Slashdot Mirror

What I believe is beside the point...a simple google search for "coriolis effect" reveals:

Quote from usatoday.com:

Any teacher who stands up in front of a class and says that Coriolis force determines which way the water flows from a sink or bathtub, should not only read Fraser's Bad Coriolis Web page, but be required to copy it on the blackboard 100 times.

Or, take this much more detailed debunking, containing the following quote:

This is so large that Coriolis forces will be insignificant compared to other fluid phenomena.

Don't take my word for it, look it up yourself...I'm just the messenger ;-)

...sending wireless signals over ordinary audio speakers so that humans can't hear them....

Is it just me, or does embedding data in white noise "sound" like it's already happend? Every time I pick up the phone when someone else is using the line for a dial-up connection, I am abruptly reminded of the transmission of data using seemingly random noise....

$ # Patent pending...
$ bzip2 -c </lib/libc.so.6 >/dev/audio

And how is this diffrent from steganography + a pair of 2,400 buad modems?

Besides, elephants have been doing this for millenia (with their feet instead of over their THX system).

Yeah. Shame that George de Mestral patented it in 1955.

Here is the fake picture you're talking about. I am not a supporter of Bush, but please take a closer look at the picture. First, look at the picture of the back cover of the book Bush is holding (it's situated just under the index finger of his left hand). Now flip that back cover right side up and compare it to the back cover the little girl is holding. Do you see it? Even when it's right side up, the back cover that Bush is holding is still a *mirror* image of the back cover that the little girl is holding.

That picture is fake.

In 1902 there was no British Empire in Australia, well not really. Australia became a federation in 1901.
Of course there was - Australia was a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire, as it was still termed. There's a useful timeline here.
Soutport is not too far from here, whatever the cable had to contribute it is barely noticable now as I live in Brisbane and have never heard of this.
Well there's a shock! A telegraph cabled laid down in 1902 is no longer being used a century later? Who could have guessed that? Silly person.

I think video games introduce kids to violence.

You haven't been around little kids much, have you? They figure violence out on their own around 18 months, and you have to teach them not to.

More info

We already know what happens when you can buy MP3s online at a comparable price, people still trade music and don't buy them. A quick Google search came up with this page with links to a few place you can buy legal MP3s. MP3s are available to be legally purchased, but people still are not doing it. That is because for most people, P2P is about getting stuff for free.

...And I tried to submit a story about it at the time. I guess jonerik has more luck than me.

My origonal submission, I think it is still relevant:

The UK Patent Office celibates it's 150 year anniversary this week.

A BBC Radio news show has decided to commemorate this by holding a poll of the public's favourite, and least favourite inventions of the last 150 years. The poll closes on Monday 21 October, so vote now.

In the radio item on the subject, the inventor James Dyson (of vacuum cleaner fame) was interviewed (text, audio), and gave his favourite and least favourite inventions. There was also an interview of the patent office's director of copyright

It is interesting to note that James Dyson chose to highlight as his favourite invention the example of Rubber vulcanisation where (in his opinion) the patent system failed because the inventor Charles Goodyear was refused a patent and died in poverty despite the value of his invention.

...And I tried to submit a story about it at the time. I guess jonerik has more luck than me.

My origonal submission, I think it is still relevant:

The UK Patent Office celibates it's 150 year anniversary this week.

A BBC Radio news show has decided to commemorate this by holding a poll of the public's favourite, and least favourite inventions of the last 150 years. The poll closes on Monday 21 October, so vote now.

In the radio item on the subject, the inventor James Dyson (of vacuum cleaner fame) was interviewed (text, audio), and gave his favourite and least favourite inventions. There was also an interview of the patent office's director of copyright

It is interesting to note that James Dyson chose to highlight as his favourite invention the example of Rubber vulcanisation where (in his opinion) the patent system failed because the inventor Charles Goodyear was refused a patent and died in poverty despite the value of his invention.

"Saved by the bell" comes from boxing.

As an alternative to using your mobile phone, the airline mobile provider will allow you to send a text message for a nominal cost.

Same site, states that the first practical pen was invented in 1884, and the first us patent on a pen was 1809. If you want to go back 200 years, it's tail feathers ripped off of unsuspecting birds forever, baby!

The first true breakthrough in pen technology in 200 years

Er, the ball-point pen invented in 1938 wasn't a "true" breakthrough?

Yeah, I've always thought that ball-point pens were overrated. Fountain pens forever, baby!

Did someone mention "subglacial Antarctica"? Care to give me modern maps of that?

...

Most of these conclusions drawn from old maps are just misunderstandings. People see things that, due to coincidence, look vaguely like modern things and think it's a "historical anomaly". Always ask yourself: which is more likely - an undocumented, wholly unnoticed cataclysmic change in Earth within the period of written history, or a misunderstanding of facts?

Philippe Buache's map from 1739, that you mention, didn't really show "Antarctica without ice". I don't know why people came to that conclusion - there is an "inner sea" in the map, but it's clearly labelled a "conjecture", and the notes on the edges of the map talk of icebergs and glaciers and stuff, which doesn't sound too convincing to me! And on top of that, I'd clearly doubt the skill of any mapmaker who mark New Zealand and Tasmania as part of Antarctica =)

I wrote a summary of the map discussion to E2 the day I heard of this (An "anomalous" map would be spooky enough to keep me up 'til early in the morning, huh?) - and you can check out a good site that has a lot of scans and zooms and translations. Here's even more stuff. And more.

