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But it wasn't scientific evidence that showed that DDT caused birds to have thin egg shells. When the actual SCIENTIFIC METHOD was used, these allegations were proven false. (see footnote)

It was a fictional story used to illustrate what could possibly go wrong if we kill or infect trillions of bugs with one chemical.

___
Cecil, HC et al. 1971. Poultry Science 50: 656-659 (No effects of DDT or DDE, if adequate calcium is in diet); Chang, ES & ELR Stokstad. 1975. Poultry Science 54: 3-10 1975. (No effects of DDT on shells); Edwards, JG. 1971. Chem Eng News p. 6 & 59 (August 16, 1971) (Summary of egg shell- thinning and refutations presented revealing all data); Hazeltine, WE. 1974. Statement and affidavit, EPA Hearings on Tussock Moth Control, Portland Oregon, p. 9 (January 14, 1974); Jeffries, DJ. 1969. J Wildlife Management 32: 441-456 (Shells 7 percent thicker after two years on DDT diet); Robson, WA et al. 1976. Poultry Science 55:2222- 2227; Scott, ML et al. 1975. Poultry Science 54: 350-368 (Egg production, hatchability and shell quality depend on calcium, and are not effected by DDT and its metabolites); Spears, G & P. Waibel. 1972. Minn. Science 28(3):4-5; Tucker, RK & HA Haegele. 1970. Bull Environ Contam. Toxicol 5:191-194 (Neither egg weight nor shell thickness affected by 300 parts per million DDT in daily diet);Edwards, JG. 1973. Statement and affidavit, U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, 24 pages, October 24, 1973; Poult Sci 1979 Nov;58(6):1432-49 ("There was no correlation between concentrations of pesticides and egg shell thinning] .")

Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash was named after a supposed phenomenon of the early days of computing where a failure was so bad that the display device went berserk and showed only television-style static. Is this kind of crash real or apocryphal? It does seem unlikely.

I haven't read Collective Intelligence in Action, but I have studied machine learning at university and then read Toby Segaran's Programming Collective Intelligence (linky), which I found to be an excellent, highly accessible book for learning the basic concepts of ML in a practical setting and with immediate uses being highlighted.

Given the author's description, I'm glad that I chose Segaran's book: the programming language of choice is Python, which results in very short and readable, fully functional code samples, and builds right up from core concepts instead of hiding a lot of the underlying machinery using something like JDM. Reading example code written in Java (unless the code is specifically chosen to illustrate Java or Java APIs) sounds rather tedious.

Collective Intelligence in Action also sounds like it might try to be too far reaching, e.g. focusing on the data model for the problem instead of on the machine learning itself. Segaran's book was strictly focused on ML, and was a very nice, informative read.

Just thought I'd throw an alternative out there for anyone interested in machine learning, which I highly recommend studying. It's a really interesting field with loads of applications.

If you couldn't save up $50 in the time since the transition was announced, perhaps you've got bigger problems than not being able to watch television.

Nearly identical copy and paste from an amazon review (with parts of another), eliding potential negatives like pointers to a competing book and this text not being useful (in that reviewer's opinion) for academia.

Nearly identical copy and paste from an amazon review (with parts of another), eliding potential negatives like pointers to a competing book and this text not being useful (in that reviewer's opinion) for academia.

I was reading one awhile back that where in a strategy, you actually did at times split 10's....a generally stupid move, but, if done at certain times, sparingly, it would not mess with your edge badly, yet it would definitely throw off the casino watching you as a 'serious' counter. I'm sorry I don't have the book around to cite the source, but, it is out there.

You are probably thinking about Blackjack for Blood by Bryce Carlson. It's a really good read and a good introduction to a level II counting system.
The rest of this post isn't directed toward you cayenne8, but seemed like a good of a place as any to put it.
At the end of the day, card counting wasn't very profitable for the level of effort it takes. While playing, a good card counter needs to do the following things:

• Keep track of the count (possibly maintaining a separate count of aces)
• Play perfectly based on the current count
• Keep track of his or her bets
• Look like he or she isn't counting cards

