Slashdot Mirror

At the risk of taking a joke seriously, "masonry" is a particularly apt analogy. Indeed, the arrays of oligonucleotides that were used to identify the RNA encoded by DNA (previously thought to be junk) are called "tiling arrays" because they comprise probes to contiguous regions on the DNA molecule (see the description here, at the bottom of the page). The Wikipedia entry doesn't really get to the heart of the tiling array advantage, which is it's agnostic, comprehensive, exhaustive approach to querying DNA transcripts. Previous arrays would only probe regions expected to contain protein-coding genes, for example, so they would not detect transcripts from other regions of the genome (the vast majority). Here is a free, full-text review of the novel challenges that such arrays pose for analysis.

As far as your #3 point, according to the Smithsonian Institution, piezoelectric crystals, and specifically quartz crystals can reach 95% efficiency in converting mechanical energy to electrical energy.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1984PhDT.........9E

The actual paper available as pdf http://www.cid.harvard.edu/bread/abstracts/150.htm

rohan972

Yahoo/Google FBI "Phil Zimmerman" investigation PGP [http://grep.law.harvard.edu/articles/03/06/06/144 1247.shtml]

The FBI, NSA ... need to practice and hone their investigative, interrogation, framing ... and other skills. It is the spun-patriotic duty of US citizens (like Hasan Elahi, Phil Zimmerman ... and others who may belong to EFF, ACLU ... and other anti-fascist patriots, attend DEFCON, 2600 ... and other technology conventions ..., and ...) to assist the FBI ... others at finding other stuff of possible TIA (not Thanks In Advance) interest to National Security.

I mean the name “Hasan Elahi” is an obvious stage-name for an FBI CoOp (like chicken-coop) instructor/professor that is providing training for folks. If it was a real issue ..., this is America, anyone could have their name legally changed to avoid being on a suspect list of potential criminals. The FBI (... and others) always hangout at technology conventions' with their friends (the attendees), monitor's anti-war peace organizations, because it is safe and plays well in the USA news media ... and other stuff .... I really appreciate all the assistance provided by folks ... and others to the FBI ... and others for all the real hands-on training they provide to the FBI ... and others on ... other stuff too. GOD BLESS all these great American patriots.

I bet, Hasan Elahi (whoever he really is) is a real good friend with Phil Zimmerman and they have many things in common with FBI agents ... and other ... all working together for a better America and a bright future with a “NewWorld” order, “Sieg Heil” over terror and fear.

History always repeats, because it is more fun the second time around and the one-line puns don't get forgotten before they can be used again.

Yahoo/Google FBI "Phil Zimmerman" investigation PGP [http://grep.law.harvard.edu/articles/03/06/06/144 1247.shtml]

The FBI, NSA ... need to practice and hone their investigative, interrogation, framing ... and other skills. It is the spun-patriotic duty of US citizens (like Hasan Elahi, Phil Zimmerman ... and others who may belong to EFF, ACLU ... and other anti-fascist patriots, attend DEFCON, 2600 ... and other technology conventions ..., and ...) to assist the FBI ... others at finding other stuff of possible TIA (not Thanks In Advance) interest to National Security.

I mean the name “Hasan Elahi” is an obvious stage-name for an FBI CoOp (like chicken-coop) instructor/professor that is providing training for folks. If it was a real issue ..., this is America, anyone could have their name legally changed to avoid being on a suspect list of potential criminals. The FBI (... and others) always hangout at technology conventions' with their friends (the attendees), monitor's anti-war peace organizations, because it is safe and plays well in the USA news media ... and other stuff .... I really appreciate all the assistance provided by folks ... and others to the FBI ... and others for all the real hands-on training they provide to the FBI ... and others on ... other stuff too. GOD BLESS all these great American patriots.

I bet, Hasan Elahi (whoever he really is) is a real good friend with Phil Zimmerman and they have many things in common with FBI agents ... and other ... all working together for a better America and a bright future with a “NewWorld” order, “Sieg Heil” over terror and fear.

History always repeats, because it is more fun the second time around and the one-line puns don't get forgotten before they can be used again.

