] Speaking at the American Physical Society's annual March
] conference, William Ditto of the University of Florida
] told of his efforts to create a "chaotic
] computer".

[ Sounds neat. Light on details, but intriguing... -k]

Economist.com | Chaotic computing

] When the 40,000 subscribers to Reason, the monthly
] libertarian magazine, receive a copy of the June issue,
] they will see on the cover a satellite photo of a
] neighborhood - their own neighborhood. And their house
] will be graphically circled.

[ Interesting marketing. Sure to get the debates running strong. -k]

Putting 40,000 Readers, One by One, on a Cover

] It's been called the most ambitious military effort since
] the Manhattan Project, and the centerpiece of Donald
] Rumsfeld's plans to overhaul America's armed forces: a
] $92 billion push to change almost everything about the
] Army by 2010, from the guns GIs carry, to the officers
] they salute, to the tanks they drive.
]
] A new congressional report is alleging that the Future
] Combat Systems program is poised for major delays and a
] financial train wreck. Worst of all, the report claims,
] the Army knew this was going to happen all along.

[ FCS has some good pieces, from the things I've been reading, but like anything else, you have to watch your budget, and I think Rummy is trying to push too hard. Anyway, the GAO appears to think so. -k]

Wired News: GAO Says Army on Road to Ruin

] Guitar virtuoso performs Super Mario Brothers theme
]
] This is an absolutely stellar video of Japanes guitar
] virtuoso KeiicHi performing a rendition of the theme from
] Super Mario Brothers, hendrixing power-up and coin-grab
] sound effects by wringing his axe's neck with long and
] clever fingers. Tasty. 3.7MB WMV Link (via Boing BOing)

[ Totally sick. Especially impressive is the NOTE PERFECT rendering of the "got a coin" sound. The rest are pretty spot on, but that particular sound element is exact. Impressive. -k]

Guitar virtuoso performs Super Mario Brothers theme

] Pioneer Corporation and its subsidiary, Pioneer FA
] Corporation, announced today that they have jointly
] developed a high-precision electron beam recorder (EBR)
] by utilizing their fine-processing technology and
] equipment technology, which will make it easier to
] manufacture master discs for next-generation optical
] discs such as Blu-ray Discs.

[ Holy fuck! 50 GB / side of a 12 cm disc == a-ok! -k]

JCN Japan Corporate News Network - Pioneer To Introduce High Precision Electron Beam Recorder

] FlashMob's goal was audacious and, it turned out,
] unreachable: Making a machine fast enough to rank among
] the top 500 of global supercomputers.

[ Memed a few days ago about this attempt to create an adhoc supercomputer. As it turns out, it seems the variability of hardware issues is what killed it -- too many different kinds of system.

Nonetheless, they got 256 nodes running and pulled a respectable score. As a proof of concept, it proved that the software needs to be more flexible at handling varying hardware. -k]

FlashMob I - Partial Success

] The Treasury Department (news - web sites) directed
] career employees to analyze tax ideas proposed by
] presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) and
] other Democrats after a request from House Majority
] Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, officials said Wednesday.

[ I'm sure it was because the Republicans are just doing their best to take all good ideas and apply them to their own activities. I'm *positive* that none of this data will end up in Bush's campaign activities. Just like Bush's visits to NH, Florida, etc during the Democratic primary season were in no way planned to coincide with the actual primaries and debates -- he just happened to have those places on his schedule, and it's ok to use government resources, because it wasn't at all campaign related. Uh-huh.

Give me a fucking break. Why doesn't the fucking TREASURY DEPARTMENT analyze the tax ideas PUT IN PLACE by the PRESIDENT? This seems like a gross misuse of public (i.e. your and my) resources. Bush can afford to use some of that $170 MILLION to buy private analyses of Kerry's proposals if he wants that.

The analysis concluded that "hardworking individuals and married couples could have their taxes raised" by amounts that ranged from $201 billion to $477 billion.

Way to go with the neutral wording. "Hardworking individuals"! For fucks sake. -k]

Yahoo! News - Treasury Analyzes Kerry's Tax Proposals

] In papers published in the journal Science, two research
] teams describe newfound powers of leptin, the mysterious
] hormone that helps govern hunger and satiety.

[ Pretty interesting science here. -k]

Scientists Detail Hormone's Role in the Impulse to Eat (washingtonpost.com)

] The corruption trial of ex-Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski
] ended in a mistrial Friday after a juror thought to be
] holding out for acquittal received what was being called
] a "coercive letter" in the last 24 hours.

[ Looks like some probable Grand Larcenists get to walk, for now. How do you steal and spend 600 million dollars by the way? Seriously. It's like the movie Brewsters Millions. I'd run out of shit to buy.

funny quote btw : Razzano said that it's not surprising that
the only lawyer on the jury might end up being the only holdout.

"Juror No. 4 was a lawyer, and the problem with having lawyers on
juries is they bring into that jury room with them three years of
legal training. And one of the things that legal training does to
you is it basically beats the common sense out of you," he said.

Judge declares mistrial in Tyco corruption case - Apr. 2, 2004

Upset that the maverick run of Republican Presidential candidate (and incumbent President) George W. Bush could lead to a victory by John Kerry, Ralph Nader called upon Bush to cease splitting the anti-Kerry vote and drop out of the race.

I like Nader.

[ Me too. Just not enough to vote for him again. Not more than I dislike Bush. I'm not naive enough anymore to believe that principle is the only thing i should use to guide my choices. Voting for the best (most like me in principle), and ending up with the worst (Bush) is *not* better than voting for second best and getting it. No one will ever successfully use the "The lesser of two evil's is still evil," argument on me again -- it may be true, but it's a poor way to choose a president. "Less evil" wins over "Not evil but not really a competitor" from now on.

Now that I've ranted, i'm going with that story being a joke, what with the dateline, and the fact that the links within it are to counterstrike servers and CBS Sportsline and so on. What's scary is that it actually sounds like something Nader would say. -k]

Plastic: Nader Calls Upon Bush To Leave Presidential Race