Now, after three billion years, the Darwinian interlude is over [*].

Oh! I feel it. I feel the cosmos!

"I need to be managing a sexier project [*] to boost my career."

"As a friend of mine said, it takes half a second for a baby to throw up all over your sweater. It takes hours to get it clean."

Terrorists terrorists terrorists terrorists terrorists terrorists terrorists.

"You can't talk sense to them," Bush said, referring to terrorists. "Nooooo!" the audience roared.

The reality is that, despite fears that our children are "pumped full of chemicals" everything is made of chemicals, down to the proteins, hormones and genetic materials in our cells.

Every time Bruce Schneier smiles, an amateur cryptographer dies.

"It looks like politicians are poised to dominate the political discourse of the country for years to come," said analyst Maria Lawson of the Free Enterprise Institute.

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The "Bear Patrol" is working like a charm!

Your mind is for having ideas--not holding them.

"I think the mistake now is holding back when you've got a good idea."

Watch all of this video. It's astounding.

A Best of MemeStreams collection from Noteworthy

We live in an age of anxiety.

People everywhere fear the next terrorist attack. Meanwhile, we slowly grow numb to Iraq’s endless string of kidnappings and suicide bombings. Between bird flu, tsunamis, and loose nukes, our list of fears is getting longer.

So, we asked 21 leading thinkers: What is one solution that would make the world a better place?

Here are their answers.

These articles are short and to the point. A few are naive but several of them are quite good. In particular I like the Internet Security idea. Unfortunately, many require a subscription to read in full.

21 Solutions to Save the World

Former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork has sued the Yale Club for an amount "in excess of $1,000,000," plus punitive damages, as a result of a trip and fall accident on June 6, 2006. The accident happened while he was climbing to the dais for a speech, and there were no steps or handrail for the 79-year old Bork to hold on to.

A quote from Bork, from Bloomberg news:In a 1995 opinion piece published in the Washington Times, Bork and Theodore Olson, who later became a top Justice Department official, criticized what they called the "expensive, capricious and unpredictable'' civil justice system in the U.S.

"Today's merchant enters the marketplace with trepidation -- anticipating from the civil justice system the treatment that his ancestors experienced with the Barbary pirates,'' they wrote.

In other words, tort law needs to be reformed if you got injured, but its ok if I got injured.

Robert Bork Brings Trip/Fall Suit for Over $1M, Plus Punitive Damages And Legal Fees

Dutch students have developed powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors.

"Because the alcohol is not in liquid form, we can sell it to people below 16," said project member Martyn van Nierop.

The students said companies interested in making the product commercially could avoid taxes because the alcohol was in powder form.

hehe

Dutch students develop powdered alcohol | Reuters

From Boing Boing:

"Mr. Lee is a cat in Germany, whose owner has attached a camera to his collar so that we can share his daily adventures! Some of the photos are mysterious. Others are beautiful. I love this!"

Cat has camera on collar so we can see what he does

Generally speaking, vulnerability details have always been given to the vendor by responsible researchers free of charge. In exchange, vendors generally credit researchers with discovery or assistance. Often vendors will hire their own internal code audit teams instead of waiting for external security researchers to find bugs in their products. These people get paid, but they usually don't get credited for specific vulnerabilities.

The bottom line here is that no one is attempting to extort money out of vendors by holding a gun to their head and demanding payment. Computer Security problems are real, and vendors do need to address them, either by waiting for people to disclose bugs in their products or paying for proactive security analysis, but thats reality. There are a lot of bad people in the world who put a lot of effort into finding and exploiting 0day vulnerabilities in order to deploy spyware or commit various kinds of espionage. These people will find and exploit vulnerabilities in your product if internal audit or external researchers don't get to them first. Generally speaking, the later is a preferable scenario for everyone.

Now enter this company:

We can work with you to generate and enforce intellectual property such as patents relating to fixes for newly discovered, private or zero day security vulnerabilities, weaknesses, or technical flaws that you have found.

