On the opening night of Sin City, they had pole dancers and shadow dancers *in the theaters*. It was about as close to porno as you're gonna get in a family-friendly atmosphere. (BTW, the dancers were all Drafthouse employees who volunteered for the job. All the servers were also wearing S&M gear that night)
So he digs into his pocket change? I mean, the first midnight screening bought him something like EIGHTEEN Rolls Royces, dude. The opening day was somewhere around 100 of 'em, and for the opening weekend, I estimate he could buy every Rolls Royce that ever came off the line.
Maybe he wants to build his own Star Destroyer or launch a giant ad into low earth orbit before congress outlaws it.
NO! In the other places, you CANNOT put whatever you want. The puzzle explicitly states that no numbers are repeated in any row or column.
You ARE correct in your listing of the three 'clue' rows/columns. But, if you look at what you have now, you see that for each remaining row or column, there are two blanks that can only be filled with numbers that aren't already in that row or column. For each, there is a right combination and a wrong one, which would result in a duplicate number for another row or column.
I agree, but just as glad that I can peruse the entries now w/o waiting. As for the rankings... I'm looking at ALL the entries, and find that most of the top ones are crap. That will likely change as the contest progresses, because if it works right, more people are likely to visit the sites based on referrals from friends than by the limited publicity the contest itself has had.
Slashdot has a big user base, but it's really nothing compared to the sheer massive numbers of people out there waiting to be presented with the next Dancing Baby.
Also, they can easily check the referrer entries in their logs to remove any visitors from the contest page.
What's sad is to see how many of the sites right now don't actually WORK, and how some of those have higher rankings than some really good ones. But, it's only the first day of the contest.
I think the parent is one of the best arguments I've seen for M$ voluntarily spinning off a few of its products into separate companies. But they're not gonna do it. Gates talking about Longhorn preventing software being installed w/o the user's knowledge is hard to believe, because I can't see M$ giving up the ability to do that themselves.
It would be really great, though. I blame M$ completely for all the spyware, adware, and other CRAP that can appear on your system just by mistyping a single URL, even with all the available security options enabled. If fixing that is what's holding up Longhorn, then maybe it'll be worth the wait. I'm fed up with 'innovation' that provides 'features' I don't want at the expense of performance and opening up the system to spyware/adware. It's about time they actually worked on improving what they've got instead of just changing around the UI, forcing clueless users to re-learn how to use the computer.
Did you ever interrupt your Grandma in the middle of bingo to demand she make some oatmeal cookies? Ever call your brother up and interrupt a therapy session with one of his clients, demanding that he stop, because your sprained ankle is keeping you from doing 10 other things that you just HAVE to get done?
I get calls from friends & family demanding help with their viruses, M$ installations, bugs, printer jams, you name it, while I'm already busy working on the CEO's system.
I manage a LAN/WAN environment with 7 locations, 75 customers, and 500 Cisco IP phones. Do they respect me? Yes. Do they show it? Not monetarily... no raise in 2 years.
But let me put it another way. What was I doing on that CEO's system? He demanded I clean his keyboard, because someone spilled something sticky on it.
He includes some twisted prose that the grammar checker fails to find fault with, such as: "Marketing are bad for brand big and small. You Know What I am Saying?" and "Gates do good marketing job in Microsoft". This last comment is disputed by retired Microsoft researcher Karen Jensen, who developed part of the underlying technology; "Only by knowing that 'Gates' probably refers to Bill Gates -- and not to the plural of the movable portion of a fence -- would the program know to suggest using 'does' instead."
Ms Jensen doesn't note that the example is STILL incorrect even if one doesn't assume Gates is a proper noun. Grammatically, it should be, "Gates do good marketing jobs in Microsoft." Plural JOBS.
Of course, the chances of seeing a Jobs in Microsoft these days are probably nil.
You know those self-checkout stations they have now? Each and every one of them was spitting out paper slips non-stop that were records of the day's transactions. My roommate snapped a photo.
Each and every slip had the full credit card number, the expiration date, and a copy of the cardholder's signature.
They were unattended, and the workers had placed plastic bags to catch the slips as they fell out of the machines.
