AREA 47

SECTION 97: RECYCLE BIN 2006

Other websites have ARCHIVES.

But until I get my act together,

All I've got is a Recycle Bin.

This is not "Trash,"

But rather items pulled off the Home Page

Which have not yet been Organized.

8/16/2006

6:09 PM

Link

Israel set to invade Lebanon despite lessons of 1982 war

Ground Offensive

By Donald Macintyre in Metulla, Israel

Published: 10 August 2006

Israel has approved a major escalation of war by voting to send thousands of fresh troops deeper into Lebanon in an expanded offensive echoing its invasion nearly a quarter of a century ago.

The decision came as attempts at the United Nations in New York to agree a ceasefire resolution were said last night to be on the point of collapse.

Israel gave the army the green light to push troops at least to the Litani river, around 15 miles beyond the border into Lebanon, despite the risk this could add hundreds more casualties to the rapidly mounting death toll of Israeli soldiers. Another 15 soldiers were killed in heavy fighting in southern Lebanon yesterday.

At a tense six-hour meeting in Jerusalem, the cabinet authorised Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, to order a substantially expanded offensive at a time of their choosing. It was approved by nine ministers. Three, including the former prime minister Shimon Peres, abstained.

The decision was strongly recommended by Mr Peretz and the military's chief of staff, Dan Halutz. Mr Olmert, elected only five months ago, was widely reported to have hesitated before finally throwing his weight behind it.

The principal goal of such a ground offensive was described by officials as being to halt the firing of shorter-range Katyusha rockets, most of which Israel believes are launched from the area between the border and the Litani. Another 160 of them were fired into northern Israel yesterday. One minister said after the meeting that the military assessed the operation would take 30 days to complete.

The timing and even the choice of whether to implement the decision was left to Mr Olmert and Mr Peretz. This could allow still more time for the UN Security Council to come up with a resolution which would meet Israel's central demands, including an international force to disarm Hizbollah.

Insisting that the decision did not conflict with the currently badly faltering diplomatic efforts to secure a UN ceasefire resolution, Tzipi Livni, Israel's Foreign Minister, said: "The faster the international community passes a resolution, the faster an international force arrives to help the Lebanese army, the better."

Although Israeli officials declined to say last night when Mr Olmert was likely to implement the decision, one minister present at the meeting was quoted by Haaretz as saying that Mr Olmert would not act on the decision for two or three days to allow a window for the diplomatic process to bear fruit. One senior official said last night that the international community still had a window to halt a wider ground offensive that Israel would ideally prefer not to launch.

But the gravity of yesterday's decision invoking unwelcome memories of the 1982 Lebanon invasion was underlined by the abstentions of both Mr Peres and the Labour minister Ophir Pines-Paz. Both argued in the cabinet that more room should be allowed for the diplomatic process.

The third minister to abstain, Eli Yishai, from the ultra-orthodox party Shas, did so on the grounds that while it was right to expand the campaign there should be a longer aerial bombing campaign before an intensified ground operation was launched. He said after the meeting: "In my opinion, whole villages should be removed from the air when we have verified information that Katyusha rockets are being fired from there."

It was Mr Yishai who disclosed the military's belief that the operation would last a month, adding: "I think it is wrong to make this assessment. I think it will take a lot longer," he said.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said Israel had a right to defend itself, but added that it "must take utmost care in avoiding civilian casualties".

Lebanese officials reported that at least five people had died in air strikes yesterday. Most of the Israeli soldiers killed were reservists, casualties of the anti-tank missiles which have proved to be Hizbollah's most potent weapon in the ground war. The Israeli military said 40 Hizbollah guerrillas had also been killed.

Hundreds of reservists called up to reinforce the Israeli deployment were seen moving in formation towards the eastern sector of the border near here. Fire was exchanged, using small arms, machine guns, shells and missiles, with positions in southern Lebanon. Plumes of smoke rose from Lebanese villages close to the border.

Red tracers visible from the Israeli side of the frontier crossed the sky early today as repeated tank and artillery fire demonstrated that Israel had still not secured all the immediate border areas of southern Lebanon.

As sirens sounded repeatedly, the reservists, some with camouflage paint on their faces and mainly from the Golani brigade, took cover behind walls. They were mindful of avoiding the fate of 12 colleagues killed in a single Katyusha attack at Kfar Giladi, five miles away from here, on Sunday.

Flashback 1982

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor

In June 1982, the Israeli army swept across the Lebanese border with orders to expel Palestinian guerrillas who had been firing rockets into northern Israel.

Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) were indeed forced out of Lebanon. But Israel's ill-fated occupation lasted 18 years, tarnished the reputation of its military machine, and led to the creation of the Islamic Hizbollah militias, which are now firing much more powerful rockets into Israel.

On 6 June 1982, on the pretext that Palestinian fighters had attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to London, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin sent 30,000 soldiers into Lebanon. He told the Israeli cabinet that the PLO was behind the attack, withholding the fact that it had been carried out by Arafat's sworn enemy, Abu Nidal, on the orders of Saddam Hussein.

Ariel Sharon, then defence minister, was put in charge of "Operation Peace for Galilee" ostensibly aimed at silencing Palestinian rockets by moving Israeli troops 30kms inside Lebanon up to the Litani river.

But the Israelis thrust as far as the Lebanese capital, with public support remaining buoyant despite the deaths of 100 soldiers in the first days. In August 1982, Yasser Arafat and his fighters left the rubble of Beirut on a ship for exile in Tunis, in the same month that 2,000 Syrian troops pulled out. Under a US-sponsored ceasefire agreement, a multinational force of Americans, French and Italians was deployed.

Bashir Gemayel, a Maronite Christian, was elected president, and Israel began to hope that a peace treaty could be signed. But Lebanon, split by factions and conflicting foreign interests, once again confounded optimists. Gemayel was assassinated on 14 September 1982. Two days later, in revenge killings whose scale shocked the world, Israeli forces allowed their allied Lebanese Christian militias into the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps, where they slaughtering 1,700 fighters and possibly thousands of civilians.

Sabra and Chatila, the bloodiest single incident in the Arab-Israeli conflict, marked a turning point in Israeli public support for the occupation, and led to Mr Sharon being found "personally" responsible for the massacre, and forced to resign as defence minister.

The massacre prompted the US President, Ronald Reagan, to boost the multinational force. On 29 September, the new troops entered Beirut, with about 1,800 marines, joined by 1,500 French Foreign Legion paratroopers, and 1,400 Italians. Their mission was officially neutral, but was intended to support the new Lebanese government under President Amin Gemayel, who was allied with the US and Israel.

But the presence of the foreign forces provided Syria and Iran with an opportunity as they backed the Hizbollah Shia fighters who had sprung up to resist the invading Israelis. On 18 April 1983, a suicide bomber demolished the US embassy in Beirut. On 23 October 1983, 241 marines were killed in a truck bombing of their Beirut barracks. Twenty seconds later, a truck rammed into the building where the French peacekeepers slept, killing 56 paratroopers. A US district judge ruled in 2003 that senior Iranian officials had approved and funded the attacks by Hizbollah, which he described as the "most deadly state-sponsored terrorist attack made against United States citizens before 11 September 2001". The multinational force pulled out of Beirut.

Israel withdrew to a buffer zone in southern Lebanon. Its forces stayed for 17 years, but when they left, Hizbollah claimed that it was the Shia militia that defeated the regional superpower.

7/10/2006 1:10 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/

It's WWIII, and U.S.
is out of ideas

Last week's headlines prove the point: North Korea fires missiles, Iran talks of nukes again, Iraq carnage continues, Israel invades Gaza, England observes one-year anniversary of subway bombing. And, oh, yes, the feds stop a plot to blow up tunnels under the Hudson River.

World War III has begun.

It's not perfectly clear when it started. Perhaps it was after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. Perhaps it was the first bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993.

What is clear is that this war has a long fuse and, while we are not in the full-scale combat phase that marked World Wars I and II, we seem to be heading there. The expanding hostilities mean it's time to give this conflict a name, one that focuses the mind and clarifies the big picture.

The war on terror, or the war of terror, has tentacles that reach much of the globe. It is a world war.

While it is often a war of loose or no affiliation, and sometimes just amateur copycats, the similar goals of destruction add up to a threat against modern society. Even the hapless wanna-bes busted in Miami ordered guns and military equipment from a man they thought was from Al Qaeda. Islamic fascists are the driving force, but anti-American hatred is a global membership card for any and all who have a grievance and a gun.

The feeling that the wheels are coming off the world has only one recent comparison, the time when America's head-butt with communism sprouted hot spots from Cuba to Vietnam. Yet ultimately the policy of mutual assured destruction worked because American and Soviet leaders didn't want their countries hit by nuclear bombs.

Such rational thinking is quaint next to the ravings of North Korean nut Kim Jong Il and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They both seem to be dying to die - and set the world on fire.

And don't forget Osama Bin Laden's declaration that it is the duty of every Muslim to acquire a "Muslim bomb." Is there any doubt he would use it if he had it?

I sound pessimistic because I am. Even worse than the problems is the fact that our political system is failing us. Democratic Party leaders want to pretend we can declare peace and everything will be fine, while President Bush is out of ideas. Witness Bush now counseling patience and diplomacy on North Korea. This from a man who scorned both for five years.

But what choice does he have now that the pillars of his post-9/11 foreign policy are crumbling? As Harvard Prof. Joseph Nye argues in Foreign Affairs magazine, Bush's strategy of "reducing Washington's reliance on permanent alliances and international institutions, expanding the traditional right of preemption into a new doctrine of preventive war and advocating coercive democratization as a solution to Middle Eastern terrorism" amounted to a bid for a "legacy of transformation."

The first two ideas have been repealed. The third brought Hamas into power and has so far failed to take root in Iraq or anywhere else.

I believed Iraq was the key, that if we prevailed there, momentum would shift in our favor. Now I'm not sure. We still must prevail there, but Iraq could mean nothing if Iran or Bin Laden get the bomb or North Korea uses one.

Meanwhile, I'm definitely not using any tunnels.

http://www.world-sex-records.com/sex-248.htm

Most famous fellatrice in Ancient Egypt

A fellatrice is a woman - often a prostitute - who specialises in the art of fellatio, i.e. exciting the male genitals by means of mouth, lips, and tongue. Cleopatra of Egypt has been represented as the "most famous free-love fellatrice of the ancient world." Cleo is said (I do not know how reliable the authority) to have performed fellatio on a thousand men. Perhaps this is why the Greeks chose to call her Merichane (Gaper) - "she who gapes wide for ten thousand men- the wide-mouthed one; the ten-thousand mouthed woman." Cleopatra was also known as Cheilon (Thick-Lipped). It was said that she fellated a hundred Roman noblemen in one night. (A. Edwardes & R. E. L. Masters).

6/17/2006

From: "G. Griffin" <Email address pre-empted>
To: hg47@a47.info
Date: 10 Jun 2006, 02:31:20 PM
Subject: hi harv! this is greg!

Hi Harv

howz things?

hey, have you ever looked at the website www.cryptome.org ?

check it out!

keep up the career redesign . . . it worked for me . . . you never know
what's going to happen next, or which direction you're going to turn, or
was it on the left side of the street or right?

hope you're doing fine!

keep the faith, and i'm glad to see spock when i load your website!

take a look at the text that follows . . . food for thought . . .

greg

Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites
   * 09 June 2006
   * NewScientist.com news service
   * Paul Marks

"I am continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves." So says Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software. He is far from alone in noticing that fast-growing social networking websites such as MySpace and Friendster are a snoop's dream.

New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.

Americans are still reeling from last month's revelations that the NSA has been logging phone calls since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The Congressional Research Service, which advises the US legislature, says phone companies that surrendered call records may have acted illegally. However, the White House insists that the terrorist threat makes existing wire-tapping legislation out of date and is urging Congress not to investigate the NSA's action.

Meanwhile, the NSA is pursuing its plans to tap the web, since phone logs have limited scope. They can only be used to build a very basic picture of someone's contact network, a process sometimes called "connecting the dots". Clusters of people in highly connected groups become apparent, as do people with few connections who appear to be the intermediaries between such groups. The idea is to see by how many links or "degrees" separate people from, say, a member of a blacklisted organisation.

By adding online social networking data to its phone analyses, the NSA could connect people at deeper levels, through shared activities, such as taking flying lessons. Typically, online social networking sites ask members to enter details of their immediate and extended circles of friends, whose blogs they might follow. People often list other facets of their personality including political, sexual, entertainment, media and sporting preferences too. Some go much further, and a few have lost their jobs by publicly describing drinking and drug-taking exploits. Young people have even been barred from the orthodox religious colleges that they are enrolled in for revealing online that they are gay.

"You should always assume anything you write online is stapled to your resumé. People don't realise you get Googled just to get a job interview these days," says Callas.

Other data the NSA could combine with social networking details includes information on purchases, where we go (available from cellphone records, which cite the base station a call came from) and what major financial transactions we make, such as buying a house.
�You should always assume anything you write online is stapled to your resumé�

Right now this is difficult to do because today's web is stuffed with data in incompatible formats. Enter the semantic web, which aims to iron out these incompatibilities over the next few years via a common data structure called the Resource Description Framework (RDF). W3C hopes that one day every website will use RDF to give each type of data a unique, predefined, unambiguous tag.

"RDF turns the web into a kind of universal spreadsheet that is readable by computers as well as people," says David de Roure at the University of Southampton in the UK, who is an adviser to W3C. "It means that you will be able to ask a website questions you couldn't ask before, or perform calculations on the data it contains." In a health record, for instance, a heart attack will have the same semantic tag as its more technical description, a myocardial infarction. Previously, they would have looked like separate medical conditions. Each piece of numerical data, such as the rate of inflation or the number of people killed on the roads, will also get a tag.

The advantages for scientists, for instance, could be huge: they will have unprecedented access to each other's experimental datasets and will be able to perform their own analyses on them. Searching for products such as holidays will become easier as price and availability dates will have smart tags, allowing powerful searches across hundreds of sites.

