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Post by bewildered on May 10, 2013 4:41:32 GMT -6
I figured this would be as good a place as any to carve out my own niche on the forum and discuss topics that pique my interest. Over the past few years I estimate that I've written approximately 12 essays per week, with only a tiny fraction of those papers being assignments for school projects or courses. The rest has been for kicks. I write because I enjoy it! I've devoted quite a bit of effort recently to shattering the myths and legends that most Americans were reared to believe as true, because I am convinced that we will only understand the need for change if we learn the truth about our history. Learning about our history better enables us to perceive current events more clearly and accurately, and that is something we all need desperately. Who were the "Founding Fathers?" What was behind the Constitutional Convention? Is, or was America at any time, really the "land of the free?" Is America actually a "democratic republic," a federalist oligarchy, a technocratic plutocracy, or even more ominously, a fascist state? I'll write about stuff in that vein, share some articles from Mother Jones and Op-Ed News, and otherwise serve as a decidedly "left-wing" voice in an overwhelmingly right-wing nation. Yes, the left-wing is a minority in America and always has been (don't believe the hype). No, the Democratic Party is not a left-wing organization, Barack Obama is not a Kenyan or even a Muslim, and if you ask me, his Nobel Peace Prize is as meaningful as handing a "Citizen of the Month" award to a person who robbed you blind.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2013 4:47:14 GMT -6
I figured this would be as good a place as any to carve out my own niche on the forum and discuss topics that pique my interest. Over the past few years I estimate that I've written approximately 12 essays per week, with only a tiny fraction of those papers being assignments for school projects or courses. The rest has been for kicks. I write because I enjoy it! I've devoted quite a bit of effort recently to shattering the myths and legends that most Americans were reared to believe as true, because I am convinced that we will only understand the need for change if we learn the truth about our history. Learning about our history better enables us to perceive current events more clearly and accurately, and that is something we all need desperately. Who were the "Founding Fathers?" What was behind the Constitutional Convention? Is, or was America at any time, really the "land of the free?" Is America actually a "democratic republic," a federalist oligarchy, a technocratic plutocracy, or even more ominously, a fascist state? I'll write about stuff in that vein, share some articles from Mother Jones and Op-Ed News, and otherwise serve as a decidedly "left-wing" voice in an overwhelmingly right-wing nation. Yes, the left-wing is a minority in America and always has been (don't believe the hype). No, the Democratic Party is not a left-wing organization, Barack Obama is not a Kenyan or even a Muslim, and if you ask me, his Nobel Peace Prize is as meaningful as handing a "Citizen of the Month" award to a person who robbed you blind. I look forward to it.
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Post by bewildered on May 10, 2013 9:08:14 GMT -6
I can't think of a better place to start than the "Elephant in the Room." The following article offers vindication to anyone who either suspected or insisted that money, not public interest or the public good, drives the government's domestic and foreign policy. Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal EverThe Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There's no price the big banks can't fix. by Matt Taibbi APRIL 25, 2013 Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything. You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that's trillion, with a "t") worth of financial instruments. When that sprawling con burst into public view last year, it was easily the biggest financial scandal in history – MIT professor Andrew Lo even said it "dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets." That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world's largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world's largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps. Interest-rate swaps are a tool used by big cities, major corporations and sovereign governments to manage their debt, and the scale of their use is almost unimaginably massive. It's about a $379 trillion market, meaning that any manipulation would affect a pile of assets about 100 times the size of the United States federal budget. It should surprise no one that among the players implicated in this scheme to fix the prices of interest-rate swaps are the same megabanks – including Barclays, UBS, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and the Royal Bank of Scotland – that serve on the Libor panel that sets global interest rates. In fact, in recent years many of these banks have already paid multimillion-dollar settlements for anti-competitive manipulation of one form or another (in addition to Libor, some were caught up in an anti-competitive scheme, detailed in Rolling Stone last year, to rig municipal-debt service auctions). Though the jumble of financial acronyms sounds like gibberish to the layperson, the fact that there may now be price-fixing scandals involving both Libor and ISDAfix suggests a single, giant mushrooming conspiracy of collusion and price-fixing hovering under the ostensibly competitive veneer of Wall Street culture. Continue to read the article at the following link: www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425?print=true
