Looking at various laws, one can easily misinterpret them, or come to a false conclusion. It's pretty much the reason why you need to consult with a lawyer about this stuff.

I'm referencing here http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FunFacts/ItsTheLaw.html and while some of the laws seem silly or retarded, they can sometimes simply be because of differing jurisdictions.

1. While it seems like he snidely side-stepped the law, he really didn't. "O'Neal's Baloon" does not have the same obvious alcoholic association of "Saloon". I would have suggested changing it to something that still indicates alcohol will be served there... your name is the first thing people see about the location.

2. A wine is sold within 22 states, less than a majority, yet a singling out of two states? Retarded... This wine is apparently now able to be sold in all areas where otherwise permitted, but we we will assume that this article was before then. Likely, the wine was blocked in some states due to having a vulgar name.

3. A perfectly reasonable regulation, considering that you can advertise targeting children, and other stuff.

4. There are numerous federal laws that apply to US citizens while abroad. For instance, one cannot engage in under-age prostitution while abroad, even though foreign laws might allow it. Why do we not see a problem with this, but that preventing foreign exchange students to adhere to American alcohol laws?

5. This is an example of a truly stupid law. The idea that a company cannot indicate where their product can be purchased is reasonably retarded. However, there is no reference that I can look up easily to verify the validity of this.

6. This law would only be enforcible locally. Either one would have to travel to the local area, or they would have to seek extradition. That anyone would actually be charged with this, unless it was extensively or maliciously broken, is unlikely. There is simply no reference that I can look up easily to verify the validity of this.

7. There is no reference that I can look up easily to verify the validity of this. However it is not unreasonable, and was likely abused. For example, I just claim to be a reviewer of alcoholic beverages, and anyone who sends me 10 bottles for free gets a stellar review.

8. This law was misread. There is specifically indicated the ability to refute the charges by proving that the container is empty. Considering it is in the garbage, then this is reasonable to assume. If the parents didn't dump out the alcohol before placing it in the trash, then it's "alcohol abuse" lol. Or, irresponsible parenting, by making the alcohol available to a child.

9. This law was misread. Iowa state law provides that anyone attempting to destroy any liquid in front of a police officer is proof that it was intended for unlawful purposes. This is a perfectly normal law designed to preserve evidence. Requiring police to obtain the liquid that has been destroyed and prove that it was alcoholic and intended for unlawful purpose places a burden on the law system such as to make it unenforceable. Here's a hint... if a police officer is coming up to do, don't destroy evidence right in front of him.

10. Running a tab without a bona fide credit card is illegal. Not an unreasonable law... oh, and this specifically is permitted in private clubs, hotels to registered guests, or "retail sales by the managing entity of a convention center, civic center, or events center."

11. This law is referenced as "General Statutes of Connecticut (Title 3, sec. 30-36)", it is however Title 30. It's not unreasonable to require someone a permit to make mixtures of alcohol even if for pharmaceuticals. They likely must pay a larger fee anyways just to be able to fill prescriptions. This $400/year permit also allows them to sell alcohol for off-premises consumption.

12. This is kind of an arbitrary law, but not unreasonable.

13. They're likely not even allowed to have the alcoholic beverage anyways... this law as stated is not unreasonable.

14. Selling to someone with a false or altered license can get you convicted of sale to a minor. Ok, so what happened, is that the police hired someone who was a legal age, but looked very young. That person went to get alcohol with a fake ID. The person selling saw the fake ID, and still sold the alcohol. As a result, the police arrested him and charged him with sale to a minor. Owner gets off the hook by proving that the "minor" was not actually a minor. Legislature then passes law to make sure that sale without a valid license is an illegal sale period.

15. It is not unreasonable to require that a business, once closed not engage in its business. A good example would be, a bunch of friends are drinking at a bar, and are friends with the owner. The bar closes, the public cannot be served with alcohol anymore, but the friends stay and continue to consume alcohol. They need not really pay at that time, or under the table.

16. Public intoxication is a state's right issue, and so it is legislated differently in different states. Once you start looking into laws, you start learning that states really have a lot of discretion to do almost anything that they want.

17. It's often illegal to intentionally cut off even a single part of your child's flesh without a medical license in a real medical procedure, or religious activity. Referenced as: "New Jersy [sic] Alcohol Beverage Control Law (Title 33)" This is actually "New Jersey Permanent Statutes (Title 33)" The best I can find more specific than "the entire Title" is "33:1-12a", but this only applies to wine tastings which require a plenary license. If anyone can find a more specific statute, then I'd be happy to hear.

18. There are specific distinctions in American law between on-premise consumption and off-premises consumption. It would not surprise me if most states prohibit this.

19. This law seems entirely retarded, and the only reference is to "dumblaws.com" ... looking there, I can find the law "referenced" but no reference to the actual law itself. If one can find any case law that specifically states this, I'm going to chalk this up as "this list was compiled by a retard".

20. I'm not willing to look up this reference. However, this law is not unreasonable. If you are selling liquor as your primary business, then do so. One also cannot sell cold beer. Think about this. Person walks in to buy a beer, and it is already cold. What is the reason to have them be cold? So one can drink them immediately.

21. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference.

22. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference. Although I have been told that Washington state law requires an establishment to sell or provide food as long as it is providing alcohol. The reason for this is to allow someone to "work off a buzz" if they must.

23. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference.

24. Texas law provides that alcohol can only be sold during certain hours every day of the week. This has since been removed, probably because they realized that the statement "anytime on Monday" does not mean midnight before 8 a.m.

25. I'm not going to spend the time to review this one. But considering such an obvious contradiction is highly unlikely, I don't think it is true.

26. Law is referenced to "dumblaws", however the entry is no longer available. Likely because it was false.

27. This law is simply referenced to "Florida Statutes"... I'm not going to go track down this law, especially considering the track record of the stuff before. To me, if you're listing "stupid laws", and your reference is anything but the actual statutes, or case law, then you're useless.

28. Difference legislative authorities come to different choices. If you intend to just point out how varied the laws are around the US, then this is as good as any.

29. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference. Although it's entirely possible that animal abuse statutes state that it is illegal to do this. Recall, alcohol is a poison, and humans just have a particular tolerance for it.

30. Note above. It is illegal, because someone did it.

31. Law prohibiting open containers in public apply to nearly the entire United States. Whether in a bucket or not.

32. San Salvador is in another country, specifically El Salvador. The US has some of the most lax drunk driving laws in the world. Do not be surprised.

33. Barring of alcohol while watching exotic dancers is not uncommon in the United States. I know of it being illegal specifically in Washington State and Nevada.

34. This is referenced to "uselessknowledge.com". It is not particularly surprising that someone would pass a discriminatory law like this in the 1940s.

35... 35... oh thank god, I'm done. Those last ones were WORTHLESS...

I'd like to see a "stupid law" webpage that actually requires real verification of the laws before it posts them...

In these times of political conflict, it is most interesting to look back, and witness that, relevant to us today, yet written long ago, the Bible does not stand alone, but also the words of many other people. Though not divine, they may yet be imbued with knowledge and wisdom that remains relevant today. We, as human beings, have struggled and seem doomed to struggle without end for Unity, Justice, and Freedom for our fellow human beings. It fills me with hope though, to realize that we are not beset on all sides only by men who seek the selfish goals of greed and individualism, but we are also surrounded by men who seek the more noble goals to lift up others, and increase the quality of their lives, regardless of their individual worth.
I write this as a prologue to a speech, which could stand powerfully in its own right, and without introduction. This speech is from Charlie Chaplin, performed in The Great Dictator. Although written in 1940, it stands as an incredible piece that cries out for unconditional love, and care of all men. Our actions here affect all who are left once we pass from this world, and all people regardless of creed or belief realize the only noble goal in life is to make life free and beautiful for all men...

So, I leave you with this speech, and beckon you towards the goal of making this world a better place for everyone by providing the fundamentals of human dignity... if you are Christian, then because the Kingdom of God lies not within one man, or a group of men, but in all men... and if you're Atheist, because reason dictates that in any moral system, each person cannot be viewed as anything other than equivalent in worth to any other person.

And now, words once already spoken, yet still well worth repeating:

"I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness - not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate - has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man - cries for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say: 'Do not despair.' The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate, only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural!

Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St Luke, it is written the kingdom of God is within man not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful - to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security.

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason - a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us unite!"

Thank you, and if you so believe, may God bless your life, and if you do not so believe, then simply, may your life be blessed

Gen yon panse nan Ayiti. Pi bon, voye HAITI nan 90999 a bay $10 nan Kwe Rouj pou Ayiti. Si ou kap bay, souplà bay!

I was watching "Fringe", the episode "Unearthed". A character in the series spoke some Russian, and I set off to understand exactly what she said. They told us that she says, "my little star", and I caught enough that she said, "govorit" at the end of a sentence. (I'm transliterating here. It's pronounced different because the "go" syllable is unstressed, and thus degrades to an open round vowel between /o/ and /a/, which we perceive as /a/. For English speakers the best writing of it would be "gavorit".)

Well, searching online, I eventually found a script, and I transliterated their transliteration back into Cyrillic... and it broke... of course right? So, it took me a while to play around with things until I finally got it all correct. In Cyrillic characters it is:

Ð¼Ð¾Ñ ÐÐÐÐÐоÑÐÐ. ÐÑо Ñï½Â¾ мноÐ? ÐоÑÐмÑf Ñ Ð½ï½Â мÐÐÑf ÐоÐоÑÐÑï½ÂOE?

Transliterated is: Moya zvezdochka. Chto so mnoy? Pochemu ya nye magu govorit?
A closer English pronuncation: ma-YA zvezDOCHka. shto sa-MNOY? po-CHEH-mu ya nye magu gah-VOR-it?
As presented by the script: maya zvezdochka shto samnoy? Pochimu ya ne magu govorit?

The best English translation that I can offer: "My little star. What is wrong with me? Why can't I talk?"

I'm posting this here, so maybe someone else looking for the same text will find it faster, and if they're less resourceful about language translation than I am, they might be able to actually find an answer at all.

