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And here I thought those guys were only on Battle.net.

http://learn-science.20m.com/tmyths.htm#myth10

Of all the ways I've thought of how a race like the Borg might get started, this is by far the creepiest.


What I find even more creepy, is that some people actually spend any time at all thinking about cheesy SF shows.

Personally I believe the Borg are all descendants of Bjorn Borg, but I have to admit that I do not lie awake at night thinking about the matter.

USA CENSORSED IRAQ REPORT
According to the German Press Agency DPA, the Iraq weapons dossier report (from which the above information came), was reduced from a 12,000 page report to only 3,000 pages.

CC.

P.S.: -42, flamebait

The screen cable is unfortunately common to a lot of dolding designs. I think the series 5 also sufffered from this as did machines from a lot of other manufacturers. Repeatedly bending a cable is always risky :-)

The battery problem however is specific to the Revo+, not the Revo, which AFIK works fine. When I noticed it on my 2nd hand machine, I found numerous online accounts of the same problem. Online chats on Usenet convinced me that this was fairly widespread. Try Searching for Revo+ battery problem and you'll get tons of hits.

It's a pity as I really liked the little machine.

OTOH, now that I redid the search, there seems to be a company that does a hardware upgrade that fixes the problem. It's a bit pricey, but if it's that or a paperweight...

India becoming a superpower,Heh don't make me laugh.I know what India could become and what India is already in terms of being a superpower.It is a superpower all right,a superpower (or is it a pooh-power of corruption,(Everybody agrees India is a ,corrupt land),genocide,dowry deaths(bride burnings bride burnings ,losers,and a country of losers.

This guy, reminds me a lot of Frank Chu. Frank is this crazy guy who walks around downtown San Francisco carrying a picket sign that says some bizzare gibebrish about politics and "The 12 Galaxies."

He's also generally known for showing up at most major gatherings in the city.

His fan page: http://www.12galaxies.20m.com/

Shit about Frank Chu on Google.

of corse, I think Frank it too whacked out to send millions of emails, but if he could, he would.

This guy doesn't look much like Mel Gibson. But if he says he's surrounded by beautiful women I guess he must have something going for him.

It was Frank Chu!! While traveling through the 12 Galaxies (you know, trying to Impeach Clinton), he had a chance to embed these tablets into the street using his secret Sigmogonic devices. He had to be cryptic with his messages, since he was being chased by Quintronic Criminals, who are dangerous with their Alphogonic Attempted Murders.

It was Frank Chu!! While traveling through the 12 Galaxies (you know, trying to Impeach Clinton), he had a chance to embed these tablets into the street using his secret Sigmogonic devices. He had to be cryptic with his messages, since he was being chased by Quintronic Criminals, who are dangerous with their Alphogonic Attempted Murders.

...corncobs, sawdust pellets, and coconut shells to produce electricity...

Prior Art?

How about a Monty Python view?

[battle sounds]
[SCO defeats a worthless-piece-of-crap-knight]
IBM: You fight with the strength of many men, Sir knight.
I am IBM, King of the Supercomputers.
[pause]
I seek the finest and the bravest companies in the land to
join me in my Court of Linux.
[pause]
You have proved yourself worthy; will you join me?
[pause]
You make me sad. So be it. Come, RedHat.
SCO: None shall pass.
IBM: What?
SCO: None shall pass.
IBM: I have no quarrel with you, good Sir knight, but I must
distribute this kernel.
SCO: Then you shall die.
IBM: I command you, as King of the Supercomputers, to stand aside!
SCO: I move for no man.
IBM: So be it!
[hah]
[parry thrust]
[IBM chops SCO's patent claims off]
IBM: Now stand aside, worthy adversary.
SCO: 'Tis but a scratch.
IBM: A scratch? Your patent claims are nonsense!
SCO: No, they aren't.
IBM: Well, what's that then?
SCO: I've had worse.
IBM: You liar!
SCO: Come on you pansy!
[hah]
[parry thrust]
[IBM chops SCO's copyright claims off]
IBM: Victory is mine!
[kneeling]
We thank thee Linus, that in thy merc-
[SCO kicks IBM in the head while he is praying]
SCO: Come on then.
IBM: What?
SCO: Have at you!
IBM: You are indeed brave, Sir knight, but the fight is mine.
SCO: Oh, had enough, eh?
IBM: Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no IP left.
SCO: Yes I have.
IBM: Look!
SCO: Just a flesh wound.
[Headbutts IBM in the chest]
IBM: Look, stop that.
SCO: Chicken! Chicken!
IBM: Look, I'll have your trade secrets. Right!
[whop]
SCO: Right, I'll do you for that!
IBM: You'll what?
SCO: Come 'ere!
IBM: What are you going to do, sue me?
SCO: I own Unix!
IBM: You're a loony.
SCO: The Black Knight always triumphs! Have at you!
IBM: Come on then.
[whop]
[IBM chops SCO's contract claims off]
IBM: All right; we'll settle out of court. Come, RedHat.
SCO: Oh, oh, I see, running away then. You yellow
bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite
your patents off!

