Article: Best Reads of 2009 and 2010

Best Reads of 2009 and 2010
http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2010/12/best_reads_of_2010.php

Carter beats the Devil. Glen David Gold 2001.
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Sent from Steve's iPad...

Article: Pharyngula

Pharyngula
http://scienceblogs.com/

science is never about absolute certainty, and the absence of black & white binary results is not evidence against it; you don't get to choose what you want to believe, but instead only accept provisionally a result; and when you've got a positive result, the proper response is not to claim that you've proved something, but instead to focus more tightly, scrutinize more strictly, and test, test, test ever more deeply

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Test of blog post iPad

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=4b18935fbda5edf0&hl=en

Sent from Steve's iPad...

Glenn Gould - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Glenn Gould - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "'The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.'"

98.6 Trades Metabolic Cost For Fungal Protection: Scientific American Podcast

98.6 Trades Metabolic Cost For Fungal Protection: Scientific American Podcast: "A mathematical model finds that a temperature of about 98.6 F is high enough to ward off the majority of fungal infections, but still low enough to only require a manageable level of food intake

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Richard Dawkins | A shameful Thought for the Day | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Richard Dawkins | A shameful Thought for the Day | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Adam (who never existed) bequeathed his "sin" in his bodily semen (charming notion) to all of humanity. That sin, with which every newborn baby is hideously stained (another charming notion), was so terrible that it could be forgiven only through the blood sacrifice of a scapegoat. But no ordinary scapegoat would do. The sin of humanity was so great that the only adequate sacrificial victim was God himself.

That's right. The creator of the universe, sublime inventor of mathematics, of relativistic space-time, of quarks and quanta, of life itself, Almighty God, who reads our every thought and hears our every prayer, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God couldn't think of a better way to forgive us than to have himself tortured and executed. For heaven's sake, if he wanted to forgive us, why didn't he just forgive us? Who, after all, needed to be impressed by the blood and the agony? Nobody but himself.

The Perils Of Elderly Sex | None | St. Albert's Place On The Web

The Perils Of Elderly Sex | None | St. Albert's Place On The Web: "On hearing that her elderly grandfather had died, Jenny went straight to visit her grandmother.

When she asked how her grandpa had died, her grandma explained, not holding back anything of course, 'He had a heart attack during sex, Sunday morning!'

Horrified, Jenny suggested that sex at the age of 94 was surely asking for trouble!

'Oh no,' her grandma replied. 'We had sex every Sunday morning in time with the church bells!'

She paused to wipe away a tear and said, 'If it wasn't for that darn Ice Cream Truck, he'd still be alive!'"

No loss. No loss at all. : Pharyngula

No loss. No loss at all. : Pharyngula: "The second big mistake is that the fraud of the Catholic hospital charade stands exposed. This was an incredibly revealing statement:

St. Joseph's does not receive direct funding from the church, but in addition to losing its Catholic endorsement, the 697-bed hospital will no longer be able to celebrate Mass and must remove the Blessed Sacrament from its chapel.

In other words, the Catholic church has benefited from the association with an actual house of healing, while providing nothing but magic crackers and the recommendation of local priests."

Two Dreams, One Dead - Swampland - TIME.com

Two Dreams, One Dead - Swampland - TIME.com: "He's a bitter man now, who can barely tolerate the fact that he lost to Barack Obama. But he lost for an obvious reason: his campaign proved him to be puerile and feckless, a politician who panicked when the heat was on during the financial collapse, a trigger-happy gambler who chose an incompetent for his vice president. He has made quite a show ever since of demonstrating his petulance and lack of grace."

Referees' quotes – 2010 - 2010 - Environmental Microbiology - Wiley Online Library

Referees' quotes – 2010 - 2010 - Environmental Microbiology - Wiley Online Library

I agreed to review this Ms whilst answering e-mails in the golden glow of a balmy evening on the terrace of our holiday hotel on Lake Como. Back in the harsh light of reality in Belfast I realize that it's just on the limit of my comfort zone and that it would probably have been better not to have volunteered.
• 
I suppose that I should be happy that I don't have to spend a lot of time reviewing this dreadful paper; however I am depressed that people are performing such bad science.
• 
The presentation is of a standard that I would reject from an undergraduate student. Take Table 1: none of the data has units or an explanation. Negative controls gave a positive signal, but there is no explanation of why and how this was dealt with; just that it was different.

Former Yahoo Engineers Shed Light On Why Delicious And Other Acquisitions Failed

Former Yahoo Engineers Shed Light On Why Delicious And Other Acquisitions Failed: ". As Chad Dickerson, former Yahoo developer evangelist and the current CTO of Etsy comments, “In my experience, entrepreneurs moving into Yahoo! often got stuck doing PowerPoints about “strategy” instead of writing code and shipping products.”

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Mapping America — Census Bureau 2005-9 American Community Survey - NYTimes.com

Mapping America — Census Bureau 2005-9 American Community Survey - NYTimes.com: "Mapping America: Every City, Every Block
Browse local data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, based on samples from 2005 to 2009. Because these figures are based on samples, they are subject to a margin of error, particularly in places with a low population, and are best regarded as estimates"

Top 10 Culture of Tech Stories of 2010

Top 10 Culture of Tech Stories of 2010

unleashing of the Stuxnet virus.

As the story played out, a number of eye-widening facts came to light. The virus was made by a highest-level digital team over a prolonged period. It was aimed solely at supervisory control and data acquisition systems, used only on large industrial machinery. Further, it was aimed directly at particular frequency converter drives from specific vendors. Those vendors exist only in Finland and Iran. It was designed, in fact, to change motor speed on, among other things, uranium processing facilities in Iran

Stephen Colebourne's Weblog

Stephen Colebourne's Weblog: "The precise details of the FOU are confidential at the behest of Sun, however in summary they state (rather absurdly) that the tested code cannot be run on a PC in an enclosed environment. Thus, you could run a tested version of Harmony on your PC providing it is running on your desktop. But if you pick the machine up and place it in an enclosed cabinet, such as inside an X-Ray machine, or an shopping mall information kiosk, then you would be breaking the FOU clause.
Sounds absurd? Well it is yes.
But remember, Sun didn't need something sensible. They just needed something, anything, to stop Harmony."

Breaking News on EFF Victory: Appeals Court Holds that Email Privacy Protected by Fourth Amendment | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Breaking News on EFF Victory: Appeals Court Holds that Email Privacy Protected by Fourth Amendment | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Given the fundamental similarities between email and traditional forms of communication [like postal mail and telephone calls], it would defy common sense to afford emails lesser Fourth Amendment protection.... It follows that email requires strong protection under the Fourth Amendment; otherwise the Fourth Amendment would prove an ineffective guardian of private communication, an essential purpose it has long been recognized to serve

ASTRONASTY: Half the world's population is infected by cats!

ASTRONASTY: Half the world's population is infected by cats!: "2 to 3 billion people, about half the world's population, have a brain parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, which causes a disease called toxoplasmosis. A vaccine is being developed and is showing great potential thus far.

The parasite's main host are cats, but infects many warm blooded animals. Cats get it from ingestion of infected meat, contamination of food infected with (or direct ingestion of) cat feces, or passed down from mother to unborn offspring. Humans in contact with cats often get infected via slip ups in sanitation at home, or even a cat's unclean claws scratching its owner.

There are some interesting behavior changes that are caused by the disease. Infected rats are less afraid of cats. They also, when infected, are attracted to cat urine. Correlations between infected humans and their changed behavior are (taken from wikipedia)
*Decreased novelty seeking behaviour
* Slower reactions
* Lower rule-consciousness and greater jealousy (in men)
* Promiscuity and greater conscientiousness (in women)
What's interesting here is that the promiscuity in women and jealousy in men actually assists the spread of the parasite through it's effects on our social behavior.

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My Way News - New microchip card for US purchases in Europe

My Way News - New microchip card for US purchases in Europe: "If you've traveled to Europe recently, you may have had the frustrating experience of being unable to use a U.S.-issued credit card for automated transactions, like renting a bike from a stand on the street, paying for highway tolls or buying a train ticket from an unmanned kiosk. A new prepaid smart card from Travelex solves that problem by utilizing the microchip and PIN technology that is standard in credit cards in Europe, but not here.

The new Cash Passport card can be bought in either euros or pounds from Travelex retail stores.

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Changes in Tax Codes Versus Changes in the Value of the Dollar: The Arithmetic of Competitiveness | Beat the Press

Changes in Tax Codes Versus Changes in the Value of the Dollar: The Arithmetic of Competitiveness | Beat the Press: "Corporate profits are equal to about 16 percent of the value of output in the corporate sector. Businesses pay roughly a third of their profits in taxes, which means that taxes are equal to about 5 percent of the value of output. If taxes were reduced by 20 percent, a very large tax cut, then this would reduce the cost of doing business in the United States by 1 percent relative to foreign countries.

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SlideShare Outage Will Be Due To Global Warming | SlideShare Blog

SlideShare Outage Will Be Due To Global Warming | SlideShare Blog: "SlideShare Under Maintenance
Wednesday, December 8th
8:00pm PST – 10:30pm PST

A mere 12 hours after discovering fire, man and his laptop mastered PowerPoint and has been posting to SlideShare ever since. And throughout its long history, SlideShare was always available to share ideas. Unfortunately, due to global warming we foresee an unexpected outage.

The climate crisis will spur a spontaneous mass migration of Emperor penguins leading them straight to our secret server farm in Antarctica. They will swarm down upon the servers for heat and shelter on Wednesday, December 8th, at 8PM PST.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Apple to tap Intel's graphics for future MacBooks | Nanotech - The Circuits Blog - CNET News

Apple to tap Intel's graphics for future MacBooks | Nanotech - The Circuits Blog - CNET News: "Apple has decided to use Intel's upcoming Sandy Bridge processors in its MacBook line, a transition that will occur in 2011, squeezing out Nvidia's graphics processors in at least some models of the popular laptops, sources have told CNET.

