Domain: angelfire.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to angelfire.com.
Comments · 1,110
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Media violence researchers aren't that fair
Lets actually find out how few in number it is.
Your sentiment is noble, but unfortunately, media violence researchers are not interested in their own numbers -- just a political agenda. Objectively speaking, the burden of proof is on media violence researchers to show any type of causal link at all. They have failed for eighty years. (Going back to the Payne Fund Studies.) See here for more information on what is going on. -
Re:Sensational!
Your statement is so wrong that it is fractally wrong. There is not a level at which your statement is not wrong.
Google "Chernobyl" "elephants foot".
Read up on the ruins of the reactor- it's a HUGE problem. The concrete coating is rotting and there isn't money to build a new one.
When you are done- read this site: http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/index.html
It's really cool- a Russian lady on a ninja motorcycle goes on annual trips through the area, takes photos, and Geiger counter readings.
It has a large section talking about the current state of Chernobyl... you would die within months if you were inside more than a timescale in minutes. If you stayed inside under an hour, you'd day within days.
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Re:Misleading summary
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/radioadaptive/ramsar.html
"Ramsar, in northern Iran has some inhabited areas with the highest known natural radiation levels in the world."
"The radioactivity of the high background radiation areas (HBRAs) of Ramsar is due to Ra-226 and its decay products, which have been brought to the surface by the waters of hot springs. There are more than 9 hot springs with different concentrations of radium in Ramsar that are used as spas by both tourists and residents."
"According to the results of the surveys performed to date the radioactivity seems primarily to be due to the radium dissolved in mineral water and secondarily to travertine deposits having elevated levels of thorium combined with lesser concentrations of uranium "
but that isn't the interesting part.
this is."The preliminary results of cytogenetical, immunological and hematological studies on the residents of high background radiation areas of Ramsar have been previously reported (Mortazavi et al. 2001, Ghiassi-Nejad et al. 2002 and Mortazavi et al. in press), suggesting that exposure to high levels of natural background radiation can induce radioadaptive response in human cells. Lymphocytes of Ramsar residents when subjected to 1.5 Gy of gamma rays showed fewer induced chromosome aberrations compared to residents in a nearby control area whose lymphocytes were subjected to the same radiation dose. Despite the fact that in in vitro experiments lymphocytes of some individuals show a synergistic effect after pretreatment with a low dose(Mortazavi et al. 2000), none of the residents of high background radiation areas showed such a response. "
yes, when exposed to long term high levels of radiation these peoples cells adapted and ramped up their DNA repair mechanisms.
These people can survive radiation better than most.now of course it's not magic, if you're out in the cold a lot you'll adapt to it a bit and your body will deal better with it. the same with heat or sunlight or etc etc.
it can still be overwhelmed but we do have mechanisms for dealing with raidation -
Re:Considering .....
I'm not opposed to nuclear energy.
I think this accident will result in improvements.
But...
We are dealing with extremely improbable events with extremely negative consequences.You should at least read and browse this site-- it's not "enviro wackos" or greenpeace.
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/index.html"Officially" still only 31 dead but estimates of 300,000 actual deaths. A 60x120 mile plot of two countries which won't be inhabitable for 600 years.
So instead of going all "rah rah" and how wonderful nuclear energy is, you need to keep in mind that it's like raising a chimpanzee as a pet. They seem cute until they rip your arms off.
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Re:Obligatory KiddOfSpeed reference
Your welcome. There's more stuff (about Ukrainian battlegrounds and the Soviet Gulag) at her old Angelfire site:
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Re:TFS is confusing
They could try replacing all the keys for all devices as a stopgap, but that's pretty problematic and could well just lead to the same leak happening again.
It wouldn't help much in any case, since HDCP is fundamentally flawed. Extracting 40 particular public-private keypairs (perhaps by electron microscopy or what have you) is sufficient to make a synthetic master key.
That's why I described it as a stopgap. It's not clear how this leak happened. There are three main means through which someone who isn't part of DCP, LLC can get their hands on device keypairs. 1) Work for a device manufacturer and be in a position where you're trusted to see them. 2) use a logic probe or similar to extract them from the chips (as you suggest above). 3) an electronic probing birthday-paradox style attack (see paper Four Simple Cryptographic Attacks on HDCP for details).
