NSAPI is required for some of the applications I need to support at work, so in order to make everything work, I installed Firefox 51 and disabled updates. In addition to installing Firefox 51, I made sure I downloaded the complete Firefox 51 installation executable so that I could install it anytime I needed it. Firefox 52 does allow the plugins to work, but you need to do some backend configurations, so I just stop at Firefox 51. This has been a real problem since Google Chrome disabled NSAPI a little while ago and all other major browsers do not support it now. I just say get Firefox 51 and disable all updates.

Textbook publishers seem to have the ability to provide all of their stuff with ADA compliance for the starting cost of only $100 for cheap stuff and hundreds more for high quality stuff. When the Open Educational Resources (OER) stuff starts to eat their profits, they fight back by pushing for laws that hurt small free alternatives. Seems like it should be cheaper and easier to provide ADA compliance.

It seems to me that if more people sued when patents were not implemented, we might have less patents out there making every developers life worse. Patent trolls might think twice before setting up shop.

How can this be considered worth reading if it does not even look at Rand Paul. Clearly this was created by the joint Republican/Democratic party.

After looking at those examples, it seems to me that C programmers can claim something is an "ugly hack" because it was not what they wanted or because someone else's code was messed up. The C code hacks where there because they could not see an elegant solution. Programmers for other languages probably do not even know that the code they are writing is ugly.

There was an idea to do something related not too long ago. Universities and Community Colleges panicked and thought all of their students would leave in the future and move completely online. MOOCs would traditional education.

The reality is that not all people want to learn that way. The Slashdot crowd might be able to be completely successful watching a screen and talking to an in-class "Tech", but most people are not like that. Many people attend community colleges and smaller universities because they can ask questions and get answers in a much smaller and personal setting.

If this idea had true mass potential, it would have happened already and community colleges would already be gone.

I think I see why you're confused. The curse was an effective way to kick off the revolt, yes. Not any way to start an earthquake, though. Reality doesn't work that way.

OK, let's squash some of this nonsense right now.

I never believed the 2010 Haiti Erthquake was caused by a voodoo curse, and I'm astonished that anyone interpreted that post in that way. What I found anthropologically interesting is that something like Robertson's "satanic" invocation seems actually to have taken place. Not actually "satanic", but within Robertson's impoverished terms of reference that's about the only way he could describe an invocation of the loa.

I believe, and have repeatedly said, that the supposed "scientific consensus" on CAGW is not a conspiracy but an error cascade. I think most scientists are honestly trying to do right, but have been overly credulous about data and models that have been (and continue to be) fraudulently manipulated by a tiny minority of them. Those of you who think this makes me some sort of nut are going to have some explaining to do when measured GAT drops out of the bottom of the IPCC's 95% confidence band, which looks set to happen before the end of 2014.

I might reply to some of these other questions at more length, but these two deserved to be dispatched immediately

Yes, Kuhn was full of horse puckey. Not only doesn't his book describe science outside of physics at all well, it doesn't even correctly describe 20th-century physics, its ostensible paradigm (using the word correctly now) case.

Years ago I wrote a more detailed takedown in Brother, can you Paradigm?

The only amplification I'd write today is that the shifts between large theoretical models generally (and contrary to Kuhn's claims) go smoothly in physics because test by correct prediction of experimental results is so difficult to argue with. The soft sciences have more trouble setting up repeatable experiments, so it's easier for people to hold on to broken theoretical models.

If first sale does not apply than Capitol Records must have sold their copyright. If they sold the copyright, then we can ignore this whole battle because they have no right to sue. Now, the owners can distribute the work as copies instead because they are the copyright holder. I like the direction Google is taking this.

So, it appears that Google is claiming that Capital Records either sold a copy of the music or they actually sold their copyright to the music. Is that how I am supposed to read this?

Translation:

Researchers: Your walls are too low.
Japan Atomic Power: Oh, okay, we'll fix the wall.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO): Hmm, whatever.

Then the tsunami came. Japan Atomic Power's wall was good enough. TEPCO's wall still was not good enough.

802.11a will get around the interference from other 802.11b/g devices as well as any microwave ovens that might be there, but the real problem might be all of the water interference in the room. Trade shows are full of people, who are full of water, who block your signal.

Microwaves operate at around 2.45GHz. This causes problems for 802.11b/g which operate at 2.4GHz, but not for 802.11a which operates at 5GHz. I imagine 802.22 will operate at a much lower frequency and will not conflict with microwave ovens.