Whatever you think of Oracle the company or Oracle the product, you have to admire what Larry has accomplished. Especially considering his humble origins, if Wikipedia is to be believed.
The Internet is becoming the Police State's favorite bogeyman. The unprecedented volume of information freely available to all quickly turns into a vast number of potential crimes from which the Police State must protect the peeple.
It's no longer the camel's nose under the tent. It's the camels eyes, ears and tape recorder as well. Soon your webcam will be sending its pictures to various police agencies. Were he still alive and not in the throes of a nervous breakdown, Orwell would be proud.
Are these numbers based on page fetches or unique visitors? It's obviously easier to count page fetches but the article implies it's broken down by visitor, without being explicit about it.
Well, there was that SNL skit about the Sodom city council plotting how to compete with the more successful Gomorrah. Sorry, can't find it on YouTube but here's a .RAM file:
as long as there is enough energy left to start the printing presses
Intuitively this makes sense but in reality it is not practical. As soon as investors hear the presses crank up (metaphorically speaking) they can predict what's coming and will dump all their US debt, driving up interest rates and forcing a deep[-er] US recession. Politics will then correct this before the USA becomes Northern Zimbabwe.
I'm not worried about the US becoming Zimbabwe at all (northern or otherwise). But under extreme circumstances, when the alternatives are to default outright or to inflate the debt away, the latter will always be preferrable for a country indebted in its own currency. It's not an option for other countries, so I think it's a useful distinction in spite of the issues you correctly point out.
I have read [no citation available :-( ] the actual crime rate is somewhat correlated with the number of young men -- say, aged 13-30 -- in the population. This would explain an increase in the 1960s followed by a decrease in the 1990s and beyond.
Actually, it's a little bit more complex than that, but you're basically right. Sociologists actually look at the crime rates for men vs women as an indicator of social equality. I believe that the crime rates for women are going up while they're going down for men. So it's difficult to correlate crime with sex.
That said, age does play a significant role in crime rates. Our population is aging, and that's probably the primary cause of the decreasing crime rate.
Possibly but why wasn't there a second spike with the Gen-Y baby-boom (born in the range of 1980-1999), a much larger group than the original Baby-Boomers?
The Gen-Y baby-boom is not a larger group than the original Baby-Boomers. However, there is definitely a noticeable Gen-y bump. I'm guessing that the most common ages for criminals are in the dip of that curve, maybe 20-24, which means the downward trend should soon begin to reverse if this correlation holds true.
edit: just realized that chart is from 2000; you're absolutely right that a second spike is missing.
Two significant changes that reduced the crime rate were the reduction of lead in the environment (lead exposure creates a number of changes in people which increase the odds of criminal behavior) and the widespread availability of abortion (unwanted children are more likely than the general public to become criminals).
The second is discussed in Freakinomics and the first was discussed in a follow-up article by the same authors. I've listed them in the order I did because my memory says that reductions in lead are believed to have had a greater impact on crime rates than increased abortions.
Because they are expending their mischievous energy on reddit and 4chan.
I'm joking, but the point is serious -- if youth are the main demographic to commit crimes, and our youth now spend a lot more time indoors/online... wouldn't it make sense that the internet is actually responsible for keeping hoodlums off the streets?
One of the few movies where I consider the (1997) remake to be superior to the original. With the absolutely creepy scene where a conversation is punctuated by insects getting bug-zapped.
Neither movie contains anything explicit beyond kissing, as I recall. But there's no doubt what's going on.
Books^2: When I buy a paperback novel to read on a plane (or while waiting to get on a plane :-) I often finish it in some distant city and leave it someplace where somebody else can find it. Just too much work to sell for a pittance, and too valuable to simply toss out. So I leave its fate to Fate.
The ending is not to be missed.