During the coming months Herbert spent much of his time in the squat. With a cafe, a bar, a cinema and a concert venue, the place quickly took on the character of an underground cultural centre; it was illegal, for a start, but perhaps its most subversive feature was the 'junkie room', where heroin addicts could go either to shoot up or to receive medical help. But, as with Herbert's radical school, amid the anarchy at the squat there was conflict. Late in 1991, when the new dance-beats of techno had arrived in the city, the squat's first rave was held in a basement. A squatter threw a teargas grenade into the crowd in protest because he considered techno too 'commercial' for this fiercely anti-capitalist space. Herbert and his friends and everyone else present were forced to make a speedy exit up a narrow staircase. The event turned him against the puritan spirit of the protestors.

"The basic idea is that an entire, small country plays host to a conference with all the various possibilities at its disposal," said Roland Buechel, director of the state tourism agency in Liechtenstein, which covers an area of 60 square miles...

"It is not envisioned to include the prince or government officials," Buechel said.

The most important result is that the concept is valid: the current consumer-level technology, coupled with broad-band Internet, offers viable framework for distributed TV production and distribution via the Internet.

Connectivity and bandwidth found in Bryant Park was sufficient enough for the Internet broadcast to the MNN headquarters. While we stayed in the range of 500-800 kbps range, we did not fined any significant bandwidth congestion.

Although they've been practising in Kenya, their first attempt to sculpt snow will be in Quebec. They've had to make do with ice, also a challenging find in an area where people wear T-shirts in January. They approached the Stanley Hotel -- a storied Nairobi landmark where Ernest Hemingway used to quaff beer after the hunt -- and asked whether they could borrow some big blocks of ice.

Dr. David Cole, Georgetown University Law professor and author of Terrorism and the Constitution, reviewed the draft legislation at the request of the Center, and said that the legislation "raises a lot of serious concerns. It's troubling that they have gotten this far along and they've been telling people there is nothing in the works." This proposed law, he added, "would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive 'suspicion,' create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups."

I protested: Just up that escalator, ten yards away, is a gift-shop that sells butane lighters.

Oh, no, that's not true, the TSA Fed said.

I guarantee you it is, I said, as her supervisor let all the gas out of my lighter.

So, I went up the escalator and bought a butane lighter, just like this one, with the name of the airport silk-screened on it, for $2.11.

I took it back down to the security checkpoint and showed it to the TSA supervisor.

Oh ho, he said, this is different -- it has a smaller flame than your lighter.

So I flipped off the wind-shield, and cranked the little valve-control lever around counterclockwise, and then lit the lighter. A foot-long jet of flame shot out of it.

Well, he said, the TSA is still getting its act together -- we'll harmonize our policies with the gift-shops later.

For the record, when I ran my jacket through the x-ray at LAX, the TSA guards there didn't say a thing. Discuss

Cool hunting, advertising, and marketing pervade Pattern Recognition - the book's acronym is PR, after all. Pollard "knows too much about the processes responsible for the way product is positioned in the world, and sometimes finds herself doubting that there is much else going on." But The Footage is there to prove her wrong. The Web makes it possible for an independent artist to gain a global following for no commercial purpose whatsoever. Gibson exploits the inherent tension between the monoculture and the emergence of novelty. On one hand, the monoculture lives by assimilating originality. On the other, new art has nothing but the monoculture to launch itself from. It's one of the happy paradoxes of modern life.

"West Valley #11," one of Sultan's more recent photos, is an interior focused on a deluxe wood wall with a grid of square holes, one of which frames the reclining head of a woman, perhaps in the throws of thespian ecstasy. It's the golden-hued wall, however, that dominates the composition -- along with the gallon jug of water (or is it a Costco bottle of lubricant?) and jumbo roll of paper towels.

California wildlife officials warned it was illegal to return competitors in the Mark Twain-inspired festival to their natural habitat for fear they could spread disease or alter ecosystems.

But in a twist almost as bizarre as one of Twain's tall tales, officials found an obscure 1957 provision to the Fish and Game Code that exempts frogs used in jumping contests from wildlife rules.

We the undersigned, members of the professional community of science fiction and fantasy writers, express our most heartfelt sympathy to the families and friends of the crew of the Columbia, and our support to the men and women of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the many contributing organizations worldwide, for their continuing efforts to establish humankind as a spacefaring people.

