Weeds are only defined from one's perspective. Dandelions also make exceptional salads and wines, after all, and children view them with a kind of joy, I think, rather than disdain. Since Cory's fundamental point is that we need to change our perspective and recognize the very real benefits of something that has been misjudged, I think the Dandelion analogy is quite fitting.

I spend some weekends working on organic farms, and carrots like these are very common. About half of carrots are not the standard rod, and maybe 15% or 20% look quite anatomical - including feet, torsos, octopi, "junk", and so on. The reason you don't see them more often is because squeamish consumers won't buy them. Some get juiced, some get chopped, but a whole lot get thrown away. Even farmers who want to sell them often can't find a buyer. The whole situation is pretty criminal in my opinion. On the positive side, if you don't mind unique carrots, you can get them practically for free if you know some local farmers. This goes for other veggies too, particularly root vegetables.

Thanks for posting this.

When I first saw this I thought they might have been the wheels that speed forward when you roll them back.

Did anyone else think the oddity in this picture was not any reflection, but the fact that Dick Cheney can smile? I thought his smiling muscles would have atrophied long ago...

@EPP Actually, 8 F is 4.44 C, not 2 C. And according to the Stern Report, about 4 C is the tipping point between liveable environmental crisis and truly catastrophic environmental crisis. I was at a lecture Stern last week, and it was impressively researched, and he didn't even have to resort to crudely executed sarcasm.

I would think Florida to be the least likely state to ban nipples. I know there are some fundies down there, but their whole economy is based on bathing suits.

Can you imagine if he had made a papier-mache volcano and filled it with baking soda, red food coloring, and vinegar?

"RUN!!! It's a terrorist, and he's got a volcano!!! GAHHHHH!!!!!"

Succumb to the enemy you know: suffocation.

When I first read the Mike Boyd quote a day or two ago ("if somebody who has the ability to fly a 747 across the Pacific wants a gun, you give it to them") my immediate thought was that the 9/11 hijackers were in fact trained pilots who could probably do that (mostly automated) task quite easily. There are so many flaws in the logic besides just the intransitivity of trust, I have to wonder if Boyd is just being stupid, or seeing how far he can take his audience.

Another great example of transitive trust gone wrong: The Airborne vitamin supplements (which claim to prevent jetlag and illnesses, and recently finished a class-action lawsuit) proudly exclaim "Made by a Schoolteacher!" Just because I trust her to teach children the alphabet doesn't mean I trust her to make pseudo-medical supplements.

38, yes you are right that most professionals are very good about not over-victimizing. I'm not too satisfied with the currently popular term "survivor", but that's beside the point. However, many lay-people do seem to think abuse is a fate worse than death. That outlook is neither rare nor helpful.

Speaking of pedo-hysterics, have you heard of the pediatrician whose home was attacked by a mob who thought pediatrician meant pedophile?

Though I'm certainly not an expert, I do have some experience with targets of childhood sexual abuse. I volunteered with abused kids for about a year, and my ex-partner of 4 years was abused herself. These people were all resilient beyond what we would expect. Though the act of abuse is terrible, I think we actually do a disservice to the targets of abuse by exaggerating it's effects. I think this can create a self-fulfilling prophecy: repeatedly telling people they were the victims of the worst possible act in the world does not help them. Acknowledging the act happened, providing support when it is needed, and showing respect and kindness all help a great deal. Most people who have been sexually abused go on to live normal, happy lives. Abuse is horrible, most certainly, but not life destroying.

About pedophilia itself, it seems almost impossible to have a calm discussion about what causes it and how it might be treated. Lots of heat, very little light. This is maddening to people who actually want to improve the situation. A few facts any discussion of childhood abuse should include:

1) People generally have little to no control over what they find sexually attractive. Lesioning particular parts of the brain can in fact cause pedophilia in otherwise normal people.

2) People do of course have control over their actions, but many abusers have mental impairments that may prevent them from having a "normal" moral compass. Most abusers have serious mental disorders.

3) There are virtually no treatment options available to non-abusing pedophiles who wish to change.

Overly cruel punishments and revenge just drive abuse underground and make it harder to identify and treat. Until we acknowledge the true nature of pedophilia, we are encouraging abuse rather than preventing it.

What this story fails to mention is that Skeptics automatically get +4 on their Save vs Death rolls.

@ Kim I'm guessing you've never had vegan cake before. There is not much of a taste difference between vegan and non-vegan cakes.

Hmm, I'm thinking of opening a prank line of products, similar to what is featured here, but the results are always positive. Let the good times roll...

Xopher, nope, there was no original link, which is why I didn't RTFA. Tastypopsicle to the rescue.

Yeah, though I've not RTFA, the description here sounds not so much like using DIY skills creatively, but just using DIY tools for (rather severe) uncreative vandalism.

Well, if we are going to RTFA we find...

"We are pretty certain it was a rival company, but I can't prove it."

He thinks the police are little, if any, help. "There's no way anyone will get caught" by the authorities, he said. "So I thought I would set up my own defense."

