Business Week takes a look at BitTorrent, not the protocol, but the company, in an attempt to figure out Bram Cohen's and Ashwin Navin's future directions. Currently the company is in talks with hardware manufacturers, who would incorporate BitTorrent code into home network routers. What's after that? "Next up: the big launch in early 2007 of the company's online content site, a project that's been pushed back since the summer. "The services that have launched are not getting any advantage for being early, in fact they're getting blasted for not getting the product right," Navin says. "We want to do better." He compares it to Apple's strategy with iTunes and the iPod."

eWeek is reporting on a new kind of Trojan horse that self-installs a patched pirated copy of Kaspersky's AntiVirus, which then removes every virus and spyware, except the SpamThru virus itself. From the article: "Stewart also found SpamThru using a clever command-and control structure to avoid shutdown. The Trojan uses a custom P2P protocol to share information with other peers--including the IP addresses and ports and software version of the control server. "Control is still maintained by a central server, but in case the control server is shut down, the spammer can update the rest of the peers with the location of a new control server, as long as he/she controls at least one peer," he said."

Davis Freeberg is reporting from San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting, where Google and EarthLink discussed their plans for free Wi-Fi for the city. It seems that quite a few activist groups were either thinking that public funds were given to Google and EarthLink, or the license to build a Wi-Fi cloud is comparable to Comcast's exclusive license to provide cable high speed Internet, and hence some weird demands ensued: "Some of the crazier demands that were suggested at the meeting included a requirement for every San Francisco renter to sign a lease addendum with their landlords before being allowed to install a WiFi card in their PC, forcing Google to agree to transport kids back and forth to the Zoo in their Google busses and a requirement for EarthLink to pay the electrical costs for running computers in order to prevent brownouts."

Microsoft is looking into developing its own chips due to challenges presented by the next generation XBox and technologies like voice recognition. NYT reports: "Microsoft is exploring hardware design now in part because of a new set of tools that will make it possible to test ideas quickly, he said. The researchers will employ a system designed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, that makes it possible to reconfigure computer designs without the cost of making finished chips."

New Scientist is reporting that stock earbuds and headphones shipped with popular digital music players can be damaging to one's hearing: "They found that all of the music players produced similar loudness at similar device volume settings, but that different headphones altered this loudness. On average, both earbud and canalphone earphones were 5.5 decibels louder than supra-aural headphones."

Libya will buy MIT's $100 laptops to supply every kid in the country with a brand new portable PC. Libya ordered 1.2 mln laptops, and somehow the deal adds up to $250 mln, MSNBC reports. From the article: "Negroponte, a computer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he had met with Moammar Gadhafi and the project appealed to the Libyan leader's political agenda of creating a more open Libya and becoming an African leader."

Nokia expects to sell WiMAX phones by 2008, Reuters reports. The mobile devices could be used with traditional cellular networks as well with WiMAX hotspots. From the article: "Nokia said its WiMAX base stations will be commercially available for broadband operators in the 2.5 gigahertz band at the end of 2007 and for 3.5 gigahertz in the first quarter of 2008."

Watch five different commercials of five different wireles networks, and you will hear five different claim about having the largest wireless network in the United States. Call up the carrier, or ask the sales rep about the square miles each network has, and they will be clueless - all claims about wireless coverage are based on the number of people that have access to the network in densely populated areas. Which really means the competition is pretty much about reaching the largest amount of customers with the lowest amount of towers, and hence even the largest wireless network will have quite a few dead zones in the United States.

OpenSSL security can be compromised by forging digital signatures, according to a Bell Labs researcher. The article quotes OpenSSL advisory: "If an RSA key with exponent 3 is used, it may be possible to forge a PKCS #1 v1.5 signature signed by that key. Since there are (certificate authorities) using exponent 3 in wide use, and PKCS #1 v1.5 is used in X.509 certificates, all software that uses OpenSSL to verify X.509 certificates is potentially vulnerable."

David Berlind of ZDNet says the time has come for small and medium businesses to outsource their IT operations: "Call me crazy. But, it seems to me that the industry has finally evolved to a point where selling infrastructure (including storage) to SMBs should be like selling regular gasoline to the driver of a truck that runs on diesel fuel. Whether you're at an existing SMB or about to start one up, it makes almost no sense to insource any IT. Especially IT infrastucture like servers and storage." Nicholas Carr agrees: "I would call it more a habit than a myth - the ability for companies to jettison most or all of their in-house IT infrastructure is a recent development - but I think he's right. Ironically, even as many smaller companies are embracing hardware hosting, software-as-a-service, and other forms of utility computing, many others are currently building up their IT assets, drawn by low component costs. I think those companies are going to end up regretting a lot of the investments they're making. They'll soon find that the highest IT costs aren't component costs but labor costs, maintenance costs, electricity costs, and other secondary expenses - and that owning your own gear ends up reducing your flexibility rather than increasing it." With the proliferation of hosted storage, hosted email, hosted Web sites, hosted project management tools, hosted time tracking utilities, hosted calendars and hosted billing services, should a small business owner forget about ever purchasing a server?

I think it's time someone held a contest.

A slash fiction writing contest.

The stars?

George W. Bush and Victor Ashe. Georgie's nickname of "The Shrub" should of course be part of the story.

Why?

Let me quote Wolfbear's Blog

Leola McConnell, Democratic candidate for Governor of Nevada (who has been endorsed by WMR). McConnell is a one-time professional dominatrix.
 
"President Bush's speech to the nation Monday. If he doesn't say he's a gay American or at the least a bisexual one then he shouldn't be making one at all. And the notion that it would be in regards to writing bigotry into our nation's Constitution is reprehensible. Too bad it isn't me doing the rebuttal because in 1984, I watched him perform (with the enthusiasm of homosexual male who had done this many times before) a homosexual act on another man, namely Victor Ashe. Victor Ashe is the current Ambassador to the nation of Poland who should also come out like former Governor McGreevey of New Jersey and admit to being a gay American. Other homo-erotic acts were also performed by then private citizen George Bush because I performed one of them on him personally.

A lesson to all you kids out there. Get a degree. Yes, it may be beneath you. But it might not be beneath the unimaginative overlords who will rule your world one day.

That is all.

It looks as though quoting favorite poetry can actually be of incalculable benefit. Not to mention theraputic. Here goes nothing,

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I turned to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

--Yeats

I'm almost done acquiring enough gear to record my music...need to find a place to host it though.

Normally I shun such strong expressions of emotion, but lately I've come to realize that I have to lose my cold, remote disposition, and try and connect with humanity.