California tech execs face charges

— Federal authorities accused executives at three Northern California software companies of cooking the books to dupe investors and prop up stock prices during the high-tech boom of the 1990s. The U.S. Attorney’s Office filed criminal securities-fraud charges Monday against two former chief executives, Gholamreza Mikailli of Sacramento-based Unify and Alan K. Anderson of the … Continue reading “California tech execs face charges”

— Federal authorities accused executives at three Northern California software
companies of cooking the books to dupe investors and prop up stock prices during the high-tech boom of the 1990s. The U.S. Attorney’s Office filed criminal securities-fraud charges Monday against two former chief executives, Gholamreza Mikailli of Sacramento-based Unify and Alan K. Anderson of the now-defunct Quintus, and former chief financial officer Gary Pado of Unify. AP’s Michael Liedtke in the San
Jose Mercury Judith Burns in the Wall Street Journal Ben White in the Washington Post Gilbert Chan in the Sacramento Bee

Source: Rough & Tumble.

Top Stories

— When I checked my site this morning, I discovered RoboPundit had added a dozen new stories automatically, just like it’s supposed to. I like it when this stuff actually works. The top stories in the WarbloggerSphere this morning are cleary the Instapundit redesign and rehost, and the ban on guns for pilots. See the … Continue reading “Top Stories”

— When I checked my site this morning, I discovered RoboPundit had added a dozen new stories automatically, just like it’s supposed to. I like it when this stuff actually works. The top stories in the WarbloggerSphere this morning are cleary the Instapundit redesign and rehost, and the ban on guns for pilots. See the RoboPundit section for the stories and links. Some twit at trek30.sv.av.com also tried to hack RoboPundit, if you can believe that. What a sad little bastard.

No irony here

— Inside the Beltway — The Washington Times Who better than Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on Public Health, to convene hearings this week on the nation’s “obesity epidemic”? At least he’s not giving swimming lessons. Next week: the Clinton Commission investigates sexual harassment.

— Inside the Beltway — The Washington Times

Who better than Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on Public Health, to convene hearings this week on the nation’s “obesity epidemic”?

At least he’s not giving swimming lessons. Next week: the Clinton Commission investigates sexual harassment.

Welfare

— Andrew Olmsted: Holding on to Federalism Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura makes a wise request of the Bush Administration regarding welfare reform. Ventura correctly points out that welfare reform is not the job of the federal government (and, in fact, is wholly unconstitutional based on a strict reading of the Constitution). My litmus test for … Continue reading “Welfare”

— Andrew Olmsted: Holding on to Federalism

Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura makes a wise request of the Bush Administration regarding welfare reform. Ventura correctly points out that welfare reform is not the job of the federal government (and, in fact, is wholly unconstitutional based on a strict reading of the Constitution).

My litmus test for federal judges: “What do you think about the erosion of federalism since that communist FDR screwed it all up in the ’30s?”

Fun with science

— Finding the Speed of Light The activity requires a microwave oven, a microwave-safe casserole dish, a bag of marshmallows, and a ruler. (The oven must be of the type that has no mechanical motion-no turntable or rotating mirror. If there is a turn-table, remove it first.) First, open the marshmallows and place them in … Continue reading “Fun with science”

— Finding the Speed of Light

The activity requires a microwave oven, a microwave-safe casserole dish, a bag of marshmallows, and a ruler. (The oven must be of the type that has no mechanical motion-no turntable or rotating mirror. If there is a turn-table, remove it first.) First, open the marshmallows and place them in the casserole dish, completely covering it with a layer one marshmallow thick. Next, put the dish of marshmallows in the microwave and cook on low heat. Microwaves do not cook evenly and the marshmallows will begin to melt at the hottest spots in the microwave. (I leaned this from our Food Science teacher Anita Cornwall.) Heat the marshmallows until they begin to melt in four or five different spots. Remove the dish from the microwave and observe the melted spots. Take the ruler and measure the distance between the melted spots. You will find that one distance repeats over and over. This distance will correspond to half the wavelength of the microwave, about 6 cm. Now turn the oven around and look for a small sign that gives you the frequency of the microwave. Most commercial microwaves operate at 2450 MHz.

All you do now is multiply the frequency by the wavelength. The product is the speed of light.

I’ve often wanted to measure the speed of light with a ruler, and now I know how.

Cuba

— President holds tough stance on Cuba President Bush on Monday refused to lift the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba unless Fidel Castro first releases political prisoners, conducts independently monitored elections and accepts a list of tough new U.S. conditions. “Freedom sometimes grows step by step, and we will encourage those steps,” the president said, … Continue reading “Cuba”

— President holds tough stance on Cuba

President Bush on Monday refused to lift the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba unless Fidel Castro first releases political prisoners, conducts independently monitored elections and accepts a list of tough new U.S. conditions. “Freedom sometimes grows step by step, and we will encourage those steps,” the president said, outlining his new U.S. policy on Cuban Independence Day.

