Slashdot Mirror

Yes, we do use this in some of our apps, the most recent of which is described here: http://googlebase.blogspot.com/2006/12/plastic-sur gery.html

I totally agree with this post! Complexity should be hidden from the users. I just wrote a post about this where I try to explain that you can add more features and reduce complexity at the same time. Joel and Norman are wrong!

Bah, Slashdot stripped my cents mark off the end of the second .002. It should have said:

And, for what it's worth, they did finally concede that $.002 is different from .002 cents. :-)

In spite of their mathematically challenged service reps, Verizon has always been a pretty good company for me. In Atlanta, the coverage is excellent and their prices and plans are fantastic.

I originally switched primarily because Verizon was one of a very, very few companies that refused to participate in and spoke out against the cell phone directory telemarketer's dream scheme a while back. It was pretty heavily covered by our consumer rights media guru here, Clark Howard (second entry). It also helps that most of my family is on Verizon and I can now call them for free.

And, for what it's worth, they did finally concede that $.002 is different from .002. :-)

Unless things change pretty dramatically, I'll probably stick with them for a long time to come.

Nah, it'd look like this! : )

(Of course, a wallpaper showing the circuitry on the inside of my iMac would be really cool... I wish I could find one.)

I noticed that you yourself made the following slip up in your post:
I didn't nail it down to $.02 cents per meg, I just roughly estimated it at $1 per meg

You probably subconsciously added "cents" to that, but if you pronounced that as "point zero two cents per meg" in your head, then we've arrived at the same situation that caused the Verizon rep to give you a misquote. This is a common mistake that many people make, and isn't really a math problem as much as it is a linguistics problem (except when you explain it over and over again and they still don't get it, I guess). Some people forget that when they write "$", it means "the following number is going to be in units of dollars", but instead just use it as "here comes money". So they don't recognize $2 million dollars as being redundant. Or they'll write "twenty five cents" as "$.25 cents", and when they read that back later they'll say "point two five cents" but still think of it as a quarter.

Also, in this blog post, you used kilobits instead of kilobytes as the unit in your Google Calculator query.

As for resoving issues like these, a physics or chemistry class will probably help people more in this situation than a math class. You can do all of your math right in a physics or chemistry problem but still come up with the wrong answer if you don't get your units right. Math classes generally don't teach you much about unit conversion.

Ok it's my understanding this is his Verizon Unlimited CELLPHONE plan. He never really specifies whether it's a cellphone or wireless broadband network card, because people have used the term interchangeably online.

If it's a laptop I can easily see why he's upset because there is no per kbyte plan usually, I don't even think Verizon has a per kbyte plan. However if it's a cellphone (35 mByte isn't hard to do, check a few emails, surf a few sites, get a few ringtones) then he should expect a higher per kbyte because they're usually expensive per kbyte.

I'm read it and thought he had a cellphone because he never mentioned anything about broadband or anything of such, and I know on a laptop 35 mByte would be eaten up in a few minutes of surfing with all the jpgs and banner ads.

So if it's a cellphone he's being a prick and should just pay the bill, if it's wireless broadband then he has a right to bitch.

P.S. He says: "Prior to crossing the border I called customer service to find out what rates I'd be paying for voice and data."

So I think he has a CELLPHONE and was expecting to pay 10 cents for 5 megabytes on a CELLPHONE. So he's a prick.

Ok it's my understanding this is his Verizon Unlimited CELLPHONE plan. He never really specifies whether it's a cellphone or wireless broadband network card, because people have used the term interchangeably online.

If it's a laptop I can easily see why he's upset because there is no per kbyte plan usually, I don't even think Verizon has a per kbyte plan. However if it's a cellphone (35 mByte isn't hard to do, check a few emails, surf a few sites, get a few ringtones) then he should expect a higher per kbyte because they're usually expensive per kbyte.

I'm read it and thought he had a cellphone because he never mentioned anything about broadband or anything of such, and I know on a laptop 35 mByte would be eaten up in a few minutes of surfing with all the jpgs and banner ads.