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Post by bewildered on May 10, 2013 9:58:47 GMT -6
Keep yourself informed, folks. Avoid the hype and nonsense dispensed through the national media and go straight to the source. Discover the what the Congress is doing by checking out what's being voted on here: www.govtrack.us/congress/votesCheck out the voting record of individual members of Congress and discover what they're really up to, not what they'd like you to think they are doing. This is one of my favorite resources on the web for busting the chops of the Congress. Discover how much they suck for yourself: votesmart.org/Want to know what the president proposes to do with your money? Learn about it here: www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budgetThe following is heavy reading, but I heartily recommend that you check it out anyway. Forget what the news outlets are trying to sell to you, and see it for yourself: www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionGPO.action?collectionCode=BUDGET
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Post by randy on May 10, 2013 10:03:02 GMT -6
To quote Obama recently he said that he was no longer the strapping Muslem socialist he used to be. So if we are to take him at his word at some point in his life he considered himself to be a Muslim. Perhaps he had a religious conversion
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2013 10:16:46 GMT -6
Well so much for your corner Bewildered LOL. We can ask Auntie to move this to another thread Randy that remark was supposed to be facetious. About Obama: It is one thing..to not like someone or to be disappointed by their politics but..we need to be careful not to spread rumor that is taken out of context. Does it say anywhere..what a president's faith must be? Although in this case: There is solid evidence that he has participated in the Christian faith since the early 1990s. According to Barack Obama's interviews and writings, he is a Christian and chose that religion himself; he was not "born into" any specific religion. He has said his mother was spiritual but not religious. His father left before he was old enough to practice religion, but, although his father was raised a Muslim, he was non-religious by that time. His stepfather was from Indonesia, but has been described as very moderate in his views. When the president lived in Indonesia, he first attended a Catholic private school, and later a public school where Muslims, Christians, and Hindus (as well as some American children) also attended. The president has stated his step-father did not ask him to participate in any religion. When the president moved back to Hawaii to complete middle school and high school, he lived with his maternal grandparents, who were moderate Christians. But President Obama got more interested in religion when he moved to Chicago and fell in love with Michelle Robinson (later his wife). He wanted to have a religion in which to raise his children, and decided upon Christianity. It should also be noted that numerous internet myths say he was sworn in as president by using the (Qur'an) Koran. This is false, and video of the ceremony exists, showing he used a Bible. I enclose a link to the fact-checking site snopes.com which thoroughly examined some of the most common myths about the president's religion.
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Post by bewildered on May 10, 2013 12:31:15 GMT -6
No worries, jo. Anyone is welcome to comment on topics I post in this thread, as long as the discussion remains on those topics. If it's relevant, go for it. If anyone tries to "hijack" it, I'll send a PM to you mods. As far as Barack Obama is concerned, I don't care for him; but then I don't care for any president we've had (all the way back to the first one), so my scrutiny and criticism is applied equally. I simply ignore the make-believe - sorry, but he's a natural-born American citizen and yes, he's also a professing Christian - and focus on what he says in public and his actions in office instead. There are plenty of reasons not to like him, and those reasons are "hiding" in plain sight. Folks will soon discover (if they haven't already) that I loathe political parties and I don't play partisan games. I don't buy the whole left-wing and right-wing ideological dog and pony show, either. Characterizing myself as a "left-winger" was just a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2013 13:14:40 GMT -6
We have that in common, I haven't cared for any of the presidents with the exception of Kennedy and that wasn't his politics..it was his strength and his charisma...nor do I favor Obama but I get really tired of Obama bashing..it solves nada.
