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Don't put words into my mouth. There is certainly that range of books, the question is where the bible fits.

I think that you need to eloborate on your point. For example, the bible contains a large number of different styles of writing, calling some fiction is akin to calling this fiction: it doesn't make sense. Are you using bible as a shorthand to refer to the gospels?

Actually chimps do kill each other, they do seem to do it in tribal groups and it seems to be related to territorial claims. No one knows, or perhaps can know, the true reason behind it, although it does look similar to warfare.

A quick search here turned up plenty of information.

Actually chimps do kill each other, they do seem to do it in tribal groups and it seems to be related to territorial claims. No one knows, or perhaps can know, the true reason behind it, although it does look similar to warfare.

A quick search here turned up plenty of information.

Why waste money on employee benefits when you can reinvest in taking photos every 15m out here?

As someone who also lived in China for a few years (and is married to a Chinese woman) I agree. Chinese girls generally go through puberty much later than in Western countries, and you can have 17-18 year old girls who look 13-14. Since they begin developing later, that appearance of youth carries through. My wife constantly gets asked for ID and she turns 29 this month! When it comes to the gymnasts though, I think the Japanese gymnast Koko Tsurumi http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=koko+tsurumi&btnG=Search+Images looked the youngest out of all of them.

I recently sold my X360 due to all the noise it makes, however there's several other reasons I'm glad I've stuck with my PS3. (although I'm sure I'll be labelled the PS3 fanboy, surprise surprise)

Free wifi built in
Non proprietary hard disk, substantially cheaper to change over.
Free online service (slowly improving too)
No stupid timed demo releases (Xbox Live Gold vs Silver)
The standard 'official' MS headset had worse sound quality than a 4'rd party cheapo bluetooth headset on my PS3 (I was surprised too)
The PS3 virtually silent, the 360 is noisy WITHOUT a disc spinning due to noisy fans, let alone once a disc spins.
I can use a HDMI video cable and optical audio cable without needing to butcher cables or purchase some dopey dongle.
(See: http://www.chadledford.com/?p=50 and http://www.google.com.au/search?q=xbox%20360%20switches%20off%20changing%20inputs%20hdmi&hl=en&meta= (second hit)
RROD's!

The list could go on for ages, depending on how biased I am.
PS3 is far from flawless (bluetooth only remote? jesus!) but ultimately, I think the days of giving the PS3 shit are long since over, I am seeing fewer and fewer vehement Microsoft defenders bashing the PS3 nowadays and the 360 sales are starting to wane. I have a feeling these 2 will actually end up even in the end, unlike how it is now.

You got modded flamebait because your post was flamebait.

Check the moderation.

40% Flamebait
30% Informative
30% Overrated

In other words at least 3 people (and likely more) found what I said informative. It's just that jackass Apple fanboys like yourself can't fucking stand it when someone criticizes their pet company. It's pathetic. Truly pathetic. Happens every time I criticize Apple. It gets modded up then the zealots shoot it down. Grow the fuck up. Not every opinion that is contrary to yours is flamebait jackass.

You called the iphone technically inferior, said it is missing industry standard features, and implied that the only reason people buy it is because of brand loyalty (and that nothing can protect them from their stupidity).

Correct on technically inferior. Correct on missing DEFACTO standard features. Correction it's only this popular due to brand loyalty. If the same phone were sold by another company it wouldn't take off. I stand by what I said.

our main points weren't what got you modded flamebait. It was the fact that you didn't back any of them up. Is the iphone technically inferior? Is it missing 'industry standard' features? You didn't even bother to list the industry standard features it is missing. Are you lazy, or are you unable to back up your points? Back up your arguments with reality and you will do much better getting the mods to understand you.