It's not clear which of these has been used, but if they were to change all the keys, if it were 1, we could possibly see a new master key the next day. If it were 2, we could see one within a couple of days. And if it were 3, it would take about six weeks. So I suspect that they're smart enough to not bother.
As a side note, the Crosby paper has several flaws. Its methodology for finding a solution actually loses some bits in the process due to having to divide by two (which is unavoidable, but which they don't acknowledge will happen in the paper). They got so caught up in the methodology of the matrix that they forgot about what would happen with the keys when their solution is actually applied to get the real key. Fortunately, this isn't a serious issue. Their results also disagreed with mine on the question of how many vectors you would need to have an invertible matrix. They came up with overwhelming odds once you have 45 or so. I came up with 50/50 odds by the time you get to about the mid-fifties and not overwhelming odds until you get up into the seventies. So that's a pretty strong disagreement. One of us definitely made a mistake. My suspicion is that it's them because I know what methodology I used and can't see any mistakes in it. But I really need to check more thoroughly.
But for the time being I recommend my paper, Four Simple Cryptographic Attacks on HDCP, (which was released before theirs) instead. Although I am biased in my opinion of the two.
Keith
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right IS wrong
It states right on the Social Security card that it is NOT to be used for identification, but for all intents and purposes, it is.
The reason for security classifications is to protect the guilty.
Politicians who are "in bed" with the oil companies, big pharma, the banksters, utilities, lobbyists, special interest groups. The biggest lie stands as a testament to this truth.
Why else would the videos of what really happened at the Pentagram have not been seen by anyone outside the "elite"?
Questions about Cheney and his participation in the utilities fiasco have never been exposed, however, viewing the documentary,Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room may illustrate the repercussions of such a meeting.
The true level of corruption in government will probably never be known unless and/or until the "old guard" have been replaced by honest people. Now, before any of you sheeple start saying any of your lobotomized rantings about conspiracies, BAA, wake up!
Has all of the tarp money been accounted for?
Why is a private bankster system profiting from US government borrowing when the US government could borrow from itself interest free.
The US government IS an employee of the sovereign people of these united states of America, yet these employee never take unannounced drug and alcohol tests, never ASK for a pay raise, don't seem to be in the health care system they want to shove down OUR throats, can't seem to BALANCE the budget, finalizeTERM LIMITS.
WAKE...UP people! -
Well I do giggle
when I hear people use the word "titmouse" http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/homerjs/giggle.wav
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There is confusion after all.
OP poster here. Looks like I now have to invest some time to school you. Sorry to have to do this, but ah well.
If you actually read all of the wikipedia information you would have seen this too.
Of course I did. The idea that this is a treaty between sovereign nations in now way detracts from the very clear statement that the US is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. It as if the treaty said "2 + 2 = 4" and you are waving around "ah, but does not 2 + 3 = 5?!!" Uh, yeah. So going back to the point, the US is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.
If you actually were taught your history correctly all our founding fathers were religious men.
Notwithstanding your distinction between "religious men" and "deeply religious men", the extent to which our founders were "religious" is dependent on what you mean by "religious". They were certainly not, with few exceptions, religious in the sense that fundamentalist Christian right-wingers wish they were. The majority were deists, who did not believe that any "Creator" played a personal or interested role in the day to day activities or events of humankind. I will discuss this further below.
But they believed all religions should be allowed to be practiced without persecution.
I agree with that. Again, 2+3 = 5. It has nothing to do with the understanding that the United States was in no way founded on the Christian religion.
Thomas Jefferson was not religious but he did believe in a Creator. He is the writer of the Declaration of Independence.
No shit. He was also an author of the Constitution, the IMPORTANT document that put down the groundwork for our country, not the statement that explained why we were separating from England. The Dec of Independence is a beautifully written document, but has NO LEGAL import.
As for TJ-- you clearly know very little of the man. He was probably a deist, but certainly not a Christian. While he was an admirer of Jesus' message, he did NOT believe in the claims that Jesus performed miracles or did anything supernatural. In fact, he famously rewrote the bible, taking out all the magic bits. Feel free to enjoy the religion-free "Jeffersonian Bible". The best feature of this bible is perhaps how you will shut your pie hole as you digest it and realize how wrong you are.
