Thursday, September 28, 2006

Numbers give apocalyptic forecast to financial situation in USA - Pravda.Ru: "The poor and the working poor do not have anything to give. Their contribution will be in form of statistics. The number of people living bellow poverty line will increase. They will suffer because they rely on many services that will be cut or reduced. The rich will always find some loop-hole to avoid paying the major part their share. Even if their wealth is reduced by 10%, they will see no hardship. This leaves us with the middle class. This group will be hit the hardest. They will see their taxes and expenses increase simultaneously. A good portion will have to live on far less than they are used to. Many will work longer hours just to stay solvent. Many may also join the working poor. It all may sound rather apocalyptic but the numbers do not lie. Politicians may avoid this problem for now, but sooner or later someone has to pay the piper."

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Ancient child skeleton sheds light on the history of mankind (Photo) - Pravda.Ru: "The paleontologists who are announcing the discovery in the journal Nature today said the 3.3 million-year-old fossils were of the earliest well-preserved child ever found in the human lineage."

Monday, September 25, 2006

Australia, arriva la nave spinta dal sole - Corriere della Sera: "Il progetto della Società «Solar Sailor» prevede anche mercantili solari
Australia, arriva la nave spinta dal sole
Un'imbarcazione alimentata da vele solari è operativa a Sydney e presto un traghetto simile collegherà San Francisco e Alcatraz"

New R&D Initiative: Terror Prevention Goes Sci-Fi - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "Terror Prevention Goes Sci-Fi

By Andrea Brandt

How do you detect a suicide bomber from afar? It's as easy as testing the air above his head for traces of explosives. How do you do that? A new german government program is working on a method along with numerous other high-tech, anti-terror systems."

Saturday, September 23, 2006

The World from Berlin: Does Thailand Have a Democratic Future? - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "THE WORLD FROM BERLIN
Does Thailand Have a Democratic Future?

Two days after the military takeover in Thailand, life has largely returned to normal on the streets of Bangkok. Many Thais seem pleased with the coup. But has Thailand turned its back on democracy for good?"

The Future of Agriculture: Seeds in the Arctic - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "Seeds in the Arctic

By Gerald Traufetter

The world's largest seed collection is being developed under the permafrost on the Arctic Sea island of Spitzbergen. The tens of thousands of varieties of wheat, corn and beans stored there could even survive a nuclear war. The survival of many crop plant could depend on it."

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Submarine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "anaerobic propulsion was first employed by the Spanish Ictineo II in 1864. Ictineo's engine used a chemical mix containing a peroxide compound to generate heat for steam propulsion while also providing oxygen for the crew. The system was not employed again until 1940 when the German Navy tested a system employing the same principles, the Walter turbine, on the experimental V-80 submarine and later on the naval U-791 submarine. At the end of the Second World War the British and Russians experimented with hydrogen peroxide/kerosene (paraffin) engines which could be used both above and below the surface. The results were not encouraging enough for this technique to be adopted at the time, and although the Russians deployed a class of submarines with this engine type code named Quebec by NATO, they were considered a failure. Today several navies, notably Sweden, now use air-independent propulsion boats which substitute liquid oxygen for hydrogen peroxide.

The German Type 212 submarine uses nine 34-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cells as air-independent propulsion, which makes it first series production submarine using fuel cells."

Proton Energy Systems - Company - News: "Burlington, Vermont - Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders filled Vermont’s first hydrogen-powered car at the newly unveiled hydrogen fueling station near Burlington’s waterfront. The station converts electric energy and water into clean hydrogen fuel, which can be dispensed into environmentally friendly, hydrogen-fueled vehicles that emit water as the primary byproduct. The project will provide a valuable testing ground for hydrogen automotive technology in cold-weather climates and help move Vermont and the nation closer to environmentally friendly, sustainable energy that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. "

Citroën Méhari - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Citroën Méhari
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

WHAT ABOUT SMALL WEIGHT AND SMALL DISPLACEMENT ?

The Fuels of the Future: Farming the World's Energy - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "Farming the World's Energy

By Christian Wüst

Agriculture offers the first serious alternatives to fossil fuels: Diesel, natural gas, and petroleum could give way in the future to 'biomass' energy. As development continues apace, so too do concerns about the farmed fuels' effectiveness."

