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Re: Asperger's Syndrome
by Sarad AV 08 May '03

08 May '03

That should be some good use for a common citizen of a swat team :) Sarath. >A world without mosquitoes would be pretty bleak >given how many other >things eat them. Better to wipe out the malaria and >swat the >mosquitos! >Patience, persistence, truth, >Dr. mike __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com

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Re: Capitalism and monopolism: "Obvious" it ain't.
by Tyler Durden 08 May '03

08 May '03

James Donald wrote... "Used to be that in the third world most people were skinny, so fat was a status symbol. Now diet books are outselling cookbooks, and Rubenesque women are everywhere out of fashion." Uh, where? In China? In India? Indonesia? RIght there you have almost half the world's population, and what you've written has almost zero applicability. ANd despite the economic advances of, say, China, outside coastal regions acquiring enough calories is still a challenge. And the occasional floods in central China make it extremely difficult every few years. Overall, however, it would seem that the standard of living and life expectancy of both China and India are increasing (and not just for a small number). Based on this I cautiously agree, but it's not exactly "obvious", and a few natural disasters in the most populated parts of China could put a dent in the curve. -TD >From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd(a)echeque.com> >To: "Tyler Durden" <camera_lumina(a)hotmail.com> >Subject: Re: Capitalism and monopolism: "Obvious" it ain't. >Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 07:49:19 -0700 > > -- >James Donald: > > > "Despite the fact that the trend has been in the other > > > direction for the past two hundred years, despite the fact > > > that what Marx wrote was obviously false then, and has > > > become more obviously false in the 150 years since he > > > wrote, Marxists repeat Marx's prophecies with the more > > > confidence, the more obviously the facts contradict them." > >On 6 May 2003 at 10:28, Tyler Durden wrote: > > A lot of people living in the US make this kind of mistake. > > Actually, developed nations make up a minority of the world's > > population (though with China and India this may change > > wihtin our lifetimes). When one considers the abverage living > > standard for the entire world its been debated that it may > > actually be going down. > >Dont be silly. > >Used to be that in the third world most people were skinny, so >fat was a status symbol. Now diet books are outselling >cookbooks, and Rubenesque women are everywhere out of fashion. >There are a bunch of statistics that supposedly show people >have more stuff and eat better, but just walking around, you >can see the beggars are fat. Used to be there were famines all >over the place, but for the past fifty years, the only really >serious famines have been those produced by socialism or war. >These days, that means North Korea, though for a while there >was massive malnutrition in Cuba, producing widespread >deficiency related blindness. > > --digsig > James A. Donald > 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG > sSOEbbSEJGo81S1JHNPpZ5ibmlEOAgb/1acJD04s > 491VtSnlEEh03icnNCWM5sIy+8k9imCCYe3WnCgs9 > _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

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Physics News Update 636 (fwd)
by Jim Choate 07 May '03

07 May '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 11:48:12 -0400 From: physnews(a)aip.org To: ravage(a)SSZ.COM Subject: Physics News Update 636 PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News Number 636 May 7, 2003 by Phillip F. Schewe, Ben Stein, and James Riordon ULTRA-LOW-ENERGY ELECTRONS CAN BREAK UP URACIL, a new study shows. How injurious is radiation (alpha, beta, and gamma rays or heavy ions) to living cells? This important question has been addressed in many ways. Much attention has centered on the secondary particles produced in the wake of the intruding primary radiation, especially electrons (about 40,000 electrons are produced for each MeV of energy deposited) with typical energies of tens of electron volts. Many of these secondary particles quickly lose their energy and become attached (solvated) to water molecules in the cell. What is the general effect of electron energies below 20 eV? A report from three years ago (Boudaiffa et al., Science 287, 1658, 2000) showed that electrons in the 3-20 eV range are able to produce substantial genotoxic damage, including breaking single- and double-stranded DNA? What about secondary electrons with even smaller energies? To look at this energy range for the first time, Tilmann Maerk and his colleagues at the Universitat Innsbruck (Austria) and the University Claude Bernard Lyon (France) scattered a beam of sub-eV electrons from a beam of gaseous uracil molecules. Uracil is one of the base units of RNA molecules, and is thus a crucial component in cells. These scientists found that uracil is efficiently fragmented by electrons with energies as small as milli-electron-volts. It's not the electron's kinetic energy that causes the disruption, but the electron's charge, which changes the uracil's internal potential energy environment. Furthermore, in the process a very mobile atomic hydrogen can be freed, which on its own, as a radical (a free chemical unit by itself), can do damage to biomolecules (see a movie of this process at http://info.uibk.ac.at/ionenphysik/ClusterGroup/Uracil.html; schematic at http://www.aip.org/mgr/png/2003/187.htm ). Maerk (tilmann.maerk(a)uibk.ac.at, 43-512-507-6240) says that this low-energy damage seems to be a general result since his group has since performed similar work with thymine (a DNA base) and have seen similar fragmentation. (Hanel et al., Physical Review Letters, 9 May 2003; Innsbruck website, http://info.uibk.ac.at/c/c7/c722/e-index.html ) PERFECT INSULIN CRYSTALS. {SSZ: Text deleted] THE TINIEST SOLID-STATE LIGHT EMITTER, produced by Phaedon Avouris and his colleagues at IBM, consists of a single-walled carbon nanotube (NT) strung between two electrodes, and controlled by a third. The business part of this minuscule transistor is a nanotube only 1.4 nm wide and tailored to be semiconducting. In this arena electrons coming from one electrode meet with positively charged "holes" coming from the other electrode. When the two species meet they combine and emit a tiny burst of light. This light is conveniently engineered to be at a wavelength of 1.5 microns, invisible to the human eye but perfect for photonic applications. Why use a NT when a larger piece of bulk semiconductor could also produce light? Because of the potentially much greater energy efficiency and compactness of the light emitting region. Single-molecule light emission has been instigated before, but not under the auspices of solid state wiring. The NT wire also seems to be robust: it is able to carry 6 micro-amps of current, for a current density of more than 100 million amps per square cm. (Misewich et al., Science 2 May 2003.) *********** PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE is a digest of physics news items arising from physics meetings, physics journals, newspapers and magazines, and other news sources. It is provided free of charge as a way of broadly disseminating information about physics and physicists. For that reason, you are free to post it, if you like, where others can read it, providing only that you credit AIP. Physics News Update appears approximately once a week. AUTO-SUBSCRIPTION OR DELETION: By using the expression "subscribe physnews" in your e-mail message, you will have automatically added the address from which your message was sent to the distribution list for Physics News Update. If you use the "signoff physnews" expression in your e-mail message, the address in your message header will be deleted from the distribution list. Please send your message to: listserv(a)listserv.aip.org (Leave the "Subject:" line blank.)

