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I'd say you got a fulfilling experience in the later years because of the meaningful application of the material. That feel of knowing more than the bare minumun is something a cultured mind enjoys: knowing the context, making connections, being involved, discussing with the teacher or your peers is much more enjoyable than rote repetition.

You may like this: http://www.amazon.com/Feel-Bad-Education-Contrarian-Children-Schooling/dp/0807001406/

Manufacturing ammunition is doable:

http://www.amazon.com/Do-Yourself-Gunpowder-Cookbook/dp/0873646754/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

and brass is easy to mill for cases or primer --- casting bullets is straight-forward enough.

William

You will want to avoid the old paper red/cyan glasses and go with the slightly more expensive plastic ones that are designed for LCD monitors and TVs. Otherwise be prepared for a LOT of ghosting. Also, nvidia makes platic red/cyan glasses that are designed to fit over regular glasses. You may also need to calibrate your monitor to make sure that red is really red and cyan is really cyan.

I was personally very surprised at how well red/cyan works. Of course the colors get a little muddle, but not as much as I had expected.

I bought these, btw http://www.amazon.com/Glasses-Pro-Ana-movies-Computers/dp/B0036NP3CS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327421067&sr=8-1

This wouldn't happen to be Richard Scamell's Data Modeling and Database Design, would it?

There's a completely valid reason for this (Hint: they're the same sound). I recommend that you read John McWhorter's Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue. He explains why English grammar is the way it is.

According to my organizational behaviour book ( http://www.amazon.com/Organizational-Behavior-13th-Stephen-Robbins/dp/0136007171 ) only 30% is dictated by your surroundings.

Studies conducted on twin brothers separated at birth tend to conclude that most twins will end up with similar skills, jobs and interests. It's not overrated, it's fact... The book is actually quite interesting, I advice you to read it if you can get your hands on it.

I doubt Thrun intends to offer a few courses and stop there. I think he'll offer an entire CS curriculum within maybe 3 years, and offer some soft of CS degree program soon thereafter.

It seems like you could offer other degrees using this same technology -- probably all engineerings, physics, probably math and statistics, maybe biology (but without labs).

Not only would the degrees be FREE (a huge thing for the poor in the third world and BRIC countries), but they'd be FAST. By excluding all the non-essentials, the equivalent of a BS in CS could be completed three times faster, in no more than 1.5 years.

Based on what I've seen from Thrun so far, I bet the degree will be widely respected, and frankly, better than 3/4 of today's CS degrees.

Universities beware. You're about to run smack into The Innovator''s Dilemma. And in my humble opinion, it's about damned time.

The x-ray, millimeter wave, backscatter x-ray, and pat down will.

    When I was younger, I had a couple of these. They were good for self defense in places that had walk through or handheld metal detectors.

    Of course, the way they do pat downs these days, you could probably walk through with a dozen of them. I strongly advise against trying. If you get caught with one, you'll likely find yourself in handcuffs, and on the no-fly list.

Dear libertarians and rationalists who think manned space missions are a waste of money because robots can do the job cheaper...

I think it's important to distinguish between at least two sets of people on this News for Nerds site who oppose manned missions and favour robotic probes instead. On one hand, perhaps there are people who aren't inclined to dream, see no romantic vision in man expanding into the cosmos, and may make a good argument that mankind can have a bold future without ever living the planet.

On the other hand, there's people who have read Ray Kurzweil's conjectures/ravings in The Singularity is Near and other books. This crowd doesn't lack dreams of humanity spreading through the galaxy. Rather, they might simply say that we should wait a few decades or a century until human beings will have supposedly overcome biological limitations that hamper spaceflight: radiation exposure, need for certain sustenance, limited lifespans that would force unrealistic generational starship designs, etc . That is, such people may figure that human beings will eventually be robotic probes, and once the two are the same, then we can really begin with longterm space exploration that is more than just a stunt.

Actually, I got a MS from Stanford. The problem was the expert system guys, Feigenbaum and company. They were claiming that expert systems would yield strong AI Real Soon Now. Feigenbaum's 1983 book "The Fifth Generation" shows that optimism at its height. It did not end well. The next decade is referred to as the "AI Winter".

