Re: The Morality of Killing Babies
From: John W Redelfs [EMAIL PROTECTED] I confess that I do not know as much about atheism as an atheist does, or a least not as much that is correct. But neither do atheists know as much about religion as religious people do, at least not as much that is correct. Some things you cannot understand correctly from the outside looking in. In all advanced fields of learning including both science and religion, most of the knowledge can be learned only after learning the prerequisites. Without those prerequisites, a student must remain ignorant. I know some science, but not much beyond the level of my mathematics which only goes as far as high school algebra, geometry and trigonometry. However, I know the scriptures rather well compared with most. And one thing I can state with dead certainty: The scriptures cannot be correctly understood unless you believe them. Therefore, statements made about religion (scriptures) by atheists are almost always made from a position of bustling ignorance. A. I know more about 'scripture' than you do. Much more. B. I've read the bible, more times than you will for the entire rest of life. C. I've read more about the bible than you ever will. D. I Own more translations of the Bible than there are regulars on this list. E. You know nothing. You are a Fvcking idiot and a troll. - The so-called religious organizations which now lead the war against the teaching of evolution are nothing more, at bottom, than conspiracies of the inferior man against his betters. They mirror very accurately his congenital hatred of knowledge, his bitter enmity to the man who knows more than he does, and so gets more out of life . . . Such organizations, of course, must have leaders; there must be men in them whose ignorance and imbecility are measurably less abject than the ignorance and imbecility of the average. These super-Chandala often attain to a considerable power, especially in democratic states. Their followers trust them and look up to them; sometimes, when the pack is on the loose, it is necessary to conciliate them. But their puissance cannot conceal their incurable inferiority. They belong to the mob as surely as their dupes, and the thing that animates them is precisely the mob's hatred of superiority. Whatever lies above the level of their comprehension is of the devil. --H.L. Menken ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Morality of Killing Babies
From: John W Redelfs [EMAIL PROTECTED] My atheist father used to tell me that might makes right is a bad philosophy? Why? Unless there is a God who is against it, why would that philosophy be any better or worse than any other? Upon what do atheists base their morality? I've never been able to understand this. If selection of the species is determined by survival of the fittest, isn't might the ultimate good, biologically speaking? The strong are just doing nature a favor by rubbing out the weak, preferably before they have a chance to reproduce. Following this line of reasoning, would not killing babies be one of the moral things a person could do? That way only the babies of the strongest parents would be able to survive, and that would improve the bloodline, isn't that so? Look at people who tend to do those things today. Here's a hint: they mostly live in asia, tend to be extremely poor, and aren't particularly non-religious. Also look at the mid-east where certain religious factions take exquisite delight in blowing up busses filled with school children. However, in the modern west, doing such things tends to have a negative selective advantage. Male Lions, when they take over a pride, first kill every single Lion-cub from the previous alpha male. - If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in 43 had come immediately after the German Firm stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in 33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. --They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 --by Milton Mayer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Morality of Killing Babies
From: Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 6 Sep 2006 at 14:43, William T Goodall wrote: On 6 Sep 2006, at 2:31PM, Richard Baker wrote: Or: how does God Himself decide what is good and evil? Isn't He, at least, basically in the same position as us atheists? I think I have an advantage in not being imaginary. Uh-huh. So what do you follow, the laws of the land? Oops, you know where THOSE are descended from, right... The babalonians and the pre-christ romans. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: To the Back of the Bus!
From: Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Aug 24, 2006, at 11:07 AM, The Fool wrote: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060824/ NEWS01/60 8240332/1002/NEWS COUSHATTA -- Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children... Isn't this exactly what the right-wing wants? A return to the 1950s? 1300's. - A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. --Franklin D. Roosevelt ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
To the Back of the Bus!
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060824/NEWS01/60 8240332/1002/NEWS COUSHATTA -- Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children... You've got to be taught To hate and fear, You've got to be taught From year to year, It's got to be drummed In your dear little ear You've got to be carefully taught. You've got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade, You've got to be carefully taught. You've got to be taught before it's too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You've got to be carefully taught! -- Rodgers and Hammerstein ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Dzur
From: The Fool http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=yisbn=0765301482itm=1 Pub. Date: August 8, 2006 The Cycle Phoenix sinks into decay Haughty Dragon yearns to slay. Lyorn growls and lowers horn Tiassa dreams and plots are born. Hawk looks down from lofty flight Dzur stalks and blends with night. Issola strikes from courtly bow Tsalmoth maintains though none knows how. Vallista rends and then rebuilds Jhereg feeds on others' kills. Quiet Iorich won't forget Sly Chreotha weaves his net. Yendi coils and strikes, unseen Orca circles, hard and lean. Frightened Teckla hides in grass Jhegaala shifts as moments pass. Athyra rules minds' interplay Phoenix rise from ashes, gray. --Jhereg ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
From: Brother John [EMAIL PROTECTED] Richard Baker wrote: Brother John said: Where do you think our primitive cultures came from? They are all descended from higher cultures, descended from the drop outs and hippies of prior civilizations. Where did those higher cultures come from in the first place if not from earlier primitive cultures? From earlier higher cultures? I don't know. Written human history only goes back about 6,000 years. And the earliest records of literate Troll, Both Egyptian and Chinese history goes back about 8000 years. -- One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. ...[This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. that they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
-- From: Richard Baker [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool said: Troll, Both Egyptian and Chinese history goes back about 8000 years. I thought that the earliest known historical documents from Egypt were the Early Dynastic palettes, such as the famous Narmer palette, which shows the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt and which dates back to 3200BC. (There are some examples of Egyptian writing that are perhaps a few centuries older, but so far as I know none that shed any light on history.) The earliest Chinese writing that I know about are oracle bones from the late Shang period in the second millennium BC. Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. And in an act of shameless self-promotion, I present: http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue/archives/000147.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Prehistory
From: Charlie Bell On 30/07/2006, at 1:03 PM, The Fool wrote: Well if you mean writing. The sphynx is estimated as being 8000+ years ago. About 1-2000 years after the domestication of the cat. Domestication? ;) Parasitication? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RIP Aku
http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=170988 - Respect is fine, but actually I've always wanted to be feared. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: SciFi Channel sinks to all new low.
From: Gary Nunn [EMAIL PROTECTED] It's with a heavy heart that I must report the SciFi Channel has sunk to a new all time low. I can only guess that SciFi Channel felt as if they had to do one worse than Tremors: The Series, and Scare Tactics. [Deep sigh here] As I type this, the SciFi Channel is showing professional wrestling. Still not as vile and disgusting as Cartoon Network / Adult Swim showing Live Action movies and shows. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
The Kleptocrats new Tactic: Stop Enforcing the Estate Tax
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/business/23tax.html The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans, specifically those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts of their fortunes to their children and others. The administration plans to cut the jobs of 157 of the agency's 345 estate tax lawyers, plus 17 support personnel, in less than 70 days. Kevin Brown, an I.R.S. deputy commissioner, confirmed the cuts after The New York Times was given internal documents by people inside the I.R.S. who oppose them. We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. --Aesop ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: RFK Jr. interview
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] difficult for non-citizens to vote. One example that I just read was the opposition to a picture ID voting card, which requires proof of citizenship to vote. Requiring citizens to get an ID card from one single statewide office that is never open, to be able to vote is the essence of jim crow. Which is why that law has bee struct down, in both state and federal court. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Your Fascist Government at work
http://beta.earplug.cc/31525 Recent promotional shipments of the group's new album, YoYoYoYoYo, sent from the Montreal office of Big Dada's parent company Ninja Tune, arrived at their Los Angeles destinations with the CDs missing and Bibles in their stead, according to Ninja Tune employees. The apparent mail tampering, which label representatives suspect happened on the US Postal Service's watch, comes after a spate of promotional mail-outs arrived at US destinations in emptied envelopes (but with no additional contents included). - The thing that makes churchmen such dangerous citizens is their belief that they have a god directing them and that those who oppose them are opposing God. This is the secret origin of all the horrors. A man alone is subject to evil impulses enough, but a man and a god are a thousand times as dangerous. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregulars question about generic programming languages
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] Which language is _the simplest_ to program things like a binary file that packs things? Something like the specification of a graphic file could be like: 4 bytes for the header: AVFM 4 bytes (little endian) for the x dimension 4 bytes (little endian) for the y dimension (R,G,B) as 2 bytes big endian for each, from (x = 1, y = 1) to (x = 1, y = (max y)) etc. And the language would translate this as: byte[4] AVFM int4le maxx int4le maxy loop y = 1 to maxy loop x = 1 to maxx int2be R(x,y) int2be G(x,y) int2be B(x,y) end x end y C / C++. Looks like a simple structure or class'l do ya. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Roots of human family tree are shallow
From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Charlie Bell wrote: ... and second, the maths of evolutionary genetics is against you - while direct chromosomal inheritance goes down exponentially by generation, family tree goes up exponentially by generation (to within population limits). Or do you really think you had 2,147,483.648 *individual* ancestors 30 generations ago? No, of course not - family trees converge as well as diverge. At the generation where you'd expect me to have 128 ancestors, I have 122. (There was a first-cousin marriage at one point, and a second-cousin marriage at another. And on top of that, I know someone whose closest degree of relation to me is third cousin -- but he's also more closely related to me than a second cousin, because we have kinship in other ways, as well.) It's expected that the farther you go back in a geneologic tree, the more the branches beging overlapping. After all, at only 40 generations, you would have to have had more than a trillion ancestors. Assuming 25 years per generation, that would have been roughly 1000ya. Assumming there are 10^85 sub atomic particles in the entire universe, you would have more ancestors than that at approxamately 283 generations. At 25 years per generation (an exeptionally conservate estimate that is probably twice or larger than average historical average generation times), that generation of ancestors would have lived approxamately 7075 years ago (~5069 BCE). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Roots of human family tree are shallow
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Didn't native americans cross the land bridge circa 14,000 years ago, and remained relatively unconnected to other human populations until circa 1492? The key word is relatively. There is no true isolation. I'm not buying it. There was no common ancestor as of 2000 ya or even 3000 ya. I am - but I think 2000-3000 is too conservative. I would bet that _everybody_ descends from Gengis Khan, who lived less than 1000 ya. The math is too simple: just imagine that being a descendant of G-K is a disease, and that the rate of non-infected people gets squared at each generation. Treat semi-isolated groups with care, but once there is contact - a single outsider f---ing a tribe woman - the group will be doomed to be infected in a few generations. Genetically, I think it was that chinese people are about 8% decended from Khan. At least that is what the last thing I read about it said. I think your math is off. Otherwise there would be a much more even distribution of alleles. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Roots of human family tree are shallow
From: David Hobby [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Didn't native americans cross the land bridge circa 14,000 years ago, and remained relatively unconnected to other human populations until circa 1492? The key word is relatively. There is no true isolation. I'm not buying it. There was no common ancestor as of 2000 ya or even 3000 ya. I am - but I think 2000-3000 is too conservative. I would bet that _everybody_ descends from Gengis Khan, who lived less than 1000 ya. The math is too simple: just imagine that being a descendant of G-K is a disease, and that the rate of non-infected people gets squared at each generation. Treat semi-isolated groups with care, but once there is contact - a single outsider f---ing a tribe woman - the group will be doomed to be infected in a few generations. Alberto-- I'm with the Fool on this one. There are too many semi-isolated groups. The Americas were already isolated enough, I bet, so that there are a few completely full-blooded Indians around. Aboriginal peoples in Australia, and the New Guinea highlands were probably more isolated genetically. As I recall, New Guinea was split into a huge number of small tribes, each with a bit of genetic exchange with its neighbors. If it takes a few generations to infect a tribe, then it could still take a long time for new genes to diffuse inland. Genetically, I think it was that chinese people are about 8% decended from Khan. At least that is what the last thing I read about it said. The Fool-- You mean something like this quote: Research published in the American Journal of Human Genetics in 2003 suggested that 16 to 17 million men, most in Central Asia, shared a form of the Y chromosome that indicates a common ancestor. If so, note that it just looks at descent through the male line, since that's what you get by analyzing the Y chromosome. This does not count descent through females. At a guess, this increases the number of descendants a lot, say up to 95% of everyone of Eurasian descent. I think your math is off. Otherwise there would be a much more even distribution of alleles. No, there doesn't have to be much gene flow at all for everyone to have a recent common ancestor. This is the gist of Alberto's argument that one fvck can infect a tribe. All it takes is a little bit of gene flow. 1st generation children would have about 23 chromosomes from lone invader-parent. 2nd gen would have on average 11-12 chromosomes. 3rd gen would have on average 6 chromosomes. 4th gen would have on average 3 chromosomes. 5th gen would have on average 1-2 chromosomes. 6th gen would on average have 1 or less chromosomes. This ignores selection of course. At an average of 2 surviving children per generation, there would at generation 6 be about 64 decendents with aproximately 1 chromosome. The Lone Invader Parent had 46 chromosomes, as compared to about 64 individual surviving chomosomes in his descendents, most of them duplicates. (This ignores inbreeding, which is endemicic in certain populations, mostly arabic, that for reasons of maintaining property rights, marry first cousins). An Actual Inverse Square-Law as opposed to Alberto's Sqaure-Law. My objection is that there are a lot of groups which were sufficiently isolated so that there has not yet been any flow of outside genes into them to the point of saturation. Unless you want to postulate that there was more contact between groups than there is any solid evidence for... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Roots of human family tree are shallow
