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The fun part, Let's see if they try it on MySpace and expect a different result.

They might actually have a modicum of success of myspace, unlike Facebook . Facebook users are more socioeconomically advantaged than those on MySpace and tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college, and who end up having higher income than their myspace counterparts.

Simply put, myspace users are more likely to shop at Wal-Mart than Facebook users.

(Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory)

Now if they had actually gone to their local Wal-Mart store and defaced that, I'd be more impressed.

I'd be even more impressed if they started hand-crafting their own dorm furniture from self-produced resources instead of just shopping at Target or Ikea instead.

On the larger problem, see today's New York Times article on China's (and soon, the world's) environmental problems.

The mindset of anyone who has had to sit on a plane for 9 hours...

• People have always had to sit on planes for about 9 hours. Before taking off.

It's not Iran either. It's right here in good old USA. It's changing quickly and moving towards a fascist police state IMO. Our government has built "detention centers" (Gitmo style) all over the USA. Some of them are designed to hold over 500,000 people. Now if they want to give amnesty to the immigrant Mexicans that are coming here then who do you suppose those detention centers are for?? Think and research - The answers are out there. Here is the NYTIMES story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/national/04halli burton.html?ex=1296709200&en=01728da2eba059e4&ei=5 088&partner=rssn Search Youtube.com for videos

According to this New York Times article, it's where he got his money.

It looks like his main field of expertise is art.

The ads, which appear 15 seconds after a user begins watching a video clip, take the form of an overlay on the bottom fifth of the screen, not unlike the tickers that display headlines during television news programs.

The New York Times (registration likely required) has a report on Google's plans to recoup its $1.65 billion investment in You Tube. Borrowing a move from television networks, Google will introduce advertising that overlays the bottom fifth of the video starting at the 15 second mark. Are they going to kill the goose that has so far laid a giant goose egg for their bottom line?

Once you go pro you get in government and censer your opposition. case in point the censorship of dissenting opinions about global warming

Right, 'cause that's exactly what happens.

Oh, wait, you're just plain fucking wrong.

Thanks for playing, though. Now you can go back to pretending that the ideas of pop novelists and oil-company funded thinktanks somehow represent reality.

This was indeed a paid for choice, they are probably making little money on either format right now so it seemed like easy money I guess:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/technology/21dis ney.html?ei=5088&en=d4e1f285e2f41437&ex=1345348800 &adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=118769814 3-B5wO3L/F+4r1NyAsum87vQ

Though Paramount joins my shit list for extending the stupid war.

Absolutely unfounded... There are entirely too many checks and balances in place for the VP (or any politician for that matter) to create his own classification scheme.

• A reference from rawstory.com, with the daily show clip.
• The Washington Post article
• Story in the New York Times

Why does it seem that those supporting HD DVD tend to always use "blue-ray" instead of the proper Blu-Ray name? And with all that knowledge on codecs, compression and audio transfer technology you would think they could at least get the technology name right.

Oh and for those wondering about the $150 million payoff to Paramount:

"Paramount and DreamWorks Animation together will receive about $150 million in financial incentives for their commitment to HD DVD, according to two Viacom executives with knowledge of the deal but who asked not to be identified." - NY Times

Nuclear Power ROCKS! Especially in space. Why are all the crazy people worried about what happens there? They work off the heat generated due to decay, not like a ground-based power plant. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950 DE0DD123CF935A1575BC0A96F948260 Imagine what we'd know if both mars rovers had nuclear power in addition to solar? How much longer could we expect data? 20 years? 30 years?

if you're willing to spend 5 minutes on ebay, you can find a beta VCR and a 5.25 floppy drive. I'm mentioning this because NASA uses ebay to find parts for their outdated computers.

Why don't we just stop US based companies from doing the censorship? Google and Yahoo are the corporations getting people sent to the Laogai. Cisco and others make the Great Firewall of China possible. It's American companies putting together Chinese police surveillance and control. Anything for a buck I guess.

I wouldn't say that me and "my ilk" demand failure so much as recognize it when we see it.

As far as whether "progress is being made", or not, don't take my word for it (or the White House's, for that matter): Instead, read what the soldiers themselves are saying.

You really think $1,000 per capita could do that?

Is it that easy? What about towns like this one?

In Soviet Russia, you crash Skype

In America, Skype crash you!

If you really believe there is no difference between the parties and don't want to live under a police state, I think your only option is to leave the country. The Bush administration clear wants a police state and if Democrats want one too, there's going to be no stopping it.

Today's NYT certainly makes it look it Congressional Democrats were pwned by the Bush administration over the FISA changes. Pretty stupid to use a bill drafted by the Bush administration but there's a long way from getting pwned to endorsing a police state.

