Yes, comics for the insane. Sure but are they funny you ask...well if I tell you whether or not I laughed you will know if I am insane or not, so check it yourself and see if you laugh.
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August 2004 Archives
Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to make bulk quantities of glass from alumina for the first time. Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce strong glass with good optical properties. The method avoids many of the problems encountered in conventional glass forming and could, say the team, be extended to other oxides (A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761).
Glass is formed when a molten material is cooled so quickly that its constituent atoms do not have time to align themselves into an ordered lattice. However, it is difficult to make glasses from most materials because they need to be cooled -- or quenched -- at rates of up to 10 million degrees per second.
Silica is widely used in glass-making because the quenching rates are much lower, but researchers would like to make glass from alumina as well because of its superior mechanical and optical properties. Alumina can form glass if it is alloyed with calcium or rare-earth oxides, but the required quenching rate can be as high as 1000 degrees per second, which makes it difficult to produce bulk quantities.
One of President Bush's top lawyers resigned from his campaign Wednesday, a day after disclosing that he had given legal advice to a veterans group airing TV ads against Democrat John Kerry. The guidance included checking ad scripts, the group said.
Benjamin Ginsberg, who also represented Bush in the 2000 Florida recount that made the Republican president, told Bush in a letter that he felt his legal work for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had become a distraction for the re-election campaign.
Two of the most prominent examples are the anti-Bush movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" by Michael Moore, and the anti-Kerry TV ads put out by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), funded in large part by Texan Bob Perry. The objectivity of both attacks is subject to question.
There will always be attacks in political campaigns. Some attacks will be truthful; others won't. But the last thing we need is government regulation telling us which attacks are true, and which aren't. The responsibility for sorting out the truth - and the difference between free speech and purchased speech - ultimately lies with each individual citizen.
Mr. Moore's movie is closer to the spirit of the First Amendment while Mr. Perry's big-money contributions distort the concept of free speech.
Authorities raided five residences and and an Internet service provider Wednesday morning in the first federal criminal enforcement action against private peer-to-peer (P2P) (define) networks.
Search warrants were executed in Texas, New York and Wisconsin as part of an investigation into the illegal distribution of copyrighted movies, software, games and music over P2P networks. Federal agents seized computers, software and computer-related equipment in the raids.
"Today's actions send an important message to those who steal over the Internet. When online thieves illegally distribute copyrighted programs and products, they put the livelihoods of millions of hard-working Americans at risk and damage our economy," U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said at a Wednesday afternoon press conference.
Ashcroft said the joint investigation by the FBI, the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, known as Operation Gridlock, "disrupted an extensive peer-to-peer network suspected of enabling users to traffic illegally in music, films, software and published works."
Barely hours after home users started securing their PCs with a key update for Windows XP, security experts have found ways around it.
The SP2 update makes XP less attractive to virus writers and malicious hackers by plugging widely exploited loopholes.
But discoveries by security firms Secunia and German company Heise show that some holes have been left open.
Microsoft said it was investigating one of the new bugs but said no users had been caught out by this loophole.
In a judicial blow to the entertainment industry, a federal appeals court ruled that makers of two leading file-sharing programs aren't legally liable for the songs, movies, and other copyrighted works their users swap online.
The decision is likely to force the industry to take the more costly and less popular route of going directly after file-swappers.
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America Inc., said his group is reviewing its next step following Thursday's ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc.
Mitch Bainwol, chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America, said the decision begs the question of whether "digital music will be enjoyed in a fashion that supports the creative process or one that robs it of its future."
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=29116579
Iran's defense minister, Vice Adm. Ali Shamkhani, has warned that Iran may resort to pre-emptive strikes to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.
Admiral Shamkhani made his comments in an interview on Al Jazeera television on Wednesday in response to a question about the possibility of an American or Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear projects.
"We will not sit to wait for what others will do to us," he said. "Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly. Any nation, if it feels threatened, can resort to that."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/international/middleeast/20iran.html
A piece of the Sun is set to fall to Earth and be captured by Hollywood stunt pilots in a tricky mid-air manoeuvre, NASA announced on Thursday.
A capsule filled with stardust will be dropped into the atmosphere from NASA's Genesis spacecraft on 8 September.
