In spite of that, email communication and web communication is encrypted/decrypted on the BlackBerry smartphone itself, so RIM (the company that does BlackBerry) can't snoop into your data contents even if they wanted to. That's why some authoritarian countries around the world couldn't quite understand - they demanded RIM hand over the secret keys to let them read any message contents, which they just assumed RIM must have, even though they don't.
Similarly, with the riots in Britain earlier this year, the authorities complained that the rioters were co-ordinating using BlackBerry phones, and they couldn't intercept those communications. To me, that's a strong recommendation for a BlackBerry if you want security and privacy.
Why are inertial mass and gravitational mass equivalent for matter? Given what we know about the laws of physics, does it seem to be required that they are equivalent for the laws of physics to be consistent or for any other reason? Or does it seem to be, as far as we currently know, just a coincidence that they are equivalent?
First off, I am intimately familiar with the Russel/Norvig book that props up that monitor. Reminds me of my AI courses at two different universities. Guessing it's the de facto standard.
!
Yeah, I used that AI textbook, too, for my fourth-year "Intro to Artificial Intelligence" course at the University of Waterloo.
The first paragraph of the charter of rights says we only have any of the listed rights long as the government thinks they're reasonable.
(1) It's not about whether the rights are reasonable, it's that any restrictions of those rights need to be reasonable.
(2) It's not the government that gets to decide what limits are reasonable, it is the judiciary.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
The coins, which will show a Star Wars character on one side and the Queen of England on the other...
There hasn't been a Queen of England since 1707 when England ceased to exist as an independent kingdom. Referring to her in this story as the "Queen of the United Kingdom" or the "British Queen" would have been a much better way to let most readers know who is on the obverse of the coins without being completely wrong as "Queen of England" is.
And, technically, it is the Queen of New Zealand who is on these coins, because Niue is in "free association with New Zealand and, although it is not part of the country of New Zealand, it is part of the Realm of New Zealand.
Probably because there is a legal requirement, like in most of the Commonwealth countries, that the head of state must appear on the legal tender.
I know you didn't claim otherwise, but I wanted to point out that Queen Elizabeth II is not the head of state of most countries in the Commonwealth. Of the 54 independent countries in the Commonwealth, she is head of state of 16 of them. (A majority of the Commonwealth countries, 33 of them, are republics.)
Also, Niue is not technically a Commonwealth country, because it is not a fully independent sovereign state - it is in free association with New Zealand, which provides defence and conducts foreign affairs for Niue.
But yes, for these coins, the Queen is on them because Niue citizens are under the sovereignty of New Zealand and thus the Queen as Queen of New Zealand.
This was up on the AV Club yesterday. I mention this because an interesting (and often humourous) discussion occurred there that many here may be interested in reading.
They will just wait until after elections to vote on things like these.
The point of the poster to whom you replied is that, as long as there is a minority government in place, they will hopefully be held back from introducing some version of a DMCA by public opinion and a fear that it would cost the governing party at election time.
Because in a minority government situation, there isn't really a significant amount of time "between" elections. You might be back in an election just six months after the previous one, so it's not a situation where you can pass unpopular legislation right after an election and then expect that it will be largely forgotten by the electorate at the next election in four years.
Something tells me that if he had conducted this experiment a few hundred miles south and spent any reasonable amount of time outside he would have had different results entirely.
A few hundred? Roughly 200 miles south of the main campus of the University of Alberta (in Edmonton) is Calgary. About 300 miles south is Lethbridge, Alberta. Even 500 miles south and you're in Great Falls, Montana. None of those places is likely to be significantly warmer than the University of Alberta.
Here's what Stephen Hawking has said he wants on his tombstone: S = (pi.A.k.c^3)/(2.h.G)
It's the formula for the entropy of a black hole, also the maximum amount of entropy possible in a volume of space.