(With thanks to this site.)

It's just the standard FSF press release with "SCO" pencilled in. He barely even mentions SCO except to use it as the latest example of why everyone else in the world is a cretin for confusing GNU and Linux. The usual exhortations to adopt his version of newspeak are in there, as is the ritual flogging of poor dead GNU Hurd, and the reliable old prediction that GNU will shed Linux Real Soon Now anyway.

Notable exceptions are a lack of a lecture about the difference between Free and Open, and there are only five mentions (including the title) of GNU being a "community". C'mon Richard, get with the five year program.

Jesting aside, it does show some restraint on his part to just use the standard press release, rather than writing a piece along the lines of "I warned you! But did you listen to me? Oh, no, you knew it all, didn't you? Oh, it's just a harmless little bunny, isn't it? Well, it's always the same, I always--". Fair props to RMS, he's been warning about this for years. Who'd have thought that the filthy socialist hippy would be right?

In case it gets /.'ed

The space-based SOHO observatory captured these views of the comet as it neared perihelion by using a coronograph's occulting disk to block the overwhelming sunlight.

Sadly, the geeks are one step ahead of you...

Phillip.

George Lucas (of American Graffiti fame!) showing up to say 'there is no free lunch'.

Although, with an estimated wealth of $2.5 billion, it's easy to forget that a "movie lunch" costs regular people at least $10 each these days, before the popcorn.

Lucas went on to say that the proliferation of free and illegal downloading of content on the Internet could eventually lead studios to shy away from spending as much as they do on blockbuster movies since it won't be nearly as profitable for them to do so. This could also wind up having a major impact on the quality of movies since Lucas said that the success of summer popcorn movies enable studios to finance more artsy films.

Excuse me while I shed a few tears for the poor movie industry. Waterworld spent hundreds of millions and it was just an OK (not to mention unprofitable) movie. Actors and puppets are much more realistic and engaging and inexpensive than computer animation, and make for a better movie, but that doesn't stop Lucas from overspending on CG. And since when do artsy movies require any sort of high budget, compared to the summer blockbusters? Oh well, we only made $300 million on this blockbuster, instead of $305 million on the last one, so we can't afford to make the $5 million "Painting for Harold" sequel.

All DRM makes me think of this

Penn: You know, it's funny because Penn & Teller, although we tend to be political in our private lives-- political is a bit strong, I guess, but certainly we try to be aware of what' s going on in the world around us--we aren't very publicly political. We aren't people who believe that just because we're performers our opinions on everything need to be known. As far as I'm concerned, we did not move into politics; Janet Reno moved into art. One of the things that Teller and I are obsessed with, one of the reasons that we're in magic, is the difference between fantasy and reality. That is the subject that, if you have a brain in your head, is always dealt with in magic. The smarter the tricks you're doing, the more that' s an important thing. -- Penn Jillette -- Reason Magazine Interview

As far as I'm concerned, "geeks" did not develop some political mono-culture, politicians (and cartels) started to make a political movement out of restricting the activity of computer programmers and other technically minded people. Of course there are going to be technically minded people who sell out to the enemies of progress, that's inevitable. Those people will end up being sacrificed as soon as it is convienient to those in power.

The reason why technically minded people agree that things like Microsoft or DRM are bad is because they have had a bad experience with them, and they understand the cause of the problem. My sister did not understand it when she tried to hook her new DVD player up to a TV with no RCA jacks and the picture wouldn't work. She ended up buying a TV with RCA jacks to replace her old TV. I'm sure average people who use computers on which MS has deliberately broken some application they don't like don't necessarily blame MS any more than they do if their modem burns out in a thunderstorm.

Geeks have their eyes open, and they can't pretend un-learn things just because they are inconvienient to the **AA. The philosophy of the cartels and MS is often similar, and it boils down to, "Yes, we made that broke on purpose and if you want to fix it, we'll sick the law on you."

