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He did, however, conduct some correspondence with the people who were writting the Constitution and you'll find that in those letters he wrote of our Inalienable write to be free of copyright.

No, the first airbag technology was patented in 1953, and nobody offered them in the marketplace (or did further R&D) till 1973 after the patent ran out. Airbags were held back 20 years, exactly as I said. http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/a ir_bags.htm. What you're talking about didn't happen till over a decade later, and is a totally different issue. Also, 40,000 people in the US alone per year get killed in auto accidents, 40000 * 20 = 800000, and that's just the US, not the globe. But I digress, would it make you feel better if that means 100000 died needlessly instead of a million?

Also, as I said above, one of the consequences of patents is that researchers are strongly discouraged against collaberation because a competitor could build off the research, get a patent, and lock everyone else out. That not only drives up R&D by several orders of magnitude, but also results in more secrecy with patents, not less.

And could you please explain to me how 15 million people in Africa suffering from AIDS who are lawfully being denied generics that people in India have ready access to is anything other than genocidial? I think the slavery analogy is very appropiate. The "it's a property" argument is bullshit. The "it's the law" argument is bullshit, the "I have no incentive" argument is bullshit, the "great wealth of commerce and business" argument is bullshit. So what other justifications for patents are there .... bullshit!

The Hindenburg did not catch fire, it was merely the hydrogen in the Hindenburg that caught fire.

I feel a bit sad about this, since there was something wickedly fun about google bombs. But given that they subvert the intention of the search engine, it's completely understandable that they would take action against it. In fact, the surprise is that they took this long to do anything about it.

If you do the search, you'll find this page already comes up on the first page. While it's not as clever as the original google bomb, linking 'miserable failure' to it would still express the intention of the link and could be an alternative to simply removing it.... Tough call, but something should be done with all those links, since now they are essentially 'broken' and constitute just a load more cruft in an increasingly crufty web.

>> It's the people who buy before the spam goes out and sell right after (probably even same day) that you would target.

Not really, if they are smart they SHORT the stock, and only if they see the scam working.
http://beginnersinvest.about.com/cs/newinvestors/a /022703a.htm
Send SPAM, wait for stock to go up 5%.
Borrow and SELL stock, wait for correction.
Once correction occured, BUY stock (lower than you sold, profit) and returned borrowed stock.

Always claim to the SEC that you shorted, seeing the stock going too hight for its real value (all true).

In addition to that excellent explanation, I would like to add that making yogurt at home is very simple. Here is a site that gives the details: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/yogurt _making/YOGURT2000.htm. Here is another informative article: http://homecooking.about.com/library/archive/bldai ry9.htm

According to Jack van Impe Ministries:

"I am not sure whether [President Bush] knows all of the prophecies [about "the apocalypse"] and how deep of a student he has been in God's Word, but I was contacted a few weeks ago by the Office of Public Liaison for the White House and by the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to make an outline. And I've spent hours preparing it. I will release this information to the public in September, but it's in his hands."

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/017276.htm

According to Jack van Impe Ministries:

"I am not sure whether [President Bush] knows all of the prophecies [about "the apocalypse"] and how deep of a student he has been in God's Word, but I was contacted a few weeks ago by the Office of Public Liaison for the White House and by the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to make an outline. And I've spent hours preparing it. I will release this information to the public in September, but it's in his hands."

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/017276.htm

Is it true that no two snowflakes are identical?

Yes and no. No two snowflakes are exactly identical, down to the precise number of water molecules, spin of electrons, isotope abundance of hydrogen and oxygen, etc. On the other hand, it is possible for two snowflakes to look exactly alike and any given snowflake probably has had a good match at some point in history. Since so many factors affect the structure of a snowflake and since a snowflake's structure is constantly changing in response to environmental conditions, it is improbable that anyone would see two identical snowflakes.

Another name that Taiwan calls itself is 'The Republic of China'.
The creation of Taiwan as we know it is about some Chinese leaders that failed to unite China, so they fled to Taiwan.
Hoping to raise a military strike with the help of America to defeat the Communists.

