[Quote:]

“Why are manhole covers round” is one of the eternal questions in job interviews, and so it seems to be at Microsoft. The desired and politically correct answer to the question is: “Manhole covers are round because round is the only shape that can never fall into the manhole and hurt someone (with the hole of the same shape, but slightly smaller size than the cover)”. And the answer is wrong.

Let’s ask Mr Feynman:

“Interviewer: Now comes the part of the interview where we ask a question to test your creative thinking ability. Don’t think too hard about it, just apply everyday common sense, and describe your reasoning process. Here’s the question: Why are manhole covers round?

Feynman: They’re not. Some manhole covers are square. It’s true that there are SOME round ones, but I’ve seen square ones, and rectangular ones.

Interviewer: But just considering the round ones, why are they round?

Feynman: If we are just considering the round ones, then they are round by definition. That statement is a tautology.

Interviewer: I mean, why are there round ones at all? Is there some particular value to having round ones?

Feynman: Yes. Round covers are used when the hole they are covering up is also round. It’s simplest to cover a round hole with a round cover.

Interviewer: Can you think of a property of round covers that gives them an advantage over square ones?

Feynman: We have to look at what is under the cover to answer that question. The hole below the cover is round because a cylinder is the strongest shape against the compression of the earth around it. Also, the term “manhole” implies a passage big enough for a man, and a human being climbing down a ladder is roughly circular in cross-section. So a cylindrical pipe is the natural shape for manholes. The covers are simply the shape needed to cover up a cylinder.

Interviewer: Do you believe there is a safety issue? I mean, couldn’t square covers fall into the hole and hurt someone?

Feynman: Not likely. Square covers are sometimes used on prefabricated vaults where the access passage is also square. The cover is larger than the passage, and sits on a ledge that supports it along the entire perimeter. The covers are usually made of solid metal and are very heavy. Let’s assume a two-foot square opening and a ledge width of 1-1/2 inches. In order to get it to fall in, you would have to lift one side of the cover, then rotate it 30 degrees so that the cover would clear the ledge, and then tilt the cover up nearly 45 degrees from horizontal before the center of gravity would shift enough for it to fall in. Yes, it’s possible, but very unlikely. The people authorized to open manhole covers could easily be trained to do it safely. Applying common engineering sense, the shape of a manhole cover is entirely determined by the shape of the opening it is intended to cover.

Interviewer (troubled): Excuse me a moment; I have to discuss something with my management team. (Leaves room.)

(Interviewer returns after 10 minutes)

Interviewer: We are going to recommend you for immediate hiring into the marketing department.”

[Quote:]

Giving an otherwise rather dull and predictable keynote speech at Infosecurity Europe about the IT security demands of running the London Olympics, Derek Wyatt MP has let it slip that UK Government hands are tied when it comes to security technology. He also made it clear that he has no idea where the security threat will come from stating “who are the enemy? I wish I knew” and “don’t ever underestimate the intelligence of the opposition, whoever that is.” But the biggest concern I have over the ramblings of the Right Honourable gentleman came when he started talking about the problems faced in identity management and authentication not only during the event but in the run up to it, with the construction of the venue. Wyatt sound quite upbeat about the possibility of using the London ‘Oyster’ card, used for public transport travel, which could be upgraded fairly easily to incorporate biometric data and turned into a mini-ID card. He also sounded quite impressed with the idea of using the Nokia based authentication system for mobile phones. Upbeat and impressed, and then he dropped the bombshell, which I hope will not be a bad choice of words for the future, when he casually revealed that because neither of these companies was a ‘major sponsor’ of the Olympics their technology could not be used.

Yes, you read that right, as far as the technology behind the security of the London Olympic Games is concerned best of breed and suitability for purpose do not come into, paying a large amount of money to the International Olympic Committee does.

[..]

Even when questioned by a member of the British Computer Society Security Group who was as shocked as I, and expressed total disbelief that potentially far better technologies were to be overlooked simply because a sponsor had to be used, Wyatt gave a half-hearted shrug of the shoulders response along the lines of it is out of our hands.

Feel safer yet?

[Quote:]

Google was ranked by Fortune magazine as the best place in the US to work, and it has reached another zenith by becoming the most popular Web site. It’s even become a verb in the dictionary.

