Slashdot Mirror

Try CAS
It's a free web-based single-sign-on
http://www.yale.edu/tp/auth/
Also, take a look at shibboleth
http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/

And if you actually click on the above link to read Federalist Papers #68, you'll find that the present procedure bears no relation to the procedure described therein. That procedure provided for direct election of the members of the Electoral College. In other words, you didn't vote for Bush or Kerry, you voted for a bunch of delegates, by name. Those delegates then met, considered the candidates, and voted according to their judgement, not according to what the people who elected them wanted. The idea was that the average voter doesn't really know the candidates well enough (probably still true), and elects someone trustworthy who does. That's not what happens today.

The intended procedure can be criticized, but at least it makes more sense than the present charade, where all the delegates from a big state that votes 51%-49% can be told to vote for one candidate. I don't know how to describe the present mess, but it sure has little to do with democracy.

Fine. "Plurality" then. The point stands.

It's not clear-cut at all. We can never accurately know the beliefs of another person- we can only try to infer those beliefs from their actions. And if there existed important motives to act contrary to belief, then one must admit the question is not easy to solve.

If the writers of the Constitution had wanted a system for direct popular election of the President, they'd have put one in place. They didn't. This isn't a case where their motivation was a mystery; it was spelled out. It's ironic that even though the framework of the process that was devised is still in place, much of the rationale for it has been subverted.

Honestly, if you haven't even read The Federalist Papers your civics education is incomplete.

Appeal to tradition is rhetorically invalid.

No, it's logically invalid. Tradition is appealed to in rhetoric all the time, and it often works. However, since I didn't do that, I have no idea what you're talking about here.

No, it isn't. The burden is on advocates of unequal political privilege to defend their position. It is the inherently less tenable side, for that is the cause of elitists, royalists, and dictators.

The electoral college is about "unequal political privilege"? That's not something you can just state unsupported and expect to be taken seriously. You're plainly not taking the trouble to question your assumptions. Open your mind and make an honest attempt to understand our electoral system and why it was put into place before you venture to discuss this topic again.

If this is web-based, I highly recommend CAS. It is used by numerous institutions around the world, and the license agreement is extremely flexible. And, it is free.

"Bashing" Microsoft is like "bashing" the present U.S. government administration. Unless they have spent many hours studying them, those who complain probably don't know one-one-hundredth of the abusiveness.

I've been trying to understand the underlying causes of organizational abusiveness. Partly it seems that rich people often begin to think of themselves as above everyone else. The begin to have a subtle kind of mental breakdown. For them, continuing to think of themselves as superior is like drugs to a crack addict.

The article Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going shows a little of the inability of Microsoft to be a good world citizen. It's old now and needs updating, but it does give a small idea of the breadth and depth of Microsoft abusiveness.

Three movies and 35 books say that the present administration of the U.S. government is extremely corrupt. See the article Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

At present vice-president Dick Cheney is visiting all the states with many undecided voters to tell them that the U.S. is constantly at war, and he and George W. Bush are the best people to lead a war. The U.S. government has engaged in 24 wars since World War 2. The system works by creating fear so rich people can profit.

As former U.S. President and Supreme Commander of Allied Forces General Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a famous speech, beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here's a quote:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

Another quote:

"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."

If you love the U.S. as much as I do, you will stop worrying about bashing, and you will begin trying to understand the conflicts and begin trying to help the world out of the mess it gets itself in when people don't think deeply.

At present, those who complain about Microsoft are often attacked by people who are uninformed. This delays needed improvements inside Microsoft.

Really, really caring makes you strong.

"Remember the Maine", this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened.

Nor the last. (In fact, the Maine and Tonkin incidents are quite similar to each other, but different from Pearl Harbor- in that at Pearl Harbor, an actual enemy was present)

sig: America has never gone to war against a country that has McDonalds restaurants

That's only true if you consider Japan to be the last country the USA warred against. (Since it was the last time Congress officially declared war). Since then, the USA has attacked Bosnian cities hosting active McDonalds.

I have had the original 4.4 version in my Amazon wish list for about four years now hoping that one of my relatives would buy it for me as a present. But alas, nobody did. An updated version may be enough inspiration for me to buy it myself.

Tannenbaum's book, as well as the Dinosaur Book are pretty standard in undergrad operating systems classes.