From: Ticia [EMAIL PROTECTED] delurking http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060701/ap_on_sc/brotherhood_of_man Whoever it was probably lived a few thousand years ago, somewhere in East Asia Taiwan, Malaysia and Siberia all are likely locations. He or she did nothing more remarkable than be born, live, have children and die. Yet this was the ancestor of every person now living on Earth the last person in history whose family tree branches out to touch all 6.5 billion people on the planet today. That means everybody on Earth descends from somebody who was around as recently as the reign of Tutankhamen, maybe even during the Golden Age of ancient Greece. There's even a chance that our last shared ancestor lived at the time of Christ. It's a mathematical certainty that that person existed, said Steve Olson, whose 2002 book Mapping Human History traces the history of the species since its origins in Africa more than 100,000 years ago. [...] Didn't native americans cross the land bridge circa 14,000 years ago, and remained relatively unconnected to other human populations until circa 1492? There are other similarly isolated populations I could point out. I'm not buying it. There was no common ancestor as of 2000 ya or even 3000 ya. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Fascist Censorship: Verizon's new Big Brother Router
Big Brother Verizon loves it's upstream censoring abilities: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/6/30/113944/311 The almost-proprietary customer management features of the TR-069-compliant router have the capability to provide unprecedented Verizon control of the customer's interactions with the network. It has the capability to put all kinds of authentication protocols in between the customer and the content, apps, services, and other Internet affordances the customer may want to access. It takes away customer control, and instead substitutes Verizon control. -- 'They should have defended themselves,' said Brock stubbornly. 'Then they wouldn't have been defenseless. That is a disgusting Marxist trick, being defenseless, when it gets serious.' --Defying Hitler ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Cell Phone Signal Excites Brain Near the Cell Phone
From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On I realize that you think that, but it raises an obvious question. What do you do when different studies produce different results? How do you think the results of the studies should be weighed against each other? First who funds the respective studies? OK, I'll agree that studies funded by someone with a clear financial interest, such as cell phone companies funding a cell phone safety study, are suspect. Studies funded by groups with political interests should also be taken with a grain of salt. Second, which study has a larger correlation? (Isn't that the n value?) I'm not sure what you are getting at here. If there isn't a correlation, then studies which show the largest correlations are the most wrong. Maybe you are talking about ones with the smallest backgrounds against which to measure results. Thus, looking at a subset of tumors that occur close to the cell phone's location would be a good idea. I think, I meant the p-value. Third, size and time scale of the study. That's fine Fouth, additional related studies that show simmilar / dissimmilar findings. In the case of cell phones, there are a number of studies, by various groups, most of which do not show an effect. Indeed, the variation is larger than what expects from statistics. Methodology comes into question. The Swedish study which reported a large effect involved self selection because it was a mailed survey. This opens up the possibility of generating a false positive. Other long term studies did not have this methodology and did not report such a result. From the FDA, we have: quote Several studies have been recently published on the risk of long term cell phone use ( 10 years) and brain cancer1. The results reported by Hardell et al. are not in agreement with results obtained in other long term studies. Also, the use of mailed questionnaire for exposure assessment and lack of adjustments for possible confounding factors makes the Hardell et al. study design significantly different from other studies. These facts along with the lack of an established mechanism of action and absence of supporting animal data make it difficult to interpret Hardell et al. findings. end quote I've seen discussions of the problems with the methodology on websites from European researches that confirm this, so it's not just the FDA. Another point is how directly one can relate the results of a study to the question at hand. For example, simply because a rat fed with an amount of X equal to X times it's body weight develops problems doesn't mean that a human who eats 0.001 X it's body weight of the same substance will also develop problems. Or, we cannot assume, because blood cells on a slide exposed to a flux density of X coagulate, that a flux density of X/A in the brain will cause any problems. I rember there being rat studies that showed the exact kind of effect as this study shows, but on rats. Doesn't that strengthen the results of this study? Also another study showed decreased sperm counts from hip cell phones: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/04/the_effect_of_porn_on_male_fer.ph p ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Cell Phone Signal Excites Brain Near the Cell Phone
What was that about cell-phone radiation not being able to penetrate the skull again? http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13550265/ Cell phone signal excites brainis it harmful? Repeated exposure could have possible effect on certain people, study finds WASHINGTON - Cell phone emissions excite the part of the brain cortex nearest to the phone, but it is not clear if these effects are harmful, Italian researchers reported Monday. Their study, published in the Annals of Neurology, adds to a growing body of research about mobile phones, their possible effects on the brain, and whether there is any link to cancer. About 730 million cell phones are expected to be sold this year, according to industry estimates, and nearly 2 billion people around the world already use them. Of these, more than 500 million use a type that emits electromagnetic fields known as Global System for Mobile communications or GSM radio phones. Their possible effects on the brain are controversial and not well understood. Dr. Paolo Rossini of Fatebenefratelli hospital in Milan and colleagues used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS to check brain function while people used these phones. They had 15 young male volunteers use a GSM 900 cell phone for 45 minutes. In 12 of the 15, the cells in the motor cortex adjacent to the cell phone showed excitability during phone use but returned to normal within an hour. The cortex is the outside layer of the brain and the motor cortex is known as the excitable area because magnetic stimulation has been shown to cause a muscle twitch. Mixed results The researchers stressed that they had not shown that using a cell phone is bad for the brain in any way, but people with conditions such as epilepsy, linked with brain cell excitability, could potentially be affected. It should be argued that long-lasting and repeated exposure to EMFs (electromagnetic frequencies) linked with intense use of cellular phones in daily life might be harmful or beneficial in brain-diseased subjects, they wrote. Further studies are needed to better circumstantiate these conditions and to provide safe rules for the use of this increasingly more widespread device. Medical studies on cell phone use have provided mixed results. Swedish researchers found last year that using cell phones over time can raise the risk of brain tumors. But a study by Japan's _four mobile telephone operators_ found no evidence that radio waves from the phones harmed cells or DNA. The Dutch Health Council analyzed several studies and found no evidence that radiation from mobile phones was harmful. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Cell Phone Signal Excites Brain Near the Cell Phone
-- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] It isn't whether it can penetrate it is how much penetrates, what is the energy of the penetrating em signal and where the penetration occurs. The study does not by the way prove that the em signal penetrates into the brain; the TMS signal may be affected by superficial stuff so the phone em signal may alter superficial processes such as blood flow. A study I posted to this list last year showed that red blood cells could probably clump together from cell phone radiation. Another study I posted showed damage to corneas from cell phone radiation, and one I posted a long time ago show a correlation between corneal cancers and cell phone radiation. So that is obviously something that has been repeatedly shown to occur. In any event the energy necessary to affect the electrical activity of neurons is very different than the energy necessary to induce cancer. The neurons are always exposed to chemical and em signals - EEGs are recordings of the electrical activity of the brain. These emission don't cause cancer or we would all have brain cancers (come to think of it there would be no we all in any sense if low level em caused cancer). Individual molecules would resonate fairly well (cell phone use similar frequencies to microwaves). Wheras Dan has argued that in agregate the temperature change is small to negliable, I have argued that individual molecules may become super-heated and changed/damaged OR possibly change/damage other molecules / strucures / DNA. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Cell Phone Signal Excites Brain Near the Cell Phone
From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Subject: Re: Cell Phone Signal Excites Brain Near the Cell Phone -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] It isn't whether it can penetrate it is how much penetrates, what is the energy of the penetrating em signal and where the penetration occurs. The study does not by the way prove that the em signal penetrates into the brain; the TMS signal may be affected by superficial stuff so the phone em signal may alter superficial processes such as blood flow. A study I posted to this list last year showed that red blood cells could probably clump together from cell phone radiation. Another study I posted showed damage to corneas from cell phone radiation, and one I posted a long time ago show a correlation between corneal cancers and cell phone radiation. So that is obviously something that has been repeatedly shown to occur. I realize that you think that, but it raises an obvious question. What do you do when different studies produce different results? How do you think the results of the studies should be weighed against each other? First who funds the respective studies? Second, which study has a larger correlation? (Isn't that the n value?) Third, size and time scale of the study. Fouth, additional related studies that show simmilar / dissimmilar findings. Individual molecules would resonate fairly well (cell phone use similar frequencies to microwaves). Wheras Dan has argued that in agregate the temperature change is small to negliable, I have argued that individual molecules may become super-heated and changed/damaged OR possibly change/damage other molecules / strucures / DNA. I'd very much appreciate it if you'd walk through the physics to show how this is done. In particular, it would be worth showing how one molecule in a constant EM field (a darn good approximation when considering sizes comprising tens of thousands of molecules) becomes superheated, while its companions don't. Not all molecules are stationary. Some are more fixed in place than others. Transient cells and fluids would probably be less likely to have such localized heating. Not all molecular bonds are at angles that resonate well with those frequencies. The reason microwave ovens use those particular frequencies is because they tend to resonate the bonds of water molecules in particular. By superheated, I don't mean millions of degrees, but enough of a differential to have an effect (which could in fact be positive in some cases). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Optical Illusion (really . . . not a gag)
From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] Click on the link and follow the instructions on the page. http://www.johnsadowski.com/big_spanish_castle.html Note: JavaScript must be on for this illusion to work! Java$hit apparently changes something about the image... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Liberal Media: W.Post: Republicans 'Principled', Democrats 'Unprincipled, Racist
Thankfully we have such a Liberal Media, to point out to us how principled republicans really are and how racist and unprinicpled democrats really are: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201 474_pf.html By Richard Morin (Moron) Miserly Republicans, Unprincipled Democrats Are Republicans stingy but principled while Democrats are generous but racist? Yes republiKKKlans are principled, like in how they block things like the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But you wont hear much about those principles in the liberal Media. I wouldn't put it quite so starkly, said Stanford University professor Shanto Iyengar. He would prefer to call Democrats less principled rather than bigoted, Like the less principled stances democrats ussually take which tend to help black people, poor people, and minorites. Like the increase to the minimum wage bills in the senate and house that are put forward _every_ year. But you wont hear much about those principles in the liberal Media. We all know why 95% of blacks and large majorities of other minorities voted for Kerry. Because democrats are just so bigoted and racist and unprincipled; Unlike those Stingy principled republiKKKlans. based on his analysis of data collected in a recent _online_ experiment that he conducted with The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com. We all know how accurate and scientific and representative these online polls are. As reported in this column a few weeks ago, the study found that people were less likely to give extended aid to black Hurricane Katrina victims than to white ones. The race penalty, on average, totaled about $1,000 per black victim. As Iyengar and his colleagues subsequently dug deeper into these data, another finding emerged: Republicans consistently gave less aid, and gave over a shorter period of time, to victims regardless of race. According to this online study: republicans hate to give to poor people and give $1000 less on average to a black person. Democrats and independents were far more generous; on average, they gave Katrina victims on average more than $1,500 a month, compared with $1,200 for Republicans, and for 13 months instead of nine. 19,500 vs 10,800. But for Democrats, race mattered -- and in a disturbing way. Overall, Democrats were willing to give whites about $1,500 more than they chose to give to a black or other minority. (Even with this race penalty, Democrats still were willing to give more to blacks than those principled Republicans.) Did some simple math (using the implied fact that they used a even distribution of races in this study): democrats were likely to give $2250 to whites and $750 to blacks. wheras republicans were likely to give less than $1700 to whites and $700 to blacks. These are estimates only and ignore other races etc. 1000 / 1500 = .6 -The numbers the article wants you to see 750 / 1500 = .5 -- my estimate numbers for dems 700 / 1200 = .588 - my estimate numbers for republicans Also no data on # of Dems vs. # of Inds vs. # of Thugs (the article seems to group dems and independents together, which is interesting as it would likely significantly skew the numbers for democrats to seem more racist). Also no data on racial makeup of participants. Democrats have a large proportion of minorities as members, and republicans are primarily white. Do Blacks and other minorities give more or less to Blacks and other minorities? See how easy it is to lie with statistics? Republicans are likely to be more stringent, both in terms of money and time, Iyengar said. However, their position is 'principled' in the sense that it stems from a strong belief in individualism (as opposed to handouts). Thus their responses to the assistance questions are relatively invariant across the different media conditions. Independents and Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to be affected by racial cues. Remember those principled ads about black welfare queens the Republicans ran in the 80's? To test the effects of race, participants in the study were asked to read a news article about Katrina victims. Some read a story featuring a white person. Some read identical stories -- except the victim was black, Asian or Hispanic. Then they were asked how much assistance they think the government should give to help hurricane victims. Approximately 2,300 people participated in the study. Iyengar said he's not surprised by the latest findings: This pattern of results matches perfectly an earlier study I did on race and crime with Franklin D. Gilliam Jr. of UCLA. Republicans supported tough treatment of criminals no matter what they encountered in the news. Others were more elastic in their position, coming to support more harsh measures when the criminal suspect they encountered was non-white. So if democrats are so
Re: Brin: BASIC
As for fibbonacci sequences a more correct function would be along these lines: (c) 2006 The Fool ' where fib(0) = 0 Function FibNum(Fib As Long) As Long If (Fib 0) Then FibNum = FibPos((Fib - 1)) Else ' FibNum = FibNeg(Fib + 1) End If End Function Function FibPos(Fib As Long) As Long If (Fib 2) Then FibPos = 1 Else ' FibPos = (FibPos(Fib - 2) + FibPos(Fib - 1)) End If End Function Function FibNeg(Fib As Long) As Long If (Fib 1) Then FibNeg = 1 Else ' FibNeg = (FibNeg(Fib + 2) - FibNeg(Fib + 1)) End If End Function A poster at your weblog got it wrong: -- ...34/-21/13/-8/5/-3/2/-1/1/0/1/1/2/3/5/8/13/21/34... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Brin: BASIC
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2006/05/age-of-miracles-wonder.html
Only now it's insufficient. We'd like to make pixels move around on a
simulated CRT screen. And we DON'T want to do it using high-level
complex stuff like VISUAL BASIC. Old fashioned line coding, iterating
to move pixels according to simple algorithms. Is that too much to ask?
