] Innovation Futures does not use real money, although top
] players win great awards. We make a prediction and allow
] players to buy and sell contracts based on whether they
] believe the prediction will come true.

This looks like a LOT of fun....

Innovation Futures

Someone wrote:
] Huh?

I promise I can build a comprehensive argument that a policy of sending trouble makers to people who engage in torture is a violation of several treaties on human rights, and if it involves American citizens is directly unconstitutional. Furthermore, there are few things which can be more offensive to our ideal of civil liberties then a policy such as this.

The thing that makes this case so stark is that we aren't even talking about a trouble maker. We're (as far as I've been able to tell) talking about a guy who once got someone that we suspect of being linked to troublemakers to cosign on a lease. Thats all that it seems like they had on him.

Should we investigate that? Yes. Should we have done it this way? No. This is not an investigation, this is sending someone to die a prolonged and horrible death at the hands of people who will not and cannot provide us with useful information (how do you trust the government of Syria to report clearly to you on their interrogation?) simply because it creates an atmosphere of fear.

In the United States we do not employ torture because it is cruel and unusual. Because it violates the very essence of our Constitution. In the United States we have due process because when we do punish people they ought to actually be guilty. This case is an absolutely perfect example of why you have due process. Because if you don't have due process you harm innocent people. When your system of justice meters out punishments arbitrarily upon the innocent it is no different in its effects then the criminals it intends to control!

Now it is not at all clear that such an executive order exists, and if it exists it is not at all clear that it applies to U.S. citizens. People, recently in particular, are fond of making the case that the constitution does not apply to citizens of other countries. There are obviously limits to that argument. How can you build a nation based on the ideas about rights, about equality, about the pursuit of happiness, while simultaneously engaging in, for example, the ethnic cleansing of a people? The fact is that you cannot. The fact is that it is possible to engage it activity which is so far beyond the pale, so completely malicious to the values that our system of government is supposed to uphold, that it is impossible for any thinking person, and indeed any court of law, to stomach the argument that one can engage in such an activity legally as long as the victims don't have green cards.

A formal administration policy which orders our border police to hand people, on the slightest suspicion, over to a government with which we do not maintain any kind of regular relations, such that they may be tortured to death, for no other reason then to spread fear, in particular when so many other options exist, is just such a policy.

I pray that when, and if, the truth comes to light here, that it does not remotely resemble the situation which I have just described.

] The Federal Communications Commission took a historic
] step this week toward limiting piracy of digital
] television signals, enacting regulations that will affect
] not only consumer-electronics manufacturers, but Silicon
] Valley companies as well.

Declan McCullagh's News.Com article on the broadcast flag.

] Three computer hardware makers contacted by CNET
] News.com on Wednesday said that the FCC's order
] would require them to redesign or stop selling their
] current products.

] "This was designed to absolutely kill the computer," said
] Cliff Watson, a senior engineer at Digital Connection, a
] small business in Huntington Beach, Calif., that sells an
] HDTV PCI card. "It will kill the computer because the
] actual implementation of the ruling is so bloody restrictive."

Are PCs next in Hollywood piracy battle? | CNET News.com

] The outcry from computer users over their rights being
] trampled would be "shocking," said Ken Silva, vice
] president of VeriSign Inc. "What you're proposing is
] tantamount to trimming a little fat off the
] Constitution," Silva told Bass.

Thats an ironic quote given that in another (recent) context an outcry from thousands of internet users in reaction to Verisign shoving a "solution" down everyone's throats was spun by Silva and friends as "technical zealotry by a vocal minority."

This hearing was about requiring people to install anti-virus software in their computers.

Honestly, cars are required to have seat belts. I can imagine computers being required to have some sort of defensive security technology. I don't even think I would have a problem with that as long as it really was defensive, although I'd prefer that it be a requirement on operating system companies rather then end users... so I don't have to buy new software. The most compelling problem with this proposal is that "virus scanners" per say only really make sense on windows machines. Its technically possible to have viruses on any os, but the scale of the problem isn't the same. Unix machines tend to have different kinds of security problems.

Of course, it only gets worse from there. A congressional committee sitting around har haring about virus writers being primarily motivated by the fact that they "can't get dates..." Seems like a standard "making fun of the geeks" comment, but think about it. This isn't junior high school or even a sitcom. These people actually run large social institutions. They are in a congressional committee hearing and they are discussing questions that are ostensibly significant to national security.

