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For reference, here are some links to the bit where Plato actually tells the story of Atlantis:

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html (search for the bit starting "Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true ...")
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup= Plat.+Tim.+20d&vers=en
http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=P lat.+Tim.+20d&vers=en

In response to your comments: yeah, Troy was thought to have been maybe fictitious, until someone discovered that a city had existed at around about the right time in round about the right place, which is now for the sake of convenience called "Troy".

As for the story of Atlantis which Plato puts in Critias' mouth: (1) the story is actually about the people of Athens conquering Atlantis - thousands of years before Athens existed; (2) did you by any chance get that idea of multiplying the numbers by 10 from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis? Sound historical research, that.

Hey, didn't you read the attribution of the article? The author, Robert Newton, is a doctoral student in astrophysics, at an accredited university in the United States. An accredited university! I dunno who you are, but I'll bet you're not no doctoral student in astrophysics at an accredited university!

Of course, "Robert Newton" is not his real name: it appears to be Jason Lisle. He is actually now Dr. Jason Lisle, although apparently he wasn't in August. He should be congratulated on his freshly-minted doctoral degree from a reasonable-looking astrophysics program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He should also be congratulated on his publication record. It includes a number of publications in creationist journals, and at least a few academic research publications in various journals.

Funny guy: can't figure him out. Seems to be doing some good research on solar and planetary stuff, but to be somewhat out of his league in cosmology-land. His scientific credibility is certainly not enhanced by his use of an alias for much of his work, nor by his flippant dismissal of the cosmic microwave background as evidence for time scales of universal expansion.

Hope he finds what he is looking for. Maybe I'll learn something from him someday.

One of the most often 'brushed under the rug' issues is that there has never been a sucessful breeder reactor.

On the contrary! See, e.g.,

http://home.uchicago.edu/~cmcfaul/quiz.html (search for "breeder")
http://www.nyx.net/~drwalker/990519.scavhunt.nyt.h tml (search for "plutonium")

They all cost massive amounts of money and then make less fuel than they use...

... oh. Touche'. Guess it depends on your definition of "success" ;-)

It helps to read the 1938 Nazi gun laws closely and compare them to the earlier 1928 Weimar gun legislation, as a straightforward exercise of statutory interpretation. The 1938 Nazi gun laws actually liberalized the Weimar Republic's gun-control measures regarding possession and carrying by making these restrictions applicable only to handguns, lowering the juvenile age from 20 to 18 and extending carrying permits from the previous one-year limit to three years.

The 1938 Nazi gun laws also specifically banned Jewish persons from obtaining a license to manufacture firearms or ammunition. And about eight months later, Hitler imposed regulations prohibiting Jews from possessing any dangerous weapons, including firearms. The Nazi regime implemented this prohibition by confiscating weapons from Jews and subsequently engaged in genocide of the Jewish population.

This study doesn't prove anything of the kind. As reported, it only shows that people can learn language. Of course that includes the capability of developing language constructs. How else did we ever start speaking? It also shows that you don't need to be able to talk or hear in order to develop language skills, and that's not really new either.

Anyway, the New Scientist article http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 96411 had more details. But notice that some of the people in the study have other agendas and hope that acceptance of this study can help them further their own views http://mcneilllab.uchicago.edu/topics/gp.html.

Normally I post a link to the NORC Florida Ballots Project, which is the underlying study I think NYT (and all the other organizations that reported "Bush would have won") used. But it's such a pain getting their stupid Access database working, I doubt most bother looking.

Interesting that there's no discussion of over-vote counting methods, which made a difference the last time I got NORC working. This one only seems to cover the possibility of undervotes.

But I've been trying out that link, and the strictest and most lenient standards both show Gore wins. What are the "common standards" you're referring to?

Yeah, VMS.

--

Hitler's hatred for jews is often attributed to his bitter experience attempting to enter an Austrian art school. At least, he said so himself in Mein Kampf. Of course there is no way to know for sure, especially for someone who died 60 years ago.
.....Also of note is that Nazi anti-semitism was, at its core, racist and based on eugenic pseudoscience, not religious zeal. "Racial" jews from families that converted to christianity a century previously were still stripped of civil rights.

