Govt to back 'Land of Narnia' with sweetner

New Zealand = Middle Earth = Narnia ??

A Dickens of a fuss - theage.com

Rowling's not alone...read on.

The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers DVD Special Extended Version

At last, some details are officially posted about this highly-anticipated expansion of the second movie in the trilogy.

George Will: Lap Dancing On the Constitution

Follow-up commentary to the Lawrence v. Texas decision by George Will. More to chew on.

Pandora's box was opened today by 6 Supreme Court Justices. The box is called Lawrence v. Texas. Three justices including the Chief Justice, tried to keep the lid shut but were unsuccessful. They saw what their colleagues did not. Justice Scalia's dissent describes the escaping woes:

The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are “immoral and unacceptable,” Bowers, supra, at 196—the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. The Texas statute, it says, “furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual,” ante, at 18 (emphasis added). The Court embraces instead JUSTICE STEVENS’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that “the fact that thegoverning majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice,” ante, at 17. This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation.If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational basis review.

Mark his words...for we will encounter the harm released here many more times.

Google Toolbar

"Popup Blocker: Make surfing the web easier by stopping annoying popups.

AutoFill: Automatically fill in a form with the click of a button.

BlogThis: Create a weblog post pointing to the page you are visiting. "

It is beta, but some nice new features. Check it out!

Linux Is Not Ready For the Enterprise (Opinion)

Linux and other open source projects require too much customization, and doubts about the legitimacy of open source code could get users tangled up in lawsuits. Besides, many Linux supporters are a bunch of potty-mouthed malcontents. Enterprises are better off staying away from Linux and open source -- or at least thinking through the possible liabilities

So says Rob Enderle of Forrester Research. Rob has a lot of good points which echo some of the thoughts I've expressed. The illusion that Linux is a more robust, secure and enterprise-ready operating system as compared to Windows is false. Read it and see what you think.

Windley's Singularity

I believe that people who write and read Weblogs, use instant messaging, and even e-mail are already at a decided advantage over those who don’t in terms of what they know and how they think about the world. Maybe this is self-congratulatory or self-delusional, but I believe it nevertheless.

Phillip Windley, former CIO of the state of Utah, is a joy to read. Not because I always agree with him, but because he makes you think. His recent column in the Utah magazine Connect is no disappointment. I think he got it right about the use of instant communications, our need for connectedness and the power of this technological trend.

His list of keywords which describe where we are is especially useful to ponder: Personalized, Peer-based, Decentralized, Collaborative, Connected, Converged, and Presence-enabled.

How many of these things describe state government (where I work)... not too many. In fact, I see the technology arm of government headed in the opposite direction in many areas. We need to grab the wave of "pervasive instant communication" and harness it to accomplish the tasks we have at hand.

And as always, thanks Windley.

Analysts predict wireless hot-spot crash | CNET News.com

Analyst group Forrester believes that, in the future, there won't be enough people using Wi-Fi devices to support the operators that are currently introducing wireless local area networks (WLANs) and hot spots, which are places where wireless Web access is available to the public for a fee or for free.

The absurd report believes Bluetooth is the alternative to 802.11b. NOT!! Bluetooth was too slow to the game, it's range is too short, and it's ubiquity is very small. Forester seems to be lost in the trees.

RSS - The Next Killer App For Education

Now a new technology, rich site summary (RSS)—sometimes known as "really simple syndication"—takes the communication paradigm of one-to-one messaging one step further. RSS is a tag-based formatting language like HTML; it gives users the ability to communicate information to anyone who may be interested in a particular topic.

Good introductiont to RSS and some good points about how this can be the next thing that changes the way people consume information.

MS: Step-by-Step Guide for Setting Up Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) in a Test Lab

...how to configure Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) in a test lab using five computers. Of the five computers, one is a DNS server, two are clients, and two are routers.

Nice little guide to get the feet wet for IPv6

LaserMonks

Last year, two monks from the Cistercian Abbey, a picturesque monastery tucked away in the hills of Wisconsin, had a wild idea to generate big savings for businesses and institutions of all types, while also earning a simple living to support a life of prayer and charitable service.

Need to get cheap printing supplies? Here is a "heavenly" idea.

New Zealand News - Return of the King To Be Rendered for $5m

It has just taken delivery of 588 IBM blade servers, each with two 2.8 gigahertz Intel Xeon processors, in a deal which on list prices would be approaching $5 million.

Now that's going to bring quite an ending to the trilogy.

Thoughts on MS and RSS.

Steve Ballmer wasn't at TechEd this year. If he were, I would have asked him the following questions?
1. What team owns RSS inside Microsoft?

