Try the Flashblock extension! It's the best thing I ever downloaded for my Firefox. Keeps flash plugins from playing unless you click on them in the browser to start them. And for some reason I have never found that I want to click on one to deliberately see an ad...
I set my Firefox to manually ask to approve and deny cookie settings for every site I visit. (not each individual cookie, but the cookie policy for the site -- accept, reject, or temporary) Why should I let some random site set a cookie if I only want one-time information from it?
Sites that have proved their value to me will be allowed cookies -- others that I derive no benefit from cookies I deny right off, and may get a chance if I want later.
I realize I'm probably a more control-oriented user/compulsive type, but this is how I like it. Sites that bother me most are the ones that redirect you to other domain names and hide the relevant cookie information from you when you need to decide whether or not to change the permissions. And sites that just say "turn on all cookies" for them to work. Look, I don't want to accept *all* cookies. Just tell me which domains to turn on to make things work for your particular site...
I say that if she, while blindfolded and away from any source of news, could have told the authorities the exact instant the impact occurred, and supposedly changed all the "energy fields" and "balance of the universe", by all means, let her lawsuit be heard!
Can someone here enlighten me -- marine radar units are designed to detect other ships and fixed objects that have good reflectivity. How did he just convert one of these to detect *weather*?
Or does rain happen to be responsive to the same microwave frequencies?
This case also has me confused because it can be viewed from so many different ways.
Surprisingly, it can be interpreted as a victory for states' rights (a very Republican issue, as opposed to a liberal power play to take away "honest" little people's property), because the Supreme Court opinion actually deferred to the local governments to carry out laws as they see fit. The surprising thing is that this similar group of justices just decided last week to make the federal law concerning marijuana trump local California law (although in that case it regarded the Commerce clause, not eminent domain.
Let us be more clear about the issue -- the Supreme Court actually ruled that in the taking of property for the public use (which they said that this case is), the local government is given deference. Ie. the federal court systems assume that in such cases (where a local authority is legitimately exersizing its appropriate powers), they should not interfere with a local/state decision that calls upon laws and codes fairly applied.
People may be unhappy with this ruling, but you have to understand that it isn't the Supreme Court spontaneously deciding to just say it's broadly ok -- the question has in fact already been ok'd by the Connecticut Supreme Court (and many other state courts) in the first place, saying that this was a legitimate taking (and compensation) of land.
I for one find many things about this case to disagree with, and I think these cases of eminent domain are clearly pushing the boundary of "public good", but I find the court's argument plausible. Cases that reach the Supreme Court don't get there because the problems are easy to solve. And I usually find that either way are decided, the people on the losing side will come up with good ways to rectify their situation. In this case, now it's up to local citizens to take out their anger on the local politicians who decide to do this, using votes against the corporatization of most everything in our society.
The Supreme Court gets probably 100x more petitions per year than it could ever choose to hear. So being denied a hearing by the Supreme Court is not in itself particularly revealing about the merit of any one case.
However, you can be sure that when the court does take a case, that it involves all of the following: 1) a fundamental question of law, 2) that is being inconsistently decided by lower courts, and 3) that is ripe for adjudication by the Court (based on sufficient instances of the problem to guide them).
So, this particular case could have failed for any number of reasons. It probably does not involve any spectacular question of law -- the lower courts are well-equipped to decide the issue. So it is not so much a stinging defeat for this company, as it is a final forclosure of legal options in a matter that was already practically resolved.
Any lawyer who tells you that "we'll take this all the way to the Supreme Court" and expects to even get it heard, is full of it.
It's a little frustrating to realize, but I guess the cost of maintaining an intelligent, civilized society is a constant battle against ignorance. It is important that ordinary people speak out against attempts to change the science curriculum through political processes that are not subject to oversight (ie. inserting their own agendas into science curriculums without checks or balances).
I heard an excellent talk about the strategies of anti-evolutionists from the director of the center for science education recently. Two of her major points were that: (1)creationists seek to circumvent the usual curriculum review process and insert themselves directly into school board decisions politically, because they have come to realize that on careful examination, their ideas are untenable; and (2) the fundamental misunderstanding about the words behind the debate.
