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"And even if you can express the theorems that way, that doesn't necessarily give them the same meaning. Equivalent yet different meaning? That must be philosophy! ;)

All the symbol pushing in the world doesn't necessarily result in meaningful computation, and there is a necessary degree of applicability, at least intuitively, for many elements of mathematics which is the duality of its power to be wonderfully applicable to the world we live in to express observations yet also a study in the beauty and nature of structure and relation independent of any observation at all!"

I hear you but mathematicas has become a kind of cult/religion for many, people don't like having what they deem as 'the most reliable way to truth' shown to be wrong, i.e. it is one of many paths, which makes their claims to 'the only way' erroneus.

We could frame it a different way too, the whole idea of subjective and objective is also incoherent, consider: You feel that something is hot, are you going to consider that a subjective feeling? Because if you don't move your hand you will get burned.

We could put it another way: If life is incapable of determining truth, then how did it survive and evolve? Being able to know and navigate an environment (knowing truth from error) is a paramount ability, and this totally lost on many in western science and the current fallacies of the enlightenment we currently suffer from.

The idea that reality is seperate from itself has come out of the enlightenment and the idea that things are seperate, when in fact they are not.

Some books you might enjoy, they are not perfect but they are stimulating reads:

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Comes-Embodied-Brings/dp/0465037712/
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Flesh-Embodied-Challenge-Western/dp/0465056741/
http://www.amazon.com/Molecule-Metaphor-Neural-Language-Bradford/dp/0262562359/

"And even if you can express the theorems that way, that doesn't necessarily give them the same meaning. Equivalent yet different meaning? That must be philosophy! ;)

All the symbol pushing in the world doesn't necessarily result in meaningful computation, and there is a necessary degree of applicability, at least intuitively, for many elements of mathematics which is the duality of its power to be wonderfully applicable to the world we live in to express observations yet also a study in the beauty and nature of structure and relation independent of any observation at all!"

I hear you but mathematicas has become a kind of cult/religion for many, people don't like having what they deem as 'the most reliable way to truth' shown to be wrong, i.e. it is one of many paths, which makes their claims to 'the only way' erroneus.

We could frame it a different way too, the whole idea of subjective and objective is also incoherent, consider: You feel that something is hot, are you going to consider that a subjective feeling? Because if you don't move your hand you will get burned.

We could put it another way: If life is incapable of determining truth, then how did it survive and evolve? Being able to know and navigate an environment (knowing truth from error) is a paramount ability, and this totally lost on many in western science and the current fallacies of the enlightenment we currently suffer from.

The idea that reality is seperate from itself has come out of the enlightenment and the idea that things are seperate, when in fact they are not.

Some books you might enjoy, they are not perfect but they are stimulating reads:

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Comes-Embodied-Brings/dp/0465037712/
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Flesh-Embodied-Challenge-Western/dp/0465056741/
http://www.amazon.com/Molecule-Metaphor-Neural-Language-Bradford/dp/0262562359/

Buy a killawatt or any other watt meter.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?&index=electronics&keywords=kill%20a%20watt&_encoding=UTF8

I found out that all of my speakers (computer speakers / external tv speakers) drain 5 watts when they are off (but pluged in). I through them on a power strip. It is not much, but everything adds up.
With 2 sets of speakers: .14$/kWh * .010kW * 24h/d * 365d/year = 12$ a year

I saw this on This Old House a while ago. I don't see a way to snarf it out into a spreadsheet automatically, but it brings the data to you wirelessly and logs/aggregates some of it for a while.

I have to submit a counter example. My parents bought me a Aircraft Carrier set from Mega Blocks years ago. It had over 1000 pieces. It went together like a champ and to this day I can pick it up and carry it with one hand on each end (it is almost 2ft long). It does feel lighter then I would think a similar model made from Legos would but it was a) cheap and b) took me a good 2 or 3 days to put it together.

I found it on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Mega-Bloks-Pro-Builders-Nimitz/dp/B0006H60HO

Looks and sounds like an interesting game - too bad I'll never own it. I don't have or want an Xbox or PS3, and the PC version has limited installs. Be sure to hammer the point home on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00198ZHC8/ref=s9sdps_c1_63_at1-rfc_p-frt_g1-3237_g1_si1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0TM31B72FB9PTDNQEV3Z&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463383351&pf_rd_i=507846

Given the fact that Rowling has not sued other companion books like MuggleNet.com's and the Complete Idiot's Guide to Harry Potter, Rowling isn't against companion books per se. She was against this particular one.

