Slashdot Mirror

Science is not exempt from Dogmatism and Groupthink, as is the case with all human institutions. The Italian researchers may not even know how often their thinking is pre-empted (what water? says the fish). Alice Dreger wrote a book on runaway bias in soft sciences:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/books/review/galileos-middle-finger-by-alice-dreger.html

Other manufacturers have done far worse things, both regarding emissions and other aspects (e.g. safety, fuel economy). It is ridiculous how much flak VW gets for something that the majority of the industry seem to be doing while VW is the only manufacturer that actually acknowledging what they have done and that is actually recalling the cars to reduce emissions. Never mind GM knowingly selling cars with faulty ignition switches that have caused over a hundred deaths to save a few cents and then lying about it. Or GM receiving a mere token fine when they were caught with a defeat devices in 500.000 Cadillacs. Or GM denying emissions cheating even when it is pretty clear.

In the US the towers were specifically designed with the possibility of an aircraft impact in mind, and even if the tower were breached, very little nuclear radiation would likely be emitted. Studies suggest the likelihood of an aircraft collision with a US tower actually causing a breach are infinitesimal. If the Belgian towers were designed around similar parameters, I doubt terrorists could breach them and I imagine car bombs wouldn't have much better luck.

If you mean dirty bombs, you'd need to steal nuclear waste (to get the short lived Actinides, mainly - the long lived ones probably won't do enough tissue damage unless you're very near the blast, as in smoking a cigarette is worse because those contain short lived and dangerous polonium) and separate out some of the shorter half life/more toxic parts to have an effective dirty bomb. Uranium itself in fissile/fertile form would be a terrible choice if you are looking at creating radiation related fatalities. Something like polonium would be vastly more effective. You'd also need to build a large conventional explosive, probably a fertilizer bomb, to actually spread it to any reasonable range.

TL;DR - obsolete reactors don't really help terrorists. You'd probably do more damage blowing up a few hundred cartons of cigarettes in a dirty bomb than stolen nuclear waste, though neither would be particularly effective.

One of the most disgusting recent copyright stunts was the Anne Frank Foundation extending the copyright on her diary by claiming Otto Frank as a co-author.

If anything ought to be considered owned by the world as a whole, it's Anne Frank's diary.

The current Israelis are from Eurpoe, and simple thieves and murderers. I'm in no way anti-Semitic, I'm anti asshole. It's the normal typical wolf cry of a thouroughly discredited bunch of muderous theiving liars to make that claim.

You're "anti asshole"? How do you live with yourself? Well, at least we have it on your authority that you are, "in no way anti-Semitic." @@
.
Israeli Jews, by Region of Origin

2003
14% Asia
16% Africa
15% Europe
  4% Americas
22% Former USSR
29% Israel (Native)
Total Population 5,165,400

Operation Solomon - one of several rescues .....

Ethiopian Jews and Israelis Exult as Airlift Is Completed

Israel fell into joyous celebration tonight as the Government announced the successful conclusion of an emergency airlift of 14,500 Ethiopian Jews, nearly the entire Jewish population, in just under 36 hours.

At the airport this morning, it was difficult to tell who was more joyful -- the barefoot Ethiopians who cheered, ululated and bent down to kiss the tarmac as they stepped off the planes, or the Israelis who watched them aglow, marveling at this powerful image showing that their state still holds appeal, even with all its problems.

"We've stood up to our obligation and completed the operation bringing all the Jews," Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declared tonight. "It gives us a feeling of strength."

Israelis were no less wondrous at the operational accomplishment of ferrying so many people more than 1,500 miles in 40 flights over so short a time. The air force said 35 civilian and military airplanes, including one Ethiopian airliner, had been used in the operation.

---------------

Why Jews Fled the Arab Countries

COORDINATING A PROGRAM OF EXPULSION

In a key address before the Political Committee of the U.N. General Assembly on November 14, 1947, just five days before that body voted on the partition plan for Palestine, Heykal Pasha, an Egyptian delegate, made the following key statement in connection with that plan:

The United Nations . . . should not lose sight of the fact that the proposed solution might endanger a million Jews living in the Moslem countries. Partition of Palestine might create in those countries an anti-Semitism even more difficult to root out than the anti-Semitism which the Allies were trying to eradicate in Germany. . . If the United Nations decides to partition Palestine, it might be responsible for the massacre of a large number of Jews.