I'd like to know what are the chances of two, three, or more machines having the same clock skew? The article says that in their test, the clock skew was discernable for otherwise identical systems, but he has a miniscule data sample compared to the hundreds of millions of devices now out there. This would cause MAJOR headaches when activation fails because some other system has the same clock skew as yours.
I think any rational, thinking person would agree. A written code of laws was (as is taught in schools) Hammurabi's gift to mankind. So, this administration isn't *just* trying to undo several decades of environmental and civil rights progress (not to mention diplomatic work) in the name of 'freedom', they're trying to take society back thousands of years, literally, to the stone age.
Fuckers. I only hope we're all still here to see 'em taken down when the inevitable revolution comes.
I wish I knew who you were. Good to know there's a few people out there who appreciate my kind of music. It's follow-ups like yours that make it worth posting.
"I fully expect someone to breathlessly explain the Great Goodness that is Chess."
You asked for it...
Each game of chess means there's one less variation left to be played. Each day got through means one, or two, less mistakes remain to be made.
Not much is known of early days of chess beyond a fairly vague report, that 1500 years ago two princes fought though brothers for a Hindu throne. Their mother cried, for noone really likes her offspring fighting to the death. She begged them stop the slaughter with her every breath, but sure enough one brother died.
Sad beyond belief, she told the winning son "You have caused such grief, I can't forgive this evil thing you've done." He tried to explain how things had really been, but he tried in vain; no words of his would satisfy the queen.
And so he asked the wisest men he knew the way to lessen her distress. They told him he'd be pretty certain to impress by using model soldiers on a checkered board to show it was his brother's fault.
How much time do you spend debunking the following?:
Matter is made up of tiny particles called atoms, which themselves are made up of tinier particles, called protons, electrons, and neutrons. Those three are made of even tinier particles called quarks, which are composed of 'quantum strings' that vibrate at different rates which determines their mass.
The 'electrons' in matter can be made to move, which due to the 'electromagnetic field' they collectively produce, results in a force that can be used to move mountains.
These tiny particles also act as waves, and can be used to talk to other people at vast distances and if concentrated in a small box, can be used to cook food.
Certain metals emit these particles, which you can't see, but exposure to them will cause your hair and teeth to fall out and your skin to melt away from your bones.
Sometimes, once every 50,000 years or so, one of these particles will decay resulting in a brilliant flash of light. We have placed a tank with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water deep below the earth with hundreds of detectors to watch for the resulting flashes.
The sun emits countless even tinier particles, called neutrinos, which do not interact with ordinary matter. They can't be detected, because they would pass through a chunk of lead 50,000 miles thick, but they potentially make up a quarter of the mass of the universe. Thousands of them are passing through your body every second.
All of the above are pretty staggering claims, which 100 years ago would have been the subject of scorn for most people. The other posters in this thread DO make good points. THEY at least, are backing up their opinions instead of making up farfetched stories.
However, I would assert that making your data available to the public does constitute being open to peer review. Centuries ago, Galileo was mocked and imprisoned for supporting a worldview contrary to popularly accepted scientific models of the world. His assertions could not be proven or disproven. They were the result only of mathematical analyses and conjecture. His peers refused to accept even the possibility.
The popular belief here is that the human mind cannot affect anything in the physical universe outside of the direct influence of the body to which it is attached. You have obviously 'bought' into this belief and refuse to test it against recorded observations.
Okay. Bad science is being done. They're either outright faking their numbers, someone is secretly tweaking their numbers, or they're doing the standard bad science practice of throwing away the majority of the false positives that they don't like.
Attacking the data because you don't like it is irrational.
You are absolutely right. I am not interested in constructing ludicrous theories. I am only interesting in disproving things. After I've disproven everything false, what I am left with must be true. That is the heart of rationality, and the scientific mind.
This presupposes that you are able to observe and test everything. It also presupposes that you actually CAN disprove every false assertion. It also fails to take into account the quantum nature of the universe, where an assertion can be simultaneousl true AND false.
The difficulty here is that of framing the experiment to provide conclusive data. Assume, for the sake of argument, that the detectors DO respond in some manner to conscious thought. Now there are so many factors that can't be eliminated... the effects of the observers, the effects of people passing by on the street, the effects caused by groups of people on the other side of the planet. All you really can do is watch the thing and try to test the correlation between the numbers it produces and known significant events that affect the largest groups of people. How else do you isolate it?