How is white the advantage? I always did a coin toss to see who went first :(

One of the surprises you will find is that, if you start saving $100/month at 20, you will live better than someone who starts saving $1,000/month at 30. Time is the most important ingredient in saving, and if you are only 24, you still have a good amount of time on your side.

If you save $100/month, assuming 6.9% interest after 40 years you'll have $255,225.08. If you save $1000/month, after 30 years you'll have $1,196,170.35. (Interest calculator).

Sorry for the very long delay in replying... I've been traveling and very busy. Rather than dashing off a reply in five minutes I thought it better to wait until I could answer thoroughly.

OK, we have now wandered far, far afield, but...

That's a slashdot tradition ;-)

Awesome post, by the way. You made me think, which is always a good thing.

Having lived abroad for almost ten years now, and marrying a woman whose native language is not English, I've lost that subtle racism that most liberals, and I am one, have -- the idea that people born in the third world somehow have an excuse not to behave in a civilized fashion.

Just so we're clear on where we both stand, I'm a conservative, with strong libertarian leanings, driven primarily by the years I spent living outside of the U.S. (in Mexico).

Possums formed a staple of their diet. Somehow, I don't recall them chanting in the streets for anyone's blood.

Agreed, poverty is no justification for violence. That's an old liberal argument that holds no water whatsoever with me.

After 1776, France didn't stick around and send aid and workers to help us "nation build." With their purposes accomplished, they got out.

France really had nothing to offer us, and nothing to gain by helping us further. I think we have plenty to offer Afghanistan (more on that below) and I think we stand to benefit by helping.

Afghanistan could have done the same thing. We built the mujahadeen purely so the Soviets would have a thorn in their side, and then we left. Fine. There's not a reason in the world that the Afghani people couldn't have had a meeting and worked it out ... [instead ] they submitted to the rule of the Taliban, despite the fact that they had just ejected a far greater power, the Soviets.

Right. I'll go ahead and snip the rest of your examples about the Islamic countries' inability to establish stable and properous lives for themselves.

I think there is a fundamental reason for their repeated and widespread failures, and that it *is* religious in origin: Islamic doctrine does not approve of separation of church and state. Personally, I think one of the most profound things Christ ever said was "Render unto Caesar that which is of Caesar and unto God that which is of God." That, plus his repeated affirmations that his "Kingdom is not of this world" provide the Christian scriptural basis of secular government.

Clearly, religious government is fine if the leaders are righteous, benevolent and tolerant, but it becomes very bad when they're not, because a religious government cannot be questioned or criticized -- one does not question God. This, incidentally, is exactly where Europe was five hundred years ago -- God "chose" the King and the King was not to be questioned.

By the way, as I understand it, this issue touches directly on the difference between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. Sunnis are generally considered by the west to be more peaceful and progressive, and Shi'ites are more hardline. The real, doctrinal, difference between the sects is their interpretation of the reliability of their leaders -- Shi'ites believe that their Imams are perfect and infallible, whereas Sunnis believe that they are men who may make small errors. Neither believe that their leaders can make large errors, however.

the 3,000 dead in New York deserved to die... Complete and utter bull.

Clearly. There is no justification for intentionally killing innocents.

But the Arabic world in general is hardly a charity case. They've been flooded with oil money for almost five decades now.

Parts of it, anyway. Afghanistan doesn't have any oil. But Turkey doesn't have much either, and they're building a reasonably decent country (and are rabid church/state separatists -- Turkish military officers are *required* to drink alcohol, for example).

I'm sorry. Muslim behavior has pushed me over the edge on this one. The dancing in the streets after 9/11. The joy that I saw among the Muslims here at the sight of people jumping from windows. The utter and complete lack of jeko> condemnation from the Muslim community until only recently.

Here I believe you're just factually wrong. The Muslim community *has* condemned the attacks; they did so immediately and strongly, and not just American Muslims. Even the radical, anti-American organizations did it (you can argue that they did so out of self-preservation, not sincerity, but the fact that they did publically condemn the attacks remains).

A quick google search found this, this, and particularly this, among many others.

One interesting quote:

The US Consul General in Jerusalem reported that he has received a huge stack of faxes from Palestinians and Palestinian organizations expressing condolences, grief and solidarity. He himself was pained to see that the media chose to focus on the sensational images of a few Palestinians rejoicing.

The fact that the Daniel Pearl murder video is reported to be a best-seller in the Arabic world.

I'd be rather cautious about "facts" like this. What constitutes a best seller? Who counts the sales? Who reported it? What other factors might there be? The "Faces of Death" series of videos are rather popular in the U.S. as well.

The Palestinian infant dressed up as a suicide bomber. (I don't care if the black-oil aliens from the X-Files have taken over. There is no excuse for the babarism of teaching children to blow themselves up.)

Absolutely. Those parents are sick and twisted. However, the American parents who forced their children to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid were also sick and twisted. Bad people exist everywhere, but that doesn't mean that the majority of any people are bad.

Imagine the response from the pulpits across Christendom if Jerry Falwell had blown up the great Buddhist Temple in Nara ... I have yet to hear the same response from Islam.

