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That's not exactly how it started. But it is a sham, fraud, joke, etc. However it's a cult with a lot of money and a VERY vindictive streak.

If anyone is interested, I recommend the following two books I read recently: Beyond Belief or Going Clear

Both are excellent insights into this cult. Going Clear is more or less a history and documentary, and Beyond belief is from the perspective of a lifelong member who managed to escape.

Hey Jeff, I couldn't find any download links on that website of yours. Here are some proper links:

https://kickass.to/beyond-belief-my-secret-life-inside-scientology-2013-t7082844.html

https://kickass.to/going-clear-lawrence-wright-epub-mobi-voldizard-t7037202.html

That's not exactly how it started. But it is a sham, fraud, joke, etc. However it's a cult with a lot of money and a VERY vindictive streak.

If anyone is interested, I recommend the following two books I read recently: Beyond Belief or Going Clear

Both are excellent insights into this cult. Going Clear is more or less a history and documentary, and Beyond belief is from the perspective of a lifelong member who managed to escape.

That's not exactly how it started. But it is a sham, fraud, joke, etc. However it's a cult with a lot of money and a VERY vindictive streak.

If anyone is interested, I recommend the following two books I read recently: Beyond Belief or Going Clear

Both are excellent insights into this cult. Going Clear is more or less a history and documentary, and Beyond belief is from the perspective of a lifelong member who managed to escape.

I could not resist bringing up Orwell. Do go through his "All Art is Propaganda" - http://www.amazon.com/All-Art-Propaganda-George-Orwell/dp/0156033070 - If you haven't already. His writings are still relevant today and do apply to this discussion.

I'm fairly certain that there will be controllers that serve your need, just like there were controllers for PS3.

For example:http://www.amazon.com/Rocketfish-Bluetooth-Wireless-Controller-PlayStation-3/dp/B003AKMS0C/
http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Elite-Wireless-Controller-Playstation-3/dp/B003V4AK8E/

Or you can just get your tools and make 360 controller into PS3 controller. Though this probably won't quite work for PS4, as it will lack PS move LED.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/01/how-to-make-a-ps360-controller/

I've been buying used books off Amazon for next to nothing. Got a first edition Gulag Archipelago for $5. Got a excellent condition copy of The Red Atom for $4.

So, keep dumping your paper books. I don't mind at all.

This one?

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-RC436-16-Cup-Cooker/dp/B001ESOOP4/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

Don't you understand what just happened? We are now entering a trade war ...

We have already been in a trade war with China for many years. Its merely been a one side trade war allowing China to do as they please ...

It starts with a 20-30% price discount on all goods and services due to currency manipulation. It continues with dumping products in targeted industries below "cost". Sometimes literally, sometimes indirectly by not enforcing Chinese wage and pollution laws. Yes such laws exists, they are merely selectively ignored for strategic industries and markets. It then continues with barriers to entry for US goods and services, entry may only be allowed with domestic partnerships and technology transfers (free R&D).

A very interesting read on this topic:
http://www.amazon.com/Death-China-Confronting-Dragon-Global/dp/0132180235/ref=sr_1_1

Because there is actually NO data on why patents should foster innovation.

Well, actually there is. There's even a whole book on it. There is absolutely no doubt that patents encourage inventors. The only question is whether they deter other inventors enough to reduce the overall level of invention.

Oh, there's a book on it! Well, that settles it. I'll read all about that, just as soon as I'm done reading this book about Bigfoot's latest discoveries on water memory in the Reptiloid Institute at Zeta Reticuli.

Because there is actually NO data on why patents should foster innovation.

Well, actually there is. There's even a whole book on it. There is absolutely no doubt that patents encourage inventors. The only question is whether they deter other inventors enough to reduce the overall level of invention.

An even more fundamental assumption he makes is that intellectual property legislation is desirable because it encourages innovation. Why should that be a given?

There's a book about it. If you're going to be contrarian, you should at least familiarize yourself with the standard ideas, and the evidence that supports them. The evidence that copyright encourages writers is so huge that if you don't think so, you probably haven't looked. Patents encourage inventors as well; the only question is whether they deter other inventors more (which is the topic of this story).

