Speakeasy Allows Customers To Sell Their Own Wireless Broadband

Found over at Glenn Fleishman's Wi-Fi Networking News, and apparently not yet picked up by any media outlets is the news that Speakeasy, the DSL ISP famous for (get this) actually being customer friendly, is letting customers sell their own bandwidth. Speakeasy already encourages people to set up WiFi networks and to use as many computers as they want (unlike the big name companies that want you to pay extra for every computer you connect). Now, accepting the fact that the bandwidth they sell you is your bandwidth, they're making it easy to turn around and resell your own bandwidth to your neighbors. You set the price, and they handle the billing. They also provide email addresses and other features like access to the Rhapsody music service. You split the revenue 50/50 with Speakeasy. While I think most people would probably just as soon let their neighbors use their bandwidth for free, it's very cool to see a company admit that the bandwidth is yours to do as you please. Every day, Speakeasy looks like a better broadband provider. As the big cable and DSL providers get more and more restrictive (while raising their prices) it's cool to see a company that is letting customers do what they want. Clearly, they stand to benefit as well (taking 50% of the fees!), but whereas other broadband providers would see this as "theft" Speakeasy is being smart about it and seeing it as an "opportunity". (Techdirt)

That Much Closer to the Holo-Deck

If two companies get their way, pretty soon you'll walk through virtual advertisements in the mall or view television programs the same way Luke Skywalker watched R2D2's playback of Princess Leia's distress message in the first Star Wars movie. The images would float off your TV screen and into thin air, allowing you to interact with virtual characters right in the middle of your living room.

While this futuristic scenario was once the stuff of movies like Star Wars and Minority Report, it isn't so far-fetched today. At least two companies, IO2 Technology of Hermosa Beach, California, and FogScreen in Seinäjoki Technology Center, Finland, have working prototypes for systems that broadcast two-dimensional images into thin air. (Wired)

You'll Take Those Flash Cartoons And Dancing Hamsters From My Cold, Dead Hands

"Is the web as we know it over? In an, ahem, patently offensive recent ruling a federal judge has decided that Microsoft Internet Explorer's plug-in system violates a 1994 patent by software developer Eolas Technologies," writes Angst Dei. "Besides fining Microsoft US$521 million, the judge has ordered Internet Explorer changed in such a way that it won't be able to play embedded multimedia — the world's most popular browser will no longer be able to show movie trailers, read strongbad's email, or let the little hampsters dance free. Mozilla, Opera, Safari, and other alternative browsers will likely be similarly affected. While Microsoft prepares an appeal, a grassroots movement has sprung up to find examples of 'prior art' that would invalidate the patent. Are we with web guru Jeffrey Zeldman when he says 'We find ourselves in the unaccustomed position of rooting for Microsoft.' Or should we be happy that someone has finally found a way of sticking it to Redmond?" (Plastic.com)

An International Clearinghouse on Big Box Anti-Sprawl Information

No matter what the logo on the building says--Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target, Lowe's, Kohls, CVS--if its unwanted development, Sprawl-Busters can help you stop it. In hundreds of communities, we have helped citizens groups strategize and carry out a plan to stop the superstores. Our Newsflash page contains the latest on big box battles from around the globe, and the book "Slam Dunking Wal-Mart" has become a citizen's classic for hands-on combat with Sprawl-Marts. If a big box store is causing you a big problem, call on Sprawl-Busters! Local visits can be arranged. Contact info@sprawl-busters.com. Your quality of life is worth more than a cheap pair of underwear.(Sprawl-Busters)

Federal Marriage Amendment

The Federal Marriage Amendment is a resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States to specifically state that marriage is only to be recognized as a union between a man and a woman.

From the resolution:

"Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

This is an attempt by the Alliance for Marriage to prevent activist judges from legislating from their benches by redefining marriage. It leaves benefits associated with marriage and the formation of "civil unions", "domestic partnerships", and such up to the States.

The resolution before Congress is House Joint Resolution 56. The cosponsors of this bill are: Collin Peterson (D-MN), Mike McIntyre (D-NC), Ralph Hall (D-TX), Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), Jo Ann Davis (R-VA), David Vitter (R-LA). (Kuro5hin.org)

Man Passes Fake $200 Bill of George Bush...We Like Ice Cream

North Carolina cops are searching for a guy who successfully passed a $200 bill bearing George W. Bush's portrait and a drawing of the White House complete with lawn signs reading "We like ice cream" and "USA deserves a tax cut." The phony Bush bill--a copy of which you'll find below--was presented to a cashier at a Food Lion in Roanoke Rapids on September 6 by an unidentified male who was seeking to pay for $150 in groceries. Remarkably, the cashier accepted the counterfeit note and gave the man $50 change. In a separate incident involving a different perp, Roanoke Rapids cops Tuesday arrested Michael Harris, 24, for attempting last month to pass an identical $200 Bush bill at a convenience store.(The Smoking Gun)

Johnny Cash Dies

Johnny Cash, “The Man in Black” who became a towering figure in American music with such hits as “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line,” and “A Boy Named Sue,” died Friday. He was 71.

“JOHNNY DIED due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure,” said Cash’s manager, Lou Robin, in a press release issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville.

He said Cash died at the hospital at 3 a.m. EDT. (MSNBC.com)

John Ritter Dies of Heart Problem

John Ritter, whose portrayal of the bumbling but lovable Jack Tripper helped make the madcap comedy series "Three's Company" a smash hit in the 1970s, has died, his publicist and longtime assistant said Friday. He was 54.

Ritter fell ill Thursday on the set of his ABC sitcom "8 Simple Rules ... For Dating My Teenage Daughter," said Susan Wilcox, his assistant of 22 years. The cause of death was a dissection of the aorta, the result of an unrecognized flaw in his heart, said his publicist, Lisa Kasteler.

Ritter died at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center shortly after 10 p.m. Thursday,Ritter, a Southern California native who lived in Beverly Hills, came to prominence for his role in "Three's Company" and had appeared in more than 25 television movies and a number of films. (The Washington Post)

Notes from my journal, two years ago tonight...

11-Sep-01

Twelve hours, and the world has changed.

Twelve hours of news, disbelief, tears, family, phones, instant messaging.

The U.S. military throughout the world placed on call, in active duty – the Coast Guard reserves to Marine Corps jarheads. Everyone.

Twelve hours ago, a passenger plane headed to California crashed in a World Trade Center tower. Running late, as usual, I towel-dried my hair to Matt Lauer and the Today Show. A girl on the phone, a witness, tried to describe the scene.

On the way to work, I heard reports that a plane hit the second tower. I’d originally thought it was an accident, the first plane, but now we know the planes were hijacked. Those and two others, one that struck the Pentagon and one that crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

I left work for a meeting at headquarters. I heard about the Pentagon and fires on the mall. The Capital and the White House evacuated. Clips from President Bush’s speech from Sarasota, Florida. I missed the speech during my stop in the office. I instant messaged Darren, a high school friend, in disbelief. I tried to find an online news radio station, but the sites were flooded, my computer timing out.

