__ _____ _ ___ __
\ \/ / | | / / | / /
\ / /| | | /| / / |/ /
/ / ___ | |/ |/ / /| /
/_/_/ |_|__/|__/_/ |_/http://www.acronymchile.com/yawn.html
2003-12-28
###-----###### FINIX ###############################(##)#################
Nice website:
http://www.finix.eu.org/
Has various bits of linux documentation in French, such as how to
install the recently released 2.6.0 kernel on Debian Woody
http://www.finix.eu.org/spip/article.php3?id_article=66
Also features nice guides such as the Crepe HOWTO:
http://www.finix.eu.org/Gt/Doc/Crepe-HOWTO/crepe-howto-toc.html
###-----###### MUSIC ###############################(##)#################
Netativland on how CDs became dominant:
[about 1989] What actually happened was this - a flexible return
policy had always existed between record stores and the seven major
distributors, i.e. stores could "buy" something from a distributor,
and if it didn't sell, they could return it. This allowed stores to
take more chances on new releases or on things they were not so
familiar with, because if it didn't sell, they could always send it
back. Well, in the spring of 1989 all seven major label distributors
announced that they would no longer accept "returns" on vinyl and
they also began deleting much of the vinyl versions of their back
catalog. These actions literally forced record stores to stop
carrying vinyl. They could not afford the financial risk of carrying
those releases that were on vinyl because if they didn't sell they
would be stuck with them. Very quickly almost all record stores had
to convert to CD's.
###-----###### DANGER ##############################(NK)#################
Excerpts from Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human
Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
http://downlode.org/etext/wipp/
###-----###### CINEMA ##############################(##)#################
New bill in US proposes 5 year jail for using (or attempting to use) a
camcorder in a cinema:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33988.html
Do it twice and get 10.
###-----###### CHINA ###############################(IB)#################
Big numbers
Sun Microsystems has made a deal with China for a million desktop
Linux deployments under the new $50/seat licensing plan for Sun's
desktop software, which includes its Star Office 7.0 software.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/18/0219249&mode=nested&tid=102&tid=126&tid=163&tid=187
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/7285339.htm
###-----###### MOUSELAND ###########################(BB)#################
Two party system:
http://www.ndp.ca/mouseland/index.php3?load=mouseland&language=english
###-----###### MONEY ###############################(BB)#################
http://www.monochrom.at/tuerme-von-hanoi/
The Towers of Hanoi, an Austrian true-life fotonovela about a guy
who goes into a bank and changes 50 Euros for dollars, then the
dollars for Euros, then back again, und so weiter, until only
chump-change remains.
###-----###### WAYBACK #############################(##)#################
Very very useful resource, especially if people fsck up a webpage that
used to contain useful information:
http://web.archive.org/
###-----###### WAR #################################(##)##################
George Monbiot on Iraq:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=4488
``...those of us who called for peace before the wars with Iraq and
Afghanistan were mocked as effeminate dreamers... To the columnist
David Aaronovitch, we were "indulging ... in a cosmic whinge".(1) To
the Daily Telegraph, we had become "Osama bin Laden's useful
idiots".(2)''
``But a further, and even graver, set of lies is only now beginning to
come to light. Even if all the claims Bush and Blair made about
their enemies and their motives had been true, and all their
objectives had been legal and just, there may still have been no
need to go to war. For, as we discovered last week, Saddam Hussein
proposed to give Bush and Blair almost everything they wanted before
a shot had been fired.(4) Our governments appear both to have
withheld this information from the public and to have lied to us
about the possibilities for diplomacy.''
The article includes a list of the offered concessions, some of which
are quite stunning.
``According to Mr Cannistraro [the CIA's former head of
counter-terrorism], these proposals reached the White House, but
were "turned down by the president and vice president."(7)''
...
Richard Perle... passed their offers to the Central Intelligence
Agency. Last week he told the New York Times that the CIA had
replied, "Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad."(9)
###-----###### PHYSICS #############################(IB)##################
Peter Lynds, new Einstein?
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1017994,00.html
He claims to have new ideas about the nature of time. Many disagree:
http://www.thequantummachine.com/phorum/read.php?f=2&i=41&t=41
http://www.thequantummachine.com/analysis.php
The man himself, with links to his papers:
http://www.peterlynds.net.nz/
###-----###### ANIMAL ##############################(IB)##################
http://www.fao.org/news/2000/001201-e.htm
Every week, the world loses two breeds of its valuable domestic
animal diversity, according to estimates just published in the 3rd
edition of the World Watch List for Domestic Animal Diversity. The
publication, issued by FAO and the United Nations Environment
Programme, results from ten years of data collection in 170
countries, covering 6 500 breeds of domesticated mammals and birds:
cattle, goats, sheep, buffalo, yaks, pigs, horses, rabbits,
chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, pigeons and even ostriches.
Also raises questions about the wisdom of projects like bothar:
The greatest threat to domestic animal diversity is the export of
animals from developed to developing countries, which often leads to
crossbreeding or even replacement of local breeds. In developing
countries, breeds from the industrialized world are considered more
productive. The problem, however, is that these animals are only
suited to conditions of the countries they come from; they can
hardly survive under the often harsh environment of developing
countries.
###-----###### SOROS ###############################(##)##################
George Soros has been making some noise lately:
The billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros says his
main goal right now is to get US President George W. Bush out of
office in 2004
Mr Soros says the supremacist ideology which he claims guides the
White House is reminiscent of his childhood in occupied Hungary. He
told the Post "when I hear Bush say you are either with us or
against us, it reminds me of the Germans, conjuring," he went on, "a
nazi slogan on the walls – the enemy is listening."
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2003/s987257.htm
Jewish billionaire and philanthropist George Soros has said that the
policies of the Bush administration and Sharon government are partly
responsible for the outbreak of anti-Semitism in Europe. Soros added
that he too bore some responsibility for what he called "the new
anti-Semitism."
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=739696&fid=942
###-----###### VIDAL ###############################(##)##################
Gore Vidal on W
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1113-07.htm
He [Benjamin Franklin] said, I am in favor of this Constitution, as
flawed as it is, because we need good government and we need it
fast. And this, properly enacted, will give us, for a space of
years, such government.
But then, Franklin said, it will fail, as all such constitutions
have in the past, because of the essential corruption of the people.
He pointed his finger at all the American people. And when the
people become so corrupt, he said, we will find it is not a republic
that they want but rather despotism — the only form of government
suitable for such a people.
...
So the corruption predicted by Franklin bears its terrible fruit. No
one wants to do anything about it. It’s not even a campaign issue.
Once you have a business community that is so corrupt in a society
whose business is business, then what you have is, indeed,
despotism. It is the sort of authoritarian rule that the Bush people
have given us. The USA PATRIOT Act is as despotic as anything Hitler
came up with — even using much of the same language. In one of my
earlier books, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, I show how the
language used by the Clinton people to frighten Americans into going
after terrorists like Timothy McVeigh — how their rights were going
to be suspended only for a brief time — was precisely the language
used by Hitler after the Reichstag fire.
###-----###### FIN #################################(##)##################
Archived: http://www.acronymchile.com/yawn_archive/2003-12-28yawn.html
##########################################################################