The catapult is cool in a gnomish inventor kind of way, but if he seriously thinks business rivals are sabotaging his business, it would be much more practical to go for some more cameras, and perhaps a watchdog and security guard. This seems to be less about real security and more about a creative guy making big toys.

Regarding the questions about him catapulting his wife, she was thrown 160 ft across the Avon, bounced off the net, and landed in the river. Really.

And for people who think it is ok to kill uninvited people on your property. Wow. Whatever happened to make you so angry, I hope it gets better soon. Cause it sucks to have that kind of outlook on life.

If you take an in-the-name-of-safety approach to self-defense, then you should know that pulling a gun on an intruder is statistically one of the most dangerous things you can do for both yourself and your family in that situation.

@ Niteowl I wondered the same thing. Would love to hear the backstory on that one.

So, he's building a potentially lethal booby trap, but he has enough of a sense of humour to wear yard-stick patterned suspenders while doing it?

(and possible doing poorly thought out pull-ups).

Cool stuff. This is an exceptional story, and as a former high school wrestler, I have a few thoughts about his situation. This analysis is not meant to take away from his story at all, it is still very inspiring. Dustin may actually have an advantage because of his disability rather than in spite of it. Wrestler's are divided into weight classes (ie 103 lbs and under, 112 lbs and under, etc.) so that matches are balanced. I just checked elsewhere and Dustin is in the 103 class, which is the lightest category. This means that although he is missing much of his limbs, his body can have a much, much higher proportion of muscle than his opponents. If you look at the video, his torso and arms are much thicker than his opponents. If his opponent were that strong, it would bump him up to the next weight class. Also, wrestler's are trained in specific moves, and most of those moves involve grabbing hold of the opponent's arms/legs, often around joints. His opponents will be forced to improvise as most of their well-practiced moves cannot be executed. This is the same reason why a whole bunch of high-level fencers are left-handed - most righties are unused to fencing lefties while lefties are very experienced against righties. The main disadvantage he has is lack of leverage. That would definitely take some skill to work around, as most successful wrestlers use make very good use of all the leverage they can get.

@ JOBMUDFLAP

You are correct that seeing a stripper is not illegal, though perhaps inappropriate for high-ranking a government official. Biting a stripper, however, is both illegal and inappropriate, and that is the relevant detail here.

I agree this is a horrific story, but a few key details have been left out in this retelling: While she was arrested in December for selling bootlegged CDs, she was in jail this time because she violated her bail conditions, and because she had an illegal immigration status. So in short, the jail was about violating bail and losing legal immigration status, not about pirated CDs.

Sidewalk chalk is the Gentleman-Vandal's medium of choice.

@Moonbat

Over-react much? Comments are not disabled, they are to be found at the original place of the post, which is Boing Boing TV. See here: http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/03/06/a-brief-history-of-i.html#comments

No, they are not going after LOLcats. You have to pay them before they do anything, and they have had certainly dozens and likely hundreds of pranks in the past two days.

Regarding the sites they actually are paid to go after... Since they got in a lot of legal trouble for their previous letters, I think they will be more restrained in the future (by court order), and rely more on SEO/spamming rather than threats, though of course, they are still major league douchebags.

Another classy "cease and desist" letter from ComplaintRemover.com, those masters of PR:

Link.

We warned you ed magedson. Did you hear the gun shots last night? Because of you innocent people will die. Your tenants, family members and those that work with you. Think we're joking? I told you that your site will be down and it is. That is all we want and we will not hurt anyone.

If ripoff report moves again to new hosting facilities you will not like what we will do next. Your home will burn. Those around you will burn. Do not expect any help from the police.

Once you have completed with our first list we demand you remove we will give you another list on Saturday and every Saturday from this day forward and you will have 6 hours to do the same from the time we give you that list on each and every Saturday. If the Links work after the 6 there will be a man hunt for you.

We know where you shop. We know where you bank. Greenfield and Broadway, Greenfield and Main. Are we getting closer ED? What about Basha's at Higley and Brown?

Please Please PLEASE let them try sending "cease and desist" letters like this to Boing Boing and Consumerist.

If you go to http://www.news.com/Police-Blotter-Dark-side-of-reputation-defending-service/2100-1030_3-6194158.html you can see the owner of ComplaintRemover.com has already been in trouble with the law for sending death threats among other things. Part of the threatening letter he sent is included below. Note the similar style in poor grammar and misspellings as the CSRs Kelly and JamieB (follow the original link to consumerist).

Excerpt of death threat below:

This letter is being sent to you in the name of more than 500 businesses. No matter where you go, we will cause you a problem. Your life is in danger until you comply with our demands. This is your last warning.

Your neighbors already know about your criminal dealings and how you are making many people loose (sic) their business. You will soon be beaten to a pulp and pounced into the ground six feet under with a baseball bat and sleg (sic) hammer. You will soon be sorry not just from what I am capable of doing to you, but what other members will do as soon as they know exactly where you are. Its (sic) just a matter of time until I get to you.

Here is what you can do to save your life. But you must act imidiatly (sic). Make what ever deal it takes, you must comply.

