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Oh, I don't know. I think Yankees vs. Yankees would be an interesting game to watch. One of them has to lose.

(Of course, while looking for a URL to link to for those who didn't get the joke, I discovered that Johnson is apparently not going to the Yanks. I choose to not change my post, however, because I still think it should have been funny)

There is tremendous artistic license in any film version of a book . . . there are just too many visuals that are assumed in the book that have to be specified in the film. And these include the look of the characters. One must use some level of artistic license to fill these gaps.

But since your argument seems to be based on semantics perhaps I should respond in kind. I quote a person that uses more artistic license than you in their definition of artistic license. They conclude that artistic license is:

In sum, artistic license is:

* A tool.

* Entirely at the the artist's discretion.

* To be tolerated by the viewer.

* Neither "good" nor "bad".

* Useful for filling in gaps, whether they be compositional or historical.

* Used consciously, unconsciously, or both, simultaneously.

* There for the taking, and not subject to yearly renewal, inspection, fees or a bad snapshot on an ID card.

>Do people buy shrek 2?

11 million DVDs in the first three days... yes, people buy Shrek 2.

Hey! It wasn't an American snowboarder, it was a Canadian snowboarder named Ross Rebagliati! He was stripped of his gold medal but it was given back after he appealed in court.

http://snowboarding.about.com/od/snowboardingbackg round/a/Olympic_history.htm

Yet again, Slashdot shows how US-centric it really is.

Believe it or not, heavy duty orange power extension cables make absolutely fantastic speaker cables. Cut off the plugs on either end, and you've got seriously heavy duty stuff which apparently sounds great.

I couldnt' find the original article, but check out #5 on this list.

Microprocessors - The Chip - Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff and Stan Mazor
interviews with and biographies of the inventors - Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stan Mazor.
By Mary Bellis

In November, 1971, a company called Intel publicly introduced the world's first single chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004 (U.S. Patent #3,821,715), invented by Intel engineers Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stan Mazor. After the invention of integrated circuits revolutionized computer design, the only place to go was down -- in size that is. The Intel 4004 chip took the integrated circuit down one step further by placing all the parts that made a computer think (i.e. central processing unit, memory, input and output controls) on one small chip. Programming intelligence into inanimate objects had now become possible.

rest at the URL.

In 2002, the Bush administration formally changed the stance of the United States government on the Second Amendment through words incorporated in filings to the Supreme Court on two gun control cases (both of which the Justices declined to hear). The stance is now that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not a state right. According to the briefs:

"The current position of the United States is that the Second Amendment more broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms." That right, however, continued Olson is "subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse." (Source)

• 6,250,391 ersatz Rolexes or
• 1,513,240,858 penis enlargement pills (??? miles of penis)
• or
• 3,787 mortgages for average homes (principal only) or
• an infinite number of NOT WORK SAFE cheating wife personals
• or
• 20,000,000 $50 free casino credits
• or
• 8,474,576 weeks of diet pills or
• 10,002,500 breasts enlarged

Could this writeup be any more inflamamtory? Maybe you should throw in some jabs at various operating systems, programming languages, and desktop environments. I mean seriously, it's like you're trying to create a flamewar of screeching monkeys.

Reference Jon Stewart's "You're Hurting America" appearance on Crossfire

From the The Simpsons" Meet "Star Trek
"Marge vs. the Monorail"
Quimby: And now, I'd like to turn things over to our Grand Marshall, Mr. Leonard Nimoy.
Nimoy: I'd say this vessel could do at least Warp Five. [Crowd laughs.]
Quimby: And let me say, "May the Force Be With You!"
Nimoy: Do you even know who I am?

But did Al Gore invent all the internets?

A gamer died from exhaustion in South Korea. Another gamer died from exhaustion in Taiwan.

Video games can cause seizures.

I'm against censorship, but unforunately your argument doesn't hold.

People will find the strangest ways to die and to get sick.

The hot grits down my pants theme and the Natalie Portman naked and petrified them seemed to arrive on /. at about the same time that the old comedy site segfault.org began it's accelerated decline by removing comments and poll write ins. There was a major increase in Trolls on /. at about that time. The moderation methodology on /. was overhaulled shortly there after, however, now and then even in this late day and age sombody will still occaisionally pour a bowl of hot grits down their pants.

