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"as much as 90 percent of the published medical information that doctors rely on is flawed"

I'm pretty sure there's a Sturgeon's Corollary out there someplace, where it is revealed that as each discipline begins to examine itself, it finds that the evolution of its episteme tends to approach Sturgeon's Revelation asymptotically.

Welcome to reality, where if you live long enough, everything you think you know *for sure* will turn out to be wrong. Or maybe just misguided. The real test is how you deal with new knowledge. Do you keep up and stay current, or do just relax and maintain an elaboration of a worldview and assumptions fundamentally frozen during your adolescence. Doctors are taught over and over in med school that what they are learning is provisional, rapidly changing, and contingent. Many fail to assimilate that important lesson, but many do not.

> Recycling costs me nothing.

You haven't recycled anything serious then. CRTs? Relatively nominal charge for disposal. Got Freon in your fridge? Fee for disposal. Electronics? depends on your state.

> Dimming an incandescent to 75% its output means you get far less light. You are actually making them less efficient.

Wikipedia would tend to agree, but there are limits to how you can generate lumens. Several point sources are more comfortable than a single searing orb. And by that same chart, CFLs scale up even better on lumens/watt than incandescents.

However, later in that same article, you find that CFLs degrade much, much faster when turned off and on regularly. So much so that their lifetime can degrade to be equivalent to that of an incandescent. ... at which point manufacturing/disposal costs have exceeded your "use savings". So putting them in your bathroom, closet, or motion detector yard light is probably not a good idea.

In December 2007, many of these state efforts became moot when the federal government enacted the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which requires all general-purpose light bulbs that produce 310–2600 lumens of light[8] be 30% more energy efficient (similar to current halogen lamps) than current incandescent bulbs by 2012 to 2014. The efficiency standards will start with 100-watt bulbs in January 2012 and end with 40-watt bulbs in January 2014.

Light bulbs outside of this range are exempt from the restrictions (historically, less than 40 Watts or more than 150 Watts). Also exempt are several classes of specialty lights, including appliance lamps, rough service bulbs, 3-way, colored lamps, and plant lights.

By 2020, a second tier of restrictions would become effective, which requires all general-purpose bulbs to produce at least 45 lumens per watt (similar to current CFLs). Exemptions from the Act include reflector flood, 3-way, candelabra, colored, and other specialty bulbs. (emphasis mine)

Hmmm, it looks like this is another (successful) troll by a Congressional Republican.

In December 2007, many of these state efforts became moot when the federal government enacted the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which requires all general-purpose light bulbs that produce 310–2600 lumens of light[8] be 30% more energy efficient (similar to current halogen lamps) than current incandescent bulbs by 2012 to 2014. The efficiency standards will start with 100-watt bulbs in January 2012 and end with 40-watt bulbs in January 2014.

Light bulbs outside of this range are exempt from the restrictions (historically, less than 40 Watts or more than 150 Watts). Also exempt are several classes of specialty lights, including appliance lamps, rough service bulbs, 3-way, colored lamps, and plant lights.

By 2020, a second tier of restrictions would become effective, which requires all general-purpose bulbs to produce at least 45 lumens per watt (similar to current CFLs). Exemptions from the Act include reflector flood, 3-way, candelabra, colored, and other specialty bulbs. (emphasis mine)

Hmmm, it looks like this is another (successful) troll by a Congressional Republican.

Yeah, I think you're right. PQ1 did get a remake for sure though.

And I imagine the US banking system allows eletronic transfer between banks from and to private citizens's acounts, no?

You'd think so, but whenever I've tried to transfer money to US accounts, they are unable to provide me with an IBAN which many countries outside of the US use and require for international transfers.

Palantir Technologies, specifically Peter Thiel.

The Republican Congress in the 80s under Reagan found that Glass Steagall was useful and resisted the banking industry lobby that wanted it repealed. Gutted by Clinton and congressional Republicans(with major Democratic support). The Garn-St Germain act(savings and loan deregulation) was narrow and had broad bipartisan support. I wouldn't say S&L dereg undermined Glass Steagall at all(Congress reaffirmed its support in Glass-Steagall after S&L dereg), and Reagan approved increasing the amount the FDIC insured early on

D's controlled the House under all of Reagan's term: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Control_of_the_U.S._House_of_Representatives.PNG The Glass-Steagall Act wasn't repealed until 1999 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act#Repeal The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act which "removed the power of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors under the Glass–Steagall Act" was passed in 1980 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Institutions_Deregulation_and_Monetary_Control_Act under D controlled House, Senate and Executive http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Control_of_the_U.S._Senate.PNG

