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Domain: blogspot.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to blogspot.com.
Comments · 20,258
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Re:i wrote this before
I linked that paper here and it is cited in the Serchinger et al. paper being discussed right now. Another paper that might interest you was published by the National Academy of Sciences. Agrawal et al. (2007) propose overcome scale problems with biofuels by suplementing the energy input with other sources such as solar and wind. I think that we can skip the plants entirely and do much better than that.
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Re:i wrote this before
I linked that paper here and it is cited in the Serchinger et al. paper being discussed right now. Another paper that might interest you was published by the National Academy of Sciences. Agrawal et al. (2007) propose overcome scale problems with biofuels by suplementing the energy input with other sources such as solar and wind. I think that we can skip the plants entirely and do much better than that.
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Re:Of course they are currently "worse"
Wind and solar already match petroleum in terms of energy returned on energy invested and certainly beat it if the end use is electricity. Biodiesel may match petroleum eventually as petroleum becomes harder to extract, but it won't come to the same scale. However, wind and solar can be used to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels directly, so there may be no need to use plants at all and the scale issue would be less of a worry.
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Re:Of course they are currently "worse"
Wind and solar already match petroleum in terms of energy returned on energy invested and certainly beat it if the end use is electricity. Biodiesel may match petroleum eventually as petroleum becomes harder to extract, but it won't come to the same scale. However, wind and solar can be used to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels directly, so there may be no need to use plants at all and the scale issue would be less of a worry.
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This isn't the first time.
This happened a while back with the book "Lisp in Small Pieces". This lisp community was thrilled and then shocked.
http://xach.livejournal.com/133661.html
http://jonphilpott.blogspot.com/2007/08/lisp-on-amazonca.html
http://constantly.at/blog/2007/08/14/i-see-no-reason-to-do-further-business-with-you/ -
Re:noexec
The noexec option is just about as secure as assuming there are not ways around a chroot. Nothing saying you can't pipe a script into perl or bash. Or as sonmeelse pointed out http://lazzybear.blogspot.com/2007/01/bypass-no-exec-option-on-mount.html
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Re:Hm...
I agree with you that dependence on foriegn sources of energy is a big mistake for the US. But, getting off of foreign oil and gas does not have to mean getting onto biofuels. Plants are just not all that efficient at turning sunlight into usable energy. We do much better doing that bit ourselves. It seems to me that the electrification of transportation and home heating make more sense. The place where we need liquid fuels is in aviation, and for that, using solar or wind power to produce the fuel directly from the atmosphere rather than going through plants makes much more sense to me. One can even find synergy between electric heating and fuel production I think.
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Re:Hm...
I agree with you that dependence on foriegn sources of energy is a big mistake for the US. But, getting off of foreign oil and gas does not have to mean getting onto biofuels. Plants are just not all that efficient at turning sunlight into usable energy. We do much better doing that bit ourselves. It seems to me that the electrification of transportation and home heating make more sense. The place where we need liquid fuels is in aviation, and for that, using solar or wind power to produce the fuel directly from the atmosphere rather than going through plants makes much more sense to me. One can even find synergy between electric heating and fuel production I think.
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More to the StoryI had serious doubts about this study. I contacted Joseph Fargione, one of the authors. He provided the data to me and It makes some pretty broad assumption and bases its conclusion on the absolute worst case scenario. PLus emphasizes not at all the positive data found about cellulosic ethanol.
For more see Energy Biofuel and Carbon EmmisionsHere is the cliff notes. Ethanol from switchgrass has zero to one year carbon debt payback. I asked Mr Fargione if he thought it was irresponsible to paint all biofuels with such a broad brush, go figure, No response.
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Re:I had a sneaking suspicion
It is not that the biofuels themselves don't displace some fossil emissions, but rather that that the land use changes brought about by large scale production of biofuels releases carbon from soils and forests that would otherwise hold it. When US corn crops are diverted to fuel, more land needs to be put under cultivation around the world to make up for the missing grain. Or, in the other paper, when forests are converted to palm oil production for biodiesel, the peat in the soil rots and the carbon enters the atmosphere. Brazil, for example, expects to have only one 40th of the energy input for castor bean biodiesel coming from fossil inputs once they can get the transesterification to go using ethanol rather than methanol and they may get away with not using land in a way that releases more carbon dioxide or forces other land to be put to use for growing food. But, most North American and European biofuel use is boosting rather than reducing carbon dioxide emisions because it is forcing land use changes globally.
