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There seems to be a connection between suicide in whales and earthquakes. Around two weeks ago, an Indian Doctor had predicted this earthquake on Princeton's mailing list based on whale behaviour in Australia. Interesting...

Disclaimer: I haven't read the article; however, I was somewhat involved in research in this field in late 2003 and early 2004.

What the summary of the article claims IBM is developing-- a technology for getting the semantics behind an arbitrary sentence on the web-- is the Holy Grail of the discipline of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and very, very, very, _very_ far away at this point. Many people believe that we cannot ever get there (that's the point of a Holy Grail, after all), but I don't want to be quite as pessimistic (or realistic?) at this point.

The problem here is that English (or any other natural language, for that matter) isn't SML, or Haskell, or some other language with a well-defined denotational semantics. Natural language suffers from at least three problems that make it very tough to gather anything useful from a given piece of text:

(1) Grammar. Natural language isn't typechecked, and frequently uses incomplete sentences, which makes it hard to develop grammars (context-free, context-free probabilistic, lambek-style/proofnet-style or whatever else people have come up with) for it.

(2) Anaphora resolution. "I saw a dog on the street this morning. It was barking". So who's barking, street or dog? Gramatically, both would be possible; only with prior knowledge we can see that we're talking about the dog here.

(3) Polysemy. What does "play" mean, taken by itself? It can be used for different meanings in "to play a game", "a play of words", "a terrific shakespearian play" etc.; you might want to have a look at wordnet one of these days to get a feeling for this. Not knowing which meaning an arbitrary occurence of "play" refers to means that you have to try lots of options when parsing, LSIing or whatever else you do (though most people simply ignore this problem in research today-- it's too hard to disambiguate words in practice).

That's not all, of course-- try thinking of the need to deal with irony/sarcasm, metaphors, foreign words, the credibility of whichever sources you're using etc., and you'll get a pretty good feeling for why this is beyond merely being "hard". Of course, for very small problem domains (a "command language for naval vessels" was investigated in one paper I read a while ago-- those DARPA people definitely have too much money on their hands, but I digress), this can be solved, but general-purpose open-domain NLP is what you need to do a web search.

It might happen in my lifetime, but I won't hold my breath for it.

-- Christoph

Can I take a CD, record it to MP3 on my pc at home, my pc at work and my ipod.

As long as you don't distribute that MP3 to anyone then I believe you're perfectly withing your rights to have as many copies of the CD as you desire in any format you can dream up.

according to This , copyright is: the right of first publication -- (a document granting exclusive right to publish and sell literary or musical or artistic work)

so don't distribute and you're suposedly fine.

Good 2 books from (Red & Green) Dragon Book

Good 3 books from Modern Compiler Implementation in (Java, ML & C)

Technical A.I. book of Peter Norvig

And a lot of more ...

open4free ©

Sure, there are your NRA card toting blue-collar farming types that support Dubya 100%, but they probably didn't receieve the best of education.

This is what passes for Informative around here? receieve? With the standard that low, let's see how I can do.

To recap, the standard to be a republican:

• An NRA member
• Blue-collar
• Work on a farm
• Support Dubya 100%
• Uneducated
• Mind controlled by radio

Brilliant. So, that would make the liberal standard, what?

• A NAMBLA member
• A Hippie
• Live in Manhattan
• Looking for ways to make Clinton President again
• Over-educated (hmm.. maybe it's Re-educated)
• Mind controlled by television

Not everyone fits your neat packaging of a republican, either. Look that up and you'll find the broader definition: an advocate of a republic (usually in opposition to a monarchy). Or, in my case, opposition to a nanny state.

BTW here's a better definition for viable that also fits the context of the discussion:

feasible: capable of being done with means at hand and circumstances as they are

www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

Here ya go.

That works at the moment, but that lifestyle is very much dependent on cheap energy. And while we are not actually running out of oil, we are definitely running out of cheap oil.

Actually, Paul Starr made the same basic complaints about the assumptions hidden in the underlying model of SimCity in a 1994 in The American Prospect, "The Seductions of Sim."

The word you are looking for is vulpine.

No, inhabitation of Central Asia does by Homo Sapiens Sapiens does not go back to 100,000 years ago as you suggest.

We need to distinguish between fully modern humans, and other hominid species. Fully modern humans did not reach Central Asia till at most 40,000 years ago. Modern humans did not begin their migrations out of Africa until 60,000 years ago.

I think the word you are serching for is niche

From WordNet 2.0:

niche- a position particularly well suited to the person who occupies it; "he found his niche in the academic world"

"nitch" = Sorry, word not found

You mean they're making M2SO4MIII2(SO4)324H2O ?