You can't rush these things, give her/her publishers chance. Once they have a judgement here they'll be able to use that to beat smaller fry about the head until they are dead (and bankrupt) and not waste too much money in the process.

Sheesh.

"Unlike other drugs, you can't make meth from plants grown in a jungle clearing."

Then how do you explain away the existence of Ephedra sinica?

Or to make methcathinone, which is almost identical in effects with methamphetamine, you could start with khat

BTW, there literally dozens of practical precursors and methods (recipes, if you will) to 'cook' meth.

Pseudo-ephedrine is only used recently since the more desirable ephedrine has been tightly controlled.

Hell, Uncle Fester had over 50 different recipes in his 'cookbook'.

I used to have one of the older editions- and can attest to the methcathinone being top grade speed, and several(all I tried) of the methamphetamine recipes worked quite well.

I read this book click recently in where some guy talks about having access to large quantities of search data and what to make of it - how and what to predict. it's basically an ad, but it enlightens you to the fact that having such access is a gold mine waiting to be exploited.

The Cucko's Egg

The Dangerous Book for Boys

There are multiple types of geekery, best to satisfy the possibilities.

The Cucko's Egg

The Dangerous Book for Boys

There are multiple types of geekery, best to satisfy the possibilities.

The Mirage optical illusion is pretty amazing. I have it, and a Levitron, and while they're both really amazing for a while, there's not a lot of stuff to keep doing with them.

Those electronics kits from Radio Shack and other places with the resistors, diodes, etc and little springs and wires to use for breadboarding are pretty cool and educational. If he actually digs into those, it's pretty cheap to buy a real breadboard and a power supply and a bunch of real components and he can start making real stuff. If he graduates beyond the lessons in the book that comes with the electronics kit, pick him up a copy of Horowitz and Hill's The Art of Electronics, and let him get started with real stuff.

I think they're over your price range, but Lego Mindstorms are great.

You can always get him started with elementary computer programming. If "real" languages seem too challenging, HyperCard is great for starting programming, especially since pretty soon you start to find stuff you want to do but can't, and then find out that HyperTalk is a real programming language that you can start adding in piecemeal to your project, gradually learning programming.

If there are local scout troops, building and racing Pinewood Derby cars can be great if you get serious about going for either style or speed.

A basic model rocketry kit can be fun. It's cool to see it launch.

There are lots of cool science related toys/kits/gadgets here.

Rowling sued the book before ever seeing a single rough draft of it. Her lawyers insisted it copied verbatim without rewriting any passages based off the web site.

Citation Needed. From the actual decision written by the judge, there were numerous example of verbatim copying in the manuscript. How did Rowling know that? Because Rowling was aware of the site. The site had verbatim copying. She was fine with that when it was a non-profit website. The minute they tried to make money off her writing, she objected.

The book's publisher claims that those entries were largely rewritten for the lexicon.

Despite the publisher's claims, the judge found that the majority of the book would have been in quotes had the Lexicon properly attributed the work to Rowling.

Given that neither of us have read the lexicon (as it is not published) we are left to believe one side or the other. What I find curious is how Rowling was so sure of her side of the story without having read the book herself.

Again, she was aware of the website which had verbatim copying. You don't have to believe one side or the other. The judge having read Lexicon made a determination that the Rowling was correct: Lexicon copied a lot from her book. The question is if you believe the judge.

She has also threatened law suits at cases clearly covered by parody. I don't think she is evil, so much as she is strongly attached to the world she created.

Given the fact that Rowling has not sued other companion books like MuggleNet.com's and the Complete Idiot's Guide to Harry Potter, Rowling isn't against companion books per se. She was against this particular one.

A thread on DNA and its relationship to RNA gives me a chance to ask: what ever happened to the idea that memory was encoded in RNA? In 1970s science fiction novels like Niven's A World out ot Time , you had people learning new skills through the injection of RNA. When did it become clear that RNA had nothing to do with memory?

