Ants - learning from the collective By Peter Everett Saturday, 5 March, 2005, 09:46 GMT Source *** RELATED INTERNET LINKS: Chris Melhuish Nigel Franks **** "Go to the ant, thou sluggard," King Solomon advised in the Book of Proverbs Chapter Six, "consider her ways and be wise". Humans have always looked at the little beasts - so efficient, so purposeful and yet so diffby archive - Archive
Carly's Way As Told to Michelle Delio March 4, 2005 Source An electronic engineer who worked as a Research Scientist at the Hewlett-Packard Imaging Systems Laboratory starting in 1975 until he resigned in 2003, G.S. thought HP represented the very best of American character -- "a spirit of adventure and a belief in unlimited possibilities." He charges, though, that startingby archive - Archive
Red Hat exec takes over Open Source Initiative By Stephen Shankland Story last modified Fri Mar 04 12:07:00 PST 2005 Source The Open Source Initiative, a group seeking to become more influential in matters concerning the cooperative programming philosophy, has seen its second change of leadership in less than a month. Michael Tiemann, vice president of open-source affairs at Linux seller Redby archive - Archive
Sowing the Seeds of Open Source Advocacy by Jono Bacon 03/03/2005 Source Aristotle was a confused yet accomplished man. As someone who demonstrated incredible understanding of philosophy, his efforts typically hinged around expressing abstract concepts to people in a language they understood. With a portfolio of such complex topics, Aristotle developed better ways in which he could express hisby archive - Archive
Conversation with a successful Linux services entrepreneur Friday March 04, 2005 (12:00 PM GMT) By: Robin 'Roblimo' Miller Source Con Zymaris runs Cybersource, an IT service company in Melbourne, Australia. Cybersource started as a one-man Unix shop in 1991 and has gradually evolved into a decent-sized Linux/FOSS-based business that serves a client base Zymaris says is now 20% governmby archive - Archive
Peeking Into Google By Susan Kuchinskas March 2, 2005 Source BURLINGAME, Calif. -- The key to the speed and reliability of Google (Quote, Chart) search is cutting up data into chunks, its top engineer said. Urs Hoelzle, Google vice president of operations and vice president of engineering, offered a rare behind-the-scenes tour of Google's architecture on Wednesday. Hoelzle spoke here at Eby archive - Archive
New look for classic experiment By Peter Rodgers 2 March 2005 Source Physicists in Europe and the US have performed a novel version of the double-slit quantum-interference experiment with single electrons. In the classic version of the experiment, electrons pass through a mask containing two parallel slits and produce a pattern of bright and dark interference fringes on a screen. Now, Gerhardby archive - Archive
Sun's Temper Blamed for Arctic Ozone Loss By Robert Roy Britt LiveScience Senior Writer posted: 01 March 2005 11:01 am ET Source A dramatic thinning of Earth's protective ozone layer above the Arctic last year was the result of intense upper-level winds and an extra dose of space weather, scientists said Tuesday. Ozone, which screens out some of the Sun's harmful ultraviolet radby archive - Archive
Ozone layer over Arctic 'thinning CNN Monday, January 31, 2005 Posted: 1506 GMT (2306 HKT) Source BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Record low temperatures over the North Pole are thinning the protective ozone layer, a condition which could affect human health in northern countries and even central European nations, the European Union warned Monday. "Large ozone losses are expected to occurby archive - Archive
February 28, 2005 Money Printing Presses Running Full Speed Ahead By PC Source According to an Economist article titled Global Liquidity, global liquidity has been expanding at its fastest pace for at least 30 years. In both 2003 and 2004, the Economist's measure of "global liquidity" rose at annual rates of 20%. In no other two year period since 1975 has liquidity increased byby archive - Archive
The Insecure Indexing Vulnerability Attacks Against Local Search Engines By Author Amit Klein Version 1.0 Last Modified: 2/28/2005 Source Summary This paper describes several techniques (many of them new) for exposing file contents using the site search functionality. It is assumed that a site contains documents which are not visible/accessible to external users. Such documents are typicallyby archive - Archive
Engineers devise invisibility shield By Philip Ball Published online: 28 February 2005 doi:10.1038/news050228-1 Source Electron effects could stop objects from scattering light. The idea of a cloak of invisibility that hides objects from view has long been confined to the more improbable reaches of science fiction. But electronic engineers have now come up with a way to make one. Andrea Alùby archive - Archive
First Look At Solaris 10 Last update: 02-25-2005 by Narayan Newton Source Sun Microsystems has recently released Solaris 10. It is currently free, as in beer, and most of it is promised to be released under an OSI approved license in the second quarter of 2005. Most everyone reading this probably knows all of that. The release and subsequent open sourcing of Solaris 10 has caused quite an uproaby archive - Archive
Grounded: Millionaire John Gilmore stays close to home while making a point about privacy He's unable to travel because he refuses to present a government-approved ID Sunday, February 27, 2005 By Dennis Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Source SAN FRANCISCO -- John Gilmore's splendid isolation began July 4, 2002, when, with defiance aforethought, he strolled to the Southwest Airlines coby archive - Archive
Journey to the (Revoltionary, Evil-Hating, Cash-Crazy, and Possibly Self-Destructive) Center of Google You’ve heard the story. Larry and Sergey drop out of school, start a company in a garage, then become billionaires. But will Larry and Sergey ever grow up? By John Heilemann Source On August 19, Going Public Day for Google, and Larry Page and his comrades are eyeing the lavish breakfast laidby archive - Archive
