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I'm not sure of numbers, a quick google turned up U.S. Metropolitan Area Population Estimates, you can check their ranked list. I'm not sure how they draw the boundaries, for example, there are people in eastern PA who commute to NYC and people in Albany NY who also commute to NYC (it is 2 1/2 to 3 hours by car, in Albany you can use a train, it is about the same distance). Many major western hemisphere cities were omitted (Mexico City in particular is huge, and Canada has some major cities too).

I'm not sure of numbers, a quick google turned up U.S. Metropolitan Area Population Estimates, you can check their ranked list. I'm not sure how they draw the boundaries, for example, there are people in eastern PA who commute to NYC and people in Albany NY who also commute to NYC (it is 2 1/2 to 3 hours by car, in Albany you can use a train, it is about the same distance). Many major western hemisphere cities were omitted (Mexico City in particular is huge, and Canada has some major cities too).

It shows silliness because of the content of the patent. This isn't something non-obvious or hard to research. It's plugins! It's like patenting vulcanization and then suing every tire manufacturer after they've been doing it for years.

Of course that isn't the case -- the claim is narrower than you suggest, and was construed to be narrower than that by the Court. Your next suggestion?

Again, we are talking about a specific set of frivolous patents, so yes there is alot of evidence that they hurt innovation.

So frivolous that even Microsoft's legion of attorneys couldn't put two and two together to find ANY probative prior art to invalidate it. Your next suggestion?

I wrote: Odd how many inidividual inventors seem to make the biggest political push for stronger patent laws, with large companies tending to push for more relaxed "patent harmonization" approaches.

He responded: Talk about presenting evidence to backup your claims ....

This isn't a close question -- only the truly clueless needs to ask for further evidence -- anybody who followed the recent harmonization battles knows who the players are.

You wanted it, you got it!

Let this guy tell you about it.

Fortunately, most God-believers are getting this kind of facts pretty straight, but you obviously don't. Are you one of those guys thinking that the Appolo landings were just hoaxes ?

Georgy, evidence actually shows that if children use marijuana once a month from the age of 13, they will NEVER achieve their potential. How can you justify your stance on weed given this FACT ?

The current war on marijuana costs the US over 9 billion USD per year plus another 1+ billion in lost tax revenue if it was legal and taxed. Legalizing marijuana would open up over 130,000 prison spaces allowing more room for real criminals. The facts are that marijuana is much less harmful than alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and acetaminophen (Tylenol).

A great example of the failure on the war on marijuana is 19 year old Webster Alexander. A undercover cop asked him for some pot, Alexander gave him some. The cop asked again and this time offerred him money in exchange. After four "deals" Alexander was arrest, never given a competent lawyer, tried, convicted and sentenced to 26 years in jail for a total of $250 worth of sales. This is more time than a 2nd degree murder, 1st degree manslaughter or a molestation conviction gets you.

Please stop spreading FUD about marijuana because someone just might believe you.

Facts and Myths about Marijuana
"Marijuana Prohibition Costs Over $7 Billion Annually"
26 years for $250 worth of marijuana.
"Teenager Dies from Acetaminophen Overdose"

That does not negate its obviousness. You (and others, like the Religious Right in particular) choose to ignore it, and refute the plain wording of the Constitution. That's fine. But don't claim that you are not aware of the facts. You are choosing to make a 'moral' (and I'm using that term loosely... attempting to control the lives of others is not moral) decision override the bald statement of fact. Like all moral choices not supported by the facts, facts override them and render them immoral.

Pot: Do a bit of research. It was banned because the illegal immigrants from Mexico were using it for enjoyment, and the white people didn't want them to, and somehow thought it would 'currupt their youth', just like opium was banned because of the Chinese being frowned upon. As for the obviousness, go back and read the 9th and the 10th amendments again. Sure as hell makes it clear that we shouldn't be banning stuff that people want to be happy (that part ('pursuit of happiness', you know) is way up in the preamble... they thought it was important enough to list first).

I don't have to prove it. You have made absolutely no argument, not even a bad one, as to why we should ban pot, porn, etc. Therefore, based on this thread, the government is COMPLETELY constrained from legislating against it. Period. It's been in writing for over 200 years.