On the downside, this ease of use will also make prying into people's lives a breeze. No plan to mine social networks via the semantic web has been announced by the NSA, but its interest in the technology is evident in a funding footnote to a research paper delivered at the W3C's WWW2006 conference in Edinburgh, UK, in late May.

That paper, entitled Semantic Analytics on Social Networks, by a research team led by Amit Sheth of the University of Georgia in Athens and Anupam Joshi of the University of Maryland in Baltimore reveals how data from online social networks and other databases can be combined to uncover facts about people. The footnote said the work was part-funded by an organisation called ARDA.

What is ARDA? It stands for Advanced Research Development Activity. According to a report entitled Data Mining and Homeland Security, published by the Congressional Research Service in January, ARDA's role is to spend NSA money on research that can "solve some of the most critical problems facing the US intelligence community". Chief among ARDA's aims is to make sense of the massive amounts of data the NSA collects - some of its sources grow by around 4 million gigabytes a month.

The ever-growing online social networks are part of the flood of internet information that could be mined: some of the top sites like MySpace now have more than 80 million members (see Graph).

The research ARDA funded was designed to see if the semantic web could be easily used to connect people. The research team chose to address a subject close to their academic hearts: detecting conflicts of interest in scientific peer review. Friends cannot peer review each other's research papers, nor can people who have previously co-authored work together.

So the team developed software that combined data from the RDF tags of online social network Friend of a Friend (www.foaf-project.org), where people simply outline who is in their circle of friends, and a semantically tagged commercial bibliographic database called DBLP, which lists the authors of computer science papers.

Joshi says their system found conflicts between potential reviewers and authors pitching papers for an internet conference. "It certainly made relationship finding between people much easier," Joshi says. "It picked up softer [non-obvious] conflicts we would not have seen before."

The technology will work in exactly the same way for intelligence and national security agencies and for financial dealings, such as detecting insider trading, the authors say. Linking "who knows who" with purchasing or bank records could highlight groups of terrorists, money launderers or blacklisted groups, says Sheth.

The NSA recently changed ARDA's name to the Disruptive Technology Office. The DTO's interest in online social network analysis echoes the Pentagon's controversial post 9/11 Total Information Awareness (TIA) initiative. That programme, designed to collect, track and analyse online data trails, was suspended after a public furore over privacy in 2002. But elements of the TIA were incorporated into the Pentagon's classified programme in the September 2003 Defense Appropriations Act.

Privacy groups worry that "automated intelligence profiling" could sully people's reputations or even lead to miscarriages of justice - especially since the data from social networking sites may often be inaccurate, untrue or incomplete, De Roure warns.

But Tim Finin, a colleague of Joshi's, thinks the spread of such technology is unstoppable. "Information is getting easier to merge, fuse and draw inferences from. There is money to be made and control to be gained in doing so. And I don't see much that will stop it," he says.

Callas thinks people have to wise up to how much information about themselves they should divulge on public websites. It may sound obvious, he says, but being discreet is a big part of maintaining privacy. Time, perhaps, to hit the delete button.

From issue 2555 of New Scientist magazine, 09 June 2006, page 30

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025556.200?DCMP=NLC-nletternsref=mg19025556.200

9/1/2006

12:19 AM

When I was writing the first draft of BLUES DELUXE, I got to talking with a con man & criminal who had spent a couple of years in various jails & prisons. He had some great stories to tell about his time behind bars. In fact, his tales were so good that they changed the direction of my novel.

I'm sure I was getting some exaggeration, because the guy was a great storyteller, but it was also clear that there was a large element of Truth to what he was telling me. One of the things he said that stuck with me, was that when the guards would crack down on pornography and drugs, that violence and assaults and rapes and riots always increased. But that when the guards would relax the restrictions, and let the baddies have their Bondage Babe porn & heroin & whatever, that everything quieted right down behind bars, and the boys behaved themselves.

One of McLuhan's main points was that Media Are Tranquilizers. That when you watch TV, the minor effect on you is the content of the show, the major effect on you is that you sit there for hours drinking beer & eating chips. Effectively, you are tranquilized. Similarly, with porn; the major effect is that you sit there and jerk off. hg47

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=6772

8/27/2006

4:19 PM

For a decade I've been fascinated by crop circles. "How the hell does the artist do that?" has been my key question. Some designs I could figure out how I could mark out the pattern in a field, but others were beyond me.

Now, a group put a Firefox Crop Circle down, and they have a website where they tell exactly how they did it. Very instructive!

hg47 (Link)

8/5/2006

6:17 PM

Am I the only one who thinks that Mel Gibson's drunk driving arrest & Jew ranting was all premeditated? That the whole point is to glom AWESOME amounts of Free Publicity for his upcoming movie Apocalypto? I mean, you can't buy that amount of publicity! hg47

7/29/2006

6:47 PM [sic]

Here's an interesting statistic for those putting some of their money in the stock market.

Historically, one barrel of oil has been worth about 2.2 grams of gold.

It now takes about 3.4 grams of gold to buy a barrel of oil.

Q: Is GOLD cheap, or is OIL expensive?

My take? With Israel kicking Arab ass and taking Islamic names, while Sunni's & Shi'ites in Iraq fight a civil war, the price of oil is headed UP. Looks to me like GOLD & OIL are both good investments. hg47

7/24/2006

3:32 PM

WHEN CHRISTIANS SWEAR:

Two Balls of Christ
Epistolary Balls of Paul
Perfidious Balls of Judas
Hopeless Balls of St. Jude
Vaporous Balls of the Holy Ghost
Two Damp Balls of John the Baptist

Swallowed Balls of Jonah

Rocky Balls of St. Peter

Trumpeting Balls of Joshua

Two Inhospitable Balls of the Inn Keeper

Burning Balls of the Bush

Perforated Balls of St. Sebastian

Complaining Balls of Jeremiah

Wrinkled Balls of Methuselah

Prophetic Balls of Joseph in Egypt

Skeptical Balls of Thomas

Baby Killing Balls of Herod

hg47

6/15/2006

10:50 AM

Since a dog can sniff out human cancer more accurately than state-of-the-art high-tech laboratory cancer tests, makes you rethink Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s TOM EDISON'S SHAGGY DOG story, doesn't it! hg47

Number of dogs that a California clinic trained to diagnose cancer by sniffing patients’ breath: 5[Nicholas Broffman, Pine Street Foundation (San Anselmo, Calif.)]

Percentage of lung- and breast-cancer cases that they accurately detect, respectively: 99, 88[Nicholas Broffman, Pine Street Foundation (San Anselmo, Calif.)]

Percentage of breast-cancer cases that are detectable by mammogram: 85

HarpersIndex2006-04

6/3/2006

8:32 AM

Who's your Daddy?

% of you who say you trust Congress = 22

% of you who say you trust the Prez = 44

% of you who say you trust the military = 74

Kyklos, Baby! Military Dictatorship! Changing of the Guard! Hell, why not?

Estimated ratio this year of the U.S. defense budget to that of the rest of the world combined: 1:1 [Stockholm International Peace Research Institute]

Rank of the National Security Agency among top U.S. employers of mathematicians: 1

[American Mathematical Society (Providence, R.I.)]

Chance that an American believes his or her phone has been tapped by the federal government: 1 in 5

Hell, they've got the tools! Even worse, they've got our trust.

HarpersIndex2006-04

hg47

6/2/2006

8:40 AM

Finally figured out the third code error on my Home Page. It only took me 4 months to de-bug it. Guess I lose my semi-geek status.

hg47

5/24/2006

11:32 AM

I'm a big fan of Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools. Searching for a special gift for a certain someone? But now Kelly has taken on Kurzweil's "singularity" site. Check it out!

The Technium

Been a fan of COOL TOOLS for years. Just discovered THE TECHNIUM. Nice counterpoint to Kurzweil's "Spiritual Machines" & "Singularity." I like your quote/reply: "What if as the more aware we become, the more our experience of time changes--analogous to Einstein's thought experiment of riding on a beam of light. The past and future are revealed as ghosts of an eternal NOW." I would have said: The Meaning is the Mirage because the Message creates its own space-time continuum.

My take? The short answer is I think entropy will prevent technological hell, whether of the green goo, terminator, or smart machines babysitting the silly humans variety. Entropy will also block technological heaven, immortality, and Kurzweil's benevolent Borg vision of 10%human/90%machine superintelligence. Talk to any maintenance guy in any factory—he may not know what the second law of thermodynamics is—but he’ll be quick to tell you that the more complicated the machine, the quicker it’ll break down and the more high-powered support people are going to be needed to keep that machine up and running.

Besides, just read James Gleick's FASTER, and you'll catch the drift that we've already passed through the "singularity," into a future beyond anyone's control: the acceleration of everything always, no brakes!

The long answer? Why is LIFE valuable? Death! Where does AWARENESS—the precursor to INTELLIGENCE—come from? The struggle between life and death! Kurzweil's core argument is seductive: given sufficient computer speed and complexity, the computer will become self-aware, and begin designing and producing computer children in the form of faster, smarter, more intelligent baby bit-brains. While this is happening, nanotechnology will redesign the environment in conformity to all our good dreams, our minds will be augmented by successively more invasive technological implants until superhuman is the norm and we dance off into the eternal shibumi, uploading and downloading our minds into multiple and various vessels according to whim and fashion: "My 256 Harveys can beat up your 128 Kevins!"

Perhaps I simply lack imagination. Maybe my thoughts are stuck in old ruts unenlightened by the right analogy. I get the Garry Kasparov analogy. I get that faster CPUs and sharper software will enable computers and their robot "fingers" to best us brute humans in any and all of our games, any field of endeavor which we can rigorously define by precise rules. I get that computers will shortly pass the Turing Test—questioners will not know if they are talking to a machine or a human. But help me out here: what I don't get is the part where the IT support guy is no longer a part of the equation. No matter how smart or how large the computer, I keep seeing an army of admins and hackers and software engineers behind the scenes pulling the strings, giving the computer its marching orders.

Help me out here. Without the issue of Life and Death, how can there be AWARENESS? I get that I can use tools to design better tools--I can use a piece of chalk to design a pencil to design a pen to design a word processor. But that’s always me and the tool, designing the next tool. What I don't get is where an Apple suddenly designs a Cray while I go to refill my coffee, and starts using me as its tool.

hg47

5/21/2006

1:50 AM

Area 47 is not user friendly. Area 47 is not Google-friendly. It's not lowest common denominator. Surfers land here and feel like the big wave shoved their head into the sand. Baby-Bots get lost and can't phone home to Mommy.

hg47

5/14/2006

4:13 PM

I foresee interesting times ahead. Jeb Bush versus Hillary Clint in the next pres election. $4.50 a gallon gasoline. A Bear stock market. And, by the way, why doesn't the Post Office know how many stamps it sells? Oh, yeah, the US Post Office knows how many stamps it prints each year, but it has no clue how many stamps it sells. Why is that? Can't they count the stamps they destroy?

hg47

5/4/2006

10:56 AM

Another post brought to you by Harper's Index. Statistics are the harshest REALITY THERAPY.

Chance that a nation lacking resource wealth will have a civil war in any given five-year span: 1 in 100[Paul Collier, Centre for the Study of African Economies (Oxford, England)]

Chance that a nation with resource wealth will: 1 in 5

Could it be that what the US is really doing over in Iraq is keeping our share of future Arab oil out of Chinese control?

hg47

4/29/2006

4:40 AM

This post is brought to you by Harper's Index, March 2006:

Percentage of Democrats and Republicans, respectively, who say the Iraq war was “worth fighting”: 4, 84[M.I.T. Public Opinion Research Training Lab (Cambridge, Mass.)]

Total projected cost of the war per U.S. household, based on a January estimate: $19,600

Yes, Virginia, this war in Iraq has already cost you 10-Grand, and the guy you are soon to marry, another 10-Grand.

hg47

4/28/2006

4:29 AM

[this post removed by special request]

hg47

4/27/2006

5:30 AM

I know a guy. He missed out on the whole Napster thing. But he's into music in a big way. He's got a high-speed cable-modem & his ISP hooks him into Newsgroups. He downloaded a program called ANDROID from somewhere, cost about 30 bucks, I think. He claims it's muggles-proof. It must be, 'cause this guy is not a geek. Does he bother to search for specific songs or groups? Nah. He's already grabbed everything he ever wanted. Now he just selects whole albums of titles he's never heard of, huge swaths of files, then his computer stays up all night downloading them.

Anyway, he showed me bookcases full of DVD-Rs, the big 100-packs, probably about 20 of the puppies, and they're all full of music. Mp3s, flacs, apes, waves; apparently, there are a bunch of different formats. There are about 50 different newsgroups dedicated to different music, I mean they've got about anything you could ask for. And if they don't have it, ask for it! Somebody will dump it on for you.

Here's where it gets interesting. This guy is downloading music about 20-times faster than he can even listen to it!

1st Question: What's the motivation here? What's the point? The pleasure must be in the downloading, the acquiring, not the listening. But I still don't get it. Yes, he's always listening to music, but it's like the music is taking a backseat to the downloading.

2nd Question: Where are the Record Companies and their lawyers? Haven't they heard of newsgroups?

hg47

4/27/2006

12:21 AM

I'm Back! hg47

11/29/2005 11:21am

I’m sorry, I have to remove the hidden links from Area 47, and I have to remove the link to the Time Travel Function. Google doesn’t like what I am doing. Google’s bots think that I am trying to inflate my rankings, by directing their bots sneakily to pages which regular users will likely never find, pages overloaded with key-words and key-phrases. Actually, my hidden links are just me hiding the dirty words from innocent underage surfers, unless they are hard-core geeks obsessed with finding my hidden pages. And my Time Travel Function? It doesn’t redirect Google’s bots to secret pages designed to inflate my rankings, but rather takes the surfer on a “time travel” back into the past of Area 47, successively loading and refreshing earlier and earlier versions of the Area 47 Home Page. But, sorry, can’t do that anymore, or soon Google will ban me entirely, and remove me from their index. This is not me bitching and moaning about The Evil Empire; no this is me, reluctantly complying with the benevolent authority of God—er, I mean, Google. hg47

11/24/2005 2:45 PM

We are celebrating Thanksgiving Day because on November 24, 1859 the First Edition of THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES was published. hg47

11/22/2005 2:23 PM

I believe in long-cuts to success. I do not believe in short-cuts.

