Half of America supports President Bush, and I didn't mean to demean their support. Indeed one person felt that "George W. Bush is one of the finest President's of recent times." In the light of recent events, I don't understand that kind of support. It's interesting how the "facts" mean different things to different people. I suppose that's what makes democracy so powerful.

I really, really don't understand those who use the word "liberal" as a pejorative. I saw an interview with General Wesley Clark, who has just entered the Presidential race. He was asked if he was a liberal. And he said yes, he was, and that he did not think liberal was a bad word. He said America is a liberal democracy that offers its citizens the right to have different opinions, to discuss their differences openly. That is how he defined "liberal". I like it!

The words liberal and conservative need to be re-assessed. They are both positive, and should not be thought of as conflicting. The media has taken these words and redefined them, assigning negative connotations. They make money by inflaming the arguments, polarizing the positions, increasing the drama to increase ratings.

I benefit much from hearing views that do not line up with my own. Especially when the other opinions have merit. I grow by thinking about new and different points of view. Your strong feelings and opinions about the Iraq war are the part of this "liberal" nation that makes me proud. What I like most is the opinions that are expressed sincerely, not just emotional rantings.

Thank you to all those who, even with strong emotions, explained their position sensibly and intelligently, giving thoughtful expression to their views. We all grow from that kind of sharing!

Media download roadblocks won't stop the flood

Many people think that the record labels profit too much, with too little money filtering down to the musicians and songsters. Others think it is a rip-off to buy an expensive CD with several songs on it, when all they want is one key item. And most people want to have their own, custom selection of songs on one disc. Meanwhile, the downloading traffic continues.

In an effort to limit this seemingly inexorable growth of file-sharing, the Recording Industry Association of America has launched a big publicity campaign about its plans to sue anyone who continues this "illegal" practice. Now they are collecting "examples" to back up the threats. They have filed 261 lawsuits against individual downloaders. Will this radical strategy work? And is it fair? The "public" is still divided.

Even in the face of the threatened lawsuits, file-swappers are moving quickly to videos, downloading some 500,000 movies a day. Hollywood seems scared! Their lobbyists are pressing for stringent laws that would wrap their products in enough legal and technical barriers to make them unappealing.

Will the legal efforts actually turn the tide against file sharing? After the RIAA announced its intention to sue consumers, activity indeed dipped this summer. Last week a Newsweek poll found that 54% of the respondents say the crackdown will make them less likely to continue. The traffic declined. But the decline may have been only temporary, because of the summer holidays. After Labor Day there was a dramatic uptick again, and the numbers were as high as ever. And there was no significant drop-off after news of the lawsuits last week.

For digital entertainment to flourish, there will have to be innovative protection which satisfy downloaders, making it tough to download a protected copy, and cheap enough to buy a legal version, without making it inflexible and difficult to use.

Apple's iTunes, which started in April 2003, gives customers much of the freedom and selection they want. It lets them buy songs for 99 cents each, and copy them to as many as three other computers or music players. Now Shawn Fanning, Napster founder, is proposing another solution: a music clearinghouse that will automatically check copyrights on a song and charge a user for it.

These are steps in the right direction. The key is for Hollywood to hammer out agreements on building sophisticated yet flexible copy protection into the next generation of digital TVs, cable boxes, and personal video recorders.

Will the lawsuits and advertising campaigns - the FUDS (fear, uncertainty, doubt) - stop "illegal" file swapping? In my opinion, not likely. This is a worldwide phenomenon, like a flood which cannot be stopped by "local" legalities. The solution MUST come from copyright protection that cannot be broken. And that's a tall order!

The Google "pecking order"

The heart of Google's search technology is PigeonRank™, a system for ranking web pages developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University.

The basic idea comes from the curious fact that the common gray pigeon can easily distinguish among items displaying only the tiniest differences. Google mimics this ability that enables it to select relevant web sites from among thousands of similar pages.

When a search query is submitted to Google, it is routed to a data coop where monitors flash result pages at blazing speeds. When a relevant result is observed by one of the "pigeons" in the cluster, it assigns the page a PigeonRank "peck" of one. Those pages receiving the most "pecks", are returned at the top of the user's results page with the other results displayed in "pecking order".

Yes, I know this sounds strange. But, it makes sense in a reverse complexity, chaos-theory sort of way.

Dilbert Humor

In typically dry and unimaginative industrial magazines, Omega Engineering stands out with very successful advertising that features Dilbert cartoons. Nice!

I thought you'd enjoy some extracts from the latest Dilbert Newsletter 49.0.

DNRC Wise-Ass Encouragement

"The key to our success will be your execution."
"You're a minefield of information."
"You're like a snowball gathering steam."

Quotes From Induhviduals

"Can I pick your ear?"
"I've got an ace up my hole."
"I don't want to shoot myself in the hip."
"The monkey is in their court."
"The money clock runneth over."
"We'll kill two rocks in one basket."
"The phones were ringing out of their wits."
"Well, that really puts a wrinkle in my ointment."
"That was a real notch in his feather."
"I'm going to watch you like the back of a hawk."

Induhvidual Politics

"I don't get why we're having a war. I mean, if Bush owns Texas, that means he owns all that oil they farm there, right? So why do we need the oil in Arabia? I mean, it probably costs a fortune just to drive the stuff over here, what with the price of gas and all."