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If you're gonna promote XM products for thier innovativeness, why not tell people about thier competitors version which allready exists?

http://autorepair.about.com/cs/funstuff/a/bl_funny _2a.htm

I think you might want to look up the definition of "marginal cost".

From here,

"Marginal costs are the costs a company incurs in producing one additional unit of a good."

In other words, the orginal poster was right (ignoring the box and the shrinkwrap) in saying that software has zero marginal cost.

I know, but this guy doesn't.

Not to pitpick, bit you must not have seen the picture before. ;)

Cable TV was first sold as television without the commercials.

No it wasn't, it was sold as television for people who couldn't get a decent broadcast signal. The following is an exerpt from this brief history of CATV here.

"Community antenna television (now called cable television) was started by John Walson and Margaret Walson in the spring of 1948. The Service Electric Company was formed by the Walsons in the mid 1940s to sell, install, and repair General Electric appliances in the Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania area. In 1947, the Walson also began selling television sets. However, Mahanoy City residents had problems receiving the three nearby Philadelphia network stations with local antennas because of the region's surrounding mountains. John Walson erected an antenna on a utility pole on a local mountain top that enabled him to demonstrate the televisions with good broadcasts coming from the three Philadelphia stations.

Walson connected the mountain antennae to his appliance store via a cable and modified signal boosters. In June of 1948, John Walson connected the mountain antennae to both his store and several of his customers' homes that were located along the cable path, starting the nation's first CATV system."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNew s/1098121671320_93530871/?hub=World

"And in Orange County, voting ground to a halt after the touch-screen voting system crashed for about 10 minutes.

A senior deputy elections supervisor could not explain the brief outage, but speculated a faulty Internet connection may have been to blame."

Yeeeehaw! Let the games begin.

...here's the translation of the verb. This product's name is the substantive of that verb, i.e. a person who commits the act of ... got it?

...here's the translation of the verb. This product's name is the substantive of that verb, i.e. a person who commits the act of ... got it?

> 3. That cell phones cannot cause explosions at gas stations. They did this by

And everyone in "science" knows that by trying something a half dozen times yourself proves that something that didn't happen can't in fact happen.

I mean, the idea of cell phones causing gas station fires is as stupid as the idea of cell phones exploding or deadly fires caused by simply touching the nozzle as it fills your car.

[end pseudo-sarcasm ;) ]

Heh - sounds like an entertaining show, but I strongly object to portraying it as "good science" or something that joe blow should rely on for advice.

Airbag-featured Segway

Like this one? Note how the airbag became detached from the segway after it fell over.

Tom's VGA Charts are pretty similar.

Segway is developing a growing popularity with people who are mobility-impaired

this is the reason that RadioShack is no longer collecting info, and the reason that the information on the ID shown will not be collected for data mining by game stores either.

Nope, he's talking about the one where it was in the beta but removed from retail....

MS Flight Sim Reworked After Attacks

Microsoft Corp. will alter its Flight Simulator airplane simulator game to eliminate the World Trade Center, Microsoft officials confirmed late Friday.

A spokesman for Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., said the World Trade Center would be removed from the game's next release, due out this fall. The introduction will also be changed to eliminate a scene where two people discuss crashing a plane into the Empire State Building.

or Release of "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002" Postponed

Minimal changes will be made to "Flight Simulator 2002." The only change that will be made is the removal of the World Trade Center. A patch for previous versions is in the works.

The first car (automobile) was built by a Frenchman. or a german for the first petrol powered car.

The first electrical computers would be Bomba and Colossus both designed and built in Britain although the design of bomba was started by Poland before the war, I can't believe you forgot Poland.

One out of three that's not exactly intellectual, I think you proved the parent point for them.

The first car (automobile) was built by a Frenchman. or a german for the first petrol powered car.

The first electrical computers would be Bomba and Colossus both designed and built in Britain although the design of bomba was started by Poland before the war, I can't believe you forgot Poland.

One out of three that's not exactly intellectual, I think you proved the parent point for them.

This seams to be the going rate for operating systems code... the first DOS (QDOS) was bought off a guy by Gates for $50,000 dollars as well. DOS History

• Males under 40
  
• Middle Eastern Descent
  
• Believes Allah=God, Religious Book=Qu'ran
  
• Wife wears headscarf
  
• Daughters hate headscarf
  
• Attends Mosque (occasionally if in US)
  
• May be here on a student VISA
  
• Likes to blow stuff up
  
• Likes to take airplane lessons but not learn how to land
  
• Likes to drink beer.
• Likes to goto strip clubs.
• Has Sadaam Hussein, Favorite Radical Cleric, or Osama Keychain.
• Usually sends family back home before committing suicide
• Usually gets decent payout from terrorist organization for his family before committing suicide
• Buys box cutters
• Rents housing
• Pays cash for purchases
• Doesn't file income taxes

*blink* *blink*

Like this!

