The Wealthy Barber

With the help of his fictional barber, Roy, and a large dose of humor, Chilton encourages readers to take control of their financial future and build wealth slowly, steadily, and with sure success.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0761513116/qid=1071781343//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/104-3718184-0325549?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Current Read: The Art of Twentieth-Century Zen

This book is devoted to Zen art as a living tradition. It explores the heart of Zen experience through contemporary Zen art, demonstrating how this time-honored visual form continues to flourish today.
From the Back Cover:"One of very few titles on the subject, this is an important contribution to the study of Zen art and serves as a window on the Zen worldfor the Western audience."--Lucia S. Chen, Library Journal
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/157062495X/reviews/qid=1041484816/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-3654080-5242339

Macallan 12 Year

This Scotch will always be near and dear to my heart.
Described by Paul Pacult, the renowned international whisky writer, in his book Kindred Spirits as: "simply the best 12 Year Old single malt around", The Macallan has justly reaped such critical acclaim.
http://www.queenannewine.com/mac12yearold.html

Against the System: Rise of the Robots

Consider a remote exploit that is able to compromise a remote system without sending any attack code to his victim. Consider an exploit which simply creates local file to compromise thousands of computers, and which does not involve any local resources in the attack. Welcome to the world of zero-effort exploit techniques. Welcome to the world of automation, welcome to the world of anonymous, dramatically difficult to stop attacks resulting from increasing Internet complexity.
http://www.phrack-dont-give-a-shit-about-dmca.org/phrack/57/p57-0x0a

The Ultra-Early Universe

In the last few years the problem of understanding the ultra-early universe has come into focus. We now know the key properties of the universe?its density, its age, and its main constituents. Indeed the last three years will go down as specially remarkable in the annals of cosmology because just within these years weve pinned down the shape and contents of the universe, just as in earlier centuries the pioneer navigators determined the size of the earth and the layout of its continents. The challenge now is to explain how it got that way. The new physics is attempting to understand why its expanding the way it is, and why it ended up with the content it has. We can trace its history back to about a micro-second after the putative big bang that started it off, but what happened in that first, formative microsecond? The boisterous variety of ideas being discussed?branes, inflation, etc.?makes clear that the issues are fascinating, but also were still a long way from the right answer. Were at the stage where all possibilities should be explored. Its worthwhile to consider the consequences of even the most flaky ideas, although the chance of any of them actually panning out in the long run is not very high.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/rees02/rees02_index.html

Old US Plans For Nuclear Saucer

The official designation for Americas nuclear flying saucer was the Lenticular Reentry Vehicle (LRV). It was designed by engineers at the Los Angeles Division of North American Aviation, under a contract with the U.S. Air Force. The project was managed out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Dayton, Ohio, where German engineers who had worked on rocket plane and flying disc technology had been resettled.The LRV escaped public scrutiny because it was hidden away as one of the Pentagons so-called "black budget" items?that is, a secret project that is incorporated into some piece of nonclassified work. On Dec. 12, 1962, security officers at Wright-Patterson classified the LRV as secret because: "It describes an offensive weapon system." The project remained classified until May 1999, when a congressionally mandated review of old documents changed the projects status as a government secret, downgrading it to public information. The Department of Defense did, however, successfully seek to have the documents distribution restricted to defense contractors. PM obtained its copy as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request.
http://popularmechanics.com/science/military/2000/11/nuclear_flying_saucer/print.phtml

RIAA Nominated For Internet Villian Award

Oftel, the Home office and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are among this years shortlist for the Internet Villain Award being dished out by the UKs Net industry. As ever, there are two hotly-contested gongs that always seem to court controversy. However, the Internet hero and villain shortlists reflect the people and organisations that have helped - or hampered - progress in the Internet industry.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28668.html

Thunderstorms On Titan

Bright patches of methane have been detected swirling around the southern pole of Titan, settling a longstanding question as to whether Saturns largest moon possesses clouds, according to a new study. The discovery was made with two large telescopes in Hawaii, using new adaptive optics to distinguish features on the haze-shrouded satellite that even a visiting spacecraft had missed.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/12/19/titan.clouds/index.html

TCP Enabled Spacecraft

Cool... I wonder if you can ping it?A relatively limited budget of $15 million for a new NASA satellite has encouraged engineers to turn to the Internet for inexpensive ways to actually operate the spacecraft and its communications with Earth. Mission managers will actually be able to operate the spacecraft from anywhere that has an Ethernet port with Web access.The Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer (CHIPS) spacecraft will examine the stuff between stars, the so-called void of space that is actually rich with hot gas. "CHIPS will be the first mission ever to use end-to-end satellite operations over the Internet with TCP/IP and FTP," says Jeff Janicik, SpaceDevs program manager and flight director for the mission, the company?s first. "What that means is, essentially, the entire ground and flight software architecture are based on standard Internet protocols that you use everyday with PCs. Its like FTPing a file from space."
http://space.com/businesstechnology/technology/chips_tech_021218.html

Stuck In High-Tech Hell? Theres A Way Out

Someone once said, "If all you receive from your job is a paycheck, youre being grossly underpaid." I believe that. That having been said, I realize that most people cant just abandon their job. But if youre motivated enough, you find creative ways to make your life interesting.
http://msn.com.com/2100-1106-940287.html

Good Article On Bandwith vs Latency

From the bygone debates over DDR vs. RDRAM to the current controversy over Apples DDR implementations, one issue is commonly misunderstood in most discussions of memory technology: the nature of the relationship between bandwidth and latency. This article aims to give you a basic grasp of the complex and subtle interaction between bandwidth and latency, so that the next time you see bandwidth numbers quoted for a system youll be able to better understand how those numbers translate into real-world performance.
http://arstechnica.com/paedia/b/bandwidth-latency/bandwidth-latency-1.html

More Ghost In The Shell Sequel Info

Innocence Ghost In The Shell
Can human love exist without a physical body? Mamoru Oshii depicts a man and a woman from a future world where the border between human and machine is ambiguous.
http://www.productionig.com/

AI Advances in Video Games

The video game in which this AI was embedded was Civilization III [see screenshot]. The creation of Firaxis Games (Hunt Valley, Md.), Civilization III sets the player and various computer opponents to fighting military, economic, and cultural battles across a randomly generated set of continents and oceans. While game AIs are most visible when they take on the role of an opponent to a human player, they can also be used to work in the games background, making sure the digital environment runs smoothly, and even on the players behalf in roles like tutors or wingmen. An increasing number of other games are taking advantage of changes in computer architecture and the growth in processing power to become smarter than ever before. Although most of these games use relatively unsubtle AI techniques, a few pioneers are even showing the academic AI community a trick or two. While AI originated in the laboratory, it has now been co-opted by designers of video games, and work is under way on increasing the learning powers of a video games cast of characters and refining their social interactions with one another and with human players, too. At this point, even cinematographers and the military are showing interest in possible applications.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/dec02/mind.html

Current Read: The Emperors Codes

In the No. 1 bestseller Station X, Michael Smith brought us the riveting true story of how British experts broke Nazi Germanys wartime codes. In The Emperors Codes he continues this fascinating story as he examines how Japans codes were broken and the effect this had on the war in the Far East.The Emperors Codes takes the reader into the lives and loves of the men and women battling to break the Emperors codes. It shows how these intrepid code-breakers uncovered the secret Japanese preparations for the invasion of Malaya and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Using memories of those at the forefront of this battle, this is a fascinating and previously untold story.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0593046412/reviews/qid=1039024334/sr=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/104-0306815-4524736

Awesome Little Gamers

...after a long sucky spell, heres a little gamers thats near to my heart...
http://www.little-gamers.com/index.php?strip_id=494

The Inner Einstein

Sharp guy, that Einstein. Kinda funny looking, what with the big hair and all, but real smart. Relativity, that was his thing. That and E=mc2, right? Interesting stuff. Really nice guy too, or was there something about Mrs. Einstein getting a raw deal? Still, he was a genius, definitely a genius. You dont need to be an Einstein to know that. Nearly 50 years after his death and a century after the then unknown physicist started challenging doctrine and stretching brains with his ideas, Albert Einstein remains not just scientifically relevant but a multipurpose icon as well. If anything, his stature has grown over the decades, fed by a steady stream of books, pop-culture references, and posthumous appearances in commercials and on T-shirts, coffee mugs, and most anything else that will sit still long enough to be stamped with a photo and a quote. The lionized Einstein cuts a comforting figure: a gentle genius, as benevolent as he was intelligent . . . almost a scientific Santa. But the more we see that image, the less we seem to know about the real Einstein and the work that made him famous.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/021209/misc/9einstein.htm

Experts Unlock BBCs Archive Of Life In The Eighties

All the information was recorded on two virtually indestructible interactive videodiscs that could be accessed using a special BBC microcomputer system. But the videodiscs far outlived the computer system, without which they proved useless. Now researchers working as part of the CAMiLEON project - based at Leeds University and the University of Michigan, in the United States - say they have cracked the problem. They have developed software which emulates the obsolete BBC computer and videodisc player on which the original system ran.
http://www.news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1340622002

New StrongBad Email

Make sure you click on the record store at the end.
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail53.html

