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I think the majority of journalists prefer to at least attempt an unbiased reporting of the news

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/world/americas/03iht-journalists.1.19890938.html

The 9th Appellate court recently ordered the State of California to come up with a plan to reduce their prison population by at least 27% over the next 2 to 3 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/us/05calif.html?hp

The order recommends, among many things, a drastic reduction in sentencing non-violent criminals to prison terms. So far the CA AG has taken the position that he will force an appeal to the Supreme Court to fight this ruling. Most Republican/Law and Order mouth-pieces in the State are screaming about the Fed over-reaching it's authority and meddling in State's rights.

Let's see, State violates well established Federal prohibition on cruel and unusual treatment of prison inmates due to gross negligence, over crowding, and over-zealous enforcement/sentencing. Previous order in 2005 is upheld on appeal, but CA GA and Governator pretty much succeed in undermining attempts by court appointed stewards to reform the state prison system.

Now the State has been ordered again on the same cases that appeal failed to stop in 2005. CA GA and the Governator again refuses to cooperate.

The DMCA is pretty clear.... good law or bad law, it is the law.
This kid is probably going to get convicted, mostly for being a stoopid git. Hopefully the 9th Circuit order will lead to this kid getting no more than fines and home detention; a more reasonable sentence fitting of the 'crime.'

What is amazing, is that the guy that started all this continues, and that nobody really care.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/09/us/boot-camps-proponent-becomes-focus-of-critics.html?pagewanted=all

I'd be the parent of one of the dead kids, I'd lodge a bullet into that asshole's head, whatever the cost would be.

(flame)
Of course, customers of those camps are religious families, so they mostly sit there, whining about the loss, but still thanking god for His Impenetrable Ways. Morons. Ooops. Sorry.
(/flame)

I'm not 100% certain about this camp, but a more expensive camp (10,000 yuan) in Daxing County is government funded and "run by an army colonel under the Beijing Military Hospital"

The system is also broken in that there is absolutely no place in it for rehabilitation.

Which is why I've never understood the point of the notifications in the first place. Either the person has been rehabilitated and shown that they can function in society or they have not. Releasing someone from prison and then requiring them to register and put up posters doesn't make kids safer; it just makes parents more afraid. If the justice system has doubts about a person's ability to control themselves, they shouldn't have let him out into the general public, now should they? Sending out notices that Joe Sixpack on 123 Fake St. might molest your kids doesn't do anyone any good. This is just further proof that the system in this country isn't about justice and rehabilitation; it's about retribution. That's how you end up with insanity like a homeless sex offender being threatened with a life sentence since he has no address to register.

Background: There are two enormous Physics projects, ITER and the Large Hadron Collider.

ITER is a project to build a bigger Tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. Note that the 30 Tokamaks already in existence have never come close to producing more energy than they consume. Also, if you have followed the development of ITER, you may have noted a curious phenomenon. The ITER project was sold on the basis of a much earlier delivery and much lower cost than predicted today. Now the number of years of work till the first full test is estimated to be the entire length of the scientist's careers. That's very convenient for the scientists, and very inconvenient for the taxpayers who pay every franc and mark.

Consider these paragraphs from the New York Times article referenced by the Slashdot summary, Giant Particle Collider Struggles:

"The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections."

and:

"Many of the magnets ... have ... lost their ability to operate at high energies."

To me, both projects give the impression of mismanagement. For example, "Electrical connections" are not at the forefront of technology. I'd be interested in starting an independent review agency. No matter who does it, there must be independent management reviews.

How many data points are you working on? How many cops do you personally know?

In terms of judging the educational qualifications or training requirements for police officers, how many cops I know personally is irrelevant.

A national commission recommended back in 1973 that a bachelor's degree be made a minimum requirement for entry-level police officers. But few police forces have done so; most require only a high school diploma, or perhaps two years of college. Some departments disqualify people for being overly intelligent. Those are simply facts, and they do not indicate a profession seeking to attract the best and brightest intellects.

But in terms of personal experience with cops, let's see. Outside of traffic stops, there's my brother's ex-girlfriend's father, who -- the first and only time I met him -- bragged about how he administered some "street justice" to a purse snatcher who tried to run.

There was the karate instructor who was a cop, who I met at a martial arts get-together, and who after a few beers told us a story about how police really do have the hypocritical (he didn't call it that, of course) "courtesy" of letting their fellow cops break speed limits. No wonder then that some Maryland cops feel that they can ignore the speed cameras they use on us.

Then there's the group of Baltimore City's finest who showed up while I was trying to trying to keep a street disturbance from breaking out into a major fight -- and who promptly grabbed someone who wasn't involved and slammed him up against the wall, and assaulted another guy who protested.

