http://www.l3xicon.com/

WordNet® is an online lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link the synonym sets.

http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/index.shtml

…
Asian treasuries pull US strings
The levers of power may, in any case, lie outside the hands of the US authorities. The worry is that many of those Treasury bonds – equivalent to gilts – that the federal government has been selling to underwrite its spending have ended up with Asian countries whose exporters have been enjoying the fruits of US demand. But this build-up of US assets in Asia has been rising much faster than America’s trade deficit with that part of the world.

According to the investment banking arm of HSBC, Japan’s trade imbalance at $48bn in the first nine months of the year is roughly the same as in 2002. However, the increase in its foreign currency reserves has been $133bn, some $84bn more than the trade deficit with the US. On a smaller scale, this pattern is repeated across most of the region. So far this year there has been a build-up assets totalling $153bn more than the trading imbalance would warrant. Little wonder that foreign investors now own 46% of the US Treasury bond market.

This was all very well when the dollar was appreciating and bond prices rose. Those T-bonds were an increasingly valuable asset. But since the dollar peaked in 2002 and yields on bonds started to rise this summer, that happy combination no longer applies. Asian investors are sitting on depreciating assets.
…
http://www.hemscott.com/hstoday/focus2003/dollar_3112_2003.htm

January 2004

(This essay is about heresy: how to think forbidden thoughts, and what to do with them. The latter was till recently something only a small elite had to think about. Now we all have to, because the Web has made us all publishers.)

Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way you looked? Did we actually dress like that? We did. And we had no idea how silly we looked. It’s the nature of fashion to be invisible, in the same way the movement of the earth is invisible to all of us riding on it.

What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. They’re just as arbitrary, and just as invisible to most people. But they’re much more dangerous. Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good. Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed.Continue reading →

http://www.blowsearch.com/

…Now we don’t have to get into arguments over whether spending time in a chat group on AOL is a productive activity, but it’s no more or less productive then watching a soap opera on TV, which is clearly part of the economy. But when you spend time in a chat room on AOL or when you answer questions on music in a newsgroup or mailing list or when you write Linux — that’s not being measured as part of the economy. And since a lot of people are doing that, and more and more people are spending more and more time online, they are disappearing off of the economic face of the world, as it were. So, nobody can see them, you don’t know where they are — they are becoming invisible. And that won’t actually lead to a drop in international GDP figures or anything, but clearly there is a lot of economic activity going on which is not measured. Now that’s the reason, essentially, why there is so much interest from so many different sides on the economics of what is free on the Internet. …

http://mikro.org/Events/OS/ref-texte/ghosh.html

http://www.techuser.net/index.php?content=23

http://www.miketodd.net/encyc/dollhist.htm
http://www.kshitij.com/graphs.shtml

https://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.friendster.com/
http://backissues.worldlink.co.uk/articles/250100180310/22.htm
http://www.stanleymilgram.com/

http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/money.html

http://copsewood.net/writings/kaytax.html

THE Breton Woods institutions; the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank, so-called since they came into being as a result of the UN (being referred to as a UN conference at a time when the UN had not yet come into being was indicative of the fact that the UN was already a course chosen for the future and that international reconstruction would function under it Monetary and Financial Conference held at Breton Woods, New Hampshire in July 1944. It is interesting to note that this conference essentially focused on the international effort necessary towards the reconstruction of post-war Europe, while the war had not yet ended. The IMF was assigned the more difficult task of ensuring global economic stability.

http://www.timespk.com/2003/august/25/guest2.htm

What is money? And how well does it work to solve society’s ills? Bernard Lietaer, author of the upcoming book Access to Human Wealth: Money beyond Greed and Scarcity (Access Books, 2003), has made a life’s work of exploring these questions. Lietaer has been involved in the world of money systems for more than 25 years, and his experience in monetary matters ranges from multinational corporations to developing countries. He co-designed and implemented the convergence mechanism to the single European currency system (the Euro), and served as president of the Electronic Payment System in his native Belgium. He also co-founded one of the largest and most successful currency funds.

..
Even Alan Greenspan, the governor of the Federal Reserve and the official guardian of the conventional money system, says, “We will see a return of private currencies in the 21st century.”
..