Hit them with confiscatory peak rates so bad that the most vulnerable will have to retreat to caves.

Or they'll stay downstairs where it's cooler, or close off unneeded rooms, or turn on the swamp cooler, or hang wet sheets in the open windows, or wear chilly pads, or turn off the A/C and visit a friend or go to the mall or the movie theater. Trust me, wonderful things happen when you remove price ceilings and allow the market to work.

And to master the subject, might I recommend this book.

You might not think it is worth doing things like https://www.facebook.com/, http://slashdot.org/, or http://www.amazon.com/ (to pick three well known examples of web applications). But some of us care about usefulness and/or getting paid.

If you are dealing with cancer recovery, some ideas:

"Ketogenic Diet May Be Key to Cancer Recovery"
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/03/10/ketogenic-diet.aspx
"The premise is that since cancer cells need glucose to thrive, and carbohydrates turn into glucose in your body, then cutting out carbs literally starves the cancer cells."

People who live in traditional societies eating a traditional vegetable heavy diet and getting lots of sunlight and exercise also seem to have less lung cancer even when they smoke.
"Eat For Health - The Anti-Cancer Diet"
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx

Also look into vitamin D:
http://www.naturalnews.com/036597_vitamin_D_anti-cancer_drug.html
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/

And iodine:
http://theiodineproject.webs.com/cancerandiodine.htm

Making these sorts of changes is not quite the same as an Android body btw, mentioned in Star Trek episode "I, Mudd" as something Uhura wants), but at least it might help get to the point where you could have one if you wanted -- related to out other conversation:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3892785&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=44082521

I can see you project an optimistic sense of humor about it all, which can be a healthful thing:
http://www.humorproject.com/bookstore/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10116744
"Laughter has many clinical benefits, promoting beneficial physiological changes and an overall sense of well-being. Humor even has long-term effects that strengthen the effectiveness of the immune system."

So, laughing is probably better healthwise than a buzz from a "droud"? :-)
http://laughteryoga.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXEfjVnYkqM

For nerve damage, vitamin B12 and omegas 3s. See also my comments here on mercury and herbs:
http://aaronwinborn.com/blogs/aaron/monday-was-my-46th-birthday-and-likely-my-last-anything-awesome-i-should-try-after-i-die

Yeah, stairs can be a real life-saver for many -- to get some regular exercise, which moves the lymph around, which boosts the immune system and the body's natural self-cleaning mechanisms. Walking outside in the sunshine helps, too (although of course how you need to manage your DVT and clot risks however competent doctors recommend):
http://www.bluezones.com/

For some inspiration, a movie that is up for free on YouTube for a while for the two year anniversary (again, adjusted for DVT):
http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/
http://www.rebootwithjoe.com/

And also, here is a movie (and book) on how clogged arteries can limit blood flow to the body's cells, creating a huge variety of health issues from that common cause (perhaps the root cause of most chronic illnesses in the US today as "diseases of affluence" such as you may be experiencing):
http://www.ravediet.com/

Also ask, "What Color is Your Diet?"
http://www.amazon.com/W

You are still on the grid in one form or another, anywhere you'd care to be.
The electric grid.
The phone Grid.
The postal grid.

I know those "Forever" stamps could not be trusted. And the mailman? Do you think he's innocent? Don't you know that he delivers computers?
http://www.amazon.com/CPU-Processors-Memory-Computer-Add-Ons/b?ie=UTF8&node=229189

Do you think there's any safe place? Do you?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers
There is no escape.

The Obama campaign treated voters as consumers, because the vast majority of voters treat democracy as a supermarket. Instead of being informed, listen to each other, actively voice their position in petitions and protests, and generally be involved in governance, modern voters just switch to the other brand of soap. To carry on with the metaphor, some of them abandon soap altogether and choose not to shower. This "exit" strategy has reached particularity absurd level in the United States where a number of voters (the so called "independents") bounce as ping-pong balls between the two parties every four years. These voters are never satisfied with the government they just elected, yet they cannot be bothered to actively push this government to fulfill promises or address their grievances. So, if you approach democracy as market, the politicians will treat you as shoppers. You got what you asked for, why are you complaining? (Disclosure: These are not my ideas, I stole them from a book called "In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don't Trust Our Leaders?".)