• personal computer: yes, likely
• computer: depends on your definition of computer..probably not
• light bulb: certainly not
• sewing machines: didn't know shit about their invention, but it seems that they weren't an American invention

• personal computer: yes, likely
• computer: depends on your definition of computer..probably not
• light bulb: certainly not
• sewing machines: didn't know shit about their invention, but it seems that they weren't an American invention

The moon has no outer shell (well, it does, but the difference is only in density and compound).
It's not harder to dig as you go (on Earth you have more problems with heat and earthquakes the lower you go), and the composition is pretty much the same all around (no iron core).

Summary:
You will never 'run out of moon'
Even if you eat up 25% of it, you could still just as easily continue mining the rest. You'll probably only ruin the ecology of Earth (by the time you mine a large mass of the moon, you'd have built space cities bigger than the current Earth population).

"The moon's mass is approximately 7.35e22 kg with a density about 3/5 that of Earth"
It's not 40% iron like Earth.
Let's say it's 0.1% metal (usable, refined, post-processed metal)
that's 7.35e19 kg of metal.

The Empire state building weighs 365,000 tons
That's 3.65e8 kg (yeah, I know it's not metal)
So, the moon will provide: (perl, make it so:)
201,369,863,013.699 empire state buildings.
201 billion, 369 million, 863 thousand and 13 sky scrapers

Wow - being that this is an audio player story, I assumed he meant "does it have something other than a headphone jack", i.e. left/right RCA-style audio breakout. :P Will I never learn that people like stupid extras.

It would be amusing if the War of the Worlds TV trailer (which is refusing to play on my machine), was engineered to look like a news broadcast, and managed to cause panic like the radio series.

Who knew that Chinese Restaurants would start making web browsers?

I know it's a false claim, but fun nonetheless:

What a "Home computer" would look like in 2004.

Your dual dash sig delimiter?

I'm from Canada you insensitive clod! The American History category is crappy enough to make us take hours upon end to find one that's easy enough to answer :)

Ironically, Trivial Pursuit is a Canadian invention. Chris Haney worked as a photo editor at the Montreal Gazette, and Scott Abbott was a sports journalist for The Canadian Press. A good history of the game can be found here

177 mill per day

Maybe you learn about the stock market before you imply Al has a conflict of interest.

"From his disclaimer and a link for you.

Disclosure: I have a net short position in SCO's common stock (14,300 shares as of 2004-11-15). Thus, I have a direct financial interest in decreasing the public perception of SCO's value, and the prudent reader will scrutinize any information I provide that is unflattering to SCO. To facilitate this, I attempt to provide, wherever possible, convenient links to more persuasive documents, e.g., links to images of signed court filings, or to SEC filings directly from sec.gov."

http://beginnersinvest.about.com/library/glossary/ bldef-shortselling.htm

this article references using an oil mount technique for high end drum scanners to eliminate dust and scratches from the scan. Although not entirely related, from the same family of concepts.

CNN.COM:

1. Timber Cutters: 117 / 100k / yr
2. Fishers: 71 / 100k / yr
3. Airplane Pilot & Navigator: 70 / 100k / yr

Fielding's DangerFinder:

1. Truck Driver - 762 Deaths / year
2. Farm Worker
3. Retail Salesman / Supervisor

Forbes:

1. Truck Drivers - 112,200 injuries
2. Nursing Aides - 79,000 injuries

Military Casualties in Iraq:

• 1,402 deaths / 623 days
• 9,326 wounded / 623 days

• 821 deaths / 100k / yr
• 5,464 injured / 100k / yr

• 657 deaths / 100k / yr
• 4,371 injured / 100k / yr

So, I'd have to support your claim that joining the army is one of the more dangerous ways to pay for an education. But as others have said, if you stay out of the infantry, or serve during peacetime, the statistics are a lot better.

As for the payscale, Ask.com reports the starting pay is about $27k / yr. This doesn't compare favorably to the average U.S. salary of $36k / yr. Comparing a starting salary with an average covering a breadth of experience isn't fair. The average salary for someone with just a high school education is $15k / yr. So while I wouldn't say the military make much more than the average person , in some circumstances it can look pretty attractive.

They may have NPR but XM has Bob Edwards. Bob Edwards rocks. NPR blew it when they let him go.

"Show me one commercial EULA that doesn't have that clause."