The internet is awesome for new artists to reach new fans, but a lot of the world is still made of atoms instead of electrons, and the costs of physical production is still a barrier to new artists.

It seems like on-demand fabrication of hard copy CDs would be an excellent way to reduce the barrier of production costs for aspiring artists, much like how CafePress is a free service for potential swag sellers and t-shirt designers. Most half-assedly serious musicians have already recorded their music they just don't have the capital or deal to make the CDs. This way, floating out a CD for sale is much less risky for the artists (essentially, just opportunity cost), and a lot more talent and creative work will get out there. I've heard of on-demand book fabrication allowing many more authors to "publish" without a publisher, why not extend it to music? For all I know, this service already exists, it's just not yet in the public consciousness as an option.

If you look at the packaging, it appears to be focused on both colds and air travel, particularly take-this-before-a-flight-so-you-don't-get-sick-or-jetlagged, but most people just take it to try to prevent colds more generally. I suspect there may have been some mission creep as to what the product was actually for.

I always did find it funny that they emphasized the "designed by a school teacher" aspect. Do you really want school teachers designing health/medical supplements?

I've tried a number of cold remedies, usually at others' behest, and I personally feel the most improvement with Celestial Seasoning's echinacea tea (the one with the caped tea-drinking koala on the front.) It may be partly placebo, I don't know, but at least there is more empirical support for echinacea as a cold preventative than there is for most of the "known" remedies like vitamin C.

I would contend that Monster cables do sound better, but only if you expect them to sound better.

A recent study found that those tasting expensive wine said it tasted better than cheap wine, even though, in reality, it was all the same cheap wine. No surprise there. But because participants were drinking the wine in an fMRI scanner, the researchers could see different parts of the brain were lighting up in accordance with expectations of quality. To be specific: the part of the brain associated with taste did not change, but the part of the brain associated with how much we enjoy that taste did change. Expectation changes perception at a very real physiological level. Link.

The trick, of course, is not to use this as a rationalization for Monster cables, or to claim all wiring perfectly equal, but instead to associate the cheaper alternatives with their own unique sense of quality, such as pride at personal craftsmanship and self-reliance.

Disclaimer: some of work colleagues are longtime academic rivals with Zimbardo.

I'm going to have to be a little unpopular here and say that I don't really buy a lot of what Zimbardo says. Here are a few reasons why:

1) Zimbardo talks about the SPE all the time, but he never released his raw data, and has never published a paper about the experiment in a peer-reviewed journal. If you claim extraordinary results as scientific fact, but won't let other scientists verify (or even see) your results, then that is not science.

2) In the SPE, Zimbardo took the role of "prison superintendent" and actively encouraged the guards to act aggressively towards the prisoners. There is no indication that the guards would have behaved the same without him directing them to do so. When Haslam and Reicher recreated a similar experiment, the guards were very uncomfortable with their power, and the results ended totally differently, with the prisoners and guards living as equals at one point.

3) Abuses do happen, of course, but there are better explanations for them than Zimbardo's interpretation of Role Theory. If you want more detailed information about a different point of view on the SPE and the psychology of tyranny, here are a few links:

The Psychology of Tyranny in Scientific American

Debating the Psychology of Tyranny in the British Journal of Social Psychology

Aren't people who complain about complaining caught up by their own "rule"?

@6 It is true that academics have been writing about games in critical analyses. I don't think that is the issue here. Those analyses are isolated, closed from the mainstream, often by their own jargon (as a specialized-academic-in-training, I see that as the greatest flaw of academia -- our writing is precise and accurate but also so impenetrable that no one reads it.)

The key line from the article is: The truth is that, for the most part, we don't have anything like game criticism, and we need it -- to inform gamers, to hold developers to task, and to inform our broader cultural understanding of games and their importance and impact on our culture.

Academic writing on games exists, as you say, but it is not yet serving the function of informing gamers, game developers or the broader culture. It's isolated in a way that film and literary criticism is not. Gamestudies.org itself says it is aimed towards scholars and researchers. They serve an important purpose, but academic journals, which are often expensive and subscription-only, are not the way to reach gamers and game developers.

Episode 6 did not get posted on BoingBoing, but if you watch it elsewhere, you may notice BB's site is one of the minimized windows.

This was quite a fun little game, here are some suggestions from someone who enjoyed it as to make it even more enjoyable:

*Minor Spoilers Below*

1) A mute sound effects, but not dialogue option. I wanted the dialogue, but found the tearing paper sound every time I clicked to be repetitive. Or just leave out the tearing paper sound.

2) Some scenes are timed but give no indication of what the user is supposed to do (or what is even possible to do.) I even replayed the game to try and do some of these, and for example, could not figure out how to intervene at the house, despite clicking on everything I could see. Consider better instructions or a "one more try" option.

3) Have an option to turn off the manual-dexterity parts. Many people could not pass these because their cursor was too jumpy in the flash interface.

