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"According to the geologic record, global warming is almost universally beneficial to life."

Another extinction event, the Permian - Triassic (P-Tr), some 251 MYA, is informally known as 'the Great Dying.' Up to 96 percent of all marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial species were erased as global ecosystems crumbled. Life itself nearly died - and Peter Ward makes a compelling case in "Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future" that global warming was the primary culprit.

So true. And it's sad your post got modded down as Troll, since you are 100% right on, and whoever did that is probably caught up in the ideology behind monstrosity that is modern schooling (of course, most private schools are little better). Escalante failed to make large changes and was taken down by the institution because, ultimately, he was doing what should not be done in schools -- get poor people to think and climb out of their assigned class in life. More supportive links:

Gatto:
    "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling"
    http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Schooling/dp/086571231X
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"""
Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there.
"""

Illich:
    http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-illic.htm
    http://reactor-core.org/deschooling.html

John Holt:
    http://www.holtgws.com/

Collections of links by me on this:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

Why not just give the school money directly to the parents as they see fit to take care of their children? One proposal (by me):
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html

Yeah, but they usually claim that the higher-numbered dimensions are probably small enough to be insignificant at our scale.

Also, I thought Peter Woit made a compelling argument in Not Even Wrong that string theory is beautiful math, but since it cannot be used to produce a testable theory, it's not science, and we're probably stuck with the 3 dimensions we all know and love.

and I really think it is worth making.

Copyright protections are important, the snippet of text that google uses to let people know my site is relevant is easily fair use
I don't have a problem with it- I welcome it as it's beneficial for both myself and google for it to be there.

the ENTIRE TEXT of my site- copied and recopied to put into a web page that exists only to generate ad-sense revenue by a third party is not.
and if robots.txt had a 'license' mode, I'd have a much stronger case of protections if I chose to pursue a blatant copying and re-publication of my site.

robots.txt labels that I wish there were include
'allow function:indexing'
'disallow function:total and complete reproduction'
'disallow function: total and complete reproduction for XXX days'
(so I can allow wayback machine and equivalents'
'disallow function: aggregate data collection'
'disallow function: user data collection'
'disallow function: email collection'

looking at amazon, http://www.amazon.com/robots.txt
they somewhat do this by putting the information they don't want into the wild in it's own directories
then disallowing those directories- actually, now that I look at it- it's a neat way to go..
but I'd still prefer a robots.txt option that different 'intended use of data to be crawled' permissions covered

Basically someone took this idea, and imagined what it would be like if there were a 4th spatial dimension we were unaware of (physics has however shown us that there isn't one). If someone pushed a 4d Cube (or hypercube) through our 3d plane, what would we see? Nothing at first, then a cube show up, then it grows into its full size, then shrink back down, and disappear.

See also Spaceland by Rudy Rucker.

Or you could buy them. I know it sounds crazy, but we can actually do that now!

Or you could buy them. I know it sounds crazy, but we can actually do that now!

Nothing in this article is new, I do not know of what CT study you speak but these issues are thoroughly studied yet mocked, unknown, misunderstood by the layman and politician. Generally. Tom Vandervilt's "Traffic" covers all this, thoroughly, Though Is till WHOLEHEARTEDLY DISAGREE with his notion that 'Left Lane is for passing' enforcement yields trivial flow improvements. I live in NYC and man! I wanna vaporize the fuckers that hog the left lane with ~20 car lengths ahead of them and 10, 20 miles under the flow speed. In road rage they _slam_ the brakes when you flash them---I mean hard lock braking. WTF, you made out of marshmallows, dude? How illogical, but irrational, entitled road rage. *sigh*

Think of the things mntioned in the piece as friction to speed. Think about it, when you are on a desolate road you speed, if that road suddenly has parked cars you SENSE your velocity and you tend to slow. It's natural to disconnect from your physical surroundings. Trees! do the same trick, and are known to slow flow. Increasing the proximity, i.e., reducing the setback of homes to road creates friction, again. Think about it. You've been on roads where the setback is 75-100 feet, e.g., Los Angeles County, and you flow speed increases. Why? I can see way ahead I can brake if some stuff happens, but these are residentail areas and sooner or later pedestrians will cross the road and they will be strcuk with greater kinetic energy, increasing the likelihood of death, death rates rise disproportionally per capita, the local road becomes extremely hazardous to venture near, etc. This is known to transportation industry insiders, yet you are unaware.