Find a family member or friend who would cancel out your lesser evil vote. Make a deal with them to both vote third party. You get to take a vote AWAY from your greater evil, and the third paties get two votes.

Sorry to rain your parade but it won't work. What you propose is a lot like the prisoner's diIf enough people did this when the candidates suck perhaps we'd have REAL debates?lemma, but without the downside of screwing your partner over. Let's game your strategy.

VoteForMyCanidate - VoteForYourCanidate = NetVotesForMyCanidate
0 - 0 = 0
0 - 1 = -1
1 - 0 = +1
1 - 1 = 0


If I keep the agreement the best I can hope for is my canidate gaining 0 votes, while the worst case is your canidate (my evil canidate) getting an additional vote. Bad for me. If break the deal, my canidate gets at most 1 more vote (good for me) or at worse our votes cancel out.

If enough people did this when the candidates suck perhaps we'd have REAL debates?

Nope. It's free advertising time, and neither side wants their canidate to come off as a dumbass (the first 2004 debate not withstanding). Plus the populus doesn't want indepth discussions of policies. Instead they want O'Rielly and Crossfire style shouting matches and easy answers. The days of Lincoln-Douglas are long gone.

Biannually means every two years

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition:
biannual
biannual b/pld/icons/ipa322.gifi,æ;niua/pld/icons/breve.gif l, a. and sb. [f. bi- pref.2 4, 4 b + annual. ]

A. adj. Used as = Half-yearly.

B. sb. = biennial sb. Hence bi'annually adv.

* 1877 Ouida Puck xii. 123 Every half-year his lawyers transmitted him..the biannual rental.

* 1884 Illustr. Sydney News 26 Aug. 15/1 Plant out..annuals and bi-annuals.

* 1882 Century Mag. XXIII. 647 A change in the fashion of her clothes bi-annually at least.

Also see WordNet

Without the electoral college, candidates would probably campaign only in the most populous areas, foregoing the rural areas. *With* the electoral college, they mostly campaign in so-called 'swing states', while ignoring the "sure thing" states. What's the difference, really?

The only problem with your "map" is it is skewed by state (Red/Blue) It you look at a more detailed level you will see that the areas of most population, and quite frankly the poorest areas, would BE THE ONES ON welfare and voted Democrat!. The fact is the greater population of the rest of the state canceled the blue votes out. So you argument is silly.

To paraphrase words of Michael Jordan, to his mother. "Once you start making money real money, you become a Republican."

A day out off the presses, and it's "venerable"?

...what's ahead for the Mozilla Foundation and the venerable Firefox browser?

The adjective "venerable" has 2 senses in WordNet.

1. venerable -- (impressive by reason of age; "a venerable sage with white hair and beard")

2. august, revered, venerable -- (profoundly honored; "revered holy men")

Are you talking about Netscape 7, Mozilla 1.x, Firefox 1.0, or what?

I have a feeling the Florida report is bogus, and may even be an attempt to redirect blame from the electronic machines to the OpScan machines. Here is some analysis:

http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/royle_florida.ht ml

Also, check out a population weighted map, as opposed to just land area. Land area doesn't vote, people do.

Actually no, I meant naïve, as in "marked by or showing unaffected simplicity and lack of guile or worldly experience" http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn and I must say, it's amazing arrogant of you to assume you know what I meant better than I do myself.

As well, America is a democracy, although not a direct one, so therefore I feel you are factual incorrect as well. Nor do I agree that a "true democracy" equates to mob rule. I believe the correct term you were seeking would be "anarchy", which, if rational, is not a bad thing.

As to your point, hardly, given the current state of political corruption and the disenfranchisement of millions of voters and of the entire lower class. Imho, sadly, America has largely become a nation of corporate slavers and wage slaves, despite the best efforts of the founding fathers.

Here is another nice graphical display of the results, county by county. Takes a little wind out of the sails of those who claim the country is so divided. There is a lot of purple on this map!

http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

That map isn't a very good representation of just how the country really leans ideologically. A much better example is here.

Yeah, there are a few pockets of red, but the majority is closer to the middle.

A better looking map is at http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

There is a similar site at election.princeton.edu which has the same idea (averages polls to make predictions), but gives more detailed statistical information. I'm not sure if he'll be updating during the day tomorrow, but he's been updating all day today.

I am tired of people telling me that I should have 'an open mind' for the possibility of the supernatural. I have an open mind. When you provide examples, collect data, create theory, test theory against data and provide statistically sound results that your theory supports the reality and when you publish your findings so that the rest of us can do the same thing on our own. Then I will accept your version of reality. Until then my mind is just that - open for a scientific process.

