Enjoy.

Why the Blues will never make the Stanley Cup finals

Tom, the evil CEO of Industrial Memetics, turned another year older today...and another year wiser.
Yay for Tom!!!:)

dude.... drinks. It's a moral imperative!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Sound of Things to Come
By MARSHALL SELLA

No one ever notices what's going on at a Radio Shack. Outside a lonely branch of the electronics store, on a government-issue San Diego day in a strip mall where no one is noticing much of anything, a bluff man with thinning, ginger hair and preternaturally white teeth is standing on the pavement, slowly waving a square metal plate toward people strolling in the distance. ''Watch that lady over there,'' he says, unable to conceal his boyish pride for the gadget in his giant hand. ''This is really cool.''

Woody Norris aims the silvery plate at his quarry. A burly brunette 200 feet away stops dead in her tracks and peers around, befuddled. She has walked straight into the noise of a Brazilian rain forest -- then out again. Even in her shopping reverie, here among the haircutters and storefront tax-preparers and dubious Middle Eastern bistros, her senses inform her that she has just stepped through a discrete column of sound, a sharply demarcated beam of unexpected sound. ''Look at that,'' Norris mutters, chuckling as the lady turns around. ''She doesn't know what hit her.''

Norris is demonstrating something called HyperSonic Sound (HSS). The aluminum plate is connected to a CD player and an odd amplifier -- actually, a very odd and very new amplifier -- that directs sound much as a laser beam directs light. Over the past few years, mainly in secret, he has shown the device to more than 300 major companies, and it has slackened a lot of jaws. In December, the editors of Popular Science magazine bestowed upon HSS its grand prize for new inventions of 2002, choosing it over the ferociously hyped Segway scooter. It is no exaggeration to say that HSS represents the first revolution in acoustics since the loudspeaker was invented 78 years ago -- and perhaps only the second since pilgrims used ''whispering tubes'' to convey their dour messages.
.....
(Last month, A.T.C. cut a five-year, multimillion-dollar licensing agreement with General Dynamics, one of the giants of the military-industrial complex.)

The Sound of Things to Come

Some interesting statistics on wars from the Revolutionary War to the (first) Gulf War, on things such as:
- Percentage of population enrolled in the military
- Number of casualties (both absolute and percentage)
- Cost of the war (converted to 1990 dollars)
- Duration of war, average casualties/month, and so forth

Statistical Summary: America's Major Wars

So there's this 14 year old, "The Boss", and all he wanted to to do was figure out "how he could make money, fast." The plan? "The Boss envisioned making as much as $100,000 by assigning various 'jobs' to his friends, then taking a 25 percent cut for himself. The Boss, according to one of the lists he compiled, envisioned his "family" making money in prostitution, weapons sales, money laundering, recruiting hit men - even candy sales." Well, atleast they new their market with the candy sales. So the story gets better. Another student "arrested on the misdemeanor charge was nicknamed 'The Hacker' because he was supposed to alter grades in the school's computer system." Now, I won't ruin the plot or climax for you but I'm thinking this should be a TV show or movie called Youngfellows.

Middle-school 'mafia boss' arrested on felony charges

] Saddam Hussein has collected many things in his 24-year
] reign -- palaces, enemies. And the key to the city of
] Detroit.

Saddam received key to city of Detroit in 1980

] A number of Pacific island nations are discussing using
] new Japanese technology that can both desalinate seawater
] for drinking and produce electricity by exploiting the
] difference in temperatures between the surface of the sea
] and the depths of the ocean.

some good news for a change. NYT requires free registration.

Japanese Technology May Help Islands Reap Pacific's Waters

] When it comes to political truth, I think many Arab
] citizens today can have a more informed perspective than
] Americans. Don't get me wrong - that's not because my
] country is more democratic, has better journalists, or
] more intelligent analysis. None of these is true (not yet
] - but I remain hopeful for Bahrain's new democracy). But
] we do see your news as well as our news as well as
] Israeli news. In my (so far limited) experience of
] American life, Americans are extremely sheltered in the
] news that they see. When I read Haartez, I learn about
] Isrealis suffering from the conflict, I learn what they
] are worrying about, I learn how they deal with their own
] extremists, and I learn about their many citizens that
] would like to see peace. And I learn all this from an
] Israeli perspective, so I hear a positive human side.
] Americans do not seem to be learning such things about
] Arabs. Reading British commentary does not count as
] getting "a different perspective".

[IP] In the Arab world today, we get a more informed perspective than you.

A View from the other side.

] And on the Fifth Day, the Picture Was Reversed in Favor of the Iraqi Resistance

Message base (arabic language, I can't read it) with higher resolution shots of the soldiers from the IraqTV/Al-Jazeera video. You can clearly make out their faces in these.

Screen captures, IraqTV/Al-Jazeera Video