Earlier this month there was a sobering article on Groklaw "3 CNET Reporters Will Sue HP Seeking Punitive Damages - What's That?" wherein PJ discussed privacy. She had this to say:

There's an interesting essay that I read as part of a course Berkman Center ran on privacy in cyberspace that said that our humanness actually depends on that kind of privacy. It's how we renew and are our true selves. The essay is still available in the readings for the course which are laudably still made available to the world, "Privacy Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life," by Janna Malamud Smith. One of the worst punishments is total surveillance, the essay points out, where you can't even go to the bathroom in privacy:

One way of beginning to understand privacy is by looking at what happens to people in extreme situations where it is absent. Recalling his time in Auschwitz, Primo Levi observed that "solitude in a Camp is more precious and rare than bread." Solitude is one state of privacy, and even amidst the overwhelming death, starvation, and horror of the camps, Levi knew he missed it.... Levi spent much of his life finding words for his camp experience. How, he wonders aloud in Survival in Auschwitz, do you describe "the demolition of a man," an offense for which "our language lacks words."...

Our function of privacy is to provide a safe space away from terror or other assaultive experiences. When you remove a person's ability to sequester herself, or intimate information about herself, you make her extremely vulnerable....

The totalitarian state watches everyone, but keeps its own plans secret. Privacy is seen as dangerous because it enhances resistance. Constantly spying and then confronting people with what are often petty transgressions is a way of maintaining social control and unnerving and disempowering opposition.... And even when one shakes real pursuers, it is often hard to rid oneself of the feeling of being watched -- which is why surveillance is an extremely powerful way to control people. The mind's tendency to still feel observed when alone... can be inhibiting. ... Feeling watched, but not knowing for sure, nor knowing if, when, or how the hostile surveyor may strike, people often become fearful, constricted, and distracted.

Earlier this month there was a sobering article on Groklaw "3 CNET Reporters Will Sue HP Seeking Punitive Damages - What's That?" wherein PJ discussed privacy. She had this to say:

There's an interesting essay that I read as part of a course Berkman Center ran on privacy in cyberspace that said that our humanness actually depends on that kind of privacy. It's how we renew and are our true selves. The essay is still available in the readings for the course which are laudably still made available to the world, "Privacy Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life," by Janna Malamud Smith. One of the worst punishments is total surveillance, the essay points out, where you can't even go to the bathroom in privacy:

One way of beginning to understand privacy is by looking at what happens to people in extreme situations where it is absent. Recalling his time in Auschwitz, Primo Levi observed that "solitude in a Camp is more precious and rare than bread." Solitude is one state of privacy, and even amidst the overwhelming death, starvation, and horror of the camps, Levi knew he missed it.... Levi spent much of his life finding words for his camp experience. How, he wonders aloud in Survival in Auschwitz, do you describe "the demolition of a man," an offense for which "our language lacks words."...

Our function of privacy is to provide a safe space away from terror or other assaultive experiences. When you remove a person's ability to sequester herself, or intimate information about herself, you make her extremely vulnerable....

The totalitarian state watches everyone, but keeps its own plans secret. Privacy is seen as dangerous because it enhances resistance. Constantly spying and then confronting people with what are often petty transgressions is a way of maintaining social control and unnerving and disempowering opposition.... And even when one shakes real pursuers, it is often hard to rid oneself of the feeling of being watched -- which is why surveillance is an extremely powerful way to control people. The mind's tendency to still feel observed when alone... can be inhibiting. ... Feeling watched, but not knowing for sure, nor knowing if, when, or how the hostile surveyor may strike, people often become fearful, constricted, and distracted.

Earlier this month there was a sobering article on Groklaw "3 CNET Reporters Will Sue HP Seeking Punitive Damages - What's That?" wherein PJ discussed privacy. She had this to say:

There's an interesting essay that I read as part of a course Berkman Center ran on privacy in cyberspace that said that our humanness actually depends on that kind of privacy. It's how we renew and are our true selves. The essay is still available in the readings for the course which are laudably still made available to the world, "Privacy Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life," by Janna Malamud Smith. One of the worst punishments is total surveillance, the essay points out, where you can't even go to the bathroom in privacy:

One way of beginning to understand privacy is by looking at what happens to people in extreme situations where it is absent. Recalling his time in Auschwitz, Primo Levi observed that "solitude in a Camp is more precious and rare than bread." Solitude is one state of privacy, and even amidst the overwhelming death, starvation, and horror of the camps, Levi knew he missed it.... Levi spent much of his life finding words for his camp experience. How, he wonders aloud in Survival in Auschwitz, do you describe "the demolition of a man," an offense for which "our language lacks words."...

