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Okay, I'm breaking my own rules. I guess I should have said "if there's any good science. There certainly wasn't any at the site you aimed me to. It was so bad that the editor resigned, in fact. Here's a short quote from a very interesting article:

“I was in fact in doubt about [the Open Chemical Physics Journal] before, because I had on several occasions asked about information about the journal without having heard from them. It does not appear on the list of international journals, and that is a bad sign. Now I can see that it is because it is a bad journal”, says [former editor-in-chief] Marie-Paule Pileni and continues:

“There are no references to the Open Chemical Physics Journal in other articles. I have two colleagues who contributed to publishing an article which was not cited anyplace either. If no one reads it, it is a bad journal, and there is not use for it”

Since their theories have no basis in fact, this is the sort of thing that the so-called "truthers" are forced to hang their hats on. No wonder no one takes them seriously

A mammogram is proven to help
Citation needed.
There is more and more studies showing that unless you are high risk, the odds of a mammogram helping is pretty even with not getting one:
http://medicalconsumers.org/2005/09/01/breast-cancer-awareness-month-read-this-before-you-have-a-mammogram/
http://bcaction.org/index.php?page=breast-cancer-screening-policy
On a similar (yet offtopic subject), same can be said with pap smears, it is coming to light that only reason why doctors push their patients to have them annually is basically something they can bill for. HPV (an STD) is the main cause of cervical cancer and more people a year die from melanoma than cervical cancer (http://www.cancer.org/downloads/STT/500809web.pdf) yet you don't see doctors pushing for moles to be removed. Prostate cancer still kills more people but yet men are not expected to bend over on a yearly basis unless they are high risk. Why is that? There is also suspicion that some of the abnormal cells found in pap smears may be actually caused by the continuous scrapings that women are undergoing rather than cervical cancer thus women undergoing unecessary surgery.

This website in general has been most enlightening:
http://bioethicsdiscussion.blogspot.com/

Or better yet, grab some EB Green. There's got to be at least one ex-Electric Boat employee working at Vermont Yankee with some laying around at home.

http://journalology.blogspot.com/2008/08/short-post-about-bentham-open.html

Bentham Open is mostly known for spamming researchers, so far as I can tell. I've received one or two spam solicitations from them myself. As for the 9/11 conspiracy paper, the editor-in-chief of that journal resigned because it was published without her knowledge or approval:

http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2009/04/bentham-editor-resigns-over-steven.html

They've also accepted nonsense articles:

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/06/10/nonsense-for-dollars/

Doesn't seem to be a very professional organization ...

Of course.. this just shows you how deep the conspiracy goes... ;)

http://journalology.blogspot.com/2008/08/short-post-about-bentham-open.html

Bentham Open is mostly known for spamming researchers, so far as I can tell. I've received one or two spam solicitations from them myself. As for the 9/11 conspiracy paper, the editor-in-chief of that journal resigned because it was published without her knowledge or approval:

http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2009/04/bentham-editor-resigns-over-steven.html

They've also accepted nonsense articles:

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/06/10/nonsense-for-dollars/

Doesn't seem to be a very professional organization ...

Of course.. this just shows you how deep the conspiracy goes... ;)

All Popular Mechanics does is demonstrate that the people populating the middle and left of the IQ Gaussian are active consumers. In this, it stands shoulder to shoulder with the National Enquirer, Fox News, and other amazingly low quality media outlets.

This is really quire unfair when you look at the magazine historically.

Popular Mechanics published science and craft projects for both kids and adults for the better part of 100 years.

The books, with titles like The Boy Mechanic, have been reprinted often - and the originals are treasured.

Mission Furniture: How to Make It

How To Draw Cartoons the U.S. Army Way!

Popular Mechanics Build-It-Yourself Ranch-Type House

http://authentium.blogspot.com/2007/05/short-history-of-spyware.html

Now, STFU!

"Right now, it looks like AdBlock, Flashblock, CustomizeGoogle, and my own AdRater couldn't be implemented under JetPack" - by Animats (122034) on Sunday January 10, @11:40AM (#30715050) Homepage

Per my subject line above? How about a GLOBAL solution, instead, & one that extends to ALL of your "webbound apps", instead, & NOT just to Mozilla softwares which is all your solution works for... (think IE, Outlook & other email programs even, + more), AND, the solution I propose also acts as "layered security" in combination with the FF/Mozilla only methods you use (which sadly, your methods are KNOWN to slow your browser down, use CPU cycles & more (like having bugs & security flaws in themselves too)... where this solution does not & covers ALL webbound apps, globally)??

