Domain: 216.239.51.100
Stories and comments across the archive that link to 216.239.51.100.
Comments · 309
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Dude, posting his cell? Thats cold.
As every GNU/Linux fan on the planet is saying "Can you hear me now?" BTW, in case they take down or change their contacts page here is Google's cache.
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Re:Legal Ethics violationfrom chewplastic.com:
The infamous RIAA "Dentist":
"You don't want to have another visit with a dentist like me"
-- Matt Oppenheim, RIAA senior vice president of business and legal affairs
There is a Matthew Oppenheim listed as a '93 graduate of Cornell law. link here: [google cache]
Matthew Oppenheim, a lawyer representing SDMI, said the group doesn't want to limit academic freedom or research, "but if somebody releases a paper that provides very specific information about how to attack that type of technology, it's problematic."
link here: [google cache]re: the felten paper that the RIAA implicitly threatened to sue a princeton prof et al. over:
Matthew Oppenheim, head of litigation for the association, said he found the lawsuit mystifying, "It's like a bully who is looking for a fight, and the other kid doesn't want to fight, he said. "He just keeps pushing you and pushing you and pushing you."
link here: [google cache]what a bloody fool and hypocrite oppenheim is. everything the lawyer stereotype is all about.
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Re:actually it's surprising
it sounds much more plausible that the artists are mum about file trading because they don't want the backlash from P2Pers that 'metallicunt' suffered when they went on the offensive.
Well, It seems that some artists have said otherwise. I know, this is a bit old, but I really enjoyed reading it. Seems funny to me that Madonna had said that she thought it was good because people could hear her music, then she later goes to release the "what the fuck do you think you're doing" tracks. -
Re:Read Slashdot!!
Seems there were Windows and Mac versions of Freecraft.
From here:
FreeCraft is a free cross-platform real-time strategy gaming engine. It is possible to play against human opponents over LAN, Internet, or against the computer. The engine can be used to build C&C, WC2, SC and AOE-like real-time strategy (RTS) games. It successfully runs under Linux, BSD, BeOS, MacOS/X, MacOS/Darwin and MS Windows. -
Re:FPInteresting...
Found a resume in Google's cache
Poor bastard... -
Re:Nanoscale...
I think this is a disturbing trend to replace real actual funny jokes with keywords that are known to generate a typical response in a certain demographic. Instead of thinking of something original and then presenting it to other you cheat.
But if this is indeed the current standard of Slashdot (implied joke here - Slashdot users are stupid - ha-ha) I might as well try it. Imagine a Beowulf cluster (implied joke) of unfunny (implied joke) jokes.
Now moderate this into oblivion (implied modappeal), I have karma to burn (implied modappeal). And in case the article gets Slashdotted, here is the Google cache (implied informativeness of the post).
P.S. BTW, I was actually born in Soviet Russia (implicitly funny like a clownfish). -
Re:Shiver me timbers!
The page has already been changed, but google still has the cache
Grab it while you can! -
Does it still "base" at Meigs Field?
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FAQs.orgFAQs.org is a large repository of USENET group FAQs. I find it indispensible when looking for an overview of particular topic, such as the comp.compression FAQ or the comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing FAQ. All kinds of interesting articles are to be had on that site alone, it's a fun read.
Also, I find that Security Focus has a huge backlog of very useful and interesting information for those concerned with computer security. In that same vein, dbaseiv.net [Google cache, the site seems to be down right now] is shaping up to be a huge repository of computer security knowledge.
The Linux Documentation Project is full of HOWTOs relating to Linux, if you've got a Linux problem that you need to work out (though HOWTOs make for really boring recreational reading).
This is just what I can come up with off the top of my head, I'll probably post a reply to this when I remember more.
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In case it gets slashdotted..
Here is a mirror.
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Learn Some HTML
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If You Ask Me ....
These guys are barking up the wrong tree. They can drool over their anti-rabies antibodies all they want, but these antibodies produced in plants are much more useful as far as I'm concerned.
