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I had one of those TVs. It was an RCA something or other. I got it back in 2000. Advertised "sound logic audio leveler"right on the box. It made everything sound a bit softer (meaning I had to turn the volume up a bit more than usual), but perceived volume remained constant.

This wasn't the model, but it has the feature http://www.amazon.com/RCA-F36450-36-Inch-Diagonal-Television/dp/B00006F2JP

For $50, I'd probably opt for something along these lines:
-Fountain1
-Fountain2
-Fountain3

For $50, I'd probably opt for something along these lines:
-Fountain1
-Fountain2
-Fountain3

For $50, I'd probably opt for something along these lines:
-Fountain1
-Fountain2
-Fountain3

The fee isn't supposed to be paid per-transaction. The fee can be on the order of $1 per thousand transactions (paid up front, along with the transactions funded up front). If Amazon can charge $0.10 per million I/O requests on their cloud, then I don't see why the settling can't be done between micropayment providers just as well.

The only real holdup based on what you point out is the initial outlay to create the infrastructure before it is adopted. That will likely work the same as it did with Diner's Club, where it will serve a niche to begin with and only expand as the demand grows beyond that initial use.

There are places where the system is already being used, they just aren't wired for public exchange. Adsense/Adwords, Amazon's cloud (along with their recently unveiled bidding program for spot instances (see Amazon EC2 Spot Instances for the details)), and probably some music streaming services are already charging sub $1 prices on certain things. It is only a matter of time before that grows to include public exchange of monies.

The important thing to keep in mind is that it's not like a traditional exchange (and can't be due to the low amounts of money), but is more like a utility where you are billed on a monthly basis.

For a good read on the difficulties of tracking criminals through a global internet read The Cuckoo's Egg. It reads like a suspenseful spy novel but is entirely non-fiction.

Is this what you're looking for? Archos Android PMP

The way out of this is noise cancellation. That's available, and not all that expensive, but not standard. If players were required to have hardware support for noise-canceling earbuds, then the temptation to raise the output level would decline. You can get noise-canceling earbuds now, but they need an external unit with another battery and electronics to do the noise cancellation. If the cancellation electronics is moved to the player, where it should be, the overall cost will decline. Also, you get rid of the need for a second battery.

I've heard it said before that the only reason so many scientists get those dates is that they base them on assumptions. Assuming the earth is so many billion years old will get you a date that confirms your theories. Like, if you assume that a variable in an equation is a certain number, and depending on the number you assume you'll get a totally different answer than if you assumed a much larger or smaller number. Could someone confirm or deny (with evidence if possible) whether or not this is true for me? I'm very curious about this.

Read something like The Age of the Earth.

earmuffs? Maybe try some noise cancelling earphones? Tell him they cut out the background noise -- now if they also happen to play music as well as cancel noise?

Or get some Leightning L3 Earmuffs. About -29 to -31 dB depending on the sound. Wear those for a few weeks, then when they become of no notice, try some ear buds under them.

Refer your boss to the programming classic "Peopleware." Music does hurt your ability to solve certain coding problems, but for others it doesn't make any difference (mundane coding or data entry). So listen and turn it off when you need to think. Trouble is the other noise in cubicle land: phone calls, chit chat, socialites, loud meetings and other people with music turned up. When you need silence there is no escape. I listen to music to try to drown this crap out.

http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-Second/dp/0932633439

demanding that we do not use our music players at work

That's ok, don't take your music player, just take a regular amp and a couple of speakers and stream your music from your home PC so you (and everyone 2 blocks around) can listen some hardcore music (supposing you listen experimental breakcore).

http://www.amazon.com/Thames-Kosmos-Electronics-Workshop-1/dp/B001ALNDUM

Ever try one of these?. I can't sleep without some level of fuzz in the background, and this had done wonders for my sleep.