Oh I'm sorry fuck for brains. I forgot that I was writing a thesis. Oh wait it's just an internet discussion. The irony of you calling me lazy (not even bothering to ask me for proof) is just sweet. Go google iPhone missing features. Too lazy? Look at my other followup posts. Too lazy? Pot. Kettle Black. Typical fanboy! Here then:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1849 [zdnet.com]
http://red66.com/2008/06/7-missing-features-from-the-iphone-3g/ [red66.com]
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=390
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=iphone+missing+features&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

Would you like a rag to wipe that egg off your face? Or are you going to spout some weak defensive garbage about those not being industry standard features, or not being important to most people. (Catch cry of the Apple fanboy, if Apple don't have it, it's not important)

Your final point is going to be hard to back up, because it goes against a lot of people's practical experience. I don't have an iPhone (because I prefer very small phones), but it does everything I need it to do well (make phone calls, check email), and it looks cool and is fun to use besides. Frankly I have no idea why you like the Nokia 6220 classic. I suppose it fits your needs, which is fine, but some people want something different.

I already have backed it up. My phone has features the iPhone doesn't. I didn't need to hook it into a computer to make outgoing calls (fucking lame!!! a phone that doesn't make calls out of the box, but needs to be hooked up to a computer!). I can send MMS. I can take pictures at 5 megapixel which will make the iPhones 2 megapixel pictures look like ASS. I can record video without "jailbreaking" the thing. I can send a fucking MMS. THAT is why I like it.

So, personally, since I like the iphone, and I am not caught up in brand loyalty, therefor it is going to be hard to convince me that everyone who has bought an iphone did it because of brand loyalty.

Not enough to buy it. You don't even own an iPhone and you're defending it! Looks like fun my left nut. Why don't you just buy a turtleneck, tattoo the Apple logo on your forehead and be done with it.

Because you come across as a man who isn't con

"It seemed clearly biased to me"

I did not see the show so I can't really give an opinion as to how biased the show you saw was. Since you haven't provided a link I don't even know if it was a BBC reporter, or just a independent doco broadcast by the BBC (a big difference there). Yes the BBC is biased against China's arms sales, it is also biased against UK arms sales, in fact I'd say the BBC is very biased against arms sales. Since the BBC is meant to report NEWS in the public interest then I think that bias is "good bias", arms dealers of course think of it as "bad bias" and nationalists think of it as "anti-(insert nation) bias".

"It is for money and/or some desire to point the finger; evidence of bias within the bbc.

Money from whom - the hippies? Let's assume your are correct and that the show you saw was totally biased against China for some reason. What you are now doing is letting your own bias see this one "anti-China" program as proof that the BBC is biased against China, but how do you explain the acticles in my links? What I am trying to say is that nobody can escape bias, you, me, the pope, nobody! However, there are some easy things you can do to check just what that bias is and how strong it is ( as I did with the BBC )....

1. Transparency: I am biased against China in respect to Tibet specifically because they will not let the BBC or any other media walk around and talk to people (same in Sudan). Please don't take offence to that, I was biased against my own govt. when they wouldn't let the media look around immigration detention centers.

2. Critical thinking: Is a skill. If you practice you will be able to spot some (but never all) of your own bias and maybe those of others. The beauty of an open web is you can jump around and get different views from different outlets on both sides of any fence allowing you to speak directly to a brain-washed westener such as myself.

BTW: Google news is an excellent source of different media from around the world. I have found China's news outlets much more informative than US papers when it comes to Isreal and the Palestinians. It's not because of what the US papers say, it's what they don't say. Same deal with China's press where Tibet and Sudan are involved.

Wtf is an ephebophile?

SatanicPuppy, let me introduce you to google. Using this tool you can appear all knowing.

Multitouch technology predates Microsoft's "research" by about 30 years.

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-4930199129876830943

Enjoy.

"There is nothing wrong with being a skeptic. I am skeptical as well that there is proof of man made global warming."

Skepticisim is at the core of the scientific method, it is a skill that is easily taught, often abused, and never fully mastered. I have been proud to label myself as such since "discovering" James Randi and Carl Sagan in the seventies. Sagan went on to write what I would consider a modern "bible" on the virtues of scepticisim - Demon Haunted World. However science provides evidence for concepts in the form of repeatable demonstrations, never proof.

"Australia uses coal because Australia has a lot of coal."

Yep and it's mostly the dirty brown stuff, it's all over the place - we even sent coals to Newcastle during the Thatcher years. Consequently there is a very powerfull coal lobby in Australia.