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Re: Overestimating your importance (Was: Re: CDR: Re: Underestimating long-term consequences of cryptoanarchy)
by Tyler Durden 07 May '03

07 May '03

"I haven't added you next to Choate and profv yet, as you sometimes have a point, but keep working it, and the cost of your postings will outweigh the utility of reading them. Will you then rant about Jamie's killfile?" Well I had two reasons for saying this. First of all, May suggested I stop posting due to the fact that I had "nothing to say". Well, even if that's true, he seems to be exposed to only pieces of my posts that get quoted by others, and in this particular case out of context. So if he's going to suggest I have nothing to say while I am supposedly in his kill file, then it's fair game for me to point out that from his vantage point he can only be full of crap. The next point has to do with him (again) telling me not to post. And from what I can tell, most of the people who've been around for a while and are regular posters have been 'plonked' by the King of the Anarchists, Mr May. That leaves only newer people who either don't have an opinion on anything, or who don't post, or who don't disagree with him. (OK, maybe there are exceptions...) So again I get the distinct impression that Mr May is verbally trying to suppress minds that have any opinion that he didn't already give them. And that's OK, as long as he doesn't try it on me. -TD >From: Jamie Lawrence <jal(a)jal.org> >To: cypherpunks(a)minder.net >Subject: Overestimating your importance (Was: Re: CDR: Re: Underestimating >long-term consequences of cryptoanarchy) >Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 13:12:49 -0500 > >On Wed, 07 May 2003, Tyler Durden wrote: > > > PS: How long, on average, after someone signs onto the list does it take > > for you to 'plonk' them? I guess this means you need a constant supply >of > > "fresh meat" in order for you to find out what's being discussed! > > >OK, you're being a crank now. > >I've been on the list from one address or another since 1993, have had >some fights with Tim, and (so far as I know) never been killfiled by >him. > >I usually only post when I have something to say, which may have >something to do with that. > >And if I were included, who cares? why are cranks so interested in the >contents of Tim's killfile? I suppose I don't understand the desire to >dance at the edge of a given poster's range of annoyance. > >I can't speak for Tim, but ranting about list politics is something that >gets you into *my* procmailrc rather quickly. I haven't added you next >to Choate and profv yet, as you sometimes have a point, but keep working >it, and the cost of your postings will outweigh the utility of reading >them. Will you then rant about Jamie's killfile? > >-j > > >-- >Jamie Lawrence jal(a)jal.org >Computer Science is Applied Philosophy. _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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Re: Quarantines may be justified
by Harmon Seaver 07 May '03