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how about economics?
I wish there was a candidate that would say: "I'm not an expert on every subject, so I'll make sure I consult with experts before I make important decisions."
Unfortunately, no such candidate is currently running for President for either of the major parties.
The Republicans may not have their science down, but the democrats don't have their economics down.
So what's worse in government? Bad science or bad economics? Seems that's the choice we're given... -
Re:Is this really significant?
You are absolutely right that Rule 11 is too infrequently invoked, especially against large firms. But the RIAA's lawyers are heading there.
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Re:Do the RIAA's lawyers suck?What I find annoying in my own law practice against similarly well-heeled opponents, is the great reluctance of the bench to sanction [cornell.edu] some kinds of lawyers or parties for abuse of the judicial system. I would very much love to see NYCL get a dismissal or considerable sum of cash as a sanction as a result of time wasted on egregious tactics. Well maybe things are starting to move in that direction, with the Magistrate's suggestion of Rule 11 sanctions in the University of Maine "John Doe" case, and with the attorneys fee rulings in Capitol v. Foster and Atlantic v. Andersen
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Re:Do the RIAA's lawyers suck?What I find annoying in my own law practice against similarly well-heeled opponents, is the great reluctance of the bench to sanction [cornell.edu] some kinds of lawyers or parties for abuse of the judicial system. I would very much love to see NYCL get a dismissal or considerable sum of cash as a sanction as a result of time wasted on egregious tactics. Well maybe things are starting to move in that direction, with the Magistrate's suggestion of Rule 11 sanctions in the University of Maine "John Doe" case, and with the attorneys fee rulings in Capitol v. Foster and Atlantic v. Andersen
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Re:Do the RIAA's lawyers suck?What I find annoying in my own law practice against similarly well-heeled opponents, is the great reluctance of the bench to sanction [cornell.edu] some kinds of lawyers or parties for abuse of the judicial system. I would very much love to see NYCL get a dismissal or considerable sum of cash as a sanction as a result of time wasted on egregious tactics. Well maybe things are starting to move in that direction, with the Magistrate's suggestion of Rule 11 sanctions in the University of Maine "John Doe" case, and with the attorneys fee rulings in Capitol v. Foster and Atlantic v. Andersen
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Re:More Like NewYorkCountryChampionhe keeps contributing massively and acts as a bridge between us and that strange foreign legal world where logic will get you killed Hey, I work in that world and the fact is that there is a strict logic to law- you just need to know the rules to play by. though I am not saying that you have a crooked view, a lot of people do from watching movies and tv shows and such- they tend to think that some flashy actor type shows up in a courtroom and puts on a show and a bunch of jury people laugh or cry and find in favor of their side- actually the truth is quite the opposite from where I sit. I work for a corporate litigation review company doing intake and data extraction/database integration (I mine and decrypt documents for metadata and any usable text and load and reconcile it in a database, basically) and I have to tell you- we are based here on true logic incorporating lawyers, linguists and techies like myself to setup algorithms and linguistic probability to match relevancies with case properties and language patterns in order to set up situations where lawyers can proceed based on fact rather than speculation and match documentary evidence with standing cases rather than speculation. You're right to debunk the myth of flashy actor types waltzing into courtrooms and putting on a show, etc.
But eldavojohn has a point about "logic". When I went to law school I thought the law would involve a lot of logic. And perhaps it does. But some of the most illogical things I have seen in the entire universe have been laws. And in the next tier of illogic, have been some entirely inexplicable judicial rulings (See, e.g., pattern of rulings in UMG v. Lindor and other cases in Brooklyn, including holding that an "expert witness" who meets NONE of the Daubert reliability factors can testify as an expert anyway, or that defendant is not entitled to discovery of the contracts under which plaintiffs' witness was hired to gather "evidence" and testify, or that the rule requiring random assignment of cases can be avoided because the Magistrate has presided over 350 settlements which the judge -- who didn't have to pay them and knows nothing about the facts or circumstances of any of them -- thinks are "equitable", even though NOT ONE of the defendants would agree with that appraisal.) -
Re:More Like NewYorkCountryChampionhe keeps contributing massively and acts as a bridge between us and that strange foreign legal world where logic will get you killed Hey, I work in that world and the fact is that there is a strict logic to law- you just need to know the rules to play by. though I am not saying that you have a crooked view, a lot of people do from watching movies and tv shows and such- they tend to think that some flashy actor type shows up in a courtroom and puts on a show and a bunch of jury people laugh or cry and find in favor of their side- actually the truth is quite the opposite from where I sit. I work for a corporate litigation review company doing intake and data extraction/database integration (I mine and decrypt documents for metadata and any usable text and load and reconcile it in a database, basically) and I have to tell you- we are based here on true logic incorporating lawyers, linguists and techies like myself to setup algorithms and linguistic probability to match relevancies with case properties and language patterns in order to set up situations where lawyers can proceed based on fact rather than speculation and match documentary evidence with standing cases rather than speculation. You're right to debunk the myth of flashy actor types waltzing into courtrooms and putting on a show, etc.