Some times I think my life is all distraction and diversion on the way to destination.

conviction
not logic
convinces

Your lessons are never over.
Unfortunately, the only way to learn how to live is by living.

McLUHAN: Media are make happen agents. William Randolph Hearst was quite correct when he cabled to bored war correspondent Frederick Remengton in peaceful 1897 Havana, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

Monday

11/14/2005

8:14 AM

I have two novels ready for the publisher just now (11/13/2005). 42N8 F8 is a high-concept SF novel, so I think I'll turn that puppy over to the print guys. But COURTNEY will probably always be my favorite novel. I've been rewriting it forever and twenty minutes, trying to get it perfect. Anyway, here's the test: 42N8 F8 goes to the publishers, COURTNEY gets posted to my website. Come back in 100-years, after I'm dead and gone, or assimilated into some computer somewhere, if you believe Kurzweil. The novels are starting off even. Which one kicks the most butt in 2105? hg47

Saturday, November 12, 2005
9:43 AM

"Stories ought to judge and interpret the world."
—Cynthia Ozick

L6 - You are only as powerful as what you can do for other people.

Wanna reach people?
Give them a Myth.
They don't dig the old ones,
But boy do they glom onto the
New Ones!

Q: Now, what exactly is a Myth?
A: A fresh INTERPRETATION of our Common Experience.

Final victory seems to always belong to the side that writes the dispatches.

Did you know that there is a meta tag you can attach to a web page that will direct the browser to refresh the page? You can set the number of seconds before the page is automatically refreshed, but more important, you can set the URL! This means that you can redirect the browser to another page after X-number of seconds! That got me thinking: suppose you redirected the browser to another page, that then redirected the browser to another page, that then, etc. You could take the browser on a Road Trip! Or you could lock up the browser, and get it bouncing back and forth between two pages--I haven't done extensive testing, but on my browsers, with a one second refresh setting to another page, the "ESC" key doesn't work, and clicking on the "STOP" button doesn't work either. Although it's an awful waste of bandwidth, it could be used for Flash-like effects or artistic effects with pages that load quickly. On Area 47, I am using the effect to take a Time Travel back to former versions of my Home Page, all the way back to when I made my first backup. I've never heard of any other website doing this, have you? hg47

6/15/2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

OK all you fellow boozers, stop off at Starbucks on your way to work!

Drinking lots of coffee saves liver from alcohol damage, research finds

· 22-year study of 125,000 people 'solidifies' linkage
· Caffeine is not the key, as drinking tea has no effect

Sarah Hall, health correspondent
Tuesday June 13, 2006
The Guardian

Drinking as little as one cup of coffee a day could help protect you from liver disease caused by alcohol, according to research published today.

People who drink one cup of coffee are 20% less likely to have alcoholic cirrhosis than those who abstain from doing so.

And the protective effect increases with the more coffee you drink: People who drink two or three cups a day are 40% less likely to contract cirrhosis, while those who drink four or more cups are 80% less likely to suffer the disease.

The findings, conducted by researchers at the Kasier Permanente, in Oakland, California, are thought to be the largest study to look at the inverse relationship between coffee and cirrhosis. The link was first reported by researchers at the same institute in 1993 but this new study - of 125,000 people over 22 years - "solidifies the association", Arthur L Klatsky, the lead author of the study, said.

Dr Klatsky, who was involved in the earlier research, added: "Consuming coffee seems to have some protective benefits against alcoholic cirrhosis, and the more coffee a person consumes the less risk they seem to have of being hospitalised or dying of alcoholic cirrhosis. We did not see a similar protective association between coffee and non-alcoholic cirrhosis."

The researchers, whose findings are published in the US journal Archives of Internal Medicine, followed more than 125,000 health plan members who underwent a medical examination between 1978-1985 and who, at the time, had no diagnosed liver disease. Participants filled out a questionnaire detailing how much alcohol, coffee and tea they drank daily.

By the end of 2001, 330 participants had been diagnosed with liver disease, including 199 with alcoholic cirrhosis - caused by the consumption, each day, of three or more units of alcohol.

Researchers - who only counted those who had been hospitalised or died because of the disease - found that the more coffee a person drank the less likely they were to develop alcoholic cirrhosis.

Drinking tea had no effect, suggesting the ingredient that protects against cirrhosis is not caffeine.

Blood tests conducted on the 5% of drinkers who consumed the most alcohol confirmed that coffee drinkers were less likely to have high levels of enzymes in the liver - a key indicator of liver damage.

Dr Klatsky added: "Even allowing for statistical variation, this shows there is a clear association between coffee consumption and protection against alcoholic cirrhosis.

"This is not a recommendation to drink coffee. Nor is it a recommendation that the way to deal with heavy alcohol consumption is to drink more coffee. And while there is very little evidence that moderate coffee drinking - say up to four cups a day - is harmful to the health, that's not the message we want to get across. There is a lot of harm caused by heavy drinking other than liver damage."

Dr Klatsky said that if caffeine were the key protective ingredient, he would expect to have seen some protection for heavy tea drinkers.

"We can't answer why this has happened," he said. "The value of this study is that it may offer us some clues as to the biochemical processes taking place inside liver cells that could help in finding new ways to protect the liver against injury."

Cirrhosis, caused by thickening of the normal tissue, causes progressive damage and impaired function of the liver. There are numerous causes including viruses, obesity or genetic problems - but excess alcohol is the main culprit.

Figures published in The Lancet this year show that Britons are drinking themselves into the grave at a sharply increasing rate. In the 1950s England and Wales had low rates of liver cirrhosis deaths - for men 3.4 per 100,000 a year and for women 2.2. By 2001 rates were 14.1 for men and 7.7 for women.

While the US remains the world's biggest consumer of coffee - with the average American drinking 3.2 cups a day - British men now drink an average of 1.7 cups, and women 1.5 cups a day.

5-21-2006

Danger, Will Robinson! Bear Market & Oil Shortage Ahead!

5/17/2006 3:25 PM

Oil stocks that seem to be going up:

Wednesday, 11/9/2005

12:59pm

I ain't much good at positive habits. I'm much better at negative compulsions that drive me in the right direction.

"As for the viability of vicinals, when invisible they're invincible."

Metaphysical modes of escape exist which can turn any hell into a bearable situation.

L2: Prayer is a weapon that you cannot afford to be without. Therefore, there is a God.

"Through the Looking Glass with Many Happy Returns."

"In America, you watch TV and think that's totally unreal. Then, you step outside, and it's just the same."
Joan Armatrading

A lover is Hallucinogenic!

WE TRY ANYTHING ONCE

YOUR LIFE IS OUR JOB

IF IT'S NEW, WE DO IT. IF IT'S OLD, WE DO IT BETTER. IF IT HASN'T BEEN DONE YET, WE'RE WORKING ON IT!

JUST REMEMBER THAT WE TOLD YOU SO

HAPPINESS CAN'T BUY MONEY

"Evolution is Adapting to Exploration."

The truth is the most powerful weapon in the universe.

Saturday, November 05, 2005
8:03 AM

“Fiction is nothing less than the subtlest instrument for self-examination and self-display that mankind has invented yet. Psychology and X-rays bring up some portentous shadows, and demographics and stroboscopic photography do some fine breakdowns, but for the full parfum and effluvia of being human, for feathery ambiguity and rank facticity, for the air and iron, fire and spit of our daily mortal adventure there is nothing like fiction: it makes sociology look priggish, history problematical, the film media two-dimensional, and the National Enquirer as silly as last week’s cereal box.” —John Updike

USEFUL EXAGGERATION:
A product is like a religion. It has to promise Salvation. A business is like a Savior.

"Top executives score even higher than college professors and lawyers on word meanings."

Great Things are never accomplished by dudes hung up on the precise definition of words (Laws) or the exact requirements of conscience.

Shrink say: The Love of Ideas and Words and Thought is just a disappointed substitute Love for Power and Things and Toys.
Harvey say: Sub-Love, Baby! hg47

Halloween 2005

5:51am

Here's an interesting search tidbit. Google likes links which are word-links, words that are also links, but it doesn't much like picture-links, pictures which are links. Google also likes the word links to be specific differentiating words and phrases, not just the word "Link." For this reason, I am changing the picture-buttons on Area 47. hg47

7:03am

Here's an interesting website back-up info tidbit. When my hard drive crashed awhile back, and I eventually got back online, I loaded old website files from my DVD-R back-up files, and overwrote the files on the host website with them, so I could get back in business. When I did this, all my pictures on Area 47 came out all washed out and dull. Don't know why. But some setting obviously changed, or some setting wasn't stored properly in my back-up files. hg47

10/28/2005

11:00am

CULTURE IS OUR BUSINESS
WAR EQUALS EDUCATION
Violence is the Quest for Identity
THE CENTURY'S ONE GREAT ART FORM: ADVERTISING
(McLuhan)

I do believe in equality, but I also believe in distance. (Bob Dylan)

Living in New York is like coming all the time. (Gene Simmons, Kiss)

"Thanks largely to the Beatles, rock stardom eclipsed running for President as the ultimate glamorous ambition of much of American youth."

"The Beatles' hair generated far more attention and controversy even than their noise, and everyone instantly had an opinion of it, one way or another."

We interpret reality according to the meanings media has given to us. hg47

"People are more impressed by the depth of your conviction than by the height of your logic."

"SHOCK, EXCITE, CAPTURE THE ATTENTION, AVOID POSING PROBLEMS."

Wednesday, October 26, 2005
11:03 AM

If it's new, we do it. If it's old, we do it better. If it hasn't been done yet--don't blame us if it breaks down! hg47

L4:
All rich men believe that working is a better escape from the pressures of reality than TV. Just be aware that there are enormous satisfactions that can be had by working on a project that is changing your life for the better. Instead of watching a hero, why not be a hero?

"Ontogeny replays phylogeny." - Ernst Haeckel

"Mimesis is the process by which all men learn." Aristotle, POETICS

Monday, October 24, 2005
10:16 AM

What’s right is what feels good afterward—HEMINGWAY.

[Yeah, I know, Bernanke is the New Fed Chairman, Wilma is smashing the Keys, and companies are now blocking blogs as well as porn. So?]

CONFESSIONS OF A NOVELIST, Part 1, “My First Novel” . . .

The first novel I wrote was science fiction, called THE HISTORY. I had to talk about being a writer for a couple of years before I did much writing. And I had to talk about being a novelist for probably a year before I started writing a novel. Pretty hard to get started. Heavy into ritual. I had to have my lucky candle lit. I wrote on special paper, with a special fountain pen, buzzed on strong coffee.

I am a compulsive personality, with enormous inertia. It’s very hard for me to get started. But once I’m going, it’s just has hard for me to stop. I sometimes think that my passions and addictions drag me through life, and that what little free will I have is only exercised in the choosing of my passions and in the cultivating of my addictions.

I don’t remember my exact preparations or methods for that first novel, but I’m pretty sure there wasn’t much in the way of preparation. After all, I was a “genius.” Who needs preparation when you’re a “genius?” Some writers do precise outlines, and organize the novel to be written down to the tiniest details before actually “assembling” the first draft. I have never done it that way. For me, the first draft is where the rubber hits the road, where the artistic creation happens, where the essential decisions are made (sometimes by the characters, themselves, which I have set in motion). I think I have always started with a vague plot and an essential “message” to convey, but oftentimes the plot changes drastically in the writing of the first draft, and sometimes the “message” has to be thrown out because it just won’t fit the new structure. For my first novel, I have no memory of any preparatory notes.

I counted the words as I went, for this first novel, and when I neared the end, at what I remember as about fifty-five thousand words into the thing, about six months of work into the thing, I stopped writing, and carefully reread everything I had written before proceeding with the last chapter or three of the ending. I wanted to get the ending just right. Up to this time, I had only been rereading back five or ten pages to where I was actually creating, to get a sort of “running start” on the point of creation.

I discovered that I had made a mistake. I discovered that my memories of the opening and middle chapters were idealized. I also discovered that the novel had changed during the writing, had evolved, creating problems of continuity and meaning, the characters had changed, the SF landscape had changed. I didn’t have a masterpiece, I had a mess. I had to face the fact that I was in for a major rewrite. Fixing this mess would probably require putting as much time and energy as I had already put into it!

And I just didn’t have the heart for it. So I abandoned this novel, and treated it as a learning experience. The first lesson was to periodically read the fucking thing! From the start! So I had a view of just exactly what I was working on! The second lesson was to plan things out a bit more before jumping into the first draft.

I have to say one thing, at this point. I am happiest, most content, when I am writing the first draft of a novel. A close second is when writing the first draft of a screenplay. The planning & plotting is OK, the rewriting is OK, the promoting & marketing is a bitch. But the best part, always, is the first draft. If I die and go to Heaven, I will be always writing the first draft to a novel up there.

To be continued . . . hg47

10/20/2005

L1 - Ladies Love Outlaws. It's in their programming. So spice up your act. Outlaws are guys who get away with shit, other guys don't get away with. The more shit you can get away with, the more foxes will throw themselves at you! hg47

10/18/2005

~~Hardware~~
Software!

~~Products~~
Processes!

~~Goals~~
Roles!

Ads
supply
the
corporate
meaning
for
the
experience
of
the
private
owner.

The
people
who
pay
attention
to
the
advertisements
are
typically
those
who
already
own
the
product.

