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'I Hate You'

Parents in Clark County Washington discovered that their baby's crib toy was playing a low level voice repeatedly saying "I Hate You" - when they went to the store they discovered that the whole product line contained the message.
Via The HIVE

Fake Bomb Political Statement Backfires

A bizarre political statement backfired for two air passengers who are now sitting in a San Jose jail.

Traveler Robert Raymer is aghast at the length one Maine couple went to make a statement. 50-year-old Paul Donahue and Teresa Woods were on a Delta fight Tuesday night when they were ordered off the plane and arrested.

Police say x-ray technicians scanning one of the couples’ checked bags detected an explosive device.

On opening the bag, they found a hand-written note stating
"To the uniformed puppet opening this bag: Congratulations! You've just brought this once-free nation one step closer to becoming a fascist police state."

On further inspection security discovered ordinary items deliberately packed to resemble a bomb.

In fact, the police department questions why new federal security workers risked opening the bag in a crowded airport.

For more information on the case, we were referred to a national spokesman for the National Security Administration to find out what the procedure for opening a bag believed to contain an explosive device.

The spokesperson said he would get back to us, but had not as of airtime.
Via LibertyThink

Consider...
As usual, our friend abuddhas memes is in exceptional form. The 9/1/3 "consider" piece made me shiver.

"David Brin thinks that non-transparency is not an option, and has staked his entire literary pot on this play. As with any application of science, technology does not go away by decree, ignore-ance, or act of will. We can attempt to enact laws that may have a temporary balmative effect, but this may have a long term rebound in that we can't break the law - they can.
I am desperately loathe to agree with David's analysis, as I believe that privacy is not a negotiable part of freedom. Yet he is beyond convincing - I am afraid (literally) he is right. The Transparent Society - Will Technology Force us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?
"Now suppose we try to improve things by passing laws and sending forth regulators with clipboards -- commanding that all restaurants erect a maze of paper shoji screens to keep customers from ogling other patrons. Will this prevent staring, or increase it?" Consider the pig." [MORE]

Spam 'em back to the stone age?
U.S. e-mail attack targets key Iraqis

U.S. military and other U.S. government agencies have begun a surreptitious e-mail campaign inside Iraq, CNN has learned, in an effort to get some Iraqis to defy President Saddam Hussein. Thousands of e-mail messages have been sent out since Thursday, a military source told CNN.
The official says "this is just the beginning of a psychological warfare campaign" to convince the Iraqi leadership they cannot win a war against the United States and its allies. The message includes instructions to the e-mail recipients to contact the United Nations in Iraq if they want to defect.
Senior military sources told CNN this was the first time the military had engaged in this type of "information warfare campaign." Sources say the program was developed by the military and intelligence agencies in recent weeks.

Jane! Stop this crazy thing!

It may be a few years late, but your jet pack has finally arrived. The SoloTrek XFV (Exoskeleton Flying Vehicle) strap-on aircraft is up for auction on eBay today. Bidding begins at $50,000 but the final sale is expected to exceed $1 million, according to Michael Moshier, chief executive of defense contractor Trek Aerospace. Just ignore that part about how the company is going out of business due to lack of money, a missed milestone and a test-flight accident, and let the bidding begin! There is only one.
The Proof-of-Concept Prototype accomplished its maiden flight in December 2001. The new second generation SoloTrek XFV First-Article aircraft has been built since then, completing its first flight on December 16, 2002. It can hover quietly over 2 hours at speeds up to 69 mph for over 100 miles carrying a person weighing up to 180 lbs. Simply step in, strap on, and take off. The compact aircraft operates with readily available fuel, launches and lands vertically, and can land literally anywhere on a site the size of a dining room table. Never mind the promising applications in the military, paramilitary and civilian markets. Imagine what YOU could do with such a transportation device.
Leap tall buildings in a single bound. Drop in on your friends when they least expect it. Freak out plane passengers during airplane takeoff. Shorten your commute by hours. Hover around your boss's office window. Swoop down and steal peoples' hats. Become a high-rise Peeping Tom. Hmmmm, I wonder if you can have sex on it?

Physics problems give passengers something to do

Who says there's nothing better to do on a bus ride than doze off or stare out the window? Amherst-area commuters now have brain teasers to keep them awake and focused when they're riding buses operated by UMass Transit. The buses display placards with cartoon-illustrated physics problems. In one, two cats and a dog out for a day of fishing throw an anchor overboard, prompting riders to ponder if the level of the lake rises, falls or stays the same. The placards are the brain children of Robert Romer, a retired Amherst College physics professor.