But Jefferson's version "omitting the question of [Jesus's] diety" isn't enough to convince you of TJ's disbelief in Christianity, why don't you take in his general beliefs about religion and government. I could direct you to the famous "wall of separation of church and state" stuff, but how's this to start:
Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious FreedomI concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself
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Re:Dell Mini 10 has no problem with YouTube
Word of warning friend. Check to see if your unit has Poulsbo graphics. If it does, like my accountant's Dell Mini 10 From Hell, I could only manage to compile the graphics driver from this script, below. And this must be re-done every time my accountant overwrites the compiled drivers with Ubuntu updates.
http://poulsbo-karmic.angelfire.com/
Now here's the real news. That script works fine for fixing Pulsbo graphics on the Dell Mini-10 from Hell. BUT BE WARNED, upgrading to karmic will just ruin the Poulsbo graphics completely, with no hope for repair, aside from formatting and going back to 9.10.
But yeah, other than that, my accountant's Dell Mini 10 From Hell runs YouTube videos very well.
So does my Asus Eee HD1000-something. It is pure delight with Ubuntu remix, and a fully encrypted disk (install Ubuntu fully encrypted using the alternate installer, then via Synaptec, add the 'task' Ubuntu Netbook).
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Re:Aolbum art? You need BLIND FAITH!
Blind Faith - Well All Right!!!
.... all right?
Then and only then will you be allowed to SEE and enjoy the music!
Details of the above picture available at: http://www.angelfire.com/wi/blindfaith/vvcov69.html
CAUTION! THIS PICTURE IS NOT FIT FIT FOR AMERICANS. UNLESS THEY ARE MEDICAL DOCTORS!
Possibly not Canadians either. The jury is still out on this.
Now go cleanse your filthy body with Pinoqachole, you pervert! -
Re:Aolbum art? You need BLIND FAITH!
Blind Faith - Well All Right!!!
.... all right?
Then and only then will you be allowed to SEE and enjoy the music!
Details of the above picture available at: http://www.angelfire.com/wi/blindfaith/vvcov69.html
CAUTION! THIS PICTURE IS NOT FIT FIT FOR AMERICANS. UNLESS THEY ARE MEDICAL DOCTORS!
Possibly not Canadians either. The jury is still out on this.
Now go cleanse your filthy body with Pinoqachole, you pervert! -
Kidd Of Speed
Elena Filatova has been riding her motorbike through that area since 2003 and has some interesting things to say; http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter1.html
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Re:Interesting
Also, when a flock of chickens suddenly loses it's rooster, the dominant female will sometimes act as a rooster. That isn't hormonal?
This does happen.
Apparently this is not all that common, that is, not every hen can become a henry, and perhaps TFA suggests the means by which this does happen when it does.
Apparently One in 10,000 hens can change sex, usually in response to a gonad ceasing to function. One professor explained it this way:
"Yes a type of sex reversal does occur in poultry. Both a right and left ovary start to develop in the embryo but between day 7 and 9 of incubation the right gonad ceases to continue development. If in the adult, the left ovary is removed or fails to function the right gonad hypertrophies to become a testis-organ and thus "a male' instead of what was a hen."
The implication of this is with regard to TFA is that failure of one gonad cease development leads to the double expression of traits documented in the story.
So there is nothing new here that hasn't been known for some time with regard to chicken sex other than that the normal failure to enter stasis can lead to odd birds.
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Re:Sadness
You obviously don't remember "Hamster dance". Charm, indeed!
What about the Jesus dance? Copying that onto the school's website in 1999 got me banned from using the computers for the rest of the week!
(Although, it took about 6 months for someone to notice, care and complain.)
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Re:Batteries and their lifespan
And one of the main things I've observed lately is that sometimes it's the battery chargers that are ultimately the issue when problems start to become reoccurring.
Good article here on how to build your own smarter battery charger. They guy who put the article together recounts how his power tool batteries kept going bad. In passing he mentions that the charger that comes with many batteries isn't always compatible with the batteries, or that they sometimes are just badly designed.
My rule of thumb - if the batteries are charged and plugged in, but still warm hours later, something's going wrong.
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Re:Math is now a science?Yeah, I know that story. And you take that as the truth? According to the Curriculum Vitae of Zbigniew Jaworowski "Since 1993 he is working at the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw, now as the chairman of the Scientific Council." (and he still is). How the hell could he have been fired from an institute in Norway years later?
