Slashdot Mirror
Domain: pbs.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to pbs.org.
Comments · 5,110
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Atmosphere? What atmosphere?
I saw a show a year or two ago that said scientists believe the earth could soon lose its atmosphere in same the way that they think Mars once did due to the flipping or loss of its magnetic field as the core continues to flow and cool. I can't recall the name of the show but a quick Google show that Nova covered this in 2003.
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This is NOT New
Scientific American Frontiers did an episode that documented this back in 1999! Here is the transcript
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Re:What should have been.
the first three digit are or were a location code so there is no guarantee that a SSN alone is a unique identifier because the system has been in use for a while and numbers of the deceased are recycled back into the system and the population densities have change over the decades. Cringely got interviewed by the FBI who wanted to know why he stated that there were 17 Million illegal aliens in the US as a fact; he told them that a source he had in the credit reporting agencies told him that that many valid SSN were in use by multiple persons in the country.
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Delta 32 gene marker is a natural immunity already
People who survived the Plague in Europe either did not encounter it or almost universally had a genetic anomaly commonly referred to as the delta-32 marker. Their ancestors survive other diseases because of this causing what amounts to an odd protein binding issue on the cellular level. Those people are also naturally immune to HIV.
Read more:
wikipedia
pbs -
drug research
So the legal fees to research whether a line of code infringes on a patent are far greater in terms of proportion, compared to some multi-million pound drug company or manufacturing company.
* Software seems to be more likely to be built on previous innovations.
Ah but drug research is usually based on prior research or old knowledge. "The Pill", Progesterone, used to prevent pregnancy was based on the southern Mexican plant yam. The American Indians living there used the plant for this reason, to prevent pregnancy. Ethnobotany is the study of how different ethnic groups use plants for health or otherwise. And there are different ethnic groups throughout the world fighting against those who take the knowledge as their own for profit and are fighting against biopiracy.
Falcon -
Re:Yes but...The Global Warming Theory was the biggest scientific fraud ever to be pushed by those with an anti-capitalist agenda. The Sun wasn't even a variable in their temperature models. The Global Warming scientists couldn't explain how the temperature drops and increases dramatically from day to night, from winter to summer, they couldn't explain the reason why there is a temperature difference between the equator and the poles (now imagine, for the purposes of showing what a fraud their model was, you move the Earth 1% closer to the Sun --what is the effect on temperature? -- don't ask them, because their temperature model was a fraud). You don't eliminate a variable(s) that account for 99% of the output and call yourself a scientist.
It was economists that exposed their fraud. But there's other variables that have been ignored, volcanic activity, and the weakening and flipping of the Earth's magnetic field, all possibly *huge* variables. Yup, they tried to claim a changing average Earth Temperature whilst excluding the Sun as a variable in the average Earth temperature -- biggest fraud ever. That's why you never saw a formula for their temperature model along the lines of Sun + Core + ManMadeActivity = Temperature, whereby the variables are weighted like 0.95 for the Sun 0.039 for Core, and 0.0001 for MMA. Soon as you look at it in those terms, you realize what an agenda of fraud they were pushing. They just pretended the Sun was constant and completely removed it from the Global Average Temperature Model (the better to push an agenda). And it's a shame too, because it tarnishes legitimate environmental anti-pollution campaigns.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/about.html
The global warming fraudsters would have saved a lot of wasted money, not to mention the irreparable crying wolf damage they have caused to future scientific credibility, if they ordered and passed out scale model replicas of the solar system. That big glowing burning thing that's 100 times larger than the planet Earth is called the Sun. Here's a website for those "scientists" to get an education.
http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html First, collect the objects you need. They are:
Sun-any ball, diameter 8.00 inches
Mercury-a pinhead, diameter 0.03 inch
Venus-a peppercorn, diameter 0.08 inch
Earth-a second peppercorn
Mars-a second pinhead
Jupiter-a chestnut or a pecan, diameter 0.90 inch
Saturn-a hazelnut or an acorn, diameter 0.70 inch
Uranus-a peanut or coffeebean, diameter 0.30 inch
Neptune-a second peanut or coffeebean
Pluto- a third pinhead (or smaller, since Pluto is the smallest planet) This peppercorn is the Earth we live on.