4) Most of all, the evidence part needs the most work. It was really not clear to me what was expected, and how some parts of evidence were sufficient and some were not. I "lost" the game because of this. On the first question I started to submit evidence implicating the suspect into the evidence box. This was wrong though, it wanted me to put the suspect himself in the evidence box. Huh? And why is the hair good evidence, but not the hat with the same hair on it? The watch vs the scrap of paper? Good arguments could be made for each of these, but only one is "right" and getting it wrong causes the player to lose. One way to resolve this would be to have several multiple choice responses that allow the player to make sure their thoughts are on track with what the game is expecting. For example, when it really just wants the suspect's name, just give a list of the names, not names and evidence together. For the evidence itself the possible answers would include mini explanations ("The watch, because it has the victim's initials and was found on the suspect's person"), some of which could be wrong, so the player can better articulate their meaning.

Despite the constructive criticism, I really loved it! Looking forward to playing the next episode soon!!

This has always been a very foolish idea that creates more of a problem than it fixes.

This has been pointed out elsewhere, but what happens when babies are exposed and can't do anything to help themselves? Their incessant shrieking would surely be more of a nuisance than any group of teenagers.

Love the modified Nerf Bow.

@7 No, we do not take any kind of Do No Harm oath. However, we do have to follow very stringent ethical rules when doing research, and get everything with human or animal subjects approved by an (often very strict) ethics committee. Many of these rules are overboard, in my opinion. It can take a few days of paperwork and meetings if I want to ask a child what is their favourite colour. These rules were born of legitimate ethical failures in decades past, but now the procedure is heavily entrenched, and not always sensical.

This is why a lot of people find the APA's quite frankly cowardly stance on torture to be so bizarre. Although we have an overdeveloped bureaucracy for "ethics", we also don't seem to have a problem in obfuscating whether we allow our members to guide torture or not. At the least, have an open discussion amongst the membership about this. Instead, questions have been ducked, responsibility side-stepped. I have not joined the APA for this very reason.

only seems to affect them when I tell them that the miso soup they are enjoying is made of smoked fish flakes

Actually people's digestive systems do adapt to their diets. There is a wide range of research out there, if you want to take a spin on Google Scholar. Norin, Gustafsson, Johansson, Ottava, and Midtvedt, 1998 is one example of a longitudinal study showing support for enzyme/gut flora changes due to vegetarian diets.

It's largely a Western eating disorder, vegetarianism is, and I don't see why I should accommodate it.

Those crazy westerners and their made-up diets!

920 million Hindus: most/many are vegetarian

300+ million Buddhists: most/many are vegetarian

4.2 million Jains: nearly all vegan

In other words, there are probably more Eastern vegetarians than there are total people living in the West. Just sayin'.

@7 Erm, who is constructing their identity out of negatives?

People come in all shades, all types. Your conclusion -- that anyone who avoids meat for moral reasons is "crazy" -- well, might that be a tad simplistic? Sure some people get militant about vegetarianism. And some people get militant about eating meat. I come across them in roughly equal proportions. Self-righteousness is not attached so much to any one idea as it is found in the human population at large. Always has been, always will.

Do you think your negative experiences with vegetarians so far might be the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy? If you've already labelled the entire group as "awful, annoying, joyless, rude, and ultimately, let's face it, superstitious and self-righteous people" then you're kind of setting yourself up for a bad encounter.

@2 I think Joel was just being snarky... it could be used in any situation where you need to discreetly record auido. One legitimate example I can think of is psychological research. Start your study, have one of these set to record audio on the unsuspecting participants, inform them of the true nature after the study is done but before the audio is listened to, and if they object, the data is destroyed unopened. It is the same procedure already used in many social psych experiments, this is just a sleeker and more reliable way of doing it than the current practice of taping a dictaphone under the table.

I've always disliked cheating, and have never done it. Despite this, I always enjoyed coming up with elaborate cheating methods, usually in the form of secret compartments inside clothing/shoes/calculators, etc. But the fun was in the idea, not the deed. As an undergrad I turned in a fair few students for egregious cheating (usually when it got to the point of selling answers en masse.) Now that I'm teaching, I catch a fair few plagiarisers every year. The department head has never punished these students, because the university has decided to take cheating so "seriously" that the harsher punishments now require a high burden of proof that is rarely met -- also administrators don't like going through the rather arduous process of paperwork involved for formally punishing people for cheating. I'd rather just be able to give them a zero.

The most blatant case of plagiarism I ever saw? A paper (which was 75% of the class grade), and still contained embedded hyperlinks, underlined and in blue.

@9 He didn't get a permit because he built in protected greenbelt space, which is very difficult to legally build on. The regs say your building can stay if after four years there are no complaints, which is why he unveiled it now four years after building it. However, the local gov is contesting that no one could see it during those four years, so the four years begins now, during which they are eligible to demolish it (so they say). I just hope they do it with catapults and archers.

@20 Onanism is commonly used to describe masturbation, but the biblical Onan himself was smote by God not for masturbating, but from pulling out early after being ordered to have sex with his dead brother's wife. Kinky. Later on, some royally repressed fussbudgets decided Onan's sin was not, you know, disobeying a direct order from God to procreate, but actually spilling his seed upon the ground. So that is how it has come to be linked with masturbation today. Many biblical scholars think the whole thing is just an allegory for the decline of the Onam clan in the tribe of Judah.