People get it mixed up if Taiwan were successful to overtake China, would you defend the Mao Tse Tung? It is just a power struggle, at least in the past. I cannot speak on whether the Chinese in Taiwan have now become Taiwanese or are still Chinese, I don't know, it is up to them.

Regarding Tibet, they deserve to keep their identity, I believe, but with regards to the Dalai Lama, and his rule, yes he was the leader, not just the spiritual leader. How can slashdotters support a serfdom? I just don't understand. Do you want to live as a serf in your life?

http://chineseculture.about.com/library/china/whit epaper/blstibet200402.htm?terms=by+region
http://weecheng.com/views/world/tibet/myth.htm
http://english.people.com.cn/200405/23/eng20040523 _144141.html
http://journeyeast.tripod.com/myth_and_reality.htm l T

This crap is poison : http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/1998/Suppl-4/989-994 stacpoole/abstract.html and causes cancer.

Yeah. It kills cancer ... and your neurons : http://rarediseases.about.com/b/a/257426.htm

I wouldn't fund research on this either.

I am not an expert, but it just fits into the several pieces of information I have. For a long time it was thought that nerve cells like in the brain does not regenerate. New connections between brain cells might be created, but dead brain cells cannot be replaced, so the absolute number of cells can only decrease. This seems to be wrong. It could be shown that learning a language actually increases the number of cells in certain brain areas. Dementia might at least partly the result of more cells dying than new cells formed. And this might partly be the result of life style. Knowing a second language simply might mean that one starts with more cells to begin with.

Similar effects should be possible by constant learning new and different stuff. I do suspect that learning one computer language might also qualify, but probably not learning a second or third. The second and third computer language might not require new cells, but only new connections when the secondary languages are 'explained' in terms of the first learned computer language. If someone is a technician, literature might help. If someone is proficient in humanities, dealing with math might be a good way to remain active.

http://biology.about.com/library/weekly/aa102199.h tm http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/926345803.html

... I thought turkeys could fly.

http://webdesign.about.com/od/htmleditors/tp/aatpw yslinux.htm/
A simple Google search would reveal this plus other links to WYSIWYG html editors for Linux.

Actually, Brazil is part of the original America, the USA isn't. Amerigo Vespucci, for whom the continents are named, never visited North America, his travels were limited to the coast of what is now Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. In the first maps of the "new world" only the southern continent had a name and it was "America".

It's actually 40 inches (1016 mm) long.

I thought the deal with HavenCo fell through because Sealand isn't recognised by any other country.

Ah, how the stories grow in the telling - the boat he fired on was not a warship trying to remove him from Sealand, as Wikipedia would have you believe, but a repair boat belonging to the Navy which just happened to be passing by. Check the alternate version of the tale at http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a /sealand.htm, for example.

If you'd stopped your rant earlier I might have been with you but honestly what an unscientific CRAP site!

According to it, it'd take me about 610 cans of coke to kill me according to that site. Assuming 375ml cans that's almost 228L. Now granted I'm a big guy, but even if I half my weight, that's 114L. Never mind that they don't mention a time frame in which you're drinking this. You can't work out what fraction of a lethal dose is in a drink, divide the amount in a single can of drink and claim that's deadly. I'm pretty sure I've had 610 cans of coke through my life time and I'm not dead. I'm also pretty sure if I drank that much in a day I'd be dead. Then again I'm pretty sure I'd pass out before I could drink that much.

Well it turns out if you drink 114L of anything including WATER will kill you.
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/5/f/blwaterintox.htm
http://www.hhp.ufl.edu/faculty/pbird/keepingfit/AR TICLE/toomuchwater.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

"A person with two healthy kidneys can excrete about 1.5 litres of water per hour at maximum filtration (other studies find the limit to be as little as 0.9L/h [1]). Consuming as little as 1.8 litres of water in a single sitting may prove fatal for a person adhering to a low-sodium diet, or 3 litres for a person on a normal diet. However, this must be modulated by potential water losses via other routes. For example, a person who is perspiring heavily may lose 1 L/h of water through perspiration alone, thereby raising the threshold for water intoxication."