(Apparently so. In fact, the number of peopls who (last time) simply
could not even grasp what I was looking for, and kept recommending
complex, high-level stuff, shows what a mental block this is.)
--
I don't get it. QBasic came standard with MS-DOS 5-7. It runs in dos
mode (even in all versions of windows). It does every single thing you
keep asking for, but you keep saying it is incomprehensible. I just
don't get it.
So I just opened it right now and typed:
screen 12
line(0,0)-(10,10)
and hit run.
And guess what happened?
It drew a line from (0,0) to (10,10)
Simple. No high level stuff whatsoever. It Even does line numbers.
When you use the basic PRINT command it, gosh, prints to the screen. I
just dont get it.
When I open up some BASIC programs I wrote in the seventh grade like
this, they just worked:
RANDOMIZE TIMER
SCREEN 12
CLS
CLEAR
WHILE XCBVB 12
'APOCOS1:
X1 = INT(RND * 640 + 1)
Y1 = INT(RND * 480 + 1)
FOR V = 1 TO (INT(RND * 25 + 5))
GOTO A
C:
C1 = INT(RND * 15)
RETURN
A:
'FOR 3D Z1 = INT(RND * 400 + 1)
A1 = INT(RND * 20 + 20)
FOR I = 1 TO A1
GOSUB C
CIRCLE (X1, Y1), I, C1
PAINT (X1, Y1), 0, C1 + 1
NEXT I
NEXT V
WEND
Nothing there that wasn't in apple basic or gwbasic except the line
numbers. Real simple.
Or how about this one (being aware of line wrap around issues from
pasting into an email body):
CLS
CLEAR
RANDOMIZE TIMER
SCREEN 12
WINDOW SCREEN (-200, -200)-(440, 280)
Q: INPUT rotate in XZ or YZ {X,Y}; IN$
DIM R(3, 3)
DIM Z(3, 3)
IF IN$ = X THEN GOTO 1
IF IN$ = Y THEN GOTO 2
GOTO Q
1 :
X = INT(RND * 100)
Q = INT(RND * 2 + 1)
IF Q = 2 THEN X = -X
Y = INT(RND * 100)
Q = INT(RND * 2 + 1)
IF Q = 2 THEN Y = -Y
X1 = INT(RND * 100)
Q = INT(RND * 2 + 1)
IF Q = 2 THEN X1 = -X1
Y1 = INT(RND * 100)
Q = INT(RND * 2 + 1)
IF Q = 2 THEN Y1 = -Y1
Z = INT(RND * 100)
Q = INT(RND * 2 + 1)
IF Q = 2 THEN Z = -Z
Z1 = INT(RND * 100)
Q = INT(RND * 2 + 1)
IF Q = 2 THEN Z1 = -Z1
'CLEAR
X5 = INT(RND * 100)
Q = INT(RND * 2 + 1)
IF Q = 2 THEN X5 = -X5
Y5 = INT(RND * 100)
Q = INT(RND * 2 + 1)
IF Q = 2 THEN Y5 = -Y5
Z5 = INT(RND * 100)
Q = INT(RND * 2 + 1)
IF Q = 2 THEN Z5 = -Z5
FOR I = 0 TO 6.3 STEP .002
C = INT(RND * 15 + 1)
LINE (Z(1, 1) + Z(3, 1) / 10, Z(2, 1) + Z(3, 1)
/ 2.5)-(Z(1, 2) + Z(3, 2) / 10, Z(2, 2) + Z(3, 2) / 2.5), 0
LINE (Z(1, 1) + Z(3, 1) / 10, Z(2, 1) + Z(3, 1)
/ 2.5)-(Z(1, 3) + Z(3, 3) / 10, Z(2, 3) + Z(3, 3) / 2.5), 0
LINE (Z(1, 3) + Z(3, 3) / 10, Z(2, 3) + Z(3, 3)
/ 2.5)-(Z(1, 2) + Z(3, 2) / 10, Z(2, 2) + Z(3, 2) / 2.5), 0
R(1, 1) = (COS(I))
R(1, 2) = (COS(I))
R(1, 3) = (-SIN(I))
R(2, 1) = (COS(I))
R(2, 2) = (SIN(I))
R(2, 3) = (COS(I))
R(3, 1) = (SIN(I))
R(3, 2) = (COS(I))
R(3, 3) = (COS(I))
Z(1, 1) = (R(1, 1) * X + R(1, 2) * Y + R(1, 3) * Z)
Z(1, 2) = (R(1, 1) * X1 + R(1, 2) * Y1 + R(1, 3) *
Z1)
Z(2, 1) = (R(2, 1) * X + R(2, 2) * Y + R(2, 3) * Z)
Z(2, 2) = (R(2, 1) * X1 + R(2, 2) * Y1 + R(2, 3) *
Z1)
Z(3, 1) = (R(3, 1) * X + R(3, 2) * Y + R(3, 3) * Z)
Z(3, 2) = (R(3, 1) * X1 + R(3, 2) * Y1 + R(3, 3) *
Z1)
Z(1, 3) = (R(1, 1) * X5 + R(1, 2) * Y5 + R(1, 3) *
Z5)
Z(2, 3) = (R(1, 1) * X5 + R(1, 2) * Y5 + R(1, 3) *
Z5)
Z(3, 3) = (R(1, 1) * X5 + R(1, 2) * Y5 + R(1, 3) *
Z5)
'IF ABS(SQR(Z(3, 1) ^ 2 + Z(3, 2) ^ 2)) 50 THEN LET C = 13 ELSE C = 4
LINE (Z(1, 1) + Z(3, 1) / 10, Z(2, 1) + Z(3, 1)
/ 2.5)-(Z(1, 2) + Z(3, 2) / 10, Z(2, 2) + Z(3, 2) / 2.5), C
LINE (Z(1, 1) + Z(3, 1) / 10, Z(2, 1) + Z(3, 1)
/ 2.5)-(Z(1, 3) + Z(3, 3) / 10, Z(2, 3) + Z(3, 3) / 2.5), C
LINE (Z(1, 3) + Z(3, 3) / 10, Z(2, 3) + Z(3, 3)
/ 2.5)-(Z(1, 2) + Z(3, 2) / 10, Z(2, 2) + Z(3, 2) / 2.5), C
LET A = (SQR((Z(1, 2) - Z(1, 1)) ^ 2 + (Z(2, 2) - Z(2, 1)) ^ 2 + (Z(3,
2) - Z(3, 1)) ^ 2))
LET B = (SQR((Z(1, 3) - Z(1, 1)) ^ 2 + (Z(2, 3) - Z(2, 1)) ^ 2 + (Z(3,
3) - Z(3, 1)) ^ 2))
LET C = (SQR((Z(1, 2) - Z(1, 3)) ^ 2 + (Z(2, 2) - Z(2, 3)) ^ 2 + (Z(3,
2) - Z(3, 3)) ^ 2))
VIEW PRINT 27 TO 30
LOCATE 27, 1
PRINT A
PRINT B
PRINT C
NEXT I
GOTO Q
2 :
X = INT(RND * 100)
Y = INT(RND * 100)
X1 = INT(RND *
Re: Brin: BASIC
From: Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] As to the BASIC question: I'll shoot you a counter-question: Why? snip JavaSh!t and high level programming Dr. Brin isn't interested in that high level stuff. Too complicated. Not simple enough. Don't bring it up again or he'll start getting, really, really, really whiny (again). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Myers-Briggs
From: Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] On May 5, 2006, at 1:27 PM, The Fool wrote: From: Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] On May 5, 2006, at 11:52 AM, The Fool wrote: From: Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ok, here are a few sites for those curious: And for the skeptical (I have only skimmed this, as it's time to head out): http://skepdic.com/myersb.html MBTI is psuedo-science at its finest. OK. You're opinion. I'm OK with that. Even the slightest shred of data as to why you feel this way might have elevated your smear to the level of seriousness, but I'll just take at face value: The Fool doesn't like it. My kid doesn't like spicy foods, either, for what that's worth, which is about the same in terms of how I live my life. Here is a start, the first link I turn to when people start talking up nonsense: http://skepdic.com/myersb.html I could find more, (as I have in the past in different places), but I'm lazy right now. Extraordinarily so, it would seem, as that link was present in Deborah's message. Obviously. I've also had this particular link on my favorites menu since the 90's. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Myers-Briggs
From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On On 5/5/06, The Fool wrote: On 5/5/06, A person not named The Fool wrote: I see a glaring logical error. The idea that *only* science can minimize self-deception and identify non-existent causes cannot be falsified. There is no logical problem with arguing that science serves these purposes, but to argue that only science can do so is just arguing from its own conclusion. Their IS no way of knowing things without the scientific process. You're just arguing religion again. There's nothing particularly scientific about many of the means I personally use to minimize self-deception. Of course, I could just be kidding myself about that. Why do I get the feeling most of those 'means' are related to religion? I think the mistake is to *compare* the value of intuition and scientific thinking, rather than holding up some sort of Spock-like detachment and objectivity as an ideal. Spock is fiction. The claim I'll make about intuition is that sometimes a portion of the large amount of background processing that your brain does might slip through the filter your mind uses, but it is hardly a rational, reasoned, and scientific process. And also based much more around hardwired instinctual responces that may not be very good. I've followed this thread for a bit, and I find that I organize things ub a manner that is significantly different from what I see here. In particular, I think the discussion of intuitive vs. scientific thinking misses how science actually works. Intuition is an important part of science. Great scientists, such as Feynman, had overwhelming intuitive ability. Feynman is legendary for his rough guesses being validated by experiments 10-20 years later. But Feynmans intuition isn't being discussed here. What's being discussed is Jung's psuedo-scientific model of 'intuition' (on which the MBTI bullsh!t is based around). According to Jung: You can increase the number of principles, but I found the most simple way is the way I told you, the division by four, the simple and natural division of a circle. I didn't know the symbolism then of this particular classification. Only when I studied the archetypes did I become aware that this is a very important archetypal pattern that plays an enormous role. Is *total* nonsense. Right, dividing people up four is good symbolism. as for the 'archtypes' he's talking about, I think he was likely reffering to one of the classical systems of classifying people: http://skepdic.com/essays/myersbriggscode.html Remember the four temperaments? Each of us, at one time, would have been considered to be either melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic, or choleric. These classifications go back at least as far as the ancient physician Hippocrates in the middle of the fifth century B.C.E. He explained the four temperaments in terms of dominant humors in the body. The melancholic is dominated by yellow bile in the kidneys; the sanguine by humors in the blood; the phlegmatic by phlegm; and the choleric by the black bile of the liver. Hippocrates was simply adding to the ancient Greek insight that all things reduce to earth, air, water, and fire. Each of the four elements had its dualities: hot/cold and dry/moist. A person's physical, psychological, and moral qualities could be easily understood by his temperament, his dominant 'humors,' the four basic elements, or whether he was hot and wet or cold and dry, etc. This ancient personality type-indicator worked for over one thousand years. Of course, cynics might attribute this success to confirmation bias. It also put a heavy brake on physiological research since there were few phenomena for which the humors could not be made to yield some sort of easy explanation. But, of course, he also had misses. I didn't get to talk with him, but Shelly Glashow (a theorist who won the Nobel Prize for his role in developing what is now called the Standard Theory said that he tended to have several intuitive ideas a day. Most of them he could dismiss himself. The rest, he brought up to colleagues, who usually found fatal flaws with them. About once a month, they were worth publishing. In my own case, I have worked very hard developing my own intuition. I have a feel for the transport of gammas and neutrons. My rough arm waving arguments usually get me in the ball park of the right answer. You've merely trained your brain to do work that you used to do consciously to being done sub consciously. But, I know that my intuition is not _that_ good. When I check with more rigorous techniques, I find that my intuitive feel isn't always right. The data can still surprise me. When surprised, I work to recalibrate my intuitive feel to better match what is seen. IMHO, intuition works best when combined with rigor. In science at least, one can make an intuitive leap
Re: Myers-Briggs
From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Fool On From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 5/5/06, The Fool wrote: On 5/5/06, A person not named The Fool wrote: I see a glaring logical error. The idea that *only* science can minimize self-deception and identify non-existent causes cannot be falsified. There is no logical problem with arguing that science serves these purposes, but to argue that only science can do so is just arguing from its own conclusion. Their IS no way of knowing things without the scientific process. You're just arguing religion again. There's nothing particularly scientific about many of the means I personally use to minimize self-deception. Of course, I could just be kidding myself about that. Why do I get the feeling most of those 'means' are related to religion? I didn't write that, Nick did. I think mixing up Nick's post and mine will inevitably result is a combination with internal contradictions, because Nick and I differ on some points. Those comments _were_ directed toward Nick. I think the mistake is to *compare* the value of intuition and scientific thinking, rather than holding up some sort of Spock-like detachment and objectivity as an ideal. Spock is fiction. The claim I'll make about intuition is that sometimes a portion of the large amount of background processing that your brain does might slip through the filter your mind uses, but it is hardly a rational, reasoned, and scientific process. Nick wrote the text you are responding to here, also. As I think you could tell from reading my post, I don't separate scientific thinking and intuitive thinking. Again I _was_ addressing nick here. With all due respect, I don't think you have a feel for the scientific process. That's pretty common. Textbooks usually organize things after they've already been worked out. They rarely give a feel for the actual process. And also based much more around hardwired instinctual responces that may not be very good. If they aren't goodthen it's hard to be creative. Some people don't have very good intuitions...and their guesses are often wrong. Others do have good intuitions. It's also a matter of being able to see patterns and pick up clues. You are mixing up inteligence and creativity. Don't even try to pretend you understand how the brain works, because you dont: Nodding Yes Increases Your Confidence In Your Own Opinions: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001505.html Children Of Bipolar Parents are More Creative: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/003110.html#003110 Love Deactivates Brain Areas For Fear, Planning, Critical Social Assessment: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002183.html#002183 Human Impulsiveness Selected For By Foraging Lifestyle?: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002509.html#002509 Stimulaton Of Primate Brains Show Many Complex Behaviors Are Innate: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002676.html#002676 Gory Pictures Improve Memory Retention: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/000581.html#000581 Scantily Clad Women Make High Testosterone Men Drive Lousy Bargains: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/003385.html#003385 Twins Study Finds Adult Religiosity Heritable: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002666.html#002666 Serotonin Receptor Concentration Varies Inversely With Spirituality: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001869.html#001869 Pre-Schoolers Think Like Scientists: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/003341.html#003341 Word Memory Shifts From Sound To Meaning As We Age: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002422.html#002422 Neurons Identified That Assign Relative Ratings To Goods: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/003396.html#003396 Monkeys Prefer Gambling Risk To Sure Reward: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002961.html#002961 More Attractive Children Protected Better By Parents: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002711.html#002711 Humans Get Personality Altering Infections From Cats: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001675.html#001675 While heterosexual males are chiefly aroused by females heterosexual females are aroused by males AND females: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001393.html#001393 And I could dig through slashdot and a few other sites for more interesting studies I remember, but I think you get the picture. The brain does a whole lot of things, that are absolutely nonsensical. It also does a whole lot of things in the background that the conscious mind isn't aware of. Perhaps some of those things can leak through the filtering some times, or not, but it is of dubious quality and quantity and isn't going to show up on some BS MTBI test. I've followed this thread for a bit, and I find that I organize things ub a manner that is significantly different from what I see here
Re: Myers-Briggs (was: Blog entry with interesting comment)
From: Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] If it's science at all, it's a very fluffy kind of science. Ten or fifteen years ago, I gave Kiersey style Myers-Briggs tests to a dozen people I knew. I felt the results were accurate in about 7 of those 12 cases. So I decided it was pretty good for this kind of topic (and no good at all if you seek only 25% error.) What is the probability of 7 out of 12 people each choosing 1 out of 16 randomly? And anecdotal evidince has what value in science? I tend to doubt the Forer effect is highly important for Myers-Briggs, although doubtless, it is somewhat important. (According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect The Forer effect ... is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. (The article also gives Forer's text.) Here are the first two paragraphs of 2 of 16 MBTI profiles from http://www.typelogic.com/; they seem to me quite different. When given a choice of which to choose, I doubt an ESFJ would choose to be described as an INTP although he or she might well choose a description closer to his or her temperament. Guardians of birthdays, holidays and celebrations, Virgo's are generous entertainers. They enjoy and joyfully observe traditions and are liberal in giving, especially where custom prescribes. All else being equal, Virgo's enjoy being in charge. They see problems clearly and delegate easily, work hard and play with zest. Virgo's, bear strong allegiance to rights of seniority. They willingly provide service (which embodies life's meaning) and expect the same from others. vrs Pices's are pensive, analytical folks. They may venture so deeply into thought as to seem detached, and often actually are oblivious to the world around them. Precise about their descriptions, Pices's will often correct others (or be sorely tempted to) if the shade of meaning is a bit off. While annoying to the less concise, this fine discrimination ability gives Pices's so inclined a natural advantage as, for example, grammarians and linguists. Reads like an astrology collumn in the newspaper. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Myers-Briggs