The last item is actually the hardest on the list. Vary your bet spread more than 4 to 1? You're a possible counter. Make an advanced play (split 9s against a dealer 9 with a high plus card deck)? You're a possible counter. Look focused? You're a possible counter. Have an average bet of over $100/hand? You're a possible counter. The list goes on.
Now assume you've mastered the above and can count perfectly. Lets look at the money involved. To ensure that you have a 99.5% chance of not being wiped out, you are going to need a stake of approximately 120 times your average bet (details are hazy, but that's about right). Let's say you are going for an average bet of $50/hand. You will need a $6000 stake. Using the number of $50/hand, let's see how much you can expect to win per hour. Let's take a really high number for hands per hour, 100. In my experience, you would have to be playing three or four hands at a time to achieve this, but lets go with it. Bryce says that the best counters in the world have a 1.6% advantage over the house. Using the numbers so far we have $50/hand * 100 hands/hour * 1.6% advantage which leads to a whopping $80/hour take for perfect play that still carries a 0.5% risk of losing your entire $6000 stake.
On top of the risk/reward issues outlined above, card counting made blackjack boring for me. Instead of being fun, it was a job, and a job that required a lot of outside work as well. Keeping your skills up to date with a level II system takes daily practice. If you are going to try to push the limits on bet spreads or average bets, you have to manage where you play and how long you play for with excruciating detail. It just wasn't worth it. Now I play roulette when I want to gamble. There's nothing you can do from preventing the house from taking its cut. Just throw some chips down and hope you end up a winner.

Greg Egan made that question the central part of his book Distress. While I think this is an interesting notion, it's ultimately a purely philosophical (rather than scientific) idea because it can't be falsified.

The first hint at copy-protection made me stop buying CDs. At the same time I stopped downloading all of their stuff. It's just not worth my time any more. And those "legal" download shops? How stupid can you be? Signing away your personal privacy of your home computer just to listen to music? Come on!

To be fair, I bought one CD because it explicitly stated "No copy protection what-so-ever! (and proud of it)". :-)

The San Francisco Exploratorium, an interactive, hands-on science museum, published a three-volume set of instructions for creating useful and educational (and sturdy) projects for children and adults to manipulate and study, although these are now hard to find, and expensive. Search the used books website http://www.abebooks.com/ for "Exploratorium Cookbook" (and grab any copies you can) and see also the Exploratorium website at http://www.exploratorium.edu/ . See also the very recently published book "Laboratory Experiments in College Physics" by C. Bernard and C. Epp, published in December 2008 (ISBN 978-0471002512) available on http://www.amazon.com./

Perhaps a collection of "The Amateur Scientist" columns from Scientific American would be a good source of ideas? A CD of the columns has been published.

But that doesn't mean that "copyright infringement" is ok, it's not. The marketplace works on supply/demand, and bootlegging music destroys the demand side of the marketplace, and it's to the interest of the marketplace (including its consumers) to see that the demand side of the equation is preserved so that the engine of the free market can still operate.

Artificially restricting supply by legislation hardly goes along with any free-market concept. By the same logic, Katrina was great. It increased the demand for basic services, building contractors and much more.

Copyright infringement is not theft, it merely makes a dent in what otherwise is a monopoly profit.

Book tip for a very good exposition of the view opposing patents, copyright and trademark legislation.

Lamarck's Signature : How Retrogenes Are Changing Darwin's Natural Selection Paradigm Published Dec 1 1999 http://www.amazon.com/Lamarcks-Signature-Retrogenes-Changing-Selection/dp/0738201715

Indeed, Sherry Sontag's Blind Man's Bluff tells a lot of interesting stories about Russian-American submarine escapades during the Cold War. Sometimes our Navies seemed less like proud defenders of the motherland and more like dumbass high school kids playing chicken.

Yea, but it was fun and you got paid for it.

I would also recommend Hostile Waters by Peter Huchthausen. It's a fascinating story both in the events themselves, and in how it was handled by both countries.

Obviously you need a license that matches your values. If you think the same way as Stallman, who has communicated his principles in such places as the biography Free as in Freedom and the Free Software Song, you'll chose his license. If, on the other hand, matters of "hoarding" don't worry you at all, you'll chose another license. The quest for the one true open source license is an unreasonable expectation that human beings all think the same.

Indeed, Sherry Sontag's Blind Man's Bluff tells a lot of interesting stories about Russian-American submarine escapades during the Cold War. Sometimes our Navies seemed less like proud defenders of the motherland and more like dumbass high school kids playing chicken.

