"We constantly hear about Dick Cheney's ties to Halliburton and how his ex-company is making bundles off U.S. contracts in Iraq. But what we don't hear about is how Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband are also making tons of money off the 'war on terror.' The wishy-washy senator now claims Bush misled her prior to the invasion of Iraq. I don't think she's being honest with us, though. There may have been other reasons she helped sell Bush's lies. According to the Center for Public Integrity, Feinstein's husband Richard Blum has racked in millions of dollars from Perini, a civil infrastructure construction company, of which the billionaire investor wields a 75 percent voting share. ... Feinstein, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee as well as the Select Committee on Intelligence, is reaping the benefits of her husband's investments." (02/28/06)
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Hack Attack: Beta test your goals
by Adam Pash
Here at Lifehacker, we check out handfuls of brand spanking new software and web applications every day. Reading Lifehacker for a couple of days, you quickly come to notice that an overwhelming majority of these apps claim sanctuary in the beta phase. In fact, some of my favorite web apps (Gmail, Flickr) have remained in beta well over a year after their initial launch.
Of course, there's a good reason for the beta phase - it allows developers time to test their product with plenty of room for mistakes, feedback, and improvements. That's all well and good for software, but for those of you who aren't developers, a good beta period can still be just what the doctor ordered. In fact, my single most useful tool for productivity and success is a well-thought out, well-planned "beta" period for whatever I'm hoping to accomplish.
The beta training period
As many of you probably know by now (and as I'll continue to tell you, I'm sure), I'll be running the Chicago Marathon on October 22 of this year. As you can see, I've got plenty of time to prepare, but that's not stopping me from getting started immediately. With the marathon 34 weeks away, I've got just enough time to set up two training sessions (a 16-week beta session, two weeks rest, and the final 16-week training plan) so that, come Marathon day, I can run with full confidence that I'm completely prepared for what lies ahead.
My beta training session will cover the same workouts (though slightly easier) as my final training plan. Aside from helping me prepare physically for a fairly grueling training schedule, the beta period also takes care of any major concerns I have about whether or not I can handle it. After I finish my beta training, I will know both that I can do the work necessary to train for a marathon and that I will be able to finish those 26.2 miles.
And that's a full 4 months before the actual race!
Use the beta as your buffer
It's foolish to expect that you'll have instant success with anything you try. You can avoid major disappointment and frustration if you plan ahead and consider the early stages of goal-setting and goal-accomplishing as just that - an early testing period that can potentially bring success, but, regardless of the outcome, is nonetheless a great learning and testing ground.
If luck smiles on you and you happen to get everything perfect right off the bat, then congratulations! If you're not so lucky, don't worry - allow yourself to make some mistakes, learn from them, gain better footing, and continue.
Plan when you can - when you can't, improvise
Of course I know it's not practical to plan a "beta" period for everything. For example, when time isn't on your side, it can be just as foolish to try to plan everything out when the only realistic option is to go off-the-cuff. But when you can identify your goals in advance (and there are plenty of times where this is the case), laying the groundwork and immediately starting in, especially when it's important to you, can make all the difference.
To make sure that you're always prepared to take the next step in whatever direction you're steering your life, it's important to recognize and set your goals as far in advance as possible, allowing yourself the opportunity to lay as much groundwork as you can before the time comes that you have to do it for real.
Is there such a thing as too much beta?
While Google is notorious for keeping its products in beta for years and years, there's no question that they've got the goods. As far as your goods go, whether your beta lasts for several weeks or several years (it really depends on the goal), the main concern is whether or not you're getting done what you need to do to be prepared to go live.
In my example, I go live on October 22nd in Chicago, and I'm happy and comfortable with the knowledge that I'll be prepared.
What goals (long- or short-term) have you (or should you) set up plenty of beta time for? How are you making sure you're ready when it's your turn? Let us know in the comments, or send an email to tips at lifehacker.com.