Thank god there is a teacher that is trying to teach. It is unfortunate that government has helped reduce the quality of education (most notably since the civil unrest in the 1960s). Other people have complained about the problems with the current state of education within the United States at a more fundamental level. There are other teachers that have written about why the current approaches are failing, while ignoring the government's motivation to reduce education quality. With more teachers that attempt to expose real concepts to students in ways that bypass government control, unencumbered by the education fees that rise quickly due to inflation, along with medical costs (no substitution of goods is possible to reduce the impact of inflation, i.e., no reduction in quality is possible, from the already poor quality present), the better society will become, removing the common ignorance and prejudice that prevents real growth.

Is the metal detector going to detect ceramic knives?

Lots of works promote violence against people. Here's one you can order today:
http://www.amazon.com/Mein-Kampf-Adolf-Hitler/dp/0395925037

I know I've godwinned myself, but I'd bet it's not the only one out there. A person with greater knowledge of hate literature than I have could likely find books that do advocate the killing of US citizens. Of course there are some writings that we can't read, such as Obama's secret memo authorizing the due process free execution of other American citizens. I mean, isn't that fact alone enough to show the lie that in the "America Good, Iran Evil" meme DC has been pushing down our throat since sometime in the middle of the Bush administration?

In other news, no one involved in the massive fraud and graft that trashed the world economy has seen the inside of a jail cell.

Much of the pressure that lead to the problem was created by powerful politicians pursuing seemingly noble progressive goals. Unfortunately their meddling lead to disaster as they pressured mortgage companies to make more and more loans to people that couldn't afford them. The politicians did their damage and are now retiring, their friends and lovers got their money. America is left holding the bag. Actually it is worse that that - those same politicians created important legislation claimed to address the mess they made, but it doesn't. In some cases it only creates the opportunity to damage more of the economy. President Bush had tried to reform things, but was blocked by the Democrats.

The Real Culprits

In Reckless Endangerment, Morgenson and Rosner offer considerable censure for reckless bankers, lax rating agencies, captured regulators, and unscrupulous businessmen. But the greatest responsibility for the collapse of the housing market and the near “Armageddon” of the American economy belongs to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to the politicians who created and protected them. With a couple of prominent exceptions, the politicians were Democrats claiming to do good for the poor. Along the way, they enriched themselves and their friends, stuffed their campaign coffers, and resisted all attempts to enforce market discipline. When the inevitable collapse arrived, the entire economy suffered, but no one more than the poor.

Jim Johnson, advisor to Walter Mondale and John Kerry, amassed a personal fortune estimated at $100 million during his nine years as CEO of Fannie Mae. “Under Johnson,” Morgenson and Rosner write, “Fannie Mae led the way in encouraging loose lending practices among the banks whose loans the company bought. A Pied Piper of the financial sector, Johnson led both the private and public sectors down a path that led directly to the credit crisis of 2008.”

Fannie Mae lied about its profits, intimidated adversaries, bought off members of Congress with lavish contributions, hired (and thereby co-opted) academics, purchased political ads (through its foundation), and stacked congressional hearings with friendly bankers, community activists, and advocacy groups (including ACORN). Fannie Mae also hired the friends and relations of key members of Congress (including Rep. Barney Frank’s partner).

Reckless Endangerment includes the Clinton administration’s contribution to the home-ownership catastrophe. Clinton had claimed that dramatically increasing homeownership would boost the economy; instead, “in just a few short years, all of the venerable rules governing the relationship between borrower and lender went out the window, starting with . . . the requirement that a borrower put down a substantial amount of cash in a property, verify his income, and demonstrate an ability to service his debts.”

Reckless Endangerment utterly deflates the perceived history of the 2008 crash. Yes, there was greed — when is there not? But it was government distortions of markets — not “unregulated capitalism” — that led the economy to disaster.

Bailout Politics

Among the Congressional “leaders” invited to the White House to devise a bailout “solution” are the very people who have for years created the risks that have now come home to roost.