"I will simply state that I fail to understand is how standing stubbornly by the US has anything to do with your choice in energy?"

Our powerfull coal lobbyists are barely distinguishable from your powerfull coal lobbyists, so much so that at the most influential levels they are often the same people. They have very successfully moved the public argument to oil and rising oceans when the major threat is to food and it's coming first and foremost from coal. Blind support for the US stance on Kyoto and it's successor was a large part of John Howard's downfall in the last election, his blind support for TWOT was an even larger part of the battering his party took at the polls. From what I saw of UK politics I belive at least some of Tony Blair's unpopularity at home was also due to his emabrassingly obvious body language when he was kissing Bush's arse in public. These three leaders (two right-wingers and a lefty) dragged the world into Iraq and had no choice but to stick together on TWOT, simarly Howard got sticky with George on GW for other reasons.

During the last decade in particular, both the US and Australian government sponsered scientific institutions such as NOAA and CSIRO have contributed an enourmous wealth of knowledge on the subject despite political interference. At the same time Howard and Bush were calling for "more research" (in perfect mass media, trans-pacific synconisity) they were eliminating all refrences to "our home planet" in NASA's mission statement and gutting the budgets that had, for decades, been providing the research they were calling for.

"The problem is that unless China and India get on board and NO I am not willing to pay them off it really will make little difference."

True, however the UN climate summit at Bali demonstrated the only country that is still not on board is the US. The deal that US finally agreed to discuss after being deserted by Australia, shamed by PNG and boo'ed by the rest of the planet is known as the Brazilian proposal (the top link is to Melbourne Uni, a highly respected university in my home town).

As far as the fairness of obligations goes the general idea is a cap and trade system that attempts to allocate the same amount of GHG on a per-captia basis to each person on Earth between (IIRC) 1960-2060 this creates different emmision curves for different nations but the curves are planned to merge together ~2030. Having said that I am not a fan of everything in the proposal (in particular offsets based on land use), I also recognise that no treaty will please everyone or be immune from creative accounting.

"At the same time I am all for cutting CO2 just because I don't think that it can hurt and it may hel

All good advice.

However - I thought being an introvert was about drawing energy from themselves, rather than others. Introvert Defined

Scared to go outside or exercise in front of people is self conscious or shy.

They stored it on 72,817,778 floppy disks.

> 8x9800gx2s donated by NVIDIA.

I wonder how many BSODFLOPS (Blue screens of death per second) it can generate? ;)

http://byronmiller.typepad.com/byronmiller/2005/10/stupid_windows_.html http://www.google.com.au/search?q=nvidia+'blue+screen+of+death'+nv4_disp

For the rest of the world, that's 1.93 x 10^14 km.
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=120+trillion+miles+in+kilometres

I had always given Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. That they weren't really all that bad, just unusually incompetent and maybe a bit greedy with a touch of power-hungry. Now I'm fully convinced that there is some kind of rotten fucking evil permeating that organization.

I went through this transition, now comes the powerlessness associated with knowing there is little you can do stop them, none of your friends will even understand this - of course, where you can you try to fight the man, the man will eventually bludgeon you into submission.

The sad reality is that the market will slowly be corralled into accepting Vista and all the requisite DRM baggage that it carries. The key here is that the frog is heated very slowly in the pot and the market will accept, like sheep, what is fed to them. Of course the ardent Microsoft supporters will say Vista ain't so bad, and sure their products are nice to work with, but they are also a nightmare of interoperability when you try and work with anything else.

I don't want to encourage purchase of their products because when you dig deeper into the behavior of Microsoft the 'evil' conclusion is consistently reinforced. A corporation has the same legal rights as an individual in society it begs the question "What sort of individual is Microsoft", I found this and made the comparison.

HOW TO SPOT A PSYCHOPATH - 5 WAYS TO AVOID HIRING PSYCHOPATHS COPYRIGHT 2008 MICHAEL MERCER, PH.D.

