There are many, many more pictures here.

[Quote:]

You’re an Ashcroft! No, you’re the Ashcroft!

Imagine hearing that exchange in a movie — you’d think that Hollywood had come up with a crazy new insult. Well, it turns out that some airline passengers watching the Oscar-nominated film “Sideways” on foreign flights are, in fact, hearing “Ashcroft” as a substitute for a certain seven-letter epithet commonly used to denote a human orifice.

The Post’s Monte Reel, based in Buenos Aires, tells us he heard the former attorney general’s name substituted at least twice in “Sideways” dialogue when he watched the film earlier this week on an Aerolineas Argentinas flight to Lima, Peru. The movie was shown in English and the dubbing was done “in the actual voices of the actors,” Reel reports. Star Thomas Haden Church utters the A-word.

Profanity is typically cut from in-flight movies to make them suitable for general audiences, but how did the studio come up with “Ashcroft”? Hoping for enlightenment yesterday, we queried Fox Searchlight Pictures, the studio behind “Sideways.” A spokeswoman initally e-mailed us to say she had “all the info” about dubbing, then failed to respond to our followup questions.

Ashcroft did not return our phone message, but we’re certain he was busy and not just being an . . .

Here’s another link to the story mentioned in a recent comment.

[Quote:]

The Department of Homeland Security has named Claria, an adware maker that online publishers once dubbed a “parasite,” to a federal privacy advisory board.

An executive from Claria, formerly called Gator, will be one of 20 members of the committee, the department said Wednesday.

“This committee will provide the department with important recommendations on how to further the department’s mission while protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information of citizens and visitors of the United States,” Nuala O’Connor Kelly, the department’s chief privacy officer, said in a statement.

Claria bundles its pop-up advertising software with ad-supported networks such as Kazaa. Recently, the privately held company has been trying to seek credibility by following stricter privacy guidelines and offering behavioral profiling services to its partners.
In an e-mail message to CNET News.com, Kelly defended the inclusion of a Claria representative on the committee. “I am proud of, supportive of and grateful for those individuals in the public and private sector who are willing to take on the hard tasks, fight the good fight, and who surprise us with creative, fresh and unconventional thinking, and who make change where change is needed through their hard work and personal dedication,” Kelly said.

What is next? A promoter of torture as Attorney General?

[Quote:]

Don’t you hate it when you give your phone number to someone at a club, and then some time later her hardware gets hacked and your number gets broadcast all over the world for anyone at all to see? And then you start getting crank calls from these morons who don’t even know you, and your only option is to change your number so they quit calling you?

[Quote...]

The structure is built to carry up to 173 people at over 600 mph and in temperatures of -70 degrees F. It cost millions of dollars to build. It is made mostly of aluminum and other corrosion resistant metals and was designed by Boeing, who has the most brilliant engineers in the world.

This structure can certainly offer comfort to you, your family and friends. It can safely protect you through any winds, even hurricane force winds. It takes a minimal amount of energy to heat and cool it. We are offering it finished and delivered at prices that compare to conventional homes.

this tells the story of episode III.

[Quote:]

Astronomers say they have discovered an object that appears to be an invisible galaxy made almost entirely of dark matter.

The team, led by Cardiff University, claimed it is the first to be detected.

A dark galaxy is an area in the Universe containing a large amount of mass that rotates like a galaxy, but contains no stars.

Let’s help them out. I suggest we donate Ben Affleck.

[Quote:]

The ISearch and IDownload applications have a long and sordid history of using clearly documented shady installation techniques; most recently making use of the WMP DRM vulnerability we’ve discussed at length. The company behind the apps have sent a “cease and desist” letter to security site Castle Cops, for classifying the applications as “Spyware”:

“This firm represents iDownload.com with respect to your inaccurate classification of iDownload’s software product, iSearch toolbar, by referring to it as Spyware in its description. Specifically, a recent review of materials disseminated by your company, via the Internet, revealed that your company is falsely disparaging iDownload’s product.”

