Astronomers have shed light on how stars can form around a massive black hole, defying conventional wisdom.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Black hole star mystery 'solved'

So for non-lawgeeks, this won't seem important. But trust me, this is huge.

I am very proud to report today that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (THE "IP" court in the US) has upheld a free (ok, they call them "open source") copyright license, explicitly pointing to the work of Creative Commons and others. (The specific license at issue was the Artistic License.) This is a very important victory, and I am very very happy that the Stanford Center for Internet and Society played a key role in securing it. Congratulations especially to Chris Ridder and Anthony Falzone at the Center.

huge and important news: free licenses upheld (Lessig Blog)

Advocates of open source software have hailed a court ruling protecting its use even though it is given away free.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Legal milestone for open source

Many of Georgia's internet servers were under external control from late Thursday,' before the actual war began.

Slashdot | Evidence of Russian Cyberwarfare Against Georgia

President George W Bush has said the US will use military aircraft and naval forces to deliver aid to Georgia following its conflict with Russia.

doesn't he think it might be seen as provocative to send in US troops even if only in a humanitarian role. Now I have the music from the end of Dr Strangelove in my head. All together now "we'll meet again don't know where don't know when"

BBC NEWS | World | US forces to deliver Georgia aid

This is a perfect example of why we force Decius to drink and rant at conventions. He's been the regular closing speaker at PhreakNIC several times.

Money for me, databases for you.

Weeks before bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace.

Before the Gunfire, Cyberattacks - NYTimes.com

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown says there is "no justification" for Russia's military action in Georgia.

I am not convinced that there is "no justification" for Russia's actions but it has not been a limited or proportionate response and the Georgian leader was either being bloody stupid in starting military action or expected the West to come to his aid and was trying to manipulate us. This sort of brinkmanship by the Georgian government is extremely dangerous. However the Russian military has been let off the leash and the Russians should negotiate not flatten Georgia. Talk at the UN by the US about Russia invading sovereign nations sounds hypocritical after Iraq but something needs to be said and the violence needs to be brought to a stop. If South Ossetia wants to be independent like Kosovo then so be it. However the Chechnyans didn't get that choice so it is extremely hypocritical of the Russians to argue the case now and self serving.

The situation makes the Caucusus seem like the Balkans at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century with tiny states playing very dangerous games thus extending an invitation to join NATO to Georgia becomes extremely dangerous and a short cut to a global conflagration. Do we have to repeat history and get drawn into their petty vicious squabbles? Repeating the Great Powers games of previous eras is stupid and resulted to 2 World Wars. Russia is reasserting its military power. Our best long term strategy is to stop fueling their economy which is only propped up by oil and natural gas. Short term there is a lot of nationalism in play in the region and Russian pride. The horse we have in this race is stability. The only meaningful weapon we have are sanctions and neither Europe or America is placed or ready to use that weapon in a meaningful way we have to start acting to change that situation. We are largely impotent to respond but we note their behaviour and should start being a little more frosty to the Russians and more frosty to those who seek to manipulate us in their conflicts with Russia. At the moment there is a buffer between NATO and Russia and I think we need to put some diplomatic effort into maintaining that buffer rather than eroding it with invites to NATO.

BBC NEWS | Politics | UK warns of Russia 'catastrophe'

CypherGhost wrote:

The bottom line is that in blind wine tastings, there is a zero or even slightly negative correlation between the ratings of regular people and the price of the wine they are drinking; for experts the relationship between rating and price is positive.

I enjoyed this short article, and the first blog post it links.

When my friend Mark first started exposing me to decent wine I was subject to numerous blind taste tests in which I was asked to select the more expensive bottle. I was consistently wrong when I first started. I am fooled less easily today, but wine is a very complicated thing and it takes a long time, and a lot of bottles, to get good at it and to have a good appreciation for a wide array of variatals. Thats part of what makes it fun. There is always something new to discover. Something else to learn.

There are some potential problems with running these kinds of blind taste tests particularly with two decanters that contain the same bottle. The first is that the character of a wine changes as it oxidates. If you had the same bottle appearing twice in a taste test, and you tried it first, just after it was opened, and then again after it had been sitting out for half an hour, it would taste much better the second time, particularly if it was higher quality or older.

The second is that your perception of wine is contextual. This is why people pair particular foods with particular kinds of wine, and why wine in general goes well with some kinds of food (like pasta) and terrible with other kinds (like hot wings). What you have tasted before tasting the wine effects your perception of how the wine tastes.

My advice is to always drink your cheapest bottle first. (More expensive does not always mean better, but it often does.) You'll appreciate a really good wine after a glass of average wine even more than you would if you started with that good bottle and you had nothing to compare it to. In the blind taste test if you had tried the repeating bottle first, with no context, you might have given it a medicore rating, and then if you tried it again immediately after having tried a cheap wine, you might have found it singing!

Of course, my sister suggests that I am more impressed with the quality of my wines as the evening goes on and I get more drunk. I insist that this cannot be the case. :)

The economist's suggestion, that ignorance is bliss, is a perfect example of why accounting is the opposite of art. I've found getting better at drinking wine to be very fun and rewarding. Really great wine and really great gourmet food can provide an experience that is completely different than ordinary eating -- its not about satisfying hunger but more about experimenting with the range of flavors that you are capable of experiencing... Its worth knowing why cooking can be considered an art, but you can't just roll up to an ex... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: Keep the Cheap Wine Flowing - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

In October, the house sold at auction for $304,500.

It resold in January for $625,000.

"They lied to us," he said of the sellers. "They said the house was really $500,000, but when I bought it, the papers said $625,000."

Gomez said someone else – he's not sure exactly who – paid the $125,000 down payment.

"I didn't pay any money down," Gomez said. "The man who sold it to me said, 'No money, no problem.' And later he told me I would get $30,000 for buying the house."

From an envelope containing his loan papers, Gomez produced a two-page document titled "Addendum to contract" signed by Praslin. The memo, mostly handwritten, said that if the purchase went through, Praslin would pay Gomez $30,000, cover the first three mortgage payments and throw in a 52-inch LCD television.

How people flip houses.