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Yeah, I wish I had thought of that. Great way to generate extra money. I wonder if the art bids its own auction up.
And I'm not surprised that this happens - it was just a question of time before items were starting to behave on their own.
OK - in a limited manner for this item. But I'm just waiting for a self-propelling intelligent device - what we think of as the fictional robots we see in Science Fiction.
And I'm not surprised that this happens - it was just a question of time before items were starting to behave on their own.
In that aspect, this is no different than a coffee machine programmed to brew at 8:00am every morning.
When items really start behaving on their own, in what we recognize as true AI, I hope it's to the benefit of mankind - and not some budding evil genius like this artist looks to be:)
...the "art" in question really is just a black cube.
Part of me has to admire the "artist" in spite of myself.
The art isn't the black cube. the 'art' is the conditions of sale. it's a piece about the market forces in the art world. The black box is only the frame.
There is a very good chance that the artist is just toying with the collectors about this whole project. in a sense, the artist is gaming the system, and presenting that as art.
I knew this story wouldn't go well on this site. Nerds typically don't get art. I don't get it either but am at least aware that the "art" in this case is NOT the physical black box but the entire concept. The concept of the black box (as a device that functions without you knowing what goes on inside) and the concept of it selling itself and needing to be resold.
A lot of art AIN'T about the physical product, but about the idea behind it.
Since I am a geek, I don't pretend to fully understand the artists thinking behind it and am even willing to admit that I personally think he might be blowing a bit of smoke. But the failing is mine, not his.
It is an interesting idea, but you got to be able to look beyond the mechanics. I predict that only a handful of real
Then again, we get tech, which I notice some more socially aware just don't get... if only we could use both halfs of our minds at the same time
don't appreciate smarmy asshats with half our IQ acting all offended
(accent mine)
Given the collective groupthink on Slashdot, that would mean he has an IQ of around 22 - 23, right?
"Since I am a geek, I don't pretend to fully understand the artists thinking behind it and am even willing to admit that I personally think he might be blowing a bit of smoke. But the failing is mine, not his."
You'll never get it if you keep thinking that way. Just because some guy calls it art doesn't mean it's good art. Art is fundamentally a communication medium and if your communication is so opaque that nobody gets it then you've failed.
This is an interesting idea, but (a) the name is stupid and (b)
If I piss in a bucket and throw it on an artist, that is art. I am sure they wouldn't like it even so.
The concept that some people "just don't get art" is simply the way an internally elitist system creates its own boundaries and structures. It is reflected in every other type of interest as well. Programmers will say that some people "just don't get" the significance of database choice. Bankers will say some people "just don't get" the significance of synthetic bonds. Artists say some people "just don't get" the significance of art. But I would argue that the most reflected of these groups acknowledge that what is important for them really and truly IS insignificant for other people, without that making any of them any less.
I knew this story wouldn't go well on this site. Nerds typically don't get art.
Lots of people here "get art". That doesn't mean you have to think it's particularly clever or "good". This particular piece is certainly a good scam and way to make some dough for the original guy. It's about as good "art" as the thing Bernie Madhoff did though (Maybe 'ol Bernie should have just called his scam art, and he wouldn't be rotting in jail now)
Since I am a geek, I don't pretend to fully understand the artists thinking behind it and am even willing to admit that I personally think he might be blowing a bit of smoke. But the failing is mine, not his.
And you have fully bought into "the emperor has no clothes" concept that's all too common in the art world. If you're not familiar with the concept, here's the synopsis:
1. Some acclaimed, but inexplicable (i.e. crap) piece of art is laid out before you.
2. You can't quite make head or tail of it.. but not wanting to sound like an idiot you talk about how great it is (Some idiot paid 100,000 for it, so it MUST be good right? Plus.. it's in this museum! These are trained professionals, they know what they're doing! It must be I just don't "get art").
I've gone to plenty of art museums over the years. There's quite a bit of really shitty art in them. A year ago a saw what amounts to some of the worst I've ever seen. It was a Japanese artists who essentially took a lot of plastic crap and burned it. He had quite the display of burned plastic crap and resin, so somehow he hypnotized enough people into thinking this was somehow great enough to wind up in a museum.
Some might argue that you "need to keep an open mind". I agree, Just don't keep it so open that your brain falls out.
Not unless the artist makes more than one of them.
The market won't bear arbitrary price increases.
Of course, if successful, the more hands the thing changes, the more notorious the piece of art will be, and the greater the value the market will bear...
The difference is a pyramid scheme seeks to involve as many people as possible. With an item such as this, it's only one buyer.
And the terms prohibit pricing the item above what the market will bear.
So there's a great deal of risk involved for the b
mmm.... a pyramid with a growth factor of 1... a "pole" scheme ?
to buy it and throw it in a river to put an end to this stupidity
Frank Zappa had a good point. He claimed that the only thing art required was a frame -- metaphorical or literal. To make something art, all one had to do was simply put it in a frame -- i.e. declare it to be art. Anything that was created with the purpose of being art is, intrinsically, art.
Of course, as Frank was quick to point out, that doesn't make it good art, or worthwhile art, or a good idea. Just that the artists intent is all that matters as to whether something is art or not.
Frank Zappa had a good point. He claimed that the only thing art required was a frame
With all due respect to Zappa, it's Marcel Duchamp who understood this first, around 1913.
All due respect to Duchamp, but I've actually heard of Frank Zappa. d:
Was "art is whatever you call it" the biggest thing he ever came up with? Genuine curiosity on my part.
That reflects more on you than Duchamp
Seriously, he's considered on the the great artists, possibly the most influential, of the 20th century and well worth looking into (also if you are not into art, but into chess).
Anyone who still clings to the largely irrelevant requirement of technical skill may want to look at his Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 [wikipedia.org] to be satisfied.
Well, signing a urinal 'R. Mutt' and getting a gallery to put it on display was a pretty interesting accomplishment. The guy helped the dadaist movement in America which, at the time considered to be absolute junk, later inspired art styles like punk rock.
Now, to
Disclaimer: As a poor artist, I appreciate the mockery this guy is making of the art collecting world, and would love to laugh at the 'stupid collectors' buying it over and over, but I think they get the joke as well.
Q: Doesn't the first sale doctrine prevent you from collecting further payment past the initial sale of the item?
A: In order to be recognized as a work of art the contract must be adhered to, and regards of who owns it and who buys it the contract remains between the artist and the purchaser, not between buyer and seller.
I wish him good luck in actually getting a court to enforce this.
Anything that was created with the purpose of being art is, intrinsically, art.
Very sad what is sometimes considered art, but what you (or rather, Zappa) said is correct. However, I do take issue with the "artist" in this story, and what HIS definition of art is. From the auction rules:
12. Any failure to follow these terms without prior consent of Artist will forfeit the status of the Artwork as a legitimate work of art. The item will no longer be considered a genuine work by the Artist and any value associated with it will be reduced to its value as a material object and not a work of art.
So this artist thinks that, merely by his own word, he can revoke the status of this item being art. It's art now, but once he changes his mind it's no longer art. Somehow, I don't think that's how art works.
To be perfectly honest, I find this much more interesting and artistic than a lot of modern "art."
For example, I believe these Blobs of Glass [google.com] are little more than interesting candy dishes (not $20,000+ works of art).
The black cube satisfies a lot of requirements for great art, in my mind.
1) It's different. I haven't seen anything like this before.
2) It is a one-of-a-kind. The market really can't support more than one of these.
3) It generates interest all by itself. (Any market it creates is all self-generat
It's not really a scam, it's a black-box-as-a-service (BBaaS).
I personally look forward to cloud-as-a-service (CaaS).
This is attention-mongering and marketing.
In a way, that IS the definition of art.
Art is, what you believe is art. That's the full definition. And the only definition.
Marketing and attention-mongering are two of the many tools to make others believe things.
First sale doctorine doesn't apply if you have a contract. If you signed a contract to buy the piece of art, it certainly can have restrictions on what you can do with it. The first sale doctorine rather applies to limitations imposed by copyright, ie: the right for the copyright holder of something to sue you, even though you don't have a contract, because you sold it again.
First sale applies to sales. If it doesn't apply, you're not buying, you're renting. This piece of "art" may be in violation of eBay rules if it pretends to be for sale but really isn't.
according to the article '....give Larsen 15 percent of any increase in value
I'm sure the new auction starting price is the current "value" of the art piece. So it will never sell for less than it has before, it just won't sell. So it can get stuck at one museum forever, but it won't actually be sold for less than before.
I'm sure a portion of the 15% paid is used by the artist to defray the eBay auction fees.
TFA says that the artist gets 15% of the INCREASE in value, not 15% of the entire value.
He doesn't claim you don't have a right of first sale to the raw object, he's just saying that if you don't adhere to the contract then the object loses its value as a work of art and will no longer recognize it as his legitimate work of art. So while you have whatever rights the law gives you to the raw materials, but he is controlling the use of the concept which is what anyone who would buy this thing is actually interested in.
A bit twisty, but if you're into that sort of thing it could work for you. I think every week is a bit much, makes it potentially not worth the effort to deal with it. I'd think at least quarterly would be the way to go.
Remember, the current owner sets the starting price, so if you really wanted to hold on to it for a while and not sell, just set a very high starting price. As long as no one meets it, you keep the art.
The contract requires you to set a starting price that's in line with its current value.
There's a lot of ways you can screw with this. People are going to be pissed if they get it 2 days before its new auction ends.
So you buy it, smash it and post a video of you doing that on youtube... declare that to be art - performance art... plus declare that the individual pieces have become new, unique individual pieces of artwork based on some bullshit premise you spew... and thus you have create some kind of meta-meta art.
And also declare it as the world's first anti-art, on the basis that your "work of art" magically transformed it from art to not-art due to the original artists assertion that it would no longer be his art..
So you buy it, smash it and post a video of you doing that on youtube... declare that to be art - performance art... plus declare that the individual pieces have become new, unique individual pieces of artwork based on some bullshit premise you spew... and thus you have create some kind of meta-meta art.
And also declare it as the world's first anti-art, on the basis that your "work of art" magically transformed it from art to not-art due to the original artists assertion that it would no longer be his art...
Then sell these rare, valuable fragments of your meta art anti-art individually on ebay.
Sorry, it's been done. look up Man Ray's "indestructible object"
as for "Anti-Art", thats what Dada was all about.
I'm not saying your idea is bad, just that it's been done....about 90 years ago.
Some famous artist once exhibited a metal cube about 1m on a side. He was based in New York, and one day, driving through New Jersey, he saw a sign that said "You design it, we fabricate it". So he called them and ordered a 1m cube of solid steel. It was explained to him how much this would weigh. So he settled for a cube of sheet metal on a frame. The cube was duly fabricated and drop-shipped to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
That was in the 1970s, when it was at least an original idea. As late as the 1990s, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was showing a Plexiglas cube held together with tape. That was embarrassing. (When SFMOMA started, all the money went into their building, and the permanent collection was awful. It's since improved, but it's still far behind NY and LA.)
As Frank Lloyd Wright pointed out, you can have very simple geometric forms, but the materials and finishes must be very well chosen.
For anybody else who wondered: 1 m^3 of median density steel weighs 7820 kg according to Wolfram Alpha [wolframalpha.com].
I'm gonna waste my mod point here, but by your definition I could call gold farming an art. That is just as surely the making of something (money) from nothing (a WoW account and trust in Blizzard not to take your gold away).
That's uh, all I really had to say
Yeah, a black lacquered cube is not something that's hard to for many people make themselves. The restrictions on it negate any of the novelty that its electronic functionality might have. And seven days just isn't much time to "enjoy" an object that's priced at $2700, and assuming you sell it at the same price, you paid $650 in fees (15% to "artist", 10% to eBay + PayPal fees) for the favor of having it for a week.
The suggestion that it's somehow going to appreciate in value to offset the fees and make t
First Sale is a copyright issue.
No, it's not.
Why woudln't it just contain any of the 23984238949823498329 other small microprocessor boards?
I own 3 arduino prototype boards, and have self-made several (buy the chip with pre-flashed bootloader, put the rest of the components on your production-ready pcb) but it's the EASIEST game out there, not the ONLY game out there.
To everyone saying "scam" and "this will never work" and "this is not art": this auction and event is clearly not for you. I think it is for all those people who played and enjoyed "pass-the-parcel" as a childhood game. In this case, it is like playing pass-the-parcel in reverse. Remember, everyone who "buys" the work still has the right to "sell" it afterwards and this can go on until the value of the art drops. The person still holding the parcel in that situation is unlucky as s/he will lose money. So long as the artist stays in vogue or becomes more established, people will make (small amounts of) money on each transaction - up to a point. It's just a piece of harmless fun for those people who can afford to risk up to £2500 on a scheme like this. I agree with those who say that the artist should have gone for a monthly or quarterly rather than a weekly scheme. But I wouldn't think that their aim is any more than illustrating a principle.
Wow. The current bid sits at US $4,250.00 with six unique bidders.
Somehow, based on the posts here, I don't think that number is going to increase as a result of exposure on Slashdot.
My highschool art teacher had a special scowl when he told us about the commonly heard phrase among the plebes, "I may not know anything about art, but I know what I like." I tended to think that this is one of the more sensible statements I'd ever heard, but then I didn't get stellar grades in art class. I wonder if he'd be up for a black cube of doom?
From the FAQ. .
Q: If I were to buy this, how long could I expect to own it before it sells itself again?
A: It is hard to say. Like any commodity it is subject to demand. It could be moments or years. The perpetual state of uncertainty and the instability of ownership are primary components of the work.
Hm. That's actually kind of neat. I can see the appeal for the art community. Nice jorb. --Though, for the rest of us, the same feeling can be achieved at discount simply by contemplating the EULA on a piece of software. You own the disk, but do you OWN the disk? The mind reels!
Now THAT's art!
It used to be that for an object to be considered art it had to speak to you aesthetically. Today, it's considered "art" if it speaks to you using a somewhat encrypted or shocking message, even if it doesn't move you aesthetically.
Many don't agree with this shift, but that is where "art" seems to be right now.
Cool cube and a nice experiment.
How is it powered?
"Maybe the First Sale Doctrine works differently in the UK."
Or maybe it doesn't exist, what with that being an American law [wikipedia.org], and all, and the UK being a different country and all.
Why do Americans, and Slashdotters in particular, assume that the world's legal systems are based on the USA's?
With you being such a new country, you'd think you'd realise that your laws are an amalgam of what's gone before - and that Common Law or other branches were around a long time before your country existed.
The whole world d
Oh for craps sake. It does exist. From the wikipedia article you linked to:
Exhaustion of rights - A concept in EU law similar to the US "First-sale doctrine
Gee... sounds an awful lot like a first sale doctrine that works differently. Did you even notice the other wild-ass assumptions in your post?
Why do Americans, and Slashdotters in particular, assume that the world's legal systems are based on the USA's?
Errr... We do?
you'd think you'd realise that your laws are an amalgam of what's gone before - and that Common Law or other branches were around a long time before your country existed.
That's kinda obvious. I mean, the only other alternative is that the founding fathers knew no history or systems of government other than monarchies when they drafted the constitution. That's just seems silly.
The whole world doesn't want to be American you know.
Strong statements require strong proof, and the only proof you offered us for your wack-ass statements is a single unrelated quote from the
First of all, whoops... sorry it took four years to get delivered to my place.
Yes, of course it was disconnected during that time! ^^
Second, strangely, after I had it, weird thinks will happen to the other owners. Like waking up in the room with the box, with no memory of the past eight hours, everything valuable stolen, and perhaps a used condom in their ass, filled with sperm from a goat.
This could be the big one though.
A cube that could potentially create a tunnel back to the purchasers home. A little bit of packet sniffing and what wonderful things you can do.
Even better is the trojan cleans itself up by "selling" itself to the next victim!
If it doesn't work this way the guy needs to kick himself.
Let's compare this with something like WoW where the "patrons" pay a monthly fee and a significant portion of their life for the privilege of clicking their mouse a few thousand times just so they can make their name go bigger on a "virtual plaque".
Oh yeah, this guy's definitely got a monopoly on swindling brainless people...
So, we have a mysterious plastic cube that automatically sells itself after a week. How about, during that one week it releases a noxious chemical, or a bacterium, which then eventually kills the owner (say, after about a few months)? A chain of mysterious deaths, "untraceable" (in Hollywood movies you can have plotholes as big as goatse asshole), terrifying...
"This is where the art collector could make money. However they must first pay any fees to eBay and give Larsen 15 percent of any increase in value of the artwork."
is not the same as
"Another condition of sale is that the artist gets 15% each time the piece is sold. Maybe the First Sale Doctrine works differently in the UK."
oops I read TFA.
Art or not, the physical device is owned by whoever last purchased it. The device then lists itself using the artist's credentials. Caleb Larson is then offering for sale an item that he does not own, have physical possession of, or title to (title passed to the last Collector). Strikes me that, beyond the sale to the first "Collector", this is a flagrantly fraudulent auction and that no contract can abrogate the law. I wonder how long before someone that parted with a substantial sum to possess the physical item (it is a nice looking cube after all) decides to challenge this through eBay.
On the other hand, it does point out some of the ludicrous goings-on with respect to trailing commissions in all sorts of fields.
If graphics hackers are so smart, why can't they get the bugs out of fresh paint?


