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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/i xnewstop.html

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/11.06/Bri ghteningSuni.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/56456.stm

blaming the school system or a person's way of life kind of takes away their free will. If you want an example of someone who worked hard despite the environment they were born in look here.

Regardless of race, it's demonstrably true that people in shitty circumstances are statistically less likely to achieve all sorts of things than people in swell ones. Noting this fact doesn't take away anybody's free will.

Indeed, I'd suggest improving the circumstances of our fellow citizens so they have more opportunities, more choices is the thing that shows the more respect for their free will. I think we should do this regardless of race. But given the obvious racial disparities and the results of things like the Implicit Association Test, which shows that most Americans who believe they have no racial bias actually do, I can see the reasoning behind race-based preferences.

As someone who has experienced and recovered from a psychosomatic disorder (in my case what I thought was "repetitive strain injury"), I tend to agree that sometimes its better that patient doesn't know about physical evidence. The mind is clever enough to create painful symptoms where it knows there are structural abnormalities, even though those structural abnormalities don't cause pain. Read "The Mindbody Prescription" by John Sarno if you're interested in what I'm talking about here (or Google "sarno tms" or check out this document)

In this case, I don't really know much about the discovery, so maybe it doesn't apply, but this is what worries me: ok, so anxiety disorders can be detected in the bloodstream. But what is the cause? It can still be something that is purely psychological and something that could potentially be fixed through psychological approaches. Maybe the evidence in the bloodstream is the result of anxiety disorders, but the anxiety disorder itself is still psychological. The mind is capable of making changes to the body in pretty incredible ways (I've experienced this first hand), this isn't really too surprising.

What worries me about this is that this will give people the concept that there is something actually physically/chemically wrong with them that they were born with that they can't fix. They will start to think it is a chronic problem that won't go away, and they just have to live with it, which just leads to using medicine to alleviate the symptoms, rather that going after cause. Maybe it actually is something physically/chemically wrong (an idea I'm very skeptical about after my own experiences), but I'd imagine there is significant number of people who have experienced anxiety who don't have any such physically/chemically problems.

Interesting discovery nonetheless, but interpretting what it actually means is probably more interesting.

Oh, please. There are numerous independent chains of evidence pointing to the existence of dark matter. Not just galaxies, but galaxy clustes, distribution of large scale structure, cosmic microwave background anisotropies, gravitational lensing, and so on. It was *not* accepted quickly...more than three decades passed between Fritz Zwicky postulating its existence (due to studies of the velocities of galaxies in clusters) and its widespread acceptance (due primarily to Vera Rubin and Kent Ford's investigation of galaxy rotation curves). These are rigorous, quantitative theories; it is simply not a case of "well, we don't know, so let's say there's dark matter". And to act as if no one is questioning it is nonsense. Do a search for, e.g., modified Newtonian dynamics if you don't belive it. These are serious, respected scientists doing serious science--i.e., quantitatively checking theories, not sitting around complaining that their ideas are being "stifled". This is an active area of research.

There have been many studies, but like geese, fish also take advantage of swimming in groups:

Scientists show how fish save energy by swimming in schools

And there have been many studies into dolphin and whale motion.

Hydrodynamic study into whale flippers

The use of rotary motors only seems to occur at the bacterial level (flagella bacteria)

The Chandra X-ray Observatory http://chandra.harvard.edu/ priovides a wealth of information and help visualizing these phenomena. While the following link depicts orbiting white dwarfs (not as massive as neutron stars) swirling closer together, traveling in excess of a million miles per hour producing gravity waves...
Animation of White Dwarf Gravitational Wave Merger
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/j0806/animat ions.html

The Chandra X-ray Observatory http://chandra.harvard.edu/ priovides a wealth of information and help visualizing these phenomena. While the following link depicts orbiting white dwarfs (not as massive as neutron stars) swirling closer together, traveling in excess of a million miles per hour producing gravity waves...
Animation of White Dwarf Gravitational Wave Merger
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/j0806/animat ions.html

He was willing to inoculate himself to prove his theories.