Get

it?

hg47

Monday, 10/17/2005 - 6:47am

Do people behave according to what they comprehend?

And yet, if we only see what is behind our eyes . . . if the only tool you have is a hammer, you see every problem as a nail.

So HIT THAT NAIL!! hg47

Sunday, October 16, 2005
12:34 PM

The making of news has replaced reporting. hg47

Saturday, October 15, 2005
8:13 AM

Your Honor, may I approach for a Sidebar?

An update on my travails with Windows XP, other software, and my New Dell computer.
I uninstalled GHOST, and then installed ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE. Ashamed to admit it, but I’m not geek enough for GHOST. So now I have C-Drive images on a set of CD-Rs, and on my E-Drive, and I also cloned my C-Drive to a third hard drive that I bought. The only way to really, really, really test my images is to restore my C-Drive from one of them. Don’t think I want to do that. But I did swap out my cloned and larger C-Drive with the smaller original, and everything booted up as expected. Programs seemed to operate as expected. So, worst case? My hard drive goes ker-plink, like before, and I just plug in the bigger puppy, and I’m back in business.
Yes, I do regular data backups to DVD-R+, but I recommend, as always, that writers make hard copies of all first draft work. PRINT IT OUT! And I also recommend that writers keep off-site copies of computer data files on removable media in case of fire or theft.
Who me, paranoid? Yes, Windows XP is more stable than Windows 98. But I’ve never yet had to reinstall Windows 98. My 5-year-old Old Dell is still fairly reliable, and is kept in service by GO BACK and DRIVE IMAGE.
My six-month-old New Dell has three main safety-nets. GO BACK. ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE. And a cloned hard drive packed away ready for use.

Who me, paranoid? Windows made me what I am today. hg47

5-21-2006

Danger, Will Robinson! Bear Market & Oil Shortage Ahead!

5/17/2006 3:25 PM

Oil stocks that seem to be going up:

5/14/2006

http://www.physorg.com/news66407801.html

Women Use Facial Cues to Determine Relationships

Women are able to subconsciously pick up cues in men's faces and use those cues to determine if they are attracted to the males for long-term or short-term relationships, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Chicago.

The study was published online today by the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, the UK's national academy of science.

Men whose faces reflected an interest in children were intuitively perceived by woman as candidates for long-term commitments, whereas men whose faces indicated high testosterone levels were determined to be short-term prospects for relationships.

"Women are surprisingly accurate in being able to determine interest in children and testosterone levels," said James Roney, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who is the lead author of the paper. "Our data suggest that men's interest in children predicts their long-term mate attractiveness even after we account for how physically attractive the women rated the men," he said.

For the study, the researchers recruited male undergraduate students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds who were tested for testosterone and for their interest in children.

Researchers took saliva samples to measure testosterone levels. To determine interest in children, researchers showed the men a pair of pictures, one each of an adult and a baby. They were then asked which picture they preferred. Slightly more than twelve percent of the men expressed no interest in the baby pictures, while the rest expressed a range of interest, up to nine out of ten preferences for the infants.

The researchers then took pictures of each man, asking them to display a neutral expression. An oval frame was placed around each photo to focus attention on the faces and the photos were shown to undergraduate women from diverse backgrounds at UCSB.

The women were asked to rate the men according to whether they thought the men liked children, whether they appeared masculine, physically attractive, or kind. They were then asked to determine men's attractiveness as short-term romantic partners or as long-term partners for relationships such as marriage.

The men chosen as being most interested in children were also the same men who had expressed the most interest in children in the photo test. The women were also able to determine from their photos which men had high testosterone levels because they perceived the men as looking masculine.

Although women said they were attracted to the men who tested high for testosterone, an important factor in their attraction to men for a long-term relationship was their perception of a man's affinity for children, even after accounting for their perceptions of men's general kindness.

"The research suggests that men's interest in children may be a relatively under-appreciated influence on men's long-term mate attractiveness," Roney said.

Source: University of California, Santa Barbara

http://www.physorg.com/news66289784.html

Robots manipulating animal behaviour

A pet dog sits on command, but nobody expects an insect to follow human instructions. So it may come as a surprise to learn that researchers recently succeeded in controlling cockroaches with tiny mobile robots. The results hint at a future where we can interact and communicate with many different kinds of animal.

Little larger than a thumbnail, the cubic insect-like robots or ‘insbots’ are technological marvels. Developed under the European Commission’s Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) initiative of the IST programme as the project Leurre, the insbots are fitted with two motors, wheels, a rechargeable battery, several computer processors, a light-sensing camera and an array of infrared proximity sensors.

When dropped into a small experimental area with a maze of curved walls, the robots move, turn and stop. They can navigate their way safely by avoiding the walls, obstacles or each other, follow the walls, congregate around a lamp beam or even line up. When placed in the same area with cockroaches, the robots quickly adapt their behaviour by mimicking the animals’ movements. Coated with pheromones taken from roaches, the infiltrator robots even fool the insects into thinking they are real creatures.

The roach pheromones – a blend of molecules developed by the project partner from the Université de Rennes I, France – enable various forms of communication, including recognition and attraction. For example, when a roach detects another roach, it may approach it, move away or stop. Cockroaches were chosen here because their pheromones are better understood than those found on other gregarious insects, such as ants.

Artificial agents meet natural agents

According to coordinator Jean-Louis Deneubourg, from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, the project had its origins in collective intelligence and behaviour in animal society, as well as the tradition of using artificial agents to test theories about animals. “Robots have already been used to interact with some animals, such as bees. But they cannot react to the animals’ response,” he says. “In our project, the autonomous insbots call on specially developed algorithms to react to signals and responses from individual insects. This results in a chain action or reaction between the artificial and natural agents – a two-way interaction that is unique and very promising for sciences such as biology and robotics.”

Not only did the insbots act like and interact with the insects, they even succeeded in changing the roaches’ behaviour. For example, the darkness-loving insects followed their artificial cousins towards bright beams of light and congregated there. This process took up to two hours, but it showed how humans might soon be able to manipulate the behaviour of a whole colony of insects. A trick that would delight pest-controllers the world over!

Two side-projects under Leurre also looked at sheep and chickens, animals that are happy to follow their ‘leaders’ – unlike the cockroaches, whose collective behaviour is essentially ‘democratic’. The researchers collected data and developed mathematical models describing the collective behaviour of sheep, such as clustering together in a field. These models have yet to be taken up in a follow-on project, but are scientifically valuable. Adds Deneubourg, “They are a great way of exploring the importance of leadership or collective behaviour in animals, paving the way for people to control animals and even colonies of robots.”

Why influence behaviour?

Asked why people would want to influence animal behaviour, Deneubourg offers several answers. Firstly, by changing the way animals behave or inducing collective behaviour, scientists can learn much about animal communications and information processing. Secondly, the ability to create ‘mixed systems’, where artificial agents interact with natural ones, is a long-held dream for many in the scientific community – including those working on nanotechnology. Moreover, these systems are in keeping with emerging European research such as collective robotics and FET-funded projects such as Swarmbots. “We believe farming in Europe can only survive if is associated with high technology,” he adds, pointing to a potential increase in competitiveness and a decrease in costs. “A robot interacting with animals, even if it is not mobile, could be used for numerous tasks, such as herding or milking. Our project demonstrates that the fields of biology and IT can work together more closely in future.”

Though the project has officially ended, some of the partners are continuing to refine the behaviour models they developed. The main research results are also being published in leading IT and biology journals. “Time constraints prevented us from exploring all the new and interesting research paths that opened during the project,” says the project coordinator. “But we succeeded in our main goal – showing that an artificial agent such as a robot can modify the collective behaviour of natural agents, in this case cockroaches, in a mixed community.”

Source: IST Results

Don't Make Me Think
Steve Krug
2000, 195 pages
$24.50
Amazon

Excerpts:

When you're creating a site, your job is to get rid of the question marks.

*
We don't read pages. We scan them.

*
Create a clear visual hierarchy. One of the best ways to make a page easy to grasp in a hurry is to make sure that the appearance of the things on the page -- all of the visual cues -- clearly and accurately portray the relationships between the things on the page.

*
Jakob Nielsen and Tom Landauer have shown that testing five users will tend to uncover 85 percent of a site's usability problems, and that there is a serious case of diminishing returns for additional users.

Art & Fear:Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
David Bayles & Ted Orland
2001, 122 pages
$13
The Image Continuum
Santa Cruz, CA & Eugene, OR

The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars. One of the basic and difficult lessons every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential.

Those who would make art might begin by reflecting on the fate of those who preceded them: most who began, quit. To survive as an artist requires confronting these troubles. Basically, those who continue to make art are those who have learned how to continue - or more precisely, have learned how to not quit.
•
The truth is that the piece of art which seems so profoundly right in its finished state may earlier have been only inches or seconds away from total collapse. Art is like beginning a sentence before you know its ending. The risks are obvious; you may never get to the end of the sentence at all - or having gotten there, you may not have said anything. This is probably not a good idea in public speaking, but it’s an excellent idea in making art.
•
Talent, in common parlance, is “what comes easily.” So sooner or later, inevitably, you reach a point where the work doesn’t come easily, and - Aha!, it‚s just as you feared!
Wrong. By definition, whatever you have is exactly what you need to produce your best work. There is probably no clearer waste of psychic energy than worrying about how much talent you have -and probably no worry more common. This is true even among artists of considerable accomplishment.

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one - to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Filmmaker Lou Stouten tells the painfully unapocryphal story about hand-carrying his first film (produced while he was still a student) to the famed teacher and film theorist Slavko Vorkapitch. The teacher watched the entire film in silence, and as the viewing ended rose and left the room without uttering a word. Stouten, more than a bit shaken, ran out after him and asked, “But what did you think of my film?” Replied Vorkapitch, “What film?”

The lesson here is simply that courting approval, even that of peers, puts a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the audience. Worse yet, the audience is seldom in a position to grant (or withhold) approval on the one issue that really counts - namely, whether or not you’re making progress in your work. They’re in a good position to comment on how they’re moved (or challenged or entertained) by the finished product, but have little knowledge or interest in your process. Audience comes later. The only pure communication is between you and your work.

Nine Ways to Make Your Home a Haven

From turning your bedroom into a cozy getaway, to basking in the glow of a homemade candle, surround yourself with warmth and comfort this season:

Invite Joy into Your Home
When it comes to creating a warm, welcoming home, attention to detail is far more important than budget and space. For instance, have you ever walked into an exquisitely furnished home and yet felt unwelcome? Or entered a modest apartment and never wanted to leave? It is within the walls of a calm home that joy is most easily experienced. Discover how you can create a blueprint for joy in your own home with this simple exercise by Zen Organizer Regina Leeds.

Turn Your Bedroom into a Cozy Sanctuary
Turn your bedroom into your ultimate escape. It doesn't take a lot of work or a lot of money, and yes, it'll be worth it. After all, what's better than snuggling in a warm bed (by yourself, or with the one you love)? So if you don't have a cozy blanket for the winter, get one now or put it on your gift list. It's the easiest way to add that "aaah" feeling to your bedroom.

Try an Ancient Space-Enhancing Secret
Turn your home into an inviting retreat with help from feng shui, the Chinese discipline that teaches you how to attract and enhance your life energy (chi) according to how your space is arranged. Feng shui can bring positive results to every aspect of your life, including your home.

You can create an environment that welcomes health, happiness and love just by moving some furniture and adding a few objects. Start by placing positive elements such as plants, candles, wind chimes and soothing colors around your home. Plus, get more quick tips with a simple lesson in feng shui.

Simple Details Make a Big Difference
You don't need a paint job or a furniture makeover to add a sense of light and laughter to your home. You can cheer up your interior with small, inexpensive touches and see big changes! Start by simply clustering candles on a plant stand or draping cozy throws over sofas and chairs. Find six more ways you can warm up your home this season from Soulful Home Maker Tracey McBride.

Bring the Bloom Indoors
Blooming indoor plants bring the beauty and vibrancy of an outdoor garden into your home. Whether you like lavender, jasmine or even flowering maple, Green Thumb Fran Sorin will show you five blooming beauties that are bound to brighten any room.

Create an Indoor Fountain
Water is soothing to the soul -- that musical trickling sound, the constant but quiet movement. So why not soothe yourself and your loved ones with an indoor fountain? You can make one in as few as four steps. What a treat for a coffee table, bedside stand or even in a front entrance (it's also great feng shui) -- perfect for greeting holiday visitors!

Promote Happiness with Color
One of the easiest ways to transform a room is with a new coat of paint. But which color matches your mood? Will the yellow in your kitchen soothe guests and keep family members happy? Can the colors violet, blue and green make a small room look bigger? Find out how to brighten the walls of your home and keep your spirits high with the Color Therapy Quiz.

Bask in the Glow
Candles are the perfect way to add a warm feeling to your home. An easy alternative to installing a dimmer switch, candles can create a friendly feeling in the living room, add sparkle to a dinner table and promote romance in the bedroom (plus, everyone looks better by candlelight!). Whether it's a cluster of tea lights, a grouping of candlesticks or a solitary three-wick giant, let the glow of candles fill your rooms -- and your heart -- with warmth and light.

Cleanse Your Space and Spirit
Treat your spiritual space the same way you treat your home -- keep it clean. Try this simple space-cleansing ritual -- all you need is a smudge stick (you can get one at any health food store), a bell and a few loud claps (that's right, hand claps) -- to clear your home of unwanted negative energy, and welcome in the joy.

(add this to Area 47)

5/4/2006

By Jon D. Markman
Special to TheStreet.com
4/27/2006 7:47 AM EDT

The U.S. is the world's greatest consumer of energy at present, but China is the world's fastest-growing consumer. That puts us in direct competition for any new sources of crude oil, natural gas, coal and uranium that materialize through exploration and discovery, not to mention any current sources that profit-seeking producers decide to put up for grabs.

