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The FTC gave TM a slap on the wrist for doing the same thing, and then they approved TM's acquisition of Live Nation. Their conduct was arguably much worse.

Ticketmaster Reaches Settlement on Complaints of Deceptive Sales

The Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement with Ticketmaster over complaints that the company used deceptive tactics to steer Bruce Springsteen fans to more expensive tickets through its own reseller last year.

The complaints stemmed from 14 Bruce Springsteen concerts last year where fans were steered to a Web site with inflated prices.

The settlement, announced Tuesday by the F.T.C.'s chairman, Jon Leibowitz, came after an investigation into 14 Springsteen concerts last May and June in which thousands of customers on Ticketmaster's Web site were pointed to TicketsNow.com, an eBay-like resale marketplace with no price caps, that offered similar tickets at inflated prices.

In some cases, brokers on TicketsNow advertised tickets they did not have, and the fans never got the tickets they paid for.

Under the terms of the settlement, Ticketmaster must pay refunds to fans and disclose the availability of tickets it resells through its subsidiary.

"TicketsNow.com sold phantom tickets without letting consumers know that the tickets did not exist," Mr. Leibowitz said in a statement. "Then, the company held onto consumers' money, sometimes for months, when it knew those fans weren't going to see Springsteen. Clearly consumers deserve better. They deserve to know what they're buying, including the risk that their tickets won't materialize."

The Apple apologists are coming out of the orchard like cockroaches.

Nice ad hominem. I guess if you can't make a successful argument then you can at least try to distract people by attacking the person you are arguing with!

Xerox attempted to pull off what was basically a double-dip. They profited very nicely from their agreement with Apple to invest in the then-privately-held Apple Computer in exchange for giving information about the Alto to Apple for the purposes of Apple developing those ideas into a product.

Xerox shelved the Alto technology for years because they felt it was a dead-end. Many years later, after Apple was successful in using the traded information, Xerox does a 180 and tries to sue over information they traded to Apple in order to get another slice of the pie.

So the pattern was: invent technology, trade technology, shelve the technology, wait for the company you traded with to make it successful, sue that company.

The lawsuit wasn't dismissed because of the statute of limitations, it was dismissed because the judge determined that Xerox was making its complaint in the wrong forum and over the wrong issues. From an actual news article instead of Wikipedia:

Judge Walker dismissed two counts relating to Xerox's efforts to get Apple's copyright declared invalid, apparently agreeing with Apple that the proper place for such an action would be the Copyright Office, not the courts. He also dismissed three counts relating to the unfair competition assertions, saying that the lawsuit should really be a copyright infringement case, not an unfair competition case.

Xerox didn't go on to make a successful case on the proper grounds, thus proving that the lawsuit most likely was without merit. They were attempting to go for a quick cash grab and were thwarted when their case was dismissed. End of story.

If you are going to start slinging mud around you should at least try to get your facts right first or someone might call you out on it...

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/24/business/most-of-xerox-s-suit-against-apple-barred.html?pagewanted=1

Xerox sued Apple in December, seeking more than $150 million in damages. It asserted that the screen display of Apple's Macintosh computer unlawfully used copyrighted technology that Xerox had developed and incorporated in a computer called the Star, which was introduced in 1981, three years before the Macintosh...

G. Gervaise Davis, a copyright lawyer in Monterey, Calif., said the decision in the case ''is not a bit surprising.'' He said Xerox had waited too long to file a copyright infringement case and had to resort to a weaker charge of unfair competition. ''I think it's unfortunate,'' he added, ''because Apple is running around persecuting Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard over things that they borrowed from Xerox.''

But hey, your anecdote was great!

It now turns out that the "anti-war" movement was really just against Bush. Notice the absence of mass protests as Obama continues Bush's policies, this time with a "surge" in Afghanistan

That may be true of some antiwar activists but not all. Iraq was no threat to the US, I'm still waiting to see the WMDs that would create mushroom clouds over US cities.

Now what most Americans probably don't know is that the US created the conditions for what happened in both Afghanistan and Iraq. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan the US aided and supplied the Mujahideen there. As they say Afghan was the Soviet's Vietnam. But after the Soviets withdrew so did the US. Some of the Mujahideen then became the Taliban while others the Northern Alliance. With Iraq, both Reagan and Bush Sr armed and supported Saddam. In 1988-89 congress debated imposing sanctions on military aid to Saddam after it was confirmed he used WMDs on Kurds, Marsh Arabs, and others in Iraq but both Reagan and Bush SR argued it was against America's interest to cut off aid. Before Saddam ordered the invasion of Kuwait he could do no wrong, but when he did order the invasion Bush turned on him. And why did Saddam order the invasion? Because Kuwait was slant drilling into an Iraqi oil field.

