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Online footprints nearly reach fingerprint parity

And, since the criminals won't stop at just one crime, they can even turn around and cyber-bully the officer who took them down

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/alleged-gang-member-cyberbullies-cop-on-facebook.html

-- just another casual observation on why gang members can sometime gather notoriety for being as dumb as regular social media users.

Just a casual observation about social media. The biggest crime going on there is 99% of the content, which is usually so idiotic it should be illegal. Don't expect actual criminals to act any more intelligent because of that moronic tool.

Online footprints nearly reach fingerprint parity

And, since the criminals won't stop at just one crime, they can even turn around and cyber-bully the officer who took them down

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/alleged-gang-member-cyberbullies-cop-on-facebook.html
 
-- just another casual observation on why gang members can sometime gather notoriety for being as dumb as regular social media users.

I suspect the those pesky real journalists probably don't enough about the tech side of things to ask the questions they really need to be asking in order to debunk this.

The 60 Minutes piece has already been trashed by multiple outlets:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/60-minutes-hearts-the-nsa.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/16/nsa-surveillance-60-minutes-cbs-facts

http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/12/60-minutes-nsa-good-snowden-bad/356174/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/why-did-em-60-minutes-em-let-the-head-of-the-nsa-fool-its-audience/282377/

http://www.thenation.com/blog/177598/sad-decline-60-minutes-continues-weeks-nsa-whitewash

It is even worse than that. Not just flying and driving are considered a privilege, even the things explicitly enumerated in the Constitution as rights are being treated as privileges. Gun-ownership is the most obvious example — even in the "gun-friendly" locales (like Texas), keeping and bearing requires a license. And even if the Executive branch "shall issue" such licenses, it can also withdraw (or not renew) them — without bothering with the Judiciary.

Heck, even "performing in costume" requires a license in New York City...

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-social-thinker/201002/mind-the-gap-who-falls-prey-the-math-gender-gap

In our study, we asked college-aged women a series of similar questions that assessed whether they thought their math skills were fixed or malleable. Next, we had these women take a math test and then told them all that they had performed poorly (essentially placing them in a math failure situation). Finally, we asked them a series of questions about how interested they were in the math domain.

The results showed that women who believed their math skills were fixed: 1) showed less identification with the math domain (they felt their math skills were not an important part of their identity), 2) reported less enjoyment of math-related experiences, 3) indicated they were less likely to pursue a math major and 4) indicated they were less likely to pursue a math career after graduation, compared to women who believed their math skills were malleable. Thus, after experiencing a math failure, women who viewed their math ability as fixed appeared more likely to distance themselves from the math domain.

So the "common knowledge" that women are worse at math can make women believe they're innately worse at math and thus not try to pursue math or get any better at it.

Here's a similar article, without gender tones, about a study which found that kids praised for their effort tried harder (whereas kids praised for innate ability assumed they were fixed and couldn't improve). The effect is reversed but the result is the same: if people believe their abilities are fixed, they're significantly less likely to try improving them.

And most damning is this infographic, which cites various sources in microscopic text for some reason: http://www.thejanedough.com/why-so-few-women-in-science/

Note that young girls are actually marginally better at math than boys of the same age. There's a graph of a fascinating study as well: boys and girls did equally well on a test, but (only) girls' scores dropped significantly when everyone was asked to write their gender on the test.

Cultural discourse—what we proclaim as truth about ourselves and each other—has a surprisingly profound effect on us and how we act and think about ourselves. Sadly, many of the comments here perpetuate the idea that women don't belong in STEM, which in turn makes women think they don't belong in STEM, which will prevent many of them from even trying. (Not to mention the overt hostility here and there.)

Here you go.

Right now the people in the UK have enough of a social safety net (subsidized health care and education, enough money to afford beer and tv, etc) to maintain a bit more sanity, but their Conservative party wants that stuff taken away because you can't dream when your every waking minute isn't a constant, terrified struggle for survival.

If it isn't considered private, it should all be released to the public, maybe with a month delay to account for national security needs.