So if it's a cellphone he's being a prick and should just pay the bill, if it's wireless broadband then he has a right to bitch.

P.S. He says: "Prior to crossing the border I called customer service to find out what rates I'd be paying for voice and data."

So I think he has a CELLPHONE and was expecting to pay 10 cents for 5 megabytes on a CELLPHONE. So he's a prick.

A bunch of laptops to some starving, poor, thirsty people who live in terror of their government or paramilitary groups the government can't control are going to do a whole freaking lot.

Perhaps we need H.E.A.P. instead.

iostream library once you actually want to format something.

Actually music is a form of what is classically known as art. Philosophically even theater and movies are art. Art is a creative act with aesthetics in mind, which music is. Beethoven and Bach would both be artists, can you deny this? Sure the line blurs when we get to Brittany Spears, and Slayer, but its hard to discount them, since we can still call Pollack and Warhol
"artists" with a straight face.

To be honest, though I am a aesthetics/philosophy of art junkies, I must admit the the definition of what art is, is rather hard to pin down. I've been working on a decent definition for sometime, but it is a terribly hard task. After all Duchamp could call an upturned urinal art, and critics finally agreed. If that can be art, why not top 40 crap? Remember the latin root for "art", "ars, could also mean a trick or deception.

Okay, so I listened to all of the conversation between a person who was quoted a price in cents/kilobyte, and several Verizon representatives, all of whom are so addled by reliance on their computer screens that they are unable to grasp that they are mis-quoting a price by one hundredfold by failing to convert between dollars and cents. Then it got me thinking about why they should find it so difficult to multiply and divide by 100. It's not that that can't perform the arithmetical calculation, it's just that they are experience a disconnect linking this operation with their intuition about how much something should cost. What we call "numbers" are in fact two different things: symbols that we manipulate using mechanical and representative operations, and sensations that we intuitively experience and comprehend.

Why should it be so difficult for these Verizon people, all apparently USians, to handle such a simple operation as taking powers of ten? I think it's to do with a lack of basic Metric education in the US. It seems obvious to me that in a culture where Metric conversion techniques are not routinely taught to schoolchildren, then the casual manipulation of powers of ten and powers of a hundred must become (when compared to other cultures) significantly less easy, common and apparently mind-numbingly abstruse and esoteric for a significant proportion of adults.

The unusual resistance of the U.S. to Metrication is both a symptom of and a driver of adult innumeracy.

Metric instills a basic intuition about powers of ten and orders of magnitude. Or at least, it will tend to, relative to indifferently scaled arbitrary measurements. Once you build this mental framework, it can be easily integrated into novel experiential learning.

I am unfortunately old enough to have begun primary school in a country using Imperial measurements that then switched to Metric. I can still recall being taught arithmetic as a young child, and being shown how to convert between ounces and pounds, and pounds and stone. That sucked, and made no sense.

Being indoctrinated into Metric within a few years reduced my cognitive load apppreciably, while enlarging my ability to estimate weights and measures. By exposing children to tanglible object weights such as 1g, 10g, 100g, 500g, 1kg, 5 kg and so on, one forms a consistent appreciation of mass. The same is true of learning distance.

I had to re-take basic physics and chemistry in a US university recently. I was quite shocked at how a significant proportion of the students had little conception of how much 1 ml was, or 10g, or 1m. It makes them even less able to relate the scientific measurements they read about and note down in lab to their own experience. Seriously, it's a problem. Many of them had less cognitive ability to deal with weights and measures than a typical 10-year-old European child. USians now have the worst of both worlds: thanks to globalisation, pretty much all their commodities now carry measurements in grams and litres, but they are not really taught how to think Metric in school and so have little idea of how to work with them.

Powers of ten make life easier. I now saying that being taught Metric would have avoided this Verizon arithmetic abortion, but I think it might have increased the probability of finding a rep who got it.

Some might say that the basic reason for the communication disconnect is that dollars and cents are "different", but I think comment in and of itself betrays a lack of Metric education.

