Way to celebrate WWII guys. Let's wave the swastika on Rosh Hashana. Am I the only one not surprised that this is the state that elected the shrub as governor?

Yahoo! News - School Apologizes for Nazi Display by Band

] "You never quite get the (consumer electronics)
] experience," Kay said. "That's always my critique of
] media center. It's still ultimately a Swiss Army knife,
] rather than a katana (a Japanese sword)."

thoughts on media center systems? I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, closed systems and drm are kinda wack, and i tend to disapprove of convergence, for much the same reason as Mr. Kay indicates above. The right tool for one specific job it a well tested philosophy which i tend to agree with, no matter how much ghettohacking or jerry-rigging i may do.

However, we've got our TiVo playing mp3's on the normal home stereo, and i kinda like it. Arguably it's lame to have to have the TV on to control your mp3 player... perhaps we should've bought a sliMP3 device instead.

Anyway, the market will decide just how much convergence is good i suppose...

Microsoft buffs up its Media Center | CNET News.com

] new modes of musicianship in the age of mobile computing
] and digital networks

Laptop Music - WikiTsotso

(U: BTW, the section of this article that deals with prisons is worth the price of admission, but I'll focus on something else...)

] 4. Incandescent Light Bulbs
]
] In reality, these sad devices are heat bulbs.
] Supposedly a lighting technology, they produce nine times
] more raw heat than they do illumination. The light they
] do give, admittedly, is still prettier than the eerie
] glow of compact fluorescents and light-emitting diodes.
] But it's still a far cry from the glories of natural
] daylight.
]
] Plus there's the cost of light bulbs, their
] fragility, the replacement overhead, the vast waste of
] energy, glass, and tungsten, the goofy hassle of running
] air conditioners to do battle with the blazing heat of
] all these round little glass stoves let's face
] it, these gizmos deserve to vanish.
]
] They will be replaced by a superior technology, something
] cheap, cool, and precisely engineered, that emits visible
] wavelengths genuinely suited to a consumer's human
] eyeball. Our descendants will stare at those
] vacuum-shrouded wires as if they were whale-oil lanterns.

So, they are slowly replacing traffic lights with LED lights in atlanta. If LEDs are bright enough for this purpose, one must imagine that you could create a suitable light bulb replacement that:

A. Screws into a socket.
B. Essentially consists of a stick covered in white leds.
C. Has a translucent plastic filter covering it which only emits "lightbulb" wavelengths.

Why is this hard?

(U: Maybe the power transformer you'll need to convert your whopping 120 volts of AC power into 5VDC will create just as much waste heat as your lights did. As almost every device in your house now has an AC to DC power converter, maybe it makes sense to start talking about putting a centralized AC to DC converter in your house and running two circuits, an AC cicuit for major appliances, and a DC circuit for basically everything else. It would reduce a lot of costs, and improve the safety of most home wiring. Of course, cutting over to something like this would be a huge effort that would require widespread coordination from several industries. (For those of you who aren't electronics savvy, basically what I'm saying is that your house ought to have the "power supply" rather then your computer.)

Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die

] "There are lots of reasons why people need anonymity
] online and why it should not be so easy to lose," Hansen
] said. "If the recording industry can uncover your
] identity simply by claiming that a copyright violation
] has occurred, then the Chinese government can use the
] same tool to find out the name of a dissident, and a
] batterer can use it to find out the address of a domestic
] violence shelter."
]
] The ACLU's lawsuit says the DMCA subpoena provision is
] "totally lacking in procedural protections," making it
] "an invitation to mistake and misuse."

RIAA news roundup. Only new information not covered here is the 41 percent drop in kazaa use over the last 3 months.

ACLU Steps Into DMCA Subpoena Controversy

] "The Venn diagram of facts doesn't intersect. The
] intersection of all of those statements is the null set,"
] Geer said.

HAH! The humor in that aside, some things do seem, uh, incongruous when they're all pieced together. Either way, it sucks to get canned for doing your job well.

Security Expert Geer Sounds Off on Dismissal

Does 'journalistic privilege' cover hiding known criminal acts? It may, i'm really not sure... doesn't seem like it ought to though.

Novak unlikely to do time, and vows not to give up source

The question for the US is, will the gov't follow through with it's warning that the costs of constructing the wall will be deducted from the money we give israel?

anyone think this fight is *ever* going to end?

CNN.com - Israel approves new construction on security barrier - Oct. 1, 2003

] I just wish that hubris wasn't endangering our national
] security.

hear-hear. maybe the media will finally do some legitimate reporting on this issue. maybe. i mean, not FOX, but someone...

Daily Kos: Plame's former classmate vents

] To some, 15-year-old Lisa McClelland is a heroine - while
] to others she is public enemy number one.
]
]
] One thing she herself says she is not is a racist, as she
] defends her attempts to start a "Caucasian club" at her
] California high school.

you just can't make this shit up.

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Row over student's Caucasian club