More specifically, in order for an idea to become incorporated in to a scientific education curriculum, it first must be proposed, examined by scientists, published, reviewed, tested for flaws and counterexamples, and then it becomes accepted as a theory (which by the way, means an idea that ties together consistently all aspects of the evidence, NOT just a "theory", or guess). Creationists, or intelligent design advocates, simply come up with an idea, and go right to the school board. Where are the checks and balances? The testing? The oversight?
And secondly, about the language. Normal people commonly feel that at the top of the hierarchy of importance are Facts. To them, facts are facts, immutable. You can't debate fact, as in "evolution is not a fact, so it doesn't occur." Observations are next, things that you see with your own eyes. And Theories? Theories are at the bottom of the scale, almost comparable to hopeful guesses. This is in part the fault of the language, that "theory" has come to mean "I, crackpot, have a theory about that."
But in fact, in science, Theory is at the top of the scale -- an idea that has consistently shown to uphold all the observations, and has been tested. At the bottom is just the opposite from what is commonly believed -- facts. Facts are things that you see every day, and carry no unifying meaning in themselves.
If we are to succeed in educating the population about the process of science, and *especially* why it is valuable to us a country, we need to get involved in the debate about the language and politics. Other countries, who don't have the luxury to squander valuable resources, are beginning to capture and exploit the wonders of science much more than we are -- and it is showing.
Don't be confused by the companies saying that this is government interference in their business. Local governments passing statutes regulating their activity would be government interference. This, on the other hand, is outright fair competition -- providing more and cheaper access to people who want it -- and the broadband companies just can't take it. They should stop whining and improve their services and prices before the end gets near.
I heard an excellent talk about the strategies of anti-evolutionists from the director of the center for science education recently. Two of her major points were that: (1)creationists seek to circumvent the usual curriculum review process and insert themselves directly into school board decisions politically, because they have come to realize that on careful examination, their ideas are untenable; and (2) the fundamental misunderstanding about the words behind the debate.
More specifically, in order for an idea to become incorporated in to a scientific education curriculum, it first must be proposed, examined by scientists, published, reviewed, tested for flaws and counterexamples, and then it becomes accepted as a theory (which by the way, means an idea that ties together consistently all aspects of the evidence, NOT just a "theory", or guess). Creationists, or intelligent design advocates, simply come up with an idea, and go right to the school board. Where are the checks and balances? The testing? The oversight?
And secondly, about the language. Normal people commonly feel that at the top of the hierarchy of importance are Facts. To them, facts are facts, immutable. You can't debate fact, as in "evolution is not a fact, so it doesn't occur." Observations are next, things that you see with your own eyes. And Theories? Theories are at the bottom of the scale, almost comparable to hopeful guesses. This is in part the fault of the language, that "theory" has come to mean "I, crackpot, have a theory about that."
But in fact, in science, Theory is at the top of the scale -- an idea that has consistently shown to uphold all the observations, and has been tested. At the bottom is just the opposite from what is commonly believed -- facts. Facts are things that you see every day, and carry no unifying meaning in themselves.
If we are to succeed in educating the population about the process of science, and *especially* why it is valuable to us a country, we need to get involved in the debate about the language and politics. Other countries, who don't have the luxury to squander valuable resources, are beginning to capture and exploit the wonders of science much more than we are -- and it is showing.
I don't know how much of a difference this makes, but consider the vastly different kind of labor force that Netflix can hire versus BB.
Netflix can hire anyone (and just temporarily too if they want) to push discs and envelopes under a barcode scanner, attach labels, etc. Anyone can do this, and it's a no obligation job. No personal skills needed, or asked. Replaceable in a second.
On the other hand, to work at a video store, you have to be the type of person who likes movies, can interact tolerably with customers, and get crapped on by inept local managers. Must probably pay health benefits eventually, not easy to find replacement labor, and certainly can't just hire someone off the street.
So compare these two schemes. I'd much rather be the first company.
BTW, if you google for "inside netflix distribution center" you are supposed to find a link to a news story from Louisiana about the inner workings of Netflix. But the story was yanked a while back, maybe by Netflix. Does anyone have an archived copy of this??
