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A study mentioned in a NY Times article says it's worse than break even. According to the study it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces. Some other biofuels come out with an even lower conversion efficiency.

No, it's an iFlea. Wait thru the ad, it's worth it...

There's good reason to believe that "Peak Oil" is already here. This is it. These are the painfully high gas prices we were warned about. (Historically speaking, gas prices today are horrifying. Ask your parents.)

Here's a no reg link courtesy of the New York Times Link Generator.

Its in the archives now, but the NY Times ran an article with some research in it recently indicating that we (as a race) are nearly uniformly attracted to the young of our species, with the definition of being "young" including pubescence and pre-pubescence.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70 A1FF6395C0C708EDDA80894DD404482&incamp=archive:sea rch

Your contention that it is not normal, then, is most likely false.

The key point though is that it is potentially very harmful to the receiver of the attention, and the demonization of it also means that the only "practitioners" are serious wackos, making the majority of current examples candidates easy to view in a negative light.

That's a cultural thing though, and in the past, as well as in other cultures, its not like that.

Points up the silliness of trying to make it a thought-crime though. You'd be guilty too, as soon as the PATRIOT III (its for the kids!) gave them the power to EEG you while looking at pictures of 13-14 year old girls in bathing suits. Oh look! There's arousal! You should be shot!

'The downside is that you have to repeat the procedure for every page.'

One workaround for this article is to feed Google the printer-friendly link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/magazine/17GALAC TICA.html?8hpib=&pagewanted=print (though you lose the pictures).

Not just that, so many organizations using secure online transactions including goverments.

This is too big now and has got out of control. I'm not an American but I hope you people are writing hard to your congressmen about the appalling joke that passes for software patent law in the US.

That is if they can tear themselves away from their illegal war in Iraq which has just claimed another 60 lives

The tragedy embedded in these memos is that the Brits were mistaken in their two most basic premises: first, that Saddam Hussein really had WMD and really posed a threat; second, that just because Bush needed Blair's support, Blair could somehow influence him...
At least the Brits clearly saw the difficulties ahead and tried to engage Bush on their implications. Had he listened, our biggest problems in Iraq today might be a great deal smaller. This is another lesson to be gleaned from the Downing Street memos.

An article on the same innovation appeared several days ago in the New York Times (free reg required): http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/science/12sili.h tml

Even worse are the lazy journalists who report it. After a New York Times piece last week claimed bisexual males were "lying" based on results from a highly questionable study, I reminded their editors of this excellent piece Blinded by Science in Columbia Journalism Review.

This kind of sloppy reporting is perfect for lazy journalists-- it's a three-for-one deal. They get to break the news, and then later they have a second story when real experts point out the flaws, and a third when the people finally get discredited. More evidence of the shameful state of journalism in this country.

And, Lord knows, this was a slashdot-specific story, and you certainly couldn't have gotten details anywhere else before you opened your mouth.

You can read the article here.

Since most of us wont bother, I take the liberty to cut_and_paste some of what I found relevant here.

When I moved to Queens, in New York City, at the age of 14, I found myself, for the first time in my life, considered good at math. In Bombay, math was my worst subject, and I regularly found my place near the bottom of the class rankings in that rigorous subject. But in my American school, so low were their standards that I was - to my parents' disbelief - near the top of the class. It was the same in English and, unexpectedly, in American history, for my school in Bombay included a detailed study of the American Revolution. My American school curriculum had, of course, almost nothing on the subcontinent's freedom struggle. I was mercilessly bullied during the 1979-80 hostage crisis, because my classmates couldn't tell the difference between Iran and India. If I were now to move with my family to India, my children - who go to one of the best private schools in New York - would have to take remedial math and science courses to get into a good school in Bombay.

I remember that a family friend of mine, a vicar who lived in CA for almost six years, had to send both of his daughters to private tuition when they reached India, because both of them struggled like hell to catch up with the rest of the class, despite being honor students here.

