Slashdot Mirror

Insightful? Off-topic! and incorrect.

We don't have a Social Security crisis. It's all crap propaganda. It definitely needs to be tweaked, but the politicians are just trying to rile people up and divert attention from real issues. And they're succeeding.

We have a surplus of SS money for at least until 2040. The projections go out for 75 years and sometime before then, we start having a debt regarding SS taxes coming in and money going out. Congressional Budge Office (CBO) studies show that if we don't extend Bush's tax cuts after 2009, we'll have SS surplus until 2050. So at worst, we'd have to reduce SSI handout out if we don't increase the retirement age or increase the budget towards SS. But a temporary debt is okay because population levels fluctuates. After the baby boomers die, our SS situation will be fine again.

Including health care costs for wounded soldiers, Iraq war and occupation could top $2 trilion. How about those tax cuts? I saw a NY Times article stating CBO projections estimated a difference in revenues of $1.7 trillion over the 10 years. A San Francisco Chronicle article mentions a difference of $737 billion. The difference could be due to when the projections started and ended. This doesn't include reports of the economy improving slower then from any previous recession and being short on the administration's projections of jobs by millions (just think of the revenue difference there).

If even a portion of those funds went to social security, we would have not debt for social security for 75 years! The fact remains, the US government takes out enough money from taxpayers to pay for Social Security for the forseeable future.

The problem isn't the social security system. It's the men and women of the Executive and Legislative branch that balloon the deficit with pork barrel spending. Even if we remove the SS blanket, there's no gaurantee that these people wouldn't spend the money elsewhere. Before we talk about changing social security, we need to have people that would be fiscally responsible.

They've shown it in the past. Just as a good way to get Google to refuse to talk to you for "a year" is to publish unauthorized articles a good way to get banned from their search is to abuse the system.

But everyone still realizes that the Walk of Game is still just floor tiles on a disused hallway of a mall, right? If I hadn't been in the place a hundred times I wouldn't even know where it is.

"See, it turns out that it's just the usual sloppy work by bureaucrats who confused similar-sounding Arabic names. Joe Caucasian Liberal has nothing to fear"

No, but Babies do...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/ a/2005/08/15/national/w115806D06.DTL
http://www.digg.com/links/9-month-old_baby_on_US_N o_Fly_list

And so do canadians...

http://www.canadiancontent.net/commtr/article_779. html

sounds like knee-jearking, overrasting politics to me.

There's a little bit about the history of memorizing in the article, and if you're looking for more on the topic, Frances Yates' The Art of Memory covers memorization from its mythical beginnings with Simonides, through its use by Roman orators, and ultimately its transformation into a mystical technique and occult science in the Middle Ages. Most of the techniques described in the article were practiced by the Romans.

My favorite memory Grandmaster is George Koltanowski. He held the record for the most simultaneous blindfold chess games played, and he gave demonstrations of his exceptional memory using the knight's tour. As this article describes, his audience would provide 64 words or numbers which would be written on a giant chess board on stage. Koltanowski would quickly memorize the board, and, while blindfolded, recall the data in the order of a knight's tour.

The countries affected by the last big Tsunami looked better organised and they realized they needed help urgently.

Which was provided in no small part by the USA

European help was rejected with phony arguments, despite being urgently, and obviously so, needed.

Exactly how might European nations been of assistance? What were the phony arguments? Note the Mexican Army did provide assistance after Rita.

I personally believe Nagin, Blanco and Chertoff should be out of office. (Brown was already fired.) I would guess Nagin and Blanco won't be re-elected.

They do things like buying enough "put" options on United Airlines to create a market spike - just three days before 9-11.

Just in time for solar storms to distroy our sattelites. Won't some kind soul out there please get me off this crazy planet? I can brew beer in trade, or show you where the more tasty humans are!@!!

Scalia is nothing more than a hypocritical shill for the Right. According to Scalia (who is supposedly a proponent of limiting Federal power), a State should have the power to imprison consenting adults for their private sexual behavior (Lawrence v Texas), however States do not have the power to regulate the drugs which may be prescribed within their borders (Ashcroft v. Raich).

a) ayup, but biotech is going overseas as we speak: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/ 04/18/MNGBM672L01.DTL

Biotech is an example of the harsh new reality. You go to college now to learn the new hot industry, and by the time you get out? It's already going overseas. You no longer can recoup your educational investment.

b) How does the offshoring industry and services for offshore US workers produce any jobs here? Why would they want anything from here when they can get it there cheaper? Many BPO operations are owned and managed over there. Companies here just arrange deals with them and off they go.

c) Just in time coding/hardware design. Why can't an offshore company provide that? College students are already doing just-in-time outsourcing of programming homework, how far behind is $30,000 custom PCI card production? You're making a big assumption that offshore people won't do less than a $300,000 order.

