Supersonic price at Concorde sale. Fans of Concorde take the chance to snap up a piece of aviation history as parts of the airliner are auctioned in Paris. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

OK, aside from the fact that it looks like a giant Klansman is trying to come up through a hole in your floor, that is one cool artifact.

10:52:54 PM     leave/read comments []

It's so much easier to manufacture consensus when dissent is stifled, isn't it?

Hush, hush, bloggers carry.....

Censorware thinks blogs are unsavory. SurfControl, a censorware vendor, has roped off blogs from some of its customers' machines. That means that if your workplace, library or school relies on SurfControl to keep naughty pages away from its computers, you can't get at blogs, either.

Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the federal mandate requiring libraries to censor their terminals, companies like SurfControl control more than surfing: they control basic access to information.

Link

(via Dan Gillmor) [Boing Boing Blog]

10:39:36 PM    

National Geographic offers TOPO State Maps for Mac. Hikers, bikers or outdoor enthusiasts who have been looking for topographic maps for their Mac may want to check out National Geographic's TOPO! State Series, which is now Mac-compatible. [MacCentral]

Well, finally.

Some cool software, now available for us Mactypes.

10:29:33 PM     leave/read comments []

From our pals at Boing Boing:

Sexy Math. BoingBoing patron saint Bruce Sterling points our dirty minds to a website containing this suggestive series of images created entirely from mathematical algorithms. "If you find them offensive in any way," says the site's creator, "all I can say is that beauty (or obscenity) is in this case most certainly in the eye of the beholder." If high school algebra had been half this fun, perhaps I would have passed. Link [Boing Boing Blog]

10:24:09 PM    

In the Middle Class, More Are Deprived Of Health Insurance. The majority of the uninsured are employees of small businesses, civil servants, single working mothers and those working part time. By Stephanie Strom. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

The New Feudalists (let's call them "Republicans"), in some kind of Hayekian nightmare of unregulated Corporate Captialism Fascism, have put more and more of us on the road to serfdom. Only in this nightmare, the Party (Corporation?) is wrapping itself in the banner of free markets, not state control, when actually the Party is using the State to take power from the small businesses and the shopkeepers and give that power to the corporate oligarchs and the oligarghopolies. (Hey, I invented a word!)

Take health insurance, for example; as it becomes harder and harder for small businesses and independent contractors to secure health insurance, it makes large corporations more powerful.

Mr. Thornton is one of more than 43 million people in the United States who lack health insurance, and their numbers are rapidly increasing because of ever soaring cost and job losses. Many states, including Texas, are also cutting back on subsidies for health care, further increasing the number of people with no coverage.

The majority of the uninsured are neither poor by official standards nor unemployed. They are accountants like Mr. Thornton, employees of small businesses, civil servants, single working mothers and those working part time or on contract.

The "Texas Miracle" provides us with an example of where the New Feudalsim wants to take us:

The insurance crisis is especially visible in Texas, which has the highest proportion of uninsured in the country [~] almost one in every four residents. The state has a large population of immigrants; its labor market is dominated by low-wage service sector jobs, and it has a higher than average number of small businesses, which are less likely to provide health benefits because they pay higher insurance costs than large companies.

....

Ms. Pardo, a 29-year-old from Houston, said that having no insurance meant choosing between buying an inhaler for her 9-year-old asthmatic daughter or buying her a birthday present. The girl, Morgan, lost her state-subsidized insurance last month, and now her mother must pay $80 instead of $5 for the inhaler.

....

Lorenda Stevenson said her choice was between buying medicine to treat patches of peeling, flaking skin on her hands, arms and face and making sure her son could continue his after-school tennis program. "There's no way I will cut that out unless we don't have money for food," she said.

Mrs. Stevenson's husband, Bill, lost his management job at WorldCom two years ago, when an accounting scandal forced the company into bankruptcy. They managed to pay $900 a month for Cobra, the government policy that allows workers to continue their coverage after they lose their jobs, but when the cost rose to $1,200, they could no longer afford it.

And so it goes, over and over again.

As we roll down the road to serfdom, will we wake up and see the new face of fascism and feudalism or will we resign ourselves to being little more than cube slaves?

9:27:01 PM     leave/read comments []

Another watchdog of The New Feudalism:

Source: Oligopoly Watch; 11/15/03; 9:04:40 PM.

Strategic Alliances

Here's an excellent analysis by U. of Wisconsin Law School professor Peter C. Carstensen. It's an excerpt from a paper on "Market Concentration and Agriculture" that he delivered at a Department of Agriculture conference in 2000. While Carstensen's specific topic is agribusiness, but its ideas are applicable to all the oligopolies we cover. Here's one except that struck me. 

Non-merger collaborations among large firms allow them to coordinate their competition in order to create mutual power. The intended effect is to obtain a stronger market position. A few of these alliances might provide economically useful coordination if they create an efficiency-enhancing joint venture to produce or distribute new products. Such joint ventures also show that merger is not an essential element to effective entry into new lines of business. Other alliances, to the extent that we have any reliable information, are merely a mechanism to coordinate efforts among firms to limit their direct competition and ensure mutual strategies to build market power.

It should be a source of real concern that we know so little about the scope and content of these alliances. The parties, except as required by law, do not make public disclosure of their agreements or how they are implementing them. Given the high levels of concentration both within markets and industry sectors as well as the growing vertical integration in these industries, such disclosure is essential to proper evaluation of these relationships.

Once power in a market is concentrated in a handful of companies, they can settle into a pattern of being friendly competitors. This is often done through trade associations, which are nominally open to all participants in the market but are often cover for the backroom deals mad between companies. As long as detectable price fixing is not part of it, regulators are often happy to let it all slide.

But as we've seen, there's a whole host of things that companies can do under the guise of joint ventures or industry associations, beyond price-fixing. The RIAA (the recording industry trade association) has made itself notorious by legislating protection for its largest members, extending copyright laws, and setting up joint ventures between the Big Five recording companies, dictating standard terms to suppliers (artists) and distributors (retailers), and even (though they were caught) setting prices. And while the association claims too represent the whole industry, it clearly is owned by the Big Five. (In fact, a recent NPR story showed how a number of small recording firms were listed on the RIAA's Web site as members, when they had never joined and fought unsuccessfully to be de-listed.)

Of course, when there is a wide-ranging association of a number of individual companies, associations may well represent the interest of the whole profession or market, such as the American Medical Association or the Printing Industries of America. But in industries that are controlled by a small number of players, the association becomes a facilitator for the cooperation of those companies in ways that otherwise might provoke antitrust action.

[Oligopoly Watch]

9:26:03 PM    

Tube! Cool!

3D London Tube.

These 3D rendered London Tube maps are pretty mind-blowing.

Link

(via Blackbelt Jones)

[Boing Boing Blog]

4:54:18 PM    

Privacy-consciousness-raising stickers.

The Austrian cyber-activists Quintessenz put on the local Big Brother Award ceremony. To promote it, they distributed these stickers that look like hidden cameras, encouraging people to put them up in toilets and other places where privacy matters. The caption means "The Most Shameless Surveilleur."

