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Well they could post all the numerous guides they missed. I had a bunch on my website, which I'll cut and paste here for Geek Dating Guide pleasure: Why Geeks Make the Best Boyfriends

"I just Want To Be Friends"

There is also the Geek Dating Flowchart

Why Girls Actually Want Geeks
Why it usually doesn't happen
and the pitfalls of dating a nerd

15+ reasons why geek guys are "not so bad at all".

How To Lose A Geek in 10 Seconds.

And cause Slashdot loves Futurama, quotes here for your reading pleasure (both said by Fry):
"What? Valentine's Day is coming up?!?! Crap! I forgot to get a girlfriend again"
"Well she was in love with the part of me that's a slob. I was in love with her with the part of me that's desperate."

And finally, have a date for Valentine's but don't know what to do? Never fear, let old 50's educational movies guide you. From what do to on a date, Do's and Don't of Dating and Beginning Dating to Going Steady and How do you Know It's Love, cheesy acting and horrible plots can show you the way.

Depends on the building. I'd say a 50 story building at the edge of downtown would have more surface area than the roof for at least half the day.

Of course if you are in Houston, the Transco Tower is all alone. It is 64 stories and 901 feet tall.

Orgasm at the touch of a button... too bad they don't say anything about whether it works for men too.

though accidents will happen

In a close election every vote counts.

Is that why Florida Democrats organized an effort to have absentee ballots from military personnel thrown out?

The Florida law that prohibits convicted felons from voting has been in the books for YEARS. This was not some last minute crackpot scheme to help Bush. What Katherine Harris et. al. did was not illegal- on the contrary it was enforcing existing laws. The NAACP lawsuit (a civil suit, btw) was only to change the somewhat sloppy implementation of the convicted felon list, and the NAACP concedes that most of the changes that they requested were made before the suit was even filed. If you are upset that Florida doesn't let convicted felons vote, then why aren't you complaining about the 13 other states with similar laws? In fact, 46 states have laws that somehow restrict the voting rights of convicted felons. Florida is not alone in this.

I think its funny that you are still claiming that this some sort of conspiracy against the minority Florida voters when the very group that represented these minorities was very explicit that they were not alleging discrimination or fraud.

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Done.

Here's an interesting link--be sure to read the skeptic's perspective on the second page. In short, the UFO very likely was the planet Venus.

I have not been able to verify this (I don't have access to paper copies of the document) but it has been reported that even a group that would quite like to see a substantiated sighting of an alien craft (MUFON - the Mutual UFO Network) agrees that this sighting is bogus. (Citation is Abercrombie, Andy. No Title. The Lone Star (TX) MUFON Reporter. 15 May 1993)

The still pictures on this site are less than impressive. They could very easily be the result of the planet Venus, plus some artifacts due to camera motion, image enlargement, and smoothing. (Only this first image is unenlarged--and I'm not overly excited.) I can't seem to play their first video, but the second one is not from the eclipse; it is another event. To be fair, this second video is more interesting (it has a moving object), and represents either better evidence (on its face) or a hoax requiring more effort.

There is tons of video tape UFO evidence so I don't understand why you claim there is none.

There is tons of video tape evidence of an unidentified flying object, yes. Unless it is Venus. Millions of people were watching the eclipse that day--Mexico City is not exactly a small community. Where was the panic in the streets? The frantic news reports?

The clincher for me is that there were tens of thousands of astronomers present, both amateur and professional. The object is described in most reports as stationary and quite bright (visible even during daylight), and it was not far in the sky from a highly observed phenomenon (the Sun during an eclipse). Astronomers unable to indentify a very bright stationary object that suddenly appeared in the sky would not hestitate to report it. Why? Not because they're thinking aliens--but rather, because they're thinking supernovae. Discover a nearby one and you're famous for the rest of your life in astronomical circles. So where were the reports to the International Astronomical Union? Actually, since the object faded to invisibility much more rapidly than a supernova, it would be even more interesting--a hitherto undiscovered class of astronomical object, worthy of discussion and analysis. A quick review of the literature reveals nothing--not even a "Gee, that's weird" type note in an astronomical journal.

Unless all the atronomers are in on the conspiracy of silence. But there's nothing in it for them. A lot of them would be thrilled to have proof of other life in the Universe--it would help them get more funding.

Done.

Here's an interesting link--be sure to read the skeptic's perspective on the second page. In short, the UFO very likely was the planet Venus.

I have not been able to verify this (I don't have access to paper copies of the document) but it has been reported that even a group that would quite like to see a substantiated sighting of an alien craft (MUFON - the Mutual UFO Network) agrees that this sighting is bogus. (Citation is Abercrombie, Andy. No Title. The Lone Star (TX) MUFON Reporter. 15 May 1993)

The still pictures on this site are less than impressive. They could very easily be the result of the planet Venus, plus some artifacts due to camera motion, image enlargement, and smoothing. (Only this first image is unenlarged--and I'm not overly excited.) I can't seem to play their first video, but the second one is not from the eclipse; it is another event. To be fair, this second video is more interesting (it has a moving object), and represents either better evidence (on its face) or a hoax requiring more effort.

There is tons of video tape UFO evidence so I don't understand why you claim there is none.

There is tons of video tape evidence of an unidentified flying object, yes. Unless it is Venus. Millions of people were watching the eclipse that day--Mexico City is not exactly a small community. Where was the panic in the streets? The frantic news reports?