The Earth is eight thousand miles wide! The peppercorn is eight hundredths of an inch wide. What about the Sun? It is eight hundred thousand miles wide. The ball representing it is eight inches wide. So, one inch in the model represents a hundred thousand miles in reality.
This means that one yard (36 inches) represents 3,600,000 miles. Take a pace: this distance across the floor is an enormous space-journey called "three million six hundred thousand miles." Those global warming scientists should be sued to have all the moneys invested returned so it can be invested in legitimate solar scientific research. -
Re:This is news?
I just turned 27; my recollection of PBS science shows' take on this (specifically Nova) in the 80s was that we didn't know for sure (back then) which way things would go. Or my memory could be faulty, who knows...
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Re:agreed
I won't argue that she's probably a liberal. I don't really care about that stuff so it means nothing to me either way.
What are you basing your second statement on? As I read my post I see that it kind of implies that she was behind the wheel, which is not what she meant. I am sure that she was in the back seat with a veil on.
I saw the interview and don't really understand what she gains by stretching the truth. I believe her, if she's lying then she's duped me. Not the first woman to do it and almost certainly not the last.
I found the interview on pbs' (fantastic) website: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02222008/watch2.html -
Re:This means war!
Can anyone remind me why pornography needs to be "fought"?
Well gee, you guys jump me for writing journals about drunken whores so I do one about attempted murder and how do you act? Now you're against fighting! Do I have to do one about two naked hookers catfighting? Or would you rather have me write about a couple of old ladies drinking tea? That would be a great read now wouldn't it?
Well what's on the telly then?
Looks like a penguin to me.
Damn, you CAN'T please everybody! Or, it seems, anybody. At least I can't.
Er, speaking of my often NSFW journals (particularly the one titled "NSFW") does this mean you won't be reading slashdot in Utah any more? Do they even have nerds in Utah?
Has anybody RTFM? How do they propose to tell one picture from another? If their algorythms are that advanced, how can they tell a breast in playboy from a breast in an anti-cancer site? Is Michaelangelo's David and its gay little pecker to be censored? How about Picasso's Vagina series? Sorry, google's failed me there as "moderate safe search" is on. -
Who is Ralph Nader?
Before he ran for president the first time, all I really knew about Ralph Nader was that he appeared on Sesame Street once long ago.
During his run for president (both in 2000 and 2004), I learned a little more about him here on Slashdot. 90% of what I read here was negative.
I was deceived -- the reality was that 90% of the comments I read here on Slashdot were just gross oversimplifications and instances of senseless finger-pointing.
What changed my point of view? Just one thing: an Independent Lens documentary, "An Unreasonable Man".
After watching that documentary, I still don't know if Ralph Nader would have made (or would make) a good president. Instead, what I do know is that I'm sorry I took most of the Slashdot comments back in 2000 and 2004 as a good source of information. Ralph Nader has been unfairly dragged through the mud by many, and by some has been blamed for everything they care to believe went wrong with American leadership over the last 8 years. From some of the comments I'm reading here, it seems there's still a lot of unfair hostility aimed at him.
If you have the opportunity to watch that documentary, do so. It might create a more complete picture of the man for you, as it did for me. -
Re:Where's Cringely?!?It made me wonder too. The only name which appears in Cringely's column is Tomas Svitek, whose LinkedIn profile doesn't mention anything about the X-Prize.
Also, the part in Cringely's column which talks about him seems to be a copy/paste job from an article about "Orbital Outfitters", a "new company to provide next generation space suits".