I think the problem is that the Verizon people were incapable of intuiting on a fundamental level that the two are in fact the same thing, currency, but that the $ sign is a 100x multiplier of the unit. Or that the sign is a 100 divider of the $ unit.

As a pedagogy, Metric is based on the idea of as few fundamental units as possible, and everything else being created through powers of ten. It sim

Your skepticism is valid. The initial post was not necessarily a call for money (although that would be nice... :)

If you want to read more about my project and why it isn't a 419 check out my blog at www.aaroninafrica.com or the description of the project at http://aaroninafrica.blogspot.com/2006/07/project. html. Sadly the full proposal isn't on the site as I don't have access to a hosting site while over here. If you would like me to send you the PDF please give me your contact info or get in touch with me directly from my blog.

Thanks for your comments.

(Interesting side note... while in an internet cafe here I happened to glance at the screen of the person working next to me. Guess what he was working on? A 419 email... So interesting to see it from this side!)

Thanks for your comments! I do in fact have a proposal. Check out the outline of the project at http://aaroninafrica.blogspot.com/2006/07/project. html. Sadly I don't have a hosting services while I am here. If you would like to see the entire proposal check out my contact info on my blog and send me your email address. I am hoping to get a friend to post the proposal somewhere. Hopefully that will be up soon.

I do agree with you when you talk about the potential pit-falls of a project like this. You make a good point of the IT project "parachuted in from above." I would go so far as to say that sadly, most development work is done that way. My project is different (i hope) in a number of ways. First, as a Peace Corps Volunteer (other PCVs and RPCVs can back me up here) I have a pretty good feeling for my community. I live, work and eat with the people I am doing this project with. That gives me a little more perspective and hopefully I have added that into the proposal that I have written. Second, you make a valid point as to the necessity of training. I feel lucky in that I have found a way to do this where I already have a group of able, dedicated people to help make this project work.

Thanks again for your comments.

I am sure a property management/security company would be happy to keep an eye on things while you're away. Otherwise, you could rent it to me, I am looking to move back to New England....
http://digitalpowderhound.blogspot.com/

You're seriously asking me what harm an infinite-length copyright term could do? That's a remarkably low bar to set. We'll examine the effects of automatically-renewed copyright terms of long, but not infinite, length here in the United States.

(Bear in mind that to seriously argue for infinite terms, you'd have to show harm to the culture that wouldn't occur if terms were only five hundred years long, for instance. And "it enriches their descendants" doesn't count; we have copyright to promote science and the useful arts. Congress can hand me a stack of Benjies for no particular reason, and that'd be "good" for me, but that doesn't make it good public policy, and it absolutely doesn't promote science and the useful arts.)

If you'd like an example of how current culture always makes use of the past, and how that past has been taken out of the hands of creators, there's an excellent presentation by Lawrence Lessig.

If you'd like numbers, see Public Knowledge's statistics that of the 3 million registered copyrights from 1923 to 1943, only 2% of them were commercially used in 1998. I think tossing 98% of our culture from that period down the memory hole is a terrible thing to do. (The Lessig presentation has a bit about the role of a noncommercial life for many works--most of the books on Project Gutenberg aren't sold any more, but that doesn't mean they're not useful. Better to have them there than nowhere at all.)

If you'd like anecdotes, you can start with Save The Music's overview, then read anecdotes from researchers who had to change or abandon projects because there was no way to clear rights for orphan works, archivists and documentarians who can't use materials from companies that went out of business many years ago, or old folks who can't get their wedding photographs repaired if their kid tears them, or the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America--hardly a bunch of Napster-licking college students--collecting anecdotes where the early pulp heritage of SF can't be reproduced or even preserved because early magazines folded, and no one knows who owns the copyright.

An Orphan Works system--or requiring copyright registration again--would address most of these concerns. But ironclad copyright of a century or more, let alone eternal copyright, is destructive madness which serves to enrich a few corporations at the expense of our culture at large, by locking up (until they turn to dust--essentially throwing away) any works which aren't commercially exploited any longer.

