] (a) Free Speech and Press.--Nothing in this title shall
] enlarge or diminish any rights of free speech or of the
] press for activities related to the registration or use
] of domain names.

This was hardly a murmur on the net in December when it passed. None of the usual tech journals seem to have picked it up. FOISA is law. If you unknowingly commit a felony using your website (typically because something you're hosting is copyrighted) your crime is considered willful and the max prison sentence is either doubled or extended by 7 years if your domain registration information, including your home phone number, is out of order.

The law includes a silly "savings clause" (quoted above) which says "this law has no impact on first amendment rights." This clause has no impact on the actual risks this law poses to people trying to engage in first amendment protected speech. It is a rather despicable attempt to avoid constitutional challenges through an emperor's clothes arguement.

Today is a sad day.

FOISA IS LAW!

] The average amount of time that Americans spend listening
] to recorded music annually has dropped significantly over
] the past 7 years.

Some useful statistics.

The Big Picture: Americans tuning out recorded music

] Although surreptitiously activating the electronic chip
] remotely and then reading the return signal amid ambient
] electronic noise is considered technically very
] difficult, the Department is taking measures to prevent
] skimming of the unencrypted data. By the time the first
] electronic passport is issued, the Department intends to
] place an anti-skimming feature in the passport.

This is the proposed passport rule change.

FR Doc 05-3080

You have been informed. Just Tivo it.

Robot Chicken

] No matter how you look at it, AFP will lose this battle.
] It is inherently just an attempt to extort money out of
] Google. What AFP does not realize is how badly they have
] damaged their clients. Political Gateway is one of their
] clients and we have been devastated.
]
] Google decided to respond to the extortion and stupidity
] of the lawsuit by actually winning the battle.
] Google's response? They stopped syndicating the news
] from sites using AFP of which this site is one. Not only
] is our AFP news not syndicated, but our editorials and
] independent news feeds are also blacklisted. Any news
] posted after Tuesday morning at 3am cannot be found on
] Google anywhere. It is a matter of time before the other
] services that "grab" our news follow suit.

How AFP killed an Online News Site by Suing Google

] Why is this search different?
]
] This Yahoo! Search service finds content across the Web
] that has a Creative Commons license. While most stuff you
] find on the web has a full copyright, this search helps
] you find content published by authors that want you to
] share or reuse it, under certain conditions. Learn
] more...

Yahoo! Creative Commons Search

] POKE 755,4 - (try this and you'll find yourself upside
] down)

Holy shit I wish I knew about that 15 years ago! Endless fun!

Peek and Poke

] The images above - exclusive to the Wooster site and
] provided by Banksy - are of Banksy installing four pieces
] in New York's most prestigious museums - The Brooklyn
] Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of
] Modern Art, and the Museum of Natural History.
]
] Dressed as a British pensioner, over the last few days
] Banksy entered each of the galleries and attached one of
] his own works, complete with authorative name plaque and
] explanation.

Wooster Collective : Stickers / Posters / Graf / Culture Jamming

] During replication, when the virus invades and colonises
] human cells, the RNA makes errors, resulting in genetic
] mutations to the prongs. Such mutations are known as
] 'antigenic drift'. The reason they are dangerous is that
] they trigger small changes to the haemagglutinin,
] enabling the prongs to stick better to human cells and
] evade the antibodies produced by the immune system. In
] addition, type A viruses such as H5N1 can also 'swap' or
] re-assort genetic material with other viruses. This
] process, known as 'antigenic shift', occurs when animal
] strains mix with human strains, producing viruses to
] which no animal or human has immunity.
]
] 'The problem is, one chicken can contain hundreds of
] thousands of strains of H5N1,' explains Oxford.

A long, scary, interesting article about Bird Flu.

The Observer | Magazine | On a wing and a prayer

] The first production run of the GameOptics X1620 is ready
] to meet its public! With more than a year in development,
] this USB LCD has been designed with the PC gamer in mind
] to enhance the gaming experience.

For those of you who are always gawking at my RSS feed LED sign, someone has decided to market a small USB variety.

ThinkGeek :: GameOptics LCD Display