From: Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ok, here are a few sites for those curious: And for the skeptical (I have only skimmed this, as it's time to head out): http://skepdic.com/myersb.html MBTI is psuedo-science at its finest. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Myers-Briggs
From: Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] On May 5, 2006, at 11:52 AM, The Fool wrote: From: Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ok, here are a few sites for those curious: And for the skeptical (I have only skimmed this, as it's time to head out): http://skepdic.com/myersb.html MBTI is psuedo-science at its finest. OK. You're opinion. I'm OK with that. Even the slightest shred of data as to why you feel this way might have elevated your smear to the level of seriousness, but I'll just take at face value: The Fool doesn't like it. My kid doesn't like spicy foods, either, for what that's worth, which is about the same in terms of how I live my life. Here is a start, the first link I turn to when people start talking up nonsense: http://skepdic.com/myersb.html I could find more, (as I have in the past in different places), but I'm lazy right now. It's no different than ennenagrams and other bullsh!t that sounds good to the ignorant and uninformed. Now see there's this bridge I own in the new york area, that I think you might be interested in.. MTBI is a great example of the forer effect, confimation bias, and subjective validation work in people who don't know any better. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: WSJournal: Western Moral Authority is based on White Supremecy
From: Matthew and Julie Bos [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 5/2/06 1:07 PM, The Fool wrote: What you would expect to read in the more overtly racist Washington Times: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318 But just to entertain me, how can a newspaper be racist? How about buying lists of subscribers to anti-semitic and white supremecist magazines?: http://alternet.org/rights/35403/ For eight years, a major direct-mail firm specializing in the Christian and conservative markets has been selling lists of the readers of America's leading anti-Semitic newspaper and, since about 2001, its successor publication. Response Unlimited, based in Waynesboro, Va., and headed by Christian Right activist Philip Zodhiates, charges $100 for the rental of every 1,000 names of subscribers to the now-defunct Spotlight newspaper. Founded by veteran anti-Semite Willis Carto, The Spotlight carried anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic and wildly conspiracist articles interspersed with ads for Klan, neo-Nazi and related hate groups. According to Response Unlimited's website, Spotlight list purchasers have included the *Republican Governors Association*; the National Right to Work Foundation; the Mountain States Legal Foundation; U.S. English, an English-only group; and the hard-right *Washington Times* newspaper. - If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in 43 had come immediately after the German Firm stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in 33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. --They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 --by Milton Mayer ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: WSJournal: Western
From: Jim Sharkey [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: What you would expect to read in the more overtly racist Washington Times: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318 Wow. It's as if you didn't actually read the editorial, beyond that first paragraph. I read the entire article. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: WSJournal: Western Moral Authority is based on White Supremecy [L3]
From: Matthew and Julie Bos [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 5/2/06 1:07 PM, The Fool wrote: What you would expect to read in the more overtly racist Washington Times: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318 The Opinion Journal is part of the Wall Street Journal. I *said* that, Or can't you read? But just to entertain me, how can a newspaper be racist? If you need some background info on Shelby Steele, you could start here: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=57 the Times is the only major American newspaper that still features a weekly Civil War page. They know the Times has become a reliable source for extremist views on race, religion, immigration and Dixie. In 1998, Pruden, whose newspaper is the only major daily in America that runs a weekly page about a war that ended 138 years ago, spoke to the United Daughters of the Confederacy at the Manassas Battlefield Park. He began by making the kind of promise most editors avoid at any cost: I will never fail to respond to you when you call on me for help, because I believe in what you are doing to cherish and protect and preserve the heritage of our great Southern people. Concluding with a flourish, Pruden said Southerners ... hold loyalty to two countries in our hearts. The second country is one baptized 137 years ago on this very field in the blood of First Manassas, a country no longer at the mercy of the vicissitudes in the tangled affairs of men, a country that lives within us, a country that will endure for as long as men and women know love. ... God bless America, God bless the Confederate States of America, and God bless you all. McCain, who wrote the story about Democrats and Dixie, has covered the group's biannual conferences in 1998, 2000 and 2002, making the Times the only major American newspaper to devote news stories to American Renaissance. Since 1999, the Times has also reprinted at least six excerpts from American Renaissance in its page-2 culture section, never acknowledging the highly controversial nature of the source. McCain has made no bones about being a fan of American Renaissance, writing a letter of warm congratulations to the magazine in 1997. Something else about McCain is even rarer: he belongs to a hate group the League of the South (LOS) that shares some of American Renaissance's views on race. http://www.hoover.org/bios/steele.html I know who he is thank you very much. In 2006, Steele received the Bradley Prize for his contributions to the study of race in America. Hmm. Where have I heard that name before? But that would be too easy. Always Follow the Money. You can tell a lot about an entity if you look at the people and groups who fund them. Who funds the Hoover Institute (and gives the 'Bradley Prize'): http://www.mediatransparency.org/funderprofile.php?funderID=1 Other Bradley grantees include the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation; the Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace; A man with extreme right-wing views, he was an early financial supporter of the John Birch Society, one of the country's leading far-right organizations Allen-Bradley was one of the last major Milwaukee employers to racially integrate, and then only through public and legal pressure. The New York-based John M. Olin Foundation grew out of a family manufacturing business in chemicals and munitions. It funds nationally influential right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace. In response to intense criticism of Losing Ground, Bradley president Michael Joyce said, Charles Murray, in my opinion, is one of the foremost social thinkers in the country. After writing Losing Ground, Murray teamed up with the late Harvard psychologist Richard Hernstein to write the book The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. The book was widely seen as a piece of profoundly racist and classist pseudo-science, and was denounced by the American Psychological Association. It had relied heavily on studies financed by the Pioneer Fund, a neo-Nazi organization that promoted eugenicist research. Nope, no racism evident there. http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=6 A study by the grassroots organizing group A Job is a Right Campaign has concluded that the Wisconsin welfare reform program known as W-2 was developed under the guidance of the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation. Bradley is the country's leading ultra-conservative foundation, which, among other things, funded the nortoriously racist book The Bell Curve, by authors Charles Murray and Richard Hernstein. Murray was actually brought in as a consultant by the task force that developed W-2 for the state of Wisconsin. The following are some of the highlights of the report:I - The Racist Agenda of the Lynde
Re: WSJournal: Western Moral Authority is based on White Supremacy
From: Xponent [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] At 02:15 PM Tuesday 5/2/2006, Matthew and Julie Bos wrote: But just to entertain me, how can a newspaper be racist? 'Cuz until very recently, everything in it was either black or white . . . Brad DeLong's blog has some archive selections from the WSJ from the civil rights era and earlier that are fairly racist in light of todays mores. It is pretty amazing to read some of the things that *used* to be mainstream thinking, but would be unacceptable today. Those things are still completely 100% mainstream among the racist republican right. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
WSJournal: Western Moral Authority is based on White Supremecy
What you would expect to read in the more overtly racist Washington Times: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318 It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty. This idea had organized the entire world, divided up its resources, imposed the nation-state system across the globe, and delivered the majority of the world's population into servitude and oppression. After World War II, revolutions across the globe, from India to Algeria and from Indonesia to the American civil rights revolution, defeated the authority inherent in white supremacy, if not the idea itself. And this defeat exacted a price: the West was left stigmatized by its sins. Today, the white West--like Germany after the Nazi defeat--lives in a kind of secular penitence in which the slightest echo of past sins brings down withering condemnation. There is now a cloud over white skin where there once was unquestioned authority. -- In Japan, rape is how you say hello. I am Learn custom from Hentais. --Jack Chick Parody ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Scientist: Pesticides affect Dong Size
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/CityandRegion/2006/04/29/1556379-sun.html A zoologist, Guillette has spent the last decade studying the influence of environmental contaminants on fetal development and reproductive systems of wildlife and humans, including the differences between alligators living in contaminated Florida lakes and those in cleaner ones. He found abnormalities in sex organs, dramatic differences in egg-hatching rates and hormone levels. ... -- In Japan, rape is how you say hello. I am Learn custom from Hentais. --Jack Chick Parody ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
New Levi's Dockers may have RFID chips
http://www.spychips.com/press-releases/levis-secret-testing.html While Levi Strauss reports that its current RFID trials use external RFID hang tags that can be clipped from the clothes and the focus is on inventory management, not customer tracking, the company isn't guaranteeing how it will use RFID in the future. Companies like Levi Strauss are painting their RFID trials as innocuous, observes Albrecht. But this technology is extraordinarily dangerous. There is a reason why we have asked companies not to spychip clothing. Few things are more intimately connected with an individual than the clothes they wear. Once clothing manufacturers begin applying RFID to hang tags, the floodgates will open and we'll soon find these things sewn into the hem of our jeans, Albrecht adds. The problem with RFID is that it is tracking technology, plain and simple. Albrecht and McIntyre point out that tracking people through the things they wear and carry is more than mere speculation. In their book Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID, they reveal sworn patent documents that describe ways to link the unique serial numbers on RFID-tagged items with the people who purchase them. One of the most graphic examples is IBM's Identification and Tracking of Persons Using RFID-Tagged Items. In that patent application, IBM inventors suggest tracking consumers for marketing and purposes. That's enough to steam most consumers, says McIntyre.But IBM's proposal that the government track people through RFID tags on the things they wear and carry should send a cold chill down our spines. IBM inventors detail how the government could use RFID tags to track people in public places like shopping malls, museums, libraries, sports arenas, elevators, and even restrooms. Make no mistake, McIntyre adds. Today's RFID inventory tags could evolve into embedded homing beacons. Unchecked, this technology could become a Big Brother bonanza and a civil liberties nightmare. - Whenever someone has to tell you how good something is, beware. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Study: Cell-Phone Radiation Affects Brain Function it's Cumulative
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/27/060427110534.coym1bs2.html Australian research shows mobile phones affect brain function Radiation from mobile phone phones affects the way the brain works, Australian researchers have found. Scientists from Swinburne University of Technology's Brain Sciences Institute in Melbourne found people's response times slowed during a 30-minute mobile phone call but their memory appeared to improve. The researchers conducted a series of psychological tests on 120 volunteers as they were exposed to mobile phone emissions for half an hour. Another set of tests was conducted on volunteers who were not exposed to mobile phone radiation but thought they were. The results, published in April's edition of the journal Neuropsychologia, showed a small but discernable change in brain function among those who were exposed to the electromagnetic fields that mobile phones generate. The study showed evidence of slower response times for participants undertaking simple reactions and more complex reactions, such as choosing a response when there is more than one alternative, lead researcher Con Stough said. This could equate to driving a car and being distracted by another car pulling out in front of you. The drivers reaction time to chose between braking, turning or sounding the horn, could be affected, albeit slightly. The study also found that radiation from mobile phones seems to improve working memory, used for example when remembering a phone number long enough to dial it. He said further work was needed using magnetic resonance imaging to clarify the way mobile phones alter on the way the brain works. Stough said further, as-yet-unpublished, research by his team suggested the impact of mobile phone radiation on the brain was cumulative. People, for instance, who use the mobile phone a lot seem to have more of an impairment than people who are more naive users, he said. However, he stressed that the impact on brain function was small and the study did not find that mobile phones caused a health problem. We haven't established that there's negative health consequences -- that's a different type of study, he said. We're just showing that the radiation is actually active on the brain. But the impairment is small. The convenience and the way that we communicate now these days outweighs that effect. -- In Japan, rape is how you say hello. I am Learn custom from Hentais. --Jack Chick Parody ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Fight the Future: Texas Hospitals and HMO's Conspire to Murder People
