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I see that the NYT article linked to just about everything except MovieLens. I've used the site, and folks might like to try it out. It looks simple, but it's fairly nice, having some of those fun dynamic pages that are all the rage these days. One neat thing in comparison to Netflix is that it will give a projected star rating for you, rather than simply saying "Recommended".

Of course, I'm biased since I had John Riedl as a professor in a few easy classes. I think he tried to spin off this research as a new company, but I'm not sure if it ever got off the ground.

One thing I'd really like to see has little to do with the quality of ratings, though. I'd like to be able to keep a common database of my ratings across multiple sites. At the moment, I've rated a number of movies at Netflix, MovieLens, and IMDb, but they aren't entirely consistent. Unfortunately, two of the sites use a ten-point system (IMDb has a ten-point scale, MovieLens goes up to 5 stars, but in half-star increments), while the other uses a five-point one (maybe six if you say "Not Interested"..).

Well, I'll have to poke around a bit with this stuff. I wouldn't be able to do much, though, since my level of knowledge in this arena is very limited...

It's not fair use -- they're using the entire paper, not an excerpt

I can see an application of fair use if they were to compare a student's paper against a database they had developed through the purchasing of the rights to those papers. Using the copyrighted material and retaining it, to further expand the value of their commercial database, is problematic.

Incidentally, the University of Minnesota has a pretty clear policy about use of copyrighted student papers, discussed here. It is pretty apparent from this interpretation that they recognize student work is indeed copyrighted, and owned by the student.

Another example which might make this more clear is using the example of a music composition plagiarism database service. What if I decide I want to help college music departments check up on the composition homework, making sure it isn't plagiarized? In order to do this, I'll just need to have a database of classical music and have some clever software which compares signatures in the music. The RIAA would probably donate this software to me, as its my understanding they've used this signature approach to check MP3s for matches.

I'm sure the recording industry won't mind that I'll have to keep an unlicensed copy of all the recorded music - Beethoven symphonies, Bach organ works, etc. That I'm making a multi-million dollar profit doing this with their intellectual property won't bother them, I'm sure, because after all, I'm helping fight student piracy.

Any bets on the RIAA's cooperation with my idea - license free (and not a single dollar to them for this use)?

No, any half baked scheme cooked up by the electronic voting industry will do.
As well as many other ways to destroy elections.

How to steal elections and voter fraud shows you how to do it and get away with it.

I agree with you dlevitan. I think it is definitely worth the time and money to go to a good school and be challenged.

A few years ago, when I was a student at the University of Minnesota, the Physics Education Research Group gave students in the introductory physics courses a sort of pre-test called the Force Concept Inventory at the beginning of each semester. The goal of the pre-test was to discover what kinds of misconceptions students had about physical concepts. Students who had taken high school physics courses did not necessarily do better on the pre-test than those who didn't take physics in high school.

I got straight A's in high school and took AP math courses, but when I got to college I discovered that there were a lot of things that my high school physics and math teachers did not explain properly, or did not cover at all. I think that students are coming out of high school knowing even less and less each year, but they think they will have an easy time in college because they got good grades in high school. The last time I taught a college science course, I was shocked and horrified by the things that the students did not learn in high school. The young man in the article is going to have a rude awakening someday, when he realizes how little he actually knows and that he can't keep on coasting through life based upon his high school performance. I think that the college he attended did him a great disservice by allowing him to use so many high school credits and finish in such a short time.

I don't know that you're wrong about your municipality having cameras installed, but if you are talking about these sensors, then those are simple strobe sensors, not cameras. If this isn't what you are talking about, can you provide a picture?

Diesel exhaust is a known human carcinogen.

http://www1.umn.edu/eoh/hazards/hazardssite/diesel exhaust/dieselhealtheffects.html
http://www.cdc.gov/eLCOSH/docs/d0600/d000609/d0006 09.html

Everyone likes to think they have the answer. Your's is rich in carbon AND causes cancer.

And my refutation rhymed too.

The closest linux equivalent is the Systemtap project, which is based on the kprobes low level hooking API. These aren't yet billed as ready for production systems, but they'll get there soon enough. They look quite slick, also.

That said, the WSJ award seems to me to be maybe a little overstated. While Sun fanboys will shout to the heavens (with some justification, even) that DTrace is an amazing tool with absolutely no counterpart in the linux world, the fact remains that DTrace is at best an incrementally amazing tool. System performance tuning is a hard task, requiring smart developers and lots of work. System performance tuning with DTrace is a hard task requiring smart developers and a little less work.

