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Indeed, from the original Royal Society report, 35% of papers are now international.

Fascinating read, anyhow.

On this pathetic plane, perhaps. Others may have found different metaphors.

University of Utah conducted a study funded by NEC in 2003 and a follow up in 2008.

According to their test subjects higher resolution, more pixels, was the sweet spot.

I think this is where the "Multiple monitors make drones work better!" mantra came from. Most monitors were in the 17" to 19" - to get the pixel sweet spot you needed more of them. This was great selling point for monitor makers.

In the 2008 follow-up, they found productivity benefits begin to taper if you get above 26"-30" and resolutions higher than 2560x1440.

I can't find a link for the 2003 study. Here is NECs propaganda for the 2008 one.

...and want to read the entire 440-page report, here's the Scribd link: http://pt.scribd.com/doc/50196972/MPEE-1-0-1

The Root:

SLRP: The suggested list retail price of a CD is currently $16.98, while the standard wholesale price -- what retail stores pay the label per CD -- is about $10. Once the retailer gets the CD, they can sell it for however much they'd like -- hence "suggested." Artist's royalties are a percentage of the retail price. Superstars can get 20 percent of the SLRP, but most get 12 percent to 14 percent.

I've seen other estimates which are lower, but this was the only citation I could find for now. Online sales through the record label usually pay a few percent units less.

Half-pint HAL wrote:

You may be interested to know that most musicians I know are still selling CDs. In fact, most musicians I know still say that direct sales of their CDs at concerts is the main source of income (they get over 50% from direct sales).

Perhaps, but a study from the Norwegian School of Management shows that CD sales have never accounted for more than 20% of the income of music artists, on the average. It's based on Norwegian artists, but the figures shouldn't be drastically different for other developed nations.

Half-pint HAL wrote:

Music is a musician's business, and taking away the ability to profit from music takes away their ability to profit.

I'd say that music is a way of life, and getting paid for it is just a way to be able to do it full-time. The supply of artists has always been greater than the demand for them, and most artists have never been able to support themselves from their music.

That being said, artists are able to produce more than twice as many albums today as ten years ago:

Overall production figures for the creative industries appear to be consistent with this view that file sharing has not discouraged artists and publishers. While album sales have generally fallen since 2000, the number of albums being created has exploded. In 2000, 35,516 albums were released. Seven years later, 79,695 albums (including 25,159 digital albums) were published (Nielsen SoundScan, 2008). (Harvard study cited by Michael Geist)

Matt Bishop found the standard Microsoft employment agreement offered as evidence in some litigation http://www.scribd.com/doc/49542881/Microsoft-Employment-Agreement

As you can see the words of the agreement very much discourages moonlighting. The words also say that Microsoft owns your intellectual output. There is an exception process via agreement with management. The words also say you won't use MIcrosoft facilities such as laptops, phones and Internet access for non-Microsoft purposes.

Of course, the gap between words and actions can vary. That's something only those inside Microsoft would know, and it could very well vary by office or manager.

So in the most simplest case their will be a pro-forma IPR notification available from the WP7 team and a policy that managers accept that pro-forma. Two signatures and the paperwork is done. The worst case is an updated Agreement. Again, two signatures and the paperwork is done.

The difference between this and the usual case is that Microsoft *want* this to happen. So getting the legal paperwork sorted is simple rather than obstructive.

You just need a more specific kind of book.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20067785/7797489-Eco-Defense

Plenty of detailed instructions on neutering heavy construction equipment.

OH , I thought you were talking about this
LOL, CIA

but likely to be overturned by India's "supreme court" later on.

I suppose you're hoping that India's Supreme Court will reverse its earlier ruling which recognizes astrology as a science worthy of being taught at universities, and with courses funded by taxpayers. http://www.scribd.com/doc/19043519/Astrology-Case-in-Supreme-Court-of-India. Here's a relevant excerpt from that judgement: "Since Astrology is partly based upon study of movement of sun, earth, planets and other celestial bodies, it is a study of science at least to some extent."