Heykal Pasha then elaborated on his threat:

A million Jews live in peace in Egypt [and other Muslim countries] and enjoy all rights of citizenship. They have no desire to emigrate to Palestine. However, if a Jewish State were established, nobody could prevent disorders. Riots would break out in Palestine, would spread through all the Arab states and might lead to a war between two races.1

Heykal Pasha's thinly veiled threats of "grave disorders," "massacre," "riots," and "war between two races" did not at the time go unnoticed by Jews;2 for them, it had the same ring as the proposition made six years earlier by the Palestinian leader Hajj Amin al-Husayni to Hitler of a "final solution" for the Jews of Arab countries, including Palestine. ... "3 . . . more

Believe it or not, there's actually a legal precedent for this:

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08...

Probably a lot more too.

Contrary to several reports in the French news media, the drug was not a cannabis-based painkiller, Ms. Touraine said.

They're at it again. Bitcoin XT/Unlimited/Classic developers are shilling emotionally charged rhetoric declaring the failure of Bitcoin. These blog posts are promoted by their connections in the (((international media))) to try to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt around the status of Bitcoin and bully people into accepting their suicidal "solutions" to problems that don't really exist involving block size limits.

Histrionic whining on Medium and Reddit is not the proper way to present engineering solutions. Their campaign looks more like some sort of intelligence operation than a patch submission. There's a reason for this: it is.

I have a lot of skin in the game on this issue. I am a target of the United States government, and as such I have a very hard time receiving money. It doesn't matter that I have left the United States because of continuing persecution there. Their control over wire transfers between all countries with Rothschild banks is complete. The United States seizes money on lawful transactions between EU states over things as insignificant as Cuban cigars, despite none of the countries involved participating in the US embargo against Cuba. I've had my bank accounts, payment processing services, and brokerage accounts shut off. Bitcoin is the only way I can engage with any financial services. If it is centralized and subject to controls similar to SWIFT wires and credit card processing, my continued existence would no longer be feasible. Bitcoin is the the most important development in human rights in centuries.

Here's the facts: Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn want you to switch to something called Bitcoin XT or Bitcoin Unlimited or some other fork of Bitcoin that is under unilateral control so that they can centralize Bitcoin to a dangerous degree-- enough to put it under the control of a government hostile to liberty like the United States. While they do this, they hilariously complain about "oppression" and "censorship" on forums that clean away their bullshit altcoin spam postings.

There are two likely incentives for doing this:
1) They have placed short positions against Bitcoin.
2) They are funded by people that wish to see Bitcoin less free.

Now reflect for a moment that the only major industry supporter of the Bitcoin XT proposal is Coinbase whose gigantic series C round was lead by the New York Stock Exchange. I doubt their financial interests are aligned with a free and unregulated global marketplace.

The good news is that they seem to have lost most of this battle. Consensus on the network is determined by the nodes people run on it. Bitcoin XT only has about 500 nodes. Bitcoin Core, the real Bitcoin software, has about ten times that. The majority of the mining capacity is in China, and Chinese people have little incentive to centralize Bitcoin for the convenience of US intelligence and enforcement organizations. So I must celebrate China's shrewd rejection of XT today.

If you love liberty you should call XT's shilling and spamming out for what it is. If you are invested in Bitcoin you also must do so. If XT gets their way and centralizes Bitcoin, Bitcoin will lose its primary feature of freedom from centralized authorities and thus lose its source of value. You can also support Bitcoin's continued freedom by running a full Bitcoin Core node, and buying and saving Bitcoin.

Bitcoin transaction fees going up is not the end of the world. It's good for miners, and necessary to protect a limited resource like space on the blockchain. I'm willing to pay higher fees to see Bitcoin stay free from government control (and we're literally talking transaction fees of a few extra cents here), and everyone else who loves Bitcoin should be so willing as well.

That's funny Trump pulls from democrats

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12...

Don't worry, your party of race hustlers has never let facts get in the way.

Wow. You know... and I mean this in the nicest way, there are some decaffeinated alternatives that are equally tasty on the market.

The parent poster says that the average millionaire is based on dynastic wealth and it's not true of about 3/4 of millionaires. What he said is true of about 1/4 of millionaires.

About 95 percent of millionaires in America have a net worth of between $1 million and $10 million.
https://www.nytimes.com/books/...

A million 1950 dollars is worth $9,847,966.80 today. (CPI calculator)

However, the average wealth (net worth) of the top 1% is 19.1 million dollars. (IRS)

That's the wealthy elite.

4% of americans have a net worth of a million dollars or higher. But 3% of them have small amounts of money compared to the wealthy elite.

