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Finally, I was wondering how long that would take. See ya'll later, I'm off to go prospecting!
http://www.amazon.com/Gateway-Heechee-Saga-Frederi k-Pohl/dp/0345475836/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6095192-7 879221?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183654729&sr=8-1

You might enjoy the following books. Be warned, they are subversive. You may wind up with an understanding of science less like that conveyed by a diet of Fox News (strange, skewed, and vaguely hostile). These are fun to read and very accessible.

Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman
Chaos
The Selfish Gene
Why Flip a Coin?

Sounds great. Who adopted it?

A number of classical labels (BIS, Naxos, CC...) offer DVD Audio (or SACD). Classical music fans tend to be more concerned with sound quality than the average listener of popular music, so it makes sense these formats would be targeted at them. However, the OP may be right that a CD is good enough. One may question the need for a special format to give 5.1 surround when IRCAM developed software (Spatializer) that could simulate the movement of sounds in a 3D space. I discovered it through the Deutsche Grammophon recording of Boulez's Repons though I wonder why it hasn't been used more widely, and in other music genres as well.

Well, good luck. Have you ever heard the saying, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" ? I don't agree with it , but there is a kernel of truth. You've probably had a professor who was a genius, and and expert in their field, but couldn't teach worth a damn. You've probably also learned from someone who was a good teacher, but didn't know their stuff, or didn't have the resources to teach it properly.

Finding someone who is an expert in the linux kernel, *and* who can teach, and has the time and willingness to teach you one-on-one, will be a rare find indeed. ( Are you willing to pay them what they're worth for their background and ability? )

That person has probably already written a book.

Just start implementing in the stable kernel and as each of your inputs is rejected, you'll learn. I hope you've had - at least - an operating systems design class (or equiv experience), and you don't try to implement something in kernel space that should be in user space.

BTW, I'm not qualified beyond hacking the IP stack a few years ago with a search/replace, use your imagination for what text was removed/replaced. all this, Just for Fun http://www.amazon.com/Just-Fun-Story-Accidental-Re volutionary/dp/0066620732 It appears someone else had more time for fun than I.

But tell me - if I wanted to read the civil war thing, do I need to read all of these books? Or just some? And more importantly, what order do I need to read them in?

Here is a list of them someone on Amazon made.

http://amazon.com/The-Marvel-Civil-War-Series/lm/R 2P7K8Y6O1T2VL/ref=cm_lmt_srch_f_1_rsrsrs1/104-9260 980-3050364

In Stephen King's Pet Sematary, of course!

I feel even more people would be willing to help out if they had a bridge between "just learn C" to "you're now a kernel guru"

Just a little searching on Google and Amazon netted me the following two titles:

• Understanding the Linux Kernel
• The Linux Kernel in a Nutshell

The resources for understanding the Linux kernel are out there, you just have to have the motivation and interest to look for them.

I feel even more people would be willing to help out if they had a bridge between "just learn C" to "you're now a kernel guru"

Just a little searching on Google and Amazon netted me the following two titles:

• Understanding the Linux Kernel
• The Linux Kernel in a Nutshell

The resources for understanding the Linux kernel are out there, you just have to have the motivation and interest to look for them.

Your misuse of your anecdotal experience is a logical fallacy. It's unfortunate for you that you've had problems activating a few iPhone. However, every single report of experiences with iPhone activation that I can personally verify had no trouble at all, or minimal trouble which was easily overcome. You see, my anecdotal evidence simply doesn't match yours. Perhaps you are an outlier case. The sample does not include random reports posted to Slashdot by Anonymous Cowards, who, for all I know might well be paid by someone (Verizon? Microsoft?) or otherwise motivated to trash talk iPhone (a deep seated loathing for Steve Jobs because he once fired you?) or to pollute discussion forums when iPhone is the topic (stuck using a Motorola RAZR with hobbled bluetooth on a Verizon contract for another year?) or to preach the controversy to generate traffic and revenue (Engadget? Slashdot?). No serious problems *at all* were observed in the sample that I can verify. That suggests to me that perhaps the journalist isn't just parroting lies and the problem rate is actually relatively low.

"OMG! Somebody had trouble registering their iPhone!!!" is only one of many examples at Slashdot where it is clear that the participants in the discussion could benefit from an improved understanding of basic logic and basic statistics.

You might enjoy watching this short video clip of Michael Shermer @ TED where he says, "In science, we have to keep track of the misses, not just the hits." He has a marvelous example here of priming our audio circuits, playing part of Stairway to Heaven backwards.

