Slashdot Mirror

Thank her and someone related to Kassie Washington for the dhimmitude:

A link
Another

Thankfully Slashdot isn't getting the SJW treatment. But if this gets downmodded, you can probably tell who modbombed me.

And it was found in New Mexico. :P

What counts? Would "BIE?" a classic fark comment be banned? It's like they're trying to reinvent themselves while alienating their original demographic (Sound familiar Slashdot?).

Fark was my go-to place for link aggregation as was slashdot for my tech. Then they banned boobies on the main page. Then they had the cluster fuck "You'll get over it" redesign in 2007. After a while it really didn't feel like Fark and I went over to Reddit and every time I go back Fark seems to be pandering to what they think is the Reddit crowd to draw more users back.

Look at the Fark Archives from the week of September 11th: https://web.archive.org/web/20.... A Bin Laden post "bin Laden claims to have nuclear, chemical weapons (*cough* bullshit *cough*)" on the same page as "Miss World 2001 contestants. Chile wins (safe for work)".

Both of them need to go back to their original demographics, be happy with that because driving them away at the expense of your actual regulars won't end well. How's your MySpace profile these days?

Geez, this is the most idiotic comment I've seen on Slashdot all day, and that's saying something. You couldn't be bothered to do a 30 second web search before implying that Apollo had no benefits?

http://web.archive.org/web/201...
http://m.computerworld.com/s/a...
http://www.the-scientist.com/?...
http://www.consumerreports.org...

Examples from those links: improved dialysis machines, credit card swipes, army field rations, improved building insulation, low recoil/shock rubber, cordless household appliances, cheaper Teflon and Velcro, asbestos-free fire proof textiles, better industrial lubricant, exercise equipment improvents used by pro sports teams, a great deal of insight into how the moons and planets formed, many rocket technology advances used in today's ICBMs and missile defense systems, etc., etc., etc.

Please, next time do five minutes of research before you post something so bonehead with so much conviction.

As does wolframalpha. New york daily news sais:

Bill de Blasio was born across the street from Gracie Mansion in the now-closed Doctors Hospital.

Gracie Mansion is the place Mr. Blasio is currently working -- as mayor of new york city.

http://toolserver.org/~magnus/...
You could ask those two questions:
"Where was Abraham Lincoln born?"
and
"what is the population?"
and it would return you the population of the city lincoln was born in.

Unfortunately, WMF shot toolserver down, so you get a deadlink. This "foundation" dictator group of superprotectors will be the death of the wikipedia project! If it were for me, they should be revoked their deducible status right now.
Archive has a mirror, however as useful as an archive google mirror (interactive website):
http://web.archive.org/web/201...

Compare Space-X's launch manifest from a year ago with their current launch manifest. They're six months to a year behind their launch schedule. There were supposed to be three Space-X ISS resupply flights this year, #4, #5, and #6. Flight #4 is currently scheduled for September. There are five commercial customers waiting for their scheduled 2014 launches.

Some of this isn't Space-X's fault, and some of it is. All these are Falcon-9 launches, some with the Dragon capsule. No major new hardware is involved. It's not clear where the holdup is coming from. There have been problems with scheduling at Canaveral. 2014 was supposed to be the year that Space-X caught up on their launch manifest, but that's not happening. Unclear why.

They smell like Magic Smoke, of course!

Just like Red Hat Linux 6.1 bitcoin is incompatible with magic smokeless CPUs.

His website proves itself false. He claims it was founded in 1988; however Whois records for the domain only go back to 2000, and the web address doesnt appear in the Wayback Machine until 2003.

Neither of these mean anything. You can buy a domain name years after founding a business, you can even change names or get a different domain name at a later time. Wayback machine doesn't archive every single website, nor does it archive them from the very start. I remember back then Wayback machine didn't archive anything unless somebody explicitly searched for the domain in Wayback machine.

Should be online. Most of the issues. Unless it was pulled. I couldn't connect, so here's the archive.org link: https://web.archive.org/web/20...

Looks like Gale fucked it up: http://gdc.gale.com/products/t... They seem to have paywalled all the public domain material. Bastards!

His website proves itself false. He claims it was founded in 1988; however Whois records for the domain only go back to 2000, and the web address doesnt appear in the Wayback Machine until 2003.

Looks like the guy has tried to mix his own marketing material into google results, but you can see where his highly touted ScenGen actually comes from here:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/wi...

This version of MAGICC/SCENGEN was developed primarily with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but it rests on developments carried out over the past 20 years that were funded by a number of organizations.

So the "ScenGen" you keep seeing in all the results is not the same as the one this O'brien dude keeps blathering about. In fact, hes apparently the only one who cares about it; he did do one talk at IEEE in 2010 (though strangely theres no mention of it anywhere except the bog-standard event page), but there doesnt appear to have been any chatter on the internet about it whatsoever.

So, to the AC who posted this: hopefully this is a useful lesson. Anyone can say anything on the internet, and even make it look passingly believable. But if it sounds "too perfect", its probably rubbish.

AMD treating its customers like idiots? Say it ain't so!

The article in question is still available via archive.org, as the link preview redundantly demonstrates.

Before the US picked up the abandoned French effort for the Panama canal, the US was seriously considering building the Nicaragua canal*.

The Nicaraguan government was historically worried about British colonial aspirations in the area and basically invited the US in as a preemptive action to deter the British from action. By 1884 a treaty was negotiated to build the Nicaraguan canal and a US based canal company established to build it, but the company didn't accomplish too much before going bankrupt. The US was going to restart work on Nicaraguan canal, but whole Panama thing changed the US direction. It was only after the US financed the Panamanian revolution and the newly formed country of Panama decided to accept the terms of the previously negotiated Hay–Herrán Treaty (not actually ratified by Colombia) which discounted the French bankruptcy sale price from $100M to $40 to take over the French project.

Interest revived in in 1914 with the Bryan–Chamorro Treaty, but that never panned out either...

* see Sánchez-Merry Treaty and read this book...

User name: poiuyt, password:qwerty; Back in the day, circa 2001 I was involved in a failed get-rich scheme called poiuyt.com and we would be hammered with Email confirmations for people signing up at other sites using the above credentials and @poiuyt.com for an Email Address. There would be everything from free tech sites to for pay porn, I always managed to resist destroying the online reputations of these fools, but just barely. If that is the "quality of the creds the Russians have filtched then it's probably not that big of a deal; if it is that big of a deal then I'd worry about being an acessory before and after the fact if I was Hold Security.

"Carrier bees wait for favourable breezes. If a storm arises, they steady themselves with the weight of a little pebble held in their feet; some authorities say that it is placed on their shoulders ...."