From the link:

Apparently Pasteur himself was among those awed by his stunning demonstrations of power over life and death. He developed a remarkably robust faith that he could do no harm. When, in an incident that Geison omits, Dr. Grancher, one of his assistants, accidentally stuck himself with a syringe filled with a virulent emulsion, Pasteur proposed that Grancher inoculate himself with the rabies vaccine and then, as if to conjure away any possible doubt about the wisdom of this procedure, offered to receive the first injection himself. Grancher, while more than willing to risk his own life, refused to jeopardize Pasteur's. Pasteur then ordered his nephew, Adrien Loir, to inoculate him. Loir refused but offered to submit to inoculation himself. Finally, Loir inoculated Grancher, whereupon Grancher treated Loir and a third assistant, while Pasteur looked on. It is hard to read this episode as anything other than a ritual of expiation: for all their profession of faith in science, these were men anxious at tampering with the deepest mysteries.

(Later, in the same link: )

one veterinarian had gone so far as to agitate the tubes containing the lethal serum (lest Pasteur inject some sheep from the top of the liquid and others from the bottom) forswore his doubts once the results were in and even proposed to inoculate himself with the most virulent strain of anthrax--after immunization, of course, with Pasteur's vaccine.

This is both amazing and interesting, since both scientifical discoveries (vaccines, ulcers) were related to bacteria.

True, true, and true. But the courts still came down in favour of EULAs in ProCD v. Zeidenberg, Microsoft v. Harmony Computers (no reference, sorry) and Novel vs Network Trade Center. It would still be nice to have something on this dated later than 1996 though.

True, true, and true. But the courts still came down in favour of EULAs in ProCD v. Zeidenberg, Microsoft v. Harmony Computers (no reference, sorry) and Novel vs Network Trade Center. It would still be nice to have something on this dated later than 1996 though.

Actually, during the middle ages, pulling out was considered THE biggest sin you could do. The punishment was even worse than the punishment for murder.

Actually, that's bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.

Do you people actually believe any random nonsense you're told about the middle ages by people who know nothing about the period in question? And have you ever actually bothered to study any history or literature from that period? No? Then kindly refrain from spouting nonsense about it. People like you do more harm to human knowledge and understanding than any medieval churchman.

In passing, let's look at some real medieval laws, shall we?

Here, for example, you can find the full text (translated into modern English) of various Anglo-Saxon legal codes. These are from the so-called "dark ages". Observe that the only sexual practices which are forbidden are incest, adultery, and fornication with nuns, and the punishment for those is generally just a fine.

Here you can find an English translation of the 13th century treatise De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae. The section on homicide is long and interesting. Though this is a very detailed description of the English laws of the time (to the extent that it describes matters such as how to determine whether a hermaphrodite should be considered legally male or female), I can find nothing on the subject of sexual perversion, let alone punishments for it.

So, where is your source for this claim that extravaginal ejaculation was punished more harshly than murder? Do pray enlighten us.

From the comments I've heard people make in the last month, it doesn't matter what a company does in another country - (even if the company is American) - as long as it's legal or is required, demanded, condoned by the government of the country they are doing it in.

Actually in some cases it's corporations that pay or aid and abet military actions against civilians. For instance the group the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) sued Exxon using the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 for abetting the Indonesian Army when Exxon provided equipment to the army unit involved in murder, torture and sexual abuse of the local population. In another case, Coke sued over death squad claims in Colombia. There are other cases of US businesses being sued for aiding and abetting for their conduct.

You can't enforce US law in china.

Why not?? We westerners have always done this kind of thing to Asia!

Another word needs to be added, opium. Because the British imported so much tea they had a serious trade deficit so to even out the imbalance they imported into China opium, thus started the Opium Wars. The Chinese emperor tried to stop the opium and when he did the British sent in troops and they roundly defeated the Chinese and forced the emperor to allow opium. Therefore the saying that the queen was a drug dealer was correct. At the same tyme Britain also forced the lease of Hong Kong.

• Many RSI cases are curable by John Sarno's psychosomatic approach.
• And many are not.