This is the spacefellowship.com version from 2006:Beginning with a PhD from Caltech, he was a systems engineer on the NASA Mars Scout, Mars Surveyor, Mars Sample Return and various Discovery Missions. [...] He was the Principal Scientist for Orbital Sciences Corporation, Project Leader for the BlastOff Lunar Lander project with Jim Cameron and AeroAstro's miniature spacecraft project. He has managed and completed projects for NASA, the US Air Force Research Lab, Microcosm Incorporated, and SpaceX Corporation. Until recently, he held the position of lead engineer for Jeff Bezos' Blue Origins Crew Capsule.
And this is Cringely's version one year later:Our Program Manager is Tomas Svitek, who has a PhD from Caltech, was a systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the NASA Mars Scout, Mars Surveyor, Mars Sample Return and various Discovery Missions. He was the Principal Scientist for Orbital Sciences Corp., Project Leader for the BlastOff Lunar Lander project and AeroAstro's miniature spacecraft project. He has managed and completed projects for NASA, the U.S. Air Force Research Lab, Microcosm Inc., and SpaceX Corp.. He was lead engineer for Jeff Bezos' Blue Origins crew capsule and has long run his own space consulting company in California.
This week, there is not a word about the X-Prize in his column. I have some doubts now, but hope that that project is still alive and was not just some thin air. -
Re:I Had Noticed Something
Be sure to watch the recent Nova show on epigenetics. It talks about differences in identical twins. It even talks about autism.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genes/ -
Where's Cringely?!?
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Re:Identical twins are like Slashdot dupes
Nova has already had a very good episode on the field of epigenetics:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genes/
The most remarkable concept in this field is that it is possible to INHERIT epigenetic traits from your parents or grandparents that they developed only in their lifetime.
It also brings into focus the dangers of chemicals like pesticides, in that they are often chemicals that cause DNA methylation. Thus it could be possible to pick up genetic problems from eating pesticides, then pass those problems along to your children and grandchildren.
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Re:Democracy Now!
There's also Frontline on PBS.
But I guees that might not count as it's also available online - http://pbs.org/frontline/
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Infoworld's Cringely is NOT the 'famous' Cringely.Just to be clear, this is *NOT* the same as the more famous PBS Cringely.
Short story: The guy commonly thought of as "Robert X. Cringely" (in reality Mark Stephens,) was actually Infoworld's third writer in the Robert X. Cringely column (and therefore, the third to use the name.) He wrote it for so long, that when he left Infoworld, he got to keep the name, as long as he doesn't use it in another computer-industry magazine. Infoworld has been through a number of people writing as "Robert X. Cringely" since Mark Stephens' departure.
The Infoworld column is pretty standard back-page tech-mag column material, Stephens is the one you think "has been slipping". -
Re:Bad summary.
That's exactly what it is. I found a picture of it online if anyone is interested.
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Re:YepWow. So much bullshit - so little time.
That's ridiculous. About 10 years ago you could as an average person get at best a dial-up connection that might (theoretically) be able to download at up to 56kbps (actually 53). If you wanted a little better you could pay for ISDN. If you wanted better than that you could pay for a T1.
Ok, that much is true. I had ISDN 10 years ago, and it was not real cheap. I paid $30/month, but with limited connection time (I don't remember my limit, but I never went over). Whenever I connected, though, I used the maximum bandwidth available. Why wouldn't I? I was charged by the minute.I know for a fact they were making a profit. Same old copper lines that had been in the ground since 1962, and I had to pay $100 for the connection!
Today you can get a cable modem or DSL for not much more than you'd have paid for dial-up and probably less if you had a second phone line dedicated to your internet access. Technology advanced. The providers improved their infrastructure. Costs came down.
No - this is bullshit. More bandwidth, sure. But it's more expensive, too, and we paid for it in myriad ways (check out the $200 Billion Ripoff for example). I could get dial up for $10 a month (yea, plus phone line). Now I pay like $55/month, and it would be $15 more if I also didn't buy their "cable TV" service.
The sad fact is that what we have now is more or less what we can collectively afford. It's easy to point to more socialized states and say that a handful of them have faster internet connections. What you seem to fail to consider is that those faster connections were paid for. Most likely it costs the average person in one of those states a lot more for their internet connection, they just don't see it as a separate internet bill. If they do get an internet bill it's not really reflecting the true cost of providing the service.
