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No, you can unlock it with something as simple as an ActionReplay device. Here's a page that lists the AR codes. http://vgstrategies.about.com/od/playstation2codes /a/hotcoffeecodes.htm There is no hacking of the GTA code required.

Actually Mars and Venus don't have any major plate activity and haven't for Millions of years(see wikipedia). It's also why they have weak magnetic fields as the internal dynamo is what sustains a magnetic field. Internal dynamo drives plate tectonics which are sustained by the cooling action of surface and core exchanges.
Mars is dead geologically, meaning that it has no volcanic activity and we think that the core has (probably) hardened.
Incidentally, Venus is a much better candidate for colonization, but currently it's a little too hot due to the runaway greenhouse effect (it's surface is 450C). Probes sent there melt and get crushed do to surface pressure soon after they land. It's also a good example for those people who say there is no global warming. Look no further than our bastard twin planet.

"Stracher's research suggests coal wildfires in China burn 200 million tonnes a year, equivalent to about 20 per cent of the total used by the US for power generation." http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3390

"Carbon dioxide emissions from personal vehicles in the United States equaled 314 million metric tons in 2004. That much carbon could fill a coal train 55,000 miles long--long enough to circle the Earth twice." "Although SUVs currently trail small cars as sources of carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming (67 million metric tons or 21 percent of all U.S. auto emissions), they will soon be in first place and will remain a leading cause of global warming on U.S. roads for many years." http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/au toemissions.htm

So you can see...if we got rid of coal fires, we could get rid of 360 MILLION tons of CO2 per year...that's 5 times as much as every last hated SUV in the United States. Imagine the joy of countless Al Gore-types if we suddenly passed a law condeming every Hummer, every Suburban, every gas-guzzling pickup to a junkyard...and yet we ignore something 5 times as large. Like I said, all of the political work that's going on to encourage things like carbon trading and the banning of SUV's has one thing directly in its sites...MONEY. There are carbon trading floors already set up, and the government is ready to dole out trillions worth of these "credits" to politically-connected people. Make no mistake...there will be little environmental impact, because a huge amount of CO2 is coming from sources other than humans.

Here's an article: DIVX Bites The Dust!

"Just think, everytime some kid wants to watch The Little Mermaid, it'll be a payday for us," they chortled...

What did you expect from the company that foisted DIVX upon us?

Your numbers are possibly (probably?) way off. As you note, it depends on the definitions of rural and urban being the same, which according to this site:

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa060997 .htm

Which indicates that Sweden considers regions of 200 people/km^2 urban, while the US considers regions of 2500 people/km^2 urban. If that's the case, I still think you have the right idea, but your actual numbers are probably meaningless.

To be truly useful for crunching numbers, we'd not only want a standard definition of urban, but ideally it should match the threshold at which providing broadband access is viable/profitable.

cheers,

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blsux.htm

/P

What happened in Missoula County is similar to how the Electoral College works. Voters in the US do not directly elect the President and Vice President, but choosing the electors. Electors are members of the Electoral College who actually elect the President.

From http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral -college/faq.html, "In the early 1800's, the term 'electoral college' came into general usage as the unofficial designation for the group of citizens selected to cast votes for President and Vice President. It was first written into Federal law in 1845, and today the term appears in 3 U.S.C. section 4, in the section heading and in the text as 'college of electors.'"

"It is possible that an elector could ignore the results of the popular vote, but that occurs very rarely. Your vote helps decide which candidate receives your State's electoral votes."

Why do we have an Electoral College? Because back in the 1800's, it took too long to count the popular votes. In addition, from http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a /electcollege_3.htm "The Founding Fathers feared the direct popular election option. There were no organized national political parties yet, no structure by which to choose and limit the number of candidates. In addition, travel and communication was slow and difficult at that time. A very good candidate could be popular regionally, but remain unknown to the rest of the country. A large number of regionally popular candidates would thus divide the vote and not indicate the wishes of the nation as a whole.