It's interesting and extremely insightful into the nature of the universe because all the values on the right-hand-side are constants except for A (the area). So it says that the amount of entropy in a black hole, and also the maximum amount of entropy possible, is directly proportional to the surface area! This is very counter-intuitive and is related to the holographic principle.
there's basic health coverage provided by the federal gov't
No. Unless you're in the army or something, the vast majority of Canadians do not get health coverage provided by the federal government. We're a federation, and unlike a certain other "federation" nearby, we still mean it.
Certainly. If you actually have a phobia of something, the smallest notion can affect you.
I don't think that math anxiety is a "phobia" for most people; it is milder and much more widespread among the general population, I think. Wikipedia (not an authoritative source for definitions of psychology terms, I know) says a phobia is "an intense and persistent fear" and that mathematical anxiety is "anxiety about one's ability to do mathematics" and anxiety is an "unpleasant feeling that is typically associated with uneasiness, fear, or worry."
So it does surprise me that the kind of self-defeating attitude that leads people to decide that they can't learn trig or shouldn't bother learning how to divide fractions also affects something as basic as counting to nine. It also surprises me that it seems that people, on some level, think of such basic counting as "math". I know, of course, that counting is math, but it surprises me that people would lump such basic counting in with the type of math that they should dread doing.
This "simple English test" had been a requirement at the University of Waterloo for a while. When I started there in 1998, all new students in all faculties and programs had to satisfy an English reading/writing requirement by the end of their first year. This meant either passing the written test or showing that you achieved a grade of 80% (considered an A in Canada) in your senior university-track English class in high school in Ontario. Because the entrance requirements were pretty high and because students' senior high school English class had to be included in the six senior grades that students submitted with their application, I remember being surprised that so many of my fellow math and computer science students had to write the exam. They all passed, though. Some of my friends had to write the test not because they had poor grades in high school English but because they went to high school in another province or country. At the time my impression was that the test would be pretty easy for almost any university student whose first language was English. However, I didn't actually see the test myself.
I heard about this on the radio yesterday, and they said that the University of Waterloo is one of the few in Canada with such a requirement.
By the way, it is never properly called "Waterloo University".
The summary seems to make a jump from talking about "organics" and "organic matter" to "the Chandrayaan-1 claim of finding life on the Moon". Is the ISRO actually claiming to have found life on the moon? And aren't there lots of sources of organic molecules that don't involve life?
She had the following on herself -hand drawn map of downtown Jerusalem -Arabic stickers on laptop -"Fuck Star of David" pic on phone
-passport stamps from Arab countries -various Arab publications -photos condemning Israeli military action in Gaza.
So if they don't think that a foreigner has the right to make those offensive statements in Israel then deny her entry, and if they think she is potentially dangerous then deny her entry and put her on a list of people that should be given closer inspection is she tries to enter Israel again. And if they think that there is evidence that she is actually going to do something criminal then arrest her.
But none of the conveniently forgotten details that you listed justify wanton destruction of her property.
I'm from outside the US (Canada), and we know it as the big dipper, too. Of course, the latin name Ursa Major is known to those of us here who have a particular interest in constellations. But the name "the plough" is mostly unknown here.
The Canadian Blood Services "What's Your Type" page (linked in the summary) says (emphasis mine):
The What's Your Type? program is a recruitment program with information provided for the participants' enjoyment. You should seek medical supervision for all matters regarding your health.
No matter which blood type you select, it gives you a few tidbits of bullshit about what your personality and preferred diet might be, then a few tidbits of bullshit about what careers you might do well at. Then it tells you that no matter what your type is, it is important to donate blood, how you can donate, etc.
So I don't think this is an example of Canadian Blood Services promoting or believing this pseudo-science. I don't have a problem with them having a "fun" online activity like this, if it encourages more people to give blood. However, I would prefer if it more explicitly said on the first page that these are beliefs from the Japanese culture, and state that they have no basis in science, but that they can be fun and interesting to read about.
Truly I'm confused. I thought Canadians had national health care? So is it the national system canceling her or some kind of supplemental plan?
Canada doesn't have "national" health care. Each province and territory has an agency of their governments that provides health insurance to all of their residents who are citizens or permanent resident immigrants.