text:
CHICAGO (AP)- The Mega Millions jackpot has grown to an estimated $400 million.
No one matched all six numbers in Friday night's drawing. The numbers were 7-20-40-54-69, with a Mega Ball of 12. Friday's $353 million prize would have been the fifth-largest jackpot in the multistate lottery game's history.
The next drawing is Tuesday.
The jackpot has been rolling since January 3.
The biggest lottery prize in the U.S. was a $656 million dollar Mega Millions jackpot in 2012.
Mega Millions changed its rules in October to help increase jackpots by lowering the odds of winning the top prize. That means the chances of winning the jackpot are now about 1 in 259 million. It used to be about 1 in 176 million.
© Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

subset: commoncrawl


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This program is supposed to work like hangman. My code is inputting extra '?' even after a user makes a correct guess. How do I correct this? I want to use the for loops that already exist and I am not supposed to use arrays as we have not covered that in class to this point. I need to get rid of the extra '?'s that are showing up. Does anyone have any ideas?
Another error that pops up is if someone guesses a letter that has already been guessed, then the program inserts it a second time. I would like to know why, but it is not as important as solving the first problem.
/* This program allows a user to input a phrase and has a second user try to guess the phrase. A '?' will take the place of any letters not guessed while correct guesses will be placed in their correct index location. */ import java.util.*; public class Program07 { public static void main(String[] args) { Scanner stdIn = new Scanner(System.in); //variables String cPhrase = ""; String guess = ""; //String to be guessed. Input by user. Forced to be lowercase. System.out.println("Please enter a common phrase: "); cPhrase = stdIn.nextLine().toLowerCase(); //Allow a user to make guesses while (guess.length() < 35) { System.out.println('\n'+"Please enter a single character guess: "+ '\n'); guess += stdIn.next().charAt(0); //Handling guesses for (int j=0; j < cPhrase.length(); ++j) { for (int k=0; k < guess.length(); ++k) { if (guess.charAt(k) == cPhrase.charAt(j)) { System.out.print(cPhrase.charAt(j)); } } if (cPhrase.charAt(j) == ' ') { System.out.print(" "); } else { System.out.print("?"); } } } } }


