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I think I understand the thinking behind having patents - as a way to prevent others from profiting from a patent owner's hard work on researching and implementing a solution to some problem merely by seeing their solution and copying it.

HOWEVER - it seems that many new inventions come about due to the combination of current scientific knowledge, current technology and current problems. This often leads to the same (or very similar) inventions being independantly made by several people across the world without them necessarily 'stealing' the idea from one another, and yet the patent system as currently implemented appears to try and deny all except one of the discovers from using their invention.

A google search for something like 'simultaneous invention' will turn up many articles listing some of the more famous examples such as Calculus (Newton and Leibniz), the car (Daimler and Benz), the telephone and so on.. (e.g. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all or http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa030501a.htm)

Now on the one hand you could argue that instead of bothering with all this research and risking making an unusable independant discovery you should put all that effort in to searching for and licensing other's patents (which would ultimately lead to stagnation - see Asimov's foundation series)

More likely the solution is either not published when you start the research, or (in the case of programming, much of which is researching and 'inventing' ways for a computer to do some task) you do not think of your solution as an 'invention' that has a patent but rather just 'one obvious (to me) algorithm / UI to crack this sub-problem in creating something to meet my current project's requirements'

This is why we've spent billions (trillions?) fighting a war on "terror,"

Not true. The billions have been spent because of U.S. government corruption. The U.S. government is being guided to do exactly what weapons and oil investors want.

Here is some information copied from numerous places:

There is evidence that whoever controls the U.S. government is planning to declare martial law. That's a top-rated story on Digg.com.

Search for "martial law" on digg.com or reddit.com. There are hundreds of links.

Cheney's company Halliburton is building prisons. There has never been an adequate explanation why. Do a Google search.

The U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security committee is not allowed to see the martial law plan.

According to the New Yorker Magazine, the Bush administration has already started another war in Iran. See President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran.

Bush and Cheney and their friends and families and associates are oil and weapons investors. Weapons investors want war all the time. Oil investors want to restrict the supply of oil, so that the price will rise.

The war with Iran has the same purpose as the war in Iraq. It will allow whoever controls the U.S. government to restrict the flow of oil even more, making the price go even higher.

The war with Iran is extremely unpopular with U.S. citizens. It is said that whoever is doing the planning will do terrorist acts in the U.S. and blame them on Iranians. That will allow the declaration of martial law. It is said that the planners have put a lot of time into passing laws that allow them to have more control and that they will not allow Barack Obama to become president because he would undo their work.

The U.S. government has manipulated the facts in other cases so that it will be allowed to start a war. One example is the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. "In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on 2 August."

our failed government institution

It has not failed. It is succeeding in doing exactly what weapons and oil investors want.

Here is some information collected from numerous places:

There is evidence that whoever controls the U.S. government is planning to declare martial law. That's a top-rated story on Digg.com.

Search for "martial law" on digg.com or reddit.com. There are hundreds of links.

Cheney's company Halliburton is building prisons. There has never been an adequate explanation why. Do a Google search.

The U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security committee is not allowed to see the martial law plan.

According to the New Yorker Magazine, the Bush administration has already started another war in Iran. See President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran.

Bush and Cheney and their friends and families and associates are oil and weapons investors. Weapons investors want war all the time. Oil investors want to restrict the supply of oil, so that the price will rise.

The war with Iran has the same purpose as the war in Iraq. It will allow whoever controls the U.S. government to restrict the flow of oil even more, making the price go even higher.

The war with Iran is extremely unpopular with U.S. citizens. It is said that whoever is doing the planning will do terrorist acts in the U.S. and blame them on Iranians. That will allow the declaration of martial law. It is said that the planners have put a lot of time into passing laws that allow them to have more control and that they will not allow Barack Obama to become president because he would undo their work.

The U.S. government has manipulated the facts in other cases so that it will be allowed to start a war. One example is the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. "In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on 2 August."

Actually, it is a LOT worse than you say.

Here is some information collected from numerous places:

There is evidence that whoever controls the U.S. government is planning to declare martial law. That's a top-rated story on Digg.com.

Search for "martial law" on digg.com or reddit.com. There are hundreds of links.

Cheney's company Halliburton is building prisons. There has never been an adequate explanation why. Do a Google search.

The U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security committee is not allowed to see the martial law plan.

According to the New Yorker Magazine, the Bush administration has already started another war in Iran. See President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran.

