'Our way of life is right. Yours isn't.'

An update on the Utah Rave. Bad news... The cops won in court.

Salon.com News | Stark raving mad

The tester places a crystal of lithium niobate over the feature whose voltage is to be monitored. The refractive index of this substance varies with the applied electric field, and the potential of the underlying silicon can be read out using an ultraviolet laser beam passed through the crystal at grazing incidence. The sensitivity of this technique is such that a 5 V signal of up to 25 MHz can be read [Wie90], and we understand that it is a standard way for well funded laboratories to recover crypto keys from chips of known layout. When attacking a smartcard, for example, we would read the EEPROM output amplifiers.

Apparently I've never memed this paper before. Its dated now, but a really interesting take on hardware reverse engineering.

Tamper Resistance - a Cautionary Note

With partisan battles being fought in Washington over Supreme Court nominees and other controversies, Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said last night in a speech in Richmond that it is important to maintain a civil national dialogue in order to uphold a healthy democracy.

Perhaps my recent comment on the FBI anti-porn effort was a breach of civility. I strongly agree with this sentiment. I am strongly concerned that it needs to be said. Im still really pissed off about disingenuous commentary. I'm concerned about the way that analysis of government response to Katrina has turned into a pissing match over whose politicians fucked up worse. I'm wondering where this is all heading...

TimesDispatch.com | Kennedy stresses need for civil national dialogue

Usually dolphins were controlled via signals transmitted through a neck harness. 'The question is, were these dolphins made secure before Katrina struck?' said Sheridan.

This is really interesting, but one suspects wildly inaccurate. Dolphins that are trained to shoot people? Really? Even if its true I find it hard to believe that the Navy would have left them armed as the storm approached. They tend to have fairly careful security proceedures.

The Observer | International | Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

Rattle wrote:
In the most recent blow against evil pornography, the feds have pointed the chilling effects laser at SuicideGirls, forcing them to take down a number of photo-sets and individual photos.

It doesn't look like the Feds actually DID anything. They are pre-emptively taking photosets down in order to stave off prosecution. But the fundies have already won. If I were running SG I'd stand my ground and fight rather then wimping out like this.

The linked article is a good one, particularly in the way that it juxtiposes Alan Ginsberg with the rambling incoherent tripe from WorldNetDaily in which the author argues that if you're going to allow obsenity you have to allow homeless people to be murdered. Fucking stupid. How can you possibly be that fucking stupid?! (U:Benjamin Shapiro goes to Harvard Law School and he can't wrap his mind around the idea that that homeless people are people and therefore there would be a state interest in protecting them from murder in a rights based society?! Man, law school must be easier then I thought! I hope he doesn't skip the classes that explain what inalienable means.)

The 60s are not ancient history. If they came for the poets then, they'll come for the poets now. Republican MemeStreamers who are wondering why I have a problem with their politcal party can look no futher then the coming crackdown on thoughtcrime. (And, yes, Hillary Clinton, thats why I don't like you, too, and will not vote for you.)

RE: Justice Department in War Against Porn, chilling effects hit SuicideGirls

Gov. Sonny Perdue has asked public schools around the state to cancel classes on Monday and Tuesday of next week, an effort to conserve gasoline supplies.

Atlanta may run out of gas ][: Bernie's back.... and he's still dead!

For fans of "The Family Guy", an interactive app by one of my game industry associates, with the ever (not) charming "Stewie".

I was testing this earlier today, and there's a *lot* of stuff buried in there. Type in a word or phrase, and see how the character reacts. "Hello," "sleep", etc. Fun terms to type in: Lotion, hacker, porn, world domination. And every so often, something unusual like the "kill" button might become active...

Elonka :)

Stewie Live

The Google Blog has a post about their use of prediction markets to forecast certain events that are relevant to their business.

Slashdot | Google Putting Crowd Wisdom to Work

Mark your calendars! EFF is 15 years old this year, and we are going
to celebrate! We're having an anniversary bash at our San Francisco
headquarters on Shotwell Street on Sunday, October 2nd, 2005. The
party starts at 5 p.m.

For those of you in SF the EFF is throwing a party next weekend.

EFF: EFF Hosts 15th Anniversary Party!

That sounds like a reason for us to be the first.

Glen Reynolds misses a key point. The Space Elevator will need to be built in international waters, and as a result its not going to be controlled by a particular country. You could go out and build it without asking permission from anyone else, but it would be illegal and not worth the cost in terms of political capital. A government effort to construct such a system is most likely to be a multi-national partnership after the lawyers are finished with it, and likely a beaurocratic one at that. It may, however, be controlled by a single entity if that entity is a private enterprise, which is what the article meant when it discussed first mover advantage.

The other difference between this project and NASA's proposal is that this project has basic unsolved engineering problems related to the manufacture of carbon nanotubes and high longevity mechanical vehicles whereas NASA's proposal is a straight forward application of technology that has already been invented. In that sense NASA's approach is far more, ehm, down to earth.

The government ought to pursue the low risk approach and let private enterprise pursue the higher risk approach, with some support in the form of federal research grants for the basic technology required.

Having said all that, I would like to see space elevator technology backed by an Administration level initiative that directs grant funding to appropriate projects.

TCS: Tech Central Station - Is This the Right Way to Return to the Moon?