] "It's a premonition of things to come," Pike said. "It
] makes sense. These things have no family to write home
] to. They're fearless. You can put them places you'd have
] a hard time putting a soldier in."

Robots with rockets. Seriously.

Wired News: More Robot Grunts Ready for Duty

] This photo is of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station
] taken every 15 minutes (if a relay satellite is available
] for transmission) from the roof of the Atmospheric
] Research Observatory which houses NOAA/CMDL's Clean Air
] Facility. In order to preserve the life of the camera, it
] is tilted down onto the snow when the sun is in the field
] of view, which occurs for several weeks around sunset
] (March) and sunrise (September) when the sun marches in a
] circle above the horizon. From mid-April until mid-August
] the moon and the aurora australis provide the only
] natural lighting.
]
] The new station, presently under construction, can be
] seen to the right in the photo; the old (circa 1973)
] domed station is to the left. The new station is elevated
] above the snow to prevent it being buried by the drifting
] snow (the present fate of the old domed station). When
] the new station is finished in about 2006, the old dome
] and buildings inside will be removed. The new galley
] (with windows!) is now being used for meals. The
] cylindrical object at the end of the station, fondly
] called the "beer can," is the entrance to the station.

Telecommunications is so damn cool.

South Pole Live Camera

A little old (9/2004) but none the less startling news for fans!

Early 1990's Hip-Hop collective Digable Planets have announced
that they have reunited and are working on a new album.

Digable Planets Reunite

Dolemite wrote:
] How different, in your mind, is this from the thousands of
] bumper stickers on the back of cars that have a big W and then
] underneath, in small type, "The President"?

Nothing wrong there. This is pre-election marketing material, and it expresses someone's personal view. It also does it in a stylish way. I wish the Kerry stickers were as cool. In any event, this is democracy at work.

] Or even closer to a billboard, the big sign on West End (in
] Nashville) at the Republican Party HQ that has "W. _Still_ the
] President"?

Closer. Billboards are different because they don't reflect an individuals point of view, but rather the point of view of a large organization.

This is mostly the winning party gloating, which is ugly. Its unlikely that Dems would have put up similar Billboards, and I think its in poor taste. It demonstrates a lack of respect for the "other side," which is divisive, and undermines the right to vote in the sense that it seeks to admonish those who don't vote "correctly" for being "loosers." It reinforces the idea that an election is about being on the winning team rather then about expressing your political views.

Where the billboard in question (if it really exists) truely crosses the line is that it doesn't seem to refer to the election or even the office of the Presidency. It has a picture of the man, and it says "Our Leader." It puts the person above the job, and in that sense is an affort to our system. It reinforces Bush's power exclusively in a way that goes beyond being divisive and borders on intimitation.

Now, as offended as I am by both of these billboards, they have a right to put them up. And I also have the right to tell them they are sending the wrong message. And thats as far as this goes unless someone decides to change his mind. And thats how it ought to be.

RE: George W. Bush: Our leader

StankDawg wrote:
] 2) It is apparent by the way this was written that the author
] didn't even attend the conference or listen to the audio
] panels.

Wow... The ignorance displayed in this article is beyond the pale. This sort of attitude hasn't been commonplace in 10 years.

Welcome, new journalist, to the wonderful world of computer security. Here are the rules.

1. You don't know what you're talking about.
2. No, really, you don't know what you're talking about.
3. The first step to having a clue is to listen and do your homework. This means not firing off a rant based on your misinterpretation of a collection of three line summaries of conference discussions. Actually listening to the content of the discussions might help, but you are really just scratching the surface.
4. If you have reached the point in your analysis where you are comparing American high school computer nerds to Islamic terrorists, you need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and think about whether what you are saying actually makes any sense. Consider this a good rule of thumb whenever analogies to terrorists, Hitler, or the Mafia pop into your head.
5. People are not homogenius. Do not assume that the motivations or moral/ethical values presented by one person can be applied unilaterally to a larger group of people.
6. Teenagers like to think that they have a rebellious culture, which is intended to sound dangerous and makes cultural references that you are unlikely to get. If something seems strange, ask about it rather then inserting your own interpretation.
7. In order to do computer security you have to think about computer insecurity. I know this is hard for you to understand as there is no equivelent in the world of journalism. Try to think about football. How good would a football team be if they never considered how their opponent's playbook might look.
8. Sometimes creative people push social boundaries. Insurance underwriters, on the whole, aren't creative people. Please try to keep that in mind.
9. Talking about computer security is not illegal. However, making unfounded personal accusations against real people in print IS illegal. Please try to keep that in mind as well.

RE: Technology Decisions

] Let's have a war,
] Jack up the Dow Jones,
] Let's have a war,
] It can start in New Jersey...

So, I heard A Perfect Circle's rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine" on the way back home from Nashville. The dark, cynical irony of it fit my post election apathy like a glove. The first two videos here are from the album, which also contains a number of other entertaining covers such as the one referenced above.

For the clue deficient the lead singer is the guy from tool.

: : : a perfect circle : : :

There is actually a perfectly rational explanation for this, and I know what it is, but I'm going to pretend that I don't, and just offer up the link. Toke up.