The clincher for me is that there were tens of thousands of astronomers present, both amateur and professional. The object is described in most reports as stationary and quite bright (visible even during daylight), and it was not far in the sky from a highly observed phenomenon (the Sun during an eclipse). Astronomers unable to indentify a very bright stationary object that suddenly appeared in the sky would not hestitate to report it. Why? Not because they're thinking aliens--but rather, because they're thinking supernovae. Discover a nearby one and you're famous for the rest of your life in astronomical circles. So where were the reports to the International Astronomical Union? Actually, since the object faded to invisibility much more rapidly than a supernova, it would be even more interesting--a hitherto undiscovered class of astronomical object, worthy of discussion and analysis. A quick review of the literature reveals nothing--not even a "Gee, that's weird" type note in an astronomical journal.

Unless all the atronomers are in on the conspiracy of silence. But there's nothing in it for them. A lot of them would be thrilled to have proof of other life in the Universe--it would help them get more funding.

About.com has a very nice guide to Super Bowl XXXV11
check it out here>

It has indeed been known to get very exciting in SF bay.

Actually, the basic principles of RADAR were discovered by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz in 1887.

I've also read that the Germans were working on RADAR applications at the same time the Brits and Americans were -- it just so happens that the Brits built the first application from the research. And, technically, the man who was mainly responsible for developing RADAR into a usable application was actually a Scot, not a Brit -- Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt. You can talk all you want about how Great Britain includes England, Scotland, and NORTHERN Ireland, but most Irish and Scots I know would say a Scot!=Brit.

Like most other inventions (airplanes or cars, anyone?) nothing is "invented" without the cooperation of scientists from ALL countries. There's no such thing as a single man inventing any of these things -- we may have been taught that in elementary school, but we all have to grow up and realize that things are quite a bit more complicated than that.

Actually, the basic principles of RADAR were discovered by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz in 1887.

I've also read that the Germans were working on RADAR applications at the same time the Brits and Americans were -- it just so happens that the Brits built the first application from the research. And, technically, the man who was mainly responsible for developing RADAR into a usable application was actually a Scot, not a Brit -- Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt. You can talk all you want about how Great Britain includes England, Scotland, and NORTHERN Ireland, but most Irish and Scots I know would say a Scot!=Brit.

Like most other inventions (airplanes or cars, anyone?) nothing is "invented" without the cooperation of scientists from ALL countries. There's no such thing as a single man inventing any of these things -- we may have been taught that in elementary school, but we all have to grow up and realize that things are quite a bit more complicated than that.

A google search threw up this link which discusses in detail the invention of RADAR (invented by a Scotsman, BTW). Anyways ...

You mean like peanut butter?

Did you learn to type to use the computer?

Supporting your point is the fact that the qwerty keyboard was deliberately designed to be hard to use.

The network also received recognition for providing the "Best DTV Sporting Event" for its HD broadcast of the 2001 Superbowl.

While 330.88 MPH, 4.477sec, 8,000+hp fire-breathing nitromethane-burning supercharged fire-breathing Top Fuel dragsters are indeed performance art, and I'd love to see how they manage the engines on those beasts...this article was about a bunch of Civic prettyboys and their 220-300hp engines...sort of like talking about ASCI White, and then pulling out an Ars Tech God Box - nice piece of machinery, but nothing at all like what was mentioned.
It doesn't even really talk about the engine management packages or technology that much (the shining example is a fscking Palm program that adjusts your nitro boost on the fly); mostly just about how these kids are making their cars run in the mid-10s, at a piddling 120mph, with the likes of Real sports cars - the closing line is "This is about getting into something I built and whipping a 350Z. That's the best feeling in the world." Admirable perhaps, but not really a hugely tech-involved story.
I've been looking at MoTec ECUs for my 240SX, now there's some high-tech car stuff - the features and what it can do would make a car-savvy geek twitch and drool..basically full control over every electronic feature in the engine, with optional realtime telemetry. Notice the record-setting Civic uses MoTec, but they don't even mention it in the article; I guess Viper's ultra-l33t nitro Palm app ("Instead of using your PC, now you can sit in your car and change your whole system. The Palm Pilot has all your engine configurations. You can set it to full race mode in seconds.") is more technologically interesting than Ferrari's F1 engine management systems (and the ECU for virtually every other racewinning car out there).

What everyone forgets about, if they knew of it in the first place, is the free rider effect.

The US bears most of the cost for most of the technological innovation for the entire world. Other countries producing things at a commodity price is easy -- once those things are already commodities.

The American 'we do all, we see all, we know all' philosophy seems geared towards guaranteeing this sort of atmosphere. America is the be-all and end-all of everything, therefore other countries don't matter, and since other countries don't matter, America must be the be-all and end-all. It makes no sense, and it only comes around, and can be explained, by the American tendancy to ignore other countries except when impossible to do so, and to forget afterwards about what can't be ignored.

As another poster replied to you, JSD Uniphase, Nortel, and Telsat are industry-leaders. Likewise our biotech industry, which isn't suffering from persecution by those Churchgoers who believe genetic knowledge is for God alone. Also, I will indicate to you RSA, the encryption method that has lasted 50 years, and may well last another 50, developed in no small part in Israel. Cisco Systems runs their R&D in Israel as well, and it sometimes seems Israeli companies make news every month, but I guess you don't hear about them from CNNfn unless they're on the American exchanges, do you?

Open your eyes and look to some international news channels, if you can even get any, and learn some real facts about the world.

Just to put some fact behind my folly, a few Canadian inventions for your consideration - not the least of which is the telephone, courtesy of Alexander Graham Bell, a Canadian, born in Scotland. Among others, the Snowmobile (Bombardier), the AC radio tube, acetylene, the analytical plotter, the G-suit, basketball, the automatic postal sorter, calcium carbide, the light bulb (believe it or not), the compound steam engine, the electric streetcar, IMAX, hydrofoil watercraft, Java, kerosene, the robertson screw (one of the single best inventions in the history of carpentry), radio-transmitted voice, the zipper.... this list is getting long, so you can read the original yourself, and think twice next time you think innovation is American only. For that matter, what about inventions from before the US existed? A curious thought.