1. Pre-Employment Tests - especially certain test scores

From my research on pre-employment tests, there are specific test scores that may indicate a job applicant is a psychopath. Specifically, psychopaths may get low or high scores on certain measures/scales in pre-employment tests:

* low scores on two measures - (a) Truthfulness and (b) Following Rules

Check , Check

* high scores on two measures - (a) Aggressiveness and (b) Power Motivation

Check, Check

Lesson: Be cautious with job applicants who get such scores on pre-employment tests.

2. Job Interviews

If you suspect a job applicant may be a psychopath, then you can ask questions to elicit answers revealing if the applicant threatens or intimidates people. Reason: Psychopaths get a huge thrill from intimidating through (a) real or implied threats, (b) verbal hostility, and (c) manipulation.

threats, hostility, manipulation, manipulation, manipulation.

3. Reference Checks

Call the job applicant's ex-bosses at home, and ask for a "personal reference." Obtain specific examples of how the applicant "handled difficulties and friction with other employees." Listen for warning signs of threats, intimidation, anger, or ridicule.

intimidation, anger,

I had always given Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. That they weren't really all that bad, just unusually incompetent and maybe a bit greedy with a touch of power-hungry. Now I'm fully convinced that there is some kind of rotten fucking evil permeating that organization.

I went through this transition, now comes the powerlessness associated with knowing there is little you can do stop them, none of your friends will even understand this - of course, where you can you try to fight the man, the man will eventually bludgeon you into submission.

The sad reality is that the market will slowly be corralled into accepting Vista and all the requisite DRM baggage that it carries. The key here is that the frog is heated very slowly in the pot and the market will accept, like sheep, what is fed to them. Of course the ardent Microsoft supporters will say Vista ain't so bad, and sure their products are nice to work with, but they are also a nightmare of interoperability when you try and work with anything else.

I don't want to encourage purchase of their products because when you dig deeper into the behavior of Microsoft the 'evil' conclusion is consistently reinforced. A corporation has the same legal rights as an individual in society it begs the question "What sort of individual is Microsoft", I found this and made the comparison.

HOW TO SPOT A PSYCHOPATH - 5 WAYS TO AVOID HIRING PSYCHOPATHS COPYRIGHT 2008 MICHAEL MERCER, PH.D.

1. Pre-Employment Tests - especially certain test scores

From my research on pre-employment tests, there are specific test scores that may indicate a job applicant is a psychopath. Specifically, psychopaths may get low or high scores on certain measures/scales in pre-employment tests:

* low scores on two measures - (a) Truthfulness and (b) Following Rules

Check , Check

* high scores on two measures - (a) Aggressiveness and (b) Power Motivation

Check, Check

Lesson: Be cautious with job applicants who get such scores on pre-employment tests.

2. Job Interviews

If you suspect a job applicant may be a psychopath, then you can ask questions to elicit answers revealing if the applicant threatens or intimidates people. Reason: Psychopaths get a huge thrill from intimidating through (a) real or implied threats, (b) verbal hostility, and (c) manipulation.

threats, hostility, manipulation, manipulation, manipulation.

3. Reference Checks

Call the job applicant's ex-bosses at home, and ask for a "personal reference." Obtain specific examples of how the applicant "handled difficulties and friction with other employees." Listen for warning signs of threats, intimidation, anger, or ridicule.

intimidation, anger,

I'm not saying it is right that young white males have to pay when nobody else seems to. I think that everyone should (and in the west can) have the opportunity to get a tertiary education and IMHO educating people while they are tied down with small kids is an effcient way of doing it. The question in my mind about the US is not "why should single mums get support" it is "why is it so hard for single white males".

Here in Australia we have had substantial govt. support for merit based tertiary education for ~20yrs now, you're required to pay about 1/4 of you govt funded degree back to the govt through an increased income tax that kicks in once you start earning money in the workforce. I went to uni as a mature age student under this scheme in the late 80's, my tax returns since then demonstrate it was a good investment for both myself and the govt. I understand that others may have pissed those opportunities away and may never return anything to society (financial or otherwise), but I don't know how you can weed these people out if it's true that they don't need to show progress (ie:pass), especially before the fact.