116k PDF Link
[Boing Boing Blog]

4:52:56 PM    

Secret cameras revealed!. How to find hidden cameras:

Some methods to hide cameras solely rely on the way human perception works. A very simple way to "hide" a camera is to install it at a large distance from the space to be surveilled. This does not restrict the usefulness of the camera images in any way because tele lenses can be used to compensate for the distance. For this application there is no need for subminiature cameras, although these are even easier to hide. Standard surveillance cameras painted the right color are very hard to spot and usually have a CMount or CS-Mount 7 socket which is needed for attaching the necessary high quality tele lens.

260K PDF Link

(via Crypto-Gram) [Boing Boing Blog]

4:52:05 PM    

Yet another quiz!

How could I be anything but a character in an Oscar Wilde book?

In my not so humble opinion, you, of course, belong in the Picture of Dorian Gray, and do not try to deny it. You belong in the fashionable circles of Victorian London where exotic tastes, a double life, decadence, wit and a hypocritical belief in moral betterment make you a home. You belong where the witty apothegms of Lords, the silly moralities of matrons, the blinding high of opium, and the beauty of visual arts mingle to form one convoluted world.

Which Classic Novel do You Belong In?
brought to you by Quizilla

Props to JulieBeth for the link.

3:57:19 PM     leave/read comments []

Hungover CNET wakes up next to MP3.com. What do we have in the bed with us? [The Register]

Yes, it's another banner day for Corporate Cruelty, as C|Net tells thousands of musicians to fuck off and die as it prepares to ride the dead-end "gravy train" of DRM.

Musicians received this announcement on Friday.

"Your personal information, music, images, related content or other information will not be transferred to CNET Networks, Inc. or any other third party... Please note, however, that promptly following the removal of the MP3.com website, all content will be deleted from our servers and all previously submitted tapes, CD-ROMs and other media in our possession will be destroyed. We recommend that you make alternative content hosting arrangements as soon as practicable."

A verbose way of saying, "piss off"...

Now why would C|Man Mao do such a thing, destroying a massive archive that allowed artists to reach their fans directly? Is this some sort of C|ultural Rev.loution?

Not since the Great Leap Forward has there been such a destruction of the commons. Back then, for political reasons, millions of books were burned. Now, for very sensible commercial reasons that we must not question, millions of MP3s will be lost to the commons. You have precisely seventeen days to grab the good stuff (and, Steb Sly - we hope you have a backup)

Punters and musicians alike will have until December 2 to retrieve the goods. After that, the future isn't too difficult to predict.

CNET will follow Wal-Mart, Real Inc. and Apple Computer into the DRM business, infecting as many computers as they can with restrictive software controls that close what for a brief period has been an open computer platform. They all hope that this tentative business model, the terms of which are set by the entertainment "industry", will somehow turn them a profit. Or at least give the illusion of doing so, until a better idea comes along.

It should be noted that MP3.com's founder, Michael Robertson, is none too pleased with what's going to happen to his creation:

"It's a sad day because according to the public announcements, they are deleting all the music,'' Robertson said in an e-mail. "It's like a museum filled with digital antiquities burning to the ground.'' [San Francisco Chronicle]

Indeed it is, but Corporate Amerika doesn't give a shit about artists or listeners, aside from how much green can be extracted from their wallets. But we all knew that, didn't we?

1:14:58 PM     leave/read comments []

Images suggest ancient Mars rivers were not short-lived. Images of what appear to be alluvial fans of debris on the surface of Mars... [spacetoday.net]

From the NASA press release:

Delta-Like Fan On Mars Suggests Ancient Rivers Were Persistent

Newly seen details in a fan-shaped apron of debris on Mars may help settle a decades-long debate about whether the planet had long-lasting rivers instead of just brief, intense floods.

Pictures from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter show eroded ancient deposits of transported sediment long since hardened into interweaving, curved ridges of layered rock. Scientists interpret some of the curves as traces of ancient meanders made in a sedimentary fan as flowing water changed its course over time.

"Meanders are key, unequivocal evidence that some valleys on early Mars held persistent flows of water over considerable periods of time," said Dr. Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, which supplied and operates the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera.

"The shape of the fan and the pattern of inverted channels in it suggest it may have been a real delta, a deposit made where a river enters a body of water," he said. "If so, it would be the strongest indicator yet Mars once had lakes."

Maybe we should start calling in "Marsasota?"

Oh yaaaaa.

6:24:59 PM     leave/read comments []

'Unprecedented' security for Bush. Security for the London visit of President George Bush will be "unprecedented", the Met chief says. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

Weenie, weenie, weenie.

The £4m blitz will involve all Scotland Yard's armed units and up to 5,000 officers, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens said.

"The bubble" - a ring of 700 of Mr Bush's own secret service agents - will also surround Mr Bush.

How......Imperial of him.

4:28:45 PM     leave/read comments []

It's good to know that there are still gangsters in Las Vegas.

I guess the "What happens here, stays here" ad campaign is working.

Yakuza-LV Money Laundering.

The MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas was used by Japan's loan-sharking czar to launder money, according to law enforcement sources in the United States and Japan.  The suspect ran a shady firm, Goryokai, affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest yakuza group.

 

Story developing... [ Nippon Goro Goro]

3:35:12 PM    

It's Friday! Time for another dopey internet quiz!

You are The Midnighter.

The Midnighter was a secret product of the labs of Henry Bendix, part of his Stormwatch "Academy" program, the members of whom were duped into becoming Bednix's personal Stormwatch team. One of many individuals given superpowers by that ruthless personage, he lost his original identity in the process. He was transformed into "Night's Bringer of War", a living weapon designed to "hit thing's until they don't work anymore. The Midnighter automatically analyses every situation he is in as a combat scenario, his computerised senses instantaneously checking out multiple battle strategies until he has located the best one to win the fight at minimal effort. To aid him in the actual fight he has heightened reflexes and strength, and a superb knowledge of most forms of combat.

What Gritty No Nonsense Comic Book Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Props to Adam for the link.

3:09:06 PM     leave/read comments []

As an old friend of Hungry Mind Ruminator Books, this saddens me. It was a great bookstore, even if it was filled with too many snooty Macalester students at any given moment. (I kid, I kid.)

Source: Boing Boing Blog; 11/14/03; 12:15:21 PM.

Ruminator Books's auction. Ruminator Books, an indie bookseller in St Paul, MN, is in dire financial straits and is holding an auction in order to keep its doors open.

An original piece of artwork from Ralph Steadman; Paul Auster's reading glasses; A hunk of wood from Rick Bass's writing cabin; Drawings from Siri Hustvedt and Oliver Sacks; A musical manuscript by Bill Holm; A copy of an early manuscript of 'The Laws of Our Fathers' signed by Scott Turow; T-shirts from Margaret Atwood, Richard Ford and Neil Gaiman; A first draft manuscript page from Charles Baxter; Rick Moody's electronic music CD; A letter written to Russell Banks by Jonathan Safran Foer on a piano roll of 'It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing'; A shirt given to Neal Karlen by Kurt Cobain; A Romanian flag given to Andrei Codrescu amidst gunfire during the 1989 revolution.; also: A limited edition of Mary Poppins (signed on D.L. Travers deathbed); valuable broadsides and handmade books; sports memorabilia; a brownie recipe; a pen blessed by the pope;and a portable personal altar with angel cards; And much more...

