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Because all Star Trek technobabble will eventually become true, someone will inevitably invent a device to control the weather on the Earth.

Jeff Albertson

Not necessary. Executables will launch with a single click from Mail.app. But only after you answer a sheet dialog to the tune of

"Foo" is an application
Are you sure you want to open the application "Foo"?
<Cancel><Open>

A script/virus send to a Mac user has all rights the user has,

But it has to get there first. That's the funny thing about email viruses. They only work when you have large marketshare. Otherwise, vulnerable machines are too diffuse for it to have a significant impact. Your doomsday scenario has already happened. Impact was nearly non-existent.

Linkyhttp://movies.about.com/cs/thehulk/a/hulkgame news.htm

This title is more like a Comic Book World version. More Marvel Villains than the previous which stuck pretty close to the events in the movie.

First, Ash does and can fall right out of the sky during an eruption, it is called a nuee ardente or pyroclastic flow. http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/hazards/primer/py ro.html It happened at St. Helens and if the eruption is significant enough it will most likely produce one. It is more common than rare. If the eruption is big enough to cause this type of eruption, you can be assured that the ash can and often does reach into the upper limits of the atmosphere and can have a long term effect on the atmosphere and even cause climate changes and disrupt the ozone layer.

Second, volcanoes can develop quite rapily, Paricutin for example.http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Mexico /description_mexico_volcanoes.html

Third, Krakatoa's devopement was due to subduction and did have the high silicic lava that causes plugging, but the explosive event it created was due more to the ocean water getting into the crater that resulted from the huge amount of magma loss resulting in a collapse of the island. This ocean water was super heated and is called a phreatomagmatic erruption. This is what is thought to be mostly responsible for the resultant tsunami and destruction of Krakatoa.http://www.drgeorgepc.com/TsunamiVolcanic Mechanisms.html

Forth, As for Mars, there is no source for internal heating that drives the processes that lead to vulcanism anymore. The current belief is that the heat source is either to small or has cooled sufficiently to have ceased any geological surface processes. It has probably been more than 20 million years since a volcano has errupted on Mars.http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/planet_volcano/ mars/Overview.html

Fifth, As for igneous rock "not flexing" it is pretty flexible in the molten state. It is no less "flexible" than other rock types, metamorphic and sedimentary. Usually geologists discuss rocks in terms of hardness using the standard Mohs scale where talc is 1 and diamond is 10.http://geology.about.com/library/bl/blmohsscale .htm

I believe to retain credibility it is helpful to have facts straight before stating them.

Orbiting 227,940,000 km (1.52 AU) from Sun, the Martian year is nearly two Earth years,
while its day is only about half an hour longer than Earth's.

At least one source gives the opposite advice for screen displays (but recommends your scheme for printing). The general consensus among the web designers I've talked to is serif for headlines, sans- for the body.

So, what are your chances of being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan? The Department of Defense recently released deployment data, from 11 December 2001, to 31 October 2004 for Iraq and Afghanistan.

955,609 (about 36%) of our total Active Duty/Reserve/National Guard forces of 2,656,300 have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan during this period. 651,622 (24.5%) have one deployment during this period, and 303,987 (11.4%) have deployed more than once.

For active duty, 708,428 (48.2%) of the force has deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. 494,482 (33.6%) have deployed once, while 213.946 (14.6%) have deployed more than once.

For the National Guard and Reserves, 247,181 (20.8%) have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

157,140 (13.3%) have one deployment and 90,041 (7.5%) have multiple deployments.

remember the DIVX system Circuit City tried to implement?
http://hometheater.about.com/library/weekly/aa0621 99.htm

This disc format allowed the consumer to make an intitial movie purchase for as low as $4.49, which allowed one to watch the movie as many times as they wanted within a 48 viewing period. In order to watch the film again after that time, the viewer had to reactivate the viewing period with the DIVX computer. In other words, the player was tied in to the phone line and the consumer had to punch in his credit card number to a main-frame computer in Virginia in order to view his movie.

it's basically DRM with another renting schema that fell through. i thought it was actually pretty neat, but i guess because of the physical disc barrier, it wasn't well received. if they can make home theater pcs download these DRMed movies and give them an expiration of 48hours or 1 week or something, I think that'll be totally awesome!

after 7 years. Even after 40 million years of storage you can still eat dirt.

Doesn't mean it tastes good or is healthy for you..

People do stupid things.
I have no burning desire to eat a 7 year old sandwhich.
    Or dirt...