Increasingly, new energy sources that China is acquiring are in countries that Americans find distasteful. Many of them are in Africa, in countries with horrific human-rights records such as Sudan, Chad and the Republic of the Congo. And much of the energy is controlled by rapacious despots in the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan and in Southeast Asia's Myanmar.

Energy acquisition is a zero-sum game in which there are winners and losers. Any new energy that China obtains for its fast-growing economy is unavailable to us forever. So you just have to wonder whether the U.S.'s antipathy for dealing with the worst of the world's rogue states has led inexorably to $4-a-gallon gasoline this spring.

For stone-cold U.S. investors, the obvious play here is to simply tag along by taking positions in foreign and domestic companies supplying the Chinese juggernaut, whether they are base metal producer Falconbridge (FAL:NYSE - commentary - research - Cramer's Take) in Canada; a producer of Turkish energy like Toreador Resources (TRGL:Nasdaq - commentary - research - Cramer's Take) of Texas; a producer of Venezuelan oil and gas like Harvest Natural Resources (HNR:NYSE - commentary - research - Cramer's Take); or the two big Chinese energy companies Cnooc or China Petroleum & Chemical (SNP:NYSE ADS - commentary - research - Cramer's Take).

For consumers, outraged indignation is about the best you can do, along with new personal choices about limiting the use of fossil fuel. China has no incentive to bend to U.S. demands to force change on its repressive foreign energy partners. And our politicians are unlikely yet to ease up on rules preventing U.S. companies from participating in the sort of bribery and weapons brokerage that has become de rigueur for doing business in the equatorial zone where most new energy sources are being discovered.

So this really is just another case of joining 'em when you can't beat 'em. Shake your fist at the Chinese if you must, but also continue to buy global miners and drillers on dips in this bull market for commodities, sell your SUV, move closer to work, install solar energy panels and make peace with nuclear energy.

http://www.harpers.org/HarpersIndex2006-03.html

Number of suicide bombings known to have been carried out by Iranians: 0

Percentage of African-American families that have zero or negative net worth: 31[Edward N. Wolff, New York University]

Chance that the family of an African-American child is too poor to qualify for the full U.S. child tax credit: 1 in 2

Percentage change in the amount of housework done by women after they marry for the first time: +17[Sanjiv Gupta, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)]

Percentage change in the amount done by men: -33

Number of half-siblings who have found each other on a website for children of anonymous sperm donors: 1,316[Donor Sibling Registry (Nederland, Colo.)]

Greatest number of them who have the same father: 21

Percentage change since 1992 in the number of civil wars worldwide claiming more than a thousand lives: ‒80[Human Security Centre (Vancouver)]

Chance that a nation lacking resource wealth will have a civil war in any given five-year span: 1 in 100[Paul Collier, Centre for the Study of African Economies (Oxford, England)]

Chance that a nation with resource wealth will: 1 in 5

Average percentage decline in U.K. child injuries during weekends when a new Harry Potter book is released: ‒46[Stephen Gwilym, John Radcliffe Hospital (Oxford, England)]

Number of books published in Britain since 2004 that have “shit,” “shite,” or “crap” in their titles: 23[Harper's research]

Percentage change since 1995 in the number of U.S. fantasy books about dragons: +91

Number of copies sold in Japan since last summer of a comic book about the worthlessness of China: 180,000[Asuka Shinsha (Tokyo)]

Number of copies sold of a similar comic book about Korea: 370,000

Chances that a Japanese person will make eye contact during conversation with another Japanese person: 2 in 5[Karl MacDorman, Indiana University School of Informatics (Indianapolis)]

Chances that he or she will make eye contact during conversation with a robot: 3 in 5

http://www.harpers.org/HarpersIndex2006-02.html

Percentage of Americans who say that fighting terrorism should be one of the nation’s top two priorities: 6

Number of workplace arrests made by U.S. immigration authorities in 1997: 17,554[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]

Number in 2003: 445

Average percentage by which U.S. senators’ investments outperform the stock market each year: 12

Percentage of U.S. CEO vacancies that are filled from outside the company: 40[RHR International Company (Wood Dale, Ill.)]

Average amount the companies spend on each search: $2,000,000[RHR International Company (Wood Dale, Ill.)]

Chance that the CEO will quit or be fired within eighteen months: 1 in 2

Average amount it costs U.S. companies to process a query through a call center: $6.62[The Center for Customer Driven Quality (West Lafayette, Ind.)]

Average performance rating, on a scale of 1 to 100, of top U.S. government managers who are political appointees: 62[David Lewis, Princeton University (New Jersey)]

Average for those who are career bureaucrats: 70[David Lewis, Princeton University (New Jersey)]

Estimated amount the U.S. would save each year on paperwork if it adopted single-payer health care: $161,000,000,000

Number of dominoes that a wayward sparrow toppled just before a Dutch world-record attempt in November: 23,000[Endemol NV (Aalsmeer, The Netherlands)]

Hours later that the sparrow was executed: 1.5

http://www.harpers.org/HarpersIndex2006-01.html

Percentage approval rating of Bill Clinton the day after impeachment and George W. Bush in November, respectively: 73, 37

Number of U.S. prisoners serving life sentences with no parole for crimes they committed while juveniles: 2,225[Human Rights Watch (N.Y.C.)]

Number of prisoners serving such sentences in all other countries worldwide: 12

Chance that a Briton has bought a book “solely to look intelligent”: 1 in 3

Number of product placements on U.S. network TV shows in prime time last year: 101,212

Percentage by which circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection, according to a study in South Africa: 60[Bertran Auvert, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France)]

Percentage of free condoms distributed in India that are used for purposes other than sex: 75

http://www.harpers.org/HarpersIndex2005-12.html

TOYS R US:

Amount the U.S. spends annually on imported toys: $23,631,000,000[Danny Dorling, University of Sheffield (England)]

Amount spent by the next ten highest toy-importing nations combined: $21,729,000,000

Average number of credit cards per U.S. household: 12.7

Average hourly wage made by drug-dealing foot soldiers in Chicago, according to a Columbia University study: $3.41[Sudhir Venkatesh, Columbia University (N.Y.C.)]

Amount a foot soldier’s family is paid if he is killed: $5,000

Percentage of British adults who are members of any of their country’s three major political parties: 1.2[Harper’s research]

Percentage who are members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds: 1.9

Number of Alabama state senators co-sponsoring a bill last summer to “protect” public displays of the Ten Commandments: 10[M. J. Ellington, Decatur Daily (Montgomery, Ala.)]

Number of them who could list the Commandments: 1

Estimated number of U.S. abortions that were prevented in 2000 through use of the morning-after pill: 51,000[The Alan Guttmacher Institute (N.Y.C.)]

Price in South Africa next year of a latex vaginal insert that latches onto a rapist’s penis and requires surgical removal: 35¢

Number of degrees Fahrenheit that temperatures in California’s wine country have risen since 1971: 1.6[Gregory V. Jones, Southern Oregon University (Ashland)]

Percentage change since then in the average alcohol content of the region’s wines: +18.4

1 million microphones	=	1 megaphone
2000 mockingbirds	=	two kilomockingbirds
10 cards	=	1 decacards
1 millionth of a fish	=	1 microfiche
453.6 graham crackers	=	1 pound cake
1 trillion pins	=	1 terrapin
10 rations	=	1 decoration
100 rations	=	1 C-ration
10 millipedes	=	1 centipede
3 1/3 tridents	=	1 decadent
2 monograms	=	1 diagram
8 nickels	=	2 paradigms
2 wharves	=	1 paradox
1 millihelen	=	The amount of beauty required to launch a single ship

4/27/2006 11:47 PM

http://www.kellysearch.com/

D&B hook-up will get contact names for individual companies for $4.00 each

http://biz.yahoo.com/bizwk/060427/pi20060426157496.html

Jeremy Siegel:

I believe that over the next 50 years, the aging population is the most critical issue facing developed world. Life expectancy vs. retirement were 1.6 years apart in 1950, when they were 69 vs. 67. Today, that gap is 14.5 years. This trend can't continue.

The age wave is the most severe in Japan. By mid century, 75 to 80 will be most populous age group there, and the number of workers per retiree will fall to one-to-one. The big questions facing the developed world are, who's going produce the goods, and who's going buy the assets. If there are not enough workers earning income, then there aren't enough buyers of all the stocks and bonds that are going be sold. It's the flip side of same question.

The population in the developed countries today is just 15% of the world total, and it has 56% of the world's GDP. In 2050, the population of developed countries, according to UN projections, will fall to 11%, and its share of GDP will shrink to 23%, with the other 77% coming in the developing world. Once we have that change, per capita incomes will rise to half our levels in China for example.

If we rely just on ourselves, people will have to work 12 years longer. But if we embed in global economy, we can sell assets to the developing world, and they can ship us goods. That is our best hope, and if we do that our retirement age will stabilize at 68.

This is the global solution. I'm writing a small book called that. If we just rely on ourselves, our capital markets can't absorb all our assets. However if we let the world work, then I'm more optimistic. Our markets will be healthy, which will ameliorate our situation. So I'm pessimistic only if we shut out the rest of the world. If we don't, I'm an optimist with respect to the markets.

Michael Milken:

There are two major trends in the world going on today. One, there's a growing middle class outside the U.S., which is where most of the world's population lives, and two, there's a chronologically aging population in the developed world. Most of the world's population is in Asia, which is 61% of the world, but it has only 29% of the world's land. It's the same with GDP, Asia is 30%.

By 2030, Asia will be 58% of the world's GDP. By 2050, China will be the largest economy, with 44.5% of world GDP vs. 35% in the U.S. India will be at 28%. India's and China's economies were much larger in 1820 than they are today. Back then, China was 29% of the world and India was 16%. The U.S. has been the unbelievable success story of the world since then. But 2050 will look a lot more like 1820.

Now look at wealth. Most accumulation has been in the last 200 years. Technology has driven it. Many people predicted more serious problems than who will buy our assets tomorrow. Mass starvation was predicted in the 1970s, when some said we can't feed all the people in the U.S. and around the world. In 1900, there were about 40 million people on American farms, so one person produced enough to feed two others. In 2000, there were 1.5 million living on our farms, and they feed 290 million here, plus 220 million more around the world. So each farmer feeds 340 others. The idea that we can't produce enough food is no longer in vogue.

Or look at technology. The iPod has 7,500 times the storage of IBM's largest computer in 1976. The new IBM (NYSE:IBM - News) chip has 2 trillion calculations per second. In 1974, it cost $100 million to sequence a gene. Today, it cost $3, and by 2013, it will be 3 cents.

We also constantly underestimate life expectancy. In Japan today, the quality of life lasts longer than anywhere else. They have 73.6 healthy years before becoming disabled (by old age), vs. 67.6 in the U.S. But even in the U.S. there have been big gains. The share of men in poor or fair health has gone from where it was at age 60 20 years ago to age 72 today. That's 12 years of increased quality of life. In 1970, a 59-year-old man had the same probability of dying as a 65-year-old today. The same is true with women. We're living longer and more productive lives.

So we're going to want to work longer. My mother could easily hold a job in her 80s today. This adds trillions to our wealth. Increases in life expectancy -- not quality of life but just life expectancy -- already has added $2.6 trillion to our economy, according to (University of Chicago economics professor) Kevin Murphy. And what if we cure more diseases? It will save billions more.

With all this wealth, the problem is not who's going buy assets, it's are there any assets to buy with all the liquidity in the world.

Take housing. We don't have efficient mortgage markets around the world, but we've had a $20 trillion increase in housing assets from 1997 to 2004. If developing countries can fully borrow, what are they going to buy? Where are the assets for them to buy?

The Milken Institute does a global capital access index every year, which shows China and India still low on the rankings. Imagine what will happen when they get access to capital. They're already growing at 8% to 10% without efficient capital markets.

The real issue is the rate of return. If it increases, it solves the problems. The issue will be, "Where can I invest?" not "Who's the buyer."

This trend already has begun. Already we're seeing ads saying, "Help wanted. We need older workers." The only offense is calling age 60 "older", instead of "mid-life."

The rest of the world is growing so quickly, they'll be looking for anything to buy.

4/26/2006 10:06 PM

http://en.thinkexist.com/quotation/move_out_of_your_comfort_zone-you_can_only_grow/340642.html

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”

“It doesn't matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.”

“The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.”

“Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort.”

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

Move out of Your Comfort Zone to Increase Chemistry - By Lillian D. Bjorseth

Ever notice how comfortable you feel with certain people? You can say and do what you want, and communication flows smoothly.

Then, there are those OTHER people. The ones whose footsteps in the hallway make the hair on the back of your neck bristle as you put on your armor for the battle that will ensue.

It seems as if no matter what you say or how you say it, good communication doesn’t happen. Your message is distorted, and you feel frustrated, misunderstood and even angry.

One of the major reasons for this common workplace phenomenon is people’s different behavioral style. You can be naturally conflictive when you behave naturally!

There’s hope. Behavioral experts have made it relatively easy to understand why people act and react the way to do. And, once you better understand yourself and others, you can modify your behavior in different situations since people like to be dealt with in their style. It will help you make the sale, improve teamwork, manage better, reduce conflict and improve communication. These principles have been espoused since Greek mythology and furthered by people like Hippocrates, Carl Jung and William Marston.

The four major behavior patterns are dominance, influencing, steadiness and conscientiousness (DISC). Each of us is a combination of all four, but almost everyone finds at least one or two of the styles most comfortable.

Dominant styles are easy to detect. They sport a strong handshake, steady eye contact and exhibit a confidence that may overwhelm less powerful people. They prosper by solving challenges … and often are a challenge for others. They don’t get ulcers; they are carriers. They are risk takers and thrive as CEOs of their own companies and big corporations. To get along better, provide brief, direct answers. Stick to business and the results they desire. Ask “what” questions.