It did in the USA, the UK, and every other country that went through a transition from a mostly agricultural to an industrial economy.

Yes...but didn't labor unions and strikes have something to do with those changes? The bosses didn't start raising salaries and treating their workers like human beings until the workers demanded it.

I know China is a police state, but a lot of strikes in the West were met by police state tactics, sometimes resulting in minor wars or major insurrections. Take a look at the bloodletting in Kentucky and West Virginia that occurred during the long history of bitter coal industry strikes over the last hundred years. Some of those were, indeed, small wars—armed miners shooting it out with company goons and tame police. (The movie to watch is Matewan. Here's a short summary of the story http://www.matewan.com/History/battle.htm. The film's available used at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Matewan-Jace-Alexander/dp/6304383657.)

Basically, there's just so much people can take, and when they reach their limit, they'll stop keeping their heads down. Until then, I have little sympathy to spare for workers who willingly submit to such treatment.

It's been available at Amazon for a while now, with several different retailers offering it and already over 50 customer reviews posted.

I've had great success with the RCA ANT1050 Digital Flat Passive Ultra Slim Profile (Dipole) Antenna. http://www.amazon.com/RCA-ANT1050-Digital-Enhanced-Reception/dp/B001GGAIGI/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234722166&sr=8-1

The problem is that I don't see the political establishment listening to "a bunch of gamers and the EFF."

I think it tying together the Sony Root Kit issue with farms of own machines used for SPAMing, scaming, or organized crime would get a little attention.

The biggest problem I have had with DRM is that I rented Ratatouille last year and was unable to play it on a standard DVD player, unable to play it on two different computer DVD players, and of course unable to make a copy (which I only tried because I couldn't play it.) The disk cause me to have to unplug and plug back in my Toshiba DVD player to even get it to eject, it totally locked up the player.

The future of file-sharing will be just like the old days, only better!

While it's nice with torrent sites and all, it enables anyone to see who's downloading and uploading what on a single torrent. This clearly is the approach copyright holders are going to take in Sweden.

Now, I agree that the artists should be able to make money. Just not these silly amounts they dream of! The cost of creative works is declining every day with the availability of the heaps of content already available from many decades and even centuries. "New" is a thing fewer and fewer appreciate when faced with all this other older, great, music.

In the older days, we could not lay our hands on that content. Come Internet, the market completely changed. (Thinking of the "Long tail"-concept. Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Long-Tail-Revised-Updated-Business/dp/1401309666/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234693596&sr=8-1)

Hey, we've got at least 16 gigabytes of USB thumb drives! It will be just like passing dope in the hallways. It's insane, the amounts of data easily transferable from friend to friend. Kill Internet file-sharing and see the music market stagnate because no one is buying shit they didn't even hear about. New single-album-artists will take decades to market!

Meanwhile, real artists with real skill will sell as they always has been. They won't be making millions off records or digital copies, but will have to lift their asses to go touring and give the consumers something they are willing to pay for.

Bye bye Karma

Sagan often used something called a book/a>.

I used to use this attenna when I was living in Toronto to get my OTA HDTV signals. Way better than any amplified indoor attenna. It's highly directional, which was okay for me as most of the signals came from one place (CN Tower), but could be irritating if you have to rotate it for each channel. My line of sight was straight through several brick walls, and other brick buildings that could presumably cause reflections.

Piers Anthony wrote an excellent book called Macroscope that explores this topic.

Just as Phil Zimmermann famously had to distribute PGP internationally in print form to avoid violating munitions laws, wouldn't these guys have to be really careful about their elite missle launching software? If this code makes it to Syria or Iran, we're in for a mildly annoying attack with state of the art styrofoam weaponry.

How to encourage workers has not been a secret since 1968, when Frederick Herzberg published a brilliant book on his research on motivating engineers.

http://www.amazon.com/Motivation-Work-Frederick-Herzberg/dp/156000634X

Haha, science begins to catch up...

You see, a neanderthal is nothing more than a human-being who lived before the world-wide flood. Now, that said, I know I've just lost 95% of you, but that's ok ;P After all, it's about what's actually true and not what someone wants to believe, right? Isn't that how science works?