So, yeah, there's my evidence; the losses are far from being simply theoretical. Your house analogy is ridiculous for reasons pointed out elsewhere in this thread; no one short of Jack Valenti thinks that intellectual property should be administered the same way as physical property. You can read some of the Founders' thoughts on that. (As I keep saying, copyright is for the benefit of the culture at large; it rewards creators as an incentive to this end. It is, for this reason, a convenient abstraction, similar to physical property in name only.)

(Also, your distinction between "artistic" and "non-artistic" isn't the right one; you're thinking of creative and non-creative works. See Feist v. Rural; it's not your efforts that are copyrighted, but your creativity, once fixed in a tan

It has recently been brought to my attention that your organization is quite incapable of doing basic math as demonstrated by another Verizon customer George Vaccaro.

Link: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/

If this matter is not resolved with Mr. Vaccaro I will assume I am undertaking similar risks where my bill may differ by a factor of 100 and will therefore relinquish your services.

The 2nd Amendment may not be much of a "systems" issues. As system and constitutional issues go tho, try this one for controversy - repeal the 17th amendment. According to the blog and the advocates, this is the cure for Iraq, out of control spending, and excessive control by the federal government.

http://repealthe17thamendment.blogspot.com/

"The Existence of a Trivial is Indeterminate". This is very important and easy to prove. It says that you cannot prove whether an object is really itself, or if it might in fact be an identical clone of itself. That this is strictly "indeterminate". This is also true of numbers, etc. This is Harris's Theorem, and is perhaps the most important theorem in all of mathematics. I'm not sure if his "nullity" is the same as triviality, but it might be. I am not familiar with what this man is doing. Triviality is not a trashcan. There is a distinction between the trivial and the strictly nonexistent. You have existence, nonexistence, and there IS a third existential type which is the trivial. It is a third type because "The Existence of a Trivial is Indeterminate", and I can prove it easily. All you need to do is play with uniqueness. http://sciphysicsopenmanuscript.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com] Respectfully, Dr. Viktor I. Planckenstein

There are some very interesting things about zero, and triviality. First, "The Existence of a Trivial is Indeterminate". This is very important and easy to prove. It says that you cannot prove whether an object is really itself, or if it might in fact be an identical clone of itself. That this is strictly "indeterminate". This is also true of numbers, etc. This is Harris's Theorem, and is perhaps the most important theorem in all of mathematics. I'm not sure if his "nullity" is the same as triviality, but it might be. I am not familiar with what this man is doing. Next, when are apples equal to oranges ? When you have zero of them !! Yes - indeed - zero apples is identical to zero oranges. There is no difference !! Triviality is not a trashcan. There is a distinction between the trivial and the strictly nonexistent. If this man is teaching nonsense to schoolchildren then he should be flogged. But if he is investigating the idea of triviality then I'd say he should get a medal. I think that I'd need to see his math first before making that call. Is an apple the same as an orange ? Yes, when you have zero of each !!! An apple is an orange !!! I am not advocating division by zero, but there is certainly MUCH to be said regarding triviality ! You have existence, nonexistence, and there IS a third existential type which is the trivial. It is a third type because "The Existence of a Trivial is Indeterminate", and I can prove it easily. All you need to do is play with uniqueness. http://sciphysicsopenmanuscript.blogspot.com/ Respectfully, Dr. Viktor I. Planckenstein

I am writing in regards to the incident recorded at http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ for the charges of George Vaccaro. He was originally quoted at a rate of .002cents/kb, and this was confirmed multiple times by customer service reps as the rate he was expected to pay. In doing the proper math, his bill should result in a charge of 72cents, not the $72 he has been billed.

What concerns me is not that he may have been misquoted, but that the quote was confirmed to be correct multiple times, and yet, the billing charge remains the same, stated multiple times, due to a simple math error. I fear this lack of proper math skills in both quoting and billing will be applied to my account. I will not continue to have an account with a company that cannot rectify its own math, as I fear this incorrect math will be applied to my account, and it too will result in a bill that is *100 times* larger than it should be.