You might also enjoy the book Why Flip a Coin: The Art and Science of Good Decisions .

P.S. I'm not laughing at your ignorance. I suspect you are merely frustrated and venting. Please do take about 10% of the time you spend reading slashdot, and use that time to hone your logical reasoning skills and understanding of statistics. It can be fun!

At least with the Harry Potter tie-ins, they made vomit and earwax flavors for Bertie Botts Beans.
http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Bertie-Botts-Be ans/dp/B000F522II

-FL

The General's name was Phillip Corso and the book was called "The Day After Roswell"

Good Book, Total Bullshit but good read.

http://www.amazon.com/Day-After-Roswell-Philip-Cor so/dp/067101756X

He also swore an affidavit in 1993. It is very similar: http://roswellproof.homestead.com/Haut.html. These seem to be things he believed. I recall when Stanton Friedman http://www.stantonfriedman.com/ stayed as a guest at my home when I was a kid. He'd worked with my father, also a nuclear physicist, before and came to give a lecture on UFOs. He also believed what he was saying. I think you need to look for explanations that do not rely on impuning motive in some of these cases.

I'm not one to want to leave behind the delicious contemplation of the Fermi Paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox, so I wait for stronger evidence, but there are many sincere people who are quite sure they've experienced something that can only be explained in this way: http://www.disclosureproject.org/.

I think Carl Jung took an interesting stab and an alternative explanation in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Flying-Saucers-C-G-Jung/dp/1 567311210/ref=sr_1_1/105-3124676-0728448?ie=UTF8&s =books&qid=1183345880&sr=1-1
--
Get solar power the easy way: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

The question is how much difference is there for Composite, since composite (RCA) is what this box supports now.

There's been an HD breakout box for the original XBOX since its inception. You can get a convincing knock-off of the original (probably made in Taiwan or Korea) that works just as well for $10.00 (USD) on eBay (the real McCoy's from Microsoft go for more than $100 in some places). That gives you HD output. Plug one of these (~$20 depending where you go) in the HD pack connector and you have optical 5.1 DD output.

Good luck getting the 700 Mhz. processor to handle 1080i. I've gotten XBMC to boot, but we're talking video rates in the single digits for most HD content. Most I've gotten is 720p, and that's full xvid encoding (or Matroska, or just about anything else you can think of). Not bad for such old hardware.

The other thing I like about the XBOX/XBMC as a multimedia solution is that you really don't need a lot of crap in your living room. One box should do it all--movies, music... whatever. I always hated the whole "television + reciever + dvd player + xbox + pre-amp + speakers" look where half your living room looks like an alter to the gods of Home Audio.

The XBMC guys are clever coders (I recall an attempt to use the GPU to try and aid in decoding video streams). The problem is that they are die-hard, attached-to-the-hip classic XBOX fanatics. You can't even start to talk to them about porting to another system. They won't do it. End of story. Which means no "true" open HD media box for the foreseeable future (MythTV the sole, sad exception).

The question is how much difference is there for Composite, since composite (RCA) is what this box supports now.

There's been an HD breakout box for the original XBOX since its inception. You can get a convincing knock-off of the original (probably made in Taiwan or Korea) that works just as well for $10.00 (USD) on eBay (the real McCoy's from Microsoft go for more than $100 in some places). That gives you HD output. Plug one of these (~$20 depending where you go) in the HD pack connector and you have optical 5.1 DD output.

Good luck getting the 700 Mhz. processor to handle 1080i. I've gotten XBMC to boot, but we're talking video rates in the single digits for most HD content. Most I've gotten is 720p, and that's full xvid encoding (or Matroska, or just about anything else you can think of). Not bad for such old hardware.

The other thing I like about the XBOX/XBMC as a multimedia solution is that you really don't need a lot of crap in your living room. One box should do it all--movies, music... whatever. I always hated the whole "television + reciever + dvd player + xbox + pre-amp + speakers" look where half your living room looks like an alter to the gods of Home Audio.

The XBMC guys are clever coders (I recall an attempt to use the GPU to try and aid in decoding video streams). The problem is that they are die-hard, attached-to-the-hip classic XBOX fanatics. You can't even start to talk to them about porting to another system. They won't do it. End of story. Which means no "true" open HD media box for the foreseeable future (MythTV the sole, sad exception).

This sounds an awful lot like the concept presented in the 1980's children's book The Gadget Factor by Sandy Landsman.