And, besides, this story isn't about health insurance being cancelled by anybody, either her government plan from the Régie de l'Assurance Maladie du Québec (Quebec Health Insurance Agency) or a supplemental private medical insurance plan. This story is about a private insurance company cancelling her long-term disability payments. Long-term disability insurance isn't about paying for medical treatments, it is about income replacement payments made if you can't work because of an illness or injury.
This is a HUGE part of the current problem in the States with health insurance. Health insurance companies are not doctors. You can't make a diagnosis by looking at pictures on someone's facebook account. They teach you that in medical school, I think. I'm all for the public option myself, and I hope it puts the health insurance companies out of business. Frankly, I think anyone who works for an organization as corrupt as an American health insurance company, has it coming, because nobody who works for one can possibly claim ignorance to the crap that goes on with them.
This situation doesn't involve her health insurance, it is abut her long-term disability insurance - i.e. private insurance that was paying her a portion of her previous income because she have a covered condition that prevented her from working.
Reality check: we're in a recession. Everyone's trying to save money. Even the heartless cold and evil big corporations. So what? This is not "healing someone because they are sick," this is throwing money at a problem until it fixes itself. How long has she been receiving treatment for "depression?" How long will she continue to be treated for "depression?" This is not something easily quantified because it's entirely reliant on the patient actually wanting to be treated, but if they do that, their claim is canceled and they have to go back to working for a living. Who wouldn't be "depressed" over facing that?
This story isn't about health insurance. Her health insurance wasn't cut off. Any treatments that she was receiving before, she'll still receive. This story is about long-term disability insurance - i.e. private insurance that pays you a portion of your previous income because you have some coveraged condition that prevents you from working.
Yet another reason why private healthcare must be stopped. Curing people doesn't come into it - it's about keeping them sick enough to stay profitable.
What? Do you realize this story takes place in Canada? (The land of public health.) This story has nothing to do with healthcare. She won't have her "healthcare" cut off... It's her "income replacement" payments that were cut off. She could end up destitute in a cardboard box, but the medical system will still take care of her health.
Thank you! I read through this entire tangential discussion about health insurance, hoping to see a comment like yours pointing out how it entirely missed the point.
This story has nothing to do with health/medical insurance. It has nothing to do with coverage of "pre-existing" conditions.
This is long-term disability insurance. I'm pretty sure they have that in the US. In both the US and Canada, I've purchased it through my employer by voluntarily having payments deducted from my paycheques and sent to the private insurance company. In fact, I think my insurance company for this right now is Manulife, same as in this article. Then if I have an injury or illness that prevents or reduces my ability to work, long-term disability insurance pays me. I think short-term disability (fewer than a certain number of weeks) is covered by EI (employment insurance a.k.a. unemployment insurance).
And, yes, some people like to milk their private long-term disability insurance by claiming that, for example, their back injury causes such pain that they cannot work. So the insurance companies try to, for example, get videos of that person doing yard work as evidence that the injury and pain isn't so bad as to prevent them from working.
I don't see how this concept could apply to health/medical insurance. What good does "faking" a medical problem so that I can get health care paid for by my insurance do for me? If I don't have Condition X then why would I want to pretend to have it in order to get the treatment for it? Obviously, people do fake problems in order to get prescribed drugs that they abuse, but that's a different situation.
This woman is a Quebecer, so she's covered by the Régie de l'Assurance Maladie du Québec, an agency of the provincial government. Whatever happens with her long-term disability insurer, it won't affect her health insurance.
I think that the kind of fraud that is mainly investigated by provincial health insurance agencies are providers submitting fake bills and people pretending to be permanent resident immigrants or citizens who are residents of a particular province (and thus eligible for coverage under the health insurance agency) when they actually aren't, but not patients who are "fakers". I don't think either of those are actually big problems, in terms of money lost to such fraud compared to overall budgets.
As a black hole radiates away, the Hawking radiation contains the information (albeit scrambled) that had been sucked into the black hole. Information is conserved.
In Canada, it can be rather difficult to obtain the season influenza vaccination, since there tends to be a shortage every year.