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Laura Dido
While not a codemonkey, Laura seems to have reasonable credentials.
Here is her gigaweb bio, and a brief from the Yankee Group (scroll down, page 2).
This is more like asking a Pilot or an Air Traffic Controller to compare two planes than a farmer (as others have suggested), but I don't think anyone will be satisfied until at least a few mechanics can get into the systems with wrenches.
Even then, if SCO would kindly display what lines they believe are duplicated so that the Linux community can begin the task of tracking down the contributors, then we can have a discussion. Having NDA'd analyists examine the code only is like having the city and a city-appointed lawyer have discussions about the legality of your house while you are explicitly forbidden from coming to the table. Because so much of our livelihood depends upon it, and we have invested so much in it, nobody will accept the judgement unless we are allowed to see the proof.
And even then, of course, there will need to be proof that this *is* SCO code, and not just same-function code, statistical coincidence, or code that SCO stole from Linux.
BTW, caldera has a list (with pictures!) of the board of directors here. Perhaps a few million phone calls will convince them to do what they should have done in the first place and tell us what code exactly they think is copied. Without being able to research their claims due to the choice of the board of directors, we should at least investigate their board of directors.
-C
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Re:How about this...IANAL (how I love to type that phrase!) but my take is there is no set percentage on what can be alterable. Lots of committees and corporations have their own standards (like this Google cached one), but there's nothing in the law to say.
Plus, I'm not sure people would really want just 10% of the song.....
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Re:Isn't this called UDP?
This is stretching my certainty (I'm recalling all of this from a sophomore year CS networks class and I've been overwhelmed by booze in my graduating week), but here's a stab at this...
I don't think that having a long RTT (round-trip time) will have a huge effect on transmission rate in the standard TCP case. Internet traffic, if I remember correctly, is bursty (cite), meaning that a typical transmission looks like:
SEND 32 PACKETS
RECEIVE 32 ACKS
SEND 36 PACKETS
RECEIVE 36 ACKS
SEND 40 PACKETS
RECEIVE 38 ACKS
(oops! Sent 2 more than I could! Halve TX window!)
SEND 20 PACKETS
RECEIVE 20 ACKS
etc. In this case it's easy to see why having a long RTT doesn't slow things down particularly, since there can be a big gap between the SEND and RECEIVE and nothing changes.
In the case of non-bursty traffic, I don't think large RTT causes a big problem for normal TCP either. This is because even with a large RTT (if it takes 400 ms to go from sender to host, for example) ACKS will still be streaming in at a constant, if slower, rate, allowing for more packets to be sent out (this is more subtle to explain, so you might want to google more for a better explanation).
I think the reason you misunderstand this is because the New Scientist article makes it sound like you send a packet, then receive an ACK, then send one, etc. This is not the case -- you send lots of packets together...this is the principle behind the "window", that you can send out more than one packet at a time without receiving an ACK because you've been successful at that so far.
FYI, I looked up MCI's traffic times and found that transatlantic latency is roughly 80ms compared to 45ms for within-US traffic (cite). This is non-trivial, but also not huge.
If anybody disagrees with this assessment, please feel free to correct, since as I said, I'm not 100% sure that increased RTT doesn't mean lower window size.
Also, from my reading a lot of the gain was simply in the fact that halving a throughput rate of 800K/sec means you're dropping to 400K/sec when realistically you should probably only be dropping a little bit. According to NS, they improved by more than two-fold, but that's probably just because normal TCP doesn't often get to the actual max of the network, it may burp a lot on the way up and dip more than halfway than its reasonable max. -
Re:I've got a more basic question
I'm not sure why the first post got a +4 informative as it was just a cut and paste of the CDN Web page.
JBoss (project page project page is a Java Application Server for Enterprise Java Beans (EJB's). They are working on a free implementation of J2EE. It includes JBossServer which is the application server, JBossCX for JCA, JBossCMP for persistence, JBossMQ for JMS, JBossMail (obvious), JBossSX for JAAS, JBossTX for JTA/JTS, and more that you can see on the project page.
