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There are some really good reforms that could take place, short of giving up the goal of abolishing the patent system altogether. A list of a few is given at this post on China's entry into tighter patent law. My favorite? The Independent Invention Defense.

There are some really good reforms that could take place, short of giving up the goal of abolishing the patent system altogether. A list of a few is given at this post on China's entry into tighter patent law. My favorite? The Independent Invention Defense.

8.0 for Madden360 is seriously an abomination for a game with ZERO competition. As an avid 2k gamer since 1999 on Dreamcast, I am appalled at a second game in just a few months times that has disappointed the gaming public.

EA is resting on their laurels and doing exactly what a MONOPOLY would do to improve their product...next to nothing. If you are a football gamer who feels like I do (the mainstream gaming press like IGN and Gamespot have no intention of serving the interest of gamers) please make your voice heard about what should be done about having only one choice for a football game. My blog is pretty much dedicated to letting fellow gamer's voices be heard about EA and their football monopoly. http://monopolion.blogspot.com/

-Santoro

I have signed up for the service, taken some pictures and posted the screen shots on my blog. If you don't want to see the picture, I edited the article slightly and posted the words below: Google just rolled out a free web traffic analysis service named Google Analytics. You can catch the story at Slashdot. I have just signed up for an account. First full report is compiled after 12 hours, but in the main time, I can see a lot of buttons to play with. You can choose to view vital numbers from "Executive", "Marketer", or "Webmaster" point of view. There are so many functions I don't know where to start. Let me show you an overview picture. There is a pretty screen with 4 pictures to the top right. It shows you the webpage overview and covers "Visits and Pageviews", "Geo Map Overlay", "Visits bv New and Returning", and "Visit by Source". "Geo Map Overlay" is interesting, it shows the general location of where people is viewing your site. It uses javascript, so if your visitor has it off, you won't can see the location. Also, the display is in flash for some reason, so make sure you have macromedia flash. If you use Firefox, the popular plug-in AdBlock will block flash, you need to disable it. Firefox viewer can find flash plugins. I just use Internet Explorer for now, it works just fine. The service is the most powerful and flexible I have seen yet, even from paid service. I have been using StatCounter for months, but that free service only provides stat for your previous 100 visitors. Google 'limit' your free account to 5 million views a month, which is plenty for the average joes. If you go over 5 million, your website can most likely make you enough money to afford a pay service anyhow. Even better, if you have an AdWord Account and tie Google Analytics onto it, you have "unlimited" capacity! I will keep both webstat for now. StatCounter updates in real time while Google Analytics updates webstat once an hour. By keeping both I can choose to tap the information whenever I want. Also, I have StatCounter setup as "Public", so visitors can see webstat in real time. The information visitors see from StatCounter is the same as what I see as a webmaster. Google Analytics seems powerful, but it doesn't let me share the information real tiem like Stat Counter does. However, you can choose to export your stat from google into txt, xml, excel, or print it out on the spot. Google never cease to amaze me, they come out with free products better than many paid services. As I write on this free Blogger Platform, logged by free Google Analytics, and being searched by Google Engine, I can't help but praise - Vive Google! Google !

http://aetiology.blogspot.com/2005/10/pandemic-inf luenza-awareness-week-day.html

is just one of thousands of articles about the 1918 flu, but they all say about the same thing, and I quote:

Typically, influenza causes death due to a secondary bacterial pneumonia. Bacteria are able to take advantage of the host's compromised immune status and damaged lung cells, establishing a potentially deadly infection. However, during the 1918 pandemic, a greater percentage of the deaths in the 20-45 age group were due to primary pneumonia: pneumonia caused by a combination of the influenza virus and the host response, with no bacterial invaders involved.

And the fear mongers? You mean like Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, and a ground breaking AIDS researcher? Or maybe you mean Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Or perhaps the fear monger you are referring to is LEE Jong-wook, director of the World Health Organization. Could it be Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding, director of the Center for Disease Control?

Because each and every one of these people have used the strongest possible language in warning that an unprecedented world disaster is on the verge of happening due to an influenza pandemic, probably caused by H5N1 avian flu.

It is all there for you to read and learn. Don't become one of the millions who are nominated en masse for the 2006 Darwin awards. Because this pandemic will be the agent that culls the stupid and the stubborn, along with an enormous population of poor and innocent. Probably you are just stubborn, but either way, you have a good chance of dying from your condition unless you wise up. Good luck.

