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Weak man tactics are harder to detect than those of the straw man variety. Because straw man arguments are closely related to an opponent’s true position, a clever listener might be able to spot the truth amid the hyperbole, understatement or other corrupted version of that view. A weak man argument, however, is more opaque because it contains a grain of truth and often bears little similarity to the stronger arguments that should also be presented. Therefore, a listener has to know a lot more about the situation to imagine the information that a speaker or writer has cleverly disregarded.

And you can say a lot of things about the public (be it US or any other country), “knowing about the situation” is a rare thing indeed.

If you read only one review of Snow Leopard, make it this one.

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Tim Kuik, managing director of Dutch anti-piracy gang BREIN, has publicly admitted that he’s currently using a Sony VAIO laptop previously confiscated from a ‘hacker’. Although he doesn’t elaborate on how he obtained the machine, it is hard not to conclude that it has been misappropriated.

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This confession of the Dutch anti-piracy boss raises some interesting questions. Although BREIN often assists the police in raids and investigations, they are nothing more than a private non-profit organization and hold no law enforcement powers.

Even if they did, using a confiscated computer for personal use might break a few laws. So how did Tim get his laptop? Did he steal it?

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Why you never let dad help make the mermaid costume…

If you’re not in for a really bad pun, skip this post:

A bear walks in to a bar and says to the bartender, “give me a drink.” The bartender says, “sorry, we don’t serve bears.” The bear says, “well, give me a drink or I’ll eat that woman at the other end of the bar.” The bartender says, “psh, go ahead.” So the bear eats the woman and asks the bartender one more time to give him a drink. The bartender says, “we don’t serve bears on drugs.” The bear, clearly dumbfounded says, “what? I’m not on drugs.” And the bartender says, “that was a bar-bitch-you-ate”

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On August 17th one of the worlds largest hydroelectric plants, Sayano–Shushenskaya in Russia, suffered a major catastrophe.

The disaster has resulted in 73 confirmed dead and two missing. It has also resulted in the destruction or damage of 9 of the 10 turbines, a transformer fire and extensive flooding in the turbine hall as well as collapsing a major part of it’s roof. Additionally a large amount of insulating oil is traveling downriver. The cause of the accident is still unknown but evidence is pointing toward a failure of the #2 turbine or its control system.

70% of the hydroplants electric generation was used to power 4 aluminum smelters. The accident will result in a cut of 500,000 tons of production.

Early estimates are that it will take 4 years and 1.3 billion dollars to repair the facility.

English Russia’s sets: Hydro Electic Power Plant Explosion and The Station: Repairworks.

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What would you see if you could fly over Mars in a plane and look out the window?

It must be something like the thousands of curious, intriguing and spectacular images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera mounted on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, which operates HiRISE, has just released a new batch of these photos taken in the last several months.

You can check out the full set here.