Slashdot Mirror

from 05/2003, banal, but spooky

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:RdyuoFW7EywJ:w ww.arcknowledge.com/gmane.comp.file-systems.reiser fs.general/2003-05/msg00247.html+%22sean+sturgeon% 22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=13&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Do you repeat everything that insurance company tells you? You are bit naive if you believe the insurance premium costs are related to how many lawsuits are filed against doctors.

Studies after studies have proven that the malpractice premiums rise and fall with the bond prices (which makes perfect sense since that is how the insurance companies who write the policy finances the insurance). Rate of lawsuits or the reward amount has almost no affect on the rates.

Here is a good paper on the subject:

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:KzbwRNSjmH0J:w ww.centerjd.org/air/StableLosses.pdf+malpractice+i nsurance+premium+bond+price+relationship&hl=en&ct= clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=opera

Site slashdotted... Google text-only cached version: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:o9CVA1waLvUJ:w ww.fortbendnow.com/news/2847/chinese-community-ral lies-behind-student-removed-from-clements-over-pc- game-map+http://www.fortbendnow.com/news/2847/chin ese-community-rallies-behind-student-removed-from- clements-over-pc-game-map&hl=en&client=firefox-a&s trip=1

Royally pissed off? Explain your viewpoint to the school.

The School's site is here.
Principal: Kevin Moran - Kevin.Moran@fortbend.k12.tx.us - 281-634-2156
Assistant Principal: Lorri Hubert, Lorri.Hubert@fortbend.k12.tx.us - 281-634-2164
Lead Counselor: Alice Ledford - Alice.Ledford@fortbend.k12.tx.us - 281-634-2157

Fort Bend ISD's site is here.
Superintendent: Timothy R. Jenney, Ph.D. - superintendent@fortbend.k12.tx.us -

The entire board of directors of the Fort Bend ISD can be reached here. (Google Cache in anticipation of slashdotting).

Running PcAnywhere on your XP laptop that happens to be a Toshiba, and apparently in combination with a Symantec AV product (NAV IIRC) would result in a guranteed blue screen on every shutdown.

Had never seen that before with this software combination on any laptop except some Toshibas at work back in the day.

Nearest KB article I could find on Symantec was 2003112516321112, but it's only available via Google cache at http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:FBy7QXRHzIIJ:s ervice1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/pca.nsf/1ab3f998698d6 46f88256f48005b9e71/b998f8fb40c5dc3988256dea000204 6d%3FOpenDocument+site:symantec.com+toshiba+shutdo wn+pcanywhere&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au&client=fire fox-a

It is true that a softball sized lump assumes weapons grade Pu 239 - I stated that to give perspective. Still Pu-240 is almost as fissionable, the critical mass would not be much different. The important issue is that it is on the scale of softballs, not whole truckloads of material.

The idea that high Pu-240 material can not be used for bomb making is a total myth. All Pu isotopes can be used for bomb making. Pu-240 is as fissionable as U-235. Pu-240 is less desirable, because it has the tendency to predetonate, so a large military countries try to avoid it. But a terrorist cares not if its makes the 'best' bomb. They just care it works. In fact, reactor-grade plutonium may be even more desirable than weapon-grade plutonium as a bomb material for terrorist or other sub-national groups. The increased probability of pre-detonation would eliminate the need to include a neutron initiator in the weapon, considerably simplifying the task of designing and producing such a weapon.

Before Amtrak, Railway Express Agency did the same business. The problem with really fast freight is that the railroads are optimized for goods which are not time-sensitive. So long as there is a continuous pipeline of DVD players from Guangdong to Manhattan, it doesn't matter very much how long any particular player takes to make the trip. (The slight exception is the cost of the equipment and labor used for shipping. If trains are too slow the rails get clogged, labor costs go up, and equipment utilization goes down. But that is the railroad's problem, not the shipper's.)

If you have sources for any of that I'd love to see it, because most of what I posted above is from actual engineers...

