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Not only are you, but are uniquely Mr Methane, because each individual author has unique and identifying characteristics that can be measured using - guess what - compression algorithms.

Given enough samples, individual authors can be identified and graphs of language relationships, too.

I think it's interesting because it raises the bar on preserving anonymity if you publish widely.

Add some entropy to your life; write drunk.

(Google-cache copy)

John Pendry is one very smart guy.

The Economist also had an article

http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.c fm?story_id=1476751

The Economist has a set of related articles in this week's edition.

The Economist has a set of related articles in this week's edition.

And where is unemployment at 10%?

Germany, at 10.5% :) France is close at 8.8%.

Meanwhile, for all the complaining, Feb 2003 values for the USA are 5.8%

Let's hear it for global economies!

Eh, whatever. All this reminds me of my sister and her friends, who this year are graduating seniors from Pitt. Those that are willing to move are having no problems finding jobs (my sister has a job offer in the oil industry, with a 6-month assignment in Norway). Those that are not willing to move are currently unemployed. The opportunities are out there, if they would shut up about how unfair the world is, and look for it.

I was about to say that Benevolence International is only alleged to have contributed to terrorist orgs and that nothing has been decided yet. Apparently this is not the case, as you can read at The Economist or Google News (don't forget to disable the cookie!)

Ravi

Or pick up a news magazine that targets intelligentsia like the Economist . Just recently, I picked up an issue with remarkably good coverage of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the organization that publishes Science. In the science section of that issue was a remarkably lucid description of photonic-crystal optical fiber and how it works, and there was also excellent coverage of competing theories in evolutionary biology and of work being done with adaptive optics to study the human eye, IIRC. Of course, the journalism in the Economist tends to be head and shoulders above most other newspapers and news magazines, so maybe it's not so much a problem of bad science journalism as it is a problem with bad journalism.

Besides, it's a great magazine to have lying up on your desk, half read ;-)

I go to a number of sites for "news" news; I find that the "same" news is very different coming from different countries:
BBC News, which everyone's familiar with;
CNN, the epitome of US government-sanctioned news;
The Economist, of course;
The Times of London,
Japan Today,
Pravda,
The Beijing Review,
Le Monde, and
The Tehran Times

...and a couple of sites for tech and science news:
EurekAlert, a great site for science and medicine press releases,
the former, but still running, Hacker News Network,
BottomQuark,
the phenomenal journal Nature,
Science magazine,
and, of course, The Source.

Some good comics, most of which you will all know, but which I love; here are a couple you might not know:
Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet, a comic that actually features a female sysadmin/techgoddess, and
Bateman Political cartoons, a fun political comic updated regularly.

And, of course, take a look at my sig... Click every day.

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been established by WMO and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio- economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation." (see here ).

It looks for the occurance of the word recession in major newspapers, and it's a pretty good predictor (better than most economists).

Unfortunately, a lot of the related articles are subscribed content.

eg:

Dec 10, 1998

Nov 21, 2002

ENUM in the News

EFA expresses security concerns over ENUM, SMH, November 27, 2002.

Enum's potential applications aren't as widespread as promised, New Architect, July 2002.

Internet Telephone Numbering System (ENUM) offers promise of a single point of contact for all communication devices, ITU Press Release, May 31, 2002.

Listing Again, The Economist, April 11, 2002.

Phone number-to-e-mail service raises privacy concerns, Computerworld, October 5, 2001.

Your Rights Online: A Number For Everything, Slashdot, September 4, 2001.

One number & and no escape anywhere, The Times, September 3, 2001.

Oddly enough, The Economist's Style Guide is dead-set against this sort of buzzword bullshit.

They've got a great list of unnecessary words.

Here's an excerpt from their section on jargon:

Avoid [jargon]. You may have to think harder if you are not to use jargon, but you can still be precise. Technical terms should be used in their proper context; do not use them out of it. In many instances simple words can do the job of exponential (try fast), interface (frontier or border) and so on. If you find yourself tempted to write about affirmative action or corporate governance, you will have to explain what it is; with luck, you will then not have to use the actual expression. Avoid, above all, the kind of jargon that tries either to dignify nonsense with seriousness (Working in an empowering environment [...]) or to obscure the truth

I notice they sell a hardcopy of the style guide, you could use it to bludgeon problem co-workers to death.

