You're right, sort of. The IRS says that dependents must file a return in most situations. However it is the responsibility of the parent or guardian to make sure the form gets filled out if the dependent cannot do it. 14 is the magic number, though. Under 14, the parents have the option to file the child's income as theirs (in most cases). Of course it's hard to tell from the article, but maybe the vouchers will only be "per household" or something.
OK. I looked it up. See S.1932
`SEC. 159. (Does anybody know how to link to THOMAS?) It looks like there will be a two-per-household limit. So they don't really seem to have the poorest of the poor in mind with this law anyway. Of course, the upper class (and technophiles) will probably already have their TV sets converted to digital anyway by the time 2009 comes around. Besides, it's probably not worth a silver-spooners time to file for a measly $40.
No matter what they decide, I have a real problem with the government telling the press what formats they can and cannot use. I know they've done it for... well forever, but I still don't like it. If they are allowed to tell TV stations they can't use analog, what's to keep them from telling newspapers that they can't use paper anymore? I know it sounds far fetched now, but what about in 50 years? I understand that it's ostensibly for the public good, but not using paper would also be for the public good.
Another thing that bothers me is that this will probably end up being a windfall for the DAC manufacturers. Now that they know people will get a $40 voucher, they can put an extra $40 in their pricing. As long as there is plenty of competition, this may not happen, but it's certainly easy to see that situation. I'd like to say the invisible hand of free market would reduce prices, but with the government forcing acceptance of the technology, all invisible hand theories are out the window.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you were saying they were still denying that looting, rape, and murder happened. I will not argue that the government was denying much of this at first. They were even denying that the city was underwater. They were denying just about everything when that idiot Brown was in charge. I was flabbergasted by the state of denial as early as 9/2 when vast reports started coming in through local and national media. Most of the officials were in denial simply because they hadn't heard reports. Others made the opposite mistake, parroting unsubstantiated reports that turned out to be false.
I'm still confused by your claim of censorship, though. If the stories were censored, how were we all aware of it back on 9/2? How can it be "all over the news" and censored? How can officials censor stories they hadn't even heard?
Also remember that some of the claims, like the riots in Baton Rouge (reported around 9/5), turned out to be bogus. Also the claims of rampant rape and beatings in the Astrodome (reported around 9/7) turned out to be waaaaay overblown. No murder. Two sexual assaults (not the 20 rapes a night figure claimed by some evacuee trying to get media attention). Plus some theft and a few fights. I have several friends who volunteered there, and none of them understood where the claims could have come from. They said police were everywhere.
I bring up Fox News, because I heard they had a tendency to slant things in Brown's favor. But like I said, I don't have cable, so I can't verify.
I don't believe in censorship, but I am curious: what would happen in a city if all of the reports show a calm, collected public, and systematically ignore (not deny -- but totally fail to mention) any and all crime. Hmmm.... I wonder what that would be like. It's a little Orwellian for my tastes, but it's an interesting proposition.
Not trying to flame; I'm honestly curious. Who in government is denying that rape, murder and looting happened in New Orleans following Katrina? I haven't heard anybody denying it, but if they have, I'd like to know so I don't vote for them. If stories were censored, what stories were they, and by whom were they censored? I have seen (local TV) and heard (NPR) several disturbing tales from the days following Katrina. None of them were censored except by the local (Houston) media who blurred some images and bleeped some expletives.
Please reply with details: stories, reporters, politicians, etc. I don't have cable, so maybe the denials are from Fox News or something.:-)
I doubt he's "set for life." After taxes, this isn't enough to make one "independently wealthy" or anything. Depending on how aggressively he invests, he'll probably be looking at around $70k a year. Considering it's just "sitting in a bank account" I doubt it will be more than $35k. That's *if* he doesn't blow it all on luxury items like a black Mini Cooper. (Though he could have meant an old used Mini, who knows).
