[Quote:]

The photo showing intriguing ice stalagmites was taken on February 6, 2005 from near Tunnelton, Pennsylvania. My brother and I drove to Tunnelton to see the old Pennsylvania Railroad viaduct across the Conemaugh River. While there, we went over to see the 1907 Bow Tunnel, which was abandoned in 1950 with the completion of the Conemaugh River Dam flood control project. These stalagmites were formed from water seeping from the tunnel ceiling. In winter, when the temperatures is the tunnel are below freezing, the water droplets freeze on contact, resulting in this fascinating formation. In this case, the dripping water causing the stalagmites doesn’t appear to be falling from ice stalactites.

Russian Karim Diab stood still in the icy Moscow River for one hour, breaking the previous record of 45 minutes. Scrawled on his forehead is the Russian word for “peace”.

Gabriel Keys is arrested by police officers for trespassing in Pinellas Park, Florida, March 23, 2005. The young protester attempted to take a glass of water into the Woodside Hospice for the brain-damaged Terri Schiavo.

[Quote:]

As authorities sought today to figure out what stoked Jeff Weise’s rage enough to drive him to kill nine people and then himself, perhaps the teen summed it up best himself:

“16 years of accumulated rage suppressed by nothing more than brief glimpses of hope, which have all but faded to black,” he wrote in an undated personal biography on one Web site. “I can feel the urges within slipping through the cracks, the leash I can no longer hold….”

In the same bio, he listed his occupation as “doormat,” and said he was located in “endless scrutiny, Minnesota, United States.”

[Quote:]

Nederlanders blijken weinig geloof te hebben in de regering. Vorige zomer had 32 procent van de bevolking vertrouwen in de regering. “Het vertrouwen is gering in verhouding tot andere instanties zoals de media, grote ondernemingen en vakbonden”. Dat concludeert het kabinet uit een belevingsonderzoek onder de bevolking dat donderdag is gepubliceerd.

Volgens het kabinet geldt het lage vertrouwen overigens ook voor de overheid in het algemeen. Zo heeft 38 procent van de Nederlanders vertrouwen in de gemeenten. De Europese Unie scoort 33 procent.

One morning, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush were having brunch at a restaurant. The attractive waitress asks VP Cheney what he would like, and he replies, “I’ll have a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit.”

And what may I get for you, sir?” she asks George W. He replies, “How about a quickie?” “Why, Mr. President,” the waitress says, “how rude. You’re starting to act like former President Clinton!!”

As the waitress storms away, VP Cheney leans over to President Bush and whispers, “It’s pronounced ‘quiche’.”

A guy took his blonde girl friend to her first football game. They had great seats right behind their team’s bench. After the game, he asked her how she liked the experience. “Oh, I really liked it,” she replied. “Especially the tight pants and all the big muscles, but I just couldn’t understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents.” Dumbfounded, her date asked, “What do you mean?” “Well, I saw them flip a coin and one team got it, and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was: ‘Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback! Hel-LLLO! It’s only 25 cents!”

[Quote:]

De afgetreden D66-minister De Graaf (Bestuurlijke Vernieuwing) is dinsdag door de PvdA-senatoren in het debat over de gekozen burgemeester “grotelijks belazerd”. CDA-fractieleider Verhagen zei dat woensdagavond in een spoeddebat over deze kwestie.

Verhagen gebruikte daarmee dezelfde woorden als PvdA-leider Bos na het mislukken van de kabinetsformatie met het CDA in 2003. Ook Bos achtte zich toen “grotelijks belazerd”.

Volgens Verhagen hebben de PvdA-senatoren zich dinsdag schuldig gemaakt aan opportunisme en spelletjes “met als doel De Graaf en de coalitie te beschadigen”. “Als het er om gaat de kiezer vertrouwen te schenken geeft de PvdA niet thuis.”

