Slashdot Mirror

hed.

http://goldysmom.blogspot.com/ check it out.

Here's what the add looks like on my TV. It came up over the show content in FF and reverse. http://gadgetpile.blogspot.com/2005/03/tivo-tactic s.html I don't see how they can get away with describing this as an icon on their web site.

Heh. Do you miss Republicans too?

This guy thinks so.

These are all reasons why the Zodiac got named my underdog of the year.

Personally, I'd rather have a powerful PDA that can game and play media... and that I can code for - rather than powerful gaming platform that isn't a PDA and can play media that I can't.

So much is poised for profoundly accelerating deep, wide and powerful change, there are much bigger questions about 2015 and beyond.

Technology, as Alvin Toffler, Verner Vinge, and ray Kurzweil have made the case, is self-accelerating. In an ever quickening loop, technology inherently accelerates in speed, magnitude and scope while dropping in cost.

That's because technology is driven by innovation, and the whole point of innovation is to find better ways to do things. If it isn't faster, more powerful, useful to more people, cheaper etc., it isn't any better. And so the speed, power and social effects of technological evolution, feeding on itself, ever accelerate.

The self evident logic in the above paragraph is simple to understand, but hard as hell to accept. The reality and implications of this short, simple text strains the imagination. But whether planning the future of a country, company or family, imagine we must, because a truly new global order will arise within this century.

Bigger questions such as what will *we* be like. How will the rise of superhuman computing intelligence change us? Will we laugh or cry? (Disclosure, the above link is from my article called: A Primer on Technological Evolution".

One things seems clear. We've got front row seats.

Ted

It sounds hard to do, but apparently some suicides do need two bullets in the head. Sounds hard to do to me.

Yes, it's interesting but jeez guys, it's not fresh. Whatever happened to the cutting edge /.? I mean it's getting so that the 'news that matters' is showing up days after it's debut. Anyway, there are some movies here. Which may be old news as well ;-)

I've written a polemic about this issue.

http://orwelliantremors.blogspot.com/2005/03/on-im ax-corps-response-to-concerns.html

In it I argue that although the IMAX corporation is not technically responsible for the programming decisions its operators make, their brand still rightfully takes a hit when a theatre chooses to enforce Creationist censorship.

I advocate that every secularist concerned about this issue should write to their local IMAX theatre operator and ask to know whether the operator's programming policy strongly resists attempts to censor film with Darwinist content. If not, consider whether your science-entertainment dollar might be better spent elsewhere.

You have to do this at the local theatre level because the IMAX corporation has no stated committment to endeavour protect its science-based brand from the encroachments of Christian fundamentalists

Don't let the fundamentalists win the consumer boycott war - hold the IMAX brand to account!

How long before he is fired from google? Like this other guy Mark Jen.

I'd be interested in reading the book, but her answers are pretty disturbing. She's falling right in line with the moronic Thompson pack that video games "trained" this kid to kill - which seems wildly beneath her obvious intelligence.

But I've already ranted on this once today.

but Sean Carroll is. And he's not convinced.

Sometimes, using the link.all: operator on AllTheWeb.com gives you more results than the link: operator at Google.

Wonder how much juice you could generate if you were to mount a stirling engine at the end of this sucker. Seems like it'd be a lot cheaper/easier to implement than normal high efficiancy solar cells if you could work out a reasonable and reliable sun tracking system.

Here you go.

I seem to recall seeing pictures of places that have acres of such mirrors that track the sun and focus rays/light/heat on collectors. Here are a couple links, here (middle of page) and here..

They would, if the cited work wasn't complete bunk to begin with.

Benchmarks don't lie. Liars (in this case a right wing so called "think tank") do benchmarks.

"Now who's being circular. You can't use myths about Noah's Ark in order to prove other myths (the Bible). In point of fact, we have no evidence that Noah's Ark actually existed, even if some people THOUGHT (and still do think) it did."

You missed the point of the quote. In Josephus's day, the evidence was still around. I'm sorry they didn't take pictures in order to satisfy every skeptic that decides that the historians of that day were wrong simply because they disagree with modern preconceptions about the world.

