Boycott Coupons.com!

For First Degree Abuse of the (horrifically bad) DMCA.

Just like the scum at Lexmark before them.

Jose Padilla Guilty!

Jose Padilla Convicted on All Counts - New York Times

Skep67

The Amazing 67th Skeptics Circle is fully-formed and growing larger, more confident...
at The Bronze Blog

Solipsism 2.0

More freakin' amateur science fiction, this time from John Tierney:
Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch - New York Times

Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.

Some computer experts have projected, based on trends in processing power, that we will have such a computer by the middle of this century, but it doesn’t matter for Dr. Bostrom’s argument whether it takes 50 years or 5 million years. If civilization survived long enough to reach that stage, and if the posthumans were to run lots of simulations for research purposes or entertainment, then the number of virtual ancestors they created would be vastly greater than the number of real ancestors.

There would be no way for any of these ancestors to know for sure whether they were virtual or real, because the sights and feelings they’d experience would be indistinguishable. But since there would be so many more virtual ancestors, any individual could figure that the odds made it nearly certain that he or she was living in a virtual world.

Dr. Bostrum assumes much. How would the 'programmer' know that his simulation 'felt real' to the simulation? That the simulation units (people) were self-aware? Some form of Turing Test? Anyone who postulates the feasibility of such a simulation based on processing power metrics is a fucking idiot who doesn't know anything about artificial intelligence. If they're capable of making a statement like that, they're certainly incapable of determining the requirements for such a system.

The math and the logic are inexorable once you assume that lots of simulations are being run. But there are a couple of alternative hypotheses, as Dr. Bostrom points out. One is that civilization never attains the technology to run simulations (perhaps because it self-destructs before reaching that stage). The other hypothesis is that posthumans decide not to run the simulations.

Inexorable?!? All you're saying is that, given sufficient time and resources, a the existence of such a simulation (somewhere) becomes probable. It has absolutely zero relevance to the question of whether or not we're participants in a simulation. Yet, right near the beginning of the column, Tierney makes this boneheaded statement:

But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.

Uh, no, it doesn't. How about this hypothesis: We developed pretty much according to the current scientific narrative, and any fruity Sim games such as the one described may or may not come to exist in our future.
Here's some standard geek-o-phobia:

It’s unsettling to think of the world being run by a futuristic computer geek, although we might at last dispose of that of classic theological question: How could God allow so much evil in the world? For the same reason there are plagues and earthquakes and battles in games like World of Warcraft. Peace is boring, Dude.

Perhaps those events and actions are part of the random nature of the universe and the consequences of human development, and there's no controlling 'intelligence' at all. BTW, plagues and earthquakes are not 'evil', just disastrous (are there plagues and earthquakes in WoW?).
This is a worthless and vapid column with nothing of value to add to the discourse. It's the worst kind of Michael Crichton pseudo-science fiction which makes The Matrix look like classic John Brunner by comparison.
Perhaps Dr. Bostrum has some interesting and valid points to make in this subject area. He's billed as a philosopher, not a scientist. They certainly don't come across in Tierney's column, though. This doesn't even rise to the level of science fiction. Until someone comes up with some falsifiable hypotheses, it's just religion. A creation myth for us computer geeks. It needs more Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Kabuki

A good Glen Greenwald post at Salon:
Enforcing the Community's foreign policy orthodoxy
Here's a comment I posted there:

A World of Children
I've always felt that, whereas individuals can act like adults, nations interact like squabbling toddlers and schoolyard bullies. It's the same, perpetual knee-jerk selection of the violent option to solve any foreign policy problem seen in an abusive spouse or teen thug. Wisdom, cunning and long-term planning never seem to play a part in it. They say, "Don't win by being smarter, win by hitting harder!" This is not a sustainable, or pleasant, way to lead a life or govern a nation.

The Foreign Policy Community represents the 'parents from hell' that enable these Child Nations. The emergent behavior of complex interaction between political entities has achieved only this immature level of development. International relations will never advance or evolve as long as they're being shepherded by emotional, groupthink-stricken, tough-guy wannabees who appear so sane and rational on teevee.

Rove to Enter Stealth Mode

Karl Rove to Resign At the End of August - WSJ.com
Here's a quote from the Wall Street Journal's tongue-bath:

Mr. Rove, who has held a senior post in the White House since President Bush took office in January 2001, told Mr. Gigot he first floated the idea of leaving a year ago. But he delayed his departure as, first, Democrats took Congress, and then as the White House tackled debates on immigration and Iraq, he said. He said he decided to leave after White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten told senior aides that if they stayed past Labor Day they would be obliged to remain through the end of the president's term in January 2009.

"I just think it's time," Mr. Rove said in the interview. "There's always something that can keep you here, and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family." Mr. Rove and his wife have a home in Ingram, Texas, and a son who attends college in nearby San Antonio.

There Oughtta Be A Law

A Neighborhood Balks at a Chain Restaurant - New York Times

There really is a John inside Johnny’s Pizza in Sunset Park, Brooklyn — John Miniaci Jr., whose father, John Sr., founded the neighborhood pizzeria in 1968.

There will soon be another John right next door on Fifth Avenue — Papa John’s Pizza, a franchise outlet. John Jr. considers this as an insult to his own papa John, who died just one month ago. Of all the spots the franchise could have chosen, why, he asks, did it have to be on the other side of the wall where two centurion busts stand guard above customers waiting for zeppoles or Sicilian slices?

“This is a neighborhood that has had businesses in the same family for two and three generations,” Mr. Miniaci said. “These big corporations come in and don’t see the value of that.”

Having this reeking pile of shit, Papa John's "Pizza", near an actual pizzeria is like asking the neighborhood to accommodate a cockroach farm or rat-skin tannery.