Pangloss

Exactly. And a disturbing trend from that important institution.

One thing I've been wondering about this is whether the chimps are practicing a simple pattern-elimination algorithm, or if they're actually learning the relative values of the 0-9 digits. The latter would suggest that learning is taking place at a level higher than just rote learning. If not, the sheer number of combinations they would have to try, and the number of patterns they would have to memorize, would quickly become really, really huge, wouldn't it? But I'm just guessing; it might be interesting to calculate the number of combinations and amount of time it would take to test them all using a linear sort. Obviously the chimp will always hit on the right answer before finishing the test, but I can't help but wonder if they're doing a little better (or perhaps quite a lot better) than O(n) here.

Ridiculous. Welfare for the poor, public housing, anti-corporatism, these are all positions commonly held/promoted by American liberals. Hey, if you don't support Chavez, I'm glad to hear it. But I think it's pretty ridiculous to try and deny that some American liberals are right out there on the same playing field with the guy. Sure, there are differences, I readily agree (like respect for freedoms, which I've been POINTING OUT), which is why they SHOULDN'T be supporting him. If you want to amend that to "some liberals support him, some don't", then we would have common ground. But just flat out denying that any American liberals support the guy, that's just silly.

I guess you're right. But whether more stars have visited Chavez than the troops in Afghanistan is hardly the foundation of my argument! It was a minor side comment at most. My argument, that Chavez enjoys support from the American political left, has not been refuted. What's surprising to me is that it's being objected to at all. I think what I must have forgotten about the rift between progressivism and social libertarianism. Libertarians find Chavez quite objectionable because he's stomped on freedoms; it's mainly the social progressives, the it's-not-your-fault types, who like him. It makes sense that libertarians would find that support embarassing. So Chavez seems to be highlighting a significant rift in the left. Interesting.

Oh please, of course he's liberal. His policies are characterized far and wide as social democracy. His entire appeal to the lower classes is based around progressive social policies funded by the outright theft of fully developed oil resources through nationalization -- about as liberal as it gets. And that's just silly suggesting that he doesn't have support from the left. Of course he does. The fact that the left is fractured and contains many perspectives doesn't make his position less liberal. Nonsense yourself. It's a subjective opinion, but just off the top of my head I can tell you that Chavez has had visits from Danny Glover, Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn, Harry Belefonte and Naomi Campbell. Afghanistan? Robin Williams comes to mind, but that's about it. A couple country singers, I believe.

Not when more Hollywood actors have been to visit Hugo Chavez then have been to visit our troops in Afghanistan. They're not ignoring him, they're lining up to bow and scrape before the Benevolent Democratator. If he has to shut down a few radio stations blaring complaints from people who just don't understand advanced progressive theory, well, so be it.

Great points.

As IA points out above, if you're just browsing/typing, it's fine. The problems mostly revolve around driver issues and specific software. There are also issues revolving around group policies, which are very common in corporate network environments today. My school's group policy conflicted with Vista in such a way that Visual Studio 2005 wouldn't work even after the Vista patch was applied. But everyone got Vista, so for months we've had to run Visual Studio in a VirtualPC window. Yuck. (Fortunately Visual Studio 2008 is out now, which should resolve this, though I haven't tried it yet.) Companies are reworking their group policy configurations, but it takes time, and as a user it can be difficult to determine what your company is doing in that area, and they're not likely to tell you for security reasons, so you end up having to either risk it or avoid Vista until they give the all-clear.

Sure, I mean the missing elements here are basically: - No WMDs - No sponsorship for terrorism Right? The very worst he could do to my country would be to cut off the oil supply. Which would certainly be bad, but wouldn't that be Venezuela's right as a free country, regardless of what government they had in charge? So I understand what you're saying and I don't fault the logic. I'm just pointing out that there seems to be a great deal more tolerance for very real, tangible losses of freedoms in Venezuela from the same group of people that are trying to convince us of very intangible, undemonstrated losses of freedoms in the US. The reason for that tolerance is obvious: Chavez is a liberal. Bush is a conservative. Which reveals that far-left angst to be ideological desire for progressivism regardless of the cost, rather than an honest desire to see freedoms protected.

Iran has stopped its direct weapons-building program, yes, but it continues to run its enrichment program specifically designed to produce weapons-grade fuel. I think they got their bomb-building program to the point where they knew they could do it, then stopped because they had to focus on the last technical hurdle -- enrichment. No point in building bombs if you have nothing to put inside them. The Democratic presidential candidates are all running around saying how this is just like Iraq. I share that concern, but can I just point something out? We haven't invaded Iran. Nor has the claim been made that Iran already has the bomb (unlike the situation in 2003 with Iraq, though it turned out to be wrong wrt WMDs, the claim was made that they were there). The point being that pressure must continue to be applied to Iran. EVERYONE should agree on this, REGARDLESS of how you feel about the present US administration, REGARDLESS of what you feel are more important threats in the world. This is a dangerous nation and we must continue to pay attention to its doings.

"I think you're the worst mayor the city has ever known" and "I think you're the biggest criminal in the city". He didn't ask the mayor a question, he staged a protest. And that's fine, but he got what he deserved. Wheelchair or not, regardless of the reception he received, he is still responsible for his behavior. What would you say if Barrack Obama mocked a caller accusing him being the "biggest criminal in the country" for not doing enough to stop the war in Iraq? Would Obama be more wrong if the caller turned out to be a double amputee war veteran just home from Iraq? You know as well as I do that some right-wing zealot is out there right now, copying and pasting some nonsense exactly like that, as fast as he possibly can. Why perpetuate it? I think you make a valid point about Giuliani's temper and attitude. I just think you go too far in calling this event "sickening". But that's my opinion, YMMV.

