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Well, or I grew up in India and walked daily through poverty that most Americans never see or experience in my blind privilege.

Or, y'know, you're a white dude born March 29, 1955 in Raleigh, North Carolina.. But nice try. I never said anybody got in "only" because of their family's wealth. But stress levels in the first six months of life have a huge impact on brain function. Affluence is strongly correlated to better education at all levels. Worse yet, the study is sampling from profs at US universities. And affluence in the US is strongly correlated to race. Not even bothering to look at institutions in India, Japan, China, Russia, or Korea. There's a huge amount of mathematical talent in these countries that is largely unknown to American mathematicians. Gonna be hard to tease "whitey with a Y-chromosome" out of the data.

Anybody can tell there's something wrong with your car if there's a hole in your muffler. Many will even identify it as a problem with the muffler. But only a small proportion have the training or skill required to weld on a new one. I have not, and will not, propose a better study. I'm a mathematician, and that's not where my training lies. Any idea of mine would be just as bad (or worse, let's be honest) -- but that doesn't mean I can't spot a shit study when I see one.

We look forward to you sharing your "evidence", thanks.

I tend to ignore people who can't be bothered to use google on their own, and instead ask for everything to be handed to them...

We're talking about half a century of gun control laws and increasing crime rates. There's no single link to ALL that information.

There's a few quick ones:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/02/21/disarming-the-myths-promoted-by-the-gun-control-lobby/2/

http://people.duke.edu/~gnsmith/articles/myths.htm (See #10)

http://www.liveandlocalenc.com/proof-gun-control-increases-crime/

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig7/lemieux1.html

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/22/do-strict-gun-laws-really-stop-gun-crime/

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#right-to-carry

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/weekinreview/29liptak.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/02/04/gun-crimes-increase-massachusetts-despite-tough-gun-laws/XjlDQLZlUDvsf3KS8PqyGK/story.html

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2010/06/25/stossel-argues-gun-control-increases-crime-i-was-once-clueless-senator-schumer

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/02/17/the-nation-toughest-gun-control-law-made-massachusetts-less-safe/3845k7xHzkwTrBWy4KpkEM/story.html

Heres a phase diagram of water. http://www.phy.duke.edu/~hsg/363/table-images/water-phase-diagram.gif

The pressure on Mars is ~600 Pascals (wikipedia). If Im reading that chart right, you need a pressure of ~1kPa before liquid water is even possible.

Well, I assume we won't be camping out on the surface. We will need to construct pressurized living & working areas (that are radiation-proofed (compress Mars's soil into blocks, spray seal the interiors and exteriors?)).

So, though the dirt does contain water, it's not enough for our purposes. We should make our first 'camps' where the water/ice is, no?

Kind of like the late Sam Kinison's joke about people starving in the desert should "move where the food is.", makes sense to me to start our colonies where the water is.

Heres a phase diagram of water.
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~hsg/363/table-images/water-phase-diagram.gif

The pressure on Mars is ~600 Pascals (wikipedia). If Im reading that chart right, you need a pressure of ~1kPa before liquid water is even possible.

something that only humans and apes were known to do

Octopuses, Crows and various birds, potentially mice.

you'd say they would reintroduce captive bread animals in the wild. This never happens and never will,

True for rhinos, perhaps, but not universally true. Duke University Lemur Center has successfully reintroduced captive-bred Black & White Ruffed Lemurs to Madagascar with the express intent of diversifying the gene pool.

http://lemur.duke.edu/betampona-reserve-and-the-ruffed-lemur-re-stocking-program/

http://www.theonion.com/articles/walmart-wants-republican-president,15517/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/dhs-teams-up-with-walmart,18722/

OR ( inclusive or) : over-educated engineers assumed the arrows were the spin state of the subatomic detectors inside. A quasi-random distribution of Up and Down would be required to determine the quantum state of orientation. http://news.phy.duke.edu/2012/02/spinning-quarks-yield-clues-to-orbital-motion/

here.

There are studies that show "conservatives" here in the USA will buy CFL bulbs on their own (if they think) but as soon as you label them "green" or with other labels and slogans that have been associated as belonging to the enemy tribe, they will fuck themselves just to not have anything to do with the opposing tribe.

Ooh, how I would love to see a citation for that one...

http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/news_events/news-releases/rick-larrick-energy-efficient-products/#.UYARyMqcWUN

QED

I don't have to know who Sowell is to see that you aren't referencing him well.

Sorry David but your statement is rubbish. I posted a link to Sowell's article. Too bad you didn't read it (it is not that long). It is a failure in your analysis to not even read what I linked to and then claim I "aren't referencing him well". That's just silly, dude.

I don't need my own statistics to comment on the implausibility of yours (particularly since you insist that the true statistics aren't readily available, and since you make absolute claims).

Another failure in your analysis. I did not "insist" that the "true statistics aren't readily available". You are just making strawmen up in your own mind. Then you make another ridiculous statement that "you don't need statistics". Of course you do! it is the crux of my argument and if you want to defeat my argument you need to use statistics. Aside from the statistics in Sowell's article regarding the number of crimes prevented by an armed citizenry outweighing the deaths by a colossal factor of ten, when you look for cases of NRA members committing gun crimes you don't find any. Given the delight the media would have if an NRA member was convicted doesn't the absence of cases say something to you? My hypothesis is that NRA members do not form a significant fraction (as in, close to zero) of gun crime. The counter "Null" hypothesis is that that a measurable amount of gun crime is caused by NRA members. Now use Google and see how many NRA members have committed gun crimes. Given the delight which the media would erupt in if an NRA member did use their guns for crime the fact we don't get results is itself a statistic - and this rejects the Null Hypothesis (which is your hypothesis). Hence, within the bounds of statistics we can say your position is wrong. Be careful when debating scientists dude :)

Here's something you could consider reading (but I know you won't, it seems you are too academically lazy to follow references even if they are concise and handed to you on a platter): "Ten myths about gun control"
http://people.duke.edu/~gnsmith/articles/myths.htm

Wake up man, the "Gun Control" debate is not about guns or crime, it is about "control" (by the Government of the People). It is this aspect that the NRA (for all its flaws) has correctly identified as being the problem with the proposed legislation.