Then there's the very intelligent, dedicated, peace-loving fellow I know who joined the Baltimore City Police with great hope because he wanted to do something about the city's violence problem. Last time I talked to him, his eyes were half-dead, his idealism almost gone, and I have to hope he quits before the bastards grind him down and turn him into yet another bad cop.

Because people who dedicate themselves to the service of others, the improvement of their community, and betterment of society are stupid fascist pigs, and should be treated as such.

Such people are great. It would be wonderful if we could get a bunch of them on the police force. Of course that would take high pay (meaning higher taxes), high professional standards for general education, specific training, and accountability (meaning resistance from current cops who wouldn't make the cut), and a decent and reasonable set of laws for them to enforce.

So instead we mostly get a bunch of under-educated, intellectually dull, poorly trained wannabe action heroes who think in black-and-white terms (philosophically and, often, racially) and get a kick out of beating up the "bad guys" -- generally, anyone who doesn't conform to social norms or who questions cop authority.

Occasionally, by accident, an intelligent, humane, dedicated public servant ends up on a major police force -- rare, but it happens just often enough that I try to assume any given cop I encounter might be one of this minority, until proven otherwise. But these folks generally burn out in a few years, and either quit or come to behave just like the majority of dullards.

Apple recorded its best nonholiday quarter ever when other electronics makers were hurting because of a downturn in consumer spending.

They saw increasing revenue and profit in every single division of the company. Compare this to Microsoft, who last quarter saw:

On Thursday, the world's largest software company reported its worst fiscal year since it initially sold stock to the public in 1986. Year-over-year revenue and full-year sales of Microsoft's flagship Windows software dropped for the first time.

Microsoft saw billion dollar reductions in revenue in both the windows (Client) and office (Business) divisions, and it's xbox (entertainment) and search (on-line) divisions were actually in the red and are losing the company money.

Apple is not a "ship going down", this statement is demonstrably false, people are even calling it recession proof. You could say that about Microsoft however and not be contradicted by facts.

Apple recorded its best nonholiday quarter ever when other electronics makers were hurting because of a downturn in consumer spending.

They saw increasing revenue and profit in every single division of the company. Compare this to Microsoft, who last quarter saw:

On Thursday, the world's largest software company reported its worst fiscal year since it initially sold stock to the public in 1986. Year-over-year revenue and full-year sales of Microsoft's flagship Windows software dropped for the first time.

Microsoft saw billion dollar reductions in revenue in both the windows (Client) and office (Business) divisions, and it's xbox (entertainment) and search (on-line) divisions were actually in the red and are losing the company money.

Apple is not a "ship going down", this statement is demonstrably false, people are even calling it recession proof. You could say that about Microsoft however and not be contradicted by facts.

replacement of almost all talented acts that produced good music, with hyperproduced kiddie-shit "artists" whose assets are not musical talent or singing voices, but barely-covered bikini bottoms and tits. Just you wait: in 4 years, tops, "Hannah Montana" will be pulling a Britney-style selfdestruct. And neither of them are capable of producing "music" even remotely worth listening to.

Yeah, music's been shit since

Nirvana
The Beatles
Elvis Presley
Frank Sinatra ...
Frederic_Chopin
Johann Stamitz
Henry Purcell
Andrea Gabrieli
Francesco Landini ...
Cain.

Seriously. This is the same crap that old broken down has beens have been whining for generations.

Now get off my lawn.

Maybe a large percentage of Microsoft's money comes from its support for malware. People buy new computers rather than try to disinfect their old ones. See this New York Times article: Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster.

Microsoft: Malware is our business plan. Making money through evil.

My opinion, but one shared by hundreds of thousands of people.

More information that gives a view of U.S. car manufacturing, and the U.S. government in general:

G.M.'s Road From Prosperity to Crisis

The U.S. government bought 60% of G.M., a company with $172.81 billion in debt and $82.29 billion in assets.

Death and Taxes poster.

Your movie theater will burn to the ground when it catches fire because the FD will not enter a building where there are known radio problems.

They actually didn't do that during 9/11. They went in knowing that they had radio problems.

That being said in Canada, there seems to be some firefighters who refuse to go on calls due to safety concerns. To save you on reading, here is a comment from a fireman's wife responding to the story. Her response is quite sensible actually -- see the part which I emphasized below in bold:

I think what people are missing is that these firefighters who have excercised their rights are doing nothing out of the ordinary. This is a right that can and is excercised by any worker who feels they are being exposed to an unsafe work environment. Would you want your loved one going off to a job where the employer did not provide adequate protection against injury.

The HRM Fire Service is the employer here. They are obligated to ensure the safety of their workers, and they feel that they have done this by issuing a new policy that states that 4 firefighters must be on scene before they enter a fire.