If you look at many of the sites that have advertised on his page, I'm not surprised they are "short sighted." These aren't the kinds of advertisers with a real sense of history. You're probably right; the only thing that made this work was that it was news filler. Had the media not picked up on it, people would never have found the site in the first place, then advertisers would not have been interested.
Sorry for the late reply. It is disputable, but most English teachers and professors say the correct phrase is either "his job" or "her job." "His job" is still preferred by many (including our trolling friend). Some say the gender of the author should be used. Others say to do whatever flows best. Almost nobody suggests "he/she" anymore.
"Their" is a plural possessive adjective and should not (in my opinion) be used to refer to a singular antecedent, in this case "copyeditor." Some people have pressed for various neuter singular possessives. None of these have caught on, with the exception of singular they, common in colloquial English. As you point out, it has been common for quite some time.
From a stylistic standpoint, I think using a singular pronoun emphasizes the individuality of the antecedent. I picked feminine because I like women.:-)
I'll bet they are working on something like that. The NFL/NBA/MLB all think that copyright means they can keep people from telling others what happens. Have you heard this one before?
The following broadcast is a copyrighted production of the National Football League, intended for the private use of our audience. Any other use or re-transmission, or any pictures, descriptions or acocunts of the game, without the League's conset, are strictly prohibited.
Or something like that. So maybe the MPAA will do the same at the beginning of the movie. I would just laugh, though. Such statements do not constitute a contract, and they certainly don't accurately describe copyright law (yet). Just because they say they have all those rights doesn't meen they do. Check this out:
The Texans won their second game of the season on Sunday. They put together an impressive second quarter on both sides of the ball, creating turnovers on defense and special teams, and getting penetration on offense.
See? Perfectly legal. A description of a game is *not* a derivative work of a broadcast. I am just recounting what happened, and events themselves cannot be copyrighted. Now if I were to sell somebody a VHS I made of the game, they'd have every right to come after me. But they don't need a recorded threat for that to be true. Whether they can cancel my Super Bowl party has yet to be decided.
Hey, PayPal's not half as bad as Western Union's crappy BidPay "service." If you ever see an seller who refuses to use anything but BidPay, steer clear! These guys at BidPay were sitting there with the schmuck's bank account info and four different people all complaining about the same scam. What do they say? "We'll give you his/her contact information if you have a warrant." How do we get a warrant without any supporting information? The worst part is they wouldn't even refund their $9.50 service charge or whatever the hell it was. I should have known something was up when I found out BidPay doesn't accept MasterCard or Discover. (or should I say MasterCard and Discover don't accept them!)
Not to sound like a PayPal shill, but I've never had any problems with them. Heck, even eBay refunded part of the purchase price. I still am a little upset that they keep a "processing fee." What processing? Turned out the guy/lady sent me ripped/burned copies of the CDs eventually, so it wasn't a total loss. Just enough to keep me from pressing any further.
GATES: Your Internet ad was brought to my attention, but I can't figure out what, if anything, CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet does, so rather than risk competing with you, I've decided simply to buy you out.
...edited for brevity...
HOMER: I reluctantly accept your proposal!
GATES: Well everyone always does. Buy 'em out, boys!
Bill Gates thugs start trashing Homer's "office".
HOMER: Hey, what the hell's going on!
GATES: Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!
Bill Gates laughs maniacally. Homer and Marge huddle in the corner of the room as Bill's thugs continue trashing the office.
I think you mean "frant gunding." It's not a particularly good Spoonerism though.
Hopefully the farmboy won't be paying attention to the follow-up stories, and the momentum to get funding for US researchers will continue. Good luck with your research!
Length vs. content was brought up in the Wiki article. Basically the idea was that Wikipedia has inefficient (nonexistant) copyediting, and consequently it fits less information in more words. They called it "filler." Also brought up was the fact that WP and EB split up their articles in different manners, so there's really no way to be sure that comparable information, length, and errors are being measured, just because the articles are titled the same thing. Basically, this has about the same scientific weight as a Slashdot poll.
