The Newspaper Shop -- Wednesday edition

[walktalker]

MS hires national security advisor
Hoping to play a larger role on the homeland security scene, Microsoft has created a new position to advise U.S. policymakers on information technology issues. The company said Wednesday it has tapped Thomas Richey, a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer, to fill the new post of federal director of homeland security at the company. After serving for 20 years in the Coast Guard, Richey retired in 2001 and became policy adviser to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in whose office he worked on homeland security and other issues. Microsoft said it created the post in order to help the government manage its IT systems and to make sure the different systems work together.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-965649.html

SETI@home begs for "last resort" funding
The director of SETI@home - a high-profile distributed computing experiment to find extraterrestrial life - has made a plea to his users for funding after denying late last month that the project was facing a funding crisis. SETI@home director, David Anderson, last month gave assurances that work on SETI@home II, which would give Australia a prominent role in the experiment, hadn't stopped and that its current funding situation did not pose an immediate threat to the project's continuation. Anderson was responding to comments by the project’s chief scientist, Dan Werthimer, to Australian scientists at the time giving a gloomy prognosis for SETI@home I and II.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebu...0269915,00.htm

PCI connections to put in double duty
The group responsible for maintaining the PCI standard for linking PC components announced Wednesday that it is working on a new version that will double the speed of connections. The PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), an industry consortium that includes representatives from Intel, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and other PC giants, said it has begun initial work to develop specifications for PCI-X 1066, the successor to the recent PCI-X 266 and PCI-X 533 specifications. The newest standard will allow PC components to exchange data at bandwidths of up to 8.5 gigabytes per second, compared with less than 1 gigabyte per second for current versions.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-965663.html

Tech taps into portable power sources
The pace at which scientists are developing new energy sources for portable electronics is dramatically speeding up as the industry races to make smaller devices with longer-lasting batteries. Canadian government researchers at the Alberta Research Council (ARC) announced this week that they have built a working prototype of a fuel cell that uses hydrogen gas as a fuel but can be adapted to run on a variety of sources such as natural gas, butane or propane. Meanwhile, a team from Cornell University last month unveiled a device that converts the energy stored in radioactive material directly into mechanical motion, which in turn moves the parts of a miniscule machine to generate electricity.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-965640.html

Start-up steps up with cheaper tablet PCs
StepUp Computing, a start-up formed by former Emachines executives, is launching an inexpensive tablet computer. StepUp's tablet, the DocuNote, weighs 2.5 pounds and features an 8.4-inch touch screen and built-in camera. It will start at about $1,000 when it begins shipping next month, the company said. The DocuNote is designed for businesses where workers spend a lot of time in the field, such as law firms, insurance companies and real estate agencies. It also is suited for medical, government and education settings, the company said. The machine is similar in philosophy to one designed by Texas start-up Motion Computing, formed by former Dell Computer executives.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-965627.html

House OKs billion-dollar cybersecurity bill
Congress approved a massive spending program Tuesday afternoon that allocates nearly a billion dollars for computer security research. By a voice vote, the U.S. House of Representatives agreed to the Cyber Security Research and Development Act (CSRDA), which hands colleges and universities about $900 million over the next five years to create security centers, recruit graduate students and pay for research. The measure already has been approved by the Senate, and will go to President Bush for his signature. At a press conference after the vote, CSDRA's backers said the bill would help solve America's "cybersecurity" problems and convince more students to study related topics.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-965513.html

New flaws expose Net to attacks
A network protection firm on Tuesday revealed three new flaws in the software on which the Internet's domain name system relies. All three flaws could lead to denial-of-service attacks on the majority of domain name system (DNS) servers, which act as the address books for the Internet, said Internet Security Systems, which discovered the vulnerabilities. One flaw could allow an attacker to run programs on a vulnerable computer. Given the Internet attacks leveled at the DNS root servers three weeks ago, new attacks could be around the corner, ISS warned. "A worm could be developed using this thing," said Dan Ingevaldson, leader for ISS's vulnerability research and development group. "We feel this vulnerability is in the same class as" the flaw that led to Code Red.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-965525.html