Adam Pash is an associate editor of Lifehacker. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.
Comment on this post
Related: Hack Attack: Mouse-lovin' Firefox
Related: Hack Attack: Quick launch workspaces
Related: Hack Attack: Using Windows Scheduled Tasks
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Making a meth of the PATRIOT Act
""If you thought al Qaeda or Iraqi insurgents were the major threats facing America, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) says you're wrong. According to Dent, 'The growing availability of methamphetamine is a form of terrorism unto itself.' Many of Dent's colleagues apparently agree, so they've attached surveillance, 'smuggling', and 'money laundering' provisions to the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act. These vast new police powers, contained in a new 'Combat Methamphetamine Act' (CMA) and other provisions, serve no purpose in the ongoing and serious struggle against terrorism." (02/24/06)
Monday, February 27, 2006
Windows XP Editions
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Grannies, Guns, and Government
Julian VanDyke often gets under my skin. I don’t think I am alone in thinking that his combative attitude makes it tough to have true discussion. That attitude is not reserved only for the discussion posts. Recently, in our inboxes, HoT editors received this challenge:
How about it, Hammer of Truth writers. Write something about this or is the only thing you can do is bash the Iraq war and promote pornography? Let’s see some Second Amendment action. Guys like me are really interested in preserving what little freedom we have to buy, sell and own arms of all kinds and descriptions without interference from big brother. Are you interested in this issue or are you hung up on bashing soldiers and our military?
Naturally, he included a tip. February 15th was reserved for the Oversight Hearing of “The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) Part l: Gun Show Enforcement.” This site provides the testimonies of a gun show manager, a former police officer turned gunsmith and an enthusiast. The testimonies, if true, demonstrate that the BATF has completely failed- either by ignorance or irreverence- to uphold its duty as servant of the American people and the constitution we hold dear. That failure reaches past the Second Amendment and actually brings in the First and Fourth as well.
The oral statement of Annette Gelles, the owner of Showmasters Gun Shows clearly defines her business purpose and expertise:
By way of background, I have been the sole manager and proprietor of Showmasters for 10 years. Showmasters is a family owned business that began as Old Dominion Shows in 1971. My father and mother began the Roanoke Valley Gun Show and Old Dominion Gun Collectors Society 34 years ago. Over the years, we have produced thousands of shows in Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. We are a family oriented business with a conservative customer base. We allow no profanity, pornography, explosive or smoke devices so that the show is appropriate for families with children. Many of the exhibitors are retired or active duty military or law enforcement personnel. Many are just average citizens - hobbyists, knife collectors, coin collectors, holster manufacturers, booksellers, and those offering police supplies and accessories.
She admittedly worked with law enforcement in the past and had insisted on safety and security with regard to vendors, but had never recognized more than a couple ATF officers at a show. I wonder why 475 officers were assigned, without her knowledge, to her August 13 – 14, 2005 show. Ms. Gelles apparently wondered the same.
Mr. Chairman, you might ask if the purpose for this operation was explained to me as the show promoter. It was not. Instead, here is what I observed. People were approached and discouraged from purchasing guns, before attempting to purchase they were interrogated and accused of being in the gun business without a license, detained in police vehicles, and gun buyer’s homes visited by police and much more. An example of what happened is as follows: One individual was simply pulled aside from a table in the middle of a purchase and asked by an ATF agent, “What do you want to buy that gun for?” All weekend long people were interrogated in a similar manner at a table in the concession area just outside the ATF Command Post exit door.
John White, former police officer and owner of The GunSmith, gave similar testimony.