So, I'm watching the Colbert Report, and he mentions that Conservapedia has started a project to Retranslate the Bible using only proper Conservative buzz words. While investigating this, I came across the article for Feminist Bible. In which, they complain that feminist ideas have permeated a number of newer Bible translations. And, well, yeah, Today's New International Version certainly has imposed some Gender-Neutral dialog and terminology.

Here's the problem though, they start talking about James 2:15-16, talking about how English translations make an "ungrammatical" (their words, not mine... I'm a linguist, if it sounds right it's grammatical, it may not be "proper", but it's still grammatical) rendering of a phrase in order to make it sounds more Gender-Neutral. Sure, I totally bet that the TNIV translation has done this, and guess what? It does use the plural personal pronoun to refer to an antecedent of "brother or sister". So, I'm like, "ok, I'll give you that."

But then in the footnotes, I note that they claim that this grammatical error is even in the KJV version, and in most English versions in fact. Ok, now things smell fishy, because KJV translation was done WELL BEFORE any liberal 1984-paranoid feminists could have gotten their hands on it for Gender-Neutral language. So... what's going on here?

I know of a site called BibleServer.com, which is an awesome webpage, because they provide multiple different translations, all easy to access. Ok, first up, the NIV translation. Nope, NIV uses the "grammatical" non-specifically-gendered personal pronoun "him". But, sure enough, KJV does as well. Well, this is really weird, right? Because as I noted before, KJV was well before any potential feminist influence. Well, ok, well, what about trying a different language?

German doesn't normally use their plural pronoun for non-specified or mixed gender, as they have a very DEFINED gender system. In fact, girls are given the pronoun "it", as well as "Omachen" (grandma with a dimunitive). This is because grammatical gender REQUIRES it to be used... it's not anti-feminine, it's not misogynistic, it's just the way the language works. Yet in the Luther 1984 translation, something weird is going on here... they use the 3rd-person singular subjunctive of "haben" => "haette", but they then refer to the singular antecedent with a plural pronoun. What's going on here?

So, let's look up a Spanish translation, "Version La Biblia de Dia". Spanish is a good choice for this, because they only have masculine and feminine, and even if there were a feminist rally, and there were 100 women, and one man in the crowd, the speaker would grammatically and naturally refer to the crowd as "hombres" (men). In Spanish, all non-specific singular pronouns are male, but any and all MIXED gender PLURAL pronouns are male. So, what happens here? Well, here the plural conjugation of "tener" is used: "tienen", and a plural pronoun is used to refer to this "singular" antecedent again. ("les") Ok, now I'm thoroughly confused...

Ok, wait, I know... let's stop all this work, and start walking back in the documents. Let's start with LATIN... good ol' Latin, when I want to know what misogynistic anti-feminists said about a Bible verse, I go to LATIN. Well, here they use the plural conjugation "sunt", and use a plural referent to the a "singular" antecedent again. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!

Ok, that's it... what language was the Epistle of James originally written in? Uh... Greek. Ok, let's go to the ancient greek. James 2, English and Ancient Greek side-by-side. Alright, here we go, we can go looking though this and.... brother... sister... plural conjugation... plural pronoun...

Ok, so, the reason why KJV and "most English translations" have this plural usage here is because the original freaking GREEK had this "grammatical error", not because of an error of the translators.

And Conservapedia rips on NIV all the time for being liberal biased and all, but they're the only people who, BECAUSE of a liberal attitude to update the language, altered the original meaning of the text in order to conform to proper English grammar of the time.

Ok, seriously, these are the same people who are vouching that the KJV meanings have skewed, and that "logos" should be translated with "truth" rather than "word" anymore, etc. And they're talking about how the original meaning is being lost by the modern liberal jerkwads... yet... some of the liberal jerkwads are actually ensuring that the language conforms to modern day grammar, rather than just blithely repeating the same grammatical errors made in the original Greek.

It reminds me of an amusing quote I once read, but cannot find again, so I shall paraphrase: "How fortuitous it was that God learned Greek to write the New Testament... it's however unfortunate that he had not learned the grammar better."

God can't properly agree a pronoun with a singular complex antecedent... isn't this book supposed to be infallible?

I've lurked at /. without posting for ages, mostly because I just don't have the time to interact like I used to.

But I've been clicking through the old RSS feed more and more lately, and when I saw the PAX Plague thread today, I came over to comment, since I'm kind of affected by the whole damn thing. I thought I'd take a look around since I haven't been here in awhile, and I saw that there are freaking ACHIEVEMENTS associated with our accounts. It's silly, and I'm sure it's been here forever, but I thought it was awesome and I was delighted when I read it.

I didn't realize how much I missed Slashdot until I spent some time here today, and I bet that anyone who joined in the last 2 years doesn't even give a shit about my stupid comments or anything, but it felt good to come back here, and feel safely among my people again.

This is a response to a video on Youtube done by a "tooltime9901", who in response to "jezuzfreek777", presents an interesting prompt. What are the "ten commandments" that an atheist should hold. This is so interesting because it comes to the fundamental philosophy of law and morality. Knowing that morality is fairly relative, and that morality cannot be viewed without context of the situation. Thus, there are justifications to killing another human. There are justifications for what would otherwise be considered theft.