NOW AFTER A WORLD THAT RESCUES PETS AT THE EMERGENCY ROOM ...
... BUT NOT HUMANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE ...
WE COULD HAVE A WORLD WHERE 35 MILLIONS PEOPLE STARVE ...
... SO THE OTHER 215 MILLIONS CAN DRIVE HUMMERS ...
WITH A FEDERAL CONTRIBUTION OF 1300 DOLLARS OF PUBLIC MONEY AT THE TIME OF PURCHASE

... REMEMBER DOS PASSOS ? ... YES, THERE ARE TWO AMERIKAS ...

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Can you trust your computer? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF): "Programs that use treacherous computing will continually download new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. If Microsoft, or the US government, does not like what you said in a document you wrote, they could post new instructions telling all computers to refuse to let anyone read that document. Each computer would obey when it downloads the new instructions. Your writing would be subject to 1984-style retroactive erasure. You might be unable to read it yourself.

Can you trust your computer? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF): "# The GNU Project distributes the GNU Privacy Guard, a program that implements public-key encryption and digital signatures, which you can use to send secure and private email. It is useful to explore how GPG differs from treacherous computing, and see what makes one helpful and the other so dangerous.

When someone uses GPG to send you an encrypted document, and you use GPG to decode it, the result is an unencrypted document that you can read, forward, copy, and even re-encrypt to send it securely to someone else. A treacherous computing application would let you read the words on the screen, but would not let you produce an unencrypted document that you could use in other ways. GPG, a free software package, makes security features available to the users; they use it. Treacherous computing is designed to impose restrictions on the users; it uses them.
# Microsoft presents palladium as a security measure, and claims that it will protect against viruses, but this claim is evidently false. A presentation by Microsoft Research in October 2002 stated that one of the specifications of palladium is that existing operating systems and applications will continue to run; therefore, viruses will continue to be able to do all the things that they can do today.

When Microsoft speaks of 'security' in connection with palla"

Can you trust your computer? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF): "In the past, these were isolated incidents. 'Trusted computing' would make it pervasive. 'Treacherous computing' is a more appropriate name, because the plan is designed to make sure your computer will systematically disobey you. In fact, it is designed to stop your computer from functioning as a general-purpose computer. Every operation may require explicit permission.

The technical idea underlying treacherous computing is that the computer includes a digital encryption and signature device, and the keys are kept secret from you. Proprietary programs will use this device to control which other programs you can run, which documents or data you can access, and what programs you can pass them to. These programs will continually download new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. If you don't allow your computer to obtain the new rules periodically from the Internet, some capabilities will automatically cease to function."

Google Operating System: Do you trust your computer?: "Do you trust your computer?

Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, designed by Trusted Computing Group, an industry consortium including Microsoft, Intel, IBM, HP and AMD. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are. The chip permanently assigns a unique and permanent identifier to every computer before it leaves the factory and that identifier can’t subsequently be changed.

A 'trusted' computer does not mean a computer that is trustworthy. The Trusted Computing Group describes 'Technical Trust' this way: 'an entity can be trusted if it always behaves in the expected manner for the intended purpose.' Critics characterize a trusted system as a system you are forced to trust rather than one which is particularly trustworthy.
"

Unintelligent Design - - science news articles online technology magazine articles Unintelligent Design: "We have been looking for our designer in all the wrong places. It seems we owe our existence to viruses, the least of semiliving forms, and about the only thing they have in common with any sort of theological prime mover is their omnipresence and invisibility. Once again, viruses have altered the way that we view them and, by extension, ourselves. As it turns out, they are not the little breakaway shards of our biology—we are, of theirs."

Un supertopo invade Londra: non ha più paura dell'uomo - Corriere della Sera: "Per quanto riguarda il cibo i ratti londinesi dimostrano di preferire i rifiuti dei fastfood più ricchi di proteine ed è intorno a questi locali che si rivela una loro più intensa presenza."

