] A suicidal New Jersey man set a new standard for
] self-inflicted brutality when he decapitated himself by
] driving away from a light post with a rope tied around
] his neck.
]
] Wolfgang Persieck, 50, of Union Beach, died when the
] rope, which he had attached to the post, jerked his head
] off as he stepped on the gas Saturday night.

New Jersey, where everything is just a little more hardcore.

New York Daily News - Home - Driver in grisly suicide

Welcome to the obvious.

Sitting of a given IRC network and going to the most populated channels is like sitting with a birds eye view of the back end of any given club in any given city, with all the elements. You will see all the shady entering, leaving, and doing of its thing. That place is one of connivence. Be sure there is either ignorance, or several cloaks, between its true participants and yourself. You may be the ignorant. If you cannot mirror the experience to the real world, hang out with me for awhile and I'll open your eyes with a pair of pliers.

Is this a good thing? In a place where freedom, law, and order all exist in concert, it is a fact of life. Be sure everything said is monitored and logged fifteen different ways by thirty different parties sharing resources. Welcome to what is called by some, the game.

Play your cards at your own risk.

In my case, I don't have any issues, content, or ideas I'm not willing to express in any forum, including that of my own creation. I find it an amusing sideline to the net culture I have grown up in and decided to uphold over the years. I would rather have something happen in the open then behind the closed doors of crypto and inaccessibility. There are many other options then the current, available given the need to further develop them out of theory. The reasoning for keeping it the way it is, is simple, but challenging to explain. Those who pursue the transgressors of the law are more likely to understand then the followers of the angry hurt mob, as the irony goes. The exceptions lie at the far upper and disconnected end, such as Tenet.

IRC is a protocol; a protocol used to create a multi faceted forum. A forum can be used in a number of ways. As any open forum, the uses of any given IRC network are up to the users of that network. It goes the way it is permitted go, like a growing and living organism. The author of this article holds up Freenode as a "good" use, and I agree (and hold an open connection to it most of the time). As I agree that "ErisFree" has more to do with the evils of lame management then the presence of malevolence.

Barlow in his Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace spoke of nations in the infinite space created by the Internet. If in terms of community and governmental structure on the Internet, if there exists a clear example of this, it lies in IRC. For better or for worse. Create an open space, and those who wish to have a space will inhabit it.

When any issue of illegal activity on IRC networks comes up, it should be viewed through this lens. If there is a point of scale that does occur, it is within a scope based upon limitations and allowances protocol. I hope that is understood, at least by the inteligencia, digirati, or whatever we wish to call it.

Defend IRC. Defend IRC networks. Defend the points of abstraction on the network which are open and free. These are the nascent market of ideas.

What you see when you view a community within a given space created by a protocol, is a mirror of what people expect out of the space created by the uses the protocol enables. This is the same situation created by a system such as MemeStreams. We do not have a crime problem here, but we could. Dare I say the word "torrent" in a threat filled world for the free exchange of information?

Free is a tough word. Freedom of information versus free beer is an old cliche of an old argument, but still a fresh problem. Any place it can rear its threatening head is a place of contention; a place we hope a solution can grow, or at best a market. When you view IRC, that is the lens you must look through. It is out of focus, like all points of significance, given time.

IRC Analysis

The Internet will change everything, we are surely in the process of it, but at this point, I'm still capitalizing "Internet".

A video interview with Salam Pax. Blogging, Internet in Iraq, embedded journalists, media bias. "Look for the story, don't trust any one source."

ZeD - Salam Pax Interview

] this is placeholder site only...the official site for
] registration will launch in early March...

A conference about blogging is going to be taking place in Nashville.

BlogNashville

] Do this dude edisoncarter cracked open what appears to be
] a cheesy 3rd party PS2 controller (save the good stuff
] for the gaming, we always say), hooked up the lines to a
] parallel port for signal injection, and then hash-cracker
] style used a custom app that ran brute force key
] combinations until he came up with a slew of unreleased
] cheat codes for GTA San Andreas. Damn, dude.

Neat hack.

Brute-forcing GTA San Andreas cheat codes

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone."

The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

"We're not going to rely on agency pissants."

You may recall, in a time not so long ago, at a press conference not so far away ...

"You asked, do I feel free?

Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.

I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it for ... fighting and winning the war on terror.

I'm looking forward to it, I really am."

The Coming Wars

] A computer program is changing the face of the music
] business by allowing record labels to predict a hit at
] the click of a mouse. Is this the death of pop as we know
] it, asks Jo Tatchell, or a new hope for unsigned bands
] everywhere?

] Sounds unlikely? It shouldn't. Because, while no one's
] talking about it, it seems that the whole record industry
] is already using just this process. From unsigned acts
] dreaming in their garage, to multinationals such as Sony
] and Universal, everyone is clandestinely using a new and
] controversial technology to gain an edge on their
] competitors. And just as with athletes and
] performance-enhancing drugs, there is a remarkable
] reluctance to talk about it. But the secret is out: the
] record biz, once that bastion of wayward creative flair,
] is succumbing to the plain old-fashioned science of
] statistical analysis.

Hit Song Science, ripping the soul out of a type of critical listening that's existed since the dawn of baroque music. Lovely. More product development then artist development..

Guardian Unlimited | Together in electric dreams

NOTICE: This document may contain initial and preliminary reporting which may or may not be accurate of be supported by corroborative information. The HSOC is actively evaluating the reporting to establish its accuracy and to determine if it represents a possible link to terrorism. If recipients have any additional or clarifying information, please contact the Homeland Security Operations Center Senior Watch Officer (HSOC SWO) at (202) 282-8101

Cryptome with leaked Homeland Security Dept documents. "For official use only".

Homeland Security Operations Morning Briefs - 27 September 2004 to 6 January 2005

] The shift to the information age has been accompanied by
] social disorder throughout the industrialized world. But
] new forms of stability may already be in the making.

This is an essay based on Fukuyama's book.

The Great Disruption - Francis Fukuyama