Also, lose the ranting on left-wing media. In general, conventional journalists are left-wing, mainstream media owners are right-wing, and bloggers are all over this and several other spectra. You're not going to convince anybody to the left of Fox that the mainstream media is all leftist, and again you're tempting the categorization as "right-wing nut".

Another failure of analysis on your part. The media owners are right wing (because they generally are older and have accumulated more facts in their time on Earth) and *influence* the tone of the paper, but they don't usually affect the day-to-day articles. The journalists are younger, more idealistic (rather than fact based) and are indeed left-wing. Your two big failures are: 1) assuming that these two effects cancel out (a typical 'equivalence' argument that Leftists tend to make), and 2) your failure to understand that the most significant factor in the slant of any media reporting are the views of the *editors*. The editors are generally even more left-wing than the journalists. Hence, the media is left-leaning as I said in my original statements.

Your use of labels, eg "right wing nut", also marks a failure of analysis. It allows you to justify to yourself your preference for not listen to opposition who may have facts you don't yet know. To listen to and look for facts that counter your current position is essential to The Scientific Method. This is how I came from being pro-Obama, pro-Gun control, an

That is not entirely true.

Congress has the power to take works out of the public domain in the US.

The chief researcher's curriculum vitae: http://www.spiritualityandhealth.duke.edu/resources/pdfs/David%20Rosmarin.pdf (search the doc for "spiritual")

Not to say that he can't be right, but he has been pursuing this idea of "religious people are happier/mentally healthier" for several years. He has a lot invested and a lot of publications on the matter. It doesn't give the impression of a researcher free of bias.

I'd be interested in knowing what they controlled for when calculating the strength of the effect they found. Did they account for age, family history, income, race, sex and social involvement?

What's TFS? Another file system?

Yes.

I'll see your biased newspaper article reporting on one term, and raise you a well-sourced scholarly article by a prominent Constitutional scholar.

Your move, junior.

Fracking was explicitly exempted from the federal Clean Water Act http://sites.duke.edu/sjpp/2011/ensuring-safe-drinking-water-in-the-age-of-hydraulic-fracturing/

Enjoy!

https://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/cps196.1/current/classwork/Lethbridge-Singer-Forward-2003.pdf

Information about the study is here (as in listed in summary):
Documentation usage of Android Developers

Lethbridge's study about rarely consulting and updating general software documentation is available here:
How Software Engineers
Use Documentation: The State of the Practice

Robillard's study about problems with API documentation can be found here:
What Makes APIs Hard to Learn? Answers from Developers

Looking again at the BBC article, they do mention physical attacks (and the page picture seems to be depicting one), so I went looking for the researcher's' own page, and it turns out there are some videos of sparrows attacking a taxidermied sparrow. From the looks of it, they may have used the "robosparrow" with the motorized wing in a cage, since it was fragile and they only had one. This video from 2011 of a live sparrow attacking a stationary taxidermied sparrow seems to suggest that there's no way the Robosparrow makes it two months in the wild if this is the kind of treatment sparrows dish out to rivals. Go for the eyes, Boo!

Looking again at the BBC article, they do mention physical attacks (and the page picture seems to be depicting one), so I went looking for the researcher's' own page, and it turns out there are some videos of sparrows attacking a taxidermied sparrow. From the looks of it, they may have used the "robosparrow" with the motorized wing in a cage, since it was fragile and they only had one. This video from 2011 of a live sparrow attacking a stationary taxidermied sparrow seems to suggest that there's no way the Robosparrow makes it two months in the wild if this is the kind of treatment sparrows dish out to rivals. Go for the eyes, Boo!

Not blow up. Deliver a roundhouse kick and shatter it. See long problem 5 here:

http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Class/intro_physics_1_review.php

I wouldn't be surprised if the asteroid is going to miss Earth because, you know, word gets around. Don't mess with Earth. Chuck Norris is waiting.

rgb

Back in the day it meant LDS long distance phone calls to the general public. (And get off my lawn.)

That was the name of one of the companies providing third-party long distance service back in the '80s, where you had to dial up a redirector and punch in 15-20 digits to make your call. But the name is so generic that it's been almost completely "paved over" as a search term by both the generic term and the mormons. I was able to find some photographic evidence of the existence of LDS, thanks to also looking up the name of their primary competitor, MCI.

He'd be a lot more credible if he didn't bring up the old "Y2K wasn't a problem" saw. Yeah, Y2K wasn't a disaster. That's because not only did we see it coming in time, but a lot of effort was spent fixing the problems before it was too late. I realize that it is so rare that a problem is actually anticipated and fixed before disaster happens that this seems unbelievable, but it's true.

The physical-world equivalent is claiming that there was no problem with the Citicorp Center because it's stood up to every windstorm which has hit it since it was fixed.

A few problems with your argument..

First, BILLS WON'T GO DOWN. Sorry, but according to my own insurance company (BCBS), and the government's own projections(GAO) the bills will increase 6-8% every year. The "collapse" of healthcare in unavoidable unless the fed's nationalize it (UK), regulate it (Japan) or tax the hell out of citizens (France).

http://www.progressnownm.org/blog/2012/05/health-insurance-rate-hike-on-poor-rural-nm-go-into-effect-while-insurer-hoards-billions-in-profits.html

Secondly, the AHA does not lower the cost of providing care - it hugely increases the number of billing codes (simple laceration instead of chicken strike, check peck, accident while playing a brass instrument, etc) and creates more paperwork. It does nothing to curb the HIGHEST GROWING COST in medical care - which is administration! Highest in the world I might add.

