"Microsoft's recent request that the folks behind the XO laptop redesign it to suit their needs"
From: OLPC To: Microsoft re: Redesign
Dear Microsoft,
Our design works for us. It's set. We won't change it. Would would, however, be willing to offer XP as an alternate operating system. You'll just need to redesign it to fit our needs.
"Zetix is a fabric so strong it will resist multiple car bomb blasts without breaking."
Unfortunately the hydraulic shock from the blast, entering primarily through places that can't be covered so you can breathe, will make the wearer into a "hairy bag of strawberry ice cream" (Catch 22). But at least the armor will be intact for the next poor sod to pick it up and put it on.
"Being able to withstand shoves and kicks is essential if robots are to truly be our buddies"
I'd prefer to think that if robots are to be our buddies they be made warm and soft and fuzzy and huggable because that's what we want to interact with. Unfortunately, the above indictment of human nature is probably more correct. Optimism is faith; pessimism is science.
Even worse, on a couple different levels: sooner or later suicide bombers are going to start buying robots. We, however, will develop autonomous anthropomorphic weapons delivery systems. Run, Sarah Conner.
'YouTube is increasingly a resource people consult for health information, including vaccination.'
And some people plan their day (and more) around their horoscope. Are we to blame the newspapers that print them for this?
Rather than try to protect the persistently ignorant from themselves (a futile endeavor that makes the 'authority' into an irrational bully and feeds the conspiracy theorists), better to take the high road and actively publicize more accurate sources such as the NIH/National Library of Medicine's Medline Plus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/) for laymen's language and PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez) for scientific abstracts.
The latter actually quotes some research that supports the stuff on YouTube, but it says specifically why it comes to that conclusion, as does the research that comes to the opposite conclusion (or none at all). It was, after all, NIH that called for a re-evaluation of the prior research, and further work and replications to be done, to more clearly come to an accurate conclusion if not consensus.
Yes, PubMed abstracts are often difficult to read. Those who want to understand them will educate themselves along the way. This is what the AIDS groups of the 80's and 90's did when the medical community was dragging its feet. This shamed the medical researchers into action, and the work done by the 'amateurs' contributed greatly to their progress, as well as forcing the media to admit it wasn't a "gay" disease. For those who want their answers easy rather than right, and emotionally laden like they're used to getting from the media, there's YouTube. Such people have no intention of learning anything. They seek only to justify the fear from ignorance with anything, no matter how ridiculous, that feeds their fear, in accordance with the principle of cognitive dissonance. It's just a damn shame they're using their children's lives as chips when they gamble on this.
That's a key word in the proposal. It'd be damn silly to put money into R&D that couldn't translate to another domain. The intent is to be able to use (frinstance) the Constellation lifters for both lunar and Mars flights. There was never any plan to ban people from Mars.
In the undergrad course I took on word processing, we learned both Word and WordPerfect. The reason was to point out that they both do the same things, but that the commands were different. Teaching only one leaves the student with the idea that, say ESC+SHIFT+F12 is how you do something, rather than them learning the concept that you do a certain thing, and the command to do it is arbitrary. This not only teaches word processing rather than either Word or WordPerfect operation, it makes it possible to migrate to other software, even in other operating systems. "Old" and "open source" are irrelevant to this. If they learn to perform the operation rather than push certain buttons, they can move on to other stuff after they leave and find work. The same argument goes for having both PCs and Macs (if not also *nix) for them to use, even if they're "obsolete" versions. I believe this has been called learning to run the computer rather than having the computer run you.
>> And where Apollo was a triumph in engineering, Hubble is a triumph in pure science.
> Well, except for that pesky myopia debacle.
Despite which its first light picture was better than any ground based scopes could manage. It showed a known star to be a binary, a fact which wasn't known prior. That's a pretty poor debacle compared to, say installing an accelerometer upside down and doing very expensive post hole digging with a dust collection satellite.
From TFA on MSNBC: "Users with a high tolerance for irritation can put off switching to genuine software indefinitely, but those who relent and buy a real copy of Windows can do so at reduced prices -- $119 for Windows Vista Home Premium, half the regular retail price."