No one's suggesting we ban water.

So what have you proven? That too much of anything disrupts the body and will kill you.

Fucking pseudoscience being moderated up on /. again. All that's missing is some vague mention of Myth Busters.

But then looking at this more carefully you've made a good point - what counts isn't the deadly dose, but the speed at which it's absorbed (how it's administered). 2x4's might be good for making furniture, but if incorrectly administered at too high a dosage (over the back of the head repeatedly every 3 seconds) they also lead to death too. Look at nuclear waste that way and the problem which is rightly pointed out is that if we're not careful we'll have no control over nuclear waste products in the long term - the equivalent of belting ourselves over the head with 2x4's with increasing frequency.

I mean, racism, advocating torture, describing how they want to get rid of folks they do not like etc.

And doesn't Christianity say something about loving one another?

I dont know you assume torture and murder cant exist within Christianity, be advocated by the church and scriptures, and cant be done by Christians. Its historically false to even assume such a thing. Christianity is no pacifist religion . I really wish people would just accept the scripture and history of their own religions instead of making these little perfectionist strawmen. This has been going on since Jesus walked the earth, except now you can thank secular thinkers for giving you the right to free speech to even question your chosen religion.

Christian torture. Christian racism. Christian Slavery. Christian Warfare. Inquisitions (more torture). etc

If you want historical accurance please check out the atheism section at about.com. Follow the links at the bottom. Thanks.

Houston, Texas is currently in the early process of implementing city wide wifi, thought it's a lot more difficult here do the relative geographical sizes of the two cities.

  http://savemuniwireless.org/blog/001109.html
http://houston.about.com/b/a/257244.htm

Philadelphia also has city-wide wifi at this point I believe.

That depends on who you talk to. Orthodox and (to a lesser extent) conservative Jews follow the "law of matrilineal descent", which means you can only be considered Jewish if your mother is considered Jewish. That's not entirely true for conservative Jews, but it's close. So there *is* a strong common heritage for Orthodox and conservative Jews, if you trace things back far enough. http://judaism.about.com/od/whoisajew/a/amijewish. htm

And of course, Judaism was originally centered on the Hebrew people, so I think you'll find a strong correlation between people who follow Judaism and people who have Hebrew heritage.

With all that said though, you're correct that I probably should have said "Israeli", since that was how the topic started; however, the post I was replying to said "Jews and Arabs", so I was merely continuing the mistake.

Europe dealt with her terrorist problem trying to avoid instituting terror herself.

Except Spain didn't want to negotiate with the Basque. And now it's Catalonia that wants self determination, along with Andalusia and other regions of Spain. All of these regions weren't even part of "Spain" until after Queen Isabela started to unite them all.

As for the 150 years thing, it's because they had no thermometers 150 years ago, so their records only go back 150 years.

Ummm, yeah. I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit on that, and then mod you down.

For those who don't know

SDS = Students for a Democratic Society

SWP = Socialist Workers Party

Now you see why his limited federal government and individual freedom comment was funny.

"No doubt it was a very, very popular gift, and no matter how well you plan on the server side of the equation, there are always times when you get caught short."

No, TV without commercials wasn't the idea of cable. Cable was invented so that people who lived in places that couldn't properly get TV from an antenna could watch TV. The first cable-only channel, HBO, was commercial-free and still is, but the very next cable-only channel, TBS, had commercials. Please stop spreading that bullshit.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blcab letelevision.htm

Sure enough! No need to be impolite.

Thanks.

