Wednesday, July 24, 2002

Operation TIPS Terrorist Information and Prevention System "A national system for concerned workers to report suspicious activity." Operation TIPS, administered by the U.S. Department of Justice and developed in partnership with several other federal agencies, is one of the five component programs of the Citizen Corps. Operation TIPS will be a national system for reporting suspicious, and potentially terrorist-related activity. The program will involve the millions of American workers who, in the daily course of their work, are in a unique position to see potentially unusual or suspicious activity in public places. Operation RATS Retrograde Activities and Treachery System "A national system for paranoid nuts to report neighbors they don't like." Operation RATS - the Retrograde Activities and Treachery System - will be a nationwide program giving millions of American bigots, paranoiacs, nosy neighbors, snoops, snobs, and others a formal way to report innocent actions by others that offend them. Operation RATS, a project of the U.S. Department of Anachronisms, will begin as a pilot program in 10 cities that will be selected based on the number of statues they have erected to Senator Joseph McCarthy. US Postal Service will not take part in TIPS program According to this AP article, the US Postal Service has released a statement stating that it will not be participating in the recently inaugurated Terrorism Information and Prevention System. The USPS was approached by what the article describes as homeland security officials, in order to explore the possibilities of involving the service in TIPS. Cable guy, or government spy? Now Americans will have to wonder "By deputizing utility workers, delivery drivers and other private employees as de facto government agents, the government has created a way to search your home without a warrant," Dasbach said. "The only reason the government wants to recruit private citizen-spies is that they can do things the government can't do legally, such as monitor your private behavior with absolutely no suspicion that you've done anything wrong." Operation TIPS-TIPS: Report TIPS informants To combat this menace, we've instituted Operation TIPS-TIPS. If you spot somebody you believe may be a TIPS informant, do two things: Mark the informant. In a subtle way, place the mark of the all-seeing eye (the eye-in-the-pyramid from the Great Seal, shown above) on their home, vehicle or person. Chalk is best, though it must be renewed. This is like Hobo Signs. Register them here. [Michael J. Hehir's Radio Weblog] 11:15:25 AM    comment []

XML and ASP.NET. XML and ASP.NET is the one book you need to master XML in the .NET Framework. It includes all of the technologies needed to program .NET web applications including XPath, XSLT, XML Schemas, and the Microsoft XML Parsers. This book also incorporates an incredible breadth of XML technologies from basic queries using XPath to advanced serialization techniques, thoroughly exploring Microsoft’s .NET implementation of XML. A wealth of clearly written and real-world sample code makes this a must-have for any developer interested in a focused, detailed, and complete view of XML and how it fits into Microsoft’s .NET initiative. [O'Reilly Safari] 11:06:15 AM    comment []

Project Teddy applet page - 3-D modelling. via DV for Teachers.  Java applet for 3-D modelling.  Deceptively simple, but apparently powerful. [Serious Instructional Technology] 10:53:35 AM    comment []