In the United States, Con Edison produces 30 billion pounds of steam each year through its seven cogeneration plants (which boil water to 1,000F/538C) before pumping it to 100,000 buildings in Manhattan -- the biggest commercial steam system in the world.[1][2]

They're trying to do this in the East River in New York. Unsuccessfully so far...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/nyregion/13power .html

One thing you youngsters have to realize about classical music is that the duration of various pieces is not set in stone. It's left up to the conductor, (or, the musicians, if there is no conductor). For instance, Glenn Gould has two recordings of the Goldberg Variations. The 1955 version lasts 38.5 minutes, the 1981 version; 51.25 minutes.

There's a 24 hour version of the ninth. That's extreme, but performances usually take 60 to 80 minutes

When I read one of the comments I thought about this article from Freakonomics in the nytimes. It's lacking the details I'd like but does have vague statements like "Compliance had risen to about 80 percent from 65 percent, but the Joint Commission required 90 percent compliance."

maybe even someone else's simulation!?

It found that most people who drive into Manhattan below 60th Street do so because of the comfort and convenience of their cars, ignoring easily available public transportation... [And] that a large share of people driving into Manhattan are bound for somewhere else and therefore contribute little to the city's economy beyond bridge or tunnel tolls. It said 61 percent of those crossing East River bridges were making through trips and that more than 30 percent of those using Hudson River tunnels were bound for destinations outside Manhattan's main business district.

One of our neighbors in central Oregon built a double shell home with passive solar heat. We visited in Febuary and noticed they had a flowerpot in the woodstove. We asked about the flowers. They said they tried the woodstove earlier but it took 3 days to cool the house back down.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/a-home-t hat-heats-and-cools-itself/

Having a house that doesn't follow the outside temprature swings requiring heating and cooling is an energy saver.

They do have some nice temprature swings there. For example, today's range is 50-95 degrees F.

http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstrav eler/local/97756?lswe=97756&lwsa=Weather36HourBusi nessTravelerCommand&from=whatwhere

Here is an example what that means in human terms: almost 20% of a group of fisherman involved in the spill have died since it happened. http://www.oiledfishermenvsexxon.com/

To put this in perspective, Exxon-Mobil had the largest single year profit for a corporation in 2005 $36.13 billion: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/30cnd-e xxon.html?ex=1296277200&en=8ec83a7f4025b22b&ei=508 8&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

And they have still avoided paying the roughly 5 billion (2.5 billion to start with almost 20 years of interest.)

This is not justice, it's legalized rape.

So are we talking about real life or virtual life here?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.h tml - The New York Times has an article about all of us being simulations.

The argument, in a nut shell, is as follows: Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or "posthumans," could run "ancestor simulations" of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.

...if the posthumans were to run lots of simulations for research purposes or entertainment, then the number of virtual ancestors they created would be vastly greater than the number of real ancestors. In fact, the number of virtual ancestors (X) is likely to be so huge compared to the number of real ancestors (Y) that Y is a tiny % of (X+Y). So the probability that we are a part of the X bucket is a lot more.

This is the same municipality that is rolling out the world's first chipped citizen initiatives.

I am sure this is merely coincidental.

You really should do some research into this particular issue before you speak up.

In this case, the Republican governor slashed transportation spending since taking office in 2004 by vetoing budgets, see here. And feel free to google it.

Alternatively, how to do you explain the absolute failure of school systems with massive spending in cities that are run by Democrats - and they sucked even when Dems controlled all three parts of the Federal government. Witness DC - 12k a month per student and 2/3ds of public school teachers with children send their kids to private schools.

Well, I certainly don't assert the failure of the schools is due to too much revenue, as you apparently do. That's completely nonsensical. Also, you've apparently failed to notice schools are, in fact, run by the states, not the Federal or city governments, so who is in charge of the city or the Federal government at the time is not very incredibly relevant.

Incidentally, the quality of schools is almost entirely unrelated to which political party is in office in the state, and almost entirely related to percentage of the poor. So suggesting that failing schools have more than enough money would seem to be somewhat illogical on that basis.

Anyway, the failure of schools is way too complicated to get into here, and has nothing to do with the recent disintegration of infrastructure around the country, which is almost entirely due to lack of spending on maintenance. We know how to make things work correctly, and we know how to spend money to make that happen. We do not know how to make students learn. I 'agree' with you that throwing money at schools is not 'the' solution, but that is because there are several other root problems. In the case of infrastructure, however, the entire problem is that we refuse to spend the money on it.