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Chart of the day: U.S. taxes | Analysis & Opinion |

Chart of the day: U.S. taxes | Analysis & Opinion |: "The main things to note:

* Federal taxes are the lowest in 60 years, which gives you a pretty good idea of why America’s long-term debt ratios are a big problem. If the taxes reverted to somewhere near their historical mean, the problem would be solved at a stroke.
* Income taxes, in particular, both personal and corporate, are low and falling. That trend is not sustainable.
* Employment taxes, by contrast—the regressive bit of the fiscal structure—are bearing a large and increasing share of the brunt. Any time that somebody starts complaining about how the poor don’t pay income tax, point them to this chart. Income taxes are just one part of the pie, and everybody with a job pays employment taxes.
* There aren’t any wealth taxes, but the closest thing we’ve got—estate and gift taxes—have shrunk to zero, after contributing a non-negligible amount to the public fisc in earlier decades.

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The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn’t Telling It | CommonDreams.org

The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn’t Telling It | CommonDreams.org: "Quiz: What's responsible for the lousy economy most Americans continue to wallow in?

A. Big government, bureaucrats, and the cultural and intellectual elites who back them.

B. Big business, Wall Street, and the powerful and privileged who represent them.

These are the two competing stories Americans are telling one another.

Yes, I know: It's more complicated than this. In reality, the lousy economy is due to insufficient demand - the result of the nation's almost unprecedented concentration of income at the top.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Terry Pratchett and the ubiquity of negligent chance : Pharyngula

Terry Pratchett and the ubiquity of negligent chance : Pharyngula: "I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

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What the Kinect sensor actually does…

What the Kinect sensor actually does…: "Basically the Kinect appears to be a 640×480 30fps second video camera that knows the *depth* of every single pixel in the frame. It does this by projecting a 3×3 checkerboard pattern with an infrared (?) laser over the scene and using a detector that establishes the reflected intensity (more likely parallax – see comments) of the light for each pixel in the detector.

24 Hours of Hardcore Punk | MetaFilter

24 Hours of Hardcore Punk | MetaFilter: "24 Hours of Hardcore Punk
December 3, 2010 2:23 PM RSS feed for this thread Subscribe
The second edition of Steven Blush's American Hardcore: A Tribal History has just been published by Feral House. Additionally, Steven has posted 911 mp3s of hardcore punk as a soundtrack for your reading.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

John Scalzi - An Experiment in Accurate But Misleading Movie Descriptions - Filmcritic.com Feature

John Scalzi - An Experiment in Accurate But Misleading Movie Descriptions - Filmcritic.com Feature: "There's a famous television listing for The Wizard of Oz, written by newspaperman Rick Polito, which goes like this: 'Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.'

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Drew Carey (DrewFromTV) on Twitter

Drew Carey (DrewFromTV) on Twitter: "88-55 3rd quarter. This game is about as tight as LeBron's mother's vagina.

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US Has Lost All Moral High Ground On Internet Censorship | Techdirt

US Has Lost All Moral High Ground On Internet Censorship | Techdirt
excellent blog post by law professor Derek Bambauer, he makes this point after highlighting the numerous concerns over Homeland Security's domain name seizures:

The U.S. government is grabbing domain names to prevent users from reaching content it views as illegal. Not content that has been adjudicated illegal, as far as we know -- content that is alleged to be illegal. To content owners, and probably to ICE, it looks only natural that we’d prevent people from reaching information they view as stolen, or counterfeit. But it’s natural to China to censor human rights sites. Or Wikileaks, for that matter....

Every country in the world believes that some material on the Net qualifies inherently for censorship. It's obvious! In this respect, we're no different from China. So, we should give up pretensions of American exceptionalism for information controls -- for us, it's IP; for Saudi Arabia, it's porn; for France, it's hate speech. Only the quality of the legal process differentiates censors. And with these seizures, I think there's much to worry us in the (lack of) process...
This nicely summarizes the point that I've tried to make. When people claim that taking down entire websites (even ones that have plenty of legitimate content) through the US government seizing it isn't censorship because "it's copyright infringement," it sounds like the stories you hear from people in China who see absolutely nothing wrong with the Great Firewall there, noting that the government is just protecting them from "dangerous information." Both cases are about censorship, however. Same with France and Saudi Arabia. They're all situations where the government has decided that certain types of content should be blocked because it is -- in some way -- harmful. And those who agree that it is harmful say it's not censorship because it's "helpful." But that's simply not true. It's censorship, plain and simple.

Say What? Top Five IT Quotes of the Week - InternetNews.com

Say What? Top Five IT Quotes of the Week - InternetNews.com
SAP executive board member Vishal Sikka discussed one retail application in which 460 billion point of sale records were queried in less than a minute on 10 32-core blade servers costing $530,000. Sikka called in-memory technology a "once-in-a-generation technology shift."
SAP's announcement that it has begun shipping its High-Performance Analytic Appliance (HANA) software. The first application is based on the company's BusinessObjects business intelligence software. (eCRM Guide)

CBC News - Canada - CBC shows anti-U.S. 'melodrama': WikiLeaks

CBC News - Canada - CBC shows anti-U.S. 'melodrama': WikiLeaks

U.S. diplomats in Ottawa wrote to Washington that the CBC pushes "insidious negative popular stereotyping" with "anti-American melodrama" in its entertainment TV programs, according to documents released by the website WikiLeaks.

In a cable dated Jan. 1, 2008, an unnamed U.S. diplomat writes that the CBC has "long gone to great pains to highlight the distinction between Canadians and Americans in its programming, generally at our expense."

The cable then warns that an increasing number of CBC television programs such as The Border, Intelligence and even Little Mosque on the Prairie "offer Canadian viewers their fill of nefarious American officials carrying out equally nefarious deeds in Canada while Canadian officials either oppose them or fall trying."



Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/12/01/wikileaks-cbc.html#ixzz174uflJhU

Larry Ellison Hearsay: “We Can’t Be Successful if We Don’t Lie to Customers”

Larry Ellison Hearsay: “We Can’t Be Successful if We Don’t Lie to Customers”

The Unintended Humor in Wikileaks Criticism

The Unintended Humor in Wikileaks Criticism: "So by informing the people of oppressive regimes like Saudi Arabia and Yemen about the dirty things their governments do in collusion with the U.S., Wikileaks undermines efforts by the U.S. government to — ahem! — promote democracy, open government, and open and free societies in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

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The Daily Star - Politics - US spy flights over Lebanon searched for 'terrorists' - cable

The Daily Star - Politics - US spy flights over Lebanon searched for 'terrorists' - cable: "The United States has been operating secret spy flights over Lebanese territory in a bid to locate “terrorists,” according to the latest batch of intercepted diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.

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Cable Viewer

Cable Viewer: "He commented that the Saudis always want to 'fight the Iranians to the last American,' but that now it is time for them to get into the game.

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GSA picks Google over Microsoft for major cloud contract - Microsoft furious, attacks Google | TechEye

GSA picks Google over Microsoft for major cloud contract - Microsoft furious, attacks Google | TechEye: "“You have to meet the height requirement to ride in the enterprise,” he added, suggesting that Google is still a child in the business sector.

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A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus | Science/AAAS

A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus | Science/AAAS: "A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus

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Hungarian Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest | ZDNet

Hungarian Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest | ZDNet: "Think Lisp is a dead language? Not according to Gábor Melis, who was just crowned the winner of the PlanetWars Google AI challenge. His bot “bocsimacko” dominated a field of over 4600 contestants, but was one of only 33 programmed in Lisp.

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Is 'Quadroid' the new 'Wintel'? - Computerworld

Is 'Quadroid' the new 'Wintel'? - Computerworld
Quadroid is a term that refers to the Qualcomm chips used inside smartphones running the Android mobile operating system. The term, recently coined in a report by the PRTM consultancy, could catch on, largely because Qualcomm provides 77% of the chips in Google's Android phones. And the Quadroid alliance is expected to grow.

Official Google Blog: Being bad to your customers is bad for business

Official Google Blog: Being bad to your customers is bad for business: "We know that people will keep trying: attempts to game Google’s ranking, like the ones mentioned in the article, go on 24 hours a day, every single day. That’s why we cannot reveal the details of our solution—the underlying signals, data sources, and how we combined them to improve our rankings—beyond what we’ve already said. We can say with reasonable confidence that being bad to customers is bad for business on Google. And we will continue to work hard towards a better search.

Posted by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow"

US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian

US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian

Comment: Nokia's MeeGo is doomed - A summary of Dublin's MeeGo Summit | TechEye

Comment: Nokia's MeeGo is doomed - A summary of Dublin's MeeGo Summit | TechEye


And yet, the most striking impression I walked away with had nothing to do with the MeeGo OS. My most common reoccurring thought was something along the lines of, "Holy hell, Nokia and Intel have a lot of money to throw at us."

Both industry dinosaurs spent like drunken sailors with an itch. They rented out the new half-billion dollar Aviva Stadium for three days. They rented out the entire Guinness Storehouse for a night, including multiple bands and food. They bought us all tickets to a football game, provided an open bar and snacks for a thousand people for three straight nights and, to top it off, they bought us all touchscreen tablet-netbooks. The Lenovo IdeaPad S10 S3, to be specific.



Read more: http://www.techeye.net/software/nokias-meego-is-doomed#ixzz16nJonI3F

The Men Who Stole the World - TimeFrames - TIME

The Men Who Stole the World - TimeFrames - TIME

Which brings us to another important reason the media apocalypse never happened: Steve Jobs. On April 28, 2003, the very day TIME published a grand excursus on the explosive growth of file sharing, Apple unveiled the iTunes Music Store. At the time, it was difficult to see why iTunes would succeed where Snocap, among many others, had failed. Because, again, how do you compete with free?