That and probably the fact that they priced it outrageously. OS/2 2.0 was great, OS 2 3.0 even better then ultimately WARP but by then Windows and Windows NT were eroding the marketplace. I've spent years writing software for Windows and OS/2 and technically in some areas, OS/2 was much better and in others, not so much. IBM didn't really push the home consumer market but they were big in the corporate world where they still sold a lot of mid-range and mainframe systems. That and a lot of Token Ring crap as well and that's where IBM pushed the O/S. They could have competed much better but IBM had been their hardware groups split up, PCs (PS/2 w/Microchannel), Midrange and Mainframe and the Software group was split from that. PS/2 systems were priced higher and had higher margin vs. COTS Clone PCs which were gaining in market share. I remember going to computer fairs in Southern California in the late 80s / early 90s and you could literally get bidding wars between vendors across the aisle for your business for a 386 or 486 based system. IBM didn't play in that arena and Windows 3.1 for example had an MSRP of $149 when it came out in 1992.. and nobody really paid that in the wholesale market (I used to get legal copies for less than $100 and threw them in on PC hardware deals) OS/2 2.0 was originally started by Microsoft at the time they were partners with IBM but that became estranged when IBM saw their development money being funneled over to this Windows NT thingy. They broke up and IBM released OS/2 1.3, the first release completely done by IBM as well as OS/2 2.0 in 1992. From what I remember, OS/2 2.0 was about $500 for the software and at the time when you could get a screamer 486DX based system for less than $1000 with Windows 3.x in the early 90s a PS/2 loaded with OS/2 2.0 was well over $3000. Businesses would pay that and get the nice IBM support along with it, but not the home consumer market. When Windows 95 came out it was lights out for IBM and OS/2 in the consumer market.

Microsoft and their tactics didn't help but rather than fight in the marketplace, IBM chose to keep pushing the higher margin business deals. Their cost structure was higher of course and that was also a big issue in their competitive edge. Yes, Microsoft was disreputable in their dealings with IBM around OS/2 and the PC market, that's now part of history. It should be pointed out that IBM's corporate history isn't exactly squeeky clean when it comes to some of their business dealings either.
 

Murdoch's Pirates: Before the phone hacking, there was Rupert's pay-TV skullduggery

Here's the source http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Common-Sense-Economy/dp/0465002609

Have you read the book, Dear Anonymous Coward? This guy did, and hated it for good reasons:

http://www.amazon.com/review/RDTKFS2LDBMW8/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0805819878&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=283155&store=books

I've looked at some of Bringsjord's "serious" academic writings (unlike the pop sci book you cherrypicked). It's clear why he's in a cognitive science department and not a serious theoretician. For example, he boldly proposes that he has "solved" P=NP using not math but "digital physics", and offers nothing substantial (like, oh, a *proof*).

http://kryten.mm.rpi.edu/scb_pnp_solved22.pdf

There's a place for cognitive scientists -- in poetry journals and not science or engineering labs. God only knows why ilk like you thinks the US military should fund postmodernist dilettantes like Bringsjord.

This proposal came from a philosopher with no practical experience in computing, machine learning, or natural language.

No practical experience? You don't know what you're talking about.

So I got on Amazon and read the first few pages of the prequel to the reviewed book, called "The Trousers of Reality" (link below). I found it so disjoint and jargon-ridden that I came here to ask: Am I missing something? I don't want to bash a book I haven't read fully -- maybe it really is a good book -- but try reading the first few pages for yourself. I belong to the author's target audience, and I can follow the words, but I came away from the chapter on "themes and direction" having very little idea what thoughts the author is trying to communicate.

If anyone here has read it, could you comment if the entire book reads like that, and if this sequel is the same?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Trousers-Reality-Volume-Working/dp/190721500X/ref=cm_rdp_product

"Xbox 360 Turbo Fire 2 Wireless Controller with Rumble by Datel" doesn't look licensed. Datel has a history of cracking cryptographic lockouts to produce its products. I wonder how long it'll take for Microsoft to file the ITC complaint. I get the impression from TBONE1207's one-star review that Microsoft might have already updated the Xbox 360 firmware to refuse to recognize this controller.