Woah, looks like Ballmer wrote a movie! The Amazing Flying Chair

So many science toys look cool in the store and suck when you actually try them out. The Air Hogs line is a great example of when function unfortunately follows form. So many of their toys look cool but have the aerodynamic qualities of a brick. This is not to say that they have not had some great products over the years. I run a science education company called Mad Science of MN so I buy and test a lot of toys for use as activities in my classes. Here are my suggestions. #1 Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 I have been using the mindstorms systems for many years now and they are amazing. You do need to have a minimum of computer knowledge to get them set up so the kids can use it. There are so many things you can do with these sets it is amazing. If they really like it you can get them involved with the FIRST Lego League and they can actually compete building robots. It is a bit expensive but it is worth twice the price. #2 Brain Box Electronics These are the same as the snap circuits mentioned in other posts. They are easy to assemble and the color coded directions are easy to read. This brand is a bit cheaper than the snap circuits. You can short out the batteries so you need a bit of supervision or things could get hot. http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Box-500-Electronic-Learning/dp/B000NBY318 #3 Just about anything from Stephen Spangler Science I love this guy. He knows how to make science fun. His kits often lack the flash of the junk on the shelf at Walmart but they have it where it counts. Get a geyser tube to do the diet coke and mentos fountain. Do it outdoors though or you might need a new ceiling. Check out his other kits and look at the class packs if you want to do an experiment with your kids classes. #4 The OWI Kabuto Mushi and the Robotic Arm Edge I have been using OWI robotic kits for my robotics summer camps for years now. The Kabuto Mushi would be perfect for the 9 year old. It runs around on tracks, with a gripper that can pick up and carry small objects. Best of all it is wirless IR with 8 different channels. The Edge arm is my new favorite. It is expertly designed and easy for younger kids to assemble with some adult help. Both are great parent kid projects and a lot of fun when you are done. Both of these really kick their imaginations into high gear. Check out OWIs other kits as well. Thanks Colin Mad Science of MN

Snap Circuits appear to be the modern equivalent of those old Radio Shack spring-and-wire kits you could buy in the 70's.

You can't buy home chemistry sets in the toy store any more, but this book tells you how to make your own: http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Experiments/dp/0596514921/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260568406&sr=8-1

If you get a microscope, don't buy one at the toystore. These are so gimped that kids can't see anything and will quickly lose interest. Look on eBay where in e.g. India you can buy solid professional grade microscopes for $100. Remember most microbes are transparent, so you either need darkfield cover (just a piece of plastic) and/or a small bottle of Methylene Blue solution otherwise they won't see the bacteria. Further suggestions: Hard to see single bacteria so also get a jar (a petri dish is better but anything with a lid is fine) and some agar (to grow bacteria in). Google is your friend.

Good luck, and kudos to you for getting some toys that will help your kids learn as opposed to the usual crap toy stores are full of these days.

Even better than TVs are computers! USB microscopes are pretty awesome, and laptops, unlike TVs, are portable. Plus, you can do more with the video once it's on a computer. Something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Digital-USB-Microscope-Video-Camera/dp/B0011E0IYW

Great for engineering and then for programming. There are also a number of cool books that can go along with the set.

What, you're some kind of cowardly puppeteer?

I guess this is where we should rope in the historians, sociologists, cultural studies professors and philosophers to do some meta-observations of the scientific community?

Only how much do we trust THEM?

The turtles have to stop somewhere.

Oh, and there also isn't such a thing as single monolithic SCIENCE!. There's Springer and Elsevier and various other "journal" companies with their abusive copyright policies, and then there's the editors of journals and the arXiv, who determine what can and can't be published, and then there's the quasi-professional pop-sci magazines like Scientific American and New Scientist, who determine what the broader scientific community should celebrate and what they should laugh at, and then there's big US federal money pools like NSF and DOE and DOD who determine what the big grants are, and then there's various universities, and then there's privately funded corporate labs (though probably not so many now as before WW2)... and they don't necessarily all agree.

(Book plug: "Tudedo Park" - http://www.amazon.com/Tuxedo-Park-Street-Science-Changed/dp/0684872889/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260490378&sr=8-1 - which talks about how privately funded SCIENCE! helped win WW2)

I think the first step is to admit that there isn't one SCIENCE! anymore but multiple competing sciences. One would think that interdisciplinary conferences would help, but a lot of those seem to be spamferences and frauds, so...

It's all a big mess really.

I think Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It is a good book on the patent system and its problems.

A simple book I read in university. It was pretty straight forward. Anyone who calls themselves a "Scientist" should ascribe to it. Those that don't should be called something else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

QUOTE:

"Among other facets shared by the various fields of inquiry is the conviction that the process be objective to reduce biased interpretations of the results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, thereby allowing other researchers the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established."

Crazy stuff eh?

LOL I can't find the exact book I read in university (it was a rather old one in the library), but I did find this one. Someone should seriously buy those jerks this for a Christmas gift:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Like-Scientist-Scientific/dp/0690045654/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260478099&sr=1-3

Do elaborate, please.

As you ask so kindly, I will.