Our function of privacy is to provide a safe space away from terror or other assaultive experiences. When you remove a person's ability to sequester herself, or intimate information about herself, you make her extremely vulnerable....

The totalitarian state watches everyone, but keeps its own plans secret. Privacy is seen as dangerous because it enhances resistance. Constantly spying and then confronting people with what are often petty transgressions is a way of maintaining social control and unnerving and disempowering opposition.... And even when one shakes real pursuers, it is often hard to rid oneself of the feeling of being watched -- which is why surveillance is an extremely powerful way to control people. The mind's tendency to still feel observed when alone... can be inhibiting. ... Feeling watched, but not knowing for sure, nor knowing if, when, or how the hostile surveyor may strike, people often become fearful, constricted, and distracted.

I did a similar study.

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/archive/blackhole .jpg

I have learned that past sky-high CO2 concentrations have been documented in peer-reviewed research journals. If we have hit peak oil, I doubt we will ever be able to reach these levels.

We find that CO2 emissions resulting from super-plume tectonics could have produced atmospheric CO2 levels from 3.7 to 14.7 times the modern pre-industrial value of 285 ppm.

This data is available from a variety of sources, with interesting commentary:

We are talking about carbon dioxide levels 6 to 10 times the present carbon dioxide level. When you have high amounts of carbon dioxide in an atmosphere up to a certain limit, which is considerably higher than it is now, the result is green plants grow very much better... And it is precisely at this time that the recovery from the first dinosaur extinction takes place. When the super plumes come and carbon dioxide increases, and the oxygen correspondingly increases as a result of photosynthesis... And yet the super plumes did not last forever and they started to die at the end of Cretaceous.... In any event, large dinosaurs really required to be living in an oxygen tent. An atmosphere in the neighborhood of 35 percent oxygen would be considerably more compatible with large dinosaurs than one in the neighborhood of 28. And so this suggested to me that this was perhaps a significant reason for the first dinosaur extinction, and probably one of the major factors in the second, the terminal dinosaur extinction, other than the birds. It also neatly tied together all of the really bizarre features about the Cretaceous... The Cretaceous is clearly a green house period as opposed to the present ice house that we have... Well, the rich carbon dioxide of course provides for a much greater biogenic diversity.

There is a great rejection of the global warming panic in the scientific community (it is unlikely that "big oil" funds have "bribed" so many faculty members of such prestigious universities, despite a smear campaign). Because of the tremendous expense of implementing Kyoto, should we pause in global warming remediation efforts that may border on the alarmist? It is not in any way difficult to find distinguished scientists who reject all calls for panic.

Sixty scientists call on Harper to revisit the science of global warming... If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.

I know you didn't mean that seriously, but I think you might be surprised how thin the foil has to be for light to pass through it. The quantity of interest is "skin depth". You can calculate it with the formula here, which uses several constants that are pretty easy to find:

frequency of visible light: 600 THz (source)
conductivity of aluminum: 3.8 x 10^7 siemens per meter (source)
permeability of free space: 1.3 x 10^(-7) weber per ampere meter (source)

I calculated that the skin depth of aluminum is 8 nanometers. This means that the thickness of aluminum needed to stop 99.9% of the light is one 400,000th of an inch. For comparison, this is 10,000 times thinner than the thinnest aluminum foil available from McMaster-Carr (it's a company that sells materials for scientific research, among other things). Since the atomic radius of aluminum is 125 pm, this foil would be only 250 atoms thick, and would still block 99.9% of the light.

By the way, if you've never used it, you should check out Google's calculator. It handles units for you, so it makes calculations like this really fast.

I worked for a long time on mainframes, and never heard of Richard Stallman or the GNU Manifesto during that time. Yet, I saw first hand how much easier it is to fix something if you've got the source code than not.

"Free Software [1] is the term coined by Richard Stallman in the 80s to denote programs whose sources are available to whoever receives a copy of the software and come with the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software."

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003dsa..confE..57C
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software

HE 1523-0901 is as you imply a very old star, but not a "first", since the first star would not have heavy elements. What the article says (for some reason I can only access the abstract, something's rotten over at ApJ) is that HE 1523-0901 was contaminated with mostly r-process elements.