- Pliny the Elder: Naturalis Historia

Thankfully the Internet Archive crawled the page before HAD redacted it.

Here's the original:

Tektronix’s MSO2000 line of oscilloscopes are great tools, and with the addition of a few ‘application modules’, can do some pretty interesting tasks: decoding serial protocols, embedded protocols like I2C and SPI, and automotive protocols like CAN and LIN. While testing out hisMSO2012B, [jm] really like the (limited time) demo of the I2C decoder, but figured it wasn’t worth the $500 price the application module sells for. No matter, because it’s just some data on a cheap24c08EEPROM, and with a little bit of PCB design it’s possible to build this module for under $5.

The application module Tektronix are selling is simply just a small EEPROM loaded up with an SKU. By writing this value to a $0.25 EEPROM, [jm] can enable two applications. The only problem was getting his scope to read the EEPROM, a problem easily solved with a custom board.

The board [jm] designed is available at OSH Park, with the only additional components needed being an EEPROM, a set of contacts for reading a SIM card, and a little bit of plastic glued onto the back of the board for proper spacing.

And Jm's post:

I purchased a new Tektronix MSO2012B Oscilloscope and quickly found utility in the demo I2C decoder for when I need to diagnose the failed controller in my hot tub. Before the demo period expired, I decided that the capability was rather compelling but didn't have money to purchase the actual application modules. This scope is used purely for hobbies and will never make a buck. After scraping the internet (and Google Translate) for information about this scope, I was able to produce my own Application Modules. It was a whole lot easier than I expected it to be.

After some investigation and trial/error I found that each application module can be enabled with up to two applications by writing the SKU of the application module (SKU can be found on the Tektronix website) onto a 24c08 eeprom.

Once this was proven, boards were created at OSHPark, a few parts purchased from Digikey and I now have a rather capable device.

For reference, dumps of the 24c08 are provided along with a part list to recreate this and my open source board published on OSHPark

1x Haktek Module ($3.00) - https://oshpark.com/profiles/m...
1x 24c08 ($0.25) - Digikey - 24LC08BT-I/OTCT-ND
1x Sim holder ($1.50) Digikey - 609-1401-1-ND
1x Spacer - Free

The 24c08 goes on the back of the board while the SIM holder will need to be trimmed to fit onto the board. Program the 24c08 by any means you have. I used a spare RaspberryPi. The I2C header to write to the module is labeled on the PCB.

To make it fit in the Tektronix, use a spacer to fill the gap between the PCB and the module bay. I initially used a piece of paper folded up but eventually found a scrap piece of plastic and glued it on.

What amazed me about this was Tektronix used no encryption, hashing or any other forms of authentication. It's just an EEPROM and for under $5 I was able to enable functionality that was not initially exposed. This shouldn't even be considered hacking. It's synonymous to flipping a bit in a configuration file.

Please comment below if this same methodology works with other Tektronix scopes.

Thanks!

- Jm

And the board design

Thankfully the Internet Archive crawled the page before HAD redacted it.

Here's the original:

Tektronix’s MSO2000 line of oscilloscopes are great tools, and with the addition of a few ‘application modules’, can do some pretty interesting tasks: decoding serial protocols, embedded protocols like I2C and SPI, and automotive protocols like CAN and LIN. While testing out hisMSO2012B, [jm] really like the (limited time) demo of the I2C decoder, but figured it wasn’t worth the $500 price the application module sells for. No matter, because it’s just some data on a cheap24c08EEPROM, and with a little bit of PCB design it’s possible to build this module for under $5.

The application module Tektronix are selling is simply just a small EEPROM loaded up with an SKU. By writing this value to a $0.25 EEPROM, [jm] can enable two applications. The only problem was getting his scope to read the EEPROM, a problem easily solved with a custom board.

The board [jm] designed is available at OSH Park, with the only additional components needed being an EEPROM, a set of contacts for reading a SIM card, and a little bit of plastic glued onto the back of the board for proper spacing.

And Jm's post:

I purchased a new Tektronix MSO2012B Oscilloscope and quickly found utility in the demo I2C decoder for when I need to diagnose the failed controller in my hot tub. Before the demo period expired, I decided that the capability was rather compelling but didn't have money to purchase the actual application modules. This scope is used purely for hobbies and will never make a buck. After scraping the internet (and Google Translate) for information about this scope, I was able to produce my own Application Modules. It was a whole lot easier than I expected it to be.

After some investigation and trial/error I found that each application module can be enabled with up to two applications by writing the SKU of the application module (SKU can be found on the Tektronix website) onto a 24c08 eeprom.

Once this was proven, boards were created at OSHPark, a few parts purchased from Digikey and I now have a rather capable device.

For reference, dumps of the 24c08 are provided along with a part list to recreate this and my open source board published on OSHPark

1x Haktek Module ($3.00) - https://oshpark.com/profiles/m...
1x 24c08 ($0.25) - Digikey - 24LC08BT-I/OTCT-ND
1x Sim holder ($1.50) Digikey - 609-1401-1-ND
1x Spacer - Free

The 24c08 goes on the back of the board while the SIM holder will need to be trimmed to fit onto the board. Program the 24c08 by any means you have. I used a spare RaspberryPi. The I2C header to write to the module is labeled on the PCB.

To make it fit in the Tektronix, use a spacer to fill the gap between the PCB and the module bay. I initially used a piece of paper folded up but eventually found a scrap piece of plastic and glued it on.

What amazed me about this was Tektronix used no encryption, hashing or any other forms of authentication. It's just an EEPROM and for under $5 I was able to enable functionality that was not initially exposed. This shouldn't even be considered hacking. It's synonymous to flipping a bit in a configuration file.

Please comment below if this same methodology works with other Tektronix scopes.

Thanks!

- Jm

And the board design

Thankfully the Internet Archive crawled the page before HAD redacted it.

Here's the original:

Tektronix’s MSO2000 line of oscilloscopes are great tools, and with the addition of a few ‘application modules’, can do some pretty interesting tasks: decoding serial protocols, embedded protocols like I2C and SPI, and automotive protocols like CAN and LIN. While testing out hisMSO2012B, [jm] really like the (limited time) demo of the I2C decoder, but figured it wasn’t worth the $500 price the application module sells for. No matter, because it’s just some data on a cheap24c08EEPROM, and with a little bit of PCB design it’s possible to build this module for under $5.

The application module Tektronix are selling is simply just a small EEPROM loaded up with an SKU. By writing this value to a $0.25 EEPROM, [jm] can enable two applications. The only problem was getting his scope to read the EEPROM, a problem easily solved with a custom board.

