Slashdot Mirror

Mind showing the left side of that package, or would such honesty interfere with your agenda?

http://www.getbuckyballs.com/blog/wp-content/themes/buckyballs/images/xblog-graphic.jpg.pagespeed.ic.KAJoHdy4ZS.jpg

http://images1.vat19.com/covers/large/buckyballs-standard.jpg

http://sale.images.woot.com/Maxfield___Oberton_216_Piece_Magnetic_Buckyballs_Set___2_PackuhdDetail.jpg

http://www.wired.com/geekmom/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/orig_box_with_case-350x486.jpg

http://alyssaroyse.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/screen-shot-2012-09-20-at-4-42-56-pm.png

http://media.oregonlive.com/themombeat/photo/11374268-large.jpg

http://ds_product_photos.s3.amazonaws.com/large/16261.jpg

Same exact packaging you show. Except in these pictures you can see the left side of the packaging more easily. The warning is pretty obvious to me.

I can think of two examples illustrating problems with such laws.
1. Urinating in public can, in 13 states, qualify as a sex offense, through charges such as "indecent exposure", etc. A few links mentioning this issue can be viewed here:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/02/sex-offender-registry-megans-law-forbes-woman-time-children.html
http://www.economist.com/node/14164614
https://downtownathens.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/public-urination-considered-sex-offense-in-georgia-not-enforced-by-police/
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-25-sex-offender-laws-cover_x.htm
2. Certain interactions with a prostitute can also qualify for sex offense.
Number 1 is certainly more common, and is something nearly any good beer-drinking mammal has been guilty of. Number 2, although less common, is rather questionable. Why questionable? Figure that out yourself. But if it is to be such a grievous offense in the the U.S., it would seem appropriate to prevent U.S. citizens from traveling to nations where such an atrocious offense is legal, such as Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey(?) and others. And certainly anyone doing business with such perverted nations should be registered and arrested as accomplices, because anyone with scruples would take the support of such offenses just as seriously as we take pissing on bushes here -- no dubya pun intended.

how about if you got a piece of paper put a cross next to the candidate you want to vote for and then put that paper in box

You mean like a Candian federal election ballot?

http://thechurningtide.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/800px-2008_ballot_canada_1.jpg

The ballot is identical (other than the names of the candidates) as is the box you stuff it into, regardless of whether you're voting in Dildo, Newfoundland or Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

http://batdoc.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/mars-rover-aliens.jpg

I'd suggest using the Colemak or Workman layouts instead. Both are more modern alternatives to Dvorak, perform about as well and sometimes better according to finger travel distance and other metrics, and most importantly, were build with preserving shortcuts like Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V in mind. Personally, I'm currently switching to Workman at work using PKL and Workman-PKL in Windows.

Copy/paste fail. The link to Scot Terban's article at krypt3ia is http://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/the-threat-is-real-and-must-be-stopped-clarifications-and-rebuttal-by-an-infosec-professional-final-draft/

You didn't know? For some reason nerds really like walnuts.

Well, TFA says that a poll taken in July when the law was passed, shows that the Russian people support the blacklist 62% to 16%. The Russian government seems to have the support of the people on this issue.

Of course.

The Russian people is known to be very active in their support for their government.
In fact, in the last parliamentary elections, the voter turnout was up to 146%.

You cannot argue with such numbers.

You're right, but it looks like they've done the latter. http://laotsao.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/sw1600-and-alpha-21164/

It says right in the ShenWei Wikipedia article that it's based on the DEC Alpha but something that strikes me as curious is that your article refers to a chip that lasted from 1995 to 1998. So I am to believe that by outright copying a fifteen year old chip from a processor line that has been extinct for a decade or more has yielded a modern day competitive multiprocessing chip?

You can convince me they copied DEC's work. You can convince me they violated IP laws. You can convince me that it is their societal norm to ignore restrictive IP laws. Hell, I'll tell you that right now. But to say that they are doing no work to build on top of these chips feels like it must be erroneous unless what we see is 1990s technology in the ShenWei processors.

