The conclusions section ties it all together, but too often that section is just a wordier restatement of the abstract. The conclusions are also where you're most likely to find the speculative crap that excites journalists and potential sources of funding.

When a subject has been politicized, the conclusions section will often conclude things that are somewhat divergent from, or even directly contradictory to, the actual results of the paper. This is because, in a politicized environment, the funders may pay attention to the conclusions section and only fund new projects for those who come to the "right" conclusions. Scientists finding unpopular-with-funders results may protect their careers by stating the funder-correct results in the conclusions but making it clear in the body of the paper that things are really otherwise.

The first time I encountered this was during the '60s and '70s, with research on what are now called "recreational drugs". The contrast was hilarious. (Eventually the government effectively shut down research on such drugs, for decades. Perhaps they figured out what was going on?)

IMHO governments, with politicians' power at stake and the public purse to fund them, play far more of this selective-funding game than corporate interests.

Errr... factoring primes is one of the least computationally intensive problems possible. The factors are always 1 and the number itself. I think you meant finding prime factors.

I'm sure he means "factoring the PRODUCT OF large primes".

It's an easy slip to make. (I've done it myself. B-b )

I can't tell the difference between a bar of gold, and a bar of gold hollowed out and filled with lead*.

Archimedes sorted that problem years ago.

Yes, but his method won't work if you make an undersized ingot of titanium and cast a little gold around it. Same specific gravity, to within the resolution of even some extremely accurate measurement tools.

Doesn't the 1st Amendment allow him to post those blueprints?

Not according to the BATF and federal prosecutors.

One of the things F-troop has been doing is sending people into gun shows to ask gun-smithly people what the internal differences are between a semi- and full-auto models of various gun designs, such as the M-16 (select-fire) and AR-15 (semi-auto only).

If they reply with information, they are then busted for conspiracy to convert a gun to full auto in violation of federal laws and regulations.

Lots of people are in jail for that, now.

It's exactly a paperweight until the remaining 20% is milled.

It's exactly a paperweight until you MAKE THE FIRST CUT. Then it's over 80% and legally "a gun" for BATF purposes.

I understand the paperwork isn't bad. But then there's the fee and waiting to get approved. Someone told me it took a long time to get the approval.

It's far beyond that. You DON'T want to get the BATF annoyed with you. (And few things annoy them more than trying to get around their regulations.)

They have a track record of boobytrapping the paperwork and geting people jailed for typos and minor slipups. Honest errors, misunderstanding of details of what you're supposed to do, missing a deadline, etc. Also stuff where THEY made the error but YOU can't prove it.

They'll also just keep grinding you in court, even if you actually are legal, once they start in on you. They'll keep it up until you're broke and have to fold. They have a conviction percentage rate in the high 90s.

Long felony sentences in federal prisons (and NOT the "country club" kind). They love to do things like giving you a count per round of ammunition or whatever, and run them consectutive, too. The federal prisons have no "time off for X" or probation: You serve the whole sentence. If you survive to get out, much of a lifetime later, you have lost your civil rights, including voting and owning or even handling guns (and you jepoardize any gun-owning friends or relatives by living with them or just being in their presence).

Look it up on the web. Lots of horror stories out there. The number of people in federal prison for gun paperwork "crimes" is staggering.

If you want to do this, keep it legal and keep a low profile. Really build it in your state. Really never take it out of state. Really never sell it. (I shudder to think how one handles inheritance of such a gun ...) To do otherwise is to open the giant economy can of worms.

Making your own AR-15 and trying find a way to sell, give, or trade it is an effective way to find yourself "living in interesting times and coming to the attention of people in high places".

I cant tell you how many job postings I read that said things like you need 5 years experience with X,Y, and Z.... only problem is Y and Z have only been out for 2 years and 4 years respectively.

Some of that is cluelessness in HR departments. (I recall a time where the jobs adds were filled with posts for entry level sysadmins, which demanded enough years of Unix experience that only Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, M. D. McIlroy, and J. F. Ossanna MIGHT qualify. B-) )

But some of it is part of the "hire a cheap H1B" game. By making the requirements impossible (or rejecting all but a handfull of people who already receive astronomical fees on the consulting market), they can claim that "There are no available US citizens quaified for the post." Then they hire an H1B.

Of course the H1B doesn't have the qualifications, either. But his resume is inflated (typically by his recruiting firm, without his knowledge or approval).

The employer knows the game, and isn't expecting the claimed skills to be present - just enough skill to do the actual job. But a citizen who similarly inflated his resume would be in serious trouble as a result.

The boss gets his cheap laborer, the H1B gets his job and visa, the recruiter gets his fee. Everybody is happy except the rejected US candidates.

So who checks for fraud? The boss is happy. The rejected candidates are in no position to investigate or initiate a claim. The government is not interested. (The boss' company is a big political contributor.) Nobody else has standing.

... the NSA owns congress. Enough said.

I guess that dates me. When I was growing up it was J. Edgar Hoover via the FBI. B-b

"Electroluminescent"? Is this REALLY thin? Or is the voltage substantial, like approaching three digit volts? (Or some third option, like a very low voltage electroluminescent material?)

(I'd check the referenced paper but can't get the time for that for another 12 hours, so if someone else gets to it, please follow up.)

