in totally lawful protests; then, he asserted that "every NYPD officer did a great job."
Universe Today - Astronomers on Supernova High Alert
Universe Today - Astronomers on Supernova High Alert: "NASA's High-Energy Transient Explorer (HETE-2) has spotted three different powerful blasts of x-ray radiation over the last few weeks, and if astronomers' models hold true, these are precursors to much more powerful gamma-ray bursts, which have been linked with supernovae. Many telescopes around the world will be studying the regions that these x-ray flashes happened, hoping to catch a supernova in the act of exploding.
"
Saturday, October 09, 2004
Department of State Washington File: Text: Genome Shows How Ocean Algae Helps Absorb Carbon Dioxide
Department of State Washington File: Text: Genome Shows How Ocean Algae Helps Absorb Carbon Dioxide: "These organisms are incredibly important in the global carbon cycle,' says Virginia Armbrust, a University of Washington associate professor of oceanography and lead author of the Science paper. Together, the single-celled organisms generate as much as 40 percent of the 50 billion to 55 billion tons of organic carbon produced each year in the sea and in the process use carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. And they are an important food source for many other marine organisms.
Scientists would like to better understand how these organisms react to changes in sea temperatures, the amount of light penetrating the oceans, and nutrients. 'Oceanographers thought we understood how diatoms use nitrogen, but we discovered they have a urea cycle, something no one ever suspected,' Armbrust says. A urea cycle is a nitrogen waste pathway found in animals and has never before been seen in a photosynthetic eukaryote like a diatom, she says. Nitrogen is crucial for diatom growth and is often in short supply in seawater, depending on ocean conditions. The genome work revealed that the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana has the genes to produce urea-cycle enzymes that may help to reduce its dependence on nitrogen from the surrounding waters.
The genome work also shed additional light on how this diatom species uses fats, or lipids, which it is known to store in huge amounts. 'Learning the actual pathways they use to metabolize their fats helps explain the ability of diatoms to withstand long periods with little sunlight--even to overwinter--and then start growing really rapidly once they return to sunlight,' she says.
"
Department of State Washington File: Text: International Scientists Watch Sky for Possible Supernova
Department of State Washington File: Text: International Scientists Watch Sky for Possible Supernova: "'Each burst has been beautiful,' Ricker said. 'Depending on how these evolve, they could support important theories about supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. These past two weeks have been like 'cock, fire, reload.' Nature keeps on delivering, and our HETE-2 satellite keeps on responding flawlessly,' he said.'
Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful explosions known other than the Big Bang. Many appear to be caused by the death of a massive star collapsing into a black hole. Others might be from merging black holes or neutron stars. In either case, the event likely produces twin, narrow jets in opposite directions, which carry off tremendous amounts of energy. If one of jets points to Earth, we see this energy as a gamma ray burst. "
Science Blog - After Trio of Explosions, Scientists Say Supernova Is Imminent
Science Blog - After Trio of Explosions, Scientists Say Supernova Is Imminent: "Three powerful blasts from three wholly different regions in space have left scientists scrambling. The blasts, which lasted only a few seconds, might be early alert systems for star explosions called supernovae, which could start appearing any day now.
The first two blasts, called X-ray flashes, occurred on September 12 and 16. These were followed by a more powerful burst on September 24 that seems to be on the cusp between an X-ray flash and a full-fledged gamma-ray burst, a discovery interesting in its own right. If these signals lead to supernovae, as expected, scientists would have a tool to predict star explosions and then watch them go off from start to finish."
Science Blog - Lice Genes Show Modern, Ancient Humans Made Contact
Science Blog - Lice Genes Show Modern, Ancient Humans Made Contact
The analysis of lice genes also confirmed two other key developments in human evolution. First, it verified studies showing how and when various species branched off the family tree of primates and humans. Second, it confirmed the “out of Africa” theory that the population of Homo sapiens mushroomed after a small band of the early humans left Africa sometime between 150,000 and 50,000 years ago.