There is always the Google cache too.
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Google Cache of 1014.org
So far no one has posted this: Google Cache of 1014.org
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VERY amusing...The site www.geocaching.com is down -- so I used Google's (wait for it...) cache to read it.
Here is is.
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Obligatory FOX big-wig email addresses
Here! (do a select-all to see the white on white text).
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another interesting link...
Use of Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense -- This report documents the results of a short email-mediated study by The MITRE Corporation on the use of free and open-source software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).
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HTML Version
HTML Version of the PDF.
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The full story
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Re:Gnutella: Ouch this is gone also
The other fun part was that, the day after the Gnutella debacle, they managed to sneak in a mention of Nutella (and a picture of it!) into their "Ask Nullsoft" section. I wonder if they'll do something similar with WASTE?
Coincidentally, see also this lecture on this history of Gnutella (warning: PDF), or its handy Google HTML-ized version.
Jouster -
Re:A whole different league...
My mistake... I was thinking of the U.S.S Maine and the spanish-american war.
here
and
for more reading other stuff
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Re:A whole different league...
I heard it awhile back in AP History... so I can't quite come up with it. I may be wrong... if so I apologize. However the sinking of the Lusitania was definitely suspicious and Hearst definitely wanted war with the spanish.
some stuff here
I'll keep looking, I would hate to think that something I think is right actually is wrong :/.
Thanks, for calling me on this. -
Re:Revival of a Program"after a few THOUSAND YEARS the mess is cleaned up"
Assuming the plant detonates. This kind of reactor doesn't. Although a water cooled one of this type would be better (shutting off the cooling shuts off the reactor in this type).
"Just like I can tolerate only a certain amount of stupidity."
I wouldn't make comments like that if I were you.
"Plutonium, did you know that Marie Curie died in agony of multiple debilitating cancers"
"How are you even able to post on Slashdot?"
Sure, he was wrong, but that question applies even more to you. You accused him of inaccuracy and didn't even fact-check... Are you implying that Nagasaki wasn't bombed by plutonium or that the thousands of deaths from a power plant melting downis more than the amount of deaths caused by a nuke?
"You can't "shut down" the process of radioactive decay"
No, but you can shut down what powers a nuclear plant, the chain reaction.
"It's all the peacenik's fault that we have nuclear waste"
Your reading comprehension sucks. Try reading what he says. Let me rephrase to make it easier on you. "If we recycle the waste, less of it will be in dumps, and the anti-nuke people make this impossible, even though it can be safe." And before you get stupid on me again, note that not all of it would be safe, etc. But some, if not most, of that can be recycled, but that option is blocked by paranoia.
"What does this have to do with a lot of outrageous misinformation regarding radioactivity and nuclear waste?"
He was explaining and giving examples of why he would be considered 'green'. This is called an informal version of 'establishing credentials". He has. You haven't. I have... at the least, I've shown I know how to use google, which you have failed to do.
"You've got a long way to go yourself, pal"
Pot, stop talking to the kettle, you're giving me a headache.
"What the hell does this have to do with nuclear waste?"
I don't know, sewage vs. nuke waste, seems a fairly decent analogy to me. Maybe I'm just smarter than you.
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Re:MPAA
this meant that independent films (that didn't have studio backing) would have a very hard time getting shown in cinemas nationwide.
How is this different from today? In my area, there are only 3 of about 25 theaters which show "independent" movies, and the MPAA members have their grubby hands into most of those "independent" movies. Not just any members either--the really evil ones (Disney and News Corp) are in control of the vast majority I've looked into. I even went to one thinking some small time company produced it, yet at the opening credits the Fox showed up in the henhouse in big bold letters.
Let's also not forget the MPAA have total control over the ratings system, and most theaters won't show any unrated/NC17 movie. I remember reading a story about a Troma movie, and how the MPAA upped the rating because a guy eating a taco was "really gross." I haven't seen the scene in question, but how could eating a taco earn a bad rating? Here is what Troma has to say about it. (Using the Google Cache because the troma.com server seems to be trashed.) This story goes into it a little...