The board [jm] designed is available at OSH Park, with the only additional components needed being an EEPROM, a set of contacts for reading a SIM card, and a little bit of plastic glued onto the back of the board for proper spacing.

And Jm's post:

I purchased a new Tektronix MSO2012B Oscilloscope and quickly found utility in the demo I2C decoder for when I need to diagnose the failed controller in my hot tub. Before the demo period expired, I decided that the capability was rather compelling but didn't have money to purchase the actual application modules. This scope is used purely for hobbies and will never make a buck. After scraping the internet (and Google Translate) for information about this scope, I was able to produce my own Application Modules. It was a whole lot easier than I expected it to be.

After some investigation and trial/error I found that each application module can be enabled with up to two applications by writing the SKU of the application module (SKU can be found on the Tektronix website) onto a 24c08 eeprom.

Once this was proven, boards were created at OSHPark, a few parts purchased from Digikey and I now have a rather capable device.

For reference, dumps of the 24c08 are provided along with a part list to recreate this and my open source board published on OSHPark

1x Haktek Module ($3.00) - https://oshpark.com/profiles/m...
1x 24c08 ($0.25) - Digikey - 24LC08BT-I/OTCT-ND
1x Sim holder ($1.50) Digikey - 609-1401-1-ND
1x Spacer - Free

The 24c08 goes on the back of the board while the SIM holder will need to be trimmed to fit onto the board. Program the 24c08 by any means you have. I used a spare RaspberryPi. The I2C header to write to the module is labeled on the PCB.

To make it fit in the Tektronix, use a spacer to fill the gap between the PCB and the module bay. I initially used a piece of paper folded up but eventually found a scrap piece of plastic and glued it on.

What amazed me about this was Tektronix used no encryption, hashing or any other forms of authentication. It's just an EEPROM and for under $5 I was able to enable functionality that was not initially exposed. This shouldn't even be considered hacking. It's synonymous to flipping a bit in a configuration file.

Please comment below if this same methodology works with other Tektronix scopes.

Thanks!

- Jm

And the board design

Thankfully the Internet Archive crawled the page before HAD redacted it.

Here's the original:

Tektronix’s MSO2000 line of oscilloscopes are great tools, and with the addition of a few ‘application modules’, can do some pretty interesting tasks: decoding serial protocols, embedded protocols like I2C and SPI, and automotive protocols like CAN and LIN. While testing out hisMSO2012B, [jm] really like the (limited time) demo of the I2C decoder, but figured it wasn’t worth the $500 price the application module sells for. No matter, because it’s just some data on a cheap24c08EEPROM, and with a little bit of PCB design it’s possible to build this module for under $5.

The application module Tektronix are selling is simply just a small EEPROM loaded up with an SKU. By writing this value to a $0.25 EEPROM, [jm] can enable two applications. The only problem was getting his scope to read the EEPROM, a problem easily solved with a custom board.

The board [jm] designed is available at OSH Park, with the only additional components needed being an EEPROM, a set of contacts for reading a SIM card, and a little bit of plastic glued onto the back of the board for proper spacing.

And Jm's post:

I purchased a new Tektronix MSO2012B Oscilloscope and quickly found utility in the demo I2C decoder for when I need to diagnose the failed controller in my hot tub. Before the demo period expired, I decided that the capability was rather compelling but didn't have money to purchase the actual application modules. This scope is used purely for hobbies and will never make a buck. After scraping the internet (and Google Translate) for information about this scope, I was able to produce my own Application Modules. It was a whole lot easier than I expected it to be.

After some investigation and trial/error I found that each application module can be enabled with up to two applications by writing the SKU of the application module (SKU can be found on the Tektronix website) onto a 24c08 eeprom.

Once this was proven, boards were created at OSHPark, a few parts purchased from Digikey and I now have a rather capable device.

For reference, dumps of the 24c08 are provided along with a part list to recreate this and my open source board published on OSHPark

1x Haktek Module ($3.00) - https://oshpark.com/profiles/m...
1x 24c08 ($0.25) - Digikey - 24LC08BT-I/OTCT-ND
1x Sim holder ($1.50) Digikey - 609-1401-1-ND
1x Spacer - Free

The 24c08 goes on the back of the board while the SIM holder will need to be trimmed to fit onto the board. Program the 24c08 by any means you have. I used a spare RaspberryPi. The I2C header to write to the module is labeled on the PCB.

To make it fit in the Tektronix, use a spacer to fill the gap between the PCB and the module bay. I initially used a piece of paper folded up but eventually found a scrap piece of plastic and glued it on.

What amazed me about this was Tektronix used no encryption, hashing or any other forms of authentication. It's just an EEPROM and for under $5 I was able to enable functionality that was not initially exposed. This shouldn't even be considered hacking. It's synonymous to flipping a bit in a configuration file.

Please comment below if this same methodology works with other Tektronix scopes.

Thanks!

- Jm

And the board design

Thankfully the Internet Archive crawled the page before HAD redacted it.

Here's the original:

Tektronix’s MSO2000 line of oscilloscopes are great tools, and with the addition of a few ‘application modules’, can do some pretty interesting tasks: decoding serial protocols, embedded protocols like I2C and SPI, and automotive protocols like CAN and LIN. While testing out hisMSO2012B, [jm] really like the (limited time) demo of the I2C decoder, but figured it wasn’t worth the $500 price the application module sells for. No matter, because it’s just some data on a cheap24c08EEPROM, and with a little bit of PCB design it’s possible to build this module for under $5.

The application module Tektronix are selling is simply just a small EEPROM loaded up with an SKU. By writing this value to a $0.25 EEPROM, [jm] can enable two applications. The only problem was getting his scope to read the EEPROM, a problem easily solved with a custom board.

The board [jm] designed is available at OSH Park, with the only additional components needed being an EEPROM, a set of contacts for reading a SIM card, and a little bit of plastic glued onto the back of the board for proper spacing.

And Jm's post:

I purchased a new Tektronix MSO2012B Oscilloscope and quickly found utility in the demo I2C decoder for when I need to diagnose the failed controller in my hot tub. Before the demo period expired, I decided that the capability was rather compelling but didn't have money to purchase the actual application modules. This scope is used purely for hobbies and will never make a buck. After scraping the internet (and Google Translate) for information about this scope, I was able to produce my own Application Modules. It was a whole lot easier than I expected it to be.

After some investigation and trial/error I found that each application module can be enabled with up to two applications by writing the SKU of the application module (SKU can be found on the Tektronix website) onto a 24c08 eeprom.