Here is something I've been thinking about for the past couple of months now.

http://alecperkins.blogspot.com/2005/10/google-vid eo-bittorrent-diggcom.html

http://infringements.blogspot.com/

Agreed. Licensing is not always evil. Creative Commons being my favorite example.

Imagine being licenced a song in that sense- actually buying, with the CD, the right to listen to Rob Dougan's Furious Angels, no matter what you do to the original media, no matter what format you change it into, no matter where you acquire a CD or MP3 or WMA or OGG of it. That's what intellectual property should mean in this day and age - not some physical object but the IP in all its abstractness. With the DRM systems that exist, it should be entirely possible to track the usage "Rights" of the customer.

I don't want to be tracked, thanks.

There's real potential there, but the reality we get is that we're licenced the limited right to listen to the music on the specific physical media which we purchased, and nothing more. Want to listen to it on your MP3 player? Pay for it again. CDs stolen? Pay for it again. We don't actually have Digital Rights to Manage, we're just buying a single, intractable commodity item when we buy a CD.

And that is why this recent example of attaching an EULA to an Audio CD is such a dangerous precedent. Previously, you bought a CD and you pretty much could do whatever the heck you wanted to with it.

Now, I see folks here saying that this Sony EULA for CD audio is basically smoke & mirrors but is it? Where's an intellectual property lawyer when you need one? As for me, I'm not buying any CD with an EULA attached to it. If by accident I do, it's going back to the store. I posed the question earlier, does the DMCA trump fair use? Now I ask, can EULA that impose restrictions beyond the scope of copyright (see the link above) trump fair use too? I don't think so, but I don't know...

Not only is this only about the existence of the name Goliath, not the character in the famous story, but even the name is iffy.

Their megabuck legal team convinced the judge to throw out the case before it could come to trial (by refusing to admit expert testimony). I'm appealing, but meanwhile they are suing me to make me pay more than $300,000 in legal fees to their lawyers

Sony and Random House assert in their legal filings that my blogging about the Da Vinci Code case, my posting of legal documents, expert witness analysis and a discussion of my own books as the originals in the genre constitutes evidence of "improper motivation" which they say justifies me being forced to pay .

Why didn't I sue them first?

As already mentioned on this thread, it's all about megabucks. Random House/Bertelsmann is the world's largest, multibillion-dollar publishing company.

Outclassed in the "all the justice you can pay for" category, I first wrote them a non-threatening letter intending to ask that they give me credit. I had no lawyer, no intention to sue then -- as now -- never any demand for settlement money.

Despite my private and non-threatening approach, Random House launched a thermonuclear "fuck off" fax at me threatening me with financial ruin should I pursue the issue. Their fax was so extreme that it was a big clue that some sort infringement may have happened and that they knew it.

Random House slammed the door on private and civil discussion. But, lacking the megabucks to buy the same measure of justice available to large global corporations, I turned to public disclosure and what better way than blogs, one of which was The Da Vinci Crock

I did this because a couple of years ago, before blogs were so common, I created an online forum called PatheticBell.Com (http://www.patheticbell.com/) concerning the misleading ads and promises of Pacific Bell (now SBC) DSL service. That forum collected enough information from angry users to support several class action lawsuits that brought fines and better service.

Because I had successfully used the Web to bring issues to the public's attention then, I saw no reason not to do so again. The public scrutiny obviously generated more heat than Random House could take, so they filed suit against me in New York where the judges are more friendly toward publishers than here in California.

The judge in question refused to allow my expert witnesses to submit their testimony then ruled in favor of Random House's request to deny a trial on the issues. I am appealing.

BIG APOLOGY: I am sorry for all the badly produced .pdf documents above!

The court filings are only available as CRAPPY .pdfs are scanned from printed pages.

Lawyers do this (instead of creating normal, CPU-sucking Acrobat documents) to make it impossible to text search their filings or to cut and paste from them despite the fact that they are public domain documents.

This

Their megabuck legal team convinced the judge to throw out the case before it could come to trial (by refusing to admit expert testimony). I'm appealing, but meanwhile they are suing me to make me pay more than $300,000 in legal fees to their lawyers

Sony and Random House assert in their legal filings that my blogging about the Da Vinci Code case, my posting of legal documents, expert witness analysis and a discussion of my own books as the originals in the genre constitutes evidence of "improper motivation" which they say justifies me being forced to pay .

