I usually find Balko’s analysis to be reasonably accurate so when he says:
Such intricately layered, mutli-dimensional, unwavering cluelessness stacked upon ignorance rolled up in delusion really deserves the Spurlock treatment (hell, wouldn’t Spurlock and Kemenetz make a great couple?).
I’m just not going to go read the original source material…
Microsoft has been hammered over the years for bundling functionality into Windows that many think should be sold/given away separately. However, when it comes to stuff that really should be in the OS like, well, security they decide to deliver and charge for it separately:
Microsoft’s new Windows Live OneCare product will be in stores tomorrow. The subscription service costs $50 a year for up to three computers, and includes anti-virus and anti-spyware features, the ability to back up photos and other files, regular “PC tune-ups” and phone support.
I’d expect that Microsoft would not be investing in and rolling out this product if they did not expect these problems to be around for a long time. Does this mean that Microsoft is now incented to ensure that Windows XP and the future Windows Vista do not provide the levels of security that users should expect from their operating system?
It sure seems to imply that Vista will not solve these problems for users….
gonzales and mueller can simply go spend their time sharing their personal transactions with each other:
Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller privately met with representatives of AOL, Comcast, Google, Microsoft and Verizon last week and said that Internet providers–and perhaps search engines–must retain data for two years to aid in anti-terrorism prosecutions, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity on Tuesday.
If there is an active investigation and these twinks have demonstrated probable cause to a judge in a non-secret court that some one may be involved in the commission of a crime or has committed a crime then you can start tapping that one person’s data now. You do not get to build a massive fishing pond.
Yet another reason to toss’m all out…and not replace’m.
Via Why Now.
Buried deep in a Wired article about home chemistry and science development:
“To criminalize the necessary materials of discovery is one of the worst things you can do in a free society,” says Shawn Carlson, a 1999 MacArthur fellow and founder of the Society for Amateur Scientists.
Uhhh, just where is this free society Carlson refers to? This article describes some wierd totalitarian society that once could be found only in stalinist russia or some dystopia leached from a science fiction writer’s nightmare.
Via Hit & Run.
Hmmm, Finn has got it wrong… we’d better get the world straightened out (rather, governments out of the world) before they get their hands on this stuff:
“Yes, you could actually make someone invisible as long as someone wears a cloak made of this material,” said Patanjali Parimi, a Northeastern University physicist and design engineer at Chelton Microwave Corp. in Bolton, Mass. Parimi was not involved in the research.
Such a cloak does not exist, but early versions that could mask microwaves and other forms of electromagnetic radiation could be as close as 18 months away, Pendry said. He said the study was “an invitation to come and play with these new ideas.”
“We will have a cloak after not too long,” he said.
The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency supported the research, given the obvious military applications of such stealthy technology.