text:
Peter Balakian '73, Pulitzer Prize winning poet, translator and essayist — author of Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir and Dyer's Thistle
Robert Braile '77, Correspondent The Boston Globe
Laura Dabundo, '75, Chair and Professor, English Department, Kennesaw State University
Lindsey Diforio '86, Managing Editor Skiing Magazine
Diane Eyer '66, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
David W. Hancock '84, Obie-winning playwright
Ed Hermann '65, Broadway and television and film actor — won an Obie for Broadway production of Mrs. Warren's Profession — two Emmy nominations and a Television Critic's Circle Award for Eleanor and Franklin and Eleanor and Franklin, The White House Years (played FDR)
Sally Keith '96, poet — winner of the 2000 Colorado Prize for Poetry for her book Design
Jennifer Marshall '94, Senior Publicist, Vintage Books
Andrew Meyer '71, Film Producer (The Breakfast Club, Milagro Beanfield War, Birdy Breaking In and Fried Green Tomatoes)
Carolyn Meyer '57, noted children's author and novelist
Thomas Radko '73, Director, Wesleyan University Press
Philip Roth '54, Pulitzer Prize winning author, also received two National Book Awards and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
David Scadden '75, Chair, Immundeficiency Disease Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Care; Co-director, AIDS Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Bruce Smith '68, poet
The following links are virtual breadcrumbs marking the 27 most recent pages you have visited in Bucknell.edu. If you want to remember a specific page forever click the pin in the top right corner and we will be sure not to replace it. Close this message.


text:
D.L. Hughley is an actor-comedian, and currently a top 10 competitor on Dancing With The Stars. For Tell Me More's 'In Your Ear' series, he shares some favorite songs that he calls 'savory and sweet' — including an unlikely pick, a folk song that makes him think of his parents.
Comedian D.L. Hughley Shares 'Savory And Sweet' Songs
By editor • Apr 8, 2013


text:
The contrast in their exit strategies told the story better than perhaps anything that happened on the Coliseum field Saturday afternoon.
Embattled UCLA Coach Karl Dorrell stared stonily ahead, a phalanx of security officers trailing in his wake as he made his way to the tunnel and the possible end of his tenure with the Bruins.
A few minutes later, a grinning USC Coach Pete Carroll bounded toward the locker room, a brief stop on his way to another season-ending date for the Trojans in the Rose Bowl.
"We were in command the whole time," a beaming Carroll said without breaking stride.
Eighth-ranked USC's 24-7 victory over the Bruins before 91,553 avenged last year's crushing upset to its cross-town rivals and earned the Trojans a share of their sixth consecutive Pacific 10 Conference title.
"We own L.A. again," said Trojans quarterback John David Booty, one of 23 seniors who played their final game at the Coliseum.
USC improved to 10-2 overall and will learn its New Year's Day opponent when the final Bowl Championship Series standings are released today.
It will be the sixth consecutive BCS bowl game appearance for USC, a destiny that appeared out of reach after losses to Stanford and Oregon. But the Trojans finished the season with a four-game winning streak.
"The last six years, I think is proof in the pudding that that we find a way to come back on top because we have the makeup of a champion," senior defensive end Lawrence Jackson said.
Last year, the Trojans finished the season with a victory over Michigan in the Rose Bowl, a consolation prize after UCLA kept them from playing for the national title. The Bruins' 13-9 victory was thought to be a building block for Dorrell, who had 20 starters back.
But injury-plagued UCLA lost three fumbles and also had a pass intercepted against the Trojans to finish 6-6 and 5-4 in the Pac-10.
"We had too many turnovers, and against a team like this, it's catastrophic," said Dorrell, who declined to comment on his future.
USC did not capitalize on every UCLA miscue, but it was not necessary thanks to a defense that Carroll described as perhaps his best at USC. The Trojans manhandled UCLA the same way they dominated Oregon State, California and Arizona State.
USC held UCLA to a season-low 168 yards, sacking Bruins quarterback Patrick Cowan four times for 31 yards in losses and leaving the Bruins with only 12 net rushing yards. UCLA did not convert any of its 11 third-down situations.
"[UCLA] said last year we played without heart," Jackson said. "Theirs was gone after the first series. It didn't feel like much of a fight."
While USC stifled the Bruins, the Trojans amassed 437 yards, 231 on the ground.
"Our-big time players were missing tackles," Bruins defensive end Bruce Davis said. "As much as I'd like to think that I'm Superman and that we're invincible, we're not. We're human. We bleed the same blood everyone else bleeds. We breathe the same air. We make mistakes."
Said UCLA defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker: "They could have put 55 points on us today. I was happy they didn't run the score up. . . . If they would have cashed in [the turnovers] it would have been an ugly game."
It was Walker who had devised the strategy that flummoxed the Trojans last season. And USC had spent 12 long months being reminded of their 55-yard rushing performance against the Bruins.
"We were maybe a little embarrassed about what happened last year," offensive line coach Pat Ruel said.
Freshman tailback Joe McKnight rushed for 89 yards and a touchdown, sophomore Stafon Johnson ran for 73 yards and senior Chauncey Washington gained 66 yards and scored a touchdown.
"We didn't want that taste in our mouth from last year," Johnson said. "If anything was to happen and, God forbid, we lost this game, we didn't want it to be on the running backs."
Booty also erased the memory of last year's game against UCLA when a potential game-winning pass was tipped and intercepted in the final minutes.
Booty completed 21 of 36 passes for 206 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Booty's game-clinching touchdown pass to Fred Davis in the fourth quarter came after Dorrell made what proved to be the game's pivotal decision.
USC had taken a 17-0 second-quarter lead on touchdown runs by McKnight and Washington and a 46-yard field goal by David Buehler. The Bruins pulled to within 10 points when Dominique Johnson made a spectacular one-handed touchdown catch with seven seconds left in the half.
UCLA remained within striking distance despite a third quarter that featured a fumble by Bruins receiver Brandon Breazell, a fumble by McKnight and an interception by USC cornerback Terrell Thomas within 80 seconds.
After Thomas' interception at the Bruins' 43, the Trojans drove toward the end zone and faced a third-and-goal from the two. Johnson was stopped short, and tackle Sam Baker was called for holding.
Rather than declining the penalty and forcing the Trojans into a fourth-down situation, Dorrell opted to take the penalty, later explaining that backing USC up gave the Bruins' defense more space to operate.
On the next play, Booty hit Davis over the middle and the tight end escaped the grasp of linebacker Christian Taylor en route to the end zone and a 24-7 lead.
"We had a great call and we missed a tackle," Dorrell said. "We had everybody covered. We were there to make the play and Christian Taylor didn't make the play. If we make the tackle there, it's fourth and six."
Instead, the game was essentially over.
USC players left the locker room uncertain who their Rose Bowl opponent would be. But they were looking forward to playing in Pasadena for the third year in a row.
"We were all talking about how we're tired of going to the Rose Bowl," Thomas said. "But you know what?
"Let's go."
Follow Gary Klein on Twitter @LATimesklein


text:
NORMAN, Okla.— After nearly five hours of play, the No. 18 Oklahoma women's tennis team dropped its second Big 12 match of the season, falling to No. 22 Texas 5-2 Friday in Austin.
Two tiebreakers in doubles helped the Sooners (15-4, 5-2) take the early lead over Texas (11-9, 6-1). Senior Hermon Brhane and sophomore Zita Engbroks were forced into the first tiebreak and came out on top with an 8-7 (7-5) win.
Seniors Whitney Ritchie and Mia Lancaster battled relentlessly against Breaunna Addison and Elizabeth Begley on court one. The 1.5 hour long match resulted in the second tiebreaker of the evening. Ultimately, OU came out on top with an 8-7 (7-3) victory to clinch the doubles point.
However, the doubles point would be one of only two points earned by the Sooners.
In singles, junior Abbi Melrose battled back from a 5-2 second set deficit to force a third set on court six. After fighting to a second tiebreak, Melrose defeated Lana Groenvynck 1-6, 7-6, 7-6 to earn the only singles point for the Sooners.
Ritchie, Lancaster, and sophomore Emma Devine fell early in singles to give Texas the 3-1 lead. Brhane and Chumney fought to third sets on their respective courts to try and keep the Sooners alive. However, the comebacks came up short and both fell to their opponents.
The Sooners travel to Waco, Texas to take on the Baylor Bears Sunday, April 13, at 1 p.m. before returning home to take on Oklahoma State on Saturday, April 19 at noon.
Follow @OU_WTennis on Twitter and like Oklahoma Women's Tennis on Facebook for more information on the women's tennis program.
1. Lancaster/Ritchie (OU) def. Addison/Begley (UT) 8-7 (7-3)
2. Batra/ Koprcina (UT) def. Devine/Chumney 8-3
3. Engbroks/Brhane (OU) def. Horn/Gajic (UT) 8-7 (7-5)
Order of Finish: 2, 3, 1
1. Breaunna Addison (UT) def. Whitney Ritchie (OU) 6-2, 6-3
2. Elizabeth Begley (UT) def. Hermon Brhane (OU) 5-7, 6-4, 6-4
3. Ratnika Batra (UT) def. Morgan Chumney (OU) 6-2, 6-7, 6-3
4. Neda Koprcina (UT) def. Mia Lancaster (OU) 6-4, 6-1
5. Pippa Horn (UT) def. Emma Devine (OU) 6-2, 6-2
6. Abbi Melrose (OU) def. Lana Groenvynck (UT) 1-6, 7-6, 7-6
Order of Finish: 5, 4, 1, 3*, 2, 6