Sex for Dummies

and a few more.

The main difference is that these books come with stain resistant pages...

1. English is not the Pope's native language.
2. The Pope does not speak English.

• One cannot speak a language if it is not one's native language.

• Knowing a language is not sufficient for speaking that language.

It goes against the idea of normalisation. Basicaly, normalization is a set of rules that ensures that you can store your data consistently and efficently.

I think this link here might answer your question fully.

If you'd like to know more about DB theory I'd suggest Date's book: An Introduction to Database Systems.

But that's impossible! ... Oh I get it. :)

Actually it's not, ties happen in the NFL every few years. There was one in 2002 the last one before that was in 1997. Ralph Nader winning the election would be more like the team planes for Every NFL team other than the Miami Dolphins going down in the same weekend and the Dolphins winning the superbowl by default.

Obviously, the result here is my interpretation of these characters. It's a work of fiction, which shouldn't be confused with history. But I've tried to make the essence of these characters faithful to what appears in the historical records.

It's not tough "DRM"... my university's local online student newspaper equivalent effectively does the same thing.

Ouch.

Though I expect that Sun will ultimately prevail when they appeal this case. Still, the only real winners when patents get involved are the lawyers.

...do you have any simpathy [sic] for the driver doing 75 mph in a 35 mph and finaly [sic] gets a ticket because a cop just happened to be on the road?

It's not a question of this. What it IS a question of is this: If that same cop decided that he was going to randomly hand out tickets to people driving 75 in that same 35 mile-per-hour zone, then it would be more like what the FCC does. The FCC targets specific people (or sometimes random people) based on nothing more than a whim or pressure from constituents. For example: Howard Stern wasn't allowed to air a topic on teen sex, but Oprah Winfrey was, based solely on the fact that Stern's show is considered to be less decent. The fact that the subject matter was the same has no bearing on it. This is unfair treatment based on public opinion, and it is indeed the equivalent of a cop stopping one person going 75 in that 35 but not the one right next to him.

Laws that are unevenly enforced are not just laws and as such I feel we have a responsibility to challenge them. But that's just me.

Google Sets came up with a list of common shampoo ingredients (?) after I seeded it with the four active ingredients in Pert Plus.

I believe you mean Human papilloma virus (HPV). OK checking the link verifies it. I'm glad you brought it up though because so few people are aware of it. There have been studies showing that 75% of sexually active women harbor the virus, most with no symptoms. Most will never develop symptoms, but the scariest statistic is that 93% of cervical cancer cases are linked to HPV.

A vaccine is in research trials, but it only works before being exposed, so it must be given to younger women before they are sexual active. Until then, OP is correct- watch out guys and gals.

Drop the word 'physical' and you're pretty much spot-on. Recognize that the chemical can be a natural brain chemical, and that the chemical can be released from any reward system (The 'ding' in EQ, a well-fragged opponent, or a good grade on a test) and you're a lot closer.

They are addictions because you can't just stop using the substance involved without (sometimes serious, even fatal) physical side effects

Take an EQ addict away from their game for a day or two - there will be measurable symptoms of detox, probably in the nature of a low-grade fever, a small case of the shakes, ... This is real.

Playing videogames is simply not an addiction. For one thing, it doesn't cause you grave physical harm (NO, carpal tunnel doesn't count

Grave physical harm is only one of the criteria for addiction. Let's look at the rest - From the ICD10 criteria for chemical dependence.

*a strong desire or sense of compulsion...

Pretty straightforward.

*difficulties in controlling behaviour in terms of its onset, termination, or levels of use

Who doesn't know a gamehead who hasn't played all night after planning on just a quick hour or whatever?

*a physiological withdrawal state when use has ceased or been reduced...or use the intention of relieving or avoiding withdrawal symptoms...

See above. I swear I've seen this happen. Not to rag on EQ fans, but I took a girl on a three day campout (car camping, no hike) and by the last day she had most of the mild and moderate symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.

*evidence of tolerance, such that increased doses are required in order to achieve effects originally produced by lower doses

Straight up, gameheads need a lot more playtime than the rest of us...

*persisting with use despite clear evidence of overtly harmful consequences...

This is where you miss the mark on your 'grave physical harm' deal. Consider missing work to play, ...