Bush and Cheney and their friends and families and associates are oil and weapons investors. Weapons investors want war all the time. Oil investors want to restrict the supply of oil, so that the price will rise.

The war with Iran has the same purpose as the war in Iraq. It will allow whoever controls the U.S. government to restrict the flow of oil even more, making the price go even higher.

The war with Iran is extremely unpopular with U.S. citizens. It is said that whoever is doing the planning will do terrorist acts in the U.S. and blame them on Iranians. That will allow the declaration of martial law. It is said that the planners have put a lot of time into passing laws that allow them to have more control and that they will not allow Barack Obama to become president because he would undo their work.

The U.S. government has manipulated the facts in other cases so that it will be allowed to start a war. One example is the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. "In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on 2 August."

In fact, the Bush administration has already started another war in Iran. If you pay taxes in the U.S., you don't get to participate in the choice to go to war. You only get to pay for it.

The war with Iran is to try to get even more control over the supply of oil, to make the price go even higher by restricting the supply. Bush and Cheney are oil and weapons investors and they are working to put more money in their pockets.

Not to diminish the idea, but this is already done with wine. I suspect it is much EASIER to do it with wine rather than with paintings, as you are relying on deposition rather than absorption through soil, but the technique has been around for a bit.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/09/080609fa_fact_kolbert/?printable=true

However, I'd also point out that even the most prestigious award that high schools usually give out has not been shown to produce exceptional results. We reward Valedictorians the most, when in actuality, they are far less likely to significantly contribute to a field. It's not that competition isn't helpful, but we need to make sure that what students are competing for matters and is specialized. A research competition would be fantastic, as it seems that many students are poorly apprised of what research in any subject involves (and I say this as a college professor).

Here's a good article by Jared Diamond, for anybody that wants to see what they would be getting into:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_diamond?currentPage=all

The article is about the vengeance culture that exists (and is being curtailed) in New Guinea, and the tension between personal satisfaction and state mediation.

He's still an idiot and a cheerleader for the war, but he's not a liberal.

Traffic is slow in Atlanta because there aren't any natural obstructions. Or that is probably part of it anyway:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_paumgarten?printable=true

Every time you stick in a new road, more people decide that they can drive further.

>Cut, remove, splice, stitch.

I think you are exactly right - read Atul Gawande's book Complications, the bit about hernia operations. He talks about it in this interview - http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2008/2122487.htm

Hmm... also read about the checklist, also by Gawande - http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_gawande

Both show that the mystery about doctors and medicines is somewhat misplaced... in many cases (and a growing percentage) robots rule.

Some of the sites are buried and hardened to the point that trying to destroy them with conventional weapons might not work. Planners have been drawing up plans to use B61-11s, nuclear bunker busters. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh had a source tell him "...whenever anybody tries to get it [the use of nuclear weapons] out they're shouted down.".

A groundburst is the most fallout-inducing thing you can do with a nuclear weapon. There are dozens of sites involved, all with people living downwind.

Iranians I've met in the United States, U.S. citizens living in the city where I live, agree that leaders of Iran are sometimes very de-centered. Nothing I have said is intended to indicate an acceptance of violence.

It helps understanding of the situation that officials of the U.S. government have publicly discussed bombing Iran. They view their threats as efforts to defend themselves.

Quote from a March 5, 2007 New Yorker article, The Redirection:

"Still, the Pentagon is continuing intensive planning for a possible bombing attack on Iran, a process that began last year, at the direction of the President. In recent months, the former intelligence official told me, a special planning group has been established in the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented, upon orders from the President, within twenty-four hours."

So neocons who have striven to extend the power of the federal government are leftists? And Greens who work for more local control are right-wingers?

Understand to boot that they have a professional aversion to saying "impossible".

"I know Frank Wilczek," Engelen told me. "He is an order of magnitude smarter than I am. But he was perhaps a bit naïve." Engelen said that CERN officials are now instructed, with respect to the L.H.C.'s world-destroying potential, "not to say that the probability is very small but that the probability is zero."

To the OP: Assuming that you intend to go into industry, rather than academia, before committing to an engineering school, read what Michael Saylor (CEO of MicroStrategy) had to say about his MIT experience in The New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/search/query?query=macfarquhar&page=2&sort=score%20desc&queryType=nonparsed [newyorker.com]

(Summary for those who don't want to pay for the article: geeking out is overrated. Learning social skills and building a network of smart people, the way they do at neighboring Harvard - or for that matter, other liberal arts colleges - creates much more long term life value.)

