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Ironically, I thought one of the tenents of creationism was that god created the Earth in pretty much the form it is in today, therefore precluding such major changes.

Actually, no. Creationism does not hold that. Creationism does hold that God created the earth as recorded in Genesis 1 and 2 _but_ not in the form it is today, namely because of the events in Genesis 6 to 8, e.g. the Great Flood. A true, honest Creationist would have to admit that the environment of the Earth is unknown prior to the Great Flood - other than that it could sustain life fairly well. From what little we do know Biblically, it was likely more of a tropical paradise, but that is only what we can deduce - not what we know for sure. What we know for sure is that the Earth was greatly different prior to the flood. How, we can't say - though conditions were more amiable towards prolonged human life.

So a true, honest Creationist has to recognize that God did make at least one great change to the Earth after the initial creation in Genesis 1 and 2. In fact, a true, honest Creationist could probably argue that there were likely two big changes, the first being at the "Fall" in Genesis 3, and the second being the Great Flood.

In either case, a Creationist cannot hold that the Earth was always as it is today, and in fact a true, honest Creationist would have to agree that anyone arguing that the Earth has always been as it is now would fall among the scoffers mentioned in 2 Peter 3:3-6. From a Creationist point of view, Evolutionism is one of those scoffers.

I never had a kernel extension (driver) crash on OS X nor my friends did. You can thank to lack of 3rd party devices for it ;)

I just bought a Serial-USB converter and it naturally comes with a kernel extension which is installed to /System/Extensions.

In light of current story, I wondered what happens if a badly written extension crashes or it doesn't handle the device itself malfunction. Does it get unloaded? Do I get the stylish OSX BSOD? Does it get reloaded (launchd)?

I think if it gets unloaded gracefully or reloaded, Apple's lack of Windows culture is to blame. It was same deal when Safari spitted all kinds of files to users Desktop bug. It took a while to make Apple understand what kind of a horrible security risk it is. I suicidally said on all Apple fan sites "Apple should hire windows only developers to code for Windows".

About the conspiracy... Not just they did actually broke OS X security (Office install under 502 was a big deal), they keep breaking OS X compatibility and performance with possible horrible system wide browser crashes right now. "How?", by giving users option to install this piece of junk: http://preview.tinyurl.com/3blyfx (Windows Media Player for OS X)

Giving away Windows Media Player/PPC, a code not touched since 2003, runs in Browser thread (plugins), has DRM layer running at admin level (nobody knows if it works). A plugin runs in Browser thread, half of Safaris would crash before Apple notices it and guess what? They can't touch third party plugin code too. If it is based on Netscape plugin standard, files are there, it will get loaded.

How hard is it to put: "Up to OS X 10.3.9 and PowerPC only" notice? Did they forget to remove the offer? No! Their site had overhaul recently and those idiots also submitted it to Apple downloads. At least Apple downloads team should say "Stop! What the hell are you doing? Didn't you globally license working (flip4mac) modern code?" and reject it. If they had "Report bad software/malware" link, I wouldn't wait a second to click it.

They know what they are doing. Believe me.

"iTunes ain't done 'til Vista won't run"

And if you are wondering what "hell" is, I have a background article for you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell

Don't expect it to stop.

http://tinyurl.com/68o9hu

"We're pretty committed to user choice, but we're also pretty ardent that Firefox 3.0 is a good product," said Beltzner, explaining why Mozilla won't take 'No' for an answer.

Because I still feel stupid for having made my original post without knowing that you needed to enable Tracemonkey, here's results from my home Windows machine, which is similar to my work machine (Intel Core2 Quad Q6600; work is XP 32 bit, home is Vista 64 bit):

Chrome Sunspider results (TinyURL to Sunspider results)
Tracemonkey Sunspider results (TinyURL to Sunspider results)

Tracemonkey was faster than Chrome. I think it's odd that Chrome was slower than at work considering my home machine has much better parts. Chalk it up to Vista 64bit or something, I dunno.

Because I still feel stupid for having made my original post without knowing that you needed to enable Tracemonkey, here's results from my home Windows machine, which is similar to my work machine (Intel Core2 Quad Q6600; work is XP 32 bit, home is Vista 64 bit):

Chrome Sunspider results (TinyURL to Sunspider results)
Tracemonkey Sunspider results (TinyURL to Sunspider results)

Tracemonkey was faster than Chrome. I think it's odd that Chrome was slower than at work considering my home machine has much better parts. Chalk it up to Vista 64bit or something, I dunno.

... there's always http://tinyurl.com/.

What's the message? "Vista is hard, let's go shopping!"