These people actually think that all normal people are extroverted, and that introverted people are dangerous, and also pitiful. Don't these people have a basic understanding of the notion of personality types? Why do we have people who never took a psychology class in college running the country? Oh, yeah, thats right, we've just handed one of the largest economies in the world over to a professional body builder. Never mind. The world is supposed to be run by morons. Otherwise, we wouldn't have any wars.

A Congressional hearing rife with quotables...

] The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) issued on Wednesday a
] draft criticizing visual verification tests Web-based
] e-mail services and other Internet businesses use. The
] tests are designed to prevent software robots from
] registering numerous accounts and harvesting information
] for spam schemes and the like.

This is something that you are likely to see on MemeStreams soon, so any discussion here is pretty timely... Fortunately, there is an easy solution for me, which is to ask visually impaired people to email me.

I'm not sure how reasonable the web really is for the visually impaired. It is a visual medium. You scan with your eyes and pick out what you really want to read. If you had to have all of the extraneous menus read to you every time you viewed a page I think I'd skip it and listen to TV instead. RSS feeds that we produce are probably a 1000 times more helpful to blind people then the web pages themselves. Anyone up here know anyone who is visually impaired?

As for federated id systems, any identity like that is either going to have to employ one of the systems we're discussing here, or its going to have to use some sort of personal verification which will be intrusive from a privacy perspective. We could get rid of all the spam in a jiffy if we wanted to eliminate anonymnity. The problem is retaining anonymity while eliminating spam.

W3C criticizes antirobot tests | CNET News.com

] By applying electrical pressure to neighboring atoms of
] two different elements, such as iron and silver, Gleiter
] said an electron deficit or excess can be stimulated
] among the bordering atoms to create a composite material
] that has properties in between the two elements.

This is actually really really neat... Anyone got more information? Can we experiment with this at home?

Scientist opens gate to new elements

inignoct wrote:
] [edit] i'll leave my original post below, but take w/ grain of
] salt. this is the NY Post after all, and i've seen no
] corroboration yet. perhaps i got over excited
] [/edit]

That would be the correct answer. NYPOST is sort of like the National Enquirer. I can't beleive Slashdot also picked this up.

Follow the link here for the MCD press release.

Even if there IS a deal between MCD and Apple it will be a cold day in hell before either Pepsi or MCD pays full price at volume 1 billion, or even 100 million. Its not even a matter of why pay full price when a deal could easily be negotiated, its a matter of the numbers being off the chart. This would probably be the most expensive marketing campaign of all time.

We're talking about $990 million dollars here. This would suck up almost all of their free cashflow. Last year the company's total annual advertising expenditures were $647.6 million.

MCD: We have nothing to announce...

] Unidentified officials told the Washington Post the case
] apparently occurred under a secret presidential "finding"
] that allows the CIA to send suspects to other nations
] without due process to allow those countries to obtain
] information by torture.

To sign such an order is highly illegal and probably grounds for impeachment.

Bush Administration policy directly connected to torture case?

] "If this is the case, it is not only a violation of both
] domestic and international law but it reveals the
] willingness of U.S. officials to trample on the most
] fundamental principles of due process and human rights in
] their scorched-earth approach to counterterrorism," Watt
] said.

Even Fox News is roasting USG on this one.

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Detained Deportee Tells of Torture in Syria

] Prime Minister Jean Chretien on Wednesday protested the
] U.S. treatment of a Canadian citizen who was detained in
] New York and deported to Syria last year on suspicion of
] having links to terrorists.

Overzealous officials had an (apparently innocent) Canadian man deported to Syria, where he was tortured for 10 months, because another man suspected of being connected to Al'Q co-signed a rental lease with him in 1997. This person is a Canadian citizen. I cannot comprehend why the U.S. Government felt it was more appropriate to turn him over to Syria, a state that is one of the U.S.'s declared enemies, then Canada, a trusted ally. All of the motives that I can imagine are inappropriate. If you prefer to send suspects to countries that don't have civil liberties and due process then you basically don't support civil liberties and due process. If that is the case you shouldn't be working in the United States Government.

(BTW, the British press used the word "condemns" where the Post says "protests." Chretien's exact words were "unacceptable and deplorable.")

Chretien Protests Deportation of Canadian (washingtonpost.com)