Genesis has collected charged particles from the Sun's outermost layer for about 27 months since its launch in 2001. Scientists believe its quarry will reveal the chemical composition of the cloud from which the Sun and planets condensed 4.5 billion years ago.
"We believe the solar nebula was a fairly homogeneous environment, but out of this all the diverse materials of planets formed," says Don Burnett of the California Institute of Technology, and principal investigator.
One of the best-known U.S. senators says he has been misidentified as someone on a terrorism watch list at airports in recent months.
Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday that the problem started in March.
He said some airline agents refused to sell him tickets because his name appeared on a "no fly" list. Mr. Kennedy said in each instance, a supervisor eventually recognized him and allowed him to get on the plane.
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=9FCD11AA-86C2-4F35-BB4828B69379B6C7
See, I bet the trailer does better than ThunderBirds did during its entire release. Gotta love stuff put out by those wacky South Park dudes.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/team_america/large.html
Julia Child dies at age 91.
Her television debut in 1962 was one of the most liberating in the history of a usually tame medium. Julia Child was 50 years old and an uninhibited 6-foot-2, trilled commands in a headmistressy warble that sounded like Kate Hepburn after a pint of gin, played the kitchen like an ambidextrous tympanist and didn't care how she looked or sounded as long as her ungainly, unbounded joy caught on.
"There was this woman tossing French omelettes, splashing eggs about the place, brandishing big knives, panting heavily as she careened about the stove." So Child described her first night on PBS in the role for which she was made, even if it took her 50 years to find the perfect part.
By the time of her death on Friday at the age of 91, Child had long since been sanctified as the guiding spirit of the kitchen, and American culture had found a way to appropriate her complete and utter strangeness. But to the last she made it bracingly clear that she was as out of step with modern life in this millennium as she'd been back in the black-and-white days of the last one.
LONDON (Reuters) - Two policemen have been suspended from duty after a newspaper reported they had been filmed enjoying the attentions of porn stars while they were supposed to be on patrol.
The News of the World reported on Sunday that the two policemen, aged 30 and 34, had been called to calm down a crowd who spotted a pornographic movie being filmed in a street in London's Soho district.
But the officers talked their way into the film crew's van and allowed the two female stars to perform a sex act on them, while the crew secretly rolled the cameras, the paper said.
Forgent Networks Inc. has a modest software business, but lately it's been showing a swagger reminiscent of another line of work: trial lawyers.
While it tries to build its line of scheduling software, Austin-based Forgent has been hiring lawyers to extract revenue from the company's store of old patents. Already, Forgent has reaped nearly $50 million by claiming that one of its patents covers JPEG, the popular standard for digital images. Sony Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. are among the tech giants that have settled with Forgent.
More riches may be on the way: In April, Forgent sued 31 tech companies, most of them Fortune 500 members, in U.S. District Court in Marshall, Texas for allegedly infringing on the JPEG patent.
Every criminal offence in England and Wales from littering to daubing graffiti will become arrestable in theory under proposals published by the government that aim to simplify the law.
The plans, set out in a consultation document, would also extend police powers over searching homes and individuals and allow them to fingerprint suspects on the spot.
The Home Office said the proposals sought to tidy up laws that were often bewildering to officers and the public but they are expected to draw strong opposition from civil liberties' groups who argue the police already have sufficient powers.
Fay Wray, the actress best known for her role as the object of a giant ape's desire in the 1933 film "King Kong," died yesterday. She was 96.
Wray died in her Fifth Avenue apartment in New York, the New York Times reported, citing friend Rick McKay.
Wray was born Vina Fay Wray near Cardston, Alberta, on Sept. 15, 1907, one of six children, according to the Internet Movie Database. Raised in Los Angeles, she began her film career at age 16 and appeared in more than 100 films, from "The Coast Patrol" in 1925 to "Gideon's Trumpet" in 1980 with Henry Fonda.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=agZ0P9BtwdSU&refer=us
Internet search engine company Google, Inc., of Mountain View, has agreed to give rival Internet portal Yahoo, Inc., of Sunnyvale, stock that could be worth as much as $328 million to settle an on-going legal dispute.
The dollar figure is based on Google's anticipated IPO price of just over $121 per share. Yahoo gets 2.7 million shares to drop its suit against Google, according to the two companies Monday.
Under the terms of the agreement, Google will take a license to U.S. Patent No. 6,269,361 and several related patents, held by Yahoo's wholly-owned subsidiary, Overture.