The Republican Congress in the 80s under Reagan found that Glass Steagall was useful and resisted the banking industry lobby that wanted it repealed. Gutted by Clinton and congressional Republicans(with major Democratic support). The Garn-St Germain act(savings and loan deregulation) was narrow and had broad bipartisan support. I wouldn't say S&L dereg undermined Glass Steagall at all(Congress reaffirmed its support in Glass-Steagall after S&L dereg), and Reagan approved increasing the amount the FDIC insured early on

D's controlled the House under all of Reagan's term: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Control_of_the_U.S._House_of_Representatives.PNG The Glass-Steagall Act wasn't repealed until 1999 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act#Repeal The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act which "removed the power of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors under the Glass–Steagall Act" was passed in 1980 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Institutions_Deregulation_and_Monetary_Control_Act under D controlled House, Senate and Executive http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Control_of_the_U.S._Senate.PNG

What are you thoughts on Hyperthymesia? The Brad Williams study is jaw-dropping; perhaps Mr. Cooke should watch it?

Yes:
Failure to fulfill dual criminality - generally the act for which extradition is sought must constitute a crime punishable by some minimum penalty in both the requesting and the requested parties.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Extradition#Exemptions_in_the_European_Union
But:
I slutet av november häktades han i sin frånvaro misstänkt för en våldtäkt, två fall av sexuellt ofredande och ett fall av olaga tvång.
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/assange-utlamnas-till-sverige
Which means:
In late November he was arrested in his absence on suspicion of rape, two counts of sexual assault and one case of duress.

And as far as I know rape is a crime in the UK.

There should be a name for this.

There is:

Hasty Generalization

I can't comment on this dude having a normal memory or otherwise, but he certainly has a pretty closed mind. There's a big difference between a well trained mind and a true photographic memory. Some people just remember *everything*. It's not something they train themselves to do, or use a technique, it's something physically different about their brain that makes it work that way.

That you believe the myth doesn't make you more open minded.

*IF* there were true photographic memory, then the prizes at these world memory championships would be scooped up by people that have it. But they're not. They're won by ordinary people with pretty average memories who dedicate their spare time to mastering memory techniques.

"Photographic memory" is the stuff of magicians, hucksters and B movie thrillers.

Actually, there ARE some people who have near-perfect autobiographical memory. Hyperthymesia is the name for it. Though I really can't say with any certainty whether this particular kind of memory would convey any advantages in the memory competitions.

I believe you mean Spaced retention. From my personal experience as well as opinions I've heard from other people, it's a very useful technique for people learning Chinese based scripts and foreign vocabulary.

However SR is an involved process requiring some kind of tool (usually software) and not something to do on the fly, unlike what the article talks about. Rather than an actual technique, it's more of a method to optimize the process of natural memorization, especially when dealing with large volumes of facts over long periods of time.

Actually, there is a thing called aleatory music but one would use 'sound', not 'noise' to talk about it. (Noise:Sound::Weed:Plant)
I do know of one piece of 'music' that could properly be described as random noise: John Cage's 4'33".
I use the scare quotes there quite purposefully.

Actually, there is a thing called aleatory music but one would use 'sound', not 'noise' to talk about it. (Noise:Sound::Weed:Plant)
I do know of one piece of 'music' that could properly be described as random noise: John Cage's 4'33".
I use the scare quotes there quite purposefully.

Awww man, I can't get a gray hoodie with Assange's face plastered on it?

make it stop!!!

Could it not also qualify as tortious interference on the part of the hypothetical employer? Especially since the employer demonstrates having read the Facebook agreement.

If so, it would not matter if the employer did not agree to the agreement because he or she wrongfully and intentionally caused the employee to violate the contract.

You're not the only one who notices this phenomenon, but some people think it's confirmation bias.

You're not the only one who notices this phenomenon, but some people think it's confirmation bias.

They were probably expecting a lot fewer.

The website in question should enable SSL so that sysadmins in the middle can't monkey around with blocking sites based on their content.

The Ravenclaw sequence didn't really bother me - I had heard it was supposed to be really scary - but most of the rest of the levels did.

Yeah, Ravenclaw is quite tame. Now Slytherin, that's a scary level! Unless you meant Ravenholm.