Coincidently I once lived and worked on a sawmill near Cann River (circa 80-81) and now live in Melbourne. The local school near the sawmill would simply close when there were less than 5 kids amoungst the workers/farmers families. :o

"Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term 'fuel efficiency' with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets 100km/l. Called the One-Liter, because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers, the body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight and the One-Liter makes extensive use of magnesium, titanium and aluminum so the entire vehicle weighs in at 300 kg. Aerodynamics plays a big role in its fuel economy, so the car is long and low, coming in at 3.5 metres long, 1.2 metres wide and 1 metre tall with a coefficient of drag of 0.16, a little more than half that of an average car. The One-Liter could have a sticker price of anywhere from $31,750 to $47,622, and VW plans to build a limited number in 2010."

"Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term 'fuel efficiency' with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets 100km/l. Called the One-Liter, because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers, the body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight and the One-Liter makes extensive use of magnesium, titanium and aluminum so the entire vehicle weighs in at 300 kg. Aerodynamics plays a big role in its fuel economy, so the car is long and low, coming in at 3.5 metres long, 1.2 metres wide and 1 metre tall with a coefficient of drag of 0.16, a little more than half that of an average car. The One-Liter could have a sticker price of anywhere from $31,750 to $47,622, and VW plans to build a limited number in 2010."

"Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term 'fuel efficiency' with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets 100km/l. Called the One-Liter, because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers, the body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight and the One-Liter makes extensive use of magnesium, titanium and aluminum so the entire vehicle weighs in at 300 kg. Aerodynamics plays a big role in its fuel economy, so the car is long and low, coming in at 3.5 metres long, 1.2 metres wide and 1 metre tall with a coefficient of drag of 0.16, a little more than half that of an average car. The One-Liter could have a sticker price of anywhere from $31,750 to $47,622, and VW plans to build a limited number in 2010."

"Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term 'fuel efficiency' with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets 100km/l. Called the One-Liter, because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers, the body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight and the One-Liter makes extensive use of magnesium, titanium and aluminum so the entire vehicle weighs in at 300 kg. Aerodynamics plays a big role in its fuel economy, so the car is long and low, coming in at 3.5 metres long, 1.2 metres wide and 1 metre tall with a coefficient of drag of 0.16, a little more than half that of an average car. The One-Liter could have a sticker price of anywhere from $31,750 to $47,622, and VW plans to build a limited number in 2010."

"Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term 'fuel efficiency' with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets 100km/l. Called the One-Liter, because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers, the body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight and the One-Liter makes extensive use of magnesium, titanium and aluminum so the entire vehicle weighs in at 300 kg. Aerodynamics plays a big role in its fuel economy, so the car is long and low, coming in at 3.5 metres long, 1.2 metres wide and 1 metre tall with a coefficient of drag of 0.16, a little more than half that of an average car. The One-Liter could have a sticker price of anywhere from $31,750 to $47,622, and VW plans to build a limited number in 2010."

What's a Google? Around 10^100
What's a Yahoo!? A crude or boorish person.
What's a WinAmp? Some sort of political blog.
What's a Slashdot? HALTING ERROR
What's a Firefox? A group of crop circle enthusiasts.
What's an eBay? An employment agency.
What's a NewEgg? Another political forum, this one invite only.
What's a Lightwave? Some sort of fan-fic blog.
What's a Nero? Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar) was born in 37 A.D. and died in 68 A.D. (pp. 154)
What's an Outlook Express? Some sort of torture device.
What's a Visual Studio? A far more subtle tourture device.
What's an AutoCAD? An employment agency.

Really, you're on the net, there's no excuse for not knowing this stuff.

