] Viet Dinh has been called a "political pit bull" and "a
] foot soldier" for Attorney General John Ashcroft. But the
] 36-year-old author of the Patriot Act prefers to be
] called an "attendant of freedom."

I've read through the article, and I must say that although this guy is well-intentioned, I'm still skeptical. He says that we who oppose the Patriot Act need to back up our arguments with facts, but how can we do that when the U.S. government withholds the facts from us? An intriguing read.

Wired News: The Patriot Act Is Your Friend

] How the FBI eavesdrops on Internet phone calls (and why
] it sometimes can't).

Can They Hear You Now? - How the FBI eavesdrops on Internet phone calls (and why it sometimes can't). By David S. Bennahum

] You may have defeated my Southern Hook Palm technique,
] but can you defeat the 1000 styles of Rumsfeld?

LMAO!!!!

LB

Rumsfeld Fighting Technique

So I was talking with Decius the other day about the NYT. If you folks haven't noticed you can access NYT articles through google news without needing an account. Google simply adds a parameter "partner=google" to the end of the NYT URL. I figured Decius and I could could write a script that checks for recommended memes for NYT stories and insert this at the end, not allow for people without accounts to read stories.

However this is not what NYT checks for. If you go to a NYT article through a standard google search, the "partner=google" is not added to the URL, but you can still access the story So how does NYTs do this? With the "referer" field on a standard HTTP GET request.

So tonight I had an idea. WGET! it has a nice litte option "--referer=". Sure enough, you can grab NYT stories using WGET.

Thus to read for example the Theory-vs-reality story, using:

wget http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/opinion/23HERB.html&OQ=pagewantedQ3DprintQ26positionQ3D

will save the login screen but

wget --referer=http://www.google.com http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/opinion/23HERB.html&OQ=pagewantedQ3DprintQ26positionQ3D

will grab the page. Yes yes yes, I know, as Decius told me: "Just get a freaky account dude."

Getting around that nasty NYT registration thingy

"only the Polytron reduces an entire mouse to a soup-like homogenate in 30 seconds."

the Polytron

CALGARY (CP) -- Researchers at the University of Calgary have found that nerve cells grown on a microchip can learn and memorize information which can be communicated to the brain.

Cdn. researcher: Cells can grow on silicon

The fun thing is that these pictures are so ambiguous they could mean anything! Here are a few interpretations.

Rand Mcnally as done by idiots.

] Ever seen a trailer for a new horror movie and thought
] "Damn, I could come up with something better than that.
] Hell, a bunch of dead sea monkeys could come up with
] something better. In fact, a random, horror-movie plot
] generator could come up with something better than this
] piece of crap!"
]
] How right you are.
]
] So here's your chance to create the ultimate horror
] movie. Simply fill out the four fields, giving us actors
] and actresses for the movie, then select the setting of
] your masterpiece, the monster which will be terrorizing
] your actors, the motive for the monster's rampage. Then
] sit back and enjoy your very own movie pitch!

Monster Pitch | The Brunching Shuttlecocks

] One balmy May evening back in 2000, Dudley was standing
] around minding his own business when all of a sudden, a
] policeman pulled-up and demanded that Dudley produce his
] ID. Dudley, having done nothing wrong, declined. He was
] arrested and charged with "failure to cooperate" for
] refusing to show ID on demand. And it's all on video.

An entertaining site about a supreme court case that will decide whether Police can demand ID for people stopped under "reasonable suspicion."

papersplease.org :: Hiibel

Usefull reference. About everything you need to know about DVD. It's really not very exciting.

DVD FAQ