I'll blow your mind to a great degree. Did you know that in Denmark (I don't think that it's in Holland, but) the goal is to remove all signage! All traffic lights! All traffic barriers! ALL! And get this even to remove sidewalks! SHIT, my Gad, those Danes are fucking suicidal. Empirical data all show, experience shows you would be Completely wrong. The cities, villages, highway off ramps become safer. Why? Speed friction, IOW, again, psychological drag on the human tendency to speed, to disconnect from our physical surroundings. Why that? Because we are a bipedal race, we have been achieving these incredible feats of speed, en masse, whithin the last 100 years. This our mental, experiential, cognitive makeup has not evolutionarily developed to these new challenges.

BTW did you also know that roundabouts, more common in Europe, are statiscally MUCH safer than traffic-lighted intersections? Why? Note, roundabouts have no traffic lighting, no flow signage, therefore they demand ATTENTION from the driver, and it is this attention to flow, the required decision making that activated the great safety device of all, the stuff between your ears. Your brain. Hence, the Denmark approach. Encountering an intersection where you could crash if inattentive, you approach attentively. When you enter a town, a village without sidewalks and you see children, dogs playing inches from the road-sidewalk you slow, you pay attention. When you want to cross the street to go from the patisserie to the chocolatier you could enter the roundabout walking backward without looking back because you know everyone in the busy roundabout is attentively navigating the traffic, are in slow speed having been bedragged to it by the lack of signage, lights, sidewalks, barriers between people and cars, etc.

All the examples I have given you are not manufactured they are documented, heavily! See "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)" by Tom Vanderbilt ( http://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Drive-What-Says-About/dp/0307264785 ). Blog is at http://www.howwedrive.com/ . It's fascinating stuff.

Did you know that after a street bike lane has been painted motorists will drive with much less distance from a bicyclist. I sensed that before I saw the facts, but

...may I recommend:
"The Cartoon Guide to Physics"
http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Guide-Physics-Larry-Gonick/dp/0062731009
Which is a fun and easy introduction. It's good for introducing your kids to physics, too!

It was so surreal to see this as the most recent headline on Slashdot - two minutes before, I'd finished listening to the audio version of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," which touches on issues surrounding genetic research and the unfortunate incursion of capitalism into tissue storage and research. The book itself is a fascinating mix of science and history, but the Afterword is all about the commercialism of genetic research and the obstacles it's introducing to scientific progress. Who owns human tissues and the research advances that come from them: the patients, the researchers, or the scientific community and the world? More information about the book can be found here: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I was dismayed to learn that it would cost millions to test one individual for all known genetic diseases, not because of inherent costs of the technology but because of all the patents and licensing fees. I hope that today's positive ruling cascades in positive ways to other realms of gene patenting and unthrottles scientific progress.

In the Documentary Super Size Me, several Doctor's noted the same behavior and stated that Fatty Foods found in Fast Food restaurants (McDonald's in this example) were equal to cocaine in terms of addiction.

In the documentary Fat Head, they refute the notion put forth in SuperSize Me that the fat causes addiction, and establish that it is in fact the carbohydrates in the sodas and the french fries that causes all the metabolic damage and addiction.

And it was Kip Thorne's book Black Holes and Time Warps. Fantastic book targeted at the layperson with many of the examples described in this review as well. Except it was written 1995. 5 star reviews on amazon. what more can i say? How about a forward from Hawking. It has that too. http://www.amazon.com/Black-Holes-Time-Warps-Commonwealth/dp/0393312763/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269906159&sr=8-1

Related to mental illness: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
Also lack of community:
http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Americas-Depression-Epidemic-Community/dp/1933392711
Also poor diet:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/17/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime

It's not really the Amazon price - they don't have it in stock. It's a marketplace seller who says the following: "New - Out-of-Print and VERY rare title to find in new condition".

I didn't think it was all that rare but the last time I read it was in 2000 and borrowed from the university library so I might be mistaken. I guess if you really can't find a lower price, I'd just check out the movie with Kate Winslet ;-).

Here's the link to the UK version (if you don't mind paying international shipping) - it's just under 7 pounds (not lbs. right? lol). The used hardcover (US site - another marketplace seller) is from $15 (go figure) here - http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0671492071/ref=dp_olp_1

Happy reads!

Wow, you really need to get a handle on what's important. What's important is this: are your employees getting their job done? That is, are they getting a reasonable amount of work done in a reasonable amount of time? That is what you paid them for, if they are doing it, then it doesn't matter if they spend half their time on Facebook. You should know approximately how long the tasks you give them should take, and only worry if they are not achieving that. If you feel a need to micro-manage how exactly they do it, then you are wasting both your time and theirs.