Mark Twain might have said it best:

Eschew Surplusage.

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Oddly enough, The Economist's Style Guide is dead-set against this sort of buzzword bullshit.

They've got a great list of unnecessary words.

Here's an excerpt from their section on jargon:

Avoid [jargon]. You may have to think harder if you are not to use jargon, but you can still be precise. Technical terms should be used in their proper context; do not use them out of it. In many instances simple words can do the job of exponential (try fast), interface (frontier or border) and so on. If you find yourself tempted to write about affirmative action or corporate governance, you will have to explain what it is; with luck, you will then not have to use the actual expression. Avoid, above all, the kind of jargon that tries either to dignify nonsense with seriousness (Working in an empowering environment [...]) or to obscure the truth

I notice they sell a hardcopy of the style guide, you could use it to bludgeon problem co-workers to death.

Mark Twain might have said it best:

Eschew Surplusage.

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Oddly enough, The Economist's Style Guide is dead-set against this sort of buzzword bullshit.

They've got a great list of unnecessary words.

Here's an excerpt from their section on jargon:

Avoid [jargon]. You may have to think harder if you are not to use jargon, but you can still be precise. Technical terms should be used in their proper context; do not use them out of it. In many instances simple words can do the job of exponential (try fast), interface (frontier or border) and so on. If you find yourself tempted to write about affirmative action or corporate governance, you will have to explain what it is; with luck, you will then not have to use the actual expression. Avoid, above all, the kind of jargon that tries either to dignify nonsense with seriousness (Working in an empowering environment [...]) or to obscure the truth

I notice they sell a hardcopy of the style guide, you could use it to bludgeon problem co-workers to death.

Mark Twain might have said it best:

Eschew Surplusage.

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

The Economist have published an article on the subject today. They conclude that while the TiVo company may be struggling, they revolution they started will continue, as the technology is licensed into a broad range of set top boxes and TVs.

They also predict that TV advertising will not be killed in the revolution, just the bad advertisements.

The Economist have published an article on the subject today. They conclude that while the TiVo company may be struggling, they revolution they started will continue, as the technology is licensed into a broad range of set top boxes and TVs.

They also predict that TV advertising will not be killed in the revolution, just the bad advertisements.

And what of daily housekeeping of the government? Do you expect/want to know about the boring technicalities of how our health care system works? Even if you do does the majority of the American public ? On a vast majority of issues that answer is NO.

Truer words were never spoken. Seriously, though, I'd have to agree with this comment. I certainly have no intention of spending all my time doing the duties of a professional lawmaker, and not getting paid for it. I'm not naive, either--I know that lawmakers can be bought, and I'm sure not all of them are as careful about their work as they probably should be. But does that mean I want their job? Of course, not!

What scares me the most is that enough people may just want to do this, and chaos may ensue. Someone else in this thread proposed a brief questionnaire to test whether the voter is making an informed decision, but this brings with it a whole host of other concerns. Who's going to write the questions? What is considered an 'informed decision'? How does anyone really know the ramifications of a proposed piece of legislation before it's enacted? There are too many questions about such a system to suit my fancy. I don't know if mob rule would result from a more electronic democratic process, but I don't know if I'm ready to find out, either.

The great potential of this site is that it allows one to focus on particular areas or issues that are important to them. Whether they are regulations on medical billing, national do not call lists, or what have you, it doesn't matter--I don't think anyone could or would want to comment on everything out there. Sure, some items are more sexy than others (highway regulations just don't get me up in the morning), but with enough eyeballs out there, I can't imagine that anything would go completely unnoticed.

Finally, if any of you haven't read them yet, I recommend this series of Economist articles discussed in this Slashdot thread.