* SUV's are the only category of vehicle that is available with 7+ passenger seating How many drive SUV while being the only person in the car? I think a lot of people! Are the USA a country where the average family is 7+? * There is a big safety hangover from when someone published the obvious conclusion that a heavier car will suffer less damage in a crash than a smaller car. You're talking about security, while the US have bad records regarding: - seat belt use (73% in the USA, while it is obligatory in Europe: http://usgovinfo.about.com/blagencyrelease16.htm - car crashs tests. In Europe, there're the NCAP tests: http://www.euroncap.com/ Cars used in Europe are far more safer than US ones. The size does not matter. Construction and quality design do. * The big motors are there because we have a lot of hills (in some parts of the US) and a *lot* of stoplights. It's time for you to discover what a nicely built motor is. You're talking about torque. I already drove fat V8 american motors. I far better prefer the way European Diesel cars deliver their power. Did you try a BMW? * A lot of us Americans have owned and driven small cars, especially during high school and college years. We're not talking about "City cars". I assume you got your exams and get a decent car since then. IMO, driving a large car with a small MPG is all about self-centered mind and money. A prehistoric fat motor doesn't cost much to build. What cost money is to design a fuel efficient and powerful motor. Moreover, such large cars aren't generally needed. Anyway, the situation will change in the US in a few years, since gas prices will raise.

Oh, please. Does Kerry's "I voted for the war before I voted against it" really belong in that list? Keep in mind that if "inarticulate moments" are in the same league as bribery, voter suppression, and manslaughter (the other items on your list), Bush is a much worse president than I ever realized... a few examples.

Please, politicians by default are dishonest, not just Republicans. So just remember who's dog food you are eating when shilling for one side or the other.

You're as much in denial as those who claim there's no corruption at all, and your beliefs are just as harmful. There's been political corruption in all parties throughout history, but not all politicians are corrupt, and not all parties are equal. Voters have recently realized that they can exert control by voting out the more corrupt party. Maybe in 20 years the Republican party will reform and the Democratic party will regress. Until then, I'm voting for Democrats.

It's in a company's own best interest to not kill their customer

Certainly!
I realize that Gundam game is probably a poorly programmed piece of crap. And you can say current Windows games are not taking advantage of hyperthreading or dual cores, much less quad cores ... But! Developers will add more and more detail and complexity. As much as optimization and programming tricks can help, there's only so much they can do. Eventually they'll squeeze out everything they can out of fixed platform consoles.

And seriously the RAM specs alone say devs can hit that ceiling quick:
* 256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz
* 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/n_rand_home_ computer.htm

2) Maybe the solution isn't to lower the drinking age, but rather, to raise the age at which you can sign up to die for your country.

Yes, I truncated it. But, assuming this is true (which I'm not agreeing with, but not making the argument here either), then why, exactly, do we want these people in our armed forces?

3)Anyone that actually *does* get drafted into the military at 18,19 etc. have ... different rules, particularly overseas.
From The law is codified in DoD Instruction 1015.10:http://usmilitary.about.com/gi/dynamic/off site.htm?site=http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/c orres/html/101510.htm

The minimum drinking age on a DoD installation located in a State (including the District of Columbia) shall be consistent with the age established by the law of that State as the State minimum drinking age. Minimum drinking age means the minimum age established for persons who may purchase, possess, or consume alcoholic beverages.

In the case of a DoD installation located in more than one State or in one State but within 50 miles of another State or Mexico or Canada, the minimum drinking age on that DoD installation shall be the lowest applicable age of the State in which the DoD installation is located or the State or jurisdiction of Mexico or Canada that is within 50 miles of such DoD installation.

The minimum drinking age on a DoD installation located outside the United States shall be 18 years of age. Higher minimum drinking age will be based on international treaties and agreements and on the local situation as determined by the local installation commander.

The commander of a DoD installation may waive the above requirements, if such commander determines that the exemption is justified by special circumstances. Special circumstances are those infrequent, non-routine military occasions when an entire unit, as a group, marks at a military installation a uniquely military occasion such as the conclusion of arduous military duty or the anniversary of the establishment of a military service or organization. The event must be held on a military installation. The commander shall ensure that appropriate controls are in place to prevent endangering Military Service members or the surrounding community.

These points come up because they are things that are controlled by an ID service already. It was said once that this is a scary prospect, because it is what Germany did before WWII, to 'control' the jewish population. Now, while Hitler was justifiably insane (which we do have proof of now), no one said that of him at the time. And this is EXACTLY how he started keeping track of the people in his country so that he'd know when and how many and where to move them to so that he could make way for his perfect Aryan race.