Bar codes were invented in 1952 but only became really widely used in the last ten years, thanks to ink jet printers and laser scanning at many checkouts. It's going to take RFIDs decades to replace bar codes and probably it won't happen until a RFID chip can be literally micro-printed onto a paper receipt, onto an egg, or onto a newspaper.

My guess is that the only thing stopping them now is the availability of nukes or the logistics of getting them into the US. I doubt the will to use them is a problem right now.

If you don't have nukes, then your "will to use them" is irrelevant. If you only have a few nukes, you'd generally want to save your ammo.

It is not hard to get stuff shipped into the US in a container. Many people can arrange that, including preclearance. Fortunately, most terrorists are literally idiots and have few supporters in important places.

When nutcases get bombs and a clear path to their target, they blow things up. For the most part terrorism is as simple as this. Sure, foreign policy probably does tend to exhasperate the situation a little, and it may also influence whether terrorist groups get sponsored by national governments.

The world is full of idiots and it is just becoming harder to limit there actions...

Sure the world is full of idiots, but the idiots only get a nuke if many people want to them to have a nuke. If you see a puppet in the limelight, look for the puppet master.

I try and drink 2 glasses of Tea a day. Also try blueberries. Boysenberries taste great but aren't listed.

Oh yeah , Vitamins may not work and make corporations rich.
http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2005/08/05/do_vi tamin_pills_really_work.php

List of most powerful antioxidant fruit and vegetable.
http://www.mdsupport.org/library/antiox.html

http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/104/107639.htm

http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/supplements/a/anti oxidants.htm

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5489179/

The FDA is trying to phase-out of Thimerosal.

Jesus Christ, what idiots modded you up for this OBVIOUSLY wrong statement? 2000 years? Most women in Europe didn't get the right to participate in government in any way until the 20th century.

The United States existed for two lifetimes before finally allowing women to vote, an event which is still (barely) within living memory. It didn't happen until 1950 in Canada (1960 to be allowed to run for office), 1971 in Switzerland, and 1976 in Portugal.

Liechtenstein waited until 1984.

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage/a/intl_ timeline.htm

It was invented by Frank Whittle, a Britisher.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bljet engine.htm

I'm sure you will appreciate this, here is how the world would have ended slavery without the need to kill hundreds of thousands of people and lay waste to an entire nation. Maybe if America had invested all the blood and treasure it squandered on the civil war in to this instead it would have come to fruition years earlier. I amazingly here managed to get back on topic after a long detour on how America has declined in technology. Tractors are kind of a forgotten innovation but they probably more than any other have fed the world, and freed people to build cities and develop all those other innovations instead of struggling with subsistence farming.

From Here.

The first engine-powered farm tractors used steam and were introduced in 1868. These engines were built as small road locomotives, and were operated by one man, if the engine weighed less than 5 tons. They were used for general road haulage and in particular by the timber trade. The most popular steam tractor was the Garrett 4CD.
According to "Vintage Farm Tractors" by Ralph W. Sanders (ISBN 1-55192-031-X)
"Credit goes to the Charter Gasoline Engine Company of Sterling, Illinois, for first successfully using gasoline as fuel. Charter's creation of a gasoline fueled engine in 1887 soon led to early gasoline traction engines before the term "tractor" was coined by others. Charter adapted its engine to a Rumley steam-traction-engine chassis, and in 1889 produced six of the machines to become one of the first working gasoline traction engines."
"Vintage Farm Tractors" discusses several other early gas-powered tractors"
"John Froelich, a custom thresherman from Iowa,decided to try gasoline power for threshing. He mounted a Van Duzen gasoline engine on a Robinson chassis and rigged his own gearing for propulsion. Froelich used the machine successfully to power a threshing machine by belt during his fifty-two day harvest season of 1892 in South Dakota. The Froelich tractor, forerunner of the later Waterloo Boy tractor, is considered by many to be the first successful gasoline tractor known. Froelich's machine fathered a long line of stationary gasoline engines and, eventually, the famous John Deere two cylinder tractor...
J.I. Case's first pioneering efforts at producing a gas tracion engine date to 1894, or maybe earlier, when William Paterson of Stockton, California, came to Racine to make an experimental engine for Case. Case ads in the 1940s, harking back to the firm's history in the gas tractor field, claimed 1892 as the date for Paterson's gas traction engine: patent dates suggest 1894. The early machine ran, but not well enough to be produced...
Charles W. Hart and Charles H. Parr began their pioneering work on gas engines in the late 1800s while studying mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In 1897, the two men formed the Hart-Parr Gasoline Engine Company of Madison. In 1900, they moved their operation to Hart's hometown of Charles City, Iowa, where they found financing to make gas traction engines based on their innovative ideas.
Their efforts led them to erect the first factory in the United States dedicated to the production of gas traction engines. Hart-Parr is also credited with coining the word "tractor" for machines that had previously been called gas traction engines. The firm's first tractor effort, Hart-Parr No.1, was made in 1901."
Henry Ford produced his first experimental gasoline powered tractor in 1907, under the direction of chief engineer Joseph Galamb. It was referred to as an "automobile plow." After 1910, gasoline powered tractors were used extensively in farming.