Influencers are natural networkers. They are still working the room, hallways and parking lots long after most people have left. Usually, people talk at 160 words a minute. High “Is” comfortably speak at 400 words a minutes, with gusts up to 700 words. They are spontaneous and change plans at a moment’s notice. This can result in piles of papers on their floors and desks, the top of which they haven’t seen since they got it. They thrive in sales, public relations and other jobs that “deal with people.” Provide a favorable, friendly environment and let them verbalize about people, ideas, the weather and on and on. Supply testimonials, as they want to know “who” is using your products and services and attending your After-Hours. Focus on building relationships!

Steady people are just as their moniker indicates: Amicable, calm, soothing, sincere, loyal and the consummate team player. They are so nice … dogs come up and pet them! They are most comfortable when everyone gets along, thus, the most disappointed when conflict arises. They often climb into their shell, hoping the disagreements will disappear. They are by far the best listeners and often are cornered by the natural networkers! Provide a sincere, personal and agreeable environment. Focus on answers to “how” questions. Assure them you will personally follow up.

Conscientious people are analytical, quality control people who make sure things are done right. Usually, they think they can do it “most right.” As managers, they have sticky fingers and micro-manage. They seem to have computers in their heads and compare what is said to their database. If it fits, they keep it; if not, they discard it. This process (and they spent a lot of time ocessing), takes time and, therefore, they are the least verbal. Prepare your case in advance and logically present pros and cons. Help them see the “whys.” Be prepared to provide lengthy explanations … and leave the small talk behind.
Understanding your personal preference(s) and those of others will help you improve your bottom line results.

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/bjorseth5.html

4/26/2006 12:55 AM

Under the rules of NYSE and NASD, customers who are deemed "pattern day traders" must have at least $25,000 in their accounts and can only trade in margin accounts. For more information, you can read the NASD's Notice to Members and the New York Stock Exchange's Information Memo.

http://about.com/money/

Active Trading

These two factors make a strong case to avoid active trading. You are hit with broker fees and short-term capital gains (or losses) each time you flip a stock in under a year. There are other reasons that active trading is not a good strategy, but that’s a different article.

Let’s look at an example. You find a hot stock and in a short period, it moves from $25 per share to $30 per share – a 20% gain. Your $500 profit ($5 gain on 100 shares) looks good, but wait; it’s not really $500 is it?

First, we deduct the $30 roundtrip commission ($15 when you buy and $15 when you sell). Next, because this is a short-term gain you get soaked with a 28% tax bill (could be higher or lower), which comes off the $500 for $140. Your profit is now $330 – a 13% return.

Need Bigger Return

To really earn a $500 profit, your stock needs to move to about $32.36. Instead of a 20% gain, you need more than 29% to just to overcome the expenses and earn your $500.

How can you avoid or lessen these problems?

Watch you commissions. If you do trade frequently, find a broker that offers discounts to volume traders.
Watch your holding period. Holding a stock for one year qualifies it for long-term capital gains tax rate of 15% for most investors.
You can offset gains with losses, but this is not an investing strategy. In other words, don’t take a loss just for tax purposes. Consult a tax adviser for the proper way to offset gains and losses.

Now the math in the example is rough and it doesn’t consider other investments or offsetting trades. However, the point is if you are going to trade frequently, you had better be very successful, because taxes and commissions are going to make it tough for just so-so trades to be successful.

Conclusion

Like the old saying, “it’s not what you make, but what you take home.” Watch your expenses and avoid killing your profits.

Investing in Stock

If you are investing in a stock, you look for buy and sell signals based on a number of indicators. Your goal is to make money on the trade and you have no real interest in the underlying company other than how it might be affected by market, news or economic changes.

In most cases, you don’t know enough about the underlying company to determine if a drop in price is temporary or a reflection of a serious problem.

Your best course of action when investing in a stock (as opposed to a company) is to cut your losses at no more than 7%. When the stock drops that much, sell and move on to the next deal.

2/28/2006 1:17 PM
https://wwws.ameritrade.com/cgi-bin/apps/Main
Google plummets on CFO growth remarks

Shares in Google Inc. (GOOG) plummeted as much as 13% after Chief Financial Officer George Reyes told investors at a Merrill Lynch conference that growth at the world's leading Internet search provider is slowing. The stock was last down 8.3% at $357.86.

Goldman Sachs issued a research note in response to the news, saying Reyes' comments were taken out of context and that its thesis, growth expectations and implied value of $500 for the stock remain unchanged. "We would advise investors to buy Google with 30% plus upside to our $500 implied value," the firm said, adding that it doesn't believe the comments were intended to signal a near-term trend in the company's business.
2/11/2006 9:20 AM

Download
You can freely download and install this software on your computer for evaluation.

The only limitation of unregistered version of AVS Video Converter is that watermark banner will be placed to the output file.

Current Version: 4.3.1.371
Release Date: 21/12/2005
File Size: 25.40 MB
License Status: Shareware
Platforms: Windows 2000, XP, 2003
Price: $29.95
Payment Options: Visa, MasterCard, JCB, Switch/Solo, PayPal, American Express, Check, Bank/Wire transfer, Phone Orders
--
2/12/2006 9:32 AM
http://www.techsono.com/pixplayerpro/index.html
PixPlayerPro
Play slide-shows with
your favorite pix and movies!
That's right; just point PixPlayerPro at a folder with images and video clips, and sit back and enjoy the show! You worked hard to collect all of those files from the internet, right? You deserve to get maximum enjoyment out of your collection and PixPlayerPro is just what you need.
Blow away the spam so fast that
you'll hardly even know it was there!
Do you use software like PixNewsPro to automatically download pictures and video clips from the internet? PixNewsPro can download hundreds of files while you sleep, and PixPlayerPro is just what you need to rapidly sift through them tossing the junk and saving the gems.
http://www.techsono.com/faq/mpg.html
MPG (MPEG) Files
Explained in Plain English
MPG files contain video. You may see files with extensions of ".mpg" or ".mpeg". There is no difference. MPG files are easily played with Windows Media Player and QuickTime on the Macintosh. Unlike AVI files, if you download an MPG file, you will always be able to just play it with no hassles.
MPG and MPEG files cannot contain viruses, so there is no harm in downloading them, or opening them if somebody emails you one.
http://www.techsono.com/faq/avi.html
AVI Files
Explained in Plain English
AVI is Mircrosft's video format. AVI is popular becuase it can take advantage of newer, and better compression schemes as they are developed. The data inside an AVI file can be compressed in many different ways. This is possible because AVI is designed to work with software called "codecs." A codec decodes the compressed data into a movie. So, for example, if you have an AVI movie that was compressed with DIVX, Windows Media Player will use the DIVX codec to decompress the movie as it plays.
AVI's flexability is also a drawback because if you download an AVI file, you often can't tell in advance if you will be able to play it. You may have to spend time hunting down and instaling the proper codec.
QuickTime can play AVI's on the Macintosh, but you still need the proper codecs. Mac users should keep in mind that the people who create AVI's do so on Windows computers, and that sometimes the movies won't play properly on the Mac.
http://www.techsono.com/faq/divx.html
DivX Explained in Plain English
DivX is currently the best video compression software available. It can dramatically reduce the size of video files without a loss of quality. That is why it has become popular with people who post movies in the newsgroups.
The reason why you have to know about DivX is because Microsoft does not include it with Windows. The story is that Microsoft did not want people using DivX to compress movies to the AVI format. Then a French programmer modified Microsoft's code and released it. Microsoft was not happy about that and the result is that many people post DivX-compressed AVI movies in the newsgroups, and Windows Media Player cannot play them until you download the codec.
There are many different compression methods, and the software for each one is put into a file called a "codec." When you try to play a movie on your computer, Windows Media Player looks for the appropriate codec to decode the data in the movie file. If the codec is not present on your computer, WMP can download it - unless Microsoft has a political problem with it, as it does with DivX.
So, if you download a movie and Windows Media Player won't play it, you probably need to download and install the free DivX codec, which is not difficult. Once you do that, WMP will quit its bitching.
You can get the DivX codec for Windows and Mac here: www.divx.com. Make sure to download the free codecs. They also have a free movie player called DivX Player which you should keep since it can play some movies that other players cannot. Mac users can also get DivX codecs from 3ivx.
Note: You may have a vague memory of a failed video-disk rental system from the late 1990's called "Digital Video Express" or Divx. Forget about that; it has no relation to the DivX compression technology.
http://www.techsono.com/faq/mov.html
MOV and QT Files
Explained in Plain English
Files with the ".mov" or ".qt" extension are movies in Apple's QuickTime video format. To play these files on Windows, you must have the free QuickTime Player installed. On a Macintosh, you can usually just double-click the files to play them since most Macs come with QuickTime installed.
Windows users may be interested in QuickTime because QuickTime Pro allows you to very easily cut-and-paste video, so you can edit video files just as easily as you can text.
QuickTime files cannot contain viruses, so there is no harm in downloading them, or opening them if somebody emails you one.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/

--

2/9/2006 7:55 AM

http://www.physorg.com/news10666.html
Germany's gay zoo penguins still fending off female advances
Six gay penguins at a German zoo are still refusing to mate with females of the species flown in from Sweden in 2005, the zoo said on Wednesday.
The problem was that the female Humboldt penguins have proven too shy in their advances, the director of the zoo in the northern port city of Bremerhaven said.
"The Swedes will not make the first move," Heike Kueck said.

The females were flown in last year in a bid to bring the males to mate and help save the Humboldt species from extinction.

Kueck said last year she was optimistic the initiative would be successful because zoo keepers had noticed that at one point a female penguin had managed to cause a couple of males to "separate".

The zoo has 10 male penguins of which six have shown strong signs of preferring male company and formed couples among themselves.

The initiative to "turn" the penguins and make them mate had prompted a furious response from gay rights groups.

In a statement posted on its Internet website, the zoo on Wednesday sought to defend itself from fresh criticism.

"We will be delighted if the penguins form even one heterosexual couple and manage to produce first an egg, and then a little one," it said.

"But of course we accept the male couples that have formed and we are not trying to enforce heterosexuality, as we were accused of doing last year."

© 2006 AFP
--

Congress "made Wikipedia changes"

found by Neutron on 9-Feb-2006

Online reference site Wikipedia blames US Congress staff for partisan changes to a number of political biographies.

Computers traced to Capitol Hill removed unpalatable facts from articles on senators, while other entries were "vandalised", the site said.

An inquiry was launched after staff for Democratic representative Marty Meehan admitted polishing his biography.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4695376.stm
Congress 'made Wikipedia changes'
By Matthew Davis
BBC News, Washington

Wikipedia has more than 1.8m articles in 200 languages
Online reference site Wikipedia blames US Congress staff for partisan changes to a number of political biographies.
Computers traced to Capitol Hill removed unpalatable facts from articles on senators, while other entries were "vandalised", the site said.
An inquiry was launched after staff for Democratic representative Marty Meehan admitted polishing his biography.
Wikipedia is produced by readers who add entries and edit any page, and has become a widely-used reference tool.
'Liberal' to 'activist'
Using the public history of edits on Wikipedia, researchers collected the internet protocol numbers of computers linked to the US Senate and tracked the changes made to online pages.
The site lists half a dozen prominent biographies that had been changed by Senate computers, including those of Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, California Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.
Senator Coleman's office has confirmed that staff there had made a number of changes to his online record.
Where he was described as a "liberal" back in college, this was changed to "activist".
Among other changes, staff also deleted a reference to Mr Coleman voting with President Bush 98% of the time in 2003, despite running as a moderate the year before.
Wikipedia said staffers of Senator Tom Harkin had removed a paragraph relating to Mr Harkin's having falsely claimed to have flown combat missions over North Vietnam, and his subsequent recantation.
A handful of miscellaneous vandalism edits had been made to some senators' articles, it said.
One example was the entry for Republican Senator Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma, who it was falsely alleged had been voted "most annoying senator".
Bush editing block
Senator Coleman's chief of staff, Erich Mische, said editing was done to correct inaccuracies and delete information that was not reflective of the politician.

The article on President Bush has been altered so many times - not just from within Congress - that Wikipedia's volunteer monitors have had to block further "editing"

"They've got an edit provision on there for the sake of editing when things are not accurate," Mr Mische told the Associated Press.
"I presume that if they did not want people to edit, they wouldn't allow you to edit."
Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it.
It said the Congressional computer network has been blocked from editing for brief periods on a number of occasions in the last six months due to the inappropriate contributions.
The article on President Bush has been altered so many times - not just from within Congress - that Wikipedia's volunteer monitors have had to block further "editing".
But it also says its investigation showed the vast majority of edits from Senate IPs were "beneficial and helpful".
Massachusetts newspapers disclosed last month that staffers for Representative Marty Meehan had polished the boss's Wikipedia biography.
Deleted were references to a long-abandoned promise to serve only four terms, and to his campaign war chest.
Accuracy study
Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and has since grown to more than 1.8 million articles in 200 languages. Some 800,000 entries are in English.
It is based on wikis, open-source software which lets anyone fiddle with a webpage. Anyone reading a subject entry can disagree, edit, add, delete, or replace the entry.
A December 2005 study by the British journal Nature found it was about as accurate on science as the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
But it has been criticised for the correctness of entries, most recently over the biography of prominent US journalist John Seigenthaler - which incorrectly linked him to the Kennedy assassinations.
--
Sex: It's costly but worth it. Just ask a microbe
http://www.physorg.com/news10671.html
The next time you mutter about the high cost of relationship maintenance, take comfort in knowing that microbes share your pain. In the first study to examine the cost of sexuality in microbes, Jianping Xu, associate professor of biology at McMaster University, found that sex exacts physical, morphological and behavioural stress on microbes. His findings are published in the recent edition of Genetics.
"There was always an assumption that microbes reproduce asexually, but they are actually asexual and sexual," says Xu. Using a fungus that has two sexes, A and Alpha, he established three populations: A microbes (females), Alpha microbes (males), and a combination of the two. When left to re-produce on their own, the first two groups of microbes performed efficiently and prolifically. The microbe couples, however, were slower to reproduce. But Xu also found that a fair bit of fluffing and flirting goes on when mixed pairs slide into a petri dish, and the results can be detrimental to their fitness.

