Slashdot Mirror

Or they'll blame it on Linux-users.

FORTUNATELY the Department of Homeland Security said they'll be monitoring Twitter until the olympics are over.

Maybe if Kevin Smith had less than 3.5oz liquids they can help him.

"We're from the government and we're here to help." -- SNL

E

We seem to experience negative aspects from both mainstream political ideologies in the US. For example, in the automotive industry there are things like the "jobs bank" where workers are paid to do more or less nothing. Then there are things like excess executive compensation, such as when the automotive company executives flew private jets to Congress to ask for a bailout. We need to free ourselves from these types of hindrances and allow innovation to happen on all fronts, lest we perish and be forgotten.

This is the same state in the Union that Out-Sourced the Governor's Mistress.

It's sad how many people completely fail to understand what insurance is and how it works.

I think when a group of top executives testify before Congress that they got paid bonuses to throw one in five insurance claims in the trash without looking at them, that pretty much gives you an idea of how insurance works...

Health care should NOT be a money making industry for investors. It sole goal should be making people healthy, NOT wealthy. If we were just paying "what it costs" to run the US health care system, we would only be paying about 19% of what we are paying now. That is without cutting the doctors actual yearly gross revenue.

Here is another fun little bit of former insurance company employees talking about their companies:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Health/story?id=7911195&page=1

The summary is *very* confusing. In fact, TFA is very confusing. From the first few paragraphs, it is easy to misinterpret the videos in question to be recordings of lectures, but that is not the case. After reading the whole article, it is clear that the courses under consideration require students to view movies, produced by some external content-provider, outside of the class. They watch the *whole* movie, not just a part, so educational use alone isn't enough to trigger fair use. (Otherwise we'd all just use photocopied textbooks)

When you buy a DVD, it has an implicit license to the conditions under which you can watch it (That FBI warning at the beginning indicating you can't show it to a large audience). To comply with copyright law, an "instructional" DVD which permits showing to an audience is required. I am only aware of this because our design course shows the Nightline "Deep Dive" video. If you look at the educational version (checkbox), it allows you to show to a group, but NOT to stream it. In order to stream the content, a difference license for the video would be required. I'm not sure how to get such a license right now, and this will be inconvenient for a few semesters worth of Bruins, but as demand for streamed instruction content grows, I'm sure viable licensing options will arise (as we have seen for music and popular video content).

People die driving;they don't die on the internets

People such as this girl would have to disagree... Except she can't, she's dead.

That said, communication in a reasonable manner should not be regulated, no.

We use mules, but they aren't cheap and require food and water.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7537174&page=1

You know what other path there is to barbarism? Spending yourself stupid

You saw that the total budget was $3.834 trillion dollars, right? With more than a trillion dollars of borrowed money? I'm not saying that this particular cut is necessarily a horrible way to reduce that problem by a fraction of a percent, but the irony in your post is just jaw-dropping.

Found the link!

Consumer Reports shows the issue with pumping brakes when the car is running out of control. And the fact you need to press the power button for 3 seconds on the Toyota. Also how other cars like a VW do put some logic in the system so that if the car brakes are favored over the engine.

"the cops are there merely to try to solve the crime and apprehend the criminal after the fact."

Yep, and when they try and apprehend someone in the wrong house they are much more likeley to blow your head off when they know everybody has a gun in the side draw. Sure it's your counrtry, your rules but be aware that there are plenty of societies where citizens can keep peace with their neighbours without the threat of armed retaliation.

It's a "when in Rome" situation, not many people want to live in a Somali style free for all and even less want to live in a N. Korea style big brother. I'm an Aussie and like the majority of people here I'm in favour of our gun laws, the majority in the US want to be able to own a handgun.

I don't see what the problem is, nobody is forcing a US citizen to put their family in danger of an accidental shooting. Darwininan selection is ruthless, offspring with "less fit" parents are at a disadvantage and there's nothing anyone can do about it, kids die in avoidable accidents all the time, here in Oz avoidable drownings are common.

And were derided as birthers for wanting to make sure he was in compliance with the Constitution.

Irrelevant. You made a claim which essentially said his personal life was ignored. That is false.

Nobody complained about GWB's dad before election or during his time in office?

Again, irrelevant. We are talking about Obama, not Bush.

Someone chooses to associate with someone for 20 years, someone they call their spiritual adviser, and now that person is off limits too?

I never said they were off limits. I said people were examining (extensively) who his pastor was. A pastor, being a spiritual adviser, is a very personal relationship. You made a claim which essentially said Obama's personal life was ignored. That is false.