Most people don't seem to understand that what this apparently does is get rid of the requirements dealing with interferences.

In particular the requirements of 35 USC 102 F and G.

The parent poster is describing exactly the following situtation:

Occasionally two or more applications are filed by different inventors claiming substantially the same patentable invention. The patent can only be granted to one of them, and a proceeding known as an "interference" is instituted by the Office to determine who is the first inventor and entitled to the patent. About one percent of the applications filed become involved in an interference proceeding. Interference proceedings may also be instituted between an application and a patent already issued, provided the patent has not been issued for more than one year prior to the filing of the conflicting application, and provided that the conflicting application is not barred from being patentable for some other reason.
  (from http://inventors.about.com/library/bl/toc/blusptoi nterference.htm)

An interference proceeding, also known as priority contest, is an inter partes proceeding to determine the priority issues of multiple patent applications. It is a unique patent law concept of the United States. Unlike most other country that adopts the first to file system, the first to invent system of the U.S. allows a party who failed to file a patent application on time to challenge the inventorship against another party with a granted or pending patent if certain requirements are met.

The reduction to practice is a United States patent law concept. It means the embodiment of the concept of an invention. The date of this embodiment is critical to the determination of priority between inventors in an interference proceeding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_proceedi ng
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_to_practice

Filing an application is proof that one has reduced the concept to practice, however

This is important because someone can come up with an invention first and have delays which prevented them from filing an application (laziness is not one of them). This is the dilligence requriement of 102 (g)

so when are they going to revive the saber tooth tiger and the giant bear that kept the american indians out before the end of the last ice age?

It's my understanding that Monte Verde, Chile, the oldest human settlement in the Americas, at the southern end of South America was built before the land bridge from Asia to the Americas even existed and therefore people were here before the last ice age. If I recall right the land bridge was there about 11,000 years ago whereas Monte Verde is dated around 12,000. But even if they were there at the same tyme it would of taken a long tyme before people emmigrated so far.

Thats why the helicoptors played Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now, it was to stop them stalling! You see, them yanks come up with all the best stuff. Except for sliced bread cuz that was invented here in good ol'Blighty.

Ask and ye shall recieve:

Check this out here.

A snippet for the lazy:

Level I

A Level I quote is the most basic information available about a stock. It is information available to all at no extra fee. A Level I quote consists of:

        * Bid
        * Ask
        * Quote size
        * Last trade
        * Volume
        * High
        * Low

Level II

Level II goes a step beyond Level I. It basically reveals the order book for a Nasdaq stock. But it's not the complete order book, rather it shows the best bid and offer of every market participant who is publicly posting a quote.

The upper part of this Level II display should look familiar, it is basic Level I information. In this example we have, left to right, top to bottom:

        * Last, Last Size, Change
        * Bid, Ask, Quote Size
        * Open, Low, High

To the right is what should be another familiar tool, the tape, or the ticker. It is a list of trades as they happen. The price is given as well as the number of shares traded. Upticks are shown in green, downticks in red, and zero ticks in gray.

But the information we're interested in, at least in this article, is the Level II information that makes up the rest of the display.

On the left side are the current bids of market participants, ranked from best to worst, highest to lowest. On the right are the offers, again ranked from best to worst, here from lowest to highest.

Each line in the display gives three pieces of information. The market maker ID, a four letter identifying code, the price bidding or offering at, and the number of shares being bid for or offered.