Don't tell me with a straight face that the media gave George W. Bush a "free pass" as that is absurd.

What is absurd is to say the media didn't give George W Bush a free pass. I didn't hear one reporter question the existence of those WMDs Bush stood on television claiming Saddam had. After none were found the media didn't bat an eye supporting Bush saying the invasion was about regime change and not about WMDs. Or the invasion of Afghanistan wasn't about capturing bin Laden. Again Bush stood on TV demanding the Taliban turn over bin Laden, "or else". When the Taliban asked for proof bin Laden had anything to do with 911 Bush beat his chest and ordered the invasion of Afghanistan.But when bin Laden wasn't captured the invasion was no longer about that. To deny this is to deny reality.

I'm sick to death of our hypocritical politicians, Democrat and Republican alike.

Same here.

Look for the biggest "throw the bums out" election results in American history this November.

I wish this were true but I seriously doubt it. Most American voters have short memories as well as suffer from "all of Congress sucks but my reps." I am somewhat hopeful Kennedy's seat going to a Republican means other incumbents, in both parties, will also lose their seats but I doubt it.

This is a golden opportunity to pass term limits for Congress as their favorable poll number is now a mere 11 percent.

I don't like what's going on but I don't like term limits either. Instead I propose a Constitutional Amendment like what Texas has. In Texas the legislature only meets in odd numbered years, not every year, and the session only lasts for 140 days. 140 days every other year? Now here's my proposal:
Amendment 28 - Limiting how long congress can be in session:
Congress shall only meet in odd numbered years for 3 months. The president can call for a special session but such session shall only deal with a single issue.

I also propose another amendment, Amendment 29 - Amendment 12 Repealed, how the President is Chosen.
Each candidate shall run for President in an election with Condorcet or ranked voting. The winner shall be President with the candidate in second place being the Vice President.

Falcon

Do you have any evidence that they stole emails

No, in my opinion, these e-mails were not "stolen", but, rather, outed by a hero whistle-blower. The illiberals (scratch a climate alarmist, and you will find a Che Guevara T-shirt underneath), use the terms "stolen" and "theft" referring to them, however, suddenly having found, that some information may be stolen, after all — as long as it is not movies nor music, and as long as victims aren't Corporationy Corporations, but "scientists".

1. total cost (panels are expensive

Coal fired and nuclear power plants aren't expensive? Neither coal companies nor the nuclear power industry have their hands out begging for government assistance? Cost Is Chief Barrier to 'Clean Coal' and the Nuclear power industry is Hooked on Subsidies. "Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

2. the Return on Investment is low (extreme cases - 10 years, but typically more than 20).

The payback period can be much shorter than that. In one survey New Jersey had a payback period of 1.5 years. New York had a payback period of 3 years and Delaware 6 for residential applications.

Falcon

Vivendi acquired Activision, not the other way around.

Talking about random shuffles, does anyone know of a shuffle algorithm emulating a "real" dovetail shuffle of a deck of cards?

In the late 80's, Dave Bayer and Persi Diaconis (Trailing the dovetail shuffle to its lair. The Annals of Applied Probability) showed that 7 shuffles of a deck of 52 was sufficiently random for most purposes. The New York Times ran a story and following a number of critiques showing that the results were not sufficiently random for every kind of application (see New Age Solitaire), I heard no more of this seemingly promising NlogN approach to shuffling.

You need to stop working for this guy.

And yes, I'm also seriously disturbed by careless attitude of many in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley --- I've had a chance to get to know the area better lately.

Why not? If I want to open my kitchen and give away free food, I can.

Not in France. Give away free soup and the government might come after you:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/international/europe/28soup.html

Similar things have occurred in the USA when charities try to give away food without restaurant permits.

The enabling legislation for prohibition, The Volstead Act, was passed by Congress on October 18 1919, and Wilson's veto overridden on 28 October 1919 . The vote in the Senate was 65-20 (38 Republicans and 27 Democrats voted for the measure. 9 Republicans and 11 Democrats voted against it.) and 176-55 in the house. The bill's sponsor, Andrew Volstead, was a Republican.