This. Mod parent up. It's not just true of sysadmin, but of anyone who accumulates power through specialized knowledge. It happens in open source also- someone has specialized knowledge accumulated over years and not easily duplicated. To a significant percentage of people, it occurs to them that this gives them power and the effect of this realization on their personality is nothing less than transformative.

They discover that by being an asshole to questioners, questions and therefore work drops off quickly. They can effectively get their workload down to level-->leisure by acting like a prick , typically the kind of prick that implies question askers are idiots, or lazy.

Sysadmins are the lungs of an organization. How long can you go without breathing? Someone I know deals with a lazy asshole sysadmin from time to time and I hear about it. He does nothing, plays games, studies for another job, watches videos and makes anyone who comes his way for support feel like an asshole for even showing up.

I am dealing (was dealing, no more) with an OS guru of this kind. Punishes knowledge seekers. Answers questions to HIS satisfaction. Implies comprehensible and rasonable questions are incomprehensible and unreasonable All the passive-aggressive games.

More organizations should abide by this:

The No Asshole Rule
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0446698202

Fire early and often. Go all undercover boss early on and see how Joe Nobody / Jill Idiot gets treated so you can dump these types off before they know too much and are dug in. It's a real problem.

Uhm, No
Actually TOR is many things including downloading (AFAIK you can't do torrents though but maybe you can) but it's also for folks who fear reprisals from their governments or for people who don't want their activity tracked for whatever reason. The people who set up TOR do it to promote the freedom and anonymity in the use of the Internet. Yes it's that tool for all those dirty old men out there looking for hookups on Craigslist while at work.

There was an incident last year where an unsuspecting TOR exit node host was charged for the activities of their anonymous users in his local country. So the folks who support TOR (financially, hardware or act as hosts) don't take it lightly so people who use it shouldn't take it lightly either.

TOR is a great tool but you can also set yourself up with a SOCKs proxy very easily say on Amazon AWS (or any other cloud service) meaning, your encrypted traffic would go to their data center and exit out whatever local network pipe they use. It's not as sophisticated as TOR, where multiple hops are used but at least with Amazon's recent statement, they may resist secret demands for your info. You could also set up cascading tunnels of tunnels but meh, I'm already probably in some file somewhere with the FBI or the NSA just for saying you can do this. I guess I shouldn't mention I have a copy of the "The Anarchist Cookbook" should I? Crap I better burn it now. Oh crap, you can get it on Amazon anyway, so I guess they're now suspects.

yeah, the encrypted data bit is interesting (who doesn't use opportunistic TLS on SMTP these days?) but here's the bigger problem:

Section 5 -- Domestic Communications (U)

A communication identified as a domestic communication will be destroyed upon.
recognition unless the Director (or Acting Director) of NSA specifically determines, in writing, that: (S) ...

(2) the communication does not contain foreign intelligence information but is
reasonably believed to contain evidence of a crime that has been, is being, or is about to be committed such communication may be disseminated (including United States person identities) to appropriate Federal law enforcement authorities, in accordance with 50 U.S.C. l806(b) and l825(c), Executive Order No. 12333, and, where applicable, the crimes reporting procedures set out in the August 1995 "Memorandum of Understanding: Reporting of Information Concerning Federal Crimes," or any successor document. Such communications may be retained by NSA for a reasonable period of time, not to exceed six months unless extended in writing by the Attorney General, to permit law enforcement agencies to determine whether access to original recordings of such is required for law enforcement purposes; (8)

That's it, no questions left, the NSA is involved in domestic surveillance of US Citizens for law enforcement purposes. It's as if the Church Committee never existed.

Considering the ease of writing those two required letters and the current state of law breaking in the United States, it's easy to see how bureaucrats could take the guidelines as written and 'reasonably determine' that all domestic communications need to be stored in perpetuity.

Assuming anything else is to assume a level of generosity and restraint on the part of the intelligence agencies that each day we find ourselves more foolish to do.