For example, on the offer side, the fifth offer down reads as follows:

            MSCO 89 1/2 10

What is this telling us? Morgan Stanley is offering 1,000 shares of Sun Microsystems (SUNW) at 89 1/2. Now, where did I get that? MSCO is the market maker ID of Morgan Stanley. Since moscow is on the right side, or offer side, of the window, it is selling stock. The price it would like to sell at is 89 1/2. It is selling 1,000 shares as evidenced by its size of 10 (all sizes shown are in hundreds).

Read more if you are still interested.........

(I HATE THE DAMNED JUNK FILTER)

No, sodomy is not a joke. But it is still too good for this lowlife on his THIRD DUI. What the hell is his problem?? 40 percent of all traffic fatalities are alcohol-related. In the united states, a drunk driver kills somebody EVERY HALF HOUR. Think about the number of people, the families and children, directly affected by this. It's insane.

http://alcoholism.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm ?zi=1/XJ&sdn=alcoholism&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww-nrd.nh tsa.dot.gov%2Fpdf%2Fnrd-30%2FNCSA%2FRpts%2F2003%2F 809-673-color.pdf

Even if this guy merely gets raped every day for the rest of his life, he should just he happy that he's still alive.

"...freezing cold Seattle winters...", "...melting snow..."

Freezing cold? Melting snow? Are you sure you live in Seattle?

I find it interesting that you are interested in photography. Perhaps you will find this of interest as well (beware where you point your camera):

http://newurbanist.blogspot.com/2005/01/copyrighti ng-of-public-space.html

The reality is that more and more of the space that the public inhabits is becoming privatized. While I'm in agreement that private property owners have rights, including the right to remove anyone for any reason, it would seem that some sort of balance is needed when spaces that are used by the general public have become private as the norm, and true "public spaces" are exceedingly rare. Here where I live the entire downtown is private property: including the roads and sidewalks, thanks to an overzealous "urban renewal" program. Because of that program I could be arrested for trespassing simply by being there (in fact, that was part of the plan: the privatized streets and sidewalks mean that the homeless are no longer simply loitering, they are trespassers on private property).

You could argue the merits of such actions (if the urban renewal plan goes well, I'm sure not many will complain that you can't reach the courthouse without potentially trespassing on private property), but as a trend it indicates to me that true public spaces will become a thing of the past.

Back to the topic of photography. I notice that photography of the Eiffel tower at night is illegal. Likewise, some buildings are trademarked so strictly speaking, photographing your family in front of such a building and posting it on the web might draw legal fire.

Some info on these issues: http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa1006 03b.htm

Likewise, I notice you have a picture of people at a beach. Do you have a signed model release from the subjects? (Particularly, the man in a red cap with man-breasts in the picture of the lifeguard... I would look for judicial relief if I was on the web looking like that.)

My point is that our society has become so "private property" happy that just about anything you do is a potential litigation point. It is awfully unlikely that people will come after you for your photographs, but if someone was in a particularly foul mood they could construe your site as a commercial exploitation of the photography because it includes a resume. (I can't find *that* link right now, but that was the legal argument used against a computer programmer's personal website who had *something* that *someone* was unhappy about: even though no advertisements were used, the posting of a resume turned the site "commercial" in the eyes of the prosecution.)

The question to you: do you believe that all "private rights" are reasonable when pushed to such limits? You said that it was "blatantly hypocritical to expel a patron..." and yet "blatantly hypocritical" wouldn't be a legal defense to trespassing (since the actual charge wasn't actually regarding the shirt, simply the right of a private property owner to expel anyone for any reason). I'm glad they dropped the charges, but what would your opinion be if they had not? In my view, the charges are independent of the *reason* they didn't want him in the store, meaning the man could theoretically have served jail time for "blatantly hypocritical actions". Likewise, I think that quite a bit of the photography laws seem fairly absurd when stretched to where the legal system will allow them to go. I'm sure every citizen of the US if a copyright or trademark infringer in regards to those laws. Do you think that such stretching of the laws in simply hypocritical (which doesn't buy much for the infringer since that's a meaningless idea in the courts) or perhaps unfair.