However, what the Union and the Firefighters are saying, is that by having to wait for multiple vehicles to respond in order to have the 4 person compliment in order to enter a fire, they are unable to perform their job. Their job being the protection of the lives and property of residents of the HRM. The delays in being able to enter the fire will potentially cost lives and untold dollars in damages.

One other thing. I know that my husband, sister and all other firefighters I know would be unable to standby and watch a structure burn with anyone inside while waiting for the required # of firefighters to arrive before they can begin a rescue effort. However, according to the HRM policy, if they do not abide by the policy and begin the rescue effort before they have the required 4 FF, then they can be disciplined with loss of wages or loss of job. And, God forbid, if they were to lose their life - their life insurance would be void. All for doing their job, a job that all firefighters do willingly and with pride.

This is about safety. Safety of all Firefighters and the residents of the HRM. Period.

Lol.. OK, rewrite history to show your point

You must be from the south. Don't you call it 'the war of northern agression'? Talk about rewriting history...

If I claim that aliens are coming and we need to end welfare

WTF??? Your example doesn't make any sense. What do aliens and welfare have to do with one another?

The majority of the people thought having witched in their midst was a bad thing and something needed to be done about it during the Salem witch trials

Because they were brainwashed by the church to believe in witches!!!

Like I said, the laws need to be in conflict with another law or the constitution to be over turned. Show me one that wasn't justified by either and I might believe you.

Ok, Supreme Courtâ(TM)s 2007 âoeLedbetterâ decision.

This ruling tossed out a female tire company managerâ(TM)s complaint that she was paid less than her male counterparts for equal work over roughly two decades. President Barack Obama signed a law overturning the courtâ(TM)s decision shortly after taking office. The courtâ(TM)s ruling in that case âoedefied common senseâ and âoecontradicted decadesâ of precedent.

Also read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/11/opinion/11mon2.html?_r=1&ex=1158206400&en=34af211f058d50a3&ei=5087%0A

If you seriously think the conservative court is imposing it's will, then why wasn't Bush supported with the indefinite detention of the gitmo detainees? Why did the court rule against him on a number of those issues including military tribunals?

Because Bush was clearly acting illegally. There could be no possible legal defense of that position and still be able to sleep at night no matter how much of a fundamentalist crackpot you are.

Sounds like Gawronski had a change of heart. On Sunday he was quoted in the New York Times saying:

"I'd like to live in a perfect world where I own this content and can do whatever I want with it," said Justin Gawronski, a high school student whose copy of "1984" was erased by Amazon, but who recently declined when a lawyer asked him to join a class-action lawsuit over the incident. Mr. Gawronski said, "This is probably going to happen again and we just have to learn to live with it."

(emphasis added)

I don't know how CAFOs are run in the EU, but in the US antibiotics in feed are common in poultry CAFOs, at least according to Purdue, and these pork folks lobbying to keep them in use.

And here is the New York Time on the matter. Purdue again. Some probably biased special interest group. Virginia Department of Health. And here is an EPA ruling where I conveniently highlighted the word Antibiotic to make it easier for you to find.

hmm .. let's take Carlin's speech point by point, by slightly paraphrasing what he says :

• "politicians are puppets controlled by corporations and rich lobbies" . I'd say that is true for the most part, even if it doesn't happen in a direct way. Corporations can threaten to cut jobs, close down factories or offices, relocate in another state or country or even just disproportionally increase the price of their product if the CEOs think that new legislations might decrease the profit for their shareholders. That would result in, at least, jobs being lost in the area and might (and probably would) prove a big enough incentive to stop certain laws or regulations to be passed. Everybody is just doing their job : politicians have to evaluate whether the law or regulation is worth the corporation's reaction, and corporation's need to maximise the profit for the shareholders. (I'll pass the cases where hands have to be greased or forced, or when a politician only thinks of his career)"
• "Corporations, etc ... don't want the common folks to be capable of critical thinking", Although it would make sense (read "1984"), there is no direct evidence of it ... only circumstantial : the rise of Fox Network for example, or the way newspapers will rather tell you that Lindsay Lohan broke her toe nail, or that the giants won the superball rather than that, again, X american soldiers were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan one day earlier. Incidentally repeatedly pounding on how great your nation is and making kids repeat that over and over is a great way to hammer obedience in the mind of the people you want to govern
• "Society has a class system, and most people are not in the ruling/rich class". well ... that there is a widening gap between rich and poor (yes, I know ... 2 years old. But I don't believe this has changed much. Prove me wrong). So ... nothing to see. He is right. And before you reply "The poor deserved it. Everybody can be rich", check this very nice and interesting TED talk about (along other things) Meritocracies
• "Politicians don't care about the people who elect them". I'm not completely as nihilistic as Carlin. I honestly think many politicians start their career because they actually genuinely care. Sadly, as should be obvious to anybody who switched from his productive job to Management and was full of hope to be able to make a change, the higher you are the thinner the air is and the more you just struggle to survive. Even if some politicians do still care about the people after they've been elected to a position of power, helping people is probably more of an afterthought while juggling with more important issues (what those can be is probably not even something the politicians can decide themselves)

so ... 'the paranoid ramblings of a deluded old man shouting at hippies' ? perhaps, but at least he actually knows what he is talking about.

