] MOST electric vehicles work by connecting the wheels to a
] motor. But tomorrow a Dutch company plans to unveil a bus
] in which motor and wheel are one, a refinement that
] promises more miles per charge and a vehicle that is
] safer and easier to maintain.

I always thought this would be smart, though i was never convinced of the economic advantage. you sure better not smack into a curb too hard, b/c that's gonna be one expensive wheel replacement. still, sounds nice, and eliminating all those gears is probably good.

With a Motorized Hub, the Wheel on the Bus Goes 'Round

] VeriSign Inc has named four members of a panel of experts
] to conduct a technical review of Site Finder, the
] controversial domain name redirection system the company
] introduced almost three weeks ago.

Don't let this story split under the radar. Yes, this is Brightmail saying Verisign's service is "OK." (Verisign's service breaks some of Brightmail's competitors.) This is also a member of a panel set to "study" the issue stating conclusions in advance of the "study." Their report will be Verisign's ultimate response to ICANN's study. How laughable will this be?

VeriSign Names Site Finder Review Panel - Computer Business Review

] VeriSign Inc., the firm that operates a key piece of the
] Internet's address system, said it would temporarily shut
] down a new service that makes money off the typos of Web
] users after the Internet's oversight body threatened to
] take legal action against the company.

Yeah!!!

VeriSign Freezes Search Service (TechNews.com)

] A Trojan program has emerged in Australia that may be
] triggering a concerted assault on VeriSign's domain name
] server.

ZDNet UK - News - New Trojan appears to attack VeriSign

] For all these reasons, ICANN has today insisted that
] VeriSign suspend the SiteFinder service, and restore the
] .com and .net top-level domains to the way they were
] operated prior to 15 September 2003. If VeriSign does not
] comply with this demand by 6:00 PM PDT on 4 October 2003,
] ICANN will be forced to take the steps necessary to
] enforce VeriSign's contractual obligations.

Yeah!!!!

ICANN | Announcement | 3 October 2003

] The records show that in 2000, 49 children were named
] Canon, followed by 11 Bentleys, five Jaguars and a Xerox.
]
] There is also a Gouda and a Bologna, who are named after
] the cheese and the sausage rather than the places.
]
] Foreign brands are regarded as increasingly chic: Chanel
] is popular among doting mothers, and several boys have
] been named after a Japanese family car called Camry.

NEWS.com.au | Branded anything but Unique (September 29, 2003)

] Anecdotal evidence suggests that a two-year decline in
] congestion is starting to reverse itself, with San
] Francisco Bay Area commuters finding that it's taking
] longer to get to work. While the cause could be any
] number of things, some tech-industry veterans say it may
] be a sign that the economy is picking up.

Upturn may be driving Silicon Valley traffic | CNET News.com

Jeremy wrote:
] A main complaint of email users is that they have to
] waste time every day deleting spam messages from the
] servers on which they lease their little online garden plots
] -- but such deleting is only necessary because the industry
] has its head screwed on backwards.

Yes, this makes sense. Disk space should be available infinitely, particularly in a work context. Old email is very useful data at work. This is worth the expense.

On the other hand, I never get spam at work. I haven't gotten spam at work in years. I dunno if thats because I change jobs too often, or because my work email never gets used in a context where it can become available to spammers, or because if it did, someone would set up filters.

I get spam at home. At home I don't always have infinite disk space, and old email does not seem nearly as useful. But its not so much the cleaning up disk space thats the concern. The concern is that when you have 25 - 50 spams per legitimate email, its often easy to not SEE the emails that matter. The concern is that you don't always want to reply to everything you've gotten in your inbox, but if you leave it will get buried. The problem isn't that you have to delete a couple emails. The problem is that your email account becomes unusable, "spammed out." And as your email account IS your identity on the internet, you've got to change your identity. Once that new identity is established, the spam will start to trickle in again, and over the course of a few years the process repeats itself. Its like you are permanently in the witness protection program to avoid aggressive marketing. Thats why it pisses me off. I really don't feel the same way about paper spam. Its just not as annoying, mostly because its never forced me to move.

RE: Apres Spam

] Remote attestation works by generating, in hardware, a
] cryptographic certificate attesting to the identity of
] the software currently running on a PC. (There is no
] determination of whether the software is good or bad,
] or whether it is compromised or not compromised.
] "Identity" is represented by a cryptographic hash,
] which simply allows different programs to be
] distinguished from one another, or changes in their
] code to be discerned, without conveying any sort of value
] judgment.) This certificate may, at the PC user's
] request, be provided to any remote party, and in
] principle has the effect of proving to that party that
] the machine is using expected and unaltered software. If
] the software on the machine has been altered, the
] certificate generated will reflect this. We will see
] that this approach, although elegant, proves
] problematic.

Software is law.

EFF: Trusted Computing: Promise and Risk

] In the case of Robert Novak publishing the name of an
] undercover CIA WMD expert, it seems at least plausible
] that Bush administration officials (two, and supposedly
] very senior) violated federal law and threatened
] national security for political purposes. So this begs
] the question: will the Justice Department now use these
] same provisions of the Patriot Act to force Novak to disclose
] his notes and contacts?

No. Now, what does that SAY?

[Politech] Replies on Adrian Lamo, FBI using Patriot Act against reporters [fs]