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I have heard it said that a woman selected it random will usually be closer to the average than a man selected at random, in either direction. Women are Mother Nature's safe bet, men are the crap shoot. It troubles me that so often feminists quote the 70% pay figure, but that it was difficult to procure a statistic of the number of men in prison compared to women (1,368,866 men, 101,179 women in 2003; that's an order of magnitude more men). It doesn't look to me that there is any interest in closing the latter gap.

I had a point to this post to begin with, but I think I've said what I've wanted to say, that the deviation in women is smaller than in men, for good or ill.

When I first read about this, I was ready to give the guy a pass, thinking "Well, we all say stupid things once in a while, maybe he phrased what he meant wrong way, etc." Then, I read this at the end of the article I read (link):

Summers already faced criticism because the number of senior job offers to women has dropped each year of his three-year presidency.

It's one thing to say that differences between men and women need to be studied. But in light of the above fact, I've become rather suspicious.

You need up to date information.

"Note the trend in Mac shipments, particularly the big increase in the most recent quarter."

Mac shipments have been trending upwards over the last 8 quarters. From 711,000 in Q12003, to 1,046,000 Macs sold in Q4 2004. A sizable jump there in Q4, from 836,000 in Q304.

Market share is not all its cracked up to be.

IBM has about 8.6% market share. Unfortunately, even that wasn't enough - they lost money on their PC business for the last three years, so they bailed out and sold it to Lenovo.

I'd much rather have Apple at 1.9% market share, profitable, growing, and influential, than at 8.6% market share, losing money, and bailing out.

As a NeXT/Cocoa programmer, I'm quite happy to see that Apple has sold about 6.6 million Macs (fast, OS X-running Macs) in the last two years, and even more happy that that figure will likely grow even faster in 2005.

Why do you think UPS ordered it?
;-)

Microsoft used Firefox in a press image they sent out promoting their MSN Search.

For those who do not want to read the entire report, here are a few key points:

* Al Qaeda is replaced by decentralized terror groups which are equally deadly.
* China and India emerge as new global players. (But they could be competitive instead of cooperative)
* Rise in military strength of China and India - could lead to conflicts.
* Russia and Central Asia decline (in terms of democracy)
* Democracy grows in the Middle east.
* More competitive world for the United States
* India's Bollywood outshines Hollywood
* Rise of Korean Pop.

Now make your own predictions.

And no, the Democrats aren't any better. They're still fucking afraid to grow a pair and actually stand up for what's right.

Troll rate me, my bitches, see if I care! I use a Mac, too, so you can rate me for that also!

Van Horn, TX is also the home to John Madden's Haul of Fame at Chuy's Mexican Restaurant. Madden always hated to fly, so when he became a broadcaster, he drove to games in his Maddencruiser, hense the Haul of Fame.

Considering they were there explicitly to cause a disturbance, they were probably breaking the law.

On Monday, however, Kash said he was due in court to answer a drunken driving charge from a year and a half ago.

Requiring 5.1 digital sound with multichannel reverb so Longhorn can tell the user "You've got mail!" ?

Isn't it a shame when your debate opponent embraces your reductio ad absurdum?

"Surround sound is going to be increasingly important in future offices."
From an MS group marketing manager, quoted in this article.

Sure we've seen it happen. In fact we have caused it with all our pollution...

example1

example2

We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars in a fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a part of a war that cost billions (and thousands of American/"Coalition" and Iraqi lives), and not only was Bush handily reelected, but he had the gall to give Medals of Freedom to George Tenet, Paul Bremer, and Tommy Franks--the three prime architects of this utter disaster. Everyone who's given this administration warnings, cautious advice, or contradictory evidence against patently absurd assertions has been targeted for demolition. This administration doesn't know the meaning of the word accountability. Heck, Bush probably pronounces it "accountamability" anyway.

I'm saying the opportunity for Gregoire to, without making a case one way or the other regarding the validity of the election itself, or the law governing the process, pay for the hand recount of as many of the ballots cast in the election as she wanted, was, in fact mandatory.

