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It's too big to be a PDA, too small to be a laptop.

Thanks for a much more thoughtful reply than average for this thread.

Right back at ya.

Sadly I can't give your reply all the time it deserves, because I've chosen to reply to quite a few already, as well as having my original post modded up to Interesting+4 and then back down to hell by angry mods.

For what it's worth, I'd have modded you +1 interesting had I not posted.

Well, that's part of the problem with attempting to falsify evolution. What was once a valid objection becomes invalid because the target moves.

Evolution in particular, or science in general?

Before we knew how much dust was actually on the moon, for example, long-age theory made "lots" the obvious prediction. Now that we know how much dust there is on the moon, we have a post hoc explanation for it in terms of long ages.

First of all, I'm not sure that obvious prediction was "lots". After reading these two pages, it looks like there was just one guy (Pettersson) providing data that implied a large amount of dust. He did so by making a number of bad assumptions, such as the assumption that any nickel in the air must be coming from meteors.

Secondly, your "post hoc explanation" sound bite gives the impression that scientists looked at the amount of dust on the moon and fudged the numbers to make it fit. The actual process involved measuring meteorite impact rates using satellites above earth's atmosphere to avoid earthly contamination, which resulted in an estimate 1000x less than Pettersson's. This estimate was then subjected to an independent cross-check by comparing them to average amounts of meteorite dust found in sedimentary rock, and they agreed.

If you want anti-evolutionists to keep up with all the latest developments, give them funding specifically to find flaws in the latest pro-evolutionary findings.

What's special about the field of evolution that makes the usual scientific process break down? Every other field of science follows the same basic process: researchers present evidence which is then checked for accuracy by their peers. What is it, specifically, about evolution that requires tacking a separate step onto the process of peer review? Why not give that (limited) funding to people who have problems with modern medicine or plasma physics or heliocentricity? Before you answer, note that I don't really see a qualitative difference between most creationists and the arguments presented at these sites (especially the heliocentricity site). Is there a difference, other than the fact that you believe one rather than the other? (I'm crossing my fingers hoping you're not a geocentrist.)

This objection irks me. It seems that the people who accuse Behe of arguing from ignorance provide refutations in the form of arguments from credulity. Behe points out complex systems and says "remove any one piece and the system breaks." His opponents respond, "so it happened some other way." Where does the onus lie?

...

His opponents are already persuaded that "naturally" is the only way anything forms, so they give a just-so story about how it might possibly have happened, and consider the case closed.

Behe is making an extraordinary claim, namely that the evolution of a specific structure (take your pick from his examples) will never, repeat NEVER, be explained in full detail. Furthermore, he's arguing that this (predicted) failure isn't evidence for our collective stupidity. No, instead he jumps to the conclusion that this (again, predicted) fai

...

Idiot

RE: "Microsoft's history as a process of taking ideas whose inventors have failed to capitalize on them" Starting with Seattle Computer Company's Q-DOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), bought by a Mr. Gates for $50,000 to become MS-DOS, then licensed to IMB. http://users.aol.com/machcu/msrise.html Yes, grasshopper, a DOSS house by any other name. RR

I seriously doubt you'll ever see a school district encouraging students to "mob" a shooter,

You'd be wrong.
"(Oct. 18) - The Independent School District of Burleson, Texas, just south of Ft. Worth is the first in the country to adopt a policy of training students to immediately fight back and use their advantage in numbers to take tactical control if a gunman enters their classroom."

First, this article is flat out wrong and I challenge you to try it yourself. The AOL service will only allow up to 8 character passwords for e-mail related items. My password for my AIM clients has always been greater than 8 characters and I *cannot* log into anything without typing the entire password. This includes any web-based service at *.aol.com (primarily controlled by my.screenname.aol.com). I am a bit perplexed at where this article is getting its information.

br/>
A few test cases to pay attention to:

1) Sign up for an AOL mail account https://new.aol.com/freeaolweb/?promocode=814322&n cid=AOLAOF00020000000602

Notice it only allows you to choose a password that's 6-8 characters, just like the AOL service itself. So now try and login with your password that's 6-8 characters, but add a few more. It lets you in right? Ok, so do this... reset/change your password now. Click "Forgot my Password" or whatever the link is called. Go through the questions and set a new password. Oh wait, notice it only lets you pick a 6-8 character password.