Yahoo sued its rival over Google's linking of advertising with information searches. Yahoo contended it infringed on a patent it acquired when it bought Overture Services Inc. in 2003. Yahoo paid about $1.63 billion for the Pasadena-based company.
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2004/08/09/daily7.html
Fark.com, one of the most popular blogs on the Net, has been accused of selling out -- joining a growing list of new-media outfits willing to bend old-media rules.
According to a veteran new-media publisher, Fark has been selling preferential placement of story links without informing its readers.
Jason Calacanis, publisher of several rival Weblogs Inc. blogs, claims Fark offered him highly placed links to his sites in return for several hundred dollars.
"I was shocked because I had come to trust the brand, and the person behind it," Calacanis said. "Anything that is an advertisement should be labeled as an advertisement. This is not rocket science."
Calacanis said he didn't know how many links on Fark are paid for, or how long Fark has been selling them. But he said a Fark salesman told him the site does it "all the time."
Interesting right-wing Texan's take on cheesy Sci-fi television shows. Man, he really pisses all over Firefly. I mean sure, it may have ripped off Starhunter, Cowboy Bebop, and most of all, Outlaw Star, but hey....
http://www.thetexasmercury.com/articles/parnell/HP20030609b.html
Dude, you like Ninjas?
JibJab, a small animation site, is running an animation that mocks President Bush and his Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry. The wildly popular cartoon may be goofy, but the legal wrangling about it is becoming a serious and important test of artists' fair-use rights in the digital age.
The free This Land Flash-animated cartoon is set to the melody of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." With the exception of two lines, all of the lyrics have been changed to mock Bush, the "right-wing nut job," and Kerry, the "liberal wiener."
Ludlow Music, which owns Guthrie's copyright to the song, threatened to sue JibJab Media, which created the animation. But attorneys for JibJab struck first, filing a lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in Northern California that asks a judge to declare that This Land does not violate copyright.
It's a clear example of a legal concept called fair use, say the lawyers for JibJab and advocates of liberal copyright laws. If JibJab wins, the case could embolden artists to fend off copyright holders' aggressive lawyers, who increasingly view digital distribution as a threat.
"This is an important case to set the tone for artists and authors who want to make use of famous works," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing JibJab.
A series of blogs used in a cross-linking strategy to boost the Google page ranking of three porn sites run by adult site operator CyberQuest was the unauthorized creation of an affiliate, the company said Wednesday.
CyberQuest owner Fade Saab told Wired News that he had, until Wednesday, been unaware of the blogging strategy. He also said that the effort -- in which dozens of cross-linked Blogspot blogs were set up to directly promote three CyberQuest porn sites -- was in fact the brainchild of a Vancouver, British Columbia, affiliate partner.
Saab said he has demanded that the affiliate immediately remove any links to the CyberQuest porn sites, as well as any images from those sites. He also said CyberQuest will likely attempt to reclaim any profits the affiliate gained from the use of the blogging strategy.
"Rick," a 20-year-old Krispy Kreme employee from Washington, says he has a serious problem: He masturbates.
He recently befriended several other Christian men who share his belief that masturbation is sinful, and together they've pledged not to "defile themselves" for 40 days -- the same amount of time the Bible says Satan tempted Jesus in the desert. They encourage each other to remain steadfast by e-mail and instant messages.
"I'm only a few days into it, but I'm really seeing how used to it that my body really is, and how I am addicted to it," Rick writes in a blog chronicling his quest. "As difficult as it is, I'm contending not only for myself, but the men that are on this fast with me, to be strong, and beat this addiction. Let's do it guys! We can be holy."
When the plot thickens, the CIA (news - web sites) calls in the professionals -- Hollywood screenwriters.
Addressing what the Sept. 11 commission said was one of the main failures of government -- imagination -- a senior CIA official said Wednesday the spy agency was willing to "push beyond the traditional boundaries of intelligence."
"We had our terrorism and counternarcotics analysts meet with Hollywood directors, screenwriters and producers. People who are known for developing the summer blockbusters or the hit TV show that often have a terrorism theme," said Jami Miscik, CIA's deputy director for intelligence.
"It was an attempt to see beyond the intelligence report, and into a world of plot development," she told a House Intelligence Committee hearing on the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations about analysis and the need for imagination and creativity.
