I'd have figured that the average person currently planning on sending the US into war also believes the first humans came to the Americas no more than 7,000 years ago, soon after the garden of eden (and then again after that first set was wiped out by a global flood). I doubt they spent too much time reading the peer-reviewed archeology / paleontology articles which explore issues of when humans came to the Americas.
The writer of your quoted materials isn't a standard flood geologist / creationist. However, the claims made are similar enough (6k or 12k years ago, giant quantities of salt water temporarily covered vast quantities of land), that evidence against a global flood also applies to his case. Evidence from the talk.origins flood faqs that doesn't support recent floods includes ice core, tree ring, lake bed sedimentation and desert pack rat nest samples. They don't show a layer of salt water 12,000 or any recent thousands of years ago.
But as I browse talk.origins, I see they specifically address your writer. Quoting from this article: "...their claim that hundreds of thousands of frozen carcasses have been found is simply incorrect. At most, only a few tens of frozen carcasses have been documented in all of Siberia and Alaska. In Canada, the frozen mammal material found consists of scraps of hide and muscle found attached to bones. All of these "frozen carcasses" that have been carefully examined show evidence of decomposition, scavenging, or both prior to be buried, e.g. Gutherie (1990). Also, the sediments in which these carcasses occur are clearly of noncatastrophic origin (Gutherie 1990, Lister and Bahn 1994, Pewe 1975, Uraintseva 1993)..." [bold added] Please note that the references are all articles you can find and read. And browsing talk.origins will find more links to mammoth articles...
When I saw Alexa's demo: exactly the analogy used
on
Web Page Entanglement
·
· Score: 2
This was five years ago (+/-), and "grooves from walkers on a campus" was given as an analogy by Brewster as he showed off the alpha version. I recall that people's choices were only one of six factors going into the calculations, so popularity wouldn't create a positive feedback loop of overly deep grooveness (my paraphrase).
A very good suggestion, and it takes very little time. Now, lets wait for the FBI to order every librarian to never answer any question about this issue...
FBI directive No-1-Amendment:
Any librarian or library employee, when asked a question that includes any one or more of these words or phrases, must answer with the phrase "42 Mu Skidoo" and then immediately turn around, walk into a private office, and call us at 1800ISpyUSA. Suspicious words include: FBI, Patriot, Act, Privacy, Bill (including "Bill Gates"), Rights, Amendment, '4th amendment', Search, Secure, Persons, Watch, McCarthy, East Germany, 'Your Papers']
"Librarians Everywhere": Karen Schneider (Technical Director of the Shenendehowa Public Library, Clifton, NY) has been chosen to accept this award on behalf of and as a representative of librarians around the world fighting for the public's right to free expression in cyberspace. These librarians have also been on the front-line working to prevent censorship of the Internet in libraries, privacy of check-out records, and equity of access to all information contained in the library. These librarians act from a strong core ethic.
Their individual actions show admirable bravery as they stand up for intellectual freedom and democracy though in many cases, their jobs are on the line.
(emphasis added). I don't doubt the EFF will do what it can to help librarians fight this. To help the EFF, donate.
and in general rules prevent non-profits from many types of lobbying. This is the main reason that churches usually don't advocate and name candidates from the pulpit- they could lose their non-profit status.
The EFF can educate legislators and encourage people to write to them, and I believe the EFF already does this. But the EFF probably isn't allowed to do too much more with the legislative branch- certainly they can't hand money to them.
Only a little bit in trouble
on
ECCp-109 Solved
·
· Score: 2
I don't specifically know what Certicom did, but generally for challenges like this (for example, the EFF's primes prizes), money is set aside ahead of time. As for Certicom itself, after laying off 70-80% of the company and closing down most US operations, it has a reasonable burn rate- it could go for a couple of years with its current revenue.
Last year while visiting Japan our Palm caught a bug. No problem, we thought, we'll just download the software again. But Palm wouldn't let us go to "palm.com." Instead it would always redirect to "palm.co.jp," and that site didn't have an English option. Have these auto-redirecting companies never heard of "tourists" and "business travelers"? Luckily for us the Palm software problem hit at the end of our trip-- we'd been using the guides and whatnot we'd downloaded into it throughout our visit.
from the SCotUS's visitors' guide: "...notetaking is not permitted..." as are also electronic devices, overcoats and hats, books and magazines, and inappropriate clothing. And buttons with slogans. All from this guide. One is, perhaps, allowed to sit with an attitude of reverential worship, basking in the glow of their fine arguments.