I wonder what "study" they think has been done to support the claims of astrologers. That they point to celestial bodies and make claims about them is hardly any sort of study.

but likely to be overturned by India's "supreme court" later on.

I suppose you're hoping that India's Supreme Court will reverse its earlier ruling which recognizes astrology as a science worthy of being taught at universities, and with courses funded by taxpayers. http://www.scribd.com/doc/19043519/Astrology-Case-in-Supreme-Court-of-India. Here's a relevant excerpt from that judgement:
"Since Astrology is partly based upon study of movement of sun, earth, planets and other celestial bodies, it is a study of science at least to some extent."

Many have pointed out that the idea is not new and they are right. Although, IMHO, it is still cool to see stories about near space activities by amateurs.

Here are some resources to explore:
  * Nuts and Volts magazine has run an excellent series of articles on constructing all sort of instruments and flight gear for near space projects. Including the basics of regulations, etc. (US centric). They still run the odd piece now and then on updated and additional tech solutions from readers.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20356815/NearSpace-Balloon-Launch is a good read on the hobby.
http://www.hobbyspace.com/NearSpace/index.html has a one page summary of the hobby.

From there Google is your friend. There are plenty of school and private groups/clubs that work on near space projects and launches. I've seen a few science fair projects on the subject also.

It's not as if Geohot makes his living hacking PS3s to run pirated games (which is all the restraining order prevents him doing). This is costing him his hobby, and only temporarily if what he's doing is determined to be legal.

That would be true if the TRO didn't have an order of impoundment attached:

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within ten (10) business days of this Order, Defendant Hotz shall deliver...for impoundment any computers, hard drives, CD-roms, DVDs, USB stick, and any other storage devices on which any Circumvention Devices are stored in Defendant Hotz's possession, custody, or control. http://www.scribd.com/doc/47676627/50-Order-GRANTING-TRO

...and I'm pretty sure that those devices are his trade tools which means this TRO places a significant and disproportionate burden on him as the defendant.

"Sue" isn't the best choice of words here. It was an ITC Complaint that Microsoft hopes will result in the banning of TiVo imports from Mexico that allegedly infringe on Microsoft's patents. The patents are 5,585,838, 5,731,844, 6,028,604, and 5,758,258. You can find confirmation from Microsoft's mouth here.

On an unrelated note, the PDF you linked to in your sig is pretty good! I myself have been using short(really short, lol) stories as practice for a larger story arc I'm writing. Each story focuses on a specific writing technique, just so I can tool around with it. I currently have one of them up on Scribd...free to read, free to download (although I still need to add the CC stuff to it.) Check it out, if you like.

It's about a zombie slowly coming back to life. There's zero dialogue throughout all three pages (I needed to practice with descriptions of events and locales, from a god's eye view.)

Here is a link to the complaint with the logs included:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/47136974/Auernheimer-Spitler-complaint

Thanks.

From reading the logs its clear they've been edited for maximum impact by the prosecution, but even then all I see are some guys just talking shit about money and other things (like how to get "maximum lolz" out of situation).

But talking shit has been more than enough to get people put away for terrorism so these guys are probably screwed too.

This is still a learning process as they're one of the biggest guys out there usage-wise. It's hard to tell what's real and what's fake but I reviewed Beautiful Data for Slashdot a while ago and am reminded of a chapter by Jeff Hammerbacher about Facebook's database in the early days. Maybe the culture is still a little bit like those early days with the database where they spend more time constantly addressing data issues and trying to step up to the next <prefix>abyte? You can go ahead and presume all you want but I'm going to guess the developers are pretty busy dealing with some serious scaling issues. Past performance of the website reinforces this and, let's face it, the "chat" feature was and always will be a nightmare to use.

At a staff of 200, I would also wager that new features take a back seat and would propose that this is why we see Facebook's "upgrades" as being almost purely cosmetic (i.e. layout, markup, etc.).

Better links.