Being cursed with being the son of a hand surgeon I know a lot of useless fact about repetative stress injuries and carpal tunnel syndrome. Almost all kind of injuries like that are fixed by ergonmic improvements ranging from getting a track ball, to having the right chair.

Or just reading a book and not worrying about the bogus idea of "ergonomics." And yes, I'm basically saying your dad is profiting off of peoples' psychosomatic syndromes and not really helping them (in the case of "RSI" anyhow). So are chiropractors and massage therapists.

As is stated in the article, Ortiz claims that his group discovered it in a range of archival data, and did a quick followup...it's not at all inconceivable that they could quickly get observing time on a small telescope (all that's required for a Kuiper belt object) for something like this, especially if there's an observatory affiliated with his institution. Indeed, according to the MPC circular on the object:

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/mpec/K05/K05O36. html

they used a 0.3 meter telescope for the followup--tiny. I don't know anything about the Observatorio Astronomico de Mallorca (and my lack of Spanish ability will prevent me from finding anything out), but I doubt there was any trouble in getting time.

As far as figuring out the orbit from archival data, it's entirely possible to get a reasonably accurate orbital determination from a few images spread out over a period of days. It won't be exact, but it's good enough to direct a search in other data, and it's done routinely for objects discovered in archived observations.

I gave my self tinnitus about 6 months ago. I really didn't know loud music could damage your hearing so easily. It was from a loud concert, so it wasn't caused by listening to my iPod. But if the experts say you shouldn't listen for more than one hour every day, I would listen to them.

It seems many posters here also think that these warnings are just old people being concerned about whatever the young ones are up to these days. But hearing damage is real and can happen to you, just because you don't have any noticable damage yet, doesn't mean your ears are in perfect shape.

To everyone who has hearing damage, I also say that I think we will see hearing cell regeneration during my lifetime, (im 25). Biotechnology is advancing faster than ever. Check these three links to get some hope in your life:
http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?doc ID=523947
http://focus.hms.harvard.edu/2005/Feb11_2005/neuro science.html
http://phoenix.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=14 1787&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=719626&highlight=

Funny, but everybody knows that fusion requires large amounts of very expensive tridium!

More detail for you: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/2005/09/ 06/warning-yahoo-wont-protect-you/

Officials from the Changsha security bureau detained Shi near his home in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, on November 24, 2004, several months after he e-mailed notes detailing the propaganda ministry's instructions to the media about coverage of the anniversary of the crackdown at Tiananmen Square. Authorities confiscated his computer and other documents and warned his family to stay quiet about the matter.

On December 14, authorities issued a formal arrest order, charging Shi with "leaking state secrets." On April 27, 2005, the Changsha Intermediate People's Court found Shi guilty and sentenced him to a 10-year prison term.

I'm sorry, but what a shocker. China tosses a journalist in jail for 10 years for a mislabled "crime". Here is a picture of this Chinese James Bond http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/China25aug05na.html

It should be of no suprise to anyone that Tao's appeal was rejected without reason nor public hearing. As is correctly pointed out at http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14884 does Yahoo! simply state they are just following a countries law? When do they have ANY ethical considerations? Can the law in China stipulate that child labor is lawfull and Yahoo could practice this under the same defense?

Yahoo is the ONLY American search engine that has agreed to self sensor it's search results. They have invested heavily in China and as a result bow to their every request. "Just follwing the law" is not a defense for Yahoo in my opinion. Self censoring your search results is one thing, cooperating with Chinese security officials to track down an IP address is another.

Here is Mr. Tao's verdict http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/Verdict_Shi_Tao.pdf

The proper link is here. While checking on this, I took the opportunity to have another look around the website. These guys really are chewing the carpet; for instance, their page on the CHANDRA X-ray observatory shows a failure to grasp even the most basic aspects of X-ray emission in astrophysical plasmas.

I guess you didn't bother to check the about page on his site.

Oddly, I couldn't seem to find credits on that EFF page.