This is a great book for getting your employees to become autonomous 'members of the team' that you don't have to constantly worry about prodding as if they were cattle. If you are working in a company that is more like an assembly line, this book may be more appropriate.

But you should be all working towards a similar goal. That is where you find something that is truly synergy, not just a buzzword. If you aren't working as a team, you need to change stuff until you are. And your comment is a clear symptom that you're not working as a team.

Wow, you really need to get a handle on what's important. What's important is this: are your employees getting their job done? That is, are they getting a reasonable amount of work done in a reasonable amount of time? That is what you paid them for, if they are doing it, then it doesn't matter if they spend half their time on Facebook. You should know approximately how long the tasks you give them should take, and only worry if they are not achieving that. If you feel a need to micro-manage how exactly they do it, then you are wasting both your time and theirs.

This is a great book for getting your employees to become autonomous 'members of the team' that you don't have to constantly worry about prodding as if they were cattle. If you are working in a company that is more like an assembly line, this book may be more appropriate.

But you should be all working towards a similar goal. That is where you find something that is truly synergy, not just a buzzword. If you aren't working as a team, you need to change stuff until you are. And your comment is a clear symptom that you're not working as a team.

Another great book on physics for the uninitiated is Isaac Asimov's non-fiction book, Understanding Physics. Even after all these decades, it's still a fantastic book, and a surprisingly easy read.

The "Rat Park" experiment showed that addictive behavior results from stress.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
"""
Rat Park was a study into drug addiction conducted in the late 1970s (and published in 1980), by Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.
    Alexander's hypothesis was that drugs do not cause addiction, and that the apparent addiction to opiate drugs commonly observed in laboratory rats exposed to it is attributable to their living conditions, and not to any addictive property of the drug itself. [1] He told the Canadian Senate in 2001 that prior experiments in which laboratory rats were kept isolated in cramped metal cages, tethered to a self-injection apparatus, show only that "severely distressed animals, like severely distressed people, will relieve their distress pharmacologically if they can." [2]
    To test his hypothesis, Alexander built Rat Park, a 8.8 m2 (95 sq ft) housing colony, 200 times the square footage of a standard laboratory cage. There were 16-20 rats of both sexes in residence, an abundance of food, balls and wheels for play, and enough space for mating and raising litters. [3] The results of the experiment appeared to support his hypothesis. Rats who had been forced to consume morphine hydrochloride for 57 consecutive days were brought to Rat Park and given a choice between plain tap water and water laced with morphine. For the most part, they chose the plain water. "Nothing that we tried," Alexander wrote, "... produced anything that looked like addiction in rats that were housed in a reasonably normal environment." [1] Control groups of rats isolated in small cages consumed much more morphine in this and several subsequent experiments.
    The two major science journals, Science and Nature, rejected Alexander, Coambs, and Hadaway's first paper, which appeared instead in Psychopharmacology, a respectable but much smaller journal in 1978. The paper's publication initially attracted no response. [4] Within a few years, Simon Fraser University withdrew Rat Park's funding.
"""

Many people in today's industrialized society are under a lot of stress. Creating healthier communities may help reduce addictive behavior. One example of how to do that is here:
    "About the AARP/Bluezones Vitality Project"
    http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about

Another is here:
    "Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy"
  http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C

Vitamin D deficiency from being indoors too much also contributes to obesity and depression.
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

For more on breaking out of a "pleasure trap" leading to obesity, see these:
    http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/PleasureTrap.htm
    http://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Trap-Mastering-Undermines-Happiness/dp/1570671508
    http://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848X

The "Rat Park" experiment showed that addictive behavior results from stress.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
"""
Rat Park was a study into drug addiction conducted in the late 1970s (and published in 1980), by Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.
    Alexander's hypothesis was that drugs do not cause addiction, and that the apparent addiction to opiate drugs commonly observed in laboratory rats exposed to it is attributable to their living conditions, and not to any addictive property of the drug itself. [1] He told the Canadian Senate in 2001 that prior experiments in which laboratory rats were kept isolated in cramped metal cages, tethered to a self-injection apparatus, show only that "severely distressed animals, like severely distressed people, will relieve their distress pharmacologically if they can." [2]
    To test his hypothesis, Alexander built Rat Park, a 8.8 m2 (95 sq ft) housing colony, 200 times the square footage of a standard laboratory cage. There were 16-20 rats of both sexes in residence, an abundance of food, balls and wheels for play, and enough space for mating and raising litters. [3] The results of the experiment appeared to support his hypothesis. Rats who had been forced to consume morphine hydrochloride for 57 consecutive days were brought to Rat Park and given a choice between plain tap water and water laced with morphine. For the most part, they chose the plain water. "Nothing that we tried," Alexander wrote, "... produced anything that looked like addiction in rats that were housed in a reasonably normal environment." [1] Control groups of rats isolated in small cages consumed much more morphine in this and several subsequent experiments.
    The two major science journals, Science and Nature, rejected Alexander, Coambs, and Hadaway's first paper, which appeared instead in Psychopharmacology, a respectable but much smaller journal in 1978. The paper's publication initially attracted no response. [4] Within a few years, Simon Fraser University withdrew Rat Park's funding.
"""