I do have some concerns over this Gnome/Unity fork. Not just how it will effect Gnome but whether Canonical and Ubuntu can handle a significant fork. I am fairly certain bugs like this are a product of the fork, and I wonder who is going to fix them. Canonical has trouble getting good bug reports for packages like cairo, poppler and evince upstream, never mind patching them. I can think of a number of examples, but is the aforementioned bug which was almost certainly probably caused by the fork going to be fixed before 11.04 is released? It is not the only bug caused by the fork either. Who is going to fix these? The fork is small now and these should be easy to fix, who is going to fix them as the fork gets bigger, and Gnome and Unity diverge even more? On the other hand, it's conceivable that Unity will be so awesome, that developers will flock to it, and Gnome shell will to some extent wither away. There are different perspectives, different problems and different possibilities for all of these things. I can tell you right now though that the Unity stuff is breaking stuff in Ubuntu's Gnome, and it is staying broken. Stuff that the Gnome developers will not be fixing either. We'll see what happens...

The german foreign office is headed by Guido Westerwelle, FDP. FDP is the german liberals party, and they have "aligned [themselves] closely to the promotion of free markets and privatisation" from wikipedia.org https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Free_Democratic_Party_(Germany).

netzpolitik.org seems to have documents from a McKinsey survey which support the opposit claim, in particular that Windows single boot would be technically possible and attractive from a user's perspective, but expensive, work intensive and hard to justify [Freely translated from https://www.netzpolitik.org/2011/interne-dokumente-des-auswartigen-amtes-zur-anderung-der-open-source-strategie/#more-20730]

A survey article about the matter can be found at [heise.de http://www.heise.de/open/artikel/Die-Woche-Kein-Linux-im-Auswaertigen-Amt-1191310.html] google translate is http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fopen%2Fartikel%2FDie-Woche-Kein-Linux-im-Auswaertigen-Amt-1191310.html

God bless America, where freedom is slavery, ignorance is knowledge and war is peace.

Wow. That just about sums up everything I feel about the USA right now. I think I just found my new sig.

That's close, but the actual quote from 1984 is:

"War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."

Score: -1, Factually incorrect.

The first English copyright law was the Statute of Anne

The Statute of Anne, short title Copyright Act 1709 8 Anne c.19; long title An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned, was the first copyright statute in the Kingdom of Great Britain (thus the United Kingdom, see copyright law of the United Kingdom). It was enacted in 1709 and entered into force on 10 April 1710. It is generally considered to be the first fully-fledged copyright statute. It is named after Anne, Queen of Great Britain, during whose reign it was enacted.

The Statute of Anne is now seen as the origin of copyright law.[1]

Since Will died almost a century prior to the origin of copyright law, you're not just wrong, you're egregiously wrong.

With apologies, whoever marked this 'Informative' should be shot.

Pug

In semi-related news, it's Louis Riel day in Canada. Who was he?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Louis_Riel

3? There are 4 timezones used in the mainland 48 states and 7 more covering Alaska, Hawaii, and various territories.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_time_zones_by_country

Spain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands should all be on GMT. Personally, I think that would make far more sense than Britain switching to CET. The Greenwich meridian is in the UK, for heaven's sake!

Book had a deep complex and interesting past that was never explored...

Actually, it was pretty well explored in the latest of Whedon's comic books.

Yes, what is an outfall?

traditionally what sewerage comes out of - may be appropriate for use in describing journalism standards
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Outfall

I donated.. if for no other reason than this guy definitely needs the money ..

HBGary is Black Hat. And Mercenary. They are a boot on the neck of the American people.

Is torture "White Hat Interrogation" when done by the US, as opposed to the former DDR?

No. Only if your name is Rumsfeld, Gonzalez or Yoo, would you disagree.

HBGary is a fascist tool - more akin to the "Ministry of Information" of Brazil , than any recognisable "White Hat" group - say Rapid7.

HBGary trades in 0-Days for profit, to organisations which act without regard to Constitutional provisions. They advertise tools and methodology to conduct PsyOps and openly advocate methods to subvert the democratic properties of modern public communications channels.

HBGary colludes with insiders to use Government power to cement corporate advantage over the interests of the citizens and tax-payers of the United States, in the name of "national security".

They are a fraud and a blight on the purported claims of a free and open society. Like in the movie "Brazil", the methods of Mr. Barr have identified individuals in error. In the age of Abdulrahman Zeitoun and Bradley Manning, the consequences are quite possibly as dire for those individuals, as they were for Mr. Buttle and Sam Lowery.