Why didn't I sue them first?

As already mentioned on this thread, it's all about megabucks. Random House/Bertelsmann is the world's largest, multibillion-dollar publishing company.

Outclassed in the "all the justice you can pay for" category, I first wrote them a non-threatening letter intending to ask that they give me credit. I had no lawyer, no intention to sue then -- as now -- never any demand for settlement money.

Despite my private and non-threatening approach, Random House launched a thermonuclear "fuck off" fax at me threatening me with financial ruin should I pursue the issue. Their fax was so extreme that it was a big clue that some sort infringement may have happened and that they knew it.

Random House slammed the door on private and civil discussion. But, lacking the megabucks to buy the same measure of justice available to large global corporations, I turned to public disclosure and what better way than blogs, one of which was The Da Vinci Crock

I did this because a couple of years ago, before blogs were so common, I created an online forum called PatheticBell.Com (http://www.patheticbell.com/) concerning the misleading ads and promises of Pacific Bell (now SBC) DSL service. That forum collected enough information from angry users to support several class action lawsuits that brought fines and better service.

Because I had successfully used the Web to bring issues to the public's attention then, I saw no reason not to do so again. The public scrutiny obviously generated more heat than Random House could take, so they filed suit against me in New York where the judges are more friendly toward publishers than here in California.

The judge in question refused to allow my expert witnesses to submit their testimony then ruled in favor of Random House's request to deny a trial on the issues. I am appealing.

BIG APOLOGY: I am sorry for all the badly produced .pdf documents above!

The court filings are only available as CRAPPY .pdfs are scanned from printed pages.

Lawyers do this (instead of creating normal, CPU-sucking Acrobat documents) to make it impossible to text search their filings or to cut and paste from them despite the fact that they are public domain documents.

This

Maybe 15% of the population. It just isn't a viable solution for the other 85% -> 90% of people who need to travel. Not only that it isn't physically possible for it to be a viable solution for the other 90%, the transport maths simply don't add up for conventional mass transit.

More details on exactly why here:
http://mrprecision.blogspot.com/2005/05/why-public -transport-cant-work.html

That is such a solid point. The whole issue is out of control. What if Sony-BMG is allowed to get away with this? What kind of precedent does it set? Will we now have to worry about every release from every media company that may follow the Sony model and employ their own variant of spy/malware-type Digital Restriction software on their CD or DVD?

An EULA for CD audio?! When I first read this stuff I could NOT believe what I was seeing! We saw the writing on the wall with CueCat (remember that nonsense?). Do we just get to expect that everything we buy will now include "instructions" on what we can & cannot do with the things that we purchase? This goes beyond killing innovation--heck, instead of selling us merchandise it seems as if we're just paying a leasing fee: the manufacturer still owns the product and gets to tell us how we can use it. Licensed audio CDs, subscription software. I think it is only the beginning. Can't wait until I am forced to buy only certain brands of gasoline for my car based on the EULA I signed when I purchase my next vehicle...

This all ties in with the honesty factor you mention. Sony (and others) simply use piracy as an excuse for this kind of awful behavior on their part. Please don't swap non-redistributable copyrighted files, if you do, you're ruining it for the rest of us!

As you can see from the links, I've been stewing over these disturbing trends for days. Years actually. Any excuse to control the consumer seems to be grabbed up immediately by the powers that be...

That is such a solid point. The whole issue is out of control. What if Sony-BMG is allowed to get away with this? What kind of precedent does it set? Will we now have to worry about every release from every media company that may follow the Sony model and employ their own variant of spy/malware-type Digital Restriction software on their CD or DVD?

An EULA for CD audio?! When I first read this stuff I could NOT believe what I was seeing! We saw the writing on the wall with CueCat (remember that nonsense?). Do we just get to expect that everything we buy will now include "instructions" on what we can & cannot do with the things that we purchase? This goes beyond killing innovation--heck, instead of selling us merchandise it seems as if we're just paying a leasing fee: the manufacturer still owns the product and gets to tell us how we can use it. Licensed audio CDs, subscription software. I think it is only the beginning. Can't wait until I am forced to buy only certain brands of gasoline for my car based on the EULA I signed when I purchase my next vehicle...