Right, and the opportunity for Rossi to contest the election is mandatory. I have never contended that it is Rossi's right to get a revote. I've contended it is his right to contest, and that it is ludicrous to ask him to concede.

Rossi is not forcing a revote, he's asking for one, and if it is granted, then that is only because the law mandates that the people who do make that decision are allowed to do so.

you're just goint to sarcast at anyone that wants to discuss what possible future action a political figure might take?

You were putting the cart before the horse, demanding to know the basis for the contest before that information is available. I made note of this. Don't be so sensitive.

yes, that would be rather hypocritical. could you toss a link to quotes? I hadnt read that.

I've heard her say it post-county-certification, but can't find the exact quote offhand, but this is close, as she knows at this point she is likely to win and she asks him to accept the result. Better, she says, "I am shocked that his political party is suggesting that legitimate votes should not be counted in this election," which is what her party did a few days later, when Berendt said votes should be excluded simply because counties had already certified.

But then again, both Paul Berendt (WA Dem chair) and Chris Vance (WA Rep chair) have said incredibly stupid things in the last two months.

Lie to you? a bit melodramatic, dont you think?

Shrug. What would you prefer I call it when to make the people you don't like look bad, you assert as fact something that is clearly false?

Better check your facts. According to the Seattle Times Mount St. Helens produces between 500 and 1,000 tons a day of carbon dioxide, he estimates. Nothstein, of the state energy office, says the Centralia coal plant puts out about 28,000 tons a day. Statewide, automobiles, industries, and residential and business heating systems emit nearly 10 times that amount.

"The volcanos did it" is a nice myth, but utterly false.

Well, that makes a little more sense, anyway. I could see the controversy from using GPS phones as a work monitoring device. From the blurb for the pay story, it seems like the drivers agreed to carry the phones, and that they are private contractors (rather than direct public employees).

The somewhat more abbreviated Boston Herald story says that the employee was "middle-aged". An AP story (by way of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) examines the controversial aspects of work monitoring via GPS in somewhat more detail.

But what exactly did you mean by "twisted shit"? If I was making light of anything, it was of the Slashdot propensity for misapplying technologically-derived maxims. You will notice that I characterized the truck driver's conduct as a crime.

How this compares to the sales or HL2 or Doom3?

A quick google search shows that Halo 2 sold 2.38 million units in its first 24 hours

HP has thus far been able to implement Fairplay AAC decoding on their Windows Media Center PC.

Motorola will be shipping cell phones that can play Fairplay AAC encoded content.

What iRiver and Zen could do (Compaq did it 20 years ago!) is reverse engineer the iPod such that their devices look like iPods when plugged into iTunes.

Why haven't they done that if the market is so lucrative and they are so bright? Compaq figured out how to reverse engineer BIOs from IBM, and people are porting Linux to the iPod.

Link disappeared This is the article about HP Tunes

No one is doing so overtly, but...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/206802_moha mmed06ww.html

Not that there is anythin wrong with that.

> Except for the fact that he's an American citizen, while the
> savages locked away at Gitmo are not.

What's disturbing is people have been released from Guantanamo Bay, but few (if any) were charged with any crimes. The BBC has a story talking about British citizens who were held for more than two years, but were not charged with any crime when released. That makes one wonder if they was a legal reason why they were held.

>The US Constitution applies to US Citizens ONLY

That is true, but holding anyone years (or even forever) for no legal reason and torturing them seems to be against the idea of human beings being endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Regardless if they are U.S. citizens or not.

3,500 more votes than voters in King County.

And it happens to be an overwhelming Democrat County.

Interesting.

Thursday, December 30, 2004 Last updated 5:30 p.m. PT

GOP urges King County to explain 3,500-vote discrepancy

By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SEATTLE -- The day after King County released a list of nearly 900,000 voters who cast ballots Nov. 2, Republicans prodded election officials to explain why the list appeared to have about 3,500 fewer names than the number of votes that were actually tallied.