Well, if the selectivity wasnt in these colleges, these colleges wouldnt have most of these inflated prices - but then it wouldnt look good if anyone could get access to the best education. After all, we wouldnt want the masses able to move the privleged out of their well established (multigenerational) comfort zones.
Just let the masses in and let their own effort sort them out. Enough that we have some of the results of these selective colleges. With all the money they're raking in, I wont mind if I have to deal with some of the optional promotions if it means that it'd make the tuition 1/4-1/5th of its current cost due to more people paying in. They dont have problems getting the money, so they could afford to allow open admissions.

If you read books about the issues, you may come to the conclusion that by far the biggest underlying issue in the present political campaign is U.S. government violence. You probably won't know this unless you read books.

The present system of violence in the U.S. and Britain started in the 1940s. In the 1940s, it was decided that the U.S. government could act in secret in foreign countries to preserve the profits of U.S. and British companies. It was decided that the U.S. government could not only act in secret, it could break the laws of the foreign country. It was decided the the U.S. government could even arrange the murder of the leaders of foreign countries. Agencies like the CIA were created for secret accomplishment of largely secret foreign policy.

Only an estimated 2% read non-fiction books not connected with work. The system of violence works partly by keeping U.S. citizens ignorant. It is not necessary that all citizens be ignorant, just a large percentage of the voters. Actually, there is plenty of information freely available in books, but only an estimated 2% of American citizens read non-fiction books not connected with their work. It is easy to understand why. United States citizens are the hardest-working in the world, with the exception of the Japanese. Many U.S. citizens have only two weeks of vacation every year, and they need that to rest. They simply don't have time to read books.

However, the only way to understand something as complicated as politics is to read books extensively. The issues are too complicated to express in a few words.

By far the biggest issue in the present political campaign is this fundamental one, about which former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces and former Republican U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us in a famous speech. He said that we should beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here are quotes:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

The problem he warned us about has been a major influence on both the politics and quality of life of the United States. The U.S. government has engaged in 24 wars since World War II. The system of violence works by creating fear so rich people can profit.

Very few U.S. citizens know the full history of the war against Iraq. This short article is a summary: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

The events leading up to the present "war on terror" and the two wars against Iraq began in the 1950s, when hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran.

The U.S. government supported a very weak man, the Shah of Iran, who became very violent toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iran overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence that came after. The U.S. government supported Iraq against Iran, supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein at a very high profit for the rich owners of U.S. weapons companies. To give a present example, the Bu

The site you are thinking of is already cited in the Slashdot story: FactCheck.ORG from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Great site, but very limited focus. There is no examination of the underlying problems. In this case, that is a BIG shortcoming.

By far the biggest issue is one about which former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces and former Republican U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us in a famous speech. He said that we should beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here are quotes:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

The problem he warned us about has been happening big time for many years. The U.S. government has engaged in 24 wars since WW2. The system of violence works by creating fear so rich people can profit.

Every important speaker at the Republican convention spoke of keeping America safe. Every important speaker was reading speeches written for them by marketing consultants like Karl Rove. "Keeping America Safe" is code for "keeping America fearful by promoting violence so the rich can get richer". It was despicable when Bill Clinton did it, and it continues to be despicable now that George W. Bush is doing it. Possibly many of the nation's leaders are not fully aware of the circumstances. It seems that only a very small percentage of citizens realize the extent of the violence of the U.S. government.

The only really good way to educate yourself about the U.S. government is to read books about it. Here are reviews of 3 movies and 35 books: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government. It's necessary to gather enough information that you can make your own informed conclusions, and not just copy the conclusions of others.

Don't like the books I found? Find your own. It's your duty as an adult to participate in the political issues of your country.

You can bring yourself up to speed on the disastrous consequences of the Induce Act on the future of technological innovation by reading some of Ernie Miller's excellent articles. LawMeme provides a regularly updated index to Ernie Miller's Induce Act writings, which is a good place to start reading.

Keep the duped credits from Star Wars Galaxies out of it.

MMORPGs are great economic simulators. You can tell when a credit dupe appears because overnight, prices on items/resources whose quantities are fixed will skyrocket. The best defense against credit dupes is to accumulate loot whose value is unlikely to diminish.

Is that you, Search King?

You mean like "an historian"?

A list of her recent publications can be read here.

From the page:

The main focus of our work is to bring biochemical and molecular biological techniques to the classical anatomical analysis of mammalian CNS development.

