Here are two articles which contain arguments that I found compelling. The first is about teen sex and the other is about latent racism.

Eszter at CT says that only 9 percent of Internet users answer "Yes" to that question.

I think a person has to be a hard-core blogger to be surprised by that. I think a study of the average person's awareness for how the internet works would be much more interesting than numbers about the latest-and-greatest geek toys. How many people have a genuine working understanding of what, exactly, a "server" is, and how many people know how "IP addresses" work?

Finding out how many people have ever used an RSS feed is like asking how many people have a DVD player. You can gauge the extent to which people are keeping up with new toys, but not a single person has to know what a "Content Scrambling System" is.

And, in general, people don't need to know how CSS works. But as the Internet becomes a bigger and bigger part of people's lives, and as companies and evil-doers become ever more interested in intruding on people's privacy and fair use, it behoves people to acquire a more techinical understanding of their toys.

Some details which are interesting include

Of concern from a privacy/security perspective is that only 29% have a good idea of what “phishing” means, 52% for “Adware”, 68% for “Internet cookies” and 78% for “Spyware”.

Yikes. If you don't know what phishing means, look it up. Then ask your parents if they know what it means; if not, instruct them.

Everyone will by now have seen the headlines proclaiming that Bush Chooses Roberts for Court, so I won't waste time acting like I'm telling you anything new. WaPo also has this nice little bio piece which gives you some background on the man who will most likely take over for O'Connor.

Most of the original press surrounding the nomination made a point to mention Roberts' statement that Roe v. Wade was "wrongly decided and should be overruled", which he defends by pointing out that it was a statement made as lawyer for the first Bush administration. Apparently, he is known making the case that lawyers should not be held to believe the cases they make, and John Yoo at UC Berkeley seems to agree that he's not gunning for Roe, noting that

"he represents the Washington establishment. These Washington establishment people are not revolutionaries, and they're not out to shake up constitutional law. They might make course corrections, but they're not trying to sail the boat to a different port."

So why Roberts? The Post pulls a quote from his former boss (as deputy counsel in the Reagan administration) Fred Fielding saying "he's generally conservative on presidential powers," a fact which could explain him as a pick if true. This anecdote is also somewhat telling:

In the aftermath of the disputed 2000 presidential election, Roberts played a key, if quiet, role in the Florida recount. Although his name did not appear on the briefs, three sources who were personally aware of Roberts's role said he gave Gov. Jeb Bush (R) critical advice on how the Florida Legislature could constitutionally name George W. Bush the winner at a time when Republicans feared that if the recount were to continue the courts might force a different choice.

But the overall sense of the Post sketch is that he's a conservative able to voice his views "in moderate tones", which makes sense in a way. When it seemed Bush was going to nominate a woman, people were speculating that it was a strategic move to ease the confirmation process. This could easily be a means to the same end. For example, Harry Reid has already taken a decisively ballsy stance:

"The president has chosen someone with suitable legal credentials, but that is not the end of our inquiry," Reid said in a statement. "The Senate must review Judge Roberts's record to determine if he has a demonstrated commitment to the core American values of freedom, equality and fairness."

Yet I don't see this leading to much more than a rigorous hearing by the Judicial Committee, and a less-than-unanimous vote. And from what initial news reports have drudged up, that's pretty reasonable - there are no obvious reasons why he shouldn't be confirmed.

Of course, Lindsay Beyerstein might have at least one reason.

I want some. You've had a few weeks now to try out the new iTunes features, surely you've found one you like.

I've been using iPodder, and I guess I like it. Frankly, I don't need another program running all of the time. I should probably try and find a newsreader for Linux which handles enclosures elegantly, but I've been happy enough with the Thunderbird newsreader that I'm not all that excited about searching for an alternative.

I suppose that I'm obligated to provide recommendations to start. I'm too lazy to go much beyond the Top 50, but here are the three that I like best so far:

• Science Friday -- Adam turned me on to this. It's the Friday version of NPR's Talk of the Nation. The guests are generally very cool, but the callers are consistently annoying.
• ESPN -- I wish I had cable. Since I don't, I get Tony Kornheiser and Woody Paige this way.
• Coffee Geek -- I've only listened to two of these, but the guy who puts it together really likes coffee. Episode five has an interesting discussion of how to get the best coffee-making setup for under $150.

Anyone else have any good ideas? I need more things to listen to while coding at home.