The letter goes on to inform the site they will take legal action if they do not change their description of the ISearch and IDownload products. Not only can’t the products be called “Spyware”, they can’t be called “Foistware” or “Malware” either.

Why is this so important to them? Because the marketing industry knows that Congress is considering new laws cracking down on sleazy products. To avoid getting caught up in any nets, they’ve been engaged in a massive image makeover and PR campaign that so-far includes:

• Reframing the debate by calling what they do “Adware”, and what the “bad guys over there” do as “Spyware”. They then pretend (See WhenU’s “Spyware Removal tool“) to be part of the solution, instead of part of the problem
• Legally pressuring or offering anti-spyware vendors marketing deals to exclude their applications from detection.
• Joining anti-spyware consortiums, nearly leading to their dissolution.
• Threatening on-line resources who refuse to play along with the new marketing industry coined definitions of what constitutes troublesome software.

If you recall, Claria sued the PC Pitstop website some time ago for the same reason. We joked at the time that bank robbery must now be referred to as “professional forced fund reallocation.” It’s no longer funny.

So, if any lawyer from iDownload.com is reading this: the crap is spyware, malware, or whatever you want to call that crap.

[Quote...]

What looks like vintage natural history studies turns out to be, on closer inspection, images of computer and technological cords and peripherals, each slightly manipulated to take on organic characteristics–a fused or sprouting growth from a stem, a viral infection, or a radial symmetry.

I used a digital camera to photograph the computer cords and peripherals that surrounded my home workstation, and then transferred them to the computer where i digitally altered and added to the original images. Arranged suggestively on an image of a vintage print (the original botanical images on it having been erased), the techie beginnings become transformed into the final archival-quality iris prints.

[Quote:]

“This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table”

George W. Bush

“We’re not going to attack Iran. Having said that, we may attack Iran.”

Oy vay.

There is a precedent for this kind of talk:

[Quote:]

Bush vowed the United States would continue to “consult with people who share our interest to make the world a safer place.” He also said his administration would “look at all options” on how to deal with Iraq, including “all technologies available to us and diplomacy and intelligence.”

[Quote:]

President Bush earlier this month dispatched top White House official Frances Fragos Townsend to head an official U.S. delegation attending an “anti-terrorism” conference in Saudi Arabia — a conference that aired vile anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist canards. Saudi Cleric Aed Al-Qarni noted at the conference that “The first to kill and use terrorism in the world were the Jews,” according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI); the cleric went on to describe September 11th as “an American terror attack.”

According to White House press secretary Scott McClellan, President Bush spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah on February 14th and “complimented the Crown Prince on last week’s successful counter-terrorism conference in Saudi Arabia.”

In addition to the American delegation led by Townsend, who serves as President Bush’s Homeland Security Advisor with the rank of Assistant to the President, the conference included participation from nations including Iran, Syria and Sudan — all state sponsors of terrorism, according to the Department of State. Senator Frank Lautenberg (NJ) first warned President Bush to avoid the conference in a February 4th letter to Bush.

Throughout and surrounding the conference, various Saudi clerics noted that “Jews and the Christians are Allah’s enemies,” and that Jihad — including attacks by insurgents in Iraq — is appropriate. In a poem read before Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan, it was noted that Osama bin Laden “was sent by the Jews.”

[Quote:]

Bangkok heeft zich sinds de zeebeving van tweede kerstdag 9 centimeter in zuidwestelijke richting verplaatst, het vakantie-eiland Phuket zelfs 32 centimeter. Dit meldden Thaise media woensdag op gezag van deskundigen.

Volgens een onderzoeker van de Chulalongkorn-universiteit is er geen reden tot paniek. De conclusies zijn gebaseerd op GPS-metingen.