Lego Enterprise - D

Alright, Im a dork. By sticking this project out on the Web Im coming out of the closet, so to speak. Im a classically trained geek-boy who has only enjoyed the company of women by the sheer grace of God. I might not be willing to touch a sci-fi convention with a 10-foot pole, but this work of dork-art more than makes up for it. But Im not here to tell you about my psychological issues. Im here cause of this beauty. The Concept Having perused LUGnet and Brickshelf many times in the past, I was very, very surprised to find that not a single person has ever completed a project quite like this. Legos? Star Trek? Hell, it was a matter of time. I guess I was the chosen one. The idea itself was not all that revolutionary. One day, bored, I asked myself: "If every floor of the Enterprise were one Lego-plate high, how big would that model get?" The answer was Pretty big, though as fate would have it, not so big that I was deterred from attempting the feat.
http://homepage.mac.com/happywaffle/enterprise.html

Test Your PC For Parasites

There are a lot of dodgy programs out there that may get installed on users computers without their knowledge or consent. Many applications described as "freeware" come infested with parasitic software that latches onto the web browser, provides little or no benefit to the user and can:

plague the user with unwanted advertising (adware);

add advertising links to web pages, for which the author does not get paid, and hijack affiliate-program payments (scumware);

watch everything the user does on-line and send information back to marketing companies (spyware);

leave security holes whereby arbitrary code can be executed on the users computer (typically this is used to allow the program to update itself);

if the software does not make proper use of cryptographic authentication, it could be possible for hackers as well as the responsible company to execute arbitrary code;

degrade system performance and cause errors thanks to being badly-written.
So be careful what you install - you may be getting more than you bargained for!
http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/

Financial Trends For Next 5 Years - Maybe

Weve talked to some of the worlds brightest economists and forecasters to isolate the trends that can make you money ? or save you money ? over the next five years. Forecasting, of course, is a notoriously tricky business (who, back in 1997, could have foreseen the rocket-like ascent of the Nasdaq or its subsequent sickening plunge?) and we dont pretend our crystal ball is infallible. But what this five-year outlook can do is to provide you with a way of thinking through some of the major themes of the years ahead.
http://www.moneysense.ca/investing/stocks_markets/article.jsp;jsessionid=MNFGMEHFPJGI?content=20021111_132331_3296

File-Swapping Will Rule

In essence, say the researchers, file-swapping systems have already won. The only way for music companies to compete is on the same terms by making music easy to get hold of and cheap to buy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2502399.stm

Fractal Nature Of DNA

The second stunner was how much human genetic material -- more than 90 percent -- is made up of what scientists were calling "junk DNA." The term was coined to describe similar but not completely identical repetitive sequences of nucleotides (the same substances that make genes), which appeared to have no function or purpose. The main theory at the time was that these apparently non-working sections of DNA were just evolutionary leftovers, much like our earlobes.
But if biophysicist Andras Pellionisz is correct, genetic science may be on the verge of yielding its third -- and by far biggest -- surprise...
...Rather than being useless evolutionary debris, he says, the mysteriously repetitive but not identical strands of genetic material are in reality building instructions organized in a special type of pattern known as a fractal. Its this pattern of fractal instructions, he says, that tells genes what they must do in order to form living tissue, everything from the wings of a fly to the entire body of a full-grown human.
Another way to describe the idea: The genes we know about today, Pellionisz says, can be thought of as something similar to machines that make bricks (proteins, in the case of genes), with certain junk-DNA sections providing a blueprint for the different ways those proteins are assembled.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/11/21/jnkdna.DTL

Nemisis Preview Online

iFilm has a preview of Star Trek Nemesis in WMP, Real and Quicktime formats, it is also recommended you view with a broadband connection. [ed. snip] All in all a nice piece of eye candy until the films release on December 13th." This is a long trailer with lots of spoilers - youve been warned.
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilm/product/film_multimedia/0,4470,2446644,00.html

Test Your Retro-knowledge

How good is your retro videogame knowledge? Ive taken screen captures of portions of classic arcade games. Some are easy, some are pretty obscure. If you can name all of these, you are a super videogame genius! Mail you answers to me at gamechallenge@retrocrush.com! And Ill mail the answer sheet back to you so you can see if youre right!
http://www.retrocrush.com/archive2/arcadepix/index.html

Good Pic Of The ISS

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0211/iss_sts112_big.jpg

Solaris Review

"(Soderbergh is) on the cusp of making the most provocative science-fiction film since 2001: A Space Odyssey," wrote a columnist at Aint It Cool News. But many purists dread the new Solaris, which stars George Clooney and will be released Nov. 27. They worry that Soderbergh will trample on two sacred sci-fi texts: the 1961 novel by Stanislaw Lem and the 1971 film by Andrei Tarkovsky.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,56393,00.html

Brilliant Strong Bad Email

Farking hilarious!
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail51.html

God Is The Machine

At todays rates of compression, you could download the entire 3 billion digits of your DNA onto about four CDs. That 3-gigabyte genome sequence represents the prime coding information of a human body ? your life as numbers. Biology, that pulsating mass of plant and animal flesh, is conceived by science today as an information process. As computers keep shrinking, we can imagine our complex bodies being numerically condensed to the size of two tiny cells. These micro-memory devices are called the egg and sperm. They are packed with information. That life might be information, as biologists propose, is far more intuitive than the corresponding idea that hard matter is information as well. When we bang a knee against a table leg, it sure doesnt feel like we knocked into information. But thats the idea many physicists are formulating. The spooky nature of material things is not new. Once science examined matter below the level of fleeting quarks and muons, it knew the world was incorporeal. What could be less substantial than a realm built out of waves of quantum probabilities? And what could be weirder? Digital physics is both. It suggests that those strange and insubstantial quantum wavicles, along with everything else in the universe, are themselves made of nothing but 1s and 0s. The physical world itself is digital.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/holytech.html

Lost Douglas Adams Dr Who Revived

A legendary Doctor Who episode written by the late cult author Douglas Adams is to get its first showing next year - 24 years after it was shelved. The episode, called Shada, was described as "the greatest Doctor Who story never shown" and began filming in 1979 but production was halted by industrial action. Following several false starts in attempting to bring it back, the drama will finally be premiered in a webcast on BBCi in the spring.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/2477373.stm

Mirror Matter?

Two Australian scientists believe they have found evidence of a parallel universe of strange matter within our own Solar System. Dr Robert Foot and Dr Saibal Mitra, of the University of Melbourne, report that close-up observations of the asteroid Eros by the Near-Shoemaker probe indicate it has been splattered by so-called "mirror matter". Mirror matter is not anti-matter, it is altogether weirder. It is somehow a "reflection" of normal matter, a sort of parallel series of particles required to restore the balance of the Universe. Sounds far-fetched - some believe so. However, experiments are underway to confirm or deny the existence of this strange, potentially significant but as yet undetected component of the cosmos.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2463143.stm

Great Quotes Site

"The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, in a moment of reasoned lucidity which is almost unique among its current tally of five million, nine hundred and seventy-three thousand, five hundred and nine pages, says of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation products that "it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all." In other words, - and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporations Galaxywide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.
-Douglas Adams"
http://www.faisal.com/quotes/a.html

US To Stimulate Terrorist Activity -- So They Can Respond To It

This astonishing admission was buried deep in a story which was itself submerged by mounds of gray newsprint and glossy underwear ads in last Sundays Los Angeles Times. There--in an article by military analyst William Arkin, detailing the vast expansion of the secret armies being massed by the former Nixon bureaucrat now lording it over the Pentagon--came the revelation of Rumsfelds plan to create "a super-Intelligence Support Activity" that will "bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception." According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization--the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)"--will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd1101.html

Spyware In Bearshare & Others

"OnFlow - Installed by BearShare among others. The company that makes this beastie describes its purpose fairly well on its own :) It is a browser plug-in designed specifically to display advertising, usually of the large, loud and flashing variety. SaveNow (WhenUShop) - Installed by BearShare among others. Put quickly, an advertising toolbar that monitors what sites you visit and pops up sponsored "deals" when products/shopping/etc. appears on those sites. Microsoft provides removal instructions."
http://www.cexx.org/adware.htm

The Economics Of Spam

The sun was setting on Laura Betterlys six-bedroom house as she reviewed a pair of outgoing e-mail messages one last time. Satisfied, she moved her cursor to the "send" icon and clicked."Its that simple," Ms. Betterly said triumphantly, swiping her palms. She had just dispatched e-mail messages to 500,000 strangers. Half saw the subject line: "Dont miss your chance to win 2002 Lexus RX300." The other half saw: "Win a trip to Nascar!"Ms. Betterlys messages joined the roughly two billion other unsolicited commercial e-mails that hit in-boxes around the world every day. The company she runs from her home, Data Resource Consulting Inc., sends out as many as 60 million such messages a month. That puts the 41-year-old single mother in the most hated breed on the Internet. She sends spam."Im just trying to make a living like everyone else," says Ms. Betterly. Her e-mail marketing operation, she says, allows her to raise her children, Chris, 10, and Craig, 11, and to spend quality time with them. "You can call me spam queen, I dont really care. As long as Im not breaking any laws, you dont have to love me or like what I do for a living."
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1037138679220447148,00.html