More

3,500 more votes than voters in King County.

And it happens to be an overwhelming Democrat County.

Interesting.

Thursday, December 30, 2004 Last updated 5:30 p.m. PT

GOP urges King County to explain 3,500-vote discrepancy

By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SEATTLE -- The day after King County released a list of nearly 900,000 voters who cast ballots Nov. 2, Republicans prodded election officials to explain why the list appeared to have about 3,500 fewer names than the number of votes that were actually tallied.

More

This might prove as dangerous to our freedom as, say, Military IDs.

I'm not saying there aren't valid reasons for the military to be run this way. But how can use offer that as an example of Big Brother's disinterest in running our lives!?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/art/pacificnw/200 4/1128/cover2.jpg
Geek fashion at its best.
IMP

Let us ignore for a moment that Slashdot is a community of thousands upon thousands of people, so you're being rather silly if you're expecting a consistent opinion to be held between the comments all these different people. The presence of multiple conflicting opinions on a discussion site is what's supposed to happen, not a flaw.

If we for some reason assume there to be some kind of "patents are bad" party line on slashdot, it's certainly not out of place here. After all:

Situation A: A company is not responsible for a concept, but obtains a patent on it anyway. It then waits for others, who discovered the concept independently-- possibly before the patent owner did-- to put the patented conept into widespread use, and then begins to bully them with the patent. Public benefit from the concept is lessened, and the company gains a great deal of money from the patent that they have done nothing to deserve.

Conclusion: The patent system is not serving the purpose it should be serving.

Situation B: A person comes up with a nontrivial and useful invention. Using this person's work, others make billions of dollars from the invention, and an incalculable number of people benefit directly or indirectly. The person responsible for the invention does not recieve monetary recompension through the patent system for any of this.

Conclusion: The patent system is not serving the purpose it should be serving.

Here's an idea that might be useful, lets make patents only available to people, not companies. That way they can protect inventors, and not be used to suck money out of people who actually innovate and make things.

Yeah, and then sweatshops in China will step in, steal the invention, undercut the price, and leave you just as poor as before.

The inventor in the first article was right about needing a large company to produce these inventions. If anything, they at least have the deep pockets available to sue any patent infringers in other countries. Without that money, any patents you make are worthless.

Maybe it's a freak accident, but it certainly seems to happen

Are you per chance posting on a malyasian made keyboard, taiwanese motherboard, chinese/taiwanese made intel processor and korean/japanese lcd/crt ? Just curious, is there ANY US made computer part you have bought at all in the past, say, 5 years ?

Your argument actually proves my point of how open the US market is. The US has let other countries take products they've invented, ignore patent claims, and accepted them for sale on the US market. Here is a good example of that unlevel playing field hurting US businesses.

Actually, it's largely the first world countries that are responsible for unfair trade, not the third world countries.

Where's your proof? The US is known worldwide for it's free market economy. It is at the forefront of promoting and encouraging free trade. The US set up free trade agreements with several countries. They started with Canada and Mexico in NAFTA back in the early 90's. The US was also a founding member of the World Trade Organization.

China and India have some of the most protectionist policies in the world. Despite all it's talk promoting free trade in software circles, India dislikes free trade policies that don't benefit them. India also dislikes the idea free trade in their airlines. This results in an unfair playing field that hurts US businesses.

Grandparent post is on the right track - if they were cutting the budget to the bone on the crew training system,they could be doing the same to the maintenance budget.

Also, hijackers can threaten passengers instead of just the crew. Making the cockpit inaccessible prevents 9/11 style situations but doesn't prevent old style "take us to ___ or everybody dies" hijackings.