Frebel &al's case is that since r-process element decay more quickly than those produced in by the s-process, this old star could only have been exposed to a few supernovae. And supernovae were very common back in those days since the high hydrogen concentration produced many heavy stars. The conclusion is thus that it formed just at the same time as the first supernovae, and those took place only a few million years after the first stars formed.

The r and s-processes are the two ways in which heavy elements are produced in core collapse supernovae (type 1b, 1c and 2).

The article: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007ApJ...660L.117F.

(Sorry for being a little incoherent, @todaysCupsOfCoffee == 0)

hopefully, Hughes Danbury Optical Systems will not get the contract this time around.

it's an abstract for a meeting (see http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AAS...209.3703J and http://www.aas.org/meetings/aas209/), so it was probably either a presentation or just a poster.

Reading through these comments, I was beginning to wonder whether anyone babbling about the panopticon had ever read Foucault, whose treatment of the Benthamist concept is at the heart of the faculty research working paper discussed by the article. Even if you haven't, your take is very close to a significant idea debated in the work (which also deals with issues of disciplines within "knowledge" and other fun topics).

A radio serialisation of Orwell's 1984 finished here the other night and I found myself listening again to the last few bleak installments. The premise of that extreme dystopian view is that you willingly forget everything while Big Brother remembers everything, and that sounds like exactly where the professor's half baked idea (400k PDF) would lead us in practice.

Please keep it all and more, so that idle process in some unimaginably rich future environment which finally gets far enough down the list of reincarnation candidates will have access to the maximum possible amount of data surviving from first time around, enough data that new process it spawns will be happy it is me.

Indeed. The best images are from the Chandra X-ray observatory. They have some animations here.

Indeed. The best images are from the Chandra X-ray observatory. They have some animations here.

Please Mr. Slashdot, stick to the computer stuff! There is nothing wrong (or even inaccurate) in the cited articles. The structure of the solar magnetic field is complex, and these simulations are probably going to help a lot in understanding them. Personally, I'm looking forward to reading their article ( http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007astro.ph..2604H ).

it is correct that a planet needs a conductive liquid rotating core to produce a magnetic field and mercury's density indicates that the core is composed of a large portion of iron and some sulfur http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUSM.P23A..01S

I think they're just confused with a different quote.

"The network interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/reagle/inet-qu otations-19990709.html

It not just China. Some things are filtered for Germany and France, also by eBay and Yahoo. University of Harvard pg about it http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/google/

Has anyone found their real science paper on the matter? I searched the usual suspects to no avail and I'm getting mildly annoyed that they'd make a press release without also releasing the scientific paper at the same time or earlier....

I don't doubt that they've done it, I'm just curious to find out how they came about it...

I do wish the LaTeX group could pull up their socks. Version 3 is being "worked on" (read: the mailing list occasionally has sparks of life), but the need for an underlying engine that does all of this properly seems clear to me.

Adding layers on top of LaTeX only goes so far, if the underlying engine has flaws. If TeX can't do kerning adequately any more, then fixes above it will simply be implementation-dependent - which is largely what happened when LaTex 2 broke down and splintered into a billion variants. LaTeX 2e was a hack to glue the splinters back on.

To be honest, if TeX could be brought up to speed on typesetting needs and font requirements, I think a lot of people would consider taking it up again. Modern wordprocessors suck at true DTP, are generally memory hogs, and demand significant horsepower from the machine to work at a decent speed. Demands on what can be produced have gone up, yes. Demands on flexibility and capability have gone up, yes. Demands on clippy have most definitely gone down.

While the Red Square nebula may well include dust and cooler material, many nebulae are observed to contain matter in the plasma state [Ref], and the material is moving through interstellar space which also contain significant amounts of plasma (ionized material).

Partially ionized plasmas, even less than 1% ionized, and containing dust and smaller grains will behave as a plasma, and will still be highly electrically conductive. For example, the F-ring of Saturn has been suggested to carry a "dust ring current"[Ref]

Dust and gas does not rule out a current through the plasma in a nebula, which is further supported by its morphology (hourglass shape), any observed synchrotron radiation (due to the acceleration of charged particles by electric fields through magnetic fields), and filamentation (pinched currents).

Regards,
Ian Tresman
plasma-universe.com

"you do know that 79% of the tax burden is carried by the top 20% of income earners, right?"