Welcome to King George IV's Texas, where Hospitals, Insurance companies, and HMO's are legally allowed to murder people: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/25/181614/934 The hospital ethics committee met the day before yesterday and concluded that Andrea's treatment (respirator and dialysis) should be discontinued. We have ten days to move her from that hospital or they will pull the plug and let Andrea die. Andrea, when she is not medicated into unconsciousness (and even when she is, and the medication has worn off to some degree) is aware and cognizant. She has suffered no brain damage to the parts of her brain responsible for thought and reason, or speech. She has only suffered loss of some motor control. We received notice of the ethics committee decision the day before yesterday and we are organizing a protest to take place tomorrow, at 2-2:30pm outside St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital. the Texas Futile Care Law, describes certain provisions that are now Chapter 166 of the Texas Health Safety Code. Controversy over these provisions mainly centers on Section 166.046, Subsection (e), which allows a health care facility to discontinue life-sustaining treatment against the wishes of the patient or guardian ten days after giving written notice. Andrea's attorney explained it to us this way: An insurance company negotiates with the hospital how much they will pay for certain services. Say, for instance, someone in the ICU costs $10,000 for treatment per day. The insurance company says to the hospital, Okay, we will pay you $7500 for you to provide that service to our insured patient. There's a catch, though. The insurance company will pay the negotiated amount to the hospital, but if a patient goes on and on, needing that service, the insurance company begins making noise. This insured patient is costing them too much; they are losing profit. They begin to put pressure on the hospital to get that patient off of their books. The hospital either does this by getting aggressive with the patient's treatment, getting them well, and discharging them, OR by pulling the plug on that patient. In other words, that patient has now become, in terms of profit, both for the hospital and the insurance company worth more dead. If that patient continues to receive that intensive care, it costs the hospital in terms of where they stand the next time they negotiate prices with the insurance company. The next time negotiations come up, the insurance company will say, Hey, we would give you the going rate on an intensive care patient this year, but you gouged us for 90 days on Andrea Clark last year, so we are lowering our starting point for payment to $7000, to make up for it. -- Who wants to bet all those fascist religious nuts who fought against the wishes of the completely brain-dead Shiavo to be terminated, allow this *non brain-dead* woman (who has expressed her wishes that she wants to live), to be murdered? Such is life in Konfederate republiKan ameriKa. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. -- James Madison ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Fight the Future: Texas Hospitals and HMO's Conspire to Murder People
From: The Fool Welcome to King George IV's Texas, where Hospitals, Insurance companies, and HMO's are legally allowed to murder people: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/25/181614/934 http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/images/ANSWERMAN/215/GUN.gif ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
FDA: Plan B would lead to 'Teen Sex Cults'
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_digbysblog_archive.html#1146 8253976488 In the memo released by the FDA, Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, an agency medical officer, wrote: As an example, she [Woodcock] stated that we could not anticipate, or prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B. -- Every time people give up on participating, and become members of the sheeple, we are all herded a bit closer to being shorn. --Stirling Newberry ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Jack Chick parody
From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.angelfire.com/alt/c4ts2101/tract.html Three points to the first person to post my favorite text from it. :) In Japan, rape is how you say hello. I am Learn custom from Hentais. I love engrish. And look it's the fox-girl announcer from Yu-Yu Hakusho. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Depleted Uranium, Floridated Water, and Bisphenol Food Wrapping
From: Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 19 Apr 2006 at 17:42, The Fool wrote: http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=133828 Young boys who drink fluoridated tap water are at greater risk for a rare bone cancer, Harvard researchers reported yesterday. Yes, how much more. If it's 2 in 10 million compared to 1 in 10 million, then it's certainly significant, but adding it to water could still be overall beneficial. From the article: That student, Dr. Elise Bassin, wrote in yesterday's __Cancer Causes and Control__ that boys who drink water with levels of fluoride considered safe by federal guidlines are *five times* more likely to develop osteosarcoma than boys who drink unfluoridated water. Since that article is no longer available: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060401/NEW S01/604010368 osteosarcoma, a bone cancer that strikes about 400 children nationally each year. The study on osteosarcoma, which did look at fluoride at those levels, is expected to be published in __Cancer Causes and Control__, the official journal of the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention. Harvard officials would not release an advance copy of the article, but a Wall Street Journal story said it will show that boys who drank water with approximately 0.3 to 0.99 milligrams per liter had *five times* the risk of osteosarcoma as boys drinking nonfluoridated water. This is not the first study to suggest such a connection. According to the National Cancer Institute, a federal study in 1990 showed an increased number of bone tumors in male rats given water high in fluoride for two years. And in 2001, a Harvard doctoral student reported in her thesis that boys drinking fluoridated water seem to have a higher risk of bone cancer. ... In late March, a National Academy of Sciences panel concluded that the maximum amount allowed by the federal government -- 4 milligrams per liter of water -- puts children at risk for developing mottled, pitted teeth and can weaken bones over a lifetime, making fractures more likely. In light of possible health risks, the national science panel has recommended that the maximum allowable fluoride level should be lowered. The panel said about 10 percent of children in places with water-fluoride concentrations at or close to 4 milligrams per liter develop severe tooth problems. The panel also cited studies showing a higher risk of bone fracture in people exposed to concentrations of 4 milligrams per liter or higher. -- Is it too much to ask that people RTFA? Or should I go back to posting entire articles for the illiterate? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Depleted Uranium, Floridated Water, and Bisphenol Food Wrapping
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: The Fool --- http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=133828 Young boys who drink fluoridated tap water are at greater risk for a rare bone cancer, Harvard researchers reported yesterday. The study, published online yesterday in a Harvard-affiliated journal, could intensify debate over fluoridation and mean more scrutiny for Harvardâs Dr. Chester Douglass, accused of fudging the findings to downplay a cancer link. âItâs the best piece of work ever linking fluoride in tap water and bone cancer. Itâs pretty damning for (Douglass),â said Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group, which filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health against Douglass. Douglass, an epidemiology professor at Harvardâs School of Dental Medicine, is paid as editor of the Colgate Oral Care Report, a newsletter supported by the toothpaste maker. -- What harvard affiliated journal is this? Kind of suspicious when the name of the journal and/or the precise citation is not mentioned. -- bzzzt. RTFA: That student, Dr. Elise Bassin, wrote in yesterdays __Cancer Causes and Control__ that boys who drink water with levels of fluoride considered safe by federal guidlines are five times more likely to develop osteosarcoma than boys who drink unfluoridated water. Which I assume is this: http://www.ovid.com/site/catalog/Journal/1462.jsp You're the doctor, and yet I read and write better than you do. Hmmm. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Depleted Uranium, Floridated Water, and Bisphenol Food Wrapping
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C8122-1596301%2C00.html Food wrap linked to prostate cancer by Jonathan Leake, Science Editor A CHEMICAL used to make food wrapping and line tin cans could be the cause of surging prostate cancer rates in men, says a study. Bisphenol A is widely used in the food industry to make polycarbonate drinks bottles and the resins used to line tin cans, even though it is known to leach into food and has long been suspected of disrupting human sex hormones. --- http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=133828 Young boys who drink fluoridated tap water are at greater risk for a rare bone cancer, Harvard researchers reported yesterday. The study, published online yesterday in a Harvard-affiliated journal, could intensify debate over fluoridation and mean more scrutiny for Harvards Dr. Chester Douglass, accused of fudging the findings to downplay a cancer link. Its the best piece of work ever linking fluoride in tap water and bone cancer. Its pretty damning for (Douglass), said Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group, which filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health against Douglass. Douglass, an epidemiology professor at Harvards School of Dental Medicine, is paid as editor of the Colgate Oral Care Report, a newsletter supported by the toothpaste maker. --- http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060307010324data_trunc_sys.shtml Now however, Northern Arizona University biochemist Diane Stearns has established that when cells are exposed to uranium, the uranium binds to DNA and the cells acquire mutations, triggering a whole slew of protein replication errors, some of which can lead to various cancers. Stearns' research, published in the journals Mutagenesis and Molecular Carcinogenesis, confirms what many have suspected for some time - that uranium can damage DNA as a heavy metal, independently of its radioactive properties. -- ...34/-21/13/-8/5/-3/2/-1/1/0/1/1/2/3/5/8/13/21/34... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Great Sam Harris Interview
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: I believe only in the purity of math. Everything else is nonsense. Seriously? And what do you do with Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem? Does it effect the underlying math the all physics is based around? I think it does - if the base is not solid, eventually we will come to a problem without a solution. In essense you are saying it's impossible to know both the velocity and position of a particle at the same time. But we already knew that. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Great Sam Harris Interview
From: Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 11 Apr 2006 at 7:22, The Fool wrote: If you ingore some minor gibberish about buddism: www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060403_sam_harris_interview I find your faith in atheism is touching. I wonder why you need so strongly not to believe. As I said to a communist friend of mine the other day, he takes his Marx a lot more seriously than I take my Bible. I believe only in the purity of math. Everything else is nonsense. Humans are fundamentelly evil creatures who deserve to die. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Great Sam Harris Interview
From: Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 12/04/2006, at 10:01 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Of course, it's possible that the answer you get will be RTF¹M . . . Now there's a good shortcut to atheism. :-) Not necessarily, if as some have suggested the Bible is a record of God's dealings with other humans. Then it might give you some useful guidelines which you could employ in your life. FWIW, my experience is that God, like a good professor, gives you the smallest possible hint to get you on the right track. In some cases that hint may well be found in the Scriptures Sure. But, I guess you're just as likely to find that smiting and stoning is recommended as a solution as kiss-and-make-up is... Burning virgin girls alive is great fun. So is abusing your concubine* sexually untill she dies and then chopping up her body and sending it to the national leaders. And who can forget that after you deafeat someone militarilly, you get to kill every adult woman, every male adult or child, and your army gets to rape all the female virgins as young as three, and keep them as sexual slaves. Great fun. * A concubine is female sex slave. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Great Sam Harris Interview
From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] But, they were not fundamentalists. The two great doctors of the church (Agustine and Aquinis) did not emphasize a literal interpretation of scripture. The authority of the Church was the keys of the kingdom being passed on from Peter to his successors, not a literal interpretation of scripture. The most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred booksIf you [even] once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement, there will not be left a single sentence of those books, which, if appearing to anyone difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away as a statement, in which intentionally, the author declared what was not true. --St. Augustine in Epistula, p. 28 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Great Sam Harris Interview
-- From: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 4/12/06, The Fool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I believe only in the purity of math. Everything else is nonsense. Seriously? And what do you do with Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem? - Does it effect the underlying math the all physics is based around? -- a + b = c (a + b) * (a - c) = c * (a - c) a^2 + ab - ac - cb = ca - c^2 a^2 + ab - ac = ca + cb - c^2 a * (a + b - c) = c * (a + b - c) a = c Phi the golden mean = 1.61803398875 1 / Phi = 0.61803398875 Phi^2 = 2.61803398875 phi = sqroot(1 + .25) + sqroot(.25) 1 / phi = sqroot(1 + .25) - sqroot(.25) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Great Sam Harris Interview
If you ingore some minor gibberish about buddism: www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060403_sam_harris_interview -- ...34/-21/13/-8/5/-3/2/-1/1/0/1/1/2/3/5/8/13/21/34... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
IBM's New Evil TPM -- Paranoid Device
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/04/10/ibm.chip.ap/index.html IBM is announcing Monday that it has developed SecureBlue - a set of encryption circuitry that can be integrated into any processor, regardless of its manufacturer. This thing is trying to be one of the most paranoid devices on the planet, said Charles Palmer, IBM's head security researcher. IBM is not the first to seek to integrate encryption into a computer's central processing functions. Intel Corp.'s upcoming LaGrande technology essentially does that, though it requires interaction with a separate chip, known as a trusted platform module. The IBM researchers say they have developed a way to skip that step. SecureBlue's design appears flexible enough to bring strong encryption to such new settings as cell phones and music players. IBM researchers said SecureBlue already has made its way into one customer's devices. But they said that company had *_demanded anonymity_*. -- Humans are fundamentally evil creatures. ...34/-21/13/-8/5/-3/2/-1/1/0/1/1/2/3/5/8/13/21/34... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
62 m
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/Phys-fossil-biodiversity.h tml A detailed and extensive new analysis of the fossil records of marine animals over the past 542 million years has yielded a stunning surprise. Biodiversity appears to rise and fall in mysterious cycles of 62 million years for which science has no satisfactory explanation. In examining their results, Muller and Rohde found that the fossil diversity cycle is most evident when only short-lived genera (those that survived less than 45 million years) are considered. They also found that some organisms seem to be immune to the cycle, while others are exceptionally sensitive. For example, corals, sponges, arthropods and trilobites follow the cycle, but fish, squid and snails do not. Muller and Rohde also found a second, less pronounced diversity cycle of 140 million years. -- ...34/-21/13/-8/5/-3/2/-1/1/0/1/1/2/3/5/8/13/21/34... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Robert Jordan