Classic Computing Mags Archive Online

The Classic Computer Magazine Archive serves up the full text from old compter mags: three years of Creative Computing plus every issue of Antic, STart, and Hi-Res. Theres also a bit of text from Compute! and Compute!s Gazette. Everything is there with permission from the publishers.
http://www.atarimagazines.com/

How Online Broadcasters Are Coping With Streaming Fees

In response to fees that could force webcasters to pay thousands to the recording industry, hundreds of stations have already pulled the plug, and ten thousand more worry they may soon have to follow suit. The DMCA stipulated that online radio would not be governed by same rules as traditional radio, where broadcasters pay a very small portion of their revenue to music publishers, but nothing directly to the recording industry. When no agreement on the new rates could be reached between industry and webcasters, a government copyright panel responsible for the issue set the fees at $1.40 per song heard by one thousand listeners. It seems small, but it adds up to thousands per year for small stations, and well into the five figures for a good many others. Even under amended legislation, now in limbo during the mid-term U.S. elections, webcasters would be stuck paying a percentage of their revenue to the recording industry, with a minimum fee of $500 per year.
http://www.shift.com/content/web/422/1.html

Galileo Shuts Down Due To Radiation

The aging Jupiter probe Galileo has completed its last scientific assignment, making its first flights past a tiny Jovian moon and deep into the planets high-radiation inner magnetosphere.But the harsh radiation it was exposed to as it neared Jupiters surface caused the spacecraft to shut down all its systems and enter a "safe-mode". The unique data gathered will only be retrieved if engineers can determine the necessary commands to revive the battered probe.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993025

Whats So Bad About Microsoft?

"OK, I know a lot of people are saying Microsofts bad, and they were taken to court for something. But, like, why?" If thats you, then you need to read this story right away. After all, not everyone who visits this site knows what makes Microsoft so bad. So we dropped a line to Timothy Macinta, the author of this very informative piece from KMFMS.com, and he delivered. Even if youre a battle-hardened warrior against the Redmond army, youll probably learn things here that you didnt know. Educate yourself.
http://www.fuckmicrosoft.com/

Chandra Captures Martian X-Rays

The Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured the first images of Mars taken at x-ray wavelengths. The Martian radiation is created in a process similar to the way light is created in fluorescent bulbs. X-rays from the Sun collide with oxygen atoms in the thin Martian atmosphere, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) above the surface. The solar photons excite an oxygen electron, bumping it up to a higher energy level. The excited electron quickly returns to its base energy level, emitting another x-ray in the process, which are what Chandra imaged. Fluorescent lights use ultraviolet radiation instead of x-rays. Images This remarkable Chandra image gave scientists their first look at X-rays from Mars. In the sparse upper atmosphere of Mars, about 120 (75 miles) kilometers above its surface, the observed X-rays are produced by fluorescent radiation from oxygen atoms. CREDIT: NASA/CXC/MPE/K.Dennerl et al. More Stories Mars to Get Closer than Ever in Recorded History in 2003 Where is Mars Now? Why a Mars Rock Hits Earth Every Month Ghosts of Impacts Past: Ancient Hidden Craters on Mars Revealed Solving the Mysteries of Mars Reveals More Chandra also detected x-ray emissions in a 4,350-mile (7,000-kilometer) ring around Mars. Researchers suspect that these photons are created in a similar way as solar x-rays excite electrons in oxygen and hydrogen atoms that have escaped Mars atmosphere.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/chandra_mars_021108.html

Mitnicks Lost Chapter Found

Chapter One appeared only in about 300 unbound galley copies that publishing company Wiley distributed to the media several months before releasing the book, according to a Wiley spokeswoman. The publisher decided to remove the chapter shortly before releasing the book. Wiley representatives were unable to comment immediately on why the chapter was pulled. The chapter contains the first recounting by Mitnick of his life as a hacker and a fugitive, as well as his arrest, trial and life in prison.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56187,00.html

Galactic Center Research

In Natures 17 Oct 2002 issue (get article) we report on having observed 2/3 of a complete orbit of the star currently closest to the enigmatic radio source Sagittarius A*, which is thought to mark the location of our Milky Ways massive central black hole. As explained below, this orbit provides overwhelming evidence that SgrA* is indeed a supermassive black hole of more than 2 million solar masses. Figures 1,2, and 4 on this page are taken from the article in Nature. See the star S2 swing around the black hole in this movie.
http://www.mpe.mpg.de/www_ir/GC/intro.html

Play Doom On Your Cell Phone

Play the classic first-person shooter now on your Nokia 7650!Take control of a lone marine in 9 levels of intense arcade action.
http://www.wildpalm.co.uk/Doom7650.html

Next-Gen Tablet PCs

Tablet PCs will be available in two basic formats: the "convertible" model with an integrated keyboard and a display that rotates 180 degrees and can be folded down over the keyboard, and the "slate" style with a removable keyboard. The Scribbler is a slate model. The Scribbler came pre-loaded with Microsofts Windows XP Professional Tablet PC Edition. Digital Ink is the tablets killer app, allowing users to input information by writing or drawing with a stylus directly on the screen. Its like jotting notes on a piece of paper.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,56130,00.html

/. Thread On "Broadjump Client Foundation"

Scary -- I had this installed and didnt know it.
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/26/2311244&mode=thread&tid=172

150 Years Of Silly Patents

Inventors have been registering bright ideas with the UK Patent Office for 150 years. While the flush toilet, computer and aspirin have proved invaluable, the same cannot be said of every innovation. It must have seemed like a great idea at the time: an alarm to be fitted inside a coffin, just the thing to guard against premature burials. Or how about a moustache protector and trainer, or a ladder for spiders to climb out of the bath?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2327327.stm

BBC Wins Police Tardis Case

The BBC has won a battle to keep control of Dr Whos Tardis after the Metropolitan Police unsuccessfully argued it should own the trade mark of the distinctive image. The time travelling vessel became the subject of a legal wrangle as the Metropolitan Police fought to gain control of the blue box, which was a familiar sight on the streets of London up until the 1960s. The police objected to the BBC using the image of the Tardis on comics, T-shirts, videos and other merchandise, something it has done since the 1970s.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/2352743.stm

Confirmed: ALH84001Contained Life

The strange shapes seen in a rock from Mars that some researchers say are fossilised bacteria really are tiny micro organisms, say American researchers. But while they are confident the Mars rock contains fossilised life they cannot quite bring themselves to say it comes from the Red Planet, it might be Earthly contamination. Despite the uncertainty about their origin establishing that the small structures really were living things, and not just mineral globules, would be an advance in a field that has sharply divided opinions. Lawrence Taylor of the University of Tennessee told BBC News Online that so-called "nannobacteria" found on Earth resemble those found in the Mars rock." The next task is to find a way to determine if they really came from Mars.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2354533.stm

China Circumnavigated The Globe In 1423?

Plans are afoot to try and emulate the travels of a Chinese eunuch who is believed to have discovered America more than 70 years before Christopher Columbus. Admiral Zheng He is extremely well known in China, where he is considered one of the pioneers of marine exploration. But he is virtually unknown in the West, where it is widely considered that Columbus discovered the "New World" first in 1492, although many Scandinavian historians claim the Vikings beat him by nearly 500 years. Gavin Menzies, a retired British submarine commander who is bringing out a book on Zhang He next month, says many academics not just in China but also on the West Coast of the US believe he found North America and Australia during a two-year odyssey which began in 1421.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2349929.stm

More Wolfram Universe As Code Stuff

Stephen Wolfram, author of A New Kind of Science and creator of the Mathematica software system, captivated the audience at PopTech with his theory in a session titled "The Rules of Reality, Revealed." "Any system whose behavior doesnt look obviously simple to us is as simple as any computational system," said Wolfram, explaining the principle of computational equivalence.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55939,00.html

FDA Approves ID Chip Implants

A surprise decision by the Food and Drug Administration permits the use of implantable ID chips in humans, despite an FDA investigators recent public reservations about the devices. The FDA sent chip manufacturer Applied Digital Solutions a letter stating that the agency would not regulate the VeriChip if it was used for "security, financial and personal identification or safety applications," ADS said Tuesday.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55952,00.html

Brutal -- US Patent Disallows Breast Cancer Testing

A key breast cancer test can no longer be done in B.C. because an American company has the gene patent.Utah-based Myriad Genetics Inc. has put a patent on two genes that can signal whether a woman may develop hereditary breast cancer.Dr. Simon Sutcliffe, who runs the B.C. Cancer Agency, said 200 of the tests are now being routed annually to Ontario, which is ignoring the patent.The agency used to do its own tests until the B.C. government recently ordered it to stop after legal threats by Myriad.
http://canada.com/victoria/story.asp?id=%7B0D0279FC-B2F4-48CA-9A46-6DFF52DE2173%7D

Downloading Your Brain

Wed all like to live forever, but biology wont cooperate. So heres a modest proposal. Why dont we scan our most essential feature - our mind - digitize it, and transfer it to a computer? The result could be a kind of digital immortality. It would also release us from the limitations of our bodies, and allow us, paradoxically, to fulfill even more of our human potential, in a computer. This is the radical idea of inventor and writer Ray Kurzweil. In his book The Age of Spiritual Machines he draws a roadmap, showing how advancing computer technology and Artificial Intelligence will lead to the possibility of existence inside of a computer in just a few decades.
http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/quirks/archives/02-03/oct19.html