That's NUKULAR to you.

Read this

i have this great idea

how about, we have to get congress to "authorize" the president, before he can go to war?

you think that would help? if a clear majority of our elected leadership was required to approve such a thing?

"...I just want to see that little piece of shit Kodak in ruins, that's what I want to see."

As the child of a "Kodak" family, please let me remind you that although you may not appreciate its business practices, Kodak drove the Rochester area economy for decades. Without that my family and many many others in that part of upstate NY would have been worse off than we were.

Rather than wishing the complete destruction of a company, please consider more productive uses of your valuable time, such as knitting or growing a chia pet.

"...I just want to see that little piece of shit Kodak in ruins, that's what I want to see."

As the child of a "Kodak" family, please let me remind you that although you may not appreciate its business practices, Kodak drove the Rochester area economy for decades. Without that my family and many many others in that part of upstate NY would have been worse off than we were.

Rather than wishing the complete destruction of a company, please consider more productive uses of your valuable time, such as knitting or growing a chia pet.

First Ever South Atlantic Hurricane Hits Brazil. (March of 2004)

South American Glaciers Melting Faster, Changing Sea Level.

Alaskan Glaciers Melting Faster.

desertification in China.

desertification in Africa.

Heck, even the rest of the solar system is acting funny. Remember the. . .

Blue Band on Jupiter this past March of 2004?

and

the Huge X-class solar flares of last year?

Interestingly, the evidence of past hurricanes categorized by decade suggests that there have been big hurricanes to make US landfall before. Indeed, the worst decade, from 1950-1959 saw a total of nine storms between category 3 and 4, (though none of category 5) during that ten year period. Sure. But we've just had four in just one summer. Nobody can say that this is par for any course.

Now, I am not claiming that this has anything to do with global warming. But anybody who tells me that everything is normal probably swore up and down that The Phantom Menace was a good film for a whole year after it came out.

-FL

26 years after that, we are still having problems from our carelessness. Do you begin to see the virtue of caution?

History lesson.

Microsoft purchased the rights to QDOS from Seattle Computer Products (SCP) for $50K. MS did not steal, nor reverse engineer anything to get MS-DOS. They licensed PC-DOS to IBM and per agreeement with IBM, MS was allowed to sell their own version of DOS as MS-DOS. IBM re-wrote lots of the code due to numerous bugs in MS-DOS, naming their version PC-DOS.

SCP also retained the rights to license MS-DOS as well as long as it was done in conjunction with a computer purchase. You even saw magazines ads to but a copy of DOS bundled with a naked CPU chip.

Tim Patterson of SCP has been know to say he was glad to get $50K from MS for this deal. MS did not inform SCP of their deal with IBM (would you?). Now, although one may feel MS should have been more generous, or SCP should have been wiser, this was at least a legitimate and mutually acceptable arrangement between MS and SCP. Tim later became an MS employee.

IBM is generally considered to have screwed up on this deal as well, letting the fox inside the chicken coup.

See history of MS-DOS or another one for this.

Life is often stranger than imagination.

ummm. Maybe you should do some research.
From: about.com
"Cats are equipped with scent glands on their paw pads; on their cheeks; on the top of the head; and of course, the area that causes guardians the most concern: urine."
and
"When thinking about scent communication, draw an imaginary line that divides your cat in half. The scent glands on the front half could be labeled as the "friendly" pheromones. These are used when a cat is marking familiar territory that she considers the heart of her nest. "

So ya, when a cat rubs their head against you, they usually are marking you as theirs.

You simply could not be more wrong in your statement. If it weren't for Linus, the OSS movement would now stick to a free OS based either on 386BSD or GNU/Hurd - or some combination of these. Everything would look pretty similar to the real world as we know it.

Bill's case is far from obvious - if it wasn't him in particular, his place would be most likely taken by Gary Kildall. The history of personal computing would look entirely different, as Kildall was far from being a monopolist egomaniac like Gates and Ballmer. Kildall's company, Digital Research, could easily be the Microsoft of the 8-bit computers. Their system was just _the_ system for 8-bit machines, but Kildall did not try to use his advantage as a vehicle for building monopolist empire. Quite contrary, he was sticking to the principle that the company that makes OS should not take part in the application market. That's actually how Microsoft has found its niche - as a key vendor of the CP/M applications. So if it wasn't Bill, CP/M-86 would be the MS-DOS, and GEM Desktop would be Microsoft Windows - but there would be NO equivalent of Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Office, and that would be probably good news (we would have various competing office suites instead).