CNS being Central Nervous System, IIRC.

This seems to be an implementation of compulsory licensing (the 5 dollar fee) and probably the future of P2P, unless the whole "sue everyone" method actually works in the end.

I call BULLSHIT!

You know, the only people who buy this whole crap-load of a story are folks from the Middle East, who've been raised on rabid anti-Isreali propaganda that includes a hell of a lot of lies.

First, I'm not Jewish or Isreali, hell, I'm not even religious, but I stopped believing this crap after hearing the oft-repeated part about the "Jews wanting war and refusing peace" in 1948.

The truth: The Jewish council in Palestine approved The 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. However the Palestinians, told by the neigboring Arab states (which were planning war no matter what) that they will destroy Isreal, chose war over peace. If you look at this map you'll see that Isreal would have been much smaller than they are now, if the Palestinians had chose the plan over war way back then.

I also find it amazingly hipocritical that you guys talk all about the bad things Isreal has done (and some of it is wrong, I don't argue that), and never, *ever*, *EVER* mention the terrorism being waged against Isreal's *civilians*.

Well, I got some grim news for you. If you wage a war against a nation's people, without giving them any alternative (Hamas clearly states that its goal is the destructioon of Isreal) for more than 50 YEARS, you should not be at all surprised when that nation becomes increasingly brutal towards you. It doesn't make it right, but that's just a fact of life and war and human psychology. You have reaped what you have sown.

The U.S. government has been dominated for a long time by people who think that violence is the only way to solve problems. For example, see History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. See the heading, "The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War."

U.S. military commanders literally do not have the social sophistication to see any other method than violence, and they are backed by similarly minded U.S. citizens, many of whom have never seen a war they didn't like.

Also, there is an extreme conflict of interest. Weapons makers hire retired military leaders, so supporting violence supports getting a good job after military service. As former U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a famous speech, beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here's a quote:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

Another quote:

"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."

President George W. Bush operates under extreme conflict of interest, also. His family is heavily invested in The Carlyle Group, which is a major owner of weapons manufacturers. That puts pressure on him to see only violent possibilities.

United States citizens often have only 2 weeks vacation each year, and they work more than the people of other nations besides Japan. They simply don't have the time to try to understand their government. They can only hope that everything is all right. But it isn't. For example, see Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

Brazil is a country of about the same land size as the U.S. (excluding Alaska). Brazil is dominated by people of European descent, as is the United States. However, it has been more than 100 years since the Brazilian government has been involved with aggression against its neighbors. (Brazil did support the Allies in the Second World War.) Somehow, Brazilians have found a way to live in the world without killing other people.

Is this the case you were thinking of? If so, Google won. There's also a Slashdot story about it, if anyone cares to dig it up.

Although the concept of zero was in use in India (to what extent I don't know) before the West, my understanding is that it was first recorded as being used by the Sumerians, later by the Babylonians. Note that I say the concept of zero, not the number/character 0 as we know it.

I just Googled it up and found this article to be relevant:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/about/zero.jsp

This article overrides my understanding in that the Babylonians added the concept of zero to the Sumerian counting system.

It was the Indians (particularly Brahmagupta) who really formalized zero in arithmetic and the use of zero in the Western world seems to follow from that (via the Arabs, who were most advanced in these mathematic areas).

After all, the term algebra is from the Arabic al-jabr.

So what if I use something else like a gel pen? I do use those to sign check, you know.

• UNESCO/GAB Toolkit on Gender Indicators in Engineering, Science and Technology
• Comp Sci and Women (Yale)
• Gender and the Workplace
• Gender and Innovation Stats - DTI

One of the papers cited in the book is "Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm" might be interesting to /.'ers...

available here:

http://www.yale.edu/yalelj/112/BenklerWEB.pdf

Abstract:

or decades our understanding of economic production has been that individuals order their productive activities in one of two ways: either as employees in firms, following the directions of managers, or as individuals in markets, following price signals. This dichotomy was first identified in the early work of Nobel laureate Ronald Coase, and was developed most explicitly in the work of neo-institutional economist Oliver Williamson. In the past three or four years, public attention has focused on a fifteen-year-old social-economic phenomenon in the software development world. This phenomenon, called free software or open source software, involves thousands or even tens of thousands of programmers contributing to large and small scale project, where the central organizing principle is that the software remains free of most constraints on copying and use common to proprietary materials. No one "owns" the software in the traditional sense of being able to command how it is used or developed, or to control its disposition. The result is the emergence of a vibrant, innovative and productive collaboration, whose participants are not organized in firms and do not choose their projects in response to price signals.