All Your Brand Are Belong to Us - Building Up Your Media Immune System
www.allyourbrand.org seems to be down. I'm sure it's getting mobbed right now.

Why? Because, this weekend, the thought of a bunch of cynical, imagination-deficient marketeers sitting around conference tables planning how they could take a very funny meme and use it to make me covet speakers and sneakers and other shit I don't need made me want to puke, that's why.

So, I figured, why not pre-hijack the meme and serve it up to them so that they know:

Yes, we saw this coming.
No, it's not clever or funny.
No, we, as members of your target demographic, are not now positively pre-disposed toward your product.

Monsters, Inc. - Pentagon seeks to fiddle with soldier DNA to produce 'super-humans'

The DARPA "war fighter enhancement" programs -- an acceleration of bipartisan biotinkering that's been going on for years -- will involve injecting young men and women with hormonal, neurological and genetic concoctions; implanting microchips and electrodes in their bodies to control their internal organs and brain functions; and plying them with drugs that deaden some of their normal human tendencies: the need for sleep, the fear of death, the reluctance to kill their fellow human beings. [MORE] Via The HIVE

Cranky, Crankier, Crankiest

What do voxfux, Skolnick, From The Wilderness, and the Bali micronuke dude all have in common?
They all made the net's most prestigious list of "cranks, crackpots, kooks, and loons."


Congratulations, winners! Via The Hive

incunabula.org was a winner in August 2000

Physicist proposes deeper layer of reality
God does not play dice, but he might just as well do, a Dutch physicist is suggesting.

Returning to Einstein's nagging doubts about quantum mechanics, Nobel laureate Gerard 't Hooft of Utrecht University has begun to outline a way in which its apparent play of chance might be underpinned by precise physical laws that describe the way the world works.
Other physicists seem impressed by Hooft's creativity. "The work certainly deserves to be taken seriously," says quantum theory specialist Richard Gill.

There's no there there...

In 1998, Will Harvey, a Stanford computer science PhD and successful game developer, began working with Jeffrey Ventrella, an expert on artificial life from MIT's Media Lab, on developing a next-generation "metaverse." With more than 80 employees, There, Inc. brings together deep experience in online community building, consumer marketing, PC games, telecommunications, and e-commerce from major companies, including CNET, eBay, Disney, Electronic Arts (EA), Cisco, Colgate-Palmolive, Lucas Arts, Yahoo! and Sony.
"The There team shares a powerful vision of fundamentally changing the way people interact with each other online," said Jim White, Managing Partner at Sutter Hill Ventures. "After four years of hard work, they have the product and the team to make it happen. We are looking forward to working with There as they evolve the platform, partnerships, and user experience to captivate generations of consumers for years to come."
That's what THEY say, here's what others say.

Vision is a 'Reflex,' Says New Book
Eons of evolution have wired our visual system to perceive the world based on past experience.

The human visual system does not generate a picture of what actually exists in front of the viewer at any given moment, asserts a new book by neurobiologists at Duke University Medical Center.
Rather, the researchers theorize that evolution -- as well as individual experience during development -- have created a visual system in which perceptions represent what a given visual stimulus has typically signified in the past, rather than simply representing what is presently ‘out there.’
Despite the seemingly commonsensical belief that everyday experience with visual perceptions corresponds precisely with the characteristics of the ‘real world,’ in Why We See What We Do: An Empirical Theory of Vision (Sinauer Associates, 2003), Dale Purves and Beau Lotto provide detailed scientific evidence to the contrary. [MORE]

Genes, Memes, Qualia, and Semitrance'

The author's interpretation of the Crabwood message is a little off; but there is a lot of interesting stuff here that I haven't fully investigated yet, like "Macrotemporal quantum coherence and biosystems as conscious holograms", "Crop circles and life at parallel spacetime sheets" and "Generation of coherent quantum states and generation of usable energy as sides of the same coin". Somebody in the Inc physics department may want to take a look at this, as I won't have time in the immediate future. [Also, here is the author's main page: http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/] From a friend: Panic

Infowars.com -- Talk Radio's Alex Jones v. the New World Order

All kinds of juicy nibblets over here.