"the US government is not obligated to defend the privilege of viewing porn as an inalienable right"

Speaking of pot, what are you smoking? The government does not HAVE TO defend the RIGHT to view porn. It, in fact, has no obligation to do ANYTHING about it. And it is explicitly and VERY VERY CLEARLY PREVENTED from banning it OR supporting it. Read the preamble, 1st, 9th, 10th, and probably 1 or two other amendments that all say so, and remember the right to privacy. The government is not supposed to be an active participant in these discussions. If you don't like porn, then DON'T BUY IT. If enough people agree, there will be no market, and porn goes away. No government involvement, just like the way the country was meant to be run.

Go read this archive. Your trolling has stopped being entertaining, so I'll resort to education.

Btw, did you know that the US is one of the few countries in the world where a lie detector test is court admissable?

This smells of bullshit. So I googled and found.

This
And This

I've found that they almost never admitted into court, and certainly no case was made on just polygraphs tests.

A good resource about Identical v. Fraternal twins states that fraternal twins develop when two separate eggs are fertilized and implant in the uterus. The genetic connection is no more or less the same as siblings born at separate times. They may look alike, or they may not.

Chimera twins would contain both complete sets of "sibling" DNA, which could theoretically be female and male DNA combined, let alone multiple blood types.

One might assume that multiple blood types would result in a (naturally) aborted fetus, and thus the person would not be born.

What's missing from this discussion is a definition of what a public good is:

...a public good is essentially a good that is difficult to exclude someone from using, and that one person's use does not deny someone else the use of that good. A public park or clean air are typical examples of public goods. (read this article for typical incorrect definitions of public goods provided by econ 101 students)

Anything that can be copied digitally becomes more and more like a public good everyday...

Control is its own reward. Look at the war on drugs: It's used as a 'we need to violate your rights because of the WoD' crowbar to systematically reduce even the enumerated rights. As people become more accustomed to the gov. wielding this power over them, they become less likely to oppose new slices into freedom.

"They are conflicting privileges."

No, they are not. A person who does not wish to see pornography can go to places (like Wal-Mart) where they do not display it. Making it illegal for ANYONE to get IS a violation of basic human RIGHTS. And read the above thread again, you missed the point about them being rights, not privileges. That's an important and well documented point. I suggest you read the archives here for starters.

And don't get me started on speed limits. The only reason speed limits CAN exist is because the government owns the road and essentially 'rents' it to us. If they were properly owned by private groups like they were for years after the country was founded, then the speed limit would be dependant on the private whim of the owner. Or do you think a cop can pull onto a racetrack and pull over an F1 for reckless driving?

>Right, it seems that the more we tamper with the natural environment, the we more make people less healthier and happier.

Yes, because all women dream of churning butter and all men are dying to chop logs all day. I'm having palpitations just thinking of what I'm missing.

>We need to stop being so arrogant about applying technological solutions to problems (problems which in many cases are caused by technology in the first place) and start to live more in accordance with the natural human condition and the natural environmental conditions that all people lived in once upon a time.

Well, if you want the average death rate to hover in the teens, then that's fine for you.

Personally, I enjoy the fact that technology has successfully quadrupled the human lifespan.

The amount of improvement as of late (oh, say the last half millennium) has been positively amazing, adding as much as 50 years to the average lifespan. The most mind-blowing thing is it doesn't seem to be stopping! We've even conquered Diabetes. How far away can Cancer be? I'm sure soon we won't even need to bother with the common cold!

But like I say, if you want to live without technology, be my guest. I'm not worried because I'll live long enough to watch your great grandchildren die (although that's quite the sad thing for you).

We need to stop being so stupid and start realizing what technology has given us. We need to focus on how amazing it is that people have gone from killing themselves because they have the plague to commiting suicide over something so small and insignificant like getting a B grade. Better yet, we should encourage those people considering commiting suicide over such an insignificant thing as marks to appreciate the fact that they didn't have to chase, kill, and skin their supper.

It's so fucking sad that this is actually true.