Reading an article on the new pope, I just clicked on a bunch of silly religious links associated on the page because they were annoying (and from somewhat offensive sects of evangelical groups). Just so I could try to max out their advertising budgets for the day.
So, can I get sued now? What if it had been some guy on the street corner handing out pamphlets, and I walked by repeatedly, taking his literature so that he'd run out and have no more message to distribute? I think it's the same thing, don't you?
I gave in this year and bought an online subscription to the WSJ after reading other people's leftover print editions at work for a while and seeing the quality of the reporting. I'm not surprised that their internet division is making money -- it's a great paper, and I am absolutely converted to paying for access online. I believe it's one of the only paid-subscription-required newspapers that is making money.
Contrary to what you might think, the WSJ is not a stuffy, uptight paper for rich white guys only. It's got lots of interesting people stories several times a week, technology coverage, and as long as you don't touch the editorial/opinion section, it's a great read each morning.
why doesn't congress stop tapdancing around the real issue, and instead pass some well-thought out legislation to reduce wasteful energy use, implement a rational gasoline use tax, and other things that would actually address the real problem? Hm?
it seems the judges were not without a sense of humor:
from the 9th Federal Circuit, Court of Appeals, the summary:
Bosley Medical Institute, Inc. v. Michael Steven Kremer
"Defendant Michael Kremer wes dissatisfied with the hair restoration
services provided to him by the Bosley Medical Insitute, Inc. In a
bald-faced effort to get even, Kremer started a website at
www.BosleyMedical.com, which, to put it mildly, was uncomplimentary of
Bosley Medical Insitute. The problem is that "Bosley Medical" is the
registered trademark of the Bosley Meidcal Institute, Inc., which brought
suit against Kremer for trademark infringement and like claims. Kremer
argues that noncommercial use of the mark is not actionable as
infringement under the Lanham Act. Bosley responds that Kremer is
splitting hairs..."
"A press release announces Bush's pick to head NASA. Michael D. Griffith "received a bachelor's degree in Physics from Johns Hopkins University; a master's degree in Aerospace Science from Catholic University of America; a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland; a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California; a master's degree in Applied Physics from Johns Hopkins University; a master's degree in Business Administration from Loyola College; and a master's degree in Civil Engineering from The George Washington University." Yes, that's a B.A., a Ph. D., and five M.A.s.
An operative offered a shorter version of the story: "Bush Nominates Virgin."
It's just like people -- when you build a relationship of usefulness and trust with someone, they'll look upon your new ideas with less skepticism and maybe more tolerance for a commercial venture, and won't feel like you're blatantly exploiting them!
How come none of the mapping services let you input anything more than a single origin/destination route? For example, suppose I want to drive across the country, and would like to specify going the northern route through Chicago and then Denver on the way to SF. Wouldn't it be easy to offer multiple lines of intermediate destinations?
it's difficult to say which side to join with here (putting aside my personal desire to download free music). Consider this analogy:
A private courier company, FedUPS, carries packages all across the country. It has come to the point where, say, 75% of its packages contain illegal narcotics. Drugs have been identified as harmful to people, and it is a legitimate interest of the government to stop the flow of drugs. Is it not reasonable to require FedUPS to provide the addresses of those packages intercepted and known to contain drugs?
of course, in this RIAA case, it is a civil matter, and this story is about how the DCMA explicity protects ISPs from being targeted for traffic they cannot control. Plus, reasonable people are disagreeing over how illegal/unethical it is to copy pirated music. But the structure of the problem is similar, right? If we decide to make copying copyrighted music illegal and we declare it is a problem, what are we going to do about the conduits of that illegal traffic?
perhaps it's a signal to lawmakers that we have two very different competing interests both attempting to use the laws to advance their ends...
It's difficult to choose what side to be on after thinking seriously about it. Of course you want communications to get cheaper and cheaper, but we *need* big telecom companies to provide us the very services that make this sort of thing possible. If free wireless calling takes off and starts being perceived as a dangerous trend, telecoms will fight tooth and nail to prevent this -- through regulation, infringement suits, whatever.