"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, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

http://netsecurity.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.ht m?zi=1/XJ&sdn=netsecurity&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww4.law .cornell.edu%2Fuscode%2F17%2F1004.html

(a) Digital Audio Recording Devices.-- (1) Amount of payment.-- The royalty payment due under section 1003 for each digital audio recording device imported into and distributed in the United States, or manufactured and distributed in the United States, shall be 2 percent of the transfer price. Only the first person to manufacture and distribute or import and distribute such device shall be required to pay the royalty with respect to such device. (2) Calculation for devices distributed with other devices.-- With respect to a digital audio recording device first distributed in combination with one or more devices, either as a physically integrated unit or as separate components, the royalty payment shall be calculated as follows: (A) If the digital audio recording device and such other devices are part of a physically integrated unit, the royalty payment shall be based on the transfer price of the unit, but shall be reduced by any royalty payment made on any digital audio recording device included within the unit that was not first distributed in combination with the unit. (B) If the digital audio recording device is not part of a physically integrated unit and substantially similar devices have been distributed separately at any time during the preceding 4 calendar quarters, the royalty payment shall be based on the average transfer price of such devices during those 4 quarters. (C) If the digital audio recording device is not part of a physically integrated unit and substantially similar devices have not been distributed separately at any time during the preceding 4 calendar quarters, the royalty payment shall be based on a constructed price reflecting the proportional value of such device to the combination as a whole. (3) Limits on royalties.-- Notwithstanding paragraph (1) or (2), the amount of the royalty payment for each digital audio recording device shall not be less than $1 nor more than the royalty maximum. The royalty maximum shall be $8 per device, except that in the case of a physically integrated unit containing more than 1 digital audio recording device, the royalty maximum for such unit shall be $12. During the 6th year after the effective date of this chapter, and not more than once each year thereafter, any interested copyright party may petition the Librarian of Congress to increase the royalty maximum and, if more than 20 percent of the royalty payments are at the relevant royalty maximum, the Librarian of Congress shall prospectively increase such royalty maximum with the goal of having no more than 10 percent of such payments at the new royalty maximum; however the amount of any such increase as a percentage of the royalty maximum shall in no event exceed the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index during the period under review. (b) Digital Audio Recording Media.-- The royalty payment due under section 1003 for each digital audio recording medium imported into and distributed in the United States, or manufactured and distributed in the United States, shall be 3 percent of the transfer price. Only the first person to manufacture and distribute or import and distribute such medium shall be required to pay the royalty with respect to such medium.

Another way of saving gas with a hybrid is using the pulse and glide method. Not always practical (especially for a full freeway) but it shows that when you are able to change your driving style you may be able to save a few extra bucks.

On the other hand, Google shouldn't be using shareholder time and resources to jealously protect its CEO and founder.

Since the shares owned by Google's CEO are worth ten times as many votes as the shares owned by us regular folk, it's no wonder, though. Or, as Page puts it, "We have a dual class structure that is biased toward stability and independence and that requires investors to bet on the team, especially Sergey and me."

According to the laws under which it now operates, the U.S. Postal Service is a semi-independent federal agency, mandated to be revenue-neutral. That is, it is supposed to break even, not make a profit.

NOT independent.. semi..

http://usgovinfo.about.com/blpostalservice.htm

What are you talking about? OS X does have viruses, trojans, etc. Why do you think MAC takes such strides to protect itself. OS X also suffers from malware/spyware. Hell just read some of the news posts on Here

As for Unix/Linux - here is some articles you can check out Here

Maybe you should modify your sig?

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/ a/paygapgrows.htm Pretty recent US Gov't info on this subject

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0193820.html Info please stats on women's wages in general

And there are many other studies to back the validity of the claim that women get paid quite a bit less than men in most areas.

I just thought this might be more informative than the "Rush Limbaugh" approach of the above post.

Note to parent poster: Personal observation and allegorical arguments aren't anywhere close to being valid representations of statistics.

I always like a good joke. But your joke wasn't very funny, and I feel uncomfortable with so many jokes about something that should be taken seriously. It seems to me that there is too much joking about this subject and not enough seriousness.

If you want the violence and the degradation of the U.S. lifestyle to stop, study the situation carefully. Below is background information you need to know to understand the Washington Post article referenced in the Slashdot story. You could gather this information yourself, but people who joke easily about this kind of thing generally don't take the time:

The SITE Institute supplied information for the Washington Post article. SITE stands for "Search for International Terrorist Entities". SITE Institute provides examples of terrorist web sites. One of them, PalestinianInfo.net, published this photograph: Photo of the day. The caption says, "Palestinian children walk on the rubble of a Palestinian house that was demolished by Israeli occupation authorities, in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of A-tur July 5, 2005. According to the Israeli authorities, the house was demolished due to a lack of permits." It seems that the issue might not be completely one-sided.

