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"TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 12 > Sec. 1201.

1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems

(a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures. -- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

The title being 17, in other words, this applies to any technical measure on any copyright work.

Which includes CSS on dvds.

If you read further in that section you'll see the librarian of congress can exempt works, the librarian exempted these and only these (hint to save 30 seconds of your life, dvds under any circumstance are NOT on the list):

"(1) Compilations consisting of lists of Internet locations blocked by commercially marketed filtering software applications that are intended to prevent access to domains, websites or portions of websites, but not including lists of Internet locations blocked by software applications that operate exclusively to protect against damage to a computer or computer network or lists of Internet locations blocked by software applications that operate exclusively to prevent receipt of email.

(2) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.

(3) Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

(4) Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling of the ebook's read-aloud function and that prevent the enabling of screen readers to render the text into a specialized format."

Since you seem to be incapable of looking anything up on your own. The burden is on you to show ME where in the DMCA it says that decrypting (using something other than the licensed algorithm, thus circumventing the technical measure) a dvd for playback on your computer without authorization to do so, is an exception to this.

I'll help. You'll find Title 17 of the US Code Here at Cornell. Or you might prefer to look at it at the US Copyright Office. Or Brits might trust Oxford a bit more.

Have a good day.

P.S. I'm sure your fingers will heal and you'll be able to verify or fail to verify whether or not things you read in slashdot comments are true all by yourself next time.

I don't know if this is a legend, but I have read that, according to the formulas used by aerospace engineers, a bumblebee can't fly.

It's a popular old myth that science ever held that bumble bees shouldn't be able to fly. Read this

They didn't make the same gaffe on the US ISP -- which is too bad. I'd like to know who it was that handled it *correctly* more than I want to know who bungled it.

That said, the text of the response is boilerplate stuff that Lycos sends out. Compare it with the text here and here -- so the US ISP was almost certainly Lycos.

...which is yet another black hole in his methodology. (See the full report for details of the methodology.)

Quote from the article:

The UK ISP took Mill down almost immediately (in huge letters, as a heading, followed by:)

The US ISP followed up on the dubious complaint, made on behalf of the chairman of the non-existent John Stuart Mill Heritage Foundation, with detailed questions. But the UK ISP took the site down almost immediately, effectively censoring legal content without investigation.

In the full report, he details how the US ISP refused to take down the content *unless he explicitly perjured himself in writing*, acknowledging in writing the phrase "under penalty of perjury". Unsurprisingly he was unwilling to do this and terminated the project - so the US ISP left the content there, and did exactly the right thing - a fact he completely skips over in the summary article.

The reason it did do this was that the DCMA provides a framework for such complaints. While ultimately his point in the article is that government regulation may be preferable to private corporate censorship, he doesn't want to explicitly draw the logical conclusion that in this case the DCMA is working exactly as intended, protecting the alleged infringer against specious claims. Rather he decides to reference "anecdotal evidence" that the DCMA has chilling effects.

Now I believe the DCMA to be one of the most wrong-headed laws ever signed, and I agree with this guy's conclusions, but the report reads obviously that he has started with these conclusions and moulded his data to fit them. His methodology is completely out the window. And that's a problem, because anyone can come up with a "research report"; that proves whatever they want, including the bad guys - and from a methodology perspective this guy could get a job with them.

The UK ISP is almost certainly Wanadoo (note the poorly redacted URL in the UK ISP's letter).

The US ISP is Lycos (they forgot to blank one instance out in the PDF).

Oops.

The actual results are presented in detailed form in a PDF file:

How 'Liberty' Disappeared from the Internet

Or see the Google text version.

I believe the article is available online here, though right now it looks like this specific issue is kind of broken. It's called "An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances" anyway.

The Internet Archive of Early Journals is a great resource for 18th century journals and magazines. The Philosophical Transactions in particular are very interesting to history-of-science-minded science geeks everywhere.

I believe the article is available online here, though right now it looks like this specific issue is kind of broken. It's called "An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances" anyway.

The Internet Archive of Early Journals is a great resource for 18th century journals and magazines. The Philosophical Transactions in particular are very interesting to history-of-science-minded science geeks everywhere.

There's an interesting interview with Darl at The SCO 2004 forum

Darl: I was trying to explain this to my father the other day. We grew up on a ranch, and he was asking the question "What was up with all the lawsuits - sounds very complicated?"

"Well, it's quite simple, it's like our days growing up on the ranch If you took the cattle up on the mountains in the Summer-time, and in the fall, you went to round them up, you had to bring the cattle back in, and whenever they had a brand on their side, you could establish which brands were yours. In the meantime, if somebody came and took your cattle, you had the rights to go track them down. When I was growing up we had a case very similar to this. Someone stole our cattle, we went and found our brands. The Brand inspector helped us get restoration of those cows back to us, and we were whole again with our property. That's exactly what's going here. Copyrights of software are very similar to brands on cattle. And what we're doing is we've found that the copyright [works] we have here have made their way into other properties. We're in the process of rounding these up, and once we have them rounded up, then we will feel that we have restitution and justice, for our intellectual properties demands that we have out there."