So, pirate Vista, call M$ and confess your sins, and get your valid Vista for 50% off. If I had bought Vista for full price, and then saw that those who stole it were getting it now for half that, I'd consider handing out the torches and pitchforks to the peasants in preparation to storm the castle.
This is just more evidence that M$'s marketing people aren't evil, they're just dain bramaged. This could only be topped by their rationalization for it. Watch for that, it should be enormously entertaining.
"Oyegbola insists his Nigerian patent is legitimate and said he plans to file a copyright-infringement lawsuit against OLPC in an American court."
I hope he does too. If he can't tell the difference between a patent and copyright he needs to have his time and money wasted by coming over here and getting his case thrown out for being too stupid.
"One of these things is not like the others. See if you can guess which one."
MTV Takes On P2P By Making South Park Free Online
MTV takes on North Korea by Making South Park Free Online
MTV takes on water and sinks after hitting iceberg by Making South Park Free Online
MTV Makes South Park Free Online and some blogger happened to mention P2P and said nothing about "taking on" anything, while MTV did not even mention P2P.
A double layer misstatement by inclusions of/. buzz words. This is becoming all too common. Mod editor -1 for sleeping while approving articles.
Loss of dopamine creating cells is the basis of Parkinson's disease. That causes problems in complex actions in people, such as walking. When a "Parky" has trouble walking, you can give them a cane, not to lean on, but to hold in front of them and use as something to aim towards and thereby "steer" with, much as the cockroaches' antennae thingy. Many can then walk better. I think that's a wicked cool people hack.
FWIW, it works by pulling in processing from frontal lobe areas related to decision making and cognitive mapping (ie. the body' location and position in space) which don't rely as heavily on dopamine as does the motor areas. The latter requires dopamine to suppress unwanted movements and so "carve out" the wanted ones. Parkinson's is loss of the ability to suppress unwanted movements. Purposely "wanting" via decision making replaces in part the failing unconscious/automated "wanting" from the motor area. Cockroaches use their antennae to "decide" where to go. Using them to steer the bug makes perfect sense in this context.
Hormel used to have a fairly good attitude towards the use of their product name for junk email (and usenet articles). I contacted them about it, and asked for a graphic of their preference so I could put together a little web banner saying "this is spam (junk email; link to an example) and this is Spam(r) (with their graphic as a link to their web page). They granted the request and the person stated that they had no problem at all with it.
They are probably forced into this by the trademark laws which say that they have to protect their trademark against any commercial use by others or risk losing their trademark. They've done something similar to SpamCop, asking to have the use of the word referring to junk email use only lower case "s".
For that, and for the origin of the use of the term (which I believe is inaccurate; I don't think it was Joel Furr who made the first reference to the Python sketch in relation to multiple usenet posts), see the history section of the Wikipedia entry on spam at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic)
... with them searching your files for advertising keywords? They already do it with the search engine every time you use it. At least if they looked at your stuff and saw you solved, say the Theory of Everything, they'd know when you searched for "Nobel Prize" to give you ads for airline tickets to, and hotels in, Stockholm, rather than ads for buying a Nobel Prize on eBay.
If you want to stuff your pr0n or plans for a dirty bomb on their servers, an obscure compression technique (say the old Apple II ShrinkIt NuFX) after having converted your file to a UUencoded text file, will probably foil their attempts. A couple more such twists, and you'd foil the NSA much less Google.
> You do realize that the founding fathers also said how the checks and balances were to > be made right? > > They didn't give all out authority of one branch to interfere or "express oversight" > with the another. It has to be done within the context of the constitution. This is > something that makes me believe this would be overturned in future appeals.
Fine in theory, but executive ignoring the other branches' checking and balancing is a time honored tradition. Frinstance, when the supreme court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign nation and that the treaty with them had to be honored (ie. they were entitled to live on the land that the treaty stated), Andrew Jackson said "The chief justice has made his decision, let him enforce it." And he proceeded to round up as many Cherokee as he could and sent them on the Trail of Tears.
