News

NEWS.  NEWWWWWWWWWS.  NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWS. NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWS!

Snacks banned inst from 4chan after approximately:

"<Inst> Hay snacks, ban?"
"You were kicked from this room"
"#4chan unable to join channel (address is banned)"

oh, and snacks just woke up and would usually ban inst on sight.

And in other news...

http//www.wa/...

U.S., N. Korea Focus on Bilateral Talks

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 26, 2005; 10:03 AM

BEIJING, July 26 -- After conciliatory remarks formally launching the resumption of long-stalled negotiations, U.S. and North Korean diplomats returned to bilateral discussions Tuesday on how to reach the elusive goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

A Chinese spokesman, Qin Gang, said opening speeches by delegation heads from the six nations involved in the negotiations displayed increased flexibility and determination to make progress that augured well for the new round of talks. In their remarks, he noted, officials from North Korea and the United States both sought to emphasize their willingness to meet demands from the other side and seek common ground in the negotiations.
   

The North Korean delegation leader, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, repeated Pyongyang's determination to work for denuclearization of the peninsula. Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and head of the U.S. team, reiterated assurances that Washington accepts North Korea's sovereignty and has no intention of attacking Kim Jong Il's government or refusing to deal with it.

"We have noticed that the atmosphere is improved since the last talks," Qin told reporters.

China, which has hosted and sponsored the six-party talks since they began in August 2003, often has urged the United States to soften its language and attitude toward North Korea to smooth the way for concessions. Similarly, Chinese diplomats said, it has repeatedly pressured North Korea since it dropped out of the talks 13 months ago to return to the negotiating table with a genuine willingness to seek agreement on dismantling its nuclear weapons program.

Hill's assurances that the United States was ready to meet bilaterally with North Korean officials as often as needed was seen as a step in the direction being urged by China. Tuesday's meeting, reported by Qin and other diplomats, was the second in as many days. In contrast, during the previous three rounds of talks, U.S. officials had sought to emphasize multilateral meetings, while North Korea demanded one-on-one contacts as a way to signal equality with the United States.

In a sign of the many difficulties still likely to emerge, however, a North Korean source told the Russian news agency Interfax that, in Pyongyang, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula means ridding South Korea of U.S. nuclear weapons as well as halting North Korea's nuclear effort. This attitude, if made part of the talks, could swiftly sour the new atmosphere; the United States has said its nuclear weapons have long been removed from South Korea.

"The DPRK continues to follow its tactic of simultaneous steps, which envisions the DPRK's abandonment of its nuclear programs if the U.S. withdraws its nuclear arms from the south of the Korean Peninsula and the participants pay compensation to North Korea," the unnamed source told Interfax, referring to the official name of North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

There was no comment from Kim or his negotiating team in Beijing. Diplomats declined to provide details on the first day of contacts, saying the discussions were just getting started. A senior U.S. diplomat said Monday, however, that Hill asked Kim in an earlier bilateral discussion what North Korea understands by denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The response was not known.

Kim, the diplomat said, also was expected to provide North Korea's response to a U.S. proposal put forward at the last round of talks, in June 2004, outlining a sequence of U.S. moves in response to North Korean steps to eliminate nuclear weapons. Under that proposal, South Korea and other U.S. allies could provide immediate energy aid to the North once it agreed to end its weapons program. If within three months it revealed its programs and allowed them to be verified, the United States would join its allies in giving security assurances and perhaps providing economic aid as well if the dismantling proceeded on schedule.

The North Korean source in the Interfax report cited this suggestion as unacceptable, saying North Korea's formal declaration last February that it has produced nuclear weapons requires another approach.

"The situation has changed since the third round of the negotiations," the source said, according to Interfax. "Today, North Korea has nuclear weapons, and the denuclearization process should take place in the North and South simultaneously."

Another possible obstacle came from Japan, whose envoys have insisted on discussing North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. South Korean and Chinese officials clearly rejected this proposal, saying the issue should be dealt with by Japan and North Korea outside the six-party talks.

Correspondent Peter Finn in Moscow contributed to this report.

oh, by the way, click on extend article for a NK talks resume article. Pirated, because piracy will make lav chan run away with you to the netherlands and have a gay marriage. Or is that civil union?

becuase... piracy will make lav-chan... oh screw it.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/28/Business/Teens_getting_so_tech.shtml

Teens getting so tech savvy

    They especially like communicating through instant messages and cell phones, but e-mail is passe, a survey shows.

By DAVE GUSSOW, Times Staff Writer
Published July 28, 2005
   
[AP photo]
Th text messaging function on a cell phone has become a popular way for teens to message each other.
   

When it comes to teens and technology, e-mail is just so yesterday. Instant messaging and cell phones are where it's happening today, according to a new survey.

Teens told the Pew Internet & American Life Project "that they view e-mail as something you use to talk to "old people,' institutions, or to send complex instructions to large groups," the report released Wednesday said.

The study found that teens' use of the Internet has grown substantially over the past five years. They are doing more varied activities online. And girls are increasingly setting the trends, particularly with communications.

"Older girls are intense users and can't imagine life without it," said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at Pew and co-author of the report. Instant messaging "is the first thing they turn on and the last thing they turn off at night before they go to bed."

Instant messaging allows people to exchange messages online, seeing the text in windows on a computer screen. Many teens have multiple conversations going on at one time.

The most popular service is America Online's Instant Messenger, though others such as Yahoo and MSN offer it. Text messaging is done over cell phones, though it is not as popular and usually costs at least a small fee to send messages.

The telephone survey was conducted last fall by Princeton Survey Research Associates, with a sample of 1,100 parent-child pairs. The children were in the 12-17 age group.