Here is a GOOD SOLID WORK-AROUND, CALLED A HOSTS FILE!

HOSTS files also work to YOUR ADVANTAGE, for your money, because you pay for your linetime out of pocket most likely as I do, you can get back your speed, AND, gain security easily, & from a single easily edited file & a file eats no CPU cycles like a local DNS server can (& are not as security vulnerable either if you protect write access to a HOSTS file also)... Anyhow/anyways - Here goes:

SO - "that all said & aside"? Well, per your reply?? You're solutions cost CPU cycles & are KNOWN to slow down FF/Mozilla variants (as browser addons do), but... Hey - NO PROBLEM, because HOSTS files work alongside those addons too, & offer you more speed online AND more security, via a SINGLE EASILY EDITED + POPULATED FILE (called a HOSTS file):

I use a custom HOSTS file, in addition to the tools others here in this thread have noted (which MANY like FF addons only really function for FireFox/Mozilla products, but don't extend globally to all other webbound applications, & that is part of what HOSTS files give you above the methods you extoll + utilize: "GLOBAL COVERAGE", & of ALL webbound apps, not just FireFox/Mozilla ones via the addons you noted + use yourself...).

HOSTS files can be used to blockout KNOWN "bad" adserves, maliciously coded sites or adbanners, and "botnet C&C servers" too!

You can obtain reliable HOSTS files from reputable lists for more security online, but also for speed!

(More on that later & WHY/HOW (I use reliable lists for that, such as these HOSTS @ Wikipedia.com -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file or those from mvps.org (a good one this one))

I also further populate & keep current my custom HOSTS file with up to date information in regards to all of those threats, via:

----

A.) Spybot "Search & Destroy" updates (populates HOSTS and browser block lists)

B.) Sites like ZDNet's Mr. Dancho Danchev's blog -> http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/

C.) Sites like FireEye -> http://blog.fireeye.com/

D.) SRI -> http://mtc.sri.com/

----

My HOSTS file incorporates ALL of the entries from the HOSTS files shown @ wikipedia as well... gaining me speed online (by blocking adbanners, which have been compromised many times the past few years now by malscripted exploits (examples below)).

(I combined ALL reputable HOSTS files with one of my own (30,000 entries), & I removed duplicates removed via a Borland Delphi app I wrote to do so called "APK HOSTS File Grinder 4.0++". That program also functions to change the default larger & SLOWER 127.0.0.1 blocking 'loopback adapter' IP address to either 0.0.0.0 (for VISTA/Windows Server 2008/Windows 7, smaller & thus faster than 127.0.0.1 default) or the smallest & fastest 0 "blocking 'IP ADDRESS'" (for Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 which can STILL use it (& it was added in a service pack on Windows 2000, only on 12

How'd those housing starts go in November? Oh, down 19%?

8 years of republican rule drow the country to horrible depression and debt. Yes, democrats haven't been able to stop that in a year. Whooppedoo. Whether democrats have done good or bad decisions is nearly irrelevant here. There hasn't been enough time that their policies (especially long-term ones) could even theoretically have reflected to financial sector that much.

There is no way you can blame the current economic situation as a whole on democrats.

How are the continuing job loses going? Oh, another 200,000 jobs lost?

Same thing here.

How's that withdrawal from Iraq going?

I'm with you here. The government should certainly have progressed much faster in getting rid of Bush-era mess. They really haven't done well there. Even so, you can't blame the Iraq (or Afghanistan) mess on current government.

Nice to see our DHS Secretary telling us all how well the system worked when a jihadi got on a plane with a bomb.

And wasn't able to cause any damage... Yeah, it is true that current government should have removed all those unnecessary and inefficient post-911 security stuff from the airports. They (and their voters) should be ashamed that this hasn't happened yet. Even so, you should have hard time blaming democrats on those, either.

I hear Gitmo is going to be closed any decade now.

And just wait until you see the asshattery unleashed when Khalid Sheikh Mohammad et al are tried in a standard criminal court.

