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The first time around, it was the United States that started as a stealer of inventions from other countries, then over time became far more interested in protecting intellectual rights. When your own industry isn't generating the ideas, you figure anyone's ideas are fair game; when your industry is coming up with new ideas, you want to protect your position.

Either or both, but almost certainly one or the other. I would, however, put my money on the US. Read this story http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/09/the-point-of-no-return/8186 in The Atlantic for a discussion of some of the issues. The risk of a cyber attack are minimal vs. sending in the Israeli air force. Make no mistake- as they did in Iraq, Israel would not allow this facility to come online. I am certain the US is involved, with the help of one or several US computer security firms and maybe Microsoft itself, as well as Siemans. Notice that it was a Belarus computer security firm that found the worm- not a British, American or German one. (Or Japanese for that matter)

We should probably note here that the Wall Street Journal printed all kinds of denials from the Chinese. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704062804575509640345070222.html Me, I'm just annoyed that we can't get a real industrial policy together to support a rare earth metals industry in the US. Got annoyed enough to write a piece for The Atlantic about it: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/09/worried-about-chinas-monopoly-on-rare-elements-restart-american-production/63444/ One thing to watch out for on the rare earth metal tip is that the Department of Defense is releasing a report on their use for military purposes in the beginning of October. Will be interesting to see what they say.

One more thing just in the news that relates to my point the the problem with measurement is precisely that you get what you measure:
    "School for Hackers: The do-it-yourself movement revives learning by doing."
by Mark Frauenfelder
    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/10/school-for-hackers/8218
"When a kid builds a model rocket, or a kite, or a birdhouse, she not only picks up math, physics, and chemistry along the way, she also develops her creativity, resourcefulness, planning abilities, curiosity, and engagement with the world around her. But since these things can't be measured on a standardized test, schools no longer focus on them. As our public educational institutions continue down this grim road, they'll lose value as places of learning. That may seem like a shame, but to the members of the growing DIY schooling movement, it's an irresistible opportunity to roll up their sleeves. "

Also, with a five minute video about Mark Frauenfelder's journey into making more of his own stuff, including how when you make things yourself they have stories, and linking this to a change in our culture after WWII and losing an important part of human existence as tool makers and tool users:
"Boing Boing Co-Founder Mark Frauenfelder on Maker Education"
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/09/boing-boing-co-founder-mark-frauenfelder-on-maker-education/63017/

One more thing just in the news that relates to my point the the problem with measurement is precisely that you get what you measure:
    "School for Hackers: The do-it-yourself movement revives learning by doing."
by Mark Frauenfelder
    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/10/school-for-hackers/8218
"When a kid builds a model rocket, or a kite, or a birdhouse, she not only picks up math, physics, and chemistry along the way, she also develops her creativity, resourcefulness, planning abilities, curiosity, and engagement with the world around her. But since these things can't be measured on a standardized test, schools no longer focus on them. As our public educational institutions continue down this grim road, they'll lose value as places of learning. That may seem like a shame, but to the members of the growing DIY schooling movement, it's an irresistible opportunity to roll up their sleeves. "

Also, with a five minute video about Mark Frauenfelder's journey into making more of his own stuff, including how when you make things yourself they have stories, and linking this to a change in our culture after WWII and losing an important part of human existence as tool makers and tool users:
"Boing Boing Co-Founder Mark Frauenfelder on Maker Education"
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/09/boing-boing-co-founder-mark-frauenfelder-on-maker-education/63017/

technophobic crap along the lines of claims that cell phones cause bone/brain cancer

But this is (or at least was) a plausible theory, that had some preliminary research results in it's favor. Supposedly it's been shot down (I haven't looked closely enough to judge how well it was shot down), but that just makes it Wrong, it doesn't make it "technophobic crap".

What's actually interesting about that whole business is how little credence was given to the claims that it might actually be dangerous to hold a microwave transmitter right up against your head for long periods of time. The cell phone habit had already become entrenched, and no one wanted to hear about any problems with them. That in itself is kind of worrying: we're looking at an addictive technology here, with many actual problems (like, an estimate of thousands of traffic accidents a year from cellphone gabblers). But hey, The People Want It, our corporate masters are making money pushing them, you can't challenge it without being some weirdo luddite freak.

The possibility that, say, google searches are similarly addictive is an interesting thought... it's too bad this BBC article sucks as far as providing references to actual research. All you get is the fact that Nicolas Carr has a book out he wants you to buy.

This PBS interview makes it sound like he wrote a whole book about his private theory:

What we can I think theorize is that as we train our brains to take in information very, very quickly in a very interrupted, distracted way little bits of it come at us all the time, the way we experience it online that strengthens those parts of our brain that are good at multitasking and good at zipping up, shifting our focus very, very quickly. On the other hand we are not exercising those parts of our brain that are involved in deep concentration, deep attentiveness, things like contemplation and reflection.

Jonah Lehrer objects in a NY Times book review:

What Carr neglects to mention, however, is that the preponderance of scientific evidence suggests that the Internet and related technologies are actually good for the mind.