But iTunes did succeed. Apple's relentless emphasis on simple, attractive user interfaces, backed by Jobs' steely negotiating power in dealing with music studios, produced a streamlined, curated service with which you could download and transfer music with a minimum of fuss. And we did — even though it cost us money and our purchases were bogged down with DRM that constrained what we could do with them.

It turns out that there is something that can compete with free: easy. Napster, Gnutella and BitTorrent never attained the user-friendliness that Apple products have, and nobody vets the content on file-sharing networks, so while the number of files on offer is enormous, the files are rotten with ads, porn, spyware and other garbage. When Jobs offered us the easy way out, we took it. Freedom is overrated, apparently — at least where digital media are concerned.



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2032304,00.html #ixzz16mmM6H2P

For DecorMyEyes, Bad Publicity Is a Good Thing - NYTimes.com

For DecorMyEyes, Bad Publicity Is a Good Thing - NYTimes.com: "A Bully Finds a Pulpit on the Web

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Judge: Let lesbians into military so male GIs can turn them straight | Raw Story

Judge: Let lesbians into military so male GIs can turn them straight | Raw Story: "In the original article, Rehyansky concluded that his lesbians-only policy 'would get the distaff part of our homosexual population off our collective ‘Broke Back,’ thus giving straight male GIs a fair shot at converting lesbians and bringing them into the mainstream.'

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Guns of August

Two armies, now totally committed, surged and gripped and broke apart and clashed again in confused and separate combats over a front of forty miles. A regiment advanced, its neighbor was thrown back, gaps appeared, the enemy thrust through or, unaccountably, did not. Artillery roared, cavalry squadrons, infantry units, heavy horse-drawn field-gun batteries moved and floundered through villages and forests, between lakes, across fields and roads. Shells smashed into farmhouses and village streets. A battlion advancing under cover of shellfire disappeared behind a curtain of smoke and mist to some unknown fate.Columns of prisoners herded to the rear blocked the advancing troops. Brigades took ground or yielded it, crossed each other's lines of communication, became tangled up with the wrong divisions. Field commanders lost track of their units, staff cars sped about, German scot plans flew overhead trying to gather information, army commanders struggled to find out what was happening, and issued orders which might not be recieved or carried out or conform to realities by the time they reached the front. Three hundred thousand men flailed at each other, marched and tiredly countermarched, fired their guns, got drunk if they were lucky enough to occupy a village or sat on the ground in the forest with a few companions while night came; and the next day the struggle went on and the great battle of the Eastern Front was fought out.
-- Barbara Wertheim Tuchman, The Guns of August

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2010 — Page 7

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2010 — Page 7: "MATT RIDLEY
Science Writer; Founding chairman of the International Centre for Life; Author, Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code.

THE COLLECTIVE BRAIN

The Internet is the ultimate mating ground for ideas, the supreme lekking arena for memes. Cultural and intellectual evolution depends on sex just as much as biological evolution does; otherwise it remains a merely vertical transmission system. Sex allows creatures to draw upon mutations that happen anywhere in their species. The Internet allows people to draw upon ideas that occur to anybody in the world. Radio and printing did this too, and so did writing, and before that language, but the Internet has made it fast and furious.

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THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2010— Page 2

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2010— Page 2: "KAYAKS vs CANOES

In the North Pacific ocean, there were two approaches to boatbuilding. The Aleuts (and their kayak-building relatives) lived on barren, treeless islands and built their vessels by piecing together skeletal frameworks from fragments of beach-combed wood. The Tlingit (and their dugout canoe-building relatives) built their vessels by selecting entire trees out of the rainforest and removing wood until there was nothing left but a canoe.

The Aleut and the Tlingit achieved similar results — maximum boat / minimum material — by opposite means. The flood of information unleashed by the Internet has produced a similar cultural split. We used to be kayak builders, collecting all available fragments of information to assemble the framework that kept us afloat. Now, we have to learn to become dugout-canoe builders, discarding unneccessary information to reveal the shape of knowledge hidden within.

I was a hardened kayak builder, trained to collect every available stick. I resent having to learn the new skills. But those who don't will be left paddling logs, not canoes.

Medical Daily: Danish researchers finally solve the obesity riddle

Medical Daily: Danish researchers finally solve the obesity riddle: "A high-protein, low-GI diet works best

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Is MiFi the future of wireless internet -- or a fad? - CNN.com

Is MiFi the future of wireless internet -- or a fad? - CNN.com: "The devices, many of them smaller than a smartphone, are similar to the wireless routers in many homes except they don't need to be plugged into anything.
They connect to a cellular carrier's data network. Once the battery is charged, a MiFi can be taken anywhere, and it provides a Wi-Fi signal to computers or iPods in a nearby vicinity."

Rovio - Blog

Rovio - Blog: "Face it, you're playing in the kiddie pool and trying to taunt the adults. Have fun splashing, little one! We'll be doing the high dives while you paddle around with your water wings."

RIM’s Rival to IPad Wins Fans as Clients Seek Security - BusinessWeek

RIM’s Rival to IPad Wins Fans as Clients Seek Security - BusinessWeek: "PlayBook’s security features, such as e-mail encryption, to win over companies used to working with the BlackBerry."

Google TV: No Need to Tune In Just Yet | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

Google TV: No Need to Tune In Just Yet | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD
Google TV: No Need to Tune In Just Yet
November 17, 2010
by Walter S. Mossberg

SharePrint The quest to bring the full range of Internet video to your TV in a simple way continues, but it isn’t going well. The latest team to try—Google, Logitech and Sony—has made an admirably bold effort, but, like others before, it has missed the mark, at least in its first effort.



Google TV—software built into hardware made by Logitech and Sony—is very different from competing products, such as Apple TV and Roku. Unlike the others, it aims to merge Web video and regular TV in one simple interface, via one box, with one easily usable controller. Also, unlike the others, it isn’t limited to just customized channels that bring specific Web-video services to the screen. It lets you browse to almost any website with video, and play it on the TV.

But, for now, I’d relegate Google TV to the category of a geek product, not a mainstream, easy solution ready for average users. It’s too complicated, in my view, and some of its functions fall short.

Why Smart TV is Not PC

Why Smart TV is Not PC
hmm, right Genevive? So much for Intel's wonderful "ethnographic research"...

Another key factor in the attempt to get a better grasp of what users want research project led by Bell's group called "The Social Lives of Television."


Johnson and a team of Intel anthropologists and ethnographers visited hundreds of people in their homes in India, the U.K., the U.S. and China to learn how they engaged with their TVs so that Intel could better understand what consumers actually wanted.


"When we started working on the concept 4 years ago, we figured the No. 1 thing people would want in the future is movies-on-demand," Johnson said. "But our focus groups revealed that what people really wanted on their TVs was Internet access. People saw the Internet as a way they could get whatever they wanted on demand. Watching what they wanted, when they wanted it, and where they wanted was a profound and liberating experience."

Google TV’s Chaotic Interface - David Pogue - NYTimes.com

Google TV’s Chaotic Interface - David Pogue - NYTimes.com: "This much is clear: Google TV may be interesting to technophiles, but it’s not for average people. On the great timeline of television history, Google TV takes an enormous step in the wrong direction: toward complexity."

Woody Allen on Faith and Fortune Tellers - Question - NYTimes.com

Woody Allen on Faith and Fortune Tellers - Question - NYTimes.com: "“To me,” Mr. Allen said, “there’s no real difference between a fortune teller or a fortune cookie and any of the organized religions. They’re all equally valid or invalid, really. And equally helpful.”

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

How the Cell Phone Is Changing the World - Newsweek

How the Cell Phone Is Changing the World - Newsweek: "The phones now allow Masai tribesmen in Kenya to bank the proceeds from selling cattle; Iranian protesters to organize in secret; North Koreans to communicate with the outside world; Afghan villagers to alert Coalition soldiers to Taliban forces; insurgents to blow up roadside bombs in Iraq; and charities to see, in real time, when HIV drugs run out in the middle of Malawi."

Skepticblog » What Do You Believe In?

Skepticblog » What Do You Believe In?

Illadore's House o Crack - Copyright Infringement and Me

Illadore's House o Crack - Copyright Infringement and Me: "But honestly Monica, the web is considered 'public domain' and you should be happy we just didn't 'lift' your whole article and put someone else's name on it!

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

"Known as the Trusted Multi-Tenant Infrastructure Work Group, there are about 50 TCG members participating, including HP, IBM, AMD and Microsoft"

Say What? Top Five IT Quotes of the Week - InternetNews.com

Say What? Top Five IT Quotes of the Week - InternetNews.com: "'The utility of the classic firewall is becoming increasingly limited as time marches on. Just because you block the entire Internet except for port 80 -- these days it means you're not blocking anything, since everything is tunneled over HTTP. HTTP is the new TCP.'
Sourcefire CTO and creator of the open source Snort IPS, Martin Roesch talking about new firewall technology. (eSecurity Planet)"

10 Open-Source Security Products You Can Download Now

10 Open-Source Security Products You Can Download Now: "Spamato
Okay, it sounds like a highly processed liquefied lunch food. But this OS-independent open-source product provides a complete client-side spam filter that can integrate into popular e-mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook, or as an extension for other open-source e-mail clients such as Mozilla Mail and Thunderbird. It can also work as a standalone proxy component"

Scenes From IBM's Information On Demand Conference

Scenes From IBM's Information On Demand Conference: "'We believe we are at a very important inflection point relative to this whole idea of analyzing data and using data for strategic advantage,' said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software and Systems, at a press conference. Businesses, he said, 'need to become more predictive [and] more forward-looking, they need to get more insight into where the world around them is going, the markets they serve [and] the customers they work with.'"