They claim the data isn't blanket searched. First of all, I don't have trust in the messenger at this point. Second, the systems they have are considerably more powerful/expansive than I had imagined. By the looks of it, it's a global communication catcher with no reasonable limits (whatever that would mean).

Third, in August they admitted to "2,776 incidents of 'unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications" in the preceding twelve months' ":
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/08/nsa-violated-privacy-law-thousands-of-times.html

Seems public enough to me to truly be public.

I agree 100%,which is why I wonder why so many attack when I suggest that we should simply discuss whether Naomi Wolf is on to something when she suggests that Snowden may be a plant working still for the NSA. After all it DOES make sense, you can't have a chilling effect if nobody knows to be scared but at the same time there would be too much backlash (not to mention giving groups like the ACLU court standing) if they just came out and said it, so what to do? The answer is simple...disgruntled employee.

This way those that you want to be scared, the ones that read up on such things, your rabble rousers, WILL be scared and the clueless can be told "its just a disgruntled employee, nothing to see here" and they will go along, finally groups like the ACLU and FSF can't get a court case unless the gov admits they are spying on everyone (because the courts say you have to show you were targeted to have standing) so the disgruntled employee angle neatly sidesteps it. You have to admit, if he is a plant? Its WELL played. I have talked to plenty of folks at the shop and on forums that fear talking out about politicians or the gov for fear of getting a file started while at the same time most of the right wing teabagger types have parroted the disgruntled employee angle, well played.

As for TFA I'm sure if you ask Bruce Schneier he'll tell you the same, that you shouldn't trust him or anybody else. Of course the bitch is everything from SELinux to most of our crypto now needs to be looked at with an aura of mistrust because much of it ame from the NSA or won NSA contests so you have to wonder, did they choose it for a nefarious reason? Like they know how to break it? And after reading up on the Kickstarter I'm fully convinced Truecrypt is worthless thanks to the extra blob it has on Windows that nobody knows WTF it does and the fact it won't compile from source and work.

What we need now is a handful of guys like Schneier to come together and give us some basic crypto tools that can be independently compiled, tested, and retested to insure that it works. But if I were forced to choose between something that has been handled or approved by the NSA, something like Truerypt where we now know that the source and binary do NOT math and there are hidden extra bits on Windows, or something approved of by Schneier or worked on by him like twofish? I think I'd choose Schneier.

BTW does anybody know of a tool that does full disc encryption on Windows like Truecrypt that ISN'T a big question mark when it comes to sewcurity?

Where do I download my dinosaur porn after this:
http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/10/qa-the-women-who-write-dinosaur-erotica.html
http://www.thefrisky.com/2013-10-03/if-youre-into-dinosaur-porn-have-we-got-something-for-you/
(slightly NSFW)

Nobody gives a rats rear what some persons code looks like. Code styles are like posterior sphincter muscles, everybody has one. But how about code, and conlusions that are just plane wrong? If that grad student hadn't checked, just how more damage would go on, try, "it wouldn't stop." I'm beginning to wonder if this couldn't be done using some kind of "blind" study?

Naomi Wolf? She thinks Snowden is a plant. Do you think it might be a mistake to take her seriously?

The FISA court doesn't try anybody, so that is a big red line difference. The US doesn't have secret police arresting people purely for opposing the government like the KGB, Stasi, or Gestapo.

There is certainly reason to be concerned, but the US isn't anywhere close to the burden on civil liberties that it was under during WW2. There were troubling things going on in the US at the time too.

And go talk to all your muslim brothers

He's Hindu. Stereotypically, he's about as likely to commiserate with Muslim extremists as a KKK member would be to try to team up with Jewish groups. Oh wait.

There's nothing wrong with 'the human spirit'.

The fact is that capitalism is an aberration. The first industrial revolution in the 1700s brought rail lines and new textiles, then it petered out. The second industrial revolution around 1900 brought automobiles, nuclear power, and computers; it is petering out right now. It may be that the last 200 years were a historical aberration.