Carr's 2008 article in the Atlantic has at least a few research links in it: Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Actually, Nazi Germany at least had some principles, at least at the start. There's a lot of torture they wouldn't do, like waterboarding, at least not in any authorized manner. (And, no, they didn't look the other way. they were fascists, they cared if their soldiers followed their laws. At least until a ways into the war, when their citizenry stopped looking.)

It appears that Ken Cuccinelli is a partisan hack who's using his position as Attorney-General primarily to advance right-wing interests, and thus further his own political ambitions.

Last week he was going after abortion clinics.

This week it's Michael Mann.

I don't have any problem with this but I hope the simulation is realistic i.e as Taliban I want to be able to stone teenage girls to death, bury homosexuals alive, dynamite priceless historic monuments and beat people for listening to music. Are those options available?

Don't forget having carnal relations with a donkey (don't worry it's not the video). That'll show those hot coffee guys how it's done. Anyways, Taliban are bad, but they're not worse than Nazis, at least not in my book. If people are ok playing Nazis then the point is moot.

Why is it that you assume only FOX News spews propaganda?

Although the AC answered, for the record I am well aware that the research demonstrates that Murdoch's channels (much more than Fox, WSJ, Sky etc) are certainly not the only active and passive participants in blatant propaganda. Not to mention the echo chamber amplification of such rhetoric.

Thanks.

By the way, a bit unrelated, but on cars and oil, :-) here is a post by me on why luxury safer electric cars should be given out free to everyone in the USA in order to lower taxes (so, sometimes redesign of a magic bullet is cheaper: :-)
"Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

And that does not even take into account using the cars as part of a smart grid, or the possibility our electric and natural gas use might go *down* if we stopped refining oil into gasoline:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"

The question is, why did mainstream academics ignore or laugh at someone like Amory Lovins for so long?
http://www.oilendgame.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
"The book argues that U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy.[1] In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that these themes are still very current."

So, basically renewable have been *cheaper* than fossil fuels since the 1970s when you include all externalities (pollution, health consequences, military, risk), but those costs are not paid at the pump, but on your taxes, your health care bill, or paid by ongoing suffering or problems faced by future generations. But instead we have endless economists parading about for decades shouting at us that renewables (solar thermal, wind, geothermal) are too costly, when it turns out that is actually a total lie (it's like saying that not changing the oil in your car is cheaper because it costs $20 for an oil change and you don't need it *today* and your rich uncle will buy you a new car anyway if the engine dies in this one). Meanwhile, Portugal just does renewable energy anyway:
"Portugal Gives Itself a Clean-Energy Makeover"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/science/earth/10portugal.html
As does China:
"Our One-Party Democracy"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html
But I know of someone who said she helped design a totally solar house in NJ that got bought and bulldozed by an oil company decades ago...

Science and technology is shaped in large part by strong economic interests. A book about the politics of the telephone including how companies fought municipalities that wanted buried cables instead of telephone poles everywhere:
http://books.google.com/books?id=0yE-CP4SmlYC
A professor who writes about these sorts of things:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langdon_Winner
An essay in the Atlantic on "The Kept University":
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/03/press.htm

Still, the original article on Alzheimer's researchers cooperating bucks the trend, so I can hope for

And to be fair, it was never about keeping their slaves, but rather to protect states' rights to decide whether or not to allow slavery.

I hear that a lot (mostly from Southerners), but I don't think non-revisionist history really backs it up.

Slight tangent: an interesting article I read this morning that takes a crack at the idea that most Confederate soldiers weren't slaveowners.

as far as I can tell, slashdot got slashdotted too around now. maybe it's the pesky kids from before? (yes, it's offtopic)

True. As recent published research demonstrates: The WaPo, NYTimes, and LATimes all do not deserve our eyeballs (Warning: PDF Publications).

To support your point and build on it, see the knol I put together here:
"Beyond a Jobless Recovery: A heterodox perspective on 21st century economics"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery

It includes references to things like:
"The Market as God: Living in the new dispensation" by Harvey Cox (a professor of divinity at Harvard University)
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/99mar/marketgod.htm
"Expecting a terra incognita, I found myself instead in the land of déjà vu. The lexicon of The Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and Saint Augustine's City of God. Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption. But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies. "

The religious aspect of so much economic thinking is one reason arguments about it are so contentious.

These posts of mine lead to endless links about what is wrong with the current schooling system at all levels:
"[p2p-research] College Daze links (was Re: : FlossedBk, "Free/Libre and Open Source Solutions for Education")"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"[p2p-research] The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
"[p2p-research] Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

But key ideas can be found at these links:

      "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt
      http://www.disciplined-minds.com/

      "The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein, Vice Provost, Caltech
      http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

      "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream" by Noam Chomsky
      http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

      "University Secrets:Your Guide to Surviving a College Education" by
Robert D. Honigman
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060707100524/www.universitysecrets.com/us.htm
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060710145531/www.universitysecrets.com/table.htm

      "The Kept University"
      http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.htm

      "We're NOT Off to See the Wizard: REVISITING THE IDEA OF COLLEGE"
      http://unconventionalideas.wordpress.com/?s=wizard

      "The Underground History of American Education" by 1991 NYS Teacher of
the Year John Taylor Gatto
      http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

      "In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness " by Chris
Mercogliano, who spent thirty-five years teaching at the Albany Free School
      http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm

And there are many more I link to in the posts, but these are starting points.