European Specialists to Define Security Standards for Smartphones

European Specialists to Define Security Standards for Smartphones: "From a technical viewpoint, the SEPIA project will be based on a mobile platform combining ARM TrustZone technology, which creates a protected area in advanced systems-on-chip, and the high-security MobiCore operating system developed by G&D. The interplay between TrustZone and MobiCore ensures that if online services incorporate security-sensitive functions - for instance payment transactions - it is not possible for malware on the phone to manipulate username and password entries via the keypad or data output on the display"

Innovation Isn’t a Matter of Left or Right - NYTimes.com

Innovation Isn’t a Matter of Left or Right - NYTimes.com: "In my research, I analyzed 300 of the most influential innovations in science, commerce and technology — from the discovery of vacuums to the vacuum tube to the vacuum cleaner — and put the innovators of each breakthrough into one of four quadrants. First, there is the classic solo entrepreneur, protecting innovations in order to benefit from them financially; then the amateur individual, exploring and inventing for the love of it. Then there are the private corporations collaborating on ideas while simultaneously competing with one another. And then there is what I call the “fourth quadrant”: the space of collaborative, nonproprietary innovation, exemplified in recent years by the Internet and the Web, two groundbreaking innovations not owned by anyone.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Microsoft: Our strategy with Silverlight has shifted | ZDNet

Microsoft: Our strategy with Silverlight has shifted | ZDNet: "“But HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple’s) iOS platform,” Muglia said.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Chinese Supercomputer Tianhe-1A Bumps U.S. Out of the Lead - NYTimes.com

Chinese Supercomputer Tianhe-1A Bumps U.S. Out of the Lead - NYTimes.com: "The Chinese system follows that model by linking thousands upon thousands of chips made by the American companies Intel and Nvidia. But the secret sauce behind the system — and the technological achievement — is the interconnect, or networking technology, developed by Chinese researchers that shuttles data back and forth across the smaller computers at breakneck rates, Mr. Dongarra said.

“That technology was built by them,” Mr. Dongarra said. “They are taking supercomputing very seriously and making a deep commitment.”

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Ksplice » Hosting backdoors in hardware - System administration and software blog

Ksplice » Hosting backdoors in hardware - System administration and software blog: "The PCI specification defines a “expansion ROM” mechanism whereby a PCI card can include a bit of code for the BIOS to execute during the boot procedure. This is intended to give the hardware a chance to initialize itself, but we can also use it for our own purposes.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Ten Years To Save the Touchscreen

Ten Years To Save the Touchscreen: "Today's mobile touchscreen gadgets, along with all liquid crystal displays, rely on the unusual properties of a single material - a metallic crossbreed whose sources could be exhausted within the decade. It is not just our displays that are under threat. Solar cells and low-power LEDs, both central planks of a low-carbon energy strategy, could feel the squeeze too. No surprise, then, that companies and laboratories across the world are scrambling to find a replacement.
If this is all news to you, chances are you have never heard of the material causing all the fuss. A mixture of two metallic oxides called indium tin oxide (ITO), it is the material electronic engineers love to hate. Its principal component, indium, is a by-product of lead and zinc mining; it is difficult to come by and expensive. Once through the factory gates, ITO's brittleness and inflexibility make it a pain to work with.
And yet it has qualities that make us forgive its defects. Specifically, it is a rare example of a material that is both electrically conducting and optically transparent, which means it does not absorb photons of light."

Dawn of a New Day « Ray Ozzie

Dawn of a New Day « Ray Ozzie

We’ve got so far to go before we even scratch the surface of what’s now possible. All these new services will be cloud-centric ‘continuous services’ built in a way that we can all rely upon. As such, cloud computing will become pervasive for developers and IT – a shift that’ll catalyze the transformation of infrastructure, systems & business processes across all major organizations worldwide. And all these new services will work hand-in-hand with an unimaginably fascinating world of devices-to-come. Today’s PC’s, phones & pads are just the very beginning; we’ll see decades to come of incredible innovation from which will emerge all sorts of ‘connected companions’ that we’ll wear, we’ll carry, we’ll use on our desks & walls and the environment all around us. Service-connected devices going far beyond just the ‘screen, keyboard and mouse’: humanly-natural ‘conscious’ devices that’ll see, recognize, hear & listen to you and what’s around you, that’ll feel your touch and gestures and movement, that’ll detect your proximity to others; that’ll sense your location, direction, altitude, temperature, heartbeat & health.

Let there be no doubt that the big shifts occurring over the next five years ensure that this will absolutely be a time of great opportunity for those who put past technologies & successes into perspective, and envision all the transformational value that can be offered moving forward to individuals, businesses, governments and society. It’s the dawn of a new day – the sun having now arisen on a world of continuous services and connected devices.

[1010.3279] The Wet-Dog Shake

[1010.3279] The Wet-Dog Shake: "The Wet-Dog Shake
Authors: Andrew Dickerson, Grant Mills, Jay Bauman, Young-Hui Chang, David Hu
(Submitted on 15 Oct 2010)

Abstract: The drying of wet fur is a critical to mammalian heat regulation. In this fluid dynamics video, we show a sequence of films demonstrating how hirsute animals to rapidly oscillate their bodies to shed water droplets, nature's analogy to the spin cycle of a washing machine. High-speed videography and fur-particle tracking is employed to determine the angular position of the animal's shoulder skin as a function of time. X-ray cinematography is used to track the motion of the skeleton. We determine conditions for drop ejection by considering the balance of surface tension and centripetal forces on drops adhering to the animal. Particular attention is paid to rationalizing the relationship between animal size and oscillation frequency required to self-dry.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Don't Roundtrip Ciphertext Via a String Encoding - .NET Security Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Don't Roundtrip Ciphertext Via a String Encoding - .NET Security Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs: "Instead if you want to convert the ciphertext into a string, use Base64 encoding. Replacing the two conversion lines with:

byte[] encrypted = memoryStream.ToArray();
return Convert.ToBase64String(encrypted);


byte[] rawData = Convert.FromBase64String(data);

Results in code that works every time, since base 64 encoding is guaranteed to be able to accurately represent any input byte sequence.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Android Chief Andy Rubin Sends His First Tweet — And It’s Aimed At Steve Jobs

Android Chief Andy Rubin Sends His First Tweet — And It’s Aimed At Steve Jobs: "Without further ado, here is Andy Rubin’s first tweet:

the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make”

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Oracle and IBM join together on OpenJDK - Computerworld Blogs

Oracle and IBM join together on OpenJDK - Computerworld Blogs

. It became clear to us that first Sun and then Oracle were never planning to make the important test and certification tests for Java, the Java SE TCK [Technology Compatibility Kit], available to Apache. We disagreed with this choice, but it was not ours to make. So rather than continue to drive Harmony as an unofficial and uncertified Java effort, we decided to shift direction and put our efforts into OpenJDK. Our involvement will not be casual as we plan to hold leadership positions and, with the other members of the community, fully expect to have a strong say in how the project is managed and in which technical direction it goes."

Managed Virtualization Services Opportunity Knocks | Channel Tech Center

Managed Virtualization Services Opportunity Knocks Channel Tech Center: "It turns out that while everybody got excited about saving capital dollars by consolidating physical servers, the ability to create virtual servers almost on a whim is sending operational costs spiraling."

Against the Day - Books - Review - New York Times

Against the Day - Books - Review - New York Times: "Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, “Against the Day,” reads like the sort of imitation of a Thomas Pynchon novel that a dogged but ungainly fan of this author’s might have written on quaaludes. It is a humongous, bloated jigsaw puzzle of a story, pretentious without being provocative, elliptical without being illuminating, complicated without being rewardingly complex

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Lou Brooks: 'Twimericks': The Most Tongue-Twisting Limericks For Kids

Lou Brooks: 'Twimericks': The Most Tongue-Twisting Limericks For Kids: "Did Woody do what he did? What he did, did he do?
Could Woody, how could he, not do what he knew?
Woody does what he wasn't,
If he wasn't, then he doesn't,
If he isn't, was what Woody didn't maybe done by you?

You Can't Sacrifice Partition Tolerance | codahale.com

You Can't Sacrifice Partition Tolerance | codahale.com: "As a thought experiment, imagine a distributed system which keeps track of a single piece of data using three nodes—A, B, and C—and which claims to be both consistent and available in the face of network partitions. Misfortune strikes, and that system is partitioned into two components: {A,B} and {C}. In this state, a write request arrives at node C to update the single piece of data.

That node only has two options:

1. Accept the write, knowing that neither A nor B will know about this new data until the partition heals.
2. Refuse the write, knowing that the client might not be able to contact A or B until the partition heals.

You either choose availability (Door #1) or you choose consistency (Door #2). You cannot choose both.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Topic of Cancer | Culture | Vanity Fair

Topic of Cancer | Culture | Vanity Fair: ". In one way, I suppose, I have been “in denial” for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

mental_floss Blog » 10 Latin Phrases You Pretend to Understand

mental_floss Blog » 10 Latin Phrases You Pretend to Understand: "5. E Pluribus Unum
(EE PLUR-uh-buhs OOH-nuhm): “Out of many, one”Less unique than it sounds, America’s original national motto, e pluribus unum, was plagiarized from an ancient recipe for salad dressing. In the 18th century, haughty intellectuals were fond of this phrase. It was the kind of thing gentlemen’s magazines would use to describe their year-end editions. But the term made its first appearance in Virgil’s poem “Moretum” to describe salad dressing. The ingredients, he wrote, would surrender their individual aesthetic when mixed with others to form one unique, homogenous, harmonious, and tasty concoction. As a slogan, it really nailed that whole cultural melting pot thing we were going for. And while it continues to appear on U.S. coins, “In God We Trust” came along later (officially in 1956) to share the motto spotlight."

Nvidia CEO: Netbooks and Tablets to Meld, Hints at Tegra-Powered webOS Devices

Nvidia CEO: Netbooks and Tablets to Meld, Hints at Tegra-Powered webOS Devices: "What’s your take on Intel’s Z6 Moorestown chip? Will they be competitive?
No. It’s not possible. You could give an elephant a diet but it’s still an elephant."