Hamas Urges Iraq to Use Suicide Bombers

The militant group Hamas, which has carried out scores of suicide bombings in Israel, urged Iraq on Friday to copy its tactics and send thousands of attackers with explosives strapped to their bodies into a battle against the West.
"We call on the Arabs and Muslims to burn the land under the feet of the American invaders, especially our brothers in Saudi Arabia because this war is not against Iraq, it's against the Islamic nation," Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi told a rally in this impoverished shanty encampment. [MORE]

Crimes before the fact

In last year's mega-hit movie "Minority Report," starring Tom Cruise in a mid-21st-century sci-fi thriller, D.C. police identify persons who have not yet committed a crime, but who, based on premonition evidence are going to commit a crime, and then swoop in and arrest these pre-criminals before they can carry out their dastardly deeds.
A fine movie; I saw it and liked it. Well, it isn't even 2054 (the year in which the movie is set), and already, Washington-area police — in this case, Fairfax County, Va.'s finest — are taking the movie to heart, and putting it into practice now.
Seems the local constabularies are getting bored actually waiting for crimes to be committed, and then, based on actual evidence, practicing good police work and arresting the perpetrators. [MORE] By way of Weblogsky

End of Universe's 'dark age' spied by astronomers

The emergence of quasars at the end of the astronomical "dark age" that enshrouded the early Universe has been identified by astronomers.
Researchers at Arizona State University in Phoenix, US, used the Hubble Space Telescope to obtain the image, which shows about 30 of the oldest quasars ever spotted. Quasars are extremely bright galaxies that are thought to draw their power from supermassive black holes at their core.
"With the Hubble Telescope, we can now see back to the epoch when stars in young galaxies began to shine in significant numbers, concluding the cosmic 'dark ages' about 13 billion years ago," said Haojing Yan, of Arizona State University.

"Smart" television to feature always on "dumb" programming

If this year's Consumer Electronics Show is about anything, it's about how to get the multimedia content stored on your home PC to your TV and stereo. Home entertainment networking has taken center stage at CES with a number of industry players offering up variations on the same theme: Philips is hawking the "Connected Home," Pioneer "Digital Network Entertainment." Microsoft offers us a vision of "The Digital Decade," while Sony, which clearly needs to do a bit more thinking about its branding efforts, heralds the advent of "The Ubiquitous Value Network." Still, among CES' legion of exhibitors, it is Sony that has one of the more compelling visions of home entertainment: the "smart" television. In his CES keynote address, Kunitake Ando, president and chief operating officer of Sony, predicted that television, not the personal computer, will become the hub of home entertainment as broadband networking makes it possible to play downloadable movies and music on any electronic gadget, from handheld computers to large-screen televisions. "The first 50 years of color television was just the infancy stage," Ando said. "The PC has been a champion in the industry. But now the television is about to be reborn as an always on and connected device."

This year's CES buzzword: home entertainment networking

My ears are ringing from slot-machine beeps, the roar of crowds packed in the concrete cavern of the Las Vegas Convention Center and a swirl of fresh buzzwords.
This is my 12th year at the Consumer Electronics Show, the annual gathering where the technology industry attempts to be taken seriously amid the glitter of casino signs.
I've learned a few things: Wear comfortable shoes and pay attention when all the buzzwords point in the same direction.
That's happening this year, with the bafflegab focused on what I'll call ``home entertainment networking.''
The idea is basic: As all types of entertainment and information become digital -- television, music, personal photographs, electronic mail, Web pages -- every electronic device in the house will be connected to each other and the Internet. [MORE]

Puzzling Ring of Stars Discovered Circling the Milky Way

Astronomers have discovered portions of what appears to be a giant, donut-shaped ring of previously unseen and surprisingly old stars surrounding our Milky Way Galaxy. If an entire ring exists, theorists might have to rethink details of how the galaxy formed. The apparent ring might be merely an outer spiral arm of the galaxy, one group of researchers said, but the evidence suggests it is instead a well of several hundred million stars that encircles the entire Milky Way out beyond the main galactic disk. The findings, made by two separate groups, were announced here today at the 201st meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Dude, you're making my Dell!
Protesters Decry Dell's Prison Labor Use

Environmentalists dressed in prison uniforms circled a collection of dusty computers outside the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday to protest Dell Computer's use of inmates to recycle computers.
"I lost my job. I robbed a store. Went to jail. I got my job back," chanted five mock prisoners wearing "Dell Recycling Team" signs and linked by chains.
While Dell company executives gathered at the huge electronics convention, the "high-tech chain gang," members of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, attracted a small crowd outside. The coalition says Dell's computer recycling program is a sham, and Dell is putting prison workers in danger because they are not protected by federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration standards.
"Dell is an environmental laggard," said protester Fred Kirsch, 26.
The coalition also complains that instead of using cheap prison labor, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell could provide others with jobs.