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Licenziata dal prete, perpetua gli brucia casa - Corriere della Sera: "Licenziata dal prete, perpetua gli brucia casa
Silvia Gomez, 39 anni, brasiliana, è stata arrestata dai carabinieri per incendio doloso e detenzioni di un machete e un coltellino"

Milano, sesso in tribunale - La Stampa Web: "Milano, sesso in tribunale
Ieri in un pianerottolo seminascosto del Tribunale, due persone sono state sorprese in atteggiamenti intimi. L'ufficio gip valuterà le responsabilità
12/9/2006"

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Errico Malatesta - Wikipedia: "Errico Malatesta tenta una sintesi della concezione anarchica, senza però imprigionarla in un sistema. A questo scopo distingue l'anarchia dall'anarchismo. La prima è il fine, ha un valore meta-storico ed universale: rappresenta il voler essere, e come tale non è deducibile da alcuna situazione storica. L'anarchismo è la traduzione di questo fine nella concretezza di una situazione storica. La divisione corrisponde a quella tra giudizi di valore e giudizi di fatto.

I valori fondamentali dell'anarchia –libertà, uguaglianza, solidarietà- sono espressioni a-razionali di una aspirazione universale, e come tali non si legano a nessuna dottrina"

Opinion: The Way Out of Afghanistan Is to Get Out - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "The Way Out of Afghanistan Is to Get Out

After the removal of the Taliban, American and ISAF troops were welcomed as liberators. But they have overstayed their welcome.

The initial American idea in Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 was not to do what the Soviet army had done -- not to commit a large force, but to work with allied Afghan militias, a small contingent of Special Forces and massive use of airpower.

But once the military option was adopted, there proved to be no way but to follow the Soviet path."

Thursday, September 07, 2006

THE MORO JIHAD: A Continuous Struggle for Islamic Independence in Southern Philippines: "THE MORO JIHAD
Continuous Struggle for Islamic Independence in Southern Philippines - Interview with Sheikh Salamat Hashim, Amir of the Moro Mujahideen

Ettore Majorana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The Italian writer Leonardo Sciascia has summarized some of the results of these investigations and these hypotheses in his passionate book La Scomparsa di Majorana (Einaudi, 1975 - English translation: The Moro Affair and The Mystery of Majorana, Carcanet, 1987, ISBN 0-85635-700-6). However, some of Sciascia's conclusions were refuted by certain of Majorana's former colleagues, including E. Amaldi and E. Segrè. The various hypotheses on Majorana's disappearance have been extensively discussed by Erasmo Recami in his book 'Il caso Majorana: Lettere, testimonianze, documenti' (Di Renzo Editore, Roma, 2000) and in a journal article (E. Recami, 'I nuovi documenti sulla scomparsa del fisico Ettore Majorana', Scientia, vol. 110, pp.577-588 (1975); English version titled 'New Evidence on the Disappearance of the Physicist Ettore Majorana', Scientia, vol. 110, p. 589 ff. (1975)). In the above-mentioned book and article, Recami discusses critically the various rival explanations concerning Majorana's disapparance, including those advanced by Sciascia in his short book, and presents highly suggestive evidence to the effect that Majorana absconded to Argentina."

Russian tramp makes brilliant career in Italy's Rome - Pravda.Ru: "Russian tramp makes brilliant career in Italy's Rome"

Tour bus with Russian tourists crashes in France killing 4 - Pravda.Ru: "Tour bus with Russian tourists crashes in France killing 4"

Sottomarino russo va a fuoco, 2 morti - La Stampa Web: "Sottomarino russo va a fuoco, 2 morti
Scoppiato sezione elettromeccanica, spento a mezzanotte"

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Inferno 4e download and installation: "spacer
Inferno Fourth Edition: download and installation


Fourth Edition (20060303)

Inferno can run as either a native operating system or as a hosted virtual operating system. This document explains how to configure the system for basic networking when installing to a hosted environment. Fourth Edition Inferno can run as a hosted virtual operating system on top of Plan 9, Unix or Windows. In this document, the term Unix is used to cover all supported variants, currently FreeBSD, Irix, Linux, MacOSX and Solaris, and the term Windows covers Windows Nt, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. (Windows 95, 98 and Me are not supported by this version of Inferno.)"

The Curt Jester: Software Consistory: "Speculation had been made in the past as to whether Pope Benedict XVI would appoint Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, Sun Solaris, or an open source operating system like Linux as the official operating system. Though some have objected to OS X because in Latin the words for 'apple' and for 'evil' are identical (malum) and to Sun since it would only encourage anti-Catholics in accusations of worshiping Babylonian sun gods."

... hey, maybe they can find a solution with perpetual reciprocal CROSS-licensing of Windows and the Gregorian Calendar ...