Once this was proven, boards were created at OSHPark, a few parts purchased from Digikey and I now have a rather capable device.

For reference, dumps of the 24c08 are provided along with a part list to recreate this and my open source board published on OSHPark

1x Haktek Module ($3.00) - https://oshpark.com/profiles/m...
1x 24c08 ($0.25) - Digikey - 24LC08BT-I/OTCT-ND
1x Sim holder ($1.50) Digikey - 609-1401-1-ND
1x Spacer - Free

The 24c08 goes on the back of the board while the SIM holder will need to be trimmed to fit onto the board. Program the 24c08 by any means you have. I used a spare RaspberryPi. The I2C header to write to the module is labeled on the PCB.

To make it fit in the Tektronix, use a spacer to fill the gap between the PCB and the module bay. I initially used a piece of paper folded up but eventually found a scrap piece of plastic and glued it on.

What amazed me about this was Tektronix used no encryption, hashing or any other forms of authentication. It's just an EEPROM and for under $5 I was able to enable functionality that was not initially exposed. This shouldn't even be considered hacking. It's synonymous to flipping a bit in a configuration file.

Please comment below if this same methodology works with other Tektronix scopes.

Thanks!

- Jm

And the board design

The Google cache was taken down. The original author seems to have agreed to take down the information on his site as well, even without having been contacted him-self:
https://sites.google.com/site/...

However, they were too late. The web archive has already archived their pages. Here are the relevant links:

http://web.archive.org/web/201...

http://web.archive.org/web/201...

(not modified)
https://oshpark.com/profiles/m...
http://web.archive.org/web/201...

The Google cache was taken down. The original author seems to have agreed to take down the information on his site as well, even without having been contacted him-self:
https://sites.google.com/site/...

However, they were too late. The web archive has already archived their pages. Here are the relevant links:

http://web.archive.org/web/201...

http://web.archive.org/web/201...

(not modified)
https://oshpark.com/profiles/m...
http://web.archive.org/web/201...

The Google cache was taken down. The original author seems to have agreed to take down the information on his site as well, even without having been contacted him-self:
https://sites.google.com/site/...

However, they were too late. The web archive has already archived their pages. Here are the relevant links:

http://web.archive.org/web/201...

http://web.archive.org/web/201...

(not modified)
https://oshpark.com/profiles/m...
http://web.archive.org/web/201...

Fear not, the original article is still available http://web.archive.org/web/201...

I hope it's more like Stalag 13 than like Stalag 17.

That issue was great.
https://archive.org/stream/sta...

A large body of scientists who are PHYSICISTS agree with me. A large body of scientists who are CLIMATE RESEARCHERS disagree. ... which group should I listen to? The ones whose SPECIALTY it is, or the tyros? Go learn a little humility yourself. Like for example learning to admit when you're wrong. [Jane Q. Public, 2013-05-30]

I showed Jane statements from the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, the Australian Institute of Physics, and the European Physical Society. Spoiler alert: mainstream physicists don't agree with the Slayers.

Maybe Jane doesn't actually take the physicists' word for it?

... None of your citations even mention Latour, much less try to refute him. You are just making your usual straw-man arguments again. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-08-04]

All those professional physics societies agree that our CO2 emissions are causing warming, which Dr. Latour and the Slayers deny. Jane's claimed that physicists are "the experts" when it comes to physics, and that Jane "takes the physicists' word for it." I'm skeptical.

... To the best of my knowledge -- and I have been following the issue -- not one physicist has even attempted to refute LaTour's analysis, while a number of physicists have backed him up. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2013-05-30]

rgbatduke is Prof. Brown, a physicist who'd refuted Dr. Latour's analysis directly to Jane, but as usual Jane just doubled down. On a Slayer blog post about Prof. Brown, Lonny Eachus even repeated Jane's arguments to physicist Joel Shore, who refuted Lonny.

Maybe Jane/Lonny Eachus doesn't actually take the physicists' word for it?

... As for your heating the walls, the argument all along has been about something that is warmed from a cooler state to equilibrium. Whether your point about heating the walls is correct or not isn't part of it. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-08-04]

Of course it is. The heated plate reaches equilibrium at 150F with the chamber walls at 0F, then the chamber walls are warmed to 149F and the heated plate warms from a cooler state to a warmer equilibrium. This is a simple way to see that Slayer claims like these are wrong:

... Do you understand the second law of thermodynamics? Do you understand that it is not possible for a cooler body to increase the heat of a warmer body via infrared radiation? ... [Jane Q. Public, 2013-05-27]

... An object that is radiating at a certain black-body temperature WILL NOT absorb a less-energetic photon from an outside source. This is am extremely well-known corollary of the Secon

A large body of scientists who are PHYSICISTS agree with me. A large body of scientists who are CLIMATE RESEARCHERS disagree. ... which group should I listen to? The ones whose SPECIALTY it is, or the tyros? Go learn a little humility yourself. Like for example learning to admit when you're wrong. [Jane Q. Public, 2013-05-30]

I showed Jane statements from the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, the Australian Institute of Physics, and the European Physical Society. Spoiler alert: mainstream physicists don't agree with the Slayers.

Maybe Jane doesn't actually take the physicists' word for it?

... None of your citations even mention Latour, much less try to refute him. You are just making your usual straw-man arguments again. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-08-04]

All those professional physics societies agree that our CO2 emissions are causing warming, which Dr. Latour and the Slayers deny. Jane's claimed that physicists are "the experts" when it comes to physics, and that Jane "takes the physicists' word for it." I'm skeptical.

... To the best of my knowledge -- and I have been following the issue -- not one physicist has even attempted to refute LaTour's analysis, while a number of physicists have backed him up. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2013-05-30]

rgbatduke is Prof. Brown, a physicist who'd refuted Dr. Latour's analysis directly to Jane, but as usual Jane just doubled down. On a Slayer blog post about Prof. Brown, Lonny Eachus even repeated Jane's arguments to physicist Joel Shore, who refuted Lonny.

Maybe Jane/Lonny Eachus doesn't actually take the physicists' word for it?

... As for your heating the walls, the argument all along has been about something that is warmed from a cooler state to equilibrium. Whether your point about heating the walls is correct or not isn't part of it. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-08-04]

Of course it is. The heated plate reaches equilibrium at 150F with the chamber walls at 0F, then the chamber walls are warmed to 149F and the heated plate warms from a cooler state to a warmer equilibrium. This is a simple way to see that Slayer claims like these are wrong:

... Do you understand the second law of thermodynamics? Do you understand that it is not possible for a cooler body to increase the heat of a warmer body via infrared radiation? ... [Jane Q. Public, 2013-05-27]

... An object that is radiating at a certain black-body temperature WILL NOT absorb a less-energetic photon from an outside source. This is am extremely well-known corollary of the Secon

.. physicists are now saying "Climate scientists should start listening to physicists about physics." [Jane Q. Public, 2012-04-14]

Does Jane listen to physicists about physics?