We would put the odds at roughly 50/50, or maybe 10-to-1. It all depends on whether Mother Nature is kind.

The LIGO weekly reports give a good taste of the real-world science and engineering involved, which is completely awesome. It's humanity's first big quantum system engineering project--very challenging!

Also, LIGO's resident sociologist, Harry Collins, has a new book coming out on LIGO called "Gravity's Shadow". The perfect Christmas 2004 stocking-stuffer for your Slashdot significant other!

In Common Sense, Paine writes: "For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us: it affords a larger field for our Christian kindness. Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle, I look on the various denominations among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only, in what is called, their Christian names." (10 Jan. 1776 Life 2:162--63)

His will begins: "Reposing confidence in my Creator, God." ends "I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God." and he was a founder and active member of the Society of Theophilanthropists (lovers of God and man).

This is my evidence he was a diest.

Is your claim that most all his writings appear deist, but deep down he was really an athiest? Can you offer any evidence of that or whatever your claim is?

You can look up many of his famous quotes about religion here.

I'd love to know if I'm wrong, but in order to do so you'd have to offer evidence. Insulting me has no baring on the matter. A man could be an arrogant, uneducated fool who happens to believe the world is round. Neither his arrogance, lack or education, nor lack of intelligence would be argument for the world to be anything but.

I find it particularly ironic that in your original reply you said "Bull" to my comment encyclopeidas were rife with misinformation yet now you are going against what Britannica.com says about Paine.

In article < BZS.95Apr13040535@world.std.com> bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:

>Then again at MIT a lot of the office people were using TECO, gimmee a
>break, it was indistinguishable from line noise (hey, I loved TECO, ...

+0UN QN"E 20UN ' BUH BUV HK
QN< J BUQ QN*10/3UI
QI< \+2*10+(QQ*QI)UA B L K QI*2-1UJ QA/QJUQ
QA-(QQ*QJ)-2\ 10@I// -1%I >
QQ/10UT QH+QT+48UW QW-58"E 48UW %V ' QV"N QV^T ' QWUV QQ-(QT*10)UH >
QV^T @^A/
/

The above program will calculate an arbitrary number of digits of PI. For TOPS-10 TEC124, the command was "39eiPI.TEC$$" to get 39 digits of PI.

I just found this transcript of the talk: http://pancake.uchicago.edu/~carroll/hawkingdublin .txt This was found in a thread on sci.physics.research, BTW.

I can't even figure out what your point is. Currently, developers of technologies cannot be held responsible for the actions of those who use them to violate copyright. If Congress changes the law, how will that affect gun makers? Will people be using Glocks to record NFL games?

So far, under the law, the only devices that are outright banned are ones that are deemed to have no legitimate uses. A VCR can be used to pirate movies, but it can also be used to time-shift TV shows, so VCRs aren't outright banned. Cars can be used to run over pedestrians, but they can also be used to drive to work, so they aren't outright banned. A gun can be used to injure or kill an innocent person, but it can also be used to defend the innocent from attackers, so guns aren't outright banned.

And the Second Amendment gives special protection to guns anyway. The Founding Fathers designed many checks and balances into the American system of government, and guns in the hands of the people are the ultimate check on government power, to be used if all others fail and the people are faced with tyranny.

Gun makers will finally be held liable

Oh wait, you said "finally". So you want gun manufacturers to be liable! Do you also want car manufacturers to be liable when a drunk driver kills someone? How about holding duct tape manufacturers liable when a kidnapper uses duct tape in a kidnapping? Should the makers of kitchen knives be liable when a serial killer kills again?

If you write a program for viewing images, and a pedophile uses your program for looking at images of small children being raped, should you be liable?

I think that the people who want to hold gun makers liable for abuse of guns are just looking for a way to run the gun makers out of business. These people have decided that guns are bad (even though the Lott study shows clearly that guns are a net benefit to society, because citizens with guns prevent more harm than criminals with guns cause). Since guns are bad, and the end justifies the means, then any underhanded way to hurt the gun makers is okay. Well, I don't agree.