That's the fault of the western news media (and apparently the Japanese media as well), not the fault of Islam. There have been people in the U.S. complaining that the Islamic leaders of the world haven't apologized for 9/11, and I think that is very misguided. Why should they apologize for what they didn't do?

Stories I've read in various places have mentioned that many people in the middle east find the 9/11 attacks so horrifying that they simply cannot believe it was carried out by Muslims. Conspiracy theories blaming it on the Jews or saying that Bush knew about it and yet stood idle so that he could build anti-Islamic sentiment abound. The theories are ridiculous, but it's worthwhile to note that they exist primarily because the Muslims don't want to believe their brethren are capable of such a heinous act.

I'm not saying that any inaction on their part is justified by these misguided theories, I'm just pointing out that far from rejoicing in it, most Muslims want to divorce themselves from the act and blame someone they already hate for other reasons, because accepting it themselves is too painful.

Similarly, many German citizens during WWII refused to believe that all of the Jews being shipped off were being systematically slaughtered, in spite of logic and evidence.

Bin Laden appears to be a popular hero in the Middle East, a modern-day psychotic bloody version of Robin Hood. I've heard a few qualified, mealy-mouthed responses from the Muslim community here in America about how "violence is not the best solution." What I have not heard is the shocked thundering raging denouncement and the commensurate police activity coming from Islam if the situation were truly what you say it is.

I feel like a conservative nutcase for blaming this on the media, but I really think they're at fault. They, in fact, did not publicize the Islamic condemnations, or the candlelight vigils, or the letters and faxes of support and sympathy, preferring to show the dancing in the streets.

That's not to say that there aren't people who rejoice to see the U.S. taken down a notch. There are, and while it's understandable that they enjoy seeing the U.S. take a punch, their ability to overlook the thousands of *innocent* lives lost is very, very sad, and betrays the low value they place on human life.

I'm sorry, but the Muslim community has burned through their "benefit of the doubt." Until they start acting like civilized human beings, I'm not going to pretend that they are.

I agree. Although it's funny that much of what we consider civilization to be was created by Arabs, I think you're right many Islamic countries are not what we now consider civilized people. And that's a big problem.

As I said above, I think the core problem is that religious government locks a people into a feudalistic, tribalistic system that causes individual oppression and halts progress. It's not the people, because people are pretty much the same everywhere, it's their system. That's okay, they have the right to govern themselves as they choose, even if it's stupid.

What they don't have the right to do is to come here and kill us. To my way of thinking, if the government of a country supports terrorism, then that government loses its right to govern. If the people of that country are unable or unwilling to remove that immoral government from power, then we have every right to do so, and we have every right to make sure that a similarly immoral government doesn't rise up in its place to continue the destruction.

It does not give us the right to turn the region into a nuclear wasteland, nor does it give us the right to arbitrarily attack other Islamic countries who may not have had a hand in supporting the terrorists, nor does it give us the right to revile or abuse people who follow their own peace-loving faith.

If you want my solution to the 9/11 problem, here it is: We should establish a policy (it would probably go down in history as the "Bush Doctrine", if it were to happen) that states that any government that supports terrorism, or even any government that doesn't take reasonable actions to stop terrorism, loses its right to rule its people. If necessary, the U.S. will militarily remove the offending government, under UN auspices if possible. If the nation doesn't seem to be capable (in the estimation of the damaged party) of establishing a more civilized government, then the region should become a protectorate until a stable, secular and democratic government ruled by law can be established and thoroughly entrenched.

In this particular case, I think Afghanistan should become a U.S. protectorate, that we should impose a constitutional, democratic government modeled on our own, and that we should stay involved and enforce the rule of law for at least a decade. We should allow the people to retain their own culture, except where it conflicts with our view of civilized government. We could just leave, as you say, but that will not prevent a repeat which may endanger us yet again in the future. This process will be expensive and will require us to help rebuild the physical infrastructure but, IMO, we can afford it because it's the most effective way to prevent another 9/11.

In the case of Iraq, we need to make clear to Saddam Hussein that he has already proved to the world that his regime is uncivilized, by his attacks on his own people, the terror attacks on Israelis and the invasion of Kuwait. In spite of that fact, we are kindly offering him a chance to prove that he is not preparing to employ weapons of mass destruction. To that end, we will send in teams of skeptical inspectors to whom he must prove that he has no weapons of mass destruction. His failure to do so would invoke the consequences of the "Uncivilized Nation" policy, namely invasion and replacement of the government with one which *we* consider to be civilized, with establishment of a long-term protectorate if necessary.

In short, if a government shows itself to be evil, then we will replace it with one of our choosing. If people want self-rule, then they should make sure their government behaves. I think this policy would not only be moral and logical, it would also be a really serious threat. The biggest, deepest reason why the Islamic countries' leadership fears the U.S. isn't the overt actions that we might take, it's the creeping influence of our immoral ideas and ways of life. The threat here is that if they choose to support terrorism, our subtle, creeping influence will suddenly turn into complete, overt control of every aspect of their government and society.

The biggest problem I see with this sort of policy is that it will require the U.S. to come clean about its own terrorist past and commit to never again participate in terrorism, or be subject to accusations of hypocrisy, which would undermine the moral high ground the policy attempts to take. Americans understand that it was previous administrations that supported terrorism, and that it was in the context of the very unique situation of the cold war, but the rest of the world may not, so we should just apologize, point out that we have replaced that previous government and promise never to permit it again.

