Slashdot Mirror

I believe this line of reasoning to be mistaken to some degree - evolution of man and squirrel alike indeed continued apace until ~approx 100 000 years ago, when modern man first left Africa and the laws of evolution ceased to apply to humans, due to the plasticity of spandrels. Hence, positing evolution of humanity is incorrect in timespans extending much further back than a mere 6000 years. After this no evolution whatsoever has taken place among humans, and therefore the article referenced above must be incorrect.

It is hard to determine if this study and many other recent similar ones implying recent evolution in humans are driven by mere ignorance or if more sinister motives are at work. The author referenced here, one Nicholas Wade, is notable for engaging in ideologically dubious activities, such as his recent book "Before the Dawn". He must be watched closely, or his dangerous line of thinking might be allowed to spread among the easily manipulated masses.

Prof. Beata Brattenschlick
Dept. of Deconstruction, University of Copenhagen

References:

"Before the Dawn":
http://www.amazon.com/Before-Dawn-Recovering-Histo ry-Ancestors/dp/1594200793

"Breakthrough in human genetics":
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N22205028 .htm

So says _Not The Bible_, anyway... :-)

The most likely reason for your heat to fail and cause plumbing problems would be a power outage. If a storm comes through and takes out the power, all your technology is probably for naught. Most broadband systems can't ride out the kinds of outages the Northeast gets from a good ice storm.

Based on my family's experience with a vacation home in New Hampshire, I recommend:

1. Find a neighbor you trust who has a clear line of sight to at least one of your house's windows. If you don't have such a neighbor, obtain one, or move to a neighborhood with trustworthy people.
2. Go to the hardware store and buy three things: A Honeywell "Winter Watchman" or equivalent, a clamp-on work light, and a red light bulb. The "Winter Watchman" is a simple device with a thermostat that plugs into the wall and turns on power its socket when the temperature is below the set point.
3. Set up the equipment where it won't be obvious when turned off, but will be clearly visible to the neighbor when on.
4. Ask the neighbor to watch your house. Tell them about the light. Ask them to check the house if the light goes on, or if there's a prolonged power outage. Give them a spare key to facilitate this, so they can let a repairman in if necessary. This works best if the neighbor is on the same power-utility circuit as you, so they know when your power is out.
5. Take appropriate safeguards anyway, including draining your fresh water supply, adding antifreeze to all the drain traps in the house, and having your furnace inspected and cleaned at the start of each heating season. Don't forget to have your mail and newspapers held, and call the local police station and let them know you'll be gone -- they will usually keep an eye out for suspicious activity. Let them know your neighbor has approved access.

No computerized McGuffin will be able to handle the range of scenarios that a good neighbor can...

How about this. I get my leads on the news from The Daily Show. They bring me the punch line, then I go out and find the story myself. I can't speak for everybody, but that's a fact.

In the last year I've read Speaking Freely - Floyd Abrams, What's the Matter with Kansas - Thomas Frank, The Assassin's Gate - George Packer, and Freakonomics - Edmund Mennis, all of which I first saw on The Daily Show. How many books have I read after seeing them on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, combined? Zero.

Somebody, somewhere, in the mass media industry should pay attention to that. The Daily Show suggests books about politics and I read some of them. Nobody else on television wins that honor. Not only do I find my news leads from The Daily Show, but I also find detailed, novel-length analysis through The Daily Show.

How about this. I get my leads on the news from The Daily Show. They bring me the punch line, then I go out and find the story myself. I can't speak for everybody, but that's a fact.

In the last year I've read Speaking Freely - Floyd Abrams, What's the Matter with Kansas - Thomas Frank, The Assassin's Gate - George Packer, and Freakonomics - Edmund Mennis, all of which I first saw on The Daily Show. How many books have I read after seeing them on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, combined? Zero.

Somebody, somewhere, in the mass media industry should pay attention to that. The Daily Show suggests books about politics and I read some of them. Nobody else on television wins that honor. Not only do I find my news leads from The Daily Show, but I also find detailed, novel-length analysis through The Daily Show.