So you've seen people in the visitors' gallery, (not the press area), take notes? interesting if they realize that forbidding notes seems so, hmmmm what's the term... unconstitutional?
Well, IANAL and IANASCJ, and "violates copyright" is perhaps not exactly the right term, but I did want to call attention to barriers to getting this information quickly...
The SCotUS gives a monopoly to Alderson on recording the arguments *in any format,* you can't take notes from the public gallery from what I've read. Alderson's transcripts are eventually put up on the SCotUS web site, but it takes a while. Meanwhile, Alderson allows other companies like Lexis Nexis to publish the transcripts for a fee, but the others cannot put it up on the web. From Copyfight's discussions the transcription went from LexisNexis to ??? to Aaron.
I don't agree with this practice and think that the SCotUS should set up a non-profit to take care of transcriptions. Westlaw and others can still format materials for their own publications.
The Supreme Court evidently expects you to pay money to read it now, rather than waiting a few weeks/months. The SCofUS gives Alderson a SCotUS recording monopoly and first dibs on publishing. Based on other transcript prices, you would pay about $200. As discussed on Copyfight, a legal blog, Alderson doesn't allow purchasers to publish on the web. So while we can get next-day transcripts of late night TV shows, we're expected to wait weeks to read the arguments of our most influential legal employees. Thank you Aaron Swartz for putting this up.
I think these agencies require a minimum rage or sadistic tendency to join, or at least they don't screen for such. So I've seen from my own experiences (coming back into my own country, I should note), my friends' experiences and articles I've read.
As your case shows, they can choose not to care about how their behavior effects you, your time, or the time and money of American companies. They don't have to design their system and locations for pure intimidation, but they do.
One of my own experiences: driving back into the US from Canada- me, a green-card relative (from Canada) and a cousin from Germany. The border agent asks our nationalities. We tell him. His eyes begin to narrow as his face turns red, bright red- we evidently are ruining his day, by being multiple nationalities. He spends five minutes checking out our papers, getting redder by the minute. (Papers are perfect, by the way). He then spends five minutes lecturing us- ranting, really- on how he could deny us entry if our papers weren't in order. He focuses especially hard on the green card, how if it hadn't been applied for on time and correctly he could deny her entry for 10 years. All we can do is nod: to speak back might cause him to explode. He talks on and on... all this to tell us what could have happened. If this is how you treat a citizen and a resident...
Friends: they wouldn't allow a highly educated foreign husband of a US citizen friend come in for 2 years as a visitor after they'd gotten married, because "they could run off and go underground." (my paraphrase) Sure. The two of them'd be happy to make $6/hour (the jobs available for illegal immigrants) rather than $50. Foreign graduate students in my department often had troubles coming back into the US, and this was long before 9/11. The dept. had 20 applicants for every space available: their screening process was rigorous. But again, the border agencies had to treat the students as if they were lying about why they were entering the US.
Stories and articles: if you get pulled aside as you enter the US at airports for an additional check, they could choose to treat you politely. Give you a chair with cushions. Treat you with dignity. But they choose not to. Treating all incoming visitors with paperwork problems as if they were criminals- that's going to help foreign relationships. Don't they care that they're setting an example of how Americans will be treated abroad? Do unto others and all that?
So what I get out of these articles, including today's interesting followup Register article is that convenience trumps good research and good data. Even though the foundation of these negotiations- the rate set by the head librarian- was based on flawed data, we should still use it. It would be inconvenient to restart. Congress can't handle working on an issue twice. And I suppose Congress really can't handle the idea of designing laws that require regular checkups and reviews to see if the original assumptions hold up.(1) Annoying but not surprising.
At the start of all this, the librarian set the rates based on one Yahoo agreement. But Yahoo set these rates to shut out (kill off) smaller broadcasters. Marc Cuban admitted this, as was reported here. Yahoo admitted this to Congress- from this SJMercury article:
"David Mandelbrot, Yahoo's vice president of media and entertainment, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in May that the agreement had been misapplied ``to set excessive rates for an entire industry.''
I've read nothing that implies that the head librarian has admitted that he used a flawed data source. Not to mention the inherent flaw of using just ONE sample point. Sure, sometimes you can use a single point for a decision "J likes this movie, so I'll see it." But basing rates that can strangle an entire ongoing industry on one sample? With your one sample being an obvious statistical outlier?