I look forward to your comments.

Sorry for the very long delay in replying... I've been traveling and very busy. Rather than dashing off a reply in five minutes I thought it better to wait until I could answer thoroughly.

OK, we have now wandered far, far afield, but...

That's a slashdot tradition ;-)

Awesome post, by the way. You made me think, which is always a good thing.

Having lived abroad for almost ten years now, and marrying a woman whose native language is not English, I've lost that subtle racism that most liberals, and I am one, have -- the idea that people born in the third world somehow have an excuse not to behave in a civilized fashion.

Just so we're clear on where we both stand, I'm a conservative, with strong libertarian leanings, driven primarily by the years I spent living outside of the U.S. (in Mexico).

Possums formed a staple of their diet. Somehow, I don't recall them chanting in the streets for anyone's blood.

Agreed, poverty is no justification for violence. That's an old liberal argument that holds no water whatsoever with me.

After 1776, France didn't stick around and send aid and workers to help us "nation build." With their purposes accomplished, they got out.

France really had nothing to offer us, and nothing to gain by helping us further. I think we have plenty to offer Afghanistan (more on that below) and I think we stand to benefit by helping.

Afghanistan could have done the same thing. We built the mujahadeen purely so the Soviets would have a thorn in their side, and then we left. Fine. There's not a reason in the world that the Afghani people couldn't have had a meeting and worked it out ... [instead ] they submitted to the rule of the Taliban, despite the fact that they had just ejected a far greater power, the Soviets.

Right. I'll go ahead and snip the rest of your examples about the Islamic countries' inability to establish stable and properous lives for themselves.

I think there is a fundamental reason for their repeated and widespread failures, and that it *is* religious in origin: Islamic doctrine does not approve of separation of church and state. Personally, I think one of the most profound things Christ ever said was "Render unto Caesar that which is of Caesar and unto God that which is of God." That, plus his repeated affirmations that his "Kingdom is not of this world" provide the Christian scriptural basis of secular government.

Clearly, religious government is fine if the leaders are righteous, benevolent and tolerant, but it becomes very bad when they're not, because a religious government cannot be questioned or criticized -- one does not question God. This, incidentally, is exactly where Europe was five hundred years ago -- God "chose" the King and the King was not to be questioned.

By the way, as I understand it, this issue touches directly on the difference between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. Sunnis are generally considered by the west to be more peaceful and progressive, and Shi'ites are more hardline. The real, doctrinal, difference between the sects is their interpretation of the reliability of their leaders -- Shi'ites believe that their Imams are perfect and infallible, whereas Sunnis believe that they are men who may make small errors. Neither believe that their leaders can make large errors, however.

the 3,000 dead in New York deserved to die... Complete and utter bull.

Clearly. There is no justification for intentionally killing innocents.

But the Arabic world in general is hardly a charity case. They've been flooded with oil money for almost five decades now.

Parts of it, anyway. Afghanistan doesn't have any oil. But Turkey doesn't have much either, and they're building a reasonably decent country (and are rabid church/state separatists -- Turkish military officers are *required* to drink alcohol, for example).

I'm sorry. Muslim behavior has pushed me over the edge on this one. The dancing in the streets after 9/11. The joy that I saw among the Muslims here at the sight of people jumping from windows. The utter and complete lack of jeko> condemnation from the Muslim community until only recently.

Here I believe you're just factually wrong. The Muslim community *has* condemned the attacks; they did so immediately and strongly, and not just American Muslims. Even the radical, anti-American organizations did it (you can argue that they did so out of self-preservation, not sincerity, but the fact that they did publically condemn the attacks remains).

A quick google search found this, this, and particularly this, among many others.

One interesting quote:

The US Consul General in Jerusalem reported that he has received a huge stack of faxes from Palestinians and Palestinian organizations expressing condolences, grief and solidarity. He himself was pained to see that the media chose to focus on the sensational images of a few Palestinians rejoicing.

The fact that the Daniel Pearl murder video is reported to be a best-seller in the Arabic world.

I'd be rather cautious about "facts" like this. What constitutes a best seller? Who counts the sales? Who reported it? What other factors might there be? The "Faces of Death" series of videos are rather popular in the U.S. as well.

The Palestinian infant dressed up as a suicide bomber. (I don't care if the black-oil aliens from the X-Files have taken over. There is no excuse for the babarism of teaching children to blow themselves up.)

Absolutely. Those parents are sick and twisted. However, the American parents who forced their children to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid were also sick and twisted. Bad people exist everywhere, but that doesn't mean that the majority of any people are bad.

Imagine the response from the pulpits across Christendom if Jerry Falwell had blown up the great Buddhist Temple in Nara ... I have yet to hear the same response from Islam.

That's the fault of the western news media (and apparently the Japanese media as well), not the fault of Islam. There have been people in the U.S. complaining that the Islamic leaders of the world haven't apologized for 9/11, and I think that is very misguided. Why should they apologize for what they didn't do?

Stories I've read in various places have mentioned that many people in the middle east find the 9/11 attacks so horrifying that they simply cannot believe it was carried out by Muslims. Conspiracy theories blaming it on the Jews or saying that Bush knew about it and yet stood idle so that he could build anti-Islamic sentiment abound. The theories are ridiculous, but it's worthwhile to note that they exist primarily because the Muslims don't want to believe their brethren are capable of such a heinous act.

