Comment Re:Typical good timing.... (Score 1) 321
I'm not quite THAT dumb. But the resolution only recognizes 14 March of this year as Pi Day, and 14 March 2009, will always be on a Saturday.
Comment Typical good timing.... (Score 1) 321
[curmudgeon]
Good work on declaring a National Pi Day on 3/14, for whatever significance a Congress-designated "National * Day" has, but they had to do it when it falls on a Saturday? Methinks that schools won't do much to teach about Pi and math on a Saturday, and a lot of the significance of the date would be lost if they taught about it on Friday or Monday, neither of which are 3/14.
[/curmudgeon]
Good work on declaring a National Pi Day on 3/14, for whatever significance a Congress-designated "National * Day" has, but they had to do it when it falls on a Saturday? Methinks that schools won't do much to teach about Pi and math on a Saturday, and a lot of the significance of the date would be lost if they taught about it on Friday or Monday, neither of which are 3/14.
[/curmudgeon]
Comment Re:Recusal/change of venue? (Score 1) 92
Of course not, but they might if he'd been hit by one. The fact that this court records/streams its proceedings means that the judges on it see no problem with it. Given that, it might be tough to expect them to hear RIAA's argument that there IS a problem with it in quite as unbiased as a way as maybe they should, just like a judge who'd been hit by a car might not be completely impartial during a hit-and-run case. I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with streaming court cases, generally speaking, but this particular situation raises the rather interesting prospect of a venue change or something similar. Unless of course Ray says otherwise.
Comment Recusal/change of venue? (Score 4, Interesting) 92
If the court is to decide on the acceptability of something they do (i.e., streaming), can the RIAA fight for a change of venue? I mean, you wouldn't want a Ten-Commandments-in-the-courtroom case to be decided in a courtroom where the Ten Commandments are on the wall, right? Usually, if there's a conflict of interest, the judge can just recuse him/herself, but that wouldn't work here. Can RIAA put up a straight-faced argument about changing venue (say, to a court they think might be more friendly anyway)?
RIAA Argument About Streaming To Be Streamed 92
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that in an RIAA case, SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, the district court ruled that an oral argument about the constitutionality of statutory damages could be streamed, and the RIAA has been fighting that with a petition for 'mandamus or prohibition' in the appeals court, which is opposed by the press. Interestingly, it now turns out that the appeals court's oral argument about the streaming will itself be recorded and then streamed. It is hard to imagine how a court which routinely streams its own oral arguments can rule that it is somehow inappropriate for similar oral arguments in the district court to be streamed as well."
IE8 May Be End of the Line For Internet Explorer 380
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy reports on rumors that IE8 may be Internet Explorer's swan song: 'IE8 is the last version of the Internet Explorer Web browser,' Kennedy writes. 'It seems that Microsoft is preparing to throw in the towel on its Internet Explorer engine once and for all.' And what will replace it? Some are still claiming that Microsoft will go with WebKit, which is used by Safari and Chrome. The WebKit story, Kennedy contends, could be a feint and that Microsoft will instead adopt Gazelle, Microsoft Research's brand-new engine that thinks like an OS. 'This new engine will supposedly be more secure than Firefox or even Chrome, making copious use of sandboxing to keep its myriad plug-ins isolated and the overall browser process model protected.'" The sticking point will be what Microsoft does about compatibility for ActiveX apps.
Last.fm Shoots Down Rumors Over U2 Album Leak 93
nandemoari writes "Internet radio site Last.fm has denied reports that it told the record industry which of its members had listened to a leaked U2 album. The site claims the entire story, published by Techcrunch, was made up.
Last week the record industry became extremely concerned after U2's forthcoming album appeared on several torrent file sharing sites. While there is no way any users could have acquired the album through Last.fm, the site's statistics suggest that more than 8,000 users have played the unreleased album on their machines."
Submission + - Atlantis Found Via Google Earth? (yahoo.com)
CWRUisTakingMyMoney writes: "Quick--fire up Google Earth on your PC, and find the following coordinates: 31 15'15.53N, 24 15'30.53W (hint: it's about 600 miles west of Morocco, deep in the Atlantic Ocean). Zoom in, and check out that rectangle on the ocean floor. Could it be ... Atlantis? Apparently, the oddly shaped box marks "one of the most prominent places for the proposed location of Atlantis, as described by Plato," said New York State University historical archaeology curator Dr. Charles Orser."
I guess Google is saying that the grid on the ocean floor is an "artifact of the data collection process," but I'm not sure I buy it. Maybe I just don't want to.
I guess Google is saying that the grid on the ocean floor is an "artifact of the data collection process," but I'm not sure I buy it. Maybe I just don't want to.