The Internet faces a free-speech test
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear challenges to a pair of state laws that require sex offenders to register personal facts in publicly accessible databases, in a legal showdown that could set new rules for access to information in the digital age. The high court will seek to decide whether so-called Megan's laws in Alaska and Connecticut strike the correct balance between shielding a community from criminals and preserving the rights of criminal defendants who have completed their punishments. In addition, some court watchers say the justices may weigh the Internet's role in disseminating public information.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-965641...g=fd_lede2_hed

Proposed bill could jail hackers for life
A last-minute addition to a proposal for a Department of Homeland Security bill would punish malicious computer hackers with life in prison. The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday evening began debating the bill, which would reshape large portions of the federal bureaucracy into a new department combining parts of 22 existing federal agencies, including the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center. During closed-door negotiations before the debate began, the House Republican leadership inserted the 16-page Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) into the Homeland Security bill. CSEA expands the ability of police to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order, and offers Internet providers more latitude to disclose information to police.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-965750.html?tag=fd_top

Microsoft confident in security push
Ten months after Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates called on company's employees to make Windows more trustworthy, a company executive said the initiative is paying off. Speaking at the software giant's monthly Silicon Valley Speaker series, Craig Mundie, senior vice president for advanced strategies and policy, said that headway has been made in the company's Trustworthy Computing initiative. Other companies will have to follow suit or potentially lose consumer trust, he said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-965759.html?tag=fd_top

DVD software maker buys Veritas unit
Sonic Solutions, a software maker specializing in DVD-burning tools, announced Wednesday that it will acquire a division of storage software specialist Veritas Software. Novato, Calif.-based Sonic Solutions has signed an agreement to pay $9.2 million in stock for the desktop and mobile division of Veritas, which makes PC-backup and disc-burning tools. Products included in the acquisition are Veritas' RecordNow and Drive Letter Access CD- and DVD-burning tools and its Simple Backup and Backup MyPC applications. The Veritas products, particularly the CD-burning tools, will allow the company to offer a complete software package for makers of recordable DVD drives to package with their hardware, said Sonic Solutions CEO Bob Doris. Such bundling deals with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) account for the bulk of revenue in that market.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-965747.html?tag=fd_top

Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Flying Cell Phone Tower!
Step inside the air-conditioned warehouses at AeroVironment in Simi Valley, Calif., and you might think you've stumbled onto the set of Mr. Wizard. Above the many cubicles and offices, dozens of hand-built model airplanes hang by fishing line from the ceiling. Some look like insects made of balsa and tissue, powered by rubber bands or watch batteries; others resemble tiny stealth bombers. Walking a visitor down a hallway, Bob Curtin, the company's boyish-looking vice president, points out photos on the walls that commemorate some of the company's real scientific feats: the flight of the first human-powered aircraft, the Gossamer Condor of 1977, and the first solar-powered airplane to cross the English Channel with a human pilot, the Gossamer Albatross, in 1979. Later comes an 18-foot flying pterodactyl built for an Imax film; a solar car that won a race across Australia; and a palm-size spy plane, developed recently for the U.S. Department of Defense, that can take your picture while whizzing by at 40 mph.
http://www.business2.com/articles/ma...,44588,FF.html

Teachers get to make virtual decisions
Teachers can now play out typical scenarios of school life online in a "virtual school", as part of a new training programme. A child has a diabetic fit as you are trying to deal with the major strategy change in your subject area which has popped into the "in tray" in your virtual office. You can see the impact of the decisions you make on your colleagues in the virtual staffroom and, longer term, on the pupils. And crucially, if it all goes horribly wrong there's a "hindsight button" that lets you start again.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/2453907.stm

The best defense is a good database
Think of it as revenge of the nerds. Spiegler works for Helium, a six-person consulting company on the San Mateo coast that built a sophisticated database system for the 49ers' defensive squad. The system manages scouting reports, tracks opponents' tendencies and helps produce a weekly playbook -- the bible of professional football. It eliminates the need to hand-draw opponents' plays again and again, because any play can be printed out as needed. And it allows the 49ers to build a library of information that could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Want to know how often the Chargers run on first down? It's there. How about how many times they run left, as opposed to right? Want to factor in whether it's early in the game or late in the game? Whether they're ahead or behind? That's all there, too. Same goes for every other opponent and nearly every game situation.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ts/4499434.htm