Issues for the Internet Society is an editorial bit associated with this survey, which also deals with the battle over copyright extension and also with piracy. Practical upshot. Unlimited file swapping bad. Copyright limitations (on copyright holders, not consumers, ie copyright expires after 14 years, renewable once) good.

wow, someone who agrees with me

Opening Iraq's oil to the free market would set the world price of oil to around $11/barrel. Currently, the price of oil is around $23/barrel, and the Saudis need it to stay around that price in order to keep their bloated/corrupt/tyrannical/propped-up/muslim-HATED government from collapsing (it's true). Without money, they can't afford to fight-off/buy-off the rebels, and they will be deposed within 5 years.

Personally I don't know if we should invade Iraq, but the war on terror certainly justifies it. Also, if we don't stick up for the UN's resolutions, it's going to become a bigger joke than it already is (if you can imagine).

The sooner this Iraq ordeal is over (however it ends), the sooner stocks will rise again (lately it has been rough directly due to the Iraq uncertainty).

wow, someone who agrees with me

Opening Iraq's oil to the free market would set the world price of oil to around $11/barrel. Currently, the price of oil is around $23/barrel, and the Saudis need it to stay around that price in order to keep their bloated/corrupt/tyrannical/propped-up/muslim-HATED government from collapsing (it's true). Without money, they can't afford to fight-off/buy-off the rebels, and they will be deposed within 5 years.

Personally I don't know if we should invade Iraq, but the war on terror certainly justifies it. Also, if we don't stick up for the UN's resolutions, it's going to become a bigger joke than it already is (if you can imagine).

The sooner this Iraq ordeal is over (however it ends), the sooner stocks will rise again (lately it has been rough directly due to the Iraq uncertainty).

Please reconfirm your "facts" on desalination. There is not a lot of info online, but I managed to scrape up a few costs.

• In the Sept 14, 1999 Trinidad Express, they refer to two bids at US$0.536 and US$0.736 per m3 of industrial water (water for drinking is a tiny proportion of what we actually use)
• In Cyprus in 2000, desalination unit costs were 0.997 USD (0.54 Cyprus pound, which is divided into cents, not pence)

FYI, Peter Gleick is the President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, which "strives to improve policy through science-based research and dialogue with action-oriented groups from the international to local level"They claim to be non-partisan, but he appears to have a radical green bias. Let's look at what else Gleick says about desalination:

But desalination cannot yet be considered a reasonable solution to domestic water shortages in most regions, even wealthy ones. Whether it will eventually become sufficiently cheap for large-scale use remains uncertain.( Gleick, 2000)

kuro5hin had a better article on Lomborg a while ago. The Economist just had another one as well. And of course, you should read Lomborgs response to SciAm , which is posted in it's entirety on Patrick Moore's website. SciAm threatened legal action if Lomborg included their article in his line-by-line response, although they felt free to include Lomborg's response on their website with more SciAm comments - hypocrisy worthy of RIAA or MPAA. So, Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace posted Lomborgs response to SciAm, with the following comment:

"Scientific American did not give Lomborg any opportunity to respond to his critics, even though they gave him a copy of the editorial before it went to press. They said they would give Lomborg one page in a future edition to reply to 11 pages of full-on attack. Lomborg's response was to publish the text of the Scientific American article on his own website and to intersperse it with a detailed response to every point raised by his critics. Scientific American then threatened to sue Lomborg over copyright. In response to my complaint Scientific American wrote "This is an infringement of our copyright and interferes with our business of selling the article." Does Scientific American really think that they will lose readership because Lomborg has posted a response to a publication that is already off the newsstands? I believe they acted out of political motivation and are purposefully stifling Lomborg's efforts to defend himself. And I don't blame Lomborg for giving in to such a huge organization when threatened with legal action. (If you go to Lomborg's website www.lomborg.com and look under Critiques you will find he has removed the offending text, thus gutting the effectiveness of his response.)

" I think we should defy Scientific American's blatant attempt to muzzle Lomborg. Anyone who reads his response to the Scientific American attack will have to agree that it is thoughtful and thorough. Here is a link to the entire response complete with Lomborg's comments."