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Post by bewildered on May 10, 2013 19:53:39 GMT -6
We have that in common, I haven't cared for any of the presidents with the exception of Kennedy and that wasn't his politics..it was his strength and his charisma...nor do I favor Obama but I get really tired of Obama bashing..it solves nada. Agreed. We should hold people accountable for their actions, but by the same token, criticism needs to serve a constructive purpose. If you want to achieve a meaningful result, there needs to be a point to it all. Kennedy was a great orator. He made perhaps the finest speeches of anyone who occupied the Oval Office, but words only go so far. My viewpoint is rather difficult to communicate, because I think the problem in America is more systematic (thus the "nature of the beast" phrase I use often) than due to the plots or machinations of "bad people." He was a human being like we all are, so raking him - or Obama or even Bush, for that matter - over the coals is counterproductive. If I were a public figure I could be roasted mercilessly, and with merit, I might add. As a mom, I'm sure you're aware that there's plenty of blame to go around. It's not just Barack Obama, but it's also the Congress...an American media that is essentially controlled by three corporations...a global scene that is horrifically complex...and to a certain degree, people like you and me. The goal of becoming informed is not to hone your human barbeque skills and learn how to gripe with the best of them, but rather to discover ways that we might put a stop to the insanity that runs rampant in our world. That might sound like a bit too much to some people, but change begins with you, and happens when we all work together. It is in this framework than my criticism of America should be understood. Before we can change, we need to recognize our shortcomings. In order to see those shortcomings, we need to be brutally honest with ourselves. Regardless of how rich or powerful the elite seem to be, remember that their power is derived from the ones they wish to control. We give them that power: the "right" to rule is derived from the governed.
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Post by bewildered on May 10, 2013 20:40:39 GMT -6
Every once in a while, I receive a boost of hope. I'm typically an outspoken opponent of business and the wealthy, but then a news story like this one comes along to upset my apple cart. Believe me when I say that I don't fail to recognize cases where wealthy people make a difference...it underscores the notion that we really should avoid assuming "anti" stances on principle alone. It's one thing to oppose a certain action, but quite another to paint with a broad brush. Technology Industry Lobbying Group Loses SupportersBy SOMINI SENGUPTA Elon Musk, a founder of the electric carmaker Tesla and one of the technology industry’s most outspoken exponents of clean energy, has stepped down from a prominent Silicon Valley advocacy group that is pushing for changes to the nation’s immigration laws and that has sponsored advertisements that promote a contentious oil pipeline. The advocacy group, Fwd.us, is spearheaded by Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and counts many tech industry executives among its supporters. To drum up political support for overhauling immigration law, the group has bankrolled ads for lawmakers who support the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a lightning-rod issue for environmentalists. A spokeswoman for Mr. Musk’s second company, SpaceX, a rocket manufacturer, confirmed that he was no longer involved with Fwd.us, but declined to elaborate. The news was first reported Friday evening by Reuters. The Reuters report said that David Sacks, chief executive of Yammer, a social networking company, had also withdrawn support. Neither his office nor Fwd.us returned calls seeking comment. Fwd.us has been criticized by some environmental groups, though its backers have defended its “innovative tactics” as part of a broader strategy to rewrite immigration law. Fwd.us said it spent in “the seven figures” for three television spots that support senators who play a prominent role in the progress of the immigration bill. One advertisement supports a plan for border enforcement by Marco Rubio, a Republican. Another supports Lindsey Graham, a Republican who like Mr. Rubio is part of the Gang of Eight that drafted the immigration bill. A third television ad is for Mark Begich, a Democrat from Alaska, where conservative voters are critical of legislation that offers relief to those who immigrate illegally to this country. The advertisements prompted strong reaction from a coalition of liberal organizations that includes the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and MoveOn.org. They announced earlier this week that they would suspend buying advertisements on Facebook, which they acknowledged would have little economic impact on the company. Fwd.us includes people like John Doerr, a venture capitalist who invests in clean technology firms, and Reid Hoffman, an entrepreneur who founded the electronic payment company PayPal with Mr. Musk and Mr. Sacks. The group has declined to say who gave how much money to the cause, except to list major donors. By Friday afternoon, neither Mr. Musk nor Mr. Sacks were on the roster of contributors. View this article in its original format here: www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/technology/teslas-elon-musk-leaves-zuckerbergs-fwdus.html?_r=0
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Post by bewildered on May 11, 2013 19:05:16 GMT -6
Here's a little public service announcement from our masters, The Powers That Be. Keep shopping...it's your patriotic duty!
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Post by bewildered on May 11, 2013 19:09:14 GMT -6
Some of us in dissident-land feel very strongly about "truth in advertising." We think the American flag should properly reflect real American values and not the slick patriotic marketing of the past 60 years or so. If you're gonna be a patriot, you ought to salute the real deal.