This is getting old at this point. "Republicans did something horrible when they were in charge. Democrats haven't cleared all the mess yet. Ergo, democrats are horrible."

Nice to see we have a Democratic Senate Majority Leader who thinks it's great that the President is "light-skinned and doesn't speak with a Negro dialect".

No fucking wonder Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev) is polling about 30 points behind his probably election opponent.

...

I'm not even answering to this one.

Think you can come up with a health care "reform" that relies even more on bribery and political payoffs and pisses even more people off?

How about forcing people to buy health insurance even if they don't want it? Where are all the libertarians-of-convenience who got so up in arms over the freedoms lost when a relatively small number of phone calls to known Al Qaeda related phones where intercepted without warrants? Where are all those JACKASSES when Democrats propose laws that would literally unconstitutionally under penalty of jail time force millions of people into private contracts that they don't want and cost thousands of dollars a year?

Private contracts? Well, at least the original drafts included government supported options.

That said... Yeah. The current plan for health care reform is horrible abomination. Not a single country with socialized medicine does it like that. It has the downsides of both systems. They really should ditch it.

Democrats. TOO DUMB TO KNOW THEY'RE DUMB

Aside from that last point about health care reform, your whole post was a collection "Republicans have messed up so througly that democrats haven't fixed those things yet" points. I certainly would think of democrats as the lesser evil based on that.

So, you've got the "Not my fault" President for everything but his key goal: health care. Which even you call a "horrible abomination". That's going over so well a Republican has a good chance to take Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat:

Buoyed by a huge advantage with independents and relative disinterest from Democratic voters in the state, Republican Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 48-47.

http://tstbob.blogspot.com/2009/05/retro-goodness-vintage-sexist-adverts.html

Do you know why two bodies in relative inertial motion stay in motion? No you don't, even if you think you do. Does Erik Verlinde understand motion? I doubt it. My point is that, if you don't understand motion, what makes you think you can understand gravity?

And no amount of math will help you either. It is not math that explains physics. It's the physics that explains the math.

Physics: The Problem With Motion

Rebel Science News explains the real cause of gravity. It has to do with energy conservation and the fundamental nature of motion. In brief, Aristotle was right all along, surprise! Motion does need a cause and, as a result, we are immersed in an immense lattice of energetic particles.

If you allow special pleading, then nothing can ever be proved wrong. That's why science doesn't allow it.

By the way, I have a pet dragon.

Lubos Motl (string theorist, formerly at Harvard), has recently blogged about this: http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/gravity-as-holographic-entropic-force.html. His conclusion is "I remain undecided".

Learn from the masters, young padawan:
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/01/pinocchio-problem.html

To quote:
"Moving right along, world-class software systems always have an extension language and a plug-in system — a way for programmers to extend the base functionality of the application. Sometimes plugins are called "mods". It's a way for your users to grow the system in ways the designer didn't anticipate. ...
Firefox has a plugin system. It's a real piece of crap, but it has one, and one thing you'll quickly discover if you build a plug-in system is that there will always be a few crazed programmers who learn to use it and push it to its limits. This may fool you into thinking you have a good plug-in system, but in reality it has to be both easy to use and possible to use without rebooting the system; Firefox breaks both of these cardinal rules, so it's in an unstable state: either it'll get fixed, or something better will come along and everyone will switch to that."

How exactly is this a troll? How many outside of database geeks know that Monty Widenius owned MySQl, sold it, and now is crying poor me because he can't lock it up behind a BSD style license and resell it?

Hell the guy has put up false claims to drive petition signings (Saying RMS was on his side when he's not) has spread more FUD than SCO, and has done everything possible to block the Oracle/Sun merger, most likely hoping that Sun will end up DOA and sold for scraps on the auction block so he can get MySQL back for cheap. Am I lying? Tell me I'm wrong!

You can't because I'm not. Monty is a grade A douche who wants to sell his company and keep it too. And I don't care if he got 16Mil or 16Bil, it was still his company, he still sold it, and now wants to raise a stink after cashing in hoping to cash in AGAIN by having MySQL released under a BSD license (so he can lock it back up with his own proprietary version).

