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THose thoughts aside, I can recommend The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell which revolves around Jesuits and ETs. Good read.

"Using photometry and spectroscopy, we could identify planetary features like oceans, continents, polar caps and cloud banks, and even detect biomarkers like methane, water, oxygen and ozone," said Cash.

This reminded me of Star Trek, Ep. 37 'The Changeling'

Nomad was sent out by Earth "in the early 2000s" according to Kirk on a mission to scout for life. Nomad collided with a meteor and was damaged and had lost a good portion of its memory until it encountered another probe, this one alien, with equally advanced artificial intelligence. The alien probe, which had the mission of sterilizing imperfections in soil for colonization purposes, merged with Nomad to repair one another. The convoluted mixup made Nomad think his duty was to sterlize anything that isn't perfect. This is what happened to the poor Malurians - they were killed because they were imperfect.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6300 213412/102-1365682-2218526?v=glance

How can an organization like the RIAA justify wanting more than 99 cents per song when you can purchase 44 minutes of audio and video for two dollars?

For one, the 44 minute program was pretty much paid for the night before by advertising dollars.

But in general, I've noticed this trend as well. Compare the prices for the latest Led Zeppelin releases on CD and DVD. The DVD has about 2x the content (over 300 minutes vs an estimated 180 minutes) in 3 different sound encodings but the CD costs _more_.

Link for DVD http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 08PX8P/qid=1129144470/sr=8-11/ref=pd_bbs_11/104-09 63173-9088738?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846

Link for CD http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 08OWZC/qid=1129144470/sr=8-12/ref=pd_bbs_12/104-09 63173-9088738?v=glance&s=music&n=507846

Oh, people still buy the CDs at the higher prices or via iTunes. Now I know why they are more expensive.

How can an organization like the RIAA justify wanting more than 99 cents per song when you can purchase 44 minutes of audio and video for two dollars?

For one, the 44 minute program was pretty much paid for the night before by advertising dollars.

But in general, I've noticed this trend as well. Compare the prices for the latest Led Zeppelin releases on CD and DVD. The DVD has about 2x the content (over 300 minutes vs an estimated 180 minutes) in 3 different sound encodings but the CD costs _more_.

Link for DVD http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 08PX8P/qid=1129144470/sr=8-11/ref=pd_bbs_11/104-09 63173-9088738?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846

Link for CD http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 08OWZC/qid=1129144470/sr=8-12/ref=pd_bbs_12/104-09 63173-9088738?v=glance&s=music&n=507846

Oh, people still buy the CDs at the higher prices or via iTunes. Now I know why they are more expensive.

Looks like they are already selling and shipping on amazon. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_co de=ur2&camp=1789&tag=techgadgets-20&creative=9325& path=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BD88RS?v =glance%26n=172282%26n=507846%26s=electronics%26v= glance

Better way to "override" Muzak: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974 458902/qid=1129077145/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-0930 777-9171137?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

here's some...

Informative Amazon.Com link at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 7YFQCG/ref=pd_cps_e_2/103-7029232-5221404?v=glance &s=electronics

You aren't strange, you aren't different, and you certainly aren't special.

People have been critisizing television as mind numbing drivel for decades upon decades.

It also seems to have become some sort of holy symbol, you have those that 'escape' the cult, who are then scorned and looked on as kooks and mistrusted by those who are left behind(of course some people who free themselves from any vice can be a bit self-righteous) but overall there is a feeling of distrust towards those that are no longer captive, i know because i remember a number of times in my life feeling just that towards people who have simply stated they dont watch TV.

Well, it depends -- if the person who stopped watching TV is an ass about it, then sure, they're going to be treated like one.

But what it sounds like is that you make the assumption that a) television is repulsive, and as a concequence of that b) no one would watch it of thier own free will. After all, if you find it repulsive, then it is repulsive, right?

People aren't controlled into watching TV, they watch it because that's what they want to do.

(Since you claim you're reading now, I'd recommend reading this before you go start screaming "WAKE UP!" in your best Zack De La Rocha voice at people).

N

... instead of ordering a specialized Linux supporting card from a more obscure source.

Like Amazon?

In my professional geek career, I have yet to met a business that could top VeriSign's ability to cause grief, stress, development delays, and outrageous legal fees.