Bridges aren't too important to be left to government. They're too important to be left to a political party that thinks government is unneeded and unwanted, and that the less spent on it the better.

http://www.nytimes.com/specials/010100mil-demo-san ger.html

Go argue with the NYT.

And if you think he's right about America being insulated from this by younger demographics, remember that this was written in 2000, before the borders were locked so tightly.

Take a look at what closed immigration is doing to the farmers fields now that they are having trouble getting illegal labour. Take a look at the tech sector, where the companies are actually leaving for foreign shores because they can't hire the foreign born from the US anymore.

For fucks sakes, open your damned eyes.

Either we collectively come up with a better vision of the world that acknowledges that this one is leading to the extermination of those who believe in it, and try to come up with something better that isn't couched in religious fundamentalism, but still allows us to continue to flourish and grow, or we don't, and religious fundamentalism and a new dark age of superstition begins when what we all came to know sputters out like a candle.

Recently, defective tires manufactured in China killed two motorists.

The seafood imported from China -- and tainted with deadly chemicals -- has not yet killed any American. However, long-term consumption of the contaminated seafood will eventually cause agonizing health problems.

AT&T should immediately identify the country where its batteries were manufactured. Chances are good that a Chinese factory is the culprit.

"Interestingly, neither of those two things has occurred"

Valerie Plame was an intelligence asset working on tracking WMD, and her identity was leaked by people in the Bush administration. This is such basic knowledge that it isn't worth rehashing.

FISA Court judge rules "key portion" of warrantless wiretapping program illegal, refuses to recertify: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/08/02/AR2007080202619_pf.html
  and
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20075751/site/newsweek /page/0/

(Hilariously, this means that either the program continued to operate illegally for "four to five months" or that the administration waited that long before telling congress they needed an *emergency* amendment to FISA or terrists would kill us all right away. Pick one.)

And an earlier ruling (later overturned):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/washington/17cnd -nsa.html?ex=1313467200&en=9c107bcba3ed54d1&ei=508 8&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"I know this is slashdot, where uninformed group-think passes for 'intellect' among masses of less-than-moderately intelligent people who desperately want to be perceived as 'smart', but at least make an effort to know what you're talking about."

Yeah, sorry that isn't working out for you so well.

I believe a fair fraction of that is due to the incarceration fraction being much higher among men than among women. Any felonies -- and some misdemeanors -- in one's past will lead to diminished earning potentials. What I find amusing or ridiculous--take your pick--is that many women's groups think women should make as much as men even if they have a family, don't work or work part-time. This is nothing but a sense of entitlement. And if women are single and working full time in the cities, then decide to have a family and move to small towns and work part-time or not at all, of course their wages will go down. That is called a trade-off, not necessarily discrimination. Most women's groups also want companies to offer better maternity leave and paternity leave. The maternity leave in the US is paltry compared to most other countries, and although some men are eligible under FMLA, not all of them are. And most male employees are pressured not to take paternity leave. Better leave policies could make it easier for women to go back to work after having kids -- many women working part-time would prefer to work full time. Sometimes women don't opt-out -- they are forced out.

Correct. As long as the PATRIOT act is in effect, traditional law has no meaning. I believe the NYT exact adjective for the current administration was "lawless" Everyone in this country knew that the rules had fundamentally changed, when legislation called "The PATRIOT Act" went into effect. This is not the america of our youth, when the word "patriot" had an unsoiled meaning.

They didn't use puke-rays because they didn't have them. Just batons, muscle, and color of authority.

over 400 arrested during the Republican Convention

Laziness is not a quality one associates with Patrick O'Brian.

History is not invention, it is discovery, but re-imagining the past and making it understandable - and meaningful - to a modern reader is the work of the artist.

At first glance, the sanitized Dodge City of "Gunsmoke" lies light-years away from "Deadwood," which almost seems in comparison like a circle in Dante's Inferno. But a closer look shows they have much in common. "Gunsmoke" began as a radio series and was much earthier at its inception: Miss Kitty, the proprietor of the Long Branch Saloon, was easily identified as a brothel owner, and Doc was a cynical alcoholic, much like Brad Dourif's hard-boiled Doc Cochran on "Deadwood." The Western historian Jeff Morey, a frequent consultant for the History Channel, sees other connections: "Both series are about the evolution of moral chaos into order. We don't remember 'Gunsmoke' that way because in the show's later years, those issues were pretty much settled, but in its own day, and in its own way, 'Gunsmoke' was as bold as 'Deadwood.'"
Morey sees another similarity: "Both 'Gunsmoke' and 'Deadwood' are acclaimed because of their writing. For a show about the Old West to be authentic, it has to make clear that there was a hard-core Victorian morality struggling against the anarchy of vice and violence, and that is best expressed through the quality of the scripts. 'Gunsmoke' and 'Deadwood' are probably the two best-written Westerns in the history of television." The Man Who Made 'Deadwood

for females who are reading - want to know how to get on with your male collegues - take the piss, have fun, take the piss out of yourself, go out to the pub and drink with the boys - and maybe realise that if you present yourself as an equal rather than a 'weak and frail women' you might actually get included as 'one of the boys'. Socialising is the key.