The findings show just how connected this generation is: 84 percent own a desktop computer, a notebook computer, a cell phone or a personal digital assistant; 44 percent have two or more of those items; 12 percent have three; and 2 percent have all four.

"Cell phones are the gadgets that teens love and that teens want," Lenhart said.

Only about half of the teens reported owning a cell phone, a figure that might seem low to anyone who has walked through a mall. The results also found that half prefer using land lines to call friends.

Lenhart suggested that the cost of cell phones may be driving the land line response. But the general theme is that technology gives teens access to their friends and the information they want, including school, news, job and health topics.

Yet it's not all electronic. The survey also found that teens spend more time with friends in person every week than they do communicating electronically.

The key age for the transition to technology appears to be about seventh grade, when there's a surge in socializing.

"Its the time of life when teens become much more interested in friends," Lenhart said. "IM is a way to stay in touch with friends, stay in your network, see who's available. IM really drives a lot of connectivity and use."

In addition, kids want more independence at that age, and parents want to keep tabs on them, so cell phones serve a dual purpose. And the kids' attitudes toward technology, particularly the Internet, are influenced by their parents, who see it as an important tool for the 21st century.

The survey also turned up some generational differences, such as the teens' view of e-mail. Teens go online more than adults, play more games, do more school searches and overwhelmingly type more text messages on their cell phones. More adults shop and seek job information.

Another element that seems to go against the traditional stereotype of technology consumption is the rise of girl power. Traditionally, boys and men have been seen as the main tech consumers.

But the fact that girls and cell phones have risen to more prominence in this survey doesn't surprise Michael Berson, an associate professor of social science education at the University of South Florida who has done extensive research about kids and technology.

Girls are growing up seeing women using technology in the workplace, in schools and in socializing. Because of these role models, Berson said, they're more comfortable using technology and getting connected.

Indeed, of girls ages 15 to 17, 97 percent have used instant messaging, compared with 87 percent of boys in that age group; 57 percent of girls 15 to 17 have sent text messages, compared with 40 percent of boys those ages, according to the survey.

Nor is Berson surprised by the preference for cell phones, IM and text messaging. While adults may not mind waiting for a response to an e-mail, Berson said, teens want "that sense of immediacy" the technology provides.

And where once technology was simply a tool, "now it's become almost a part of their lives, almost a necessity," Berson said.

According to Pew, instant messaging gives teens opportunities for what it calls personal expression through buddy icons and personalized design. Technology is seeping into even younger lives, said Ann Smith, technology coordinator at Perkins Elementary School in St. Petersburg.

"Eighty-five percent of our students have technology at home," Smith said. "This generation of digital kids, they're so used to technology they're not afraid to try something."

Dave Gussow can be reached at gussow@sptimes.com or 727 771-4328.
[Last modified July 28, 2005, 01:09:17]

in other news...
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[18:41] * You were kicked from #4chan by MrVacBob (i don't know but i think you're a pedo?)
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[18:41] #4chan unable to join channel (address is banned)
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[18:42] -> *mrvacbob* so to confirm, apparently my IP shifted while I was gone and I managed to inadverdently banevade?
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Teens just found a new way to chat longer. They have no clue how the technology works or why it works the way it does and how to exploit it. They are just using it because everyone else is using it. That's how things get popular with teens.

>>4

You were banned for being an idiot! Now don't fag up /newnew/ with your ban whining.

I don't understand why you don't combine /NewNew/ with politics, it seems a bit superfluous to have two forums for discussion of what is essentially the same thing...

http//www.newindpress.com/...

New Scientist is also talking about the possibility of up to 22 planets in the solar system on a different axis than the rest of us. Hay, alien life in the solar system? Say, a planet on opposite lagrange point?


10th planet discovered in the solar system
Sunday July 31 2005 00:00 IST
PTI

HOUSTON: Textbooks might soon be rewritten as US astronomers have discovered an object in the outer reaches of the solar system - a ball of rock bigger than Pluto, which they labelled as the 10th planet.

If confirmed, the discovery would be the first of a planet since Pluto was identified in 1930.

"Get out your pens. Start re-writing textbooks today," Mike Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology, said announcing the discovery.

"The new object is covered in methane ice and lies nine billion miles from earth and it's the farthest object ever discovered to orbit around the sun," he said.

"I'd say it's probably one and a half times the size of Pluto."

The new body, tentatively called 2003-UB313, was originally detected in 2003, but it was not regarded as a planet until scientists re-analysed their data earlier this year.

Brown first saw the new planet on January 8 using the 48-inch Samuel Oschin telescope at Palomar Observatory, along with his colleagues Chad Trujillo of Gemini Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and David Rabinowitz of yale University.

It had actually been photographed first in 2003 - hence the name - but nobody realised what it was until its motion became apparent.

The planet 2003-UB313 has since been observed with other telescopes. Researchers have attempted to measure its heat output with the Spitzer space telescope, but the orbiting observatory could not find it, putting an upper limit on its size of twice Pluto's diameter Brown said that the discovery would rekindle debate over whether Pluto can be regarded as a planet at all.

The astronomers have proposed a name for the "planet" to the science's governing body, the International Astronomical Union, and are awaiting the decision of this body before announcing it.

The planet has not been noticed previously because its orbit is at a 45-degree angle to the rest of the solar system, Brown said.

"We found it because we've looked everywhere else. Nobody looks way up that high. It's tilted way out of plane," he said.

News of the discovery was announced earlier than expected after hackers broke into Brown's website and stole news of it, he charged.

The team had planned to keep the news secret until their research was completed.

The "new planet" will be visible over the next six months and is currently almost directly overhead in the early-morning eastern sky, in the Cetus constellation.