That's arguable, but it doesn't matter, anyway. What matters is the definition, in the relevant legislation, of whatever crimes he is alleged to have committed.

Ask Patents might help with that.

A state I aspire to.

In the OP's scenario, the assumption is that each group, no matter how small, contains one such person.

While there are many dubious assumptions in that scenario, this one alone is sufficient to show that the process is statistical nonsense.

HR should not be playing with math that they don't understand.

http://www.amazon.com/Scanners-Office-Electronics/b?ie=UTF8&node=172584

Flush the ashes.

Maybe they could still recover it, but at least you would create a really bad day at work for someone.

No he's not. He is pointing out that it was regrettably naive of the journalist not to act in a paranoid manner, given that the government has repeatedly demonstrated its disregard for constitutional protections.

Why do we see so many binary, black-or-white responses to just about anything? Is there a significant portion of humanity who cannot consider more than one idea at a time?

Is that marketing bullshit that I'm smelling?

I don't think 'justify' is quite the right word here...

Agreed - this is sloppy reporting (mainly in the /. summary but also in the original). I think what they are trying to say is that this particular joint design, which evolved in smaller reptiles, later proved to be helpful in the evolution of giant dinosaurs - i.e., it was a sort of exaptation (formerly known as pre-adaption) in the sense that while this design's posited suitability for carrying large loads wasn't necessary when it evolved (the mammalian design was equally capable for animals of that size), it became a decider as evolutionary forces favored gigantism.

Self-driving vehicles will change that trade-off...

This is a follow-on to my earlier question, about the difficulty of receiving the harmonics of a radar-frequency interrogation pulse. If the pulse consisted of two distinct frequencies (or was transmitted in addition to a continuous illumination at a different frequency), would a diode or other nonlinear reflector generate a return signal at the beat frequency?

Doh! I should have stripped off the parameters:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/business/26nocera.html [In Prison for Taking a 'Liar Loan' - Joe Nocera - NY Times; may require registration, or try reaching it through a search engine.]

and there is a follow-up:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/opinion/nocera-the-mortgage-fraud-fraud.html

I don't intend to defend Knight Capital, but there is a big difference between its incompetence and negligence in this case, and the deliberate and fraudulent actions that characterized the mortgage mess. No individual in the financial industry has been held accountable for these actions, even while some of the people they exploited have been prosecuted: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/business/26nocera.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all [In Prison for Taking a 'Liar Loan' - Joe Nocera - NY Times; may require registration, or try reaching it through a search engine.] This, I believe, is the "most scandalous aspects of the financial mess of 2008."

The customers have probably signed an agreement to settle disputes exclusively through binding arbitration - I believe this is an almost universal practice in the financial industry, as a condition for doing business, and no, you can't take your business elsewhere. That arbitration is widely regarded (at least outside of the industry) as being biased towards the financial industry.