bruceb news

The nation is entering into a debate about the relationship between privacy and national security. Regardless of where you stand, encourage the debate to be fair, reasonable, and deeply considered. A rush to cut off privacy and anonymity may seem tempting in light of the terrorist attacks, but our liberties are built on more than an obsession with security. As this article points out, Congress is already starting to be pressured to pass laws giving new power to law enforcement agencies for monitoring and decrypting e-mail and other electronic communications. One senator has already called for a global prohibition on encryption products without backdoors for government surveillance. […] continued

The World Trade Center disaster has already generated a tremendous amount of e-mail spam and chain letters. As this article points out, you can count on a lot of hoaxes to be disseminated by e-mail in the next few weeks. Exercise a high degree of caution before you forward an e-mail message to your favorite fifty friends. Be suspicious. People are not grateful to receive messages filled with misinformation, no matter how well-intentioned you are. And an unsolicited message asking for money is very likely to be fraudulent. Be generous, get involved, help your neighbors and our country – but watch your e-mail! […] continued

A thought-provoking commentary on the disaster and the reactions to it. You may want to hit the author, Alexander Cockburn, by the end of it (complain to him, not me), but I found it to be more interesting than most of the other coverage so far.

For some reason, this list of World Trade Center tenants touched me more deeply than some of the horrific photos.

I found these to be helpful – a short article about Osama Bin Laden’s background, and a list of questions and answers about bin Laden.

If the news sites are slow to load, this site has all of today’s AP photos collected together.

Sure, you could get back to work after the holiday, but wouldn’t you rather check out an illustrated explanation of how water blasters work?

Douglas Adams passed away on Friday. He was 49. He was the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and several other of the most wonderful books in the world.

“So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

Ginger, the much-hyped device invented by Dean Kamen, apparently is a two-wheeled scooter-like device that will run nearly emission-free using a hydrogen-based engine.Here’s an article with more info about Ginger. That might not grab you at first, but two things are worth thinking about: (1) An emission-free engine? Think about that for a second. That’s astonishing. If it turns out to be true, it truly changes the world. Kamen reportedly has an even more amazing “Stirling” engine under development. (2) Kamen has already developed a motorized wheelchair that can step up over curbs and obstacles and raise up on two wheels – and it’s virtually impossible to tip over while it’s on two wheels! […] continued