MARKM,

I'm pretty sure that's not a paradox. Even if you go with the nonintuitive, strong definition of "liar" as one who tells only lies, that leaves open the possibility that someone who is not a "liar" can sometimes utter false statements, in which case both statement A and B are false.

...I think--I'll have to think about it a bit longer to be sure.

Not surprising--I remember 20+ years ago hearing of a test where the subjects could not tell the difference between monster cable and lamp cord.

Years ago I had an acquaintance that I thought was the biggest d-bag I had ever met: he was a wealthy yuppie, obsessed with money and status symbols. One day he mentioned that he was going to the nursing home to play the piano (he was also a very talented musician). He said that one time he played a song there while visiting his father and several residents came to listen and were transfixed. From then on, he went there every Saturday to play.

the overwhelming majority of Marxist and socialist scholars have dealt with the issue of distancing themselves from Stalin

Good luck with that. They've failed to do so for 70 years and will continue to fail.

Simpsons did it! Simpsons did it!

I have a strong suspicion that the artist (I'm resisting the temptation to use scare quotes) ran some photographs though two Photoshop filters (pixellate and indexed color), then recreated the results with colored disks. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I guess.

This one's a classic.

#8:

"It would be nice if there was some way to make [fill in the blank] face some consequences for all the [things they do of their own free will that I disapprove of]": the mantra of the authoritarian.

I would rather live in a world full of BS news stories than one in which people like CRUNCHBIRD have any authority to impose their will upon others.

#62 Moon: I don't see how that Niemoller quote is applicable, #59

Of course it's applicable. Have you not heard of Godwin's law?

Jinglefritz , February 5, 2008 4:31 PM

NE2d: you completely missed the point, and apparently the paper I referenced.

I didn't read the paper itself, but I did read the AP article about it and I get the point, viz. that it is a misconception that preventing obesity will decrease the burden on health care providers. In other words, because they early, obese people are cheaper to care for in the long run. I don't see how this is very different from the absurd examples I gave.

Obesity and smoking are both net cost savings for the health care system. Skinny people live longer and by doing so suck up more resources.

That is the funniest thing I've read all day--God I hope the humor is intentional.

Why treat a headache with aspirin or ibuprofen when a 9mm. round to the brainpan will not only stop the headache but will prevent it from ever returning--for a fraction of the cost! And why waste money feeding your baby formula or breast milk: they'll just drink more and more and cause a great strain on a family's resources. A single bottle of arsenic will save a family literally hundreds of dollars.

glimmerbee,
There is a reason states pass "oppressive individual indiscretion laws." It is because when people seem to be putting themselves at risk, they are actually putting others at financial risk and not themselves. When they cause harm to themselves by exercising their (in)discretion by not wearing a seatbelt, e.g., they are entitled to medical care, the cost of which will be borne by the hospital or insurance company. This is a classic example of the welfare state leading to the nanny state.

certron: "This comes off as a joke."

Yes, and not a funny one. The real issue here is not regulation, but liability. Remember years ago in the midst of the tobacco litigation how everyone was yukking it up, saying "what's next, suing food manufacturers because people are fat?" Well, we're almost there. I don't think it would extend to social-host liability like with alcohol, because the pockets aren't deep enough, but restaurants might be in trouble, especially when they are then sued for discrimination for refusing to serve obese people.

"It is too oppressive for government to require a restaurant owner to police another human being from their own indiscretions," Holland said Monday.

For a Democrat in a state that recognizes dram-shop liability to say that is quite amusing.

Mr. Silverberg is incorrect, IIRC. It's a bit of a fine distinction, but sex toys are not illegal there--that is, it is not illegal to possess them, only illegal for stores to sell them. I suspect it's more of a NIMBYism thing than a sexual morality thing. Of course, it's an incredibly stupid law, but this quote from the article is encouraging:

"The adult store is not a priority for our vice and narcotics officers. We will do the best we can. Citizens would rather see us using our resources to get drugs and prostitutes off our streets and work to decrease violent crime."