.. A cooler object cannot increase the temperature of a warmer object via thermal radiation. It just doesn't happen. Ask any physicist. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-04-17]

.. An article by Spencer linked to elsewhere in this discussion (look for "Yes, Virginia") describes this concept of back-radiation, which is central to many of the AGW models. The article that I linked to above is by a Ph.D. physicist, refuting the first article. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-04-18]

Does Jane think PhD physicists are credible regarding physics?

And yet the "climate scientists" themselves have not been asking the statisticians about the math or physicists about the physics. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-04-20]

Does Lonny Eachus ask physicists about the physics?

.. climate scientists themselves have not been consulting .. physicists about the physics! [Jane Q. Public, 2012-05-02]

Does Jane consult physicists about the physics?

.. How many of the CO2 models rely on the concept of "back radiation" to explain the radiative forcings? There's a bit of a problem with that: "back radiation" is physically impossible. Again see that link to the article by Latour (a physicist) who shows very clearly exactly why that is so. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-05-10]

So anyway, here is physicist Pierre Latour, refuting Spencer's explanation: bit.ly/JV9XmI [Lonny Eachus, 2012-05-21]

.. the CO2-warming model rely on the concept of "back radiation", which physicists (not climate scientists) have proved to be impossible. I'm happy to leave actual climate science to climate scientists. But when THEIR models rely on a fundamental misunderstanding of physics, I'll take the physicists' word for it, thank you very much. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-07-05]

Does Jane actually take the physicists' word for it?

.. now it's physicists saying that they've got the physics wrong. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-07-05]

.. They have been accused of getting the physics of their models wrong by professional, well-respected physicists. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-07-05]

Actually, the rules aren't even well-known. The majority of CO2 warming models rely on a concept of "back radiation" that (according to physicists) does not even exist..

.. physicists are now saying "Climate scientists should start listening to physicists about physics." [Jane Q. Public, 2012-04-14]

Does Jane listen to physicists about physics?

.. A cooler object cannot increase the temperature of a warmer object via thermal radiation. It just doesn't happen. Ask any physicist. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-04-17]

.. An article by Spencer linked to elsewhere in this discussion (look for "Yes, Virginia") describes this concept of back-radiation, which is central to many of the AGW models. The article that I linked to above is by a Ph.D. physicist, refuting the first article. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-04-18]

Does Jane think PhD physicists are credible regarding physics?

And yet the "climate scientists" themselves have not been asking the statisticians about the math or physicists about the physics. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-04-20]

Does Lonny Eachus ask physicists about the physics?

.. climate scientists themselves have not been consulting .. physicists about the physics! [Jane Q. Public, 2012-05-02]

Does Jane consult physicists about the physics?

.. How many of the CO2 models rely on the concept of "back radiation" to explain the radiative forcings? There's a bit of a problem with that: "back radiation" is physically impossible. Again see that link to the article by Latour (a physicist) who shows very clearly exactly why that is so. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-05-10]

So anyway, here is physicist Pierre Latour, refuting Spencer's explanation: bit.ly/JV9XmI [Lonny Eachus, 2012-05-21]

.. the CO2-warming model rely on the concept of "back radiation", which physicists (not climate scientists) have proved to be impossible. I'm happy to leave actual climate science to climate scientists. But when THEIR models rely on a fundamental misunderstanding of physics, I'll take the physicists' word for it, thank you very much. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-07-05]

Does Jane actually take the physicists' word for it?

.. now it's physicists saying that they've got the physics wrong. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-07-05]

.. They have been accused of getting the physics of their models wrong by professional, well-respected physicists. [Jane Q. Public, 2012-07-05]

Actually, the rules aren't even well-known. The majority of CO2 warming models rely on a concept of "back radiation" that (according to physicists) does not even exist..

The 15 minute behavior has been documented for over 3 years. Additionally, every purchase requires confirmation. As I said, this is a parental failure. If you can't raise kids who can be trusted with a blank check, simply don't give them one. If you don't understand how the purchasing system works, don't use it, and certainly don't authorize your kid to do so.

AMD have the most awful marketing I can think of. Here is archive.org's backup of an old (now deleted) Wikipedia article which nicely summarised the 'AMD Vison' lies.

They were telling people that low-end machines would be fine for playing DVDs, but wouldn't cope with ripping CDs.

I really want to like you, AMD...

LOL, check this out:

4/16/14 version of the site

AARC provides a music royalty, generated by the sales of blank CDs and personal audio devices, media centers, satellite radio devices, and car audio systems that have recording capabilities, to its 142,000+ members worldwide.

5/17/14 version:

AARC provides a music royalty, generated by the sales of blank CDs and personal audio devices, media centers, satellite radio devices, and car audio systems that have recording capabilities, to its 142,000+ members worldwide.

And today's version:

AARC provides a music royalty, generated by the sales of automobile infotainment systems, blank CDs, personal audio devices, media centers, and satellite radio devices that have music recording capabilities, to its 300,000+ members worldwide.

I wonder, do they think if they add something to the intro of their terrible, terrible website*, it means they can start collecting royalties on it?

* as the creator and admin of several terrible websites, I know bad when I see it.

LOL, check this out:

4/16/14 version of the site

AARC provides a music royalty, generated by the sales of blank CDs and personal audio devices, media centers, satellite radio devices, and car audio systems that have recording capabilities, to its 142,000+ members worldwide.

5/17/14 version:

AARC provides a music royalty, generated by the sales of blank CDs and personal audio devices, media centers, satellite radio devices, and car audio systems that have recording capabilities, to its 142,000+ members worldwide.

And today's version:

AARC provides a music royalty, generated by the sales of automobile infotainment systems, blank CDs, personal audio devices, media centers, and satellite radio devices that have music recording capabilities, to its 300,000+ members worldwide.

I wonder, do they think if they add something to the intro of their terrible, terrible website*, it means they can start collecting royalties on it?

* as the creator and admin of several terrible websites, I know bad when I see it.

I thought Slashdot was the best place to ask. Many times I've seen pieces of news about Amigas and usually they're warmly received (are they not outdated?).