Anyhow, the point is, yes, customer service can stink. I'm pretty sure today's model is, "Build a product and hope it works. Throw in a customer service department to keep the idiots happy, and hope they do a good job, and if they don't, push the complaints back to the coders/factory/whatever." The problem with the model is that we can engineer better solutions if we put our minds to it.

And how, exactly, do you know that? Did you know that hundreds of "detainees" have already been released from Gitmo, after it was discovered that they were innocent (including quite a few innocents who were turned in by crooked Afghanis for lucrative bounties and one guy whose only crime was to be a cook for the Taliban government).

Would you have shot them in the head before they were found innocent?

Do yourself a favor, and do some reading before you go shooting your fucking mouth off.

-Eric

Well, when it comes to QM we're only taught (what else?) the Copenhagen interpretation - the rest aren't even mentioned, except maybe for some graduate courses which is really a shame.

I may not have all the nuances of the Copenhagen interpretation, but it always struck me as a "dead end" in the search for reality. Not that there necessarily is a reality "behind" QM, but even with Bell's nonlocality proof, strange things like the neorealists' pilot wave theory seem like they open up more avenues of investigation even if they do end up wrong or misguided. QM is too incredibly strong and counterintuitive to stop at 'just' using the probability equations.

Well, in my humble opinion, etc. :)

P.S. Drop by sometime.

We live in Canada, and actually won a trip to Switzerland this summer. We went to Geneva and rode the #9 down to CERN. Couldn't get a tour booked in under a year, never mind the few months we had, unfortunately, and when we got there, even the Microcosm exhibit was closed, so my attempts at getting to a scientific "mecca" were foiled (though I did eat in the cafe and had the Menu Proton special :)

There are so many things over there - it's a shame we're at such a distance. At least my fiancée-soon-to-be-wife, who's a high school science teacher, has a lot of Danish heritage - which might make a good excuse to visit. I trust you don't have to book campus tours or anything too far in advance? :)

We also picked up, some time ago, an odd little 'graphic novel' about Niels Bohr's life called Suspended In Language. I'd be surprised if they didn't sell it on campus - it was a mighty nifty book, something that belongs in a collection next to Gonicks' Cartoon History of the Universe :)

Amazon.com - Your order ("The Baby-sitters Club") has been shipped

I mean seriously, Shakespeare was great, but would we want to have saved every piece of parchment he scribbled on?

"with the possible exception of a few pages of Sir Thomas More, a play that Shakespeare may have helped write, no manuscripts of Shakespeare's survive. The only certain evidence we have of his handwriting is his signature."

Our knowledge of Shakespeare is so sparse that there's an entire genre of claims that Shakespeare's plays were actually written by someone else. Everyone from Ben Jonson to Francis Bacon to Sir Walter Raleigh has been put forward as the "real author". David Kahn's classic work on cryptography, The Codebreakers , devotes almost an entire chapter to debunking the "secret coded messages", supposedly hidden inside Shakespeare's plays, which reveal their true author.

All of this speculation could be disposed of, if only we had a few scribbled pages of Hamlet or The Tempest. But we don't.

Fortunately, Aardman Animations is far better documented than Shakespeare. But the destruction of their storyboards and sets is still a terrible loss.

Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective by Diomidis Spinellis (previously reviewed here might be an interesting starting point.

Freedom of Choice is what you've got...
Freedom FROM Choice is what you want...

Sorry, posting anon because RS is no saint.

Can someone explain to me whether or not time actually exists?

Yes. Read this.

Indeed. A great book was written on the topic years ago.

But (no shit) she's already releasing a sequel:

The Spychips Threat : Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Computer Tracking

An updated version of the authors' previous Spychips, this book explores the inherent dangers of RFID (which stands for Radio Frequency Identification and is a technology that uses tiny computer chips to track consumer items and consumers) and shows how this powerful new technology actually fits into the schema of many evangelicals' interpretation of biblical prophecy. Compiling massive amounts of research with firsthand knowledge, Spychips explains how RFID works, reveals the history and future of the mater planners' strategies to imbed these trackers on everything (from postage stamps to shoes to people themselves), and ties in these ominous new devices to current Christian thought about the coming New World Order.

From:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1595 550216/ref=pd_sim_b_1/104-0662104-7062340?_encodin g=UTF8&v=glance

The movie is loosely based on the novel "Orbit" by Thomas H. Block, from 1982. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.. sounds rediculously similar. Wonder if we're talking out and out plagarism here. James Follett also wrote Mirage, the story of how Israeli nationals stole the designs for the Mirage fighter plane when the french refused to aid the occupation of Palistine.

