A phrase often ritually quoted by people whithout thinking about it first. I believe it was here in Slashdot that I read a comment to the effect of: "YES, YES IT IS. Absence of evidence is not PROOF of absence, but it certainly is EVIDENCE of it". I can't help but to concur, although I think this can stem from the ambiguousness of the word "evidence" (evidence as proof, or evidence as something that increases the probability of truth for a prediction). Failing to detect something can mean simply that the instrument or method used were inadequate, but as "failures to detect" pile on, scientists who predict said observation can begin to get nervous, and rightly so. Sometimes a prediction is tied to a well tested theory, and it's more reasonable to wait for further studies than to dismiss the theory altogether, but eventually the observation is made (or the failure of the prediction is ratified) or the theory can't be considered to be falsifiable, and is therefore unscientific.This (in my opinion) mistake is the reverse of another often misused phrase "Correlation is not causation", that is: "The presence of evidence is not evidence of presence" (I'd say: Yes, it is, it's just not PROOF of presence).

See, I don't get that. I respect the religious, and the religious' right to having their beliefs, I just don't see why I have to respect their beliefs. I understand the line between skepticism and prejudiced denialism is hardest to see for those who have crossed it, but it's hard to trust the good faith of your criticism when you throw blanket statements like that, mischaracterizing skepticism as simply "critical examination of fringe science", labeling everyone now claiming to adhere to skepticism as a troll... Although, it's great that you are skeptic about skepticism and the people who claim to be skeptics, which along being skeptic about one's own skepticism are both important requirements for properly being a skeptic to begin with, which is more a philosophy of life than the glorified peer review you make it out to be.

I suppose it can be argued that it all hinges and the meaning of the word "believe", but aside from that, what can I get away with calling "God"? Truth, Liberty, Love, Free Speech, the Right to Property, Gravity? At some point saying that someone "believes in God" because they apply that label to something simply becomes an easy cop out. eg.: Christians who say "God is Love" don't stop at that, and at some point have to profess their specific devotion to Jesus Christ as their savior. If I can pick and choose the meaning of "believe" and "God", then "I believe in God" becomes some sort of tautology, everyone "believes in God":

10 LET BELIEVE_IN$ = "Adhere to the philosophical principles of"

20 LET GOD$ = "Skepticism/Atheism"

30 PRINT "I " + BELIEVE_IN$ + GOD$

I'm completely devastated about the current state of Wikipedia, just like you, I hate all this bureaucratic crap. That's why I take all my factually correct information from Encyclopedia Dramatica, where the asylum is running the inmates. Why have bureaucracy when you can have "bureaucrazy"?

But seriously, do you expect something as vast and ambitious as Wikipedia to exist without a somewhat intimidating rulebook? I'm not saying Wikipedians shouldn't be more welcoming or helpful, or that they're not, perhaps the problem is related to the way the site is structured. It's not easy for newcomers to find their way around the place, or around the people.

I don't know who "Log" is. I do fondly remember the one Captain who was confidant of all the others: Captain 'sLog. Pity they never showed the guy, he was like the neighbor from "Home Improvement". I wonder what species he belonged to. Sounds Klingon to me.

Huh? What does not taking obvious loser cases have to do with this? And since when does knowing you can win a case mean you are taking advantage of the plaintiffs? I mean, if it's so "clear cut", they can surely "shop around" for lawyers then... The plaintiffs are not going to win this without some good legal advice anyway, are they?

By the way, "Never take a case you know you won't win" contradicts your sig: "We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower" (I'm sure the context for the quote is different, but still...)

  And who decides what a "clear cut case" is? Setting the fees at 10-15% of the awards for all cases pretty much kills the posibility of many people succeding in cases where the legal expenses are high and they can't afford it, and if you think the problem is (not quoting you, just defining) "clear cut cases where the lawyers know they'll win and take home an easy paycheck", trying to codify into law what a "clear cut case" is involves putting the cart before the horses, I believe. It pretty much collides directly with habeas corpus, doesn't it? It involves deciding the case before there's even a trial... I'm pretty sure the defendants wouldn't consider it so "clear cut".

The plaintiffs did indeed win "a" victory, as you put it. They burned a hole in the defendant's pocket, didn't they? And they showed a succesful strategy towards hitting them again where it hurts, if the defendant again breaks the law. I don't think arguing the results are unfair without clearly explaining exactly why they're unfair, providing an alternative, and showing how the alternative doesn't result in more injustice, is constructive.

Cook: refrigeratoaster, buwahahaha
luser1: A toaster AND a refrigerator? BY JOVE THIS IS BRILLIANT
luser2: Small freezer, only makes 2 toasts at a time. Lame.
If I'm to go by Apple's past behavior, expect the iRefrigeratoaster on Q2, 2013.

I always see all this outrage about lawyers fees at Slashdot, and how the plaintiffs get just a fraction, and how this should be made illegal, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the case many times that the lawyers bare the cost of the lawsuit (sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in legal and evidence investigation, staff, expert testimony, etc.) and therefore the risk, and if they lose they get nothing? I mean it's peachy and everything if they WIN and they get 10-15% and the plaintiffs the rest, but what if they lose?
  I'm sure many lawyers abuse the system, but I sure wouldn't put so much of my own money on the line if the payoff isn't worth it or the risk I end up ruined is extremely high (spare me any "sacrifice for justice" bull****. YOU go be a martir with your own money). If I'm not mistaken, some lawyers HAVE ended up ruined after losing a case.
And even if they didn't end up ruined, what's wrong with these fees atracting top notch legal talent to the case and kicking some corporate butt? I'm not sure how a mandatory fee limit of about 10-15% to cover ALL expenses (say, about 60,000 dollars for this case) is going to help the plaintiff get good legal representation. Does a plaintiff really have to get 250,000 dollars to feel vindicated about some cookie tracking? I would think winning the case and hurting the company in its pocket would be 90% of the vindication...

