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Many of today's technologies wouldn't be possible without modern mathematical topics like Fourier Analysis, the Shroedinger equation, and Symbolic Logic just to name a few.

Most of us use these technologies on our ipods, cars, and computers without even thinking about them.

Yay, Math!

A byproduct of this research has led him to create the variable velocity bullet. You can read more here: http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventors/a/ve locity_bullet.htm

Hope they kept it away from the White House, I heard Segways aren't too welcome there.

On a more serious note, FTA:
"Our focus turns now towards Sundance and some other strategies for the film. We have some exciting things in the works, but can't discuss yet. So, we've been advised to keep the promotional stuff to a minimum."

Advised by whom? The law team of the company that will be promoting the movie for Sundance etc? Or perhaps the marketing team, to keep from stealing the thunder of a theatrical release?

There were African slaves all over Europe before there ever was a United States of America, or for that matter before the New World had been discovered.

The Portuguese and Spaniards began enslaving black Africans in the 1300's. The Dutch and English were also vigorous slave traders for centuries.

Of course, the all-time gold standard for rapacious colonialist cruelty was reached in the French and Belgian colonies in Africa, when entire nations were turned into slave camps.

Moreover, I think that Europeans have not been given near enough credit for the abolition of slavery. If there are two institutions which did more than any other to eliminate chattel slavery, they would be the Royal Navy and the Union Army. (The Muslims, of course, were enthusiastic slavers before, during, and after the period of European slavery, and continue to this day. I'll never understand why so many black activists adopt Muslim names.)

You are obviously the product of an American pubblik skoul edumakashun. It's not your fault. Blame the Gramscian termites of the educational establishment, whose teaching and textbooks are becoming ever more devoted to the idea that the USA is the fount of all evil that has ever existed under the sun.

-ccm

Heh, this is almost fun.

Nope, this is just your usual dictatorship FUD; keep the population poor, afraid and ignorant.

Poor:

An Analysis of the Presidents Who Are Responsible For Excessive Spending
Bush Borrowed More Than All Previous Presidents Combined, Group Says
Surplus? US Debt Pushes $6 Trillion
U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK (this is a very interesting one, in my humble opinion)

(hint: guess whose taxes are going to pay for that)

Afraid:

U.S. Department of Defense News About The War On Terrorism
The War On Terrorism
AMERICA'S WAR AGAINST TERRORISM

Ignorant:

Education Not a Bush Budget Priority, Representative Miller to Testify
Bush Budget Slashes Education, Other Domestic Programs
$2.5 Trillion Budget Plan Cuts Many Programs
Bush administration Cuts Public School Funding to Pay for New Private School Voucher Scheme

And you complain about China? I'm afraid you have the same problems in your country (assuming you're American).

I also thought this was interesting, so I looked it up.

However, fingerprints are not an entirely genetic characteristic. Scientists love to use this topic as an example of the old "nature vs. nurture" debate. Fingerprinting, along with other physical characteristics, is an example of a phenotype -- meaning that it is determined by the interaction of an indivdual's genes and the developmental environment in the uterus.

The ultimate shape of fingerprints are believed to be influenced by environmental factors during pregnancy, like nutrition, blood pressure, position in the womb and the growth rate of the fingers at the end of the first trimester. Thus, you will find similar partterns of whorls and ridges in the fingerprints of identical twins. But there will also be differences -- just as there are differences between the fingers on any individual's hands.

Taken from about.com

Um, lead has been transmuted into gold already, it just takes a million dollar particle accelerator to make minute quantities. Just replace "essence of the sun's emanatory spirit," with "energy, protons and neutrons" and "imbuing" with "colliding" and you got it!

We don't, other than by inspecting the source. Once we cast our vote using a paper ballot, how do we know it was actually counted? We don't, other than by having observers present. Source inspection is the digital analogue of human election observers.

IMHO, having computers count is more accurate than having people count. Remember, as Stalin may or may not have said, "those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 showed us that. Computers have no motivation to lie, and I can inspect a computer's source code. I can't inspect the mind of the person counting my paper ballot. To me, computers have more accountability.

You got it all wrong, the real quote goes:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

-President George W. Bush

Looking at this list, Final Fantasy PS3, Metal Gear Solid 4, Tekken PS3, (and maybe maybe Devil May Cry 4) are the only heavyweights... I know there are sh*tloads of other games to come (Gran Turismo PS3... raaahhh), but IMHO they do need a little more than this.