Well, if you'd RTFA, human activity definitely increased the destructiveness of the storm by peeling away natural barriers to flooding:

Loss of the coastal marshes that dampened earlier storm surges puts the city at increasing risk to hurricanes. Eighty years of substantial river leveeing has prevented spring flood deposition of new layers of sediment into the marshes, and a similarly lengthy period of marsh excavation activities related to oil and gas exploration and transportation canals for the petrochemical industry have threatened marsh integrity. Sea level rise is expected to further accelerate the loss of these valuable coastal wetlands, the loss of which jeopardizes the fabric of Louisiana communities by threatening the harvesting of natural resources, an integral part of coastal culture. Concerted efforts by state and federal agencies are underway to develop appropriate restoration technologies and adequate funding to implement them.

On a more global scale, human activity is the most plausible cause for the increased rate of sea level rise which has been recorded during the last century. Given the risks associated with major climate change and environmental damage (see above for a minor example), it seems reasonable to pursue responsible methods of minimizing environmental impact now to reduce the likelihood of catastrophic failures in the future. I'm a technological optimist, but tempting fate like that merely to avoid marginal impacts on our current lifestyle is stupid.

Contrary to your belief, warm water does not expand. Frozen water, however, does. Ever wonder how gigantic rocks get huge cracks in them? Water will run down into tiny crevices when it's warm, then freeze and when the ice forms and expands, the rock will crack open.

You don't think water expands as it warms? Try this experiment then, take a glass bottle of water and put it on the element or burner of a stove and turn it on. The bootle will explode because of the pressure build up and wants to expand. As water warms up it does expand, through thermal expansion. Water expands both when it freezes and when it warms up.

Sea Level Home

Gornitz also states "sea level rise is a global-scale, long-term hazard, which may, in the long run, inflict greater damage [to a coastline] than that of a hurricane. Eustatic sea level rise over the next century will be the sum of the individual contributors from thermal expansion of sea water and ice melting from alpine glaciers and the polar ice sheets."

The topic in question here is whether or not the Arctic ice cap melting will bring the level up, not the Antarctic.

As far as the topic, I included the part I was reponding to, "Alot of this 'oceans will rise' speculation is just plain bad science." My point was that unlike what it says abour oceans rising being bad science, that it's basic science that ocean levels will rise due to global warming.

Have you ever heard of carcinogens?

Of course I have, there's no need to be snippy.

How about Acrylamide? What is Acrylamide? It is just a chemical that food manufacturors put in French Fries and Chips.

Actually, that's incorrect. Acrylamide is not added to food by manufacturers. While the exact mechanism of its formation is not fully understood, it seems to form naturally when starchy foods are cooked at high temperatures. McDonald's does not have a 55-gallon drum of acrylamide that they add to the french fries.

Furthermore, whether or not acrylamide is definetely a carcinogen has not been fully determined. It, however, has been massively over-hyped in the press. And more recent studies have suggested that a diet high in acrylamide-containing foods does not lead to cancer.

Do you remember sacchrinne? It was used in diet soda, then they discovered it caused cancer.

Actually, it looks like the studies done back in the 1970s which led to the scare about saccharin weren't well-done. They used ridiculously high doses of saccharin, and the high doses may have caused cancer rather than the substance itself. There has been no link between saccharin and caner in humans. Saccharin hasn't been required to be labeled in the US since 2000.

There are thousands of more chemicals which will kill a person than a person can eat.

Of course. There are probably hundreds of carcinogenic substances. There are thousands of toxic substances. But there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of chemicals. The number of toxins and carcinogens that exist has no relevance to the relative risk from them.

And of course many of them will kill you if you eat them. They're not food! Salt will probably kill you if you eat an entire bucket of it. So will ethanol or aspirin. Toxins are not carcinogens.

I don't want to trust a chemist to tell me eating something that he made in test tubes is good for me

Believe it or not, there is no vast conspiracy of scientists to poision our food supply. We have been performing chemical modification of food since the discovery of fire and the beginning of cooking. The whole point of cooking food is to make the proteins and starches more digestible and so our bodies can absorb its nutrients better.