System performance tuning using DTrace and a typical Solaris IT wonk (a population that tends to correlate highly with the fanboys pushing DTrace the hardest) is a recipe for disaster.

If you find someone telling you that DTrace is a must have tool and indispensable to the systems developer, apply salt. But yeah, it's pretty slick.

At a quick glance, it looks good, the author seems to have a good grasp of physics.

I should think so. James Kakalios has a Ph.D. in physics and is a professor at the University of Minnesota. His area of research is condensed matter physics. He is also a part of their Physics Force team that does shows featuring exciting science demonstrations.

At a quick glance, it looks good, the author seems to have a good grasp of physics.

I should think so. James Kakalios has a Ph.D. in physics and is a professor at the University of Minnesota. His area of research is condensed matter physics. He is also a part of their Physics Force team that does shows featuring exciting science demonstrations.

At least link the course.

Cigarettes are as dangerous as marijuana, but those are legal.

Correction. Try googling "heroin tabacco addiction". First hit was University of Minnesota http://www1.umn.edu/perio/tobacco/nicaddct.html which states:

Tobacco is as addictive as heroin (as a mood & behavior altering agent).

* Nicotine is:
o 1000 X more potent than alcohol
o 10-100 X more potent than barbiturates
o 5-10 X more potent than cocaine or morphine

On the other hand, pot, which has never been shown to cause an overdose, is illegal.

Why? ...tinfoilhat... Nixon started the official "war on drugs" (although skirmishes had been fought since the 30s). He used the "war" as a method of criminalizing the recreational activities of his adversaries. It worked. And works today. Nobody in their right mind would admit in any official capacity that they had even tried to use pot. The effect, of course, is that lots of people who could very capably contribute to the service of government are barred because they couldn't pass the background checks. ... /tinfoilhat ...

I heard it's Sodium Nitrite

Torture is forbidden by the Eighth Amendment: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." The restriction is unconditional. Torture is something else that the government simply cannot do legitimately. Period.
[...]

-
Also the Treaty Against Torture binds United States: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/h2catoc.htm

Any claims that torture is legal is pure bull. The U.S. President would have been hanged for what he has done in Nüremberg.

The link works for me... I'm snatching it right now
try this: http://mirror.cs.umn.edu/ubuntu-releases/6.06/

You're probably right, but I thought I'd mention that one of the author's names I recognized as a top-notch mathematician: Andrew M. Odlyzko. I read about him in a book about the race to prove the Riemann Hypothesis.

I'd say he's a pretty smart guy - I don't about practical or "street" smarts - but some smart people don't value money so highly.

... basic tech news feeds and somewhat insightful analysis/gems posted by the commenters. Even after moderation was added and the site grew, you would still see a vast majority of commenters posting things like

"The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it."
or
"The Internet is founded on peer sharing arrangements and it's technically difficult and economically impossible to implement a different system and have anything beyond Compuserve circa 1991."

Or perhaps some detailed links on why bandwidth restriction costs more. Like Andrew Odlyzko's paper...
http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/privacy.econom ics.pdf

or these other ones which may also help people gain understanding of the issue.
http://www.sobco.com/presentations/ngn.09.12.05.pd f
http://www.f5.com/solutions/technology/bandwidth_m yth_wp.html

But we didn't get that here. Instead, we got a bunch of people yelling at each other about things they simply have no understanding of. This goes for the lawmakers, the journalists, and almost every single comment posted here.

Unless you have a copy of W. Richard Steven's TCP/IP Illustrated on your shelf and understand the difference between a Tier 1 ISP and a Tier 2 ISP, it is simply impossible for you to understand what this supposed "debate" is about. Stop posting on here about it and do some basic RESEARCH! You know... the thing you do when you are reading something not written by a journalist or political hack from either US party?

To those rare comments that helped, keep up the good fight!

To the rest, know this. If you feel compelled to talk to a lawmaker, just tell them to stay out of these pissing matches that have been going on for a LOOOOOONG time now. Lawmakers are simply not smart enough to understand the problem or help in any meaningful way.

Am I the only one who thinks that newer IBM / Lenovo laptops are just pieces of crap?

Yes, you are. At least, I would disagree with you.

I've installed and run Linux on lots of IBM ThinkPads: T60, T43, ... R40, R30, ... A31, A30, A21e, ... 770z, 770, 765D, ... 384ED. I've always considered the ThinkPad to be a solid machine, very Linux friendly. I love the R40 that I'm on, but now that it's 3 years old it's time to replace it with one of the dual-core laptops ... I'm considering the X60, since the T60 definitely supported Linux. When the ThinkPad was an IBM product, for example, IBM opened the code to the DSP on the ThinkPad 770 series.