They will be fighting a losing battle. But even so I have to say, someone must do the job that they (the telecom companies) do. Who else will lay the fiber and launch the satellites? Not your coffeeshop wireless hotspot owner I can tell you that. Maybe what they need to do is take advantage of those markets where they provide services that IP/broadband cannot -- like rural phone services. But even there the profits are probably miniscule.
well this is a feel good story and all, but I always wonder -- how exactly are these amateur radio operators helping in more than an anecdotal way during disasters? I mean, is it like they're ferrying critical rescue and operations traffic? I have a feeling not, because to do that, both they and the operators on the other side would have to be tied in to whatever government or agency is reaching out to help. And to have that be the case, there would have to be serious pre-disaster networks and agreements set up.
I mean, this is similar to the relief organizations in the area now -- they keep telling regular people not to volunteer to fly to the region and help out, because what they really want are people who know what they're doing and part of the organization already, and can be deployed. A single ham radio operator on his/her own is not going to be that useful.
So maybe I'm not really familiar with the true value of ham radio operators in situations like this -- can anyone give a more informed picture? Do they just serve to carry random individual messages of "I'm ok", until the military/relief authorities arrive and set up a real command communications network?
for you all who're having trouble getting to the actual info page, here it is.
To give you some inside information, the guy behind this idea is kind of a crackpot -- he's a guy who has lots of weird thoughts, but hasn't exactly done much serious research in a while.
And that's why although this may make a good press release, any professional astronomer (or even amateur) knows why we have the calendar we do -- so that each year, the calendar days you are familiar with correspond to approximately where the stars lie in the sky, and the weather season, etc. Ie. every September, the vernal equinox coincides with the rising parallel, the length of the day, etc. etc. Leap days are the way to distribute the extra 1/4 of a day per year into a reasonable interval (once every 4 years).
This scheme of having one calendar with a leap "week" is just another way of shifting around the leap days, and is exactly what an astronomer would NOT want! And his rationale for not having to print different calendars is obviated by having to remember that leap "weeks" occur in years 2015, 2020, 2026, 2032, 2037, 2043, etc...
The current calendar gives some consistency and familiarity -- you can predict how long the day is, what stars are in the sky (within a day or so b/c leap days), and approximately if you're going to need a heavy jacket to go outside in the cold. Under this crackpot new calendar, you have to recompute all these things based on what year it is. Crackpot.
A growing (but now recognized as problematic) movement over the past few years has been the introduction of the "Investigations" math curriculum into public schools. see here. The goal is to make kids "feel better" about learning math, which in many ways has been a code for dumbing down the curriculum so that academic rigor is out and poorer students can achieve better on tests. They learn by approximating answers, like 12x48 will approximately be like 10x50. In my opinion, this is the opposite of math -- where the goal is to find the one *correct* answer.
In this curriculum, the kids learn by discovering the rules of math on their own, but this is absolutely ridiculous -- the whole point of passing knowledge through civilization is that we don't have to relearn like cavemen from birth. They spend time playing with blocks to count numbers, all the way up to 4th grade. These children are going to be severely hurt. Part of the problem is that teaching math at home has failed many of them, plus the teachers aren't qualified to teach math, so they grasp any curriculum that seems to make the subject more "fun" at the expense of real learning. An annoying part of the curriculum is that it also inserts a very touchy-feely agenda into the textbooks, and while I'm quite liberal about educating kids on history, etc., this has no useful place in math class.
Also, some people suspect that the test scores are rising because we're dumbing down the tests themselves -- which is outrageous. See here for example.
You may not think that these questions affect you, but they do. When we have a large fraction of the population unable to do basic math, we all will suffer. From things like being unable to hire competent workers, to the person serving you at a restaurant or a store unable to compute change, to your kid having access to only the most basic math education because the rest of the kids are so far behind they have to be specially taught, taking away resources for the higher achievers...(part of the No Child Left Behind = No Gifted Child Gets Ahead program) read this report on how gifted children are done given the shaft in the US..
