This is the first public posting regarding my next major project, Iron Lute (links to a screenshot). Iron Lute is an outliner, written in Python and using Tk as its toolkit; as a result it should run on Mac, Linux, Windows, and anything else that supports Python and Tk. (Off hand I don't know how many platforms that is, but it is plausible this would work on palmtops and some other obscure ones with few changes.

Thanks to the postscript of my Big Number Fallacy post, I am now the world's sixth leading authority on how to blow up the Earth. (This message may eventually take precedence, though I hope not.) This is easily my proudest Google moment.

I'm torn between Fisking this essay on how privacy protections are hampering intelligence and programming with the rest of tonight. I can't quite put this essay down but we'll see how little I manage to say about it. First, consider the source: Stewart Baker heads the technology law practice at Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. From 1992 to 1994, he was general counsel of the National Security Agency. A former intelligence official calls for more intelligence powers.

I couldn't find this on the Internet, so I present to you the "Big Number Fallacy": Big Number Fallacy: All big numbers are infinite. In particular, they are all larger then each other, smaller then each other, and the same as each other, randomly. In mathematics, depending on your choice of axioms, infinity is a "number" that can be greater then itself, less then itself, and equal to itself at the same time.

In light of the won't do and can't do, Microsoft sits there, and watches its market share begin to erode. That's happening slowly at first, but the snowball is rolling. A few people are starting to look up the hill and notice this big thing barreling down at them, and some are bright enough to step out of the way. I believe this is going to happen. The most convincing arguments are the "

And now we have reached the point where the science/engineering feedback loop has given engineers the tools and technologies to create the internet, the most recent of my four most important inventions in human history. And just as with the other three (spoken language, writing, movable type printing) it will cause a "knee" in human capabilities and behavior. And because of that, a true superhuman "intelligence" may appear during our lifetime.

Disclaimer: I'm not really a fan of Crichton. He was a tolerably good science fiction writer, though not in danger of being called a "Grand Master", which may be why he mostly got out of it. His latest efforts aren't really science fiction so much as Hollywood "sci-fi", where you read a couple of newspaper reports on a new technology, read a couple of summarizations from wild-eyed advocates and equally wild-eyed naysayers, and start writing without particularly caring if you even stay true to those sources.

I think Dean is doomed. Why? Because he flared too soon. The Internet may keep his core alive, but he'll need more then that to win the nomination, let alone the Presidency. No political reason, just a structural one. His recent problems with things he said is, or perhaps more accurately, the recent reporting of bad things he's said, is just a sign that his star is setting. In other words, that's effect, not cause.

I GUESS IT'S NOT 1984 YET: The Second Circuit has ordered the release of Jose Padilla. Here's a link to the opinion, but I can't get it to open -- the server seems to be saturated at the moment. Judging by the Reuters story, the court put emphasis on Padilla's American citizenship, and on the fact that he was on American soil -- both appropriate considerations in my opinion. via Instapundit

Ruh-roh, Raggy - it's getting *drafty* out there. I hadn't seen this before, but the "Universal National Service Act of 2003" (currently in the House and Senate) would require "that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service..." to provide for the common defense of Dubya's megalomaniacal mission, of course. [via rense][blackholebrain] I thought this might be a sick joke but the link goes to "