Take these as examples. It is well accepted that self-defense is a legitimate justification for causing the death of someone else. Provided that said self-defense was given in a proportioned response. Thus, if someone simply attempts to assault you, you are only justified insofar as assault against that person. However, if an attacker is presenting a force which a reasonable person would find to be equivalent to lethal force, then one is justified in causing that individuals death.

Next, the justification of theft. It is well accepted that aquisition of ones own property is justified, even if the aquisition of that property would otherwise be considered theft. Thus, reaquiring ones own property is justified if someone has your property without your permission. Here is what is interesting though, you are not justified to use force or threat of force to reobtain your own propery. The use of force to obtain property is only permissible when force is being immediately or imminently used against you to obtain property from onesself.

So, we present here the point that we cannot justify a commandment-like proscription against killing another, or obtaining property in the posession of another. While proscriptions of murder and theft themselves are valid, one is then presented with the problem of defining murder and theft such that it accounts for, and allows justifications. This presents a further moral problem in that in defining murder, one can present the definition of "causing without reasonable and fair justification the death of another human being", because then one is presented with the problem of defining what a human being is. One would normally assume this to be an easy task, but recall that often a superior group of people will attempt to justify their actions by denouncing the humanity of another group. Whites denounced Blacks as humans, and thus the justification of slavery of that group, while slavery of whites was generally admonished. As well, the Nazis of Nazi Germany justified the wholesale slaughter of jews and the disabled as those categories of homo sapiens and being insufficient to warrant the protections afforded those of "human beings"

Thus, we are left with the necessity that the only commandment-like proscriptions and perscriptions afforded to us need be necessarily vague, and rather than covering specific details are presented as widely interpreted statements that present the foundation for a legal or moral system to be built upon more exactly. And thus, I can present from that notion the following six commandments, which I feel are reasonable, justifiable and rational. I use the speech of the time of King James in order to present an allegory and allusion to the commandments as they are considered by our modern age.

1. Thou shalt keep the trust of your word.
2. Thou shalt not do harm to others.
3. Thou shalt not endanger others.
4. Thou shalt honor thine obligations.
5. Thou shalt not act with intention to violate a proscription of law.
6. Thou shalt not act with knowledge, or willful ignorance to violate a requirement of law.

These six commandments actually establish the devisions of law within the common law system, and such commandments actually have equivalent notions in the civil law system.

The first commandment, I present as such, because of the importance of the issue. I see perjury and fraud as the fundamentally anti-thesis of reason, which is what a society must fundamentally be based upon. If the system cannot rely upon the word of an individual, then the system itself cannot operate. Thus, since the system must assume that parties are telling the truth, it is a fundamental requirement that this truth be told. This should not be considered to proscribe all lies, as not all lies are damaging to a moral system, however when presenting justification and context to a situation before an impartial party then the necessity of the trust in the words of the parties is paramount. And we should presume that any court, natural or not, would be impartial.

The second commandment presents a fundamental truth. We should not do harm to others. This is presented in commonlaw under the idea of intentional torts, and the third commandment presents a foundation for the idea of negligent torts. In both cases, if someone becomes harmed, either through the acts or the failure to act of another, then that person deserves the right to have their harm redressed.

The fourth commandment seems similar to the first, in that it would seem to require someone to be honest, and this is true, however it is more specific than that. The first commandment establishes the requirement that one be true in their word if there is a trust of that person's word, but it says nothing about when a trust of that person's word is fundmantally necessary. While the first commandment applies obviously where an impartial court is involved, it applies non-trivially to the announcment of obligations to others. This is the American idea of crossing ones fingers while annoucing an obligation, and thus that a trust was never intended in the announcement of that obligation. This commandment however provides that one must always place the trust of ones word in the announcement of an obligation. In the common law system, this commandment thus provides the foundation for contract law.

The fifth, and sixth commandments establish the foundation for criminal law in the common law system. These are specifically different from commandments two and three, in that it establishes that there is a legal doctrine for a society, and individuals are under an obligation (fourth commandment) to obey this "social contract". Thus the legal system should establish two types of criminal law, and while the common law system views both of these types of criminal law as identical, there exists the legal context that one may use a justification that one was unknowing of a specific law in some cases. This commandment thus places that requirement as apparent and opaque, as opposed to the current system that is vague on the issue.

The fifth commandment sets out that there are certain acts that are defined by a legal system to be impermissible. The legal system should define these in such a matter that the acts cause an effect, which the legal system finds intolerable, and thus knowledge of the fact that the action is proscribed is waived by all as being necessary. Only the intent of the action need be defined. The person intended to perform the act, and thus must be punished.

The sixth commandment takes a different tact. It states that the legal system should deem that certain actions must be performed by all within its jurisdiction. Thus, the idea that one must register and obtain a license to operate a motor vehicle on a public street. This requirement, done by the state however, states that it is in the best interest of all to require this, but that failure to perform the requirement does not imply by necessity that a violation of the commandment occured, because there are two parts to this commandment first, the individual must know about the requirement, as no one should be held to perform a requirement without being aware that such a requirement exists. However, this is provided that the individual not be willingly ignorant of the requirement. Thus, a person charged with violating a requirement to obtain a license to drive would not be a violation if the person did not know, and had no reason to know that such a license were necessary.

