Slashdot Mirror

The first source is a story.

Yes, a story listing examples of how white people can point guns at cops and live and black people cannot.

The second is a political piece from the "politics" news section.

Yes, a piece from the "politics" news section that includes citations to peer-reviewed studies.

The third is not peer-reviewed

The Commission's study was most certainly peer-reviewed.

https://www.albany.edu/scj/doc...

"The Commission used two methodologies to examine the updated data. The first
methodology was the one the Commission used in the Booker Report. The second
methodology was developed after the Booker Report was released to the public. Both
methodologies were reviewed by two groups of outside researchers and academicians.
The preliminary results of the analysis were then peer reviewed prior to release to ensure
that the methodologies used were appropriate and the results correctly stated. "

Emphasis added.

nor isolates for variables such as severity of crime, prior offenses, different judiciary systems, or impact of criminal offense.

Sure it does. Read through the commission's report again.

"Based on this analysis, and after controlling for a variety of factors relevant to
sentencing, the following observations can be made:"

Again, emphasis added.

https://www.albany.edu/scj/doc...

Do you even science bro?

Do you even read, bro?

The first source is a story.

Yes, a story listing examples of how white people can point guns at cops and live and black people cannot.

The second is a political piece from the "politics" news section.

Yes, a piece from the "politics" news section that includes citations to peer-reviewed studies.

The third is not peer-reviewed

The Commission's study was most certainly peer-reviewed.

https://www.albany.edu/scj/doc...

"The Commission used two methodologies to examine the updated data. The first
methodology was the one the Commission used in the Booker Report. The second
methodology was developed after the Booker Report was released to the public. Both
methodologies were reviewed by two groups of outside researchers and academicians.
The preliminary results of the analysis were then peer reviewed prior to release to ensure
that the methodologies used were appropriate and the results correctly stated. "

Emphasis added.

nor isolates for variables such as severity of crime, prior offenses, different judiciary systems, or impact of criminal offense.

Sure it does. Read through the commission's report again.

"Based on this analysis, and after controlling for a variety of factors relevant to
sentencing, the following observations can be made:"

Again, emphasis added.

https://www.albany.edu/scj/doc...

Do you even science bro?

Do you even read, bro?

I believe that, as far as a complacent company, or an agent in a company, is able to filter the information that people get from the other nodes in their network, the "powers that be" (make that wealth, US goverment, US agencies, whatever fits your bill) can even influence political changes in masses.

That is why the discussion about metadata was so stupid! Politically, metadata IS the ingredient that was missing. One does make political opinions widely available, but metadata allows someone with insight to the network to map influences, make profiles.
And as these two research papers explain, alter their impact in the political process of the mass. It's not the people who are controlled by social networks, but masses surely are:
Exploiting Network Structure in Enhancing Diusion of Complex Contagions: http://www.albany.edu/~ravi/pd...
Effects of Opposition on the Diffusion of Complex Contagions in Social Networks: An Empirical Study: http://link.springer.com/chapt...
Bear in mind that we do not know how edgerank selects information. It could well highlight favourable nodes and muffle problematic ones.

Interestingly, in recent years social movements favourable to western status quo have thrilled in social networks (think maidan, arab "spring", opposition to left leaning governments in South America, now Hong Kong revolts) yet the ones that oppose them have a much larger footprint in the real world than in the virtual world (Chile student revolts, Mexican "I am 132", spanish resistance to shock cuts, that gathered !4million people physically!, Occupy Wall Street). I really wonder if this asymmetry is random or coincidence

This is only true if you think the statement "The government should promote the general welfare" immediately makes you a socialist.

It might, depending on what you think, the meaning of that phrase is. If "promoting general welfare" means — to you — people need to be subsidized to be "well", then, yes, you are a Socialist, willing to rob the productive Peter to console the idle Paul.

What absolutely doesn't exist is a well-established and well-funded set of organizations with media outlets, think tanks, etc hiring bunches of people making well over $250,000 a year promoting socialism

Not true. The apparatus you are talking about exists and is scary. I'm talking about all the federal and state bureaucrats working on dispensing the taxpayers' monies to the "less fortunate". Their comfortable jobs — which give them the pay, the benefits, and the daily reassurance, they are better than others (their visitors) — would all be at risk, if the number of recipients went down. Obama Administration, for example, goes to great length to sign-up new recipients of Food Stamps, spending millions of dollars per month just on the advertisements for the program — something unthinkable, when it was originated. Why, if you need to be "encouraged to sign-up", then you don't really need the assistance — it is only for the truly desperate. Are you going to pretend, it is done out of sincere concern for the poor? No, it is because feeding those people — at someone else's expense — is a source of comfy jobs.