Actually, with that system in place, those would be eliminated or severly curtailed in their effectiveness as well. Try this one on for size: A hijack is announced with 5 hijackers, who claim they have a bomb. The pilot hits stage 1, which brings all the bulkhead doors down and seals the plane into 12 sections. He then comes on the PA and tells the hijackers to surrender their bomb and sit down and shut up or he'll eject all the modules. Worst case scenario is that one of the modules is breached by the bomb, while the other 11 are fine. Considering that the modules would be built for high-speed ejection over an ocean, it's not even certain that a smuggleable bomb would be sufficient to destroy the module it is located in, let alone any of the adjoining modules.
Or even better, it's decided that NTSB rules stipulate that in the event of a hijack, the pilot has no choice but to eject all modules immediately. Make it a big news story so that everyone knows that if that crap is even tried, all the modules just go away the second the pilot knows about it. There goes any and all motivation to hijack the planes since they won't get what they want.
If they're just after hostages for a cause, there's lots of places to find those that don't involve planes.

Keep watching those made for TV movies, though.

What movies? Like the show I saw on Discovery last year about Flight 261? I bet those people would have loved the modular idea. Certainly much better than spiraling to their deaths in an out of control aircraft at 400 mph.

More from the article

Logan said he will ask the three-member King County Canvassing Board tomorrow to approve the counting of all wrongly disqualified ballots that pass a signature comparison. If some signatures don't match, those voters will be notified of the mismatch and given a chance to establish their identity.

Attorneys for Secretary of State Sam Reed say counties across the state made errors that were corrected by canvassing boards, which resulted in new votes being counted.
Attorney Thomas Ahearne argues that if the court now rules that King County can't correct errors during a recount, other counties will have to comb through results in both the completed machine recount and the hand recount to pick out any votes that they had added when correcting errors. The hand recount has been completed in all but King County.
Reed maintains that King County has the same right as every other county to correct errors during the recount. Rulings on the validity of ballots are made by local canvassing boards, three-person panels in each of 39 counties. If the court rules that King County can't count the 735 disputed ballots, Reed says, that means no county should have been able to reconsider ballots after the initial count.

More from the article

Logan said he will ask the three-member King County Canvassing Board tomorrow to approve the counting of all wrongly disqualified ballots that pass a signature comparison. If some signatures don't match, those voters will be notified of the mismatch and given a chance to establish their identity.

Attorneys for Secretary of State Sam Reed say counties across the state made errors that were corrected by canvassing boards, which resulted in new votes being counted.
Attorney Thomas Ahearne argues that if the court now rules that King County can't correct errors during a recount, other counties will have to comb through results in both the completed machine recount and the hand recount to pick out any votes that they had added when correcting errors. The hand recount has been completed in all but King County.
Reed maintains that King County has the same right as every other county to correct errors during the recount. Rulings on the validity of ballots are made by local canvassing boards, three-person panels in each of 39 counties. If the court rules that King County can't count the 735 disputed ballots, Reed says, that means no county should have been able to reconsider ballots after the initial count.

See this news report

King County Elections Director Dean Logan said that when workers were verifying signatures on absentee ballots, they erroneously disqualified voters whose signatures hadn't been entered into a computer system. Instead, Logan said, they should have double-checked with signatures on voters' registration cards on file with the county. "We take full responsibility," Logan said. "An error has been made that has prevented valid ballots from being counted. We need to correct the error and count those votes."

Right you are, we won't actually know. Oregon may be more or less safe, but there are problems even in reasonably stable Washington state. 700 votes were mistakenly marked invalid, and state judges have chosen to block those votes from being counted. So add Washington to the list of problem states.

DUDE, you're reading slashdot of all places... you KNOW how to make a stupid link.

The story of Harry Truman, the man who died at Mount St. Helens.

A Florida-based computer security vendor, Sunbelt Software, said yesterday that it had been part owner of anti-spyware technology developed by Giant Company Software Inc., the company that Microsoft had acquired a day before. Microsoft knew about the relationship between the companies but didn't contact Sunbelt about the Giant deal before announcing it earlier this week...At the same time, Eckelberry declined to comment on reports that Sunbelt continues to hold some related rights to the Giant anti-spyware technology, including exclusive rights to offer software development kits related to the technology.