Fox News did some digging on him, they are the lone "they" from the media as far as your statements above go. Where were the other media outlets? Virtually all of them gave him a pass as far as investigating just who he was. Why else would Tom Brokaw feel the need to say that we don't really know who Obama is AFTER he was elected if he was fully vetted beforehand?

Again, bullshit.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/DemocraticDebate/story?id=4443788&page=1
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/wright-dominated-news-coverage/
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8630.html
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/obamas_weatherman_connection.html
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2008/09/23/barack-obama-bill-ayers-stanley-kurtz-makes-connection
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/02/obama-birth-cer.html
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_birth_certificate/2009/07/22/238969.html

Even fucking Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/21/obamas-church-pushes-cont_n_92802.html

Anyone that did attempt to dig through his history was excoriated for it. Look at what people did to Joe the Plumber just for asking him a question that exposed more of Obama's real views than the Obama campaign really wanted the public to know. The media ran cover for him, even going so far as to completely make up stories that would make him more sympathetic (like the one about someone publicly threatening to harm/kill Obama at a McCain rally. The Secret Service investigated and found no such threat).

Again, irrelevant. You made a claim which essentially said Obama's personal life was ignored. That is false.

Regardless of the reaction or fallout from looking into his personal life, to try and say it wasn't widely scrutinized is an outright lie.

Well that's good news, because the American ones like to plant drugs as a practical joke.

Life begins at conception. Over 1/3 of all pregnancies end in miscarriage (medically: spontaneous abortion). Do we outlaw miscarriages?

Viability begins at 22 weeks. Any fetus cannot survive outside of the womb before then. For me, that's the cut off. Once the fetus can survive on it's own, it is it's own person.

That said I firmly believe that the rights of the woman supersede any supposed rights of the fetus up to birth. Once the baby is outside it's mother's body it has full rights.

I believe this way because once we start to define a point where the rights of the fetus supersede the rights of the woman then we have opened a huge can of worms. Recently a woman was forcibly detained at a hospital, and put on bed rest by court order. She was denied a second opinion, she was denied the ability to switch hospitals. Her baby died anyway. But because of the sweeping rights the court granted to the hospital this woman was still given a cesarean section - for a dead baby. A decision that will impact any future pregnancies she may have, may affect her future health, and can even affect her ability to get *health insurance*.

The woman should always maintain the right to self-determination, and self-sovereignty regardless of the state of her uterus. We already have precedent set by courts that you aren't required to give up your own kidney to save the life of your child - even if you are the only donor. There should be no difference in utero.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/International/pope-john-paul-whipped-belt/story?id=9674114

Apparently not.

The article from the "Orlando Sentinel" is just a bit slanted. Perhaps things aren't as bleak as that article and the summary suggest.

If we lose Constellation, it doesn't follow that the Manned Space Program is gone- just that we can't afford Constellation. See the Augustine Commission's report that claims that Constellation will only work if we give it another $3 billion a year. And this would have been for a program 5 years behind schedule, with no real test flights and several significant safety issues that haven't been resolved as of yet.

So what alternatives does the Obama administration have to look at? Well, as the article notes, Nasa will look at other heavy lift launch designs and come up with a plan to use one of those to replace the Ares V. As the Ares I was for Crew only, Nasa will look at the commercial launch vehicles such as the Dragon that we can use to ferry astronauts to the ISS and back. Nasa will get $200-300 million more a year to look at the new designs. This seems like a reasonable idea. We'll use commercial space services to lift the light stuff, and let NASA design the expensive, heavy lift vehicles.

The other point made in the article is that a new program won't be ready any time soon, implying that the new program would be starting from scratch. Given that Constellation wasn't going to be ready before 2017 at best, I'm not sure that we're going to lose any time we would have made up with Constellation. The other thing is that we won't be starting from scratch. Worst case, we start with the NLS review vehicle that NASA worked on back in 1993. Best case, we let those hard-working NASA engineers start with the DIRECT V3 proposal and get something up by 2015, a full 2 years before Ares would have been ready.

Presumably, we would also see John Edwards arrested for defrauding voters by lying about being that baby's father.

Are you saying that would be a good thing?

I would submit that free speech is better than "recourse". Now "free" means free for everyone, even people performing jobs at for-profit corporations.

It only has to stay up until 10:00PM...

it is the same disease, genius

Dr. Donald Henderson, an infectious disease expert at the University of Pittsburgh, called the observation of comparatively few swine flu cases among older adults "at least provisionally reassuring."

The H1N1 virus responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic continued to circulate in the population until 1957, when an H2N2 virus displaced it, he said.

