The wooden frame house I'm living in now was built in the early 50's and has survived three hurricanes and several tropical storms. It creaked and groaned a bit, ok a lot, during Ike in 2008 but didn't suffer any damage. Not so much as a broken window. IIRC my neighborhood had sustained winds in 90mph range with recorded gusts up around 110mph. The house endured that beating for good four hours while the massive storm passed over.

Wood is much stronger than most people realize. The softwoods commonly used in home construction are also quite flexible and can deflect a lot before failing in a structural situation. When a wood frame house suffers a structural failure it's often somewhat graceful and the structure retains some of strength and doesn't just collapse on the people inside. A brick or concrete structure will hold up well until it hits a breaking point, then failure is complete and often catastrophic. Also concrete is ugly, I'd hate living in a concrete house.

Cheers,

Josh

You're joking right? I mean do you seriously view our relationship with microbes in terms of a moral conflict? That just seems very misguided. It's not "giving up" to let the bacteria live, look at like gaming the system for our benefit. Don't look at it like a game where we can play by our rules or by the rules set by bacteria, it's not a game and there aren't any rules. Our relationship with the microbial world is a complex system of interactions and the more we learn about those interactions the better we can manipulate their outcomes to our advantage. Why would it bother you if the end result is a healthy human and a healthy colony of bacteria instead of a healthy human and no bacteria? As long as the human outcome is positive there's no need for the bacteria to 'lose' in order for us to claim a 'victory'.

Since you seem to intent on seeing this in military/moral/political terms think of the approach described in the article as winning the battle with a clever coup d'etat instead of a direct and forceful coup de main either way you win. If it you can swing it the coup d'etat does less collateral damage, requires less resources, is less risky and far cheaper. In any case the real battle isn't against microbes it's against disease, if you can co-opt the microbes already in your body to prevent disease at a lower cost than you can eradicate them fully why not?

Cheers,

Josh

Depends on the paper actually. I've found The Economist's science and technology coverage to be surprisingly good in fact and their quarterly technology report is excellent. Albeit more focused on the economic, social, political and environmental impacts of technology and the companies driving it instead of the pure geeky goodness. The NYT does OK in science and tech reporting - I really miss Olivia Judson's column I hope she comes back or they find another active science writer to do something similar.

Discover has really improved the last few years since I let my old sub expire a while back, I was pleasantly surprised enough by a news stand purchase a year ago to resubscribe. Hell they are worth supporting just for the Bad Astronomer blog that they host.

Good reporting is still out there, you just have to put the time into finding it and be willing to pay for it.

Nice use of 'scare' quotes to let us all know what you 'think' of news sources. You've added nothing to the discussion with this comment, you're parroting the same facile crap that other ignorant slobs espouse in order to justify their continued willful ignorance. It's the same retarded logic that political drops out spout "Both parties are corrupt and stupid and smelly and are both gonna screw me so I don't bother to vote or get involved or understand anything"

If you have such a low opinion of the news business why are even reading and commenting on a story about newspapers?

Look the bottom line is that someone has to pay the salaries of the people researching the news, writing and editing the stories. Someone has to pay the cost of sending the reporters to where the news is happening and all the other costs that go into providing accurate coverage of a story. Someone has to pay the hosting costs to deliver the content all the people that want to read it.

The BBC is a great service and tax supported by UK citizens, NPR and the like are supported by the donations of those that can afford to donate. Otherwise news outlets have to sell their service to the people consuming it. For those outlets like the NYT or the The Economist that don't get government support I would think that the ability to sell articles one at a time to people that could afford a quarter or whatever for the information would be useful.

I'm not championing alienating anyone from the news - if newspapers keep going bust that's going to alienate a lot more people from the news than a micropayment system that helps keep them afloat would.

Cheers,

Josh

I've had an account with the NYTimes site for longer than I can remember and I've happily signed up for every pay scheme they've tried. Reporters work hard to provide a valuable service and I'm happy to pay for it. I might be a bit of an anomaly given how poorly news papers and magazines are doing these days, but I also pay for a print subscription to the The Economist, Popular Woodworking, Fine Woodworking, MAKE and Discover. Information I care about, thoroughly researched and professionally edited has real value to me. I hope the Time's latest attempt at attracting readers and making money off them works out, given the problems at the Tribune family of publications right now America is desperately low on world class news outlets as it is.

