It never fails, anytime I mention that I wouldn't mind getting one, people always bring up the crash/safety issue.
They are probably not people with a good grasp of physics. Such people think mass = safety, where people with a better grasp of physics understand that resilience = safety. The Smart FourTwo is very light, with a strong, resilient frame. An SUV hitting a wall is like a billiard ball hitting a wall, while the FourTwo will behave much more like a ping-pong ball when hitting the same wall.
They're fine. The girlfriend of a friend spilled a full cup of coffee on her laptop. I was called immediately, and told them to yank the battery immediately. They brought the laptop over, I took it apart, and ran all the parts other than the display through the dishwasher. After making sure everything was dry (especially blowing air under all the components on the motherboard). It went back together, worked and continues working to this day.
The teachers won't see the bad information in Wikipedia.
If a teacher assigns a topic for a paper, it's reasonable to expect that they should read the Wikipedia entry on that subject, if only to encourage deeper exploration of sources. Wikipedia has become nearly ubiquitous, in the first few results on any topic.
The question is not "can Wikipedia be wrong" but "how often is it wrong?" And "Can you crosscheck"? And "what happens when it is wrong"?
It seems to me that the most important question is "If it is wrong, can you fix it?". The answer for any paper or even CD-ROM encyclopedia is "no" or, at beat "not without an extraordinary effort". Teachers and school boards should not be allowed to ban Wikipedia. If they try, they should be required by the students and parents to "prove" the claimed inaccuracies, and then insert the corrected information to Wikipedia. No teacher who claims that Wikipedia is inaccurate has a leg to stand on. If it's wrong, and you have proof that it's wrong, you have an obligation to fix it.
This really does sound like a FUD campaign on the part of publishers, rather than a bunch of teachers and school boards actually finding errors.
For those of us who are not total gearheads, how is 3.1 seconds for 0 to 60 compared to internal combustion engines? Anyone have a chart of 0 to 60 times for Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche and various types of race cars?
The "TeraScale SneakerNet" paper posted earlier anticipates and answers that. They ship a fully assembled computer with processor, RAM, OS and network interface. Plug it in to the wall, plug it in to the network and assuming you had previously agreed on a networking protocol, you're rolling as soon as it boots! No restoration, no decompressing, immediate access to the data.
Does anyone have a Linux distro for this specific purpose? Preferably tiny enough to fit onto a USB key and optimized for bandwidth, preferably with a web server interface for configuring the discs and network?
A system like this is in use in Chicago, and has been for at least 10 years, called "Northwind". Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago area power company, is mostly nuclear. During summer months, the demand for electricity for cooling is much lower than during the day. So they have 2 largebuildings, with huge chillers. All night long they make ice. Then during the day, the ice melts and 33 degree (F) water is distributed through pipes (using Chicago famous network of tunnels) to buildings in the downtown area. This allows builders to avoid devoting floors in new buildings for chillers and gives them more rentable space. They also avoid paying for electricity during the day to run those chillers.
They have actually been known to have protected soldiers by stopping bullets. I'd imagine troops stuck in unarmored HumVees carry their ToughBooks between themselves and the door.
I'd like to have one of them, but as a general rule, I don't buy any laptop I haven't actually typed on. And Panasonic doesn't seem to have any interest in getting these things into stores. I've never seen one in any computer store.
In order to match them he'd have to do more than some yelling and handing out pamphlets. Even if he did follow some members home, it's still not to the level that abortion protestors will go to. Heck include PETA in that list of out of control protestors that don't get anything near this level of punishment. They've been known to set up in front of people's houses.
Forget PETA...the "Church" of Scientology makes it a regular habit of protesting in front of their critics homes. They distribute leaflets to their critics neighbors. They use and abuse the legal system to attack their critics and anyone who writes anything less than laudatory about their "religion". Search for "Operation Freakout" to see how they attacked reporter Paulette Cooper.
When I read this, the first thing that came to mind was a real-world analogy of the classic mother-of-all-simulations - Conway's "Game of Life".
Re:What happened in 2006?
on
Who won?
·
· Score: 1
Did "THEY" forget how to cheat in 2006? Or did "THEY" want Bush to win in 2000 and 2004 knowing he would destroy the Republican majority in Congress? Or did "THEY" ?
They did cheat. It's just that the population, both Democrat and many Republicans, were so outraged that they overwhelmed the cheating. There were only two states were the exist polls didn't match the official results within 5% - Montana and Virgina.