And ... it's "Caltech."

The dirty little secret behind the polygraph is that the "test" depends on trickery, not science. The person being "tested" is not supposed to know that while the polygraph operator declares that all questions must be answered truthfully, warning that the slightest hint of deception will be detected, he secretly assumes that denials in response to certain questions -- called "control" questions -- will be less than truthful. An example of a commonly used control question is, "Did you ever lie to get out of trouble?" The polygrapher steers the examinee into a denial by warning, for example, that anyone who would do so is the same kind of person who would commit the kind of behavior that is under investigation and then lie about it. But secretly, it is assumed that everyone has lied to get out of trouble.

The polygraph pens don't do a special dance when a person lies. The polygrapher scores the test by comparing physiological responses (breathing, blood pressure, heart, and perspiration rates) to these probable-lie control questions with reactions to relevant questions such as, "Did you ever commit an act of espionage against the United States?" (commonly asked in security screening). If the former reactions are greater, the examinee passes; if the latter are greater, he fails. If responses to both "control" and relevant questions are about the same, the result is deemed inconclusive.

The test also includes irrelevant questions such as, "Are the lights on in this room?" The polygrapher falsely explains that such questions provide a "baseline for truth," because the true answer is obvious. But in reality, they are not scored at all! They merely serve as buffers between pairs of relevant and "control" questions.

The simplistic methodology used in polygraph testing has no grounding in the scientific method: it is no more scientific than astrology or tarot cards. Government agencies value it because people who don't realize it's a fraud sometimes make damaging admissions. But as a result of reliance on this voodoo science, the truthful are often falsely branded as liars while the deceptive pass through.

Perversely, the "test" is inherently biased against the truthful, because the more honestly one answers the "control" questions, and as a consequence feels less stress when answering them, the more likely one is to fail. Conversely, liars can beat the test by covertly augmenting their physiological reactions to the "control" questions. This can be done, for example, by doing mental arithmetic, thinking exciting thoughts, altering one's breathing pattern, or simply biting the side of the tongue. Truthful persons can also use these techniques to protect themselves against the risk of a false positive outcome. Although polygraphers frequently claim they can detect such countermeasures, no polygrapher has ever demonstrated any ability to do so, and peer-reviewed research suggests that they can't.

Interesting fact: There is more 'Fossil' retrovirus DNA in our genome than Protein Coding DNA http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/03/071203fa_fact_specter. Retrovirus infection is nothing new to metazoans, and the typical cycle of integration is infection, spread, mutual tolerance, and eventually conversion to transposable elements. There is strong evolutionary pressure on HIV to follow this pattern, if for no other reason than a healthy carrier spreads the virus faster than a sick one.

Of course we will call the crash a war and blame the whole thing (including the initial shortage of resources), on the loser's nastyness.

Under-population threatens to be a serious problem to developed economies in future - this is partly why immigration is allowed in such large numbers.

I'm not saying it'll happen for sure, but I can well believe that in 30 years we'll look back on worries about over-population the same way we look at 70s worries about global cooling today.

possibly through DNA influences at the quantum level [...] . Ignoramouses....

One, it's "ignoramus". Next time try "idiot"; it's shorter. Two, you should take your own advice, and read some actual science books. Ones with math. And problem sets. "Possibly through DNA influences at the quantum level" indeed.

I have had only one reading done in my life which was very interesting and informative.

And you know why that is? It has zero to do with planets, and everything to do with the complexity of the human mind. Which you are, alas, just blowing on by.

The astrologers I've talked to often have a deep intuitive understanding of human psychology, and so can say some pretty insightful things. But all the planet mumbo jumbo? That's the functional equivalent of ink blot tests. With a little structure and a little random noise, you can unlock the subconscious skills that were there all along.

Many are also skilled cold readers, which can give the impression of wisdom and knowledge without actually knowing anything. They need not be doing this intentionally. FBI profilers also don't know jack, but are apparently sincere.

And of course, astrology subjects are unwittingly complicit in this. Confirmation bias plays a big role, as do other cognitive biases. Derren Brown, a UK magician, did an astrological reading for three different groups of 5 people. After getting birthdates and one personal object each, he gave them a 4-page written document about their personality, history, and ambitions. 80% gave very high marks for accuracy, and were shocked at how detailed and personal the reading was. One person thought he had somehow gained access to her private journal. At the end, he revealed he had given everybody the exact same reading.