Google's CEO: 'The Laws Are Written by Lobbyists' - Derek Thompson - Technology - The Atlantic

Google's CEO: 'The Laws Are Written by Lobbyists' - Derek Thompson - Technology - The Atlantic:

'The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists' to protect incumbent interests, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Atlantic editor James Bennet at the Washington Ideas Forum. 'It's shocking how the system actually works.'

Third_Way_Idea_Brief_-_A_Taxpayer_Receipt.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Third_Way_Idea_Brief_-_A_Taxpayer_Receipt.pdf (application/pdf Object):
What You Paid For
2009 tax receipt for a taxpayer earning $34,140 and paying
$5,400 in federal income tax and FICA (selected items)
4

Social Security $ 1,040.70
Medicare $ 625.51
Medicaid $ 385.28
Interest on the National Debt $ 287.03
Combat Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan $229.17
Military Personnel $192.79
Veteran’s Benefits $74.65
National Parks $ 69.36
Federal Highways $ 63.89
Health care research (NIH) $ 46.54

PolitiFact | Tim Pawlenty says the U.S. is not undertaxed compared to its competitors

PolitiFact | Tim Pawlenty says the U.S. is not undertaxed compared to its competitors: "Actually,' Marcus wrote, 'the United States is on the low end in terms of the overall tax burden -- 28 percent of gross domestic product in 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, compared with an average of 36 percent in the 30 OECD countries. Only South Korea, Mexico and Turkey were lower.'

By locating the OECD chart -- which is exactly what we would have done -- Marcus ably did much of our work for us. But we still wanted to check with a few tax experts to make sure that she didn't miss anything in her analysis.

Three experts we queried -- Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, William Ahern, the director of policy and communications at the Tax Foundation, a tax research group, and Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research -- all agreed with Marcus's conclusion, though Ahern and Mitchell took the opportunity to add some additional context.

Ahern said that tax-burden-to-GDP ratios -- the data that underlies the OECD chart -- should be used carefully because they can obscure deficits. A country with a low tax-to-GDP ratio may have a substantial deficit, and in time, that deficit will put upward pressure on taxes. So nations with low tax-to-GDP ratios may not find those ratios sustainable over the long term.

Mitchell, for his part, agreed with Marcus' point about the overall tax burden, but he noted that in the U.S., the burden from different types of taxes varies. Some types of taxes, such as corporate taxes, are among the highest of the OECD nations. Others are closer to average, such as the top income tax rate and the capital gains tax rate.

'The big reason the U.S. has a lower aggregate tax burden when measured as a share of GDP is that we don't -- yet -- have a value-added tax,' Mitchell said. 'Our payroll taxes also tend to be lower than average.'

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

How Popular Is the iPhone, Really? [INFOGRAPHIC]

How Popular Is the iPhone, Really? [INFOGRAPHIC]: "nifty infographic that puts many facts about the iPhone into perspective

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Americans Are Horribly Misinformed About Who Has Money - Politics - GOOD

Americans Are Horribly Misinformed About Who Has Money - Politics - GOOD: "The richest 20 percent, represented by that blue line, has about 85 percent of the wealth. The next richest 20 percent, represented by that red line, has about 10 percent of the wealth. And the remaining three-fifths of America shares a tiny sliver of the country's wealth.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Security Lessons Learned From The Diaspora Launch: MicroISV on a Shoestring

Security Lessons Learned From The Diaspora Launch: MicroISV on a Shoestring: "This is what kills most encryption systems in real life. You don’t have to beat encryption to beat the system, you just have to beat the weakest link in the chain around it. That almost certainly isn’t the encryption algorithm — it is some inadequacy in the larger system added by a developer who barely understands crypto but who trusts that sprinkling it in magically makes it better. Crypto is not soy sauce for security.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Support Certificates In Your Apps with the .NET Framework 2.0

Support Certificates In Your Apps with the .NET Framework 2.0
SSL Support
The SSL authentication protocol relies on certificates. Support for SSL in the .NET Framework consists of two parts. The special (but most widely used) case of SSL over HTTP is implemented by the HttpWebRequest class (this is also ultimately used for Web service client proxies). To enable SSL, you don't have to do anything special besides specify a URL that uses the https: protocol.
When connecting to an SSL secured endpoint, the server certificate is validated on the client. If validation fails, by default the connection is immediately closed. You can override this behavior by providing a callback to a class called ServicePointManager. Whenever the HTTP client stack does certificate validation, it first checks if a callback is provided-if that's the case, it executes your code. To hook up the callback, you have to provide a delegate of type RemoteCertificateValidationCallback: Copy Code // override default certificate policy
// (for example, for testing purposes)
ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback =
new RemoteCertificateValidationCallback(VerifyServerCertificate);

Intel's upgradable processor: good sense or utter catastrophe?

Intel's upgradable processor: good sense or utter catastrophe?: "Intel is about to experiment with a new concept in mass-market processors with its forthcoming Pentium G6951 CPU: upgradability."


Instead, the company designs a few processors that can do everything ("real" variations include core count, presence of QPI connections, number of memory channels, and a few other things), and then selectively disables features. Sometimes the decision is made for Intel—a chip might have a manufacturing defect that limits the amount of cache it can use, and not all chips can run at the same frequency within a given power envelope—but a lot of the time, the company is disabling functional hardware. For example, every Pentium G6950 processor has the hardware to do hyperthreading. It's just that it's been permanently disabled at the factory, because Intel's bean-counters have decided that that particular grade of processor won't have hyperthreading

eWeek

eWeek: ". “Oracle is an extremely micromanaged company. So myself and my peers in the Java area were not allowed to decide anything. All of our authority to decide anything evaporated.”
That bent Gosling’s resolve like a wishbone in the hands of two eager siblings in mid-pull after Thanksgiving dinner, but even that didn’t break it. What ultimately snapped the wishbone and made Gosling want to holler and throw up his hands Marvin-Gaye style was that “My job seemed to be to get up on stage and be a public presence for Java for Oracle. I’m from the wrong Myers-Briggs quadrant for that,” he said."

Intel + DRM: a crippled processor that you have to pay extra to unlock - Boing Boing

Intel + DRM: a crippled processor that you have to pay extra to unlock - Boing Boing: "This idea, which Siva Vaidhyanathan calls 'If value, then right,' sounds reasonable on its face. But it's a principle that flies in the face of the entire human history of innovation. By this reasoning, the company that makes big tins of juice should be able to charge you extra for the right to use the empty cans to store lugnuts; the company that makes your living room TV should be able to charge more when you retire it to the cottage; the company that makes your coat-hanger should be able to charge more when you unbend it to fish something out from under the dryer.
Moreover, it's an idea that is fundamentally anti-private-property. Under the 'If value, then right' theory, you don't own anything you buy. You are a mere licensor, entitled to extract only the value that your vendor has deigned to provide you with. The matchbook is to light birthday candles, not to fix a wobbly table. The toilet roll is to hold the paper, not to use in a craft project. 'If value, then right,' is a business model that relies on all the innovation taking place in large corporate labs, with none of it happening at the lab in your kitchen, or in your skull. It's a business model that says only companies can have the absolute right of property, and the rest of us are mere tenants."

The truth about iPad: It's only good for two things | Tech Sanity Check | TechRepublic.com

The truth about iPad: It's only good for two things Tech Sanity Check TechRepublic.com: "I’ve often said, “The iPad is only good for two things: Reading and Scrabble.”"

Official Google Enterprise Blog: A more secure cloud for millions of Google Apps users

Official Google Enterprise Blog: A more secure cloud for millions of Google Apps users: "After entering your password, a verification code is sent to your mobile phone via SMS, voice calls, or generated on an application you can install on your Android, BlackBerry or iPhone device"

IBM to acquire Netezza for $1.7 billion | Business Tech - CNET News

IBM to acquire Netezza for $1.7 billion Business Tech - CNET News: "The field is one that has grabbed IBM's attention in a big way. The company said that in the last four years it has invested more than $12 billion in 23 analytics-related acquisitions"

Pharyngula

Pharyngula: "I really like that last line of hers. This is why she doesn't like masturbation.

If he already knows what pleases him and can please himself, then why am I in the picture?

Because, apparently, her only purpose in the relationship is to provide a little friction, and the only way she can improve on her man's experience is by keeping him ignorant. So yes, why is she in the picture?

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

FarmVillains - Page 1 - News - San Francisco - SF Weekly

FarmVillains - Page 1 - News - San Francisco - SF Weekly: "'I don't fucking want innovation,' the ex-employee recalls Pincus saying. 'You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers.'

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Apple Continued To Lose U.S. Marketshare Despite Spike From iPhone 4 Sales | mocoNews

Apple Continued To Lose U.S. Marketshare Despite Spike From iPhone 4 Sales | mocoNews: "Apple’s iPhone 4 did not give the company the bump in sales it needed to put Android’s momentum in check. Instead, Apple’s smartphone marketshare in the U.S. dropped by 1.3 percent in the three months ended in July while Android’s share grew by an impressive five percentage points"

Controlling a PC, Straight from an iPad - NYTimes.com

Controlling a PC, Straight from an iPad - NYTimes.com: "You can, for $6.99. Splashtop Remote is an iPad app that pairs with a free Windows application to display your PC screen on your iPad, provided both are on the same wireless network. Splashtop is the name of a small quick-boot program that comes pre-installed on many PCs. You may know it as Lenovo Quick Start, Asus ExpressGate, or HP QuickWeb. Splashtop Remote is made by the same company, Device VM."

Criminals 'go cloud' with attacks-as-a-service | Malware - InfoWorld

Criminals 'go cloud' with attacks-as-a-service | Malware - InfoWorld: "Attacks-as-a-service"

Intel investing $30 million in software companies - Yahoo! News

Intel investing $30 million in software companies - Yahoo! News: "The investment arm of chip maker Intel is investing more than $30 million total into four different software developers.
Three of the companies, Adaptive Computing, Joyent and Nexant provide 'cloud computing' technology, which allows computer users or companies to access software and data storage space over the Web"

Boxee Box goes Intel, gets priced for preorder

Boxee Box goes Intel, gets priced for preorder: "Boxee and D-Link have announced that the upcoming Boxee Box set-top box is now available for preorder from Amazon and set to ship in November. The long-awaited device for accessing a variety of online video and content directly from a television is also ditching Tegra2 for Atom."