For example, off the top of my head, this specifies that a 20 story building (~200 feet) can have a deviance of up to 75mm in the steel support structure. That works out to about 0.2% deviance. By contrast, the pyramid has deviances on the order of 0.25 inches over 350 feet, or about 0.006%. You said scrapers over 50 stories... so say, 50 stories (about 500 feet), assuming the same 75mm tolerance, would still give 0.05%. To be as precise as the Giza pyramid, a 500 foot tall steel support would have to deviate from true straight by less than 10mm. We just don't build our structures to that level of precision, even multi-hundred story skyscrapers.

- Museum of Hoaxes #35 (Google cache. Real site seems to be down today. One guess as to why.)

[Liberty City in GTAIII] felt nothing like NYC.

Seriously, Rockstar hasn't really done a good job capturing the feel of the cities they parallel. Vice City didn't feel like Miami either.

Considering that section 3.d.iii of their MSDN code license (Covers the code samples on the MSDN site) specifically disallows you from using any of their code on non-windows platforms, I'd say their position on cross platform compatibility is crystal clear.

MSDN Code License

'An airport camera can be programmed to know what a departure hall should look like, with thousands of separate movements. A single suitcase left for any length of time would trigger an alarm.'

This reminds me of the famous story of the neural net that learned to identify tanks in pictures with 100% accuracy... right up until someone realized all the pictures of tanks were taken on sunny days and those without were taken on cloudy days and all the system could really do was tell if the weather was nice out.
(source).

A system that can identify a suitcase left in the same spot for too long at Heathrow isn't detecting terrorism, it's detecting that Spanish air traffic control is on strike yet a gain and passengers have been stranded at the airport for three days.

I look forward to the chance of life immitating stupid when it identifies the air traffic controller strike's symptoms (luggage in the same place for days) as a terrorist attack, delays flights by several more days as a terror lockdown starts up, then identifies the luggage held up by its own terror lock down as a terrorist attack - getting in to an endless feedback loop of stupid.

With a known system, it's simple for terrorists to defeat it (put a small set of powered wheels on the bottom of your bomb so it moves itself too slowly for people to spot but enough that the system doesn't see it as stationary over time). There are just two crimes I can see it spotting: the state of the passenger airline industry and government willingness to believe that automating things is a solution. Sadly, though they both probably should be classified as crimes, neither has shown any signs of being acted on yet.

Odd. Do all the MLB teams play three times as many away games than home ones?

(Yes, i'm sure I deserve the -1 mod point for explaining I was counting home games)

I'm not an expert in MLB, to get the approximation of more than 40-45 I was refered to wiki and noted how many home games some team played. Seemed a reasonable reference point, and my opinion is based on living near Seattle where there was a big deal about replacing the King Dome, and whether to build two stadiums. Given 1 stadium was enough for both football and baseball, and given the number of home games for baseball is far greater than the number of home games for baseball... I like others felt that one stadium was sufficent and priority should have been for baseball. I could care less about most organized sports, but just because I don't enjoy them doesn't mean they are not important.

this essay illistrates my point a tad better even if i'm in disagreement with the author assertion that football is more of a national sport than baseball. According to this essay, I approximate that MLB has 10 times as many games as the NFL with a ticket price being about 2.5 times as much for an NFL ticket as a MLB ticket, where attndance is 4.41 times higher for MLB than the NFL in 2000. While without a doubt TV ratings for NFL are higher, and television income is also higher, and cost to attend a season of football is more reasonable than Baseball, I have to disagree with the author that 1/2 the average attendance per game for baseball is outweighed by the fact that there are clearly at least 10times as many games per season for MLB.

This is rather why I consider baseball to be America's national sport, and not football... as without a doubt more time is dedicated to baseball than football, and it's not just because games tend to be ultra long.

If you are interested in schedualing info, see this page
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ACO/dimacs/trick.html

Again, the only reason why I cared at all about the subject was the question which sport was most likely to generate the largest income.