Well, if he'd tell us what his brand looked like, we could return the lines of source code to him. Unfortunately, until we know what his brand looks like, these could be the stolen lines of SCO UNIX for all we know:

Scientists have now found the brightest dark-sucker galaxy to date...

I am not sure about any use for perfect numbers, but the Mersenne primes themselves can be used to create random number generators with extremely long periods. That takes some additional work, although not as much work as finding this prime among tens of thousands of composite candidates.

The TADS3 language uses this extensively to allow you to define shortcuts when defining an object. You can look at some examples here.

This chart gives a listing on the various LD numbers. The two notes on adult humans: lowest recorded lethal oral dose was 192 g/kg, and the lowest recoreded lethal IV dose was 57 mg/kg.

here are the Safety Data Sheet complete with LD50 values... make your own mind up... :)

A search on Google for formal methods will give you a lot of stuff. The first site that comes up is a good starting point.

Note that at some point, one has to hope that what the client wants is what he has described. A tax calculation programme will not be of use if he really wanted a customer relations management system :^)

Education has the highest correlation coefficient to lack of belief in a personal god. By most surveys, more than 90% of professional scientists don't believe in a personal god.

I can buy the second statement, but not necessarily the first. There are plenty of people with higher education who are not scientists.

In fact in most churches a prerequisite to joining the clergy is an advanced degree. Furthermore, the "professional degree" that you need to be a priest or pastor is a Master of Divinity, which normally requires an undergraduate degree, much like a law degree. There are no shortage of top universities that have excellent theology or divinity departments. Some of the world's most influential and interesting thinkers have been theologians.

As for the "90% of scientists" claim, I think that's a nasty prejudice on the part of scientists, rather than something to be proud of. Think about it: science and religion explore orthogonal aspects of life, neither of which is any less real than the other. Science tells us about what we can observe and test; religion illuminates things that are by nature untestable, like morality, ethics, compassion, and love for our fellow man.

In spite of what some might say, science can't really illuminate our understanding of God very much, because by nature you can't perform an experiment on God. Furthermore God can easily escape whatever assumptions a scientist may make (or, as one Vatican astronomer put it, "God is not a boundary condition"). By the same token our understanding of God can't do much to illuminate science, because when (for example) the bible contradicts a scientific observation, the observation must win. Fortunately most mainline religions acknowledge this, it's just the loudmouth conservative wackos who perpetuate the stereotype that a Christian believes the world is four thousand years old.

In fact my opinion is that the existence of God is an axiom. This fits because axioms are initial assumptions that cannot be tested, and as yet nobody has even developed a convincing test for the existence of God. One either believes that God exists or doesn't exist, and that belief affects the remaining propositions in one's life as any other axiom might. In no way is this incompatible with a career in science. In fact, if one believes (as I do) that God exists, what we know about the universe contributes to a sense of awe concerning the greatness of God. And, as one theologian suggests, this is one important aspect of religion: the "fear" of God puts you and your petty problems into perspective.

Religion really isn't about heaven, or hell, or converting as many atheists as possible, or strapping a bomb to yourself and blowing up a cafe. Religion is about suppressing your own ego and having compassion for those around you, which is something that a lot of scientists could sorely use.

A great plot with the SCO stock price plotted over Ululu/Ayer's Rock is here.

Original post with this plot is here.

So, what's the electrolyte in NiMH, and what's the pH, in order to produce the energy density which is substantially more than a lead-acid car battery?

I'll bow to your superior expertise in this area, but this is what information I had. I have never seen a reference that lists NiMH batteries as being toxic (of course most material is not for 500v car batteries), they all list lead acid as such. NiMH use potassium hydroxide as the main electrolyte, its MSDS lists its toxicology as: Corrosive - may cause serious burns. Harmful by ingestion, inhalation and in contact with skin. If the solid or solution comes into contact with the eyes, serious eye damage may result. and the MSDS for sulfuric acid lists is as:Extremely corrosive, causes serious burns. Highly toxic. Harmful by inhalation, ingestion and through skin contact. Ingestion may be fatal. Skin contact can lead to extensive and severe burns. Chronic exposure may result in lung damage and possibly cancer. That was concentrated sulpheric acid's MSDS, I haven't hada chance to look up the concentrations of the electrolytes in the batteries.

Then again, I might be speaking out of my ass. After all, I only took two years of electrochemistry in my electrical engineering courses in University. It can't compare with the high school chemistry you obviously didn't take - or the common sense you obviously don't have - to not understand the basics of how electrical energy density must correspond to chemical energy density.