I toldja, they shoulda gone with a tried and tested comedic genius. http://tinyurl.com/5c3r6y

If they were the US, they'd just license it from Google.

(If they were the UK, they'd probably license it from Microsoft.)

New and incomplete web site
Political Power in the U.S.
http://tinyurl.com/2sdtvk

NY Times today reported that she had inquired about banning books in Wasila. That would be nice if Obama would dissolve Homeland Security and the Patriot Act. But we'll see. It might be tough to do while trying to be a post-racial, post-partisan President. McCain's crazy VP selection process: http://tinyurl.com/5zr47h

Yeah, it's pretty damned scary, but you got a key wrong along the way. It's F3, not F4. I mean, how can he click there after the key sequence you told him to press made him alt-f4 out of the browser?

You want to see something even scarier?!?

Simply press ctl-shift-home-alt-up-F4-F8-F12, tab twice, open and close your cdrom three times, hold scroll lock for 8 seconds, press crl-backspace, tab two more times and then click here.

They already caught him. News article here

Here is a before and after, if anyone cares:

http://tinyurl.com/5mon9r

Best Western responds: http://tinyurl.com/5863g8 Partial reprint, PR gobbledy gook removed: Posted 6:37 p.m. EDT Aug. 24, 2008 "The story printed in the Sunday, August 24, 2008, Glasgow Sunday Herald claiming a security breach of Best Western guest information is grossly unsubstantiated. Claims reported about our Central Reservations customer records are not accurate. [snip] The Sunday Herald reporter brought to our attention the possible compromise of a select portion of data at a single hotel [snip] We have found no evidence to support the sensational claims ultimately made by the reporter and newspaper. Most importantly, whereas the reporter asserted the recent compromise of data for past guests from as far back as 2007, Best Western purges all online reservations promptly upon guest departure. [snip] ...and again, we delete credit card information and all other personal information upon guest departure. SOURCE: Best Western International"

But will it become an important player on the desktop? I'm using Linux on my laptop every day, and I think it's great. But sadly, desktop Linux has a very small market share these days. In fact desktop Linux is something that people make fun of. Every time something positive about Linux adoption is posted, people respond with "Last year desktop Linux failed, but THIS year is the year of Linux on the desktop... really!!111"

People on Slashdot, OSNews and many other places are always criticizing Linux for not being desktop friendly. But sadly, it seems that the Linux community isn't exactly helping. There are developers who are clearly interested in making Linux a viable desktop platform, for both users and developers. For example, the Autopackage project has tried for quite some time now to convince distributions to support /usr/local. Yes you read that right: to support /usr/local, a very basic prefix that everybody expects to work, but practice doesn't! The problems with /usr/local includes:
- Menu item files installed to /usr/local are not recognized by GNOME and KDE by default. A lot of distributions refuse to add /usr/local to the default search path for menu items.
- File associations: ditto.
- A bunch of other problems that I don't remember from the top of my head, most of them related to not being included in the default search path.

Working menu items and file associations are among the basic things required for desktop adoption, are they not? Not having them in the default search path prevents third party software installation to work properly. I'm sure nobody wants to install third party applications to /usr just to make menu items work, right?

Autopackage has been trying to convince distributions to do just pme simple thing - adding /usr/local to the default search path. Distributors and a lot of people from the Linux community either don't know, don't care, or are actively opposing this effort.

What are we, developers who care about Linux on the desktop, to do?

when I compare google and baidu cache for the same document, I notice that google only displays the first 300+ rows, while baidu lists the full document (1000+rows). appears really near the end of the document.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/6qw35e (baidu)

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5jr7df (google)

So, it's not like google cache had kept all names but one. It just does not display the end of the file. So, I tried to search for another random big .xls file, and noticed that on that random file, google also cuts the document at some point.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5hgksx (.xls document: 600+ lines
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5ff568 (google cache: 450+lines)

So, google does not displays end of large .xls files, probably for every big files. So I don't think there's censorship from google, just technical limitations, but it's not like *someone* had pushed a button to delete those data.

Anyway, it's a nice catch to have found those data in baidu's cache

when I compare google and baidu cache for the same document, I notice that google only displays the first 300+ rows, while baidu lists the full document (1000+rows). appears really near the end of the document.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/6qw35e (baidu)

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5jr7df (google)

So, it's not like google cache had kept all names but one. It just does not display the end of the file. So, I tried to search for another random big .xls file, and noticed that on that random file, google also cuts the document at some point.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5hgksx (.xls document: 600+ lines
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5ff568 (google cache: 450+lines)

So, google does not displays end of large .xls files, probably for every big files. So I don't think there's censorship from google, just technical limitations, but it's not like *someone* had pushed a button to delete those data.