Back to what you said though, since more credentialed != better, you end up with an interesting situation with a "real" encyclopedia. You have experts that write on a topic, and they pass that on to a copyeditor who may or may not be an expert in the field. Her job is to make the article more efficient; she is the "better" writer you are talking about. Unfortunately, even the best editors make mistakes. (IANA encyclopedia author/editor, so anybody with more info please correct me.) Now with Wikipedia, you often end up with the opposite, where a non expert will get the stub started, and self-declared experts later fill in the blanks. So my guess is that even though the number of errors is comparable, they get introduced to the articles in different manners.
AnswerIs42 seems to have covered most of your concerns, but you might want to hear some locals actually talking about it. These questions all came up on the NPR broadcast this week. To hear NPR tell it, the local populace is excited about the tourism possibilities, reasoning that since these guys have shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars, they may have a few bucks to throw around on snowglobes and stuffed jackalopes. They were even excited that one of their streets (the one to the launch site) is going to get paved after decades of just being a gravel road. Now I'm sure there are some hold outs who aren't interested in this kind of tourism, but I'll bet that most people will welcome this influx of people and cash into their community.
*chuckle* I'm not paranoid about "them" tracing my vote. I just did it as a social experiment. What I *am* afraid of is living in a society where nobody dares switch little stubs of paper. I do think that anonymous voting is very important, as are tracable elections. I would think, and IANA Political Scientist, that the fear of retribution would do more to manipulate an election than whatever manipulations could come from not being able to track valid and invalid votes. I lived in Laredo where it was commonplace for the large sweatshop owners to threaten their employees if they did't vote a certain way.
The IEEE Spectrum has had some good articles on the issue of voting security. I'll check to see if I have an old copy laying around.
I think the whole point is that it's not part of a "lifestyle." It hinders the persons desired lifestyle. I think you're right about the whole labeling thing.
Wow. Thank you for the insight. I especially appreciate the explanation of the literal/implied meanings. Have you heard of Amelia Bedelia? It reminds me a bit of that. I just had no idea there was something like it in real life.
I shake my legs a lot, and I have to get my hands on an organ spec from time to time, but I'm not about to diagnose myself with a disorder. Good luck, and I'm glad you're having such success with your condition. I for one wouldn't mind having a good US history lecture every now and then.:-) Plus you could use your literal mindedness to help with word sense disambiguation research, or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
At first I just thought this was flame-bait. So I read the Wikipedia article on Asperger syndrome. I was surprised to find out that I apparently meet the DSM-IV definition. Hell, half of my friends meet either the DSM-IV criteria. Seeing as half of the requirements are basically not having other impairments, it's not surprising. The Gillberg criteria are a little more specific, but are no more useful. They seem to describe just about any Slashdotter, including orgelspieler
Let's see:
lack of desire to interact with peers (OK... depends on how you define "interact" and "peers")
lack of appreciation of social cues (any married man has this problem)
repetative adherence to a narrow interest (pipe organs)
superficially perfect expressive language (grammar facist)
formal, pedantic language (hey look, a dupe!)
misinterpretations of literal/implied meanings (jokes going over heads)
Ah good. Sorry to take it out of context. That's why I asked for the clarification.:) I too am a believer in the Bill of Rights, that's why the justification thing seemed so strange. So long as the government is not allowed to require justification for anonymity, I think we're OK. It's so funny, though. At the ballot box this year, I tried to ask the people around me in line to switch the little number thingy they give you for the voting machines. Nobody would do it. One guy started to, but his daughter talked him out of it.
I like your examples. I would like to add (as an extension of your point) that Wikipedia has the same right. If they don't want anonymous users to post articles, that's their right to decide.
Bingo! product placement is only offensive if it's out of place in the movie or game's "universe." In that regard, I find imaginary products -- or worse, blurred trademarks -- more distracting in movies or games that are supposed to be here and now. Or here in the past or future. One of my favorites was the "product placement" in Demolition Man. All restaurants have been replaced with Taco Bell. Except in the future it's a white linen tablecloth sort of place with little tiny morsels as the meal. It just wouldn't have been the same with an imaginary fast food chain.