I rather eat what my great grandfather ate, and he lived to be 104 and very sharp, no mental slowdown like people get today. Speaking of mental slowdowns, do you know where it comes from? Aluminum in the diet. Where does the Aluminum come from? From all the machines that process food.

Again, this is not true. I'm not sure what you mean by "mental slowdown" but I'm not aware of any link suggested between aluminum and senile dementia. There was some worry early on about Alzheimer's and aluminum, but it did not hold up under further study.

Sour Cream. Sour Cream used to be made with bacteria and acidophilus. This is very healthy for people. Do you know how Sour Cream is made today? They take guar gum or starch and thicken milk. It is not even Sour Cream, but they keep calling the thick product that name

Ingredients: Grade A Cultured Cream. One ingredient. Maybe you should switch brands? I don't know about it being healthy for you, it's rather high in saturated fat.

Look up Free Radicals. Most foods are filled with them, and they cause people to age and get old and get sick and get cancer.

Food is not "full" of free radicals. Radicals are so amazingly reactive they aren't stable enough to last very long in food. In fact, preservatives like BHT are added to packaged foods in order to prevent the formation of radicals, which cause the product to break down quickly and have a shorter shelf life.

No no, my friend. That is not a bulk shredder. This is a bulk shredder.

According to later studies, there is no acrylimide/cancer link:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/press/releases/press01 282003.html

Nothing like fear mongering. Have you heard about the new FCC modem tax?

A channel may contain any number of <item>s. An item may represent a "story" -- much like a story in a newspaper or magazine; if so its description is a synopsis of the story, and the link points to the full story. An item may also be complete in itself, if so, the description contains the text ( entity-encoded HTML is allowed ; see examples), and the link and title may be omitted. All elements of an item are optional, however at least one of title or description must be present.

To be honest, this particular piece of research is almost a footnote in his career. Most of the things he does will never end up in something the average person ever comes into contact with, but the salient ideas will change the landscape of technology 20 years down the road. If you're at all interested in nanoscience, this is a guy to watch.

RSS 1.0 is extensible in a standard way via namespaces. RSS 2.0 is extended via ad-hoc additions. Atom is extensible via namespaces.

The backbone on RSS1.0 extensibility is namespaces _and_ RDF, in that it can be merged with any other RDF vocabularies.

RSS2.0 is extensible via namespaces. For example, Microsoft's Simple List Extension to RSS 2.0.

Atom is more complicated than RSS 1.0, which is more complicated than RSS 2.0.

I don't know how you've come to the conclusion that Atom is more complicated than RSS1.0, other than to say that you'd be the first person I've ever seen saying that.

RSS2.0 is simple up to a point - for instance if you are publishing plain text entries with no angle brackets then you should be okay (or if you don't mind silent data loss). If you want to mark up your content with XHTML, with RSS2.0 you are out of luck unless you define an extension, and then hope aggregator developers pick up on it and implement it.

Atom cleanly specifies how to have content as plain text, HTML, XHTML, XML, or even a different media format altogether. RSS2.0 leaves you with plain text, or HTML.

RSS 1.0 is extensible in a standard way via namespaces. RSS 2.0 is extended via ad-hoc additions. Atom is extensible via namespaces.

The backbone on RSS1.0 extensibility is namespaces _and_ RDF, in that it can be merged with any other RDF vocabularies.

RSS2.0 is extensible via namespaces. For example, Microsoft's Simple List Extension to RSS 2.0.

Atom is more complicated than RSS 1.0, which is more complicated than RSS 2.0.

I don't know how you've come to the conclusion that Atom is more complicated than RSS1.0, other than to say that you'd be the first person I've ever seen saying that.

RSS2.0 is simple up to a point - for instance if you are publishing plain text entries with no angle brackets then you should be okay (or if you don't mind silent data loss). If you want to mark up your content with XHTML, with RSS2.0 you are out of luck unless you define an extension, and then hope aggregator developers pick up on it and implement it.

Atom cleanly specifies how to have content as plain text, HTML, XHTML, XML, or even a different media format altogether. RSS2.0 leaves you with plain text, or HTML.