In this paper I explain that while free software is highly visible, it is in fact only one example of a much broader social-economic phenomenon. I suggest that we are seeing is the broad and deep emergence of a new, third mode of production in the digitally networked environment. I call this mode "commons-based peer-production," to distinguish it from the property- and contract-based models of firms and markets. Its central characteristic is that groups of individuals successfully collaborate on large-scale projects following a diverse cluster of motivational drives and social signals, rather than either market prices or managerial commands.

The paper also explains why this mode has systematic advantages over markets and managerial hierarchies when the object of production is information or culture, and where the capital investment necessary for production-computers and communications capabilities-is widely distributed instead of concentrated. In particular, this mode of production is better than firms and markets for two reasons. First, it is better at identifying and assigning human capital to information and cultural production processes. In this regard, peer-production has an advantage in what I call "information opportunity cost." That is, it loses less information about who the best person for a given job might be than do either of the other two organizational modes. Second, there are substantial increasing returns to allow very larger clusters of potential contributors to interact with very large clusters of information resources in search of new projects and collaboration enterprises. Removing property and contract as the organizing principles of collaboration substantially reduces transaction costs involved in allowing these large clusters of potential contributors to review and select which resources to work on, for which projects, and with which collaborators. This results in allocation gains, that increase more than proportionately with the increase in the number of individuals and resources that are part of the system. The article concludes with an overview of how these models use a variety of technological and social strategies to overcome the collective action problems usually solved in managerial and market-based systems by property and contract.

No. Microsoft did provide TCP/IP for Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. It didn't have PPP or dialer software, which Trumpet Winsock provided... But again, Microsoft provided the same starting with MS Internet Explorer 5.0 (which isn't really relevant though.)

"And Germany was allied with Japan, and vice versa, which just made Germany an equal enemy."

Yeah, that explains why the US declared war on Japan on December 8 and then had to issue separate declarations of war against Germany and Italy on December 11. Check it out. And what do we see in the war declaration against Germany? "Whereas the Government of Germany has formally declared war against the Government and the people of the United States of America..."

It's not very clear that Roosevelt could have convinced Congress in particular and the US in general to get this declaration had Hitler been a little less insane. There was precedent on Hitler not following up on his treaties (such as with the Soviet Union), the many American voters who had German ancestry, bad memories of the first war, etc. There's also the ever-present isolationist streak in the US ("So what if he's butchering people? So long as he's not butchering Americans it's none of our concern.") Roosevelt was out on a limb with Lend-Lease as it was.

There's also the example of the Soviet Union. The "Great Patriotic War" with Germany started in June of 1941, and yet they didn't declare war on Japan until 1945, several days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

<FLAMEBAIT>
Without Hitler chiming in on December 11, 1941, Roosevelt trying to pursue war with Germany would likely have been about as popular then as Bush trying to pursue war with Iraq today. "They weren't involved in the attack. It's distracting us from our true enemies."
</FLAMEBAIT>

Not entirely. Hatch tried to sneak this through to a vote without a hearing. Opposition forced him to have a hearing, but he wants a revised bill after August. There is a lot going on here. See, INDUCE Act Archives and LawMeme's Index.

You think that is ridiculous, just imagine what the INDUCE Act will do to TiVo. INDUCE Act Archives and LawMeme's Index to the INDUCE Act. Every technology that even gets close to copyrighted content will have to be vetted by lawyers and approved by Hollywood and the BSA.

Like my article, "Taking the Copy Out of Copyright" [PDF]

Actually, according to a Yale study, "Although Fox News emerges as conservative, it is not nearly as far to the right as many outlets are to the left."

It's just that amongst American journalists and intellectuals, the political spectrum has been re-scaled so that the left is now considered "moderate", centrism is "right wing" and the somewhat conservative Fox news is a "Nazi propaganda network".

This is not nanotechnology. It's conventional technology. GM is still making materials that are made in reactors in batches that yield anywhere from pounds to tons of material. The only thing that is new here is that the reactions are guided by some systematic knowledge of how the molecular interactions improve the characteristics of the bulk.