OK, now take the opposite viewpoint. It's false. There's no way these things can be affected by conscious thought.
OK, now I KNOW you're flamebait. First it was witches and warlocks, and now it's red, green, and blue monkeys. If reading TFA isn't enough for you, try looking at their official page, for god's sake: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/story.html
You'll see that not only does their data again and again defy probability, but also that their procedures and results are regularly audited by independent observers. Furthermore, their data is all available to the public.
The statistical means of analysis they use are the same methods that are used to set your insurance rates, set airline ticket prices, determine television ratings, among many many other functions. Their results definitely point to SOMETHING going on. So, if you don't like their particular color of monkey, why not look at their data and propose your own alternate theory?
Oh, wait... you're not interested in being constructive, only in 'debunking' those things with which you irrationally disagree.
As for me having 'bought it', I didn't express a position for or against their conclusions. Only suggested it's more scientific to keep an open mind and see what analyses of the data reveal.
Oh, and when I want to accomplish anything in life, I keep my mind open to ALL possibilities. More weight is given to the more PROBABLE of them, but a closed mind is a handicap for those who lack the imagination to find explanations for the unknown. Closed minds said the universe revolves around the Earth. Closed minds said man would never fly. Closed minds seem to have a habit of failing to justify their closure. Next time... try the red pill.
Perhaps you've never heard of quantum mechanics? I believe it was Einstein who coined the phrase 'spooky action at a distance' to describe quantum entanglement of particles.
Someone should seriously consider modding your post as flamebait. It's a FAR stretch from investigating a non-trivial co-incidence of recorded data and historic events to make the jump to witches and warlocks running the US (though they might do a better job than the current High Priest of Crawford)
While organizations like CSICOP can be valuable in verifying or debunking claims that seem unbelievable, it seems foolish (if one has RTFA) to insist right off that it is superstitious quackery fit for debunking.
A true scientist would remain open the possibility until it is proven or disproven. That is what we call a 'theory'. By insistently persecuting anything we don't yet understand, one lowers oneself to the level of certain residents of 17th Century Salem.
However, if a chip can get by without all the double checks to assure absolute certainty, then energy consumption could be slashed -- and speed would get a simultaneous boost. That's the notion behind Palem's concept of probabilistic bits, or Pbits. As he puts it: "Uncertainty, contrary to being an impediment, becomes a resource."
Dude... this is only a FINITE improbability generator. I'll leave it to you to figure out the exact finite improbability of using a few of these to generate an *infinite* improbability field. Glad to brew you a cup of tea, though.
"What happens to other publicly displayed works of art?"
It would appear that the city of Chicago thinks they are copyrighted by the sculptor. My logic goes something like this...
1) The sculpture has a mirror finish. Therefore, it is itself a derivative work of the city skyline, as it reflects the skyline, creating a picture-perfect mirror-image copy. Due to it's geometry, in fact, it is an INFINITE reproduction of the city skyline, from every possible angle.
2) Each and every building in that skyline was itself an architectural work, and therefore also copyrighted prior to the installation of this structure.
3) The city is collecting licensing fees for photographers to shoot this sculpture. Therefore, the artist is profiting from the work of the thousands of architects who designed all the buildings in the skyline, which are reproduced not just once, but an INFINITE number of times.
4) The city is therefore aiding the artist in violating the copyrights of all those other people.
QED
I think the RIAA would have a field day with this one. Certainly, the people of the city should consider getting a class action suit filed against the artist, the City, and possibly Intel prior to Bush/Congress upcoming neutering of class-action rights.
Second, you own that cell phone that you purchased. It's yours. But you DO NOT OWN SOFTWARE. You own a license to use that softare. And the key is not that license! The key is simply proof of the license, and losing the key does not equal losing the license that you own.
Parent is absolutely correct, IMO. So many big corporations these days want to have it both ways... They want to make you agree to EULA's that say you've purchased the right to use the software (which IMO is just a step in the direction M$ intends to take us toward renting software). Since you're only purchasing the right to USE the software, they argue, you can't transfer it to someone else or to another machine.
Then they turn around and say you're SOL if you lose the CD or hologram or license key.