What does this mean? It means for AOL-service based/AOL-mail based accounts, they only allow 6-8 characters for the password! Who cares if it accepts extra characters. There is a 6-8 character limitation. It's absolutely irrelevant that it accepts additional characters.

They seem to be confusing this with AIM-only based accounts, which allow up to 16 character passwords and DO NOT allow anything more or anything less than the *EXACT* password. Try it yourself. If my AIM password is "pCv921!$z" it will reject me if I put "pCv921!$" and it will reject me if I put "pCv921!$z44". This is not that big of a deal and certainly isn't embarrassing. This is flat out a difference in AOL's mail-based system vs. AOL's AIM-based system.

Want to know a big shocker about AOL's mail-based system that they didn't figure out and report on that *is* embarassing?

These AOL.com (mail-based) and AOL-service based account are *NOT* case sensitive. That's right, try and make your password with some uppercase letters. It doesn't make a difference if your 6-8 character password has uppercase letters or not. It doesn't recognize it! I didn't check but I don't believe it recognizes special characters either. So your character set is a-z0-9.

Chew on that. Steven :)

Next time, take a few seconds and google it before you think about commenting. Here are a few pages you would have found explaining what a terroristic threat is. Granted, I couldn't find a Maryland statute that detailed what the phrase means legally in that state, but it's sufficient to show that the word has existed for a while.

This page (in German, scroll down for English version) has more about it, including citations from the original works by Chladni, more pictures of the famous figures on metal plates, and a link to http://www.wfu.edu/physics/demolabs/demos/avimov/w aves/chladni_plates/resonance_square.MPG/ (21MB) from Wake Forest University. This is the longer version of the experiments that can be seen in the video linked in the summary. There's also a link to http://www.phy.davidson.edu/StuHome/jimn/Java/mode s.html/ which has an interactive java applet to plot Chladni figures.

with the other big players being ... AOL

AOL uses Google for search.

Jerks. Your comments were very supple; argue with this:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/2002/1 112starvation.htm
http://members.aol.com/frost11030/fightingfuturefa mine/AndyAlkon.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/south/12/15/in dia.starvation.reut/
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20021102/edit.htm #1
http://bpark.ahrchk.net/

Where is your respect for human life?

Legibility is markedly different from readability. For a lengthy discussion of this sort of thing there's Tinkel, et. al. Also see Dr. Asaf Degani's research for NASA, I've links to it on my web pages:

http://members.aol.com/willadams/books-free-type.h tml

Or, ``Univers is readable, Helvetica is legible (or decipherable).''

Interestingly, there was a phonetic letterform design which took advantage of the characteristic you note though, creating variant forms for letters w/ differing pronunciations, changing only the bottom half (in such a way that it resembled the letter which normally made that sound ``gh'' in ``tough'' had the lower part of ``g'' and ``h'' altered to resemble ``f''), the idea being that using the system to learn to read would allow a person to continue reading more normal letterforms w/ minimal interruption.

William

Try and find a good ... turn-based strategy game.

that made me think of the first two xcom games. oh god, it's a wonder I graduated college given all the time I spend killing aliens. And when xcomutil came out and suddenly I could create missions where my squad had to battle 50 baddies at a time, oh boy, I was screwed (or not screwed really).

I'm sure there are good games out there today, and this is just selection bias because I don't have time to play as much anymore, but I have never enjoyed a game as much as I enjoyed xcom.

(and yeah, I've played laser squad nemesis)

Fish gotta swim
and birds gotta fly,
But they don't last long
if they try.

--Tom Lehrer, Pollution, That was the Year That Was

This probably won't get read or responded to now, but anywayz...

