Invisible editors of Wikipedia outed

The CIA, the Democratic Party, the Vatican, SeaWorld and voting machine supplier Diebold.
All have anonymously edited articles, according to the British Broadcasting Corp. and various technical publications.
The invisible editors were outed by Wikipedia Scanner,
an application recently invented by graduate student Virgil Griffiths, which has compared 5.3 million edits in the past five years against more than 2 million Internet addresses whose owners are public knowledge.
Last year, someone edited the Wikipedia entry for the SeaWorld theme parks to change all mentions of “orcas” to “killer whales,” insisting that this was a more accurate name for the species.
There was another, unexplained edit: A paragraph about criticism of SeaWorld’s “lack of respect toward its orcas” disappeared.
Both changes, it turns out, originated at a computer at Anheuser-Busch, SeaWorld’s owner.

Faith Based Dominist Groups

It furthermore doesn't help when one of the main people partnering with the President on "faith-based issues" is the former head of Straight, Inc. himself.
(Of note, Sembler and Bush set up an agency similar to Florida's FACCCA as an alternative licensing board for faith-based "behaviour mod" facilities; after five years of multiple incidents of abuse at these facilities exempted from licensing (including a facility where two attempted escapees were forced into a pit
in a manner more resembling something out of Gitmo than a rehab facility) Texas finally discontinued the program--but not before people were forced into "faith-based coercion". George W. Bush has since attempted to use the failed Texas model as a nationwide model for "faith-based services".

Flying Wing

This one is straight out of a James Bond movie or Batman script.

German researchers this week showed off their Gryphon personal
strap-on jet wing that lets the pilot scream through the air at about
135MPH. The Gryphon features a six-foot wing and hand-held rotary
controls for the rudder. The system includes onboard oxygen and helmet
that features a heads-up display.

Researchers say the final version of the flying wing will contain an
electronic system that will take care of some of the steering for the
pilot which today can be a little tricky, researchers say.

Amplified Photon Thruster

Young Bae, founder of the Bae Institute in Tustin, Calif., first demonstrated his photonic laser thruster (PLT), which he built with off-the-shelf components, in December.


The demonstration produced a photon thrust of 35 µN and is scalable to achieve much greater thrust for future space missions, the institute said. Applications include highly precise satellite formation flying configurations for building large synthetic apertures in space for earth or space observation, precision contaminant-free spacecraft docking operations, and propelling spacecraft to unprecedented speeds -- faster than 100 km/sec.

---

Copyright

Copyright Alliance Pretending That Gov't Backed Monopolies Are The Free Market Again

from the up-is-down,-black-is-white dept

A few months back, the big entertainment companies formed yet another
copyright lobbying group -- as if they didn't already have enough -- to
push for more restrictive copyright policies that would limit the
rights of consumers. This was the group that just last week was trying
to spread the myth that fair use was not a right
and copyright holders should be able to lie about what rights copyright
grants them. However, the head of the group, Patrick Ross, really seems
to get into trouble when he tries to trot out free market concepts to
support his positions. You may recall back in January his position that
getting rid of the DMCA would go against the free market because it would represent government intervention.
He seemed to totally ignore the fact that it was the DMCA that was
gov't intervention in the first place. Apparently, Ross hasn't given up
on this "up is down, day is night" type of debate style, as copyright
expert William Patry has taken Patrick Ross to task for claiming that
new laws supporting consumer rights when it comes to copyrighted
content were "government intervention" against the free market. As
Patry points out all copyright is government intervention
-- and supporting stronger copyrights is to be calling for greater
gov't intervention. To then claim that giving more power back to the
consumers on copyright is gov't intervention, is being intellectually
dishonest. You can support copyright by claiming that the market breaks
down and there's a market failure that necessitates such gov't
intervention (and, in fact, many people do). But to claim that stronger
copyrights means a stronger free market is an outright falsehood. Ross
seems to be under the false impression that the "natural" position of
the market is to have the strongest possible copyrights, and therefore,
any weakening of that is gov't intervention. That creates a complete
blindspot to the fact that all copyright is government intervention,
and giving rights back to consumers is less government intervention.

Solar craft flies through two nights

I wonder how large it can scale?

Vacation Networks. Inc.