Sadly, their efforts — in what FDR once called "administering a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of human spirt" — are successful.

If you're thinking that the people receiving welfare are being rewarded for being a socialist

No, not at all — some recipients are decidedly against the existing setup. (So much so, they are being ridiculed for "hypocrisy", when, in fact, it is just the opposite — their willingness to abolish the program that benefits them shows their sincerity.)

They are arguably benefiting from the majority of voters believing that a bit of socialism in the name of preventing people from starving or freezing to death is a good idea

The majority of voters are being tricked into thinking, the programs do good to people in real need. Yet, the stories of people selling their food stamps (including on facebook, which, BTW, reveals their ability to afford a computer and Internet-access) constantly give a lie to the lamentations about "food insecurity".

Simply put, a politician, who is elected on the promise to "fight poverty" has a conflict of interest — what is he going to run on next time, if he succeeds in destroying poverty today? The Military-Industrial Complex, at least, produces something. The Welfare-Industrial Complex is completely parasitic.

Easier sentence for murder? You realize that Federal punishment for second-degree murder is mandatory life imprisonment and first-degree is the death penalty or life imprisonment? Exaggerate much?

Federal penalties for murder seldom apply unless you cross a state line to commit same, or kill a mailman, and not even then in most cases.
Its a state charge, and many liberal states have you out on the street in less than 20 years, much less if their prisons are overcrowded.
(Don't even get me started on time off fir good behavior).

New York, Albany EDU did a study(pdf-2006) and found that 20 years (244 months) is the Average maximum sentence imposed by state courts in the US for Murder and Non-Negligent manslaughter.

Federal District courts in 2004 sentenced people to an average maximum of 111.2 months.
Post sentence guideline reform the federal average has increased to the state average, and then some. Figures for 2010 show an average of 23 years handed down by federal district courts.

So I don't know where you get that mandatory Life death penalty nonsense.

Easier sentence for murder? You realize that Federal punishment for second-degree murder is mandatory life imprisonment and first-degree is the death penalty or life imprisonment? Exaggerate much?

Federal penalties for murder seldom apply unless you cross a state line to commit same, or kill a mailman, and not even then in most cases.
Its a state charge, and many liberal states have you out on the street in less than 20 years, much less if their prisons are overcrowded.
(Don't even get me started on time off fir good behavior).

New York, Albany EDU did a study(pdf-2006) and found that 20 years (244 months) is the Average maximum sentence imposed by state courts in the US for Murder and Non-Negligent manslaughter.

Federal District courts in 2004 sentenced people to an average maximum of 111.2 months.
Post sentence guideline reform the federal average has increased to the state average, and then some. Figures for 2010 show an average of 23 years handed down by federal district courts.

So I don't know where you get that mandatory Life death penalty nonsense.

Easier sentence for murder? You realize that Federal punishment for second-degree murder is mandatory life imprisonment and first-degree is the death penalty or life imprisonment? Exaggerate much?

Federal penalties for murder seldom apply unless you cross a state line to commit same, or kill a mailman, and not even then in most cases.
Its a state charge, and many liberal states have you out on the street in less than 20 years, much less if their prisons are overcrowded.
(Don't even get me started on time off fir good behavior).

New York, Albany EDU did a study(pdf-2006) and found that 20 years (244 months) is the Average maximum sentence imposed by state courts in the US for Murder and Non-Negligent manslaughter.

Federal District courts in 2004 sentenced people to an average maximum of 111.2 months.
Post sentence guideline reform the federal average has increased to the state average, and then some. Figures for 2010 show an average of 23 years handed down by federal district courts.

So I don't know where you get that mandatory Life death penalty nonsense.

It repealed Prohibition.

Prohibition has already taught us this...
http://www.albany.edu/~wm731882/future1_final.html

However, I think the USA is just leaving it as Mexico's problem. If drugs stopped coming into the states for real, there would be riots and mayhem. Wall street would shut down from a lack of cocaine. Fast food would go out of business cause people don't actually eat there when they're sober. Legalizing drugs in the states... that is the unknown, the government would make money, I think the overall consumption would decrease and prisons can overflow with people who need to be there for harming others, not themselves. But... who wants to commit political and social suicide? The people making the laws are not the people walking the streets in the hood, they probably never even met each other, even accidentally. How can the left hand wash the right then?

Weed is, if not native to the Americas, a very well naturalized visitor, and it is pretty weed-like. According to 2005 figures, well over 95% of the plants eradicated in US law enforcement operations were just wild growing weed weeds, rather than the cultivated stuff.