The 21st amendment was passed by Congress on February 20,1933. The Cullen Harrison Act, which legalized 3.2 % beer, passed congress in March 21, 1933. It passed the House by a vote of 316-97. Because of copyright restrictions, I can't easily find the roll calls, but congress was overwhelmingly Democratic.

Members of both parties advocated for and against prohibition-- it was not a "partisan" issue. If you seek a party to blame, however, be aware that the man ultimately responsible for supervising prohibition enforcement., Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, was a Republican.

The enabling legislation for prohibition, The Volstead Act, was passed by Congress on October 18 1919, and Wilson's veto overridden on 28 October 1919 . The vote in the Senate was 65-20 (38 Republicans and 27 Democrats voted for the measure. 9 Republicans and 11 Democrats voted against it.) and 176-55 in the house. The bill's sponsor, Andrew Volstead, was a Republican.

The 21st amendment was passed by Congress on February 20,1933. The Cullen Harrison Act, which legalized 3.2 % beer, passed congress in March 21, 1933. It passed the House by a vote of 316-97. Because of copyright restrictions, I can't easily find the roll calls, but congress was overwhelmingly Democratic.

Members of both parties advocated for and against prohibition-- it was not a "partisan" issue. If you seek a party to blame, however, be aware that the man ultimately responsible for supervising prohibition enforcement., Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, was a Republican.

That would seem to blur regulating a licensee and running a licensee's power plant. The problem is more that the NRC seems to be generally supportive of a run-to-failure attitude in licensees and does not care at all about whistleblower protection. That is how Nuclear Fuel Services, for example, has run into a ditch. http://www2.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/safety_issues_keep_nuclear_processing_work_on_hold_at_nfs/41758/ It should not be forgotten that the NRC was covering up a near criticality accident there four years ago http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/us/06cnd-nuke.html Failure to regulate is the problem with this regulatory agency.

Remember all the screaming when Booosh!!! and the EEEVIL Rethuglicans kept passing extensions to the Patriot Act?

Guess what?

IT'S STILL HAPPENING!

Yeah, putting something like this new industry under the control of THAT goverment is going the HELP our privacy. Crap, that government would just figure out a new way to shake down the companies for free trips to warm places.

I wish there was more money for space, but for heaven's sake - if it really was a choice between socialised healthcare for people, or socialised manned space travel, I'd still put the former first.

Here's a nice graphic that puts the budget in perspective:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html

To make things even more clear, hit the button at the top that says 'Hide Mandatory Spending'.

To save NASA's Constellation program, methinks the military-industrial complex should take a haircut. I've read that the pentagon's off-budget items dwarf what's officially spent...

I don't understand what you mean by 'conceptually elegant'.

I ask whether conceptual elegance motivates your thoughts because I can't conceive of any other reason for asserting that the law must apply in a uniform manner to large and small companies alike.

For example, I am against legislation allowing gay marriage...

Look, I'm with you on getting the government out of marriage. The rights currently conferred by marriage should be split up into individual agreements that any two people can agree to.

That said, you must be aware of how difficult it would be to remove the concept of marriage from the law. The political cost would be astronomical, and the gain would be quite minimal. So in a practical sense, the government will always officiate marriages. Because marriage is not going away, and because it does confer definite benefits, your opposition to gay marriage is an endorsement of continued inequality for one class of people. In fact, your confusion between "is" and "ought" in this instance is so plain that one must wonder whether you have other reasons for your opposition to gender-blind marriage.

[snip the rest of your post]

You did not address my question.

You made a categorical assertion that we have no basis for applying different laws to large and small businesses. I asked you for the supporting foundational arguments behind that assertion, and you did not provide any. Again: why are we, in your view, specifically prohibited from applying different laws to businesses that dominate their markets?

What about holding the executives responsible for egregious behavior. Instead of just levying a fine how about locking up the execs when the company knowingly breaks the law. If corporations are people then how about they go to Jail when they break the law just like "non-corporation people".

Wanna make a $10,000 bet on the price?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wager_between_Julian_Simon_and_Paul_Ehrlich
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/opinion/23tierney.html?_r=1&n=Top%2FOpinion%2FEditorials%20and%20Op-Ed%2FOp-Ed%2FColumnists%2FJohn%20Tierney&oref=login

In case you want an excuse to back out.

A few days ago, there was an article in the NYT (titled "Are there secular reasons?") which is closely related, and worth reading. Basically, it argues that secular reasons alone (which we call "reason" here) cannot lead to any action. Science tells us facts, but they are useless without beliefs which set goals and allow us to use the facts to act in the pursuit of these goals.