Before the meeting, I tried calling Amy – my cell phone failed to connect. Finally, she got through to me. A tower had crashed and she heard rumor of a car bomb at the State Department.

Edgy meeting. Many people failed to come to work and we accomplished little in comparing PSA tools, software packages. Finally, we left. Monica to another meeting, me back to work for another few minutes. To shut down, to leave. The CXOs told us to leave and rumors flew regarding the hijacked planes.

Both towers collapsed. Part of the Pentagon fell.

I tried calling everyone I knew. Amy, Mom, Scott at Dad’s, Kris, Penny, Cheryl, Autumn. The people I love. My phone seldom connected. I couldn’t get back to work. The roads blocked by security. I left my office open. I finally found Dr. Kris, on a metro headed out to her parents’ house with [our friend] Amy. They work downtown; Amy lives there. I worried about getting Kris home with roads, bridges, transportation closed.

Cheryl considered coming over, trying to find a safer place than Alexandria.

I got online and IM’d Joe Boyle, U.S. Coast Guard on call. I decided to head out to [my sister] Amy’s. Cheryl considered joining me but decided against it. I stopped for gas and an attendant filled my tank, full service by police order to speed transactions. Rumors of gas rations prevailed.

Strangely light traffic out to Amy’s. An accident or two. Many cops. The lock holding the roof in my Jeep popped, distracting me from the angry callers on C-SPAN radio. No planes flying into, out of Dulles. All U.S. airports closed, all flights grounded.

Amy’s house filled with children, toys and laughter. The horrific news background noise – a topic for adults, a boogeyman for children. Amy watched Natalie and Haley as their mom ran to the grocery. The girls playing with my loves, Mason and Delaney. Amy’s baby sat heavily on her pelvis. A little peace in a chaotic world.

Cell phones came and went. Land lines tied. Fires still raging in the Pentagon. Days before they can search for people in the World Trade Center. A call for blood, for medical personnel. And people complied, waiting four to five hours to give the only help they can. The frustration at not being able to help. The relief in the voices of friends and family.

The Asian stock exchange the lowest in 17 years, below the Dow for the first time since the 50s. The second Pearl Harbor in so many minds. The U.S. Stock Exchange to remain closed for the first time since the end of World War II. We’re all in shock. It can’t be real. Thousands dead, no estimates from any quarter.

Twelve hours, and the world has changed.

Palestinians, Afghanis jumping for joy. Cheering. Jeering.

We closed the borders between the U.S. and Mexico, U.S. and Canada. Have we ever done that? Does that violate NAFTA?

236 dead from the four hijacked planes. Planes taken by organized men, trained pilots with knives. How did they even get on the planes? Two from United, two American. Two from Boston, one from New Jersey, one from here – Dulles.

200 missing firemen, presumed dead. 78 policemen also lost. Injured officers fight to get back to the devastation, to do something, to do anything to help.

We still don’t understand. The victims don’t have names, faces. The hijackers remain unidentified. No group has come forward to claim the terrorist acts.

To see a passenger plane fly directly into a 110-story building. To see that plane stop, just stop, with the impact. The building just crumbled later this morning. Debris littering the streets for blocks, dust blocking the sun, billowing like smoke.

How do we get back to everyday life? Can we go back? Someday, this will sink in. A great sadness will settle upon this nation, and we will need to find a way through this.

###

I returned to work. On September 12, a couple of friends and I joined an internet-organized rally at the Capitol reflecting pool. People sang, lit candles, cried. It was disjointed, rather like the nation. I received a call from a volunteer organization and signed on to spend the night at the Pentagon hotline. I worked from midnight ‘til eight, performing some very basic administrative duties, things I knew how to do, things that helped, if only a little. I went home, showered and went to work. I went on with life.

Little more than a year later, we were terrorized again as someone in our nation’s capital, in my own backyard, indiscriminately shot and killed children, adults, strangers without anything in common. Although we would more likely die in a beltway car wreck than as a target of the beltway sniper, we all succumbed to fear. I had shopped at that Home Depot, half of my coworkers live in Manassas. I succumbed to fear.

I zig-zagged through parking lots, darting between cars and bushes, which I am very embarrassed to admit. I considered what errands I needed to run, whether or not I could go a day, a week, indefinitely without groceries. I pinned myself between the door and my car when filling up the tank and only when I couldn’t find a full-service station. I was scared.

I ran away. I ran all the way to Paris. And in the city of light, where I don’t speak the language and don’t know a soul, I felt safe. I walked the unfamiliar streets, visiting unfamiliar sights, eating unfamiliar foods ordered in an unfamiliar language. I felt more comfortable walking past prostitutes at four in the morning than I did at noon on Tuesday at home.

Though, by the time I returned, I’d almost forgotten my fear. Over lunch, I walked the block and a half to a camera shop (past a police station and a courthouse) to drop off my film. Looking around, I realized the streets were empty. Not a soul walking, driving, riding a bike on a beautiful, clear October day. My heart raged. The next day, the alleged snipers were caught: a 17-year-old boy and his guardian. Americans.

On this, the second anniversary of September 11, I muddled through the day, uncertain of how to feel, what to think. Last year, it seemed so much bigger, so much more real. I thought about what it meant to be an American. I can’t speak for anyone other than myself, but for me…

Being an American means growing up in a small town, tripping on the broken sidewalk, walking to the library, church and school. It means bake sales and yard sales and lemonade stands. Football games on Friday nights and chores on Saturday mornings. It meant living with my mom while my dad lived another life with another family in another town, finding my place in it.

Being an American means that I worry about my family, which is spread throughout the world. My sister with her beautiful, loving children and her beautiful, loving heart. My brother trying to save the world. My parents and grandparents. It means that my family includes more than that given me by God and blood, but also the people I’ve chosen to share my life.

Being an American means that I can run away to Paris when I’m scared. I can go by myself with my own passport and my own money and I can find my way around a city I don’t know, with a language I don’t know, and make friends. I have a job to come home to – a job where I might make less than an equally-skilled American man, but where I earn more than 99.21% of the world, as a 28-year-old girl.

Being an American means that I can call myself a girl and you have to call me a woman, treat me with respect, and know that I will do the same for you. Everyone has a story, a million stories, and given a chance, I would listen to yours.

Being an American means that I’m overweight and insecure. I have voluntarily starved myself in a nation of excess. I’m also beautiful and sexy and incredibly proud of growing older. I think that wrinkles give character, and I like that.

Being an American means driving down the highway with my roof down and my radio up listening to NPR, Eminem, Bon Jovi, Kylie Minogue, whatever I want. It means waving in a driver in front of me because I already know I’m going to be late and waving at the driver behind me who did the same.