And it may even have started a new trend by creating a job that carries the title “chief culture officer.” Stacy Savides Sullivan is that person at Google.

[..]

What do you do as chief culture officer?
Sullivan: I work with employees around the world to figure out ways to maintain and enhance and develop our culture and how to keep the core values we had in the very beginning — a flat organisation, a lack of hierarchy, a collaborative environment — to keep these as we continue to grow and spread them and filtrate them into our new offices around the world.

A “lack of hierarchy” as a key phrase in their culture, and yet she’s “chief culture officer”.

So Google is just like any other company with a “do as a say, not as I do”. Either that, or she’s a native american.

[Quote:]

BILL MOYERS: Well, what is your thinking about why it is as– the war enters its fifth year, and the President has announced – an extension of tours to 15 months, and they’re going to call up the National Guard. And April was the bloodiest month so far since the war started, and there was one day in April that was the bloodiest day. That people have seen they have no way to get the guys in Washington, and Condoleezza Rice, to listen to them. That there seems a detachment emotionally, and politically in this country from what is happening.

JON STEWART: You know, one of the things that I do think government counts on is that people are busy. And it’s very difficult to mobilize a busy and relatively affluent country, unless it’s over really crucial– you know, foundational issues. That come sort of sort of a tipping point.

BILL MOYERS: War? War?

JON STEWART: But war that hasn’t affected us here, in the way that you would imagine a five-year war would affect a country. I think that’s why they’re so really – here’s the disconnect. It’s sort of this odd and I’ve always had this problem with the rationality of it. That the President says, “We are in the fight for a way of life. This is the greatest battle of our generation, and of the generations to come. “And, so what I’m going to do is you know, Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and our children’s children all suffer. So, what I’m gonna do is send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad.”

So, there’s a disconnect there between – you’re telling me this is fight of our generation, and you’re going to increase troops by 10 percent. And that’s gonna do it. I’m sure what he would like to do is send 400,000 more troops there, but he can’t, because he doesn’t have them. And the way to get that would be to institute a draft. And the minute you do that, suddenly the country’s not so damn busy anymore. And then they really fight back, and then the whole thing falls apart. So, they have a really delicate balance to walk between keeping us relatively fearful, but not so fearful that we stop what we’re doing and really examine how it is that they’ve been waging this.

[Quote:]

A speeding tanker truck with 8,600 gallons of gasoline slammed into a guard rail near the Bay Bridge early today, sparking an explosion and intense fire that collapsed the ramp from eastbound Interstate 80 to eastbound Interstate 580, the California Highway Patrol said.

Portions of the heavily traveled MacArthur Maze will be closed for weeks, if not months, causing the worst traffic disruption in the Bay Area for commuters since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

CHP officer Trent Cross said the driver of the tanker truck crawled out of the passenger window, walked down the ramp to a gas station and took a taxi to a nearby hospital.

More pictures here

[Quote:]

Google’s $3.1 billion deal for the online advertising firm DoubleClick could put the company at odds with itself.

Internal conflicts often happen in finance, when investment banks find themselves advising both sides in a merger. And it happens in agribusiness, energy and other industries where giant companies with fingers in many pies are both buyers and sellers of the same commodity. But it is particularly common in technology and media.

The DoubleClick deal has prompted Microsoft and IBM and others to ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the deal on antitrust grounds. And privacy advocates worry that Google will not live up to its pledge to keep the customer data collected by DoubleClick out of the hands of Google’s search managers.

But the thorniest conflicts could arise from DoubleClick’s Performics division.

Performics helps its clients get better position in search results. Essentially, it works to game the systems of Google, Yahoo and other search engines.

“Google is treading in dangerous waters right now,” writes Ross Dunn of WebProNews.com. Google’s search results “are supposed to be unbiased and highly relevant,” but with Performics, “Google is put into the conflicted position of trying to generate profits by providing result-oriented organic ranking services for its own ‘unbiased’ organic search results.”

The worry, in other words, is that Google’s search results could be compromised by operating a division with an interest in skewing those results in favor of clients.

[..]

Industry-watchers, including Kevin Newcomb of SearchEngineWatch.com, tend to think Google will likely sell off part or all of Performics.

