Archive for September 13th, 2006

Contest for unpublished novels — scam?

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New prize for unpublished manuscripts
The Sobol Award offers $100,000 for the best unreleased, agentless novel, with prizes of $25,000 and $10,000 for the runners-up and $1,000 each to seven others.
Sounds amazingly good, except they charge a whopping $85 entry fee. Good god. $85 times 50,000 (the number they say they’ll limit their entries to) [...]

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NSA Tells Senators What to Say

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Northwest Florida Daily News: Security agency tried to advise Democrats what to say about eavesdropping program
Here are some examples of what Democratic Senators are allowed to say about the NSA, according to the NSA:
"I have personally met the dedicated men and women of the NSA. The country owes them an enormous debt of gratitude [...]

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Google and iTV?

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Will Google find its way onto an iTV near you? | Googling Google | ZDNet.com
It’s just wild speculation. But if you recall, we were talking a few weeks back about how Google ideally wants a way to replace the commercials on your TV set with custom picked ones (otherwise they’re stuck using a microphone and [...]

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Matt Lauer with Bush in his Face

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YouTube - Matt Lauer Corners Bush on Torture
Interesting use of body language by Bush. Lauer thankfully stands his ground.
I was reminded of the time I got into a fight with a guy who was beating his dog. It started just like that.
I guess the question I would have liked to ask El [...]

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Solving the “Volume Problem”

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Given the advanced state of modern technology, is it possible to write software that understands what what volume I like to listen to music, tv, video clips, and so on and KEEP IT THERE?
Consider that every single clip on YouTube has its own unique level. How hard would it be for YouTube to set [...]

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