Nobel laureate and Physics Professor Robert B. Laughlin discussed the impact of knowledge increasingly being sequestering from the public. While a certain amount of information is kept secret for legitimate military or security purposes (such as how to build an atomic bomb), more and more knowledge is being restricted for economic reasons, he explained. Many companies (and people) consider ideas to be their intellectual property.

http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Reason-Closing-Scientific-Mind/dp/0465005071

As one who participated in the first G1G1 I can attest that they were totally unprepared to handle the orders. It was a huge mess. That said, it was eventually made right, the little green guy showed up, and although the initial software kind of sucked, the new build is a lot, LOT better.

And as a bonus it came with a year of T-Mobile Hotspot access free, which is nice.

I presume the new OLPC this year will not look like the 2.0 "all touch" dual-screen design previewed in May?

Actually somre more info re: the new G1G1 is here. From TFA, looks like Amazon will be handling the orders this time, which should be a major improvement. Is T-Mobile going to throw in like last time?

W

Starting November 17 Amazon.com will off the OLPC http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?ie=UTF8&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&me=A34NLXJLC88VVS. Quite appropriate since it was Jeff Bezos that came up with the buy-two-get-one program.

I read Wordcraft recently, and was highly entertained. It talks about the process of naming and follows a few names in detail, including BlackBerry and a few others.

Shout! Factory has come out with a Box Set to mark this occasion, with four new movies and a bunch of extras. I already ordered mine and am thoroughly enjoying Werewolf (1996) complete with Joe Estevez, Emilio's uncle and Martin Sheen's brother. Oh do they rail him for his B-Rated movies in that classic. That DVD alone is worth this box set!

I heard about this book recently on NPR, though I haven't had a chance to read it yet, so can't comment on how good it is: http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Reason-Closing-Scientific-Mind/dp/0465005071/

What, nobody has read Anathem?

DG

Sorry about that. One of the problems with slashdot is that it can be tricky touching upon common memes, and you've stumbled on one. The problem with your assertion is that it's been made for fifteen years, thoroughly examined, and disproved in every case.

GNU/Linux is not Windows. It won't ever be. Because Linux is available in over 1,000 distributions and hundreds of versions, and always will be, the generic reference to "Linux" includes far more scope than "Vista" or "W7" ever could. Linux is available in versions for your PS3, for Sun hardware, and IBM mainframes. By itself that makes it a harder target because one exploit can't target all of linux. It's used in almost all supercomputers and a great many network routers. The embedded applications like EMC SANs and security cameras and TV recorders and dash mounted Nav devices and many other things far exceeds Microsoft's desktop operating system installed base. Microsoft could not dream of being able to hire as large or well qualified a team of programmers motivated to secure the software out of their own self interest (i.e. improvements come from people who want to use it, not people who are only paid to write it).

I can do no better than commend to you ESR's great work, The Cathedral & The Bazaar.

Basically here's how it works: in order for Windows to have a "brand" it can market, it has to have a coherent set of services and applications which are identified with it. This fixed set becomes a target, and since it is software written by humans, vulnerabilities will be found which are consistent across that platform. Since it must enforce compatibility across generations, the code is generally recycled across revisions. Linux has no such limitations.

Now by responding to your obvious question I have to slur Linux a little bit in order to not look so much like a fanboi. Of course any individual installation of Linux can be rooted, at least if someone is using it to surf the Internet. That's not the point. No one exploit is going to be broad enough even to get most of them, and you can't say that about any version of Windows.

According to the bestselling book Good to Great from 2001, Circuit City was a great company that was "built to last." The Freakonomics guys also noted this a little bit ago.

Interesting how a slicker competitor displaced Circuit City, seemingly so easily. Oh, and Fannie Mae was another company recognized in this manner in the same book.

We know more about Palan's daughter's sex life then we know about Obama and his past.

Yeah, you're right, it's not like he wrote a book where he admitted to drug use as a young man or anything.

And I think the bit about Palin's daughter has little or nothing to do with Palin's daughter, but more the incredible epic failure of abstinence only education. Being a religious wackjob shouldn't automatically ensure you have a shot at the presidency in this country, but we were founded by religious intolerance; you know, it's only okay if it's what you believe ....

When he mentions it being 'disruptive', he's referring to the concept of disruptive technology as written about in The Innovator's Dilemma by Christensen:
http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-National-Bestseller/dp/0066620694

Great read, and the concepts are laid out here:

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

If you're not familiar with the concept, it's worth checking out.