Here you go, smart ass. Have fun reading through ALL of that. The closest they come to saying they can change the agreement is when you upgrade the software, you're agreeing to the new EULA.

"Show me who said you HAVE TO BUY THE PRODUCT if you don't like EULA's."

Show me why somebody doesn't have the right to complain that a EULA on a high-demand product. Sucks. Come to think of it, show me where somebody said they were forced to buy the game to begin with.

"Yep. They're buying "whatever Valve says they want"."

So, they still don't know what they're getting. They don't have a right to complain about that? Uh huh.

Sorry bud, I don't buy it. One shouldn't need a legal degree to buy something as simple as a game. To argue otherwise is moronic.

"This was the original basis for modern anti-abortion agitation. Not that killing a fetus was immoral, but that white middle and upper class families were having fewer children."

Well, you could also say that among the original basis of the pro-abortion agitation was the fear on the part of people like Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) of what they perceived as the reproduction of inferior people, as she put it (in this 1924 article) "those parents who are least fit to reproduce the race." (That article also lists the conditions without which, in her view, children should not be born; granted, most people can probably come up with some conditions under which they'd prefer children not be born, but "most people" aren't also in favor of involuntarily sterilizing those deemed unfit, so it's necessary to think of her conditions not as idle chatter, but as rules she would have been willing to enforce :) (As the state of Indiana did.)

From The Pivot of Civilization:

"Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying ... demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism." That damn sentimentalism! If not for that, we'd have had the morons long ago segregated and sterilized, so the New Race could prosper without being burdened by them (or the yellow hordes)! Right? Wait ... that sounds like racist eugenics!

(The Pivot of Civilization is available from Project Gutenberg, along with Sanger's "Woman and the New Race")

timothy

Ok George Bush didn't outlaw Steam Cell Research; He ceased giving federal funding for new steam cell lines. And remember he was the first president to start giving money to this kind of research. At least read his statment first and then search google to get the facts

Even after that before you start bashing, ask who should be in charge of developing medicine - the government or industry?

No, you're not the only one who's worried, but you also don't have a clue. TMI was 25 years ago, presumably we've learned a few things about nuclear power since then. Also let's look at what happened at TMI, there was an accident, and the reactor containment worked. End of story.

As for the Hindenburg, puhleeeze, could you pull your frickin head out of your ass for one frickin second here? Firstly do you have any natural gas powered appliances in your house (stove, dryer, gas fireplace, furnace)? If you do then you might be shocked to know that they burn methane gas, which is made largely of gasp hydrogen. Has your house exploded yet? No? OK. Let's also look at the fact that recent analyses (you can find one here) have shown that while the hydrogen in the Hindenburg contributed to the fire the proximate cause was the doping on the dirigible's fabric skin, which was composed of aluminum, iron oxide and cellulose nitrate, all of which are flammable. Hell, NASA has been handling liquid hydrogen for nearly 50 years, how many rockets have they had explode because of an accident with it? Not any that I can think of (the Challenger went down because the Solid Rocket Boosters, which contain aluminum powder similar to that used to coat the skin of the Hindenburg, burned through).

Finally, if you want to see some really nasty and horrific burns just head down to your local hospital burn ward and check out the guys who have burned themselves with gasoline. That's right, gasoline, that stuff you pump into your car every day is really, really, really flammable and nasty and if you get some burning gasoline on your skin you're pretty much guaranteed at least a second degree burn, if not worse. Yet despite this we manage to fuel millions of cars which drive millions of miles every day without having too many flaming wrecks along our roads and highways.

As for the threat from terrorism we've already seen what terrorists can do. Did we stop flying airplanes? No, we just put largely ineffective security measures in place. But if a terrorist ever tries to hijack a plane with a box cutter again he's going to find himself head first up to his shoulders in that blue liquid they put in the airplane toilets while hordes of angry passengers pound that box cutter right up his ass. Terrorism is a risk, but it really pisses me off how many people just throw it up as an excuse not to do something rather than as a risk that needs to be taken into account as part of the overall cost / benefit analysis of a specific action.

These tactics seem to work very well on the elderly.

Here are a few examples:
http://seniorhealth.about.com/library/eldercare/bl _apact1.htm
and another http://aging.state.ny.us/news/letter/0109scam2.htm

Most people will just hang up, but as with email spam, it only takes a few suckers to make the whole system profitable for the scum.