Your money’s value is determined by a global casino of unprecedented proportions: $2 trillion are traded per day in foreign exchange markets, 100 times more than the trading volume of all the stockmarkets of the world combined. Only 2% of these foreign exchange transactions relate to the “real” economy reflecting movements of real goods and services in the world, and 98% are purely speculative. […”> Unless some precautions are taken soon, there is at least a 50-50 chance that the next five to ten years will see a global money meltdown, the only plausible way for a global depression.

..
And Lietaers adds in the interview:

There is practically no way today for a developing country to have a reasonable monetary policy within the current rules of the game. […”> Whether you fix your currency to the dollar or let it float, you end up with an unmanageable monetary problem, like Brazil, Russia or Argentina have experienced. Eighty-seven countries have gone through a major currency crisis in the last 25 years. Their fiscal policies are imposed by an International Monetary Fund (IMF). I am afraid that if the United States had to live by the rules that are imposed on, say, Brazil, the United States of America would become a developing country in one generation.

This system is based in scarcity, as Lietaer says in another interview:

We can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. The scarcity is in our national currencies. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.

http://www.nexuspub.com/articles/2003/july2003/interview.htm

Also see http://www.transaction.net/Continue reading →

BlogShares is a simulated, fantasy stock market for weblogs where players invest fictional money to buy stocks and bonds in an artificial economy where attention is the commodity and weblogs are the companies. Weblogs, or blogs for short, are valued by their incoming links from other known blogs. In effect, links become the business deals in the simulation and players speculate on the fortunes of thousands of blogs by buying and selling shares. A whole host of options exist for advanced play including gifting shares, leveraged buy-outs, stock splits, additional share issues, market and player bonds.

http://www.blogshares.com/

I’m a big Rush fan.

Yeah, I know. Me and 50 million other drummers.

I’ve been listening to this band since they showed up on my radar in the late 1970s, and have always followed their tours and new albums. I admit that I fall into the camp of wistful fans who yearn for a return to the art-rock glory days of the band (which pretty much makes me an old burnout) but I still like to hear the new stuff and see what these dudes are up to. And, Rush’s return to a more guitar-oriented (and acoustic-drum-oriented) sound has reignited some of my interest in their performances. Rock music is all about the guitar, and few people are as interesting to listen to as Alex Lifeson. And don’t even get me started about Neil Peart.

CD too loud?

The Truth Machine by James Halpern 1996 and the Matrix

It’s a book I bought to read because of the security books I buy on Amazon. It popped up as one of those ones – if you read X others read Y and you might like it.

I recommend these to anyone:

Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century
by Simson Garfinkel

Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World
by Bruce Schneier

Please read on for my take on the book and a closed Matrix world
[b”>(1500 words – my LONGEST BLOG!)[/b”>
Continue reading →

Summary:

John Gilmore, private citizen, filed a lawsuit on July 18, 2002 against United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, the heads of the Federal Aviation Administration, the new Transportation Security Administration, FBI, the new Homeland Security agency and also the Attorney General. He does so “because he believes persons have a right to travel by air without the government requiring that they relinquish their anonymity. No security threat is as important as the threat to American society caused by erosion of the right to travel, the right to be free from unreasonable searches, and the right to exercise First Amendment rights anonymously.” (from Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief)

Current Status: Awaiting the judge’s ruling on the motion to dismiss the case.

http://freetotravel.org/

Also check out:

http://www.privacyactivism.org/

We denizens of the early 21st century cling to a leftover notion that anything “global” is remote, abstract. That’s no longer true. A global problem is everyone’s problem, often in intimate ways. Chinese germs multiply in American bloodstreams. Colombian narcoterrorists maintain branch offices in every major US city. There’s only one atmosphere, and no pulldown menu for selecting a new one.

American bombs and satellites are impressive, but they can’t stop SARS, AIDS, or drug-resistant TB. European regulations and good intentions can’t manage dwindling fishing stocks, water shortages, or climate change. Asian hard work and community values barely dent the global trade in drugs, arms, and humans. Vast tracts of the developing world are no longer developing at all but visibly and violently decaying.