This all ties in with the honesty factor you mention. Sony (and others) simply use piracy as an excuse for this kind of awful behavior on their part. Please don't swap non-redistributable copyrighted files, if you do, you're ruining it for the rest of us!

As you can see from the links, I've been stewing over these disturbing trends for days. Years actually. Any excuse to control the consumer seems to be grabbed up immediately by the powers that be...

Ummm... Actually, if you go read so MS employee blogs, or go read some VS2005 articles, you'll find that a great many customers are unhappy with the state of the product at lunch, and those "won't fix" bugs were the reason MS announced a service pack at the same time.

Go take a look:
http://minimsft.blogspot.com/

http://blogs.msdn.com/scottwil/archive/2005/11/07/ 490007.aspx

> Where do you think the stories about sea monsters and dragons across multiple cultures come from?

Probably from seeing whale penises.

pic
link

Singularity can only get you so far. I expect Singularity to work well for preventing application crashes, and it should significantly speed up interprocess communication. It may even somewhat reduce the amount of blue-screens (or whatever color the Linux equivalent is); but it won't be able to help with most kernel mode faults, because it still can't protect the software from the hardware. The hardware is still free to stomp all over program, driver, and OS memory, because a driver made some error in sending values to the hardware (which is impossible for the JITer to validate).

A more in-depth version of this post

Oops. There was a mistake in the hyperlink in that post (making it not show up). Should have been 'misguided'

Besides, half the apps on your list are toys ... nice toys for a home desktop (yes, amarok and k3b is lovely) but where are the more "serious" apps like scribus? Is there an gtk equivalent? Edutainment? I mention this last because linux might become more and more important in education, and only KDE offers a nice, integrated solution. In fact, I just read about a specific case where schools (in Germany) used KDE because of the edutainment package (was in one of the blogs on kdeplanet).

Which leads me to what I wanted to say originally: marketing. KDE did no or very little marketing, and almost no research of KDE deployment. That's where the "other" project excelled: marketing, case studies, success stories, etc... This way, it was relatively easy for ximian's people to convince Novell's management that they should standardize on GNOME. It was at this year's academy that they decided to form the KDE Marketing Working Group. And in just a few days, oh look: Dutch Record Shop Chain Migrates 1000 PCs to KDE on Novell Linux Desktop that's bye bye for 1000 customers when the next upgrade cycle comes, if Novell standardized on GNOME. They use kiosk mode and the associated admin tools to lock the features - which seems to be a mature feature. In fact, here is an "enterprise ready" praise if there is any:"

At the moment, almost all shops in The Netherlands and Belgium already use the KDE Desktop. After that phase is complete, the migration team will go to Norway and Finland to migrate the PCs used by the Free Record Shop and Bravo chains. "It's a fun project" says Arrachart, "We can show that you can save costs with ICT, while at the same time allowing greater possibilities in the way the shops are organised."

on my right was a fellow who works for a company that makes linux based satelite t.v. transmission software (sky t.v. is amongst their clientelle) and they use qt for their in-house engineering tools. on my left were three men from a vienese company that writes kde software for a group of five private hospitals. these hospitals all run kde on the desktop and everything from patient records to x-rays is handled on them.

I've made a couple of posts on my blog listing the technical pros and cons of Singularity as a real-life OS (the latter I just wrote and put up today).

I've made a couple of posts on my blog listing the technical pros and cons of Singularity as a real-life OS (the latter I just wrote and put up today).

Until Sony undertakes meaningful reparations for this breach of ethics, I'll be hosting an .mp3 of a song from one of their DRM'ed discs. I encourage others to do the same.

http://www.foryourentertainment.blogspot.com/

Just to clarify -- we are not being sued. We received a demand to remove their product from our database. I've blogged about it here http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/retrocoder .html Alex Eckelberry Sunbelt

I've stopped buying music for the same reason. If the music industry wants to sell more music, they could start by making their wares at least as desirable as those that are illicitly traded. But instead, they'll sell you music that is shackled to one computer, artificially incompatible with your MP3 player, and likely to disappear entirely when you upgrade your computer. For old-school people like me who prefer to have a physical backup in the form of a plastic disc, they'll try to sneak spyware onto your PC. Faced with this nonsense, is it any wonder people are pirating music? Why does the music industry think they can improve sales by selling an inferior product?

http://greaseblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/firefox-15- compatible-greasemonkey.html

Try this. They found at least one of the seven biowar trucks that Powell presented to the UN all nice and scrubbed to a level not seen elsewhere. Biological weapons programs were part of the pre-war indictment against Saddam.