Five years ago, Barney Frank vouched for the “soundness” of Fannie Ma

so, I should shell out between $500 and $830 to read in bed? It's going to need to replace more than a paper back book to separate me from a whole paycheck. I mean, my phone doesn't do that either but I think you need to come better than "reading in bed"

You can get kindle fire for about USD200. And yes, for book reading on your bed, it's overkill. So, aside for reading sci-fi novel in bed, I use my Archos 70IT to browse, read books, newspaper, comics, mangas, watching videos, ssh-ing to my NAS box at home, etc etc on my 4 hours daily commute

Also he presented it as a use case, not a target function for the device. I like to use a tablet in the Kitchen for recipes, and to watch the news.

so, I should shell out between $500 and $830 to read in bed? It's going to need to replace more than a paper back book to separate me from a whole paycheck. I mean, my phone doesn't do that either but I think you need to come better than "reading in bed"

You can get kindle fire for about USD200. And yes, for book reading on your bed, it's overkill. So, aside for reading sci-fi novel in bed, I use my Archos 70IT to browse, read books, newspaper, comics, mangas, watching videos, ssh-ing to my NAS box at home, etc etc on my 4 hours daily commute

Those won't help most people. HDMI is digital, VGA is analog. Apparently there are a few devices that have non-standard HDMI ports that will output an analog VGA when they sense that those cables are plugged in, however, those are the exception. Most people will need an active digital HDMI to analog VGA converter along the lines of this:
http://www.amazon.com/Brainydeal-Vga2HDMI3-5mm-VGA-to-HDMI/dp/B003VJ9RCO/ref=sr_1_26?ie=UTF8&qid=1327196304&sr=8-26

At only $35, at least it's a bit cheaper than I expected.

Well, FUD you too, then.

Carbon credits are merely a capitalist proposal on how to deal with carbon reduction - nothing more, nothing less.

And if we must impose Draconian limits on carbon emissions, I do think a market in credits is a good way to go. Markets tend to work better than top-down controls.

And the "trillions of dollars of harm to the economy" is of course a pack of nonsense.

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I found some numbers on the Internet. They should serve for a back-of-the-envelope sort of calculation.

According to this report, the cost to the USA of complying with the Kyoto Protocol would be on the order of 4% of GDP. According to Wikipedia, the GDP of the USA is over 14 trillion dollars per year. That means it would cost half a trillion dollars per year, every year, just to comply with Kyoto.

I skimmed that report and I don't believe that the 4% number includes jobs lost (for example, the coal miners, the truckers put out of work because the costs of running a truck are so much higher, etc.). The actual costs would thus be higher.

And Kyoto, by itself, is not enough to satisfy the people who are really worried about AGW.

Saving energy is saving money in the age of peak oil.

Everyone wants to save money where they can. We replaced our windows with modern double-pane windows, sealed and filled with argon, to save energy. So I don't argue this statement, by itself. But it's kind of irrelevant to this discussion.

A really effective plan to curtail carbon emissions in the USA would need to do something about the coal plants that produce the majority of electricity. According to this page, coal power produces almost 50% of all the carbon emissions in the USA, generating about 1.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

What will you do to get rid of the carbon dioxide from those coal plants? Shut down half of them and quadruple the cost of electricity to encourage people to conserve energy? Tear them down and build nuclear power plants? (I'd be in favor of that; cleaner air right away, and cheaper power in the long run. But it will cost a lot of up-front money to build all those nuke plants, and one or two people will object, so you had better plan on hiring lawyers to help push the project forward.)

You cannot seriously propose to replace those coal plants with solar or wind power, because you won't get anywhere near enough power. And coal and nuclear power plants can operate continuously, while wind and solar plants seldom operate at 100% capacity.

You can't replace them with hydro power, because all the good hydro locations have already been built; and environmentalists hate the damage a dam does to the ecosystem of a river, so good luck building any new ones, let alone enough to replace 1500 coal plants.

So then, having solved the coal plants, you have to solve the other half of the problem: trucks and cars. All-electric vehicles are currently not practical for general use; the batteries are expensive and charging times are slow. If you want to either force people to use electric cars, or subsidize the cars to encourage people, either way it will cost a lot.

Or, you could just quadruple the price of gasoline and diesel, using taxes. That would encourage people to drive less. But that will cost a lot.

Hybrid vehicles are already being sold (the Prius is rather popular) so, given that saving energy is saving money, the government doesn't need to do anything; those cars are already selling. But they don't have zero carbon dioxide emissions, just somewhat less than non-hybrid vehicles.

So as I said, if you are going to do something really effective to actually reduce carbon

As I posted higher up in the thread, I bought this one and it does a bang up job of converting hdmi output (at 1080i) into component video for my old projection television. It might very well be illegal, but it works great.

