] A U.N. commercial depicts American girls playing in a
] soccer match. A girl steps on a landmine and there's a
] big explosion. Kids get blown apart. CNN and other
] networks don't want to air the ad.

[ It's disturbing, that's for sure. God knows, we wouldn't want to upset anyone. -k]

Boing Boing: U.N. landmine commerical won't air in US.

] Hans Bethe, one of the giants of 20th century physics,
] has died. He was awarded the 1967 Nobel prize in physics
] for his theory on the nuclear reactions that take place
] inside stars and was one of the key figures in the
] Manhattan atomic bomb project during the Second World
] War. After the war he spoke out in favour of arms control
] and nuclear disarmament.

Atom bomb designer dies (March 2005) - News - PhysicsWeb

After decades of listening about Central Processing Units, years of listening about Graphic Processing Units and millimoments of listening about audio processing units, it is time to learn the new term. It's time to start talking about physics processing units (PPUs).

...

The answer is actually an add in card with either PCI Express or a PCI interface with up to 128MB of dedicated GDDR 3 memory that will take over all physics in the games. We saw some cool demos done in software on a laptop of what this card can do. It can operate with 32000 particles/rigid bodies or should I say bones? [You should, Fudo, you should. Ed.] When we talk about fluids, such cards can handle up to 50000 rigid bones. A CPU can do a couple hundred at the most.

...

We saw some cool demos where the company demonstrated "liquid fluids" with many "bones" and you can see the "lava" and "water" stimulations that look much better than ever before. It looks more real and much more alive.

Such cards can give some life to collision detection and can for example make a character go through grass and move every single grass while walking, adding a higher lever of realism into the scene than ever before. Looks cool I have to say. What need for grass?

We also saw some liquid simulations, where you could see blood spilled more realistically than ever before. It's especially good when you blow up a house into the smallest infinitesimal pieces, or bricks and mortar as the INQ calls them. It actually looks out of this world. I cannot imagine this in a war game. It will blow your minds.

[ Super rad. -k]

Age of physics processing units dawns

] So the day after getting signed to the Arizona Cardinals,
] running back Larry Lee Ned decided that the way to
] really, really party would be to swipe somebody%u2019s
] Dell laptop after going through a security checkpoint at
] the airport in Phoenix (the laptop%u2019s owner was still
] being screened). The cops ended up arresting him in
] possession of the laptop in a men's room in Terminal
] 4, and the next day the Cards announced they were
] dropping him from the team.

[ Brilliant. Record for quickest turnaround from success to complete ruination? -k]

Arizona Cardinals running back swipes laptop - Engadget - www.engadget.com

] The EU Council has approved a controversial proposal on
] software patents, despite opposition from numerous
] software developers and some European countries.

[ Grrr, mostly. -k]

EU Council endorses patent bill | CNET News.com

] Young foxes, or kits, scamper in a cage in Siberia,
] Russia, where they are part of a 45-year research project
] to domesticate foxes. Each generation has been
] selectively bred for tameness%u2014fearlessness and
] nonaggression toward humans. By now the foxes in the
] project behave like pet dogs, barking and wagging their
] tails at humans.

[ Crazy. And cute as hell. -k]

Photo in the News: Baby Foxes Going to the Dogs

] Dear Condi, I'm glad you've decided to get over your fit
] of pique and venture north to visit your closest
] neighbour. It's a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe
] more.
]
]
] I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master
] in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with
] participating in a missile-defence system that has failed
] in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves
] were carefully rigged to show results.
]
]
] But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat
] cautious types who can't quite see laying down billions
] of dollars in a three-dud poker game.

[ Lloyd Axworthy, former Canadian foreign minister lays down the smack. The above is just the opening... he's just getting started. Well worth a read. -k]

The Winnipeg Free Press - View from the West

] Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday
] that a new consumption tax such as a national sales tax
] could spark the economy as a partial replacement for
] income taxes.

[ Greenspan may simply be trying to pose this hybrid plan to stir things up a bit in advance of the panel report or administration initiatives. Personally, I'm not a big fan of anything that makes tax less progressive, so I'm skeptical of a national sales tax, but anyway, it's something to think about. -k]

ABC News: Greenspan Touts Consumption Tax

] Go the fuck away! I'm working on some bad-ass computer shit
] right now! I have no time for team spirit!

134 installments of get your office space on. I'm sure some of you will enjoy it.

[ Yeah, this is good stuff, from the Get Your War on guy. Ryan has this in bound book form, I believe... -k]

www.mnftiu.cc | my new filing technique is unstoppable

] Magnetic Stripe Snooping at Home
]
] Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday March 01, @09:59AM
] from the because-you-can dept.
]
] pbrinich writes "Have you ever wondered what information
] is actually stored on all those cards you have in your
] wallet? Well, it turns out you can find out yourself! An
] excellent project, Stripe Snoop started by Billy Hoffman,
] a Georgia Tech computer science student, contains
] schematics, source code and a wide variety of information
] about the standards used to store all sorts of
] information on your magnetic cards."

[ Billy makes the front page of /. Go billy! -k]

StripeSnoop on /.