I'm not saying that any inaction on their part is justified by these misguided theories, I'm just pointing out that far from rejoicing in it, most Muslims want to divorce themselves from the act and blame someone they already hate for other reasons, because accepting it themselves is too painful.

Similarly, many German citizens during WWII refused to believe that all of the Jews being shipped off were being systematically slaughtered, in spite of logic and evidence.

Bin Laden appears to be a popular hero in the Middle East, a modern-day psychotic bloody version of Robin Hood. I've heard a few qualified, mealy-mouthed responses from the Muslim community here in America about how "violence is not the best solution." What I have not heard is the shocked thundering raging denouncement and the commensurate police activity coming from Islam if the situation were truly what you say it is.

I feel like a conservative nutcase for blaming this on the media, but I really think they're at fault. They, in fact, did not publicize the Islamic condemnations, or the candlelight vigils, or the letters and faxes of support and sympathy, preferring to show the dancing in the streets.

That's not to say that there aren't people who rejoice to see the U.S. taken down a notch. There are, and while it's understandable that they enjoy seeing the U.S. take a punch, their ability to overlook the thousands of *innocent* lives lost is very, very sad, and betrays the low value they place on human life.

I'm sorry, but the Muslim community has burned through their "benefit of the doubt." Until they start acting like civilized human beings, I'm not going to pretend that they are.

I agree. Although it's funny that much of what we consider civilization to be was created by Arabs, I think you're right many Islamic countries are not what we now consider civilized people. And that's a big problem.

As I said above, I think the core problem is that religious government locks a people into a feudalistic, tribalistic system that causes individual oppression and halts progress. It's not the people, because people are pretty much the same everywhere, it's their system. That's okay, they have the right to govern themselves as they choose, even if it's stupid.

What they don't have the right to do is to come here and kill us. To my way of thinking, if the government of a country supports terrorism, then that government loses its right to govern. If the people of that country are unable or unwilling to remove that immoral government from power, then we have every right to do so, and we have every right to make sure that a similarly immoral government doesn't rise up in its place to continue the destruction.

It does not give us the right to turn the region into a nuclear wasteland, nor does it give us the right to arbitrarily attack other Islamic countries who may not have had a hand in supporting the terrorists, nor does it give us the right to revile or abuse people who follow their own peace-loving faith.

If you want my solution to the 9/11 problem, here it is: We should establish a policy (it would probably go down in history as the "Bush Doctrine", if it were to happen) that states that any government that supports terrorism, or even any government that doesn't take reasonable actions to stop terrorism, loses its right to rule its people. If necessary, the U.S. will militarily remove the offending government, under UN auspices if possible. If the nation doesn't seem to be capable (in the estimation of the damaged party) of establishing a more civilized government, then the region should become a protectorate until a stable, secular and democratic government ruled by law can be established and thoroughly entrenched.

In this particular case, I think Afghanistan should become a U.S. protectorate, that we should impose a constitutional, democratic government modeled on our own, and that we should stay involved and enforce the rule of law for at least a decade. We should allow the people to retain their own culture, except where it conflicts with our view of civilized government. We could just leave, as you say, but that will not prevent a repeat which may endanger us yet again in the future. This process will be expensive and will require us to help rebuild the physical infrastructure but, IMO, we can afford it because it's the most effective way to prevent another 9/11.

In the case of Iraq, we need to make clear to Saddam Hussein that he has already proved to the world that his regime is uncivilized, by his attacks on his own people, the terror attacks on Israelis and the invasion of Kuwait. In spite of that fact, we are kindly offering him a chance to prove that he is not preparing to employ weapons of mass destruction. To that end, we will send in teams of skeptical inspectors to whom he must prove that he has no weapons of mass destruction. His failure to do so would invoke the consequences of the "Uncivilized Nation" policy, namely invasion and replacement of the government with one which *we* consider to be civilized, with establishment of a long-term protectorate if necessary.

In short, if a government shows itself to be evil, then we will replace it with one of our choosing. If people want self-rule, then they should make sure their government behaves. I think this policy would not only be moral and logical, it would also be a really serious threat. The biggest, deepest reason why the Islamic countries' leadership fears the U.S. isn't the overt actions that we might take, it's the creeping influence of our immoral ideas and ways of life. The threat here is that if they choose to support terrorism, our subtle, creeping influence will suddenly turn into complete, overt control of every aspect of their government and society.

The biggest problem I see with this sort of policy is that it will require the U.S. to come clean about its own terrorist past and commit to never again participate in terrorism, or be subject to accusations of hypocrisy, which would undermine the moral high ground the policy attempts to take. Americans understand that it was previous administrations that supported terrorism, and that it was in the context of the very unique situation of the cold war, but the rest of the world may not, so we should just apologize, point out that we have replaced that previous government and promise never to permit it again.

I look forward to your comments.

I want you to take a HARD LOOK at these pictures . Is this the peace you had in mind? No? Too bad! That's the peace you're going to get if you don't support people who will pick up guns to defend freedom.

This "peace" process of negotiation and diplomacy is killing us! How many more thousands have to be killed before you will be willing to fight for what you believe in? You can't make peace with tyrants.

I hope you don't mind being made a Muslim at gunpoint. You want this for our country? Or this? A lifestyle not defended by force is an endangered lifestyle. And for good reason: A lifestyle that's not worth defending by force is not a lifestyle worth living.