Do you have some other reason why you think gun makers should be held to a special standard of liability?

steveha

The program, which has never been tested fully, was launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking attacks to refine electronic techniques for using personal information to identify and rate potential threats.

This sentence means that the program hijacked attacks [...]. I think they meant:

The program, which has never been tested fully, was launched after the Sept. 11, 2001 hijacking attacks to refine electronic techniques for using personal information to identify and rate potential threats.

Nope. The original form was correct. Grammar and spelling flames have a tendancy to reveal more about the flamer's dubious language skills than the text being criticised. A comma is required after the year in dates in this format. The year itself is treated like a non-restrictive clause that must be set off by commas on both sides when it follows the month. Now, if the word "was" had been preceeded by "which", then the comma after "2001" could have ended "2001" and possibly the clause starting with the comma before "which" as well. This hypothetical case would illustrate an ambiguity in English grammar. If the date had been properly specified in ISO-8601 format ("2001-09-11") then the ambiguity would have been avoided.

He didn't steal it. Even if the Supreme Court had let a state-wide recount go ahead, he would have won. So says a lengthy study by the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Sponsors of the study, lest you think it was the Republican Party, is stated on the website:

The consortium of news organizations sponsoring the NORC Florida ballot project is made up of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post Co., Tribune Publishing, CNN, Associated Press, St. Petersburg Times and The Palm Beach Post. The New York Times owns The Boston Globe, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and the Lakeland Ledger among others. Washington Post Co. owns The Washington Post and Newsweek. Tribune, based in Chicago, owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, among others.

Lots of left-leaning media groups in there. Some links for the story covered by CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune (registration required). Maybe if voters hadn't been confused by the ballot design (the NORC site has pictures of numerous types, some of them of seemingly bizarre design), then Gore might have won, but the rules say that if there's no clear choice, or if there are multiple punches, then the vote can't be counted.

I hate to respond to myself but I found more stuff:

*Theory that the perfect face is dictated by the Golden Ratio
*wired mag covers the uncanny valley

Solar Physics is free to authors but quite expensive to subscribe to. ApJ is expensive to publish in, but is quite cheap to subscribe to (at least for AAS members).

Perhaps in part because of the funding structure, Europeans seem to prefer publishing in Solar Physics while many Americans seem to prefer ApJ. It may have something to do with how science is funded: in the U.S. most of us are on soft money and budget page charges into our grants and/or overhead rates, while in Europe most folks are on fixed departmental budgets. But it's hard to say, because Solar Physics is published in Europe while ApJ is published in North America -- so it may just be the home team advantage in each case.

I tend to alternate between the two.

Solar Physics is free to authors but quite expensive to subscribe to. ApJ is expensive to publish in, but is quite cheap to subscribe to (at least for AAS members).

Perhaps in part because of the funding structure, Europeans seem to prefer publishing in Solar Physics while many Americans seem to prefer ApJ. It may have something to do with how science is funded: in the U.S. most of us are on soft money and budget page charges into our grants and/or overhead rates, while in Europe most folks are on fixed departmental budgets. But it's hard to say, because Solar Physics is published in Europe while ApJ is published in North America -- so it may just be the home team advantage in each case.

I tend to alternate between the two.

My other question is what sort of energies are we talking about here since protons are fairly massive? I would guess in the 100+ GeV range (ie. particle accelerator size). Any thoughts or better links?

Actually when it comes to cosmic rays, the spectrum extends to the EeV range and even beyond. Here's an energy spectrum. In fact I'm doing my PhD on the study of cosmic rays at energies 10-1000 EeV, much higher energies than can be achieved in current particle accelerators.

In addition to this, the observable universe has no visible boundaries which could be deemed symmetrical, as what we observe is not so much the universe itself but the contents thereof. Since the contents aren't spread symmetrically or in any particular order for that matter, any observed boundaries can't be symmetrical.