It would take years to read through all the references I link to in the three posts (and it has. :-)

AERO is one place that catalogs most of the alternatives:
    http://www.educationrevolution.org/

Some ramblings I don's see an obvious place to put; they are only tangential to your comment. :-)

See also my other comment in this thread with some related "hard" sci-fi ideas that seem "magical" just now: exploiting a bug in the VM simulating us, building natotech/biotech, and/or tapping zero point energy:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1733076&cid=33042664

Has anyone mentioned Edward Fredkin yet, by the way?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Fredkin
"Fredkin's digital philosophy contains several fundamental ideas: Everything in physics and physical reality must have a digital informational representation. All changes in physical nature are consequences of digital informational processes. Nature is finite and digital. The traditional Judaeo-Christian concept of the soul has a counterpart in a static/dynamic soul defined in terms of digital philosophy."

And an article about Fredkin (taken from the book "Three Scientists and their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information" that the late Jim Beniger, a professor of mine, got me as a promo copy back in the 1980s, so thoughtful of him to suggest me for one, and it is a great book, and I especially liked the section on Fredkin):
"Did the Universe Just Happen?"
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/88apr/wright.htm
"In addition to being a self-made millionaire, Fredkin is a self-made intellectual. Twenty years ago, at the age of thirty-four, without so much as a bachelor's degree to his name, he became a full professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Though hired to teach computer science, and then selected to guide MIT's now eminent computer-science laboratory through some of its formative years, he soon branched out into more-offbeat things. Perhaps the most idiosyncratic of the courses he has taught is one on "digital physics," in which he propounded the most idiosyncratic of his several idiosyncratic theories. This theory is the reason I've come to Fredkin's island. It is one of those things that a person has to be prepared for. The preparer has to say, "Now, this is going to sound pretty weird, and in a way it is, but in a way it's not as weird as it sounds, and you'll see this once you understand it, but that may take a while, so in the meantime don't prejudge it, and don't casually dismiss it." Ed Fredkin thinks that the universe is a computer. "

Sounds like quite a guy. It would be fun to chat with him someday. This was way before the Matrix. When the Matrix came out, I was like, that's the kind of idea I'd been thinking about for some time (inspired by several sources, including Fredkin) and it was nice to finally see it in the public consciousness in a big way.

Guess it would be good to cross-link this comment thread somehow to the recent slashdot article on computer game designers burning out from overwork (and I think lack of vitamin D and lack of healthy whole foods).
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1731650&cid=33026262

So, were the "planet builders" of "digital physical universes" burned out from overwork and ill from an unhealthy lifestyle. Is that where the "bugs" came from? Or just the general philosophical problems we wrestle with from a poorly though trough plot line? ;-) Or, is it all just sublime and wonderful beyond our knowing?

A comment I made on the "game design" we are stuck in:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/a-rant-on-financial-obesity-and-Project-Virgle.html
"... I agree with the sentiment of the Einstein quote [That we should approach the

(Completely ignoring the fact that Lovins claimed in the 80s we really wouldn't need more power. A claim that disregarded the modernization of much of the world. His "negawatts" of efficiency never materialized and were likely unachieveable.)

You haven't provided a cite or quote for that 80's stuff. But if you read about California's efforts at increasing energy efficiency:

A few years ago, the California Energy Commission calculated that the state’s efficiency efforts had preempted the need for 24 large-scale power plants and saved state consumers $56 billion.

Rosenfeld says the past generation’s gains indicate the state can improve its energy intensity (the amount of energy required to produce each dollar of GDP) by about 30 percent every decade. “Efficiency,” he says with a twinkle, “seems to be a renewable resource.”

Efficiency (aka conservation) wiped out 24 new plants.

You say:
[...]

We have here the asymmetry of one side being able to link to a prepared PDF from RMI, and I have to chase down chains of articles in order to find out just what he's claiming these days. One could make a career out of that.

You can lead a horse to water...

Especially The NYT, WashPost, and LATimes all do not deserve our eyeballs. Young journalists, do yourselves a favor... and go elsewhere.

And don't even begin about smugness, because Americans are the worst of all... Thinking they are the greatest, and this the United Planet of America. We see those dumbasses on TV all the time saying "USA is the greatest most free-est place on earth. I've never even been abroad because all other countries suck. Whooo USA!". Fuck, you don't even know what freedom is.

Actually, most Americans don't think this, but go ahead & caricature if it helps you feel right.

Is it possible yet to filter out Slashdot stories sourced from certain press channels? That would be a great feature - I'd like to vote my disapproval for these kinds of dismal journalistic practices by filtering _any_ stories based on these rotten apples as a source.

Correct. Data.