Major Cache of Fossils Unearthed In Los Angeles 215
aedmunde sends along news from the LA Times: "A nearly intact mammoth, dubbed Zed, is among the remarkable discoveries near the La Brea Tar Pits. It's the largest known deposit of Pleistocene ice age fossils... in what might seem to be the unlikeliest of places — under an old May Co. parking lot in L.A.'s tony Miracle Mile shopping district. ...huge chunks of soil from the site have been removed intact and now sit in large wooden crates on the back lot... The 23 crates range... from the size of a desk to that of a small delivery truck... There were, in fact, 16 separate deposits on the site, an amount that, by her estimate, would have taken 20 years to excavate conventionally. ... Carefully identifying the edges of each deposit, her team dug trenches around them and underneath, isolating the deposits on dirt pedestals. After wrapping heavy plastic around the deposits, workers built wooden crates similar to tree boxes and lifted them out individually with a heavy crane. The biggest one weighed 123,000 pounds."
Discovery Launch Delayed Due To Engine Issue 62
An anonymous reader writes "The launch of Space Shuttle Discovery was originally slated for February 12th, has now been postponed to February 19th — at the earliest. The change of launch dates were decided by NASA managers during a review of the shuttle's flow control valve in the main engine. The new date is pending further analysis of the flow control valve and everything checking out okay for pre-flight tests. Discovery's STS-119 14-day mission will deliver the station's fourth and final set of solar arrays, completing the orbiting laboratory's truss, or backbone. The arrays will provide the electricity to fully power science experiments and support the station's expanded crew of six in May."
Comment Re:Indeed it should (Score 1) 1656
I read it differently. "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office..." To me, that means that, sure, he's President at noon, but he can't *execute* that office---do anything with it---until he takes the oath. (As an aside, I don't think that the 20th Amendment is the first time the starts-at-noon provision appears. I think it duplicated a provision from the Constitution proper, but changed the date.) What trips people up, I think, is that everyone seems to think that taking an oath requires a bible, the Chief Justice, and TV coverage. But all that's required is someone authorized to give oaths or affirmations as some sort of witness. A hurried new President could easily recite the oath in the presence of a notary or something while running somewhere, if necessary.
Of course, realistically, no court would ever disqualify a President's action based on that under unusual circumstances. That takes a level of balls that probably doesn't exist.
Comment I Know I'll Be Watching (Score 4, Interesting) 209
I can't wait for the RIAA to air out their ridiculous tactics and for the judge to laugh them right out of court. Would it be legal to record this and, say, put it on YouTube?
Comment Won't matter (Score 1) 664
Part of me wonders if this is not-trivially for publicity, like Greenpeace goes after Apple a couple times a year. But either way, not many people will care and I certainly doubt that they'll convert anybody. iTunes does, IIRC, sell non-DRM'd music (at a premium but also at a higher bitrate), and the DRM they do have is fairly unobtrusive as DRM goes. I don't like DRM'd media any more than the next person, but I can think of much worse offenders to go after than Apple.
Comment Re:My wife is a fucking librarian (Score 1) 423
My wife is a fucking librarian
Well, those are the best kind.
Comment Re:It's a bit like arguments about God (Score 1) 683
I'm a theist (of a rather popular sort that I won't get into because I do NOT want to argue the merits of my belief---no one will win). Arguments about God and its existence are always pointless because God as most of us theists believe in it is omnipotent. And when you have an omnipotent God, the rules of logical argument break down. So, yes, when I consider how the Universe formed, I conclude that it cannot have created itself, that something must have brought it into being. I choose to call that thing God and to ascribe to it other qualities in line with my beliefs.
Yes, now, you say, I must deal with how God was created. No, I don't, because God as I believe in it is omnipotent; an omnipotent thing can do anything it wants, including create itself. Science isn't paradox-free, either. [1]
Besides, what of scientists who are also atheists? They say the universe was formed out of a larger multiverse. How was the multiverse formed? Infinite regression (I like that term) comes into play HERE, not when an omnipotent God exists (or is assumed to exist). I strongly doubt that it is possible to prove the existence of God to anyone aside from oneself, just as I strongly doubt that it is possible to prove God's nonexistence to anyone but oneself.
[1] I'm not saying this as a knock against science. I'm a student, not in a scientific field, but I very much enjoy and respect science and most scientists. I don't feel science needs to exist without a God. I do, however, agree that one cannot resort to "God did it" within the scientific method. (I just think the scientific method cannot answer everything.)
Yes, now, you say, I must deal with how God was created. No, I don't, because God as I believe in it is omnipotent; an omnipotent thing can do anything it wants, including create itself. Science isn't paradox-free, either. [1]
Besides, what of scientists who are also atheists? They say the universe was formed out of a larger multiverse. How was the multiverse formed? Infinite regression (I like that term) comes into play HERE, not when an omnipotent God exists (or is assumed to exist). I strongly doubt that it is possible to prove the existence of God to anyone aside from oneself, just as I strongly doubt that it is possible to prove God's nonexistence to anyone but oneself.
[1] I'm not saying this as a knock against science. I'm a student, not in a scientific field, but I very much enjoy and respect science and most scientists. I don't feel science needs to exist without a God. I do, however, agree that one cannot resort to "God did it" within the scientific method. (I just think the scientific method cannot answer everything.)
