[Quote:]

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen programmers having a difficult time gasping the intricacies of negative numbers. Heck, I’m sure we all had a little difficulty understanding at first, in the fifth grade. But you’d really think that someone able to program (am I giving too much credit here?), would have a little more sophistication than to distinguish positive and negative numbers with the “little line thing“ in prefixing the number.

//return whether a double is negative
bool IsNegative(double n)
{
    string nStr = n.ToString();
    if (nstr.IndexOf('-', 0, 1)) return true;
    return false;
}

I must say, I do appreciate the irony that many students shy away from Computer Science because they fear the complicated math. If only they knew.

[Quote:]

There is a strong injunction in Arab Islamic culture against shamateh, an emotion—like schadenfreude—of taking pleasure in the suffering of others. It is forbidden when it comes to death, even the violent death of your mortal enemies. Yet it would be very hard these days to find an Arab, no matter how sober, cultured, and sophisticated, in whose heart there was not some room for shamateh at the suffering of Americans on September 11. I myself tried hard to contain, control, and hide it that day. And I knew intuitively that millions and millions of people throughout the Arab world and beyond experienced the same emotion.

I never had any doubts, either, about who perpetrated that heinous crime; our Islamists had a deep-seated vendetta against the World Trade Center since their failed attack on it in 1993. As an Arab, I know something about the power of vengeance in our culture and its consuming force. I also knew that the United States would respond with all its force to crush the Islamist movement worldwide into oblivion. But I didn’t understand my own shameful response to the slaughter of innocents. Was it the bad news from Palestine that week; the satisfaction of seeing the arrogance of power abruptly, if temporarily, humbled; the sight of the jihadi Frankenstein’s monsters, so carefully nourished by the United States, turning suddenly on their masters; or the natural resentment of the weak and marginalized at the peripheries of empires against the center, or, in this case, against the center of the center? Does my response, and the silent shamateh of the Arab world, mean that Huntington’s clash of civilizations has come true, and so quickly?

In the end, no. Despite current predictions of a protracted global war between the West and the Islamic world, I believe that war is over. There may be intermittent battles in the decades to come, with many innocent victims. But the number of supporters of armed Islamism is unlikely to grow, its support throughout the Arab Muslim world will likely decline, and the opposition by other Muslim groups will surely grow. 9/11 signaled the last gasp of Islamism rather than the beginnings of its global challenge.

[Quote:]

Scandal-hit Fox News moved yesterday to fire an employee who says she was sexually harassed by Bill O’Reilly – but wants a judge to declare the canning isn’t retribution.

Andrea Mackris, 33, said she was served legal papers about her termination by a man lying in wait for her at her Manhattan apartment building.

The documents said Fox had asked a judge to let the TV station dump her from a $93,200-a-year job as associate producer on “The O’Reilly Factor” – and to rule that the firing was not in retaliation for her accusations about the show’s host.

Yeah, Right. As if.

[Quote:]

Sensors to detect deceleration on NASA’s Genesis space capsule were installed correctly but had been designed upside down, resulting in the failure to deploy the capsule’s parachutes. The design flaw is the prime suspect for why the capsule, carrying precious solar wind ions, crashed in Utah on 8 September, according to a NASA investigation board.

Steam vents itself out of the lava dome inside the crater of Mount St. Helens October 10, 2004. Lava has begun to ooze out of the volcano, building up the lava crust in the crater, government scientists said on Oct. 13. (Andy Clark/Reuters)

Daar is-ie weer, zoals gewoonlijk omringd door krukken

[Quote:]

Ruim 29.000 vrouwen zijn dit jaar gestopt met de anticonceptiepil omdat ze die te duur vinden. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van onderzoeksbureau Rutgers Nisso Groep. De pil zit sinds 1 januari niet meer in het ziekenfondspakket voor vrouwen van 21 en ouder.

Volgens het onderzoekbureau zijn de vrouwen die het pilgebruik hebben gestaakt overgestapt op een minder betrouwbaar anti-conceptiemiddel. Verder blijkt uit het onderzoek dat het aantal abortussen licht is gestegen sinds 1 januari. In de eerste helft van 2004 zijn er 135 abortussen meer uitgevoerd dan in dezelfde periode van vorig jaar.

Vorige week bleek al uit ander onderzoek dat het aantal ongewenste zwangerschappen is toegenomen door het schrappen van de pil uit het ziekenfondspakket.

Wedden dat deze “bezuinigingsmaatregel” de maatschappij uiteindelijk bakken met geld gaat kosten?

[Quote:]

D66-leider Dittrich is vrijdagavond in de Cubaanse hoofdstad Havana aangehouden en in de cel gezet. Enkele uren later is hij het land uitgezet. Zijn woordvoerster heeft dat zaterdag laten weten. Dittrich heeft haar via sms’jes vanuit de cel op de hoogte gehouden.