But eldavojohn has a point about "logic". When I went to law school I thought the law would involve a lot of logic. And perhaps it does. But some of the most illogical things I have seen in the entire universe have been laws. And in the next tier of illogic, have been some entirely inexplicable judicial rulings (See, e.g., pattern of rulings in UMG v. Lindor and other cases in Brooklyn, including holding that an "expert witness" who meets NONE of the Daubert reliability factors can testify as an expert anyway, or that defendant is not entitled to discovery of the contracts under which plaintiffs' witness was hired to gather "evidence" and testify, or that the rule requiring random assignment of cases can be avoided because the Magistrate has presided over 350 settlements which the judge -- who didn't have to pay them and knows nothing about the facts or circumstances of any of them -- thinks are "equitable", even though NOT ONE of the defendants would agree with that appraisal.) -
Re:More Like NewYorkCountryChampionhe keeps contributing massively and acts as a bridge between us and that strange foreign legal world where logic will get you killed Hey, I work in that world and the fact is that there is a strict logic to law- you just need to know the rules to play by. though I am not saying that you have a crooked view, a lot of people do from watching movies and tv shows and such- they tend to think that some flashy actor type shows up in a courtroom and puts on a show and a bunch of jury people laugh or cry and find in favor of their side- actually the truth is quite the opposite from where I sit. I work for a corporate litigation review company doing intake and data extraction/database integration (I mine and decrypt documents for metadata and any usable text and load and reconcile it in a database, basically) and I have to tell you- we are based here on true logic incorporating lawyers, linguists and techies like myself to setup algorithms and linguistic probability to match relevancies with case properties and language patterns in order to set up situations where lawyers can proceed based on fact rather than speculation and match documentary evidence with standing cases rather than speculation. You're right to debunk the myth of flashy actor types waltzing into courtrooms and putting on a show, etc.
But eldavojohn has a point about "logic". When I went to law school I thought the law would involve a lot of logic. And perhaps it does. But some of the most illogical things I have seen in the entire universe have been laws. And in the next tier of illogic, have been some entirely inexplicable judicial rulings (See, e.g., pattern of rulings in UMG v. Lindor and other cases in Brooklyn, including holding that an "expert witness" who meets NONE of the Daubert reliability factors can testify as an expert anyway, or that defendant is not entitled to discovery of the contracts under which plaintiffs' witness was hired to gather "evidence" and testify, or that the rule requiring random assignment of cases can be avoided because the Magistrate has presided over 350 settlements which the judge -- who didn't have to pay them and knows nothing about the facts or circumstances of any of them -- thinks are "equitable", even though NOT ONE of the defendants would agree with that appraisal.) -
Re:More Like NewYorkCountryChampionhe keeps contributing massively and acts as a bridge between us and that strange foreign legal world where logic will get you killed Hey, I work in that world and the fact is that there is a strict logic to law- you just need to know the rules to play by. though I am not saying that you have a crooked view, a lot of people do from watching movies and tv shows and such- they tend to think that some flashy actor type shows up in a courtroom and puts on a show and a bunch of jury people laugh or cry and find in favor of their side- actually the truth is quite the opposite from where I sit. I work for a corporate litigation review company doing intake and data extraction/database integration (I mine and decrypt documents for metadata and any usable text and load and reconcile it in a database, basically) and I have to tell you- we are based here on true logic incorporating lawyers, linguists and techies like myself to setup algorithms and linguistic probability to match relevancies with case properties and language patterns in order to set up situations where lawyers can proceed based on fact rather than speculation and match documentary evidence with standing cases rather than speculation. You're right to debunk the myth of flashy actor types waltzing into courtrooms and putting on a show, etc.
