The conclusion the court came to is that, based on medical testimony and Terri’s CAT scan, her cerebral cortex has basically turned to liquid. The cerebral cortex is the seat of all our higher brain functions. Without a cerebral cortex, it is impossible for a human being to experience thought, emotions, consciousness, pain, pleasure, or anything at all; nor, barring a miracle, is it possible for a patient lacking a cerebral cortex to recover.

We have American solders dying in a foreign country, Iran buying nuclear technology from our "ally" Pakistan, strained relations at best with most of the European community, and our representives are wasting legislative time grandstanding for the right-to-lifers? Regardless of your opinion on euthanasia, I am disgusted with both parties for dragging a tragic, JUDICIAL matter into Congress.

Schiavoct CAT Scan Image JPEG Image, 400x265 pixels)

] Check boxes if:
] 1) You will be 65 or older on January 1, 2006
] 2) You are blind

... yes, this is on the website!

2005 Withholding Calculator

] If you work your way down the Forbes 400 making an x next
] to the name of each person with an MBA, you'll learn
] something important about business school. You don't even
] hit an MBA till number 22, Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike.
] There are only four MBAs in the top 50. What you notice
] in the Forbes 400 are a lot of people with technical
] backgrounds. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison,
] Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Gordon Moore. The rulers of the
] technology business tend to come from technology, not
] business. So if you want to invest two years in something
] that will help you succeed in business, the evidence
] suggests you'd do better to learn how to hack than get an
] MBA. [3]

A long article, but worth every word. Takes some of the myth and shines a light on the fears of starting a company: finding the right people, VC, doing "business," etc.

How to Start a Startup

[From the Mission Statement]
The best approach to take in these situtations is to do the right things directly next to the wrong thing, where all can clearly see.

Regardless of your opinion about Interz0ne, I glad that for those who have problems have decided to act constructively instead of simply bitching.

A group has organized an event for people who are intown for only a short time to meet, relax and discuss their projects in a free and open enviroment. These types of exchange are *always* important and should encouraged and supported. Period.

I am however kind of surprised that my name appears on the Outerz0ne page, as I had nothing to do with it. I plan to split the time that I have visting my friends, and not really care about the politics of it all. If I have a room to do that instead of a smokey bar or a public lounge then that's cool.

Outerz0ne 2005!

cerkit wrote:
] Herein a US Marine tells a slightly different tale about how
] our good buddy Saddam was captured. Whats striking to me is
] how much more likely it is, that this is what happened.

Hmmmm. You have a former marine of a certain ethnicity being interviewed by reporters in his home country. He makes claims and offers no specifics. What unit was he in? What was the name of the soldier who died? Why didn't Saddam shoot himself? Sounds like a former marine grandstanding to his neighbors.

] And that he was taken prisoner no-harm-no-foul, in the middle of a
]large campaign that spanned the entire region (of which he was the
]leader).

Saddam was hardly leading the war against the US. Around May 2003 or so, the 2nd Gulf War became the Iraqi Civil war. After that its just the Sunni's killing the Shiites and us, with the Kurds hoping no one decides to head north.

In Fact, the capture probably went like this...

Saddam: You're not one of my Republican Guards... who are you?
Ash: Who wants to known?
Saddam: I am Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, Lord of Arabia and leader of its peoples.
Ash: Well hello Mister Fancypants! Well I've got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things: Jack an shit... and Jack just left town.

RE: What makes sense?

k wrote:
] ] Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith was
] ] interviewed by CBS' 60 Minutes and says the third and
] ] final prequel will not likely receive the PG rating the
] ] previous five films have received.
] ]
] ] "I don't think I would take a five- or a six-year-old to
] ] this," says Lucas, "It's way too strong."
]
] [ Note that just because a movie is PG doesn't mean it has to
] be childish and silly.

Movie rating does factor in to what movies I want to see. For example, I refused to see AVP, because I felt with such an intense back history, the story could not be told properly and still have a PG-13 rating. Higher ratings typically translates into more mature or adult story line.

That said, there are times when I will see a movie and be shocked by just how good it was. National Treasure was a good example of this. Even though it was PG, tt had a nice dash of history, some fun break-in and chase scenes, and I really enjoyed it.

RE: Ep III to be PG-13 (gasp!)

] Wisconsin's Democratic governor thinks it's not fair that
] tangible items get taxed while downloads, like music,
] ebooks, software, etc., go completely untaxed. So, he
] proposes to rectify the situation by having Wisconsin's
] 5% state sales tax apply to Internet downloads. This is
] kind of like that famous hoax about how the USPS wants to
] charge people 5 cents for e-mail messages, except it's
] for real. What a dumb idea.
]
] Of course, when you look more closely at the idea, it
] looks even dumber:
]
] A little-noticed provision of the Democratic
] governor's proposed state budget would extend the sales
] tax to those Internet transactions, officials said
] Monday. There would be no Internet sales tax police,
] however, because compliance would be on the honor system.
]
] That's right: it's voluntary.

Everyday I see just how out of touch most of the country is about technology. Using the Internet as an avenue for traditional distribution methods is like using a Kentucky Derby Winner to pull a milk cart. But most people and sadly many large companies see it as just "like Television, but interactive." People are forcing buisness models that work just fine in traditional markets on the web, and then sue people when it fails.

Embrace that is it NOT TV, and NOT Radio, and in fact NOT like anything you have every dealt with. Embrace the minimal cost of storage most people have, and adapt business models to exploit this instead of jumping on things like the Broadfact flag and other tools created to stop us from using what we paid for.

Stop trying to make us a subscription society. Any decent financial planner will tell you renting anything instead of owning is throwing money away. Take your streaming Napster bullshit and shove it.

WI governor proposes state sales tax on downloads

] ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced
] scientist dubbed the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb,
] provided Iran with centrifuges that can be used to purify
] uranium for nuclear weapons, the Pakistani government
] said on Thursday.

Disgraced. Pardoned for all crimes and embraced by the Pakistani "President." It's all relative really.

] "He has given centrifuges to Iran, but the government was
] in no way involved in this," Pakistani Information
] Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Reuters.

As whole, I tend to disbelieve anything an Information Minister says.

Former Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf: We are killing the Americans left and right! The street run red with their blood. [US tank appears in background]

Pakistani 'Hero' gave centrifuges to Iran

] USB HID for Linux USB

Some nice C examples of USB HID access under Linux.

USB HID for Linux USB

] The USB HID class is a powerful and versatile way to get
] your device on the USB. If your USB device can exist
] within the bandwidth limits of the HID driver, then using
] this driver may save your sanity and your schedule. An
] example shows how.

You can use the surprisingly able HID Class of USB drivers (including in all OSes) that normally control keyboards and mice to do just about anything, if you don't mind using the low speed interface.

This is definately the future of my hardware device research. Even Java can access these HID devices. Thus I can create hardware devices that work on all platforms supporting USB, and quickly write applications that will work without having to write device drivers for multiple platforms. SCORE

Creating custom cross-platform USB devices using HID