Being an American means being nice to people, volunteering, helping, giving but sticking up for myself and knowing where to draw the line. It means that of the six recipes I have memorized, two are Mexican, one Indian and one Tunisian. It means that I know how to make my grandfather’s apple kuchen and my mother’s fettucine.

As I write this, I realize that I don’t what it means to be an American. I don’t know who I am or where I’m going, and I realize that this is one of the greatest freedoms of this country. I don’t have to know but I can figure it out for myself. My mom always told me I could be anything I want. This is the one country where that might be true.

Artists Blast The RIAA's Tactics

Most people here know that the RIAA's mantra that they're just "protecting the artists" is a lie. They're protecting their own profits - which they do their best not to distribute to the artists. Musicians get very little of their money from royalties - most of it goes directly into the music industry machine. So, it's good to hear a bunch of musicians stand up and say that they're just as pissed off at the RIAA's sue 'em into submission tactics as the rest of us. Some of the best quotes come from David Draiman of Disturbed (admittedly a band I've never heard of, though the article says they have a platinum debut album on the charts - shows how much I pay attention to popular music these days). First he says: "This is not rocket science. Instead of spending all this money litigating against kids who are the people they're trying to sell things to in the first place, they have to learn how to effectively use the Internet." Later in the article, he adds: "For the artists, my ass. I didn't ask them to protect me, and I don't want their protection." The article also mentions that some artists are embracing file sharing on their own, and offering their own MP3s online knowing that it helps them build a larger following. (Techdirt)

Grokster Head Offers To Pay 12-Year-Old's RIAA Bill

The back-and-forth PR battle over the RIAA's lawsuits continue. Now, Grokster's CEO, Wayne Rosso, sensing the perfect PR opportunity has offered to pay the $2,000 bill agreed to by 12-year-old Brianna LaHara yesterday for daring to download a nursery rhyme and some other songs. Rosso claims that he (like us all) is "disgusted" by the lawsuits and forcing this 12-year-old to pay two grand. Of course, I'd say he also senses the good publicity that can come out of paying the bill for her. The problem, though, is that no one is going to come along and offer to pay the bills of the next 12-year-old who gets sued. (Techdirt)

Is the RIAA Suing You? Check the Database

Concerned that information about your file-sharing username may have been subpoenaed by the RIAA? Check here to see if your username or IP address is on one of the subpoenas filed with the D.C. District Court. This information is drawn from the court's publicly available PACER database and will be updated when that system is updated. (EFF.org)

File this under: Someone is Getting Their You Know What Kicked

A Fair Day

As I unlocked the door and climbed into my Jeep this morning, I hesitated, wondering if I should run back for a sweater. I looked in and considered the soda-stiffened sweatshirt on the passenger seat, before swinging myself up, unrolling the windows and turning on the heat.

If I hadn’t already been late, I might have taken the top down and put up my hair, the music and the heat. I should have; the commute was terrible. It is, after all, a Wednesday, in the fall, in D.C. As soon as school picks up, traffic slows down. The number of drivers in the road increases proportionately with the number of kids in school. Go figure.

Nevertheless, by the time I drove the 12 miles and 68 minutes to work, I was happy. Seriously. I love the fall.

Cool autumn air reminds me of new clothes and pencils and notebooks, skipping the first page. Oh, the pressure. Unable to think of anything significant, prophetic, cool to write in such a big empty book. Starting a new year, a new life on the second page. (I’d tear out the blank page eventually but not until it was well worn, graying and fraying around the edges.)

I think of football games and marching bands. “As the players tried to take the field the marching band refused to yield,” sends shivers up my spine, as do recollections of my four years as a marching geek. I loved it and hated it and wouldn’t trade - or relive - those days for anything in the world. The pressure of performing before the half-empty stands, all those parents, band boosters, supportive yet bored-to-tears friends, belting out Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the marimba.

I think of the county fair, whirring, spinning, nauseating rides, buckets of soda the size of my head and deep-fried bread products covered in sugar. The familiar, earthy scents of hay and horses mingled in the greasy, smoky air. Shouts of carnies, laughter, music blaring a hundred different songs from a thousand different speakers, and of course, the queen contest.

Ah, the queen contest… I competed one year, but alas, a queen I am not. My mother almost killed me when, five minutes before leaving for the preliminary competition, I spilled orange soda down the front of my white dress. (“Why would anyone think that’s a good idea?” she mused as I tripped upstairs to change.)

I didn’t mind so much. I’m not terribly competitive or queenly or anything. Besides, I’d rather traipse around the mud in a pair of jeans with my friends, shuffling through the crowd, talking, laughing, playing games.

Old young men with wiry tattooed arms, long hair and ragged grins called out, coxing, cajoling, lightening hearts and wallets. These men from nowhere, going everywhere would arrive in the night and head out before dawn, leaving a muddy imprint in the countryside.

We tossed rings at bottles and darts at under-inflated balloons to win strangely colored stuffed animals or painted mirrors, adorned with unicorns, race car drivers, heavy metal bands like AC/DC, Whitesnake and Poison. Bands the carnies liked and blared from their speakers. Bands that made me feel all grown up and sneaky-like.

Unfortunately, however, my darts bounced back. I don’t even throw like a girl. I throw like a double-jointed chimp with atrophied arms. I managed to bring home a couple of the unicorn mirrors to match my unicorn Shrinky-Dinks™ in my window and the unicorn stickers on my wall. Enough, at least, to be embarrassed by them later in life.

I also won a goldfish. Well, if you can call it winning. I paid two bucks to throw a ping-pong ball into any of a collection of goldfish bowls. For my skill and daring, I garnered my very own goldfish, replete with plastic bag and cold, cloudy water. Coming from a pet-less home, this was huge.

My goldfish, however, did not survive the night. I don’t know if it was it’s rough start in the carnival world or the demolition derby that evening, but by the end of the night, poor Carlos floated belly-up at the top of that plastic bag. He never made it home.

Given the options, though, I think poor Carlos fared better than my brother’s fish. He survived the crash ‘em up derby to find his goldfish self relegated to a casserole dish, swimming in an endless square on our kitchen counter. My mother refused to succumb to either the trappings of pet-owner society or the vestiges of the fair. We stopped paying the two bucks after that.

Nevertheless, every year before we could drive, on the Friday that school was closed for a teachers’ “in-service day” (nobody would have been there anyway), she’d take us out to the fair. When I got my license, she’d lend me the minivan and the care and feeding of my brother and we’d set out for a day of mud and sunshine, light and sound and taste. Life. Hope. Happiness. Greasy food.

Today was one of those days, a fair day. Anticipation over a nip in the air and a bit of blue sky. When my day grew unbearable and my head threatened to explode, I pushed away from my desk and wandered off in search of a little bit of peace and some lunch.