Even in qualitative research you still make sure you have *representative* samples. But this shouldn't be qualitative. This is business. A sector of the economy, however new and small. For this you use quantitative data. For this you hire an econ graduate student and have them spend a couple of weeks gathering data... But ONE sample point??!?? For an entire industry??!?? (Visual of 10,000 Statistics lecturers snapping their chalk in disgust.)
(1) i.e. remember the debates on reporting requirements and sunset provisions in the PATRIOT Act? Congress seemed to say that asking Congress to revisit and rewrite (or simply extend) the law 2 years later was an unusual request: better to just make it indefinite. The Executive Branch acted as if requiring reviews, updates and progress reports was tantamount to not wanting the law at all. And even the Supreme Court isn't immune, which would be bad news for the Eldred case and Lessig. The Scotus questioning implied that even if the extension is *wrong*, negating the extension could cause chaos. Wouldn't want the public domain and the Constitution to get in the way of Convenience, would we?
Wish I could find an article about this, but not enough time right now... I understand you believe you saw this- so did I, until I read the newspaper article on memories. But here is a timeline that shows it to be unlikely...
The one WTC 1 film was caught by those 2 brothers- French filmmakers- documenting the life of a FDNY rookie. (Their documentary was shown on CBS months later- quite moving.) As each brother had hung out with different firefighters that day, they didn't even know if the other brother was alive for many hours after the attack/collapse. They didn't get back to the firehouse for hours, and at that point they were just waiting to see if their friends- the firefighters- were alive.
So at the time you think you saw this tape, the filmmakers hadn't yet come back to the firehouse, let alone go through their tapes to pull out that shot.
After the head librarian set the rates, it came out that the numbers he worked with came from Yahoo, which set that rate to shut out small broadcasters. It is as if an economist setting some tax rates for, say, software, used numbers straight from Microsoft, even though Microsoft can do monopoly pricing. Or if the economist was testing the average price of toys, and measured prices only on November 26 and December 26 (both traditionally big sales days in the US). In other words, the foundation of his report- the Yahoo data- was unreliable.
Did he ever admit that his model relied on abnormal data? I've seen nothing that shows that he re-ran any of his financial models. A good researcher admits when a data source is retroactively found to be inaccurate- the librarian is so far not acting as such. He needs to redo his calculations based on multiple data sources.
A policeman glances at you. Unless he already knows you, he doesn't have your name. Even if he knows you, unless he writes your name down he isn't going to remember much more than "I saw Fred earlier this week, perhaps near Crispy Cream? or was it Dunkin?"(1) He knows nothing about where you were or where you're going if you're out of his view.
A camera tapes you. If one tape-reviewer doesn't know who you are, he can ask around until he finds someone who does. The tape can be matched with other tapes in the area to see where you were and where you're going. The tape can be stored so that, a few years from now, the 'eventually will be better than 50% accurate' facial scanning system will identify you.
Not insignificant differences, especially if you live in a large town where the chances that any individual officer knows you is vanishingly small
(1) People rewrite a memory each time they play it: the stronger the emotion involved in a memory, the more likely it is to be inaccurate. A recent study asked people about their 9/11 memories: a huge % of people remembered watching the one tape of WTC North being hit on 9/11 itself, even though that tape didn't come out until the next day. Similar research occured with Challenger: a professor had students write down their memories on the day after, and then two years later asked them about those same memories. Less than 25% of students remembered most or all of that day correctly. Most had at least one major detail wrong. Except for the very rare person, we don't have anything like a video camera in our brain. Or if we do, the video camera is run by a 5 year old- never stays focused on one thing for very long, and easily distracted by bright, shiny or chocolately things.
When you write about the web being visual, what do you mean? It's a web composed of mediaglyphics and icons? Which only computers with optical sensors can process? And it only covers topics like card tricks, miming, photography, optical illusions and other topics which *must* be seen to be appreciated? (Or the opposite in the case of mimes?)
Haven't spent to much time on that web, myself. The web I use tends to be composed of information, usually in the form of little magnetic bits aligned in one direction or another. As I'm unable to access info directly from magnetic media, I prefer to get that info in the form of written words. But this web I use isn't inherently visual- I could get the same information aurally, just not as quickly. A SQL query on a database to retrieve a ticket price-- nothing inherently visual about that, except the purely personal aspect of me reading the results rather than hearing them.