[Quote:]

Rechercheurs hebben maandagavond een aantal callgirls naar een pand in Eindhoven laten komen. Het ging om een actie van het Prostitutie Controle Team. Twee vrouwen zijn aangehouden, omdat ze illegaal in Nederland verbleven.

Rechercheurs van het team namen contact op met twaalf escortbureaus die in de regio Eindhoven adverteren. Vijf bureaus stuurden daarop animeermeisjes naar een pand in Eindhoven, waar ze werden opgevangen door de rechercheurs.

De aangehouden vrouwen zijn een 30-jarige Hongaarse die illegaal in Nederland was, en een 21-jarige Joegoslavische vrouw die in een asielprocedure zit. De vrouwen zijn overgedragen aan de Vreemdelingenpolitie, meldt de politie Brabant-Zuid-Oost.

[Quote:]

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday said that regulators had overstepped their authority by imposing a rule designed to limit the copying of digital television programs.

“You crossed the line,” Judge Harry Edwards told a lawyer for the Federal Communications Commission during arguments before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

“Selling televisions is not what the FCC is in the business of,” Edwards said, siding with critics who charge the rule dictates how computers and other devices should work.

But it was unclear whether the judges would strike down the FCC’s 2003 rule, since doubts were also raised about whether the American Library Association and other opponents had legal standing to challenge the rule in court.

They say the FCC doesn’t have the right, but they won’t stop it because the “wrong people” brought the suit? WTF?

And yet, I can’t bring myself to believe that if the broadcast flag were to become a mandated reality, then studios would suddenly unleash the full potential of their creative entertainment genuis on us at last. “Now at last that piracy has been defeated, we can afford to put quality television on the air once more!” Yeah, right.

Anyway, here is a full report of the hearing.

[Quote:]

A Georgia woman has sued Hewlett-Packard Co., claiming the ink cartridges for their printers are secretly programed to expire on a certain date, in some cases rendering them useless before they are even installed in a printer.

The suit filed in Santa Clara Superior Court in northern California last Thursday seeks to represent anyone in the United States who purchased an HP inkjet printer since Feb. 2001. HP is the world’s No. 1 computer printer maker.

An HP spokesman said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

HP ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change. But the suit claims those chips also shut down the cartridges at a predetermined date regardless of whether they are empty.

Whenever I have a power failure, my microwave, VCR, etc all have to be told what time it is, but my printer cartridges….

Virus writers could have a field day with this – just write a virus that sets the date forward a few years, and bingo, long lines at the cartridge outlet at your local mall…

[Quote:]

Nikon has today announced a unique new feature which is available in their new Coolpix 7900, 5900 and 7600 compact digital cameras. Face-Priority AF is available in Portrait Mode and when active can identify facial features in the live view and activate auto-focus on these areas. This new feature was developed in conjunction with Identix and their FaceIt technology.

The same technology is being sold in surveillance, with mixed success.

[Quote:]

We spend the hour with John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then taking over their economies.

[..]

AMY GOODMAN: Now, already people are going to be wondering, What is he talking about, economic hit man? Explain.

JOHN PERKINS: Well, really, over the past 30 to 40 years, we economic hit men have created the largest global empire in the history of the world. And we do this, typically — well, there are many ways to do it, but a typical one is that we identify a third-world country that has resources, which we covet. And often these days that’s oil, or might be the canal in the case of Panama. In any case, we go to that third-world country and we arrange a huge loan from the international lending community; usually the World Bank leads that process. So, let’s say we give this third-world country a loan of $1 billion. One of the conditions of that loan is that the majority of it, roughly 90%, comes back to the United States to one of our big corporations, the ones we’ve all heard of recently, the Bechtels, the Halliburtons. And those corporations build in this third-world country large power plants, highways, ports, or industrial parks — big infrastructure projects that basically serve the very rich in those countries. The poor people in those countries and the middle class suffer; they don’t benefit from these loans, they don’t benefit from the projects. In fact, often their social services have to be severely curtailed in the process of paying off the debt. Now what also happens is that this third-world country then is saddled with a huge debt that it can’t possibly repay. For example, today, Ecuador. Ecuador’s foreign debt, as a result of the economic hit man, is equal to roughly 50% of its national budget. It cannot possibly repay this debt, as is the case with so many third-world countries. So, now we go back to those countries and say, look, you borrowed all this money from us, and you owe us this money, you can’t repay your debts, so give our oil companies your oil at very cheap costs. And in the case of many of these countries, Ecuador is a good example here, that means destroying their rain forests and destroying their indigenous cultures. That’s what we’re doing today around the world, and we’ve been doing it — it began shortly after the end of World War II. It has been building up over time until today where it’s really reached mammoth proportions where we control most of the resources of the world.