Link

(Thanks, Heidi!) [Boing Boing Blog]

2:59:08 PM    

Japan-US Iraq (Kyodo) UPDATING.

Nothing of substance reported from today's meeting between Koizumi and Rumsfeld.[Nippon Goro Goro]

I mean, it's pretty hard to have a substantive conversation with a murderous sociopath.

12:31:07 PM     leave/read comments []

By George! You couldn't make him up, and you don't have to. Like him or loathe him, George Bush is for real - and heading soon for a capital city near you. Rupert Cornwell introduces our celebration of the remarkable career of Britain's favourite US President [ The Independent ]

The U.S. and the U.K. share a new wrinkle in their "special relationship" - lots of folks on both sides of the big pond can't stand Dubya. Heck, the English might even hate him more than Americans do. After all, supposedly just under half of American voters actually voted for Chimpy.

It is not only Bush the Chicken-hawk warmonger and promoter-in-chief of the great illusion about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction who they will be denouncing. It is also Bush the ignorant, self-righteous Christian warrior, Bush the smirking executioner and Bush the believer in one law for America and another for everyone else. And, of course, Bush the "Toxic Texan", an image made flesh by the "ghost ships" bearing down on Hartlepool, whose US-produced contaminants will find a last resting place on Britain's unpolluted isle.

....

No more reassuring is the secrecy with which he and his high command operate. Add that to Bush's aversion to press conferences and Republican control of both houses of Congress, and the Bush White House often appears beyond accountability.

Indeed, today's Washington has a whiff of Soviet ways; suffocating internal discipline, resentment of even reasoned, moderate opposition, and a refusal to admit even the tiniest error. For imperialists, read "evildoers". With their condescending "we know best" attitude, Messrs Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest offer as close an impersonation of the Politburo as you will find. As was said of the pre-glasnost Kremlin then, so with the White House now: you know nothing, but understand everything.

It's like the U.S. has its very own Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev.

Happy stagnation!

12:03:58 AM     leave/read comments []

Researchers Record The Screams of the Damned

A geological group who drilled a hole about 14.4 kilometers deep in the crust of the earth are saying that they heard human screams. Screams have been heard from the condemned souls from earth's deepest hole. Terrified scientists are afraid they have let loose the evil powers of hell up to the earth's surface.

And next thing you know, George W. Bush is pResident of the United States. Coincidence? I think not.

Not everyone buys it, though.

11:37:32 PM     leave/read comments []

A Playful Narcissist's Song of Himself. Lucas Samaras makes magic with his androgynous form and extraordinary sense of craft in his myriad of self-portraits as seen at the Whitney Museum of Art. By Roberta Smith. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

A magician of the chemical mirror, Lucas Samaras's self-portraits and manipulated SX-70 photos have been an inspiration for an entire generation of artists; photographers, sculptors and performers, have all have drawn from Samaras's playful, mystical self-examinations and manipulations.

If you're anywhere near New York, check out his show at the Whitney.

9:27:01 PM     leave/read comments []

Alan Lightman, you have competition!

Climbing the invisible worldline

It's happened to all of us. You call your boss a "flesh eating virus" (or far worse) to his/her face. In an exhausted stupor, you pour orange juice all over your cereal. You accidentally run a busload of nuns off a cliff. You decide to become a betamax salesman.

All of these things are easily remedied by travelling through time, stopping the event before it can be written into the fabric of your destiny, and thus preventing you from being remembered as an idiot.

[ From Epiphany in c ]

5:46:37 PM     leave/read comments []

Don't look now, but the dean is watching. Pressured by the double whammy of feds looking for terrorists and the music industry chasing file sharers, universities are keeping a close eye on student Internet use. [Salon.com]

Even worse than Vernon Wormer is our pal (not) the USA-PATRIOT act. Or, as I like to call it, Duby's little STASI:

Some schools, including MIT, have refused to hand over the information by arguing that it is protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. FERPA is designed to stop students' personal data from being handed over to third parties, and no one has yet challenged the use of FERPA in these copyright cases.

But there is a little-discussed section of the USA-PATRIOT Act that renders FERPA completely useless when federal officials subpoena personal student information for terrorism-related investigations. Not only do these federal subpoenas bypass FERPA, but the people served are not permitted to discuss them with anybody.

"You can't challenge [these subpoenas] because you can't tell anyone you've received them," says Lauren Gelman, an attorney with the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford. "At a university, one administrator can't even tell another administrator about these subpoenas, so there is no way to know how many have gone out." While university administrators want to comply with federal laws, many are wary of handing over private data in such a secretive manner.

The Secret Police will see you now, Herr Professor.

4:23:04 PM     leave/read comments []

Here's what they have so far:

Whattya think folks?

2:57:26 PM     leave/read comments []

Enter The Meatrix.

2:43:20 PM     leave/read comments []

Source: Boing Boing Blog; 11/13/03; 12:26:25 PM.

Naked Sushi Lady history, part three.

Don't forget Stanley Kubrick: the milk ladies in Clockwork Orange. Okay, they're serving dairy products, not California rolls, but you get the idea. Link to full-size image, Link to previous BoingBoing post on the Naked Sushi Lady Controversy: one, two. (Thanks, Janet!)
[Boing Boing Blog]

2:42:04 PM    

Source: Boing Boing Blog; 11/13/03; 12:26:26 PM.

Naked Lady Sushi parody website from Japan.

BoingBoing pal Geisha Asobi points us to Takako Umemiya's NYO-TA-I-MO-RI-Project (Link), and says, "She is very funny!!!!" I don't speak or read Japanese, but maybe a better-educated BoingBoing reader can contribute a partial translation. Takako's website features her sashimi-clad body in an apparent spoof of the ongoing International Naked Lady Sushi Controversy (marginally work-safe, I suppose).
[Boing Boing Blog]

2:41:09 PM    

Wow, Alvin is almost 40! Originally constructed by General Mills (yes, the cereal company in Minneapolis), the wee submersible has been doing yeoman's work, discovering everything from lost H-bombs to ocean floor geothermal vents with giant "chimneys" and bustling ecosystems that form around them.

Alvin, the submersible that for decades led the American effort to probe the depths of the seas, illuminating such things as the rusting hulk of the Titanic and bizarre ecosystems lush with tube worms, should be upgraded, replaced or joined by a new vehicle that can take people even deeper, a report to the government said on Wednesday.

Alvin can carry a pilot and two scientists down to 2.8 miles, providing access to 62 percent of the seabed. The improved vehicle would push the frontier considerably deeper, to 4 miles, opening 99 percent of the ocean floor to exploration.

The report from the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences also called for the craft to have improved visibility as well as neutral buoyancy at various depths [~] Alvin has had difficulty with these [~] so that scientists could pause repeatedly to study the creatures that live between the surface and the seafloor.