Steve Gillmor is interesting to listen to. His thoughts on RSS and Microsoft are good food for thought. Especially check out his cliffhanger.

An Oxymoron: Europe Without Christianity

But the failure to acknowledge Europe's specifically Christian heritage is something else. At one point in the process, the preamble referred to the "humanism" of Greek and Roman civilization, then skipped without pause to the 18th-century Enlightenment. Those specific references to Europe's past have been cut, but the preamble still ignores Christianity's contribution to the core European values that the union is pledged to uphold: "the central role of the human person, and his inviolable and inalienable rights, and of respect for law." What kind of history is this? Surely it was Christianity that made the human person, as a child of God, central to European values. And it was the canon law of the Catholic Church, the oldest legal system in the West, that nurtured respect for law long before the rise of Europe's nation-states.

It is a shame that in our climate of secularism, nations should be so smug as not to acknowlege their roots.

BBC NEWS | White witch to tempt Nessie

A white witch has travelled to Scotland to try to lure its most famous monster out into the open.

Finally we'll get to see the loch ness monster again!

UPDATE - ReplayTV strips ad skipping in new DVR models

Due in August, the new ReplayTV 5500 series will remove the "Commercial Advance" and "Send Show" options present in models that are currently for sale.

Hollywood wins another battle in the war. This is truly a dumb idea on the part of D&M. Doing what is expedient to save a product is understandable but sacrificing what is a "killer" piece of software (commericial advance) for something palatable to the money-makers diminishes the overall product and could prove the undoing of the unit. The technology remains sound and Replay's implementation was well-controlled with limits to ensure anti-Napster forces' arguments would be vacuous. But we will never know with this kind of abandonment. We still don't know where the highest court stands on all this. We need a vendor to stand strong and lead us into the next century. SonicBlue...we'll miss you.

Computer-savvy kids say curses to cursive

I've never gotten along with cursive. I'm a print-er. With computers as my main medium, cursive is only good for a signature. I'm going to have to retrain myself as I teach my kids. Just like some in this article.

Fortune.com-I Covet My Neighbor's Broadband (It's About Time!)

Sometimes our DSL connection, provided to us by SBC, acts like a spoiled dog, fetching web pages and e-mail only when it feels like it. I even once tried plugging in a modem and dialing up to see if I could get a faster connection. I could. But when the DSL was working right, it felt really fast.

I'm one of those neighbors and my experience is just what Mr. Alsop says. Cable is superior; DSL still has a ways to come. Now FTH sounds nice but how will that happen en masse? I'll wait for broadband wireless in the local loop. But for now, it's cable all the way.

Students demand advanced English

There are two schools of thought when it comes to challenging advanced students. Some people think students of all abilities should be grouped together so they all receive an equal education. Others believe advanced students should be in a separate group and offered a more rigorous curriculum.

The key to this discussion is the challenging of students. Schools in general today don't challenge students to meet their potential. Everything is dumbed-down to the lowest common denominator. Chances for more advanced learning should be embraced, not voted down. The Mt. Diablo school board really is being the "devil".

New Scientist: Packet tracking promises ultrafast internet

Imagine an internet connection so fast it will let you download a whole movie in just five seconds, or access TV-quality video servers in real time. That is the promise from a team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who have developed a system called Fast TCP

Wired News: Song Search: A Real Humdinger

It's called "Query by Humming," a type of melody-recognition software program on display at this week's Midem music conference in Cannes that identifies a song by title and composer based on a person humming a few bars into a microphone.

Hmm...Hmm...Hmm...oh, that's David Bowie.

Mercury News | 06/05/2003 | Oregon uses eBay for selling surplus goods

Since 1998, Oregon has used eBay to auction off all kinds of things -- from cars confiscated from drug dealers to surplus office equipment.

Oregon can teach a thing or two to South Carolina. Want to raise some revenue...think outside the traditional box.

What's the Best Search Engine?

The answer to this question may seem [google] obvious but what if you just let search engines themselves answer this query. Some interesting results.

FBC Announcement Site

I'm building my own announcement site for the church website. I used Coranto, a free perl script for this purpose. I decided to go even further tonight, though, and created an RSS feed from the announcement site. Pretty cool! I'm interested in seeing how it all goes.

More than hobbit holes in Hobbiton

washingtonpost.com: IBM Says SEC Probing Its Accounting

International Business Machines Corp. on Monday said that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had begun a formal investigation of how the world's largest computer company accounted for some revenue in 2000 and 2001.

Bad news for Wall Street...

TechEd 2003: Flessner Lays Out Microsoft Platform Roadmap

Keep up with MS and plot your course. Don't worry, time will F L Y!!!

Ultimate Ping Pong--hang on