] "The broadcast flag regulations exceed the agency's
] delegated authority under the statute," a three-judge
] panel unanimously concluded. "The FCC has no authority to
] regulate consumer electronic devices that can be used for
] receipt of wire or radio communication when those devices
] are not engaged in the process of radio or wire
] transmission."

HELL YEAH!

Court yanks down FCC's broadcast flag

] Chiune Sugihara (January 1, 1900 - July 31, 1986) was an
] obscure Japanese diplomat who saved Jews during the World
] War II when he was a Japanese consul to Lithuania. Unlike
] many others who helped, he was one of those who appeared
] to have no discernible motivation other than just wanting
] to do what was right, and came to be known as the
] Japanese Schindler.

PBS is running a special entitled Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness, about this diplomat. I like to think I know quite a bit more about history than your average person (having been feed a constant diet of it my whole life since my mom is a history teacher), but I had never heard of any relationship between the Japanese and Jews.

Apparently, a Wall St Banker named Shift (spelling?) who was a Jew personally financed the $200 Million needed by the Japanese for the Russo-Japanese war.

Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness

] Japanese Kids Say the Darndest Things
]
] These are things that kids have hit me with at some point
] in the classroom. Most are in English, or at least their
] best attempt. I swear I'm not making any of this up.
]
] During a quiz game, I asked "What's the name of the
] famous bridge in San Francisco?" They always guess
] "Rainbow Bridge" because that's the name of the famous
] bridge in Tokyo. Um, no. Not quite.
]
] One boy completely surprised me though. He slowly and
] timidly approached me, looked up, and hit me with his
] guess - "Gay Bridge."

The life and times of a black American teaching English in Japan. And yes, everyone keeps asking him if he has a big dick.

I Am a Japanese School Teacher

Fuck James Joyce and his stupid homoerotic clouds.

...

400 pages. 32 Hours

] The Mystery Pit of Oak Island

I first hear about the Oak Island Treasure after reading Douglas Preston Lincoln Child's "Riptide," a fiction work based on the it.

The Oak Island Mystery revolves around a 160'+ pit that appears to be man-made, on an island off the cost of Nova Scotia. It has a documented system of booby traps that have been tripped and flooded the original pit. Many people have died over the past 200 years trying to recover the "treasure."

"Riptide" itself is an excellent novel, involving priates, cryptography, and engineering. I highly recommend it.

Oak Island Mystery

Anyone who has used Thunderbird sees that its address book leaves much to be desired. For its addressbook, .MSF files, history files, etc, Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird all use a Indexing database called Mork.

I would like to punch the person who invented this *directly* in the face.

Once I figure this out, there are some cool apps to be written here. The first is "Mail you thought you deleted, but really didn't"

Mork:: Or, How I learned to hate Mozilla File formats

] Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software,
] primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use
] software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink
] you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes,
] buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective
] tutorial for your users.

Wink - [Homepage]

What do those icons do when you aren't around?

Icon War

Busted! Here is the offical transcript, from whitehouse.gov:

Q Do you feel that the number of troops that you've kept there is limiting your options elsewhere in the world? ... Do you feel, as you are confronting these problems, the number of troops you've left tied up in Iraq is limiting your options to go beyond the diplomatic solutions that you described for North Korea and Iran?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I appreciate that question. The person to ask that to, the person I ask that to, at least, is to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, my top military advisor. I say, do you feel that we've limited our capacity to deal with other problems because of our troop levels in Iraq? And the answer is, no, he doesn't feel we're limited. He feels like we've got plenty of capacity.

But today, less than a week later Bush's Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs issued a report to Congress...

] The senior military official told CNN that because of the
] U.S. deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the report
] concludes that future armed conflicts would last longer
] and produce higher casualties.
]
] The report finds that the United States still would have
] the ability to win another military face-off but wouldn't
] be able to build up its forces as quickly as it did for
] the Iraq war.
]
] "It would be harder to sprint that fast," the official
] said.
]
] "What is certain is the U.S. military remains capable of
] executing every mission it is assigned," Whitman said.
]
] But he acknowledged fighting multiple conflicts
] simultaneously can put stress on forces.
]
] "If you're doing A, B and C and are asked to do D, will D
] be harder? Sure," Whitman said.

Spin Spin Spin all you want, but Bush lied. The reporter asked about our ability to engage in other military conflicts. Bush said no problem. The CJC said Well... we can do any military job required, but it will last longer, cost more money and result in higher casualties. IE these other engagements have weakened our capability to use a military option, because now any future military option cost more in terms of lives, money, equipment, and political capital.

Don't give me this "capabilities" vs "abilities" hair spliting either. We have retained the capability of reducing all life as we know it to atomic ash. We have capability out the ying yang.

Plain and simple, Bush lied about how the war in Iraq and other military adventures have reduced our ability to effectively combat actual clear and present dangers.

Bush lied at Press Conference

] Spring Commencement Shifts to Georgia Dome
] May 7, 2005 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
] Georgia Dome
]
] The 221st Commencement of the Georgia Institute of
] Technology will take place Saturday, May 7, 2005 at
] 9:00AM. This spring commencement will be held at the
] Georgia Dome in Downtown Atlanta. It will include both
] graduate and undergraduate students.

Of course, the ceremony is four hours of name calling, however the party that night will more than obliterate them from our memory (and probably a lot of other useless information as well).

I'm hoping it will knock out a semester worth of James Joyce and Smalltalk. Designed for a 5 year old my ass!

Georgia Institute of Technology :: Campus Calendar & Events