The police obviously have more sense than the local media.

I just took a closer look at what the ads are for--my house (a 50's prefab) has that NuTone mixer thing built into the kitchen counter...minus the actual mixer and blender, unfortunately.

I think that if people realized just how hard it was to be a housewife a half-century ago they would not be so smugly amused by these ads. Not long from now people will be mocking how excited we are by faster processors and bigger drives.

In my reality, sticking a slimy part of your body into the orifice of an unwilling victim is rape.

In your reality, sure. In the reality of the rest of us, not so much. cf. your state's criminal code.

And man was that a terrible song.

"The real answer, of course, is entirely G-rated"

And how exactly do you know that "subtext" is the "real" answer?

scisco,

You're sort of on to something, but the belt wouldn't move the air like that. The only thing that matters is the plane's velocity relative to the air around it. So if you had a massive fan in front of the plane creating a wind at air speed velocity, the plane could lift off while remaining motionless relative to the ground. It's like when you see hawks gliding in place because of a strong wind.

Daemon,

You are mistaken. The plane isn't propelled by its wheels; it's propelled by its, well, propeller...or engine. What will happen is that the plane will move forward just like normal (from the perspective of a stationary observer on the ground); the only difference will be that the wheels will be spinning very fast because of the conveyor belt. It

It's one thing to be (visually) aesthetically pleasing, and another to be sexually pleasing. My wife has a number of beautiful and expensive vibrators, but none even come close to comparing to the hideously ugly but astonishingly effective Magic Wand.

Zman,
So I guess this really is just an extremely ill-conceived attempt at public relations--I forgot to not attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.

Thanks and good luck on finals.

It's blatantly obvious that the sole purpose of this is to be able to pull people over for no reason to check them out. Constitutional? I think it shouldn't be, but I honestly don't know. I'm sure it will get litigated soon enough.

Zman,
I didn't take CrimPro; if an officer comes to your door and says, "Hi, I'm officer so-and-so. I'm just taking this opportunity to introduce myself; it's a public relations thing. Nice to meet--hey, is that marijuana I smell? Step outside and put your hands on the wall," what result? (assuming that he really did smell marijuana).

They must be trying to appeal to the Che-T-shirt-wearing crowd.

ELI,

That looks more like a proto-aloha monkey to me (LGT pic of slightly naughty tattoo, for those at work)

That was some ØØber Pwnage.

I can't figure out how "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us" fits into the melody from the Canon in D. "Ode to Joy" seems like a much better fit.

Krisjohn,

Yikes, what kind of car do you drive that loses its brakes when the engine stalls?

I would just love for someone to lay out a cohesive, logical argument describing how the State has an interest in stopping these poker games.

States have these things called "legislatures," comprised of people elected by the citizens. These "legislatures" have the authority to regulate the citizens' actions, in the form of "legislation," so long as this regulation does not infringe upon a right enumerated (or unenumerated, as the case may be) in the state or federal Constitution.

My post does mention the video that I warn against in the update.

D'oh.

I'm a bit puzzled why a post that does not even mention a certain video (even at the link) needs a warning against said video.

jonbro,

Thanks, but yikes, that looks a little out of my depth--I think I'll stick with Mario for now.

Pretty neat. Anyone know of a crude sequencer available for download? Right now I use one based on the sequencer from Mario Paint. Fun, but a little too crude.

When our daughter was born, PacifiCare (our health insurance at the time) refused to cover any labor & delivery costs because I'd had a pre-existing condition. And that would be? Pregnancy.

If I understand you correctly, you were pregnant at the time you enrolled and so the carrier refused to pay for the L & D. I won't defend everything that insurance companies do, but this is a no-brainer. Insurance is risk-pooling and the "risk" in your case was virtually %100. You can't schedule a surgery, go to an insurance company and pay one premium, then expect them to pay for it.

I would love to see a working, mechanical version of a video game. It seems that Pong would be quite doable, and Space Invaders too. I can imagine a mechanical Pac-Man, but it would be extremely difficult--especially the power pellet aspect.

