] A GPRS adapter for laptops comes in handy when you're out
] of range of a 802.11b network. The Buslink USB adapter
] has both - GPRS and 802.11b - to give you the best of
] both worlds.

Buslink's GPRS 802.11b USB Adapter

] Orthopedists say they are seeing an increasing number of
] patients with a condition known as "overuse syndrome" or
] "BlackBerry thumb" -- caused by increasing use of
] handheld devices.

Your Blackberry vs. Your Thumbs - April 25, 2005

] Dan Gillmor becomes the first person to call what we're
] now seeing happening on the web Web 3.0 in his article
] about the web as an operating system...
]
] It's a good read. Dan talks about the early days of Web
] 1.0 as a read-only system, and the still evolving Web 2.0
] as a read-write system, then goes on to talk about API's,
] and picturing the web as a programable OS..

Web 3.0 | Threadwatch.org

] The Anemone Clock is an alarm clock that was designed to
] awaken a person with a little more personality. Unlike
] other alarm clocks, the Anemone clock challenges a person
] when awakening. The twist to this clock is that when the
] alarm goes off the clock rumbles intensely, therefore
] making it a little harder to find the off switch. The
] clock also bounces away from the origin, due to the
] rumbling, thus creating another challenge of getting out
] of bed and chasing the clock around the room, kind of
] like a pet. After capturing the clock, one must hold on
] to the clock while the clock rumbles the person awake.
] This clock was designed because alarm clocks are just to
] easy to turn off, which generally leads back to sleeping
] again. The Anemone clock awakens a person by means of
] sound, light, movement, and interaction.

Sounds like fun, except that I suspect that my "other" pet
alarm clock would take a great interest in getting out of bed
and chasing the clock around the room and then reducing it to
small rubber and plastic pieces. Noisy, expensive chew toy.

aaron tang

] I had heard plenty about how powerful the Cell processor
] is, but all those gigaflops and whatnot didn%u2019t mean
] a whole lot to me. Finally, I'm starting to get a
] clearer picture of what it can actually do. In a
] demonstration at the "COOL Chips VIII" show
] held by Toshiba in Yokohama last week, a Cell processor
] setup decoded 48 SDTV resolution MPEG-2 video streams
] simultaneously. The videos were then thumbnailed, tiled,
] and displayed at a resolution of 1920 x 1080.
] There's more potential, though -- of the eight
] "SPE" signal processors inside the Cell chip,
] six were used for video decoding, one for video output,
] and one was left idle. For those that may have missed it,
] Sony plans on putting a Cell processor inside each and
] every Playstation 3.

Cell Processor Demos MPEG-2 x 48 : Gizmodo

ibenez wrote:
] The more secure a system, the less usable it is.

That is not necessarily a direct relationship.

Closer, and what your example was talking about:

The more secure a system, the less accessable it is.

I have a great secured machine -- poured concrete blocks it from
even being plugged in. Worthless as a computer. I have a fairly
secure machine -- a laptop in a safe deposit box. Value of its
data doesn't change day to day; might as well be one of the stock
certificates stored with it. I have a desktop with a firewall and
a net connection -- every day it becomes just a little bit more
important to me. Straightforward relationship and trade off.

However, researchers have tried to demonstrate that usability is
critical for security -- see "Why Johnny Can't Encrypt" as an
example. Security at the consumer level, at least, which is what
we're talking about in the context of Longhorn. The
value of a consumer-focused system is that which is created
by the user. If the user can't use it for value creation,
the security becomes less significant.

But if the security isn't usable, it won't be used. Why does
everybody use public key cryptography when talking to Amazon, but
not in their email to their family? Usability.

RE: Hack In The Box - Keeping Knowledge Free - www.hackinthebox.org

] Brunch is the perfect collision of luxury and necessity.
] You must eat. Why not eat a meal of creative courses
] comfortably, among friends and family, at a time of day
] when we feel most relaxed?

Brunch Hour: Settling in for a celebration of ease

] When Hunter Thompson's first book, Hell's Angels, was
] published in 1967, I assigned him to write about his
] promotional tour for The Realist. Because he was having
] financial problems, I paid him $200 in advance. Later, I
] extended his deadline and offered to send him some LSD if
] it would help.
]
]
] "Good," he wrote back. "I've blown every deadline I've
] had for the past few months and it's good to find
] somebody with a schedule as fucked up as mine. The action
] here for the past two months has been unbelievable. All
] at once I got evicted, my wife went into a lingering
] two-month miscarriage and my lawyer came out from San
] Francisco and flipped out so badly that the two sheriff's
] deputies took him one Saturday night 200 miles across
] mountains to the state loony bin... As for acid, thanks
] but I'm suddenly OK."

New York's Premier Alternative Newspaper. Arts, Music, Food, Movies and Opinion

Catonic wrote:
] It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists
] on other
] planets, this may be the first message received from us.
] -- The Realist, November, 1964.

It is worth considering the source. /The Realist/ was not a particularly factual magazine. The creator and author was Paul Krassner (http://www.paulkrassner.com/). There is a bio (http://www.paulkrassner.com/pkbio.htm) that gives some juicy quotes.

Or, from http://www.sevenstories.com/book/index.cfm/GCOI/58322100706950

] In 1958, having decided that what the world needed was a satirical
] magazine for adults, Krassner began publishing The Realist, and has
] continued to do so, on and off, ever since. People magazine calls
] him the "father of the underground press." Library Journal calls The
] Realist "the best satirical magazine in America."

RE: Where is this place?

] MCI embraced a $9.75 billion takeover bid from Qwest on
] Saturday, finally succumbing to pressure to scrap its
] lower-priced deal with Verizon.

Succumbing to pressure: got the number they couldn't walk from.

] Verizon Communications Inc. now has five business days to
] respond with an improved proposal or walk away the loser
] after a nearly three-month bidding war.

loser: $200M breakup fee

] MCI Inc. said its board of directors, after shunning
] three prior bids from Qwest Communications Inc., had
] determined that the latest offer was superior to the
] long-distance phone company's $7.5 billion agreement with
] Verizon.

$9.75B > $7.5B? Really? Every day?

] Alternatively, the New York-based phone company could
] call for an immediate vote on its deal by MCI
] shareholders, hoping that enough are fearful of Qwest's
] shaky finances and strategic outlook.

fearful of Qwest's...: are owners not investors

] Verizon, one of the nation's two biggest local and
] wireless phone companies, said in a statement Saturday it
] would consider all its options. It questioned whether
] Qwest's higher offer would be "sufficient compensation
] for the increased risks associated with completing the
] transaction and executing the business plan."

"sufficient compensation": as if the short-term owners care
more about the long-term prospects versus a $2.25B premium.
What a concept.

] However, Denver-based Qwest also sounded a note of
] distrust after being treated as a second-class suitor for
] so long, its prior offers used chiefly a lever for
] extracting more money from Verizon.
]
] "We expect MCI to build upon its declaration of
] superiority with specific acts of support, including
] expeditiously seeking regulatory approvals of a
] transaction that it considers superior and in the best
] interests of its shareowners," the statement said.

Translation: "You thought your jobs were at risk. Ha.
What jobs? Wait... If you want $$, we can bring it, but
you have to be Good Little Executives. Stall, and no
Carrot!"

Update 4: MCI Embraces Qwest's $9.75B Takeover Bid - Forbes.com