That isn't my experience at all. It is readily available, provided at many larger employers' worksites and, according to signs I've seen, available at many temporary flu shot clinics set up in community centres, schools, and pharmacies. Maybe this varies from province to province? I'm in Ontario.
Slashdot Mirror
In spite of that, email communication and web communication is encrypted/decrypted on the BlackBerry smartphone itself, so RIM (the company that does BlackBerry) can't snoop into your data contents even if they wanted to. That's why some authoritarian countries around the world couldn't quite understand - they demanded RIM hand over the secret keys to let them read any message contents, which they just assumed RIM must have, even though they don't. Similarly, with the riots in Britain earlier this year, the authorities complained that the rioters were co-ordinating using BlackBerry phones, and they couldn't intercept those communications. To me, that's a strong recommendation for a BlackBerry if you want security and privacy.
Why are inertial mass and gravitational mass equivalent for matter? Given what we know about the laws of physics, does it seem to be required that they are equivalent for the laws of physics to be consistent or for any other reason? Or does it seem to be, as far as we currently know, just a coincidence that they are equivalent?
First off, I am intimately familiar with the Russel/Norvig book that props up that monitor. Reminds me of my AI courses at two different universities. Guessing it's the de facto standard. !
Yeah, I used that AI textbook, too, for my fourth-year "Intro to Artificial Intelligence" course at the University of Waterloo.
The first paragraph of the charter of rights says we only have any of the listed rights long as the government thinks they're reasonable.
(1) It's not about whether the rights are reasonable, it's that any restrictions of those rights need to be reasonable.
(2) It's not the government that gets to decide what limits are reasonable, it is the judiciary.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
The coins, which will show a Star Wars character on one side and the Queen of England on the other...
There hasn't been a Queen of England since 1707 when England ceased to exist as an independent kingdom. Referring to her in this story as the "Queen of the United Kingdom" or the "British Queen" would have been a much better way to let most readers know who is on the obverse of the coins without being completely wrong as "Queen of England" is.
And, technically, it is the Queen of New Zealand who is on these coins, because Niue is in "free association with New Zealand and, although it is not part of the country of New Zealand, it is part of the Realm of New Zealand.
Probably because there is a legal requirement, like in most of the Commonwealth countries, that the head of state must appear on the legal tender.
I know you didn't claim otherwise, but I wanted to point out that Queen Elizabeth II is not the head of state of most countries in the Commonwealth. Of the 54 independent countries in the Commonwealth, she is head of state of 16 of them. (A majority of the Commonwealth countries, 33 of them, are republics.)
Also, Niue is not technically a Commonwealth country, because it is not a fully independent sovereign state - it is in free association with New Zealand, which provides defence and conducts foreign affairs for Niue.
But yes, for these coins, the Queen is on them because Niue citizens are under the sovereignty of New Zealand and thus the Queen as Queen of New Zealand.
This was up on the AV Club yesterday. I mention this because an interesting (and often humourous) discussion occurred there that many here may be interested in reading.
The point of the poster to whom you replied is that, as long as there is a minority government in place, they will hopefully be held back from introducing some version of a DMCA by public opinion and a fear that it would cost the governing party at election time. Because in a minority government situation, there isn't really a significant amount of time "between" elections. You might be back in an election just six months after the previous one, so it's not a situation where you can pass unpopular legislation right after an election and then expect that it will be largely forgotten by the electorate at the next election in four years.
University of Alberta student
Something tells me that if he had conducted this experiment a few hundred miles south and spent any reasonable amount of time outside he would have had different results entirely.
A few hundred? Roughly 200 miles south of the main campus of the University of Alberta (in Edmonton) is Calgary. About 300 miles south is Lethbridge, Alberta. Even 500 miles south and you're in Great Falls, Montana. None of those places is likely to be significantly warmer than the University of Alberta.
Here's what Stephen Hawking has said he wants on his tombstone: S = (pi.A.k.c^3)/(2.h.G) It's the formula for the entropy of a black hole, also the maximum amount of entropy possible in a volume of space. It's interesting and extremely insightful into the nature of the universe because all the values on the right-hand-side are constants except for A (the area). So it says that the amount of entropy in a black hole, and also the maximum amount of entropy possible, is directly proportional to the surface area! This is very counter-intuitive and is related to the holographic principle.