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Post by bewildered on May 11, 2013 19:30:23 GMT -6
To quote Obama recently he said that he was no longer the strapping Muslem socialist he used to be. So if we are to take him at his word at some point in his life he considered himself to be a Muslim. Perhaps he had a religious conversion I was going to ignore this and let it pass on by, but then I realized that this hyperbole of yours, Randy, creates an excellent educational opportunity. People should start getting into a little exercise called "fact-checking." It's addictive, enlightening, and the perfect cure for "I'll believe anything-itis." Not sure what "hyperbole" means? Read the definition here: dictionary.reference.com/browse/hyperboleI'm the last one to defend a corporate sell-out like Obama, but the facts are the facts, and the truth is the truth. If you're going to sling mud in my little corner, make sure you have something more than Tea Party-isms, Fox News talking points, or mouth-breathing misinformational emails to back you up. From the website FactCheck.org: Q: Did Obama write that he would "stand with the Muslims" and that he nurses a "pervasive sense of grievance and animosity" toward whites? A: No. A widely circulated e-mail fabricates some quotes from Obama’s books and twists others. FULL QUESTION Can you guys provide some context to this e-mail. Not sure if you have already but thought I would pass it along. Thanks. Misleading Obama E-mail: "In His Own Words" The last quote tells all we need to know! Be sure and read that one! This guy wants to be our President and control our government. Pay close attention to the last comment!! Below are a few lines from Obama’s books " his words: From Dreams of My Father: "I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites." ⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full text ⬏ FULL ANSWERAnyone looking for Barack Obama’s real sentiments about whites, blacks and Muslims won’t find them in this scurrilous collection of falsified, doctored and context-free "quotations." The e-mail claims to feature words taken from Obama’s books, "The Audacity of Hope" (2006) and "Dreams from My Father" (1995, republished in 2004). But we found that two of the quotes are false, and others have been manipulated or taken out of context. We have received many inquiries about this from readers whose suspicions were aroused, with good reason. Aside from the fact that the e-mail incorrectly cites the title of Obama’s book as "Dreams of My Father," rather than "Dreams from My Father," you may have noticed that none of the quotes in this e-mail contain page references. This should be a sign to any reader that the author is trying to pull a fast one, betting that you won’t take the time to read through all 806 pages of Obama’s books to get to the facts.I added bold face to the most important part of this entry. View all of this content in its original form here: www.factcheck.org/2008/06/obamas-dreams-of-my-father/
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2013 20:59:37 GMT -6
Here's a little public service announcement from our masters, The Powers That Be. Keep shopping...it's your patriotic duty! Nice, Bewildered! I wonder if any of the passerby's were bothered by seeing that sign. I know that I would.
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2013 21:09:49 GMT -6
I'm certainly not computer savvy, so thanks for the links Bewildered. I'd rather have the facts any day than all the other nonsense.
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Post by bewildered on May 12, 2013 1:28:00 GMT -6
I suspect that's nothing more than a bit of photoshop, wishmythos. You can catch the equivalent every day on the "news" (you know how it goes: "consumer confidence is soaring after so-and-so posted record profits despite austerity measures and reducing its workforce by 18%." The part you never hear: "despite being one of the reasons behind the recent economic meltdown, TooBigToFail, Inc. pays no taxes to the government and in fact received $9 billion in bailout money last year alone, enabling their latest CEO to score a $2.4 million compensation bonus while the company relocates their manufacturing division to Bangladesh, where they will continue to pay no taxes and only have to pay their average worker the equivalent of $0.20 an hour in a run-down factory with no safety program. Meanwhile the price of food just went up, because gosh and golly gee, it's hard having to pay no taxes and receive handouts from the government while managing to post record profits!).