Just out of curiosity, are you a Darwinist who subscribes to the naturalistic philosophy? Let us assume that the supernatural exists. What method would you propose for testing it, given naturalistic assumptions?

Texas? WTF? In 2000, Gore won in only one county there. Brazos county, home of Texas A&M University, and a damn disproportionate conglomeration of college students.

Not true. Gore won several TX counties near the Mexican border.

Also, a better site than Tanenbaum's for predicting the winner is here. Sam Wang of Princeton University uses a statistical method for averaging all recent polls rather than rely on just the latest for his predictions.

Personally I'm predicting a blowout for Kerry. This is based for starters on Wang's data. 2nd, last night on MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews said that the exit polls from early voting in Iowa had Kerry 11 points up. 30% of Iowa has already voted. There has also been a huge early turnout in Democratic areas in FL, NV, GA, and NC. 3rd, a recent Zogby poll of 18-29 year-olds with cell phones gave Kerry 55%, Bush 40%. Every other poll I've seen is based exclusively on land lines, so if the 18-29 year-olds vote this year (and granted, they usually do not), the polls could be way off. Finally, Karl Rove's strategy is based on getting some 4 million more Evangelical Christians to the polls than went in 2000. Problem is that the size of this group may be a myth. A devout Christian friend of mine invited me to a party Friday night with some of his church buddies. Not a group I normally hang out with, but I like being exposed to new ideas. Turns out this small sample favored Kerry over Bush by 50-40. A few were still very undecided (yes, even today there are still undecided voters in Ohio!). All of this leads me to believe that Kerry will clobber Bush.

There's a rival site that attempts to use "meta analysis" techniques to crack that stubborn +/-3% margin of error. I'm not all that well versed in statistics, so I can't comment with any degree of reliability, but it might be worth a look.

Predicted median with undecideds: Kerry 280 EV, Bush 258 EV
Median outcome, decided voters only: Kerry 252 EV, Bush 286 EV

The author of the site, Sam Wang, has published some of his methodology in the form of a matlab/octave script.

There's a rival site that attempts to use "meta analysis" techniques to crack that stubborn +/-3% margin of error. I'm not all that well versed in statistics, so I can't comment with any degree of reliability, but it might be worth a look.

Predicted median with undecideds: Kerry 280 EV, Bush 258 EV
Median outcome, decided voters only: Kerry 252 EV, Bush 286 EV

The author of the site, Sam Wang, has published some of his methodology in the form of a matlab/octave script.

"...The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) is an international effort involving researchers from several institutions and countries, designed to explore whether the construct of interconnected consciousness can be scientifically validated through objective measurement. The project builds on excellent experiments conducted over the past 35 years at a number of laboratories, demonstrating that human consciousness interacts with random event generators (REGs), apparently "causing" them to produce non-random patterns. A description of the technical implementation is given under procedures. ..."

"...Continuous streams of data are sent over the internet to be archived and correlated with events that may evoke a world-wide consciousness. Examples that appear to have done so include both peaceful gatherings and disasters: a few minutes around midnight on any New Years Eve, the first hour of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia, the Papal visit to Israel, a variety of global meditations, several major earthquakes, and September 11 2001...."

Princeton Global Consciousness Project

Kind of freaky.

"...The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) is an international effort involving researchers from several institutions and countries, designed to explore whether the construct of interconnected consciousness can be scientifically validated through objective measurement. The project builds on excellent experiments conducted over the past 35 years at a number of laboratories, demonstrating that human consciousness interacts with random event generators (REGs), apparently "causing" them to produce non-random patterns. A description of the technical implementation is given under procedures. ..."

"...Continuous streams of data are sent over the internet to be archived and correlated with events that may evoke a world-wide consciousness. Examples that appear to have done so include both peaceful gatherings and disasters: a few minutes around midnight on any New Years Eve, the first hour of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia, the Papal visit to Israel, a variety of global meditations, several major earthquakes, and September 11 2001...."

Princeton Global Consciousness Project

Kind of freaky.

I disagree. All the new computers sold to students here at Princeton have Firefox as the default web browser and use Mozilla for email. This is true for the cluster computers as well; they all use Firefox and Mozilla. Princeton's Office of Information Technology has openly said that they encourage use of Firefox because of the gamut of spyware and virii plaguing IE, as well as decreased resource overhead on cluster computers. I think that once enough Sasser worms and the like get to IE-using computers on college campuses, universities will have to make the switch if for nothing more than to stop the hassle of issuing constant virus protection updates and toolkits. If this does start happenning, look for a huge jump in Mozilla/Firefox usage.