DST is actually horribly harmful. One of the stated reasons for it was to provide more light for agricultural workers, but that's a bunch of bullshit. Neither crops nor livestock give a shit what time it is. They care when the dawn comes. So it screws up the farmer's dealings with the rest of the world. When we switch to/from DST, automobile accidents increase, IIRC by 16%, for about a two week period. But anyway, don't take my word for it...

PDF is boring. HTML is awesome. Here's the work of Hany Faid in HTML, courtesy of Google.

Probably not very much. This guy is a loon. I've shipped more videogames than this joker (hes shipped ZERO) and I couldn't hope to be half as opinionated as this pompus prick. Doesn't seem he can commit to a project long enough to actually ship the game as it stands. Find it amusing how hes bitching about the Wii when he pisses & moans elsewhere that there is a lack of creativity in the industry, while wanting alternative markets and models for small-scale video game production. I could have sworn thats what the Wii has going for it most. Guess hes sold out too far to, "the man".

Something I find odd is that a Wiki Admin deleted his bio barely an hour after this article went live.

Wiki Deletion

Google Cache

Any other questions?

Yes. I have one. What makes you believe that Diebold ATMs are secure? In fact all evidence points to the contrary.

Disclosure: I worked for CompUSA about 18 years ago during a court-mandated stint forcing me to have a "real" job.

CompUSA opened its doors 16 years ago as SoftWarehouse and changed its name to CompUSA in 1991

In Contemporary Standard American English:
http://www.universalbackground.com/employment_scre ening/federal.asp
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Conviction+B y+Civil+Court

In Judicial literature:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:2wt6ze95vRoJ:c aselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl%3Fcourt%3 Dwi%26vol%3Dapp2%255C97-1261%26invol%3D1+%22civil+ case%22+DUI+conviction+-army+-military+Wisconsin&h l=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us (via Findlaw and Google's cache) Original link is http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=wi&vol=app2%5C97-1261&invol=1 (free registration required).

So both lay people and judges sometimes use the term "civil conviction" to mean "being found guilty of breaking the law in civil court."

Any further questions? So much for "no evidence?"

Joe Vialls' "back door" theory

According to an aeronautical engineer named Joe Vialls, the technology to capture planes via remote control has been around for a very long time. If he is correct, the US military developed the technology as far back as the mid 1970s---in response to a sharp upsurge in terrorist hijackings during this period. According to Vialls the project involved two American multinationals in collaboration with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The goal was to facilitate the remote recovery of hijacked American aircraft. Vialls claimed the effort succeeded brilliantly in developing the means, first, to listen in on cockpit conversations in a target aircraft; and, second, to take absolute control of the plane's computerized flight control system by means of a remote channel. The aim was to cut the hijackers out of the control loop, meanwhile, empowering ground controllers to return a hijacked plane to a chosen airport, where police would deal with the terrorists. To be "truly effective," however, the new technology "had to be completely integrated with all onboard systems." This could only be achieved by incorporating the system into a new aircraft design. Vialls charged this is exactly what happened. A high-level decision was made and Boeing very quietly included a "back door" into the computer designs for two new commercial planes then on the drawing boards: the 767 and 757. Both planes went into production in the early 1980s.

Vialls shocked even internet users when he posted all of this on his web site in October 2001.[ix] He contended that the system, although designed for the best of intentions, fell prey to a security leak. Somehow the secret computer codes fell into the hands of evildoers within the Bush administration, who surreptitiously used the remote channel on 9/11. Armed with the secret codes---Vialls charged---the conspirators activated the hidden channel built into the transponders and simply took over the flight controls. Whether or not the alleged nineteen hijackers were actually on board was uncertain. But the issue clearly was of secondary importance since fanatical Muslims were not flying the planes.