If you can't see where it ends, does that mean it ends where you no longer see it?

in other words, what evidence supports that this thing is going to expand at an accelerating rate forever? seems like gravity is going to get a little upset about that eventually.

Which is exacly why scientists have postulated the existance of dark energy. You see, you're correct, the effect of gravity does suggest that the universe's expansion should be decelerating. But it's not. All of our observations say that it's accelerating. Most cosmologists would say that's it's pretty much a confirmed fact at this point. The cause of this acceleration is unknown. They're postulaing the existance of this 'dark enery' which exerts some sort of repulsive force.

Enistien actually came up with the idea first, but for a completely different reason. He didn't call it dark enegry though (I don't think), it was just a variable that he added to his equations to force the overall 'shape' of the universe's space-time to be flat. He later took it out because he thought it was stupid; it was much more logical to assume the universe wasn't flat, in which case it wasn't needed. However modern day measurements of the Cosmic Background Radiation have given very strong evidence that the universe is actually flat. So now they've put the variable back into his equations, and they're working on trying to prove it's existence.

Donald Knuth invented the concept of big-theta and big-omega notation not that long ago for describing time efficiencies. Seems that he'd be in for a lot of money if this google IP nonsense had any merit. BTW, does anyone remember MS-glef(tm)?

There are no [yale.edu] shortage [duke.edu] of [nd.edu] top [ox.ac.uk] universities [uchicago.edu] that have excellent theology or divinity departments. Some of the world's most influential and interesting thinkers have been theologians.

As someone studying at one of these top universities who has some familiarity with the Divinity school, I am going to humbly suggest that you might be surprised at the percentage of divinity students who are (gasp!) atheists.

To study religion is not the same thing as to want to be employed by it. The bulk of religion scholars want to be academics, not clergy, and they tend to study things like violence and religion, exploitation and religion, nationalism and religion, war and religion, mental illness and religion, history of religious conflict...

So yes, it's the study of religion at a top university, but by no means does this mean that all of these people hope someday to be pope.

Education has the highest correlation coefficient to lack of belief in a personal god. By most surveys, more than 90% of professional scientists don't believe in a personal god.

I can buy the second statement, but not necessarily the first. There are plenty of people with higher education who are not scientists.

In fact in most churches a prerequisite to joining the clergy is an advanced degree. Furthermore, the "professional degree" that you need to be a priest or pastor is a Master of Divinity, which normally requires an undergraduate degree, much like a law degree. There are no shortage of top universities that have excellent theology or divinity departments. Some of the world's most influential and interesting thinkers have been theologians.

As for the "90% of scientists" claim, I think that's a nasty prejudice on the part of scientists, rather than something to be proud of. Think about it: science and religion explore orthogonal aspects of life, neither of which is any less real than the other. Science tells us about what we can observe and test; religion illuminates things that are by nature untestable, like morality, ethics, compassion, and love for our fellow man.

In spite of what some might say, science can't really illuminate our understanding of God very much, because by nature you can't perform an experiment on God. Furthermore God can easily escape whatever assumptions a scientist may make (or, as one Vatican astronomer put it, "God is not a boundary condition"). By the same token our understanding of God can't do much to illuminate science, because when (for example) the bible contradicts a scientific observation, the observation must win. Fortunately most mainline religions acknowledge this, it's just the loudmouth conservative wackos who perpetuate the stereotype that a Christian believes the world is four thousand years old.

In fact my opinion is that the existence of God is an axiom. This fits because axioms are initial assumptions that cannot be tested, and as yet nobody has even developed a convincing test for the existence of God. One either believes that God exists or doesn't exist, and that belief affects the remaining propositions in one's life as any other axiom might. In no way is this incompatible with a career in science. In fact, if one believes (as I do) that God exists, what we know about the universe contributes to a sense of awe concerning the greatness of God. And, as one theologian suggests, this is one important aspect of religion: the "fear" of God puts you and your petty problems into perspective.