So, a prediction of the Neanderthal genetic code from a Christian point of view is that we'll find it more advanced than the current degraded and irradiated human DNA. This is also why they had larger brain-cases than us, etc. They are us, just much older versions. For reference, here's Jack Cuozzo's book 'Buried Alive' with actual scientifically-gathered evidence taken from the actual fossils (not the casts, Cuozzo was able to obtain access to the original fossils in various european museums).
http://www.amazon.com/Buried-Alive-Startling-Truth-Neanderthal/dp/0890512388

Please submitter: have your company hire or consult someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to pest control. You worry about the computers. I don't know what on earth possessed you ask other I.T. nerds for advice either.

Pshaw. When you have a nerd problem, you need a nerd solution.

Caesium-137 is radioactive, toxic, and liquid at slightly above room temperature. Warm it up to melt it, then pour it all along your cable paths.

Better still, Technetium-99 is a gamma emitter. Let's see... Technetium melts at around 4000 degrees F, so wear some gloves when you're pouring it along your cabling. Soon, the gamma radiation will scramble the rat's DNA causing them to grow to a Rodent of Unusual Size at which point the rats will no longer be interested in eating mere cabling.

You could always buy a Mousetrap which will give you something to do while waiting for the Technetium to melt.

There are some mousetrap videos that you might also reference.

Peter

SatanicPuppy and I are in general agreement, however I would go a step further and would suggest a multi-layered approach.

0. install steel conduit to protect your high value ( Fiber ) and mission critical cables.

1. use poison liberally.

2. use lots of traps.

3. eliminate the food supply.

4. repair any holes in the buildings with steel mesh and concrete.

5. invest in steel trash cans ( indoors and outdoors ) that lock and dispose of trash before the end of business every day so that no trash is left in the buildings overnight.

6. store no food in the buildings. This will require employee training.

7. install heavy duty stainless steel gates on all your drains.

8. Owls are better than cats, although they may make a mess, but it will be outside.

9. Cats are likely much more trouble than they are worth, especially in a server room where they could easily cause thousands of dollars of damage.

10. Hire http://www.vexconinc.com/ [ vexconinc.com ] from Dirty Jobs ;)

11. Buy some WowWee Rovio robots to patrol each of the buildings and record the video on a Linux DVR for later analysis. http://www.amazon.com/WowWee-Rovio-Enabled-Robotic-WebCam/dp/B001CQLGD6/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1234488032&sr=8-1 [ amazon.com ]

12. Balsam fir oil from the tree Abies balsamea is an EPA approved non-toxic rodent repellent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pest_control#Repellents [ wikipedia.org ]

13. Acacia polyacantha subsp. campylacantha root emits chemical compounds that repel animals including crocodiles, snakes and rats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pest_control#Repellents [ wikipedia.org ]

Good luck :)

There's been some research that has shown by certain ages a person's capability to learn an initial language drastically cuts off. Barney, and the rest of his never-change-facial-expressions-non-human-faced friends, deprive babies of the non-verbal cues normal human interaction produces.

Not that I know much about this topic, but I understand that the problem with this what you're claiming here is that children don't learn language from TV humans with changing facial expressions, either. They learn it from actual real-life interaction with other people. So to the extent that you can blame TV for this, it's not easy to single out Barney as being particularly relevant.

I'd recommend Eve Clark's book, First Language Acquisition if you want to check whether I'm remembering this right.

Can you still develop apps for Haiku with old BeOS references like O'Reilly's Programming the Be Operating System ?

"Also, you imply that the religious did not have anything whatsoever to do with advancing science."

I imply no such thing. Begin again. Free your mind.

Then you suggest:

"Something else that you seem to miss is that the ancients knew about seasons - actually, they had very accurate knowledge of the cosmos and were able to track the path of the sun and the stars very accurately. Just read up about the Inca, the Maya and the Egyptian pyramids. Also, read up on the temples in Asia and how many of them were really astronomical observatories."

I find it strange that you have an interest in this, but fail to see how this evidence directly challenges your primitive creationist world view. "The ancients" as you call them "knew about the seasons" because they had astronomers. They knew a lot more than the seasons. Any primitive person paying attention would figure out seasons. Knowing that you can plant and harvest, and when to plant, however, that takes a little more thought, and that is most likely the birth of science.