From Bad to Unimaginable

It is with no small degree of trepidation that one attempts to apply logic to the workings of politics. The invariable and thoroughly unpredictable twists and turns of political machinations being what they are routinely defy any and all attempt to predict what will happen next; particularly in a geopolitical environment that is as fluid as the one we find ourselves in at the moment.
Still, if you expect both friend and adversary alike to have a working understanding of your direction and aims there must be some sense of conformity to established norms and procedures. Or at least you would think so. However, it is becoming increasingly self evident that the words and actions of the Bush Administration are often very much at odds. You could say that what we have here is a failure to reconcile.
Since That Day President Bush has been praised ad nauseam for throwing down a well defined and apparently inalterable gauntlet. His declaration of a clear delineation between who the good guys are and who are the bad quickly became his rhetorical weapon of choice. And as a rhetorical tool used to express the outrage of a grievously wronged people it was extremely effective. As an articulation of United States policy it has been remarkably ineffective.

What is North Korea's game?
As tensions mount over North Korea's nuclear threats, Korea expert Aidan Foster-Carter asks why the hermit state has chosen to ratchet up the pressure now, and what it hopes to gain.

Do they know it's Christmas? North Korea's unseasonable gift to the world was to unleash a new nuclear crisis, swiftly and alarmingly ratcheting up tension. As the US, South Korea and others in the region struggle to find a shared or effective response, one key question is motive.

Internet helps write the book of life

A hugely ambitious project to find and name every species on Earth within the next 25 years has been launched by scientists. The internet and the development of DNA sequencing technology make the goal achievable, they say. This should create "a one-stop shop" of data which both amateur and professional naturalists can use.

Vampire Bat Saliva Eyed for Stroke Drug

A substance in the saliva of vampire bats could prove to be a potent new treatment for strokes, an Australian scientist says. "When the vampire bat bites its victim, it secretes this powerful clot-dissolving substance so that the victim's blood will keep flowing, allowing the bat to feed," said Dr. Robert Medcalf of the Monash University Department of Medicine at Box Hill Hospital in Victoria, Australia. That same substance — Desmodus rotundus salivary plasminogen activator, or DSPA — might someday be given to stroke victims to dissolve clots and thereby limit brain damage, he said.

The Information War: Hakim Bey

"As you read these words, the Information Age explodes . . . inside and around you -- with the Misinformation Missiles and Propaganda bombs of outright Information Warfare. Traditionally, war has been fought for territory/economic gain. Information Wars are fought for the acquisition of territory indigenous to the Information Age, i.e. the human mind itself."

No way for Segways? More cities may ban scooter

The two-wheeled battery-powered scooter known as the Segway all but hypnotized the media and public when it was unveiled a year ago. But the fascination appears to be wearing thin in Northern California. San Francisco banned the Segway from sidewalks last year, and other cities are considering the same move.

How are you feeling today Dave?

The age of sensitive machines? A team of robotics designers and psychologists at Vanderbilt University are working together to develop a "sensitive" machine, a robot capable of recognizing human emotions by analyzing, among other things, electrocardiogram data. "We believe that many of our human-to-human communications are implicit — that is, the more familiar we are with a person, the better we are at understanding them," Vanderbilt assistant professor Nilanjan Sarkar told EETimes. "We want to determine whether a robot can sense a person's mood and change the way it interacts [with the human] for more natural communication."

Click to enlarge Via- The HIVE

E-BOOK: THE OPEN CONSPIRACY

Summary: 'The Open Conspiracy' was Wells' 'Blue print for a world revolution'; he regarded this book as his finished statement on the way the world ought to be ordered. Possibly he underestimated, or ignored, the fact that it is often in the interest of subsets of the human race to act against other subsets. Moreover the emphasis on religion seems odd, from a rationalist.
Wells changed publishers rather freely, and I've found it impossible to locate the copyright holder(s) of this title. However, there are more than a dozen other Wells titles scanned in on Internet. I would ask interested readers not to download this book, however, at least pro tem.
Note: Here's a convenient single file PDF that you probably don't want to download either. It's 256K, so if you were to theoretically attempt to download it, you would (theoretically) want to do a save as on a link like this one. Allegedly. Via LibertyThink

TiVo makes a new play as hub for high-tech living room

TiVo makes a move to take the lead in the battle to control the high-tech living room today as it announces a handful of new services at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The San Jose company, whose brand-name has become synonymous with digital video recording, says it will launch networking capabilities in the spring to allow owners of a TiVo Series2 recorder to access photo, video or music files stored on networked computers and play them through a television, via the existing TiVo box.

