Akkam’s Razor

Foxnews now confirms that convicted DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey was found dead of a suspected suicide in Florida, as initially reported by their local affiliate. Palfrey was convicted on 4/15/2008 of money laundering, illegal use of the mail, and racketeering in the operation of her “high-quality fantasy service”, operated under the name of “Pamela Martin and Associates”. The investigation of her service resulted in the resignation of Randall Tobias from his position in the US Aid office, Harlan Ullman, the creator of the phrase “Shock-and-Awe”, and an admission of the use of her services by the “very sorry” Louisiana Congressman David Vitter, who is still in office. In the same time period, several additional White House resignations were tendered, apparently unrelated to the DC Madam. In the run-up to her trial, the US DOJ of Justice issued a gag order, stating that her phone records were in fact an asset, forbidding her from discussing (and profiting from) their contents. She intended to call her “johns” to the stand as part of her defense. The case has many interesting unexplored angles.

BC’s Brian Ross had initially said the following (reported at ThinkProgress, with video at Crooks and Liars):

“There are thousands of names, tens of thousands of phone numbers,” Ross said. “And there are people there at the Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers — a long, long list.” Ross added that the women who worked for the service, potentially as prostitutes, “include university professors, legal secretaries, scientists, military officers.”

ABCNEWS’ Brian Ross had acquired many pages of her cell phone records and had breathlessly pitched them as holding several major names, abruptly reversing course on the night that the 20/20 piece aired.

As usually is the case in Washington, much of it is dull. There are no members of Congress we can find in these phone numbers, no White House officials. Quite frankly, but for the few exceptions, most of the men on this list just aren’t newsworthy.

During that same time period, allegations were made that one of the highest persons in the Bush White House as well as an ABC news personality were allegedly affiliated with the list. Larry Flynt also got involved, at one point stating that he was following 20 Congressional leads, but no other names had come forward.

Other little nuggets of interest:

• Cryptome has the phone numbers in list format (note, also on Scribd as images. See this story on Newsvine regarding the crowdsourcing of the bills).
• Maggie Burns mentions what Ms. Palfrey was doing on 9/11, as deduced by the phone records.
• There is a very clever honeypot at dcphonelist.com which allows users to search for a phone number, highlighting suspect phone numbers. They display statistics for numbers of interest.
• This is not the first suicide related to the Madam.

• At 85, Howard Zinn turns to comics - Boston.com
  Considerably abridged from the original text, the book has been blurbed by Ben Affleck, who calls the graphic form “ingenious.”
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• Dynamic Maps of Nonprime Mortgage Conditions in the United States
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• The Myth of the Media Myth: Games and Non-Gamers | MetaFilter [IRL, reviewed as a MMO Game]
  On the whole, Outside is overrated, and many gamers will find themselves forced by friends and family to play it against their will, but it still deserves a high rating. I give it 7/10, and look forward to improvements in future patches.
  (tags: games funny gaming humor metafilter videogames review)

The Google System Blog lists some of the hardware that is supported by Google’s Android SDK:

• Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components
• Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices
• Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine
• Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional)
• QLite for structured data storage
• Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF)
• GSM Telephony (hardware dependent)
• Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent)
• Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent)
• Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE

When you look at the hardware on a fully-optioned phone, you get an opportunity to rival the iPhone interface (let’s be honest, that’s what’s sexy). I’m particularly thinking of the ability to run a server on the device, and the possibilities to tie in location, hand-movements, speed, time, directionality, and context (based on previous use) into the interface.

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• 3 Deadly Pitfalls When Creating Case Studies
  [S]tories have to deliver results - To produce stories that resonate with readers – and impress your organization or clients – avoid some of these common case study mistakes.
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• Page View Metric Dying - But What Will Replace It? - ReadWriteWeb
  Engagement? Time-on-site?
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• Digital Polaroid photo frame concept brings it all rushing back
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• BitTorrent Developers Introduce Comcast Busting Encryption | TorrentFreak
  Several BitTorrent developers have joined forces to propose a new protocol extension with the ability to bypass the BitTorrent interfering techniques used by Comcast and other ISPs.
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• 10 Handy Numbers to Save in Your Mobile Phone
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• State-by-State Databreach Notification Legislation
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• We’re a Mean One Mr. Forbes
  We’re not a miserable bunch, we’re happy so F off.
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Some of the people I read have love for the (Amazon) Kindle , whilst others bring the hate or at least skepticism .  After skimming this rather comprehensive review via arstechnica , I'm having a hard time justifying as more than a solution in search of a problem. 

I don't read enough to justify the purchase of one and prefer to get my RSS and web content on LoFi less-is-more devices such as my phone (a quite battered Nokia 3650 ), PDA (Dell Axim x50v ), or via Google Reader (either in the full application, via iGoogle, or the mobile version).  At the very least, $399 gets you a cheap (in both senses of the word) laptop, or an OLPC for you and someone else (or an ASUS EEEPC) .  The core advantage here is the free (but limited) EVDO wireless service for book and content delivery which is included in the purchase price.  An EVDO wireless plan is typically worth ~$20-100 per month if bundled with your cell phone service, for comparison sake.

I don't know if it's part of Amazon's plan (and if it isn't, it should be), but I wonder if they have contemplated using Kindle for academic textbook delivery?  It seems like a good complement. 

There was a segment on NPR's On the Media (I think) recently about how porn is being left-behind in the great social networking gold rush.  This is quite surprising, given the internet's indebtedness to pornography.  Without the demand (& market) for pornography, the internet as we know it would never have come into existence. In the beginning the internet was a dark & silent place.

In the beginning, all the content that existed was text based - fan fiction, MUDDs, stories, and the like. Eventually, the web came to be - and what followed was a world of color, sight, & sound. And what drove that market? Peoples desire to watch and listen to porn created the market necessary for innovation.

• Insanely Useful Websites | Sunlight Foundation
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• SignalMap - Find Cell Phone Signals. Add Your Own Signal.
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• TinyMCE Advanced » LaptopTips
  This plugin enables most of the advanced features of TinyMCE, the WordPress’ WYSIWYG editor. It adds 12 plugins to TinyMCE[...].
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• Drupal - Andrew Clifford / IT Tool Box
  Andrew Clifford on what IT needs to understand about tools like Drupal: “But we must not stick our heads in the sand. Powerful, simple, cheap, collaborative, web-based tools like Drupal change the rules.
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