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  1. ESR's doing something related to NTP right now... on NTP's Fate Hinges On "Father Time" · · Score: 1

    At least accordingly to a comment of his on his latest blog entry.

    So I expect that the fate of NTP isn't so uncertain as all that, though whether Stenn himself will still be the lead is an open question.

  2. Re:And blocked in court in 3, 2, 1 . . . on As Big As Net Neutrality? FCC Kills State-Imposed Internet Monopolies · · Score: 1

    First, under the test used in both the majority and concurring opinions in Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League, the enacted legislation must have specifically named municipal entities in order to affect them; general wording (such as "any entity") doesn't work, and no executive action can change that.

    Second, Federal law supersedes state law precisely insofar as the Federal government is allowed to legislate in the area at all, and the majority opinion in Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League says Federal law can't make states allow their own municipalities to sell Internet.

  3. Re:One Word ... on As Big As Net Neutrality? FCC Kills State-Imposed Internet Monopolies · · Score: 1

    The Federal Government can no more authorize a municipality to provide Internet service outside its "imaginary boundaries" than it may authorize a municipality to enforce its city ordinances outside its "imaginary boundaries". The geographic scope of the powers of municipalities is an internal matter of the organization of the state government for the same reasons the existence of ans such powers is an internal matter of the organization of the state government.

  4. Re:One Word ... on As Big As Net Neutrality? FCC Kills State-Imposed Internet Monopolies · · Score: 1

    Title II is completely irrelevant to this action. Try again.

  5. Re:And blocked in court in 3, 2, 1 . . . on As Big As Net Neutrality? FCC Kills State-Imposed Internet Monopolies · · Score: 2

    Just like states are only part of the country?

    No, not "just like" that at all. There are three basic classes of entity in US constitutional law - the Federal Government, the states, and individual people. States are not organs of the Federal Government, but legally separate entities with independent rights and powers. On the other hand, municipalities are mere organs of the state.

  6. Re:One Word ... on As Big As Net Neutrality? FCC Kills State-Imposed Internet Monopolies · · Score: 4, Informative

    Given the 8-1 decision in Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League in 2004, it's essentially certain that this FCC action will be overturned by the courts. The FCC doesn't have a legal leg to stand on.

    In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that federal law did not and could not preempt a Missouri state law that prohibited municipalities from providing Internet service. Of the eight-member majority in that case, five (Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Scalia, and Thomas) are still on the court.

  7. And blocked in court in 3, 2, 1 . . . on As Big As Net Neutrality? FCC Kills State-Imposed Internet Monopolies · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As a constitutional matter, municipalities do not have any independent existence; they are organs of the state governments. Municipal governments only have whatever powers states choose to give them, and the federal government may not commandeer a state government. So if a state chooses to deny its municipalities the authority to sell Internet access (or sell it below a certain price), then no declaration from the FCC can give the municipality that power, nor require the state to give a municipality that power.

    So, all this vote means is the FCC majority has decided to waste a bunch of taxpayer dollars losing a lawsuit.

  8. Re:Win7 is the new XP on Microsoft Ends Mainstream Support For Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    The Win16 thing is hilarious given that you can run Win16 under WINE on 64-bit Linux. The processors are perfectly compatible with 16-bit protected mode code in 64-bit mode, it's just Windows that isn't.

  9. Few would welcome the loss of this variety . . . on What Language Will the World Speak In 2115? · · Score: 1

    . . . as long as they don't have to worry that it's their children who will be denied opportunities by being locked into a boutique language that gives them poorer access to employment, education, and even entertainment.

  10. Re:Environmental Factors? on 65% of Cancers Caused by Bad Luck, Not Genetics or Environment · · Score: 1

    When people ignorantly repeat a lie, it doesn't cease being a lie; it merely absolves the repeaters of being liars.

  11. Re:Environmental Factors? on 65% of Cancers Caused by Bad Luck, Not Genetics or Environment · · Score: 1

    The problem with sophistry is that Aristotle himself arrived at the following "facts" through strict reasoning (as opposed to, you know counting or measuring:

    (1) Women have fewer teeth than men

    That's a very common lie about Aristotle, but it's false. The exact quote from Aristotle (On the Parts of Animals: Book III) is:

    âMales have more teeth than females in the case of men, sheep, goats, and swine; in the case of other animals observations have not yet been made.â

    That is, Aristotle did not "reason" that women had fewer teeth than men; he depended on a mistaken observation. Much like every textbook between 1923 and 1956 misreported the number of human chromosomes as 48 instead of 46 because of mistaken observation.

    (Except, of course, more forgivable in Aristotle's case, because between tooth loss/decay and irregular rates of wisdom tooth formation, observations of human tooth number is a lot noisier than observations of human chromosome number. Lots and lots of textbooks managed to publish the 48 number right next to photographs clearly showing 46 chromosomes.)

  12. Re:No clue? on Google Should Be Broken Up, Say European MPs · · Score: 1

    The primary difference between the European Parliament and the Supreme Soviet is that the Supreme Soviet at least officially had legislative powers, while the European Parliament is explicitly only allowed to rubber-stamp decisions made by the European Commission.

  13. Re:If I was running counter-intelligence for the C on Alleged Satellite Photo Says Ukraine Shootdown of MH17 · · Score: 2

    I have no idea why a sane person would suspect Mossad.

    Oh, that's simple. The Russian tradition of conspiracy theory always blames the Jews. If you're the sort of person used to reading and believing conspiracy theories that justify Russia, it would take exceptional intellectual effort and insight to realize blaming the Jews makes no sense at all in a particular case.