Just how much science is bunk, anyway?

Most of astrophysics and climate science, about half of physics, and a small part of chemistry is bunk. Biology is not so much bunk as well as very incomplete.

How do you define the threshold of "most" science?

Science is being practiced within the interpretative context of accepted theories. When such a theory has been falsified, the whole edifice of scientific endeavor built on top of it should be discarded. I am basically looking at what fraction of a particular scientific field is built on top of falsified theory and thereby judge whether it is somewhat or mostly bunk.

What exactly is in the set of ideas you're labeling "science"?

In principle, I view science as the collection of knowledge derived using the scientific method. Science in the Popperian sense, that is. However, in my post I was referring to science as the practice that has emerged: a sadly human endeavor influenced by agendas, funding, strife, and belief that even so poses as the ultimate authority on truth because of its supposed founding in the scientific method.

Since you "know of many clear and unambiguous experimental and observational falsifications of sacred theories and models", please list them or provide links.

For a falsification of Big Bang cosmology, see Halton Arp's work. For one of the many different falsifications of relativity theory, see Dayton Miller's work, a good overview of which can be found here http://www.orgonelab.org/miller.htm For a falsification of the fossil oil genesis theory, look no further than the many deep oil wells the Russians have taken into production. To read up on the proper theory, see here. The list goes on...

What's your "clear and unambiguous experimental and observational falsification" of Big Bang cosmology?

See Halton Arp's observations of the redshifts and angular correlations of quasars. Since he started this work, it has been corroborated by a vast body of additional observations. A good overview is given in his book "Seeing Red".

The essence of it is this: according to the Big Bang model, red shift is cosmogenic, and quasars should be, on account of the vast distance implied by their red shift, distributed isotropically. Turns out that quasars are, in terms of angular separation, correlated with "foreground" galaxies to an extent that is so far away from any possible chance statistical fluctuation resulting from an intrinsically isotropic distribution that the quasars have to be causally correlated, and hence their redshift is not of cosmogenic origin.

A might be expected, he has been treated as a heretic, was denied further observation time, and now lives in effective exile.

JCL is easy. There are only what, 6 possible statements, and variations on them. And Gary Brown's JCL book has been around since at least the mid-70s iirc. http://www.amazon.com/zOS-JCL-Gary-DeWard-Brown/dp/0471236357

Here you go

Granted, there's a small subscription fee, generally $1/month, but it's a start. Generally, I find the Google Reader + Smart Phone combination to be better for consuming blogs and other web content though. Web content just isn't usually authored with a black and white screen in mind.

It's not just religious people who attempt to rationalize the fact Earth may be the only place with intelligent life.

what proof is there that there IS intelligent life on Earth? Considering some of the amazingly short-sighted and silly actions taken in the world, and, the general contempt for education that is so prevalent in the USA, I would argue that it is time we removed the beam from our own eye, before we attempt to remove the mote from our brother's eye. We likely need to start acting a LOT more intelligent before any other possible intelligence in the Universe would be interested in contacting us.
          pleasant dreams
          dave mundt

You only get N installs and it appears that N=1. I found that via the search you linked to. Since new computers usually either include a recovery disk or else are capable of creating one, I assume that OEMs are (were, now that Windows 7 is out) receiving retail XP (with reinstalls allowed) rather than this.

It's not just religious people who attempt to rationalize the fact Earth may be the only place with intelligent life.

I agree. Management or business can actually be very interesting. If you find you like it, you may be good at it; and having been a technical person, you'll bring a different perspective and an analytical method to it. However, it's a totally different job, and just because you're good at what you have been doing doesn't mean you'll be any good at what they're asking you to do.

If you think it's worth giving a try, I really suggest reading First Break All the Rules. It's a book based on 25 years of research correlating what good managers said to actual business outcomes. It may also help you decide whether your new job is something you want to stick with, or whether you want to move back to something technical.

Otherwise, join a company that has a technical track where people can grow in seniority without changing their jobs.

SIGINT isn't just data mining. Wiki article.

James Bamford's "Body of Secrets" mentions SIGINT was used on naval vessels to determine what kinds of submarines, etc. they were up against, merely by the radio frequencies and signals received. It's really cool stuff.

Robert Baer's "See No Evil" is the perfect explanation of why our intel community, especially on the HUMINT side, is so fucked right now.

SIGINT isn't just data mining. Wiki article.