<sarcasm>But anyway, the important thing is that the lawyers are getting too much money, which is preventing all these companies from getting away with their illegal activities-- er, I mean preventing the plaintiffs from getting their money... yeah, that's the ticket! It's not that I have a thing against lawyers or anything...</sarcasm>

I wasn't commenting on the intentions, I was refering to the food aid that you pointed out as the presumed culprit of African woes. I was saying that the results you see may have a lot more to do with unfair market competition than with food aid, and that removing food aid while ignoring the flooding of markets with subsidized food from the 1st World could mean starving populations, without actually solving anything.

Having to compete with cheaper is just as bad as having to compete with free, farmers can't sustain themselves, employ others, and no one can pay for food.

I was under the impression that 1st World subsidized food production was a much bigger problem for African farmers, by way of the Western World dumping millions of tons of cheap food into the markets and making it impossible for them to compete; you make it sound as if the "good intentions" of the 1st World is what's causing the damage, I think it's a bit more depressing/sinister/insert-cynical-consideration-of-the-way-the-world-works. Perhaps you can correct me on this.

The worst part is that the subsidies don't even help the small-to-medium 1st World farmers anymore, if I'm informed correctly. Most of the money goes to farming Megacorps.

Who the FUCK is this Wikipedia person? Is he/she an embodied human encyclopedia? Or perhaps the website now has a mind of its own? (Hello Skynet! Happy John Connor hunting!) Wikipedia is edited by thousands, all of them fallible human beings, with different motivations, and some of them are idiots and/or assholes. There's no "They". It's not a fucking conspiracy. Some articles are properly handled, others are handled by somewhat obtuse people. Quoting Will Smith in "Independence Day": "Welcome to Earf!".

No human work is perfect, specially when it's the collective work of hundreds of thousands. The only agenda I see is your agenda to portray the common pitfalls of Open Development and the people who participate (and their mistakes) as some Grand Conspiracy against the Truth ("They have their own AGENDA! Truth be damned! WHARGARRBL!).

The webOS GUI is interesting. Too bad the project's name sounds like spanish slang for "testicles" (huevos). I suggest a name change to "kohOneS". At least it'll sound intimidating to iOS and Android fanboys.

Define "free" (nice semantic strawman by the way), because I think parent is quite aware of the fact nothing is "free" in the sense that resources don't magically appear out if thin air.

Yes there is, relative to individuals and subgroups, although (sometimes) not relative to the entire economic system. This is like people who refuse to believe entropy can decrease in some physical systems (open ones) just because the entropy of the whole universe inexorably increases.

Also, remember the economy is NOT A ZERO SUM GAME (jeez). Just because somebody gets something "for free" paid with your taxes, doesn't mean you're not winning something in the process too.

You mean parent demands the government be, you know... a government? Give some balance to things that are subject to arbitrary events and chance? Anyway, I'm really sorry you are burdened with paying for services such as Police, that you probably don't use that much. I happen to live in a country where people are "forced" to pay towards maintenance of our Fire Departments, and firefighters watching your house burn down and doing nothing because you failed to pay your "Fire Department subscription" or something like that, in a town where people don't think paying taxes for a FIRE DEPARTMENT is worth it (google it) is the stuff of distopian nightmares in fantasy books, not something to look forward to. We all like it that way.

AGAIN with the myth that Welfare is what broke Europe's back... At this point, why do you guys even bother complaining about Bank bailouts and Wall Street scammers not being in prison? I mean, if you're going to blame the safety net that keeps you from taking a nosedive onto concrete, instead of the Finance Industry guys playing with everybodys money, you might as well just stop complaining and take it up the ass like a man. I'm always fascinated how Moral Hazard arguments "obviously" apply to Social Safety Nets (which work) but they're only a technicality when we are talking about destructive global financial practices (which don't work).

Why are "Things just working" and "General Purpose Computing" in opposition? You see, that's just the thing. After a certain point of adding and adding restrictions, things will just "not work". I mean, you said it yourself regarding iPhones:

I can understand how this "seems" to be a nice thing (maybe if iPhones where 20 bucks a unit, and you could buy them from a vending machine along with a sandwich)

You imply that the choice is "(in Soviet Russia) you work for machine" xor "machine works for you", when it's more along the lines of "you work for YOUR machine" xor "you work for THEIR machine". In any case, this is all nothing but empty expressions. I think there is a balance between "just works" and "tinker ready". I don't see how this things are mutually exclusive, if users are sufficiently warned about the problems of tinkering. Are we talking about "walled gardens" or "walled prisons"? Real walled gardens are supposed to protect from intrusion and protect children from wandering off, not protect from entry and preventing everyone from escaping. The good thing is that the nature of general purpose computing means putting TRULY EFFECTIVE limits on certain activities almost certainly means crippling the machine in some important way. The bad news is... that the nature of general purpose computing means putting TRULY EFFECTIVE limits on certain activities almost certainly means crippling the machine in some important way. And given the nature of computers as an extension of ourselves (like all tools), this means crippling OURSELVES.

Inigo Montoya:You keep implying that Windows 7 is an example of "tinker proof walled garden". I don't think you're implying what you think you're implying...