I ran Kubuntu Breezy (5.10) on 5 home machines (2 servers and 3 workstations) for quite a few months.

In Breezy, the server came on the same CD as the GUI (kubuntu). The servers do not have any GUI on them (and I like that way). The workstations have no local data at all, and use NIS/autofs to mount the home directories from the server.

When the release candidate of Dapper came out, I updated my test server using an edit of the sources.list, two commands, and a reboot.

When Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper came out, I had a new server to replace the old one. This is an AMD 64, with A8V (stay away from A8V-MX by the way). So, I installed it using the amd64/x86_64 version of the server CD, and copied all my old server to it.

Today, I reinstalled one of the workstation (a Pentium II 450 with 768 MB) using Dapper. I tried the kubuntu desktop live CD twice from the GUI, and it would copy packages, but not complete, and have to be hard rebooted.

Then I used the alternate desktop CD, which has the old text based installer, and that worked fine.

All in all I am happy with it, but can't explain why the glitch with the GUI install. I still have 2 workstation to install/upgrade. We will see how those go.

I ran Kubuntu Breezy (5.10) on 5 home machines (2 servers and 3 workstations) for quite a few months.

In Breezy, the server came on the same CD as the GUI (kubuntu). The servers do not have any GUI on them (and I like that way). The workstations have no local data at all, and use NIS/autofs to mount the home directories from the server.

When the release candidate of Dapper came out, I updated my test server using an edit of the sources.list, two commands, and a reboot.

When Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper came out, I had a new server to replace the old one. This is an AMD 64, with A8V (stay away from A8V-MX by the way). So, I installed it using the amd64/x86_64 version of the server CD, and copied all my old server to it.

Today, I reinstalled one of the workstation (a Pentium II 450 with 768 MB) using Dapper. I tried the kubuntu desktop live CD twice from the GUI, and it would copy packages, but not complete, and have to be hard rebooted.

Then I used the alternate desktop CD, which has the old text based installer, and that worked fine.

All in all I am happy with it, but can't explain why the glitch with the GUI install. I still have 2 workstation to install/upgrade. We will see how those go.

I ran Kubuntu Breezy (5.10) on 5 home machines (2 servers and 3 workstations) for quite a few months.

In Breezy, the server came on the same CD as the GUI (kubuntu). The servers do not have any GUI on them (and I like that way). The workstations have no local data at all, and use NIS/autofs to mount the home directories from the server.

When the release candidate of Dapper came out, I updated my test server using an edit of the sources.list, two commands, and a reboot.

When Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper came out, I had a new server to replace the old one. This is an AMD 64, with A8V (stay away from A8V-MX by the way). So, I installed it using the amd64/x86_64 version of the server CD, and copied all my old server to it.

Today, I reinstalled one of the workstation (a Pentium II 450 with 768 MB) using Dapper. I tried the kubuntu desktop live CD twice from the GUI, and it would copy packages, but not complete, and have to be hard rebooted.

Then I used the alternate desktop CD, which has the old text based installer, and that worked fine.

All in all I am happy with it, but can't explain why the glitch with the GUI install. I still have 2 workstation to install/upgrade. We will see how those go.

I ran Kubuntu Breezy (5.10) on 5 home machines (2 servers and 3 workstations) for quite a few months.

In Breezy, the server came on the same CD as the GUI (kubuntu). The servers do not have any GUI on them (and I like that way). The workstations have no local data at all, and use NIS/autofs to mount the home directories from the server.

When the release candidate of Dapper came out, I updated my test server using an edit of the sources.list, two commands, and a reboot.

When Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper came out, I had a new server to replace the old one. This is an AMD 64, with A8V (stay away from A8V-MX by the way). So, I installed it using the amd64/x86_64 version of the server CD, and copied all my old server to it.

Today, I reinstalled one of the workstation (a Pentium II 450 with 768 MB) using Dapper. I tried the kubuntu desktop live CD twice from the GUI, and it would copy packages, but not complete, and have to be hard rebooted.

Then I used the alternate desktop CD, which has the old text based installer, and that worked fine.

All in all I am happy with it, but can't explain why the glitch with the GUI install. I still have 2 workstation to install/upgrade. We will see how those go.