Here's a bit from one of this book's authors about the discrepancies:
With a couple of notable exceptions the 2006 midterm elections were not fraught with the problems that were endemic in 2004.
Unlike 2004, in 2006 there was no glitch in the CNN computer system, so we don't have access to the unadjusted results of the exit poll that was conducted for ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox and AP. And unlike 2004, the two firms conducting the exit polls, Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, waited until 5 p.m. EST to release their exit polls to their media clients.
However, after 5 p.m. EST someone at CNN did leak some of the exit poll results for 10 Senate races to ThinkProgress, the blog of the Center for American Progress in Washington.
In two key races for the Senate, the exit polls indicated election results that diverged significantly from the official results.
In Montana, the exit polls indicated that Jon Tester would win 53 percent of the vote to Conrad Burns 46 percent. However in the official count Tester eked out a 49 percent to 48 percent victory over Burns. In other words, there was a 6-percentage point discrepancy between the exit polls and the official count.
In Virginia, the exit polls indicated that Democrat Jim Webb would beat Republican incumbent George Allen, 52 percent to 47 percent. However, in the official count, Webb and Allen were virtually tied, with Webb getting 49.59 percent of the votes and Allen 49.20 percent of the votes (a difference of 9,329 votes). In other words, there was a 5-percentage point discrepancy between the exit polls and the official count.
As Steven Freeman and I explain in our book Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud and the Official Count, in 2004 a similar pattern occurred. The 2004 Election Day exit polls showed Kerry did better than the official count indicated in the key 11 battleground states, but most significantly in Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio.
As in 2004, in 2006 the discrepancy between the exit poll results and the official count in Montana and Virginia raise questions about the integrity of the voting processes in both states.
This is particularly true because, in almost all other cases, the 2006 exit polls were on the money. For example, in the hotly contested Missouri race, the exit polls indicated that Democrat Claire McCaskill would beat the Republican incumbent Jim Talent 50 percent to 48 percent and the official vote total was 50 to 47. And in Tennessee, the exit polls predicted that Harold Ford would lose to Republican Bob Corker 48 to 51 percent, and the official vote total was 48 to 51 percent. These results indicate that the pollsters' polling methodology was on the mark. So why were the discrepancies in Montana and Virginia so large? Did voting machines malfunction?
If we had access to the precinct-level exit poll data from Montana and Virginia, which the pollsters have withheld, we would be able to investigate whether the size of the exit poll discrepancy correlates with the voting technology used in specific precincts.
Take Montana: In the Big Sky State, 16 counties used paper ballots and 40 counties use optical scan voting systems manufactured by ES&S, one of the three largest voting machine companies. If we had access to the exit poll data, we would be able to compare the size of the discrepancy in the precincts in the 16 counties where Montana voters cast paper ballots with those precincts in the 40 counties where voters used ES&S op
speaking of earthquake proof, cement is notoriously bad for earthquakes. The more bendy the material, the better it does in an earthquake
There are more flexible forms of concrete. The building across the street from the Sears Tower in Chicago is the world's tallest concrete building. It was made from a concrete that was mixed without water. Instead, it used silicone. The water in ordinary concrete evaporates as it cures, leaving the microscopic holes all through the structure. Silicone remains the same volume, fills in all the gaps and remains flexible. The building can sway as much as any steel framed building and is every bit as safe in an earthquake.
Considering how many of those jobs are currently filled by illegal aliens, I'm not so sure that their elimination would necessarily be a Bad Thing.
OK, I guess when it gets around to eliminating your job, that's when it becomes a Bad Thing? And I assume you're a full-blooded Native American, and none of your ancestors were from another country?
I live in Chicago, a city filled with immigrants, the vast majority legal. And every time I see a construction site, a see a bunch of white guys. But, it's true...builders will always try to cut labor costs in any way possible. Carpentry used to be a good paying profession, and the children of carpenters would go to college and become doctors and lawyers. Now it's downward mobility.
Doubtful, but it would be fairly simple (from what I can gather) to have the 'printer' work in tandem with another device which can accurately place pre-manufactured plumbing, wiring etc.
True. The building trades are moving towards technologies that can be automated. For instance, plumbing is using a plastic semi-rigid tubing called PEX. It's sold in sticks, but is flexible enough to be delivered on large reels. It's crimped onto brass connectors - nothing that couldn't be done by a robot. A regular plumber would do the finish work of connecting the toilets, sinks, baths, water heaters, etc.