Wow, I really must have said something that pissed you off. I'm sorry that I only took AP chem in high school and neglected it in college, but what does the energy density of the battery have to do with the long term toxic effects of lead and nickel? The acids are bad in both - that is true. If Toyota was using Li-Ion/Polymer batteries I would be much less enthusiastic with them, those batteries can be positively dangerous. I won't even use them in my remote control plane because of the risks that a crash can deliver. I've seen pictures of whole SUVs totaled because of a short in a Li-Ion pack that was in the trunk, and internal short was caused by a model airplane crash and the battery exploded 5 minutes later.

Yeah, but mechanics don't like wires, in case you haven't noticed. Buy one a beer sometime and chat with him (or her). If they liked wires, they'd be electricians or electronics technicians. Mechanics generally get into the trade because they like moving parts - sorry, it sucks,

That is a weak argument against hybrids, as you said "He [mechanic roomate] has asked me into the shop to diagnose and repair dozens of electrical problems on brand-new Toyota cars when the mechanics can't fix it." Pretty much every new car has plenty of wires and electronics in them, onboard computers, airbags; gone are the days of carburetors in cars. Shoot, the easiest upgrade and tune to my car is to reprogram the ECU. If they really hate wires that much they should get into the specialty market (e.g. classic cars, offroad racing or marine engine mechanic where many of the engines don't use fuel injection, I help my friend with his sand rail, loads of fun).

Poorly maintained cars are responsible for most of the pollution; age doesn't matter. Loads of people in 3-4 year old cars are failing emissions tests because their EGR valves are stuck open, PCV valves are stuck closed, or because their timing belts have jumped a notch. The beaters tend to be driven by people who actually know how to fix them, and hear every little knock or click and know to check things out.

I'd be curious to see the actual statistics on this - most of the obvious polluters (visible particulate exhaust) I've seen on the road are older than about 15 years, but most of the cars from before 1975 or so appear in good condition, being maintained by auto enthusiasts. Anecdotal I kno

Feel free to use it however you like - I've added my e-mail address to the image.

I took pic of Ayres rock and overlayed the SCOX graph. Then in PSP4 (old school) I used the clone brush to modify the ridges.

I have no respect at all for SCO, or any company whose business model is litigation. Let's just hope their stock follows to the (excuse the pun) rock bottom - I didn't modify the image for the last two months.

I like the one year graph better. It looks like Ayers Rock.

It looks a perfect fit

Technology is not the problem it is the illiterate educators and the lackidasical students who have been taught no better than to (go to class/take notes/ study notes/take test) system for umpteen years when it should look like (go online with an educational matrix designed for you/have access to expert systems backed by databases of already asked questions and live mentors to help with understanding/discuss with your peers in forums issues pertinent to you/get graded on particpation in helping others and convincing an expert system that you have grasp of the material and than move on to another self actualized education area/have lunch/go get some coffee/still be connected wirelessly so others may get help from you/etcetera). Accreditation as it currently stands is unbearably quaint but does not involve any personalization or have the ability to do so without a massive expenditure in new teaching talent. More teachers are not the answer, holding students responsible for their own education is like we as professionals are.

What nobody else seems to have mentioned is that the lasers make use of hydrogen (or deuterium) fluoride. From what I've read, this is pretty nasty stuff. See Northrop Grumman's page on chemical lasers and then check out the some info on HF here or here. You won't catch me working near one of these things!

Does the "poly" really change it all that much?

In a word, yes. Here are the Material Safety Data Sheets for both chemicals:

ethylene glycol

polyethylene glycol

Does the "poly" really change it all that much?

In a word, yes. Here are the Material Safety Data Sheets for both chemicals:

ethylene glycol

polyethylene glycol

Ethylene Glycol: C2H6O2

Polyethylene Glycol: C2H4O

So they are pretty different from a chemical standpoint. Good old Ethylene Glycol melts at -13C, while the "poly" melts at 60C. However, when looking up an MSDS on this stuff, I get "May act as an irritant. Toxicology not fully investigated" so I wonder about it being completely non-toxic.

See link here.

"[T]he campaign of fear now being waged against genetic modification is based largely on fantasy and a complete lack of respect for science and logic." Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore.

I hardly think that the co-founder of Greenpeace is someone to take advice from on Genetic modification. I would trust the Union of concerned Scientists ,

The Union of Concerned Scientists today released a groundbreaking pilot study that found genetically engineered DNA is contaminating traditional seeds of three major U.S. crops. Seed contamination, if left unchecked, could disrupt agricultural trade, unfairly burden the organic industry, and allow hazardous materials into the food supply.

I think that the Union of Concerned Scientists are much better informed on genetic modification than the head of Greenpeace.

On the subject of nuclear energy, there are less nuclear reserves available on the planet than fossil fuels. If the planet relied on Nuclear Energy for all electricity, estimates are that we would run out in about 80 years. See Energy at the Crossroads : Global Perspectives and Uncertainties"

"In truth, what the environmental community has become is a money machine"

What is the relevence of this quote? Does money somehow make enviromental action less important, less relevant or less beneficial? This quote has nothing to do with enviromental progress . . . it is a comment that may be true, but it does not in any way comment on the value of enviromental activism on the environment.