"We noticed that mating stunted their asexual reproduction because each partner spent more time attracting the other than nourishing its own growth," explains Xu. "Transmitting mating signals costs both partners: one partner uses up materials and energy to produce and transmit the signal, and the other partner gets distracted by the mating signal and loses interest in reproducing on its own."

The irony is that despite the high cost of sex there are benefits.
"In many microbes, mating and sexual reproduction produce genetically diverse and hardy progeny better able to withstand environmental changes, inhospitable conditions, lack of water, extreme temperatures and fewer nutrients," says Xu.

There may be other benefits, too. "Every time DNA replicates and the microbes reproduce, mutations are introduced. While some mutations may be beneficial, most have no effect or are deleterious," says Xu. "Through mating and sexual reproduction, mutations accumulated in different strains are brought together so that deleterious ones are purged more efficiently, and the beneficial ones are brought together to produce fitter offspring."

As Xu found out, some of those mutations reduced the cost of interacting with sexual partners. The downside is that the same mutations can also reduce their mating ability. "There is some kind of balance out there between the cost and benefit of sex," says Xu. "And we are looking into that right now".

Source: McMaster University
--

2/4/2006 10:51 AM
http://www.rarlab.com/
WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. You may try WinRAR before buy, its trial version is available in downloads.
--
2/6/2006 8:16 AM
2/7/2006 4:15 AM

Tuesday, 6:00pm California Time:
Twilight Zone #172: Gentlemen, Be Seated
Sonic Theater - XM 163
9PM ET
In the future, humor is outlawed so James Kinkaid joins a secret underground organization, The Society for the Preservation of Laughter, which exists to keep comedy and satire alive.
--
The Loft Sessions #23: Bruce Cockburn – Thursday, Noon & 6:00pm California Time
The Loft - XM 50
3PM and 9PM ET
In an encore presentation, Bruce Cockburn plays his second Loft Session filled with a solid hour of faves mixed with select tunes off the new instrumental CD, Speechless.
--
Bob Marley Day Encore – Sunday, 4:00am to 8:00pm California Time
The Joint - XM 101
7AM to 11PM ET
In an encore presentation, The Joint celebrates what would have been Bob Marley's 61st birthday (Feb. 5). Hear the legend's selections throughout the day, with commentary by Bunny Wailer and noted American reggae archivist, Roger Steffens.
--
The BBC Archives: Santana – Sunday 3:00pm California Time
Deep Tracks - XM 40
6PM ET
One of the hardest working men in music, Carlos Santana and his band are captured in concert at NYC's Beacon Theater back in the bi-centennial year 1976.
--
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18066746-1702,00.html?from=rss
Iran to publish Holocaust cartoons
IRAN'S largest selling newspaper announced today it was holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
"It will be an international cartoon contest about the Holocaust," said Farid Mortazavi, the graphics editor for Hamshahri newspaper - which is published by Teheran's conservative municipality.
He said the plan was to turn the tables on the assertion that newspapers can print offensive material in the name of freedom of expression.
"The Western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext of freedom of expression, so let's see if they mean what they say and also print these Holocaust cartoons," he said.
Iran's fiercely anti-Israeli regime is supportive of so-called Holocaust revisionist historians, who maintain the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as well as other groups during World War II has been either invented or exaggerated.
Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted international anger when he dismissed the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel.
Advertisement:

Mr Mortazavi said tomorrow's edition of the paper will invite cartoonists to enter the competition, with "private individuals" offering gold coins to the best 12 artists - the same number of cartoons that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Last week, the Iranian foreign ministry also invited British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Teheran to take part in a planned conference on the Holocaust, even though the idea has been branded by Mr Blair as "shocking, ridiculous, stupid".
Mr Blair also said Mr Ahmadinejad "should come and see the evidence of the Holocaust himself in the countries of Europe", to which Iran responded by saying it was willing to send a team of "independent investigators".
--
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/55adaec8-9721-11da-82b7-0000779e2340.html
BMW falls foul of Google ‘web spam’ rules
By Kate Mackenzie in London
Published: February 6 2006 16:10 | Last updated: February 6 2006 17:02

The German website of BMW, the carmaker, has been removed from Google’s search results as part of the web company’s crack down on the manipulation of its search engine.
Google confirmed on Monday that BMW.de had been removed from all search engine results. A spokeswoman said the company could not comment on specific cases but said: “We cannot tolerate websites trying to manipulate search results as we aim to provide users with the relevant and objective search results”.
The website used “doorway” pages, which can be employed to trick search engines into leading their users to websites that are not directly related to the search terms.
Marc Hassinger, spokesperson for business and finance communications at BMW Deutschland, said the BMW.de doorway pages only redirected users to relevant pages - for example, one doorway page that frequently used the German word for “used car” redirected users to a page about BMW used car sales. He said this was done so that German web users searching for a second-hand BMW car dealership would find an index of dealerships around the country.
“We can’t see a ‘manipulation’ which they said was happening regarding those websites,” Mr Hassinger said.
Matt Cutts, a software engineer at Google, wrote last month in his weblog that the company would begin to take a tougher line on web spamming by non-English language websites.
On Saturday Mr Cutts wrote that BMW.de had been removed, for violating the guideline: “Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.”
However Mr Hassinger said the “doorway” pages had been removed last Thursday after BMW noticed criticism on some blogs.
“Nevertheless Google has decided to spread this information which has created this, I’d almost say, media hype,” he said. “They spread it on Saturday, a few days after the pages had been taken off. They hadn’t talked to us beforehand which we found a bit surprising.”
He said there had been talks between BMW and Google and that he was confident the website would soon be re-included by Google.
Mr Hassinger added that only 0.4 per cent of BMW.de’s traffic came from search engines such as Google, because most people wanting to visit the site either knew or could guess the correct address.
Mr Cutts also wrote on his blog that Ricoh.de, the German website of the Japanese electronics and office equipment company, would be removed from Google for similar reasons. The website could not be found on a Google search on Monday, but Google’s spokeswoman said she could not comment on whether that site had also been removed.
--
http://www.nbc5.com/entertainment/6625350/detail.html?rss=chi&psp=entertainment
Experts Blame Cop Show For Educating Criminals
POSTED: 11:32 am CST January 31, 2006
Email This Story | Print This Story

CLEVELAND -- When Tammy Klein began investigating crime scenes eight years ago, it was virtually unheard of for a killer to use bleach to clean up a bloody mess.
Today, the use of bleach, which destroys DNA, is not unusual in a planned homicide, said the senior criminalist from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Klein and other experts attribute such sophistication to television crime dramas like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," which give criminals helpful tips on how to cover up evidence.
Prosecutors have complained for years about "the CSI effect" on juries -- an expectation in every trial for the type of high-tech forensic evidence the show's investigators uncover. It also appears the popular show and its two spinoffs could be affecting how some crimes are committed.
"They're actually educating these potential killers even more," said Capt. Ray Peavy, also of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and head of the homicide division. "Sometimes I believe it may even encourage them when they see how simple it is to get away with on television."
A man charged in a recent double-homicide in northeast Ohio was a "CSI" fan and went to great lengths to cover his tracks, according to an affidavit filed by Trumbull County prosecutors.
Jermaine "Maniac" McKinney, 25, allegedly broke into a house, killed a mother and daughter and used bleach to remove their blood from his hands, prosecutors said. He also allegedly covered the interior of a getaway car with blankets to avoid transferring blood.
Prosecutors said McKinney burned the bodies, his clothing and removed his cigarette butts -- which would contain his DNA -- from the crime scene.
According to the affidavit, he also tried to throw some evidence into a lake, including a crowbar used to bludgeon one of the victims. The lake was frozen though and he shouted a profanity when the crowbar remained on the surface.
Investigators later recovered the evidence. McKinney, who was indicted this month on two counts of aggravated murder, aggravated burglary and other charges, could face the death penalty if convicted.
Cases where suspects burn and tamper with evidence seem to be increasing, said Chuck Morrow, chief of the criminal division in the Trumbull County Prosecutor's office.
"People are getting more sophisticated with making sure they're not leaving trace evidence at crime scenes," Morrow said.
Klein said most crimes aren't well planned and that detailed attention to prevent leaving trace evidence typically occurs in cases where someone has killed a family member or business partner.
"For the most part, our killings involve gang bangers who for the most part are pretty stupid," she said.
Sophisticated planning and concealment of evidence are aberrations, not the norm, said Larry Pozner, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
"Most people who commit crimes are not very bright and don't take many precautions," Pozner said. "CSI and all the other crime shows will make no difference."
Yet, in the six years since CBS, which did not return phone calls seeking comment, introduced "CSI," there's been a trend of fewer clues like hair, cigarette butts and the killer's blood left behind at crime scenes, Peavy said.
The more sophisticated the television story lines get, the better equipped criminals will be, Peavy said, adding that he never watches "CSI" because it's too unrealistic.
--
2/7/2006 9:14 AM
You'll need a program to decompress the .rar file, since .rar is not .zip, WinZip doesn't recognize it... try WinRar: http://www.download.com/WinRAR/3000-2250_4...tml?tag=lst-0-1
http://www.download.com/WinRAR/3000-2250_4-10350955.html?tag=lst-0-1
--
2/8/2006 4:39 AM
http://www.avsmedia.com/VideoConverter/index.aspx
AVS Video Converter

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Convert between all video formats: AVI (DivX, XviD, etc.), DV AVI, MPEG 4 (inc. Sony PSP and Apple iPod), MPEG 1,2, VOB, VRO, QuickTime (WOV, QT), SWF, MJPEG, H.263, H264, Real Video, WMV, 3GPP, 3GP2 and DVD, SVCD, VCD.
--

2/3/2006 10:35 AM
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/02/060203014239.ygp5w1s5.html
N. Zealand filmmaker arrested in drag in US prostitution sting
Feb 02 8:42 PM US/Eastern
New Zealand filmmaker Lee Tamahori, who directed the James Bond movie "Die Another Day," has been arrested in a Hollywood prostitution sting while dressed in drag.
Tamahori, 55, was arrested on January 8 when he allegedly sought sex with an undercover policeman while clad in women's clothes, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
"Mr Tamahori was arrested for soliciting. I can confirm he was dressed in women's clothing at the time of the arrest," Officer Jason Lee of the Los Angeles Police Department said.
Prosecutors confirmed they had filed two misdemeanour charges against the Hollywood filmmaker: agreeing to engage in an act of prostitution and unlawfully loitering on Hollywood's Santa Monica Boulevard.
"He was arrested after approaching an undercover officer who was sitting in his car and offering to perform a sex act," Frank Mateljan of the Los Angeles City Attorney's office.
"The defendant was dressed in drag, loitering on the sidewalk," the spokesman said.
Tamahori also directed last year's action adventure "XXX: State of the Union" with Samuel L. Jackson and Willem Dafoe and 2001's "Along Came a Spider" with Morgan Freeman.
He is due to appear in court in Los Angeles on February 24 to be arraigned on the two charges. He is free on 2,000 dollars bail, according to the City Attorney's office.
Tamahori's lawyer, celebrity attorney Mark Geragos, did not immediately return calls for comment on the arrest of the filmmaker.
He started out as a commercial artist and photographer in New Zealand, before entering the film industry in the late 1970 as a boom microphone operator, going on to become an assistant director.
Tamahori got his break in Hollywood directing an episode of the hit television series "The Sopranos" in 2000 and went on do "Spider" the following year, before making "Die Another Day" starring Piece Brosnan and Oscar-winning Bond girl Halle Berry in 2002.
--
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/03/world/main1277068.shtml
(CBS/AP) The State Department criticized on Friday cartoon drawings in Europe of the Prophet Muhammad, calling them "offensive to the beliefs of Muslims."

While recognizing the importance of freedom of the press and expression, department press officer Janelle Hironimus said these rights must be coupled with press responsibility.

"Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable," Hironimus said. "We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices."

The 12 cartoons first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and were reprinted in several European newspapers this week in a gesture of press freedom. When the cartoons were first published five months ago, though, the controversy was low-key, CBS News correspondent Richard Roth reports. Boycotts were called against Danish goods in the Middle East. But the anger spread fast.

One of the drawings shows Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb. Another portrays him holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle.

Hard-line Muslims in Indonesia stormed a building housing the Danish Embassy and burned the country's flag Friday to protest the caricatures, as outrage over the drawings rippled across Asia.

Pakistan's parliament unanimously passed a resolution condemning the provocative cartoons, and Singapore's top Islamic advisory body said their aim was to incite hatred.

Rowdy demonstrations were held in Bangladesh and Malaysia, where crowds chanted: "Destroy our Enemies!"

In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, 150 demonstrators pelted the high-rise building housing the Danish Embassy with rotten eggs, then pushed their way past security guards.

Before leaving the building in the heart of the Indonesian capital's business district, they tore down the Danish flag and set it on fire.

"We are not terrorists, we are not anarchists, but we are against those people who blaspheme Islam," a protester wearing a white Arabic-style robes shouted outside the building.

Indonesia's government reiterated earlier criticism of the paper's decision to publish.

"This is about insensitivity and a trend toward Islamaphobia," said foreign ministry spokesman Yuri Thamrin.

"As a democratic country we are very aware of press freedom, but we also believe it should not be used to slander or defame sacred religious symbols."

Afghanistan, like Indonesia, has criticized the drawings.

In Iraq, thousands staged demonstrations after weekly mosque prayer services on Friday. About 4,500 people joined rallies in Basra and hundreds at a Baghdad mosque. Danish flags were burned at both demonstrations.

"We strongly denounce and condemn this horrific action," Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said of the caricatures in a statement posted on his Web site and dated Jan. 31.

In Pakistan, where insulting the prophet is punishable by death, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf also expressed outrage, saying there was no way to justify publication of the cartoons.