What's about Ariane 5 ? http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/ariane.ht ml/

Kassab GS and Navia JA. Biomechanical considerations in the design of graft: The Homeostasis Hypothesis. Annu Rev Biomed Eng 2006 Apr 19. Dept of Biomedical Engineering, UC-Irvine, gkassab[at]uci[dot]edu, PMID: 16704364

Abstract:Since its inception in the 1960s, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) evolved as one of the most common, best documented, and most effective of all major surgical treatments for ischemic heart disease. Despite its widespread use, however, the outcome is not completely satisfactory. The objective of this review is to highlight the physical determinants of biomechanical design of CABG so that future procedures would have prolonged patency and better outcome. Our central axiom postulates the existence of a mechanical homeostatic state of the blood vessel, i.e., the variation in vessel wall stresses and strains are relatively small under physiological conditions. Any perturbation of mechanical homeostasis leads to growth and remodeling. In this sense, stenosis and failure of a graft may be viewed as an adaptation process gone awry. We outline the principles of engineering design and discuss the biofluid and biosolid mechanics principles that may have the greatest bearing on mechanical homeostasis and the long-term outcome of CABG. Expected online publication date for the Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering Volume 8 is July 11, 2006. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org.floyd.lib.umn.edu/cat alog/pub_dates.asp for revised estimates.

Anversa P, Leri A, Kajstrura J. Cardiac regeneration. J Am Coll Cardiol 2006 May 2; 47(9):1769-76. Cardiovascular Research Institute, NY Medical College, piero_anversa[at]nymc[dot]edu, PMID: 16682300 (see also 16549650)

Abstract: The role and even the existence of new myocyte formation in the adult heart remain controversial. Documentation of cell cycle regulators, deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis, and mitotic images has only in part modified the view that myocardial growth can be accomplished exclusively from hypertrophy of an irreplaceable population of differentiated myocytes. However, myocyte regeneration and death occur physiologically, and these cellular processes are enhanced in pathologic states. These observations have challenged the view of the heart as a postmitotic organ and have proposed a new paradigm in which parenchymal and non-parenchymal cells are continuously replaced by newly formed younger populations of myocytes as well as by vascular smooth muscle and endothelial cells. Heart homeostasis is regulated by a stem cell compartment characterized by multipotent cardiac stem cells that possess the ability to acquire the distinct cell lineages of the myocardium. Similarly, adult bone marrow cells are able to differentiate into cells beyond their own tissue boundary and create cardiomyocytes and coronary vessels. This process has been termed developmental plasticity or transdifferentiation. Because of these properties, bone marrow cells and cardiac stem cells have been employed experimentally in the reconstitution of dead myocardium after infarction. These cell classes hold promise for the treatment of heart failure in humans.

Just get a thinkpad

I second this idea. I've had a ton of good experiences with the ThinkPad. Recently (March 2006) my wife decided it was time to upgrade her laptop. She was unsure what kind of system to get, but eventually decided she'd rather have another ThinkPad. We retired her very old A21e, and purchased a new ThinkPad T43. And yes, she asked me to put Linux on it. Of course, we looked at the different T43 models, and checked that the system we were buying had support under Linux. We chose Intel GMA 900 graphics, and the integrated Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG network adapter. It runs great with Fedora Core 5, right "out of the box".

I also had the opportunity to test-drive a ThinkPad T60 for a month. Yes, I ran Linux on it. It was great - and my next laptop upgrade will be a ThinkPad. (Currently, I'm still running a ThinkPad R40 with Fedora Core 5.)

Still, if you're looking for a more specific suggestion, I'd suggest looking closely at the configuration of the laptop. Their online store makes this easy. I recommend getting a ThinkPad that uses the Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 video (which is natively supported by x.org). So far, ipw3945-0.0.74-4.rhfc5.at seems to provide stable wireless networking, so I guess the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG integrated wireless is okay. I also have had good luck with the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG.

Just get a thinkpad

I second this idea. I've had a ton of good experiences with the ThinkPad. Recently (March 2006) my wife decided it was time to upgrade her laptop. She was unsure what kind of system to get, but eventually decided she'd rather have another ThinkPad. We retired her very old A21e, and purchased a new ThinkPad T43. And yes, she asked me to put Linux on it. Of course, we looked at the different T43 models, and checked that the system we were buying had support under Linux. We chose Intel GMA 900 graphics, and the integrated Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG network adapter. It runs great with Fedora Core 5, right "out of the box".

I also had the opportunity to test-drive a ThinkPad T60 for a month. Yes, I ran Linux on it. It was great - and my next laptop upgrade will be a ThinkPad. (Currently, I'm still running a ThinkPad R40 with Fedora Core 5.)

Still, if you're looking for a more specific suggestion, I'd suggest looking closely at the configuration of the laptop. Their online store makes this easy. I recommend getting a ThinkPad that uses the Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 video (which is natively supported by x.org). So far, ipw3945-0.0.74-4.rhfc5.at seems to provide stable wireless networking, so I guess the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG integrated wireless is okay. I also have had good luck with the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG.