But then until 1997 or so I did most of my web browsing in Lynx, and I'd be happy enough to be able to do so again. When I want a pure reading experience, all the "inherently visual" aspects of the web get in the way: text is quick to download, unlike all the gifs and flash bouncing advertisements. So I'm not unhappy about people pushing for ADA and accessability standards for web pages: what makes for better access for the blind also makes for an easier, faster, and less stupid-blinking-ads experience for me.
Here is the summary done by Zoe and staff. Late last month I heard a summary of this bill from a fair use expert. I don't have my notes with me. The big takeaway I got was that Zoe's bill *does* focus on consumer rights as "including, but not limited to, the ones listed in her bill" (my paraphrase). In other words, Zoe 'gets it' with respect to protecting consumers and Silicon Valley from the buggy-whip manufacturers down south.
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS OF "THE DIGITAL CHOICE AND FREEDOM ACT OF 2002"
SECTION 1: Designates the title as "The Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002."
SECTION 2: Lists factual findings.
SECTION 3: (a) Section (a) clarifies that America's historic principles of fair use - codified in section 107 of Title 17 - apply to analog and digital transmissions...
...Section (b) seeks to restore the balance by adding section 123 to Title 17. Section 123 allows lawful consumers to make backup copies of digital works, and to use digital works on preferred digital media devices. It further protects consumers by prohibiting non-negotiable "click-wrap" licenses that limit their rights and expectations...
SECTION 4: Today, when a consumer purchases a book, they are free to lend their copy to a friend or family member, or to sell their copy to a used books store. Section 4 allows consumers to do the same thing with digital content by extending the first sale doctrine...
SECTION 5:..."As the House Judiciary Report accompanying the DMCA stated: "[A]n individual [should] not be able to circumvent in order to gain unauthorized access to a work, but should be able to do so in order to make fair use of a work which he or she has acquired lawfully."
Section 5 reaffirms this intent, while also providing needed flexibility for the copyright owner. Under section 5, a copyright owner is free to employ technical measures to protect his or her work. However, the copyright owner must ensure that those measures allow lawful consumers to make non-infringing uses of the work... Since most consumers do not have the expertise needed to circumvent such protections, Section 5 permits tools if they are designed, produced and marketed to help consumers make non-infringing uses. Again, these tools are only permissible if the copyright owner fails to give consumers a choice by restricting legitimate uses without providing any solution for the legitimate user.
And the cover letter gets you through the HR gate
on
Resume Tips For Jobs
·
· Score: 2
The CL also is the key that gets your resume through the gate (HR) to the castle (hiring manager). HR often doesn't fully understand the technical reqs of a job: the CL explicitly links your skills to the reqs.
My CL's, which have helped get me interviews (no job, yet) are a form of T-resume.
My 1st paragraph is short: "saw your ad in X for a Y at Z corp. Here is how I match your requirements:"
Then I have a list of skills or projects, each one directly matching a requirement listed in the ad. I choose 5 (or 6 if they are short) from a set of 30 different descriptions I have used over time. Because these are pre-written, I can put together a decent cover letter in 20-30 minutes. The last paragraph is a standard closing paragraph.
Within 10 seconds of starting to read the CL, the reader knows several things:
1. I read the ad: this isn't a spam resume.
2. My CL (and, I hope they assume, resume) was adapted for them: I care about making it easy for them to see I'm qualified.
3. I'm qualified with regards to skills and background.
I don't add anything about how I'd be an asset or other general statements- those statements are too obvious and takes up room on the CL (and time in the reader's brain) Better to spend that time on capturing their attention.
Directemployers.com : companies tired of job sites
on
Honest Job Sites?
·
· Score: 2
Adding to the lists: directemployers.com. This site was set up by many companies which were tired of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to other job sites. Participating companies include Google, Sun, HP and more. Searches link directly to a company's web site.
The article reads as if using ECC for small devices is a novel concept. That isn't the case- Certicom is 15 years old, and has done ECC for handheld and embedded devices for at least 4-5 years. It has some solid encryption researchers (Scott Vanstone, for example) and a bundle of patents. Most Palms out today use Certicom's ECC, although newer versions are using RSA. And while Certicom is probably the best known company promoting ECC, I know of several other companies in Japan, Korea and Germany that sell their own implementations of ECC.