Who's going to make UAV hardware/software? Americans? Now maybe, but in the near future? Hardly. Where will they get the job experience and expertise for that? You'll have to travel to India to get job experience. Otherwise unmanned aerial vehicle hardware/software design will be done primarily by fresh, inexperienced college grads with no job experience. *ACK!!*
More than likely we'll be farming that out overseas where they will have the most experience in 10 years. Yeah, our leadership is that stupid. And there's another thing... this implies a growth in Government jobs. The choking sound you hear is that of a million anti tax free marketeers needing a Heimlich Maneuver... stat!

On a side note, Government jobs appear to be on a steep increase.

In home tech support and domestic network engineering... now there are jobs that cannot leave. But those are not new industries. I've been doing both since 1995. The market for these are also oversaturated: check the local newspaper and you'll see dozens of such services competing for the market.

Your last point, going into business for yourself, is going to be the most viable option left. The wealthy elite in America are so lazy that businesses like "Doody Duty" are cropping up. I bs you not: http://www.doggydoodyduty.com/

BTW that was a pretty good response. Glad to see at least one free marketer is actually thinking originally.

Using this political forum, I simply want to apologize to all you left wing nuts and say "you were right". I give up trying to defend anything Bush has to say anymore personally or on-line (not that I've done it here recently).

Between the destabilization / chaos going on in Iraq as the Bush admin. clearly didn't plan or forsee what was going to happen after Saddam, and now the absolute, irrevocable proof that Bush does lie and cover up (in this case, Katrina), it's getting REALLY HARD to get behind the president on anything these days... It just makes the Bush admin look like a bunch of inept, CYA idiots whose guiding principal is cronyism. When Bush opens his mouth, most non-koolaid drinking conservatives should now wonder just what agenda does he have.

BUT, I'm STILL not voting Democratic because (A) they are just as bad as the Republicans, and (B) they very much want to take away the right to persue my hobbies with all the strength they can muster (ie, off-road vehicle driving).

Where can I get one? It would be so much fun to seed with "interesting" responses! It's not like I'd have to put in a real name or anything so silly. For a column on how to mess with the minds of our neo-fascist GOP, see http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/a rchive/2006/01/25/notes012506.DTL

>Apply for a warrant? Are you insane? He might get one of those nasty Judges that disagree with Bush's personal opinions and make decisions based on the law instead

I humbly apologize.

I LOVE BIG BROTHER !!!

I lived in the north west of Australia where there has, up until recently, been large biodiversity in the areas oceans. Whale sharks, white pointers and others were common in their migratory seasons. Australian fishing has always been regulated and only a select few licenced fleets were able to take a quota of shark from that area, which is common for most fish taken for consumption in domestic and export markets. In general things were sustainable through good management of resources.

In the last decade there has been an exponential increase in Indonesian fishing boats illegally coming into Australian waters to poach fish, shark and trocus shell - anything worth a dollar (or rupiah) to their employers. They have no regard for sustainability and take everything leaving the reefs barren of life. They "hide" albeit not terribly well, on the small islands less than a kilometre from the mainland where they are very visible.

I've seen footage of their shark boats with hundreds of shark fins drying out on deck. It's repulsive. Their practice in "finning" sharks is the most cruel and inhumane I've ever seen. They reel in their longlines bringing each shark onboard, cut off their dorsal and pectoral fins (the only part of shark worth lots on East Asian markets due to their medicinal properties: good at strengthening the waist, supplementing vital energy, nourishing blood, invigorating kidney and lung and improving digestion despite being very high in mercury) and then toss them back into the ocean regardless of whether they are still alive or not. Most sharks bleed to death or drown.

The illegal fishing issue has been a hot topic for local and national political debate but as yet there has been no resolution. It's creating pressure on the legal fishermen to take the law into their own hands, which is dangerous for all concerned. The navy has patrol boats in the area but the best they can do by law is fire warning shots across the bow of the offending vessel. The offenders generally are able to prevent authorities boarding their vessels by fitting knives across the sides of their boats. This way they can "run the gauntlet" and escape any repercussions. What annoys me is that those who are caught get detained for a few weeks and are flown back at taxpayers expense. They are even paid an allowance by our government while detained! For them, it's win if you do, win if you don't.