But eldavojohn has a point about "logic". When I went to law school I thought the law would involve a lot of logic. And perhaps it does. But some of the most illogical things I have seen in the entire universe have been laws. And in the next tier of illogic, have been some entirely inexplicable judicial rulings (See, e.g., pattern of rulings in UMG v. Lindor and other cases in Brooklyn, including holding that an "expert witness" who meets NONE of the Daubert reliability factors can testify as an expert anyway, or that defendant is not entitled to discovery of the contracts under which plaintiffs' witness was hired to gather "evidence" and testify, or that the rule requiring random assignment of cases can be avoided because the Magistrate has presided over 350 settlements which the judge -- who didn't have to pay them and knows nothing about the facts or circumstances of any of them -- thinks are "equitable", even though NOT ONE of the defendants would agree with that appraisal.) -
Re:More Like NewYorkCountryChampionI'm used to being forced to concede points to people who make very good points, and reconsider my position because of them. Good lawyers (as opposed to the RIAA's lawyers) do that all the time.
The RIAA's lawyers never concede anything unless the judge calls them on it. (See, e.g. Transcript of January 26, 2007, oral argument in Elektra v. Barker.). Even then, the next time they're in court with a different judge, they'll say the same stupid thing anyway, hoping the second judge won't find out about the first one. -
Vista is nothing but Shock
A while back I posted the problems we had as a developer of VoIP software on Vista. You can check it at http://turngeek.blogspot.com/2008/01/vista-sound-quality-issues-with-voip.html. Vista breaks 90% of the multimedia and gaming software out there without providing any alternative ways for these apps to work with existing sound cards. It has left the rest of the industry in a state of limbo. We all know we have to support Vista at the end, but I am just amazed at the audacity of a company to release software without any consideration for users. I guess that is what a monopoly does and a bad one. I for one am happy that little Billy is formally out of MS and I hope MS merges with an internet company like Yahoo! Maybe MS will learn as much from Yahoo! as Yahoo! does from MS and we all will benefit. I eagerly await Vista SP1, not because I am going to use it (I have decided to go buy an Apple when my XP machine fails me - which is going pretty solid at this point) but my customers are probably stuck with Vista and I care about them...
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Google 'Forms'
I think Google Forms is more interesting. (Based on Google Spreadsheets.)
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Not the first time.Google appears to play at this game in varying degrees. One of the better alternative news sites, (with a ladle in the conspiracy and new-age stew pots) found Google's non-linking treatment of their address to be systemic. It's hard to tell if this is the result of a glitch or somebody with a personal bias over at Mountain View or what, but this story isn't unique.
Now, I like a great deal of what Google does. I find their Google Talks series to be an especially wonderful resource. --But it's important to realize that nobody is perfect and to remain aware of such problem patterns when they arise. You can't step around obstacles unless you keep an eye on the path.
-FL -
The strike is NOT over.
Guys... Eisner proclaiming the strike over is just part of a PR effort to attempt to pressure writers to vote for the strike proposals by creating the wide expectation that the strike is over, that it's a done deal. That way, if the writers turn the proposal down, people feel let down.
The strike is NOT over.
If you watch the video where Eisner insists the strike to be over, he says quietly at the end that he is really just passing on a rumor. He also points out that the writers have to vote on the offer. He says the writers would be "insane" not to take it, but he also previously had stated that the entire strike was "insanity" so he's not the most unbiased person on this.
The strike is not over until the full WGA membership votes on the proposal. They may do so, but they may not. The terms of the contract proposal have not even been seen by the writers, so there's no way to know right now what's going to happen.
If you don't believe me, may I recommend this post by Joss Wheden, or this one, or this one.
W -
Re:Real frog-boiling
Just a tip, but you might want to check out LCHF. It has recently been approved by the Swedish goverment as an alternaive treatment for type 2 diabetes. Found an english version of the news for you here http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.com/search?q=annika+dahlqvist
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Re:Time to grow up
A couple of things that may have escaped your attention:
One, it's not the ISPs business to determine what is or is not acceptable traffic. That's a moral/legal judgment that they have no authority to make, are not equipped to make, and could not under any conditions be trusted to make. I don't pay them to monitor my communications and tell me what is right and what is wrong. Let the copyright holder go after me if he or she really believes that I've infringed upon any of their legal rights.
Two, owning up to copyright infringement may or may not be the right thing to do from an ethical perspective, but it's the exact wrong thing to do if you don't want to end up penniless. Keep firmly in mind that the media companies (not all, just the majors that are funding the likes of the RIAA) have no interest whatsoever in redress of grievance. They have no concern with such niceties as "right" and "wrong", as most of us understand the terms. They want deterrence. That means they need to destroy as many people as they can before they're stopped, because that's what they've determined is their best course of action.