Greeting card virus licensed to spread
The FriendGreetings electronic greeting card has all the hallmarks of a mass-mailing computer virus. The e-mail misleads a victim into downloading an application -- ostensibly to view a Web card -- and then sends itself to every e-mail address in the victim's Outlook contacts file. At least a few systems administrators have complained in Usenet postings that the mass-mailing e-card was to blame for swamping their network. Yet the creators -- Permissioned Media, a company apparently based in Panama -- will be hard to prosecute: The viral card is protected by a license agreement that tricks unsuspecting users into clicking "Yes" and consenting to have the program send itself to all their e-mail contacts.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-965570.html

Shoddy search prevents worker success
Ineffectual corporate search tools can be the biggest drag on employee productivity, costing companies as much as $15 million annually, according to new research. Internal company networks, or intranets, offer employees easy access to material such as company records, corporate policies or other data. Finding documents, however, can be overly challenging if an intranet is poorly designed or search tools aren't efficient, according to a study released Wednesday by the Nielsen Norman Group, a research firm. "Many companies don't have a coordinated intranet strategy, but rather tons of small fiefdoms with their own search tools and navigation," said Jakob Nielsen, a principal at the Norman Group and an expert on Web site and computer usability. "It completely ruins people's ability to find anything."
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-965719.html?tag=cd_mh

Disney to shoppers: Show us the coupon
Unable to figure out which of its customers legitimately used a discount certificate on its Web store earlier this month, Walt Disney is asking 13,000 people to simply mail in their coupons. In an e-mail message sent late last week to customers who placed an order using the $15 coupon, Disney said the gift certificate was meant only for people who had bought goods at its stores during a promotion earlier this year. Those shoppers were sent or given a paper coupon. In the message, Disney said it would cancel customers' coupon-related orders on Nov. 23 if it hadn't received their physical coupons by then.
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-965553.html?tag=cd_mh

Philips, Sony to buy InterTrust
Consumer-electronics giants Philips Electronics and Japan's Sony teamed up on Wednesday to buy InterTrust Technologies for $453 million -- a deal expected to speed up copyright security for digital music, films and software. The purchase by Philips and Sony -- joint inventors of the compact disc -- to buy a top U.S. patent holder in the field of "digital rights management" software could help tiny InterTrust mount a formidable challenge to rival Microsoft. The acquisition also takes aim at Macrovision, the dominant supplier of copy protection for feature films worldwide, which just last week purchased Midvar, a top supplier of technology used to thwart digital music piracy.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-965743.html?tag=cd_mh

FTC takes aim at spam, Net fraud
A coalition of government regulators led by the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday announced a crackdown on online spammers and scammers. Altogether, the regulators announced they had filed more than 30 enforcement actions and had sent letters to about 100 alleged spammers warning them to cease sending the unwanted and often fraudulent commercial e-mail messages. Additionally, the regulators announced the results of an investigation into spam, concluding that Net users who post their e-mail addresses in publicly accessible places, such as on chat sites or newsgroups, are highly likely to receive spam as a result. The regulators' action was the third such FTC-led initiative this year to combat spam, noted Brian Huseman, a staff attorney at the FTC.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-965723.html?tag=cd_mh

Music label widens door to Net
Record label EMI Group has significantly loosened the reins on how its music can be distributed on the Internet, striking a set of deals that expand what consumers can legally do with EMI tunes accessed via an online service. The label announced Wednesday that it has signed new distribution agreements with nine Net music companies, giving them the right to let customers make permanent downloads of songs, transfer songs to portable devices such as MP3 players and burn CDs of songs downloaded from the services. The names of the nine services are expected to be announced later in the day. The deals make an unusually sweeping statement in an industry that has typically inched forward with single, very limited business arrangements between record labels and individual Internet companies.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-965712.html?tag=cd_mh