What "domestic TV manufacturing industry"?

Zenith was the last US-based manufacturer, and they closed their last US plant a couple of decades ago.

So, ? Here's the list:

• Dell
• Fujitsu
• Hitachi
• JVC
• NEC
• Panasonic
• Phillips
• Pioneer
• Toshiba
• Samsung
• Sony

So, who does Dell buy their flat panels from? Some other member of the "US Domestic TV Industry" ...

Next you'll be talking about the "US Domestic DVD Player Industry".

Nope, the Holodeck is the most dangerous invention. Just ask Dilbert-creator Scott Adams:

"If I had a holodeck, I'd lose the door and never come out until I died of exhaustion. It would be hard to convince me I should be anywhere but in the holodeck, getting my oil massage from Cindy Crawford and her simulated twin sister... I'm afraid the holodeck will be society's last invention."

http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutatheism/p/atheism .htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/ dict_standard.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/ dict_online.htm

The secondary agnostic definition is colloquial. In that that is the intended meaning by people who don't know what they are talking about. Atheism is simply 'a-' (without) 'theism' (belief in God). It doesn't require an active disbelief, although if somebody disbelieves in God they by default lack a belief in God as well. Not believing in God is the only thing required to be an atheist.

Dictionaries simply give the senses that words are used in, not the proper sense. If a word is misused enough it gets added as that meaning, simply because somebody might wonder what a person means with that word and look it up. If you want to see this in action look up the word 'irregardless' sometime. It's not in the dictionary because it's right, it's in the dictionary because it's common. Atheism doesn't include any beliefs, just a lack of belief in any type of god or gods. However, enough people use it to mean a denial or disbelief in God (a position which does require that a person be an atheist but doesn't include most or all atheists) enough that that usage was added. Huxley coined the word 'agnostic' to mean one who doesn't know or doesn't think knowledge is possible. Agnosticism has nothing to do with belief, it's a knowledge claim. However, it has since been often improperly used as a synonym for weak atheism (lack of belief, without active disbelief concerning gods). And if a word is used improperly, and often enough it gets added. You can even check words like 'nuclear' and find, lo and behold, that annoying mispronunciation is sitting right there as proper (rhymes with spectacular). Yes, language reference are handy, but they only reference how language is used, not if it is used properly.

http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutatheism/p/atheism .htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/ dict_standard.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/ dict_online.htm

The secondary agnostic definition is colloquial. In that that is the intended meaning by people who don't know what they are talking about. Atheism is simply 'a-' (without) 'theism' (belief in God). It doesn't require an active disbelief, although if somebody disbelieves in God they by default lack a belief in God as well. Not believing in God is the only thing required to be an atheist.

Dictionaries simply give the senses that words are used in, not the proper sense. If a word is misused enough it gets added as that meaning, simply because somebody might wonder what a person means with that word and look it up. If you want to see this in action look up the word 'irregardless' sometime. It's not in the dictionary because it's right, it's in the dictionary because it's common. Atheism doesn't include any beliefs, just a lack of belief in any type of god or gods. However, enough people use it to mean a denial or disbelief in God (a position which does require that a person be an atheist but doesn't include most or all atheists) enough that that usage was added. Huxley coined the word 'agnostic' to mean one who doesn't know or doesn't think knowledge is possible. Agnosticism has nothing to do with belief, it's a knowledge claim. However, it has since been often improperly used as a synonym for weak atheism (lack of belief, without active disbelief concerning gods). And if a word is used improperly, and often enough it gets added. You can even check words like 'nuclear' and find, lo and behold, that annoying mispronunciation is sitting right there as proper (rhymes with spectacular). Yes, language reference are handy, but they only reference how language is used, not if it is used properly.

http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutatheism/p/atheism .htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/ dict_standard.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/ dict_online.htm

The secondary agnostic definition is colloquial. In that that is the intended meaning by people who don't know what they are talking about. Atheism is simply 'a-' (without) 'theism' (belief in God). It doesn't require an active disbelief, although if somebody disbelieves in God they by default lack a belief in God as well. Not believing in God is the only thing required to be an atheist.