1:46:54 AM    

Bishops Open a New Drive Opposing Contraception. The nation's Roman Catholic bishops, acknowledging that American Catholics pay little heed to the church's ban on contraception, undertook an effort to reinforce it. By Daniel J. Wakin. [New York Times: Health]

Welcome to the 19th Century! Or maybe it's the 12th Century? Who can tell exactly?!?!

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops, acknowledging that American Catholics pay little heed to their church's ban on contraception, undertook an effort Wednesday to reinforce it, and linked it to the anti-abortion campaign.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, in session here at its regular fall meeting, also tackled another sexuality issue, approving the text of a brochure that lays out the church's condemnation of same-sex unions.

Damn those women and homos! Who do they think owns their asses? (And other parts.) That's right, the big guy with the funny hat.

1:24:48 AM     leave/read comments []

After reading the items in today's blog, Scooter is left shaking her head at humanity.

12:17:36 AM     leave/read comments []

Share "True Crime," do the time. A copyright bill backed by key senators would place file swappers in prison for up to three years if they have a copy of even one prerelease movie in their shared folders. [CNET News.com - Front Door]

Oh for Christ's sake! A felony for having a movie on your hard drive? Where is the damage to person or property? Welcome to the Corporate Police State.

A forthcoming copyright bill backed by key U.S. senators would place file swappers in prison for up to three years if they have a copy of even one prerelease movie in their shared folders.

In addition to the prison term, the Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act would punish making such movies available on a public "computer network" as a federal felony with a fine of up to $250,000. It would not require that any copyright infringement actually take place.

Senators John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., plan to introduce the legislation at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

Emphasis mine

Peter Jaszi, a professor at American University who teaches copyright law, said he is "deeply troubled" by the wording of the draft legislation, because it does not say any actual copyright infringement must take place--only that the file be available in a shared folder, Web site or FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site. "It says we don't care if anybody got any of these copies," Jaszi said. "We're going to conclude that at least 10 people did. It relieves the copyright owner of having to prove that any violation of their rights actually happened."

Let's review a principle that the United States was founded on: "Innocent until proven guilty. Looks like a certain cart is in front of the old Justice Horse.

11:01:19 PM     leave/read comments []

Peachpit plans plethora of Panther publications. Peachpit Press has unveiled the first of its seven Mac OS X 10.3 ("Panther") titles with the release of Maria Langer's "Mac OS X 10.3 Panther: Visual QuickStart Guide" (ISBN 0321213513). The US$24.99 offers task-based, step-by-step instructions and includes chapters on networking, security, Unix, the Classic environment, utilities, and system preferences. [MacCentral]

8:46:09 PM     leave/read comments []

Dept. of Always Cool Stuff

Cool! A new QTVR blog entry from Sydney-based photographer, Peter Murphy.

Last weekend on Saturday I went to a book launch at St Andrew's College at the University of Sydney. Panorama. The book "Dark Sparkers" is the first extensive treatment of Aboriginal Astronomy and is the result of a collaboration between Bill Yidumduma Harney -- an Aboriginal elder (he is also a painter) -- and anthropologist Hugh Cairns. Here is Bill addressing the audience and here he is talking to my videographer friend Goretti Bello.

8:42:31 PM    

Police 'sorry' for shooting man. The chief of Sussex Police is due to apologise in person for his force's shooting of an unarmed man in his bed. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

At least they apologised.

I'll get me their coat.

8:29:36 PM     leave/read comments []

Ohhhh....big science:

Scientists have simulated a solar flare in the lab, recreating the super-heated cloud of electrically-charged gas seen on the Sun known as a plasma.

It was part of an initiative to develop fusion power - the nuclear energy that keeps the Sun shining.

The plasma in the lab behaved like a miniature version of a solar flare.

Scientists hope they can create a flare at low energies in the lab, to enable them to study the explosive events that take place on the Sun's surface.

8:14:03 PM    

Church Sign Generator

Get yours today!

Amen.

6:02:09 PM     leave/read comments []

ITunes Undermines Social Security. Although perusing other folks' digital music libraries using iTunes can broaden musical horizons, there can be drawbacks. Like being judged for your taste in music. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News]

Hey man, I'm not afraid to show you Maggie's Recently Played Playlist

But that's not true for everyone.

The ability to examine the music collections of co-workers, neighbors or fellow students is akin to peering into their souls: Someone who appears cool and interesting from the outside is revealed as a cultural nincompoop through the poor sap's terrible taste in music.

.....

Aubrey said an iTunes music library tells a lot more about people than the clothes they wear or the books they carry.

"It's the T-shirt, plus the book, plus the haircut," Aubrey said. "It's everything."

Ah, college.

5:43:39 PM     leave/read comments []

I am ashamed of my government.

Don't get me wrong; it's not okay to overstay one's visa, but it's hardly an act of global terrorism. It's an act of neglecting to file some paperwork. Whether it's intentional and what the penalty shall be as a result is for the bureaucrats to decide.

Or it used to be. See Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel was working as a waiter in a restaurant where some terrorists happened to eat. This, of course, means that Bellahouel is also a terrorist, right? That reasoning is naturally ridiculous, but it's good enough for government work, as they say.

Bellahouel was held in prison for five months without being charged with anything, without access to an attorney, and without the government even admitting that he was being held. After being freed on bond, he's now petitioning the government for a redress of his grievances.

.....

If you look at that PDF and think something is wrong with your Acrobat reader, it's not. The fact of the matter is that huge sections of the document have been determined a threat to national security. Which really means the state is covering its ass.

5:21:56 PM    

Post Office Gets Pressured to Pry. Still wary of the anthrax attacks through the mail, Washington bureaucrats push the Postal Service to trace every piece of mail. Citing privacy concerns, the post office is resisting. But for how long? By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]

Big Brother wants to know what you're sending, where you're sending it from and to whom you're sending mail. Because, after all, you might be doing somthing all terrorist, like criticizing the pResident. Or maybe admiring someone, secretly.

For their part, postal officials are resisting far-reaching suggestions from politicians and homeland security officials that all mail should be tracked and the sender of every piece of mail be identified. The head of the Postal Service's technology drive and its chief privacy officer say they have no plans to implement such a system. But several powerful bureaucracies are pushing the USPS to trace mail.

Chris Hoofnagle, associated director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, argues that a system requiring postal identity cards or secure stamps would sacrifice anonymity for little gain in security, since anyone who could acquire anthrax would be clever enough to filch a few stamps.

"It's not until anonymity is lost that individuals see its value," Hoofnagle said. "Say you are estranged from your family and want to send them a letter, but don't want them to know where you are. You might want to mail an angry letter to a newspaper or a congressman, or you might want to send an anonymous note to a love interest."

3:49:23 PM    

Morons in the News: Christian Kung-fu. A North Carolina martial arts school is teaching martials arts with a Christian philosophical basis [Morons Dot Org]

Oy. What are they putting in the Communion wine these days? LSD?

This article is about sensei David Sgro's comment, "As a Christian, I believe that martial arts didn't originate in Korea or Asia. It originated in biblical times."

