] this is placeholder site only...the official site for
] registration will launch in early March...

A conference about blogging is going to be taking place in Nashville.

BlogNashville

] In the stairway, I said, "You couldn't just watch a porn
] channel?"
]
] "It's not the same," she said. "That's all packaged and
] commercial. I wanted to interview them before and after.
] I have to know -- what it's like."
]
] "Why?"
]
] She paused on the stairs, and I stopped too. The
] muscleboys, muttering, went out onto the street, and we
] were alone in the flashing green and red light.
]
] "Suze, I'm going to start the clock."
]
] Like she'd poured a bucket of ice water down my spine.
] "You're what?"
]
] "I'm going to take the treatments." She spoke quickly, as
] if afraid I'd interrupt her. "They've gotten much better
] in the past couple of years, there are basically no side
] effects. They're even making headway with infants. In
] five years, it looks like most babies won't have any
] arrestation effects at all, and -- "
]
] Tears had sprung to my eyes. "What are you talking
] about?" I cried. "Why are you talking like them? Why are
] you talking like being like us is something to be cured?"
] I punched the wall, which hurt my hand. I sat down on the
] step and cried.
]
] "Suze," Abby said. She sat down next to me and put her
] hand on my shoulder. "I love being like us -- but I want
] --"
]
] "That?" I shouted, pointing up to the top of the stairs,
] where they were grunting again. "That's what you want?
] You'd rather have that than us?"
]
] "I want everything, Suze. I want every stage of life --"
]
] "Oh, every stupid stage, as designed by stupid God, who
] also gave us death and cancer, and --"
]
] She grabbed my shoulders. "Suze, listen. I want to know
] what that up there is like. Maybe I won't like it, and
] then I won't do it. But Suze, I want to have babies."

A neat new short story of Sci-Fi released under the Creative Commons license.

Fiction: Start the Clock, by Benjamin Rosenbaum

] Martin and Ruth, aka Spike, the next big girl/boy duo (so
] they hope) add some synth and a new background vocal to
] the mix. He saves the song and she emails it to
] Polyphonic Human Media Interface who, within 24 hours,
] will tell them whether their song will be a hit. When the
] results arrive they hover over the 20in screen and click
] on the returned mail. There is a graph, showing a cluster
] of many dots, like a constellation, and somewhere in the
] cluster a red spot. The spot marks their song, not quite
] a bullseye, but still in the throng. "It's scored a
] seven," Ruth says, scanning down. "We're in. The record
] company will definitely meet us now." Their future
] suddenly looks a lot rosier.

This seems ahead of it's time. Quite impressive. I'm going to disagree with Kerry here. This is the future. First, it gets cheap enough for every band to tune every song on the suckometer such that it becomes a hit. Then, it gets cheap enough that everyone with garage band can work against the suckometer. Thats when the music industry really starts to collapse, because your friends start producing billboard quality music in their garage. Then someone decides to eliminate the middle man and simply have the computer compose the music directly. Of course, this enables lots of customization.

The end result is that humans will view music as simply a mirror which reflects and re-enforces their emotions. In the same way they use political commentators. In the same way they use clothing. It won't matter that it isn't being made by a person. The idea of people making music will seem quaint. Sort of like having a professional pianist living in your house instead of buying a stereo. Something so expensive and unnecessary that it will seem a little sickening. The machines will do it better. They'll make you feel the way you want to feel, exactly when you want to feel that way, and they'll never bore you with repetitive songs...

Don't worry. You'll be long dead when this all comes to pass.

Guardian Unlimited | Together in electric dreams

Since the death of his father, Akhmad-hadji Kadyrov, in a terrorist bombing on 9 May, 28-year-old Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov has emerged as the most powerful and the most feared man in Chechnya despite his lack of formal education and the alleged involvement of his security force in the systematic abduction, torture, and execution of Chechen civilians.