While popular music is acceptable at 128kbps with recent encoders, certain niche music genres like spectralist music clearly suffer at low bitrates. With pieces like Per Norgard's Symphony No. 3 or Grisey's Les espaces acoustiques you can easily hear the difference between 256kbps and the original CD-quality on even average headphones or speakers. Any music which depends on a greater portion of the natural overtone series than just the first handful of partials will need higher bitrate encoding.

Start them off with network protocols, in particular, The Story of Ping

http://www.amazon.com/Story-About-Ping-Marjorie-Flack/dp/0140502416

Hacking for Dummies, Spam Kings: The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and %*@)# Enlargements and No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving, and Shoulder Surfing should educate them and prepare them for their release.

Hacking for Dummies, Spam Kings: The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and %*@)# Enlargements and No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving, and Shoulder Surfing should educate them and prepare them for their release.

Hacking for Dummies, Spam Kings: The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and %*@)# Enlargements and No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving, and Shoulder Surfing should educate them and prepare them for their release.

Some concepts never or rarely get outdated. Such as Electro static precautions, what the motherboard is. What a bus is... etc, etc. Also you never know when your going to run across an MCA card!

In all seriousness though, I happened to pick up an older edition of this book at the book store for like 7 bucks. It was current to the Pentium Pro, which was pretty good at the time. But regardless it had information there that was timeless and I'm really glad I had a chance to read and learn from it. So I wouldn't say repair books are a bad idea.

This book

especially the part about hacking the DOJ.

Send them certification books, i.e. Network+, A+, Security+ study books, as well as theoretical computer science books. These materials rarely require access to an actual computer.

If it's "computer repair" books that they really want, Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs is one of the best books. I've not used it in a long while, but I think it's not as much hands-on stuff. I know it covers a ton.

Or something along these lines might help: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000F71A2A

Bruce Sterling has some, let's say, Texan attitudes but overall he's proven himself to have a better grasp of an amazing range of technological issues for a hell of a long time now than just about anybody. The idea of a CTO who not only wrote both Heavy Weather AND Worldchanging, AND has been active in actual meatspace political organizing and organizational activities sure as hell appeals to me.
 
The more I think about this the more I like it. BRUCE STERLING FOR CTO!
F*ck; I may just go out and register the domain.

Bruce Sterling has some, let's say, Texan attitudes but overall he's proven himself to have a better grasp of an amazing range of technological issues for a hell of a long time now than just about anybody. The idea of a CTO who not only wrote both Heavy Weather AND Worldchanging, AND has been active in actual meatspace political organizing and organizational activities sure as hell appeals to me.
 
The more I think about this the more I like it. BRUCE STERLING FOR CTO!
F*ck; I may just go out and register the domain.

But have you ever considered that the culture might be less violent without a gun culture?

Statistics show that most civilian gun owners are law-abiding and non-violent. I quote Wikipedia:

Permit holders are a remarkably law-abiding subclass of the population. Florida, which has issued over 1,346,000 permits in twenty years, has revoked only 165 for a "crime after licensure involving a firearm," and fewer than 4,200 permits for any reason.

Most of the violent criminals are already convicted felons, and thus legally barred from owning a gun. I'd say they are part of the criminal culture, not the gun culture.

Have you actually researched the gun culture of the USA? I invite you to read The Gun Culture and Its Enemies. Amazon is offering a used copy for $0.44 plus shipping.

steveha

I wonder what Cory Doctorow would think if I posted a copy of this for my room mate?

(So that he didn't have to get up and get it from my book shelf, of course).

Look at http://www.amazon.com/What-Business-Really-Wants-Collaborative/dp/0750660961/ref=ed_oe_p

I just want to support the parent's point about retailing. They're really starting to get involved in the psychology of shopping. I'd highly recommend Why We Buy to anyone remotely interested in this stuff. It was actually required reading for one of my marketing classes.

The need for warmup is to get the synovial fluid to the correct temperature and viscosity to minimize friction in the joints and tendon sheaths, basically just like the oil in a car engine.

As for injury prevention the best thing is improving coordination (i.e. neuro-muscular training), which gives you the proprioceptive awareness necessary to move in a safe manner. Coordination is at *least* as important as overall strength.

In fact the experts in kinetic physiology basically disrecommend stretching entirely. The safe alternatives are: passive extensions, and proper and regular utilization of full range of motion (weight machines are BAD).