How about this. I get my leads on the news from The Daily Show. They bring me the punch line, then I go out and find the story myself. I can't speak for everybody, but that's a fact.

In the last year I've read Speaking Freely - Floyd Abrams, What's the Matter with Kansas - Thomas Frank, The Assassin's Gate - George Packer, and Freakonomics - Edmund Mennis, all of which I first saw on The Daily Show. How many books have I read after seeing them on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, combined? Zero.

Somebody, somewhere, in the mass media industry should pay attention to that. The Daily Show suggests books about politics and I read some of them. Nobody else on television wins that honor. Not only do I find my news leads from The Daily Show, but I also find detailed, novel-length analysis through The Daily Show.

How about this. I get my leads on the news from The Daily Show. They bring me the punch line, then I go out and find the story myself. I can't speak for everybody, but that's a fact.

In the last year I've read Speaking Freely - Floyd Abrams, What's the Matter with Kansas - Thomas Frank, The Assassin's Gate - George Packer, and Freakonomics - Edmund Mennis, all of which I first saw on The Daily Show. How many books have I read after seeing them on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, combined? Zero.

Somebody, somewhere, in the mass media industry should pay attention to that. The Daily Show suggests books about politics and I read some of them. Nobody else on television wins that honor. Not only do I find my news leads from The Daily Show, but I also find detailed, novel-length analysis through The Daily Show.

You are correct to be suspicious of the term "social justice." Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek demolished the concept in his book Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice.

I read that as Adams advocating that the US should not attempt export its revolution to other countries, undermining the existing political order in much the same way as the Communists have attempted to do. I don't necessarily read that as an argument against the US establishing a democratic government in places where it has gone to war for reasons other than to spread its revolution.

My other reaction is that democracy seems to be showing some life in the former fascist nations of Italy, German, and Japan, where it was imposed. Former Communist nations like Poland, East Germany, and the Baltic states seem to be doing well also. Arab citizens in Israel vote and hold office. Increasingly large numbers of Iraqis have turned out at the polls in each election; there is yet hope there. The fact that the Iraqi security forces are just reaching their full strength now, their training is almost complete, and some of the bad apple units are being weeded out, means that the coming months will see significantly greater pressure against the insurgents. There is a good chance that their fate will be the same as that of the Nazi Werewolves who terrorized Germany for a time following the surrender of Nazi Germany.

We probably still have invasion plans for Canada left over from 1812...

My recollection is that the US dropped all plans for war against Canada in the 1920s or 1930s.

Up until recently, the DoD still maintained battle plans for a potential war against Britain. ..... so the fact that they had invasion plans for Britain left-over from WWII and updated once-in-a-while doesn't really mean much.

I would love to see a source on this as I highly doubt that the US has had any actual plans for a war against the UK since the 1920-30s, if not before then. I would be willing to believe that the US had plans to invade the UK to liberate it in the event that a German invasion plan, such as Operation Sea Lion, had been successful, but that is war against Germans in the UK, not against the UK. I could possibly see there being a similar plan in the event that the former Soviet Union had dropped all six of its airborne divisions and added its couple of division equivalents of naval infantry regiments against the UK in a sort of super Red Storm Rising, but once again, this is war against enemy forces in the UK, not against the UK. I doubt that any plans against a German or Soviet occupation of the UK got past the formative stage, unless they were purely for exercises since the German threat passed and the Soviet threat was very unlikely. Or, have I been trolled?

We probably still have invasion plans for Canada left over from 1812...

My recollection is that the US dropped all plans for war against Canada in the 1920s or 1930s.

Up until recently, the DoD still maintained battle plans for a potential war against Britain. ..... so the fact that they had invasion plans for Britain left-over from WWII and updated once-in-a-while doesn't really mean much.