Sunbelt Software Distribution, Inc (Scientologists in the management: Stu Sjouwerman, Alexander Eckelberry, Sam Licciardi (married to Denise Licciardi, the sister of Scientology boss David Miscavige!), Greg Kras). It is unknown if the parent company Sunbelt International Group is run by Scientologists - I have no information that J.M. is a Scientologist.Corporate Information.

In case you haven't heard, Microsoft (MSFT) has been deeply unprofitable since 1996, when it began to rely on holes in the GAAP accounting standards that allowed it to report historic profits in its NASDAQ filings. Large fund managers bought into it to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, making MS at its peak ($700B) which for comparison made it the largest component of the S&P 500, the equivalent of the 16th largest country or ~1.5% of the GDP of Earth. Though billed (no pun intended) as a success story, when the bubble burst investors lost billions.

Who cares? The biggest funds involved were pension funds of large social programs across the US, e.g. the California Teachers Union, who automatically invest in S&P components at rates proportional to the components' value. MS paid for its bottom line with those peoples' money, so much so that pensioners are majority owners of MS today. Too bad for them that the bottom fell out of MS stock and their savings are worthless. But it did help create two of the richest personal accounts on Earth.

You could argue that this was all legal and that they won the king of the hill prize. Perhaps. But is it ethical to block GAAP reforms via corporate shills in Congress (e.g. Joe Lieberman) so your huge losses won't be exposed? Enron execs are being hung out to dry for being only slightly on the other side of that thin line in the sand. No, it's likely MS knew what it was up to. As Bill Parish, who broke the story, tells:

"Microsoft's perspective is best reflected by Bob Herbold, Chief Operating Officer, to whom the CFO reports. Bob very sincerely [explained the situation to Gates], "Bill, everyone is doing it.""

A counted number, actually; it's about 45 million Americans right this moment, and in a typical year ~75 million will lack health insurance for some of that year. (link)

So, what does that mean?

It means 18,000 dead Americans every year.

It means a 9/11 every two months.

But why should you care? It's only lazy jobless bums dying, right?

Contrary to expectations, most of the uninsured are employed full-time.

But we're saving money, right?

Not only does the USA spend $35 billion/year to treat the uninsured, much of that is for emergency treatment that could be much more efficiently (and cheaply) handled with an earlier diagnosis. Moreover, the lack of health care costs the nation about $100 billion yearly in lost productivity. (link)

But it would cost too much to insure everyone, right?

At an average cost of $9,000 for family insurance and assuming families of three, the cost to insure those 45 million Americans would be $135 billion, or very nearly the amount saved in uninsured medical costs and lost productivity. At the very least, $35 billion of that is already being paid for (uninsured emergency care), and about $20 billion would come back to the government in taxes, representing a maximum cost of $80 billion.

$80 billion for 18,000 American lives; that's $4,500,000 per dead American. In other words, each $1 billion spent on missile defense is equivalent to 220 dead Americans. The $10 billion per year we're spending on missile defense could save as many lives in two years as all the terrorist attacks on US soil have taken since the nation was founded.

In the richest nation in the world, is that acceptable?

Up to you. But know the facts before you decide how many American lives a particular government program is worth to you, and which is the most efficient way to save American lives.

Seattle has the largest fleet of hybrid diesel buses in the world, but transportation officials are finding that the expected fuel efficiency isn't there. It seems the regular diesel engine buses have a slightly better mpg performance while still having with very low emissions.

During a check on fuel efficiency in September, the hybrid buses (which are equipped with the regenerative braking system) were getting 3.75 mpg on average while the older model diesels were getting 3.8 mpg.

The article does go on to say, though, that this may be because the city uses the hybrid buses for longer routes where the diesel engine gets more use. Plus, stricter federal emission standards are affecting fuel efficiency.

That reminds me of the case two days ago where a burglar's case was overturned because the evidence was supplied by a mother snooping on a phone conversation between her child and the suspect. While this is not a case of communications eavesdropping, is it not still a violation of the same fundamental privacy rights?

I don't have much time for the AC's reflexive Bush-bashing, but the picture you paint doesn't seem to be any less one-sided.