--Dan

What everyone forgets about, if they knew of it in the first place, is the free rider effect.

The US bears most of the cost for most of the technological innovation for the entire world. Other countries producing things at a commodity price is easy -- once those things are already commodities.

The American 'we do all, we see all, we know all' philosophy seems geared towards guaranteeing this sort of atmosphere. America is the be-all and end-all of everything, therefore other countries don't matter, and since other countries don't matter, America must be the be-all and end-all. It makes no sense, and it only comes around, and can be explained, by the American tendancy to ignore other countries except when impossible to do so, and to forget afterwards about what can't be ignored.

As another poster replied to you, JSD Uniphase, Nortel, and Telsat are industry-leaders. Likewise our biotech industry, which isn't suffering from persecution by those Churchgoers who believe genetic knowledge is for God alone. Also, I will indicate to you RSA, the encryption method that has lasted 50 years, and may well last another 50, developed in no small part in Israel. Cisco Systems runs their R&D in Israel as well, and it sometimes seems Israeli companies make news every month, but I guess you don't hear about them from CNNfn unless they're on the American exchanges, do you?

Open your eyes and look to some international news channels, if you can even get any, and learn some real facts about the world.

Just to put some fact behind my folly, a few Canadian inventions for your consideration - not the least of which is the telephone, courtesy of Alexander Graham Bell, a Canadian, born in Scotland. Among others, the Snowmobile (Bombardier), the AC radio tube, acetylene, the analytical plotter, the G-suit, basketball, the automatic postal sorter, calcium carbide, the light bulb (believe it or not), the compound steam engine, the electric streetcar, IMAX, hydrofoil watercraft, Java, kerosene, the robertson screw (one of the single best inventions in the history of carpentry), radio-transmitted voice, the zipper.... this list is getting long, so you can read the original yourself, and think twice next time you think innovation is American only. For that matter, what about inventions from before the US existed? A curious thought.

--Dan

What everyone forgets about, if they knew of it in the first place, is the free rider effect.

The US bears most of the cost for most of the technological innovation for the entire world. Other countries producing things at a commodity price is easy -- once those things are already commodities.

The American 'we do all, we see all, we know all' philosophy seems geared towards guaranteeing this sort of atmosphere. America is the be-all and end-all of everything, therefore other countries don't matter, and since other countries don't matter, America must be the be-all and end-all. It makes no sense, and it only comes around, and can be explained, by the American tendancy to ignore other countries except when impossible to do so, and to forget afterwards about what can't be ignored.

As another poster replied to you, JSD Uniphase, Nortel, and Telsat are industry-leaders. Likewise our biotech industry, which isn't suffering from persecution by those Churchgoers who believe genetic knowledge is for God alone. Also, I will indicate to you RSA, the encryption method that has lasted 50 years, and may well last another 50, developed in no small part in Israel. Cisco Systems runs their R&D in Israel as well, and it sometimes seems Israeli companies make news every month, but I guess you don't hear about them from CNNfn unless they're on the American exchanges, do you?

Open your eyes and look to some international news channels, if you can even get any, and learn some real facts about the world.

Just to put some fact behind my folly, a few Canadian inventions for your consideration - not the least of which is the telephone, courtesy of Alexander Graham Bell, a Canadian, born in Scotland. Among others, the Snowmobile (Bombardier), the AC radio tube, acetylene, the analytical plotter, the G-suit, basketball, the automatic postal sorter, calcium carbide, the light bulb (believe it or not), the compound steam engine, the electric streetcar, IMAX, hydrofoil watercraft, Java, kerosene, the robertson screw (one of the single best inventions in the history of carpentry), radio-transmitted voice, the zipper.... this list is getting long, so you can read the original yourself, and think twice next time you think innovation is American only. For that matter, what about inventions from before the US existed? A curious thought.

--Dan

I wouldn't put much stock into rulings made by the most overturned court in the United States.

How to spot an Urban Legend

It is called triboluminescence. Mechanical stress causes some crystals to spark. Some hard candy can be seen to do this.

This reminds me of something else you can do for fun, with chemistry.

Develop your own photographs (fun, but not tedious enough). Better yet, create your own PCBs (fun, and very tedious). As with the mirrors, you end up with something worthwhile when you're done.

If you're just looking for some pointless fun, drop round pennies in Tinning solution. See how many people you can trick into thinking it's a nickel.

...maybe we could just lock in the coordinates on our freight transporter and teleport it directly into the sun. You're thinking 1000 years, not 100. Think of what we have accomplished in the past 100 years and stop being ridiculously optimistic.

Wrong. Resident aliens in the US are welcome to join the US military, despite not being citizens. Take a look at this page (scroll down to "Citizenship").

How could they have left off duct tape!? Just think about all of the household problems, server problems, and co-worker problems (ahem) it's helped solve! It apparently came out during World War II, according to this somewhat disturbing article at About.com.

And here I thought I was the only one who had the urge to be violently ill at that suggestion...

Mulled Wine - absolutely, made with Mead - even better :)

Ah, good point, BUT you are confusing science with people. :)

I'm fairly skeptical, but here I'm mostly thinking about science. One of the major points of controlled double-blind studies is to weed out the placebo effect of which anyone self-reporting "It works!" would be unaware. This isn't personal observation but self-evaluation, and by someone with a mood disturbance of ill-defined severity and type and duration, and who is prejudiced against taking "drugs" over "natural" remedies. (A double-blind trial has further purposes of course, such as screening for even unwitting biases of the investigator.)

