Andy Dustman › Likes

"Among the various classes of protests—pro-life, anti-war, environmental, and now tea parties—the most destructive are the anti-globalization marches. So when cops clashed with anti-globalization demonstrators at the Pittsburgh G-20 summit in September, it was easy to assume that most of the altercations represented justified police responses to overzealous protesters. But a number of disturbing photographs, videos, and witness accounts told a different story. Along with similar evidence from other recent high-stakes political events, they reveal an increasing, disquieting willingness to smother even peaceful dissent." - Alex Scrivener

Repbulican ≠ Fiscal Responsibility. Of course, Democrat ≠ Fiscal Responsibility, either. We are screwed. - Alex Scrivener

"Historian James Bradley had a fascinating op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times tracing the origins of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor back to the foreign policy of President Theodore Roosevelt, who famously intervened in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and earned himself a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts." - Alex Scrivener

"Imagine a government agency with the authority to create and enforce laws, prosecute and adjudicate violations, and impose criminal penalties. Then throw in the power to levy taxes to pay for all the above. And for good measure, make the agency independent of political oversight. As any middle-schooler could tell you, such an entity goes against every principle of American civics. Still, it's an accurate description of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB, pronounced "peek-a-boo")." - Alex Scrivener

"In his thorough history of 9/11 The Looming Towers, Lawrence Wright makes a pretty persuasive case that Osama bin Laden’s goal in planning out terrorist attacks throughout the 1990s was to suck the U.S. into a Soviet-style war in Afghanistan. Bin Laden had no delusions about turning the U.S. into a Muslim country. Instead, he wanted to pull America into an expensive, dispiriting, unwinnable war—the sort of war nearly every power that has invaded Afghanistan has had to extract itself from, tail between legs. Wright writes that bin Laden was initially dispirited at the ease with which U.S. forces removed the Taliban from power. Of course, we then let bin Laden escape. And then came Iraq. We’ve since given bin Laden more than he ever could have thought possible, and more. Two protracted wars. And our war in Afghanistan is looking more and more like the Soviet war bin Laden was hoping to emulate." - Rob Haas from Bookmarklet

clearly a smart, innovative guy then......Oh dear, what happens when the bad guys are smarter than the guys who run the country....? - winckel

And OBL gets a twofer since we are deeply enmeshed in Pakistan as well so its two fetid swamps with quicksand everywhere for price of one... - WarLord

"Buffalo Sabers hockey team owner Tom Golisano announced that he was moving to Florida shortly after the New York State budget was passed. Galisano reportedly pays $13,000 a day in taxes." - Alex Scrivener

" The idea behind the $787 billion stimulus bill is that government can create jobs by spending money. For now, let’s ignore fact, history, and economic theory and assume that government spending can actually create jobs. In that case, we should expect the government to invest relatively more money in the states that have the highest unemployment rates and less money in the states with lower unemployment rates. So let’s check the data." - Alex Scrivener

"Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew. She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals. Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia. She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate". The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth"" - RAPatton from Bookmarklet

Now that IS interesting. Even when I was a believer, the idea of Creation didn't sit well with me - after all, we KNOW how stars and planets and the universe were formed (well, kinda). But the idea of the metaphysical and the physical universes being separated from a mutual state, well that's almost science! - Slappy Line

"It ushered in the 1960s sexual revolution and gave women control over their own fertility. But the Pill may also have changed women's taste in men, according to a study. Scientists say the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a woman's interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive. Although the change occurs for just a few days each month, it may have been highly influential since use of the Pill began more than 40 years ago. If the theory is right, it could partly explain the shifting in tastes from macho 1950s and 1960s stars such as Kirk Douglas and Sean Connery to the more wimpy, androgynous stars of today, such as Johnny Depp and Russell Brand. Dr Alexandra Alvergne, of the University of Sheffield, says the Pill could also be altering the way women pick their mates and could have long-term implications for society. 'There are many obvious benefits of the Pill for women, but there is also the possibility that the Pill has psychological side-effects that we... more... - Alejandro from Bookmarklet

