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So this is as good a place as any in this thread to remind some of the difference between espionage and surveillance. The simplest way I've heard it explained is that surveillance tracks who you call and when you call them. Espionage, on the other hand, listens in on your conversations.

Whenever people say things to the effect of, "it's just meta-data," please explain this comparison to them and point out that meta-data is surveillance. It doesn't have to be full-on espionage to qualify as an invasion of privacy.

It's sad to see Microsoft has tied themselves so closely to the income stream they must be generating from the meta-data (aka metrics) Windows 10 collects. Whether it's from advertisers or surveillance agencies, I can't say, but to stick to their guns so intransigently in the face of such withering public criticism is an indication how much that income must mean to them... They're figuratively hoisting themselves with their own petard.

Sir Gates' latest comment simply confirms to me what I already believed.

There's a trick to it. First off, don't be in high school. Second, get a good copy of the play (you can find some online, me thinks). Third, get a summary guide of what's going on. Fourth, get a decent video recording of the play.

Let me rephrase that: get a video recording of a good version of the play. There will be a dozen different versions (up to and including modern 'interpretations'), and you need to fine one that strikes your fancy (I'd go with the one where you can make out what the actors are saying, and you don't doze off after five minutes).

Now, while you are watching the film, keep the laptop open, and mentally sync up with the summary. Here's one for Hamlet (http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/hamlet/One1.html). In a separate window, keep the actual text of the play open (again, here's Hamlet: http://nfs.sparknotes.com/haml...). Don't read the actual text while watching the film (you can, but it's more important to keep pace with the summary than the text). You can pause and rewind when trying to grasp some of the finer nuances of the actual text / plot as need be.

Fifth, go see the play in real life, and enjoy the inside jokes.

Thank you for that name, now I know I'm not crazy and have a starting point for further research.

>This makes no sense to me.
Okay - so we agree that the sun appears slightly "in front of" it's actual position, yes? And, from the perspective of an Earthbound observer that is a real phenomena - the photons are actually hitting the Earth from a direction other than directly sunward. Agreed?

Now imagine that, in addition to light, those photons carry a tiny bit of pull which will, on impact, pull the object in the direction they were coming from. And since the photons are not coming from the direction of the sun, the force they impart will not be directly toward the sun. That is to say their pull would be not towards the actual sun, but towards the apparent sun. To see the consequence we can decompose the force vector into radial and tangential components: The large radial component will keep the Earth going in circles, and the tiny tangential component will cause it to gradually orbit faster.

Now obviously the photons themselves aren't carrying gravity, but the mechanism I described is how we currently believe all other forces are transmitted, via what's known as force-carrier particles - when we discuss something like an electric field, what we're actually discussing is a region of space in which electrostatic force-carrier particles are flowing. If gravity were transmitted via force-carrier particles (gravitons) traveling at light speed then they'd be traveling right alongside the photons, and the acceleration would be the same as if it were the photons itself exerting the pull.

Does that make more sense?

You know, I've read this excuse a million times since Snowden did his thing, and I'm sick of it.

The problem is it's an abuse of language. Saying "Every country spies. It's one of those things governments are supposed to do" is nothing but rhetorical sleight of hand. The word spy conjures up cartoons of men in pork-pie hats and long raincoats following some traitor in a car. The word is loaded with cold war imagery. It reminds people of a time when there was an "us" vs a "them" and spying was a very small scale and targeted activity done against "them" or, at very least, those of "us" working for "them".

We need a new word to describe what's going on in todays world. Spying doesn't even come close to being the right word. How about totalitarian surveillance? But even that isn't strong enough to communicate the reality we are living in.

In today's reality there's no us vs them. There's no good vs evil, capitalism vs communism. There's just bureaucrats and their power, exercised over their own people as readily as over foreigners.

This is not only not "one of those things governments are supposed to do", it's often one of those things governments are expressly prohibited from doing by their own laws. And that's for good reasons!

Please, don't flatter the NSA by calling them spies. They aren't spies at this point. They are real life equivalents of O'Brien, the dedicated agent of totalitarian control in 1984. O'Brien is a far darker and scarier character than anyone who could be described as a spy.

