Censorship does not require a state actor. Untangling the definition of censorship: censorship = the act or practice of censoring; censor (verb) = to examine and act upon as a censor; and censor (noun) = any person who supervises the manners or morality of others

In this particular case, I agree that Acme ISP blocking the anti-ACME-ISP website is not censorship, but only because their decision is amoral. They are blocking access for monopolistic (financial) reasons, not because they think anti-ACME-ISP will harm-the-children.

I think you are confusing the First Amendment "Freedom of Speech" clause, which only applies to government, with censorship. Unwinding the definition: censorship = the act or practice of censoring; censor (verb) = to examine and act upon as a censor; and finally censor (noun) = any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.

So, anyone can be guilty of censorship. However, most of us don't have the power to do much as a censor. Governments and corporations, by virtue of their size, do have the power to censor. In this situation, Microsoft is guilty of censorship.

Well, you've convinced me that these UI actions should all be customizable. I hadn't thought about not having a middle mouse button. (The pop-up blocker interacting with the UI action is also very counter-intuitive!)

Is center-click "an equivalent option?" I will confess that I tend to use the right-click pop-up menu to open a link in a background tab, but the default center-click behavior is (I think) the CTRL-Click functionality you're looking for. (I can't be positive because I rarely use other browsers.)

Ultimately, it is the patient who should control access to her medical information. This is the central tenet of privacy. Labeling Java classes with security markings won't work because you need the equivalent of row-level access policies. And, the row-label is usually: ask the patient. However, this approach doesn't scale. So, color me skeptical.

As a concrete alternative: What we need is a way for patients to specify their privacy expectations and for the system to enforce those expectations. This approach also requires good defaults, for example specified collaboratively by privacy advocates (favoring sharing limitations) and health care advocates (favoring information sharing for specific purposes).

It was inconvenient. So much so, that I've only watched one movie on the Wii (most of the items in my queue aren't available streaming). With this upgrade, I'll probably give Netflix on the Wii another chance.

In a recent Rachel Ray article, I read that when comparing two grocery lines, you should always choose the line with fewer people, not the line with fewer groceries. Why? Because the social interaction cost* per customer is more significant than the minuscule amount of time spent scanning each item. The article didn't compare self-scanning (slow, but no social interaction cost) to cashier scanning (fast, but with a social interaction cost).

*The time required for the social handshake: "Good morning, how are you? Paper or plastic? How will you be paying? Etc."

I agree that scanning your groceries at checkout is slow and error-prone. However, at the Giant I shop at, you can scan your groceries as you go. Then, when you get to the checkout, you swipe your credit card and go. (Okay, there's an annoying delay to select the 5-cent canvas back discount eight times, but no delays due to incorrect weight.)

I love Postgres, but I think the author of that article is overselling Postgres' support for materialized views. Sure, a developer can hand-roll a materialized view using triggers. That doesn't mean Postgres has materialized views, only that it has triggers. A developer can construct many features from atomic capabilities, but that doesn't mean the platform natively supports those features.

What the GP and I would like is the ability to say "CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW AS ...". It's up to the database system to convert that declaration into the equivalent set of triggers so that I don't have to think about the logic.

In fact, there was a great paper from 2000 ("Practical Applications of Triggers and Constraints: Success and Lingering Issues" by Ceri, et al.) that basically concludes that triggers can be a nightmare for developers, but a great way to implement advanced features such as materialized views.

Wow! I didn't realize I was in such rare (elite?) company. I love starting development in Access (because of the intuitive interface), moving the backend to a more powerful database system as needed. The ease with which one can perform cross-database queries using Access is particularly welcome.

This type of shenanigan is already being done in Montgomery County (Maryland). High school students first find a teacher that owns a vehicle that resembles one they own. They then print out a fake license plate, tape it over their own license plate, and blow through a speed camera at a high velocity. It shouldn't take long for Indians to replicate this game.

I'll (probably foolishly) take the bait: What bothers me is insufficient funds for the government to 1) monitor product safety, especially food and drugs, 2) protect the environment, and 3) fund scientific research for which there is no immediate commercial application. Simply put, I think there are activities that can only be accomplished (effectively) in aggregate. I don't want to rely on Consumer Reports to determine if my milk contains a slow-acting neurotoxin. The other two issues are even thornier in that they run counter to any economic optimization obtained through a free market. Ooh, there's #4) prosecute businesses that engage in anti-competitive monopolistic behavior.

I was reading a recent JAMA in the doctor's waiting room today. It included a copy of an article published in JAMA 100 years ago. The article pertained to the health impacts of water pollution, particularly from industrial dumping. So, scientists cared about the environment, probably long before anybody else.

And then there are the social nonsenses^W sciences... If practitioners of some discipline do not understand how to use quantitative methods, they should limit themselves to qualitative argument only.

Has it ever been demonstrated that social scientists have a worse understanding of statistics than physical scientists? I ask because my observations are the opposite. The physical scientists run a t-test and declare the matter resolved (significant or not-significant). Given the complexities of social sciences, these scientists check the assumptions required to use a test (e.g., normalcy) and have a good understanding of the statistics involved. (The obligatory exception is statistical genetics: physical science with a solid statistical basis.)