The problem with that is while HDMI to DVI adapters exist, the DVI portion of that does not include analog connectors, which means you will not be able to stack a DVI to VGA adapter on top of that. I've actually tried this - they just don't fit.

Even the connectors that 'convert' HDMI to VGA can't convert digital to analog. Taken from Amazon a comment sums this up nicely,

"What everyone needs to understand here is that you need to research before you buy. This product is not meant to take a digitanl signal and allow you to connect to an analog display, or vica versa. This cable does not do a digital to analog, or analog to digital, converion. Most HDMI devices are going to be digital, while most VGA devices are going to be analog. You cannot connect the two with a cable. You have to actually convert the signal. This cable is meant for the very few devices that can actually output analog from the HDMI connector. This is very rare and you should pretty much always assume your HDMI connection cannot support analog, and your VGA connection cannot support digital.

Do some research on your devices. The manual should tell you what is supported on each connector." http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-VGA-HD15-Male-Cable/dp/B001OLCHJ6

What's needed is a Video Converter, such as this one: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Startech-HDMI2VGA-HDMI-to-VGA-Video-Converter-with-Audio/14860180

As you can see, you're going to spend about $100-$150 for the convenience, and no doubt these devices do not work on copy protected material without down sampling or failing outright. It's probably illegal if it did.

And the white bit... well, with one or two exceptions, that's just how it's working out.

Guns, Germs and Steel. That's pretty much why white Eurasian culture rules the modern world, because they were in the right place at the right time...

Jared Diamond has some fun ideas, but his basic premise is quite flawed from what the historical record has to say -- guns and steel were much less important than germs. I would strongly recommend 1491 by Charles C. Mann over Guns, Germs, and Steel. One strong point that Mann makes, and that others have made as well, is that guns weren't all that superior to bows at the time, with far less accuracy, much more likelihood of backfiring or blowing up, extremely longer reload times, and exceedingly fiddly and fragile munitions. They were strong psychological tools, but as weapons, bows were the better bet.

I certainly agree with your "right place at the right time" point. For a clearer background picture though, give 1491 a read-through.

The possibility that a cloud service can go offline quite suddenly should be a major factor in your decision whether to use the service at all, and the extent to which you'll rely on it. The customer agreement for Amazon Web Services is better than I might expect because it says they will notify you if the service goes dark, but that might be small comfort if you are not prepared for a sudden migration.

Yeah and what DOES determine truth ? The process of science , the scientific method.

Rich0 replies:

Well, no, the truth is what it is. Nobody determines truth. Science is just a very effective way to figure out what the truth is.

OK I'll give you benefit of the doubt; you just parsed my sentence incorrectly.

Obviously, if you read the post you excerpted this from, I don't think science "creates" reality, i.e. "truth". I am obviously saying "what is the process through which humans determine (what the) truth (is)?" A rhetorical question I then answer- Science". .

Rich0 said:

The main problem with the global warming debate is that it isn't purely a scientific debate - it is loaded with bias and interests (something that impacts all science to some degree, but global warming to a very large degree).

Yeah and who is doing this? The fossil fuel industry. Only a kindergarten teacher thinks wisdom is to be had by splitting the difference and declaring "you're both wrong!" ..

David and Charles Koch and the think tanks they fund and the scientists they support have knowingly and systematically manufactured false "doubt" about the veracity of the science of global warming for the purpose of preventing legislative action to control GHG emissions .

Such action is mandatory -not-optional- in order to save humanity from the ecological AND financial Armageddon that is barreling towards us.

If you doubt that, even in the slightest way, than you need to educate yourself and there is no better place to start that than here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXyTpY0NCp0&feature=related

http://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1596916109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265919295&sr=8-1

Rich0 said:

It is also being used to defend policy decisions that have huge ramifications. So, it isn't surprising that it is a big mess.

The "big mess" has already been made through our ignorant actions.

Now whether we like it or not, big action is mandatory to clean up that big mess if we are to survive and not go broke deploying desperate, last ditch measures which will ultimately fail.

Couldn't they just avoid it?:

http://www.amazon.com/Avoid-Huge-Ships-John-Trimmer/dp/0870334336/

OK this video is what it is made by who it's made for the purpose it was made for the audience it was intended for. Not my video; I can't answer these questions.