[..]

AMY GOODMAN: As we continue our conversation with John Perkins, his book is called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. He joins us in our firehouse studio here at Downtown Community Television, just blocks from where the towers of the World Trade Center once stood, from ground zero, and we’re going to talk about the effect of September 11 and how it — the role it played in John Perkins writing this book. But before we do that, Robert MacNamara, you write about him. Talk about his roles from Ford to Secretary of Defense to World Bank.

JOHN PERKINS: Well, Amy, I think that what we have here is a world empire that’s controlled by a very few men I call the corporatocracy, and these are the heads of the big corporations, big banks and government, and they tend to be the same person. You know, they jump across these lines and MacNamara is a great example of that. He was president of Ford and then he became Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson and then he became president of the World Bank. And in all three roles, his main job was to promote American business, to promote the corporatocracy, to bring the goodies home, to exploit the world. And he was in democratic regimes, Kennedy and Johnson. Today we’ve got Dick Cheney who’s basically in the same picture. We had George Schultz under the former President Bush. So, the two Bushes both have these types of people, too. Condoleezza Rice. Government is filled with these people. But it is not just a republican issue. It’s a bipartisan issue. It goes across all the lines, and MacNamara is a very good example of that. I think, at the same time, MacNamara was one of the most important people in terms of framing the new economics, what he called aggressive management, and it was aggressive about going out and basically taking the world and bringing it into us so that today we have, out of the 100 largest economies in the world, 52 are corporations. 47 are U.S. corporations, and they’re not countries, they’re corporations. Here we are 5% of the world’s population reaching out like a great octopus and sucking in 25% or more of the world’s resources. But it’s not really 5% of the world’s population, the American people. 1% of the American population owns more of the material wealth than 90% of our population. So, it’s that 1% that are the corporatocracy that are sucking all this in and the rest of us are supporting it through our taxes, through our purchases, through our silence, through going along with this system. Like me, as an economic hit man, I went along with the system. I did more than go along with the system, I promoted the system. But I did so legally, for the most part, and I did so while being patted on the back by all the people that I was taught to look up to.

[..]

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to John Perkins. He’s author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. We’re talking about oil, empire, what he calls the corporatocracy, and being an economic hit man. So you were involved in Iran. You also were tied up in Saudi Arabia. Explain.