Conversely, I would be very disappointed if they used HP printers on Battlestar Galactica, or if the Nokia phones had made their appearance in the "real" world part of the Matrix, or if the Nebuchadnezzar had a blue oval on the front.
And who can forget Dr. Evil and Starbucks or the Pepsi in Wayne's World? (I really do have better taste in movies than this post would imply)
I don't know about that. I think that people would just dismiss the "article" as delusional/paranoid/stupid whatever. They're even more likely to ignore it when the writer is anonymous. There are enough whack jobs with web sites that a lone whistleblower in Wikipedia is not likely to be noticed much less believed. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, but I'd use my own critical thinking skills to try to determine the validity of the claims. But I take the same grain of salt with every article on Wikipedia, press release on whitehouse.gov, entry in Encyclopedia Brittanica, paragraph in a textbook, or any other source of information.
I feel the same way about ACs on/. Rather than dismiss their posts out of hand, I prefer to judge posts on their merit, not their post status. I'd bet liars and nuts post as much on/. whether AC or not.
I think you're leaving out a whole bunch of other cases that warrant anonymity. Oppressive governments, families and bosses all spring to mind. There are plenty of knowledgable people living in situations where they would get in some degree of trouble for expressing their views or even visiting Wikipedia.
One last thing, I find it a little Orwellian that you think anonymity, hence privacy, needs to be "justified." Did you really mean to use that word? Did you just mean in relation to Wikipedia?
Correlation is not just vaporware. Correlation is an important part of scientific discoveries. When it comes to certain sciences like psychology, causation is very important, because people are looking to solve real world problems. But in other fields, scientists are happy just to find a correlation. You see correlation is a good tool for prediction. Take F=ma, for example. Now this law doesn't state that force causes acceleration, or that acceleration causes force. Rather, it states that they are correlated. Consequently, you can use one to predict the other. If you know the mass of something, you can predict the force it will take to accelerate it. You can also predict the force imparted by it's acceleration. You see the same thing in applied sciences like medicine and engineering. When certain things are correlated, the scientist uses the correlation to make a prediction.
So it is a bad idea to dismiss this latest discovery as vaporware. It might be very important, even if it doesn't show one thing causes the other. Correlation allows people to make informed hypotheses. It is a step towards proving causality. Without correlation discoveries, it would be a lot harder to know what causal relationships to look for.
Of course physiological correlations with emotions is nothing new. There are different theories about what causes which. It's been a long time since PSYC1301, but I remember that it's not something that everybody agrees on. Does fear cause a physical reaction (increased pulse, respiration, etc), or do these physical reactions get caused by something else, and then get interpreted as fear? Look up the James-Lange theory for more. Does lying *cause* changes in the physiological things meaured by a polygraph? Probably not. But it doesn't matter, because it's (arguably) still a good predictor of whether the person lied or not.
You're right about "when dealing with the public," though. That is exactly where the problem lies. People all too often think that by changing one part of the correlation, the other part will change, too. This does not happen. I heard one example where a study showed that teen pregnancy had a very strong correlation to the number of electronic devices in the household. Getting the wrong impression, several concerned parents went on shopping sprees at Best Buy, etc. Naturally this had no effect on teen pregnancy. It *did* succeed in making the correlation a lot weaker, though. Of course, even some scientists fall into this trap.
Slashdot Mirror
OK. I looked it up. See S.1932 `SEC. 159. (Does anybody know how to link to THOMAS?) It looks like there will be a two-per-household limit. So they don't really seem to have the poorest of the poor in mind with this law anyway. Of course, the upper class (and technophiles) will probably already have their TV sets converted to digital anyway by the time 2009 comes around. Besides, it's probably not worth a silver-spooners time to file for a measly $40.