I think the analogy everyone should be looking for here is something like: You go buy a car... you're only buying the right to USE the car. You're not allowed to take it apart and repair it yourself. You can't swap out parts. You can't turn it into an airplane. You can only use it as we see fit. If we ever decide you can't use it, you have no rights. You can't give it to someone else. You can only drive it on our roads and park it in the original garage. If you move to a bigger house, tough luck, buy a new car. If you lose the keys, again tough luck, buy a new car. Oh, yeah... it'll break down all the time, and we're going to change the roads every 3 years or so, so you'll have to buy a new one.
Sounds like bullshit, doesn't it? But GREAT if you're selling cars.
Wow, I don't know about this now... Googling for bellsquarry and ann street gives some fascinating results, but definitely nothing to indicate that Ann Street is anything more than an innocent bystander.
First name server is ns1.ukdnsservers.co.uk, iP 142.46.200.67
Connecting to whois.arin.net...
Telecom Ottawa Inc. HOT-TELECOMOTTAWA-9 (NET-142-46-199-0-1) 142.46.199.0 - 142.46.202.255 Koallo Inc. TOL-142-46-200-64-95 (NET-142-46-200-64-1) 142.46.200.64 - 142.46.200.95 # ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2005-01-15 19:10
So, IPs 64-95 belong to Koallo, Inc. A little Googling turns up the following: http://www.whois.sc/bellsquarry.info Which lists the Registrant as one Ann Street, 5 Calder Road, Bellsquarry, Livingston, GB. ann.street@btinternet.com
Fake? Probably. But I'd be sending some buddies with baseball bats over to check it out, anyway, and also to 2530 Cannin Drive, Wilmington, Delaware.
It doesn't matter that the domain name is resolving to powerhost.co.uk. What matters is the NS listings in the registrant entry and where THOSE nameservers are located (apparently, Ottawa). Either these guys have been hacked or they purposefully added zone info for panix.com to their name servers.
FAILED The Melbourne IT Registry Key for Domain Name panix.com was not able to be retrieved. This could be due to the Domain Name being managed by a Melbourne IT Reseller. Please contact your Reseller for assistance. If this fails, please go to our help center.
www.panix.com is coming up with a freeparking.co.uk web page. This means that SOMEONE is handling DNS for the domain. That is the one piece of useful information in the current whois record. ns1.ukdnsservers.co.uk OK, looks like ukdnsservers.co.uk belongs to: Domain Name: ukdnsservers.co.uk
Registrant: ActiveBytes Software LLC
Administrative Contact's Address: 2530 Channin Drive Wilmington DE 19810 US
Relevant Dates: Registered on: 25-Mar-2000 Renewal Date: 25-Mar-2006 Last updated: 11-Dec-2004
Registration Status: Registered until renewal date.
Name servers listed in order: ns3.ukdnsservers.co.uk 142.46.200.68 ns4.ukdnsservers.co.uk 207.61.90.197
This is a company on US soil. If the authorities have been contacted, the FBI should be breaking down these guys' doors right about now, cause they're involved in what could be considered an act of international terrorism, and I'm not being sarcastic. Either ActiveBytes Software, or one of their representatives has knowingly set up DNS records for panix.com, or they have been hacked.
Unfortunately, it appears that even though their offices may be in Delaware, their DNS is a little farther north:
traceroute 142.46.200.67 (Most of traceroute omitted to pass bullshit lameness filter)
23 145 ms 75 ms 74 ms AL-7304-GigE2.telecomottawa.net [142.46.200.1]
24 82 ms 85 ms 88 ms 142.46.200.67
Trace complete.
traceroute 207.61.90.197 (Most of traceroute omitted to pass bullshit lameness filter)
18 65 ms 75 ms 64 ms core1-ottawa23-pos2-2.in.bellnexxia.net [64.230.234.90]
19 221 ms 204 ms 217 ms ottcorr01-pos5-0-0.in.bellnexxia.net [206.108.99.146]
20 Request timed out.
21 244 ms 183 ms 225 ms ns4.ukdnsservers.co.uk [207.61.90.197]
Trace complete.
Maybe someone at telecomottawa.net could be contacted to track these people down or help out in some small way. Here's their Customer Care Page They have a toll-free number! Let's see if enough of us call it, or perhaps if enough of Panix's unhappy customers call it, maybe TelecomOttawa will help out (wouldn't it suck if someone were to steal the telecomottawa.net domain name from them in a similar fashion?) Anyway, the TF# is 1-888-424-7771 (X3?)