I didn’t know where I was going; I just wanted a little bit of noise, color, smells that one didn’t find in an office. A cacophony of construction sounds, horns honking, the screech of brakes greeted me as I walked up the street, away from my usual lunchtime haunts. I passed barbecue and Thai restaurants, a coffee shop, the smells mingling with the dust in the air.

I looked up when I heard the halting melody of a band practicing over a cycling shop. I saw a mannequin’s head on a stick outside a window, Mardi gras beads draped around her neck.

I stopped at a sandwich shop with tables corralled on a corner. I asked what the countergirl recommended in terms of veggie sandwiches and surprised myself by ordering it to stay, taking a table outside, in the sun. The day no longer summer, not quite fall. Perfect.

Waiting for the elevator in my office building, I ran into a couple of guys from the eighth floor. I don’t know them, but they always say “hi” and tell me that I remind them of someone that they know. We stepped into the elevator and pushed our respective buttons.

“You look so happy today,” the taller one said.

“I am,” I replied. “It’s a beautiful day.” He smiled and drifted off. The shorter one nodded, both caught up in their own beautiful day thoughts.

The door opened and I stepped out, my head intact for at least one more day.

RIAA Takes Candy from a Baby

Twelve-year-old Brianna Lahara's love for TV theme songs, Christina Aguilera and the nursery song If You're Happy and You Know It made her a target of the multibillion-dollar U.S. recording industry. Yesterday, the seventh grader became the industry's first legal trophy in a massive crackdown when she promised never to share songs over the Internet again and her mother agreed to pay $2,000 (U.S.).

Brianna, who lives in subsidized housing in New York, was one of 261 Americans sued on Monday by the Record Industry Association of America. She acknowledged downloading dozens of songs from a service called Kazaa.

"Why are they picking on me?" she asked reporters after learning about the suit Monday night. "My stomach is all in knots." At first, her mother, Sylvia Torres, vowed to fight the industry. "For crying out loud, she's just a child," Ms. Torres said.

But late yesterday the RIAA issued a statement announcing that Brianna's mother had settled for $2,000 and quoting the little girl as saying: "I am sorry for what I have done. I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love." The release also quoted Ms. Torres as saying: "We understand now that file-sharing the music was illegal. You can be sure Brianna won't be doing it any more." (The Globe and Mail)


Help Pay Back the RIAA's 12-Year-Old Victim

Emmett Plant is running a collection-plate to pay back the 12-year-old honor student who lives in a New York housing project who was intimidated into turning $2000 over to the RIAA to keep them from suing her for file-sharing. (BoingBoing.net)

Man Ships Self in Cargo Crate from New York to Texas

Charles McKinley found a unique way to save a few bucks getting to his parents' house: He crawled into a wooden airplane cargo crate and succeeded in shipping himself from New York to Texas.

After hours of traveling, McKinley, 25, of New York City, pried open the crate with a crowbar Saturday morning. He popped up outside his parents' doorstep in the south Dallas suburb of DeSoto, shook the hand of a shocked deliveryman and walked away.

The deliveryman called DeSoto police, who arrested him on outstanding Texas warrants. The FBI and the Transportation Security Administration are investigating.

McKinley has not yet been charged with a crime, officials said.

"It's amazing that the gentleman survived. It's absolutely a bizarre case," said FBI Special Agent Lori Bailey, a spokeswoman for the Dallas field office. "Our concern at this point is to determine how this was done."

Officials said McKinley's crate was put aboard a pressurized Boeing 727 from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Fort Wayne, Ind. The crate was transferred to a second plane bound for Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

A ground shipping company picked up the crate and delivered it to the residence of McKinley's parents. McKinley spent at least half a day in the crate and broke out just in time for the deliveryman to see him.

"We sure don't see something like this happen like this every day," DeSoto Police Chief Mike Brodnax said. (Boston.com)

I updated the site a bit due to privacy and security concerns. I this site to be a little more anonymous for the average surfer. Anywho, I am still going to be posting so keep coming to the site. I did find an interesting link to more sites concerning Peace Corps. volunteers serving all over the world currently. Take a look.

Happy Birthday to Me

A butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing and traffic stops in Washington D.C.

Once again, I missed my Wednesday meeting. I always miss my Wednesday meeting. I even leave 30 to 45 minutes earlier than usual on Wednesdays to make sure that I am at my office in time for a second commute to the meeting, but the fates align against me and I miss the meeting.

One would think that I would just give it up, resign myself to the fact that I will never make this meeting, one who did not know me well. I will be the first to admit that I am a bit stubborn or, in the word of my former employer (a.k.a. the cult), “bullish.” Actually, I’m “ring in the nose, hoofing the ground, hoping to gore a man in tight pants” bullish about things and once I have an idea in my head it seems to be there to stay. Thus, every Wednesday I wake up a bit earlier and desperately try to make it to work on time.

The fates laugh.

This Wednesday, I found in particularly difficult to make it to work on time, for today is my birthday. Normally, I don’t mind working on my birthday and frequently, it falls on Labor Day weekend, giving me the day off and a long weekend to boot.

This year, though, it was a Wednesday. And I celebrated a bit early. Friends and I ended a rainy day after Labor Day with drag bingo.

Drag, as in men dressed like women, and bingo, as in you probably played it last in a firehouse, church basement or under a thick haze of blue smoke surrounded by women with a thick haze of blue hair, lucky charms and ink dobbers. The concept is the same but the prizes, well, they fit the former more than the latter.

For the record, I am actually a little intimidated by drag queens. I just don’t know how to deal with men who are much prettier women than me. Some of the queens of bingo fit that description. Others look like someone’s dad bought a really bad dress at Ross and hired a hooker to paint his face. Like I said, though, I cannot criticize. Most of these men look far better than me.

Nevertheless, I donned my own hooker clothes and even applied a bit of makeup to my fresh-scrubbed face. I scaled back a bit at the last minute from my favorite hooker dress to a more sedate pair of white linen trousers (after Labor Day? Shocking!), black velour tube top (definitely shocking) and black and white shoes that put me on the same level as the cross-dressing hosts of the evening, at least in terms of height at 6-feet tall.

As the evening progressed, I found myself manhandled, (if that’s the right word), jiggled, bounced, and grabbed by a transsexual who proceeded to tap my breast with a microphone... in front of the entire audience. I’d go into more detail but the pronouns get rather confusing.

And then, with a few rules, “You know what to say when we call our favorite number” (O-69) and “What do you say when somebody calls bingo without really having it?” (Sit yo’ ass down), we were off. Bingo and trivia galore.

As winners were called and faux winners called out, we dashed to the bathroom, the bar, the cigarette machine, hoping to fill our needs while avoiding attention. That could lead to very bad things… the Freak found herself on stage, shaking her ass for all it was worth and Dr. K was reprimanded for not coming a night earlier. Apparently fuzzy blue stilettos fit better with “Prostitution” night than “Drag Bingo.”

