"I haven't been too impressed with the food here -- it's ok, but I prefer to stick to the beer. If you want thin crust pizza, there are better places in town to get it. The beer, however, is worth the…" - Kevin Fischer
"This is my favorite coffee shop in Oakland, mostly for the friendly leftist atmosphere. The drinks are solidly ok, nothing special. I usually get iced tea." - Kevin Fischer
There's a long interview with Evans here, from last Sep: http://twit.tv/fib22 . The last 20-30 minutes are about Marathon Mouse. That's old enough that he only discusses the new pill in general terms, but he tells the genetic detective story that lead to it. - j1m
It'll be a long time before they make it for humans. Myostatin inhibitors will come first. See this human trial for muscular dystrophy, where it didn't cure muscular dystrophy but it didn't harm the patients (http://www.institut-myologie.o...). For people without muscular dystrophy, it could cause dramatic muscle gain. If I had unlimited resources I would be trying to clone the drug overseas. - Kevin Fischer
"This fictional counterterrorism agent—a man never at a loss for something to do with an electrode—has his fingerprints all over U.S. interrogation policy. As Sands and Mayer tell it, the lawyers designing interrogation techniques cited Bauer more frequently than the Constitution.
According to British lawyer and writer Philippe Sands, Jack Bauer—played by Kiefer Sutherland—was an inspiration at early "brainstorming meetings" of military officials at Guantanamo in September of 2002. Diane Beaver, the staff judge advocate general who gave legal approval to 18 controversial new interrogation techniques including water-boarding, sexual humiliation, and terrorizing prisoners with dogs, told Sands that Bauer "gave people lots of ideas." Michael Chertoff, the homeland-security chief, once gushed in a panel discussion on 24 organized by the Heritage Foundation that the show "reflects real life."" - Paul Buchheit
via Bookmarklet
If we have to put up with this stuff, the least the government could do is emulate the other aspects of 24 and actually develop some cutting edge technology for communications, transport, etc. Then it could all trickle into the private sector and improve the lives of the general public, rather than the current state of affairs where intelligence services are still waiting for the right procurement forms to be approved so they can upgrade from IE 3.0 - Christopher Sacca
The pro-torture propagandizing of 24 was a component of the overall neoconservative campaign, financed by MSM oligarchs like Rupert Murdoch, to destroy basic American democratic values and to support the drive for World War IV. (24, like Fox News and The Weekly Standard, is a Murdoch property.) Many high-level members of the American military establishment have strongly opposed the neocons on this and many other policies (most recently, for instance, neocon agitation to attack Iran). It's going to take much effort to undo all the damage done. - Sean McBride
Rupert Murdoch isn't a neocon, he just supported their agenda in 2000 and 2004. He likes Barack Obama, believe it or not. - Kevin Fischer
We are running out of time. We are ALL running out of time. - Akiva Moskovitz
Kevin - Murdoch has heavily promoted the neoconservative agenda for several decades -- he appears to be a true believer. One comes to this conclusion by content analyzing his media properties, especially Fox News, the New York Post and the Weekly Standard, and his pattern of hires. In fact, Murdoch is probably the most important neocon billionaire of them all. He has made some efforts to draw Hillary Clinton and Obama into the neocon fold. - Sean McBride
Rupert Murdoch: pro-torture, pro-Iraq War, pro-Iran War, pro-World War IV, pro-neoconservatives, pro-neoconservative police state, pro-Likud, pro-Greater Israel, etc. The TV show 24 is one small piece of his overall propaganda efforts. He has written paychecks for dozens of leading neoconservatives over decades. - Sean McBride
ba wah ha ha ha ha ha.... Kiefer Sutherland the Neo Con? come now. his dad would flip out if he heard you say that - ⓃⓄⒶⒽ ⒹⒶⓋⒾⒹ ⓈⒾⓂⓄⓃ
Noah -- a major breakdown in logic here. No one accused Kiefer Sutherland of being a neoconservative. Sutherland is an actor who is being payed to play a role. Think about it. - Sean McBride
my family runs an acting studio. I am thinking about it. Kiefer picks his roles carefully. Acting is more then a mechanical craft. http://newsbusters.org/node/10... Donald Sutherland was a well known radical leftist. - ⓃⓄⒶⒽ ⒹⒶⓋⒾⒹ ⓈⒾⓂⓄⓃ