The case of Steve Jobs is even more obvious - Apple with Steve and Apple without Steve (1985-1997) are just different companies. No Steve - no iPod. Period.

That's a very good point.

I enjoy hiking. A while ago, I was way out in the woods hiking with some friends of mine. A buddy of mine, had his Ericsson R310s phone with him. Now, this phone is ugly as hell. It's also not available here in the US (and seeing that it's a GSM 900/1800 phone, probably wouldn't work here either). But it's rugged. His phone was the only one that survived the trip.

Most of our phones just died for no apparent reason (I assume it was due to the rain -- and it rains a lot in GB, believe me). After performing "cell phone CPR" on them (taking them apart, carefully cleaning them with alcohol, and letting sit in a warm room to dry), most of them eventually worked again though (which of course doesn't help if you're in a tight spot and need your phone to call for help).

The point is, if you're outdoors and choose to rely on any electronic device (1) make sure that it works (test it; bring extra batteries; etc) and (2) always have a backup plan (if you have a GPS device, bring a map & compass anyway).
Technology is very useful if you know what you're doing but you need be able to survive without it.

It's one thing to turn a grade school teacher to hamburger, live, before the expectant eyes of millions of children, with "the most complex machine ever built by man". It's another to have those children themselves turned to hamburger.

You know, if you had decent medical universal care down there, you wouldn't end up with so many emergencies from non-treated chronic conditions - things that people can't afford to get treated. One of the guys who posts here can't afford to get proper treatment because he no longer has medical insurance.

Well i'm sorry about the state he is in. Chances are though his condition reguarding medical coverage was of his own doings though. Mismanaged money, buying things not neccesary like computers or new cars, or lack of willingness to change career paths could have played a significant role in this. In america, It has always been the indevidual or parents responcability to provide for thier health. In short, he should go bank rupt or wiat for an emergency. If he cannot afford medical insurance legit instead lacking coverage because of spending money unwisley, then he would be better off with the clean slate. Sometime people just need to start over and learn from thier mistakes.

I know countless people That have no insurance and have no problem getting treated for ilnesses. I also know countless people that buy thier insurance themselves instead of expecting the government or thier employer to provide it. One guy i recently spoke to said he had to make real sacrifices to get insurance. Sacrifices like not going out and drinking every other night. This isn't top say everyone drinks up thier insurance premiums but i bet they could find some coverage they could afford if they adjusted thier budget a little. If they still cannot aford insurance then they most likley fall into the poor catagory were the government already has programs availible for them.

As to the death penalty, I read the page linked in your reply. Out side of it soun ding like a sales pitch trying to convince someone of somethign, it had little representation of the us in it's entirety. It said philidelphia had more death penaly cases then the rest of pensilvania out of the eligable convictions blacks were 40% more likely to get the deth penalty then whites. What the study fales to look at is facts like The death penalty may only be applied in Pennsylvania in cases where a defendant is found guilty of first degree murder. A separate hearing is held for the consideration of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. If at least one of the ten aggravating circumstances listed in the law and none of the eight mitigating factors are found to be present, the verdict must be death. If race is a consideration of one of the ten factors and it is construed so that black offenders by the nature of being black will violate them i would agree. However i find that very unlikely.

Back to the katchup thing. I find this laughable, someone made a sugestion that was droped and you act like it was instatuted. Nothign ever became of this and in you previous post you act like it is a fact in practice daily. I don't see how you couls even insinuate this in good concience when you provided the links to verify it. This is like trying to convict someone for robbing a bank when all they did was say lets robb a bank as a joke to end thie rmoney problems without ever acting on anything or making plans for anything.

As for the tax cuts, after reading your link, again i find your concluision misleading. It doesn't say that the middle class taxpayers are going to pay more in taxes, it say thier taxes are going to cover more of the amount of taxes colected. Know were does it say there would be a tax increase to the middle class. It is basicaly saying that the middle class is being left out ot the cuts. While i would like to see the middle class recive tax breaks, i don't see how this is near as bad as your making it out to be. If you were paying ten dollars a year in taxes and i'm paying $100, when i pay only $90 the next year and you still pay $10, you not having an increased burden. You have the exact same burden but the amoutnit counts for

$100 million from the coal industry to the Bush campaign? Please!

Contributions to both campaigns through 07/05/2004
Bush: $3,938,588
Kerry: $372,842
About.com Politics

...and that's just the point. Government DOES define marriage and DOES give certain rights based on that type of a union. Civil unions DO NOT give equal rights to those provided under a marriage.

