Freedom To Tag

Seven artists in NYC have sued over the city's strict anti-graffiti law banning individuals under 21 from possessing spray paint and broad-tipped markers. The group of artists is backed by fashion designer Marc Ecko. City Councilman Peter Vallone accuses the designer of using the lawsuit to promote recent Ecko's video game "Getting Up" In other recent promotion, Ecko recently created a video showing him tagging Air Force One with the words "Still Free".

2 Pennies For 3 Cents

The cost of the metals in a penny rose above 0.8 cents this week. The US Mint spends another 0.6 cents in creating a penny. Therefore, the mint will lose half a cent in making new pennies. Pennies contain mainly zinc, which tripled in price since 2003. The mint expects to produce 9 billion pennies this year. At current prices, that is a loss of $45 million.

Georgia Tech, Homosexuality, Religion, and Republicans

Ruth Malhotra and Orit Sklar, two members of the College Republicans filed a suit against Georgia Tech on March 16 claiming that the campus' gay-friendly Safe Space program "denigrate[s] religions that oppose [homosexual] behavior." The lawsuit states that the "Safe Space is a program explicitly infused with religious meaning and purpose, and is designed in part to advance a specific religious view of homosexual behavior." Neither political nor religious groups at Georgia Tech receive funding, while Safe Space does receive funding putting these groups at a disadvantage in terms of free speech according to the David French of Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the students.

Georgia Tech Student Indicted For Terrorism

Syed Haris Ahmed has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta, this is the first case international terrorism case in Georgia according to US Attorney David Nahmias. Ahmed is a naturalized citizen from Pakistan who was arrested four weeks ago. The indictment was returned under seal on March 23 and says he provided material support and resources for terrorism. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Ahmed told his family that a video found the Internet had been traced back to him. WAGA-TV sources say the FBI believes Ahmed traveled to Pakistan last year to attend a terrorist training camp.

In a separate, but, potentially, related case a 19-year old Ehsanul Islam Sadequee from Roswell, GA was arrested on Monday in Bangladesh after at least eight months of federal investigation.

Building A Windows Binary R Package

A binary version of an R package can be created by using the following command.

R CMD BUILD --force --binary packagename

This command requires the use of a commandline zip program. This program can be downloaded as part of Cygwin. If Rtools is being used to create the R package then the Cygwin zip program located at C:\cygwin\bin\zip.exe needs to be copied into the Rtools directory.

This type of package is installed using the Packages -> "Install package(s) from local zip files..." in Windows RGui.

Golden Rule == Harassment

Wenyi Wang, was charged with "knowingly and willfully intimidating, coercing, threatening or harassing" Chinese President Hu during his White House visit. She crossed the line of 1st Amendment protected speech by yelling "Anything you have done will come back to you in this life," and "Your time is running out."

List of Numbers and Number Sequences As Dates

A list of numbers and number sequences as dates just like Pi Day or 01:02:03 04/05/06.

• 06:06:06 06/06/06 (mark of the beast x 2)
• 01:01:02 03/05/08 (fibinacci sequence)
• 02:07:01 08/02/08 (e)
• 03:01:04 01/05/09 (pi)
• 01:03:05 07/09/11 (odd numbers)
• 11:11:11 11/11/11 (1s)
• 02:04:06 08/10/12 (even numbers)
• 12:12:12 12/12/12 (1,2s)
• 01:01:01 03/14/15 (pi)
• 01:03:06 10/15/21 (triangular numbers)

San Francisco

San Francisco is a city known its rolling hills, cable cars, and the Golden Gate bridge. It is also the home of the Major League Baseball team, the Giants. Barry Bonds, a Giants team was accused of using steriods by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams in the book "Game of Shadows." The bad publicity from steriod-use is threatening baseball's popularity. A sport that is gaining popularity in the US is soccer, which can be seen from a feature about the Major League Soccer (MLS) in Feburary's edition of Maxim, the popular men's magazine. Jay-Z, the rap artist, might also be jumping on the soccer bandwagon and is reportedly in talks to purchase a stake in the English soccer team, the Arsenals. In 2004, Jay-Z's Black Album was remixed by DJ Dangermouse aka Brian Burton with the Beatles' White Album to make The Grey Album. Coming off the success of The Grey Album, DJ Dangermouse is at it again as part of the duo Gnarls Barkley, with Cee-lo, setting a new record for the first single to go to number one based only on download sales. The Arctic Monkeys, another English band that has explosed into the mainstream by giving away its songs on Myspace.com, released its debut album in January. The album, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not", became the fastest selling debut album in the UK. The third track was entitled "Fake Tales of San Francisco."

iPod

iPod, the popular MP3 player, has a myriad of third-party accessories, including the iGoatse which started being publicized last week. iGoatse is an allusion to the infamous Goatse image. An image pool has been created on Flickr capturing the first impression of people looking at Goatse for the first time. One of the images shows pornstar, Ron Jeremy's first time. Ron Jeremy was enlisted by PETA to pose for ad supporting the spaying and neutering of pets. PETA has also funded another ad campaign entitled "Milk Gone Wild", a parody of the Girls Gone Wild franchise, which shows girls dancing in bars raising their shirts to display cow udders. Girls Gone Wild, typically shows young women removing clothing or engaged in sexual acts during spring break. Recently, the American Medical Association (AMA) did a survey of college women and graduates, aged 17-35, in which 74% of respondents said spring break trips resulted in increased sexual activity and nearly 3 out 5 women had uprotected sex during spring break. After a night of partying, a girl believing she was pregnant, peed on an iPod nano thinking it was a pregnancy test. After that she sent it in for repairs only to be told "the warranty does not cover pee-related damage". Or the story could be a fake, and they might just be ripping off some white kids.