So the poster's finding is anecdotal not scientific. And anecdotal evidence pretty much is hearsay -- unverifiable, uncontrolled, unreproducible. Ditto for the poster's purported diagnosis of minor depression (does that mean dysthymia? cyclothymia? minor depression? where's the DSM??). We also don't know if the Prozac trial was botched in some way, and would have to know dosages, duration, the patient's life situation during treatment, and other meds, the presence/absence of other medical problems, age, consumption of alcohol etc.

ESPECIALLY with psychiatric illnesses, self-medication and evaluation is risky. With minor depression the stakes are at least low; maybe you feel miserable, but you don't commit suicide. Of course, we're relying on his self-reported diagnosis of minor depression -- can we trust that? You see what I'm getting at, I could rattle off many questions.

Granted if you feel OK on SJW, then you probably do feel OK, for now. But don't expect to get that into Science. :)

I wrote what I did, I hope it is obvious, not to be tendentious but because I care very deeply about the welfare of the mentally ill. That means allowing each person to get what best suits them, not strong-arming them onto Prozac. The truth must be available over whatever claims anyone might make, and the requirements on the supplements industry are ridiculously light. On the same package they claim something treats malady-of-your-choice while disavowing that it treats malady-of-your-choice because the FDA will sue them (and has done so). Even if this doesn't kill anyone and folks enjoy taking the supplements it could well be consumer fraud. If every package of shark toenails had a disclaimer "This has never been shown to do anyone any good in any credible way" I think sales would fall.

These days what angers me is misinformation and prejudice directed to or against people who need real help. I look forward to the next generation of antidepressants; it appears that the SSRI's have just about been milked dry, and though they were a nice achivement they're also about 20 years old. Effexor and Wellbutrin and different drugs, and I think I mentioned Lexapro, the new flavor of Celexa created by teasing out one of the two isomers -- clever stuff. (I'm not promoting this stuff, I just find the science interesting and hope the clinical work pans out.)

It used to be produced by sucking it out of dead people but now is now synthetically produced due to CJD (human variant of 'Mad Cow' disease) risks-- it comes from the pituitary gland so is high-risk for transferring the disease (possibly!)

Scientists are now looking at producing HGH from animal semen because "semen is a body fluid that can be collected easily on a continuous basis" ... and in this press release from Nature, they "suggest that boars (male pigs), which can produce up to half a liter of semen at a time, could be similarly engineered to produce pharmaceutical proteins both cost-effectively and efficiently"

!!

I guess it goes
1. Get pig
2. Genetically engineer pig
3. Find someone to 'milk' half a liter ... "Look Daddy, I'm a farmer!!"
4. profit!

The credit (or lack thereof) given to the inventor or discoverer throughout history has always been to the one that speaks loudest to the commons. We all know the debate that Columbus did not "discover" America, as there were plenty of people there first.

A lesser known example but just as true is was the fight between Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray over who invented the telephone (Google other resources). In that battle, Bell filed a patent and Gray filed his caveat (intent to file a patent) the same day.

Sadly, we all too commonly think that a "single" person or firm must have invented something, while others often have inventions that predate them. It's no wonder the patent office is getting confused (although they really should try cutting down on the duplicates).

IMHO you should have used this link

For rides around the corporate campus: The Conference Bike.

I must have a funny shaped head. :-)
HEHEHE... [sorry,got a good chuckle out of that :)

As far as turning the head goes, you can flick a glance but in emergency avoidance mauevers you don't have time to turn your head, in my experience. Sometimes you have to change lanes NOW to avoid a left-turner, you know?

Very true, but that's part of riding [and driving] defensively at all times. Of course there will be emergency avoidance at times. But that's why the rider needs to pay attention to where the cars around him are at all times. Even if you don't wear a helmet, or the helmet doesn't affect your vision. You should already know where the surrounding traffic/obstacles are. At least then, when the ONE surprise car shows up, it would just be REALLY bad luck if a second surprise car is in your avoidance path. :) [at that point, it's your fate to crash and there's nothing you can do about it hehe]

And you still didn't cover the structural limitations of a 10mph helmet. :-)

Well, according to about.com for a DOT rating, they just drop the helmet 10 feet and check the G's felt inside.
However, the general rule of thumb is if the helmet only has a DOT rating, don't buy it. It should also have a Snell rating [which most racing clubs require]. The Snell rating [300G's] requirements are rather more strict and complicated than the DOT rating [400G's]. It even includes visual requirements.

Personally, I think the helmet companies have a vested interest in furthering the propaganda and backing mandatory helmet laws. That could just be conspiracy theory though! LOL (Maybe I need my head examined?)
Can't argue there..[ducking] I mean about the vested interest of helmet companies in backing helmet laws. :) Like I said, I don't care if they take away the helmet laws. I'm still gonna wear mine...

Ender

Recent studies have shown that one of the factors in ADHD children is the fact that they aren't getting enough sleep. With Ritalin being a stimulant, this "wakes" the child up enough so that their own self control can take over. While I don't think this is the problem in this case (with such a high IQ level), it is something to think about.

• Links:
• ADHD and Sleep Problems
• Sleep Well, Do Well
• Some Notes on Sleep Disturbances in Children & Adolescents

Tons more info here.