Today on slashdot, there was an article on the 20 year old left wing loudmouth who gets a year in jail for linking to a website with bombmaking instructions

This Reductio is brought to you by Absurdum.

Even on the off chance that the About network doesn't have all the information you need, they have a large number of links to sites with relevant information across the Web, so there's a very good chance that you will be able to use them to find what you are looking for.
Also...although these are not strictly an answer to your question, I would still heartily encourage you to follow the links to these (listed in a suggested order of reading...my probably misguided opinion only) text files, web pages, and books, as I think they could be of enormous benefit to both your children and yourself...indeed, anyone who wishes to read them. Although I understand that several of these could possibly only be understood at tertiary level, they also as far as I know are not normally included in *general* curriculums, and IMHO they should be.

• The Allegory of the Cave by Plato
• Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, by Rene Descartes
• Guide to Ethics & Morality
• The Logic FAQ
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
• The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
• The Sovereign Individual, by James Davidson
• The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene
• The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

It used to be in the past that the education systems of most nations didn't want us to know the why (philosophy, religion, history, political theory) of life, but were content enough to let us know the how. (Science without analysis, numeracy and literacy skills, etc) Now however we are seeing that primarily in America, but also in other places, government education departments no longer even want to allow people to know the how.

Mathematics is part of the how - a means to an end, a way of solving problems - but it is not a destination in itself. The material I've given you links to in my second section is concerned with finding out *why* - "Why am I here? Who am I? How do I know what reality is? What do I want to do with my life? What moral values do I believe in?"
The answers to these questions are far more important than becoming merely literate or mathematically capable for their own sake. Figure out what your purpose is first, and the rest, although still requiring work, will be relatively easy. That is what the links in the second list will help you do, and it's not something you'll be taught to do in any contemporary public school, either...Governments consider people with purpose to be highly dangerous.

Even on the off chance that the About network doesn't have all the information you need, they have a large number of links to sites with relevant information across the Web, so there's a very good chance that you will be able to use them to find what you are looking for.
Also...although these are not strictly an answer to your question, I would still heartily encourage you to follow the links to these (listed in a suggested order of reading...my probably misguided opinion only) text files, web pages, and books, as I think they could be of enormous benefit to both your children and yourself...indeed, anyone who wishes to read them. Although I understand that several of these could possibly only be understood at tertiary level, they also as far as I know are not normally included in *general* curriculums, and IMHO they should be.

• The Allegory of the Cave by Plato
• Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, by Rene Descartes
• Guide to Ethics & Morality
• The Logic FAQ
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
• The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
• The Sovereign Individual, by James Davidson
• The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene
• The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

It used to be in the past that the education systems of most nations didn't want us to know the why (philosophy, religion, history, political theory) of life, but were content enough to let us know the how. (Science without analysis, numeracy and literacy skills, etc) Now however we are seeing that primarily in America, but also in other places, government education departments no longer even want to allow people to know the how.

Mathematics is part of the how - a means to an end, a way of solving problems - but it is not a destination in itself. The material I've given you links to in my second section is concerned with finding out *why* - "Why am I here? Who am I? How do I know what reality is? What do I want to do with my life? What moral values do I believe in?"
The answers to these questions are far more important than becoming merely literate or mathematically capable for their own sake. Figure out what your purpose is first, and the rest, although still requiring work, will be relatively easy. That is what the links in the second list will help you do, and it's not something you'll be taught to do in any contemporary public school, either...Governments consider people with purpose to be highly dangerous.

Even on the off chance that the About network doesn't have all the information you need, they have a large number of links to sites with relevant information across the Web, so there's a very good chance that you will be able to use them to find what you are looking for.
Also...although these are not strictly an answer to your question, I would still heartily encourage you to follow the links to these (listed in a suggested order of reading...my probably misguided opinion only) text files, web pages, and books, as I think they could be of enormous benefit to both your children and yourself...indeed, anyone who wishes to read them. Although I understand that several of these could possibly only be understood at tertiary level, they also as far as I know are not normally included in *general* curriculums, and IMHO they should be.