The CIA also ran a round-table discussion with 10 science-fiction authors so intelligence analysts could see how the writers spun possible scenarios.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040805/od_nm/security_cia_dc
North Korea is deploying new land- and sea-based ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads and may have sufficient range to hit the United States, according to the authoritative Jane's Defense Weekly.
In an article due to appear Wednesday, Jane's said the two new systems appeared to be based on a decommissioned Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile, the R-27.
It said communist North Korea had acquired the know-how during the 1990s from Russian missile specialists and by buying 12 former Soviet submarines which had been sold for scrap metal but retained key elements of their missile launch systems.
Jane's, which did not specify its sources, said the sea-based missile was potentially the more threatening of the two new weapons systems.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5860277&src=rss/topNews§ion=news
The U.S. general formerly in charge of Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison said on Tuesday abuse of Iraqi captives was hidden from her in a cover-up that may reach all the way to the Pentagon or White House.
Speaking on the same day a U.S. soldier at the center of the prisoner abuse scandal is due to face a military court, Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski said she was deliberately kept in the dark about abuse and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners.
"A very reliable witness has made a statement indicating that, not only was I not included in any of the meetings discussing interrogation operations, but specific measures were taken to ensure I would not have access to those facilities, that information or any of the details of interrogation at Abu Ghraib or anywhere else," Karpinski told Britain's BBC radio.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5858013&src=rss/topNews§ion=news
U.S. President George W. Bush has told a roomful of top Pentagon brass his administration would never stop looking for ways to harm the United States.
The latest installment of misspeak from a president long known for his malapropisms came during a signing ceremony for a new $417 billion (228.4 billion pounds) defence appropriations bill that includes $25 billion in emergency funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we," Bush said on Thursday.
IBM announced that it will not use its patents against Linux, and it encouraged other software companies to make the same vow.
As the owner of 60 patents on which the Linux core might infringe, IBM could wreak havoc on Linux if it chose to do so. The new promise, delivered at LinuxWorld, emphasizes the company's commitment to open source.
In a speech at the conference, however, IBM senior vice president Nick Donofrio said that in the future the company could be "forced to defend" itself through patent enforcement.
Donofrio's comments were in response to an earlier statement by Open Source Risk Management, a group that conducts research and analysis of patents that could affect the core of Linux.
Archaeopteryx is one of the most famous fossils ever found, a crow-size creature with big legs, a bony tail, a mouthful of teeth -- and feathers. Discovered only two years after publication of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species," it became an instant sensation as the epitome of evolution -- a bird, yes, but only just.
For decades, scientists studied the aerodynamics of archaeopteryx to determine whether it could fly. The consensus was that it probably could, but not well: "It is an unusual animal," said paleontologist Angela Milner of London's Natural History Museum. "It's like a dinosaur skeleton with feathers."
But in a study released today, a multinational team of experts that included Milner presented new evidence that bolstered the case that the creature was a capable flier. Archaeopteryx's tiny brain -- about the size of a little-finger joint -- has much more in common with those of modern birds than it does with those of the reptiles that were its forebears.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40945-2004Aug4.html
HP has released Compaq nx5000, its first laptop with SuSE Linux and OpenOffice pre-installed. The target market for the new notebook is small, consisting primarily of developers and users wanting to run specific Linux-based applications.
Equipped with an Intel Pentium M processor , the nx5000 lists for US$1,199. A version equipped with Windows sells for $80 more -- not enough of a price difference to attract a large number of buyers to the Linux model based on price alone.
"I don't see this HP laptop, with Linux, as replacing a Windows device," says IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky. "Business buyers tend to ask: What application do I need? And then they ask: What operating system do I need to run that application?"
The screening of US filmmaker Michael Moore's explosive political documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 on Cuban television last week will not hurt the film's Oscar chances, officials indicated on Wednesday.
The film's distributors said the copy aired in the communist state on July 29 was pirated and Oscar chiefs said that if that is the case, Fahrenheit is still eligible for a possible Oscar nomination next year.
Under Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rules, a film that aired on television or on the internet within nine months of its theatrical release is no longer eligible for Oscars consideration.
http://www.news24.com/News24/Columnists/Home/0,6130,,00.html
Rocker Bruce Springsteen has stayed out of party politics for 25 years, but now he says the stakes are too high and he's urging fellow Americans to vote President George W. Bush out of office in November.