People can *easily* have a million dollars for retirement. I did. My mom was a high school drop out. My best income never exceeded low six figures and that only for about 5 years. My net worth is well over a million dollars. I retired at 51.

I think this article is more to the point the pp was trying to make:

http://inequality.org/selfmade...

I think he set the bar too low on wealth. That was my entire point.

It was not my intent to piss in his or your cheerios so take a chill pill.

It helps that we don't rely on Saudi oil as much as we used to. Fracking is kinda filthy, but for the first time in my lifetime we don't need to be muscled around by the Saudis to keep our nation moving. And they feel the hurt - to raise cash, they've announced they may offer shares of their state-owned oil company to the pubic. And that's not the worst... the whole region is literally heating up, to the point it may become uninhabitable in 80 or 90 years.

It may not hurt now to re-think who's side we have to be on in the weird cat-fight between the Saudis and Iran that serves to fuck up the entire region. The way it used to be, we'd bend-over backward for the Saudis, even in spite of their frequent violations of human rights (like this one)... all because we needed a friend in the region with oil. Now, maybe not so much. Hell, Iran is actually trying to make nice with us. Changing times, maybe.

It helps that we don't rely on Saudi oil as much as we used to. Fracking is kinda filthy, but for the first time in my lifetime we don't need to be muscled around by the Saudis to keep our nation moving. And they feel the hurt - to raise cash, they've announced they may offer shares of their state-owned oil company to the pubic. And that's not the worst... the whole region is literally heating up, to the point it may become uninhabitable in 80 or 90 years.

It may not hurt now to re-think who's side we have to be on in the weird cat-fight between the Saudis and Iran that serves to fuck up the entire region. The way it used to be, we'd bend-over backward for the Saudis, even in spite of their frequent violations of human rights (like this one)... all because we needed a friend in the region with oil. Now, maybe not so much. Hell, Iran is actually trying to make nice with us. Changing times, maybe.

It helps that we don't rely on Saudi oil as much as we used to. Fracking is kinda filthy, but for the first time in my lifetime we don't need to be muscled around by the Saudis to keep our nation moving. And they feel the hurt - to raise cash, they've announced they may offer shares of their state-owned oil company to the pubic. And that's not the worst... the whole region is literally heating up, to the point it may become uninhabitable in 80 or 90 years.

It may not hurt now to re-think who's side we have to be on in the weird cat-fight between the Saudis and Iran that serves to fuck up the entire region. The way it used to be, we'd bend-over backward for the Saudis, even in spite of their frequent violations of human rights (like this one)... all because we needed a friend in the region with oil. Now, maybe not so much. Hell, Iran is actually trying to make nice with us. Changing times, maybe.

You may know that doctors used the aircraft industry as a model of rational system design.

Anesthesiologists lowered their malpractice rate from one of the highest to one of the lowest of the medical specialties by adopting standard aircraft engineering principles. One of their problems was that different hospitals had different anesthesiology equipment, and the controls were all different. Anesthesiologists would often work in more than one hospital in a single day, so they would be moving among different controls. It was like the early days of aircraft, when controls like throttles weren't standardized, so the controls on one plane would make it point up, while the same motion on another plane would make it point down. Since then, aircraft engineers have standardized the controls.

The conventional wisdom in medicine now is that they should adopt the methods of the aircraft industry. It doesn't always work, maybe because of cultural differences. It's hard to stop prescribing antibiotics inappropriately and sometimes fatally, when patients demand antibiotics for every ill, and give doctors a bad writeup on Yelp when they don't agree to those demands. It's hard to stop unnecessary surgery when a high volume surgeon can make upwards of $300,000 a year, and a low volume surgeon can be asked to leave the practice.

Interestingly, quality management seems to work well in the government-run British NHS and the US VA hospital system.

One of the best critics of EMRs is Robert Wachter, a professor of medicine at UCSF, who wrote a book called The Digital Doctor which has a chapter on Epic. Wachter went to Boeing and spent time with the engineers who designed the cockpits.

Wachter btw wrote this http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...

At my own hospital, in 2013 we gave a teenager a 39-fold overdose of a common antibiotic. The initial glitch was innocent enough: A doctor failed to recognize that a screen was set on “milligrams per kilogram” rather than just “milligrams.” But the jaw-dropping part of the error involved alerts that were ignored by both physician and pharmacist. The error caused a grand mal seizure that sent the boy to the I.C.U. and nearly killed him.

How could they do such a thing? It’s because providers receive tens of thousands of such alerts each month, a vast majority of them false alarms. In one month, the electronic monitors in our five intensive care units, which track things like heart rate and oxygen level, produced more than 2.5 million alerts. It’s little wonder that health care providers have grown numb to them.

