I suggest you try this new strategy: don't click on the story.

You can amp up that strategy thusly: don't take the time to comment on them.

Slashdot's business is a forum. The kinds of stories that get lots of pageviews and interaction breed more of their kind. Vote with your mouse.

So, by that methodology, if 100% of residents supported their leader, with 50% responding, then you could scale it up to 200% of the country's citizens support their leader? I think you need to check your math a wee bit.

If you wanted to get all statistically on it, you could leverage the response rates to create confidence intervals around the numbers, but that becomes confusing to the public at large. For what Gallup was doing here, those numbers are a good reflection of the citizen's approval rates.

Ah, Google... the 5-minute confirmation bias generator. As an exercise: in 5 minutes, can you find 4 links refuting the argument, or do you assume that since someone on the internet agrees with you, then you must be right?

Not to attack you personally; I've found myself falling into that same trap many times, and have to intentionally take the time to search out opposing arguments and evaluate them on their merits. One of the dangers of the internet (especially with Google's new user-targeted-search feature) is that we will increasingly be exposed only to opinions that we agree with, and thus assume that anybody who disagrees must be in the marginal minority. It's an insidious damper on actual discourse.

Be strong. Fight the fallacy.

I think it is only a matter of time until we something that can exceed C.

Verbs, for example.

The parent wasn't saying the bias needs to be balanced out by other bias; he was saying that if the people at the top lie, it takes ten voices of truth at the bottom to reach the same audience.

I am a CS researcher in a corporate lab and a homeschooling father. I'll speak to the subject without snarking about word processing.

For the younger crowd, I can highly recommend Computer Science Unplugged. It is a great introduction to the fundamentals of computer science - algorithmic basics, information coding and entropy, finite state automata, and a bunch of other good stuff. Interestingly, the entire course is done without a computer. It has exposition, exercises, and games that reinforce those fundamentals.

It's about 10 hours of coursework, it's free, and it's geared toward the 8-12 year old crowd. My 7-year old didn't have any troubles with it, and was always hungry for more. The novelty of teaching computer science without touching a computer is also compelling.

Now, if anyone can recommend some good coursework on introduction to programming and basic algorithms for the 8-10 set, I'd appreciate it. I haven't found any good educational materials for Scratch (it's all pretty ad-hoc and amateurish), and I think Alice is a bit much for sit-you-down-and-start-programming. Any personal experiences?

An interesting metaphor, but this isn't about patents at all. It's about copyright, and what are your implicit rights when you buy a CD, or an MP3 from iTunes or Amazon.

Copyrights, patents, and trademarks are very different things; we need to be very exact when discussing them in the context of discussions about our basic liberties, or we can be easily dismissed as not grasping the fundamentals of what we're talking about.

For any investigating agency, the answer is simple: bust down the door and confiscate everything. We can sort out the rest during trial.

So far, the courts have upheld the scorched-earth approach, and an tying an IP address to a physical location has serviced as sufficient probably cause.

Does that leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling about your open WiFi?

No, you're absolutely right. Absolutely anybody else who wanted to could compete by:
* Openly commiting a massive infringement (note that non-massive infringement would not be sufficient)
* Being sued by the Author's Guild
* Having that suit granted a class action status
* Having a large enough legal team you can fight the class action lawyers
* Convincing the class action lawyers that they should settle into a business deal instead of cashing out
* Ensuring that this deal is sweeter for the lawyers than Google's or they'll just keep monopoly rents through Google

Yep. There's no exclusive rights here at all.

> Democracy is 3 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.

Anything else is 3 wolves and a sheep having grass for dinner.

And that, children, is why you shouldn't keep your Slashdot password on a stickie by your keyboard.