Man, this really pisses me off that someone was able to do this, and that these guys aren't having any luck getting the problem fixed.
Slashdot Mirror
On the opening night of Sin City, they had pole dancers and shadow dancers *in the theaters*. It was about as close to porno as you're gonna get in a family-friendly atmosphere. (BTW, the dancers were all Drafthouse employees who volunteered for the job. All the servers were also wearing S&M gear that night)
So he digs into his pocket change? I mean, the first midnight screening bought him something like EIGHTEEN Rolls Royces, dude. The opening day was somewhere around 100 of 'em, and for the opening weekend, I estimate he could buy every Rolls Royce that ever came off the line.
Maybe he wants to build his own Star Destroyer
or launch a giant ad into low earth orbit before congress outlaws it.
NO! In the other places, you CANNOT put whatever you want. The puzzle explicitly states that no numbers are repeated in any row or column.
You ARE correct in your listing of the three 'clue' rows/columns. But, if you look at what you have now, you see that for each remaining row or column, there are two blanks that can only be filled with numbers that aren't already in that row or column. For each, there is a right combination and a wrong one, which would result in a duplicate number for another row or column.
I agree, but just as glad that I can peruse the entries now w/o waiting. As for the rankings... I'm looking at ALL the entries, and find that most of the top ones are crap. That will likely change as the contest progresses, because if it works right, more people are likely to visit the sites based on referrals from friends than by the limited publicity the contest itself has had.
Slashdot has a big user base, but it's really nothing compared to the sheer massive numbers of people out there waiting to be presented with the next Dancing Baby.
Also, they can easily check the referrer entries in their logs to remove any visitors from the contest page.
What's sad is to see how many of the sites right now don't actually WORK, and how some of those have higher rankings than some really good ones. But, it's only the first day of the contest.
I think the parent is one of the best arguments I've seen for M$ voluntarily spinning off a few of its products into separate companies. But they're not gonna do it. Gates talking about Longhorn preventing software being installed w/o the user's knowledge is hard to believe, because I can't see M$ giving up the ability to do that themselves.
It would be really great, though. I blame M$ completely for all the spyware, adware, and other CRAP that can appear on your system just by mistyping a single URL, even with all the available security options enabled. If fixing that is what's holding up Longhorn, then maybe it'll be worth the wait. I'm fed up with 'innovation' that provides 'features' I don't want at the expense of performance and opening up the system to spyware/adware. It's about time they actually worked on improving what they've got instead of just changing around the UI, forcing clueless users to re-learn how to use the computer.
Did you ever interrupt your Grandma in the middle of bingo to demand she make some oatmeal cookies? Ever call your brother up and interrupt a therapy session with one of his clients, demanding that he stop, because your sprained ankle is keeping you from doing 10 other things that you just HAVE to get done?
I get calls from friends & family demanding help with their viruses, M$ installations, bugs, printer jams, you name it, while I'm already busy working on the CEO's system.
I manage a LAN/WAN environment with 7 locations, 75 customers, and 500 Cisco IP phones. Do they respect me? Yes. Do they show it? Not monetarily... no raise in 2 years.
But let me put it another way. What was I doing on that CEO's system? He demanded I clean his keyboard, because someone spilled something sticky on it.
In Texas, it is now a crime to print the full CC number on the slip. Many establishments have not yet complied, but WalMart has NO excuse.
Ms Jensen doesn't note that the example is STILL incorrect even if one doesn't assume Gates is a proper noun. Grammatically, it should be, "Gates do good marketing jobs in Microsoft." Plural JOBS.
Of course, the chances of seeing a Jobs in Microsoft these days are probably nil.
I was at Wal-Mart late one night last week.
You know those self-checkout stations they have now? Each and every one of them was spitting out paper slips non-stop that were records of the day's transactions. My roommate snapped a photo.
Each and every slip had the full credit card number, the expiration date, and a copy of the cardholder's signature.
They were unattended, and the workers had placed plastic bags to catch the slips as they fell out of the machines.
There must have been hundreds...
At just one Wal-Mart...
Out of thousands of stores.
I agree... very good point.
However, it's one piece of data that can be added to other pieces of data to uniquely identify you.