On the other hand, election by Congress would require the members to both accurately assess the desires of the people of their states and to actually vote accordingly. This could have led to elections that better reflected the opinions and political agendas of the members of Congress than the actual will of the people.

As a compromise, we have the Electoral College system."

Nothing has turned me off of breasts faster than seeing a woman breastfeed. Not that it's gross or anything, but when you see something used for what nature intended, it kinda takes the thrill out of it!

Sexual pleasure is one of the things that nature intended for female breasts. Caressing your lovers breasts is no less natural, no less wholesome, than a baby breastfeeding. Sexual pleasure is a wholesome, natural thing in and of itself.

By the way, I personally don't associate breasts with sexual pleasure, but I'm a gay man, so no surprise there. Now if you will excuse me I have to go and look at something that definitely causes sexual arousal in me, but is not porn by anybody's standards, as far as I know.

At least it had a cool car. Compare front ends:

http://www.ibiblio.org/tkan/audi/i_robot_rsq1.jpg
http://cars.about.com/od/autoshows/ig/2006-Los-Ang eles-Auto-Show/2008-Audi-R8---LA-Auto-Show.htm

Analogous how? You patent $foo, I independently make something based on $foo, and then discover your patent while bringing it to market (Or, everyone knows $foo, you patent $foo, and then I choose to knowingly disregard your patent). Very different from, I see your patent and duplicate what it says (which is more analogous to your theater example).

They're *supposed* to, but then so it copyright. The question is whether and how well this actually works.

No, that's really ***ing stupid. If I invent/discover something, I *should not* have to make sure nobody's ever thought of it before. Patents are supposed to be for original, non-obvious inventions only, which would not be duplicated without this kind of publication... the thing is, even the existence of "check the patent office to make sure you're clear" (or, "don't check the patent office because you could get sued worse if you know") demonstrates that this is not the case. (It's also useful to note the "idea whose time has come" phenomenon, which leads to even insanely complex things like the integrated circuit being independently invented (and patented) by multiple teams at almost exactly the same time.)

"It is legal to plagiarize, and big companies do it very often (it's generally known as ghost writing). Copyright infringement is illegal."

1. While not "illegal", plagiarism is classed as a form of copyright infringement, so people and companies can be, and have been successfully sued for it. Here are some links (Google for "plagiarism lawsuit" to see a whole load of others):

http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/mysweet.htm
http://arthistory.about.com/b/a/116985.htm
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2005/11/18/madonna- loses-plagiarism-lawsuit/
http://www.own-it.org/news/article/?p=15&a=220&t=

2. Ghost writing isn't plagiarism. A ghost writer is paid to write books or articles in somebody else's name, with the "somebody else" usually being a famous or topical person whose writing are judged to be insufficient for publication. A link to some definitions:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&r ls=en-us&defl=en&q=define:ghostwriter&sa=X&oi=glos sary_definition&ct=title

Man is this idea played out - 5000+ years. Both the Hindu and Mayan calendars started at about the same time and both point to a time close to 2012 when a new cycle for the Earth begins - not the end of the world (EOTW)! http://hinduism.about.com/od/basics/a/goldenage.ht m

Sure the power grid may be overloaded and transformers fried if this is what you mean by the EOTW then yes the current system is very fragile. "During the last maximum in 1989, a power surge triggered by solar energy damaged transformers of the Hydro-Quebec power system, leaving 6 million people in Canada and the northeast United States without power for more than nine hours. The event also knocked satellites out of orbit and disrupted radio communications." - http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ solar_max_sidebar_000131.html

What this actually may do is again wake people up to suppling their own basic electrical needs via wind and solar and to use the grid power less and less. "Among the innovations that could have the greatest impact in the next decade: a new generation of lightweight, quiet electric cars that can be re-fueled at home; the conversion of coal plants to efficient gas turbines; mass-produced wind and solar generators that are cost-competitive with the most advanced fossil plants; tiny fuel cells and rooftop solar panels that allow people to generate their own electricity." - http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1073

December 21, 2012 (13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan Calendar)

The most amazing thing is that both happen to fall on the solstice. How often does that happen?

