] Bennett soon ascertained the patients did have one other
] thing in common. All three were reading Harry Potter and
] the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth installment in the
] enormously popular series by J.K. Rowling.

LOL!

Health 24 - News, Pain

] U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher (D.-Va.), a longtime champion of
] fair use rights, said Thursday the Copyright Office's
] ruling earlier this week denying consumers the right to
] make "fair use" copies of digitally recorded material
] except in very narrowly defined cases, was a "misguided
] decision."

Boucher Calls Copyright Office 'Misguided'

Naysayers have been trying to show Atkins is bad for you for about 30 years now and haven't a shred of evidence. Meanwhile there continues to be study after study showing that low-carb helps cholesterol, etc, etc.

I think its probably an uncontroversial fact of anthropology that we (Americans, anyway) are eating more carbs now than at any previous point in human history. Prehistoric man certainly did not have many carbs in his diet.

I've lost 30-35 lbs over the past 18 months or so by cutting carbs -- and I'm not nearly as low as an Atkins regime. It isn't that hard. Step 1: quit drinking regular soda.

I've been saying it for awhile now -- and there was a NYTimes article to this effect about 3 weeks ago -- that corn subsidies and agribusiness are the reason everyone is overweight. We have too much corn. So we grind it up into corn syrup and put it in everything. (Not to mention feed it to cows but that's another issue).

There is no question that Atkins works. And there are some signs that "mainstream" medicine is starting to come around; doctors are now starting to talk about glycemic index.

Obesity is starting to be recognized as the single biggest factor in heart disease. Being really overweight is about as bad for you as smoking!

RE: Hackers on Atkins

I think this is a bad piece. But then "popular cosomology" often tends to be.

If the article is portraying the issues accurately, then these scientists are saying that the constants of physics are what they are so that life can exist. This is utter nonsense.

] The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems
] pointless.

Why should the universe be anything other than pointless?

Zillions of Universes? Or Did Ours Get Lucky?

] A ruling this week from the U.S. Copyright Office could
] strengthen manufacturer Static Control Components Inc.'s
] (SCC's) defense against a copyright infringement lawsuit
] by Lexmark International Inc. that is expected to have a
] broad impact on the market for low-cost, third-party
] printer cartridges.

Pretty silly that Lexmark was using DMCA to beat down toner cartridge clones...

'course the recurring ink cartridge revenue was the only reason Dell got into the printer business in the first place.

ITworld.com - DMCA grounds shaken in Lexmark cartridge case

] On Tuesday, The LOC announced four classes of work that
] will be exempt from the DMCA's specific prohibition
] against circumvention of technological measures that
] control access to copyrighted works. The exemptions did
] not include making back-up copies of DVDs.
]
] Under the LOC's triennial review of DMCA non-infringing
] uses, exemptions were granted for (1.) decoding lists of
] Web pages or directories blocked by Internet filtering
] software, also known as censorware; (2.) circumventing
] obsolete digital rights management devices called
] "dongles" that prevent access due to malfunction or
] damage; (3.) accessing computer programs and video games
] distributed in obsolete formats; and (4.) accessing
] ebooks for which the publisher has disabled the
] read-aloud function or the ability to use screen readers
] to render the text into a specialized format, such as
] Braille for access by the blind.

Interesting what got exempted ... and that academic research *didn't* get exempted...

DVD Back-up Software Developer Vows Fair Use Fight

] The SCO Group has described the General Public License,
] the cornerstone of much free software, as "unenforceable,
] void or voidable" in its latest court filing.

The level of hysteria in their filings just keeps on growing...

SCO: GPL is unconstitutional

Decius wrote:
] ] This is concrete evidence of the direct financial
] ] incentive that so-called "safety advocates" have to
] ] promote red light and speed camera technologies. The
] ] Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the
] ] leading U.S. proponent of the technology, is directly
] ] funded by the top 66 insurance companies.

Well, speeding is against the law, after all ...

Seriously, the right answer here is to make it safer to drive fast -- I'm thinking various driver assist technologies. High-end Mercedes have had (for a few years now) a doppler radar coupled to the cruise control -- you practically tell the thing "stay 200 feet from the car in front of me" ...

RE: [Politech] Speed cameras main purpose? To raise more revenue [priv]

Decius wrote:
] ] Global Internet,
] ] Once a spring of liberty,
] ] Autumn chill so near.
]
] This is the founder of Autodesk on how the potential for
] freedom represented by the internet could be rolled back over
] the next few years.

While I agree that in principle this is possible, I'm not terribly worried by it. I think it would be extrordinarily expensive to deploy and maintain... I may have some more to say about this later.

RE: The Digital Imprimatur

House Science Committee wants to put the space plane on hold.

IF we're going to keep up manned spaceflight, the shuttle needs to be retired. I'm not sure what I think about arguments that we give up on manned spaceflight -- if we don't keep at it, how will it ever get faster/cheaper/safer?

Not So Fast, Lawmakers Say of Plans for a Space Plane