I had a TI59 in high school, to which I had added a joystick as well as an interface to control my room. With the joystick, it was possible to play games like moonlanding where the printer would be the screen. The calculuator was programmed to turn on and off the lights in my room. A screenshot of the two peripherals. Of course, there was some surgergy necessary, but the TI59 had survived all.

I had a TI59 in high school, to which I had added a joystick as well as an interface to control my room. With the joystick, it was possible to play games like moonlanding where the printer would be the screen. The calculuator was programmed to turn on and off the lights in my room. A screenshot of the two peripherals. Of course, there was some surgergy necessary, but the TI59 had survived all.

Thinking of this?

How about thirteen different versions of RSS?

Yeah, that was my first thought, but he mentions Dave "RSS 2" as an editor and says he's had a period of private review in his process list.

Where? I see Dave mentioned a lot on that website, but nothing so far that indicates Dave even knows about this. For example:

The current standard, RSS 3 Class (which engulfs RSS 3 Lite, RSS 3 Full, RCDL and RRDL), is based on RSS 2.0, which was offered by the Berkmen Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School under the License, authored by Dave Winer (other accredited authors: Roger Cadenhead, Adam Curry and Steve Zellers). This is a derivative work which is meant to replace the 2.0 version.

This sounds like Dave's got something to do with RSS 3 at first glance, but in actual fact, it merely says that he co-authored the RSS 2.0 specification, and that this guy, Jonathan Avidan, wrote a specification that is based on that specification. Dave's listed as "a relevant link", but only with respect to him authoring the RSS 2 specification. He's mentioned again, but once more, only that Jonathan Avidan is indebted to him for writing the RSS 2 specification:

For informative purposes, the RSS Version 2.0.1 specification can be found here and is attributed to Dave Winer, amongst others. This is a derivative work and is indebted to their genius and efforts.

The closest that website comes to claiming "Dave Winer approval", is in the FAQ. However, that's a copy of Dave's history of RSS, except for the fact that the original copy doesn't mention RSS 3.0 at all. It just looks like he copied that page, stuck "According to Dave Winer" at the beginning, and "RSS 3 begins development" at the end.

Remember, Dave considers RSS to be "finished". From the RSS 2.0 specification:

Therefore, the RSS spec is, for all practical purposes, frozen at version 2.0.1. We anticipate possible 2.0.2 or 2.0.3 versions, etc. only for the purpose of clarifying the specification, not for adding new features to the format. Subsequent work should happen in modules, using namespaces, and in completely new syndication formats, with new names.

Yeah, that was my first thought, but he mentions Dave "RSS 2" as an editor and says he's had a period of private review in his process list.

Where? I see Dave mentioned a lot on that website, but nothing so far that indicates Dave even knows about this. For example:

The current standard, RSS 3 Class (which engulfs RSS 3 Lite, RSS 3 Full, RCDL and RRDL), is based on RSS 2.0, which was offered by the Berkmen Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School under the License, authored by Dave Winer (other accredited authors: Roger Cadenhead, Adam Curry and Steve Zellers). This is a derivative work which is meant to replace the 2.0 version.

This sounds like Dave's got something to do with RSS 3 at first glance, but in actual fact, it merely says that he co-authored the RSS 2.0 specification, and that this guy, Jonathan Avidan, wrote a specification that is based on that specification. Dave's listed as "a relevant link", but only with respect to him authoring the RSS 2 specification. He's mentioned again, but once more, only that Jonathan Avidan is indebted to him for writing the RSS 2 specification:

For informative purposes, the RSS Version 2.0.1 specification can be found here and is attributed to Dave Winer, amongst others. This is a derivative work and is indebted to their genius and efforts.

The closest that website comes to claiming "Dave Winer approval", is in the FAQ. However, that's a copy of Dave's history of RSS, except for the fact that the original copy doesn't mention RSS 3.0 at all. It just looks like he copied that page, stuck "According to Dave Winer" at the beginning, and "RSS 3 begins development" at the end.