Oh, that's bullshit. The transaction tax will be low enough that occasional trades to shuffle money between investments won't be affected. The fees are aimed at front-running leeches who use algorithmic trading to skim the market hurt everyone else.

well i believe you can't find OBLaden because there is a huge probability that is already dead, since maybe 13 of December 2001. http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/13/osama-bin-elvis http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13743 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/11/opinion/11TAHE.html?ex=1089432000&en=373a282aeff2716a&ei=5070&todaysheadlines

Phosphate fertilizers tend to have radioactivity from trace elements like polonium.

Some plants like tobacco concentrate these substances in their leaves. If you consume their leaves regularly, you might increase your chances of getting cancer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/opinion/01proctor.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/tobacco-firms-kept-quiet-on--polonium-role-in-cigarettes-907194.html

Quote: "There was a 1977 study that found, of the daily intake of the polonium 210 in a smoker, 77.3 per cent came from food and 17 per cent from tobacco."

Now depending on what the source animals have been eating, the manure used for organic fertilizer might have a lot less polonium than the usual phosphate stuff.

Thing is those phosphate fertilizers have been so popular that they're "everywhere", even your organic stuff might have as much polonium.

Lastly, even fully organic stuff can be radioactive. For example brazil nuts tend to concentrate radium (they also concentrate beneficial minerals).

As this article points out, for musicians the alternatives are not just go it alone or sign with a record label. New business models are developing that permit musicians to raise money directly from investors and still maintain ownership of their copyrights and master recordings. While there may still be a place for the major record labels in the future, it's going to be a lot smaller than it is today.

"Still, something like the "Dalton Minimum - two solar cycles in the early 1800s that peaked at about an average of 50 sunspots - lies in the realm of the possible."

Not even close.

You are naive if you think Google is pure like the driven snow. I'm no lover of Microsoft, but I'm no lover of any large corporation. Google's not better than their competitors - they just haven't been big long enough to have done as much bad stuff.

What about patent trolling,

Overall, they're pretty good about this one, but remember - Google's a relatively young company. Their cry for patent reform is in their own interest, since they're much more likely to defend patent suits than prosecute them. They certainly aren't afraid to go after folks they feel have violated their patents. This air duct patent doesn't bode well.

bogus lawsuits,

How about suing Grupa Mlodych Artystow i Literatow for using gmail.pl? Or suing GMail, a pre-existing physical mail service in Europe? Then there's Android Data Services.

astroturfing using the names of dead people,

Oh yes they do. Google hired the very same company that sent letters from dead people.

bogus TCO studies,

They aren't afraid of misleading TCO studies, by counting unpatched, pirated IIS servers as affecting the TCO of Windows Server.

bogus benchmark studies,

They do that, too.

bribing public officials,

There've been allegations of this in China and of media bribery in the US. They're one of the top DNC contributors, as well, which in my view boils down to bribery.

outright lying to the US-DoJ,

Of course they do that.

and so much more.

Sharing board members with nominal competitors, swiping copyrighted work, the whole AdWord thing going on, and so much more.

So, your father is a doctor and somehow he's a bigger authority than those actually paying for those treatments?

The link has already been provided by an AC above, but for whoever can't be arsed to copy and paste into the browser, here it is as actual link http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html?_r=1

To recap, from the article itself:

Ultimately, the thin and healthy group cost the most, about $417,000, from age 20 on.

The cost of care for obese people was $371,000, and for smokers, about $326,000.

And that's just the costs. The smokers and the obese are simply cheaper. Even without the other factors, repeat after me, an obese smoker costs less than a thin and healthy person.

It doesn't even yet include the pension contributions (which someone who dies earlier will benefit less from), money given to the government in tobacco taxes and VAT (without smokers, to get the same services from the government you might have to pay more in taxes), etc.

Most of what I know about global warming is what I read in Science magazine, in the news roundups and the editorials. As I recall, they said that some models, on the 5% shoulder of the probability curve, give a 10-meter rise in sea level by 2100.