Anyway, it's a nice catch to have found those data in baidu's cache

when I compare google and baidu cache for the same document, I notice that google only displays the first 300+ rows, while baidu lists the full document (1000+rows). appears really near the end of the document.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/6qw35e (baidu)

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5jr7df (google)

So, it's not like google cache had kept all names but one. It just does not display the end of the file. So, I tried to search for another random big .xls file, and noticed that on that random file, google also cuts the document at some point.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5hgksx (.xls document: 600+ lines
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5ff568 (google cache: 450+lines)

So, google does not displays end of large .xls files, probably for every big files. So I don't think there's censorship from google, just technical limitations, but it's not like *someone* had pushed a button to delete those data.

Anyway, it's a nice catch to have found those data in baidu's cache

when I compare google and baidu cache for the same document, I notice that google only displays the first 300+ rows, while baidu lists the full document (1000+rows). appears really near the end of the document.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/6qw35e (baidu)

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5jr7df (google)

So, it's not like google cache had kept all names but one. It just does not display the end of the file. So, I tried to search for another random big .xls file, and noticed that on that random file, google also cuts the document at some point.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5hgksx (.xls document: 600+ lines
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5ff568 (google cache: 450+lines)

So, google does not displays end of large .xls files, probably for every big files. So I don't think there's censorship from google, just technical limitations, but it's not like *someone* had pushed a button to delete those data.

Anyway, it's a nice catch to have found those data in baidu's cache

On a related note, this Google cache entry is interesting:

http://74.125.39.104/search?q=cache:lKKNqX5NgnwJ:www.sport.chengdu.gov.cn/escpecial/detail.asp%3FEventClassID%3D030308%26ID%3D28022+site:cn+%E4%BD%95%E5%8F%AF%E6%AC%A3+1994+-2008&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2

Also sport.chengdu.gov.cn, also shows her birth year as 1994.

As well as this Baidu cache:

http://tinyurl.com/6fs83q

Doesn't look like a toy to me:
http://tinyurl.com/55dxgf

Myth: H1-Bs are the "best and brightest"

Reality: If that were true then the typical H1-B would a Nobel prize winning scientist. The truth is, the typical H1-B is an average student, hired right out of college with only a four year degree. The typical H1-B is no more qualified than the US graduates who are not getting jobs. The H1-Bs are just cheaper. And because of the lottery nature of the H1-B process, employers do not even know who they are getting. So how do employers know that they are getting the best and brightest?

Also, isn't it funny that almost all of the "best and brightest" come from countries where people earn as little as $1 a day? If it's really about the "best and brightest" then why aren't there more European H1-Bs?

---

Myth: H1-Bs are needed because of the critical shortage of US technology workers

Reality: Serious academic studies clearly indicate that skills shortage is a myth.

> These studies done at Duke aren't alone in their assessment that there is in fact no skills shortage. They're backed up by other studies conducted by RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, all of which settle upon the same conclusion: There is no shortage of educated IT workers.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1081923#PaperDownload

This according to a well researched article at baselinemag.com:

http://tinyurl.com/yoy2rw

---

Myth: H1-Bs do compete unfairly, because H1-Bs are paid the prevailing wage

Reality:

> According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) as the measurement of U.S. wages, and the H-1B LCA disclosure data to measure H-1B wages, 90% of H-1B employers' prevailing wage claims for programmers were below the median U.S. wage for that occupation and location, with 62% of them falling in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages, said Miano [founder of the Programmer's Guild].

> Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology (currently on leave) and a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, pointed to USCIS's most recent report to Congress, which shows that the medium wage in 2005 for new H-1B computing professionals was just $50,000 -- even lower than the entry-level wages that a newly graduated tech worker with a bachelor's degree and no experience would command.

http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh

According to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service's (USCIS) annual report to Congress in 2005, the aggregate data for computing professionals lend support to the argument that the practice of paying H-1Bs below-market wages is quite common.

http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp187.html

H1-Bs are hired at four different skill levels, "4" being the highest. But most H1-Bs are hired for the lowest "1" level jobs - regardless of what kind of work the H1-Bs actually do.

---

Myth: In the USA enrollment in technical disciplines is declining. Proof the USA needs to hire more foreign workers

Reality: This myth is designed to confuse cause and effect. Employers are not forced to hire offshore because enrollment is down. Rather, enrollment is down because of aggressive offshoring by employers. But even with enrollments down, there are still more than enough US workers.