Also related, the very old (16th century) quote from Rabelais: "Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’âme" ("Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul").

We are made of both beliefs and reason, and need both. It's no surprise that different people mix these two aspects in different ways, and that many give so much more weight to beliefs that it blurs their view of facts.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/24/business/AP-US-Vermont-Yankee.html

I don't know anything about Latvia. Here in the U.S., though, you don't fuck with the big banks. They have money and power--which they will throw at your political opponents if you become too much of a "problem."

From the article I just linked to:

Republicans are rushing to capitalize on what they call Wall Street's "buyer's remorse" with the Democrats. And industry executives and lobbyists are warning Democrats that if Mr. Obama keeps attacking Wall Street "fat cats," they may fight back by withholding their cash.

"If the president doesn't become a little more balanced and centrist in his approach, then he will likely lose that support," said Kelly S. King, the chairman and chief executive of BB&T.

Balanced and centrist? I guess that just about sums it up.

Interestingly, Lomborg recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times where he spouts many views about what we need to do to fix the CO2 problem, seemingly forgetting entirely that he used to claim that it wasn't a problem that needed to be solved. Seems even Lomborg is skeptical of his own former skeptical self these days.

To be fair, there is little evidence for vitamins and minerals either (or, more specifically, no evidence that supplements would help anyone with a moderately balanced diet). Specific deficiencies are known to increase the risk of certain problems, but there is little evidence that you actually need 100% of the USDA allowance for most, or that taking more than the USDA allowance decreases the risk even further. The largest controlled study I'm aware of (News report) found no benefits in any of the 10 categories studied, including "the rate of breast or colon cancer, heart attack, stroke, blood clots or mortality." Studies show benefits from fruit and vegetable intake (which contain vitamins and minerals), but not from supplements.

Looks like I assumed too much of you intelligence. The way the company behaves, it is very unlikely that they are running their plants safely. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/02sirenswe.html

That's because Britain's libel laws are generally weighted in favor of the plaintiff. In Britain, the plaintiff need not demonstrate that the statements are false; the statements are presumed false and the defendant must prove them true. The plaintiff need not demonstrate direct harm either. The U.S. (and much of the rest of the Western world) has much more stringent rules; in the U.S., the plaintiff must prove the statements false and demonstrate harm. If they are a "public figure", they also need to prove it was not only false, but that it was malicious and exhibited a reckless disregard for the truth. The "public figure" category that has been expanded over time by court decisions; originally it referred to politicians, but now it refers to celebrities, athletes, and basically anyone else with a sufficiently visible public profile.

Basically, the problem isn't that Britain is pro-pseudoscience, it's that it's anti-free-speech and pro-tort.

The fact is, a consumer retailer like Apple can stock and sell whatever products to choose to its customers. What they don't stock is really none of your business, and if you don't like, take your products and have someone else carry it.

This is just another non-issue. The problem with Apple is that they are too successful, they need to keep out the riff raff.

Hm, I'm not so sure about that. Schiller has already intimated that Apple is now operating a cartel with certain app developers when responding to a question about why Sports Illustrated's and Playboy's apps are not banned:

“The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format”.

I also suspect that Apple's App Store practices will lead to an antitrust investigation at some point. The iPhone is gaining dominance in the smartphone market and if its capricious App Store behaviour continues, accusations of monopolistic behaviour are bound to crop up.

The "American Way" actually wasn't an original part of the phrase, but added first during WWII and then again during the Cold War. Siegel and Shuster were liberal Jews and the early stories reflected that. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/30/opinion/30lundegaard.html?_r=1

This patent stuff has got to be a gold mine for msft. IP extortion seems to be a brilliant business model.

February 22, 2010
Microsoft, Amazon strike patent deal covering Kindle and Linux

As would be expected, the actual patents that were supposedly violated are not disclosed. For many years msft claimed that Linux violates msft patents, but msft absolutely refuses to disclose which patents.

Microsoft says the deal grants Amazon patent-related "coverage" for its use of open-source and proprietary technologies in its Kindle e-reader, and its use of Linux-based computer servers.

At the same time, the deal has the potential to stir new controversy in the tech industry, if it's interpreted as Amazon implicitly endorsing Microsoft's claims that Linux and other open-source technologies violate its patents.