Have a holly, jolly Christmas
It's best time of the year
I don't know if there'll be snow
but have a cup of cheer

$3000 http://hybridcars.about.com/od/hybridcarfaq/f/batt erycost.htm to replace the battery, retail, if ever... How much to replace a transmission/rebuild an engine when close to 200K-300K mi?

Prius got no timing belt nor alternator, barely uses the brakes, the 12V battery is charged by the traction battery when on, ICE is only on like 50% of the time...

I call same.

And, they don't use Hummers in the military, only humvees. So the Hummer is an Expedition with a big factory kit on it. Hmm, got an itemization of what these "repairs" and lifetime costs are for the Hummer?

Sorry, I wasn't trying to draw an American vs Japanese argument, just it seems to boil down to such many a times.

So sure, considering hybrids first started selling ~1997, and the most popular version is the 2004 generation of the Prius, 7-8 years for battery replacement is pulled out of nothing; do the math.

I don't know how much energy is used to create the battery, but the battery is fully recycled (Toyota offers $200 bounty), it has a 150K mi warranty in California (100K in some other states). Also, the battery SoC is kept between 40% and 80% constantly with no deep-cycling under normal usage, it's not mistreated like a cel-phone/laptop battery, and so tends to last a long time as current real history is proving. No Prius has had it's battery replaced due to age yet.

Batteries cost $3000 USD retail ignoring junk yards for parts, and the price of technology constantly deflating due to economies of scale and such.

A well-known Canadian taxi driver has already bruised up his taxi Prius well over 200Km http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8839690/ with no battery replacement.

It's relatively safe to say a Prius will last as long as any other vehicle on the road under normal care which happens to be a lot of just rotate tires and oil and not much else.

If find it strange some single out the Prius when most don't even keep their other vehicles past 10 years. I think the energy calculations should include the amount needed to produce the gasoline used by the vehicle by the amount the vehicle uses, lifetime.

Then some personal hard numbers (making me probably biased :P):
$3743.90 petro
$ 144.20 oil
$ 740.05 service
$ 356.22 tire replacement
$4984.37 total over 62399K miles ~ $0.08 per mi.

Maybe it's "The Age" that needs to be supporting its position with real numbers...

Wow, for $6000-7000 you could buy two real hybrid batteries at retail prices! (ignoring the usual deflation of prices for technology as time passes)

Now, I'm starting to doubt your 100K figure too.

How much does a transmission rebuild cost? Smells the same $3K.

No doubt the hybrid cars have lasted 200K or more, but a key question may be do the batteries have to be replaced at some point? The article focuses mostly on the environmental impact of the globalized battery manufacturing process. If a new set of batteries are required at some point, it would seem that the Prius goes into negative environmental friendliness territory again...

As indicated here, Toyota offers a 100K warranty for the batteries. So perhaps that is the "expected" life of the batteries, and why the article compares 100K miles on a Prius to 300K miles on Hummer. Of course, the batteries may last longer, so this cannot be an absolute rule.

Proably the same place as Doom 3?

PC games != retail sales.

PC games = retail sales + download sales + recurring subscriptions + ad-based revenue + Korean microtransactions. Heck, World of Warcraft's recurring subscriptions alone count for an estimated 100 million dollars Per Month. Again, WoW is making a bit over A BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR, not including box sales, and it only accounts for an estimated 50% of paid MMPORPG subscriptions out there.

If US videogame sales are estimated at 10 billion dollars per year, it's not unreasonable to imagine 5 billion dollars coming from MMPORPG subscriptions, online purchases, the softer retail sales, and (yes) computer upgrades to facilitate gaming (are there really any other kinds?)

I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends."

Secondly from the dictionary. "atheism - the theory or belief that God does not exist." Oxford American Dictionary.