In an industry scrutinized by the government as a drug infested haven that pollutes our communities and destroys the ability to lead a productive life, there is another industry that has the potential to become even more dangerous than any drug addiction. I'm not supposed to be writing this. What was supposed to happen was I prove my thesis that I couldn't be sucked into a virtual reality like many people I have met before. I never really understood what I was getting myself into when I started my research experiment, playing a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

Three years ago at a nightclub I bumped into an old friend of mine who went by the nickname "Iggy". I was really amazed to see him because no one had seen nor heard from Iggy in over a year. Many of his friends had all wondered what happened to him.

"Jesus Iggy, where in the hell have you been?!"

"Everquest," was all he said. He looked down at his feet when he said it.

"Huh?" I had no clue what he meant.

"I've been playing Everquest."

As we spoke, Iggy opened up to me and confessed that he had lost his job, his friends and didn't want to go out much anymore.

"It's an addiction. I'm only out tonight because the server is down for patching and I'm miserable."

For some reason, he couldn't look me in the eye while he was talking. He was obviously embarrassed.

"Um. Okay." I mean, what was I going to say to something as incredulous as that? I've heard of game obsessions, like those college kids in the seventies that murdered their whole family while playing a Dungeons and Dragons game, but I just thought that sort of obsession lies only in the minds of sociopaths or people with a lot bigger problems than playing a game. Iggy was a really nice, normal guy who had lost a lot to some online role-playing game called "Everquest". I had no idea what to make of it.

I never saw Iggy again. Neither has anyone else who knew him that I have asked. Since that night I really pondered the absurdity of his situation. It nagged at me.

On the web you can put the words "gaming addiction" into Google and discover a thousand and one sites for support groups, self help courses, testimonials and various studies. There's the "Everquest Widows" forum, a site called "Ariadne - Understanding MMORPG Addiction", and a myriad of articles on topics like game addiction and the innocent bystanders that suffer from it.

As one Everquest Widow puts it, "I plan on starting "Widows Weekly." It will be a group that meets in a local coffee shop. Here, spouses can talk and help one another through this difficult process, and begin to realize that there is a life out there despite the loss of our loved ones. I plan to send the bill for coffee and snacks to Verant. It would be but a small compensation on their part to repay me and others for the loss of our loved ones--so pay up, Verant!" -- Christine Gilbert CD Mag.com

What I find interesting is that many of the people who author these articles or sites have usually neither played the games or have just been the "victims" such as spouses or family. Others who dissect the topic of game addiction tend to be outsiders looking in, shaking their heads or turning the study into one giant mouse in the maze science experiment. It's rare that you find someone, who actually plays games passionately, speak up or write anything about negative side affects.

The more people I met who played computer games, the more I wanted to understand the obsession. I also had another stake in this because my partner, Low, is a gamer and a "geek" in every sense of the word. Not to mention my fiancé. It was beginning to cause some strain on us from time to time in terms of "quality time". I was getting really angry with him on a regular basis actually. According to Low, it was I who had the problem, not him. This is how most gamers think. Deal with their gaming or don't deal with it at all. They will play either way.

So I eventually decided to do some investigation and find out what makes these gamers and role players tick. What sort of recreation has the ability to absorb people to the extent that marriages break up, jobs are lost, and they lose friends? How does playing a game on a computer make someone lose functionality in the REAL world, because they want to spend too much time in some imaginary reality? For crying out loud, I thought, it's just a game.

I had a lot of questions but no one I talked to had answers. Gamers would tell me, "You won't understand unless you are a gamer yourself." Ok, no problem. I figured I could just play a game I find entertaining and get bored and write about what nut cases gamers really are.

It just wasn't that easy. This little experiment of mine turned out to be more dangerous than I ever imagined.

I wasn't able to begin playing a game right away. The opportunity just never really presented itself directly to me. There just wasn't a game I really liked enough to "get into it" for long enough. Low would play his Quake, Unreal Tournament, Black & White, Carmageddon, Fallout, Diablo II and a multitude of other first person shooters, but nothing seemed all that captivating to me and there was no way I could play these games with him due to his extreme level of skill and years of practice in a 3D environment.

I played a little Diablo and actually had a bit of fun with that, but I found I only really enjoyed it when I played with Low or our friends in multi-player mode. We would go "adventuring" together as they call it, fighting demons and wizards and monsters and coming out winning or dying, but having some fun just playing together. It was my first taste of actually playing with another player in a game as a team. But when Low moved onto the next game, bored with Diablo, I didn't have the same drive to play anymore. So I put my project aside and put up with his gaming as best as I could.

Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPG) have been around for many years. You can find thousands of websites, magazines, web-zines and the like that are devoted to the enormous market out there for online gaming. Sites like GameSpy, that literally receive millions of visits per day from gamers and industry types from all over the world, provide an almost infinite amount if information about these types of games. Hundreds of thousands of people play games like Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, and Ultima Online each day from all over the world. With the upcoming launch of The Sims Online, analysts and game reviewers are expecting the largest online game community ever seen to develop.

"The Sims promises to be one of the most interesting human experiments in the history of the Net." -- David Kushner, Entertainment Weekly

Low had tried many of these MMORPG's. He never stuck with one very long because, as he puts it, "I got tired of being a crappy tree-elf that always fell out of the damn tree village." In Ultima Online, he "got tired of having all my stuff stolen from me and getting killed by stupid 'PKers' (Player Killers)." Apparently for him, the rewards were far and few between to keep him interested in these games. He also has a very short attention span with most games. Play it, beat it, and move on to the next game is his motto. The more games you play in a single year the more well rounded you are apparently. With the new enhanced graphics engines, hardware and development that goes into games these days, it's amazing how stimulating the market can be right now.