07 May '03

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 09:03:43AM -0400, Sunder wrote: > (more idiotic bullshit deleted) > > > Should we really be able to make up our own definitions and turn things > which merely annoy us into crimes? Think about it a bit longer before > you reply again. > "merely annoy"? Excessive noise, or smoke, or chemical pollutants are not mere annoyances, they are detrimental to health and safety and are physical assaults, and anyone has a moral right, at least, to use force to protect themselves from such. If it weren't for the fact that I'd get arrested, I'd certainly have no moral qualms whatsoever about blowing away a smoker on the street, or the guy with the loud stereo, or the farmer next door whose ag chemicals ended up in my well water. People who are that inconsiderate of others don't belong in the gene pool. And what I'm seeing a lot of lately are people who profess to be libertarians who see nothing wrong with forcing others to smoke along with them, or listen to their choice of music, or disturb other people's peace and quietude, or even forcefully poison other people's land and water. Especially when it's done in the name of profit, eh? The LP's stance on the Iraq war was more or less the last straw for me, but certainly the attitudes of people like yourself have helped me to see the error of my ways, i.e., voting libertarian the last 15 years or so. And, of course, the statements from idots like Hettinga rejoicing in the looting of Iraq's museums so "it can all go to the highest bidder" helped a lot. It's really funny how many people I've talked to recently who were all excited about the libertarian freestate movement until I told them that those people would sell off all the public parks to the highest bidder, not to mention trash all the environmental laws. But it's all pretty irrelevant anyway, as is the LP. Just another dead horse that very few people will ever vote for. Crypto-anarchy might actually get somewhere, but the LP won't. > > On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Harmon Seaver wrote: > > > Being assaulted by others smoke, noise, chemical pollutants or whatever is no > > different than being assualted by their fist. I find it more than a little > > amusing that most of the so-called "libertarians" I come across haven't the > > slightest clue that their "freedom" ends at my personal space. One of the main > > reasons I no longer contribute to the LP and probably won't vote for any more LP > > candidates, since most libertarians seem to express the attitude of "Fuck > > everybody else, I can do whatever I want." > -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com

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Re: Sheeple Syndrome [was: Asperger's Syndrome]
by Adam Shostack 07 May '03

07 May '03

On Wed, May 07, 2003 at 04:24:15PM -0400, Trei, Peter wrote: | --------------------- | Sheeple Syndrome: | | Characterized by an uncritical acceptance of | mass media messages, the SS sufferer is easily | led. | | Poor long term memory is a secondary trait. | | ------------------------ Smith's Syndrome is where the sufferer demonstrates an inability to remember things that didn't happen, in contravention of official truth. O'Brian's syndrome is the inability to understand that things witnessed by a person may not be true. -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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RE: Capitalism and monopolism
by Major Variola (ret) 07 May '03

07 May '03

At 12:26 PM 5/7/03 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote: > >Is Bill Stewart starting the channel John Young? Anyone can get the John Young channel, you just need to know which satellite/transponder to point at.

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Sheeple Syndrome [was: Asperger's Syndrome]
by Trei, Peter 07 May '03

07 May '03

As long as as people are going to wall off particular personality types, and label them as "Something-or-other Syndrome", we ought to be able to have fun with this too. --------------------- Sheeple Syndrome: Characterized by an uncritical acceptance of mass media messages, the SS sufferer is easily led. Poor long term memory is a secondary trait. ------------------------ [more examples are invited] Peter Trei

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RE: Capitalism and monopolism
by Major Variola (ret) 07 May '03

07 May '03

At 09:51 PM 5/5/03 -0700, Steve Schear wrote: > >I gave a presentation at a conference a few years back in which I raised >the idea that since Intellectual Property (e.g., trademarks) aren't >(property), its really a lease, that our society should consider setting >limits on the market penetration (say 50%, which is already in excess of >the what many economists call the "friction free" point wherein companies >can continue to gain market share merely by dint of their already >considerable presence) of single companies in markets whose size (the >therefore probably importance) exceeds some minimum threshold of the >GDP. However, instead of enforcing these limits via the Department of >Justice, they would become a civil matter and one's competitors can use the >courts to strip a company of its sole lease on a trademark or patent >applied to this market. A few questions. First, could this be done under the US constitution, or is it fiddling too much with the intent of the prescription that the USG support these? Second, who would judge market penetration? Could PC vendors sue Apple for overpenetration in the graphics market? Also, I don't think you want to do this with trademarks ---they're merely for IDing a manufacturer for reputation purposes. They precede and transcend the US; cf bin Laden heroin. With patents, I suspect the best you could do would be to fiddle with the expiration policies ---something for which there is ample precedent. Of course, other nations are free fnord to alter their laws. And this of course assumes that one of Kim's nukular missiles takes out Hollywood before Hollywood takes over the USG. ----- "Naturally the common people don't want war...But, after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or parliament or a communist dictatorship. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." --Hermann Goering, (1893-1946) Nazi Reichsmarschall, at the Nuremberg Trials, 4/18/46. From _Nuremberg Diary_ by Gustave Gilbert.

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All Microsoft needs is for good people to do nothing
by Major Variola (ret) 07 May '03

07 May '03

"If we don't get hardware I'm done" Microsoft's Biddle said. "I have no business wthout some fundamental changes to the PC architecture. And if people don't write software that takes advantage of those changes, I'm done" Peter Biddle, product unit manager in the Security Business Unit at M$ EWeek, 5 May 03 p 14 --- No lieutenant, your serfs are already dead. -Agent Smith

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