Thanks for the comments. I would agree with you that there is no upper limit as to what people would do -- the real issue is how they do it and what social arrangement surround that. For example, when someone plants a Redwood tree seed, how much work are they really doing to produce a huge tree? The tree grows on its own if the conditions are right (granted, it might be more likely to grow with some occasional tending). Our technology as it incorporates robotics and AI will be more like that -- so we'll see things like self-replicating space habitats that can duplicate themselves from asteroidal ore and sunlight, same like a Redwood, but the total human intervention required may be minimal (relative to the total outcome in terms of providing living space for millions of humans -- so such a project might preoccupy thousands of people, but with their output amplified so much by technology that the total human labor is a trivial percentage). Our scarcity economics may work OK when humans face the dilemma of work hard as a wage slave or slowly starve, but that economic logic breaks down when the choice is work hard as a slave for someone else for a little bit more or work for yourself and your friends and family and still have a good life. Some people will still choose wage slavery perhaps (ambitious people? stupid ones? addicted ones? desperate ones? materialistic ones? etc.), but I'd suggest more and more people would not and would look for more joyful ways to spend their time. So, we need alternative social arrangements as robotics becomes more and more capable (like this video shows).

There are exceptions even now though. A lot of people at Microsoft or Google were or are millionaires (thorough stock appreciation) and do not have to "work" to have a modest lifestyle; so you would be right to point to examples of that, where people work because they want to change the world somehow (or to have a more profligate use of resources). Human social dynamics, as James P. Hogan suggests, leaves most young people adapted to want to show off somehow to attract a good mate, and showing off materially has been long ingrained in our culture (including buying trophy wives for older guys, or the whole "cougar" thing now in the other direction).

Of course, "men" are already under the gun in our society:
"The End of Men"
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/
As are families:
"The Two-Income Trap"
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/two-income-trap
Robotics just add to other ongoing social trends...

Still, I'd suggest, the dynamics of how society is arranged (and what relationships women prefer and why) would change somewhat if essentially everyone in the society felt like a millionaire through something like a basic income or other fundamental change, as I wrote here:
"Basic income from a millionaire's perspective?"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html
"Essentially, with a break in the link between having a job and having a right to consume at a moderate level, workplaces could be organized however they wanted. And potential employees would just vote with their feet about where they wanted to work to make the most money, have the most fun during the day, or do the most good for society as they saw it. While it is true that many unpleasant jobs would no longer find low wage workers to do them, for those jobs, either wages would go up, or they would be automated or redesigned out of existence, for example, like with some towns that have garbage trucks with robot arms to pick up curbside standard garbage cans. So, overall, most of the jobs that remained would be ones that people

"They're looking in the wrong place!" Indiana Jones

One of our competitive advantages is our ability to innovate. Chinese cultural and business practices tend to stamp out innovation. Grading applicants by IQ is an example of this.

Having more than the minimum qualifications for a job is no advantage and can be a disadvantage. People with high IQ or with advanced degrees do no better than those who just squeaked through their BSc.

I've read a bunch of papers that examine the correlation between job success and IQ or education. There is no correlation. The only predictor of success is interpersonal relationships. The guys hanging around the water cooler almost always did better than the genius with his nose stuck to the grindstone.

The latest writing to get me excited is an article about the Harvard Longitudinal Study of Adult Development and its current head, George Vaillant, in The Atlantic. link

The study started in the 1940s with a group of Harvard students and still follows their lives. Vaillant has looked at the (very extensive) data from every angle. He is very clear that the only predictor of job status, satisfaction, marital status, wealth, social status or almost anything else, is relationships. IQ is no predictor of success.

It makes me very happy to hear that the Chinese are insisting on high IQs. That means they aren't taking the best employees away from America.

Not that there weren't other causes, but well-intentioned government mucking about with mortgages was an undeniable factor. See also this.

The Mineral Miracle? Or a Massive Information Operation?.

i've heard this tired argument time and time again, painting mining companies as the devil who sneaks in and steals the wealth and gives nothing back.

This article from the Atlantic would beg to differ. Basically, the benefits to the economy are extremely short-lived for the populace, with all long-term possible gain from the natural resources going to the mining companies.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/05/the-next-empire/8018/

Capitalism requires NOTHING of the kind.

How did that retort get moderated insightful? It's far more clueless than the post he's responding to, which as least has its heart in the right place. Every second podcast at Econtalk has a long seventh inning stretch on a Hayekian view of capitalism cut _exactly_ from this mold.

If you're taking the grand view of what capitalism requires, small government is not on the list. Twenty years ago it used to be said that Russians understood capitalism better than Americans, because they could actually define it, and list the institutions it entails (in a negative light).

These days no one actively debates the grand view of capitalism. The active debate is about capitalism as a mainspring of wealth creation and the role of government to A) abet or B) hinder the golden goose. In the blue trunks: free market fundamentalism. In the red trunks: liberal society and justice for all.

Its a dearly held tenant of the invisible-hand contingent that markets are able to solve allocation problems though the pricing system that a centralized system could never properly manage, because the required information can't be collected at a central point, unless one waves a magic wand to approximate the utility function of people not present to speak for themselves. That kind of sucks.