The basic fact is, Watts made an unfounded and erroneous accusation from his position as a completely unqualified and untrained outsider to the field . In most people's books, that's shameful. Literally, if I did that, if I wasted everyone's time and then refused to acknowledge my folly, I'd certainly be ashamed of myself.

Yet he shows no remorse and feels no shame.

Instead, he's still parading around presenting himself as an expert to gullible people, via Glenn Beck et. al., while being funded by the Heartland Institute- a Koch Brothers creation -and yes, that is extremely extremely relevant as is the connection to the tobacco-cancer denier machine which is laid out brilliantly and distressingly here:

http://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1596916109

. So what we have is a guy who's massively wrong, who makes false statements about science and against climate scientists and their work, and feels no shame.

Who nevertheless reacts with rage and accusations against anyone who points out his utter lack of qualifications and piss poor track record with the truth, and feels no shame.

Who permits himself to be presented as an duly qualified expert and given the favorable treatment, attention and presumption of authority deserved only by those who actually put in the work needed to earn that, when he knows full well he is not, and is in fact, just a college drop out. And feels no shame.

Who's self promotion and constant attention seeking from the media, talk radio, FoxNews and various speaking engagements from denier think tanks stands in stark contrast to the abashed and reluctant "fame" that has thrust scientists who , with few exceptions, have lived quiet lives dedicated not to fame seeking but to science and who are genuinely horrified at the amount of media spotlight they're forced to endure. And feels no shame.

Who makes pronouncements regarding the greatest threat we have faced as a species, one which has the power, if it's not addressed, to literally make earth uninhabitable for everyone. And feels no shame.

Given that C.V., the diagnoses is pretty clear: narcissistic personality disorder

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001930/

with sociopathic tendencies

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0015230/#ch2.s2

The diagnostic system DSM-IV, the preferred diagnostic system for this guideline (see Section 2.2.2), characterises antisocial personality disorder as a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others that has been occurring in the person since the age of 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of seven criteria, namely:

a failure to conform to social norms;

irresponsibility;

deceitfulness;

indifference to the welfare of others;

recklessness;

a failure to plan ahead

irritability and aggressiveness

I hope it stays fiction:
http://www.amazon.com/Rights-Numbers-Brownstone-I/dp/1466428589/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327025112&sr=8-1

If piracy spreads, nobody will create anything because their work will be pirated as soon as it is finished.

I don't find the support of figures who say things like this entirely welcome. It shows a great ignorance of history. Copyright is a fairly recent concept, popping up only 500 years ago and mainly limited to the West. So much of the Western canon -- the Greek and Latin classics, Dante, Chaucer, even Shakespeare, arose in a time when content creators were not compensated for each and every copy (and non-Western traditions contain further riches).

And there was a lot of copying going on. In ancient Rome, it was common for audience members to transcribe poetry recitals, have many copies generated by amanuenses, and then sold in the marketplace with no money going back to the original author. As far as I know, the sole example of someone complaining about this was Martial in one of his epigrams, and he only had a problem with people passing off his work as their own -- so plagiarism, not "copyright infringement". Content creation flourished without copyright, and even in recent times, when copyright was in full force, so many classic films and musical compositions were produced with a boatload of private patronage or state arts subsidies, so the ability to be paid royalties for each copy made didn't really factor into their creation.

In order to quicken the rise of an inevitable new economy, it's better that people just say straight out that copyright is an untenable concept and not a moral universal. No more of this wishy-washy "Piracy should be fought, but this law goes too far."

The GP is mocking people who dispute books like The Bell Curve, a book which is frequently cited by scientific racists as evidence than dark skinned people are less intelligent than light skinned people.

Read Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America by Mark R. Levin http://www.amazon.com/dp/1596980095/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_XJegpb0XD3NRX via @amazon

Yet despite the novelty of the Wii remote, I still prefer the Dual Shock.

Which quite ironically, is pretty much just a snes pad with one extra l/r button with a knee jerk reaction to the n64's analog stick.

By the way, Nintendo must like the Dualshock design, because after releasing the Wii Classic Controller with an SNES shape, they later released the Wii Classic Controller Pro which is almost identical to the Dualshock 1/2/3.

Now perhaps your animation studio has such an external backbone access, but multiply it by two thousands if you're doing a movie and not just a couple of stills and we're talking about +100Gb/s lines from your company to the Amazon service.

The workaround is to do everything in Amazon, including the streaming/distribution of the "final product" to your viewers.