Nothing will come of this decision. Nothing came of the many previous ones. I'll bet most people don't even remember them.
That's the number equal to "half the human species" (the number of human species being one).
The stated number, 3.3 billion, is equal to half the human population.
The number reflects the number of people who have access to a telephone. Half the world's population does not have access to any telephone at all. Since many people do not have cell phones, the number probably reflects the fact that those that have cell phones tend to lose them and buy another, or upgrade, or own more than one for whatever the reasons.
I wonder how many of them are connected to a service. I know there are plenty out there that people carry and even pretend to use, but aren't connected.
I refuse to own one, and use them only under duress. I only carry one in the car on trips (said duress coming from my wife) in case I have a break down. It stays turned off unless such an incident occurs. Damn tiny buttons too close together. I push three buttons at a time with one of my big fingers.
What there is is a right of protection of privacy against UNSANCTIONED invasion by government, corporations, individuals, etc.
The issue then is whether the depth of investigation is sanctioned. The government being the body that determines "sanctioned", they can change it.
The JPL people have the right to walk out. Since those at JPL such as the Mars Rover team are academics employed by universities first, and working *AT* a NASA facility, they would lose nothing by doing so, but NASA would lose operation of several programs. NASA doesn't have the trained employess or contractors (or funding for the latter) to take over those operations. Since they're primarily science programs, it makes no sense to alienate the scientists running them.
It does not violate any "rights". It IS a very stupid move. It only makes sense if NASA is planning to take sensitive DoD project operations into JPL. If they do that, not assuring security would lead to fubars such as what's gone on at Los Alamos.
Get the DI version. This time give it a narration about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, and name it something like "Free Sex Money" so that everybody downloads it. Credit it to the Descovery Instantoot to make it obvious (at least to DI) where it was taken from. Add a text file to the torrent saying what was done and why.
Since it's making fun of an existing work (whether stolen or not) it's a parody, and so protected as free speech from both Harvard and DI.
The important point is not observation, it is interaction with another object, typically taken to mean measurement.
Prior to the expansion phase, the universe was confined to a size less than the Plank length. The entire universe was a single quantum phenomenon. All parts were in complete interaction. The expansion phase didn't change that. Observing/measuring isn't going to do diddly to the (previously) single quantum event we know as the universe.
I'd like to see the math on this one. It may contain the glaring goof that prevents us from merging gravity with the other forces.
That's what they call the brain's ability to change. By the time they complete a wiring diagram, it'll have changed. Also, knowing the wiring and connections is not enough. Knowing which connections are excitatory and which are inhibitory is necessary, and then tracking down loops of excitatory against excitatory resulting in inhibitory, etc. It's all fine and well to have a map, but that doesn't tell you squat about what anything does. A useful map would have to be dynamic, and the complexity of that is far more than just what they're considering for a wiring diagram.
After being hired as a professor for a small university, someone googled me. A collegue (actually the department gossip) came to me and said in low tones "You know, they found out you belong to the Subgenius thing.".
So I went and found the most outrageous "Subgenius thing" I could, a picture of me in a pink dress, chartruse fishnet hose, a black baseball cap and cowboy boots, playing guitar on stage. I printed out the picture and put it on my door.
If they ever bothered to try to dig up dirt on me after that, they never bothered me with it. But due to this and many other actions of theirs that arise from the attitude that makes them act this way, I quit. Just like 40% of their instructors.
If anyone ever bothered me with googled info again, I'd ask them how they knew if it was real or bogus stuff put together by someone else. And THEN I'd put it on my door. Or maybe pre-empt them and put it up before they could find it.
Solar time (ie. sun at zenith at noon) only happens along 24 specific lines of longitude, one for each time zone. Unless daylight savings time is applied, and then it doesn't match anywhere that it's applied for about half the year. That specific line of longitude shifts with the earth's procession and distance from the sun. The "time should match" argument has big holes.
Clock time being arbitrary, I think the whole world should run on one time standard. The US military uses GMT world wide and calls it Zulu. Whether the sun is at zenith at noon in Greenwich would make little if any difference to the world.