So, I've probably rambled enough, but this is what I think would be the best foundation for a system of commandments.

Of course... I make a few comments in an essay that attempts to say that the social embarrassment of an individual accused of sexual assault is "vastly greater" than the social embarrassment of the victim being identified.

I objected to this because I have been the victim of sexual assault. Oddly enough, when I comment about that, it's marked as a troll or flamebait.

Not like I should be surprised with how machismo and male-dominated the geek world is. I hope the people modding me down realize that they're being just as sexist as the author, and that they're damaging the credibility of men among women.

This is one of the big reasons why I've wanted to get out of the geek world in my work life. I don't want to deal with this chauvinistic bullshit in the workplace , where I spent 8 hours of my day... at least. Not to mention, there's the expectation that I will spend 60-80 hours a week at work. The whole IT industry is so sexist it disgusts me.

Honestly, I can't believe how stupid SOME men are. Not all of them, I've met quite a few really nice cool caring and understanding guys... however... jesus christ... modding down a girl as a troll because she objects to being told that the social embarrassment of her accused sexual assaulter outweighs her suffering?

Meh, I'm done... I'm just really sick and tired of how sexist men are... it's so frustrating.

It is statistically proven [citation needed] that the #1 instrument played by programmers is still the guitar. With a generalization like that, where else would I ask a question about DIY guitar pick manufacturing than here on slashdot? (FIY: a guitar pick or plectrum is the little plasticky thingy guitar players occasionally hold while playing the guitar)

After yet another hour long strip search of my flat, moving furniture, removing carpets, checking every crevice, cavity and hole for one of the, undoubtedly thousands, picks this place seems so eager to swallow mysteriously. Usually within 12 hours of purchasing them. Yet again, I take scissors, a hotel door card and some duct tape and fabricate me something that looks and feels,... anything but like a pick.

If only I knew of some freely available never ending source of plectrum material out there. Would it be possible to pull of some harmonics from the edge of a pine corn? Tried it, didn't work. Started coming apart after 3.4 strums,...

Dear /. what's the best you have come up with to construct a pick in a pinch?

This Slashdot comment and these numbers go a long way towards explaining the highly divergent views we see on the American H1-B visa program designed for bringing highly-paid, highly-educated professionals to work in the United States to supplement an American lack of such people.

The common opinion among Slashdotters is that H1-Bs are used to bring in code monkeys who work for low wages, thereby suppressing IT, computing, and science wages. The common opinion among certain prominent American businessmen is that America doesn't produce enough highly-educated professionals of its own. The cited Wikipedia page shows why these two views, which so strongly diverge, are both actually true.

On the one hand, it appears that most H1-Bs *ARE*, in fact, used by Indian outsourcing and consulting firms to bring in wage-slaved trained monkeys. The issue is that the small but significant number of visas that American companies can obtain for themselves may well go towards exactly what Bill Gates says they go to: bringing in highly-educated people who will work for high wages in research and development.

Given this kind of environment, it has occurred to me that computing has become a lot like the fine arts. If one starts learning at a very young age and has talent, one can still "climb to the top" and become one of the few who get well-paying, interesting jobs in R&D or a secure position in academic computer science. However, the majority who try to enter the field, particularly those without top talent or who discovered their interest too late in life (perhaps late high school or early college years), will ultimately end up in badly-paying, insecure, IT or "code-monkey" jobs.

In my opinion, such a hypothesis explains and predicts the exact patterns of educational enrollment and entrance to the computing professions we currently see. The fine arts show a similar pattern; nobody who decides on a whim to take up a musical instrument in college ever becomes a highly-payed musical star.

The counterpoint lies in the "popular" arts, wherein stars make money that the rest of us can only dream about while thousands of "wannabes" flock to the field to ultimately fail harder than any code-monkey ever will. The explanation for this is, of course, that the popular arts have been deemed as having sex appeal.

So to have more people enter computing, we can either increase the rewards of an average computing career rather than merely a top one, or we can add sex appeal.

You've been hearing about the hydrogen economy for quite a while. We're pleased to report that it is ready to go using technologies that have been in use in economically successful projects for the last twenty years.
We'll warn you in advance, however, as you're not going to find any cute, soundless cars or futuristic cityscapes. The use of hydrogen as a fuel for at least the foreseeable future begins and ends in an Iowa cornfield ...

First lets talk about our two candidate fuels, hydrogen and ammonia.