Many people in today's industrialized society are under a lot of stress. Creating healthier communities may help reduce addictive behavior. One example of how to do that is here:
    "About the AARP/Bluezones Vitality Project"
    http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about

Another is here:
    "Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy"
  http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C

Vitamin D deficiency from being indoors too much also contributes to obesity and depression.
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

For more on breaking out of a "pleasure trap" leading to obesity, see these:
    http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/PleasureTrap.htm
    http://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Trap-Mastering-Undermines-Happiness/dp/1570671508
    http://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848X

The news article uses the headline "fatty foods" but that simply reflects the cultural bias against fat.

And the article also reflects the bias that everything begins in the brain. Check out this researcher's faculty page. He's obviously focused on the brain exclusively.

But seminal research like Good Calories Bad Calories shows us that the reactions are mediated by hormones. Brain effects follow the hormonal influence that makes us eat.

And carbohydrates, not fat, cause insulin release (and chronically elevated insulin levels in people who eat large amounts of carbs, i.e. almost everybody) which causes our cells to suck nutrients and glucose from our blood stream. This makes us hungry, so we eat more. And insulin causes our fat cells to store fat. Our liver converts fructose directly into fat. GCBC also provides a large amount of documented evidence that

Eating fat by itself causes no insulin response, and proteins have a much lower insulin response. Diets like the PaNu approach take advantage of this. The idea that saturated fat (which our bodies are composed of) is somehow bad for is is incredibly wrong. The modern research over the past 50 years that has got us to the deadly dietary guidelines that we still provide to diabetics today (low fat, high carb) is thoroughly researched in GCBC. I'd really recommend that anyone with an interest in this field (or just in losing weight) check out GCBC and PaNu.

As we come to understand more and more about neurology and genetic, an increasing amount of studies on human obesity are shifting from a genetic focus to a neurological focus.

Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner and someone who has struggled with weight in his own life, has an excellent book out called The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. NPR has done some very good interviews with him.

He admits that he started his study expecting to head down the road of genetics. But he found the research and data kept pointing him to the brain instead. One interesting tidbit from his research: They did a study where they had a group of people, some overweight and some normal weight, and asked each person to identify their favorite snack or dessert. They would then place each person individually in a room with large portions of their favorite food. What they found was that everybody, upon seeing their favorite snack/dessert, had the same neurological response (endorphin-like response). But what was interesting was that for those who weren't overweight this response ended after they ate enough to be filled. For those who were overweight, they found that the brain didn't stop producing this response until the food was completely gone.

Dr. Kessler, as well as many more scientists, are starting to focus more on obesity from a sociological and behavioral angle than a genetic angle. He keeps mentioning how obesity has more to do with the relationship people have with food than anything else (and focuses a lot on what kind of relationship we are teaching our children to have with food).

Of course, genetics are still important. But not as much as we've initially thought it to be.

A lot of it is laid out in the most excellent trilogy by the historian Peter Levenda, entitled Sinister Forces, a Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft. [. . .] It's a pretty hard book to find, but it's worth the effort for the wild ride.

Yeah man, that was TOUGH.

How can they sell something with a certain set of features and then just take it away? I know, it didn't really work all that well....

1 Because the feature was never advertised and never of interest to the PS3's core market of console gamers?

2 Because the combination of Internet enabled HD video game console + Blu Ray player is beginning to look like a winner?

God of War III is the number one best seller in console video games at Amazon.com. It's a Sony product and a PS3 "exclusive."

The only way to make money in mass market consumer technologies is in mass market consumer sales. "Feel Good" doesn't pay the bills.

with the desert.

A search of Amazon might help.