Says a guy with an avatar from a faux Saturday afternoon matinee! But yeah, we pretty much agree.

He seems to be saying that the inherent vagueness of the Drake equation, which suggests the underlying variables necessary to calculate the frequency of life in the universe, changed the definition of what constitutes "science". Since none of the variables can actually be known, scientific legitimacy was granted to something that did not actually constitute science. This opened a pandora's box that allowed wild conjectures like "nuclear winter", "global warming", "creationism", etc (he's saying these things, not me). Isn't he making a mistake here in equating "science" with "fact"? I thought science was any exploratory process based on logical derivation of evidence. Isn't he going to far requiring that something cannot be called science unless it has been established as fact? Isn't it really the other way around -- we conjecture first, based, yes, on evidence, and THEN find fact? Also, isn't he wrong in saying that the Drake Equation is vague, or not science? Who says we can't know those variables? Sure we don't know their values NOW, but who is to say we won't know them later? And how does that prove that we can't understand and evaluate all the variables in, say, global warming? Surely the Earth contains a much more comprehensible set of variables than the entire universe. Not saying he doesn't have a point, though, and I particularly enjoyed this passage, roasting SciAm: Ouch!

Well' date=' how exactly do you know that? It's not like any effort was made to determine that from what I can tell...[/quote'] That's not true. We've had a religious section for of the time that I've been a member here. Sayo is right -- nobody wants to moderate it -- that was what killed it last time, IIRC. For that matter, P&R has almost always been a completely Pangloss-free zone. (Uh oh, I probably just increased interest in it.)

I agree. What if we need that information later on to determine if a new member was here previously, and perhaps had actions taken against them for, say, harassing other users? If we honored that request then we wouldn't have that capability.

The strike affects movies as well. Incidentally, I believe the two sides were scheduled to meet again today.

How about that awesome story out of Venezuela over the weekend? Is that not amazing or what? If you haven't heard, the country voted on whether or not to grant near-dictatorial powers in a radical change to the country's constitution. The changes would have allowed Hugo "The Democratator" Chavez to remain "president" for life, declare states of emergency at will, and permanently silence already-muffled criticism from the media. Chavez has overwhelming popular support, mainly due to his sweaping, oil-revenue-driven social programs, and has never lost an election. Most observers gave the "no" side absolutely no chance of success. But in what may be one of the biggest democratic success stories of the young century, they were wrong. Chavez was beaten, 51 to 49. Holy cow. Time has a great story on it here: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1690507,00.html I'd love to think that the people of Venezuela woke up and smelled the coffee, but the main reason appears to be that Chavez' voting base stayed home in droves. Still, that may be an indirect no vote, of the kind one casts when one doesn't really think it's a good idea TO cast a vote. I can't wait to hear what all the Hollywood types who've been to visit Chavez think of all this. According to Bill O'Reilly, more Hollywood stars have been to visit Hugo Chavez than have been to visit the troops in Afghanistan. Take that, Sean Penn, you freaking moron.

Fascinating video about some Japanese researchers who took the usual chimpanzee pattern recognition tests to a slightly higher level. Watch what happens about halfway through this video. Jaw-dropping, indeed! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khe9bXT-OHE The chimpanzees were never educated on the meaning of these symbols, so it seems fairly obvious that they're still just rote-learning the correct sequence, but isn't it fascinating that they are able to evaluate sequential order to this degree? Also the short-term memory angle is interesting. I wonder if the reporter here has a point in suggesting that if humans spent that many hours on it they'd be able to do the same, but I think he also has a point in saying that evolution would surely suggest that chimps might well be able to exceed our capabilities in certain areas. Why not?

ROFL! "THIS... IS... FLORIDA!!!!!!!" Nope, you put them there yourself by characterizing Giuliani's reaction against the backdrop of the man's disability, calling it "sickening". Nor have you denied that this was your position.

I made that point in the OP, bascule. True enough, and I respect your opinion on the war being the more relevent subject. I admit that I have a hard time looking past my prejudice that the far left isn't really anti-war, they're just anti-right. I'm sure I'm not alone in this regard, but anything that impugnes my judgement does also have the effect of lessening the objective value of my opinion on any related subject. If I am to criticize others for this, then I can hardly let myself off the hook.

"Neocon cohorts" is an interesting way to refer to France. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/17/europe/EU-GEN-France-Iran-Nuclear.php

The fear mongering is in the far left taking the perfectly moderate and logical consideration, in a democratic legislative body, of military bases in Iraq (and long-term presence) and parlaying that into the implication that our troops are going to fight and die in Iraq for the next fifty years, and there's nothing we can do about it.

They don't (usually) claim they're developing nukes. They claim they have the technology to develop them, scream that it's their right to do so, casually mention the thousand accelerators they're building, and then talk about how the Holocost was faked. And if Barrack "Let's just take off and nuke them from orbit; it's the only way to be sure" Obama were in the White House, we'd have already done something about this, and it wouldn't have involved sitting around and asking them politely. Liberals would be saying "well sure peace is great until you've got a guy pointing a gun at you", and conservatives would be saying "hey I thought we didn't want to interfere in foreign affairs!"

It's important to remember that it's Iranian statements, not American ones, that have produced the current fears over Iranian nuclear weapons. Which makes the story pretty odd if true -- why would Iran deliberately mislead the world into thinking it had a more advanced program than it really has? What has it gained by doing so? It seems to me that it's probably hurt them, but is it possible that they gained something that's not immediately obvious? Or is it just that they pushed this PR agenda because they THOUGHT it would get them somewhere, or that anti-American sentiment was so ripe that they could push these buttons and the world would back off, drop sanctions, etc, in order to appease them?