3:36:25 PM    

Doubts resurface about lunar ice. New observations of the Moon's permanently dark polar regions show no sign of thick ice deposits. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

Is there or isn't there? Listen up you primitive screwheads, a scientist is talkin' to ya:

Bruce Campbell and his colleagues used the Arecibo radio telescope to look at the Moon's shadowed poles, choosing a previously unused radar wavelength of 70 centimetres. This can penetrate several metres of dust but would be reflected strongly by thick ice.

They did not detect any strong reflections from the lunar poles which may mean that any ice is likely to be present only as grains or thin layers embedded in rock.

Some researchers say this is only to be expected, as the data from Lunar Prospector spacecraft in 1998-99 suggested that the ice was sparse, occupying less than 2% of the volume of the lunar dirt.

If there's water on the moon in any significant amount, that could be a huge boon to space travel, as the water could be used not only to supply drinking water for a moon base, it also could provide liquid hydrogen for rocket fuel.

The only way we'll really know for sure is to go there. The cloest we'll come in the near future is in 2004, with the ESA's SMART-1 project.

2:28:41 PM     leave/read comments []

EU calls for expanded space efforts. Europe should undertake more ambitious space projects, including possibly developing an independent means of launching... [spacetoday.net]

The U.S. is smelling more and more like the Isabellan Spain of Outer Space- first to arrive, and then phppppt. Back in the 1500's while Spain was busy with an inquisition and a bunch of other nonsense, the English, Dutch and Portuguese got busy in the New World, leaving Isabella to fiddle with torturing Jews and wondering why there wasn't much in her coffers.

2:13:15 PM     leave/read comments []

More on the naked lady sushi controversy, again from Boing Boing:

Naked Lady Sushi, part deux..

Seattle sushi restaurants aren't the first to serve food on the bodies of naked women, nor are various Japanese porn sites displaying X-rated human sashimi platter tableaus. Boingboing pal Eli the Bearded points us to this image by William Klein: Photograph of Models and the Surrealist Group around Meret Oppenheim's "Festin," 1960. The image was a fashion shot for Vogue magazine, under the title of Inaugural Feast in the March 1960 issue.

Link to image, Link to previous BoingBoing post.
[Boing Boing Blog]

1:59:52 PM    

Ohhhh...hope that Max and Kenka are doing OK!

1:30:52 PM     leave/read comments []

The Unbundling of Network Elements: Japan's Experience. [ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

The Unbundling of Network Elements: Japan's Experience (PDF) by Nobuo Ikeda.

Abstract: With the advent of the Internet, the emphasis of communication policies has moved from the regulation of telephone networks to the unbundling regulation to enforce sharing of network elements. Since unbundling is often impeded by the renegotiation by incumbents over the control of essential facilities, it would be advisable to separate the company that owns local loop (LoopCo). Recently the number of subscribers of DSL in Japan has grown phenomenally due to the unbundling regulation. This suggests that unbundling can accelerate the proliferation of broadband, but this lesson cannot be easily generalized to other countries, because the success depends on the special conditions such as extremely low pricing of entrants and strategic mistakes of NTT that neglected DSL. If the unbundling regulation succeeds in increasing competition, the telecommunications industry in the narrow sense will shrink, making the universal services of telephone network increasingly difficult.

 

 

[Nippon Goro Goro]

1:27:05 PM     leave/read comments []

This actually might have started in Tokyo some years back but we never saw it nor do we know anyone who experienced it -- but we did see it in a really bad American movie about Japanese gangsters. [Nippon Goro Goro]

Boing Boing had a link to this story yesterday.

1:15:28 PM     leave/read comments []

Is cyberterrorism a phantom menace?. Gartner's information security and risk research director dismisses cyberterrorism as a "theory." [CNET News.com - Front Door]

Leave it to the geeks to talk sense, unlike the folks at say, the U.S. Justice Department.

Mogull said the argument is largely academic--it doesn't matter who's attacking an organization. It should be doing the best it can to protect itself in the first place, whether attacks are coming from criminals or "cyberterrorists."

"Let's stop running around being scared about these esoteric threats out there. Let's look at protecting ourselves by closing the vulnerabilities we know exist and protecting ourselves from the attacks that we know exist," he said.

Now, where is Osama anyways?

11:07:11 PM     leave/read comments []

Source: Boing Boing Blog; 11/11/03; 1:49:10 PM

Bush wants to shut down London while he visits. Bush is so frightened of his staunch allies in Britain that he is demanding that the city of London be practically shut down during his three day visit there.

American officials want a virtual three-day shutdown of central London in a bid to foil disruption of the visit by anti-war protestors. They are demanding that police ban all marches and seal off the city centre.

Link [Boing Boing Blog]

What. A. Fucking. Pussy.

That's right, the President of the United States of America is a big fucking pussy.

Note to non-U.S. readers: He actually lost the election, you know. More Americans voted against him than voted for him. So please, SEND HELP!!!!

10:33:02 PM     leave/read comments []

US Senate backs Syria sanctions. The upper house backs a bill to slap sanctions on Syria if it fails to address the issues of terrorism and WMD. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

Once again, the Bush administration goes blundering into the world, heart set on pissing off every single country in the world, this time with the help of the U.S. Senate.

The bill allows President George W Bush to impose sanctions if Syria is found to be backing terror groups or acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

The Senate amended the bill, meaning it must now go back to the House.

Under the amended bill - passed by 89 votes to four - President George W Bush will have more power to waive the economic and diplomatic sanctions if he deems it in the national interest.

Aside from the fact that George W. Bush wouldn't know what is in the national interest even if it came up, pissed on his shoes, slapped him across the face and planted a big wet one in his ear; using a stick, sans carrot, on the Syrians is just a plain BAD IDEA. (Of course, the currency of the BA is bad ideas, but never mind that for the moment.)

Seymour Hersh fills us in on why we should play nice with Syria.

America intelligence and State Department officials have tol me that by early 2002 Syria had emerged as one o the C.I.A.[base ']s most effective intelligence allies in th fight against Al Qaeda, providing an outpouring o information that came to an end only with the invasion of Iraq.

.....

...after September 11th the Syrian leader, Bashar Assad, initiated the delivery of Syrian intelligence to the United States. The Syrians had compiled hundreds of files on Al Qaeda, including dossiers on the men who participated[~]and others who wanted to participate[~]in the September 11th attacks. Syria also penetrated Al Qaeda cells throughout the Middle East and in Arab exile communities throughout Europe. That data began flowing to C.I.A. and F.B.I. operatives.

Syria had accumulated much of its information because of Al Qaeda[base ']s ties to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic terrorists who have been at war with the secular Syrian government for more than two decades.

.....

Syria also provided the United States with intelligence about future Al Qaeda plans. In one instance, the Syrians learned that Al Qaeda had penetrated the security services of Bahrain and had arranged for a glider loaded with explosives to be flown into a building at the U.S. Navy[base ']s 5th Fleet headquarters there. Flynt Leverett, a former C.I.A. analyst who served until early this year on the National Security Council and is now a fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, told me that Syria[base ']s help [base "]let us thwart an operation that, if carried out, would have killed a lot of Americans.[per thou] The Syrians also helped the United States avert a suspected plot against an American target in Ottawa.