Religion really isn't about heaven, or hell, or converting as many atheists as possible, or strapping a bomb to yourself and blowing up a cafe. Religion is about suppressing your own ego and having compassion for those around you, which is something that a lot of scientists could sorely use.

It's apparently an older form of "our", "you", or "your". Not sure which - or perhaps it's all 3 depending on context and the date of usage. Anyone? See here:

The erst and fyrmost stæp to eal gode Weorka is the dræd and feurt of the Lauord of Heofan and Eorth, while thurh the Heilig Gast onligtneth the blindnese of ure sinfull heorte to træd the wæg of wisdome, and thone læd ure fet into the Land of Blessung.

And here:

I may no lenger more endure
My wonted lyf to lede,
But I must lerne to put in ure
The change of Womanhede.

Since there has been plenty of talk about Tejas being a Spanish name, let me throw my 2 bits in as well

Tejas in Hindi means "irradiating, illuminating light", also likened to "the light of the supreme spirit". When given to a someone to something, the name means someone who has a bright glow of radiance, splendour and glory.

Read the detailed information about the word here [Universirty of Chicago, Hindi dictionary).

As a result of my experience building nuclear reactors for fun, I was a science advisor for a BBC show, "The Nuclear Boyscout." I have had to answer questions about this a thousand times, and it has been /.-ed before (second down).

Also, I don't work for Los Alamos. I worked for Fermi National Accelerator Lab, but now I am at General Dynamics.

And by way of reference, the Scav Hunt rocks. We had a great time every year. Too bad I can't be there as an honorary judge this year. I would, but I can't make it... (Sorry Matt Kellard)

-Fred

My Webpage

They caved in and dropped Linux support for a database they sell. Is this the first educational institution that has sold out?

Rights? The right to trade a copy of "Walking Tall" recorded in theater with a camera (judging by the filename)?

Your insulated view may not allow you the perspective necessary for objectivity, but trust me, it is disputable whether or not an individual has the right to record "Walking Tall" in a theater with a camera and then distribute it. It is not a clear case as you would like to present it.

Would it be acceptable for someone to take an audio-only recording device to record the sound track for the movie? What if it was just a legal pad, and a pencil? Assume they know shorthand and could storyboard and transcribe it precisely. Is it immoral and/or illegal to transcribe, and describe the goings-on of the movie with a notepad and pencil? What if it was just someone's mind? What if Mr. Joe Hypothetical had eidetic memory and some expensive renderware on his PC at home. If he sees a Pixar movie and his mind, and software at home, enables him to recreate the movie exactly, should it be illegal?

What if you didn't have superhuman memory, or fancy software, but instead were just a great story-teller. Say you remembered the movie well and related all the details to your friends in an entertaining fashion. Is this copyright infringement too? Or what if you're not even a great story teller, but you remember the high points of the movie. Should it be illegal to divulge spoilers to those who have not paid? Are spoilers copyright infringement, do you think?

Humans already have the capacity to store, retrieve and relate information, you can't get around that fact! So the issue must be one of quality, right? The Valenti argument, that the "real problem" is that digital copies don't degrade. Well, what is the problem with recording from a theater? If you start with a degraded copy, isn't that great for the MPAA using that logic? If the issue isn't one of quality, it must be one of control. But where is the line drawn, when humans themselves have I/O and computational ability and when this is the direct root of human civilization?

If you pay for access to an idea, must you therefore relinquish control of your mind? That is what the argument reduces to.

Ponder TJ's words:

It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the mora

This "analog AI research" sounds quite like Braitenberg's "Vehicles". It's interesting stuff, demonstrating that it's much easier to create something that exhibits complex behaviour, than it is to work out how something works by observing its behaviour (complex behaviour may be the result of a complex environment).

NORC was responsible for the media-backed recount. You can download the database. See for yourself what would have happened if all the votes were counted.

Fortunately English isn't Latin, and we can feel free to boldly split the infinitive.

Oh, yes, he was elected. As spelled in the Constitution, by representatives sent to Electorate College by all of the States of the Union.

This is a commonly believed lie.