Dictionaries simply give the senses that words are used in, not the proper sense. If a word is misused enough it gets added as that meaning, simply because somebody might wonder what a person means with that word and look it up. If you want to see this in action look up the word 'irregardless' sometime. It's not in the dictionary because it's right, it's in the dictionary because it's common. Atheism doesn't include any beliefs, just a lack of belief in any type of god or gods. However, enough people use it to mean a denial or disbelief in God (a position which does require that a person be an atheist but doesn't include most or all atheists) enough that that usage was added. Huxley coined the word 'agnostic' to mean one who doesn't know or doesn't think knowledge is possible. Agnosticism has nothing to do with belief, it's a knowledge claim. However, it has since been often improperly used as a synonym for weak atheism (lack of belief, without active disbelief concerning gods). And if a word is used improperly, and often enough it gets added. You can even check words like 'nuclear' and find, lo and behold, that annoying mispronunciation is sitting right there as proper (rhymes with spectacular). Yes, language reference are handy, but they only reference how language is used, not if it is used properly.

that's bullshit. a square peg can occupy the same place as a round hole, if you have something that can physically represent both, switching between the two, only not at the same time. You can do this by hand, if a refresh rate of a few seconds is enough for you, but I can easily think of diaphrams that could change between representing (being) a square peg and representing (being) a round hole at above 100 hertz. If the change is very explosive, ie. very very fast, then you could easily be looking at the square peg in exactly the place where a round hole is. The overlapping, I suppose, would be a bit more pronounced, just as you know the pixels on my monitor that are all white are actually brighter than the ones that are all red. Maybe this has to do with the fact that I keep both brightness and contrast cranked up to the maximum.

Point is, guy is completely right: the internal combustion engine has opposite cylinders, and before there ever were spark plugs, you could get out of the car and crank and crank the shafts, where the fall of your piston compressed thence ignited the fuel inside. SOmeone asked the question, "how can I get this cranking motion to be the very result of the original combustion" - the answer was you couldn't really, but you could fake it by having opposite sides do each other.

Please realize that if someone had thought of this in the middle ages, when gunpowder was known, and when it was known that you could combust gunpowder by striking it very hard (not a very interesting effect, although whatever you struck it with might pop back a little), if somone had had the MERE idea of using this popping back to strike some gunpowder on the reverse side of a robust teetertot, and a mechanism for keeping gunpowder flowing to each side of the teeter tot, then upon presenting this novel toy to the Emperor (believe gunpowder originated in the Orient) suddenly the industrial revolution might well have come a THOUSAND years earlier. Take seismograph. "Around 132 AD, Chinese scientist Chang Heng invented the first seismoscope, an instrument that could register the occurrence of an earthquake". Unfortunately this source doesn't say, but actually it registered an Earthquake so far away that no one believed the inventor and ridiculed him for a machine that drops a ball to register an Earthquake, when clearly there is no earthquake. They all had to eat their words, though, because within a few days news rode in about the earthquake, which had in fact happened on the day the machine registered it.

In response to your dismissive claim, I interpretted your parent post's "fourth dimension" square peg/round hole solution, and it is left only to ask: "For what application is it necessary that a square peg fit within a round hole, overlapping at the corners?" Tell me the application and I will calculate for you the necessary refresh rates, or, since explosive manipulation of a diaphragm (by air) is my example, the necessary "RPM" for the internal combustion engine whose combustions on one side deform to a square peg, and also incidentally bring the pistons down on the other side, which upon combusting does the work of deforming to the round hole. Tell me the application! I will tell you the RPM for the four-dimensional solution.

You reminded me of the email that was heavily sent around a couple of years ago about baby eaters which ended up being a hoax.

As far as And what's worse, it's highly popular among the "alternative" OS / FOSS crowd... who're also the ones least likely to pay for anything goes, I think the statement is wrong. It should be rephrased to "...who're also the ones least likely to pay for software that doesn't suit them". I think the original comment was way too strong.

What fresh GM veggies can you buy in the supermarket?

It seems the geography presented in my comment has confused you. Notice that it is in the US I am buying GM foods. In the US, genetically modified food is widely available and accepted by consumers. Here is a list according to theFSA:
Cantaloupe
Radicchio
Tomato
Potato
Squash
Papaya
Sugar beet
Rice
Sweetcorn

...ever seen vegetables that were anorganic?> Again, you are confused. Here is a Wikipedia article about Organic food and a definition of the term.