Huge administrative costs.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/why-does-us-health-care-cost-so-much-part-ii-indefensible-administrative-costs/

GAO reports premium increases related to ACA:
http://www.gao.gov/assets/330/322337.html

The government already knows how to run a good healthcare system - the VA. It used to be awful 30 years ago, but now it is a well run system. They also run medicare/medicaid which has always been terrible. They choose a medicare system over a VA system? That makes no sense...

If they wanted to use the interstate commerce clause, they could have easily regulated the COST of healthcare ala Japan. They can regulate the price of grain, how is that different from bandaids? Japan regulates every procedure just like a state PUC regulates the price of electricity. The PUC is politically responsible, and the state can be held responsible by the voters for high costs. Under Obamacare there is little political responsibility or accountability for healthcare cost. Only the ability to limit increases to 10%.. How is this responsible? At 10% rates can double every 10 years! Plainly, you can't vote for a cheaper rate EVER, only lower increases.

Honestly - this is political lobbying turning public insurance into a PROFIT. I predict that 15 million middle class families will DROP insurance and pay the tax, while 30 million lower-class families will gain insurance so relatively expensive - that when necessary - won't cover squat when they need it most.

Duke on the "quality" of lower-class insurance.
http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/2371/

It will do nothing to curb the number of bankruptcies caused by medical bills - which is the greatest cause of bankruptcy. In fact, by requiring insurance, it may cause even more bankruptcies. Following the model in Massachusetts, bankruptcies did increase, even after controlling for economic and market fluctuations.

http://healthcarecompact.org/blog/2012-04-02/lessons-massachusetts-bankruptcy

So tell me again, HOW, HOW is this going to help anybody? How is this not PROFITEERING on the public?

I've read every page of the bill, I've talked to insurance agents and doctors. I've written my congressmen. THIS IS NOT A SOCIAL GOOD. I don't care if you're liberal of conservative - unless you own a hospital, drug company, or collection agency this bill is utter profiteering.

The education system isn't crumbling from lack of funds. It's crumbling despite being flush with funds while claiming poverty.

There's an abundance of evidence to the contrary. While I will agree with you that many times the money they're given is used unwisely, the sad fact is we keep cutting back.

So I'm not really seeing this "demand == growth" equation working out for government-funded projects. Especially when you are suggesting that all these things are providing infrastructure so people are able to work. Checked the unemployment figures recently? Half the NCLB kids have graduated... did that funding help them? Did their existence as graduates suddenly create more jobs?

Actually, NCLB was signed into law in 2002. Most of the provisions were not started until 2004. The first kids who graduate after going through the entire program, from early childhood education and Reading First will be in 2017. Most of the AYP provisions weren't enforced until 2007. So the jury is out on that for five years. And I was referring to demand equals growth in the private sector. If there's no market for a product, a smart businessperson won't throw his/her money into any venture unless they know they can create demand. Without that venture, no jobs are created. And if you don't have a job, then it's hard to buy that Big Screen. If we can't educate, or provide a stable base for members of society, then the wheels come completely off. That's what I was saying. And it's not just social programs that depend on government funding. The defense industry constitutes more than 30 percent of the federal budget.

Here is a pretty good analysis from one of Duke University's legal advisors (posting in his role as blogger rather than formal legal advice, of course). Generally a win for libraries, but there are some oddities. For example, the specific rules on proportionality that the judge set forth are a bit odd and potentially gameable: 10% by page count of a work fewer than 10 chapters, or up to one full chapter for a work with 10 or more chapters. Does this still hold if presses start deliberately putting out books with a ton of really short chapters? Are there cases where >10% by page count should still be fair use? Copyright law doesn't actually set a strict percentage limit, though there might be some advantages in clarity if it did.

Another interesting aspect, which I got from this also-interesting analysis of the decision, is that many of the claims never even got to a legal analysis stage, because the publishers couldn't produce sufficient evidence of having a registered copyright: either they couldn't find a signed copyright transfer from the author showing that the publisher actually had copyright properly assigned to them, or they couldn't produce evidence that they had registered the copyright (a prerequisite under U.S. law for suing).

Inaccurate unscientific ramblings, sound bites and clichés do not support your argument. That not only goes for hkmwbz but also Soulskill (the author of this topic who so brazenly declares the science is all but settled), JD, Shavano and Blueg3 below. Global Warming / Climate Change is NOT scientific fact, it is THEORY presently being developed and there is still much to learn. Blind supporters of global warming make outrageous claims and forget that all of this is THEORY which must be backed up with evidence. There are no 'denialists' - that is not even a word! You offer NO LINKS to scientific studies to back up your outrageous claims, so I will.

Urban Heat Islands are definitely real, especially in rapidly growing countries like China. See this paper published by the Journal of Geophysical Research:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/new-paper-uhi-alive-and-well-in-china/

So hkmwbz you are certifiably wrong there. Then you persist with your clichés

there's a huge amount of evidence that the warming is caused by humans.

Really? Show us your evidence. Where are your links? What is definitely an undisputed scientific fact is how little scientists know and how much they are still learning today.

Then we have JD (below) making ridiculous statements like:

The current imbalanced rise in CO2 is much more troubling because studies show that plants do NOT like massive levels of CO2 unless they come combined with massive levels of O2.

JD what makes you think CO2 is presently imbalanced? Where is the evidence for your statement? Do you actually know what the present percentage of CO2 in our atmosphere is??? It presently is around 0.039445%. Do you have any idea how the increase in CO2 has increased during the last 50 years? It has increased from 0.032 to 0.0395, or by approximately 25%. Here is the data:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Look at that graph. Its a fairly straight line over a period of 50 years. Fairly straight line despite the dramatic jump in CO2 emissions since the mid-1800's (PDF). Even though human population has more than doubled during the last 50 years! Even though the number of cars has increased 800% from 122 Million in 1960 to over 1 Billion today. And yet somehow our planet's climate just keeps on balancing things out and the rate of increase of CO2 is fairly constant. But wait, JD definitely said "imbalanced rise".