Iraq has a constitution now and will have an elected government under that constitution in under two months. They've gotten it faster than Germany got theirs post WW II and certainly post WW II Japan would have wished for an Iraqi level of input (ie most of it) in writing their Constition. The Japanese Constitution was dictated in english and translated (somewhat badly) by the occupying army.

Has the US made mistakes? You bet, they have and we should and do regret every one. Human beings make mistakes. That doesn't mean that we're responsible when the other side straps explosives to a Down's syndrome kid and points him down the street, hopefully to explode with lots of other casualties.

The military has given up counting the war crimes these guys in Al Queda and the Sunni groups do. They think nobody cares. I care. You should to.

Here's a topic page with links to mostly right wing blog posts about the riots. Also, I recommend reading Jim Dunnigan In France, It's Not Jihad, and Never Has Been who's usually fairly insightful. And of course a link to my favorite blogger, Instapundit and finally The Belmont Club has a few posts about it, just scroll down.

No? Check out these links.

(Just recently posted these on my blog)

There's a site, http://firefoxopera.blogspot.com/ that has compiled all the important extensions to make Firefox work like Opera. Hell, if you're one of us old school opera users, you can even get an extension for the ad bar on that site. Always the first one I go to when installing FF.

• Ablock Plus - Auto pull of filterset-g, whitelists, and "give the website credit by downloading but don't display"
• Translate - Quick translation of any page by selection from the tools menu
• Live HTTP Headers
• EditCSS
• Tab Mix - Most features you would expect from a tab extension, including session save and recovery
• Web Developer
• Disable Targets for Downloads - prevents blank windows/tabs from being opened when you try to download a binary file

Physicists argue that, theoretically, anti-gravity devices imply the availability of unlimited energy, which is not a tenable position. According to Robert Park of the American Physical Society, "If you design an anti-gravity machine, you've got a perpetual-motion machine."

"Patent law specifies that the subject matter must be 'useful.' The term 'useful' in this connection refers to the condition that the subject matter has a useful purpose and also includes operativeness, that is, a machine which will not operate to perform the intended purpose would not be called useful, and therefore would not be granted a patent."

But then, they did just grant the patent...

I use all of these: (the disabled ones are not compatible with 1.5rc1) Enabled Extensions: [20] - ChatZilla 0.9.68.5.1: http://www.hacksrus.com/~ginda/chatzilla/ - ColorZilla 0.8.3.1: http://www.iosart.com/firefox/colorzilla/ - Console 0.2.5: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3181 02 - CuteMenus - Crystal SVG 0.9.9.20051027: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic =4360 - DOM Inspector 1.8: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/inspector/ - Download Manager Tweak 0.7: http://dmextension.mozdev.org/ - eReader 0.3: http://www.gutenberg.org/ - Forecastfox 0.8.2.4: http://forecastfox.mozdev.org/ - FoxyTunes 1.1.5.3: http://www.foxytunes.org/firefox/ - FoxyTunes Skin - OnyxOrbs 1.14: http://www.foxytunes.org/firefox/skins/index.php?s kin=9 - GooglePreview 1.1.2: http://ackroyd.de/googlepreview/ - MR Tech Local Install 4.0: http://www.mrtech.com/extensions/ - Right Encoding 0.2.1: http://heygom.com/extensions/ - ShowIP 0.7.11: http://l4x.org/showip - Tabbrowser Preferences 1.2.8.7: http://216.55.161.203/theonekea/tabprefs/ - Talkback 1.5: http://talkback.mozilla.org/ - Translate 0.6.0.8: http://ctomer.com/ - x 0.6.3: http://cdn.mozdev.org/ - x.xpi : http://www.google.com/search?q=x.xpi - About Firefox: Soviet Edition 2005.0606.1555: http://mithgol.ru/Mozilla/Firefox/ Disabled Extensions: [9] - Bandwidth Tester 0.5.5: http://www.roundtwo.com/product/bandwidthtester - Customizable Toolbar Buttons 0.1.5: http://www.google.com/search?q=Customizable%20Tool bar%20Buttons - fireFTP 0.88.3: http://fireftp.mozdev.org/ - Launchy 4.0.0: http://gemal.dk/mozilla/launchy.html - Leet Key 0.4.4: http://leetkey.mozdev.org/ - PONG! 2.16: http://www.captaincaveman.nl/ - ReloadEvery 0.6.1: http://reloadevery.mozdev.org/ - Tab Mix 0.2.2.3: http://tabmix.blogspot.com/ - Tab X 0.9.1: http://clav.mozdev.org/