The editor faired better with a reference to Ally MacBeal, but some skanky blond girl with a too tight mini and too much beer earned quite a few comments as she sashayed in front of the stage. ("I didn't know Britney Spears was here!")

In between rounds, the queens from Chaos entertained us with mini-drag shows around the floor. Dollars were placed between the very fake breasts of a very large, somewhat scary performer and we watched him (her?) pick up this cute little gay man and pluck a dollar from his waistband with her teeth. Impressive, but I would not recommend trying that one at home.

Back in the game, Dr. K found herself frighteningly close to winning a very dirty video. Very dirty. (Trust me; we saw part of it.) She cheered for every called number that she didn’t have.

During another movie clip, the editor leaned over and shouted, “I didn’t realize that this would seem like such ‘good, clean fun!’” Over her shoulder I spied something that required a tilt of the head and a bit of concentration. She continued, “I mean, for someone with a strong Catholic upbringing, this is really fun!” I recognized the object on the screen and gasped.

“Right! Clean!”

And so went the eve of my birthday. A few prizes came home with us, but definitely the more innocuous of the bunch. As for myself, I didn’t win anything (actually losing a credit card) but what a night!

The next morning, this morning, my birthday, I pried myself from bed, seemingly early enough to make my Wednesday meeting. “Ha,” laughed the fates and a hundred butterflies flapped their wings in Beijing.

The Freak called to say that someone slashed her roof while we were at the club. Walking across the road to my car in an early morning thunderstorm, my dress flapped around my neck, revealing to the world my obsession with bleach and white cotton knickers. Driving off I added to the sodden mess of my dress with an exploding bottle of diet soda and by the time I reached the swollen interstate, I had added a new affliction to my ever-growing list of stress-related disorders.

I called my office 45 minutes and three miles into the drive. “I’m going to miss the meeting,” I shouted over the rain hitting the roof, the thunder outside, cars splashing and honking and screeching. “What?!? … Oh, thanks! … Great birthday! … Bye!”

I considered my birthday, listening to the one, endlessly looping CD in my car, my sopping dress and smoky hair, my vacationing credit card. I thought of the night before and my tired friends braving a wet, miserable Tuesday after Labor Day. I thought of the pleasant woman at the credit card company. I thought of the stack of cards waiting on my desk, the calls and email, the packages by the door and I settled back to enjoy the ride.

P2P Telephony

The people who brought you KaZaA have released a software product called Skype, which uses P2P (peer-to-peer) technology to connect to other users. Not to share files or music this time, but to talk and chat with your friends.

OK, so it’s not a revolutionary idea. Most internet telephony products, like Net2Phone, are based on P2P or two-way communications; but Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis claim their network uses every available resource to route communications in the most efficient way possible, so the connections should be more reliable. Skype also says it partnered with the best acoustic scientists in the business to deliver sound quality superior to even a fixed telephone line.

As with most chat programs, buddy lists show you when your friends are online and ready to talk or chat. All calls are encrypted end-to-end. Skype uses the 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), which is also used by U.S. Government organizations. Since you ask Skype can also do simple Instant Messaging.

The software works with all firewall, NAT and routers, with nothing to configure. This is why the Skype founders think their product is so much better than most voice-over-IP applications, which almost never work from behind firewalls and NAT. Only some very strict corporate firewalls which only authorize TCP connections on a restricted number of ports may not allow Skype to connect at the moment.

The beta software (under 3 Megs) is free. You need a PC running Windows 2000 or XP, a 400 MHz processor, 128Mb of memory, a sound card, speakers and a microphone and a broadband Internet connection.

Skype uses its own URL callto:// to connect directly to users, but the company also plans to hook up to plain old telephony networks. For a modest fee, obviously. (The Register)

I have started a letter-writing campaign.

I’m not sure when it started. It could have been after a slightly fuzzy night at Politiki when the bartender accused me not once, not twice, but three times of leaving without paying. Following me out of the bar and onto the street where I stood with my friends, The Freak and four very large men trying to figure out if they would all fit into the back of my Wrangler with a box of books and a lamp, he shouted at me that I had left without paying. The first time, he was right. The second time, I told him where we left the cash. The third time, I went in to show him.

It was all a little confusing. I walked in with a group of girls and left with a group of boys. Somewhere in the middle, the wires and possibly the tabs got crossed. The bar closed and the bartender did not serve up the tab. Mike, one of the big guys, bellied up to the bar, paid a tab and we all walked out to the sidewalk and the aforementioned dilemma with boys, books and lamp. I was embarrassed the first time, realizing that I had truly left without paying, annoyed the second and downright angry the third.

At some point, the boys realized that they would not, could not fit into the back of my Jeep and they piled into the back of a cab. Cartoon puffs of steam billowed in the cold night as I stomped down the street, The Freak trailing behind me. Birds had started chirping by the time I dropped her off and I think that sunlight cracked the sky by the time I pulled into my own parking lot. I dragged my laptop out of the back of the car, leaving the books and lamp, and stomped into the house. I plugged in my computer and typed a letter I thought particularly scathing at 5:30 in the morning. A few days later, I revised a few sentences but found myself surprised to see that it still contained the caustic wit my sleepy mind had imagined. I patted myself on the back, closed the file and promptly forgot about both it and my anger.

Over the months, though, I’ve started writing more and more letters. They really cover a range of topics – from the lack of bread with my salad at a local restaurant (the salad is so not worth $7 alone) to the ineptitude of a reservation clerk at a hotel in New York (“I need to cancel my room… No, I realize that… Regardless, I’m not going to be there… I realize that… Okay. Can you just cancel the second night? … I realize that… I’m still not going to be there…” followed by a call to the corporate desk to make sure that I would only pay for the privilege of not spending one night in hell, versus the two I’d reserved). Most of the time, I don’t mail them. Occasionally, I do.

I don’t want to get anyone fired. I don’t want free things. (Though, I’m not going to turn them away if they show up at my door, looking for a free home.) I just want to be less angry, to feel less helpless. Culture, our parents, our own good intentions have made us victims of a society no longer desperate to please. The customer isn’t always right, as minimum-wage earners, fed up with their own deplorable lot in life, have made quite clear.

I cannot blame them. Their lives suck. Check out “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich or better yet, get a part-time job at a restaurant, a grocery store, or at an amusement park. For virtually no money at all, you, too, can experience the pleasure of screaming children and abusive parents (to whom you are not allowed to say anything), displaced anger, condescension, disrespect, appraising looks and complete disregard. I know this. I’ve held practically every job known to man from lifeguard/kitchen help at a summer camp (I think I cried for three months straight) to bookseller, from usher to dishwasher (I definitely cried for three months straight), housekeeper, engraver, cashier: all at minimum wage.

With these scars, er, memories fresh in my mind, I go out of my way to be nice to people, all people, and to remember that the girl behind the counter might be working to pay tuition or to support her children, her parents, her addiction to Prada. I realize that yelling at the poor girl because my bread’s gone missing won’t fix anything whereas a letter to a corporate office, an owner, a manager might affect a small degree of change. The trickle down theory of complaining.