I've been quoting Beck for years, even a broken clock twice a day and all that. There is one thing he said which i think needs to be carved onto the mountain and NEVER forgotten which is "You do NOT shred the constitution to "get the bad guys" as its the constitution that keeps us from becoming the bad guys". I'm sorry if some don't like the guy but on that point he is right, once you start throwing out the rule book to "get the bad guys" the definition of bad guy just keeps growing until YOU are the bad guy.

Funny, because literally the only quote I remember from "A Man for All Seasons" is the exact same thing:

"And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

(http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/amanforallseasons/quotes.html Quote #4)

I'm just waiting for Obama to ban books and for Mitch McConnell to rally up the Tea Party to create a group of Firemen.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/451/summary.html

Get down into every crevice and detail the scent of the dead Cyber Knight's Skull's Eye Socket, just in case some fool decides to "sniff" at it.

Orson Scott Card, is that you? (spoilers)

The most effective propaganda contains an element of reality. The "occupy" movement contained, necessarily a certain type of person, one who had the ability to camp out night after night. However I would argue that the concerns of the movement are wider and are shared by more than just people who can camp in a park for several weeks. I would in fact argue that the concerns of those in this movement have a provenance that goes farther back than the movement that occurred in the 1960's. I believe that the 1960's social movements were something of an isolated island in history. They didn't have much a heritage morally or ethically.

I suspect that something we share is a desire to make a future for our children where they can prosper, where they are free to pursue their dreams, where they can fulfill their potential. Those of a libertarian bent tend to believe that if you leave the individual to himself, he will make the best choices to maximize his well-being, and that larger structures have little business telling the individual what to do. In many ways, this is an appealing view, one that entails a great deal of freedom for the individual. I personally believe there is some truth in this idea. However, if you take it to far, I believe that it will lead to its opposite: less freedom.

We currently live in a three class society. The upper class, the middle class, and the lower class are the defining social structures of western civilization. I am a member of the middle class, and I suspect you are too. The middle class in our society is still the largest class, and in our democratic system it has most of the votes, and thus theoretically the most power. I think it is worthwhile examining the origin of this three class structure. In simple terms, it comes from the ancient Greeks. There is little doubt of this. I think Aristotle actually wrote something to the effect of "the best form of government is a constitutional government in which a strong middle class is firmly in control". Here is a discussion of Aristotle's ideas. The problem is that a three class society doesn't naturally appear. You have to actually try to create these three classes. Ancient Greek civilization had three classes, but the surrounding civilizations did not. In Persia, there were only two classes; the king was considered a god and his underlings formed un unchallengeable power structure. The same was true in Egypt, where the Pharaohs ruled. Europe during and immediately after the Dark Ages also consisted of two class societies. In Europe, the two class society was manifested in feudalism. In a feudalistic society, there were lords, who owned most of the land, and there were serfs who worked the land. If you were a serf, you had almost no power to change your fate. If you were a serf, your children were doomed to be serfs. No upward mobility to speak of. No real education. Little chance to fulfill your potential. On the whole, I don't think most of us would have liked being serfs. I don't think that most of us would enjoy living in a two class society, where the lot of most individuals is effective slavery.

What I worry about is that the laissez faire free market capitalist movement will move our civilization closer to a two class society. I believe that if we stop trying to maintain a strong middle class, then the middle class will decay. The average income of that middle class will approach that of the lower class, while the majority of the wealth will migrate upwards. There are many reasons to believe this, not least is comparison of ancient Greece with the civilizations surrounding it. I think that civilizations naturally tend towards being two class, unless actions are taken to create a middle class. And right now in America we are not taking actions to preserve the middle class. We are letting it decay. This decay is undeniable, and is in fact the root cause of both the "occupy" movement and

ATT. Standard Oil. At this point, you're just wallowing in your ignorance.

It's you who are showing ignorance. ATT was a government granted monopoly. Governments gave ATT exclusive rights-of-ways or easements. Standard oil was another matter, and was broken up by a Republican, Trustbuster Theodore Roosevelt. Standard Oil was about illegal use of a monopoly. Oddly though the breakup of Standard raised oil prices. That was in part because Standard Oil came to agreements with railroad companies like Florida East Coast Railway which was owned by Henry Morrison Flagler. And Flagler was a partner with John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil. Shipping costs for oil was lower for Standard than for other oil companies.