The point of mentioning the flood is that it is all part of the same history, including a large part of the explanation of fossil distribution (like, explaining why nearly all fossil tracks go uphill).

"This is nonsense, as the entire fossil record shows. Hell, even Answers in Genesis has the old "mutations are bad" on their list of "arguments creationists shouldn't use". (Instead, they advocate the even vaguer "genetic information decreases argument".)"

Perhaps you should go back and read both what I said and what AiG says. We're basically saying the same thing on this one. However, the fossil record isn't nearly as clear as you think. For example, human tracks have been discovered in earlier sediments than evolutionists want to admit, so they simply called them austrolopithecus tracks, even though they do not match the foot bones of the austrolopithecus. Numerous inconsistencies has been shown. You should take a look at this discussion of homology.

"Genomic studies certainly show new genetic networks arising."

Genomic studies are only valid if evolution is assumed to be true. Certainly if you have already assumed evolution, if you saw different information in genome A and genome B, then you would assume that it arose through evolution. But that is not the equivalent of proof, or in fact anywhere near that.

We have not seen new networks of genes forming, even after thousands of generations of bacteria and fruit flies. We simply have not observed any case where new networks of information arise simply through mutation.

"No, we can't watch that happen on laboratory scales, but so what?"

Then in what way is it proven? All you have without that is:

different genomes have different genes

You can't say that one arose from the other. If you are using evolution to interpret the data, you can't use the interpretation as evidence for evolution. The data itself -- different genomes having different genes -- says nothing about how those genes got there.

"And what is it, exactly, about epigenetics that throws doubt on the whole of modern evolutionary biology?"

I didn't say that it did. I simply said that some heritable changes in organisms is not the result of new or even different genes, but of epigenetic mechanisms.

"If we find out a new way of transmitting heritable adaptations other than mutations in the DNA sequence, so what?? It just introduces one more way that evolution can happen, thus strengthening evolutionary theory."

Actually it strengthens design, because you have unused adaptations being carried around by animals before they are put to use, and a mechanism which causes them to be put into play. Evolution can't look ahead to see what kinds of adaptations it needs to pre-code into its genome to be adaptable for the future.

Oh, don't worry. I ALWAYS keep an eye on a site or two to stay abreast of things.

"Black people, who have the lowest income in the United States, now have a higher standard of living than an ordinary Swedish household," the HUI economists said.

If Sweden were a U.S. state, it would be the poorest measured by household gross income before taxes, Bergstrom and Gidehag said. . . .

The median income of African American households was about 70 percent of the median for all U.S. households while Swedish households earned 68 percent of the overall U.S. median level.

This meant that Swedes stood "below groups which in the Swedish debate are usually regarded as poor and losers in the American economy," Bergstrom and Gidehag said.

Between 1980 and 1999, the gross income of Sweden's poorest households increased by just over six percent while the poorest in the United States enjoyed a three times higher increase, HUI said.

Hi,
I read your post about Sweden and would like to add some statistics. Sorry for the bad English, but I've never used these terms in English. Prepensioned means people who are pensioned before they are supposed to because of illnesses (or because they can't get jobs).

Sweden is the sickest nation in the world. At least according to statistics and costs for healthinsurances. In reality I would guess that Swedes are among the healthiest populations in the history of mankind. But the rise in costs for healthinsurances are staggering. Longterm notification of illnesses have tripled since 1997. One in six of Swedes of working age are listed longterm sick or prepensioned. That's about 800 000 yearjobs in a population of 9 million. The cost is 10 billion dollars per year. The wellfare state has turned into an illfare state.

Via: Rigorous Intuition

AC noted:
"Actually, I think teachers stopped teaching anything interesting when NCLB was enacted. I've seen it with my kids' teachers. If it's not on the test, they won't waste their time with it."

Very true. Ironically enough, simple common sense (and not much policy interpretation) brought me to understand that Americans have been sold a bill of goods in the NCLB.

Link to essay:
http://petelee.blogspot.com/2005/02/no-child-left- behind-or-so-wed-like-to.html

(NOTE: Excepting the link to a booklist at Powell's, a local independent bookseller, I derive NO monetary compensation for this blog [cough, Roland].)