You wrote:

Chicken pox itched like crazy, but wasn't life threatening and its spread is easy to prevent.

Chicken pox wasn't easy enough to eliminate before vaccines. And perhaps it wasn't life threatening for you but one of our sons had a classmate who had to have a liver transplant at age 3. (I'm sure poor lifestyle choices led to that...) Chicken pox could easily kill that child. Every time anyone in his school came down with any of several common illnesses, he had to stay home for several days. Vaccination is more than a personal issue.

Please don't lump me into the nutcases who believe that all misfortune in one's life is caused by sin.

I'm not arguing against vaccines, just that maybe not all vaccines should be mandatory. One of the reasons chicken pox wasn't eliminated was those "chicken pox parties" that our parents and grandparents used to throw. Chicken pox is generally more mild for children than adults (obvious exception for the very young), ergo neighbors would ask to expose their children when there was a case. As a parent, I made an informed decision to vaccinate my oldest at 15 months. My other child is too young.

Reye Syndrome. Reye syndrome, a disorder that causes sudden and dangerous liver and brain damage, is a side effect of aspirin therapy in children who have chickenpox or influenza. The disease can lead to coma and is life threatening. Symptoms include rash, vomiting, and confusion beginning about a week after the onset of the disease. Because of the strong warnings against children taking aspirin, this condition is, fortunately, very rare. Children should never be given aspirin when they have a viral infection or fever. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is the preferred drug for fever or pain in patients younger than age 18 years.

Chickenpox Possible Complications (New York Times)

VZV hepatitis with acute liver failure appears to be an uncommon, yet frequently fatal condition. We searched MED-LINE (1966 – 1996) with the key words varicella and liver for additional cases.

Most of the patients described were immunocompromised for one or several reasons such as splenectomy, renal transplantation , bone-marrow transplantation, use of corticosteroids, and AIDS. ...

Varicella-Zoster Virus Infection Associated with Acute Liver Failure

Well, I for one am glad that the Swedish media is actively declining to report mass rapes by the Muslim immigrants that the Swedish left has imported.

It was the Swedish media who broke the story, genius. The police were the ones who wouldn't talk about it. Did you even read the fucking article you linked to?

Why did they do it? Well, to avoid giving the Swedish right (apparently they do exist) any proof that their opinions were backed up by facts.

Yeah, opinions that are not borne out by facts are shameful, aren't they? I mean you would know, right?

Well, I for one am glad that the Swedish media is actively declining to report mass rapes by the Muslim immigrants that the Swedish left has imported. Why did they do it? Well, to avoid giving the Swedish right (apparently they do exist) any proof that their opinions were backed up by facts. Good job Sweden, and keep up the good work. Keeping the right from political power is more important than keeping women from rape.

Any new vaccine should not be accepted as 100% effective with zero side effects until it is proven.

I don't know of anything - not just any vaccine, any thing that's ever existed in the universe - that is "accepted as 100% effective with zero side effects". That seems to be a high enough bar to be, er, perhaps obstructionist. To be honest, I wonder what your objection might be once this technique gets commercialized.

Perhaps I need to use some sort of mark-up to show hyperbole? I was making fun of those blindly accepting that vaccines are safe. Yet, I never said that I object to this (or any) vaccine being available. I even am in favor of some vaccines (such as MMR) to be mandatory to attend public school (with exception made for those allergic to the vaccine).

My wife and are teaching our children about how things work and what contraceptive options are available, emphasizing the effectiveness of each method, and the potential risks and benefits of sex, before and within marriage. And they either have received or will receive Gardasil, too. For much the same reason we have them wear seatbelts.

My children are not yet of an age to receive Gardasil. My wife and I are too old to have Gardasil recommended. Gardasil's list price is $525. As it will be years before my children can take Gardasil, I haven't checked what portion is covered by my insurance. I will have to weigh the pros and cons at that time.

Any new vaccine should not be accepted as 100% effective with zero side effects until it is proven.

I don't know of anything - not just any vaccine, any thing that's ever existed in the universe - that is "accepted as 100% effective with zero side effects". That seems to be a high enough bar to be, er, perhaps obstructionist. To be honest, I wonder what your objection might be once this technique gets commercialized.

My wife and are teaching our children about how things work and what contraceptive options are available, emphasizing the effectiveness of each method, and the potential risks and benefits of sex, before and within marriage. And they either have received or will receive Gardasil, too. For much the same reason we have them wear seatbelts.