Crucially, on 9/11, not one of the eight commercial pilots and copilots sent the standard signal alerting FAA authorities that a hijacking was in progress.[x] Sending this signal, or "squawking," as it is called, takes only a few seconds, and is done by activating a cockpit device known as an ELT (emergency locator transmitter). A pilot simply keys-in a four-digit code and the message "I have been hijacked" flashes on the screen at ground control. The fact that none of the pilots or copilots transmitted this standard SOS on 9/11 was suspicious, the first indication to Vialls that the planes were being flown by remote means. Vialls concluded that once the evildoers had commandeered the transponders the pilots lost the ability to transmit. Additional evidence turned up in a video of the last seconds of Flight 175. According to Vialls, the footage is anomalous because it shows the plane executing a maneuver during its final approach that exceeds the normal software limitations of a 767. Boeing jets are designed with liability concerns in mind, as well as passenger safety. Flight control software prevents a pilot from making steep turns that pull substantial "g" forces. Such turns run the risk of injuring passengers, especially the aged and infirm, which could result in costly lawsuits. Since a pilot cannot normally make such a maneuver, this was powerful evidence that the plane was under remote control.

The Crit

See the Google cache of "Exactly what the Dr. Ordered"

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Ui0HtwBn6ZAJ:w ww.kyne.com.au/~mark/software/satellite.php+site:w ww.kyne.com.au+mark+satellite&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&i e=UTF-8

I know the posting is just a oneliner, but it is informative and if everybody used the software it would really increase the recovery rate of stolen Laptops no end. ( Unix based ones anyway )

What would you define as a scientist if Katherine Schaefer(G-cache) isn't one?

How would she be considered irrelevant? She's the one who stumbled on this after all.

I don't know what (google cache) you're talking about. (second link has a great pic below the PA comic.)

In short: don't eat the pie.

30 kids jump three girls and break one girl's face in 12 locations. her eye is messed up and she'll have surgery that will require her to be vertical for every moment of the next 3 months.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:FYu26JgQc58J:w ww.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/5533226.html+long +beach+beatings+sentence&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us& client=firefox-a

the 4 sentences given to date don't appear to be as severe as this guy's sentence.

the injustice system is broken.

more sentences will be issued next week - expect more injustice...

I call shenanigans.

From her own writeup (google cache) she admits that she'd been using the service less and less. From the sounds of it, she hadn't been using it at all. But she was dumb enough not to forward her uberimportant emails to another account.
And then, looking at the way her email quotes are cut, I think there was a lot more there that she chose not to share with us.

Having been in the managers position before, I think he was harsh, but she's spinning this to make him look like a dick. She probably demanded to talk to the highest ranking C*O in the state. He didn't say "I'm the highest", he said "I'm the highest that you will be talking to", and I've said the same thing (in different words).

I have the feeling that Lycos tried to explain to her, patiently, that her account had been deleted in line with the terms of service (and the disclaimer on their homepage), and that restorations were only offered to people who were Plus (or Premium or whatever the fudge it was), and she went off the handle, accused them of "holding her emails hostage", used bad language, and got all snotty with them. At that point, they probably didn't want her business, I wouldn't either.

The bottom line, is she did not log in within 30 days, as the homepage clearly says you have to do if you want to keep your account. Lycos told her what she had to do if she wanted her email back, she decided she didn't want to do it, said some bad things to them, and so they decided to tell her to go fuck herself. I say, good on ya, Lycos. Yes, customers deserve to be treated with respect, but it's gone too far in some cases, where privileged little fuckwads think they deserve everything they want, and anyone who says otherwise is mean, mean, mean. I think it's crappy that she's calling this guy out, selectively editing the conversation to make them seem like dicks, and especially crappy if it's true that people are starting to harass him.

Were I him, I'd post the ENTIRE email chain online, not just her edited version... and lets see how sweet and innocent she really is.

google cache

And just because I know who made them doesn't mean I'm gay

One site I check every few months is the Victoria Transit Policy Institure . They have a lot of resources on sustainable transportation policy. When I watched my previous employer start paying for additional parking spots for new employees, I looked to VTPI for information on parking cash out. Cash out is an incentive program to not drive - if it costs the company $30/month for a parking spot, cash out programs pay employees the savings from not providing a parking spot. This encourages people to bus and bike to work. In my case, the employer wasn't interested, one of many reasons I no longer work there, but that's another story.