> Due to both outsourcing and insourcing, many young people are concluding that technology is a bad place to invest their time," said Mark Thoma, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh

---

Myth: Critics of the H1-B program are xenophobic

Reality: This "argument" is nothing but name calling. These allegations are offered without any s

Myth: H1-Bs are the "best and brightest"

Reality: If that were true then the typical H1-B would a Nobel prize winning scientist. The truth is, the typical H1-B is an average student, hired right out of college with only a four year degree. The typical H1-B is no more qualified than the US graduates who are not getting jobs. The H1-Bs are just cheaper. And because of the lottery nature of the H1-B process, employers do not even know who they are getting. So how do employers know that they are getting the best and brightest?

Also, isn't it funny that almost all of the "best and brightest" come from countries where people earn as little as $1 a day? If it's really about the "best and brightest" then why aren't there more European H1-Bs?

---

Myth: H1-Bs are needed because of the critical shortage of US technology workers

Reality: Serious academic studies clearly indicate that skills shortage is a myth.

> These studies done at Duke aren't alone in their assessment that there is in fact no skills shortage. They're backed up by other studies conducted by RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, all of which settle upon the same conclusion: There is no shortage of educated IT workers.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1081923#PaperDownload

This according to a well researched article at baselinemag.com:

http://tinyurl.com/yoy2rw

---

Myth: H1-Bs do compete unfairly, because H1-Bs are paid the prevailing wage

Reality:

> According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) as the measurement of U.S. wages, and the H-1B LCA disclosure data to measure H-1B wages, 90% of H-1B employers' prevailing wage claims for programmers were below the median U.S. wage for that occupation and location, with 62% of them falling in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages, said Miano [founder of the Programmer's Guild].

> Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology (currently on leave) and a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, pointed to USCIS's most recent report to Congress, which shows that the medium wage in 2005 for new H-1B computing professionals was just $50,000 -- even lower than the entry-level wages that a newly graduated tech worker with a bachelor's degree and no experience would command.

http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh

According to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service's (USCIS) annual report to Congress in 2005, the aggregate data for computing professionals lend support to the argument that the practice of paying H-1Bs below-market wages is quite common.

http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp187.html

H1-Bs are hired at four different skill levels, "4" being the highest. But most H1-Bs are hired for the lowest "1" level jobs - regardless of what kind of work the H1-Bs actually do.

---

Myth: In the USA enrollment in technical disciplines is declining. Proof the USA needs to hire more foreign workers

Reality: This myth is designed to confuse cause and effect. Employers are not forced to hire offshore because enrollment is down. Rather, enrollment is down because of aggressive offshoring by employers. But even with enrollments down, there are still more than enough US workers.

> Due to both outsourcing and insourcing, many young people are concluding that technology is a bad place to invest their time," said Mark Thoma, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh

---

Myth: Critics of the H1-B program are xenophobic

Reality: This "argument" is nothing but name calling. These allegations are offered without any s

Myth: H1-Bs are the "best and brightest"

Reality: If that were true then the typical H1-B would a Nobel prize winning scientist. The truth is, the typical H1-B is an average student, hired right out of college with only a four year degree. The typical H1-B is no more qualified than the US graduates who are not getting jobs. The H1-Bs are just cheaper. And because of the lottery nature of the H1-B process, employers do not even know who they are getting. So how do employers know that they are getting the best and brightest?

Also, isn't it funny that almost all of the "best and brightest" come from countries where people earn as little as $1 a day? If it's really about the "best and brightest" then why aren't there more European H1-Bs?

---

Myth: H1-Bs are needed because of the critical shortage of US technology workers

Reality: Serious academic studies clearly indicate that skills shortage is a myth.

> These studies done at Duke aren't alone in their assessment that there is in fact no skills shortage. They're backed up by other studies conducted by RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, all of which settle upon the same conclusion: There is no shortage of educated IT workers.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1081923#PaperDownload

This according to a well researched article at baselinemag.com:

http://tinyurl.com/yoy2rw

---

Myth: H1-Bs do compete unfairly, because H1-Bs are paid the prevailing wage

Reality:

> According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) as the measurement of U.S. wages, and the H-1B LCA disclosure data to measure H-1B wages, 90% of H-1B employers' prevailing wage claims for programmers were below the median U.S. wage for that occupation and location, with 62% of them falling in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages, said Miano [founder of the Programmer's Guild].

> Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology (currently on leave) and a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, pointed to USCIS's most recent report to Congress, which shows that the medium wage in 2005 for new H-1B computing professionals was just $50,000 -- even lower than the entry-level wages that a newly graduated tech worker with a bachelor's degree and no experience would command.

http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh

According to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service's (USCIS) annual report to Congress in 2005, the aggregate data for computing professionals lend support to the argument that the practice of paying H-1Bs below-market wages is quite common.

http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp187.html

H1-Bs are hired at four different skill levels, "4" being the highest. But most H1-Bs are hired for the lowest "1" level jobs - regardless of what kind of work the H1-Bs actually do.

---

Myth: In the USA enrollment in technical disciplines is declining. Proof the USA needs to hire more foreign workers

Reality: This myth is designed to confuse cause and effect. Employers are not forced to hire offshore because enrollment is down. Rather, enrollment is down because of aggressive offshoring by employers. But even with enrollments down, there are still more than enough US workers.

> Due to both outsourcing and insourcing, many young people are concluding that technology is a bad place to invest their time," said Mark Thoma, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh

---

Myth: Critics of the H1-B program are xenophobic

Reality: This "argument" is nothing but name calling. These allegations are offered without any s

There's some rolling footage here.

You can get the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j60x3C43Qao
http://www.tinyurl.com/tibetvideo08
http://www.tinyurl.com/tibetvideo

Download and spread!

You can get the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j60x3C43Qao
http://www.tinyurl.com/tibetvideo08
http://www.tinyurl.com/tibetvideo

Download and spread!

http://tinyurl.com/5hjwvu

Did you really think we would be so stupid to click a link labeled asshole?

Read a book - http://tinyurl.com/27fd8m It's written by two guys that Variety magazine put in the Top Power Players in the video game business. I put the book together, sold it to the publisher, and edited it. It went to #1 in its category on Amazon.com for a reason - these guys know the business inside and out and you will learn what you need to know about how to break in with a game.

The summary got me to thinking about some of the PC on a chip offerings I've seen over the years. A quick google search turned up something else kind of amusing: http://tinyurl.com/5ppa9g. A PC for less than $500? No way!

Oh, and if anyone has some information on a useful pc-on-a-chip, I'm still curious.

That's why it will be not on rooftops, but in the deserts ... there is enough space and plenty of sun ... great for utility scale projects.

See also DESERTEC and
NEAL, is planning to build a 3,000 km-long (1,875 mile) power cable to Germany to

If you ask me, the Solar Thermal Millennium has eventually been unleashed!!!

Imagine the potential of water splitting and desalination combined with solar thermal power plants, as such build in Spain .

Solar thermal power plants are the most efficient way today to convert sunlight to electricity in large scale and utility scale.

Remaining process heat can be used for sea water desalination.

The desalinated water can then be used for hydrogen production.

The water desalination is essential, otherwise we'd have the biofuel against food fight again, but this time it's about water.

(n.b. High efficient PV for roof tops, needs metals like Indium, hardly available and the energy required to produce such cells is horrible.)

In this thread do we get good kharma for trolling?
Because if so you should click this link.

Or you could (or maybe slashcode can be modified to?) replace the 'www' in http://www.tinyurl.com/6ehog5 with 'preview' to make: http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ehog5

Though I agree, it is a little weird to use a tinyurl for that link.

Or you could (or maybe slashcode can be modified to?) replace the 'www' in http://www.tinyurl.com/6ehog5 with 'preview' to make: http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ehog5

Though I agree, it is a little weird to use a tinyurl for that link.

Why the hell is there a tiny url (http://www.tinyurl.com/6ehog5) in this story? Where does it point? Goatse? Tubgirl? Some random PDF? This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen slip by the editors. It's not like this is Twittr, where you're limited to 140 bytes.

Maybe Slashcode needs something to automatically follow links in articles and replace them with their target if they redirect.

http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=4315900&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

or http://tinyurl.com/2npqnb if that long URL gets truncated.

Controversial Video Of St. George, MO Cop
Last Edited: Monday, 10 Sep 2007, 5:36 PM CDT
Created: Monday, 10 Sep 2007, 5:15 PM CDT

KTVI - myFOXstl.com) -- A police officer in the tiny community of
St. George, MO is caught on tape yelling at a young driver. On the
tape, the officer is cussing, yelling, and threatening to throw the
man in jail. Now, the St. George Police Department is investigating.
FOX 2's Teresa Woodard has the details.

- - - - - -

raw Google video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2715792117793977759

12 min 55 sec - Sep 8, 2007

Not safe for work (profanity)

- - - - - -

Transcript at http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1961.asp

Missouri: Police Threaten, Detain Motorist for Parking After Hours
9/10/2007

A St. George, Missouri police officer is caught on tape threatening to
invent charges to arrest a motorist for parking after hours.