Did you knew that? I did, and unless you knew too, you're the ignorant one.

Falcon

The French Revolution, referenced above by couchslug, saw ~225,000 killed in 9 months of the Reign o'Terror, above and beyond the ~20,000 "aristocrats" killed with or w/o trial to kick it off. Yeah, I know, it's SparkNotes, but it's the first reference I could find.

Aristotle: The chicken came first. The chicken is an actual chicken, but an egg is only a potential chicken. http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/aristotle/section7.rhtml

The experiment

It's not detailed; I strongly urge you pick up a book on it, but this is partly what I'm talking about: The Gilded Age.

Lewis was a victim of a system called "fagging" in which the older, stronger boys at the school were not only permitted, but encouraged, to boss around the younger ones.

A Blood could corner a younger boy and make him do odd jobs - tea-making, boot-blacking, cleaning his sports kit or his study. This was called 'fagging' and Jack said it made his life miserable, coming as it did on top of a heavy load of schoolwork.

fagging, noun
-verb (used with object)
1. to tire or weary by labor; exhaust (often fol. by out): The long climb fagged us out.
2. British. to require (a younger public-school pupil) to do menial chores.
3. Nautical. to fray or unlay the end of (a rope).
-verb (used without object)
4. Chiefly British. to work until wearied; work hard: to fag away at French.
5. British Informal. to do menial chores for an older public-school pupil.
-noun
6. Slang. a cigarette.
7. a fag end, as of cloth.
8. a rough or defective spot in a woven fabric; blemish; flaw.
9. Chiefly British. drudgery; toil.
10. British Informal. a younger pupil in a British public school required to perform certain menial tasks for, and submit to the hazing of, an older pupil.
11. a drudge.

Wikipedia has a claim "Bullying and even sexual abuse were also sometimes associated with it" but I was unable to discern the origin of it, possibly the Encyclopædia Britannica which is listed as a source for the article.

Do you have any evidence other than the Lewis's use of the word "fagging" in describing his activities at school to substantiate your claim that he was a homosexual rapist? If it is solely that, it is insufficient evidence as it was not the primary meaning of the word.

I dunno, seems the Ron Paul supporters are always going on about wog dogs

They've got an interesting compatibility metric, and I think it's run by the sparktests guys. I'd double-check on that, but I'm already running late for class. In any case it's worth having a look.

I agree with you that it may be a desperate move; but, lets face it - this is nothing out of the ordinary. This sort of thing has been done time and time again. In order to protect its own market from cheap foreign knockoff souvenirs, they are enacting these regulations. USA does it on a daily basis.

Though, here is an amusing precedent for you. Look at the original Christian gospels; in Acts of the Apostles, Paul visits Ephesus so to try to convert the local heathens. The locals, who worship the (to us classical) Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses, don't reject Jesus and monotheism. They are just upset that by replacing their gods with a single God (and Jesus), the local silversmiths would lose out on their souvenir trade: selling statues of Diana. So religion and (nationalism) take back seat to economy.

Sources for the interested:
* http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/newtestament/section5.rhtml (look for 'trade')
* http://www.gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?passage=acts+19&search=&ver1=kjv (may need to look around for this Ephesus-trade section - I am a little rusty on the original)

You don't need to memorize the whole dictionary, though. Haven't you seen those "Top 500" lists that contains the 500 most-missed words? That combined with an otherwise average vocabulary is pretty much enough.

The reason geometry is better is that you don't need to memorize several thousand or even several hundred rules. You probably need less than 50 to do well in high-school level geometry. After 50 it's just applying them in the right sequence. The reason that's acceptable in the US is that in most states (all?) geometry is taken (or available to take) by every single high school student. Here in North Carolina it's a high school graduation requirement in all the local school systems. But how many school systems require a class with a high enough reading level requirement where all of these words would even be used, let alone understood by the average high schooler? Yes, you could approach it from the Greek and Latin root perspective, and that would make it much closer to geometry. However, again I haven't heard of a single class where that is the actual goal of the class, whereas the goal of a geometry class is exactly to solve a wide range of geometry problems.