Its a slippery slope. A VERY slippery slope. and its easy to say "no, we won't ever go that far." But it scares me, and should scare you, to see the government of one of the most powerful (militarily and otherwise) countries in the world approaching this slope. Whether you live here or not. And it certainly doesn't help that England and the rest of the EU are considering following.

What are you smoking? The minimum wage in B.C. is double that. I'm graduating this month with a mediocre GPA and will start as a developer at $48k. Our co-op department at school has way more tech jobs than students to fill them. People at the company I worked at who'd been there 6 months threatened to leave and got 20k annual raises. Don't make Canada sound like the economic wasteland everyone in the US seems to think it is just because you're willing to work for peanuts.

I'm graduating this month with a mediocre GPA and will start as a developer at $48k.

Our co-op department at school has way more tech jobs than students to fill them. People at the company I worked at who'd been there 6 months threatened to leave and got 20k annual raises.

Don't make Canada sound like the economic wasteland everyone in the US seems to think it is just because you're willing to work for peanuts.

Oh yeah? Well I heard George Bush invested one Brazillian dollars.

You actually believe that eyewitness testimony is reliable??? http://atheism.about.com/od/parapsychology/a/eyewi tness.htm

But a soldier from brazil is worth most of all.

Why try to imagine it, can't we just remember it?

Maybe you can. Some of us aren't that old... or have ingested massive amounts of memory modifying substances.

Why isn't the government providing the tools the military needs.

Because this isn't about military procurement - the story is only partly about evolving military tactics (if there is a real need for these items, any self-respecting logistician would do whatever it takes to get them into the hands of their unit).

Mostly it's about people on the home front trying to feel like they are contributing. In that sense it has more in common with the campaign to knit socks in WWI or recycling in WWII.

Yeah, I hear this about Maden all the time... That's how it manages to remain one of the biggest selling game titles of all time...

Actually, I think this may have something to do with the fact that they produce the only licensed NFL game. Here's a neat link comparing top games sales for 2004. Notice how Madden is #3 but NFL 2K5 is both #4 and #10 (PS2 and X-Box), of course, that year they "bought out the competition" and then you get numbers like these, where, lo and behold, Madden is now undeniably on top (#1, #4) and they've snuck in with #5: NCAA Football.

Truth is, it seems to me that there is just a big market for american football games. EA didn't really win any major "competition" here, they just bought off the NFL player's union in the very year they seemed to be slipping. Good market strategy, but I definitely won't attribute their sales numbers to game quality. Truth is, Madden is probably just "good enough". There are lots of football fanatics who just want "a game" and Madden meets that criteria.

Mostly copper tools, not much arsenic bronze, and little to no tin bronze:

http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/trades/tools.htm

Tin bronze is a fascinating subject

http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/uc_slat tery_tin.htm

Also, much of the stone dressing was done with other, harder stones. Granite for dressing limestone, and basalt (? like I ever see basalt) dressing granite.

Robocop Banzai covered some of this on THC.

And why it wasn't until 1948 that the right combination of limestone & other minerals was discovered to be able to resist water and hold that high a level of precision.

For some reason, I didn't initially agree with these sentence, so did some quick research:

In 1824, English inventor, Joseph Aspdin invented Portland Cement, which has remained the dominant cement used in concrete production. Joseph Aspdin created the first true artificial cement by burning ground limestone and clay together. The burning process changed the chemical properties of the materials and Joseph Aspdin created a stronger cement than what using plain crushed limestone would produce.(http://inventors.about.com/library/invent ors/blconcrete.htm)

Review: http://email.about.com/cs/dispaddrrevs/tp/disposab le.htm

Personally, I use http://www.emailias.com/, which has worked great for me. It also lets me use my own domains, and seems to have just about all the other options others are mentioning.

Since when was war supposed to be fun and desirable?

Since the begining of time?

Please save us the self-rightous posturing. People have always had a certain fasination with war and violence. There are going to be people who find war and conflict exciting and challenging, or at least training for war exciting and challening. If, as a society, we are going to have a military to fight wars, there is nothing wrong with choosing people who will enjoy their work.