No clue how rebates work.

Rebates are an odd (and I suspect uniquely American) concept.

A product is being sold at $50 with a $25 rebate. You purchase the product for $50, and once you get it home, you send in the receipt and UPC code from the box to the manufacturer. In about 6-10 weeks (usually) you get a cheque in the mail for $25.

Hence, while you did pay $50 originally, you'll eventually get $25 back, so you really only spent $25. Rebates are typically found on electronics products (but they can be found on cheaper things. The other day I bought a bottle of motor oil that had a rebate for the full purchase price, and yes, 6 weeks later I got a check in the mail for $1.79. In that situation, the hope of the manufacturer is that people don't take the time to complete the rebate paperwork.)

In my instance, I paid $99 for my cell phone, but my rebates were for $300, so I was paid to buy my cell phone (paid $201 that is.) My phone is a Sony Ericcson T637, which would have been enormously expensive otherwise (the phone was probably $250-$350 new, so since they gave me $200 you can safely assume that Cingular subsizied the phone for about $500.)

In order to get the rebates (which took about 5 months to get) I had to sign a 2 year contract with Cingular. There was no requirement as to which plan I had to buy (they were all standard Cingular plans) the cheapest plan being 450 minutes day/unlimited night minutes at$39/month.

Here's an example of a current offer with a price of negative $120.

"At those prices, why bother printing at home?"

Well damn. There goes my digital photography/image manipulation business.

There's a great book called Sabre where the flying theatres of AirBus and Boeing are pitted against the new orbital space planes. More seats vs shorter flight times. The maiden flight of the orbital space plane is sabotaged resulting in an explosion. Unlike every explosion to ever go off on a plane in flight the space plane does not fall out of the sky. The passengers are rescued in orbit using a backup plane.

Well here's a question, Mr Informative. Have we reached the "point of diminishing returns"? Why bring up a point, that we haven't even gotten close to yet? In fact, after reading this. I'd say that we have a long way to go.

Copper wiring is cheap. The most expensive part would be quality connectors (just like cat5). Gold plated connectors might be a good idea, if only to avoid oxidation. But even those can be had cheap.

Heh. Not to a real 'Golden Ear' audiophile. Aeons ago, while in the service, I worked part time selling to audiophiles. It kept my family off food stamps. A good peaker cables and interconnects sale put food on the table for quite a while.

Here's an audiophile's cheap mass-market speaker cable, only $199 for 15 feet:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 04Y2VO/102-9647861-9570554?v=glance

There are considerably higher priced custom cables, including a custom open busbar setup of certified monocrystalline oxygen free silver plated copper on glass standoff insulators, for around $200/foot.

Never mind that us mere mortals can't tell the difference between this stuff and a 50 cent roll of zip cord. A Golden Ear will claim to hear the difference, except in double-blind tests where the 'stress' of being under test will cancel out his abilities.

I think the article's author is pretty new to computers. Wow! I can boot any computer from something I carry around! I think I know what USB flash drives are. I generally prefer this, or at worst this.

Have you ever committed any of the following sins (Exodus 20)?

1) Not loved the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength?
2) Held anything as a higher priority than God Himself (e.g. money, sex, status, etc)?
3) Used God's name in vain, or as a curse-word?
4) Failed to keep the Sabbath Holy (worked instead of worshipped God on His day)?
5) Dishonored or disrespected your parents in any way?
6) Lied to anyone (even a "white lie")?
7) Stolen anything from anyone (even a piece of candy as a child)?
8) Killed/murdered anyone?
9) Committed adultery (lust or sex with one to whom you weren't married)?
10) Envied someone else (i.e. resentment because of desire for someone else's possessions)?

The Holy Bible indicates that the person GUILTY OF ANY of the above will be SENTENCED TO HELL **UNLESS** s/he REPENTS AND RECEIVES JESUS CHRIST AS SAVIOR AND LORD.

WE ALL FALL SHORT DUE TO OUR SIN (Romans 3:23) but the GOOD NEWS is that by GOD'S GRACE THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST (Ephesians 2:8-9) we can have our SINS FORGIVEN, ESCAPE HELL and GO TO PARADISE TO BE WITH OUR LOVING FATHER GOD.