If Google sells Performics it will be a great indication it doesn’t want their search results to be clean. If Google really were interested in clean search results they’d keep them as a “red team” to reverse-engineer and to stomp out SEO-spam companies. I doubt this will happen – Google doesn’t care about search, it’s an advertising company.

Pinky: “What are we gonna do tonight, Brain?”

The Brain: “The same thing we do every night, Pinky – Try to take over the world!”

[Quote:]

[Quote:]

Microsoft never seems to run out of ways to make its antipiracy Windows Genuine Advantage campaign more annoying. WGA is a “service” that checks the validity and activation status of your copy of Windows before letting you download some upgrades. Endless updates to WGA itself seem to account for a significant fraction of Microsoft’s “high-priority” update downloads.

My windows Genuine Advantage experience, which doesn’t provide any discernible advantage to anyone but Microsoft, hit a new low today. I fired up a Vista laptop that hadn’t been turned on for awhile, and of course it immediately downloaded a batch of updates, including a new version of WGA. When the software ran, it opened a browser window (requires Internet Explorer). A bar across the top of the page congratulated me on successful validation, but the bulk of the Window was given to an ad for a $159 upgrade to Vista Home Premium. It’s bad enough that Microsoft is using what is supposed to be a security update process to try to extract more of its customers money. But this particular pitch was completely pointless since the system was running Windows Business, from which an “upgrade” to the Home version makes no sense.

[Quote:]

[Quote:]

In 2004, the State Department’s report on global terrorism showed a decline in international attacks, a result which was hailed by administration officials as proof of the efficacy of the president’s strategy. Soon after, we learned that the State Department cooked the books and undercounted — by half — the number of people killed in terrorist attacks.

In 2005, the State Department decided it didn’t want to publish the report on global terrorism anymore.

The good news is, due to an outcry, the document is back. The bad news is, well, all of the news is bad.

A State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006 to more than 14,000, almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday….

Based on data compiled by the U.S. intelligence community’s National Counterterrorism Center, the report says there were 14,338 terrorist attacks last year, up 29 percent from 11,111 attacks in 2005. Forty-five percent of the attacks were in Iraq.

Worldwide, there were about 5,800 terrorist attacks that resulted in at least one fatality, also up from 2005.

The figures for Iraq and elsewhere are limited to attacks on noncombatants and don’t include strikes against U.S. troops.

If, in 2004, an initial report showing a decline in attacks was proof that Bush’s strategy was working, doesn’t an increase in attacks a few years later necessarily show that Bush’s strategy is failing?

As for the politics, Condoleezza Rice reportedly considering hiding the bad news.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides earlier this week had considered postponing or downplaying the release of this year’s edition of the terrorism report, officials in several agencies and on Capitol Hill said.

Ultimately, they decided to issue the report on or near the congressionally mandated deadline of Monday, the officials said.

Yes, how wonderfully gracious of them. Rice “decided” to follow the law after considering a plan not to. I guess we’re supposed to be grateful?

As Kevin Drum put it, “They considered postponing a congressionally mandated report because it might be inconvenient for the president’s war policy? Is there some kind of ‘political sensitivities’ exemption in the law?”

Maybe it was in one of the signing statements.

Of course, the deadline for producing the document was Monday, but Rice instead chose late on a Friday afternoon, beating the deadline by a few days. I can’t imagine why, can you?

Quotes from the President, April, 2007:

“Day by day, block by block, Iraqi and American forces are making incremental gains in Baghdad,” he said.

April 20, 2007

The maps show the dramatic changes taking place in Ramadi, which happens to be the capital of Anbar province. The red-shaded areas in the first map show the concentration of al Qaeda terrorists in the city two months ago.

April 20, 2007

Iraq’s leaders have begun meeting their benchmarks — and they’ve got a lot left to do.

April 20, 2007

And what I’m telling you is, according to David Petraeus, with whom I speak on a weekly basis, we’re beginning to see some progress toward the mission — that they’re completing the mission.

April 10, 2007

Just as the strategy is starting to make inroads, a narrow majority in the Congress passed legislation they knew all along I would not accept.

April 4, 2007

And General Petraeus, who is a reasoned, sober man, says there is some progress being made. And he cites murders and — in other words, there’s some calm coming to the capital.