The scum would really love to get a hold of phone listing so they could send out their "you have won a prize in our free give away" calls.

You seem to have a bit of Bush's syndrome... Here's what he said.

I think it goes like this:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

LS

Every TeX article I read basically says, "If you don't like it, you're wrong." Certainly not a very user-friendly attitude to have.

Still, they are right and you're wrong. There are specific rules to typesetting -- it's an art like composing a waltz. If you don't follow the rules for a waltz, then it isn't a waltz. Likewise, if you don't follow the rules for DocumentType X, then you don't have a DocumentType X. TeX was designed knowing this, and its defaults are all DocumentTypes. Also, LaTeX is deep and hardly documented in some places. There are LaTeX macros for writing music, producing posters, etc and onward. Finding what you need can be very difficult.

a sign for my garage sale. Have you ever tried do something like that in TeX?

I've seen LaTeX posters before. You can tell LaTeX to use A1 paper, for example, and use a poster macro set from the internet to do that sort of thing. Then shimmy on down to a Kinko's and get them to print it for you. To add some weight to your point, I don't actually know how to do this, but I know LaTeX can do it because I've seen very, very pretty examples. That fact also adds weight to my claim that LaTeX could use some documentation for beginners.

It just doesn't work for the majority of stuff that I need to do.

Unpossible! LaTeX does everything. It is you who are failing LaTeX by not researching to see if there's a way to do what you want already, and if not, by writing your own macro sets (which is admittedly confusing). I wrote macro sets to do my resume in LaTex, basing them off of an example or two I found on the Internet. My resume looks awesome now, and I didn't have to fight with column settings in Word.

Try here.

"The Air Force finally admitted the existence of Area 51 on April 17, 2000, when Air Force spokeswoman Gloria Cales told Associated Press reporters, "We acknowledge having an operating site there [Area 51], and the work is classified." Cales added that the work done at Area 51 involved "operations critical to the U.S. military and the country's security."

The invisible red ball is floating in a green love with very loud lemon flavour.

If you're gonna argue about grammar, at least get it right. "Love" is an uncountable noun so you can't use an indefinite article in front of it. See this, for example.

I always wonder if there is a condition that works in the opposite way, a bit like dyslexia for reading/writing for maths, a sort of "mathlexia" if you will.

There is such a condition. It's called dyslexia. Dyslexia symptoms include difficulties in mathematics, particularly arithmetic. Sometimes this particular difficulty is termed discalculia.

In my limited experience helping dyslexics with math, I've found that visual aids such as hand tricks work great, and that dyslexics have little trouble with visual math disciplines such as geometry.

This kinda stuff goes way back in American history.

See feminist Margaret Sanger's description of the 1873 Comstock laws.

This kinda stuff goes way back in American history.

See feminist Margaret Sanger's description of the 1873 Comstock laws.

There are already proof of concept viri that work on both linux and windows.
http://antivirus.about.com/library/weekly/aa032801 a.htm/
http://www.itworld.com/AppDev/1312/IWD010328hnvirl in//
looks like this has been happening since 2001 according to the itworld article (look at the date in the upper left hand corner.)
the only thing that has changed is the vector of infection. There was also a /. article if i remember right, but i can't seem to get the right search terms to find it.

"Duel video cards"

Isn't that what Zell Miller runs on his PC?

Inventors: Herman Hollerith - Punch Cards

In 1881, Herman Hollerith began designing a machine to tabulate census data more efficiently than by traditional hand methods. The U.S. Census Bureau had taken eight years to complete the 1880 census, and it was feared that the 1890 census would take even longer. Herman Hollerith invented and used a punched card device to help analyze the 1890 US census data. Herman Hollerith's great breakthrough was his use of electricity to read, count, and sort punched cards whose holes represented data gathered by the census-takers. His machines were used for the 1890 census and accomplished in one year what would have taken nearly ten years of hand tabulating. In 1896, Herman Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company to sell his invention, the Company became part of IBM in 1924.

it is important to be very accurate

OK?