@15 NOEN I definitely agree some CBT would do wonders for people like this, and many other social ills. However, I don't think it is a stretch or trying to be "psychic" to say he might have had other social problems that made him lonely. Also, it does say he was 37, not 87.

@NOEN I think people generally want to help people who are socially needy, but get creeped out when they latch on. Look at this guy. He called the same number 10,000 times after being told not to again and again. Somehow, I can see how he might have driven away his friends in real life, only exasperating his loneliness. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy -- a lot of these people are lonely precisely because they are lonely, and that social desperation is what drives away genuinely caring people. I used to go to extra efforts to reach out to clearly lonely people, but after several times when they invaded my personal life, I had to stop. Even with explanations about what was appropriate and what was not, some of them did not understand or did not care, and continued acting inappropriately. As a result, I still try to be helpful, but am much more cautious with how much personal effort I make reaching out to emotionally needy people.

It appears that trolls have mutated and can now jump the real world/online barrier.

God save us...

They have found smaller blobs (just a few feet across) blocking pipes in the region I live. They turned out to be congealed fat people had put down the drain as hot liquids, which eventually became semi-solid hydrophobic impenetrable blob masses. Maybe something similar here?

According to the article, there are a few caveats:

1) Pigs are excluded.

2) Agribusiness is excluded.

Somehow that just makes the idea even worse...

Pacifism is not spelled "passivism." This may sound like a trivial correction, but the words pacific and passive have very different meanings. Pacific means to be tranquil, and/or to seek peace. Passive means to be unresponsive and uninvolved. People like Martin Luther King, Jr and Ghandi were very pacific, and the opposite of passive. Seeking peace can be a very active and involving pursuit!

The best onion-tear reducing trick I know is to hold an unlit match in between your teeth, with the igniting end under your nose. It works really well.

Personally, I like onion tears. My eyes always feel so much more lubricated afterwards.

I wouldn't recommend buying two onion so you can throw away the bottom halves just because they have a few more enzymes -- it may work, but that is just ridiculously wasteful.

@4 Actually in the developed world the poor are overwhelmingly heavier than the middle class and rich. Poor people in the US can afford to by food, it is just cheap unhealthy food. Do you remember the tub of 105,000-calorie lard featured on Boing Boing last month?

Just to confirm #5, it was indeed made by the UK's Channel 4, which, shall we say, caters to a different audience than the BBC. In terms of their goals and style, they are very different.

And the reason people didn't like TGGWS is because it misquoted the interviewees, fabricated data, and used a veneer of "science" to disguise sensationalism.

Also available for the same purpose: a lighter!

@#5 Cows do eat grass of course, but they will readily eat tree leaves and sometimes tree bark. Not to be pedantic or anything...

Color me skeptical for three reasons. Firstly, according to the article, the speciation would occur in about 100,000 years. One of Curry's assumptions is that our basic human environment, social and political norms, etc. will be stable enough throughout this time to allow this kind of natural selection to occur. Given the rate at which our politics, technology, and environment are changing, I highly doubt our world will be recognizable 1000 years from now, much less 100,000.

Secondly, even if marriage and normal interaction between social classes was made impermeable, there will never be a shortage of upper class men willing to have sex with lower class women in private.

Thirdly, it's the Daily Mail.

I'm not sure why there is all this WoW hate going on. The WoW players that I know are well-educated, work hard, and are generally very productive people. But hey, stereotypes are more fun than reality.

It goes without saying that this is utter BS... but assuming the PRS do have some kind of legal leg to stand on (not considering morals and basic human decency), doesn't that have pretty serious implications for all the electronics stores that have radios and tvs plugged in? And what about the many thousands of pubs in the UK that leave the telly on - is that not technically a public performance of a copyrighted work? If carried to it's extreme, wouldn't that criminalize huge swaths of the economy, and millions of ordinary people?

Oh, wait. I forgot. That's the modus operandi for copyright thugs.

This is the technological equivalent of putting a jpg in a zip file and renaming the extension, and then classifying the reversal process.

I'm reminded of a police release I read about growing opium poppies, saying they were so difficult to cultivate that it would be impossible for most phds to do so if they tried. Of course, poppies are largely self-seeding, and most of the world's supply is grown by millions of illiterate farmers throughout Asia.

@Maggie Lebber: Yes, polygraphs are junk science. The best are accurate only ~80% of the time, and most do little better than chance. That's why they are not permitted in court. And neuro-imaging, while I definitely believe it has more credentials than phrenology, is (currently) vastly over-rated as a science. The neuroscientist I share an office with agrees.