Court backs holding citizens as enemy combatants

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the government can hold U.S. citizens as enemy combatants during wartime without the constitutional protections afforded Americans in criminal prosecutions.
In overturning a lower court ruling, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., said the status of 21-year-old Yaser Esam Hamdi as a citizen did not change the fact he was captured in Afghanistan while fighting alongside Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.

Answer an e-mail, get a subpoena

Let me see if I have this straight: You get a email telling you, "You are hereby informed that (under the privacy act), the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC)2 has sold your information including,

Name ,
E-Mail address,
Residential address,
Credit and savings information,
Social Security information,
and Occupation details.
This information has been sold to a third Party \ Parties and this E-mail serves as notification for such action.

This information was sold under the premise for marketing and research.

Under the privacy act you may request to see in writing any information that we have about you. Please write to the following address with a self addressed envelope.


So, you write back and make some further inquires, etc. You of course make all this public, on your website. The next thing you know, you're getting a subpoena that demands: "...all logs recording the I.P. addresses and/or users who visited "http://cryptome.org/sec-con.htm" between 11/7/02 00:00:00 GMT and 11/14/02 23:59:59 GMT. If no such log exists for the specific page in question, please provide any logs that would cover the domain together with an explanation of what the log covers."

Do I have that right?

Police: Two students had sex on bus while others cheered

Two students from Kingston, Massachusetts, face charges after engaging in oral sex on a school bus while three other students cheered them on according to police. Police also plan to charge the students who cheered, but haven't decided what to charge them with.

Gay porn program pops up in Army show on Webster cable

Television viewers in Webster were startled Monday night when a community access show about the U.S. Army was interrupted by roughly 20 minutes of explicit gay pornography. Town officials were still scratching their heads Tuesday morning over what happened.

EUROSETI TO REVEAL STARTLING UFO IMAGES AT THE NATIONAL SPACE CENTRE

A full-page advertisement in the January 2003 issue of UFO Magazine has generated considerable interest amongst the UFO community. It refers to an event taking place on the weekend of 24-27 January, when some extraordinary satellite images of anomalous objects will be screened at the National Space Centre in Leicester. The screenings will be held on the evenings of Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with each commencing at 7.30pm.
For the past two years, hundreds of extraordinary UFO-like images have been gleaned by a Spanish-based team using two space-based satellites and which defy explanation.
NASA initially tried to explain the images away as pixel faults, passing meteors or asteroids, etc., but when a European-led consortium presented them with images that clearly were none of the aforementioned, they 'clamped up'.
On Tuesday, 7 January 2003, Mr. Mike Murray, one of the founders of EUROSETI, visited the offices of UFO Magazine to conduct a WORLD EXCLUSIVE filmed interview. With his kind permission, that interview - which features a healthy selection of these images - can now be viewed on our website.

Holy Blood Holy Game?

Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned is set in a small village and valley in rural Europe. The village, Rennes-le-Chateau, is a real village and is the location of a Great Enigma -- either that or a Great Scam, depending on your level of belief.
Note: Those familiar with Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Temple and the Lodge will find this new video game fascinating, if only in theory.
Note: Used Copies

The Mind Has No Firewall
"It is completely clear that the state which is first to create such weapons will achieve incomparable superiority." -- Major I. Chernishev, Russian army