No matter what they decide, I have a real problem with the government telling the press what formats they can and cannot use. I know they've done it for ... well forever, but I still don't like it. If they are allowed to tell TV stations they can't use analog, what's to keep them from telling newspapers that they can't use paper anymore? I know it sounds far fetched now, but what about in 50 years? I understand that it's ostensibly for the public good, but not using paper would also be for the public good.
Another thing that bothers me is that this will probably end up being a windfall for the DAC manufacturers. Now that they know people will get a $40 voucher, they can put an extra $40 in their pricing. As long as there is plenty of competition, this may not happen, but it's certainly easy to see that situation. I'd like to say the invisible hand of free market would reduce prices, but with the government forcing acceptance of the technology, all invisible hand theories are out the window.
I'm still confused by your claim of censorship, though. If the stories were censored, how were we all aware of it back on 9/2? How can it be "all over the news" and censored? How can officials censor stories they hadn't even heard?
Also remember that some of the claims, like the riots in Baton Rouge (reported around 9/5), turned out to be bogus. Also the claims of rampant rape and beatings in the Astrodome (reported around 9/7) turned out to be waaaaay overblown. No murder. Two sexual assaults (not the 20 rapes a night figure claimed by some evacuee trying to get media attention). Plus some theft and a few fights. I have several friends who volunteered there, and none of them understood where the claims could have come from. They said police were everywhere.
I bring up Fox News, because I heard they had a tendency to slant things in Brown's favor. But like I said, I don't have cable, so I can't verify.
I don't believe in censorship, but I am curious: what would happen in a city if all of the reports show a calm, collected public, and systematically ignore (not deny -- but totally fail to mention) any and all crime. Hmmm.... I wonder what that would be like. It's a little Orwellian for my tastes, but it's an interesting proposition.
Please reply with details: stories, reporters, politicians, etc. I don't have cable, so maybe the denials are from Fox News or something. :-)
If you look at many of the sites that have advertised on his page, I'm not surprised they are "short sighted." These aren't the kinds of advertisers with a real sense of history. You're probably right; the only thing that made this work was that it was news filler. Had the media not picked up on it, people would never have found the site in the first place, then advertisers would not have been interested.
"Their" is a plural possessive adjective and should not (in my opinion) be used to refer to a singular antecedent, in this case "copyeditor." Some people have pressed for various neuter singular possessives. None of these have caught on, with the exception of singular they, common in colloquial English. As you point out, it has been common for quite some time.
From a stylistic standpoint, I think using a singular pronoun emphasizes the individuality of the antecedent. I picked feminine because I like women. :-)
I just assumed that was what killed the angel.
Santa switched to Linux back in 2002. Red Hat, of course.
Not to sound like a PayPal shill, but I've never had any problems with them. Heck, even eBay refunded part of the purchase price. I still am a little upset that they keep a "processing fee." What processing? Turned out the guy/lady sent me ripped/burned copies of the CDs eventually, so it wasn't a total loss. Just enough to keep me from pressing any further.
HOMER: I reluctantly accept your proposal!
GATES: Well everyone always does. Buy 'em out, boys!
Bill Gates thugs start trashing Homer's "office".
HOMER: Hey, what the hell's going on!
GATES: Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!
Bill Gates laughs maniacally. Homer and Marge huddle in the corner of the room as Bill's thugs continue trashing the office.
Hopefully the farmboy won't be paying attention to the follow-up stories, and the momentum to get funding for US researchers will continue. Good luck with your research!
Back to what you said though, since more credentialed != better, you end up with an interesting situation with a "real" encyclopedia. You have experts that write on a topic, and they pass that on to a copyeditor who may or may not be an expert in the field. Her job is to make the article more efficient; she is the "better" writer you are talking about. Unfortunately, even the best editors make mistakes. (IANA encyclopedia author/editor, so anybody with more info please correct me.) Now with Wikipedia, you often end up with the opposite, where a non expert will get the stub started, and self-declared experts later fill in the blanks. So my guess is that even though the number of errors is comparable, they get introduced to the articles in different manners.