Much of my work involves creating statistical models to predict behaviour, which is not too much different from what this guy is doing. It is great for understanding relationships between variables in a general population, but it is terrible at trying to predict what a specific individual will do, especially if the stakes are high. The problem is compounded when the behaviour is very rare. For example, let's say there are 300 terrorists in the USA right now, and with this new technology, we can assess whether someone is a terrorist with 99% accuracy (which is very optimistic.) We submit everyone in the USA to the test - and have ~3 million false positives, and ~300 true positives - meaning although we caught nearly every terrorist, it was at a cost of catching 10,000 innocent people for every actual terrorist in the process (do you smell the freedom yet?) This is the same reason disease tests are not given on a mass scale - the false positive flood the true positives into meaninglessness.

It makes so much sense, it is really a surprise that no one has thought of it before. But I guess everything is obvious once it has already been said, right?

Let's count the unintended innuendos:

1) The elephant has a "wide stance."
2) By itself, that doesn't mean much, but it is also in Minneapolis-St. Paul - the exact same spot Republican Larry Craig pulled his "wide stance" shenanigans.
3) It also doesn't help that the elephant is flashing it's throbbing red 2008.
4) Come to think of it, the half-bent-over posture doesn't do it any favours either.

However, it will *never* be as bad of a gaffe as London's 2012 "Lisa Simpson" Olympic Logo.

Look on the bright side: America gets to be better than Canada at something now.

(And FYI I'm American)

Just don't wear it to the airport.

Shirt + Lights = Terrorist

Hmm, I live in England, and most people I know would be delightedly perplexed to get one of these. Most British people are not that suspicious/superstitious. Maybe you only get one if you're a bit "special"?

@evofuse: I believe they already make those. But perhaps not so, err, veiny. A quick googling will reveal that many "personal massagers" share the same cylindrical shape and size with a peculiar looking knob at the end.

I particularly like this "personal massager" one from decades of yore.

Maybe because of increased surveillance? *ducks*

Heh. :) I don't have the data on me, but most studies that I have seen have found no sig. difference in crime levels between surveilled and non-surveilled areas. There was a fairly large scale study about this in London that just came out in the past 2 months.

Yes, it is true that kids are being more and more restricted while more is expected of them. Ironically, these restrictions are often enacted in the name of safety, despite that our world is safer now than it ever has been. Of course, kids need to be able to get out, get a scuffed knee, and learn things for themselves - it's a critical part of their development. Keeping them locked up indoors all day in the name of safety is a bit like starving them so they won't choke.

The BBC recently ran a number of stories about this:

Analysis: Rearing children in captivity

Young 'not allowed out to play'

'Cotton wool' childhood challenge

No outdoor play 'hurts children'

Is it immature of me that my first thought was "where does it poo?"

@Vass

I believe this is the story you are talking about. A longer NY Times story here.

The IQ cut-off is really low, too. This guy's IQ was only 125, which translated as 33 out of 50 on the test they were using. Their cut-off is 27 of 50. That's not even one standard deviation above the mean.

Also interesting, the would-be cop was named Robert Jordan.

BTW... IQ is not a very useful measure of "intelligence" unless we choose to define it in very narrow and subjective terms.

This is all very classic social identity stuff and in-group favouritism straight out of the textbook. It can be fixed by re-defining the groups (police as a part of the citizenry, rather than apart from - you can tell there is a group division through the language, like when police use the word "civilian" so often) or by creating a strong police group norm against this kind of behaviour. Both are going in the wrong direction currently, so the results are no surprise. Unfortunately, derogation of the police will likely only solidify these group divisions and in-group favouritism.

The town I went to college in had two colleges, with most residents supporting either one or the other. I was once pulled over for a bad headlight, the officer saw my college parking sticker, and strongly hinted that the reason he was letting me off with a warning was because of the particular college I went to. Many of my friends had similar experiences.

Another time I was pulled over (same bad headlight - was too poor to fix it) I was told I was given a warning rather than a ticket because I had no criminal record. I was grateful, yes, but it seems profoundly unfair to apply a different standard of law to people who have previously broken it and have served their time. It seems set up to encourage group divisions (and bitterness and re-offending amongst the outgroup), rather than rehabilitation.

Wow, there's just something about furries that gets people really riled up. Honestly, I've never seen or met a furry. But what's the big deal? Ok, some make it into a fetish, but certainly not all, and for those that do sexualize it - who cares? Most people have some kind of non-normative sexual interest. I mean, there's Cardassian porn out there too (which would just be, a bit, um, scaly.) Live and let live.

With my psychologist hat on, I can say most psych professionals only consider a behaviour unhealthy if 1)it disturbs the individual doing it 2)the individual cannot control it and/or 3)it interferes with their work/relationships/well-being. Simply being unusual qualifies that person as diverse, not unhealthy.

I would also add that there is a general positive correlation between feeling threatened by a sexual behaviour and finding some aspect of it appealing. For example, there's lots of lab research (and real life examples) that homophobic people very often have same-sex tendencies. It's a very easy study to do: 1) Ask people what they think of sexual behaviour X. 2) Show them porn of behaviour X. 3) Measure arousal with something called a penile plethysmograph. 4) Calculate the regression.

@Kayin

Being a part of a subculture can play an important part in being a well-balanced, psychologically healthy person. Hobbies generally make people better off for having them, provided the hobby doesn't become an obsession. Taking time for yourself allows you to work better and to better help others as well.