So why anyone on /., which is usually against hypocrites and asshattery, and usually pro libertarian, be for Monty is beyond me. He had a choice, he sold out, and now wants to whine to mommy EU to give his toys back to him. Sorry Monty, but you cashed the check, so please don't let the door hit you on your way out.

"all of the original founders of MySQL got collectively less than 12 % of the Sun deal". This meant EUR 16 million to Widenius personally last year according to his Wikipedia page. So buying it back is out of the question (even if the owner wanted to sell it) - and no billionaires were made in the deal.

Mr Widenius wants to be the EnterpriseDB in the MySQL milieu. He already has salaried developers working on MariaDB, for Monty Program AB. If his wish for MySQL to be relicensed under "a more permissive Open Source license" were granted, he's promised that MPAB would only add "BSD" code to MariaDB, but he could have other companies on the side doing closed enhancement too. In fact he has not explained any other way that MPAB can stay in business.

The Golden Ratio . Is it "pleasing to the eye", or just pleasing to our own quantum state. Or are they both the same anyway ?

I used to employ philosophy degree holders and physicists. This was by accident. It was an IT project in the banking system to use 6 degree of seperation theory to gain knowledge,
These guys were always the best programmers because they just were for our project.

The "we are one" global consciousness aspect is valid to me. There are so many real world tests that show this in action.

Telephone Telepathy being the obvious phone.
http://deanradin.blogspot.com/

Ged

Good thing that Acer recall their product. Anyway I would prefer buying HP rather than Acer because I like HP ;) Show our support by wearing breast cancer bracelets to fight this deadly disease

If you're not doing C#/C++ on Visual Studio using Com+, you're not getting DirectX. OpenGL can be coded in anything, Delphi, Python, C (gcc), C++, perl, Ruby, etc.

First of all, if a language can call C APIs (and, in particular, can deal with C function pointers returned by those APIs), it can call COM APIs as well. DX isn't even "COM", it just uses COM conventions (vtable layout, refcounting etc) - but it's not a set of proper registered COM objects. In particular, this means that you absolutely can write DX applications using gcc (e.g. Mingw, on Windows), and even g++, since its vtable layout is (by design) COM-compatible.

Furthermore, there are plenty of high-level DX wrappers for various other languages: Delphi and Python from your list have them for sure, and there are many more (just google for "directx language").

That calendar had pictures of Women of Curling. This years calendar will have pictures of Amanda Bynes.

A minor quibble with the summary above. On January 7, 1610, Galileo only recorded 3 "fixed stars" next to Jupiter. Two of the Galilean moons, Io and Europa, were too close together for Galileo to separate with his 20x power telescope. He continued to observe three moons at most, either because one or more moons were too close to Jupiter and were lost in the glare of the planet, Callisto was too far from Jupiter and was thus out of his telescope's field-of-view, or two of the moons were too close together, during subsequent nights, until January 13, when he was able to see all four for the first time.

Wikipedia is wrong on one point. True, his first observation of all four moon at once didn't come until January 13 and he didn't realize that there were four and not three until that time, but that doesn't mean that one moon's discovery (in Wikipedia's case, Ganymede) should be attributed to that date. By that point, he had observed all four on multiple occasions, just not all four at once. And to that point he hadn't even come to the conclusion that they were in orbit around Jupiter with their own separate orbits, moving a different speeds, until two days later, let alone ascribe identities to each of the stars he saw, connecting one star he saw with another from a different day, beyond the one to the east, the one to the west, and the one in the middle.

The downside of liquid helium is that it's damned expensive, and getting more so by the minute. Running at full capacity I could blow through several thousand liters in a year, and at several dollars a liter minimum plus overhead, that's real money. As a bonus, lately our supplier of helium has become incredibly unreliable, missing orders and generally flaking out, while simultaneously raising prices because of actual production shortages. I just had to read the sales guy the riot act, and if service doesn't improve darn fast, we'll take our business elsewhere, as will the other users on campus. (Helium comes from the radioactive decay of uranium and other alpha emitters deep in the earth, and comes out of natural gas wells.) The long-term solutions are (a) set up as many cryogen-free systems as possible, and (b) get a helium liquifier to recycle the helium that we do use. Unfortunately, (a) requires an upfront cost comparable to about 8 years of a system's helium consumption per system, and (b) also necessitates big capital expenses as well as an ongoing maintenance issue. Of course none of these kinds of costs are the sort of thing that it's easy to convince a funding agency to support. Too boring and pedestrian.