...where I work mental illness would also be an immediate disqualifier for my job.

Which is, to me, an argument that such information has to be made available for certain employers.
"Co-Pilot in Germanwings Crash Hid Mental Illness From Employer"
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...

GM went bankrupt in 2009 Why? Apparently because GM was deliberately selling cars with poor reliability so it could make more money selling new cars, and so GM dealers could make more money fixing GM cars.

Here are a few examples: The Ten Worst Cars GM Ever Built.

Apparently, nothing has changed. 2014 General Motors ignition switch scandal.

GM is moving away from being a U.S. company: G.M. Will Import Buicks Made in China to the U.S.

When Volkswagen experimented with 4-workday weeks 20 years ago, local plumbers and carpenters fell on hard times because everyone now used the extra day to fix things themselves, or even work on the side on that extra day. While the unions keep telling you that workers would relax during the extra time resulting from reduced work, in reality everyone tries to make a little extra on the side.

Also, having a job gives meaning to your life. Being told that you will be needed less is like telling you that you are a burden - nobody wants to hear that. That is also why today both parents work, even though they could enjoy the standard of living of a single-earner household of 50 years ago. But to keep up with the Joneses and to feel better for themselves both are now working, and the downside of less parenting seems to be generally accepted.

Who do you think hit the Ukrainian power network the other week? Who do you think regularly attacks Ukrainian government web sites? Who do you think allows the army of Russian trolls located in St. Petersburg to remain active to spew their nonsense?

If anyone is surprised the Russians don't respond to close down hackers emanating from within their borders, they've been living under a rock for the last decade. This is what Russia is now known for, other than collapsing economy and a ruble not far behind. They have nothing else and the only way to take their minds off the problems Heir Putin has created is to blame someone, anyone, for their self-inflicted problems.

After all, they need to do something to cover up the roughly 2,000 dead Russian soldiers who have died invading Ukraine, the money they're losing as Putin tries to prop up the dictator Assad, not to mention the terrorists in East Ukraine who have literally destroyed everything they touch. As Russia begins to run out of money towards the end of this year, be prepared for an even bigger onslaught of trolls as their desperation becomes frenetic.

Huh? It took like 5 minutes to find former students who TALKED about his lectures and in fact showed reporters notes from lectures he gave.

Here's one example:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07...

Most vasectomy techniques involve tying (ligating) or fulgurating (burning) both ends. The vas doesn't seem to burst, but there is a complication called "sperm granuloma" where leaking sperm (often happens) can cause inflammation (also often happens) which can cause pain (doesn't happen that often) and in rare circumstances recanalization of the vas.

Granted, it's been a while since I performed a vasectomy but I was trained to ligate and cauterize/fulgurate both ends. Surgical implantation of this switch sounds tricky: the vas is a slippery little thing, the canal narrow, and the human body doesn't always take kindly to the implantation of foreign material.

FWIW, most of the volume of ejaculate isn't sperm, but prostatic fluid. Vasectomized guys are shooting blanks, but it's not easy to distinguish between the blanks and live ammo without a microscope. Check out the grin on this urologist as he explains the same.

That's an interesting article. I agree with one of the comments:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes....

Jonathan NYC February 12, 2014

This comparison does not mean much, because it does confuses cause and effect.

A proper experiment would involve two groups of equal ability. One group receives a free college education, the other group receives the equivalent cash and is told to start working. Each group is instructed to make as much money as possible.

When Bernie Sanders went to Brooklyn College, tuition was free. Now tuition is significant.

Students who come from wealthy families are more able and likely to get a college degree. Once they graduate, they still have all the benefits of a wealthy family.

If your father is a lawyer, you graduate law school and use your father's connections to get a job. But people who work their way through law school have a hard time getting a job. I know lawyers and the difference is striking. One guy from a good family graduates Harvard or Yale and goes to work for a top corporate law firm. Another guy from a working class family graduates Fordham and goes to work in immigration law or criminal practice.

Median cost of 4-year college education in 2012-2013 was $35074. http://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/d...
This is a five year payback period. http://economix.blogs.nytimes....
This is the lowest it has been for many decades. Guess what else costs more today? Bread.

Not quite. The second layoff for 35 people in New York and California were cancelled after the NYT wrote an earlier article on the 250 people in Florida who were forced to train their replacements (see link below).

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html

Minor detail... They didn't lose their jobs. NYT article about it.

She should have been a con artist. I figured you'd be interested and would like to know that, in her professional opinion, they're suitable for use in such environments assuming they're not being kept in complete, sterile, isolation. I expect to know if they can be brought in and put on the network by the end of next week.