In the story, two college students develop a computer program that models every aspect of the earth down to the most minute detail and runs simulations based on added conditions the user presents into the simulated environment. Later in the book, one of the students manages to crack the theoretical physics needed to achieve time travel and performs a series of test runs with them on their simulated earth, which ultimately results in the completely annihilation of all life on the planet almost instantly. Fearing that their research could land in the wrong hands and potentially lead to similar instantaneous destruction in the real world, the set out to destroy it, only to find a corrupt instructor had stolen their work, intent on taking credit for it himself. Eventually, this leads to a race against time to sabotage the stolen information before the instructor manages to use it to test a real-world prototype of the device introduced into the original similation.

The best defense I have read for the educational value of "serious" games (including some of those "violent" ones) is James Gee's What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy . Gee is a socio-linguist and uses his theoretical background to analyze the cognitive engagements in a wide range of popular console and computer games.

Here's an excerpt:

Cognitive science has taught us a great deal about thinking as a mental act taking part in an individual's head. For various reasons, however, these views less strongly inform how teaching and learning work in today's schools than they used to. This is so, in part, because the views about thinking current in cognitive science stress the importance of active inquiry and deep conceptual understanding, things that are not politically popular any longer in schools, driven as they are by standardized tests and skill-and-drill curricula devoted to "the basics." (3)

Gee's book demonstrates that, even if they initially look like a button-mashing "shoot'em up," many video games are built upon active inquiry and deep conceptual understanding (often success in a video game is learning its semiotic code, understanding the game's mechanics). Recently I've been playing Res 4--you have to learn; when to fight, when to run, what ammunition to use on which monster, etc. Not to mention the "America is protecting the world from tyranny and bio-terror, don't trust multinational corporations, always save a damsel in distress" and other socio-cultural messages running throughout the game.

Most rock groups suck if they are are still playing after 25 years. Iron Maiden is still good. If you use to like Iron Maiden in the 1980's, check out their new CD. They don't sell as many CDs anymore, but I guess they don't need to when they can sell 250,000 tickets to a single concert. Like Prince, they could tell the record companies to get bent and laugh all the way to the bank.

You may want to pick up The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin.Very good read. http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Feder al-Reserve/dp/0912986212

The "music industry" is a sham. This will give a few details.

um... iPhone isnt all that the hype makes you think it is, i mean its flashy and nice but...

well look for yourself here is my phone that ive had for way over a year now
http://www.amazon.com/PCS-Phone-Audiovox-PPC-6700- Sprint/dp/B000FOFRSG/ref=tag_tdp_dp/103-3300026-69 83805

it plays mp3's has wifi plays media files is evdo compatible (same as that edge shit i assume?) sliding face im more than happy with my phone and it didnt cost nearly as much as the iPhone and has been around for almost 2yrs and this is the second model of this type of smart phone... i guess hype and flash make up for innovation

This mid-air mouse is nothing new. I had a gyro based mouse in the mid 90s. It would work on a flat surface OR by just moving it about in the air like a pointer. It was expensive...like $100 bucks. It worked pretty well though. Stupid cat chewed the cord and ruined it for me. It didn't become a big hit, but I would love to have been able to replace it. Just for the heck if it, I did a bit of a search and found a mouse that does this today. So with the technology having been around for a while, I'm not quite sure why the author thinks that now such mice will become the must have mouse.

Get a trackball. No more flat surface required! You can even wave it about if you want, but it won't do much. I actually have used one while holding it in the air, though.

(I still want an updated version of the Marble Mouse, Logitech.)

Umm, ADM et al. sure as hell know how to implement price fixing. They just won't have to do it in secret anymore.

Heh. I need to review Schoolhouse Rock http://www.amazon.com/Schoolhouse-Rock-Special-30t h-Anniversary/dp/B00005JKTY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-45 83311-5198262?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1183062930&sr=8-1

Note that the residents of the District of Columbia only get to vote in the primaries. They have no vote in the general election, nor do they have congressional representation --- not counting the single House delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who may or may not have a vote in the House depending on the party in power.

Outstanding point, Good Citizen pzs. Richard Bissell, a former director of plans for the CIA (and the brains behind the: Marshall Plan, the U-2 and SR-71 spy plane programs, the spy satellite program, Area 51, etc., etc.) did state in his autobiography that for a country to have a healthy economy it must have maximum investment (i.e., nonmilitary) in its infrastructure.

Holy Mother of God! Have you never read a book, never read any history whatsoever?? Evidently, not!