Want to know why I seriously first started playing San Andreas? Anthropological curiousity.

As someone living in Australia, I knew nothing about African-American gang culture whatsoever. My girlfriend's teenaged daughter, when she lived with us, listened to a lot of rap music. I heard some of it, but never really understood the context behind the lyrics at all. Hearing about San Andreas got me interested in learning about it in the same way that I ended up reading about the Amish after hearing the song Amish Paradise, or reading about the Ojibwa after watching Commander Chakotay on Star Trek: Voyager. (I'd read some Voyager fanfic where Chakotay was depicted as an Ojibwa shaman, or fairly close in terms of their spiritual beliefs) I like learning about different cultures.

From what I read, the depiction of the hood in San Andreas was very thoroughly researched by Rockstar as well; they apparently got a lot of rap musicians and other people who were/had been part of that culture. I think one the main reasons why it's interesting is because it actually makes you think a lot about different systems of morality; what some other people might think of as degraded or antisocial (in terms of prostitution, hard drug use, violence etc) would presumably have been seen by people living within that environment perhaps as simply being elements of their everyday lives.

So if you look at it from that point of view, (or in terms of another example, where you're playing a game set a few thousand years ago) the violence is only excessive by our own contemporary cultural standards. By the standards of the culture the game is intending to simulate/represent, the violence is actually one of the main parts; if you took that out, in many cases what the culture itself was based on would be lost, or at least fundamentally altered...it wouldn't be authentic.

Hence, violence in games doesn't have to encourage violence in real life...it can allow us to look at other cultures or time periods, and remind us that in those other scenarios, violence often led to extremely negative consequences...and so rather than encourage it now, it can actually help us to see why reducing it is a better idea. CJ taught me quite a lot.

Hmm, I must have been smoking crack then. Happens occasionally. For those who don't want to make my same idiot mistake, you can find out about the arcade hardware based on the saturn here (pardon my stupid link text.)

Yeah, I actually started using AOL for something after Yahoo did that to their TV listings. http://tvlistings.aol.com/ isn't half bad.

Chimerism is also a source of the exceedingly rare brindle coat pattern in horses. In such cases the different color hairs will have different DNA. In one case this caused two consecutive DNA sample sent to a lab for pedigree verification to return negative parentage for both the sire and dam, even though the owner had personally witnessed both the fertilization and the birth and hence knew for sure who the foal's parents were. DNA from the stallion's blood samples also showed no evidence of a Y chromosome.

Yes, it does.

  3926. Theft of services.

(a) Acquisition of services.--

        (1) A person is guilty of theft if he intentionally obtains services for himself or for another which he knows are available only for compensation, by deception or threat, by altering or tampering with the public utility meter or measuring device by which such services are delivered or by causing or permitting such altering or tampering, by making or maintaining any unauthorized connection, whether physically, electrically or inductively, to a distribution or transmission line, by attaching or maintaining the attachment of any unauthorized device to any cable, wire or other component of an electric, telephone or cable television system or to a television receiving set connected to a cable television system, by making or maintaining any unauthorized modification or alteration to any device installed by a cable television system, or by false token or other trick or artifice to avoid payment for the service.

        (1.1) A person is guilty of theft if he intentionally obtains or attempts to obtain telecommunication service by the use of an unlawful telecommunication device or without the consent of the telecommunication service provider.

        (3) A person is not guilty of theft of cable television service under this section who subscribes to and receives service through an authorized connection of a television receiving set at his dwelling and, within his dwelling, makes an unauthorized connection of an additional television receiving set or sets or audio system which receives only basic cable television service obtained through such authorized connection.

        (4) Where compensation for service is ordinarily paid immediately upon the rendering of such service, as in the case of hotels and restaurants, refusal to pay or absconding without payment or offer to pay gives rise to a presumption that the service was obtained by deception as to intention to pay.

(From the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes)

--
Dum de dum.