Not to say that paywalls aren't a touch annoying and disruptive and I don't want to buy a full subscription to every publication that has a single article I'm interested in, but I wouldn't mind paying some small fee for the one story I wanted to read. The problem is finding a way to sell users a single article at a fair price that isn't overwhelmed by the transaction costs of processing the payment. The market needs a really good micropayment system, that can profitably handle transactions in the $.25-1.00 range. The digital equivalent of pocket change has yet to show up outside of walled off services like iTunes and other app stores.

Cheers,

Josh

I'm pretty sure I'd end up in that gray zone that a villain like Magneto occupies. Yeah he's done some pretty terrible things, but his motives for seeking ever greater power are based on protecting his people so he's not all bad. I don't think it would be worth the effort though to try and actively govern the whole world as a super tyrant though. Too easy to get bogged down in the minutia of ruling a personal empire, I think it would much easier and more effective to let the world govern itself most of the time and just come out of your lair from time to time to eliminate problems.

If I suddenly woke up with super powers tomorrow I'd start tackling big, pet issues right away. I'd apply my own very effective regulation on the financial sector, remove the most toxic personalities from the US political and media scene, curb pollution and green house gas emissions in a variety of industries, stop mountain top removal mining and clear cut logging. My preferred method would be just gather up the people responsible for all these evils and hurl them into space or drop them into an active volcano, assuming I had superman like powers where I just go in fast and heavy and get the job done.

After cleaning up the U.S. I'd work on the rest of the West before worrying about external threats. Finally when I thought the most dangerous internal enemies to Western Civilization were effectively removed I'd expand globally and use my super powers to take out nuclear installations and other sources of WMDs and probably work on some regime change. After that the world could go into maintenance mode and I could just watch out for new bugs to pop up before troubleshooting them.

The only problem with this that in my mind I'd be the great savior and protector of the world (with a very strong bias towards the Western world's ideology and way of life) and a good portion of the population would probably be happy with what I was doing, at least the portion that shares my political and moral outlook. Secular, environmentalist, socially liberal people that long for a competent government that bases policy on actual facts and evidence over superstition and cronyism would be delighted in the changes I'd make (even if grousing about my sometimes undemocratic space ejections.) However religious fundamentalists and other conservative people around the world would view me as a super villain. Also the people I flung into space would probably see me as a villain.

Just like Magneto sees himself as the hero and protector all mutants in the X-Men movies. I think most people would end up like that, a hero of sorts to their own constituency but a villain to others.

That's pretty much the main reason I joined and spend any time on there as well. I opened an account initially after leaning that an old friend I'd lost touch with was seriously ill and his wife was mostly posting updates on his condition via facebook. After that a few friend requests rolled in and I got pulled in. I've managed to filter out just about all the farmville and other game updates and just scan through updates every so often to see what folks are up to. I only get active on there when I have a need to communicate something to a general audience of people I know or if I'm actively looking for someone. I was pleasantly surprised recently when I was able to find a few old college friends before a trip home, some were still in town and some had also moved on but now I'm talking to people I haven't seen in seven years and had missed, so it's not all bad.

Mind you FB has it's share of faults, in fact I pretty much hate everything about how FB actually works, it's saving grace is it's ubiquity, so many people use it that you usually find who you're looking for on there. But beyond being a directory of nearly every internet user in N. America (and yes a large portion of users globally but I think it's market penetration is highest over here) between the ages of 15-40 it's a pretty rotten tool for communication or expression. The wall post and comment system isn't very well suited for anything but short pithy (or more often facile) comments or links to recycled "lulz" the photo gallery feature is OK but not on par with Picassa or Flikr by a long shot. Let's not even discuss the privacy nightmare... But all told it's bad features are still outweighed by it's usefulness as a large global registry of people around the world that it's worth staying moderately active on.