In your model, what is the economic cost of a 10-meter rise in sea level?

About 6 and 2/3rds less than what you're thinking they'd be. Keep in mind that most of the melting ice would be from land, and the resulting equilibrium of less weight causes the land to rise.

[...] the question is, if it were legal to build a 1950s car, but with modern tools, how much cheaper would it be than the Civic? I bet it would be a lot.

I bet it wouldn't. The cost of materials--specifically steel--have gone up since the 50s. This is part of the reason most modern cars are junk that won't last half as long as a car built before the 70s: thin sheet metal and too many plastic parts. These days manufacturers use a much thinner gauge (~22 for panels) than fifty years ago (~18 gauge). Additionally, it's a lot cheaper to tool a production line for plastic parts.

Please note that this doesn't take into account the higher cost of labor, but that wasn't part of your initial statement ("1950s car with modern tools").

I'm a registered 29yo Democrat and the only thing that impresses me about Obama is his ability to read from a script.

Then you should have read some of the speeches that he wrote himself. His speech on race, for example, is quite impressive.

These complains, ignorant Microsoft shill.

And here is a prominent scientist that has been crapped on by his peers for not following the status quo- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html

Dyson doesn't disagree with any of the really fundamental elements of the scientific consensus on global warming: he agrees that it is happening, he agrees that it is largely anthropogenic, and he agrees that there are disruptions likely because of it.

The main way we disagrees with the general consensus is that he espouses a set of near-magical beliefs about a field far from his own (he's a physicist, the beliefs are about biology) about how the problems will, both naturally and through technology, fix the problems of global warming, and that he is skeptical of the detailed models and precise predictions of existing climate science, without disagreeing with the broad conclusions (which is an interesting criticism coming from someone who famous, at least as much as for his own scientific contribution, as a futurist with a rather mixed record of predictions who has defended his own precise-more-than-accurate futurism with the line "it is better to be wrong than vague".)

here is a prominent scientist that has been crapped on by his peers for not following the status quo- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html

With all due respect to an eminent and brilliant physicist, Freeman Dyson is not a climatologist. The very article you link notes that he is a "subversive" who feels it's important to be in opposition. While I find that a commendable trait, it should be noted when considering his "anti-establishment" views. IMO, he's right when he says that global warming is not adequately established. But my metaphor is, "the majority of runs made by fire departments turn out not to be fires; we could save a lot of money by requiring an independent confirmation of a fire before the trucks go out." Maybe it's true, but the potential consequences are too horrible to contemplate.

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." Arthur C. Clarke said that. Dyson, to his credit, does not say climate change is impossible. He merely says he does not believe it to be bad.
   

By "credentials", I meant jobs & job titles, not necessarily their degrees. Sorry, poor word choice. But here is one who was slapped down in Oregon- http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_020607_news_taylor_title.59f5d04a.html And here is a prominent scientist that has been crapped on by his peers for not following the status quo- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html

BS!

Just because as an academic, I could copy a commercial work and make a few changes to it with out fear of the copyright police coming after me, doesn't mean that a commercial entity could now take that work and use it as if there wasn't any copyright of the original. It just means my contribution is free. This is like including snippets of BSD code in GPL code, and wouldn't harm any projects created by outside communities.

As far as fights breaking out over where work was produced, this would be no different than current patent rights issues in academia. If you aren't being productive, or there is a clear conflict of interest your institution is likely to fire you.

Finally, if copyright is abolished in academia, this wouldn't stop you from selling a commercial textbook with protection against other commercial, it just means that students in academia won't have to pay to get a copy of it. Most likely this means books written specifically for students would have to be funded though some other means, such as a grant or charter. I can't see how this would be a bad thing as some of the experiences I've had with the current system tells me it's severly broken. For instance the professor who taught chemistry at WPI mandated his book be used for the class. No one else used the book because it was so poorly written, making the on-line used market virtually non-existent and thereby forcing all sales to go though the school bookstore for twice the cost of any other chemistry text. Not to mention the correction manual that came with the book was almost half as large as the book it self, making fluid reading nearly impossible. Furthermore, NIH already hosts many text books they've bought the rights too or that have been donated. Similarly, there's a whole slew of textbooks already being published on the internet for free and being modified like an open source software projects.

... in it's 50+ years I haven't heard of one incident.

Perhaps you should read the Wikipedia article that you linked to.

It references this NY Times article about outbreaks at the facility:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/nyregion/plum-island-reports-disease-outbreak.html

This is the plot to "Devil Winds".......one the all-time worst disaster films!

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/306319/Devil-Winds/overview
http://www.blockbusteronline.com/movies/devil-winds.html

To me, Linus' statement does not seem to be about free software. It seems to be about social consciousness.