This isn't a black and white scenario here. Yes, it's bad that IP laws have been violated. Yes, it's bad that DEC won't see a dime from any of their work being used. But it is also a good thing to have a competitive architecture arise in the world of computing and also it feels good to have a race with other countries for computing power. I can only hope our super computing budget is considered part of the onerous "defense budget" and our leaders who are concerned with a dick measuring contest can dump tons of money into supercomputers for modeling and simulation to scientists while at the same time being able to give the hallowed talking point of "I increased defense spending."

You can start with someone else's good idea, turn it into a great idea and share some credit, right?

You're right, but it looks like they've done the latter. http://laotsao.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/sw1600-and-alpha-21164/

Everything Dr. Hadwen said has been thouroughly debunked, many times over. If you've deluded yourself enough to think otherwise I know you won't read these, but I'll leave the links here just in case:
https://draust.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/who-needs-facts-these-vaccine-conspiracy-pieces-write-themselves%E2%80%A6/
http://skepticalsurfer.blogspot.com/2007/09/terminology-aggressive-vs-conservative.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vaccine_controversies/Archive_2
http://reasonablehank.com/2012/02/06/judy-judy-judy-are-you-attempting-to-censor-others-right-to-free-speech/

The Richest Man in the World: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA

A parable about robotics, abundance, technological change, unemployment, happiness, and a basic income.

The knol mentioned in the video has been moved here because Google Knol is shutting down: http://www.pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html

That parable and video was directly inspired by this:
"Structural Unemployment: The Economists Just Don't Get It"
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/structural-unemployment-the-economists-just-dont-get-it/#comment-254

My impression was of that big raven native american symbol, like at the top of some totem poles, or this:

http://kpaulcarvings.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/dscn2639.jpg

I am afraid the Jobs' boat will have to settle for #2 on the ugliness list. This one looks far worse.

Bang.

This is the point that is often overlooked.

Here's Conneticut vs Fourntin -
http://womenriseupnow.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/state-of-connecticut-v-fourtin/

Everyone is screaming "travesty" - I am digging around trying to find the awful case that results if the ruling went the other way.

However Slashdot threads are only good for 2 days anyway so I won't find it before everyone leaves anyway.

This may be true, but does your gut really get affected that much by your immune system? I know it does it various auto-immune diseases but that is the opposite to what you are describing. From what i've read the balance of bacteria in your gut is supposed to regulate itself but the bad bacteria can move in after the patient has had a heavy does of antibiotics to treat other infections.

Unless you were implying that the weak immunity requires heavy doses of antibiotics to treat recurring infections? I guess that makes sense, but just follow up each dose with a reverse enema of poop :)

In a word: yes. Changes in the composition of your gut bacteria don't just happen after treatment with antibiotics; for example, they can also result from alterations in diet (including moving to another country). These changes are associated with several diseases, including diabetes, gastric ulcers, asthma & colorectal cancer, though it's not always clear whether they are the cause or the effect (or both). The relationship between the microbiome and human health is pretty complicated and is an active area of research. I've written about it several times on my blog:

The microbiome & immunity
Gut bacteria & diabetes
More about diabetes & the microbiome

If you have access to Nature, here's a review from last year:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7351/full/nature10213.html

This may be true, but does your gut really get affected that much by your immune system? I know it does it various auto-immune diseases but that is the opposite to what you are describing. From what i've read the balance of bacteria in your gut is supposed to regulate itself but the bad bacteria can move in after the patient has had a heavy does of antibiotics to treat other infections.