Syria[base ']s efforts to help seemed to confound the Bush Administration, which was fixated on Iraq. According to many officials I spoke to, the Administration was ill prepared to take advantage of the situation and unwilling to reassess its relationship with Assad[base ']s government.

From here it looks like the Syrians have been addressing the issue of terrorism, and have been a valuable ally against Al Queda, whom you will remember (even if the Bush administration doesn't want you to), killed around 3000 New Yorkers. As for Weapons of Mass Destruction, how can you help find something that was never there?

My ghod, this stinks to high heaven. And on Veteran's Day, no less. For shame.

5:51:46 PM     leave/read comments []

Dong Resin has a great post up this morning on the Patriot Act. In between the stuff that'll make you laugh till you cry, there's some analysis that'll fill you with bitter rage at the obtuseness of humanity. Can you ask for a better combination? I think not.

11:53:46 AM    

Blur-ing parallel lines.

11:43:34 AM     leave/read comments []

Yes, the Bush administration has found yet another way to make the entire world, even the South Koreans, pissed off at the U.S.A..

Countries Urge U.S. to Drop Steel Duties [AP World News]

Japan demands end to tariffs in 30 days or else will retaliate in concert with the Europeans. South Korea says it hopes everyone will play nice but is not ruling out retaliation, as well. [Nippon Goro Goro]

11:36:40 AM     leave/read comments []

Merriam-Webster 0wnz0red by McDonald's.

Jonas sez, "It appears that dictionary producer Merriam-Webster's has yielded under pressure from McDonald's. Yesterday, the word 'McJobs' disappeared from their web site's page with "new" words in the new edition. I have links to the google-cached version with the word still there - and a pdf-print of it - , and to the 'cleansed' page (and the code)."

Link Terry sent a letter to the dictionarians and got this back: "You'll be glad to know that we have not removed the entry for McJob from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (which is available on-line by subscription at www.Merriam-WebsterCollegiate.com). Although we did alter some marketing text on our main Web site that quoted the entry, the dictionary itself remains unchanged."
[Boing Boing Blog]

11:34:11 AM     leave/read comments []

12:41:47 AM     leave/read comments []

Harvested off the internet, source unknown.

7:30:06 PM     leave/read comments []

Jets Intercept Plane Near White House. WASHINGTON (AP) -- Air Force fighter jets were scrambled Monday to intercept a privately owned plane that flew too close to the White House, the Secret Service said. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Looks like the "Secure and Undisclosed Location" got a workout today:

Air Force fighter jets scrambled Monday to intercept a private plane that flew too close to the White House, triggering a security scare that led Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush's chief of staff to be moved to a secure location.

Maybe a bit of an overreaction, but hey, the pilot wasn't responding on his emergency channel, so a scramble was prolly justified. But you want to know the really scary part? Check out this from CNN:

Two U.S. Air National Guard F-16s were not able to intercept a small plane that violated restricted air space around Washington until more than 10 minutes after the Cessna 182 passed near the White House, administration sources told CNN Thursday.

According to a timeline provided to CNN by a senior administration official, the fighter jets were on a 15-minute strip alert at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and did not get the order to scramble until 8:06 p.m. EDT, about the same time the plane passed its closest point to the White House -- described as within "a few miles."

For comparison:

Cessna 182:

Horsepower: 230.0000
Gross Weight: 2550 lbs

Top Speed: 143 kts
Empty Weight: 1540 lbs

Cruise Speed: 135 kts

F-16:

Speed: 1,500 mph (Mach 2 at altitude)

Thrust:F-16C/D, 27,000 pounds(12,150 kilograms)

Not really a fair fight.

5:50:54 PM     leave/read comments []

Down the Memory Hole [Das Blog]

In George Orwell's seminal novel 1984, the protagonist, Winston Smith, worked at the "Ministry of Truth", a place whose job it was to constantly alter historical records to fit with the government's current policies and rationale. The actual records of the past and orders to alter them were consigned to the "Memory Hole", simply a slot where items were destroyed and made forever inaccessible.

C'mon, you just know this is a Bu$h administration entry, don't you?

We've talked about this before.

5:17:36 PM     leave/read comments []

Web hijack riles Belkin router users. Belkin is trying to defuse customer complaints that its wireless routers periodically hijack users' Web connection and display an advertisement for its software. [CNET News.com - Front Door]

Update on the Belkin story:

Every eight hours, a random computer that's hooked up to a local area network may receive an unsolicited advertisement for a trial version of parental control software, instead of the Web page the person had hoped to visit. The behavior can be permanently disabled, but it is turned on by default in new Belkin routers when they are shipped.

"We are crafting a statement apologizing and accepting responsibility," a Belkin representative said on Monday. The company said a firmware update, which customers would have the choice of installing, would be available in a week.

Looks like someone is paying attention. Sort of. In a better-late-than-never way.

5:02:22 PM     leave/read comments []

France, Russia sign deal for Soyuz launches from Kourou. French and Russian officials signed an agreement Friday to allow the launch of Russian-built... [spacetoday.net]

Makes sense, as the current Russian launch site is in Kazakhstan, not Russia. More international cooperation is good too. Will someone point that out to the U.S., please?

4:58:36 PM     leave/read comments []

Uganda conflict 'worse than Iraq'. The humanitarian situation in northern Uganda is worse than anywhere else in the world, says a senior UN official. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

Yet another item that points out the heartless hypocrisy of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

The humanitarian situation in northern Uganda is worse than in Iraq, or anywhere else in the world, a senior United Nations official has said.

UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland was speaking to the BBC after visiting the area affected by 18 years of civil war.

"It is a moral outrage" that the world is doing so little for the victims of the war, especially children, he said.

The rebels routinely abduct children to serve as sex slaves and fighters.

Remember, the U.S. invaded Iraq for, ahem, "humanitarian purposes."

The LRA, under shadowy leader Joseph Kony, says it wants to rule Uganda according to the Biblical Ten Commandments.

I'm sorry, maybe I was mistaken, I thought this was about Uganda, not Alabama.

4:44:46 PM     leave/read comments []

Finally.

4:39:18 PM     leave/read comments []

BLUR IN SPAAAAAACE!!!

The UK did not have a good record of supporting its space missions. For Beagle 2, the turning point was not the intervention of one man but a group - or to be precise, a band - Blur, and with them they brought the artist Damien Hirst.

Alex James, the bassist, and Dave Rowntree, Blur's drummer, joined the Beagle 2 team to help with PR in the summer of 1998. The band's unique contribution is writing the Beagle 2 signature tune, a call sign to be beamed back from Mars to announce the lander's arrival. The refrain was composed in 1999 and released on a CD along with No Distance Left To Run, the third single from Blur's album, 13.

Hirst, meanwhile, has produced one of his trademark spot paintings to act as the calibration target for Beagle 2's cameras and spectrometers. The target is fitted to a place on one of the ribs of the lander so that the instruments can focus on it to check their readings.

2:51:37 PM    

Notes from an icy idyll. Antarctic diary: Composer Craig Vear describes his journey to record the sounds of Antarctica. [Guardian Unlimited]

This is great- it's got a bunch of things that I love: the Antarctic, field recordings and tales of giant cats.