MusicMatch in tune with labels
MusicMatch on Tuesday said it would introduce a new paid music-listening service, powered by fresh agreements with four major recording labels, including BMG Entertainment and Universal Music Group. The San Diego, Calif.-based company, which provides software and services for listening to music online, said it signed nonexclusive licensing deals with BMG, EMI Recorded Music, Universal and Warner Music Group. The agreements expand MusicMatch's repertoire of music with more than 8,000 artists, or 20,000 albums -- the foundation for a new subscription streaming audio service, called Artist On Demand. MusicMatch plans to launch Artist On Demand in December; the service will cost $6.95 monthly or $59.40 annually.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-965647.html?tag=cd_mh

"Potter" pirates fail to copy film to Net
File swappers have apparently tried and failed to use their technical wizardry to copy a pirated version of Warner Bros.' newest "Harry Potter" movie to the Internet before its Friday theatrical release. Warner Bros., a unit of AOL Time Warner, said Tuesday that it opened a copy of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" the company discovered in a hard-to-find location on the Internet, and found it to be an empty decoy. A company statement said the report it received about a pirated copy of the newest Potter film showing up on the Web turned out to be unsubstantiated. Warner Bros. had said earlier that the copy it had discovered was of poor quality.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-965561.html?tag=cd_mh

Rebuilt, faster Opera browser debuts
Web browser dark horse Opera Software has released a stripped-down, rebuilt version of its browser software, in its latest bid to chip away at Microsoft's dominance. The company's browser, which it has long-claimed that it loads pages substantially faster than Internet Explorer, has been almost completely rewritten to speed page loads even more and to support a wider variety of Web standards. The release has been eagerly awaited by the company's small user base but is unlikely to make much of a ripple in the wider Web market, analysts said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-965542.html?tag=cd_mh

Hit game "EverQuest" gets portable
Sony Online Entertainment announced Wednesday that it is creating a version of its hit online game "EverQuest" for Pocket PC handheld computers. "EverQuest" is one of the biggest financial successes in the nascent online gaming industry, with hundreds of thousands of subscribers paying $13 a month to access the game's vast fantasy world. The portable version of the game, for handhelds running Microsoft's Pocket PC software, will feature many of the same characters and environments as the PC version, but it won't have online components or multiplayer capabilities, said Sean Kauppinen, a Sony spokesman.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-965685.html?tag=cd_mh

Toshiba licenses TiVo technology
A U.S. subsidiary of Toshiba has licensed recording technology from TiVo and hopes to have products using it available by holiday season 2003. TiVo makes digital video recorders (DVRs), which allow consumers to record television programming to a hard drive rather than a videotape. The technology also allows more sophisticated feats, such as pausing live TV or making recommendations based on viewing habits. Toshiba America Consumer Products did not say whether it will produce a standalone device or combine the recording technology with other consumer electronics features. Financial details of the deal were not released.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-965617.html?tag=cd_mh

Sony to ease PC-entertainment networks
Sony will try to prod consumers into the convergence era this spring with RoomLink, which allows people to network PCs, TVs and stereo receivers with relative ease. RoomLink, which is already available in Japan and will hit U.S. shelves next spring, is essentially a networking hub for swapping data between disparate devices, said Mark Hanson, vice president of PC marketing at Sony. With it, music or digital photos stored on a PC hard drive can be played on a stereo or TV. Likewise, the hard drive can function as a personal video recorder. Connections can be made with cables or wirelessly through Wi-Fi. It will sell for around $199, Sony said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-965565.html?tag=cd_mh

The New Convergence
The ancient covenant is in pieces: Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance." So pronounced the Nobel Prize-winning French biologist Jacques Monod in his 1970 treatise Chance and Necessity, which maintained that God had been utterly refuted by science. The divine is fiction, faith is hokum, existence is a matter of heartless probability — and this wasn't just speculation, Monod maintained, but proven. The essay, which had tremendous influence on the intellectual world, seemed to conclude a millennia-old debate. Theology was in retreat, unable to explain away Darwin's observations; intellectual approval was flowing to thinkers such as the Nobel-winning physicist Steven Weinberg, who in 1977 pronounced, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless." In 1981, the National Academy of Sciences declared, "Religion and science are separate and mutually exclusive realms of human thought." Case closed. And now reopened.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...nvergence.html