Unless you were implying that the weak immunity requires heavy doses of antibiotics to treat recurring infections? I guess that makes sense, but just follow up each dose with a reverse enema of poop :)

In a word: yes. Changes in the composition of your gut bacteria don't just happen after treatment with antibiotics; for example, they can also result from alterations in diet (including moving to another country). These changes are associated with several diseases, including diabetes, gastric ulcers, asthma & colorectal cancer, though it's not always clear whether they are the cause or the effect (or both). The relationship between the microbiome and human health is pretty complicated and is an active area of research. I've written about it several times on my blog:

The microbiome & immunity
Gut bacteria & diabetes
More about diabetes & the microbiome

If you have access to Nature, here's a review from last year:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7351/full/nature10213.html

This may be true, but does your gut really get affected that much by your immune system? I know it does it various auto-immune diseases but that is the opposite to what you are describing. From what i've read the balance of bacteria in your gut is supposed to regulate itself but the bad bacteria can move in after the patient has had a heavy does of antibiotics to treat other infections.

Unless you were implying that the weak immunity requires heavy doses of antibiotics to treat recurring infections? I guess that makes sense, but just follow up each dose with a reverse enema of poop :)

In a word: yes. Changes in the composition of your gut bacteria don't just happen after treatment with antibiotics; for example, they can also result from alterations in diet (including moving to another country). These changes are associated with several diseases, including diabetes, gastric ulcers, asthma & colorectal cancer, though it's not always clear whether they are the cause or the effect (or both). The relationship between the microbiome and human health is pretty complicated and is an active area of research. I've written about it several times on my blog:

The microbiome & immunity
Gut bacteria & diabetes
More about diabetes & the microbiome

If you have access to Nature, here's a review from last year:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7351/full/nature10213.html

Mental retardation is an actual medical term which is subject to the Euphemism Treadmill effect, where over time a term becomes an insult in common usage and the professionals have to find a new word that doesn't have the baggage associated with it to maintain professional integrity (Similar to the reason we call them "Bathrooms" today instead of "Water Closets" or "Toilets" as the two latter terms became too crude through common usage). Don't blame "political correctness" on this, blame crass people like Anne Coulter who use the medical term in a derogatory sense towards those who don't have the disability without any sensitivity to those who must actually live with the condition.

Replace the word "Retard' with "AIDS carrier," "Cancer Survivor," or "Quadriplegic" and try making the argument that the offense people take to your use of these terms to disparage others is just "political correctness." The reason you don't use these terms as insults is because these are human beings who can fight back. "Retard" is okay because the mentally retarded can't defend themselves. Coulter is a bully and a coward for using the term and defending its use.

People like Coulter who call the backlash against their use of these words "political correctness" do so because the word "ignorant" applies to them. They are ignorant of the suffering of others, ignorant of medical science, and ignorant of basic good taste. I used the world "retard" as an insult when I was a child, but I'm an adult now and I am educated enough to know how abusing that word abuses those who are living with this debilitating condition.

Please be respectful. Are we here to have a discussion, or are we here to call each other names?

Surely you can tell the difference between xterm -- a program that happens to have x in the name -- and the X11 protocol. right?

Please have a look at this link. http://vignatti.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/the-damn-small-wayland-api/. It describes the X api and how it compares to the Wayland API. There is no real contest.

Wayland is bloated. I am not as well-informed as agrif on this topic, but it seems to me you are applying only a superficial amount of logic. Just because it runs on a Sun 3/60 doesn't mean it isn't bloated. Bloat in this case is referring to the amount of dead code. It contributes to the un-maintainability of X. In short, it's becoming harder and harder for the developers to work on it. You can't dispute this fact unless you are an X dev. This is no longer an opinion.

I have to point out that Richard Dawkins was very wrong about one thing, that religion is an arbitrary label behind which people divide themselves.

On the other hand, it's no more or less arbitrary as any other label which has been used over the years. "Race" or "ethnicity" are just as arbitrary and, indeed, they've often been historically synonymous.

In Northern Ireland, "Protestant" and "Catholic" started off as proxies for "English" and "Irish" respectively (and later, "republicans" and "loyalists" respectively). It's much the same as in the former Yugoslavia, where Croatian == Catholic, Serbian == Orthodox and Bosnian == Muslim.