And then he went a step further:Early activity at the gun shows was entirely appropriate and within the law, however, it appeared that as time went on, the ATF was joined by personnel from other law enforcement agencies who were outside their span of control. As more resources were added, both financial and personnel, the mission and activities seemed to continually expand to try to keep everyone busy. For example, in the early gun shows, the ATF would observe and interview when activity seemed suspicious. Then home checks were added as more local officers participated with the ATF. Then instead of just address verifications, our customers told us that the officers would interview neighbors and family members about how they felt about this person buying a gun.
snipWe would also like to see the inordinate attention on purchasers of firearms who happen to be female stopped. Times have changed and the world has changed. As more women have become head of households, entered law enforcement and the military and learned of their many advantages as competition shooters, more women are interested in firearms for the same reason as male purchasers.
It seems, however, to be the prevailing opinion for law enforcement at the gun show that any woman who brings a male friend for advice or support must be making a straw purchase.snip
If a woman approached a gun table, she was quickly surrounded by undercover officers closely observing her every move. A women was almost guaranteed to rate an interview if she actually purchased or attempted to purchase a gun at that show on Sunday.
James Lalime gave testimony which indicated that he was questioned because he was seen at many shows.
The first question agent McComas asked me was, “We see you at a lot of gun shows, are you in the business of buying and selling firearms?” To which I answered, “No sir, these are my personal firearms.” Again agent McComas said, “well we see you at every gunshow, are you sure you’re not buying and selling guns as a business?” And again I told him that these were out of my personal collection. To which agent McComas replied, “Well, because we see you at all the gunshows we think you are, and you should get a business license to do so, it’s not that hard!” When I tried to explain to agent McComas the reason they see me at all the shows, might be because I work for a FFL dealer and work at those shows. Agent McComas replied, “Are you walking around at gunshows buying and selling guns for the dealer you work for?’ I told him no, that I was there for myself, that I had some guns I didn’t shoot and wanted to sell. Again agent McComas insisted that they saw me at, “ALL the gunshows” And again I told him that I worked for an FFL dealer, at gunshows and maybe that’s why they see me at every show. Agent McComas again asked if I was there working for the FFL dealer, and again I told him that I was there for myself. This type of round, and round questioning went on for about another 15-20 minutes.
Violations of rights and liberties are too common today. Many people will read about this gun show and think that it doesn’t affect them. That is unfortunate for us all. I am thinking now of a woman who was well served by her ability to have a gun. Jackie Mae King, an 87 year old Illinois woman, was robbed in December. The crook cut her phone line to keep her from calling her big brother local police department. When a crook attempted again in February, Granny popped a cap into his ass lung. Again her phone line was cut, but she was not beaten as she was in December.
Our government and the anti-gun groups in this country would have you believe that the Second Amendment is something that relates to another era. Tell that to Jackie Mae King or the the people that Fox News found defending themselves.
– Little Rock, Ark: After the assailant attacked him and his son-in-law with a poker, a 64-year-old minister shot a man dead on church grounds. The attacker had engaged in a string of assaults in an apparent drug-induced frenzy.
– Corpus Christi, Texas: A woman shot to death her ex-husband, who had broken into her house. The woman had a restraining order against the ex-husband.
– Tampa Bay, Fla.: A 71-year-old man, Melvin Spaulding, shot 20-year-old James Moore in the arm as Moore and two friends were beating up his neighbor, 63-year-old George Lowe. Spaulding had a concealed weapons permit.
–Bellevue, Wash.: A man shot a pit bull that lunged to within a foot of him and his family. Police said the man’s family had been repeatedly menaced in the past by the dog.
– Jonesboro, Ga.: A father out walking with his 11-year-old daughter was attacked by an armed robber. The police say the father shot the attacker in self-defense and will not face charges.
– Houston, Texas: Andrea McNabb shot two of the three men who tried to rob her plumbing business on the afternoon of Dec. 1.
– Philadelphia, Pa: A pharmacy manager fatally shot one robber and wounded another after the robbers threatened to kill workers at the store. The wounded robber escaped.
The Second Amendment has a purpose. The purpose is to give free (wo)men the ability to protect life, property and/or country. That our law enforcement agencies wish to disregard that purpose should outrage us. That they disregard it while violating other rights should bring us to the point of outrage and action. Our founding fathers knew that we could not ever remain free if we were controlled by the guns of the government and they protected that knowledge by clearly stating it in the Constitution. It is not relative to a different time. It is essential for liberty today.