• The Allegory of the Cave by Plato
• Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, by Rene Descartes
• Guide to Ethics & Morality
• The Logic FAQ
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
• The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
• The Sovereign Individual, by James Davidson
• The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene
• The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

It used to be in the past that the education systems of most nations didn't want us to know the why (philosophy, religion, history, political theory) of life, but were content enough to let us know the how. (Science without analysis, numeracy and literacy skills, etc) Now however we are seeing that primarily in America, but also in other places, government education departments no longer even want to allow people to know the how.

Mathematics is part of the how - a means to an end, a way of solving problems - but it is not a destination in itself. The material I've given you links to in my second section is concerned with finding out *why* - "Why am I here? Who am I? How do I know what reality is? What do I want to do with my life? What moral values do I believe in?"
The answers to these questions are far more important than becoming merely literate or mathematically capable for their own sake. Figure out what your purpose is first, and the rest, although still requiring work, will be relatively easy. That is what the links in the second list will help you do, and it's not something you'll be taught to do in any contemporary public school, either...Governments consider people with purpose to be highly dangerous.

Even on the off chance that the About network doesn't have all the information you need, they have a large number of links to sites with relevant information across the Web, so there's a very good chance that you will be able to use them to find what you are looking for.
Also...although these are not strictly an answer to your question, I would still heartily encourage you to follow the links to these (listed in a suggested order of reading...my probably misguided opinion only) text files, web pages, and books, as I think they could be of enormous benefit to both your children and yourself...indeed, anyone who wishes to read them. Although I understand that several of these could possibly only be understood at tertiary level, they also as far as I know are not normally included in *general* curriculums, and IMHO they should be.

• The Allegory of the Cave by Plato
• Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, by Rene Descartes
• Guide to Ethics & Morality
• The Logic FAQ
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
• The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
• The Sovereign Individual, by James Davidson
• The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene
• The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

It used to be in the past that the education systems of most nations didn't want us to know the why (philosophy, religion, history, political theory) of life, but were content enough to let us know the how. (Science without analysis, numeracy and literacy skills, etc) Now however we are seeing that primarily in America, but also in other places, government education departments no longer even want to allow people to know the how.

Mathematics is part of the how - a means to an end, a way of solving problems - but it is not a destination in itself. The material I've given you links to in my second section is concerned with finding out *why* - "Why am I here? Who am I? How do I know what reality is? What do I want to do with my life? What moral values do I believe in?"
The answers to these questions are far more important than becoming merely literate or mathematically capable for their own sake. Figure out what your purpose is first, and the rest, although still requiring work, will be relatively easy. That is what the links in the second list will help you do, and it's not something you'll be taught to do in any contemporary public school, either...Governments consider people with purpose to be highly dangerous.

Even on the off chance that the About network doesn't have all the information you need, they have a large number of links to sites with relevant information across the Web, so there's a very good chance that you will be able to use them to find what you are looking for.
Also...although these are not strictly an answer to your question, I would still heartily encourage you to follow the links to these (listed in a suggested order of reading...my probably misguided opinion only) text files, web pages, and books, as I think they could be of enormous benefit to both your children and yourself...indeed, anyone who wishes to read them. Although I understand that several of these could possibly only be understood at tertiary level, they also as far as I know are not normally included in *general* curriculums, and IMHO they should be.

• The Allegory of the Cave by Plato
• Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, by Rene Descartes
• Guide to Ethics & Morality
• The Logic FAQ
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
• The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
• The Sovereign Individual, by James Davidson
• The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene
• The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

It used to be in the past that the education systems of most nations didn't want us to know the why (philosophy, religion, history, political theory) of life, but were content enough to let us know the how. (Science without analysis, numeracy and literacy skills, etc) Now however we are seeing that primarily in America, but also in other places, government education departments no longer even want to allow people to know the how.

Mathematics is part of the how - a means to an end, a way of solving problems - but it is not a destination in itself. The material I've given you links to in my second section is concerned with finding out *why* - "Why am I here? Who am I? How do I know what reality is? What do I want to do with my life? What moral values do I believe in?"
The answers to these questions are far more important than becoming merely literate or mathematically capable for their own sake. Figure out what your purpose is first, and the rest, although still requiring work, will be relatively easy. That is what the links in the second list will help you do, and it's not something you'll be taught to do in any contemporary public school, either...Governments consider people with purpose to be highly dangerous.