Macroeconomists are coming around to the view that capitalism cannot survive without an industrial frontier -- an innovative environment full of new technologies. Without that, we go back to the stagnant economies of the middle ages. There was nothing wrong with the human spirit back then, there just weren't any opportunities. The rich controlled everything and people stayed within their social castes. It could be that we're now headed back to that state. It may be the default mode for human society.

It's not affordability, it's fashion

Cute, but when gun owner lists were leaked. And that data was used by criminals to target homes for firearms. Some folks argue this is justification to not allow government entities to gather such information in the first place. All it takes is one activist to leak it.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/01/journal-news-gun-map-might-have-caused-burglary.html http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/01/second-home-identified-on-journal-news-gun-map-is-burglarized-vandals-steal-gun-safe/ http://pastebin.com/DjU5Km6q

Problem with crowdsourcing is lack of accountability. Suppose I dislike a person and want their house broken into. What would stop me from tagging them as a "dangerous gun owner", that is gone from 7:30AM to 5:30 Monday through Friday, SSN is 123-45-6789, driving such and such a car, no alarm system or dogs, and is regularly visited by XYZ Pool Company which would not raise suspicion? Would UCSD Lecturer Brett Stallbaum mind if he was added to his own list with that sort of information?

This is obviously not about dangerous objects or their owners. It's entirely ideological, and intent on pressuring folks opposed to Mr Stallbaum's opinion on a particular issue. It is interesting that pro firearms activists have not released a responding app for homes of anti firearm activists, which would obviously be easy marks for criminals. Either anti firearm activists would be easily robbed, or embarrassed in public if they used firearms to embarrass themselves. While an easy, effective tactic, it's still obviously wrong, hasn't been done and likely would be denounced by pro firearm owners. Says volumes about the moralities involved, I suppose.

So, when will women treat men like people and not parasites?

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9495/

Could be working for a reputation management company. As Snowden was working for a private company when got that information.

So, is Smith & Wesson responsible for people in certain areas using guns as a currency?

Forget guns, how about holding Proctor & Gamble responsible Tide Detergent being a drug currency!

Heh... Kinda a joke, in context, but...

Not entirely.

The classic Reinhart and Rogoff paper which shows that economies slow with higher debt was shown to be falsified by a grad student recently. They excluded the period after WWII, several countries, and even had arithmetic errors in their spreadsheet. These people are frauds. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/grad-student-who-shook-global-austerity-movement.html

I am a financial engineer and also a PhD in science, so I can tell you that trading is a pseudo science. It is very hard to distinguish real profit from the noise. Most big guys that you see making lots of money would have made zero money if they had to pay the same commission and fees as individual day trader. The big guys make money in commission, fees, private placement, special offering, mergers and so on. As this article show, the top hedge funds managing $2.6 trillion actually made less than market returns for the last 4 years. Since they charge 2% asset management fee plus 20% commission, the net proceeds they pocketed equaled hundreds of billions of dollars and that is for doing worse than passive investing. Personally, I would never invest in any actively managed funds.

The whole falacy with your argument is that you probably think the word "imminent" means "about to take place" or something like that. Imminent is an excellent word for lawyers because it's so slippery and can mean just about anything. And that's exactly the case here.

The condition that an operational leader present an 'imminent' threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/leaked-memo-drone-strikes-us-citizens.html

Disregard the crappy generic link, here's the real Tide.

Doesn't that make you feel all better about paying the premium for Tide^H^H^H^HApple?

Note that the proposed law gives the power to censor to the Israeli justice minister. Yaakov Neeman, the current justice minister, is kind of weird. News articles:

• "A glimpse at the life of Israel's controversial justice minister" (Haaretz)
• "Yaakov Neeman, Israeli Justice Minister, Says Jewish Law Must Become Binding " ""Step by step we will bestow religious law upon the citizens of Israel and transform religious law into the binding law of the state,"
• Israel's justice minister advises rightists on how to seek pardons for Jewish terrorists (Haaretz)

There's a sizable ultra-orthodox faction in Israel which wants a political system where rabbis run things. Neeman is from that faction. Israel already has rabbinical courts, but they're currently restricted to ruling on religious issues and divorces. Neeman has said he wants to expand the authority of rabbinical courts, which in Israel are dominated by ultra-othodox rabbis.