When I read the title of this article, I immediately though of VTPI. There is actually a PDF cowritten by Lawrence Frank which is listed on the VTPI main page, which is available from Smart Growth BC. Lawrence Frank is mentioned in TFA, and several of his studies are linked at the bottom. The Smart Growth BC PDF did not appear to be in the list of links at the bottom of the TFA at Science News Online. The PDF is 52 pages long, and is titled Promoting Public Health Through Smart Growth (also an HTML version from Google cache to avoid melting down Smart Growth BC's server). It's more about how to design your cities properly, to avoid the health issues cited in TFA. From the preface to the PDF:

This report explains how our built environment shapes our transportation choices, and in turn, human health. It reviews the existing research for a range of transportation-related health impacts on seven public health outcomes: Physical Activity and Obesity, Air Quality, Traffic Safety, Noise, Water Quality, Mental Health, and Social Capital.

I find this interesting. Since these are apparently, "life long" bilinguals, they must have learned the second language at an early age.

I would seem that having two languages one's whole life would somehow affect a brain. However, I think research shows that life-long bilinguals actually use the same region of their brain when speaking either language.
As shown by this article - google cache - the real site barely worked. just google "bilingual brocas"

Perhaps bilingualism gives the brain some kind of extra strength - or flexibility. Maybe more than just the broca's area gets an extra workout, and that effort pays off in the long marathon of dementia.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:VnxqXuMZmM0J:h ddvd.highdefdigest.com/feature_ucontrolupclose.htm l+u+control+firmware+hd-dvd&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd =1

A quick Google search will find much more of the same.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:odP_RldJbzMJ:e vents.ccc.de/congress/2006/Fahrplan/attachments/11 58-Subverting_Ajax.pdf+%221158-Subverting_Ajax.pdf %22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=9

You're funny

Alpha VMS was great then and it's only gotten better.

Yeah, until they killed the greatest processor family that ever lived.
And then as for VMS, HP has put a stake through its heart, shot it with a silver bullet, tied a rock to it and threw it in a lake, put Polonium in its cosmo, tied it to the railroad tracks, covered it in chum and threw it overboard at the Farallon Islands http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA3160/ http://www.prbo.org/cms/index.php?mid=171, labelled it as a terrorist, told the DEA it had sold them an 1/8 of pot, forced it to be a test pilot for the V-22 Osprey, dumped it down "the hatch", made it spend 2004 xmas vacation in Thailand, gave it large quantities of Tylenol and vodka and still they could not kill it.

Only by feeding it to the zombie they were keeping alive at great cost to themselves and the world of computing, could they finally kill it: Feed it to the Itanic

Here is some propaganda from HP: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:8EmG0Zj2VmcJ:h 71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/integrity/faqs2.html&hl= en&lr=&strip=1
Funny thing is that all of their "devil's advocate" questions are more true today than the HP well worded and "backed up" responses.

HP & Compaq: Killing the path to future that DEC had marked out in order to keep us awash in mediocre x86 and Itanic crap.

From the article:
The Atari 2600 has come back in several different forms, but the Atari Flashback 2.0 is the only product I've seen that captures the feel of the original late 1970s Atari 2600 console -- including the first Atari Flashback, which is a piece of junk. Among the console's 40 games are the three most important ones: Combat, Pitfall and Yar's Revenge. It's not hard to find a Flashback 2.0 discounted below its $29.82 retail price.

I was initially going to post that I bought one of these last week directly from atari.com for US$19.99, shipping included. Point being that if anyone was interested in this great console, then that was the place to get it.

BUT, now that I'm going to the Atari website to look for a link that I can post, there is no mention of the Flashback console on their website. So... I'm thinking: if you want one, and you see one in the stores, buy it today because it might not be there next month. Whenever I see it in the stores, it's $30.
I'll try to give you this link to the google cache for the page that I ordered from about two weeks ago. Which doesn't help you buy one for twenty bucks, but it does prove that I'm not crazy. :)

Yes, indeed that link does work. Good luck hunting for a deal.