Go check out this blog if you want to learn more about what's really going on, and why the infringers are not the real evil here. -
Baha'i terrorist? Yup...David Kelly.
So dangerous they had to murder him.
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Re:Misguided fanatical legalism
God doesn't need a defender; He's quite able to defend Himself.
Damn straight!
Proof! -> http://mobygunner.blogspot.com/2006/07/in-other-wordswrath.html -
Re:Where are the websites?
Can't see google doing it - they have their own system across all the sites that they own. Wasn't too happy with that either (my google account isn't my blogger account FFS!) but had to live with it.
I don't use Blogger, but when I went to their join page, it let me sign in with my Google account, so for new accounts anyway, it seems they are the same.
Also, as of January, Blogger is an OpenID provider.
So Google has in effect already done it, you just have to go through the hassle of creating a Blogger blog using your Google id and enable OpenID in your Blogger preferences. At that point, you should be able to use your Google account as an OpenID with Blogger as the ID provider. -
Oh, "they" are not targeting only Wikipedia.
Attacks against The Enlightenment (see also: Age of Enlightenment) say for example, upon the idea of freedom of speech, in the name of one religion or another (let's just stick with this one religion for now) have been ongoing since reason began to displace superstition.
More recently, you may remember the cartoon controversy? This faded from the collective consciousness after "they" (people whose minds are captive to superstition of the islamic brand) repeatedly threatened, and then killed Dutch Filmmaker Theo van Gogh , great grandson of the brother (also named Theo) of the famous painter, Vincent. Contemporary Theo was guilty in the eyes of islam of making a film which was critical of the treatment of women under islam.
The great clash between Islam (unwittingly and unstably allied, by the way, with fundamentalist Christian radicals who are working within the western democracies to undermine the same feared Enlightenment values and institutions in favor of their own brand of superstition) on the one side, against the cultures and nations descended from The Enlightenment on the other, is coming to a head in Europe. The demographic trends, and the inability of the European cultures to assimilate their immigrant Muslim populations (alternatively, those populations are disinterested in assimilating), cause concern that Europe's democratic institutions will be subverted as instruments in the religious colonization of those European countries that gave birth to the Enlightenment by Islam, and their eventual conversion to theocracies in fact, if not in name.
March 2006:
"If Europe continues as it is now, the rising Muslim tide will, one at a time, transform the members of the European Union into Islamic Republics under Islamic Shari'a law as Muslims become the majority population."
February 2008:
The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".
It has been suggested that this problem is exacerbated by limited economic opportunity for young people in these countries.
An Economist Considers the Riots in France (from 2005, there were more riots last spring, March 2007)
The non-political nature of the riots in France -
The Facebook Riots are ComingThis is just the beginning. As I've predicted on my blog, there will be Facebook rioters on the street.
After repeatedly ignoring privacy concerns, all Facebook users revolt. The revolt initially remains confined to Facebook, but will suddenly explode through the Internet, then out into the streets of every major city.
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Re:Rolling Timebombs?
Sources?
Plenty of people disagree with you.
http://www.evworld.com/library/lithium_shortage.pdf
http://ergobalance.blogspot.com/2006/10/electric-vehicles-and-world-lithium.html -
Re:Infrastructure?
Rapid charging seems promising for long distances.
http://pluginpartners.blogspot.com/2007/12/super-charge-it.html -
Re:Q and A
This argument falls on deaf ears in neocon circles. These people will do anything and give up any personal freedoms (even guns) in the name of religious hatred and xenophobia.
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Re:"Recut, Reframe, and Recycle"? Good Riddance
"Honestly, if you can't come up with material yourself, you shouldn't call yourself an artist."
Cool, so any works found to be built upon works in the public domain and so on down the line will automatically be put into the public domain then? I mean, if they are building on the works of others, they can't be artists and why should we give copyrights on artistic works to non-artists? Right?
How about we go on a copyright offensive everyone?
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html
all the best,
drew -
Re:coflicting answers
I will leave your rose-tinted view of history for now. It's not worth getting into an argument about how much "damage" Ghandi did to the occupation force or whether the Brits really wanted to be there any more at all. The least you can do, however, is examine the great success Ghandi had applying his principles in Africa before you conclude just how universally irresistable they are.
It takes a real genius to interpret the phrase "pro-life"...