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Re:I have a dream, brothers and sisters
What is so Americo-centric about an idea that goes back to ancient times?
"Ancient civilizations occasionally planned new cities or major additions to existing settlements. The most widespread plan was a rectangular or grid street pattern that allowed considerable flexibility in the size of blocks while maintaining a clear visual order. Noteworthy examples of this type of city plan include Kahun (Egypt, c.1890 BC), whose workers' quarter is separated by an internal wall from the wealthier districts;" - From Google's cache of the University of Melbourne's History of Urban Planning
Or Roman planned cities?
Or the Hampden Gurney School in London?
"Block" is not an Americo-centric term. Granted, many of our cities are layed out in a grid pattern, but a block is not a standard size from city to city - try defining a block in the heavily Spanish and French influenced layout of New Orleans or the sometimes quirky layout of Washington, DC.
As far as city-centric. So fucking what? I live in the country. There's nothing offense about someone expressing an idea in term of a relation to a block. It's a commonly understood *idea*. And if 'block' isn't a familiar word, then look it up. Several definitions I found used a quote from the London Quarterly Review as example usage. -
interesting paper
This is an interesting paper from Feb 2002 on which countries originate the most malicious attacks. (Russia doesn't even make the list)
Google cached HTML version of the paper. -
Re: Whose game? And who said it was a game?Actually the grandmother hypothesis of why humans are the only primates where women live a significant period of time following menopause give other reasons for women to survive following their reproductive period.[1 (PDF) (Google PDFtoHTML)]
In a nutshell the grandmother can provide additional food resources to the weaned children of her child or her childrens mates (to increase their fertility) since she no longer has to provide those resources to her direct children and can produce excess to what she consumes.
Thus there is an evolutionary advantage to women surviving following their fertile years, and this advantage likely continues in different ways now. -
HTML-conversion of Chris-Crawford PDF
Google's got it.
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interesting debate
This document was part of an interesting debate over the last year and a half between MS and Novell over whose product was more buggy (measured in terms of number of patches.)
(Google cache version in html.) -
Re:I wrote about this in 2000 ...
Yes it is. Idiot.
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Re:"common to most Slashdoters"
But aren't they capitalist now?
I'm rather ignorant about these things. But I'm real curious. What was it lik ein Russia before the "collapse" Did they use money? Was there a sense of community? And how has it changed over the years? Do they use money now?
I think that whenever money comes into the picture the form of society has become capitalist. But maybe I'm wrong. Communism, in my mind, can function almost like capitalism just without the money and inefficiency caused by commercialism, monopolies, world-class corporations, WTO, etc.
You can read one of my favorite articles on this topic here.
Interesting, deoxy.org seems to be down so that's the cached google copy. -
Google
Site without images
SHIP NAME/TYPE: V'Ger (Voyager VI)
LENGTH: Approximately 98 km.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Originally built by humans and launched near the end of the 20th century for peacful reconnaisance purposes, the Voyager VI probe was intercepted by an evidently technologically advanced race who augmented the probe and sent it back to Earth under a new internal conciousness, resulting in a near cataclysm.
SOURCE: Star Trek, the Motion Picture (Film, 1982 Paramount Pictures), Drawn by Jeff Russell
Whale Probe from Star Trek IV, 74 km long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Whale Probe
LENGTH: Approximately 74 km. There are numerous conflicting sources for the length of the Whale Probe, but extrapolation from the film has led me to accept this length as being the most likely.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Unknown, although the device was able to communicate with humpback whales.
SOURCE: Star Trek IV, (Film, Paramount Pictures)
Marduk Base from Macross II, 50 km diameter
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Marduk Mothership
DIAMETER: Approximately 50 km. This is the stated length of the RPG version, although the movie version seems to be much larger. Further investigation is needed.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Marduk, the creators of the Zentraedi.