As if I needed more reasons to hope for admittance to UCSD. Here's a well written piece by Dr. Jeff Elman titled Connectionist Models of cognitive development: where next?. It appeared in TRENDS in Cognitive Science in March, and is a review of important and recent literature surrounding connectionist (those using neural networks) models of cognitive development. There is an emphasis on those models which deal with language acquisition.

I'm always telling people that computational models are good for directing research in the wet sciences, but I don't have a lot of concrete examples. This paper is full of them.

In one particularly cool bit, Elman discusses research which is attempting to discover how we learn to differentiate spoken words. Contrary to the way it seems to a practiced native speaker, there are no clear breaks in spoken language. Some computational models have apparently converged on one way in which this discrimination could take place:

... word boundaries are locations where the conditional probability of the next sound, given what has preceded it, is low. A network (or child) that attempts to anticipate what it (she) will hear next will tend to do worse at the onsets of words, and better as more of a word is heard. Error maxima thus constitute likely word boundaries.

Neat stuff. The paper has 74 references, and looks like a good place to start for anyone interested in recent advancements in this area. (Which, given the audience here, is basically me. Still.)

Yahoo news reports that Oliver Stone will "make the first major US film about September 11".

"It's a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened, and carries within a compassion that heals," Stone said in a statement issued by producers.

Oscar-winning star [Nic] Cage will take the lead role of New York Port Authority policeman Sergeant John McLoughlin, who was trapped along with one of his fellow officers in the mangled wreckage of one of the twin towers that crumbled after being hit by hijacked passenger jets.

A compassion that heals and Nic Cage!? I second the sentiment of my source (Sebastian at Obsidian Wings), who is "incredibly unthrilled".

There's an interesting story on the NPR website about reality TV in Iraq.

Apparently the shows are becoming huge in Iraq, but they often have "a social message". The shows rebuild demolished homes and attempt to overcome governmental corruption on behalf of individuals. One gives couples the wedding of their dreams on bomb-scarred streets, in what seems like a symbolic reclamation of the space.

Sounds a lot more meaningful than Trading Spouses.

... I wouldn't have been, if I were you.

Anyway, I thought I'd mention that I'm trying to resurrect Back to the Lab. The whole MongoHosting fiasco, combined with bringing the group blog back on-line and getting a job, put my personal blog on a remote back burner. But I realize that the personal posts are more interesting to my family and certain of my friendss, and I've finally gotten things back in (some sort of) order over there.

Many thanks, by the way, to the Internet Archive for having a copy of my old style sheet.

Ed Felten posts that a computer named Hydra has beaten the world's seventh-ranked chess player in six of seven games. That's not really all that interesting to me; computers are just better at that than we are. I did like this bit, however. Probably because I'm a human programmer.

Indeed, algorithmic improvements have been a much bigger factor even than Moore’s Law over the years.

Chess computers have succeeded by ignoring what human chessplayers do best, and doing instead what computers do best. And what computers do best is to run programs written by very clever human programmers.

At least we're still better at that, for now.

Yesterday, USA Today published excerpts from letters from homegrown terrorist Eric Rudolph to his mother.

The article reads like the script to The Fugitive Three. Rudolph craftily steals from dumpsters and grain silos. He hides mere yards from feckless state troopers.

In one scene, Rudolph is in a dumpster, reading a discarded USA Today. (The script even has produce placement!) He reads about abusive sweat shop managers, and reinacts the scene described outloud.

"Out of the corner of my eye, just as I was finishing this line, the long rectangular box began to slowly open like a coffin lid in a vampire movie, and there in the box was the barely visible figure of a human being," he writes. "My thoughts started racing. 'Was this an ambush? Did someone see me going through the garbage on a previous night and set this up?' With my heart in my throat, the figure suddenly spoke.

"'Who's making you lick the floor, buddy?' said the figure. His voice came hard ... " he writes, "and had probably been damaged by years of alcohol and cigarettes. Suddenly it came to me. 'This is a bum. ... Without thinking I said, 'Nobody ... nobody is making me lick the floor,' and slowly moved away, back towards the river."

But Rudolph couldn't help but worry. "Did he recognize me? Would he run and tell? I thought to myself. I made my way quickly back across (the river), splashing through the cold water, and climbing up the bank, my half-soaked body was beginning to feel the cold," he writes. Then he looked back. The transient hadn't moved.

Spooky!