Aside from the rather obvious fact that all those "inefficiencies" of the Bush gang have earned them, and their cronies, billions upon billions of dollars, I would strongly suggest you read the autobiography of a former Director of Plans of the CIA, Richard Bissell, a brilliant - and not particularly conscience-driven, fellow who was the brain behind the Marshall Plan, the U-2 program and then the SR-71 (A-12) program, spy satellites, the overthrow of the democratically-elected Guatemalan government, and Area 51, of course (and that's just what we are aware of). Many believe he was also the planner behind the JFK assassination, and rightfully so.

Should you actually read a book, you may learn something.....

21st Century Reading List:

The Bush Agenda by Antonia Juhasz, American Dynasty by Kevin Phillips, Blood Money by T. Christian Miller, Hostile Takeover by David Sirota Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast, Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, No Place To Hide by Robert O'Harrow, Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class Thom Hartmann, War is a Racket by General Smedley Butler, Licensed to Kill by Robert Young Pelton, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace by Gore Vidal [and on the JFK assassination, David Talbot's "Brothers" and joanmellen.net]

There's also the 3 guys that were accused, when they were teenagers, of killing three eight year-old boys, and were placed in jail (one on death row). The evidence is absolute crap, and the "investigation" into the murders was bumbled and shoddy. The key evidence against the "leader" was that he wore black a lot and liked to read about Wicca and other "satanic" and "demonic" things... like heavy metal music. Oh no!

HBO has played two documentaries on this case (Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2) and they are enraging. Granted you're seeing edited information, but if you can, I'd really recommned seeing these two DVDs. Amazon is selling them DVD 1 and DVD 2

There's also a web site dedicate to the cause of helping the guys (Known as The West Memphis Three) get a fair trial and have real evidence shown (which there doesn't seem to be any of). Visit wm3.org for details.

I've been fascinated with this case for 10+ years and check out the wm3 site a few times a year to see what's new with the case. It's an absolute tragedy that three children were killed, and it's another tragedy that three other lives (teenagers) were destroyed as well if in fact they are innocent, as it would seem they may be.

There's also the 3 guys that were accused, when they were teenagers, of killing three eight year-old boys, and were placed in jail (one on death row). The evidence is absolute crap, and the "investigation" into the murders was bumbled and shoddy. The key evidence against the "leader" was that he wore black a lot and liked to read about Wicca and other "satanic" and "demonic" things... like heavy metal music. Oh no!

HBO has played two documentaries on this case (Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2) and they are enraging. Granted you're seeing edited information, but if you can, I'd really recommned seeing these two DVDs. Amazon is selling them DVD 1 and DVD 2

There's also a web site dedicate to the cause of helping the guys (Known as The West Memphis Three) get a fair trial and have real evidence shown (which there doesn't seem to be any of). Visit wm3.org for details.

I've been fascinated with this case for 10+ years and check out the wm3 site a few times a year to see what's new with the case. It's an absolute tragedy that three children were killed, and it's another tragedy that three other lives (teenagers) were destroyed as well if in fact they are innocent, as it would seem they may be.

I too had the same problem trying to match myself up to aspergers... I fit the "doesn't seem to fit into society" as well as the "very focused on certain ideas" parts of it but lacked the motor skill problems (I played football and baseball growing up, paint models and miniatures, etc) and stuff like that. As for your gaming persona, I too have an online persona (be it in a game, on messengers, etc) that people find attractive. I'm "protected" from people by sitting behind the monitor and since I'm just talking to my "computer," I'm more likely to act like my real self instead of what a lot of people who run into me in real life get to see. Oddly enough, though I have relatively few RL female friends (ok, basically none at the moment), the majority of my online friends are female. It's also worth noting that most of them are married or in very serious relationships (perhaps I'm more open with them because I don't feel threatened by them since they're already committed to someone else? I know they appreciate being able to talk to a guy who is in touch with themselves and is able to explain to them why their husband does what he does as well (another classic sign of AvPD is overanalyzing situations so I tend to understand exactly why people do the things they do and pick up on small cues that others miss). However, (single) women feeling comfortable talking to you as a confidant might be a kiss of death if you wish to pursue a love relationship with them (after all, they wouldn't want to risk losing your friendship)). Anyway, now that I'm done nesting asides, here are some links I've found handy.

A more in depth scientific classification of AvPD along with possible causes and a guideline to treatment
A general site with some descriptions of people with AvPD as well as a list of books, an online chat system, etc.
A yahoo support group feel free to lurk and learn

Although more focused on social anxiety, I also found Painfully Shy by Barbara and Gregory Markway (ISBN 0-312-31623-2) to be pretty good. One of the authors suffers from social anxiety and, thus, has a pretty intimate grasp on it. It also has a lot of good suggestions at finding ways to overcome it so you can at least be functional.