I love this show and will continue loving this show, no matter how political people try to make it. - Shawn Farner
24 is my favourite tv show I watch it because it is entertaining and at the same time very exciting. They may fail to show that torture is not a very useful instrument in extracting information, but hey, it is just a tv show. - Baard Overgaard Hansen
The main creator of 24, Joel Surnow, has close ties to Rush Limbaugh and the neoconservative political network. Surnow deliberately used an entertaining show to promote propaganda themes that have been destructive for American interests, according to American military leaders who know that torture doesn't work and puts American troops at risk. Rupert Murdoch funded the entire project. There are important issues here that go well beyond entertainment. - Sean McBride
We need an advisory rating system based not on age, but on how grounded you are in reality. - Bruce Lewis
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Does '24' encourage US interrogators to 'torture' detainees? http://tinyurl.com/5gwev8 QUOTE This week's New Yorker features a story about Joel Surnow, the show's creator and a self-described "right-wing nut," and includes the information that last November Mr. Surnow and the story's creative staff were visited by a brigadier general and three top military and FBI interrogators, as well as human rights groups, who told them that the show's graphic depictions of the torture of suspects was "hurting efforts to train recruits in effective interrogation techniques and is damaging the image of the US around the world." - Sean McBride
QUOTE (from CSM): This past November, US Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind "24." Finnegan, who was accompanied by three of the most experienced military and FBI interrogators in the country, arrived on the set as the crew was filming. At first, Finnegan – wearing an immaculate Army uniform, his chest covered in ribbons and medals – aroused confusion: he was taken for an actor and was asked by someone what time his "call" was. In fact, Finnegan and the others had come to voice their concern that the show's central political premise – that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country's security – was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. "I'd like them to stop," Finnegan said of the show's producers. - Sean McBride
I think the point of this isn't how good or bad "24" is as a TV show, but the fact that policymakers apparently have a hard time distinguishing between fictional entertainment and reality. - Nathan Rein
Shawn Farner: what do you know about this topic that US Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, doesn't? - Sean McBride
Great Jane Mayer video on the New Yorker site discussing the destructive effects of Joel Surnow's 24 in promoting torture: http://tinyurl.com/2ptfvz "In her article “Whatever It Takes,” Jane Mayer writes about the use of torture in the televison show “24,” and the politics of the show’s executive producer, Joel Surnow. Here Mayer talks about torture and television, with clips from "24."" [Keep in mind that while these pro-torture shows were being aired, the Bush 43 administration was actually practicing torture, in violation of longstanding American values and practices.] - Sean McBride
Nathan: in support of your point, from the post by Paul Buchheit at the head of this conversation: "Michael Chertoff, the homeland-security chief, once gushed in a panel discussion on 24 organized by the Heritage Foundation that the show "reflects real life."" Really disturbing stuff. (I'm guessing that Shawn Farner might be in his early teens.) - Sean McBride
Nathan: it seems to me a key point here is that the entertainment side of the Rupert Murdoch empire is promoting the same pro-torture themes as the neoconservative policy wonks at Fox News, The Weekly Standard and The New York Post. This is a unified propaganda machine that has launched a devastating attack on traditional American values and done enormous damage to the image of the U.S. around the world. Some of 24's heroes used to be portrayed as sinister Nazi villains in American popular culture - "Ve vill make you talk." - Sean McBride
It's interesting that all the leftist propaganda shows on FOX and other networks don't raise this much comment. - Robert Hafer