Cheers,
Yours In Astrakhan,
K. Trout

I was going to suggest wrapping the body (sans monitor) of the Notebook in Saran wrap but so that you can still fold it up and get to the ports/power_button. The keyboard seems to be the biggest weakness. Don't use it. Instead, get one of those cheap, flexible ones such as this and plug it into the USB:

http://www.amazon.com/Adesso-Flexible-Compact-Keyboard-AKB-220/dp/B000XYL55M

The OLPC XO-1 also has such a keyboard integrated, IIRC.

I don't know Leiss, but you remind me of a science fiction title by L.E. Modesitt, Jr called "Octagonal Raven."

In it, mixed in with the main character's action sequences and his day job doing analysis for advertisers, is a story of a world where gene tweaked brains give you better reasoning ability, and the upper crust are trying to restrict access to politics and top schools to gene tweaked people (note the poor, as always, can't afford it and are left out), which means that the whole system is looking like it's about to get a whole lot more insular.

Good book, good author. I recommend it if you're interested.

I can't believe I'm not seeing more Boxee setups. I have had mine running great for a few months now, next month it will pay for itself.

Between Boxee's TV shows, my HD tuners recording over the air, and Netflix Streaming there isn't a single show I used to get via cable that I can't watch directly through Boxee now. In addition, there's cool stuff I've found through Boxee like EarthTouch and Revision3.

Here is the setup:

HD antenna in my upstairs bedroom, using the existing coaxial in my house to get the signal to the basement ($40)
http://www.amazon.com/RCA-ANT1650-Digital-Amplified-Antenna/dp/B0027FGW3K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1269666138&sr=8-2

HDHomerun network capture card ($120)
http://www.amazon.com/SiliconDust-HDHomeRun-HDHR-US-Definition-Television/dp/B0010Y414Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1269666182&sr=1-1

GB-PVR on a Windows machine or MythTV on Linux/Mac to record up to two shows at once (free)

1 TB networked USB drive to store recorded/burned/downloaded shows/movies ($100)
http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-Prestige-Desktop-External-34275/dp/B001D7REJ4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1269666279&sr=1-1

Existing windows/mac/linux box to run Boxee on (free to cheap). I found it pretty simple to hook up my Macbook Pro but am looking forward to the Boxee Box coming out soon.

If you have an iphone/touch you can use it as a networked controller for Boxee, which is cool and seems to impress people. Having pandora on the TV is also really nice. Since I'm running on the Macbook I can pick up and move it upstairs at any time, and the whole system is available from any networked computer in our house with Boxee installed. And to top it all off I can get live HD TV on any of those computers because the HD Homerun is networked!

Anyway it's ****ing awesome. : )

All this for $260 and starting next month I will be saving approximately $60/month on cable bills.

I can't believe I'm not seeing more Boxee setups. I have had mine running great for a few months now, next month it will pay for itself.

Between Boxee's TV shows, my HD tuners recording over the air, and Netflix Streaming there isn't a single show I used to get via cable that I can't watch directly through Boxee now. In addition, there's cool stuff I've found through Boxee like EarthTouch and Revision3.

Here is the setup:

HD antenna in my upstairs bedroom, using the existing coaxial in my house to get the signal to the basement ($40)
http://www.amazon.com/RCA-ANT1650-Digital-Amplified-Antenna/dp/B0027FGW3K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1269666138&sr=8-2

HDHomerun network capture card ($120)
http://www.amazon.com/SiliconDust-HDHomeRun-HDHR-US-Definition-Television/dp/B0010Y414Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1269666182&sr=1-1

GB-PVR on a Windows machine or MythTV on Linux/Mac to record up to two shows at once (free)

1 TB networked USB drive to store recorded/burned/downloaded shows/movies ($100)
http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-Prestige-Desktop-External-34275/dp/B001D7REJ4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1269666279&sr=1-1

Existing windows/mac/linux box to run Boxee on (free to cheap). I found it pretty simple to hook up my Macbook Pro but am looking forward to the Boxee Box coming out soon.

If you have an iphone/touch you can use it as a networked controller for Boxee, which is cool and seems to impress people. Having pandora on the TV is also really nice. Since I'm running on the Macbook I can pick up and move it upstairs at any time, and the whole system is available from any networked computer in our house with Boxee installed. And to top it all off I can get live HD TV on any of those computers because the HD Homerun is networked!

Anyway it's ****ing awesome. : )

All this for $260 and starting next month I will be saving approximately $60/month on cable bills.

I can't believe I'm not seeing more Boxee setups. I have had mine running great for a few months now, next month it will pay for itself.

Between Boxee's TV shows, my HD tuners recording over the air, and Netflix Streaming there isn't a single show I used to get via cable that I can't watch directly through Boxee now. In addition, there's cool stuff I've found through Boxee like EarthTouch and Revision3.