I'm reading comments that suggest Brin is wrong in criticising Lucas, for reasons that include "Brin must be jealous" (well, yes, *I'd* like 40 billion dollars- it doesn't mean I can't say bad things about Microsoft) or that it is rude for artists to criticise others in their field. I think Lucas needs to hear what Brin or other SF writers think of his work, and I'd argue that Brin and Lucas aren't in the same field at all...comparing the two:
Brin- science fiction writer, where writers:
must be familiar with current SF literature and scientific developments of the past 40 years.
Often send drafts out to other writers / scientists (many other SF writers are both- Benford, Vinge, Forward...) for criticism before the final version.
go to conventions where discussions and panels cover recent discoveries in science, technology and medicine.
know about and read the bleeding edge writers (because of things like the Nebula and Hugo Awards (read nominees here)) like modern space opera writer Clute, makes up his own plausible-sounding mathematical systems Greg Egan, Alistair Reynolds and, writing from the other side of the singularity, Charlie Stross.
Lucas- science fiction (though he won't admit it) movie / TV director, where directors:
can get away with plots and backstory that were already old 30 years ago in the SF literature
Don't want to admit to being SF, so don't read or seek criticism from other SF writers. (Anecdotal evidence- they rarely participate in regular SF conventions (instead going to Media Cons) and even more rarely hang out in the audience, listening and learning.) Leads to situations like Whelon thinking Firefly is original because it is gritty and doesn't have phasers.
Aren't aware of the state of the art in scientifically consistent (even if not plausible) technobabble. Apparently not aware of the evil overlord's rules and other long-known lists of cliches to avoid.
Don't have any idea about recent SF writers- the critics don't either, and so the movie/TV show will always be compared to one of "Wells, Verne, Bradbury, Star Trek, Star Wars, Bladerunner (or rarely PKDick) and The Matrix," all nice but they could use some higher standards. Leads to critics calling movies like Harris's Fatherland ("ohhhh, what if Hitler *won* WWII?") original, because they don't know that the SF subfield of alternate history is decades old.
But I doubt Lucas will ever hear Brin: Lucas seems to have surrounded himself with yesmen, who rarely pass on negative articles. (Plus, for him to listen would be evidence that his work and inspiration came in part from SF and the space opera of his youth.)
Each panel has spent months or years becoming experts on a topic. Replacing all or a majority of scientists on the panels means a significant loss of knowledge. If you fear what a group of scientists will say, then peer-review their results *and come up with better explanations of their findings!* Don't simply prevent the results from being published. I hope that the former members can take some time to publish a summary of the data and possible explanations for the data that they were seeing.
Can't remember the source right now (must be that I'm typing on my cellphone whilst driving at 100 mph right now...:). The study looked at the number of nodes (?term) used by a person's brain during a task. Driving took up about 70 nodes. Talking on the cell phone, about 50 nodes. Doing the two at the same time? (Simulated by a computer driving game) 60 nodes. We aren't as capable at multitasking as we think.
Commons doesn't automatically equal unlimited use or unlimited access. Nor does it mean "no limit to how much a single person can take..." I cannot think of a studied commons where this was the case. A commons like that couldn't last, where in comparison some maintained commons have lasted hundreds of years. In an English village commons, the villagers shared the responsibility of maintainance. In most local commons- local forests in Indonesia, for example- a limited number of people maintained and had access to the forest. The whole thing works if N people maintain and harvest X kg of wood annually. Problems come if a person does 1/100 of the work but harvests 1/50 of the wood yield.
You seem to be saying that the fact that spammers shift the costs away from themselves isn't that important, because the costs get accounted for somewhere. But the original design of the internet (I maintain my end, you maintain yours, it'll all work out) wasn't designed to account for spammers.
Slashdot Mirror
The writer of your quoted materials isn't a standard flood geologist / creationist. However, the claims made are similar enough (6k or 12k years ago, giant quantities of salt water temporarily covered vast quantities of land), that evidence against a global flood also applies to his case. Evidence from the talk.origins flood faqs that doesn't support recent floods includes ice core, tree ring, lake bed sedimentation and desert pack rat nest samples. They don't show a layer of salt water 12,000 or any recent thousands of years ago.