Oh, and plenty of geeks draw distinctions between illegal and legal uses for stuff like P2P. In fact, I'm sure that some originally thought, "Copying songs and ripping off the publisher is wrong, but that doesn't mean there aren't legitimate uses for this cool technology," but gave up that stance when they realized that the cartels might want to shut down P2P if it offered a competing business that was not illegal even more than they would shut down the illegal uses of P2P. Look at the history, the movie industry versus television, the movie industry versus the VCR and portions of the movie industry against DVD (and favoring Divx).

If you love technolgy, you will fight people who think the status quo is fine and want to destroy anything that shakes things up, even if robbing society of some knew technology will harm society as a whole.

If you don't love technology, then you are probably the kind of geek who eats broken glass or bites the heads off of chickens at a carnival blow-off and not a geek in the sense the author is. If you do love technology, then you will passionately hate attempts to restrict or suppress it. That's where a political "monoculture" comes from.

There's some evidence that there may be inconsistencies in the collapse of the two world trade center towers.
This web site points out a cloud of smoke coming from a tower not hit by the plane in the CNN video. This is hinting of a deliberate demolition of the World Trade Center site.
This web site has information that the hijackers are actually alive.
More technical information here. And isn't it strange that weapons-grade Anthrax is mailed?

A Beowulf cluster of these?

In case it gets /.'ed, I've made a mirrot at this site.

If by speed reading you mean that you are reading like the guy in the infomercials, it's impossible. Cognition has a property called 'attentional blink', where by the systems that are responsible for transfering information between different regions of your brain are busy for a finite ammount of time. For more information on it check here and I think you'll agree. You may also want to check out the articulatory control unit and iconic memory. If you ask anyone who is worth their salt in the field of psychology or neuroscience they will agree that it's just impossible to do.

Of course, Robot Wars was adapted from robot combat sports that had already been going on in the US without TV broatcasts, but everything comes from something.

There are a good number of people who believe it wasn't so much "adapted" as shamelessly stolen.

Seeing as Battlebots was created by a couple of early US Robot Wars competitors, I think it's much closer to the roots. However, the English show has much charm, what with it's "house robots".

Some people might remember that the UK actually recovered a scrapped Vulcan long range bomber from the junk heap back in the 1980's to bomb Argentine encampments during the Falklands war. Prior to the war they had decided these planes were obsolete. Obviously they were not.

Once air defenses are not an issue, the only things that matter are:

1. They should be able to fly far.
2. They should be able to carry serious payload.
3. They should be reliable.

Speed and fancy features become a liability as witnessed by the dismal reliability and usefulness of the B1 bomber. They hardly seem safe to fly. (But they are newer!)

http://msnbc.com/news/671543.asp?cp1=1
http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/18/B1.crash.update/
http://www.texnews.com/1998/local/net0219.html

www.furbyupgrade.20m.com

Though know they won't develop sentience (can you imagine the horror of that), the furbys will becoe an interesting geek toy, with such coolosities as mp3 playing and small dog scaring.

At least one person who did a Furby Autopsy was not very impressed with the construction of the system.

Some possibly nicer robot kits are available in a number of places, including the Robot Store, Probotics, and Arrick... Of course, there are also the cool Mindstorms, the relatively expensive Aibo (Some hacking info on it can be dug up from the Aibo Site), and the companies listed in this part of the robotics faq

However, Hacking the Furby does give you a relatively inexpensive talking robot with IR input, etc. and ought to be fun... While not the most well constructed system, it does give you some decent features (detects light & sound levels, tilt/inversion of the furby, Infrared and RS232 comms (when upgraded), and some touch sensors on the back, front, and mouth) - especially nice if you get one used, cheap...

It is nice that the reprogrammability kits are being made available, particularly for parents of autistic children (since children can relate to a Furby better than a "regular" hobbyist-grade robot)...

Also, check out the open-source Rossum Project

...'til I make millionz of bux0rz so I can buy one of these things. Maybe then Natalie Portman will come over. Then I'll sell her 3-D nude image to all of you other geeks for mucho $$$. I'll be richer than Gates in no time....

Okay, let's get this right out of the way, shall we?

Click here for a nude picture of Natalie Portman.

Trolls...

"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"

By the way, there's a neat feature in Internet Explorer for Windows to let you specify different search engines from the address box. See http://kahirsch.20m.com