Initially, I will be following in Shackleton's footsteps around the Weddel sea and the islands of south Orkney and south Georgia, before journeying to the Antarctic peninsula and then deeper into the field.

Along the way, I will collect a unique library of recordings of Antarctic sounds: mammals, birds, machinery, the environmental and the phenomenological.

......

Got up first thing and went walking, kitted up with posh recording gear. Stanley looks like a mixture of far north Scotland and the land that time forgot. Every animal seems to have been enlarged by a factor of at least three, except for the sparrows, which are the same size as normal.

There are cats the size of dogs, birds (especially giant grey petrels) the size of pterodactyls, and sealions the size of Volvo estates.

First port of call for sounds is always the coastline, especially with a 50-knot wind blowing: there is howling rigging, crashing southern ocean waves, and seabirds squawking.

Also, check out Henry Kaiser's antarctic journal.

2:24:49 PM     leave/read comments []

The "romance" of being a war correspondent.

Source: Boing Boing Blog; 11/10/03; 12:27:59 PM

Kevin Sites' blog: How a "sojo" files a live report -- or doesn't.. Kevin Sites, blogger and NBC News correspondent in Iraq, has posted a fascinating account of the unbelievable lengths to which solo journalists must go to file live satellite transmissions from remote battlefields. Equipment breaks, unexpected technical snafus come up, but news has to get through. Sometimes, the means disassembling gear to make a temporary laptop modem out of a videophone. Sometimes, that means your dinner becomes a tripod.

"At left -- adjusting the camera. See that dirt berm? That's Syria on the other side. See that guy with a gun? That's a new Iraqi border guard. Nice pose, huh. See that guy in camo -- that's Lt. Col. Arnold (he's going to be bummed because he wanted to take off his cold weather gear before going on camera -- too late. It's an Army macho thing).

See that guy behind the camera? That's me. See that tripod? It's a piece of crap -- one of the legs fell off en route to the border and will never be found. See that box of MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat)? That's my new tripod leg. See the Colonel's helmet? That's the counterweight that keeps the camera from tipping over. It's amazing how desperation can push you to new levels of creativity in the middle of the desert."

Link (note: this round of photos shot by Joe Raedle of Getty Images)
[Boing Boing Blog]

2:24:00 PM    

Acquisition releases update!

The king of file-sharing applications has been updated yet again.

It's worth getting just for the find similar artists feature, which lets you automatically search both Gnutella and the iTunes Music Store.

1:23:24 PM     leave/read comments []

Mummmmm. A 1950's style Telecaster® from Fender Japan!

Its Ebay listing is filling my heart with lust.

You are bidding on a Fender Japan 1952 Reissue Telecaster!  This Tele was made in 1987-1988 (12 years ago) and bears the "Made in Japan" decal with an "G" Serial. 

This was a Limited Released 'Charcoal Burst' 52 Telecaster!  It also has a matte finish with matching 'Charcoal Burst' headstock!  It's one of the most beautiful Telecaster to be produced by Fender Japan.

What makes this Telecaster so special is the body.  It's American Basswood finished in an ultra beautiful Charcoal Burst!  The Charcoal Burst looks as if the body was tossed into a fire... and crisped to perfection.  Looks like a sign from an old Saloon that existed back in the Wild Wild West.  Many high end collectible Fender Japan models are basswood, like the Yngwie Malmsteen Strat, and the Paisley/Flower Power Tele, just to name a few.  The finish is just immaculate, and you can clearly see the beauty in the grains of the body! 

Now, if there are any philanthropical types out there and you need to toss away a few bucks, I'd be more than happy if y'all bought that bad boy for me. I'll even give you a receipt, tho' I can't guarantee I'm a tax-deductible charity.

Man oh man, do I love Telecasters!

* G.A.S. = Gear Acquisition Syndrome

11:44:48 PM     leave/read comments []

Nearby galaxy discovered. Astronomers have discovered the closest known galaxy to the Milky Way, a tiny galaxy in... [spacetoday.net]

It seems that we're not very good neighbors, galactically speaking, that is. Our galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, is well, devouring the galaxy next door.

Astronomers have identified a new galaxy nearer to us than any other. But our Milky Way's appetite for smaller, nearby galaxies means that its days are numbered.....

What the stargazers saw was the Big Dog's demise. Using ultra-bright stars to trace the galaxy's shape, Ibata and his colleagues found that its stars and gas are being appropriated by the gravitational pull of the much larger Milky Way1.

"It's unlikely to hold together much longer," says another of the group, Michele Bellazzini of Bologna Observatory in Italy. "The Milky Way has been progressively stealing its stars and pulling it apart."

Oops. Sorry about that.

I'll get me spiral armed coat.

11:27:40 PM     leave/read comments []

Man!

Look at all the FireWire drives this guy has! Let's all take a moment and say a little prayer for him, shall we? He just installed Panther.

Back, interrupted....

A shot of the new cat is needed, since this is pure, pristine Panther.
Mac OS X 10.3 has been the motor of the computer for two days and I haven't "opened the box" yet to find out what I like -- or don't -- about the new operating system.
James Duncan Davidson gave us his "ten things I dig" a month ago.
I did wipe the hard disk clean, repartitioned it and reinstalled Mac OS X and 9.2.2 from scratch, as well as all the programmes I've decided to keep. The upgrade can be done in just a few hours, but mine took three days because I completely "reinvented" my machine in the light of the past few years with OS X.
The fun bit, the exploring and the hacking, begins tomorrow.
After that, blogging resumes.
[taliesin's log]

We'll see......

9:13:46 PM     leave/read comments []

Japanese Leader's Party Holds On to Power in Vote. But voters handed big gains to the main opposition party in a ballot that could help lead Japan toward a two-party system. By Norimitsu Onishi. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

The status quo is shaken, but not upset as Japan inches towards true two-party government. I wonder if it'll wave to the U.S., which is being dragged by the Republicans towards a mono-party system, as they pass each other?

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's governing coalition held on to power in parliamentary elections on Sunday, even as voters handed big gains to the main opposition party in a ballot that could help lead Japan toward a two-party system.

Despite his personal popularity, Mr. Koizumi failed to get the popular mandate that could help him decisively push through economic and political reforms against the conservatives in his own Liberal Democratic Party.

But the strong showing by the Democratic Party, the main opposition, which campaigned on a reformist agenda, could put pressure on the governing party to stick to Mr. Koizumi's plans to curb public spending and to reshape the economy, the world's second largest.

Also:

Japan-Election UPDATED.

It's official: governing coalition secures a stable majority. [Nippon Goro Goro]

Japan's ruling coalition led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) retained control of the House of Representatives in Sunday's general election with a stable majority while the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) notched hefty gains, according to final returns of most constituencies.

But the long-dominant LDP headed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi lost its majority in the lower house, possibly threatening the stability of his administration in moving forward with structural reforms to lift Japan's long-ailing economy.

The DPJ secured 177 seats to become the most powerful parliamentary rival to the LDP. This suggests Japan may be entering an era in which two major parties compete for power. The DPJ held 137 before the election.