New Tools a Spying Boss Will Love
Malicious hackers can occasionally ruin a network administrator's day, but it's the lazy or disgruntled employees who are constant threats to security and sanity. By promiscuously downloading any files that happen to catch their fancy, employees open big security holes in networks. And when they blithely purloin copyrighted material, they also open companies up to lawsuits. When they aren't pirating products, employees are probably using the corporate network to peruse porn, do their holiday shopping, or flirt with their co-workers via corporate e-mail and instant-messaging applications. Unethical employees best be on guard, though.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,56324,00.html

Protein Predicts Cancer's Spread
Measuring levels of a certain protein in a tumor could give doctors an astonishingly accurate way of predicting whether early breast cancer is likely to spread to the rest of a woman's body, a study suggests. If the preliminary findings hold up, doctors could someday use a growth protein called cyclin E to tell which women need surgery plus chemotherapy and which ones just need the tumor cut out. Cyclin E appeared six times more powerful a predictor than the current methods measuring tumor size and how far cancer cells have spread, said biochemist Khandan Keyomarsi of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,56380,00.html

AltaVista Makeover: A Better View
AltaVista is out to prove that troubled Internet companies can have second acts. In a bid to recapture its former status as the Web's top-ranked search engine, the Palo Alto, California, company rolled out a dramatic overhaul of its site and indexing methodology this week. Executives said the revamped site, which includes a pared-down front page and more frequent updates of indexed links, is part of a broader effort to restructure the company.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56335,00.html

Maine Spawns Budding Kubricks
Classroom windows look out on colorful treetops and the Atlantic ocean. Kids sit at tables together and walk down well-kept corridors. Teachers and students here have access to a computer lab full of iMacs, and they've each had laptops since last spring. Chappe's students are writing screenplays, and for extra credit they can use the school's digital video cameras and Apple iMovie software to make their own films. It's a creative writing lesson with a sprinkling of technology training. Along with a chance to work with high-tech gadgetry, students are learning that there's more to a good screenplay than a giant piece of poultry.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,56246,00.html

Brit Fights Hacking Extradition
An unemployed British computer administrator will fight U.S. efforts to extradite him to face criminal charges, in what U.S. authorities are calling the largest-ever successful hacking effort against American military networks, his lawyer said Wednesday. Gary McKinnon, 36, of London was indicted in federal courts in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday on eight counts of computer-related crimes. They included break-ins over 12 months at 92 separate U.S. military and National Aeronautics and Space Administration networks across 14 states, including two at the Pentagon. McKinnon also was accused of hacking the networks of six private companies and organizations.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56360,00.html

Attack of the Clones, Indeed
When visitors to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, began whispering about the clone-like similarity between the college's Old Library and the largest information repository in the Star Wars galaxy, librarians didn't shush them -- they called their lawyer. After poking around a Star Wars fan site, library officials were stunned to discover the uncanny resemblance of their Old Library's Long Room to the Main Hall of the Jedi Archives. The archives are from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, which was re-released on IMAX screens around North America last week. "It looks really similar," said Trinity College librarian Robin Adams. "Most people would agree with me on that." The comparison was widely discussed on online message boards after an article citing the library's architectural influence on the archives appeared on Cinescape.com in March.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,56346,00.html

New Military Equipment Falls Flat
The Army demonstrated equipment for detecting and identifying chemical and biological weapons Tuesday and offered an unintended lesson when a soldier wearing a stifling protective suit collapsed in the heat of the television lights. After some rest and water, Sgt. 1st Class Kerrethel Avery said she was fine. The incident nevertheless underscored drawbacks of the gear U.S. soldiers could be forced to wear in a possible war with Iraq. Tuesday's news conference was meant to publicize the Army's Tactical Escort Unit, which provides experts to identify and try to defuse possible chemical or biological weapons. About a half-dozen members of the unit demonstrated how they would disable a suspected terrorist chemical bomb, respond to an anthrax letter and examine a World War II-era chemical shell.
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,56349,00.html