"The process of evolution is fact."

The process of genetics is a fact. That is not the same as Universal Common Ancestry which is what most people are referring to when they speak of evolution.

The problem is that homology does not provide the evidence for evolution that evolutionists think they do. For instance, every time you hear the phrase "Convergent Evolution" you should think "epicycle". Each instance of "convergent evolution" points out greater strength to the argument that homology does not imply ancestry.

Here's some more to think about.

Now, if by evolution, you simply mean "Change over Time" or something similar, then everyone -- creationists and evolutionists alike, can agree.

Oops, that link was broken. This should work: http://answersblogger.blogspot.com/2005/03/ask-jee ves-selling-for-2-billion.html "If you look at this graph comparing traffic trends at askjeeves and answers.com, you might find yourself wondering whether answers.com traffic might soon reach the levels of askjeeves.com traffic. Then you might note that at $20, Gurunet (GRU, owners of anwers.com) has a market cap roughly 1/10 the askjeeves price."

I would argue that war does not always equate to evil. Just because you hate Bush, Republicans, and religion does not mean they are wrong.

Next up, not all religious people are Bush supporters, as you seem to imply. Frankly, I'm indifferent to politics because politicians almost always are self-serving, regardless of their party association.

Finally, invoking the name of God in vain, well, my guess (I could be wrong) is that you don't have the full understanding of what that means. Please read my blog post that touches on the name of God, and what it means to "take it in vain".

What I dislike about these sorts of all-out, unbridled attacks on religion is that everything is generalized to the point of fallacies. This very thread is based on an article written by a leftist (and therfore, anti-Bush, probably anti-religious) newspaper, the New York Times, in an attempt to slander religious people, and by associaion, the NYT's political enemy, George Bush. Because of hate-filled posts like those found in this thread, all we religious can do is defend ourselves from peanut gallery onslaughts like this one.

I choose to believe that a God has existed throughout history and still does. You don't have to believe that and I won't force my opinions on you. I just wish you would do the same and not force your hatred and your world views on me.

You know this book was actually good, but I believe they did a knock off of this type of movie when they did that crappy TOYS garbage with the Army trying to get involved with the toy industry. Stupid stupid army....

http://spamatwork.blogspot.com/

Oops, that link was broken. This should work: http://answersblogger.blogspot.com/2005/03/ask-jee ves-selling-for-2-billion.html/ "If you look at this graph comparing traffic trends at askjeeves and answers.com, you might find yourself wondering whether answers.com traffic might soon reach the levels of askjeeves.com traffic. Then you might note that at $20, Gurunet (GRU, owners of anwers.com) has a market cap roughly 1/10 the askjeeves price."

From this link:
http://answersblogger.blogspot.com/2005/03/ask-jee ves-selling-for-2-billion.html/

"If you look at this graph comparing traffic trends at askjeeves and answers.com, you might find yourself wondering whether answers.com traffic might soon reach the levels of askjeeves.com traffic. Then you might note that at $20, Gurunet (GRU, owners of anwers.com) has a market cap roughly 1/10 the askjeeves price."

Maybe they work for Paul Anka. He wants "full value on his money." Please note that he also "slices like a fucking hammer."

The real revolution will occur when Napster and similar services become cheap enough that people would rather just sign up and have an easy way to download music that's fast, reliable, and high-quality instead of shaky, low-quality, and (oh yeah) illegal file-sharing services.

I could theoretically build myself a car, and it would be cheaper and built entirely my way, but it's easier for me to just buy a car because the product that the big manufacturers offer is affordable, quick, reliable, and high-quality.

The same model applies to music. If I wasn't worried about quality, selection, or, most importantly, portability with Napster I would be there already.

My blog.

LA LA LA... Not listening!

*grin*

Also this picture mocking this picture, which is a takeoff on this picture sent around by people who have issues understanding the boundaries between their lives and other peoples'.

But over the past few years we've seen a growing number of university teams approaching cheap personal prototyping from different angles. Each quietly adding to the pool of ideas from which the next efforts will draw.