Governors Work to Improve H.S. Education Sunday February 27, 8:26 AM Source The nation's governors offered an alarming account of the American high school Saturday, saying only drastic change will keep millions of students from falling short. "We can't keep explaining to our nation's parents or business leaders or college faculties why these kids can't do the work,"by archive - Archive
Family's hell at bird flu deathbed A brother is dying and his sister is ill. Mark Honigsbaum in Hanoi reports on cases that are causing new fear Sunday February 27, 2005 The Observer Source Nguyen Thi Ngoan grasps the surgical mask closer to her mouth, stifling a sob. In a nearby hospital bed, behind a door marked 'quarantine', her younger brother lies prostrate, his feet curledby archive - Archive
NIST-UCSB Scientists Entice Superconducting Devices To Act Like Pairs of Atoms Advance Marks Progress Toward Quantum Computer Made with 'Artificial Atoms' FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Feb. 24, 2005 Source Boulder, Colo. -- Two superconducting devices have been coaxed into a special, interdependent state that mimics the unusual interactions sometimes seen in pairs of atoms, according to a tby archive - Archive
The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: In this Daily Reckoning classique, first published on Feb. 28, 2003, Bill Bonner examines the differences in the America's economic structure since the last decade of the 20th century. He points out that the world very rarely does what we want it to do, and more often it does exactly the opposite. Read on... LITERARY ECONOMICS by Bill Bonner It all seemed so lby archive - Archive
Wag-the-Dog Protection By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: February 22, 2005 Source The campaign against Social Security is going so badly that longtime critics of President Bush, accustomed to seeing their efforts to point out flaws in administration initiatives brushed aside, are pinching themselves. But they shouldn't relax: if the past is any guide, the Bush administration will soon change theby archive - Archive
Buttonwood In the eye of the investor Feb 22nd 2005 From The Economist Global Agenda Source Efficient markets are producing boring returns these days. Is investing in one of the least efficient—art—a better bet? NOT long ago, Buttonwood dropped in on the auction rooms at Sotheby’s, on London’s New Bond Street. The room was full, the bidding brisk. It brought back the heady days of the late 1by archive - Archive
Interview: The Future in Grid Computing By David Worthington, BetaNews February 21, 2005, 11:41 AM Source INTERVIEW Computing grids are software engines that pool together and manage resources from isolated systems to form a new type of low-cost supercomputer. In spite of their usefulness, grids remained the plaything of researchers for many years. But now, in 2005, grids have finally come of aby archive - Archive
Futures exchanges brace for patent suits By Alex Skorecki Published: February 23 2005 20:02 | Last updated: February 23 2005 20:02 Source European exchanges, brokers and traders are preparing for possible legal battles with Trading Technologies, a US software company. TT, run by a former Mississippi catfish farmer, Harris Brumfield, has won damages for patent infringement from the Chicago-baseby archive - Archive
Software learns to translate by reading up 22 February 2005 NewScientist.com By Will Knight Source Translation software that develops an understanding of languages by scanning through thousands of previously translated documents has been released by US researchers. Most existing translation software uses hand-coded rules for transposing words and phrases. But the new software, developed by Kby archive - Archive
Japan's Robot Developers Go Linux By Jan Krikke www.LinuxInsider.com Part of the ECT News Network 12/03/03 4:15 AM PT Source Japan's preoccupation with consumer robots is largely driven by economic imperatives. It has an aging population, declining birthrates and a looming labor shortage, which means that the development of a standard robot platform could simply be a matter of time. Hby archive - Archive
"Of all the social and natural crises we humans face, the water crisis is the one that lies at the heart of our survival and that of our planet Earth." -- Koichiro Matsuura, the director general of Unesco Water Scarcity Could Affect Billions: Is This the Biggest Crisis of All? Published on Wednesday, March 5, 2003 by the lndependent/UK by Michael McCarthy Source Glug-glug: Not nby archive - Archive
CLIMATE: Global warming bombshell - hockey-stick plot used modified data by Professor Richard Muller 20 Nov 2004 Source A prime piece of evidence linking human activity to climate change turns out to be a product of poor mathematics, says Richard Muller, physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches a course called "Physics for Future Presidents". Progby archive - Archive
Greenspan urges cuts at Fannie, Freddie Fed chief says $1.5 trillion mortgage portfolio will cause problems for nation's financial system. February 18, 2005: 9:19 AM EST Source WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan urged Congress to significantly cut the mortgage portfolios of the big mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to avoid "almost inevitable&quby archive - Archive
And here is the interesting FT editorial: Source Dollar dilemma Published: January 25 2005 02:00 | Last updated: January 25 2005 02:00 The fate of the dollar rests in the hands of a handful of central bankers in Asia. We have known this for some time. Since the foreign private sector shows insufficient appetite for US assets, the US relies on central bank purchases to fund its current account dby archive - Archive
A genius explains Interview by Richard Johnson Saturday February 12, 2005 The Guardian Source Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. He can perform mind-boggling mathematical calculations at breakneck speeds. But unlike other savants, who can perform similar feats, Tammet can describe how he does it. He speaks seven languages and is even devising his own language. Now scientists are asking whetheby archive - Archive