Yup, 169.226.* is the University at Albany. A newbie mistake call center staff get over quickly is saying "user was getting a 169. ip."

The common procedure is to first submit to the most prestigious conference in the appropriate specialization that you think might accept your paper. A good way to guesstimate this is by looking at past papers from the conference. Even if you aren't an ACM or IEEE member (and you should probably join if you can afford it), you can browse the abstracts at the ACM and IEEE portals, which should be good enough for your purposes. You'll also want to look at the related papers in preparing your own paper's list of references (nearly all papers compare explicitly to previous research and state what the innovation over the current research status is in the paper).

If they accept your paper, great. If not, they'll usually send you the reviewer's comments. Next, use these comments to make your paper better and submit it to the next best conference that you think might accept your paper. Repeat until accepted.

This procedure will definitely work because eventually you'll get to low prestige journals that should accept pretty much anything that's not simply incorrect. Don't feel bad if this happens. Many papers subsequently recognized as important had to be shopped into obscure journals, so even this worst-case scenario is not that bad.

Good luck!

Gas and oil production *may* be at a peak: more probably not in our lifetimes.

Wrong. Here's a chart from a few years ago that is quite accurate.

Informed opinions vary, but not by much. The general consensus is that we are on a short-lived plateau of production. It might go up a bit, it might go down a bit, but it will be essentially flat for a few more years, and then begin an irreversible and terminal decline.

Economic work has no direct relationship with energy consumed.

This isn't the best retort, but it points at the truth of the matter: "Then why didn't the Romans go to the moon?" Obviously, they didn't have the metalurgical understandings or the knowledge of gravitational physics or scientific understanding to pull it off, but before ANY of that can be done, you have to have an energy infrastructure of a quality and sophistication that allows a moonshot, and THAT is something they did not and could not have. And that was probably a good thing, because if the Romans had discovered oil and coal, we could have gone extinct with a dead planet by the year 1000...

Lump of labour has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I'm using "work" in a more distilled sense, related to physics. You can twist things about socially and economically, but you can't live outside the laws of physics, esp. thermodynamics and gravity, nor can you have an "economy" outside of these rules as well.

RS

I think this is the wrong take on this story. Bell is getting rid of its Labs because telephones are a solved problem. The people doing basic materials research are the people whose business it is actually relevant to today: Intel and IBM and CNSE.

See the Citizenship and National Origin sections: http://hr.albany.edu/content/legalqtn.asp

It is illegal to do what you are suggesting above.

Also let me apologize for missing the closing tags there. Here's the corrected version for the sake of legibility:

No, I am not equating robbery and burglary. Robbery is classified under "violent crime," but it is merely the theft of money or goods through violence or *intimidation*. Intimidation may be a threat of violence, but not necessarily.

*In theory*, your assertion is correct, but in practice, burglars get harsher sentences than fraudsters. 33% harsher, in fact, and half as much time as robbers, despite the fact that burglary costs more in real dollars. $2.7B compared to $316M, for crimes known to police in 2002. I can't find numbers for even actual losses by cases prosecuted for fraud (let alone reported), but the Enron scandal alone lost $60B of shareholder (i.e. victim) funds. If penalties were truly commensurate with damages, Skilling would be serving multiple life sentences or, let's just say, 22 times the total sentences granted to every robber convicted in 2002. There's no question that fraud pays, and the bigger the fraud, the more it pays -- especially for those who can successfully hide/protect their newfound assets and are willing to do a couple of years in the pen if necessary. Essentially robbers and burglars are penalized for being too stupid to come up with a good scam.

Also let me apologize for missing the closing tags there. Here's the corrected version for the sake of legibility:

No, I am not equating robbery and burglary. Robbery is classified under "violent crime," but it is merely the theft of money or goods through violence or *intimidation*. Intimidation may be a threat of violence, but not necessarily.

*In theory*, your assertion is correct, but in practice, burglars get harsher sentences than fraudsters. 33% harsher, in fact, and half as much time as robbers, despite the fact that burglary costs more in real dollars. $2.7B compared to $316M, for crimes known to police in 2002. I can't find numbers for even actual losses by cases prosecuted for fraud (let alone reported), but the Enron scandal alone lost $60B of shareholder (i.e. victim) funds. If penalties were truly commensurate with damages, Skilling would be serving multiple life sentences or, let's just say, 22 times the total sentences granted to every robber convicted in 2002. There's no question that fraud pays, and the bigger the fraud, the more it pays -- especially for those who can successfully hide/protect their newfound assets and are willing to do a couple of years in the pen if necessary. Essentially robbers and burglars are penalized for being too stupid to come up with a good scam.