JD continues:

CO2 rises alone, without any other alteration to the environment, will cause plant growth to decline and is eventually toxic.

Really? Where is your scientific evidence? The reality is CO2 is a fertilizer to plants. Plants LOVE CO2, even without a corresponding rise in O2 (wrong again). Even in high concentrations CO2 continues to act as a fertilizer. Here are some links from climate change advocates which you seem to blindly trust:

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/fertilizationeffect
http://www.good.is/post/rick-santorum-thinks-carbon-dioxide-isn-t-harmful-to-plants-tell-that-to-a-plant/

Replying to self to add a link for context: http://www.duke.edu/web/DRAGO/humor/gazebo.html

The equations, especially on page 12 and 13 of this ppt look good in libreoffice (3.5.1), but not on calligre (2.4.0) (from ubuntu 12.04):

http://www.cs.duke.edu/~reif/courses/alglectures/reif.lectures/ALG3.2.ppt

The primary researcher's website is http://www.zhaogroup.org/

The voltage must be passed through the plastic. Not useful for things you don't want electrified.

http://www.duke.edu/~xz69/papers/34.pdf

If you dig a bit, you will find plenty of papers showing that climate change in the past century correlates more closely to astronomical phenomena (sunspots, cosmic radiance, tidal forces) than it does to CO2 levels? If temperature increases correlate so strongly to CO2 levels then why was the increase so much slower from 1940 to 1970, than it was from 1970 to 2000, and why has it been so much slower in the last decade than predicted by every single model promulgated by the IPCC AR4?

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/US_Temperatures_and_Climate_Factors_since_1895.pdf

http://www.duke.edu/~renato/RamosdaSilvaandAvissarGRL2005.pdf

Or this, from NASA itself, which shows the decrease in sunspot activity which correlates to the current decrease in temperatures in the past decade or so.

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml

Yes, CO2 can and does affect the climate, but so do many other things, especially some things that aren't well understood yet. And that's not even considering whether we humans are significantly contributing to the problem or more importantly, whether we can do anything about it.

Now, correlation does not imply causation, but the current models always seem to fail to predict what's actually happening, or "retro-predict" was has already occurred.

Holy shit. People with that crappy an understanding of statistics are running the show here??? I did not realize this. I really hope he was just saying stuff for the public ears, and doesn't really believe that "almost getting p=. 05", from unrepeatable historical data at that, means anything except "reviewers might let it through". Play with this applet to see how likely it is to get a false positive when p=.05

Accompanying paper: www.stat.duke.edu/~berger/papers/02-01.ps
And website: http://www.stat.duke.edu/~berger/p-values.html

Holy shit. People with that crappy an understanding of statistics are running the show here??? I did not realize this. I really hope he was just saying stuff for the public ears, and doesn't really believe that "almost getting p=. 05", from unrepeatable historical data at that, means anything except "reviewers might let it through". Play with this applet to see how likely it is to get a false positive when p=.05

Accompanying paper: www.stat.duke.edu/~berger/papers/02-01.ps
And website: http://www.stat.duke.edu/~berger/p-values.html

Little known fact: State constitutions override federal law.

Little known possibly because you just made it up and it hasn't had to time to percolate yet. No worries, I'm sure misinformation can travel faster than facts.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5155054279368574623&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2984439589202067076&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr

http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1635&context=faculty_scholarship

I teach at a university, my course is about network protocols and IT security. I prefer to trust my students rather than use punishment as a way to influence them. My attempts to eliminate cheating are quite effective, because the results of the exams are always within my expectations, i.e. a mediocre student never got an A out of the blue.

Here's a review of my methods:
- The final grade is derived mostly from the practical assignments they get throughout the semester. In this context I get to talk to each of them and spend a lot of time interacting with everyone in my group; this is how I know what they know.
- The final grade is computed as 60% = practical assignments and 20+20% = midterm and final exam. This way, even if you cheat at the exam, it won't help you very much, unless you also worked hard during the _entire_ semester.

- Formulate questions that don't take answers that can be copy/pasted from a book, the lecture notes or the Internet. Any question must require analysis. One who thought about it in the past will easily deal with it, one who has never been exposed to the ideas of the course won't be able to construct a good answer in a reasonable amount of time.
- Give them more time than they need, to ensure that time is not a bottleneck of their performance.

When I mentioned social engineering, I relied on research by Daniel Ariely. You can influence people's behaviour in multiple ways:
- a written commitment not to cheat
- give them a moral problem to think of, before giving them the exam itself
- adjust the environment (in your case, tell them that all the Internet traffic is logged - so they know that they _can_ get caught)

For example, I used these tasks in the previous semesters:
- "write as many of the 10 commandments as you can remember" (taken "as is" from Ariely's experiment)
- "actually, there were 11 commandments, but one of them was lost. Think about it and write down a rule which is worthy of being listed as the 11th commandment"
- I once tried a written commitment too. Everyone who was in class signed it and smiled: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=469536753019&set=a.453850808019.243204.739418019&type=3&theater Three years after that exam, people are still talking about it and are proud to be a part of that experience.

You may be interested in:
- "Predictably irrational" and "The upside of irrationality" by Daniel Ariely
- http://duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/BadApples.pdf - here's an example of a paper he wrote about cheating, there are other ones too.