There are also a few stretches that are outright dangerous and should basically never be done, such as the forward bend which damages the lumbar spine.

For the full story, check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Movement-Blandine-Calais-Germain/dp/0939616173

This year has had the worst lot of presidential candidates.

Not only were Obama and McCain awful candidates but the 3rd parties were all just as bad.
Obama had the most charisma which is probably what got him in. Most voters couldn't tell you his policies. All they knew was that he isn't the residing president now.

The debates were sorry, no discussion on the tried and true issues like immigration and abortion; they were just pissing matches of he said/he said.

That being said,

I find the fact that Obama ran for the Senate unopposed quite fishy.
I find the fact that he practically didn't finish a term quite disturbing.

I'm not into conspiracy theories but I find his #1 guy disturbing too and he is probably a puppeteer.
His book states his wishes for mandatory civil service for citizens ages 18-25.

I found this interview on C-SPAN where he discusses it.

Amazon will not recognise ISBN-13 in links at all, they will be using their own product numbers instead.

I've seen you posting on Slashdot, and I usually respect what you write. However, I completely disagree with your conclusions here, and I urge you to think about this some more.

No gun ban has ever succeeded in keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals. They want guns, so they get them.

Some people will tell you that we could keep guns out of the hands of bad guys if we had a consistent, national, Draconian ban. A War on Guns, if you will. Think for a moment about the War on Drugs. Have we been able to keep crack cocaine out of the hands of users? If not, is it because we don't have a nation-wide Draconian ban on crack cocaine? Now consider that the crack users need to buy more every week. They can get drugs every week, in the face of a nation-wide ban. A violent thug only needs to get a gun once, and then he will carry it for months. (Basically, until he throws it away because cops are after him or something... then he gets another one.)

And, consider how easy it is with a machine shop to make a functioning firearm. Even if all gun makers were driven out of business, and all firearms circulating in society were found and destroyed, and all gun smugglers were caught at the border... all of which I consider impossible, by the way... even then, the bad guys would start making their own guns.

So, it is an axiom with me that no amount of law can keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of the bad guys. What then?

Then, all you can do is disarm the law-abiding. Does that really help?

Now, you mentioned Europe. I urge you to read the book The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy. I can't summarize a whole book in a few words, but the important takeaway is that violence is much more a cultural thing than a product of laws. England had a low violent crime rate. Then they banned guns. Then they had a low violent crime rate. People will tell you that England banned guns and has a lower crime rate than the USA; that's true, but can you really say it was the ban that caused the lower crime rate? (And in recent years, their violent crime rate has climbed...)

So, I don't believe that you can successfully disarm the bad guys. And I don't believe that you can lower the violent crime rate by passing gun control laws. And history and the law agree that the cops cannot protect everyone; all attempts to sue the police for failing to prevent any crime will fail, even if the police were horribly negligent. Given all this, I strongly oppose any and all efforts to ban firearms in civilian hands.

Also, bad neighborhoods in bad parts of town are where innocent people need firearms the most! I live in a boring, safe suburb, and I don't really need to own a gun. The truly poor people who live in horrible places are in much worse danger than I am. This is one reason I'm opposed to mandatory six-week training classes, expensive licenses, and bans on so-called "Saturday Night Specials". These things do nothing to stop the bad guys, and might keep an innocent citizen from getting a gun in a time of true need. I've read a few stories that curdled my blood.

steveha

If you'd like some reading that presents the facts about the history and context of the second amendment, I suggest A People Armed and Free: The Truth About the Second Amendment. The guy offers a disclaimer that he does believe the 2A supports an individual right. However, he presents both sides, with full text quotations, not the partial texts that are often offered from BOTH sides.

Your suggestion that you can not tell who or should not have a gun is somewhat well founded. It's true that you cannot pick out the guy with the flawless background (investigated via the FBI) that will someday use that firearm to commit a crime. The same can be said for the guy that will eventually drive his car into the front of a building and kill the mother buying a coffee at 7-11. You've probably heard this before, but I'll say it again. The outright ban of firearm ownership from law abiding citizens in an urban setting leaves you with a defenseless population against a defensive criminal front. Criminals get weapons. They don't go through an FBI investigation to get them.