They add one or two genes to add a particular trait like roundup resistance. That will not change ripening of the veggie... the plural of anecdote != data
The very first FSA approved GM food was the Flavr Savr tomato in 1994. Here is how one article describes the Flavr Savr tomato:
"Briefly, the Flavr Savr(TM) tomato is the result of the insertion of a single DNA sequence that interferes with the expression of a gene involved in fruit ripening."
Moe here.

The tomato was designed to last longer than regular tomatoes at room temperature. The incorrectness of your claim aside, it is entirely probable my experience shows, not that the Flavr Savr tomatoes don't last longer, but that grocers try to take too much advantage of the Flavr Savr.

I suppose I'll go ahead and snark the glowboxy in order to transferbangle redundanmancy for general purposes.

On of the biggest problems with our quickly moving technological society is that needed regulation can fall well behind technological innovation. When that happens people die.

Next time you get behind the wheel of a car, remember that nearly every safety feature of the car, the highway, and the rules of the road, were 'inked' from spilt blood. The next time you take a plane ride, just think of jumbo jets with exploding fuel tanks, metal fatuge, or terrorist bombings.

I just don't want to be part of a generation which has to the example for the regulation of GM foods.

we all know what this country thinks of sovereignty.

i'm suspired we just didn't take the other country's internet's and give them to one of our telecommunication companies.

As others have mentioned, this is a WinXP issue, not just IE or Outlook. But even if it were limited to IE, Eudora may not be as safe as you'd like to think, since Eudora uses IE code to render HTML-formatted emails. See http://email.about.com/cs/eudoratips/qt/et122001.h tm for more info.

Often, you don't know whats important, until long after the fact. Storage space is so cheap and easy, it doesn't make sense to try to filter, as its happening. Inevitably, something important/crucial/worldchanging would get lost, resulting in cries of government censorship.

And I'd say for a presidency...ALL of it is crucial.

Random conversations, recorded by the secretary, then 'erased', has already caused one president to resign. What was in that erased 18 minutes? The NARA may actually find out.

"if a pattern cannot be found it is called random. If God is behind random that is fine but because God cannot be proven or disproved scientifically,"

I don't think you have read the same explanation of the evolution theory as I did. Could it be that you only read summaries in ID books? If so, and if you are open to other ideas at all, read http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob. html ('what's wrong with creationists' "abiogenesis is so improbable" calculations') and if you dare http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/evo/blfaq_ev o_science.htm

any day now actually...except instead of a tv show, it's going to be a campy film remake starring jim carrey as teh b10n1c man.

see here

or this one... "Brownie You're doing a heck of a job."

"I'm a uniter, not a divider", "yellow cake uranium", "we will catch bin laden dead or alive", "weapons of mass destruction", "I will appoint a moderate to the supreme court", etc. Or my personal favorite, although not quite as quotable to those with low attention spans, is this new one; "To say `unchecked power' basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject...".

Grow the fuck up, you loser. I couldn't give two shits where the President sticks his dick. Even if it's a fat girl. Unless he wants to put it in one of my orifices, it's none of my business. Like the OJ trials, I was one of the very few that never watched nor cared to waste my time watching something so stupid.
Also, it was four years ago, so you might as well be talking about Carter being afraid of a bunny rabbit, Nixon being a crook, JFK cheating on his wife, or George Washington and his wooden teeth. It's ancient history. But I guess talking about someone's sex life and their genitals is going to be the defining cultural event for your entire life. Maybe all of American History!

I know we're not talking about things you can giggle over anymore, but it's because they're fucking important!

Although I may agree with most part of the quote, i cannot agree that the quote is "a timeless truth.", which appeared on Internet only after 2001. The pity is that the quote may only be a hoax, as described at http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/dubiousquotes/a/c aesar_quote.htm

Cough! Cough! Cough!

Okay, I am at least half wrong, they have updated their policies to lie about it if asked:

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2005/08/netflix_vs_b loc.html

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2005/10/variety_bloc kbu.html

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/059230.htm

This is how the Linux 2.6 kernel does threads.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=113222911236 7 http://atheism.about.com/b/a/220978.htm http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jul2001/fait-j23 .shtml http://mediastudy.com/articles/av3-28-02.html http://ethics.lacity.org/EFS2003/index.cfm?fuseact ion=lobreports.clientbyfirm&year=2001 Search for Salvation Army, check later years too. http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/b_thr ee_sections_with_teasers/clientlist_page_D_E.htm Search for Salvation Army