No. Unless you're in the army or something, the vast majority of Canadians do not get health coverage provided by the federal government. We're a federation, and unlike a certain other "federation" nearby, we still mean it.
I have long joked that I can't do mental arithmetic but I'll happily integrate the numbers in front of me (actually, it's no joke).
Yeah, but isn't it trivial to integrate constants?
Certainly. If you actually have a phobia of something, the smallest notion can affect you.
I don't think that math anxiety is a "phobia" for most people; it is milder and much more widespread among the general population, I think. Wikipedia (not an authoritative source for definitions of psychology terms, I know) says a phobia is "an intense and persistent fear" and that mathematical anxiety is "anxiety about one's ability to do mathematics" and anxiety is an "unpleasant feeling that is typically associated with uneasiness, fear, or worry."
So it does surprise me that the kind of self-defeating attitude that leads people to decide that they can't learn trig or shouldn't bother learning how to divide fractions also affects something as basic as counting to nine. It also surprises me that it seems that people, on some level, think of such basic counting as "math". I know, of course, that counting is math, but it surprises me that people would lump such basic counting in with the type of math that they should dread doing.
This "simple English test" had been a requirement at the University of Waterloo for a while. When I started there in 1998, all new students in all faculties and programs had to satisfy an English reading/writing requirement by the end of their first year. This meant either passing the written test or showing that you achieved a grade of 80% (considered an A in Canada) in your senior university-track English class in high school in Ontario. Because the entrance requirements were pretty high and because students' senior high school English class had to be included in the six senior grades that students submitted with their application, I remember being surprised that so many of my fellow math and computer science students had to write the exam. They all passed, though. Some of my friends had to write the test not because they had poor grades in high school English but because they went to high school in another province or country. At the time my impression was that the test would be pretty easy for almost any university student whose first language was English. However, I didn't actually see the test myself.
I heard about this on the radio yesterday, and they said that the University of Waterloo is one of the few in Canada with such a requirement.
By the way, it is never properly called "Waterloo University".
The summary seems to make a jump from talking about "organics" and "organic matter" to "the Chandrayaan-1 claim of finding life on the Moon". Is the ISRO actually claiming to have found life on the moon? And aren't there lots of sources of organic molecules that don't involve life?
So if they don't think that a foreigner has the right to make those offensive statements in Israel then deny her entry, and if they think she is potentially dangerous then deny her entry and put her on a list of people that should be given closer inspection is she tries to enter Israel again. And if they think that there is evidence that she is actually going to do something criminal then arrest her.
But none of the conveniently forgotten details that you listed justify wanton destruction of her property.
I'm from outside the US (Canada), and we know it as the big dipper, too. Of course, the latin name Ursa Major is known to those of us here who have a particular interest in constellations. But the name "the plough" is mostly unknown here.
No matter which blood type you select, it gives you a few tidbits of bullshit about what your personality and preferred diet might be, then a few tidbits of bullshit about what careers you might do well at. Then it tells you that no matter what your type is, it is important to donate blood, how you can donate, etc.
So I don't think this is an example of Canadian Blood Services promoting or believing this pseudo-science. I don't have a problem with them having a "fun" online activity like this, if it encourages more people to give blood. However, I would prefer if it more explicitly said on the first page that these are beliefs from the Japanese culture, and state that they have no basis in science, but that they can be fun and interesting to read about.
Truly I'm confused. I thought Canadians had national health care? So is it the national system canceling her or some kind of supplemental plan?
Canada doesn't have "national" health care. Each province and territory has an agency of their governments that provides health insurance to all of their residents who are citizens or permanent resident immigrants.
And, besides, this story isn't about health insurance being cancelled by anybody, either her government plan from the Régie de l'Assurance Maladie du Québec (Quebec Health Insurance Agency) or a supplemental private medical insurance plan. This story is about a private insurance company cancelling her long-term disability payments. Long-term disability insurance isn't about paying for medical treatments, it is about income replacement payments made if you can't work because of an illness or injury.
