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walktalker · 28-08-01, 06:45 PM

Burning the Juice at Burning Man
Looking for a city with a healthy energy grid? Come to Burning Man 2001, where revelers, expected to number 20,000 plus by week's end, flaunt a pro-growth approach to the power supply that would make Dick Cheney proud. Even before the event officially opened Monday, early arrivals had fired up several 25,000-watt diesel generators and dozens more smaller ones, lighting up more desert floor than most of the nearby towns in surrounding Pershing County. Black Rock City may be the world leader in per capita disco density: DJs at the neon-lit Den of Iniquity had a full dance floor by Sunday night, lured by the high-volume house mix pumping out of the camp's nightclub-quality sound system.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46349,00.html

Programming a Way Out of Poverty
When Mark Alvarado was hired at Mission High School five years ago to help build its activities program, he noticed the students were struggling with bigger problems than getting a date for the prom. Situated in a tough urban neighborhood of San Francisco, Mission High School was rife with truancy problems, drugs and gang violence. Alvarado believed these kids needed to be taught practical skills to capture their interest and to keep them out of trouble. Most Mission High kids were not on the fast track to college, Alvarado said, and needed a realistic approach to entering the job market immediately following graduation.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45922,00.html

Shock Waves From Space
In a big boost for star theory, astronomers have seen shock-waves from a dying star for the first time. A new image from the Hubble telescope shows a pair of supersonic shocks waves created when gas from a collapsing star hits surrounding clouds of cosmic gas and dust. Astronomers had predicted such events on paper but had never before captured them on film. As it dies, the star is creating a new planetary nebula. In billions of years, a similar fate will befall the sun.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46364,00.html

Let the Dot-Info Challenges Begin
Dot-info, the first new regulator-approved Internet domain since dot-com, won't go live for another three weeks. In the meantime, trademark holders are already gearing up to fight for rights to choice real estate in the new domain. Afilias, the consortium managing dot-info, on Monday called an end to an exclusive registration period for trademark holders claiming space in the new domain. Starting Wednesday, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will begin deciding disputes between rival registrants vying for ownership of sites in the dot-info domain.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,46350,00.html

This Is Your Brain on Electricity
For decades, doctors have used pacemakers to regulate the heart. Now they're implanting similar devices into the brain. Thousands of patients with the most serious cases of Parkinson's disease and epilepsy have received the devices since they obtained approval in 1997 from the Food and Drug Administration. Hundreds more are slated to take part in clinical trials to see if the pacemakers' electrical impulses can control chronic pain, depression and even obesity. In America, over 1.2 million people suffering from depression have found that traditional medications don't work for them, say makers of the device. About 250,000 epileptics are in the same situation, as are nearly 100,000 sufferers of Parkinson's disease.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,46278,00.html

Sklyarov Boss to Skirt DMCA
Undeterred by the July arrest of his employee, Dmitry Sklyarov, the president of ElcomSoft, is planning to make the now famous presentation again. But this time in a country where there's no Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Alexander Katalov, president of ElcomSoft, will present an updated version of "EBooks Security: Theory and Practice at the Black Hat Briefings" on Nov. 22 at a security conference in Amsterdam. Plus: A British Internet monitoring company says that as many as 7,500 copyrighted books are available free online.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46318,00.html

Borders Books kills face-scanning plan amid criticism
Book shoppers in London can breathe easier: Big Brother isn't lurking between the shelves. Not yet, anyway. Bookstore chain Borders Group Inc. has temporarily suspended a trial plan to implement FaceIt face recognition software in two stores in the city, pending a review of legal and human rights issues, spokeswoman Jenny Carlen said. The software, sold by Minnetonka, Minn.-based Visionics Corp., fights shoplifting by constantly comparing images of shoppers captured by a store video camera against a police database of known criminals, according to information on Visionics' Web site.
http://www.computerworld.com/storyba...O63359,00.html

Not Only Can You Do Your Own DSL, Here's How to Become a Broadband Tycoon at the Same Time
This is the week I said we'd roll our own DSL. On the surface it looks like a daunting task, but it is actually not that hard at all — if you can get past the many regulatory loopholes. But why would you even want to do such a thing? Well maybe DSL isn't available in your area. Maybe you want a significantly cheaper alternative to a T-1 line. Or just maybe you and the kid down the block want to play networked games at warp speed. Well here is how to do it.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010823.html