What is needed is effective education on the impact and eco-footprint we leave with such practices, but it seems we are fighting an uphill battle.

So is google.org going to start by shutting down or opening up google.cn?

It's possible that China might end up shutting down google.cn for them. It seems the Chinese government isn't too happy with google.cn being the only Chinese search engine that tells users what's being censored.

There is a more informative, detail filled article here-
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/ 02/28/BU156573.DTL

"about the height of an airline bag on wheels, is priced at about $1,500, but it is designed to require little maintenance and uses no chemicals or filters"

"Kamen's device purifies water through a distillation and condensation process"

"Kamen said the purifier can handle any contaminants and produce 10 gallons of water an hour on 500 watts of electricity."

When was the last time you or any of your friends have been questioned or imprisoned for voicing your opinions. When was the last time the FBI showed up at someone's house simply for running a blog criticizing the US government?

To cite someone's comment in an earlier Slashdot article, how about Mario Savio?

The FBI trailed Mario Savio for more than a decade after he led the 1964 Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, and bureau officials plotted to "neutralize" him politically -- even though there was no evidence he broke any federal law, according to FBI records obtained by The Chronicle.

Apparently RIAA is helping keep credit cards from being a unique product.

I think it's already in full swing in the press.

Apparently he "decided this legislation is needed after "after observing studies that show that the largest groups of P2P users are teens and people in their 20s".

So campaign fund contributions had nothing to do with it and are purely co-incidental?

Please, this is the same guy who blocked the popular 'financial privacy protection bill' after receiving over $100,000 from the finance industry. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2003/06/30/MN275013.DTL

I wonder how much it cost the MPAA and RIAA for him to launch this bill?

And there was me thinking the USA had a democracy!

Now it's all clear.

As for our government, it's ironic that we sacrifice our troops for democracy on the one hand, then sell out democracy so cheaply on the other hand when the almighty buck speaks. We are running a $201,000,000,000 annual trade deficit with China. That means every year, any disparity in world influence between the two countries decreases by twice that amount, half a trillion within the next year or two. And we rationalize it all with the notion that we'll have our cake and eat it too, that buying $30 DVD players from China is the best way to assure international goodwill and freedom for their people. When in fact the Soviet Union was defeated with precisely the opposite approach.

Rusty has it figured out. He fought the fights - and almost bowed out. But plucky SOMA survived and thrived. They are non-commercial, and have my 50 bucks, which is more than I can say for KQED!

SOMAs "bottom line" is not profit - it's loving what they do and listen to. Otherwise, there'd be no beloved "Secret Agent". You won't find that on XM!

link please. The pictures of hospitals from Iraq that I have seen show doctors treating patients with wounds. Killing doctors and people trying to help sounds pretty counter productive to winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Yes shooting all the ambulances will tactically win the battle if your statement about transporting weapons and hostiles is correct. After the battle it's those innocents that get killed that make you lose the war.

The murder of innocents because there is a chance you could be killing an enemy is a war crime as far as I'm concerned.

They say you aren't a real VC until you have lost at least 20 million dollars of your own money.

Except that most VCs don't actually lose their own money, and they get paid even when their investments are not successful. It's quite a racket. Although people tend to write bad things about you.

All the surveillance is worth it, because we've caught all the terrorists! I feel safer knowing we've got all those Qaeda evildoers. I'm finally satisfied that we've caught Osama in our dragnet. And the byproduct, catching all the drug mafia, has really cleaned up the streets - and our nation's veins. So we've made some Quakers paranoid - they live to quake, right? And, in an unexpected bonus, the Republicans won't be taken by surprise by any Democratic Party dirty tricks. If only we'd let Emperor Nixon protect us, in his wisdom, we'd have all the oil we want, and terrorists would never have attacked us.

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even tacitly take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears, and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus. And you've got to make it stop.

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even tacitly take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears, and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus. And you've got to make it stop.

I had no idea I was also "U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Chief Deputy Democratic Whip" (as referenced in the GGP post), I guess it was me on my U.S. Representative web site that compiled that list of quotes from the administration. Otherwise, if I wasn't also Jan, then I wouldn't have been "The only person making inferences...". Nevermind the fact that I am also obviously slashdot user "NMerriam (15122)", as it was s/he who made the original comment. Damn, I must be schizophrenic. Thanks for the info!

