Why Bill Gates wants 3,000 new patents By Randall Stross July 31 2005 Source "EXCITING," "uninteresting" and "not exciting" don't seem like technical terms, but they show up a lot in United States patent application No. 20,050,160,457, titled "Annotating Programs for Automatic Summary Generation." It seems to be about baseball. The inventors have aby archive - Archive
'Free' Danish beer makes a splash By Clark Boyd Technology correspondent BBC 28 July, 2005 Source The Danes love their beer, but increasingly they are looking beyond the old Danish standby, Carlsberg, to quench their thirst Students from the Information Technology University in Copenhagen are trying to help by releasing what they are calling the world's first open source beer rby archive - Archive
Stem Cells Mend Spinal Cords Reuters Source 12:52 PM Jul. 27, 2005 PT Genetically engineered stem cells can help rats’ severed spinal cords grow back together, according to a study published Tuesday. Rats given the treatment, using stem cells taken from rat embryos, could move their legs again after their spines were severed in the lab, said the researchers’ report in the Journal of Neuroscienby archive - Archive
Richard Branson and Burt Rutan Form Spacecraft Building Company By Leonard David Senior Space Writer posted: 27 July 2005 03:09 pm ET Source British entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson, has teamed up with aerospace designer, Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites to form a new aerospace production company. The new firm will build a fleet of commercial suborbital spaceships and launch aircraft. Called Tby archive - Archive
The Daily Reckoning London, England Wednesday, July 27, 2005 The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: Two weeks ago, a Chinese general stated that if the U.S. intervenes in any conflict with Taiwan, they would be forced to retaliate with nukes. Dan Denning looks at the factors surrounding the situation and wonders if this threat could become a reality... DECAPITATION STRATEGY by Dan Denning The biggesby archive - Archive
First a Slashdot comment, than the 'new planet discovered' news. J. *** Perhaps a New King of the Kuiper Belt (Score:5, Informative) by rwllama (587787) Friday July 29, 2005 Source Amongst professional astronomers (which includes me), Pluto is generally not considered a planet. It is the largest member of the Kuiper Belt. It is historical accident that Pluto was discovered almostby archive - Archive
We Are the Web The Netscape IPO wasn't really about dot-commerce. At its heart was a new cultural force based on mass collaboration. Blogs, Wikipedia, open source, peer-to-peer - behold the power of the people. By Kevin Kelly August 2005 Source Ten years ago, Netscape's explosive IPO ignited huge piles of money. The brilliant flash revealed what had been invisible only a moment beforby archive - Archive
China Unpegs Itself By PAUL KRUGMAN July 22, 2005 Source Thursday's statement from the People's Bank of China, announcing that the yuan is no longer pegged to the dollar, was terse and uninformative - you might say inscrutable. There's a good chance that this is simply a piece of theater designed to buy a few months' respite from protectionist pressures in the U.S. Congress.by archive - Archive
Toyota, Moving Northward By PAUL KRUGMAN July 25, 2005 Source Modern American politics is dominated by the doctrine that government is the problem, not the solution. In practice, this doctrine translates into policies that make low taxes on the rich the highest priority, even if lack of revenue undermines basic public services. You don't have to be a liberal to realize that this is wby archive - Archive
Cool Light on Hot Days: Fiber Optics Bring the Sun Indoors Piping in sunlight without using electricity is a win-win proposition for the ecosystem and human society. Both home and business customers anticipate energy savings and a more pleasant indoor environment. by Mary-Sue Haliburton Pure Energy Systems News Copyright © 2005 Source CANADA TABLE OF CONTENTS A. FULL-SPECTRUM LIGHTING B. THEby archive - Archive
Can Cell Phones Damage Our Eyes? Source I'm sure you've read dozens of stories about how our cell phones could be dangerous to our health, causing brain tumors for example. But so far, there is not a definitive answer. But now, according to IsraCast, a team of Israeli researchers has discovered that the microwave radiation used by our cell phones could destroy our eyes by causinby archive - Archive
Expats return aids Israel biotech By Loolwa Khazzoom In Tel Aviv, Israel 26 July, 2005 Source Guy Malchi is at his weekly meeting with Professor Zvia Agur, the founder and chair of Optimata, an Israeli bio-simulation company working on cancer treatment. They are sitting at the home office of the Institute for Medical Biomathematics, the non-profit research organisation, located on the outskirby archive - Archive
USA to Pass Science Crown to China Contributed by editorone Tuesday, 26 July 2005 Source According to a working paper of the National Bureau of Economic Research, rapid development of a science and technology base by populous Asian countries soon may threaten the economic position of the United States. Not only is the U.S. losing ground in high technology exports, but its very capacity to dby archive - Archive
The Cost of Software Monopoly July 25, 2005 Executive Summary Source Over the past decade, the personal computer industry has seen a major reduction in competition in the operating system platform market. A computer operating system platform is the software which computer users learn to operate their computer with, the software that independent software vendors develop applications for and theby archive - Archive
Financial companies lead Linux charge By Carol Sliwa 22/07/2005 15:31:20 Source Open-source zealots may continue to play a part in instigating the spread of Linux across the European continent, nearly 14 years after Linus Torvalds hatched the operating system in Finland. But private corporations and public-sector users in Europe typically cite pragmatic reasons for taking up the open-source opeby archive - Archive