And of course the "this paper puts the Norsk Polarinstitutt in disrepute" - because it's shoddy science.
But hey, we are used to lies and shoddy science from the "skeptics".
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Ha-Ha!
In the UK, a full version of Windows 7 Home Premium is going to cost less than half the price Americans will have to pay...
Getting stiffed by Microsoft simply because you CAN pay more. I think that's hilarious. How are the Microsoft faithful going to spin this one?
I've got a link for the Windows fanbois.
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Re:Exploding ipod? Don't worry!
Reminds me of the iRaq posters, one having an ipod like device mid throw.
http://www.angelfire.com/vamp/warposter/ -
Can't sleep, clowns will eat me
Can't sleep, clowns will eat me: http://www.angelfire.com/mi/miscot/clown13.JPG
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Re:Unfortunately, it will never happen.
An ion drive is currently being used with the Dawn Mission, where the delta-v requirements are certainly as comparable to going from LEO to L-5.
Yes, ion drives are amazing technology suitable for relatively light robotic probes. But isn't the correct measure to use here the required thrust, rather than the delta-V? The delta-V requirements ignore the fact that the ISS is much heavier than Dawn, no?
Using that as a rule of thumb, I would expect at a maximum of a similar duration of time to get the ISS to L5... about 3-4 years if you use this comparison. I would expect it to happen much faster, and certainly not take decades.
Jamie did the calculation last year and arrived at a transit time of ~9 years. I think the station would probably spend months in the radiation belts, and I wonder how much of their electronics have been hardened enough to even keep automated systems running. (Again, I'm not an aerospace engineer, I don't even know if Jamie's calculations are correct, let alone how much of that number would be spent in the belts.)
An ESA resupply module docket to the ISS and provided a delta-v that accelerated to an additional 2.65 m/s.
... Surprisingly, this is nearly half of the delta-v that is necessary to get to L-5.According to this website, the delta-V to go from LEO to L5 is 3.9 km/s. Maybe they're off by a factor of a thousand?
This is something that certainly could happen if there was an objective to make it happen, and even just moving the ISS to L-5 as a place to "park" the structure as a historical monument to future generations rather than having it crash into the Earth causing potential damage or even death may make the effort worthwhile.
An interesting idea, but I wonder what kind of shape it would be in after slowly passing through the debris field that lies at a higher altitude than the ISS is currently at. Remember that the recent Hubble service mission was especially dangerous because 300km above the Earth's surface is a very "dirty" orbit filled with projectiles moving at multiple kilometers per second.
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Re:Let me hi-jack this to ask a serious question..
It's literally entirely harmless. Tritium is a pure beta emitter (electrons). The maximum energy of a beta particle from a decaying T atom is 18.6 KeV. A beta particle of 18 KeV can penetrate no more than about 5mm in air or 6-7 MICROmeters in water (or your skin). Exactly zero beta particles are escaping the phosphor coated glass ampoule (let alone the plastic outer case). ok so now what about bremsstrahlung. Well the percent of incident 18 KeV betas on the glass ampoule that actually produce bremsstrahlung is VERY low, 0.1% at absolute most and remember, the number of betas emitted that are >than even 15 KeV is VERY low (few percent). This ampoule likely contains about 10 millicuries of T or ~370 million betas emitted per second. We can assume (extremely) roughly that 10K X-rays of >15KeV are produced every second from this source then. The half value layer of 20 KeV x-rays is 1mm for aluminum, so 3mm of aluminum will block ~90% of a 20 KeV x-ray source, I assume the thickness (mass) of the glass of the ampoule and the lucite plastic is at least roughly equal to 3mm of Al so now we're down to 1,000 x-rays per second emitted isotropically (500 per second toward you, ~half of which would be absorbed merely while penetrating your skin alone). Even this, though it's very tiny, has got to be a ridiculous over estimate. How do I know? Because fortunately someone has taken the time to measure the emanation from a HUGE tube of this sort taken from an emergency exit sign. What did he find? It was giving off 60 counts per MINUTE of x-rays. An utterly, totally trivial amount of radiation. You will get thousands of times this sort of dose from cosmic rays on a half hour plane ride.
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Re:Stay With Me Here
Viola! The Worlds Worst Website
How does that web site relate to a Viola?