What They Brag About in Washington
"In his speech to the American Legion last Friday, Bush boasted, “With my 2007 budget, we’ll increase VA’s medical care budget by 69 percent since 2001. Our increased funding has given almost a million more veterans access to the VA medical care system.”
Bush did not go into further specifics. He did not say anything about a 437% increase in the number of soldiers who have received artificial legs, or a 328% increase in the number of soldiers who have gotten replacement right arms, or the surge in the number of American boys who have gotten false eyeballs courtesy of Uncle Sam. He did not mention how the Veterans Administration’s soaring number of wheelchair purchases is creating jobs for American manufacturing companies.
And while Bush brags that his reforms have given “almost a million more veterans” access to the VA, he does not specify how many of those are maimed for life, hollow shells of the men and women they were before Bush sent them to Iraq.
Regardless, the American Legion members cheered Bush like a conquering hero.
[**
Psycho Path voted wackiest street name
""Farfrompoopen Road, the only road to Constipation Ridge, lost to Divorce Court and Psycho Path, which placed No. 1 in an online poll of the nation's wildest, weirdest and wackiest street names. Mitsubishi Motors sponsored the poll on the website, and more than 2,500 voters cast their ballots during a week of voting that ended this month. Winners were announced Friday. 'Our readers really stepped up with some insane street names,' said Web site publisher Paul Eisenstein. 'Our panel had a difficult time narrowing several hundred down to the 10 our readers voted on. But we learned a lot about the byways of this country, not to mention the collective sense of humor of city planners everywhere.' In first place was Psycho Path in Traverse City, Mich., followed by Heather Highlands, Pa.'s, Divorce Court in second and Tennessee's Farfrompoopen Road in third. Eisenstein said all the roads were verified, although some are private and hard to find." (02/27/06)
Make Outlook thread conversations like Gmail
"Blogger Peter Jelliffe has posted a simple guide for setting up Microsoft Outlook to mimic the conversation threads used in Gmail.
To mimic Gmail’s threads we need a way for Outlook to group by subject, but ignore the FW: and RE:. Luckily, it has just such a feature. It’s called Conversation, and it's an optional column just like date received and subject. In your Inbox, go to the pane that lists your emails. Right-click any of the field headings, like From, or Subject, and select Field Chooser. You’ll get a list of additional fields that pertain to your emails. Click and drag Conversation to the other field headings. You’ll notice it looks just like subject, but ignores FW: and RE:.
For all you Thunderbirds out there, you can do the same by simply clicking on the column on the far left of the message pane with the conversation bubble.
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Dr. Contextlove or: “How I stopped worrying and learned to love iCal”
A favorite topic of GTD‘ers is the contexts that we each choose to identify the times, tools, or locations by which a given task can or must be undertaken. This is a highly personalized decision, and I’ve learned a lot from seeing how other people are doing it.
Since I see it’s been a while since I’ve talked about how I’m using contexts, here’s an update that reflects how I’m now using Kinkless GTD and iCal to keep things wrangled.
Contexts, enumerated
It’s worth mentioning that a lot of my approach has been shaped by my move from Entourage to kGTD + iCal. While the actual contexts haven’t changed too much, the way I organize and think about them has evolved, as we’ll see a bit later.
The context themselves, with a brief explanation, where it’s useful or non-obvious:
Actionable contexts
- brainstorm
- calls
- chores
- decide
- design & code - stuff that usually involves opening a text editor or Photoshop. I try to keep these kind of activities “ganged” together. (See also)
- desk - Usu. stuff like backups, filing, or paperwork, where I need to actually be at my desk or office in general
- email - Can be writing, reading, processing, or any task that starts with my email app
- errands
- google - Yep. It earns its own context. I do use it that much.