Early last summer, I cut off my hair and donated it to Locks of Love, a nonprofit organization that provides “custom-fit hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children who suffer from medical-related hairloss,” or as I generally put it, they make wigs for kids with cancer.

My brother-in-law, a barber, chopped off two fourteen-inch ponytails in front of my gawking sister, nieces and nephew as well as a barbershop full of bewildered men. (“Hey, man. What’s wrong with her? Why’d that girl cut off all her hair?”) He chopped another two inches trying to straighten up my thick, shaggy mop of hair. He actually did a pretty good job, leaving me with a chin-length bob. Unfortunately, he just couldn’t quite get the back. The harder he tried to straighten it, the shorter my hair. I simply laughed and threw on a baseball cap, reveling in my new hair (or lack thereof).

On the way home, though, the uneven hair started bothering me. I decided to stop at some drive-thru hair cuttery where someone I’d never seen before, someone I’d never see again would comb and clip my hair. (Shampoo is extra.) I figured that it would be fine; I just needed to have my hair evened out a bit along the bottom, in the back. Twenty minutes later, I walked out in a daze. My cute little bob? Gone. Replaced by a flapping mushroom cloud of hair.

She layered my head. The evil girl in a purple smock layered my head. As I watched in speechless horror, she attacked my defenseless locks with a pair of scissors.

“You’re going to hate this,” she announced smartly as she snipped. “You just need more body.”
I sputtered, trying to stop her, willing my mouth to form words as I imagined myself in the recurring nightmare of my childhood, hunted by a purple cow in my house cum J.C. Penney’s, unable to move or speak. I wanted to tell her that my hair was too thick for short layers, that I’d just lost sixteen inches and couldn’t take any more, but I couldn’t. My mouth, my mind, my words failed me. I’d told her all this before she started, but apparently it didn’t matter to the burger flipper of the hair styling world.
She whipped off the smock and walked up to the counter at the front. I followed in a daze, pulling out my wallet with trembling hands.

“Oh, you think it’s too short, don’t you?” she asked glibly. I think she actually smirked.

“Twelve dollars.”

I passed her my credit card, signed the receipt and added a 25-percent tip. I muttered my thanks and stumbled out into the bright sunlight, into my car, home where I set about the business of weeping and gnashing of teeth. I tore at my hair, trying to make it longer. (“Put it back! Put it back!!!”) I pulled out every ball cap, cowboy hat, beret I owned and tried them in turn, vowing not to bare my head until the following summer. I drove to the whole foods market and invested in an industrial-sized bottle of vegetarian prenatal vitamins.

I felt so… violated. And I had thanked the evil woman. I not only thanked her, I gave her a tip. Cow. Purple cow.

I shuddered and picked up a pen.

-Kristin

Researchers Ape Nature With Flapping-Wing Aircraft
"Mentor" looked like a cross between a dragonfly and a Chinese lantern as it soared toward the ceiling of a Toronto research center, its wings flapping furiously. Below, a bespectacled young man gingerly worked the joystick on a remote control. Mentor started hovering in place, and suddenly the sound of flapping was drowned by thunderous applause.

Mentor's maiden flight last spring marked a milestone in the age-old quest to build ornithopters -- aircraft propelled by flapping wings. Developed by the University of Toronto's Institute for Aerospace Studies and SRI International, a nonprofit research and development corporation in Menlo Park, Calif., Mentor is the world's first hovering ornithopter.

Mentor came into being in response to a vision of a "fly-on-the-wall spy" put forward by James McMichael at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1997. He envisioned stealth "micro-air vehicles" with the size and flying ability of insects deployed to gather intelligence on enemy terrain.

Flapping wings offer several advantages over the fixed wings of today's reconnaissance drones, such as the Predator used by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Flapping wings allow insects and birds to fly at low speeds, hover, make sharp turns and even fly backward.

Flapping produces a vortex -- a tiny tornado -- beneath each wing that creates the push necessary for birds and insects to take to the sky.

But vortices alone do not account for the versatile flight capabilities of birds and insects. Notable among the faculties that flying insects and birds employ is the "clap-fling" mechanism. Like a baritone taking a deep breath before belting out the first note, they draw in air by clapping their wings together, then flinging them apart at high speeds. This creates lift by hurling regions of high pressure below and behind.

Intrigued by McMichael's vision and armed with DARPA funding, James DeLaurier, a professor at the University of Toronto, chose the hummingbird as his model for Mentor for its ability to "hover beautifully" as well as its "smooth, elegant style of switching from hovering to horizontal flight." (Washingtonpost.com)

Hillary For President

Senator John Kerry spent the weekend in the Hamptons but never got to the beach. There is no time for sand and sea when you are gathering money for a presidential campaign.

The man from Massachusetts had a pretty good couple of days. Several dozen New Yorkers (mostly) paid $500 each to hear him at a brunch in Southampton, where he was introduced as the candidate with: "The war record of John Kennedy; the brains of Bill Clinton; the toughness of Lyndon Johnson, and the hair of Ronald Reagan."

A good time was had by all, even if you heard the occasional grumble of, "What the hell is she doing out here? What is she raising money for?"

"She" is Hillary. The Senator from New York was down the road in Easthampton, getting ready to do her own gathering at a $250-a-head cocktail party. Pretty good for a freshman senator. But Kerry, who has served 19 years in that august company, is not concerned about Hillary the senator. He is worried about Hillary for President -- and well he should be.

The race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 has changed totally in the past few weeks. At the beginning of the summer, Hillary could comfortably deny having national presidential ambitions, because the comfortable conventional wisdom was that it didn’t really matter who the Democratic candidate would be, because President Bush had a lock on re-election. (I’m sure that the thought has never crossed her mind that it would be better for her if Bush won in 2004, leaving her a clear field in 2008)

But now!...with Bush looking more vulnerable because there are not enough jobs at home and not enough peace abroad, Senator Clinton has to check some numbers. If a Democrat, say Kerry, defeats Bush next November and then runs for re-election in 2008, then her next chance to run would probably be in 2012, when she will be 65 years old. And who knows what the world will look like then? (RichardReeves.com)

From RSS to Radio with iSpeak It

iSpeak It is an OS X app that grabs a text file, performs a text-to-speech operation to turn it into a read-aloud audio file, then converts it to an MP3 and synchs it to your iPod. Pretty cool -- you could use a script to grab a bunch of news from your RSS reader, suck it into iSpeak It, turn it into an MP3, and put it on your iPod to listen to on your morning commute. (BoingBoing.net)

Growing Opposition to Bush Re-election

For the first time, more Americans say they would oppose President George Bush's re-election in 2004 than support a second term, according to a poll published yesterday that showed mounting pessimism over the US military presence in Iraq.
As attacks on coalition forces continue to inflict casualties, a Newsweek poll found that the human and economic costs of occupation were eroding the president's support at an accelerating rate.