I think that it's relatively fair to allow the movement that self-identifies as X to define X. I don't go around telling a "pro-choier" what "pro-choice" means. I allow the actions, words, and writings of the pro-choice movement (e.g. NARAL, NOW, and PP) to speak for themselves. Is it too much to ask that you allow your political opponents to speak for themslves, rather than insist on retaining for yourself the authority to tell everyone what their own stance really means?
They key, I think, is to take an unpopular group of people and convince the masses that they are second-rate humans and their lives are just not as valuable.
Exactly. Other than the word "unpopular" I agree word-for-word, and consider that exactly the method being used to strip unborn human beings of their human rights. Rather than "unpopular" they are "invisible", but certainly expensive to keep around. The pro-choice side rests on the proposition that human rights are not for all human beings: that is that "their lives are just not as valuable" as the lives of the born.
The burka-clad arabs are not even Christians, a carpet bombing is just about enough due process for every one of them. And those starving children in Africa - well, they are n-----rs for god sake! Let them starve! Besides we are not killing them, we are just standing by while they die, while we could have saved each one for $5/year. The right of life is only a negative right you see.
I see your grasp of international aid is no beter than your grasp of history. It really is sad to me that so many liberals subsist on good intentions alone, when good intentions with research would benefit the world far more.
I'll address the points one-by-one:
1. I said that pro-life does not necessitate strict pacifism. You took this to mean that carpet-bombing civilians is A-OK. I am amused, but not surprised, at where you ran off with that argument, but I'd like a response to what I actually said rather than what you think I believe.
2. Allegations of racism and religious intolerance are about par for the course. It's just a matter of commonly known fact that if you're conservative it is because you are intolerant of others: http://kiriath-arba.blogspot.com/2006/11/libertarians-liberals-and-who-really.html (my blog)
3. The staving children in Africa: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html (der spiegal interview of kenyan economist) http://kiriath-arba.blogspot.com/2007/06/myth-of-big-push.html and (my blog again)
I hope you will read, or at least skim, those articles. In case you don't here's the short version: I care deeply about how Americans can best alleviate suffering in the world and have dedicated serious amounts of time to researching this problem. Research will not solve problems, but trying to fix problems without knowing what you're doing can make things much, much worse. Ignorant attempts to "fix" Africa, the Middle East and so on have led to almost as much suffering (if not more) than attempts to oppress those same regions. Far more have died in the name of progress and "help" (Stalin, Pol Pot, the mess made of Africa and the Middle East due to foreign 'aid') than died in quests for God, Glory, and Gold.
Before you condemn conservative as heartless bastards -
Re:coflicting answers
I will leave your rose-tinted view of history for now. It's not worth getting into an argument about how much "damage" Ghandi did to the occupation force or whether the Brits really wanted to be there any more at all. The least you can do, however, is examine the great success Ghandi had applying his principles in Africa before you conclude just how universally irresistable they are.
It takes a real genius to interpret the phrase "pro-life"...
I think that it's relatively fair to allow the movement that self-identifies as X to define X. I don't go around telling a "pro-choier" what "pro-choice" means. I allow the actions, words, and writings of the pro-choice movement (e.g. NARAL, NOW, and PP) to speak for themselves. Is it too much to ask that you allow your political opponents to speak for themslves, rather than insist on retaining for yourself the authority to tell everyone what their own stance really means?
They key, I think, is to take an unpopular group of people and convince the masses that they are second-rate humans and their lives are just not as valuable.
Exactly. Other than the word "unpopular" I agree word-for-word, and consider that exactly the method being used to strip unborn human beings of their human rights. Rather than "unpopular" they are "invisible", but certainly expensive to keep around. The pro-choice side rests on the proposition that human rights are not for all human beings: that is that "their lives are just not as valuable" as the lives of the born.
The burka-clad arabs are not even Christians, a carpet bombing is just about enough due process for every one of them. And those starving children in Africa - well, they are n-----rs for god sake! Let them starve! Besides we are not killing them, we are just standing by while they die, while we could have saved each one for $5/year. The right of life is only a negative right you see.
I see your grasp of international aid is no beter than your grasp of history. It really is sad to me that so many liberals subsist on good intentions alone, when good intentions with research would benefit the world far more.
I'll address the points one-by-one:
1. I said that pro-life does not necessitate strict pacifism. You took this to mean that carpet-bombing civilians is A-OK. I am amused, but not surprised, at where you ran off with that argument, but I'd like a response to what I actually said rather than what you think I believe.