SOURCE: Macross II, (Animated Film), Drawn by Jeff Russell
Rama, 50km long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Rama
LENGTH: 50 km long, 20 km in diameter.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Large habitat ship
SOURCE: Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clark, Drawn by Jeff Russell
Vorlon Planet Killer, approximately 45km long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Vorlon Planet Killer
LENGTH: Approximately 45 km. There are numerous conflicting sources for the length of the Vorlon Planet Killer, but extrapolation from the show has led me to accept this length as being the most likely.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: The Vorlon
SOURCE: Babylon 5, (Television Series)
Phobos, moon of Mars, 27km long at longest axis
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Phobos
DIAMETER: 27 km x 23 km x 20 km
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Moon of Mars
SOURCE: Discovered in 1877, August 12 by Asaph Hall; photographed by 'Mariner 9' in 1971, 'Viking 1' in 1977, and the Russian 'Phobos' probe in 1988.
City Destroyer from ID4, 24km diameter
SHIP NAME/TYPE: ID4 City Destroyer
DIAMETER: 24 km across, stated in the film.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: ID4 Aliens. Please see notes
SOURCE: Independance Day (Film), Drawn by Jeff Russell
Super Star Destroyer from Star Wars, 17.6km long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Executor/ Super Star Destroyer
LENGTH: 17.6 km. Please see http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ssd.html.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: The Empire under Darth Sidious (human). Darth Vader's command ship.
SOURCE: Star Wars Episode V and VI, the Empire Strikes Back, and the Return of the Jedi, (Film), originally drawn by Chad Wilson
Cloud City, 16km diameter
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Cloud City
LENGTH: 16 km.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Bespin Mining Colony
SOURCE: Star Wars Episode V, the Empire Strikes Back (Film), Drawn by Jeff Russell
Lexx, 10km long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: LEXX
LENGTH: 10 km. From original Blueprints used in the design of the ship.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: The Empire under His Devine Shadow (human). This vessel is a wepon capable of destroying an entire Earth Size planet.
SOURCE: LEXX (TV series)
Babylon 5 Space Station, 8454.1m long
SHIP NAME/TYPE: BABYLON 5/ Deep Space Station
LENGTH: 8,454.1 m, from http://www.b5tech.com/babylonproject/babylon5stati on/babylon5station.html
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Human. "Babylon 5 is a 8,454.1* meter (five-mile) long, 840 meter diameter, 9.1 billion ton O'Neil class space station, located at a pivotal main jump gate in the Epsilon system."
SOURCE: Babylon 5 (TV series)
Macross I & II capital ships
SHIP NAME/TYPE: MACROSS Sta -
Re:Kinda OT: NAT/PATAnyway, how do you think they are detecting NAT/PAT?
Here's a link that outlines one possible way, which was slashdot'ed a while ago
Is there any way to stop this detection?
The best way I could come up with is to obfuscate the number of clients behind your NAT - use one of the BSD/Linux firewalls, and the only external communications from any of your clients would be via a proxy server on the firewall - squid with some of the anonymous settings (turning off User Agent, having generic plugins defined, etc etc etc) comes to the top of my mind. Of course, this would potentially keep any of your client systems from being able to do non-proxied communications. I don't know - any other ideas out there?
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Plagiarism
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:www.zianet.c
o m/earth/essay14.htm
is what you quoted. I'm not sure that you are this person, or aren't, but if you aren't then it wasn't very nice of you not to attribute the source. -
should your relative be teaching this course?No, really...
Isn't part of the problem - and possibly why so many Old World 'thinkers' (bureaucrats. politicians, Metallica (?)) get the Net, and associated new technologies, so very wrong - that some of these new technologies need new paradigms, new ways of looking at the world?
'Stealing' was easier to condemn when it involved an actual physical *loss* and the surveillance of people who encrypt their correspondence made (slightly more) sense when only spies encrypted.