The Arab "terrorists" believe they are fighting a war, and that violence is a solution to social problems. The U.S. government believes it is fighting a war, and that violence is a solution to social problems. I'm not saying those groups have anything else in common, just that they share two beliefs in common.

If your government chooses killing as policy, expect others to choose the same. The U.S. government began killing Arabs and Muslims and corrupting their governments long before most Arabs and Muslims thought about the United States. None of the violence was secret. It was in the newspapers and in magazines and on TV, but not in enough detail that U.S. citizens could understand the implications. I remember reading that the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted his country to share more of the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran. The U.S. government put a weak man in power, the Shah of Iran, who became very violent toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iran overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence that came after. For more information, see the short article, To understand the present conflict, consider the past.

As of 2005-08-08, 04:24 AM PDT, the SITE Institute says these are other terrorist web sites: http://www.kataebaqsa1.com/, http://www.moqawama.net/, and http://www.qudsway.com/. The only way you can know directly what they say in Arabic is to read Arabic. Be careful about accepting what someone else says they say. You need to be able to trust that the translator is not politically involved.

The Washington Post article says, "Hampered by the nature of the Internet itself, the government has proven ineffective at blocking or even hindering significantly this vast online presence." This sentence worries me. It seems to justify U.S. government interference with free speech. It's not clear that preventing open speech for those who disagree with the policies of the U.S. government is a sensible idea. It seems likely that knowing what they are saying is important; we don't want

1. Don't get in trouble with the law (other than traffic/minor juvenile offenses)
2. Don't screw up your credit (i.e. bankruptcy)
3. Don't use drugs (rather, don't admit to or get caught using drugs)
4. Keep your alternative lifestyle choices in the closet

Or, barrring any or all of the above:

Enlist in the U.S. Air Force, lie to your recruiter, pass the Defense Language Apptitude Battery, and become a RC-135 Rivet Joint crewmember - arabic speakers preferred

My source was not the movie.

this was my source.

Don't throw assumptions around, please.

They don't want us infidels to convert. This isn't about spreading or enforcing a religion. That is a christian tactic.

Funny. I never stop hearing about how similar Islam is to Christianity when discussions of tolerance come up. And yet, when anything negative about Christianity (particularly the Crusades) arises, Islam is appearantly vastly different. It's quite convient how that works.

It's also wholly ignorant of both history, what's stated in the Koran, what many muslims themselves often claim, and the actions of countless muslims worldwide even today. But such things shouldn't get in the way of a good rant simultaneously on the war on terrorism and Christianity. A guy's gotta earn karma somehow, right?

-Grym

Church is optional. Education, at least until you're 16 in the U.S., is mandatory. 'nuff said.

Eductaion may be mandatory 'til the age of 16 but it's not madatory that the student goes to a public school. It's not madatory they go to any school, more and more parents are homeschooling their children. Though I don't have children yet myself if and when I ever do I want to at least partially homeschool them myself. What I couldn't teach myself I'd hire tutors to teach.

ok my point called as well. I just won't call you a dumbass for it.

1. I'm calling bull shit on you. I can't find any references to cases that are like the ones you cited. What I can find are cases that are generic(the 10 commandments being removed from a public building, not some cash register worker as you insinuated) and challenges to the "later" addition of "under god" in the pledge of allegiance(which, if you didn't know, was a backlash to communism having nothing to do with teh spirituality of our nation, rather a this is us and that is them distinction).

2. THE ACLU was formed to protect individual liberties. While this falls under such a broad topic, a look at the cases they actually involve themselves in are ones in which the person/few people cannot defend themselves. This doubtfully falls under that banner. Just look at their website and newsroom adn you will see what they are interested in.

Specific links or court cases are needed. Or again, its just a bunch of bull shit.

now to cite the cases I am talking about:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/22/ten.commandments /

http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/article_main_page/0,170 3,A%253D155268%2526M%253D50011,00.html
(a very conservative newspaper raging about this case)

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/125225.htm
( a blog which quotes the LA times)

Death penality was chosen by law makers to be dissuasive (may be not so effective though). So the human can make a choice before making something against the law.