Having said that, you've hit the nail on the head in a grand-sweeping-view-with-lots-of-caveats kind of way. I would argue that Constantine I of Rome was probably a "true believer", for example. Nonetheless, as a general statement, when religion is used as a tool of division by powerful interests, it is invariably a smokescreen for some person or group's power trip, and it's invariably the religion (rather than the powerful interest) which ends up with most of the negative consequences.

It's even visible in the current US election cycle. Just look at the US evangelical/fundamentalist church's endorsement of Mitt Romney, a Mormon. As much as they talk about religion, when push comes to shove, they're willing to compromise on religion. Because it's not really about religion, and everyone knows it. This can only end up badly for US evangelical/fundamentalist Christians. And whatever you think of US evangelical Christians, nobody deserves to be treated like that.

What's really interesting right now, though, is that as the influence of organised religion declines (being replaced with a combination of disorganised religion and non-religion), the "good causes" being perverted by powerful interests seem to be changing along with it.

The war in Iraq was launched on the pretext of "freedom" and "democracy". "Freedom" and "democracy" are excellent things. That makes those ideals ripe for, as you say, psychopathic leaders perverting them for conquest et al.

This article links at least 7 ; one of which I donate to, and one of which is such a fixture in British life that "the Oxfam Shop" is synonymous with charity retail.

reference:

http://rankingamerica.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/the-u-s-ranks-50th-in-erection-length/

http://puckinflight.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/security-flaws-in-the-tsa-pre-check-system-and-the-boarding-pass-check-system/

Save yourself the extra write and extra opportunity for something to go wrong: disable the journal. worth considering in any case: http://pentabular.wordpress.com/ext4-on-laptop-ssd/

> On the other, I am frankly tired of spending billions of dollars to prove the US has the biggest penis.

Actually, it has the world's 50th biggest penis... http://rankingamerica.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/the-u-s-ranks-50th-in-erection-length/

If penile is short, at least penal is large.

Yes, that's true, I think. Just today I saw a funny article here, which begins by claiming that piracy is the reason that the newspaper industry is on the decline. (The site is focused on the music industry, but the author seems to blame piracy for every bad thing that happens in the world.)

You already get news and weather on your PC, your laptop, your phone, why can't a picture frame just be a picture frame?

In the OP's defense, though, it's a DIGITAL picture frame. When they first came out, I bet a lot of people said, "Why can't an analog picture frame just be an analog picture frame?" He's got something that probably does have other uses besides simply displaying pictures and all he did was ask if anyone has any other ideas.

In the spirit of Halloween, I give you this.

you stop using the services and infrastructure that "stolen money" pays for

Hmmm...I pay some $4000 dollars a year for schools. I don't have kids. Why am I paying for other peoples crotch fruit to be baby sat (and maybe even learn a little) 8 hours a day.

I'm in the same boat, and I always found it stupid.

OTOH, it gives you an excuse to mandate what the kids are taught, even if you don't have any that attend the school, like this asshole did.

I doubt that situation will change, unless in-district pedophiles start mandating mini-skirt school uniforms for kindergartners, or some equally sick shit.

I'll gladly pay for services I use. Mind you I'd expect complete openness about how that money is being spent. Quarterly reports on what was payed to who for what and the like. Kinda like SOX for the government. When I pay for something from a business I usually have some selections to choose from. Features are detailed and limitations are typically reported on.

Agreed. Mind you, I wasn't in any way implying the government is (ever) right, or that they (ever) spend our money on the right things, just pointing out how only idiots refer to taxation as theft.

The exceptions are the cases where the government has stepped in to limit things. You know, like patents and copyrights and cellular and internet. In those cases competition is limited by government regulation thus the choices are constrained and the prices are ridiculous. Why does the US, the country that invented the internet (don't bring up Berners-Lee, he came up with one protocol that runs on the internet), have the worst and most expensive cellular and internet service of developed nations?