And here I thought it was only a problem in Korea

All right, I'll bite. Why on God's green earth should a woman need or want to be included as "one of the boys"? You're saying in so many words that it's a man's world, woman have to learn to live in it? And you don't see a problem with that? Well, I sure as hell do. Let's flip this around for a second.

In my previous job, I was the lone IT/office support worker for a six-or-seven employee non-profit. The one other man left after I was there a few months, so then I was the only man in the office. (The president of the board was also a woman.) I was also, except for the intern, the lowest on the totem-pole, in terms of both seniority and hierarchy. (Salary, too, I think.)

The gender issue came up twice. First was when the program coordinators were reviewing applications of public school teachers that wanted to be included in our service-learning program for the year. In discussion, they were giving a male applicant poor marks because he'd answered an essay question with bullet points instead of a paragraph. Even though it had nothing to do with my job, I had to point out to them that, since there weren't explicit instructions to that effect, they were applying a non-useful bias on communication style, and it just might be gender-related. Men think and communicate differently from women, with bullet points being a paradigmatic example. As far as I could tell, they took my thoughts to heart and were grateful for the input. (Unfortunately, I do not recall whether that applicant was accepted.)

The other time was when I decided to move on and we were trying to choose my replacement. I was conflicted, because it went very much against my grain not to give affirmative-action-style preference to a female candidate for an IT job, let alone to give preference to a man, while at the same time, I firmly believed that an all-female office is just as bad an idea as an all-male office. I finally decided that balance to the office was of more immediate importance than balance to the industry, and I put in my two cents in favor of a man, all other things being roughly equal. Again, as far as I could tell, they took my thoughts to heart and were grateful for the input. I'm also fairly certain that if I hadn't been there, that point would not have occurred to that particular table full of women, and they would have chosen the new hire with a mostly blind eye to gender. As it turned out, I was replaced by a man (and another man was hired as program staff after I left), and I think the flexibility and responsiveness of the enterprise is the better for it.

Men and women collaborating in an office is most emphatically not about "doing as the Romans do". If there is a weakness in your organization, it is your duty as an employee to correct it if you can, point it out to management if you can't. Failure in the organization to allow any of its human assets to express themselves naturally is definitely a weakness. Expecting a woman to act like one of the boys is such a failure, as is expecting a man to act like one of the girls.

I'm not the first to point out that men and women do, according to a large body of psychological and anthropological research, think, communicate, and behave differently, but then so many use the same breath to justify the division of labor along gender lines. That doesn't make any sense to me. If there are such material differences, why wouldn't you want them both represented in the organization? Wouldn't that just ma

I am the parent poster.
Everything I wrote is 100% factual.

You could easily lok up each fact on your own if you bothered to try/

But here are merely some references for you to read up on :

Alexander & Hines (2002) gave 44 vervet monkeys of each sex six toys to play with; two male-typical (a toy car and ball), two female-typical (a doll and pot) and two sex-neutral (a book and stuffed animal). Male ververts were more likely than females to engage the car and ball while females were more likely to play with the doll and pot. No difference was found in the neutral toys. Neonatal androgen exposure has been linked to play preferences in rats, rhesus monkeys, vervet monkeys, chimpanzees and human females.

Lawrence H. Summers :
The university president that was fired for highlighting this toy effect also stated that he tried to alter preferences with his own daughters. He also cited as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral upbringing. Yet he said she named them "daddy truck" and "baby truck," as if they were dolls. After merely mentioning this FACT in a public speech, as a role as an economist, not president, in January 1995 he was repidly fired in the following weeks. The president was president of HARVARD (Lawrence H. Summers). Angry ignorant woman refused to even discuss the facts and started a protest to get the president fired. The president of Harvard was fired for merely mentioning biological facts.

WWDC conference :
I do not remember the three names, but one was named "chris"(?) and at the time was passing half-male (though wore womens cloths such as blouses), and two were passing as females. But it is true. "chris" in fact attended Mac Hack conferences as a highly skilled hacker. Three transgendered computer hacker-engineers is three more than the zero females that year. A few females headed software companies and were at that WWDC conference, (Linda K, Heide R) but they are not, nor ever were , skilled coders.)