The history of this symbol is vague in the sense that there doesn't seem to be a recognised name for the symbol (like there is for the "&" symbol, or the ampersand), at least in the English language. Since I knew what an ampersand was, and hoping there would be a link to other character symbols in whatever I found, I googled on that, found a definition, which fortunately did have a link:

Definition of the "at" symbol, or "@"

Apparently, a lot may be inferred what what we use it in place of; the word "at". According to the above definition, it also apparently meant "each", and "each at", as well as "at" (which is hinted in the above definition by the idea that the symbol is a stylised form of an "e" and an "a", thus contracting "each at", perhaps?) - a single symbol standing for a few words. I haven't been able to find a solid answer on the history regarding this symbol, but I would imagine that it came about by printers wanting to save on movable type (and proofing), as well as using less space. Eventually, it moved on to being used on typewriters (for perhaps the same or similar reasons), then eventually to computer keyboards where it remains with us.

As another respondent to your question told you, the "@" symbol was used in AutoCAD for coordinate entry. This would line up with the idea of it being a contraction of the word "at". I would also like to point out that a few dialects of the programming language BASIC used the "@" symbol to specify printing locations on the screen, as in something like PRINT @ 20,10 "HELLO WORLD!".

Ok, enough idle speculation on my part. Here is the Wikipedia entry...

OK this is just sad. This is, perhaps, the main reason Microsoft fails in this market. They do something and declare it's the best ever: and they believe their own propaganda. That's just sad. It would be one thing if it was, "well, we had fairly strong launch, and we have a lot of games lined up in the future". But no, this sheer stubborn arrogance.

Let's look at a few things: The PSP sold 500k units in 2 days and many people consider it to have had a weak launch. (Possibly because it didn't entirely sell out.) It also had a more diverse launch title list Exclude Ren Goku and Smart Bomb as they weren't available for a couple weeks (and sucked anyway). The remaining games were solid titles available the day of launch.

And again, many people consider this a weak launch.

The PS2 had a more sizeable list at launch than the X360---also more diverse. (Yeah, so the graphics weren't good; gee, it was 2000. Compare it to the PSX or N64.)

The N64 launched with Mario64, which is widely considered to be one of the best games ever. The SNES was launched with Super Mario World; the NES with Super Mario Bros. All of these are AAA titles, and a single AAA title outweighs any number of B titles.

So in conclusion: Microsoft's claim is laughable at best---but mostly, sad and pathetic.

One impression I have is that in the 70's CompSci was viewed more as a 'humanities'. In Canada is was either part of the Commerce or Math faculties. There seemed to be more interested in the theoretical aspect. It was a lot smaller and had more of a community fell.

How is the gender ratio for those graduating or entering Biology and the Sciences?

Remembering Grace Murray Hopper - A Legend in Her Own Time
http://inventors.about.com/od/hstartinventors/a/Gr ace_Hopper.htm

There is no reason to spite them just because they're largely made up of Christians.

No original ideas... sequal after sequal, rehash of the same game ten different ways. How many ways can you fight WWII or demons on mars?

Original ideas typically don't sell better than established franchises.

"According to data from the NPD Group, a market research firm, the only games released this year to make the Top 10 list through last month have been the new Madden football game and Gran Turismo 4 for PlayStation 2 and Pokemon Emerald for the Game Boy Advance"

Only 3 games of 2005 that broke into the top 10 are all from long established franchises

Look at 2004

1 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - PS2 - Take II Interactive
2 - Halo 2* - XBX - Microsoft
3 - Madden NFL 2005* - PS2 - Electronic Arts
4 - ESPN NFL 2K5 - PS2 - Take II Interactive
5 - Need For Speed: Underground 2 - PS2 - Electronic Arts
6 - Pokemon Fire Red W/ Adapter - GBA - Nintendo of America
7 - NBA Live 2005 - PS2 - Electronic Arts
8 - Spider-Man: The Movie 2 - PS2 - Activision
9 - Halo - XBX - Microsoft
10 - ESPN NFL 2K5 - XBX - Take II Interactive

and 2003

1 - MADDEN NFL 2004 - PS2 - ELECTRONIC ARTS
2 - POKEMON RUBY - GBA - NINTENDO OF AMERICA
3 - POKEMON SAPPHIRE - GBA - NINTENDO OF AMERICA
4 - NEED SPEED: UNDERGROUND - PS2 - ELECTRONIC ARTS
5 - ZELDA: THE WIND WAKER - GCN - NINTENDO OF AMERICA
6 - GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE - PS2 - ROCKSTAR GAMES
7 - MARIO KART: DOUBLE - GCN - NINTENDO OF AMERICA
8 - TONY HAWK UNDERGROUND - PS2 - ACTIVISION
9 - ENTER THE MATRIX - PS2 - ATARI
10 - MEDAL HONOR RISING - PS2 - ELECTRONIC ARTS

Notice a Trend?