Cheers.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:lTu87wP-zNgJ:w ww.cartoys.com/cartoy/webpages/ShowTerms.cfm/term_ id/42+verizon+.002+scam&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1

If you look at the bottom of the contract it says $.002/KB , which is what they billed him. It seems the problem isnt with their policy/contract or software , its with the enterpretation of the text by the employee's.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:8tidWET8tjIJ:h eadlesschicken.ca/eng204/media/+history+of+copyrig ht+p2p&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=23&client=firefox-aLink to a debate at Cornell with lots of background.

I got the link for the Norah Jones one from a Google Cache of the yahoo music homepage.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Ijy8eya6sIkJ:m usic.yahoo.com/+yahoo+norah+jones+%22thinking+abou t+you%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a

Ultimately it takes you to

http://www.amplified.com/thinkingaboutyou

I guess they hid the link before the press release.

I saw that lego this year released a NEW set that allows you to build BUILDINGS !! I think the last time they did this was in 1962, when they release
Lego Set #717, which is the set that I was given in 1966, when I was 4 years old.

These days, kids hate legos because they spend most of the time looking for that custom piece that is lost in SOME OTHER LEGO SET of theirs. Or, because there are 17,298 different lego pieces, they spend most of the time searching a big pile of legos for piece #12821 to finish that model in the photograph...

After finishing the model in the photograph, kids either fall asleep, exhausted, or head for the kitchen for 10 cookies and a huge glass of 4% fat chocolate milk ...

Or more likely, he's just not being honest.

Mr Putin himself has said Mr Litvinenko's death was a tragedy

Mr. Litvinenko was apparantly more than your average former KGB agent - he's accused Putin of pedophilia, among other things. Even if Putin weren't behind this poisoning (which he almost certainly is), he probably wouldn't consider Mr. Litvinenko's death a tragedy at all.

Isn't it strange how Putin's most vocal critics inside Russia are just dropping like flies...

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:VHY1RmS0ZKIJ:r icharddawkins.net/article,335,Public-school-teache r-tells-class-You-belong-in-hell,Jim-Lippard+http: //richarddawkins.net/article,335,Public-school-tea cher-tells-class-You-belong-in-hell,Jim-Lippard&hl =en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=1

Public school teacher tells class: 'You belong in hell'
Jim Lippard

Reposted from:
http://lippard.blogspot.com/2006/11/public-school- teacher-tells-class-you.html

The following is from Paul L. LaClair, a NYC attorney who lives in Kearny, New Jersey, and is posted with his permission. David Paszkiewicz, the teacher described here engaging in incompetent teaching and dishonesty, is apparently a youth pastor at Kearny Baptist Church in addition to being a public school teacher. LaClair's son Matthew has previously garnered attention for protesting Bush administration activities by refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. He seems to be a principled and courageous young man who has caught a really bad teacher:

Kearny, New Jersey
November 10, 2006

A history teacher at the local public high school here may have bitten off more than he cares to chew this fall. Self-described conservative Baptist David Paszkiewicz used his history class to proselytize biblical fundamentalism over the course of several days at the beginning of this school year.

Among his remarks in open class were statements that a being must have created the universe, that the Christian Bible is the word of God, and that dinosaurs were aboard Noah's ark. If you do not accept Jesus, he flatly proclaimed to his class, "you belong in hell." Referring to a Muslim student who had been mentioned by name, he lamented what he saw as her inevitable fate should she not convert. In an attempt to promote biblical creationism, he also dismissed evolution and the Big Bang as non-scientific, arguing by contrast that the Bible is supported by what he calls confirmed biblical prophecies.

After taking the matter to the school administration, one of Paszkiewicz's students, junior Matthew LaClair, requested a meeting with the teacher and the school principal. LaClair, a non-Christian, was requesting an apology and correction of false and anti-scientific statements. After two weeks, a meeting took place in the principal's office, wherein Paszkiewicz denied making many of these comments, claiming that LaClair had taken his remarks out of context. Paszkiewicz specifically denied using the phrase, "you belong in hell." He also asserted that he did nothing different in this class than he has been doing in fifteen years of teaching.

