Image via WikipediaD Term - Command Line - Mac Leopard OS
Achievements Considered Harmful?
I wanted to raise awareness of the large body of research studying the impact on motivation from various types of rewards. Trying to be "fair and balanced", I delved into what the data show and what they don't show.
For interesting tasks,
- Tangible, expected, contingent rewards reduce free-choice intrinsic motivation, and
- Verbal, unexpected, informational feedback, increases free-choice and self-reported intrinsic motivation.
Eben Moglen on Bilski, software patents, and big pharma
Moglen's critique of the patent system extends well beyond the software issues he writes about, however. He suggests, for instance, that the 20-year monopoly granted by a patent is the product of a bygone era. And though he rejects the notion that he is "anti-patent," he says that the patent monopoly grant should be subject to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, not simply handed out at the "monopoly window" that he believes the current Patent and Trademark Office represents.
Right now, we have a patent system that's extensively used only by two industries: information technology and pharmaceuticals. Anybody else, the patent system doesn't help them that much. Most of the world's manufacturers now use trade secret law. [And] the two industries that use patent law heavily use it for reasons irrelevant to its formation.
In the information technology [IT] industry we live in now, where software [is often] made by people who want to share rather than own, patent law imposes very significant problems for innovators. That patent law doesn't maximize innovation in software has been the observation of engineers and lawyers who work in the part of the world I work in, sometimes called the free and open source software community. But what it really is is part of science. Knowledge about the world is collected and organized for other people to learn from. Unlike almost all other forms of science, because writing it down in computer terms can also be writing down a program a computer could execute, basic scientific communications are made the subject of ownership by current patent law, unintentionally.
The Congress that in 1954 admitted for the first time the idea of patenting processes didn't mean by that act you make it possible to own mental steps or algorithms or facts of nature. They didn't mean to make mathematics patentable. They were talking about the kind of process the Federal Circuit was talking about in making the machine-or-transformation test.
From the Law.com Newswire
3rd Circuit Won't Revive Aetna Securities Fraud Suit
CIA's Response to Call for Terror Suspect Data Ruled Adequate
Capmark Creditors Seek Right to Sue Citigroup, Goldman Sachs
Limited Discovery of Facebook Allowed in Harassment Case
Ex-Wife Ordered to Provide Skype Access for Husband, Kids
THURSDAY 12 AUGUST 2010
Monitoring International Military Space Efforts “It is a societal constant spanning the history of warfare that military technology can remain a secret for only so long. From the rocket to the hydrogen bomb, awesome technological power has inevitably proliferated. And it can be expected that a nation in possession of a key technological advantage wouldn't be willing to relinquish its advantage simply for the cause of international peace. Therefore, an international consensus must be reached between the United States and other leaders in nanotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence to reduce future tension and potential conflict.”
U.S. Military Learns to Fight Deadliest Weapons
Jieddo was formally signed into existence by the Department of Defense just four years ago, in February 2006. But it has its origins in a personal request written by the chief of US Central Command, John Abizaid, to his superiors at the Pentagon in mid-2004. As the number of casualties caused by IEDs in Iraq mushroomed, he insisted that the only solution was a “Manhattan Project-like” marshaling of scientific and military resources. Since then, Jieddo has gathered a staff of more than 3,600 government employees and contractors, established projects with all four military services and every intelligence agency, and spent more than $17 billion.
In Iraq, Jieddo has succeeded in drastically reducing the carnage caused by IEDs. At the start of the war in 2003, every device that troops encountered resulted in, on average, the injury or death of at least one member of the coalition forces; by 2009, insurgents had to put down nine IEDs to cause a single casualty.
Cat and Mouse : a case study
When insurgent bombmakers come up with a new way to trigger a weapon, the US military devises a countermeasure. Insurgents figure out how to get around it, and the cycle continues. Here’s how that played out with a device called an explosively formed penetrator.CCat and Mouse: A Case Studyt and Mouse: A Case Studyt and Mouse: A Case Study
The Wire - Wikipedia
The Wire is an American television drama series set and produced in Baltimore, Maryland. Created, produced, and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon the series was broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States. The Wire premiered on June 2, 2002 and ended on March 9, 2008. Sixty episodes comprise its five seasons.
Each season of The Wire focuses on a different facet of the city of Baltimore. They are, in order: the illegal drug trade, the port system, the city government and bureaucracy, the school system, and the print news media.
Simon has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is "really about the American city, and about how we live together. It's about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how whether you're a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you've committed to."[1]
The show is recognized for its realistic portrayal of urban life, its literary ambitions, and its uncommonly deep exploration of sociopolitical themes.