I would applaud something like what you're talking about, but it would have to be done in an artificial, randomized language for it to be a puzzle and not a vocab test.

A plumber designing sex toys? Seems reasonable to me. Remember "Brave new world"? They had no sexy women, they had pneumatic woman.

In Lenina's case, the word is used by both Henry Foster and Benito Hoover to describe what she's like to have sex with. She herself remarks that her lovers usually find her "pneumatic," patting her legs as she does so. In reference to Lenina it means well-rounded, balloon-like, or bouncy, in reference to her flesh, and in particular her bosom. Huxley is not the only writer to use the word pneumatic in this sense, although it is an unusual usage. The use of this odd word to describe the physical characteristics of both a woman and a piece of furniture underscores the novel's theme that human sexuality has been degraded to the level of a commodity.

Source.

Well it could be the use of God in the scientific way meaning that all other particles come from this one particle. Or it could be using the term God as in the creator of all things which is pretty much the same as the first.

I'd guess it's the latter given how some physicists are actually not afraid to mention God in their research and theories. Although some physicists (Briane Greene for one) believe in evolution (and therefore by definition can't believe in a God and Creation) it seems there are others who still have some respect for what they are studying (even Einstein had respect for God).

I've taken the time to read the entire transcript of your hearing with Judge Jorgensen. I am both a lawyer and someone who is closely-connected to the judicial system (and thus, posting as an AC), so I know what I'm talking about.

I don't have the time or energy to go through the transcript and give you a point-by-point defense of the Judge's ruling, or to show you where your case was lacking. I also have no intention for you to take this as legal adivce. But I feel the need to comment on several things that you need to think about if you're going to keep doing this:

1. The Judge rightfully got irritated with you because, like most laypeople, you don't know the difference between fact and law and between testimony and argument. A trial has two phases: presentation of evidence, then argument. During the presentation of evidence phase, the judge doesn't want to hear *why* you think the law applies; she wants to hear facts -- what happened, to whom, when, etc. Presentation of evidence is done on a witness-by-witness basis -- you call your first witness (in your case, it should have been you), and you present all of the evidence that witness has to give. Then you call your next witness, and present all of the information *that* witness has to give, etc. You jumped between questionning Spies, offering your own testimony, and offering argument, the questionning Spies again. That jumbles the presentation of evidence, and annoys judges.

2. Your theory of the case was not well-presented. Again, laypeople often don't have the training to present a legal argument in an easy-to-digest manner. I've always thought that the best way to teach how to do it is to think of the old proofs you had to learn in Geometry -- i.e. these things. You want to prove that Joe Spies sent you an e-mail. To prove that conclusion, you have to break that down into separate pieces- (a) you received an e-mail; (b) the e-mail contained a remove link to FullServices.com; (c) I looked up FullService.com's registration; (d) the registration lists a phone number of XXX-XXX-XXXX; (d) I called that number, and someone answered; (e) I asked that person's name; (f) the person said "Joe Spies"; etc. (Note that each step in the chain refers to something that is proven in the step before it. That's a chain of logic -- it's how things get proved, in geometry, or in court, or anywhere.) Before you ever go into court, outline your case exactly like this, and when it comes time to put on proof or to summarize you proof in a closing argument, work through this outline.

3. Of course, having a great outline doesn't work if you don't understand what it proves. In the chain I mention above, you have not proven that Joe Spies sent you an e-mail. You've proved that you received an e-mail, that a website is mentioned in that e-mail, and that Joe Spies answers the phone at the registered phone number of that website. That's it. Someone might reasonably *infer* from these facts that Joe Spies sent you the e-mail, and a circumstantial inference can be enough to prove a case, but under these facts, the inference isn't very strong. You didn't track headers to show FullServices.com is the sender of the e-mail (and you probably can't -- it probably came from a bot, or broken relay). You assumed that FullServices.com conspired with the sender simply because it is listed in the e-mail, but that assumption isn't warranted. You don't account the possibility that FullServices.com is just an innocent company hired by a spammer to maintain a remove list. The only proof you had that FullServices.com was somehow involved was your phone call, which has its own problems. Without any other proof of FullSerivce.com's involvement in the sending, you didn't prove Spies violated the law.