Here is the setup:

HD antenna in my upstairs bedroom, using the existing coaxial in my house to get the signal to the basement ($40)
http://www.amazon.com/RCA-ANT1650-Digital-Amplified-Antenna/dp/B0027FGW3K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1269666138&sr=8-2

HDHomerun network capture card ($120)
http://www.amazon.com/SiliconDust-HDHomeRun-HDHR-US-Definition-Television/dp/B0010Y414Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1269666182&sr=1-1

GB-PVR on a Windows machine or MythTV on Linux/Mac to record up to two shows at once (free)

1 TB networked USB drive to store recorded/burned/downloaded shows/movies ($100)
http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-Prestige-Desktop-External-34275/dp/B001D7REJ4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1269666279&sr=1-1

Existing windows/mac/linux box to run Boxee on (free to cheap). I found it pretty simple to hook up my Macbook Pro but am looking forward to the Boxee Box coming out soon.

If you have an iphone/touch you can use it as a networked controller for Boxee, which is cool and seems to impress people. Having pandora on the TV is also really nice. Since I'm running on the Macbook I can pick up and move it upstairs at any time, and the whole system is available from any networked computer in our house with Boxee installed. And to top it all off I can get live HD TV on any of those computers because the HD Homerun is networked!

Anyway it's ****ing awesome. : )

All this for $260 and starting next month I will be saving approximately $60/month on cable bills.

Who modded this 'troll'? Are people not allowed to muse wonderingly anymore? Sheesh, some people need to unclench.

Personally, having been entirely fascinated with Turing and his work during my college years (from a mathematical point of view - the Entscheidungsproblem rather than CS), seeing an actual Turing machine sends shivers up my spine. Kudos!

For anyone interested in knowing more about this fascinating scientist, I recommend the book by Andrew Hodges.

The best route for maximum flexiability is a Media PC. Any PC will work, and any flavor of OS. I've used Windows and Mac PC's extensively. I haven't tried a Linux box yet, but I see no reason why those wouldn't serve just as well.

For Windows, nVidia drivers will give you overscan options out of the box. ATI isn't quite as user friendly (or it wasn't the last time I used their drivers, but that may have changed. The ones that do are excellent for clipping off the overscan so you get a nice edge to edge picture. If you want to do the tweaking at the driver/monitor level, PowerStrip is an excellent first place to start for PC for tweaking video frequencies and overscan/underscan.

For Mac, you'll want to look at SwitchResX which doe the same thing on the Mac side.

I'm sure folks can chime in on the Linux side of the equation.

For software, on the PC, I didn't do a lot of streaming, but I'd suggest starting with Plex, Hulu Desktop, and Boxbee for your web needs. Any browser will of course also work for the web content, but the one's with the 'full screen' option work best. For PC hardware, try to find a sound solution with either HDMI out (with Audio Support), or 5.1 optical out.

For Mac, I'd suggest the same software. Plex is especially handy since it will convert AAC to AC3 on the fly, meaning you get multi-channel AC3 output to your tuner without any special tools or tweaks needed. For hardware, all macs come with a TOSLINK Fiber/Analog dual combo port, so you can just pipe out optical digital audio on just about any Mac.

as if you could place a price on Shakespeare or a price-tag on Emily Dickinsons' poems.

Shakespeare : $26.40

Emily Dickinson : $14.95

as if you could place a price on Shakespeare or a price-tag on Emily Dickinsons' poems.

Shakespeare : $26.40

Emily Dickinson : $14.95

"Combined with the allegations of vote fraud and voter suppression in opposition neighborhoods"

Except lets not mention the history of plunder of south america by americans and various peoples of the world shall we? Nor the constant lies and misinformation the US constantly puts out about Venezuela.

http://www.amazon.com/Open-Veins-Latin-America-Centuries/dp/0853459908/

http://www.amazon.com/Wilson-Electronics-SIGNALBOOST-1850-1990-Amplifier/dp/B0014KRW4M/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=wireless&qid=1269561834&sr=8-7

Amazon.com, same item with 3 good reviews.

They can be hit and miss, especially if you buy low price range versions, but when set up properly these can be a life saver. This is just one of the cheaper ones I found with a quick search. Ive seen the benefits of a little more industrial version and was amazed; especially in the environment I was in. I understand you were looking for affordable, but if you consider a one time investment on an encompassing RF range at least you wont have to ever make the payments to your cell provider if you were to change a plan or change providers. Hope this helps..