I would love to see a source on this as I highly doubt that the US has had any actual plans for a war against the UK since the 1920-30s, if not before then. I would be willing to believe that the US had plans to invade the UK to liberate it in the event that a German invasion plan, such as Operation Sea Lion, had been successful, but that is war against Germans in the UK, not against the UK. I could possibly see there being a similar plan in the event that the former Soviet Union had dropped all six of its airborne divisions and added its couple of division equivalents of naval infantry regiments against the UK in a sort of super Red Storm Rising, but once again, this is war against enemy forces in the UK, not against the UK. I doubt that any plans against a German or Soviet occupation of the UK got past the formative stage, unless they were purely for exercises since the German threat passed and the Soviet threat was very unlikely. Or, have I been trolled?

So i dont feel like googling, but i know at work we have this cable that has composite, L and R audio and S-Video on one end, and Xbox, PS2, Gamecube and 360 connectors on the other for like $15. Not a panacea, but itll help. You can find switchboxes with 5 ins for everything from coax to s-video for around $30 though.

Ok, i did search, they have 2 listed on amazon, but neither are in stock and neither have a brand name listed...

Well said and the poularity of this article demonstrates your point. The notion that geeks should shun politics is simply failing to understand the nature of geeks. One important (almost definitional) trait of a geek is that they like to pull things apart in order to "fix" them.

Geeks had quite a bit of influence when it came to writing the US constitution.

Summarising the dust jacket of the linked book:

Thomas Jefferson, able to read and understand Newton's principa. He gave scientific lectures on fossils while he was VP and had many inventions to his name.

Ben Franklin, internationally renowned geek in his own lifetime.

John Adams had an impecable geek education, including areas such as "Pnewmaticks, Hydrostaticks, Mechanicks and Opticks".

James Madison was that most uncommon of beasts, a geek with lucid communication skills, he "peppered his Federalist Papers with references to physics, chemistry and the life sciences".

I have never been to the US, I picked up the book a few years ago because of my casual interest in the history of science. Regardless of where you live, geeks have influenced politics since the days of stonehenge style calendars. I don't see any reason to deliberately exlude ourselves now.

As for gun control, here in Australia anyone who keeps a gun in their bedside drawer for "self defense" is considered a dangerous gun nut. I grew up in the 60's and 70's and from experience can tell you it has not always been like that. These days the cultural objection towards people owning guns for "self-defense" is firmly set in legislation and the general population. It is so strong that the overwhelming majority (including myself) would kick anyone out of office who even suggested we go back to selling guns and ammo in supermarkets.

There are no absolutes in life, and that includes the US constitution and freedom. Geeks with graphs have shown gun cultures pay a price for their "freedom" (OTOH: Iraq demonstrates the principle of a well armed malitia rejecting the US government). Science, politics and lawyers can only go so far towards changing a culture, the "big picture" was best expressed by a US president: "We have nothing to fear except fear itself".

C++ is an inherently and unnecessary complex language, if you want to use some C inheritor for OO programming resort to Objective-C: it is a much simpler and cleaner "enhancement" of C instead of C++ which tries to kill many flies with one stroke (multiparadigm language). ObjC is essentially C + Smalltalk, you can learn it within one day if you already know C, just compare the number of pages of http://www.amazon.com/C++-Programming-Language-Spe cial-3rd/dp/0201700735 vs http://www.amazon.com/Object-Oriented-Programming- Evolutionary-Brad-Cox/dp/0201548348 . it's like in real live: the worse approach wins (Windows vs. Linux and so on). Good tutorial here: http://objc.toodarkpark.net/ . And by the way: the OpenStep Libs are to die for!

C++ is an inherently and unnecessary complex language, if you want to use some C inheritor for OO programming resort to Objective-C: it is a much simpler and cleaner "enhancement" of C instead of C++ which tries to kill many flies with one stroke (multiparadigm language). ObjC is essentially C + Smalltalk, you can learn it within one day if you already know C, just compare the number of pages of http://www.amazon.com/C++-Programming-Language-Spe cial-3rd/dp/0201700735 vs http://www.amazon.com/Object-Oriented-Programming- Evolutionary-Brad-Cox/dp/0201548348 . it's like in real live: the worse approach wins (Windows vs. Linux and so on). Good tutorial here: http://objc.toodarkpark.net/ . And by the way: the OpenStep Libs are to die for!