If they could be interpreted as Cybersquatting, yes. If you host your parody site at http://user.aol.com/~Coward/MSSucks.html; no. http://www.microshaft.com/ might have an issue (clearly parody, but only a 2 letter delta). http://www.microsoftsucks.com/ might get a letter, but clearly has a legitimate defense.

Perhaps it's the obesity virus that's causing the problem?

Anyone knowledgeable about this?

From the CBC:
It's a contentious idea, but Dr. Leah Whigham is not the first to suggest that a virus could make us fat. In her latest study, the associate scientist from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has studied the effect of some human adenoviruses on chickens. She found that one such virus, Ad-37, seems to cause obesity in the birds. Her finding builds on other studies that show that two related viruses also cause obesity in animals. Dr. Whigham admits that more research is needed to determine if viruses play a role in obesity, and indeed, developing a vaccine is still a long way off. She plans to study other adenoviruses to see if they, too, have the same fat-making effect in animals.

Related Links:
http://www.the-aps.org/press/journal/06/4.htm
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/07/28/fat.viru s.ap/index.html
http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract /290/1/R190?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMA T=&author1=whigham&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid =1138723430984_644&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance &resourcetype=1
http://www.webmd.aol.com/diet/news/20040805/fat-vi rus-could-obesity-be-contagious

Hondas, Subarus, what have you, they are all designed (stock) as commuter vehicles. And if you have to turn 7k rpms to get your car off the line, it's not going to hold up to daily driving.

It may have been a different mindset in 1989, but I drive a Subaru XT6 (manual) daily. Sure in traffic I may never have to get above 3500 rpm, and certainly won't have to sustain it, but I am pretty much obligated to open it up and take it to 5000 in the first three gears to get up to highway speed from one of the damn onramp lights. Then once I'm merged in, 5th gear isn't all that much of an overdrive -- 80 mph is a sustained 3700 rpm. The car is insanely quick off the line (I surprise ricers on a regular basis) but it tops out pretty low. I would not be comfortable sustaining anything over 90 mph, the engine just whines -- and I just got this engine so I'd rather it stay in one piece. A 6th gear would be perfect, the engine produces plenty of power at 3500 rpm.

Sadly, it does suck on efficiency. It was rated 18/24 when it was new and I'm getting about 20.5 in mixed driving, even with those freeway launches four times a day, so it's not wear and tear. That's just how the car was designed. It's a rally car in an MR2's clothing.

It also takes three days to get parts, but I knew that would be the case going in. I've only seen three others on the road in the last two years, and they were all 4-cylinder turbos. One of them led to me having a "dude, where's my car" incident at Hollywood Park as I kept coming across this other XT repeatedly while searching for my car. The first time, I even tried to open the door and get in. It took me 40 minutes to find my car! Half the people who see it tell me "I always wanted one of those when they were new", but they weren't cheap then.

Mal-2

you could try: http://video.aol.com/ last I checked they had all the Max Headroom shows with "limited Commercial Interruptions"

http://toykeeper.net/media/Max_Headroom/
http://video.aol.com/video-category/max-headroom/1 583

This thing has got all of you beat.

The lameness filter sucks. I would have posted this in the comment, but I can't because the lameness filter is misnamed: the need to take out the ness part.

LINK TO POST: http://users.aol.com/s6sj7gt/cadtext.htm

This is the clearest, simplest, Occam-obeying explanation

"Occam's Razor," or the "principle of parsimony," says the correct explanation of a mystery will usually involve the simplest fundamental principles. Insist, therefore, that the most familiar explanation is by definition the simplest! Imply strongly that Occam's Razor is not merely a philosophical rule of thumb but an immutable law.
-- Daniel Drasin, Zen... And the Art of Debunkery

Think again.

(AP) - LOS ANGELES-A man was charged with copyright infringement for allegedly uploading the computer-animated film "Flushed Away" after getting a copy from an Oscar voter.

Salvador Nunez Jr., 27, faces up to three years in prison if convicted of the felony count. He was scheduled to appear in court March 1. He was charged Thursday.

