Singapore's Nguyen

Two stories about execution are circulating this week: in the US, John Hicks was the 999th execution since 1976 and Vietnamese-Australian Nguyen Van Tuong is scheduled for execution by hanging in Singapore on Friday. Nguyen has been convicted of drug trafficking which carries a mandatory death sentence. He was found in possession of 396.2 grams of heroin 25 times the amount mandating a death sentence.

Since 1994 there had been a decline in the crime rate, but since 2001, it has since started to increase. Singapore is known for its tough stance on crime. Not flushing a toilet is illegal, fines are given for spitting, and the sale, importation, and possession is also banned and subject to heavy fines. Toy weapons and currency and obscene materials are also banned. In 1994, Michael P. Fay was arrested for vandalism and sentenced to be caned 12 times. Former President Bill Clinton asked leniency and Fay's sentence was reduced to 4 strokes. In the case of Nguyen, as well, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has also made an appeal. Also, recently a Singaporean blogger pled guilty to charges of posting anti-Muslim remarks and has been placed on 2 years probation.

The last report by the Singaporean government comparing its crime rates with those of other major cities was published in 1994, which showed Singapore possessed crime rate comparable to to those of large Japanese cities about 2,000 per 100,000 population in 1990. Philiadelphia had a crime rate of 23,245 per 100,000 in the same year.

A Lethal Milestone

The US Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was constitutional in the 1976 in case of Gregg vs. Georgia marking the start of a new era in US capital punishment and ending a 4-year moratorium on the death penalty. The United States ranked 4th in the number of official judicial executions behind China (3400+), Iran (159+), and Vietnam (64+).

Today, Eric Nance and John Hicks were executed by lethal injection in Arkansas and Ohio, respectively. Nance was convicted of the killing and attempted rape of an 18-year-old in 1993. Hicks was convicted of killing his mother-in-law and 5-year-old stepdaughter after a cocaine binge in 1985.

Wednesday would have marked a milestone with the 1,000th execution of a Virginia man convicted of fatally stabbing a pool hall manager in 1998. Earlier today, Governor Mark R. Warner granted clemency to Robin Lovitt citing improperly destroyed evidence and the lack of DNA testing. Daryl Mack was scheduled for a execution on Dec. 1, but has received a stay of execution. Kenneth Boyd and Shawn Humphries are scheduled for execution on Dec. 2.

Three states account for more than half of the executions since 1976: Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma; Texas has carried out 355. Since, the late 1990s the number of death sentences has decreased from a high of 98 in 1999, as a result of decreasing murder rates.

Bus Collison in Greenwood, SC Kills One And Injurs Two

On November 15 at about 3:20 PM, Erlene King Pope, 74, died in a collison with a school bus. The school bus was carrying 25 students; one student and the bus driver were hurt. The bus went off the right side of East Northside Drive knocking down a power pole in the process. The bus stopped 12 feet from a natural gas line and one of the transformers exploded.

Wal-Mart's Black Friday Trouble

Things got a little out of hand at Wal-Marts across the country this past Friday. One man was arrested in Florida for breaking in line, it took 10 police officers to restore order during an Xbox melee in Maryland, and in Michigan, a woman and 13-year-old girl were trampled.

USB DCU-11 Data Cable Instructions (WinXP)

Cable Information

Data Cable: KQ-U8A
Model: DCU-11
Serial Number: WT048000317
Made in China

Device Instance ID: USB\VID_10AB&PID_10C5\0001

Check the ID for your cable by looking in Control Panel -> System, click on the Hardware tab, click on Device Manager. If you've plugged in the cable it should be an unknown device labelled "usb data cable". Right click the device, click Properties. Click the Details tab and you should see the Device Instance Id for your cable.

Download Drivers

1. Enter to Windows Update site, http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
2. Click "Use administrator options" on left pane.
3. Click "Windows Update Catalog" on just under the "Update multiple operating systems"
4. Click "Find driver updates for hardware device" on the right pane.
5. Click "Other hardware" at the bottom.
6. Select "Silicon Laboratories Inc." from "Manufacturer name"
7. Select "Operating System" - "Windows XP Professional SP1" at the bottom is recommended, even if it isn't your OS.
8. Click "Search" button at the bottom right
9. Click "Add" button on the item Silicon Laboratories usb software update released on March 11 2004 (CP2101 USB Composite Device)
10. Click "Go to Download basket" on top center.
11. Enter download location and click "Download Now" button

Install Drivers

1. Extract files from 7873484.cab
2. Open slabw2k.inf with a text editor and change VID_10C4&PID_EA60 to your ID, repeat this for slabbus.inf
3. On the Hardware Installation Wizard select No, not this time for whether Windows can connect to Windows Update, click Next
4. Select Install from a list or specific location (Advanced), click Next
5. Select Include this location in the search, browse the folder with the drivers files you've downloaded and click Next.

Drawing Simple Shapes

Here's a simple experiment, you get thousands of people and you tell them to draw something simple like a heart each person adding or removing one dot at a time. How do all these people work together? Can it work if some of those people are trying to be mischevious? What does it tell you about the need for group leaders? What can it tell you about other social organisms like ants or bees? How can you steer the simple task in a particular direction? When is a group too big?

What if Slashdot gets a hold of something like this? Oh, right.

Site overloaded. Oh. Slashdot. That would explain things. Hello.

California Suing Sony Over Rootkit DRM

Lawyers in California have filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony and a second one may be filed today in New York. The lawsuit was filed Nov. 1 in Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles by Vernon, CA attorney Alan Himmelfarb. It asks the court to prevent Sony from selling additional CDs protected by the anti-piracy software, and seeks monetary damages for California consumers who purchased them. The suit alleges that Sony's software violates at least three California statutes, including the "Consumer Legal Remedies Act," which governs unfair and/or deceptive trade acts; and the "Consumer Protection against Computer Spyware Act," which prohibits -- among other things -- software that takes control over the user's computer or misrepresents the user's ability or right to uninstall the program. The suit also alleges that Sony's actions violate the California Unfair Competition law, which allows public prosecutors and private citizens to file lawsuits to protect businesses and consumers from unfair business practices. EFF has released a list of rootkit affected CD's and Slashdot user xtracto also has a list.

Kelo vs New London

In June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city of New London by extending the definition of "public good" to allow local governments to use eminent domain to seize private property for private companies to develop. New London Development Corp. offered the homeowners buyouts based on the rate in 2000 before the verdict and charged them back rent for the past 5 years with one family owing more than $300K.

Shortly thereafter, a group proposed building the "The Lost Liberty Hotel" on the site of Supreme Court Justice Souter's home.

In a new development, the House of Representatives voted 376-38, approving legislation that would prevent local and state governments from seizing homes and businesses for use in economic development projects.

How William Shatner Changed The World

The Discovery Channel is airing a new documentary, How William Shatner Changed The World, hosted and narrated by Shatner based on his book I'm Working on That. The documentary covers scientists and inventors inspired by Star Trek. For instance, Marc Rayman, chief engineer of NASA's Deep Space 1 project and Martin Cooper, current CEO of ArrayComm, who helped invent the first cell phone.