I own a counter rotating RC helicopter. The GP post implies they can't turn, but they can, by varying the relative speed of the blades. It's really fun to fly. Hard, because it's so light any draft moves it fast. Flying it around the house is like paying a very complex video game. It's my first RC aircraft and well worth the $50. You correctly noted that the toy model didn't get more than a foot off the ground. They are using the ground effect. It allows you to hover with less power. It feels like there's a bubble of air under the model. Flight is also super stable with ground effect, because the lower you get the less lift you need. It's super fun to zip around the house using ground effect, because you can ignore lift and just skate around on a cushion of air.

I'm saddened to read of your plight. Although the US does have its share of problems, it is still a great country with much to offer, even if we may soon be passing the easy road for addressing some of its issues. Something like 80,000,000 people visit the US each year, and many immigrate to the US. Some people are desperate to reach the United States, willing to risk death. And it is very likely you are too far away from Europe to see its many problems, at least some of which are going to get worse in the years ahead due to massive demographic changes and financial problems. One recent example.

Although it is possible that you have some sort of medical condition that results in your unhappiness, it is very likely that your values play a part. I'm going to go out on a limb - a small one - and guess that you are left of center, maybe by a long ways. There are aspects of values of the left that add to personal unhappiness. After all, it is hard to be happy about a country if you misunderstand it and its values, believing it to be toxically racist, and militaristic, and having many other distorted, exaggerated, or imagined faults. That means seeing more clearly, not putting on rose colored glasses. Just one example: If the military industrial complex is so powerful, why has its slice of the fiscal piet fallen so much over the years?

Perhaps you would consider widening your exploration of the world of ideas. One of the odd things of life in America is that more people than you might suppose have many conservative values, but significant parts of the culture tell you that good people are on the left, so people misidentify themselves.

You might try listening to this gentleman's radio program (The Dennis Prager Show), and maybe read some of his writing.

Why Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals

He tends to be thoughtful and explores ideas and values. He also has a weekly hour of his program devoted to happiness, called "The Happiness Hour." Catchy name. ;) It's the mid hour of his program on Fridays last I recall. He also wrote a book: Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual

Dr. William Bennet is another thoughtful commentator.

Beyond that, do you have unmet spiritual needs? Have you explored Christianity? This is a great program: Insight for Living Having faith in God doesn't necessarily mean that our circumstances are better, but we better able to live with our circumstances due to faith in God, and the changes He brings about in us. Pray to God to ask for faith and guidance. If that doesn't seem scientific, remember that science lives with many ambiguities, and uncertain data. And note that some of the greatest minds and people in history have been Christians. And just because you lean to play baseball doesn't mean you forget how to play football.

It can also be helpful to give of yourself to other people - volunteer at a hospital, or food bank, or maybe something else. There are many people in this world that can use a helping hand. (But realize that not all of them are grateful.)

I'm not trying to be glib or dismissive of any challenges you may face. I'm just sharing a few things that have enriched my life over the years. And don't be discouraged if you don't feel different right away. Sometimes you must travel a ways down the road. There are still many things I continue to discover about

It seems like a lot of people don't realize that amazon has recently released a Hardware Security Module product. If you want to encrypt your data in "the cloud" such that it is not available to your cloud provider, but is usable by your application, this is pretty much the only way to do it.

As far as I know, amazon is the only major cloud provider that has an HSM option -perhaps this is a subtle advertisement of their (not cheap) new service to people who are *really* concerned about encrypting their data.
Food for thought at least..

I yet to have an employer who treats sysadmins badly.

Aww, they're so cute when they're young.

And if you treat admins well or very well, the IT becomes a money sink hole, with admins generally caring about their own problems.

Silos are the rot that is pervasive in many companies. In my experience, the larger the company, the more the rot. It is unbelievable how much money is wasted on turf wars, keeping up with the Joneses, trying to sabotage the Joneses and focusing on department first, company last.

If your company's SysAdmins are in the "I only care about my problems/doing less work" instead of the "what can I do to help other people do their jobs easier/better/faster?" mode, then you have The Rot. The worker bees can individually resist The Rot to a limited extent (in the actions they have direct control over), but it really takes all the folks at the exec level to be on the same page and actively working against it to stomp it out.

How much does a working SNES go for?

Checking Amazon, a working used SNES goes for about $40.

What other hardware can play SNES games?

This, for one. Or this. Or this. Or, if you have transferred the ROM contents to a PC-readable file, a PC running an emulator.