But as I browse talk.origins, I see they specifically address your writer. Quoting from this article: "...their claim that hundreds of thousands of frozen carcasses have been found is simply incorrect. At most, only a few tens of frozen carcasses have been documented in all of Siberia and Alaska. In Canada, the frozen mammal material found consists of scraps of hide and muscle found attached to bones. All of these "frozen carcasses" that have been carefully examined show evidence of decomposition, scavenging, or both prior to be buried, e.g. Gutherie (1990). Also, the sediments in which these carcasses occur are clearly of noncatastrophic origin (Gutherie 1990, Lister and Bahn 1994, Pewe 1975, Uraintseva 1993)..." [bold added] Please note that the references are all articles you can find and read. And browsing talk.origins will find more links to mammoth articles...
This was five years ago (+/-), and "grooves from walkers on a campus" was given as an analogy by Brewster as he showed off the alpha version. I recall that people's choices were only one of six factors going into the calculations, so popularity wouldn't create a positive feedback loop of overly deep grooveness (my paraphrase).
FBI directive No-1-Amendment:
The EFF can educate legislators and encourage people to write to them, and I believe the EFF already does this. But the EFF probably isn't allowed to do too much more with the legislative branch- certainly they can't hand money to them.
I don't specifically know what Certicom did, but generally for challenges like this (for example, the EFF's primes prizes), money is set aside ahead of time. As for Certicom itself, after laying off 70-80% of the company and closing down most US operations, it has a reasonable burn rate- it could go for a couple of years with its current revenue.
Last year while visiting Japan our Palm caught a bug. No problem, we thought, we'll just download the software again. But Palm wouldn't let us go to "palm.com." Instead it would always redirect to "palm.co.jp," and that site didn't have an English option. Have these auto-redirecting companies never heard of "tourists" and "business travelers"? Luckily for us the Palm software problem hit at the end of our trip-- we'd been using the guides and whatnot we'd downloaded into it throughout our visit.
One is, perhaps, allowed to sit with an attitude of reverential worship, basking in the glow of their fine arguments.
So you've seen people in the visitors' gallery, (not the press area), take notes? interesting if they realize that forbidding notes seems so, hmmmm what's the term... unconstitutional?
The SCotUS gives a monopoly to Alderson on recording the arguments *in any format,* you can't take notes from the public gallery from what I've read. Alderson's transcripts are eventually put up on the SCotUS web site, but it takes a while. Meanwhile, Alderson allows other companies like Lexis Nexis to publish the transcripts for a fee, but the others cannot put it up on the web. From Copyfight's discussions the transcription went from LexisNexis to ??? to Aaron.
I don't agree with this practice and think that the SCotUS should set up a non-profit to take care of transcriptions. Westlaw and others can still format materials for their own publications.
The Supreme Court evidently expects you to pay money to read it now, rather than waiting a few weeks/months. The SCofUS gives Alderson a SCotUS recording monopoly and first dibs on publishing. Based on other transcript prices, you would pay about $200. As discussed on Copyfight, a legal blog, Alderson doesn't allow purchasers to publish on the web. So while we can get next-day transcripts of late night TV shows, we're expected to wait weeks to read the arguments of our most influential legal employees. Thank you Aaron Swartz for putting this up.
As your case shows, they can choose not to care about how their behavior effects you, your time, or the time and money of American companies. They don't have to design their system and locations for pure intimidation, but they do.
One of my own experiences: driving back into the US from Canada- me, a green-card relative (from Canada) and a cousin from Germany. The border agent asks our nationalities. We tell him. His eyes begin to narrow as his face turns red, bright red- we evidently are ruining his day, by being multiple nationalities. He spends five minutes checking out our papers, getting redder by the minute. (Papers are perfect, by the way). He then spends five minutes lecturing us- ranting, really- on how he could deny us entry if our papers weren't in order. He focuses especially hard on the green card, how if it hadn't been applied for on time and correctly he could deny her entry for 10 years. All we can do is nod: to speak back might cause him to explode. He talks on and on... all this to tell us what could have happened. If this is how you treat a citizen and a resident...
Friends: they wouldn't allow a highly educated foreign husband of a US citizen friend come in for 2 years as a visitor after they'd gotten married, because "they could run off and go underground." (my paraphrase) Sure. The two of them'd be happy to make $6/hour (the jobs available for illegal immigrants) rather than $50. Foreign graduate students in my department often had troubles coming back into the US, and this was long before 9/11. The dept. had 20 applicants for every space available: their screening process was rigorous. But again, the border agencies had to treat the students as if they were lying about why they were entering the US.