Power Homes

Sure, you might have DSL and Wi-Fi, an Xbox and a TiVo, maybe a Bang & Olufsen stereo with 5-foot speakers and a six-CD changer, but youre still an amateur in the world of extreme home networking ? where computer-controlled window shades and palm-scanning security systems are de rigueur. It is a world driven by insatiable gadget lust and no small amount of money. Youve met these people before: the rich, often famous, who build and furnish outrageous homes to match their larger-than-life personas. In the 70s they installed the latest in hi-fi, in the 80s remote everything, and in the 90s megaplex-scale home theaters. The newest generation of electronics pioneers is different, because home networking is more than just the latest entertainment indulgence. It will be the backbone infrastructure of the 21st-century lifestyle. Just as the office LAN, designed to let PCs share printers and exchange files, helped supercharge the growth of the Internet, so the home network will help seamlessly weave the Net into our lives.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.11/power_houses.html

Supermassive Black Hole In The Center Of The Galaxy

Observations of the star closest to the heart of the Milky Way confirms the existence of a colossal black hole there, astronomers announced Wednesday. The star passes within 17 light-hours of a compact radio source known as Sagittarius A, pegged as the galactic center, and completes an oval orbit around the super hot spot every 15.2 years. The orbital attributes mean that the entire mass of the interior object, between 2.6 million and 3.7 million times that of the sun, is crammed within a space about three times the size of our solar system. The staggering density could only result from a supermassive black hole, according to physicist Rainer Schoedel, who with colleagues published the findings in this weeks journal Nature.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/10/16/black.hole/index.html

Protien Folding Modelled

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of California, San Diego, have created the first computer simulation of full-system protein folding thermodynamics at the atomic-level. Understanding the basic physics of protein folding could solve one of the grand mysteries of computational biology.
http://www.cosmiverse.com/news/tech/1002/tech10160201.html

Seti@Home: Now Past 4K Work Units

Results Received 4053
Total CPU Time 5.980 years
Average CPU Time per work unit 12 hr 55 min 33.5 sec
Average results received per day 3.24

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/fcgi-bin/fcgi?email=marduk@cyber-rights.net&cmd=user_stats_new

New Peruvian Inca Grave Found

Peruvian archeologists have discovered the first full Inca burial site at Machu Picchu since the famous mountaintop citadel was discovered 90 years ago, officials said on Saturday. "Its important because nothing like this -- a burial site and all that goes with it -- has been found since the Bingham era," Machu Picchus administrator, Fernando Astete, told Reuters, referring to the U.S. explorer Hiram Bingham who rediscovered the Inca citadel in 1911. "The find is significant because of the funeral objects, such as stone and clay pots and five metal objects accompanying the remains of bones of a person, probably a woman," he added.
http://www.rense.com/general30/SITE.HTM

The Importance Of Receiving

The problem that arises out of comparing Aikido to other martial arts is that Aikido exists in the absolute world while other arts deal with the relative world. This is not to say that everyone is in the place of no contest: the absolute, but OSensei pointed the way through his practice and his character and gave the art direction. It seems that everyone these days is worrying about Aikidos effectiveness or how it will do against this art or that art. Let me give an example of Aikido trainings "effectiveness" from my own experience.
http://www.aikiweb.com/spiritual/messisco1.html

New Teotihuacan Find

A new discovery at the pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico is revealing a pre-Hispanic past that was probably less egalitarian and less peace-loving than some scholars believed. Recent archaeological digs have turned up the first evidence of a ruling elite and provided more evidence of mass human sacrifices at Teotihuacan, a vast complex of pyramids outside Mexico City that was a thriving metropolis of 150,000 at the time of Jesus.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/820810.asp?0dm=N25GT

Mars Biological Potential

Researchers Bruce Jakosky, Stacy Varnes, and Thomas McCollom have looked at the biological potential of Martian hydrothermal systems, presenting their findings this week at a meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society in Birmingham, Alabama."Weve been working on this for several years. What weve done is look at the availability of geochemical energy in the environment of Mars as a source of energy that might support metabolism of organisms," Jakosky told SPACE.com. On Earth there are organisms that use that source of energy - energy given off by chemical weathering reactions like oxidation of iron and minerals, Jakosky said.Organisms on Mars could, in a figurative sense, stick their finger into that reaction, mediate it, and take advantage of the energy, Jakosky said. "What weve done is to look at the types of environments that occur on Mars and use them as a constraint to calculate how much energy could be available," he added.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_biological_021011.html

The Plastic Brain

An intricate society populated by billions of demanding neurons exists inside every brain. Each of those neurons has a complicated life with desires that must be met in order to stave off stupidity, according to research presented at the American Neurological Associations (ANA) annual meeting. Brain plasticity doesnt refer to the texture of ones gray matter, but instead indicates how the 100 billion or so neurons in a brain communicate with each other. A plastic brain is a learning brain.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,55779,00.html

Oh, No: A Live-Action Remake Of Akira?

Warner Bros. Pictures will produce a live-action, English-language remake of Japans anime classic "Akira." Director Stephen Norrington, who has just wrapped superhero drama "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," has reteamed with "League" screenwriter James Robinson to develop the project. Released in 1988, "Akira" was the brainchild of Katsuhiro Otomo, who directed the film and wrote the comic from which it stemmed. The remake will tell the story of a bike gang leader who must rescue his younger brother from his involvement in Akira, a secret government project. In the process, the biker must do battle with anti-government activists, greedy politicians and irresponsible scientists.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=600&e=5&cid=848&u=/variety/20021010/film_variety/film_akira_dc

"In the Beginning was the Command Line" by Neal Stephenson

About twenty years ago Jobs and Wozniak, the founders of Apple, came up with the very strange idea of selling information processing machines for use in the home. The business took off, and its founders made a lot of money and received the credit they deserved for being daring visionaries. But around the same time, Bill Gates and Paul Allen came up with an idea even stranger and more fantastical: selling computer operating systems. This was much weirder than the idea of Jobs and Wozniak. A computer at least had some sort of physical reality to it. It came in a box, you could open it up and plug it in and watch lights blink. An operating system had no tangible incarnation at all. It arrived on a disk, of course, but the disk was, in effect, nothing more than the box that the OS came in. The product itself was a very long string of ones and zeroes that, when properly installed and coddled, gave you the ability to manipulate other very long strings of ones and zeroes. Even those few who actually understood what a computer operating system was were apt to think of it as a fantastically arcane engineering prodigy, like a breeder reactor or a U-2 spy plane, and not something that could ever be (in the parlance of high-tech) "productized."
http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

/. Thread -- How To Write A Blog

"Long-time weblogger Rebecca Bloods The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog is an excellent introduction to the currently white-hot world of weblogs. Blood covers all the bases, from a history of the weblog form, through starting a blog of your own, and finally onto finding (and retaining) readers for your site. The book doesnt offer as much for the veteran blogger, but even the bloggeratti wont go away completely empty-handed -- Bloods weblog history provides a valuable common vocabulary for debating what is and isnt a weblog, and her discussion of weblog ethics should be required reading for anybody who claims to be serious about their weblogging."
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/03/1323250&mode=thread&tid=99

New Planet(?) Found

A new planet-like object has been found circling the Sun more than one and a half billion kilometres beyond Pluto. Quaoar, as it has been dubbed, is about 1,280 kilometres across (800 miles) and is the biggest find in the Solar System since Pluto itself 72 years ago. The object is about one-tenth the diameter of Earth and circles the Sun every 288 years. It is half Plutos size, but apparently larger than the ninth planets moon, Charon.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2306945.stm

Why The Big Net Slowdown Last Thursday

The problem affected roughly 20 percent of UUNets U.S. customers -- which translates to millions of users across the United States and around the world -- for most of Thursday, according to WorldCom spokeswoman Jennifer Baker. The problem began around 8 a.m. EDT. Baker said in a statement that the company had fully restored service by 5:15 p.m. Thursday evening. Preliminary investigation by UUNet indicates the problems were caused by "a route table issue."
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55580,00.html

Broadcast Quantum Crypto

Quantum cryptography, a technique of producing secret messages that are reputedly uncrackable, may soon be used by orbiting communications satellites thanks to experiments by British and German researchers.The traditional weakness of sending encoded messages is eavesdropping. Quantum cryptography gets around this by sending an encoded message and, separately, a key to decode it, which are transmitted in pulses of individual light particles called photons.By the nature of quantum mechanics, if a single photon is intercepted en route, that changes the state of the information package as it arrives at the other end.That is a telltale for the legitimate recipient that his message has been tampered with -- the same as if someone received a letter that had been clumsily opened and then resealed, leaving traces of glue and fingerprints on the envelope.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?art_id=23998757

Oceans Confirmed on Europa -- Maybe

Data from the Galileo space probes journey to Jupiter suggests an ocean on its moon, Europa, is somewhat Earth-like. Scientists in the United States think the moons icy crust is relatively thin. There seem to be cracks and vents, which would allow gases, heat and organic matter to reach what may be water beneath.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2284852.stm

Russians Going To Mars

Russia is ready to send human beings to Mars, and will begin detailed planning to do so.This announcement was made to a London newspaper reporter by a Russian official, the chief of a once-secret space science institute. The official, Anatoli Grigoriev, surprised his international colleagues earlier this month with the prediction that a crew from Russia will be enroute to Mars as early as 2016."Our engineers believe we can do this by 2020 and, from a medical point of view, there are no big hurdles left to hinder such a mission,? Professor Grigoriev said. "Russia can offer a complete medical support system for a mission to Mars. This is recognized not just here but also in Houston."
http://www.marsnews.com/news/20010420-russia.manned.html

Life On Venus?