How much does a working SNES go for?

Checking Amazon, a working used SNES goes for about $40.

What other hardware can play SNES games?

This, for one. Or this. Or this. Or, if you have transferred the ROM contents to a PC-readable file, a PC running an emulator.

Spoken like a latter-day employer. Would that there were another way!

The description of the following item seems to suggest that is not the case:
http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Natural-Water-Based-Lubricant-Gallon/dp/B005MR3IVO

MP3 players were becoming the in thing. Sony, which dominated the analog portable music player market with the Walkman, was expected to dominate the MP3 market. But somehow their $0.15 billion/yr music division pulled rank on their $35 billion/yr electronics division, and forced their initial MP3 player to be designed so that it couldn't play MP3s at all. It had to use a proprietary, DRM-encrusted format. (Yes it's advertised as an MP3 player, but you had to convert your MP3 collection into their proprietary format first.)

They flopped in the market, and Apple went on to dominate the MP3 player market in 2001 with an MP3 player which had DRM if you bought from iTunes but could still play MP3s you copied to the player manually. Microsoft corrected themselves much more quickly than Sony did back then (it took them years to finally add MP3 support, and they didn't give up on ATRAC until 2007), so we'll have to wait and see how bad the damage is.

I use both, and I find that .NET really shines when you're in unfamiliar territory and working with a part of the framework that you don't touch every day. Features are more easily discovered and idioms tend to be more consistently applied in .NET, whereas it feels like Java suffers from implementers applying the pattern du jour, forcing you to wade through more docs.

I attribute much of .NET's success in this regard to the absolutely awesome book "Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries," which includes a lot of direct insights from the designers of the framework. Microsoft has been really good about sticking to those guidelines, and it shows.

http://www.amazon.com/Framework-Design-Guidelines-Conventions-Libraries/dp/0321545613 ...or maybe I just understand the .NET Framework better because I read that book. I'm not aware of a Java corollary that would give me the same insights, though.

Probably you were joking.

But you don't really want a gun to move asteroids... what you want to do is rendezvous with the asteroid as soon as possible (i.e. when it is as far from Earth as possible) and add a rocket motor on it that will push continuously for as long as possible. The earlier you start the push, the less of a push is needed to make it miss the Earth.

I'm not sure if a nuke is better or worse than a rocket motor... the nuke shoves very hard for one moment, and the rocket motor shoves less hard but keeps doing it until the fuel runs out.

Early rendezvous works better if you have a staffed transportation hub in orbit. "Once you are in Earth orbit, you are halfway to anywhere in the solar system."

We need floating cities on Venus like in this book.

Outside those two businesses, I don't know what Amazon is doing. They seem to be pretty much limited to those two pillars.

Check out this crazy thing that Amazon has been doing for the past few years.

it's better to get a Microsoft router. This is the same technology they use in newest airplanes and space shuttles - ie., top notch tech.

Top notch tech such as:

default 128-bit wireless security (WEP)

If you don't want to use Linux in your datacenter setup (and not many of us do), it's better to get a Microsoft router. This is the same technology they use in newest airplanes and space shuttles - ie., top notch tech.

If you don't care about running a datacenter, there is also Windows Azure cloud hosting platform. It directly integrates with your existing MS stack (Visual Studio, IIS server software) and is beauty to work with. I can only recommended Azure so much, but trust me, it's your dreams come true.

- Mark Johnsson

<quote><p>Yup, it'd be trivial to write a program that would take 3 dirty copies and return a clean one.</p></quote>

So, if I give the program 3 copies of "50 shades of grey" it would return a version that is safe for my kids to read?

50? Go with 50 Thousand!

http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Thousand-Shades-Of-Grey-Ashen/dp/1479215430

The "look inside" first few pages are particularly droll.

I looked up the David Buss evolutionary psychology reference you supplied (TMND) and saw he has one about women specifically, where a key point in the book is that there are many reasons women do what they do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Buss

That makes sense when you think about it, because historically, like with some Native Americans, there were sometimes matriarchies where women controlled the land, and in hunter/gatherer societies that was a big deal. Selection for other attributes of men may then have been important.