Of course there's this too: http://aws.amazon.com/importexport/
So you could still ship TBs of stuff to/fro your studio whether for further processing or for backups.

Is Route 53 v6 glued? v6 accessible?

You can answer this one yourself: http://aws.amazon.com/route53/faqs/#Support_for_IPv6

The whole book is this heist.

Literally.

Just check out the summary.

The thing that makes this book series special is that they don't say, "I ran nmap and knew from the output they were running a webserver."

They say "I ran nmap with 'sudo nmap -P0 -T3 -p 80 127.0.0.1 -oA localscan'

And got:

Starting Nmap 5.21 ( http://nmap.org/ ) at 2012-01-17 20:55 PST Nmap scan report for localhost (127.0.0.1) Host is up (0.000083s latency). PORT STATE SERVICE 80/tcp open http Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.07 seconds And could see from the line "80/tcp open http"

http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Network-How-Own-Continent/dp/1931836051

//Has the whole series and still remembers the props I got from Blue bore.

///Yes I know the example is a bit contrived but that is exactly how they present information in the series and I learned a lot from it.

Yeah this is a lie. The science debate is what was going for 30 years before anyone notified you.

The CATO institute is funded through the Koch brothers who make money by the release of carbon.

Read The Merchants of Doubt -

http://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1596916109

become an informed citizen- and then come back to us with the "debate that is being stifled" argument.

The classic "You disagree with me, and haven't read and chosen to believe the same things I have read and chosen to believe. Therefore, you are ignorant." attack.

If you can't point to evidence of a claim yourself, then you are uninformed. Posting a link to something isn't evidence. Posting "read this and get some lernin'" is not evidence. Actual data along with a model and predictable, repeatable results is evidence. This does not exist, of course.

BTW, If we get rid of publishers, we lose the editor. Get ready for 1,000 page epics about cats.

http://www.amazon.com/WARRIORS-BOOKS-Complete-List-Updated/lm/R3OL3CAN7KYOVI

Just saying. Been there, done that.

The CATO institute is funded through the Koch brothers who make money by the release of carbon.

Read The Merchants of Doubt -

http://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1596916109

become an informed citizen- and then come back to us with the "debate that is being stifled" argument.

Does this count?

http://www.amazon.com/LOLcat-Bible-beginnin-Ceiling-stuffs/dp/1569757348

"Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. ..."

Bah, Only 176 pages. You can do better than that.

Does this count?

http://www.amazon.com/LOLcat-Bible-beginnin-Ceiling-stuffs/dp/1569757348

"Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. ..."

There's a good tutorial on Amazon's Kindle site here on how to build Kindle books with Word - https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A2RYO17TIRUIVI

Thank you! Looks like things have improved since my last attempt. If I ever decide to write another, I will not be as intimidated by the conversion process.

A nail cutting nipper is a high-leverage wire cutter beefy enough to cut off a framing or roofing nail. Or cut steel fence wire, or such. A junior size cable cutter -- (aircraft cable, not electrical cable). Googling "diamond n10 nail cutting nipper" turned up this Amazon link.

http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-N10-10-Inch-Cutting-Nipper/dp/B00002N7PG

In case you hadn't noticed, everything is a felony these days.

But I agree that a second conviction for theft should carry a very long sentence. Many crimes are crimes of passion, committed under circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated - and many more "crimes" are not really crimes at all - but theft has real victims and thieves have a very high recidivism rate. If there is one crime that we should punish with very long vacations from polite society, it should be theft.

To be clear, I think Silvergate's drawing attention to a real problem, which is why that title bothers me. Presuming that he's putting his best case forward, the title is complete bullshit.

The site promoting the book briefly explains how a person commits "three felonies a day".

Unless the "average American" (I take average to mean typical, not statistical mean) is routinely importing goods, wandering around wetlands, lying about their sick days, receiving classified data, talking to the cops, etc., it's hard to see how he or she is committing three felonies a day. You can even have a drug habit without committing a felony in many cases, and that's probably the worst area of law enforcement overreach in society today.

To follow up on sibling post from russotto, read The Omnivore's Dilemma (http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/1594200823). I found this book to be one of the most informative, interesting, and frightening books I've read in a while.

"I had to come back to this point because it was so intriguing, why would I want to do this?"