Researchers have created the blackest black ever made on Earth, by bubbling a shiny metal plate in nitric acid for a few seconds.

This new super-black coating produced by Richard Brown and his colleagues at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington is designed to revolutionise the manufacture of optical instruments.

But after eight-years of being deeply focused on the world of Internet application software platforms, I'm ready to move on. After this week, I'll be moving to a Boston-area venture firm, where I'll be a technologist/entrepreneur in residence. I'm going to help them find interesting opportunities, and then work with their early stage companies. I have a lot to learn.

Of those surveyed, only 17 percent knew the correct answer: that none of the hijackers were Iraqi. Forty-four percent of Americans believe that most or some of the hijackers were Iraqi; another 6 percent believe that one of the hijackers was a citizen of that most notorious node in the axis of evil. That leaves 33 percent who did not know enough to offer an answer.

The New York Times' Web site will begin displaying half-page magazine-style ads adjacent to its articles, making its online pages appear more similar to their print counterparts.

"It's a nice, big ad unit," said Jason Krebs, vice president of advertising sales for the NYTimes.com. "We're trying to make the most of what the Internet can offer."

In the wake of recent decisions on indirect copyright liability, it appears that copyright law has foisted a binary choice on P2P developers: either build a system that allows for thorough monitoring and control over user activities, or build one that makes such monitoring and control completely impossible.

Contributory infringement requires that you have "knowledge" of, and "materially contribute" to, someone else's infringing activity. In most cases, it will be difficult to avoid "material contribution"--after all, if your system adds any value to the user experience, a court may conclude that you have "materially contributed" to any infringing user activities.

The major shipbuilder and heavy machinery maker said the name Wakamaru represents a combination of "waka," meaning "young" in Japanese and "Maru," a term often used to name Japanese-registered ships, known outside Japan as "Maru ships."...The robot is connected to a communications network around the clock...It can also report to family members or a designated party in other areas when the robot's owner stays in such areas as a bathroom for too long.

Putting these together, the average amount of information per ejaculation is 1.560*109 * 2 bits * 2.00*10^8, which comes out to be 6.24*10^17 bits. That's about 78,000 terabytes of data! As a basis of comparison, were the entire text content of the Library of Congress to be scanned and stored, it would only take up about 20 terabytes. If you figure that a male orgasm lasts five seconds, you get a transmission rate of 15,600 tb/s. In comparison, an OC-96 line (like the ones that make up much of the backbone of the internet) can move .005 tb/s. Cable modems generally transmit somewhere around 1/5000th of that.

SBC has handled this in a completely unacceptable manner. No warning notice was provided. They did send an email to _REMOVED_@pacbell.net however this is an account that is not used (honestly how many people use their DSL provided email anyway). In fact I honestly had no idea that it existed until their Policy department informed of this. They have my cell phone, my land line, and my physical address in San Francisco yet they choose to use *none* of these to warn me prior to disconnecting my service.

Up until this point I have been a loyal SBC customer for greater than 2 years. I purchase their business grade account at $180 a month for 5 IPs, 384 up, and 6Mb down with an Acceptable Use Policy that allows for running servers (web, email, etc).

One thing everyone agrees on is that term "poutine" itself is derived from an Acadian slang term for "mushy mess" or "pudding" and is properly pronounced like this -- but variations abound, including poo-teen, poodyne, and poot'n. I have it on good authority from a web whore that poutine is pronounced "disco fries" in the big apple. Go figure.

Poutine cannot be found on any posh dining menu, but some of Montreal's finest chefs have been known to serve it to their kitchen staff at work and their own families at home, reportedly taking great delight in the dish. Recipes range from the most basic slop to pretentious gourmet preparations, with vegetarian falsies falling somewhere in between.

"last friday, RCBTV was pitched to Brian Graden, the man responsible for bringing South Park and Jackass to the great American public. apparently, i am no Cartman, nor am i even a Kenny. if someone had told me it might have helped if i had stapled a bra to my butt, things might have been different. but, yesterday, i was informed that while the show concept and i were enjoyed all around,it seems Mr. Graden is interested in steering VH1 away from the world of sex 'n' porn. i hold nothing against the channel for this. in fact, i would encourage you to tune in to any part of VH1's current programming line-up: Booty Call, Sexiest Artists, Rock Bodies, Rock Bottoms, or Porn to Rock and Rap."