"Thus, the first experience with influenza for most individuals born between 1918 and 1957 would have been with H1N1," he said. Those people are now between 52 and 91 years old.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineFluNews/story?id=7647943&page=1

so now that you've taken a brave stand against uneducated hysteria, will you be leveling any kind of disapproval at your brand of (just demonstrated) uneducated complacency?

small hint for you to think about: underreacting is more dangerous than overreacting with something like the possibility of lethal epidemics. because you can waste a lot of money if you overreact, yes. but you can waste a lot of LIVES if you underreact. get it?

But, but, Limbaugh lost 90 pounds!

From the link:

A survey team and several hundred water purification kits were on board.

Good job, getting people out of the rubble is obviously first priority, but many thousands more will die unless clean water is provided within a few days.

Although I'm agnostic myself, I have to commend the Christians of the world for their quick response. Except for Pat Robertson, who's quick response was, 'Haiti made a pact with the devil when they revolted against French rule, therefore, this is God's punishment." But then, that's what he always says, isn't it?

More or less

The inability to feel pain, which at first blush seems like a gift, is, in fact, a devastating disability. Every childhood milestone has become a new danger instead of a joy. That's because Gabby can't tell when she's hurting herself.

"She started cutting teeth and she had bit down through the skin. She would have bit down to the bone had I let her. It was just chewed up," Trish Gingras said.

"We decided to pull her teeth because she was mutilating her fingers," Steve Gingras said.

Learning to walk just made Gabby more vulnerable. By the time she was 2½, she had been injured and hospitalized multiple times. At age 2, Gabby broke her jaw and didn't know it until infection caused a fever. To treat the infection, she had to be on an IV medication for six weeks.

Her eyes were especially at risk.

"You'd look away for one second, you'd look back and she'd have her fingers in her eye," Steve Gingras said. "You're watching your child go blind right in front of you."

Her desperate parents tried restraints and then goggles. But by the time Gabby was 4, she needed to have her left eye removed. Her right eye was also damaged, and she wears a lens over it to help her see better. Although Gabby is legally blind with 20/200 eyesight, she can still see shapes.

And, of course, Nathan Fillion will likely also be involved in the next "Doctor Horrible" project. .

Taking a purely practical bent, you can get pretty far without Calculus. We're talking about enough knowledge to understand the statistics you commonly encounter in news articles, or to analyze the probability in dice and card games.

For instance, take a look at the Soccer Power Index Nate Silver made for ESPN. The math there is very simple, but it's derived from careful observations to figure out which of the available statistics give you the best predictive power.

• Buena Vista - http://www.fandango.com/GlobalSearch.aspx?repos=Movies&tab=Articles+Movies+People+Theaters+Video&q=3d&wssaffid=11828_MoviesDotCom&wssac=131
• MGM/ UA's - no results
• Walt Disney Pictures - http://disney.go.com/search/?q=3d&x=11&y=12
• Paramount Pictures - http://www.paramount.com/news/press-releases/paramount-pictures-star-trek-to-be-released-as-imax-movie-may-8-2009 (only scant 3d use in connection with imax)
• Twentieth Century Fox - Avatar

My main point is media companies seem to see 3d as some saviour giving a unique selling point whilst protecting demand (profit) from pirates.

http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/men-believed-northwest-airlines-plot-set-free/story?id=9434065

It certainly is stuff that matters. We heard enough around here about Gitmo when it was used against Bush. Let's continue to hear the truth today instead of falling pray to the media whore known as Slashdot.

I am not one to advocate socialism in any form, but capitalism only works when those who benefit from the system perform their social responsibility towards their employees and treat them right.

That IS socialism.

You're displaying your ignorance. Socialism is when the state controls the distribution of resources. If an employer decides to treat their employees right and pay them well, that's still capitalism because it is a private individual and not the government making the decision. You don't even seem to understand the basic thing that define socialism vs capitalism, that being state vs private ownership.

I've got a friend who was quite convinced that he was a socialist. He owned his own equipment and worked as a contractor. He was quite surprised to realise that he naturally turned to capitalism as a method of achieving his goals. He had though that because he wasn't materially greedy that he was a socialist, yet he didn't want the government determining his prices or the equipment he could own or the industry he worked in.

The primary argument against socialism always boils down to this: "Mine! I don't want to share!"

Nonsense. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2682730&page=1 Conservatives give on average 30% more than socialists. It would seem they believe in personal generosity rather than forced redistribution. Conservatives want to be generous with their own money. Socialists also want to be generous with conservative's money.

In my opinion, the system you advocate will eliminate personal generosity, breaking down the relationships that make us a society. You want to replace generosity between people with subservience to and dependence on the state.