Just get a thinkpad

I second this idea. I've had a ton of good experiences with the ThinkPad. Recently (March 2006) my wife decided it was time to upgrade her laptop. She was unsure what kind of system to get, but eventually decided she'd rather have another ThinkPad. We retired her very old A21e, and purchased a new ThinkPad T43. And yes, she asked me to put Linux on it. Of course, we looked at the different T43 models, and checked that the system we were buying had support under Linux. We chose Intel GMA 900 graphics, and the integrated Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG network adapter. It runs great with Fedora Core 5, right "out of the box".

I also had the opportunity to test-drive a ThinkPad T60 for a month. Yes, I ran Linux on it. It was great - and my next laptop upgrade will be a ThinkPad. (Currently, I'm still running a ThinkPad R40 with Fedora Core 5.)

Still, if you're looking for a more specific suggestion, I'd suggest looking closely at the configuration of the laptop. Their online store makes this easy. I recommend getting a ThinkPad that uses the Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 video (which is natively supported by x.org). So far, ipw3945-0.0.74-4.rhfc5.at seems to provide stable wireless networking, so I guess the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG integrated wireless is okay. I also have had good luck with the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG.

• 1024x576
• 425MB (Bittorrent)
• 425MB (USA #1)
• 425MB (USA #2)
• 425MB (Australia)
• 425MB (Germany)
• 425MB (Netherlands)

Only playable in: VLC Media Player MPlayer

No, you talk horseshit. And I can prove it:

http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/history.commun ications1b.pdf

("Internet pricing and the history of communications" by Andrew Odlyzko)

In short, in earliest, old days of yore AOL (9600 bps phone modems were fun, I'm telling you. not. these days 38400 bps was broadband technology) and pretty much every ISP tried to get users to pay for bandwidth used or time spent on net.

It DIDN'T WORK. The users stubbornly wanted flat rate and that's it, even if they were not using it all, agreeing to systematically pay more than if they went with typical "phone bill" model. Come to think of it, it's crazy. And so the businesses went with it: customers demanded flat rate, they got it.

The standard economics has it that way:

"Although flat-rate continues to be the predominant form in which Internet access is sold, that form of pricing is unviable. Flat-rate pricing encourages waste and requires 20 percent of users who account for 80 percent of the traffic to be subsidized by other users and other forms of revenue. Furthermore, flat-rate pricing is incompatible with quality-differentiated services."

Something not entirely clearly understood in consumers' psychology makes us massively insist on flat rate for internet, though we still have little problem with traditional model of charging per minute for phone calls. It should be pretty obvious, shouldn't it? Flat rate, not paying for bandwidth used but only for available is exclusively an artifact of consumer's psyche. From standard economic viewpoint that works for water, electricity, phone calls and legal services, flat rate is wasteful and non-optimal.

P2P and Google and the like are the ones who gorge on that bandwidth, paid for by guys who for some crazy Freudian reasons are willing to pay for more bandwidth than they actually use. Economically, it's like allowing your phone company to bill you for using phone by other people. That said, there are such things out there: like people who buy gym membership cards and use them less than they intended (which is exactly what gym owners count on, thus being able to oversell their resources).

Now, Odlyzko has shown very convincingly why for complicated reasons peculiar to internet this is not the case for internet. Still, it doesn't have to mean that "stratifying" or "segmenting" the internet services could not help in its development. At worst we will fall back to the flat-rate, no-QoS, no bulk discounts model.

Suppose you go to gas stations and you are forced to buy only one type of gasoline that is subsidized and poor quality. Happy with the picture? So far we have been putting up with exactly such situation on the internet. Well, I for one am sick of it. Why not try smth new? OHMYGOD THE TELCOS ARE GONNA EAT MY ASS!

You're all a bunch of panicky sheep, pussies.

My God, what is it with you people! The net grows exponentially dumb these days! This is supposed to be the place for people knowing a thing or two about technology, economics and the world in general?! Is it contagious knuckledraggia epidemics? WTF?!

Simple numerical integrators destroy these identities
at order dt^n for some small but finite n. Run the code
forwards and one can find finite time blow ups due to
the stepping algorithm- however even after a single
time step the numerical solution has unphysical aspects

Finding /constraint conserving/ algorithms is tricky
http://www.ima.umn.edu/nr/abstracts/6-24abs.html

I recently (December) purchased a Thinkpad X40. The number one reason I chose to do so is the fact that 100% of the components in it were supported by Linux. There aren't any mysterious, undocumented revisions with different components. Everything -- and I mean everything -- works perfectly with my laptop, which is saying a lot. As far as I can tell, the same holds with all of the other laptops in the Thinkpad line, with the exception that some of the laptops have ATI video cards that require proprietary drivers to get full acceleration. This holds for the laptops released after the Thinkpad line was purchased by Lenovo as well.

