Fighting Surveillance and Control in the Near Future (tags)
A great speech by Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing on why it's important to oppose SOPA and the general trend toward specific use computers.
$5.1B Proposed in Sales, Upgrades, Weapons for Pakistan's F-16s (tags)
On June 28/06, the US DSCA notified Congress via a series of releases of its intention to provide Pakistan with a $5.1 billion Foreign Military Sales package to upgrade the F-16s that serve as the PAF's top of the line fighters. Some of these items had been put on hold following the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan & Kashmir, but the request for 36 new F-16 Block 50/52s is now going ahead following the required 30-day review period, along with new weapons, engine modifications, 60 F-16 upgrade kits that would cover Pakistan's older F-16 A/Bs plus other aircraft it might buy second-hand, and related equipment.
BIG NEWS ON MICROSOFT: Slavery to It Is Ending (tags)
The hundred-dollar computer will be the end of Microsoft's dominance and possibly the company itself. Do you care? Can Wal-Mart beat Microsoft? Since you are reading this on a computer, you are a slave to MS and you should care. Freeing us from MS and its robber baron could raise the country's productivity by several points. I'll show how. To have fun, usable, efficient computers, it is necessary. To finally realize the dream that Bill Gates aborted, we need a computer that is: Cheap----Instant-On----Simple----General Purpose. Only India has one, for $200 ("good globalization"). We (the rest of the world) don't. This might not be the machine, but more are coming, and they will starve Microsoft.