I'd like to know what are the chances of two, three, or more machines having the same clock skew? The article says that in their test, the clock skew was discernable for otherwise identical systems, but he has a miniscule data sample compared to the hundreds of millions of devices now out there. This would cause MAJOR headaches when activation fails because some other system has the same clock skew as yours.
I think any rational, thinking person would agree. A written code of laws was (as is taught in schools) Hammurabi's gift to mankind. So, this administration isn't *just* trying to undo several decades of environmental and civil rights progress (not to mention diplomatic work) in the name of 'freedom', they're trying to take society back thousands of years, literally, to the stone age.
Fuckers. I only hope we're all still here to see 'em taken down when the inevitable revolution comes.
The question isn't why this made the front page, but whether the same story will be on tomorrow's /.
But you already know the answer to the question... the choice is already made. Now it's up to you to understand it.
I wish I knew who you were. Good to know there's a few people out there who appreciate my kind of music. It's follow-ups like yours that make it worth posting.
"I fully expect someone to breathlessly explain the Great Goodness that is Chess."
You asked for it...
Each game of chess means there's one less variation left to be played. Each day got through means one, or two, less mistakes remain to be made.
Not much is known of early days of chess beyond a fairly vague report, that 1500 years ago two princes fought though brothers for a Hindu throne. Their mother cried, for noone really likes her offspring fighting to the death. She begged them stop the slaughter with her every breath, but sure enough one brother died.
Sad beyond belief, she told the winning son "You have caused such grief, I can't forgive this evil thing you've done." He tried to explain how things had really been, but he tried in vain; no words of his would satisfy the queen.
And so he asked the wisest men he knew the way to lessen her distress. They told him he'd be pretty certain to impress by using model soldiers on a checkered board to show it was his brother's fault.
They thus invented... Chess!
(now there's some REAL Slashdot lore for ya)
How much time do you spend debunking the following?:
Matter is made up of tiny particles called atoms, which themselves are made up of tinier particles, called protons, electrons, and neutrons. Those three are made of even tinier particles called quarks, which are composed of 'quantum strings' that vibrate at different rates which determines their mass.
The 'electrons' in matter can be made to move, which due to the 'electromagnetic field' they collectively produce, results in a force that can be used to move mountains.
These tiny particles also act as waves, and can be used to talk to other people at vast distances and if concentrated in a small box, can be used to cook food.
Certain metals emit these particles, which you can't see, but exposure to them will cause your hair and teeth to fall out and your skin to melt away from your bones.
Sometimes, once every 50,000 years or so, one of these particles will decay resulting in a brilliant flash of light. We have placed a tank with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water deep below the earth with hundreds of detectors to watch for the resulting flashes.
The sun emits countless even tinier particles, called neutrinos, which do not interact with ordinary matter. They can't be detected, because they would pass through a chunk of lead 50,000 miles thick, but they potentially make up a quarter of the mass of the universe. Thousands of them are passing through your body every second.
All of the above are pretty staggering claims, which 100 years ago would have been the subject of scorn for most people. The other posters in this thread DO make good points. THEY at least, are backing up their opinions instead of making up farfetched stories.
However, I would assert that making your data available to the public does constitute being open to peer review. Centuries ago, Galileo was mocked and imprisoned for supporting a worldview contrary to popularly accepted scientific models of the world. His assertions could not be proven or disproven. They were the result only of mathematical analyses and conjecture. His peers refused to accept even the possibility.
The popular belief here is that the human mind cannot affect anything in the physical universe outside of the direct influence of the body to which it is attached. You have obviously 'bought' into this belief and refuse to test it against recorded observations.
Okay. Bad science is being done. They're either outright faking their numbers, someone is secretly tweaking their numbers, or they're doing the standard bad science practice of throwing away the majority of the false positives that they don't like.
Attacking the data because you don't like it is irrational.
You are absolutely right. I am not interested in constructing ludicrous theories. I am only interesting in disproving things. After I've disproven everything false, what I am left with must be true. That is the heart of rationality, and the scientific mind.
This presupposes that you are able to observe and test everything. It also presupposes that you actually CAN disprove every false assertion. It also fails to take into account the quantum nature of the universe, where an assertion can be simultaneousl true AND false.