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Re:Stay With Me Here
Viola! The Worlds Worst Website
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Re:VHDL == history
I've been in the industry as a chip designer since 1995 (board designer for 15 years before that..) I learned Verilog in about 2 days because I knew C thoroughly. My experience applies to someone who is already a designer - which isn't the case here.
I also know that there are some limitations of the original definition of VHDL that make it a pain to use. The strong typing gets in the way of getting the logic described. VHDL natively can't do things like signed arithmetic. That's why you have all those IEEE packages! In other words - the language is extensible - but you pay a price in lack of brevity to describe the hardware you're after.
There are features of 1995 Verilog that also are a curse and a god-send. The assumption that any undefined term is automatically a wire can save you lots of trouble in the creation of the design or bite you in the posterior (where a strongly typed language would save you from yourself.) So Verilog takes on the original K&R attitude of the programmer being smarter than the compiler and knowing what he/she is doing.
No come into the current century and we have System Verilog. System Verilog = Verilog + Vera + the best parts of VHDL (things like generate).
Where VHDL and Verilog were lacking for strong verification methodologies (that in truth were developed years after either language came into being...) System Verilog has been updated to handle this job adequately along with the task of describing the hardware.
The real answer is that you have asked one of those religious war questions - just like VI vs Emacs (Obviously VI is better
;-) Let me give you a URL that you can read about a contest that was held at DAC some years ago - http://www.angelfire.com/in/rajesh52/contest.htmlI worked for both Yatin and Larry (two of the conspirators in this story) You be the judge of the Verilog/VHDL war.
I also believe there is a very definite geocentric component to these arguments as has been claimed in earlier posts - In the US Verilog is dominant - while in Europe it's VHDL. I can't speak to other continents.
;-)In my time as a consultant in the field - I've had two projects out of roughly 20 that were VHDL. Now-a-days these tend to be multi-language affairs where we have both VHDL and Verilog mixed together. Modelsim, and the Cadence offerings handle this pretty transparently (can't speak to the Synopsys tools - haven't used them in better than a decade at this point.)
As another data point - the vast majority of reusable IP that I've seen was done in Verilog. (This may be due to the geographic component - mostly US companies.. ARM being the exception - but everything I see from them is primarily in Verilog...
;-)Okay - that's lots of data as to what you should do - I would think you should concentrate on teaching about the synthesis subset, proper digital design AND how to write verification environments before they ever even WORRY about FPGAs. What I've seen are a lot of non-designers getting into FPGA design - and they are clueless about things like clock domain crossing and testing the design in simulation BEFORE they go to the FPGA. The old 90/10 rule applies equally here. Do the homework on the design FIRST with simulation before you try to debug every little problem when it's been realized in hardware as an FPGA. I would imagine that students who are trying to become designers are going to suffer the same pitfalls if not shown the RIGHT way to do things.
Hope this gives you some data. In the long run - whether you use Verilog, VHDL or better yet - System Verilog doesn't matter so much as teaching the proper design and verification methodologies!
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Re:Irrelevant
Quoting unknown author who wrote this in the spirit of MEIHEM IN CE CLASRUM, by Dolton Edwards.
I'm failing to find the original text. Ironically, there seems to be variation in the spelling of both "MEIHEM IN CE CLASRUM" and "Dolton Edwards", which isn't helping me, someone who's heard of neither phrase before
:DPerhaps this: http://www.angelfire.com/va3/timshenk/codes/meihem.html ?
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Re:live music is so much richer
I would much rather listen to live music over any form of sterile overcompressed recordings.
A good engineer using good a quality PA should be able to get a great sound over most of a given room. Tehre is nearly always a bass boost in the middle of the sound field in ANY room, that can be overcome only by using a bessel array of LF speakers.see
http://www.angelfire.com/sd/paulkemble/soundf.html
I did live sound for years, and apart from rooms with bad acoustics, got a very good result.
Most of the live acts I worked for rarely if ever had bum notes, perhaps you need to go see some good bands who CAN play live, rather than ones who can't play well anywhere but the studio where they can have many attempts, in other words crap musicians.
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Bistromathics
It has begun:
"Bistromathics itself is simply a revolutinary new way of understanding the behavior of numbers. Just as Einstein observed that space was not an absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in time, so it is now realized that numbers are not absolute, but depend on the observer's movement in restaurants."
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Re:Dude... like... what?