The Man Who Makes Your iPhone - BusinessWeek

The Man Who Makes Your iPhone - BusinessWeek: "The suicides introduced Foxconn to much of the world in the worst terms imaginable—as an industrial monster that treats its workers like machines, leveraging masses of cheap labor, mainly 18-to-25-year-olds from rural areas, to make products like the iPhone at seemingly impossible prices"

Gartner Says Android to Become No. 2 Worldwide Mobile Operating System in 2010 and Challenge Symbian for No. 1 Position by 2014

Gartner Says Android to Become No. 2 Worldwide Mobile Operating System in 2010 and Challenge Symbian for No. 1 Position by 2014: "Forecast: Mobile Communications Device Open OS Sales to End Users by OS (Thousands of Units)
OS2009201020112014
Symbian80,876.3107,662.4141,278.6264,351.8
Market Share (%)46.940.134.230.2
Android6,798.447,462.191,937.7259,306.4
Market Share (%)3.917.722.229.6
Research In Motion34,346.846,922.962,198.2102,579.5
Market Share (%)19.917.515.011.7
iOS24,889.841,461.870,740.0130,393.0
Market Share (%)14.415.417.114.9
Windows Phone15,031.112,686.521,308.834,490.2
Market Share (%)8.74.75.23.9
Other Operating Systems10,431.912,588.126,017.384,452.9
Market Share (%)6.14.76.39.6
Total Market172,374.3268,783.7413,480.5875,573.8"

"Here You Have" Virus Demonstrates Need to Improve Malware Security - PCWorld Business Center

"Here You Have" Virus Demonstrates Need to Improve Malware Security - PCWorld Business Center: "The Anna Kournikova virus that spread around the world in 2001 used the exact same subject line. Here we are nearly a decade later and essentially the same attack that worked in 2001 is once again compromising tens of thousands of machines around the globe."

Avivah Litan — A Member of the Gartner Blog Network

Avivah Litan — A Member of the Gartner Blog Network
Well sorry to say, at least from a fraud detection perspective, that tagging machines and linking the machines to a user’s identity works well for identifying good guys but does nothing to help identify the bad ones. Bad guys know how to take over good-guy user machines and launch their stealth attacks from them, masquerading their true identities under the cloak of a ‘good’ PC or mobile computing device.

Of course, hardware level machine identification is a good way to tag a PC, but there are other options available that are in fact more effective at catching the crooks. One thing is obvious – fraudsters won’t let the computing devices they use to perpetrate their crimes be tagged as ‘bad.’ They will just delete the tags, if they can, or use a different PC that is either not tagged or tagged as ‘good.’

In sum, hardware level tagging of users’ computing devices is a good way to tag good users and is a good way to track them. But good security means we need to identify the bad users, not just the good ones. And this approach, on its own, does nothing to stop a bad user from taking over a good machine.

Gartner: Days Of Easy Tagging Of User PCs With Flash Local Storage Drawing To An End - DarkReading

Gartner: Days Of Easy Tagging Of User PCs With Flash Local Storage Drawing To An End - DarkReading: "PC inspection software provides richer information than server-based clientless CDI software. It can read information from the operating system registry, serial numbers off a hard drive or the Media Access Control ID from an Ethernet card."

Online service providers, such as online banks and e-commerce sites, should start planning to phase out their reliance on Flash local storage (also referred to as local shared objects and Flash cookies) for device identification-based fraud detection, according to Gartner, Inc. Mounting global regulatory concerns over consumer privacy, and Adobe's responses with new privacy settings in its Flash player, are driving this transition.


"The days of tagging customer PCs to identify 'good' customers logging into user accounts are numbered, as regulatory privacy concerns and privacy settings in Adobe Flash Player 10.1 give end users explicit control over information downloaded to their PCs using Flash Player," said Avivah Litan, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "Service providers who depend on Flash to identify client devices — such as PCs — in order to prevent fraud should evaluate and implement alternative technologies."

Gartner: Days Of Easy Tagging Of User PCs With Flash Local Storage Drawing To An End - DarkReading

Gartner: Days Of Easy Tagging Of User PCs With Flash Local Storage Drawing To An End - DarkReading
Online service providers, such as online banks and e-commerce sites, should start planning to phase out their reliance on Flash local storage (also referred to as local shared objects and Flash cookies) for device identification-based fraud detection, according to Gartner, Inc. Mounting global regulatory concerns over consumer privacy, and Adobe's responses with new privacy settings in its Flash player, are driving this transition.


"The days of tagging customer PCs to identify 'good' customers logging into user accounts are numbered, as regulatory privacy concerns and privacy settings in Adobe Flash Player 10.1 give end users explicit control over information downloaded to their PCs using Flash Player," said Avivah Litan, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "Service providers who depend on Flash to identify client devices — such as PCs — in order to prevent fraud should evaluate and implement alternative technologies."

Greg Brown -- Lyrics for FURTHER IN

Greg Brown -- Lyrics for FURTHER IN: "I got two little feet to get me across the mountain two little feet to carry me away into the woods two little feet big mountain and a cloud comin' down cloud comin' down cloud comin' down

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Apple Music Event Heavy on Metrics | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Apple Music Event Heavy on Metrics | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD: "300 Apple Stores in 10 countries (soon to be 11)
More than 1 million visitors to those stores on some days
120 million iOS devices sold since the first iPhone debuted
230,000 iOS devices activated each day
6.5 billion apps downloaded from the App Store to date
200 apps downloaded from the App Store each second
1.5 billion games and entertainment downloads to the iPod touch alone
250,000 apps currently available in the App Store
25,000 of those are iPad apps
275 million iPods sold to date
160 million active iTunes accounts
12 million songs in the iTunes store
11.7 billion songs downloaded from iTunes
450 million TV episodes downloaded via iTunes
100 million movies downloaded via iTunes
35 million books downloaded via iTunes
The iPod touch is the No. 1 mobile gaming device worldwide, outselling the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP combined
Apple’s share of the portable gaming market: 50 percent"

AMD's Chip Architect Brad Burgess on Mobile Computing's Future | Fast Company

AMD's Chip Architect Brad Burgess on Mobile Computing's Future | Fast Company: "AMD is in a prime position to capitalize on this as it's got expertise in designing both types of processor (unlike Intel, as pretty much anyone who's ever had to rely on Intel's 'integrated graphics' solutions will attest)."

Ouch!

Scientist at Work - Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier - Debunking Myths of the Medical World - NYTimes.com

Scientist at Work - Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier - Debunking Myths of the Medical World - NYTimes.com: "While Dr. Redelmeier enjoys his patient interactions, he appears incapable of resisting the lure of a good research topic. Several years ago he compared medical school class presidents to a control group of others in the class and found that the presidents died an average 2.5 years earlier than those in the control group. The type who would run for class president, he concluded in the resulting paper, “may also be the type who fails to look after their health or is otherwise prone to early mortality.”

The idea came to him one day in a hallway at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine, where he had stopped to admire a century’s worth of class photos showing mostly white men.

“Some people might say, ‘What an old boys’ network,’ ” Dr. Redelmeier said. “But I thought, ‘My goodness, what a homogeneous population, akin to identical white mice, which thereby controls for all sorts of differences.’ ” Thus was born another Redelmeier classic.

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My Way News - Arizona governor stumbles during debate

My Way News - Arizona governor stumbles during debate: "'We have, uh, did what was right for Arizona,'
AZ Governor Jan Brewer showing her true intellectual prowess

A Syllabus and Book List for Novice Students of Science Fiction Literature | Underwire | Wired.com

A Syllabus and Book List for Novice Students of Science Fiction Literature | Underwire | Wired.com: "Anathem, Neal Stephenson
Not only is this novel a celebration of the monastic life of scholars, but it is also a series of lessons about science, math and philosophy. A group of young researchers first discover, then analyze, an object that has arrived in orbit around their planet, and we learn with them about the most rational way to approach that which is truly alien. Theories of mind and matter are the subjects of entire chapters in this story about the struggle between logic and superstition

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The U.S. Electronic Passport Frequently Asked Questions

The U.S. Electronic Passport Frequently Asked Questions: "An Electronic Passport is the same as a traditional passport with the addition of a small integrated circuit (or “chip”) embedded in the back cover. The chip stores:
The same data visually displayed on the data page of the passport;
A biometric identifier in the form of a digital image of the passport photograph, which will facilitate the use of face recognition technology at ports-of-entry;
The unique chip identification number; and
A digital signature to protect the stored data from alteration"

Memorable Quotes from Alt.Sysadmin.Recovery

Memorable Quotes from Alt.Sysadmin.Recovery: "I never really understood how there could be things that would drive you insane just because you knew them until I ran into Windows.

Peter da Silva

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Intel’s McAfee Deal: A National Security Nightmare - The Firewall - the world of security - Forbes

Intel’s McAfee Deal: A National Security Nightmare - The Firewall - the world of security - Forbes: "When I read the news Thursday that Intel is buying McAfee for $7.68 billion, I was stunned by its national security implications.

Intel has had a cozy relationship with the Russian government and its Federal Security Service (FSB) since 2002 with its sponsorship of a laboratory on wireless technology at Nizhny Novgorod State University (NNGU).

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There's something about macro

There's something about macro: "Finally, sticky prices play a crucial role in converting this into a theory of real economic fluctuations; while I regard the evidence for such stickiness as overwhelming, the assumption of at least temporarily rigid nominal prices is one of those things that works beautifully in practice but very badly in theory.