So I'd say that you should take your own advice, and learn something about the topic before running your mouth. If people think a fake reading is real 80% of the thime, then a personal anecdote about a supposed good reading tells us bupkis. And that's true even when somebody sprinkles some sciency mumbo-jumbo on top.

Apparently it's been demonstrated that our basic ability to count to around 4 is controlled by specific neurons firing upon recognition of the specific quantity. That's why the OP spoke of fish having the same basic ability to count as apes, people with learning problems, etc. See http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/03/080303fa_fact_holt on page 3 for this:

"Dehaene has been able to bring together the experimental and the theoretical sides of his quest, and, on at least one occasion, he has even theorized the existence of a neurological feature whose presence was later confirmed by other researchers. In the early nineteen-nineties, working with Jean-Pierre Changeux, he set out to create a computer model to simulate the way humans and some animals estimate at a glance the number of objects in their environment. In the case of very small numbers, this estimate can be made with almost perfect accuracy, an ability known as "subitizing" (from the Latin word subitus, meaning "sudden"). Some psychologists think that subitizing is merely rapid, unconscious counting, but others, Dehaene included, believe that our minds perceive up to three or four objects all at once, without having to mentally "spotlight" them one by one. Getting the computer model to subitize the way humans and animals did was possible, he found, only if he built in "number neurons" tuned to fire with maximum intensity in response to a specific number of objects. His model had, for example, a special four neuron that got particularly excited when the computer was presented with four objects. The model's number neurons were pure theory, but almost a decade later two teams of researchers discovered what seemed to be the real item, in the brains of macaque monkeys that had been trained to do number tasks. The number neurons fired precisely the way Dehaene's model predicted--a vindication of theoretical psychology. "Basically, we can derive the behavioral properties of these neurons from first principles," he told me. "Psychology has become a little more like physics.""

It looks like this article is discussing the discovery of the same neurons performing the same function in fish. That's what this part of our own "intelligence" is at a basic level, apparently.

-Peter

Yes it is a matter of safety, but take a look at the variety of fixtures available. In some towns there is widespread use of street light fixtures where there is NO horizontal face in the light's bezel; it's all down-facing, directing the light to the ground. There is some reflection from the ground to the sky of course (that is unavoidable) but in those areas the sky is much darker than it is in towns where conventional street lamps with the convex half-globes are used, with a lot of horizontal and even upward light emission.

Likewise for home lighting - why should any light be visible from ABOVE the lamp's install location? The light should be directed to the ground where it is needed, not up into the sky, not lighting the trees, and so forth. All it does is crap up the sky so we don't even know what the milky way looks like any more. Where I grew up I thought the sky was dark (it was probably somewhere between Class 4 and class 3, but then I've read about class 2 and class 1 sky and that the milky way is actually quite visible - not just as a faint lighted haze but with definite features, similar to what one sees in time-lapse photography. It's really sad that we never get to see those features. I'd rather look up and see the gorgeous galaxy we live in than to see an orangy glow at night.

How is sky 'darkness' rated?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/20/070820fa_fact_owen
http://x.astrogeek.org/articles/article.php?article_id=1

How should light pollution be controlled?

http://www.darksky.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=58881

Not necessarily specific recommendations but a good read about the subject in general:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/20/070820fa_fact_owen?printable=true

• Someone actually managed to open that pdf and quotes from it here.
• An official blog on the Wall Street Journal website talks about the forthcoming article.
• And the New Yorker has an abstract up for the article which is apparently set to publish on the 21st.

Or, FBI criminal profilers: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/12/071112fa_fact_gladwell

it would not produce as much light as one of the regular street lights produce

Regular street lights produce way too much light, however. This causes people's eyes to adapt to brighter night-time light, which makes them blinder in places the street lights don't cover as well.

Furthermore, while the design looks attractive, it is not clear from the photograph that the light produced is fully shielded to prevent horizontal propagation and consequent energy waste and light pollution. If cities are looking to redesign night-time lighting, one hopes they will consider the importance of dark skies while they're at it.

An interesting article for reference.

"In 2001, spam accounted for about five per cent of the traffic on the Internet; by 2004, that figure had risen to more than seventy per cent. This year, in some regions, it has edged above ninety per cent--more than a hundred billion unsolicited messages clogging the arterial passages of the world's computer networks every day. [2007] The flow of spam is often seasonal. It slows in the spring, and then, in the month that technology specialists call "black September"--when hundreds of thousands of students return to college, many armed with new computers and access to fast Internet connections--the levels rise sharply."