You have inferred that Bush is just about the worst person on earth

Actually, no. I have simply inferred (to you and you alone I guess, as it was not my original intent) the W "is just about the worst [president] on earth". It that case, I'd have to agree with myself (but which myself? the Jan myself, or the NMerriam myself? Fuck, this is confusing).

which you know isn't true

Actually, none of the me's are positive about that point.

and you can't offer any support for that argument

(Neverminding the fact that that was not *my* argument) You are so right, I offered absolutely no support for that argument what-so-ever. Silly me, I thought we were talking about W's (and HIS administrations) references to the Iraqi's footing part of the bill. I apologize. Excellent use of the NeoCon-ish-ness "demean your critics, divert the debate and ignore the issues", well played!

I have showed you concrete numbers, yet the OBVIOUSNESS of everything still isn't getting into your skull.

To paraphrase W (and yes, I lived in Texas) - "There's an old saying in Tennessee... well, it's an old saying in Texas, I believe also in Tennessee. Actions [pauses] speak louder then [pauses] government documentation on a National Development Strategy authored more then 2 years after the invasion was 'complete'". Shouldn't that have been done BEFORE the invasion? Or at least very soon there after? Or am I a "dick" to assume some leadership in a war that "we" "choose".
Have there been elections? Yes. Have they represented the population? Depends on if your a Sunni, Kurd or Shiite. We've killed 30,000 of them (W's numbers, not mine), is that considered progress? Guess that depends on if your PWT, KKK, or NeoCon.

You're not even a very smart liberal man, why bother?

I enjoy a bit of intellectual masturbation every once in a while. Besides, since I don't go to church, I don't have a clergy thinking for me, so I guess that makes me more dumber two.

Some guys can hold their ground, but I've reduced you to this? Sad.

Let's take score, shall we?

You referenced 1 document authored by the Republic of Iraq, Iraqi Strategic Review Board, Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation to support your position.

I referenced the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Associated Press/Ex-President Jimmy Carter, The Washington Post, CNN, San Francisco Gate, and U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky's website (which itself references NYT, Reuters, The Washington Post, House Budget Committee, Congressional Testimony, CNBC, White House Press Briefings, House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplem

Of course, the rebuilding effort was never a high priority for W.

Bush (and by this I mean Rove) is very, VERY good at inference. Sentences for "...9/11...", "...Al-Qaeda..." and "...Saddam..." being back to back in countless speeches. Did he ever *SAY* they were connected? No. Did he repeatedly infer that they were, absol-fucking-lutly! But that's not the same as catching him in a lie, now is it? No, no it is not.

Funny, but Clinton's Iraq approach seems to have been much more effective (in hindsight). There were no WMDs, now were there? Saddam was completely isolated and more or less starved of funds (save the Aussies and their oil-for-wheat scandal going on right now).

More then anything, Bush has been a divider. Half the country hates him, half loves to re-elect him. He has started the first global holy war in more then a century. He has swelled the ranks of terrorists. He has burned thru all of the global pro-American sediment we enjoyed in the days following 9/11. He has stressed that we do not have to follow the Geneva conventions!? Freedom of speech has been limited during his tenure. Check and balances have been avoided (some, like former president Carter say illegally) at his explicate direction. He has lied (or changed his criteria, if you want to spin it that way). He has spent nearly a trillion (that's with a 'T') more then his predecessor ($400+ billion surpluses turned into $400+ billion deficits). By the time he leaves office, he will have added more then 3 trillion to the national debt (and that's being generous, it'll probably be nearly 4, or just about double when he started).

Now, this is a bit unfair as he was at the helm while America suffered one of it's most high profile disasters, and more money would have been spent by anyone in the office at the time. But for a man who comes from a party that believes in small government and smaller government spending, he has done most certainly the opposite (but Halliburton is up 10 fold).

This part of American history will be looked back upon in the same way the McCarthy trials are, with a moral disgust and the question of how in the hell could that have been let to happen. We used to make fun of the Russians for "papers please" for travel within their own country, and were appalled that this African dictator or that Eastern European police state were violating the Geneva conventions, and said "that would NEVER happen here" when news reports told of countries who lock up their own citizens without trial and without charge. That was 1980-1990's America, yet in America 2k...

America has lost her way.