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Spreading Hayek, Spurning Keynes - WSJ.com

Spreading Hayek, Spurning Keynes - WSJ.com: "Austrian school of economics that opposes government intervention in markets and decries federal spending to prop up demand during times of crisis

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Sailing faster than the wind - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sailing faster than the wind - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "On July 2, 2010, the propeller-powered land yacht Blackbird set the world's first certified record for going directly downwind, faster than the wind, using only power from the wind. The yacht achieved a dead downwind speed of about 2.8 times the speed of the wind.[46][47][48]

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Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age

Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age: "The harsh reality is that in the tech world, companies prefer to hire young, inexperienced, engineers. And engineering is an “up or out” profession: you either move up the ladder or face unemployment. This is not something that tech executives publicly admit, because they fear being sued for age discrimination, but everyone knows that this is the way things are.

The Real Bozo Attempts to Atone: Why the DDWFTW Car Works : Good Math, Bad Math

The Real Bozo Attempts to Atone: Why the DDWFTW Car Works : Good Math, Bad Math: "And the answer to that is 'Yes'. This thing does do it. It's not magic, it's not perpetual motion. In fact, it's really astonishingly simple, once you realize that the behavior of things moving through air is quite different from the simple rigid system that it appears to be equivalent to"

Internet2: IDEA Award Winners 2010

Internet2: IDEA Award Winners 2010: "Shibboleth
Shibboleth® Federated Single Sign-On Software is developed and supported by a growing international community. Nominated by Jack Suess, Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, an institutional user of the software, Shibboleth is a standards-based, open-source solution for Web-based single sign-on across and within organizational boundaries. Implementing widely used federated identity standards, principally OASIS' Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), Shibboleth simplifies the management of identity and permissions by allowing sites to make informed authorization decisions for individual access of protected online resources in a privacy-preserving manner."

Beware the smart phone data plan con - Technology & science - Tech and gadgets - Back to School - msnbc.com

Beware the smart phone data plan con - Technology & science - Tech and gadgets - Back to School - msnbc.com: "So, how much will your smart phone cost? Forget that number between $0 and $299 that you pay up front. The number you should focus on is the total cost of ownership, which for smart phones is usually around $2,000. (Regular 'dumb' phones with unlimited text messages generally cost half that over the same period.)"

Unlocking Apple's iPhone is legal, ethical, and just plain fun. - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine

Unlocking Apple's iPhone is legal, ethical, and just plain fun. - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine
Part of the copyright code, Section 1201 of the famous Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, makes it illegal to break digital locks to get at copyrighted works. But that doesn't make unlockers criminals. The reason is an explicit exemption for personal unlocking issued by the librarian of Congress in 2006. As the librarian wrote, the locks "are used by wireless carriers to limit the ability of subscribers to switch to other carriers, a business decision that has nothing whatsoever to do with the interests protected by copyright." If that's good enough for the librarian of Congress, that's good enough for me

Some more comments... : On a New Road

Some more comments... : On a New Road
It's not so much that the game favors evil, but that the definition of "good" is really twisted:
Good adj: anything which increases the stock price.
Considerations about employees, products, customers and community are all secondary. They only enter the equation as ways to achieve goal 1. Morality or high principles have no place in the corporate discourse. They maximize the stock price, within the bounds of the law. Corporations like Oracle and Exxon tend to be perfectly rational. They "buy laws" because it's perfectly legal to spend money on lobbyists and political campaigns. While you and I might think that it is morally reprehensible to buy elections, like the recent case with Target, it is nonetheless totally legal. Given the rules of the game, it would be bad for a corporation to not buy an election, if failing to do so would negatively impact their stock price. I could rant for a long time on this one, but not today… The whole modern concept of a public company is deeply flawed. But the game is what it is.

Windows DLL-loading security flaw puts Microsoft in a bind

Windows DLL-loading security flaw puts Microsoft in a bind: "The peculiar thing about all this is that this vulnerability has been known for a long time. The order in which directories are searched is documented, and has been documented for many years (that documentation dates back to 1998, and there are likely references that are older still, if one has any decade-old developer documents handy), and the dangers of using the current directory for loading libraries were explicitly highlighted a decade ago. As well as warning in the documentation about the dangers, Microsoft bloggers have also written about the issue in the past, telling developers how to avoid the problem"

3-sat phase and hardness

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1002/1002.0217v1.pdf

It was observed early [4, 17] that plotting P[UNSAT]
against shows a sharp threshold behavior at some critical c. Furthermore,
around this c it also takes various algorithms the longest time to solve random
3-SAT problems, i.e., the problems are hard. To quantify the hardness, either
the number of distinct steps of the solving algorithm is counted, or simply the
time measured until the problem is solved. The divergence of the hardness together
with the sudden jump of P[UNSAT] at some critical resembles a phase
transition-like behavior [9, 21]. The numerical analysis of this sharp threshold
behavior resulted in c = 4.15 ± 0.05 [10].

The Daily Mash - OUTRAGE OVER PLANS TO BUILD LIBRARY NEXT TO SARAH PALIN

The Daily Mash - OUTRAGE OVER PLANS TO BUILD LIBRARY NEXT TO SARAH PALIN: "PLANS to build a state-of-the-art library next to Republican catastrophe Sarah Palin are causing outrage across mainstream America.

Intel-McAfee: Horseless Carriage Vendor Buys Buggy-Whips | Forrester Blogs

Intel-McAfee: Horseless Carriage Vendor Buys Buggy-Whips Forrester Blogs: "Intel doesn’t understand software. Perhaps the most troubling part of the McAfee deal is the prospect that they will mismanage their new division into irrelevance. Intel’s track record with deals further up the stack are patchy at best. In 2005, Intel bought Sarvega, a hardware-and-software play in the XML processing segment. Today, it is irrelevant. In 1991, Intel bought LANDesk as the centerpiece of its DMTF strategy. Remember what DMTF stood for? (No penalty for not remembering: it stands for Desktop Management Task Force.) LANDesk was sold at the height of the dot-com boom, and it has been bought, spun off or sold three times again. Now Intel wants to get back in the software game again. Again, how will this be any different?"
....

Contrast that with the highly sandboxed, compartmentalized, digitally signed “apps” model of the BlackBerry OS and Apple’s iOS. With these two operating systems, you don’t need on-board anti-virus, or HIPS, or anything else — and if you do, it is because Apple or RIM have screwed up. Both of these vendors are taking responsibility for their platforms in totality in ways that Microsoft never did, or could have. Neither iOS or BlackBerry OS depend in any way on hardware capabilities Intel or anybody else could bring to the table, other than the root-of-trust embedded in the handset. All of the security differentiation is in the OS. And that, frankly, is where it belongs.

Intel Plans to Acquire McAfee for $7.68 Billion - NYTimes.com

Intel Plans to Acquire McAfee for $7.68 Billion - NYTimes.com: "McAfee’s revenue rose 20 percent last year to $1.93 billion. Intel’s revenue fell 7 percent to $35.1 billion. At 80 percent, McAfee’s gross margins surpass Intel’s, which tend to be around 65 percent."

Michael B. Thompson Profile - Forbes.com

Michael B. Thompson Profile - Forbes.com
Michael B. Thompson has served as a director of the Company since May 2004. Mr. Thompson is currently the VP of R&D and Information Technology for Kersh Risk Management in Plano, Texas. Kersh is a B2B Company focused on helping employees and dependents make behavioral changes to improve health which benefits the employee while driving significant health care cost savings for employers. In 2007 and 2008, Mr. Thompson was the COO of Mediaport Entertainment, Inc a digital media kiosk company that provides automated fulfillment and point of sale solutions for music, movies, eBooks, audio books, and other digital media. From 2003 to 2006 Mr. Thompson served as President, Chief Executive Officer and director of Setpoint Companies, an industry leader in lean automation that fully designs, assembles, tests and delivers automated assembly and test equipment. Mr. Thompson was integrally involved in Setpoint?s hub?and-spoke growth initiative starting (4) new companies while directly managing MySchedule.Net, Setpoint Spectrometers, and Rocky Mountain Testing Solutions. From 1986 to 2003, Mr. Thompson was the Vice President of the Planning and Logistics Solutions Group of Brooks? software division. Brooks Planning and Logistics Solutions Group's primary market focus is to provide simulation, scheduling and material handling automation and software controls to the semiconductor and related high technology industries. He was the President of AutoSimulations, Inc., which was acquired by Brooks in January of 2000. Mr. Thompson has been involved with automation, modeling and scheduling manufacturing systems for over 25 years. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Department of Engineering Sciences and Technology at Brigham Young University

dallasnews.com

dallasnews.com: "'As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country,' Obama told an intently listening crowd gathered at the White House Friday evening to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

'That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances,' he said. 'This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable.'

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AVP - AVP suspends operations

AVP - AVP suspends operations: "The AVP Tour today announced it has closed its doors due to financial hardship, cutting short the 2010 season. AVP ownership is not funding the tour and the AVP has been unsuccessful at finding new investors.

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Traveler to the undiscovere'd country - Roger Ebert's Journal

Traveler to the undiscovere'd country - Roger Ebert's Journal: "'The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing, that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September the 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishmen -- if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification?'

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Page 2 - Oracle Outlines SPARC, Solaris 11 Plans - IT Infrastructure from eWeek

Page 2 - Oracle Outlines SPARC, Solaris 11 Plans - IT Infrastructure from eWeek: "Oracle will only focus on Intel processors, which offer the best per-core performance, which is important given that Oracle licenses its software on a per-core basis, rather than a per-socket basis like Microsoft, Brookwood said"

Oracle Charges Into Desktop Virtualization With VDI 3.2 -- Virtual desktops -- InformationWeek

Oracle Charges Into Desktop Virtualization With VDI 3.2 -- Virtual desktops -- InformationWeek: "Desktop applications run on central servers under the Oracle VM hypervisor, a version of the Xen open source hypervisor"

Origin of Species: A History of O'Reilly Animals - O'Reilly Media

Origin of Species: A History of O'Reilly Animals - O'Reilly Media
When I was first approached by O'Reilly to propose new covers for their books, I was immersed in the VAX/VMS world of Digital Equipment Corporation. I had heard of UNIX, but I had a very hazy idea of what it was. I had never met a UNIX programmer or tried to edit a document using vi. All of the terms associated with vi, sed and awk, uucp, lex, yacc, curses, to name just a few, sounded to me like words that might come out of a popular game called "Dungeons and Dragons." I developed a mental picture of the UNIX programmer as a "Dungeons and Dragons" player. As I started to look for imagery for the book covers, I came across some wonderful wood engravings from the 19th century. The strange animals I found seemed to be a perfect match for all those strange-sounding UNIX terms, and were esoteric enough to appeal to what I believed the UNIX programmer type to be.