Source: The New Yorker, August 2007

See The New Yorker for more information.

All the RIAA is going to do is find a way to pay the radio stations what they pay in royalties, and then charge that cost back to the artists via some "promotional fee" or other such garbage.

The only solution to getting artists paid is the death of the RIAA and its component companies.

It's funny, really, that so many people think that big vehicles are safer.
In reality, they only seem safer. While you may have a better chance of surviving
an accident, you have a lower chance of avoiding an accident.

If you are in a situation that requires quickly steering out of the lane you are in and
back in again (perhaps because there is a stopped vehicle in front of you) a higher,
heavier vehicle is more likely to lose control at the same speed as a passenger car.

There is one additional way in which heavier vehicles (like SUVs) make us less safe.
If you are in a car and are low to the ground, you feel less safe and might drive more
slowly and carefully. If you are high up and surrounded by lots of metal, you might feel
invincible, go faster, and take more chances.

Source: Malcolm Gladwell, Commerce & Culture, "Big and Bad," The New Yorker, January 12, 2004, p. 28. This article is abstracted here: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/01/12/040112fa_fact_gladwell

I think I cut the article and have it at home, but I am not at home. I vaguely remember
it listing the Toyota Avalon as having one of the best accident statistics.

If you truly think that, then you should probably read this eye-opening article: The Checklist.

Alas doctors would rather a high tech approach rather than just a good old fashioned checklist of procedures

I'm a teaching fellow in my Ph.D. program. I have my students read this essay on Wikipedia by Stacy Schiff, from the _New Yorker_ of July 31, 2006:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact

It's a good overview of many issues surrounding the reliability and quality of Wikipedia. I teach freshmen at a major "public Ivy," and a lot of them are genuinely surprised to learn this stuff. For the record, I prohibit them from using Wikipedia as a cited source in their essays, but I strongly encourage them to look at the works cited/references section of Wikipedia articles for good, reliable starting points in their own writing. So Wales is right to a certain extent. Wikipedia is really good as a signpost, but not much good as a destination--unless you already have the knowledge and skepticism to evaluate each article with a critical eye. I do; a lot of my students don't. YMMV.

If you see an article talking about having sex with bears, it's probably about Scooter Libby. If it's about other animals, it could be about this guy. Of course, it could be vandalism, too. Not all right-wing politicians have a "wide stance" in airport bathrooms, a diaper fetish, or are attracted to animals.

Most of what you said applies to candles as well, but we still like our electric lights.

Yes, we do.

The parent article just argued for the grandparent. While the grandparent painted things in harsh tones, they're a drastic view of what I think is true. The parent said (s)he knew all the environmental talking points, but did things when given incentives - that "sheep" paid attention to the financial motives.

Though people aren't sheep, we all respond to certain triggers. People respond to personal, emotional topics. City council meetings get heated when you're talking about blocking the neighbor's view of the ocean, or the mountains, or cutting down the old oak tree and they'll turn out in droves.

People aren't easily swayed from their paths. They might even know something is better, but choose the worse option. For example, people in the US generally think bigger cars are safer, and look more impressive, even though they know that smaller cars are more fuel efficient. The New Yorker had a good bit on this, written by James Surowiecki. We pass laws for tougher environmental standards because we know better, but won't do better.

It's true, most people won't change their habits, or pay much more, for more environmentally sound alternatives. Maybe people won't turn off the lights when they leave a room, or shorten their showers much, but handing out energy efficient light bulbs and low-flow shower heads is easy. Of course someone has to pay, and when the energy companies and water providers are paid for over-usage, why would they complain?

I tend to confuse James Randi with Joe Nickell, whom the New Yorker profiled a few years ago (abstract here).

There's a blackly comic incident described in that article: Nickell is walking down some steps at a skeptics conference in the company of a group of skeptics. In a freak accident, he trips and badly breaks his leg. While he's writhing on the ground in pain, the skeptics are standing around him saying things like, "Are you sure it's broken?"

I remember his comment in the article being something like: "Yeah, sometimes you get tired of hanging around skeptics."

"...the key to visibility, on runways as well as on roads, is contrast...The lighting near the mailboxes was of a type that Crawford calls "criminal-friendly": it was almost painful to look at, and it turned the walkway behind the boxes into an impenetrable void. "The eye adapts to the brightest thing in sight," he said. "When you have glare, the eye adapts to the glare, but then you can't see anything darker."