I am not suggesting that the education system here is crap. But they seriously need to start comparing with the rest of the world, if they want to compete with the rest of the world, especially when it comes to Jobs.

So, pricing your cancer drug at $100,000 per year is manslaughter too, right?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/business/12cance r.html

Lets leave all this BS on the table for a second. It seems to me that politicians are responsible for making the game such that society is the winner. If they let a company price its drugs at obscene rates, and yet require it to be covered (and don't punish the companies for letting people die), then you've effectively created a wonderful monopoly, while simultaniously claiming to use the free market. Here's a hint, markets don't work when the alternatives are "pay us whatever we ask, or die".

Similarly, these crimes weren't perpetrated by a single man, it required the willing negligence of thousands, perhaps millions, of people to bring them about. If you can charge the hacker with manslaughter, then you can charge Microsoft and the Hospital that chose their software too. Those people were dead as fried chicken from the moment the hospital bought microsoft, for it was certain that someone was going to turn out to be more sinner than saint eventually.

The only logical approach to security is to require ALL players to take reasonable action to protect the system and themselves. Then, if the system is carefully designed and deployed, and yet it comes under careful and concerted attack, then you have actual resources to track down the offenders, rather than just sweeping through colleges looking for delinquents. It's hard to bust someone for trespassing if you don't have a fence around your property. This columnist would support shooting someone who steps on your property, even if it's totally unmarked and unprotected. This is totally unacceptable in any sane legal framework. Maybe if you have a fence to keep out the neighborhood kids, but some punk jumps it anyway, well then maybe, but even that is stretching the limits of belief.

To create a login-not-required link to NYT, go to http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink, paste the URL of the page you want to access, and you get the "archive link" of the article.

He's NOT a computer professional, he's an Op-Ed columnist. That would be why his opinion is on the NYT Op-Ed page. He has a background in science writing among other things.

Here's the oh-so-hard-to-find bio for you savvy computer professionals:

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/tierney-bio.htm l

Personally I think cutting off one hand would help quite a bit. It'd slow 'em down at least the next time.

Somone call John Dvorak...his title as reigning champion of the blithering idiots is being seriously contested.

Just who is this John Tierney, anyway? Judging from his whining about 'man-years I've spent running virus scans and reformatting hard drives', he doesn't sound like any computer profesional I know...perhaps if he was a bit more in the know, he'd know that although Microsoft had released a patch for this loophole on 13 and 28 April 2004, many companies had not applied this protection before Sasser struck. Perhaps some of Mr. Tierney's considerable ire should be redirected towards the hordes of lazy sysadmins who had a solution for the Sasser worm, but chose complacency over vigilance.

I'm surprised nobody has brought up the case where the cabbies are now suing the city (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/nyregion/17taxi .html?ex=1276660800&en=9dec967b9352b845&ei=5088&pa rtner=rssnyt&emc=rss) due to the fact that NYC cab regulations REQUIRE a certain amount of leg space and there is not a hybrid on the market that meets these standards (and thus they cannot use the medallions until a hybrid vehicle meeting such proportions exists.)

Don't forget the upcoming Apple iPod Flea.

why hasnt he attacked Saudi Arabia even once? why isnt he going after the royal family since they are clearly the ones he should have the biggest beef with.
There were attacks against Saudi Arabia. (sorry, login required) There has been an extensive 2 year long battle against bin laden inspired terrorists within the Kingdom - this article gives some good background.

Second, about the whole "black sheep" thing. He was expelled from the Kingdom in the 1990's and hasn't been back since. He would have been executed for except that his family is very powerful (he has 50 some odd brothers and sisters, all in good standing). His father was a famed construction magnate who rebuilt and refurbished much of Mecca's holy buildings and a friend of the King.

So here is the thing about your comment.

You have no grasp of Middle-Eastern politics. Even dedicatd amatuers have a hard time keeping up with it, and it's why we have a State Department with analysts who watch this all the time. This is meant as no insult.