February 19, 2010
Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures Could be Biggest Racketeering Operation in the United States and Beyond

Patent thug Nathan Myhrvold turns out to have over 1,000 patent proxies with which to potentially attack and extort those who do not pay "protection money"; he also spent over $1 million lobbying his government

THE New York Times has published this report about Microsoft's patent troll Nathan Myhrvold, who is backed by his colleague Bill Gates, his former employer Microsoft, and even Apple. He already terrorises the industry using patents that it spent literally billions of dollars acquiring (not actually working to invent anything of substance).

http://boycottnovell.com/2010/02/19/nathan-myhrvold-exposed-again/

And here is the NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/technology/18patent.html

I suppose using the US legal system for patent extortion is especially cost effective since msft uses offshore labor for the legal work.

February 18, 2010
Microsoft to outsource general legal work to India

Software giant Microsoft will begin outsourcing general legal work to India after signing a deal with legal process outsourcing (LPO) company CPA Global. The news comes as CPA outlined plans to expand its Indian workforce from 600 to 1,000 by the end of 2011, and hinted at opening another outsourcing centre.

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/microsoft-outsource-general-legal-work-india

I think you may have missed his point. From what he is saying, a white on black crime has larger repercussions for the defendant and greater media coverage than a black on white crime.

I live in NYC and have a perfect example of the two. I am sure the whole nation heard about the the latest Howard Beach incident where a young white man (Nick Minucci, aka Fat Nick) beat a young black man (Glenn Moore)with a bat. The incident unfolded as Minucci and friends were cruising around Howard Beach which is primarily an Italian American neighborhood. That saw Moore and a friend and decided to pull over and confront them as to why tey were walking around Howard Beach. During this time it was said that minucci used racial epitaphs and proceeded to beat Moore with a bat. During the trial the race card was pulled after Moore said Minucci called him a nigger. But Minucci claimed he used it casually and said "whats up nigga?". Now another fact was that Moore admitted he was there with friends to break into a car. The whole case turned into a media circus and of course the good Rev Al Sharpton was there to blast Minucci. Minucci was sentenced to 12 years for assult, robbery, hate crime and some others.

If you ask me what happened that night was simple, two groups of trouble makers both found trouble. There is no doubt in my mind that Minucci was motivated to stop those kids because they were blacks in a white negiborhood. And Moore and company were there to rob a vehicle. Howard Beach wants to think Minucci was some sort of hero protecting the neighborhood and the black community wants to think Moore was an innocent victim. Both of them are nothing more than common thugs.

The second incident which received little media attention was the story of Broderick J. Hehman. Hehman was a student at NYU who was robbed by four black teens who then chased him into 125th st where he was struck and killed by a car. The four black teens were initally going to be charged with hate crimes because a witness said they herd one of the teens shout "Get the white boy" as they chased him. The NYPD decided to drop those charges for reasons unknown but believed to be political. Here is the NY times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/nyregion/10harlem.html Even the good Rev Al Sharpton was nowhere to be found.

So as you can see god forbid a white person commits a hate crime against a black or a "minority". They will get dragged through the mud. That Howard Beach incident received nation wide coverage. But the story of Broderick J. Hehman recieved little media attention in NY and probably unheard of outside the Tri state area. It is as if racially motivated black on white crime is acceptable and tolerated because of political or other reasons. Bullshit if you ask me.

in order to bring about the glorious christian theocracy of north america:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html

of course, jesus' greatest message was tolerance. yet his most vocal advocates today only seem to advance the cause of "christianity" by extending the bounds of intolerance

I don't think you understand what tolerance is. If you think Jesus' message was about tolerance, then completely missed his point. Tolerance implies looking down on other people, put up with their flaws and feel sorry for them. Jesus' message called for Christians to not look down on the world but rather to love unconditionally. Loving does not mean that you have to accept the negative behavior of others while accepting the people themselves. This emulates how Jesus embraced a group of 12 flawed human beings and made them his disciples.

Christians are called to change the world and right wrongs rather than just sit there smugly "tolerating" others.

Tolerance is the lazy man's way because you are not helping others reach their true potential.

in order to bring about the glorious christian theocracy of north america:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html

of course, jesus' greatest message was tolerance. yet his most vocal advocates today only seem to advance the cause of "christianity" by extending the bounds of intolerance

True, and fair enough. Taxes support the majority of the system, with wealthier people paying more.