Even on the off chance that the About network doesn't have all the information you need, they have a large number of links to sites with relevant information across the Web, so there's a very good chance that you will be able to use them to find what you are looking for.
Also...although these are not strictly an answer to your question, I would still heartily encourage you to follow the links to these (listed in a suggested order of reading...my probably misguided opinion only) text files, web pages, and books, as I think they could be of enormous benefit to both your children and yourself...indeed, anyone who wishes to read them. Although I understand that several of these could possibly only be understood at tertiary level, they also as far as I know are not normally included in *general* curriculums, and IMHO they should be.

• The Allegory of the Cave by Plato
• Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, by Rene Descartes
• Guide to Ethics & Morality
• The Logic FAQ
• The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
• The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
• The Sovereign Individual, by James Davidson
• The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene
• The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

It used to be in the past that the education systems of most nations didn't want us to know the why (philosophy, religion, history, political theory) of life, but were content enough to let us know the how. (Science without analysis, numeracy and literacy skills, etc) Now however we are seeing that primarily in America, but also in other places, government education departments no longer even want to allow people to know the how.

Mathematics is part of the how - a means to an end, a way of solving problems - but it is not a destination in itself. The material I've given you links to in my second section is concerned with finding out *why* - "Why am I here? Who am I? How do I know what reality is? What do I want to do with my life? What moral values do I believe in?"
The answers to these questions are far more important than becoming merely literate or mathematically capable for their own sake. Figure out what your purpose is first, and the rest, although still requiring work, will be relatively easy. That is what the links in the second list will help you do, and it's not something you'll be taught to do in any contemporary public school, either...Governments consider people with purpose to be highly dangerous.

Forgot to put a link in....
From: here "What is the world's largest lake? A lake any body of water surrounded by land and very large lakes are sometimes called seas. The world's largest lake is the salty Caspian Sea at 143,200 square miles (370,886 km2). The Caspian Sea is surrounded by Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. The world's second largest lake, and the world's largest freshwater lake is North America's Lake Superior at 31,700 mi2 (82,103 km2)."

OK, then why do you need this?

That's why we see robots for use on other planets, but we'll probably not see them on this one (unless of course we ship all the lawyers to some other planet first).

Does is have to be a planet, or can we aim it at any stellar body?

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts that the pharmaceutical plant that was bombed was making weapons.
23. Vietnam, 1961-73 (An estimated 2,000,000 Vietnamese were killed.)
24. Yugoslavia, 1999

There are many sources for this information. For example, see this PBS web page: PBS: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions (PBS is the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) Also see From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions [zmag.org] and The government of the United States is a consistent opponent of international law. [prairie-fire.org]

I put some links and explanation together about wh

Good idea, if the support costs don't kill you. I'd be happy to sign up my mother and mother-in-law...but supporting them might wipe out your profits right there. And you better have WINE on there, cuz the M-I-L needs to run PAF

Sony looked at doing something like this a couple years ago, but they either backed off or bailed out pretty quickly. But using open source and commodity hardware could keep your costs down. As for the disposal issue, don't throw out the case when you upgrade a customer. Slap in a new mobo/cpu, and send that to your next customer for his upgrade. Mobos take up a lot less landfill space than cases, or you can use them to make a huge Beowulf...nevermind. Anyway, being Earth friendly is good PR and could win you a few customers. Cheaper than buying new cases, too.

Might consider partnering with an ISP, so you can offer Joe Computerphobe the Whole Internet Package, with only one number to call when he has a problem. The downside being, you can't blame the other guy when things don't work, which seems to be SOP these days.

Hey, this sounds pretty good. You hiring?

A couple of years ago there was a university project somewhere that implimented an ENIAC on a modern chip. I wonder if the museum has that. Maybe sitting besides the original to demonstrate the rapid pace of development or something.