MakeHuman is an open source (so it's completely free), innovative and professional software for the modelling of 3-Dimensional humanoid characters. Features that make this software unique include a new, highly intuitive GUI and a high quality mesh, optimized to work in subdivision surface mode (for example, Zbrush). Using MakeHuman, a photorealistic character can be modeled in less than 2 minutes; MakeHuman is released under an Open Source Licence (GPL3.0) , and is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie) from Bookmarklet

"Once upon a time, three things held true. Copyrights were relatively short. You had to renew them (most people did not.) You didn’t get one unless you asked. Now none of those hold true. Copyright can last for more than 100 years. The result is that the world’s libraries are full of books that are still under copyright, commercially unavailable and, in many cases, “orphan works” with no known copyright holder. Copyright has exhausted its function, yet the works remain trapped in the cultural black hole." - Bret Taylor from Bookmarklet

A fine piece. Copyright represents the darker side of capitalism; this notion that individuals have perpetual ownership over their works is quixotic. In fact, there is a larger social contract involved between Artists and society. Artists benefit from access to all the works of the world and society benefits with progress and beauty. Oppressive copyright perverts this contract. - dkb

In other countries it's even worse. Some countries have "artistic rights" where an artist can decide what you're allowed to do with a work after you've bought it; some countries don't even allow you to give up your copyright (you can only give out licenses), so figuring out who owns copyright on a composite work could be a nightmare. - Gabe

Amazing level of transparency and detail about their custom storage servers. HN discussion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item... (discusses why this is appropriate for backup, but perhaps not generic storage needs) - Bret Taylor from Bookmarklet

IMO RAID6 is not that great. Granted, it's highly unlikely to lose 3 drives at the same time, but there's still possibility. Besides, for write-intensive app, parity calculation is quite time-consuming. I personally prefer RAID 10 (striped array of RAID1 pairs). Yes the effective usable space is less than half total capacity, but for backups -- which will sooner or later be used to restore something -- I prefer data integrity over usage efficiency. - Pandu ● IT Optimizer from fftogo

"The controversy about carrying guns in public is not new. In 1967, however, the political alignments on this issue were completely different. Many conservatives (and others) objected when the Black Panthers insisted on exercising this right. In response, Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act banning the carrying of guns in public." - Alex Scrivener from Bookmarklet

With most rights, people are fine with the idea of taking them away from those they don't like. - Alex Scrivener

"A police spokesperson says the officers identified themselves as they got out of the truck, though even if they did, it isn't difficult to see how someone in Ayers' position might panic when confronted with armed, plain-clothes men who'd just jumped from a black SUV. He had also just returned from getting money from the store's ATM. There were no drugs in Ayers' car." - Alex Scrivener from Bookmarklet

yet another isolated incident - Alex Scrivener

Ugh. :( - Jonas, Leper of FF

"What gives French women their allure? According to writer DEBRA OLLIVIER, who married a Frenchman and lived in Paris for ten years, it's their different approach to life - and views on love and sex. Here, she explains what French women know that we ought to... FRENCH WOMEN LOVE MEN Not long ago, I attended a dinner party in Paris and sat among a group of French women who all looked like they'd just engaged in illicit and wonderful things with their partners. Wine glasses clinked as they laughed, threw back their heads and talked about men. They were not commiserating about men - no whiff of disgruntlement or frustration filled the air. Rather, they seemed to share a love and appreciation for members of the opposite sex. Take note, there is no popular vernacular expression in French for 'the opposite sex' that bears the same weight as in English. In France there is no war of the sexes going on. French men and women actually want to be together. They enjoy their mutual company. They... more... - RAPatton

"French Women Flirt .... French Women are Mysterious .... French Women Hate Rule .... French Women Don't Expect Marriage to be Perfect .... French Women Grow old Gracefully .... French Women find Pleasure in Life .... " - RAPatton

lol! - vijay

<3 - l0ckergn0me