] Earlier this month, I described a friend of mine who was
] responsible for a corporate network notable for its aging
] applications infrastructure. At the end of the column
] I proposed a contest and asked you all to send in your
] own entries to qualify for the "oldest living software"
] application. Needless to say, I got some great entries.

classic.

Winners Of The 'Oldest Software' Contest

] Researchers at Holloman AFB have broken their own two
] decades old land speed record for rail vehicles. The
] rocket powered sled covered the 3 mile track in roughly 6
] seconds. Preliminary numbers put the sled's speed at mach
] 8.6 or about 6,400 mph - it covered the last 1.8 miles in
] just 1.3 seconds. The previous record of 6,122 mph was
] set on Oct. 5, 1982. Other accounts are at the Alamogordo
] Daily News, the Denver Post, and CNN

where can I get one???

Land Speed Record Broken: 0-6,400 in Six Seconds

Even as White House political aides plot a 2004 campaign plan designed to capitalize on the emotions and issues raised by the September 11 terror attacks, administration officials are waging a behind-the-scenes battle to restrict public disclosure of key events relating to the attacks.

...

By refusing to declassify many of its most significant conclusions, the administration has essentially thwarted congressional plans to release the report by the end of this month, congressional and administration sources tell NEWSWEEK. In some cases, these sources say, the administration has even sought to “reclassify” some material that was already discussed in public testimony—a move one Senate staffer described as “ludicrous.” The administration’s stand has infuriated the two members of Congress who oversaw the report—Democratic Sen. Bob Graham and Republican Rep. Porter Goss.

...

In Graham’s view, the Bush administration isn’t protecting legitimate issues of national security but information that could be a political “embarrassment,” the aide said. Graham, who last year served as Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, recently told NEWSWEEK: “There has been a cover-up of this."

...

... because the document relied so heavily on secret material, the administration “working group,” overseen by CIA director George Tenet, had to first “scrub” the document and determine which portions could be declassified.

More than two months later, the working group came back with its decisions—and some members were flabbergasted. Entire portions remained classified. Some of the report—including some dealing with matters that had been extensively aired in public, such as the now famous FBI “Phoenix memo” of July 2001 reporting that Middle Eastern nationals might be enrolling in U.S. flight schools—were “reclassified.”

...

One portion deals extensively with the stream of U.S. intelligence-agency reports in the summer of 2001 suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning an upcoming attack against the United States—and implicitly raises questions about how Bush and his top aides responded. One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike “in the coming weeks,” the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: “The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”

The substance of that intelligence report was first disclosed at a public hearing last September by staff director Hill. But at the last minute, Hill was blocked from saying precisely who within the Bush White House got the briefing when CIA director Tenet classified the names of the recipients. (One source says the recipients of the briefing included Bush himself.) As a result, Hill was only able to say the briefing was given to “senior government officials.”

...

Hopefully the truth will find its way into the light about 9/11 someday. Bush's administration is doing everything in their power to keep the lid on the truth. It wouldn't help his re-election bid if the public knew he sat on his ass and let it happen.

If you live in America, if you call this your home, wouldn't you like to know everything possible about 9/11? I still want to know why the Air Force was told to stand down that day. I still want to know more about those fishy stock put options and how they were traced back to A.B. Brown. What is the classified information linking the Israeli spy ring in America to 9/11?

Lots of unanswered questions. Keep the issues alive.

The Secrets of September 11

] NHL playoff hockey. Sudden-death overtime. Sometimes,
] slow-death overtime, like when the Ducks beat the Stars
] in the fourth-longest game in NHL history last week.
] Nothing like it. Lots of great playoff games have gone
] long. So we give you the best of the overtime
] drama from the NHL playoffs.

My personal fave is when Yzerman scored on St. Louis in game 7's OT a few years back. I gave myself a concussion from hitting my head on the ceiling I lept so high.

Playoff hockey. Nothing like it on the planet.

] The US spends almost $50 billion each year on education,
] so why aren't kids learning? Forty percent of students
] lack basic reading skills, and their academic performance
] is dismal compared with that of their foreign
] counterparts. In response to this crisis, schools are
] skilling-and-drilling their way "back to basics," moving
] toward mechanical instruction methods that rely on
] line-by-line scripting for teachers and endless
] multiple-choice testing. Consequently, kids aren't
] learning how to think anymore - they're learning how to
] memorize. This might be an ideal recipe for the future
] Babbitts of the world, but it won't produce the kind of
] agile, analytical minds that will lead the high tech
] global age. Fortunately, we've got Grand Theft Auto: Vice
] City and Deus X for that.
]
] After school, kids are devouring new information,
] concepts, and skills every day, and, like it or not,
] they're doing it controller in hand, plastered to the TV.
] The fact is, when kids play videogames they can
] experience a much more powerful form of learning than
] when they're in the classroom. Learning isn't about
] memorizing isolated facts. It's about connecting and
] manipulating them. Doubt it? Just ask anyone who's beaten
] Legend of Zelda or solved Morrowind.

High Score Education

] Some in Silicon Valley have learned to stop worrying and
] love the bust. Here's why.

blogged for future reference

Learning to love the bust.

This is a great collection of spoofed pictures and quotes from "Baghdad Bob." My favorites are the Matrix movie poster, and the picture of Sahaf having been hired by Toronto as their "No SARS" spokesman: "Toronto has no SARS virus, none at all, we did have one or two mild cases of hay fever, but they have been completely overcome..." Heh.

New Careers for the Iraqi (Mis)Information Minister

] The Baby Bells may have bilked consumers out of billions
] by inflating the cost of their networks. Regulators seem
] content to overlook the matter.

um, Hello? People have been saying this for years! When is DC going to wake up and finally JUST SAY NO to the telecom lobby? At what point do we stop paying the universal service fee, so that the Bells can fatten their margins and stranglehold the market instead of providing Grandma Jones out in the country with affordable service?

Shortchanged by the Bells

] CCS International, a surveillance products company in New
] Rochelle, NY, estimates that ordinary Americans are
] buying surveillance devices, many of dubious legality, at
] a clip of $6 million a day. We have met the enemy of our
] privacy, and it is us.

a great article that talks about how loss of privacy is not inevitable.

Surveillance Nation Part Two

] Cray is not likely to garner much attention when it
] reports first-quarter earnings on April 28. Like its much
] larger competitors, Cray is in the computer business but
] at $155 million in sales, it's too small to register on
] most radars.
]
]
] But it should be. The company's sales have grown at an
] annualized 30% since being acquired by Tera Computer in
] early 2000. Even better, Cray (nasdaq: CRAY - news -
] people ) is building a system that will best the Japanese
] Earth Simulator computer and give the U.S. the title for
] world's fastest computer

If you're a geek like me, you had pictures of Cray's computers posted on your bedroom wall as a teenager. Cool to hear that one of the first X1's is going into Oak Ridge.

Cray's Quiet Revolution