Early in 2001, however, Low's opinion of online gaming changed drastically. He read an article about a new online role-playing game that was set about 30,000 years into the future, on a colonized planet. The story line was science fiction themed, with monsters, mutants, futuristic weapons, wars, and sinister political plots. The player would have the ability to create a character avatar from a wide variety of attributes and be surrounded by very realistic 3D graphics, with incredible scenery and sound. You would have to defend yourself, form guilds, make friends and alliances and your goal would be to "learn" or level your character as the game progressed in order to increase your skills and possessions. There would be PVP (player versus player) combat, PVM combat (player verses mobile or "mob" for short, a term used to explain computer generated enemy or monster) and a variety of other things one could do while in the game online. You could fly a plane, morph into animals and go on dangerous missions and epic quests. The game was called Anarchy Online.

Something about this Anarchy Online game really had his attention and right after it came out in July of 2001, he bought his copy and began playing, and once again I lost him to a game. He could not stop going on and on about how "cool this or that was" or the graphics or all the people he was meeting. His excitement was just ridiculous in my eyes but I had been through this before. Nevertheless, the game also captured my interest because of its science fiction theme. I am a sci-fi buff and the storyline had such a great plot that they actually sell the novels online for it. I read the chapters as they were released and was hooked on the storyline.

Low bought another copy about two weeks later. "I want you to play with me." By this time we were under some strain because he was really absorbed by this game every night. It looked really intimidating to me and I opted not to play it right away, stalling for time. The 3D environment bothered me because any game I had ever played, like Diablo, for example, had always been in third person view, which is a bird's eye view of the environment. The 3D graphics were dizzying as I looked over his shoulder from time to time.

In the end I caved in under the pressure and began playing it in September of 2001. I was a horrible player in the beginning, running into walls and getting lost or killed all the time. It didn't matter to me. I was playing a game with my boyfriend and found with each day that went by, I wanted to log on and play more and more.

So what was the appeal? Before I realized what was happening, I became addicted to playing this game. While logged into this game I met wonderful people, via their avatars, laughed to funny antics via chat window discussions, and experienced a futuristic sci-fi world via incredibly realistic 3D graphics and sounds. We ran through swamps with mutant wolves chasing us, the sound of our feet making wet suction sounds just like you would have in reality. We could hear birds chirping in forests we scouted and vultures crying overhead as they spotted us and attacked.

Our adrenaline would pump as we fought for our lives against twenty-foot tall robots with buzz saws for hands, or as we went on safaris to hunt giant brontosaur-like animals. We had the ability to heal and save each other as well as other members of our team at the time. We also had the ability to gain the respect, over more than a year later, of many online players, for being a great couple of characters in this game. We have, in fact, become high-ranking officers in our guild, which is almost like a family or alliance with other people to help you in the game.

In South Korea, some in-game alliances are valued more than real life friendships. A game called Lineage: The Blood Pledge has captivated approximately a third of the population. In Lineage, characters can take on the role of Princes, Wizards, and Knights and vow their loyalty to their clan or guild. This loyalty had lead to an incident in 2001 where a player was nearly beaten to death in real life for virtually killing the character of another player.

"He boasted that he had offed the gangman's virtual character just for the fun of it. Bad idea. The roughnecks dragged the 21-year-old into the urinal and pummeled him until he was covered with real-world bruises." -- By Michelle Levander, Time Magazine

It is easy to lose yourself to your imagination while you become someone you could possibly never be in the real world. You can become a hero, a bad ass, a wealthy person, someone with special powers or gain an enormous amount of respect from people who look up to you. This isn't to say you can't be that kind of person in reality, but what if everyone had this ability to find respect, admiration and status, simply by being in the environment long enough. What if all you had to do was play each day and level higher and higher, each goal leading to a new goal of achievement and possibilities. And what if you never had to leave the comfort of your chair to do this?

What if you could really become a diva, a soldier, a magician, or a samurai, and people respected or admired you unconditionally as long as you had a long red bar looming over your virtual head. Or, as in especially my case, what if while you were in this virtual reality, you didn't have to worry about deadlines, due dates, over 1000 emails per day to read and answer, or day-to-day stress that comes with what I do. The virtual reality could absorb you so much, that for the time you are logged in, you forget everything else. It doesn't seem to matter whether you are a strict role-player (someone who stays in character) or 'hardcore' (someone who spends more time in-game than an average user). You still can be addicted and absorbed with the attention you get.

The official Anarchy Online Community Forum, which gets thousands of posts per day, has also been one of my sources for observing how obsessed people have become with the game. Recently, a devoted and well known player had to throw in the towel due to her addiction problem.

"The level to which I got into things here is what has lead me to this point where I must say goodbye. My internet addiction and denial of it has taken me to a point where I must get a hold of it. I realize that many people have what it takes to play a game like this "casually" in a healthy manner. I am unfortunately not one of those people. I am currently battling bi-polar disorder (manic depression) and the escapism that a game like AO offers is too much like a drug for me."

The ability to be respected, to be admired, and to succeed, even in an imaginary world, is a very powerful lure. It can cause a person to produce endorphins, a chemical released into the brain that causes a feeling of energy and well being. Gaming also causes adrenaline production and extreme excitability. Scientists have proven that endorphins and adrenal rushes are incredibly addictive.

"There are indications that pleasurable games and activities cause the body to produce endogenous opiates such as endorphins. These substances are actually addictive. Some addictive drugs, such as heroin, are chemically similar to these natural substances, while other addictive drugs are thought to stimulate their production."
-- Leonard Holmes, Ph.D. from the article, Is Pokémon Addictive? 1999

It should be easy to see why gaming can be addictive as a direct result of the physical effects on the body. I also believe that people can become addicted to respect, admiration and power as well. Even though the production of endorphins can be a positive side affect in one way, it can be easy to overindulge and put aside productive living. But there are many ways to do this and online gaming is not the only vice out there. People find many different ways to escape the problems in their life or to combat stress.