DDT is toxic and malaria is bad . . . but malaria is preventable by other means. DDT gets into the ecosystem and is nearly impossible to remove. Should you like to spray your backyard with DDT, I refer you to a less politically charged and more factual reference. An MSDS for DDT which I quote:

A serious environmental hazard due to bioaccumulation and transport up the food chain. Concentrations in animals near the top of the food chain (such as predatory birds) may become high enough in areas in which DDT has been heavily used, to have devastating effects upon reproductive ability. Degrades extremely slowly in the environment and is removed very slowly from animal tissue.

The most humorous part of your post is that you cite a doxilogically open set of quotes which undermines your argument . . . you use quotes from former and current activists/activist groups to support you postulate (in particular the cofounder of Greenpeace), then you attack activists with other quotes (The Alfred Runte quote). This appears to be a mishmash of quotes pulled out of the net through the "misuse" of internet tools like Google. Either activists have credibility or not, but you can't have it both ways and expect to make a credible point.

the LD50 of caffeine is approximately 192 mg/kg.

brewed coffee has ~230 mg of caffeine per cup.

assuming that one were to space their coffee drinking out evenly, over the 24hr period, that amounts to 4 1/6 cups per hour.

this gives an estimated blood serum level of ~62 mg/kg (for a 75 kg person, with working kidneys, &c.) at the end of the day (about 1/3 the LD50).

so the caffeine wouldn't kill you... Hypotonic shock is a different matter.

So, my question to you is.......why would you want to drink 100 cups of coffee in a day?

Dunno. I also don't know why the poster didn't do a search for ld50 and caffeine (LD50 is the dosage of a substance that kills 50% of the subjects). Because the 1st link says that LDLO (lowest published lethal dose) for a human is 192 mg kg-1.

FWIW, I'm a reformed coffee drinker. I still drink about 16oz a day, but I used to drink coffee while I was awake. After 10 or so years of that it started to get to me.

I used to work mostly in the field but was in the office on a chilly day working on some new equipment. I had learned that my coworkers, who loved coffee, hadn't had chocolate covered coffee beans. I brought in 1/4 pound. They each tried one bean.

This left me absent-mindedly munching them and pouring repeated cups of coffee. I ended up eating the whole box and drinking over a pot of coffee.

By quitting time I was quite sick and facing a commute across the SF-Oakland bay bridge. I found a box and lined it with a bag in case I threw up and endured the commute - not fun when you are extremely hyper and sick.

I got home and just wanted to curl up in bed but every time I tried I was way too jumpy and had to get up again. My heart was pounding so hard and fast that it scared me.

My recommendation: don't do it - it is really, really unpleasant.

Further reading: the caffeine material safety data sheet

That means the lowest lethal dose reported in the literature was 192 mg of caffine per 1 kilogram of weight of the victim. I'll let someone else look up plausible values of caffine content in coffee.

It is certainly possible to kill yourself with caffine, you just need enough of it.

I found a link for content of the beans, the values are around 1.3 %. So 100 grams of beans contains 1.3 grams of caffine, or 1300 mg.

Eating 100 g of beans is well over the limit, assuming any of my math is right :)

Upcoming talk and demonstration on the development of Brain-Computer Interfaces: http://www.notacon.org/speakers.html#lowne (shameless plug)

Invasive, motor-cortical BCI development at Utah: http://www.bioen.utah.edu/cni/Projects/Motor.htm

Mike Gibbs' work with BCIs at Oxford University's Robotics Group: http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~mgibbs/research.html

The Neural Prostheses program at the National Institutes of Health includes calls for proposals in BCI development: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/npp/

The University of British Columbia's BCI research group: http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~garyb/BCI.htm

Results of the 2003 Brain Computer interface competition (focuses on signal processing techniques): http://ida.first.fraunhofer.de/projects/bci/compet ition/results/index.html

BCI development at the Cognitive Science and Technology group at the Helsinki University of Technology: http://www.lce.hut.fi/research/bci/

Dr. Jessica Bayliss's BCI work and extensive bibliography (very important, seminal work on BCI development): http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/research/ and http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/research/baylissThesis. pdf

Dr. Charles Anderson's work at Colorado State University with EEG pattern classification in BCI systems: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/eeg/index.html

Manchester University's Toby Howard has written some good articles on BCIs, mostly for Popular Science: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/aig/staff/toby/research/bc i/

Dr. Michael Black at Brown University teaches a course in BCI development: http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs295-7/home.html

Cyberkinetics, Inc. makes medical-use BCIs: http://www.cyberkineticsinc.com/

Also my advice.
Especially as these'd be easy to convert into PDF on the target machine I'd use to read these.

nonanol is a fine chemical name, the only problem is that it's taken.
The chemical meaning of the "Non" prefix is nine, not none.