That said, the US health care system is the most expensive in the world, according to Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning Economist and writer for the New York Times:

"Like denial management, however, marketing and underwriting cost a lot of money. McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm, recently released an important report dissecting the reasons America spends so much more on health care than other wealthy nations. One major factor is that we spend $98 billion a year in excess administrative costs, with more than half of the total accounted for by marketing and underwriting — costs that don’t exist in single-payer systems."

A huge portion of the money that Americans pay for health insurance is for administrative costs - every hospital negotiating with insurance companies over fees for procedures, etc. In fact, the reason it's so expensive is that it's not a unified system.

Seems like the current Scalia conservative court set the tone for this whole matter http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/opinion/20tue1.html

Drones are already being used in the USA for border patrol (including in my own state):
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/story.html?id=1727873
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/us/08drone.html

So, these killer robots are already being used within the USA. It is claimed they are unarmed for now (ignoring that the military could fly them into things just like Joe Stack did).

These incremental small things are just more steps to Skynet or worse. Why object to a few unarmed test drone flights in US border states? Such a big fuss about nothing, and the borders need to be inspected to prevent terrorists from coming in and taking our freedoms and lives and property. And, then, well, if we're guarding the borders, it would be foolish to not have the things armed, in case the next Joe Stack tries to fly in from Canada or Mexico, or if they found other real trouble and there was no one else around. And because they are so useful and give us such a sense of security, of course we need more of them... And with so many in the air, if they were more automated, they would be more reliable and one soldier could run more at once, more like an air traffic controller than a pilot... And since people make mistakes, well, why not automate the traffic control part as the next logical step to securing our airspace? Every step makes sense. Every step has no alternative.

And, most importantly, every step makes profits for somebody somewhere.
"War is a Racket: by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler"
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. ... A few profit - and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war."

Major General Butler has some suggestions, but they did not work apparently. So, we may need to make other changes to our overall economic system to remove the profit motive from national security work before it destroys us all. We can move towards a basic income so people don't feel they have to turn to the military just for a basic living (and so anyone who does go into it will be interested in true national security, not a paycheck). Or we can move towards a gift economy, better local subsistence production by 3D printing, or better resource-based planning, or other possibilities. All of these would take the same sorts of technology that goes into Predator drones (like networked communications, advanced materials, computers, image processing, robotics, teamwork, nanotech, and more) and use them for more human ends as well as real mutual intrinsic security, not "security theater".

As Albert Einstein said of nuclear weapons, and is as true or more of smart killer robots:
http://www.heartquotes.net/Einstein.html
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watc

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-much-do-doctors-in-other-countries-make/

Less sure but not much less. It is enough to give incentive for the job so you get the best. And the more socialist countries you see higher in the list are getting less but their costly education was paid for (reducing the risk involved taking the job) encouraging even better doctors (Since you needn't be merely lucky to be able to go to medical school).

A student has been quoted as saying:

"Frequently, the green lights next to our iSight webcams will turn on. The school district claims that this is just a glitch. We are all doubting this now."

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/school-accused-of-using-webcam-to-photograph-student-at-home/

The lawsuit filed in court states:

"[The student] was at home using a school issued laptop that was neither reported lost nor stolen when his image was captured by Defendants without his or his parents' permission and while he was at home."

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9159778/Irate_parents_in_Pa._say_schools_use_peeping_tom_technology_

If this is true, sounds pretty damning to me.

The law was sponsored by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, as a favor to I.B.M., which wanted a $60 million tax break on its overseas business.

Under budget rules in effect at the time, any tax breaks had to be paid for with new revenues. By requiring software engineers to be employees, a Congressional report estimated, income and payroll taxes would rise by $60 million a year because employees had few opportunities to cheat on their taxes.

It's not a secret that lock-in was why IIS and IE were designed to complement each other. The objective was to kill Netscape and Java by any means necessary. Active-X was a tool to this end.

Dude, have you ever heard of Hanlon's law? If ActiveX was designed to create lock-in, why did Microsoft abandon it?

Imputing collective motives to a company as disorganized and political as MS is like imputing malice to a cockroach infestation. Yes, they often use underhanded methods to screw over their competition. But that's marketing, not engineering. The engineering side of MS has this bit-twiddler's love of doing things its own way. People mostly notice this when they introduce some incompatible technology that screws over the rest of the computing industry. But in fact, this BS often has one group in MS screwing over the rest of the company.