I just got a letter from my vacation company. VNI They have been in business 8 years now, and we have been members for 4 years. The gist of the letter is that because of complaints VNI has received, they are giving us two options. A. We continue with they and they will double our remaining weeks. Which for us is an increase from 33 to 66 weeks. We have used none of our weeks. B. They will buy us out for 25% of our purchase price. That does not seem a good deal at all. I would want 100% + 6% per year in interest on everything spent, now thats reasonable.

I wonder whats behind this. Time for some research.

Lets see,

Vacation Reservation Systems Inc.’s Privacy Policy

Occasionally we make our customer list available to carefully screened companies whose products may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive such mailings, please send your request to:Network Privacy / 4210 / Columbia Rd. / Martinez, Georgia 30907 or Email netprivacy@vrsvacations.com.

I have not found much on them, but some complaints; not many but then they seem to use www.complaintremover.com to actively remove complaints and replace them with good links. Not encouraging.
We have not used any of our time but did try once, they were not able to come through for us. That is we tried for a week in Montreal and they found nothing there. When we did it on our own we found plenty of places to stay.
Just found their website, not much there, basic info:
Department Directory

Customer Service
Address: Vacation Reservation Systems Inc.
ATTN: Customer Service
P.O. Box 189
Evans, GA 30809
Phone: 888.889.9523
Fax: 888.890.1389
Email: customerservice@vrsvacations.com
Mon-Fri 9am-5pm(EST)

Condominium, Suite, Villa Reservations
Address: Vacation Reservation Systems Inc.
ATTN: Reservations
P.O. Box 189
Evans, GA 30809
Phone: 888.889.9523
Fax: 888.890.1389
Email: reservations@vrsvacations.com
Mon-Fri 9am-5pm(EST)

Technical Support (Website)
Address: Vacation Reservation Systems Inc.
ATTN: Technical Support
P.O. Box 189
Evans, GA 30809
Phone: 888.889.9523
Fax: 888.890.1389
Email:  webmaster@vrsvacations.com
Mon-Fri 9am-5pm(EST)

---

Cassini-Huygens

Vista Error Msg.

Just got another error message in Vista, that windows explorer has stopped working.

---

Technology for Comparing Different Editions of the Same Print

biologist developed a method to determine the date of antique prints made from hand-cranked presses. In his so-called print-clock method, image analysis software counts the number of breaks in the lines appearing in each print. Successive prints made from the same wooden or copper block show more breaks, since breaks in the wood and thinning of the copper occur evenly over time.

To think that world domination could have begun in the cheeks

I do so love stories like this, it just makes sense.

"Extra gene copies are an easy way for evolution to ramp up expression of a protein," said Nathaniel Dominy, assistant professor of anthropology at University of California, Santa Cruz, and one of the paper's authors. "Why wait for chance mutations to improve gene function? Natural selection can favor duplicate copies of a gene that already works well, and enzyme production will increase."

Other primates eat mainly ripe fruits containing very little starch. A new ability to supplement the diet with calorie-rich starches could have fed our large brains and opened up new food supplies that fueled our unrivaled colonization of the planet, Dominy said.

The researchers sampled saliva from 50 European-American undergraduates and found as many as 15 copies of the amylase gene per person. By comparison, all 15 chimpanzees they sampled had exactly two copies each. Students with more copies of the gene also had higher concentrations of the enzyme in their spit.
For Dominy and his coauthors, the finding goes beyond the mouth. In pondering human origins, Dominy said, anthropologists have long been stumped by the sudden, nearly simultaneous increases in our brain size, body size, and geographic range, while other apes changed little. Early humans simply must have found some source of better nutrition to make it all possible, they reasoned.

"That's the big mystery of paleoanthropology," Dominy said. "What changed? Why did our earliest human ancestors deviate from the pattern we see in living apes to evolve this incredibly large brain, which is very energetically expensive to maintain, and to become a much more efficient bipedal organism?"

For years, the answer was thought to be the growing importance of meat in the diet, as early humans learned to hunt. But, Dominy pointed out, "Even when you look at modern human hunter-gatherers, meat is a relatively small fraction of their diet. They cooperate with language, use nets; they have poisoned arrows, even, and still it's not that easy to hunt meat. To think that, two to four million years ago, a small-brained, awkwardly bipedal animal could efficiently acquire meat, even by scavenging, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

Some anthropologists have begun to suspect the new source of food consisted of starches, stored by plants in the form of underground tubers and bulbs--wild versions of modern-day foods like carrots, potatoes, and onions. Once early humans learned to recognize tuber-forming plants, they opened up a food source unknown to other apes.