HBGary is Black Hat. And Mercenary. They are a boot on the neck of the American people.

Is torture "White Hat Interrogation" when done by the US, as opposed to the former DDR?

No. Only if your name is Rumsfeld, Gonzalez or Yoo, would you disagree.

HBGary is a fascist tool - more akin to the "Ministry of Information" of Brazil , than any recognisable "White Hat" group - say Rapid7.

HBGary trades in 0-Days for profit, to organisations which act without regard to Constitutional provisions. They advertise tools and methodology to conduct PsyOps and openly advocate methods to subvert the democratic properties of modern public communications channels.

HBGary colludes with insiders to use Government power to cement corporate advantage over the interests of the citizens and tax-payers of the United States, in the name of "national security".

They are a fraud and a blight on the purported claims of a free and open society. Like in the movie "Brazil", the methods of Mr. Barr have identified individuals in error. In the age of Abdulrahman Zeitoun and Bradley Manning, the consequences are quite possibly as dire for those individuals, as they were for Mr. Buttle and Sam Lowery.

In a reply to myself: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hacker_(computer_security)#Hacker_attitudes has pretty good definitions of these.

What?!? I think you need to look up that definition again.

The only appropriate response should of course be to refer them to the reply given in Arkell v. Pressdram.

Would peer to peer services which offer end to end encryption like Skype be required to re-engineer their software to allow government wiretaps?

Ahahahahaha! You kill me, you really do.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Skype#Security_and_privacy

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dissociative_disorder
and more specifically: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dissociative_amnesia

One possible reason it can take until your adulthood for the effects to be seen is because your childhood mind represses something it simply can't deal with at a psychological level. The child either "forgets" what happened while the subconscious absorbs and understands what's happened, manifesting the trauma later in life, or they fracture. Sexual abuse in childhood is currently thought to be one of the leading triggers for Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities), and the current research suggests that it's possible to live well into your adult life before you even become aware of an "other" sharing your body (and you may never be aware of it, though those around you may see it)

The human psyche is something we're only barely beginning to understand. There's so much more work to be done in the field before it's as well understood as something like electricity... That said, there is a lot of evidence out there to support the idea that just because it can take years or decades for an event to actually affect your behaviour does not mean that the change in behaviour/psyche was not caused by that event. There could be a trigger later in life that brings a suppressed memory back into your conscious mind (it's well known that smell can sometimes trigger long-forgotten memories, for example), or it could simply work its way back into the foreground on its own.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dissociative_disorder
and more specifically: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dissociative_amnesia

One possible reason it can take until your adulthood for the effects to be seen is because your childhood mind represses something it simply can't deal with at a psychological level. The child either "forgets" what happened while the subconscious absorbs and understands what's happened, manifesting the trauma later in life, or they fracture. Sexual abuse in childhood is currently thought to be one of the leading triggers for Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities), and the current research suggests that it's possible to live well into your adult life before you even become aware of an "other" sharing your body (and you may never be aware of it, though those around you may see it)

The human psyche is something we're only barely beginning to understand. There's so much more work to be done in the field before it's as well understood as something like electricity... That said, there is a lot of evidence out there to support the idea that just because it can take years or decades for an event to actually affect your behaviour does not mean that the change in behaviour/psyche was not caused by that event. There could be a trigger later in life that brings a suppressed memory back into your conscious mind (it's well known that smell can sometimes trigger long-forgotten memories, for example), or it could simply work its way back into the foreground on its own.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dissociative_disorder
and more specifically: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dissociative_amnesia

One possible reason it can take until your adulthood for the effects to be seen is because your childhood mind represses something it simply can't deal with at a psychological level. The child either "forgets" what happened while the subconscious absorbs and understands what's happened, manifesting the trauma later in life, or they fracture. Sexual abuse in childhood is currently thought to be one of the leading triggers for Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities), and the current research suggests that it's possible to live well into your adult life before you even become aware of an "other" sharing your body (and you may never be aware of it, though those around you may see it)

The human psyche is something we're only barely beginning to understand. There's so much more work to be done in the field before it's as well understood as something like electricity... That said, there is a lot of evidence out there to support the idea that just because it can take years or decades for an event to actually affect your behaviour does not mean that the change in behaviour/psyche was not caused by that event. There could be a trigger later in life that brings a suppressed memory back into your conscious mind (it's well known that smell can sometimes trigger long-forgotten memories, for example), or it could simply work its way back into the foreground on its own.