But the show ain't over yet. RCB-TV is now being pitched anew to two networks: TNN and Comedy Central. And as The Men's Room blog opined today, "If Comedy picks it up and puts it back to back with Insomniac then that could quite possibly be the best hour on television!" Word.

They're calling for a mass write-in campaign -- and why not? American television doesn't need more sex. It needs better sex. Write your congressperson Comedy Central today, and tell them, "I want my Reverse Cowgirl TV.": mail@comedycentral.com. Discuss

Scott is right. I saw Spirited Away with him and it blew my mind. The guy is a genius. Link Discuss

UPDATE: Got BitTorrent? Robotech_Master says: "The first episode is also available for BitTorrent download at this link in lieu of the slashdotted website. You just need to get the BitTorrent client (here) and you're set."

There was but one Trislyche in all of the ocean, and it was a creature as old as time. If a man were to catch the Trislyche and release it, it would magically grant him the love of any female he desired. One of the Trislyche’s scales, placed on the grave of dead lover, would return their breath for one last tryst.

But these magical properties were of no interest to me, I needed to slay it for its heart- an organ rumored to provide the single most sublime, rare and transcendent meal imaginable. Its aftertaste would last the rest of your lifetime, and enhance the taste of all future meals immeasurably, providing a taste that dwarfed the pleasures of sexual ecstasy.

These few conditions are apparently all it takes to precipitate capitalism in cyberspace. As in a real economy, virtual market conditions change in response to how players behave. For example, shrewd players who know Norrath's nooks and crannies will purchase goods in a game zone where they've become abundant and then sell them in another where they're in greater demand.

Jaan -- the first eunuch to win public office in India -- plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Eunuchs live on society's edges, begging and collecting tips for dancing at weddings, blessing babies and participating in ceremonies. They consider themselves women. Some Hindus think they bring good luck.

I felt like a war bride that moved in the wrong direction. The biggest difference between the Brits and Americans is that Americans think that death is optional. Americans are optimists. Americans believe in the ultimate perfectibility of life. They believe that everything gets better. They believe that if you try hard enough there's a steady crescendo of improvement and your fate is in your own hands. You can make things perfect for yourself. And it's certainly your job to try.

Take somebody like Oprah Winfrey -- she's the symbol of self-improvement...

She's all about self-esteem and perfectibility and viewing yourself as a work in progress. The whole psychology of that is that you must believe that A) improvement is possible and B) that it is actually possible to get it right. You are your own best project. And because we're Americans we somehow think that everyone else in the world thinks that way too, and of course, nothing can be further from the truth. They don't.

* The service has delivered almost 50,000 faxes from constituents to MPs

* Marketing spend to date: 0 GBP

* Marketing to date: 1 Press Release sent to friends, (December 2000)...

* 67% of our users report that they have never contacted their mp before, dispelling the suggestion that we simply lower the barrier to entry for the already politically engaged. We are bringing mostly new participants to the debate.

* We are the first organisation to measure MPs responsiveness and performance in a systematic way, applying the same performance criteria to them as are applied to government departments. Performance: not that good, although some shine...

* hardware: a couple of old PCs

* budget: less than 3000 GBP and the donated resources of our helpers, which amounts to a few hours a week each.

* abuse rate: we estimate that less than 1% of faxes are abusive or inappropriate, based on the samples we see via feedback or bounces (we don't read the messages)...

I believe that Faxyourmp is the leading e-democracy tool in the UK. We demonstrate daily that almost every single one of the excuses and apologies for the slow development of e-democracy in the UK are due to a lack of will, inertia, and inability to take notice of either best practice online, or select appropriate solutions. I don't blame individuals (as everyone I've every encountered in the civil service or parliament has been well-intentioned, dedicated and hard working), but we make it plain that this stuff is trivially doable.

It was hoped the 103-year-old attraction will be open again by Thursday, once safety checks had been completed.

But the ghost train, where the fire started, had been destroyed and two other rides damaged. Some decking has also fallen through.

Pixar's planned mouse tale is the latest jab in a year-long sparring match between Pixar CEO Steven P. Jobs, also head of Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL ), and Disney CEO Michael D. Eisner. The fight is over--what else?--money. Jobs wants more of it, especially after Pixar's run of blockbuster animated films for Disney, including Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Monsters Inc. Without a new and better deal, Jobs could take his hit-making animators to another studio in 2006.