Naked pandering to Miami Cubans. Castro isn’t going along, and he doesn’t want the embargo lifted – the US is more valuable to him as a scapegoat than as a trading partner.

RoboPundit sources

These are the RoboPundit sources: Andrea Harris Bellicose woman blogdex daypop Electrolite Evhead News is Free Headlines Ken Layne lgf Matt Welch Moira Breen Moreover More Than Zero Fredrik Norman Olmstead Patio Pundit Peerkat PhotoDude Political Wire Craig Schamp O’Reilly Weblogs Works in Progress Rand Simburg Protein Wisdom and Scripting News have errors in their … Continue reading “RoboPundit sources”

These are the RoboPundit sources:

Andrea Harris

Bellicose woman

blogdex

daypop

Electrolite

Evhead

News is Free Headlines

Ken Layne

lgf

Matt Welch

Moira Breen

Moreover

More Than Zero

Fredrik Norman

Olmstead

Patio Pundit

Peerkat

PhotoDude

Political Wire

Craig Schamp

O’Reilly Weblogs

Works in Progress

Rand Simburg

Protein Wisdom and Scripting News have errors in their feeds and don’t presently register. Some sites don’t use titles, which causes Peerkat big problems, since it can’t generate a link without a title. It looks like Peekat needs re-writing.

Venture capitalists fight Filthy Lucre

— High-Tech companies in Sonoma County’s Telecom Valley find venture capitalists want a bigger piece of the action now that the economy’s in the dumper. This article explains the moral clarity of investors (Signs of life return) But the decline in valuations is not necessarily bad, said Winston Fu, general partner at U.S. Venture Partners, … Continue reading “Venture capitalists fight Filthy Lucre”

— High-Tech companies in Sonoma County’s Telecom Valley find venture capitalists want a bigger piece of the action now that the economy’s in the dumper. This article explains the moral clarity of investors (Signs of life return)

But the decline in valuations is not necessarily bad, said Winston Fu, general partner at U.S. Venture Partners, a Menlo Park venture capital firm. Investors want to fund companies that are focused on building a real business, not just becoming rich.

What we have here is the beginnings of an explanation for the Dot Com Swindle, in which VC firms and Investment Bankers took the public for a ride. “It’s good that we fleeced you,” they’re saying, “because you should be more concerned about your soul than your bank account.”

Isn’t it good that they’re looking out for us?

Arcata police blotter

— Kevin Hoover’s police blotter in the Arcata Eye is really one of the best examples of good, local, journalism in existence, and the story of how the Eye came into existence is a model of entrepreneurial excellence. But even Hoover has his critics, as we learn from this story in the Frisco Comical today: … Continue reading “Arcata police blotter”

— Kevin Hoover’s police blotter in the Arcata Eye is really one of the best examples of good, local, journalism in existence, and the story of how the Eye came into existence is a model of entrepreneurial excellence. But even Hoover has his critics, as we learn from this story in the Frisco Comical today:

“He makes up little poems and little sarcastic remarks about the common folks, street people and traveling kids who are the most common targets of the Arcata police state,” Wakan said. “Hoover . . . encourages the people of Arcata to laugh off oppression as they go about their middle- to upper-class day.”

The Comical is jealous, of course.

RoboPundit

— We have a new feature here at the Navel called “RoboPundit.” This is a little bit of technology that features summaries and links to recent articles from a number of different blogs that I enjoy reading. The summaries are assembled automatically, hence the name. This works through Peerkat, which grabs the summaries automatically generated … Continue reading “RoboPundit”

— We have a new feature here at the Navel called “RoboPundit.” This is a little bit of technology that features summaries and links to recent articles from a number of different blogs that I enjoy reading. The summaries are assembled automatically, hence the name. This works through Peerkat, which grabs the summaries automatically generated by Movable Type and some other blog tools (but not by Blogger, alhough Mr. Blogger has an RSS feed on his personal blog), and makes an RSS feed out of them. This feed is then grabbed by a server that converts the feed into Javascript. The blogs are scanned every hour, but the service that converts the feed only runs once a day, unless I force it to refresh more often (or unless somebody else does, because anybody can force a re-build of the RoboPundit feed.)

All of this software is flakey, pre-release stuff, so I expect a little randomness, which we can pretend is punditry. I just did this to do it, not because I think it’s Really Cool or anything like that. Of course.

UPDATE: To force an update of the RoboPundit feed, just click here.