For Bulk E-Mailer, Pestering Millions Offers Path to Profit
The sun was setting on Laura Betterly's six-bedroom house as she reviewed a pair of outgoing e-mail messages one last time. Satisfied, she moved her cursor to the "send" icon and clicked. "It's that simple," Ms. Betterly said triumphantly, swiping her palms. She had just dispatched e-mail messages to 500,000 strangers. Half saw the subject line: "Don't miss your chance to win 2002 Lexus RX300." The other half saw: "Win a trip to Nascar!" Ms. Betterly's messages joined the roughly two billion other unsolicited commercial e-mails that hit in-boxes around the world every day. The company she runs from her home, Data Resource Consulting Inc., sends out as many as 60 million such messages a month. That puts the 41-year-old single mother in the most hated breed on the Internet. She sends spam.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/...447148,00.html

Robotic Balloon Probe Could Pierce Venus's Deadly Clouds
NASA contractor Global Aerospace recently developed a hybrid satellite-balloon. The contraption, dubbed the StratoSail, was originally conceived as a way to control the paths of weather balloons floating at the edge of space. Yet this match made in the heavens might be headed for a very real hell: the nightmarish atmosphere of Venus. Global Aerospace's Dr. Alexey Pankine has conceived a rough-and-ready variant he calls DARE: Directed Aerial Robot Explorer. Earth's next door neighbor on the Sunward side, Venus makes the frozen deserts of Mars seem brisk and refreshing. Aside from being only spitting-distance from the Sun, Venus has a day even longer than its year.
http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...re_021113.html

Postmenopausal women can safely have babies
Women in their fifties and early sixties can safely carry a pregnancy to term, US research reveals. Medical data was gathered on women receiving IVF treatment involving donor eggs at the University of Southern California. It showed that women aged 50 to 63 experienced more complications during pregnancy than those in their twenties. But the older women had very similar rates of becoming pregnant and of having a miscarriage, the team reports. "Our data suggests there is not any definitive medical reason for excluding women over age 50 from attempting pregnancy on the basis of age alone," says Richard Paulson, who led the study.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993055

More news later on

[multi]

The New Convergence
The ancient covenant is in pieces: Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance." So pronounced the Nobel Prize-winning French biologist Jacques Monod in his 1970 treatise Chance and Necessity, which maintained that God had been utterly refuted by science. The divine is fiction, faith is hokum, existence is a matter of heartless probability — and this wasn't just speculation, Monod maintained, but proven. The essay, which had tremendous influence on the intellectual world, seemed to conclude a millennia-old debate. Theology was in retreat, unable to explain away Darwin's observations; intellectual approval was flowing to thinkers such as the Nobel-winning physicist Steven Weinberg, who in 1977 pronounced, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless." In 1981, the National Academy of Sciences declared, "Religion and science are separate and mutually exclusive realms of human thought." Case closed. And now reopened.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/...onvergence.html
and
so it should be...
tho religion of science is very healthy
though religion + science - dogma = might get us
somewhere?

For Bulk E-Mailer, Pestering Millions Offers Path to Profit
The sun was setting on Laura Betterly's six-bedroom house as she reviewed a pair of outgoing e-mail messages one last time. Satisfied, she moved her cursor to the "send" icon and clicked. "It's that simple," Ms. Betterly said triumphantly, swiping her palms. She had just dispatched e-mail messages to 500,000 strangers. Half saw the subject line: "Don't miss your chance to win 2002 Lexus RX300." The other half saw: "Win a trip to Nascar!" Ms. Betterly's messages joined the roughly two billion other unsolicited commercial e-mails that hit in-boxes around the world every day. The company she runs from her home, Data Resource Consulting Inc., sends out as many as 60 million such messages a month. That puts the 41-year-old single mother in the most hated breed on the Internet. She sends spam.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email...0447148,00.html

i read somewhere that her email addys and her home phone # had been made available on the net by someone....if any one finds them SPAM
the BEJESUS out of her...ring her and ask if she would like blah de blah..
GRRRR @ these ppl

[LOGICAL_PSYCHO]

Laura Betterly
President, Data Resource Consulting
Phone: 727-733-5335
laura@dataresourceconsulting.com

Laura A. Betterly
717 Weathersfield Dr, Dunedin, FL 34698
(727) 733 - 5335


Let the party begin.

[Ðiego]

I called the number. 1:13 in the afternoon. 8:13am in Florida. I left
a message on the machine. I'll have to call her again tomorrow..

8am UK time should do..

On another point, it is good to see the anti-mpaa technology is working


Ð