The acidic clouds of Venus could in fact be hiding life. Unlikely as it sounds, the presence of microbes could neatly explain several mysterious observations of the planets atmosphere.Venus is usually written off as a potential haven for life because of its hellishly hot and acidic surface. But conditions in the atmosphere at an altitude of around 50 kilometres are relatively hospitable: the temperature is about 70 °C, with a pressure of about one atmosphere. Although the clouds are very acidic, this region also has the highest concentration of water droplets in the Venusian atmosphere. "From an astrobiology point of view, Venus is not hopeless," says Dirk Schulze-Makuch from the University of Texas at El Paso.To look for possible signs of life, Schulze-Makuch and his colleague Louis Irwin looked at existing data on Venus from the Russian Venera space missions and the US Pioneer Venus and Magellan probes. They noticed some peculiar things about the chemical composition of Venuss atmosphere. Solar radiation and lightning should produce large quantities of carbon monoxide in the planets atmosphere, but instead it is scarce, as if something is removing it. They also found hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide. These two gases react with each other, and so are never normally found together unless something is producing them.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992843

Long-Lost Apollo Booster Found

Since its first sighting on Sept. 3, scientists had suspected that the 60-foot-long object, named JOO2E3, was a small asteroid. But further observations have proven that JOO2E3 was manufactured by humans, and is probably the long-lost third stage of the Apollo 12 rocket that took astronauts to the moon in 1969. Although JOO2E3 can be seen by amateur astronomers using 8- to 10-inch telescopes, high-tech scopes like NASAs Hubble Space Telescope couldnt conclusively identify it. The Hubbles 2.4-meter diameter mirror is limited to capturing images of objects no smaller than 80 meters across. J002E3 is, at best, about 30 meters across. JOO2E3 was identified partly through reports from amateur astronomers who tracked the objects position over a two-week period and supplied scientists with enough data to extrapolate JOO2E3s past and present orbit. Analysis by a high-power telescope provided the final clues: JOO2E3s surface is covered in white paint.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55364,00.html

Hilarious: Microsoft & IBM Diss MySQL

As interest in open-source databases builds, data management veterans IBM and Microsoft argue that alternative open-source databases such as MySQL lack the strength and functionality for enterprise deployment.Although Sun has not positioned MySQL as an alternative to larger transactional databases, executives speaking at the launch of the LX50 server in August said MySQL offers enough functionality to be a viable alternative in many cases.Open-source databases "dont support as many users, they dont support as much data, and you dont have as many connectivity options," said Jeff Jones, director of strategy for data management solutions at IBM. "They lack some key functionality and lack the scalability and performance, which keeps them out of the enterprise," Jones said.
http://infoworld.com/articles/pl/xml/02/09/23/020923pldman.xml

Earths Magnetic Field Boosts Gravity

Hidden extra dimensions are causing measurements of the strength of gravity at different locations on Earth to be affected by the planets magnetic field, French researchers say. This is a controversial claim because no one has ever provided experimental evidence to support either the existence of extra dimensions or any interaction between gravity and electromagnetism. But lab measurements of Newtons gravitational constant G suggest that both are real.Newtons constant, which describes the strength of the gravitational pull that bodies exert on each other, is the most poorly determined of the constants of nature. The two most accurate measurements have experimental errors of 1 part in 10,000, yet their values differ by 10 times that amount. So physicists are left with no idea of its absolute value.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992814

Astronomers Find Theory-Affirming Evidence

Astronomers using a radio telescope at the South Pole reported on Thursday they had recorded a flicker of light from nearly 14 billion years ago that verifies most modern theory about the cosmos. Had the verification not been made, it would have tossed much current thinking into doubt, according to John Carlstrom of the University of Chicago. "Instead of stating that we think we really understand the origin and evolution of the universe with high confidence, we would be saying that we just dont know," absent the discovery, he said in an announcement from the university.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020919/sc_nm/science_cosmos_dc_1

Signs Of Water On Distant Planets

His team used a 32-meter radio telescope to search for water maser emissions, telltale microwaves which could indicate water in a planets atmosphere when it is bathed in the infrared light of its star. Cosmovici said his team found the emissions in three planetary systems. Hugh Jones, of Liverpool John Moores University, said it could be an exciting first step in the search for signs of life on other planets. "Waters at the top of the shopping list of ingredients for life," he told the magazine.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992810

Current Read: The Gateless Barrier

Zen master Zenkei Shibayana has done a great job in guiding the reader through what has been, for more than 7th century, one of the most rigorous training exercise in Zen: the koans in the "Gateless Barrier" or "Mumonkan," without the readers having to become a training Zen monk. He did this out of his "elders mind" (in Japanese: roshin) and out of his "grandmotherly heart" (robashin in J), for the tradition has always been to keep koan exercises strictly between the teacher and the student. (There are no correct answers, per se, to these koans and the exercise is only complete under the supervison of a teacher). And for the real purists like Shuan who wrote the preface to "Momonkan", they would urge us to "throw it away without waiting for me to do so. Let no drop of it fall into the world." In this regard, Shuan paled when compared to Ta-hui (Chinese spelling) who took the decisive step of burning every copy of the so-called frist book of Zen, Hegiganroku (Blue Cliff Record in Chinese), which had been written by a member of his teachers school, he could find. They both would have made Bodhidharma, the first Chinese Chan Patriach, proud - if thats possible, who wrote the famous gatha (a Buddhist poem): Transmission outside doctrine, No dependencies on words, Pointing directly at the mind, Thus seeing oneself truly, Attaining Buddhahood (Trans by Lucien Stryk & Takashi Ikemoto, in the Penguin Book of Zen Poetry).
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1570627266/qid=1032187736/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-2177368-5346452?v=glance&s=books#product-details

More Friction Between RIAA and Artists

Record companies see it as mutiny. Musicians call it an overdue rebellion. Either way, the artists rights movement has set the stage for combat that could revolutionize the music industry.What started as a classic David-and-Goliath skirmish over contractual terms could be tilting toward a level battlefield as opposition on a wide range of issues swells against an industry mired in a sales slump."The record business is in rough enough shape that something might actually change," says Craig Marks, editor of Blender magazine. "If things werent so uncertain, so bleak and in such disarray, the industry would be immovable, even with a gun to its head. If there was ever a set of circumstances that could lead to artists making inroads, its now."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-15-artists-rights_x.htm

Magic Lantern Info

Its been more than six months since the news broke about the FBIs new high tech spying device named "Magic Lantern." The government, understandably, wants to keep the Magic Lantern technology under wraps. But that didnt stop "CyberCrime" from getting the inside scoop on this high tech surveillance device from experts, which well show you on this weeks episode. The Magic Lantern technology began as part of a broad FBI project called "Cyber Knight" -- the same project that spawned the notorious Carnivore email monitoring device. Magic Lantern goes much farther than Carnivore, though. If initial reports are correct, it will allow investigators to secretly install software that records every keystroke on a persons computer, steal passwords, and read encrypted messages. With many encryption programs available on the Internet, the FBI has been frustrated in efforts to break open encrypted messages, and officials are increasingly concerned about their ability to read encrypted messages in criminal or terrorist investigations. Magic Lantern also resolves another important problem with the FBIs existing computer monitoring technology -- the "key logger system." In the past, investigators had to break into a targets residence armed with a warrant and physically attach a device to a computer. Magic Lantern, however, can be installed over the Internet by tricking a person into opening an email attachment. It is unclear whether Magic Lantern would transmit keystrokes it records back to the FBI over the Internet or store the information to be seized later in a raid. Once up and running, it can reportably records all keystrokes, peer into file, and even translate encrypted words into readable text.

http://www.techtv.com/cybercrime/privacy/story/0,23008,3386018,00.html

Hilarious: He-Man Vehicles

Of course, cars look a lot different in Eternia. The add-ons arent as mundane as what we see. These guys arent debating on paying extra for four-wheel drive or turbo-lock breaks - rather assorted missile launchers and slide-out wings. Automobiles like this probably cost a lot more than what we pay for our Fords and Toyotas, but fuck me if a little extra dough isnt worth driving around in a car that looks like a big red shark.
http://x-entertainment.com/messages/657.html

Huge Chunk Of Frozen Methane Found Off Vancouver Coast

It doesnt look much like fuel, but a glacier of frozen gas at the bottom of the ocean off British Columbia could one day provide Canada with a major source of energy. The deposit of methane hydrate, or frozen gas, came to light early last month when a fishing crew pulled up a chunk of the material in their nets. Scientists using a mini-submersible later found the deposit, about 75 kilometres off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Large chunks of the material are sitting in about 850 metres of water. "Theres likely enough methane and natural gas out there to satisfy energy reserves in Canada for about 40 years," said Dr. Ross Chapman, of the University of Victoria.
http://cbc.ca/stories/2002/09/09/methane020909

