] LogosX: Episode 79 - Encryption (original air date:
] 01/18/2005)

I forgot to meme this eariler. I was on BinRev this week with Stangdawk talking about cryptography. Its a 101 level overview of symmetric vs. asymmetric systems and different approaches to public key verification. Mostly stuff crypto oriented folks already know, but may be new marterial for people who haven't explored the subject.

Binary Revolution - Decius cohosts

] Imagine a gun with no recoil, no sound, no heat, no
] gunpowder, no visible firing signature (muzzle flash),
] and no stoppages or jams of any kind. Now imagine that
] this gun could fire .308 caliber and .50 caliber metal
] projectiles accurately at up to 8,000 fps
] (feet-per-second), featured an infinitely
] variable/programmable cyclic rate-of-fire (as high as
] 120,000 rounds-per-minute), and were capable of laying
] down a 360-degree field of fire. What if you could mount
] this weapon on any military Humvee (HMMWV), any
] helicopter/gunship, any armored personnel carrier (APC),
] and any other vehicle for which the technology were
] applicable?

This is interesting although the author is a little confused about his physics. Its friction free! Whee!!!

Defense Review - World Exclusive Video! DREAD Weapon System: Devastating, Jam-Proof, and Silent.

] The proposal to change the benefits calculation --
] adjusting only for inflation, not productivity growth --
] will dramatically cut the income-replacement rate for
] future retirees. The size of the cut will depend on when
] workers retire. The heaviest cuts would fall on the
] youngest workers. Those already retired or near
] retirement would be protected.
]
] Let's call it what it is: a tax hike
] The administration has not called this a tax increase,
] but that is exactly what it is: a massive tax hike
] reserved for the young and the young only. It is a tax
] increase because they will pay the same payroll tax but
] will receive less in benefits.
]
] The difference is who gets the money and benefits now. Older
] voters get the money, benefits and reassurances now. Our
] children and grandchildren get the shaft.
]
] Tell me, Mr. President, what's moral and good about that?

Now this makes sense, but I'd like to see this analysis get some peer review.

MSN Money - Social Security cuts: a tax hike for the young

] You can adopt a bike by coming by our headquarters during
] a work session, picking out a bike and paying a $25
] refundable deposit. You may keep the bike as long as you
] wish and return it for repair or exchange if you have a
] problem.

This has a very GTA feel to it. Show up. Give them a $25. Leave with a yellow bike. If it breaks, they'll repair it. Return it whenever you want and you get your $25 back.

Dectaur Yellow Bikes

] Misery is expected to peak on Monday, as 24 January has
] been pinpointed as the worst day of the year.

BBC NEWS | UK | 'I don't like Monday 24 January'

] The Bentley Snow Crystal Collection of the Buffalo Museum
] of Science is a digital library providing a high-quality
] collection of stunning, un-retouched images of Wilson A.
] Bentley's original glass slide photographs of snow
] crystals, and includes dynamic resources to further an
] appreciation and understanding of Bentley and his work.

The Bentley Snow Crystal Collection

] The preexisting commercial filter had been dubbed
] "Omnivore" within the FBI, and the new filter was much
] more precise - it only took the "meat" that the tool
] was designed to capture, and did not collect any evidence
] beyond that described in the court order. As a result,
] the FBI dubbed the new privacy-enhanced tool "Carnivore."
] Of course, this isn't the story that you heard in the
] press. Privacy advocates were quick to capitalize on the
] precious gift the FBI handed them: the name itself was an
] indictment of sorts, making it easy to create the
] impression that the FBI had created a monster.

All true. I think the tool was interesting. It had quite a wide array of protocol parsers. The FBI was not as secretive about it as EPIC claimed they were. The issue is not whether the FBI has the technological capability. The FBI ought to have the capability. The issue is whether I am required to make things easy for them by building their capability into my system at my expense, and also what oversight and checks exist in the system to ensure that they aren't misusing their capability.

[Politech] Orin Kerr on why the FBI retired Carnivore

Once Huygens' mother ship, Cassini, had beamed information from the probe back to radio receivers on Earth on Friday 14 January, the raw images were posted on the descent-imaging team's website, based at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Computer enthusiasts pounced on the images immediately, and improved them using a range of free or commercially available software before swapping their pictures in Internet chatrooms.

"When we started looking at the raw images, there were marvellous things there that we wanted to share," says Anthony Liekens, a chatroom enthusiast from Borsbeek, Belgium.

When Liekens tuned into the ESA press conference on the morning of Saturday 15 January, he was disappointed by the quality of their images. So he decided to host amateur compositions on his website. The site has quickly turned into a virtual gallery.

The referenced page: http://anthony.liekens.net/huygens_static.html

Amateurs beat space agencies to Titan pictures

] If you're a blogger (or a blog reader), you're painfully
] familiar with people who try to raise their own websites'
] search engine rankings by submitting linked blog comments
] like "Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site." This is
] called comment spam, we don't like it either, and we've
] been testing a new tag that blocks it.

I wonder if we should implement this in memestreams such that if you don't have a large audience this tag appears in your links. Thoughts?

Google Blog rel=nofollow

] Once you've identified an instance of grafedia, you can
] retrieve the content that is linked to the text by
] sending a message from your wireless device (cell phone,
] palm pilot, etc) addressed to the underlined word plus
] '@grafedia.net'.

A system for associating graffiti tags with internet content. Cool.

Grafedia