By the way, I spend most of my days on site at the largest US particle accelerator. Let me know if you'd like to chat with the cryo dept. about how much the tankers of liqiud helium cost ;)

Despite what they keep showing in the press releases, I don't think the gesture control is what the big titles will be using it for. Remember Johnny Lee's wiimote hack at TED? http://blog.ted.com/2008/04/wii_remote_hack.php According to his blog, he's been working on Natal and seems very impressed with the specs. http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2009/06/project-natal.html Anyway, I'm guessing it's new camera controls like his that would really sell this thing for the "serious gamers" and not necessarily the motion sensing.

What the fuck are you talking about? Monty isn't involved with Microsoft or their Codeplex site.

What the fuck are YOU talking about, Holmes?

Perhaps you missed the part where he said, "I will try to explain why I think that the CodePlex Foundation is a good idea, and why I agreed to be an advisor for the Foundation"...?

Right now developers have to support Android 1.1 (large deprecated now), 1.5, 1.6, 2.0 (obsoleted), 2.01, and soon 2.1.

No, that's not quite accurate.

The rest of your post, well, I don't feel like responding to each point right now. Suffice it to say, if you want to argue with your users on the market, you're doing it wrong (I say this as somebody who has published his own quite popular Android app last year). I've seen a lot of developers who somehow believe that if users say their app crashes or doesn't work, it's Androids fault! And as an Android user, I've experienced exactly zero app compatibility issues. Maybe you think Android development is some kind of major headache but having done it myself, I strongly disagree.

How about a plan that does not cost and arm and a leg. These devices are cool and can be a great way to stay connected; however, what do you do if you have a family who also wants to stay connected? There is no way I could justify the cost to get each member of my family one of these phones or the service plans that are needed. I have teenagers who want iphones, laptops, ipods, and they want to be able to send messages and surf the web (like other class mates). They also want cable TV, netflix, and a host of other services which are nothing more than applications running on the net. Honestly, in the USA, network connectivity sucks and it costs way too much!!!!

This guy hits it on the head:
http://williamfink.blogspot.com/

WTF are *you* talking about?

What part of "I will try to explain why I think that the CodePlex Foundation is a good idea, and why I agreed to be an advisor for the Foundation." did you happen to miss?

Here are the results of my testing. I didn't take the time to break out each individual test, but I at least broke out each benchmark by its categories. The mile high view is that Firefox is on the bottom, then Chrome, then Webkit and Opera are neck-and-neck at the top, though Opera probably has the edge.

I'm glad you are asking for evidence. General evidence:
http://roboticnation.blogspot.com/
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

I mentioned robot garbage trucks as an alternative and cited the DARPA grand challenge as evidence such were possible. Just look at US military plans for self-driving vehicles for more predictions by hard-nosed people of what is likely to be around in ten years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car#History

Just because flying cars did not happen for everyone (there are some prototypes by the way), doesn't mean logically it makes sense to deny self-driving cars won't happen for most people. Safety concerns alone with an aging population who wants to stay mobile will drive their adoption. You can already buy Hondas in the UK that drive themselves on highways.
"Honda Accord ADAS auto-pilot system takes the reins"
http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/30/honda-accord-adas-auto-pilot-system-takes-the-reins/
"We've heard of radar assisted cruise control, that has certain luxury cars running at set speeds on the highway, but slows them down or speeds them up when they get too close to a car in front or behind. Well now Honda UK is taking it to another level with their Advanced Driver Assist System (ADAS) that not only regulates your speed, but manages the turning, allowing you a full auto-pilot system for your Accord when you're out on the freeway. The Adaptive Cruise Control is your regular radar variety, but the Lane Keep Assist System keeps you headed in the right direction by using a camera on the rear-view mirror to watch the white lines and turn accordingly. Honda was quick to point out that their system isn't exactly set up for you to take a nap, since the ADAS system will beep every 10 seconds to make sure you're paying attention, requiring you to touch the steering wheel to inform the car you're still in charge, but we're sure someone is going manage an accident and an ensuing lawsuit or three out of this "convenience"."

So, your skepticism is way behind the reality of these things.