That and non-stoners will not have orange juice shooting out of their nose when the home has a gutair player come in and he plays The Ding-a-Ling Song by Chuck Berry.
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Re:Tax Dollars
google much? Average sentences imposed on Federal offenders sentenced in U.S. District Courts Oct 1, 2000 to Sep 30, 2001.
Violent_Felonies 90.7_months
Drug_Felonies 73.9_months -
Re:Mount tinfoil Hats!(Kent's Room)
Kent: What?
Mitch: (os) What do you think...(Chris & Mitch's Room)
Mitch: (into microphone) ...a secret phase conjugate...(Kent's Room)
Mitch: (os) ...tracking system is for? A big mirror makes a big beam -
Screen Resolution - just a smidge bigger...
Most of the current crop of netbooks seem to have settled on WSVGA resolution (1024x600). IMO this is just a little bit too small for serious work. WXGA (1280x768 or 800) would be so much nicer. And it's not like it can't be done; my several-year-old Fujitsu P2120 fits 1280x768 pixels into 10 inches. If only it didn't have a crappy 933 MHz Crusoe, and had more up-to-date wireless (802.11b only with no WPA support), and some more memory (1GB or so vs. the 256MB it came with), it would be the perfect netbook. And with the 6-cell main battery and the media bay battery installed, it literally will run all day long.
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Neanderthal in the bible
Compared to people living today, the Neanderthal adults had a more prominent brow ridge and some also had a chinless appearance. These features do not make them less human, nor do they make them primitive.
The bible describe people in the early parts of Genesis that lived for hundreds of years. One of the things that we have learned from modern science is that the bones of the head and face continue to grow through our entire adult life (though at a slower rate than when we are children).
What would the faces of people who lived for hundreds of years look like? Dr. Jack Cuozzo has studied both the Bible and the Neanderthal remains in depth, he believes these people would look like (and consequently are) the Neanderthals.
From http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/patriarch.html -
Zen and the Art of Self-Resistence
Self-resistence isometric and isotonic training. Costs nothing, builds muscle efficiently, surprises your friends and balances your life. Also, you can do it while posting to
/. from your basement ;) -
Re:In related news
Have you been to the Arctic? Tundra is not barren.
It is treeless, but thats a long way from being barren. Many areas are covered with flowers, moss, lichen, and are host to all sorts of birds, insects, mammals, etc. The huge caribou herds are the most obvious wildlife. Lush, no. Beautiful, yes. There's nothing quite like coming over a hill and seeing the entire side of a mountain covered with blooming purple flowers.
You're right that oil drilling will disturb only a tiny fraction of the area in the reserve, but the effect will be greater than you would think from that areal ratio because it would ordinarily consist of criss-crossing the area with a network of roads and pipelines. The total area won't be much but the impact from that would be, especially because tundra environments are quite fragile compared to many other settings. Even dragging the equipment across the surface necessary to do seismic studies (the early stages of exploration) will leave scars on the surface that will be visible for decades. I know, because I've seen plenty of examples in the Arctic that date from the 1960s and 1970s. The effects from melting permafrost are *really* difficult to control if anything is disturbed on the surface.
All of this means that while I think you are right that drilling could be done, it would have to be done carefully. Doing it the way it was done at Prudhoe Bay, which is an absolute MESS that wouldn't be tolerated down south, is not appropriate. Pointing this out -- that it isn't barren rock and dirt and it is extraordinarily fragile compared to most environments -- doesn't make people "environuts". It means they understand what the real situation is, and want an appropriate balance between the short-term need for oil and longer-term preservation of a mostly pristine environment in as intact a state as practical.
I'm all for doing it, but doing it to the VERY high standards that should be expected in a wildlife reserve. That means flycamps only during exploration (no roads), specialized exploration techniques to limit damage to the tundra surface, complete remediation of drilling sites, and if a pipeline is put in it has to be engineered to be easily pulled out and the conditions restored when the production is finally done a couple of decades from now (assuming they find anything -- there's no guarantee).
People who use this stuff also need to put things in perspective: just because they aren't tearing up *your* back yard looking for black gold doesn't absolve you from some responsibility to make sure they aren't tearing up your neighbor's back yard to satisfy your binge consumption of the stuff.