Ya know, for someone who isn't an Apple fan, you have probably purchased more Apple gear than the next TEN fanbois, LOL!!!

Your daughter may very well have a promising second-career as a con-artist; but in this particular case, she is right-on.

When the iPad first came out, I was looking into developing a disposable "bag" for just this sort of application. That idea went the way of all my good ideas, and was eventually replaced with another idea of mine for an iPad/tablet "sterilizer" chamber, that would use UV to disinfect one or more iPads/tablets. And of course, charging facilities would be provided, too for charging-while-disinfecting.

iPads are used in thousands of hospitals everyday. Even without the disinfection. In sterile environments, like an Operating Room, they tend to put them in plastic bags (a gallon-ziploc works fine), and yes, the touchscreen does work through the plastic bag. But on the regular "floors", they just treat iPads like a clipboard. No sterilization, no protective sheath/pouch, nothing.

I would say that iPads are probably fairly easy to keep relatively clean (cleaner than a computer keyboard and mouse!!!), simply because there really aren't many cracks and crevices for caked blood, etc, to congregate. The main issue is the Home button, because it gets pressed a zillion times a day, followed by the Sleep/Wake button. But a simple silicone-rubber "boot"-type case would probably work...

... I'm actually more concerned that a pair of otherwise normal-seeming individuals who are fully vetted before entering the country ...

Fully vetted?!?!?!

BWAAA HAAA HAA!

Sorry about that. It's hilarious because it's so pathetic.

In Obama's DHS, we can't look at the social media postings of radical Islamic loons who want to come to the US.

Like the ones Tashfeen Malik posted to her Facebook account...

Fully vetted?

Obama's fooled you.

Baltimore, DC, Chicago, and NYC all have extremely strict gun laws - and all see rising gun murder rates as well. It's not the presence or absence of guns that's the issue - it's the culture of the city.

citation?

Because most things I read say the exact opposite:

http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

Unless they talk and the police already had them under surveillance.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/london-hatton-garden-heist.html

Use pen and paper. Personal papers have more legal protection than digital data that cross over the ether.

Only if you're hand-delivering. If you're using U.S. Snail Mail, they've been photographing envelopes for metadata collection for years.

It's precisely analogous to internet metadata collection: who you're communicating with, at what time. But not what you're saying (by not being allowed to open the envelope and read the mail, or not being able to crack message content encryption).

In the context of OP's question, paper-and-pen offer no meaningful improvement.

Of course Millenials drive less.
I wonder how that breaks down when you factor out all the basement/garage/childhood bedroom dwellers.

Read this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

And realize nobody gives a shit and its essentially unenforced and borderline unenforceable.

The only thing the Ascension sanctuary has in its favor is being out in the middle of blue water ocean with little or no shelf around it to support the kind of marine life variety you get around continental shelves.

This means that the commercial fishing might not be that great and its far enough out that the shit boats used by the rogue guys may not be interested in that kind of open ocean adventure for the fuel and maintenance risks involved.

No it's not. The process of converting classified data to unclassified data, from any specific classification level to any other specific and lower level is very well defined. FOIA requests are fulfilled using precisely this process.

So it is your contention that the "ops team" were duly authorized to take sensitive information and redact it, and all of this was just fine and legal? Why then is the FBI so interested in this?

Also, why did the "ops team" summarize classified information without redacting it? Why are we up to 275 emails and counting that contained classified information? How did trained and authorized redacters somehow not notice the spy satellite information?

The process is so well defined that there exist automated systems to make it happen, which are certified and in production in military environments, and have been for longer than you've been alive. Lockheed Martin sells Radiant Mercury for precisely this purpose, and it is in use all over the world.

Interesting, but irrelevant. The fact that such systems exist does not excuse criminal behavior by the Secretary of State or her employees.

grotesque penalties for people dutifully attempting to follow the rules

Who would that be in this scenario? Hillary Clinton, who chose to keep her emails on a private server instead of using the email system provided for her use by the government? The "ops team" who accessed emails on the secure system and bypassed the security to send the information to an insecure server?

We need our government to work. We need our schools to work.

Interesting, but irrelevant. Keeping classified information classified does not harm the operation of government or schools.

Also: we need our elected officials to not spray classified information onto insecure (Microsoft!) email systems to be 0wned by foreign spy services.