I admire Mr. Torvald's leadership of the Linux kernel, but he is not someone I would go to for social wisdom. I'm not sure what his intention was in saying that Microsoft hatred is a disease. It's not really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming widespread. Even the New York Times expresses dislike for Microsoft in the title of this February 13, 2009 article: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?

The actual effect is the opposite of what Mr. Torvalds is overtly saying. The actual social effect is something like, "The dislike of Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an epidemic." Mr. Torvalds is publicizing Microsoft "hatred", not stopping it.

Dislike of Microsoft is not new. Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote the 1998 book, Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to the truth than many people think." Pam Edstrom is a former Microsoft employee, and one of the founders of Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's public relations agency.

Who would you believe about the subject of dislike of Microsoft, a former Microsoft manager who wrote a book about the subject, or Linus Torvalds? Perhaps Mr. Torvalds just doesn't have sufficient experience, or sufficient awareness of the experience of other people. There is a cure for that. He could install a few Microsoft Windows computers and maintain them.

The New York Times covered this story on February 13, 2009: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?. One way to know that Microsoft is not doing well is to realize that the New York Times has joined the Microsoft bashers. Perhaps the amateur bashers will upgrade their skills now that the professionals have moved in.

I admire Linus Torvald's leadership, but in saying Microsoft hatred is a Disease, he seems to be more and more alone. It's not really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming widespread. I'm not sure what Torvald's intention was in saying that, but of course the actual social effect is the opposite of what he is overtly saying. The actual effect is something like, "The dislike of Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an epidemic."

Microsoft hired this man to be the head of retail sales: Microsoft Appoints David Porter as Corporate Vice President of Retail Stores. Note in the upper right hand corner of that article, under "Press Resources", that Waggener Edstrom is still Microsoft's public relations agency. That's interesting, since Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, published in 1998, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to the truth than many people think."

What do you think of Microsoft's new vice-president? Looking at his photo, is he the kind of person who can make retail stores that people admire? He doesn't know how to tie his tie. Can he make stores look good?

Don't forget Stac Electronics, Microsoft fucked them over real good too on their way to the top. Then there is their history of subtlety (or overtly) fucking around with specifications specifically to cause pain to their own customers who dare to choose to use non-Microsoft products. For example the DHCP "bug" in Vista, the 500mb memory check in Windows 3.1 (which broke IBM's then-fairly-successful OS/2 for Windows product), their incompatible kerberos strategy, their undermining of Java, their web page editors that made pages look fucked up in non-IE browsers.

Microsoft has justifiably earned the hatred they receive, it's not like this aggravation with them happened for no reason.

Well I guess you've been lucky then. First I tried Lights of America bulbs, all of which died in my upside-down kitchen lights due to heat. Then I went back to incandescents. Then I found Philips bulbs in Walmart that I decided to try because they are a known-good brand. Well they did last longer, but it didn't take long for them to start flickering when lit and then die completely. I opened them up, and all the caps were leaking fluid - a sure sign of overheating from being placed upside-down. So I'm back to the incandescents.

It seems the ONLY fixture where CFLs will work for me is a well-ventilated lampshade-type lamp. They won't work in upside-down fixtures, high-humidity areas like my bathroom, or outside in the cold porch light (they don't die; they just refuse to ignite).

If you think I'm lying (or that my problems are unique), then take a look at google: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=problems+with+CFLs ----- As for the "mythical half-power incandescents" you could have looked that up on wikipedia instead of calling bullshit. Or you could google it. Or you could read this article: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/ge/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070223005120

Here's another technique that reduces incandescent power to 70% (i.e. a 42 watt Edison bulb can produce the same light as a 60) - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/business/energy-environment/06bulbs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Yeah, because if you read it on a blog it -must- be true! Next time please try quoting REAL news sources before you open your mouth... Oh wait, you're on the internet, you can keep spouting garbage all you want:

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/26/business/saturn-returns-to-full-output-of-cars.html

Saturn S series sales dropped when the L-Series was introduced... primarly due to poor marketing; an L series sale usualy meant a lost S-Series. Mazda = japaford in alot of ways, sometimes down to clutch plates. As for Nissans, the ones I've dealt with were all the proof I needed that Japa cars aren't any better than US cars.

You Fail, please try again!

When betting on an Apache helicopter and your armed uprising, my money is on the Apache.

I disagree with the GP but I also disagree with this. Despite Kent State, Ruby Ridge, and Waco it would be difficult to get most US military personnel to fire on US citizens. I don't know if you have but I served on the US Army and most of those I knew would have refused to fire on Americans. Even China found out it would be difficult to get Chinese to fire on other Chinese. During the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 the government had to order an army unit from another part of China to Beijing, some local army units refused to fire on protesters and the authorities didn't know who was loyal to whom.