washingtonpost.com Greenspan Concerned About Pension Issues By JEANNINE AVERSA The Associated Press Thursday, July 21, 2005; 12:45 PM Source WASHINGTON -- Any more moves by companies to dump troubled pension plans on the financially strapped agency that insures them for working men and women would be troubling but shouldn't threaten the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan saiby archive - Archive
FAMOUS FIRST BUBBLES? -- SOUTH SEA BUBBLE Source The South Sea Company was proposed in 1710 by George Caswall, London merchant, financier, and stock broker, and John Blunt, London scrivener turned stock broker. They proposed to the government of Robert Harley that the 9.47 million pounds of outstanding short-term war debts, not funded by a specific tax, be converted into equity in a nby archive - Archive
"...Most recently, Gerard helped demonstrate that climate changes over the last 10,000 years have been driven largely by solar variability. He did this by analyzing the effect of cosmic rays, which fluctuates inversely with solar activity, on sediment cores and comparing that to the climate record he had pried out of the North Atlantic. At the time of Gerard’s death, the paper he and his colby archive - Archive
Sunday, March 27, 2005 Dark Passage: PNAC's Blueprint for Empire Source (Original version published Sept. 20, 2002 in the Moscow Times. This is the expanded version from the book, Empire Burlesque.) Not since Mein Kampf has a geopolitical punch been so blatantly telegraphed, years ahead of the blow. Adolf Hitler clearly spelled out his plans to destroy the Jews and launch wars of conquestby archive - Archive
Microsoft frowned at for smiley patent By Ingrid Marson ZDNet UK July 22, 2005, 17:15 BST Source Various organisations have criticised Microsoft for attempting to patent the creation of custom emoticons. The patent, which was published by the US patent office on Thursday, covers selecting pixels to create an emoticon image, assigning a character sequence to these pixels and reconstructing theby archive - Archive
Instill fear... The Cathedralmodel way. J. *** House votes to extend Patriot Act Democrats voice civil liberties concerns Friday, July 22, 2005 CNN Source WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted Thursday to extend the USA Patriot Act, the nation's main anti-terrorism tool, just hours after televisions in the Capitol beamed images of a new attack in London. As similar legislation worked iby archive - Archive
Big time trouble America continues to weaken, but why worry? By Molly Ivins 07.21.05 Source AUSTIN -- If you had done a poll in November 2000, or in November 2004, I don't think you would have gotten out of single digits with this proposition: "George W. Bush wants to radically revise American law, including complete repeal of the New Deal, and take us back to the economic leby archive - Archive
America's Truth Deficit By WILLIAM GREIDER July 18, 2005 Source Washington DURING the cold war, as the Soviet economic system slowly unraveled, internal reform was impossible because highly placed officials who recognized the systemic disorders could not talk about them honestly. The United States is now in an equivalent predicament. Its weakening position in the global trading system isby archive - Archive
The Daily Reckoning London, England Tuesday, July 19, 2005 The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: The Fed continues to stand by their claim that the U.S. economy is just experiencing a "soft patch" that will surely be followed by high rates of economic growth. Dr. Richebächer stands firm in his belief, too - that the worse has yet to come... DEBT, DELUSION, DECEPTION by Dr. Kurt Richebächerby archive - Archive
Sun's Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 02:30 pm ET 20 March 2003 Source In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s. The increase would only be significant to Earth's climby archive - Archive
The job market's dropout puzzle By Paul Krugman July 18, 2005 The New York Times Source Many seemingly authoritative figures, not all of them partisan shills, say that the American economy has fully recovered from the recession that began in 2001. They point to the unemployment rate, which has fallen from a peak of 6.3 percent in 2003 to 5 percent last month. That's not quite as low aby archive - Archive
Maybe old news to some: On Mars the climate is changing even faster. See: Once Upon a Water Planet Today the Red Planet is dry and barren, but what about tomorrow? New data suggest that the long story of water on Mars isn't over yet. -- NASA The climate of our solar system is rapidly changing and thereby changing all the planetary climates. J. *** Greenland glacier almost triples speeby archive - Archive
Herald as the New Rosseta Stone for the Great Pyramid July 16, 2005 Book review by Colette Maxine Dowell Source Pyramid Quest:Secrets of the Great Pyramid and the Dawn of Civilization by Dr. Robert M. Schoch Egypt with her Sphinx, Pyramids and Temples has been revered as the cradle of civilization and her Ancient Wisdom teachings have long been sought for their secrets and mysterieby archive - Archive
The Great Sphinx Aug. 20, 2004 By Alan Boyle Source Rethinking the Sphinx: After years of fighting the critics of his controversial theory on the age of the Great Sphinx, John Anthony West wants them to join him. West — an author whose 1993 TV documentary, "Mystery of the Sphinx," laid out an unorthodox tale about Egypt's best-known sculpture — says he is trying to organize a paby archive - Archive
March 2, 2004 Evidence bubbles over to support tabletop nuclear fusion device By Emil Venere Source WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Researchers are reporting new evidence supporting their earlier discovery of an inexpensive "tabletop" device that uses sound waves to produce nuclear fusion reactions. The researchers believe the new evidence shows that "sonofusion" generates nuclear rby archive - Archive