] A new type of pump to help failing hearts will undergo
] clinical trials in autumn 2004 in the UK. Its design is
] intended to solve the problems of mechanical failure
] and blood clotting that have bedevilled artificial hearts
] and pumps since they were invented.
]
] The pump also has a curious side effect: people implanted
] with the device have no pulse.

[ Neat! -k]

Article: Simpler pump boosts failing hearts| New Scientist

] British Gas was cited as the Most Invasive Company, after
] it declared that U.K. privacy rules prevented it from
] helping an elderly couple who were found dead of
] hypothermia in their home last winter, weeks after their
] gas service was cut off due to nonpayment of a 140-pound
] ($255) bill.
]
]
] British Gas said the Data Protection Act, intended to
] ensure that personal information is protected, prohibited
] it from reporting the situation to social services
] agencies that could have helped the couple restore
] heating service.

[ oi. -k]

Wired News: Stepping on Big Brother's Toes

] "The finding represents a renaissance in prion biology,"
] says Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner, also from the
] University of California, San Francisco, who contributed
] to the research. Prusiner coined the term 'prion' and was
] the first to postulate the 'protein-only' hypothesis
] about infection. "For the first time, we can create
] prions in a test tube. We now have a tool for exploring
] the mechanism by which a protein can spontaneously fold
] into a shape that causes disease."

[ At no point does this article mention that this could lead to simple mechanisms for prion synthesis... wouldn't that make it easier to make weapons out of this? Not useful for warfare, but great for terror, no? Do you have to injest or could the proteins be aerosolized? I'm not going chicken little here, but it seems like a danger worth considering. -k]

news@nature.com - Lab-made prions trigger mad cow symptoms

[ Might possibly not suck. Here's hoping. -k]

BATMAN BEGINS

] A fallacy is, very generally, an error in reasoning. This
] differs from a factual error, which is simply being wrong
] about the facts. To be more specific, a fallacy is an
] "argument" in which the premises given for the conclusion
] do not provide the needed degree of support.

A collection of clue sticks for your next political "discussion." Read number 41 (Straw Man) for a good example.

[ Cool site. Nice to have a quick reference to these. I was particularly drawn to 2. Ad Hominem Tu Quoque. -k]

Fallacies

] "It's a pretty big stretch for her to claim any ownership
] rights, since on the Internet those rights are only
] extended for commercial use," Internet law specialist
] John Dozier of the Virginia firm Dozier Internet Law.

If you take a company's name and register is as a personal domain name they can sue the piss out of you for it, but if a company takes your personal domain name and names a book or movie after it you have no recourse.

[ Interesting, and unfortunate, situation. It's not as simple as it seems. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Isn't it the case that titles are never copyrightable, so at the very least the publisher has no legal argument against her. It seems, really, that she has a much greater right to the name than they, since she was using it, if not commercially, then at least in such a way that her reputation was tied into it. Almost seems like she should be able to tell the publisher/author to fuck off and pick another title. But i don't know. Is a domain name more like a title for your content when it's not actually a trademark? I'll have to think about this more.

In the end, it just sucks, since Jones effectively lost the domain, not b/c the publisher took it away, but because it's rendered useless for it's intended purpose. -k

p.s. no reflection on the author or her story, but it's not a great name for a book in the first place. ]

CNN.com - Owner of katie.com says she was victim, too -- of privacy invasion - Jul 27, 2004

] I call it the Kerry trade, which is not to be confused
] with the "carry trade," a major position among hedge
] funds involving money borrowed at low U.S. interest rates
] and invested in products that pay higher rates.
]
] The Kerry trade has been rampant on Wall Street in the
] last several weeks as large investors sell their holdings
] to hedge against the possibility that the Massachusetts
] junior senator could actually, might possibly win in
] November.
]
] The theme behind it is that if a tax-and-spend Democrat
] wins the White House, the stock market will immediately
] tank, so better to sell now and be in cash as long as the
] polls indicate that it could be a close vote.
]
] But the theme is wrong for several reasons.

Unwinding the Kerry trade - Commentary: Sell Iraq, buy the economy

] The U.S. Census Bureau has provided population data on
] Arab-Americans to the Department of Homeland Security,
] including their ancestry and the cities and postal areas
] in which they live, The New York Times reported on
] Friday.
]
]
] While the information sharing is legal, so long as the
] data do not identify individuals, civil liberties and
] Arab-American groups called it a breach of public trust
] and likened it to steps taken against Japanese-Americans
] in World War II, the newspaper said.
]
]
] One set of data listed cities with more than 1,000
] Arab-Americans. The other, more detailed set, provided
] ZIP code breakdowns and sorted Arab-Americans by country
] of origin. The categories were Egyptian, Iraqi,
] Jordanian, Lebanese, Moroccan, Palestinian, Syrian,
] "Arab/Arabic" and "Other Arab."

[ Hmmm. -k]

US News Article | Reuters.com

But we suggest the potential utility of reputation services is far greater, touching nearly every aspect of society. By leveraging our limited and local human judgement power with collective networked filtering, it is possible to promote an interconnected ecology of socially beneficial reputation systems -- to restrain the baser side of human nature, while unleashing positive social changes and enabling the realization of ever higher goals.

[ I finally mangaed to read this entire paper, and so I'm finally comfortable recommending it. There's not a great deal of depth in any area, of course, but as a general survey of the current state of thinking/efforts in this area, it makes a great starting point. I recognized many of the citations, but not most of them, and there are a lot. Any non-expert who's interested in reputation systems will probably find something worthwhile here. -k]

Manifesto for the Reputation Society

] With a deep feeling of sadness and anger, the
] international medical humanitarian organization Doctors
] Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announces
] the closure of all medical programs in Afghanistan. MSF
] is taking this decision in the aftermath of the killing
] of five MSF aid workers in a deliberate attack on June 2,
] 2004, when a clearly marked MSF vehicle was ambushed in
] the northwestern province of Badghis. Five of our
] colleagues were mercilessly shot in the attack. This
] targeted killing of five of its aid workers is
] unprecedented in the history of MSF, which has been
] delivering medical humanitarian assistance in some of the
] most violent conflicts around the world over the last 30
] years.

[ That's not good. Didn't we liberate Afghanistan or something? -k]

Doctors Without Borders Withdraws From Afghanistan