Eh…. de PvdA (niet echt mijn favoriete partij, maar goed) zit niet in de regering. De regering probeert een wet aan te nemen waarvoor in de eerste en tweede kamer, en in het land, geen draagvlak is. De PvdA stemt niet voor de wet. En dan krijgt de PvdA de schuld van iedereen.

Hmmm… volgens mij is iedereen al weer gewoon met de verkiezingen bezig die er nu natuurlijk moeten komen.

Ik kondig alvast aan mijn stem te laten bepalen door het standpunt van de partij betreffende Europa (en daarbij onder andere de uitleg die de partij geeft aan het patenten-debacle). Ik ben benieuwd…

My internet provider sends out a newsletter. In it, they have a ‘suggestions’ email address. However, I don’t think they ever read anything you send them there, Here’s what happens if you do try to send mail to it:

From: MAILER-DAEMON@wanadoo.nl
Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender
Date: March 24, 2005 7:03:09 CET
To: john@sinteur.com

This is the SMTP Server program at host wanadoo.nl.

I’m sorry to have to inform you that the message returned
below could not be delivered to one or more destinations.

For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the message returned below.

The SMTP Server program
<suggesties @wanadoo.nl>: wanadoo.nl platform: said: 552 5.2.2 Over quota
Reporting-MTA: dns; wanadoo.nl
Arrival-Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 07:03:09 +0100 (CET)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; suggesties@wanadoo.nl
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; wanadoo.nl platform: said: 552 5.2.2 Over quota

[Quote:]

The software giant has come under fire for ‘yet another example of how patents can kill or inhibit standards’

An anti-patent organisation criticised Microsoft on Wednesday for filing a patent with a claimed similarity to IPv6, the next-generation Internet protocol.

The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), an organisation that works to protect the public from damage caused by the patent system, claims that a patent that Microsoft filed a few years ago is invalid as it failed to disclose prior work done by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

The US patent, number 6101499 – titled “Method and computer program product for automatically generating an Internet Protocol (IP) address” – was issued to Microsoft in 2000 after being filed in 1998.

Daniel Ravicher, the executive director of PUBPAT, told ZDNet UK that although he is not worried that Microsoft will assert its right over the patent, this may stop companies from using IPv6.

“Microsoft won’t ever assert this patent – they know it’s worthless,” said Ravicher. “But there will still be people who are afraid of it – if someone has a gun and promises not to shoot it, it’s still scary.”

“This is yet another example of how patents can kill or inhibit standards,” he said.

PUBPAT was made aware of this patent when it was contacted by a “few large companies” which had been told about the patent by Microsoft.

Ravicher claims that a “significant number” of prior art references were not disclosed to the US patent office when Microsoft applied for the patent. These include documents from the IPv6 committee of the IETF, known as RFCs. The Microsoft employees named as the inventors of the patent were on the IPv6 committee, according to Ravicher.

[Quote:]

In it’s ongoing battle with Microsoft, the European Commission is investigating the possibility that the Vole has sneakily sabotaged the Media Player-free versions of Windows it is obliged to ship to the EU.

The Commission decided last year that Microsoft was abusing its monopoly position by including its Media Player software in its Windows XP ‘operating system’.

It told the software maker to ship a stripped-down version of Windows XP to countries in the European Union and slapped a mighty fine on the monopolist.

Microsoft is still appealing against the decision but has begun shipping Media Player-free versions of XP to the EU, as instructed.

A report in today’s Wall Street Journal suggests Microsoft has fiddled with the registry in its stripped-down Windows offerings and the result is that video clips embedded into Microsoft Word documents don’t run properly, for example.

The Journal quotes Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for European antitrust chief Neelie Kroes, as saying: “The commission is still in the process of assessing … whether Microsoft is complying properly with the requirement to offer a fully functioning version of Windows without Media Player.”