JOHN PERKINS: Well, Saudi Arabia was probably — not probably, there’s no question, it was our greatest success as economic hit men. I mean, that’s how we judge ourselves. In the early 1970s, OPEC really flexed its muscle. It didn’t like U.S. policies in Israel supporting Israel, and decided to do something about it. So it shut down oil production significantly. And as a result, the U.S. economy went into a tail spin. There were long lines of cars at gas stations, many of us still remember that. And we were afraid that it was going to be another crash like 1929 as a result of OPEC. And so the treasury department came to me and some other economic hit men and said this must never happen again. You have got to devise a plan. What are you going to do about this? How can you make sure this never happens? And we knew the key was Saudi Arabia. For one thing, it had more oil than anybody else. Even at that point in time, the Shah was getting a little bit shaky, and we’d seen that he wasn’t probably going to take over the rest of the Middle East. We knew that the House of Saud, the royal Saudi family, was corruptible. They were corrupt, they are corrupt, and they were corruptible. So, to make a long story short, we put together this deal whereby they agreed, the House of Saud, to send most of their petro dollars, the money we paid for petroleum, back to the United States and invest it in U.S. securities. The interest from those securities would be dealt out by the treasury department to U.S. engineering construction firms to build Saudi Arabia in the Western image, to build huge cities out of the desert, which we’ve done, power plants, highways, McDonald’s, the whole works, to make Saudi Arabia a very westernized country. And the House of Saud would guarantee to keep oil prices within acceptable limits, limits acceptable to us, and we would guarantee to keep the House of Saud in power. And we have done — all those things have followed since the early 1970s. The policy still holds. Even to the point where, you know, we know that the House of Saud supports Osama bin Laden, supported him at our encouragement, of course, in Afghanistan, continues to support him and a lot of terrorist movements. We knew that the House of Saud provided sanctuary to Edie Amin, the Hitler of Africa. In fact, that’s where he spend the last years of his life, living in a mansion, just died a little over a year ago there. And we’ve supported the House of Saud throughout all of this, despite the fact they’ve done a lot of things that ostensibly we disagree with. But they have provided us with these stabilized oil prices and a huge market for our engineering construction companies.

South Korea is moving away from the dollar

[Quote:]

The dollar fell the most in more than a week against the euro and dropped versus the yen and Korean won on a report South Korea will diversify its currency reserves.

The country’s central bank, which has $200 billion in reserves, will “diversify the currencies in which it invests,” Reuters said yesterday, citing a Bank of Korea spokesman in a parliamentary report. Byun Jai Yung, head of the bank’s planning department, said in a telephone interview that he can’t comment.

“Support for the dollar is quickly disappearing,” said Kenichiro Ikezawa, who manages $1 billion in overseas debt at Daiwa SB Investments in Tokyo. “This Korean story is having quite an impact because it feeds into suspicion that others are also seeking to cut their exposure to the dollar.”

And even drug dealers are going for the Euro:

[Quote:]

[Quote:]

Human Rights Watch says it is likely crucial evidence for the trials of Saddam Hussein and other former Iraqi officials has been lost or tainted.

US-led coalition forces failed to secure relevant sites after last year’s invasion of Iraq, the group says.

They failed to prevent people from looting thousands of official documents from government buildings.

The US-based human rights organisation has published a 41-page report entitled Iraq: the State of the Evidence.

[Quote:]

Attorneys for the Justice Department appeared before a federal judge in Washington this month and asked him to dismiss a lawsuit over the detention of a U.S. citizen, basing their request not merely on secret evidence but also on secret legal arguments. The government contends that the legal theory by which it would defend its behavior should be immune from debate in court. This position is alien to the history and premise of Anglo-American jurisprudence, which assumes that opposing lawyers will challenge one another’s arguments.

Ahmed Abu Ali was arrested in June 2003 in Saudi Arabia. He and his family claim the arrest took place at the behest of U.S. officials who, though unable to bring a case against him, have encouraged the Saudis to keep him locked up. The facts are murky, and Judge John D. Bates refused in December to dismiss the case, writing that he needed more information before he could decide whether a U.S. court has jurisdiction.

Since then, the U.S. government has acted to frustrate all reasonable searches for answers. It has moved to stay discovery based on secret evidence. It has proposed adding to the facts at Judge Bates’s disposal by submitting secret evidence that Mr. Abu Ali’s attorneys would have no opportunity to challenge. Most recently, it urged that the case be dismissed on the basis, yet again, of secret evidence — this time supplemented with what a Justice Department lawyer termed “legal argument [that] itself cannot be made public without disclosing the classified information that underlies it.”

Judge Bates is cautious and generally deferential to government concerns. Yet he was evidently disturbed by this argument, at one point asking whether the government could identify “any case in which . . . even the legal theory for dismissal is not known to the other side?” The government could not.

