] Fierce fighting erupted in the city of Najaf Thursday
] after a rebel Shi'ite cleric defied an Iraqi government
] threat to attack his stronghold in a holy shrine and
] rejected demands that he end his uprising.
]
] Thick black smoke poured into the sky from near the Imam
] Ali Mosque, soon after Moqtada al-Sadr spurned the
] ultimatum from interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. U.S.
] aircraft and tanks pounded the area around the shrine.

That sucks...

Al Sadr waffles....

] Republican leadership aides did not respond to a request
] for comment on Mr. Bereuter's switch on an issue where
] most Republicans strongly back the president. But on CNN,
] Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican who
] previously served on the House panel with Mr. Bereuter,
] said, "Doug has the right to his opinion, and that is
] what makes our country so great."

Dude, you sound like your trying to convince yourself. Like you want to have him arrested, but you can't, and you're reminding yourself why...

The New York Times - Republican Now Opposes War in Iraq

] The GW04 site has handy templates for letters to the
] editor. See the top one on the list:
]
] "New job figures and other recent economic data show that
] America's economy is strong and getting stronger - and
] that the President's jobs and growth plan is working. The
] Labor Department announced that employers added 288,000
] new jobs in April. In total, over 1.1 million jobs have
] been added since August, with 8 consecutive months of
] gains."
]
] Now google that entire phrase, and see the results. About
] 60 newspapers have run that letter...

Got a problem with your economy running out of steam a few months before the big election? Call AstroSpam, Inc!! We'll write letters to every newspaper in the country that gloss right over the recent jobs data as if it didn't even exist. Your idiot constituents won't know what the hell is really going on, but they will remember to vote for you. AstroSpam, your source for wide spread bullshit.

Astroturfing the BC'04 way

] A sensor discerns and categorizes dog barks, translating
] them through 7 modes into words and pictograms that
] humans can understand. See what your pooch is saying, and
] gain a deeper level of understanding.

[ Japanese phones are *SICK*, man. We americans are all "Woo! Text messaging!" while these motherfuckers have a fucking universal translator for DOGS! Not to mention cool barcode readers, TV output and crazy data services. I shit you not, NTT DoCoMo's gonna market the first computer/brain interface and 15 year old girls all over japan will be talking to each other like fucking telepaths over high bandwidth wireless links. Americans will finally get decent wireless data services around the same time. -k

edit : actually, i don't know how fast they are, but Vodaphone's data rates are like 1.5 cents per K (0.2 Y/128B), which is pretty bullshit. Maybe that's just Vodaphone or maybe the actual data services aren't as good as I think. Still, the initial statement, that their phones are ill, stands. ]

Vodafone

Well, here is my show cohosting BinRev Radio with StankDawg. I need to work on being more precise when I'm talking on the air. However, some interesting aspects of Memetics and Memestreams were discussed and I think it came together well in the end. If you'd like to know more about what memes are and how they work, have listen!

Decius & Memestreams on BinRev Radio [MP3]

] Radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced
] Wednesday his militia would leave the Imam Ali Shrine in
] Najaf, following a threat by the Iraqi government to
] "liberate" the holy site.
]
] In a letter issued by al-Sadr's office in Baghdad and
] read to the Iraqi National Conference, the cleric said he
] agreed to demands made Tuesday night by a delegation from
] the conference that he and his forces leave the mosque,
] disband his Mehdi Army and "enter into the mainstream
] political process."

!!! Thats great news! Why is it when I go to CNN the top story is some bull shit about Scott Peterson and this is on the sidebar?!

CNN.com - Al-Sadr says militia will leave Najaf mosque - Aug 18, 2004

] Generator for 2-dimensional barcodes that are
] popular in Japan.

The Japaneese have cellphones that tag pictures with GPS images and cellphones that will pull up URLs and email addresses from these bar codes. They have all the tech toys that I want to play with!!!@?#!

Is there software out for American phones that will read these standard barcodes?

QR Barcode Generator

On the corner of 8th and 30th in Midtown Manhattan, a block away from The Garden. The Molly Wee is as Irish as a pub can be, the staff is great, and its open really late.

The Molly Wee Pub & Restaurant

] Eli Biham announced new results in cryptanalyzing SHA-1,
] including a collision in a reduced-round version of
] SHA-1. The full SHA-1 algorithm does 80 rounds of
] scrambling. At present, Biham and Chen can break
] versions of SHA-1 that use up to about 40 rounds, and
] they seem confident that their attacks can be extended to
] more rounds. This is a significant advance, but it's
] well short of the dramatic full break that was rumored.
]
] Where does this leave us? MD5 is fatally wounded; its
] use will be phased out. SHA-1 is still alive but the
] vultures are circling. A gradual transition away from
] SHA-1 will now start. The first stage will be a debate
] about alternatives, leading (I hope) to a consensus among
] practicing cryptographers about what the substitute will
] be.

Answer, not a 5 alarm fire, but if you write or maintain cryptography code you can still expect some work coming up.

Followup on SHA-1 break

I have nothing but admiration for the fortitude and grit of all Olympic competitors, especially in the more obscure events where there is no pecuniary reward. I also have nothing but respect for what scientists and doctors do. But that doesn't mean I want to watch them in action.

Does anyone care? Even a little?

Snippets of actual competition will be sandwiched by long, weepy infomercials that seek to humanize the athletes. No hint of adversity will go unexploited.

Ultimately, I would be willing to overlook the Olympics' moral failings, as I do with sports that I like, if I were interested in the outcome. But I'm not.

I didn't think so.

It's the Olympics, but Do You Really Care?