“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

�- Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)

[Quote:]

Today, The HSUS expressed its strong disappointment that Interior Secretary Gale Norton has named Matthew J. Hogan to be acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Norton announced the appointment yesterday, following last week’s resignation of Director Steve Williams. Hogan was formerly the chief lobbyist for Safari Club International (SCI), an extreme trophy hunting organization that advocates the killing of rare species around the world.

“Having a Safari Club lobbyist in charge, even temporarily, of the federal agency that is supposed to protect endangered species is precisely the wrong course to pursue for any Administration,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The HSUS. “Someone with a true wildlife conservation ethic, not an allegiance to the trophy hunting industry, should be nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate for the permanent director position as soon as possible.”

The Arizona-based SCI has made a name for itself as one of the most extreme and elite trophy hunting organizations, representing some 40,000 wealthy trophy collectors, fostering and promoting competitive trophy hunting of exotic animals on five continents. SCI members shoot prescribed lists of animals to win so-called Grand Slam and Inner Circle titles. There’s the Africa Big Five (leopard, elephant, lion, rhino, and buffalo), the North American Twenty Nine (all species of bear, bison, sheep, moose, caribou, and deer), Big Cats of the World, Antlered Game of the Americas, and many other contests.

To complete all 29 award categories, a hunter must kill a minimum of 322 separate species and sub-species—enough to populate a large zoo. This is an extremely expensive and lengthy task, and many SCI members take the quick and easy route to see their names in the record books. They shoot captive animals in canned hunts, both in the United States and overseas, and some engage in other unethical conduct like shooting animals over bait, from vehicles, with spotlights, or on the periphery of national parks.

SCI members have even tried to circumvent federal laws to import their rare trophies from other countries. Prominent SCI hunter Kenneth E. Behring donated $100 million to the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum and, according to published reports, tried to get the museum’s help in importing a rare Kara Tau argali sheep which he shot in Kazakhstan and had shipped to a Canadian taxidermist—one of only 100 Kara Tau argali sheep remaining in the world. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, now under Hogan’s watch, is the agency charged with granting or denying such trophy import permits.

[Quote:]

General Motors Corp.’s borrowing costs rose to the highest in almost two years after the world’s largest carmaker lost financial support from General Electric Co.

The extra yield, or spread, investors demand to hold the automaker’s euro-denominated debt due 2033 widened 40 basis points, or 0.40 percentage point, to 578 basis points, the most since the securities were sold in June 2003, as of 11:28 a.m. in London, according to Royal Bank of Canada prices.

GM, the world’s third-largest corporate borrower with $114.5 billion of bonds, on March 16 forecast its biggest quarterly loss since 1992, prompting Standard & Poor’s to say it may lower the automaker’s credit rating to below investment grade. GE, the world’s No. 2 company by market value, yesterday cut short an agreement giving the carmaker’s suppliers faster payment.

The GM situation could gradually deteriorate until they are forced to declare bankruptcy — which is not the end of the company, but definitely not good news. Currently GM has a 9.4 billion interest expense on its income statement. GM also has to go to the market on a regular basis because of their finance arm. As their interest costs increase it is possible their margins (essentially the difference between their revenue and expenses) will continue to get squeezed. Their operating margin is currently .62%. (Ford has a 2.8% operating margin and and Chrysler has a 2.8 operating margin).

Here is why this story is important.

1.) GM employs about 324,000 poeple. If there is a problem with the company, you can bet that layoffs will happen quickly.

2.) There are numerous other companies that depend on GM — especially parts makers that sell directly to GM. If GM slows down, there will be a ripple effect to suppliers

3.) GM stated that health costs were a prime reason for their problems. Ford and Chrysler are in the same boat. And yet, Congress is doing nothing. Toyota has a 9.7% operatinig margin.

4.) Autos and airlines are the last old generation corporations still in existance. Neither are doing well. Most US airlines are either in bankruptcy or operating at a major loss. Ford and Chrysler are in better shape, but not much.

