Javabeans!

Man locked up for TB -- why? because it's a nearly untreatable drug-resistant strain, and he refused to take actions to protect the public safety, like wearing a mask in public. The act of incarcerating dangerous-to-the-public patients is not unheard of. The question the article raises is, "is it ethical?"

My thoughts: the man became a danger to society -- that's unfortunate. But he could have reduced that danger and chose not to. That's criminal. We have a long history of people who, when mentally sick to the point of public danger, are locked up for the safety of the public. Why should physical dangers be different? In the present case, the man is being kept without benefit of television, phone, even a mirror, but the article didn't say why, and that seems undue.

A more important question perhaps is, who decides what a public danger is, to the point of locking somebody up without a trial? Mental illness cases lead to this. Public health safety leads to this. More recently, suspicion of terrorism can lead to this. Where should the line be? Who gets to decide?

If you frequent Starbucks, you already know that they've been putting quotes on their cups. Here's today's, by Joel Stein:

Heaven is totally overrated. It seems boring. Clouds, listening to people play the harp. It should be somewhere you can't wait to go, like a luxury hotel. Maybe blue skies and soft music were enough to keep people in line in the 17th century, but Heaven has to step it up a bit. They're basically getting by because they only have to be better than Hell.

If you came up with a truly unique writing style, meaning peculiar language usage, or chapter format, or character use, or whatever. Could you patent the style if you could show it wasn't derivative of other styles?

Republican senator Chuck Hagel (Nebraska) has responded strongly to Bush's go-it-alone approach to government, by indicating that impeachment is a possibility. Among his comments (as stated in this MSN article), "This is not a monarchy."

Huh. Cute.

The Lego role-playing game (in draft form)

Brainf**k is supposedly the worlds smallest "Turing complete" computer language, with a compiler that is less than 200 bytes (yes, bytes!) in size. It only has 8 commands.

Last Friday I asked about computers, how do they work? acroyear70 provided a very nice answer, which led me to my new question, "how do transistors work?"

For this, I found a how transistors really work page which makes it somewhat easy to understand.

Next question will probably be about how wheels really work...

From a conversation at work, the following questions:

What is the difference between "historical fiction" and fiction with a historical setting? And how far back in time do you need to go to be "historical" in this sense? Could fiction written with a modern setting be considered historical fiction in the future?

According to the Bible pi is exactly 3.

From the New King James, 1 Kings 7:23

And he made the Sea of cast bronze, ten cubits from one brim to the other; it was completely round. Its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.

Saw this earlier today in a sig..

Don't trust everything you think.