Slashdot Mirror
Try the Flashblock extension! It's the best thing I ever downloaded for my Firefox. Keeps flash plugins from playing unless you click on them in the browser to start them. And for some reason I have never found that I want to click on one to deliberately see an ad...
I set my Firefox to manually ask to approve and deny cookie settings for every site I visit. (not each individual cookie, but the cookie policy for the site -- accept, reject, or temporary) Why should I let some random site set a cookie if I only want one-time information from it?
Sites that have proved their value to me will be allowed cookies -- others that I derive no benefit from cookies I deny right off, and may get a chance if I want later.
I realize I'm probably a more control-oriented user/compulsive type, but this is how I like it. Sites that bother me most are the ones that redirect you to other domain names and hide the relevant cookie information from you when you need to decide whether or not to change the permissions. And sites that just say "turn on all cookies" for them to work. Look, I don't want to accept *all* cookies. Just tell me which domains to turn on to make things work for your particular site...
I say that if she, while blindfolded and away from any source of news, could have told the authorities the exact instant the impact occurred, and supposedly changed all the "energy fields" and "balance of the universe", by all means, let her lawsuit be heard!
Can someone here enlighten me -- marine radar units are designed to detect other ships and fixed objects that have good reflectivity. How did he just convert one of these to detect *weather*?
Or does rain happen to be responsive to the same microwave frequencies?
This case also has me confused because it can be viewed from so many different ways.
Surprisingly, it can be interpreted as a victory for states' rights (a very Republican issue, as opposed to a liberal power play to take away "honest" little people's property), because the Supreme Court opinion actually deferred to the local governments to carry out laws as they see fit. The surprising thing is that this similar group of justices just decided last week to make the federal law concerning marijuana trump local California law (although in that case it regarded the Commerce clause, not eminent domain.
Let us be more clear about the issue -- the Supreme Court actually ruled that in the taking of property for the public use (which they said that this case is), the local government is given deference. Ie. the federal court systems assume that in such cases (where a local authority is legitimately exersizing its appropriate powers), they should not interfere with a local/state decision that calls upon laws and codes fairly applied.
People may be unhappy with this ruling, but you have to understand that it isn't the Supreme Court spontaneously deciding to just say it's broadly ok -- the question has in fact already been ok'd by the Connecticut Supreme Court (and many other state courts) in the first place, saying that this was a legitimate taking (and compensation) of land.
I for one find many things about this case to disagree with, and I think these cases of eminent domain are clearly pushing the boundary of "public good", but I find the court's argument plausible. Cases that reach the Supreme Court don't get there because the problems are easy to solve. And I usually find that either way are decided, the people on the losing side will come up with good ways to rectify their situation. In this case, now it's up to local citizens to take out their anger on the local politicians who decide to do this, using votes against the corporatization of most everything in our society.
The Supreme Court gets probably 100x more petitions per year than it could ever choose to hear. So being denied a hearing by the Supreme Court is not in itself particularly revealing about the merit of any one case.
However, you can be sure that when the court does take a case, that it involves all of the following: 1) a fundamental question of law, 2) that is being inconsistently decided by lower courts, and 3) that is ripe for adjudication by the Court (based on sufficient instances of the problem to guide them).
So, this particular case could have failed for any number of reasons. It probably does not involve any spectacular question of law -- the lower courts are well-equipped to decide the issue. So it is not so much a stinging defeat for this company, as it is a final forclosure of legal options in a matter that was already practically resolved.
Any lawyer who tells you that "we'll take this all the way to the Supreme Court" and expects to even get it heard, is full of it.
It's a little frustrating to realize, but I guess the cost of maintaining an intelligent, civilized society is a constant battle against ignorance. It is important that ordinary people speak out against attempts to change the science curriculum through political processes that are not subject to oversight (ie. inserting their own agendas into science curriculums without checks or balances).
I heard an excellent talk about the strategies of anti-evolutionists from the director of the center for science education recently. Two of her major points were that: (1)creationists seek to circumvent the usual curriculum review process and insert themselves directly into school board decisions politically, because they have come to realize that on careful examination, their ideas are untenable; and (2) the fundamental misunderstanding about the words behind the debate.