Note that compared to a century ago when many women and children worked in mines, mining is much more pleasant and already heavily automated (including the use of explosives to do the work of many people). Here is an NPR story on that:
"Could Robots Replace Humans in Mines?"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12637032
"So far, the U.S. mining industry has shown little interest in funding such research. The robots are expensive and mining companies have little incentive to spend money developing and deploying them. Advances in other technology have already reduced the number of miners in the U.S. by more than two-thirds, compared with 40 years ago. Today, only about 100,000 people work in the coal-mining industry. Partly for that reason, and partly because of advances in safety, mining is not nearly as dangerous as it was in the in the past. Since 1990, fatalities have declined by 67 percent, and injuries by 51 percent, according to the National Mining Association."

So, they are not really trying very hard because humans are forced to do the jobs for money. But it could be mostly automated if we wanted to.

As for robotic material handling systems, there are plenty of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsMdN7HMuA

android to this android developer blog post, ogg has been supported since feb 2008 in the SDK, which is at least several major releases of the OS.

Pretty much all Android phones should be able to playback Ogg Vorbis files since the MediaPlayer has supported them since prior to the 1.0 release.

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/02/android-sdk-m5-rc14-now-available.html

I just tested an .ogg file from Wikimedia on the droid and it worked fine.

The mistake that you seem poised to make, and that RIAA trolls make religiously, is equating the two numbers (copies downloaded and sales lost). They are not equal (and any sane economist can explain why inside of 30 seconds). Are SOME sales lost? Of course. But its a hell of a lot less than the number of total downloads.

Correct. And that same point was made the the Court in USA v. Dove, where the judge rejected the RIAA's nonsensical argument that every unauthorized download was tantamount to a lost sale.

Did you read this comment: http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/02/time-to-move-on.html?showComment=1233908220000#c6913688673838779641 I think the biggest problem was the business model of MySQL, which was based on support. And companies like Red Hat was supporting MySQL in it's RHEL, and they as a result did not use MySQL's support services. Thus MySQL had to make some features non-free. What is even worse, it looks like it was funded with VC, which means that either it had to IPO or sold to another company, according to this article: http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2008/01/sun-buys-mysql-ab.html I wonder what if Monty had chosen an IPO instead of selling it to another company? Seems that Monty was the CTO of MySQL AB, BTW.

Did you read this comment: http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/02/time-to-move-on.html?showComment=1233908220000#c6913688673838779641 I think the biggest problem was the business model of MySQL, which was based on support. And companies like Red Hat was supporting MySQL in it's RHEL, and they as a result did not use MySQL's support services. Thus MySQL had to make some features non-free. What is even worse, it looks like it was funded with VC, which means that either it had to IPO or sold to another company, according to this article: http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2008/01/sun-buys-mysql-ab.html I wonder what if Monty had chosen an IPO instead of selling it to another company? Seems that Monty was the CTO of MySQL AB, BTW.

what can you say about firefox? i s it the most popular now a days ? or there are other browsers that dig this firefox to the ground? regards, robert

Anybody who thinks that using current propulsion systems (propellers, jets, rockets, etc.) as a viable technology for a levitating air (or space) vehicle is honking the clueless pipe, in my opinion. As you mentioned, high fuel consumption is big disadvantage. Also, they still would have to land and take off in designated areas for questions of safety and health (nobody wants to breathe all that dust and exhaust fumes). Piloting an air car is, by its nature, a dangerous proposition. So much so, that any personal air car that is not 100% self-piloting is out of the question for mass adoption. This would increase the cost exponentially. In the end, you would end up with an expensive, dangerous and fairly useless contraption. Eventually, you realize that the best you can do is no better than something that is already here: the helicopter.

But who says air car dreamers are forever stuck with a dangerous and crippling beast fastened to their backs? Who says that current propellant-based propulsion systems are all there is? Imagine if we had a transportation technology that made it possible to travel from Earth to Mars in hours or from New York City to Beijing in minutes. You may think this is impossible but, in that case, the air car will remain an eternal dream and space colonization and exploitation will forever remain primitive and overly expensive and dangerous.

The space propulsion and ground and air transportation industries must look beyond their current understanding of physics if they are to come out of the rut they are stuck in. It's obvious that current physics is not going to solve this problem anytime soon. Physicists must retrace their steps and reevaluate their fundamental assumptions and practices to uncover a solution.