A motorist who refused to discuss his personal business with a St.
George, Missouri police officer was threatened with arrest last
Friday. Brett Darrow, 20, no stranger to unconventional encounters
with police [ http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/15/1522.asp ], caught a
St. George Police Sergeant named Kenline stating that he had the power
to invent charges that would put Darrow behind bars.

"Try and talk back... to me again," yelled Sergeant Kenline. "I bet I
could say you resisted arrest or something. You want to come up with
something? I come up with nine things."

The incident began at around 2am. Darrow was to meet a friend who was
working late and was going to pick him up. Darrow headed toward a
24-hour commuter parking lot in an unincorporated part of Saint Louis
County in his 1997 Nissan Maxima. He put on his turn signal and
entered the lot which, aside from Kenline's cruiser, was essentially
vacant. After stopping the car, the police officer approached and
began questioning Darrow about what he was doing. When Darrow declined
to discuss his personal business, the police sergeant exploded.
Although the video clearly shows Darrow driving properly and using his
turn signal, the police officer insisted that Darrow had broken the
law.

"Oh, while you were coming towards me you were swerving back and forth
within the roadway," Sergeant Kenline said. "I might give you a ticket
for that. You want me to come up with some more? When you turned in,
you failed to use your turn signal, your right turn signal."

Without the video, Darrow points out that he would have stood no
chance disproving the officer's word in court. Twenty-eight percent of
the St. George municipal budget comes from traffic citations. Darrow
wonders how many of the tickets were legitimate.

"Looking into this guys eyes, he was crazy," Darrow said. "I was
really scared he was going to assault me. I just wonder how many other
people have been arrested on these charges."

After ordering Darrow against the car and searching him, Sergeant
Kenline released the motorist.

View video of incident below. Warning: Police officer uses graphic language.

Transcript of audio made by Brett Darrow:

1:07
Officer #1: How we doin? What's going on?
Brett: Nothing.
Officer #1: Why you parkin here?
Brett: Can't I park here?

Have fun!

Yup.. a block away from the DoubleTree. (A couple of the guys on my crew producing the event saw it 2 nights ago there) Regal Lloyd Center 10 http://preview.tinyurl.com/5mf2xu

"so guys (meaning not only Greg but Andrew, Linus, et al.), when will you publicly explain why you're covering up security impact of bugs", pagee...@freemail.hu

"I don't cover them up", Torvalds

"by 'cover up' i meant that even when you know better, you quite consciously do *not* report the security impact of said bugs", pagee...@freemail.hu

"Yes. Because the only place I consider appropriate is the kernel changelogs, and since those get published with the sources, there is no way I can convince myself that it's a good idea to say "Hey script kiddies, try this" unless it's already very public indeed", Torvalds

"one reason I refuse to bother with the whole security circus is that I think it glorifies - and thus encourages - the wrong behavior It makes "heroes" out of security people, as if the people who don't just fix normal bugs aren't as important", Torvalds

"I refuse to have anything to even _do_ with organizations like vendor-sec that I think is a corrupt cluster-fuck of people who just want to cover their own ass", Torvalds

http://tinyurl.com/5qyon3
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/fa.linux.kernel/browse_thread/thread/5bdf2e1b8a90142c/abcf79768bb7ce7f?hl=en&lnk=st&q=#abcf79768bb7ce7f

Just found this: http://twitter.com/drhorrible

Working on international. Give this a try in the meantime http://tinyurl.com/3n5xys

"This is the first time I wish I had been rickrolled instead of getting that awful article."

Here ya go: http://tinyurl.com/55v6el

Please note: that bls statistic only refers to the demand side of the equation. To see the whole picture, you also have to consider the supply side. India has 4X the US population, and India alone is cranking out 495,000 BSCS graduates every year.

Furthermore, according the BLS:

"As with other information technology jobs, outsourcing of software development to other countries may temper somewhat employment growth of computer software engineers. Firms may look to cut costs by shifting operations to foreign countries with lower prevailing wages and highly educated workers."

Also, I have to wonder where the BLS gets it's information:

"According to Robert Half Technology, starting salaries for software engineers in software development ranged from $66,500 to $99,750 in 2007. For network engineers, starting salaries ranged from $65,750 to $90,250."