My money is spent much better elsewhere.

Big companies aren't targetting you (I'm assuming you are a hardcore gamer); they want the much larger casual audience, people who don't check out video game reviews, parents who ask the guy at the store what the "hot" game is, etc.
This is the main reason I gave up on consoles and stick with the PC market. Developers have more flexibility, and can make the huge block buster, or niche games for more hardcore gamers.

No original ideas... sequal after sequal, rehash of the same game ten different ways. How many ways can you fight WWII or demons on mars?

Original ideas typically don't sell better than established franchises.

"According to data from the NPD Group, a market research firm, the only games released this year to make the Top 10 list through last month have been the new Madden football game and Gran Turismo 4 for PlayStation 2 and Pokemon Emerald for the Game Boy Advance"

Only 3 games of 2005 that broke into the top 10 are all from long established franchises

Look at 2004

1 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - PS2 - Take II Interactive
2 - Halo 2* - XBX - Microsoft
3 - Madden NFL 2005* - PS2 - Electronic Arts
4 - ESPN NFL 2K5 - PS2 - Take II Interactive
5 - Need For Speed: Underground 2 - PS2 - Electronic Arts
6 - Pokemon Fire Red W/ Adapter - GBA - Nintendo of America
7 - NBA Live 2005 - PS2 - Electronic Arts
8 - Spider-Man: The Movie 2 - PS2 - Activision
9 - Halo - XBX - Microsoft
10 - ESPN NFL 2K5 - XBX - Take II Interactive

and 2003

1 - MADDEN NFL 2004 - PS2 - ELECTRONIC ARTS
2 - POKEMON RUBY - GBA - NINTENDO OF AMERICA
3 - POKEMON SAPPHIRE - GBA - NINTENDO OF AMERICA
4 - NEED SPEED: UNDERGROUND - PS2 - ELECTRONIC ARTS
5 - ZELDA: THE WIND WAKER - GCN - NINTENDO OF AMERICA
6 - GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE - PS2 - ROCKSTAR GAMES
7 - MARIO KART: DOUBLE - GCN - NINTENDO OF AMERICA
8 - TONY HAWK UNDERGROUND - PS2 - ACTIVISION
9 - ENTER THE MATRIX - PS2 - ATARI
10 - MEDAL HONOR RISING - PS2 - ELECTRONIC ARTS

Notice a Trend?

My money is spent much better elsewhere.

Big companies aren't targetting you (I'm assuming you are a hardcore gamer); they want the much larger casual audience, people who don't check out video game reviews, parents who ask the guy at the store what the "hot" game is, etc.
This is the main reason I gave up on consoles and stick with the PC market. Developers have more flexibility, and can make the huge block buster, or niche games for more hardcore gamers.

Sorry Anonymous Coward. You are very incorrect in your statement. Adolf Hitler was NOT the Man of the Year in 1936. It was Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson for that year. Please see Time Magazine for verification.

Of course Time's history rather sucks - Joseph Stalin made it both in 1939 and 1942...

For a quick rundown take a look here.

For a nice graphical layout look through Time's version.

You will note, however, that Adolf Hitler was Man of the Year in 1938.

I personally like their 1982 pick ... it was so "1984". :)

The Coast Guard deployed in Iraq, a fact which surprised me.

Here is an expansion on that...

What is absolutely untrue is the reference in The Da Vinci Code to Leonardo's reputation as a "flamboyant homosexual". He was not known as such. Historical evidence is sketchy about the latter, and the only thing Leonardo was "flamboyant" about was his inability to finish projects he started.

not as insane as sailing here and landing an invasion force in 'Frisco bay would be.

Please note that "less insane" does not mean "sane" or "feasible".

Remember these are the same people who built the only manmade stucture visible from Earth orbit.

No, they're not.

When the Chinese put their collective wills to doing something it get done, it's just a matter of which millenium, that's all.

