In an historic move, the FCC has acted to drop the Morse code requirement for all Amateur Radio license classes.

Good riddance! When I was a kid I considered getting a HAM licence, but I had absolutely no interest in becoming proficient in an alternate alphabet. This seemed an arbitrary requirement upholding an obsolete technology and a warning post that other stupid rules would probably be encountered down the road in this overregulated hobby. There were other, ultimately more important technical subjects that I could explore without having to bother with that nonsense. In fact, they killed the code requirement for the lowest class license the same year I started my Bulletin Board System. I did reconsider it at that time, but the interesting stuff still required morse code, so in my mind it was a dead end.

Given that I have a degree in computer engineering I figure I can cut through the technical knowledge required by the exams fairly quickly and I might learn a thing or two about radio. QSLing the space shuttle would be fun!

ARRLWeb: End of an Era: FCC to Drop Morse Testing for All Amateur License Classes

The "Great Man" theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year.

...Look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

Time Magazine announces that the Prosumer is mainstream.

Person of the Year: You - CNN.com

Some of the prints on this website are really cool. Its like an art blog with a buy button. Worth your time.

we*heart*prints

As regular readers of my blog know, I lost my voice about 18 months ago. Permanently. It’s something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia. Essentially a part of the brain that controls speech just shuts down in some people, usually after you strain your voice during a bout with allergies (in my case) or some other sort of normal laryngitis. It happens to people in my age bracket.

An incredible story from scott adams...

-k

The Dilbert Blog: Good News Day

A Russian anti-terror hit team raided the offices of the oppositional "United Civil Front" in Moscow. It's founder, Garry Kasparov, was removed from a German TV news discussion, at the behest of Russian authorities. Things are looking dangerous for the former world chess champion, who will participate in a "March of the Dissidents" on Saturday.

And you thought the Patriot Act was bad...

Garry Kasparov: 'We will march!'

na na na na na na na na na na na na na......its batman, no, its russian intelligence....no.....its batman.

Boing Boing: Russia spy HQ has giant batman mural in floor

If you're looking for that Tim Burton on bad acid look for your living room, these dolls could really add to the ambiance.

Strange Dolls Indeed - Just in time for Christmas

Those of you looking for good pictures of this month's night time shuttle launch should follow the various links from this post...

Boing Boing: Nice night for a spaceflight: blogging Shuttle launch

"Protect the children." Over the years that mantra has been applied to countless real and perceived threats. America has scrambled to protect its children from a wide variety of dangers including school shooters, cyberbullying, violent video games, snipers, Satanic Ritual Abuse, pornography, the Internet, and drugs.

Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent protecting children from one threat or other, often with little concern for how expensive or effective the remedies are—or how serious the threat actually is in the first place. So it is with America’s latest panic: sexual predators.

Eventually this predator panic will subside and some new threat will take its place. Expensive, ineffective, and unworkable laws will be left in its wake when the panic passes. And no one is protecting America from that.

Have you seen Little Children?

Predator Panic

MemeStreams was first opened to the public on December 5th, 2001, so December 5th, 2006 was MemeStreams' 5th birthday. I'm sorry I didn't think of this until now. We're certainly not the media moguls that we thought we'd be when we started this thing, but its kept our attention and interest for a long time mostly because of all of the other people who hang out here who have interesting things to say and contribute. We thank all of you for being a part of it. Here's to another interesting 5 years!