While Russian human rights activists decry Kadyrov’s reported involvement in human rights violations, he can seemingly do no wrong in the eyes of the Russian leadership, which has augmented his powers and bestowed on him one of the country’s most prestigious awards.

[And to think, I could be have emerged the most powerful and most feared man in my region by now, if I had worked as hard on it as him... ]

THE WARLORD AND THE COMMISSAR

Feel free to add your own pixel!

Experiments - Pixelfest collaborative artwork

This is an important, and infuriating issue.

] "The Supreme Court's decision to place this extraordinary
] power to sentence a person solely in the hands of a
] single federal judge - who is accountable to no one -
] flies in the face of the clear will of Congress," Mr.
] Feeney said in a statement.

1. In general, we have a problem, and we won't talk about it because its extremely unpopular to do so. The problem is that our democratically elected government is selected based on the whims of a fully and readily manipulated populace. More then half the people in this country think Sadam Hussien was connected with Al'Q. Do we think their opinions about crime are any more informed?

The "I'm gunna get tough on crime" story gets votes, and it is played entirely for marketing reasons. It has absolutely no relationship to a reasonable, considered view about how to actually lower crime rates. I'm not interested in having important matters of policy be constantly dominated by "what sells."

Congressmen refer to their democratic legitimacy because they can't refer to the credibility of their policies. Congress is a constant slew of bad ideas. I'd prefer to have certain questions be more isolated from the political process, particularly when lives are at stake.

2. Federal judges are certainly accountable for their decisions, which are vetted by several levels of hierarchy. People don't get to be federal justices because they fell out of bed this morning and figured they'd get into law.

3. No one knows more about the specifics of an individual case then the people who are handling it. Different cases have different specific circumstances and should result in different sentences.

] "We are disappointed that the decision made the guidelines
] advisory in nature," Assistant Attorney General Christopher
] A. Wray said in a statement. "District courts are still
] required to consult the federal sentencing guidelines, and
] any sentence may be appealed by either defense counsel or
] prosecutors on the grounds that it is unreasonable. To the
] extent that the guidelines are now advisory, however, the
] risk increases that sentences across the country will become
] wildly inconsistent."

I'd accuse Christopher Wray of intentionally lying, but thats what politicians do, isn't it?

What you want is consistency of standards. Two people who commit the same crime in the same circumstances should get the same sentence. You want to avoid favoritism or situations where different judges have wildly different approaches.

Wray isn't offering consistency of standards. He is offering consistency of results. Thats not the same thing. He offers one while complaining about the lack of the other. Consistency of result is unfair, because two people who commit the same crime in wildly different circumstances get the same sentence. Congressmen cannot fairly apply a blanket rule that impacts every case in the country.

Congressmen, as previously pointed out, don't even have experience with the subject matter. They are making their rules base on political fads and not based on a knowledge of how to address real problems.

If their is a problem with inconsistency of standards among judges it ought to be addressed by looking at the decision making process involved in sentencing and the selection process for judges rather then by creating a system that could as easily be operated by a computer as by a human.

As usual, you're not going to see that, because that would be reasonable. This isn't about reason. Its about power.

The New York Times - Reactions: New Fight Over Controlling Punishments Is Widely Seen

The latest information confirms the ucard specifications quoted in the August 6 DigiTimes article and adds the number of connection pads (20), the operating voltage (legacy 5V, 3.3V, 1.8V), the frequency (60MHz) and the interface (MMC SPI USB, x1, x4, x8, x16). There is also a micro-size card added at 24×18×1.4mm (14mm shorter than the full size 24×32×1.4mm)

Mu-Card Alliance’s new 2-terabyte flash memory ready to go!

Very interesting.....

The top 10 stories you missed in 2004

I was recently introduced to this by rattle. Its very entertaining, dry humor.

Trailer Park Boys ~ Season 4

Hell yeah, thats right. Keepn' it real.

Graffiti on Flickr - Nashville