This is speculative and complete bullshit. Just because other countries don't have schizophrenic policies ("it's a phone - no it's a data service - no it falls under this other rule") and corporations writing the laws so they favor their own monopolistic pricing doesn't mean they are subsidizing the costs. Those countries are just more *efficient*. The US is falling behind in data communication infrastructure - and it's not just anecdotal evidence that demonstrates it - it's a troubling trend.Comcast alone makes about $1.2 Billion dollars in profit a year. Billion with a "B". Not revenue - *PROFIT*. I think they're doing just fine - maybe they should invest in a little more infrastructure instead of bitching about having to keep up with demand.
I'm no socialist - but Internet infrastructure needs to be either regulated or state supported. It's too critical to be left to these corporations that just want to slow everybody down!! If there was real competition, it might work to motivate these guys to make their customers happy. But there's not, so it doesn't.
If you can live with forcing everyone to pay several times what they're paying now for internet access we can do this too. But don't sit there and spout that we could do better without pointing out that it does actually cost more to do so. I personally find that my cable modem is fast enough and I don't want to pay more than I do per month. I especially don't want to have the money effectively hidden in a bunch of federal budget documents.
As if... Look - this is critical infrastructure we are talking about. Everybody says that when they talk about "security measures" to make sure anybody that tries to cut a trunk line will get put under the ground for the rest of their lives. But we have these clowns running it that think it's okay to just put the brakes on innovation and new business models and growth of the economy so they can squeeze more profit out of the infrastructure that really needs constant upgrades.
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Re:But do we really need it?
The idea of a utopian society is not a realistic idea, as we all seem to have different ideas as to what that would be, meaning someone will be unhappy and consider resistance to the utopia and as such voiding it.
The idea that we can create something better than us is an illusion, though we may be able to take the best of us and incorporate it into a machine intelligence there is no proof that summing what is known to be imperfect will result in the perfect. And this is the problem. Though we may be able to create something that seems perfect this way, the reality is that its flaw is likely of such a high level that we won't see it until it to late.
There is also a matter of war mentality where the proof is the insulting amount of money budgeted for military defense worldwide in speculation of needing protection vs. the amount of money needed to genuinely address real world issues which removes war and terrorism motives. See: What the World Wants noting that of the 6 plus billion people on this planet its a fraction of 1% that cause such "maybe needed" spending while ignoring the more certain direction of removing motive of warfare.
Waring mindsets get first crack at any advances in technology to see how it can be used for war and defense against.
To know the motives of 9/11 read Trillion dollar bet and understand the probability of those who will be inconsiderate of the needs of others in their goal of being better than others, financially. -
Re:Connect the dotsdoes this make Microsoft ultimately responsible for bringing Apple back from the dead?
Yes. Without Apple Microsoft's anti-trust issues would be significantly worse.
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Re:Expected answerFacts require citations. You have consistently provided NO citations on any of your "facts" anywhere in this discussion. Who are you that we should take your statements at face value without some kind of evidence of their factuality? Here
Of course, the link is not official. The "official" tally had Bush winning... which is why he's President.
Also, Here, Here, Here, and Here (registration required)
Did you ask everyone else for their sources as well? -
Re:Not in public schools, pleaseUnder the DMCA (despite the Sabre Rattling Lawyers of the **AA) recognizes and excepts "Fair Use Rights" relating to personal use of media. The spotlight is usually pointed at anyone circumventing encryption but the DMCA apparently allows fair use copying except for "willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain". "The DMCA recognizes consumers' "fair use rights," which allow limited reproduction of copyrighted works for specific purposes, as long as the consumer does not infringe copyrights (by distributing unauthorized digital copies to friends, for example)."
This creates a quandary which the **AA activists are attempting to warp toward their own favor - circumventing encryption is illegal but sometimes required to exercise "fair use". Indeed, there has been talk about encryption and the "right of fair breach". The links are a few years old but they're good background into why we're still asking these questions.