That's nostalga kicking in. The Amiga was an amazing piece of technology back in the day; a powerful, multimedia capable, grown-up computer for those who cut their teeth on the Commodore 64 and Vic-20 computers. A last generation, PalmOS 5 based PDA is not going to tug at the nostalga heartstrings. Furthermore, the warmly received stories are about people who have accomplished something with the old hardware, who have gotten their machines to do something above and beyond what people thought they were capable of; not stories about noobs who dug their dad's old computer out of the attic and are trying to get it going again.

I'm wondering why so many people are saying stuff like "let it go", "it's useless", "learn a language." Other people are linking me to LMGTFY as if I haven't spent hours looking for working links.

I think there is a parallel phenomenon to XKCD's Today's Ten Thousand. It is a lot easier to say "You're doing it the wrong way", than to try to understand what you might be trying to actually do, and provide guidance accordingly. Sadly, when people do that, both you and they miss out on a little piece of life.

Consider why you are doing what you want to do. I know it can be exciting to get a free whatever, and spend lots of time trying to get that whatever running. It can seem like a golden opportunity, but it can be a really easy way to waste a boatload of time. If you are not locked in to getting the Tungsten E2 going; if it is just an excuse to get into programming something, perhaps you should consider something like the Raspberry Pi, the Arduino, or the BASIC Stamp. These systems are meant for hacking, have active user and developer communities, boast loads of open source software, and are relatively cheap, as opposed to the closed source, unhackable Tungsten E2.

Having said that, I don't have any concrete advice to give you. I have never done any programming for portable devices, although I used a Handspring Visor regularly up until a few years ago when the case fell apart. PalmOS was already considered dead before that point. Perhaps you could try the Wayback Machine for some leads.

I also noticed that the old PalmOs documentation is largely still viewable on Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20...

See, old stuff that *they* like is important. Working on that stuff is a great idea.

Working on old stuff that they don't care about is clearly a waste of time.

Anyhow, here's a start for you: GCC PRC-Tools Which is likely what you want. Ron's Obsolete Palm OS Computing Information Page has a working link to HotPaw, which is better than nothing.

You'll also want to take advantage of the Wayback Machine to see what's behind all the dead links you're surely running in to.

Here you go:
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
Yeah the blog title sais everything: Communist Inc, which doesn't want to make money, gets swallowed by Monster money Corp, which makes money.

This is bit dated, but still quite relevant, The Bose FAQ from archive.org as latest version seem to have disappeared few years back from net.

... Since this person is not making any scientific argument anyway, but simply attempting ad-hominem, and saying "so-and-so is wrong" without ANY evidence (which is all he can do, because he doesn't have any), this was a completely pointless exercise on his part. He was simply making another attempt at dragging my persona through the mud. I can only conclude that was his only purpose, since he didn't make any actual, substantive arguments. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-07-25]

A real skeptic would be checking my calculations but Jane can't even acknowledge them. If the Slayers are right, why is Venus hotter than Mercury?

Mercury's daytime surface temperature is 350C while Venus has a nighttime surface temperature of ~470C.

... despite the fact that Venus is 87% farther away from the Sun than Mercury, implying sunlight 3.5x weaker.

... and despite the fact that Mercury's albedo is ~0.1 and Venus's albedo is ~0.65.

... and despite the fact that a "night" on Venus lasts ~58 Earth days, during which the temperature barely changes from that at "high noon".

... Since all atmospheres must get colder with altitude as kinetic energy is transformed into potential energy in a planet’s gravitational field, the lower atmosphere must be warmer than upper atmosphere, even if there is no radiation involved. This follows from the perfect gas law, PV = nRT. ... [Dr. Latour, 2011-11-06]

Riiiight. That's why the stratosphere doesn't exist. I've explained that long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by conservation of energy, not the ideal gas law. (If scientists were wrong, basketball players would have to dribble with gloves because the pressurized ball would have to be very hot.)

Many Slayers blame equilibrium surface temperature on pressure, which I call the basketball player glove fantasy. None of the Slayers at WUWT would answer this question: would Venus have the same surface temperature if its atmosphere were pure nitrogen, which isn’t a greenhouse gas?

I've even seen a Slayer convince himself that all objects have the same albedo, which I call the gray Oreo fantasy.

Will Jane explain the fact that Venus is hotter than Mercury using basketball player gloves, gray Oreos, or truly original groundbreaking science?

As opposed to the utopia of freedom and joy we have now?

You're welcome to GTFO to another country and find out what oppression really feels like, my dear pampered child.

BRAAP! AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM ALERT

Guantanamo Bay is one of the most brutal prisons in the world, along with the CIA's black sites. A lot of the prisoners would rather commit suicide, but they're not allowed to do that.

During the Cold War, the Communists used to say, "Well, what about your Negroes in the South?" They were right. Millions of black people were living under oppression as bad as any other country. Try to vote -- get killed. Kill a Negro -- go free. In fact, you can still kill a Negro and go free very often today. A lot of Negroes did GTFO and found a lot of countries, like Canada or France, that gave them more freedom than they had here.

We also killed about 3 million native Americans.

After Pete Seeger died, I looked up his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee https://archive.org/details/in... -- and I also read the testimony of other musicians and writers. FYI, at that time, we purged the American entertainment and movie industry of anyone who challenged the corporate hegemony. Seeger, who had tremendous courage in standing up before HUAC (and wasn't a Communist), would have gone to jail like many others, but he was saved by a legal technicality, thanks to a Supreme Court that believed in the Constitution. Today the Supreme Court would have sent him to jail. Seeger did have his passport revoked, like Paul Robeson and Linus Pauling.

And that's how 40 families wound up owning half the capital in America, and more than half of the government.

For more examples of American oppression see Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States.

I'd rather follow Seeger's example, stay here and fight American corporate oppression, hopeless as it looks, than GTFO.

The real danger to America are the uber-patriots who claim that we have no problems.

@ClimateRealists That's the first I had read about O'Sullivan's rebuttal of the Greenhouse Effect. He makes a compelling argument. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-02-23]

@GreatDismal See John O'Sullivan's "Slaying the Sky Dragon", for instance. If you think there is solid science behind AGW you are mistaken. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-02-23]

The 2010 fantasy novel Slaying the Sky Dragon - Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory claims the second law of thermodynamics disproves the greenhouse effect. At first this seemed like a parody of creationists who claim the second law disproves evolution, but the Slayers seem very serious. They claim warm surfaces can't absorb back-radiation (*) from cold atmospheres because they mistakenly think heat can't be transferred from cold to warm objects at all. In fact, this is only true for net heat transfer. Cold objects can slow the rate at which warm objects lose heat without transferring more heat to warm objects than vice versa. That's how the greenhouse effect works.