You mean those folks that hold the vast majority of the assets? Sure just cherry pick a single statistic from a single source and proclaim 'look what I know, you dip shits didn't know this did you, huh, huh?'. Look the issue here is just how out of balance things can get EITHER way before it breaks the system. The balance right now grossly favors those at the top of the economic food chain. If it continues to the point of breakdown just what do you think the fate of the top x% will be? In the end it is in everyones interest to not break the frickin system.

"Maybe for once we should stop being partisan"

Yea, thats rich, considering the drivel to from the "conservative" party I have listened with great restraint, and admittedly often with amusement, for most my life. Can you make a clear argument just using common sense instead of falling back on a single cherry picked statistic form BillO's list of "facts" to throw at a liberal---remember you have to use this word in with a dirty slur pretext or voice. Don't take this to mean I am a just another sheep in the Democratic flock, which in contrast to the Republican flock, is actually more like a herd of cats anyway. I will say I like many others are sick of the "good cop - bad cop" routine the two parties have used so successfully for so many years. So exactly whose drivel is it you like best? Oh thats right you like to quote the "fiducially conservative ones", hehehe, yea.

Wabi-Sabi
Matthew

read...

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2 007/20070206/default.htm

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f5e905ce-69d8-11db-952e-00 00779e2340.html

http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/povert y_and_inequality/index.html

http://www.chicagofed.org/economic_research_and_da ta/wp_abstract.cfm?pubsID=732

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03 interviewswolff.html

http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?st ory_id=7055911

http://ideas.repec.org/a/ecj/econjl/v112y2002i478p c68-c73.htm

http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2004/0704tilly .html

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18995

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB11418244330 8492484.html

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/71954e1a-ad43-11da-9643-00 00779e2340,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http% 3A%2F%2Fnews.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F71954e1a-ad43-11da -9643-0000779e2340.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fne weconomist.blogs.com%2Fnew_economist%2Fpoverty_and _inequality%2Findex.html

http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/

The stats for the US are unequivocal - the more guns around, the more likely you are to get killed.

You own a gun, it increases your risk of committing suicide. You have a gun around, it increases your risk of being murdered. Your live in a state where more people own guns, it increases your risk of being murdered - 7x higher in the most-gun-owning states as opposed to the least. You have guns around - your kids are more likely to be shot, or to shoot someone else.

This is a US phenomena - other countries can and do have higher rates of gun ownership and lower murder rates, the difference being that other countries also have stiffer gun control laws. But wackos seem to think its an inalienable right to own a gun, and they have an easy time getting them in the US than most other places, where if you want a gun, you can go to the corner store, or steal one from a neighbour, or buy one off a friendly gas-station attendant or barman, no questions asked "for your protection". The easy availability of guns to the general populace is a crime, not a "right".

BOOK: Hemenway, David. "Private Guns and Public Health" Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2004. This book summarizes the literature on the relationship between guns and injuries and describes the public health approach to reducing firearm-related violence. More information at the University of Michigan Press website: http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=1 7530

A: HOMICIDE

1. Guns and homicide (literature review).
We performed a review of the academic literature on the effects of gun availability on homicide rates.
Major Findings: A broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.
Publication: Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. "Firearm Availability and Homicide: A Review of the Literature." Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40.

2. Gun availability and state homicide rates, 1988-1997
Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten year period.
Major findings: After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.
Publication: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. "Household Firearm Ownership Levels and Homicide Rates across U.S. Regions and States, 1988-1997." American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993.

3. Gun availability and state homicide rates, 2001-2003
Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003.
Major Findings: States with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty). There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide.
Submission: Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. “Homicide Victimization of Americans in Relation to Household Firearm Ownership, by Age and