Same thing for electrical work. Most houses are wired with Romex, and 3M introduced a crimp Romex joint that could easily be applied by a robot. The robot could ink-jet print all the information about where the wire stubs coming out of the walls come from or go to. The electrician would then just finish the house by connecting the breaker panel, switches, outlets and lights.
There is virtually nothing running through the walls of a house - telephone, TV, alarm, heating and return air ducts, drains - that couldn't be installed with robotic labor.
The problem is that all these cost saving measures are going to eliminate a huge number of jobs. Read Marshall Brain's "Robotic Nation" essay to get an idea of the social ramifications.
There are hundreds if not thousands of industries in the US that commonly and regularly use Metric system units every day.
Actually, there's one industry that touches every social group in every area of the USA that is totally metric.
WASHINGTON, DC-Despite other academic shortcomings, inner-city youths possess a firmer grasp of the metric system than their peers in suburban and rural areas, according to a Department Of Education study released Monday.
Metric System Thriving
"While the typical teen has only a vague notion of what a kilogram is, teens in the Cabrini Green housing projects in Chicago and the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles were thoroughly familiar with this unit of metric measurement," said Ira Danielson, the researcher who spearheaded the study. "They were able to identify a kilogram of weight by merely tossing it back and forth in their hands."
According to Danielson, young people in America's urban centers are so familiar with the kilogram that they have developed a system of abbreviations for the measurement, such as "kilo" or even "ki" (pronounced key).
"Most of the teens, even those reading at a fourth-grade level, were familiar with the gram as a base unit that can be either compounded or divided," Danielson said. "Finally, here's an area where at-risk urban youths can really shine."
In addition to their expertise with grams, urban youths proved knowledgeable about other metric units, including the millimeter, cubic centimeter, and liter.
"They were surprisingly familiar with metric measurements in the medical field, aware that liters of blood are used in an emergency room and that certain medications are injected in cc's or mls," Danielson said. "They also knew a great deal about ounces, but we preferred to focus on their metric expertise."
Danielson said the discovery of the metric knowledge came as "a wonderful surprise."
"A few months ago, we were conducting a study to ascertain the basic skill level of high-school freshmen with poor attendance records-truant 14- to 15-year-olds who hadn't set foot in a classroom in months," Danielson said. "In the course of this study, an amazing pattern of metric expertise emerged among these kids. Upon discovering this pocket of knowledge, we knew we had to explore it further."
In a follow-up study titled "Metric Skills Among The Economically Disadvantaged," Danielson and his team of researchers discovered that not only did the youths score higher in metric knowledge than any other demographic, but many could also distinguish among the smallest variations in size and amount.
This sounds very interesting. I do tech support for a small company (about a dozen employees) that has a 100 watt laser that we're needing to replace. It's just one part of a business that also does rubber stamps, signs and badges. Researching different models of lasers, equipment and software has a cost, and knowing what works and what doesn't has quite a bit of value. We're half the country away from you and have no interest in providing this service outside our immediate area.
I'll be contacting you. Thanks!
That's how to become a professional lobbyist. To become a successful lobbyist, you've got to get a job with a lobbying firm (or department in a corporation) that has a lot of money. A real lot of money. That money, and the corporate people who spend it on operations and bribes, is where the influence comes from. The individual lobbyists are just the way the money gets from the rich people to their political assets.
With the Republican's diabolically successful "K Street Project", you pretty much have to be a Republican to get hired by a lobbying firm. Before the 1994 Republican victory in Congress, lobbying firms tended to employ equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans - a reasonable approach given that they want access to both parties, both houses of Congress and the Whitehouse - no matter what party is in power. But Grover Norquist started a project to track the party affiliations of the employees of the various firms. It was astonishingly successful. ANd because lobbying never appears on C-Span and has virtually no public profile, they have been able to write laws. Literally.
HONOLULU-In an announcement with grave implications for the primacy of the species of man, marine biologists at the Hawaii Oceanographic Institute reported Monday that dolphins, or family Delphinidae, have evolved opposable thumbs on their pectoral fins.
"I believe I speak for the entire human race when I say, 'Holy fuck,'" said Oceanographic Institute director Dr. James Aoki, noting that the dolphin has a cranial capacity 40 percent greater than that of humans. "That's it for us monkeys."