While I'm still in the middle of writing a bunch of short stories (and working on one long-form story that could potentially extend past 1,000 pages), I only have one that I feel is "ready for release".

"Reversion" tells the story of a zombie that is slowly coming back to life. The whole story is done from the perspective of the zombie, although it's told from a "god's eye view". Completely and totally free to read/download. Enjoy!

Every time I post on this, I get modded toll by somebody with an agenda, but I think it's important so I try again.

Assange is a narcissist. He isn't doing anything honorable by dumping all this classified stuff. Leaking information which reveals wrongdoing is noble, wholesale dumping of classified material is chaos. Some secrets are secret for good reasons. For example:

What good comes from leaking the cables of a diplomat clandestinely investigating human rights abuses? It simultaneously gave the oppressive regime a reason to be more oppressive and the names of people to go after, but Assange knows best - people have a right to know! See WikiLeaks just made the world more repressive

How about undermining a democratic reformer in Zimbabwe? Did that do any good? I have a good friend in Zimbabwe, he's in enough danger already just for supporting the MDC. Now a cleptocratic tyrant has the excuse he needs to hold on to power, prolonging the misery of an entire country, and my friend might end up in jail, or dead. But I suppose the death and deprivation of faceless Africans won't keep Julian up at night.

Oddly, one case where Mr. Assange saw fit to withhold information was the "Collateral Murder" video. Not because it could endanger somebody, but because it didn't fit with the narrative he constructed. Rather than objectively present the video with the relevant context, he purposefully left out any mention of the convoy that was approaching or the attacks that had recently occurred that same day, implying that the helicopter was just randomly firing at a group of people. He implies that the pilot's identification of weapons was incorrect, but fails to provide a copy or even a link to the report (which was released, though names are redacted), which details fun facts like the RPGs and AKs they found on and around the "civilians". He doesn't mention that the Reuters employees had not told anyone where they were going to be, and were not wearing ANY press identification. I could go on...

The point is that Assange has always had an agenda, and it certainly isn't exposing government wrongdoing, or even presenting the uncolored, unfiltered truth (if it doesn't suit him). I don't know why so many people here idolize him.

The iPad is *meant* to be an appliance. [...] The MacBook and iMac and Mac Mini and Mac Pro lines are *meant* to be general-purpose computers.

Apple has chosen not to make a low-end netbook; instead, it makes the iPad. So people looking for an Apple product below MacBook Air are forced to either choose an appliance instead of a general-purpose computer or drop Apple.

The iPod is *meant* to be an appliance. The AppleTV is *meant* to be an appliance.

What alternative to the iPod touch or Apple TV should I choose if I want a general-purpose computer?

And as far as "java code being deprecated", that's bullshit and you know it.

From page 3: "Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, Rosetta) will be rejected"

In fact I won't be surprised to see WOW and/or MS Office themselves available on the Mac App Store. Why not?

As I understand it, Apple requires that applications in the Mac App Store MUST NOT "require license keys or implement their own copy protection" or "present a license screen at launch". Furthermore, Apple rejects applications "containing 'rental' content or services that expire after a limited time". This appears to rule out any application designed solely to connect to a proprietary network, such as a Netflix player or any MMORPG client.

In addition, applications in the Mac App Store MUST adhere to the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, MUST "use system provided items, such as buttons and icons", and MUST NOT "change the native user interface elements or behaviors of Mac OS X". A lot of full-screen video games violate this on purpose; instead, they have a set of customized buttons and icons that match the game's setting and tone.

Furthermore, applications in the Mac App Store MUST NOT use "deprecated or optionally installed technologies" such as Flash, Java, Carbon, X11, or Wine. A lot of ports of applications from other platforms use these. This means that at least the front-end (the "view" in model-view-controller or the "presentation" in three-tier) has to be written from the ground up in Cocoa. And if the back-end isn't written in Objective-C++, that involves a line-by-line rewrite by hand, introducing the complication of manually maintaining two parallel copies of the same program with the same behavior.