No, I am not equating robbery and burglary. Robbery is classified under "violent crime," but it is merely the theft of money or goods through violence or *intimidation*. Intimidation may be a threat of violence, but not necessarily.

*In theory*, your assertion is correct, but in practice, burglars get harsher sentences than fraudsters. 33% harsher, in fact, and half as much time as robbers, despite the fact that burglary costs more in real dollars. $2.7B compared to $316M, for crimes known to police in 2002. I can't find numbers for even actual losses by cases prosecuted for fraud (let alone reported), but the Enron scandal alone lost $60B of shareholder (i.e. victim) funds. If penalties were truly commensurate with damages, Skilling would be serving multiple life sentences or, let's just say, 22 times the total sentences granted to every robber convicted in 2002. There's no question that fraud pays, and the bigger the fraud, the more it pays -- especially for those who can successfully hide/protect their newfound assets and are willing to do a couple of years in the pen if necessary. Essentially robbers and burglars are penalized for being too stupid to come up with a good scam.

No, I am not equating robbery and burglary. Robbery is classified under "violent crime," but it is merely the theft of money or goods through violence or *intimidation*. Intimidation may be a threat of violence, but not necessarily.

*In theory*, your assertion is correct, but in practice, burglars get harsher sentences than fraudsters. 33% harsher, in fact, and half as much time as robbers, despite the fact that burglary costs more in real dollars. $2.7B compared to $316M, for crimes known to police in 2002. I can't find numbers for even actual losses by cases prosecuted for fraud (let alone reported), but the Enron scandal alone lost $60B of shareholder (i.e. victim) funds. If penalties were truly commensurate with damages, Skilling would be serving multiple life sentences or, let's just say, 22 times the total sentences granted to every robber convicted in 2002. There's no question that fraud pays, and the bigger the fraud, the more it pays -- especially for those who can successfully hide/protect their newfound assets and are willing to do a couple of years in the pen if necessary. Essentially robbers and burglars are penalized for being too stupid to come up with a good scam.

I think you jumped over a few historical facts when you mentioned the Interstate Highways were unfair competition to the railroads. When the Interstate Highways were designed in the early 1950's and built in the late 50's and early 60's, they were paid for by .... long pause so you can think ....

The Department of Defense.

Of course the railroads could not compete with the Interstate Highways. But why would the DOD build the Interstate Highways? Well, to understand that, you needed to look at the first Interstate Highways built, and notice they were all very flat, and that NOTHING crossed over them, not even power lines. These new highways were built with several hundred feet of separation between the opposite direction traffic lanes. And they were incredibly straight. The few curves these highways had were all very gradual.

Any ideas yet why DOD paid for building the Interstate Highways? Here's a hint -- the Strategic Air Command.

During the late 50's and early 60's, the Strategic Air Command was a very large part of our national defense, with many long range bombers in the air at any one time. But, an enemy might attack our airfields, in particular, those with 10,000 foot runways. Such an attack could prevent many of our long range bombers from taking off, and prevent the bombers already in the air from refueling before they flew to their targets over the North Pole.

AH HA!

Our Interstate Highways were built to be used as runways -- runways for our bombers to use for refueling. By covering the countryside with runways, there was no way a potential adversary could prevent our long range bombers from refueling so they could reach their targets. But technology eventually obsoleted the Strategic Air Command as our primary defense, and we no longer needed those runways all over the countryside.

At about the same time as the Interstate Highway system was being built, a nationwide broadband network was being built by AT&T. This nationwide network, consisting of microwave relay stations and coaxial cable repeaters, carried long distance telephone calls and network television programs. About 1/2 of the capacity of this broadband network was leased to the Federal Government. The Federal Government provided guaranteed traffic for this nationwide network, insuring it would be built. Here are two links to some of the history and technical details of AT&T's broadband network.

http://www.corp.att.com/history/nethistory/milesto nes.html

http://long-lines.net/

The AT&T "Long Lines" network was built with no central control point, specifically so it would survive a nuclear war. But eventually, the AT&T microwave and coaxial cable network approached saturation, and more bandwidth was needed. Worse, many of the consulates and embassies belonging to our adversaries now had arrays of microwave antennas on their roofs.