Aoki strongly urged humans, especially those living near the sea, to learn to communicate using a system of clicks and whistles in a frequency range of 4 to 150 kHz. He also encouraged humans to "start practicing their echolocation as soon as possible."
Delphinologists have reported more than 7,000 cases of spontaneous opposable-digit manifestation in the past two weeks alone, with "thumbs" observed on the bottle-nosed dolphin, the Atlantic humpback dolphin, and even the rare Ganges River dolphin.
"It appears to be species-wide," said dolphin specialist Clifford Brees of the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, speaking from the shark cage he welded shut around himself late Monday. "And it may be even worse: We haven't exactly been eager to check for thumbs on other marine mammals belonging to the order of cetaceans, such as the killer whale. Oh, Christ, we're really in the soup now."
Thus far, all the opposable digits encountered appear to be fully functional, making it possible for dolphins-believed to be capable of faster and more complex cogitation than man-to manipulate objects, fashion tools, and construct rudimentary pulley and lever systems.
"They really seem to be making up for lost time with this thumb thing," said Dr. Jim Kuczaj, a University of California-San Diego biologist who has studied the seasonal behavior of dolphins for more than 30 years. "Last Friday, a crude seaweed-and-shell abacus washed up on the beach near Hilo, Hawaii. The next day, a far more sophisticated abacus, fashioned from some unknown material and capable of calculating equations involving numbers of up to 16 digits, washed up on the same beach. The day after that, the beach was littered with thousands of what turned out to be coral-silicate and kelp-based biomicrocircuitry."
"My God," Kuczaj added. "What are they doing down there?"
It is unknown what precipitated the dolphins' sudden development of opposable thumbs. Some dolphin behaviorists believe that the gentle marine mammal, pushed to the brink by humanity's reckless pollution and exploitation of the sea, tapped into some previously unmined mental powers to spontaneously generate a thumb-like appendage. However, given that 95 percent of the world's dolphin experts have committed suicide since learning of the development, the full story may never be known.
"You must believe, sleek ocean masters, that many of us homo sapiens weep with shame and disgust over the degradation to which our species has subjected our All-Mother, the Great World-Sea," read the suicide note of Dr. Richard Morse, a Brisbane, Australia, delphinologist and regular contributor to Marine Mammal Science. "If you are reading this, I estimate that it is the day we know as August 31, 2000. Please be decent and kind masters to our poor ape-race. Oh, God, I'm so sorry about the tracking collars."
"Scientists once wondered whether dolphins, with their remarkably advanced social and language structures, are actually smarter than we are," said Aoki, ushering reporters out of the laboratory he claimed "will either be a smoking hole or a zoo exhibit in the coming Dolphin Age." "Well, we're not wondering anymore."
The polygraph is useless. It's not a "lie detector". At best, it's a "nervousness" detector. It's utterly useless against anyone who can lie without exhibiting any physiological symptoms - sociopaths, for instance.
Slashdot Mirror
They are probably not people with a good grasp of physics. Such people think mass = safety, where people with a better grasp of physics understand that resilience = safety. The Smart FourTwo is very light, with a strong, resilient frame. An SUV hitting a wall is like a billiard ball hitting a wall, while the FourTwo will behave much more like a ping-pong ball when hitting the same wall.
Like it or not, Microsoft Research is doing very serious computer science, and has a lot of top people being allowed to really push the envelope.
It would be helpful if cameras had GPS location and direction metadata to give the software a starting point.
If a teacher assigns a topic for a paper, it's reasonable to expect that they should read the Wikipedia entry on that subject, if only to encourage deeper exploration of sources. Wikipedia has become nearly ubiquitous, in the first few results on any topic.
It seems to me that the most important question is "If it is wrong, can you fix it?". The answer for any paper or even CD-ROM encyclopedia is "no" or, at beat "not without an extraordinary effort". Teachers and school boards should not be allowed to ban Wikipedia. If they try, they should be required by the students and parents to "prove" the claimed inaccuracies, and then insert the corrected information to Wikipedia. No teacher who claims that Wikipedia is inaccurate has a leg to stand on. If it's wrong, and you have proof that it's wrong, you have an obligation to fix it.
This really does sound like a FUD campaign on the part of publishers, rather than a bunch of teachers and school boards actually finding errors.