You must also make sure the students care about the course and want to learn, rather than just get a passing grade. Have a look at my notes of a book about this, "Punished by rewards" by Alfie Kohn: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150475760123020.375546.739418019&type=3&l=70e1f3712e

I tried to ensure my assignments are not only useful, but also interesting and fun to play with. A basic requirement is to make sure some humour is always involved, with some references to Futurama or Monty Python or some sci-fi book or movie. Here are some examples:
http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=Lab2_-_HTTP_crawler
http://info.railean.net/index.php?title=Lab1_-_simple_client/server_application

At the moment I'm in the process of devising a very short code of ethics (if it is long, no one reads it). You can read the draft: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=115bLhvMUisnw

http://www.superlawyers.com/washington/article/Brad-Smith-20/e3c068fb-949d-4ff0-bcb0-d6d7c204d32a.html

http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2005dltr0012.html

I respect the law. I think the law is the single greatest human engineering achievement in all of history. Full stop, no qualifications. And no, IANAL

Saying I'm attacking lawyers just for doing their job is sure to provoke a response.

It's not a fight you're going to win.

Move along please.

Dear Mr. Robertson,

Thank you for your note. However, I am a bit perplexed. The Center offers many materials that are downloadable. I’m not sure why you had a problem finding them on our site. And links were provided to the most germane ones in the pages for Public Domain Day.

Regarding why our materials aren’t in the public domain: this is a matter of law in the United States. Most of the materials have been produced in the past decade. Current U.S. copyright law provides that all written materials, for example, have copyright once they are fixed in a tangible form (such as when written on a piece of note paper, printed on a personal printer, commercially printed, stored in electronic files, etc.). Therefore, all our materials are automatically under copyright for 95 years from the date they are produced. There is no mechanism under the law to renounce copyright.

However, the Center does publish its materials under a Creative Commons license to make them available for non-commercial uses without requiring people to contact us or pay royalties/fees. (Please note that some materials actually pre-date the creation of the Creative Commons concept and the expanded use of GNU Open Licensing, so this might lead to the impression that we restrict access.)

If it would help, here are the pages where you can find the Center’s most significant materials for download:

• Tales from the Public Domain: Bound By Law? http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
• Duke Conference on the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/indexpd.htm
• Orphan Works http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf
• Orphan Films http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdorphanfilm.pdf

We also provide access to related materials, though these are not produced by the Center itself and therefore the right to reprint is controlled by the organizations who publish the materials. We do try to encourage those organizations to make the materials available under Creative Commons or GNU licenses.

• Cultural Environmentalism @ 10 http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/lcptoc70spring2007
• The Second Enclosure Movement and
  the Construction of the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?66+Law+&+Contemp.+Probs.+33+(WinterSpring+2003)
• A Manifesto on WIPO and the
  Future of Intellectual Property http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/pdf/2004DLTR0009.pdf

Finally, we also link to materials on our site that are published by other organizations but written by members of the Center’s faculty. In those cases, it is up to the publisher and the author to negotiate the terms under which the book is made available. The Center’s members always try to work with their publishers to release the materials in a more open, accessible format and in some cases succeed (so that a book may be available under a Creative Commons license); in other cases, the publishers are not ready to take that step. But, I assure you, we do attempt to get them to do it.

Sincerely,

Balfour

Balfour Smith
Program Coordinator
Center for the Study of the Publi

Dear Mr. Robertson,

Thank you for your note. However, I am a bit perplexed. The Center offers many materials that are downloadable. I’m not sure why you had a problem finding them on our site. And links were provided to the most germane ones in the pages for Public Domain Day.

Regarding why our materials aren’t in the public domain: this is a matter of law in the United States. Most of the materials have been produced in the past decade. Current U.S. copyright law provides that all written materials, for example, have copyright once they are fixed in a tangible form (such as when written on a piece of note paper, printed on a personal printer, commercially printed, stored in electronic files, etc.). Therefore, all our materials are automatically under copyright for 95 years from the date they are produced. There is no mechanism under the law to renounce copyright.

However, the Center does publish its materials under a Creative Commons license to make them available for non-commercial uses without requiring people to contact us or pay royalties/fees. (Please note that some materials actually pre-date the creation of the Creative Commons concept and the expanded use of GNU Open Licensing, so this might lead to the impression that we restrict access.)

If it would help, here are the pages where you can find the Center’s most significant materials for download:

• Tales from the Public Domain: Bound By Law? http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
• Duke Conference on the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/indexpd.htm
• Orphan Works http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf
• Orphan Films http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdorphanfilm.pdf

We also provide access to related materials, though these are not produced by the Center itself and therefore the right to reprint is controlled by the organizations who publish the materials. We do try to encourage those organizations to make the materials available under Creative Commons or GNU licenses.

• Cultural Environmentalism @ 10 http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/lcptoc70spring2007
• The Second Enclosure Movement and
  the Construction of the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?66+Law+&+Contemp.+Probs.+33+(WinterSpring+2003)
• A Manifesto on WIPO and the
  Future of Intellectual Property http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/pdf/2004DLTR0009.pdf

Finally, we also link to materials on our site that are published by other organizations but written by members of the Center’s faculty. In those cases, it is up to the publisher and the author to negotiate the terms under which the book is made available. The Center’s members always try to work with their publishers to release the materials in a more open, accessible format and in some cases succeed (so that a book may be available under a Creative Commons license); in other cases, the publishers are not ready to take that step. But, I assure you, we do attempt to get them to do it.

Sincerely,

Balfour

Balfour Smith
Program Coordinator
Center for the Study of the Publi

Dear Mr. Robertson,

Thank you for your note. However, I am a bit perplexed. The Center offers many materials that are downloadable. I’m not sure why you had a problem finding them on our site. And links were provided to the most germane ones in the pages for Public Domain Day.

Regarding why our materials aren’t in the public domain: this is a matter of law in the United States. Most of the materials have been produced in the past decade. Current U.S. copyright law provides that all written materials, for example, have copyright once they are fixed in a tangible form (such as when written on a piece of note paper, printed on a personal printer, commercially printed, stored in electronic files, etc.). Therefore, all our materials are automatically under copyright for 95 years from the date they are produced. There is no mechanism under the law to renounce copyright.