I have half a dozen friends who are or were Army interrogators, and none of them are trained to torture anyone. There IS a psychological component, of course, but BS like waterboarding is nowhere in any manual or course other than as examples of what NOT to EVER do. It's a shame all interrogators are now seen as torturers and depraved sadists, imo. - abacab
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abacab - you are expressing the views on torture of most of the American military establishment vs. the views of Hollywood neocons, chickenhawks and fantasists like Joel Surnow. It is quite likely that high-level members of the Bush 43 administration who are responsible for torture will be facing war crimes trials down the line. - Sean McBride
Has anyone considered the fact that this isn't happening nearly as much as is being reported, and that the government *wants* the world to think we're barbaric to terrorists? Israel's Mossad can often extract information based on their barbaric reputation alone. As abacab says, no one most people know who are interrogators do this stuff. It's always odd media stories from "well placed sources" as well as governmental sources talking about this. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
@rizzn care to elaborate, better with proof? - silpol
There is overwhelming evidence to support the belief that torture committed by the Bush 43 administration, as at Abu Ghraib, has been real. There is absolutely no evidence to support the speculation that stories of torture are merely a form of psychological warfare. It's interesting, by the way, that nearly all the pro-torture ringleaders among the Bush 43 neoconservatives are closely allied with Israel's Likud Party and rely heavily on Israeli policies on these matters as an inspiration for their own policies. They have completely forgotten about the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. - Sean McBride
I'm by no means a Bush fan, but Sean, it's clear you have an agenda here and being so obvious about it doesn't make for a very convincing argument. - Shawn Farner
Abu Gharaib was not committed by the Bush administration... it was committed by a bunch of kids without higher approval. It was wrong, no on condones it. The people that did it are being punished and frankly those people that committed the acts were reacting badly to being put in a war situation without adequate moral support of our citizens. - ⓃⓄⒶⒽ ⒹⒶⓋⒾⒹ ⓈⒾⓂⓄⓃ
you give me any war.... any riotous and necessary war in history and the most pacifist views will come from the soldiers that had to fight it. This is nothing new, but neither is the concept that there are some things that a nation must fight for. - ⓃⓄⒶⒽ ⒹⒶⓋⒾⒹ ⓈⒾⓂⓄⓃ
Shawn: I couldn't be more explicit about my agenda: I am strongly opposed to the mainstreaming of torture as acceptable practice by neoconservative media outlets like Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, Weekly Standard and 24. Do you have any factual information to add to the discussion? You didn't respond to any of the content in the Christian Science Monitor and New Yorker articles, which reported that the American military itself has been gravely concerned about the content of 24. Torture is an anti-American policy: we fought the Nazis in WW2 over such policies. We used to be the good guys. - Sean McBride
Torture is not a core American value http://tinyurl.com/6xn5go "Apparently, fans of the Fox TV show 24 have forgotten just exactly what America's honor is really about. Up until the administration of fear and deceit, America was the world's leader in justice and integrity. We are signatories to the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1994). Waterboarding has for centuries been a tool of brutal regimes and only rarely produces anything but superficial knowledge and often misleading, false information. The Bush/Cheney administration has managed to reverse the respect of the world that we have always enjoyed and valued by abusing detainees, ignoring America's treaties and declaring executive privilege over our Constitution." - Sean McBride
An excellent David Letterman interview with Jane Mayer on Youtube: "The Dark Side" 7/23/08 http://tinyurl.com/6pj4pr And a pointer to Jane Mayer's book on Amazon: "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals" http://tinyurl.com/6f69v7 The subject of potential war crimes trials with regard to Bush 43 administration torture policies emerges in the interview. - Sean McBride
I've always been skeptical about claims that violence on television leads to violence in the real world, but this is pretty clearly a real phenomenon here. - Paul Haahr