This is, interestingly enough, one of those few areas where the compact version of the OED is flat out wrong. Sadly I do not subscribe to the full dictionary, and it would be very interesting to read what it says. In the mean time I can recommend this article on what atheism is and is not .

BTW, Webster is a lot better in this particular area:
atheism: (from Greek atheos, "godless, not believing in the existence of gods) 1a: disbelief in the existence of God or any other deity
disbelieve: vt to hold not to be true or real; reject or withhold belief in. ti to withhold or reject belief.

In this case Webster is right on the money. Disbelief in God where disbelief is to reject belief (which is not the same as to reject the existence of).

http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/207510.htm
Third paragraph in.

That's what the GP was talking about.

We're talking wifi, not wires.

Dvorak was. I don't think you can disassociate municipal WiFi from the broader municipal broadband issue.

There's no possibility of a natural monopoly on wifi.

Sure there is. It's called "interference". IIRC from the last WiFi config I did, you have a choice of a whopping three channels: 1,6,11 (in the US). Just type "wifi interference" into a Google search box and you find many articles discussing the issue. At best you could have two muni-wide WiFi installations, using two channels and leaving the third for citizens to use for their own home networks if they're not using the muni WiFi service.

And, with respect to your "moral responsibility" phrase, municipalities have no "moral responsibility" to provide electricity, telephone, television, water, sewer, garbage/recycling, snow removal, park maintenance, etc. to its citizens either, and one could debate whether the phrase "moral responsibility" would cover such things as police, ambulance, or fire services. In these cases, many municipalities offer some of these services (or centralized rights-of-way for services, such as with telephone and television franchises) due to natural monopolies.

IANA Geologist, but I always found mudslide type stories on the news quite fascinating; you know, the videos showing entire sections of land just dropping straight down. Is it possible some of this evaporation is in part responsible for these slump landslides?

It's funny you mention Atlantis. I saw a PBS special just last nite, and several archaeologists were using Plato's story of Atlantis as their guide (since it was told in great detail by him). Currently, the best guess is if Atlantis truly existed, it was located somewhere along the western coastal sections of South America (near Chile and Peru along the Andes mountain range). I found one such article related to this one, and it states seismic waves sent to the "[...] transition zone beneath the Andes could be either saturated with water or dry as a desert". I think it's the first guess. I got my shovel and plane ticket ready.

From a brief google search here is the case of Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) in which the supreme court said that those requirements are unconstitutional and so cannot be required to hold public office.

Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb

I would support sending US citizens to to europe if they committed kidnapping of course. But when a person is acting as an agent of the government the law discriminates. If anyone should be extradited it should be officers in charge who ordered the detention (and this would likely go to the top levels of the pentagon and white house), not the individuals who are simply doing their jobs. And then it becomes a matter of diplomacy when the crime in question is a matter of government policy, not individual acts of crime. Unless they were acting outside their orders, then by all means the blame is on the individuals. But the issue in question here was that a private citizen committed a crime independant of any government oversight. Apples and oranges. Yeah I know its a double standard. Governments can pick and choose which laws they want to obey. But thats how human society has been for a long time now isnt it?

a lot of "techies" don't have artistic ability, but would you really want an artist to design
your perl scripts? a plumber can go to his local library and learn about
prescription drugs, but you take his medical advice? people are good at different things. no artist is going to replace a techie's job unless they're also geeks, in which case calling
them "artist" does not imply "not geek".

http://webdesign.about.com/ ozgur uksal

Yeah. Here's a small list of wars during islamic kingdoms. You may notice that there is not a single 3-year period without a major war :

http://historymedren.about.com/library/text/bltxts pain4.htm

Tolerance was non-existant under muslims of the caliphate, and thousands of christians and jews were brutally slaughtered. Just as the byzantine christians were slaughtered and, more recently the christian armenians fell under the ottoman turks when the ottoman empire had just lost its fight with the west.

Hungary and Estonia are different countries

Are they?

Perhaps a knock sensor could do the job.

No, they don't. Yes, some blogger said they did back in 2005.

