2nd problem: religious dogma..... nah. it's just ego. It's not that my religion was offended... it's that my religion was offended... i kill ya. aaaaaaah.
that 3 weeks of coding cannot substitute for 3 hours of planning. Instead of creating a smart solution they decided to just handicapp the old bad solution. How about this: if the buyer made a payment through ebay (pay now option is usually available), then the "positive" ranking would not be available until the merchant has left a feedback for the buyer? This would make the retalitory negative ratings almost impossible and would actually ensure that the positive ratings were genuine. An argument could be made that it would force some merchants to use alternative payment systems, but they live and die by their reputation. And those that didn't accept "pay now" option would be treated with suspicion right away. Instead, they now limit the merchants ability to cut off rude customers and customers ability to wait for a while to see if the merchant honors warranties (with the neg rating hanging over them as the demoscles' sword). Quite remarkable really. They are running a trully state of the art operation from a technical stand point and yet they allow their marketing people to make these sorts of silly decisions.
Microsoft would love it, love it, love it. This would mean that any operating system whose kernel can be recompiled by the end-users would be illegal under DMCA -- because it would become a device for circumventing copyright protection mechanisms built into the computer system. Say, how do we get the OTHER half of the server market? Well, let's make the competition illegal.
Iran's internet access is not effected. Information is coming in and out. The first part is blatantly false. Everyone of the cuts had a major impact on Iran. The second sentence is true. But they cut the 5th cable because cutting the 4th didn't finish the job. The report did say that traffic is significantly diminished. So... that just means there are more cable to cut (or satellites "spontaneously collide with debree")
Several of the line cuts have been fully explained, and were caused by common power outages. Good. Have they explained the astronomical improbability of these occuring so close to each other in time?
The U.S. has attacked countries in the region before (remember Iraq?), and didn't cut the lines. It didn't have to be. There was no overwhelming opposition to those wars. There is an overwhelming opposition to attacking Iran. FYI, the (erroneously believed to be) peace candidate Obama has received 6 times as much funding as the highest GOP fund raiser.
The petrodollar issue is overblown. A devaluation of the dollar means a boost for U.S. exports, and a big drop in E.U. exports,
You must be joking. This is not about finances. It is about viability of the dollar. The only reason the fiat of dollar holds is because it is backed by oil. Trade is not enough to generate an "economy". There is also a need for production. Currently, the US legal system has made it incredibly difficult to retain a manufacturing base. With all the talk we hear of cheap labor in China, the reason labor is "expensive" in the US is because increases in manufacturing efficiency made each worker more productive; thus leading to an expectation of a constant improvement in the quality of life of the working people -- the expectation which could not be fulfilled once the legal system undermined the manufacturing process and stopped its natural tendency to increase efficiency out of desire to compete.
I agree that the end of petrodollar would help the US. But it would only do so in the long run -- by forcing US to shift its power base from bankers and merchants to industrialists. Clearly, the current power base is fighting to keep the power. Hence the need to preserve the petrodollar.
Let's be clear, the end of the fiat of the dollar would not "weaken" it. It would destroy it. But it's an artifically backed currency which is due for collapse. Delaying it will only make the recovery period more painful.
Yes, I know that a lot of this is rhetorical. Slashdot, however is a technical discussion board. So a short answer to "how is it possible that so many cables were cut at the same time while none were cut for years and years before and that the country most effected by the cuts is the one that US is constantly threatening to attack?" is that it's incredibly unlikely to be a coincidence. But maybe. I don't think in causalities -- my information on the empirical is always imperfect -- I think in probabilities.
The point of cutting the wires is to make sure no news comes out of Iran -- not that no news comes in. It doesn't matter if they develop weapons subsidize Hizbullah or do whatever else (Syria sponsors and houses Hammas -- noone cares). Iran is trying to end the petrodollar cycle by opening an oil exchange where oil would be traded in Euros. They will not be allowed to do it. Case closed. If it takes kicking half the world off the Internet to make sure that it is done in secret because there is no popular support for the war, so be it. 5 cables in two weeks? Go ahead, call me a crazy conspiracy nut. My other conspiracy theory: the Sun will come up tomorrow and whatever Internet communications Iran has left will be destroyed within the next week.
It is my undestanding that it is precisely what happens in Peru. They have specilized forensic examiners that are trained in examining women (yes, it means exactly what it sounds like) for having had an abortion. And, yes, having had an abortion carries a prison term.