On the verge of capture, he succombs the pain of life on the run from 'worms':

"I rush behind a stack of milk crates," Rudolph writes. "He pulls up in front of them; I think about running, about the headache of hiding, the many nights rooting through garbage, the 10 degrees below zero days when I sit in my tent all day and shiver; and I decide that I don't care. It was meant to happen."

The music swells as a harsh light eluminates Rudolph's face. He closes his eyes, and the camera turns to the imposing silhoette of a policeman, black against the glare of his enormous flashlight. He barks an order to freeze, and the audience's hearts break for the plight of the tragic anti-hero.

Maybe there's some public good in publishing letters from a fugitive terrorist. I doubt it, but it's possible. Even if there is, the tone of this piece is what bothers me. There's no mention of what can be learned from the methods he used to evade capture for years. The word 'terrorist' is never used, and the people he killed are only mentioned once, in passing, at the beginning. Instead, the article takes the reader on a wild ride through the backwoods.

I'm all for understanding what makes criminals tick, and for not completely dehumanizing them. But it's also important not to lose sight of the fact that they're criminals.

[His mother] can't get enough of her son's stories. She sometimes wishes he were still out there, free. But if he were, then she would never be sure if he were alive. She would never read these stories.

Not every mother would be so impressed by tales of stolen trucks and thievery. But considering the crimes to which her son has confessed, Pat Rudolph allows herself to enjoy the victimless ones.

If only he could be free, like a beautiful bird. A bird that steals without taking from anyone. Yes, a magical bird, indeed!

I'm surprised that the news that the Canadian legislature is considering regulations to limit bulk export of prescription drugs to the United States hasn't gotten any more coverage in the blogs.

According to the New York Times, two million Americans use websites such as Pharmacy Checker.com and I Save RX.com to purchase drugs at the lower prices mandated by the Candadian government. In addition, several states, such as Minnesota and Wisconsin have set up government-approved websites to facilitate the same activity for their citizens.

All of these websites work basically the same way: they search several pharmacies in Canada, the UK, and elsewhere, for the best prices on particular drugs, and allow users to purchase from any of these pharmacies through a single portal. Sort of an Add All.com for Nexium and Accupril.

All of the websites are also similar in that none of what they facilitate is legal. Every page of drug prices at Pharmacy Checker includes this carefully worded message:

U.S. Law: U.S. government officials have stated that individuals who order prescription drugs from Canada or other foreign sources (up to 90 day quantities) for their own use are not being pursued or prosecuted. However, it is technically not legal to order prescription drugs from abroad.

I suppose that it's convenient that the U.S. doesn't intend to prosecute these people, since U.S. state governments are inducing their residents to join them in escewing federal regulations.

None of these websites will sell particularly dangerous drugs, such as narcotics and sleeping pills. Says Pharmacy Checker's FAQ: "Some websites will sell you prescription medication without requiring any prescription at all, a practice that is illegal in the United States, and regarded as dangerous." Sure, but everything you do is illegal, so what's the big deal?

It's also odd that Pharmacy Checker points this out, because one of the pieces of information associated with every quote is "Prescription Required?" and the answer is often "no". One reason is that some drugs are more tightly regulated in America than elsewhere; I believe Claritin had been available over the counter in Europe for several years before it was released that way here.

The potential new Canadian law is interesting because, if it were strong enough, it could force law makers to take a stand against pharmaceutical companies. If token gestures such as these websites which facilitate buying Canadian drugs were no longer an option, governors, congressmen, and senators would be under new pressure to consider regulations.

Of course, the odds aren't good. For one, Canada's proposal doesn't sound that impressive. For another, Canadian drugs aren't the only alternative to local pharmacies. ISaveRX already searches dealers in the UK, Israel, Chile, and Australia.

State governments are also taking other measures to help their residents, though not particularly inspiring measures. Florida and New York, for example, allow users to search databases which contain average prices for many prescription drugs. If you've ever wondered what a fair price for Vicoden in Albany county was, the answer appears to be about ten bucks.

My job at the moment, by the way, is to collect this information. I'm writing software to record all of the drug prices for both the international mail-order websites and the state websites which report average prices for bricks-and-mortar pharmacies. The intention is to use this data to track the way prices respond to events such as this new Canadian legislation. The economist for whom I'm working is interested in applications of economics which can be used to meaningfully influence health policy decisions. Which makes for a pretty cool temporary summer job.