So is Phoebe Gloekner working in Japan now?

While I'm no fan of the war on terror as implemented, it's simply not true that it's behind the demise of the chemistry set. This is entirely a products liability issue.

And I have to ask, in the BSBtv ad that's at the top right of the page, what is the man on the left-side picture holding?? I'm assuming it's not what it looks like...

Flying Squid,

I think the prices are about right. Though they're popular among collectors, the dolls are made on a very small scale compared to most toys. This drives the individual price up. They're very good quality and also have a fairly intricate mechanism that changes the color and position of the eyes. They also come with good-quality clothes that cost as much (if not more) to make than real clothes. And customizing them is a very painstaking and time-consuming process.

Yes, but WHY are people spending so much on a hunk of plastic?

The same reason that music collectors spend so much on hunks of vinyl and book collectors spend so much on stacks of paper: it's called a hobby. It gives people pleasure and it makes the world a more interesting place.

luvtosurf,

The original Blythe dolls were mad for a very short time in the 70's by Kenner. They are extremely collectible and go for thousands of dollars. They are now made in Japan by Katara. People go to great lengths to customize and dress them (replacing the hair, treating the skin texture, etc.) The new ones cost $150-$250 and customized ones sell for several hundred dollars. There is a very large community of collectors. Do a Google search and you'll find hundreds of Flikr sets. My wife has seven of them and has an etsy shop for clothes that she makes; it's inactive now because she can barely keep up with special orders.

Jeez people, lighten up--it is Halloween after all. My wife is a Blythe fanatic so I can appreciate the skill that goes into making tiny garments like this.

NE2D, you have a hard life.

Why do you say that?

Santa's Knee,

Now I'm starting to think you're doing this on purpose. "Innernet" was Krex's typo, not mine.

An interesting story. I never would have guessed that any women worked on this project, much less that it was done almost entirely by women. According to this,

The first programmers started out as "Computers." This was the name given by the Army to a group of over 80 women working at the University of Pennsylvania during World War II calculating ballistics trajectories - complex differential equations - by hand. When the Army agreed to fund an experimental project, the first all-electronic digital computer, six "Computers" were selected in 1945 to be its first programmers. They were Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Snyder Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum.

I'm sure it was partly due to the dearth of men stateside during WWII, but still a remarkable story.

according to this 'law of innernet wrongness' you cite, your own post 'has a high probability of being mistaken itself.".

Of course: how do you think I learned this law? That is why I now read carefully before criticizing. And I've found that refraining from using words like "doofus," "whiney twit," and "half-cocked" tends to improve one's odds.

Santa's Knee,

It is an ironclad law of the internet that any comment that scolds another comment for being mistaken has a high probability of being mistaken itself. Yours is the latest example. (For another, see the comment thread on the previous bb entry on Best Buy where the mod scolded me for not seeing something in the story that was not, in fact, there)

Sirdook never said "home number," and posting any contact number on the internet is a very bad idea. Furthermore, the post says that the reason for posting your contact number is "so they know you're for real," not so that they can contact you.

sirdook,

There's also the bit about threatening to charge the company with mail fraud over what is almost certainly a mistake. This is on very shaky ground morally and legally.

The folks in charge of TV DVD releases are the most sadistic SOB's on the planet. We wait 10 years for Twin Peaks to come out, fork out 50 bucks for 8 episodes of season one--with NO PILOT, wait another ten years and fork out another 50 bucks for season two, then they come out with this. My wife and I spent hundreds of dollars buying every season of Buffy and Angel as they came out, and now look longingly at the deluxe boxed sets with bonus material. Then there's the crappy packaging of the Simpsons Season 6...and don't even get me started on Malcolm in the Middle--I've considered burning all of my They Might Be Giants CDs.

NE2D (18), if you didn't see where he paid twice, you didn't read very carefully.

I still don't see it. The nearest indication of that is "So they set up the return and I repurchased the drive." But later he says, "I might end up $300 bucks down the hole." The drive he purchased lists at $349.00 at bestbuy.com. If he had paid for it twice, he would be 700 bucks down the hole. That's how I read it, anyway.