All in all, I think this is a good discussion. As it disappears into the archives of Slashdot, I'd like to humbly suggest the following location as a place to discuss these and other topical ideas:

http://convince-me.blogspot.com/

You can also attach your rocket to the biggest solid boulder you can find and leave it at that.

While asteroids may be weak compositionally, they contain large amounts of carbon - with suitable in-situ manufacture it would be possible to build a giant (albiet small compared to a space elevator) buckyball web (carbon nanotube) around the rock itself and haul that around on a tether.

looks like better writers than you have already decided the Kansas diploma is butt wipe: http://threewaynews.blogspot.com/2005/11/times-the y-are-changin-back.html

The spacecraft design with the angled rockets is wasteful, but if you are getting the fuel from the asteroid, the fuel is effectively unlimited. But: if you are getting fuel from the asteroid, you should be able to keep the spacecraft attached to the asteroid by the "hoover"ing effect of sucking up the raw material you are ejecting to the sides!! - a force far, far more potent than gravity would be.

Alternatives: You could focus mirrors one side of the asteroid and take advantage of the outgassing...

Or you could (my preference) just mine the asteroid down to nothing long before impact...

After all, covering that 400 million dollar launch cost would be a lot easier if we just shipped a few billion dollars worth of materials back to LEO!

The spacecraft design with the angled rockets is wasteful, but if you are getting the fuel from the asteroid, the fuel is effectively unlimited. But: if you are getting fuel from the asteroid, you should be able to keep the spacecraft attached to the asteroid by the "hoover"ing effect of sucking up the raw material you are ejecting to the sides!! - a force far, far more potent than gravity would be.

Alternatives: You could focus mirrors one side of the asteroid and take advantage of the outgassing...

Or you could (my preference) just mine the asteroid down to nothing long before impact...

After all, covering that 400 million dollar launch cost would be a lot easier if we just shipped a few billion dollars worth of materials back to LEO!

Perhaps I read your statement wrong...

They know that folowing ideas and principles (such as liberty and justice) can be worth all the people on a hundred planets.

Surely, you arent accusing me of putting words in your mouth. It seems more likely that you realize the arrogant words you chose in stating something, believing nobody would really pay any attention to you. Which, I certainly hope is the case as your children grow up. Do you think you would have been led to another 'god' if it was the predominant religion in this country? Do rational perople in India, like you, come to accept the god of the bible? More likely it seems that they will gravitate twords the prevailing thought patterns of those around them; i.e Hindu, etc. You live in an incredibly isolated environment, and the only reason you dont know is that you have never wanted to step out of it.

Few more insidious vices than labelling others? How about the vice of calling for the extermination of entrie planets? You claim to have the utmost respect for the planet earth, but again, your own words betray you.

I drive an hour each way to work every day. I don't mind the drive itself, nor really the expense of the drive or what it does to the environment. I'm used to the hour in the car. The cost of living in my little town is a lot lower than in a city, so I'm keeping the oil companies in business instead of some landlord or bank. And I think the fields of corn and soybeans I drive past look fairly healthy despite, or the cynic in me says because of, my production of greenhouse gases.

And here is the link to the page for anyone else to look at.

Priorities indeed. There is nothing unique about your patterns of thought, just because they are wrong does not mean you cannot live a life by them. But lets try to keep it within YOUR life, and let your children figure out that the god of the bible is the only answer. After all, would you want to deprive them of the experiences that led you to the same conclusion?

I apologize if I was unclear. That is generally where they put the demarcation. It is not strict. YECs do not believe that ape and man are the same created kind. As far as I'm aware, the usual breakup is:

Homo Erectus -> man
Homo Flores -> man
Australapithecus -> not man

I don't remember if Homo Habilus is thought to be man or not. I don't keep track of paleontology much.

The gold standard for an inclusionary relationship between two species is if they can interbreed, or if they can each interbreed with a common third party. So far, there is no Orang->human hybrids.