That was at the University of Pennsylvania. The Moore School of Electrical Engineering. They've got the schematics of the chip up on the wall next to the little Eniac museum. Their project page is here. While it was obviously a challenging and interesting project, the schematics for the chip make it look pretty simple to eyes used to Pentiums, Athlons, etc.

They also had some of the programmers for the ENIAC on hand for a few celebrations of some 50th anniversary. I really regretted not meeting them.

You could drop by Cleveland, OH too...

But then again, maybe you don't want to be near the 13th FATTEST FREAKIN CITY IN THE US!!!

Go see Frank Lloyd Wright's Kaufmann House, also called Fallingwater. (Pennsylvania, US)

...may come into question.

By the way, this link indicates that the Atkins diet is very much to do with the difference in metabolization between carbs, fats and proteins.

The core concept of The Atkins Diet is Dr. Atkins' theory that over-consumption of and hypersensitivity to carbohydrates is the root of our problem with being overweight. The principle he bases his plan on says that it is the way your body processes the carbohydrates you eat -- not how much fat you eat -- that causes you to gain weight.

Are you sure? Twenty pages happens to be exactly the amount of source you must submit if you have a program longer than 50 pages that contains trade secrets. You must submit 10 pages from the beginning and 10 from the end (without any portion blacked out). There are other options if those twenty pages would contain trade secrets.

Read this for more information on the requirements.

I think the bigger issue is like the magician's trick of a card force, or the equivalent mental trick. Say you show someone an image that looks vaguely like the McDonalds arches. It's such a huge part of western culture that it's pretty well drilled into people's heads.

I like the concept of choosing a password based on a pattern, but I don't think I'd trust someone else to come up with the pattern.

I was going to make an argument about vehicle age, but I ran out of patience. Here's some facts I've been able to glean:

For each aircraft model in commercial use in the USA, the FAA reports average ages. There are 85 different models reported, with an average (design) age of 23.5 years (not weighted by count of planes). Another site on airline safety (with counts of planes, year 2002) puts a weighted (by total planes) average of the top 14 carriers at 11.7 years. A rough guess from this is that 75% of the entire fleet is less than 13 years old (1989 with respect to the survey).

In 2001, the Department of Transportation conducted a National Household Travel Survey , which has an online query engine attached to it. From that data, I was able to find that of the reported 196.5 million cars in the USA (that the owners know the date of ownership), 75% of all cars driven in 2001 were built after 1990 (the 11 years matching the planes). 50% of all cars in use were built after 1995.

This matches fairly well with the age of planes in use, therefore age alone is not a factor. But then again, we should know that, because a plane has many different design considerations than an average car.

Incidentally, a brief history of the cellphone lists that it wasn't until 1987 that the FCC opened up the 800MHz band to digital cell phone research. Standards weren't complete until 1991, and digital PCS bandwidth was officially reserved in 1994.

You could argue that planes & cars built before that date could not take cell phone use into account. However, my gut tells me that it is the chassis of each vehicle that is the restriction... because planes are designed to be airtight, they tend to also be signal-tight Farraday cages, trapping EM inside. Secondly, cars are mostly hollow frames covered with plates and have fewer distributed sensor arrays that are critical to operation.

Well, so far the radiation detectors in the New York subway system haven't caught any terrorists, but they do ensure that individuals receiving certain types of radiotherapy are being regularly strip-searched. As far as I know, the system isn't causing mass panic, just acute embarrassment.

The Reason

But I don't get what your trying to say...

An attacker with three or more attacking armies rolls three dice, one with two armies rolls two dice, and one with only one army rolls one die. A defender with two or more armies rolls two dice, and one with one army rolls one die.

Already, they're wrong...as an attacker, you have to have more armies than dice, i.e. you have to have 4 armies to roll 3 dice. The article already lost my confidence, every true Risk player knows this.

--trb

How about Linux-based bulk emailers? :-)

for i in `cat suckers`; do mutt -xs "MAKE $100 BILLION IN 10 SECONDS!!!!!!!!!" $i <spam; done

(I actually used something like this recently to send out notices to members of the local homebrew club that the newsletter was up. It'd work as well for spamming people, and would even have the added advantage of defeating the recently-discussed graylisting.)

