Scientists want to adopt a set of declarations to improve the security of research that uses DNA synthesis. A proponent discusses the whys and wherefores of this effort.

Keeping Synthetic Biology Away from Terrorists

BSRG means Big Shanty Repeater Group. Located in Metro Atlanta, GA, the BSRG is the most progressive Ham Radio group that we know of. Find out for yourself!

These guys claim to be rebroadcasting shuttle transmissions in the Atlanta area on a repeater. Apparently they also repeat shuttle video, but they won't tell you the frequency.

BSRG : not bsrg.org.uk : Big Shanty Repeater Group : APRS : Balloonatics : Atlanta ATV Home Page

The candidates who will win elections in the future will be the candidates who build genuinely participative campaigns by generating and expanding genuine communities of engaged citizens.

I am launching today a new Wikia website aimed at being a central meeting ground for people on all sides of the political spectrum who think that it is time for politics to become more participatory, and more intelligent.

Had this idea a long time ago but I don't have the resources to pursue it. Glad the wikipedia guys have taken it up. This is important.

Mission Statement - Central Campaign Wikia

This is the Web Page for space.launch.info, a newsletter to inform visitors to Titusville Florida, and the surrounding Space Coast about the Space Shuttle launch they hope to witness while they are here. Feel free to check out the information here, and at the Space Launch Viewing FAQ Page, where more information is located.

While at Cape Canaveral for the Shuttle Lauch we ran into The Cheshire Catalyst, an old school phreak who was the last editor of TAP, the first phone phreak zine. In recent years he has been helping the general public enjoy shuttle launches by publishing this extremely useful information guide, printing launch zines, and assisting the HAMs in rebroadcasting NASA chatter with a longer range repeater. He was also personally responsible for the fact that the area code there is 321, as in 3-2-1-Liftoff. Very cool character.

There are plenty of launches to go see, including another shuttle launch in August, and if you're going this guide will come in very handy. BTW, he is absolutely correct that if you go to Kennedy Space Center you must see an IMAX movie. We're talking wall sized movies filmed in 3-D from the perspective of Astronauts. Its the closest you can get to actual space travel without getting an advanced degree in Aerospace Engineering, logging thousands of hours piloting various combat aircraft, and going through years of training where you learn to do the work of a plumber and an electrician in an extremely uncomfortable and combersome suit in an environment where the word "down" doesn't actually mean anything but the word "oops" means anything from "oops" I lost a billion dollars to "oops," everybody is dead.

Watching a lauch, btw, is highly recommended. We drove a long way, didn't get to sleep much, spent a lot of money, got screwed by our hotel, got frustrated and cranky, got rained out for two days, and spent hours baking under the summer sun, and the launch only lasts like 5 minutes. But TV cameras cannot convey how bright the engines are, how loud it is, or, ultimately, how exciting it is to see it happen first hand. When you see that machine streaking across the sky you know those guys are bad ass.

SpaceLaunchInfo.com - Home Page

Our aim is to provide you with all the information you need to observe satellites such as the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle, spectacular events such as the dazzlingly bright flares from Iridium satellites as well as a wealth of other spaceflight and astronomical information.

Another great site for figuring out when you can see stuff in space from your backyard.

Welcome to Heavens-Above!

Objects like ISS and the Space Shuttle are fairly large and relatively low. Its possible to see them with the naked eye. This Nasa site helps you figure out when they'll be visible in your area.

Human Space Flight (HSF) - Orbital Tracking

The space shuttle Discovery split a nearly cloudless sky with thunder and fire at 2:38 this afternoon, and roared safely into orbit on schedule.

And Memestreams user Palindrome and I were there along with a number of friends of ours! A perfect way to celebrate the 4th of July! Certainly the biggest rocket I've ever seen and one that truely inspires on many levels. I've got lots of links to post, but access is limited from my cellphone. More to follow.

Shuttle Roars Safely Into Orbit on Schedule - New York Times

The Memory Medallion is a small disc, about the size of a half dollar, which is embedded in a monument, memorial or grave marker. Inside the Medallion is a digital memory device that holds a photograph and life story of your loved one.

I walked in the beautiful Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, Ca this morning. It is lovely, 5 generations family owned and old - some headstones date to the late 1800's which is about as old as you get in SoCal.

They don't even have a website, and yet they have this very cool information imbedding system. You borrow a little handheld device and are able to learn more about people than "Beloved Father" by reading data from a small, coin shaped medallion on specific headstones.

The information is disappointingly skimpy at this point - just a black and white photo and a generic obituary but imagine when people will use these to present their Lifelogs - images, blogs, transcripts and full geneological data. People will be telling their stories after death with information captured digitally throughout a lifetime.

Imagine something like this at the Vietnam War Memorial.

Hopefully they are using a technology that will allow continued access in the more distant future.

Death Tech

It was data retention that emerged as the issue of most concern to the committee...

“Currently, there is no federal law and no industry standard. This is seriously hindering investigations,” said U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. “If investigators can't get the information they need to connect an IP address to a person then too often the case hits a dead end. The perpetrator is not going to be caught, and the child victim is not rescued from a childhood of unfathomable sexual abuse. This is a terrible problem and we need to fix it and fix it now.”

The dipshits in Congress are planning to use child abuse as an excuse to turn the Internet into a surveillance system. They are gunning for a federal law this year that will mandate that ISPs maintain logs of everyone's DNS requests, IPs, and in and outbound email in the event that at some point in the future someone accuses you of some sort of wrongdoing. This applies to any kind of criminal accusation or civil case and not just child abuse, of course.

The Committee on Energy and Commerce

Why do supposedly serious people embrace such ideas?

These folks (and this organization appears to be Hillary's baby) clearly have an agenda of their own, but the criticism of Florida is not without some merit, even if they have oversimplified his thesis.

Blarg. This article is pure political garbage from start to finish. The reason that he can't understand why supposedly serious people would embrace "such ideas" is because they don't. He is buring a straw man. The path to building one of Florida's cool havens isn't by attracting tolerant people as a starting point. You do it by building intellectual property and employment laws that prevent incumbent companies from squashing startups, cultivating local universities and allowing work done there to flow into the economy, promoting local angel and venture capital investor groups, making it easy for people to form businesses, and creating a community thats attractive in terms of providing a safe, secure urban environment with decent public services. However, if you do all of this and you still have the local police performing raids on gay bars you can assume that the kind of people you are interested in attracting to your city aren't going to want to live there.

People aren't flowing out of places like San Francisco because they don't like San Franciso and they think Des Moines is where the economic future lies. They are moving because they don't have a choice because the tech economy contracted. Taking the fact that the "dot com" economy contracted as a general indictment of an innovation driven economy, as it appears Congress did with their idiotic options expensing change, is the fast path to irrelevancy, a.k.a throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

The purpose of this article is to reach out to conservative, red state voters by showing that good "centrist" democrats don't like gay people either, and think young, urban, tolerant people are silly and irrelevant. Des Moines is where its at, baby. The swipe at teachers unions is particularly entertaining. Are we supposed to beleive that these people are now also economic conservatives?

This is why I don't support Hillary Clinton or Joe Liberman. They pander to the fucking authoritarian people in this country. Moderate Republicans are greatly preferable in that they don't have to seek out some scape goat to punish in order to demonstrate their social conservativeness.

Too Much Froth