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A Short Cut to Mushrooms
|The Fellowship of the Ring chapters
|Book I
|Book II
A Short Cut to Mushrooms is the fourth chapter in the first book of The Fellowship of the Ring.
When the adventurous Hobbits get up in the morning, they find that the elves have already left, leaving breakfast for them. Frodo decides to take a short cut through the woods, in order to avoid the Black Riders on the road. They hear strange and frightening noises, and hurry along till they come to the farm of Farmer Maggot.
As a youngster, Frodo was caught many a times stealing mushrooms from these fields and he is afraid of Farmer Maggot and his dogs. His fear is eased when Maggot and the dogs greet them and offer assistance. Farmer Maggot tells the travelers that a stranger resembling the Black Rider has been asking questions about Frodo. Old Maggot advises Frodo not to get mixed up in these adventures, but he realizes that Frodo will not change his mind. He offers to drive them to the ferry.
After supper, the travelers set off in the thick fog. Along the road they encounter what appears to be a cloaked man atop a large horse. Assuming it is the Black Rider, they attempt to hide in the back of the wagon. The mysterious rider is in fact only Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck who has been on the road in search of the group. Farmer Maggot gives Frodo a basketful of mushrooms and bids them farewell.


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Spring commencement ceremony to be held at Stan Sheriff Center on May 12
Distinguished alumni and business executive to serve as commencement speakersUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Posted: May 2, 2012
UH Mānoa alumni Dr. Claire Asam, Trustee of the Queen Lili'uokalani Trust and Dr. J. Kuhio Asam, Executive Director of Lunalilo Home & Trust, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Hawai'i Foundation, will be the featured speakers at the undergraduate degree ceremony at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa on Saturday, May 12, at the Stan Sheriff Center.
The undergraduate ceremony is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. (student procession begins at 8:30 a.m.), and will end at noon. More than 1,400 students are eligible to receive bachelor's degrees at the undergraduate ceremony. Honorary Doctorates of Humane Letters will also be awarded to philanthropists and educators Bernard and Barbro Osher.
Later in the day, from 3-5 p.m., master's and doctor's degrees and post-baccalaureate certificates in secondary education will be awarded to nearly 800 graduate degree candidates. Anton Krucky, co-founder and President/CEO of Tissue Genesis, Inc. will be the speaker at the afternoon ceremony and dedicated public servant U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka and internationally renowned author Haruki Murakami will receive honorary degrees.
Undergraduate Ceremony:
Jenna Robinson, candidate for a Bachelor of Arts in history and ethnic studies, will be student speaker. A member of the UH Mānoa track and field team, Hawaiian Ensemble, the Ethnic Studies Student Association, and the History Honors Society Phi Alpha Theta, Robinson has worked as a Resident Advisor for the past two years. In addition to her studies, Robinson is also an intern and researcher for the African American Diversity Cultural Center of Hawai'i working on empowering the local African American youth through artistic expression. She is the only one of her parents' seven children to graduate from college.
Undergraduate Honors Program candidates are Kathy LeVern Aldinger, Jeana Y. Cadby, Scott Alan Campbell, Johnelle Chiemi Kamana Chock, Chelsea Mahealani Dau, Rebecca A. Dew, Brady A. Evans, La`Toya Inai` James, Anna Patricia Koethe, Youngsu Cho Kwon, Karleanne Elizabeth Matthews, James Whalen Akana Murphy, Atsuko Nagatsu, John Thornton O'Connor, Yuho Ono, Dara Lynn Fumiko Kamomiono'eau Pagaduan, Scott Perske, Almas Rebekah Rawji, Ruel Jaramillo Reyes, Julianna Sumida and Raindrop Wright.
Also receiving recognition during the ceremony will be Regents' Scholars Milly L.C. Chang, Ryan Daugherty, Christopher Tadao Foo, Jonathan Chun-Hung Fung, Emily Jean Gomes, Sianha Michael Gualano, Trudy M. Hong, Lauren Emiko Kida, Megan E. Kira, Edison Yiuyau Lau, Chelsey Ann Masako Nakanishi, Yuho Ono, Katrina Joy Valcourt and Erica B.K. Wan.
Presidential Scholar graduates are Lihua Keating and Mari Kuboyama. The Board of Regents established the Regents' and Presidential Scholarships in 1987 as the University's first full scholarships based solely on academic excellence and reserved for Hawai'i's best high school and community college students.
Doors to the Stan Sheriff Center will open at 7:45 a.m. for the undergraduate ceremony and at 1:45 p.m. for the advanced degree ceremony. Both events are free and open to the public. No tickets are issued, and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Balloons and strollers are not allowed inside the Stan Sheriff Center.
Free parking will be available in the lower campus parking structure, which will open at 6 a.m. Parking shuttle service will be provided for the undergraduate ceremony only. No shuttle service will be provided during the advanced degree ceremony. The shuttle buses are wheelchair accessible and run a continuous route from the Biomedical Science Building to Krauss Circle.
Friends and family members may greet graduates following the ceremony on the football practice field (surnames A-L) and the soccer practice field (M-Z).Authorized lei vendors will be located in the areas. Authorized lei vendors will be located in the area.
There will be a live webcast of the ceremony. See the website at: http://www.manoa.hawaii.edu/commencement/.


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After the Olympics
Along with the athletes, I feel like I'm still recovering from the Olympics. I'm physically tired from two weeks of staying up too late to watch sports, and my nerves were set on edge watching Nastia and Shawn perfectly perform stunts on that precarious balance beam. And how about shows put on by the Chinese--both athletically and artistically.
Listening to Bob Costas wrap up his coverage, and you could be convinced that the fanfare has gone to his head. The 2008 Olympics were everything they were supposed to be and more--a successful coming out party for China, a place where everyone is happy, welcoming, patriotic but supported of other countries' atheletes as well. Just like those impressive Chinese divers, everything was perfect.
I'm not surprised that dissent within China was silenced, but I was surprised that Costas and his NBC crew were silent about this. Here are two interesting articles from Zenit News Agency, one from the perspective of the bishop of Hong Kong [1], and another about China's human rights violations surrounding the Olympics [2].
If the Olympics are held here in Chicago in 2016, I'm sure there will be protests of some sort. (I confess that I'm against the Chicago bid because I'm not convinced the plans for development will help the disadvantaged. Also I play Ultimate next to mostly Latinos playing soccer, African Americans playing softball, and Indians playing cricket in the park where they planning the Olympic stadium.) But more importantly, I hope that the mainstream media doesn't ignore the voices struggling to be heard.
For me the Olympics live up to their excitement in terms of sports, but there seems to be a lot missing when it comes to having a lasting impact on the community where they were held.
What did you think of the 2008 Olympics? Perfect 10.0 or should there be deductions? What about a potential US Olympics in Chicago in 2016?


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Dave S.
"All items appear to carry equal weight, leaving the user scanning the page for something important."
On the contrary, I think that the logo draws the eye in, and the flanking items give them something to look at immediately after. Admittedly the ads below throw off the balance, but I think that's more a result of colour and detail against a site that's predominantly monotone. And let's face it, ads often work against balance and visual weighting to begin with. Hard to roll with that.
How important do you feel it is for a navigation system (main, sub, tertiary, etc) to utilize a consistent color scheme for unity and distinction from other elements?
That would go a long way toward consistency, and could aid in differentiating the nav quite well if done right. Though these days you'd be hard-pressed to find sites that use nav in multiple spots throughout the page that apply a common treatment, so it's not exactly a common convention.
Although I suspect it's probably more true that you'd require secondary and deeper-level nav to visually stand apart from global nav. Having a clear nav hierarchy isn't a bad thing.


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Get the Flash Playerto see this player.
|Hustler's Taboo
Short review: Hustler's Taboo is a place where you can explore your dark fetish desires! The bevvy of beautiful Hustler models bound, gagged and tortured is enough to make any fetish lover swoon! It's the same superior quality that you come to expect from a company like Hustler and the site features their greatest BDSM line of DVDs called "Taboo". Time to get kinky and get your freak on, Larry Flynt style!
Content Amount: While there is definitely plenty of content on Hustler's Taboo, not all of it is actual BDSM content. There is a lot of hardcore and mainstream sex activities sprinkled in amongst the fetish. However there is plenty of items to keep you well entertained!