I've been working in a similar area (in hardware) to prove that our designs work as expected with limitted success. ... Ok, I lied... Lack of success is more appropriate. So I switched to just teaching it. ;-P

Software is an unprofessional engineering field. When someone created a software, s/he wrote a disclaimer right away. I have not seen a disclaimer in a bridge / building written by a civil engineer.

-- br

The `lone researcher' is Professor Joshua Silver of Oxford University. The company he formed can be found at http://www.adaptive-eyecare.com/ .

This story will give you an idea of the high employee standards at Taco Bell.

You forgot to mention the fact that OS X doesn't even use X, but instead uses the heavily modified NeXT environment. Ooops!

That would be because that is incorrect. Rhapsody and the earliest release of OS X, OS X Server 1, did indeed use the Display PostScript system from NeXTSTEP, modified to present a slightly more Mac-esque user interface. But when Adobe bumped up the licensing costs for DPS, Apple were forced to go back and effectively write a new graphics system from scratch. They based it on Portable Document Format, it's called Quartz and the user interface is known as Aqua.

I find your assertion that OS X does not use X laughable. The latest version of OS X comes bundled with an X server that will run rootless right on top of the Aqua screen. The XFree86 distribution will build from unmodified source and work on earlier OS Xs too: have a look at X11 running in Aqua on a Beige G3 with Jaguar. I develop software for a network of Linux PCs, OPENSTEP PCs, NeXTs, Macs, Suns and assorted other systems. If it wasn't for OS X's support for X11 there would be much less portability between the systems (although GNUstep helps a great deal in that regard). So OS X does use X11, even if you and some other users choose not to.

Debian has the most comprehensive package selection (and a rabidly fanatic user base that keeps debianizing every damn packages they see), and dpkg allows you to easily upgrade, install, remove just by knowing the name (or part of name) of a program.

Actually I'm talking from the perspective of a Debian user here. Debian's package hierarchy is good, but it's still far from exhaustive. There will come times when the program you would like has not been Debianised. And when it does, you have to install that program yourself and maintain it yourself, just as you would on any other operating system.

Also - OS X is not BSD. Is that so freaking hard to understand? It has BSD services running on top of Darwin. Darwin is the kernel, not BSD.

Darwin is not the kernel. Is that so freaking hard to understand? XNU is the kernel, which is a part of the Darwin Operating System. Darwin is a BSD operating system which includes the Mach microkernel running in monolith mode, with features from the BSD kernel added in. The BSD subsystem does not as some people think run as a personality on top of Mach; the two have been combined by Apple.

"Fat" binaries are nothing new, and in fact are something that Apple acquisitioned (along with the OS that was formed into OS X) from NeXT. I am sure you're old enough to remember good ol' NeXT - which ran on many, many architectures aside from the good' ol black boxen.

Yes indeed I am. This post comes to you from a turbo colour slab running OmniWeb 2.0 on top of NeXTSTEP 3.3. Acquisitioned is not a real word, acquired is. Yes, I know that fat binaries came from NeXT. They're still in use today, in OS X. OS X is the only modern operating system to use this technology, in which it is far superior to other offerings. It's jsut a pity that Apple don't make more of it.

Drool over the dynamic loader? Roflmao... That has to be the most idiotic comment I heard by far. yeah man - what an achievement, resolving unresolved symbols, loading shared libraries, and performing relocation. Yay. Need I tell you that OS X doesn't even do ELF? Yay. *cough*

No you don't, and frankly I don't give a monkey's because ELF is getting old. The Mach_O binary format provides portability as well as small executables when compiled thin. It provides superior threading by realising processes, LWPs and threads as kernel-scheduled Mach threads. It's better than ELF.

It appears that more homework is required on your part regarding the various parts that go to make up OS X. Find out about Xnu, Mach, Darwin and FreeBSD, then report back on your progress. The second assignment will focus on Cocoa, Quartz, Aqua, CoreFoundation, IOKit and possibly WebObjects if we have time.

Lab grade ethanol is usually spiked with something like benzene to discourage consumption.

Look up the benzene MSDS, you will see why.

This material is a known carcinogen. The risks of using it in the laboratory must be fully assessed before work begins. TLV 10 ppm. Short-term exposure may cause a variety of effects, including nausea, vomiting, dizziness, narcosis, reduction in blood pressure, CNS depression. Skin contact may lead to dermatitis. Long-term exposure may lead to irreversible effects. Severe eye irritant. Skin and respiratory irritant.

I would have expected CNN to give the actual chemical by-products

Yeah I wondered the same thing. Where does the carbon go? It must at least be a waste produce of carbon solid (graphite, whatever), or more likely CO2. You can make some very nasty chemicals with C,H, (and O), like benzene. It's quite irresponsible not to mention the byproducts.

If we assume that H2O and CO2 are the byproducts, at least the CO2 is part of an atmospheric cycle, originally absorbed by the plants as they grow, as opposed to fossil fuels which come out of the ground.