Not because patents and copyrights, as concepts, are flawed. Rather, it is the current implementation, heavily influenced by industry giants who pay off legislators to pass laws in their own favor, that is the issue.

Walt Disney deserved a copyright for Mickey, but that copyright should have died with him (or soon thereafter).

Take an e-book for example. It's marginal cost is way less that that of a printed book and primarily due to DRM it's worth is actually less to me yet publishers are able to charge MORE than a paper book costs because of obscene copyright laws.

"Obscene copyright laws" are not what allows them to charge outrageous amounts for what are, essentially, non-existent goods; market demand does. So long as the majority of people who use ebooks are willing to put up with the bullshit, one-sided aspect of 'ownership,' the publishers and vendors will continue to not give a fuck.

It's a "Thank you sir, may I have another" kinda thing, ya know?

OK, not sure what an obscure ruling from a court in India, of all places, has to do with anything, but let me restate my point: Fuck the 1%. Fuck the sons of wealthy rich politician pricks, beat the shit out of them. Fuck the 1%. The rule of law in itself is inherently racist and exists only to serve the 1%.

http://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/

Not the OP, but I use these for my nook books.

Calibre

DRM Removal Tools for eBooks

Hmm, then get an Arduino? Because that's essentially its build process. Run avr-gcc to compile and build, avr-objcopy to convert the binary to an hex file, then avrdude to flash the uC. Done!

https://balau82.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/programming-arduino-uno-in-pure-c/

No. SYG laws are easily misunderstood.

In general, they allow an individual to use force in self defense when they believe that they are faced with an unlawful threat. The keyword there is unlawful. Following someone may be intimidating but it is not unlawful. Similarly, the moment that TM ditched GZ he was no longer faced with any threat.

Fair enough, though if TM ditched GM, only to have GM reappear, within striking distance (i.e. a few paces), then one could argue there was a threat. If I were being followed, managed to lose my follower, only to have them reappear, I'd be questioning my safety.

And, since GM was told by 911 to not pursue (am I remembering that correctly?), while it might not be unlawful, it would certainly be inadvisable since representatives of the authorities instructed him thus.

At least I could imagine all that being a worthwhile argument in court.

Not sure we'll ever get the truth though; I read that witness statements changed over time, rendering them useless. They contradicted their own previous statements, etc.

Just a mess all around.

No, you're not remembering that correctly, though I suspect the media reports were designed to make you think that was the case.

The 911 operator did not tell Zimmerman not to follow Martin. The 911 operator said, "We don't need you to do that."

That's not direction. The 911 operator isn't telling Zimmerman ANYTHING with that statement. To wit: I don't need YOU to breathe. If you don't breathe, you'll die. MY needs are irrelevant. The 911 operator might just as well have said, "I dress my hamster in polka-dot Fruit of the Loom underwear."

Wow, that's an amazingly bad analogy. BadAnalogyGuy would be disappointed.

Anway, you didn't address the point that one could argue that TM felt threatened by being followed, even though he'd shaken his pursuer at one time.

Though I suspect your response was designed to ignore that pertinent bit.

No. SYG laws are easily misunderstood.

In general, they allow an individual to use force in self defense when they believe that they are faced with an unlawful threat. The keyword there is unlawful. Following someone may be intimidating but it is not unlawful. Similarly, the moment that TM ditched GZ he was no longer faced with any threat.

Fair enough, though if TM ditched GM, only to have GM reappear, within striking distance (i.e. a few paces), then one could argue there was a threat. If I were being followed, managed to lose my follower, only to have them reappear, I'd be questioning my safety.

And, since GM was told by 911 to not pursue (am I remembering that correctly?), while it might not be unlawful, it would certainly be inadvisable since representatives of the authorities instructed him thus.

At least I could imagine all that being a worthwhile argument in court.

Not sure we'll ever get the truth though; I read that witness statements changed over time, rendering them useless. They contradicted their own previous statements, etc.