Wired Magazine, in November 2004 covered Neil Gershenfeld's work at MIT. Slashdot discussion here

Gershenfeld's can produce solid objects like eyeglass frames, action figures and electronic devices like radios and computers.

Another approach to rapid prototyping and manufacturing uses inkjet technology. Inkjet Printers spitting out polymer instead of ink, manufacturing solar cells, batteries, complete working gadgets, human tissue and computer circuitry. (Disclosure: The above link is one of my BlogSpot articles on the acceleration).

Researchers Hod Lipson and Jordan B. Pollack at Brandeis University have coupled inkjet technology and software to autonomously design and fabricate robots without human intervention.
or
Google Search

The software simulates a variety of rudimentary virtual robots. In an accelerated Darwinian contest of survival over hundreds of generations, the most successful robotic designs are then physically prototyped. Robots autonomously designing, testing and manufacturing robots.

We're very close.

Ted

Chris Justus Dissects Google Suggest is one I've been looking through lately. He breaks down the javascript and explains what's going on with this nifty piece of tecnology.

The code.google.com update blog, and an easy way to subscribe to the RSS feed with Firefox

Found some myself in the article and elsewhere:

http://serversideguy.blogspot.com/2004/12/google-s uggest-dissected.html
http://johnvey.com/features/gmailapi/
http://jgwebber.blogspot.com/2005/02/mapping-googl e.html

and a nice set of articles from Apple's Developer site... (see the one on scripting in iframes, and rendering XML with CSS and JavaScript)

http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/ind ex.html

Found some myself in the article and elsewhere:

http://serversideguy.blogspot.com/2004/12/google-s uggest-dissected.html
http://johnvey.com/features/gmailapi/
http://jgwebber.blogspot.com/2005/02/mapping-googl e.html

and a nice set of articles from Apple's Developer site... (see the one on scripting in iframes, and rendering XML with CSS and JavaScript)

http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/ind ex.html

Recently I set up a blog for people to give away Gmail Invitations. You only had to send your invitation to the address showed in the page and it would be published as a post. It seems the blog makes no sense now. Anyway, let's see what happens now with it.

In order to defeat an insurgent force, US forces must be able to separate insurgents from the population. At the same time, US forces must conduct themselves in a manner that enables them to maintain popular domestic support. Excessive or indiscriminant use of force is likely to alienate the local populace, thereby increasing support for insurgent forces. (From Section 2-66 -- Rules of Engagement.)

Judicious application of the minimum destruction concept [is recommended] in view of the overriding requirements to minimize alienating the population. (For example, bringing artillery or air power to bear on a village from which sniper fire was received may neutralize insurgent action but will alienate the civilian population as a result of casualties among noncombatants.) (From Section 3.43 -- Defensive Operations.)

Infrastructure protection and repair/rehabilitation (for example, electrical power and water, electrical pole repair teams) are critical both for improving the populations' physical well-being as well as for the positive psychological effect it creates. The electrical grid is a good confidence target (very visible), and there is no effect equivalent to the lights going out. "Turning on the lights" in Port-au-Prince contributed to reducing criminal activity (as measured by the murder rate) by about 40 percent in a two-month period (observed in Haiti). (From Section C-37 - Lessons Observed During Past Operations.)

The full extent of the damage inflicted by American bombs, tanks and artillery is only now becoming apparent. The number of buildings destroyed in the fighting is far higher than 200, the figure released last week by the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, engineers and commanders say. The city's power lines are so badly damaged that in most of the city, they will have to be ripped out and rebuilt from scratch - a project that will take six months to a year, American engineers say. Damage to the city's water and sewer pipes, already badly corroded before the invasion, is milder but will also take months to repair.

You said that you don't see how one could fight insurents without resorting to torture. The Shiite Iraqis are handling the terrorist attacks quite well, maybe we should take a lesson from them. When someone suicide bombed their mosque, they didn't go firing indiscriminately into Sunni areas, knowing that would only escalate the conflict. Instead, they're working with the Iraqi national guard to step up security and patrols.