James Bamford's "Body of Secrets" mentions SIGINT was used on naval vessels to determine what kinds of submarines, etc. they were up against, merely by the radio frequencies and signals received. It's really cool stuff.

Robert Baer's "See No Evil" is the perfect explanation of why our intel community, especially on the HUMINT side, is so fucked right now.

Truly, will the stupidity ever cease?

Hell, they probably killed it a lot nicer than some of the critters I’ve shot and killed. Squirrels are tough, and a pellet rifle doesn’t do the job (I had a steel-tipped lead pellet go through the ribcage, directly through the backbone, and then be trapped in the skin without exiting – although if it hadn’t encountered so much bone I expect it would have made it through). The tip of a shovel finishes them off quite well, though. They also don’t taste all that much like chicken.

A medium 'high-cpu' linux instance at Amazon is $0.17/hr.

($0.17/hr) x (20min) x (400 instances) = $22.66666... +50% = exactly $34

"It's totally insane (and probably hernia-inducing), and I so don't want to get mugged, but it lasted for 6+ hours while on a long train ride recently."

You need a laptop with a 12 hour battery, or dell claims 19 hrs from their laptop.

How do your laptops only last 2 hrs? A netbook with a decent battery should last 6 hrs by itself.

They (only) accept Amazon payments, so it wouldn't be terribly shocking if they were using EC2.

They even offer high cpu instances:

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/

Given that they only charge $0.68 per hour for the high performance instances, he can buy quite a lot of horsepower for $17, and the costs of doing it twice as fast are pretty much exactly the same.

No 4G. Less space than limewire. Lame.

Graduate school, vengeful ghosts, high explosives. If Fark were about chemistry, it would look like this:
Cadaverine (new window)

"For a true believer in Jesus Christ, there is in store, not another body buttressed by the technology of modern medicine, yet in the end subject to death, but a resurrected, transcendent, eternal, immortal body, with powers and abilities we cannot even imagine."

This may also be achieved in other ways, whatever one believes about universes beyond this one: :-)
    http://www.simulation-argument.com/
"This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a "posthuman" stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed."

But even with a "resurrected, transcendent, eternal, immortal body, with powers and abilities we cannot even imagine", the daily concerns of today will be gone for such people. Human behavior and aspects of personality emerge out of genetics (capabilities), history, environment, and free will (whatever that means) -- change the environment and capabilities and the behavior and much of personality is gone in that sense. Maybe it is better that way, but it would be very different. It would be a fundamental transformation, like a caterpillar into a butterfly. For more on this from a theological perspective:
    "Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals" by Thomas Moore"
    http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Nights-Soul-Finding-Through/dp/1592400671
"When it comes to spiritual growth, we humans are solar-seeking beings; eager for the bright lights of clarity and the bliss of illumination. Paradoxically, we all need to walk through the shadow of the dark night in order to discover a life worth living, according to psychotherapist and spiritual commentator Thomas Moore. Unlike depression, which is more of an emotional state, Moore calls the dark night a slow transformation process, which is fueled by a profound period of doubt, disorientation and questioning. Ultimately, a journey into the dark night will reshape the very meaning of your life. As a self-proclaimed "lunar type," Moore is comfortable leading his clients and readers into the shadows, where ambiguities and mysteries lurk around every corner. He describes the dark night journey in stages, starting with feeling distant from your life even as you continue to go through the motions. The second phase is "liminality," meaning living on the threshold between the known self and the unknown self. This is perhaps the most uncomfortable phase as the dark night may "take you away from the cultivation and persona you have developed in your education and from family learning," he explains. After dwelling in this murky darkness, there's a stage of "re-incorporation," in which one integrates the profound inner transitions into daily life. Like a tour guide to the underworld, Moore leads readers through all these phases, offering tools and rituals for making the journey more tolerable or at least more meaningful. He also speaks to the many arenas and stages of life in which we might find ourselves stumbling through the dark, with chapters on marriage, parenting, sexuality, creativity and health. The scope is ambitious, and at times the structure seems disjointed--but this is perhaps Moore's best contribution since Care of the Soul, proving once again that he is a wise and formidable spiritual teacher."

One might suggest we go through fundamental transformation after transformation along the path of life.