There is actually one particular group that is being "come for", which are white males. A rather blatant example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

If you ever peruse news comments, twitter, whatever, it becomes obvious after a while that it is in fact politically correct and in most cases generally acceptable to attack white males in ways that are considered "racist" against any other group. I myself (a white male) don't feel particularly oppressed (if they give me shit I'll give them shit back,) but that *may* not be the case for all:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11...

And yes, he has made blanket statements. Look at for example his comment from his announcement speech where he said:

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

This wasn't a claim that most Mexican immigrants are good with a few bad apples. This was a statement that they are bad, except possibly "some" who might be good that he has to "assume" exist. This is about as blanket as one can get without using a universal quantifier. Similar remarks apply to his statements about Muslims and POWs (who are apparently losers for being captured while serving their country).

Dude, don't waste your breath.

Those of us of Mexican background are used to the abuse, like they say, that that does not kill us strengthens us.

Trump has already destroyed just about all of the progress the GOP has made in reaching out towards Hispanics in the US.

About the only Hispanics that support the Republicans these days are the Cuban Americans and most Hispanics I know dislike the Cuban Americans.

As a Chicano I have met a range of Hispanics from Mexico to Colombia to Argentina to El Salvador to Spain and all but the Cuban Americans have been pretty decent people.

The Cuban Americans moan and groan about Castro and the Cuban Revolution but remember that these are the same people that fled to the US because they were too cowardly to fight against Castro.

Let the lunatics supporting The Donald rant and rave, it may actually be better for Hispanics if he were the GOP nominee.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/14/opinion/latinos-for-donald-trump.html

Iran is a very interesting country. Contrary to popular belief the inhabitants are not anti-Western at all.

Make sure you watch Our Man in Tehran, a series of documentaries by Dutch journalist Thomas Erdbrink, who married an Iranian photographer and has lived in Iran ever since.

"though they were not classified at the time they were sent to Clinton's personal email"

...

And that's a lie anyway:

The number of emails now considered classified total more than 400, with three of the 215 newly classified documents marked as SECRET

Don't tell me the woman who claimed to be named for Sir Edmund Hillary seven years before before he conquered Everest lied?

Again.

Jesus H. Fucking Christ, if Hillary! told me water is wet, I'd have to figure out some way to independently confirm it.

I know that economics has a bad reputation. Rightly so. Keynes doesn't make sense, but seems to work

Keynesianism does make sense, unfortunately it doesn't work in practice. For example, empirical evidence is pretty strong that the Keynesian multiplier (how many dollars the economy gains from each dollars spent by the government) is less than one. Progressives and Democrats on the one hand complain about crony capitalism and big corporations, and on the other hand hand out trillions of dollars to such corporations in stimulus spending and bailouts. And when these programs don't yield the promised results, they say that they should have spent even more. How stupid do you have to be to believe this crap?

and the crazy libertarians make a lot of sense in theory, but got us 2008

How can "libertarians" be responsible for anything in our economy? We haven't had anything even remotely resembling libertarian government for more than a century and government regulations have been steadily increasing. The few areas where we have had "deregulation" and "privatization" (e.g., telecoms, airlines) have not resulted in anything like a free market (although they have still been beneficial). Most deregulation and privatization by Democrats and Republicans have themselves been tied up with corporate interests and crony capitalism, something both parties are deeply beholden to.

Yet some models and explanations are solid and work. One of them is the concept of the natural monopoly.

There is little evidence that natural monopolies exist in any economically meaningful sense. That is, if you define your market sufficiently narrowly, you can claim that some company has a "natural monopoly", but there is no reason to believe that your definition of "market" is economically relevant. For example, if you define the "desktop PC" as a market, Microsoft has a "monopoly", but if you look at the market of all interactive computing devices, Microsoft is just one of many companies. Of course, free markets do sometimes produce monopolies (or cartels), but those monopolies aren't stable, and they collapse the faster the more economically important that monopoly is; if you try to fix those problems with regulation, the cure is worse than the disease.

the problem with this is, everybody is all fine with it until they themselves step in shit.

the fucking precursors to this movement. The professors and activists of yesteryear are actually afraid to speak about the issues that they've been working on behalf of for the better part of a couple decades. Because the emotional safety is more important than actual intent... and context often doesn't fit in 140 characters.

slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/06/07/about-that-hate-crime-i-committed-at-university-of-chicago
dan savage, getting called out for using 'tranny' in a forum he was invited to discussing his struggles in re-appropriating language. the looking glass is very real.

there's a real undercurrent of fear, the older progressive generation is paralyzed by fear of stepping on a landmine nobody but the fucking landmine knew was there. And claiming ignorance is a fucking "trigger" in itself.

social justice is good, equality is good, but people need the fucking freedom to be wrong. It's not about speech immunity, it's about being able to make a dumb joke, "to be human", without losing one's life.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02...

because you might indeed be the next one, stepping on a landmine nobody else saw either.

isn't an agreement to continue offering housing at a stated rate exactly what a signed lease is?