Verizon needs to correct this math error, charge him the rate he was quoted, and repeatedly confirmed, which results in a charge 72cents, or $0.72, and also publicly apologize not only for the frustration and time loss it has caused to Mr. Vaccaro, but also to assure other customers that they will not be treated the in the same fashion.

The problem with them admitting defeat and actually charging the rate they've been speaking is that it makes them liable to charge the quoted rate to everyone else.

Not at all. They can credit him the full use of data in Canada on his recent trip (generously declining his offer to pay the correct $0.71) purely as a customer retention move. They can also choose to "clarify" how they express the rate in future (I've given them several suggestions in a comment on his blog) to avoid customers "misunderstanding" the rate. Neither of which (IANAL) means they have to refund everyone else who claims they called in and got that rate quoted to them. And indeed, that's my prediction of how this will turn out.

According to his blog, Verizon has contacted him and said they'd waive half of the data charges. They still don't get it.

If you're going to be an armchair quarterback at least do your job.

Read the legal documents:
my October 28th letter to the judge;
the RIAA's November 1st response;
my December 1st response;
the judge's decision;
my December 7th letter to the court with attachments.

The October 28th-December 4th documents are listed here and the December 7th document is here.

Then let me know what you think I omitted, or did wrong, so as to lead you to the conclusion that I am "not of the same caliber as the RIAA's attack dogs".

If you're going to be an armchair quarterback at least do your job.

Read the legal documents:
my October 28th letter to the judge;
the RIAA's November 1st response;
my December 1st response;
the judge's decision;
my December 7th letter to the court with attachments.

The October 28th-December 4th documents are listed here and the December 7th document is here.

Then let me know what you think I omitted, or did wrong, so as to lead you to the conclusion that I am "not of the same caliber as the RIAA's attack dogs".

I did a write-up for the Kotaku crowd, but I figure this might help some Slashdotters understand how to read the patent and better determine what's going on here:

http://jointstrikeweasel.blogspot.com/2006/12/how- to-quick-and-dirty-patent-analysis.html

I hope this helps. Analyzing patents is much more fun when you understand how to do it. ;)

Let's not forget The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, he invented the friggin' iPod!

Matt Cutts has debunked this story, and Google's AdWords team has also posted to their blog to debunk this. I think it's funny that people beat up on Google for buying ads, when Yahoo just takes the screen real estate for free. Try a search for [online advertising] on Yahoo. They hard-code a shortcut to their own products.

The url for the blog entry is: http://kiloseven.blogspot.com/2006/12/got-earthlin k-got-mail-no-they-lost-it.html

NOT ...

See :
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/11/ap-is-bu sted-uses-bogus-source-for.html

Do you think something like this stops them from falsifying news ?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061129/ap_on_re_mi_ea /iraq_revenge_attacks

Think again. Obviously looking at an actual live video feed in the iraqi capital will reveal a quite normal life, with markets, loads of people ... Doesn't sound like a civil war at _all_ actually.

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/bagCam.html

hmmmmm ....

From what I can tell, AOL matched one or more IPs directly to the defendant - name, street address, state and ZIP. If they didn't have an account with AOL how did they know that information?
Looks like the RIAA has probable cause to continue litigation because AOL did in fact correlate an IP that downloaded the music to the defendant.

That the requesting company might have financial motive to fabricate the evidence isn't possible, right?

If this was one company suing another with this same evidence it would get tossed out pretty quick. But it didn't the first time and now it's SOP.

It doesn't prove anything but the RIAA still should have the right to continue with the lititgation, as much as it pains me to say it.

Maybe I'm just not seeing the problem here. Maybe I need someone to clear it up or just put on the 'Evil RIAA' blinders that I guess I'm supposed to wear when reading slashdot.

The case did only involve a civil complaint, so it probably would have ultimately ended up with a financial settlement and some sort of compromised "corrective" measures like we see here, but I really think this is an injustice for the people who had their identities and privacy compromised, and for HP shareholders in the long run. The evidence that senior executives at HP, potentially including Mark Hurd, either ignored or were ignorant of the ongoing, "probably illegal" actions is pretty well documented, and pretty overwhelming.