This seems more like an easy way to intimidate others... Propaganda, really, for the bad guys: "Ever see 24 and all that asskicking? Yeah, we're just like THAT." while balancing the "No, we're not REALLY like that" angle here at home. Propaganda/disinformation campaigns really suffer from everyone being able to know everything everywhere these days. - abacab
Hmm... Gtalk never used to work in friendfeed, until I manually set my status the other day. If I get a comment saying this is annoying I'll turn off Gtalk in friendfeed. - Kevin Fischer
"Plurk seems to appeal to people that like the microblogging concept yet feel lost in or intimidated by Twitter. On Plurk, people are much more likely to welcome and engage strangers and newbies. Relationship-building is much easier in Plurk, and people looking to make many fast, personal connections with others are the service's biggest fans. While I’ve seen (and participated in) a large number of silly conversations on Plurk, it can’t be dismissed as solely a place to goof off … I’ve also seen threads containing a great deal of emotion and openness." - Paul Buchheit
via Bookmarklet
I think all new, tiny, web communities are much friendlier. Civility usually declines with scale. - Nicholas Molnar
Maybe this friendly nature of Plurk partly explains its huge growth. I got an email with June stats from Compete and it shows Plurk is the 4th fastest growing site in their stats which is amazing given how many people (me included) that are comfortable enough on Twitter and here find themselves totally lost on Plurk with its rather complicated interface. - Svetlana Gladkova
I like it. The new user discovery feature showed me females around Pittsburgh. There are four of them. I'll come back in a couple months... - Kevin Fischer
I would like to see the Plurk team have a little more two-way communication with their users. Currently their official blog does not allow comments, and as fiveinchpixie mentions, they don't offer up their own plurkstreams. > on >http://getsatisfaction.com/plu... - alexandrek
From my POV, it is a much different animal than most of the microblogging/social sites. I love the conversation which reminds me a lot of Jaiku and Pownce, but it has a "twittery" quality that allows you to be a bit ADD. It is this combination that makes me think it will be a player. A small player perhaps, but it will outlast most. - Andy Glover
"Dr Rosenberg told The Daily Telegraph the new work is an "interesting study that helps to confirm the effectiveness of cell transfer immunotherapy for treating cancer patients. We have now treated 93 patients with metastatic melanoma using their own anti-tumour cells with response rates up to 72 per cent. Mark Origer remains disease free now over three years after treatment."" - Paul Buchheit
I hope their security procedures are better than Stanford's. - seth
I can't really tell. Their site is way too complicated for me to understand. I wish they could give me the information in the form of a "feed" :) - Ana
Who else is going? also, has anyone else ordered tickets from WASTE? have you received them yet? - Tudor Bosman
I have extra WASTE tickets for the Seattle show, if anyone is interested. They are in the front right section. I have Pit tickets for Cleveland and seats for Camden, excited for those shows. Expect tickets about a month before the show, I got my tickets for the May DC show in April. - Kevin Fischer
"San Francisco resident Carla Ruff's safe-deposit box was drilled, seized, and turned over to the state of California, marked "owner unknown." Unknown? Carla's name was right on documents in the box at the Noe Valley Bank of America location. So was her address -- a house about six blocks from the bank. Carla had a checking account at the bank, too -- still does -- and receives regular statements. Plus, she has receipts showing she's the kind of person who paid her box rental fee. And yet, she says nobody ever notified her." - Paul Buchheit
Combine this with the recent USA Today article about the federal government's true deficit numbers, and imagine what's coming down the pike... - Craig Eddy
"OK bar food, wings are pretty good, only worth going to because it is really close to the Mellon Arena on Fifth Ave. Gets very crowded before/after/during Pens games." - Kevin Fischer
"They were among 40 or so people who were tasting under the influence of a small red berry called miracle fruit at a rooftop party in Long Island City, Queens, last Friday night. The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy." - Jason Wehmhoener
