Rather funny.. :)

Crash Different

Neoteric wrote:
] ] hydrogen clathrate hydrate
]
] anyone know what the chemical symbol for this would be?

It doesn't have one that would be particularly meaningful.

Basically, clathrate describes a class of materials where a gas is disolved in water, and the water molecules in the mixture form a complex repeating latice structure that has cavities that look a lot like buckminsterfullerine (buckyballs). The gas sits in those cavities.

So what they're saying is under low temp and high pressure, they can force this mixture into a very specific ice that has property that it holds on to the hydrogen really well.

RE: ScienceDaily News Release: Scientists Find New Way To Store Hydrogen Fuel

This is an open letter to Miramax from Kung Fu Cult Cinema that has been prompted by events this week concerning a Cease and Desist letter that Miramax sent to Kung Fu Cinema for the reason posting a link to where the original version of Hero could be bought online.

Miramax tries to limit the spread of information about legal imports of international DVD's.

An Open Letter to Miramax

The Aztecs dubbed them "the flesh of the gods", Siberian shamans used them to enlighten their path to the spirit world, and they were the preserve of hippies and the pioneers of the psychedelic movement in the 1960s. But now magic mushrooms are at the centre of a new - and legal - retail boom.

I had originally posted this with a flippant remark about there unfortunately not being simmilar loophole in US law.

But on a more serious note, halucinogens, pot, and even ecstasy present only limited threats to public health, while the US govrnment has been slow to respond to the recent wave of prescription drug abuse that has come with the rise of oxycontin.

High times in magic mushroom business - and it's perfectly legal

For her, it's a familiar message. Before joining the department, Ms. Harrison was director of public relations for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the beef industry's largest trade group, where she battled government food safety efforts, criticized Oprah Winfrey for raising health questions about American hamburgers, and sent out press releases with titles like "Mad Cow Disease Not a Problem in the U.S."

Eric Schlosser, Auther of Fast Food Nation coments on the USDA's handling of mad cow disease.

And I'm still not eating beef.

The Cow Jumped Over the U.S.D.A.

] Thus, at least according to this court, the more uncommon
] (and provocative) the context of the remixing, the less
] likely it is legal. Of course, this raises the question
] of how new contexts can ever become legal. Presumably, at
] some point in history, no one framed art. Then the first
] person came along and put a painting in a frame. Under
] the theories in Mirage and Munoz, that person would have
] been historically guilty of copyright infringement
] because the context of their remix was uncommon at the
] time.

Decius wrote: This article is interesting and also deeply troubling. Apparently recontextualization of someone else's artistic work is a copyright infringement EVEN IF YOU PAID for the copy that you are recontextualizing unless there is a specific fair use exception. This is copyright law preventing artistic expression for no financial reason, but strictly to prevent expression.

There's also interesting commentary about the first sale doctrine and what you actually own when you buy something.

LawGeek: We fought the Kuleshov effect and The Law won?

Desperate solutions range from abandoning email to requiring a license to log on. Halt, fools! The Internet's problems stem from the same virtues that make it great: open architecture, the free flow of information, peer-to-peer cooperation, and a bias for linking strangers, not disconnecting them. Take those away and the Net might cease to infuriate us - but it will also cease to amaze us.

Lightweight, but fun. A good read to kick in the new year.

101 Ways to Save the Internet

Dec. 30: The Bush administration announced it would ban the herbal weight-loss supplement ephedra from the marketplace because of concerns about its effects on health. The ban would take effect in 60 days.

My one and only experience with ephedra was awful. I took half a dose of one of those ephedra-based diet pills to stay up and study for an exam in college. I had hours of heart palpitations and panic attacks.

Timeline: Ephedra

The dozens of overdoses in the past two years — including at least five deaths in which the abuse of over-the-counter medicines was a factor — reflect how medicines such as Robitussin and Coricidin are becoming more popular as recreational drugs for kids as young as 12, police and doctors say.

Please. People were drinking Robitussin when I was in high school, way more than 2 years ago. It was no big secret. I never did it, since it never seemed like it would be a particularly fun high. I didn't see the point.

Of course I think there used to be a Robitussin that didn't have anything in it other than DXM. The scary thing about the pills is that high doses of everything else in them can be even more damaging than just the high doses of DXM. (which is, in it's own right, bad enough for your nervous system.)

Thank you USA Today for your silly fear-mongering. This is not news.

Youths risk death in latest drug abuse trend

A study by the Center for Public Integrity, a D.C. watchdog group, found that only 43 percent of all meat products recalled by their manufacturers from 1990-1997 was recovered. The rest of the meat—some 17 million pounds—was eaten by unsuspecting consumers. Yet Congress fought off efforts by the Secretary of Agriculture during that time to get the authority to issue mandatory recalls of contaminated meat.

A whole article full of stomach-turning factoids. We're eating this stuff?

Slaughterhouse Politics