A day after he announced he would join two dozen other stars in nine "battleground" states for a rock 'n' roll tour aimed at ousting Bush, the man known as "The Boss" explained his decision in a sharply worded editorial.
"Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics," Springsteen wrote in The New York Times, noting he built a career singing about universal issues like human rights, dignity and freedom instead.
"This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out."
A Malawian court convicted a Catholic priest and a nun of disorderly conduct Thursday after they were caught engaged in a sexual act in a parked car with tinted windows.
The Malawian priest, 43, and the 26-year-old nun from neighboring Zambia spent the night in police cells after being caught in the act Wednesday, police said.
A court in the capital Lilongwe handed down suspended jail sentences of six months with hard labor after the pair pleaded guilty to charges of idleness and disorderly conduct.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040803/od_nm/odd_malawi_nun_dc
A number of Finnish conscripts have been excused their full term of military service because they are addicted to the Internet, the Finnish Defense Forces said Tuesday.
Doctors have found the young men miss their computers too much to cope with their compulsory six months in the forces.
"For people who play (Internet) games all night and don't have any friends, don't have any hobbies, to come into the army is a very big shock," said Commander-Captain Jyrki Kivela at the military conscription unit.
"Some of (the conscripts) go to the doctor and say they can't stay. Sometimes, the doctors have said they have an Internet addiction," Kivela said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040803/od_nm/odd_finland_internet_dc
South Africa has denied a media report that it plans to cancel Christmas.
The Sunday Times newspaper ran a banner headline "Christmas may be cancelled" above a story quoting a task team evaluating the number of public holidays as warning no holiday should be regarded as sacred in multi-racial, multi-faith South Africa.
"I would like to reassure all of you that there is no such report which has been tabled before me," Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula told a parliamentary committee on Monday in response to the article.
"There has not been that recommendation."
Last year the Advertising Standards Authority banned a Post Office advertisement asking children to write to Santa Claus, saying it was "profiting from the natural credulity of children" and perpetuating "a falsehood that could break the fragile spirits of the already disillusioned youth of South Africa".
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040802/od_uk_nm/oukoe_odd_safrica_christmas
An entry in the blog of Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz has sparked speculation that the Santa Clara company may be considering buying Novell Inc., a major vendor of Linux.
In an entry on Sunday, Schwartz strongly suggested that acquiring the Massachusetts business technology firm could hurt a major Sun rival, IBM.
The idea is based on what Schwartz sees as IBM's dilemma with Linux, the open-source operating system that is gaining ground in the corporate market.
He said that IBM may be feeling threatened by the rise of Red Hat, the leading vendor of Linux products, which run on machines sold by major tech firms, including Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
In a bid to slow down Red Hat, Schwartz said, IBM is hoping to direct customers to another Linux firm, Suse, owned by Novell.
"Whoever owns Novell controls the (operating system on which) IBM's future depends," Schwartz wrote. "Now that's an interesting thought, isn't it?"
U.S. intelligence officials launched a global effort yesterday to track down whoever may have been involved in a suspected terrorist plot aimed at financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, N.J.
While they acknowledged that they had no firm indication that a plot was still under way, officials regard the information, some of which predates the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as significant and troubling.
Officials said the reconnaissance already conducted has provided Al Qaeda with the knowledge necessary to carry out attacks against the sites in Manhattan, Washington and Newark. They said Al Qaeda had often struck years after its operatives began surveillance of an intended target.
Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said yesterday in an interview on PBS that surveillance reports, apparently collected by Al Qaeda operatives, had been "gathered in 2000 and 2001." But she added that information may have been updated as recently as January.
Much of the information obtained from al Qaeda that led the United States to raise terror alerts in Washington and New York was at least three years old but a top U.S. official said on Tuesday it remained relevant.
Asked in morning television interviews whether material gathered more than three years ago was out of date, White House homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, said this was not the case.
She said al Qaeda had originally collected information about key financial buildings in the United States in 2000 and 2001 but that this was updated as recently as January of this year.
"What we have learned about the 9/11 attacks, is that they do them (plan for attacks), years in advance and then update them before they launch the attacks," she told ABC's "Good Morning America" show, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against America.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5858156
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