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AIDS Treatment News
Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine; by John S. James
Thomas M. Sinclair, M.S., L.Ac., Diplomate, National Board of Acupuncture Orthopedics, has treated people with HIV for eight years. He is executive director of the Immune Enhancement Project in San Francisco. AIDS Treatment News interviewed him August 22, at the IEP office in San Francisco's Castro district.
ATN: Where do you have most success with traditional Chinese medicine, and where does it not work as well?
Sinclair: Traditional Chinese medicine has been particularly successful in treating peripheral neuropathy, sinusitis, pain-related problems, night sweats, insomnia, dry skin, headache, and low energy, and fatigue.
With digestive problems, we do not always get a person functioning back at a normal level. But often acupuncture, together with diet changes or medication, can help to return the digestion to a more normal state.
What has not worked well? The first condition that comes to mind has been Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). We have not had good success in that area. And sometimes in late-stage AIDS it is difficult to make dramatic changes, as the body's energy is so depleted.
Finding a Practitioner
ATN: How can somebody go about finding a Chinese medicine practitioner, not just in San Francisco but across the U.S. How do regulations differ in different states?
Sinclair: Currently in the U.S. there are 27 states where acupuncture is licensed and regulated. It goes all the way from California, where we function as primary care physicians, to some states, even including Illinois, where acupuncture is illegal at this point. You need to check with the local licensing bodies.
Private Practitioner vs. Clinic
ATN: What is the difference between seeing a private practitioner, going to a clinic, or going to a teaching- school clinic?
Paying for Acupuncture
ATN: In San Francisco, what might people expect to pay for Chinese medicine treatment?
Acupuncture, Herbs, Electrical Stimulation, Moxibustion,
Hydroxyurea and ddI: by John S. James
The long-awaited French study of hydroxyurea plus ddI appeared August 28 in the JOURNAL OF ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROMES AND HUMAN RETROVIROLOGY. It reported good antiviral activity and CD4 count improvement in a 90-day trial with 12 patients who started with a high CD4 count. Viral load (measured by plasma HIV RNA) fell with a median decline of 1.71 log (about 98%) in six of the 12 patients; in the other six, plasma HIV RNA fell to undetectable levels, so the exact decline could not be computed. At the same time, the 12 patients had a median CD4 increase of 120.
The 12 patients had to be asymptomatic, with CD4 count over 250, to enter this trial. Their median starting CD4 count was 343. There were some side effects which might have been due to hydroxyurea, but none severe enough to cause anyone to discontinue the treatment. However, other publications have reported that the drug can cause serious side effects.
We have heard a few greatly mixed reports on hydroxyurea, which has been used for decades in cancer treatment and is available by prescription. Generally the good reports have been from persons in earlier stages of HIV disease; many have had CD4 counts in the high 200s or more. One person who started with a CD4 count just under 300 reported tremendous improvement. But we have also heard two reports from people with advanced AIDS and very low counts who found no benefit at all and serious side effects; one thought the drug had caused him lasting harm.
Thalidomide: by John S. James
Thalidomide has already been available through a compassionate-use program for treatment of certain cases of aphthous ulcers, and some other conditions. But until now patients could not obtain the drug through this program for the treatment of HIV-related wasting syndrome, where thalidomide might also be effective. Now the FDA has authorized an expanded-access program for AIDS-related wasting. This program, conducted by Celgene Corporation of Warren, New Jersey, will randomize patients to one of two doses, 50 mg or 200 mg (the most common community dose so far has been 100 mg); this randomization will allow researchers to determine if there is a dose response in either safety and/or effectiveness of the treatment. Response to therapy will be measured after four weeks, and those failing the smaller dose can switch to the larger dose at that time. Patients may continue the therapy indefinitely.
This program will require that physicians get local IRB (institutional review board) approval to participate -- which can be a serious obstacle to patients who obtain their treatment in public hospitals and clinics. Also there will be cost recovery, meaning that the company, which is small, can charge for the cost of the program. The cost has not yet been set, but we have heard that it is likely to be about $1,000 per year -- not a few thousand dollars per year as quoted in The WALL STREET JOURNAL on August 29.
Entry Criteria
As we go to press on August 30, the protocol is not yet entirely final. But according to Dr. Sol Barer of Celgene, the major criteria are likely to be the following:
For more information about this program, call 800/896-6766, or after Monday September 4 call 800/253-1596, during business hours Eastern time.
Health Insurance: by John S. James
A newly exposed health-insurance abuse, run by some of the biggest companies in the business, is costing policyholders billions of dollars a year, according to expert estimates. Anyone who pays a copayment (usually 20%) for health care is potentially at risk.
The scheme was described in a page 1 article in The WALL STREET JOURNAL, August 21. The way it works is that the companies sell standard insurance contracts in which they agree to pay 80 percent of certain medical costs. But then they negotiate secret deals with doctors and hospitals, by which they receive huge discounts over the nominal price -- often more than 50 percent. This way the insurance company ends up paying much less than the 80 percent agreed to in its contract.
In some cases discounts can be more than 80 percent. This means that not only did the insurance company pay nothing, it actually got a rebate from the physician, out of the patient's copayment. The insurance companies then use the fictitious 80-percent amounts to tell people that they have reached their policy maximum, when the company has actually paid far less than the amount agreed in the contract. Meanwhile, all this is concealed from the patients by contracts with the doctors and hospitals, requiring them to keep the information confidential.
The WALL STREET JOURNAL article described the case of one company, Trigon Blue Cross Blue Shield, in Virginia. The state forced it to abandon such practices and pay millions of dollars in civil fines and restitution. (Technically a not- for-profit, Trigon has accumulated a surplus of more than $650 million, and pays its chief executive an annual compensation of $895,000.) Meanwhile, similar practices continue in other companies across the country. Activists could help by getting documentation from friendly physicians and hospitals, or their employees, to the attention of regulatory agencies and the press. Doctors and hospitals know if they are billing your insurance for more than they are really being paid. Another approach might be to urge medical societies to develop ethical codes governing such practices, which could not exist without collaboration by healthcare providers.
Note: A different approach to reforming healthcare abuses was suggested in an interview with Lonnie Bristow, the new president of the American Medical Association, published in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, August 20. He said that after the loss of health-care reform, managed care, which can be legitimate, had often become "managed profiteering." The interview lacked details, but Dr. Bristow protested that Federal antitrust laws discourage doctors from competing with healthcare corporations by providing their services directly to employers, etc., at lower cost, while maintaining the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship. It may be illegal for doctors to collectively price their services, while legal for a corporation to hire the same doctors and set the same prices. (Doctors can start their own healthcare corporation -- and are doing so in California -- but this can be difficult.)
Federal law may have unwittingly created special privileges for corporate healthcare, helping it take billions of dollars out of the healthcare system without providing comparable value in return.


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The Scot, who announced his decision to step down as boss after more than 26 years in charge on Wednesday, received a guard of honour before the match against Swansea, as well as a rapturous reception from the home support.
And Sir Alex, addressing the supporters after Rio Ferdinand wrapped up a 2-1 victory with a late strike, appealed to them to back Moyes in the same way that the club backed him when he endured a trophyless spell between 1986 and 1990.
|Manchester United are 28/1 with Bet365 to beat West Brom 4-0
Moyes will take over from Sir Alex on July 1, with the latter stepping upstairs to take up a seat on the board of directors, and the Scot joked that he will now finally be able to enjoy watching United play.
"This is a thank you to Manchester United," Sir Alex started. "Not just the directors, not just the medical staff, the coaching staff, the players and supporters. It's all of you. This has been the most fantastic experience of my life. Thank you.
"My retirement does mean the end of my life with the club. I'll now be able to enjoy watching them, rather than suffer with them. But, if you think about it, those last-minute goals, the comebacks, even the defeats are all part of this great football club of ours ... so thank you for that."
The 2012-13 Premier League title is Sir Alex's 38th during his Old Trafford tenure, with 209 players having taken the field during that time.
And the Scot addressed the current crop of United talent, thanking them personally for a securing the championship in "fantastic fashion", before highlighting the achievements of the retiring Paul Scholes and absent Darren Fletcher.
He added: "I have been very fortunate that I've been able to manage to some of the greatest players in the country, let alone Manchester United. And all these players today have represented this club the proper way. They won the championship in fantastic fashion. Well done to the players.
"Before I start blubbing, I just want to speak to Paul Scholes, who retires today. He is unbelievable. One of the greatest players we've ever had and ever will ever. I also want to wish Darren Fletcher a speedy recovery and return to the club.
"I wish the players every success in the future You know how good you are, you know the jersey you're wearing and you know what it means to everyone here [at Old Trafford]. Don't ever let yourselves down. The expectation is always there."


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a) Give an example of a one-to-one function f:N->N (the function f, from the natural numbers to the natural numbers) that does not map N onto N.
Can I use f(n) = 2n, because that uses all of the n's in N, and each f(n) has only one n going to it, but it doesn't "cover" all of N?
b) Given an example of a function f mapping N onto N that is not a one-to-one function.
I'm drawing a blank here.
c) Give an example of a function f:N->N that is not one-to-one and does not map onto N.
Can I use f(n) = 1? This doesn't cover N, and isn't one-to-one because all the n's go to 1.
Thanks in advance!


