] Robot venture Tmsuk yesterday held a press day to
] officially launch and demonstrate its massive
] tractor-with-arms rescue robot, Enryu. There is video of
] this all over the news sites, a few links to which are
] below. See Enryu rip the door off a perfectly good car!
] See Enryu pick up a steel girder with one hand! etc.

Just in case you didn't know what to get the hacker who has everything for his next birthday, one of these would be damn sweet.

dottocomu: Enryu rescue robot in action

More great pictures have been added

Photoblogging Chernobyl Site Updated

] NANOG actively works to produce sessions and seminars to
] help foster security on the Internet. All sessions are
] taped and converted to streaming media for all to use for
] their personal education. Slides are available for each
] session as well. Over time, this effort has generated a
] valuable online tutorial for engineers and others seeking
] to learn more about running a more secure network.

Wow. Nanog has developed an awesome collection of security presentations for previous conference.

NANOG Security Curriculum

This is another book I'm in the process of reading. I've become interested in language lately. This too, I should have more to say about when I'm done.

Description from School Library Journal:
Bryson traces the English language from the Neanderthal man of 30,000 years ago to the present. Interestingly, he contrasts the language as it developed simultaneously in various locations. He also presents examples of the evolution of words and their spellings. The book is well researched and informative; the thorough index will aid novices in the exploration of the language.

(Amazon) The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

Lessig's new book is out.

I'm only about 30 pages into it, and its what you'd expect from Lessig. Mickey Mouse has already made his appearance, been weaved into the context of doujinshi, and I think there is about to be a Kodak moment. This has that "listening to myself rant" feel to it. This book appears to have the goal of describing what I keep calling "remix culture", and the intellectual property issues that effect it.

I'll should have more to say about it when I'm done..

Update: Decided to give a copy of this book to a friend of mine who's birthday is today. I can't be expected to produce 360+ pages of rant anytime soon. The book will serve him well. :) Take note, I downloaded the book, and I wound up buying a copy for someone else..

Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig

] Hope you have a great day:)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOM!!!!!

* To help the incorporation of trust management elements in existing standards.

Ahh... Another interesting looking conference I can't afford to attend.

Second International Conference on Trust Management

] "Trust in journalism has been declining for a
] generation," said project director Tom Rosenstiel. "This
] study suggests one reason is that news media are locked
] in a vicious cycle. As audiences fragment, newsrooms are
] cut back, which further erodes public trust."
]
] Circulation of English-language daily newspapers has
] dropped 11 percent since 1990; network news ratings are
] down 34 percent since 1994; late night local TV news
] viewership fell 16 percent lower since 1997 and cable
] news viewership has been flat since late 2001.

The public viewing audience has flocked to either the 24 hour news networks or the Internet for their world view.

] Technology was driving many of the changes.
]
] "Journalism is in the midst of an epochal transformation,
] as momentous probably as the invention of the telegraph
] or television," the report said.

We get them all in the end. The audience and the journalists. Dialogue engines are the new medium revolution.

Yahoo! News - Report Sees Bleak Trend in U.S. News Media

] "Punks will tell me, `Punk and capitalism don't go
] together,' " Mr. Rizzuto said. "I don't understand where
] they're coming from. The biggest punk scenes are in
] capitalist countries like the U.S., Canada and Japan. I
] haven't heard of any new North Korean punk bands coming
] out. There's no scene in Iran."

] "Punk has been hijacked by an extreme left-wing element,"
] Mr. Rizzuto said. "It's blame America first. Everything is
] America's fault, and everything is Bush's fault." Mr. Rizzuto
] said his goal "is rallying conservative punks and getting
] people to vote."

Punk is not dead, its just been adopted as a bipartisan political platform.

] By their own admission, conservative punks constitute a
] small percentage of their particular subculture. Around
] 200 liberal and left-oriented punk bands have come
] together under the banner of Punkvoter, a coalition
] founded by Mike Burkett — a k a Fat Mike — of the band
] NOFX, with the stated goal of organizing punk fans to
] vote against President Bush in November. Mr. Burkett
] started Punkvoter with $100,000 of his own money and
] has recruited crossover bands like Green Day and the
] Foo Fighters to his cause.

] "Our goal is to anger the youth of America, and to show
] them how the Bush administration is bad for them,"
] Mr. Burkett said.

I was at CBGBs the other night. Typical inward facing industry scene crowd. All the bands I saw were talented, but nothing that really lit my fire. Planning and practice get good product, but its not where the cutting edge seems to lie. Where is the excitement these days? There does not appear to be any life in the marketplace. At every point I did my chill in the back of the room and judge crowd reaction thing, it seemed like a damn wake. As usual, my group was seemingly the only source of havoc. At this point in the in history, you'd think New York would have something serious to say, and an attitude with which to say it. Sometimes it seems that New York Rock and Fashion Rock are the same thing.

If you are a band, and the local industry is your only crowd, you are doomed. If the industry isn't doing something actively to get your stuff in the face of a much larger audience, you are doomed. I use "industry" in the most vague of ways. This likely goes for anywhere.

The Punklitical Pandscrape

Namespaces will collide. Let them.

Get Out of My Namespace