Target : Entertainment : Marijuana

] Why do people move to suburbia? To have kids! So no wonder
] it seemed boring and sterile. The whole place was a giant
] nursery, an artificial town created explicitly for the purpose of
] breeding children.
]
] Where I grew up, it felt as if there was nowhere to go, and
] nothing to do. This was no accident. Suburbs are deliberately
] designed to exclude the outside world, because it contains things
] that could endanger children.
...
] Adults can't avoid seeing that teenage kids are
] tormented. So why don't they do something about it?
] Because they blame it on puberty. The reason kids are so
] unhappy, adults tell themselves, is that monstrous new
] chemicals, hormones, are now coursing through their
] bloodstream and messing up everything. There's nothing
] wrong with the system; it's just inevitable that kids
] will be miserable at that age.
]
] This idea is so pervasive that even the kids believe it,
] which probably doesn't help. Someone who thinks his feet
] naturally hurt is not going to stop to consider the
] possibility that he is wearing the wrong size shoes.
]
] I'm suspicious of this theory that thirteen-year-old kids
] are intrinsically messed up. If it's physiological, it
] should be universal. Are Mongol nomads all nihilists at
] thirteen?
. . .
] The mediocrity of American public schools has worse
] consequences than just making kids unhappy for six
] years. It breeds a rebelliousness that actively drives kids
] away from the things they're supposed to be learning.

To a great extent, the sleeping American populace has woken up to the fact that there is a problem with the way that they operate their society. Littleton style mass murders are both new and unique enough to indicate that something has changed, but also common enough to indicate that this change is not an aberration. People want to do something about it. Unfortunately, by all accounts, the dialog even years later is wanting.

People seem to grasp onto oversimplified solutions. They blame access to firearms, violent video games, industrial music, etc... These things are easy to attack, but the people attacking them can never seem to explain why their presence doesn't consistently produce the problems they are concerned with, nor why the problems they are concerned with sometimes exist without the presence of the specific cause they cite. This demonstrates a lack of understanding of the scope of the issue.

I have always felt that these problems were systemic and structural rather then limited and specific, and that we are unlikely to be able to see them, understand them, or address them as a society because we do not want to change the things that we would need to change.

Part of the problem is that we see teenage suicides and mass mur... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Why Nerds are Unpopular (Long, and worth it.)

] "There is something wrong with the principle of
] neutrality," said Scalia, considered among the court's
] staunchest conservatives. Neutrality as envisioned by the
] founding fathers, Scalia said, "is not neutrality between
] religiousness and nonreligiousness; it is between
] denominations of religion."

Our founding fathers and other great national leaders were brilliant men who developed powerful ideas about how to build a successful society. However, you have to put them in a context. Abraham Lincoln, for example, would be viewed as a contemptible bigot were he alive today, but that does not mean that we should not honor him and the value of his ideas. What Scalia misses is that the society which existed in 1776 is not the same society which exists today, and in fact it was a great deal less mature.

The valuable idea here is that the government should not get involved in the task of dictating religious beliefs or doctrine. However, in the context of the late 1700's all of the white people in America practiced some form of Christianity or Judaism. Other religions were certainly practiced by people who weren't white, but this mattered little in an institutionally racist society. So, in that context, references to God were not understood to fall into the scope of dictating religious doctrine. People were simply not aware of an example of a way of thinking which did not include God.

Today we are much more mature. There are a far wider array of religions acknowledged and practiced in our society, including a growing minority of the population that does not practice any religion at all. In that context the fundamental philosophy of the founders must be applied differently then it would have been applied 200+ years ago. That means building a society which respects religious beliefs but doesn't require them.

Of course, the cynical thought here is that Scalia is far too intelligent to have missed this distinction, or to be unaware of the context in which he lives. Its clear in the quotes taken in this article that he promotes a religious government, and opposes secularism. In doing so, he in fact advocates the establishment of religion, and stands opposed to the fundamental constitutional law that he is tasked with defending.

There is another argument in there, which Scalia does not make, but which must be asked...

Insofaras we can see that philosophically the values inherent in our system of government require protecting rights that the populace, on the whole, doesn't respect, how should we respond? One might argue that the democratic government ought to drive these changes, as if the court out steps the democracy too far its legitimacy is threatened. On the other hand, we don't need to defend popular rights. The whole purpose of limited government is to protect unpopular minorities from the tyranny of the majority. The Constitution, and the court, mean nothing, if we are simply operating on majority rule. How do you strike that balance?

To be honest, the impeachment mechanism provides a safety value through which a court that went too far could be reigned in by the democracy without violence and without threatening the basic institution.

So my answer is, Insofaras we can see that philosophically the values inherent in our system of government require protecting rights that the populace, on the whole, doesn't respect, we should respond by protecting those rights unless we would be impeached for doing so.

Scalia opposed to separation of church and state

] In scuttling major intelligence legislation that he, the
] president and most lawmakers supported, Speaker J. Dennis
] Hastert last week enunciated a policy in which Congress
] will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them,
] regardless of how many Democrats favor them.

Hastert supports "the majority of the majority", only.

Hastert Launches A Partisan Policy (washingtonpost.com)