I think the Deep Belief Networks of Hinton et al are way ahead of Numenta.. in that they are real science with measurable results that has been reproduced by multiple implementations. The 2006 paper that started it all and Hinton's presentation on google video:

http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~ywteh/research/ebm/nc2006.pdf
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=228784531481853811

A formal analysis:

http://www.cs.utoronto.ca/~ilya/pubs/2007/inf_deep_net_utml.pdf

Application to natural language processing:

http://www.cs.swarthmore.edu/~meeden/cs81/s08/DahlLaTouche.pdf
http://www.machinelearning.org/proceedings/icml2007/papers/425.pdf

Reproducing Hinton and extension to and evaluation in other domains:

http://www.machinelearning.org/proceedings/icml2007/papers/331.pdf

Use in Computer animation of facial expressions:

http://aclab.ca/users/josh/downloads/pubs/23_Susskind_Hinton_Movellan_Anderson.pdf

Most impressive:

http://www.cs.utoronto.ca/~ilya/pubs/2007/aistats_multilayered.pdf

A C++ implementation (although it has much Python love):

http://plearn.berlios.de/

So yeah, there's some pretty good demonstrations of how powerful DBNs are.. Numenta is lagging behind.

"maybe piss does too" ------------ Nah, that is good for cleaning up diesel exhausts http://www.autoblog.com/2008/03/13/mercedes-benz-launching-urea-injected-diesel-suvs-this-fall/ http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=urea+diesel&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

"I'll go with waiting for science to get all the facts right and remove political/personal agendas."

Assuming you are serious, what is your definition for "facts" and how will you know when you have ALL of them?

I mean there are 11,000+ google scholar hits for papers using or citing the SEAWIFS data set. I don't even see the paper referenced in either link let alone a credible understanding of the biosphere. This is not to say the paper is wrong, it's just that the spin in the article is making me dizzy and I want to vomit.

As you can see from all the amount of research using the SEAWIFS data set there is no need for you to wait. And that's just one data set, our collective knowledge of climate (and the biosphere in general) has exploded since the 80's and the only political/personal agendas you need remove are the ones that are stopping you from being a true skeptic and practicing the scientific method.

Unfortunately this means getting a basic grasp of the existing body of knowledge and evidence, if that's too much then you may find reputable blogs worth a try, especially for mythbusting.

BTW: Whoever modded you insightfull also does not understand the scientific method. Science will never "get all the facts", waiting for that oxymoronic event to occur implies either ignorance or some sort of political/personal agenda.

$ units "1.017e52 Hz h / c^2"
Definition: 74.978282 kg

"It wasn't too many years ago that companies felt some sort of obligation to the betterment of society."

Sorry but I have been paying attention for the best part of half a century, the only thing that has changed regarding corporate behaviour toward society is that Joe Sixpack now has vastly improved access to information about corporations and "rich man" tools to invest in them(stockmarket, bank loans, ect).

IMHO (and ignoring the Bush blip) "we the people" is more inclusive than ever. Some examples: here in Australia aborigines gained voting rights when I was in primary school, conscription ended when I was in high school, UHC statred when I started work, the Berlin wall came down when my kids were in primary school,...

As for TFA, people with buckets of money who band together (corporations) can do marvelous things for mankind (re: Magna Carta), however (part) owning a corporation is a bit like owning a pet elephant that shits gold bricks and likes to sleep on the couch. The proposed treaty is simply the wet dream of a handfull of US corporations who are struggling to stay relevant on a global scale. The best plan of action is to keep the authours of the imaginary treaty busy patting each other on the back. If they can be confined to their reality vacum long enough, eventually they will go broke. The representatives themselves are answerable to the people. Information such as in TFA helps "we the people" connect the dots between machevelian politicians and vested intrests.

Studies have found that children are more likely to do better in school if they believe that they're...well, better.

Er, no, that was a popular idea in the 60's but recent science has shown that as students grow up with false praise (to make them think they are better) eventually (early/pre-teens) they realize they're being lied to with counterproductive results including low self esteem and social problems. In the long term it's best to be perfectly honest; by all means praise specific accomplishments at but don't pretend they're doing well when they're not.

---

Stop using tab characters in your code!

You're assuming I had a CDROM, not in my 286 baby, not in my 286 :)
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=a220%20i5%20d1&hl=en&meta=

Your troll is about as mind-numbingly senseless as bouncing your head off a Koran and chanting "kill all infidels".

This particular "envirofacist" once supported a young family in the early 80's by working/living at an old growth sawmill in Australia. The logs from the trees we were cutting were up to 14' in diameter, I left the job becuse the forestry lease was running out and the area was to become a national park. We had some problems with people up trees, chained to dozers, ect, but they pale in comparison to professional "hippie hunters" who went and busted up protester camps.