Cheers,

Josh

You forgot the part where the captain of the fishing boat rammed a pair of Japanese coast guard vessels during the altercation which is what led to his arrest. Note that the boat itself and the crew were released promptly. The Japanese currently have the boat captain held while they determine whether or not to formerly charge him in the ramming. IIRC Japanese law gives them ten days to hold him while charges are pending and if they charge him he will be put on trial and run through their justice system just like anyone charged with a crime pretty much anywhere.

China wants Japan to ignore their laws and release the captain. Not so much I think because they care about the captain though. Japan is holding the captain for violating their domestic laws for an act committed in their territorial waters. China is throwing a hissy fit because they also claim the islands near where this occurred and if they concede to Japan's right to try the captain in their courts they are assenting to Japan's claims of sovereignty over the islands in question. Of course it would really be a lot easier to just file an official protest with Japan, the UN and I don't know maybe the ICC protesting blah blah blah Japan's actions and then just carrying on as usual. They can still maintain their claim over the islands and instead of looking childish and irresponsible to the international community they look like a responsible grown up nation.

Personally I'm glad to see China playing their hand so early in the game with this and other recent outbursts as it really gives lie to their whole Peaceful Rise message they try to sell to the rest of the world. Their neighbors and west are finally getting the message that China needs to be taken seriously as a rising power and a rising threat to our interests and not just a cheap place to order walmart crap from.

Cheers,

Josh

And don't forget that you could use the handset to beat an attacker to death without dropping the call you were on!

I thought he hinting that LightPeak was an alien technology and that it was on it's way to Earth but was several light years away and that it would take a little while for IPS (interstellar parcel service) to actually deliver to OEMs on Earth.

A local coffee shop (with full bar and good lunch type menu) tried exactly what you suggested. They went whole hog with the wired, social networking laptops everywhere deal and allowed you to order via Twitter of all things once you'd opened a tab at the counter. It actually worked pretty well - @CofffeShop - large coffee, back patio please - and they'd bring it to you in a few minutes and put it on your tab. The manager running it really believed in embracing the idea of letting people 'office' out of his shop and encouraged people to work there and hosted a ton of networking events and built up a large, loyal customer base that pretty much lived there. He was so dedicated to those customers that when he booked bands to play the patio on weekends he would often ask them to turn down because the people inside were trying to work!

The owners fired him, covered up the outlets, restricted the WiFi, stopped booking social networking events and started making it an uncomfortable place to 'office' out of. Why? Even with Twitter ordering they still had the problem of too many cheapskate douchebags with "Social Media Consultant" business cards camping out all day at a four-top table and maybe spending $20 over a ten hour day. I'm glad for the change as I had really enjoyed their patio during to cooler months for grabbing a drink and a snack after work but stopped going (and stopped spending my $25 during an hour visit) because all the decent tables inside and out were always occupied by douchebags and their laptops.

Cheers,

Josh

I feel ya brother. I kinda dropped out of the hardware scene for a good four years or so when I took a long break from gaming and no longer had a need to keep up with industry news on CPUs and GPUs and their ilk. Last winter I finally decided it was time for an upgrade. First thing I realized nothing was salvageable from the old box and at that point I had to hunker down and do some serious research. I spent a good month on newegg and Tom's Hardware reading reviews and specs for mother boards, processors and GPUs. I was really shocked at how much had changed just in terms of what shit was called these days. I ended up dropping about six bills on a nice system, with a three core AMD 64 bit something or the other penis stretching speed demon of a processor and in March upgraded from the onboard video so I could do some gaming again. I can run every game I've bought on Steam at the max rez my 22" LCD supports in HQ mode so I must have done good ;-)

I've built every single one of my desktop systems from parts since about '95 and up until around '04 was really onboard the regular upgrade train for gaming. My interests changed I started doing more serious computing that didn't require the horse power of my gaming rigs and stopped caring about the latest and greatest in desktop processors. You lose track of that for a few years and it takes a lot of reading and googling to get caught up. So yeah, you're not alone dude. Good news is once you penetrate all the marketing hype behind the naming your old wisdom is still valid for system building! You can upgrade!

Cheers,

Josh