The USSR ran on Moscow time despite covering almost 180 degrees of longitude. It pissed some people off, but it was never one of their many serious problems.
If astronomers want to use corrected sidereal time, let them, and let them correct it however they want. It doesn't match solar time anyway.
The argument that navigation requires accurate time has been moot since GPS became available.
If the incident actually occurred it made squat difference to treatment. I'm under fairly constant care at two related VA facilities and my treatment wasn't affected by any such thing. Sounds like it's just IT's problem.
I've gone to VA hospitals since 1989. I got insurance when I started teaching and started going to local doctors and hospitals. Before a year was up I was going back to the VA. Treatment that the VA doesn't provide is treatment the vet didn't request. To be fair, at the VA you need to request harder than elsewhere because elsewhere is going to get money for more treatment and the VA gets nothing different for more or less treatment, except in the largest sense in requesting federal funding after stats show what's been done easily and what took too long to accomplish.
In 1989 it took months to get an appointment for most things. The excuse was "we don't have enough money". Now if it takes a week, you get the same excuse. If I need to see my primary care physician I can get in same day or next day depending on what time of day I call.
I am presently getting the best care I've received to date, this at the hospital the VA said had the lowest marks just 3 years ago.
Sorry you have a problem, IT. You can rest a bit easier knowing it didn't affect the providers.
1 Medical research is science because medical researchers are scientists. 2 Medicine is not research because doctors are not scientists. 3 What kind of fat? Some make you fat, some do the opposite. 4 Taubes is not a scientist and not qualified to accurately critique the research. 5 The statement about "all research" proving something other than what is generally accepted is proof that even if 4 were false, he didn't read the literature. 6 There is NO number six.
9 "I'm against all digits below and above the number 9. They, they all blasphemous." -- Early Cuyler
Slashdot Mirror
"Microsoft's recent request that the folks behind the XO laptop redesign it to suit their needs"
From: OLPC
To: Microsoft
re: Redesign
Dear Microsoft,
Our design works for us. It's set. We won't change it. Would would, however, be willing to offer XP as an alternate operating system. You'll just need to redesign it to fit our needs.
Sincerely,
The XO team
P.S.: Sorry to hear about the Classmate.
"Zetix is a fabric so strong it will resist multiple car bomb blasts without breaking."
Unfortunately the hydraulic shock from the blast, entering primarily through places that can't be covered so you can breathe, will make the wearer into a "hairy bag of strawberry ice cream" (Catch 22). But at least the armor will be intact for the next poor sod to pick it up and put it on.
"Being able to withstand shoves and kicks is essential if robots are to truly be our buddies"
I'd prefer to think that if robots are to be our buddies they be made warm and soft and fuzzy and huggable because that's what we want to interact with. Unfortunately, the above indictment of human nature is probably more correct. Optimism is faith; pessimism is science.
Even worse, on a couple different levels: sooner or later suicide bombers are going to start buying robots. We, however, will develop autonomous anthropomorphic weapons delivery systems. Run, Sarah Conner.
'YouTube is increasingly a resource people consult for health information, including vaccination.'
And some people plan their day (and more) around their horoscope. Are we to blame the newspapers that print them for this?
Rather than try to protect the persistently ignorant from themselves (a futile endeavor that makes the 'authority' into an irrational bully and feeds the conspiracy theorists), better to take the high road and actively publicize more accurate sources such as the NIH/National Library of Medicine's Medline Plus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/) for laymen's language and PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez) for scientific abstracts.
The latter actually quotes some research that supports the stuff on YouTube, but it says specifically why it comes to that conclusion, as does the research that comes to the opposite conclusion (or none at all). It was, after all, NIH that called for a re-evaluation of the prior research, and further work and replications to be done, to more clearly come to an accurate conclusion if not consensus.