Ultra-orthodox groups are very anti-Internet. This goes way beyond censoring pornography. There are special censored ISPs that only allow a list of 400 approved sites, most of which are religious.

So that's where this may be going, or at least where one faction would like to go. (Israel politics is currently deadlocked worse than US politics. There are many parties, none with a majority, and shifting coalitions. Different factions control different ministries as part of the deals made to put coalitions together. Just because the Justice Minister wants something doesn't mean the Government does.)

This is spot on. No one would.

Actually, Mitt Romney did.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/09/mitt-romney-paid-too-much-in-2011-taxes.html

So, taking him on his own words ("I don't think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes"), I didn't vote for him. (Among other reasons, even though on a checklist, I probably come closer to his side on many issues.)

Another journalist looked up the journalist who first broke the story, and asked her whether it was clear that Romney was joking:

The Los Angeles Times story that relayed Romney's airplane remark to the world was based off a pool report written by the New York Times's Ashley Parker. When we asked Parker this morning whether it seemed as if Romney made the mark in jest, she left no doubt. "Romney was joking," she e-mailed. Parker told us that while the pool report didn't explicitly indicate that Romney was joking, it was self-evident that he was. "The pool report provided the full transcript of his comments on Ann's plane scare," she said, "and it was clear from the context that he was not being serious."

There you have it from the witness, who is not necessarily pro-Romney.

This entire debacle then is more stupid political flag-waving that distracts from the actual issues. (If you elect a president on the basis of his sense of humor, you may be completely useless.)

As Naomi Wolf, explained about a decade ago, porn has an equal effect on women, as they must act out porn scenes in order to get close to a man.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/04/reddit-scared-straight-for-encouraging-suicide.html Maybe a little research next time? No Reddit official ever said they were being subpoenaed.

And now it's been confirmed as a hoax. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/04/reddit-scared-straight-for-encouraging-suicide.html

I guess I just don't understand how people can let their lives be manipulated by people or things that they dislike. Or by people that they like for that matter.

Well, here's a good example. Governer Rick Perry's "Strong" video. It was homophobic and hateful in every way. 26,404 likes, 764,362 dislikes. If there were such a thing as god I'd say he has a healthy sense of irony as well.

This one video was Perry's last stand, his last chance at being a contender. He decided to go all out and appeal to the Christian bigotry vote.

It didn't exactly work.

If you include people who weren't verified as Old or include Cheating Japan then yes you're right.

I don't see why this is news though. It's been believed for quite some time that metabolism is linked to lifespan, and that people who make it past 100 tend to have a decreased thyroid. It's not really so much as a mystery but fixing it, in my opinion, could be bad. I'd like to have the lifespan of a Galapagos turtle but not if it means I have to move around like one.

Not so, he's been "evolving." New York Magazine (opinion).

I will note that Obama is widely mocked for his obvious weather-vanning on this point. However, again, Santorum isn't a bigot only because he opposes gay marriage, he's a bigot because he thinks gay men having sex are the equivalent of people that have sex with dogs. He thinks that Lawerence v. Texas was wrongly decided (and therefore that having sex as a gay man or woman should be a criminal offense). He believes that gay men and women should not be allowed to adopt children. In short, he believes a lot of offensive hateful things and plans to use the power of whatever office he attains to enforce his personal bigotry on the nation.

-GiH

Funnily how people will rabidly fight to preserve every egg that got a sperm in it, right up until the fetus squirts out of a woman's vagina. At that point it's either completely on its own or they actively work to kill it. Right up until it comes down with a terminal illness and wants some "medical lead" to end its suffering. Then it's back to it being immoral and illegal again.

You may want to try reading the news. Google or Bing is your friend. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/12/nypd-still-blocking-journalists-at-ows.html Just one article, there are many more.