(Billy Bishop, the WWI fighter ace who shot down the Red Baron)

Wrong. Bishop was nowhere near Richthofen at the time of the latter's death.

I was actually thinking it's a false dillema, starting with the premise that "national security is the highest priority." Sure as hell isn't for me. I just want a functioning public transit system, power, running water, and law and order in my community. Funny how our state got slammed with record levels of snow, and the National Guard couldn't help out...because they're deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Funny how funding for social spending has dried up and all the teenagers in my community are now running around shooting each other (and innocent bystanders) because they have no education, no job, no future. The only people that seem concerned about national security are the people paid to do so or the people who otherwise benefit from such efforts and its rhetoric.

No, they actually do picket the funerals of homosexuals as well. Notably, they picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, but there have been several others. They even threatened to picket the funeral of a 9-year old girl, claiming that she was killed as punishment for "resisting" when God sent somebody to smite the heathens or some insane claptrap like that.

They're the poster child for how the US has gotten "free speech" wrong. Take a look at Canada, or most European countries. We enjoy essentially free speech as well, but what WBC is doing would be seriously illegal, as hate speech, and picketing a fallen soldier's funeral with signs like they have would land them in jail in Canada.

get lunokhod
put new electronics, keep old as backup
keep overengineered mechanics
drive real time on the moon
profit

I wonder if the guy's case is anything like the celebrated case of the railroad construction foreman Phineas Gage, who survived having a large iron rod go completely through his head. I wonder if he's experienced any changes in personality similar to Gage's case, in addition to the headaches and the strange tastes.

Seriously big movie industry, stop throwing money around and, gasp, for once, act like a business.

They are acting like a business. You can pay some unknown dude $250k and guarantee no sales, or you can pay (say) Bruce Willis $20 million and guarantee that you'll get at least a $21 million return on investment - but to be honest, you're probably not paying Bruce Willis $20 million, nowadays it's probably closer to $1 million and on average he guarantees an income of at least $1.1 million.

I mean seriously, you can see this clearly if you pay attention to advertising. For example: it wasn't Avatar, it was James Cameron's Avatar. Why? Because several million people remember that James Cameron did Titanic (the movie poster even reminds you of it!), and that they liked Titanic, and that therefore they would go see James Cameron's Avatar. But it wasn't James Cameron's Titanic, now was it? Nobody gave a shit who James Cameron was back then. They just cared that Leonardo diCaprio and Kate Winslett were in it; funny how that works, huh?

So to the big movie industry, paying an actor $1 million for a movie makes perfect sense; they are investing more money to get more of a guaranteed return on investment. They are totally willing to take that deal, because your shareholders don't want to hear "we've got this no-name actor for cheap, but we don't know how much he'll bring in", they want to hear "we've got Bruce Willis, and he guarantees at least $1.5 million in revenue". Shareholders don't want to hear about your risks, they want to hear about your (statistically) guaranteed income.

Seriously big movie industry, stop throwing money around and, gasp, for once, act like a business.

They are acting like a business. You can pay some unknown dude $250k and guarantee no sales, or you can pay (say) Bruce Willis $20 million and guarantee that you'll get at least a $21 million return on investment - but to be honest, you're probably not paying Bruce Willis $20 million, nowadays it's probably closer to $1 million and on average he guarantees an income of at least $1.1 million.

I mean seriously, you can see this clearly if you pay attention to advertising. For example: it wasn't Avatar, it was James Cameron's Avatar. Why? Because several million people remember that James Cameron did Titanic (the movie poster even reminds you of it!), and that they liked Titanic, and that therefore they would go see James Cameron's Avatar. But it wasn't James Cameron's Titanic, now was it? Nobody gave a shit who James Cameron was back then. They just cared that Leonardo diCaprio and Kate Winslett were in it; funny how that works, huh?

So to the big movie industry, paying an actor $1 million for a movie makes perfect sense; they are investing more money to get more of a guaranteed return on investment. They are totally willing to take that deal, because your shareholders don't want to hear "we've got this no-name actor for cheap, but we don't know how much he'll bring in", they want to hear "we've got Bruce Willis, and he guarantees at least $1.5 million in revenue". Shareholders don't want to hear about your risks, they want to hear about your (statistically) guaranteed income.