(via Madconomist)
Their goal was an honor code that discouraged cheating and plagiarizing. However, the wording in a draft by students at the University of Texas at San Antonio appears to match another school’s code - without proper attribution. The student currently in charge of the honor code project said it was an oversight, but cheating experts say it illustrates a sloppiness among Internet-era students who don’t know how to cite sources properly and think of their computers as cut-and-paste machines. "That’s the consequence of the Internet and the availability of things," said Daniel Wueste, director of the Rutland Institute for Ethics at Clemson University. "It doesn’t feel like what would be in a book. You Google it and here it comes."
Yes by all means, hide away the information before those proles get a hold of it and wipe their ass with the Library of Alexandria.
(via Metafilter)
"The VULTURE Air Vehicle Program is an exploratory development program with the overall goal to develop and demonstrate the ability to deliver and maintain an airborne payload on station for an uninterrupted period exceeding 5 years using a heavier-than-air platform system … The government is not interested in approaches that use either radioactive energy sources or employs any form of buoyant flight for this application."
I wonder if Billy Dee Williams will be the mayor?
£50 billion later:
Requests under the Freedom of Information Act are to be denied. Details will be kept secret even after 30 years - the period after which all but the most sensitive state documents are released.
Any Bank of England employee leaking the names of institutions involved will face court action for breach of contract. Even a figure for the overall amount advanced will not be published until October. Meanwhile the Bank is expected to issue at least £50bn of Treasury bills to banks in exchange for their mortgages - entirely in secret. This hypersensitive official stance is thought to be a response to the events of last year when a huge stigma was attached to any lender suspected of going to the Bank for cash help.
I’ve been listening to the Madonna/Justin Timberlake single. The beat is great but the lyrics are absolutely stupid.
It is Sunday. Ron is snoring to my right. Astro is wandering around chasing imaginary mosters. Downy is probably sleeping on top of the backpack I take to the gym. He fits perfectly on it and we think maybe he misses me during the day so he sleeps on top of it until I’m home. Astro has also napped with paws in one of my shoes during the day as well.
We got up early yesterday and went to Costco where we bought mega-meat. 2 massive steaks, about 10 chicken breasts, 2 huge salmon filets as well as mangoes, Lubriderm lotion and other niceties. We took a Zipcar which I am convinced more and more is an idea whose time has come. There’s several Zipcars in the lot near the gym on Spear and Folsom.
Then we took a nap or rather I laid down. I still am getting used to this memoryfoam bed. It isn’t for sitting on or relaxing on. You have to sleep on it.
After that, we went to Fisherman’s Wharf which I hadn’t been to until 10 years ago when I came here with Karen and her family. Saw the sea lions, Alcatraz from afar and tons and tons of tourists. Ate fish and chips at a restaurant and continued walking around. Ron purchased some knockoff sunglasses or I guess not really knockoff since it said ‘(small text) compare our design to (huge text) GUCCI’ The woman he bought them from was Filipina so I think he felt he was getting a good deal (I later asked him, ‘Was the ethnic discount to your liking today?’ a spin on a quote from the movie Bring It On: ‘Were the ethnic festivities to your liking today?’) I did pick out the woman saying ‘guapo’ while talking to Ron and she was glancing at me and Ron later confirmed that she said ‘Your boyfriend is so handsome!’ to which Ron replied ‘Well of course, do you think I’d be with an ugly person?’ Luckily my co-worker Joanna has sworn to take Ron out to the Filipino restaurants and groceries so they can have all the wonderful and gross foods of their native cuisine like whatever that godawful Oh-hey-let’s-all-drink-a-pig’s-blood-reduction extravaganza.
Work has been busy. The developers released the BlogIt Facebook app. It is a pretty amazing piece of code. Lots of people loved it, and some did the usual ‘it isn’t exactly what I want from the first version so it sucks.’ Some other big stuff coming out this week - I’m going in tonight (Sunday) for some final prep with the team.
Friday we celebrated the end of Q1 with the team. We went a new bar that opened just 2 doors down called Orson. During the day it is a cake shop called Citizen Cake. Very cool industrial design, exposed girders and lots of steel, glass and concrete. We hung out for about four hours. Ron was able to make it and he was able to regale everybody with his tales from United flight 1427. It is always fun to see how transfixed people are hearing about the life of a flight attendant. I think there’s a certain throw-back glamour associated with the profession - though people don’t see the 8 hours waiting on standby at the airport or dragging luggage through a downpour wearing a business suit or wanting to throttle some suburbanite moppet with your bare hands.
We were going to go out last night but when the time came we sat on our laptops after getting the wireless router working with the cable high-speed. We listened to most of Ray of Light, Erotica and then a stretch of a Margaret Cho comedy routine before going to bed. I’m always surprised how much some people hate Margaret Cho. I’ve seen lists putting her in the same league as Dane Cook (completely non-threatening) or Carlos Mencia (race baiting faux-Mexican). I’ve thought her standup movies have slid a little bit but ‘I’m the One That I Want’ remains a breakout hit for it’s honesty and vicious sensisbility. It is strange. Even when she’s weak she is nowhere near as awful as some of the other dreck that makes it on TV. I do think the raunch and politics has gone as far as it can go.
Astro in my lap now. Downy is now installed on top of the backpack. Ron is sleeping.
We’ll go to the gym in an hour or so. I’m trying to stay on ‘wake up at 5am’ schedule so I can get to the gym consistently.
There’s a lot of buzz about us on TechCrunch right now. I think I know why but I’m not totally sure.
From Crooks and Liars:
The first hour of last night’s debate was a 60 minute master class in questions that elevate out-of-context remarks and trivial, insipid miscues into subjects of natural discourse…which is my job! Stop doing my job! That’s what I’m here for! I’m the silly man!