Basically, what you have to understand is this: the Saudi royal family is pro-Western. However, they are not in complete dictorial control of the country as you may imagine. They rule only at the grace of clerics who are dedicated Wahabists and are decidely anti-Western. If the royal family fell from power the Kingdom would quickly fall into the hands of Taliban-esque clerics with *piles* and *piles* and *piles* of money at their command. Wealth that is, frankly, astounding. Plus more to be mined every day. Imagine the Taliban complete with half a trillion dollars in cash.

Clearly, the royals are not our best "allys". They do not have a free hand to rule as they would wish. And even if they did, they'd probably be bastards. They should have no problem providing jobs, yet 25% of the workforce is unemployed. Yet if the balance of power tilts to far to the clerics, they will be deposed and the new regime will not just be a little bit worse, but rather, violently anti-American.

The Saudi royal family are the ones you see on TV, smeared and linked to the 9/11 bombers by special interest groups. Bush took heat for being easy on them. What none of these groups understand is how precarious their position is. If the Saud family loses control of the Kingdom the US's security interests would be massively hurt, for one, in terms of oil, but two, in terms of an Afganistan like safe-haven but with massive income and revenue. Just because we would stop buying oil from them doesn't mean Europe or China would. After the US was let into the Kingdom during Gulf War I they nearly lost control to the clerics. Bitter repression was required to control them and maintain power.
This whole power struggle is why you see Bush walking and talking with the royals and holding hands and all that and at the same time read about madrasa's that won't let girls leave a burning building because they weren't covered properly. They are secular leaders running a nation cowed into blind subserviance by iron fisted religious leaders.

Anyways, I hope this helps you to understand just a little what the situation in Saudia Arabia consists of.

There will probably be more accurate versions later, but here is such a map

I called Caltrans to find out if a speed survey had been conducted on the road and found out that it had but it had not been signed. It hadn't been signed because the man responsible for the survey was told by his boss not to sign it as it showed the speed limit was too low.

So the situation on Hwy 46 is that the survey was done which satisfies the law calling for a survey but it wasn't signed so the speed limit isn't too low. In the meantime, the county continues to steal money from passing motorists who can't be bothered to contest their ticket.

As to keeping you on your toes, that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you perceive it's a hazardous road, you'll drive more safely. Posting an arbitrarily low speed limit creates a tension between drivers who can see the road would safely support a higher speed and drivers who are trying to obey the speed limit. I believe that tension creates an additional hazard on the road as people jockey to pass the slower drivers.

So nice that the quality of life for cockroaches is getting better. Too bad that the quality of life for humans is not getting any better.

I found this article on the New York Times about how Silicon Valley/SF Bay Area is changing.

Why should the richest people in America pay taxes, when they can just hire "personal Websters" to surf the Net for them, and pay their taxes out of their minimum wages? Or just save that extra markup by outsourcing the Internet work to India? All the government does is stop rich people from making money. Why should they pay for it, when they can pay much less in campaign bribes^Wcontributions, to keep the little people in line, at their own expense?

DOWNLOADING music from the Internet is not illegal. Plenty of music available online is not just free but also easily available, legal and -- most important -- worth hearing.

That fact may come as a surprise after highly publicized lawsuits by the Recording Industry Association of America, representing major labels, against fans using peer-to-peer programs like Grokster and EDonkey to collect music on the Web. But the fine print of those lawsuits makes clear that fans are being sued not for downloading but for unauthorized distribution: leaving music in a shared folder for other peer-to-peer users to take. As copyright holders, the labels have the exclusive legal right to distribute the music recorded for them, even if technology now makes that right nearly impossible to enforce.

There is a NY Times magazine article: A Church-State Solution (published on the web before the O'Conner announcement) that suggests that America's separation of Church-State problems could all be easily solved by reversing every one of O'Conner's swing rulings. I won't claim to agree with the article, but I found it an interesting read, more so now that the announcement has been made.

On a side note, it seems obvious to me that with Supreme Court decisions frequently making "News for Nerds," the retirement of Justice O'Conner is also news for nerds. Sure, the politics of it are rather tense, but I guarantee that O'Conner's replacement will be ruling on IP/privacy issues before their new chair is even warm.