AnswerIs42 seems to have covered most of your concerns, but you might want to hear some locals actually talking about it. These questions all came up on the NPR broadcast this week. To hear NPR tell it, the local populace is excited about the tourism possibilities, reasoning that since these guys have shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars, they may have a few bucks to throw around on snowglobes and stuffed jackalopes. They were even excited that one of their streets (the one to the launch site) is going to get paved after decades of just being a gravel road. Now I'm sure there are some hold outs who aren't interested in this kind of tourism, but I'll bet that most people will welcome this influx of people and cash into their community.
The IEEE Spectrum has had some good articles on the issue of voting security. I'll check to see if I have an old copy laying around.
I think the whole point is that it's not part of a "lifestyle." It hinders the persons desired lifestyle. I think you're right about the whole labeling thing.
I shake my legs a lot, and I have to get my hands on an organ spec from time to time, but I'm not about to diagnose myself with a disorder. Good luck, and I'm glad you're having such success with your condition. I for one wouldn't mind having a good US history lecture every now and then. :-) Plus you could use your literal mindedness to help with word sense disambiguation research, or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Let's see:
Yup, that's me.
On this odd blog entry about Google, all of his trackback links are spam. ha ha.
I like your examples. I would like to add (as an extension of your point) that Wikipedia has the same right. If they don't want anonymous users to post articles, that's their right to decide.
Conversely, I would be very disappointed if they used HP printers on Battlestar Galactica, or if the Nokia phones had made their appearance in the "real" world part of the Matrix, or if the Nebuchadnezzar had a blue oval on the front.
And who can forget Dr. Evil and Starbucks or the Pepsi in Wayne's World? (I really do have better taste in movies than this post would imply)
I feel the same way about ACs on /. Rather than dismiss their posts out of hand, I prefer to judge posts on their merit, not their post status. I'd bet liars and nuts post as much on /. whether AC or not.
I think you're leaving out a whole bunch of other cases that warrant anonymity. Oppressive governments, families and bosses all spring to mind. There are plenty of knowledgable people living in situations where they would get in some degree of trouble for expressing their views or even visiting Wikipedia.
One last thing, I find it a little Orwellian that you think anonymity, hence privacy, needs to be "justified." Did you really mean to use that word? Did you just mean in relation to Wikipedia?
So it is a bad idea to dismiss this latest discovery as vaporware. It might be very important, even if it doesn't show one thing causes the other. Correlation allows people to make informed hypotheses. It is a step towards proving causality. Without correlation discoveries, it would be a lot harder to know what causal relationships to look for.
Of course physiological correlations with emotions is nothing new. There are different theories about what causes which. It's been a long time since PSYC1301, but I remember that it's not something that everybody agrees on. Does fear cause a physical reaction (increased pulse, respiration, etc), or do these physical reactions get caused by something else, and then get interpreted as fear? Look up the James-Lange theory for more. Does lying *cause* changes in the physiological things meaured by a polygraph? Probably not. But it doesn't matter, because it's (arguably) still a good predictor of whether the person lied or not.
You're right about "when dealing with the public," though. That is exactly where the problem lies. People all too often think that by changing one part of the correlation, the other part will change, too. This does not happen. I heard one example where a study showed that teen pregnancy had a very strong correlation to the number of electronic devices in the household. Getting the wrong impression, several concerned parents went on shopping sprees at Best Buy, etc. Naturally this had no effect on teen pregnancy. It *did* succeed in making the correlation a lot weaker, though. Of course, even some scientists fall into this trap.
nah. Here in Texas we use the electric chair!
e) Clark Kent himself becomes the bad guy due to some other type of "meteor rock."
Although, wasn't that a plotline for one of the movies, too?
A) terrorist
B) evildoer
C) liberal
D) anti-American
E) activist
F) heathen