American

Grow up, you're not clever.

but it's not really a new compound

Technically it's not a "compound" at all.

and if this new... uh... material is just graphite, can you send me some graphite bundles from the jewlery shop? it has as much a right being called planiar diamond as graphite.

but yes, the material was known before. the idea of fullerenes and this material must have been on somones wish list.

It seems to me that I go into great detail. For example, in the third paragraph of this latest essay I explain the connection between the two senses of "hack." That's a substantial point, and new too, as far as I know. At least, it was news to me when I realized it.

I just can't bring myself to agree that three sentences is "detail." Now this I accept as a meditation on how a single word can have multivalent yet overlapping meanings. It was news in 1851.

hackers get in trouble because authorities don't understand one of their biggest motives (curiosity); that young hackers deliberately fake eccentricities; that copy protection mechanisms, because they're mechanisms, tend to attract rather than deter hackers; that new technology often isn't developed by the people who are supposed to be developing it; that the kind of attitude that existed during the Manhattan Project is hard to imagine existing in Germany at that time; etc, etc.

These aren't ideas, they're drive-bys. Sure, there are the seeds of ideas in here, but if you can't bother to think them out, why should the reader? Isn't that why you're writing?

Without getting into specifics of every item you list, I question the freshness and uniqueness of those insights. For example, I can't believe you can't admit that stuff like "new technology often isn't developed by the people who are supposed to be developing it" is a very old chestnut indeed...you could have grabbed that one from just about any science fiction movie I've ever seen.

Furthermore, when I read something like ...France, or Germany, or England, or Japan. In those countries, people color inside the lines it is difficult for me accept as thoughtful or well-reasoned anything that is built on such an extreme overgeneralization. In those cases, I think the idea is both undeveloped and weak.

So what I'm left to consider is the big idea that organized the essay, something like: hackers have a special (elite) mode of thinking about systems in general and systems of authority in particular. So I used the word "l33t" (not "great", but that's a quibble) because it's a dumbed-down-sounding version of elite that scanned better. Yeah, I oversimplified your point for dramatic effect...I think you know a thing or two about that.

I admit that part of the "hackers are l33t" stuff was a reaction to the summary on the slashdot homepage, which you didn't have control over. I also admit that I'm just a middle-aged crank who reflexively criticizes other people's writing. It's my good bad attitude.

"pantywaist"

They also never apologized and didn't really care that they are some of the greatest villians in modern history.

Actually Japan has done a number of things , including APOLOGISE for it's actions during World War II as well as paying reparations to countries it tried to colonise, with the exception (as far as I know) of North Korea. They also recently apologised for the 'Comfort Women' aka civilian women forced to be prostitues. At the end of the war, some of the Japanese in charge were also executed (I include this, because I am sick of hearing people saying that the Germans had war crime hearings and the Japanese didn't - the truth is, both did, and those responsible were executed).

Now, before you jump down my throat, there are some things they haven't apologise for and tried to cover over. (just to balance it out) My Great Uncle was a POW at Changi and then later on the Burma Railroad (remember that film "Bridge on the River Kwai" ... well, he was one of the Aussies who help build that railroad). After the war my Great Uncle George was head of the Aussie POW's trying to get an apology from the Japanese Government for their mistreatment of Aussie POW's. That was one thing he couldn't get, because the Japanese Government said that it wasn't covered in thier surrender. Unfortunately George died last July, so he will never get to have that apology.

Also, the Japanese Government recently censored a Manga comic because the Japanese writer refered to the Nanjing Massacre. The Japanese Government still considers this to be fake. Read more here. On top of this, a textbook which glosses over the war has now been approved for Japanese schools. (I can't be bothered looking for a link to this, I think most people may have heard about it).

From the comic book, (and the fact that I know some very well versed Japanese people), most Japanese people want the Japanese Government to apologise for these sorts of things, as they really DO care about what happened. The Average Modern Japanese person is truely ashamed and amazed that their countries forces acted in such dispicable ways. It was actually the Japanese people who got the Japanese Government to admit to the fact that Unit 731 really existed, not outside influence from China or anyone else.

Now, I am assuming that you were speaking out of ignorance with what you said, but to a Japanese who is aware of the facts I mentioned above, (as opposed to an ignorant one), your comments smack or racism. (No, I didn't call you a racist, I think you were speaking from ignorance. Re-read your comments now that you know the facts, and you will see how a person could misinterpret your comments).

I hope you take these comments on board in the spirit of how they are ment, and not as a personal attack.

This link might be of some benefit too.

I probably could have added a lot more too, because I am a little knowledgeable on Japan, knowing the language a bit and being able to read and write it.

