He's actually more eloquent drunk. He still seems dumb though.

Dubya drunk on video.

] # Up to 800MHz PowerPC processor with 256KB of L2 Cache
] # True stand-alone computer. No need for Host Bus or Host
] CPU
] # Ultra small footprint, 72mmX48mmX10mm. Smaller than a
] business card!
] # Up to 256MB DDR SDRAM
] # 16MB of Boot/user Flash and 32KB of user Flash
] # Two Gigabit Ethernet ports (502 Only)
] # Two 10/100 Base-TX Ethernet ports (501 Only)
] # Two Serial ports with handshake capabilities
] # 64MB Disk-On-Chip (Optional)
] # RTC with field-replaceable battery
] # Board temperature monitoring for safe operation
] # Ultra-Low power requirements; 3.3VDC @ 300ma and
] 5-12VDC @ 0.5A
] # Optional interface module for 100% Stand-Alone
] operation with:
] - DC/DC converter for a single 12VDC operation
] - One SD Memory for Mass Storage up to 1GB
] - 15 user-programmable I/O Lines, 3 with high
] current output
] - Two RJ45 for direct connect to 10/100/1000
] Base-TX Ethernet
] - One RJ-11 for direct connect to RS-232
] - Micro DB-25 for user I/O, I 2 C and RS485 Serial
] port
] - User and POST diagnostics LEDs
] - External 2 mm power Jack. (Uses 15W Brick)
] # Support for VxWorks®-Tornado II® and Linux® Operating
] Systems

Super dope. There is your mini cluster my friends.

General Micro Systems

ryan is the supernicety wrote:
] ] Bad Weather Closings for News 14 Carolina
] ] Raleigh, NC on Feb 27th, 2004
] ]
] ] This was a collaborate effort from the student run
] ] website (TheWolfWeb).
] ]
] ] It shows what happens when a bunch of bored shutin
] ] college kids find the ONLINE CLOSING SUBMISSION FORM. The
] ]submissions run from leet to current events with a couple
] thrown in ]that only State Fans would recognize
]
] This is freaking hilarious if this actually happened.

It did... Follow this link:

Prank results in Fake closings

] Bad Weather Closings for News 14 Carolina
] Raleigh, NC on Feb 27th, 2004
]
] This was a collaborate effort from the student run
] website (TheWolfWeb).
]
] It shows what happens when a bunch of bored shutin
] college kids find the ONLINE CLOSING SUBMISSION FORM. The ]submissions run from leet to current events with a couple thrown in ]that only State Fans would recognize

This is freaking hilarious if this actually happened.

Snotmonkey.com - News Closings

] On May 9, 2000, Victory Day (celebrating the end of World
] War II in the former Soviet Union), former inhabitants of
] the Chernobyl "company town" of Pripyat were allowed to
] visit their old home. Aleksandr (Sasha) Sirota convinced
] his mother, the poet and anti-nuclear activist Lyubov
] Sirota, to accompany him and his friend Maksim on this
] painful journey. Sasha made the following photographic
] record of the visit, and the comments underneath the
] pictures are by Lyubov Sirota herself.

Another photoblog of chernobyl... At the end of this one, there is a link to another one. This really is interesting. In addition, the main purpose of the site is to reflect on poetry written about the disaster.

Lyubov Sirota Returns to Pripyat

inignoct wrote:
] ] So, Mr. Dawson said, he was stunned this week to find
] ] that his name had been added to a little-known Internet
] ] database for doctors attacking "litigious behavior." His
] ] offense: filing a medical malpractice lawsuit against a
] ] Fort Worth hospital and doctor over the death of his
] ] 39-year-old wife, whose brain tumor was missed, and
] ] winning an undisclosed settlement.
]
] [ Some interesting issues brought up here... On the one hand,
] minimizing the frivolous or excessive lawsuits is a good
] thing, and benefits everyone, but it seems unethical not to
] distinguish the cases based on the details and merit of the
] actions. A balance needs to be struck between maintaining
] people's ability to punish bad doctors and limiting their
] ability to make boatloads of money on lesser claims. thoughts
] from the community? -k]

RYAN SEZ:
This is about assessing risk and an unfortunate side effect of the ease of internet publishing. This really is no different than what the house insurance people do-- if you put in a claim on your homeowner's insurance, they pay it out and then cancel your coverage. When you try to get new coverage, you discover your name has been put on a list of people who make claims.