I believe that the name of the movie was Panic in the Skies. On the Amazon.com webpage on of the customer reviews mentions "a laptop controlling a 747," so that must be the film

Looking at the Amazon.com review, I see that I was slightly wrong about how they got into that situation. It says "a 747 filled with passengers is struck by lightning in mid-flight. The explosion kills the pilot and co-pilot and sends the airliner into a deadly nose dive." Of course, that adds another unrealistic detail to the story. Aircraft that have been hit by lightning usually survive without experiencing serious problems.

What we *had* here was a failure to communicate.
That seems to be clearing up, somewhat.

If you remember just a few, scant years ago, this discussion would be full of:
* "Your a moran"
"How about that tin foil hat"
"You watch too much TV"
"I guess you are a leet hacker dude :-P"

and so on.

Perhaps Kevin (TM) has helped us understand what has been perpetrated on us for years (witting or unwitting social engineering).

The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471 237124/ref=ase_mitnicksecuri-20/103-6052457-813506 9?v=glance&s=books

So the internet does make us smarter, eh?

For example:
The Kennedy assassination made the word "conspiracy" a knee jerk, almost unconscientious reaction to discount whatever followed as ludicrous.

As an exercise let me roll this past you.

If the Japanese in WWII could have attacked every home in the US by way of their radio set top box (a "brown note" for electronics), to start fires in every home ...

http://www.schmarder.com/radios/crystal/

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

do you think they would have conspired with College (engineering) students to help them?

Criminals are now MBAs, Engineers and Rocket Scientists.
Your desktop could be mocking you.

* [yes, it's misspelled]

This is not true if copyright is taken away. You then cannot make money from your creations, because anyone else can make copies of them for free.

You didn't like No Laughing Matter? Weird!

They also left out the Paper Man which was a good movie about hackers from 1971. That was made back before personal computers existed. In the movie a group of college students in a computer lab use a networked computer create a "paper man" and get a charge card in his name to temporarily help pay some of their bills. Somehow their paper man mysteriously seems to take on a life of his own and starts trying to kill them by causing computer controlled hardware such as elevators to malfunction. It even alters the dosage of a prescribed medication while one of them are in the hospital.

The movie shows old computer equipment such as reel-to-reel tape and punched cards being sorted or read in machines. I really enjoyed watching it on TV back in the early 1970's and found it to be very thought provoking. I thought about the movie some more when, shortly after that, I took an introductory "Programming in Basic" class at a Junior College. We didn't have monitors in the class, so whenever we typed in a command the results would loudly and rapidly be printed out on paper on the teletype in front of us. We were we all hooked up to the DEC System 10 computer along with a few other businesses around town who also timeshared on the same computer. It reminded me somewhat of the setup in the movie. That movie is over a decade older than any other hacking movie on this list. This was back before the average person had ever heard of hacking, identity theft or networks of computers. Modern audiences probably wouldn't be as impressed because the ideas are no longer novel or mysterious.

More can be found here http://www.locostusa.com/forums/

It's all very well these hucksters peddling the semantic web to funding bodies who don't know any better, as long as they don't start pretending it's anything other than the new FIPA - a collection of committees generating specifications that the world will continue to ignore.

It's all very well these hucksters peddling the semantic web to funding bodies who don't know any better, as long as they don't start pretending it's anything other than the new FIPA - a collection of committees generating specifications that the world will continue to ignore.

Your Wish Is Granted

Where is this game even widely available? Amazon sells it, but only through their third-party sellers; they don't have any in stock themselves, though oddly the release date is listed as the middle of November. And that's only the Wii version, the Gamecube version isn't even in site. How did Zonk get his hands on a copy?

When the imaginary number [i] is first introduced to high school students it is common to read something like the following (which, actually, I've taken from a college level textbook): "The real equation x^2+1=0 led to the invention of i (and also -i) in the first place. That was declared to be the solution and the case was closed." ... When the early mathematicians ran into x^2+1=0 and other such quadratics they simply shut their eyes and called them "impossible." The certainly did not invent a solution for them. The breakthrough came not from quadratic equations, but rather from cubics which clearly had real solutions but for which the Cardan formula produced formal answers with imaginary components.