Early science may have been entangled with various local superstitions, as some astronomical knowledge was entangled with astrology, but to be most useful it must shed superstition.

Consider the Antikythera Device which demonstrates not only advanced astronomy but mechanical engineering knowledge which was lost, and remained unsurpassed for hundreds of years.

Science clearly has deep roots, deeper even than Christianity. Why didn't you cite any examples of scientists who were religious but not Christian? Possibly because the intellectual tradition of Christianity largely ignores the non-Christian and typically conflates religion and Christianity. They are not the same. You should "read up" on non-Christian scientists. Start here:

Lost History: the Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists

Consider also the Archimedes Palimpsest. The great works of ancient scientists were considered valueless by Christians for hundreds of years. In a bit of irony, one such work has been revealed by modern science, hidden beneath the superstition painted over it. The paper was more valuable to the Christians than the knowledge on it. (This is an important fact tossed around as a throw away observation in most accounts of this palimpsest. However, it's worthy of some consideration. Christianity participated in and contributed to a collapse of the scientific understanding of the world. The paper was so valuable to them most likely because they couldn't easily make more themselves. That's how deep the collapse really was.) Thankfully the obsessive monks didn't burn it for warmth, and rather scraped it off and painted over it -- leaving the tiny ghost images of the original text below, for advanced X-Ray imaging to reveal, centuries later.

In fairness, two observations. Firstly, Christianity isn't the only religion which feels threatened by science (aka objective reality, aka factual truth which can be verified by observation). This seems to be a pretty common characteristic of most religion. Consider Scientology, which seems to be downright paranoid about outsider's attempts to learn about it. Modern Islamic fundamentalists like the Taliban and Al Quaeda have demonstrated that knowledge and science are their greatest enemy, scientists, doctors, and teachers are to be killed, schools converted to instruments of their own particular religious dogma.

Secondly, Christianity isn't a mon

WP, while a useful web site, tends to promote "popular opinion" into "psuedo fact". As long as enough people who edit WP believe something to be true, the entries about that item will promote the popular belief as fact. Eventually, due to WP's popularity, the psuedo fact becomes accepted as an actual fact.

Example: according to linguistics, there are no rules about what words can be added to the English language. Indeed English is the least pure, most widely hybrized language on the planet and new words are added to it daily. For example the verb "slashdotted" :-) or the verb "google" etc.. Nowhere are there any rules saying "these specific things cannot be added to the english language because they don't meet criteria 'x'." According to linguistics, the only rules used to determine if something is actually a word or not are these two:

A: Is the word being used?
B: Is the meaning of the word as used agreed on?
If those two requirements are metthen the word in question is a legitimate word.

The example peevologists hate the most: "virii" (yes, it meets the requirements. Therefore it is a word, despite being desperately hated by peevologists :-) So use it often! ;-)

Instead of following these rules, WP indulges in what linguists call "peevology" which is the process whereby a language myth becomes accepted as "fact" due to aggresive "enforcement" of the myth by people who actually have no idea what they are talking about.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&client=firefox&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aunofficial&hs=q9z&q=peeveology+OR+peevology+OR+%22peeve-ology%22&btnG=Search

Fortunately even the mainstream peevologists are realizing that language just isn't used the way the 18th century grammarians (who started the whole myth of "standard english) think it ought to be used. In fact it wasn't used that way back then, and never has been from then until now.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507EFDA113AF93BA2575BC0A9649C8B63

The biggest issue with peevology is that many copy editors have been mis-educated about these very issues and go forth laying waste to perfectly good writing because they (incorrectly) believe said writing is not following "the rules". (the article refers to prescriptivists who have some overlap with peevologists but are generally less harmful, just annoying.)

Examples from the language log http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/
"Singular they" is illegal. http://158.130.17.5/~myl/languagelog/archives/003572.html
"Split infinitives" are not allowed. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=515
"That isn't a Word." http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001652.html

David Crystal, in his new book How Language Works, says "Language change is inevitable, continuous, universal and multidirectional. Languages do not get better or worse when they change. They just -- change." http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=How+Language+Works&x=15&y=17

Geoffrey K Pullum:

I was walking across campus with a friend and we came upon half a dozen theoretical linguists committing unprovoked physical assault on a defenseless prescriptivist. My friend was shocked. Sh

I never bought that Obama was never actually a magical savior, though -- just another product of Chicago's Democratic political machine. I highly recommend the book The Case Against Barack Obama by David Freddoso who is an investigative reporter for NRO. It's well-written, thoroughly sourced and strikes right to the heart of Obama's image, which is that he's a breath of fresh air in Washington.