It was Stiglitz who showed that the magical ability of markets to solve allocation problems through the price mechanism breaks down under conditions of asymmetrical information. *If* you have price transparency (and a few other things) markets can do an excellent job where government can't.

What you end up with is a system where the vigorous new enterprise favours price transparency (which permits greater economic mobility) while the incumbent corporations do everything in their power to debase price transparency (telecoms industry, media industry, to name just a few).

I don't trust the views of anyone who doesn't think that information transparency leads to a more effective and vigorous market economy. But then I believe that wealth should be earned rather than squatted upon. I know, it's a radical idea.

I was reading some commentary on the media business, including How to Save the News which is interesting, but didn't impress me. One of the articles mentioned Bertrand competition, which suggests that in the absence of product differentiation, the product will end up selling at marginal production cost. (I'm not an economist, so sue me if I didn't get that phrase quite right.)

The Atlantic article goes on an on without mentioning the core point: why do people volunteer themselves to have their purchasing preferences manipulated by visual images in the first place? If ad revenue represents 80% of a newspaper's income, how does the effect the nature of the story reported? Is it to inform the reader, or to create a warm context for associated display ads? The theory of advertising impressions is that you get the viewer into a receptive emotional state, and then burn your image into the viewers amygdala while under the influence of the warm glow. Hence all the Superbowl ads, which are beamed at men awash in vicarious sexual potency. Not such a good model for funding an insightful report on genocide in Somalia.

I'm all for a world with far greater price transparency. It would weed out many of the people who wish to live fat lifestyles without ever creating much of value. Opportunities for value creation have never been better. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing more of the carpet baggers bagging carpets until they change their ways.

I think a marketplace which maximizes informed choice on *both* sides of every transactions could work small economic miracles. Big business believes in such a market until they don't. Big business believes in small government until they require a big bailout. This is just wealthy peopl

Whoever was on the other end of the line was apparently trying to calm Harrell down. "I am fucking calm," he went on, according to Buzbee. "You realize the rig is burning?"

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/06/the-rigs-on-fire-i-told-you-this-was-gonna-happen/57775/

"When will China emerge as a military threat to the U.S.? In most respects the answer is: not anytime soon -- China doesn't even contemplate a time it might challenge America directly. But one significant threat already exists: cyberwar. Attacks -- not just from China but from Russia and elsewhere -- on America's electronic networks cost millions of dollars and could in the extreme cause the collapse of financial life, the halt of most manufacturing systems, and the evaporation of all the data and knowledge stored on the Internet."

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/cyber-warriors/7917/

People are willing to pay for the paper edition because it gives them several benefits over the same content on a website edition. The biggest is convenience: you can take the content with you and read it where ever you happen to be.

You've made some good points, but I'd offer the following: I continue to subscribe to newspapers, periodicals and magazines for a number of reasons, none of which include convenience.

• Whatever it is I intend on reading, I can either read page by page, cover to cover, or skim the entire thing and be able to tell you exactly what's in that issue. With a website, pages are cross-linked to each other in an unholy, incestuous and distracting mess the rules of which are based partly in a misplaced effort at offering convenience, partly to pimp features (typically slideshows or useless video clips), but mostly to generate advertising dollars.
• To expand on the above, no one knows what's in today's "web edition" of the New York Times. It's hardly unusual in a print edition for the day's more important article to be buried on an inside page below the fold. You'll never find it on the web without extraordinary effort and patience. And then, of course, there's those serendipitous discoveries that happen only where there's pages to turn (the most relevant tech news is often found in the Business section, and who the hell reads that, right?). Either way, if you don't think it's important to know what's in "today's paper", you're not part of the discussion; you're just a uninformed (by choice) bystander in the crowd making noise.
• Can you say typography? Websites are, compared to print, ugly to look at and ugly to read.
• Computer monitors are wonderful for displaying things, but they're antithetical to reading. Don't kid yourself you're doing any serious reading if you can't get through at least half of this article, for example, before you start to fidget, try unsuccessfully and repeatedly to sit back, and give up in frustration.
• My newspapers are delivered in the morning. My dog and I enjoy walking to the end of the driveway to pick them up, just as I enjoy reading them in a comfy chair with my morning coffee. My magazines are similarly read at my leisure, but in the evening, and in another equally comfortable chair. You can't replicate those experiences with computer equipment.
• Oh, yeah, Google Makes You Stupid and hyperlinks are a distraction. So much for the premise (and the promise) of the world wide web. At least with respect to reading.

It's certainly possible that a Kindle-like device may revolutionise reading in general, and the newspaper/magazine industry specifically (publishers are certainly hoping it does). But until that happens, I'll continue to pay for print subscriptions .. and bemoan the downward spiral of things.

People are willing to pay for the paper edition because it gives them several benefits over the same content on a website edition. The biggest is convenience: you can take the content with you and read it where ever you happen to be.

You've made some good points, but I'd offer the following: I continue to subscribe to newspapers, periodicals and magazines for a number of reasons, none of which include convenience.