It turns out I made a slashdot post about a year ago that touches on this issue too:
"Re:Helping the NSA transcend to abundance thinking (Score:3)"
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2773253&cid=39629001
"To start with the bottom line: the very computers that make the new NSA facilities possible mean that the NSA's formal purpose is essentially soon to be at an end. Nothing you or I say here will reverse that trend. The only issue is how soon the NSA as a whole recognizes that fact, and then how people there choose to deal with that reality. ..."

I then mention some men/women issues related to the themes you raised. Also, I make a point that relates to yours, that men tend to move from high testosterone competition patterns in their teens and twenties to lower testosterone cooperative patterns in their forties and fifties.

Regarding "The Selfish Gene", see also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation
http://www.amazon.com/The-Difference-Diversity-Creates-Societies/dp/0691138540
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift

Evolution selects for all possible combinations at all possible levels, even if our simple brains may have trouble following that or turning it into math...

Also, regarding being short -- when food or air is in short supply, being smaller can be an advantage sometimes. Being short also helps in Judo, Life is full of tradeoffs, where our characteristics and preferences can be strengths or weaknesses depending on the situation. That is one reason the world is so diverse.

Good point about how standards change over time, too.

Hope to have time to see those Adam Curtis documentaries someday! Thanks for the recommendations.

The implications weren't obvious at first, but consider: there's no need for a supermarket close to a population center where real estate is expensive (ie - it can be in the warehouse district), there's no need for public access (aisles, displays of product, open freezers), no need for cashiers. The entire process can be made into a Kiva order fulfillment system.

Not likely. Dry goods (i.e. the stuff Amazon sells) is one thing, but food is entirely different. Most people like to see, smell, feel, and, when possible, taste the food they buy. Why do you think that Internet based groceries services have failed?

Amazon is getting into the grocery delivery business:

http://fresh.amazon.com/

Just a quick book recommendation that addresses (amongst other things) the PhD vs. military tensions during the early period of the space shuttle program:

http://www.amazon.com/Riding-Rockets-Outrageous-Shuttle-Astronaut/dp/0743276833

It also candidly covers some of the pressures of being in the astronaut corps, warts & all. It's also by turns inspiring, tragic, irreverent and very funny, and not at all like many of the officially endorsed astronaut autobiographies. The author became an astronaut via the military track, and describes the mental and sociological adjustments he had to make as an (initially) male chauvinist jock astronaut, training alongside scientists and (shock horror!) women.

Disclaimer: Not affiliated with the author in any way, just a fan of the book.

I think I've posted this before in response to that article, but it's amusing that parody of a decade ago is the reality of today.

I think I've posted this before in response to that article, but it's amusing that parody of a decade ago is the reality of today.

You do realize that the WRT54GL, the L being for "Linux", is still sold brand new by Cisco using the old style Linksys enclosure and branding, right? They do this because the WRT54G line was and still is popular with users who prefer alternative and open source Linux firmwares. So there's no need to go picking at yard sales for an old WRT54G when you can get a brand new one for less than $50 that both Tomato and DD-WRT will run on.

http://askville.amazon.com/people-killed-Inquisition/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=3878676

According to public news reports the book's editor, Prof. Agostino Borromeo, stated that about 125,000 persons were investigated by the Spanish Inquisition, of which 1.8% were executed (2,250 people).

During the high point of the Spanish Inquisition from 1478-1530 AD, scholars found that approximately 1,500-2,000 people were found guilty. From that point forward, there are exact records available of all "guilty" sentences which amounted to 775 executions. In the full 200 years of the Spanish Inquisition, less than 1% of the population had any contact with it, people outside of the major cities didn't even know about it. The Inquisition was not applied to Jews or Moslems, unless they were baptised as Christians.

If we add the figures, we find that the entire Inquisition of 500 years, caused about 6,000 deaths.

That's the inquisition... now more generally.. you probably want this:
http://www.truthbeknown.com/victims.htm
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Now I'm skipping some of what I consider dubious examples where a war between nations is less strongly associated with religion than with a conflict between the people but it's fair to say that religion (the catholic/christian religion) was a factor to a major factor in these conflicts.
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Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]

Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]
(In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")
The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]

Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]

1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.

1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]

Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
The Albigensians...viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]

As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people