5.) SUVs are the most porfitable vehicles the automakers sell. I doubt that an increase in oil prices will encourage sales for these vehicles. In other words, as oil prices increase, it is possible (but certainly not guaranteed) that we’ll see Ford and Chrysler making similar announcements.

6) If the credit rating drops to below investment grade, many institutional investors (such as pension funds) must sell their stock of the company, dropping the value of the stock significantly as a result, making it even more difficult for GE to get money from the market.

[Quote:]

The vote by Congress to allow the federal courts to take over the Terri Schiavo case has created distress among some conservatives who say that lawmakers violated a cornerstone of conservative philosophy by intervening in the ruling of a state court.

[..]

In interviews over the past two days, conservatives who expressed concern about the turn of events in Congress stopped short of condemning the vote in which overwhelming majorities supported the Schiavo bill, and they generally applauded the goal of trying to keep Ms. Schiavo alive. But they said they were concerned about what precedent had been set and said the vote went against Republicans who were libertarian, advocates of states’ rights or supporters of individual rights.

“My party is demonstrating that they are for states’ rights unless they don’t like what states are doing,” said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. “This couldn’t be a more classic case of a state responsibility.”

“This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy,” Mr. Shays said. “There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them.”

[Quote:]

If you’re like us and hit the snooze button eight thousand times each morning, perhaps it’s in your own best interests to have a clock that, say, rolls off the table and finds a new place to hide every day, so you’re sure to properly get up the next time it goes off. I’m sure they’d say owning a Clocky is for your own good, but we really know it does its stuff because our morning breath and the way we look before we’ve put our faces on is enough to drive even inanimate objects to fleeing in sheer horror.

Fans duck for cover as a shattered bat flies into the crowd on a single by Minnesota Twins designated hitter Michael Restovich in the fourth inning against the Florida Marlins in Fort Myers, Fla., Monday March 14, 2005. No one was seriously injured in the incident. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

[Quote:]

A raid by Swedish authorities last week against Bahnhof, Sweden’s oldest and largest ISP, has been hailed by Hollywood as a major blow against movie piracy. But questions have been raised about whether the 10 March raid, orchestrated by Swedish anti-piracy organisation Antipiratbyr�n, and involving the seizure of data involving thousands of users, might have violated the country’s strict data privacy laws.

[Quote:]

Regarding Bahnof, it�s getting more interesting.

In a recent press release, it’s revealed that APB has known about this server for well over a year without doing anything.

As it turns out, APB (or, rather, their hired informer) supplied the servers and uploaded copyrighted materials. So that’s why they were so sure to find stuff, they put it there!

This will truly be an interesting development.

Log files for what this hired informer was up to can be found here.

But there’s more.

After Easter, APB’s data processing of IP-addresses will be investigated to see if they violated privacy laws – you need permission to store or process information that can be connected to a living physical person. If they can’t match the IP and the person, who are they going to sue?

“Major blow to piracy”.

Naw. Not really.

They should turn this into a comedy show about a private law-enforcement agency that pays informants to plant evidence they can then proceed to find.

‘DVD Jon’ reopens iTunes back door | CNET News.com
A group of underground programmers has posted code online they say will reopen a back door in Apple Computer’s iTunes store, allowing Linux computer users to purchase music free of copy protection.

The release comes just a day after Apple blocked a previous version of the program, called PyMusique, in part by requiring all iTunes customers to use the latest version of Apple’s software.

In a blog posting, Norwegian programmer Jon Johansen, who was previously responsible for releasing software used to copy DVDs online, said he had been successful at reverse engineering the latest iTunes encryption.

Cody Brocious, a Pennsylvania high school student working with Johansen, said they saw the project as “necessary for the Linux community,” despite Apple’s opposition.

[Quote:]

The following auction is true. I will not be mentioning any names here, as I do not want any of my family or friends to be hounded by people wanting more information. The only one who would know anything other than me would be my fiance anyway. If anyone has questions, they can be asked of me directly. I please ask that no one try to contact my fiance, as she has gone through quite enough with this ordeal. Pictures are at the bottom of the page.