2. Allegations of racism and religious intolerance are about par for the course. It's just a matter of commonly known fact that if you're conservative it is because you are intolerant of others: http://kiriath-arba.blogspot.com/2006/11/libertarians-liberals-and-who-really.html (my blog)
3. The staving children in Africa: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html (der spiegal interview of kenyan economist) http://kiriath-arba.blogspot.com/2007/06/myth-of-big-push.html and (my blog again)
I hope you will read, or at least skim, those articles. In case you don't here's the short version: I care deeply about how Americans can best alleviate suffering in the world and have dedicated serious amounts of time to researching this problem. Research will not solve problems, but trying to fix problems without knowing what you're doing can make things much, much worse. Ignorant attempts to "fix" Africa, the Middle East and so on have led to almost as much suffering (if not more) than attempts to oppress those same regions. Far more have died in the name of progress and "help" (Stalin, Pol Pot, the mess made of Africa and the Middle East due to foreign 'aid') than died in quests for God, Glory, and Gold.
Before you condemn conservative as heartless bastards -
Re:Interesting, but...There are computer programs which perform statistical learning of vocabulary and seem to match many characteristics of human learning. Here's part of a very interesting blog post on Latent Semantic Analysis:
Latent Semantic Analysis goes back over 20 years (there are expired patents on it). So there's more than just a vague theory that "data mining" is used to learn vocabulary.- after training, LSA performed at 64.4% correct on a multiple choice test of synonymity taken from TOEFL (in contrast, humans score around 64.5% on average on this test, which is frequently used as a college entrance examination of English proficiency in non-native speakers. By this metric, LSA would be admitted to many major universities!)
- calculations of the rate of word learning by 7th graders suggests that they acquire
- the comprehension by college students of several versions of a text sample about heart function is precisely replicated by LSA, when comprehension is measured as the degree of semantic overlap between subsequent sentences;
- Humans initially show facilitated processing of all meanings of a previously-presented word, but after 300 ms show priming only of context-appropriate meanings; LSA shows similar effects insofar as similarity is higher between a homograph and two words related to different meanings of the homograph than between a homograph and unrelated words, and in that LSA considers words related to the context-appropriate definition of a homograph as more related than words related to the context-inappropriate definition of the homograph;
- Human reaction times in judgments of numerical magnitude suggest that the single digit numerals are represented along a "logarithmic mental number line;" LSA was able to replicate this effect in its ratings of similarity among the single digit numerals, which also conform to a logarithmic function
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Isn't this how Google Translate works?
The English->Arabic lanaguage path essentially learns how to translate by looking at a whole bunch of examples. Yes, the Google Algorithm sometimes screws up (the recent "Heath Ledger is dead" translation thing) but then again, so do toddlers.
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A Thunderbird plugin can prevent these Email LeaksResearchers in Carnegie Mellon University developed a Mozilla Thunderbird plug-in that can prevent these email gaffes, or email information leaks. Pretty neat idea.
http://wcohen.blogspot.com/2008/01/measure-twice-cut-once.html
The original idea: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wcohen/#sw and http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wcohen/postscript/sdm-2007-leak.pdf
I've just installed it. Seems to works for me.
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Re:gangstersbribe politicians, shortchange clients (musicians), ruin people's lives, etc Or conspire to commit extortion, illegally invade computers, and use unlicensed investigators. In fact, in Oregon the Attorney General is after them, and in Massachusetts the state police are after them.
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Re:gangstersbribe politicians, shortchange clients (musicians), ruin people's lives, etc Or conspire to commit extortion, illegally invade computers, and use unlicensed investigators. In fact, in Oregon the Attorney General is after them, and in Massachusetts the state police are after them.
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Re:gangstersbribe politicians, shortchange clients (musicians), ruin people's lives, etc Or conspire to commit extortion, illegally invade computers, and use unlicensed investigators. In fact, in Oregon the Attorney General is after them, and in Massachusetts the state police are after them.
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Or the woman scorned...
A 34-year-old woman has been charged with using the Internet to try to get revenge on an old boyfriend by breaking up his marriage.
Stofega
http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2007/10/co-woman-charged-in-internet-revenge.html -
Re:Will it be used?
MySQL is very stable.
This article by Monty implies that MyISAM is not crash safe:
http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2008/01/maria-engine-is-released.html
He developed the Maria engine to make "a crash-safe alternative to MyISAM". And this is from one of the most prominent MySQL developers. -
Let's get serious.