What you fail to see is a near-term future where the good intentions of the GPL are exploited and morphed into something that closely resembles non-free software.

Let me give you an example:
In the past, a national standard for labeling products "organic" was passed. It was a pretty strict definition and it got the FDA to codify organic.

Recently, nearly all of the growth in the food industry has come from "organic" products. So the non-organic industry starts modifying the rules and regulations so they can compete. Here's a very nice summary:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/05/22/MNGMT6QD0H1.DTL

The same idea applies 1-to-1 to OSS. Tivo's software is one example of how the OSS ideal was distorted. If RMS is not out there as an idealogical enforcer, then OSS becomes meaningless as soon as clever people exploit it some more.

If you don't agree with me on that point, I think it is easy to agree with this statement: Every cause needs a controversial figure to generate "buzz."

Yes. Although his estimate of $10,000 is a bit low, unless you're really trying to skimp on the electricity you use. If you look here, you'll see that manufacturers carry a typical warranty of 25 years. A warranty of such length implies a very long life. Experience confirms the long life of solar panels.

ROI for a solar system varies from less than 7 years in very sunny places to more than 30 years in northern climes (like Alaska). There are a number of factors that can affect this.

cheers.

I've seen a two of the cartoons (did some extensive googling days ago):

- one is a completely innocent depiction in typical cartoon style (think Newsweek cartoons or any other major newspaper political comment cartoon) of a line of smoking (as from having blown up) suicide bombers in front of the gates of heaven. A robed muslim (not necessarily Mohammed) is blocking their path saying something like "sorry we're out of virgins". Not exactly highbrow but nothing especially bad either compared to many ordinary political cartoons in arab media.

- the second I've seen I do understand that muslims will find offensive just like most israelis (and others) will find offensive any superimposition of swasticas on a star of David (and I'm sure you know that isn't exactly rare). It's a cartoon portrait of a muslim/arabic man with black beard and a black turban with a lighted fuse sticking out of it. That in itself shoudln't be too offensive but if you add the supposition that it's the prophet Mohammed (afaik that wasn't even alluded to by the publishers) it gets a bit worse. However what is really offensive (imo) is that on the turban there is an arabic caligrafic which is said to be (I don't read arabic so I'm not sure) the first pillar of Islam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahada) thus implying that when the fuse reaches the bomb the first pillar of Islam is destroyed. I see how that can be extremely offensive yet mostly of all imo because it has a certain truth to it: the "islamic" terrorism will, if not fought and conquered by muslims themselves, destroy Islam.

Almost all westeners finds something in the media that they (can) take offense at, just like the rest of us those who are muslim need to understand that freedom of speech implies the right to offend even if considered blasphemous to some religion and I think most of them actually do understand it (at least most of those living in the west).

SFGate had an article/blogentry with the second cartoon: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blog id=15&entry_id=2796 (didn't manage to find the other one again and there should be others as well -- I think Die Welt has printed them all in a recent issue and since that is a fairly large and wellknown german newspaper it might be available at your local library or university library).

As to how Mohammed looked nobody knows (the BBC link in my original post addresses this issue briefly). Yes, it makes the whole shebang even more absurd :)

--
this additional sig includes a portrait of Mohammed in support of freedom of expression, feel free to reproduce it

So who was calling it "Kama Sutra" ?

That would be the news media. You know, the all-knowing virus experts.

And all the non-tech people see this in the news and think it's a big deal. They keep calling asking if we are being hit by it. Gee, I don't know. It's been out since January 17 and our definitions have been updated about 15 times since then. You haven't been opening email attachments from people you don't know claiming to be sending you porn, have you? No? Then I think we're safe.

Come on people. Listen to those who know about what you are reporting. I had the same *&%$ happen a few weeks ago with the WMF flaw. Someone who thought they knew about security sent an email to everyone in the company telling them about a flaw that our systems were protected against anyway. This was after he sent a draft of the email to me to review to make sure he had the facts straight. I advised him to not send it at all. He sent it anyway. All this is just crying wolf. Some day there will be something we need people to be aware of and they will ignore us because of all the false alarms in the past.

>
> This only affects senders of bulk emails (mailing lists and spammers).
>
      Well, I work in a .edu IT department, and I know that our Admissions staff sends out lots of email to prospective students. You know, teen-agers at home on Mom & Dad's PC -- many of whom have a sub-account off their parents' AOL account.