When communism collapsed in the USSR, who took over? The black marketeers (capitalism was illegal). China, presumably learning by example, legalised capitalism so the current rulers could partake of it rather than being displaced by the illegal capitalists. Learn the lesson: the government will be controlled by the successful capitalists, regardless of political structure. This is the case in monarchies, dictatorships, democracies, socialist and capitalist economies. Legally or illegally it will be so. The proper response is to maximise the power of the individual at the expense of governments and corporations and to decentralise government power making access to a national system of corruption much more difficult.

The result you want is only to be had by implementing the exact opposite of the political system you propose.

In case you were genuinely interested:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/northwest-bomb-plot-planned-al-qaeda-yemen/story?id=9426085

After his confession, there's very little doubt that this guy's intention was to commit an act of terrorism. It was no "firecracker." Fortunately, all it did was burn the guy's nuts.

You're obviously not paying attention.

Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born radical Muslim cleric and member of Al Qaeda in Yemen, encouraged Hasan to do it. Both acted for ideological reasons, same as any terrorists.

From: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339&page=1

Other messages include questions, the official with access to the e-mails said, that include when is jihad appropriate, and whether it is permissible if there are innocents killed in a suicide attack.

"Hasan told Awlaki he couldn't wait to join him in the discussions they would having over non-alcoholic wine in the afterlife," the official said.

There's lots more there, but that's pretty indicative. Feel free to RTFA.

If you're still waiting for demonstration, you're being lazy or blind. This guy was a radical Muslim and a terrorist by any definition.

The team is always the problem, unless you're an Arkansas fan. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4583642

These guys were anything but idiots - one guy at AIG's small London office (which lost over $500 Billion!) walked away with over $280 million in salary and bonuses. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7045889&page=1

Is this guy part of the 60% interested in doing their job or is he part of the 40%?

Human SIGINT is flawed because they can easily be manipulated, compartmentalized and shut down when neccessary. You can also be relying on people who are flawed morally, intellectually, etc...

An Example

15 of the 19 hijackers fail to fill in visa documents properly in Saudi Arabia. Only six are interviewed. All 15 should have been denied entry to the US. [Washington Post, 10/22/02, ABC, 10/23/02] Two top Republican senators say if State Department personnel had merely followed the law, 9/11 would not have happened.[ AP, 12/18/02More]

At least 13 of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were never interviewed by U.S. consular officials before being granted visas to enter the United States, according to a congressional report issued yesterday. The finding contradicts previous assurances from the State Department that most of them had been thoroughly screened.

The General Accounting Office also found that, for 15 hijackers whose applications could be found, none had filled in the documents properly.

...

The GAO report found that all 15 of the hijackers from Saudi Arabia applied for visas in Jeddah or Riyadh; two others applied in their native United Arab Emirates. The remaining two, including ringleader Mohamed Atta, an Egyptian citizen, applied as "third-country" applicants in Berlin.

None of 18 separate visa applications by 15 of the hijackers was completed properly, the report said. Thirteen of the 15, who were from Saudi Arabia or UAE, were never interviewed before being approved for a visa, the report found. Investigators were unable to review the applications for four other hijackers, including Atta, because they were destroyed.

If you want to see the actual Visas of some 9/11 hijackers you can go here.

If you want to know why people with such obviously fraudulent Visa applications can get in to the country consider the testimony of J. Michael Springmann. He worked at the Jeddah consulate approving Visas and says he was occasionally overruled by the CIA. Remember that when Springmann was working there they weren't known as terrorists, they were still called freedom fighters.

Perhaps you're thinking of this 20/20 episode: The Age of Consent.

> > Are there any levels/frequencies of RF that are known to increase cancer rates?

> No, radio waves are non-ionizing.

> You might get cooked as in a microwave, but no cancer.

Cooking = damage. And the damage can increase the odds of cancer.

See:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7965380.stm
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CancerPreventionAndTreatment/story?id=7182731&page=1

Quote: "Esophageal cancer numbers rose in regions where people preferred their tea very hot, and dropped where tea was served at a cooler temperature. "

"But unlike booze and cigarettes, Malekzadeh said evidence in his study showed it's not the chemicals in the tea that matters. "

Unless those politics are such that you are likely to betray the government to a foreign government that you think has the "right" politics.

Unless you are Muslim?

Salute mah dog!!

"He got his beagle and he literally had somebody tailor a blue vest sweater for his beagle dog and made up epaulets, these Sea Org ranks in the Sea Organization," said Rathbun [27-years in Scientology & 'Inspector General'], referring to the religious order within the Church. "And he had four stripes put on, captain, for the dog. And he would bring the dog in. And if those guys didn't salute the dog, he would just viciously berate them and invalidate them."