This is a HUGE part of the current problem in the States with health insurance. Health insurance companies are not doctors. You can't make a diagnosis by looking at pictures on someone's facebook account. They teach you that in medical school, I think. I'm all for the public option myself, and I hope it puts the health insurance companies out of business. Frankly, I think anyone who works for an organization as corrupt as an American health insurance company, has it coming, because nobody who works for one can possibly claim ignorance to the crap that goes on with them.
This situation doesn't involve her health insurance, it is abut her long-term disability insurance - i.e. private insurance that was paying her a portion of her previous income because she have a covered condition that prevented her from working.
Reality check: we're in a recession. Everyone's trying to save money. Even the heartless cold and evil big corporations. So what? This is not "healing someone because they are sick," this is throwing money at a problem until it fixes itself. How long has she been receiving treatment for "depression?" How long will she continue to be treated for "depression?" This is not something easily quantified because it's entirely reliant on the patient actually wanting to be treated, but if they do that, their claim is canceled and they have to go back to working for a living. Who wouldn't be "depressed" over facing that?
This story isn't about health insurance. Her health insurance wasn't cut off. Any treatments that she was receiving before, she'll still receive. This story is about long-term disability insurance - i.e. private insurance that pays you a portion of your previous income because you have some coveraged condition that prevents you from working.
Yet another reason why private healthcare must be stopped. Curing people doesn't come into it - it's about keeping them sick enough to stay profitable.
What? Do you realize this story takes place in Canada? (The land of public health.) This story has nothing to do with healthcare. She won't have her "healthcare" cut off... It's her "income replacement" payments that were cut off. She could end up destitute in a cardboard box, but the medical system will still take care of her health.
Thank you! I read through this entire tangential discussion about health insurance, hoping to see a comment like yours pointing out how it entirely missed the point.
This story has nothing to do with health/medical insurance. It has nothing to do with coverage of "pre-existing" conditions.
This is long-term disability insurance. I'm pretty sure they have that in the US. In both the US and Canada, I've purchased it through my employer by voluntarily having payments deducted from my paycheques and sent to the private insurance company. In fact, I think my insurance company for this right now is Manulife, same as in this article. Then if I have an injury or illness that prevents or reduces my ability to work, long-term disability insurance pays me. I think short-term disability (fewer than a certain number of weeks) is covered by EI (employment insurance a.k.a. unemployment insurance).
And, yes, some people like to milk their private long-term disability insurance by claiming that, for example, their back injury causes such pain that they cannot work. So the insurance companies try to, for example, get videos of that person doing yard work as evidence that the injury and pain isn't so bad as to prevent them from working.
I don't see how this concept could apply to health/medical insurance. What good does "faking" a medical problem so that I can get health care paid for by my insurance do for me? If I don't have Condition X then why would I want to pretend to have it in order to get the treatment for it? Obviously, people do fake problems in order to get prescribed drugs that they abuse, but that's a different situation.
This woman is a Quebecer, so she's covered by the Régie de l'Assurance Maladie du Québec, an agency of the provincial government. Whatever happens with her long-term disability insurer, it won't affect her health insurance.
I think that the kind of fraud that is mainly investigated by provincial health insurance agencies are providers submitting fake bills and people pretending to be permanent resident immigrants or citizens who are residents of a particular province (and thus eligible for coverage under the health insurance agency) when they actually aren't, but not patients who are "fakers". I don't think either of those are actually big problems, in terms of money lost to such fraud compared to overall budgets.
As a black hole radiates away, the Hawking radiation contains the information (albeit scrambled) that had been sucked into the black hole. Information is conserved.
That isn't my experience at all. It is readily available, provided at many larger employers' worksites and, according to signs I've seen, available at many temporary flu shot clinics set up in community centres, schools, and pharmacies. Maybe this varies from province to province? I'm in Ontario.
As a Canadian, I'm asking you to please not lump us in with the Excited States of America.