This is the ultimate wireless card, minus the fact that it doesn't support Wireless N. The range on this thing is INSANE, and if you are so inclined you can change out the already great antenna for something else.

If you are having problems with being too far away from your router, aren't using Wireless N, and you have a desktop, I wouldn't recommend any other card.

Ok, so per your argument, Apple hasn't "created wealth" with the iPhone, they've really just created an "iPhone scarcity"? Someone had better tell Steve Jobs and Apple shareholders this...

While I'm not a fan of patent trolls, economics is not a zero sum game and wealth is most definitely something that can be created (or destroyed). Here's some reading for you to start fixing your woeful lack of education on this subject: http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-3rd-Ed-Economy/dp/0465002609

Necron69

This is the book I pull out every time I need to teach or tutor something in math below about linear algebra, calculus, or about half of college algebra:
Mathematics From the Birth of Numbers
It has a few mistakes due to lack of imagination, for example the proposed number system for the caveman is more capable than the author imagines. Anyway it's a fabulous teaching tool and a fairly fun read besides.

Nathan Myhrvold is a friend of Bill Gates. They wrote a book together, The Road Ahead.

It seems to me that abusiveness is their business. They feel they have to be against something to make money. They scrupulously avoid doing something positive.

The book was an example of that. It was amazing. It seemed as though several editors went through the book carefully and removed any information that might be of interest. I say that because I don't think anyone could write a rough draft of such a long book that was entirely free of anything useful.

The book mentioned is copyrighted:

© Michele Bouldrin and Daniel K. Levine 2008.
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exemption and the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

If you're really curious about this answer, there are some interesting books that discuss the reasons for interpersonal ambiguity (aka 'dishonesty') and how that gives people (of both sexes) both more negotiation room and better options for negotiation. A few really worthwhile books:

Promiscuity: an evolutionary history of sperm competition by Tim Birkhead, talks very little about humans but discusses (in great detail) how and why out-of-relationship and non-relationship sexual contact can benefit different reproductive strategies.

The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life by Robert Wright, which talks about how often our behavior seems to contradict our professed beliefs but how very well it matches evolutionarily successful mating strategies, and

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker, especially the second-to-last chapter which specifically addresses how ambiguity can be modelled in game theory to show huge advantages to people who use it skilfully.

In short, what people say they want isn't always what they want, but they often don't know that. They're unconsciously using successful strategies they don't actually understand, because we seem to instinctively know what works and what doesn't. In this specific case, there are many animals with mating strategies similar to humans, where females who aren't a male's primary partner benefit heavily from providing sexual access to, and receiving resources (money, food...) from, the males in question.

If you're really curious about this answer, there are some interesting books that discuss the reasons for interpersonal ambiguity (aka 'dishonesty') and how that gives people (of both sexes) both more negotiation room and better options for negotiation. A few really worthwhile books:

Promiscuity: an evolutionary history of sperm competition by Tim Birkhead, talks very little about humans but discusses (in great detail) how and why out-of-relationship and non-relationship sexual contact can benefit different reproductive strategies.

The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life by Robert Wright, which talks about how often our behavior seems to contradict our professed beliefs but how very well it matches evolutionarily successful mating strategies, and

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker, especially the second-to-last chapter which specifically addresses how ambiguity can be modelled in game theory to show huge advantages to people who use it skilfully.

In short, what people say they want isn't always what they want, but they often don't know that. They're unconsciously using successful strategies they don't actually understand, because we seem to instinctively know what works and what doesn't. In this specific case, there are many animals with mating strategies similar to humans, where females who aren't a male's primary partner benefit heavily from providing sexual access to, and receiving resources (money, food...) from, the males in question.

If you're really curious about this answer, there are some interesting books that discuss the reasons for interpersonal ambiguity (aka 'dishonesty') and how that gives people (of both sexes) both more negotiation room and better options for negotiation. A few really worthwhile books:

Promiscuity: an evolutionary history of sperm competition by Tim Birkhead, talks very little about humans but discusses (in great detail) how and why out-of-relationship and non-relationship sexual contact can benefit different reproductive strategies.

The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life by Robert Wright, which talks about how often our behavior seems to contradict our professed beliefs but how very well it matches evolutionarily successful mating strategies, and

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker, especially the second-to-last chapter which specifically addresses how ambiguity can be modelled in game theory to show huge advantages to people who use it skilfully.