What? Ok. Your question was how can you know that he was gaining momentum. Your question was not how can you use polls to know that he is gaining momentum. My answer to the question how can you know that he is gaining momentum is that he is gaining higher percentages of votes cast in actual elections. Polls are not elections -- they are just surveys (usually conducted by phone). So, yes, I did answer your question. Perhaps you meant to ask a different question than the one you actually asked? I don't know what the zero chance argument is based on. Momentum is defined as rapid ascend in the number of supporters. Since the number of votes cast for Ron Paul has doubled in the past month, his campaign fits the definition.
And, if the polls are inaccurate, how can you use them to judge an increase in "momentum"?You can't. Have a nice day. I agree -- you can't use the polls. But you can use the votes that were cast. By the way, it turns out that he is actually getting 35% (not the previously reported 19%) of Maine's convention delegates. This an already confirmed number. So I really don't see where the whole "no chance" and "no momentum" rhetoric comes from.
His actual votes received doubled in 3 to 4 weeks. If that's not momentum, what is? Who in their right mind would drop out if they went from 10% to 19% in 4 weeks period? You know because of the votes he actually received. Polls have been about as accurate as weather predictions in this election.
What he says is well-supported. If you don't like the conclusions that he draws, perhaps you should stick your head in the sand and pretend that they didn't come from data and careful study. I didn't doubt his data. I so far trust him as being well-supported. It's just that some of the conclusions that he makes are not based on his data alone. They are heavily influenced by his opinions (and possibly prejudices). So I'll skip on the suggestion of sticking my head in the sand and reserve the option of drawing my own conclusions (aka, "just the facts, ma'am").
if you can get past that you may find it considerably deepens your understanding of the issues we're discussing. I am familiar quite well with the issues we are discussing. That's why he is so far down the list -- I doubt I'll see anything new, but his research does tend to be very thorough. So there just might be some interesting facts in it.
And you don't see a problem with the fact that just in order to feed all of humanity we must poison our life-support system? This is too inflammatory (somewhere on the order of "when did you stop beating your wife"). I am sorry, but I don't feel like parsing through that sentence to show why it is inflammatory. Let's just say, I reject the premise of the question.
And by the way, do you really want the population density of everywhere on earth---yes, including your living room---to continue increasing? No. But the last thing I'd want is for the government to get into population control business. Natural events work themselves out. Government's only tool of enforcement is violence. I'd rather it kept that tool to the purpose for which it was formed -- prevention of violence and ensuring honesty in exchange. The rest we'll figure out on our own. We do anyway -- the law has almost no applicability anymore because the court system is overloaded beyond capacity and resolving conflicts in civil court has become a pipe dream.
Carbon is re-released as the roots from last year's crop rot, and especially in tilled land will be re-released fairly quickly. Umm. No, it is digested by warms and then turns into top soil. So this would enrich the soil.
Also, I find it quite odd that a slashdotter would so soon forget the economic and social problems that tend to be created when a for-profit corporation genetically engineers a crop. Name one. I think you are confusing proponents of open source with socialists. We are more concerned about code being free as in speech -- not free as in beer. Profits are not a bad thing. Secrecy and dishonesty are. The former does not imply the latter.
Deployment--have you done the numbers? You're assuming that 25% of all the rooted plants in the world are (or should be) GMO corn. Care to provide a reference for that claim? Not quite. Corn is planted once a year. Trees have a lifespan of 30 to 150 years. So increasing the root of corn by 3 inches is equivalent to increasing the length of roots of trees that live on the land by at least 2 meters. Bare in mind that the 1 inch figure was not 1 inch per year. It was to reverse the effects of man-made Global Warming completely. Certainly, the 3 inches on all corn crops per year would be enough to reverse the trend.
So you're saying, if I understand correctly, that because one solution is very very far-fetched and opens all kinds of doors to disaster, that we should not seek better solutions? No, I am saying the opposite. Dyson's solution is less far fetched than the idea of scaling down the scope of the entire civilized society. The scientific know-how already exists, so the solution is both pragmatic and practical.
For more, check out Jared Diamond's "Collapse". It's sitting on my shelf and occupies a priority somewhere in the teens on my to-read list. But to be honest, I tend to be distrustful of his motivations after "Guns, Germs and Steel". At times he comes off too Communist. But his evidence hasn't been discredited to the best of my knowledge, so I am willing to laugh off some of his far fetched conclusions.