Here is are two links to what some of the government traffic passing through the AT&T microwave and coaxial cable physical network was:

http://www.albany.edu/ltl/using/history.html

http://www.inetdaemon.com/tutorials/internet/histo ry.shtml

In the 1990's, AT&T sold off their microwave and coaxial cable physical network because by then AT&T had deployed a fiber mesh network with far higher bandwidth. This fiber network also offered significantly better security than the microwave network did because intercepting message traffic on a fiber network without being detected is quite difficult. AT&T's conversion to an all fiber network made those consulate and embassy roof microwave antennas largely obsolete for gathering electronic intelligence.

About our trans-oceanic te

I'm pretty sure it's unfair to both, and worse for blacks. That is: black and poor is worse than black is worse than white and poor is worse than white in terms of how likely you are to be pursued, caught, tried, and convicted for a given crime.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/index.htm#TopO fPage
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/may2000/bias-m16 .shtml
http://www.drugpolicy.org/communities/race/crimina ljust/
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/toc_5.html

Race and IQ
Race and Crime
Race and Crime stats
Gov't stats

Yes, this can be implemented on a linux box very easily.
Long story short I implemented this in 2002 at the University at Albany, SUNY with a friend.
It requires a dedicated server and a dedicated encoder.
What will make the process easier is going all digital on your content development.

It currently has a barebones site: Albany Student Television

You can use any number of devices to keep the content automated and going from cron to java scripts to shell scripts and what have you. The challenge is figuring out what you want to do and how you want it managed?
Since 2002 there is a lot more technology out there. Our solution at the time was to use windows explorer with embedded media playing. Two draw backs were an occasional refresh logo in the top, and IE's tendency to be unstable.

Yes, this can be implemented on a linux box very easily.
Long story short I implemented this in 2002 at the University at Albany, SUNY with a friend.
It requires a dedicated server and a dedicated encoder.
What will make the process easier is going all digital on your content development.

It currently has a barebones site: Albany Student Television

You can use any number of devices to keep the content automated and going from cron to java scripts to shell scripts and what have you. The challenge is figuring out what you want to do and how you want it managed?
Since 2002 there is a lot more technology out there. Our solution at the time was to use windows explorer with embedded media playing. Two draw backs were an occasional refresh logo in the top, and IE's tendency to be unstable.

>underlying idiocy

We shouldn't put people on pedestals above all criticism, but Dan Geer has earned the right to have people at least offer some evidence when they accuse him of "idiocy".

Incidentally, Kephart and White have used biological epidemiological math to model the spread of malware, as have Williamson and Leveille. Actual researchers are finding the pathogen analogy fruitful.

This discussion could not be complete without a car analogy.

Analogies are like cars. Sometimes they're buggy or unsuited for the job but if you test them carefully they can be superb tools.

Occam's Razor applies to all parts of life. In the end, it comes down to probability based on the available evidence. Here's an illustrative story from Chapter 1: Plausible Reasoning, from E.T. Jayne's book:

Suppose some dark night a policeman walks down a street, apparently deserted; but suddenly he hears a burglar alarm, looks across the street, and sees a jewelry store with a broken window. Then a gentleman wearing a mask comes crawling out through the broken window, carrying a bag which turns out to be full of expensive jewelry. The policeman doesn't hesitate at all in deciding that this gentleman is dishonest. But by what reasoning process does he arrive at this conclusion?

Or stuff like:

Wearing shirts that speak out against a popular (unpopular?) war : http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.c gi/48/17374
http://www.albany.edu/~mg2300/doc/news/TU_Marchers -protest-arrest-of-man-for-wearing-peace-Tshirt-at -Crossgates_03-05-2003.html

The issue about free speech is that (in my opinion) it only REALLY counts when someone's view is unpopular. Yes, yelling fire in a crowded movie theater is illegal. Why? Because people can be trampled to death by the stampede. Somehow I don't think wearing a T-shirt that says "Give peace a chance" is likely to do the same thing.

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

    --H. L. Mencken

"I have fought censorship all of my adult life. To me, the most precious of all rights in this marvelous country called the United States of America is the freedom to think, write and say whatever is on your mind... That freedom also extends to thoughts that are stupid, ignorant or incendiary. No one needs a First Amendment to write about how cute newborn babies are or to publish a recipe for stawberry shortcake. Nobody needs a First Amendment for innocuous or popular points of view. That's point one. Point two is that the majority-you and I-must always protect the right of a minority-even a minority of one-to express the most outrageous and offensive ideas. Only then is total freedom of expression guaranteed." Lyle Stuart

Just some food for thought.

My 2 cents...
-A.A

friend you have a problem. I'm here to help you.

http://library.albany.edu/briggs/addiction.html

I know you have a dependancy.. "a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction." And yes, I admit I have it too. "IAD is said to be closest to pathological gambling."