It would be less than tactful of me to emphatically agree with you [about folks just trying to come up with a way to aggravate the moderator and troll the thread.]

I'm not sure if you're talking about me or not (I've been reproached by you before on my comments), but if so, I truly believe that I keep my tone civil and respectful even though I disagree with someone. I like this site though I usually disagree with the prevailing political beliefs. I'd like to think it's a forum where different sides can be debated.

Sounds to me like folks just trying to come up with a way to aggravate the moderator and troll the thread.

Or it could be folks with different perspectives trying to have an intelligent discussion/debate on the matter, rather than a yes-fest.

Schmod,

The pages from the New York Post that were in the box is pretty strong evidence that the switch was not made in Malaysia.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden,

Yes, I read the story. First, I don't see where it says that he paid twice. Second, the documentation and publicity have come after the fact (and on what basis do you claim that "scammers don't do that"?) He expected Best Buy to trade a hard drive for a box of tiles, no questions asked. Faced with the amount of fraud that Best Buy deals with, they are right to make this difficult for him, though I'm pretty sure he will prevail here. Scammers will read about this and see that Best Buy is not the easy mark it used to be.

...I know see that Aaronz made exactly my point just before me.

at worst you get detained by security, and get to sue them for unlawful imprisonment.

Funny you should mention that--it's another well-known scam. (and one that, IIRC, boingboing, to its discredit, has related approvingly) Go to a store and act like you're shoplifting, then raise a big stink if you're detained and get a settlement for a few grand.

Okay, there has to be more to this story.

The "more to the story" is that buying an expensive and small item from a major retailer, going home, taking it out of the box, replacing it with a worthless item of similar size and weight, then going back to the store claiming it was like that at the time of purchase is a well-known scam. For all that Best Buy knows (and, I might add, for all we know), that's exactly what Sam did here.

I was a retail manager and dealt with shoplifters and petty scam artists on a daily basis--and that was at a book store. You'd be amazed at the lengths people will go to in order to steal ten dollars. I can't imagine what Best Buy's loss prevention department must go through.

My god that is horrifying. If this doesn't merit a unicorn chaser, I don't know what does.

Those are adorable--especially the peep. It's even cuter than my previous favorite: the chili pepper.

Want. Want so very much.

I simply can't understand what alternative she would advocate

Well, Hezbollah, as related in this--just one of the many negative reviews. This book has been roundly panned by critics of all political backgrounds. Hers is the ideology of the college freshman who just read a book by Noam Chomsky for the first time, and should be ignored or confronted by sensible liberals.

There are still substantive counter-arguments you could make. We're nowhere near the point of having to agree to disagree.

Yes, but I'm very busy. ;)

Incidentally, I'm working on something that might be of interest to BBers and that I think hasn't gotten nearly the attention it should: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that the strip search of a 13 year old girl, which required her to expose her breasts and genitals, did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The kicker? The search was for Ibuprofen. Here is the Opinion. (pdf)

Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree here. No matter who does it or why or how innocent or beneficial it may seem, I think this is a very bad practice that strikes a destructive blow to the core of literacy itself.

And what will you have to say, NE2d, if instead of those all-purpose targets, "elitism and political correctness," the changes turn out to have been made by the author, acting entirely on his own volition?

I will say that it troubles me even more, because when done with cooperation like this, the obliteration of the past will be even more thorough. Yes, I know it's just mailmen and stewardesses, but this is part of a much larger trend: removing cigarettes from old movies, changing dialog in television shows, etc. I'm sure it's just a matter of time--if it hasn't happened already--that Pippi Longstocking's gun and sword are wiped from the record.

I have a terrifying vision of the future sometimes, where the past is constantly rewritten to suit the dominant beliefs of the time, and people live in a blurry perpetual present, unattached to and unaware of any sort of human history. As electronic media replaces paper, this will be come easier and easier to do, and there will be no older version to compare the new version to.