Nanotechnology used to designate a field of enquiry concerned primarily with manipulating atoms and molecules. This is clearly not the case with what's reported here. The problem is that the definition of nanotechnology has been broadened so much that the term is almost meaningless. In fact, some investors have encouraged Eliot Spitzer to sue several financial corporations because the nanotechnology funds that these companies claim to manage contain no nanotechnology companies.

Nanocomposite is an accurate term because these new materials are engineered with the fundamental molecular interactions in mind. But this is not nanotechnology because the materials are not made one atom at a time!! They are still made pounds or tons at a time. Even the nanoparticles that are supposed to improve catalytic converters are made in bulk. They are incredibly small particles, but they are made in chemical reactions that involve anywhere from grams to pounds of material. The final converter is not assembled one nanoparticle at a time, either. What happens is that instead of depositing a layer of platinum either electrochemically or evaporatively, a layer of nanoparticles is deposited by passing a solution of the nanoparticles over the substrate.

To get an appreciation for what it means to manipulate molecules, try Mark Reed's or Paul McEuen's work.

New Audio CD DRM Defeated by Use of ''SHIFT'' Key

Google search that found above link, good read.

"will my possessions need me anymore?"

"The things you own end up owning you."
In a word, no. That way you can get on to more important things, like observing the smell of your body odor. We are slowly realising that we can have machines do all our work for us. Even our possessions can take care of themselves without our interaction. We freaking have electric animals now! It's time we learn to sit back and relax and enjoy the new automated world. (And to be "paranoid" about it, you know someone will abuse the power they could easily amass while everyone else is staring at the sky picturing unicorns and alligators in the clouds.)

Here is a discussion from Yale's LawMeme on the legal ramifications of Prattboy's experiment. Does asking others to sign you up for spam count as an opt-in?

I couldn't take college and dropped out because of my arrogance, similar as yours.

Maybe you were arrogant, maybe not. There are a lot of smart people who don't fit into the traditional understanding of "intelligent", "smart" and "clever".

Robert Sternberg is a psycologist whose life project is to show that there are multiple types of "intelligence" and current "intelligence tests" only measure one or two of them.

When we look at the life of people such as Tomas Edison for example, who dropped out of school and was then fired from work for being "too clever" (he created a auto-responder to a morse signal that was supposed to verify if he was awake) it becomes obvious that the school system is not suited for educating some of the smartest people that have lived.

I belive Sternberg is righ, I belive there are very intelligent young people who are being labelled "arrogant" and a lot of other negative names because they are not "connecting" with the "system" as they "should be".

So what is the right way for such people ? Follow your instinct.. It will be hard, it will be difficult and there will be ups and downs but at least you have a chance to be *yourself*

I'm a registered Libertarian and I thought that being a libertarian meant that one believes that less government is better government. That the government runs in the way the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Articles of Confederation, and the Magna Carta meant if to run. Libertarians don't believe like the government of the State of Utah, that the separation of church and state is one city block.

"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of England, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, e&.

Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Datum 2. If you watch politics for enough decades, you will *notice* it doesn't really matter which R or D is in the white house, or controls congress, they play good cop/ bad cop back and forth with their various constituencies, but you always get more or less the same results, more whopper government, more bogus laws, more freedoms stripped, higher taxes, more debt,more reallystrange foreign wars that you find out years later were based on lies and were scam wars,and more destruction of the backbone of the US, the productive middle class. Again, pretty obvious. When people say they voted for their idea of the lesser of two evils, they are admitting to being scared, tricked, or just didn't really care enough to NOT vote for one of those evils. Pitiful really. they didn't want to "waste their vote", even though the only 'wasted' vote is one not cast.

Of course, none of that matters now because...

#3 the elections are now officially hijacked, what little remnants of honest voting used to exist are now gone, you'll "elect" who THEY want to be in there, and THOSE guys get told what to do from international very large power and money interests. We were WARNED this would happen, and we ignored it.

#4 the only rational plan is something completely & radically different from "politics as we know it", because the old ways of doing things WILL GIVE YOU THE SAME OLD WAYS. IT ALWAYS HAPPENS. It CAN'T give you anything BUT that, it's basic math. NOTHING will change, you will always get the same results if you copy what you just did.