April 3, 2007

Sounds like things are going great, right?

And then, just two days after Democrats passed the bill through conference committee, the White House puts this “I guess we didn’t really mean it” story out.

[Quote:]

The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.

The entire function of the pom-pom waving was to extend the occupation: to scare Democrats into passing a supplemental with no timeline attached.

But the bluff didn’t work.

And suddenly the bad news is being printed as well:

[Quote:]

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

[Quote:]

Oost-Europese werknemers kunnen vanaf 1 mei profiteren van een hoge Nederlandse werkloosheidsuitkering zodra ze hier na een half jaar werkloos raken.
Het voordeel kan oplopen tot meer dan tienduizend euro. Voor bijvoorbeeld een Pool ligt de WW hier ruim zes keer hoger dan een uitkering in eigen land.

Uitkeringsinstantie UWV bevestigt de berekeningen. VVD-Kamerlid Stef Blok is geschrokken en wil maatregelen om WW-toerisme te voorkomen.

Als een Pool na zes jaar werken in Polen een half jaar aan de slag gaat in Nederland, heeft hij na afloop recht op zes maanden WW. De uitkering is hier minimaal 900 euro per maand; in Polen zou hij recht hebben gehad op een uitkering van 141 euro per maand.

De constructie is lucratief, omdat voor de Nederlandse WW-uitkering ook het arbeidsverleden in Polen meetelt. Hierdoor kan de uitkering langer duren dan de periode dat de werknemer in Nederland heeft gewerkt. Bovendien is de uitkering gebaseerd op het laatste, hoge Nederlandse loon.

[Quote:]

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, the US. government failed to take advantage of millions of dollars in foreign aid from its allies, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

The US has collected about $126m and used just $40m of the $454m in cash that was offered, the newspaper reported, citing US officials and contractors.

Some offers were rescinded or redirected to organizations such as the Red Cross. Other offers were tied up in bureaucracy, the paper said.

More than 1 700 people died during the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane and its aftermath, and many were left homeless. Nearly 20 months later, more than 100 000 households on the Gulf Coast still rely on the US government for housing.

The Post said its report was based on cables, telegraphs and e-mails from US diplomats that were compiled by a public interest group and given to the Post. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington received the documents from the government via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Kuwait made the largest offer – $100m in cash and $400m in oil, the Post said. The Kuwaitis ended up instead donating $25m each to the Red Cross and a private Katrina aid group because it seemed to be “the fastest way to get money to the people that needed it,” The Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, Salem Abdullah al-Jaber al-Sabah, told the Post. The oil donation was not collected.

[Quote:]

A 27-year-old Millersville University graduate filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the college for denying her an education degree and teaching certificate after a controversial Internet photograph surfaced last year shortly before graduation.

The picture shows Stacy Snyder of Strasburg wearing a pirate hat while drinking from a plastic “Mr. Goodbar” cup. The photograph taken during a 2005 Halloween party was posted on Snyder’s MySpace Web page with the caption “Drunken Pirate.”

“The day before graduation, the college confronted me about the picture,” Snyder said Thursday. “I was told I wouldn’t be receiving my education degree or teaching certificate because the photo was ‘unprofessional.’ ”

Snyder said she apologized for the photograph, but Jane S. Bray, dean of the School of Education, and Provost Vilas A. Prabhu refused to issue the bachelor of science degree in education and teaching certificate Snyder earned.

Instead, the college issued Snyder a bachelor of arts degree in English.

[for SCO, that is:]

The SCO Group, Inc. (“SCO”) (Nasdaq: SCOX), a leading provider of UNIX(R) software technology and mobile services, today announced it has received a Nasdaq Staff Deficiency Letter on April 23, 2007 indicating that the Company fails to comply with the minimum bid price requirement for continued listing set forth in Marketplace Rule 4310(c)(4). The letter gives SCO notice that the Company’s bid price of its common stock has closed under $1.00 for the last 30 business days.

Good news for linux…

[Quote:]

resigned Friday after his name surfaced in an investigation into a high-priced call-girl ring, said two people in a position to know the circumstances of his departure.

It was Tobias’ own decision to resign, according to one of the people, who said the issue came up only in the past day or so. The people spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way.