If you let the **AA define these answers in Court and rewrite/purchase their own custom laws through Congress, everyone becomes a criminal and our rights go out the window. That's what needs to be stopped cold. Anyone out there a voter? We allowed ourselves to get into this mess and we need to get ourselves out.
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Re:Hm...Interesting.
You -DO- know that this is the primary source of energy in France, as well as in other countries like Lithuania, Belgium, and Slovakia, right? If it is so horribly inefficient, would those countries rely on it for their primary source of energy?- http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm
- http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
- http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/gensum2.html
You also know that world use of nuclear energy is growing and is substantial, right? -
Parents
The fault of this lies completely in the hands of the parents.
Frontline recently airid an episode called Growing up Online. I'm not sure parents are in control any more at least when it comes to the Internet.
I'm pretty sure I, as a techie, could monitor my kid if I wanted to...but if they knew, as the episode points out, they'll just go to someone's else's house or a library, or an internet cafe to surf, post, & chat.
I think about the best a parent can do today is guide their children....good luck guiding a teenager too as they'll most likely not interpret your guidance in the way you desire.
On the plus side, the DOJ did a study, which Frontline talks about in the Growing Up Online, that kids don't fall for predators normally. That the vast majority of cases where a child has been lured online, the kid knew what s/he was getting into or the age difference between the two was small (the classic 2 year stuff.) -
Parents
The fault of this lies completely in the hands of the parents.
Frontline recently airid an episode called Growing up Online. I'm not sure parents are in control any more at least when it comes to the Internet.
I'm pretty sure I, as a techie, could monitor my kid if I wanted to...but if they knew, as the episode points out, they'll just go to someone's else's house or a library, or an internet cafe to surf, post, & chat.
I think about the best a parent can do today is guide their children....good luck guiding a teenager too as they'll most likely not interpret your guidance in the way you desire.
On the plus side, the DOJ did a study, which Frontline talks about in the Growing Up Online, that kids don't fall for predators normally. That the vast majority of cases where a child has been lured online, the kid knew what s/he was getting into or the age difference between the two was small (the classic 2 year stuff.) -
Re:Groundbreaking changes don't come from the outs
Right, because Einstein wasn't just a math-loving, nobody patent clerk when he published some of the most important papers in the history of physics.
Beware of making universal generalizations.
Eyes rolling... -
Re:Was that still going on?
Could they have just STAYED on strike?
No, please fucking God no, seriously!
While many people here might be single, some of us have wives that like to watch garbage TV and w/o the normal dreck that is shown on TV she had to find something else to occupy her TV watching time. Unfortunately for me that included such highlights as America's Ballroom Challenge and Masterpiece on PBS. If you think Dancing with the Stars was bad, well, Ballroom Challenge is a completely new level of horrendous bullshit that no human should ever have to see (ballroom dancing to rap is surprisingly worse than to horribly outdated music). I won't even get into the Masterpiece bullshit because, well, no one should give a shit less about Jane Austen.
Believe me, even though I don't watch all that much TV (I have been obsessing over BBC America's Kitchen Nightmares and Last Restaurant Standing) it has been fucking hell for me. -
Re:Was that still going on?
Could they have just STAYED on strike?
No, please fucking God no, seriously!
While many people here might be single, some of us have wives that like to watch garbage TV and w/o the normal dreck that is shown on TV she had to find something else to occupy her TV watching time. Unfortunately for me that included such highlights as America's Ballroom Challenge and Masterpiece on PBS. If you think Dancing with the Stars was bad, well, Ballroom Challenge is a completely new level of horrendous bullshit that no human should ever have to see (ballroom dancing to rap is surprisingly worse than to horribly outdated music). I won't even get into the Masterpiece bullshit because, well, no one should give a shit less about Jane Austen.
