I keep hearing the same meme since the war started. It always comes in some form similar to the following:

"It was fine to protest the war, but now that is has started, we should all support it."

The first person I heard say this was Zbigniew Brzezinski during an interview on News Hour a few nights ago. Where was the first place you heard this? Did you hear it from a friend or through the media?

I'm not wanting a discussion of the statement itself, just where you first heard it. A study of the origin, if you will...

Listened to the Morning Edition NPR at this link (RealAudio req'd.) 5 minutes long. Pretty interesting blurbs from a battalion in northern Kuwait getting ready for combat. They're switching to MRE's, getting combat ammo, and breaking the seals on their biosuits. This battalion was scheduled to go home this week. Looks like they're staying and getting ready for war instead.

A friend who served in Desert Storm said, "Sounds familiar." I think it will hit in the next couple of weeks, what do you think?

Locked and Loaded

* If deadly radiation knocks on your door, do not answer

READY.GOV :: Helping America Prepare for Fiery Death

Jon Lech Johansen has been acquitted of all charges in a trial that tested the legality of the DeCSS DVD decryption utility he produced, Norwegian paper Aftenposten reports.

Jon Lech Johansen

From John Watkinson, The Art of Digital Audio, 2nd edition, pg. 104:

In the early days of digital audio research, the necessary bandwidth of about 1 Mbps per audio channel was difficult to store. Disk drives had the bandwidth but not the capacity for long recording time, so attention turned to video recorders. These were adapted to store audio samples by creating a pseudo-video waveform which would convey binary as black and white levels. The sampling rate of such a system is constrained to relate simply to the field rate and field structure of the television standard used, so that an integer number of samples can be stored on each usable TV line in the field. Such a recording can be made on a monochrome recorder, and these recording are made in two standards, 525 lines at 60 Hz and 625 lines at 50 Hz. Thus it is possible to find a frequency which is a common multiple of the two and is also suitable for use as a sampling rate.

The allowable sampling rates in a pseudo-video system can be deduced by multiplying the field rate by the number of active lines in a field (blanking lines cannot be used) and again by the number of samples in a line. By careful choice of parameters it is possible to use either 525/60 or 625/50 video with a sampling rate of 44.1KHz.

In 60 Hz video, there are 35 blanked lines, leaving 490 lines per frame or 245 lines per field, so the sampling rate is given by :

60 X 245 X 3 = 44.1 KHz

In 50 Hz video, there are 37 lines of blanking, leaving 588 active lines per frame, or 294 per field, so the same sampling rate is given by

50 X 294 X3 = 44.1 Khz.

The sampling rate of 44.1 KHz came to be that of the Compact Disc. Even though CD has no video circuitry, the equipment used to make CD masters is video based and determines the sampling rate.

Mitnick was freed in January 2000. The terms of his probation, which expire January 20, require he get government permission before using computers, software, modems or any devices that connect to the Internet.

Kevin Mitnick: Back Online

Says Funk in the January 2003 issue of Playboy: "It's weird to deconstruct the sounds of sex. It makes you conscious of a lot of stuff you'd normally ignore. I remember thinking shit like, 'Oh, that slap will make a good snare drum.'" If nothing else, concentrating on the tonal qualities of an ass-slap should be an interesting new way for our male readership to forestall orgasm. Just don't forget about her needs, guys. While a full tracklist has yet to be released, it's probably more fun to make up song titles yourself. Here's hoping Hecate doesn't dump Venetian Snakes, prompting a masturbatory solo album.

Nymphomatriarchs

Coca-Cola Co. said yesterday it will no longer issue future earnings estimates, opting instead to let analysts set their own projections for the firm's operations.

Coca-Cola closes door on earnings forecasts

Strange...

Keyboard and keyboard combo (What you say?)

Antidote for the last meme. You'll need Flash, n'joy :)

Horse Quartet