Here you go: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/Firearms.htm 1. Guns and homicide (literature review). We performed a review of the academic literature on the effects of gun availability on homicide rates. Major Findings: A broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide. In other words, owning a gun makes you more likely to be killed by a gun ... 2. Gun availability and state homicide rates, 1988-1997 Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten year period. Major findings: After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide. In other words, the more people "packing heat" in your state, the more likely you'll be shot to death 3. Gun availability and state homicide rates, 2001-2003 Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003. Major Findings: States with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide. This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty). There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide. A gun in the house means you're more likely to kill yourself or someone is more likely to kill you. Srolling down, we come to this: RECENT FIREARMS RESEARCH Harvard Injury Control Research Center 2001-2006 Firearms Research Archive 1990-1998 Firearms Research Archive 1998-2003 Firearms Research Archive 2004-2005 The Firearm Research Center: David Hemenway, Matthew Miller, Deborah Azrael, Beth Molnar, and Lisa Hepburn Funded by the Joyce Foundation (unpublished material is not to be cited w/o approval of authors) BOOK: Hemenway, David. "Private Guns and Public Health" Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2004. This book summarizes the literature on the relationship between guns and injuries and describes the public health approach to reducing firearm-related violence. More information at the University of Michigan Press website: http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=1 7530 ARTICLES: I GUNS AND DEATH A: HOMICIDE 1. Guns and homicide (literature review). We performed a review of the academic literature on the effects of gun availability on homicide rates. Major Findings: A broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide. Publication: Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. "Firearm Availability and Homicide: A Review of the Literature." Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40. 2. Gun availability and state homicide rates, 1988-1997 Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten year period. Major findings: After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide. Publi

You clearly have not been grasping how "intellectual property" is different from real property (real estate in your example), so I will give you a topline explanation of how they're different. So-called intellectual property refers to a limited period of time granted by the government to a content creator during which they have exclusive distribution rights to profit from an idea. This is in stark contrast to real estate where one legal entity retains control over a defined piece of property which can not be held by any other legal entity while they possess it. Their ownership persists forever unless it is transferred to another entity via some transaction, such as a sale.

Thus, the two are really not similar at all because one resource is limited in nature and your taking of it deprives it from another, whereas something like ROMS is a completely legitimate way of compensating a multitude of artists for their work. So legitimate in fact, that even the U.S. has a similar regime for radio. You will probably ignore all of this anyway, but I figured I should write it for you in the off-chance that you might actually care. For a more in-depth explanation of the abstraction of intellectual property from real property, give this book a read-through.

The albedo of the desert is some 40%, meaning that 40% of incoming sunlight is reflected back into space. In order to cool the desert, your solar cell needs to have greater than 40% efficiency, after transmission of electricity away from the desert is taken into account.

A realistic solar farm is not going to cool the desert. Quite the contrary; by plating large areas with black panelling, it will heat the place up quite substantially.

This is an obvious attack against the BoA authentication system. Anybody with basic knowledge of networking, authentication systems and phishing
methods should be able to figure out almost immediately how to defeat this system.

At first, I myself was also very critical of BoA's new anti-phishing technique. However, after some more careful consideration, I realized it is very arrogant for somebody to think that BoA's security team did not think of this problem themselves. Unlike security researchers (including moi), which usually try to create bulletproof security systems so they can right interesting papers with indisputable arguments, financial organizations are constrained by the very real issue of cost-efficiency.

Their current two-step authentication does not address the obvious MITM attack discussed here, but it does address the previously seen phishing attacks. BoA's security team must have figured out that it would cost them X amounts of money to defend against classic phishing attacks and by preventing those they would save Y money. They must have also considered solutions like the ones presented in http://people.deas.harvard.edu/~rachna/papers/secu rityskins.pdf, which uses http://en.wikipoaedia.org/wiki/Secure_remote_passw ord_protocol and must have realized that this would cost them a W amount of money. Note that such a solution would require BoA to create new SSL protocols that would have to be installed on the client machines, not only their own servers. Also note, that such a solution is not stupid-user-proof either. However, we can safely say that W > X (perhaps even W >> X).

By using such a solution they could perhaps save Z > Y amounts of money because much less users would fall victims to phishing attacks. It is very likely that they did the math. Because they chose to go with the current solution, it is very likely that Y-X > Z-W

The only thing that BoA should perhaps correct is the statement:
"If you recognize your SiteKey, you'll know for sure that you
are at the valid Bank of America site. Confirming your SiteKey is
also how you'll know that it's safe to enter your Passcode and click the Sign In button."

This is over-claiming and could have a harmful impact by making its web users dropping their defenses against phishing. I am sure however that their marketing dpt told them that they need to advertise this security feature as completely robust, otherwise users would feel that they are going through unnecessary trouble: "if BoA's system is still insecure, why did BoA bother changing it and why do I need to incur the delay to learn it and enter login information twice?"