        In early 2002, Harvard sent out acceptance letters via email, and "between 75 and 100" were blocked because harvard.edu wasn't on the AOL whitelist. See:
                http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2 002/01/02/BU166284.DTL&nl=biz

      So now all the colleges should pay AOL to send out their acceptance letters and other announcements (much less all the other stuff that our adminstration wants moved from paper mail to email, like grades, class rosters, payment confirmaityon, &c., in order to cut costs and improve delivery time)? *snort* If Slashdotters got mad when SBC wanted companies and consumers to pay for preferrential service, why doesn't this make them mad? Is it just that AOL is so déclassé? And how come no one thinks there could possibly be a legitimate use of bulk email besides mailing lists? Sheesh.

Or they could just point out what the Democrats have been doing to black Republicans.

I think that, and the social security video would pretty much sum it up for most voters.

stupid, pointless, and destabilizing ABM systems, bunker-busting nukes, etc, etc.

While this makes a good rant, Congress forbade the development of B-B nukes.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/ a/2005/11/28/MNGIKFV3FK1.DTL

"Ars Technica has an interesting look at scientific research and technology proposals included in Bush's State of the Union address."

No seriously, you call this flamebait, but if you look at rankings of the US education system, even within that system alone the falloff rate of whatever index is used is drastic. The handful of highest ranking schools is far better than next group.

Here's a 1998 ranking of western or western influenced nations. Look where the US is:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/1998/02/25/MN54903.DTL&type=printa ble

Granted it's old, but you're not paying attention if you believe the US is getting better not worse.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/13/national /main838207.shtml

If you're not convinced, come to the US and talk to a random person on the street. Ask them a question not related to television and football.

Heck, ask them where Tikrit is for that matter.

I dunno bout that. The fMRI gives you BOLD signal at sub-mm resolution over the entire brain. The near IR gives you one measure of brain activation. Somehow I think the fMRI would be more powerful. But I wonder why facial analysis is not used instead. First of all, it can be done with much less expensive equipment. Paul Ekman has conducted studies documenting how powerful this analysis is. Here is a link Basically, he looks at subjects facial muscles. Lying causes uncontrollable actions in some of the muscles. Ekman runs a company that consults for the FBI, CIA, and other law enforcement agencies, and that trains them to detect liars. How good is he? Well, a co-worker went in for one of his studies. It was simple. You are given a large group of topics. You pick 4. You are instructed to tell lies about two, and the truth about two. And, you are told to try to fool Ekman about which is which. I don't think a single person fooled Ekman, not even once.

fMRI is neat and cool right now, giving sub-mm spatial resolution and 1-2 second temporal resolution, but there are simpler solutions that cost much much less money.

in making purchases based on the lowest possible price. Sooner or later, it all catches up at once.

I agree. When you buy junk off ebay, you're bound to get ripped off sooner or later.

Put yet another way, if string/M- theory is not falsifiable then it is not making any predictions about reality and hence it is useless as a model to tell us anything. That's hardly the case.

No, that really IS the case from a lot of physicists' POVs.

One problem with the theory is that according one physicist's paper, string theory offers 10 to 500th power different universes all with different physical properties and with many different kinds of forces. String theory practioners -- dare I say worshippers -- use this to say that our universe is merely one out of 10 to the 500th power different possible universes. Some flakes, like Michio Kaku, think we can colonize a new universe through a wormhole with light-speed traveling single-atom nanobots containing the technological and cultural seeds of a new civilization to avoid the heat death of our own universe. (This article is why I'll never respect Michio Kaku's words ever again. How did this man ever get a reputation for understanding physics?)

Other physicists rightly point out that if they theory can handle an almost uncountable number of alternate universes with alternate sets of forces and physical constants, then it doesn't actually predict anything useful since you can't figure out how to predict anything about our own specific single universe has and that its not falsifiable because any new observations we find can be retrofitted into the theory by playing with and changing the math as has happened numerous times since the theory's inception.

Of course, string theory may be right. The philosophical problem is that many of our best minds are spending all their time on a theory that can't be proven or disproven with current technology. Some of the experiments needed to confirm or deny string theory will take super-colliders capable of generating energy on a scale far beyond even a type I civilizaions' resources (the theoretical energy densities needed to tear matter down to its component strings).

Since its practioners frequently disdain the necessity of experimental verification, since it's useless as a predictive tool, and since it can be retrofitted for any information that conflicts with it that we'll be able to achieve in the forseeable future, string theory is for all practical purposes nothing more than a math-based religion.