The difficulty here is that of framing the experiment to provide conclusive data. Assume, for the sake of argument, that the detectors DO respond in some manner to conscious thought. Now there are so many factors that can't be eliminated... the effects of the observers, the effects of people passing by on the street, the effects caused by groups of people on the other side of the planet. All you really can do is watch the thing and try to test the correlation between the numbers it produces and known significant events that affect the largest groups of people. How else do you isolate it?
OK, now take the opposite viewpoint. It's false. There's no way these things can be affected by conscious thought.
OK, now I KNOW you're flamebait. First it was witches and warlocks, and now it's red, green, and blue monkeys. If reading TFA isn't enough for you, try looking at their official page, for god's sake: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/story.html
You'll see that not only does their data again and again defy probability, but also that their procedures and results are regularly audited by independent observers. Furthermore, their data is all available to the public.
The statistical means of analysis they use are the same methods that are used to set your insurance rates, set airline ticket prices, determine television ratings, among many many other functions. Their results definitely point to SOMETHING going on. So, if you don't like their particular color of monkey, why not look at their data and propose your own alternate theory?
Oh, wait... you're not interested in being constructive, only in 'debunking' those things with which you irrationally disagree.
As for me having 'bought it', I didn't express a position for or against their conclusions. Only suggested it's more scientific to keep an open mind and see what analyses of the data reveal.
Oh, and when I want to accomplish anything in life, I keep my mind open to ALL possibilities. More weight is given to the more PROBABLE of them, but a closed mind is a handicap for those who lack the imagination to find explanations for the unknown. Closed minds said the universe revolves around the Earth. Closed minds said man would never fly. Closed minds seem to have a habit of failing to justify their closure. Next time... try the red pill.
Perhaps you've never heard of quantum mechanics? I believe it was Einstein who coined the phrase 'spooky action at a distance' to describe quantum entanglement of particles.
Someone should seriously consider modding your post as flamebait. It's a FAR stretch from investigating a non-trivial co-incidence of recorded data and historic events to make the jump to witches and warlocks running the US (though they might do a better job than the current High Priest of Crawford)
While organizations like CSICOP can be valuable in verifying or debunking claims that seem unbelievable, it seems foolish (if one has RTFA) to insist right off that it is superstitious quackery fit for debunking.
A true scientist would remain open the possibility until it is proven or disproven. That is what we call a 'theory'. By insistently persecuting anything we don't yet understand, one lowers oneself to the level of certain residents of 17th Century Salem.
"What happens to other publicly displayed works of art?"
It would appear that the city of Chicago thinks they are copyrighted by the sculptor. My logic goes something like this...
1) The sculpture has a mirror finish. Therefore, it is itself a derivative work of the city skyline, as it reflects the skyline, creating a picture-perfect mirror-image copy. Due to it's geometry, in fact, it is an INFINITE reproduction of the city skyline, from every possible angle.
2) Each and every building in that skyline was itself an architectural work, and therefore also copyrighted prior to the installation of this structure.
3) The city is collecting licensing fees for photographers to shoot this sculpture. Therefore, the artist is profiting from the work of the thousands of architects who designed all the buildings in the skyline, which are reproduced not just once, but an INFINITE number of times.
4) The city is therefore aiding the artist in violating the copyrights of all those other people.
QED
I think the RIAA would have a field day with this one. Certainly, the people of the city should consider getting a class action suit filed against the artist, the City, and possibly Intel prior to Bush/Congress upcoming neutering of class-action rights.
Parent is absolutely correct, IMO. So many big corporations these days want to have it both ways... They want to make you agree to EULA's that say you've purchased the right to use the software (which IMO is just a step in the direction M$ intends to take us toward renting software). Since you're only purchasing the right to USE the software, they argue, you can't transfer it to someone else or to another machine.
Then they turn around and say you're SOL if you lose the CD or hologram or license key.
I think the analogy everyone should be looking for here is something like: You go buy a car... you're only buying the right to USE the car. You're not allowed to take it apart and repair it yourself. You can't swap out parts. You can't turn it into an airplane. You can only use it as we see fit. If we ever decide you can't use it, you have no rights. You can't give it to someone else. You can only drive it on our roads and park it in the original garage. If you move to a bigger house, tough luck, buy a new car. If you lose the keys, again tough luck, buy a new car.