Hrmm, If I go as a targ, which group should I join?

I wonder: how many criminals get naked before sorting through their loot?

@PhilipB This is a valid concern. This is what Negroponte said about it in 2005:

"The grey market is a very serious issue. I don't want to be dismissive of it for a moment, and there are three ways of addressing it. Way number one is to have no market at all for it. I mean you can't sell it, who could buy it, and that isn't bullet proof. That's a little bit dreaming, but it's part of the equation. The second is to put the technologies into the device that help stop that. [The laptops distributed to middle schoolers in Maine are Apple iBooks] so they are not only great stuff to steal and we don't necessarily have corruption of that kind, but it's pretty transferable technology. They've put little things so the machine disables itself after a while if it hasn't connected to the school. You can put GPS in it, you can put all sorts of stuff. But then the third one, which I'm doing and I like is to make this machine so distinctive that it is socially a stigma to be carrying one if you are not a child or a teacher. Now you can obviously take it down to your basement, but I hope your spouse will even say: “Oh God! Honey! What did you do?” [...] So those three combined will I hope at least limit this to one percent or two percent."

I would also point out that these laptops are capable of wireless mesh networking - that means they can connect to other nearby laptops to form an ad hoc network. If one computer in the wireless mesh has internet access, the other computers also have access to this (though at low bandwidth). But this would be sufficient to provide email and other low-bandwidth applications across remote geographic areas. Pretty freakin' cool if you ask me.

@Davex +1

It is worth stressing (again - because it seems to be chronically ignored) that these laptops do not replace food, water, or malaria tablets. No one suggested that they should. They are supplied on top of those essentials, and it is a straw-man fallacy to imply that the buy one, give one program is somehow taking away books, medicine, or other infrastructure, or that mothers are choosing between laptops and nourishment for their children. These are being paid for by a new stream of donations that would not otherwise exist.

Splash asks how this information would be disseminated: a fair question. While the Internet is not common in the developing world, I believe it will be much more so within the next decade, much like mobile phones. In the meantime, most medium-sized towns in the developing world have at least some internet access in the form of a phone line to a library, or something similar. This could be a central distribution point, where monthly updates could be distributed to each child's laptop. If there is no internet connection in a town, the nearest city could mail a single update CDROM to the town school once every month. Facilities like these are already in place in some areas of the developing world. I imagine the laptops would also come pre-loaded with a substantial amount of material on them. These are better than just leaflets and books, because, as Davex mentions, they are dynamic, current, and can be interactive. Splash asks how this could fuel literacy. Here's how: for mere megabytes, the contents of an entire library could be transferred to a child (and the child's family) permanently. Free software can teach them to read and write in their own language, as well as other languages, as well as teach numerical literacy. That sure does beat borrowing an out-of date book. For the cost of a few kilobytes, schematics could be distributed for parabolic solar ovens, sediment-based water filters, and electricity-generating wind turbines made of old scrap and bicycle parts. As new low-tech solutions become available, they could be distributed world-wide within weeks, essentially for free. By being exposed to computers, children would gain a modern job skill as they become young adults (think how much India has benefited from its burgeoning computer skills), helping to enable them to support themselves and their families as adults. These have the potential to be more than just laptops, but libraries, schools, job skills, and information infrastructure as well.

I disagree with your presumption that these are either/or situations: laptop or food; computer skills or literacy. I believe these things complement each other, and are synergistic. Cheap, rugged laptops can help people learn how to prevent HIV (the misinformation is ubiquitous in many nations), learn new farming techniques, and form beneficial networks with others. Instead of supplanting learning to read, this could fuel literacy considerably. Traditional aid (with a focus on "today") should be increased of course - I spend a lot of time working for Oxfam and raising funds for humanitarian and environmental causes - but this non-traditional funding is a move with a focus on "tomorrow" instead of just the immediate. Together, I think they are greater than the sum of their parts.

I don't believe anyone - certainly including One Laptop Per Child - is saying that food, water, and education are not important. Everyone knows they are important, and billions are already being funneled to support those. More is needed on those fronts of course, but if people want to help in more non-traditional ways (like laptops), I say more power to them. The idea has certainly fired the imaginations of many people, and raised new funds that would not otherwise be available. This is not a zero-sum game, after all.

Exposure to computers at a young age is often vital to understanding them as an adult - much like exposure to language. I think one of the hopes here is not that these poor children will while away their days playing solitaire and minesweeper, but will gain the cognitive structuring that will enable them to transform and support their national economies as adults. Programs like this could go a long way in giving these kids life-long skills (and perhaps inspiration) that will become more and more necessary in the decades to come.

Most democratic countries have more stringent firearms regulations than the US, yet they are not moving towards tyranny. Additionally, firearms were widely available and legal under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, but were not used to overthrow him.

Guns /= Free.

Can anyone tell me what practical use a machine gun is to security in an airport? Isn't that just about the worst security weapon you could use where you have one or two "bad" people mixed in with hundreds of "good" people, short of a rocket launcher?

"Look, there's a terrorist in the crowd of people! Open fire on them with a machine gun!"