For one such comparison, go here:

http://lesbianlife.about.com/cs/wedding/a/unionvma rriage.htm

Marriage was never about "romantic love" until the Victorian Era. It was an institution created to perpetuate land ownership and money - in order to "keep it in the family". Marriage institution was co-opted by religion to promote a certain type of behavior and control that the church was trying to achieve.

For a scientific view on this see:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/02/27/MNGSK59NGM1.DTL

There was also a very good article about how "romantic love" has change the way we view marriage in the last 100+ years in The New Yorker a few months ago.

My wife and I have rights (and obligations, for that matter), that my cousin and her partner do not - even though they have made the same life commitment as us as well as pay their taxes. And the two of them even served in the armed forces!

The child-rearing argument is tired. Fewer and fewer couples in the US and other educated countries are even having children. Many married couples are specifically deciding NOT to have children. I have gay couples who have taken responsibilty for rearing disabled and foster children who would otherwise not had caring parents. These couples are certainly much more responsible with their children than many of the middle aged BoBo's who have had children in order to check another item off on their life's to do list.

If you want to have the religion/separation-of-church-and-state argument, then you should be prepared to pull your religous influence out of things like "Right to choose", the words "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance, and "In God We Trust" on the dollar bill (just to name a few!)

The most depressing thing about this whole thread is that people need to cloak their homophobia in "righteous arguments".

Let's not forget that those are also reflective LCDs, not transmissive. The technology is more or less the same, but it's not identical.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the LCD projectors have transparent LCDs that the light passes through, and it is the DLP projectors that have a reflective chip. Wouldn't this LCD display count as a transparent one?

Let's not forget that those are also reflective LCDs, not transmissive. The technology is more or less the same, but it's not identical.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the LCD projectors have transparent LCDs that the light passes through, and it is the DLP projectors that have a reflective chip. Wouldn't this LCD display count as a transparent one?

There's a reason some people continue to run these old systems. Some of it has to do with just fearing change for critical systems. If it works, why break it? Also, often times custom third-party applications that may have cost millions to write initially, but are no longer supported, may cost many millions more to migrate to a newer supported solution.

NT 4 was released in August 1996. A month prior to that Linux 2.0 was released.

The 2.0 series kernel is still being maintained, and I would argue is still an acceptable server platform (albeit ancient). Just keep patching your daemons and your firewall rules up to date, and you should have no problems. And if I were the admin of a multi-million dollar system with custom third-party applications that were written in 1996, and the original admin team has left and the programmers are all gone, you'd have a lot of work convincing me to attempt a migration to 2.6. What would it gain me or my organization?

Here government tries to show an improvement in industrial jobs by proposing the reclassification of McDonalds employees to industrial workers. http://usliberals.about.com/b/a/067965.htm
What a fucking joke! And whos salary has gone up? Bah I know the only way to get a raise in Engineering is to leave :)

Huh? I've never towed anything with my car

Wuss. ;-)

and as for "heavier loads" I guess that means 4 people in the car instead of just me.

Or a vacation where the car has luggage in it. Or where you are carring a heavy item in the trunk.

I inflate my tires to the recommended pressure for my car and everything seems fine.

Most cars have two different recommended sets of pressures based on the load in the car. If you're taking the family to the beach in a fully loaded minivan, the proper, and safe, tire pressure is not the same as if mom and one kid are riding around town.

As for compensating for different vehicle weights, That could be solved by adjusting the solid tire for weight.

So now you have a 185/70R15 in six different vehicle weight classes, and each person has no way to adjust the pressure when he should.

How many people want to trade tires between vehicles (or even have two vehicles with the same tire size)?

That wasn't the point. The point was that you and I could each have vehicles that required 205/70R14 tires and your vehicle may weigh substantially more or less than mine. we could both buy the same tires and adjust tire pressure accordingly.

I've never done this, though I live in a climate where snow is common in the winter. I've never heard anyone even recommend doing this, so I don't think it's very commonplace.

See this link for information on it. It is very worthwhile in soft snow, sand, or mud. When I volunteer to drive for the hospital in snow emergencies, I always drop the tire pressure on my Jeep down to about 10-15psi. It's why Humvees have a CTIS, or Central Tire Inflation System. That way, they can adjust pressure for the terrain, lowering it for snow, mud, sand, etc.

The points you bring up are for the car enthusiast. The vast majority of people aren't car enthusiasts and want nothing to do with adjusting tire pressure for different conditions.

No, they are points for everyone. The vast majority of people aren't computer enthusiasts and want nothing to do with performing security updates or installing anti-virus software. Being in the majority doesn't mean that someone is right.