Your Freewill Astrology for this Week
Aries	Libra
Taurus	Scorpio
Gemini	Sagittarius
Cancer	Capricorn
Leo	Aquarius
Virgo	Pisces

Technorati Profile

"Bremen - Oct 02, 2003 The Heinlein Prize, a major new award for practical accomplishments in commercial space activities, was announced today at the 54th International Aeronautical Congress underway in Bremen, Germany. Trustees of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust revealed that the first Heinlein Prize award has been set at $500,000 USD."

This should make a nice additon to the field since the X-Prize is only a one-time offering.

Pointdexter apparently still at large in CIA basement: DARPA's terrorist futures market scrapped, the CIA is developing another counterterrorism project designed to help defense analysts "think outside the box": a terrorist video game. The agency plans to spend millions of dollars developing a game that will allow its analysts to pretend to be terrorist-cell leaders. The CIA says the game is an "innovative approach" to counterterrorism. Its critics say it's an absurd scheme that makes the futures market look good in comparison (see "Pssst -- go long on September truck bombings"). "These absurd ideas about countering terrorism suggest that the war on terrorism has been a failure, that terrorists are still ahead and that the [agency's Counter Terrorist Center] does not know what it is doing," one military official told the Washington Times. "The key issue here is the CTC misspending funds on silly, low-priority projects, exactly the kind of thing that forced Admiral Poindexter to resign."

Writing in this month's issue of CIO, Ray Kurzweil examines the impact of future technologies and warns that nanotechnology should be developed in concert with a nanotechnology-based immune system. "Future dangers from new technologies may appear alarming when considered in the context of today's unprepared world," Kurzweil writes. "The reality is that the sophistication and power of our defensive technologies and knowledge will grow along with the dangers. When we have "gray goo" (unrestrained nanobot replication), we will also have "blue goo" ("police" nanobots that combat the "bad" nanobots). The story of the 21st century has not yet been written, so we cannot say with assurance that we will successfully avoid all misuse. But the surest way to prevent the development of the defensive technologies would be to relinquish the pursuit of knowledge in broad areas. We have been able to largely control harmful software virus replication because the requisite knowledge is widely available to responsible practitioners. Attempts to restrict this knowledge would have created a far less stable situation. Responses to new challenges would have been far slower, and it is likely that the balance would have shifted toward the more destructive applications.

The events of the last several days involving the RIAA's assault on consumers with subpoenas, law suits, congressional hearings and public relations blitz is actually the culmination of a campaign that began many years ago to slowly but inexorably change the United States Copyright Act ( 17 U.S. Code 101 et. seq.) into an instrument of global power to be wielded by large media conglomerates in the unfolding digital age. Far from its constitional purpose of promoting the arts by securing for limited times for authors the fruits of their labors, it has become a monstrosity, through a series of tortured amendments and pretzel logic. It now regulates both artists' and consumer's behavior while ignoring its traditional function of regulating the behavior of competitors.

This is not new. It was obvious as early as 1984 (Sony v Betamax) that the consumer was viewed by the media as the greatest competitor to its monopoly. What is new is the total disregard for American civil rights that the new foreign owners of the record business (Sony, BMG, EMI. and Vivendi, who cynically call themselves the "Recording Industry Association of America") have exhibited in lobbying for laws that have only heretofore existed in other nations. Yes, it can happen here, and it already has.

What we are experiencing now is a forerunner of things to come,, with expanded Patriot Act powers and other paramilitary measures slowly being implemented in the US after 9/11. Due Process and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures are in jeopardy.

Musicians should not be the harbingers of fascism. The Copyright Act must be reformed. In the coming weeks, this will be made more evident as we report on the latest RIAA atrocities.

I just saw this cover tonite and it made me laugh--brilliant.

You know, I have no doubt that all the Anti-Bushies will coalesce behind the most winnable (not perfect, not a savior, just most winnable) Democratic candidate next year and kick Bush's ass. No doubt, that is, so long as there is a free and fair election.

And then this new coalition which worked together to beat Bush will make damn sure that no new group of crazy-ass, religious-fundamentalist power-hungry whack-jobs will ever try to take over the world again.

Well, they can try.

Regime Change 2004: Saving the World Starts Here

(yo, DNC, here's an ad idea: show Bush saying "We have to find the leakers" footage, then goto black screen and white letters and voiceover saying: "Remind you of anyone?" then goto footage of OJ: "I'm going to find the killer!" then say, "In fact, Bush had two months to find the leaker--instead, he did nothing." etc.)

What is with you people?

The other day, I was returning home from our new terminal opening in Crook City, South Dakota and doing a little thinking. It's a splendid facility, by the way - a passenger-friendly combination of airport terminal, truck stop and outlet mall. I'm sure you'll love it. Anyway, while I was watching the moving human psycho-drama that is travel on our fine airline, I was struck by a thought. What is with you people? Now, I'm not complaining, just explaining here. But lately I've been wondering what is going on in those little brains of yours regarding a number of issues...

Like 60 million other people around the world, I've used the Internet to enjoy music. Now the RIAA and the Big Five record labels have offered me a settlement for "sharing" this music. If you download or share music then you need to be aware of this situation.

The real irony is - I'm not solely responsible for the songs dowloaded. There were many others who had access to my computer and Kazaa. AS far as opening my "shared folder" I didn't even know I was doing it. I'd installed p2p software and it went automatically to a folder which stored the songs I'd downloaded. I didn't know it but this folder was also open to the world. It is now turned off in the new Kazaa software.

I want to help educate others like me. I'd like to resist the RIAA and let them know that the way they're going about this is all wrong. The current system clearly does not work and I don't think suing me (because I am a consumer) is the right way to go about it. Believe me - if I had endless amounts of money, I'd choose the option of standing up to the RIAA and changing the system. (Unfortunately "I didn't know what I was doing" is not a valid defense in a civil case and besides I should have made myself aware).

Bankruptcy is a pretty scary word. That's pretty much where I would end up if I took on this multi-billion dollar industry. And hey, if you download or upload and use p2p--you could easily be in my position.

Marketers, politicians and other short-sighted, self-interested, sticky-fingered people have been stealing our words. Not only do they take them for commercial purposes, but they misuse them entirely. They're Word Pirates and we're going to take back what's rightfully ours.

For instance...

For instance, the word "pirate" itself has been taken over by the Big Content companies. They mean "anyone who shares files." Real pirates murdered, raped and stole. They didn't share music, rightly or wrongly.

For instance, "intellectual property" refers to ideas. Ideas aren't property. Not only one person can "own" them. It's a bad metaphor leading to worse laws.

For instance, "hotel guest" pretends that people who pay money to stay in a building are somehow guests.

Citing a provision of the Patriot Act, the FBI is sending letters to journalists telling them to secretly prepare to turn over their notes, e-mails and sources to the bureau. Should we throw out the First Amendment to nail a hacker, writes SecurityFocus columnist Mark Rasch.