From: William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] I know some people on this list read him. http://www.locusmag.com/2006/Features/03JordanLetter.html From Locus: Dear Locus, I have been diagnosed with amyloidosis. That is a rare blood disease which affects only 8 people out of a million each year, and those 8 per million are divided among 22 distinct forms of amyloidosis. They are distinct enough that while some have no treatment at all, for the others, the treatment that works on one will have no effect whatsoever on any of the rest. An amyloid is a misshapen or misfolded protein that can be produced by various parts of the body and which may deposit in other parts of the body (nerves or organs) with varying effects. (As a small oddity, amyloids are associated with a wide list of diseases ranging from carpal tunnel syndrome to Alzheimer's. There's no current evidence of cause and effect, and none of these is considered any form of amyloidosis, but the amyloids are always there. So it is entirely possible that research on amyloids may one day lead to cures for Alzheimer's and the Lord knows what else. I've offered to be a literary poster boy for the Mayo Amyloidosis Program, and the May PR Department, at least, seems very interested. Plus, I've discovered a number of fans in various positions at the clinic, so maybe they'll help out.) Now in my case, what I have is primary amyloidosis with cardiomyapathy. That means that some (only about 5% at present) of my bone marrow is producing amyloids which are depositing in the wall of my heart, causing it to thicken and stiffen. Untreated, it would eventually make my heart unable to function any longer and I would have a median life expectancy of one year from diagnosis. Fortunately, I am set up for treatment, which expands my median life expectancy to four years. This does NOT mean I have four years to live. For those who've forgotten their freshman or pre-freshman (high school or junior high) math, a median means half the numbers fall above that value and half fall below. It is NOT an average. In any case, I intend to live considerably longer than that. Everybody knows or has heard of someone who was told they had five years to live, only that was twenty years ago and here they guy is, still around and kicking. I mean to beat him. I sat down and figured out how long it would take me to write all of the books I currently have in mind, without adding anything new and without trying rush anything. The figure I came up with was thirty years. Now, I'm fifty-seven, so anyone my age hoping for another thirty years is asking for a fair bit, but I don't care. That is my minimum goal. I am going to finish those books, all of them, and that is that. My treatment starts in about 2 weeks at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where they have seen and treated more cases like mine than anywhere else in the US. Basically, it boils down to this. They will harvest a good quantity of my bone marrow stem cells from my blood. These aren't the stem cells that have Bush and Cheney in a swivet; they can only grow into bone marrow, and only into my bone marrow at that. Then will follow two days of intense chemotherapy to kill off all of my bone marrow, since there is no way at present to target just the misbehaving 5%. Once this is done, they will re-implant my bmsc to begin rebuilding my bone marrow and immune system, which will of course go south with the bone marrow. Depending on how long it takes me to recuperate sufficiently, 6 to 8 weeks after checking in, I can come home. I will have a fifty-fifty chance of some good result (25% chance of remission; 25% chance of some reduction in amyloid production), a 35-40% chance of no result, and a 10-15% chance of fatality. Believe me, that's a Hell of a lot better than staring down the barrel of a one-year median. If I get less than full remission, my doctor already, she says, has several therapies in mind, though I suspect we will heading into experimental territory. If that is where this takes me, however, so be it. I have thirty more years worth of books to write even if I can keep from thinking of any more, and I don't intend to let this thing get in my way. Jim Rigney/Robert Jordan Further updates by Jordan himself: http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/?p=38 http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/?p=39 So help me, if I don't find out definitively who killed asmo, rggrgr! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: FEAR THE FUTURAMA: In-Sleep Advertising
From: Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] Folks, No, really: In. Sleep. Advertising. This is a sign of the end times. http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1003900 Sleep well, I've Seen that episode. Fourth season episodes are much, much better. eno lirpa. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Thunder
From: G. D. Akin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 05:46 AM Wednesday 4/5/2006, G. D. Akin wrote: I remember reading last year about a movie based on one of Ray Bradbury's best short stories, A Sound of Thunder. Then I never heard of it again until today when I saw (and bought) the movie on DVD. What happend to this. Was it meant for general release or was a SciFi channel movie? My understanding is that it was indeed meant for general release but was not out long because it sucked big time. I never had a chance to see it NO SPOILERS PLEASE. You now know as much about it as I do. Hope that isn't too much . . ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
The Australian Gov't is reading your Email
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/more-than-ever-watch-what-you-say/2 006/04/02/1143916406540.html -- The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. -- James Madison ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Another study show cell-phone tumor link
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a message dated 3/31/2006 6:28:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: A total 85 of these 905 cases were so-called high users of mobile phones, that is they began early to use mobile and, or wireless telephones and used them a lot, the study said. The study also shows that the rise in risk is noticeable for tumors on the side of the head where the phone was said to be used, it added. Kjell Mild, who led the study, said the figures meant that heavy users of mobile phones, for instance of who make mobile phone calls for 2,000 hours or more in their life, had a 240 percent increased risk for a malignant tumor on the side of the head the phone is used. The relationship between location of tumor and side of phone use would have to be more than noticable. It should be incredibly strong. For instance radiation therapy can induce brain tumors but it occurs in the radiiation field and at the site where the radiation enters the skull. The inverse square rule would have to hold. In addition there has to be a mechanism by which the radiation causes mutations. I no of no evidence that the energy associated with cell phone use can cause cellular damage in particular since it must first penetrate the skin and skull. I think this is like the famous power line causing cancer myth. While there certainly can be unknown effects these effects cannot be mystical. If brain tumors are more frequent then there must be energy that can cause mutations. This energy must get to the brain cells in the way that all energy does; that is it must obey the rules of physics. http://www.mccmedia.com/pipermail/brin-l/Week-of-Mon-20041011/008449.h tml Acoustic neuromas are slow-growing noncancerous tumors that develop on a nerve linking the brain and the inner ear. We looked at DNA damage in animals, not in humans, and found that cell phone radiation can damage DNA, he said. The body's immune system has the ability to repair DNA breaks, but sometimes it can make a mistake and cause a mutation, which could be the first step toward cancer, Lai said. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Isaac Hayes quits SouthPark -- Update (Fox News Lies -- Again)
From: The Fool Lies: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188463,00.html http://www.wwtdd.com/index.php?type=onei=757 http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix/65830.htm http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1527001/20060324/hayes_isaac.jhtml?he adlines=true Adding another wrinkle to the situation, on Monday FoxNews.com reported that Hayes had no intention of quitting South Park, but someone had quit in his name. The report, which cited various sources, claimed that Hayes was unable to quit the show because he was recovering from a stroke he had suffered on January 17, and stated that it's ... ridiculous to think Hayes ... would suddenly turn against the show because they were poking fun at Scientology. Amy Harnell, a spokesperson for Hayes, told MTV News the Fox News report was definitely not true and that Hayes' decision to quit was his and his alone. She added that Hayes was never hospitalized with a stroke, but rather spent a few days in a hospital because of a high blood-pressure condition with medical complications. ... And while it's not totally clear if Chef is really dead (at the end of the episode, he's seen being resurrected, Darth-Vader style), Hayes' spokesperson wants it to be known that the musician is 100-percent finished with South Park. He's finished talking about it. Basically, his feeling is, if [Stone and Parker] felt the need to do episodes like this one, then that's fine, Harnell said. He's done with it, and he's already turning his attention to a series of upcoming commercial projects. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Another study show cell-phone tumor link
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060331/sc_nm/phones_dc_3 researchers at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life said they looked at the mobile phone use of 905 people between the age of 20 and 80 who had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and found a link. A total 85 of these 905 cases were so-called high users of mobile phones, that is they began early to use mobile and, or wireless telephones and used them a lot, the study said. The study also shows that the rise in risk is noticeable for tumors on the side of the head where the phone was said to be used, it added. Kjell Mild, who led the study, said the figures meant that heavy users of mobile phones, for instance of who make mobile phone calls for 2,000 hours or more in their life, had a 240 percent increased risk for a malignant tumor on the side of the head the phone is used. -- The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. -- James Madison ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
U.S. Army Bans Use of Privately Bought Armor
Pop quiz: Which protects you better? A. No Armor B. Shoddy Armor C. Superiour Armor Like the 'Dragon Skin' If you answered A, you would be the U.S. Army: http://my.netscape.com/corewidgets/news/story.psp?cat=51180id=2006033 018170001373988 Soldiers will no longer be allowed to wear body armor other than the protective gear issued by the military, Army officials said Thursday, the latest twist in a running battle over the equipment the Pentagon gives its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army officials told The Associated Press that the order was prompted by concerns that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested commercial armor from private companies - including the popular Dragon Skin gear made by California-based Pinnacle Armor. -- The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. -- James Madison ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Circumventing Competition: The Perverse Consequences of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Circumventing Competition: The Perverse Consequences of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by Timothy B. Lee http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa564.pdf The courts have a proven track record of fashioning balanced remedies for the copyright challenges created by new technologies. But when Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, it cut the courts out of this role and instead banned any devices that circumvent digital rights management (DRM) technologies, which control access to copyrighted content. The result has been a legal regime that reduces options and competition in how consumers enjoy media and entertainment. Today, the copyright industry is exerting increasing control over playback devices, cable media offerings, and even Internet streaming. Some firms have used the DMCA to thwart competition by preventing research and reverse engineering. Others have brought the weight of criminal sanctions to bear against critics, competitors, and researchers. The DMCA is anti-competitive. It gives copyright holdersand the technology companies that distribute their contentthe legal power to create closed technology platforms and exclude competitors from interoperating with them. Worst of all, DRM technologies are clumsy and ineffective; they inconvenience legitimate users but do little to stop pirates. Fortunately, repeal of the DMCA would not lead to intellectual property anarchy. Prior to the DMCA's enactment, the courts had already been developing a body of law that strikes a sensible balance between innovation and the protection of intellectual property. That body of law protected competition, consumer choice, and the important principle of fair use without sacrificing the rights of copyright holders. And because it focused on the actions of people rather than on the design of technologies, it gave the courts the flexibility they needed to adapt to rapid technological change. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Brin: New Wingnut Meme: Cultural Terrorism
Fascism is on the March: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/25/MNG6OHU6RR1.DT L This is more than a spiritual war, Luce said. It's a culture war. Military metaphors abound in Luce's descriptions of the struggle. He tells young people of how an enemy has launched a brutal attack on them. At a pre-Battle Cry rally Friday afternoon on the steps of City Hall, Luce told his mostly teenage audience that terrorists of a different kind -- -- were targeting them and that they were caught in the middle of the battle. -- The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. -- James Madison ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Brin: Vote-Stealing-Machine Makers Using New Tactics to Prevent Transparency
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006 032500805.html -- Freedom Democracy were S last millenium. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Isaac Hayes quits SouthPark -- Update
From: Max Battcher [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: But in late January, Hayes suffered a stroke, and members of Scientology took advantage if his infirmed condition to issue a statement claiming to be Hayes leaving the show. Today the story gains momentum as the New York Post picks it up and now names names: (Hayes is) at home recuperating and did not issue the press release which said he was quitting because the show made fun of his faith. That release was put out by fellow Scientologist Christina Kumi Kimball, a fashion executive for designer Craig Taylor 'Hayes loves 'South Park' and needs it for income. He has a new wife and a baby on the way.' http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix/65830.htm Anyone else curious how Isaac Hayes might feel now after this week's Super Adventure Club episode? Don't know. But the whole Super Adventure Club was just one big rip on scientology and L. Ron Hubbard in particular. I think their will be all kind of added rips on scientology in the next season. They can probably do some good stuff with Darth Chef. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Isaac Hayes quits SouthPark -- Update