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Re:Two words
Personally I think the historical Jesus is more impressive. Assuming his teachings and actions are recorded correctly (just the way he behaved personally and what he spoke about, ignoring the flashy miracle business) I think he is a FAR more impressive figure.
That sounds like the Jefferson Bible. Thomas Jefferson cut all stuff about miracles and such out of a Bible separating his moral teachings from religion.
Falcon -
Re:What's wrong with Russians?
Ok, not Hitler but Himmler as you say.
However the Soviets were very interested in things like ESP... -
Re:"Gag the Internet"It's undeniably true. http://www.angelfire.com/ms/seanie/mormon/lds_racism.html
You can deny it all you want. Just like God changed his mind about polygamy, apparently, now you're claiming Mormons are changing their mind about racism. Is it a religion, or shared fiction you get to make up as you go? Don't worry - Christians do the same thing, pick and choose from their supposedly holy beliefs to "adapt to society".
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Re:I'd rather not buy from the likes of GoDaddy or
There are more to evilness of Godaddy than just Domain locking !! Must Read !!
You be the judge !!!
http://baddaddy.angelfire.com/index.html
&
http://www.nodaddy.com/
or dup
http://www.angelfire.com/baddaddy/ -
Re:I'd rather not buy from the likes of GoDaddy or
There are more to evilness of Godaddy than just Domain locking !! Must Read !!
You be the judge !!!
http://baddaddy.angelfire.com/index.html
&
http://www.nodaddy.com/
or dup
http://www.angelfire.com/baddaddy/ -
Re:Boycott the Olympics
There are other examples of totalitarian capitalist countries.
capitalist!=free -
Re:But the real question is...Will it have a little AIBO dog with a ring around one eye?
Pete the Pup was not a little dog. Maybe if AIBOs could rip a man's throat out.
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Re:Security nightmare?I don't see the point in moving stuff onto the web that's better placed on one's desk or laptop
Sure, if your application is not very "self-contained", and requires constant access to the internet to work, then you have problems in "no-internet-access" zones. Too tightly integrated to work all the time.
But, as one can get automatic updates to Vista, XP, and browsers such as Firefox, we have the reverse going on, in that updated code is placed on your computer for various, mostly useful purposes. Done all in one download session, but not requiring constant internet access.
Microsoft and Mozilla, in this example have moved stuff onto the web for the purpose of allowing your machine to download it, then your OS waits for the next time to repeat the download. That's about as "integrated" as it will get.
I have heard of a few instances where a Vista installation crashed, and a "restore point" was needed. Some of that restoration information might be something like Firefox bookmarks, and that would be a good thing to stick somewhere on the web, for the day when you need it. The idea of "you and your machine" and the "internet" being two separate storage places is expanded here at my computer setup in the following manner:I use a SanDisk ReadyBoost USB Drive, either a 2 or 4 GB one to run the entire operating system.
(In the link, I have a readme with the details)
So, here we have a setup where "you and your machine" can be various PC's and laptops that you have access to. You just plug the USB drive into the PC you want to work with.Although the livecd linux operating system discussed in the readme is "in the cd", and not really upgradeable, I do have one application that is upgradeable, as long as the system is set up with a persistent home directory, knoppix style.
It is the "Station Selector for XMMS", a graphical front end with car-radio style buttons for some popular internet radio stations. Here is a screenshot.The hard-coded radio station internet addresses in the Station Selector could go bad, if the radio station went off the air, so to speak. So, I fixed it up so the user can easily download an up-to-date copy, and have it each time the operating system is booted up, as long as a persistent home directory is being used.
The update portion of the application takes care of everything for you, and keeps you informed as to what is going on. (You don't have to know any code)
The success of this depends on me keeping the Station Selector up-to-date, so it can be downloaded by users. You can get your own copy here.Here is a screenshot of the application running on Ubuntu 7.10. (One has to install xmms and tcl-tk in Ubuntu so it'll run)
So, I really need the ability to "blend" the "internet" with my own PC, just like Microsoft and Mozilla need to do that, to keep their applications up-to-date on your machine. For me, it is handy to use the Sandisk drive setup, because I only have to update one PC, so the speak, as I can just plug the little drive into another computer or laptop to get the benefit of the updated downloads. No tight "integration" web/PC here, however.Sure, I can move lots of data onto the web, my rapidweather.com server, if I want to, and I suppose an entire "persistent home directory" with all of my stuff could be zipped and put up there, and then downloaded onto a new computer's hard drive, or a fresh, just formatted USB drive, and unzipped into place in the "persistent home directory filesystem. The emelFM dual-pane file manager I have in my Knoppix Remaster makes that very easy to do.