"I have been hurt, grieved and I am angry," the military leader said, adding that those who printed the cartoons were "totally oblivious of what is happening in the world."

Moderate Muslims were also offended, Musharraf said, and felt their faith had been demonized.

Earlier, Pakistani lawmakers called the drawings blasphemous, then passed a resolution condemning them as hurting "the faith and feelings of Muslims all over the world."

The resolution urged the government to take unspecified "economic and political actions to prevent uncivilized behavior" by the European media that printed the drawings.

In mostly Muslim Malaysia, about 60 members of the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party demonstrated outside Denmark's Embassy in Kuala Lumpur demanding the Danish government stop newspapers from reprinting the drawings.

"It's an uncivilized act, it's heinous," Hanifah Maidin, the party's youth chief, said after submitting a letter of complaint to Danish officials.

In Bangladesh, about 500 Muslims rallied outside a mosque after Friday prayers, and the top Islamic advisory body in Singapore said the drawings had no purpose other than to "incite hatred."

"No one is allowed to ridicule or cast aspersions on the faith of a people under the cloak of free expression," the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore said in a statement.

Indonesia has 220 million people, most of them moderate Muslims, but Friday's protest was among the first held in the sprawling archipelago over the cartoons.

Fearing more in the days ahead, Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda urged restraint and said he had asked police to upgrade security at embassies in Jakarta, the capital.

Those who took part in Friday's rally were members of the Islamic Defenders Front, which campaigns for Islamic law and often takes to the street against perceived violators of Islamic rules at home or abroad.

Three protesters said they were received by the Danish ambassador, and claimed he told them he planned to apologize to Indonesian Muslims for causing offense.

"If he doesn't, then we will demand the government kick him out," said protest organizer Ali Reza.

Meanwhile, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen called a meeting Friday to detail the government's position and actions in the matter. He reiterated his stance that the government cannot interfere with issues concerning the press. More than 70 ambassadors attended, including those from predominantly Muslim Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Lebanon.

Egypt's ambassador said that Rasmussen's response to the Muhammad drawings controversy has been inadequate and that the country should do more to "appease the whole Muslim world."

Mona Omar Attia said after meeting with Fogh Rasmussen that she will urge diplomatic protests against the Scandinavian country to continue.

The Islamic reaction in Europe has been muted compared to the scenes of rage in countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, where demonstrators have burned Danish flags.

Demonstrators marched from a London mosque toward Denmark's Embassy on Friday to protest the newspaper caricatures.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw criticized the decision to republish the cartoons, saying that while freedom of speech should be respected "there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory."

"I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong," he told reporters.

French President Jacques Chirac on Friday urged respect and reason when dealing with religious beliefs, in response to caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that have incensed Muslims in France and worldwide.

Chirac met Friday with Dalil Boubakeur, head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith. "France, a country of secularism, respects all religions and all beliefs," he said, but added that "the principle of freedom of expression constitutes one of the foundations of the Republic."

--
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Free PAR & PAR2 Decoder for
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--
Q: What are the best applications to use for downloading binaries and reading text?
A: For writing and posting text the two main applications are Forte's Agent and Microplanet's Gravity newsreaders. The majority use Agent. For binaries the current choice is NewsBin Pro. (That changes often; this is an area under active development by a number of people.)
NewsBin is especially useful for people on dial-ups or who use commercial news service providers with download limits, as it stores each downloaded segment in it's own database- so that should a download break for any reason, when it resumes it doesn't have to start at the beginning of the file as Agent does if you had all segments joined.
If you do choose to use Agent to download binaries, and are on dial-up or on a byte-limited provider, you should separate the segments of large files before downloading (Message/Split sections) Then, if a download breaks for any reason, you can simply resume at the next un-downloaded segment. Downloading a 15 megabyte file on a dial-up (a 45-60 minute process in most cases,) and seeing it "break" 40-minutes into the download, can be very discouraging. By downloading individual segments and joining them manually after download in Agent (more_info) or automatically in NewsBin; you will have only lost a few hundred kilobytes-- a minute or two of download time on a dial-up. These principles apply to most news-reader clients, although the particulars of implementation will vary.
Get Agent at ftp.forteinc.com/pub/agent/
Get Microplanet Gravity at: http://cws.internet.com/news-gravity.html/ Microplanet has gone out of business, and has made Gravity 2.5 freeware. The "SuperGravity" freeware version that is yEnc-capable can be located at: http://gravity.tbates.org/super.html
Get NewsBin Pro at: http://www.newsbin.com/ NewsBin is a multithreaded, multiserver client.
Another popular client is XNews, also freeware. Get a copy at http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Reviews/r716.html
--
http://www.quickpar.org.uk/index.htm
--
http://www.binaries4all.com/
Warning
When you download from binary newsgroups, you will notice that there are also many files which are copyrighted. Downloading or distributing these files is prohibited by law!
This site isn’t meant to promote distributing this material, it’s only meant to explain how to use binary newsgroups, Usenet and programs. You won’t find any links to movies, music, cracks and serial numbers; You’re in the wrong place for that, so don’t ask for it either!
This site is only for explaining everything about this terrific medium.
This site is in no way liable or responsible for the actions of its visitors.
At this site you can find everything about binary newsgroups and UseNet.
Is this completely new to you? Then you should check out our introduction for beginners!
After that you can read one of the many tutorials which can be found at this site to learn how to download using binary newsgroups!

So what can you learn from this website? Here you’ll find everything you need to know about working with binary newsgroups; everything is clearly explained in the tutorials you can find here. How can I download? How can I post? What is PAR? How does WinRar work? What is NZB? You can find it all here!
--
Many files in the newsgroups are RAR files and are made with the program WinRar (which is something like WinZip). You can read how to unpack those files in the WinRar tutorial.
http://www.binaries4all.com/winrar/
--
Creating and extracting archives like RAR and ZIP can be done with WinRAR. If you only want to extract files, you can also use the freeware program 7-Zip.
http://www.7-zip.org/
--
A summary of downloading
Get access to a news server.
Choose a newsreader to download with.
Download files. There is a comprehensive tutorial available for almost every newsreader.
Always check the downloaded files and repair them with QuickPAR if necessary.
Unpack the files with WinRar.
--
http://www.binaries4all.com/newsreaders/
Which newsreader is the best?
Nowadays there are a lot of newsreaders and I can imagine that you don’t know which one to choose. The summary on this page may help you out!
Comparative overview of newsreaders (link opens in a new window)
I used to recommend GrabIt as newsreader to everyone who asked me, but nowadays the number of newsreaders with each their own particular options, has grown significantly.
My recommendation would be:
If you want to download with only one server and you prefer a nice and clear user interface, choose GrabIt.
If you want support for multiple news servers, choose for NewsLeecher, NewsReactor or probably Usenet Explorer .
If you want to have the most experienced newsreader with options for virtual newsgroups and most possible settings by far, and you aren’t afraid of a more complicated newsreader, choose Usenet Explorer .
In general:
GrabIt is the best newsreader to start with, but lacks good multiple server support and can be very slow in processing the headers.
NewsLeecher and NewsReactor are best choice for beginning and advanced leechers who want something more than what GrabIt has to offer.
Usenet Exploreris best choice for advanced and expert leechers who want everything possible and aren’t afraid of a complicated user interface.
Keep in mind that the above is only a recommendation. It is possible that you disagree and prefer another newsreader. That is no more than logical because taste differs. Are you unsatisfied with your current newsreader, just try another one! Most newsreaders are free and others have a fifteen of thirty day trial period before you have to register.
Good luck with making your choice!
--
http://www.ozinsight.com/client/

2/2/2006 9:17 AM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4670370.stm
Muhammad cartoon row intensifies
Newspapers across Europe have reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to show support for a Danish paper whose cartoons have sparked Muslim outrage.
Seven publications in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain all carried some of the drawings.
Their publication in Denmark led Arab nations to protest. Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet.
The owner of one of the papers to reprint - France Soir - has now sacked its managing editor over the matter.
The cartoons have sparked diplomatic sanctions and death threats in some Arab nations, while media watchdogs have defended publication of the images in the name of press freedom.
Reporters Without Borders said the reaction in the Arab world "betrays a lack of understanding" of press freedom as "an essential accomplishment of democracy."
'Spiting Muslims'
France Soir and Germany's Die Welt were among the leading papers to reprint the cartoons, which first appeared in Denmark last September.
The caricatures include drawings of Muhammad wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb, while another shows him saying that paradise was running short of virgins for suicide bombers.
France Soir originally said it had published the images in full to show "religious dogma" had no place in a secular society.

But late on Wednesday its owner, Raymond Lakah, said he had removed managing editor Jacques Lefranc "as a powerful sign of respect for the intimate beliefs and convictions of every individual".
Mr Lakah said: "We express our regrets to the Muslim community and all people who were shocked by the publication."
The president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), Dalil Boubakeur, had described France Soir's publication as an act of "real provocation towards the millions of Muslims living in France".
Other papers stood by their publication. In Berlin, Die Welt argued there was a right to blaspheme in the West, and asked whether Islam was capable of coping with satire.
"The protests from Muslims would be taken more seriously if they were less hypocritical," it wrote in an editorial.
La Stampa in Italy, El Periodico in Spain and Dutch paper Volkskrant also carried some of the drawings.
European Muslims spoke out against the pictures.
In Germany, the vice-chairman of the central council of Muslims said Muslims would be deeply offended.
"It was done not to defend freedom of the press, but to spite the Muslims," Mohammad Aman Hobohm said.
Sanctions
Correspondents say the European papers' actions have widened a dispute which has grown very serious for Denmark.
The publication last September in Jyllands-Posten has provoked diplomatic sanctions and threats from Islamic militants across the Muslim world.
Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller has postponed a trip to Africa because of the dispute.
Thousands of Palestinians protested against Denmark this week, and Arab ministers called on it to punish Jyllands-Posten.
Syria and Saudi Arabia have recalled their ambassadors to Denmark, while Libya said it was closing its embassy in Copenhagen and Iraq summoned the Danish envoy to condemn the cartoons.
The Danish-Swedish dairy giant Arla Foods says its sales in the Middle East have plummeted to zero as a result of the row, which sparked a boycott of Danish products across the region.
The offices of Jyllands-Posten had to be evacuated on Tuesday because of a bomb threat.
The paper had apologised a day earlier for causing offence to Muslims, although it maintained it was legal under Danish law to print them.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen welcomed the paper's apology, but defended the freedom of the press.
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In a final irony, Western Union, which flashed good and bad news to Americans in distinctive yellow envelopes for a century and a half, quietly announced its decision to end the service on its website.
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http://www.physorg.com/news10452.html
Nano has officially become the most misused word in the English language. Everything from the Ipod Nano to anything smaller than a Mac truck gets “nanoed” by clueless – or savvy, take your pick – marketing experts. It’s crept into everyday use as well: “I’ll be there in a nano.” Sure you will.
For the scientists who work with nanotech this must be frustrating indeed. A definition of nano is definitely in order. Nano is 10 to the power of -9. How small is that? A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. Small, indeed – in fact, so small it’s difficult to compare it to anything, only adding frustration to the roll of scientists trying to explain nanotechnology in laymen’s terms.

Let’s try anyway. A nanometer is 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. There are as many nanometers in an inch as there are inches in 400 miles (25,344,000). About 3 to 6 atoms can fit inside a nanometer - depending on the atom size. Even when you see the comparisons, they mean nothing – it’s just too small - hence the attempt to make sense of it by tagging everything smaller than normal as “nano”.
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Investors in technology or Internet service companies are making bets on the future, not making decisions based on current earnings, according to analysts.
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East Asia allies doubt U.S. could win war with China The overwhelming assessment by Asian officials, diplomats and analysts is that the U.S. military simply cannot defeat China. It has been an assessment relayed to U.S. government officials over the past few months by countries such as Australia, Japan and South Korea. This comes as President Bush wraps up a visit to Asia, in which he sought to strengthen U.S. ties with key allies in the region.

Most Asian officials have expressed their views privately. Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has gone public, warning that the United States would lose any war with China.

"In any case, if tension between the United States and China heightens, if each side pulls the trigger, though it may not be stretched to nuclear weapons, and the wider hostilities expand, I believe America cannot win as it has a civic society that must adhere to the value of respecting lives," Mr. Ishihara said in an address to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Mr. Ishihara said U.S. ground forces, with the exception of the Marines, are "extremely incompetent" and would be unable to stem a Chinese conventional attack. Indeed, he asserted that China would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against Asian and American cities—even at the risk of a massive U.S. retaliation.

The governor said the U.S. military could not counter a wave of millions of Chinese soldiers prepared to die in any onslaught against U.S. forces. After 2,000 casualties, he said, the U.S. military would be forced to withdraw.

"Therefore, we need to consider other means to counter China," he said. "The step we should be taking against China, I believe, is economic containment."

Officials acknowledge that Mr. Ishihara's views reflect the widespread skepticism of U.S. military capabilities in such countries as Australia, India, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. They said the U.S.-led war in Iraq has pointed to the American weakness in low-tech warfare.

"When we can't even control parts of Anbar, they get the message loud and clear," an official said, referring to the flashpoint province in western Iraq.

As a result, Asian allies of the United States are quietly preparing to bolster their militaries independent of Washington. So far, the Bush administration has been strongly opposed to an indigenous Japanese defense capability, fearing it would lead to the expulsion of the U.S. military presence from that country.

On Nov. 16, Mr. Bush met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The two leaders discussed the realignment of the U.S. military presence in Japan and Tokyo's troop deployment in Iraq.

During his visit to Washington in early November, Mr. Ishihara met senior U.S. defense officials. They included talks with U.S. Defense Deputy Undersecretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs Richard Lawless to discuss the realignment of the U.S. military presence in Japan.

For his part, Mr. Ishihara does not see China as evolving into a stable democracy with free elections.

"I believe such predictions are totally wrong," Mr. Ishihara said.

insightmag.com