Brain Cells, Silicon Chips Are Linked Electronically
Scientists for the first time have linked multiple brain cells with silicon chips to create a part-mechanical, part-living electronic circuit. To construct the partially living electronic circuit, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Germany managed to affix multiple snail neurons onto tiny transistor chips and demonstrated that the cells communicated with each other and with the chips. The advance is an important step toward a goal that is still more science fiction than science: to develop artificial retinas or prosthetic limbs that are extensions of the human nervous system. The idea is to combine the mechanical abilities of electronic circuits with the extraordinary complexity and intelligence of the human brain.
http://www.washtech.com/news/biotech/12165-1.html

Stuffing MTV's ballot box
The premise is simple: Every day MTV fans vote for their favorite video via phone calls and e-mails. The results are tabulated and the top 10 clips air on the cable channel's flagship show, the Carson Daly-hosted "Total Request Live," or TRL. The deceptively simple interactive formula has transformed the daily countdown into a pop culture phenomenon, a teen town meeting place that draws Britney, Madonna and Kid Rock on a regular basis. It's become home too, for a generation of teens who revel in their programming power and ability to pick the hits. It's supposed to be a showcase for democracy. But is TRL really as great an exercise in populist democracy as MTV would like us to believe? This is the music business, after all, built on smoke and mirrors.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/28/trl/index.html

Owning the Future: The Green-back Revolution
Bona fide or not, concerns about the safety of genetically modified crops have been grabbing headlines. But a far bigger story looms in agricultural biotechnology: that of an industry choking on its own patent claims. For a powerful example, consider recent patent activity at Monsanto. First, the company won a patent — number 6,174,724 for those keeping score — that covers a seminal technology in transgenic plant research: the use of antibiotic-resistant genes as markers. Amazingly, however, an even worse intellectual-property nightmare is brewing.
http://www.techreview.com/magazine/sep01/shulman.asp

Genetic basis for panic attacks revealed
The genetic basis for most panic attacks and other devastating anxiety disorders has been discovered. The breakthrough could make it possible to develop drugs that help people conquer their fears. "It looks like they have found an entirely new mechanism of disease," says Raymond Crowe, a psychiatrist at the University of Iowa who studies the genetics of panic disorder. "It's a very important finding." According to some estimates, more than 10 per cent of people suffer from some form of anxiety disorder. Xavier Estivill's team at the Centre for Medical and Molecular Biology in Barcelona was studying families with a history of problems such as panic disorders, agoraphobia (fear of public places) and social phobia. The researchers discovered that a small region on chromosome 15 was duplicated in 90 per cent of the affected family members.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991185