Our understanding of motion is a case in point. Every physicist seems to be under the impression that inertial motion is uncaused; two bodies in relative motion remain in motion for no reason, as if by magic. But what if this is not true? What if Aristotle was right about the causality of motion? What if there is something (some form of energy) in the "vacuum" that acts as a causal substrate for motion? My point is that a correct and complete understanding of the true nature of motion would, without a doubt, uncover new avenues of research that would revolutionize transportation. NASA and Darpa should promote as many fringe avenues of research as possible, in my opinion, regardless of their expected payoffs. Nobody is going to win the lotto if nobody buys a ticket.

Physics: The Problem with Motion

We have changed the release model so that instead of focusing on quality and features our release is now defined by timeliness and features. Quality is not regarded to be that important. To quote Mårten Mickos: "MySQL 5.1 will be release as GA in or before December because I say so". Mårten's reasons for this is that he needs something he can sell and a release marked "GA" is much easier to sell than a release marked "RC".

The MySQL server team have a bug fixing policy where a bug that has existed a long time has a lower priority 'because people know about them'. This is supposedly one of the reasons why the Bug#989 mentioned above has not been fixed.

The very first post is WTF-inspiring:

knielsen said...
Great post, Monty. Thanks for taking the time to write this, and thanks for still fighting for MySQL quality. Keep up the spirit!

And another WTF post a little further down:

Mark Callaghan said...
MySQL Cluster _is_ carrier grade.

- T

If you read the petition and my blog, you should know that I am working on to find MySQL a good home and to ensure that MySQL is actively developed also in the future under Open Source. The idea is not to get the code back.
If you would have read the published comments on my blog, you would see that there is also negative onces. I do not publish things that contains bad language, things already commented upon or questions that are already answered in the blog or in the comments.
When it comes to MariaDB, I am committed to work on it and keep it Open Source.
The problem is that with a bad owner of the MySQL copyright, no fork can keep MySQL alive forever. You can read more about this in my blog.. It's now, before the Oracle / MySQL deal is approved, that MySQL users has a last chance to affect the future of MySQL by signing the petition.. If you do nothing now, you don't have anything to complain about if and when Oracle would stop developing MySQL as Open Source.

I have answered your questions in my blog post here
What we are now working on is just to ensure that MySQL gets a good home, which is of benefit for all MySQL users.

Second, even if he had mentioned it, he would be right and you would be wrong: Barack Sr. is of the Luo people of Kenya, as black as it gets, and as African as it gets - nothing Arabic or Semitic about him. (Maybe you think all Muslims are Arabs? Ooops, wrong again! Only a small minority are.)

Wrong. He's descended from Arab slave-traders:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/02/barak-obama-questions-about-ethnic.html

Have you read that stupid diatribe in the link? The person writing those e-mails makes the same dumb assertion as you: Namely that a person is an Arab, just because he has a Muslim name. (Is that person you, by any chance?) Do you know Muhammad Ali, by any chance? Is he an Arab in your opinion, too?

And yes, "African-American" implies "black", not Arabic. An Arab, moving here from Egypt or Libya, would NOT be considered "African-American", any more than someone from Brazil is considered an "American".

Hint: someone from Brazil would be considered "Brazilian". An American with Asian ancestors is Asian-American, an American with Canadian ancestors is Canadian-American, an American with African ancestors is African-American. (Of course some people don't get this very simple logic.) And even if you think that North Africa is not part of Africa (wrong, but let's ignore that), your President's family comes from Kenya, which (trust me here) is not even very close to Arabia, or to North Africa for that matter.

Third, how is the race of the president relevant to his ability to govern?

It's a matter of claims (he claims to be African-American, and he's not, just like it would be wrong for me to claim I'm Italian-American when I have little to no Italian ancestry even though I'm white like Italians).

Uh, his father is African, that counts as African ancestry, you santorum. And your second sentence is just a non-sequitur. (Or is it a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid? You tell me...)

Second, even if he had mentioned it, he would be right and you would be wrong: Barack Sr. is of the Luo people of Kenya, as black as it gets, and as African as it gets - nothing Arabic or Semitic about him. (Maybe you think all Muslims are Arabs? Ooops, wrong again! Only a small minority are.)