- mac anyplace - Anything that requires Mac work but not internet connectivity. Mostly administrative.
- monitoring - a more active version of “waiting on” — when I really need something and am, say, watching a page for updates or leaning on a late delivery
- refactor - This is a new one. When I find an item isn’t getting done — for whatever reason — I tell myself to go back later and refactor it (see also)
- read
- schedule - Something tentatively planned that hasn’t been nailed down yet. Also RSVPs I owe people.
- web
- write
Unactionable or deferred contexts
(Note: the “+” sign tells kGTD that these contexts don’t generate next actions or iCal syncs)
- agenda +
- cogitate + - Stuff I’m just percolating on for a while.
- delivery + - Mmmmm….FedEx.
- fallow project + - This is a weird context I use to mark projects that are dead or on-hold (it actually will be obviated by a feature in the next version of kGTD)
- later-maybe +
- not-yet + - If I want to take an action out of the queue for a while, I change it to “not-yet” from its active context. Accumulating too many of these is lazy, so I frequently shunt them off into a project support file.
- opportunities + - Speaking, writing gigs, possible interviews, etc. This is similar to “sales leads” I guess. Just stuff I’ve been asked to do in a non-specific way, and that I want to keep track of.
- projects-next + - Similar to “not-yet,” I sometimes use this as a placeholder for something that’s about to start, and that I don’t want to lose track of when looking at what’s on my plate.
- waiting-on +
So, that’s a snapshot of where I am now. A number of those contexts are “on the bubble” right now — too cute or fussy or potentially procrastinatable (is that even a word?). I comb through contexts in general every few weeks, or more often when one of them seems to have become an oubliette for the items I want to banish from thought. That’s a good sign that the context is not about action at all and should be removed or refactored immediately.
iCal Groups
And now: the sexy.
iCal sucks in a lot of ways (that’s for another post), but it does do one thing I love: it let’s you put your separate “calendars” — which, in our case, are the actionable contexts we’ve synced from kGTD — into “groups.” I’m using this to make three “meta-contexts” that mirror the very general types of work into which all my tasks (and their parent contexts) belong.
- Real World - Primarily physical or location-based stuff (esentially: “non-computer” contexts)
- Think - Brain work, decision-making, and creative stuff — which usually occurs in the proximity of a Mac, but absolutely does not have to.
- Compute - Tasks that by their nature require direct computer interaction: this is the “@computer” uber-category
But why bother with organizing these into meta-groups? Ah, because it makes it so easy to reveal or hide all the tasks that I can work on at a given time, just by ticking the group’s little click box. This makes having many contexts so much more manageable. So, if you’re keeping score, here’s how they break out in iCal
- Real World
- errands
- chores
- calls
- read
- Think
- brainstorm
- decide
- research
- schedule
- write
- Compute
- desk
- design & code
- mac anyplace
- web
- monitoring
Which gets me to the secret point of this post. It’s the basic kGTD approach that’s been really useful to me:
- Use kGTD to collect, process, organize, and review
- Use iCal to do
This has the effect of keeping you really focused on the doing rather than the fiddling. Once you’ve got kGTD set up to a point where you trust it to mind your world, try living in iCal instead. For one thing it’s a lot less engrossing to play with, which might send you back to work more quickly than the amusement park ride that kGTD can be. You end up with a shorthand way to mentally gauge your “doing-to-fiddling ratio”; If you find you are spending a lot more time in kGTD than iCal you know it’s time to ramp up the working and dial down the fussy meta work.
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Thursday, February 23, 2006
Eye scans: A high tech hall pass?
""The brushed aluminum box on the brick wall glows purple, a rim of light around an unblinking HAL-like eye. You peek in and stare for a second, and the steel doors click open. A soothing female voice says: "Identification is completed."
