The Senate Starts To Grow A Spine. “Up to now, it’s been like Dodge City before the marshals showed up.” — Senator Ron Wyden (D-Or.) speaking of the Administration’s contracting practices in Iraq as the Senate voted to require open bidding on Iraq-related contracts.Of course it’s just a small growth of spine, as Iraq is just a small part of the picture. What worries me is that the entire approach to the Treasury, the budget, the tax code, has been too much like barbarians sacking a wealthy city…… [Discourse.net]

Servo Magazine. Servo Magazine. The venerable magazine of record for wireheads and hardware hackers everywhere, Nuts & Volts, is about to launch a new mag called Servo, dedicated to robotics. Nuts & Volts has always had strong coverage of robotics and embedded systems, and has done magazine supplements on amateur robotics, so given their beat and the growing popularity of all things bot, this spin-off mag is a natural. The first issue is due on newstands next month. If you sign up as a charter subscriber, you get three issues free. Hopefully, Nuts & Volts can succeed where others, like Robot Science and Technology, have failed. Sure seems like the time is right for such a publication. [Street Tech] [The Mediaburn Radio Weblog]