too many topics,

    too little time.

GENDER & COMPUTING: The history of things that didn’t take place
Øystein Sørensen, historian, has written a book about ‘things that didn’t take place’. I haven’t read it, but understand it as a sort of ‘counter-history’, about possibilities and trajectories that wasn’t followed. Sounds interesting. And it is not very far from SCOT’s focus on ‘failures’ in technological development.

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well SCOT doesn’t necessarily focus on failures… that is just an easy analysis. but i do thik this is something that is worth considering. if nothing else then as a subjected discourse.

AppleInsider | Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger build declared gold master
Apple Computer’s next-generation operating system, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, is now complete, AppleInsider has learned.

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it’s gone gold.

The Young Hegelian
What Germany, France, Russia, England and Austria are struggling for at this moment, is not military supremacy but economic supremacy, the right to impose their manufactures, their custom duties, upon their neighbours; the right to develop the resources of peoples backward in industry; the privilege of making railways through countries that have none, and under that pretext to get demand of their markets, the right, in a word, to filch every now and then from a neighbour a seaport that would stimulate their trade or a province that would absorb the surplus of their production. When we fight nowadays it is to ensure our Factory Kings a bonus of thirty per cent, to strengthen the “Barons” of finance in their hold on the money market, and to keep up the rate of interest for shareholders in mines and railways. If we were only consistent, we should replace the lion on our standard with a golden calf, their other emblems by money bags, and the names of our regiments, borrowed formerly from royalty, by the titles of the Kings of Industry and Finance - “Third Rothschild,” “Tenth Baring,” etc. We should at least know whom we were killing for.”

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for whom….

Blurred Bitmaps

this makes me want to visit france

Theoretical Librarian
Celebrating ‘Einstein year’, one hundred years since the great scientist’s Special Theory of Relativity and fifty years since his death, this CD features previously unpublished and rare recordings. The centrepiece is a very rare recording of the celebrated fund-raising dinner at the Savoy Hotel in 1930, at which Bernard Shaw famously described Einstein as a ‘maker of universes’. Also included are a short newsreel from Einstein’s historic appearance at a massed rally at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in 1933 and a radio broadcast from 1945, in which he discusses the responsibilities of the scientists who worked on the development of the atomic bomb.

http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/
publications.html#einstein

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cool

Guardian Unlimited | Life | Two-thirds of world’s resources ‘used up’
The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure.

The study contains what its authors call “a stark warning” for the entire world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged. In effect, one species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or so on the planet, and to itself.

“Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted,” it says.

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it won’t be long now.

Guerrilla News Network:

this is how we are treating some veterans of the current war.

Sex, not money, buys happiness, study says:
ncreasing sex frequency from once a month to at least once a week provides as much happiness as a $50,000-a-year raise, according to a paper titled “Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study,” submitted to the National Bureau of Economic Research, one of the leading organizations in its field.

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well there ya go….

Gesargenplotzianism:

to all the followers of gesargenplotzianism.

Ambiguous:
I can’t believe I haven’t heard about this before. There is a substantial buying bloc–namely, school boards in southern states–that follows suit with whatever the state school board of Texas does. These states buy textbooks uniformly, statewide. 1 Most “blue states” buy district to district, so there is no unified bloc per se to counterbalance the southern states where points of politics are concerned. So this bloc of southern school boards has an unrivalled power to influence the choices of the major textbook 1 publishers 1 in the country–of which there are only like four, anyhow. Basically, they don’t publish anything the school board of Texas doesn’t buy.

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great… just great. now students don’t get to learn more important things.

SourceOECD: factbook:

cool

Schiavo Case Almost Led to State Cop v. Local Cop Showdown:
According to today’s Miami Herald, Jeb Bush ordered state cops to grab Terri Schiavo at a point during the judicial proceedings at which, due to Florida’s automatic stay law, such a move would arguably have been if not legal at least not in direct violation of a court order. The automatic stay law suspends a judge’s order when the state appeals it. (Judge Greer reimposed his order within a few hours.)
”
“There were two sets of law enforcement officers facing off, waiting for the other to blink,” said one official with knowledge of Thursday morning’s activities.

In jest, one official said local police discussed “whether we had enough officers to hold off the National Guard.”

“

OK. We dodged that bullet. But kindly remind me how many microns separate us from banana republics with warring paramilitary forces.

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it wouldn’t be so bad if our governors and president weren’t acting like dictators.

Extraordinary Machine:
The unreleased Fiona Apple CD is available for download in full. Go now.

It is a pretty good cd….

Barking Irons vs. Cool Hunting / Reader Survey:

We’re working on a collaboration with Barking Irons to make a few t-shirts. “Interesting mix” you say? We think so. They’re coming along beautifully and will be available this Spring. Stay tuned for more details on that…
cool t-shirts