28-08-01, 06:45 PM	#2
walktalker The local newspaper man Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Montreal Posts: 2,036	Burning the Juice at Burning Man Looking for a city with a healthy energy grid? Come to Burning Man 2001, where revelers, expected to number 20,000 plus by week's end, flaunt a pro-growth approach to the power supply that would make Dick Cheney proud. Even before the event officially opened Monday, early arrivals had fired up several 25,000-watt diesel generators and dozens more smaller ones, lighting up more desert floor than most of the nearby towns in surrounding Pershing County. Black Rock City may be the world leader in per capita disco density: DJs at the neon-lit Den of Iniquity had a full dance floor by Sunday night, lured by the high-volume house mix pumping out of the camp's nightclub-quality sound system. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46349,00.html Programming a Way Out of Poverty When Mark Alvarado was hired at Mission High School five years ago to help build its activities program, he noticed the students were struggling with bigger problems than getting a date for the prom. Situated in a tough urban neighborhood of San Francisco, Mission High School was rife with truancy problems, drugs and gang violence. Alvarado believed these kids needed to be taught practical skills to capture their interest and to keep them out of trouble. Most Mission High kids were not on the fast track to college, Alvarado said, and needed a realistic approach to entering the job market immediately following graduation. http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45922,00.html Shock Waves From Space In a big boost for star theory, astronomers have seen shock-waves from a dying star for the first time. A new image from the Hubble telescope shows a pair of supersonic shocks waves created when gas from a collapsing star hits surrounding clouds of cosmic gas and dust. Astronomers had predicted such events on paper but had never before captured them on film. As it dies, the star is creating a new planetary nebula. In billions of years, a similar fate will befall the sun. http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46364,00.html Let the Dot-Info Challenges Begin Dot-info, the first new regulator-approved Internet domain since dot-com, won't go live for another three weeks. In the meantime, trademark holders are already gearing up to fight for rights to choice real estate in the new domain. Afilias, the consortium managing dot-info, on Monday called an end to an exclusive registration period for trademark holders claiming space in the new domain. Starting Wednesday, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will begin deciding disputes between rival registrants vying for ownership of sites in the dot-info domain. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,46350,00.html This Is Your Brain on Electricity For decades, doctors have used pacemakers to regulate the heart. Now they're implanting similar devices into the brain. Thousands of patients with the most serious cases of Parkinson's disease and epilepsy have received the devices since they obtained approval in 1997 from the Food and Drug Administration. Hundreds more are slated to take part in clinical trials to see if the pacemakers' electrical impulses can control chronic pain, depression and even obesity. In America, over 1.2 million people suffering from depression have found that traditional medications don't work for them, say makers of the device. About 250,000 epileptics are in the same situation, as are nearly 100,000 sufferers of Parkinson's disease. http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,46278,00.html Sklyarov Boss to Skirt DMCA Undeterred by the July arrest of his employee, Dmitry Sklyarov, the president of ElcomSoft, is planning to make the now famous presentation again. But this time in a country where there's no Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Alexander Katalov, president of ElcomSoft, will present an updated version of "EBooks Security: Theory and Practice at the Black Hat Briefings" on Nov. 22 at a security conference in Amsterdam. Plus: A British Internet monitoring company says that as many as 7,500 copyrighted books are available free online. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46318,00.html Borders Books kills face-scanning plan amid criticism Book shoppers in London can breathe easier: Big Brother isn't lurking between the shelves. Not yet, anyway. Bookstore chain Borders Group Inc. has temporarily suspended a trial plan to implement FaceIt face recognition software in two stores in the city, pending a review of legal and human rights issues, spokeswoman Jenny Carlen said. The software, sold by Minnetonka, Minn.-based Visionics Corp., fights shoplifting by constantly comparing images of shoppers captured by a store video camera against a police database of known criminals, according to information on Visionics' Web site. http://www.computerworld.com/storyba...O63359,00.html Not Only Can You Do Your Own DSL, Here's How to Become a Broadband Tycoon at the Same Time This is the week I said we'd roll our own DSL. On the surface it looks like a daunting task, but it is actually not that hard at all — if you can get past the many regulatory loopholes. But why would you even want to do such a thing? Well maybe DSL isn't available in your area. Maybe you want a significantly cheaper alternative to a T-1 line. Or just maybe you and the kid down the block want to play networked games at warp speed. Well here is how to do it. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010823.html Brain Cells, Silicon Chips Are Linked Electronically Scientists for the first time have linked multiple brain cells with silicon chips to create a part-mechanical, part-living electronic circuit. To construct the partially living electronic circuit, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Germany managed to affix multiple snail neurons onto tiny transistor chips and demonstrated that the cells communicated with each other and with the chips. The advance is an important step toward a goal that is still more science fiction than science: to develop artificial retinas or prosthetic limbs that are extensions of the human nervous system. The idea is to combine the mechanical abilities of electronic circuits with the extraordinary complexity and intelligence of the human brain. http://www.washtech.com/news/biotech/12165-1.html Stuffing MTV's ballot box The premise is simple: Every day MTV fans vote for their favorite video via phone calls and e-mails. The results are tabulated and the top 10 clips air on the cable channel's flagship show, the Carson Daly-hosted "Total Request Live," or TRL. The deceptively simple interactive formula has transformed the daily countdown into a pop culture phenomenon, a teen town meeting place that draws Britney, Madonna and Kid Rock on a regular basis. It's become home too, for a generation of teens who revel in their programming power and ability to pick the hits. It's supposed to be a showcase for democracy. But is TRL really as great an exercise in populist democracy as MTV would like us to believe? This is the music business, after all, built on smoke and mirrors. http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/28/trl/index.html Owning the Future: The Green-back Revolution Bona fide or not, concerns about the safety of genetically modified crops have been grabbing headlines. But a far bigger story looms in agricultural biotechnology: that of an industry choking on its own patent claims. For a powerful example, consider recent patent activity at Monsanto. First, the company won a patent — number 6,174,724 for those keeping score — that covers a seminal technology in transgenic plant research: the use of antibiotic-resistant genes as markers. Amazingly, however, an even worse intellectual-property nightmare is brewing. http://www.techreview.com/magazine/sep01/shulman.asp Genetic basis for panic attacks revealed The genetic basis for most panic attacks and other devastating anxiety disorders has been discovered. The breakthrough could make it possible to develop drugs that help people conquer their fears. "It looks like they have found an entirely new mechanism of disease," says Raymond Crowe, a psychiatrist at the University of Iowa who studies the genetics of panic disorder. "It's a very important finding." According to some estimates, more than 10 per cent of people suffer from some form of anxiety disorder. Xavier Estivill's team at the Centre for Medical and Molecular Biology in Barcelona was studying families with a history of problems such as panic disorders, agoraphobia (fear of public places) and social phobia. The researchers discovered that a small region on chromosome 15 was duplicated in 90 per cent of the affected family members. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991185 __________________ This post was sponsored by Netcoco, who wants cookies, cookies, cookies and, you guessed it, more cookies