Stories and articles: if you get pulled aside as you enter the US at airports for an additional check, they could choose to treat you politely. Give you a chair with cushions. Treat you with dignity. But they choose not to. Treating all incoming visitors with paperwork problems as if they were criminals- that's going to help foreign relationships. Don't they care that they're setting an example of how Americans will be treated abroad? Do unto others and all that?
At the start of all this, the librarian set the rates based on one Yahoo agreement. But Yahoo set these rates to shut out (kill off) smaller broadcasters. Marc Cuban admitted this, as was reported here. Yahoo admitted this to Congress- from
this SJMercury article:
I've read nothing that implies that the head librarian has admitted that he used a flawed data source. Not to mention the inherent flaw of using just ONE sample point. Sure, sometimes you can use a single point for a decision "J likes this movie, so I'll see it." But basing rates that can strangle an entire ongoing industry on one sample? With your one sample being an obvious statistical outlier?
Even in qualitative research you still make sure you have *representative* samples. But this shouldn't be qualitative. This is business. A sector of the economy, however new and small. For this you use quantitative data. For this you hire an econ graduate student and have them spend a couple of weeks gathering data... But ONE sample point??!?? For an entire industry??!?? (Visual of 10,000 Statistics lecturers snapping their chalk in disgust.)
(1) i.e. remember the debates on reporting requirements and sunset provisions in the PATRIOT Act? Congress seemed to say that asking Congress to revisit and rewrite (or simply extend) the law 2 years later was an unusual request: better to just make it indefinite. The Executive Branch acted as if requiring reviews, updates and progress reports was tantamount to not wanting the law at all. And even the Supreme Court isn't immune, which would be bad news for the Eldred case and Lessig. The Scotus questioning implied that even if the extension is *wrong*, negating the extension could cause chaos. Wouldn't want the public domain and the Constitution to get in the way of Convenience, would we?
The one WTC 1 film was caught by those 2 brothers- French filmmakers- documenting the life of a FDNY rookie. (Their documentary was shown on CBS months later- quite moving.) As each brother had hung out with different firefighters that day, they didn't even know if the other brother was alive for many hours after the attack/collapse. They didn't get back to the firehouse for hours, and at that point they were just waiting to see if their friends- the firefighters- were alive.
So at the time you think you saw this tape, the filmmakers hadn't yet come back to the firehouse, let alone go through their tapes to pull out that shot.
Did he ever admit that his model relied on abnormal data? I've seen nothing that shows that he re-ran any of his financial models. A good researcher admits when a data source is retroactively found to be inaccurate- the librarian is so far not acting as such. He needs to redo his calculations based on multiple data sources.
A camera tapes you. If one tape-reviewer doesn't know who you are, he can ask around until he finds someone who does. The tape can be matched with other tapes in the area to see where you were and where you're going. The tape can be stored so that, a few years from now, the 'eventually will be better than 50% accurate' facial scanning system will identify you.
Not insignificant differences, especially if you live in a large town where the chances that any individual officer knows you is vanishingly small
(1) People rewrite a memory each time they play it: the stronger the emotion involved in a memory, the more likely it is to be inaccurate. A recent study asked people about their 9/11 memories: a huge % of people remembered watching the one tape of WTC North being hit on 9/11 itself, even though that tape didn't come out until the next day. Similar research occured with Challenger: a professor had students write down their memories on the day after, and then two years later asked them about those same memories. Less than 25% of students remembered most or all of that day correctly. Most had at least one major detail wrong. Except for the very rare person, we don't have anything like a video camera in our brain. Or if we do, the video camera is run by a 5 year old- never stays focused on one thing for very long, and easily distracted by bright, shiny or chocolately things.
Haven't spent to much time on that web, myself. The web I use tends to be composed of information, usually in the form of little magnetic bits aligned in one direction or another. As I'm unable to access info directly from magnetic media, I prefer to get that info in the form of written words. But this web I use isn't inherently visual- I could get the same information aurally, just not as quickly. A SQL query on a database to retrieve a ticket price-- nothing inherently visual about that, except the purely personal aspect of me reading the results rather than hearing them.
But then until 1997 or so I did most of my web browsing in Lynx, and I'd be happy enough to be able to do so again. When I want a pure reading experience, all the "inherently visual" aspects of the web get in the way: text is quick to download, unlike all the gifs and flash bouncing advertisements. So I'm not unhappy about people pushing for ADA and accessability standards for web pages: what makes for better access for the blind also makes for an easier, faster, and less stupid-blinking-ads experience for me.