Have you ever worked on a poorly managed engineering team where one or more engineers keeps insisting on doing things a certain way, even if it screws over the project as a whole? It's always been obvious to me that most of the people who work at Microsoft are like that. IE is a mess because the company that produced it is a mess — too much of a mess to carry out the complicated conspiracies everyone likes to believe in.

Look - I don't know for sure that God does not exist, just like I don't know for sure that dogcats exist or that flargles exist. Without a clear and explicit definition, it is impossible to determine if a certain thing exists.

I do know however, and with absolute certainty, that the clearly defined God of Christianity does not exist. An all-powerful and all-loving God would not force life and intelligence to come about through the ridiculously wasteful and painful process we call evolution.

This comes from the fact that in order for any theory of spirituality to be true, it must be consistent with our current knowledge of reality. Because reality as we know it right now holds no room for an active God, God either has an undetectable effect on reality or does not exist.

I'll be as cock-eyed and smug in my logical denial as I want to be, because so far nobody has a definition of God that is both testably different from a God that doesn't exist and is consistent with reality.

It's not up to me to provide negative evidence; it is up to someone else (anyone else!) to provide some non-zero amount of positive evidence.

Replying to myself -- 1998 article from the New York Times:

"The Bridgeport schools superintendent, James. A. Connelly, said that in the state's largest city and second-largest school system about three quarters of the 30 to 40 expulsions each year are for actions off school property, with 67 of the last 85 expulsions related to off-campus offenses. "

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/22/nyregion/at-issue-discipline-off-school-grounds.html?pagewanted=2

Looks like the key criterion is: "Is the off-school behavior potentially disruptive to the educational process in school?" You can see how liberally that might be applied. For example, earlier this month the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court upheld a suspension for a girl mocking the principal on a MySpace page, after the school argued that students were talking about it in class instead of studying. (At the same time, a different court ruled the opposite in a separate case. My guess is if any of this goes to the current SCOTUS, they will uphold extensive power rights to school administrators.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35244016/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/rulings-leave-us-student-speech-rights-unresolved/
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/22/nyregion/at-issue-discipline-off-school-grounds.html

PA School District Rules: "When and where the rules apply. The Code of Student Conduct covers students when they are on school grounds, or on the way to or from school. The rules also cover behavior at school events off grounds, as well as any off-grounds behavior (including behavior in the neighborhood) that is likely to lead to disruption at school. (The law is not clear on how far schools can go in punishing students for misbehavior that occurs off grounds or outside of school hours. If your case is of this type, you may wish to seek further advice from a private attorney or the Education Law Center.)"

http://www.elc-pa.org/pubs/downloads%202009/School%20Discipline%20in%20the%20Philadelphia%20SD%202-6-09.pdf

Fail cheap. This might be derived from 'fail early' as time is money. But this is the third optional part you'll hear from investors and businessmen.

Right. This is something the better venture capitalists used to keep in mind. As a group, venture capitalists have lost money since 2000, because there's too much venture capital available and companies are running too long on VC money. (Much VC money is dumb money now. Too much money is desperately looking for decent yields in a period when no investment is doing well.)

Venture capital in Silicon Valley used to be about technology. Someone would propose building a thing, and would get VC funding to build a prototype. Either it worked, or it didn't. If it failed, the VCs were out the cost of building a prototype. If it worked, there was a potential business. The failure rate was about 9 out of 10, and a win meant a 10 to 100x profit.

As semiconductor, electronics, and software technology matured, startups tended to be business concepts rather than technology concepts. So they had to be brought to the point of having a sizable user base before it was clear whether they'd succeed or fail. This led to the first dot-com boom. In that boom, it was possible to take companies public early, and the VCs could often cash out before the business failed. (I used to track this; see Downside's Deathwatch, where "chart is not available for this symbol" isn't a bug; it means the company is gone and forgotten.)

In the second dot-com boom ("Web 2.0"), investors weren't willing to pay for untried companies. So Twitter, Facebook, and even Myspace are still running on VC money. Myspace could have gone public a few years ago, but it's too late now. Adult Friendfinder tried to go public last week, but just gave up.

Wales' business, Wikia, is in that category - VC-funded, losing money, and lacking an exit strategy. The problem is that VCs looked at Wales' success with Wikipedia, which is a nonprofit, and thought that would translate into business success. It didn't. They should have looked at his unbroken string of business failures.