EU Users Online Now Outnumber NA

For the first time, Europe has more internet users than the US. According to Irish-based industry monitor Nua.com, Europe has almost 186 million users, while Canada and the US register 182 million. The difference may not seem substantial, but Europe is still a growing market."Internet penetration rate in the US is now close to saturation," says Nua.com editor Charlie Taylor. "However, the number of Europeans going online is increasing at a fast rate - they now account for 32% of the global internet population."
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,788334,00.html

Ion Engine Still Kicking

A team led by Anita Sengupta, engineer and member of JPLs advanced propulsion technology group, has kept the Deep Space 1 flight spare ion engine running for 24,750 hours. If it had been an automobile engine instead of an ion engine, and it was driven for 24,750 hours at 80.5 kilometers per hour (50 mph), it would have traveled 1.93 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) without an oil change or tune up. The purpose of the test is to understand how an ion engine wears, and what phenomena contribute to its eventual end of life. With this information, NASA scientists can plan missions better and design improved ion engines.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=9186

Speed of Gravity To Be Measured

Astronomers at the worlds largest radio telescopes are gearing up to measure the speed of gravity.It is the first attempt to verify a key prediction of Einsteins theory of general relativity, which says that nothing, not even the influence of gravity itself, can travel faster than light.No one has ever tested this prediction, even though the assumption that gravity travels in waves or gravitons with a finite speed underpins much of theoretical physics. The difficulty is that if light and gravity travel at the same speed, how can you hope to see evidence of gravitys speed?The answer, says Sergei Kopeikin of the University of Missouri, Columbia, is by watching a distant quasar as the planet Jupiter moves in front of it and its gravity bends radio waves from the quasar. This event is due to happen over the weekend of September 7 and 8. "When I first gave a talk about the idea everybody got excited and said we have to do this," says Kopeikin.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992763

Inteview With The Creator Of Pitfall

One week before Pitfall! was to be released, I only gave you one life to play the whole game. I was experimenting with that concept as sort of the ultimate challenge. Thats right, fall in one pit and start over from the beginning! Well, thankfully my buddies practically tied me to my chair until I put in extra lives and Im glad they did. But most of the help came in much smaller details - things so small that taken individually you would never notice. It was the sum total of all the feedback and suggestions that polished the games to a fine edge.
http://www.gooddealgames.com/interviews/int_David_Crane.html

Awesome Photo Gallery

... of some weird digital media party.
http://www.xeni.net/images/0802_nyc_digitalartparty/

Good Weblog

haxor (also H4X0R): hacker. X0R is often used as the suffix "-er"; for instance "fucker" becomes "fuX0r" in 1337speak. Often a 1337speak noun ending in X0R becomes a present tense verb when followed by "s" or "z" or a past tense verb when followed by "ed". For instance, "this beer sucks" becomes "this beer sux0rz" (or, if you really want to go whole-hog, "+|-|1z b33R sUx0rz".
http://boingboing.net/

Kamikaze Pilot Instruction Manual

Your speed is at maximum. The plane tends to lift. But you can prevent this by pushing the elevator control forward sufficiently to allow for the increase in speed. Do your best. Push forward with all your might. You have lived for 20 years or more. You must exert your full might for the last time in your life. Exert supernatural strength. At the very moment of impact: do your best. Every deity and the spirits of your dead comrades are watching you intently. Just before the collision it is essential that you do not shut your eyes for a moment so as not to miss the target. Many have crashed into the targets with wide-open eyes. They will tell you what fun they had.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,778587,00.html

Canadian ISPs To Become Big Brother-ish

WASHINGTON--The Canadian government is considering a proposal that would force Internet providers to rewire their networks for easy surveillance by police and spy agencies. A discussion draft released Sunday also contemplates creating a national database of every Canadian with an Internet account, a plan that could sharply curtail the right to be anonymous online. The Canadian government, including the Department of Justice and Industry Canada, wrote the 21-page blueprint as a near-final step in a process that seeks to give law enforcement agents more authority to conduct electronic surveillance. A proposed law based on the discussion draft is expected to be introduced in Parliament late this year or in early 2003. Arguing that more and more communications take place in electronic form, Canadian officials say such laws are necessary to fight terrorism and combat even run-of-the-mill crimes. They also claim that by enacting these proposals, Canada will be following its obligations under the Council of Europes cybercrime treaty, which the country is in the process of considering.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-955595.html

Researchers Attempt To Create Material With Negative Refractivity

A transmission medium with a negative index of refractions would enable a flat planar lens to focus light to precisions that are smaller than the wavelength of the light itself. With tunable versions of such photonic materials now being rushed into prototypes by labs worldwide, it is conceivable that not only could a "perfect" lens be created but that known electron effects could be translated into photonic operations to create sensors that could detect a single molecule. "Conventional lenses cannot focus light in an area smaller than the wavelength of the light, but with our nanomaterials you can focus light down much smaller than its own wavelength," said Shalaev. "These metallic nanostructures might even be able to detect a single molecule of a substance, which will never be possible for conventional optics."All materials have two fundamental electromagnetic parameters: permeability and permittivity, which respectively measure the capacities of a medium to form magnetic and electrical fields. The values of those parameters produce the characteristic bending of a light beam when it travels from one medium into another. In addition, since both parameters are always positive in nature, the electric and magnetic vector field components are directed according to the "right-hand rule," which can be represented by pointing the index finger of the right hand in the direction of propagation. The thumb and middle finger are then oriented at right angles to the index finger, showing the field vector directions.
http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020826S0041

Australian Bionic Eye To Begin Human Trials

The device consists of a silicon chip inserted into the eye, which is designed to act like a retina ? receiving images captured by a pair of glasses worn by the user.It is still at a very early stage in its development, but if successful, it could restore vision to people who have lost sight during their lifetime.
http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s653099.htm

Good Salon Comix

Based on US/Taliban political situation...
http://salon.com/comics/knig/2002/08/21/knig/index.html

Good Penny Arcade

You gamers will get this one.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-08-22&res=l

The Onions Wine Tasting Tips

If you are uncertain whether to select a merlot or beaujolais for a spring breast-of-lamb garden dinner, avoid making a decision until we come down to beat the living crap out of you.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3830/wine-appreciation_tips.html

Quantum Computing Possible Today

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison claim to have created the worlds first successful simulation of a quantum-computer architecture that uses existing silicon fabrication techniques. By harnessing both vertical and horizontal tunneling through dual top and bottom gates, the architecture lays out interacting, 50-nanometer-square, single-electron quantum dots across a chip."Our precise modeling elucidates the specific requirements for scalable quantum computing ? for the first time we have translated the requirements for fault-tolerant quantum computing into the specific requirements for gate voltage control electronics in quantum dots," said professor Mark Eriksson of the universitys Department of Physics. The group of researchers has concluded that existing silicon fabrication equipment can be used to create quantum computers, albeit at only megahertz speeds today due to the stringent requirements of its pulse generators. To achieve gigahertz operation, the group has pinpointed the device features that need to be enhanced to prevent leakage errors, and has already begun work on fabricating a prototype.
http://www.eetimes.com/at/news/OEG20020806S0030

Nother Space Probe Lost

One of Nasas space probes appears to be missing. The science probe was scheduled to depart Earth orbit on Thursday for a 2003 encounter with a comet. The Comet Nucleus Tour, or Contour, spacecraft was to have fired its manoeuvering engine at 2349 GMT on Wednesday for 50 seconds and contact its ground control team at the Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland, 45 minutes later.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2196102.stm

Bizarro DARPA Flash Of "Self-Healing Minefields"

Once the minefield is employed, the individual mines begin to assemble into a completely ad-hoc network. By exploiting novel networking approaches and the close mine-to-mine distances, the minefield network is able to self-assemble in less than five minutes. In parallel to the assembly process, the minefield self-maps the location of all mines in the minefield. This local mapping can be achieved without access to the Global Positioning System (GPS). An absolute position of all mines within the minefield can be determined by onboard GPS, but this is not necessary for the standard functions of the minefield.
http://www.darpa.mil/ato/programs/SHM/shmdemo.swf

More Evidence For Mars Life

In the latest study of a 4.5 billion-year-old Martian meteorite, researchers have presented new evidence confirming that 25 percent of the magnetic material in the meteorite was produced by ancient bacteria on Mars. These latest results were published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The researchers used six physical properties they refer to as the Magnetite Assay for Biogenicity (MAB) to compare all the magnetic material found in the ancient meteorite -- using the MAB as a biosignature. A biosignature is a physical and/or chemical marker of life that does not occur through random processes or human intervention. "No non-biologic magnetite population, whether produced by nature or in the laboratory, has ever met the MAB criteria," said Kathie Thomas-Keprta, an astrobiologist at NASAs Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston and the lead researcher on the study. "This means that one-quarter of the magnetite crystals embedded in the carbonates in Martian meteorite ALH84001 require the intervention of biology to explain their presence."
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0208/04marslife/