At least for Jews, that problem has been faced and solved. Pig heart valves are now used regularly, and that's just fine for Orthodox Jews. The problem is eating pigs, but any other use of pig parts is just fine.

The Muslims, however, are still debating it, as far as I can tell.

What's most shocking to me is that they accept their 'knowledge' whole-heartedly. No questions. No inquiring minds or any of that jive. Rush said so and I believe it.

I figure if there's a 10% chance that global warming is in fact caused by humans (which 90-some-odd% of those in the field contend), then why not plan a little bit... you know... just in case? In the same breath they will go out and buy a bunch of bread and water when there is the slim chance of some disaster. It seems so hypocritical.

On top of that, they ignore the potential impact on the economy, they ignore the news (and seem to listen more to the oil-sponsored AEI's talking points that are touted on right-leaning talk shows) of debunked debunking scientists, the astounding rate at which sea levels are rising (and have already displaced 10,000 people and counting... 50 million, here we come). They ignore the fact that scientists being paid by oil companies to refute global warming, and again seem to listen to the AEI's calculated response and right-leaning talkers repeat-and-re-repeat of those talking points. Scientists were muzzled?... whatever, I'm listening to O'Reilley.

Fact after fact is presented every other day, but they'd much rather make broad statements about the media and pretend that there is still a debate about whether or not global warming exists.

The first known case of HIV was in 1959, determined posthumously by samples taken from an exhumed body. The virus is older than that, and like ebola is thought to have crossed over from an animal vector due to the ingestion of bush meat. In the late 1970's unusual symptoms began manifesting themselves in certain populations.

You are correct that the virus was not officially "discovered" until the 1980's, but its effects were first noticed in the 1970's, and tests have determined it was active in the human population long before that. :) Giving the original poster the benefit of a doubt, perhaps they meant to state that the effects of HIV were first discovered in the 1970's?

Peace,

-Joe G.

If you experiment with an industrial process for months or years, spending money exploring blind alleys to find the one right combination of pressures and temperatures reaction times, you've done nothing "creative" but it's an investment that patents are meant to protect. Your work is a contribution to the "useful arts".

Should discovery be treated the same way? The answer came out "yes" in the case of patents for plants, so there is at least precedent.

The case against is that the government shouldn't grant monopolies unless there's proof of a market failure happening if they don't. Since people were busy discovering genes even without patent protection, well, ...

Per system sold who will buy more movies someone who bought their system because it played games or someone who bought a stand alone movie player?

The answer is the figures are identical. I know three people at work who own PS3's, all of them watch movies on it and a large reason they bought it was for Blu-Ray playback.

If Blu-Ray playing is a major component of your purchase choice, why would you not then acually use it for playing Blu-Ray movies? A player is a player.

Will movie collectors buy a $500 HD-DVD player, a $500 videogame system or a $1,000 Blu-Ray player?

"Real" movie collectors leave off the figures you mentioned above, because next to the $20k+ they've put into the home theater there is no difference between $500 and $1000. So then the answer is that they would buy the best player possible - and currently the PS3 gets high marks for quality of playback (plus it supports HDMI 1.3 which offers greater color accuracy). Meanwhile we are only jus starting to see HD-DVD players that support 1080p - which a movie collector would also choose over a 1080i only player.

Will the average (non gamer) who bought a HDTV for TV/Sports buy a $500 HD-DVD player, a $500 videogame system or a $1,000 Blu-Ray player?

A sports-watcher, you say? If you look at the top sellers, right after GTA and Halo sits Madden. What tiny percetnage of sports watchers do you know who are not also into sports ganes? I know approximatley zero. It seems pretty clear that between the three options listed you would choose a system that could also play sports games for the same price as the non-game system.

This country is not yet ready for a black prez, particularly the one whose father is from a predominantly Muslim country ... Sadly, in order to win presidency in this country one needs to be a white, Christian-god-fearing male.

Sigh... Mark Twain was right, a lie really does get around the world before the truth can get its boots on.