IB-InnovativeStrategies.pdf (application/pdf Object)

IB-InnovativeStrategies.pdf (application/pdf Object): "-When this second stage calculation is taken into account,
married couples may often find that it’s beneficial for
the spouse who is eligible for the lower Social Security
payments to start collecting his/her own worker benefits
early—while delaying the other spouse’s benefits

Emma Larkin | FiveBooks

Emma Larkin FiveBooks: "The first time I smelt Jap was in a deep dry riverbed in the Dry Belt, somewhere near Meiktila. I can no more describe the smell than I could describe a colour, but it was heavy and pungent and compounded of stale cooked rice and sweat and human waste and … Jap"

Chris Abbott | FiveBooks

Chris Abbott FiveBooks: "liddism. It’s basically a trend whereby Western states attempt to control threats to international security by military means, rather than understanding the nature of the threats and countering them at source. So, you can compare this to a pressure cooker where every attempt is made to keep the lid on, instead of turning down the heat."

Why Your Phone Can’t Really Replace Your Credit Card | Epicenter | Wired.com

Why Your Phone Can’t Really Replace Your Credit Card | Epicenter | Wired.com: "Meanwhile, the likelihood of an upstart disrupting the existing credit card industry is virtually nil, regardless of any switch to pay-by-phone. Instead, MacPherson says, start-ups should continue focusing on areas where they can gain ground — municipal parking systems, public transportation, vending machines and the like — because all other attempts to disrupt the credit card status quo have failed miserably.

“A lot of people from outside the payments industry have seriously underestimated how durable Visa and MasterCard’s franchise is. [America Online co-founder] Steve Case is one of them. [His] RevolutionMoney was … to be a new card network that would underprice the associations, and it totally cratered and was sold to American Express. Then you have DebitMan [a debit card network backed by merchants, rather than banks, which DebitMan's COO accused of raising rates unfairly and keeping 80-90 percent of resulting revenue]. It totally failed to take off — now, they’re Tempo Payments, and they’re selling to banks

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Judge Walker's decision to overturn Prop 8 is factual, well-reasoned, and powerful. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine

Judge Walker's decision to overturn Prop 8 is factual, well-reasoned, and powerful. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine: "'[I]t would demean a married couple were it to be said marriage is simply about the right to have sexual intercourse,' quotes Walker. ''[M]oral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest,' has never been a rational basis for legislation,' cites Walker. 'Animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate,' Walker notes

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Audience Picks: Top 100 'Killer Thrillers' : NPR

Audience Picks: Top 100 'Killer Thrillers' : NPR: "* 1. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
* 2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
* 3. Kiss the Girls, by James Patterson
* 4. The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum
* 5. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
* 6. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
* 7. The Shining, by Stephen King
* 8. And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
* 9. The Hunt tor Red October, by Tom Clancy
* 10. The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle



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Embedded Security Subsystem - ThinkWiki

Embedded Security Subsystem - ThinkWiki: "Using the TPM in Linux
This section is very incomplete, but here are some pointers to get you started:
Compile a 2.6.23 or later kernel with the driver for the tpm chip in your ThinkPad model enabled;
You need to enable CONFIG_SECURITY to get securityfs, and CONFIG_KEYS to use eCryptfs TPM support;
You need to enable tpm_bios to access the TCPA log;"

Marv's Grand Page Home

Marv's Grand Page Home

RM:0.0 - LEE'S FERRYRM:1.0 - Paria RiffleRM:8.0 - Badger Creek Rapid (5-8)RM:11.2 - Soap Creek Rapid (5-6)RM:12.0 - Salt Water WashRM:14.3 - Sheer Wall Rapid (2) Tanner WashRM:16.9 - House Rock Rapid (7-9)RM:20.5 - North Canyon Rapid (5)RM:21.5 - 21 Mile Rapid (5)RM:23.3 - 23 Mile Rapid (4-6)RM:24.2 - 24 Mile Rapid (6-8)RM:24.5 - 24 ½ Mile Rapid (5-6)RM:24.9 - 25 Mile Rapid (5-7)RM:25.3 - Cave Springs Rapid (5-6)RM:26.6 - Tiger Wash Rapid (4-5)RM:29.2 - Silver Grotto and Shinumo WashRM:30.0 - Proposed site Redwall Dam (1920s)RM:31.8 - Stanton’s CaveRM:31.9 - Vasey’s ParadiseRM:33.0 - Red Wall CavernRM:34.8 - Nautiloid CanyonRM:35.0 - The Bridge of SighsRM:37.6 - Tatahatso Wash/CampRM:43.0 - Point Hansbrough & Anasazi BridgeRM:43.7 - President Harding RapidRM:46.6 - Triple AlcovesRM:47.0 - Saddle CanyonRM:51.9 - Little Nankoweap CreekRM:52.2 - Nakoweap AreaRM:56.0 - Kwagunt Rapid (6) (Marble Canyon)RM:61.4 - Little Colorado RiverRM:64.7 - Carbon CreekRM:65.6 - Lava Canyon (Chuar) Rapid (3-5)RM:68.4 - Tanner Rapid / Furnace FlatsRM:72.3 - Unkar Delta Puebloan dwellingsRM:72.5 - Unkar Rapid (6-7)RM:74.8 - EscalanteRM:75.5 - Nevills Rapid (6)RM:76.8 - Hance Rapid (8-10)RM 77.2 - Upper Granite Gorge/ End MarbleRM:78.7 - Sockdolager Rapid(8-9)RM:81.1 - Vishnu/GrapevineRM:81.5 - Grapevine Rapid (8)RM:83.5 - 83 Mile Rapid (3-5)RM:83.8 - Lone Tree C/HRM:84.0 - Clear Creek CampRM:84.6 - Zoroaster Rapid (5-8)RM:85.0 - 85 Mile Rapid (2-6)RM:85.8 - Cremation Camp – Above PhantomRM:87.5 - Kaibab Bridge/Phantom RanchRM:87.8 - Bright Angel Rapid and BridgeRM:89.0 - Pipe Springs Rapid (4-5)RM:90.2 - Horn Creek Rapid (8-10)RM:93.5 - Granite Rapid (9)RM:95.0 - Hermit Rapid (8-9)RM:96.8 - Boucher Rapid (3-5) CRM:98.2 - Crystal Rapid (10) RM:99.2 - Tuna Creek Rapid (6)RM:101.3 - Saphire Rapid (7)RM:102.0 - Turquoise Rapid (3-6)
RM:103.9 - 104 Mile Rapid (5-7)RM:104.6 - Ruby Rapid (6-7)RM:106.0 - Serpentine Rapid (6-8)RM:107.8 - Bass Rapid (3-6)RM:108.2 - Beach and trailhead for Bass’s CampRM:108.7 - Shinumo RapidRM:112.2 - Waltenberg Rapid (6-9)RM:112.6 - 112½ Mile Rapid (1-6)RM:114.4 - Garnet CanyonRM:116.5 - Elves ChasmRM:116.9 - Stephen Aisle (End Granite)RM:119.8 - Salt DepositsRM:120.1 - Blacktail Canyon & Conquistador Aisle (Middle Granite)RM 121.7 - 122 Mile Rapid(4-6)RM 122.8 - Forster Rapid (3-6)RM 125.0 - Fossil Rapid (3-6)RM 126.6 - Middle Granite GorgeRM 128.7 - 128 Mile Rapid (3)RM 129.0 - Specter Rapid (5-6)RM 130.5 - Bedrock Rapid (6-8)RM 131.7 - Deubendorff Rapid (5-8) Stone Cr.RM 133.7 - Tapeats Creek&Thunder River(4-5)RM 135.5 - Granite Narrows CampRM 136.2 - Deer CreekRM 137.0 - Pancho’s Kitchen CampRM 139.0 - Fishtail RM 143.5 - Kanab (start of fast flow on river)RM 147.9 - Matkatamiba CanyonRM 149.9 - Upset Rapid (6)RM 151.0 - Ledges Camp Above HavasuRM 153.0 - Mt. SinyellaRM 156.7 - HavasuRM 164.5 - Tuck Up Canyon/Rapid RRM 166.0 - National Rapid/CanyonRM 168.0 - Fern Glen Canyon/Camp/FirewoodRM 171.2 - Gateway/Mohawk CanyonRM 174.0 - Cove CanyonRM 177.1 - Honga Springs Camp LRM 177.7 - Above Anvil Camp LRM 178.0 - Vulcan’s Anvil Camp RRM 178.9 - Above Lava CampRM 179.2 - Lava Rapid! (10)RM 179.3 - Lava Well (Water)RM 180.0 - Little Lava Falls CRM 188.0 - Whitmore WashRM 198.5 - Parashant Camp / Book of WormsRM 202.0 - Camp/HikeRM 205.2 - Canyon, Spring CampRM 206.6 - Indian Canyon/Camp RuinsRM 209.0 - Granite Park Canyon L ShadeRM 211.6 - Fall Canyon RRM 212.0 - Pumpkin SpringsRM 215.6 - Three Springs Canyon WaterRM 215.9 - Lower Granite GorgeRM 220.0 - Camp RM 220.4 - Granite Springs LRM 222.0 - Canyon - No Shade CampRM 226.0 - DIAMOND CREEK takeout