] The more you find out about the world, the more
] opportunities there are to laugh at it.

Best. Quote. Ever.

Eyes of Nye

Ensure you don't become another Terry Schiavo in case some biological tragedy besets you.

I, _________________________ (fill in the blank), being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means.

Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of peckerwood politicians who couldn't pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it.

If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a cold beer, it should be presumed that I won't ever get better. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.

Under no circumstances shall the members of the Legislature enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery. It is my wish that these boneheads mind their own damn business, and pay attention instead to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who aren't in a permanent coma.

Under no circumstances shall any politician butt into this case. I don't care how many fundamentalist votes they're trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency in 2008, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else's life and leave me alone to die in peace.

I couldn't care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me. I don't know these people, and I certainly haven't authorized them to preach and crusade on my behalf. They should mind their own business, too.

If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a political cause, I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or her existence a living hell.


Signed: ________________________________________

Living Will

] These days, CD technology has displaced the cassette in
] the mainstream, and mix CDs have become the new cultural
] love letter/trading post.
...
] Once again, we're being told that home taping (in the
] form of ripping and burning) is killing music. But it's
] not: It simply exists as a nod to the true love and ego
] involved in sharing music with friends and lovers. Trying
] to control music sharing - by shutting down P2P sites or
] MP3 blogs or BitTorrent or whatever other technology
] comes along - is like trying to control an affair of the
] heart. Nothing will stop it.

as someone who literally uses music (others and my own) as my main emotive, this rings very very true.

PLAY!

] The Federal Communications Commission announced Friday
] that states cannot require regional phone companies to
] sell high-speed Internet service as a stand-alone
] product.

DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT!

How is it that the Republicans have gone from 'fiscal conservatism' to 'corporate philantrophy'? This is the largest corporate welfare present with a bow on top since Haliburton got to 'repair' Iraq.

FCC: Phone companies don't have to sell DSL as a stand-alone product - 03/27/05

] The Federal Advisory Committee on Civil Procedure is
] evaluating a series of 'e-discovery' rules that will
] change the way litigation handles electronically stored
] information for the federal courts. Included in this is
] proposed Fed. R. Civ. P. 37 which would exempt parties
] from sanctions for electronic evidence destroyed in a
] 'routine operation of the party's electronic information
] system.

you'd think that storage and backup vendors (EMC, Veritas, HP, etc) would go the opposite direction with this. It seems silly that in one hand, the tech industry is telling its customer base to increase document retention and that "storage of this data is trivial cost" but backing such an ominous move.

Slashdot | Proposed Federal Rules On E-Document Destruction

] Scientists now believe that there is an intrinsic logic
] to our reality, that there are absolutes, laws of nature.
] Much remains a mystery, and as one question is answered,
] many others arise. The question now facing Pennsylvania's
] Dover School District is whether or not the imposition of
] one creation belief on a multi-ethnic, secular student
] body is in keeping with the law that prohibits the
] creation of a state religion. If they allow one belief
] system to be taught, surely they must also teach others?
]
]
] To help out with this dilemma, LiveScience presents a
] list of those Creation Myths that helped define
] civilizations both past and present.

I figured you'd get a kick out of this.

The Top 10 Intelligent Designs (or Creation Myths)

] The father of a 14-year-old Ricker Middle School student
] claims his son told him band teacher Laura L. Findlay
] took him to unfamiliar places and the band room, where
] she performed oral sex and lap dances.
]
] Tuesday, prosecutors upgraded charges against the
] 30-year-old Findlay to 20 counts of first-degree criminal
] sexual conduct with a person younger than 16 from
] third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a person
] younger than 16.

Who knew that there were so many horny female teachers out there. This is like the 4th case in as many months!

Hot for Teacher!

] While defending its policies in court, the FCC will need
] to address several issues related to broadband. For
] instance, should new services like voice over Internet
] Protocol, or VoIP, be regulated? And how should owners of
] networks recover their costs in areas that are expensive
] to serve?

This is ridiculous. I can't believe that the FCC would even consider continuing to support the practice of the Universal Service Fund. Why is it the government's job to subsidize providers to offer service to 'expensive' customers? Why can't they just mandate that everyone needs universal access at standardized pricing and let the damn industry figure out how to provide it in a cost effective manner which preserves their margin? Just because ole Grandma Jones out in the country 'costs more' to service using POTS doesn't mean that a Bell should get reimbursed with your tax dollars and phone bill for their incompentence. Give Grandma Jones a friggin wireless connection! Pulling cable out to her house in the middle of nowhere is STUPID!

Is an 'open' Internet a doomed concept?

] AUTHENTIC alien mummified head skin skull UFO corpse

everything on the Internet is true.

AUTHENTIC alien mummified head skin skull UFO corpse

] Health care, most specialists agree, is a field where
] information technology, if properly used, could help
] reduce medical errors and reduce costs. And several
] companies at the forum were venturing into health care.

I feel a bit more qualified to answer this question than most. The answer is yes and no. Yes, companies like Cisco and Sun and even Microsoft will cease (ceased?) to be growth companies because they cannot innovate and branch off fast enough to keep up with the innovation needed. No, in that what Silicon Valley really is, is a place where new ideas can gain support and traction to grow and prosper. If other places could facilitate this, they could easily rob the Valley of it's station as the best place to start a technology oriented business.

Is Silicon Valley similar to Detroit?