(*) Also called downwelling longwave irradiance.

"We can easily calculate what the measured CO2 increase by itself does to the global energy balance of a static system."

This is where you are wrong. It has been shown that most of the models (at least) that are based on radiative forcings due to CO2 are based on flawed physics. See No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer. Their whole premise is based on a falsehood. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2012-04-14]

And so I have read explanations of how the greenhouse effect is supposed to work. And almost all of the CO2 warming models ... rely on the concept of "back radiation", in which the gases radiate some of their absorbed energy back to earth. But that is in fact impossible. First Spencer's explanation of how back radiation is supposed to work: bit.ly/HZ04KR ... Spencer is a weird case, because he recently jumped the fence and said his research showed CO2 warming to be true. So anyway, here is physicist Pierre Latour, refuting Spencer's explanation: bit.ly/JV9XmI The important point here being that most, not just a few, CO2 warming models rely on this "back radiation" concept. I'm not trying to pick on Spencer, it's just that he probably wrote up the best explanation of the mythical back radiation. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-05-21]

Again, Dr. Latour's Slayer fan fiction is fractally wrong:

... the absorption rate of real bodies depends on whether the absorber T (radiating or not), is less than the intercepted radiation T, or not. If the receiver T > intercepted T, no absorption occurs; if the receiver T < intercepted T the absorption rate may be as great as proportional to (T intercepted – T ab

@ClimateRealists That's the first I had read about O'Sullivan's rebuttal of the Greenhouse Effect. He makes a compelling argument. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-02-23]

@GreatDismal See John O'Sullivan's "Slaying the Sky Dragon", for instance. If you think there is solid science behind AGW you are mistaken. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-02-23]

The 2010 fantasy novel Slaying the Sky Dragon - Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory claims the second law of thermodynamics disproves the greenhouse effect. At first this seemed like a parody of creationists who claim the second law disproves evolution, but the Slayers seem very serious. They claim warm surfaces can't absorb back-radiation (*) from cold atmospheres because they mistakenly think heat can't be transferred from cold to warm objects at all. In fact, this is only true for net heat transfer. Cold objects can slow the rate at which warm objects lose heat without transferring more heat to warm objects than vice versa. That's how the greenhouse effect works.

(*) Also called downwelling longwave irradiance.

"We can easily calculate what the measured CO2 increase by itself does to the global energy balance of a static system."

This is where you are wrong. It has been shown that most of the models (at least) that are based on radiative forcings due to CO2 are based on flawed physics. See No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer. Their whole premise is based on a falsehood. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2012-04-14]

And so I have read explanations of how the greenhouse effect is supposed to work. And almost all of the CO2 warming models ... rely on the concept of "back radiation", in which the gases radiate some of their absorbed energy back to earth. But that is in fact impossible. First Spencer's explanation of how back radiation is supposed to work: bit.ly/HZ04KR ... Spencer is a weird case, because he recently jumped the fence and said his research showed CO2 warming to be true. So anyway, here is physicist Pierre Latour, refuting Spencer's explanation: bit.ly/JV9XmI The important point here being that most, not just a few, CO2 warming models rely on this "back radiation" concept. I'm not trying to pick on Spencer, it's just that he probably wrote up the best explanation of the mythical back radiation. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-05-21]

Again, Dr. Latour's Slayer fan fiction is fractally wrong:

... the absorption rate of real bodies depends on whether the absorber T (radiating or not), is less than the intercepted radiation T, or not. If the receiver T > intercepted T, no absorption occurs; if the receiver T < intercepted T the absorption rate may be as great as proportional to (T intercepted – T ab

@ClimateRealists That's the first I had read about O'Sullivan's rebuttal of the Greenhouse Effect. He makes a compelling argument. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-02-23]

@GreatDismal See John O'Sullivan's "Slaying the Sky Dragon", for instance. If you think there is solid science behind AGW you are mistaken. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-02-23]

The 2010 fantasy novel Slaying the Sky Dragon - Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory claims the second law of thermodynamics disproves the greenhouse effect. At first this seemed like a parody of creationists who claim the second law disproves evolution, but the Slayers seem very serious. They claim warm surfaces can't absorb back-radiation (*) from cold atmospheres because they mistakenly think heat can't be transferred from cold to warm objects at all. In fact, this is only true for net heat transfer. Cold objects can slow the rate at which warm objects lose heat without transferring more heat to warm objects than vice versa. That's how the greenhouse effect works.

(*) Also called downwelling longwave irradiance.

"We can easily calculate what the measured CO2 increase by itself does to the global energy balance of a static system."

This is where you are wrong. It has been shown that most of the models (at least) that are based on radiative forcings due to CO2 are based on flawed physics. See No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer. Their whole premise is based on a falsehood. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2012-04-14]

And so I have read explanations of how the greenhouse effect is supposed to work. And almost all of the CO2 warming models ... rely on the concept of "back radiation", in which the gases radiate some of their absorbed energy back to earth. But that is in fact impossible. First Spencer's explanation of how back radiation is supposed to work: bit.ly/HZ04KR ... Spencer is a weird case, because he recently jumped the fence and said his research showed CO2 warming to be true. So anyway, here is physicist Pierre Latour, refuting Spencer's explanation: bit.ly/JV9XmI The important point here being that most, not just a few, CO2 warming models rely on this "back radiation" concept. I'm not trying to pick on Spencer, it's just that he probably wrote up the best explanation of the mythical back radiation. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-05-21]

Again, Dr. Latour's Slayer fan fiction is fractally wrong:

... the absorption rate of real bodies depends on whether the absorber T (radiating or not), is less than the intercepted radiation T, or not. If the receiver T > intercepted T, no absorption occurs; if the receiver T < intercepted T the absorption rate may be as great as proportional to (T intercepted – T ab

@ClimateRealists That's the first I had read about O'Sullivan's rebuttal of the Greenhouse Effect. He makes a compelling argument. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-02-23]

@GreatDismal See John O'Sullivan's "Slaying the Sky Dragon", for instance. If you think there is solid science behind AGW you are mistaken. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-02-23]

The 2010 fantasy novel Slaying the Sky Dragon - Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory claims the second law of thermodynamics disproves the greenhouse effect. At first this seemed like a parody of creationists who claim the second law disproves evolution, but the Slayers seem very serious. They claim warm surfaces can't absorb back-radiation (*) from cold atmospheres because they mistakenly think heat can't be transferred from cold to warm objects at all. In fact, this is only true for net heat transfer. Cold objects can slow the rate at which warm objects lose heat without transferring more heat to warm objects than vice versa. That's how the greenhouse effect works.