We target the intellectual property against the vendors of the vulnerable products and other security providers such as suppliers of intrusion prevention technologies.

You share in the income.

These people are saying: "I have a way to break into networks run by your customers through a bug in your product, and I'm going to publishing it to the world in the patent database, where any criminal can look it up and use it, but you can't fix it unless you pay me."

This seems very much like holding a gun to someone's head and demanding payment.

Whats even more insidious about this idea is that the patent holder has the right to refuse to license their patent at any price... A criminal organization could find a vulnerability, patent it, and use their patent to prevent their victims from fixing the problem.

I'd support legislation explicitly banning this practice.

INTELLECTUAL WEAPONS

The most important social engineering technique is to shut up.

Your success often depends upon how well you deal with objections by others. Your instinct is to respond like you've been attacked, to go on the defensive, and respond with an argument. Resist that urge.

Errata Security: How to become a Guru.

The latest technical advance out of MIT could dramatically change the drudgery of recharging portable devices: An MIT research team has figured out how to wirelessly illuminate an unplugged light bulb from seven feet away.

This must be something other than microwave induction, right? My recollection from school was that this sort of thing has been understood for a long time and the cheif problem is that if you walk into the beam it will burn you. Is this safe?!

Need feedback from nerds...

Sen. Brownback published an essay in the NYT defending himself for raising his hand as someone who doesn't "believe" in evolution. It seems a genuine attempt to reach people who are more moderate, but in my mind it falls flat on its face. Note the follow passage:

While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

The Senator is missing the point here. This text really is a rejection not just of some aspects of evolution but of the basic process of rational thinking. Essentially what the Senator is saying is that when all of the facts and evidence conflict with his preconclusion or prejudice, he is going to stick with his preconclusion or prejudice. It is deeply problematic, in my opinion, that we have leaders who employ this approach and promote this approach. As a general method of dealing with difficult questions this approach can only reach the right conclusions by accident. I am personally more interested in the idea that our leadership is moving forward by rationally evaluating the information available to them and making the right decisions then I am in the possibility that man's creation was not the result of a similar thought process. I do not have faith in God that you people won't screw this country up!

In response to this essay Edge.org published a rant from biologist Jerry Coyne that many of you will find entertaining.

We don't reject the supernatural merely because we have an overweening philosophical commitment to materialism; we reject it because entertaining the supernatural has never helped us understand the natural world. Alchemy, faith healing, astrology, creationism—none of these perspectives has advanced our understanding of nature by one iota. So Brownback's proposal to bring faith to the table of science is misguided: "As science continues to explore the details of man's origin, faith can do its part as well." What part? Where are faith's testable predictions or falsifiable hypotheses about human origins?

Unfortunately, I think it also misses the mark, unless the mark is preaching to the choir. You aren't going to convince religious people to approach political problems rationally by telling them that religion is stupid. Frankly, you have to show them where it is useful. You have to accept them and their faith and allow them to hold onto their faith without rejecting reason. While Brownback fails in his attempt a... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

Brownback: What I Think About Evolution - New York Times

There is a lot tied up in the Amero case. I think it really represents frustration over the excesses of the moral panic involving children and the Internet coming to a head.

Jack Malone, a state lawmaker representing Connecticut's 47th assembly district, which includes Norwich, called the case an embarrassment for the state.

"Frankly, it makes us look like real hard-liners on the social issues, and I think most folks would agree that stands in contrast to the kind of state we are and the kind of philosophy we have here."

Actions speak louder than words. This 40 year sentence thing is, in fact, the law in CT. That means you ARE hardliners.

The judge in the case today criticized bloggers who covered the trial, saying they tried to "improperly influence" the court, according to the Courant story.

Grave injustice results in public reaction. How is this improper?

Substitute Teacher Granted New Trial in Porn Case - Security Fix