I think AC, your post comes from one who does not get it, and by rushing to the defense of religion where no assault is being perpetrated, you miss the mark completely.

Well, it turns out that parent was responding to this:

Excellent response. It's too bad religion isn't as honest in their theories.

which is certainly an attack -- it's a charge of dishonesty. Mild by /. standards, but also typical fare for this site. So, yes, there was an attack.

It is human nature to "know" how or why things are the way they are. You choose your explanation to be God. It is a nice and easy way to go about life, believing that everything has a purpose, but you do not need know what that is because you have God. Scientists, on the other hand, have a driving desire to learn. This has nothing to do with "anti-religion" or a desire to prove there is no God. In fact, you may find that quite a few scientists do believe in God or a "creator" or what have you. They just don't try to use this "God" concept to explain away the unexplainable.

I think this severely misunderstands the state of Christian thought. If you look at the work of, for example, J.P. Moreland or Alvin Plantinga, you will see that they do not appeal to God as an explanation for the inexplicable. Instead, they believe in God because they believe that the evidence points firmly in that direction.

I teach science: H.S. Chem and Physics. I have a driving desire to learn, and I try to spark in my students a driving desire to learn and to analyze carefully, critically, and honestly. I also am an evangelical Christian (to use a loaded, ill-defined term) with an (additional) academic background in theology. I guess I would fit your description of the scientist who does believe in a God. So I have no problem with your suggestion that science and Scripture might converge on "God" as the "final answer to the Theory of Everything", and I heartily endorse your suggestion that science can give us a greater understanding of God. Indeed, I teach my students to think that way.
The problem I have is that you portray scientists as neutral pursuers and purveyers of knowledge. They aren't. It turns out (speaking philosophically here) that everyone has a prior notion of the answer to the "does God exist?" question. This is why the question has been and continues to be unresolved philosophically. Our prior judgment on that question entirely colors our judgment as to what "counts" as proof of God's existence. It's a vicious circle, and philosophers have been unable to untangle it.

Scientists are no exception to the rule, and it comes out in all sorts of ways. For instance, take Richard Dawkins, chair of the "Public Understanding of Science" at Oxford. He has written extensively promoting evolutionary thought. So far, a seemingly neutral scientific question, right? But his books contain not only an scientific defense of evolution, but also several defamatory comments about Christianity. It turns out that he integrates his scientific worldview with his atheistic worldview, and uses his position to promote both simultaneously. And so it goes in the world at large. No man is a neutral player on the "God question"; no evidence is ever evaluated without a priori judgments as to how much proof is enough proof. That is where "faith" comes in. For careful thinkers, Faith is not a substitute for evidence. Instead, it is a willingness to evaluate a certain amount of evidence in favor of God's existence, over agains

I'd imagine the WWI trench soldiers probably something along the lines of "Please, God, I don't want to die -- the newspapers were wrong, war is not a way to redeem the lost masculinity and strength of a decadent era." At least that's my impression from reading Wilfred Owen.

Most of the (Allied) soliders in WWII probably weren't too psyched about it either; they wouldn't have been there if they weren't attacked or expecting to be attacked soon.

Soldiers in Iraq? Probably thought "Wait... I'm just here because I'm a minority kid and this is the only way I'll ever be able to pay for a college education... we're actually having a war?" Though they may have thought "Hey, at least I wasn't forced by my own government to die for no reason, the way soldiers in Vietnam did."

In any event, few of these people (the ones who actually volunteered, at least) volunteered without what they perceived to be extremely pressing circumstances.

DDT boils at 260C (link)

I can't find a link for the boiling point of chloradine (chloradane, suggests google? I'm having trouble tracking this substance down), but its short name and inclusion of chlorine makes me think it's a relatively light molecule -- 400C is fairly hot. I'd be surprised if it didn't also boil off during roasting.

It is also worth mentioning that the coffee bean is covered by the flesh of the berry, which is discarded during processing, presumably getting rid of most externally applied substances.

I'm not saying your concerns are without merit, but there are probably other, bigger things to worry about when it comes to food. Coffee is probably pretty chemical-free compared to a lot of produce and seafood. And then there's estrogen-mimicking plasticizers in our water, radon, cosmic rays...

Actually that is in the System VI (aka "Politically Correct") spec.
http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/computing/newunix.html and other numerous other places on the 'Net.

Giving a good presentation involves the same elements as it always did: good organization, clear points, engaging presentation and delivery, timing, and even your own vocal quality. It's like teaching. If you can't give a good presentation without powerpoint, you'll never be able to give a good presentation with powerpoint. The software will never compensate for your own inability to make the point. That said, PP in the right hands can be an effective tool. I'm taking an econ class taught by a guy who uses PP to his advantage to show graphs and so on. But he's using it because it saves him time. Endless bullet point presentations are as painful as always, but the people who deliver them are the same people who used to just deliver their presentation by reading the text from printed copy.

Meanwhile, I can't resist linking to these classic powerpoint cartoons, c/o Dilbert: Powerpoint poisoning and There was content?