Believe me, even though I don't watch all that much TV (I have been obsessing over BBC America's Kitchen Nightmares and Last Restaurant Standing) it has been fucking hell for me. -
Re:What is wrong with males' strengths
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Re:Dear God
I have to disagree with you on the point where you that the restriction is "not about the meth addicts". Take some time to watch a report put together by Frontline. It is only a couple of years old but, is relevant. They explain the reasoning behind the laws and have testimony on their effectiveness.
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Re:I can try to clarify.At the same time,
I went to http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ - many times. Where is the platform? Where is the list of proposed policies, clearly stated, available for the American public to judge the man? And please don't respond that it's under the "Issues" link - those are just more of the same that this whole thread is about, and all we get these days, which in my opinion, boils down to, "Here are my answers to the hot questions."
People here are thrashing the Ron Paul campaign for the answers and themselves for the questions - but you politicos are having the last laugh.
Where was it possible for this or any group to ask, "Please elaborate on position X in subject Y, found on your web site," or, "We believe that position K contradicts your position M, please comment?" It's not possible at all - not with Ron Paul, not with any of the presidential hopefuls.
Being elected and doing the job have become two different things in this country. Hell, maybe I'm just naive and it's always been this way. A truly different candidate would come out and do the vision thing. It was political suicide for the rich guy not too many elections ago who came with this simple approach - anyone even remember http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/forbes_flat_tax.html ? The guy didn't elected because he had thick glasses, a wealthy name, spoke about wealth and scared people by truly proposing to upset the status quo. All it took to torpedo him were guys like Jerry Brown - Jerry Brown! - to equate the idea of the flat tax with a flat earth. But you politicos missed the point, and will continue to content yourselves that you're doing the right thing running more-of-the-same-campaigns but still somehow believing that your guy is not more of the same.
Last presidential hopeful that had one intelligent, independent issue all their own? Forbes. How did he do in a sea of howler monkeys? He didn't stand a chance.
The lesson learned by politicians? Forget about intelligent, independent issues, people are too stupid, no one gets elected that way - and gee whiz, why don't more people vote, it's such a mystery.
Maybe if a candidate - like Ron Paul - and his staff, or "team" (love that abuse of the word) - took the time to be proactive, you wouldn't have to worry about how hard it is to respond to so many questions from so many splinter groups - like slashdot.
Why doesn't it say on the top of the Ron Paul website that he's a Republican? Ashamed? Or are we supposed to feel as stupid as I did months ago trying to see from his website what party the yet-another-guy-I've-never-heard-of-but-am-willing-to-take-MY-time-to-find-out is with?
His website says - and I quote - that he's worked tirelessly for a return to sound monetary policies. What monetary policies? Anoter link - http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/debt-and-taxes/ - says we need lower taxes and - this is a hum-dinger - "We need a new method to prioritize our spending. It's called the Constitution of the United States."
Ron Paul is exactly the same as the other candidates as far as I'm concerned - vague on issues and demogogic, as clearly evidenced by the above quotes. If he loses, please don't say, "If only we'd gotten the message out!" - because like all the rest, the only message I see is "Me, me, me." -
no euphemism.. an Experience.
it's not about euphemisms.. it's about marketing, and it's not so '90s either.. it's still alive, even if you might be critical of the use of it.
watch http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/view/ for a fairly interesting docu PBS did on it (warning: the fact that the people that are being interviewed take their jobs seriously is unnerving as well as a partial explanation of why and how they can keep coming up with stuff like it.) -
Re:FIOS
The reason they had to lease the copper, was the original copper infrastructure was gov subsidized. The fiber costs are being eaten completely by Verizon, and while I am sure there are some tax breaks involved, there is no subsidy from the gov, state or local.
Not quite... In case you're lazy and don't want to do the math...that's almost $600 per person that was paid to the telecoms. Verizon, to their credit, are the only ones that have actually coughed up anything resembling a fiber network, but it doesn't change the fact that much of their costs are subsidized.
This makes them the least guilty telecom...which is a bit like being the smartest kid on the short bus. -
Re:redundancy
2 is never enough:
The third tunnel project
Conceived in 1954, due to be completed in 2020.