Put yet another way, if string/M- theory is not falsifiable then it is not making any predictions about reality and hence it is useless as a model to tell us anything. That's hardly the case.

No, that really IS the case from a lot of physicists' POVs.

One problem with the theory is that according one physicist's paper, string theory offers 10 to 500th power different universes all with different physical properties and with many different kinds of forces. String theory practioners -- dare I say worshippers -- use this to say that our universe is merely one out of 10 to the 500th power different possible universes. Some flakes, like Michio Kaku, think we can colonize a new universe through a wormhole with light-speed traveling single-atom nanobots containing the technological and cultural seeds of a new civilization to avoid the heat death of our own universe. (This article is why I'll never respect Michio Kaku's words ever again. How did this man ever get a reputation for understanding physics?)

Other physicists rightly point out that if they theory can handle an almost uncountable number of alternate universes with alternate sets of forces and physical constants, then it doesn't actually predict anything useful since you can't figure out how to predict anything about our own specific single universe has and that its not falsifiable because any new observations we find can be retrofitted into the theory by playing with and changing the math as has happened numerous times since the theory's inception.

Of course, string theory may be right. The philosophical problem is that many of our best minds are spending all their time on a theory that can't be proven or disproven with current technology. Some of the experiments needed to confirm or deny string theory will take super-colliders capable of generating energy on a scale far beyond even a type I civilizaions' resources (the theoretical energy densities needed to tear matter down to its component strings).

Since its practioners frequently disdain the necessity of experimental verification, since it's useless as a predictive tool, and since it can be retrofitted for any information that conflicts with it that we'll be able to achieve in the forseeable future, string theory is for all practical purposes nothing more than a math-based religion.

Joke all you want, but if you had a big enough group of people within earshot, you might actually find yourself getting a nasty letter asking for licensing fees. Unless you have rather deep pockets, it's extraordinarily unlikely that the ASCAP would bother going after you, but it is technically illegal if the group of people is large enough to qualify it as a public performance.

Ever wondered why you don't hear "Happy Birthday" being sung in most chain restaurants? It's because that song is copywritten and they would have to pay licensing fees for it. In the context of a restaurant, that's a public performance you just witnessed -- and that ain't free, no matter how bad the singing is.

It's not just commercial use that defines the border, either. Not too long ago there was a well-publicized case where the Girl Scouts were asked to pay licensing fees for singing campfire songs. (Seriously.) I personally have heard of a few cases of small, non-profit theater groups getting in trouble for the music they played in the background before shows and during intermission.

The story if you want it.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chroni cle/archive/2005/12/26/BUGLNGCO6C1.DTL&type=tech So far, Nintendo DS sales are better than Sony's PSP. The NPD Group, which tracks retail sales in the United States, estimates that Nintendo has sold 2.37 million units of its portable game player, to 2.16 million unit sales for Sony's PSP. Dated Monday, December 26, 2005. Did the PSP sell 200,000 units in five days? No. This article is mistaken.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chroni cle/archive/2005/12/26/BUGLNGCO6C1.DTL&type=tech

According to this source, it hasnt.

Here's another idea .. instead of USB drives, give each employee one of these to move their software to and from work. They're USB .. a little bit bigger than your standard jump drive, but smaller than most external HDs.

I'm surprised no one's made a Sandy Berger joke yet .. not even the closet conservatives.

Did you actually follow the links, or are you just bitching about the URL? Because, you know, they didn't write either of those. One is from the Washington Post, and one is from the Arizona Republic.

You posted four links, documenting gifts (skybox seats, plane tickets, and hotel fares) which you claimed Abramoff gave to Republicans, but not Democrats.

I responded and provided a number of links 1, 2, 3, 4) showing that every single item you mentioned had been given to Republicans and Democrats alike -- sometimes moreso to the latter than the former (you expressed outrage, for instance, that Tom DeLay got to sit in Abramoff's skybox, yet Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) got the skybox all to himself to hold a fundraiser in, and has yet to reimburse anyone for this gift).

Game over, man.

I personally like this industry, not for the content, but because I always get to play with the newest technological toys

I can relate myself:

ME: Would you like paper or plastic, ma'am?
CUSTOMER: Paper chaffes my skin, so gimme the plastic plz.
ME: Enjoy the Harry Potter NIMBUS 2000 Broom, and thankyou for shopping at Toys'R'Us

Oh!
My!
God!