Reuters today released an interesting story about Google’s plans to build a probability machine that could detect whether politicians were lying. It’s a great idea, but there are several limitations to a system like this:
1. Google can only index existing records. It would be relatively simple, conceptually, to fact-check a President’s speech or documents like […]

In an insight that is probably mind-numbingly obvious to any economist, I just realized how much more efficient a company is, in terms of revenue over headcount, than a nation, even like the United States, is. Take Google, for example. Their 2004 annual revenue was $3.19 billion. They have 5680 employees, according to Yahoo […]

The Economist published a story about “negative databases” in their Science section. This article is worth a read for a few reasons. First, it highlights once again, the depth of the relationship between computer science and philosophy. The databases online that contain our most valuable information are nothing more than implementations of set theory, […]

“Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is defending President Bush’s anti-terrorism tactics in multiple court battles, said Friday that federal judges should not substitute their personal views for the president’s judgments in wartime.
He said the Constitution makes the president commander in chief and the Supreme Court has long recognized the president’s pre-eminent role in foreign affairs. […]

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.