Monday, September 17, 2001
Portland Press Herald: Not a contest of terror vs. democracy, by John Chuckman
RMS on Slashdot: Thousands Dead, Millions Deprived of Liberties
Some rational commentary from BuzzFlash on Thomas Woodrow's hideously Strangelovian editorial in the Washington Times: "Time to use the nuclear option"
Pat Robertson defends Jerry Falwell’s remarks about attacks. Here is a superb reply by William Rivers Pitt.
Sunday, September 16, 2001
CNN: American Red Cross warns of online donation scams
Boston Globe: Saudi family accuses agents of abuse in case of mistaken identity
Friday, September 14, 2001
NY Times: Attacks and Harassment of Middle-Eastern Americans Rising
ACLU Decries Reported Violence Against Arab Americans; Joins Authorities in Urging Tolerance and Respect
Thursday, September 13, 2001
Hiding in Brooklyn: Afghan American Fears for Safety, by Fariba Nawa
Sense and Nonsense About September 11, by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
"I fear what may have been awakened in the US" -- dpilot, in a post to Slashdot.
Monday, September 10, 2001
Developers! You've seen the MPEGs -- now buy the T-shirt while you still can, monkeyboy!
"Heroine Barbarian", by Kevin Wald (sung to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan's "I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General")
IS NOTHING SACRED??? English National Ballet signs Barbie for Nutcracker.
Latest word from Dr. Benjamin Allanach of CERN, in his lecture on "Quark Catastrophes", as part of the Cosmic Threats to Life session of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Festival of Science is that the universe must be perched on an unstable vacuum and could suddenly condense into jelly at any moment! Better get out while you still can!
Sunday, September 09, 2001
Tired: The World Bank Group
Wired: The Whirled Bank Group
Tired: WIPO WORLD WIDE ACADEMY (WWA) International Essay Competition
Wired: WIPOUT Intellectual Property Counter-Essay Contest
Thursday, September 06, 2001
Oh, woe unto Britain, where not only is Christ being replaced by music, New Age beliefs, the environmental movement, the occult and the free-market economy, but increasing numbers of children are spending hours alone browsing the Internet in search of satanic websites! (As reported by those spawns o' Satan, drudge and NTK).
Wednesday, September 05, 2001
"Bioinformatics and Genomics-Based Drug Discovery", a talk to be given by Tim Clark (VP for Informatics at Millenium Pharmaceuticals), Wed. September 12, 6pm, at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Broadway St., Cambridge, MA.
Technology Review: Breaking Microsoft's e-Book Code
Tuesday, September 04, 2001
Must read: The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars, by Stephen O'Shea. Chapter One: Languedoc and the Great Heresy
Workers World: Statement on the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa
Monday, September 03, 2001
The John Lennon Artificial Intelligence Project is "recreating the personality of the late Beatle, John Lennon...". Imagine! Meanwhile, those cheerful folks at Triumph PC are hard at work recreating a different sort of Jack (see below). This could be the start of a whole new "psychobot" industry. Who/what will be next? The Open Jack Project? Lucrezia Borgia? The Emperor Caligula? You?
Sunday, September 02, 2001
Tired: Leather Biker Barbie -- Wired: Food Chain Barbie
Saturday, September 01, 2001
"Nothing like this has ever been attempted. We're evaluating thousands of people worldwide as if they were one collective individual. We don't know if it is possible to build a normal personality out of millions of little pieces. This experiment will tell us how reasonable the idea is."
-- Dr. Robert Epstein, describing the application of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) to evaluate GAC (Generic Artificial Consciousness) (pronounced "Jack" -- see above). You can register yourself for a closer walk with Him...
... and if this reminds you a bit of Doug Lenat's venerable Cyc project, let them set your tiny human mind at ease.
"A number of recent books by leading neuroscientists have argued that emotion plays an integral role in creating consciousness, including Susan Greenfield's The Private Life of the Brain and Antonio Damasio's The Feeling of What Happens. [...] All the leading indicators suggest that the next great world-transforming technology revolution will be genomic, but the wave due to roll in after that one looks to be the rise of genuine artificial intelligence. Can the Flesh Fairs be far behind?"
-- from "Dreaming of Electric Sheep" by Steven Johnson, in The Nation.
"I feel depressed today, I don't want to be used."
-- a message generated one morning by MAGNUS (Modular Array of General Neural Units), as described in an essay on artificial intelligence and artificial consciousness by Diip Guha.
Friday, August 31, 2001
Fight For Your Right to Wave Glow Sticks: ACLU Wins Victory in New Orleans Rave Case
BBC: Iranian film director Tahmineh Milani under arrest as 'counter-revolutionary'
Thursday, August 30, 2001
Introducing... Windows RG! As seen on the pitiless Cruel Site of the Day.
Must read: "How to Build a Mind", by Igor Aleksander of the Neuromodelling Research Team in the Intelligent Interactive Systems Group in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department of the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
Eating Blackberries May Prevent Esophageal Cancer
Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Far beyond Cafe Odyssey and the Rainforest Cafe there lies... Mars 2112
Massachusetts NARAL News: NARAL endorses CHERYL JACQUES for U.S. Congress. Vote for Cheryl Jacques in the 9th Congressional District Democratic Primary on September 11.
Tuesday, August 28, 2001
Slimy: SOAP -- Squeaky clean: REST and WEBDAVFS. As seen on Need To Know.