Salvation and deliverance are gifts from God, but it is up to each of us to claim them for ourselves. God will forgive and deliver us from our sinful life-choices if we ask Him with a sincere repentant heart in the name of Jesus Christ. The Bible says that WHOEVER CALLS UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD (JESUS CHRIST) WILL BE SAVED (Joel 2:32, Acts 2:21, John 3:16) and THERE IS NO WAY TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH JESUS CHRIST (John 14:6).

1. Know in your heart that the one true God is the Father of our Messiah Jesus Christ

2. Accept that Jesus Christ was sinless, He lovingly and sacrificially shed His own blood on the cross as substitute punishment for your sins, and that His resurrection on the third day symbolizes every born-again believer's new life in Him. His ascension represents the believing Christian's ultimate ascension into heaven to spend eternity in the presence of Almighty God.

3. Repent of your sins. Say a sincere prayer thanking God for sending His son Jesus Christ to shed His blood for your sins, confess that you are a sinner, concede that you are truly sorry for your sins, trust in Jesus Christ for redemption, and receive the Holy Spirit to help you live in obedience from now on. http://www.stevehill.org/needhelpnow/Howtobecomeac hristian.asp

4. Make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, putting your trust in Him for everything - including that He will set you free from sin, deliver you from addictions & demon possessions, and heal you of all sickness & disease (AIDS, cancer, depression, etc). See http://www.matthewcmanning.com/about/default.asp

5. Forgive everyone for everything so God will forgive your sins on judgment day (Matthew 6:14)

6. Confess with your mouth to friends & family that Jesus Christ is your Lord, get baptised, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

7. Read the Holy Bible every day for wisdom, guidance, strength, and encouragement. If you need to purchase one, see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-ur l/index%3Dstripbooks%26field-k eywords%3Dholy%2520bible/002-9498464-5754462

8. Find a local Christian church that you can attend regularly. Make friends with other disciples of Jesus Christ.

Depend on Jesus Christ for everything the rest of your life, and He will provide for all your needs. And best of all, when this life is over, He will lovingly welcome you into heaven to be with Him for eternity.

The choice is yours.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0590629786/ref=sib _dp_pt/102-8248218-0334524#reader-link

Is it "manga" or not? From a purist standpoint it's not "manga" since it's not drawn or written by anyone who is Japanese. OTOH we did deliberately ask Erik Lervold (our artist from MCAD whom I met at MCAD's Schoolgirls and Mobilesuit anime/manga workshops) to make the artwork manga-like and he came up with something that's halfway between US style and Japanese style. So you can call it "manga," you can call it a "comic book," or you can call it a "graphical introduction for middle school students to the CINDI mission" (which is what we call it in our reports to NASA).

As for the various complaints about why we didn't just give the straight science, remember the target audience is typical sixth through ninth graders. If we just did straight science we'd lose 98% of them on the first page. There is already enough boring and bad science education material out there. Yes, the story is silly, but the idea is to get the reader interested and let the science sneak up on them instead of hitting them over the head with it straight off. "The Magic Schoolbus" (books and TV series) was our ideal role model of how to do that right and make it work.

BTW, we're not the first science comic book. There are all the wonderful comics by Larry Gonick. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-fo rm/ref=s_sf_b_as/103-8242802-9062263 Then there was a comic book done by Zander Cannon (and Kevin Cannon) called "Space Weather" put out by NOAA back in 2001. http://www.kevincannon.org/published/ And there are two manga (real manga in Japanese!) about the aurora and the Earth's magnetic field put out by the Solar-Terrestrial Environmental Laboratory at Nagoya University. NOAA helped create English translations of them here: http://www.stelab.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ste-www1/doce/out reach.html#anc_booklets STEL has a lot more science manga in Japanese here: http://www.stelab.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ste-www1/doc/outr each_j.html All of these were the inspirations for us to do our own comic book. Also there was a great NPR story last spring about using comic books in science education at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4581832 One of the books mentioned there was "Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards" which is a comic book/graphic novel about the bitter fight between the nineteenth century paleontologists Edward Cope and Othniel Marsh. I just picked up a copy last week at my local comic book store and it's great! Two of the artists are none other than Zander and Kevin Cannon from above.