[Quote:]

Toshiba Corp. plans to boost capital spending on semiconductors for the current business year by 13 percent, accelerating plans to expand output of flash memory chips, a senior company official said on Monday.

Toshiba will increase chip investment to a record 203 billion yen ($1.92 billion) for the year to March 31, up from an originally planned 179 billion yen, Corporate Vice President Masashi Muromachi said on the sidelines of a news conference.

Toshiba earlier announced that it would move forward the production schedule at a new flash memory plant owned jointly with U.S. partner SanDisk Corp. , citing a rapidly growing market for flash memories and intensifying competition.

“When it comes to the supply-demand balance we are currently unable to satisfy all customer demands,” Muromachi said, noting in particular the launch of iPod Shuffle by Apple Computer Inc. in January.

“Demand created by this new machine is so vast that our current capacity can in no way meet their needs,” he said.

Elephants paint on the canvas during new Guinness record attemp of most expensive paint by elephants at Maesa elephant camp in Chiang Mai province northern Thailand.(AFP/File)

[Quote:]

The hit feature Shrek 2 joins the ranks of animated films to be “outed” by some Christian fundamentalists in the U.S., who charge that cross-dressing and transgender themes have made their way into the beloved kids’ movie and warn parents to beware.

Although many people see the Oscar-nominated film as a humorous story about a green ogre and his true love, the Traditional Values Coalition has a different take on the animated feature.

“Shrek 2 is billed as harmless entertainment but contains subtle sexual messages,” the coalition says on its website of the movie, a popular DVD rental. The group describes itself as a grassroots inter-denominational lobby with more than 43,000 member churches.

“Parents who are thinking about taking their children to see Shrek 2 may wish to consider the following.”

The article then proceeds to describe one of the characters, an “evil” bartender (voiced by Larry King) who is a male-to-female transgender in transition and who expresses a sexual desire for Prince Charming.

In another identified scene, Shrek and Donkey need rescuing from a dungeon by Pinocchio and his nose, which is made to extend as an escape bridge by getting the wooden boy to lie about not wearing women’s underwear.

Shrek 2 has plenty of company. Christian activists have also targeted SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney the dinosaur and Sesame Street’s Bert & Ernie as children’s characters who are conduits for a soft-on-gays message.

[Quote:]

Het Comité Grondwet Nee roept de voorstanders van de Europese Grondwet op om de kiezers niet langer te intimideren en de discussie over de inhoud van de Europese Grondwet aan te gaan. Tot nu toe houden de voorstanders van de Grondwet zich in de publiciteit vooral bezig met het schetsen van rampscenario’s: als de kiezers zich bij het komende referendum in meerderheid tegen de Grondwet zouden uitspreken zou Nederland zich ‘onsterfelijk belachelijk maken’, ‘buiten de Europese gemeenschap plaatsen’. Ook zou het ‘ondemocratisch zijn’ als Nederland op basis van een ‘nee’ tijdens het referendum de Grondwet zou torpederen.

Zulke uitlatingen lijken er vooral opgericht om de kiezers te intimideren en in te prenten dat er maar één uitslag van het referendum mogelijk is. “Daarmee bewijzen deze voorstanders van de Grondwet zowel het referendum als de toekomst van Europa een slechte dienst�?, stelt het Comité in een open brief. “De toekomst van een democratisch Europa strookt niet met het beeld van een referendum waarbij een ja-stem wordt afgedwongen. Een democratisch Europa is gediend met een open en eerlijke discussie over de inhoud van deze Grondwet�?, schrijft het Comité, waarin tegenstanders van de Grondwet met uiteenlopende politieke en maatschappelijke achtergronden zich hebben verenigd.

De aanleiding voor deze “open brief aan de voorstanders van de Grondwet�? zijn de uitlatingen van fractieleiders van VVD, CDA, D66 en GroenLinks in het Europese Parlement in de Volkskrant van 21 februari.