Yes, PubMed abstracts are often difficult to read. Those who want to understand them will educate themselves along the way. This is what the AIDS groups of the 80's and 90's did when the medical community was dragging its feet. This shamed the medical researchers into action, and the work done by the 'amateurs' contributed greatly to their progress, as well as forcing the media to admit it wasn't a "gay" disease. For those who want their answers easy rather than right, and emotionally laden like they're used to getting from the media, there's YouTube. Such people have no intention of learning anything. They seek only to justify the fear from ignorance with anything, no matter how ridiculous, that feeds their fear, in accordance with the principle of cognitive dissonance. It's just a damn shame they're using their children's lives as chips when they gamble on this.
"What we need are a few good old-fashioned hangings." -- FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle, at the 2003 FTC Spam Conference.
That's a key word in the proposal. It'd be damn silly to put money into R&D that couldn't translate to another domain. The intent is to be able to use (frinstance) the Constellation lifters for both lunar and Mars flights. There was never any plan to ban people from Mars.
In the undergrad course I took on word processing, we learned both Word and WordPerfect. The reason was to point out that they both do the same things, but that the commands were different. Teaching only one leaves the student with the idea that, say ESC+SHIFT+F12 is how you do something, rather than them learning the concept that you do a certain thing, and the command to do it is arbitrary. This not only teaches word processing rather than either Word or WordPerfect operation, it makes it possible to migrate to other software, even in other operating systems. "Old" and "open source" are irrelevant to this. If they learn to perform the operation rather than push certain buttons, they can move on to other stuff after they leave and find work. The same argument goes for having both PCs and Macs (if not also *nix) for them to use, even if they're "obsolete" versions. I believe this has been called learning to run the computer rather than having the computer run you.
>> And where Apollo was a triumph in engineering, Hubble is a triumph in pure science.
> Well, except for that pesky myopia debacle.
Despite which its first light picture was better than any ground based scopes could manage. It showed a known star to be a binary, a fact which wasn't known prior. That's a pretty poor debacle compared to, say installing an accelerometer upside down and doing very expensive post hole digging with a dust collection satellite.
From TFA on MSNBC: "Users with a high tolerance for irritation can put off switching to genuine software indefinitely, but those who relent and buy a real copy of Windows can do so at reduced prices -- $119 for Windows Vista Home Premium, half the regular retail price."
So, pirate Vista, call M$ and confess your sins, and get your valid Vista for 50% off. If I had bought Vista for full price, and then saw that those who stole it were getting it now for half that, I'd consider handing out the torches and pitchforks to the peasants in preparation to storm the castle.
This is just more evidence that M$'s marketing people aren't evil, they're just dain bramaged. This could only be topped by their rationalization for it. Watch for that, it should be enormously entertaining.
"Oyegbola insists his Nigerian patent is legitimate and said he plans to file a copyright-infringement lawsuit against OLPC in an American court."
I hope he does too. If he can't tell the difference between a patent and copyright he needs to have his time and money wasted by coming over here and getting his case thrown out for being too stupid.
"One of these things is not like the others. See if you can guess which one."
/. buzz words. This is becoming all too common. Mod editor -1 for sleeping while approving articles.
MTV Takes On P2P By Making South Park Free Online
MTV takes on North Korea by Making South Park Free Online
MTV takes on water and sinks after hitting iceberg by Making South Park Free Online
MTV Makes South Park Free Online and some blogger happened to mention P2P and said nothing about "taking on" anything, while MTV did not even mention P2P.
A double layer misstatement by inclusions of
Loss of dopamine creating cells is the basis of Parkinson's disease. That causes problems in complex actions in people, such as walking. When a "Parky" has trouble walking, you can give them a cane, not to lean on, but to hold in front of them and use as something to aim towards and thereby "steer" with, much as the cockroaches' antennae thingy. Many can then walk better. I think that's a wicked cool people hack.
FWIW, it works by pulling in processing from frontal lobe areas related to decision making and cognitive mapping (ie. the body' location and position in space) which don't rely as heavily on dopamine as does the motor areas. The latter requires dopamine to suppress unwanted movements and so "carve out" the wanted ones. Parkinson's is loss of the ability to suppress unwanted movements. Purposely "wanting" via decision making replaces in part the failing unconscious/automated "wanting" from the motor area. Cockroaches use their antennae to "decide" where to go. Using them to steer the bug makes perfect sense in this context.