BTW, totally OT, but Underworld's Second Toughest in the Infants is a great "dance" album to run to. I save it for the speed workouts. I'm always on the lookout for music to run to that's rhythmic, but is more than just kick-drum-and-some-squealy-noise. I've been happily playing this one since '96. Never seems to get old to me.

Parent is correct. It is truly mind boggling how terrible his reasoning is. You simply don't define infinity and -infinity as numbers. That is not what they are. Add this guy to the list of cranks http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Cranks-Spectrum -Underwood-Dudley/dp/0883855070

$35.50
Bookpool: Configuring IPCop Firewalls: Closing Borders with Open Source
http://www.bookpool.com/sm/1904811361

$39.99
Amazon.com: Configuring IPCop Firewalls: Closing Borders with Open Source: Books: Barrie, Dempster,James, Eaton-Lee
http://www.amazon.com/Configuring-IPCop-Firewalls- Closing-Borders/dp/1904811361

$41.99
Buy.com - Configuring Ipcop Firewalls: Closing Borders with Open Source : Barrie Dempster : ISBN 1904811361
http://www.buy.com/prod/configuring-ipcop-firewall s-closing-borders-with-open-source/q/loc/106/20330 4392.html

If you're in the UK you get a huge 0% discount at TheReg:

1904811361/9781904811367: Configuring IPCop Firewalls: Closing Borders with Open Source :: The Register Books - The IT and Computer Book specialists
RRP £24.99 Save 0%
Our Price £24.99
http://books.theregister.co.uk/static/live/805529. htm

Sounds like your friends could benefit from reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad

You're absolutely right, there are no non-Apple products available for purchase anywhere. You're totally locked in.

You're absolutely right, there are no non-Apple products available for purchase anywhere. You're totally locked in.

You're absolutely right, there are no non-Apple products available for purchase anywhere. You're totally locked in.

You're absolutely right, there are no non-Apple products available for purchase anywhere. You're totally locked in.

You're absolutely right, there are no non-Apple products available for purchase anywhere. You're totally locked in.

You're absolutely right, there are no non-Apple products available for purchase anywhere. You're totally locked in.

You're absolutely right, there are no non-Apple products available for purchase anywhere. You're totally locked in.

You're absolutely right, there are no non-Apple products available for purchase anywhere. You're totally locked in.

You're absolutely right, there are no non-Apple products available for purchase anywhere. You're totally locked in.

You're absolutely right, there are no non-Apple products available for purchase anywhere. You're totally locked in.

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: Configuring IPCop Firewalls.

Yesterday on Technocrat there was an announcement about the upcoming NASA press conference. NASA has kept nerds in suspense for utterly minor announcements before, so I wasn't expecting much from the announcement. Indeed, anything as important as the discovery of life (or, rather, the discovery of fossils of life) would probably have leaked out before and be all over the news.

But this announcement is cool because it means that Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy beginning with Red Mars , undoubtedly the most inspiring work of space colonization science fiction for many of us here, may still be timely. Much of Robinson's plot depends on the existence of subsurface aquifers. Even if there's no life, we can still dream of such an awesome concept as terraformation made possible through water still present underground.

(plugging in a Vonage black box doesn't count)

hmm, my vonage "black box" is just a linksys http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-RT31P2-Router-Intern et-Service/dp/B0002V8KWM/sr=8-7/qid=1165436273/ref =pd_bbs_sr_7/105-6940768-1910851?ie=UTF8&s=electro nics switch with 2 phone jacks for voip. not all that mysterious....

buy it here. Sure it cost one penny more than BN. But for that one cent you can have the satisfaction of screwing slashdot out of their kickback.

For some reason the review links to B & N, but it seems that Amazon has it a few bucks cheaper. With a book this pricey, any savings are welcome.