Science Blog - Radio astronomers remove the blindfold
Science Blog - Radio astronomers remove the blindfold: "using e-VLBI, we have removed that blindfold; we can process the observations taken at a number of locations around the world at once, in real time. In future, this technique will allow us to take much better images than previously possible, revealing in much greater detail the Universe around us.''
e-VLBI uses new dedicated internet infrastructures (called research networks) in the participating countries, so that data from all the telescopes can be relayed rapidly to a centre in the Netherlands where the data are combined and sent back to the astronomers, who then produce the images. "
Friday, October 08, 2004
flat assembler
flat assembler: "Welcome to the site of flat assembler! This is a place dedicated to assembly language programming for x86 systems and contains many resources for both beginners and advanced assembly programmers. This site is still under construction (and perhaps it will always be), but hopefully you'll find here some useful materials, no matter whether you are trying to learn the assembly language, or just are looking for the solution for some particular problem."
A Simple Guide to Slipstreaming Windows XP Service Pack 2 - OSNews.com
A Simple Guide to Slipstreaming Windows XP Service Pack 2 - OSNews.com: "Slipstreaming a Service Pack, is the process to integrate the Service Pack into the installation so that with every new installation the Operating System and Service Pack are installed at the same time."
Annual Reviews
Annual Reviews: "analytic reviews in 30 focused disciplines within the Biomedical, Physical, and Social Sciences."
Thursday, October 07, 2004
E-voting vendor is a bully
E-voting vendor is a bully: "Diebold misrepresented its claims when it sent threatening letters to the ISPs of students who had posted the company's internal documents online.
Diebold claimed the documents violated its copyrights under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and demanded that they be removed.
Several items seemed to reinforce concerns about electronic voting.
US District Judge Jeremy Fogel said that no reasonable copyright holder could have believed that the portions of the e-mail archive discussing possible technical problems with Diebold's voting machines were protected by copyright."
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Document Archive
Document Archive: "Document Archive is a database written in Perl to help you (and your workgroup) keeping track of the vast amount of electronic documents and BibTeX entries you might have in use. The underlying database is MySQL (because it's addressed through Perl's DBI, it might work with others as well).
It's meant to be an alternative to .bib files and a complicated directory structure of document files. Although it's a web-based application command line frontends to the most important features will be developed. Some work on integration into the great browser suites Mozilla and Firefox has also been done."
Article: T. rex descended from feathered ancestor?| New Scientist
Article: T. rex descended from feathered ancestor?| New Scientist: "Chinese palaeontologists have uncovered the most complete fossil yet of an ancestral tyrannosaur, and found that filamentary protofeathers covered its body. Feathers and protofeathers had been found on related dinosaurs, but not on an early tyrannosauroid."
Article: Quark forces attract Nobel Prize in Physics?| New Scientist
Article: Quark forces attract Nobel Prize in Physics?| New Scientist: "What Gross, Politzer and Wilczek calculated was that the force between the quarks grows stronger as the distance between them increases. This means that particles fired into the proton can rattle off the quarks inside but, as the quarks move off, the force on them grows stronger, preventing them escaping the proton.
"
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Saturday, October 02, 2004
Friday, October 01, 2004
New Scientist | Evolution of the Car
New Scientist | Evolution of the Car: "They found that 90 per cent of the fuel was concentrated in a thin jet behind the V-shaped shock wave, with the densest concentration of fuel right behind the shock front. And while the gas in the chamber slowed down the leading edge of the fuel jet, the trailing edge moved several times faster, at supersonic velocity. As the tail end of the fuel jet caught up with the leading edge, most of the fuel became concentrated in a blob just behind the point of the shock cone. 'Nobody knows why that should be, but we're going to try and find out,' Wang told New Scientist."
newsobserver.com | Opinion
newsobserver.com | Opinion: "A case of insecure browsing
Exploring missed opportunities in the Microsoft antitrust suit
By ANDREW CHIN
CHAPEL HILL -- United States v. Microsoft, the most celebrated antitrust case in a generation, quietly ended its six-year run Wednesday, as the Supreme Court's deadline to file a final appeal passed without a whimper from any of the parties. Little comfort can be taken from the legal system's silence."
Yahoo! News - Lawmaker expresses "dismay" that White House allegedly wrote Allawi speech
Yahoo! News - Lawmaker expresses "dismay" that White House allegedly wrote Allawi speech: "In a letter to the White House, a leading US Senate Democrat expressed 'profound dismay' that the White House allegedly wrote a large portion of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's speech to Congress last week."
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• Key Players in the Plame Affair