More specifically, in order for an idea to become incorporated in to a scientific education curriculum, it first must be proposed, examined by scientists, published, reviewed, tested for flaws and counterexamples, and then it becomes accepted as a theory (which by the way, means an idea that ties together consistently all aspects of the evidence, NOT just a "theory", or guess). Creationists, or intelligent design advocates, simply come up with an idea, and go right to the school board. Where are the checks and balances? The testing? The oversight?
And secondly, about the language. Normal people commonly feel that at the top of the hierarchy of importance are Facts. To them, facts are facts, immutable. You can't debate fact, as in "evolution is not a fact, so it doesn't occur." Observations are next, things that you see with your own eyes. And Theories? Theories are at the bottom of the scale, almost comparable to hopeful guesses. This is in part the fault of the language, that "theory" has come to mean "I, crackpot, have a theory about that."
But in fact, in science, Theory is at the top of the scale -- an idea that has consistently shown to uphold all the observations, and has been tested. At the bottom is just the opposite from what is commonly believed -- facts. Facts are things that you see every day, and carry no unifying meaning in themselves.
If we are to succeed in educating the population about the process of science, and *especially* why it is valuable to us a country, we need to get involved in the debate about the language and politics. Other countries, who don't have the luxury to squander valuable resources, are beginning to capture and exploit the wonders of science much more than we are -- and it is showing.
Don't be confused by the companies saying that this is government interference in their business. Local governments passing statutes regulating their activity would be government interference. This, on the other hand, is outright fair competition -- providing more and cheaper access to people who want it -- and the broadband companies just can't take it. They should stop whining and improve their services and prices before the end gets near.
I heard an excellent talk about the strategies of anti-evolutionists from the director of the center for science education recently. Two of her major points were that: (1)creationists seek to circumvent the usual curriculum review process and insert themselves directly into school board decisions politically, because they have come to realize that on careful examination, their ideas are untenable; and (2) the fundamental misunderstanding about the words behind the debate.
More specifically, in order for an idea to become incorporated in to a scientific education curriculum, it first must be proposed, examined by scientists, published, reviewed, tested for flaws and counterexamples, and then it becomes accepted as a theory (which by the way, means an idea that ties together consistently all aspects of the evidence, NOT just a "theory", or guess). Creationists, or intelligent design advocates, simply come up with an idea, and go right to the school board. Where are the checks and balances? The testing? The oversight?
And secondly, about the language. Normal people commonly feel that at the top of the hierarchy of importance are Facts. To them, facts are facts, immutable. You can't debate fact, as in "evolution is not a fact, so it doesn't occur." Observations are next, things that you see with your own eyes. And Theories? Theories are at the bottom of the scale, almost comparable to hopeful guesses. This is in part the fault of the language, that "theory" has come to mean "I, crackpot, have a theory about that."
But in fact, in science, Theory is at the top of the scale -- an idea that has consistently shown to uphold all the observations, and has been tested. At the bottom is just the opposite from what is commonly believed -- facts. Facts are things that you see every day, and carry no unifying meaning in themselves.
If we are to succeed in educating the population about the process of science, and *especially* why it is valuable to us a country, we need to get involved in the debate about the language and politics. Other countries, who don't have the luxury to squander valuable resources, are beginning to capture and exploit the wonders of science much more than we are -- and it is showing.
I don't know how much of a difference this makes, but consider the vastly different kind of labor force that Netflix can hire versus BB.
Netflix can hire anyone (and just temporarily too if they want) to push discs and envelopes under a barcode scanner, attach labels, etc. Anyone can do this, and it's a no obligation job. No personal skills needed, or asked. Replaceable in a second.
On the other hand, to work at a video store, you have to be the type of person who likes movies, can interact tolerably with customers, and get crapped on by inept local managers. Must probably pay health benefits eventually, not easy to find replacement labor, and certainly can't just hire someone off the street.
So compare these two schemes. I'd much rather be the first company.
BTW, if you google for "inside netflix distribution center" you are supposed to find a link to a news story from Louisiana about the inner workings of Netflix. But the story was yanked a while back, maybe by Netflix. Does anyone have an archived copy of this??