Apple appears not to like common in video games, rejecting applications that contain "realistic images of people or animals being killed or maimed, shot, stabbed, tortured or injured".

Even an FTP server or web server could be considered to "enable illegal file sharing"; I saw no provision for substantial noninfringing use along the lines of Sony v. Universal.

It's an honest question since I know nothing about this website. I thought this court motion from the defendants was very interesting, especially this part:

"Xcentric encourages consumers to post complaints about companies, while at the same time offering its “services” to help these companies improve their image -- for a fee. Xcentric’s practices are controversial. In one recent lawsuit, the plaintiff alleged that Xcentric “actively solicit[s] defamatory content from third parties and directly encourage[s] the use of hyperbole and exaggeration in the title and body of the complaint to maximize the impact and marketability of false reports.”"

The motion then goes on to say that this issue is addressed in an faq on Ripoff Report's website, but I was unable to find it. While I certainly don't agree with the brittish model of "sue for libel first, ask questions later", I think we're all in agreement that protecting defamation is definitely not in the spirit of free speech. Is this really part of Ripoff Report's business plan? Anyone familiar with Ripoff Report care to enlighten?

Not only will this project not end well, it won't ever end, period. Prerequisite: read the prologue to Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. In summary: We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.

Yet the median barely budges

1. Official median income is HK$17,2 versus HK$35,000 by our sample data.
2. China Income: Trends in Per Capita Levels: "In 1990, China’s average per capita national income was around $350. Within a decade, there was a threefold increase, taking the figure to $1,000. At the end of 2008, the figure tripled yet again and China’s average per capita national income reached another high of $3,000. If China’s average national income continues to rise at an annual rate of 8%, the country’s per capita income will reach $8,500 by 2020 and will touch the $20,000 mark by 2030. Hence, China’s average per capita income will exceed the current income of Taiwan and Korea and the country will qualify for an OECD membership."
3. China's war on inequality: "Those with less education, however, such as migrant workers and farmers, have fared much worse. The former earn an annual salary (including fringe benefits!) totaling $2,000; the later may earn only half that. They comprise, in roughly equal parts, the low-income workers who account for up to 65-70 percent of the total workforce. Their average income has grown, but more slowly than the 8-10 percent annual GDP growth rate of the past 20 years."
4. China's war on inequality - Comments and suggestions - People Forum: "Thirty years ago, 80% of China’s labor force was composed of farmers. But, while that figure is down now to about 30%, rural education has continued to suffer from inadequate funding and human capital relative to urban, industrializing regions."
5. Why The China Property Bubble Doesn't Exist : "Said differently, that average Chinese couple has twice the real purchasing power their nominal income implies because their relative cost of living (including real estate) is lower. It is estimated that almost half of the average Beijing worker's income is actually purely disposable. When you adjust for this fact and that the Chinese couple can easily divert more income to real estate as they choose, because other expenses are lower, it makes Beijing's real estate relative to income seem much more affordable."

it's not the rich which create demand, it's the poor and middle class.

The rich do create demand, just not as much as the middle class and poor. However the rich create jobs which boosts income for the poor.

I have provided links and data backing up what I said, now can you do the same? As they show the uneducated and rural population has had the lowest rise in income, but that population changed from 80% of the total population to 30%. More and more rural people leave the country er farms and move to cities where they get better paying jobs and more education. If you can prove I'm wrong then my mind can change.

Falcon

That's a good article. Though she has 2 conflicting statements.

She recognizes that this is far beyond the usual treatment and that it is definitely politically motivated. She also recognizes how much the media has tainted peoples views against the girls. However she then goes on to say that a fair trial should be pursued. Do you believe that a fair trial could ever be held now?

Additionally, given the time has lapsed, and that relative to more obvious cases of rape, this one seems particularly less like rape, such that there is no evidence (from what I've been reading, including her articles), that any such force took place, how are we supposed to prosecute when it's merely he said, she said? Essentially, we wouldn't be having a trial on what happened, but a trial on how the jurors perceive the character of the people in question. Something that is already tipped against men.