In short, what people say they want isn't always what they want, but they often don't know that. They're unconsciously using successful strategies they don't actually understand, because we seem to instinctively know what works and what doesn't. In this specific case, there are many animals with mating strategies similar to humans, where females who aren't a male's primary partner benefit heavily from providing sexual access to, and receiving resources (money, food...) from, the males in question.

I recommend Andre Agassi's bio "Open" to anyone who thinks that being a professional athlete is just a matter of having fun.

Here's a guy with natural talent who still had to bust his ass to the point of breaking and even then, age caught up with him.

You're refutation was itself refuted, quite comprehensively long, long ago. Try to keep up.

If author Bill Geerhart can fake being a child when he punks the rich and famous, surely someone can fake being a child to this software.

It's only a matter of time before there are "how to type like a fill-in-the-blank" HOWTOs out there on the interwebs.

$500 high-purity copper wire AUDIO cable
And now for the Customer Reviews:
A caution to people buying these: if you do not follow the "directional markings" on the cables, your music will play backwards. Please check that before mentioning it in your reviews.
I was disappointed. I consider myself an audiophile - I regularly spend over $1000 on cables to get the ultimate sound. I keep my music-listening room in a Faraday cage to prevent any interference that could alter my music-listening experience. Sending any signal down ordinary copper can degrade the signal considerably. While ordinary listeners might not notice, to somebody with even a rudimentary knowledge of sound, the artifacts are glaring. Denon should have used silver wiring (hermetically sealed inside the rubber sheath to prevent any tarnishing, of course), which has a significantly higher conductivity than copper. Furthermore, Denon needs to treat the wires they use in the cable with a polarity inductor to ensure minimal phase variance.
Needless to say, I returned the cable and wrote an angry letter to the so-called engineers at Denon.
_____
I knew my day was going to improve when the truck pulled up at my home with this cable deep within. No ordinary truck, this one was Holy White, and the gold Delivery logo sparkled like a thousand suns reflected through shards of the purest ice formed with unadulterated water collected at the beginning of the universe. The driver, clad in a robe colored the softest of white, floated towards me on the cool fog of a hundred fire extinguishers. He smiled benevolently, like a father looking down upon his only child, and handed me a package wrapped in gold beaten thin to the point where you could see through it. I didn't have to sign, because the driver could see within my heart, and knew that I was pure. Upon opening the package, an angelic choir started to sing, and reached a crescendo as I laid this cable on my stereo system. Instantly, my antiquated equipment transformed into components made from the clearest diamond-semiconductor. The cable knew where to go, and hooked itself into the correct ports without help from me - all the while, the choir sang praises to the almighty digital god. With trepidation, I pushed "play," and was instantly enveloped in a sound that echoed the creation of all matter, a sound that vibrated every cell in my body to perfection. I was instantly taken to the next plane, where I saw the all-father. I knew with my entire soul, that all was good in the world.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.

Thank you for the well written response.

My problem is NOT with any person or corporation (although my belief that corporations having a special status via government charter is inherently evil) making a profit.

My problem is with the government controlling things via mandated coverage, mandated prescription drug coverage and every other government regulation which seeks to disconnect the price/benefit market mechanism between the consumer and the provider.

When the consumer no longer has to pay directly out of his pocket for care when it is delivered, he tends to not care as much about what the care costs because the insurance or the government will pay for it.

With insurance being mandated the consumer doesn't have a choice whether he gets the insurance or not so he tends to demand the best care his insurance will pay for. Doctors are more than happy to provide the most expensive treatments whether they are of any great benefit or not. There are lots of procedures and expensive tests which are of little benefit and may actually cause more harm. Doctors aren't perfect and they want to cover their behinds in case of the all to common malpractice lawsuits.

And I haven't even scratched the surface of the rapacious prices for drugs from Big Pharma.

The FDA bears a large part of the blame for high medical costs.

My main point is simply that government intervention has the unintended consequence of driving up costs.

As to what my recommendations are for fixing the problem if you haven't already guessed it, deregulate the medical industry and abolish the FDA completely. Remove the corporate shield that makes it impossible to sue the actual people who own the large corporations for malpractice and their callous disregard for thew welfare of their customers (patients).

Non-profit's are great and we should have more of them. we used to have lots of them but then government intervention has reduced the number and effectiveness of non-profits across the board.

I would like suggest to anyone that they read this book; More Harm Than Good by Alan Zelicoff and Michael Bellomo.

http://www.amazon.com/More-Harm-Than-Good-Treatments/dp/0814400272/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269465093&sr=8-1

That's the one I was thinking of. There are also cloth or silicone keyboards that fold up and a virtual keyboard