As difficult as it was for the Chinese to get Chinese to fire on other Chinese, it would be considerably harder for American authorities to get Americans to fire on other Americans. I can't see my nephew who's a Marine stationed in Iraq firing on other Americans. Then again if they gave him another $250,000, they gave him that much so he'd reenlist, he might.

Falcon

When we repealed the (very good) legislation enacted in response to the Great Depression, we restore to market to its natural boom-bust cycle.

False. Boom-bust continued after the WW2. We still have not hit some of the lows, that we've seen in the second half of the 20th century. For example, these days, the unemployment rate is yet to hit the 1982 levels of 10.8%...

The current bubble came not from lack of regulation, but from inflated real-estate prices. That inflation is a direct consequence of government regulation — forcing the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy lower-quality mortgages (all in the name of "helping the poor", of course).

The people, who weren't previously qualified for a mortgages, suddenly could get one, increasing demand for houses. This pushed up the prices for all real estate and the rest is better known... As usual, government's meddling in the free market proved damaging. Highly so this time.

That Obama-supporting news media managed to hang this around McCain's neck last year is a phenomenal show of mind-manipulation...

these people gave us 50 years of prosperity

Wrong again... I must wonder, if your historical revisionism is part of a troll... Only the 28 years from 1945 to 1973 are considered booming. By the end of 60ies we were going off of the Gold Standard (dollar become fiat money) and, sure enough, inflation ensued in the 1970ies.

The regulation, that you lament so much, made our markets more efficient. Unfortunately, the government's meddling in the mortgage-rules has set this wonderfully efficient market in the wrong direction... Think of it this way — would you blame the car-maker for giving you a faster engine, if your car hits a log on the highway? Sure enough, if you were still riding a buggy, you would've stopped before the log and avoided the accident...

It's an experimental prototype, and $200k is DIRT CHEAP compared to what goes into development of this kind. Example:

Fuel-cell vehicles have been a big gamble for Honda, which has spent the last 16 years and millions of dollars - the company will not say exactly how much - developing them.

The F-14 did the same thing when it was first deployed until the Navy worked the bugs out of it. Once they did it was arguably the best carrier-borne air superiority aircraft of all time.

I'm blowing my mod points to respond, but I had to: The way things are going, the F-22 will never get the bugs worked out because it's NEVER been used in combat. According to the NYT article:

But the F-22 has never been used in war, and the Pentagon's focus has shifted to simpler weapons needed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So great, we've already spent billions of dollars on a plane that is not helping us win the wars we are currently fighting. Fat lot of good it will do us to have incredible advantage to fight against China or someone else in the future if we lose our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The time to stop worrying about the future is when it started impinging on your ability to cope with the present. The F-22 is designed for a war that hasn't happened, but for the price of ONE F-22 ($97 million), we can buy nearly NINE A-10 Warthogs ($11.7 million each), which actually do help us win our current wars. The F-22 should have been canceled, and more so, 187 should never have been bought in the first place.

Math has a way of warping almost anything. Take the miles per gallon rating we use in the US to tell us how efficient our cars are. Miles per gallon is actually a very misleading measurement. What we should probably use is gallons per mile, or gallons per 100 miles.

Take an example where a Range Rover gets 14 MPG, a Toyota Rav4 gets 24 mpg, and a Prius gets 46 mpg. It isn't intuitive based on the miles per gallon, but moving from the Range Rover to the Rav4 saves more fuel than moving from the Rav4 to the Prius. That is because people don't drive a fixed number of gallons, but drive (more or less) a fixed number of miles. When you look at the gallons used per 100 miles it is clear. The Range Rover uses 7.14 gallons per 100 miles, while the Rav4 uses 4.17 and the Prius 2.17. So it is clear that changing from a Range Rover to a Rav4 will save almost 3 gallons per 100 miles, while changing from a Rav4 to a Prius only saves 2 gallons per 100 miles.

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

While I don't agree with your assertion that we need a constitutional amendment to do national energy policy (and neither does any legal scholar that I'm aware of), I can kind of almost agree with this:

It'd be nice if he and Congress would get out of the way, eliminate energy taxes and subsidies, and let the price determine what solution prevails.

As long as one of the subsidies removed was the giant defense subsidy to the oil industry. If the oil industry had to pay for their own security in the Middle East (rather than having the DOD do it for them, for free), oil would be priced a lot more realistically, and the market would move us to other solutions. Unfortunately, the nuclear industry would benefit less than one might think, because nuclear energy is still pretty damn expensive, as Canadians have discovered.