Maybe, but why do the people in poor countries accept and even welcome the sweat shops, horrible working conditions, repression, etc? Perhaps, because it's better than what they had before?

Noam Chomsky points out in >Class War: The Attack on Working People (a talk given at MIT in 1995 or so) that "people in poor countries" used to do just fine as farmers. But then they got their legs cut out from underneath them by subsidized grain imports from the United States (and other countries with highly mechanized agriculture). So they started abandoning the countryside for the cities, willing to work for cheap. Western companies have been taking advantage of this new source of cheap labor by firing their "expensive" western labor.

The only people who benefit from this setup are the already-wealthy. Even though the cost of "stuff" has gone down tremendously since the push for so-called "free trade" got started some 14 years ago, 'our' (we, the masses) incomes have gone down even more. Found a copy of The Screwing of the Average Man recently, and it advocates the CATCH-85 rule: "The fallacy in youtooism. Under Catch-85, the number of people who benefit from a special privilege is limited to no more than (usually the wealthiest) 15 percent of the population."

"YOUTOOISM: 1. The belief that whatever applies to the rich applies to the average man, too. 2. The strategy for seducing people into accepting their own screwing. It consists of giving the average man just enough of a break to convince him he's benefiting from the system."

I'm amazed at how many people in this story are defending their own screwing, because they've been tricked by that "15%" that they benefit too.

I got modded "flamebait" recently for pointing out that the United States is bankrupt (and can't afford another Apollo-style moonshot). I'm sure someone with modpoints will be tempted to give this comment the same treatment. But before they do, I hope they consider first whether they are part of the 15%, or part of the 85%.

Chomsky's talk is good; I found it as a .torrent with just a little searching...

How can you say that while kids keep dying for not having something to eat??? It's amazing how we have the technology for almost anything and children keep dying of hunger.

Oh my, we have to save the children...you must be talking about Africa for the most part. Kids there aren't dieing from a lack of food, but mostly from crazy regimes and govs. that take all of the supplies that are sent over there. Technology alone won't change that.

It's a sad state of affairs. And don't come with that crap that it's the way things are, or that's the way economy works, or any other bullshit. The fact that 2% of the people owns half the world's wealth is not only mind boggling

You should read Growing Artificial Societies sometime. Given simple rules like maximize my health and reproduce when I can, wealth naturally distributes this way. I can't remember the citation, but I read about a theory where the guy said even if you take all of the money in the world and distribute it evenly to everyone, it wouldn't be long till we're back in this distribution. Maybe it is just way things work (and the book above has some pretty startling examples about just this).

I might be exposing my ignorance on the subject (I have had hardly any economics education), but it seems to me that there should be something we can do as a pre-emptive release valve for wealth maldistribution. We start out with a relative imbalance, but not too much, say 70/30. This imbalance is not due to unfair advantage. It's just because some people are a more [industrious|clever|capable] than others [1].

The "problem" starts when the accumulation of assets among the more-capable accelerates, a phenomenon that I believe is due to the selfish exploitation of systems. (This is quite probably an evolutionary strategy, so it may not go away soon.) This, of course, is precisely what Marx was on about, and his prediction is that the imbalance will grow to the point that the have-nots will rise up in arms and simply take back what was taken from them (i.e., the release valve is opened). I think history has shown this to be fairly accurate, the French, American, and Russian revolutions being three recent examples.

So accepting that this is the inevitable result of accelerating imbalance, an intelligent course of action would be the invention of an economic mechanism that effectively bleeds wealth back to the proletariat, thereby providing release and staving off revolution. This should make sense to the wealthy as well! A stable system in which they are assured their wealth ought to be better than a short-term system that will lead to their heads being cut off.

Even though there are some mechanisms like this already (e.g., progressive taxation), they are apparently not effective. What's the blockage here? Why can't this be figured out? I am enough of a cynic to think that the main blockage is the arrogant belief of the wealthy that they can suppress revolution indefinitely. However, has there been any good mechanism proposed to address this issue?

[1] cf. Beggars in Spain for a good treatment of the economic responsibility of the more-capable viz. the less-capable.