At the end of the meeting, LaClair revealed that he had recorded the remarks, and presented the principal with two compact discs. The teacher then declined to comment further without his union representative. However, he fired one last shot at the student, saying, "You got the big fish ... you got the big Christian guy who is a teacher...!"

Commenting on the situation, LaClair's father, attorney Paul LaClair said, "In a few short weeks, this teacher has displayed bigotry, hypocrisy, arrogance and an appalling ignorance of science. The school's administrators seem not to appreciate the damage this man is doing to young minds. He has some real abilities as a teacher, but this conduct is the intellectual equivalent of the school cafeteria serving sawdust."

The student and his parents have requested that the teacher's anti-scientific remarks be corrected in open class, a

Umm, currently Customs & Border Patrol runs "interior checkpoints" throughout San Diego County, part of their "defense-in-depth" approach.

See
GAO report (pdf)
Northeast interior checkpoints to become permanent
CBP Border Patrol Checkpoint Seizes Arsenal of Weapons (google cache)

This actually made me think of another question (that is C related and not CS in general), but why x(T **arg) and x(T *arg[]) are equiv when x(...) { T **arg; } and x(...) { T *arg[] } are not; I doubt I will ever ask it because it's a more subtle nuance.

I think the better question is "why does x(T *arg[]) exist at all, since it's redundant with the * and inconsistent with the other [] declaration usage?" But not as an interview question, because the answer's just trivia. It's an artifact of the early stages of C development:

Instead, pointer declarations were written in the style int ip[];. A fossil from this era survives even in modern C, where the notation can be used in declarations of arguments. On the other hand, the later of the two [early compilers the author dug up] accept the * notation, even though it doesn't use it. (Evolving compilers written in their own language are careful not to take advantage of their own latest features.)

The 'receipt' you are looking for is a paper ballot, the voter does not keep it since this encourages vote buying and voter intimidation. Ink stains on voters fingers (ala Iraq) would go a long way to stopping dead people from voting.

The technology for fair elections with timely results has been well known for centuries, there is absolutly no reason to reinvent it. The real problem is very few voters in the US seem to care their system is open to wholesale fraud that is completely undetectable (now that exit polls no longer follow the laws of nature).

Boy Scouting?

This shows Foley as a Scoutmaster. This isn't available on the current "Fact Sheet" because unaccountably, it was purged of Foley's name right after Foley became notorious for his interest in children. Surely a coincidence.

I'm not sure that a youth organization that on a single campout, loses 4 dead to adult carelessness and 300 heat-related injuries in the course of having kids wait for President Bush to make a political appearance really is a place where any responsible adult would want to put a kid. The carelessness was setting up a giant tent with a metal pole right under high-tension power lines. You want to trust people like that with kids?

Throw in the RIAA Merit Badge and. . . we have an organization that deserves no public support of any sort. They served a useful purpose in the past, too bad they seem as an organization to have forgotten what it was.

Well, this isn't the one for the PC, but apparently they had the same thing for rs6k (google cache) and you can look at this thread which makes mention of them as well: "There are several old S/370, S/390 cards for Microchannel and PCI bus. IBM also released 7437 Mainframe workstation. The cards are slow, but you can run Mainframe OS and applications inside an ordinary PC." I never actually used the card, I'm sure it's slow. :) In particular it uses system services to mimic the hardware functionality for I/O.

I do suspect that the Hitec servos may be running something like Dallas one-wire command systems to provide feedback and such.

No, it's dumber than that. Here's the interface spec. You send pulses of special lengths and you get back pulses. There's supposedly also an "RS232C daisy chain mode", but it's not documented.

This is getting very close to what's needed for good feedback, but it's not quite there yet.

Actually, they do pay near that.
click on the interactive tax map link here.