He was not elected. The election results in Florida were miscounted, as has been reported by a number of independant (as well as biased but detailed and cross-referenced) sources.

This isn't about theGore winning the popular vote by over a half million votes. It isn't even about the 11,000 individual complaints to the Justice Department about voting rights violations in Florida.

This is about the fact that Al Gore legally won Florida, and therefore the 2000 presidential election.

You shouldn't split an inifinitive, it's just bad grammar.

Here's one explanation.

Seminars for Endorsement of Science and Math Educators

When the NORC results were finally released (and then suppressed and ignored), they showed that using any uniform state-wide standard for counting all of the ballots, Gore did win Florida

Then you search for Dell and you get images back things like this. For some reason, I really want a Dell now.

What is the best software to use to create such a beast on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems?

For audio CDs, SoundForge formerly of Sonic Foundry, and now owned by Sony Pictures seems to be the industry favorite, and is generally considered the best multi-track audio sequencer around. Here is a review. You will also need Roxio or some other CD burning software to create the CD.

And conversely, has anyone used any of the music software on these platforms to actually analyze the contents of commercial subliminal CDs?

For that, you need some sampling software and some oscilloscope software. Talk to the DJ at your local club (the kind who has two decks and a microphone and a laptop). Your local DJ should be able to sample and analyze the CD for you, although it's not all that usefull... Audio signals layers get flattened to a single layer when burned to a CD, and it's difficult to separate the layers afterwords. That being said, we often times just used WinAmp to analyze audio signals. When analyzing audio spectrum, we would often run it through a video oscilloscope... Personally, I like to use G-Force as it's easy on the eyes and can analyze amplitude, frequency, and phase, at the same time. There are some software packages which people have written to try to seperate a flattened audio feed into seperate channels, although they usually don't work well (i.e. most of them are crap).

One common method of creating a "hidden message" is to write a short track and layer it inside the base by decreasing it's frequency and putting it below normal speaking range, down in the base range, with the drum beat. You can also take a message and put a white-noise mask over it, although signal loss is obviously a problem with that method. Obviously, you can also distort a message's temporal length, and make it veeerrrryyy sssllllloooowwww or vry fst. And you can also phase shift it, although that gets kinda weird.

A really good method for creating a good subliminal message, however, is to use symbolic messaging rather than embedded messaging. Basically, you separate your message into "chunks", and divide the chunks between different layers. As a somewhat silly example, which illustrates how this works, imagine that my subliminal message was "Impeach Bush". I would then chunk the message into "Impeach" and "Bush" obviously... Then I would sample two music clips, such as some dude saying the words "bush & beaver" and some chick singing the words "I'm just a wild peach". I'd loop the guy's sample to create one of those kinda annoying euro dance beats, and use the chick's sample as part of the refrain. If the refrain was sung three times throughout the song, and the last line to the refrain was "I'm just a wild peach", there would be three subliminal messages in the song, as the words transitioned from the girl saying "wild peach" to the guy saying "bush and beaver"... With the end effect of three subliminal messages in the CD approximating the impression "Impeach Bush".

By the way, there are a lot of twits on the slashdot forum today who are posting stuff like "subliminal messages are bullshit" and "subliminal messages don't work". I used to work at the National Opinion Research Center which is a demographics research center, and monitored things like commercials and subliminal messages. That was part of my job. Granted, we tended to concentrate on visual feeds, rather than auditory feeds. However, I can guarantee you that subliminal messages are extinsively used in communications. Often times, people create a subliminal message without even realizing it. Other times, they are sneakier and craft

The politness was genuine. Any sarcasm or mockery is purely a communication channel effect.

Yes, one of my links refrenced the Miami Herald study, which I agree was probably biased. That is not why I included that link though,... further down in the CNN article, it talks about the National Opinion Research Center study which was supposed to be the definitve evaluation of the ballots in question. It was those results that I was trying to reference when I made the claim that Gore wouldn't have won anyway.

The politness was genuine. Any sarcasm or mockery is purely a communication channel effect.