Robert Half! Asking Robert Half if it's a good time to go into IT is like asking Century 21 if it's a good to sell your home.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos267.htm

Here are some more numbers:

"H-1B Visa Numbers: No Relationship with Economic Need"

According to a new study from the Center for Immigration Studies: the number of H-1B visas approved in the computers and engineering fields greatly exceeds any reasonable number reflected by economic demand.

http://www.cis.org/node/222

"High Tech Industry Laying Off American Workers While Seeking Huge Increase in Guest Workers"

"Currently, the Department of Labor estimates that there are about 656,000 unemployed IT workers in the U.S. In addition, the slowing economy has led to a loss of jobs across the board including in IT. The Denver-based Rocky Mountain News reports that Colorado -- the state with the third highest concentration of IT workers -- has lost 47,200 technology jobs since 2001."

http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_may08nl02

Gains in US high tech employment more than offset by off-shore worker visas

"According to the AeA Cyberstates yearly reports, "High Tech" employment experienced job losses of 945,000 in the 2001 recession. Since this drop in employment, the "High Tech" sector has recovered about 300,000 jobs, but during the period in question, a probable 669,681 H-1B and L-1 computer-related workers were added to the workforce."

http://tinyurl.com/3pj2c3

IT job security plummets five times faster than nationwide average

"Job security for IT professionals plummeted more than 10% from January to February of this year, far surpassing the average job security declines seen nationwide in a rigorous analysis of U.S. employment patterns."

http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/edu/2008/033108ed1.html

Studies Indicate IT Labor Shortage is a Myth

"These studies done at Duke aren't alone in their assessment that there is in fact no skills shortage. They're backed up by other studies conducted by RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, all of which settle upon the same conclusion: There is no shortage of educated IT workers."

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1081923#PaperDownload

This according to a well researched article at baselinemag.com:

http://tinyurl.com/yoy2rw

Please note: that bls statistic only refers to the demand side of the equation. To see the whole picture, you also have to consider the supply side. India has 4X the US population, and India alone is cranking out 495,000 BSCS graduates every year.

Furthermore, according the BLS:

"As with other information technology jobs, outsourcing of software development to other countries may temper somewhat employment growth of computer software engineers. Firms may look to cut costs by shifting operations to foreign countries with lower prevailing wages and highly educated workers."

Also, I have to wonder where the BLS gets it's information:

"According to Robert Half Technology, starting salaries for software engineers in software development ranged from $66,500 to $99,750 in 2007. For network engineers, starting salaries ranged from $65,750 to $90,250."

Robert Half! Asking Robert Half if it's a good time to go into IT is like asking Century 21 if it's a good to sell your home.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos267.htm

Here are some more numbers:

"H-1B Visa Numbers: No Relationship with Economic Need"

According to a new study from the Center for Immigration Studies: the number of H-1B visas approved in the computers and engineering fields greatly exceeds any reasonable number reflected by economic demand.

http://www.cis.org/node/222

"High Tech Industry Laying Off American Workers While Seeking Huge Increase in Guest Workers"

"Currently, the Department of Labor estimates that there are about 656,000 unemployed IT workers in the U.S. In addition, the slowing economy has led to a loss of jobs across the board including in IT. The Denver-based Rocky Mountain News reports that Colorado -- the state with the third highest concentration of IT workers -- has lost 47,200 technology jobs since 2001."

http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_may08nl02

Gains in US high tech employment more than offset by off-shore worker visas

"According to the AeA Cyberstates yearly reports, "High Tech" employment experienced job losses of 945,000 in the 2001 recession. Since this drop in employment, the "High Tech" sector has recovered about 300,000 jobs, but during the period in question, a probable 669,681 H-1B and L-1 computer-related workers were added to the workforce."

http://tinyurl.com/3pj2c3

IT job security plummets five times faster than nationwide average

"Job security for IT professionals plummeted more than 10% from January to February of this year, far surpassing the average job security declines seen nationwide in a rigorous analysis of U.S. employment patterns."

http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/edu/2008/033108ed1.html

Studies Indicate IT Labor Shortage is a Myth

"These studies done at Duke aren't alone in their assessment that there is in fact no skills shortage. They're backed up by other studies conducted by RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, all of which settle upon the same conclusion: There is no shortage of educated IT workers."

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1081923#PaperDownload

This according to a well researched article at baselinemag.com:

http://tinyurl.com/yoy2rw

The otherwise farfetched-but-partially-plausible article that Slashdot ran last week had one thing very right: there's no logical reason to believe, based on YHOO's performance over the year prior to Microsoft's first offer, that $19 was anything but a temporary low blip before Microsoft swooped in like a vulture at just the right moment to make their takeover bid look more impressive.