Yours didn't have a NY Times link. And yours wasn't at all misleading and sensationalist, either. To spice things up, maybe add a condescending sentence at the end, like so:

The world's first fusion reactor is soon to be completed in France. Nuclear Fusion is what powers the sun and hydrogen bombs. w00t!

And last, but not least, submit it under the wrong category, like say, Star Wars.

From what I understand, undersea tapping is definitely being done.

In fact it's one of the uses for plutonium-based batteries. Here's a quote and link to a NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/politics/27nuke. html
"Such accidents cooled enthusiasm for the batteries. But federal agencies continued to use them for a more limited range of missions, including those involving deep-space probes and top-secret devices for tapping undersea cables."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/politics/27nuke. html?ex=1277524800&en=d2a4c8d306596edf&ei=5090&par tner=rssuserland&emc=rss

"Center for Digital Deomcracy"

Is that supposed to be "deocracy", the faithbased government? Which asks us to trust in the "character" of the people who select, say, digital voting machines without paper trails, owned by the ruling party's corporate bribers^Wdonors? Which says "separation of church and state" and "consistently applied principle" means that Scalia gets to decide whether a religious display promotes his religion "too much" or whether it's some kind of "cult" like Islam that the government shouldn't establish, because it didn't kill enough Indians.

Or use the New York Times Link Generator and skip the registration altogether.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/technology/24zom bie.html?ex=1277265600&en=c003ced33d1adfcf&ei=5090 &partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

As has been mentioned several times already, you can get a login and pw combo to view the article from here:

http://bugmenot.com/view.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww. nytimes.com

There has also been a registration-free link posted:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/technology/24zom bie.html?ei=5090&en=c003ced33d1adfcf&ex=1277265600 &partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=print

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/technology/24zom bie.html?ex=1277265600&en=c0038edb3d1a97cf&ei=5088 &partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Courtesy of Technology Review (did you know ALL NYTimes stories can be read from tech review for free? :D

click here

I don't know about the advisablility of the protectionist strategy - look at Europe to see where that'll lead us.

Europe has been Socialist (read aggresive protectionsm) for a long time now, while the US has been relatively welcoming of :
1. industrial + manufacturing outsourcing
2. immigration
3. now technical and IT outsourcing.

By all indications,the US seems to have gotten the better deal. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/opinion/24friedm an.html?hp

I'm not an expert at economics, but if you try to meddle with the free market, you are going to end up with all the attendant headaches of a Socialist economy, viz:
1. ricdiculously high taxes (the scandinavians pay 60%+ taxes - and all is not so hunky dory there
2. stagflation
3. depressed industrial growth and innovation

All this talk is fine, but sure as hell, I want my next paycheck !

You really need to be more careful about throwing words around recklessly like that. Just because someone does not agree with you, or they have done more research than you on a given subject does not make them foolish.

You said

"they certainly don't track you across sites"

They've been investigated by the Attorney General and the FTC over it.

According to DoubleClick's own web site (the source):

"DoubleClick does not use your name, address, email address, or phone number to deliver Internet ads. DoubleClick does use information about your browser and Web surfing to determine which ads to show your browser. "

Therein lies the problem with DoubleClick, and the level of community anger towards them. They do track people, they have been doing it for years, and the scope has been increasing gradually. While I'll concede that I haven't heard of them installing spyware, I can't say I would put it past them.

You also said:

"Take a look at Doubleclick's SEC filings and their 300M or so in revenue."

Aside from the fact that you're off on the numbers, why would I? They're a private company?

Oh, and last one:

" They do not throw pop-ups in your face"

Not only do they throw pop ups in your face, they help people get around your popup blockers. Great guys you're defending here.