Prosecutors alleged he obtained a copy of the movie after it was sent in advance to his sister, an Oscar voter and member of The International Animated Film Society.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received a tip in early January that someone put "Flushed Away" on the Internet, and an investigation found Nunez uploaded it on Dec. 23, according to a federal complaint.

A digital watermark identified it as an Academy screener film.

When interviewed by FBI agents, Nunez acknowledged he uploaded "Flushed Away" and the Oscar-nominated film "Happy Feet" onto the Internet, court documents said. However, investigators found only a copy of "Flushed Away" in his computer hard drive.

"Flushed Away," won four prizes on Feb. 11 at the Annie Awards, honoring achievements in feature film and television animation.

In 2003, the MPAA banned the distribution of screener copies over concerns about bootlegging, but partly lifted the ban after complaints from filmmakers, producers and independent production companies.

It was not immediately known whether Nunez had an attorney. His home phone number was not listed. US man charged with uploading Oscar movie copy of 'Flushed Away' onto Internet

Flushed Away was released on DVD February 20, 2007. Theatrical release November 3, 2006.Flushed Away

There is much of interest in this story.

But nothing could be more significant than the decision to prosecute the uploader on the felony charge.

if you want a good feel for how bad this open DRM is try using the new bittorrent store or even better with free TV try using the AOL In2TV great site with a ton of good content for free download. Yet after each commercial during the show, you need to go back to the site and get re authorized for the DRM. Absolute pain in the ass.

Nonetheless, they had keyboards like this, as well as funky Tuckermobile-like cars.
Full episodes here:
http://video.aol.com/video-category/max-headroom/1 583

Furthermore you are NOT living in a democracy but in a republic.

You're arguing that we should use the original definition of the word Republic. Correct?

The absolute original definition comes from the latin Res Publica meaning 'thing-business/affair'. Its definition is not the modern use of Republic and it's not the same of when the founding fathers used it either.

The founding fathers were very unwilling to use the word 'Democracy' because the original definition of that comes from the greek 'demos krates' meaning 'workers/masses only taking care of themselves' (heavy tyranny of the majority). Instead they took "res publica" and redefined it to mean what they wanted it to mean: popular voting, separation of powers, avoiding tyranny of the majority, etc.

Throughout the years, the definition of Republic changed to what it is today: the chief of state is not a monarch. At the same time the word Democracy got its definition changed, and when we say Democracy today we really mean Liberal Democracy.

In my opinion the people who say that the U.S. is a Democracy are more correct because they're actually using modern English definitions. And if you want to go back to the day of using the original definition of Republic, be my guest - because it ain't what you think it is.

(most people have not the slightest idea which is heavier, a pound or an ounce)

Well, if they knew the access point you were using (based on the IP address, which they'd then take to the ISP and demand to know the customer address), they'd just go down there and sniff packets for your MAC address. It's fairly trivial at that point to determine the direction that the radio signals are coming from. (There are guys that do it as a hobby.)

Probably your best bet would be to use a spoofed MAC address, and change both the AP you connect to, the MAC address you report, and the PC's physical location, on a regular and frequent basis. That would make it difficult to determine whether you were a single location that's moving a lot and using different MAC addresses, or were multiple computers each just using the AP periodically.

Still, there's no foolproof way to avoid discovery against an omnipotent adversary.

That just sucks, you'll need to upscale 720 to 1080 (1:1.5), that means interpolating 1 line every 2 from the original image. What's the point of HDTV? I thought it was to have "crisp clear" image, but that just won't work if you need to interpolate.

The industry doomed itself to this mess the minute they decided to support 1080i and 720p. Experts warned that supporting multiple standards would only confuse consumers, and it most certainly has. I know people who bought an HDTV, but have no idea what the difference between signals means...and I know several more people who are just too confused to be bothered.

720p is actually the worst resolution to work with, because with 1080i signals you have varying methods of deinterlacing and scaling which tend to give you less resolution than a 720p signal.