Maybe they just haven't finished the tertiary link over there in the middle east..... -
You might be suprised (Hole in the Wall)
4 is perhaps a little young, but kids seem quite adept at figuring the things out given some access and opportunity
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Not such good news for Brazil
Most patents on AIDS drugs have already been,
in some sense, revoked in Brazil, on the ground
of "compulsory licenses" as sugested by
international patent agreements in situations
of public emergency.
Links I was able to find in English about AIDS
in Brazil (the first is very interesting, it
shows the history of how Brazil has been dealing
with AIDS since dictatorship times in the '80s
until today):
http://www.avert.org/aids-brazil.htm
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/aids/brazil -
The paper ballots aren't the problem
The problem is the counting system, not the ballots. Paper ballots actually work fantastically well, if you have a smart system for counting ballots. Canada does, thankfully, and it uses paper ballots. We know for certain who our next prime minister is hours after the polls close, all ballots are counted at the polling station, and any interested voter is allowed to watch the counting. At the same time, we spend a fraction of what the US spends per capita on elections. For more detail or a non-Canadian perspective, Robert X. Cringely has a good little write-up (it's down toward the end of the page).
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Re:fortunately
Maybe you're thinking of this old Cringely article: Bank Shot.
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Re:America's best shot at having a secular preside
Google is your friend, and Romney is a theocrat
But it's not their president I fear, it's the dense 60% of the population that can hardly write.
Less than 10% of the US is illiterate.
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Re:OF course
Again quoting from your link (first sentence):
"More than three months after Democrat Al Gore conceded the hotly contested 2000 election, an independent hand recount of Florida's ballots released today says he would have lost anyway, even if officials would have allowed the hand count he requested."
I'm sorry your preferred candidate lost - but he lost. Bill Clinton won in 1992 with a mere 43% of the popular vote - but he won. You need to learn to let go.
Best wishes.
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Re:OF course
Miami Herald and USA Today recounts, which concluded "...that Bush would have won in all legally requested recount scenarios, and in all other scenarios."
The issue of "requested recount scenarios" is not the point; that's an issue of game strategy, figuring out which recounts to ask for. The issue is the actual number of ballots cast for Bush and Gore, all throughout the state, does not match the results of the "election".
The Wikipedia article's statement about "all other scenarios" is simply inaccurate (I've fixed it):
While the USA Today report focused on what would have happened had the Florida Supreme Court-ordered recount not been halted by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Herald pointed to one scenario under which Gore could have scored a narrow victory -- a fresh recount in all counties using the most generous standards.
The study in question also counted only undervotes. Over-votes, where a voter clearly expressed their intention by both marking the ballot and writing in the same candidate, gave Gore many additional votes.
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I knew it!I got modded down for my joke.
To paraphrase Bob Newhart on the Tavis Smiley show when asked about his jokes about women and Chinese drivers; We as a culture have lost our sense of humor. Women are funny. Chinese people are funny. Black people are funny. Everyone can be funny.
I have a gay relative and I'll leave it that because I don't want to inadvertently out him, and upon opening and pointing to his new MacBook he said, "Yep, I'm gay!"
Some of you folks need to get a fucking grip! And it's funny, folks who are offended are usually NOT the subject of the joke. They are sanctimonious PC people who just like to bully others. I think they (white liberal morons living in their gated all white communities who get offended at "off color" jokes are assholes.
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Re:Great News...
Yeah, he was a saint when it comes to money:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060330_000890.html
And that's how he treated his best friend!
With the exception of number 2, your points are ill-informed lies (for example, point four was true, in the 80s). And point 2 is actually meaningless, lots of companies have stock options. You make it sound like "his gift" raises him to the level of Prometheus re-incarnate!
I don't even think your an MS fanboy, because even fanboys know better than that (again, especially about point four, because they are the ones who are paying for MS' products, literally and figuratively speaking). -
Re:Free Market
According to Cringely ( http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20071228_003726.html ) that would be a good thing since if they quit there's no severance package.
