31 Jul 2007
Boss shot workers who wanted raise

I have had some real wing-dinger bosses in my time, but never one like this ... and thank the gods for that!

The owner of a car dealership has been accused of killing two employees because they kept asking for pay raises.

(link) [CNN.com]

22:20 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

The ironic rise of the Mac among open source developers

Huh? Nothing ironic here - OS X is based on an open source core.

The Mac has become commonplace at open source conferences. Why? Why is such a closed platform a massive hit among freedom-loving developers?

(link) [CNET News.com]

22:18 /Technology | 1 comment | permanent link

30 Jul 2007
Bill Would Criminalize Attempted IP Infringement

Since thinking about something is rapidly becoming the same as doing it, why didn't we lock up Agatha Christie for murder? Should we have impeached Jimmy Carter on the same moral pretext as we did with Clinton, since he had famolusly committed adualtry in his heart?

H.R. 3155, the Intellectual Property Enhanced Criminal Enforcement Act of 2007, has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH). In most cases, the bill appears to simply double existing penalties. One big change however, is that people could now be charged with criminal copyright infringement even if such infringement has not actually taken place. Not surprisingly, the EFF has condemned the legislation.

(link) [Slashdot]

22:02 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

27 Jul 2007
Disney pledges to cut out smoking

Because every little kid who watched 101 Dalmatians wants to be just like Cruella De Vil.

The Walt Disney Company says it will remove cigarette smoking from its family-oriented films.

(link) [BBC News]

06:24 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Marijuana may increase psychosis risk

Out here on the farm we have a saying for this kind of situation where you have drug warriors and health bureaucrats with vested interests pushing studies with such statistically insignificant numbers like this. We call it "letting the fox guard the henhouse".

Using marijuana seems to increase the chance of becoming psychotic, researchers report in an analysis of past research that reignites the issue of whether pot is dangerous.

(link) [CNN.com]

06:23 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

Google sued over North Carolina tax exemptions

Do no evil - unless it involves stealing money from taxpayers. Indiana is facing a property tax crisis right now, and I can't help but wonder how much of it is due to deals like this that various localities (and the state) have made over the years with these corporate welfare recipients.

Lawsuit claims tax exemptions to Google in North Carolina violate state's constitution

(link) [CNET News.com]

06:17 /Politics | 3 comments | permanent link

26 Jul 2007
Obesity is 'socially contagious'

I'm not putting this in 'Humor', with the rest of my "Studies in Stupidity", because even though that's what it is, it isn't very funny. It is, despite being stupid, true. And it's very dangerous.

"What appears to be happening is that a person becoming obese most likely causes a change of norms about what counts as an appropriate body size. People come to think that it is okay to be bigger since those around them are bigger, and this sensibility spreads," said Christakis.

In short, if your friends become liberals, you're more likely to find being a liberal socially acceptable, and become one, too. Thus, liberality is "socially contagious".

So is conservatism.

So is smoking, drinking, gambling, and drug use. So is appreciating art, music and literature.

Of course we're influenced by our friends - it's called "culture". Sometimes it's a subculture, sometimes it's a counterculture.

By this use of the "contagion", obesity becomes a disease. Crime is a disease. In fact, any bit of human behavior that is disliked can be construed as a disease, complete with symptoms, vectors and treatment programs.

Politically, it's been done before. It's being talked about now. And "studies" like this one go a long way towards providing the ideological underpinnings of tyranny.

Are your friends making you fat? Or keeping you slender? According to new research from Harvard and the University of California, San Diego, the short answer on both counts is "yes."

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

19:20 /Politics | 2 comments | permanent link

24 Jul 2007
RFID a 'technical blunder', report says

Somebody should forward this to the USDA... we wouldn't want a major policy initiative based on a technical blunder, now would we?

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a technology bubble ready to burst according to a new report by Dublin-based firm Heavey RF.

(link) [The Register]

05:43 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

23 Jul 2007
New Leaders Warn Pensive French of the Drawbacks of Thinking Too Much

He's got to be kidding (see my previous post).

In the country of the Enlightenment, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government advocates hard work, not musing.

(link) [NYT > Home Page]

06:30 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Brainless civil servant amazes doctors

Am I supposed to be amazed, too? I don't know - I've met several staffers at various agricultural regulatory agencies who I'm sure had similar conditions ...

A French man whose skull was mostly occupied by a "huge fluid-filled chamber" was able to operate perfectly well as a civil servant - despite having "little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue", Reuters reports.

(link) [The Register]

06:15 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

21 Jul 2007
Microsoft Sees Stronger XP Sales in FY08

ROTFLMAO...

Rude Awakening wrote with a PC World article, saying that XP sales will actually be higher next year than they were in 2007. Despite Vista's release, Microsoft admitted this week that it expects the previous version of its operating system to make up a larger percentage of its OS sales in 2008. "According to Liddell, Microsoft will generate the same revenue, more or less, under the new Vista vs. XP numbers, although there might be some slight differences because Vista sales have tended to involve more of the higher-priced versions, dubbed premium by the company, than has XP. The financial forecast didn't spell out that directly, however. The only clue was a US$120 million difference in what Microsoft pegged as the 'undelivered elements' it assigned to unearned income for the coming year."