If bottled water is solving the problem of dangerous levels of pesticides accumulating in any human food source that's related to fresh water (or salt water, for that matter), I'm very pleased to know it. I am talking about water filters. As for the pesticides, they make the volume of food production necessary to sustain the current level of population possible. Certainly, I'd rather prefer a "risk" (since most studies only show causality rather than correlation, I'll insist on putting that word in quotes) of toxic effects to mass starvation.
Because when the wars over scarce resources start affecting your country more deeply than just economically, you'll be wondering whether perhaps there wasn't just one more little thing you could have tried. Well, as long as energy to change the form of matter as quickly as the society needs it is available (and in different shapes that energy should be available for millenia to come), I would trust people's desire to innovate for profit. And innovation is the only way life has ever improved. You would be very hard pressed to find a society that became better by a forced reduction in a level of consumption.
Constantly worrying about the terribly unlikely is pretty much the definition of FUD. If we give in to fear, we'll do nothing. And that guarantees death. As for the deployment, I am pretty sure, I actually said what the solution was -- make corn roots 3-4 inches longer. Since corn is planted anew every year, this would suck the carbon out of the atmosphere rather rapidly. I am not familiar with the extent to which air toxification is significant enough to be a problem that is larger than the natural toxins that we encounter in our lives. As for water toxification, the market place already has the solution. I can't swear that the short-term effects of ignorance and dishonesty will not result in damage to some individuals. What I am certain of is that such effects would still occur and would be much more exacerbated if the responsibility for their oversight were to be left to bureaucrats and cronies that inevitably populate every government.
The first thing you thought of, when reading this article, was socialism? Please get therapy. You'll be happier, and these rants might fade. No, the first thing I thought of when I read that this article was in NY Times was that they were shilling for socialism. I read NYTimes on daily basis and I know their style. Usually I just roll my eyes, but the specter of Communism has been walking all too prominently and unapologetically as of lately.
(Oh and I just read your reply to the other person - as an actual scientist, I must inform you that nearly all mathematicians I have met are quite poor on knowledge and application of the scientific method. I hope you're an exception, but I wouldn't stake my PhD on it.)
Oh, good. Can we at least downgrade it to Vi vs Emacs? At least, then those on the sidelines will know that we don't actually mean it?
Here's what I'll concede: mathematicians are more concerned with implications of assumptions rather than with the empirical. It all goes back to the a priori vs a posteriori investigation. Of course, mathematicians have no concern for a posteriori because it doesn't tell the much... about math. That's why so many of them have no problems being religious. Here's what I'll assert: the degree of individual contributions has nothing to do with adherence of lack of adherence to the scientific method so the original reply to my post was essentially off topic. Oh, and if you are in "life-sciences", I'd like to point out one more time that correlation does not imply causality (but that's inflammatory and off topic... I just find that every biologist and neuroscientist needs to be reminded of that at least once in every conversation).
Here's the thing though, when Newton made the famous "shoulders of giants" comment, he was being kind. Plenty of people had access to the same shoulders. They couldn't stand on them. It took a giant like Newton to stand taller. There is, in fact, a permeating opinion that individuals are just cogs in the wheels of society. That we must all serve each other and see such service as our solemn duty. Inventors are ridiculed and laughed at as "nerdy".... it's absurd. Yet, in this society we no longer see the absurdity of it. Just so we are clear, I assert that claiming that the only reason that inventors were able to invent is that a body of knowledge came before them constitutes a statement as derogatory as "the only a person was able to work on assembly line is because the society built that assembly line for him".
Even if NYTimes did not make a statement as clear cut as that, it most certainly is where they chose to place their emphasis. I think I'll skip on the offer of therapy. To call a propagandist "a propagandist" is not crazy. But it is unsettling to the bystanders, so I understand your sentiment. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
Seriously? Egypt? When was the last time they had a change of government because someone lost an election? Palestine is not currently recognized as an independent nation. You are probably right about Lebanon being a democracy, but with elections being constantly threatened by assassinations I am not sure that it can be claimed that they have a truly representative government. Afghanistan does not have a democracy. The president was elected in a manner similar to US original electoral college -- the local warlords got to pick who they all agreed on. I must admit I don't know enough about Indonesia, so you might be right about it. Chad, yemen, UAE are actually theocracies, so I don't know why you would bring them up. Interestingly, you forgot the most obvious one -- Turkey. It is certainly predominately Muslim and it is certainly democratic. They actually have a full separation of church (so to speak) and state.
Faith means not having to plan. It means believing that your actions are guided by a higher purpose. Not planning is precisely where this administration went wrong.