I just read the comments by people on her post, and they fall to the same problems as the people on the opposite side, they put words in their mouths, and infer that something (which has not been stated) happened, which would define this as clearly rape.

Lastly, from the Guardian...

Her account to police, which Assange disputes, stated that he began stroking her leg as they drank tea, before he pulled off her clothes and snapped a necklace that she was wearing. According to her statement she "tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but Assange ripped them off again". Miss A told police that she didn't want to go any further "but that it was too late to stop Assange as she had gone along with it so far", and so she allowed him to undress her.

According to the statement, Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs. The statement records Miss A describing how Assange then released her arms and agreed to use a condom, but she told the police that at some stage Assange had "done something" with the condom that resulted in it becoming ripped, and ejaculated without withdrawing.

In submissions to the Swedish courts, they have argued that Miss W took the initiative in contacting Assange, that on her own account she willingly engaged in sexual activity in a cinema and voluntarily took him to her flat where, she agrees, they had consensual sex. They say that she never indicated to Assange that she did not want to have sex with him. They also say that in a text message to a friend, she never suggested she had been raped and claimed only to have been "half asleep".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden

Now, neither Miss A nor Miss W say that they said no. While Miss A's statement suggests that she did something which should have been inferred as a no, Miss W outright says that she consented. Regardless of any half asleep state, however given she says she was "half asleep", the "surprise sex" part comes in with Chapter 6, Section 1, Paragraph 2 of the Swedish laws in question, as she is likely saying she was improperly exploited due to this state. Where as the first one is relying on these other actions, and the condom breaking, to say that while she may have implicitly consented to sex, she didn't consent to unprotected sex, though he contests that he knew it was broken.

I just re-read the charges, and they are so light, that I could not be certain that in the usual course of events that I would not also violate the letter of these laws. It would reduce having sex to filming it, and ensuring that a contract is drawn up beforehand which outlined what can and can't be done.

All of this personally comes off as the least sympathe

(2) They are highly toxic, even more toxic than the widely-used hydrazines, which can kill you in several interesting ways.

(3) They're so unstable, you have to keep them under impossible conditions

That reminds me of a hazmat situation involving pentaborane that happened in the 80's near me. One of my best friends as exposed, died and was resuscitated several times. He suffered organ damage and lost many of his early memories.

See also: http://www.scribd.com/doc/15062569/Pentaborane-Taming-the-Dragonpdf

The link in your post is dead. This one seems to work: http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674234/Citigroup-Oct-16-2005-Plutonomy-Report-Part-1

Sure.

http://web.mit.edu/~sdavies/MacData/afs.sdavies/MacData/afs.course/other/sp275/www/organicmyth.pdf
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/organic.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14079717/The-Seven-Most-Dangerous-Myths-About-Organic

Android is not the same, check out the screen shots posted in this forum link: http://forums.crackberry.com/f86/application-permissions-234021/ The BB actually gives the user the choice on a PER-APP basis what permissions to allow each app. As much as I've grown to hate my BB Storm for its overwhelming lack of memory and frequently required battery pulls, at least I have some control over how applications use my phone. I'd love to switch to an Android-based phone but I am hoping that the developers will address this issue first .

Isn't that what happened in Biosphere 2? Discover Magazine recently had an article about it in the October 2010 issue and the pH levels of the artificial ocean were changed significantly due to carbon dioxide (most of which was not produced by humans).

It had gone acid, absorbing carbon dioxide from Biosphere's atmosphere and forming carbonic acid as a result. This was happening on the outside, too, although it was a phenomenon biologists had largely ignored until then. "Of the carbon dioxide human beings put into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation," Berry says, "roughly a third remains in the atmo- sphere, a third goes into terrestrial ecosystems, and a third goes into the ocean."

Interestingly, that does not mean the end of ocean life:

Down below there is also a cavelike aquarium with viewing windows into the Biosphere 2 ocean. Despite its murky appearance ("The last time we could see the opposite wall was 2004," my guide tells me), the ocean is not dead. Bright tropical fish appear out of the emerald gloom and flit along the glass: yellow tangs, sergeant majors, doctorfish.