:)

WhatWouldJesusDownload.com - Home

.. hum ...

Ubuntu Christian Edition News: Ubuntu CE v1.2 released!! (September 04, 2006): "Ubuntu CE v1.2 released!! (September 04, 2006)
We have just released Ubuntu Christian Edition v1.2! We have added the GnuCash financial management software as well as the very popular Ubuntu customization tool, Automatix.

There are also some smaller additions such as the new Daily Bible Verse feature and a new GDM to make the look and feel of Ubuntu CE more consistent.

One of the major accomplishments with this release is the introduction of the Ubuntu CE Installer. With it users are able to easily install even more great Christian and Educational software that has been hand picked by the developers of Ubuntu CE."

NGOs in China: Helping Those Devoured by the Dragon - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "Helping Those Devoured by the Dragon

By Andreas Lorenz

They represent workers without rights, autistic children and the environment. The Communist Party eyes them suspiciously, but allows them to exist -- so long as they make no political demands. China's nascent non-governmental organizations are beginning to help those left behind by the country's economic boom.

Death wafts from the White River, which no longer has anything in common with its name. The surface is covered with brown scum, black streaks coat the sand, and fish long ago died out. But the toxic river is also contaminating the ground water along its banks.

When women in the village of Zhaiwan boil water from the White River, the acid eats through their metal cooking pots. Of the village's estimated 3,000 inhabitants, 125 have died of cancer in the last five years. 'They were all young people, none of them older than 45,' says Zhai Jinghan, the mayor.

Workers are drilling a new well on the outskirts of Zhaiwan, at a good distance from the river. 'We're now at a depth of 120 meters (394 feet),' says the mayor, a stocky man with bristly hair. 'The water was still undrinkable at 80 meters.'"

RedOrbit - Health - Effects of Substance Use Spans Generations: "Effects of Substance Use Spans Generations
Click to enlarge

By Charnicia E. Huggins

NEW YORK -- Indeed the apple may not fall from the tree in terms of substance use -- especially cigarette smoking -- and behavior problems, new study findings show.

In a long-term study conducted across three generations, researchers found that substance use in one generation was associated with problem behaviors and later substance use in the following generation. In turn, the substance use in the second generation was related to problem behaviors in the third generation.

The findings suggest that 'not only does parent's substance use affect their children but it also can affect their grandchildren,' study co-author Jennifer A. Bailey, of the University of Washington, in Seattle, Washington, told Reuters Health."

Monday, September 04, 2006

CNN.com - Tech boost for memory power - Aug 31, 2006: "Tech boost for memory power
POSTED: 1505 GMT (2305 HKT), August 31, 2006
Adjust font size:
Decrease fontDecrease font
Enlarge fontEnlarge font

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Human memory is notoriously unreliable -- as the memoirs of countless politicians have proved."

...
Products are not
specifically developed, or licensed for use in any nuclear, aviation, mass
transit, or medical application or in any other inherently dangerous
applications
...

...
and make sure you backup your brain frequently
...

:)

Google developing eavesdropping software | The Register: "Google developing eavesdropping software
Audio 'fingerprint' for content relevant ads"

... and don't forget to leave the webcam and the mic on while having sex ...

lolololololololol
:)

Massive pogroms between Russians and Chechens hit Karelia Republic - Pravda.Ru: "Russia's quiet and peaceful Karelia Republic became the center of massive riots and pogroms last weekend. Residents of the town of Kondopoga gathered on the town's square and smashed market stalls and cafes belonging to natives of the Caucasus. Three people were killed in the attacks."

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Fascio neutrini da Ginevra al Gran Sasso - Corriere della Sera: "Fascio neutrini da Ginevra al Gran Sasso
L'esperimento l'11 settembre. «L'esperimento fornirà importanti conclusioni sulle origini e il destino dell'universo»"

La nostra vita in un hard disk (o più) - Corriere della Sera: "La nostra vita in un hard disk (o più)
La parola d’ordine è «immagazzinare»: foto, film, musica, software. In un disco rigido da condividere e a cui connettersi

"we are sorry, due to an unpredictable system error your entire life has been erroneously sent to /dev/null, please restore your life from backup, and press ok to continue"

:)

Friday, September 01, 2006

Raising Nicotine Doses, on the Sly - New York Times: "Raising Nicotine Doses, on the Sly"

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