> Most of the Tea Party does NOT have a problem with increased taxes.

Oh really? Is that why you call yourself the "Taxed Enough Already" Party? If you think you're "taxed enough already" then you have zero appreciation (and apparently no knowledge at all) about historical tax rates, and how good you have it right now. It's absolutely bizarre that the TEA Party exists now, in this period of history considering how incredibly low taxes are compared to anytime in the US during the last 80 years. Of course, studies have shown that opinions about tax rates have more to do with the amount of propaganda being spent on convincing people that taxes are too high than actual tax rates.

Tea Party would be all over that candidate.

Yeah right.

But I think it's funny that you attack the Tea Party and Republicans, as out of touch. Are you really insinuating that the Democrats are not out of touch.

The Republicans have gone straight to crazy town. http://nymag.com/news/politics/conservatives-david-frum-2011-11/

Can we have a bit more intellectual honesty here? The end result is that the committee was going to fail because both parties are toeing the party line in order for it to fail so no real change can occur. Both the Dems & Repubs are mostly focus on maintaining the beneficial status quo that keeps them in power.

What a bizarre claim to make right after you say "Can we have a bit more intellectual honesty here". We've seen how the Republicans have been unwilling to compromise recently. It's the same old story: the Republicans need it to be "their way or the highway" (I've seen them spin it as "unwilling to compromise on principles") then the Democrats either roll over and give Republicans everything they want or the Democrats refuse to accept the unfair deal and both parties get blamed. It's a game of chicken and the Republicans won't ever turn the steering wheel.

That's what they were supposed to do. The committee's mandate was to look at both where taxes could be raised, and spending cut.

Unfortunately, the Republicans are currently held hostage by the retard wing of the Republican Party, the Tea Tards, who are gung-ho on the "Grover Norquist Pledge" to never raise taxes on anyone who has enough money to donate to the Republican party and their various slush funds. Nevermind the fact that taxes on the rich are lower than they've been since the Truman administration. The end result is that the committee was going to fail, because the "party line" of the Republicans has grown under the "leadersship" of talk radio zealots like Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh to be "no compromise, no sensible solutions, our-taliban-way-or-anarchy."

David Frum said it best: the Republicans have completely lost touch with reality. I encourage you to read the whole thing, he makes a lot of sense and it explains quite well how insane the Republican party has gotten.

I couldn't figure out a way to fit it into the summary, but I was bothered by the way Reuters recently handled their story claiming George Soros was funding Occupy Wall Street (OWS), first running a headline claiming a connection but with a story that offered very spurious evidence of monetary support for the movement, and then taking that story down under heavy criticism from other news sources and reposting the exact same story with a headline absolving Soros of any connection to OWS with a new link, while simultaneously killing the link to the old story without any explanation.

It was extremely problematic for people debating online, as my conservative friends suddenly had their link go dead, while my liberal friends suddenly had the same story but with a headline supporting their position. It was the same exact story, but since nobody RTFAs, the headline was the most important piece of evidence in the debate.

I post this example, not to dredge up some off-topic flamewar about OWS, but because it seems like a pretty clear cut case of how we don't want news agencies operating. I read a comment on Slashdot recently that the reason we aren't allowed to modify our comments is to prevent users from editing out things in order to accuse others of strawman attacks. If you screw up a fact, you post a correction. It seems News Organizations owe us the same courtesy.

You're hoping for too much from deniers. Their selective memory will take care of the issue and they won't admit to being wrong anyway.

Even better, there's a big crossover between them and the over-the-top religious fundamentalists. When bad things happen, even if some of them are most likely related to global warming, they'll say that those disasters are the results of god's anger with whatever is on their personal shit list. Never mind that the people they denigrate have been predicting those types of events as a result of anthropogenic global warming for over a decade. These people could be facing a second Dust Bowl from global warming and blame it on "God's anger" at gay rights and abortions.

What makes you think this has anything to do with terrorists.