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Baseball's Battle for Silicon Valley
As Oakland A's Eye Move to San Jose, Giants Get Territorial
The most contentious fight in Major League Baseball this summer involves two teams that seldom play one another, two cities separated by about 40 miles and too many lawyers to count. It is a battle for the future of the Oakland Athletics, and it is being waged in boardrooms, city halls and a courtroom.
At stake is the right to operate in closest proximity to Silicon Valley, a treasure trove of corporate sponsors and disposable income. The San Francisco Giants own it. The Athletics want it. And MLB can't seem to decide what to do about it.
More than four years have passed since baseball commissioner Bud Selig appointed a committee to study the Athletics' proposed move from Oakland to San Jose. Yet because the Giants refuse to relinquish their exclusive rights to the area, the issue remains unresolved.
It is becoming baseball's version of the Hundred Years War, an intractable slog between neighboring kingdoms vying for land, power and wealth. And in the last 10 days, a resolution has become seemingly more urgent and more difficult to reach.
On June 16, a clogged pipe resulted in pools of raw sewage in the locker rooms during a game at the Oakland Coliseum. That prompted renewed outcry for the Athletics, who have played there since 1968, to get a new stadium.
Two days later, the city of San Jose filed a lawsuit against MLB in federal court that challenges the league's long-held right to block franchises from moving without its approval. Now, there is "zero chance" that Selig will bring the matter to a vote at the quarterly owners meetings in August, according to a person familiar with his thinking, indicating no end is in sight.
MLB, Athletics and Giants executives all declined to comment. In a statement last week, Rob Manfred, MLB's executive vice president for economics and league affairs, called the lawsuit "an unfounded attack on the fundamental structures of a professional sports league."
None of this has deterred San Jose. With a population of about 984,000, the city is larger than both San Francisco and Oakland and remains eager for a team. "I don't think anybody ought to have a right to put a big red X on my city and say, 'Don't go there,'" San Jose mayor Chuck Reed said. "Whether they're selling hamburgers or baseball, that's not right."
Baseball isn't like other businesses. Its exemption from antitrust laws, which the Supreme Court established in 1922, allows it to maintain local monopolies. Territorial protections for teams date to the 1870s, according to MLB historian John Thorn. And they have enabled MLB to control the number, location and movement of teams.
The Giants play their home games at AT&T Park in downtown San Francisco, about 45 miles north of San Jose. But Santa Clara County, which includes San Jose, Mountain View and Palo Alto, is designated as part of the Giants' exclusive domain in the MLB constitution. That designation is subject to change, but only if 75% of owners vote for it, which is unlikely unless Selig recommends it.
"If there's any value in the antitrust exemption at all, that's the value, that these guys can get together and prohibit people from coming into their markets," said former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent.
In the three other two-team markets—New York, Los Angeles and Chicago—teams share the same territories. But the Bay Area is split in two, all because of a seemingly innocuous agreement forged 23 years ago. In 1990, after failing to secure public financing for a new ballpark in San Francisco, Giants owner Bob Lurie pursued a move to San Jose. To ensure the Athletics wouldn't challenge this, he asked for the consent of Oakland owner Walter Haas, the former CEO of Levi Strauss and Co.
At the time, the Athletics were thriving. They had the third-highest attendance in baseball and won the American League pennant in 1990. By all accounts, Haas was a civic-minded philanthropist who wanted to help the Giants stay in the region, so he gave his approval. "We didn't feel at the time that there was any significant downside to our business," said Andy Dolich, a former Athletics executive.
It isn't entirely clear why Lurie needed the Athletics' permission, given that neither team had exclusive claim to Santa Clara. But dividing their territories and handing Silicon Valley to the Giants hardly seemed like a major concession. "It was nothing that was totally understood nor anything that anyone was particularly concerned about," said Santa Clara assessor Larry Stone, who was involved with the efforts to lure the Giants there. "Nobody could see the future of this issue becoming a serious problem."
The Giants' bid for a publicly financed ballpark in Santa Clara failed. Lurie, whose wife said he had no comment, sold the team two years later to an investor group led by Peter Magowan, the former CEO of Safeway Inc. Haas died in 1995. But the territorial divide remained intact.
Giants owners contend they bought the team and financed AT&T Park in part based on that territorial exclusivity. Some of their major sponsors are Silicon Valley tech companies, including Yahoo and Oracle.
The Athletics' desire to build a 36,000-seat ballpark in San Jose is backed by Cisco Systems Inc., which has agreed to a naming rights deal that would call it Cisco Field. Athletics owner Lew Wolff contends that the team has exhausted all viable options for a new stadium within its territory, including failed talks in Oakland and nearby Fremont, and that moving to San Jose is the only way the team can survive in northern California.
Oakland civic leaders are trying to convince the team to build a new stadium on one of two publicly owned sites there. Donald Knauss, CEO of Oakland-based Clorox Co., said he and other business leaders have put $1 million in escrow as a down payment on sponsorships. He said he has identified local investors who would be willing to buy the team if current owners insist on moving. "Clearly there is a viable option for the team to stay in Oakland," Knauss said.
For now, the A's have no choice. They are closing in on a lease extension that will keep them at the Coliseum through 2018. But their long-term future is uncertain as ever. Frustration is mounting on all sides. "Look at the other two-team markets—They all survive," Stone said. "The Yankees and Mets survived. The Cubs and White Sox survived. Why the heck can't that be duplicated here?"
Corrections & Amplifications
Clorox CEO Donald Knauss and other business leaders have put $1 million in escrow as a down payment on sponsorships. A previous version of this article incorrectly said more than $100 million.


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Sunderland's Alfred N'Diaye has praised the approach of new manager Paolo Di Canio after his first week in charge of Sunderland.
Di Canio's reign began with defeat following their 2-1 loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, but N'Diaye and the rest of the squad remain confident of securing their Premier League status.
N'Diaye, who joined the Black Cats in January, has admitted that the team approach games differently now that former boss Martin O'Neill is no longer at the club, and that the players have responded positively.
Speaking to the Sunderland Echo, N'Diaye said: "The new manager is very different to the previous boss. We have done a lot of tactical training over the last week too."
The 23-year-old midfielder stopped short of criticising O'Neill, however.
"I do not want to say Martin O'Neill was a bad manager - they are both good managers, just with different approaches - but we are all enjoying it," added N'Diaye.
The Chelsea defeat leaves Sunderland just outside of the relegation zone on goal-difference, and N'Diaye knows that his team need to start winning games as soon as possible if they are to preserve their top flight status.
"Now we don't have a choice. We need to win games, against Newcastle and the next home game against Everton," continued N'Diaye.
"Every time we think we play well and fight, it doesn't matter. We need points.
"We've not won a game in two months and that's not good. It's not normal.
"Everybody was disappointed because as a minimum, we wanted a draw from the game yesterday. We thought we could get that."
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I have been a muslim all my life and I have done some terrible things in my that has cause some great distress in my life. I have been with a Christian girl for 2 years now but recently seperated from her because I have came closer to islam. She understands that we should not be together right now. I know that I wasn't a good muslim before but now I want to do anything to be for given for what I did. We have done some sexual things like fondling, manual pleasure, and oral sex on one occasion. I know that these are grievous things and I beg Allah for forgiveness and regret what I have done. This was a result in my ignorance and I have repented. I now pray 5 times a day, go to the mosc, and read Quran. I never want to go back to the bad things that I have done. I feel that I should marry a muslima from Egypt and change my life but I also feel that I should at least show the Christian girl islam in hopes that she will convert. My questions are: Should I marry her if she converts? Or should I find a muslima and start a new life? Will I be forgiven for what I have done?.
Praise be to Allaah.
Feelings of sin and regret for what one has done are signs of divine care for the one who committed the sin and serve to motivate him to follow the right path after having gone astray. We do not want to give the impression that what you have done is something insignificant, rather you should realize that what you have done angers your Lord and that it is a major sin. But we want to show you the path of repentance and let you know that even though Allaah is not harmed by your sin and has no need of your repentance, still He has helped you to repent and He rejoices at your repentance.
You have to give up your previous sin, and sincerely regret what you have done, and resolve firmly never to go back to this sin.
You should never despair of the mercy of Allaah, for Allaah forgives all sins. All you have to do is to repent sincerely and after that you will see that which will bring you joy; and seek the pleasure of Allaah.
See also: 624, 13990, 34905 and 22912
You also have to end your relationship with this woman lest you go back to sinning. The basic principle for the repentant Muslim is that he should keep away from all environments in which he used to disobey Allaah and he must avoid and shun all the means that could lead him to fall into sin.
So we do not think that you should get back in touch with this woman, even with the intention of calling her to Islam. You have to save yourself first. Who can guarantee that if you go back to sin – Allaah forbid – you will be enabled to repent again?
You could ask some trustworthy Muslim women to contact her and call her to Islam. We do not think that you should be the one to do that.
We do not think that it is permissible for you to marry her as she is at present, not because she is a Christian, but because she is not chaste – according to what you say. Allaah has permitted us to marry women from the people of the Book, but that is subject to the condition that they be chaste, i.e., they do not commit zina or have boyfriends.
See 22303 and 2527.
What we advise you to do is to marry a religiously-committed Muslim woman who will help to protect your religious commitment and help you to do good and to obey Allaah. This is the way to success.
See 20227 and 8391.
And Allaah knows best.