Dittrich was in Cuba om de mensenrechten daar te bestuderen. Het CDA-Kamerlid Ferrier verkeerde in zijn gezelschap. Het Spaanse persbureau EFE meldde dat ook zij is uitgezet.

Dittrich en Ferrier zouden samen met een afgevaardigde van de Spaanse volkspartij Partido Popular bij aankomst op de luchthaven zijn aangehouden omdat ze plannen zouden hebben tijdens hun bezoek aan het land met dissidenten te praten. Volgens de autoriteiten hadden ze daar, op grond van hun toeristenvisa, geen toestemming voor.

[Quote:]

More than 250 world figures — but not the Bush administration — have urged the United Nations to promote a population agenda that seeks women’s education, health care and family planning.

The United States refused to support a statement from presidents, prime ministers and Nobel Prize winners, released on Wednesday, because it included the concept of “sexual rights,” which had no “agreed definition,” a State Department letter said.

[Quote:]

In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ”road map” for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman — the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress — mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

”I don’t know why you’re talking about Sweden,” Bush said. ”They’re the neutral one. They don’t have an army.”

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ”Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They’re the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.” Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ”No, no, it’s Sweden that has no army.”

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

[..]

There were Bush’s periodic stumbles and gaffes, but for the followers of the faith-based president, that was just fine. They got it — and ”it” was the faith.

And for those who don’t get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ”You think he’s an idiot, don’t you?” I said, no, I didn’t. ”No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don’t care. You see, you’re outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don’t read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it’s good for us. Because you know what those folks don’t like? They don’t like you!” In this instance, the final ”you,” of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

[Quote:]

A 17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from Jackson and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is under arrest for refusing a “suicide mission” to deliver fuel, the troops’ relatives said Thursday.

The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to Taji, Iraq — north of Baghdad — because their vehicles were considered “deadlined” or extremely unsafe, said Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O. McCook.

Sgt. McCook, a deputy at the Hinds County Detention Center, and the 16 other members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company from Rock Hill, S.C., were read their rights and moved from the military barracks into tents, Patricia McCook said her husband told her during a panicked phone call about 5 a.m. Thursday.

[Quote:]

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney as a member of Congress from Wyoming voted to raise taxes 144 times. If 98 tax-hike votes make Kerry a far-out liberal, than Cheney would have to be placed somewhere in the ideological vicinity of Che Guevara.

[Quote:]

STEWART: I watch your show every day. And it kills me.

CARLSON: I can tell you love it.

STEWART: It’s so — oh, it’s so painful to watch.

(LAUGHTER)

STEWART: You know, because we need what you do. This is such a great opportunity you have here to actually get politicians off of their marketing and strategy.

CARLSON: Is this really Jon Stewart? What is this, anyway?

STEWART: Yes, it’s someone who watches your show and cannot take it anymore.

(LAUGHTER)

STEWART: I just can’t.

CARLSON: What’s it like to have dinner with you? It must be excruciating. Do you like lecture people like this or do you come over to their house and sit and lecture them; they’re not doing the right thing, that they’re missing their opportunities, evading their responsibilities? STEWART: If I think they are.

(LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: I wouldn’t want to eat with you, man. That’s horrible.

STEWART: I know. And you won’t. But the thing I want to get to…

BEGALA: We did promise naked pictures of the Supreme Court justices.

CARLSON: Yes, we did. Let’s get to those.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: They’re in this book, which is a very funny book.

STEWART: Why can’t we just talk — please, I beg of you guys, please.

CARLSON: I think you watch too much CROSSFIRE.

We’re going to take a quick break.

STEWART: No, no, no, please.

CARLSON: No, no, hold on. We’ve got commercials.

(CROSSTALK)

STEWART: Please. Please stop.

CARLSON: Next, Jon Stewart in the “Rapid Fire.”

STEWART: Please stop.

CARLSON: Hopefully, he’ll be here, we hope, we think.

(APPLAUSE)

If you haven’t seen it, there’s a torrent here.

The court jester is most famous today for that silly hat with balls on it, but the truth is those balls weren’t there just for show, and there were more of ‘em under the jester’s cape than on the stupid hat.  The jester’s real job was to provide, not laugh tracks, but a laugh test for the policies and works of the crown.  The Fool got his grins doing just what Jon Stewart does: speaking truth to power and letting the absurd speak for itself.  He was at his most successful when you couldn’t quite tell whether he was joking or not.  And he was the only one who could get away with such insolence.  

[Quote:]

The United Nations health agency said Friday that the death toll in refugee camps in the Darfur region of Sudan had reached 70,000, and that people would continue dying at the rate of 10,000 a month as long as the international community did not provide more money.

David Nabarro, director of the crisis action group of the Geneva-based World Health Organization, said despite the international attention Darfur had attracted, the United Nations was not receiving the money it needed to curb deaths caused by malnutrition and disease.