Update: Yup - as expected - this is a hoax.
But she says she’s not doing it for shock value:
…
The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.
She wants to have it both ways:
But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.”
…
[S]he said she believes it is the nature of her piece to “provoke inquiry.”
Inquiry into what exactly? (Usual answer: ‘I don’t comment on my work - it stands on its own.’ = I like to be general dickwad to my audience.) That she’s parading her gross-out bloodfeast as some sort of academic project? Can artists just admit they like to push buttons? That is one of the best parts about being an artist. Not because you want your art to change the world - but because you want to provoke a reaction - and that usually includes shock value. SAME THING. At the same time, don’t pretend that your shocking art is some sort of service. There’s enough shocking bullshit happening around us every day without you framing the destruction of your reproductive system as some sort of public service.
Best comment from Gawker:
Now there is a suitemate from hell. I can just see the passive aggressive notes. SOMEONE needs to start CLEANING up after their MISCARRIAGES in the bathtub because OTHER PEOPLE USE THE BATHTUB AND DO NOT WANT TO RINSE VISCERA OFF OF THEIR FEET ALL THE TIME. Thank you!!!
Ron is home and on occupational leave (I told him that sitting home and getting paid for it is the equivalent of the American Dream). He’ll have to be certified by a doctor to be put back into service. A slight limp and I’m yelling at him every time he walks or gets up.
The woman that cracked her head open was a passenger, not an attendant. Ron said there was blood everywhere mixed with the spilled coffee and he could see her skull. She was rushed into emergency surgery after going into shock in the ambulance. Ron is compulsively cleaning to keep from hearing her screams. Hopefully the new vacuum that arrived yesterday can help mask that nightmare.
So wait a minute. Estimates are showing that by the time no-bid contracts have bled the Treasury dry and we’ve given the worst possible care to returning veterans that the Iraq occupation will cost $3 trillion (and let in a few hundred of the millions of displaced Iraqis into the country). But it turns out that is just missing change according to the Pentagon. Gems:
According to federal regulators and current and former Pentagon officials, the accounting process is so obsolete and error prone that it’s virtually impossible to tell where much of this money ends up.
…
18 years after Congress required major federal agencies to be audited, the Pentagon still can’t be.
…
For the first three quarters of 2007, $1.1 trillion in Army accounting entries hadn’t been properly reviewed and substantiated, according to the Department of Defense’s inspector general.
…
They run on old-style I.B.M. mainframes and rely on Cobol, the ancient Sumerian of computer languages.
…
[C]lerks sit in long rows of identical cubicles and enter endless sequences of numbers and letters by hand… the moment they authorize payment, triggering the transfer of money, any ability to reliably trace it disappears.
The flight Ron was on encountered sudden turbulence and the plane flipped 90 degrees three times. He injured his knee and was taken to the hospital and another flight attend had her head cut open. They dropped so fast the beverage cart hit the ceiling. He’s on crutches now and is coming back from Denver today. Probably going to pick him up. He said people on the flight thought they were going to die and there was coffee everywhere.
Doctors said just severe bruising and maybe a strained ligament. I’m going to attempt to guilt him into keeping his cast on as long as recommended and using the crutches for sympathy flirts in Castro.
I think he’ll be fine. He’s grounded for a while though.
via Krugman in the New York Times:
The Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan has been tracking American economic perceptions since the 1950s. On Friday the center released its latest estimate of the consumer sentiment index — and it was a stunner. Americans are more pessimistic about their situation than they have been for more than a quarter century. Meanwhile, a recent Pew report found that the percentage of Americans saying that they’re better off than they were five years ago is at its lowest level in 44 years of polling.
Dear parents, you obviously are too goddamn stupid to have a reproductive system. Please hand your penis and vagina to your proctor on the way out.
Nope, it isn’t an Onion headline:
His girlfriend told police that they had been arguing about the upbringing of their son and which gang he should belong to. The teen mother, who is black, is a member of the Crips. Manzanares is Hispanic and belongs to the Westside Ballers gang, the woman said. "They have different ideas on how the baby should be raised. Basically, she said they cannot agree on which gang the baby would ‘claim,’" Sandoval said.
I know that URIs are not the same as URLs but they are pretty much the same for when you are talking to most people…
Just found this gem from the W3 consortium:
What makes a cool URI?
A cool URI is one which does not change.
What sorts of URI change?
URIs don’t change: people change them.
From Reddit:
In the past couple of years, the following countries have stopped using the dollar as their reserve currency or have dropped their currency’s peg against the dollar: China, Japan, Kuwait, Syria, Iran, Libya, Russia, Malaysia, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Switzerland, Norway and some other Scandinavian countries, Some Balkan countries, Many East European currencies.
Thomas Beatie is was born a woman, but is now legally a married man. But his wife was not able to conceive so he discontinued his hormone treatments in order for them to have a child:
Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire. Doctors have discriminated against us, turning us away due to their religious beliefs. Health care professionals have refused to call me by a male pronoun or recognize Nancy as my wife. Receptionists have laughed at us. Friends and family have been unsupportive; most of Nancy’s family doesn’t even know I’m transgender.
…
The first doctor we approached was a reproductive endocrinologist. A few months and a couple thousand dollars later, he told us that he would no longer treat us, saying he and his staff felt uncomfortable working with “someone like me.”
…
When I finally got pregnant for the first time, I ended up having an ectopic pregnancy with triplets. It was a life-threatening event that required surgical intervention, resulting in the loss of all embryos and my right fallopian tube. When my brother found out about my loss, he said, “It’s a good thing that happened. Who knows what kind of monster it would have been.”
…
How does it feel to be a pregnant man? Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child—I am so lucky to have such a loving, supportive wife. I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.
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