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This is a classic recipe for Vanilla Cupcakes with a coconut flavor twist thrown in. They are frosted with a sour cream frosting and dusted with more coconut over top.
The inspiration for them came when I was snowed in for five long days last week. I was craving sweet and uncomplicated. Nothing fancy. Just a little something to enjoy with a hot cup of tea. And help comfort me from the mountain of snow outside and the loss of Internet. And cable. And from the fact the mailman couldn't make it up the slippery hill to our house so no Netflix either. Oh well.
I had cupcakes. Popable mini cupcakes with a tender, sturdy, moist crumb; slightly reminiscent of coconut and topped with a fluffy, sour cream frosting that added a little bite to them that was positively scrumptious.
Moon The Kitchen Cat liked them too!
foodie_views_link_url = 'BLOG_POST_URL';foodie_views_submit_or_vote();


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Fry Happy With Ruby
Rock On Ruby
©Healy Racing Photos Harry Fry reports Rock On Ruby to be "bigger and stronger" ahead of the defence of his Stan James Champion Hurdle crown.
The first season trainer hopes to give his charge a prep race before the Festival and was encouraged by his reappearance run in the stanjames.com International Hurdle at Cheltenham in December.
"He is all set for a prep run at either Sandown on February 2 (Contenders Hurdle) or at Wincanton on February 16 (Kingwell Hurdle), weather permitting, as I'm not sure what the winter is going to bring next," said Fry.
"He is not going to run on heavy ground between now and Cheltenham. If the ground is decent, he will have a prep run but if not, he will have a racecourse gallop instead.
"He is in great form at the moment and his run in the International has brought him on a ton - I am very pleased with him. Noel (Fehily) felt he was on the winner the whole way at Cheltenham. He travelled like the best horse in the race but the lack of a recent run at that level in those conditions counted against him turning in and over the last.
"I think he will have had to have improved since last year's Champion Hurdle to win this year's race but he has improved and is much bigger and stronger. My assistant Ciara O'Connor, who rides Rock On Ruby everyday, has been saying that all season and Noel felt exactly the same after the run in December."
Kinloch Brae preview
Henry de Bromhead is keen to find out whether Days Hotel's stamina will last out over two and a half miles in the Matty Ryan Memorial Kinloch Brae Chase at Thurles on Thursday.


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Summer Course Album:
1 of 18 photos
The evenings and weekends during the Summer Course are filled will organized activities at the School and numerous chaperoned outings that allow students to experience the best of New York City arts, culture and recreation. This album features a sampling of activities and excursions from the 2012 Summer Course. Highlights include Broadway shows, a trip to the Bronx Zoo, craft night and a bus trip to see New York City Ballet perform at their summer home in Saratoga, NY.


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I thought checks and balances were entirely optional now. Can't the judiciary just declare they're no longer part of the judicial branch, or claim this has to do with national security, or say they respect the president's right to his own opinion while completely ignoring him? Turnabout is fair play.It is part of the checks and balances on the Judicial and Legislative branch
Actually, it's questionable whether they could impeach Cheney. The Consitution outlines the procedure for impeachment of the President (presided by the Chief Justice) and everyone else (presided by the Vice-President) so that means Cheney will preside over his own impeachment hearing. And as for impeaching Bush, an escape maneuver was already perfected by Nixon and Ford.
Personally, I'm hoping that a person will be elected in 2008 that will actually carry out a major house cleaning and reform policy. We've been screwed by the current administration and previous administrations because of a lack of accountability and transparency. Whether Democrat or Republican, this clean up needs to happen in a big way.
While I'd like to see a number of members of the current administration serve time, nothing will change without real reform rather than just idle talk.
... and perfectly legal, in this case.
Still, I guess it just goes to show that now, perjury is OK!
I must also strongly agree with Joe Wilson: "Scooter Libby is a traitor." [cnn.com] I certainly hope that those responsible for the egregious breach of national security are convicted as such.
Outing an active agent is an act of treason which, if I recall correctly, is still punishable by death in the US. Whether Libby, Rove, or Cheney did it doesn't (and shouldn't) matter.
This so-called administration has broken, no--pulverized--their oaths of office.
I am convinced this nation is under the control of anarchists who wish to push this nation to civil war.
Anarchists? If Bush and Co. were anarchists of the true definition of the word (i.e., people who want no government), we'd have balanced budgets, very little corruption, a massive reduction in the size of government, no war, etc. I don't think anarchist is the word that you are looking for. Quite the contrary, we're dealing with the near opposite of anarchism. (Disclaimer: I'm not an anarchist, but I am a strict constitutionalist who believe in limited government.)
Our nation for the past 75 years has been controlled by people who want to expand the power and influence of government at the expense of our liberties. Anything in the Constitution that limits the power of the federal government (e.g., the Ninth and Tenth Amendments) have been ignored consistently for the past 70 years. The federal government's growth has gone nearly unchecked since 1933. What we've been getting for decades is "government by the politicians, for the politicians."
I don't see any foreseeable change. All of the mainstream presidential candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, are still interested in maintaining the status quo of expanding government. More laws, more spending, more taxes, or some permutation of the three. The best that we could do is vote for the people who best maintain our Constitution, and brace ourselves.
Tomorrow night on Countdown (8pm ET), Olbermann will call on Bush & Cheney to resign.
(1) How serious people think the crime is seems to be only dependant on what colour team they support: either (blue) "Complicit in the outing of a CIA operative - bordering on treason!" or (red) "No crime (she wasn't a covert operative), no harm (he had nothing to do with the news stories), no foul". Who is right? Who cares?
(2) accusations of potentially politically motivated judicial decisions: The penalty given, and the refusal to allow appeals before incarceration has been argued to be at least marginally unusual for this sort of case (IANAL, but I've occasionally glanced at Google News), like the blue team finding a chance to make the red team make themselves look bad by drawing commutation out of wildly unpopular red team president: maybe, maybe not, but in this climate, who is to say? (hint, if you support the red team, the judgement was wrong and politically motivated. If you support Blue team, it was just and right and appropriate to the seriousness of the crime - see (1))
(3) Shrill condemnation for a completely inevitable act by the red team: but, regardless of what team is in power, what do you expect? Either they honestly believe that the judgement was a miscarriage of justice (in which case, what else is the power to commute sentences supposed to be for) or he was actually up to no good, on orders from the government (in which case leaving the guy out to dry would go past the line of unethical). See (1) for a guide on how you should fall on this.
Is this fiasco really factor for anyone? Wouldn't it be better if we stuck to what is *really* bothering us? There is plenty there, and it actually matters!
Whenever I see corruption like this I remind myself of our Founder's absolute GENIUS. The legislative branch creates independent prosecutor to investigate executive branch -> the people convict -> the judicial branch sentences -> the executive branch commutes -> the legislative branch goes nuts. It's a perfect series of checks and balances.
Meanwhile, we go about our lives content with the knowledge that our government is far too involved arguing about whether some exec in the Vice-President's office lied about an investigation in which a crime may or may not have actually been committed (no one was ever charged) to actually scheme up ways to consolidate power and threaten the Peoples' freedom. And in the end, no branch got too much say and it was the people who were required to actually convict the dude.
Thank you Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and Hamilton. This was the true gift of our Founding Fathers; not a perfect government. They knew that men will never change.
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.