• Whatever it is I intend on reading, I can either read page by page, cover to cover, or skim the entire thing and be able to tell you exactly what's in that issue. With a website, pages are cross-linked to each other in an unholy, incestuous and distracting mess the rules of which are based partly in a misplaced effort at offering convenience, partly to pimp features (typically slideshows or useless video clips), but mostly to generate advertising dollars.
• To expand on the above, no one knows what's in today's "web edition" of the New York Times. It's hardly unusual in a print edition for the day's more important article to be buried on an inside page below the fold. You'll never find it on the web without extraordinary effort and patience. And then, of course, there's those serendipitous discoveries that happen only where there's pages to turn (the most relevant tech news is often found in the Business section, and who the hell reads that, right?). Either way, if you don't think it's important to know what's in "today's paper", you're not part of the discussion; you're just a uninformed (by choice) bystander in the crowd making noise.
• Can you say typography? Websites are, compared to print, ugly to look at and ugly to read.
• Computer monitors are wonderful for displaying things, but they're antithetical to reading. Don't kid yourself you're doing any serious reading if you can't get through at least half of this article, for example, before you start to fidget, try unsuccessfully and repeatedly to sit back, and give up in frustration.
• My newspapers are delivered in the morning. My dog and I enjoy walking to the end of the driveway to pick them up, just as I enjoy reading them in a comfy chair with my morning coffee. My magazines are similarly read at my leisure, but in the evening, and in another equally comfortable chair. You can't replicate those experiences with computer equipment.
• Oh, yeah, Google Makes You Stupid and hyperlinks are a distraction. So much for the premise (and the promise) of the world wide web. At least with respect to reading.

It's certainly possible that a Kindle-like device may revolutionise reading in general, and the newspaper/magazine industry specifically (publishers are certainly hoping it does). But until that happens, I'll continue to pay for print subscriptions .. and bemoan the downward spiral of things.

One of the early successes of this scheme was the use of gamma ray imaging to find the state of the stuck valve. That was suggested by Secretary Chu himself (he is a Nobel laureate experimental physicist and knows a thing or two about gamma rays). The BP guys said it wouldn't work, but did it anyway and it worked. I think I'd be sending NASA folks rather than nuke folks but it's clear there are smart nerds in the government with something to contribute.

The article about the gamma ray operation on The Atlantic.

If Kagan is confirmed to the Supreme Court, then her replacement will likely be a former RIAA litigator. I don't actually hold that against him, though, only his work on state secrets.

Personally, I am not overly concerned about Kagan's fair-use views, whatever they may be (ultimately I think that problem will and should have a legislative solution), but I think there is a snowball's chance in hell that she will be as or more liberal than Stevens on executive power. Until being appointed Solicitor General, she had no qualification to sit on the Supreme Court, so one might almost wonder if Obama appointed her to the position so he could nominate her to the Court. But why would he go to all that trouble to pick someone who will toss out all of his own national security policies? The arguments Kagan advances in court aren't necessarily her own, but if taking a harder line than Bush on state secrets and executive power really bothered her, she could have resigned.

Those issues aside, it is ridiculous that everyone is reading the tea leaves and slaughtering chickens in an attempt to determine Kagan's actual positions (on Fair Use or anything else), and making cases that it is impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt (or perhaps with a preponderance of evidence?) that she is not actually liberal, etc. There is a presumption of innocence, but arguing for a presumption of liberalism strains credibility. Instead of arguing that Kagan might be (is probably) liberal (or in favor of personal freedom, civil liberties, checks on executive power, etc.), people should be asking why the nominee is not someone about whom there is no doubt. The only reason is that this is how Obama wants it to be. If not people in general, then at least Slashdotters should take this position, since (aside from all of the drug-warriors who have crawled out of the woodwork for this thread) I think the bulk of Slashdot readership believes in personal freedom, not in, say, executive assassination of American citizens, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention of American persons without judicial review, or an unlimited state secrets privilege and effective government immunity from any legal challenge. Compared to those issues, fair use is irrelevant. Congress could overthrow the Supreme Court's rulings in that area with more legislation anyway.

This summary (and article) is retarded, anyway, because as the writer admits, "Not a whole lot is known about Kagan's judicial philosophy." This alleged "nervousness" is based on Kagan's hiring of Lawrence Lessig, her close personal friend, while Dean of Harvard Law School. She also famously presided over the hiring of many conservative/Republican professors and admires Justice Scalia, so to claim that hiring Lessig reveals her stance on copyright is a dubious argument at best. Everyone has as much right as Hollywood to be nervous about her Fair Use views, since there is no way to tell what they actually are. How about her judicial philosophy? The precedent there is her work as Solicitor General, which would not hearten anyone except authoritarians (but really does not definitely reveal anything).