The timing couldn't be worse for Eisner, who is under pressure to rev up Disney's sputtering empire. Pixar lets Disney leverage characters such as Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story) and Flik (A Bug's Life) by using them in theme parks or selling them as toys. Disney hasn't had Pixar-level megahits since its Beauty and the Beast and Lion King days. Can you name any characters from Atlantis: The Lost Empire or Treasure Planet?

Here's how it would work: Single people would subscribe to the service online or by text message over their cell phones. They would fill out applications with their interests. They could also post pictures, because cell phones increasingly include a camera or image-viewing option.

When out and about, users could ping the service asking for compatible singles in the area. After notifying the other members nearby, the system would provide the user with a list of people in close proximity and their location. A potential match could be right across the street.

This type of service is already popular in Japan and some parts of Europe, where teenagers and 20-somethings often set up rendezvous by cell phone. AT&T Wireless (AWE) says it has had success with its Find Friends service, which lets people look up the locations of people on their buddy lists.

"Developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), the one-meter-tall, bubble-headed robot will go on sale at a cost of 1 million yen in April next year. The robot is targeting the families of elderly people and those living alone. The robot is equipped with functions to help elderly people and those in poor health send an alarm to hospitals, security firms and relatives when an emergency happens.

With a memory camera set inside the eyebrow, the robot recognizes its master. It is called Wakamaru, taken from the childhood name, Ushiwakamaru, of 12-century warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune."

The team has said that the system is still less than perfect. Unless an observer is looking in roughly the same direction as the video camera, the clothes will not be a perfect match with the background.

The claimed uses are for things like surgery, allowing a surgeon to effectively see through their hands.

Paul Tyler, Lib Dem MP, told the BBC that the email filter is "now blocking parts of the Sexual Offences Bill being sent to parliamentary e-mail addresses. It also blocked a Liberal Democrat consultation paper on Censorship..."

As Mr. Tyler says: ""Blocking filth is one thing, gagging political debate is another. Censoring MPs discussions with their staff, colleagues and constituents is totally unacceptable."

pr0nt1n65: Very low-res oil paintings that, from a distance, appear to be pornographic. Up close, they're just squares of color, though. So where's the smut -- on the canvas, or in our heads? If the answer is the latter, then where's the smut on a computer or TV screen, which is just the same thing, but with better resolution? There are now prints available (hallelujah!). Mind you, these are "giclee prints", which seems to be art-world speak for "ink-jet printout" -- so, these are high-resolution automated digitally pixellated versions of low-resolution manually analog pixellated versions of porn scenes.

"When I was 8 or 9 years old, I acquired a split beaver magazine. You can imagine my disappointment when, upon examination of the photos with a microscope, I found that all I could see was dots."

One is in an underground cave. One is behind an electronic curtain of security. One is protected by the space program. All are designated by a letter of the alphabet--ten of them are in the United States, three are in Europe and in Asia. They are supposed to be well hidden. A mere thirteen computers known as "root servers" enable you to shop and bank online, research school projects, look for work, or just send e-mail to a friend...

The offices of Autonomica Company are in Stockholm's popular Old Town section. Executives who run the major European root server appear as though they could be selling insurance. But their computer is located in this government vault, deep underground--accessible only through a maze of complicated security doors--and inside a private, locked crypt.

"This complicated genre has taken its share of scorn: from adult film producers who refuse to pay it any mind to legions of consumers who instinctively snap the sound off after pressing Play."

"Then I thought I would change the world one porn video at a time by renting a title, overdubbing with my original soundtrack, then returning the video to the store shelf....What if orchestras were the engine of expression in pornography?...One of the participating musicians told me for him this project is 'an experiment in subverting the commercial element of the original to present the inner world.' Another mused that it could just be 'really hot, or really evil, or both and sick, or maybe a little beautiful.'"

Link to interview, Discuss

(1) utensils
(2) mustard
(3) cranberry
(4) banana
(5) pasta
(6) spam
(7) ramen
(8) jello
(9) pez
(10) burnt
Link Discuss (Thanks, Frank!)

Hopefully, this will help my subconcious. It was easier than hacking my medulla oblongata. I _hate_ hardware.