Monday, August 27, 2001
Mark my calendar: Fourth international conference on the Unified Modeling Language: UML 2001 -- "Modeling Languages, Concepts and Tools" -- October 1-5, 2001, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Must read:
- Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, by Lee Smolin
- The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene
- Developing Bioinformatics Computer Skills, by Cynthia Gibas and Per Jambeck
- Bioinformatics Basics: Applications in Biological Science and Medicine, by Hooman H. Rashidi, Lukas K. Buehler
- Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food, by Daniel Charles
Tired: HTML + Java(Script) -- Wired: Curl 'n Surge!
The Theory Formerly Known as Strings, by Michael J. Duff
Sunday, August 26, 2001
ABCNEWS.com : Afghan Women Reach Out Via Web
Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Anybody recognize this?001 AAGCGCATCA TGCTGGGAAA TTTTAGCGAG ATTATAAGTA TCTTCCTGGG GATCTCTGCTIf so, contact Dr. Janet Cotter-Howells at Greenpeace.
061 GTTACTGGTG AATAGTGAGA CAGAGTCTTC TGAGCTCATA GGATAAAATA AATTATAATT
121 AGTAAATTTT TTAATTAAAT AAATCAATTA CTTCATAAAT AATTTTTTTT ATAGAATATG
181 TTGACATTCT AGCCGGATAT AGAACTAATG TAAAGAAACC TTAAAAATTT TGTTTGGAAG
241 AATATGTTAT TGAAAGACAA ATCTAATTAA GTTTATCAGG GTCATTTGTT GAAGATAGGA
301 AACCTTCAGC AATTTGAATA TTAAGTAACT GCTTCTCCCA GAATGATCGG AGTTTCTCCT
361 CCTGCTATTA CATGAGCAAA AATAAAAAAT AAATAAAAGA TAAGATTAAG CTTCAACATG
421 TGAAGGAGTA GTACACTCAC CAGTGACCCT AATAGGCAAC AGCATGAAAA AAAATAAAAA
481 AGAATAAAAA TAGCATCTAC ATATAGCTTC TCGTTGTTAG AAAAACAAAA CTAT
Gotta love those ultra-dynamic Flash-based menus at the I-Logix site... if you can stand the wait while they load...
Looks like maybe some of our most cherished physical constants... aren't.
Yet another reason why, no matter how smart the power grid gets, the future belongs to micropower.
Tuesday, August 14, 2001
David Brock recants! Tony Mauro counter-spins furiously!
From an article on Brain Pacemakers in MIT Technology Review:In the more distant future, laboratory research suggests that [brain] pacemakers may even have a role in controlling behavioral disorders, such as obesity, anorexia and addiction.
Friday, August 10, 2001
Kashmir women face acid attacks: "Talibanization" begins.
Here's a story you probably won't find in the in-flight magazine on your next plane trip. And here's another.
Thursday, August 09, 2001
Tired: factory workers replaced by robots -- Wired: commodities traders replaced by software-based robotic trading agents.
CBS: U.K. libel suit hits U.S. website: Barrick Gold forces investigative journalist offline. The article in question, "Best Democracy Money Can Buy", by Greg Palast, is mirrored at Cryptome and Online Journal.
Wednesday, August 08, 2001
"Adios, First Amendment", by Molly Ivins -- on the cases of Vanessa Leggett (imprisoned freedom-of-press refusenik), and Brian Dalton (imprisoned thoughtcriminal).
BBC Staff Are Told Not To Call Israeli Killings 'Assassination'
From http://www.thetimes.co.uk:A Japanese toymaker has the answer for dog-owners puzzled by their pets' bark - the Bowlingual. The device deciphers growls and yelps into six feelings - alarm, frustration, self-expression, happiness, sadness and desire - that appear on a monitor as one of 200 phrases, such as "I can't stand it", and "How boring". Takara Co's spokeswoman, Yoko Watanabe, says the handheld Bowlingual, which is smaller than a credit card, "offers a way of communicating with a living thing, an animal that's part of our everyday lives".But can it distinguish between a giggle, chuckle and titter?? Better ask an expert.
Tuesday, August 07, 2001
Duluth News Tribune: Unidentified floating objects in Lake Superior "aren't fish eggs", say biologists. Not Earth fish, anyway...
UPDATE: no cause for alarm, citizens; just a mild case of Holopedium gibberum.
Monday, August 06, 2001
Boston Globe: Funding shortfall for AIDS activist Belynda Dunn of Dorchester.
Anyone wishing to donate to the Life Fund can send money in care of the AIDS Action Committee, 131 Clarendon St., Boston, MA 02116. Call 617-450-1111.
You can also contact Neighborhood Health Plan, an affiliate of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, to let them know what you think about their decision to decline coverage for Dunn's liver transplant.
Friday, August 03, 2001
Tired: Agent Scully -- Wired: Agent Lawless
Thursday, August 02, 2001
Ladies and gentlemen! Put your fronds together for...... BERTIE THE BEET!!
Tired: Java Virtual Machine (JVM) -- Wired: K Virtual Machine (KVM). Could this be an oblique reference to those intrepid Men in Black? Sun Microsystems claims otherwise, but of course they would...
Wednesday, August 01, 2001
Beware the basilisk! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Tuesday, July 31, 2001
"... the Cyborger will tell you what your name would mean if you happened to be a shallow imitation of humanity with a dark purpose..."
Monday, July 30, 2001
Sing it with me now: guitar chords and lyrics to the D-M-C-A Song! A-one, a-two, a-one, two, three, four...
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