…

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/view.html?pg=4

‘Dramatic’ drug trial results offer hope for cancer patients

Press Association
Monday June 2, 2003

Early trials of a new cancer wonder drug have shown a “remarkable” effect in treating a wide range of the most common forms of the disease, scientists said today.

The experimental drug, which has been given the trade name Omnitarg, attacks even the advanced stages of breast, prostate, lung, ovarian, bowel and pancreatic cancers.

Also known as 2C4, the drug uses the body’s own immune system to fight the disease by targeting a signalling pathway common to many different cancers that stimulates tumour growth.

Scientists are excited about the drug’s possibilities for treatment because dramatic results were seen in preliminary trials, which are chiefly meant to test the safety of a new drug, not whether it works.

Dr David Agus, who led the trial at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles, said: “What’s interesting is that this drug effectively shrank tumours in several completely different types of cancer in early stage clinical trials. This tells us that the drug targets a growth-signalling pathway in cancer cells that is common in many solid tumours.”

In the study, 21 patients with advanced cancers received Omnitarg by infusion at three week intervals.

A total of 19 patients completed at least two cycles of treatment, and two died at the outset due to complications of their disease.

The researchers found that in 42% of the treated patients tumours either shrank by up to a half, or stopped growing.

Three patients achieved partial remission – one with ovarian cancer, one with prostate cancer and one with pancreatic cancer.

The ovarian and pancreatic patients remain in remission and have now been receiving Omnitarg for over a year.

Five additional patients – three with prostate, one with lung and one with ovarian cancer – stabilised for at least three months after two treatment cycles.

Dr Agus, who presented the results at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, said: “To see results that show activity in a safety trial is remarkable, especially since these patients were in the advanced stages of their disease and had no other treatment options open to them.”

http://society.guardian.co.uk/cancer/story/0,8150,968852,00.html

The Anti-Fat Pill and the Bushmen was broadcast on BBC Two
on Sunday, June 1, 2003 at 1915 BST.

A rare desert cactus, the Hoodia, contains a never before discovered molecule that may hold the answer to one of the world’s greatest health problems, obesity and over-eating.

Scientists have isolated an appetite suppressant in the flesh of the plant that is powerful enough to stop people eating all day.

But who holds the rights to this information? …

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/3031063.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/read_your_comments/2954832.stm

After a short 45 mins fumble – I’m now ADSL at home!
The “on” button and a typo in the username…
And plugging the ADSL modem extension info the BT wall socket 🙂

wow the Internet as it should be.

http://www.popdrops.com/

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/jmoore/secondsuperpower.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30087.html

http://dear_raed.blogspot.com

News agencies lose battle on the internet
http://news.independent.co.uk/digital/news/story.jsp?story=389135Continue reading →

An interview with the head of security for investment firm Morgan Stanley Dean Witter was filmed in 1998 on the 44th floor of the World Trade Center. In the film, Rick Rescorla, who was killed in the Sept. 11 attack, describes events that will lead to an attack and the subsequent war on terrorism. The segment was to be incorporated into a documentary on the nature of warfare, but the documentary was never completed and the footage sat hidden away until sometime after the Sept. 11 attack. A colonel active in three wars, Rescorla is brutally honest and eerily prophetic. It appears from online user reviews that the only people reviewing the film who’ve not been impressed are those who have been unable to play it. One notes that a “daft” JavaScript effectively prevents Linux users from viewing the content. For most of us, the usual players will work just fine.

http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/voice_prophet

Source: NSB – http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/

Hi – sorry Tangent.cx but I just couldn’t find the time to get my pMachine to work with you 🙁

My top site this week:

http://www.blogstreet.com/

“Unanswered questions are far less dangerous than unquestioned answers.”

Stupid White Men … and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! by Michael More

Now the More book started off fine, but lost it 3/4 way through.

It’s an interesting book, but you have to be careful, he neglects to say the Bin Laden’s family disowned Osama years ago. He fails to point out what would have happened if the Bin Laden family hadn’t been evacuated from the US after 9/11 – a lynch mob, that’s what. A few family members killed in the heat of the moment who hadn’t anything to do with it.