Also, to suggest that an armed populace is not a deterrent to a tyrannical takeover, well, history says otherwise.

And even if you disagree with all of these things, I have one more question. Why are you so quick to take away what I enjoy so much? I shoot more in a month than most people do in their whole lives because it's FUN. Across all disciplines: trap, skeet, sporting clays, high powered rifle, rimfire target, steel plate pistol, practical pistol, bullseye pistol, cowboy action renactments, the list goes on.

The 'gun rights' folks are one of the few 'activists groups' that never wanted to CHANGE anything. We want to keep what we have. That has been the stance since the beginning. Why can't you just leave us alone? These laws are treating a symptom of the criminal leniency in this country, not the underlying problem. Let's kill unborn children, but let violent criminals skirt the death penalty. Let's 'reform' inmates so they can be let out and turn them into repeat offenders.

There's a reason the political left chose 'assault weapons' as their term of endearment for the target of choice in their continued infringement on civil liberties. I have asked a number of legislators in New Jersey why they feel the need to ban modern firearms. Their answer is that they have never heard of such a ban.

'Assault Firearms' are nothing more than MODERN firearms. The so called 'evil features' do not make it any more lethal. 'Why do you need a flashhider?' Because when I shoot at night matches, I don't like being blinded by the first shot. Ignore the fact that flashiders do nothing to hide the flash seen by the TARGET. That would be too rational.

'Why do you need a pistol grip?' Ever seen a good hunting rifle? They have thumbhole stocks. Remove some wood, and you're left with a pistol grip.

'Why do you need a bayonet lug?' Why the fuck not? How many people have been bayonetted by a dude with a firearm?

Come on people. Start thinking for yourself. Stop asking 'why do you need....?' Start asking 'Whats the problem with having...?'

Really? What are the statistics? Are we talking in absolute or proportional terms?

I don't have a number, but Amazon seems to be selling a lot of Apple's own fileservers.

Why is it desirable to be able to drag music to a folder, but totally unacceptable to drag it to the iTunes library window?

It's unacceptable to drag music to a folder. Music comes into my collection from all sorts of sources: iTMS, Amazon MP3 store, and ripping CDs. iTunes has good support for the first source but is pretty awful about the other two. There's a good chance music won't even originate on my home network. Sometimes I'll rip a CD at work or buy something from Amazon, then scp it to my home server.

Typical "workflow" in these cases is going around to each Mac and dragging the //fileserver/music folder into the iTunes window and waiting for ages while it re-examines every single song. Why should that be necessary?

Online bookstores like Amazon still recognize ISBN-10s, and the only use the average reader will have for an ISBN is getting to the right listing at Amazon if there are multiple editions or books with the same title. In fact, Amazon's own link to the page still encodes an ISBN-10.

Developers often aren't picky.

Flamebait or funny, you decide.

1) You want to stretch ONLY muscle, rarely tendon (muscle to bone connections), and NEVER ligament (holds bones together). Think of a mechanical coupling such as ball joints in a car (yes! a car analogy!.:-) ) If they are tight, forces are transmitted as they should be. Loose couplings - not only do your teeth get rattled, but parts tend to wear out.

Back to the meat world, for example, if your collateral ligaments (sides of knee) are loose, then there is side to side play in your knee joint, your movements are less efficient, forces are applied in directions which they're not supposed to leading to injuries. (also think of football and ACL/PCL - knee ligament injuries) Now if your leg tendons are loose, your leg muscles will be like a stretched out string - less efficient in the full range of motion.

2) You want to stretch warmed up muscle, not cold, since cold will resist the movement. If you stretch cold, you will tend to stretch tendon & ligament and your body will resist more (see #1)

The trend in Yoga now is to work on positions after warm up. In the past (at least from my POV) they discouraged "pushing" into positions so injuries were averted - by warming up both by exercise (some forms combine Pilates type movements) and sometimes external heat, attaining flexibility is made more efficient and less prone to injury.
An amazing book to read on the subject of flexibility is "Science of Flexibility" by Alter. It has probably all you want to know on the subject.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Science-Flexibility-Michael-J-Alter/dp/0736048987

MMOs in mobile devices remind me of Charles Stross' Halting State. It also introduces the concept of "servers" as a cloud where data is passed around via a peer-to-peer protocol (fragments of data - encrypted - reside on all players' devices).