Hydrogen today comes from two sources. The first and most common is evolution from natural gas and the most common use for the H2 is as a feedstock for the Haber-Bosch process, the means by which most of the world gets its nitrogen fertilizer. The rest of the global supply, about 4% of the total, is produced by splitting water using electricity, a process known as hydrolysis.
Hydrogen can be used directly to produce energy. You can put it in a fuel cell. You can burn it directly in an internal combustion engine, but its much less efficient than a fuel cell. It is fairly nasty stuff to design for and use. Diatomic hydrogen, which is just a pair of protons with two skittish electrons to chaperon them, is a master escape artist, slipping around seals and valves. Gather a bit of it together where there might be a spark and you'll get a violent reaction. Vehicle storage requires pressurized tanks that will let go with a bang in a crash just due to pressure and then almost certainly explode and/or burn after the fact.
Ammonia, on the other hand, is a much nicer fuel. It has to be kept in pressurized containers, it is caustic, very hazardous to handle, but it requires some special attention to make it burn so there is no fire or explosion hazard in the event of a vehicle crash.
So now you're saying to yourself "Great, when can I get a conversion kit for my car?" The answer to that is simple - never, ever. We're going to use ammonia as a farm fuel.

OK, with us so far? This is the hydrogen economy part we promised, with the three hydrogen atoms bound up in an ammonia molecule being used to replace diesel in tractors and combines.

Ammonia is widely used as fertilizer in corn production, with the application of about one pound of it for every fifty six pounds(a bushel) produced. A square mile of Iowa farmland will require about forty eight tons of the stuff for nitrogen enrichment and will yield about twenty seven hundred tons of corn. You can feed a city of a hundred thousand chickens for a whole year on that ...
Every farmer in Iowa knows how to handle ammonia safely. Iowa has 800 ammonia dispensing stations. The United States has 3,100 miles of ammonia pipelines and Iowa is the nexus for them. We're fond of using Iowa because we do about 25% of the nation's corn production right here and we're smack in the middle of the country's bread basket. You can take most of what we say, scale it up by four, and have a pretty close estimate of a national plan.
So, we have farmers trained to handle the product, we have a distribution network already in place, and the diesel engines in tractors and combines need a new dual feed gas manifold to replace the existing liquid diesel system. Why a dual feed? Remember earlier when we said that ammonia wouldn't burn easily? That is true, so we have to use about 5% propane to get the combustion started.
This is not theory, not even one little bit. You can pick up a telephone and call the Hydrogen Engine Center in Algona, Iowa. Ask for Joe Lewis and tell him you want to buy an ammonia powered generator. They're selling these things now for use as power supplies in irrigation systems. Here is a picture of their production floor. Yes, thats Joe right there front and center. If you want to know more about them we did a nice article on them earlier today on the Stranded Wind web site.
This is a picture of their production floor

OK, sounds good so far, right? But 96% of the world's hydrogen comes from natural gas and that still releases carbon dioxide. Not to worry, because the solution is blowing in the wind an hour west of the Hydrogen Engine Center. Iowa has a massive supply of Stranded Wind

Iowa has ninety nine counties. Ten of them have perfect wind at 7.5M/s to 8.0M/s wind and around sixty more have fairly good wind in the 7.0M/s to 7.5M/s range. There are less than a hundred thousand people in that pretty gold patch in the upper left, not all that much in the way of power transmission lines, and that means we have a great deal of Stranded Wind - wind energy available with nowhere to go ... unless we devise a way to use it locally.
This is a picture of Iowa's wind distribution
We've done some fairly in depth calculations. We'd need about $7,500,000,000 to produce all of the ammonia the state requires for fertilization. That is roughly five gigawatts of wind plant and the associated ammonia production infrastructure. We've got fifteen gigawatts worth of wind that can be easily developed and only about a gigawatt of it is in use at this time. Doing the fuel, too, means scaling this up by a factor of thirty and we'll recall that Iowa is one quarter of the total corn production region. The cost of the Iraq war would have freed a very large portion of our agriculture completely from fossil fuels except for lubricants. Did you do the math on the 30x increase? The fifteen gigawatts is in the sweet spot in the upper northwest. There is cause to electrify a whole bunch of additional area in the state by installing turbines to drive the rail system, but we'll leave rail electrification for another post.

OK, this all sounds great, right? But how do we fuel cars, trucks, and other things that run on the road? What we describe above has some pretty big implications for ethanol production, too.

We won't cut and paste the article we did today calling for discussion on a strategic plan we're calling Ethanol 2.0 but we will provide a summary.
Ethanol production requires quite a number of fossil fuel inputs, on a bad day producing about 80% of the energy put into it and on a really good day 130%. The energy policy guys call this concept EROI - energy return on input. Forget all about dollars and cents, you count the amount of power that goes into a process, what you get back out of it, and then you've got your EROI ratio.
Texas crude that shot up out of Spindletop in 1901 had an amazing EROI, perhaps 100:1 or better. The often mentioned Canadian tar sands? No one is talking but we're guessing between 5:1 and 10:1 for that. They're basically trying to boil a pot of water the size of Florida up there using all of the stranded gas to do the heating. Very messy, very bad for the local environment, and way more CO2 emitted than traditional oil production means.
The EROI on ethanol using stranded wind produced ammonia as both fertilizer and fuel coupled with bioprocessing of feedlot waste is very much up in the air. We know it will be much better than the current 1.3:1 at best, but the exciting part is that it would all be carbon neutral. Yes, you heard correctly, food for the nation, two hundred million barrels of road fuel annually, and not a lick of carbon dioxide produced in the process.

