Perhaps people can suggest new polls, that would create some interest. Not sure if that helps with the site, but maybe.

I have predicted (not here) that England would not concede a single goal in Euro2008. And I was correct.

Will China put a person on the moon before 2020? Can the US do it again?

Will earthling's ex-fiancee be happy with her husband, when they sleep in separate rooms?

What is the extra dimension, is it spatial, temporal, causal or judgemental?

Or a poll about having more polls ?

I have a book, ok more than one, that is falling apart.

It is not a high quality production. but it is a really good book.

So I want to do 2 things:

- preserve it for humanity, and

- i want to read it gain, keeping the pages in order.

Also, without violating copyrights, I want to keep this available
for the rest of humanity, perhaps in digital form. The book is out of print as far as I know, but not out of copyright.

What is a good course of action? Does anyone know?

I know the original author, the publisher of the translation. I don't know if they are still in business. The Copyright of my edition is from a state that is dead (the DDR), and so is the author, God rest his soul.

I just want to read the book again, and I want this preserved. The content and my book.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

I was reminded, in another line of discussion, about a dog I used to know.

This particular dog had 3 legs when I first saw him, and also when I last saw him. Saw that dog many times.

He used to rest and sleep in the middle of a small street, approximately at 38°58'13.63"N and 76°29'17.25"W . It was his street, he owned it like dogs do.

I wonder why the dog had just 3 legs.

[aside:
Does anyone know how to do links to Google Earth, or other services like that?

The placemark is biased to be in a house, but the dog was in the center of the street every time I drove up there.
]

This is about what anthonynorth calls P-ology, and what I am looking for as inter-disciplinary patterns.

Many people are searching for this, we are not the only 2. It is a worthwhile, and probably a necessary goal.

Suppose we find a solution to this, or maybe a few solutions. Then we have a new language that describes, somewhat precisely, common problems in vastly different fields. And common solutions.

We could then easily understand problems in, say, biology, and relate them to say, problems in computer science. Or astrophysics, and use those patterns to stem the spread of malaria.

I am being serious, that is the goal, is it not? To use what we know in one field more effectively in other fields, that seem not to be related. But the patterns, and the solutions are similar.

So far this sounds good, and I think it is.

There is one problem though - we have to make up a new language to describe all this, and this language will have to express highly abstract concepts.

So the people who understand this language are highly specialized. Another layer of reductionists, the few who understand things in a holist way?

Here is a nice explanation of the Gulf Stream. From a site showing that business pays people to do crazy things, just because those people like risking their lives.

I wish they would let me have one of those boats :)

To all the orthodox faithful, I wish you a happy Easter this weekend.

Occasionally, people update their original blog posts. This is very nice they correct small mistakes, update links, and otherwise imprive the information they give.

I think it would be nice if they also told us what they updated, just as a courtesy, especially on really long blog items.

I was just wondering, is there a correlation between where those who write things on TDG, and those who only read?

The regular posters seem to be from the western world, with maybe one western expatriate in Japan. Not much outside the historic expanse of the old British Empire. But even assuming that, nobody from Africa, India, West Indies.

Does anyone know?

Just an idle thought.

Some news outlets say that there is stuff happening in Tibet, demonstrations and bloody stuff. But mostly it is quit, especially on the net.

Given that this area is far away, and perhaps overly romanticised, does anyone know what is going on there ?

There was an interesting constitutional judgement in Germany. Sorry, all the links go to stuff in German. I try to summarize, but of course people should check themselves.

This is about the government being allowed to observe the movements and activities of everyone. Suspect or no suspect, just routine observation. The German Verfassungsgericht, or federal constitutional court, has said that No, the government cannot do that. No Orwellian observation, or so the court says.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a respected German newspaper from Munich, reports about a case where local or state police register the license plate numbers of everyone who travels on some roads. And they keep records of that. So if you were on some some particular road, at some particular time, they have a record of that. This was challenged in the constitutional court, and the judges said no the police can't do that. Not without probable cause.

The justification for this is, of course, that they are only looking for criminals and especially for terrorists. Innocent people have nothing to hide, right?

But I submit, respectfully, that this argument that innocent people have nothing to fear from the state assumes one critical factor. It assumes that the state is innocent.

There is a story in the Bible, about God looking for just a few innocent people in Sodom and Gomorrah. Didn't find any.

Let's turn this aroung - how my just a few innocent states, that have never acted unjustly against innocent citizens.

Go ahead, tell me about two innocent governments. Or one.

If you are in the right place, you can not see the moon today.

Suppose for a minute that the world, and individual people, had no significant problems. No famine, no recessions, no armed conflicts, no racism, no drunk driving.

Who would be out of business if these big problems were solved?

The world economy would collapse.

Well, actually 57 days and change, by boat. By sailboat that is. One guy, all by his lonesome. As you can see if you read the article, the previous record was held by a smallish woman.

Not too long ago, there were 2 guys from Greenpeace boarding a Japanese whaling vessel. If I'm not mistaken (correct me if I'm wrong) it was the critical whale-processing craft. Without that functionality, it is pointless to get whales to process. Ok that makes sense.

What bothers me about this, at least a little, is that a private organization can just go and board ships. Without permission. The normal process is to ask if you can come aboard.

Unless you are some sort of authority, like customs, immigration, some navy. Then you announce that you will board the ship, and then you do it.

Of course these guys did this without weapons, so it is not really piracy. But it does seem like they are assuming authority, where they have none.

What is next? PETA breaks down my door because I have a hat with rabbit fur?
I need that hat because it gets really cold here some days.

I heard, not from a reliable source, that 70% of the people in the city of Toronto have never been outside that city.

Now I don't know if that number is even close to the real percentage. It seems sort of reasonable, but I don't have any real information on this.

So I have questions, perhaps someone knows more:

- is that sort of precentage realistic for Toronto, and (more importantly) for most big cities?

- is that sort of percentage realistic for most communities? I suspect it is, but again I don't know.

- does this explain a lot of the provincialism we see in world politics? Ok, don't have to answer that one, it's a "leading question".