Sophont

Web Search Garage : "If you thought that Internet searching was just about plugging in a couple of terms into a search engine, think again. Web Search Garage will teach you to search more efficiently -- helping you find what you need faster -- by teaching you eleven principles of Internet searching. 'Regardless of the way you use the web, either for work or play, reading Web Search Garage will introduce new 'tools' for enhancing your skills using the Internet.' -- Barbara Thompson, Research Solutions Principles of Internet Searching Onions. Salt Grains. Reinvented Wheels. What do they have to do with searching the Internet? The principles of Internet search will give you strategies to do your searching efficiently, no matter what search engine or other search resources you're using. Web Search Garage will teach you to: -- Narrow your searches to get a managable number of results, while still finding what you want. -- Find experts and preexisting...

Good Experience Blog : "What if a company stopped advertising altogether and focused exclusively, with undivided laser-focus attention, on the customer experience? Would the CEO be insane? If it was a public company, would Wall Street riot, and would the board ask for the CEO's resignation? In a word, no. I know this because there is a major, established company that is pursuing a strategy very close to that. Its TV advertising budget is zero. BusinessWeek recently interviewed Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos (Aug. 2, 2004). The interview included this exchange:     BusinessWeek: How important is advertising to building the brand?     Jeff Bezos: We don't do any television advertising, and we take     all of the money that we would put into television advertising,     and instead put it into things like free SuperSaver shipping     [free shipping on most orders over $25], lower product prices,     category expansion, and invention of new features. We take those ...

Mongoose Publishing : For All Your Gaming Needs ... : "When PARANOIA was first published almost 20 years ago, amid fears of nuclear war and job loss to those newfangled desktop PCs, it was instantly popular for its vision of a high-tech, post-holocaust, totalitarian future ruled by a deranged Computer. It won attention too for turning the basic paradigm of RPGs—players cooperate—on its head, making all players secret traitors who can only advance by uncovering treason. Happily, today those fears are obsolete. Instead, we have spam, viruses, trojans, malware, distributed denial of service attacks, the RIAA, cyberwarfare, identify theft, terrorists, the Patriot Act, terrifying new diseases, the threat of environmental catastrophe, the grey goo scenario, and weapons of mass destruction."

Online Edition: news : "August 15, 2004 -- A 26-year-old skateboarder is scarred for life after she fell onto a red-hot Con Edison manhole cover — mere blocks from the scene of a tragic death earlier this year when a woman stepped onto an electrified Con Ed cover. Magazine receptionist and DJ Liz Wallenberg told The Post she was skating to see friends at an East Village club early Wednesday when she hit a bump in the road at 13th Street and Second Avenue. 'I landed with my arm and back straight onto the metal cover,' Wallenberg said. 'I noticed it was kind of hot, but I didn't realize how bad it was until my skin started to sizzle.' A distressed Wallenberg lifted her shirt and saw a large red imprint from the manhole cover on her back. She rushed to the next block, to Second Avenue nightspot Second Nature, to get her friends' help. They took her to the emergency room at Beth Israel Hospital, where she spent the next seven hours. 'It was ...

Flash Alert : Snake in the Garden! Worm in the Apple! In a distasteful attempt to exploit the World Trade Center tragedy as a platform for their political agenda, the Republican National Committee has pushed their convention date into September and has decided to come to New York City for the first time in their 150 year history. Axis of Eve is calling upon Eves from all over to join us for a panty performance protest to take place at 6 PM on September 1st at an as-of-yet undisclosed location in Battery Park City. Over 100 fabulous Eves will assemble wearing protest panties (bare-legged, with tights, pinned to clothing) and Axis of Eve tank tops. Some of us will wear American flags as flashing capes. We will perform a MASS FLASH to create a media spectacle that lays bare the shameful tactics of the Bush administration and boldly demands an end to political cover-up. Show the world that the Emperor has no clothes! To join the thong throng for this panty press event, conta...

Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition The IDF will soon begin using cannabis to treat soldiers suffering from combat stress, the military said Wednesday. An army statement said the military medical corps and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem would begin treating victims of post-traumatic stress - commonly known as shell shock - with THC, the active ingredient in the cannabis plant. It said the treatment would begin on an experimental basis. "The use of THC as part of the treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder was approved by military and civilian committees relevant to the subject," the statement said. An IDF spokesman said treatment would be given to both conscript soldiers and reservists. ===================== jay: So... if this is sucessfull, the next logical step is to administer it as a preventative, before the stress producing events occur. And for humaniartian reasons, it should be distributed to the Palastienes, who also coul...

"Loved to love" : "Two souls that were destined to meet and fall in love. What happens if one of them leaves this world before even meeting the other? Akiyama (Kenji Sakaguchi) is an elite pilot who trained at NASA, and now enrolled to be a pilot of Japan's first manned space shuttle launch. Reiko (Hitomi Kuroki) is a director at an investment bank that sponsors this space shuttle project. They got the looks, intelligence and wealth. But there is one thing they don't have... which is truly love and to be truly loved. Akiyama and Reiko were destined to meet and to be fall in love. This captivating romantic love story starts on August 6th!" Time Warner Cable / NYC TV, Channel 73 Coverage: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Staten Island (all NY 5 boroughs) August 20th, 2004 8:30-9:30pm (New)"Loved to love" #3

Taipei Times : "Australians who want to get away from it all go to Tasmania, an island state of Australia that lists carrots among its major exports. But world affairs caught up with Tasmania recently when a local found himself in court over a terrorism scare. Phillip Lowe, a 60-year-old piano tuner, told a female security guard in a Hobart car park that he had a weapon of mass destruction in his trousers. 'This is a warning story for the whole of Australia, this is,' Lowe told Australia's ABC Radio. 'Anybody can point the finger at anybody and cost them an awful lot of money and an awful lot of anguish -- and you're gone, mate, you're gone,' he said. Lowe doesn't deny the incident took place or that he behaved foolishly. 'I said I had a weapon of mass destruction and I rotated my hips, suggestively, I must admit,' he said. Police charged Lowe with making a false threat, but when the case was brought to court, Tasmania...

News from the Capital Research Center: : "A review of federal grants shows that many support relatively uncontroversial projects. But often that only frees up other nonprofit money for political advocacy. To its credit, the Bush Administration cut back on its grants to two of the most politically active environmental groups—the Natural Resources Defense Council, which specializes in filing lawsuits, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). WWF strongly supports U.S. adoption of the Kyoto treaty, the international treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions to combat the alleged global warming threat. In 2001, the Bush Administration rejected the treaty citing, among other problems, official U.S. government estimates that the treaty could cost the U.S. economy $400 billion per year and double a family’s monthly electric bill. Still, government officials gave NRDC $627,394 in 2003 and WWF $11,677,035 in 2004. NRDC is now spearheading an “Environmental Accountability Fund.” The project will use...

Colorado Voter : "The Boulder County Republican Party was kicked out of Thursday’s official test of the new election system. Election officials insisted that the legally appointed Republican Party representative change his test decks, presumably so that the system can pass the tests. The Republican representative refused, and the clerk told him to leave. Many voters do not follow instructions and instead of filling in the box, will use an “X” or a check mark or circle the box, or instead of using ink will use magic marker, etc. Some voters will object to voting with a ballot that is not secret, and will “white out” or cross out the serial number that uniquely identifies their ballot. In the past, some voters have written notes explaining what they meant to do. The Republican test deck was prepared to verify that these real-life situations will be correctly handled by the untested counting system. Because of the insistence that the Republicans remove these tests, it appears t...

