] Since the Riyadh bombings, Saudi authorities have
] arrested more than 200 suspects. More than a dozen
] militants and at least 10 security men have also died in
] gunbattles with extremists.

In a classic case of, excuse the language here, but, shitting where you sleep, Al'Q manages to do what years of aggressive US "diplomacy" has failed to do. They got the Saudi government to crack down. They have also sent a clear message to Libya, Iran, Malaysia, and other countries that have been afraid to crack down that they are unlikely to be safe. Thus, proving, once again, something that anyone who has worked as a security professional is quite aware of, but can never assume:

Bad guys are usually stupid.
Stupid people always fuck up.

ABCNEWS.com : Saudi Raids Uncover Network of Extremists

] The next step was autonomous, humanoid robots. The
] mechanics of walking were not simple, but Honda had
] proven that those problems could be solved with the
] creation of its ASIMO robot at the turn of the century.
] Sony and other manufacturers followed Honda's lead. Over
] the course of two decades, engineers refined this
] hardware and the software controlling it to the point
] where they could create humanoid bodyforms with the grace
] and precision of a ballerina or the mass and sheer
] strength of the Incredible Hulk.

Iclough's memeings about robots made me go back and look at this essay.

This was making the rounds a few weeks ago. I ignored it because he started off talking about McDonald's Kiosks. We had those in Murfreesboro in the early 90's. Hasn't gone anywhere. Not exciting...

However, a fully automated McDonalds is an easy thing to imagine. We (finally) can buy robotic lawn mowers. The primary problem with these things is battery power. As fuel cells become a reality robotic lawn mowers and vacuum cleaners will become common place in American homes. People will have their weekends free.

What is a combine but a big lawn mower? Robotic combines are already running at Texas A&M. The food gets automatically harvested.

Transportation? They have a Humvee at Georgia Tech that drives itself. This can be aided with the right kind of infrastructure in the roads. When the time comes, we'll build it. The food will move from the farm to the plant automatically. Its already processed automatically. Then it will move automatically to the store, where a kisok will take your order. Cooking it? Easy I think. I'm actually somewhat amazed that people still cook fries. The mechanical motion is so simple. They really only need a person there to make sure that nothing goes wrong... And we're off...

I agree with the author that we will see a lot of robotics in our lives in the next few decades. It will be an important growth industry. I also agree that honda's humanoid robot is a tremendous achievement.

However, this article gets several things wrong.

A leap of logic is made between humanoid robots and robots doing human jobs. Many human jobs are a lot more complex then we think. Cleaning a room is incredibly complex, when you consider how varied the environments can be, and the need to ID so many different kinds of objects, and sort them properly. This is a tremendous knowledge problem. I will admit that more computing power could help you tacle it, but its just an example. The point is that human's easily handle situations that are very complex to program because humans aren't computers. More on that below.

This article assumes that Moore's law will continue unabated. This is a bad assumption. Moore's law has a shelf life that will end in a decade or two. You can't get smaller then atoms, and no engineering breakthrough is going to fix th... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

Robotic Nation, by Marshall Brain

] If there is a quotation going around and no one knows the
] source, they will probably attribute it to Thomas
] Jefferson. Or so it seems. Experience suggests,
] however, if there is a so-called "Thomas Jefferson Quote"
] and it does not identify the precise source, who it was
] written to and the date, then more than likely it is a
] fake. Below is a summary of some apparently spurious
] quotes that have come to my attention. Some of the
] quotes are discussed more fully in other essays, and the
] indicated link will bring you to the relevant essay.

Jeffersonian Perspective: Spurious Jefferson Quotes

] The short of it is, their DMCAbot(TM) found
] /distfiles/INFMapPacks123FULL-MAN.zip, picked out the
] words "Pac" and "Man", and is now threatening us under
] the DMCA for distributing a pirated version of Pacman.

In this case they simply asked that the material be taken down, but this is all that it takes to get someone's personal contact information.

A good example of a bad DMCA subpoena

] A vaccine using a harmless relative of the West Nile
] virus could offer a way to protect people against the
] disease, researchers in Australia said on Monday.

West Nile vaccine

] This paper explores a novel interface to a system
] administration task. Instead of creating an interface de
] novo for the task, the author modified a popular computer
] game, Doom, to perform useful work.

Doom as an Interface for Process Management

Internet on fire. Bill Gates to blame (again).

Internet Storm Center

] For all they share economically and culturally, Canada
] and the United States are increasingly at odds on basic
] social policies -- to the point that at least a few
] discontented Americans are planning to move north and try
] their neighbors' way of life.

CNN.com - Dismayed Americans contemplate Canada - Jul. 19, 2003

] FCC Chairman Michael Powell has indicated that he would
] like to move more Internet access services into the
] category of "information services," which have fewer
] regulations and likely would not be subject to CALEA.
] That alarms DSL providers such as EarthLink, which fear
] that deregulation means that former Baby Bells such as
] Verizon and BellSouth will raise their rates for access
] to the copper wire that runs to telephone subscribers'
] homes.

As CALEA was originally written, it would have required anyone building any kind of network to provide the FBI with access at the location of the FBI's choice. I.E. run a cable between two computers in your house, and you'll have to run a third cable to Kansas for the FBI. And, as originally written, you pick up the tab for it.

Well, the phone companies managed to get the feds to agree to pick up the tab, and the EFF managed to get the law to only apply to telecom services and not information services. Of, course, the EFF did this by agreeing to support the law if it only applied to telecom. This was the endorsement the FBI needed to get the law passed, and the internet community was very unhappy with this compromise. The result was that the EFF split in two. Part of it (the anti-compromise piece) retained the name EFF and moved to San Francisco (it was felt that actually living in Washington had corrupted them), the other part (pro-compromise) stayed in Washington and became known as the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT).

Now, the impracticalities of connecting small computer networks to some sort of central monitoring center aside, when I, and I think most people, read the resulting compromise, it was clear that CALEA applied to POTS telephone service and that is all.

While it was inevitable that this would come up again, additional Congressional action is required. The way that they are attempting to avoid this oversight by confusing the issue with that of telecom competition is clearly dishonest, and I am very disappointed to see Earthlink, of all companies, gleefully jumping on the bandwagon.

The FBI's insidious CALEA strategy

] Chaos had advanced. The kitchen was a shambles of broken
] glass and china. The dining-room was stripped of parquet,
] the skirting was up, the door had been taken off its
] hinges, and the destroyers had moved up a floor. Streaks
] of light came in through the closed shutters where they
] worked with the seriousness of creators - and
] destruction after all is a form of creation. A kind of
] imagination had seen this house as it had now become.

Graham Greene; The Destructors