A great book spoilt by a patriotic ending.

The book is important in my opinion because we tend to follow the US. It’s on the best sellers and justifiably so.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Stupid+White+Men

Closely followed by :

War on Iraq by Scott Ritter & William Rivers Pitt

This book should be PDF’d and developed as a virus and sent to the electorate in the US and Britain that have email. (With a read receipt back to their conscience.)

This book is just a truely shocking, scary book.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=war+on+iraq+ritter+pitt

What is Blogging Network?
Welcome! Blogging Network is a person-to-person blogging network. It’s a place to find blogs you love, write your own blog, and get to know a few people while you’re at it.

For only $2.99 per month, you get unlimited access to all the blogs on Blogging Network. Best of all, your payment is divided between the bloggers you actually read.
http://www.bloggingnetwork.com/Blogs/

The BlogMD Initiative

August 26, 2002
Announcing the BlogMD Initiative

“The number of Weblogs now tops a half-million, by most estimates. So it’s no surprise that some bloggers, as the writers of these link-filled, diarylike sites are known, are carving some order out of chaos.

There is no easy way to search for blogs by content or popularity. The major blog directory, at portal.eatonweb.com, has only 6,000 listings. But a bevy of new sites offer interesting ways, if somewhat esoteric ones, to browse the blog universe. ..”

– The New York Times, August 22

And now, there’s one more site — or at least, project — devoted to helping match readers with writers, and to advancing the work of making the Blogosphere an easier neighborhood to get around in.

Welcome to the BlogMD Initiative.

It is estimated that there are 1/2 million blogs on line at this stage and web analysts say a new blog is being added every 40 seconds. It is also known that every blog is as unique and as individualistic as the person who designed and writes it. With the explosion of blogging it is difficult to sift through them all and find potentially outstanding (unique|like minded) blogs. Because of this, blogs are clustering into like minded groups which is a normal social construct.

At present, numerous applications are available in the weblog world which provide interesting and useful methods of tracking weblogs and help users perform that vital sifting function. Some tools track when a weblog was last updated (weblogs.com) ; some track the most popular Internet links currently being pointed at by weblogs (Blogdex) and more recently, the Blogosphere Ecosystem at The Truth Laid Bear has tracked the links passing between weblogs (as does the similar, but more powerful Myelin Ecosystem.)

All of these applications are, at their core, doing the same thing. One way or another, they are gathering information about weblogs — metadata — storing it, analyzing it, and presenting their results on a web page.

The guiding principle behind the BlogMD initiative is that by creating standards in the weblog metadata “problem space”, we can enable greater collaboration and interaction between existing applications, as well as paving the way for future, currently unforeseen metadata applications by reducing or eliminating much of the redundant, “reinventing the wheel” work currently involved in creating a new weblog metadata application.

Effective immediately, the initiative is opening a web home here at TTLB. Here you’ll find background documentation on the project, and more importantly, a discussion board. We are inviting any and all interested weblog authors, readers, and application developers to come join in the discussion of the issues facing the project and to participate in the initiative as it moves forward.

The BlogMD founding board, responsible for driving the initiative forward, currently consists of:

N.Z. Bear of the Blogosphere Ecosystem and The Truth Laid Bear
Phillip Pearson of the Myelin Ecosystem
Dean Peters of blogs4God.com and healyourchurchwebsite.com

In addition, invitations have been sent to several additional individuals who have made significant contributions to the weblog world to join the board; we are awaiting their replies.

So what now? Take a look around. We suggest you read the FAQ or the Key Benefits document first. And then if you’re getting excited, read the Concept Doc for the complete, detailed view of the entire vision.

And then, we sincerely hope you’ll join us on the Forum, and join in the fun!

– The BlogMD Board

Posted by N.Z. Bear at August 26, 2002 12:00 AM

The BlogMD Initiative
http://www.truthlaidbear.com/blogmd/

Paid blogging hosting
http://blogspot.blogger.com/compare.pyra

MX says this is one Blog system to watch:
(If you currently use Movable Type or Greymatter you can import your existing data into pMachine)
pmachine.com/

Blogging and Journaling News
http://www.writerswrite.net/jlingaround.cfm