Recently (March 2006) my wife decided it was time to upgrade her laptop. She was unsure what kind of system to get, but eventually decided she'd rather have another ThinkPad. We retired her very old A21e, and purchased a new ThinkPad T43. And yes, she asked me to put Linux on it. Of course, we looked at the different T43 models, and checked that the system we were buying had support under Linux. We chose Intel GMA 900 graphics, and the integrated Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG network adapter. It runs great with Fedora Core 5, right "out of the box".

I'm going to wait and see what other customers have to say. That said if I were in the market for a laptop right now I'd heavily consider Lenovo because Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba, et al have all already proven themselves to be inferior products.

IBM and Lenovo are still tight business partners. For example, at the end of March, I met with my IBM sales rep to review projects coming up over the next 12 months. As an aside, half-jokingly, I mentioned in that timeframe I'd also buy a new laptop ... and if he knew of any new ThinkPads coming out, let me know. Heh heh.

The next day I got a call from a Lenovo rep, who had spoken with my IBM rep. She said she heard I was interested in Lenovo Thinkpads, and would I like to test-drive a new model that recently came out? Hell, yes.

I've been running a Thinkpad T60 laptop since the start of April. Of course, I'm running Linux on it. It's a great laptop. Titanium body, magnesium-allow cover, integrated wireless, ... It's even Intel Core Duo! At the end of the month, it's going to be hard to go back to my Thinkpad R40 (ABS plastic body & cover, single-core CPU, etc.)

Still, if you're waiting to see what other customers have to say, I'd suggest getting a model that uses the Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 video (which is natively supported by x.org). So far, ipw3945-0.0.74-4.rhfc5.at seems to provide stable wireless networking, so I guess the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG integrated wireless is okay.

This is cool, I like it, but I want to dual boot on the Mac Mini; and by dual boot I mean like I have it now on my old iBook -- OS X and Linux. I don't want Windows on it. So, my question, when you boot holding down the 'option' key on the Mac can you make it so you'll have the option of OS X or Linux .. ?

I've played with Boot Camp, but haven't done much with it. But from what I understand by reading the wiki, you can create a dual-boot MacOSX/Linux system. However, the BootCamp Assistant seems (inferred by TFA) to prefer you have one partition per operating system on the disk space you set up. I don't understand why, though (when I booted FreeDOS, then ran FDISK, it appeared as though the presented "hard drive" had no partitions, suggesting you could create your own partitions.)

If you want to be safe, I'd go ahead and follow the usual instructions with BootCamp Assistant, create a single Linux partition (no swap), and create a swap file in that partition.

At least, I infer that from TFA. As I said, when I experimented with it, it looked like you could create partitions as you would on any PC, when you booted into the "Windows" area (faked BIOS.)

I'll try this on the iMac I have at work in the next week ... see my web site for updates.

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm

http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/y4gcpcp.htm

http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/civilianpersons.h tm

All this app does is partition the disk, and burn a CD with the drivers that Windows needs to use Apple's hardware. If you want to run Linux, you're still on your own.

Not as bad as you think, though. I have an Intel iMac, and I was able to download and install the Boot Camp beta. Yes, it really is easy. Clearly, it provides an emulated BIOS for the hosted operating system. They intend for you to install Windows XP SP2 in here, but there's no reason you can't install something else.

Like FreeDOS, for example. No, that's not a faked photograph - it really is FreeDOS booted natively on an iMac!

Linux will run just happily under Boot Camp, too. At least, I booted the Fedora Core 5 installer, and it went into graphics mode ("vesa") just fine. I can provide another cell phone photo on that, if you need it. I intend to burn a single-disc DVD installer for FC5, and install on the 5GB space I carved out for myself. I'll definitely post photos to my web site when I've done it.

Yes, I think so. Check out this Sweave demo: http://www.stat.umn.edu/~charlie/Sweave/. Sweave is overkill for what you are talking about, but gives an idea of how to do it. This being R, I'm certain there are many other ways to accomplish the same thing, but I'm just beginning to fiddle with LaTeX myself.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-b oycott.htm http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Educational_Resources/Curr iculum/Broken_Threads/Boycotts/boycotts.html

"Nazi propaganda claimed that all department stores were in Jewish hands and were a danger to the German middle class."