Just a mess all around.

No, you're not remembering that correctly, though I suspect the media reports were designed to make you think that was the case.

The 911 operator did not tell Zimmerman not to follow Martin. The 911 operator said, "We don't need you to do that."

That's not direction. The 911 operator isn't telling Zimmerman ANYTHING with that statement. To wit: I don't need YOU to breathe. If you don't breathe, you'll die. MY needs are irrelevant. The 911 operator might just as well have said, "I dress my hamster in polka-dot Fruit of the Loom underwear."

Oh really?

My favorite is a telemarketer tormenter on Asterisk....

http://leifmadsen.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/telemarketer-torture/

I based it off of their ideas... I transfer the call to an extension that is nothing but random clips of someone agreeing, saying "yeah", etc... but waits for a pause in audio to trigger the next random clip. Some telemarketers wasted an HOUR talking to my torture device.

I just wish I could do this with my cellphone.

The story of Iron: http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/12/iron.html where the developer confesses the motive for developing Iron.

Here's a blogpost dissecting the comparison: http://insanitybit.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/srware-iron-browser-a-real-private-alternative-to-chrome-21/

I suspect Microsoft made the Surface expensive for the same reason that companies make sneakers so expensive. In theory cognitive dissonance will make people assume that anything that pricey must be good. Not that sticking a keyboard on a tablet is exactly unique. Even my cell phone has a keyboard.

Space bloggers (like me) who are signed up with the ESO news feed got word of this overnight. But the story was under embargo. You do not break the story until the embargo lifts or the ESO and Nature magazine gets very angry at you.

But some loud-mouth in Croatia violated the embargo. We were patiently waiting for the embargo to lift, biting our collective tongues, when mouthy jumped the gun.

We got an email from the ESO about an hour ago that said:

"I just spoke to the Head of Press at Nature, Ruth Francis, and we have agreed to LIFT THE EMBARGO on the Alpha Cen story IMMEDIATELY due to an unfortunate leak. You may run your stories."

Nature and ESO lift exoplanet embargo early following coverage by Croatian news outlet

https://archiveofthebitingbeaver.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/the-rapist-checklist-repost/
This is the viewpoint held pretty much 100% by radical feminists
I went to a fairly liberal college and regularly got to hear how sex with drunk girls was the same as raping them.

Then I thought about all the regrettable women that I'd slept with because I was drunk and wouldn't normally touch them with a 10 foot pole.. and how I was there, also the bad guy for not returning their calls.

The MET Office has refuted this story.

Here is a direct response from the MET Office on that subject. There's a nice graph at the bottom that ranks years from hottest to coldest colour coded by decade. To quote them:

Over the last 140 years global surface temperatures have risen by about 0.8C. However, within this record there have been several periods lasting a decade or more during which temperatures have risen very slowly or cooled. The current period of reduced warming is not unprecedented and 15 year long periods are not unusual.

15 years of data is simply too short a time to make definitive statements about warming in the face of natural variability.

That quote was published by Time Magazine (without source or any indication that their reporter heard him say it). Since I am a terrible writer, I shall quote what "The Manic Street Preacher" ( From http://edthemanicstreetpreacher.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/einstein-statement-church ) who wrote:

"The statement first appeared in an article entitled “German Martyrs” which was published in Time magazine on 23 December 1940. You will find it posted on many religious websites and repeated by clergymen. Christian historian, Michael Burleigh, quotes it point-blank in his study of religion and politics in the 20th century, Sacred Causes, before rambling into a highly selective and ultimately, disingenuous defence of the Church during the Second World War.

Nevertheless, a superb piece by the analyst, William Waterhouse, first published in Skeptic (Volume 12, Number 3, Fall 2005), has exposed the statement as an exaggeration at best and a fabrication at worst by those eager to abuse Einstein’s prestigious reputation rather than convey his real opinions.