Reading an article on the new pope, I just clicked on a bunch of silly religious links associated on the page because they were annoying (and from somewhat offensive sects of evangelical groups). Just so I could try to max out their advertising budgets for the day.
So, can I get sued now? What if it had been some guy on the street corner handing out pamphlets, and I walked by repeatedly, taking his literature so that he'd run out and have no more message to distribute? I think it's the same thing, don't you?
I gave in this year and bought an online subscription to the WSJ after reading other people's leftover print editions at work for a while and seeing the quality of the reporting. I'm not surprised that their internet division is making money -- it's a great paper, and I am absolutely converted to paying for access online. I believe it's one of the only paid-subscription-required newspapers that is making money.
Contrary to what you might think, the WSJ is not a stuffy, uptight paper for rich white guys only. It's got lots of interesting people stories several times a week, technology coverage, and as long as you don't touch the editorial/opinion section, it's a great read each morning.
why doesn't congress stop tapdancing around the real issue, and instead pass some well-thought out legislation to reduce wasteful energy use, implement a rational gasoline use tax, and other things that would actually address the real problem? Hm?
it seems the judges were not without a sense of humor:
from the 9th Federal Circuit, Court of Appeals, the summary:
Bosley Medical Institute, Inc. v. Michael Steven Kremer
"Defendant Michael Kremer wes dissatisfied with the hair restoration services provided to him by the Bosley Medical Insitute, Inc. In a bald-faced effort to get even, Kremer started a website at www.BosleyMedical.com, which, to put it mildly, was uncomplimentary of Bosley Medical Insitute. The problem is that "Bosley Medical" is the registered trademark of the Bosley Meidcal Institute, Inc., which brought suit against Kremer for trademark infringement and like claims. Kremer argues that noncommercial use of the mark is not actionable as infringement under the Lanham Act. Bosley responds that Kremer is splitting hairs..."
from Wonkette.com:
"A press release announces Bush's pick to head NASA. Michael D. Griffith "received a bachelor's degree in Physics from Johns Hopkins University; a master's degree in Aerospace Science from Catholic University of America; a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland; a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California; a master's degree in Applied Physics from Johns Hopkins University; a master's degree in Business Administration from Loyola College; and a master's degree in Civil Engineering from The George Washington University." Yes, that's a B.A., a Ph. D., and five M.A.s.
An operative offered a shorter version of the story: "Bush Nominates Virgin."
It's just like people -- when you build a relationship of usefulness and trust with someone, they'll look upon your new ideas with less skepticism and maybe more tolerance for a commercial venture, and won't feel like you're blatantly exploiting them!
How come none of the mapping services let you input anything more than a single origin/destination route? For example, suppose I want to drive across the country, and would like to specify going the northern route through Chicago and then Denver on the way to SF. Wouldn't it be easy to offer multiple lines of intermediate destinations?
oops, I thought the article was talking about the 3rd Annual Nigerian Email conference.
it's difficult to say which side to join with here (putting aside my personal desire to download free music). Consider this analogy:
A private courier company, FedUPS, carries packages all across the country. It has come to the point where, say, 75% of its packages contain illegal narcotics. Drugs have been identified as harmful to people, and it is a legitimate interest of the government to stop the flow of drugs. Is it not reasonable to require FedUPS to provide the addresses of those packages intercepted and known to contain drugs?
of course, in this RIAA case, it is a civil matter, and this story is about how the DCMA explicity protects ISPs from being targeted for traffic they cannot control. Plus, reasonable people are disagreeing over how illegal/unethical it is to copy pirated music. But the structure of the problem is similar, right? If we decide to make copying copyrighted music illegal and we declare it is a problem, what are we going to do about the conduits of that illegal traffic?
perhaps it's a signal to lawmakers that we have two very different competing interests both attempting to use the laws to advance their ends...
It's difficult to choose what side to be on after thinking seriously about it. Of course you want communications to get cheaper and cheaper, but we *need* big telecom companies to provide us the very services that make this sort of thing possible. If free wireless calling takes off and starts being perceived as a dangerous trend, telecoms will fight tooth and nail to prevent this -- through regulation, infringement suits, whatever.