From: The Fool http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188463,00.html Isaac Hayes' Quitting Controversy Isaac Hayes did not quit South Park. My sources say that someone quit it for him. I can tell you that Hayes is in no position to have quit anything. Contrary to news reports, the great writer, singer and musician suffered a stroke on Jan. 17. At the time it was said that he was hospitalized and suffering from exhaustion. Its also absolutely ridiculous to think that Hayes, who loved playing Chef on South Park, would suddenly turn against the show because they were poking fun at Scientology. http://www.wwtdd.com/index.php?type=onei=757 But in late January, Hayes suffered a stroke, and members of Scientology took advantage if his infirmed condition to issue a statement claiming to be Hayes leaving the show. Today the story gains momentum as the New York Post picks it up and now names names: (Hayes is) at home recuperating and did not issue the press release which said he was quitting because the show made fun of his faith. That release was put out by fellow Scientologist Christina Kumi Kimball, a fashion executive for designer Craig Taylor 'Hayes loves 'South Park' and needs it for income. He has a new wife and a baby on the way.' http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix/65830.htm ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] Charlie Bell wrote: Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Spinrite might do it, it's a dos thing. Don't have a copy handy unfortunately, my windows stuff is all in Cyprus (and I'm in Oz still with my iBook...). Just as curiosity, I checked the spinrite site. How can this recovery HD software cost _more_ than the price of a new HD? Are they insane? Did toy try using chkdsk.exe? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Did you try using chkdsk.exe? Yes, but it was useless, like any other Windows XP resident (evil) tool. They either repeat the meaningless error message, or recomend FR. I will[*] try using Linux tools like dosfsck - the HD is still usable for Linux, so probably Linux can fix it without loss of data. Alberto Monteiro [*] the home computer has the problem, and I am using the work computer. Is the HD partition FAT, Fat32, NTFS or other? And shouldn't you be ysung Windows 2000 or win98SE for your 'game computer'? XP adds nothing but heartache and errors to a game-machine. You should always keep your data (games, programs, etc.) on a different partition (or hard disk) than your OS. If you can access your data in linux, move it to a different partition, and reinstall (this time windows 2000). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Is the HD partition FAT, Fat32, NTFS or other? Fat32 There's your problem _Right There_. Unless you are using some version of win9x that needs to be able to see this partition, you need to be using NTFS. It's better in every way. And you can compress NTFS drives. See if you can't dig up an old version of scandisk.exe or norton utilities DOS version. And shouldn't you be usung Windows 2000 or win98SE for your 'game computer'? XP adds nothing but heartache and errors to a game-machine. I bought the computer with Windows XP. Dump XP and install 2000. You should always keep your data (games, programs, etc.) on a different partition (or hard disk) than your OS. But the data is safe. I just don't want to have the trouble to reinstall a lot of things, mainly games like Sims 2, that take an enormous time with boring CD-switch. Boo hoo. You can't take the time to reinstall all tour games. Wh. The XP OS is in a different physical HD. Dump it, reformat as a compressed NTFS drive and install 2000. If you can access your data in linux, move it to a different partition, and reinstall (this time windows 2000). I could do it, but it would take too much time, because there's more to save than free space [isn't this some Law of Informatics? Data expands to consume all available disk space and more?] NTFS drives are compressable. I would have to select which files to save, which to abandon, which games to reinstall after the format. Format the OS drive as compressed NTFS, move the data from your old partition, format that drive as a compressedd NTFS partition and install 2000. Again, data is safe [I am backup-paranoid: my problem is that sometimes undead files reappear and I have to slay them] but I don't want to lose the enormous time it would take me to FR. Specially since all the data is there, Linux can access it, just Windows is blind to it. Hmmm... Could it be that somehow this is not a Windows bug or hardware bug but a _Linux bug_? Somehow Linux turned the partition from Windows-visible to Windows-invisible? Yes. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Fat32 There's your problem _Right There_. Unless you are using some version of win9x that needs to be able to see this partition, you need to be using NTFS. It's better in every way. And you can compress NTFS drives. See if you can't dig up an old version of scandisk.exe or norton utilities DOS version. But NTFS is not visible to Linux. I'm _sure_ there are versions of programs in specific linux distros that do understand NTFS. Ask some of the more serious linux gurus to help you (I'm sure there's a newsgroup that can help you set it up right). Dump XP and install 2000. I don't want to buy a 2000. Who does? But the data is safe. I just don't want to have the trouble to reinstall a lot of things, mainly games like Sims 2, that take an enormous time with boring CD-switch. Boo hoo. You can't take the time to reinstall all your games. Wh. No. English is not my mother tongue, but it seems that _want_ is not _can_ :-P The XP OS is in a different physical HD. Dump it, reformat as a compressed NTFS drive and install 2000. This is the worst case scenario! I would have to acquire another buggy OS and then have Windows/Linux totally separated. Best case scenario. Windows 2000 has fewer problems than XP, has less garbage tacked on, less bloat, less anonying changes, and greater compatablity. It's always better to keep your O/S's seperated, and your data separated. Hmmm... Could it be that somehow this is not a Windows bug or hardware bug but a _Linux bug_? Somehow Linux turned the partition from Windows-visible to Windows-invisible? Yes. If Linux did it, then Linux can fix it :-P Bssst. But I still think it was not a software bug, but a hardware bug. Fat32 = Dos Norton Utilities ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: But NTFS is not visible to Linux. I'm _sure_ there are versions of programs in specific linux distros that do understand NTFS. Ask some of the more serious linux gurus to help you (I'm sure there's a newsgroup that can help you set it up right). Now you force me to do a little Linux bashing :-) Never a bad thing. My experience with Linux has some moments of frustration, because it seems that 80% of packages don't work. Specifically, after I have a working distro, then 80% of the new stuff I want to add has severe bugs that make them (it?) incompatible. And people wonder why I don't sing the praises of linux. Also, I never found a newsgroup with gurus that could help me. All my problems were analysed, solutions were proposed, but they seldom worked. Funny I never had that problem with the microsoft newsgroups I used. So I won't even try to see NTFS in Linux. Even much simpler things, like glpk or tux racer, don't work. Thoeretically if you can get wine working you can run much better software designed for...windows. I've seen NTFS functionality with older versions of caldera (SCO) linux among others. It exists. End of Linux bashing - OTOH, the things that work are really great, with many possibilities for intelligent design [oops...] and learning. I'll reiterate that I can have uptimes of 6 months without crashes in windows NT 4.0sp6 and windows2000sp4. I can have upwards of 60 separate Internet explorer sessions going, for literally months, without any crashes whatsoever. I'ts about knowing what you doing. Right now, my hobby has been learning perl. It's frustrating, because I know so many different languages that learning a new one gives little pleasure - there's no psychological reward for learning a difficult thing :-) Maybe I should challenge myself to _teach_ perl to my kids... Write your own c++ compiler that has built in strings, no buffer overflow flaws (no evil printf like functions), built in lex, and yacc, and perl-like functionality. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Now you force me to do a little Linux bashing :-) Never a bad thing. Yes, because it keeps our criticism, not because Linux is worse than the standard PC-alternative :-P But 99% of open source progams outside of the the top 30 are terrible, horrble, craptackularly bad. Also, I never found a newsgroup with gurus that could help me. All my problems were analysed, solutions were proposed, but they seldom worked. Funny I never had that problem with the microsoft newsgroups I used. But I could _never_ get any satisfactory solution to windows problems that didn't boil down to: (a) FR or (b) buy or get a pirate copy of a very expensive software You gotta know the right people in the right newsgroup. End of Linux bashing - OTOH, the things that work are really great, with many possibilities for intelligent design [oops...] and learning. I'll reiterate that I can have uptimes of 6 months without crashes in windows NT 4.0sp6 and windows2000sp4. I can have upwards of 60 separate Internet explorer sessions going, for literally months, without any crashes whatsoever. It's about knowing what you doing. Or it's about getting very expensive software? Like? (I got Vc++ for $100 and that came with NT 4.0 (~'$299 value' at the time), and VB for $100 and thats it). BTW, most of the dual things that I do with my computer are _many_ times faster with Linux than with Windows [except boot and reset]. Even things are designed for windows, like games in Flash, run faster in Linux - my 6-year-old once complained that a game was too fast for him on Linux, before he got the knack to win it. Windows sometimes seems horribly slow. I don't know what the damned thing is doing. Maybe it's compensating the faster boot :-) It's running a whole bunch of services that you can turn off, like indexing service, and probably some others (office), which don't really help you very often. You can also use task manager to see which programs are running and using what percent of the cpu at any given time. Any game that doesn't have built in timing isn't a very well written game. Any game that's using Flash is probably pure $h!t anyway. Anything run in browser is going to run like $h!t because of Java$h!t. Write your own c++ compiler that has built in strings, no buffer overflow flaws (no evil printf like functions), built in lex, and yacc, and perl-like functionality. The problem with those projects is that I can't get motivated by them. Aeons ago, I like to write games, but now I look at You don't do it because it is easy. You do it because it is hard. If you are really looking for some hardcore programmming to do as a hobby try starting here: http://romhacking.net or http://www.rpgone.net or http://agtp.romhack.net/ None of that sissy c++. All hardcore ASM. the games I wrote with nostalgia - I can't get anyone to play those dumb text interfaces. And graphic programming requires too much effort for a meagre outcome. Even a Strip Tic-Tac-Toe would be too complex to be worth writing. What tic-tack-toe logic would be difficult? Seems like their would only be about 10 significant patterns you'd need to match. Ok, I think I have a project worth writing: gnuchess is too strong, and there's no way to weaken its play. xboard is the CGI to gnuchess, and it enables an _other_ chess program to play. So maybe I should write a chess program that plays _random_ moves, as a challenging chess oponent to my 6-year-old :-) I could beat all computer chess programs up to about 1990 or so. By then the match was tough, but now with gnuchess I can only win by cheating. Maybe a windows-gnuchess port would be a beatable opponent :-) Find an old board game that noones made a version of. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Yes, because it keeps our criticism, not because Linux is worse than the standard PC-alternative :-P But 99% of open source progams outside of the the top 30 are terrible, horrble, craptackularly bad. Sturgeon Law Squared? 99% of everything is terrible, horrible, craptackularly bad. I wonder if as the Age of Information procceeds, this Law will also procceed to 99.9%, 99.99%, and so on. Probably. Or it's about getting very expensive software? Like? (I got Vc++ for $100 and that came with NT 4.0 (~'$299 value' at the time), and VB for $100 and thats it). Too much - but if the barrel of oil increases more I may think otherwise :-) When I bought The Sims 2, it cost me about $33. Now it's about $50 - our local currency increased its value relative to the dollar, but the prices didn't go down :-( I have original versions of final fantasy, final fantasy II, final fantasy III, secret of mana xenogears, all of which are very hard to find and expensive now. Any game that doesn't have built in timing isn't a very well written game. Any game that's using Flash is probably pure $h!t anyway. Notice the target user: a 6 year old boy! Bad timing is still bad programming. Anything run in browser is going to run like $h!t because of Java$h!t. Java is better under Linux than under Windows. There's even a Gnu Java compiler, that is faster than Sun's. The problem with those projects is that I can't get motivated by them. Aeons ago, I like to write games, but now I look at You don't do it because it is easy. You do it because it is hard. If you are really looking for some hardcore programmming to do as a hobby try starting here: http://romhacking.net or http://www.rpgone.net or http://agtp.romhack.net/ None of that sissy c++. All hardcore ASM. Or I could try to code in intercal or brainfvck, but I am not that crazy :-) Simpler than that. Even a Strip Tic-Tac-Toe would be too complex to be worth writing. What tic-tack-toe logic would be difficult? Seems like their would only be about 10 significant patterns you'd need to match. No, the tic-tac-toe logic would be simple, but the _strip_ part would be difficult (CGI programming suckz). I've written the interface to several 2d-board games and it wasnt that difficult. The Strip Tic-Tac-Toe project that I planned would have several opponents: one (male) would never lose, another would play random, another would always score a X-X-X when possible but otherwise play random, another would always defend a X-X-X when possible etc, and another would start playing random and learn with every loss (maybe start with a young woman and grow old with learning). Ok, maybe I will write it to learn perl + CGI :-) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 22 Mar 2006 at 11:16, The Fool wrote: From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: But NTFS is not visible to Linux. I'm _sure_ there are versions of programs in specific linux distros that do understand NTFS. Ask some of the more serious linux gurus to help you (I'm sure there's a newsgroup that can help you set it up right). Now you force me to do a little Linux bashing :-) Never a bad thing. My experience with Linux has some moments of frustration, because it seems that 80% of packages don't work. Specifically, after I have a working distro, then 80% of the new stuff I want to add has severe bugs that make them (it?) incompatible. And people wonder why I don't sing the praises of linux. How about Open Office? I barely ever even use office95 as it is. I'm not the person to ask that. So I won't even try to see NTFS in Linux. Even much simpler things, like glpk or tux racer, don't work. Thoeretically if you can get wine working you can run much better software designed for...windows. Although I have more luck running DOS programs under Linux than I do under DOS these days. Heck, than I did running them under DOS ever. I have a really handy CD which lets me boot Linux and a 2GB FAT partition for that stuff. It's about finding ways to shove drivers and things into small amounts high memory. As long as Darklands and few emulators work, it's all good. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
More evidence linking the White mans poison to Obesity
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/003182.html University of Florida researchers have identified one possible reason for rising obesity rates, and it all starts with fructose, found in fruit, honey, table sugar and other sweeteners, and in many processed foods. Fructose may trick you into thinking you are hungrier than you should be, say the scientists, whose studies in animals have revealed its role in a biochemical chain reaction that triggers weight gain and other features of metabolic syndrome - the main precursor to type 2 diabetes. In related research, they also prevented rats from packing on the pounds by interrupting the way their bodies processed this simple sugar, even when the animals continued to consume it. ... Now UF research implicates a rise in uric acid in the bloodstream that occurs after fructose is consumed, Johnson said. That temporary spike blocks the action of insulin, which typically regulates how body cells use and store sugar and other food nutrients for energy. If uric acid levels are frequently elevated, over time features of metabolic syndrome may develop, including high blood pressure, obesity and elevated blood cholesterol levels. ... When we blocked or lowered uric acid, we were able to largely prevent or reverse features of the metabolic syndrome, Johnson said. We were able to significantly reduce weight gain, we were able to significantly reduce the rise in the triglycerides in the blood, the insulin resistance was less and the blood pressure fell. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Isaac Hayes quits SouthPark -- Update
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188463,00.html Isaac Hayes' Quitting Controversy Isaac Hayes did not quit South Park. My sources say that someone quit it for him. I can tell you that Hayes is in no position to have quit anything. Contrary to news reports, the great writer, singer and musician suffered a stroke on Jan. 17. At the time it was said that he was hospitalized and suffering from exhaustion. Its also absolutely ridiculous to think that Hayes, who loved playing Chef on South Park, would suddenly turn against the show because they were poking fun at Scientology. ... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Fascist Censorship Spreads: AU Labor Party to Filter Internet at ISP
http://smh.com.au/news/National/Labor-will-make-ISPs-block-net-porn/20 06/03/21/114270305.html Labor's plan to protect children from online pornography and graphic violence has been backed by family groups, but dismissed by the government and internet industry. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said a Labor government would force internet service providers (ISPs) to block violent and pornographic material before it reached home computers. -- If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Dr. Who
Probable spoilers: They added a new counterpoint to the opening theme and rescored it with synthesizers. Bleh. It lacks the truly synthetic and slightly creepy sound of the the original masterpiece. This new version has no heart, no sharpness. It's kind of bleh. Seems kind of campy so far. Especially the background music. No regenation sequence from eighth doctor to ninth. A proper Dr. Who episode needs to be 2h (with commercials or 1.5h -commercials). You can't tell a proper Dr. Who story in only 45 minutes. First the put the eye of harmony in the TARDIS in the 96 movie, and now they've killed off gallefrey and 'all' the time lords (does this include the Master I wonder?). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: TV Weekend