That's easier I suppose than plugging -
Re:None of them
Yes, it does. They just happen to be the same as the male pronouns.
Ehh... no. Thinking about the statement I was making, I could have easily made it about two hypothetical politicians -- and actually, I should have -- but I had in mind two very specific politicians (though admittedly I was speaking in terms intended to provide a more general tone), and in that case (with specific people in mind), using the male pronoun to refer to a female individual is not accepted usage.Stop trying to live your life to the drum beat of political correctness.
I live my life as I see fit, and I'll thank you to leave me to do so.
Incidentally, it's A Person Paper by Douglas Hofstadter that convinced me to think seriously about gender inequalities in language. I've also dabbled in Lojban from time to time, which is interesting inasmuch as it allows one strict control over the information expressed. -
Re:What's the point?
it's been my experience that the vast majority of the men and women joining the combat arms end up as much better human beings because of their training and indoctrination.
This is where you should describe your experience in more detail... Are you an an Army (Navy, Marine, Air Force) recruiter or some such?.. Or do you just know a few delinquents, who signed up and got straightened up?
If you eliminate those opportunities by replacing them with robots, do you really think the result will be good for our society?
In all honesty, I don't think the result will be felt by the society in either case — our total prison population is well over two millions, while our entire active-duty military is just over a million (Coast Guard included). Our military is simply too small to noticeably affect demographics — and robots aren't going to replace all of the soldiers either...
More likely, the number of people will remain the same — we'll just be able to take on more assholes at once...
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Re:With rulings like this...
A judge pleading "oh but it's out of my hands, the murder must got free" is exactly the kind of words games I am talking about. Yes, the legislature is at fault as well, but to say that they are "my elected officials" implies that I had a worthy option available to me on the ballot. When there is a candidate running that will gut the bloated pile of bullshit that is our code of law, then you can say that they are "my elected official". When there is a candidate on the ballot who steps up and admits that the War on Drugs is more damaging to our society than the drugs themselves, then there could be "my elected offical". If good lawyers and thoughtful voting could solve the problems of our broken governmental system, then why are we in such a sorry state? We have per capita, four times the number of people in prison than the European average. and over three and a half times the murder rate. Our legal/government system is broken, but very profitable to the people in charge of it. How do you think it will change if not through violent reformation by the people who have been failed by that system? Do you think that people and institutions that have gained a great deal of power are going to willingly surrender their excesses? I would be all for a peaceful solution, but if I try to put economic pressure on the government, they will eventually send men with guns to haul me away or simply seize my bank account. The soap box and the ballot box have failed; the jury box isn't looking very promising (see my sig). Unfortunately all that leaves is the ammo box. Please point out a non-violent way will get results, because when I look at the direction of our country I don't see a place I would want to have children in.
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Re:Got to love it...
If you're referring to this (RE: OMG Radioactive trees!!11), you should know that it's fake.
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Re:EA is crazy, Sony won't hit that targetDon't forget that D-J-F are huge retail sales months for consumer electronics in the US. Looking at historic NPD numbers - January and February are fairly standard months for console sales. It's November and December where volume is significantly increased.
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/donny2112/consoles.html -
Obligatory "Kid of Speed" linkHere is her Spring 2007 trip to the area surrounding Chernobyl.
My favourite are roads that haven't been ridden for years. Sometimes, I leave a log on the road to see if someone else will travel here. When I return in a year or two, seeing my log has not been moved suggests that I still have no followers.
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Re:Low Dose effects of radiation
Ah, you beat me to it. The phenomenon of beneficial low-dose radiation is known as Radiation Hormesis. It was discovered by insurance actuaries, who discovered that radiologists that worked around continual low doses of radiation had longer lifespans than other doctors working in comparable jobs.
I always like point out that humans evolved in an environment filled with background radiation, our biology is well adapted to low level radioactivity. Even the chemical components of our bodies have significant amounts of radioactive isotopes. Radiation, sometimes even transient high doses from cosmic rays, falls from the skies constantly, and we seem to still be thriving as a race.