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Web Video rescues bored TV viewersMy favorite clip of the week:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/3f716ffebe
For other people who can't wait out the writers strike, Go through these. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/
Interspersed with heavy doses of these
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm -
We already paid for the infrastructure once...
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Re:What is it people have against bandwidth caps?
okay, here's the problem. The problem is what throughput they allow, not just if its 50 cents a gig. If 50 cents a gig is the cheapest plan/slowest connection, (monopolies, duh), its going to be a costly and prohibitive method to use your connection. Thats half the problem. (say 100 gigs in this scenario)
Now lets say the reverse, lets say its 10cents a gig for the fastest connection. You're going to use it even more because of the speed of the connection opens up new uses for your internet connection. So they're going to make the same 50 bucks on a faster connection. If you had a 5MB/s downstream and 5MB/s upstream for 10 cents/gig, you'd burn through gigs in hours easily, costing even more money. However, new business models, new uses for realtime connections, etc.
Also, guess what else becomes more useless with higher bandwith being billed like that? Anything rented/streamed versus outright purchases. You'd be creating a cyclical market failure in that when the bandwith prices get too expensive people will stop using the internet for anything other than piracy/outright purchases (thus creating the situation we have now).
Might I also add, that games, downloads, steaming stuff, and servers are the high traffic things usually. Those are also your ripest market of customers, as they often are willing to pay more for premium service. So if you charge them more, you're going to be cannibalizing your own business. The people who use little, the web browsing people only, aren't going to use jack of your service and by raising price they're going to find someone else, too.
See, the problem doesn't go away. Milking your customers for more cash, makes it worse. Also, in places like Japan where they (people/distance to servers) are closer together (note: US big cities would be a similar example - LA, chicago, manhattan), prices are like 20 bucks a month US for 50MB/s connections! Kinda tells you there may be something wrong with the way our business is going. Note: these people who are selling at cost are making an absolute killing in their market due to the people who are doing like time warner. -
Liars and Thieves Hate The Light Of Inquiry
As with previous examples, it's not that they fear a chilling effect on candid advice, it's that the advice they gave wasn't for the good of the country. They advised the EPA to do what was good for their industries, and that's bad press.
In an interview on the Newshour http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june01/schorr_5-29.html in 2001, Daniel Schorr was asked what he'd learned about government after years of covering it, and he answered:
What I learned about that was, first of all, that power exercised in secret is frequently exercised in the stupid... most stupid possible way.
If people knew that their malfeasance was going to go public some day, and be exposed to the light, they would be less comfortable tell all the lies they tell in the dark.
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Re:Sooo...
This discussion reminded me of this wired science video I saw yesterday. Talks about how in the late 40's early 50's there was said to be a chemistry set in every house where there was a child. Now many of the sets are considered to dangerous. I presume that some sort of regulation or the risk of being sued is involved here. The implications of this ought to be obvious.
I agree with you that government should keep out of education. It seems to me that if state education systems had been around when the bill of rights was written, they may well have been mentioned in the first amendment along with state established religion. How can you be a free person if the government takes the major role in teaching you how to think? -
Re:monkey business
Just to add a few points:
Electrophysiology in the monkey (or other animals like cats) has been done for decades. I doubt Miguel Nicolelis was the first to create a neural prosthetic, but he has been very successful at doing so. Some of his publications are listed in that article, and a link to his lab website is there too.
I first heard about him on a rerun of the PBS show "Innovations" that discussed several prosthetics, including Dobelle's vision prosthetic. The episode aired in 2004, which meant it was produced even earlier than that. At that time, Nicolelis was already able to use a monkey to control a mechanical arm in his lab. To train the monkey to do so, they had him move a joystick into a circle repeatedly. An electrode array was implanted in the monkey's motor cortex, so they could record neural signals. After the monkey was trained, they took away the joystick and the monkey only had to think of making the arm motion to move the joystick into the circle.
