Blackhacker

Stody Old Mainstream Media Company Dow Jones, has been putting in a lot of work to add Web 2.0 offerings. Its latest is a blog called Tech Trader Daily. Check it out

John Conyers, Jr. — ConyersBlog
Today, proving that not every issue need be partisan and divisive in Congress, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and I are introducing a new bill (H.R. 5417, the “Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act”) to protect net neutrality, a bill I believe is the most aggressive to date in Congress.

Absolutely right. I am far from a legal scholar but from my lay men’s POV the bill states in no uncertain terms, that ISPs should not be allowed to degrade or enhance data flow between its customers and anyone else on the net.

What To Do
The way the system works, a bill must first “get out of committee” before it can be considered on the floor of the House. Here is a list of the members of the Committee on the Judiciary. Residence of those state in particular those who live in the districts these men and represent should contact them and ask them to support HR 5417. Unfortunately, my congressman is not a member of this committee.

For those want to keep track of what is happening with this bill check out GovTracks. This is cool tool that that even lets you subscribe to an RSS feed of events concerning legislation you are interested in.

The Bill
Dap: Afro-Netizen

Rootkit class action settled: time to submit your claim
Engadget

There has been a LOT of talk about E85, an ethanol, gasoline blend that contains 85 percent ethanol. Naturally the Oil Industry energy than most others, because it leaves gasoline in the equation. E85 is not necessarily a bad idea if the solution is Carbon Neutral, meaning that we don’t increase the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. But when you consider production of a suitable crop that can be used for fuel, and production of that into ethanol. The processing of that into E85, transportation to Gas Stations all over the country it may not be worth on a Carbon bases. So as in most things, the devil is in the details.

Anyway, at least as far as mainstream news is concerned we have not heard much from the Hydrogen Fuel Cell camp lately. Or we just can’t hear them over the noise that is being genarted E85, since the President’s switch grass statement. They have their own set of issues. How to economically and safely produce and transport hydrogen, a very explosive gas responsible for destruction of the Hindenburg. The DOE as applied for a patent for at least the answer to the transportation part. Read about it here.

Dap: /.

BetaNews | Apple’s 5th Avenue Store Opens Friday
Apple’s 5th Avenue Store Opens Friday
By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
May 18, 2006, 2:19 PM

Apple will open its highly anticipated Fifth Avenue store in New York City on Friday evening, and has plans to operate it 24 hours a day year round. The store, which is located near to popular shopping destinations FAO Schwartz and Bergdorf Goodman, is Apple’s second in New York.

The centerpiece of the store is a 32-foot glass cube that serves as the entrance to the store itself. It has been widely rumored that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was behind the design of the store’s visually stunning entrance, however the company has never confirmed it.

Check out photos of Apple 5th Ave.

The GWT is a UI toolkit that produces JavaScript from Java. At first glance at the documentation It is very reminiscent of Motif and other Widget toolkits for X/Windows back in the day.

Dap: Cool Tools

May 2006
Starting today, if you are in the US or Canada and use Skype to make a call to any phone number in either country, you will not be charged anything for it. That’s right. The best quality internet calling experience now includes free calls to any landline or cell phone within the US (including Alaska and Hawaii) and Canada.

In case you hadn’t heard yet.

USATODAY.com - NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

I understand that this kind of data mining (and that is what it is, in spite of what the President says. He either doesn’t really understand what data mining is or is lying) is necessary to uncover and apprehend loosely couple decentralized organization like Al Qaeda, but there was NO OVERSITE. Where was the check? Where was the balance? The President says, “I can do This cause that is how I interpret the constitution. I Don’t have to do that ’cause that’s how I interpret the constitution. ”

Well Mr. Bush, IT AINT YOUR JOB TO INTERPRET THE CONSTIUTION. THAT IS THE JOB OF THE COURTS.

Kudos to QUEST for telling the government NO. Thanks for having a spine.