NASA :
Its public knowledge. for the first time ever all three KEY positions of the failed mars missions were female :
    Sarah A. Gavit = the mars project manager
    Suzanne E. Smrekar, 37, the lead mars scientist
    Kari A. Lewis= the mars project's chief engineer
Other females to blame :
Lori B. Garver = Associate Administrator for NASA's Office of Policy and Plans, Executive Secretary of Advisory Council (She does not have an engineering degree!)

NASA is proud to boast 2% female active engineers minimum and that is WAY out of whack with societies norms.
from the female mars leader in a NYT interview :
      "Women have really added to the workplace because we do come at things from a different angle," she said.
      "For the same reason that cultural diversity works, gender diversity is wonderful, too, especially when you're trying to do something creative."

Also from the female mars leader Gavit:

      "The fact that we're women hasn't made a difference," she said. "It's not an issue here. But it's good that young girls see that engineering and technical fields are wide open to women. That's the good thing about saying it's a woman-led team."

http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/04 1899nasa-women.html

The report in The Guardian (British) December 7th included the following comment: "The total launch and development costs of NASA's lost Mars spacecraft is put at $320 million. A Third of billion wast3ed on gender equality despite IQ.

I am perplexed as to why you doubt my 100% factual post.

If anything in it is outlandish or hard to believe then merely try to disprove it with a fact, or tell me WHICH statement you think is not 100% correct.

I expected female attacks. I made certain I told no lies. My original article is 100% factual in every way. I have no reason to lie or distort facts.

Political Correctness hates facts, but I embrace them.

All the controversy surrounding DRM may be obsolete in the future, according to this article. They're suggesting that the future of movie watching may lie in streaming video sites like www.reeltime.com. With streaming technology becoming more sophisticated with higher quality pictures and better content, I'd wager that streams will dominate the internet and at least downloading DRM will be a non-issue. What do you think?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/business/media/0 6stream.html

Nothing to Watch on TV? Streaming Video Appeals to Niche Audiences Michel Marriott for The New York Times Buffering ... buffering ... buffering. Seeing these words blinking at the bottom of the postage-stamp-size screen during a download of jerky video defines the annoying experience of entertainment on a computer monitor. However, the potential of new streaming video services -- fast, full screen and in sharp resolution -- is unleashing a torrent of movies and television shows, much of it aimed at narrowly defined audiences that can't find niche programming even on cable systems with 500 or more channels. The Independent Film Channel is streaming 22 short films called "Trapped in the Closet" by the R&B recording artist R. Kelly. The Jewish Television Network, a nonprofit television production and distribution company, is streaming music videos by Jewish performers, cooking shows and Israeli news programs. The network is also planning to stream religious services during the High Holy Days in September, the sort of broadcast that would be hard to find on mainstream television. "There is extreme interest in streaming because it simplifies the process of getting video to the consumer," said Ross Rubin, the director of industry analysis for the NPD Group, a market analysis company. Streaming video, unlike downloads, never resides on a viewer's computer. It usually cannot be replayed as a downloaded file can be, which is another reason that content creators like it. The growing use and popularity of streaming among consumers are closely tied to the increasing popularity of broadband Internet connections in homes. The Pew Internet & American Life Project estimated that 47 percent of American households have broadband connections that make streaming possible because it transmits data faster. "The greater adoption of broadband in the United States is really raising the ante for all kinds of content from premium Hollywood offerings to pet videos," said Mr. Rubin, who noted that NBC and ABC have begun streaming their prime-time programming to online viewers. This year, the DVD rental company Netflix began to take advantage of click-and-view streaming of full-length films and television episodes with a subscription service. "Push a tab 'Watch Now' and more than 3,000 television episodes and movies come up in 30 seconds or less," said Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman. "There's no downloading." Streaming high-quality video to computers and television screens is the "first step to getting what people want to see on any screen they want, from laptops to cellphones to wide-screen televisions," Mr. Swasey said. "Netflix's goal is to get movies delivered instantly to all those different screens." Companies like ReelTime, Joost, Limelight Networks and Brightcove are staking their futures on streaming video. "We're point, click and watch -- instantly," said Barry Henthorn, the chief executive and co-founder of ReelTime. "We never stop and never buffer." ReelTime, based in Seattle, digitally distributes thousands of movies and television shows to customers who either rent titles for 99 cents each or subscribe to the service for $4.99 a month to $19.99 for six months. While ReelTime content can easily be watched on desktop and notebook computers, Mr. Henthorn urges customers to connect the computer to the television's larger screen for viewing because, he said, "the quality is that good."