5. The Judge properly refused your transcript of the call for several reasons. First, I haven't looked up the law in Washington, but if it requires both parties' c

This terrorist-hunter-killer robo-wasp reminds me of the firemen's "dog" from Fahrenheit 451. It had poisoned fangs and hunted someone down by the scent of their DNA.

...except if the intended victim, er terrorist got away they would send it after some random bystander in a poorly-lit area so they could show the "mission accomplished" kill scene on the evening news.

But that would never really happen, right?

(Of course, when I first read the book back in 1974 everyone thought there would never really be dog-sized hunter-killer robots.)

AHA! See? Gay marriage is going to RUIN CHEMISTRY!

Next thing you know every reaction will proceed via the "backside attack".

In order to see the humor in the parent posting one would have to have at a light understanding of the following topics:

1. What a "CTO" is in a business organinzation.

2. F.B.I.

3. The Department of Home Land Security.

4. "1984" by George Orwell, 1948.

5. "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli, c. 1505.

6. Soviet Communism.

7. "Ghost Dancers"; My humble conclusion of Islam's imperial direction.

As for the "potty" reference, no CTO does anything without consent from those in charge of the business. Basically, I think the CTO "fell on his sword" for his company. But any competent lawyer will see through this when considering a class action law suit against AOL.

In order to see the humor in the parent posting one would have to have at a light understanding of the following topics:

1. What a "CTO" is in a business organinzation.

2. F.B.I.

3. The Department of Home Land Security.

4. "1984" by George Orwell, 1948.

5. "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli, c. 1505.

6. Soviet Communism.

7. "Ghost Dancers"; My humble conclusion of Islam's imperial direction.

As for the "potty" reference, no CTO does anything without consent from those in charge of the business. Basically, I think the CTO "fell on his sword" for his company. But any competent lawyer will see through this when considering a class action law suit against AOL.

Take a look at SparkNotes, Barnes and Noble stock them http://www.sparknotes.com/sparkcharts/

Minor semantics difference

You mean the difference between "bred" and "fucked"? Rather a major semantic difference, especially in this context.

"Centralize breeding" was referring to the hatcheries in Brave New World; in the world of BNW, people did plenty of fucking, but none of it was supposed to produce children (fucking to make babies was what savages did). Children were produced artificially in hatcheries (I forget where the book said the eggs and sperm came from; the Sparknotes page for BNW says the eggs came from surgically-removed ovaries - the former owners of the ovaries were probably mostly happy to see them go, as it meant they didn't have to worry about getting pregnant), as an industrial process, making the right number of children in each category from Alphas to Epsilons.

Won't somebody think of the children?
Won't somebody think of the children???

Fitzpatrick and fellow Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, on Wednesday endorsed new legislation that would cordon off access to commercial Web sites that let users create public "Web pages or profiles" and also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service.

• PhysOrg Forum
  
• SparkNotes Math & Science Message Boards
  
• StudentDoc Medical Message Board
  
• AOL Domestic Abuse Support Message Board
  
• Scarleteen Sexual Abuse Support Message Board
  
• Etc...etc...etc...
  

We've all heard stories of children on some of these social websites meeting up with dangerous predators.

I know literary allusions aren't the stock and trade of CS people. Perhaps they should be.

PEA PICKERS WANTED IN CALIFORNIA. GOOD WAGES ALL SEASON. 800 PICKERS WANTED.

  Summary here.

Broaden your horizons. Read things beyond the ACM journals and Slashdot. You'll learn something.

> There to easy to crack

Sigh...there wolf. There castle. There an article you really, really need to read.

If you're going to get all Grammar Nazi, you should at least be correct. You have confused the rule for 'which' vs. 'that.' You are correct that the comma after crustacean is unnecessary (and the word itself doesn't need to be capitalized). However, what follows is a restrictive clause so you would use 'that.' 'Which' is almost always offest by commas, 'that' is not.