I'm not going to play your moral equivalency games. These are the facts: Some people are good. Some people are evil. Please get a clue and find out who's whom in this war.

One less US soldier is one step closer to [Rest In] Peace. This is what happens to be people who don't fight hard enough. Peaceful, isn't it?

Pacifism invites and encourages the "peace" of gas chambers and guillotines, deceit and dirty bombs, broken promises and body bags, terror and tombstones, all brought on by the enemy. War, on the other hand, eliminates the broods of evildoers so that peace can ensue.

You cannot reason with irrational, deceitful dictators. Talking with a cheating enemy (and what enemy isn't?) just allows it to thrive and grow. If you get stung by a bee, you don't try to talk it out of stinging you again. You break out the big can of insecticide and kill the pest! Peace cannot begin until the source of the attack is neutralized or eliminated. Therefore, war is usually the most effective tool for peace.

You just keep that hippie attitude. I can't wait to see the look on your face when this happens to your town. Next time, it may be nuclear or worse. Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon are terrorist nations and all have nuclear capabilities. China has us in the crosshairs too. On the next attack, you'll be lucky to be as fortunate as this poor guy.

I want you to take a HARD LOOK at these pictures . Is this the peace you had in mind? No? Too bad! That's the peace you're going to get if you don't support people who will pick up guns to defend freedom.

This "peace" process of negotiation and diplomacy is killing us! How many more thousands have to be killed before you will be willing to fight for what you believe in? You can't make peace with tyrants.

I hope you don't mind being made a Muslim at gunpoint. You want this for our country? Or this? A lifestyle not defended by force is an endangered lifestyle. And for good reason: A lifestyle that's not worth defending by force is not a lifestyle worth living.

I'm not going to play your moral equivalency games. These are the facts: Some people are good. Some people are evil. Please get a clue and find out who's whom in this war.

One less US soldier is one step closer to [Rest In] Peace. This is what happens to be people who don't fight hard enough. Peaceful, isn't it?

Pacifism invites and encourages the "peace" of gas chambers and guillotines, deceit and dirty bombs, broken promises and body bags, terror and tombstones, all brought on by the enemy. War, on the other hand, eliminates the broods of evildoers so that peace can ensue.

You cannot reason with irrational, deceitful dictators. Talking with a cheating enemy (and what enemy isn't?) just allows it to thrive and grow. If you get stung by a bee, you don't try to talk it out of stinging you again. You break out the big can of insecticide and kill the pest! Peace cannot begin until the source of the attack is neutralized or eliminated. Therefore, war is usually the most effective tool for peace.

You just keep that hippie attitude. I can't wait to see the look on your face when this happens to your town. Next time, it may be nuclear or worse. Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon are terrorist nations and all have nuclear capabilities. China has us in the crosshairs too. On the next attack, you'll be lucky to be as fortunate as this poor guy.

I want you to take a HARD LOOK at these pictures . Is this the peace you had in mind? No? Too bad! That's the peace you're going to get if you don't support people who will pick up guns to defend freedom.

This "peace" process of negotiation and diplomacy is killing us! How many more thousands have to be killed before you will be willing to fight for what you believe in? You can't make peace with tyrants.

I hope you don't mind being made a Muslim at gunpoint. You want this for our country? Or this? A lifestyle not defended by force is an endangered lifestyle. And for good reason: A lifestyle that's not worth defending by force is not a lifestyle worth living.

I'm not going to play your moral equivalency games. These are the facts: Some people are good. Some people are evil. Please get a clue and find out who's whom in this war.

One less US soldier is one step closer to [Rest In] Peace. This is what happens to be people who don't fight hard enough. Peaceful, isn't it?

Pacifism invites and encourages the "peace" of gas chambers and guillotines, deceit and dirty bombs, broken promises and body bags, terror and tombstones, all brought on by the enemy. War, on the other hand, eliminates the broods of evildoers so that peace can ensue.

You cannot reason with irrational, deceitful dictators. Talking with a cheating enemy (and what enemy isn't?) just allows it to thrive and grow. If you get stung by a bee, you don't try to talk it out of stinging you again. You break out the big can of insecticide and kill the pest! Peace cannot begin until the source of the attack is neutralized or eliminated. Therefore, war is usually the most effective tool for peace.

You just keep that hippie attitude. I can't wait to see the look on your face when this happens to your town. Next time, it may be nuclear or worse. Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon are terrorist nations and all have nuclear capabilities. China has us in the crosshairs too. On the next attack, you'll be lucky to be as fortunate as this poor guy.

What is new about this? The OBD and OBD II standards have been around for a long time... you can go out and buy a tool that will interface with your car and show you the codes... You can even get a cable that lets you hookup a laptop the sensor port.

The OBD-II Homepage
OBD-II Codes

But those countries would still be shitholes even if europe had disappeared in a poof of smoke 500 years ago.

In 1500, Europe was a shithole. It would still be a shithole today if Europeans didn't colonize the rest of the world, steal the resources, and bring the resources back to Europe.

Tell me, what were the 5 biggest and most prosperous cities in the year 1500 ? Hint, London and Paris aren't in the list. In fact, the 5 biggest cities of 1500 weren't even in Europe.

In otherwords without the western world those countries would still be shit, they just wouldn't know it.