The given version of "terrorist" is arbitrary and thus subject to change over time - from people who hijack planes with guns and explosives, to apparently nowadays, Iceland, however I think that if you're starting with a number of 1 in 3000 you are so far from reality anyway that what you really want to do is harass innocent people.

Let's look at ALL the hijackings from 1970 to 2000, a total of 924 hijackings. I couldn't find more recent figures quickly, but let's assume that hijackings have continued at a rate of around 30 per year (the average from 1970-2000), that would add another 30 * 9 = 270 hijackings, for a total of 1194 ok I will be generous 1200 hijackings.

Now let's assume (and this is a BIG assumption - I am again going to be very generous) that TEN people, (the terrorists), board the plane for EACH hijacking event. So now we have 12,000 terrorists.

Now let's just look at the passenger data for the LAST YEAR ALONE for the top 5 airlines. They carried last year 420 million people. LAST YEAR. Now assuming that since 1970 till today there have been a total of 12000 "terrorists" (a VERY generous number), when you divide 420 million by that, you would be looking at 1:35,000 people being a "potential terrorist". However do remember that I am only including passenger data for ONE SINGLE YEAR. Assuming again a 90% accuracy, you are still wrongly intimidating well over 3500 people.

If I was to go through year by year and gouge up the billions of people that have been transported by air, the actual chances of the person being screened actually being a terrorist drops to almost zero.

I will not argue against the value of security as a deterrent. However I think that airport security employees should be well aware that they are, more likely than not, harassing innocent people. Therefore all the excessive bullying, posturing, abuse, privacy and rights violations are completely unnecessary in this context. Airline terrorism is NOT a real threat, be it ever so dramatic on the few times when it does happen. Use technology to screen for the obvious, and lock the god damned cockpit door with a solid lock, for the not so obvious.

Ok. Quick list before I head home from my engineering job.

Solar cell (photovoltaic) efficiencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell

Power grid issues with Wind and Solar.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/10grid.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/business/27grid.html

A host of nonpartisan (I'm independant BTW) issues can be found in the wikipedia articles for Geothermal and Tidal (waveform hydroelectric) power. Ironically enough, they can generate power, but are equally horrible for the environment in other ways. Not to mention they are extremely cost prohibitive in most circumstances.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide

Worldwide we are producing about 10GW of power using geothermal today. Overall, thats not alot. And geothermal has many construction and engineering hurdles to overcome that are different with EACH installation which increases costs and can reduce overall output. Technology can solve this problem, yet again, its not there yet. Not reliably anyways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Barrage
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Severn-Barrage-Tidal-Power.htm
Even if they start the Severn Barrage right this second, it would not be fully operational and completed until 2020 at the earliest. The construction costs are nearly $40 billion (24bn. pounds), and the total power output would be around 8.6GW under ideal circumstances. Output is dependant on variable scenarious such as weather (which can also cause damage) and current. Expected average output is about 2GW. Current nuclear technology can generate upwards of 1.4-1.5GW of power per reactor with multiple reactors built at each plant.
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Severn-Barrage-Tidal-Power.htm

So, about that extensive data you have seen. Want to provide some links that have hard numbers and are based in facts or do you want to sit over there and provide no helpful commentary yourself other than to say I'm wrong and you're right?

Ok. Quick list before I head home from my engineering job.

Solar cell (photovoltaic) efficiencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell

Power grid issues with Wind and Solar.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/10grid.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/business/27grid.html

A host of nonpartisan (I'm independant BTW) issues can be found in the wikipedia articles for Geothermal and Tidal (waveform hydroelectric) power. Ironically enough, they can generate power, but are equally horrible for the environment in other ways. Not to mention they are extremely cost prohibitive in most circumstances.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide

Worldwide we are producing about 10GW of power using geothermal today. Overall, thats not alot. And geothermal has many construction and engineering hurdles to overcome that are different with EACH installation which increases costs and can reduce overall output. Technology can solve this problem, yet again, its not there yet. Not reliably anyways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Barrage
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Severn-Barrage-Tidal-Power.htm
Even if they start the Severn Barrage right this second, it would not be fully operational and completed until 2020 at the earliest. The construction costs are nearly $40 billion (24bn. pounds), and the total power output would be around 8.6GW under ideal circumstances. Output is dependant on variable scenarious such as weather (which can also cause damage) and current. Expected average output is about 2GW. Current nuclear technology can generate upwards of 1.4-1.5GW of power per reactor with multiple reactors built at each plant.
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Severn-Barrage-Tidal-Power.htm

So, about that extensive data you have seen. Want to provide some links that have hard numbers and are based in facts or do you want to sit over there and provide no helpful commentary yourself other than to say I'm wrong and you're right?