This describes what happened in Bolivia, right after privatization of a utility.

I honestly haven't read it, but this seems like a pretty good document on the subject:

Here

Understanding 'Foreign Accent Syndrome'

Download a sample of a patient's speech before (1.3MB) and after (1.1MB) acquiring the syndrome.


Copy and paste of the entire text in case of /.ing:

Understanding 'Foreign Accent Syndrome'

News
3 October 2002
Oxford neuropsychologists have located some very small lesions in the brain which can lead to a rare speech disorder known as Foreign Accent Syndrome. This condition, which is usually the result of a stroke or head injury, makes patients change their pronunciation to sound like non-native speakers.

The finding is a further piece in the puzzle which Oxford scientists are trying to solve. Teamwork between Dr Jennifer Gurd at Oxford University's Department of Clinical Neurology and phonetician Dr John Coleman has already led to more precise analyses of the rare symptom which has been a mystery to physicians for a long time.

Cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome differ with respect to both the cause and the nature of the new accent, which could for example be like Spanish or Dutch in a native speaker of English. The syndrome can arise after a stroke or other brain injury, including closed head injury as might happen in a road traffic accident. The kind of accent a patient develops is not dependent on any knowledge of a particular foreign language. It is rather the combination of certain changed features such as lengthening of syllables, altered pitch, or mispronouned sounds, which make a patient's pronunciation sound similar to a particular foreign accent.

Dr Gurd said: 'The way we speak is an important part of our personality and influences the way people interact with us. It is understandably quite traumatic for patients to find that their accent has changed. We are keen to help patients on their road to recovery..

'Patients derive some comfort from knowing more about the causes of their rare condition and many are happy to help scientists to understand better the nature of the brain and its role in human accents.'

Patients who suffer from Foreign Accent Syndrome often get better as the brain heals or other parts of the brain take over the work of the damaged areas. However patients normally need speech therapy to help speed up the healing process and to make sure that any residual speech defects are kept to a minimum.

Dr Gurd added: 'The time-course and pattern of recovery varies depending on the cause of the brain damage. As we investigate new cases, a clearer picture of the syndrome will emerge. This will enable us to help more people in the future. We would welcome further referrals of patients with Foreign Accent Syndrome.'

Download a sample of a patient's speech before (1.3MB) and after (1.1MB) acquiring the syndrome.

For further information please contact the press office on 01865 280528.

Notes to editors:

The first case of Foreign Accent Syndrome was reported in 1941 from Norway, where a young Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel injuries to the brain during an air raid. Initially she had severe language problems from which she eventually recovered but she was left with what sounded like a strong German accent, and was ostracized by her community.
The Neuropsychology Centre is part of the department of Clinical Neurology at the University of Oxford. Its cross-disciplinary research seeks to understand the normal cognitive functions of the brain and mind and investigates how these processes break down, change and recover following brain damage.
The Phonetics Laboratory, established in 1980, conducts research in speech physiology and acoustics, as well as performing psycholinguistic experiments on speech and phonological competence. Its resources are used by linguists, psychologists and neurologists.
A Stroke Prevention Research Unit, led by Dr Pete

Understanding 'Foreign Accent Syndrome'

Download a sample of a patient's speech before (1.3MB) and after (1.1MB) acquiring the syndrome.


Copy and paste of the entire text in case of /.ing:

Understanding 'Foreign Accent Syndrome'

News
3 October 2002
Oxford neuropsychologists have located some very small lesions in the brain which can lead to a rare speech disorder known as Foreign Accent Syndrome. This condition, which is usually the result of a stroke or head injury, makes patients change their pronunciation to sound like non-native speakers.

The finding is a further piece in the puzzle which Oxford scientists are trying to solve. Teamwork between Dr Jennifer Gurd at Oxford University's Department of Clinical Neurology and phonetician Dr John Coleman has already led to more precise analyses of the rare symptom which has been a mystery to physicians for a long time.

Cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome differ with respect to both the cause and the nature of the new accent, which could for example be like Spanish or Dutch in a native speaker of English. The syndrome can arise after a stroke or other brain injury, including closed head injury as might happen in a road traffic accident. The kind of accent a patient develops is not dependent on any knowledge of a particular foreign language. It is rather the combination of certain changed features such as lengthening of syllables, altered pitch, or mispronouned sounds, which make a patient's pronunciation sound similar to a particular foreign accent.

Dr Gurd said: 'The way we speak is an important part of our personality and influences the way people interact with us. It is understandably quite traumatic for patients to find that their accent has changed. We are keen to help patients on their road to recovery..

'Patients derive some comfort from knowing more about the causes of their rare condition and many are happy to help scientists to understand better the nature of the brain and its role in human accents.'

Patients who suffer from Foreign Accent Syndrome often get better as the brain heals or other parts of the brain take over the work of the damaged areas. However patients normally need speech therapy to help speed up the healing process and to make sure that any residual speech defects are kept to a minimum.