Directed Energy Directorate Project Fact Sheets

A Brief History Of The Airborne Laser, Active Denial Technology, AEOS Telescope Facility, Airborne Laser (YAL-1A), Airborne Laser Frequently Asked Questions, ARGUS, Battlefield Optical Surveillance System (BOSS), Chemical Oxygen-Iodine Laser (COIL), Directed Energy Directorate, High Power Microwave Division, High Power Micowaves, etc
http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/Factsheets/

Lou Dobbs Hosts Moneyline From Window Ledge

New York?Rattled by Wall Streets extreme volatility of late, CNN Moneyline anchor Lou Dobbs hosted the program from a windy ledge high above New Yorks financial district Tuesday. Above: Dobbs broadcasts from high above New York. "The Dow was up 579 points today, rebounding sharply from Mondays 611-point loss," said Dobbs, as he struggled to simultaneously address the camera, retain his grip on the exterior wall of the Prescott Securities Tower, and prevent his tie from blowing into his face from the wind outside the 63rd floor. "Stocks plummeted early in the day, with the industrial average hitting a five-year low of 7,627 by noon, but by 3 p.m., bargain hunters moved in, raising the average to a robust 9,143."Trying hard not to look down, Dobbs analyzed the days wild fluctuations.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3828/lou_dobbs_hosts_moneyline.html

Build Your Own Tesla Coils

This is the second prototype of a coil ultimately intended for the physics department at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California. The going is a bit slow since niether Pete nor I have the money to sink into it. I called one of the better known suppliers of spun aluminum toroids and got a quote for a discharge terminal that has since sent me on my way through the machine technology program at O.C.C. High voltatge capacitors for such a device are also not exactly cheep so weve been attempting to design one. This photo was taken during the short time one of the capacitor designs survived. Dielectrics dont seem to behave quite as advertised when subjected to potentials in excess of twenty thousand volts oscillating above three hundred and fifty kilohertz. The supply transformer delivers something just shy of one kilowatt.
http://www.edm.net/~jwilliams/tesla.html

Ultimate Memory Demoed

The scientist Richard Feynman suggested several decades ago that it would be possible to use single atoms to store bits of data. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin at Madison have taken a large step toward making the idea a reality with a prototype that uses single silicon atoms to represent the 1s and 0s of computing. Practical atomic-scale memory would increase the amount of information that could be stored per square inch of recording material by several thousand times. The researchers realized they had hit upon a mechanism for atomic memory when they discovered that scattering gold atoms on a silicon wafer caused the silicon atoms to assemble into tracks exactly five atoms wide. The pattern resembled the microstructure of a CD.
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2002/080702/Ultimate_memory_demoed_080702.html

Montalban Recalls Khan

Ricardo Montalban, who played the villainous Khan in 1982s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, told an appreciative audience in Los Angeles that it took him and director Nicholas Meyer a while to uncover his now-famous operatic performance. Montalban and Meyer spoke at a screening at Paramount Pictures of a new directors edition of the film, which will come out on DVD on Aug. 6."The function of a director is to be a loving eye for the actor, to help him give the best performance he is capable of giving," Montalban said after receiving a standing ovation. "Well, I never had a more loving eye from a director than I did from ... Nicholas Meyer. He was extraordinary. ... I was ... at the end of the sixth season of Fantasy Island. ... During my hiatus, I was presented with this script. ... The shock of my life was that after six years of doing Mr. Roarke of Fantasy Island?a controlled man, you know, he was in charge of the island, and so forth? ... the first time that I began to say the words out loud, ... I sounded like Mr. Roarke. ... And I thought the public is going to laugh me off the screen. ... I was so nervous."
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2002-08/02/13.00.film

UofC Receives Donation Of 35000 Sci-Fi Works

Calgary ? It came from the attic... the garage... and worlds beyond. A massive collection of science fiction and pulp magazines spanning the last century has been donated to the University of Calgary which officials say will be a boon for literary and pop culture research.University staff were stunned by the size of the donation: upwards of 35,000 volumes dating back to the 19th century, much of it bought at second-hand stores across North America and Britain.
http://www.globeandmail.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20020801/wsifi/Front/homeBN/breakingnews

Current Read: Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

Here, in one volume are four original sources for Zen 101: Zen Stories, The Gateless Gate, Bulls, and Centering Together serve as a desirable volume of source readings for one already familiar with Zen.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/1570620636/reviews/qid=1028221778/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4289166-7212945

Calculate Your Real Hourly Wage

So your boss told you that you were getting paid $10 an hour? Dont believe it! This calculator will show you how much youre REALLY profiting (after-tax, after work-related-expense takehome) from each hour you devote to working -- both paid and unpaid. But wait! Before you approach your boss with this startling computation, make sure you see both sides. You know, your bosss "side" and the "outside!" ;-)
http://www.cheapskatemonthly.com/member_tools_calculator_calc_rhw.asp

Canada Going To Mars?

In a speech on the 40th anniversary of John F. Kennedys famous pledge to put an American on the moon, the Canadian Space Agencys Marc Garneau put a challenge to the Canadian space exploration community: "Lets go to Mars." Fourteen months later, Canadian scientists are responding with a resounding "Yes!" The Mars buzz is in response to NASAs Mars Scout 2007 Mission, a call for innovative, cut-rate Mars science projects that can include a foreign component. Piggybacking on the U.S.-led project, Canadian space researchers are submitting a total of nine potential Mars projects, including an ambitious plan for an all-Canadian Mars lander and mini-rover."We believe we can do it," says Ben Quine, a University of Toronto atmospheric physics professor and space technology entrepreneur whoís the project leader for the all-Canadian lander project, dubbed Northern Light.
http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id={07ACFC93-6908-4AAC-8812-830F9C1FBDF6}

Boeing Doing Antigravity Research

Researchers at the worlds largest aircraft maker, Boeing, are using the work of a controversial Russian scientist to try to create a device that will defy gravity. The company is examining an experiment by Yevgeny Podkletnov, who claims to have developed a device which can shield objects from the Earths pull.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2157975.stm

Red Hot Chili Peppers Album, By the Way, Is Excellent

The Red Hot Chili Peppers eighth studio album finds the California foursome exploring the more melodic freeways of harmony and texture, contrasting the gritty, funky side streets of their early days. Luckily, with this more sophisticated sound, the Peppers have not sacrificed any of their trademark energy or passions for life, universal love, and (of course) lust. Although they recorded the spiky Abbey Road E.P. in 1988, this album actually sounds a lot closer to the Beatles Abbey Road, with a little of Pet Sounds and elements of Phil Spectors lushest arrangements all distilled through the bands well-travelled funk-pop stylings.
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=Aos821vs3zz9a&uid=FTRALBUMS

Debate On Nearness Of ET

My prediction is that the nearest alien neighbors live in feces and food scrap left on the Moon by the six Apollo missions. Even though it?s been three decades, there is a good chance that hearty bacteria live and can reproduce inside encapsulated small damp places and survive the monthly cycles of heat and cold as well as the effects of solar flares, ultraviolet light, and hard vacuum.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/rare_earth_2_020717.html

Japanese Dragon Mythology Lives On

The concept of dragons was probably brought to Japan around 2,000 years ago, along with the technology for paddy agriculture. Their images have been found on the walls of barrow tombs dating to the late sixth and early seventh centuries. Out in the countryside, the Chinese images were combined with indigenous snake-spirits to form deities called ryujin, or "dragon-gods." Ryujin are common guardian spirits inhabiting lakes, marshes, rivers, and also bays and straights along the coast. Fishermen and farmers pray to them for rich harvests, big catches, and favorable weather, and legends like that of Imba Marsh can be found just about everywhere.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20020723wo72.htm

Voyager Current Mission Status

Voyager 1 Voyager 2
Distance from the Sun (Km)
12,644,000,000
10,014,000,000
Distance from the Sun (Mi)
7,856,000,000
6,223,000,000
Distance from the Earth (Km)
12,544,000,000
9,973,000,000
Distance from the Earth (Mi)
7,794,000,000
6,198,000,000
Total Distance Traveled Since Launch (Km)
14,462,000,000
13,570,000,000
Total Distance Traveled Since Launch (Mi)
8,986,000,000
8,432,000,000
Velocity Relative to Sun
(Km/sec) 17.23 15.719
Velocity Relative to Sun
(Mi/hr) 38,542 35,161
Velocity Relative to Earth
(Km/sec) 24 22.441
Velocity Relative to Earth
(Mi/hr) 53,685 50,198
Round Trip Light Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
23:14:38 18:28:46

http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/flteam/weekly-rpts/current.html

Ghost In The Shell TV Series

I feel very fortunate that my work is appreciated enough that I have the opportunity to make a visual production out of it. I am especially grateful for the help of Production I.G, known for its high quality work, advanced skills in digital technology, and worldwide appeal. I must say that I could not have possibly hoped for a better opportunity. I am really grateful to all the participants involved in this project and Id like to thank you all very much.
-Shirow Masamune

http://www.production-ig.com/Ghost_TV.html

Sun Made Of Iron?

