Mini-Sensors for "Military Omniscience"

From BoingBoing:

Mini-Sensors for "Military Omniscience": "Xeni Jardin: Defensetech's Noah Shachtman says, Spotting insurgents, sorting out friend from foe -- it's beyond tough in today's guerilla war zones. So tough, that no single monitor can be counted on to handle the job. The Pentagon's answer: build a set of palm-sized, networked sensors that can be scattered around, and work together to 'detect, classify, localize, and track dismounted combatants under foliage and in urban environments.' It's part of a larger Defense Department effort to establish 'military omniscience' -- and 'ubiquitous monitoring.' Link to blog post with photos. "

Doesn't this effectively negate the idea:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

I guess I had a hold out that revolution against a repressive governement was still possible via Guerilla warfare. If technologies such as these negate that possibility, why reason does the government have to fear its people?

Is that still good?

Mrs.Oberon and I have this discussion all of the time. Is that still good? Via Make to realsimple and their list.

Another picture of the dish installation. Lucky for me the line-of-site cleared the tall trees in my yard. We will see is that holds up once the trees produce leaves and start moving this way and that in the wind. 

The WildBlue dish is very different from those used for DirecWay satelllite internet. Note that a dual, offset Gregorian type reflector is used. WildBlue also operates in the Ka band (28 GHz as far as this dish is concerned). This allows the dish and hardware to be smaller than DirecWay's Ku band setup. In addition, there's more bandwidth available per beam. 

I just had WildBlue internet installed at the Homestead. The modem is about the size of a textbook and is paired with a beefy power supply.  

HOWTO give yourself an abortion

This is my first post via Google reader. I thought it should get out there and add that my work proxy now blocks BoingBoing. BoingBoing is currently protesting the fact that they are blocked as a pr0n site for showing
1) Pictures of "David"
2) Those new Abu Garaib photos.
Does that make the U.S. government pr0n peddlers?

The main article though is a "HOWTO" on DIY abortions.

New on my list this week: South Dakota.


HOWTO give yourself an abortion: "Xeni Jardin: Inspired by the grim news that abortions may soon be banned in South Dakota, one female blogger posts detailed instructions -- MAKE magazine style -- on DIY backalley abortions. Not a recommendation, and not reposted here with the belief that this would be safe or advisable for any woman.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, when abortions were illegal in many places and expensive to get, an organization called Jane stepped up to the plate in the Chicago area. Jane initially hired an abortion doctor, but later they did the abortions themselves. They lost only one patient in 13,000 -- a lower death rate than that of giving live birth. The biggest obstacle they had, though, was the fact that until years into the operation, they thought of abortion as something only a doctor could do, something only the most trained specialist could perform without endangering the life of the woman.

They were deceived -- much like you have probably been deceived. An abortion, especially for an early pregnancy, is a relatively easy procedure to perform. And while I know, women of South Dakota, that you never asked for this, now is the time to learn how it is done. There is no reason you should be beholden to doctors -- especially in a state where doctors have been refusing to perform them, forcing the state's only abortion "