(link) [Slashdot]

07:49 /Technology | 1 comment | permanent link

20 Jul 2007
Bush Administration Fighting New Cigarette Tax Hike

Well, you would probably expect an unrepentent smoker such as myself to be mighty upset over this, especially given that we in Indiana have just raised cigarette taxes for the very same reason. But I'm not - and I'll tell you why.

First off, I'm not sure the Senate can override a veto on this, even though Bush the Idiot is opposing it for all the wrong reasons - this has nothing to do with "government taking over health care". Second, because this offers a perfect opportunity to teach my non-smoking (or non-drinking, non-gambling) friends how raising "sin" taxes is really just a ruse for a general tax increase: one that "non-sinners" will ultimately pay.

When Indiana raised it's cigarette taxes recently, the legislature commissioned very careful studies - how many smokers would actually quit because of the new tax, and how much money would actually be raised. Once this estimate was in hand, they funded programs based on the numbers.

But, of course, now come the Feds, bound and determined to do the same thing. If this new Federal tax is imposed, the number of smokers in Indiana will drop much further that the Indiana legislature predicted, leaving our State cigarette tax funded programs with a serious shortfall.

Does anyone seriously think the legislature will pare those programs back?

The shortfall will be made up from general tax revenues, and will either contribute to a deficit or a general tax increase.

And since the professed goal of sin taxes is to reduce sin, ultimately all sin taxes are general tax increases - unless they fail to work, which kinda defeats the professed purpose, eh?

A new tax on cigarettes, that would be used to fund children's health insurance, is opposed by the administration, which fears insurance costs will pass to the government.

(link) [Wired Top Stories]

06:35 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Checkers Solved, Unbeatable Database Created

Years ago I monkeyed around with AI and game design, mostly for fun but also looking for faster ways to solve certain switching and prediction problems. Ultimately I concluded that the most efficient way to solve these sorts of problems was a database lookup, because memory was a much more important factor in human intelligence than we generally believe.

At the time, however, silicon memory was quite expensive, and the average hard disk was 20MB, so there was no way for me to really run through a test of any scale, especially considering that it probably would've delved deeper into game theory, and the boss might've looked askance at that.

But this seems to back up my thinking - nice to know I was at least on the right track.

A story on the Nature site announced that a team of computer scientists at the University of Alberta has solved checkers. From the game's 500 billion billion positions (5 * 10^20), 'Chinook' has determined which 100,000 billion (10^14) are needed for their proof, and run through all relevant decision trees. They've set up a site where you can see the proof, traverse the logic, and play their unbeatable automaton. Jonathan Schaeffer notes that his research has implications beyond the checkers board. The same algorithms his team writes to solve games could be helpful in searching other databases, such as vast lists of biological information because, as he says, "At the core, they both reduce to the same fundamental problem: large, compressed data sets that have to be accessed quickly."

(link) [Slashdot]

06:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

19 Jul 2007
Driver ODs, Crashes Into Drug Treatment Center

Only in Cincinnati...

CINCINNATI -- A man with a needle sticking out of his arm crashed Wednesday afternoon into a Clifton Heights drug treatment center, witnesses said.

(link) [WLWT]

via CNN

21:21 /Humor | 1 comment | permanent link

Vick to court next week, not camp

You know what really pisses me off about this? Beyond the horrifying cruelty to animals? The fact the we (taxpayers) funded this asshole from the get go, and in fact paid for his college education. 100%. Because he's a big, fast thug who can run with a little ball.

The NCAA allows each division 1A college football program 85 scholarships and each division 1AA college 63 athletic scholarships. In division 2 there are 36 Scholarships.

To retain division I status, a football team must have 76.5 football scholarship players and can carry 85 active scholarship players. In division I-AA, schools have 63 scholarships, usually divided among 85 players.source

And that's just football - baseball, track and field, swimming, lacrosse, hockey - think of a sport, and there's a scholarship associated with it.

I have yet to understand exactly what the ability to toss a ball or whack a puck has to do with scholarship.

Michael Vick got a free ride through Virginia Tech courtesy of one of these "scholarships" - now I dare you to Goolge for a full academic scholarship, based strictly on intellectual achievement, offered by directly by VT (not from a foundation or other third party). I couldn't find any.

If college athletics were subject to the same rules of accurate advertising they'd have to change the name of these programs to "thugships".

Just despicable.

AP - When a Bad Newz Kennels dog was wounded in a losing fight, NFL star Michael Vick was consulted before the animal was doused with water and electrocuted. That's just one of the gruesome details that emerged Tuesday when the Atlanta Falcons quarterback and three others were indicted by a federal grand jury.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

06:31 /Politics | 6 comments | permanent link