My advice to you is to get outside. enjoy some fresh air. Talk to people, and if you can't find any people, talk to some animals, perhaps getting yourself a pet.

If you continue along the path of a 'net addict' you may find it difficult to maintain any type of long term relationship, you might find that you're loosing sleep, possibly even skipping work... just to get your fix of 'the internet'

building your own zen garden is also a good way to help recenter yourself and find liberation from this 'need' to have the internet, at any price. Or you could continue onward into the dark and chaotic world of the internet, finding that looking for jobs simply kills too much of your internet time.. that girlfriends are just a waste of time, because they keep on intruruping your 'internet time' perhaps you might even combat your intrnet addiction with 'hard drugs' to find release from all the stress at not being able to be 'always on'

best of luck to you, myself I've long since given in the will to fight. I am an internet junkie, and need my broadband fix, daily, or else i need to get some video gaming, or some anime, or some time with a really good book... i just can't cope without my distractions...

I personally have experienced getting "screen sucked" (squandering a large amount of time in front of the computer monitor) with the excuse of doing work. If there is a problem, its the blurring of lines between actual work and other activities. (Like browsing Slashdot).

I've read several articles on internet addiction and there is even a center that helps the ones who have recognized their problem.

Yes. Got get yourself a better computer! :)

Oh, man, you've got it bad.

Look, see, there's this thing called PROPAGANDA.

So the government wants to expand its powers. Less of those nasty "rights" to get in their way when they want to pinch someone, for example, or maybe ridiculously long prison sentences for some poor schmuck who got caught with a pot cigarette. Whatever. Those in power want more of it. Now, how do they con the rest of us into letting them have more power?

Simple. First, they put a scare into rubes like you. OH MY GOD, they yell, POTHEADS ARE GOING TO EAT YOUR CHILDREN AND DO IT TO YOUR WIFE if you don't help us pass this here bill that allows civil forfeiture of property, etc, etc. And guys like you don't even apply reason to the conversation. You just bend over for The Man. In fact, you're so brainwashed you probably write your congressman ASKING him to curtail your civil rights.

And no matter WHAT they do or how far they go, your brainwashing is so complete that you feel frightened in your suburban, completely safe neighborhood. You think, at any moment a mob of crackheads and satanists could come crashing through the door and kill you! So you join the NRA and buy a huge arsenal of guns, collect knives, etc. All to ward off the imaginary crackheads who aren't knocking down your door. And nothing you do makes you feel safe, EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NO CREDIBLE THREAT TO YOU.

The sad part of this is, you really believe your paranoiac fantasies. Dubya LOVES guys like you. I bet you're not even bothered that the NSA has been spying on Americans for the past four years, without any legal right to. I bet "Extraordinary Rendition" is A-OK in your book. I bet you think that torture is just fine, because they only apply it to "those people", right?

People like you mystify me. You really do. How can you be so gullible, so easily brainwashed? Don't you understand you're just being used? Manipulated?

Sigh... Of course you don't.

Well, I don't have any hopes of snapping you out of it, so just for the hell of it, here are some more links with crime statistics. Of course, they don't agree with your delusions, so you'll yell about how they're just "liberal propaganda" or spout some other silly crypto-fascist bullshit like that.

Here goes:

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/tost_3.html#3_x
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t3117.pdf
http://crime.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1 /XJ&sdn=crime&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ojp.usdoj.gov%2F bjs%2Fhomicide%2Fhmrt.htm
http://crime.about.com/od/stats/a/ucr2003.htm
http://crime.about.com/od/stats/a/fbi041214.htm

Now, go ahead and try to prove that the University of Albany is a liberal propaganda thinktank. I dare you. We could all use a laugh.

Oh, man, you've got it bad.

Look, see, there's this thing called PROPAGANDA.

So the government wants to expand its powers. Less of those nasty "rights" to get in their way when they want to pinch someone, for example, or maybe ridiculously long prison sentences for some poor schmuck who got caught with a pot cigarette. Whatever. Those in power want more of it. Now, how do they con the rest of us into letting them have more power?

Simple. First, they put a scare into rubes like you. OH MY GOD, they yell, POTHEADS ARE GOING TO EAT YOUR CHILDREN AND DO IT TO YOUR WIFE if you don't help us pass this here bill that allows civil forfeiture of property, etc, etc. And guys like you don't even apply reason to the conversation. You just bend over for The Man. In fact, you're so brainwashed you probably write your congressman ASKING him to curtail your civil rights.