Are religious people stupid and irrational? Correlation doesn't imply causality, but correlation between being religious and being irrational is very high. Reason (by definition of the word "faith") stops where faith begins. Before, you decide to flood me with quotes to the contrary, I'll just say that faith means believing something to be true without any need to examine physical evidence while reason means that only that which can be explained with with physical evidence and that which logically follows from it may be claimed to be true. So the degree of irrationality of a person depends on which subjects they decide to view from the view point of reason and which from the point of faith.
My quibble is that the Constitution is obsolete (for environmental reasons). I had problems with the idea of limited government for the reasons that the government is the only entity that can fight Global Warming myself. That is until I heard a very insightful speech by Freeman Dyson. He is a pre-eminent physicist (has the Nobel and all), so he is hardly your fringe cook that the environment lobby insists one must be to question the wisdom that a government action is necessary to fight the Global Warming. The speech was about genetic engineering and he said something rather trivial. Even if the Global Warming exists to the extent to which the most grim prognosis claims that it does, it is fixable by making plant roots longer by 1 inch. This would leave more of the carbon in the soil and actually improve the quality of the top soil. I know, I know there are so many warning about genetically engineering plants. But we've been doing it to corn for years now. And if making all plants have roots that are longer by 1 inch would solve the problem, certainly making all the corn crops have roots which are 3-4 inches longer would solve it, too. Most of that corn is processed for cow feed anyway. And having it longer roots wouldn't even effect the part that gets gathered. Since such corn would improve the quality of the soil, it could actually be marketed for profit. So a private sector would actually be able to solve this problem if the problem actually existed. Of course, this solution is too innovative for a politician to dream up. It took a scientist. And it's genius in its simplicity. That was pretty much the moment that I had to concede that the government's function of protection is best limited to protecting us from each other's violent tendencies -- not from mother nature.
I say this because he's got the Republican nomination pretty much sewn up, and he's a moderate. How would you know this? The polls that say so are the polls that said he was finished before any votes were cast. Everyone talks about how inaccurate they are because they are not allowed to call cell phones and yet everyone dismisses such talk. Well, I only know one person who has a land line. And it's not my elderly mother -- she only has a cell phone. The polls put McCain last and Giuliani first. The voters decided otherwise. How in the world do you know that McCain has the nomination?
I'll bite... I have two Ron Paul topics... 1. Why is he running as a Republican? 2. Why is he STILL running?
He is running as a Republican because he is a Republican. He was elected as a Republican to Congress TEN TIMES. The constant reminder that the media insists on that he is a "libertarian" forgets to mention that he was a libertarian for just one year of his life when he ran on their presidential ticket. Well, why don't they mention that Ronald Reagan was a Democratic-leaning Republican. After all, Reagan was a Democrat for a large part of his life, same goes for NYC mayor Bloomberg. Seriously, how is one year failed election indicative of the man's party affiliation if he served in another party half of his life?
Why is he still running? Because his campaign is growing tramendeously. The polls don't say so, but the polls said Giuliani was the front runner and McCain was finished the day before NH primary (McCain won that). Ron Paul got 19% in Maine. That's double the 8% he got in NH and 10% he got in Iowa. If his numbers doubled in 3 weeks, why in the world would he not be running?
Why is there no humor label attached to this post? Ron Paul got 3rd place in Maine (the latest election) and 2nd in Nevada. We should discuss Hackabee instead? Honestly, if CmdrTaco wants to pull jokes, why not put the humor label?
Yes, but the order appears to block PirateBay. It's not a tracker (unless they do that as well), but rather a site that offers content-keywords-based search for torrents (more precisely trackers) that are stored at other locations. Since they don't host the trackers themselves but only provide links to them (unless they do both, in which case, I am wrong), their content (being purely web content) can be gotten from the Google cache.
Quite the opposite. I am a mathematician. I am well-aware of the assumptions and implications of the scientific method. And you are 100% wrong about the society's contribution to innovation. All the "input" from society is a prerequisite for innovation to happen. Everyone "educated" is aware of it. Most "A students" are well-versed in it. Most of them never contribute anything original in their lives. Having the pre-requisite is not quite the same as being a vessel of discovery. I stand by my critique of NY Times' pro-socialist stand despite your insistance. Oh, and by the way, Blaise Pascal and Srinivasa Ramanujan were very original contributors to mathematics. Both of them (to various degrees) discovered most "known" mathematics on their own for themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
well, that's not exactly the galt engine, but it sure smacks of that sentiment.