Of course this is where I seem to think some sort of government regulation comes in, but then again, why make people play by rules? Unfairness is the American Way TM.

RE: In Texas, Hire a Lawyer, Forget About a Doctor?

] Don't expect a "Sex and the City" movie, said the TV
] series' executive producer, Michael Patrick King.

Sorry ladies....

CNN.com - Producer: No 'Sex and the City' movie - Mar 8, 2004

[ damn this is fun... i got to level 30, but i've gotta drag myself away so's not to be too worthless. -k]

Warthog Launch

] I travel a lot and one of my favorite destination lead
] through poisoned with radiation, so called Chernobyl
] "dead zone" It is 130kms from my home. Why favourite?
] because one can ride there for hours and not meet any
] single car and not to see any single soul. People left
] and nature is blooming, there are beautiful places,
] woods, lakes. There is no newly built roads, but those
] which left from 80th in fairly good condition

Ryan -- this is one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. It is a photoblog of a daughter of a nuclear engineer who tours around Chernobyl on her motorcycle.

Photoblogging Chernobyl

inignoct wrote:
] "Imagine doing a Google search for a phone number, weather
] report or sports score. The results page would be filled with
] links to various sources of information. But what if someone
] typed in keywords and no results came back?
]
] That's the scenario critics are painting of a new bill wending
] its way through Congress that would let certain companies own
] facts, and exact a fee to access them."
]
] "The House Judiciary Committee approved the bill and the
] commerce committee is expected to review it on Thursday."
]
] [ Jesus. I don't even know what to say to this. I don't see
] how existing copyright law fails to address this. My
] understanding is that a verbatim copy of large sections of a
] published work, even one which is essentially a collection of
] facts, is already a violation of copyright. If you aren't
] publishing your database as a work, then you aren't really in
] danger of infringement, right?
]
] I want more details. If i write a really clever program that
] scrapes and aggregates court decisions and relevant case law
] straight from all the thousands of courts in the nation,
] indexes it and crosslinks it, and then i publish the result,
] does LexisNexis get to sue me? Under current law, i *think*
] the answer is no... would this change that? How can i be
] liable for creating my own independent collection of publicly
] available information? -k]

Ryan-- The key, as we were discussing last night, is the "sweat of the brow" doctrine which was overruled by the US Supremes in the most famous database/copyright decision, Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, 499 U.S. 340. In that case, Plaintiff published a telephone book. Defendant copied it. Plaintiff knew he did because they had placed false listings in it.

Long story short, facts are not copyrightable, as has always been the case. Compilations of facts, to the extent they require some form of originality and creativity, are protectable, but not as to the facts themselves. Hence, you don't get copyright protection just because you go through the work to compile something.

This new bill seeks to overturn Feist, for the most part. I have not read the text of the bill, so this is somewhat of a snap judgment, but from what I understand, they are seeking to protect databases from being ganked. There have been a few bills of this nature floated around the past several years here and in Europe (additionally in the international trade assns).

As to k's hypothetical, no, they are not seeking to stop you from doing that. Lexis/Nexis is seeking to keep you from indexing from their servers all of their services. They pretty much can do that through other means, such as terms of services, federal hacking laws, etc, but they are trying to add another tool to their arsenal. You could compile the cases from the court yourself, if you'd like.

I don't widely advocate using copyright law to accomplish this, but I think that databases probably should be protected in some form or another.

cheers,
Ryan

P.S. I guess I can say that I am a lawyer now!

RE: Wired News: Hands Off! That Fact Is Mine