  14. Huh? What trademark? on GNOME Project Seeks Donations For Trademark Battle With Groupon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thought they already changed the name of the desktop environment to MATE

  15. Re:Prison on As Prison Population Sinks, Jails Are a Steal · · Score: 1

    But incarceration rate per population doesn't tell you if the population is being over-incarcerated unless you know the crimes-worthy-of-incarceration rate. If America's rate of crime-worthy-of-incarceration is several times the European, then it's perfectly natural the US has a several-times-higher incarceration rate.

    Now, there are all sorts of difficulties in calculating such a rate. But it doesn't seem too unreasonable to guess that, however it's calculated, the general rate of crime-worthy-of-incarceration would correlate with the homicide rate. So, let's use the homicide rate as a normalizer. How many incarcerated persons does a country have per annual intentional homicide? Using the Wikipedia numbers for prisoners and annual intentional homicides, we get:

    Australia: 121
    Belgium: 68
    Bulgaria: 73
    Canada: 74
    Croatia: 90
    Czech Republic: 163
    Denmark: 91
    Estonia: 46
    Finland: 36
    France: 103
    Germany: 98
    Greece: 71
    Hungary: 142
    Iceland: 157
    Ireland: 74
    Israel: 138
    Italy: 111
    Japan: 170
    Latvia: 56
    Lithuania: 48
    Luxembourg: 164
    Netherlands: 91
    New Zealand: 203
    Norway: 33
    Poland: 175
    Portugal: 115
    Romania: 96
    Slovakia: 134
    Slovenia: 94
    South Korea: 109
    Spain: 180
    Sweden: 86
    Switzerland: 145
    Taiwan: 91
    UK: 147
    US: 147

    Thus, the US incarceration rate differential is within the normal variation seen in developed countries, after you account for the fact that the US has a lot more violent crime than other developed countries (as seen in its much higher homicide rate).

  16. Re:Behavioral economics on Psychology's Replication Battle · · Score: 1

    Yeah, you are going to be seriously confused if you think "rational actor" economics assumes a Straw Vulcan who won't buy the chocolate ice cream which he likes better if the vanilla is a cent cheaper. But the fault, dear AC, is not in the economics, but your own skull.

  17. Re:Price of using scientists as political pawns on Lawrence Krauss: Congress Is Trying To Defund Scientists At Energy Department · · Score: 1

    I don't think any serious person thinks that Galileo woke up one morning and said lets do politics.

    Oh, yes, every serious person thinks Galileo was being completely apolitical when he published a tract in the common language of the people of the Papal States that put quotes from the sovereign of the Papal States in the mouth of a character named Simpleton.

  18. Re:Possible factor on Malaysian Passenger Plane Reportedly Shot Down Over Ukraine · · Score: 2

    More likely the separatists were trigger happy and they had a handy missile.

    Like the Buk SAM system Russian state media reported they have?

  19. Re:Discovered? on How Vacuum Tubes, New Technology Might Save Moore's Law · · Score: 1

    The 1947 is about the transistor, not the vacuum tube. The Bardeen-Brattain-Shockley transistor was developed in 1947, and got the three the 1956 Nobel in physics.

  20. Re:Proprietary fonts on Unicode 7.0 Released, Supporting 23 New Scripts · · Score: 1

    Why do you think an official Unicode font would solve your mathematical symbol problem any more than the already-available STIX has failed to?

  21. Re:our greatest hopes on Why NASA's Budget "Victory" Is Anything But · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's no "safe place to sleep" on a planet unprotected from large asteroids, any more than there's a safe place to sleep in the caldera of an active volcano. There's merely hoping the statistically inevitable won't happen in your lifetime. Space can't wait.

  22. Re:Not illegal on Amazon Escalates Its Battle Against Publishers · · Score: 2

    Yes, it's one of the fundamental distinctions between the capitalist US and the corporatist EU in anti-trust law. In the US, you are expected to show the business practice harms consumers; in the EU, you merely show it hurts the profits of existing businesses.

    Thus, for example, fixing the price of books is an illegal conspiracy under US law, but mandated by law in Germany.

  23. We already had this happen back in '99 on Star Wars: Episode VII Cast Officially Announced · · Score: 5, Informative

    The EU has always been subject to being tossed out for the films. I mean, I still have a copy of the 1994 "A Guide to the Star Wars Universe". On pages xviii-xx, it has a timeline that establishes the following:

    1) C-3PO is 57 years older than Anakin Skywalker.
    2) Obi-Wan Kenobi is only five years older than Anakin Skywalker.
    3) The Clone Wars ended 17 years before Anakin became Darth Vader and Palpatine became Emperor.
    4) Anakin was in his mid-thirties when he fathered Luke & Leia.

    How could anybody have anything like a reasonable expectation that things would be different this time?

  24. Re:Why? on Lucasfilm Announces Break With Star Wars Expanded Universe · · Score: 1

    Why is simple enough. The Thrawn stuff is five years after Jedi, not thirty, so you'd have to re-cast the original trilogy roles (Luke, Leia, Han, Lando) in order to film them. And the twenty-five years of stuff in the EU timeline after Thrawn is full of really stupid stuff.

  25. Re:What does it mean to divest? on 93 Harvard Faculty Members Call On the University To Divest From Fossil Fuels · · Score: 1

    You call it "key", but it's pointless. Profits on the trade of stocks accrue to traders, not the underlying company. Making Exxon's stock price collapse with a "successful" divestment campaign can wreck any number of stock traders, pension boards, and mutual funds, but it does not remove a single cent from Exxon's bottom line.