The human body, much like a computer, contains myriad data processors. They include, but are not limited to, the chemical-electrical activity of the brain, heart, and peripheral nervous system, the signals sent from the cortex region of the brain to other parts of our body, the tiny hair cells in the inner ear that process auditory signals, and the light-sensitive retina and cornea of the eye that process visual activity.[2] We are on the threshold of an era in which these data processors of the human body may be manipulated or debilitated. Examples of unplanned attacks on the body's data-processing capability are well-documented. Strobe lights have been known to cause epileptic seizures. Not long ago in Japan, children watching television cartoons were subjected to pulsating lights that caused seizures in some and made others very sick.
Defending friendly and targeting adversary data-processing capabilities of the body appears to be an area of weakness in the US approach to information warfare theory, a theory oriented heavily toward systems data-processing and designed to attain information dominance on the battlefield. Or so it would appear from information in the open, unclassified press. This US shortcoming may be a serious one, since the capabilities to alter the data- processing systems of the body already exist. A recent edition of U.S. News and World Report highlighted several of these "wonder weapons" (acoustics, microwaves, lasers) and noted that scientists are "searching the electromagnetic and sonic spectrums for wavelengths that can affect human behavior."[3] A recent Russian military article offered a slightly different slant to the problem, declaring that "humanity stands on the brink of a psychotronic war" with the mind and body as the focus. That article discussed Russian and international attempts to control the psycho-physical condition of man and his decisionmaking processes by the use of VHF-generators, "noiseless cassettes," and other technologies. [MORE] Via DW

It's the hypocrisy, stupid

Patent stirs PlayStation3 speculation

The discovery of a US patent application has stirred speculation about the design of a third generation PlayStation console. Suggestions have focused on a distributed computing capability, which would allow computing power to be spread across a network.
The patent refers to a scheme for designing "a computer architecture and programming model for high speed processing over broadband networks". It mentions a "modular" design for networked computers and processors, and "software cells" that could be transmitted across a network at high speed.

New Design Coming for Paper Currency

The last time Andrew Jackson got a makeover, he ended up with a big head, slightly off-center. This time, he will get a little color.
The most noticeable features of the last redesign of U.S. currency - the oversized, off-center portraits - produced all kinds of derisive nicknames: funny money, Monopoly money, cartoon money.
Color is coming, and government money makers are hoping for a warmer reception for the changes. The new $20, with its public unveiling set for the spring, is supposed to be in circulation as early as next fall.

Don't Fear a Smallpox Outbreak

...because you are informed, you will have a different response. You will not panic. You will turn off the TV. You won’t listen to your hysterical neighbors. And more importantly, you won’t rush to be vaccinated. Here’s why... Via Post-Atomic

A new group blog, THE HIVE, a memetic collage, if you will.

A Tack in the Shoe: Neutralizing and Resisting the New Surveillance

A must-read-keeper of a paper by Gary T. Marx, that enlightens us with Eleven behavioral techniques of neutralization intended to subvert the collection of personal information....
Also available by G.T. Marx are Sex, Truth and Video Tapes: The Case of the French Babysitter, a case study, and Technology and Social Control: The Search for the Illusive Silver Bullet, in which we are reminded that A well known, if often naïve expression given social inequality, holds that where there is a will there is a way. This speaks to the role of human effort in obtaining goals. With the control possibilities made available by science and technology this may be reversed to where there is a way there is a will.
"Distorting moves' manipulate the surveillance collection process such that, while offering technically valid results, the inferences drawn from a test or inspection about performance, behavior or attribute are invalid. This contrasts with 'switching' in which the socially misleading inference involves identity." Via abuddhas memes

Data stored in multiplying bacteria

A message encoded as artificial DNA can be stored within the genomes of multiplying bacteria and then accurately retrieved, US scientists have shown.
Their concern that all current ways of storing information, from paper to electronic memory, can easily be lost or destroyed prompted them to devise a new type of memory - within living organisms.

First speed of gravity measurement revealed

The speed of gravity has been measured for the first time. The landmark experiment shows that it travels at the speed of light, meaning that Einstein's general theory of relativity has passed another test with flying colours.
Ed Fomalont of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Sergei Kopeikin of the University of Missouri in Columbia made the measurement, with the help of the planet Jupiter. "We became the first two people to know the speed of gravity, one of the fundamental constants of nature," the scientists say, in an article in New Scientist print edition. One important consequence of the result is that it places constraints on theories of "brane worlds", which suggest the Universe has more spatial dimensions than the familiar three.

Radiation adds distance to swing?

Watch carefully on golf courses where MDS Nordion employees play next spring and you may find the secret of their success on the links: Balls treated with powerful doses of radiation.
The Gamma golf balls (named for gamma radiation) aren't radioactive themselves. They don't even look any different. But insiders claim they fly a little farther when you hit them. Maybe.