People like you will eventually make me buy Lomborg's book, just so I can bitchslap you properly.

dschl

If you think hunting is barbaric, you should visit a chicken farm someday

Lomberg has responded, in initial brief, to the fraud charges. And, according to Glenn Reynolds, most of the panel's complaints seem to be directed at Lomberg's response to the initial SciAm critique (PDF).

The sheer complexity of this issue makes soapboxing inappropriate. I'm an early poster, but it's already begun. Please try to refrain from making fools of yourselves.

I'm not sure how those are the two alternatives. My impression is that the indictment of Lomborg contains no substantive scientific criticism, just an accusation of partisanship. Both sides are trying to argue a point of view; one is doing it with facts and one by issuing a fatwa and what one may or may not think. (I'm talking here about this specific ruling. I'm sure there are factually-based objections to Lomborg, although I haven't seen one that impressed me, and I'm a Sierra Club member.)

Instapundit has a bunch of links, the most prominent being the Economist calling the ruling "incompetent and shameful".

For a well written opposing view on the issue, check out this editorial over at the Economist.

Last time I checked, Microsoft was losing money except for two areas dependent on monopoly rents. Not only that, "adjustments" to their financial statements seem to put them $18 billion into the red, that during a time when sales were good compared to recent years.

If nothing else, Microsoft's behavior has been like they do not expect to be around in 12 months. The recent treatment of Sendo and similar treatment of past partners, extortion of customers using the Business Software Alliance, unfavorable licensing 6, and even the faked video testimonies in federal court are not what you'd expect from a company that plans to stay in business. Rather it seems that Microsoft is just another dot-com that is now beginning re-entry.

Free as in market.

There is a rationalization going on in business IT. This is not a recession at all.

There is a rationalization going on in business IT. This is not a recession at all.

Actually there is an article in the Economist [never understood why the site name is placeed in brackets after the URL since browswers can display this information more reliably on mouse over] about the feasibility of pilotless planes.

The link is wrong... if you click on it, you are taken to a cybersquatter's page with a butt-ugly picture of Alan Greenspan.

The real link to The Economist is here.

The actual website of The Economist is here... the link given by Hemos only leads you to a scary picture of Alan Greenspan.

...please, this sort of articles is ridiculous. Especialy when submitted with "sly" remarks like "Would the US really blow up their own people for the sake of global military supremacy? Naaaah...". Oh, and I did not read the article, sue me. I can think of a lot of things to read which sound a lot more interesting.

In particular, and dead on topic, may I suggest The Economist's article on conspiracy theories?

For GPRS to work, spectrum has to be dedicated to data and voice separately. Existing GSM providers need to license more spectrum (this costs big money), have to upgrade their equipment and convince users to change handsets to support 2.5G ("GPRS"). Considering that they are all in the red, it ain't going to be easy. CDMA providers can provide voice+data over the same spectrum.

Because 3G deployments in Europe and Japan so far have been less than successful.

Because CDMA 2000 1X is coming with a massive second mover advantage, at a time when people need higher data rates from their mobile, and the GSM folk can't given them that quickly, the operative word being 'quickly'.

I agree a GSM-based high-speed standard would have been better. But the only way high-speed GSM would have taken off in India was if someone built a W-CDMA (which is the air interface for high speed GSM) network from scratch, and given European and Japanese experience with W-CDMA 'til now, I'd excuse any business for being slightly scared about this :).

In Brasil people are complaining every day that government has chosen TDMA and CDMA over the cheaper, standard GSM.

Huh? TDMA is the air interface for vanilla GSM. High speed GSM uses W-CDMA as the air interface because TDMA is so damn inefficient. Anyway, what business does the government have mandating technology? (Europe did this, mind you :-p) All they should sell is spectrum!

These gatekeepers, by and large, are NOT liberals. And they control what gets published/aired. It has always been this way and this reality won't change anytime soon.