And no matter WHAT they do or how far they go, your brainwashing is so complete that you feel frightened in your suburban, completely safe neighborhood. You think, at any moment a mob of crackheads and satanists could come crashing through the door and kill you! So you join the NRA and buy a huge arsenal of guns, collect knives, etc. All to ward off the imaginary crackheads who aren't knocking down your door. And nothing you do makes you feel safe, EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NO CREDIBLE THREAT TO YOU.

The sad part of this is, you really believe your paranoiac fantasies. Dubya LOVES guys like you. I bet you're not even bothered that the NSA has been spying on Americans for the past four years, without any legal right to. I bet "Extraordinary Rendition" is A-OK in your book. I bet you think that torture is just fine, because they only apply it to "those people", right?

People like you mystify me. You really do. How can you be so gullible, so easily brainwashed? Don't you understand you're just being used? Manipulated?

Sigh... Of course you don't.

Well, I don't have any hopes of snapping you out of it, so just for the hell of it, here are some more links with crime statistics. Of course, they don't agree with your delusions, so you'll yell about how they're just "liberal propaganda" or spout some other silly crypto-fascist bullshit like that.

Here goes:

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/tost_3.html#3_x
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t3117.pdf
http://crime.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1 /XJ&sdn=crime&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ojp.usdoj.gov%2F bjs%2Fhomicide%2Fhmrt.htm
http://crime.about.com/od/stats/a/ucr2003.htm
http://crime.about.com/od/stats/a/fbi041214.htm

Now, go ahead and try to prove that the University of Albany is a liberal propaganda thinktank. I dare you. We could all use a laugh.

• The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics with a very prestigious editorial board (including Knuth and Wilf), since 1994 and going strong
  
• Geometry and Toplogy, very impressive editorial board, since 1997
  
• The New York Journal of Mathematics and the The Pacific Journal of Mathematics, both general-purpose mathematics journals
  
• ACM Transactions on Algorithms, impressive editorial board, formed from Journal of Algorithms by resignation and reconstitution
  

I know that other scientific disciplines have stronger histories of expensive journals and that their typesetting needs (color photos, etc.) may be greater than that of math and CS, so perhaps it is not so surprising to see math and CS being more of the pioneers here.
There are plenty of good expensive journals now but the point is- why not have good inexpensive or free journals instead?

• The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics with a very prestigious editorial board (including Knuth and Wilf), since 1994 and going strong
  
• Geometry and Toplogy, very impressive editorial board, since 1997
  
• The New York Journal of Mathematics and the The Pacific Journal of Mathematics, both general-purpose mathematics journals
  
• ACM Transactions on Algorithms, impressive editorial board, formed from Journal of Algorithms by resignation and reconstitution
  

I know that other scientific disciplines have stronger histories of expensive journals and that their typesetting needs (color photos, etc.) may be greater than that of math and CS, so perhaps it is not so surprising to see math and CS being more of the pioneers here.
There are plenty of good expensive journals now but the point is- why not have good inexpensive or free journals instead?

We all know that only a morally void character will flip-flop when presented with new evidence. I mean, otherwise it means they held on to the first opinion without substantial evidence.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've read all day. I think you were trying to be funny but unfortunately you were modded insightful so I feel compelled to respond if not to you then to the moderators who thought your comment was insightful.

I've recently been re-reading E. T. Jaynes' wonderful book, Probability Theory : The Logic of Science which gives a mathematically rigorous treatment of plausible reasoning using, among other things, Bayes Theorem.

One of the things he makes perfectly clear is that new relevant evidence will always affect the decisions of a rational/perfect reasoner unless that evidence is totally redundant with respect to evidence that was already known.

The book was published posthumously in tree form but there are still .pdf and .ps available on the web. I think the world would be a much better place if everyone were to read this book. Unfortunately it has a lot of math in it that makes it un-readable for people without a technical background. But certainly anyone who uses probability theory or statistics really owes it to themselves to read this book.

The best librarians do not join ALA American Library Association. ALA exorbitant membership rates overly tax professionals considering the remuneration librarians get for their work.

Most library schools curricula are mostly indoctrination than encouraging new ways of looking at our libraries. For example, in Massachusetts, Simmons College has prevented the establishing of affordable public programs in library and information studies at our University of Massachusetts at Boston. Simmons tuition is high and lacking in financial assistance. Compare SUNY Albany State University of New York at Albany's more theoretical curricula in information policy that inspires students and faculty to look at our libraries and technology in more innovative ways http://www.albany.edu/sisp/level3/SISPHistory.html

Choctaw does have two past tenses, but they are not differentiated in the way claimed. The regular past tense, written -tok (or -tuk in older orthogrophies) is used for completed events ranging back about a year. The other suffix -ttook is for events that were completed more than a year ago. Furthermore, events that happened within the past few minutes and are still relevent for the current situation are often marked as "present" (-h).