Thank you for the information. If one is into cars, I assume "0 to 60" times of various automobiles are pretty much encoded into one's DNA.
For those of us who are not total gearheads, how is 3.1 seconds for 0 to 60 compared to internal combustion engines? Anyone have a chart of 0 to 60 times for Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche and various types of race cars?
The "TeraScale SneakerNet" paper posted earlier anticipates and answers that. They ship a fully assembled computer with processor, RAM, OS and network interface. Plug it in to the wall, plug it in to the network and assuming you had previously agreed on a networking protocol, you're rolling as soon as it boots! No restoration, no decompressing, immediate access to the data.
Does anyone have a Linux distro for this specific purpose? Preferably tiny enough to fit onto a USB key and optimized for bandwidth, preferably with a web server interface for configuring the discs and network?
That's brilliant!
A system like this is in use in Chicago, and has been for at least 10 years, called "Northwind". Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago area power company, is mostly nuclear. During summer months, the demand for electricity for cooling is much lower than during the day. So they have 2 large buildings, with huge chillers. All night long they make ice. Then during the day, the ice melts and 33 degree (F) water is distributed through pipes (using Chicago famous network of tunnels) to buildings in the downtown area. This allows builders to avoid devoting floors in new buildings for chillers and gives them more rentable space. They also avoid paying for electricity during the day to run those chillers.
They have actually been known to have protected soldiers by stopping bullets. I'd imagine troops stuck in unarmored HumVees carry their ToughBooks between themselves and the door.
I'd like to have one of them, but as a general rule, I don't buy any laptop I haven't actually typed on. And Panasonic doesn't seem to have any interest in getting these things into stores. I've never seen one in any computer store.
Forget PETA...the "Church" of Scientology makes it a regular habit of protesting in front of their critics homes. They distribute leaflets to their critics neighbors. They use and abuse the legal system to attack their critics and anyone who writes anything less than laudatory about their "religion". Search for "Operation Freakout" to see how they attacked reporter Paulette Cooper.
When I read this, the first thing that came to mind was a real-world analogy of the classic mother-of-all-simulations - Conway's "Game of Life".
They did cheat. It's just that the population, both Democrat and many Republicans, were so outraged that they overwhelmed the cheating. There were only two states were the exist polls didn't match the official results within 5% - Montana and Virgina.
Here's a bit from one of this book's authors about the discrepancies:
There are more flexible forms of concrete. The building across the street from the Sears Tower in Chicago is the world's tallest concrete building. It was made from a concrete that was mixed without water. Instead, it used silicone. The water in ordinary concrete evaporates as it cures, leaving the microscopic holes all through the structure. Silicone remains the same volume, fills in all the gaps and remains flexible. The building can sway as much as any steel framed building and is every bit as safe in an earthquake.
OK, I guess when it gets around to eliminating your job, that's when it becomes a Bad Thing? And I assume you're a full-blooded Native American, and none of your ancestors were from another country?
I live in Chicago, a city filled with immigrants, the vast majority legal. And every time I see a construction site, a see a bunch of white guys. But, it's true...builders will always try to cut labor costs in any way possible. Carpentry used to be a good paying profession, and the children of carpenters would go to college and become doctors and lawyers. Now it's downward mobility.
True. The building trades are moving towards technologies that can be automated. For instance, plumbing is using a plastic semi-rigid tubing called PEX. It's sold in sticks, but is flexible enough to be delivered on large reels. It's crimped onto brass connectors - nothing that couldn't be done by a robot. A regular plumber would do the finish work of connecting the toilets, sinks, baths, water heaters, etc.
Same thing for electrical work. Most houses are wired with Romex, and 3M introduced a crimp Romex joint that could easily be applied by a robot. The robot could ink-jet print all the information about where the wire stubs coming out of the walls come from or go to. The electrician would then just finish the house by connecting the breaker panel, switches, outlets and lights.
There is virtually nothing running through the walls of a house - telephone, TV, alarm, heating and return air ducts, drains - that couldn't be installed with robotic labor.
The problem is that all these cost saving measures are going to eliminate a huge number of jobs. Read Marshall Brain's "Robotic Nation" essay to get an idea of the social ramifications.
Actually, there's one industry that touches every social group in every area of the USA that is totally metric.