Sixty-nine per cent of those asked were concerned that the US would be bogged down for many years in Iraq with little to show for it in improved security for Americans; 49% said they were very concerned.

At the same time Mr Bush's approval rating dropped to 53%, down 18% since April, and his lowest rating since before the September 11 attacks turned him from the victor of a disputed election presiding over a worsening economy into a wartime leader.

But the most jarring statistic for the White House looked forward to the 2004 election. Some 49% of Americans questioned in yesterday's poll said they did not want him re-elected, against only 44% prepared to give him a second term. The corresponding figures in April were 52% backing re-election with 38% opposed.

The change over four months represents a serious haemorrhage in support, reflecting a combination of long-term but spreading disenchantment with the president's economic stewardship and new doubts over where he is taking the country in his open-ended "war on terror". (Guardian)

Microsoft Is Using Linux To Protect Its Own Web Site

Microsoft has made a big deal out of asserting that Linux is not fit for the enterprise. But Microsoft itself is using Linux to help protect its servers against denial-of-service attacks.

According to a post on the Netcraft Web site, Microsoft changed its DNS settings on Friday so that requests for www.microsoft.com no longer resolve to machines on Microsoft's own network, but instead are handled by the Akamai caching system, which runs Linux.

Akamai runs a service to help boost Web site performance by caching copies of Web sites on many servers in many locations. Akamai can help defend against denial-of-service attacks by spreading the attack among many servers. Just as a distributed denial-of-service attack enlists large numbers of systems to attack a single server, Akamai presents a distributed defense against denial-of-service attacks.

As of this writing, Netcraft reports that www.microsoft.com is still running on Linux, although microsoft.com is reported as running on Windows Server 2003.

A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company "respects the fact that [its partners and vendors] may have diversified business models and operate in mixed IT environments. Microsoft's main concern is doing whatever it takes to help ensure customers can get to the Blaster worm patch to protect their computers.... Microsoft is using Akamai's extensive worldwide network to distrubte the massive traffic that is illegally being directed at Microsoft by hackers." (InternetWeek)

Music Industry Problems: Maybe The Music Just Sucks

Well, it's good to see some of the more mainstream press picking up on this idea. CBS Marketwatch is suggesting to the music industry that maybe (just maybe) the music industry's problems have less to do with all this downloading activity, and more to do with the fact that, well, um, we hate to break it to you, but most of the music coming out these days really (no, really) sucks. The article describes "musical lulls" between great periods of music creation, where most musical acts are more about "McDonald's rock" - taking a successful manufactured act and copying it over and over again. The article also suggests that the world has fragmenting tastes. That is, not everyone likes the same music, and not everyone wants to be forced to listen to yet another boy band. This, of course, is the perfect situation for the internet, where the music industry could produce much more customized niche acts for all the varied audiences. However, they've grown so accustomed to producing for the lowest common denominator that now that this plan has backfired, they've turned around and started blaming (and suing) their own customers. (Techdirt)

Interesting Account of Sexual Harassment in Saudi Arabia

Women alone or accompanied by their drivers in Saudi Arabia are almost always harassed wherever they go by men of all ages. The situation has become so pathetic that the term “open season” is an understatement. Even more perplexing is the fact that when women are walking with a Saudi man, no one dares to approach them in any way; the worst that will happen is a quick stolen glance. I admit I like it when one of my brothers agrees to take me somewhere, not because I could not defend myself if I had to, but because Riyadh suddenly becomes a much more peaceful place to walk in, with less savage behavior.

Looking at my brother as he walked next to me in the shopping mall, I wondered what it was about him that was so threatening. He is a regular teenager, tallish but without much muscle; my driver (with whom I’m constantly being harassed) is much taller and has a more threatening build. And that was when it hit me. It was not the physical build but the fact that he was a Saudi man. That is why more and more women require that their drivers wear the traditional thobe and ghoutra/shummagh: In other words, they make their own scarecrows.

The saddest part of all this is the realization that we are a nation with so little self-discipline that we need this and other types of scarecrows to make us behave. Why is that? What made us this way? Was it the way we were educated and raised? Have we been inadvertently taught that punishment is the only reason to be moral? And if there is no chance of being punished, then what? No boundaries?

We have so many scarecrows, and they come in all sizes and shapes. When I first came back from the States, in middle school, I was introduced to my first scarecrow: What is known as a muragbah or observer. This person’s job was literally to watch students and reprimand them for any violations of dress code, attendance, misbehavior in class and so forth. Never once in all my school years here did I hear any civilized dialogue between students and these observers — civilized as in the latter trying to convince the former of the benefits of conforming to the dress codeor the morality of respecting class times and teachers. Instead, it was always punishment without delay. Moreover, the sentences passed were usually immoral and even vindictive in themselves: Young girls with short hair would be asked to wear veils covering their hair until it grew long, those wearing shoes with anything resembling heels would be forced to walk barefoot all day, and those late for class would be asked to stand outside the principal’s room all day long. The educational environment became closer to a prison; no wonder then when an observer was absent the school went wild. (Arab News)

Smart Mob Storms London



The flash mob phenomenon has hit London.
Since June spontaneous crowds summoned up via the internet have been assembling in cities around the world and taking part in a form of performance art.

The idea began in New York and last night London's flash mobsters got their first chance to meet.

About 200 people brought confusion and a small slice of net culture to a corner of the capital.

The crowd got its instructions of where to meet via the mailing list of the London flash mob website.

The mobsters met up in one of three Soho pubs and awaited instructions about where the final mob was to rally and what it was to do.

Final instructions involved descending on the Sofa UK store on Tottenham Court Road, appreciating the furniture on show and then ringing a friend on a mobile phone and talking about it without using the letter "o".

Disaster almost struck as Sofa UK had closed early but its owner Derrick Robinson returned to open up when he saw a crowd forming outside his store.

"My first reaction was I thought there was a fight. Then I thought it was a celebrity," Mr Robinson said once the mob had disappeared.

"It works because there is no ideological point behind it," said Zee, the 40-year-old Londoner behind the capital crowd-puller.

"You just chill out and have fun. It's too hot for anything else." (BBC News)

Group to Try to 'Recall' Bush



The latest Democratic drive to make sure President Bush serves just one term takes a page from the effort to oust a Democratic governor in California, calling its web site "bushrecall" and garnering support through petitions.

A new committee called the Fair and Balanced PAC plans to launch its www.bushrecall.org Web site Thursday. The PAC's founders include Joe Lockhart, a press secretary to former President Clinton, and Mike Lux, a Democratic political consultant.

The Constitution provides no way to recall a president through a ballot initiative, as California voters have a chance to do to Democrat Gray Davis in October.

