] "I think there should be a huge outcry over his firing.
] It is that kind of intimidation against scientists
] speaking their minds that can be extremely dangerous to
] our society," Rubin said.

Security Expert Geer Sounds Off on Dismissal

... "Japan and India have managed to blend traditional social structures with modern democracy, and Iraq could do the same." But it will take time and finesse, along with respect for traditions like women wearing the veil. "A key purpose of veiling is to prevent outsiders from competing with a woman's cousins for marriage. Attack veiling, and you are attacking the core of the Middle Eastern social system."

Iraqi Family Ties Complicate American Efforts for Change

] Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X-Prize
] Foundation, said he expects that one of the two teams
] will launch within the next few months, using rockets and
] spacecraft that are already being tested and prepared for
] the daring venture.

CNN.com - Private space race nears finale - Sep. 29, 2003

(U: BTW, the section of this article that deals with prisons is worth the price of admission, but I'll focus on something else...)

] 4. Incandescent Light Bulbs
]
] In reality, these sad devices are heat bulbs.
] Supposedly a lighting technology, they produce nine times
] more raw heat than they do illumination. The light they
] do give, admittedly, is still prettier than the eerie
] glow of compact fluorescents and light-emitting diodes.
] But it's still a far cry from the glories of natural
] daylight.
]
] Plus there's the cost of light bulbs, their
] fragility, the replacement overhead, the vast waste of
] energy, glass, and tungsten, the goofy hassle of running
] air conditioners to do battle with the blazing heat of
] all these round little glass stoves let's face
] it, these gizmos deserve to vanish.
]
] They will be replaced by a superior technology, something
] cheap, cool, and precisely engineered, that emits visible
] wavelengths genuinely suited to a consumer's human
] eyeball. Our descendants will stare at those
] vacuum-shrouded wires as if they were whale-oil lanterns.

So, they are slowly replacing traffic lights with LED lights in atlanta. If LEDs are bright enough for this purpose, one must imagine that you could create a suitable light bulb replacement that:

A. Screws into a socket.
B. Essentially consists of a stick covered in white leds.
C. Has a translucent plastic filter covering it which only emits "lightbulb" wavelengths.

Why is this hard?

(U: Maybe the power transformer you'll need to convert your whopping 120 volts of AC power into 5VDC will create just as much waste heat as your lights did. As almost every device in your house now has an AC to DC power converter, maybe it makes sense to start talking about putting a centralized AC to DC converter in your house and running two circuits, an AC cicuit for major appliances, and a DC circuit for basically everything else. It would reduce a lot of costs, and improve the safety of most home wiring. Of course, cutting over to something like this would be a huge effort that would require widespread coordination from several industries. (For those of you who aren't electronics savvy, basically what I'm saying is that your house ought to have the "power supply" rather then your computer.)

Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die

] Network Solutions, a full-service provider of domain
] names, Web sites and e-mail services, today announced
] specific precautions customers can take to protect their
] personal information associated with their domain name
] registrations with the launch of a new consumer privacy
] advocate Web site, http://www.internetprivacyadvocate.org

It would obviously be totally out of character for them to do something benevolent. So what is the deal here? OIC, they want you to file a comment asking ICANN to allow Network Solutions to prohibit bulk whois transfers. Obvious there are privacy implications, but obviously bulk whois transfers were not created for the benefit of spammers in the first place. Who needs bulk access to this data? Who is getting screwed here? Anyone know?

Network Solutions(R) Launches Internet Privacy Web Site

] The meeting is free and open to the public. Please
] pre-register at http://register.icann.org. ICANN also
] plans to webcast the meeting live. Further details
] including an agenda, background materials and webcast
] arrangements are available at http://secsac.icann.org.

There is a list of meeting attendees on the website. We'll be able to watch ICANN do nothing LIVE on the INTERNET! That is assuming we don't mistype the URL...

ICANN | Announcement | 30 September 2003

] Transportation Security Administration Chief
] Administrator James Loy said Friday if no airlines
] voluntarily provide data for a 180-day testing period of
] the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System
] (CAPPS II) scheduled for later this year, he will issue a
] security directive mandating the airlines provide the
] information.

TSA May Order Airlines to Share Data

] "Every time there is a tragedy or a war, an outcry
] follows about why newspapers choose to publish
] photographs of dead bodies. ... And yet tragedies need
] bodies. ... How can you not have photographs of dead
] bodies during a war?"
]
] The issue calls into question whether traditional media
] are practicing ethical journalism or censoring themselves
] when they choose to withhold certain images.

The press grapples with concerns about graphic images.

News media may withhold gruesome images, but Internet sets them free

] All because we do not have a stateless cryptosystem that
] works. It may very well be that such a demand is
] impossible. Stateless cryptosystems can send a message
] and not only not prenegotiate a session key, but tolerate
] large number of dropped packets. Replay attacks need to
] be suppressed, but packets need to be able to survive
] high latencies. CPU load needs to be kept reasonable,
] but no message can rely on the asymmetric results of
] another.

Interesting response to that recent article on weaknesses in linux crypto packages...

Response to Linux Crypto Packages Demolished

] "Congress is mandating things simply because they want to
] show how tough they are on crime with no sense of whether
] this makes sense or is meaningful," U.S. District Judge
] John S. Martin, a former federal prosecutor, said after
] announcing his resignation in June.

MaximumEdge.com News - Punishment Issue Splits Ashcroft, Judges