it's an incredible thing, but on the other hand... do i really want to eat pickles just because they will taste like a glazed doughnut...? wait, what am I saying?? pickles = very few calories... hmm. - edythe
"Cory Doctorow’s latest novel, Little Brother, is technically a young adult novel, but there is something in there for anyone interested in cyberlaw, security, national security law, and oh yeah, a rather fun, although at times scary, tale." - Jason Wehmhoener
"I'm currently looking for a cheap place to live that's reasonably close to the good parts of SF. I thought Treasure Island would fit the bill. The rents seem unreasonably cheap. I figured there had to…" - Kevin Fischer
"what would be a good book that would serve as a nice introduction to economics ? i currently am planning to go through "economics, by samuelson and nordhaus". is there something better ?" - maurycy
I think it may be better to ask where it will end up Monday. Ballmer acknowledged today that Microsoft believes Yahoo is worth $33 per share. This was undoubtedly influenced by large MSFT shareholders (some of which also own big chunks of YHOO) and a small army of investment bankers consulting on the inherent valuation cap. Either way, I would defer to the fact that they are all a lot closer to the data than myself and while YHOO might tank in early morning crazytalk, it should recover nicely and it probably holds a fairly solid buying opportunity when it bottoms out. Regardless, it will be an interesting cinco de mayo...maybe this is the outcome Ballmer had in mind from the start of this silly bid...he'll toast it with a corona with a twist of lime. - Michael Mayer
Ballmer thinks Yahoo is worth $33 if you put Microsoft management in charge. Yahoo management thinks Yahoo is worth $39 or more with Yahoo management in charge. The stock market used to think Yahoo was worth $19 with Yahoo management in charge. Monday morning should be quite interesting. - Ranjit Mathoda
KevinFox: I think GOOG would have benefited most from a MSFT hostile takeover of YHOO. Both MSFT and YHOO would have been in hell and GOOG might even have gotten revenue from YHOO outsourcing ads to it. I don't think it's possible to tell whether GOOG would have benefited more from a merger or the status quo. What really matters is who solves the customer's problem, and it's hard to figure out whether MSFT and YHOO do that better apart or together (the managements of both companies disagree). - Ranjit Mathoda
I'd say it will plummet to $15 (by Thursday at the latest). Let the stockholder revolt begin. - darnell
Kevin - Would guess that GOOG will track the tech sector in general in less there's news from them. If Friday's any indication, it looks like things may finally be returning to some level or normalcy ?? - Charlie Anzman
$18 at the open, close in the very low 20s - Charles Hudson
At 5 AM EST, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) was bid at 22.75 in extended hours trading, down 5.92 from Friday's close (Source: SEO and Tech Daily
). So, it looks like MG Siegler (ParisLemon) of Venture Beat might have nailed the opening value (he guessed $22 bucks)! However, I am more curious where YHOO stock price will *close* at today and Friday later this week.... should be a wild ride for the Yahooilagans! - Susan Beebe
I'm looking back at these and noticing that just about everybody guessed low. - Mike Doeff
Opened at $23.02 and closed at $24.37. I think I'll declare victory :) - Paul Buchheit
Yeah, I guess I'm not the greatest guesser, and I probably shouldn't be a day trader. I think I'm just more optimistic than all of you. :) - Amit Patel
"Pittsburgh's best Indian food, except for the authentic place in Monroeville. India Garden's bread is exceptional. I have a friend from India who disparages most of the Indian food in Pittsburgh,…" - Kevin Fischer
One of the random people who friended me on fb. Her profile page is 2.7MB of html! - Paul Buchheit
Which reminds me: Is there a reason you don't split the FriendFeed app icons off on different server names? Hitting the "subscription" page with an empty cache sucks at the moment (at least from Australia, with a relatively high latency connection). http://yuiblog.com/blog/2007/0... indicates 2 hosts is the best compromise. (I'm sure you guys know this, so there's probably a reason. But maybe you don't realize how bad it is with the added latency?) - Nick Lothian