Much so-called security lighting is designed with little thought for how eyes--or criminals--operate. Marcus Felson, a professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, has concluded that lighting is effective in preventing crime mainly if it enables people to notice criminal activity as it's taking place, and if it doesn't help criminals to see what they're doing. Bright, unshielded floodlights--one of the most common types of outdoor security lighting in the country--often fail on both counts, as do all-night lights installed on isolated structures or on parts of buildings that can't be observed by passersby (such as back doors). A burglar who is forced to use a flashlight, or whose movement triggers a security light controlled by an infrared motion sensor, is much more likely to be spotted than one whose presence is masked by the blinding glare of a poorly placed metal halide "wall pack."

I think the parent post tried to link to the printable version, but the "/" character fscked it up. Try this instead:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/20/070820fa_fact_owen?printable=true

No ads and no "click here for page 2" crap. It's a damn fine article though and well worth a read.

Interestingly it appears that there are no truly dark sky locations - class 1 in the Bortle ranking - left in the continental USA. (Although they didn't mention Alaska in the article.)

Anyway, thanks to the parent AC for the excellent link.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/20/070820fa_fact_owen?printable=true/

Exactly. Galileo, Kepler, and the like made incredible discoveries with telescopes of surpassing weakness--basically the naked eye. This was discussed on Slashdot not too long ago.

It seems to me that the idea here is that vocal, unruly, rebellious or obstinate students are the ones that pose the most threat to the student body, teachers, staff, and property. From an administrative perspective, I'm guessing that the Campus Police are being told to enforce and project an image of authority, mostly to prevent strange things from happening or people from disturbing the peace. I'm not sure if I'm willing to debate that issue, since oftentimes it's an incident-by-incident judgement call and ultimately the UFL will reap what it sows.

What I find really sad about this incident, however, is that it shows how ineffective the established campus protection system is at preventing real violence from happening. In the latest string of school shootings - Columbine, Heritage, Santana, Rocori, Red Lake, Platte Canyon, Weston, Henry Foss, and most recently VT - the simple fact of the matter is that violent crime was perpetrated suddenly and without warning. There was no "angry rant" before pulling out a weapon and killing someone. The violent confrontations are premeditated - these aren't "crimes of passion", so to speak.

It reminds of David Owen's New Yorker Article which talks about how large floodlights installed in unmonitored locations, designed originally to prevent crime, actually do nothing at night but making it easier for real criminals to see what they are doing. One arguably positive effect is that you prevent a lot of dorked-up but probably harmless people from loitering in an open parking lot. One big problem is that you also provide plenty of light for a gang of hardened criminals to bash a door lock, open a loading door, and steal as much as they can in as short an amount of time as possible.

The idea is that creating generic enforcement policies doesn't really prevent people who are truly intent on committing a crime from doing nefarious things. Tasering a protestor might be textbook law enforcement, but it still doesn't make me feel safer when I walk onto a college campus. In some ways, it makes me feel more unsettled.

"Or you can do it yourself: some new cell-phone models can be connected to a computer by a data cable, allowing you to create master tones from MP3 files at home. However it is done, transferring music that you own to your phone is legal under copyright law."

Students saddled with debt The recent student loan scandals have shown us that most student "aid" in America is in the form of loans, and the whole industry is one big racket engineered to rob the unprepared (students) and the taxpayer (govt subsidy on interest). Recent college graduates, not to mention dropouts, are saddled with insane amounts of debt.

Government money better spent this way

From the recent New Yorker: President Bush's 2007 budget shows, for instance, that it's four times as expensive for the government to subsidize and guarantee private loans as for it to issue those loans itself. In other words, the current system is not just corrupt. It's also inefficient. So why are we stuck with it?"

Fifteen:

"Hey, look, that kid is reading 'Howl,' by Allen Ginsberg."

"Wow. He must be some kind of rebel genius."

"I'm impressed by the fact that he isn't trying to call attention to himself."

"Yeah, he's just sitting silently in the corner, flipping the pages and nodding, with total comprehension."

"It's amazing. He's so absorbed in his book that he isn't even aware that a party is going on around him, with dancing and fun."

"Why aren't any girls going over and talking to him?"

"I guess they're probably a little intimidated by his brilliance."

"Well, who wouldn't be?"

"I'm sure the girls will talk to him soon."

"It's only a matter of time."

. . . about which perhaps less is really known than some people seem to think. see Swingers