Moon Pie wrote:
] Gee, the CIA sold drugs in black neigborhoods to fund the war
] in Nicaragua? Who'da thunk it?
] --AND--the origin of crack in the Bay Area in 1974. Home
] grown, baby!

An absolute must read!

RE: Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the Crack Explosion

] "The federal Victim Compensation Fund has offered 85
] awards to the families of people who died in the
] September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center,
] with an average payment of $1.49 million, a published
] report said. "

9/11 victims' fund has offered 85 awards

] "One of the greatest arcade games of all time is
] reinvented for the next generation in videogame systems."

SWEET!

Dragon's Lair 3D

] "Sure the Fed is worried that falling prices could damage
] the economy. But there's a difference between competitive
] dynamics and deflation."

Very good read!

MSN Money - Jubak's Journal

] ""The idea that I would take the sizable portion of my
] fortune and have them inherit it ... I don't think that
] would be to society's benefit or their benefit."
] The Gates, married in 1994, have three children,
] Jennifer, 6; Rory, 3; and baby Phoebe, born in September.
] "I don't think it is constructive to grow up having
] billions of dollars," Gates said. He added that he would
] "make sure that they are taken care of ... they can live
] comfortably." Gates previously has said his children would
] inherit about $10 million each. "

Think they will intern at Microsoft or just live off the
interst? :D

Wired News: Gates Says He's Giving It Away

Yesterday, five major studios — Universal, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros., and MGM — unveiled Movielink, a joint venture that, for the first time, allows customers to download a large assortment of studio films. Movielink’s initial library contains about 175 movies — new and old, from Jimmy Neutron to Last Tango in Paris. They range in price from $1.99 to $4.99 for a 24-hour rental. It’s a cool service, attractively priced. It’s also going to be a flop on the order of The Adventures of Pluto Nash.

The next big Internet flop

Most interesting feature:

] "Provides a foundation for the journalling filesystem
] (JFS), which may currently be enabled via Disk Utility on
] Mac OS X Server systems"

Mac OS X: About the Mac OS X 10.2.2 Update

NewsSeer news monitoring and profiling service. NewsSeer locates recent news articles and current events that match your interests.

Jeremy wrote:
NewsSeer is a project of Steve Lawrence, the creator of CiteSeer. It's a news search engine (somewhat like Google News), but it also improves with time by incorporating feedback from users. You can build a profile and explicitly rate stories and news sources; there is also implicit feedback.

NewsSeer: A Recommender System for Breaking News

"This could be the perfect storm for civil liberties in America," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington "The vehicle is the Homeland Security Act, the technology is Darpa and the agency is the F.B.I. The outcome is a system of national surveillance of the American public."

...

Invest in a DOD contractor today. Oh wait, you can't. They're privately held! Oops!

Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans

] 'While the headlines screamed loudly about the race to
] win control of the Congress and huge money poured into
] those races that were close, most legislative races in
] fact were completely noncompetitive. Our Center for
] Voting and Democracy's pre-election projections of who
] would win and lose more than 75% of U.S. House races held
] up with an apparent perfect score -- the same model
] projected 929 of 930 winners accurately in 1996-2000.
] Within days we will issue our projections for the
] November 2004 elections (yes, that's right -- the
] elections two years from now) in some 350 House races
] with the same degree of confidence.
] We can confidently make these projections without knowing
] anything about the quality of the candidates and
] inequities in campaign finance because we use
] "winner-take-all" elections in districts that generally
] tilt clearly toward one party or the other. This lean is
] no accident, as state after state enacted incumbent
] protection plans in redistricting over the past year.
] With only a few exceptions, incumbents and party leaders
] gerrymandered districts to guarantee the reelection of
] incumbents, as well as the over-representation of
] whatever party controlled the redistricting process in
] their state. In California, the Democratic Party
] incumbents actually paid "protection money" in the amount
] of $20,000 apiece to have their legislative districts
] drawn to guarantee them a safe seat, an audacious example
] of political "insider trading." '

Center for Voting and Democracy