In 1982, Saddam's workers began reconstructing Babylon's most imposing building, the 600-room palace of King Nebuchadnezzar II. Archaeologists were horrified. Many said that to rebuild on top of ancient artifacts does not preserve history, but disfigures it. The original bricks, which rise two or three feet from the ground, bear ancient inscriptions praising Nebuchadnezzar. Above these, Saddam Hussein's workers laid more than 60-million sand-colored bricks inscribed with the words, "In the era of Saddam Hussein, protector of Iraq, who rebuilt civilization and rebuilt Babylon." The new bricks began to crack after only ten years.

Prior to the Persian Gulf War, archaeologists working in Iraq were forced to close down excavations when Iraq's August invasion of Kuwait made the situation to dangerous to continue....

And following the war, looting of archaeological sites increased dramatically as Iraq's impoverished citizens used sometimes desperate means to make money in light of the economic sanctions placed on Iraq by the western world.

...In early February 1991, for example, Saddam parked MiG fighter jets at a Babylonian ziggurat at Ur to deter coalition forces from disabling them during the Gulf War. By Nineveh, the ancient capital of the Assyrian empire, he built air bases and weapons factories. According to archaeological scholars from the University of Chicago, an 80-foot mound containing many ruins of ancient Nineveh also housed an oil storage tank. During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam used the site for anti-aircraft batteries because it was the most elevated spot in the area....

In contrast, at the height of the bombing campaign the Pentagon produced aerial photographs of the Al-Basrah mosque. They showed clearly that the Iraqis had destroyed the mosque for propaganda purposes. While coalition forces had bombed a target some 100 yards away, leaving the mosque unscathed, Iraqi engineers sliced off the dome in the hope of duping journalists that the U.S. had been responsible for the destruction.

Not according to this. However, you have to look at how we define and punish rape as well. I mean, if I had the choice between honor killing and keeping my mouth shut, I know which one I'd pick. Also, given that American prisons are gay sex torture factories, I have to wonder how many of those incidents took place behind bars.

The article doesn't mention if it's DTV compatible (or HDTV ... not sure theres a difference?). If it's not, I would think this would be a major turn off considering DTV's will become very common in the next 3 years or so once the FCC mandates that new televisions be capable of receiving DTV signals.

The FCC, in an attempt address the confusion over DTV implementation, has decided to require that all TVs 36" or larger have to have DTV tuners built-in by 2004 and that remaining TVs are required to have the tuners installed by 2007. (Article)

I agree, it's an improvement, but for $10+ billion in R&D, I'm not sure it's worth it ... unless it _is_ DTV compatible.

When I read his comment, I didn't think of costs. Instead, I had a vision of the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger exploding in our own atmosphere.

Then, I thought to myself, "Good thing the Challenger wasn't filled with twenty individual rods of radioactive waste when it exploded."

How can you exercise your rights when you have absolutely no means to?

How can one persons rights (the fetus) supercede or even be equaled to anothers (the mother) when it is explicitly dependent on another human for it's existence?

The mother already lives and has a life in which to exercise her rights. Pregnancy is a burden, and can even be life threatening. This is where we get "except when it threatens the life of the mother". So, there is a common idea that a mothers right to live supercedes the right of the unborn child's right to live.

I believe people should have children when they are able to raise them and take care of them, when they are able to commit part of their lives to this other person. People should not be having children simply because they engaged in sexual activities, be it irresponsibly or responsibly (54% of women having an abortion said they used some form of contraception during the month they became pregnant).

Humans have mastered many things when it comes to living and surviving on the earth. Much of the earth's surface is covered by farms to feed us. We have dominated much of the globe and pushed other species out, even to extinction. I believe our lives, realities, and species would be best served if we were to support, not just allow but support, a woman who believes she is not capable of caring for a child and committing part of her life to the child in a positive manner just as much as we support couples who have committed to each other and their child.

I do agree with the right to live as a basis to all our other rights, but I believe the mothers right to life and her quality of life supercedes that of the unborn fetus. I believe that we are better off with less people than human life being brought up in negative environments.

The woman should always have the right to choose. She should also be responsible in her decision and terminate the pregnancy as early as possible.

I guess you never watched demolition man?

Stallone: "Hold it! The Schwarzenegger Library?"
Bullock: "Yes, the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library. Wasn't he an actor?"
Stallone: "Stop! He was President?"
Bullock: "Yes. Even though he was not born in this country, his popularity at the time caused the 61st Amendment..."

truth is stranger than fiction -- this could actually happen?

This has all the makings of another another DivX story... (crappy PPV sceme aside, of course. ^_^)