8:54:14 PM    

DUCK!

My pal Tim checks in with the Clams:

From: "The Mighty Tim"
Subject: DUCK!

G'day Clams,

This is to warn you that old man winter is on his way. We have had two nights where the temperature dipped into the minus side of the scale. It's evil clams. It's a seasonal clamity, I tells ya.

On my fire escape, the crows are outnumbering the squirrels to get the peanuts. And crows look kind of desperate flying away with one sad little peanut in their beaks. Why, even the bluejays have a system whereby they can carry two at a time, but the poor ol' dumb crows just don't seem to get it. (see attachment now)

6:09:58 PM    

"Surely you can spare a minute to clean your ears? Take a one-minute vacation from the life you are living.

One-minute vacations are unedited recordings of somewhere, somewhen. Sixty seconds of something else. Sixty seconds to be someone else.

A new one-minute vacation will be added each week on Monday if I can manage it."

3:50:00 PM    

Lou never got so see this view, but I did and I saved it, so I could share it and so I could remember that I had seen the view.

3:46:40 PM     leave/read comments []

Even more items recovered from the big data boo-boo....

Aliens are out there, say scientists. Education: Scientists are likely to discover intelligent alien life by 2025, according to a book published this month. [Guardian Unlimited]

Scientists are likely to discover intelligent alien life by 2025, according to a book published this month.

In Cosmic Company, Professor Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI institute, and Alex Barnett, chief executive office of the Chabot Space Centre, both based in California, argue that contact with aliens is only a matter of time - and it is all down to getting the figures right.

I'm pretty sure the ET's aren't going to come running because of those singing Canadian children's version of "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognized Anthem of World Contact.Day)." Heck, they're not even going to call. It's up up to us to be listening, and according to Shostak and Barnett's book, we only have to wait until 2025.


3:43:51 PM     leave/read comments []

More items recovered from the big data boo-boo....

Dept. of No Thanks, I'll Walk.

NASA SCIENTISTS TO STUDY LAKE'S PRIMITIVE LIFE TO LEARN ABOUT MARS

Yes, our space program is boldly going where llamas have gone before, to the heights of the Bolivian Andes, to "study microscopic life forms in some of the highest lakes on Earth atop a South American volcano to learn what life may have been like on early Mars," according to a NASA press release.

"From Oct. 27 to Nov. 23, scientists will conduct field tests to examine life forms in several lakes, including the Licancabur volcano crater lake, at nearly 20,000 ft. in the Andean Altiplano on the border of Bolivia and Chile.

Studying life in these lakes not only provides critical information about the habitability potential of early Mars and other planets in the solar system, it also opens a window into our own past to reveal how life survived on Earth 2 billion years before the ozone layer formed," said the project's principal investigator and expedition lead, Dr. Nathalie A. Cabrol of NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and the SETI Institute, Mountain View, Calif.

Intense ultraviolet (UV) radiation, low oxygen, low atmospheric pressure and cold temperatures make the environment a close analog to martian lakes 3.5 billion years ago. Despite the extreme conditions at Licancabur, scientists say microscopic life is present and diverse. Its survival strategy might be very ancient, according to Cabrol."

Go to Mars without leaving the planet! Man, there must be some good shit growing in them Bolivian hills.....

3:43:17 PM     leave/read comments []

Some items recovered from the big data boo-boo....

Images of Space Get Second Look. Stunning photographs of space taken by unmanned space probes are getting a second look. A panel of scientists, writers and artists meet to discuss whether these images can rightfully be called art. Erik Baard reports from New York. [Wired News]

It's humbling to know that a robot can make such awe-inspiring photos. But you know, no robot can make Sting say:

I thought not.

"The images, available on the Internet at Planetary Photojournal and Planetary Image Atlas -- haven't yet been fully digested by our culture."

By the way, they're talking about the photos from outer space, not Sting. Sorry.

3:41:14 PM     leave/read comments []

Man claims bank fired him for having HIV, being gay.

In a related story, unidentified bank officials were seen singing "Fire The Homo! Fire the Homo!" at a local watering hole.

When he notified the bank that he wanted to return to work in March, he was informed that his position at the Lambertville branch had been filled. The bank assigned him to the Palmer Township branch.

Mallozzi reported for work at the Palmer branch and found that the computer system was different from the one he was familiar with at the Lambertville branch.

Although Mallozzi was not trained to use the computers at the Palmer branch, his supervisors complained that he could not do his job without assistance. This complaint was the first negative job report since he was employed by United Trust, the suit says.

Mallozzi was fired March 19 after three days back on the job following his diagnosis. The bank cited only one negative job report as reason for his termination, the suit says.

3:24:51 PM    

You know, I tried it and never could get the damn thing to work. Obviously, lots of other folks could.

Source: Boing Boing Blog; 11/9/03; 1:49:12 PM

Average Internet self-identity.

Inter.Face is the winner of last year's Machinista Russian art festival. It invites visitors to drag and-drop graphic facial-anatomy elements to avatars of themselves; once the project ran through, all the avatars were combined and smoothed to generate an "average net self-identity."

Link

[Boing Boing Blog]

2:39:01 PM     leave/read comments []

Crowds Gather to Watch Total Lunar Eclipse. Crowds in every continent but Australia reveled in the relative rarity of a total lunar eclipse on Saturday night. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: Science]

Sadly, here in Nebraska, clouds showed up just in time to cover the moon a few minutes before totality.

Sky-watchers in every continent but Australia reveled in the relative rarity of a total lunar eclipse Saturday night -- but as stargazers have noted for centuries, it was a matter of celestial perspective.

``From the moon, they're having a solar eclipse,'' said Dean Regas, an astronomer at the Cincinnati Observatory Center.

1:08:42 AM    

Voters in Japan are casting their ballots  in a general election that will determine whether Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has clear public backing to press on with his economic reforms. [Nippon Goro Goro]

Happy election day, Japan!

12:58:08 AM     leave/read comments []

Take special note of this part:

An official US army review leaked to the US NGO globalsecurity.org has revealed that the army had no plan for the occupation of Baghdad.

Officially titled the Third Infantry Division (Mechanised) After Action Report, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the study provides the first formal internal view of the Iraq war from the point of view of the soldiers who brought down Saddam Hussein.

The report provides official confirmation of a complete absence of high-level military and political planning to manage the aftermath of victory and indicates some key problems that continue to hamper US army effectiveness to this day.

Some of the lack of planning first became apparent at Baghdad International Airport (BIA): 'Multiple military and inter-agency organisations vied to set up operations at BIA, but the (3rd Infantry) Brigade Combat Team controlling BIA was too engaged in continu ing combat operations to coordinate this adequately.'

The report continues that the 3rd Infantry Division itself, which had been engaged in some of the heaviest fighting on the outskirts of Baghdad, 'lacked guidance' on how to deal with the different competing Iraqis they encountered. 'Ongoing struggles for power, establishing security without the benefit of a functioning police system, and re-establishing a pay system for government workers continue to plague the restoration of "normalcy" to Baghdad,' it said.

Chilling.

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