The full article at the time of this comment is available here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/37229200/Discover-Magazine-October-2010

That's actually kind of what the bill says, to my reading: http://www.scribd.com/doc/44617300/Federal-Wi-Net-Act

You always have to hope that an improvement like this actually does allow the soldiers to better target the real bad guys and not civilians as well as protect themselves from compromising situations. I'm not impressed with the distance the bullet can travel, it's my understanding that in Iraq and cities of Afghanistan, the battles are complex urban battles in buildings and areas that are high in civilian population and also human made nooks and crannies. It's not a question of being able to pick your assailant off from a distance of 8 football fields but rather being able to successfully target multiple combatants who are firing sporadically from housing windows in complex structures down on you and then disappearing deep far back into the structure. At least that's how video games and news stories portray it: urban guerrilla warfare.

Average engagement distance in Afghanistan is approximately 500m to 800m, depending on who you ask in the service. So yes, it is a question of being able to pick your assailant off from a distance of 8 football fields.

(For reference, a quick Google search on the term "average engagement distance afghanistan" yielded this.)

The internet is littered with examples of those who take a majority of their assumptions from popular media and don't bother to research the reality, then extrapolate and assert an unfounded position and postulate that the "so called experts are wrong". Such armchair speculation is so pedestrian. Please mod parent down.

Slashdot: Where everyone with a keyboard is an expert.

> vast majority of people playing games at 720p max

Your comment skirts around the issue, but is not entirely accurate. It is not the players, but the game devs themselves that are "not demanding" a new console. The PS3's RSX is ~= 7800 GTX. Most _games_ DON'T render at the native 1080p but at 720p simply because most (PS3) games are GPU bound. (XBox 360 games are CPU bound if you are curious.) That said, currently the SPUs are _still_ under underutilized. Naughty Dog said this a few years back, but it is slowly getting better:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/832/832114p2.html
"I'm more impressed with the hardware the longer we get to work with it. Imagining trying to develop Uncharted without the Blu-ray drive, without the hard drive, or without the Cell processor makes me wonder what kind of game we would have ended up with. It certainly would have required a lot more compromises than I would have been comfortable making. And much like the PS2, I think the longer developers work with the machine, the better the games are going to get. For instance we are only using approximately 1/3 of the processing power of the SPUs on the Cell processor in Uncharted."

The presentation "Getting Unreal Engine 3 to 60Hz" isn't (yet) available on Devnet, but thankfully can be found here...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15118967/Hitting-60Hz-in-Unreal-Engine

Other presentations (GDC 2009) worth reading are
* The PlayStation®3's SPUs in the Real World - A KILLZONE 2 Case Study
* Practical SPU Usage in GOD OF WAR 3

It will be REAL interesting to see what Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo 5), and Team Ico (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus) since these two studios are known to typically push the PlayStation (2 & 3) to its limits.

Cheers

For what its worth, his name Lin Mun Poo, not Lin Min Poo

POO lin Mun indictment

Although I am curious to know if his name is being reported correctly. Is Poo his family name or is it Lin? Can anyone familiar with Malaysian names give an opinion?

First, there is a difference between being educated and being informed.

See my reply to riverat1 above yours.

Second, you request a "Citation" in reference to my assertion that a person with lots of "4"s would end up being president. Allow me to illustrate.

That is not a citation. At most it is a theoretical hypothesis. I can make up my own.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think our current two-party system is very good, but I wouldn't rush to solve the problems by throwing our entire system.

I didn't throw the whole system out. I didn't suggest a dictatorship or king, or getting rid of all government. All I suggested was changing how the president and vice president were elected. Well not all, I have proposed other amendments, such as limiting congressional sessions to 90 days every other year. Politics should not be a career, unlike how it is now.