You know, funny thing, but quantum mechanics (and modern physics) _is_ having an impact on theology. Has to do with replacing the old Aristotelian "universe as a container" concept with a neo-Platonic "universe as a medium for action" concept. It affects theology of creation, and changes our conception of how God as creator interacts with the world. Specifically, it makes the immanence of God much more immediately graspable. T. F. Torrance has a few books on the subject. ;D (Also, Twilight sucks)

There was new firmware recently released (Amazon release notes) that adds, among other things like longer battery life, native PDF reader support to the Kindle 2. (Note, the Kindle DX had native PDF support since it was released months ago.)

You mean something like this - http://www.amazon.com/RichardSolo-1800-iPhone-External-battery/dp/B001LNDXEK

Or these -

http://www.batterygeek.net/External-Cell-Phone-Battery-Packs-s/77.htm

Please, before you go wanking all over the concept of "emotional intelligence," at least try to understand what you're pissed off by. http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1260144768/ref=sr_kk_2?ie=UTF8&search-alias=stripbooks&field-keywords=daniel%20goleman Have fun.

More than that--- Perl 6 was announced 9 1/2 years ago! Even O'Reilly's Perl 6 Essentials is now 6 1/2 years old, and some Perl 6 books are into 2nd editions.

I want you to think about how expensive a drug to extend life would end up being. You think world and economic leaders want to see the lifespan of all humans suddenly extended?

Recently I went back and reread Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy beginning with Red Mars . One of the plot points is how a gene therapy is developed that essentially prolongs lifespan indefinitely. Robinson spends much time exploring the demographic and political ramifications of this. A decade ago, this was all very relevant reading.

However, in the years since this kind of science fiction enjoyed its heyday, there's been so much talk about the possible coming Singularity by futurists like Kurzweil. If the integration of the biological and the machine is right around the corner, then that would seem to overturn the Mathusian vision of the future evoked by the presence so many normal humans.

The integration of technology with biology is usually discussed as being so gradual that your suspicion that this immortality wouldn't be available to all people is not necessarily the case. Look around the developing world, and you'll see more and more people having access to all kinds of gadgetry.

Bing is a talking bunny, created as the lead character of a semi-popular series of children's books. Yahoo is wisely betting that in this Web 3.0 universe, old-style text search just isn't that relevant anymore: maybe in 1998 internet users were mainly looking for things like a Geocities page with an obsessive-compulsively categorized list of rare postage stamps, but today's convergence culture leverages always-on internet as an integral part of our everyday lives, and search engines must adapt likewise. Since Bing Bunny "tackles [real-world] challenges such as getting dressed, eating breakfast, and going to the park", it's a perfect fit for the forward-looking management team of this joint Microsoft/Yahoo initiative, the rabbit serving as a launchpad to transform 20th-century text-search-as-service into 21st-century search-as-lifestyle-accessory.

Microsoft and Yahoo understand that there's more to life than text on the internet. That's why they're proud to announce, "Getting dressed---it’s a Bing thing!"

I wasn't in the military, so I can't argue... but, if you have time, look up what 3-7 Cavalry and its Apache Troop did on the way to Baghdad. They were a truly elite squadron, and they had an infinite kill ratio in Iraq: they slaughtered thousands of Fedayeen, Republican Guard, and everyone else who got in their way... and lost nobody.
This book gives a pretty good accounting of it. It confirms the harrowing stories he told about their drive up the Euphrates.

When WWII came around and Hitler and Mussolini invaded almost every country in Europe, he left little Switzerland alone because of this.

The Nazis left Switzerland alone because it was their bank.

How do album-only tracks fit into this analysis?

Mothership (a Led Zep greatest-hits album) has "Achilles Last Stand" as album-only for instance; this was the first example to come to my mind.
http://www.amazon.com/Mothership/dp/B0011Z5IXC/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1259949927&sr=301-1

This certainly falls into the "albums worth owning" category (well, if I didn't already have their eight studio albums); in this case, I'd be inclined to buy the whole thing even if there weren't album-only tracks

This is the way I've often phrased it: If you kinda like the band, you're good with the hit singles and the greatest-hits albums, if you really like the band, you want whole albums.

Much of my collection is whole albums; even if I only have one definitive album for an artist, it can be a step up from the greatest-hits collection. In rather different genres, Straight Outta Compton, London Calling and Songs in the Key of Life are examples of where this is the case.
I have the whole discography from Zeppelin, Skynyrd and Weird Al, and a significant percentage from the Beatles, Dylan, Green Day and some others
At that point, there are *very* few tracks that I dislike enough to remove them from the batch.

For the component of my collection that's singles and greatest hits, I figure I'd be quite likely to enjoy an expanded selection if I bothered to go expand it. :P