Because an older version of economic "efficiency" in an economy suggest equality leads to greater happiness; see for why "Pareto" efficiency is mostly bunk as far as good policy:
"Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science that Makes Life Dismal"
http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Rest-Us-Debunking-Science/dp/1595581014
"Why do contemporary economists consider food subsidies in starving countries, rent control in rich cities, and health insurance everywhere "inefficient"? Why do they feel that corporate executives deserve no less than their multimillion-dollar "compensation" packages and workers no more than their meager wages? Here is a lively and accessible debunking of the two elements that make economics the "science" of the rich: the definition of what is efficient and the theory of how wages are determined. The first is used to justify the cruelest policies, the second grand larceny. Filled with lively examples--from food riots in Indonesia to eminent domain in Connecticut and everyone from Adam Smith to Jeremy Bentham to Larry Summers--Economics for the Rest of Us shows how today's dominant economic theories evolved, how they explicitly favor the rich over the poor, and why they're not the only or best options. Written for anyone with an interest in understanding contemporary economic thinking--and why it is dead wrong--Economics for the Rest of Us offers a foundation for a fundamentally more just economic system."

Or:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/07/1519221/Researchers-Say-Happiness-Costs-75k

Or just google on the various justifications for a "basic income".

You have good points on refactoring. But a basic income, as well as the other changes (better subsistence, more gift giving, better planning) are indeed all just incremental changes to what we have now. We have social security and medicare and money for schooling (just only for the old and young, not everyone), we gardening and personal robotics, we have GNU/Linux and Wikipedia, we have government planning. We just can improve on all of them.

But, it is hard to improve things when people don't even admit the problems and systematically suppress discussion of improvements...
http://www.responsiblefinance.ch/appeal/
"The authors of this appeal are deeply concerned that more than three years since the outbreak of the financial and macroeconomic crisis that highlighted the pitfalls, limitations, dangers and responsibilities of main-stream thought in economics, finance and management, the quasi-monopolistic position of such thought within the academic world nevertheless remains largely unchallenged. This situation reflects the institutional power that the unconditional proponents of main-stream thought continue to exert on university teaching and research. This domination, propagated by the so-called top universities, dates back at least a quarter of a century and is effectively global. However, the very fact that this paradigm persists despite the current crisis, highlights the extent of its power and the dangerousness of its dogmatic character. Teachers and researchers, the signatories of the appeal, assert that this situation restricts the fecundity of research and teaching in economics, finance and management, diverting them as it does from issues critical to society."

So, without an ability to incrementally improve, then we are more like to get occasional huge blowbacks and wars and such... And big failures. Which is your point.

In case you hadn't noticed, everything is a felony these days.

But I agree that a second conviction for theft should carry a very long sentence. Many crimes are crimes of passion, committed under circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated - and many more "crimes" are not really crimes at all - but theft has real victims and thieves have a very high recidivism rate. If there is one crime that we should punish with very long vacations from polite society, it should be theft.

but safety aside small reactors are not very efficient or cheap

- yes, and the early computers weren't efficient or cheap. We need innovation in this area obviously, it won't come as long as governments are standing in the way of people trying to improve in this industry.

I dunno bout you, but I don't trust my neighbor to build a nuclear reactor in his back yard. YOUR neighbors might be PhDs in physics, but mine is a hillbilly. Duct tape is not nuclear-rated AFIK.

He does a helluva tuneup on my truck, though...

You sure about that? http://www.amazon.com/3M-8979N-Performance-Nuclear-Slate/dp/B000NG3ZKI

The prerequisites to making the switch is first and most importantly having an appropriate business case for OLAP. The second prerequisite is that you've tried doing analytics in a traditional RDMS, perhaps jumped on to the NoSQL bandwagon, and you've failed at it (i.e. success for a little while but then your data eventually brings your queries down to its knees). Don't worry, failure isn't necessarily wrong, it's just you and your team needed the experience before you could make the next leap.

The risks are a knowledge jump in to an OLAP mindset from a traditional SQL mindset. Invest in you and your fellow developer's knowledge. Push back on management and sales when they want more immediate results and let them know that it will take 3-5 months to replace your current system. Do your proper technology evaluations. Learn FoodMart and Adventureworks and let them guide you down the path of good fact and dimension design. Don't snub your nose at Microsoft as they absorbed the company in the 80's that basically pioneered this stuff and made billions, but also don't take their stuff too literally as there are several products out there and some that do things better.