People log on each and every day to find a level of respect that doesn't come easily in day-to-day life. They log on to escape reality or to escape other real problems such as illness and stress. I have met people in this game who have mental disorders or physical impairments. I have also played with people who are in IT jobs all day long, listening to customer complaints, getting bitched at regularly. Some have even admitted that they never hear the words "good job" in the real world.

One player who works in the IT technical services industry, told me "I get my faith in people restored when I get online. People treat me with respect and are actually nice to me. They don't expect anything in return. Also, they believe me when I tell them something because of my level in the game."

I know of other overly stressed out people who log in each day to escape their day-to-day experience of working or living in hard reality. We met a person in game, for example, who is an EMT. Everyday he witnesses death and horrible accidents. He told us that he plays the game to get it all out of his mind. I also met a nurse online with a similar story, and a school teacher who teaches eleventh grade in the Bronx, NYC, who is very stressed out by his job.

"Most human beings pass through periods in their lives, when they feel compelled to engage in some apparently mindless activity that, for the time being, seems to provide some relief from the prevailing chaos in their lives. This could be something as simple as spending hours in front of the television set. Or going on uncontrollable buying sprees just to feel and smell the newness of the product. Or getting into a series of dead-end relationships. Or going on eating binges. Or playing computer games, uncaring of unattended work piling up. Or playing snooker every evening at the club regardless of the family's legitimate demand for more attention. In other words, binging on anything potentially destructive to the body or the soul. Fortunately for many of us, after a period of this compulsive indulgence, we pull ourselves back to the mainstream and get on with our lives, until the next compulsion hits us."
-- Dr. Vijay Nagaswami, from the article, Who? Me? An addict, The Hindu Folio 2001

This is not to say that there are not positive aspects to interacting with people online. Online gaming opens the doors to people who might not have the ability to do so due to time, geography, or many more reasons. Gaming online is an inexpensive and quick way to make new friends, chat with people all over the world and share an experience with people you would never meet because they may be continents away.

One of our online friends, for example, who goes by the character name "Docker", lives in Leiden, Netherlands. Another friend, "Chanell" lives in Einselthum, Germany. These are really interesting people we would never have met if it was not for the game we play online. I asked Chanell why he started playing online games.

"It all began with Diablo II being released. Then my friend, Yppo, made me try it online. I found it was an incredibly boring and annoying game. Then Yppo made me try it online and I loved it. I joined his clan and had months of online fun, then it got boring, close to the moment DAoC [Dark Ages of Camelot] was released in Europe. While I went to DAoC, Yppo chose to go to A.O." Eventually Chanell started playing A.O. as well.

When asked how playing A.O. affects his social life, he reflected, "As for my friends... yes we hang together a lot less. This could be related to A.O. or the fact that we don't work in the same city anymore. I am not totally sure. I still have a lot of phone calls and meetings so I am not "lonesome" it just isn't an as high frequency as before."

And with that I can only think that one's social life is in the eye of the beholder. I interact with Chanell almost every day. In fact I interact with more people than I ever have before because of playing a computer game. They just are not all physically in my proximity.

Interaction with people... It got me thinking and I began to develop my own theories on what causes the addiction. Psychologists can use fancy terminology like "Motivation Factors" and "Attraction Factors" such as self-esteem and self-image problems. They can harp on the role of achievement problems and relationship deficiencies in a person's personality. But I think I can sum it up to one word that would work for any individual needing his or her game "fix" each time they log in, regardless of how well rounded they are in their lives or how much of a basket case they could be perceived as.

RESPECT.

I think it is just that simple. I like the feeling I get when people look up to me in the game or ask my opinion. It seems to be a common drive for players in general. That is, to be respected for being the best and reaching the next level in the game.

Not everyone who plays games neatly fit into these Psychologists stereotypes. "Solories", another Anarchy Online player, is an example of someone who just logs on for the sake of play.

"I would say that I am responsibly addicted, meaning I have never been late to work due to AO.
My wife would prefer that I not play AO as much as I do, but I always make time for her every night, and try and do one thing planned together every weekend. I have never been late to work, but the first night I played AO I stayed up until 4:00 am and had to get up at 6:00 am and the next day I played until midnight. I don't feel that AO affects my work habits, work is work and when it is time to play, it is time to play. I enjoy watching my character grow in his skills and MMORPG's in general let you get away from the normal day to day monotone life and do something out of the ordinary. In AO I am Solories Enforcer of Rubi-Ka a defender of the cause. I fight battles that help my guild get better and help the clans win a war against the Omni."

In the process of my gaming experiment, I became a casualty of the concept of being respected. If someone had asked me in September of 2001 if I expected to be obsessed with an online role-playing game a year down the road, I would have said with confidence that I am one of the most level headed non-addictive persons I know. No way could this happen to me. In fact, I would have been reminded of poor old Iggy and his demise.

I technically have ended my experiment. In the process, I haven't lost my job, and due to our simultaneous obsession, I have not lost my fiancé either. I haven't lost my real life friends, but they do sometimes look at me funny when I talk about the game I play. Low and I get our work done, run our business and have a great balanced life together I think. Anyone who actually knows me in real life can tell you that I have no self image or esteem problems and in fact, I have been accused of having quite an ego. I won't even go into Low's ego. I will admit though, that I have missed quite a few parties, nights out with the girls, shopping, and some chores needed around the office and home because of Anarchy Online. I will also admit that I want to log in as much as I possibly can every single day.