From my understanding of it, the US did pretty much disengage from the process, so although they didn't technically pull out of the treaty, they certainly have withdrawn from the process of dealing with global carbon emissions. And there's no denying that Bush welched on his campaign promise to do something about it.

And I think there's an important difference with Clinton's actions: the main post points out, we're six years further along with the science of it. The room for reasonable doubt has greadly shrunk, and we've got six more years of excess CO2 emissions to clean up now.

So, how are we going to stop volcanoes from violating the sainted Kyoto treaty?

Please, allow me to quote from the article that you yourself referenced, just so that there's no possible claim of article bias (or rather that if there was, it would cancel itself out - gotta love feedback cycles):

Worldwide, sulfur dioxide emissions from volcanoes add up to about 15 million tons a year, compared to the 200 million tons produced by power plants and other human activities

Yup. So ... its an influence, but hardly the major one.

Besides, that's sulfur dioxide. Going back to the original point about carbon dioxide, and again quoting from the article:

Nothstein, of the state energy office, says the Centralia coal plant puts out about 28,000 tons a day. Statewide, automobiles, industries, and residential and business heating systems emit nearly 10 times that amount.

On a global scale, the difference is even more dramatic, said Gerlach, who often gets calls from power-plant operators and oil-company executives who believe nature is just as responsible for global warming as man. His answer always disappoints them.

"I tell them the amounts don't even come close and I usually never hear from them again."

Worldwide, people and their activities pump 26 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, he said. The total from volcanoes is about 200 million tons a year -- or less than 1 percent of the man-made emissions.

I can understand not RTFA that's part of the story. But not R your own FA? C'mon now...

Plans have been drawn up for a draft of health-care workers should the military become too overwhelmed with casualties. You can bet there are similar plans for pilots and others with highly trained skills, including some IT professionals.

If Selective Service could easily run reports such as "give me everyone under 35 with a BA or higher in Comp Sci or MidEast studies who graduated with at least a 2.5 GPA", I'm sure this would be incorporated into draft planning. Whether or not that is the primary intention of this proposed database, it would be foolish to believe that such a database would never be used in this way.

Unfortunately, Turkey is not the only one with such issues. Check this article from the Seattle Times about Sami, a Saudi Ph.D. student from Idaho that was stupid enough to help out with maintaining a web site. In post 911 America this can mean that you get locked up for two years and finally get kicked out of the country for minor visa application errors.

Even as we lay deadly waste to this world, species evolve to overcome it. The problem is that the longer a species takes to procreate, the slower evolution goes as well. This article shows that a lifeform that once couldn't live in toxic waste adapted. They didn't change to a new species, but it is interesting none the less.

"If you were to just drop these same bacteria directly into this tank waste, none of them would survive."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/175015_bugs26. html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=1

The level of misperceptions varies according to Americans' political positions.
Supporters of President Bush and Republicans are more likely to have misperceptions.
However, misperceptions do not appear to only be the result of bias, because a significant
number of people who do not have such political positions also have misperceptions.

The level of misperceptions varies according to Americans' political positions.
Supporters of President Bush and Republicans are more likely to have misperceptions.
However, misperceptions do not appear to only be the result of bias, because a significant
number of people who do not have such political positions also have misperceptions.

another result mentioned in this article is that 199 out of the 200 people surveyed were happy with their iPod.

That's a pretty incredible result for any consumer electronics gadget.

Also, I believe no one surveyed was unhappy with the lack of Ogg Vorbis support. In fact, when asked about whether Ogg was important to them, the most common answer was "I only like Ogg at Christmas with a little nutmeg on top." :)

I agree with your main point, but not what you say about Fox news.

Why don't sub you fox news comment with a cbs comment. afterall they are the one making the news up instead of reporting it in a way you don't like.

They did not make up the story about Bush's service records, they were tricked into believing it. Whether they should have detected the fraud or not is a matter of opinion. Much like Bush's similar misstep.

BTW, what has fox news ever reported that was wrong or missleading?

Read this