Remember, Dave considers RSS to be "finished". From the RSS 2.0 specification:

Therefore, the RSS spec is, for all practical purposes, frozen at version 2.0.1. We anticipate possible 2.0.2 or 2.0.3 versions, etc. only for the purpose of clarifying the specification, not for adding new features to the format. Subsequent work should happen in modules, using namespaces, and in completely new syndication formats, with new names.

Roadmap

RSS is by no means a perfect format, but it is very popular and widely supported. Having a settled spec is something RSS has needed for a long time. The purpose of this work is to help it become a unchanging thing, to foster growth in the market that is developing around it, and to clear the path for innovation in new syndication formats. Therefore, the RSS spec is, for all practical purposes, frozen at version 2.0.1. We anticipate possible 2.0.2 or 2.0.3 versions, etc. only for the purpose of clarifying the specification, not for adding new features to the format. Subsequent work should happen in modules, using namespaces, and in completely new syndication formats, with new names.

Consider this alleged barbarism, brought up by nearly every language maven:

"Everyone returned to their seats." ... [or]

"If anyone calls, tell them I can't come to the phone." ... [or]

"He's one of those guys who's always patting themself on the back." [an actual quote from Holden Caulfield in J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye]

They explain: everyone means every one, a singular subject, which may not serve as the antecedent of a plural pronoun like them later in the sentence. "Everyone returned to his seat," they insist. "If anyone calls, tell him I can't come to the phone."

If you were the target of these lessons, at this point you might be getting a bit uncomfortable..... Such feelings of disquiet -- a red flag to any serious linguist -- are well founded in this case....

The logical point that you, Holden Caulfield, and everyone but the language mavens intuitively grasp is that everyone and they are not an "antecedent" and a "pronoun" referring to the same person in the world, which would force them to agree in number. They are a "quantifier" and a "bound variable," a different logical relationship..... Since these are not real referential pronouns but only homonyms of them, there is no reason that the vernacular decision to borrow they, their, them for the task is any worse than the prescriptivists' recommenda

Am I missing something here?

Baricom: What you're looking for is the "cloud" interface defined at: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/soapMeetsRss
The documentation there is, I think, about as good as you'll find. While it says that it can be implemented in either XML-RPC or SOAP, I am aware only of XML-RPC implementations.

The cloud provides a means for blogs to notify subscribers of updates and should eliminate the need for polling -- except that the subscriptions must be renewed at least every 25 hours. Of course, this cloud stuff isn't terribly useful in most cases since it relies on the blog server being able to send an HTTP message to a remote client (subscriber). In most cases, those messages would be blocked by firewalls. This is, of course, why the "Atom over XMPP" stuff makes sense. It relies on a connection established from the client to the server -- in the same manner as is done with instant messaging clients. Thus, there are many fewer issues with firewalls.

Of course, having lots of session open between a client program and all of the various blogs it reads probably doesn't make much sense. Neither does it make sense for every blog to maintain a list of all of its "cloud" readers and go to the work of sending them all messages whenever the blog is updated. Thus, the most sensible way to do this push business is to have the individual blogs publish to a common network of aggregating servers and then have clients establish connections to the common service. Overall bandwidth consumption is thus reduced to the absolute minimum. That's what we're building at PubSub.com.

bob wyman

That risk of asphyxiation is significant. We've all seen people breathe in helium to make their voices high-pitched. Some people do the same with argon...very carefully. It's also a noble gas; the only significant difference is the density. That makes it much harder to get out of your lungs (and thus, oxygen back in). See this page:

Argon is nontoxic and largely inert. It can act as a simple asphyxiant by displacing the oxygen in air to levels below that required to support life. Inhalation of argon in excessive amounts can cause dizziness, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, and death. Death may result from errors in judgment, confusion, or loss of consciousness that prevents self-rescue. At low oxygen concentrations, unconsciousness and death may occur in seconds and without warning.

it's still a million times better than PHP, which is just about the worst language in general use today

A few words? How about one: taint.

Or for a broader one that incompasses the first, security.