"Lemish advises that parents should give their children the tools to be literate Internet users and most importantly, to talk to their children. 'The child needs similar tools that teach them to be [wary] of dangers in the park, the mall or wherever. The same rules in the real world apply online as well.'""
I feel a serious game coming on. -
Re:Your best bet...
Because trying to get people to abstain from sex just doesn't work.
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9831189
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301003.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18136717/
http://thegodcomplex.blogspot.com/2007/12/abstinence-only-education-does-not-work.html -
No, we really can't
"7 years ago, the chorus of "OH MY GOD XP IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN 2000! THERE'S NO NEED TO UPGRADE!" in every XP article's comments were eerily similar to the ones you hear now every time Vista gets a mention."
Yeah, but XP came out less than 2 years after 2000. MS spent over 5 years on Vista and what did they come up with? A pretty interface and DRM. Vista is a giant blinking neon sign announcing that MS' devleopment process is broken--don't believe me? Read this.
Hey, I don't hate Vista. If I have to look at a monitor all day, I'd just as soon have a pretty OS to look at. But it's obvious that huge amounts of time and money were wasted, and maybe if enough of their customers rip on them MS will take the steps necessary (cue the rolling heads!) to do better next time. -
Fair use = People's rights = Pirate's rightsOh, wait, did you mean the pirates' rights? Do please elaborate; I don't recall seeing a "right to download other people's IP for free" in any laws recently.
What about fair use? Imagine you're going to download a Scientology secret document exposing the cult's evil activity. You can't do it LEGALLY. This is just an example of legality != morality.
Another example. Let's suppose you're going to analyze the written works of a meditation guru that you suspect is a scammer. If you bought them from him, you'd be contributing to HIS cause. However, if you just download them you can get your work done.
Third example. Try before you buy. There's a new Anime that your friends recommended, and you wonder whether to buy it or not. But unless you watch a significant portion of it, you won't know if it's worth buying it... so you get a fansubbed version from the internet. Or what about a piece of music?
Reality isn't always black and white like media companies want us to believe. First of all, virtual works fall outside the bound of supply and demand, because it's extremely cheap to copy, since you can create additional copies out of thin air (or thin CD's for that matter). With the internet, you don't even need CD's. Therefore, infringing copyright cannot be assured to be stealing - specially if the downloader couldn't buy the item anyway.
And if the content that someone wants to LEGALLY PURCHASE isn't available on his third-world country and he'd have to spend twice the money on overseas shipping and handling, it's much easier to download from the pirate bay. And it wouldn't be stealing. Pirate works also help authors increase the exposure of their works.
And take into account the corporations' monopolic practices like price fixing, exclusivity contracts, selling by bundles to raise the prise, etc. All these things stiffle creativity and tend to produce extremely bad quality "artworks".
Imagine if there were no pirate copies of movies. We'd be forced to purchase tickets for Battlefield Earth or some other blockbuster failures, but guess what, there's no refund for non-enjoyment. Even if the movie sucked, you couldn't get your money back.
In your innocence you seem to think that all money paid goes to the artists. In your dreams. Most money really goes to a bunch of middlemen who exploit the artists. (Hint: Why do you think the writers' guild is on strike?). And let's not forget about Trent Reznor of NIN, who is very vocal about his support for people pirating ("stealing") his works. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mm6rc7hcFE ). This makes you ask yourself, who is REALLY trampling on people's rights? Is it really the pirates, or the corporate giants? And for every LEGAL purchase of RIAA-produced music, you give money to the same bastards who sue random people JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN.Blocking BitTorrent per se would be trampling on people's rights, because BitTorrent is a neutral technology that is used for many legitimate purposes. But The Pirate Bay is not like that. There's a hint in the name, see? The Pirate Bay is openly and unashamedly dedicated to supporting and promoting illegal activity.
Just because the MAJORITY of the works there are copyrighted doesn't mean that all are. The Pirate Bay - and all bittorrent trackers, for that matter - is also used to distribute authorized works like Linux distributions, free (and legal) copies of Paulo Coelho's works, open documentation (like Open Source Software manuals), homemade videos, hacker guides (whether using them is legal or not, is outside this scope), fair use works like AMV Hell, doujinshi, webcomics (which are available online for free, anyway).
Here are just some examples of AUTHORIZED content found in the Pirate Bay:
h -
Re:I'm tired of the euphemisms
yeap, advertising rubbish.. take a look at some amusing blogs on the subject.. behind the ads and balls to advertising