For starters, the statement appeared without any source or attribution when it was first published in Time. It is not known whether the reporter personally heard Einstein say it. The statement does not appear in the definitive collection of Einstein’s sayings, The Expanded Quotable Einstein. Any reference to the treatment of Europe’s Jews is also conspicuously absent.

In addition, the language is too flamboyant compared to Einstein’s usual style, with its reference to “great editors” and “flaming editorials”. The statement is also unlikely to have come from a scientist, stating as it does that Einstein “despised” something immediately after saying that he “never had any special interest” in it."

Highly exaggerated at best and outright fabrication at worst. Christopher Hitches says it better than I can in his his book "God is not great":

“Those who seek to misrepresent the man who gave us an alternative theory of the cosmos (as well as those who remained silent or worse while his fellow Jews were being deported and destroyed) betray the prickings of their bad consciences.”

I looked up the word "church" in the Albert Einstein Archives ( http://alberteinstein.info/ ) and only one document showed up. It is dated 11th of May, 1917:

"...If I were disposed toward the opposition and I saw in the state church an objectionable means of encouraging
people to maintain a mentality convenient for the ruling caste, then naturally I would not support this established
church. But if I loved the established church as a preserving element of the state which was according to my taste
(not mine), then I, as a free thinker, might safely join it .... "

http://alberteinstein.info/vufind1/images/einstein/11-457.tr.pdf

As a scientist he was more interested in the Enlightenment tradition and if the Church was an actor in support of that then he might have joined it, but then this happened:

"On January 1933, Franz Von Papen, leader of the Catholic Party of Germany, friend of E. Pacelli, the Papal Nuncio to Munich, later Pope Pius XII, became Hitler's Vice-Chancellor. Thus, the Leader of the German Catholic Party was second in command only to Hitler in Hitlerite Germany. Von Papen and Pacelli eventually negotiated for a Concordat in which Hitler pledged to support the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church to support Hitler (June 1933)."

From http://www.reformation.org/holoc15.html

I am not an historian or an Albert Einstein expert, but to me it looks like the Church was supporting everything which the great scientist found objectionab

In 1990 the number of deaths per mile driven was 30 percent higher than it is now.

From the Honest Courtesan (blog by ex-prostitute) -- "The Swedish Model of prostitution law is based on the premise that women are moral imbeciles who are psychologically incompetent to determine the conditions under which we will consent to sex, and the state therefore assumes the right to set those conditions for us."

http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/the-swedish-disease-spreads/

I'm just going to leave this here for everyone who hasn't stumbled across it already:

http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com

It's one of the few blogs I keep up with consistently, and though I don't entirely agree with her on every facet of her worldview, I do agree prostitution should be de-criminalized/legalized.

If I understand correctly, the idea is that a simulation would put some observable limits on, say, the energy of particles.

For some reason, this reminds me of another interesting thought exercise, but going backwards. Patrick Demichel is looking for the first of all Skewes' numbers. He devised a method which results, roughly, in "1.397162914×10^316 is the first Skewes' number, or there's not enough energy in the Universe find the actual value." See http://grenouillebouillie.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/the-number-you-cant-compute. I see that he kept working on it since then, I wonder if that statement (dating back 2008) still holds...

No, it's not. For every year of life you save by avoiding bicycle crashes (by not bicycling), you lose 10 or more to diseases of the couch potato. Or, non-cyclists have a 39% higher mortality rate (both references appear above). Or, regular cyclists can expect to live 2-5 years longer. And Michael Bluejay's not entirely reliable; you need to check his numbers carefully (I've caught him making mistakes in the past; if he gets an answer he likes, he does not check his work thoroughly for errors -- though he does correct them, without attribution, if they are brought to his attention :-).

What the hell are you talking about? I never defended the USA's idiocy, nor did I talk about other nations. I simply said that instead of comparing religion to oppression, we should understand that religion leads to oppression. The USA is highly religious and because of that we do idiotic things all the time. Here is an example.