Amy Scobee gave her account. "[Miscavige] comes with his dog, with a sweater, with commander stripes. And, the dog let out a little bark when she saw me. And, uh, David Miscavige said, you know ... 'You've got somethin' goin' on. Because sh ... she is detecting out ethics. And you have something going on.' I think what the dog was really saying is, you know, 'You look like the only halfway sane person to me. Help me outta this outfit.'"

Nope, definitely not a nutjob...

If everyone had always assumed that "it hasn't be done before so it must not be viable", we would still be eating raw meat from animals killed by our bare hands. Google wouldn't exist. Microsoft wouldn't exist. IBM wouldn't exist. Well, you get the idea...

More directly, I don't think the "weapons aboard ships in dock" problem is really the problem it's made out to be -- simply for the reason it's simple to solve. The reasons commercial ships didn't/don't carry weapons have little to do with the docking problem -- they have, for example, to do with more with insurance/safety concerns. However, there is some evidence this trade-off is changing. Notice the Maersk Alabama foiled a piracy attempt on November 18, 2009 because they DID change their security measures (such as including a "highly trained ex-military personnel"). I imagine the captain and the crew of the Alabama that day are glad that the owners didn't just say "Oh, there's nothing we can do to protect the ship, else it would have been done already. All people who claim otherwise are obviously vastly under estimating the problem".

No when you're using ChromeOS the way google describes it deployed on the ARM-based netbooks ... everything climatologically signed, and no unauthorized software, no local applications, not even an installed print driver; if the netbook detects tampering, it re-images itself "from the cloud."

That's a feature. It's supposed to make you feel safe.

From what I understand, it'll be possible to disable the check, with a "developer switch". After all, Google wants outside help with its open source OS. I can't find a source to cite right now, but why assume the worst?

Then make it so the end user can, too. As to "why assume the worst?" http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Business/story?id=1540568 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google

Gaak! Sorry for the Digg link.
Here is the actual article.

If you're interested in an example that you can pass out as information then here is a very well documented one: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=7567291&page=1

If you're looking for an argument you'll have to go elsewhere.

Steve Jobs can't possibly own a large piece of Psystar, the poor guy only receives $1/year in salary!

And is on Walt Disney's board of directors. With Disney's acquisition of Pixar Jobs became Disney's largest stockholder.

Falcon

but I have never, ever heard it as a racial slur before today, so if it has been one in the past, it sure hasn't been very common.

Alternative explanation: you haven't been paying the least bit of attention. Perhaps you should look up prior usage on Google. I'm finding plenty of citations.

Here here, my friend.

Stories like this are far too common. For the most part, the cops and prosecutors are trying to do a good job, but it doesn't help when defense lawyers and judges just make the jails a turnstill.

In a way it has been legislated that parents have to be helicopter parents. Example car seats. Car seats of are so much work and yet for children over 2, they are no better than seat belts. abcnews

So we need to stop believing(and legislating) everything about safety and health.

People. Slashdot. Senators (Joe Wilson?). Talk show hosts (non-conservative).

Regarding Joe Wilson, which was high profile... here's my view: Yes, he was definitely wrong and "out of decorum" or whatever. But he got a huge amount of backlash - plenty more than people got for saying the same things to and about Bush (not sure if it was on the floor though). So Wilson was wrong, I agree. And I'm a Republican.

But to say that Wilson told Obama that he was lying because Joe Wilson is a racist is absolutely ridiculous. Unless they know something that I don't know.

And there was the entire campaign where Obama himself referred to racism and that the Republican campaign was going to use it... before it occurred (I don't think it actually did occur, there are plenty of black conservatives, too!).

Jimmy Carter said it was racism, by the way.

Janeane Garofalo apparently said that the "tea parties" were about racism... on MSNBC.

ABC News has another one that implies death threats and violent threats - which I do NOT condone, but happen to every President - are racial. Not sure what they were with all the other Presidents.

Not sure why you'd bother to think that it's going to anything real, since the Fed seems to be ok with saving jobs and dumping money into DISTRICTS THAT DON'T EXIST.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jobs-saved-created-congressional-districts-exist/story?id=9097853

Guessed to be to the tune of $70+ BILLION so far.

"Change!" indeed. I think Boss Tweed would find that amusing. Daley might even be impressed.

Exclusive: Jobs 'Saved or Created' in Congressional Districts That Don't Exist http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jobs-saved-created-congressional-districts-exist/story?id=9097853

Amish ideas about education, children, women and covering things up by shunning victims are what made me use that example.

How about make-believe congressional districts!