The good thing about 1080p is you get rid of that annoying deinterlacing + scalingcombination you have to do to show 1080i on a 720p set. The bad thing is that you still have to deinterlace the 1080i signal, and reconstruct the proper 60fps framerate, and this part is difficult. But the potential is there for almost lossless video conversion from 1080i to 1080p, and although it is certainly not "affordable" today (neither are 1080p sets), both probably will be in another 5 years.

Hey, it's a better solution than wishing broadcasters would pull their heads out of their asses and stop broadcasting in 1080i. Most of the world has moved-on to progressive-scan displays, but they continue to pipe that crappy interlaced video instead of moving to 720p. Hey, 1080i is a bigger number, it must be better!

So? If someone tells you their openid (or you setup a spoof website to get it) then you have access to their entire life too, if this becomes popular.

You're trying to login to example.com

Example.com says: Who are you?
You say: I'm "https://aol.com/cooldude"
Example.com asks AOL: Is this guy really cooldude?
AOL sends a message to you asking: Example.com says you're trying to log on, is it really you?
You say to AOL: Yea it's me, here's my password to prove it.(AOL doesn't tell example.com your password. Also you save the hassle of entering your password for any site if you already logged in to AOL, like at the beginning of each day.)
AOL says to Example.com: Yes we verified it's cooldude.
Example.com says to you: Hi cooldude from aol.com, we've verified it's you again. Welcome.

Note that if you log into AOL at the beginning of the day, then for you this whole procedure boils down to you just entering your URL to login and then pressing a button from AOL to authorize the login.

Some advantages and disadvantages are:

You can use one username and password for every site and you only have to enter your password once a day.

If you used the same username and password at a lot of sites before, then with OpenID you don't have to worry about your password being compromised on one site by lax security or a crooked site owner(like a phisher) and then having your accounts compromised at all the other sites.

I'm not sure about the privacy issues. If your OpenID provider allows it(or if you set up your own server) you could set up an unlimited number of ID's (eg cooldude2, cooldude3, etc.) I don't see how you would be giving up any more privacy than any other system. And if your provider allows it you could save a lot of trouble and use the same password for all your IDs. Your OpenID provider could track which sites you log into, but you could just be your own provider or choose one you trust not to track you. Of course the sites you log into could require only certain OpenID providers like AOL, Microsoft, Verisign, etc. You might not be able to use your own server. Sites might only accept OpenIDs from providers that use strong identification, like Paypal's requirement that you control a checking account to be confirmed, because banks in the US are required by law to get ID before opening a checking account(says Paypal).

If sites only recognize OpenIDs from certain providers, at least the list of providers would likely be more inclusive than something like Microsoft Passport which has only one provider.

OpenID providers might differentiate themselves on their security. Verisign for example may try to claim that their OpenID service (if they had it) is secure enough to use for bank logins.

You have to remember this -- there is no guarantee of free speech from any corporation. The US Constitution guarantees that "government" shall not infringe the right to a citizen's free speech. Any time you have a non-governmental agency "it doesn't apply".

Yeah, just like the constitution doesn't guarantee you the right to habeas corpus, it just forbids the government from taking it away. We certainly have come a long way from Voltaire and "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

You claim the US government protects freedom of speech, yet it's really amazing how many different ways the government has evolved to suppress free speech. Free speech zones, copyright law, decency standards, muzzling scientists who believe in global warming, muzzling scientists who don't believe in global warming, the terrorism witch hunt, the child porn witch hunt, and the list continues...

Actually that last one was even better than censorship. It was thought crime. The man sent to prison for writing a fictional story never distributed or even intended to distribute that story. He was sent to prison for the crime of thinking bad thoughts.

My reaction to this story? Well I guess you've figured it out by now... I don't like censorship. I'm ok with Amazon distributing books. I'm not quite sure why Theodp@aol.com is so afraid of books. A book can't hurt you. And, um Google, I know it's cliche and all, but you're letting the terrorists win.

I don't see much difference between "before" and "after." This is a real cosmetic surgery nightmare.