Scientists have long believed that the sun was composed of an enormous mass of hydrogen. Not everyone bought this theory, though, and for the last 40-years Dr. Manuel Oliver has been preaching his theory of the creation of our solar system instead. Manuels hypothesis on how the planets formed is very different. He believes that the solar system was born out of a catastrophic explosion - a very different interpretation of the data than that of his fellow scientists. The conventional belief among astrophysicists is that the sun and the planets were formed 4.5 billion years ago in a relatively ambiguous, innocuous cloud of interstellar dust.
http://www3.cosmiverse.com/news/space/0702/space07190204.html

Quantum Crypto Key Distribution Demoed

Boffins have moved one step closer to a practical implementation of the Holy Grail of encryption - quantum cryptography - by exchanging keys across a 67km fibre optic network. Until recently, the idea of quantum key distribution has been tested only in the physics laboratory. Now, a team from the University of Geneva and Swiss electronics company id Quantique have demonstrated what is described as the "first fully integrated quantum cryptography prototype machine" across a telecommunications network. This advance is limited to fibre optic networks but other scientists are beginning to consider how quantum keys can be shared over satellite or wireless networks.
http://www.theregus.com/content/6/25638.html

Sword And Aikido

In studying sword we learn to control the kensen, the line that the kirisaki, the tip of the sword, draws in each cut. Eventually we are able to draw that line with our minds eye alone. This ability is one of the secrets of aikido practice. It enables us see the invisible form within each technique and to send out energy precisely to the correct place in our partners body. This ability takes many years to realize; without sword training, the student is much less likely to discover it.Cutting with the Japanese sword is an expansive motion in which the tip of the sword must be unified with ones center. The basic diagonal cut, called kesa giri, may be equated with ikkyo in barehanded aikido training. If one truly masters this one cut, he or she has already realized shin shin toitsu or body-mind unification. Within kesa giri is the secret of natural spiral movement. The sword falls by its weight alone and the weight of the body comes to ride on top of its free fall. The turning of the hips and the subtle connection between your own center and the tip of the sword create effortless power and speed. Just as in aikido, this basic way of cutting with the sword is dependent on a continual expansion of our feeling; in fact, that is the life of the movement itself.

http://www.aikiweb.com/weapons/gleason1.html

Artificial Blood

To truly end blood shortages and the fears that help produce them, hospitals would need a fluid thats laboratory pure, universally compatible with any human blood or tissue type, and indefinitely storable at room temperature. Most important, it would have to perform the function of oxygen delivery, so far the most elusive function to mimic in efforts to create fake blood. Simply adding oxygen-carrying hemoglobin to a substance like saline wont work - the raw hemoglobin molecule turns out to be both short-lived and toxic to the kidneys and liver unless surrounded by the fatty envelope of the red cell. And numerous other creative workarounds - like encapsulating the molecules in tiny globs of fat or chaining them together into polymers - have failed. Oxygen and CO2 can be dissolved directly into droplets of liquid perfluorocarbon, which holds and releases the two gases about as efficiently as hemoglobin does; when oxygenated, this liquid is even breathable - remember the rat in The Abyss ? This approach too, however, produces side effects, from toxicity to allergies to exhaling an ozone-depleting gas. Only one oxygen-carrying blood substitute has ever been approved by the FDA. That was Fluosol, a perfluorocarbon additive developed in the US and marketed by Japans Green Cross corporation from 1989 to 1993, during which time it was infused into some 13,000 patients in the US annually. Unfortunately, Fluosol was a frozen, two-part drug that had to be thawed and mixed immediately prior to use, and in large doses it required patients to breathe pure oxygen (potentially toxic) for the weeks it took their natural blood supply to recover. Meanwhile, doctors had to keep pumping the stuff in every 12 hours or the patient would die, bloodless in a cloud of exhaled fluorocarbons. Fluosol was eventually pulled off the market.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/blood.html

How Viruses Get Named

We try to group by family," Elnitiarto said. However, "thats getting harder and harder with a lot of these new viruses coming out," because many viruses are hybrids that mix the reproductive mechanism of one virus with the payload of another, for example. During such moments of confusion, the researchers categorize them by infection method. For example, a recent variation of Melissa called "Madcow" has been grouped with an earlier type of virus, the "Class" series, Elnitiarto said. The Class virus, which Elnitiarto named after the fact that it tries to infect a module of a Word document called "Class," now has more than 120 variations, he said. That brings up another problem: running out of names.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-223826.html?legacy=cnet

Farks Best Jokes

HOLMES: Watson, look up at the stars and tell me what you deduce.
WATSON: I see millions of stars, and if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it is quite likely there are some planets like earth, and if there are a few planets like earth out there might also be life.
HOLMES: Watson, you idiot! Somebody stole our tent.
http://cgi.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments-voteresults.pl?232497

Digital Dark Ages

Were storing almost all of the worlds total information on hard drives with one-year limited warranties. Whats to become of our cultural and personal history?
http://www.shift.com/print/web/385/1.html

Oldest Hominid Skull Found

Scientists unveiled on Wednesday the skull of what they called the earliest member of the human family so far discovered, dating back six or seven million years to a period in evolution about which virtually nothing is known. The skull was discovered last year by an international team of palaeoanthropologists working in Chad, Central Africa. It has been nicknamed "Toumai," the name in Chad usually given to children born close to the dry season. Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University, one of several scientists to have seen the remains, said in the Nature journal which featured the discovery that they would have the impact of a "small nuclear bomb" among students of human evolution. "Toumai is arguably the most important fossil discovery in living memory, rivaling the discovery of the first ape-man 77 years ago -- the find which effectively founded the modern science of palaeoanthropology," added Henry Gee, Natures palaeontology editor.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,53753,00.html

Spielbergs 2054 Technology Selections

Eye-scanning spider robots, vomit-inducing "sick sticks," holographic home video cameras, vertical highways: Welcome to the United States circa 2054. Steven Spielbergs "Minority Report" is essentially a neo noir in which Tom Cruise runs around trying to prove his own innocence. But what distinguishes the film -- besides its ominous political warning -- is its dense, ingenious conception of what life will look like 50 years from now. Not since the neon-soaked "Blade Runner" (like "Minority Report," also based on a Philip K. Dick story) has such a conceivable, self-contained and ultimately disconcerting vision of the future been captured on-screen.
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/int/2002/07/10/underkoffler_belker/index.html?x

Russian Manned Mars Mission By 2015 -- Good Luck

Russian space officials have announced an ambitious project to send people to Mars by 2015.

Two ships: one manned, one cargo

Three crew to walk on Mars, three to stay in orbit

Mars Explorer craft to help crew travel on planet

Crew: commander, pilot, flight engineer, doctor, 2 researchers

Leaders of the Russian space programme said the plan needed international co-operation and they hoped to win support from both the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and the European Space Agency (Esa). Scientists have planned the basics of a 440-day mission by six people which would break a huge barrier in space exploration. Preliminary talks have been held with possible international partners for the plan which Russia said would cost around $20bn and for which it could contribute 30%.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2101000/2101861.stm

2600 Drops DeCSS Appeal

Yes, its true. After numerous consultations with our legal team and all kinds of internal debate, we have decided that weve gotten the DeCSS case as far as we can. We wont be bringing it to the Supreme Court. While we share the disappointment many of you will feel, we think its very important to understand why this is the proper course of action. Our chances of the case being taken up by the Supreme Court were very slim. And it was the nearly unanimous opinion of all of the legal experts we consulted that the current Supreme Court wouldnt take our side. Either of these results could have caused a setback to the overall fight that were engaged in. To continue would have meant putting our egos ahead of the best legal strategy, something were not about to do.
http://www.2600.com/news/display.shtml?id=1233

A New Kind Of Science

The underlying theme of "A New Kind of Science" is that reality is like the "cellular automata" which scientists began simulating on computers three decades ago. These are computer programs -- some of them extremely simple -- that, if allowed to run indefinitely, may generate extraordinarily complex images and processes. Gazing at these kaleidoscopically rich images, scholars such as Wolfram and Fredkin began to wonder if they were witnessing more than just pretty pictures. Were they witnessing, in effect, the evolution of mini-universes on a computer screen? They werent alone in speculating about a link between the computer images and the real world. Some scientists, such as Oxford University evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins, claimed cellular automata mimicked the evolution of life. They developed cellular automata resembling insects that "crawled" around the screen and mutated, reproduced and ate each other.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/07/01/MN108224.DTL

30 Billion Earths In Milky Way

Virtually all the stars out to about 100 light-years distant have been surveyed. Of these 1,000 or so stars, about 10% have been found to possess planetary systems. So, with about 300 billion stars in our galaxy, there could be about 30 billion planetary systems in the Milky Way alone; and a great many of these systems are very likely to include Earth-like worlds, say researchers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2078000/2078507.stm

One Billion PCs In The World

Its taken since 1975 for a billion pcs to be sold in the world -- but it will double by 2008. A perfect example of the Kurzweil singularity in action.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2077000/2077986.stm

Exploring Vegas Storm Drains

Crouched over, he began sideways down the tunnel. His left hand gripped the Mag-Lite; his right hand tickled the kukri, which dangled between his belt and the waist of his pants in the small of his back. He disappeared into the darkness. Silence ... I leaned into the tunnel. "Josh?"I heard shuffling ... and then a figure emerged from the darkness.
http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/display/inn_cover_story/cover.txt