Simon described the second season asa meditation on the death of work and the betrayal of the American working class … it is a deliberate argument that unencumbered capitalism is not a substitute for social policy; that on its own, without a social compact, raw capitalism is destined to serve the few at the expense of the many."[44]He added that season 3 "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." The third season is also an allegory that draws explicit parallels between the war in Iraq and the national drug prohibition,[44] which in Simon's view has failed in its aims[48] and become a war against America's underclass.[52] This is portrayed by Major Colvin, imparting to Carver his view that policing has been allowed to become a war and thus will never succeed in its aims. Writer Ed Burns, who worked as a public school teacher after retiring from the Baltimore police force shortly before going to work with Simon, has called education the theme of the fourth season. Rather than focusing solely on the school system, the fourth season looks at schools as a porous part of the community that are affected by problems outside of their boundaries. Burns states that education comes from many sources other than schools and that children can be educated by other means, including contact with the drug dealers they work for.[53] Burns and Simon see the theme as an opportunity to explore how individuals end up like the show's criminal characters, and to dramatize the notion that hard work is not always justly rewarded.[54] John Klaus in Comments at WSJ "A larger transition to market-based medicine could turn out to be as smooth as the private-sector shift to 401(k)s from defined-benefit pensions" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!!!!!! If what you just said weren't so funny, it would be sad. So while we are at it, lets see how that 401(k) plan has gone. As you say, it's gone so smoothly that the following is completely true: 1) Less than 10% of american's have more than $1,000 in their 401(k). 2) Nearly 100% of 401(k) users lost any chance of retiring during the recent downturn because they lost all their money. 3) As 0 american's have so far retired on a 401(k) alone, saying that the policy shift has been successful is akin to sitting inside a box with no windows and doors and telling me what the weather is like outside. 4) Less than 40% of working adults are even capable of putting money into a 401(k), and amongst those, less than 50% have done so. 5) structural problems with the workforce have created the commonality that people lose their 401(k) status when they leave a job (which many american's are doing right now). They then get taxed and double penalized, so the ending tax rate turns out to be like 60%. I am really getting tired of reading outright lies like this in your newspaper. Cut it out. Before you gussy up the cahoneys to call me a liar, you should know I do this for a living. Medicare vouchers don't work and will end with poorer retirees (those who are most in need of medicare) having reduced access to healthcare (or none at all). Saying that the vouchers will not track to market costs is accurate and born out by past experiences (medicare gap anyone). The idiotic statement that free market results always in lower costs to the consumer is a blatant falsehood which doesn't stand up to even the most casual observations. Mr. Ryan was correctly blasted for his inane comments and policy idea. Look children, seniors will never go for it because they know what you are trying to do: "Lower the payments from a system they have spent their life paying into." The why is really damning too. You're doing it, not because the current cost problems couldn't have been avoided, but because you (the central government) were irresponsible with other peoples money. The system works just fine, you folks at the capital are going to eat the losses on this one. This means military spending must go down and fast (like now). Pet projects, those are done too.
Clinton Refuses to Answer My Questions About Gaza Flotilla
On June 14, 2010, I delivered to the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of American Citizen Services a letter to you requesting investigation of the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla in which one unarmed American citizen was killed by Israeli commandos and fourteen other American citizens were kidnapped from international waters and taken to Israel against their will, imprisoned, and their personal possessions stolen by Israeli commandos.
Could you also determine if the State Department has made a demarche to the Israeli government concerning the circumstances surrounding the commandos deadly shooting of unarmed 19-year-old American citizen Furkan Dogan, who was shot 5 times, several times to the head?
We returned to the United States with the clothes on our backs and our passports. Despite lists of our possessions being given to US consular officers during a June 2 visit to us while we were in prison in Israel, and to US consular officers in Istanbul, Turkey, during our brief stay after being deported from Israel and to American Citizen Services officials at the State Department in Washington, DC, virtually nothing has been returned to us (I did receive a diary sent from the US Consulate in Istanbul, but nothing else - no computer, camera, cellphone, clothing, handbag, address book, $800 in cash, backpack, suitcase, etc.). Phone calls in Israel have been made on cellphones in the possession of the Israeli government.
Ann Wright, former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve ColonelTeacher Jobs Saved by $12 Billion Cut to Food Stamps
$12 billion needed to be cut from the Food Stamp program in order to fund Edujobs. This is unsettling news considering a recent report showed food insecurity -- the number of people for whom their next meal is uncertain -- is on the rise in the United States. Given current unemployment numbers and the sky high number of people applying for assistance, programs like Food Stamps are part of the fabric holding the economy together.
Taking money from food stamps definitely has a robbing Peter to pay Paul feel and has some members of Congress angry.
Some school districts have indicated they will not rehire teachers. Instead, they will save the money to prevent layoffs certain to come next spring if the recession continues to hammer their states' coffers.
Scenes From An American Oil Spill
HT StumbleUpon
Unlike the Exxon Valdez spill, in a finite area with a finite amount of oil conveniently located on the surface and near the shore, the scale of the Gulf disaster is difficult to convey. The changes are in the chemistry of the water. The livelihoods of the people who live on the Gulf will slip away as quietly as the tide.
Remember those cleanup workers fired by BP? They're talking now...
HT Current TV
Project Gulf Impact has been releasing a steady stream of videos about the ongoing impact of the Gulf oil disaster, and today’s is no different. It’s an interview with a former member of the temporary cleanup crews. The worker interviewed in this video describes a cleanup organization effort that could be called effectively useless, and even counterproductive in the grand scheme of things. Workers were told nothing about the situation
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