“Every day in newspapers in the U.S., Europe and Japan, there is coverage of the suffering in Darfur, yet we don’t have a significant enough popular perception around the world of the enormity of that suffering, and the United Nations cannot get the funding for this priority program,” Mr. Nabarro said in a telephone interview.

The United Nations has received only half of the $300 million it needs, he said, while with full financing it could reduce the current mortality rate by half.

We should al be very, very ashamed of our governments.

[Quote:]

You think Bush looked terrible in the debates, check out this video leaked to me by a member of the Iraqi Survey Group. (Big file.)

PC | Mac

The clip is a ‘thank you’ message taped by Bush for the members of the Iraqi Survey Group. It hasn’t been altered in any way.

The fact he can barely finish his sentences should be a genuine cause for concern. This was no impromptu appearance, like his disastrous press conferences and debate appearances. This was a planned, scripted, recorded address.

I’m starting to think rumors of Bush’s ill health may have basis in reality. Watch the clip and decide for yourself. It clearly made a stir amongst the members of the ISG.

(on the other hand, perhaps it’s no big deal. As I saw somebody comment on a weblog, the Department of the Presidency has been staffed in order with: a distracted crook expecting imminent indictment, then an unprepared buffoon, then a loner do-gooder with no leverage on anyone, then a demented ignorant actor, then a siege commander whose mission was collapsed out from under him, then a huddling defendant of domestic siege, and now a blithering idiot.)

[Quote:]

René Magritte would be delighted. Hordes of clueless customers at a French computer store are unable to distinguish between the flat-screen iMac G5 and Apple’s flat-screen Cinema Displays, prompting a note on one of the monitors that reads: “Ceci N’est Pas Un IMac G5!”

(they’re selling like you wouldn’t believe. With Apple’s agreement (though they had to insist), the FNAC [huge French reseller for those who'd still don't know !] wouldn’t display much G5 iMacs just because they don’t have enough of them, nor can they give delivery dates.
The gap is such as for 1,600 preordered machines, they only got 150 delivered configurations.)

[Quote:]

Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the Bush administration–specifically, the Department of Homeland Security–has wanted the world to agree on a standard for machine-readable passports. Countries whose citizens currently do not have visa requirements to enter the United States will have to issue passports that conform to the standard or risk losing their nonvisa status.

These future passports, currently being tested, will include an embedded computer chip. This chip will allow the passport to contain much more information than a simple machine-readable character font, and will allow passport officials to quickly and easily read that information. That is a reasonable requirement and a good idea for bringing passport technology into the 21st century.

But the Bush administration is advocating radio frequency identification (RFID) chips for both U.S. and foreign passports, and that’s a very bad thing.

These chips are like smart cards, but they can be read from a distance. A receiving device can “talk” to the chip remotely, without any need for physical contact, and get whatever information is on it. Passport officials envision being able to download the information on the chip simply by bringing it within a few centimeters of an electronic reader.

Unfortunately, RFID chips can be read by any reader, not just the ones at passport control. The upshot of this is that travelers carrying around RFID passports are broadcasting their identity.

Think about what that means for a minute. It means that passport holders are continuously broadcasting their name, nationality, age, address and whatever else is on the RFID chip. It means that anyone with a reader can learn that information, without the passport holder’s knowledge or consent. It means that pickpockets, kidnappers and terrorists can easily–and surreptitiously–pick Americans or nationals of other participating countries out of a crowd.

It is a clear threat to both privacy and personal safety, and quite simply, that is why it is bad idea. Proponents of the system claim that the chips can be read only from within a distance of a few centimeters, so there is no potential for abuse. This is a spectacularly naïve claim. All wireless protocols can work at much longer ranges than specified. In tests, RFID chips have been read by receivers 20 meters away. Improvements in technology are inevitable.

Security is always a trade-off. If the benefits of RFID outweighed the risks, then maybe it would be worth it. Certainly, there isn’t a significant benefit when people present their passport to a customs official. If that customs official is going to take the passport and bring it near a reader, why can’t he go those extra few centimeters that a contact chip–one the reader must actually touch–would require?

The Bush administration is deliberately choosing a less secure technology without justification. If there were a good offsetting reason to choose that technology over a contact chip, then the choice might make sense.

Unfortunately, there is only one possible reason: The administration wants surreptitious access themselves. It wants to be able to identify people in crowds. It wants to surreptitiously pick out the Americans, and pick out the foreigners. It wants to do the very thing that it insists, despite demonstrations to the contrary, can’t be done.

Normally I am very careful before I ascribe such sinister motives to a government agency. Incompetence is the norm, and malevolence is much rarer. But this seems like a clear case of the Bush administration putting its own interests above the security and privacy of its citizens, and then lying about it.