Mr. Anthrope,

Haven't seen the statute, but that's probably covered under "distribution"--not that it's a bad idea.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden/Moderator,

When the ALA or whoever does their "Celebrate a Banned Book" thing, AP is always on the list of books "banned or challenged." That's what I was referring to.

I do think that this is about elitism and political correctness (both of which trouble me greatly) and should be vigorously debated.

My Fark comment was meant to be lighthearted--maybe it didn't come across that way.

Just because a law is stupid doesn't mean it's unconstitutional.

Yes, and since this is about the sale of, not the possession or use of, sex toys, the privacy argument is pretty weak.

Oops, I guess hyperlinks aren't allowed (or I screwed it up) It's at www.volokh.com

Oh, and alicke, I just read this over on Volokh:

According to research from Department of Sociology at Queens College in New York, women in their 20s in Dallas, for example, earn 20% more than men of the same age. In New York, they earn 17% more.

Thought you might be interested.

This is a flamewar? You obviously don't read Fark.

What it actually is is a book company afraid of losing sales on a best selling title warping the content of a work they own the rights to—but never created

I think that this is, unfortunately, untrue. This is a beloved children's book and won't lose any sales because the truck on the cover has an "A" on it. This is about people who think they know what's best for us, deciding what is acceptable for print.

never again will i attempt to bring up feminist issues on boingboing!

N0! I know that wasn't aimed at me, but I'm not anti-feminist, though I am strongly (perhaps overly) anti-censorship. (and yes I know this isn't, strictly speaking, censorship--but you know what I mean) If this sort of thing is tolerated, your daughters and granddaughters will not be able to learn what the attitudes about women were actually like in years past. We must preserve the past--children's books or whatever--and not alter or deny it, so that our children can learn from it.

who doesn't hope that in the future we will only continue to get more and more progressive?

*raises hand* I sure don't ;) (of course depending on what you mean by "progressive") Contemporary liberalism has a certain elitist and authoritarian bent that troubles me quite a bit. Many people in the media and academia are convinced that people are ignorant and backward and must be guided. This is like when "terrorists" was changed to "hippies" in E.T., and the guns replaced with walkie-talkies--the rationale is that people aren't capable of forming the correct views on things, so they have to be helped.

As for the advancement of beliefs in the future, I am convinced that 50 years from now, people will hold a belief system utterly unknown and perhaps incomprehensible to us today, and they will judge us according to it--probably harshly.

alicke,

I don't mean to flame. This is something that I do feel strongly about, though. Editing and expurgating books is done with the same motivation as burning them (to eliminate the expressions of unacceptable beliefs) and the outcome is even worse, because rather than no history (or no book), we a presented with a false history (or an altered book). And I truly believe that someday soon, people will be bothered by our "gross 2000's mindsets." I don't want to provide them with any precedent for simply rewriting the historical record to match their beliefs.

PS sorry about the double post; I thought the internet ate my first one.

Tell me, alicke, what other books do you not approve of, and would like to see rewritten or expurgated? Not long from now, your own beliefs and values will be "antiquated." Would you want them, and any book that reflects them, to be erased from history?

This sort of thing is more dangerous than outright censorship, because it passes under the radar, ignored by, or with the approval of, the same people who become indignant if a parent suggests that maybe a middle school library doesn't need a copy of American Psycho.

Tell me, alicke, what other books do you not approve of, and would like to see rewritten or expurgated? In the very near future, your values and beliefs will be antiquated. Would you want them, and any book that reflects them, to be erased from history?

This sort of thing is worse than censorship because it passes by under the radar, ignored by or with the approval of the same people who become indignant whenever someone suggests that maybe a high school library doesn't need a copy of American Psycho.

It's clearly David Crosby.

Wow, this almost makes the girl who wandered around an airport wearing a loose-fitting sweatshirt with electronic components attached to it look smart. If someone in my neighborhood were "recreating some germ warfare experiments" and somebody "suddenly died" in his house, I would certainly hope the authorities would take more than a cursory glance around.