OK, sounds great, but the federal energy bill was a total disaster. This will never get done, right?

Wrong!
Two weeks ago we called the office of Steve King, R, IA-05. Don't bother looking, you already hate him - he has a 100% score from Focus On The Family. We left a message about wind energy development and twenty minutes later we had a staffer on the phone who said and we quote "Tell me what you need us to do." We talked for a good half an hour and he agreed to introduce us to some other folks working in the area.
What about the state level? A welcome like the one we get from Representative King's staffer only they have budget dollars and people already working on the future in a way the rest of you will envy.
Here we've got the Iowa Office of Energy Independence and they have, amazingly enough, a $100,000,000 energy independence initiative over the next four years.
Our governor, Democrat Chet Culver, is on top of his game, pushing this initiative along with the help of a Democratic party controlled state House and Senate.
So, there you have it, hydrogen economy, no research required although new advances will be incorporated when ready, and its financially and politically in reach RIGHT NOW.
The Iowa Legislature goes into session in a few short days. We can really use some help chewing over the Ethanol 2.0 plan. We'd love to see volunteers from the other corn/wind states step up and claim their state in the forums area dedicated to activism.
(crossposted from http://www.dailykos.com/user/Stranded%20Wind on DailyKos)

I started reading about The Analogy of the Divided Line whereby the reasoning of an individual is divided into four parts.

The first part is the blanket assumption that what is seen is reality.
The second part is the higher order of understanding the particulars of reality.
The third part is an understanding that the objects around us are merely reflections, and that there is something more meaningful that gives a object its reality.
And the last part is inexistential, the understanding that there are things that exist but have no image in reality.

As I was reading this, it occured to me that Arithmetic itself is a wonderful example of this sort of reasoning.

The first level is physically tied arithmetic. Two apples and two apples are four apples, and four rows of five apples makes 20 apples, this is known to be true as you can actually count them.

The second level is route memorization. One knows that the concept of math is more than simply counting numbers, and that many operations have simple systematic answers, that do not require you to count the entirety of the result. Thus,2+2=4 and 4*5=20 because that's what the results of the arithmetic operation are.

The third level is an understanding of the principles behind math. That there is an abstract level behind math, that guides all the principles. You might realize that scalar math is simply 1x1 matrix math. You know that 2+2=4 not because you have been told so, but that the definition of the elements hold that the operation must produce that, but that "+" means much more than simply addition, but can include a number of ideas, such as the idea of logical or, or the construction of a set which strictly supersets both sets used as operands (Union operation). You know that 4*5=20 not because you have been told so, but because you know and understand how multiplication works, and that it is an agumentation of addition, thus n*m = sum(1-n, m), and inserting the values four and five, you retreive 5+5+5+5, which is defined in the context of the vector field we are using is 20.

The final level, is the cause of many people being considered to be raving lunatics. It's the understanding that numbers themselves do not having meaning, but rather that everything is derived from nothing. 0 is the cardinality of the empty set, while 1 is the cardinality of the powerset of the empty set, while 2 is defined as the cardinaltiy of the powerset of one, and that every number N is the cardinality of the powerset of N-1. Maths working in this field are like lambda calculus is to computation, because the lambda operation is the most basic of all operations, and breaking down math into the most basic of all elements, the empty set, you end up able to prove not only that 4*5=20 because it equals sum(1-4, 5) = 5+5+5+5 = 20, but because you know that n+m = incr(1-n, m) (where inc is like the Sigma Summation operator and the Pi Product operator, showing a sequential series of incrementations). Thus you know:
4*5 = sum(1-4, 5
        = 5+5+5+5
        = incr(1-5, 5) + 5 + 5
        = incr(1-(incr(1-5, 5)), 5) + 5
        = incr(1-(incr(1-(incr(1-5, 5), 5), 5)

And knowing that a single incrementation step is defined as
inc(x) = { x=0 : emptyset
                      x!=0 : powerset(f(x-1)) }

Thus that "numbers" are inexistential sets of literally nothing (various combinations (not permutations) of empty sets) and that finally collapsing them to a definition results in us taking the cardinality of the set in order to understand the value. Thus continuing above:
4*5 = incr(1-(incr(1-(incr(1-5, 5), 5), 5)
        = incr(1-(incr(1-inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(5))))), 5), 5)
        = incr(1-(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(5))))))))))), 5)
        = inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(5)))))))))))))))

Inserting the definition of five:
        = inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(emptyset))))))))))))))))))))

By applying the inc function we end up with:
        = powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(emptyset))))))))))))))))))))

Whose cardinality is 20.

Having defined and proven addition, and the very definition of numbers themselves, you have broken free of any physical manifestation of mathematics. You are truly looking at what mathematics really is a priori, you are not bound to "it is defined this way" or "it was taught to me to be this value" or "I counted it myself", but rather you understand that all of those are merely images and reflections on a cave wall with regard to what really really is math.

You no longer "perform" math based on axioms, instruction, or the crude rudimentary counting, but rather based off of a priori proofs. You know of the existance and nature of math, because you understand what it really is.