Indeed... check out the graph in this article: http://nymag.com/news/9-11/10th-anniversary/patriot-act/

Except for the tiny fraction spent on our crumbling roads and schools, our tax dollars, by and large are spent on the "War on US Citizens."

How on earth could our government possibly spend fat tax dollars improving "transportation safety" in this country? Hmmm... most of our bridges are on the verge of collapse... and people need jobs... Let's molest more people!!! This bullshit is why people on both ends of the polarized, ridiculous US "political spectrum" are trying to get away from the major parties: those parties do not serve the people, and they're actively running this country into the ground. Occupy and Tea: keep trying, unite and try harder. This is your enemy.

Former child prodigy and current Fields medalist Terence Tao agrees that genius is overvalued when compared to hard work:
http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/

As he says, "attributing success to innate talent (which is beyond one’s control) rather than effort, planning, and education (which are within one’s control) can lead to ... problems." (particularly for children; cf. http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ )

Why aren't we prosecuting the criminals that stole from us in the US? You know, like all of wall street?

http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/obama-economy/presidents-failure/

Bilderburgers laugh derisively at your attempts to undermine the World Bank, IMF, ECB, and the 'Almighty Dollar' with your pathetic 'currency'. However...Bernie Madoff is intrigued by your ideas and wishes to subscribe to your newsletter.

No surprise from the paper that brought us Judith Miller's Iraq reporting, but in this article the New York Times utilizes the same irrationality and deception that the article claims to be describing as controversial.

The article claims to draw a distinction between rationality (or reasoning) and irrationality in the first paragraph and then proceeds to conflate the two, calling argumentation "reason":

What is revolutionary about argumentative theory is that it presumes that since reason has a different purpose — to win over an opposing group — flawed reasoning is an adaptation in itself, useful for bolstering debating skills.

The above paragraph would make more sense if you replaced the word "reason" with "argumentation" and be even more clear if "flawed reasoning" were replaced with "flawed reasoning and deception".

It reinforces the common meme of "reason is bad". An example of that meme is the recent popularity of a word that irritates me just as much as "cloud" and "mashup" do: "narrative". Whenever someone lays out a series of arguments, the media, politicians and spokepeople have recently especially within the past year referred to that as a "narrative". A narrative is what you find in a novel. It's not a series of arguments laid out in the open to be picked apart and contested by the opposition. By using the word "narrative", it denigrates the role of reason and debate (and becomes itself a tool of irrationality and deception to avoid and implicitly win a debate).

The article's bid to further destroy math education at the end of the article demonsrates the New York Times' continued commitment to destroy independent thought:

...children may have an easier time learning abstract topics in mathematics or physics if they are put into a group and allowed to reason through a problem together.

The lack of good math education is why the populace is so gullible, and this would only make it worse. John Taylor Gatto holds up the ideal form of education as one-on-one tutoring, pointing to the U.S. founding fathers as examples of having received this type of education. That's great if you can afford it; otherwise, compromises have to be taken. The best compromise is limiting the amount of time spent in one-on-one tutoring to make it affordable, even the U.S. founding fathers spent only 2-3 years in tutoring. The compromise conventional education has taken, in contrast, is the didactic classroom with a teacher facing a group of students. While this may work for a history class or even basic grammar (if it's drawn out long enough to allow everyone to learn in sync), it cannot develop the reason or teach math because quick confirmation of correctness and quick correction of mistakes -- i.e. one-on-one coaching -- is necessary. Compounding this problem, of course, is that most teachers are bad at math. Compounding that problem is that math is a subject that builds on itself, so any one bad teacher in the chain dooms the student to a lifetime of math and logic illiteracy. Compounding that is the generational decay of logic and reasoning skills as the problems perpetuate themselves.

Now on top of all of that, the scientist quoted (unquestionably) by the New York Times wants to take math education even further away from the ideal coaching scenario by forcing students to stop working and thinking independently. Of course argumentation skills are refined by testing them with a group, but developing reason and logic is inherently a solitary activity. It would be like throwing a group of students on Mt. Everest without each one first individually practicing the use of camming devices.

