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"A Brief Survey of the Various Foreigners, Their Chief Characteristics, Customs, and Manners." Israelis, "They were personally responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire, the 1929 stock market crash, and the loss of World War II by a prominent European country." On Canada, "It is thought to resemble a sort of arctic Nebraska." It's okay because it's both unapologetic and National Lampoon circa Animal House. Harvard boys in the 60s were original ironic hipsters!
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Newsfilter: Sex Clubs OK in Canada ruled the Supreme Court yesterday in a 7-2 decision that drastically alters the definition of indecency in this country. What will be the results of this far-reaching change? Will gay bathhouses and marijuana growing be affected? Will there be anti-social behaviour? "Now harm, rather than community standards, is the key yardstick that will be used to measure the point at which constitutional freedoms can be limited".
comment posted at 4:00 PM on Dec-22-05

Senate Blocks Patriot Act Renewal In a 52-47 vote, the Republican majority was unable to obtain the 60 votes necessary to end the bipartisan fillibuster. Roll call is in the title link as well as here, Patriot Act provisions set to expire on 12/31 via CNN.
comment posted at 11:07 AM on Dec-16-05

"The NAACP has many civil rights issues that require our attention. Criticizing Donovan McNabb is not one of them" That's the response of Bruce Gordon, CEO of the NAACP responds to an ignorant and racist column written by Whyatt Mondesire, president of the NAACP's Philadelphia chapter, in the Philadelphia Sun. Two years ago Rush Limbaugh lost his ESPN gig for making racist comments about McNabb. Will Mondesire have to pay a price for remarks that are even more offensive and racially loaded?
comment posted at 12:24 AM on Dec-16-05

New Star Trek Movie? There is talk that there might be a new Star Trek movie with Shatner, Stewart & Bakula. Via Digg
comment posted at 4:05 PM on Dec-15-05

Patriot Act used to arrest environmental activists
"Federal marshals arrested six environmental activists in a series of coordinated raids in four states yesterday, Dec. 8, in apparent response to a string of arsons in Oregon and Washington attributed to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF)" ... has the patriot act produced any arrests in the country related to 9-11?
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Second Life CEO turns in players name to the FBI for disrupting one of his virtual parties. In the world of Second Life any player can create objects using the built in scripting language. Some players have created self replicating "bombs" or hand out embedded pornography. Instead of just banning users or limiting what can be done with the scripting language the CEO Philip Rosendale is simply turning over the names of players straight to the feds and expecting the FBI to prosecute players under existing anti-DoS laws. A case of the bruised ego of a self-important CEO or are virtual world 'hackers/pranksters' best treated like common criminals?
comment posted at 11:29 AM on Dec-15-05

Fuck Christmas. Via del.icio.us.
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Is your podcast being hijacked? The nature of RSS and podcast content makes it really easy for somebody to create new feeds based on somebody else's content and pass it off as the original through directories like Yahoo's or iTunes; then, of course, they potentially add advertising or use the built-up audience to extort the original podcaster. Podkeyword, the organization that has sparked concern about the issue, says they're not doing anything illegal or unethical; correspondence between Podkeyword and the guy whose podcast is at issue is available. [First pass legal take here, potential third-party retribution here; via.]
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Smokers Brokers is brilliantly simple: take the cash you'd waste on cigarettes and invest it instead. Perhaps this could help coax economists into quitting smoking, for everyone else, it might be better to have some savings and your health than burning up a few more expensive coffin nails. [this site from mefi projects also won the contest for banished]
comment posted at 8:28 PM on Dec-14-05

The synchronization of two pendulum clocks was discovered in 1665 by Huygens. Two pendulum clocks mounted on the same wall always fell exactly out of phase with each other no matter what the starting conditions. Regardless of the initial conditions the system always ended up the same. In stark contrast, a chaotic system is extremely sensitive to initial conditions. How can these two seemingly seperate things be tied together? The synchronization of chaos. When two chaotic systems are synchronized together, information can be shared between them. It immediatly brings to mind applications for encryption, but it is still far away from everyday use.
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There hasn't been a micro battle since the Miyamoto peace accord! this planet's funniest show about gaming.. dave goes to china, tagi had a date with a non-gamer, jeremy doubts his life, doug acts travis bickle, alex speaks french, teh_masterer trains an army: pure pwnage episode09 [torrent]
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