Artist opens scars exhibition

A Chilean artist has opened an exhibition featuring photographs of people with scars. Sebastian Utreras studied six people who had suffered life-threatening illnesses and accidents. The exhibition is called Damages and is showing at the La Perrera cultural centre in Santiago.

When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was asked what he liked best about America by photographer Harry Benson in Cavendish, Vermont in 1981, Solzhenitsyn replied: "The air is free in America."

Ah, the good old days . . .

Solzhenitsyn Suffers a Stroke

German faces jail for 'ironic' remark

A German man could be jailed for three years over a comment posted on the internet, in which prosecutors say he belittled the events of 11 September.
In a case which critics say has major implications for freedom of speech on the internet, Holger Voss stands accused of "glorification of a criminal act".
Mr Voss, who will appear in court in the western German town of Muenster on Wednesday, insists his comments were meant to be sarcastic.
Note: Like, I don't know ANYONE who uses SARCASM on the internet. Geez, if ANYONE was sarcastic on the internet, I'd COMLETELY agree that they should go to jail for THREE YEARS!

Mapping Mars

NASA needs your help. After finishing a training session, you can help with mapping the craters of Mars. There are many scientific tasks that require human perception and common sense, but may not require a lot of scientific training. Identifying craters on Mars is something almost anyone can do, and classifying them by age is only a little harder.

The disruptive Web

DID AN EXPERIMENT last week that nicely demonstrates the disruptive potential of Weblogs, Web services, and digital identity. My experiment began with two observations.
First, I noticed myself buying books from Amazon.com not on the basis of Amazon's recommendations but on the book-related blog postings gathered by a clever service called All Consuming (www.allconsuming.net). Like Blogdex (http://blogdex.media.mit.edu), Daypop (www.daypop.com), and Technorati (www.technorati.com), All Consuming measures the diffusion of links throughout a large network of blogs. But while the others measure the fluctuating interest in blogs themselves, All Consuming makes books the organizing principle. Via Post-Atomic

Space Brothers adopted by Earth host families

The Space Brothers World Tour sent aliens to friendly host families... now they report back with photographs and tales of their adventures. To the organization's surprise, reports have come back from areas where no Space Brothers had been sent -- including a not-so-friendly run-in with an apparently American host, who performed a great number of uncomfortable and possibly illegal tests on his "visitor". According to an unnamed source in the State Department, this leak of the so-called Lab Rat episode is causing great strain in the interplanetary diplomatic community. Amnesty Interplanetary is calling for a formal indictment of Space Brothers World Tour and for a full investigation by the US Government.

There are a thousand and one people on the Global Frequency.
Are you on the Global Frequency?

Defense Tech

Technology is shaping how borders are protected, wars are fought, crooks are caught, and individual rights are defined. I've started a new website, Defense Tech (www.defensetech.org), to track these developments. On the site, I'll round up the day's news, link to relevant sources of information, and provide analysis on what's ahead. From Predator drones to biowar defense, computer security to nuclear threats, the site aims to examine the intersection of technology and defense from every angle, covering the exploits of soldiers and hackers, madmen and geniuses, inventors and dictators. Via CDC

Welcome to the Blogosphere William Gibson

Welcome to the Blogoshpere William Gibson

Class of 91

My weblog novel, after a short holiday break, resumes serialization today. -NWD

Why the media's conspiracy theory is better than yours

There are numerous additions and inconsistencies between the official story and what actually happened. None of the resources that I have referenced above are "kooky-conspiracy" websites. They are all reasonably respected mainstream media outlets. It's interesting to look back on just a few of the many conspiracy theories that have been proven true. Were Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein "kooky conspiracy theorists" when investigating what is now known as 'Watergate'?

By valis from my weekly column at
Also from the archives:

• Irrational Reactionism: The Last War on Terror
• G.W. Bush - Making sure the terrorists have won
• Philip K. Dick's Black Iron Subdermal Prison

Western allies ready troops for Gulf

Britain and France put their forces on alert for a possible war with Iraq, as the US sends ships and thousands of soldiers to the Gulf.

Analysis: Signs pointing to war

Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said that the chances of war with Iraq have fallen from 60:40 in favour to 40:60.
But the language he used in an important speech to a mass gathering of British ambassadors in London indicates that he is preparing the groundwork to justify a war.
And in any case, do not rely on those odds. Mr Straw himself added that they could change from "day to day".

UN prepares for huge Iraqi casualties

Up to 500,000 people could suffer serious injuries during the fir