OK, I’ve come to the last thing I can think of to get rid of this cursed thing, but I’ll get to that later. Last summer, my fiance & I were visiting her family in Florida, and taking a stop in Disneyworld. As big fans of the Lilo & Stitch movies, we were interested in buying some Stitch toys. We ended up getting quite a few, of all shapes & sizes. We have had no problem with any of them – they’re all regular friggin teddy bears. One, however, has been a problem since day one. That was the one we picked up on our way from Orlando to Daytona Beach.

We stopped at a little out of the way place while looking for a restaurant. This place was small, and kind of dingy, but they had food, and a ‘gift shop’, if you could call it that. I wish I could remember what it was called, but the only thing that seems to ring a bell is ‘Leary’. Anyway, they had another Stitch toy there, which looked just as good as any we had picked up in Disneyworld, and was a quarter of the price. The person behind the till seemed a little too pleased to be making the sale, and now I can see why.

We displayed the toys on our TV stand, with some other stuffed animals my fiance has collected over the years. Nothing has ever moved them, except for when cleaning & dusting, and then they are promptly put back in place. After the new Stitch toys were put up, about once a week, we would find one or two of the other stuffed animals on the floor, on certain mornings when we would get up. Originally thinking nothing of the fact (we have a dog, who we thought maybe bumped the stand – more on him later), we would put the animals back up on the stand.

This became a semi-regular occurance until early November, when we awoke to a loud slam in the middle of the night. I got my fiance to stay upstairs, and crept down to see what was happening. I had the light on at the top of the stairs, which meant I could not see clearly into the living room to see what had happened, but I did notice different things scattered on the floor. I turned the light on at the front door, and saw that the items on the floor were actually all of the stuffed animals, and other Stitch toys. The only thing left on our TV stand was the Stitch we had picked up from that store. That would have been enough, but the top of the TV was cracked as well – it looked as though something heavy had been dropped onto it. We still have no idea what happened there.

Read on if you dare…

nu.nl/economie | ‘Loterijen mogen extra geld afschrijven’
Dat loterijen extra geld kunnen afschrijven bij klanten is conform de voorwaarden. Dat zegt woordvoerder van de Consumentenbond Paulien van der Hoef dinsdag. De Postcodeloterij, BankGiroloterij en de Sponsorloterij schrijven rond 27 april 5,25 euro extra af ter gelegenheid van het 25-jarig regeringsjubileum van koningin Beatrix.

Het Algemeen Dagblad meldt dinsdag dat deelnemers ongevraagd meedoen aan een cadeau voor Beatrix. In een reactie laat Van der Hoef weten dat het misschien ‘niet zo netjes’ is wat de loterijen doen, maar dat het ‘conform de voorwaarden’ is waarmee de deelnemers akkoord zijn gegaan. Gokkers gaan daarin akkoord met een aantal vaste trekkingen, maar ook met extra trekkingen die gehouden worden. De loterijen zijn daarmee gemachtigd extra geld af te schrijven.

[Quote:]

For days, President Bush kept his public distance from the Terri Schiavo case and let his spokesman deliver mild statements suggesting that the president did not want Ms. Schiavo, who has severe brain damage, to die. But on Saturday night, when Mr. Bush made the rare decision to interrupt his Texas vacation and rush back to Washington to be in place to sign a bill that could restore Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube, the White House said that the issue had become one of “defending life,” and that time was of the essence.

So, too, were White House politics, Republicans and conservative religious figures said. Although Mr. Bush was described as personally moved by the issue, his dramatic return was seen as a powerful embrace of the “culture of life” issues of religious conservatives who helped him win the White House in 2004. Those groups will be crucial to the political fortunes of the Republican Party in 2006 and 2008.

“Look, this is a symbolic move, for sure,” said Richard Cizik, the vice president for government affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. “It’s his willingness to interrupt his vacation to make a statement. And not just to make a statement, because we’re not playing games here, but to make a difference, too.”