Applying an 'old' view of what is ethical and what isn't is like judging modern trains by the standards of the 19th Century, when the idea that trains could travel at more than 15 miles an hour was absurd, dangerous and comical
The idea that a locomotive could attain such speeds was, at the time, astounding is told of the time when the great developer of the railroad, John Stephenson, was going before committee of Parliament to secure a railroad charter. He was warned not to claim a speed of more than 15 miles an hour. A member of the committee, in opposition to the proposed railway, attempted to embarrass Mr. Stephenson in this way:
Committee: Well, Mr. Stephenson, perhaps you could go 17 miles an hour?
John Stephenson: Perhaps 20 miles an hour Certainly.Twenty-five, I dare say.
C: You do not think that impossible?
JS: Not at all impossible.
C: Dangerous though?
JS: Certainly not.
C: Now, tell me, Mr. Stephenson, will you say that you can go 30 miles an hour
JS: Certainly.
At this they all leaned back in their chairs and roared with laughter. They imagined that this was the very climax of absurdity.
(Martin 1871: 159)
That isn't to say that all old morals and ethics go out of the window, but doesn't *teaching* how new tech. relates to ethics require a knowledge of the tech. itself?
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Asciipr0n lives!
On Google!
Wow.. what a loss to the world (sensitive people avert your eyes before clicking) -
Google Cache
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old news
... if you do the following google: "(waste OR trash) into oil"
you will find similar articles, mostly from the summer of 2001 ?!!?. (Google cached story from Kansas City Tribune)
Either the people involved are doing a series of pilot plants in scaling this up, or somebody's dragging their feet. Or maybe it's just a case parallel developments utilizing similar technology -- but it sure sounds like the same thing.
The prospect of $14/barrel high-quality oil (the cost quoted in Discover) while providing an environmental service should have the capitalists breaking down the doors. It seems like they're taking a leisurely route to large-scale exploitation -- what's going on here?
Shouldn't we have oil companies partnering with ConAgra and building refineries adjacent to slaughterhouses? Or at least set up a pipeline to a refinery? -
Another Website
The website is gone... instead: The History of Microsoft Windows - By Alex D'Ambra 9-B - http://www.schools.ash.org.au/mcpcompdept/worksam
p les/winhistory/compassign%20alexdambra.htm Or the Google Cache (with links to pictures) - http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:IkNYB5Mvqt8C: www.schools.ash.org.au/mcpcompdept/worksamples/win history/compassign%2520alexdambra.htm+screenshot+w indows+1.0+3.1+95&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 -
Re:Read the report
What I see is that criminals still have hand guns. Armed robberies are UP, not down.
Home Office Police Research Group Briefing Note
And I qoute:
"The most significant change, however, has been the dramatic decrease in both band 1 and band 2 targets in 1994. Possible reasons for this include:
the police adopting a proactive strategy towards armed robbery in many areas;
improved situational crime prevention measures such as better security screens and CCTV;
professional criminals turning to `softer' targets where guns were not needed to effect a robbery;
diversion of criminal activity to the drugs trade."
I'm fairly sure that those in the drug trade are as well armed as the cops. The others make no refrence of guns except in the third one where criminals moved to easier targets. I'm sure that there are more statistics in the Google search I used to find the above data. -
Lofgren Sucks.
Storm Clouds Rise Over H-1B
"Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, introduced a bill this week to lift all limits on foreign workers "
She deleted this press release, but it's in the Google cache ...
She was among 26 House members (14 Democrats and 12 Republicans) who achieved perfect scores for their votes in the 105th Congress on encryption, securities litigation, patent reform, fast track, MFN, export controls, H1-B visas, and Y2K issues.
and she takes money from Microsoft!
(click on expand all).
Dump this wench!
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Re:It's about time...
I know that's Score:5 Funny but there's a serious note here.