Hormel used to have a fairly good attitude towards the use of their product name for junk email (and usenet articles). I contacted them about it, and asked for a graphic of their preference so I could put together a little web banner saying "this is spam (junk email; link to an example) and this is Spam(r) (with their graphic as a link to their web page). They granted the request and the person stated that they had no problem at all with it.
They are probably forced into this by the trademark laws which say that they have to protect their trademark against any commercial use by others or risk losing their trademark. They've done something similar to SpamCop, asking to have the use of the word referring to junk email use only lower case "s".
For that, and for the origin of the use of the term (which I believe is inaccurate; I don't think it was Joel Furr who made the first reference to the Python sketch in relation to multiple usenet posts), see the history section of the Wikipedia entry on spam at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic)
... with them searching your files for advertising keywords? They already do it with the search engine every time you use it. At least if they looked at your stuff and saw you solved, say the Theory of Everything, they'd know when you searched for "Nobel Prize" to give you ads for airline tickets to, and hotels in, Stockholm, rather than ads for buying a Nobel Prize on eBay.
If you want to stuff your pr0n or plans for a dirty bomb on their servers, an obscure compression technique (say the old Apple II ShrinkIt NuFX) after having converted your file to a UUencoded text file, will probably foil their attempts. A couple more such twists, and you'd foil the NSA much less Google.
> You do realize that the founding fathers also said how the checks and balances were to
> be made right?
>
> They didn't give all out authority of one branch to interfere or "express oversight"
> with the another. It has to be done within the context of the constitution. This is
> something that makes me believe this would be overturned in future appeals.
Fine in theory, but executive ignoring the other branches' checking and balancing is a time honored tradition. Frinstance, when the supreme court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign nation and that the treaty with them had to be honored (ie. they were entitled to live on the land that the treaty stated), Andrew Jackson said "The chief justice has made his decision, let him enforce it." And he proceeded to round up as many Cherokee as he could and sent them on the Trail of Tears.
Nothing will come of this decision. Nothing came of the many previous ones. I'll bet most people don't even remember them.
That's the number equal to "half the human species" (the number of human species being one).
The stated number, 3.3 billion, is equal to half the human population.
The number reflects the number of people who have access to a telephone. Half the world's population does not have access to any telephone at all. Since many people do not have cell phones, the number probably reflects the fact that those that have cell phones tend to lose them and buy another, or upgrade, or own more than one for whatever the reasons.
I wonder how many of them are connected to a service. I know there are plenty out there that people carry and even pretend to use, but aren't connected.
I refuse to own one, and use them only under duress. I only carry one in the car on trips (said duress coming from my wife) in case I have a break down. It stays turned off unless such an incident occurs. Damn tiny buttons too close together. I push three buttons at a time with one of my big fingers.
What there is is a right of protection of privacy against UNSANCTIONED invasion by government, corporations, individuals, etc.
The issue then is whether the depth of investigation is sanctioned. The government being the body that determines "sanctioned", they can change it.
The JPL people have the right to walk out. Since those at JPL such as the Mars Rover team are academics employed by universities first, and working *AT* a NASA facility, they would lose nothing by doing so, but NASA would lose operation of several programs. NASA doesn't have the trained employess or contractors (or funding for the latter) to take over those operations. Since they're primarily science programs, it makes no sense to alienate the scientists running them.
It does not violate any "rights". It IS a very stupid move. It only makes sense if NASA is planning to take sensitive DoD project operations into JPL. If they do that, not assuring security would lead to fubars such as what's gone on at Los Alamos.
Get the DI version. This time give it a narration about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, and name it something like "Free Sex Money" so that everybody downloads it. Credit it to the Descovery Instantoot to make it obvious (at least to DI) where it was taken from. Add a text file to the torrent saying what was done and why.
Since it's making fun of an existing work (whether stolen or not) it's a parody, and so protected as free speech from both Harvard and DI.
The important point is not observation, it is interaction with another object, typically taken to mean measurement.