Tobias submitted his resignation a day after he was interviewed by ABC News for an upcoming program about an alleged prostitution service run by the so-called D.C. Madam.

ABC reported on its Web site late Friday that Tobias confirmed that he had called the Pamela Martin and Associates escort service to have women come to his condo and give him massages. More recently, Tobias told the network, he has been using a service with Central American women.

Tobias, 65, who is married, told ABC News there had been “no sex” during the women’s visits to his condo. His name was on a list of clients given to ABC by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who owns the escort service and has been charged with running a prostitution ring in the nation’s capital.

I guess it’s the Clinton definition of “no sex”.

Tobias held two titles: director of U.S. foreign assistance and administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development. His rank was equivalent to deputy secretary of state.

Rice named Tobias to head the two programs in January 2006, and on Wednesday was at the White House, where President Bush praised his efforts coordinating global AIDS relief. Tobias had been the White House’s coordinator for global AIDS relief before taking the USAID post.

So he was one of the abstinence-only, and no condoms guys of AIDS fighters.

The one common theme to all these outings, whether it’s this guy, Mark Foley, or Ted Haggard, is that is increasing clear that the more vocal these guys are on one side of an argument, the more sure it is that they’re hypocrites living a double life for which the moralism and righteousness they utter is both a defensive projection and exquisite cover.

[Quote:]

Music executives — and not just those who traffic in obscure genres — are in an increasing bind when it comes to selling their wares on CD. As dedicated music stores, including Tower Records, have closed up shop by the thousands, big, generalist chains like Wal-Mart, Target Corp. and Best Buy Co. have tightened their already firm grip on the sale of physical CDs. The chains order huge quantities of some titles, while other releases find it hard to get a foothold.

[..]

Thanks largely to aggressive pricing and advertising, big-box chains are now responsible in the U.S. for at least 65% of music sales (including online and physical recordings), according to estimates by distribution executives, up from 20% a decade ago. Where a store that depends on CDs for the bulk of its sales needs a profit margin of around 30%, big chains get by making just 14% on music, say label executives who handle distribution. One of these executives describes the shift as “a tidal wave.” Despite the growth in online digital music sales, physical CDs still are the core of the recording industry, accounting for about 85% of music sales.

Big-box chains say they’re trying to give customers what they want. “We also are making changes to the CD selections in our stores to reflect customer preferences in each market,” says a Wal-Mart spokeswoman.

Wal-Mart is only interested in volume and price, and the music industry is moving away from volume and into the long tail.

For his part, Best Buy’s Mr. Arnold says the blame for waning consumer interest in CDs lies with the record labels, not with stores like his. “Music has become a commoditized item,” he says. “The CD is perceived by the consumer to be a $10 item, and the manufacturers continue to release new titles at $15 to $18.98.” To remedy that situation, he says he has urged labels to move to a “paperback-book model,” with no-frills packages priced cheaply for most customers, and more deluxe presentations for die-hard fans.

I perceive a CD to be a $3 item, and I know a lot of people who agree with me based on the fact that they see just two or three songs per CD that they find interesting. Whatever happened to “albums” where the entire thing was a whole? Like Dark Side of the Moon, or Misplaced Childhood?

So to answer the headline: not likely.

[Quote:]

If you really want to blame someone for trying to destroy the United States, point the finger at… Satan?

The devil, Lucifer… whatever you want to call it, one Utah Republican says it is he who is trying to bring the USA down.

And Satan’s apparent weapon of choice: Allowing illegal immigrants to cross the border.

A man running for mayor was making a speech, and thundered, “I want you people to know that there are over two dozen brothels in this town, and I have never been to one of them!” A voice from the back yelled out, “Which one?”

SO this squirrel walks into a barber shop…

[Quote:]

I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn’t know what our neighbors were- we didn’t care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night.

On a personal note, we’ve finally decided to leave. I guess I’ve known we would be leaving for a while now. We discussed it as a family dozens of times. At first, someone would suggest it tentatively because, it was just a preposterous idea- leaving ones home and extended family- leaving ones country- and to what? To where?

[..]

The problem is that we don’t even know if we’ll ever see this stuff again. We don’t know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?