that 3 weeks of coding cannot substitute for 3 hours of planning. Instead of creating a smart solution they decided to just handicapp the old bad solution. How about this: if the buyer made a payment through ebay (pay now option is usually available), then the "positive" ranking would not be available until the merchant has left a feedback for the buyer? This would make the retalitory negative ratings almost impossible and would actually ensure that the positive ratings were genuine. An argument could be made that it would force some merchants to use alternative payment systems, but they live and die by their reputation. And those that didn't accept "pay now" option would be treated with suspicion right away. Instead, they now limit the merchants ability to cut off rude customers and customers ability to wait for a while to see if the merchant honors warranties (with the neg rating hanging over them as the demoscles' sword). Quite remarkable really. They are running a trully state of the art operation from a technical stand point and yet they allow their marketing people to make these sorts of silly decisions.
Microsoft would love it, love it, love it. This would mean that any operating system whose kernel can be recompiled by the end-users would be illegal under DMCA -- because it would become a device for circumventing copyright protection mechanisms built into the computer system. Say, how do we get the OTHER half of the server market? Well, let's make the competition illegal.
for standing up to the whole "people's feelings are more important than facts" crowd.
You must be joking. This is not about finances. It is about viability of the dollar. The only reason the fiat of dollar holds is because it is backed by oil. Trade is not enough to generate an "economy". There is also a need for production. Currently, the US legal system has made it incredibly difficult to retain a manufacturing base. With all the talk we hear of cheap labor in China, the reason labor is "expensive" in the US is because increases in manufacturing efficiency made each worker more productive; thus leading to an expectation of a constant improvement in the quality of life of the working people -- the expectation which could not be fulfilled once the legal system undermined the manufacturing process and stopped its natural tendency to increase efficiency out of desire to compete.
I agree that the end of petrodollar would help the US. But it would only do so in the long run -- by forcing US to shift its power base from bankers and merchants to industrialists. Clearly, the current power base is fighting to keep the power. Hence the need to preserve the petrodollar.
Let's be clear, the end of the fiat of the dollar would not "weaken" it. It would destroy it. But it's an artifically backed currency which is due for collapse. Delaying it will only make the recovery period more painful.
Yes, I know that a lot of this is rhetorical. Slashdot, however is a technical discussion board. So a short answer to "how is it possible that so many cables were cut at the same time while none were cut for years and years before and that the country most effected by the cuts is the one that US is constantly threatening to attack?" is that it's incredibly unlikely to be a coincidence. But maybe. I don't think in causalities -- my information on the empirical is always imperfect -- I think in probabilities.The point of cutting the wires is to make sure no news comes out of Iran -- not that no news comes in. It doesn't matter if they develop weapons subsidize Hizbullah or do whatever else (Syria sponsors and houses Hammas -- noone cares). Iran is trying to end the petrodollar cycle by opening an oil exchange where oil would be traded in Euros. They will not be allowed to do it. Case closed. If it takes kicking half the world off the Internet to make sure that it is done in secret because there is no popular support for the war, so be it. 5 cables in two weeks? Go ahead, call me a crazy conspiracy nut. My other conspiracy theory: the Sun will come up tomorrow and whatever Internet communications Iran has left will be destroyed within the next week.
It is my undestanding that it is precisely what happens in Peru. They have specilized forensic examiners that are trained in examining women (yes, it means exactly what it sounds like) for having had an abortion. And, yes, having had an abortion carries a prison term.
His actual votes received doubled in 3 to 4 weeks. If that's not momentum, what is? Who in their right mind would drop out if they went from 10% to 19% in 4 weeks period? You know because of the votes he actually received. Polls have been about as accurate as weather predictions in this election.
Constantly worrying about the terribly unlikely is pretty much the definition of FUD. If we give in to fear, we'll do nothing. And that guarantees death. As for the deployment, I am pretty sure, I actually said what the solution was -- make corn roots 3-4 inches longer. Since corn is planted anew every year, this would suck the carbon out of the atmosphere rather rapidly. I am not familiar with the extent to which air toxification is significant enough to be a problem that is larger than the natural toxins that we encounter in our lives. As for water toxification, the market place already has the solution. I can't swear that the short-term effects of ignorance and dishonesty will not result in damage to some individuals. What I am certain of is that such effects would still occur and would be much more exacerbated if the responsibility for their oversight were to be left to bureaucrats and cronies that inevitably populate every government.
Oh, good. Can we at least downgrade it to Vi vs Emacs? At least, then those on the sidelines will know that we don't actually mean it?