But yes, generally, for vertebrates, the demarcation line is often at the family level of taxa. For example, the whole of Canidae, Felidae, and Camelidae are thought to be the same created kind. However, such a demarcation is not absolute, given that the demarcations were not made with modern creationary theory in mind.

If you want to learn more about creation theory, in addition to the book I referenced, you might also check out this blog.

For one, Pennock himself lists it directly as a refutation of Behe's claims:

http://www.msu.edu/~pennock5/research/DICE_Pennock VsIDC.html

Of course, Avida itself has been analyzed and found wanting:

http://crevobits.blogspot.com/2005/08/genetic-algo rithms.html (see especially the links at the end of the page to more research-oriented material)

I had read an article that more specifically talks about Avida with reference to Behe, but cannot locate it at the moment.

"Evolution is one of the most sound and accepted theories in all of science."

Really? Quantum Mechanics is accurate in its calculations to 9 decimal places. What, specifically, can be calculated in evolution to that degree?

Likewise, what, specifically, are you talking about when you say "evolution"? Are you talking about simple "change" or "Universal Common Ancestry". If it's the former, then you have no disagreement with anyone, seeing as how we don't have offspring who are identical to us. If its the latter, then perhaps you could show the proof.

"ID doesn't even qualify as a theory, more like a fantasy."

Using what sort of demarcation argument? Perhaps you should learn more about ID.

"Oh you mean pseudo-scientists like IDers?"

In what way is Behe a pseudo-scientist? Or Dembski? Both of them have peer-reviewed works dealing with aspects of Intelligent Design.

1 - The kernel team usually makes it fairly difficult to get them in

2 - Users arent neccessarily happy about their kernel getting massive updates in a "stable" series

In short, it would be nice, but its not realistic.

Unfortunately, this means that tons of open soure kernel modules are always lagging behind the released kernel, and the effort involved in maintaining it (for the developer) and installing/using it (for the end user) is much larger than it should be.

Doing anything to lengthen the time that external modules could be expected to work would be a Very Good idea.

All of us, developers, sysadmins, users have gone through the upgrade my kernel recompile alll my non included open source modules see which ones break try to update them recompile .... Its a real pain and something should be done to cushion it.

1 - The kernel team usually makes it fairly difficult to get them in

2 - Users arent neccessarily happy about their kernel getting massive updates in a "stable" series

In short, it would be nice, but its not realistic.

Unfortunately, this means that tons of open soure kernel modules are always lagging behind the released kernel, and the effort involved in maintaining it (for the developer) and installing/using it (for the end user) is much larger than it should be.

Doing anything to lengthen the time that external modules could be expected to work would be a Very Good idea.

All of us, developers, sysadmins, users have gone through the upgrade my kernel recompile alll my non included open source modules see which ones break try to update them recompile .... Its a real pain and something should be done to cushion it.

Taken from The Abstract Factory
http://abstractfactory.blogspot.com/2005/10/only-d ebate-on-intelligent-design-that.html

The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject

Moderator: We're here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des---

(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)

Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?

(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate's kneecap.)

Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!

Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn't mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the "naturalistic" explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.

Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!

Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible --- it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way!

Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT!

Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know anything for certain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of view. Furthermore, you should really re-examine whether your hypothesis is scientific at all: the breaking of your kneecap happened in the past, so we can't rewind and run it over again, like a laboratory experiment. Even if we could, it wouldn't prove that I broke your kneecap the previous time. Plus, let's not even get into the fact that the entire universe might have just popped into existence right before I said this sentence, with all the evidence of my alleged kneecap-breaking already pre-formed.

Intelligent Design advocate: That's a load of bullshit sophistry! Get me a doctor and a lawyer, not necessarily in that order, and we'll see how that plays in court!

Scientist (turning to audience): And so we see, ladies and gentlemen, when push comes to shove, advocates of Intelligent Design do not actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe. When it comes to matters that hit home, they prefer evidence, the scientific method, testable hypotheses, and naturalistic explanations. In fact, they strongly privilege naturalistic explanations over supernatural hocus-pocus or metaphysical wankery. It is only within the reality-distortion field of their ideological crusade that they give credence to the flimsy, ridiculous arguments which we so commonly see on display. I must confess, it kind of felt good, for once, to be the one spouting free-form bullshit; it's so terribly easy and relaxing, compared to marshaling rigorous arguments backed up by empirical evidence. But I fear that if I were to continue, then it would be habit-forming, and bad for my soul. Therefore, I bid you adieu.