BTW: I was implying the media (and it's readers) are generally lazy, not evil.

World Vision

Amnesty International

Etcetera

As a fellow old-fart I agree with your recollections. When in primary school I (and the other kids at school) thought Mao's "little red book" must have been banned because it was about sex..."you know....like that Indian sex book".

In the early 70's there was also a huge fuss about minature replicas of the statue of David, so even though....teenagers were bonking themselves silly with whoever would let them, young adults were choosing to 'live in sin', "collage girls" were setting fire to their undergarments,...it was still politically benificial to try and stop teenagers having sex by putting a fig leaf on David.

Last year I watched "American beauty" on TV, an excellent film that I had seen before on DVD. If it had been made a few decades earlier I don't think you would have seen it on 1970's TV. No matter what the time slot, it would have been despised by extremists on all sides for failing to adequately point out the line between "good and evil".

What experience I have had with genuinely abused people has taught me that on most occasions those who shout the loudest about punishing "sexual deviates" are often the ones who have the most to hide. Wether this behaviuor is driven by their subconsious after suffering abuse themselves or not, I don't know. However what these 'predators' are doing is diluting the seriousness of their own actions by associating them with draconian punishment for trivial or even normal behaviour. The guy who is responsible for the FUBAR'd sex-offenders list is one (very significant) example of the machiavellian rock spider.

Now excuse me, I feel a need to quaff an amber potion. :)

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=+bypassing+Software+Restriction+Policies&btnG=Search&meta=

In Fiji they introduced mongooses to eat the sugar-cane rats. Unfortunately they also ate the snakes that were the natural predators of rats. Then they started chowing down on the local native bird, frog, and lizard populations.

I asked it a question I got in a trivia contest - what countries have four-letter names? (There are 10, and google's first link is to a list of 'em)

Powerset's first response? "Fuck."

Funny, that was my response too, but at least I got 5 or 6 of them first...

I'm wondering how they'll keep the subjects from developing horrific bed sores (if you have the stomach check out http://images.google.com.au/images?q=bed+sores for just how bad they can get).

$5K/month is not worth it.

Happy hacking!

The diagonal measurement of TV tubes actually makes a lot of sense. For a start, tvs tubes were originally almost round anyway. But how do you measure the width and height of a screen in which the edges are curved? The manufacturer would naturally be measuring at the widest point, which is useless because the wider the curve, the bigger you could say the tv screen was. This would just encourage manufacturers to maintain large curves so that they could market tvs as having larger screens than they actually do. If you measure by the diagonal, then the best way to make the screen size bigger according to measurement whilst minimising the increase in area is to straighten the edges. Of course, you could cheat and give the edges a little concavivity*, but that would look silly and few people would buy it.
 
*I thought that I invented this word, but it turns out that at least three other people have used it before me!

"anyone misrepresenting their goods as yours"

That is the crux of it, google is not misrepresenting thier service as yours, the company who paid for the ad is doing the misrepresenting. Clause 6 of google's advertising terms and conditions as it pertains to trademarks is no different to what one would expect to find when taking out an advert in print, TV or radio.

In your example google acted as I would expect any other responsible adverstising service to act and helped you to police your trademark when they were notified of the deception, in your own words you were glad they had such a policy. I do sympathise with the situation you found yourself in but I think it's unrealistic to expect google or any other advertising service to police every trademark on the planet. I do however think it is reasonable for google to expect it's own customers to abide by the contract they signed when they placed the ad.

Okay, got some links that suggest passenger occupancy rate is ~1.13

• 1,
• 2,
• 3,
• and of course the search...

Fairly indicative of a misuse of vehicles. I'd doubt that they adjusted for tradesmen vehicles that only carry 2 people like the venerated ute and the like, but even with them being included, I'd hazard that the occupancy would not rise far past 2 people/vehicle.