The New York Time has deceptively advanced the meme that all "reason" is mere deception and has even thrown out a bone to ensure that schools churn out gullible New York Times readers for the long term.

My favourite one is how journalists, particularly TV reporters, love to talk about people being evacuated. I know it can be hard to control one's bowels when faced with extreme danger but I'm pretty sure that's not what they meant.

I like The Wire, too, but this little joke was just something they trumped up for TV. Merriam-Webster gives one definition of evacuate as: "to withdraw from a place in an organized way especially for protection." David Simon says he put it into the show as an homage to one of his copy editors who used to give him a hard time about it; nonetheless, the usage is perfectly fine.

Thanks for the insightful comment. I was in a PhD program in Ecology and Evolution for a time a couple decades ago, and this sounds very likely.

Here are some tangential things I wrote just now in some email discussion related to this, branching out from these ideas to thinking about the evolution of human cognition in general.

===

First, some comments I wrote as I discussed this with someone else, who wrote first about women using beauty to be upwardly mobile in power and money:

Yes, women can convert beauty to cash at some point, but as is said here, physical beauty is generally a depreciating asset...
"In Economic Terms, You Are a Depreciating Asset"
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/10/in_economic_terms_you_are_a_de.html
"It's an age-old question: Why, in this city jam-packed with rich, smart, pretty people, is it so hard for hot ladies to find mates? This week, the definitive answer appeared on Craigslist, where the answers to all urban koans may be found. "I'm a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl," wrote a poster who called herself an "enterprising young woman." ... A businessman offers his sage advice: ... So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. ..."

Actually, some women can be pretty effective at manipulating social networks regardless of their looks. In fact, moderate looks may be better for that sort of manipulation because such women are less seen as a threat by other women. There is a lot of selection for aspects of human intelligence as well.

A potentially depressing aspect of that:
"Lies And Deception Led To Human Intelligence"
http://www.jasonsummers.org/lies-and-deception-led-to-human-intelligence/
"The prevailing view among scientists today is that the brain size increase that occurred in great apes and was extended into hominids resulted from the premium that natural selection placed on individuals that were socially clever. This theory, often called social intelligence or Machiavellian intelligence, argues that the primary evolutionary benefit of large brain size was that it allowed apes and hominids to cope with and even exploit increasingly complex social relations. In large social groups, each individual must remember the network of alliances, rivalries, debts, and credits that exist among group members. This is not so different from the politics of our own day-to-day lives. Frans de Waal (1982) has observed that chimpanzees seem to engage in a âoeservice economyâ in which they barter alliances and other forms of support with one another. The individuals best able to exploit this web of social relationships would have reaped more mating success than their group mates. ... Richard Byrne and Andrew Whiten (1988b) collected examples of potential lying in nonhuman primates and concluded that this behavior showed and evolutionary trend, one that was more widespread in higher primates. Great apes seem to be skilled at deceiving one another, whereas lemurs rarely if ever engage in tactical deception. ..."

Much of what goes on in evolution is under the hood, so to speak. :-)

Biochemical pathways are another example of hidden evolution which is not easy to get records about, things like being able to eat a certain fruit without immediately dying, which may be totally related to some enzyme pathway somewhere.

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And then in response to comments about male dominance in tribal societies and whether that meant getting all the most alluring women:

In some Native American societies, "chiefs" are elected by the women...

Even that is not so simple!

Moar Brainz!

There are articles wondering if Ashkenazi Jews strengthen the processes which ""correlate" to higher intelligence. In a fantastically confusing mix of Nature vs Nurture vs Old Boys Clubs, comes the hypothesis that five hundred years of "greater world neglect" produced a rare risky genetic gamble of extra neurons for certain types of processing, paired with a culture that valued learning and study.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/1478/

The article is some 25% provocation, but clearly too long to be a mere troll.

So far he has recieved much better treatment by the Aussie government than David Hicks did.

What? You're saying that the Australian government actually treated an Al Qaeda trainee more harshly in some fashion than Mr. Wikileaks? For shame!