Disclaimer: I do not work for BoA and I have no vested interest in supporting them. In fact, I hate their guts for their penalty fees policies :)

You and Laaserboy had a previous discussion regarding blue LEDs and SiC LEDs in particular. Given the academic credentials of Laaserboy, aka David Andrew Kellogg, it is odd that he seems to deny the existence of SiC blue LEDs. As you say, Cree Inc. does sell SiC blue LEDs.

And in the BNet case, the state court and US court of appeals determined that Blizzard EULA constitutes a valid enforcable contract.

That is kind of true. As per an EFF press release (biased source, but not given to lying) "The court held that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibited the reverse engineering needed to create the program and that "click-wrap" and "browse-wrap" licenses are enforceable to prevent reverse engineering."

The fact is that the DMCA contains text intended to protect reverse engineering: "Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title." The act goes on to say specifically that you may utilize technological means to defeat such protections, and that you may disseminate information gained through reverse engineering for the purposes of interoperability.

In other words, the judge acted in direct contravention of the DMCA in delivering that decision. It is plainly and simply a bad decision, and you don't even have to be a lawyer to understand the DMCA sufficiently to make that analysis.

Using the DMCA to prevent distribution of a tool to strip CSS is an example of proper application of the law (as bad as the law is, this is something the DMCA is for.) Using it to prevent reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability is precisely the opposite of what was intended to happen, and the judge should be stripped of his robes. Period.

There is now overwhelming evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was Global, and much wider temperature anomolies were normal. This evidence discredits the global warming panickers who lied in attempts to bolster up their failing science. A lot of time and trouble has been spent to prove this which would have been better spent helping humanity.

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.24/01-w eather.html

Moral rights have no place in this area of law.

Ah, there's some confusion here.

"Moral rights" is in this case a legal term, a translation of the French term "droit moral," refering to legal rights of creators regarding personal and reputational value of a work.

No, experimental use is only a defense if the alleged infringer's use was either for his amusement, to satisfy idle curiosity, or for strictly philosophical inquiry; and did not further the alleged infringer's legitimate business. Non-commercial research by a university has already been held to be a furtherance of legitimate business, and thus it is not covered by the defense. See Madey v. Duke.

The crap that gets modded insightful around here... I'm not saying you're an idiot.... but, OK, I am saying it. You are an idiot.

Here's a reading comprehension test:

Africa's climate is different from Asia's climate is different from Europe's climate. They all have differing amounts of sunlight and rainfall and vegetation and animals, which lead, over time, to different evolutionary adaptations to maximize the organism's efficiency of living in THAT particular place.

Africans with dark skin (IN GENERAL) need more sunlight to manufacture Vitamin D than northern Europeans with light skin because... they usually got more based on where they live. That isn't why they have dark skin, but it is a consequence of having it.
http://www.psoriasiscafe.org/vitamin-d.htm

Sickle cell anemia (also very prevalent in Africans) is an evolutionary adaptation to minimize the risks for the populace associated with malaria.
http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/malaria_sickle.html

There are probably very similar changes that have happened in Northern Europeans and Asians in general to adapt to their particular environments, but I am unaware of them. I would be interested in knowing them, so please respond.

I know this is bitchy, but Jesus. You do NOT understand evolution.

Evolution happens. It happens on such a massive timescale that we cannot actually observe evolution in humans itself, but we can observe it in other species and infer from them what has happened to us. Even very minor differences over hundreds of thousands of years can result in observable changes in minor things like skin and hair colour.

I do not want to be construed as racist. I am definitely not. It is true that in general, individual humans have far more similarities than differences, but populaces separated by geography CAN have vast biological differences that affect them, and those differences that we see are just indicators of the ones we cannot.

It doesn't mean a thing at all in your day to day life, but it is real, and it is not magic.

I think Viacom beat you to it.

That's definitely not true. Not sure where this sort of thing comes from.

From this page everything becomes limpid: http://www.siel.harvard.edu/2003/about/tour/classr ooms/maxw.jsp : "The Maxwell Dworkin building was built with funds donated by Microsoft Chairman William H. Gates III and Microsoft President Steven A. Ballmer, both members of the Class of 1977, in memory of their mothers, Mary Maxwell Gates and Beatrice Dworkin Ballmer. Maxwell Dworkin building opened in 1999 and, with its extensive office and laboratory space, will allow Harvard to double the size of its computer science faculty over the next several years."