Possibly, but they would be shitholes without petroleum byproducts coming out of the town well...

Nice URL there buddy, but Norton said its a virus JS.Winbomb.d

Yeah, sez here that cordite was invented in 1889.

I have three words for you: Swiss Chalet Transfusion

I can't believe you left out Alfred "I kill you filthy" Bester. The Demolished Man is a classic, and the first book to win a Hugo ever. J Michael Straczynski even named the head Psi Cop in Babylon 5 after the guy.

c) Start over with compotent people

Would these people be able to spell?

I'd expect so, but do you think maybe he was referring to someone who could cook a fruit based dessert?

I was just going over this with a coworker... I'd suggest filing a provisional application to claim priority and protect your ownership rights, but then try to find someone with deeper pockets to follow it up with a formal application though a patent lawyer. Like others I advise against DIY unless you alread have some experience with the process as there are lots of little gotchas.

Unlike a "real" application there are no formal requirements for text or drawings for provisional applications except that they ultimately fit in an 8.5x11. All you need is a cover sheet and an $80 fee if you do it yourself.

Here are a few decent links:

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa061701 a.htm

This one is also pretty decent and a bit more DIY info http://www.frompatenttoprofit.com/provisional_pate nt_aps.htm

Finally, the software mentioned there seems useful... http://www.patentwizard.com/ and so are their FAQs http://www.patentwizard.com/htmls/support.htm, but if you were to go that route, you'd be out $580 for the software, filing and a flat fee review by their attorneys.

Various universities have invention disclosure forms posted on the www (see e.g. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&q=invention.disclosure.forms) That ask all the right questions. Look at some of these and adapt them for your needs, this will drive you to pout all the information together in the right form and send it to the PTO with the cover sheet and your $80.

Balam

It's good you shout give it a try. Risotti ai funghi porcini"

You LIE like a fucking RUG about getting pussy. You make think Revenge of the Nerds is real, but its not, its a VCR tape. It is such a farce that it remains on tape, which is the format jerk offs prefer, instead of moving to DVD, because jerk offs like you cant afford a DVD player. They suck, DVDs, but you catch my drift, zit case POV.

You know you wrap your 105 key, "One purple Juicy Hole - For that special Barney the Dinosaur Feel" keyboard with saran wrap when you snap your chicken to gay negro porn.

You know you are the proud owner of not one, but two FU-FME drives for you computer!. You can enjoy being the pitcher and catcher on your cheesy, crap, 4th their lame communist Chinese built fucking CRAP computer.

Suck my nuts, motherfucker.

[*Me kisses my karma goodbye as I'm modded into oblivion by thick-fingered Slashdotters.]

Kind of like this.

i live in china... i just tried this search here:

link

and it gave me this list of links:

link 1
link 2
link 3

man, they are good. guess i'll stay.

Just FYI: The FONT tag, which is at the center of his rant, IS a standard. Unlike CSS, its going to work properly on almost all browsers. Unlike Hx tags, it doesn't impose formatting on itself or surrounding text - something even CSS isn't great at controlling.

Take a look at David Baron's CSS test results - they are mainly for 2000/2001 browsers, but that includes IE5 and 5.5 which are the most common browsers on the Internet today. It reveals a mass of buggy, unsupported, non-compilant or incompatible implementations of CSS.

Now go to About.com's web design compatibility page and get an idea of the incompatibilities in newer standards between browsers. The result is quite obvious: using CSS is NOT a route to gaining compatibility and avoiding hacks - more than likely its going to involve additional hacks and even further limit browser support.

Coding to de juro standards is useless if the standards aren't properly supported. People have more success following de facto standards, which is why so much of the web is IE-centric.

As of this writing (mid-2001), versions of this paean to political incorrectness have been floating around for at least a year, variously attributed to George Carlin, Ted Nugent, Denis Leary and others. Its actual author is unknown. Carlin recently disavowed it on his Website. A variant ran in Nugent's Adventure Outdoors Magazine in early 2001, but the politically outspoken rock star did not take credit for it and other versions had already been posted on the Internet well before that.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blbadamerica n.htm /a

Patrick Naughton chatted with a couple of FBI agents who pretended to be a 13-year old girl. No real children were ever involved, and he claims he knew all the time that he was chatting with a grownup...

(More here)

Paul Gottlieb Nipkow was German, not Russian.

Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification
Jury Nullification:History, questions and answers about nullification, links
Don't believe what the judge told you, as far as I can tell.

Another reason this is good is that we (here in the US) have all been paying for the development of these machines through our tax dollars. There is an interesting rant about this on CarTalk's website.

In addition, the batteries are insanely expensive. Each car produced is subsidized by the taxpayers to offset the costs of the batteries. From About.com: "Depending on the size of battery bank in the vehicle, it may cost between $20,000 and $60,000 for the batteries."

He was stabbed after his parole and when the police picked up a suspect he exercised his Miranda Rights and was released.

Read about it.

It's not a laughing matter - it's easy to make jokes when you live in North America where the population density is 32 people per square mile - in Asia it's 203 - but for Hong Kong we're talking 6,571.14 per square kilometer.... a smaller area than square miles. Also a large proportion of Hong Kong is uninhabitable mountains or isolated islands - the real habitable area's density exceeds the 20,824.38 quoted for Macau.... I mean Hong Kong people go there to escape the crowds!