See here or here.

Maybe it is scarlet letter A for adultry. [grin]

Back in the Goodle Days, the battle was set for AC vs DC on the electricity grid. Thomas Edison backed DC, and Westinghouse backed AC.

AC won, and Westinghouse became rich and famous: http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/edison/section 6.rhtml

pro
more pro
con.

I'm "con" myself.

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene iv, lines 49-103 (Sparknote analysis)

I think we may both be right. Not sure which actually killed him, my impression was the blow to the crotch.

"Ender asks Bonzo not to hurt him in order to provoke an attack, and Bonzo jumps at him. Ender avoids the attack and hits Bonzo in the face with the top of his head. He has injured Bonzo and knows he might be able to walk away, but he does not want to have to fight the battle again. Ender realizes he must make Bonzo fear him enough never to fight him again. He knocks Bonzo to the ground and kicks him in the crotch, but Bonzo is motionless, and does not even respond."

--trb

I'm a Shakespeare fan myself, to each their own.

I enjoy figuring out what's going on in the "original" text, but I did try reading a page or two of these: http://www.sparknotes.com/nfs/ in B&N one day and I was very impressed. Instead of footnotes in tiny font in awkward places, these have Shakespeare on the left page and mondern english explanations (not bastardised translations) on the right page, very easy to flop back and forth to understand what's going on, or ignore it, or review without getting lost again.

Reading Shakespeare doesn't define 'literacy', but if you're interested in learning why he's been favored so long by so many, these seem a great place to start.

-mix

And while we're at it, the Catholics didn't burn witches in the dark ages; it was a heresy to even believe in them until the High Middle Ages, and it was the Protestants who made witch hunting an organized sport.

First, the high middle ages lasted from 1000-1200 or 1050-1400, depending on your source. Either way, they started just before the time period given by the GP.

Second, the most famous witch hunting manuel is the Malleus Maleficarum, written by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, on orders of the Pope Innocent VIII, a Catholic. The papal bull was issured on Dec. 9, 1484. The protestant reformation didn't kick off until 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his edicts to the door. There were earlier attempts, but none of them ignited like his did. Henry V, in 1419, prosecuted his stepmother, Joan of Navarre, for attempting to kill him via witchcraft. So, what we can see is that witches and witch hunting were in vogue before the protestants were around.

...and Bradbury's vision inches ever-closer...

• Physics Post: In the Belly of an Angry Giant.
• On the Structure of our Universe
• The Elegant Universe

Ugh -- sounds like
Flowers for Algernon
(see also the author's Web site).

I'm a high school senior and I would love to have software like this.

There are times in my high school calculus course where I would love to be able to see practical applications of the things I learn in class. Or get extra help on a difficult concept I didn't quite understand in class.

I've tried to use recouces like wikipedia, open course ware (though MIT is a bit out of my leauge), and Sparknotes; but, its hard to learn a concept without a good explanation and instruction.

In conclusion, software that could achually teach or at least tutor math would be a godsend to me and thousands of other confused math students.

P.S. Please don't complain to me about getting better math teachers - thats an issue you'd have to take up with the union. Also, bad students isn't always their fault.

To make good-looking machinima, you need both to direct and to do: that is, to script, conceptualise, build, design, light, animate, texture, audition, record, lipsync, direct, choreograph, programme, customise, optimise, and tweak like crazy - and then keep at it for months on end. And if that sounds like making a whole game or CG movie yourself, then you're starting to get the idea.

All the same, machinima quality (just as in films) is neither about engine pixel fill rates, nor coloured shadows, nor even about funky middleware - it's about having a vision, and the determination, imagination & resources to bring it to life. I say this because I and my "ragtag band of internet misfits" [(c)M.Rein] tried to do just this for the Unreal/PSOne cutscenes/game we were writing, and (all in all) I think we came pretty close... until Infogrames bought GT & pulled the plug on the whole development, nearly bankrupting me in the process. *sigh*

Remember, though Orson Welles undeniably had vision, determination & imagination, he also had a $500,000+ budget from RKO for Citizen Kane... and it still tanked at the box-office! :^o http://www.sparknotes.com/film/citizenkane/context .html

All of which is to say: although film-making can look easy in the classroom, it really isn't - and (for most people) machinima probably won't help make it significantly easier. Sorry to break the bad news, don't shoot the messenger, good luck with your sparkling career, etc. :^o

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

You might want to consider the gay test at Spark.com.

