bascule

Did they actually have any evidence at the time that ACORN was dirty, or did they just irrationally presume?

The difference between being a normal, healthy person and horribly disfigured and on death's doorstep can be as little as one slip of the foot. When that happens, how should it be handled? Does this guy deserved to be saved, or should he get a Darwin award? Should he only be saved if he can foot the bill?

I've recently begun reading this book, and so far, I'm enjoying it incredibly. It's not exactly an easy book to describe, but one of the themes that has come up right away is the juxtaposition between art (which the author calls romantic knowledge) and science (which the author calls classical knowledge). So far references to eastern mysticism have been, well, mostly eschewed by the author with confusion. I suppose the conclusion of the book will be an acceptance of eastern mysticism. I await such a conclusion. Until then, I've been rather amazed by the book's treatment of science and technology as essential parts of our lives. I've also been rather impressed with the author's philosophical background, particularly his descriptions of his studies of Hume and Kant. Anyone else read this book and wish to opine? Please note I'm in the middle of reading it. Spoilers would be rather unappreciated

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6488613/Afghanistan-West-hails-Hamid-Karzai-as-legitimate-president.html So, who thinks things are all screwed up in Afghanistan? I do I do. Seriously, WTF? I'm sure that Karzai gets the full support of the drug cartels. Shouldn't someone intervene here?

WARNING: Do not click this link. Seriously, do not click it. Okay, you can click it, but do NOT play the video. If you play the video, seriously, I warned you. You take all responsibility at that point. DO NOT PLAY THE VIDEO. It will disturb you. Seriously. Don't play the video. Don't do it. In fact do not bother to click the link. It will screw with you. Seriously. Don't do it. http://robert-lindsay.blogspot.com/2009/10/face-split-diving-accident-video.html Okay, so here's the story. You're chilling out, diving off a building into the ocean. You do this every weekend. It impresses the members of the opposite gender, your amazing diving abilities. It's a little bit unsafe, but hey, you're seasoned, you know what you're doing. Then, one day, you're trying to dive off, slip, and hit your face on the pier. OW! OW OW OW OW OW OW OW I'M BLEEDING OH I'M GOING TO DIE... Then what? Well, I guess, if you live in Lebanon, you die. If you live in the US, you probably live, horribly disfigured, and $500,000 in debt for medical care your insurance didn't bother to cover. Oh, and now comes the outpatient rehabilitation. Oi. Which is better?

Can anyone actually demonstrate that stories about ACORN were going underreported by other outlets? Since that seems to be the only issue I've heard coming up as to Fox News' excellent ability to fill in the gap where the liberal bias of all other news outlets renders them blind to the story... Are you saying other outlets didn't cover ACORN? Didn't investigate enough? Didn't write stories about ACORN prostitution scandals? Stole those stories from FOX? Seriously, what's the deal? Educate me here. Your generalizations about FOX REVEALS ACORN'S SECRETS aren't telling the whole story. Where do you think Fox is actually picking up the slack in the whole news reporting business?

Another way to put that is not much without lots and lots of people dying. There is no way to sustain the current (growing) population without increasingly advanced technology.

The Solar Storm of 1859 represents what some call a "perfect solar storm". Through the coincidental convergence of conditions it was so strong it set fire to telegraph lines and created auroras that could be seen as far from the poles as Rome. Could this happen again? If it did, what would become of our technologically dependent society?

I don't see anyone here claiming he misrepresented the science. Does anyone think he misrepresented the science? If so, that's a different story. The only claim I'm seeing here is that he spoke out against the politics.

Only one good thing ever came from primal therapy: the song Shout by Tears for Fears

In 20/20 hindsight, I cannot in good conscience condone the use of nuclear weapons, sorry

If you were watching History's The Universe they gave extensive information about how fusion reactions in the sun actually work.

Yes, it's awfully great of them to completely ignore the science when it isn't politically convenient. Why can't the scientists simply be good citizens of the political echo chamber and say what the government wants to hear?

What you're describing is generally referred to as a "System-on-a-chip" SoaCs are generally mounted on a logic board, but combine many functions that might otherwise be spread out across many more integrated circuits and allow a smaller package. Remember, a Smartphone is a computer in your pocket.

On the contrary, I think it's immensely helpful for the public debate on this issue to be science-centered. The science is being suppressed because it's politically inconvenient. It wasn't based on scientific findings at all. They asked the panel for advice, then promptly ignored all of it. Needless to say the panel is a bit miffed. The decision was entirely political and not based on the advice of the panel. At that point having a panel is little more than a dog and pony show to try to lend scientific credibility to the government's opinion. The panel obviously does not approve of this.

It allows you to manage your own datacenter as if it were Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, i.e. you can manage any number of virtual machines on top of your physical infrastructure.

Do you see the contradiction here? He was effectively fired for doing his job, because in the course of his duties he came to disagree with the government position. When he gave advice to the contrary of the status quo, he was sacked. To me this is a clear case of the government wanting advisers to look for a scientific basis to the government's existing position, which isn't how science works. You don't start with a foregone conclusion and look for evidence to support it. You start with a hypothesis and look for both evidence that would confirm it or refute it.

DAC is a digital to analog converter... can't help you much beyond that

You think government advisers should be yes men who uphold the status quo whether or not they think it's wrong?

Eucalyptus is awesome

Is there some reason why you don't want a smartphone in general?

This has been a pretty interesting story... the UK's chief drugs adviser was fired after making a public statement that cannabis and LSD are less harmful than alcohol: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8336635.stm Other scientists and government advisers have quit in response to the firing. Is this a battle of science vs politics? Update: Another adviser has resigned: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8336884.stm

That's hard to say. In the US, Republicans pay lipservice to conservative economics, but Reagan and Dubya have together run up the national debt more than all other presidents combined.

The tidal motion of our respiratory system as opposed to the continuous unidirectional flow mechanism of birds is arguably inferior

Whoops, my bad. But that article was rather poorly written. Two things: 1) Neocortical columns aren't actually Bayesian classifiers. Bayesian classifiers are the most popular analogue to what neocortical columns are actually doing. However neocortical columns work fundamentally differently, in that they have a sense of time. The time at which symbols are processed is just as important as the symbols themselves. 2) Neocortical columns aren't exclusive to humans. They can be found in any animal with a neocortex (i.e. mammals) Humans just have a lot more of them, and the human version is more complex than the version found in, say, rats.