Nonetheless, White House officials acknowledged that the final bill could have been flown to Mr. Bush in Texas, a round trip of six or seven hours that probably would have made no difference in whether Ms. Schiavo lives. Doctors say she can survive for up to two weeks without the liquid meals that have sustained her for 15 years.

“That would have been acceptable,” said Mr. Cizik, referring to Mr. Bush signing the bill at his ranch. “But this president seizes opportunities when they come his way. That’s what makes him a good politician.”

Now let’s think about the many other times when Bush couldn’t be bothered to spend an hour or two on an issue and decide if any of them were more important.

1. The tsunami victims — More than 100,000 people died in the worst natural disaster of our lifetime. Millions were left homeless. It happened just after Christmas and hit hard our staunch ally, Thailand. (Many, many Muslims were devastated by this disaster.) Bush couldn’t be bothered to step outside for FIVE minutes and offer his heartfelt sympathy to an event that had the rest of the world riveted and shocked. It took Bush DAYS to do anything, even after his aides had bungled our first offer of aid.

2. Investigating 9/11 with Congress — Bush spent months hemming and hawing and avoiding having to meet with the bipartisan panel trying to look into the worst attack on US soil in history. He finally, grudgingly, spent a few hours but insisted he appear with Cheney by his side, cause they were busy and needed to get this over with.

3. Heck, 9/11 itself — On the day of the worst attack on US soil in our history, Bush spent hours and hours flying around the country when he could have just spent a few minutes to get in front of a camera and reassure the nation that he was in charge and we’d get through this.

4. Military funerals — Bush is the first President in US history during wartime (and presumably peacetime as well) who has refused to attend a SINGLE military funeral to honor one of our fallen soldiers. It’s not just the couple of hours he can’t be bothered to spend; Bush thinks it would be bad politics to remind people that young men and women die in war, so why bother honoring them? They can take a hit on the battlefield, but Bush won’t risk taking a hit in the polls. And if things are going so swimmingly in Iraq, why does he STILL refuse to honor our military?

So, yes, this is indeed a perfect example of what makes Bush a “good politician”. Whatever makes him look good, whatever gets his ratings up, whatever gets him (re)elected, that matters, and nothing else does.

So here we have a deeply emotional issue, and he sees opportunity.

The latest Apple Powerbooks have a motion sensor. Here’s what the Apple site tells you about it:

[Quote:]

PowerBook G4 computers starting with PowerBook G4 (12-inch 1.5GHz), PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz), and PowerBook G4 (17-inch 1.67GHz) have Sudden Motion Sensor technology, built-in protection for the hard disk that is designed to help prevent disk failures if the computer is dropped or undergoes severe vibration. The Sudden Motion Sensor is designed to detect unusually strong vibrations, sudden changes in position or accelerated movement. If the computer is dropped, the Sudden Motion Sensor instantly parks the hard drive heads to help reduce the risk of damage to the hard drive on impact. When the Sudden Motion Sensor senses that the PowerBook position is once again stable, it unlocks the hard drive heads, and you are up and running within seconds.

Somebody figured out how to read the motion data from the sensor, and turn it into a Human Interface Device. Tilt your computer, and your web page scrolls. Of course, for games it’s even more fun:

[Quote:]

AMS2HID allows you to play games using the PowerBook itself as a controller – the computer’s motion in physical space provides input to games. As note earlier, any game whose primary controls are directional should work well wit AMS2HID. This includes many car-racing or driving games, where “left”/”right” “up”, and “down” can be used for steering, acceleration and braking respectively. Flight simulators and maze-based puzzle games are other likel candidates

A game extremely well-suited to AMS2HID is Neverball, in which you “tilt the floor to roll the ball through an obstacle course before time runs out”. In this case, the physical tilting of the computer closely matches the virtual tilting required in the game to result in a very immersive and enjoyable gaming experience.