From: Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: From: Robert G. Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dr Who is on Sci-Fi tonight It's two hours. The final episode of FullMetal Alchemist is on tomorrow on Cartoon Network. Sprited away is on CN at 6:30pm central. Uncut. I got it on DVD when it came out. It is nice. Has anyone seen Howls Moving Castle yet? It too is quite good. It was in theaters a year ago. Also, Princess Mononkoke on CN next week at 6:30pm central, Castle in the sky the week after, Nausicaa the week after that, and Spirited Away on TCM on march 25 in the afternoon uncut and commercial free. DoReMi starts over at episode 1, and Winx club Start over at season 2 on 4kidstv. I don't watch those myself. Avatar:tla Starts season 2 on nick. Avatar: The Last Airbender is excellent considering its target audience. I watched the season 2 premier last night with my son. Boondocks Season Finale, Minorteam season premier on AS sunday. Minoriteam is fairly funny. Boondocks is over the edge. I don't believe in 'edges'. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: TV Weekend
From: Jim Sharkey [EMAIL PROTECTED] Robert Seeberger wrote: Has anyone seen Howls Moving Castle yet? We rented it last weekend. It was, as usual, an amazing visual treat filled with memorable characters. Miyazaki's movies should be required watching, especially for young girls as his heroines tend to be plucky young women who take of things themselves. I will say that, as someone whose seen most of his movies, you can get a slight sense of deja vu watching Howl, since he likes to hit certain themes repeatedly and it appears that he hires the same guy to do his movies' scores every time. Avatar: The Last Airbender is excellent considering its target audience. I watched the season 2 premier last night with my son. Friday night has become as unlikely a TV Night at my house as I'd ever have thought. My whole family loves Avatar. I especially like how they have generally managed to avoid making their characters into some of the stock cliches you might expect. For example, Sokka could have been just dopy comic relief, and while my kids enjoy how he is often the butt of the sight gags, he's not a useless clown, which is where I think many animators would go. Avatar certainly seems to be It's not the best show running, their are better serious anime and euopean shows like W.I.T.C.H., but it's the best thing nick has done since..The mysterious cities of gold. a labor of love, and as long as it remians profitable for Nick, hopefully they won't tinker with it. It's good to have a transitional cartoon from the kiddie stuff to more mature works, I think. Eh, it hasn't exactly been pulling in the ratings. While there was an uptick in the premieres near the end of the last season, the reruns don't tend to do so hot. Since nick has all but cancelled every other current nicktoon, except spongebob(*), and most of them get equal of better ratings than avatar...Don't be disapointed if the planned third season 'book of fire' doesn't materialize. [*] The X's is still up in the air but I doubt it will be renewed. By cancelled I mean, no more episode ordered and being made. Nick likes to hold onto episodes and not premier them very often. Cartoon Network is still a better network in every way, and respect their viewers more. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Scouted: a new kind of repressive state
http://www.bopnews.com/archives/006142.html ... For those reading carefully, this essay will come across as familiar in one respect. Each wave of repression is tied to a particular kind of state. The reformation repression is the feudal state, the absolutist the mercantile state, the victorian the national state, the modern the market state. The modern rested on the huge speed and surplus gain of mechanization and broad based electrification, controlled through reduction. However the problem with its totalitarianism is that it had to ruthlessly repress the very thing that was becoming powerful: information. The information state beat the energy state in combat. It was code breaking and design that delivered the blows to right wing totalitarian states, and it was the premier terror weapon of the information state - the atomic weapon that finished it off. It also created the seeds of the next kind of repressive state, the one which we are now dealing with the more and more obvious expression of. ... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Brin: Pepper Kills Prostate Cancer
http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/03/16/2357204.shtml 'Capsaicin led 80 percent of human prostate cancer cells growing in mice to commit suicide in a process known as apoptosis, the researchers said.' This led to tumors one fifth the size of those in untreated mice. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Missouri ReThugliKLans Ban Birth Control Services
Now that the thugs got Borklito and Roberts they start ratcheting up their real agenda: http://www.firedupmissouri.com/gop_bans_birth_control The amendment, offered by Rep. Susan Phillips (R-Kansas City) removed voluntary choice of contraception, including natural family planning as one of the permissible services that county health clinics could provide with state funding. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Isaac Hayes quits SouthPark over Scientology Ep
Hyprocrisy. http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=162283 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060313/ap_en_tv/people_isaac_hayes Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored, he continued. As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices. South Park co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply in an interview with The Associated Press Monday, saying, This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem and he's cashed plenty of checks with our show making fun of Christians. Last November, South Park targeted the Church of Scientology and its celebrity followers, including actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, in a top-rated episode called Trapped in the Closet. In the episode, Stan, one of the show's four mischievous fourth graders, is hailed as a reluctant savior by Scientology leaders, while a cartoon Cruise locks himself in a closet and won't come out. Stone told The AP he and co-creator Trey Parker never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin. -- Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses. Here is an order, attributed to 'God' to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and to debauch and rape the daughters. I would not dare so dishonor my Creator's name by (attaching) it to this filthy book (the Bible). --Thomas Paine Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent -- Robert A. Heinlein ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
History Channel: Fraud
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/3/12/191034/261 The Garrison character is lamenting that the world that his family kids live in and will grow up in has become a lawless, screwed-up world and he defends to his wife why he has spent so much time away from the day-to-day family issues working on this case. In the un-edited movie Garrison says: Can't you see that my life is fvcked and so is yours Liz? Okay, well the History Channel has a right to bleep or takeout the offensive word f*cked here -- but they did something very different from just that. Instead, this is what was aired on the History Channel: Can't you see that my life is A FRAUD and so is your Liz This is no longer just a standard foul-language edit here. They CHANGED the entire meaning and point of the movie. --- The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed by them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of a man. --Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Brin: The End of the Internet?
The End of the Internet? -- (The Nation -- February 1, 2006) http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online. Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency Dr. Brin, the conspiracy is much broader than this. Intel, AMD, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Etc. are all on board. It's called TCPA / Palladium AKA next-generation-secure-computing-base (NGSCB) AKA Bitlocker. (It's also why apple suddenly switched to intel). With a so called 'trusted-computing-platform-module' (TCPM) being built into the CPU of all new computers, remote attestation can be enforced by the ISP's universally. The right to access or read the internet is being killed. See: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html This means nothing unless TCPA / Palladium is stopped somehow: http://civic.moveon.org/mediaaction/alerts/Stop_AOL_email_scheme.html and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html http://www.stallman.org/harry-potter.html: Making Canada respect human rights will be hard, but a good first step is to identify the officials and legislators who do not support them. The article quotes a lawyer as saying, There is no human right to read. Any official, judge, or legislator who is not outraged by this position does not deserve to be in office. RFID chipped Books: http://www.stallman.org/sinister-publisher.html - How noble libertarianism, in its majestic equality, that both rich and poor are equally prohibited from peeing in the privately owned streets (without paying), sleeping under the privately owned bridges (without paying), and coercing bread from its rightful owners! --Anatole France ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Stop AOL from ruining email
From: Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] Folks, The following message is the boilerplate that moveon.org is providing to help get the word out about what they're calling an email tax, under which large emailers can basically buy the right to spam AOL users. What do you expect from evil companies like AOL and Yahoo!? They do evil $h!t like this all the time. Internet petitions do not work. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Scouted: The Way Things Are:
The US is... http://www.bopnews.com/archives/006055.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Palladium Laptop
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/02/yes_trusted_ com.html Yes, Trusted Computing is used for DRM Ever since the Trusted Computing Group went public about its plan to put a security chip inside every PC, its members have been denying accusations that the group is really a thinly-disguised conspiracy to embed DRM everywhere. IBM and Microsoft have instead stressed genuinely useful applications, like signing programs to be certain they dont contain a rootkit. But at this weeks RSA show, Lenovo showed off a system that does use the chips for DRM after all. The system is particularly frightening because it looks so simple. Theres no 20-digit software key to type in, no dongle to attach to the printer port, no XP-style activation. (Is this what Bill Gates was thinking of when he said in his keynote that security needs to be easier to use?) The user interface is just a Thinkpad, albeit one of the new models with an integrated fingerprint sensor. When someone tries to open a DRM-restricted document (in this case, a PDF file: break that DRM and go to jail), Lenovo software asks the user to swipe a finger across the sensor. My finger results in an access denied message; the Lenovo security guys finger opens the document. If youve ever had a laptop stolen, this might sound useful. It is. In fact, encrypting hard disks or individual files is the main use that most vendors are promoting for the chip. Thinkpads have been able to do that since their IBM days, and now most other laptops can too. You can probably try it out by downloading software from your laptop manufacturers site, and Microsoft is building similar functionality into Vista as Palladium NGSCB Secure Startup BitLocker. The fingerprint sensor is also a good thing, if its just used for encryption. Its even good for privacy: It means that network servers can authenticate you based on your fingerprint, without sending any fingerprint data over the network. (How? You authenticate to the chip in your laptop with your fingerprint, then the chip authenticates to the server with a digital certificate.) But DRM goes beyond encryption. In the system that Lenovo demonstrated, the decision about who can do what with the file is made by whoever generates the PDF, not by the person or organization that owns the laptop. According to Lenovo, the system is also aimed at tracking who reads a document and when, because the chip can report back every access attempt. If you access the file, your fingerprint is recorded. That might also sound useful, provided of course that youre the one doing the recording and restricting. (Id love to be Big Brother! Wouldnt we all?) The problem is that you wont be. Even if we forget about media companies for the moment, and assume that DRM is just for businesses that need to protect their sensitive documents from disclosure by employees or outsourcing partners, its still a bad tradeoff. A DRM system may seem to empower whoever is setting the restrictions (in this case, the PDF creator), but thats just power by proxy. The real control lies with the hardware and software companies. Theyre the ones who actually enforce the DRM and have the encryption keys, so they can hold your data to ransom. DRM customers are already locked into a single vendor: A DRM-restricted Word document can only be read by Word (not OO.org, WordPerfect or Writely), just as a DRM-restricted iTunes download can only be played on an iPod. Present versions of Word and iTunes still let customers escape by using the Windows clipboard or a CD burner, but that capability can be removed at any time. Relying on DRM means trusting all the vendors involved (in this case, Microsoft, Adobe, Lenovo and its component suppliers) more than you trust the users of the system. You need to trust the vendors both morally and practically: Can Microsoft be trusted not to abuse its power? And can Microsoft be trusted to develop a system that isnt full of security holes? If youre a movie studio or a record label, the users are your customers. You probably do trust Microsoft and the TCG more than your customers, so DRM might make sense. But if youre an organization seeking to protect sensitive data, the users are your own employees and business partners. Are they really less trustworthy than Microsoft, its employees and its business partners? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Brin: The Big Bangs
An article you might find interesting Dr. Brin: http://www.bopnews.com/archives/006046.html - 'I wish it need not have happened in my time', said Frodo. 'So do I,' said Gandalf, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.' ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Fight the Future: Houston Police wanna put Cameras in Your Home
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Police_Cameras.html Houston's police chief on Wednesday proposed placing surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers. I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it? Chief Harold Hurtt told reporters Wednesday at a regular briefing. - This Constitution is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other. --Benjamin Franklin ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Iran to hang teenage girl who fought back against rapists
http://feministing.com/archives/002691.html Iran to hang teenage girl who fought back against rapists This is pretty horrible stuff. A teenage girl in Iran has been sentenced to death by hanging after she admitted that she accidentally killed a man who was trying to rape her and her niece. -- I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth. --Thomas Jefferson Letter to William Short ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Brin: California Recertifies Hackable Diebold Voting Machines
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/17/21954/9471 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Cancer Drug: $100,000 / Year
http://thoughtcrimes.org/s9/index.php?/archives/526-If-cancer-patients -wants-to-live,-the-price-is-8,000-a-month,-no-checks-please..html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/business/15drug.html Doctors are excited about the prospect of Avastin, a drug already widely used for colon cancer, as a crucial new treatment for breast and lung cancer, too. But doctors are cringing at the price the maker, Genentech, plans to charge for it: about $100,000 a year. - How noble libertarianism, in its majestic equality, that both rich and poor are equally prohibited from peeing in the privately owned streets (without paying), sleeping under the privately owned bridges (without paying), and coercing bread from its rightful owners! --Anatole France ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Hoes seek GTA ban
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6144286.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