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I actually went to grad school with a woman who later got caught doing something similar. There is a lot of pressure to publish in academia, even at the grad level these days (especially with so much competition now for the few tenure-track positions available).
When I was in academia, there were all these promises of baby boomers retiring and the fields opening up to new blood, but all I saw was a profession getting more and more cutthroat, with fewer and fewer opportunities for any future. Ended up seeing some pretty questionable activities going on. One of the most prominent was the proliferation of smaller academic "journals" that were little more than conglomerations of local grad students and profs looking to publish their own papers under the guise of a supposedly peer-reviewed journal (with the "peers" being themselves and their friends). I wanted no part of it myself, but the temptation was there for a lot of my fellow academics.
There is also the temptation to publish a lot of really conventional stuff that basically just takes someone else's work and modifies it slightly, or applies it to a slightly different framework. This is the academic equivalent of shovelware. Professor Hot Shit publishes some groundbreaking work, and for the next 20 years you get hundreds of knockoff articles from ass-kissing, unoriginal grad students and nontenured profs basically just parroting Hot Shit's work. Tends to produce a LOT of groupthink in academia (at least until the next Hot Shit comes along). At least 99% of the articles and papers coming out in my field fell into this category. You could actually be seriously be penalized for coming up with original arguments if you didn't have the established cred (and tenure) to challenge the reigning Prof. Hot Shit. Saw another fellow grad student basically drumheaded out of the field for challenging the ideas of a prominent professor in the department. Big mistake.
MOD PARENT UP (because he's a friend of mine and he promised he'd get my next comment modded up).
MOD PARENT UP (because he's a friend of mine and he promised he'd get my next comment modded up).
Okay. That's one citation. How many more do I have to make before I get modded up too?
i write:
why not, I mean, it is called PEER review.
wiktionary says
peer (plural peers)
Somebody who is, or something that is, at a level equal (to that of something else).
So by definition A is peer of A. And so it can review A work.
^ this is so true.
I'd say:
Because, from what I've seen, in certain field, publishing on arXiv is like handing a note "from your mother" written in your own scrawly handwriting and signed "Mom" to your teacher.
It tends to get a bad rap and it's almost impossible to sort the wheat from the chaff precisely BECAUSE it's an open-access site. And absolute tripe can get there and get positive feedback without any rigorous verification at all.
From what I see, if you want to stay reputable and not just "pass", you have to publish properly or not at all. And even that's not a guarantee.
Think of the publishing industry. A self-published ebook is highly unlikely to sell millions of copies and be on the bookshelves for Christmas. It can happen. It has happened. But if you go to a literary agent and tell them you're self-published, or have previously published your book under an open-source license, they'll laugh you out of the room and not want to touch you. In some cases, people who have self-published 20 copies of their own "book" without any editing and failing every submission they've ever done and being rejected by every agent in the land will tell you they are a "published author" while everyone else snickers behind their back. Academic reputation is dealt in pretty much the same way.
Science is open. Research is open. Publishing is open. But your reputation (and thus talks, jobs, further research, etc.) is predicated on being in properly peer-reviewed journals.
from what I've seen, in certain field, publishing on arXiv is like handing a note "from your mother" written in your own scrawly handwriting and signed "Mom" to your teacher.
Really? I'm not sure what fields you're referring to. ArXiv was founded primarily to disseminate preprints in High Energy Physics. In that field, nobody treats it as the equivalent of a peer-reviewed journal, but it is where most people I know in the field actually get and read the literature. Hardly anybody looks papers up in the journals any more.
For what it's worth, arXiv does filter out the outright crackpots, which is why viXra [vixra.org] exits. Shop and compare.
Exactly. An open-access record of preprints is really handy as it allows one to really keep up with the state of research (as opposed to journals, which are often months behind where things are right now).
Take it with a grain of salt, of course, but it's useful in the same way that the Debian sid repository is useful.
Because you need to acknowledge all of the authors, including whoever is supervising you, and if they're trying to play the cut-throat politics game they might not be so keen to authorise the publication of a paper which contradicts one of their political buddies.
If that's the case, why not just publish at an open-access site?
Because that site isn't peer reviewed. As we can see, peer review isn't the unblemished pillar we hold it up to be. But as a grad student whose adviser doesn't often check my work, peer review can be the only thing standing between me publishing a mistake and actually catching it. That being said, there are several open access sites that are peer reviewed. And in support of open access, the University of California, San Diego recently started a fund for researchers where it will pay for the fees for one ope
I guess it depends on what field you're in. If your field has 3 months of hard work implementing a system in order to be able to get any results at all, you probably won't have that kind of problem - it tends to weed out the people who aren't willing to put in the effort. I'm currently doing my MSc in robotic mapping (AKA SLAM) and the quality of papers I find has been consistently high. In fact, sometimes I wish they had tried some little tweak, because it would take me two weeks of coding/testing to figur
It's Dr. Hot Shit. The PhD wasn't honorary.
Ph.D's don't pull these shenanigans
Well I have my Ph.D, and I work with a lot of Ph.Ds. The fact that this goes on a lot is hardly any secret. Where are you getting this notion from?
If there's anything I've learned, it's that highly educated people are simply better than double-digit IQs.
I've known an awful lot of PhDs, and usually that is indeed the case. But there were two I knew, one a woman and one a man, who were dumb as doorknobs. I still don't have a clue how they ever graduated high school, let alone got PhDs (cheated? How did they get past the thesis?). Both of them seemed completely incapable of learning anything.
I noticed that none of the other PhDs I'd known put "PhD" after
Why can't the people in charge of making the career decisions for academics take the few days a year to read and judge papers themselves rather the relying on the peer review system to do it for them.
You think the chair can understand any of what their faculty is doing? bahahahaha. Even the faculty has to figure out what their GAs are doing.
Why can't the people in charge of making the career decisions for academics take the few days a year to read and judge papers themselves rather the relying on the peer review system to do it for them.
Most places that hire people with PhDs want to cover lots of topics. Hence, none of the doctors are qualified to evaluate each other, and all of them are too busy to take the time to become qualified in each others' areas.
A lot of this money comes from Grants outside the people the people who makes the "career decisions".
If that were the case there would be a lot of papers complementing such people. "Case Study: Human Resource Done right, example Mr. So and So from x university"
At least 99% of the articles and papers coming out in my field fell into this category
Certainly. The REF (research excellence framework) concocted by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has actuall come up with and implemented a really good idea.
This is actually quite shocking and really rather unexpected, but you know, stranger things have happened (like the release of Duke Nukem Forever and unexpected popularity of My Little Pony).
Basically, it happens every 5 years or so and each researcher in the institution gets to submit up to 4 publications (that is less than 1 per year). The publications are then graded by impact, and the general quality is assessed.
Naturally, the system is imperfect and it would be silly to think otherwise, but it is a huge improvement over the previous system.
It almost does away with the wretched salami slicing, minimum publishable units and paper churning. Churning out 100 mid quality papers in 5 years is much worse according to the criteria than churning out 1 great one and 3 mid quality ones.
In other words, it encourages people to dial back on the churn and concentrate on publishing high impact science.
You could actually be seriously be penalized for coming up with original arguments if you didn't have the established cred
Generally, the way to make a name in academia is to overturn the status quo. It's what everyone dreams of. The few papers that do successfully challenge things generally do much better in all measurable terms of impact than yet another me-too article (generally, but not always, sadly).
Saw another fellow grad student basically drumheaded out of the field for challenging the ideas of a prominent professor in the department.
I've never seen that but I don't doubt your story. Some professors are idiots and some departments are worse than useless.
I don't think it's as simple as that. An unknown researcher can't fight the conventional wisdom merely by being right. A recognized rising star might fight the accepted view. Or the CW might be tottering and rotten and the critics ready to rally around the right attack from a newcomer who has nothing to lose by bucking the establishment.
It really comes down to a basic problem.
We are trying to quantify peoples status in life/figure out if their funding is worth it. This makes sense because we live in a world of scarcity we cannot fully fund every idea.
However we come up with measurements to quantify these things. Shortly after once people figure out the measurements will then change their behavior to put the measurements into their favor.
If the measurement for a good scientist is the number of published papers, you are going to see a lot of crappy published papers, because they need to publish crap to get more resources.
Same with benchmarking in computer hardware. Quantifying performance into a single ( or a few ) number.
It is caused by combination of scarce resources and laziness.
There is also the temptation to publish a lot of really conventional stuff that basically just takes someone else's work and modifies it slightly, or applies it to a slightly different framework. This is the academic equivalent of shovelware... At least 99% of the articles and papers coming out in my field fell into this category.
Don't worry, lower-tier conferences and "journals" aren't confused with top journals. And the lower-tier venues play an important role. You can't have major leagues without minor leagues feeding into them, and their pipeline is in turn filled by colleges, then highschools, all the way down to little league. It takes years to work up to publishing in top-tier journals, and lower-tier venues are where you develop the chops. Most never make it to the summit after all, but still do useful applied work during their careers.
You see conspiracy in some people at your school setting up a student workshop or conference as a venue for their work. To me that sounds like an enriching activity for those involved. Are you afraid they will somehow use this to leapfrog you into professorships at Stanford? Don't be. At most, this is the first of many steps towards such a goal.
Of course, the fraud this story is about is a whole different matter.
I guess academics should publish elsevier.
I guess academics should publish elsevier.
Dear Professor Coward,
After careful peer review we have concluded that your submitted draft comment should have been rejected.
Reviewer's remarks: Woeful puns. Also, I didn't like how you formatted your figures entirely out of blank space.
What Elsevier journal are you paying to publish in? I have published in multiple Elsevier journals and have never been asked to pay a fee. I think this may be the policy of your particular journal?
Someone in our research group recently published in an Elsevier journal that charged at least for color figures, I'm not sure if there were page charges as well. Even just the charge for figures ended up at a couple thousand dollars.
See this article: http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/05/09/1514235/more-fake-journals-from-elsevier [slashdot.org]. Those guys have not much credibility left
Elsevier's ethical standards are such that, in all likelihood, they got hacked because somebody forgot to refill the firewall's kitten tears hopper or empty its puppy grinder promptly.
Aside from doing...um... important work in pharmaceutical awareness, Reed Elsevier has the somewhat tense situation of owning The Lancet and a bunch of other medical journals that attract bleeding-heart do-no-harm types, and also running among the world's largest trade shows [dsei.co.uk] for the security forces of the world looking for new and exciting ways to generate interesting cases for the trauma surgeons to write up. They've had some togetherness issues over that.
Elsevier's ethical standards are such that, in all likelihood, they got hacked because somebody forgot to refill the firewall's kitten tears hopper or empty its puppy grinder promptly.
Somebody please mod parent "Extra Awesome".
Yes, if you believe them, it's possible to sell negative numbers of books when it comes to figuring out how not to pay me the royalties. These guys make the **AA's look like pikers with their "hollywood accounting". Sure, I know I never sold a million copies, but...I know I sold tens of thousands because I've had that many unique emails; the original publisher, Miller Freeman, sanitized the book text of my email address - but didn't bother actually reading the code!
And now they are selling an e-book version, without asking me. One wonders what you'll do with a ton of fancy MFC code on a kindle....if they even provide it anymore.
These guys can go to hell - all of them. They are holding back science progress. Go check on the individual subscription rate for say, Rev Sci Ins with all the discounts. The cable TV guys need to learn how to bundle and overprice from them - for me, last I checked, it was $60k/year with all discounts to get hold of back issues of that one journal (in a bundle you can't pick and choose). I mean, wow, 60k/year per customer? Wonder how many servers they maintain for that - one? It's not like they wrote or even paid for those papers...I did, you did - tax paid research on which they got an additional publisher copyright to play this game with. Sure, if you can find the original author, they'll often send you a copy of the paper free, but if you're going through old physics looking for low hanging fruit - those guys are dead.
Elsevier's financial interests have repeatedly caused conflicts before with the overall interest of good quality scientific publishing at a good value. There is a reason that many scientists have organized an Elsevier boycott, see this earlier slashdot story [slashdot.org] as very little has changed since then, aside from some superficial Elsevier posturing.
There are good quality affordable journals, run by professional societies or universities, which are an excellent alternative to Elsevier and other expensive for-profit journals. For the health of science, it is important that people choose to submit there. For untenured people who are under a great deal of pressure to submit to "top journals" it poses a difficult quandary, but for those of us for whom that isn't a concern, I don't see a reason to continue to support journals and publishers which have repeatedly done poorly.
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.