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Post by bewildered on May 12, 2013 1:52:18 GMT -6
I typically avoid the mainstream media like the bubonic plague, but every now and then even they stick to reporting just the facts! Yes, yes, I know - that style of journalism died an ignoble death during the Kennedy administration many moons ago - but every now and then, good old-fashioned reporting calls to us from beyond the grave in a wave of nostalgia. This little bit from ABC News tells it like it is: 47% of Congress [sic] Members Millionaires — a Status Shared by Only 1% of AmericansBy Tom Shine Nov 16, 2011 8:45am "It’s no secret that many members of the U.S. House and Senate are millionaires — 47 percent of them — their salaries paid in part by the American taxpayers. The Center for Responsive Politics has crunched the numbers and released the results on its Open Secrets blog: “About 47 percent of Congress, or 249 current members are millionaires. … In 2010, the estimated median net worth of a current U.S. senator stood at an average of $2.56 million,” according to the Center’s research. “Despite the global economic meltdown in 2008 and the sluggish recovery that followed, that’s up about 7.6 percent from an estimated median net worth of $2.38 million in 2009 … and up 13 percent from a median net worth of $2.27 million in 2008. … Fully 36 Senate Democrats, and 30 Senate Republicans reported an average net worth in excess of $1 million in 2010. The same was true for 110 House Republicans and 73 House Democrats.” “The vast majority of members of Congress are quite comfortable, financially, while many of their own constituents suffer from economic hardships,” said Sheila Krumholz at the Center For Responsive Politics. “Few Americans enjoy the same financial cushions maintained by most members of Congress — or the same access to market-altering information that could yield personal, financial gains.”" P.S. - Dear ABC News: that's "Congressional Members," not "Congress Members." Bah...kids these days. P.P.S. - Oops! I forgot to include the link to this ABC article. Ah well...if you search google by typing "ABC" and then title of the article, you should be taken directly to it. Oh...don't put the "[sic]" that I added into the search field. "Sic" is what the grammarian uses to politely point out the butchering of language in print. You *never* correct a mistake they made, but you can place "[sic]" next to their error just for giggles. ;D
Wait...there's more! The rich are actually getting richer, but at the expense of everyone else. This is a rather robust report from Pew Research, but the first page alone tells you quite a bit of information. 7% of households in America hold 63% of the nation's aggregate wealth. I guess they just "worked hard" while everyone else was just too lazy, eh? If you believe that, I have a Lunar Condo timeshare with YOUR name on it. A Rise in Wealth for the Wealthy; Declines for the Lower 93% An Uneven Recovery, 2009-2011 by Richard Fry and Paul Taylor "During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released Census Bureau data. From 2009 to 2011, the mean wealth of the 8 million households in the more affluent group rose to an estimated $3,173,895 from an estimated $2,476,244, while the mean wealth of the 111 million households in the less affluent group fell to an estimated $133,817 from an estimated $139,896..." Read the entire report here: www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/04/23/a-rise-in-wealth-for-the-wealthydeclines-for-the-lower-93/
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Post by bewildered on May 13, 2013 9:56:55 GMT -6
A word about racism and free speech. While the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to freely associate with others of like mind and motivation (this is part of the legal justification behind political parties), the Supreme Court recognizes that certain limitations on the speech of individuals must be observed by law in the interests of the public good.
While there is no legal precedent that makes racist speech illegal or unconstitutional, enough precedent exists that protects citizens of minority (and even majority) groups from speech and other related political and non-political activities that might either incite, plan, or organize the commission of crimes or misdemeanors against them due to their inclusion in any group on the basis of age, skin color, religious affiliation, political identification, gender, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status. This precedent has been upheld by the Justices consistently in the 20th century, and is one of those issues where both liberal and conservative justices seem to unanimously agree: the 14th Amendment is the guarantor that the law shall protect all citizens equally.
With this in mind, then, another word about groups of people who freely associate with one another. Within specific guidelines, a group or an association that freely associates with one another may elect to restrict certain modes or kinds of speech in their midst. Public institutions, being associations of governance and funded by the taxpayers, are not permitted to restrict speech in such an arbitrary manner. The only exception to this rule might be found in law enforcement agencies and the armed forces. Both are legally empowered to limit the First Amendment rights of their constituent members.
The free association principle applies to something like an internet forum, even though the digital medium is still largely foreign territory in American law. The speech of any forum participant may be limited by whomever administers a website in the private domain within certain guidelines. In other words, the administrator can determine what kinds of speech are allowed in the forum that they administrate.
Everyone has their own opinions - that's just a fact of life. By the same token, people are also entitled to dislike the opinions of others, especially when they find such opinions to be grievously repugnant and injurious to an entire ethnic group of human beings. If the free association of this forum finds racism and slander acceptable, then that's your right to do so. It's my right to not stand for it, not for a New York minute. I have no hugs or smiles for people who spew vile hatred like randy, and I have difficulties maintaining any measure of respect for people who either coddle or permit such garbage in their midst.
