What an exciting week in the Napster case!

Here’s an LA Times piece by Joseph Menn:
Napster Dispute Puts Bid on Hold.

Of the large pile o’ tasks that I’m behind on…to do a little blogging and rant about some of the less finer things in life…

Professor Kevin Warwick has become the world’s first cyborg.

A device has been implanted into his arm to both record the day-to-day impulses of normal muscle use and record the reactions his arm has to stimuli coming from the device.

See the article by Polly Curtis for the Unlimited Guardian:
Scientist becomes world’s first cyborg

and

the article in CNN by the usual faceless, nameless author:
Scientists test first human cyborg.

Here’s a clip from the Unlimited Guardian piece:

he implant was designed by Professor Brian Andrews, from the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Buckinghamshire.

It is hoped the experiment will help scientists better understand the nervous system, and restore movement in people after spinal injuries. “The big aim is hopefully about helping people move around again and to control their bodies more,” said Professor Warwick.

There is also scope for enhancing the sensory system. One of the laboratory experiments planned over the next three months – the length the device will be in the professor’s arm – is designed to give him a sixth sense. By attaching an electronic ultra sound sensor to the device, it is hoped that Professor Warwick will be able to develop the sensory capabilities of a bat, through his arm.

“For me that could be fun,” he explained, “but for someone who is blind, it could be immediately useful, it could give them the chance to sense space like a bat. Another application could be for someone with arthritis – we could put a chip in them and electronically remove the pain.”

Doug McVay, Editor of the Common Sense for Drug Policy‘s Drug War Facts Book, handed over some goodies
to Gene Weingarten at the Washington Post:
Just What Was He Smoking?.

But an even more interesting story (as McVay explained it to me — wealth of knowledge that guy!) — isn’t merely the plethora of amusing quotes (and there’s more where that came from!), but rather that Nixon comissioned the Shafer report to give drugs a bad name. Then, much to Nixon’s dismay, the Commission actually did right by the American people and provided the objective analysis it was supposed to provide: and recommended decriminalization 🙂

More on the details of the report and its significance in the days to come.

For now, let the dog and pony show begin:

In an excruciating sequence from Sept. 9, 1971, Nixon is meeting with
former Pennsylvania governor Raymond P. Shafer. Shafer heads a
presidential commission on drug policy that Nixon has heard might be
flirting with the notion of recommending the decriminalization of
marijuana…

…Nixon is on a roll, lecturing like a history
professor:

“Do you know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors
were fags. . . . You know what happened to the popes? It’s all right
that popes were laying the nuns.”

Someone laughs nervously. Nixon bulls on, not a hint of humor in his
voice.

“That’s been going on for years, centuries, but when the popes, when the
Catholic Church went to hell in, I don’t know, three or four centuries
ago, it was homosexual. . . . Now, that’s what happened to Britain, it
happened earlier to France. And let’s look at the strong societies. The
Russians. Goddamn it, they root them out, they don’t let ’em hang around
at all. You know what I mean? I don’t know what they do with them.”

“Dope? Do you think the Russians allow dope? Hell no. Not if they can
catch it, they send them up. You see, homosexuality, dope, uh,
immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That’s
why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing it. They’re trying
to destroy us.”

Well, that was 31 years ago, and I am happy to report that the
Jew-homo-doper-Commie-shrink-lefty-pope cabal has not, to date,
destroyed us. Nixon seems to have been wrong on this one.

Of course, it’s not the first time he was wrong. Yes, he was a crook.
No, it wasn’t a third-rate burglary. And yes — we do still have Dick
Nixon to kick around. Apparently, thanks to his tapes, forever and ever
and ever.

I probably recommend an HP printer to about 3-4 people a month.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do that after this merger.

This is a sad day in HP history indeed. It also says a lot about the state of the economy when Walter Hewlett loses control of Hewlett-Packard. (Has the whole world gone mad? 🙂

Here’s a CNN article by Richard Richtmyer that doesn’t even try to get Walter Hewlett’s point across:
It’s all over but the counting:
With the bitter proxy fight over HP-Compaq nearing a close, focus shifts to vote tally.

With that in mind, here’s an L.A. Times article by Joseph Menn that gives a better explanation of Hewlett’s argument:
Walter Hewlett Explains Stance
.

Here’s a pretty depressing article about a trend in the attitudes of MBA students:
Learning to Put Ethics Last:
During their spell in B-school, MBA students become more focused on company profitability and less on things like customer service,
by Mica Schneider for Businessweek Online.

Wow am I digging the Plucky RSS Reader for the Mac.
(at GeoffreyGrosenbach.com)

Here’s another article about the DNA computer in today’s New York Times:
In Classic Math Riddle, DNA Gives a Satisfying Answer.

My mother’s wondering if she can get a free mammogram while she’s getting her full-body security X-Ray the at Orlando International Airport.

“That’s a nasty tumor on your left side ma’am, would you like us to remove that for you during your flight?” (And, yes, the pain killers would be better in business class 🙂

ATTENTION: B of A customers: if you made a deposit in the bank last Friday, you’d better check that it made it and that you weren’t charged for any checks that may have bounced over the weekend as a result.

See the L.A. Times article by Kathy Kristof:
Bank of America Says Glitch Is Fixed.