Palindrome wrote:
I graduate in a few hours and it still hasn't sunk in.

Congradulations Palindrome!

RE: Moving right along

However, an expert-led investigation carried out by Nature — the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia and Britannica's coverage of science — suggests that such high-profile examples are the exception rather than the rule.

The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.

Internet encyclopaedias go head to head : Nature

“Some people never learn,” he says. During the Vietnam War, Pyle blew the whistle on the Defense Department for monitoring and infiltrating anti-war and civil rights protests when he published an article in the Washington Monthly in January 1970.
The public was outraged and a lengthy congressional investigation followed that revealed that the military had conducted investigations on at least 100,000 American citizens. Pyle got more than 100 military agents to testify that they had been ordered to spy on U.S. citizens — many of them anti-war protestors and civil rights advocates. In the wake of the investigations, Pyle helped Congress write a law placing new limits on military spying inside the U.S.
But Pyle, now a professor at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, says some of the information in the database suggests the military may be dangerously close to repeating its past mistakes. “The documents tell me that military intelligence is back conducting investigations and maintaining records on civilian political activity. The military made promises that it would not do this again,” he says.

The very minute that the rules about domestic intel gathering and information sharing between the military and domestic law enforcement are loosened they seem to have gone right back to doing the kind of stuff that got these rules established in the first place.

Is the Pentagon spying on Americans? - Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit - MSNBC.com

There is an ugly, bullying aspect to this dispute, in which the pro-Christmas forces are not only asking, reasonably, that their religion be treated with equal status and respect but in which they are attacking legitimate efforts at inclusivity. It's this sense of aggrieved victimhood that confuses me: What, exactly, is so threatening about calling the school holiday a winter break rather than Christmas vacation?

Bill O'Reilly is in business to make money. The way he makes money is by getting people riled up about political issues. Last year, Bill O'Reilly, and some of his counterparts such as Rush Limbaugh, came up with a great way to generate revenue during "the holidays:" Get people rilled up about the fact that they are called "the holidays," while mixing in all of the present confusion about how to reconcile the establishment clause with the public celebration of religious cultural traditions. O'Reilly mined the depths of the news media in search of fringe cases that he held up as evidence that "the liberals are attacking Christmas."

The inevitable result of this last year was that "the holidays" were beset by thousands of pissed off conservatives who had a great big chip on their shoulder about the whole thing and got visibly offended whenever anyone wished them a "Happy Holidays," generally infecting the season with misery and strife, instead of, you know, good cheer. God forbid there might be a couple of Jews living in the United States and we might mean to wish them a joyous season as well.

This year, its on again, and it seems to be even bigger then it was last year. To deliberately infect the Holidays with this paranoid political poison is just about the most unChristian thing you can possibly do. But its here, and its not going to go away. The establishment clause questions are anything but simple, and I can assure you that Jews are not going to start referring to Dradles as "Christmas Tops." The only thing that the defenders of Christmas are likely to accomplish with their tirades is to make people so sick of them that they stop caring about the season all together. I almost see this outcome as inevitable, but I'm going to offer a proposal which might resolve the matter.

If you are offended when people wish you a "Happy Holidays" you should wear a yellow patch on your shirt with a picture of a cross on it whenever you are outside during the month of December. A yellow patch sends a clear message to others that you are a Christian and that you insist on being wished a "Merry Christmas" and not a "Happy Holidays." I'm sure you'll find that the liberal "anti-Christmas" forces are, for the most part, perfectly willing to comply with your wishes, upon seeing your patch. Some may wish you a "Happy Holidays" anyway, but those people are jerks, and you should ignore them. This seems to me the most efficient and reasonable way of dealing with the problem.

What 'War on Christmas'?

Like all good web services, Delicious is elegantly simple, truly useful, and subtly powerful. It doesn't try to do too much, and it delivers its core service -- bookmarking -- reliably and well. The Delicious API has made possible dozens of tools for extending the service, adding even greater utility (here's a big list).

Why Del.icio.us matters.

We're proud to announce that del.icio.us has joined the Yahoo! family. Together we'll continue to improve how people discover, remember and share on the Internet, with a big emphasis on the power of community. We're excited to be working with the Yahoo! Search team - they definitely get social systems and their potential to change the web. (We're also excited to be joining our fraternal twin Flickr!)

del.icio.us: y.ah.oo!

THEY are called echizen kurage and they sound like monsters from the trashier reaches of Japanese science fiction.
They are 6ft wide and weigh 450lb (200kg), with countless poisonous tentacles, they have drifted across the void to terrorise the people of Japan. Vast armadas of the slimy horrors have cut off the country’s food supply. As soon as one is killed more appear to take its place.

Giant Jellyfish Attack!

After he discovered a false biography on Wikipedia that claims he was responsible for the death of JFK and his brother Bobby, John Seigenthaler wrote an op-ed piece in USA Today refuting those claims and rebuking Wiki admins and the ISPs that host them. Now, in light of Seigenthaler's outrage, the once open access Wikipedia now requires registration to submit new articles to the English language version of the site.

Seigenthaler spent a tonne of time and resources to track down the writer of the wikipedia article. He also considered filing a John Doe suit and kicked up a gigantic shitstorm with his Op-Ed.

Wikipedia is far from perfect, but instead of wasting what I assume to be days and weeks of his time, why didn't he just correct the entry?

Wikipedia: The Rules Have Changed | MetaFilter

Powered by your mac or pc, you'll have hours of flying fun with these USB air darts. Let the mission begin!

Best USB peripheral evar!

USB Powered Air Darts - Marks & Spencer

A senior telecommunications executive said yesterday that Internet service providers should be allowed to strike deals to give certain Web sites or services priority in reaching computer users, a controversial system that would significantly change how the Internet operates.

They're nuts. They have the customers with the cash. We've got the content. They ought to be paying us for making their service valuable!

Bell South Wants to Charge Websites