Some interesting thoughts from the Singularity Summit this past weekend.
Speaking of which, Phil Bowermaster was in attendance, and blogging about it. Just keep scrolling.
A Light Through The Clouds
Maybe this year won’t be a total disaster for (southeast) Michigan football. The Lions are leading the Raiders at the half, ten zip.
Moving From Windows To Linux?
NASA Slogan Update
Remember Loretta’s attempt to come up with a better slogan for the federal space agency? Well, I didn’t get much response, but Wired got quite a bit. Unfortunately, it’s pretty underwhelming, at least so far.
Is it really up to me? Do I have to unleash my fingers of satire?
C’mon, people.
“We’ll support jobs in Houston. The rest of you will go to the stars.”
Six Years Ago
Most people think that September 11th was the opening of the main Al Qaeda campaign, but it was really two days earlier, on September 9th, with the assassination in Afghanistan of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a key figure in the liberation of Afghanistan from the Soviets, who afterward had been fighting to liberate his country from the Taliban for years. No one paid much attention to the event at the time, but in hindsight, as the Wikipedia article notes, there is good reason to think that he was assassinated by bin Laden as a means of consolidating his power in Kabul, as part of the preparation for the attacks scheduled to happen two days later.
As a remembrance, here is an open letter from him to the American people, published in 1998.
[Update in the evening]
Welcome, Instapundit readers! If you’ve never been here before you might want to check out the general blog.
Where Did The War Go?
Some thoughts from Mark Steyn:
According to a poll in May, 35 percent of Democrats believe that Bush knew about 9/11 in advance. Did Rumsfeld also know? Almost certainly. That
Eerie And Frightening
I’ve never believed in ghosts, but this seems like pretty compelling proof to me.
Critical Eye For The Terrorist Guy
Some fashion advice for Osama, from the Manolo.
FWIW, I remain unconvinced that it really is Osama.
[Update late morning]
Michael Ledeen is skeptical, too.
[Another update a few minutes later]
And then there’s this outtake from the video.
[Update at 11:30 AM]
Here’s another theory about the video:
All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen!
Actually, my strongest reason to think that bin Laden is at room temperature? Because the CIA says he’s still alive.
Open Source, Finally
Jim Hansen has released the code for his models.
On two separate occasions, Hansen, who two weeks ago contrasted royalty with
No Fluke?
Based on the game so far, it looks like Michigan is for real. A for-real loser, that is…
[Update a few minutes later]
A comment over at rec.sport.football.college…
[The Wolverines] are absolutely *killing* Appalachian State’s strength-of-schedule.
Heh.
At the half, they’re down four scores (32-7). I’d sure like to be a fly on the wall in the Michigan locker room.
Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t spend twenty bucks on ESPN game plan to watch the slaughter. It’s not like there were any other games there that I wanted to watch.
[Update a couple minutes later]
OK, last week, it was clear that the defense was weak. But this week, it’s clear that the offense is as well. Both Henne and Hart have produced in past seasons, so I have to think it’s the O-line.
Either way, I was laughing off suggestions that Lloyd would leave over this, but if it keeps up, and Michigan has a losing season (when was the last time that happened?), it could happen. Interestingly, his early years were his best.
[Update at quarter to six Eastern]
Well, it turns out that it’s the local ABC game, so I don’t have that excuse not to watch. Apparently, senior quarterback Henne’s been injured, and replaced. It’s unclear whether that’s a good or a bad thing. But he can’t be feeling very good about his senior season at this point…
[Update after end of game]
OK. It’s pretty clear that Michigan completely sux. The question now is, what will the Athletic Department do about it?