I think it's important to point out that your defending DoubleClick as though they were the only option. They're not. There are other companies out there that behave ethically and haven't even been investigated once by the FTC or the Attorney General. There are at least three I can think of off the top of my head that are not compiling illegal databases designed to profile the spending habits of every man woman and child on earth. You can choose to work with a company that will be honest, and adhere to their privacy policies, and not exploit you or your visitors without consent. There are lots of companies out there that do will pay you as much or more than DoubleClick does for your space. Or you could do what I do with Microsoft. Nothing. If it works, why would you care how they behave or what they do? Who cares about business practices.. right? C'mon, apathy is actually a nice place to be, but it doesn't give you the right to be an idiot.

I'm certainly no expert, but I'm calling you out. The divide between the rich and the poor is ever increasing. The gap between the haves and havenots gets bigger each year. If you read current literature, all signs point to this.

If you want to read more about how the poor are doing worse and how the super-rich are doing better than ever (and how the middle class is falling away) see it here:

Class Matters - Social Class in the USA

For all of us Americans -- well, we have to live the mantra we've preached (and toppled governments for): The Free Market Rules. And please read today's NYTimes editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/opinion/24friedm an.html For the Europeans: Unless you break out of your coddled livestyles of state-sponsored laziness, there's little you have to complain about. Oh, and you'll have to have MASSIVE immigration to support your hopelessly unbalanced worker-to-pensioner ration, so let's all laugh while you import Indians and Chinese to work in your countries...

I don't know where you get your "sex offender" data from, but are there really no sex offenders with white skin?

Um, didn't you hear? He was found "not guilty".

These people were offered on average $1.7 million for (again, on average) .1 acres of land.

and yet they refused to sell for a large sum of money. this is riverfront property we're talking about, so smaller offers would probably not be considered "fair compensation," especially for the person who was born there in their home in 1918 and lived there all their life. (nytimes, but no reg req'd, not sure why) How do you tell that person that any amount is "fair."

We're not talking about taking someone's home and property to build a hospital, firestation, courthouse, etc. (all of which could be located in a more cost effective location, which would impact fewer people) We're talking about a development group who want to build a riverside hotel, office building, and "other commercial activities" to improve the tax base, create jobs, and enhance the quality of life. What happens when/if these businesses fail to "revitalize" the city. They cannot give back what they are taking. Will they then decide they need a few more lots down the river to build a riverside casino to "improve the tax base and create jobs" which will help the floundering hotel, and the dismal office building by housing the "main office" of the casino and all the new patrons it attracts.

I just can't believe that this has happened, and as a generally conservative person I was initially surprised to see how the vote went down with the generally liberal members voting in favor of the ruling. It makes sense after thinking about it - the conservatives did not side with the development group and commercial interests and instead upheld the constitution by voting for private ownership. It's just hard to believe how there are five (5) members of the high court who blindly ignored the consitution by hiding behind a meager "we're not better to determine what is 'beneficial' for the new london community" retort. Who says the NLDC is better than the homeowners to know what's best for the community?

I just can't even find the words to express how fucked-up this ruling is. It made me so mad I actually submitted it as a story to slashdot:
2005-06-23 19:19:33 Your Property is Perfect - for a Riverfront Hotel (Politics,The Courts) (rejected)

Of course, the story that got accepted was more succinct than my writeup, so I'm not complaining. I'm just saying this: I never submit stories - I never get worked up enough to care that much, and I don't even live in Connecticut! In fact I currently reside in Utah where a law was recently passed to specifically prevent eminent domain to be used for private development of any type.

One more article/page from before the ruling that is interesting reading I came across while looking into this.

I need a chill pill....

From http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050623/D8ATDSD80 .html

O'Connor was joined by
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist (conservative)
Antonin Scalia (conservative)
Clarence Thomas (conservative)

O'Connor's dissent was surprisingly terse and (*gasp*) conservative!

From http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/politics/23wire- scotus.html?incamp=article_popular_4

In a bitter dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the majority had created an ominous precedent. "The specter of condemnation hangs over all property," she wrote. "Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private property, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," she wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.

"As for the victims," Justice O'Connor went on, "the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result."