Patricia Dunn took pretty much all the heat for this, and that's unfortunate for her and HP. It seems to me like she should have had a better grip on what was happening at HP, but it doesn't seem to me like she should have been the only one with that responsibility. A full, objective, and independent investigation should have been the first think on everybody's list. Instead, this case is now settled, Congress has moved on, and Dunn will be focussed on proving her innocence.

The unfortunate thing for Mark Hurd is that his level of responsibility and accountability wasn't determined in this process. The second HP hits a performance blip, this scandal will be the first thing on every shareholder's mind when they're thinking of who to blame. When that day comes, I wouldn't want to be in Mark Hurd's shoes.

--
justen
justen.blogspot.com

1. "fraudulent purpose"
2. "circumvent any security system"
3. "enter ... a secure area"

To see changes though, this would have to motivate the people. So far, the voters of the USA have chosen to leave things alone. Apparently, the TSA is doing just fine according to most Americans.

Further, I think the case can be made that Chris is innocent of the charges.

1. "fraudulent purpose": Chris has clearly stated his purpose. In particular, "3. Demonstrate that the TSA Boarding Pass/ID check is useless" does not represent fraudulent purpose. Senator Charles E. Schumer demonstrated the same thing and is likewise not guilty of any fraud. Their intents were clear, and they made no attempt to either create, use, or cause others to create or use a fake boarding pass.
2. "circumvent any security system": this is essentially the same claim. By publishing a program which automatically generates "valid" boarding passes, both Charles and Chris have acted to preserve security by publishing the method of operation of the system. Not only is this protected by the First Amendment, it is not circumvention unless action is taken to attack the actual systems in operation. Neither Chris nor Charles have entered secure areas without authorization. They have not caused others to do so. They are only guilty of revealing the method in use.
   
   If a system fails to control access when its encryption becomes public knowledge, it is not a secure system, in the same way that DRM can never stop piracy. This is immaterial to the case, however, since Chris only provided a web page to generate encrypted data, and did not reveal the key.
3. "enter ... a secure area": if the TSA has evidence that anyone has successfully entered their secured areas, I propose they present it in the court case. As a corollary, Steve Ballmer has said that linux users have "an undisclosed balance sheet liability," and he is likewise welcome to provide evidence of that liability. Innocent until proven guilty. However, in Chris's case, he has stated that he did not even print a boarding pass, much less get through security at an airport. What if there is a bug in his code and the pass does not actually work? He won't know. That wasn't his purpose.

This is analogous to the scientist that invents some "cure", skips FDA approval, injects himself, and it ends up harming himself and others.

I can see your point. However, what Chris has done is akin to publishing a Star Trek replicator's database entry for borg implants. He knows they are dangerous. He also knows that others (like Senator Schumer) have previously published the same information. If someone chooses to load the database entry into their replicator (they would have to intenti

http://cultureofchemistry.blogspot.com/2005/11/rad ar-and-chocolate-bar.html

BTW, don't use the term 'egghead'. That anti-intellectual term comes from Nazi brownshirts referring to how easily intellectual's heads shattered, or something equally violent. We have enough anti-intellectualism in this country already. Just look at those damn Geico commercials.

(Seriously. The 'modern' humans are assholes who can mock or outshout the cavemen but that's all... and don't feel any shame about it. The 'cavemen' are the ones who clearly articulate their opinion and accomplishments.)

http://cultureofchemistry.blogspot.com/2005/11/rad ar-and-chocolate-bar.html

And don't use the term 'egghead'. It's origin is Nazi brown-shirts referring to how the skulls of intellectuals shatter when they hit the ground. (Or something equally violent.) We have enough anti-intellectualism in this country already.

One night, a neighbor strolling by Nasrudin's house found him outside under the street lamp brushing through the dust. "Have you lost something, my friend?" he asked. Nasrudin explained that he had lost his key and asked the neighbor to help him find it. After some minutes of searching and turning up nothing, the neighbor asked him, "Are you sure you lost the key here?" "No, I did not lose it here. I lost it inside the house," Nasrudin answered. "If you lost the key in the house, Nasrudin, why are you looking for it out here?" "Well, there's more light out here, of course," Nasrudin replied.