Here's what I'll concede: mathematicians are more concerned with implications of assumptions rather than with the empirical. It all goes back to the a priori vs a posteriori investigation. Of course, mathematicians have no concern for a posteriori because it doesn't tell the much... about math. That's why so many of them have no problems being religious. Here's what I'll assert: the degree of individual contributions has nothing to do with adherence of lack of adherence to the scientific method so the original reply to my post was essentially off topic. Oh, and if you are in "life-sciences", I'd like to point out one more time that correlation does not imply causality (but that's inflammatory and off topic... I just find that every biologist and neuroscientist needs to be reminded of that at least once in every conversation).
Here's the thing though, when Newton made the famous "shoulders of giants" comment, he was being kind. Plenty of people had access to the same shoulders. They couldn't stand on them. It took a giant like Newton to stand taller. There is, in fact, a permeating opinion that individuals are just cogs in the wheels of society. That we must all serve each other and see such service as our solemn duty. Inventors are ridiculed and laughed at as "nerdy".... it's absurd. Yet, in this society we no longer see the absurdity of it. Just so we are clear, I assert that claiming that the only reason that inventors were able to invent is that a body of knowledge came before them constitutes a statement as derogatory as "the only a person was able to work on assembly line is because the society built that assembly line for him".
Even if NYTimes did not make a statement as clear cut as that, it most certainly is where they chose to place their emphasis. I think I'll skip on the offer of therapy. To call a propagandist "a propagandist" is not crazy. But it is unsettling to the bystanders, so I understand your sentiment. We'll just have to agree to disagree.Seriously? Egypt? When was the last time they had a change of government because someone lost an election? Palestine is not currently recognized as an independent nation. You are probably right about Lebanon being a democracy, but with elections being constantly threatened by assassinations I am not sure that it can be claimed that they have a truly representative government. Afghanistan does not have a democracy. The president was elected in a manner similar to US original electoral college -- the local warlords got to pick who they all agreed on. I must admit I don't know enough about Indonesia, so you might be right about it. Chad, yemen, UAE are actually theocracies, so I don't know why you would bring them up. Interestingly, you forgot the most obvious one -- Turkey. It is certainly predominately Muslim and it is certainly democratic. They actually have a full separation of church (so to speak) and state.
Faith means not having to plan. It means believing that your actions are guided by a higher purpose. Not planning is precisely where this administration went wrong.
Interesting. I didn't know that. Well, certainly, if that's true, Google cache would not help.
He is running as a Republican because he is a Republican. He was elected as a Republican to Congress TEN TIMES. The constant reminder that the media insists on that he is a "libertarian" forgets to mention that he was a libertarian for just one year of his life when he ran on their presidential ticket. Well, why don't they mention that Ronald Reagan was a Democratic-leaning Republican. After all, Reagan was a Democrat for a large part of his life, same goes for NYC mayor Bloomberg. Seriously, how is one year failed election indicative of the man's party affiliation if he served in another party half of his life?
Why is he still running? Because his campaign is growing tramendeously. The polls don't say so, but the polls said Giuliani was the front runner and McCain was finished the day before NH primary (McCain won that). Ron Paul got 19% in Maine. That's double the 8% he got in NH and 10% he got in Iowa. If his numbers doubled in 3 weeks, why in the world would he not be running?Why is there no humor label attached to this post? Ron Paul got 3rd place in Maine (the latest election) and 2nd in Nevada. We should discuss Hackabee instead? Honestly, if CmdrTaco wants to pull jokes, why not put the humor label?
Yes, but the order appears to block PirateBay. It's not a tracker (unless they do that as well), but rather a site that offers content-keywords-based search for torrents (more precisely trackers) that are stored at other locations. Since they don't host the trackers themselves but only provide links to them (unless they do both, in which case, I am wrong), their content (being purely web content) can be gotten from the Google cache.
Quite the opposite. I am a mathematician. I am well-aware of the assumptions and implications of the scientific method. And you are 100% wrong about the society's contribution to innovation. All the "input" from society is a prerequisite for innovation to happen. Everyone "educated" is aware of it. Most "A students" are well-versed in it. Most of them never contribute anything original in their lives. Having the pre-requisite is not quite the same as being a vessel of discovery. I stand by my critique of NY Times' pro-socialist stand despite your insistance. Oh, and by the way, Blaise Pascal and Srinivasa Ramanujan were very original contributors to mathematics. Both of them (to various degrees) discovered most "known" mathematics on their own for themselves.