He's not. He's just a gust of wind from Chicago, complete with all of that city's corrupt baggage.

I'm at work and a bit lazy..just went for the first hits I could get when googling the topics, which I heard on various tv news stations last night and this morning.

But indeed....a mandated electronic medical record system, that is accessible and controlled by the feds? Well, I think anyone can see the possibilities for abuse. Heck, I'm not thrilled with their other databases they have on people, like the no fly lists, and the soon to come RealID databases. Add that all in with total medical history, and govt. healthcare and voila....

Look into the writings of the guy they wanted to BE in charge of health care, Tom Daschle. He's made statements "In my book, Critical: What We Can Do About the American Health-Care Crisis, I have proposed a Federal Health Board that would be a foundation from which we could address all three problems. In many ways, the Federal Health Board would resemble our current Federal Reserve Board for the banking industry."

Yeah, I think we've ALL see the great work the Fed has done with banking and all today, eh?

Again, from the guy that was to design the new healthcare system said "The decisions made by the Federal Health Board would be tough." but would be better than what we have. What are these TOUGH decisions they're gonna have to make? Rationing? Well according to this blurb "Perhaps most importantly, the Board would assess the effectiveness and costs of various treatments. He stops short of saying the U.S. should have a U.K.-style, hard-and-fast rule on cost-effectiveness. But he does say the U.S. "won't be able to make a significant dent in health-care spending without getting into the nitty-gritty of which treatments are the most clinically valuable and cost effective." his plan certainly sounds like the decisions of this board can overrule a local Dr's treatment decisions. We humans,despite looking a great deal alike, are VERY different, and a one size fits all tx regiment kinda scares me.

I"m also not thrilled with a committee deciding if I'm too old to get a particular treatment.

Sure, the medical record and collections thing looks pretty innocent as is stated in the bill, but, if you look at him wanting Tom in there to reform medical care, his beliefs, and all...no, I don't think it is much of a stretch to see what this might be laying the groundwork for...

Obviously we are referring to the loose kind of journalism one would find in Der Spiegel.

Or the New York Times, or by CBS/ABC/NBC/CNN...

The point that the GP was getting at, that you so flippantly deride, is that too many "researchers" these days are willing to use the first three results from a Google search as the sum total of their research into a topic. While Der Spiegel may be a reputable news outlet, one cannot generally take its articles as primary sources, and certainly not for the purposes of engaging in encyclopedic grade research.

Which is a large reason Wikipedia is so shoddy: sources are taken on "reputation" and the arbitrary decision of what a "reliable source" is, usually as defined by whether or not (a) most of the left-winger edit warriors of Wikipedia agree with the source's conclusions and (b) whether anyone else can come up with something that passes the "reliable source" test to discredit it (interestingly vague; lies and nonsense have remained in Wikipedia sometimes for months because a "reliable source" said something wrong, a set of bloggers caught it and documented very well that it was wrong, but the left-wingers shouted it down, claimed the blogs were not "reliable sources", "No Original Research" when someone simply replicated the sources the blogs were using as proof that it was false, etc...)

I feel that Wikipedia needs to put in place policies that start selecting out those contributors who are unable to either engage in this level of research and those who are unable to produce encyclopedia grade writing.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia's policies are currently the reverse: they have a major problem with driving academics and good researchers away, and it doesn't help that those who are "unable to produce encyclopedia grade writing" instead wind up spending hours per day "reverting vandalism" and are eventually given admin tools.

Power corrupts: Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely: Petty Power corrupts all out of proportion. Wikipedia admins are the worst sort because they, and their power, are so petty. It doesn't help that they also routinely overestimate their own competence.

Many of the Wikipedia articles are, while informative and good as an introduction into a topic, very superficial and poorly written. Unsophisticated use of language is not a problem per se, however it can lead to ambiguity. The ability of a writer to consistently ensure that there is no other way their text could be interpreted is the difference between a mediocre researcher and a true scholar.