However, the Center does publish its materials under a Creative Commons license to make them available for non-commercial uses without requiring people to contact us or pay royalties/fees. (Please note that some materials actually pre-date the creation of the Creative Commons concept and the expanded use of GNU Open Licensing, so this might lead to the impression that we restrict access.)

If it would help, here are the pages where you can find the Center’s most significant materials for download:

• Tales from the Public Domain: Bound By Law? http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
• Duke Conference on the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/indexpd.htm
• Orphan Works http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf
• Orphan Films http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdorphanfilm.pdf

We also provide access to related materials, though these are not produced by the Center itself and therefore the right to reprint is controlled by the organizations who publish the materials. We do try to encourage those organizations to make the materials available under Creative Commons or GNU licenses.

• Cultural Environmentalism @ 10 http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/lcptoc70spring2007
• The Second Enclosure Movement and
  the Construction of the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?66+Law+&+Contemp.+Probs.+33+(WinterSpring+2003)
• A Manifesto on WIPO and the
  Future of Intellectual Property http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/pdf/2004DLTR0009.pdf

Finally, we also link to materials on our site that are published by other organizations but written by members of the Center’s faculty. In those cases, it is up to the publisher and the author to negotiate the terms under which the book is made available. The Center’s members always try to work with their publishers to release the materials in a more open, accessible format and in some cases succeed (so that a book may be available under a Creative Commons license); in other cases, the publishers are not ready to take that step. But, I assure you, we do attempt to get them to do it.

Sincerely,

Balfour

Balfour Smith
Program Coordinator
Center for the Study of the Publi

Dear Mr. Robertson,

Thank you for your note. However, I am a bit perplexed. The Center offers many materials that are downloadable. I’m not sure why you had a problem finding them on our site. And links were provided to the most germane ones in the pages for Public Domain Day.

Regarding why our materials aren’t in the public domain: this is a matter of law in the United States. Most of the materials have been produced in the past decade. Current U.S. copyright law provides that all written materials, for example, have copyright once they are fixed in a tangible form (such as when written on a piece of note paper, printed on a personal printer, commercially printed, stored in electronic files, etc.). Therefore, all our materials are automatically under copyright for 95 years from the date they are produced. There is no mechanism under the law to renounce copyright.

However, the Center does publish its materials under a Creative Commons license to make them available for non-commercial uses without requiring people to contact us or pay royalties/fees. (Please note that some materials actually pre-date the creation of the Creative Commons concept and the expanded use of GNU Open Licensing, so this might lead to the impression that we restrict access.)

If it would help, here are the pages where you can find the Center’s most significant materials for download:

• Tales from the Public Domain: Bound By Law? http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
• Duke Conference on the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/indexpd.htm
• Orphan Works http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf
• Orphan Films http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdorphanfilm.pdf

We also provide access to related materials, though these are not produced by the Center itself and therefore the right to reprint is controlled by the organizations who publish the materials. We do try to encourage those organizations to make the materials available under Creative Commons or GNU licenses.

• Cultural Environmentalism @ 10 http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/lcptoc70spring2007
• The Second Enclosure Movement and
  the Construction of the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?66+Law+&+Contemp.+Probs.+33+(WinterSpring+2003)
• A Manifesto on WIPO and the
  Future of Intellectual Property http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/pdf/2004DLTR0009.pdf

Finally, we also link to materials on our site that are published by other organizations but written by members of the Center’s faculty. In those cases, it is up to the publisher and the author to negotiate the terms under which the book is made available. The Center’s members always try to work with their publishers to release the materials in a more open, accessible format and in some cases succeed (so that a book may be available under a Creative Commons license); in other cases, the publishers are not ready to take that step. But, I assure you, we do attempt to get them to do it.

Sincerely,

Balfour

Balfour Smith
Program Coordinator
Center for the Study of the Publi

Dear Mr. Robertson,

Thank you for your note. However, I am a bit perplexed. The Center offers many materials that are downloadable. I’m not sure why you had a problem finding them on our site. And links were provided to the most germane ones in the pages for Public Domain Day.

Regarding why our materials aren’t in the public domain: this is a matter of law in the United States. Most of the materials have been produced in the past decade. Current U.S. copyright law provides that all written materials, for example, have copyright once they are fixed in a tangible form (such as when written on a piece of note paper, printed on a personal printer, commercially printed, stored in electronic files, etc.). Therefore, all our materials are automatically under copyright for 95 years from the date they are produced. There is no mechanism under the law to renounce copyright.

However, the Center does publish its materials under a Creative Commons license to make them available for non-commercial uses without requiring people to contact us or pay royalties/fees. (Please note that some materials actually pre-date the creation of the Creative Commons concept and the expanded use of GNU Open Licensing, so this might lead to the impression that we restrict access.)

If it would help, here are the pages where you can find the Center’s most significant materials for download:

• Tales from the Public Domain: Bound By Law? http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
• Duke Conference on the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/indexpd.htm
• Orphan Works http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf
• Orphan Films http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdorphanfilm.pdf

We also provide access to related materials, though these are not produced by the Center itself and therefore the right to reprint is controlled by the organizations who publish the materials. We do try to encourage those organizations to make the materials available under Creative Commons or GNU licenses.

• Cultural Environmentalism @ 10 http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/lcptoc70spring2007
• The Second Enclosure Movement and
  the Construction of the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?66+Law+&+Contemp.+Probs.+33+(WinterSpring+2003)
• A Manifesto on WIPO and the
  Future of Intellectual Property http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/pdf/2004DLTR0009.pdf

Finally, we also link to materials on our site that are published by other organizations but written by members of the Center’s faculty. In those cases, it is up to the publisher and the author to negotiate the terms under which the book is made available. The Center’s members always try to work with their publishers to release the materials in a more open, accessible format and in some cases succeed (so that a book may be available under a Creative Commons license); in other cases, the publishers are not ready to take that step. But, I assure you, we do attempt to get them to do it.