Actually Thomas Jefferson once said something about there being a revolution every generation or something like that. Unless people have to fight for freedom freedom loses it's meaning to them. They take it for granted, even when there's subterfuge or mission creep wearing freedom away.

Falcon

Oh, and in case I haven't already told you, I fear government far more than any corporation or terrorist. Neither Union Carbide's Bhopal disaster nor Bangalore's terrorist attack killed or maimed as many people as governments have.

And decompiling _is_ effectively copying.

They failed to download enough Free Stuff:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2436983/Army-FM-325-26-Map-Reading-and-Land-Navigation

Neutrinos again? Get back to me when they find something the size of a tennis ball:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/36568510/A-Novel-and-Efficient-Synthesis-of-Cadaverine

alphatel (1450715) SAYS: "It's one of those bureaucratic loopholes. Without the GSA schedule and number, you can be dismissed from any offering regardless of how much time you put in. Did they really have one? Almost seems like a bad oversight"

Do you have any verifiable citations for the above BS ?
--

"the RFQ specified that only the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite-Federal ("BPOS-Federal") could be proposed. DOI's restrictive specification was based upon a "Limited Source Justification" excuted by DOI's Director, Office of Acquisition and Property Management, on August 30, 2010. Plaintiffs protest DOI's specification of the Microsoft BPOS-Federal solution on the grounds that such specification is unduly restrictive of competition in violation of the Competition in Contracting Act .. and the DOI's "Limited Source Justification" constitutes a sole-source procurement that is arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and otherwise contrary to law."

Discussions Prior to DOI's Issuance of the RFQ

"In June 2009, Google representatives met with the DOI Chief Technology Officer ("CTO") .. Google then contacted the DOI's National Business Center's Chief Contracting Officer, Ms. Debra Glass, by sending her a formal letter of interest on May 17, 2010. That letter expressed Google's keen interest in competing for DOI's Messing solution .. On May 27, 2010, Ms Glass sent Google a letter that did not respond to or reference Google's May 17 letter, but instead requested that Google respond to fifteen broadly-worded requirements to "enhance" the DOI's market research" link

Emminent scolars in the field of radiation and medicine do not agree with the conclusions that the wikipedia information that you present asserts. See, for example, this letter from UCSF faculty in bilogy and medicine, here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/35498347/UCSF-letter-to-Holdren-concerning-health-risks-of-full-body-scanner-TSA-screenings-4-6-2010

With all due respect, I would assume the sigtanators to this letter to certainly not be "purposefully ignorant" on this matter.

Information on Cosmology Vedas Interlinks- Copy right books http://in.geocities.com/vidyanand1941 Any one interested may see ebookomatic.com -author Nanduri http://www.scribd.com/doc/17291010/Cosmology-Vedas-Interlinks-Information

Not exactly. Technical interfaces have been held to be immune from copyright protection, so in principle you can copy them all you want (assuming you copy only the essential elements, etc.)

If the logic in Baystate v. Bentley Systems (1997) is followed by the court in the Oracle case, Google will be held harmless from claims of copyright infringement deriving from the copying of interfaces and APIs. See here, here and here.

I started to suspect the same thing, but then I saw this example:

Sun:
private void addChild (PolicyNodeImpl child) {
      if (isImmutable) {
            throw new IllegalStateException("PolicyNodeisimmutable");
      }
      mChildren.add(child);
}

Google:
private void addChild (PolicyNodeImpl policynodeimpl) {
      if (isImmutable) {
            throw new IllegalStateException("PolicyNodeisimmutable");
      } else {
            mChildren.add(policynodeimpl);
            return;
      }
}

Google's else block is a common programmer tautology. It's clear they were just following the class spec.

There are more examples, mostly below that one, but for the most part this isn't a complex enough piece of code for significant differences in expression to naturally appear -- which explains why Oracle chose this source file, a 'HelloWorld' section in the codebase.