The average YHOO stock price over the preceding year was (eyeballing here) roughly $27 per share, with a general slight downward trend but still high enough that a linear fit would still predict a price around $23-$25 (again, eyeballing) at the time of Microsoft's first public offer. When you compare YHOO to NASDAQ over that same year, it becomes obvious that the timing of YHOO's ups and downs had much more to do with volatility and emotions on NASDAQ (and the larger oil-credit-bear global stock market) than it did with news regarding Yahoo itself. The buys and sells, modulo the bump-and-slump after the layoff announcement on Jan 21, clearly aren't due to new information about Yahoo's fundamentals as a company, so it seems fairly reasonable that the $19 share price (which lasted for a mere 2 days) wouldn't have lasted any longer than the wait for the next ephemeral upward bump in the NASDAQ. (Not that YHOO would've outperformed NASDAQ, necessarily, but it quite likely would've be back to the $21-$23 range soon enough, and possibly higher.)

When you combine this information, it makes Microsoft's $31 deal look much more like a lowball number that it does at first glance, and makes it quite clear that Yahoo's board was reasonable to perceive it as such, even if it turns out they were wrong in the final analysis.

In addition, for most of the last 5 years, YHOO has traded $25 or higher, and sometimes as high as $40. Traders who bought YHOO as a long-term tech investment when it was $25 or higher -- likely the majority of YHOO shareholders -- would've been treated to a much less impressive return in the MS deal, or even a loss depending on the original buy price. For them, the MS deal could easily be beaten by simple share appreciation over 5 to 10 years if Yahoo just manages to get its house in order, even if it's merely to be a more solid runner-up behind Google. Yahoo is, after all, #2 overall and #1 in certain markets when it comes to search, and they own Overture, the only company that's been doing online text ad auctions for longer than Google, so they clearly have the potential for a turnaround. This whole Microsoft fiasco might be the kick in the pants they needed to make it actually happen.

So, in the long analysis for all those investors who bought before YHOO reached $19, it's not even remotely a guarantee that they would've been happy with Microsoft's $31 numbers, or that they're upset the Microsoft deal fell through on the terms that it did. Anyone who says "I poached YHOO at $19 and got ripped off because I didn't get my 63% return" is a moron short-term gambler who deserves to get burned.

The otherwise farfetched-but-partially-plausible article that Slashdot ran last week had one thing very right: there's no logical reason to believe, based on YHOO's performance over the year prior to Microsoft's first offer, that $19 was anything but a temporary low blip before Microsoft swooped in like a vulture at just the right moment to make their takeover bid look more impressive.

The average YHOO stock price over the preceding year was (eyeballing here) roughly $27 per share, with a general slight downward trend but still high enough that a linear fit would still predict a price around $23-$25 (again, eyeballing) at the time of Microsoft's first public offer. When you compare YHOO to NASDAQ over that same year, it becomes obvious that the timing of YHOO's ups and downs had much more to do with volatility and emotions on NASDAQ (and the larger oil-credit-bear global stock market) than it did with news regarding Yahoo itself. The buys and sells, modulo the bump-and-slump after the layoff announcement on Jan 21, clearly aren't due to new information about Yahoo's fundamentals as a company, so it seems fairly reasonable that the $19 share price (which lasted for a mere 2 days) wouldn't have lasted any longer than the wait for the next ephemeral upward bump in the NASDAQ. (Not that YHOO would've outperformed NASDAQ, necessarily, but it quite likely would've be back to the $21-$23 range soon enough, and possibly higher.)

When you combine this information, it makes Microsoft's $31 deal look much more like a lowball number that it does at first glance, and makes it quite clear that Yahoo's board was reasonable to perceive it as such, even if it turns out they were wrong in the final analysis.

In addition, for most of the last 5 years, YHOO has traded $25 or higher, and sometimes as high as $40. Traders who bought YHOO as a long-term tech investment when it was $25 or higher -- likely the majority of YHOO shareholders -- would've been treated to a much less impressive return in the MS deal, or even a loss depending on the original buy price. For them, the MS deal could easily be beaten by simple share appreciation over 5 to 10 years if Yahoo just manages to get its house in order, even if it's merely to be a more solid runner-up behind Google. Yahoo is, after all, #2 overall and #1 in certain markets when it comes to search, and they own Overture, the only company that's been doing online text ad auctions for longer than Google, so they clearly have the potential for a turnaround. This whole Microsoft fiasco might be the kick in the pants they needed to make it actually happen.

So, in the long analysis for all those investors who bought before YHOO reached $19, it's not even remotely a guarantee that they would've been happy with Microsoft's $31 numbers, or that they're upset the Microsoft deal fell through on the terms that it did. Anyone who says "I poached YHOO at $19 and got ripped off because I didn't get my 63% return" is a moron short-term gambler who deserves to get burned.

http://tinyurl.com/5lsa2x

I took these in March of 2007.