At this point, do you become truly enlightened about math, and you understand why such variations as there are exist, because you can extract all of them from nothing.

This feels like a mega-spam entry, and I'm very self conscious about posting it, but I'm excited about this and I wanted to share . . .

I just published my third book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives. I mention it here because it's all about growing up in the 70s, and coming of age in the 80s as part of the D&D/BBS/video game/Star Wars figures generation, and I think a lot of Slashdot readers will relate to the stories in it.

I published a few of the stories on my blog, including Blue Light Special. It's about the greatest challenge a ten year-old could face in 1982: save his allowance, or buy Star Wars figures?

After our corduroy pants and collared shirts and Trapper Keepers and economy packs of pencils and wide-ruled paper were piled up in our cart, our mom took our three year-old sister with her to the make-up department to get shampoo and whatever moms buy in the make-up department, and my brother and I were allowed to go to the toy department.

"Can I spend my allowance?" I said.

"If that's what you want to do," my mom said, another entry in a long string of unsuccessful passive/aggressive attempts to encourage me to save my money for . . . things you save money for, I guess. It was a concept that was entirely alien to me at nine years old.

"Keep an eye on Jeremy," she said.

"Okay," I said. As long as Jeremy stood right at my side and didn't bother me while I shopped, and as long as he didn't want to look at anything of his own, it wouldn't be a problem.

I held my brother's hand as we tried to walk, but ended up running, across the store, past a flashing blue light special, to the toy department. Once there, we wove our way past the bicycles and board games until we got to the best aisle in the world: the one with the Star Wars figures.

I'm really proud of this book, and the initial feedback on it has been overwhelmingly positive. I've been reluctant to mention it here, because of the spam issue, but I honestly do think my stories will appeal to Slashdotters.

After the disaster with O'Reilly on Just A Geek, I've decided to try this one entirely on my own, so I'm responsible for the publicity, the marketing, the shipping, and . . . well, everything. If this one fails, it will be because of me, not because a marketing department insisted on marketing it as something it's not.

Of course, I hope I can claim the same responsibility if (when?) it finds its audience . . . which would be awesome.

Re: Laughing and Crying

Thomas Friedman thinks America doesn't educate enough native students
through graduate school. He claims that the lack of native-born Ph.D
students shows this trend.

I must respectfully disagree. American-born students don't go to
graduate school because they know what's good for their wallet. A
report by the National Center for Education Statistics shows that, in
the 2004-2005 school year, 75% of full-time, first-time undergraduate
students at 4-year institutions (also known as college kids) had
financial aid of some sort. Now that the federal government has cut
back on grants and scholarships, the most common financial aid is the
student loan.

So with three-quarters of college students in college on someone else's
dime, should it surprise anyone that they want to join the job market
and make money immediately after school? When you have loan payments
due each month, going back to graduate school for a tiny stipend and an
academic career track simply looks repulsive.

American students are not stupid or uneducated, they simply know what's
good for them.

But foreign students receive all kinds of scholarships not open to
native-born Americans (search CollegeBoard.com if unsure). They also
find that going to graduate school brings them more respect and a higher
income back home than returning with merely a bachelor's degree, and
they find that graduate school provides a good road to stay here if they
so wish. So most graduate students come from abroad.

Can we get more American-born students in graduate school? Yes. We
just need to lower the economic cost of graduate and/or undergraduate
education. Therefore, I propose the establishment of a charitable
nonprofit organization dedicated to providing scholarships to science
and engineering undergraduates on the basis of "more money for better
grades", starting at nothing for F's and scaling up to full tuition for A's.

I would proudly donate to such an organization.

With their educational funds back in their pockets, more science and
engineering students will have the ability to afford graduate school.
Even those who don't attend graduate school will swell the ranks of the
scientifically educated Americans.

-- Eli Z. Gottlieb

Simple tasks like switching between Firefox and Thunderbird are driving the load on my machine up over 4, and if I'm trying to run Amarok at the same time, it drives it up to 8. In fact, my machine frequently climbs up into the 7-9 range, bringing my apps to a crawl and frustrating the hell out of me.

So I've decided it's time to buy a new computer. I'm going to replace my aging Sony Vaio desktop machine (which runs Linux) with something newer that has more RAM, a faster processor, and a bigger hard drive.

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure where to start looking. A quick walk through Circuit City a month or so ago lead me to believe I can get a rather "big" computer for as low as five hundred bucks, which further leads me to believe that if I were to buy something online, I can get a huge pile of RAM, a fast processor, and a big honkin' hard drive for even less.

I run Kubuntu, and use KDE as my desktop (though I occasionally switch to Gnome when I get bored) and I mostly use Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, Amarok, and run PokerStars in wine. I'm looking for something that can do all of that without slowing my machine to a crawl.

Anyone have any suggestions on where to start looking?

Edit: I don't think I have the patience to build my own machine out of individual parts. I also don't have any real loyalty to any particular company or architecture. New Egg has lots of machines with AMD processors, and though I've always had Intel processors because more things seemed to run on x86, that's not as much of an issue as it once was, right?