Finally, let us examine the theory that Kagan is (secretly) sympathetic to fourteenth amendment "equal protection" arguments for same-sex marriage. The primary argument in favor of this is that she might be a deeply closeted lesbian. Wow. The Whitehouse categorically denied that she is a lesbian (!), but what if she were? We know that all the recent examples of outed, formerly deeply closeted gay politicians (Republicans) have made their names as great defenders of gay rights (Defense of Marriage Act, etc.). The only real evidence one way or the other is her confirmati

while this kid will likely serve time. Yes, it's *that* O'Keefe of fake pimp ACORN "sting" infamy.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/01/fbi-arrests-james-okeefe-at-landrieus-office/34243/

O'Keefe et al entered a US Senator's office disguised as telephone repair men to tamper with the phone system. One accomplice is the son of a US attorney in Louisiana. All 4 were arrested by the FBI. All 4 skated.

"Justice" in these cases seems to depend quite heavily on whose political party your father belongs to.

Not sure why the parent post gets modded as a troll. It's a very relevant point. Everyone seemed to be in favor of throwing the book at the guy that got into Palin's account (I can't call it hacking because it wasn't), but these guys try to tap a Senator's office phones and get off with a slap on the wrist?

while this kid will likely serve time. Yes, it's *that* O'Keefe of fake pimp ACORN "sting" infamy.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/01/fbi-arrests-james-okeefe-at-landrieus-office/34243/

O'Keefe et al entered a US Senator's office disguised as telephone repair men to tamper with the phone system. One accomplice is the son of a US attorney in Louisiana. All 4 were arrested by the FBI. All 4 skated.

"Justice" in these cases seems to depend quite heavily on whose political party your father belongs to.

Actually there are scientists that have proposed exactly that. They want to pump sulfur compounds into the atmosphere, including. When I heard this, also on NPR, I wanted to scream, "What about acid rain you stupid fuckers!?" Of course the cost/benefit ratio is presented as favorable... in terms of percentage of GDP v. possible projected cost of dealing with property damage. There was no mention of ecology, public health or economic harm from acidification of the oceans or fresh water systems.

Listening to NPR has become an exercise in tedium at times. It's not as bad as listening to the fat, bald, 'recovering' drug addict that the Tea Baggers wanted to install as the titular head of the Republican party, but sometimes it's close.

The FBI already did this to another guy.

They smeared and squeezed Steven Hatfill for several years. Ashcroft accused him publicly. They shadowed him 24-7. He lost all work and most friends. He is innocent.

The only reason he didn't commit suicide from the harassment was that, "If I would've killed myself, I would've been automatically judged by the press and the FBI to be guilty."

Don't take my word for it, read it here.

The Atlantic magazine just published a really eye-opening article on Steven Hatfill, the FBI's first suspect. It is very clear from the article that the FBI was hell-bent on finding a perpetrator of the crime even in the absence of any solid evidence. It's an interesting and frightening read about how the FBI could completely destroy your job, your friends, your day-to-day life, and your family if they falsely accuse you of a crime.

The Atlantic has a really interesting article about the FBI's multi-year investigation of Stephen Hatfill for the same crime.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/04/the-wrong-man/8019

One thing is clear: the country has some profound problems at the moment. And I'm not convinced this plan will solve them.

Actually, many of the major players in developing America's public education system had very positive views of the Prussian system. It's why schools are set up (probably by accident) to promote an emotional dependence on approval from authority. 10 years of training to speak only when permitted, of being told by a teacher whether you're right or wrong, of obeying even when authority is wrong or evil? Compare the Japanese high schools- not that they're necessarily better, 'cause guess where they got the school uniform design from? (hint; rhymes with Russian) But their classrooms are more likely to seek consensus among the students than hand it down from the teacher. They have to work together. Not that it's better, necessarily, but the form of the classroom reflects and reshapes the culture that passes through it.

GP does sound like a nut, but to put it a different way, good citizens are ones who don't revolt, who like authority, and coincidentally who are easy to lie to. I think the first one's the result of design, and the other two are unhappy accidents. Teaching critical thinking is difficult, but teaching students to learn for themselves is, on the whole, a lot easier than spoon-feeding them everything; we spoon-feed them because the system is built to do so.

Easily readable source, though there are some books that go into much more detail on the whole subject; The Atlantic Magazine. A more radical take available here.

What do you consider limited-term? 3 months? 6 months?

How about over 2 years?

Robots, AI, better design, and limited demand are probably going to take your job eventually; see Marshall Brain's "Manna" story for what it might look like:
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

You can worship the "free market" abstraction all you want, and by extension the big companies that dominate it,
"The Market as God: Living in the new dispensation"
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/99mar/marketgod.htm
but enlightened self-interest (let alone morality) suggests you should be more on the side of the humans than an abstract concept about exchange, one that ignores externalities as well as the negative side of the concentration of wealth by using huge immortal amoral corporations that would treat any human like a piece of discardable machinery if it is profitable.

With a 21st century technosphere capable of producing so much abundance for all, for humanity to survive, we need fundamental change in our basic economic paradigms like a basic income (which works with the market but is a human right saying everyone has a right to some fruits of the industrial commons),
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
Or going further, we need some mix of a basic income and a gift economy, improved local subsistence, making work into play, resource based planning, and other things...