Here's two. Do yourself a favor and look for the books yourself. They're really not hard to find. Watch some Nazi propaganda flicks. Google for "jewish department store germany", refine the keywords a bit, you get the idea.

Or just stay ignorant. I have the feeling you're leaning towards that. You haven't read the history books until now and yet think you know how National Socialism worked. Go on and pull some more rabbits out of your ass, ok ?

There is plenty of stuff on the web, but to get you started, here are some things to get you thinking about how abiogenesis may have occurred, or at least suggest the workings of some steps along the way.

1) In 1953, Stanley Miller, working under Harold Urey, showed that amino acids are able to form spontaneously in the conditions which may have existed in earth's primordial atmosphere. In three months, his experiment produced at least 7 amino acids, which included 3 of the 20 found in modern (and probably ancient) organisms. (Amino acids are the 'building blocks' of all proteins).

2) Certain lipid molecules, including phospholipids (the main type of molecule that makes up cell membranes), will spontaneously form a number of structures when placed in water, eg "micelles" and "bi-layers".

Micelles are tiny spherical structures made of relatively few molecules, and can 'carry' other molecules inside them, although I'm am not aware of the significance of this.

Bi-layers are often much larger structures capable of forming large sheets, or "membranes" which can be quite bendy and stretchy. They can even bend around on themselves to form massive. spherical "containers" which separate their contents from the outside world and thus allows the contents to become significantly chemically different. This is exactly the structure used by all living cells to contain the vast array of chemical reactions that need to be carried out under special chemical conditions.

The significance of spontaneous organisation of certain lipids is that it is thermodynamically favourable for these structures to occur and therefore plausible that they played an important part in containing the first biochemical interactions that occurred during abiogenesis.

3) It has also been suggested that certain clay substrates may have formed a biochemical "staging ground" for collecting and organising biologically significant molecules. I remember reading (possibly in a Richard Dawkins book) about one theory which suggested the idea that the clay substrates themselves could have been self-reproducing. The premise of this particular theory is that imperfections in some crystal structures are often repeated throughout the crystal as it grows. Therefore crystal structures with certain imperfections may have encouraged more of themselves to exist. Furthermore, the theory says, if particular "self-replicating" crystal structures gave rise to large scale properties that further encouraged the production of these crystals, then they would become even more prolific. For example, if a certain "self-replicating" crystal was usually generated in still water, but also had the property that, when washed into slow-moving water, sediments of the crystal caused that slow-moving water to "dam up", then the water would become still again, thus creating an environment suitable for creating more of the crystal.

Far-fetched? Perhaps, But I am always wary of criticising a theory simply because of my own incredulity.

Anyway. The upshot is that we are a number of theories of abiogenesis out there, none of them at all complete. I guess that any theories will remain speculative until we are able to satisfactorily string together a series of observeda and reproducible reactions and interactions that would be able to explain abiogenesis.

There is plenty of stuff on the web, but to get you started, here are some things to get you thinking about how abiogenesis may have occurred, or at least suggest the workings of some steps along the way.

1) In 1953, Stanley Miller, working under Harold Urey, showed that amino acids are able to form spontaneously in the conditions which may have existed in earth's primordial atmosphere. In three months, his experiment produced at least 7 amino acids, which included 3 of the 20 found in modern (and probably ancient) organisms. (Amino acids are the 'building blocks' of all proteins).

2) Certain lipid molecules, including phospholipids (the main type of molecule that makes up cell membranes), will spontaneously form a number of structures when placed in water, eg "micelles" and "bi-layers".

Micelles are tiny spherical structures made of relatively few molecules, and can 'carry' other molecules inside them, although I'm am not aware of the significance of this.

Bi-layers are often much larger structures capable of forming large sheets, or "membranes" which can be quite bendy and stretchy. They can even bend around on themselves to form massive. spherical "containers" which separate their contents from the outside world and thus allows the contents to become significantly chemically different. This is exactly the structure used by all living cells to contain the vast array of chemical reactions that need to be carried out under special chemical conditions.

The significance of spontaneous organisation of certain lipids is that it is thermodynamically favourable for these structures to occur and therefore plausible that they played an important part in containing the first biochemical interactions that occurred during abiogenesis.