How to lie with statistics. Also, Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit.

Most wikipedia articles are not "informative and good as an introduction into a topic" - the sourcing is routinely biased, and important countersourcing ignored or minimized if included at all.

Recommended listening for you sir or madam: Track 7.

Genesis: The Evolution of Biology is a great book on the history of biology, pre-Darwinians like Lamarck to today's (scientific) cracks showing in the Darwinian model.

AC again. CDW has the N810 on for $223.

And if you need more run time, just get one of these.

Take that, netbookies!

Also, eight hours on a charge? Where can I get me some of that?

you can get it here: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-NC10-14GBK-10-2-Inch-Netbook-Processor/dp/B001O94FY8/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234307109&sr=8-2
its rates it at 6, but other places rate it at 8. to be completely fair - i do own this bit of kit and i regularly get a reading of 6hours batter left. and i run xp - linux would probably realize that 8 hours

Apparently making up bullshit is interesting.

Yes, it is.

Merry Christmas

One of the best damn games on the Wii.

I managed to get that game stuck in an unplayable situation where the camera was no longer focused on the playfield. Persistently. Across all the tables. I don't recall now what I had to do to get it working again.

No, I think that's a stereotype. For instance, look at the Amazon reviews for Richard Nisbett's The Geography of Thought, a book that purports to show different ways of thinking between East and West.
http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Thought-Asians-Westerners-Differently/dp/0743255356/

Frankly, I'm worried that I'm going to be upstaged by all the smart people in China who are working a lot harder than I am.

O'Reilly released the latest new version of their vi book, (now "Learning the vi and Vim Editors") last summer with seven new chapters devoted to vim!

I agree with your concerns. A book I recently read Limits of Power: End of American Exceptionalism explains the problem quite clearly. Since WW2 the United States has moved from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy while our manufacturing has been outsourced. Additionally American citizens began living on credit and our trade ratio went from 2:1 (exports:imports) to 1:3 (exports:imports). The author argues this can only end in the collapse of the US economy.
 
For those smart enough to recognize this what can we do?
Invest in foreign currency? Buy stock in whole goods (oil, gold, precious metal)? What do you suggest or what are you doing?

+1 to the above. Like anything else, you pay for someone else's expertise, or you learn yourself.

The best and most through guide to web testing and security out there is to the Web Application Hackers Handbook, but the OWASP Testing Guide is a good intro and a free download you can start working with today.

PDF version
Main page

The best way to learn is by doing, and OWASP WebGoat is a good interactive learning environment. It's also quite easy to try out using the OWASP Live cd, which has many of the testing tools like burp, paros, etc and also webgoat ready to run.

There's also a fairly decent "white box" source code scanner for PHP called pixy. You may wish to check that out also.

If you want to pay someone, that's what I do for a living, and I know a decent number of others in the field if you want recommendations.

A book "In Code" by one of their peers from Ireland about something she discovered and something that almost made her famous.

http://www.amazon.com/Code-Mathematical-Journey-Sarah-Flannery/dp/0761123849/

I'd also recommend the books by Richard Feynman, not for the mathematics in them, but for the idea you can look around in the world and find all kinds of interesting things without even trying very hard. And how life can be fun and funny while still including science.

You should probably check out some of the open source static analysis tools:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tools_for_static_code_analysis

I wrote one that deals mostly with web applications:
http://www.yasca.org/

You should also get your hands on Acunetix Free Edition, which scans for XSS:
http://www.acunetix.com/cross-site-scripting/scanner.htm

Also grab yourself a copy of Software Security by Gary McGraw and Secure Programming with Static Analyis by Brian Chess and Jacob West.

Finally, if you want to outsource an assessment on the cheap (really), send me an e-mail.

You should probably check out some of the open source static analysis tools:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tools_for_static_code_analysis

I wrote one that deals mostly with web applications:
http://www.yasca.org/

You should also get your hands on Acunetix Free Edition, which scans for XSS:
http://www.acunetix.com/cross-site-scripting/scanner.htm

Also grab yourself a copy of Software Security by Gary McGraw and Secure Programming with Static Analyis by Brian Chess and Jacob West.

Finally, if you want to outsource an assessment on the cheap (really), send me an e-mail.