] Since the earliest research into the the English Language
] as spoken in North America was begun by Noah Webster in
] the early 18th century, the regional variations in
] dialect have always been the most challenging and
] difficult to explain field. Since the development of
] carbonated beverage in 1886, one of linguistic
] geography's most important and least investigated
] phenomena has been the sharp regional divisions in the
] use of the terms "pop" and "soda." Due to the domination
] of hard-line conservative lingusitic geographers in such
] leading institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford and
] the University of the West Indies, this dilemma has been
] swept under the rug . . . until now. Using the new
] technologies of the Internet and the World Wide Web, I
] and my colleagues at the California Institute of
] Technology and Lewis & Clark College are undertaking a
] bold new research into this fascinating area.

Great interactive maps to go along with this.

The Pop vs. Soda Page

] A rock group said Monday it will go ahead with an onstage
] suicide during a concert in Florida this weekend, in
] defiance of a new city law designed to scuttle the plan.
] The hard-rock band Hell on Earth has said a suicide by a
] terminally ill person would take place during a concert
] Saturday in the city of St. Petersburg to raise awareness
] of right-to-die issues.

Rock band vows onstage suicide

] This is the current cover of the New Yorker... a great
] expression of the RIAA's litigious persecution of the
] young folk. (Note: I don't actually have the money or the
] time to subscribe to the New Yorker... but one can
] borrow. Please don't sue!)

found via Lisa Rein's blog.. http://onlisareinsradar.com/

New Yorker p2p Cover [26 Sep 2003; 14:00]

] VeriSign, Inc. , the leading provider of critical
] infrastructure services for the Internet and
] telecommunications networks, today announced that it has
] been selected by Accenture to provide hosting, security
] consulting, authentication services and Managed Public
] Key Infrastructure (MPKI) services for the Department of
] Defense's Secure Electronic Registration and Voting
] Experiment (SERVE.) Upon full deployment, SERVE will
] enable absentee uniformed services members and overseas
] United States citizens from eight participating states to
] cast absentee ballots via the Internet for the 2004
] primary and general elections.

Now THAT is a perfect storm...

VeriSign Selected by Accenture to Secure Department of Defense E-Voting System

"Battlefield sites are considered noble places in the landscape of American history. Gettysburg, Bunker Hill, and Normandy stand as monuments honoring the people who fought and died there. Massacre sites, no less a part of our history, are often hidden. Vaguely worded road signs might give some indication of the tragedy, but visitors are not greeted by museums as they are at battlefield sites, and there are no official cemeteries in which the victims lie. Because they are shameful episodes in our past, massacres are not commemorated and the innocent dead are not honored. The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Sand Creek Massacre, and Tulsa Race Riot do not usually come up in history class, but over 500 people were brutally killed in these events. Although they took place long ago, they exemplify the impact--emotional, legal, and political--that the past can have on our own society today."

For better or worse, archaeology is opening the lid on American massacres

] Not only was BlackBoxVoting.org pulled down, but ALL of
] the documents, databases and programming for approximately
] 500 pages of material, most of which did not relate to Diebold at
] all, was confiscated. Dozens of web pages were pulled down which
] had nothing whatever to do with the disputed information. AIT Inc.
] has indicated that it believes it has the right to pull down the entire
] web site including unrelated pages. AIT Inc. is now prohibiting Bev
] Harris or Black Box Voting from accessing any of her own files, even
] for the purpose of removing them.

If these allegations are correct, there could be another interesting DMCA court case in here...

[IP] yet another misuse of dmca? Black Box Voting files confiscated

] EFF last week called on IEEE members and other citizens
] to voice their concerns about the standard. Nearly five
] hundred people wrote to IEEE leadership pointing out
] flaws in the draft standard. On September 22, the first
] working group ballot on the draft failed overwhelmingly,
] causing the simultaneous ballot at the sponsor level to
] fail as well.

EFF: Flawed E-Voting Standard Sent Back to Drawing Board

- Who talks to whom?
- How does information flow?
- How are decisions made?
- Who are the experts?
- Can we predict the ramifications of organizational disruptions?
- How can we change the group’s interactions to promote better functioning?

Reality Mining

ICANN has set up a clearing house for information about the Verisign incident. There are some documents up here that are new.

ICANN | Information Page: Verisign's Wildcard Service Deployment

] A computer security expert who contributed to a paper
] deeply critical of Microsoft has been dismissed by his employer,
] a consulting company that works closely with the software giant.

[Politech] Dan Geer loses CTO job at AtStake after criticizing Microsoft