Dr Gurd added: 'The time-course and pattern of recovery varies depending on the cause of the brain damage. As we investigate new cases, a clearer picture of the syndrome will emerge. This will enable us to help more people in the future. We would welcome further referrals of patients with Foreign Accent Syndrome.'

Download a sample of a patient's speech before (1.3MB) and after (1.1MB) acquiring the syndrome.

For further information please contact the press office on 01865 280528.

Notes to editors:

The first case of Foreign Accent Syndrome was reported in 1941 from Norway, where a young Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel injuries to the brain during an air raid. Initially she had severe language problems from which she eventually recovered but she was left with what sounded like a strong German accent, and was ostracized by her community.
The Neuropsychology Centre is part of the department of Clinical Neurology at the University of Oxford. Its cross-disciplinary research seeks to understand the normal cognitive functions of the brain and mind and investigates how these processes break down, change and recover following brain damage.
The Phonetics Laboratory, established in 1980, conducts research in speech physiology and acoustics, as well as performing psycholinguistic experiments on speech and phonological competence. Its resources are used by linguists, psychologists and neurologists.
A Stroke Prevention Research Unit, led by Dr Pete

Understanding 'Foreign Accent Syndrome'

Download a sample of a patient's speech before (1.3MB) and after (1.1MB) acquiring the syndrome.


Copy and paste of the entire text in case of /.ing:

Understanding 'Foreign Accent Syndrome'

News
3 October 2002
Oxford neuropsychologists have located some very small lesions in the brain which can lead to a rare speech disorder known as Foreign Accent Syndrome. This condition, which is usually the result of a stroke or head injury, makes patients change their pronunciation to sound like non-native speakers.

The finding is a further piece in the puzzle which Oxford scientists are trying to solve. Teamwork between Dr Jennifer Gurd at Oxford University's Department of Clinical Neurology and phonetician Dr John Coleman has already led to more precise analyses of the rare symptom which has been a mystery to physicians for a long time.

Cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome differ with respect to both the cause and the nature of the new accent, which could for example be like Spanish or Dutch in a native speaker of English. The syndrome can arise after a stroke or other brain injury, including closed head injury as might happen in a road traffic accident. The kind of accent a patient develops is not dependent on any knowledge of a particular foreign language. It is rather the combination of certain changed features such as lengthening of syllables, altered pitch, or mispronouned sounds, which make a patient's pronunciation sound similar to a particular foreign accent.

Dr Gurd said: 'The way we speak is an important part of our personality and influences the way people interact with us. It is understandably quite traumatic for patients to find that their accent has changed. We are keen to help patients on their road to recovery..

'Patients derive some comfort from knowing more about the causes of their rare condition and many are happy to help scientists to understand better the nature of the brain and its role in human accents.'

Patients who suffer from Foreign Accent Syndrome often get better as the brain heals or other parts of the brain take over the work of the damaged areas. However patients normally need speech therapy to help speed up the healing process and to make sure that any residual speech defects are kept to a minimum.

Dr Gurd added: 'The time-course and pattern of recovery varies depending on the cause of the brain damage. As we investigate new cases, a clearer picture of the syndrome will emerge. This will enable us to help more people in the future. We would welcome further referrals of patients with Foreign Accent Syndrome.'

Download a sample of a patient's speech before (1.3MB) and after (1.1MB) acquiring the syndrome.

For further information please contact the press office on 01865 280528.

Notes to editors:

The first case of Foreign Accent Syndrome was reported in 1941 from Norway, where a young Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel injuries to the brain during an air raid. Initially she had severe language problems from which she eventually recovered but she was left with what sounded like a strong German accent, and was ostracized by her community.
The Neuropsychology Centre is part of the department of Clinical Neurology at the University of Oxford. Its cross-disciplinary research seeks to understand the normal cognitive functions of the brain and mind and investigates how these processes break down, change and recover following brain damage.
The Phonetics Laboratory, established in 1980, conducts research in speech physiology and acoustics, as well as performing psycholinguistic experiments on speech and phonological competence. Its resources are used by linguists, psychologists and neurologists.
A Stroke Prevention Research Unit, led by Dr Pete

This is why it's important to establish a good living will as soon as possible, preferably with reference to different desired outcomes according to your position on the Glasgow coma scale.

Don't put it off. By the time you need it, you'll be well beyond being able to quickly whip one up.

As a Doctor, you probably understand how important this is. But lots of people aren't even aware of the concept of living wills, or the simple importance of leaving written instructions. Of course, I don't know if LW's are recognised in all US states, so your mileage may vary.

Take too much in a single setting, and you die. It's poison. But gawd I love it.

Caffein: Take too much in a single setting, and you die. It's poison. But gawd I love it.

Sugar: Take too much in a single setting, and you die. It's poison. But gawd I love it.

And finally, for this incredible adrenaline rush!>

Man... anything can and WILL kill you in to much a single setting, even an adrenaline rush!