I was not referring to overclocking video cards, but I see that I was too vague. One example of what I was referring to is the hiding of video mode capabilities. I would like to find a reference on the Internet, but I have only heard of this from Zack Rusin when he spoke at my local LUG. The gist of it is: the X.org people have to brute force newer (NVidia & ATI, IIRC) cards to see what video modes they support (as opposed to the old method where they were able to get a list directly from the card.)

I'm not going to trust that supposed flip side anything till I get an actuial link to see the text.

Absolutely! I worked for months and months, trying to inspire, direct, encourage, support my Bangalore counterparts to show some personal initiative in solving sticky problems. Even the most basic eluded them, and it was an uphill battle getting them to step out on a limb and take a chance at being proactive. This story in the NYT absolutely positively reflects the realities of my own experiences, and actually substantiates what I've been saying for years (but have been accused of being anti-Indian for saying). I say, it's anti-Indian for any institution to pretend to prepare its students for the working world, whilst turning them loose with little more than the ability to follow instructions. See http://darwinsweb.blogspot.com for more...

There's some pretty hilarious comments on Jaffe's blog that talk about the interview before it went mainstream. There's also some classic 'nerd at the Playboy mansion' type of commentary along with him posing with bunnies:

"So I get drunk and Jeff 'let's fuck with Jaffe's career' Resse- who is a MARKETING guy- brings me in front of the gametrailers.com cameras and we just go at it, tossing insults, doing a totally drunk interview, screaming at the camera (I think at one point I told EGM to fuck off for calling me THE KING OF BULLSHIT in this month's Q-MAN!)...it was total fun and I'm sure I've just made like 100 more people on the message boards hate me because of it. Ah well :) Watch for it....I hope they do some editing! Be nice, Gametrailers!"

If such an investigation finds no hidden counter-claims, then we will know for a fact that the claims of stifling are overblown.

Because the BBCsaid so? !

Government != impartial.

Coincidentally, a pretty good article analyzing the planned launch architecture was published yesterday. Here's the link.

Additionally, aerospace engineer Jonathan Goff over at Selenian Boondocks has a post titled Lunar Much Sooner (and Better) which discusses a number of alternatives to NASA's current plan.

Finally, Selenian Boondocks also has another post about some things revealed by one of the architects of NASA's plans, suggesting that several of the design constraints imposed on the architecture may be somewhat dubious, (arguably) making the whole project much more expensive and unsustainable.

Coincidentally, a pretty good article analyzing the planned launch architecture was published yesterday. Here's the link.

Additionally, aerospace engineer Jonathan Goff over at Selenian Boondocks has a post titled Lunar Much Sooner (and Better) which discusses a number of alternatives to NASA's current plan.

Finally, Selenian Boondocks also has another post about some things revealed by one of the architects of NASA's plans, suggesting that several of the design constraints imposed on the architecture may be somewhat dubious, (arguably) making the whole project much more expensive and unsustainable.

TR: How can we fix the mess we are in?

BS: In theory, the answer is simple: educate our software developers better, use more-appropriate design methods, and design for flexibility and for the long haul. Reward correct, solid, and safe systems. Punish sloppiness.

In reality, that's impossible. People reward developers who deliver software that is cheap, buggy, and first. That's because people want fancy new gadgets now. They don't want inconvenience, don't want to learn new ways of interacting with their computers, don't want delays in delivery, and don't want to pay extra for quality (unless it's obvious up front--and often not even then). And without real changes in user behavior, software suppliers are unlikely to change.

The good thing about working in software-centric companies (besides understanding the programmer psyche) is that they often don't balk as much at being told something can't be done in a timeframe. Blizzard doesn't blink an eye when it has to delay a game by a year (probably more like 2 or 3 years when compared to internal, non-public set dates). Microsoft finally decided to nuke WinFS once they finally conceded that you're not going to get it within this decade, no matter how much they throw chairs. Google apparently has almost no schedules.

