A really good nanotech blog from the guy who does this stuff for forbes. Just click it.

Forbes Wolfe

Cafe Press now sells books. Fairly cheap too when you consider how much kinkos charges for this. You no longer need a book publisher as long as you can market yourself.

Publish books for Free

] Blackboard said the settlement shows its systems are
] secure but the whole case is better understood as a
] successful attempt to protect the firm's reputation
] against the possibly exaggerated claims of a pair of
] student hacker/crackers

The register got caught up in the spin as well.

Since when is using the law an appropriate way to silence critics? Thats the very definition of censorship.

Can we accept that this is really the final word on the story, given that its coming from blackboard, and that Acidus and Virgil are injoined from responding?

Is Blackboard's technology secure?

We may never know. What we do know is that Blackboard has effectively silenced their critics, with extreme prejudice. My lawyer is bigger then your lawyer should not trump the first amendment. In this case it has. These student settled because they did not have the means to defend themselves.

Acidus and Virgil owe $20,000 in (clears throat) "legal fees." They are college students. They can't really afford this and they need help. If you would like to contribute, you can paypal the following email address: gte344p@prism.gatech.edu

The Register - Blackboard press release

] Two computer hackers admitted in a settlement Monday that
] they never completed a device that could cheat university
] campus debit card systems out of food, laundry machine
] use or sports tickets.

Spin Spin Spin...

More on this in a minute...

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: BlackBoard press release

] It's one thing to battle in the dark, believing the fight
] is roughly equal. Now, the genome age has shined a light
] on what was once an elusive enemy. Finally, we can see
] the armies massed against us, a foe of almost
] impenetrable diversity, and virtually anyone would agree
] that it doesn't look good. Yet strangely, now that the
] battle has been joined, cancer researchers have grown
] almost euphoric. The National Cancer Institute is boldly
] promising, if not a cure, at least "the elimination of
] suffering and death due to cancer" by 2015; of more than
] 20 researchers I spoke with, all believed that the next
] decade would bring a revolution in cancer medicine.
]
] At the root of this newfound optimism lie the very
] developments that revealed cancer's true nature in the
] first place: the sequencing of the human genome and the
] associated proliferation of new technologies - ranging
] from DNA chips to high-throughput gene-knockout
] techniques like RNA interference. (See "5 New Tools for
] Fighting Cancer," page 104.) Armed with these new
] weapons, researchers have begun an engagement that will
] more closely resemble the hunt for elusive al Qaeda
] operatives than a monolithic Cold War standoff.

An interesting look at where some cancer research is heading now that the Human Genome is available.

Wired 11.08: The End of Cancer (As we Know it)

] "They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell
] you. Meat made the machines."
]
] "That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're
] asking me to believe in sentient meat."
]
] "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are
] the only sentient race in that sector and they're made
] out of meat."
]
] "Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based
] intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
]
] "Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied
] them for several of their life spans, which didn't take
] long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

Before The Matrix, There was Only Meat

] You no longer expect your grandchildren to live the same
] lives that you did, and your lives are very different
] from your parents lives. Today theres an axiom that the
] only constant is change. But what people dont recognize
] is that the world itself has changed because the greater
] change is accelerating. So our whole concept of what it
] means to be human is going to be changing, and it is
] going to be merging with our technology.

In these slow times a reminder of the sort of thinking that drove the technology community 10 years ago is work having. This is a sort interview with Ray Kurzweil.

[IP] Understanding the Accelerating Rate of Change

] A set of four glass ramps positioned in a square clearly
] show water travelling up each of them before it pours off
] the top, only to start again at the bottom of the next
] ramp.
]
] It is a sight which defies logic, and has become probably
] the most memorable image of this year's show.
]
] Mr Dyson says his inspiration was a drawing by the Dutch
] artist MC Escher (he of Gothic palaces where soldiers are
] eternally walking upstairs, and of patterns where birds
] turn into fish).

Ummmm....I want one of these

BBC NEWS | UK | How does Dyson make water go uphill?

] We make stuffed animals that look like tiny microbes...
] Now available: The Common Cold, The Flu, Sore Throat, and
] Stomach Ache.

These are fucking leet as hell, but my only question is, where is the coronavirus?!?!? I WANT PLUSH SARS damnit:) - Nano

Welcome to GIANTmicrobes!

] In a step toward electronic newspapers and wearable
] computer screens, scientists have created an ultra-thin
] screen that can be bent, twisted and even rolled up and
] still display crisp text.
]
] The material, only as thick as three human hairs,
] displays black text on a whitish-gray background with a
] resolution similar to that of a typical laptop computer
] screen.
]
] The screen is so flexible it can be rolled into a
] cylinder about a half-inch wide without losing its image
] quality.
]
] Although it's not quite the dream of single-sheet,
] electronic newspapers or books that can display hundreds
] of pages of text, its creators said it's the first
] flexible computer screen of its kind.

Cool! Where do I get one?

[Hey, if anyone gets their hands on the Nature article about this, let me know - Nano]

Paper-thin screen created