Yes, one of my links refrenced the Miami Herald study, which I agree was probably biased. That is not why I included that link though,... further down in the CNN article, it talks about the National Opinion Research Center study which was supposed to be the definitve evaluation of the ballots in question. It was those results that I was trying to reference when I made the claim that Gore wouldn't have won anyway.

Play around with cubanes. But be very careful. octanitrocubane is considered the most powerful non-nuclear explosive yet sythesized. And it's shock-insensitive.

Here are some links.

>Of course, the consumer shouldn't know about ANY OF THIS.
>The FCC/FTC should have stepped in by now and put Viacom in their place.

The FCC led by dyed-in-whool "deregulate everything right now! Big business knows best!" Republican Michael Powell? I'm not holding my breath. If anything the consumer should be *very* aware that his/her media is controlled by a handful of corporations and the government is very shy to step in and do anything for plethora of reasons, not limited to corruption, campaign donations, extreme ideologies, etc.

Right now and for a long time to come the watchdog has to be the consumer, hopefully stuff like this will pique the interest of a lot of people and few simple google searches will bring out the truth of the situation and enlighten people as to why media acts the way it does.

I wrote a paper about this a few weeks ago, but automatic cryptographic message signing would solve a lot of email related problems (i.e. spam and viruses/worms).

The basic idea I had was that every account would have an associate key-pair, and users would be required to send through an authenticated SMTP server provided by the account issuer. The SMTP server automatically calculates and inserts the signature, which the receiving SMTP server can then veify.

The only problem is that it would require widespread acceptance for it work reliably, and there's significant overhead (in message signing and verification).

Bullshit. HST is among the most productive astronomical facilities ever, measured in publication and citation count ( analysed here). HST data is typically used in more than 150 peer-reviewed papers a year. These are papers in journals such as Astrophysical Journal, Science, and of course Nature. A simple seach of the Science archives show 68 original research publications with "Hubble Space Telescope" in the text since 1995. A similar search for "International Space Station" returns ZERO hits. A search of the Nature website returns an interesting article: " Biologists recommend scrapping NASA's research on crystals" (Nature394, 213 (16 Jul 1998)) that starts out: "A panel of US biologists has called for an end to protein crystallography experiments in space -- one of the highest-profile research activities..."

The fact that the general public is fairly deluged by pretty HST pictures is in addition to the fact that the astronomical community is using HST very actively; it's not an artefact of some PR department.

Don't get me wrong - I think manned spaceflight, and the space station are good things, and should be funded. But let's be honest here; HST blows ISS out of space when it comes to publications and scientific impact.

Kludges are not "the black eye of science". They are initial attempts to explain observations. They may look foolish down the road, but early theories are, in fact, a starting point for further study.

As far as the cosmological constant is concerned, it seems to have new life.

In college, and a good one at that, many of my professors were amazed that more than half of students still didn't understand the differences between "its" and "it's", "their," "they're" and "there," or "your" and "you're". I even ran across the occasional student in grad school who had this problem. It's a sad day when students at some of the top schools in the country don't even understand their own language.

Kadanoff both discuss the strong points of the book:

First, it is an excellent pedagogical tool for introducing a reader, even one who has no knowledge of advanced mathematics, to some of the concepts of modern computer science, mathematics, and physics. [...] This is a tour de force of clarity and simplicity.

But Kadanoff also points out several weaknesses:

However, the reporting of history is spotty and sometimes quite weak. [...] From my reading, I cannot support the view that any "new kind of science" is displayed in Wolfram's new book. I see no new kinds of calculations, no new analytic theory, and no comparison with experiment.

Your post has been bugging me two days. I realized why this morning.

You have confused the word "modern" with the idea of the "Modern Age" or "Modern Period." Your error is even exposed in your own use of capitalization.

See Merriam-Webster or Webster's 1913.

This is, of course, assuming you weren't trying to be funny. If that was, in fact, the case . . . try harder.

-Peter

it's dai/mo^n delta-alpha-iota-mu-omega-nu