"It's kind of a goldmine," Dominy said. "All you have to do is dig it up."

Offhollywood RED Shoot - Behind The Scenes

Using the Red One camera, video is not HD.

Dodecasub

The Dodecasub is a powerful subwoofer with a difference. Ten individual ten-inch subwoofers are packed into all but the top and bottom faces of a dodecahedral structure. Each one can pump out 600 watts, making Elemental Designs's $2500 creation capable of a whopping 6000 watts. The speakers are apparently designed, however, to constrain the "sweet-spot" to a small area, keeping the sound refined.

Daniel Cooper says Bible Study is more important than doing his Job.

The head of the U.S. federal government agency that doles out benefits to disabled veterans is under fire for saying Bible study is "more important than doing [my] job."

Two organisations, Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), demanded an investigation Tuesday of Daniel Cooper, President George W. Bush's undersecretary for benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Their complaint stems from an appearance Cooper made in a fundraising video for the evangelical group Christian Embassy, which carries out missionary work among the Washington elite as part of the Campus Crusade for Christ.

In the video, Cooper says of his Bible study, "it's not really about carving out time, it really is a matter of saying what is important. And since that's more important than doing the job -- the job's going to be there, whether I'm there or not."
Veterans for Common Sense and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation believe Cooper violated the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits government officials from advocating a particular religion while on the job.

They also believe Cooper violated ethics rules that prohibit government officials from using their name, picture, or title for proselytising or fundraising.

"We're very concerned about this because hundreds of thousands of veterans are waiting for their benefits while Cooper himself says that promoting his religion is more important than helping the veterans," Veterans for Common Sense's Paul Sullivan told IPS.

Mozy is Down Again

I am unable to connect, there web site seems down as well.

---

Whole-grain breakfast has 10-hour impact

Experiments also showed that the blood sugar increase following breakfast can be moderated in a similar way by eating the right grain products the night before, said study leader Anne Nilsson, a doctoral student at Lund University.

"It is known that a carbohydrate-rich breakfast with low glycemic index can moderate increases in blood sugar after lunch," Nilsson said in a statement.

"But my results show that low glycemic index in combination with the right amount of so-called indigestible carbohydrates, that is, dietary fiber and resistant starch, can keep the blood-sugar level low for up to 10 hours, which means until after dinner."

Barley had the best results of the four types of grain tested.

Glycemic index is a measure of how rapidly the level of blood sugar rises after ingestion of food containing carbohydrates. Foods with low glycemic index offer several health advantages because the blood sugar level rises slowly and the insulin increase is lower.

300 fps

CASIO's next-generation camera shoots VGA-equivalent movies at a speed of 300 frames per second. This means that you can easily shoot ultra slow-motion movies at speeds that have until now been available only on professional level cameras. Not only does this open up a whole new world of motion that is not apparent to the naked eye, it also provides a valuable tool for analysis of sports events and fast-moving action.

My feature requests

I would really like the camera to be able to output in the .png format, in at least truecolor RGB type 2 with 48 bits. The other formats would be good as well.

It would also be good to use both compact flash and SD cards. Flexible battery; being able to use Nimh AA cells and a lithium battery pack. An external battery pack able to use Nimh C cells, that uses the internal cells at the same time. A full featured and powerful handle bar flash, that allows use of the built in flash at the same time. Good sound recording.

Continuous wifi dump of images/files to portable hard drive, and/or other media, computer, network, internet. Being able to view/review images in real time on a larger portable external screen via wifi, (a 4x6 inch screen would be nice). If you decided to make the screen a full featured remote controller for the camera I would not mind.

Nuclear Bombs Mistakenly Flown Over US

By PAULINE JELINEK 09.05.07, 5:35 PM ET WASHINGTON -

A B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown for more than three hours across several states last week, prompting an Air Force investigation and the firing of one commander, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The plane was carrying Advanced Cruise Missiles from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a Defense Department policy not to confirm information on nuclear weapons.

Todays Tea

Todays tea is two quarts worth of decaff, one quart of black, and one cup of green, mixed to yield 3 quarts. Freshly brewed of course. Its not bad.

Just remembered I need to take my meds, (its why I brewed the tea in the first place). Blood Sugar is at 180 mg/dL. Bad.

Took my meds.

---