Read The Data Warehouse Toolkit thoroughly and practice using Mondrian which is an open source Java OLAP engine that can sit on top of PostgreSQL, MySQL, and others. Find a good ETL tool rather than trying to write your own at first and don't be afraid to force your internal users to use this tool to create their facts. Don't worry if you don't get it the first time, but keep trying and keep discussing with your fellow developers as it takes a team to work out all the kinks. Later on you'll probably end up seeing how you did things wrong, but hopefully you can get most things right in the beginning.

"All that can be done in a rational world is to oppose the hate when it makes itself manifest by its vile actions."

It's a little more complex than that. One can ask:
* What dysfunction leads to the hate, and can it be fixed before the hate manifests itself?
* If the hate is there, how can one prevent it from being acted on by the context around the hate?
* If the hate is being acted on, how can one respond to it effectively, given that acts claimed to be justified against those who hate can themselves be hateful and/or cause more hate?

All too often, the response to hate creates more hate. And violence begets violence. Dysfunction spreads like a disease. If one sees hate and violence as like a disease, what is the right response to it? One set of idea:
"Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World"
http://www.amazon.com/Creating-True-Peace-Violence-Community/dp/0743245202

In general, as a society, how can we move beyond black/white thinking, to thinking in color?
http://www.anwot.org/

Still, there remains truth in your point, that there are people who hate, who are damaged, and others need to figure out how to respond to that situation (even if the haters are responding in kind to previous hate). It's a big challenge. And there is often a conflict, that the permissive policies that sometimes might prevent hate might allow existing hate to persist. It's not an easy thing to deal with.

A general field can be seen as Peace Making. Morton Deutsch outlines some ideas here:
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audiodisplay/deutsch-m

Dealing with hate and dysfunction is a core theme of some North Eastern Native American culture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadodaho
http://www.amazon.com/Become-Human-Being-Tadodaho-Shenandoah/dp/1571743413

Ultimately, as Mr. Fred Rogers says, it's OK to have negative emotions like anger. The issue is what we do with them...
http://pbskids.org/rogers/songLyricsWhatDoYouDo.html

"All that can be done in a rational world is to oppose the hate when it makes itself manifest by its vile actions."

It's a little more complex than that. One can ask:
* What dysfunction leads to the hate, and can it be fixed before the hate manifests itself?
* If the hate is there, how can one prevent it from being acted on by the context around the hate?
* If the hate is being acted on, how can one respond to it effectively, given that acts claimed to be justified against those who hate can themselves be hateful and/or cause more hate?

All too often, the response to hate creates more hate. And violence begets violence. Dysfunction spreads like a disease. If one sees hate and violence as like a disease, what is the right response to it? One set of idea:
"Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World"
http://www.amazon.com/Creating-True-Peace-Violence-Community/dp/0743245202

In general, as a society, how can we move beyond black/white thinking, to thinking in color?
http://www.anwot.org/

Still, there remains truth in your point, that there are people who hate, who are damaged, and others need to figure out how to respond to that situation (even if the haters are responding in kind to previous hate). It's a big challenge. And there is often a conflict, that the permissive policies that sometimes might prevent hate might allow existing hate to persist. It's not an easy thing to deal with.

A general field can be seen as Peace Making. Morton Deutsch outlines some ideas here:
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audiodisplay/deutsch-m

Dealing with hate and dysfunction is a core theme of some North Eastern Native American culture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadodaho
http://www.amazon.com/Become-Human-Being-Tadodaho-Shenandoah/dp/1571743413

Ultimately, as Mr. Fred Rogers says, it's OK to have negative emotions like anger. The issue is what we do with them...
http://pbskids.org/rogers/songLyricsWhatDoYouDo.html

Shall I assume you're referring to "Irish Drinking Song" by Buck-O-Nine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck-O-Nine#1994_to_1996

http://www.amazon.com/Irish-Drinking-Song/dp/B002EIUDEO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1326585393&sr=8-3

Absolutely not - but it would exacerbate the problem of overpopulation, at least until we learn to terraform other planets and/or live in space.

One of the points made in Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy beginning with Red Mars is that even with things like multiple space elevators, you'd never be able to move more people off the planet than are being born everywhere on it. The colonization of space is not a solution for population pressures.