3) It has also been suggested that certain clay substrates may have formed a biochemical "staging ground" for collecting and organising biologically significant molecules. I remember reading (possibly in a Richard Dawkins book) about one theory which suggested the idea that the clay substrates themselves could have been self-reproducing. The premise of this particular theory is that imperfections in some crystal structures are often repeated throughout the crystal as it grows. Therefore crystal structures with certain imperfections may have encouraged more of themselves to exist. Furthermore, the theory says, if particular "self-replicating" crystal structures gave rise to large scale properties that further encouraged the production of these crystals, then they would become even more prolific. For example, if a certain "self-replicating" crystal was usually generated in still water, but also had the property that, when washed into slow-moving water, sediments of the crystal caused that slow-moving water to "dam up", then the water would become still again, thus creating an environment suitable for creating more of the crystal.

Far-fetched? Perhaps, But I am always wary of criticising a theory simply because of my own incredulity.

Anyway. The upshot is that we are a number of theories of abiogenesis out there, none of them at all complete. I guess that any theories will remain speculative until we are able to satisfactorily string together a series of observeda and reproducible reactions and interactions that would be able to explain abiogenesis.

how can you say that this is proving that the crazies are not in minority??!!

1. the muslim population of the world is about 1.5 billion. tell me again, how many people in total, participated in violent demonstrations all over the muslim countries? i know in Iran's capital city (Tehran) with a population of about 12 million, there were only 400 people who participated in the violent protests. well sure, it says in the news headlines that the danish embassy in tehran was set on fire, but does it emphasize that a group of 400 people in a 12 million population did that?
of course i know in some other countries the numbers where much higher, up to the tens of thousands, but still that's FAR FAR away from the majority of the muslim population.

2. last wednesday and thursday (8 and 9th Feb) some reports were putting the number of protestors in the hundreds of thousands in some countries. that has nothing to do with the cartoons. there is a two day annual religous event called Ashoora which takes place at this time of the year; and of course on the sidelines of that event, some groups where chanting slogans about the cartoons too.

i hope i've been able to convince some of you that it is not fair to conclude that the majority of muslims are violent people.

That Slashdot claims to a community for nerds instantly defines a lie. It is a classic cycle of culture hijacking uniqueness and making it "cool" - thus, destroying its original being.

Many believe that hippies were a thing of the late 60s and early 70s. Though on October 6, 1967 dozens of original hippies from San Francisco held a mock funeral to claim the death of the movement from its perversion by pop-culture.

The same can be said of this website. There are no nerds here. None.

http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/telecom.dogmas .spectrum.ps
another great article on the stupidity of the telecom industry.

Wow can't believe I'm getting into such a stupid discussion. "Gates's" is actually more 'correct', although it is a matter of style. Links to substantiate this:

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

Although both ways seem to be technically acceptable, popular style publications such as the Chicago Manual of Style advocate the "adding 's after the s" approach.

I guess a more pertinent question however is, who modded you up (not to bash you or anything) on such an irrelevant discussion and made people like me follow the thread?

And they even have a fab website outlining it.

Used to be in Roman times that the greatest senators of the republic were those who were the most stoic.

Now, it seems the most desired senators are those most likely to be on Jerry Springer.

My how the burning of Alexandria set us back much further than we could have thought.

UMTYMP (University of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematics Program) is a great program in Minnesota that lets junior high and high school students get a leg up by studying high school and college math early. I was in the program, and it allowed me to finish all four years of high school math in junior high and take a year-and-a-half of college calculus my 9- and 10th grade years (I had to drop out because of other activities).

It's one of the best programs I've seen in the country for encouraging advanced athematics education.

"looney left fringe"

Apparently the United States has a hell of a fringe

" ...white dwarfs are involved in explosions called Type Ia supernovas."

White dwarfs are the remnant of Sun-like stars -- they are not formed in supernova explosions. However, some white dwarfs in binary star systems can accumulate mass from their companion and explode in a nova or in some cases a Type Ia supernova.

The nearest star most likely to go supernova (and not Type Ia, but Type II), is eta Carina.

At least that's what the four-color glossy marketing blurb promises. I think they also offer tooth fairy anatomy, easter bunny sightings and north pole tours guided by Santa himself.

And you get an F for reading comprehension. Thanks for playing, though.

My original post read,

Only creatures that possess souls possess the capacity to be worried about them.

I wasn't referring to their capacity to worry in general, I was referring to their capacity to worry about their souls...to worry about why they are here, to worry whether or not a part of themselves goes on after death....basically, to fully apprehend and worry about any of the four ultimate concerns of life, which are expressed as paradoxes: Freedom/ responsibility, death/striving for life, meaning/meaninglessness, isolation/desire for connection.

In short, the capacity for true existential anxiety.

That's why you use cameras on wheels. They can move, they can jump the stairs, they can be thrown, and better yet, they can be fired from a special cannon. Totally sweet :-)