VC-funded companies don't always succeed or fail. There's a third option, and it's the most common - the "zombie" company. The company makes enough money to cover its expenses, but not enough to pay back its investors. This is, in fact, the most common outcome. VCs usually have a stable of zombies they're trying to sell to somebody, anybody, just to get them off the books. They usually end up being sold to some big player in the same field at a huge discount.

The Washington Post has changed the linked article in the last 30 minutes to something about administrators denying everything. Talk about big brother and controlling the masses.

Orwell Method:

Link reads -
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/19/us/AP-US-Laptops-Spying-on-Students.html

Link should read -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022000679.html

There's a decent amount of research (although, somewhat controversial) suggesting that providing too many choices may actually impede our ability to make rational choices, and would be less likely to experiment with an unfamiliar browser. Overview of some of the research can be found on the Freakonomics blog: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/is-the-paradox-of-choice-not-so-paradoxical-after-all/

I can't believe you and at least three other people took my comment seriously. I thought the satire was clear. I was wrong. It really reflects terribly on our society that you could read the bible reference and the "10 hour workday" and think I meant those things in earnest. Only monsters like this man would do that.

Moderators, just moderate my original comment down to -1. I'd rather see it there than at +5 Insightful where someone might get the impression that corporate feudalism is a good thing.

Dear reader, consider

1. The newspapers business model is based on information scarcity, which is increasingly difficult to enforce today; yet
2. Newspapers are great to have because they offer better-researched, more compressive, and less biased news and commentary than random blogs. Compare the Huffington Post to the Washington Post.

The New York Times has chosen to cling to the conventional business model as long as possible. But there is a better way: recognize that newspapers are something special, and have worth in society as more than just another business. Endow them and let them self-finance.

I got far more worked up over the ban on minarets that they enacted last year. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/world/europe/30swiss.html That was a much more serious violation of basic rights.

Can you name the "basic rights" that are being violated here? Nobody is stopping Muslims in Switzerland from practicing their religion, they are only not allowed to impose it on everyone else in the form of giant rockets (erect penises?) whose only purpose is to promote the said religion. Since they are not even being used for calling for prayer what else is their purpose?

Switzerland has very little regard for free speech. Very little regard for things that are unpopular or disliked and has an aging, reactionary voter base. Frankly, I got far more worked up over the ban on minarets that they enacted last year. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/world/europe/30swiss.html That was a much more serious violation of basic rights. This? This is small potatoes.

How's not being allowed to build a tower (or four) a violation of human rights ? God won't listen if you've got a flat roof ? This is much more serious since these games are played in the confines of your own home by adults not bothering anyone else.

Switzerland has very little regard for free speech. Very little regard for things that are unpopular or disliked and has an aging, reactionary voter base. Frankly, I got far more worked up over the ban on minarets that they enacted last year. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/world/europe/30swiss.html That was a much more serious violation of basic rights. This? This is small potatoes.

there's a certain amount of ego going on. for example, nixon made a point to have all of his white house discussions taped, down to the most mundane stuff, like where he would eat for dinner, but where he also freely and many times said extremely sensitive things. its aggrandizement: "i'm so important, let's tape everything i say so historians of the future can hang on my every word"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/politics/24nixon.html

Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster "permissiveness," and said that "it breaks the family." But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases -- like interracial pregnancies, he said. "There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white," he told an aide, before adding, "Or a rape."

---

"What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up," Nixon said. At another point he said: "It may be they have a death wish. You know that's been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries."

ah that wacky nixon. i wonder what if tweets today will look equally crude in the future

the nazis and the east german stasi were fanatically meticulous record keepers. pol pot and the soviets kept voluminous records. the chinese commnist party and iran's military junta are studious record takers

so when you say " there are major temptations to just not keep records of stuff that is inconvenient unless there's a specific action to tell you otherwise", i assert the exact opposite is true. there's no impulse to hide anything. in fact, the impulse is to record everything

this is because the impulse to hide something is to assume someone thinks they are doing something wrong. but at the highest echelons of power, in any country, in any era, you are not talking about people with small egos. and no one up there thinks they are doing anything wrong. and in fact, many rulers in the heights of power pretty much think they decide what right and wrong is. they got that high in power for a reason: they firmly believe the absolute justification of their beliefs. you don't climb the rungs of power if you have misgivings and secret doubts, that just drains your drive to succeed

therefore, no rulers see record keeping as a threat. in fact, many of them see record keeping as just good business: future writers of future history books need to know what great thoughts they were thinking at the time and how bright is the sunlight that shines out of their asshole: a nod to the future glorification of their wonderous legacy