You know you're a geek when you were up too late one night figuring out how to add Feynman diagrams to your LaTeX document and then two nights later you're up too late again re-compiling software to transcode video so that you can play it on your portable media player using the new open source firmware you just installed ( Read more... )

In the two recent posts I tried to relate some facts regarding the latest bill modifying FISA and the push for telecoms immunity. It turns out that Snuggly the Security Bear says it much better than I could:

Click to view

The cartoon comes from Mark Fiore (who I'd never heard of before).Thanks to leodios for pointing me to this video.

Yesterday the House refused to take up a version of the surveillance bill that included retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies for any participation in illegal warrantless wiretapping by the Bush administration. Kudos to them for having a backbone, but we'll have to see if it holds in the face of mounting political pressure and ( Read more... )

If you're watching the closely contested democratic primary and wondering which primaries are still to come, when they happen, and how many delegates are at stake in each, then I suggest you head over to the New York Times and check out the nifty table they whipped up on the subject.

Also, I was amused to find out that FactCheck.org did a piece ( Read more... )

On Tuesday (Feb 12), the Senate passed a bill that includes a retroactive grant of immunity to telecommunications companies for their help with the Bush administration's illegal warrantless wiretapping program. The effect of this law would be not only to let these corporations get away with their illegal acts but to shield the Bush administration ( Read more... )

This video is pretty good (at least if you've seen Election):

There was a rally for Barack Obama on the Maryland campus today, and I decided to go. The rally was being held at the the Comcast Center, and, though Obama was not supposed to be there until 12:30 pm, the doors were opening at 10:30 am, so I figured that they must be expecting a lot of people. I decided to go a bit after 11, hoping that the ( Read more... )

So, bendotc showed me a pretty cool post on some guy's blog about Super Mario Bros. and the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. It's worth going there to watch the video if nothing else. I thought it was pretty amusing, and I was totally shocked that the author seems to actually have a reasonable grasp of the Many Worlds Interpretation, a ( Read more... )

I recently watched the Frontline report Growing Up Online. Whenever I hear people discuss the idea of digital natives, people who grew up online, I always wonder if I'm one. I've been using computers since elementary school and fixing them for almost as long, and I've been using the Internet since high school. So, basically, the net has been a ( Read more... )

These two New Orleans images are a virtual shout out to bendotc and chatnoir.
( holla! )