The only thing I find undesirable about the game is that it gives people the impression that they will see combat if they join the military. The vast majority of the military personel are in support positions (You need people to ship supplies, repair equipment, prepare food, teach classes, police other soldiers). Kids sign up thinking they are going to be repelling out of helicopters yelling "Go! Go! Go!", and then they get assigned to be a "Laundry and Textile Specialist" for 4 years. http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/arjobs /bl92s.htm

I was working on a project where we had large LCD overhead displays in a facility that operates 7/24. They got "image persistance" as a result. The manual for the monitors recommended having them turned off for a few hours a day to prevent this. This was not an option for our application so we made a change to the application to periodically swap the displays around. I do wonder how the LCD displays they use at the airport avoid this. The good news with LCD "burn-in" is that it is generally reversable.

You can do a google search for "LCD image persistence" to read about it. Or you can just go here.

There are a number of reasons why people don't want or can't use front projection.

I'm suprised nobody has mentioned lamp life yet. It's a pricy part and has a short life.

2. Video projectors have a very limited bulb life. In other words, if you are watching TV on your video projector about 3-4 hours every night, you would have to replace the light source bulb about once a year at 200-400 dollars a pop.

snipped from

http://hometheater.about.com/od/hometheaterbasicsf aq/f/htbasicfaq5.htm

you are so google lazy... http://macs.about.com/od/ipod/a/copy_from_ipod.htm

Stop doing your research in Christian publications (yes, most dictionaries meet that standard... especially English dictionaries.) Do your research in the atheist community. The definitions of Christians applied to atheists are inherently invalid and biased.

Now, instead of the little "sound bites" you get from these dictionaries, do some real work: A good starting point would be if you read George H. Smith's scholarly "Atheism - The case against God", 340 plus-pages of actual research, exposition and background. And of course, this work includes the correct definition of atheism (on page 7.)

Or here, or here, or here (though as usual, in Wikipedia, this article is badly tainted by the opinions and errors of non-atheists... it still lays out the idea and a close approximation of the boundaries), or here, or here, or here, or here, or here. And in tons more, just go google it. On the one hand, you will find the atheist community, repeatedly explaining what the situation actually is. On the other, you will find religionists (and many agnostics), trying to apply a set of outlooks to a set of people who do not agree that they hold said outlook.

You'll note that these sources pretty much all treat the subject in some detail, explaining not only what is, but why. These sources come from the atheist community, and when an atheist tells you what they stand for, you're a lot better off taking them at their word and intent than you are trying to fit some religionist's preconceptions on top of what they actually think. But it is, after all, your call. You certainly won't be alone; religionists (and again, many "agnostics") try really hard to misconstrue the atheist position. it is pretty obvious why they do so. In the case of the religionists, they want to apply the idea of faith to the entire set of atheists, when this only applies to the hard atheist subset. They do this in order to try and demonstrate that "faith" is "required" to take the atheist view, when the actual situation is that this argument only applies to the hard athiests — of whom, by the way, I have met very few. In the case of agnostics, they do this so as to try to stake out an imaginary middle ground between belief and lack of belief. There is no such middle ground, and agnostics are upset by this idea because, I think, they're trying to avoid the issue. This can always be resolved by a simple question: Do you believe in a god or gods, or not? The answer is "I do" or "I don't", and the answer clearly defines one who embraces theism (theist) and one who does not embrace theism (atheist.)

I am atheist. I hold absolutely no belief in a god or gods, nor do I ever expect to, nor do I ever expect to run into any evidence to the contrary that would cause me to embrace the idea that the idea of a god or gods rises above the standard of any other fairy tale. Given the complete and utter lack of evidence made available to me to date, my confidence that the idea of a god or gods is a completely human construct is extremely high. None of this is disbelief. It is lack of belief. I find the cup of evidence to be empty. Like any assertion for which no evidence can be found, asking for belief is asking far too much. Is the idea interesting? Certainly. Is it entertaining? Yes, that too. Is it woven throughout history? Yes. Has it affected the course of human lives? Sure. Should I therefore pay attention to it? Indubitably. Might it affect my own life? Yes indeed. Does any of this make t