"I don't think the report is true, but these crises work for those who want to make fights between people." Kulam Dastagir, 28, a bird seller in Afghanistan
YouTube - Stephen Colbert explains the whole AT&T thing!
Topic: Telecom Industry
11:19 am EST, Jan 23, 2007
AT&T just bought Cingular? Cingular was already owned by AT&T? Bellsouth owns who?! Let Stephen Colbert help you figure this out!
The Chronicle: 1/19/2007: Georgia's Unusual 'Electoral College'
Topic: Computer Security
11:17 am EST, Jan 23, 2007
Mr. King, of Kennesaw State, scoffs at his colleagues' warnings about the insecurity of Diebold machines and their calls for a paper record. "We've held 3,000 elections on this equipment," he says. "We can't hack it, and I have the source code. We can't break the system."
Holding his face in his hands to express his frustration, he says Mr. Felten's illicit actions in the video could not happen in Georgia, with its multiple layers of security.
One of Mr. King's protégés, Chris Ambrose, a Kennesaw State junior majoring in information systems, who works at the center, is harsher in his assessment of Mr. Felten's video.
"This guy's an idiot," says Mr. Ambrose. He struggles to lift one of the heavy voting machines and turn it over to demonstrate what, he says, would be required to infect the machine with a virus. On the video, he says, Mr. Felten makes the process look effortless.
I think I've gone on record before saying that the computer security research community and the elections people are talking past eachother. Computer security people see all of the ways they can manipulate a machine, and pine for the days of gyms filled with old ladies counting little peices of paper. Elections officials have experience with the logistical nightmare that is, and think the theoretical problems with computers are less real. In the middle is this mythology that we've ever held a completely accurate election, which I don't really beleive after looking at this for the past few years. I don't think its possible and shudder to think how bad things might have been in the 1800s. We need newapproaches.
There is, however, lots of blame to go around about the standoff, and this picture of an IS undergrad calling Ed Felton an idiot sums it up nicely. Everyone needs to open their minds.
Johnson was in the 13th month of an 18-month term of probation when a Gurnee police SWAT team raided his house, finding the guns and arresting his friend, Willie Posey, who was caught in Johnson's basement with a wholesale quantity of marijuana. Posey was murdered two days later moments after he and Johnson arrived in a Chicago nightclub that was a notorious gang hangout.
American Civil Liberties Union : Mail FOIA Requests
Topic: Miscellaneous
3:19 pm EST, Jan 22, 2007
ACLU and CNSS FOIA request filed with the U.S. Postal Service, seeking the immediate release of records on President Bush's program to search Americans' mail without a warrant.
ACLU and CNSS FOIA request filed with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, seeking the immediate release of records on President Bush's program to search Americans' mail without a warrant.
ACLU and CNSS FOIA request filed with the Department of Justice, seeking the immediate release of records on President Bush's program to search Americans' mail without a warrant.
The ACLU is taking Bush's signing statement on mail reading seriously. I don't. Even if they did have such a program, would they comply with these FOIA requests?
Bumping this reply out to the blog... Apparently the Free Space Shot people noticed my link and responded:
Dinkin wrote: Does advertiser supported TV and free search and email from Google give you creepy feelings?
No, but the Internet is full of scams, and so one learns to be skeptical after a while, particularly when things seem too good to be true. If my skepticism is unwarranted than I apologize, but I do think your FAQ should address your business model a bit more.
To raise $150 million for a $100 million flight around the Moon will take lots of ads. Our estimate is one million people playing daily for three hours a day for a year.
Gmail is not a $100 million dollar operation, but Google's search engine is bigger than that, and certainly there are television stations that spend way more than that. The question this project faces is whether the prospect of winning a space flight opportunity is exciting enough to sustain that much attention from that many people on a single game involving weather prediction. Three hours a day every day for a year is a lot to ask in exchange for a one in a million chance at winning a space flight. If I spent that same amount of time studying Aerospace Engineering I'll bet I could beat those odds. Of course, I'm not 13.
If I might offer some advice, you should consider adding additional games. You really need an engrossing experience to capture the attention levels you are aiming for, or you need several orders of magnitude more people involved.
If you don't want to give us your email address you don't have to and you can still play.
Thats true. The email addres is optional and I didn't mention that. Its possible to sign up for this without any concern about spam.
Pursue broadband access in every part of Tennessee
Topic: Local Information
1:14 pm EST, Jan 22, 2007
Unfortunately, Tennessee is not completely wired for the greatest levels of Internet service. And that circumstance should be unacceptable. It's not just about convenience. Broadband should no longer be considered a novelty or a luxury — it should be a given.
There's actually 3 columns in today's Tennessean opinions section talking about this subject. I encourage you to read them all and participate in the forums, regardless of where you're stance is on the subject.
Tennessee has been a leader in deploying new broadband technology for a long time.
Leahy: "We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured. He'd be held and he'd be investigated. We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured."
Apparently you can win some very, very big prizes playing this game. I have no idea how the economics of this work. Something doesn't feel quite right about a contest that is offering me a 50 million dollar prize and I don't have to pay to play it. You don't make that much money off of internet advertising. If someone can explain this please reply. (And be careful, nothing in the TOS prohibits these guys from selling the data they are collecting.)
The new image embedding feature in MemeStreams opens up a lot of great possiblities. We're really been enjoying the different ways that people have found to make use of it. However, it also raises some challenging questions about Intellectual Property.
Is there a fair use defense for embedding images from commercial sources into your MemeStreams blog? I think it may depend on what you embed, from who, in what context. Blogs really haven't found themselves under the gun of a law suit over this sort of appropriation in the past, but there is a first time for everything, and I myself am not entirely sure where the lines should be drawn.
Ultimately, you should use common sense when picking pictures to embed. You have to consider the interests of the image host. If the picture is of a product the linked site is selling, its unlikely the site's owners would care. If the image comes from a commercial news source, its really hard to say. Are you driving your readers to the original article, or are you using the image in a context where your readers aren't likely to care about the original source?
Here I'm linking Creative Commons page on images. They provide a few reasources for CC licensed images which are likely safer to embed than commercial alternatives. One of the sources they point to is flickr, which has a Create Commons option in their advanced search capability. I think thats a real good way to find images that you can use to illustrate your blog without running into IP concerns.
Running from Carmel, 150 miles south of San Francisco, to San Simeon, Big Sur's mass of tight mountains pushes brazenly against the Pacific swell. Kelp forests sway at the feet of rugged sea cliffs. Deep valleys shelter some of the southernmost redwoods. The only way through this fastness is along winding, breathtaking California Route 1.
The California Coastline is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. If you haven't explored it, make plans to go this year. Start in San Francisco and drive to LA down 1. Rent a convertible.