This sounds very interesting. I do tech support for a small company (about a dozen employees) that has a 100 watt laser that we're needing to replace. It's just one part of a business that also does rubber stamps, signs and badges. Researching different models of lasers, equipment and software has a cost, and knowing what works and what doesn't has quite a bit of value. We're half the country away from you and have no interest in providing this service outside our immediate area. I'll be contacting you. Thanks!
I wish they'd introduce those in the USA. Is it an American chain that offers this? It would save me hundreds per year.
With the Republican's diabolically successful "K Street Project", you pretty much have to be a Republican to get hired by a lobbying firm. Before the 1994 Republican victory in Congress, lobbying firms tended to employ equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans - a reasonable approach given that they want access to both parties, both houses of Congress and the Whitehouse - no matter what party is in power. But Grover Norquist started a project to track the party affiliations of the employees of the various firms. It was astonishingly successful. ANd because lobbying never appears on C-Span and has virtually no public profile, they have been able to write laws. Literally.
As foretold in the Onion
Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs
HONOLULU-In an announcement with grave implications for the primacy of the species of man, marine biologists at the Hawaii Oceanographic Institute reported Monday that dolphins, or family Delphinidae, have evolved opposable thumbs on their pectoral fins.
"I believe I speak for the entire human race when I say, 'Holy fuck,'" said Oceanographic Institute director Dr. James Aoki, noting that the dolphin has a cranial capacity 40 percent greater than that of humans. "That's it for us monkeys."
Aoki strongly urged humans, especially those living near the sea, to learn to communicate using a system of clicks and whistles in a frequency range of 4 to 150 kHz. He also encouraged humans to "start practicing their echolocation as soon as possible."
Delphinologists have reported more than 7,000 cases of spontaneous opposable-digit manifestation in the past two weeks alone, with "thumbs" observed on the bottle-nosed dolphin, the Atlantic humpback dolphin, and even the rare Ganges River dolphin.
"It appears to be species-wide," said dolphin specialist Clifford Brees of the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, speaking from the shark cage he welded shut around himself late Monday. "And it may be even worse: We haven't exactly been eager to check for thumbs on other marine mammals belonging to the order of cetaceans, such as the killer whale. Oh, Christ, we're really in the soup now."
Thus far, all the opposable digits encountered appear to be fully functional, making it possible for dolphins-believed to be capable of faster and more complex cogitation than man-to manipulate objects, fashion tools, and construct rudimentary pulley and lever systems.
"They really seem to be making up for lost time with this thumb thing," said Dr. Jim Kuczaj, a University of California-San Diego biologist who has studied the seasonal behavior of dolphins for more than 30 years. "Last Friday, a crude seaweed-and-shell abacus washed up on the beach near Hilo, Hawaii. The next day, a far more sophisticated abacus, fashioned from some unknown material and capable of calculating equations involving numbers of up to 16 digits, washed up on the same beach. The day after that, the beach was littered with thousands of what turned out to be coral-silicate and kelp-based biomicrocircuitry."
"My God," Kuczaj added. "What are they doing down there?"
It is unknown what precipitated the dolphins' sudden development of opposable thumbs. Some dolphin behaviorists believe that the gentle marine mammal, pushed to the brink by humanity's reckless pollution and exploitation of the sea, tapped into some previously unmined mental powers to spontaneously generate a thumb-like appendage. However, given that 95 percent of the world's dolphin experts have committed suicide since learning of the development, the full story may never be known.
"You must believe, sleek ocean masters, that many of us homo sapiens weep with shame and disgust over the degradation to which our species has subjected our All-Mother, the Great World-Sea," read the suicide note of Dr. Richard Morse, a Brisbane, Australia, delphinologist and regular contributor to Marine Mammal Science. "If you are reading this, I estimate that it is the day we know as August 31, 2000. Please be decent and kind masters to our poor ape-race. Oh, God, I'm so sorry about the tracking collars."
"Scientists once wondered whether dolphins, with their remarkably advanced social and language structures, are actually smarter than we are," said Aoki, ushering reporters out of the laboratory he claimed "will either be a smoking hole or a zoo exhibit in the coming Dolphin Age." "Well, we're not wondering anymore."
The polygraph is useless. It's not a "lie detector". At best, it's a "nervousness" detector. It's utterly useless against anyone who can lie without exhibiting any physiological symptoms - sociopaths, for instance.
That whole hip-hop "bling" thing? Apparently, de Beers is behind that.
This answers so many questions!