Chasing spammers around the world and eliminating e-mail spam from the face of the internet.

Priceless.

Spam Free or Die

California is one step closer to joining a national movement that would change the way that the Electoral College works without amending the U.S. Constitution.

AB 2948 by Assemblymember Tom Umberg, Chair of the Assembly Elections Committee is a simple bill that would have California join in an interstate compact with other states to award our electoral votes to the Presidential candidate who won the national popular vote.

Cute.

California Assembly Passes Electoral College Reform - California Progress Report

Lamar Smith has a nack for writing bills that I hate, but this rule change is baddly needed and I support it.

Chairman Lamar Smith (TX-21) today introduced the “Orphan Works Act of 2006” (H.R. 5439), which creates new guidelines for use of copyrighted material when the original owner cannot be located.

©opyBites: Copyright Law Blog: Orphan Works Legislation

LiftPort Group, the space elevator companies, today announced the release of "LiftPort -- The Space Elevator: Opening Space to Everyone," a new book on the LiftPort Space Elevator, a revolutionary new way of sending cargo and humans into space. Compiled by LiftPort, the Seattle based company dedicated to building the first commercial elevator to space, the new book is an exploration of both the scientific and social aspects relating to the development of the LiftPort Space Elevator, as told by a collection of nearly 40 leading authors and experts on science and space.

LiftPort Group Unveils ''LiftPort -- The Space Elevator: Opening Space to Everyone,'' A New Book on the Science and Social Impact of Building the Firs | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

An initiative of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Defective By Design is urging all technologists to get involved at the start of the campaign. "Technologists are very aware of the dangers of DRM," said Peter Brown, Executive Director of the FSF. "We see this as the tip of the iceberg and it is our duty to do something about it." The tech community is uniquely qualified to lead this effort, in Brown's view. "We know about the collusion of Big Media, device manufacturers and proprietary software companies to lock us down," he continued. "Their aim is to put Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into all our computers and homes".

FSF - Protesters provide a nasty

Classic bachelor pad, playful exotica and vintage music of tomorrow.

A new somafm offering. Cute.

SomaFM: Recently Played Illinois Street Lounge:

Philip R. Zimmermann wants to protect online privacy. Who could object to that?

He has found out once already. Trained as a computer scientist, he developed a program in 1991 called Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, for scrambling and unscrambling e-mail messages. It won a following among privacy rights advocates and human rights groups working overseas — and a three-year federal criminal investigation into whether he had violated export restrictions on cryptographic software. The case was dropped in 1996, and Mr. Zimmermann, who lives in Menlo Park, Calif., started PGP Inc. to sell his software commercially.

Key Escrow was settled in the 90s by the simple fact that it pgp was too hard to use so noone used it.

Voice Encryption May Draw U.S. Scrutiny

How a Massachusetts psychotherapist fell for a Nigerian e-mail scam.

A pretty amazing story.

THE PERFECT MARK

AT David Burke's Primehouse, a weeks-old steakhouse in Chicago, the house vodka martini is garnished with a lollipop — a lollipop made from "reduced olive brine, olive flavoring and salt crystallized in isomalt" that is stuffed with blue cheese, according to its creator, Eben Klemm. The restaurant's house manhattan is made with leather-infused bourbon, sweet vermouth and a bitters-spiked maraschino purée, dropped into the drink as a liquid that coalesces into a "gumdrop" when it hits the side of the glass.

Whoa.

Two Parts Vodka, a Twist of Science - New York Times

Time lapse radar track of FedEx aircraft arriving into the Memphis hub during area thunderstorms.

Neat!

Airline Pilot Central - FedEx arrivals during Thunderstorms