Thanks for the idea! I'll keep that in mind when I become an evil overlord and require an underground bunker complex ;-)

The price of Windows has very little to do with the cost of developing it. The OS division has annual profits of about 85%. And of that last 15%, most of it is marketing, support, and manufacturing, not r&d. They are already charging what the market will bear, and since the operating system is a natural monopoly this is far beyond the production cost.

In fact, Microsoft is now building up its patent arsenal, applying for a rather amazing 10 patents a day. The idea isn't to ensure that Microsoft makes a fair profit from its patents; it's to make sure that no one else can write fully compatible software.

And the plot thickens... They are doing this (as the article states) to keep Linux and other OSs from being compatible.

There are many reasons companies patent things, ranging from the defensive to the offensive. Unfortunately it's hard to tell a priori what the actual reasons are.

Amazon doesn't own Borders, it merely runs its online store.

This saying was attributed to Perlis in 1982.

>But regardless, is "under God" all that is required to establish a national religion?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

>Or is it that Christianity has pretty much always been the de facto national religion even though individual freedom of religion is protected?

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion...

Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all others citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfil the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.

>But regardless, is "under God" all that is required to establish a national religion?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

>Or is it that Christianity has pretty much always been the de facto national religion even though individual freedom of religion is protected?

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion...

Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all others citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfil the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.

Holy shit, worst post ever. You screaming jackass, there are laws of war, and, for example, they stop people from bombing things like hospitals. Believe me, this is a good thing. Ask a veteran if you're not convinced.

It's not about whether I trust Google's intentions. So long as Google is an American company, or more precisely so long as its headquarters exist in *any* country, there's a danger that the government of said country can bully them into giving up all the information they have on anybody.

I haven't had mod points since December (despite two years and 1204 comments).

But if I did have mod points, mine would go to the parent.

So should yours.

Putting all your eggs in one basket, as the cliche notes, is bad policy.

Putting all your information in the hands of one company invites extensive profiling of you.

It may even be that Google respects your privacy;
it may even be that GW Bush is voted out of office and Ashcroft (slighty NSFW) with him, and contrary to any realistic possibility, the Democratic Party gets rid of Howard Berman is defeated in the Democratic Primary and Fritz Hollings retires and the DMCA is repealed and no future Herbert Hoover ever leads the FBI into another COINTELPRO;
and it may even be that lions lie down with lambs and meat packers lie down with cows.

But even in such a perfect world, it would take one disgruntled Google employee or one corporate spy or one hacker to make all your data public.

The question isn't "is Google trustworthy"; the question is, given that you backup your data for the day your hard drive inevitably dies, given that you use an UPS because you know that even the best power company has blackouts, why you rush to put all your data in any one set of hands?

You're thinking of copyrighted model building codes. The model codes are copyrighted once fixed in a tangible medium, but once a state enacts them into law, they enter the public domain. Southern Building Code v. Veeck , en banc rehearing.

Make waaaaaaaaaaaaay for the Karma Whore!

1) The list of movies from Clearplay.
Nope, "Shaving Ryan's Privates" didn't make the cut (but, Band of Brothers did). You can sort them by MPAA rating, which yields this: no NC-17, no G ratings. Some (but not that many) R ratings. Basically, it looks like it's about toning down PG and PG-13 movies for kids. For god's sake, maxwell - won't you think of the kids?!?

2) From the lawyers mouth - hear the lawyers discuss the case in front of a law class at Berkley. Every time they almost get interesting their lawyerly nature comes through, but hey - THEY REALLY BE LAWYERS!! (no joke, I seriously considered preparing an edit script). btw: favorite quote - "In the entertainment industry, it's not about the money. It's about ALL the money."

3) Bowdlerizing for Columbine?: Why American directors have no moral rights to their movies. (that's the subtitle, not a troll)

4) There Shouldn't Be a Remote Control on How We Watch DVDs, a Commentary by Ernest Miller of the Yale Law School.

I was just getting a little tired of seeing section 106 pasted again and again again.. sometimes in text, sometimes marked up in bold, sometimes in italic...

Now, maxwell, that mp3 file is 1:29:10 long - no more posting till you've heard the whole thing, mmkay?

No it wasn't just a PR stunt. It's clarifying the legal matter of generic mark doctrine on the grounds that "windows" is a term that described the GUI element of windows on computers long before Microsoft started using the word to describe their implementation of a GUI based on windows on computers.