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Post by bewildered on May 18, 2013 22:24:51 GMT -6
I'm a huge fan of antique automata and furiously old analogue computers. The venerable abacus of the Far East is an example of an ancient analogue computer; it's powered by the human body. Here's a pretty cool Java applet that allows you to fiddle around with an abacus: (You'll need Java installed on your computer in order to use this virtual abacus. If you don't have it and want it, get it at www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html) Groovy abacus applet: www.tux.org/~bagleyd/java/AbacusAppJS.htmlThe Greeks loved to build automata. The Antikythera mechanism, recovered from the Greek Mediterranean coast in 1900, is a mystifying example of ancient world high technology. Was it a navigational computer? Yes, experts believe it was. Could it perform other calculations? The evidence seems to indicate that it indeed could. More about the Antikythera mechanism in this decent Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
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Post by bewildered on May 18, 2013 22:54:59 GMT -6
More from those pesky scientists who have the audacity to assert that global warming trends are fueled by human activity. The nerve! The idea that human activities have consequences is just...well, it's un-American! ;D Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey findsOf more than 4,000 academic papers published over 20 years, 97.1% agreed that climate change is anthropogenicA survey of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals has found 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity. Authors of the survey, published on Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, said the finding of near unanimity provided a powerful rebuttal to climate contrarians who insist the science of climate change remains unsettled. The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers. Of the 4,000-plus papers that took a position on the causes of climate change only 0.7% or 83 of those thousands of academic articles, disputed the scientific consensus that climate change is the result of human activity, with the view of the remaining 2.2% unclear. The study described the dissent as a "vanishingly small proportion" of published research. "Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary," said John Cook of the University of Queensland, who led the survey. Public opinion continues to lag behind the science. Though a majority of Americans accept the climate is changing, just 42% believed human activity was the main driver, in a poll conducted by the Pew Research Centre last October. "There is a gaping chasm between the actual consensus and the public perception," Cook said in a statement. The study blamed strenuous lobbying efforts by industry to undermine the science behind climate change for the gap in perception. The resulting confusion has blocked efforts to act on climate change. The survey was the most ambitious effort to date to demonstrate the broad agreement on the causes of climate change, covering 20 years of academic publications from 1991-2011. In 2004, Naomi Oreskes, an historian at the University of California, San Diego,surveyed published literature, releasing her results in the journal Science. She too came up with a similar finding that 97% of climate scientists agreed on the causes of climate change. She wrote of the new survey in an email: "It is a nice, independent confirmation, using a somewhat different methodology than I used, that comes to the same result. It also refutes the claim, sometimes made by contrarians, that the consensus has broken down, much less 'shattered'." The Cook survey was broader in its scope, deploying volunteers from the SkepticalScience.com website to review scientific abstracts. The volunteers also asked authors to rate their own views on the causes of climate change, in another departure from Oreskes's methods. The authors said the findings could help close the gap between scientific opinion and the public on the causes of climate change, or anthropogenic global warming, and so create favourable conditions for political action on climate. "The public perception of a scientific consensus on AGW [anthropogenic, ie man-made, global warming] is a necessary element in public support for climate policy," the study said. However, Prof Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Drexel University who studies the forces underlying attitudes towards climate change, disputed the idea that educating the public about the broad scientific agreement on the causes of climate change would have an effect on public opinion - or on the political conditions for climate action. He said he was doubtful that convincing the public of a scientific consensus on climate change would help advance the prospects for political action. Having elite leaders call for climate action would be far more powerful, he said. "I don't think people really want to come around to grips with the fact that climate change is a highly ideological issue and it is not amenable to the information deficit model," he said. "The information deficit model, this idea that if you just pile on more information people will get convinced, is just completely inadequate, he said. "It strengthens the people who actually read and pay attention but it is certainly not going to change or shift the opinions of others." Jon Krosnick, professor in humanities and social sciences at Stanford university and an expert on public opinion on climate change, said: "I assume that sceptics would say that there is bias in the editorial process so that the papers ultimately published are not an accurate reflection of the opinions of scientists."
Read the original article here: www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/16/climate-research-nearly-unanimous-humans-causes
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Post by bewildered on May 19, 2013 4:21:53 GMT -6
Automata are a subject of study in theoretical computer science, but we've been building them for an awfully long time. Modern robotics is an offshoot of this rather old endeavor. Here are a few videos on the subject you all might enjoy watching.
First up, a brief video on various automata:
A rather entertaining series of videos regarding automata in history:
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