I hope this is enough to convince you of the truth about the Japanese apologising and that the Japanese People DO care about, and are repulsed by the inhumane behaviour of the occupational forces during WWII. If you meet Japanese people who don't know much about the Japanese WW2 attrocities committed by their country, it isn't their fault. They, like you, are probably unaware of the facts. With the nature of most modern Japanese being to seek peace, so the acts of thier forces during W

define:pharmacy

From Web WordNet 2.0:
The noun "stooge" has 2 senses in WordNet.

1. flunky, flunkey, stooge, yes-man -- (a person of unquestioning obedience)
2. butt, goat, laughingstock, stooge -- (a victim of ridicule or pranks)

This jackass is not a "stooge" - he is an ACCOMPLICE. He does not deserve to "share a cell with Martha (Stuart)" in Club Fed, he deserves to be locked into stocks in a public place and to have rotten food items thrown at him. He deserves to be whipped until he shits himself, with the whole incident preserved on the Web and properly catagorized in all web search engines. To quote Hanover Fist: "Hanging's too good for him. Burning's too good for him. He ought to be torn into little bitty pieces AND BURIED ALIVE!"

This little shit knew what he was doing was "wrong" in the eyes of society - he simply has no care for such matters. Yes, in that his arguments are no different than a drug dealer, burgler, or hitman.

In fact, I'd rate a drug dealer over this asshole - a drug dealer is doing "bidness" with people who want his product. I'd sooner legalize drugs than allow this little shit to do what he is doing.

I always confessed ,and i kept winning.Albert kept losing.I stopped thegame after albert got 300 years and I got none.

Am i missing something?

I did a research on this topic and I found a fun little game. You can play in "The Prisoner's Dilemma" against a computer opponent - , and discover some strategies.

Let's get definitions straight: theory means "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; 'theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses.'"

here

Sharpie? That's so last year. The new hotness in breaking copy protection is holding the shift key.

A scam is an arrangement that pretends to be one thing (generally a mutually beneficial arrangement) but is, in fact, something quite else. Just reading the introduction indicates that the authors are arguing that there a large and increasing gap between what kind of arrangement the current patent is and what kind it pretends to be.

Is that gap large enough to make it a "scam"? The authors wouldn't use that word because in the social context they occupy it would undermine their credibility. On Slashdot folks tend to use slightly stronger language - so IMHO my use of "scam" seems an entirely appropriate translation of the gist of their book.

And if it doesn't reach your definition of "scam" yet, just give it few years. Lots folks are working really hard to get it there.

We are not creating more radioactive material than was already on this planet. All we are doing is moving it around.

This is true, in a very narrow sense: the mass coming out of the reactor is no bigger than the mass going in (in fact, an infinitesimal amount smaller).

But that's sort of irrelevant. The stuff coming out is *far more radioactive* than what was put in. According to the Office of Technology Assessment, it takes about a million years for it to cool down to the point of being no more harmful than uranium ore (see p. 29 of the linked document).

So we're moving future radioactivity from long-lived isotopes like U-238 into the present by converting them into shorter half-life fission products.

Okay, I found a link. The Office of Technology Assessment produced this report that says (near the top of p. 29) it takes about a million years for the spent fuel to decay to the point of being as toxic as the uranium ore used to produce it.

It has. It is actually a pretty interesting problem. There are a number of things that make studying computer virus different than biological viruses. One area of interest is incorporating the network topology into the model. Computer networks tend to be 'scale-free', the internet certainly is. Most epidemiological models (SIS, SIR etc) assume completely mixed populations. When you put them on a different network topology you can get different results.

Vaccination strategies center on trying to lower R_0. In computer networks it is possible to have a vanishingly small epidemic threshold. Also, in scale-free networks the hubs are central to viral transmission. These papers
http://www.cosin.org/publications/condmat0205260.p df/
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall03 /cs323/links/pastor-satorras.pdf/
contain these ideas.

Generally in a scale-free human disease network like STD transmission you want to vaccinate the highly connected hubs. Since the transmission time for viruses on computer networks approaches zero you can run into some serious problems. Such as it is not possible to 'vaccinate' enough of the network hubs in time=> no real way to stop epidemics on computer networks via 'vaccination'. Hopefully this research will provide better answers to these questions.

I hope Melinda doesn't hunt me down and kill me for causing a /. storm on her web site, but the paper is available at http://pucc.princeton.edu/~melinda/.

Enjoy.

Only on /. could some one making an enlightened historical commont about a norsen chief who became the Duke of Normandy in 860 AD be modded "funny." fucking idiots