They will be fighting a losing battle. But even so I have to say, someone must do the job that they (the telecom companies) do. Who else will lay the fiber and launch the satellites? Not your coffeeshop wireless hotspot owner I can tell you that. Maybe what they need to do is take advantage of those markets where they provide services that IP/broadband cannot -- like rural phone services. But even there the profits are probably miniscule.
well this is a feel good story and all, but I always wonder -- how exactly are these amateur radio operators helping in more than an anecdotal way during disasters? I mean, is it like they're ferrying critical rescue and operations traffic? I have a feeling not, because to do that, both they and the operators on the other side would have to be tied in to whatever government or agency is reaching out to help. And to have that be the case, there would have to be serious pre-disaster networks and agreements set up.
I mean, this is similar to the relief organizations in the area now -- they keep telling regular people not to volunteer to fly to the region and help out, because what they really want are people who know what they're doing and part of the organization already, and can be deployed. A single ham radio operator on his/her own is not going to be that useful.
So maybe I'm not really familiar with the true value of ham radio operators in situations like this -- can anyone give a more informed picture? Do they just serve to carry random individual messages of "I'm ok", until the military/relief authorities arrive and set up a real command communications network?
thanks for the info.
for you all who're having trouble getting to the actual info page, here it is.
To give you some inside information, the guy behind this idea is kind of a crackpot -- he's a guy who has lots of weird thoughts, but hasn't exactly done much serious research in a while.
And that's why although this may make a good press release, any professional astronomer (or even amateur) knows why we have the calendar we do -- so that each year, the calendar days you are familiar with correspond to approximately where the stars lie in the sky, and the weather season, etc. Ie. every September, the vernal equinox coincides with the rising parallel, the length of the day, etc. etc. Leap days are the way to distribute the extra 1/4 of a day per year into a reasonable interval (once every 4 years).
This scheme of having one calendar with a leap "week" is just another way of shifting around the leap days, and is exactly what an astronomer would NOT want! And his rationale for not having to print different calendars is obviated by having to remember that leap "weeks" occur in years 2015, 2020, 2026, 2032, 2037, 2043, etc...
The current calendar gives some consistency and familiarity -- you can predict how long the day is, what stars are in the sky (within a day or so b/c leap days), and approximately if you're going to need a heavy jacket to go outside in the cold. Under this crackpot new calendar, you have to recompute all these things based on what year it is. Crackpot.
A growing (but now recognized as problematic) movement over the past few years has been the introduction of the "Investigations" math curriculum into public schools. see here. The goal is to make kids "feel better" about learning math, which in many ways has been a code for dumbing down the curriculum so that academic rigor is out and poorer students can achieve better on tests. They learn by approximating answers, like 12x48 will approximately be like 10x50. In my opinion, this is the opposite of math -- where the goal is to find the one *correct* answer.
In this curriculum, the kids learn by discovering the rules of math on their own, but this is absolutely ridiculous -- the whole point of passing knowledge through civilization is that we don't have to relearn like cavemen from birth. They spend time playing with blocks to count numbers, all the way up to 4th grade. These children are going to be severely hurt. Part of the problem is that teaching math at home has failed many of them, plus the teachers aren't qualified to teach math, so they grasp any curriculum that seems to make the subject more "fun" at the expense of real learning. An annoying part of the curriculum is that it also inserts a very touchy-feely agenda into the textbooks, and while I'm quite liberal about educating kids on history, etc., this has no useful place in math class.
Also, some people suspect that the test scores are rising because we're dumbing down the tests themselves -- which is outrageous. See here for example.
You may not think that these questions affect you, but they do. When we have a large fraction of the population unable to do basic math, we all will suffer. From things like being unable to hire competent workers, to the person serving you at a restaurant or a store unable to compute change, to your kid having access to only the most basic math education because the rest of the kids are so far behind they have to be specially taught, taking away resources for the higher achievers...(part of the No Child Left Behind = No Gifted Child Gets Ahead program) read this report on how gifted children are done given the shaft in the US..
George W. Bush: I think you meant "internets"!