As for being ugly, the main problem for the masses, isn't that it is ugly but that it is outside conventional expectation. I certainly don't think it is ugly, but my reaction was that it was impractical. Having thought a bit about my own use for vehicles, I'd say it is not truly impractical for me... but I can't help think that it would be. The vehicles that fit into the suv categories are almost always ugly, but fit into convention. Heck, most vehicles are effectively oblongs stacked together! That ain't pritty! The appeal is in the impression that they can be versitile as the boxes that inspired (heh) them. The second metric of beauty would be flowing lines, I reckon, which complements symetry.

Just to elaborate on the chaos/climate/weather thing.

The term chaotic is a description of how a system behaves mathematically, it has nothing to do with randomness. You can see a chaotic system at work in water coming out of a tap. Turn the tap on slowly utill there is a neat stream of water (clasical fluid dynamics), keep turning the tap very slowly, at some point the stream of water will become turbulent. The system is chaotic because a small change in the initial value (the valve opening) rapidly creates a large and unpredictable change in the behaviour of the stream.

Climate is not weather, it is the long term statistics of weather. (in the above example, climate is analogous to the rate water comes out of the tap)

Weather behaves in a (mathematically) chaotic manner since the accuracy of predictions deteriorates rapidly beyond a few days.

The climate is in a state of dynamic equilibrium and it's parameters can be predicted over much longer periods of time with much greater accuracy than the weatherman, yet they both use a similar forecasting models. What is programmed into the models are physical equations, the system that emerges behaves in a chaotic manner.

For example I can predict with a high degree of confidence that the average summer temp in the year 3000 will be higher than the average winter temp for the same year and location, the same would be true for a global average. A one degree change in average global temp over 100yrs is a significant trend and it seems to be enough to melt the Artic sea ice cap, yet a one degree change in the weather is imperceptible to most humans.

There is the idea of the climate hitting a "tipping point" that would see rapid change in climate in a (geologically) very short period of time before it settled into a new equilibrium. Going back to the tap analogy you can sometime see the water bounce between the smooth flow and turbulent states if you get the position of the tap just right, this is caused by minute changes in water preassure. From what I have read of paleoclimatology this scenario seems to have happened naturally in the distant past (ie: millions of years ago). In mathematical terms the different possible states of dynamic equilibrium are known as attractors.

Climatologists call the warming and cooling effects of various gasses and other phenomena "forcings", they can be positive(warm) or negative(cool). There is a excellent attribution graph here that describes the generally accepted estimates of these forcings.

As for chaotic systems being totally unpredictable this is absolute rubbish. The three body problem in physics is a chaotic system whose solution can only be approximated by numerical analysis (as found in climate models). Solutions to the three body problem are used to plan the trajectory of space probes to such an exquisite degree of accuracy that NASA was able to poke the Cassini probe through the gaps in Saturn's rings, twice!

Note that I do not belive climate models are anywhere near the accuracy of NASA's solutions to the three body problem since there are feedbacks in the climate that we do not even begin to understand. However as I have shown with the three body problem, an imperfect model does not imply a useless model.

I really have no idea what they want to find out about me, they know I don't like them and that I like their recent predecesors even less (mainly because I'd rather be re-Neducated than incarcerated).

We had an "ideas summit" here on the weekend that "drew together the county's best and brightest". There was a sound bite from one of these people who looked remarkably like a 30 something bonghead, "We are here to imagine a better life for everyone.". A shudder went down my spine as the words fell out of his mouth like mollases, but then I thought...hmmm...maybe he is talking about free pot?

In reality amoungst the bongheads and myopic activists there were some pretty smart people attending, but predictably the ideas that got the most press were not new: "clean coal", "ditching the Queen", and "a bill of rights". Pity nobody came up with the idea of replacing Mick Keelty.

Forget the kangaroos. We have much .

Well well, you learn something new every day... I though it was odd that there was something good about buying petrol in Australia. Recently it's been as high as 156 cents/liter for 98 RON fuel, which works out (if Google's not lying to me) at $5.44/gallon. How does that compare? I seem to recall complaints a few years ago that the civilisation as we know it couldn't exist with petrol over $3/gallon...

Why not use google's gDay and receive tomorrow's search engine results today!

Yes you can with Google's http://www.google.com.au/gday