Okay, sure. In some millenium where no other world powers have any naval or air power to speak of, no recon satellites, and a century of global warming has made the northernmost latitudes much more temperate (without simultaneously submerging the land bridge and/or melting away the ice bridge), the Chinese could collectively succeed with such an invasion plan. My point wasn't that it couldn't be done, just that even if they did everything right, the operation would be so resource-intensive, and have so many points of catastrophic failure, that it would be doomed anyway (unless no world power opposed it and the arctic was much more hospitable than it currently is, as I mentioned above).

I mean, the majority of their forces would be occupied with logistics--transporting supplies to the invasion force. And the entire force would be strung out across thousands of miles of inhospitable wasteland. And anybody along the way could break the chain just by focusing a small fraction of their forces on it. Have you ever looked at a map of the region? Have you ever noticed how far they'd have to march, just to get out of Russian territory? Have you ever wondered how they'd defend their homeland, after sending all of their fighting people on a death march through Siberia?

I hope the Canadians do get them hooked on beer, it'll make them wish they never came to the United States.

Sadly, I don't think it would work out that way. Last time I checked, both Canada and the U.S. have large Chinese populations, who seem happy to be here in spite of our taste in beer (terrible though it may be).

I was wondering, is it possible to make a manual (stick shift) hybrid car? I've not heard of such a thing. Is there any talk of it being done? Is there any interest among consumers?

Article here mentions them.

Anyway, I'd still be interested in hearing anyone's thoughts on the matter, now that I know they do exist. I hadn't even heard of such a thing before. Anybody have any experience with one? Differences between it and a regular gas-powered manual transmission?

Some people disagree, at least when referring to fonts displayed on monitors. I'm not qualified to have an opinion on the subject, but others who seem to know more than I do think that sans-serif fonts are more readable on a screen.

I know! And $3500 for one of these huge honking cell phone things? Give me a break. That's only a toy for the political elite. We have about as much chance of sub-orbital flights sold only to those who can afford to $200,000 ride leading to commercial spaceflight for the rest of us as we do of seeing an affordable cell phone, computers, air travel, etc.

On the other hand, if NASA keeps blowing up space shuttles and crash landing probes on Mars, sooner or later we'll get a man back to the moon.

So, I guess we won't be using thep pringle-can macro lens to look at the server hosting the pringle-can macro lens site, unless we want to look at a charred, burned out hulk that used to be computer chassis...

Here is a pringle can antenna.
This is a pringle can pinhole camera.
Another pringles project, a pencil holder.
A bunch more uses for pringle cans are available here.

Actually, ROI is expressed as a percentage above and beyond recoupment. So 100% ROI would be doubling your money (significantly better than sticking that money in a savings account).

Reference:
http://management.about.com/cs/adminaccounting/g/r eturnoninv.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_on_investment
http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_roi.ht ml

On topic, I've no interest in seeing a movie that got 10% at Rotten Tomatoes. That's embarassingly bad and puts the movie in with some truly fine company. (Catwoman, anyone?)

For those that don't speak italian - http://italian.about.com/library/slang/blslangdict ionaryindexp.htm

I believe that what NASA is leading towards may in regards to expense travel to the ISS is tha they may be interested in furthering the privatization of Space travel. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Galactic Also, the NASA program has invented ABS breaks. Kidney dialysis machines were developed as a result of a NASA developed chemical process that could remove toxic waste from used dialysis fluid. And medical CAT scanner searches the human body for tumors or other abnormalities, the industrial version, or advanced computed tomography inspection system, finds imperfections in aerospace structures and components, such as castings, rocket motors and nozzles. http://space.about.com/od/toolsequipment/ss/apollo spinoffs_2.htm

notice the URL? http://nintendo.about.com/od/editorials/a/howtobuy .htm

now look at the lists again, many of the titles are exclusive to gamecube. This should be mentioned more clearly in the article, or at least by the /. submitter.

I've always wondered with stuff like this, and originally the Bin Laden toilet paper, is ink really good for your asshole?

Probably just feeding the troll but here goes anyway...

It's less words. It's entered the public consciousness as Podcast. Apparently, "birthplace", "bump", "torture", "olympian", and "mountaineer" weren't discrete words till Shakespeare coined them and they entered the public consciousness.

Remember, language is a forever mutating beast and will continue to do so, whether you like it or not.