[Quote:]

My fascination with writing systems gave me the idea to create a poster containing every Unicode character. Unicode is a method for encoding characters, like Ascii, but it can represent virtually every writing system in the world, not just English. I estimated I could print the whole thing on about a 36″x36″ poster. Well, my estimates were off. It turned out to be about 6 feet by 12 feet. Likewise, the process of creating the poster turned out to be much more involved than I imagined.

To make a long story short, I downloaded all the character chart PDFs from the Unicode web site. I then made screen captures of every single page, assembling them into code charts in Photoshop, and saving them as PNG images. All together, there were 93 PDFs resulting in 468 grayscale PNGs (102 MBs).

I then wrote software in Java to load in these PNG images, dice them up, and assemble them into the final poster image. The math worked out nicely so that 256 characters would be almost exactly 6 feet wide if printed at 300 dpi. A width of 256 was chosen because most character subsets begin and end at multiples of that value. The software would elliminate unallocated rows to keep things relatively compact.

The image only took about 10 minutes to generate, and its final size is 22,017 x 42,807 pixels.

[Quote:]

Als freelancer ben je ook een beetje ondernemer, dus nu – 2005 – moet ik wel elektronisch aangeven. Al maanden krijg ik er regelmatig post over van de Belastingdienst: blauwe enveloppen – ik schrik er elke keer van, maar dan blijkt het weer om een inlognaam, voorlichting of een password te gaan, niet om een aanslag. Voor mijn btw-aangifte laatste kwartaal 2004 waagde ik het erop. Na inloggen moest ik een nieuw password kiezen en een geheime vraag en antwoord kiezen, zodat ik mijn nieuwe password weer kon opvragen. Jarenlang wordt het je ingepeperd om nooit – hoor je: nooit! – aan iemand, wie dan ook, nooit nooit nooit, je pincode te geven. En wie stelt je de geheime vraag: wat is je pincode? De Belastingdienst! De moedersnaam van mijn moeder? Oké. Mijn geboortestad? Oké. Maar mijn pincode, zijn ze nu echt helemaal gek geworden bij de belastingen?

[Quote:]

In last year’s European Commission antitrust ruling against Microsoft, the software giant agreed to create a server interoperability licence that would allow rival makers of server software to write applications that can “achieve full interoperability” with Windows client and server operating systems on “reasonable and non-discriminatory terms”.

On Friday the EC rejected Microsoft’s proposed server interoperability licence, saying it had concerns that the licence excluded open-source vendors and charged unjustifiably high royalty fees.

[Quote:]

If you’re happy to pay for your iTunes Music Store song downloads, but could live without that pesky DRM stuff the recording companies insist Apple inserts into each file, you’ll be pleased to know that notorious hacker Jon Lech Johansen, he of DVD Content Scrambling System de-coding fame, has figured out how to do just that.

‘DVD Jon’ has posted PyMusique a Python-based utility that offers a “fair interface to the iTunes Music Store”, co-written with Travis Watkins and Cody Brocious. The app provides the usual ITMS features – access to song previews and the ability to set up a payment account and to use it to buy songs – but there are two crucial differences.

First, PyMusique allows you to re-download songs you’ve purchased. So if your hard drive goes up the Suwannee and you haven’t backed it up for a while, you can re-acquire your ITMS-sourced song library.

Second, none of the tracks you download will be encumbered with DRM.

[Quote:]

In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.

But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride — which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium — to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.

[..]

The Bush administration’s approach, intended to isolate North Korea, instead left allies increasingly doubtful as they began to learn that the briefings omitted essential details about the transaction, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said in interviews. North Korea responded to public reports last month about the briefings by withdrawing from talks with its neighbors and the United States.

In an effort to repair the damage, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is traveling through East Asia this weekend trying to get the six-nation talks back on track.

The Bush administration lying about WMD’s? I’m shocked! Shocked, I say!