It pisses me off when people jump to conclusions without hearing all the facts. Next time, please do your homework first. -D

You're right. The debt is too high. We should pay it down by outsourcing.

The point here is that while I very much appreciate the sacrifice that the men and women serving now are making, their leaders seem to be doing everything in their power to make sure that their service will tarnished by their (the leaders', not the soldiers') lies and moral turptude, just as was the service of those in Vietnam.

If you want to see what we're involved in, look at the UK in Northern Ireland from ca. 1965-2000. Belfast or Baghdad, it makes no difference. And think about how that fight ended (is still ending?) - a political settlement that saved face for all but the folks who tried to keep everyone from killing each other. You cannot destroy a terrorist movement by military means. The best you can do is to try to keep a tenuous peace long enough that cooler heads will prevail, allowing parts of the terrorist group to form a legitimate political group, and then negotiate it into a stable govenment. And, as the British situation showed, this takes decades. You can see this process repeating again between Israel and the PLO/PA as we speak.

We're past the point where a clear military victory can be achieved. Our choices now are threefold:

• Prop up the Iraqi regime until they can "defend themselves" and then find a Nixonian "Peace With Honor", leaving the insurgents to continue destabilization, probably escalating to a civil war, after we leave;
• Hang out for thirty to forty years getting our people killed until the people there get tired of fighting;
• Get out now and let the chips fall where they may.

It's not clear to me that there's a whole lot of difference between the first and third option at this point and I, for one, am not willing to let my fellow countrymen die for decades while we wait for this to happen. At this point, I believe the best way to support our troops is to do everything in my power to get them the hell out of Iraq as quickly as possible - even if that means getting out without a clean "win".

"To my knowledge, in the time I have served as secretary of Defense, the idea of reinstating draft has never been debated, endorsed, discussed, theorized, pondered, or even whispered by anyone in the Bush administration."

This is technically true. The discussion went on in the DoD:

"...the Secretary of Defense and Department of Defense manpower officials have stated recently that a draft will not be necessary for any foreseeable crisis. They assume that sufficient fighting capability exists in today's "all-volunteer" active and reserved Armed Forces for likely contingencies, making a conventional draft of untrained manpower somewhat obsolete. Yet, Defense manpower officials concede there are critical shortages of military personnel with certain special skills such as medical personnel, linguists, computer network engineers, etc... a draft of men and women possessing these critical skills may be warranted in a future crisis."

Then they started setting up the databases, designing the draft cards, started putting out the call for draft board volunteers, and hired Widmeyer Communications to "secure compliance and... mold public opinion" to support it.

Rumsfeld employs classic Bush Administration spin tactics by changing the subject, arguing that the Administration has never considered bringing back the Vietnam-era draft, which is true. But the substance of the claim is that a Skills draft will be instituted, which Rumsfeld cleverly avoids by talking about something completely different.

Where I come from, this is called lying.

Here, thanks to the New York Times Link Generator, is a link to the story that should not expire or require registration. If the /. editors were better, they would use it. The generator is great for blogs. Hail the generator.

Supposedly the slashsdot effect is to blame: "Nothing bad happened really until after midnight on Saturday," said Michael Newman, deputy editorial page editor. At 8:32 p.m. Saturday, a posting on www.Slashdot.org, which bills itself as "news for nerds," directed readers to the Times wikitorial.

"Slashdot has a tech-savvy audience that, to be kind, is mischievous and to be not so kind, is malicious," Mr. Newman said. "We were taking stuff down as soon as it went up and staving them off. Finally we had to go to bed. Someone called the newsroom a little bit before 4 a.m. and said there's something bad on your Web site, and so we just took the whole site down."

Here is the reg free and "fricken huge flash ad skip" link.

I'm sure it's been mentioned every time a NYT article is posted, but use the NYT Link Generator .

Btw, NoReg for this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/national/17nasa. html?ex=1276660800&en=add396f591fcab73&ei=5090&par tner=rssuserland&emc=rss

http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink generates NYT links that do not require registration and should not expire.

No drama required.