A fetus, even unwanted, cannot choose between death or life. Human should be aware of nature's laws so they can choose the consequence.

http://womensissues.about.com/cs/abortionstats/a/a aabortionstats.htm
* 25.5% of women deciding to have an abortion want to postpone childbearing.
* 21.3% of women cannot afford a baby.
* 14.1% of women have a relationship issue or their partner does not want a child.
* 12.2% of women are too young (their parents or others object to the pregnancy.)
* 10.8% of women feel a child will disrupt their education or career.
* 7.9% of women want no (more) children.
* 3.3% of women have an abortion due to a risk to fetal health.
* 2.8% of women have an abortion due to a risk to maternal health.

and

http://www.liferesource.net/abortion_statistics.ht m
http://www.eadshome.com/AbortionStories/AbortionSt atistics.htm
14,000 (1%) abortions are performed on women or young girls who are victims of rape or incest.Alan Guttmacher Institute

It probably pushes less against the air itself and more.. well, it just adheres to Newton's Laws of Motion.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blroc ketpriciples.htm

You're forgetting Laika, Pchelka and Mushka.
http://space.about.com/library/weekly/aa120802a.ht m

And don't get me started on the senseless deaths of countless unnamed (but not forgotten!) microbes on the surfaces of NASAs many probes.

Runs 1000Mb/s over cat5(e)

That's great as long as you keep the cat5(e) cables relatively short - oh, in my experience, 30 feet or less (despite claims to the contrary, I won't bore you with the how's and why's) As soon as I get around to it I'm going to recable my house with cat6.

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.

--From The Dilbert Future by Scott Adams

ALL Engineers KNOW how to write comments. If they don't know how to comment they're code they aren't an Engineer. [...] Because they're had to write Analysis Documents, Design Documents, and Test Plans. They code doesn't need documentation [...]

The sentences around vivin's quote that you didn't quite manage to paste: "In addition to accurately describing what we were doing, he checked our grammar. One thing he always stressed is that too many engineers these days don't know how to write comments. Grammar is important in getting the message across unambiguously."

I guess it's a good thing those fake engineers will have you to write they're comments for the'm. ;)

In fact I will lay odds the 60% of the "Software Engineers" out there aren't really Engineers.

No True Scotsman, anyone?...

And for god's sake dude, "engineer" is not a proper noun, you're not supposed to capitalise it. The same applies for analysis documents, design documents and test plans. Argh.

I beg to differ. Mario/Zelda/Metroid on the the SNES were the pinnacle of Nintendo gaming. It all went downhill with the N64, and has only made a slight comback with the Gamecube, IMHO. I was a huge fan of these games, but the 3D versions just ruined it for me. I still think there's room for 2D games, but almost no one seems to want to try it.

I'll probably buy a DS just for New Super Mario Bros., though. It looks like a step in the right direction.

Well I never made any particular claims to sanity, as it turns out, but at least I'm not an utter fool, know what I mean?

Check this article, the paragraph starting with "Rural Residents..."

I found an article on About.com That says somethign totally different about who invented what.. And several other articles say even more different things. Seeing as most of these sites are "accurate" it seems we're all getting the wrong kind of information.

...at least I don't think they are. I mean, look at the song list for THUG2. http://playstation.about.com/od/news/a/thug2soundt rack.htm It's stuff like The Doors, Ramones, Handsome Boy Modeling School and Aesop Rock. These aren't the same songs you would hear on MTV or M2. It is a game track that fits into the MTV mold of what a game track is. They didn't pick the games because they feature all top 40 hits.

Just more of the reasons why p2p is a friend to the indie and just a few of the many reasons why the big record companies are going the way of the dinosaurs.

CD Price fixing class action [antitrust] lawsuit against the big music labels settled:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-cd-settle ment.htm
http://www.musiccdsettlement.com/english/default.h tm

The full suit can be downloaded here(quite interesting I may add)
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2000/aug/aug08a_0 0_attach.pdf

And just in case you weren't sure how the music industry works (and why we are inundated with lackluster crap advertised on the knob.....errrr, i mean 'played' on the radio by big manufactured label artists)!!

We've all known for a long time that contemporary pop music stinks. We hear "hits" on the radio and wonder, "How can this be?" Now we know. And memos from both Sony's Columbia and Epic Records senior vice presidents of promotions circa 2002-2003 -- whose names are redacted in the reports but are well known in the industry -- spell out who to pay and what to pay them in order to get the company's records on the air.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163537,00.html

Recording industry titan Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed Monday to pay $10 million and stop bribing radio stations to feature its artists in what a state official called a more sophisticated generation of the payola scandals of decades ago.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/07/25/AR2005072501025.html?sub=AR

"To be as specific/technical as possible, downloading copyrighted material without expressed permission is illegal. Such music must be purchased in order to be legal."