Welcome to Park Avenue Elementary School.Freehold Borough School District installed the iris-scanning devices in its three schools last month. It and a district down the road in New Egypt are the first U.S. school systems to study what happens when adults are asked to eye-scan to get in the door each day. .... Parents began signing up last fall, submitting to scans of both eyes and driver's licenses. At last count, 300 of a possible 1,500 had enrolled, with many citing privacy concerns. It's optional, and Meara doesn't plan to change that. Privacy advocates such as Lillie Coney of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., say people's concerns are justified — both government agencies and computer hackers could someday access the data. "Eventually it's going to be used in ways that have nothing to do with getting into those three schools," she says." (02/23/06)
Settling in for the “Long War”
"With public support for the “War on Terror” flagging, the White House and the Pentagon have a plan. Not to curtail the excesses of the “War on Terror” or to abandon the “benevolent hegemony” they’re buying with the lives of American soldiers, but something much better. They’re changing the name.
The ill-conceived state of perpetual war formerly known as the “War on Terror” will now be known as…wait for it…”The Long War.” That’s right, instead of backing away from the critics who have been making comparisons between the current regime and Big Brother from Orwell’s 1984, the Bush Administration is embracing it. The Pentagon is making 20-year strategic plans and Rumsfeld is publicly comparing the current effort with the Cold War (1946-1991). One of the core elements of the Pentagon strategy is
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
CIA World Factbook in a Radial Browser
A much more fluid and interesting way to display information from the CIA World Factbook."
Model T PC
Many Unusual Looking Buildings On Earth
Very interesting buildings that you probably have never seen before."
Monday, February 20, 2006
Big Government Really Works
"
Joke Number One, from Newsday.com:
The mobile homes started arriving sometime in October, pulling into a 282-acre site at the Hope, Ark., airport, one after another, row upon row. They kept on coming, week after week and month after month, convoys of sometimes 100 at a time lugged by trucks that clogged the roads into town, queuing up on a runway and on the adjacent gumbo-like soil, side to side, front to back.
They were supposed to be shelters for the thousands of victims left homeless by Hurricane Katrina, waiting here to be shipped out, reflections of the goodwill of a nation. But they never left. Instead, they kept on coming, kept on piling up, like logs at a dam. Today, 10,777 of the units sit stockpiled in Hope, $300 million in taxpayer money gridlocked in bureaucracy, 450 miles from New Orleans with no place to go.
And more than five months after Katrina hit, the scene has become a symbol to locals almost on
China:Censors Can’t Swat A Sparrow
"An interesting article from WebProNews that landed in my inbox today, about China’s censorshiop efforts:
One Chinese blogger stays on the move, uses multiple blogs, and says the demand for non-corrupt political officials is the real foe of censorship.
Li Xinde has no First Amendment to protect him as an investigative reporter in China. But he does have a knack for finding stories of corruption and abuse that make their way even to state-run media outlets, Reuters reported.
“I can still spread news across the whole country in just 10 minutes, while the propaganda officials are still wondering what to do,” Li told Reuters.
He described how he has to work to avoid arrest, by shuttling around to different Internet bars in rural China:
“It’s what Chairman Mao called sparrow tactics. You stay small and independent, you move around a lot, and you choose when to strike and when to run.”
Those strikes have taken down a corrupt deputy mayor in one province, while another claimed a businessman met a brutal death while held in official custody.
On the topic of businesses like Yahoo and Google choosing to
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Cheney's Got a Gun
"I agree with babylonandon--this is funny and well-made, and your politics shouldn't matter.
I like the picture Dan Gifford forwarded, too:
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Writing a note to yourself
"Dear, Merlin,
For someone so fond of lecturing other people about their problems, I have a lot of annoying tics (I mean, duh). One of my worst, at least back in the day, was seldom bothering to RTFM before demanding lots of time-consuming help from others.
For years, my court of first resort was almost always to email the smartest, often busiest person I knew about a given topic, alerting them as to their new role as the speed bump between me and solving my problem (cf: the classic Balloon joke). I’ve gotten better at it over the years, for sure, and, in the age of Google, it’s a habit that’s easy enough to shed.