These are just two examples of what I see as a broad pattern. The attitudes of the two languages (and their associated communities) are very different.

--MarkusQ

(f) Reverse Engineering. -
        * (1) 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.

No that can't, see Sega vs. Accolade

That is they can place a copywritten work that you must place on your device, but but requiring that it be there, they have turned it into something purely functional, and thus not subject to copyright so long as it is only used in that context.

Private universities are not, to the best of my knowledge, non-profits.

Indeed they are. Universities are without, any exception I know of, chartered as non-profit, charitable institutions that are tax exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the US tax code. If they weren't charities, then you would not be able to deduct your donations to them from your taxes.

For example see:
http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/ofs/tax_services/gen_ex e.shtml
http://www.ucop.edu/raohome/cgmemos/83-33.html
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/legal/legalfacts_su.h tml

and especially:

http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/rrr/02/12.htm

So, my extensive analogy is not off at all.

If a University were organized as a private, for-profit enterprise, which is certainly conceivable, there would be no immorality in productizing knowledge -- by which I mean subjecting access to it so it can be sold for the highest possible profit. At least there would be no immorality that stems from its identity as a University: for profit entitites are first and formost profit making, and only secondarily whatever else they may be.

I personally hate the idea. It assaults the foundation of my liberalism, that everyone is born equal. But I don't think that ignoring the facts for political correctness makes sense. This is part of Harvard Pres Lawrence H. Summers 'controversial" speech.

"It does appear that on many, many different human attributes-height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability-there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means-which can be debated-there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population. And that is true with respect to attributes that are and are not plausibly, culturally determined. If one supposes, as I think is reasonable, that if one is talking about physicists at a top twenty-five research university, one is not talking about people who are two standard deviations above the mean. And perhaps it's not even talking about somebody who is three standard deviations above the mean. But it's talking about people who are three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean in the one in 5,000, one in 10,000 class. Even small differences in the standard deviation will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out. I did a very crude calculation, which I'm sure was wrong and certainly was unsubtle, twenty different ways. I looked at the Xie and Shauman paper-looked at the book, rather-looked at the evidence on the sex ratios in the top 5% of twelfth graders. If you look at those-they're all over the map, depends on which test, whether it's math, or science, and so forth-but 50% women, one woman for every two men, would be a high-end estimate from their estimates. From that, you can back out a difference in the implied standard deviations that works out to be about 20%. And from that, you can work out the difference out several standard deviations. If you do that calculation-and I have no reason to think that it couldn't be refined in a hundred ways-you get five to one, at the high end. Now, it's pointed out by one of the papers at this conference that these tests are not a very good measure and are not highly predictive with respect to people's ability to do that. And that's absolutely right. But I don't think that resolves the issue at all. Because if my reading of the data is right-it's something people can argue about-that there are some systematic differences in variability in different populations, then whatever the set of attributes are that are precisely defined to correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley, those are probably different in their standard deviations as well. So my sense is that the unfortunate truth-I would far prefer to believe something else, because it would be easier to address what is surely a serious social problem if something else were true-is that the combination of the high-powered job hypothesis and the differing variances probably explains a fair amount of this problem."

Now, this seems pretty firmly grounded in the questioning openmindedness we expect from our universities. If you disagree, and Summers has pointed out some weak spots for you to start with, I'm sure he's open to disscuss it.

Of course, the resulting PC backlash had Harvard promising $50,000,000 for anti discrimination measures in two weeks. Something is very wrong here.

Harvard
Cornell
Princeton
Dartmouth
U Penn

U.S. government (Calmly): We just need some log files from you.

Rackspace: Oh wow!!! We will damage our reputation by giving you far more than you asked!!! Our customer's trust means nothing to us!

This was not even the dreaded "Feds", he peed his pants over -- just a local police department, which never even contacted me. Evidently, customer loyalty is overrated...

IANAL, but as I have read elsewhere, the DMCA allows reverse engineering if the reverse engineer seeks permission from the copyright owner, only uses the results of their efforts to create an interoperable computer program and does not publish the results.