Like most "security," automatic weapons are theatre. Although there is virtually nil chance security would need to use a gun in an airport, on the very rare occurrences where guns are used, I cannot imagine any scenario where a machine gun would be more useful than a handgun.

The rights of British citizens are protected by various acts of Parliament, as well as common law created through the historical conventions of the judiciary, but there is no single documents that presents all of these rights in one list. If someone's rights are violated in the UK, they can legally appeal these through the courts just as much as someone could in the US. But as always, popular support usually matters more than the official wording of the laws.

I would add that many people in government do consider that Britain has a Constitution - just not a written one. I do hear the phrase "British Constitution" and "Constitutional Norms" on news shows fairly regularly. Gordon Brown has been talking about codifying this in to one written document for a few months now.

@mdhatter:
"The Brit's are "subjects" of the monarch. This does actually mean they have rights only at the discretion of the executive."

As someone who has lived in both the US and the UK, I feel my rights were much more protected in the UK. The monarch is a symbolic figurehead, and in no realistic way are British citizens her "subjects." The Queen gives speeches, makes diplomatic appearances, appears on postage and coins, and that's about it - she does not create and destroy laws at a whim.

And it's not like the US Constitution really makes American's rights unassailable. Fourth Amendment, anyone?

@jackcastile

I don't think you read or understood my comment. I said "he should receive the maximum penalty" and you interpreted this as "a free pass" or that he should be "let go." Being on drugs does explain odd behaviour, but it does not excuse it - I don't see what is so confusing or controversial about that.

I also think it would be inappropriate to come up with a punishment that exceeds what is currently the maximum by law - what he did was heinous, and there is no doubt he deserves a very severe punishment, but laws become meaningless if we decide we can alter the punishments post hoc - in the wrong hands, that becoems very dangerous very quickly.

It should be noted he was very drunk and high at the time. He should still receive the maximum penalty, of course, and his actions are beyond belief, but his total insobriety make his actions slightly more explainable if not excusable.

Trains are sooooo much nicer than planes, in just about every way: comfort, convenience, cost, environment, risk. Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I've seen how a train system can be done well and done poorly. Some people say, yeah but for trains to work in America they would need big subsidies. True, but how is that any different from the airlines we subsidize today?

My understanding is that the first-sale doctrine includes advance promotional CDs as well, so that while Erik's actions might not have been popular with certain groups, I do not believe they were illegal.

To take the analogy of the speeding driver further, imagine a driver going 39 in 40 mph zone, and is pulled over by a car with home-made flashing lights. The "police" get out and say "did you know you were going over 35 mph?" The driver admits going over 35, but points out the limit is 40, not 35. The driver also points out that putting home-made flashing lights on one's car and pulling over other drivers does not make one a police officer.

I agree that agricultural imports need to be controlled. So does the State Treasurer, Timothy Cahill. That is not the issue, and they should not be conflated.

The issue is how they were treated. The agents were abusive, angry, and unprofessional - something most people who have flown recently have also witnessed. It is in fact possible to control agricultural imports without having anger-management issues.

And if his parents had made ever so slightly different movements during coitus, a different sperm cell would have reached the egg, preventing him from existing, much less winning the lottery. Chaos theory is fun!

The researchers refer to a preference for law and order as an "emotion," ... So basically it's your typically sloppy psychology research combined with a political agenda.

That is what the mainstream newspaper article says, not the researchers. Anyone who has been the subject of a media article/story will know that however well meaning the journalist, the story will be botched/miscommunicated in important ways. I can assure you social psychologists do not simply lump all these things together as emotions and psychologists certainly do not hold a universally derogatory view towards emotions or religiosity. Operational definitions of these terms and how they were derived can be found in the research articles themselves (try Google Scholar), but it would not be feasible to include all of the technicalities and methods in a short news article.

"Information from the NSA makes up about 75 percent of the president’s daily intelligence briefing."

It's a good thing he doesn't read or pay attention to those briefings! My experience is that evil people and ideas more often fails because of their own incompetence than from a concerted effort from others. GW is case in point.

I've had the privilege of knowing several researchers in this area. It's always fascinating to read their papers or hear their presentations - I should get to hear lots more at a social psychology conference next week.

Like the study says, "worldview defense" is probably the most accurate term for what happens when mortality is made salient. So a person who defines tolerance as a part of their worldview will in fact become more tolerant rather than less so. The typical results of people becoming more nationalistic and conservative only occurs when people are already leaning that way to begin with (which is fairly common.) Raise the mortality salience of a bunch of Quakers and you would find they would become even more peace-loving and trans-national than normal.

I'm pretty sure this falls afoul of many state and federal laws, and would not be surprised if they are shut down soon, and many of the teachers arrested now that this is getting some publicity.

These kinds of shock techniques are exactly what one would do to create learned helplessness. In the early experiments on learned helplessness, it was found rats could be killed just by splashing water on them while preventing them from getting away. Shocks work even faster. For the kids that do survive, they will have a lifetime of issues to work through, far worse than whatever they had beforehand.