Something related I helped organize:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery

By the way, if we moved to a basic income (a check from the government that is enough to live on each month, with no means test, funded by taxes or some other means), then it might be justified to do away with some of those other employee protections you decry, because engineers would have the freedom to say "No" and walk away. That might do a lot more to make the US competitive than the race to the bottom for US engineers that you propose.
"Freedom as the Power to Say No"
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/pdf/2004Widerquist.pdf

China will be where the US is soon enough (twenty years?), with a jobless recovery with economic growth but no new jobs, as China's productivity per worker continues to grow and then demand gets saturated when people there realize there is a law of diminishing returns to more goods and services (especially as people move up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to want to do more of their own self-directed stuff). What then?

The best things in life are cheap or free, and if they were not, what kind of world would that be anyway? Someday the Chinese will realize that, hopefully before they finish trashing their environment. At least there is some good news about improvement on Chinese environmental policy lately, so I can hope the Chinese are moving up that curve...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_of_China

By the way, as for why all those US worker protections are so important in the "free market", try reading "The China Price".
http://thechinaprice.org/home.html
"The book exposes a system of unregistered factories that cut corners on safety and working conditions to meet multinational companies' demands for ever-lower prices. It documents how China's export manufacturing industry allows millions of workers to move slowly out of poverty - even as they pay a price in terms of their own health. How the country's coal mining sector continues to thrive - even as it produces a stunning 70 percent of the world's coal mining deaths. And how a growing number of younger wo

That may seem ok, but consider this:

Few trespasses and usurpations are as flagrant as this. Watch this one carefully.

McCain is now broadening the term of "enemy combatant" to "enemy belligerent" which includes U.S. Citizens. Legally speaking, they couldn't be father a part right now, but due to a phonetic relationship, the two are being bridged. Right now I am a citizen and cannot be held indefinitely. I have a right to speedy a trial. But if the government chooses to label me as a "enemy belligerent" I can be held indefinitely and subject to torture.

"An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the
  law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities."

"(B) has purposely and materially supported hostilities against the United States or 3 its coalition partners"

I can't see how much farther this erosion of rights can go. When you couple the discussed bombing, with the idea that any

You're forgetting the Civil War. That happened less than 100 years in. Basically, a bunch of dumb rednecks didn't want to work for a living. They were willing to fight and die, but they didn't want to pick their own crops.

What we're seeing now is more of the same. There's a certain redneck percentage of the population that is willing to sign up and die in Afghanistan. What they won't do is to not sign up, and just simply get a fucking job.

Laziness and corruption ruins any endeavor. People get used to a free lunch, and they will die for it rather than find a simpler way to live.

In any case, one thing that the Founding Fathers did a poor job at was defining the Presidency. There's been some discussion that the Presidency was poorly thought-out and hastily tacked on to the Constitution.

The Atlantic: Founding Fathers Great Mistake

Anyway, finding a way to keep the idiots out of the party is probably the ultimate conversation topic. I've never seen a good social project last more than a couple of years.

Another interesting data from that page is if they know how to use pie charts. From the same article apparently less than 50% of the accidents occur when in motion, while the rest... I guess relate to piano rains, earthquakes and who knows other "non-motion" related accidents.

In the 24 cases where driver age was reported or readily inferred, the drivers included those of the ages 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89—and I’m leaving out the son whose age wasn’t identified, but whose 94-year-old father died as a passenger.

These “electronic defects” apparently discriminate against the elderly, just as the sudden acceleration of Audis and GM autos did before them. (If computers are going to discriminate against anyone, they should be picking on the young, who are more likely to take up arms against the rise of the machines and future Terminators).

Some more data here

Shame on you, you think that internets people would know better.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/why-the-ny-salt-ban-proposal-is-a-good-idea/37342/

Former Teach For America high school computer science and math teacher here. (I also taught at a school funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's High Tech High initiative noted in the summary.)

First, some positive comments. It's great to see studies like those mentioned in the Newsweek article attracting eyeballs in academia and the popular press. The conclusions may seem to border on the tautological for most of us (great teachers are great at teaching!), but such ideas are largely verboten in the public school system. If you haven't already RTFA, I'd suggest The Atlantic's treatment of the same material.

Anecdotally, I can fully corroborate Teach For America's data. Both in my school as well as those of my TFA colleagues, teachers that continually pushed themselves to excel and improve in their craft were able to consistently produce jaw-dropping results in their students' test scores. It really is amazing. As an example, I co-taught a summer school pre-calculus class with another TFAer in Watts a few years ago. We somehow managed to march through three years worth of material in those two months; our students went from being on average two grade levels behind to slightly above grade level. I attribute this success to Teach For America's philosophy of teacher excellence (which is similar to 'kaizen' in many regards).

The summary asks "What makes a good teacher?" This is the wrong question. There is no one thing that will make a teacher great (vibrant personality, deep subject knowledge, an M.S. Ed., etc.). Rather, it is an attitude that is willing to try anything (and, conversely, promptly reject the ineffective) to make students succeed. To use a math analogy, it is the second derivative that matters, not the current value or even the slope.

Disclaimer: this post does not necessarily reflect the views of my former employers.