From the press release summary:(I've added the bold...)
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS OF "THE DIGITAL CHOICE AND FREEDOM ACT OF 2002"
SECTION 1: Designates the title as "The Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002."
SECTION 2: Lists factual findings.
SECTION 3: (a) Section (a) clarifies that America's historic principles of fair use - codified in section 107 of Title 17 - apply to analog and digital transmissions...
...Section (b) seeks to restore the balance by adding section 123 to Title 17. Section 123 allows lawful consumers to make backup copies of digital works, and to use digital works on preferred digital media devices. It further protects consumers by prohibiting non-negotiable "click-wrap" licenses that limit their rights and expectations...
SECTION 4: Today, when a consumer purchases a book, they are free to lend their copy to a friend or family member, or to sell their copy to a used books store. Section 4 allows consumers to do the same thing with digital content by extending the first sale doctrine...
SECTION 5: ..."As the House Judiciary Report accompanying the DMCA stated: "[A]n individual [should] not be able to circumvent in order to gain unauthorized access to a work, but should be able to do so in order to make fair use of a work which he or she has acquired lawfully."
Section 5 reaffirms this intent, while also providing needed flexibility for the copyright owner. Under section 5, a copyright owner is free to employ technical measures to protect his or her work. However, the copyright owner must ensure that those measures allow lawful consumers to make non-infringing uses of the work... Since most consumers do not have the expertise needed to circumvent such protections, Section 5 permits tools if they are designed, produced and marketed to help consumers make non-infringing uses. Again, these tools are only permissible if the copyright owner fails to give consumers a choice by restricting legitimate uses without providing any solution for the legitimate user.
My CL's, which have helped get me interviews (no job, yet) are a form of T-resume.
My 1st paragraph is short: "saw your ad in X for a Y at Z corp. Here is how I match your requirements:"
Then I have a list of skills or projects, each one directly matching a requirement listed in the ad. I choose 5 (or 6 if they are short) from a set of 30 different descriptions I have used over time. Because these are pre-written, I can put together a decent cover letter in 20-30 minutes. The last paragraph is a standard closing paragraph.
Within 10 seconds of starting to read the CL, the reader knows several things:
I don't add anything about how I'd be an asset or other general statements- those statements are too obvious and takes up room on the CL (and time in the reader's brain) Better to spend that time on capturing their attention.
Adding to the lists: directemployers.com. This site was set up by many companies which were tired of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to other job sites. Participating companies include Google, Sun, HP and more. Searches link directly to a company's web site.
The article reads as if using ECC for small devices is a novel concept. That isn't the case- Certicom is 15 years old, and has done ECC for handheld and embedded devices for at least 4-5 years. It has some solid encryption researchers (Scott Vanstone, for example) and a bundle of patents. Most Palms out today use Certicom's ECC, although newer versions are using RSA. And while Certicom is probably the best known company promoting ECC, I know of several other companies in Japan, Korea and Germany that sell their own implementations of ECC.
Brin- science fiction writer, where writers:
Lucas- science fiction (though he won't admit it) movie / TV director, where directors:
But I doubt Lucas will ever hear Brin: Lucas seems to have surrounded himself with yesmen, who rarely pass on negative articles. (Plus, for him to listen would be evidence that his work and inspiration came in part from SF and the space opera of his youth.)
Each panel has spent months or years becoming experts on a topic. Replacing all or a majority of scientists on the panels means a significant loss of knowledge. If you fear what a group of scientists will say, then peer-review their results *and come up with better explanations of their findings!* Don't simply prevent the results from being published. I hope that the former members can take some time to publish a summary of the data and possible explanations for the data that they were seeing.
Can't remember the source right now (must be that I'm typing on my cellphone whilst driving at 100 mph right now ...:). The study looked at the number of nodes (?term) used by a person's brain during a task. Driving took up about 70 nodes. Talking on the cell phone, about 50 nodes. Doing the two at the same time? (Simulated by a computer driving game) 60 nodes. We aren't as capable at multitasking as we think.
You seem to be saying that the fact that spammers shift the costs away from themselves isn't that important, because the costs get accounted for somewhere. But the original design of the internet (I maintain my end, you maintain yours, it'll all work out) wasn't designed to account for spammers.