Additionally, you ask where IMF intervention has worked. Well, it's very hard to measure whether IMF intervention was successful or not. After all, there are a lot of factors in an economy. If an economy booms after IMF intervention, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the IMF (Russia's economy is doing better today because oil prices have risen, not because of the IMF). On the other hand, if an economy collapses despite IMF intervention, it doesn't necessarily mean IMF intervention was bad - the economy might just have had too many problems for the IMF to correct.

But, it is possible to argue that the IMF intervention was successful in South Korea. The South Korean economy contracted by 6.3% in 1998 (source) after the Asian economic crisis hit, but it has rebounded very well. According to one report, "GDP growth for 1999 was 10.7%, possibly the fastest recovery ever." (source Its GDP growth for 2002 is 6.1%, and GDP growth for 2003 is estimated to be 5.3%. (source)

South Korea's recovery from the Asian Crisis has been very good. In fact, people are talking about how South Korea might become the new model for Asian economic development, taking over from the Japanese model. The South Korean model is basically moving away from export-driven growth to domestic consumption driven growth.

This model, I will point out, is essentially the American model for economic growth. And, also the model the IMF was pushing.

Thailand has also recovered fairly well from the Asian economic crisis. Its GDP dropped 1.7% and then 10.7% in the wake of the crisis, (source), but bounced back by 4.4%, 4.6% (source) and then 1.8% (source). Its recovery hasn't been as good as South Koreas, but its has been recovering. Its unemployment has remained very low. And frankly, given that people thought that the Asian crisis might lead to a worldwide depression, I think that's pretty incredible. Remember how long it took the world to get through the last depression - when there was no IMF.

Is it really what we want/need as humans? I'm not sure. But I for one won't wager a guess until there's more research done in the area, so I say let's explore it more before we defame it conclusively or support it as a technological breakthrough.

Some other recent news items:
Nabda, Unesco Collaborate in Bioinformatics Training
AllAfrica.com,Africa-05 Dec 2002
... Development Agency (NABDA) and the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural
Organisation (UNESCO), penultimate Tuesday held a two-day Bioinformatics ...

Bioinformatics ahead for Danville
Danville Register and Bee,VA-30 Nov 2002
... Developing these plants will involve both horticulture and bioinformatics and will
be one major focus of Danville's Institute for Advanced Learning and Research ...

The race to computerise biology
Economist (subscription),UK-12 Dec 2002
Welcome to the world of bioinformatics--a branch of computing concerned
with the acquisition, storage and analysis of biological data. ...

Observing Proteins And Cells In The Wild: Quantum Dots May ...
Science Daily-13 Dec 2002
... Today it is internationally renowned for research and graduate education
in the biomedical sciences, chemistry, bioinformatics and physics. ...

1. Stop fixing win95 problems when they pop up ... Eventually retire the OS

2. Use those billions in the bank to pay a few companies to make software that requires features in newer versions of windows, i.e., not backwards-compatible with win98/ME any more.

IANAA (I am not an auditor), but point 2 seems an issue for alt.folklore.urban. Microsoft's lost money on every thing but MS-Windows and MS-Office. In the past, Microsoft has has a more than $10 billion discrepancy between the initial accounting report and what they actually lost. Since they've been dropping projects left and right and, at the risk of alienating customers and reducing future sales, sent the Business Software Alliance out to collect extra money. The new license 6.0 was no market winner either. All those actions look like a desparate scamble for cash.

Even MBAs are starting to realize the value of interoperability and that's where Microsoft is historically (and legally) weakest.

Plus on the desktop, OS X beats Windows on ease of use and flexibility and has the apps needed today. The ease of use for the end user, low technical maintenance overhead, and greater security saves support staff. On the server side, even the Microsoft execs admit publicly their products can't compete on price, security, or stability with the regular server OS's like BSD, GNU/Linux, Solaris, QNX, & co.

Ok, link problems should be gone (Thanks avdp!)

Nokia vs. Microsoft

Very insightful article, happily one of their free ones. Microsoft is in for a tough fight. They've gotten little licensing from major players, and are using alternate, less effective channels to gain a foothold.