No Nuts On Cake. Again, the stress-resistance between the cake and the nuts is too great. There also is nothing visually pleasing about thinly-sliced almonds, for example; it appears as if someone has gone and dumped a crate of Lee Press-On Nails onto the top of the otherwise delicious confection. The usual configuration of nuts on cake consists of a thin layer of chopped nuts slathered on the side of the cake so it looks like gravel. This is easily scraped off onto the closest wall or dog.

Concert-goers bring the chips, dip and beer. A basket is set out for the suggested $10 to $12 donation for the musicians, and the living room, dining room and family room are filled with people wanting to hear folk music.

With few venues willing to hire folk acts and few middle-class suburbanites willing to make the schlep downtown, search out parking and elbow other patrons to get the bartender's attention, folk house concerts are quietly spreading like wildfire with the help of e-mail and Internet advertising.

"Most Requested" has been on the air for nearly two years, but only recently have people not directly involved in the program become aware of the extent to which technology is allowing Mr. Daly to cozy up to local listeners. Radio experts say the program involves perhaps the most extensive use yet of digital audio processing to offer localized shows from a central location. And members of a major broadcasting union are investigating to determine whether the techniques violate local labor agreements.

Clear Channel executives and Mr. Daly declined to discuss the program and the technology. But according to former Clear Channel employees, Mr. Daly spends several hours a week in a studio in his Manhattan apartment, reading scripts with short song introductions and longer segments of D. J. patter. His audio feed is transmitted to Los Angeles, where the show's engineers turn the segments into digital files and drop them into a database.

Toy Tokyo—shrine to the imagination of Asian toymakers and outfits that don't sell to Toys R Us. Tin cars and monsters and little porcelain figures that were included as prizes in King Pie pastries, in Paris—you had to eat the pie to obtain them—and windup robots from the age when the world was just beginning to imagine robots: robots that are biggest around the middle, like circus strongmen; robots painted beautiful colors, so shiny they look enamelled; robots with heads under glass, like deep-sea divers, and mute, pleading expressions in their eyes. You're a collector, so you already understand that by the time these toys reach America they aren't meant to be played with. You're a fool if you play with them. Go ahead, take the robot out of the box. Now it's worthless, just a toy, something to amuse a child.

Marsha Thomason, who plays Eddie Murphy's wife in the upcoming supernatural movie Haunted Mansion, told SCI FI Wire that the film will feature elements of the popular Disney theme-park ride on which it is based. "We've got the singing heads," Thomason said in an interview. "We've got the whole mausoleum. We've got Madame Leota. Jennifer Tilly is playing Madame Leota. There's a whole lot of the Disney ride in the movie."

Considering the NSI believes the decision may force the end of the Internet and have "enormous ramifications for a large sector of similar service providers, including cable television service and telephone service providers", it is a shame its legal arguments aren't stronger.

I hope nobody falls for this scam.

I looked at the HTML for the page and found this domain number: 208.47.185.82. I don't know what I can do with it. Here's the link. Maybe a reader can get to the source. Remember, do not enter any information on this page! Link Discuss

"It is, we think, we hope, only temporary," said Faustino Diaz Fortuny, a Spanish envoy whose government owns the original painting. U.N. officials said last week that it is more appropriate for dignitaries to be photographed in front of the blue backdrop and some flags than the impressionist image of shattered villagers and livestock.

The drapes were installed last Monday and Wednesday -- the days the council discussed Iraq -- and came down Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, when the subjects included Afghanistan and peacekeeping missions in Lebanon and Western Sahara. So when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell enters the council Wednesday to present evidence of Iraq's acquisition of mobile biological weapons labs and terrorism ties, he will walk in front of flags that wouldn't look out of place in the auditorium of a high school gymnasium.

NASA has established an anonymous FTP input point for persons who have found shuttle debris to upload photos or videos of the material along with identifying commentary for NASA analysis of its importance. This may well be the first use of the Net for this kind of disaster evidence collection on such a scale.

Imagine a compound that could dupe your tongue into thinking bland oatmeal was hot-fudge-sundae sweet? Or another that could make kids hoover spinach like Popeye?

"You could make healthy foods taste better," Alejandro Marangoni, a food scientist at the University of Guelph, said of the new field. "Just blocking bitterness has huge potential. Somebody's going to make a lot of money."

Linguagen's "bitter blocker" compound, which received a U.S. patent this month, is the first chemical known to inhibit the taste of bitterness by altering human perception instead of flavour. But it's unlikely to be the last.