Free Republic

Those who recall Clarke's HAL 9000, manufactured in Urbana, Illinois, cannot see a daisy without reflecting on the rational ironies of life -- one of the most flagrant of which is that the richest man on Earth is named "Gates." Consider yourself on notice. For the fourth time in living memory, gates seem about to change our lives. Here's the headline from the Nature Magazine item. New channel built: Chemists copy from cells to make a tunnel for salt.And, some text below that headline said: Chemists have finally achieved what every human cell can do. They have designed and built...

Dion's new CD crashing party for some users Wed Apr 3, 1:57 AM ETBy Chris Marlowe LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- Celine Dion's latest release is generating heated discussions on Internet message boards. But the subject under fire is not the star's music -- it's that the CD will not play on computer CD drives. Epic/Sony released "A New Day Has Come" embedded with Key2Audio copy protection in Germany and several other European countries. According to a spokeswoman for Sony Music Entertainment, it is clearly stated on the front of the booklet and on the back of the jewel...

The BigonAlbert Manque is a physicist of the old school. "Fifty years ago physicists could make experiments using material from the hardware store," says Manque, who works at the Centre de l'Etude des Choses Assez Minuscules in Paris. "I too prefer to work on a small scale." His penchant for tabletop research recently paid off. He and a colleague at the center have discovered an extraordinary new fundamental particle. Although the particle exists for just millionths of a second, it is the size of a bowling ball. Its existence, says Manque, could possibly explain a host of mysterious phenomena. Manque...

Can't fire up my computer, says "error loading explorer.exe, you must reinstall windows". But the restore CD disk brings up a message that I will lose all data on my hard drive. Am seeking a fix that saves the data(I have over 500 articles saved in favorites or as text docs, would hate to lose all that). Running Windows ME on a home desktop PC(e-machine), but my only current internet access now is here at the library. If anyone has advice that I can take home to work on a fix, I'd be greatly indebted to them.Here's what happened. Went...

March 27, 2002 Promote Consumer Use of Broadband and Prevent Digital Piracy! Dear Colleague I invite you to join me in supporting legislation that would encourage demand for broadband Internet service and protect creative enterprise from the threat of digital piracy. The promise of the Internet has not been fully met. While consumers have unprecedented access to information resources on the web, there is still a demand for more. Congress has recently debated ways to better serve our constituents by improving access to broadband Internet service, yet the demand for this technology is severely lacking. This is simply because consumers...

The Department of Defense is preparing to implement the most sweeping restrictions yet on foreign information technology (IT) workers. This planned policy—which will cover one-third of civilian federal employees—will ban non-U.S. citizens from a wide range of computer projects. The Departments of Justice and Treasury have instituted similar restrictions on non-citizens working in certain areas. Those steps were taken prior to last September’s attacks. The DOD policy—slated for adoption within 60 to 90 days—extends restrictions on foreign nationals handling secret information to “sensitive but unclassified positions,” which include the growing number of contract workers who process paychecks, write software,...

The Department of Defense is preparing to implement the most sweeping restrictions yet on foreign information technology (IT) workers. This planned policy—which will cover one-third of civilian federal employees—will ban non-U.S. citizens from a wide range of computer projects. The Departments of Justice and Treasury have instituted similar restrictions on non-citizens working in certain areas. Those steps were taken prior to last September’s attacks. The DOD policy—slated for adoption within 60 to 90 days—extends restrictions on foreign nationals handling secret information to “sensitive but unclassified positions,” which include the growing number of contract workers who process paychecks, write software,...