NIAC has been involved in looking at much larger space and lunar based telescopes. With much of the on the books missions now already off the books, one could see why planning for the future would be getting a lower priority. If you're not really planning on flying the missions you've already spent money on, why dream up new ones. NIAC has also been involved in evaluating some pretty novel propulsion systems as well. Here are a couple http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AIPC..699..553M and http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/mmb/ antimatter_spaceship.html.
--
Aim for the Sun: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Wendy Seltzer was our pro-bono, FSF-appointed attorney for a few years when we were investigating a commercial company (not intentionally linked here, they don't deserve the hits) for using our GPL code without complying with the license.

All we wanted, was for them to bring themselves into compliance... and they insisted that they were, and we were wrong, and that the GPL was "...subject to interpretation". So we contacted the FSF and they gave us Wendy. It's been a few years now, and we never really got final closure on the situation, so I'm not sure where it stands at this point. (past copyright infringement does not just vanish if you stop violating it in the present, however).

I have collaborated with Wendy over numerous dozens of emails and personally met her to sit down with the CEO of aforementioned alleged-infringing company in New York, and I can say that she really knows her field. I'm happy that she's doing good things for the EFF, they need someone of her skillset on-staff.

I have nothing but praise for her abilities and her skills. She was a brick wall between our project and the commercial company who tried to threaten us many times with their millions of dollars of investor money to try to silence us.

If Wendy is on your side, it's a good thing. It's where she shines the best.

Wendy Seltzer is absolutely right. Her job ( as an academic lawyer involves comment on legal issues, and a corporation tried to stop her freely commenting on just such an issue because they didn't like the implied criticism. Normally when a lawyer stands up to the rich and powerful we cheer, not sneer. Dear astroturfers, football in all its varieties around the world thrives on corruption and dodgy business. No matter on what scale, people who try to clean up sport are working in the public interest. So now go back to your sad little PR jobs and fuck off, please

There's already a lot of International co-operation in space R&D. Take for example the Australian satellite Fedsat. Bus design by SIL of the UK, completed and re-engineered by Auspace in Australia, Star Camera from Stellenbosch in South Africa, Attitude Control System by Dynacon Canada, GPS system by NASA, USA. Telemetry standards by the European Space Agency. And launched on a Japanase H2A booster.

With a design lifetime of 3 years, it's been operational for 4, and was the first satellite to demonstrate self-healing of radiation damage in Space.

The key is to minimise bureaucracy, and have a single systems integrator. Probably not in the US due to some eccentric export control restrictions you have.

And yes, I had the honour and privelege of heading the on-board computer development team. I spent most of my time sorting out inconsistencies between the many different Universities in Australia involved, not to mention the International partners. Having to make decisions - one experiment suddenly needed more resources, who can I rob? Fortunately I always kept a reserve... so no-one ended up losing, and I could even give them a bit more than they asked for in the end.

Best thing about it? Well, at age 10 in 1968 I watched Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and vowed I'd be working on a space programme in 2001. That, and being entitled to wear a T-shirt saying "As a matter of fact, I am a Rocket Scientist!".

Here's the actual article's URL; the also had some supporting papers at LPSC that show up at ADS...

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bi bcode=2007LPI....38.1371C&db_key=AST&data_type=HTM L&format=&high=44e3b245f913347

Simon ;)

Harvard, for instance, is estimating $48,850 per year. $100K will get you halfway through a BA, and no more.

Obviously if she's winning scholarships, she'll probably get enough from other scholarships and/or Federal assistance to cover her education through a PhD if she wants to take it that far, but anybody who thinks $100K is "wealthy" these days is simply naive.

As I read it this just means that the data were put back into electronic form. This happens very often in science since many studies exist as hardcopy only after some passage of time. You have to enter data tables either by hand or with OCR and figures have to be measured with a ruler or with data ripoff software. NASA's ADS provides DEXTER for this purpose: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs_doc/help_pages/dexte r.html.
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Measure the Sun with daily reports in electronic format: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

How do your opinions rank against:

IBM
Department of Energy,
Medical device OEMs,
university researchers
and so on...

opinion of the Cell processor's potential?

While I'll grant you the frame buffer access on the PS3 sucks, it would only take a driver from Nvidia or Sony to remove that restriction.