Sincerely,

Balfour

Balfour Smith
Program Coordinator
Center for the Study of the Publi

Dear Mr. Robertson,

Thank you for your note. However, I am a bit perplexed. The Center offers many materials that are downloadable. I’m not sure why you had a problem finding them on our site. And links were provided to the most germane ones in the pages for Public Domain Day.

Regarding why our materials aren’t in the public domain: this is a matter of law in the United States. Most of the materials have been produced in the past decade. Current U.S. copyright law provides that all written materials, for example, have copyright once they are fixed in a tangible form (such as when written on a piece of note paper, printed on a personal printer, commercially printed, stored in electronic files, etc.). Therefore, all our materials are automatically under copyright for 95 years from the date they are produced. There is no mechanism under the law to renounce copyright.

However, the Center does publish its materials under a Creative Commons license to make them available for non-commercial uses without requiring people to contact us or pay royalties/fees. (Please note that some materials actually pre-date the creation of the Creative Commons concept and the expanded use of GNU Open Licensing, so this might lead to the impression that we restrict access.)

If it would help, here are the pages where you can find the Center’s most significant materials for download:

• Tales from the Public Domain: Bound By Law? http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
• Duke Conference on the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/indexpd.htm
• Orphan Works http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf
• Orphan Films http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdorphanfilm.pdf

We also provide access to related materials, though these are not produced by the Center itself and therefore the right to reprint is controlled by the organizations who publish the materials. We do try to encourage those organizations to make the materials available under Creative Commons or GNU licenses.

• Cultural Environmentalism @ 10 http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/lcptoc70spring2007
• The Second Enclosure Movement and
  the Construction of the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?66+Law+&+Contemp.+Probs.+33+(WinterSpring+2003)
• A Manifesto on WIPO and the
  Future of Intellectual Property http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/pdf/2004DLTR0009.pdf

Finally, we also link to materials on our site that are published by other organizations but written by members of the Center’s faculty. In those cases, it is up to the publisher and the author to negotiate the terms under which the book is made available. The Center’s members always try to work with their publishers to release the materials in a more open, accessible format and in some cases succeed (so that a book may be available under a Creative Commons license); in other cases, the publishers are not ready to take that step. But, I assure you, we do attempt to get them to do it.

Sincerely,

Balfour

Balfour Smith
Program Coordinator
Center for the Study of the Publi

Dear Mr. Robertson,

Thank you for your note. However, I am a bit perplexed. The Center offers many materials that are downloadable. I’m not sure why you had a problem finding them on our site. And links were provided to the most germane ones in the pages for Public Domain Day.

Regarding why our materials aren’t in the public domain: this is a matter of law in the United States. Most of the materials have been produced in the past decade. Current U.S. copyright law provides that all written materials, for example, have copyright once they are fixed in a tangible form (such as when written on a piece of note paper, printed on a personal printer, commercially printed, stored in electronic files, etc.). Therefore, all our materials are automatically under copyright for 95 years from the date they are produced. There is no mechanism under the law to renounce copyright.

However, the Center does publish its materials under a Creative Commons license to make them available for non-commercial uses without requiring people to contact us or pay royalties/fees. (Please note that some materials actually pre-date the creation of the Creative Commons concept and the expanded use of GNU Open Licensing, so this might lead to the impression that we restrict access.)

If it would help, here are the pages where you can find the Center’s most significant materials for download:

• Tales from the Public Domain: Bound By Law? http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
• Duke Conference on the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/indexpd.htm
• Orphan Works http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdproposal.pdf
• Orphan Films http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/pdf/cspdorphanfilm.pdf

We also provide access to related materials, though these are not produced by the Center itself and therefore the right to reprint is controlled by the organizations who publish the materials. We do try to encourage those organizations to make the materials available under Creative Commons or GNU licenses.

• Cultural Environmentalism @ 10 http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/lcptoc70spring2007
• The Second Enclosure Movement and
  the Construction of the Public Domain http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?66+Law+&+Contemp.+Probs.+33+(WinterSpring+2003)
• A Manifesto on WIPO and the
  Future of Intellectual Property http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/pdf/2004DLTR0009.pdf

Finally, we also link to materials on our site that are published by other organizations but written by members of the Center’s faculty. In those cases, it is up to the publisher and the author to negotiate the terms under which the book is made available. The Center’s members always try to work with their publishers to release the materials in a more open, accessible format and in some cases succeed (so that a book may be available under a Creative Commons license); in other cases, the publishers are not ready to take that step. But, I assure you, we do attempt to get them to do it.

Sincerely,

Balfour

Balfour Smith
Program Coordinator
Center for the Study of the Publi

dude... http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/index.php

I've had a 706 in my car for 7-8 years, and just bought an 897 this summer for portable use ( see http://www.duke.edu/~kuzen001/lawnmower.htm ). My opinion is the the 897 has better DSP, and is a bit easier to use. I wouldn't want to use it mobile--too bulky, compared to the 706 with a separated faceplate. But both of them are great radios for what they are--I *really* like the 897. It's like the HF version of a Swiss Army knife, and it's a world of fun to use. 73! --ken ac4rd@yahoo.com

Old old old old news

http://www.phy.duke.edu/~kolena/imagepro.html

Scroll down to "remote access telescope projects"

This seems to only list "free" options, I donno how you miss GRAS. To a first approximation GRAS is cheap enough compared to owning to be "free".

http://www.global-rent-a-scope.com/gras-news/tag/remote-telescopes

I have always been into the AAVSO and have always had this desire to do CCD photometry, or at least for a decade or so since it became easy to do. The plan has been to rent time on a scope, and if I really like it, I'll drop four or so figures on the exact same model. Rent before buy.

