] The day before yesterday, my wife came home with a new license
] plate frame for my car: "My other cars are on Mars."
. . .
] I just finished working the Martian night (which today happened
] to be daytime at JPL), planning Spirit's activities for Sol 5,
] the rover's fifth day on the surface. The uplink team is doing a
] great job of getting a lot done in a short amount of time. The
] rover seems to be getting more sleep than we do...
. . .
] I'll make additions to this site as often as living on
] Mars time and exploring an alien planet permit...

Elonka says:
This is a new blog page that was created by my childhood friend Andy Mishkin. In it he's documenting some of the day-to-day activities at JPL. Fun reading!

Mars Roving: Andy Mishkin's Blog

] The Supreme Court yesterday declined to hear an appeal by
] civil liberties groups seeking access to basic data about
] hundreds of individuals detained by the federal
] government after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a
] decision that allows officials to continue withholding
] the names of most detainees, as well as other information
] related to their arrests, indefinitely.

At least these ones were allowed a hearing. This capability combined with the ability to detain without hearing and deny access to counsel would be extremely dangerous.

Secrecy Allowed On 9/11 Detention (washingtonpost.com)

But something equally important has happened in South Asia over the past 15 years. India has been transformed by a market revolution.

Fareed Zakaria sees opportunity in recent regional economic and political developments.

So, when the IBM engineers lose their jobs to the Indians, they might be saddened, but at least they should sleep well -- they're fighting terrorism!

Wealth, or safety? Choose wisely.

Opening in South Asia

] I've done nothing basically because the environment is so
] binary (and all these trades are different expressions of
] the same view) that I feel no compunction to rush into
] anything, especially in the shorting-stocks department.
]
] I would rather be late to that party than early, since
] it's so clear to me that when stocks go down next time,
] they're going to go down for real. I anticipate that we
] will see a huge decline, with the major averages falling
] over 50%.

Yikes!

If 2004 goes bad, it will go really bad

] The 2004 Libertarian Party National Convention will take
] place at the beautiful Atlanta Marriott Marquis hotel in
] downtown Atlanta, Georgia, over Memorial Day weekend, May
] 27-31. The room rate at this Marriott is only $99/night
] for single or double occupancy (less than for past
] conventions).

This could be fun...

Libertarian Party: 2004 National Convention

] RIP Brad. Hopefully you are sharing your sence of humour
] with some good spirits, on the other side.

Another site that CrankyMessiah used pays it's respects. There is a link here to a picture for those who wanted to know what he looked like.

FAZED - Slorum - CrankyMessiah Thread

] Execution Protection by AMD, technology contained in
] AMD's Athlon 64 chips, prevents a buffer overflow, a
] common method used to attack computers.
]
] With Execution Protection, data in the buffer can only be
] read and, therefore, is prevented from doing its dirty
] work, John Morris, director of marketing at AMD, said in
] an interview Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show
] here.

News: AMD, Intel put antivirus tech into chips

] Nizza Group, which last week
] announced that it had been issued a key internet naming
] patent, today
] announced that it has filed a lawsuit in the U.S.
] District Court for the
] Central District of California against Network Solutions,
] Inc. and
] Register.Com, Inc. for infringement of that patent.
]
] U.S. Patent No. 6,671,714, issued on December 30, 2003,
] covers the
] issuance of URL's and e-mail addresses to members of
] groups in the format of
] "member.group.tld" and "member@group.tld" such that the
] URL and e-mail address
] differ only in that in the URL the "@" of the e-mail
] address is replaced with
] a "." in the URL.

Thats it! There it is! That is the dumbest patent I've ever heard of! If this doesn't fit the legal definition of "obviousness" nothing does.

Network Solutions and Register.com Sued for Infringement of Domain Name Patent

] I don't believe the Internet is inherently democratic. To
] me, most people and organizations are fundamentally
] anti-democratic by nature. Many of those in power and
] those clamoring for power are self-centered actors. They
] operate within the miracle we call representative
] democracy. Most accept the idea that democracy is good,
] but these actors do little to ensure its strength.

This is a strong vision for improving the state of internet enabled democracy in the next few years.

Democratic Evolution or Virtual Civil War - WSIS Speech by Steven Clift - Publicus.Net

] "We have made a major breakthrough, discovering the
] possibility of making predictions months ahead of time,
] instead of years, as in previously known methods,"
] Keilis-Borok said. "This discovery was not generated by
] an instant inspiration, but culminates 20 years of
] multinational, interdisciplinary collaboration by a team
] of scientists from Russia, the United States, Western
] Europe, Japan and Canada."

UC NewsWire -- Earthquakes can be predicted months in advance