Regardless, this looks very promising. Even if it turns out not to be practical, it should put the pressure on manufacturers to get a move on with commercial products at reasonable price points and improved form factors - or lead to the rise of disruptive competitors.

I don't have a firm opinion yet on the internals and suitability of systemd, or whether its improvements are worth the thrash. Having been burned by a number of changes (including, notably, init -> upstart), I'm likely to be a hard sell on the cost-benefit tradeoff of "fixing'' what it purports to fix.

But the discussion around it makes it remind me of a movie "character":

The Master Control Program in Tron.

For regulation to work... You have to not poke the bear.

If you only have a "right" while nobody exercises it, and it goes away as soon as a few people do, did you actually have it? Hardly!

Rights unused can be silently abrogated. You have to use them occasionally, to test whether this has happened, so you can take corrective action if it has.

(If nothing else, it's easy for law enforcement personnel to start assuming that something that doesn't occur often is actually banned. So important things like carrying guns need to be done occasionally, just to keep them aware that it's really OK.)

Provocation like open carry "just because" is why we don't have open carry in most states.

If you can't do something "just because", it's not a right.

In fact its open carry demonstrations that have eduated police forces in many areas, bringing peace between law enforcement personnel and gun-toting ordinary citizens in many places where open carry was legal but had fallen out of use. It also brings the issue to visibility and educates others, especially those who grew up when it was rare, that they DO have these rights, when they hadn't been taught they did. It is a fine icebreaker for bringing out related facts - like the actual numbers on safety and the effect of gun carry on crime and injury rates.

Yes, "Poking the Bear" can also have bad effects: For instance, California's draconin gun bans got started largely when the Black Panthers carried rifles into the gallery of the State Legislature, back during the period of the Civil Rights riots when it was legal. But black people at the time were de-facto banned from carrying guns (which was much of why they could be oppressed). The legislature just made that unconstitutional infrigemet de-jure.

Is the key spacing the same as a standard piano keyboard? If not, how does it deviate?

Can it, in combination with some particular, commonly-available, MIDI software package(s), be programmed to have the same touch characteristics and sound as a piano, harpsichord, etc.? If so, are the configurtation parameters to produce equivalent performance already available?

Or bypass the problem completely by using a USB microphone. These digitize the audio right next to the microphone proper, with everything floating at the same voltage so nothing substantial is picked up betwen the air pressure sensor and the A-D converter.

Bluetooth headsets work great for this, too. Most current generation laptops already have the bluetooth central-role radio onboard. Or get a cheap low-profile bluetooth dongle.

4. PC/laptop microphones suck. I don't know why no one bothers to test them to the same level as your average cheap dumbphone speakerphone. They pick up all kinds of system electrical noise, ...

The problem usually isn't the microphone. It's the way it's wired (per the standard) and the way the desktop/laptop is powered.

PC microphones are wired UNbalanced: They have a signal and a ground wire, rather than the + and - signal wires and everything-but-desired-signal cancelation of the balanced wiring setups typical of professional microphones.

Laptops typically use power supplies that are not grounded, so they don't require a three-prong outlet. This usually ends up with the stray capacatance to BOTH sides of the line wiring capacitively coupling equally to the laptop "ground". That means the "ground" of the laptop is at half the line voltage - about 60 volts of AC (a rotten approximation of a sine wave plus lots of other junk it picked up at an assortment of frequencies). The capacitance is substantial - not enough to shock you if you touch the laptop and ground, but enough to feel a buzz if you rub your hand lightly across a "grounded" metallic part of the device.

Plug in the unblanced microphone and hold it, put the headset on your head, or just leave it sitting on the table. The "ground" is at 60V and you are driving maybe a couple MA of it down the shield wire. The voltage drop of that current (along with any other pickup) adds straight onto your audio input. The best microphone in the world will perform horribly if hooked up this way.

Try this: Unplug the laptop and let it run on battery. Notice how almost all of the noise disappears. You can also get rid of most of the noise by tying a decent ground onto the laptop. (Unfortunately, many meetings last longer than the laptop batteries...)

Plug in a VGA monitor with a three-prog power plug, which grounds the case of the laptop via the shield and the two hold-in screwd. I've done that without actually hooking up the monitor (which would have disabled my laptop screen) by adding a couple of the nuts scavenged from another DB connector as conductive spacers so the actual signal pins are not quite into the plug. And done this on a docking station, so the laptop headset was quieted when the laptop was docked, even though I used none of the docking station features except the power input.

Make a second cable with a three-prong plug to bring a ground up to the laptop. Green wire from the third pin to a screw into or clip onto such a chassis ground point.

Or bypass the problem completely by using a USB microphone. These digitize the audio right next to the microphone proper, with everything floating at the same voltage so nothing substantial is picked up betwen the air pressure sensor and the A-D converter.

Because they didn't sign it.

Saying: "everyone who has them except Israel is allowed to keep them" is just plain wrong.

Which just might be why they didn't sign on - and part of why "Israel has had a policy of opacity regarding its nuclear weapons program."

Some things to remember about the NNPT:
  - Not every country in the world is a signatory.
  - Even signatories didn't permanently give up their right to develop nuclear weapons: By the treaty's own terms (section X(1)), they can drop out on three month's notice:

Article X

1. Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.