(*) Also called downwelling longwave irradiance.

"We can easily calculate what the measured CO2 increase by itself does to the global energy balance of a static system."

This is where you are wrong. It has been shown that most of the models (at least) that are based on radiative forcings due to CO2 are based on flawed physics. See No, Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer. Their whole premise is based on a falsehood. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2012-04-14]

And so I have read explanations of how the greenhouse effect is supposed to work. And almost all of the CO2 warming models ... rely on the concept of "back radiation", in which the gases radiate some of their absorbed energy back to earth. But that is in fact impossible. First Spencer's explanation of how back radiation is supposed to work: bit.ly/HZ04KR ... Spencer is a weird case, because he recently jumped the fence and said his research showed CO2 warming to be true. So anyway, here is physicist Pierre Latour, refuting Spencer's explanation: bit.ly/JV9XmI The important point here being that most, not just a few, CO2 warming models rely on this "back radiation" concept. I'm not trying to pick on Spencer, it's just that he probably wrote up the best explanation of the mythical back radiation. [Lonny Eachus, 2012-05-21]

Again, Dr. Latour's Slayer fan fiction is fractally wrong:

... the absorption rate of real bodies depends on whether the absorber T (radiating or not), is less than the intercepted radiation T, or not. If the receiver T > intercepted T, no absorption occurs; if the receiver T < intercepted T the absorption rate may be as great as proportional to (T intercepted – T ab

No. Avoid those hats! There is an MIT study that shows that it actually amplifies certain frequencies of potential mind-control radiation.

See the chart here: http://automattic.com/work-wit...

Granted there are many people who contribute to the WordPress ecosystem who don't formally work for Automattic given the FOSS nature of WordPress and related plugins. It's just a very different 21st century way of doing business compared to the 20th century Microsoft model, and is doing a better job of bridging the exchange and gift economies (like I talk about on my site).

Automattic, which shepherds the core of WordPress, sounds like a great place to work for people like me who are comfortable working from home. The future for WordPress looks pretty amazing, especially given ever better JSON/AJAX RESTful support for JavaScript-powered frontend apps. See also:
http://inside.envato.com/the-f...
"For those willing to ignore the prevailing opinions in the programming community, Tom Willmot says that WordPress presents developers with incredible opportunities, and a wonderful sense of community: ..."

I've been looking at shifting my own "Pointrel" and "Twirlip" projects, my wife's "Rakontu" and "NarraCat" projects and other similar work (stuff related to participative narrative inquiry, civic sensemaking, public intelligence, social semantic desktop tools, educational simulations, and more) to have JavaScript frontends that use WordPress as an application server backend (rather than have them run stand-alone). That would make it easy for millions of WordPress users who might want such tools to install them as a WordPress plugin with a couple clicks. As Alan Kay said about Squeak, getting people to install anything to try it is hard. Other benefits would include easy authentication support. I expect more and more projects by other people will be moving in that direction. I'm tempted to apply to work at Automattic myself at some point given their FOSS focus. They are also hiring as they got a bunch of venture financing recently. But I would want to make at least a demo of that integration first. I plan on putting such a demo here when it works: http://twirlip.com/

Of course, JavaScript has problems (globals by default), PHP has problems (such a long list..), and WordPress has problems (no doubt), with many problems coming from their historical roots and a need for backward-compatibility. But I can't deny all three won some battle for mindshare for whatever reasons (especially ease of initial use), and when you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right? :-) Like Manuel De Landa wrote in "Meshworks, Hierarchies, and Interfaces", a uniformity on one level can often in turn support a diversity on a level above it.

See also on the value of having a diversity of programmers of a variety of experience levels in an organization:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

What I especially envision is that all those millions of WordPress sites could start talking to each other in interesting ways... See also Theodore Sturgeon's 1950s short story "The Skills of Xanadu" for where it all might lead...
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
https://archive.org/details/pr...

Or as I reprise here:
http://lists.alioth.debian.org...
"Gold Leader: Pardon me for asking, sir, but what good are semantic wikis and desktops going to be against [that]?
General Dodonna: Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small cgi script on a shared server or desktop to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense."

It's not rhetoric when it's fact. Railroads have a very poor history when it comes to dealing fairly with the public and there was a real threat based upon facts and incidents that led to the regulations but if the people believe that the huge tracts of land that were granted to the industry didn't come with strings, then they're sadly mistaken. Hence they were probably more unfairly regulated and tasked with mandates including mandatory passenger service. It was for the public good and for fostering growth in the country. To see how bad things were if a Railroad dominated a region, read "The Octopus: A story of California" by Frank Norris. While it fictionalized the struggles that were created by the Southern Pacific-Central Pacific Railroad in California in the years following completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. It was the Mussle Slough incident and five people who resisted the Railroad were killed. The Southern Pacific-Central Pacific controlled the rails, the heavy wagons and the ferries. They also had huge tracts of land and would charge whatever they wanted. It was so bad that to a point that you couldn't move any freight in California without them getting a cut. So the California government and the feds stepped in. A lot of the CFRs covering Railroads are there for safety for example boilers on steam locomotives that could explode if not properly maintained or tested or care for the widows and children of workers killed while working on the Railroad. Those are actually good regulations but as you indicate if it keeps moving regulate it but we can't just get rid of all of it not without suffering the repercussions of businesses left unchecked.

Regrettably the Cato institute somehow thinks that all of that unnecessary regulation and government interference is bad, too much can be very bad while not enough is the same that's where the balance has to be maintained. So if you want a true Business friendly environment go back to the 1880s in California and let me know how that works for you. As a Conservative myself I have to shake my head at some of the horseshit that spouts out of the Cato institute because their way of thinking isn't even close to mine.

Actually she was not vulgar or malicious at all, didn't mention anything that stands out as mean even.. just descriptive of mostly extremely poor service and mediocre food. You can read her (french) blog post here:

http://web.archive.org/web/201...

:) Here goes for French and there so called freedom of speech. hAh, people having fought for liberty, fraternity and equality, now they can't even "rate" or 'criticise" a restaurant. That Judge is a dick head. :) Yeah, I challenge him to sue me now for saying that his decision is like that of a child.

A blog is a personal space. You are free to read it, or ignore it.

Anyways, here's an archive of the Article in question: http://web.archive.org/web/201...

Use google translate if you don't understand French.

It mostly is about aperitif not being queried for, not served on time, bad waitressing, lack of good PR by the owner, bad wine serving abilities etc...

Good read if you like food.

My opinion about this, someone went to a restaurant counted what she experienced at the restaurant, and she got fined for counting her experience. Dafuq.