FILMMAKER MAGAZINE : "From independent filmmakers, film critics, Academy members and a wide array of award-granting bodies, to established industry insiders and the heads of the MMPS’ own Specialty Divisions, a singular message was projected loud and clear: the screener ban would be profoundly destructive to the fortunes of independent and specialty-film distribution. Those opposed to the ban called and wrote letters to executives of the MPAA and the MMPS, spoke out in the mass media, published open letters in the trades signed by hundreds of filmmakers, etc. — they dissected the “logic of the ban” and offered to work with the MPAA to find equitable and effective solutions to address their piracy concerns.2 How did the MPAA react to this concerted opposition? On October 23rd the MPAA and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences issued a joint press release announcing that “an agreement had been reached to allow for the distribution of ‘screener’ copies of motion pictu...

nwfusion.com : "The problem is that computer worms that target Microsoft-based computers, including MS-Blaster and Sasser, have increasingly struck hospital networks, where unpatched Windows-based patient-care systems have become infected. Some manufacturers, including Philips, contend that hospitals must do a better job of applying security defenses to protect medical devices by buying intrusion-prevention systems (IPS ) and internal firewalls. However, hospital IT professionals respond that it's not that unusual for medical-device manufacturers to be the origin of worms that get in their networks. There have been several instances in which viruses originated from medical instruments straight from the vendors, says Bill Bailey, enterprise architect at ProHealth Care, a Milwaukee healthcare provider. Medical equipment arrived with computer viruses on it or service technicians introduced the viruses while maintaining the equipment, he says."

Guardian Unlimited : "As to how on earth going early to bed could automatically guarantee riches and happiness, I suppose nothing can be proved, but I'm with Dr Johnson who confidently asserted: 'Whoever thinks of going to bed before 12 o'clock is a scoundrel.' Greatness and late rising are natural bedfellows. Late rising is for the independent of mind, the individual who refuses to become a slave to work, money, ambition. In his youth, the great poet of loafing, Walt Whitman, would arrive at the offices of the newspaper where he worked at around 11.30am, and leave at 12.30 for a two-hour lunch break. Another hour's work after lunch and then it was time to hit the town. ..............The lie-in - by which I mean lying in bed awake - is not a selfish indulgence but an essential tool for any student of the art of living. As Sherlock Holmes knew. Lolling around in his smoking jacket, puffing his pipe, Holmes would sit and ponder for hours on a tricky case....

Google Groups: From: John Schilling (schillin@spock.usc.edu) Subject: Re: Three times fuel costs. Newsgroups: sci.space.policy Date: 2004-08-05 14:24:30 PST Andrew Gray writes: >A figure that gets thrown around a lot when talking about the operating >costs of airlines - and, implicitly, what space travel should be aiming >at - is "three times fuel costs"; it's a number that always vaguely >surprises me, but that's by the by. >A while ago, one of the newsgroups I read had a discussion of the >operating costs of public transport; someone did a quick and dirty >breakdown of an estimate, and concluded: >"This means the fuel cost is going to be something like 30% of the total >cost of operating the bus service." >http://google.com/groups?selm=N48%2ByDLrCe0AFw5B%40nojay.fsnet.co.uk >It mildly surprised me at the time; for some reason it popped back into >my head. It's interesting to see convergence...

Analog Discussion Board By Dr. Sardonicus on Saturday, March 20, 2004 - 10:31 pm: Well, I suppose that, in a sense, computers may be viewed as "psionic tools" -- instruments for exercising mental domination over others. Consider the following hypothetical conversation: Y: "Oh, come on, mind control? It's just a machine." X: "Oh yeah? We can already use this "just a machine" to make people agree to the most outrageous things. Watch this." X then brings up a copy of the "end user license agreement" for his company's new software on his monitor. "Look at this. We're saying our product might not work. It might wreck your hardware. And the poor schmucks agree to all this before they install it! And then, when things go wrong,..." (X laughs uproariously) Thus endeth the hypothetical conversation. I leave you with a time-honored quote, from this very forum: Well, There is another group of people who ma...