Jihad" diary reveals David Hicks terror training
DAVID Hicks's handwritten "jihad diary" gives new insight into the sophisticated terrorism training he underwent, exploding claims that he was an innocent abroad.
The confessed terrorism supporter used a school exercise book - complete with boy's-own images of fighter aircraft - to write up the detailed instruction he received in weapon use, explosives and military tactics from Islamic extremists in Pakistan.

After describing how "to kill a VIP", Hicks noted that guerilla war involved "sacrifice for Allah". He sketched the mechanism of the telescopic sight of a sniper's rifle and the circuitry of deadly rocket-launched warheads. The exercise book was released yesterday by federal magistrate Warren Donald who, in easing the interim control order covering Hicks since his release from jail last month, found that, on balance, he remained at risk of committing a terrorist act or of undertaking further terrorism training......

The exercise book was filled out by Hicks while he was training with the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group in northern Pakistan between March and June 2000.

Hmmm.... Lashkar-e-Toiba .... where have we heard of them before?

US blames Lashkar-e-Toiba for Mumbai
About 10 gunmen landed in rubber dinghies in Mumbai on Wednesday and wreaked havoc with automatic weapons and hand grenades, in an assault that killed 188 and injured more than 300. The dead included 22 foreign nationals, among them two Australian men....

Jihad" diary reveals David Hicks terror training
The Adelaide man, now 32, went on to train with al-Qa'ida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where he was captured and handed over to US forces.

Training with al-Qaeda.... hmm....
Mumbai attacks: al-Qaeda plotter behind Bali bombing linked to terror attacks

I'm sure most Australians remember the horror of the Bali Bombings and the many Australians killed there. Most people probably remember their handiwork on September 11, 2001 as well.

Of course, the Taliban are reaching out as well.

I would say that Mr. Hicks was involved with a rather nasty bunch, and is quite lucky he didn't get himself killed.

The Aussie politicians asked the federal police to see if Assange had broken any laws, they came back with a definite "no".

Well, it's actually a bit more subtle than that.

"The AFP has completed its evaluation of the material available and has not established the existence of any criminal offences where Australia would have jurisdiction," it said in a statement.

"Where additional cables are published and criminal offences are suspected, these matters should be referred to the AFP for evaluation."

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the AFP had noted a number of offences that could be applied depending on the circums

So is he waffling on his long-time insistence that he is not wikileaks, but merely a member?

If he is just a member, he is clearly a member with "benefits".

Julian Assange paid two thirds of WikiLeaks salary budget

That makes for an interesting contrast to the way Assange / Wikileaks has treated the alleged primary source of the classified US government documents they've been so recently leaking:

Is WikiLeaks Reneging on its Financial Promise to Bradley Manning?

As to how he views himself....

Now that shadowy organization Wikileaks has unleashed another wave of military field reports, people want to know more about its founder, Julian Assange. According to a Times profile today, he's running Wikileaks with an iron fist.

Even remotely, his style is imperious. When Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old political activist in Iceland, questioned Mr. Assange’s judgment over a number of issues in an online exchange last month, Mr. Assange was uncompromising. “I don’t like your tone,” he said, according to a transcript. “If it continues, you’re out.”

Mr. Assange cast himself as indispensable. “I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest,” he said. “If you have a problem with me,” he told Mr. Snorrason, using an expletive, he should quit.

A reported twelve Wikileaks members have left. Julian Assange: On the Run, Even During CNN Interviews

Pied Piper Julian Assange brooks no dissent in land of WikiLeaks

I guess the above also explains: ‘Chaos’ at WikiLeaks Follows Assange Arrest

So for the scanner to be deadlier than just that attack, it would have to kill 16 extra people a year for a bit over 176 years. Am I missing something?

For further comparison there's an 9/11-equivalent loss of life on US road every 27 days (using 2008 numbers from the 'pedia.) Maybe it's me, but I don't see it being more deadly than terrorists. That said, I'm not going in them - radiation is cumulative. RF (the MM-wave scanners) is not.