So, on an internet where nobody knows you're a dog, "reputable" organizations will start posting non-traceable input as news??!?!?!!?!!!

Here, take a look at Green Helmet Guy, the face of anti-semitic news from the Lebanon.

This is a chance for the S/N ratio on the internet to head to, what, minus infinity?

this one
Sort of this one

this one

this one
this one
this one

there are a lot more. I'm not saying religion in totality is trying to spread FUD I'm sayign certain religious groups are stirring opposition for no other reason then to undermine certain scientific corner stones and theories they find inconvienant. Like parts of geology, astronomy, genetics, immunology, ect..

I am myself a moderate catholic. I find the exstremists and fundementalsist distasteful.

I've seen a couple of blog posts about it, and I think this is a good one that describes it well. The movie execs don't seem to understand what they just paid for. There is a Bittorrent protocol, which we are familiar with, and then there is the Bittorrent, Inc. company. They are not really very related to each other, except that Bram Cohen is kind of involved in both. The media deal was with the Bittorrent company and, specifically, their website: bittorrent.com. The execs don't seem to realize that it has no bearing at all on the continuing use of bittorrent clients by millions of people.

Seriously? How many soldiers do you have to lose before you declare a defeat?

Let's start out simply and semi-realistically. What If Today's Media Had Covered WWII and What If Today's MSM Had Covered WWII say it rather well, I think. Given, these are not nationally syndicated nor official news reports, but it's an interesting opinion spin.

On to the meat of things. The Battle of Guadalcanal lasted approximately six months and had 6,509 Alllied deaths and probably an order of magnitude over that for wounded in action (WIA). The Battle of Tarawa lasted a mere four days and had 1,001 killed and 2,296 WIA for the U.S. alone. Finally, The Battle of Iwo Jima , which lasted from 19 February until 26 March (about 5 weeks) saw 7,000 dead and 26,000 WIA for the Americans. These three battles lasting a total of about seven months brought the Allied toll up to about 14,000 KIA and well over 29,000 WIA. SEVEN MONTHS!

Overall World War II saw 17 million military and 33 million civilian dead for the Allied powers. On the other side (the Axis) there were a mere 12 million dead.

I do agree with your heartfelt question of how many must die, though I do not agree with your end-state. Firstly, the human race can not look evil in the face and run. We must, as a race, face down those that would harm others needlessly, take away freedoms from entire populations, and subject others to wanton cruelty. We must be willing to pay whatever price is asked to ensure that all people are treated equally.

Secondly, to reach this end of equality, we must ensure that those who are not willing to pay the price are kept from positions of mamagement. If one is not willing to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of society as a whole, then they should be relegated to the lower spectrum of society (similar to Starship Troopers). We do not need a populace that does nothing but hold their hand out and ask for more. We need a populace that is willing to work for and defend their freedoms.

Some other interesting factoids for the masses: Bosnia and Herzegovina had between 100,000 and 110,000 military and civilians killed in ethnic cleansing and war, The Iran-Iraq War had over 875,000 military and civilians killed in their "war", and we're not even going to start discussing the deaths in various South American and African conflicts.

Seriously? How many soldiers do you have to lose before you declare a defeat?

Back to your original question: personally, I will never declare defeat. As long as someone is being oppressed, as long as there is evil in this world, I will not give up. I pray that our leaders feel the same way. As a United States Marine, I am willing and able to go forth into battle to defend those who can not or will not defend themselves. Hopefully more people feel the same way.

There is now an "appreciation site" devoted to the collection of cruft deleted from Wikipedia known as the WikiDumper at wikidumper.blogspot.org. The site is beginning to draw attention, too, receiving press from the likes of USA Today, Fortune, Der Spiegel, Boing Boing, and CNET. It isn't surprising that much of the material which is considered for deletion on Wikipedia turns out to be a hoax, but what is surprising is that some of these hoaxes manage to surving 2-3 years before being noticed.