Choctaw, and a huge number of other languages in the world, also have what are called evidentials. These are suffixes that indicate how you know the statement is true. In Choctaw, there is a first-hand knowledge suffix -hlih, used when you have direct evidence of the claim (you saw it, heard it, smelled it, etc). There is also the suffix -ashah which indicates that you are guessing that it is true -- you have some indirect evidence, such as hearsay, or very circumstantial evidence.

Tense and evidentiality are definitely distinct, as you can find tense and evidentiality marked at the same time on the verb.

Checkout the papers by a Choctaw expert: Aaron Broadwell.

Um, the proverb doesn't really appear to be Chinese:

http://hawk.fab2.albany.edu/sidebar/sidebar.htm/

Reasearchers should look at the The Deep Web if they are just starting out.

Want to read more about "Deep Web"? Try this link.
It has been around for a couple years and was just updated in October.
Enjoy

I don't think Sony would like paying Microsoft royalties one bit on thier bread and butter.

Sony has invested heavily on the DVD format and is looking towards the future.

Remember Sony has a high aminosity towards Mircosoft due to circumstances in the set top box market and Sony's open support for linux.

Like in the Eric Frank Russell story "U-turn", "[m]ay you live in interesting times."

Copyrights are subject to "strict liablility", which means that damages can be awarded even if the infringer did not know they were infringing.

besides,
the ppl who belvie that NZ claim,
didnt watch the closeing statments
of the documentry, it was a hoax..

Film of Pearse 'doctored'
PETER JACKSON
DOUBLE FEATURE

but you guys would of course rember this
as it was mentioned in a /. discussion on
Peter Jackson.

Wiggum: Now, what I am about to show you next may shock and educate you. Hold onto your values as we step through the looking glass into a hippie pot party.

[flicks a switch, lighting a mannequin with a joint crudely stuck to his mouth]

While Johnny Welfare plays acid rock on a stolen guitar, his old lady has a better idea.

[lights up another mannequin, of a woman opening wide to eat a baby sandwich. (That's a sandwich with a baby in it, not a really tiny sandwich.) The crowd gasps]

That's right, she's got the "munchies" for a California Cheeseburger. -- http://reason.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=2311

From the State University of New York at Albany:

Copyright is a strict liability offense. Under the federal copyright statutes, neither intent nor knowledge of infringement is necessary to hold a person liable. In practical terms that means that you cannot plead ignorance to escape liability. And the liability can be serious. Sound recording copyright infringements can be punishable by up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Copyright holders are seeking damages of up to $150K per song.

Tim?

With a name like Sontag, you'd think he'd be happy about that!

And by the way, according to this page, copyright is already a strict liability offense. You may have a defence under the DMCA, but only if you've registered as an ISP.

Copyright is a strict liability offense. Under the federal copyright statutes, neither intent nor knowledge of infringement is necessary to hold a person liable. In practical terms that means that you cannot plead ignorance to escape liability.

At least, that's how it would go down in a civilized nation. Don't know how it would go down in Canada.

Need I remind you that last year the capital of your "civilized nation" alone has a murder rate nearly 48 times that of my entire nation -> Washington DC, 48.5 murders per 100 000 people, compared to the entire country of Canada, 1.78 murders per 100 000 people. Also of note from Stats Canada on murders involving guns:

"Of the 171 firearm-related homicides, 110 were committed with a handgun, 46 with a rifle or shotgun, 7 with a sawed-off rifle or shotgun, 3 with a fully automatic firearm, and 5 with another type of firearm.

Handguns were used in 65% of all firearm homicides. This proportion has risen from 46% in 1998 as a result of the continuing decline in the number of homicides involving rifles or shotguns."

That's out of 554 total murders in the entire country of 32 million during 2001. Compare that to Los Angeles, with 658 murders in the same time, but with 1/3 the population.

In the "civilized nation" 65.6%of all the murders were committed with a firearm during the same time.

Hmmmm, perhaps there are some people who are "too stupid to have a gun".

Say what you will about "mummy government", I am quite safe from gun violence here as are my children. That is, after all, why I elected my governement - to ensure my life, liberty and security of the person.

If all you have protecting you from sending ammo clips through the mail is a minimum wage postal clerk, then you have the country you deserve... :)

well... there's openwindows:

here's the text

here's the picture