Hong Kong's population grows by 1 million every ten years and everyone has to be accomodated. The large proportion of people live in high rise residential on reclaimed land, and construction is the number one source of garbage in Hong Kong. When you add up all these issues then any way to improve construction efficiency and sustainability and reduce waste is important.

Now all this might be moot - I mean Hong Kong is literally on the other side of the world.... but hang on... check out this article in the Economist. Predictions are for half a billion Americans by 2050. Where are they going to live?

The Integer project has relevance here.

Living in Hong Kong is like living in an Arcology and many of the trends visible here will need to be transferred to North America if the population does increase to 500,000,000 people.

So next time you crack a joke about living in a cubicle 24/7 at work and play - you might just be fortelling the future....

this is old news

here is a link to the setae
link to pictures of setae

they are NOT the size of 2 human hairs... and actually the geckos have 2 million on EACH TOE.

link to article from may 2000

this is old news

here is a link to the setae
link to pictures of setae

they are NOT the size of 2 human hairs... and actually the geckos have 2 million on EACH TOE.

link to article from may 2000

Simple probability calculations give you an idea of how likely it is to have life arise. Since a basic tenet of science is to exclude non-naturalistic phenomena, for this discussion any divine intervention is excluded.

As most of you know, proteins are formed in all living creatures by sequences of 20 amino acids. 19 of the 20 are "chiral", meaning they have a handedness to them. As an illustration, take a left and right glove. If they're vaguely anatomically correct, you can't superimpose one on the other without inverting one (they overlap if placed palm to palm, but not if placed in the proper orientation on top of each other). Many molecules are like this, they are chemically identical but not optically identical. The optical nature comes because the L arrangement (or stereoisomer or enantiomer) bends light one way, and the R bends light another way for any given molecule. Further data here.

In all living creatures, plants, etc. proteins are formed from exclusively L forms of amino acids (again Glycine is non-chiral, it's so simple it has no handedness). Yet in natural circumstances outside already living things, there is no preference for L or R; lab experiments produce racemic (optically inactive, or equal amounts of L and R stereoisomers). So in a pre-biotic collection of chemicals, there is absolutely no reason to assume any preponderance of one chirality.

Modern science has stated that fossilized bacteria are found in rocks 3.5x10^9 years old. Since nothing simpler has been found, it is assumed that bacteria arose first. The simplest bacteria known has over 300 different proteins in it, with an average length of 450 amino acids each. The average amount of glycine in proteins is 7.5%, so there are typically 416 chiral amino acids in a bacterial protein.

Now we can calculate the probability of one protein arising with just the proper chirality. This of course completely ignores the much more complex sequence issue (which must be precise or folding and activation cannot occur). Since a growing peptide chain in an aqueous solution actually tends to dissociate, not to grow, we will also ignore the thermodynamics of chain growth - otherwise the spontaneous polymerization of amino acids into proteins would be excluded completely.

So to get a series of 416 properly chiral amino acids (and ignoring the glycines), the odds are one in 2^416 of getting them all properly aligned. That's one in over 10^125. Wow, that's big... the known universe is 10^28 inches across. The universe is assumed to be 10^18 seconds old. The visible universe is figured to have 10^62 to 10^80 atoms; so using the high bound number you could form one protein a second per atom in the universe for the life of the universe, and still have only one in 10^27 odds that you'd get one protein somewhere with the right chirality.

So what are the odds of life arising from non-life via protein assembly by purely random means? Essentially zero, on earth or any planet. There are those who say "but life is here so it's 1.0 on earth". Yes the odds are 1.0 on earth, but those odds include ALL possible methods of life arising; so to use the result as the conclusion you have to be willing to consider other models (including non-naturalistic) or you're not being honest, since the random arising model can easily be seen to be impossible.

You mean the same Thomas Edison that started a smear campaign against Westinghouse becuase they used AC instead of his DC?

What exactly does Levi Spear Parmly (1790-1859) - the inventor/developer of dental floss - have to do with open source software!

Or then again, maybe I am just missing something... :-)

My wife selected a few links from her homeschooling bookmarks, where you can find lots of free material:

Homeschool Central - Study Resources
TeacherFeatures.com
Homeschool Support on the Internet
HomeworkCentral.com - Lesson Plans by Subject
NGA: Teaching Resources: Loan Programs
Novel Study Guides for the Classroom Teacher
Outline Maps
100 Top Map Sites
Unit Studies (huge site!)
Lesson Plans & Teacher Helps
Newton's Apple
MathWork -- Math worksheets you can create in your browser
S.C.O.R.E.
homeschooling.about.com
A to Z Home's Cool - Homeschooling Web Site
Jon's Homeschool Resource Page

Well relax, your problems are solved. We'll have you talking like a native (again) before you can do ASL for "technology to the rescue!"

(With apologies to the entire population of Italy and those of Italian extraction, and, well, everyone everywhere. I'm just a dumb Mick, don't whack me!)

Well relax, your problems are solved. We'll have you talking like a native (again) before you can do ASL for "technology to the rescue!"

(With apologies to the entire population of Italy and those of Italian extraction, and, well, everyone everywhere. I'm just a dumb Mick, don't whack me!)

There are so many choices at each stage of the game that it's hard to model. The tree branches too often. See this discussion with the inventor. Octi is online. It also happens to be a lot of fun and pretty easy to teach to people.