Or I'll run the rental for awhile until I get sick of it and swear off the hobby forever. I've never done it, always planned to "when I have time".

Kind of like how I rented a Cessna 172 for many hours but thankfully never bought one outright (given that I don't do the private pilot thing anymore, it would have been a huge money loss)

Ya, not sure why I respond, your post clearly wasn't worthy of a response, perhaps... I'm bored!

Here's when to cite...

http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/

and

but the observation is that it is melting faster than records show

is why I called you out.

Don't point fingers at humanity w/o being 100% certain is all im saying.

No, no, no, silly beanie. You use my (open source) nagbot script:

http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/nagbot

Tweak it just a little -- you might try removing my initials, for example, so that the FBI comes after you instead of me -- and launch it with e.g.

nagbot Joe joe_senator@congress.gov please_reconsider.txt

On day one, Joe gets an email message from you, his loyal constituent, containing reconsider.txt, which asks him to reconsider his vote on permitting cell phones to be used for automated political (or other) phone calls. No problem.

On day two, Joe gets two messages.

On day three, Joe gets four messages.

... On day N, Joe gets 2^{N-1} messages (if you haven't been blacklisted by all the major carriers and murdered by your local admin). Anyway, you get the idea. Fight fire with fire, I always say.

Every time I have used this on a student they caved by day five or six. I had a schedule for finishing the work in minutes, and had the work on my desk almost instantly later.

Mind you, this is probably illegal. But I think the script could easily be hacked to call the congressperson's phone lines and play a recorded message... ideally their personal cell phone lines or the phone line belonging to their spouse. At dinnertime, of course.

rgb

What if black men are committing 7x the crimes, but only have 5x the incarceration rate? ... Incarceration rate is meaningless without a related criminality rate. Which, incidentally, is 7x higher than whites.

As I said, your rebuttal only makes sense if you think that these disparities between races aren't due to discrimination, but are instead almost entirely due to "confounding factors" which aren't a result of discrimination. Since you didn't address this statement, I'll assume that really is your position.

But as I've been pointing out, these "confounding factors" are themselves partially due to past and/or present discrimination. Since you didn't challenge the notion that geographic correlations are mostly a relic of slavery, I assume that we can agree on this point in at least one instance.

Now you've presented yet another "confounding factor" which, again, you're implicitly saying isn't a result of past or present discrimination. However, you haven't yet established that this 7x disparity in the crime rate between black men and white men isn't a result of past or present discrimination. To do that, you'd have to explain why this 7x disparity in crime rates between black men and white men exists, and show that it's unrelated to past or present discrimination.

The "confounding factors" you listed are, themselves, partially a result of discrimination. Majority-black schools have lower funding than majority-white schools, so they hire less competent teachers.

Fail, fail, fail. POOR schools have lower funding than other schools because schools are paid for by taxation. That's why there's supplementary funding available to them through Title I and related programs. If you can establish for me a majority black school in a rich neighborhood that receives minimal funding, then sure, I'll take that back. ...

This is downright bizarre. The entire point I was making is that being poor is correlated with being black. Thus the fact that poor schools get less funding from taxing neighborhood residents is exactly why majority-black schools have less funding on average than majority-white schools, both across districts and within districts. Outliers simply aren't as important as averages.

... what you'll find is that minority schools get access to a lot of funding sources that majority white schools cannot. I write grants for school districts. We won't even work with a lot of white school districts, since it is so hard to win grants for them. More rich minority school districts get funded than poor white schools. Try to tell me that's fair, eh?

You're comparing rich minority school districts to poor white schools (not districts)? Why? After you explain why you're comparing apples to oranges, it would be necessary to provide at least some evidence that whatever it is you're claiming is true before I'll bother to wonder if it's fair or not. Keep in mind that poor students don't reach testing parity with rich students until significantly more money per student is spent, to compensate for the numerous out-of-school advantages that rich students enjoy.

And don't give me any bullshit about there not being any well to do minority school districts, either. I can only take so much liberal delusion at one time.

Obviously, the point is that the average white-majority school district is

Clearly indicates that a full copy is not going to qualify, and every element must be met for fair use.

Wrong. Fair use is a minefield.

see "Fairest of them all and other fairy tales of fair use"

You're absolutely right that I rely on your labor for the wonderful standard of living that I have. Thank you.

You're absolutely wrong that I have _coerced you_ into providing it. If you feel that I haven't compensated you for everything you've ever done for me, I apologize, and I'd like to talk so we can resolve this.

People can and do cooperate and build off of the labor of each other while still engaging in purely voluntary transactions.

That is the sole ethical model of human interaction - voluntaryism.

For any other model of interaction, there is an element of coercion involved. There's a hidden gun just around the corner.

Your point about the _practice_ of those who are recognized to be slaves vs. how most of us live is of course accurate.

But the frustrating thing about libertarians is that we are not pragmatists, we deal in principle and ideology. Someone who is held against their will, made to do tasks they do not wash to do, and who is only beaten or raped once a year certainly has it better than someone who is held against their will, made to do tasks they do not wish to do, but who is raped every hour.

We agree that both are slaves, even though their treatment and perhaps the magnitude of their suffering differs.

So then, what is the essential nature of slavery?

http://www.duke.edu/web/philsociety/taleofslave.html

What's your answer to the question of "the tale of the slave?"

What makes us not slaves? The infrequency of our rapes?

Incidentally, if you are curious about one an-cap viewpoint on the ethics of parenting and children, of course, Murray Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty" is a fantastic starting point. You can find the text online.

I hope you'll take the time to read and think about the link provided. Please also note that I did not denigrate you or your beleifs in my response, a courtesy you did not grant to the OP.