You're both wrong. If there's one thing you can be sure about, it's that the stock market will go up. Dow 36,000, baby!

just don't buy those artificial created short lasting pop star albums and get some real music

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=1060 545&cart=560635733&BAB=M
http://www.amazon.com/Awesome-Mix-Tape-Vol-6/dp/B0 0000JLEN
http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7067 325&BAB=Z

or something native (i'm belgian -- and i saw these live twice)
http://www.sunzoomanley.com/audio/-e-what.html

those are my last 4 albums i purchased which fall in he class of recent music, offcorse everybody should have some good oldies: like pink floyd, the doors, ...

I can't believe I'm explaining this, but you need a launch capability much greater and cheaper than we have today to make a space economy work. Ya know, you gotta put mining equipment, and people and all the support infrastructure for people (or, if you can do it, lots of robots instead) onto the Moon. Doing that with Apollo era technology would be doable, if it weren't for the fact that the technology is classified.

Personally, I think the solution to the problem of better and cheaper rockets is people who want to make better and cheaper rockets (instead of companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin who just want nice fat profits). And thankfully that's happening now with the NewSpace community. But hey, if we can build a space elevator, that'd be great too.

And yes, there are plenty of designs for solar powered furnaces to melt and process this material on the Moon. This isn't a topic I can cover in a Slashdot post. There's a whole lot of literature on the subject. I recommend Dennis Wingo's Moonrush as a starter.

You asked how this actually helps us ship people off world. It doesn't. That's not the goal. We're not trying to warehouse the poor in space. I've only presented one of the suggested ways that space can reduce the resource limitations of our planet. Precious metals are more than just fancy jewlry these days, they're used in all sorts of industrial processes.. and they're an integral part of the hydrogen economy, which many people recognise as our best bet for removing the world's dependancy on fossil fuels - just so long as we can get the greens to stop beating up on nuclear fission.. and it will be critical when fusion becomes a reality.

Then there's the space power satelite people. There's a heck of a lot of power out there and we could use it down here.

Then there's the people who want to teraform Mars and build giant domes over craters on the Moon. That does give you some people moving off world.. but more importantly, from Earth's perspective, is that it gives us experience doing planet sized engineering. Which, unfortunately, is exactly what we need to be doing with our own planet.

Asteroids. Lots of them. Read Dennis Wingo's Moonrush.

Thanks for the video link. To me, this book sounds like a less-insighful, warmed-over version of Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society .

There is actually a book about this that just came out that I am reading. Might interest people that wish we could go back to the simple, proven methods of teaching:

http://www.amazon.com/Amys-Game-Concealed-Structur e-Education/dp/1419653474/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6797 704-3161602?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182809578&sr=8-1

ps -- in the interest of full disclosure, the author is yours truly. But it comes reccommended with blurbs from, among others, Ray Kurzweil, Eric Raymond, and Vernor Vinge.

We're talking millenia here, not decades. Just because some random retired physics professor read a few science fiction novels doesn't make him an expert, and TFA has no evidence that he has a clue what he's talking about.

You know, this paper could be extended into many different areas. As this paper says, class is very hard to define in America - in the United States, class can be more about culture and lifestyle than income or job description.

Yes. If you're interested in this, however, this little informal paper is not the best place to direct your attention. There's a lot of published work about social class in the USA, a lot of which I suspect will make you go "aha!" (I'm not a social scientist, so sadly enough, I can't give you many good pointers; I did enjoy reading Jocks and Burnouts, which is very much around this topic.)

A few things I will mention: (a) nobody who's serious about the topic believes that class is just a matter of income; (b) "live-to-work" vs. "work-to-live" is a major class attitude distinction in the USA; (c) there exist professions, like contractor, that exist largely to bridge social gaps (a contractor is somebody that middle class people pay in order to have access to his social network of skilled working class laborers), and as such, rely on building social networks that span the class boundary.

The 3-M ergonomic mouse looks like a joystick - but isn't. You still have to move it around like a regular mouse. I think the thing is, they are trying to keep the wrist as immobile as possible and have the motion come from the arm. A joystick doesn't accomplish that goal.

You can pick it up at Amazon for $60.23. About 20 bucks below retail - not a bad deal.
 
That is an affiliate link- if you consider that to be a problem, you don't want to click on it.

Doesn't anybody read any decent science fiction anymore? "Glasshouse" by Charlie Stross is a pretty good attempt, that covers the issue. It uses assembler gates and teleportation gates. Yes, they clone, and can create multiple instances of you. This can be a nuisance, but the characters just deal with it.

Cheers, chuck