Their cover story is also related, and is as usual, excellent.

Computing's New Shape

Ok, link problems should be gone (Thanks avdp!)

Nokia vs. Microsoft

Very insightful article, happily one of their free ones. Microsoft is in for a tough fight. They've gotten little licensing from major players, and are using alternate, less effective channels to gain a foothold.

Their cover story is also related, and is as usual, excellent.

Computing's New Shape

FYI - in case you're wondering....

Slashdot breaks long strings by inserting blank spaces in them.

Next time, consider make an actual HTML link instead like this

on the same subject is http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory .cfm?Story_ID=1454436

It's ironic, giving the information available today, you would think you would have done just a little research.

You need to stop just speculating like every other idiot, go beyond hypothesis, and start rigorously testing your assertions.

If you're not just trolling and actually give a shit about the issues you claim you are. I suggest you start reading what the upper echelons read.

The Economist
The Financial Times
The Wall Street Journal

There's always work for people willing to connect one more new whizbang thingy to the venerable old legacy thingy. That means swallowing the latest line of crap enough to understand how it works and applying the same old principles to connect it to the last 30 years' lines of crap.

At the moment that would mean pretending to think XML is cool and managing to emulate enthusiasm about using it to connect websites to TPF systems using J2EE appservers to fill in the gaping holes in that model.

In two years it will probably mean feigning bliss over tying an RFID system to an N1 stack through coreographed webservices using Jini to fill in the gaping holes in that model.

Two years after that it will be whatever replaces Java (and whatever DCOM/DNA/.NET is called by then).

Practice this over and over in a mirror until you can say it with a straight face: "We can leverage the synergies of our existing identity matrix and the XML based workflow engines to provide an improved ROI on our new TPF EAI POC."

That sentence will earn you $150k in the first year. ( That's a business k not 2^10 )

The article is here: Was the big trial a waste of time?

The executive summary, for those who don't want to take the time or spend the money to read it, goes as follows: The real benefit of the antitrust suit is not in the ruling, but that the trial itself aired all sorts of dirty laundry, causing both OEMs and consumers to grow more wary of Microsoft's behavior. People who used to trust Microsoft don't trust them any more. The failure of Passport and the new initiatives in many governments to adopt OSS only are two examples of how this mistrust has affected them.

I'm not trying to be a Polyanna here, but there has been a good bit of damage done to Microsoft by this case already, even if they get by without a penalty.

The trial Microsoft is facing in Europe is far from over, and it could potentialy be far more serious than the one in the US; the EU has a tradition of harsher antitrust measures. And in any case, Microsoft's legal victory does not necessarily mean much... Remember IBM, they won their trial, were declared unstoppable by most industry analists, and in the end lost out to Microsoft. The Economist's paper makes a convincing case for the IBM/MS comparison.

Wake me up when the US follows the rest of the world standards... oh wait I might as well be dead..

Wake me when W-CDMA actually works properly..

That's the problem when you legislate broken technology...

Not to defend the US mishmash, but we seem to be doing technically with 3G that we did technically with HDTV..

Is the US getting screwed because a BK Whopper costs more there than here? No, we just have cheaper beef, and a lower (but stronger) economy, so prices are less. It's good sense, and sensible economics.

Reminds me of the Big Mac index of The Economist. The US dollar is way over-valued. If you want a cheap Big Mac, buy it in Argentina.

This is kind of off-topic, but your mentioning of the BK Whopper reminded of something I heard on NPR.

On one of their programs, they talked about using the "Big Mac Index" as a means for analyzing a country's economy. Instead of using the value of gold or silver, they use the value of a Big Mac in a country as a determination of a country's economic status. They were able to predict pretty accurately. If I knew anything about economics, I would give you an example.

But like you stated, because there are too many factors that can go into the pricing of a Big Mac (e.g., cost of cattle, cost of shipping, cost of lettuce, ...) this model will never be taken seriously.

The Economist has an article about this.