Just look it up on Wikipedia ;-)

Actually, I tried to Google it

http://www.google.de/search?hl=en&q=hamilton+1757+ &btnG=Google+Search
109,000 Hits

http://www.google.de/search?hl=en&q=hamilton+1755+ &btnG=Google+Search
138,000 Hits

Hmm, not particularly decisive

One of the hits
http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/hamilton/secti on1.html
Interestingly, the exact year of Alexander Hamilton's birth is unknown because historians have found two sets of birth records. One set claims Hamilton was born on January 11, 1755, while the other says he was born in 1757. Hamilton himself maintained that he was born in 1757.

Maybe the fuzziness in Wikipedia just reflects the fuzziness in what we know about history.

You can take it here. Free reg required.

This is just what Guy Montag needed to silence Denham's Dentifrice.

Intellectuals have always been against totalitarianism.

Just say "Orwell" and the book "1984" comes to mind. Say "Bradbury", and you'll remember "Farenheit 451". The threaten of an all-seeing arm of the law, made not to serve people but to make people servants of the law, has very well been studied. Either for captialism (Farenheit), or communism (1984).

In an era of cybernetics, intellectuals have been forced outside the law. But this is not new. They've already been called witches, communists, anarchists, pirates... hackers - and who knows tomorrow. Always a name-calling for those who threaten the Status quo. And it NEVER fails.

Sure, we all fear embarrassment and prison if somehow a man in black knocks at our door saying we downloaded music. But many times the system doesn't question: "Are we doing the right thing?"

Is it really that the RIAA are protecting the musicians' rights, or is it more that they're protecting their OWN income, leaving musicians in bankruptcy?

I often think of Javert from Les Miserables, when I see the RIAA or MPAA trying to use the Law to enslave the people that the Law was precisely supposed to protect (the citizens).

"It's the Law!!!" Javert says.
But WHOSE law, I ask?

Common people (whom I call "hobbits", always ignorant of their approaching doom, isolated in their comfy houses in the Shire) just get scandalized. "oh! Hacker! Oh! Law breaker! Oh, criminal!".

But they don't step to realize. What happens when a law does more harm than good? What happens when citizens are manipulated by a political puppet of the CIA to invade Iraq? What happens when people give away their freedom of choice, to the ones that were supposed to protect this very freedom?

I'm not an anarchist. I like the Law. I LOVE the law (Without law, another law would reign, and it's the law of the strongest).

But we all have to remember, that when the Law isn't protecting the citizens, it must be abolished. If it's not, then the governments are just making a recipe for disaster.

Remember what happened in the French Revolution. Had the government (i.e. the King) given his rights to a democracy, so much blood wouldn't have been shed in the name of "liberty, equality, fraternity".

So very well the RIAA, MPAA, and George Bush should remember these words that the world seems to have forgotten:

Vox Populi, Vox Dei.

Maybe I've just become immune to caffeine, but I do drink a lot of caffeine-containing drinks throughout the day,

I've never really noticed anyone else becoming hyper from caffeine either.

So I've been wondering if this is more a cultural expectation thing. In Britain it just doesn't seem to be discussed in the same way -- I've known people (including myself) complain of caffeine withdrawal symptoms -- evil headaches and suchlike

The standard indicators of an addictive substance (or behavior) are:

1. Compulsive use, even when knowing such behavior is known by the user to be detremental
2. Psycho-active effects. A measurable chemical change is made in the brain. With some substances the levels of dopamine can be regulated, which leads to.....
3. Reinforcement. The substance or behavior signals the user "man, that felt good. Do it again".
4. Withdrawal symptoms if the substance or behavior is not re-introduced periodically.

Yet often American sitcoms will refer to coffee in reference to making people hyper