OK I did a hand translation of the entire thing, but then, no matter how hard I tried, I could not get around /.'s lameness filter, which is, ironically, lame. So, after going so far as to replace the model names with English words until I got tired of that, and still /. not allowing my post, I just stuck the translation on my blog. I apologize, and am not looking for random hits to my blog, which is itself about studying abroad in Japan.

http://studyinjapan.blogspot.com/

Comcast's Tivo will be the target of Hollywood, just like Napster was the target of the RIAA, despite the alternatives.

The service will slowly degrade down to a pay-per-view or points system. You won't be able to use it to record shows that don't want to be recorded, and you won't be able to fast forward through commercials. ... Despite the occasional driver-related crash, I'm very happy with my MythTV box, which, as long we have analog, can't be shut down.

but personally, I don't want to worry about some third party reading through posts or messages not intended for them. To remedy this problem, I recommend grabbing GAIM with one of the many GAIM encryption plugins. As a bonus, paranoid folks won't have to worry about the (insert governmental agency of choice) snooping on them.

More information regarding this topic is available on the technology blog "It's Geek to Me" located at http://itsgeektome.blogspot.com/

For Windows users, you can grab GAIM here:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gaim/gaim-1.1.4 .exe?download

You can get a nice GAIM Encryption Plugin here:
http://gaim-encryption.sourceforge.net/

Who knew when he said "in the future everybody will be famous for 15 minutes" we would use the internet to make his prediction come true and in the process discover that everybody is ugly and stupid looking for all but that 15 minutes.

In at least one category, this profligate posting of pictures that snare a huge share of traffic is hardly new. blogs like...ehem, this one "share" pictures as good[bad?] as Penthouse charges for and I hear lots of people like those pictures too. Of course its just a come-on to get you to click through to the paid content but seems like it will be a while before pictures of quilts and puppies take up more bandwidth than publicized private parts

Check out this shot I took today at my local dump.

I had seen this way back and had commented here. Although the specs are nice, I'm not sure if it was just his desired future quad Mac or if it's a real product design.

I have to agree that Rachel Bilson is plenty reason to watch the show, but all of the subplots this year suck and we now basically have a show about kids in High School that almost nobody would want to hang out with, let alone watch them on TV.

I have seen some suggestions on what is wrong and how to fix it. The best one is here, but others, have chimed in with analysis.

As for Britain, the Conservatives will not win the election, and anyway do not have a policy of leaving the EU (which is why I won't be voting for them). Britain if it did ever leave would be a huge blow, because it is the only country other than Germany which makes significant net contribution to the budget.

But it's not just obvious suspects like Denmark and Britain that might leave. Approval for the treaties, when they are voted for, runs around 50% even in France and the Netherlands.

EU law-making

"Show, don't tell" is instructive of not explaining your situation overtly, not avoiding the story entirely like Half-Life 2 does.

While HL2 had excellent immersion and set scenes, it's story was completely lacking. There's never any depth into Gordon's missing time, you get the background of the war from a stupid bulletin board, and virtually no character undergoes any kind of change.

Yes, they did great on the how - but great stories are based on the what. HL2 was all style and no substance. There's no depth to the combine, no real explanation of it's formation, no understanding of the "city" system. It's a pretty surface, but once you scratch it - there's nothing underneath.

But I've rambled on this before...

Thanks for the information, I wasn't aware of that.

<shameless plug> Since you're interested in Hebraic Law, I encourage you to visit my blog, I post regularly on some topics that you might find interesting.

State and local taxes are deductable. Any city that provides a service like this is getting a tax subsidy from the rest of us.

So, from a strictly self-interest stand point, cities should continue to provide more and more services, since that will lower their overall Federal tax burden.

Of course, that means more federal debt and eventually more taxes for the rest of us.

So the next time you wonder how it is a city can have high taxes and not be hurt much economically, remember that the federal government is making it possible.

This entry by an economist comments on the situation in New York City.

Adonai and Allah are generic titles for God. By that alone, you could make the argument we are worshipping the same God.

Now if someone were to say to me, "I believe in God/Allah/Adonai" I wouldn't know if we are believing in the same entity. If he instead said, "I believe in Yahweh" then I would know we believe in the same entity. See my blog post here for more information on the name of God.