Instead, the PAC will work to defeat Bush in next year's election, building lists of supporters through a petition drive and raising money to run ads against the Republican, he said.

"What we hope to do is to remind people that all of the things that are being said about Gray Davis as the reasons for the recall can be applied to George Bush," Lux said Wednesday. "For example, they say Davis turned big surpluses into deficits in a matter of a couple of years. That's the same thing that happened with George Bush."

The Bush campaign declined to comment. (WashingPost.com)

Book Swap Hits Streets



Hundreds of books have been left on the streets of Manchester as part of a growing international swapping project.
People who find the books in the city are encouraged to read them and then release them back "into the wild" for others to pick up, read and pass on.

Known as Bookcrossing, the idea has already been introduced to the cities of Melbourne, Shanghai, Oslo, Montreal and Hong Kong.

On Saturday, people in Manchester were asked to look out for books everywhere - from street corners to shopping arcades.

The city's Urbis museum is behind the book exchange's introduction to the UK and visitors are being urged to bring their old books in to take part.

Didsbury's Oxfam Bookshop has donated more than 100 books to the project and Urbis staff have brought in their own books.

Even the city's black cab drivers and First Northwest trains are carrying the books. (BBC News)

Rage Against the Machine



Adrienne T. Samen, 18, shown in this police photo spent part of her wedding night in a jail cell Saturday, Aug. 16, 2003, after police said she hurled things at reception hall workers who closed the bar. Samen, was arrested on criminal mischief and breach of peace charges after police responded to The Mill on the River restaurant in South Windsor, Conn. When workers there closed the bar, Samen allegedly began throwing things, including wedding cake and vases, inside the restaurant. (Yahoo! News)

Al Qaida Claims Responsibility for Blackout

Al Qaida's Abu Hafs Brigades has claimed responsibility for the blackout last week in the Northeast and Midwest United States. A communiqué by the Abu Hafs Brigades made reference to Operation Quick Lightning in the Land of the Tyrant of this Generation."

It was published as "the third communiqué by the "Brigades."

In the first, they accepted responsibility for the downing of an airplane in Kenya. The second accepted responsibility for the Jakarta bombing of the Marriott hotel on August 5, 2003.

The new communiqué says that in compliance with the orders of Osama bin Laden to strike at the American economy, the Brigades struck two important electricity supply targets on the East coast, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute. The Brigades say that they cannot reveal how they did it, because they will probably have to use the same method again soon. The communiqué also claimed that the operation was meant as a present for the Iraqi people.

"A communiqué attributed to Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the power blackout that happened in the U.S. last Thursday, saying that the brigades of Abu Fahes Al Masri had hit two main power plants supplying the East of the U.S., as well as major industrial cities in the U.S. and Canada, 'its ally in the war against Islam (New York and Toronto) and their neighbors.'

"The communiqué assured that the operation 'was carried out on the orders of Osama bin Laden to hit the pillars of the U.S. economy,' as 'a realization of bin Laden's promise to offer the Iraqi people a present.'

'The Americans lived a black day they will never forget'

"The statement, which Al-Hayat obtained from the website of the International Islamic Media Center, didn't specify the way the alleged sabotage was carried out. The communiqué read: 'let the criminal Bush and his gang know that the punishment is the result of the action, the soldiers of God cut the power on these cities, they darkened the lives of the Americans as these criminals blackened the lives of the Muslim people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. The Americans lived a black day they will never forget. They lived a day of terror and fear… a state of chaos and confusion where looting and pillaging rampaged the cities, just like the capital of the caliphate Baghdad, and Afghanistan and Palestine were. Let the American people take a sip from the same glass.' (WorldTribune.com)

How the Pirates Saved the Music Industry



Even technologically challenged music fans who could no more download an illegal MP3 file than pilot a space shuttle owe a debt of gratitude to the Napster generation. For years record buyers have complained that CDs are overpriced and the music industry has responded by saying, as politely as possible, put up or shut up.

Now, panicked by the pirates, they've finally been compelled to slash prices to a reasonable level and sales have reached an all-time high. Profits are down but that's what happens when you stop charging £16.99 for an item that costs 50p to manufacture.

These sales figures are enormously heartening because they prove that people still love to buy music. In recent years many industry pundits have become professional jeremiahs, predicting the irreversible decline of record sales.

They blame it on the bands, the radio programmers, the A&R men, the internet and possibly even the boogie. They're wrong.

Of course quality is subjective, although the fact that the year's biggest sellers include Justin Timberlake's consummate urban pop and the White Stripes' lo-fi blues-rock suggests a healthy state of play. What can't be disputed is that record buying is addictive. The more CDs you buy and enjoy, the more new ones you seek out.

Thanks to the pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap ethos of online retailers, the discount chain Fopp and the never-ending sales in major stores, fans are inclined to buy armfuls of affordable CDs instead of one or two full-price ones. That means bigger record collections and more knowledgeable and passionate consumers.

Maybe some teenagers whose introduction to music postdates Napster are now incurably addicted to freebies but most music-lovers are prepared to buy the real thing at a fair price. When you can pick up a classic for a fiver and a new release for a tenner, downloading doesn't seem quite as necessary.

For many years the music business has been greedy, short-sighted and manipulative, inflating prices because it knew the consumer had no alternative. Now, led by the pirates, the customer finally has the upper hand. (Guardian)

2003 NYC Blackout

The power went out around 4:10pm or so as I sat in front of my computer. I don't know the exact time because most of the clocks in the office are electric. Wandered around the 15th floor for a bit, looking out the window at people in the building across the street looking over at our building and down to the street. Reports via cell phone that the power is out in Brooklyn as well.
I grabbed provisions from the dark fridge (a bottle of water) and set off from 45th Street across town and down 30 blocks to 14th Street and into the Village...after 15 flights of stairs. When I emerged from the building, people were everywhere. It's midtown, so people are usually everywhere, but this was that times ten. I waded through the crowd down 5th Avenue to 34th Street.

Nobody knows what's going on. A red emergency vehicle is parked, the driver has the passenger side door open with the radio blasting the news out to a crowd of people. Everyone stands listening, heads cocked to one side, looking at the ground, straining for details. I join them for a couple of minutes. The radio says that the power is out. Duh.

I pass a woman saying to another woman that Madison Square Garden is on fire. Two minutes later, I walk past a very intact and very much not burning Madison Square Garden. The crowd is so dense that we're all shuffling along, no one getting anywhere fast. Someone bumps into the person in front of me. "Hey, watch where the hell you're going." People are little scared and seem on edge. I don't hear the word terrorism, but the air is thick with the thought.

I reach 18th Street. Some shops are open, most are not. The ice cream shop is doing good business. The owner of a bodega has barricaded the door with shelves of food and stands watch with him employees.

A block from home, I see a couple sitting outside at a restaurant, sipping Coronas, watching the world go by.

And now, I leave for the airport. I have no idea if we'll get there in time.(Kottke.org)