Wrong. He's descended from Arab slave-traders:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/02/barak-obama-questions-about-ethnic.html

And yes, "African-American" implies "black", not Arabic. An Arab, moving here from Egypt or Libya, would NOT be considered "African-American", any more than someone from Brazil is considered an "American".

Third, how is the race of the president relevant to his ability to govern?

It's a matter of claims (he claims to be African-American, and he's not, just like it would be wrong for me to claim I'm Italian-American when I have little to no Italian ancestry even though I'm white like Italians). He's claimed to be African-American so that he would get the African-American vote, but in reality he's a liar. If we had gone around saying he was an "Arab-American" (which is much closer to the truth, with 43.75% Arab ancestry), would he have gotten all the African-Americans to vote for him? Probably not; Oprah wouldn't have endorsed him, and Hillary would have won the primaries instead.

Of course, if he had been honest and claimed to be Arab-American, and had still won the election, then this wouldn't even be an issue.

He definitely learned some new tricks so it seems. On my company e-mail address I got the following e-mail, and I can assure you that I did not apply to be kept informed about MySQL on their website. Maybe a post on a mailinglist or two, but thats it. Nevertheless, I received the following e-mail:

Hi!

I am contacting you because you have in the past shown interest in
MySQL and from that I assume you are interested in the future
well-being of MySQL.

Now you have a unique opportunity to make a difference. By signing
the petition at http://www.helpmysql.org/ you can help affect the
future of MySQL as an Open Source database.

You can find more information of this on my latest blog post at:
http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-keep-internet-free.html

Help us spread the world about this petition!
http://www.helpmysql.org/ is available in 18 languages and every vote
is important, independent of from where in the world it comes!
If you know people that are using MySQL, please contact them and
ensure they also sign the petition!

Regards,
Monty
Creator of MySQL

PS: If you already have signed the petition or know about it, sorry for
        reminding you about this! Because of the importance of this issue,
        I am trying to contact every person that I have ever communicated
        with regarding MySQL.

One has to wonder...

Because I do care about MySQL but don't care for this petition I visited the website, read his blog (the least you can do is hear someone out) and wrote a somewhat cynical but polite comment how I felt about this action. Surprise; surprise; it never appeared on the (moderated) blog responses. And thats where I have to wonder if he's doing his best for a decent and honest attempt to help MySQL or if he's working out an hidden agenda...

I for one don't think this is doing the good reputation of MySQL any good.

Basically,

unless you *must* have a non-Free play, you can fork it.

So, he is not likely to get any love from those who think non-Free is wrong.

To me, his belief that he *must* have a non-Free play is what is keeping him from forking it.

Just fork it and play totally Free already.

Now, I would be happy to learn of mistakes with the above thinking. Educate away.

all the best,

drew
Check out the Free Music Push

He explains in the related blog post that the founders (presumably meaning Widenius and Axmark) received "less than 12% of the deal", which is quite believable.

The EUR 16 million figure is from Widenius' Wikipedia entry. (Which is famously served by MySQL.:)

In any case, this large lump of cash is only about half what Sun or Oracle would spend on MySQL R&D in just one year, and obviously a small fraction of what would be needed to buy it back - especially after the sale to Oracle is concluded, and assuming the new owner wants to sell.

The line for Motion picture and sound recording industries has been constant [...] at 0.3%.

Bono claims, "music, film, TV and video games help to account for nearly 4 percent of gross domestic product".

Apparently, Bono learned math from Verzion.

andy zebrowitz

Ye Olde Rofl.

The patent application was filed on June 30th 2008. Google released Latitude February 4th, 2009. This would seem to indicate Apple was first,

To be more clear, on that date Google released Latitude for 4 mobile platforms (Android, Blackberry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile) in 27 countries and 42 languages. Apple hasn't released a product yet.

but there's a key difference between the products. The Apple patent specifically deals with sharing location information by text message and only by text message, Google Latitude makes use of mobile internet connections.

That sounds very similar to Dodgeball, which was aquired by Google in 2005. From the Wikipedia page:

• Dodgeball was a location-based social networking software provider for mobile devices. Users text their location to the service, which then notifies them of crushes, friends, friends' friends and interesting venues nearby.[1] Dodgeball was shut down by Google in March 2009 and replaced with Google Latitude.