Oh, yeah... it'll break down all the time, and we're going to change the roads every 3 years or so, so you'll have to buy a new one.
Sounds like bullshit, doesn't it? But GREAT if you're selling cars.
Wow, I don't know about this now... Googling for bellsquarry and ann street gives some fascinating results, but definitely nothing to indicate that Ann Street is anything more than an innocent bystander.
First name server is ns1.ukdnsservers.co.uk, iP 142.46.200.67
Connecting to whois.arin.net...
Telecom Ottawa Inc. HOT-TELECOMOTTAWA-9 (NET-142-46-199-0-1) 142.46.199.0 - 142.46.202.255
Koallo Inc. TOL-142-46-200-64-95 (NET-142-46-200-64-1) 142.46.200.64 - 142.46.200.95
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2005-01-15 19:10
So, IPs 64-95 belong to Koallo, Inc. A little Googling turns up the following:
http://www.whois.sc/bellsquarry.info
Which lists the Registrant as one Ann Street, 5 Calder Road, Bellsquarry, Livingston, GB. ann.street@btinternet.com
Fake? Probably. But I'd be sending some buddies with baseball bats over to check it out, anyway, and also to 2530 Cannin Drive, Wilmington, Delaware.
It doesn't matter that the domain name is resolving to powerhost.co.uk. What matters is the NS listings in the registrant entry and where THOSE nameservers are located (apparently, Ottawa). Either these guys have been hacked or they purposefully added zone info for panix.com to their name servers.
FAILED
The Melbourne IT Registry Key for Domain Name panix.com was not able to be retrieved. This could be due to the Domain Name being managed by a Melbourne IT Reseller. Please contact your Reseller for assistance. If this fails, please go to our help center.
www.panix.com is coming up with a freeparking.co.uk web page. This means that SOMEONE is handling DNS for the domain. That is the one piece of useful information in the current whois record. ns1.ukdnsservers.co.uk
OK, looks like ukdnsservers.co.uk belongs to:
Domain Name:
ukdnsservers.co.uk
Registrant:
ActiveBytes Software LLC
Administrative Contact's Address:
2530 Channin Drive
Wilmington
DE
19810 US
Registrant's Agent:
Fibranet Services Ltd [Tag = FIBRANET]
Relevant Dates:
Registered on: 25-Mar-2000
Renewal Date: 25-Mar-2006
Last updated: 11-Dec-2004
Registration Status:
Registered until renewal date.
Name servers listed in order:
ns3.ukdnsservers.co.uk 142.46.200.68
ns4.ukdnsservers.co.uk 207.61.90.197
This is a company on US soil. If the authorities have been contacted, the FBI should be breaking down these guys' doors right about now, cause they're involved in what could be considered an act of international terrorism, and I'm not being sarcastic. Either ActiveBytes Software, or one of their representatives has knowingly set up DNS records for panix.com, or they have been hacked.
Unfortunately, it appears that even though their offices may be in Delaware, their DNS is a little farther north:
traceroute 142.46.200.67
(Most of traceroute omitted to pass bullshit lameness filter)
23 145 ms 75 ms 74 ms AL-7304-GigE2.telecomottawa.net [142.46.200.1]
24 82 ms 85 ms 88 ms 142.46.200.67
Trace complete.
traceroute 207.61.90.197
(Most of traceroute omitted to pass bullshit lameness filter)
18 65 ms 75 ms 64 ms core1-ottawa23-pos2-2.in.bellnexxia.net [64.230.234.90]
19 221 ms 204 ms 217 ms ottcorr01-pos5-0-0.in.bellnexxia.net [206.108.99.146]
20 Request timed out.
21 244 ms 183 ms 225 ms ns4.ukdnsservers.co.uk [207.61.90.197]
Trace complete.
Maybe someone at telecomottawa.net could be contacted to track these people down or help out in some small way. Here's their Customer Care Page They have a toll-free number! Let's see if enough of us call it, or perhaps if enough of Panix's unhappy customers call it, maybe TelecomOttawa will help out (wouldn't it suck if someone were to steal the telecomottawa.net domain name from them in a similar fashion?) Anyway, the TF# is 1-888-424-7771 (X3?)
Man, this really pisses me off that someone was able to do this, and that these guys aren't having any luck getting the problem fixed.