It’s difficult to decide which is more frightening- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.

[Quote:]

The US Senate has passed a bill calling for all US combat troops to leave Iraq within a year, defying a veto threat.

The Senate vote came only an hour after George W Bush made his third vow in less than a week to veto such a law.

“I’ll veto a bill that restricts our commanders on the ground… a bill that doesn’t fund our troops,” he said.

Well, it is funding the troops, just not the way you want it to.

If Bush were smart, he’d do just what Congress asked, and withdraw before march ’08. Naturally there will be some heavily reported deaths and atrocities in Iraq. The Republicans will then say, “See what happens when we do what the Democrats want?” And then the Republican Presidential candidate — if not Senate — will be well on its way next fall.

Oh, and McCaint didn’t vote on this. Well, to be complete correct, he did call for a withdrawal of US troops…

… from Haiti.

… from Somalia.

[Quote:]

It might not seem like a brilliant idea, allowing a frail 65-year-old paralytic to float free from gravity aboard a rising and plunging roller-coaster stunt flight.

But who’s to argue with Stephen Hawking?

The celebrated British astrophysicist and black-hole theorist, author of “A Brief History of Time,” paralyzed by Lou Gehrig’s disease and communicating largely through eye movements, has long wanted to visit outer space. Human survival depends on getting there, he says. An event here Thursday was described as his first improbable step.

Dressed in dark blue flight suits, Hawking and an entourage of caretakers boarded a Boeing 727 that roared out over the ocean and carved huge parabolic arcs in the sky, creating for passengers the “zero-gravity” effect of being in space.

[Quote:]

Getting around underground in NYC is no longer only for people who already know how to get around underground in NYC.
Graphic Designer Eric Jabbour has been spending his free time obsessively redesigning MTA transit maps. And the results are striking. Non-New Yorkers will undoubtedly be able to figure out what’s what. Cleaner lines and neighborhood boundaries are just a few features. Also, one can clearly see and understand transfer points and more street names.

[Quote:]

Two police officers pleaded guilty Thursday to manslaughter in the shooting death of a 92-year-old woman during a botched drug raid last fall. A third officer still faces charges. Officer J.R. Smith told a state judge Thursday that he regretted what had happened.

“I’m sorry,” the 35-year-old said, his voice barely audible. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter, violation of oath, criminal solicitation, making false statements and perjury, which was based on claims in a warrant.

[..]

Assistant U.S. Attorney Yonette Sam-Buchanan said Thursday that although the officers found no drugs in Johnston’s home, Smith planted three bags of marijuana in the home as part of a cover story.

That War On Drugs is going really, really well…

Notice how only the cops who shot are getting punished. Whoever cooked up the intelligence that led to the fake no-knock warrant is going to continue doing the same thing…

[Quote:]

Kids with religious parents are better behaved and adjusted than other children, according to a new study that is the first to look at the effects of religion on young child development.

The conflict that arises when parents regularly argue over their faith at home, however, has the opposite effect.

John Bartkowski, a Mississippi State University sociologist and his colleagues asked the parents and teachers of more than 16,000 kids, most of them first-graders, to rate how much self control they believed the kids had, how often they exhibited poor or unhappy behavior and how well they respected and worked with their peers.

The flaw in this is that what they claim to have found isn’t what they actually found.

What they actually found was that the religious ones said they were more well behaved. Which means factors like “social desirability” start playing a role.

Or would it just be the spanking?

[Quote:]

The church [..] discourages parents from using their hands and recommends using a “rod” or flexible stick to swat children until their will is broken.

And today’s evacuation because a bag of sand is brought to you by Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

[Quote:]

The European Parliament voted yes on the new controversial directive Ipred 2 which concludes that all kinds of infringement of the intellectual copyrights will be considered criminal. The directive is actually stricter than that and even criminalizes attempts of infringing on copyrights. In theory this means that basically all video sites, P2P developers and other services used to spread material around the web is criminal. There is an exception though and that is the end-user. If this user downloads pirated material and use this only for his own entertainment, study or research he or she can not be prosecuted through the new directive.

Inciting or abetting or aiding a copyright infringement is now also a crime. So, YouTube is now a criminal organization. And I wonder how they’re going to prosecute this software.