People have worse entertainment addictions than playing computer games. If I am going to be addicted to something, I would choose online gaming over drugs, bowling, gambling, television, or being a baseball fanatic easily. I don't have to wear ugly shoes, lose my hard earned money or do the wave next to someone I don't know and that just about makes it a no-brainer for me. It IS after all just a video game, like Neal describes in his great novel, Snow Crash. It is just another amusement park.

"Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic, offering a wide selection of interactive three-dimensional movies. But in the end, they're still nothing more than video games."
--Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

And I will leave you with that. Signing on now... Tenjikiito, level 157 Female Solitus Adventurer, Advisor to the Clan Guild Synergy Factor, the best damn guild on the world of Rubi-Ka, with the best damn virtual people one could ever virtually meet.

Special thanks to the following people for help with my research and leveling:
Sohjiro (Low Tek), Theevilcouch, Demnspawnt, Akarah, Chanell, Sheffy, Mr. Cheeze/Conqueso, Solories, Kirishami, Docker, Ramzie, Boco (who is to blame for all of this), Sultanx, Asmoran, Caddock, Meurgen, Tergwannabe, Trus, Ayanamie, Cplkane, Spherana, Ankokujin, Thedwarf (aka Notmyfault), Stromm, Molg, Butwalrus, Ciyt/Toonot, and Yokoduna.

Related links:

Anarchy Online
Dark Age of Camelot
Ultima Online
Diablo II
The Sims
Everquest
Try Anarchy Online free for 7 days! (We dare you to). =]

I read last year that Rudolf Diesel actually developed the engine so that it would be useful in undeveloped regions where they would have to use alternative fuels such as biodiesel.

According to this website:

Dr. Rudolf Diesel first developed the diesel engine in 1895 with the full intention of running it on a variety of fuels, including vegetable oil. Diesel demonstrated his engine at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 using peanut oil as fuel. In 1911 he stated "The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils and would help considerably in the development of agriculture of the countries which use it." In 1912, Diesel said "the use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time." Since Diesel's time, the design of the diesel engine has been modified so it can run on the cheapest fuel available: petroleum "diesel" fuel.

Florentine Steak is nothing more than a rare-done (don't even *think* about ordering it otherwise) T-Bone. It's not thin, though.

Check it out here and here

Oh, and after the foot-and-mouth epidemic (that hit just a couple herds, neither near Florence, the Florentine was banned (as it is served with the bone). It has been readmitted recently, so don't be surprised to find it served without the bone part.

Trademarks like ASPIRIN and ESCALATOR are no longer trademarks because people begun calling those types of products by their trademark

Aspirin was first sold as a powder. In 1915, the first Aspirin tablets were made. Interestingly, Aspirin ® and Heroin ® were once trademarks belonging to Bayer. After Germany lost World War I, Bayer was forced to give up both trademarks as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

According to a ring of kidney thieves I know, Mel has already been through this.

It does not appear to meet the elements specified for the crime of larceny...

Article 121

It would, however, be covered by Article 134, the general article; I used to joke that it read "Anything not expressly prohibited elsewhere is hereby prohibited."

Article 134

It does not appear to meet the elements specified for the crime of larceny...

Article 121

It would, however, be covered by Article 134, the general article; I used to joke that it read "Anything not expressly prohibited elsewhere is hereby prohibited."

Article 134

Are you that helpless that you couldn't answer yourself? What you're looking for is here.

If it's not published, then it's not copyrighted.

That's consistent with the intent of copyright law, so I understand why you'd think so. But you're wrong! Read entry #2, it directly contradicts you. Stop living in the 70s- today everything is copyrighted as soon as pen hits paper. (entry 4 on the same page)

Publication has nothing to do with it. There was a successful copyright-infringment lawsuit brought against burglars who invaded someone's property and privacy to steal notes. (I don't have a link, but its true. It seems strange that someone would press minor charges in place of blatant criminal conviction, but we can imagine some reasons)

You can't judge a book by its cover, and you can't interpret a law by its name. Don't point to the word "Copyright" in the name of the DMCA and assume it only tries to enforce the original meaning of copyright. After all, if the government had only wanted to enforce an existing law, instead of increasing it's scope, then why did it need to pass a new law?

Reading the DMCA, we see that it forbids "circumvention of mechanisms used to protect copyrighted content". It doesn't matter whether the mechanism is currently being used for something copyrighted or not- you still can't break their protection. Creation, possession or distribution of circumvention devices is illegal too. This means that by wrapping a work in a protection mechanism, even a trivially weak one, publishers can effectively write their own copyright laws- ones without revenue-damaging drawbacks like fair use, extraction of facts, and eventual expiration.

Hopefully, because it goes so much further than it reasonably should, the DMCA will be overturned. Then your common-sense ideas may start to have some validity again.

I became equally disillusioned and have been trolling since...

I wrote an article about my dirersion at About.com

How do you find yourself responding to rumors that your wife, Nerine, did not drown accidentally?

Windows wrote theirs from scratch...

Wrong! Windows 9x came from DOS, which Microsoft bought from Tim Paterson. Windows XP came from Windows 2000 which came from Windows NT which came from a joint project between IBM and Microsoft.

Isn't it funny how almost everything in life can somehow be related to the Simpsons?

Simpsons did it! Dude, they've been on the air for like 13 years. Of course they've done everything already.

That we should skip this first-name, last-name monkey business and cut straight to the social security numbers.
Oh wait, we have.

1. promoting certain companies outright, not through banner ads but with articles, detailed press releases, and product showcasing
2. online catalogs, which sell items of great interest (not bumper stickers or t-shirts) to the customer
3. actually charging the user for access