Prior to the expansion phase, the universe was confined to a size less than the Plank length. The entire universe was a single quantum phenomenon. All parts were in complete interaction. The expansion phase didn't change that. Observing/measuring isn't going to do diddly to the (previously) single quantum event we know as the universe.
I'd like to see the math on this one. It may contain the glaring goof that prevents us from merging gravity with the other forces.
That's what they call the brain's ability to change. By the time they complete a wiring diagram, it'll have changed. Also, knowing the wiring and connections is not enough. Knowing which connections are excitatory and which are inhibitory is necessary, and then tracking down loops of excitatory against excitatory resulting in inhibitory, etc. It's all fine and well to have a map, but that doesn't tell you squat about what anything does. A useful map would have to be dynamic, and the complexity of that is far more than just what they're considering for a wiring diagram.
... is to rub their noses in it.
After being hired as a professor for a small university, someone googled me. A collegue (actually the department gossip) came to me and said in low tones "You know, they found out you belong to the Subgenius thing.".
So I went and found the most outrageous "Subgenius thing" I could, a picture of me in a pink dress, chartruse fishnet hose, a black baseball cap and cowboy boots, playing guitar on stage. I printed out the picture and put it on my door.
If they ever bothered to try to dig up dirt on me after that, they never bothered me with it. But due to this and many other actions of theirs that arise from the attitude that makes them act this way, I quit. Just like 40% of their instructors.
If anyone ever bothered me with googled info again, I'd ask them how they knew if it was real or bogus stuff put together by someone else. And THEN I'd put it on my door. Or maybe pre-empt them and put it up before they could find it.
Leonard Peltier. Bogus evidence presented, real evidence suppressed.
Watch "Incident At Oglala".
That's only the first I know of, from 1976. Others may preceed it.
Solar time (ie. sun at zenith at noon) only happens along 24 specific lines of longitude, one for each time zone. Unless daylight savings time is applied, and then it doesn't match anywhere that it's applied for about half the year. That specific line of longitude shifts with the earth's procession and distance from the sun. The "time should match" argument has big holes.
Clock time being arbitrary, I think the whole world should run on one time standard. The US military uses GMT world wide and calls it Zulu. Whether the sun is at zenith at noon in Greenwich would make little if any difference to the world.
The USSR ran on Moscow time despite covering almost 180 degrees of longitude. It pissed some people off, but it was never one of their many serious problems.
If astronomers want to use corrected sidereal time, let them, and let them correct it however they want. It doesn't match solar time anyway.
The argument that navigation requires accurate time has been moot since GPS became available.
If the incident actually occurred it made squat difference to treatment. I'm under fairly constant care at two related VA facilities and my treatment wasn't affected by any such thing. Sounds like it's just IT's problem.
I've gone to VA hospitals since 1989. I got insurance when I started teaching and started going to local doctors and hospitals. Before a year was up I was going back to the VA. Treatment that the VA doesn't provide is treatment the vet didn't request. To be fair, at the VA you need to request harder than elsewhere because elsewhere is going to get money for more treatment and the VA gets nothing different for more or less treatment, except in the largest sense in requesting federal funding after stats show what's been done easily and what took too long to accomplish.
In 1989 it took months to get an appointment for most things. The excuse was "we don't have enough money". Now if it takes a week, you get the same excuse. If I need to see my primary care physician I can get in same day or next day depending on what time of day I call.
I am presently getting the best care I've received to date, this at the hospital the VA said had the lowest marks just 3 years ago.
Sorry you have a problem, IT. You can rest a bit easier knowing it didn't affect the providers.
1 Medical research is science because medical researchers are scientists.
2 Medicine is not research because doctors are not scientists.
3 What kind of fat? Some make you fat, some do the opposite.
4 Taubes is not a scientist and not qualified to accurately critique the research.
5 The statement about "all research" proving something other than what is generally accepted is proof that even if 4 were false, he didn't read the literature.
6 There is NO number six.
9 "I'm against all digits below and above the number 9. They, they all blasphemous." -- Early Cuyler