If a site is down, Mozilla could pretty easily grab the google cache instead. Or, if there's no google cache or if the cache matches the current page, check archive.org. Mozilla could auto-generate a page offering the user some options. Think about it - it would be the end of 404 errors. Instead of
404 The requested page could not be found.
you could get
The site you requested is currently down. Would you like to use Google's cache instead? I also have a snapshot of the page you requested from August 12, 2002 but older ones are available here. -
google cache
for what it is worth.. here
check your flash ;) -
Re:Talk about missing the point!
On the contrary, the fact that going from 1 -> 0 hitpoints means the difference from being unimpaired and dead can make it a lot harder to be heroic.
If the player knows he has 1/120 hitpoints left, then he'd be stupid to pursue the Baron (and the ever-present handful of bloodthirsty bodyguards). But the character is fully able to run, jump, and fight, and will have trouble explaining to his teammates why he's got to sit this one out. (Or why he's got a sudden urge to chug 17 healing potions)
It makes the game a poor simulation of fantasy Swords & Sorcery literature, which it is supposed to be a simulation of.
A common occurence in stories is the hero who is overwhelmed, knocked-out, or just held at swordpoint with no hope of escape. Of course, later on he'll lead a successful jailbreak- which is often a superior kind of adventure. But D&D (and all of the games which followed it in using the HP mechanic- including computer games like Half-Life), the game rules allowed no way for characters to be non-lethally defeated. So whenever the DM wanted to throw the party into a dungeon, he had to ignore the rules to do so.
"And then you get captured, and all your weapons are taken away". This feels to the PCs like they're being cheated. A better system would be for the game rules to allow capture to be the natural outcome of any lost battle, so the DM can toss the PCs into an escape/ransom/demon-sacrifice scenario without it seeming forced.
"Ow! That last hit cut my sword-hand!
"Guess I'll have to run off and evade the guards on a daring rooftop chase, and return to finish off the evil Duke some other day. We'll meet again, this I swear"
Reduced lethality levels in an RPG would permit PCs and NPC enemies to build long term relationships of animosity, instead of slaughtering goblins again and again. (This is how superhero comic books maintain interest- the hero doesn't just battle the same kinds of monsters repeatedly, but the very same villians) -
Re:Hate to be a bother
Another link, also not overly definitive, but from a completely different source that sites specific issue and page numbers. It's in postscript, and I'm posting a link to a google ASCIIfied version:
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:atBDye-PXKkC: undergraduate.csse.uwa.edu.au/units/230.205/Tutori al.5.ps+FOCUS++%22Only+if+that+is+what%27ll+sell!% 22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 -
Re:Poor Guy
Slashdotted a tripod.com page -- doh!
Check here: google cache
Google's cache is one of my most favorite features on the 'net in a long time...
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SOMEBODY MOD THIS UP!!! NOT TROLL!!!Quite simply, that comment -- how do you prevent a terrorist attack -- clearly was not meant to be a troll post. It's a very real concern, as evidenced by the fact that the company is looking for a "politically stable" site, and that having a politically stable site is more important than getting an equatorial site.
This is very serious, and the answer is "you can't". You *could*, however, make it strong enough that terrorist attacks or earthquakes were unlikely to knock the thing down.
For this very reason, I suggest building bottom up. That is, start by building towers in a bunch of regions, and use the towers to launch rockets.
This *can* be done if the compressive-to-tensile strength ratios approach one. Indeed, looking here or here (for pdf), we see that this is likely the case, as long as your purity is pretty good.
Such a bottom-up construction has several advantages: (1) less likely to suffer a catastrophic failure. (2) thickest at the ground, where terrorist attack is more possible (3) economic advantage to the company that constructs it *before* the project is complete, because there are huge weight savings to be had launching your rockets from even an altitude of 10 km -- so you get customers from the getgo (4) you get to test the things out extensively (5) you end up with an ideal latch-on point for the space elevator when you *do* construct it (6) you end up with a cheaper space elevator to boot, because you're launching your materials from a much higher location. (7) You have one heck of a tourist resort even before you get into space: "Hotel in the sky" whenver launches aren't being carried out.