Barack Obama is a Christian. He belongs to Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. When asked about his faith, he has said that he has "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ", which, while he doesn't describe himself as born-again or evangelical, is a standard way that evangelical Christians describe their faith. In other words, he is definitely a "Christian god-fearing male".

As to his father being a Muslim. His birth father was an atheist goatherder who left the family when Obama was two years old. His stepfather, who raised him through adulthood, was a non-practicing Muslim, and his father and mother educated him in secular schools, not whacko Muslim Madrassas as some of his political opponents have been claiming.

So let's stop worrying about Obama being some kind of Muslim Manchurian Candidate, k? Because it's really far from the truth.

had a system for this.

http://gizmoproject.com/

http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute _id=177

http://www.petefreitag.com/item/522.cfm

http://www.randomthink.net/blog/2005/07/08/skype-v s-gizmo-project/

http://voip.about.com/od/voipsoftware/a/gizmoproje ct.htm

Or they could just go ahead, as rumored, and buy ThinkFree, whose Java-based online office suite has long supported PPT.

I repeat: go to any cell phone store and ask to see a smartphone; they won't just point you to the $20 phone with a built-in calendar.

Of course not, but I ask you again -- what core functionality does a Blackberry or Treo have that an iPhone does not? Other than the ability to install 3rd party software or to interface with specific software (i.e. Exchange servers) there's nothing.

As for the RAZR: running third party software isn't the only requirement of a smartphone, it's just one of them.

Well, then give me a definition of smartphone that includes a Treo and a Blackberry but not an iPhone or a RAZR that doesn't rely on whatever a salesperson steers you towards. Salespeople are not usually considered the rod to measure a standard by. Furthermore, it's going to be very hard to find a salesperson that going to have the option of steering you towards an iPhone on display for several months, now isn't it?

None of these definitions seem to exclude the iPhone. This definition doesn't seem to conflict. Neither does this one. Nor this one. Not this one either.

In fact, I'd say that if none of the definitions on the first page of a Google search for "smartphone definition" manages to turn up a definition that matches your concept, then I'd say that the common definitions of a smartphone include the iPhone. Admit it; you just have a feature wishlist that the iPhone doesn't meet. That in no way means that it isn't a high-end model that provides more than enough functionality to be considered a smartphone.

This company is ridiculous. If they valued his services enough to feel this hurt when he leaves, then they should have gave him enough perks or made the work environment more pleasant for him.

He followed standard procedure. I quit from a company where I was a pretty much a key player in their tech support outfit for a # of years.
I gave my 2 weeks noticed told them it was because I was going back to school, people looked at me in disbelief and basically shrugged when I left but I burned no bridges and the company didn't have a problem with me.
Consequently when I came back 8 years later with more expertise and asked them if they had a position for me, they did not. However I didn't take that personally and I don't think how I left influenced their decision.

There is no law saying that a company has to employ someone or that an employee has to stay working for a company.

Here are some definitions of Right to Work a commonly misunderstood law and Employment at Will which is what is relevant to this discussion:

Right to Work

Employment at Will

This company is ridiculous. If they valued his services enough to feel this hurt when he leaves, then they should have gave him enough perks or made the work environment more pleasant for him.

He followed standard procedure. I quit from a company where I was a pretty much a key player in their tech support outfit for a # of years.
I gave my 2 weeks noticed told them it was because I was going back to school, people looked at me in disbelief and basically shrugged when I left but I burned no bridges and the company didn't have a problem with me.
Consequently when I came back 8 years later with more expertise and asked them if they had a position for me, they did not. However I didn't take that personally and I don't think how I left influenced their decision.

There is no law saying that a company has to employ someone or that an employee has to stay working for a company.

Here are some definitions of Right to Work a commonly misunderstood law and Employment at Will which is what is relevant to this discussion:

Right to Work

Employment at Will

Just a thought. I had this flash back of a WKRP Sit-Com TV show.

If you're gonna call a group of people "morans", at least learn to spell moron.

You remind me of this person.