UPDATE (22 Oct.): If you're a creationist or IDiot [0], and you're suddenly possessed by the urge to comment on this post, please don't bother. I know what you're going to say. When I was an undergrad, I read talk.origins for a while, and I have seen every single creationist argument under the sun. I spent many an hour watching people knowledgeable about evolution debating creationists: patiently debunking the same tired arguments over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, responding in good faith to arguments that

4) Install a DHCP demon on the local server to allocate local IP addresses, DNS and gateway settings. If the desktops are network boot capable then install TFTP to remotely boot and use Knoppix via PXE and the network. If the desktop OS is constantly crashing, or is infected by malware, the user can select PXE/network boot via the BIOS, and boot into Knoppix. The user can then be instructed over the phone to enable the ssh server to allow remote scan,repair and reimaging of the desktop partitions. The user can use the Knoppix desktop to continue working with full access to files while the the remote administrator fixes/reimages the drive in the background.( Consider hiring someone who knows how to customise Knoppix or another live Linux system for your setup )
5) Partition the desktops with as small as required C: partition ( or in the case of Linux the root partition ) for software. When software is install, use dd and netcat via live Knoppix to copy/clone a snapshot of the partition to the server. You can allocate the remaining free space as a persistent partition where documents are stored.
6) Install and enable remote VNC service on all the platforms, but only allow incoming connections from the local server ( which is redirected over a SSH tunnel ).

Serously, someone whould consider hacking a copy of Knoppix or Ubuntu live to work with WINE as a bootable CD for a remote repair service business.

4) Install a DHCP demon on the local server to allocate local IP addresses, DNS and gateway settings. If the desktops are network boot capable then install TFTP to remotely boot and use Knoppix via PXE and the network. If the desktop OS is constantly crashing, or is infected by malware, the user can select PXE/network boot via the BIOS, and boot into Knoppix. The user can then be instructed over the phone to enable the ssh server to allow remote scan,repair and reimaging of the desktop partitions. The user can use the Knoppix desktop to continue working with full access to files while the the remote administrator fixes/reimages the drive in the background.( Consider hiring someone who knows how to customise Knoppix or another live Linux system for your setup )
5) Partition the desktops with as small as required C: partition ( or in the case of Linux the root partition ) for software. When software is install, use dd and netcat via live Knoppix to copy/clone a snapshot of the partition to the server. You can allocate the remaining free space as a persistent partition where documents are stored.
6) Install and enable remote VNC service on all the platforms, but only allow incoming connections from the local server ( which is redirected over a SSH tunnel ).

Serously, someone whould consider hacking a copy of Knoppix or Ubuntu live to work with WINE as a bootable CD for a remote repair service business.

...so incredible that the intelligent design creationists must keep them secret for the good of humanity. "If the public hears how bad the fossil problem is, the sky will fall." http://redstaterabble.blogspot.com/2005/10/science -meets-grassy-knoll.html

Or just maybe they're all lying. Seems they forgot to offer any of these recent findings as evidence for the trial in Dover. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_A rea_School_District

The only source for the story is Thomas Reed's book, and his only source is some Reagan government official called Gus Weiss who died a few years before Thomas wrote the book. Even though the pipeline was based near several settlements in Siberia, no one there seems to have noticed anything. Vasily Pchelintsev, a former KGB officer in the region, said that there was only one pipeline fire in the area that year, caused by poor construction.

http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,628 06,00.html
http://nobsblog.blogspot.com/2001/03/vetrov.html

What? Two major gaming events in Montreal in the same weekend? That's not fair!!!

So Festival Arcadia was the smoke and mirrors to keep us kids out of an interesting conference, right?

Sure, I got to trash to Nullsleep and the Minibosses for a while, got to see the Frag Dolls up close (they're cuter in person that in pictures, if you can imagine), got my GBA signed by the 8-bit people.. Nullsleep, Bubblyfish, Bit Shifter and david Kristian.. Saw an interview with the voice of the Princess in POP:Sands of time, and also got a set of nintendo fuzzy dice.

Warren Spector.. Hideki Konno.. Damn. That would have completed my already amazing weekend.

The IRS should be coming for Pope Ratzinger any day.