Sorry, but before you accuse others of lying, you should make sure you are correct. The courts have held that that exemption only applies IF you have a valid license and are using the software under the terms of the license. This prevents a copyright holder from claiming copyright infringement after giving someone a license and the person is using the software under the terms of the license. Here is an excerpt from MDY vs Blizzard (2008):

Ninth Circuit law holds that the copying of software to RAM constitutes “copying” for purposes of section 106 of the Copyright Act.MAI Sys. Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F.2d 511, 518-19 (9th Cir. 1993). Thus, if a person is not authorized by the copyright holder (through a license) or by law (through section117, which will be discussed below) to copy the software to RAM, the person is guilty of copyright infringement because the person has exercised a right (copying) that belongs exclusively to the copyright holder.

You describe how market makers create liquidity, but not how HFT's create liquidity.

This presumes that market makers and HFTs are two mutually exclusive things, when in fact, they are not (or at least, not *necessarily*). Many HFTs are (officially or unofficially - depending on the exchange & their relationship to it), market makers as well. Even if they're not designated market makers, their presence helps reduce the spread that market makers are offering (they will buy and sell to take advantage of the spread, exerting pressure on the bid/ask prices to get closer and closer together), which makes investment more efficient for 'regular' traders.

As far as 'no risk' for HFTs, of course they have risk. They could lose money if a stock tanks just like anybody else, and they have to have a buyer or a seller in order to unload their positions. They are not (necessarily) required by the stock exchanges to stay in the market in bad conditions (designated market makers would be, unofficial ones wouldn't), such as during the "Flash Crash" back in May, but many of them stayed in anyway.

A report by the CME Group reported that high frequency traders had no discernible impact on the flash crash back in May: the report.

The SEC also found that they perhaps magnified the impact of the crash, but that many of them also stayed in the market... providing liquidity... throughout.

There *are* issues where HFT programs could (and should) be subject to more regulation - flash functionality (essentially, a 30ms-faster peek on large pending orders for people who pay a fee for it) is a big one, and has mostly been disallowed already by the exchanges I'm aware of. Use of dark pools is another one that could probably benefit from increased oversight.

Essentially, the trading volumes created by HFT (estimates I've seen range from 50-70% of market activity) help to smooth out the big swings which can be caused by large trades - they act as a damping mechanism on the volatility of the market, and several studies (here's one from the Journal of Finance) have found that algorithmic / HF trading has a net-beneficial effect on the market.

There are tremendous economic advantages in participating in a division of labor economy. Private property rights are an essential component of the division of labor.

Anyone who individually violates these property rights will quickly be ejected from the division of labor and find himself as an outcast. If he gangs up with other bandits, they will still find themselves outnumbered and in a precarious position. If this brigand band succeed in bamboozling the productive class into paying monopolistic fees for "protection," this band still has to fear stronger bands of thieves or an internal uprising.

Finally if the band of thieves allows free entry into it's class through a universal suffrage democratic process, the line blurs between the political and productive class. This permits much higher levels of theft and regulation than would be accepted under a clear class distinction regime. The increasing theft and violation of property rights leads to the consumption of capital and the devolution of human society. With the loss of production capability, the health and longevity of members within such a society decreases until the point occurs that private property rights are rediscovered and respected once more.

The failure of a society to respect private property is that society's downfall. It is an economic certainty that this decivilizing effect will occur when property rights are systematically violated.

Democracy: The God that Failed

http://www.scribd.com/doc/37783635/Democracy-the-God-That-Failed

republic

California

Details at http://www.scribd.com/doc/39656849/In-Re-J-J-Case-No-D055603-Cal-Ct-App-Oct-15-2010

This isn't much to go on and get a sense of how or why the sanctions were applied. Considering the dearth of underlying exposition, this article qualifies as a non sequitur.

You are right, the article was lame without cites.
So I applied a little google-fu and came up with the ruling.
I've never seen that preamble about "not for publication" before so I can't really say how long it will stay at that URL.

What if Hawking figures it out but has lost the ability to communicate the discovery with the world?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19550880/GUT-The-Grand-Unified-Theory-A-oneact-play-with-seven-blackouts