It is quite common for a lease to include a clause detailing how many days notice the landlord must provide the tenant in the event of an eviction involving the sale of the home. 60-day notice is the most common, mostly because this time frame is mandated by the rent control ordinances of many states. Considering how business friendly Texas is, I assume landlords have no problems legally evicting tenants when the property is sold as long as sufficient notice is given.

A contract that any party can terminate at any time at his sole discretion is not a contract.

Contracts are regulated and limited by laws. In New York City, we have pretty strong laws to protect tenants. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07...

In most circumstances, a landlord must renew a New York City residential lease. If they want to end the lease, they have to buy the tenants out. What's a reasonable buyout? A housing lawyer told me: Enough for the tenant to be able to afford to move to a similar apartment elsewhere in the neighborhood. Buyouts of $100,000 or more are common.

In effect, under New York City housing law, a tenant doesn't just rent an apartment, he acquires a property interest in the apartment too. A tenant who lives in the middle of a proposed multi-million dollar development can make a killing just like a small building owner who lives in the middle of the development.

We used to have a pretty good public housing system in New York City. Middle-class people, teachers, firemen, cops, mailmen, waiters, salesmen, could all afford to live in public housing, and most of the public housing projects were pretty good.

Then the Republicans and neocon Democrats tried to destroy public housing, and they did a lot of damage. http://alexisandjesse.tumblr.c...

I always hoped that we could get rid of rent control. Let the government build and improve affordable public housing for me to live in, and let the landlords and real estate developers get rich in the free market if they've got the stuff. Go ahead and compete, and see who does a better job.

But instead we're left with rent control and all its irrationalities. So the relationship between landlords and tenants is a little more adversarial than it has to be.

But we've got the votes, and we've passed laws that give tenants strong protections. Tenants in Austin and other places would be wise to follow our example.

after the war.

After what war? The war between Brazil and Bolivia?

Here is a New York Times review of a book by Gates and 2 others, The Road Ahead. Quotes:

"... the book he has written with Nathan Myhrvold, a vice president at Microsoft, and Peter Rinearson, a freelance journalist, is bland and tepid."

"The Road Ahead" is in fact little more than a positioning document, sold in book form with accompanying CD-ROM and designed mainly to advance the interests of the Microsoft Corporation.

if your car has to choose between a maneuver that kills you and one that kills other people, which one should it be programmed to do?

How about you tell us what should a HUMAN driver choose in a similar situation first, before you ask what should a computer do?

^ THIS.

Cory's article completely misses the point. Or rather, he brings up the Trolley Problem and then moves on to his own point. The reason it's an ethical dilemma is because it brings up ethical issues. That dilemma doesn't change just because a computer is involved, it just shifts the burden to the system. An obvious solution that would probably occur for the first 10-15 years is "Transfer control back to the human in the event of an emergency", which of course just puts right back where we started.

My biggest concern is that we'll get a bunch of hot shot programmers who don't have the training to UNDERSTAND that they're encoding ethical decisions into their code, or don't understand the weight of them, before they do so. "Solutionism" on the part of Bay Area techies who've never taken a philosophy or ethics class in their life but are convinced science can solve all the problems in the world is how we'll get into messes like anomalous cars, systemd, and sex-changing velociraptors.

: It's not yours until and unless you prove that it was obtained legally ...

First, that's presumption of guilt: A big no-no in jurisprudence, although not enshrined in law. Every court should refuse to allow such a denial of procedure and tradition. Second, if it's not the suspect's property, they wouldn't force the suspect to waive all rights to it. Third, it means any property I find on a person or a car, doesn't belong to anyone, so 'finders, keepers': Like me, the police can't walk that one through a court, no matter how statist the judge is. That's why civil forfeiture law claims the property is the criminal.

Feature creep is a serious problem for the military. They're still trying to build a replacement for the B-52 bomber. Each complex design creates its own set of problems. The B-1 radar jammer jams its own radar, the B-2 stealth technology can't fly in the rain, and the next design isn't expected to arrive until 2040. Meanwhile, the B-52 with upgrades will continue to fly. If the navigation computer reboots in mid-flight, the pilots can always break out the slide rulers and maps.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/b-52s-us-air-force-bombers.html