[Quote...]

Scientists have detected a flash of light from across the Galaxy so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The flash was brighter than anything ever detected from beyond our Solar System and lasted over a tenth of a second. NASA and European satellites and many radio telescopes detected the flash and its aftermath on December 27, 2004. Two science teams report about this event at a special press event today at NASA headquarters. A multitude of papers are planned for publication.

The scientists said the light came from a “giant flare” on the surface of an exotic neutron star, called a magnetar. The apparent magnitude was brighter than a full moon and all historical star explosions. The light was brightest in the gamma-ray energy range, far more energetic than visible light or X-rays and invisible to our eyes.

Such a close and powerful eruption raises the question of whether an even larger influx of gamma rays, disturbing the atmosphere, was responsible for one of the mass extinctions known to have occurred on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago. Also, if giant flares can be this powerful, then some gamma-ray bursts (thought to be very distant black-hole-forming star explosions) could actually be from neutron star eruptions in nearby galaxies.

“This might be a once-in-a-lifetime event for astronomers, as well as for the neutron star,” said Dr. David Palmer of Los Alamos National Laboratory, lead author on a paper describing the Swift observation. “We know of only two other giant flares in the past 35 years, and this December event was one hundred times more powerful.”

Some great Quicktime animations of the event here.

[Quote...]

A global network of computer users has clocked up more than 4,000 years’ worth of computer calculations in under three months as part of a huge grid project.

Since November, thousands have joined the World Community Grid (WCG) which uses idle computer time to help solve serious health and social problems.

Over 4,000 “teams” have been running a simple program which processes proteins for the Institute of Systems Biology.

The Seattle-based institute is working out the role of proteins in bodies.

The calculations completed so far by the thousands of ordinary desktop computers mean that the WCG has done 22% of the total analysis needed for the institute’s Human Proteome Folding Project.

“It makes me feel great because it is easy to sit back and let it run,” Graham Hood, a community administrator for the 63-member My Online Team, told the BBC News website.

“I can’t think of a better way to put spare time into good use,” added the watchmaker based in Birmingham.

By the time the project ends it is predicted that more than 20,000 years of computing will have been done.

Join the World Community Grid here.

Simply donate the time your computer is turned on, but would normally lie idle, for projects that benefit humanity. Like a screensaver, grid technology is easy to use, safe and free. When you are ready to use your computer, the grid connection will shut itself off until the next time your computer is idle.

[Quote:]

Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.

You’ve seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You’ve heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.

Fools.

The Earth was built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you’ve had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.

This is not a guide for wusses whose aim is merely to wipe out humanity. I can in no way guarantee the complete extinction of the human race via any of these methods, real or imaginary. Humanity is wily and resourceful, and many of the methods outlined below will take many years to even become available, let alone implement, by which time mankind may well have spread to other planets; indeed, other star systems. If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible RIGHT NOW. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.

This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.

[Quote:]

Computerfabrikant Apple stuurt een ontplofte laptop voor uitgebreid onderzoek terug naar de ontwerpafdeling in Californi� nadat deze is ontploft, zo meldt een woordvoerder van Apple in de Barneveldse Krant.

De gebruiker hoorde een sissend geluid, waarna een gaswolk uit het toetsenbord van zijn in het afgelopen najaar aangeschafte PowerBook opsteeg. Bij het verwijderen van de batterij ontstond een steekvlam.

Volgens de woordvoerder, die niet precies weet om welk type het gaat, was het in ieder geval niet ��n van de nieuwste exemplaren die ontplofte. De man ziet geen reden om Apple-gebruikers te waarschuwen “Het is voor het eerst dat ik zoiets meemaak. Als de oorzaak duidelijk is, zullen we stappen ondernemen.”

De Barnevelder, die voor onderzoek naar het ziekenhuis ging, ontvangt een nieuwe PowerBook.