The funny thing I eventually realized was that I could and often did find the solution to my problem — part way through writing the email in which I was asking for help. I realize this sounds kind of silly, but the next time you’re having trouble figuring something out, try writing a note to yourself.
Seriously, open up your email program, type in your own email address, then choose a
Friday, February 17, 2006
Surveillance cameras in private homes
""Houston's police chief is suggesting putting surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets and even private homes. Chief Harold Hurtt today said it's another way of combatting crime amid a shortage of officers. .... Scott Henson with the American Civil Liberties Union calls Hurtt's proposal to require surveillance cameras as part of some building permits -- "radical and extreme." Houston Mayor Bill White hasn't talked with Hurtt about his idea, but sees it as more of a "brainstorm" than a "decision.'" (02/16/06)
New Bomb Drills for Bunkers
"
Weapons Grade author David Hambling has another fascinating two-part series for Defense Tech, on weapons that drill and scrape their way through targets.
Meet Deep Digger, first of a revolutionary new generation of bunker-busting weapons, described in this week’s New Scientist. This is literally ground-breaking new technology which uses cannon to tunnel through solid, drilling a channel for the bomb.
Existing weapons for attacking hard targets are kinetic, relying on sheer momentum to break through rock and concrete. To get much improvement you have to make them much bigger - like the outsize 30,000 lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or much faster - like the proposed conventional version of the D5 Trident
Civil liberties fear as US terror suspect list rises to 325,000
""Civil liberties organisations expressed outrage yesterday after it was reported that the database of terrorist suspects kept by the US authorities now holds 325,000 names, a fourfold increase in two and a half years. The list, maintained by the National Counterterrorism Centre (NCTC), includes different spellings of the same person's names as well as aliases, but the Washington Post quoted NCTC officials as saying that at least 200,000 individuals are on it. They said that "only a very, very small fraction" of that number were US citizens, but that insistence did little to defuse the reaction. Timothy Sparapani, an expert on privacy rights at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ACLU's response was one of incredulity, and alarm that many people are likely to be on the list by mistake, with serious impact on their lives and few, if any, means of getting themselves off it." (02/16/06)
Free Mozart Music
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Gorgeous graphs!.
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Impresssive display of many visualiztion projects for a vast array of data mining applications. Gorgeous graphs!.
Self Development Free Audio & Video
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FREE downloadable audio files for motivation, time management, personal inspiration. 60 or more!
FILExt - The File Extension Source
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Excellent reference for figuring out what program is required for files with unknown extension names."search the...
Give XP a facelift
"
Reader Jonaric writes in:
I used to be big into shell replacement programs for Windows, that is, until I actually started using them, and noticed my machine ran slow.
I recently found that Microsoft has released the Windows Media Center Edition skin (called "Royale"), which you can install on regular ol' Windows XP to give it a much needed face lift! High-gloss glass-like bars are easy on the eyes, and look much better than the ballooned cartoonish look of Windows XP currently. Also, the theme does not slow down your box.
I went for it and tried it out, and it really is a pretty cool skin - and nice on the eyes. To change your Windows theme after installing, right-click on your desktop and go to Properties. Next click on the Appearance tab, and under Windows and buttons select "Media Center style." The theme is sleek and nice. You might have to jump through some validation hoops for the download - after you do, just look for "royale.zip."
Anyone else know any other XP theme
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Rapid Fire 02/15/06
"* Skiers get body armor
* Killer drone, tres chic
* 325,000 watch list names
* Whistleblower: NSA scandal only the start
* Awful new Abu Ghraib pics emerge
* Next "grand challenge": California traffic
* Dems spooked by wiretaps
*
Digg/nightraker
Flickr/nightraker
Myspace/my_other_head
Twitter/nightraker
YouTube/nightraker
Del.icio.us/nightraker
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