blackholebrain - Freedom First, Justice Will Follow Personal Commentary Don't get me wrong -- it all sounds good. But there will never [ever] be any globally-implemented, man-made political, legislative, technological, or militaristic remedy that actually puts an end to terrorism. Period. Why? Because something as completely permeative of the human soul as religious belief is --no matter how radical the belief system-- it's really just part of being human. And beliefs won't just disappear with a UN mandate and some bullets, especially when dealing with belief systems that compel believers to sacrifice themselves in order to destroy those who believe differently.

Opportunists use crisis to push agendas Misc. 'Yet amid the chorus of draconian proposals and McCarthyite threats, one voice of opportunism still stands out. That voice belongs to Robyn Mazer, who is using September 11 to call for an international crackdown on counterfeit T-shirts.' Is there no cause that can't be twisted to be related to terrorism? We're finding out. The more time goes by, the closer we get to "

The 2001 Ig Nobel Prize Winners Patents 'TECHNOLOGY IG-NOBLE AWARD: Awarded jointly to John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia, for patenting the wheel in the year 2001, and to the Australian Patent Office for granting him Innovation Patent #2001100012.' What are the Ig Noble awards?  

A rant against bad patents Patents 'Looking at patent US5379129 itself, I see that it contains no new intellectual content. Usually, when I see a claim that Company X has patented Obvious Technique Y, I'm skeptical. Whether you agree with the patent system or not, in many cases the actual patent contains claims that show that Company X has at least used Obvious Technique Y in a new context, or figured out an implementation trick.

My test today Personal Commentary I took a test today in my graph theory class. I thought it might be interesting to share one of the problems: 4. Prove by induction on the number of vertices in the graph (|V|) that every undirected graph G has an orientation such that |indeg(v) -outdeg(v)| <= 1 for every vertex in the graph. I think I got it mostly right. One of the things I love about math is taking a course and reading the last chapter the course will cover.

Hijackers' e-mails sifted for clues Misc. 'Federal authorities believe that some of the 19 hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were using computers in all-night Kinko's stores and cybercafes in South Florida to coordinate their activities in the weeks before the assaults. Investigators have amassed what they described as a "substantial" amount of e-mail traffic among the hijackers.' 'None of the communications, authorities said Sunday, involved the use of encryption or other code to disguise the contents of the messages.

Postulate Personal Commentary Postulate: The civilization level of a society can be completely measured by the congruence between its law and ethics.  

Counterpane: Crypto-Gram: Special Sept. 11 Misc. 'This is a special issue of Crypto-Gram, devoted to the September 11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath.'  

DaveNet : Patents and the W3C Patents 'The W3C is a consortium of companies of all sizes. My company, UserLand Software, is a member. We agree on a common philosophy -- a level playing field, interoperation between software, and choice for users and developers. That's the foundation that the Web was built on, it's what kept the Web ticking through the dotcom lunacy.' 'Now several large companies, led by Microsoft, Philips, Apple and Hewlett-Packard, are trying to become the platform vendor that the Internet never had, and imho that's totally counter to the charter for the Internet, and therefore, the W3C.

Salon.com News | Democracy held hostage Free Speech 'What we need more than anything right now is careful deliberation and spirited debate. We need, in short, for our democracy to come fully alive. Unfortunately, the calls for herd-like conformity are on the rise. In the last week, self-appointed sheep dogs from across the political spectrum have begun yapping at our heels, pushing us to all think alike and move in the same direction.