For SynapseLapse (644398) who suggested watching "PlanetES": Yeah!! I second that. One of the two NASA space junk experts interviewed in the US release (Dr. Mark Matney) is a grad school buddy of mine and didn't tell Bandai he'd already seen some fansubs of the series before they approached him to do the interviews. (I wonder how that happened....) BTW, NOAA has commissioned Zander and Kevin Cannon to do a sequel to their "Space Weather" comic about "Space Junk." http://www.bigtimeattic.com/blog/2005_09_01_archiv e.html

For Peterus7 (607982) who wrote: "Well, you see, a secret pact between Nerv and the State Alchemists used a special alloy called spacedogium to help create a weapon using ancient space energy to fight off Shonen Bat. Eventually it went spacebound, and the process created Space dogs. And now Johan Leibert

Sadly enough they already made a Britney Spears game.

• TiVo
  
• XBox
  
• 802.11a/b/g
  
• iPod
  
• 1,000s more...
  

Basically, the technique uses a wireless sensor network to monitor door openings and closings. When someone turns the knob, a generator powers a wireless transmitter, which sends a request to some central authority, which determines whether the door should be opened or not.

The general term for these types of batteryless techniques is energy scavenging (or energy harvesting); there are many other examples of these techniques available on the web, and a book, "Energy Scavenging for Wireless Sensor Networks : with Special Focus on Vibrations," is also available. There is at least one company, Enocean, dedicated to the production of such systems.

I have been doing consulting/contracting for nearly five years, and found this book to have some pretty good advice:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471176494/ dedasys-20/

Anyone got some others to recommend?

I recommend getting a copy of The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World by Christopher Duncan.

I read this after getting my first (and very bad) job as a programmer. It covers many aspects of working in I.T., including some of the differences between working as an employee or a contractor.

Good Luck!

Then I highly recommend Yngwie Malmsteen's Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar.

Oops I did it again borrow heavily from a jan hammer tune called Seeds.

I think her tune "toxic" while a complete waste of talent, was an amazing song from a technical standpoint.

Yeah, one of the few sentences I gleaned from the first tape of my Pimsler Mandarin casettes. I think one of the other replies before you had the same set since he quoted lines from the next lesson. I like learning languages and figure it will be good to know in the coming decades, just like Japanese was vogue in the 80s.

You can buy the game here: Ultimate Spiderman. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

You can buy the game here: Ultimate Spiderman. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Amazon.com sells HBO's original shows on DVD. Instead of stealing it, go ahead and buy the DVDs. That's what I do. You do not have the rights to access a recent work of art if the creator of it does not grant it. i.e. You do not get HBO, or your HBO license does not allow you to time-shift the show. Since HBO doesn't have advertising, the only sources of revenue come from paying subscribers and, to a much smaller extent, those of us who purchase the shows on DVD.

If you want to download a movie, go grab Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning. The creators of it allow anyone to download their movie and watch it at any time.

If people keep up with the attitude that they are "entitled" to others' work of art and continue to use BitTorrent and other file-sharing software to obtain it, this will create more regulation, lawsuits, and laws which would eventually stifle file-sharing and stop legitimate distribution of movies - i.e. Star Wreck.

Yes, I could edit these things, but a) the truth is less good in these instances than the folklore, so I expect it will just get changed back (in the specific instance I cited, ABC fans people probably troll that entry daily to protect their primacy...)and b) I don't have the six-year-old skills in place to be motivated. I like wikipedia as a general overview, but the love of Wiki-fans for "free" as in speech solutions somestimes can't make up for a good fact-checker.

Note: I am on a flaky connect and posting this w/o previewing so apologies if the links are broken.

Get the book Obfiscated C and Other Mysteries by Don Libes. Explanations of various Obfuscated C contest entries, and alternate chapters illustrate neat corners of C, including a few things similar to this little library. Occupies a place of honor on my shelf.

The gay flight attendant who knew he was infected led a lot of people on a merry (Mary?) chase.

You see, there was this company called "Go" a few years ago. Read about it here.

They were working on a Tablet PC before MS fucked them over - at least that's the way they tell it.

"... that a country with our military might cannot and will not be forced."

Do you have no other idea to solve problems, e.g. building consens?

You may have a look at Paul Kennedy "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers".
Amazon

Who says you can't copyright noise?

It's about the movies man.

When the Aligator vs Python match is decided we'll segway to the Godzilla vs. Mothra match and find out which contestants will vie for the championship round!

We all know the ultimate battle is Bear v. Shark, anyway (a great book regardless).