Actually macros can be very useful since UO's skill system is lame. I think that a good MMORPG skill has to reward you for doing MANY DIFFERENT THINGS, and not the same stuff again and again like Everquest's Timesinks.
But anyway, this is a company trying to hook you by compelling you to spend more time online in building up one strong character.

I think that a succesful MMORPG would reward people playing many different characters and try many different strategies. Hope to see one MMORPG like that coming out soon.

Dear George W. Bush

Happy Bastille Day!

Cheers,
W00t

But, I thought Seth Green invented Napster!

A player's turn ends when he decides he doesn't want to attack another country and has completed the fortification stage, in which the player can move all but one army from one and only one country to one and only one other country About.com: Risk Rules

They are requesting respect for their innovations, huh?

IIRC, the whole idea was to take existing off-the-shelf PC parts that used an existing PC architecture and put them in a box that could easily mass produced with a very short time-to-market and an OS that allowed existing developers to leverage their existing skills.

Hmmm... That sounds familiar... now where have I heard that before?

Oh, of course! That's what made BG a gazillionaire in the first place!

I'm not against MS wanting to control a closed platform they developed, but I am insulted by their insistance that this is an IP issue. It's not an IP issue, it's a PP (physical property) issue. If they don't like people voiding the warranties on their hardware, they should have made their CDs spin backwards like Nintendo.

An aircraft carrier is the centerpeice of an aircraft carrier battlegroup. This battlegroup contains several ships, of which 2 are nuclear attack submarines. That is in addition to it's fleet of antisubmarine aircraft.

>Nope. You don't mean that.

Yes, he DOES mean that.

According to the National Retail Security Survey, November 2002 conducted by the University of Florida:

Retail Shrinkage:

48.5% Employee Theft
31.7% Shoplifting
15.3% Administrative Error
05.4% Vendor Fraud

Total Inventory Shrinkage $31.3 billion, or $440 in higher prices as a result, per family per year. Source.

I am also a fraud investigator, and overall, the vast, vast majority of all white collar crime is by insiders. While this includes managerial fraud (financial statement fraud), nonetheless this is the fraud, and the dollar amounts of loss invovled are always much higher than from fraud perpetrated from people external to the company.

So true !!

But wait, I can't buy Yopy 3700 Linux PDA in US.
(The Yopy 3700 is developed in South Korea and is currently available in France, Austria and the UK for a MSRP of $499 US.)

I forgot to mention this article I found, dating back to December of 2000. Article
It explains a bit about Cryptome.

Some sort of arrangement was reached between the Harry-auf-Deutsch creators and the Carlsen Verlag (BTW: Verlag is the German word for "publisher" or "publishing house"). A few details are here.

Once the Carlsen Verlag became aware of the "Harry-auf-Deutsch" Web site, their knee-jerk response was very predictable. Carlsen viewed the amateur translations as a violation of its German-language book rights and threatened the site's young creators with legal action. Webmaster Bernd Koeleman was facing a possible law suit and his ISP was told to shut the site down. But the story has a happy ending (das Happy-End).

By the fall of 2000, when Carlsen threatened to shut them down, the Harry-auf-Deutsch partners had translated the first six chapters of the fourth Rowling book. Since then the Carlsen Verlag has apparently come to better understand the Web and Potter fans, even offering samples of its own official Harry Potter chapters at its Web site. These Leseproben are complete chapters from the various volumes in the series. The Harry-auf-Deutsch site is still online, now with Potter info and stories by amateur Harry Potter authors from all over the world. (Link to this and other German sites from our Harry Potter Links page.)

Wasn't Adobe ranked as one of the top places to work recently? (Here is the link I was thinking of. Adobe is #3 on the list.) Maybe it's like Microsoft, in that many employees get somewhat cocky?

"Given the history one would never have expected it to do as well as it has; like chopsticks, which were actually invented by immigrant restaurant owners in America's mining communities in the 1800s..."

I feel sure that chopstcks were used long before the 1800's

T&K.