Take a look at http://www.postmaster.aol.com/

I've actually dealt with them before, they were pretty nice. But, I was also nice and patient with the call, it always helps not to call with a chip on the shoulder (at least on the FIRST call ;-)).

Birds are much more dangerous and costly. We should be trying to exterminate them.

There's a specific law against dealing fake drugs, though.

Are you sure about that? I can't speak to the federal system of laws, but at least in states that model their criminal codes after the Model Penal Code, there's no specific "attempted blah" crimes, but just an overall "a person commits an attempt when, with intent to commit a specific crime, he does any act which constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of that crime" clause in the general section of the code. For instance, here's PA's, here's New York's, and here's Virginia's. (VA doesn't define attempt, but they have a generic attempt section.)

Now, the federal code is more twisted than the MPC, so it may explicitly define attempts. Anyone know?

(Of course, copyright infringement of the sort we're talking about here is more or less not a criminal matter so this doesn't really apply.) ...if they're the copyright holders, I have to believe that they're authorizing you to have it by distributing it like that

They aren't authorizing you to have it because they aren't distributing it. They're distributing random data.

Also, in what sense do you mean when you call Voyager "postmodern"? I don't see it.

Janeway's moral ambiguity/relativism, as I mentioned is a big part of it. Also the angry nihilism of the Maquis.

Postmodernism is about deconstructing things, subjective amorality, and discordianism. The Maquis in particular, and Voyager in general, was very largely about taking Trek's previously Utopian thematic underpinning and turning it completely on its' head. The crew were pretty much all rejects from Federation society; you've got a Klingon/Human hybrid who flunked out of the Academy, (BE'lanna) a convict with an unstable background who also failed at the Academy due to the Caldric Prime incident, (Tom Paris) an officer who as a member of an ethnic minority left Starfleet to join a terrorist organisation, (Chakotay) a Vulcan who failed the Kohlinar and who was actually closer to a member of the Rihannsu (Romulans) in many ways, (Tuvok) a holographic Doctor from a group that were later condemned as failed prototypes, various minor anarchists and disgruntled Bajorans (themselves an entire *race* of screwups) from the Maquis, an unstable, developmentally retarded liberated Borg drone, and a deeply immature, essentially civilian captain who was in way over her head.

Then you've got this group living on what at the time was a highly experimental fast scout/light naval support vessel, (the Intrepid class) roughly the same size as TOS's Constitution class, and with an overall strength index of just over half that of the Galaxy class. (the TNG ship) It wasn't designed for long range missions, scientific study, diplomatic functions, or particularly heavy combat.

In short, TNG's crew were the proverbial, "best and the brightest." Voyager's crew were exactly the opposite.

This, and Talking Stick are two pieces of fanfic which summarise what Voyager was archetypically about, IMHO.

Then you would have COBOL screwing you.

I am merely stating that machines that do not adapt their behaviour to their environment (such as a washing machine, or a cd changer) are too simple to be called robots. A two wheeled self-balancing machine that follows a moving target, such as mini-ISIS, or a subsumption architecture machine such as Dino-bot are complex enough. They continually choose between between conflicting goals: remaining upright vs leaning forward to move, or following the target vs seeking the base station for a recharge. No need to call Data or C3PO out of retirement.

but I do know you are mistaken about astronomers not reporting UFO's. I would suggest that you might do better research before making any more such bold and misleading statements, (like your previous comments regarding photography).

Talk about pot calling the kettle black. I suggest you read what reasonable people like Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Richard Feynman, or the folks at The Skeptic have to say. Mustn't forget to include Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy take on UFO nuttiness.

There is a difference between scientific ignorance and gullible ignorance. I know I don't know anything and am willing to be educated, but it doesn't mean I have to take what people say at face value, and if I learn it's bullshit, I'll call it bullshit. Especially UFOs as alien spacecraft bullshit. Having an open mind doesn't mean a lack of critical thinking.

If there really are aliens visiting earth in flying saucers, why then, and I'm really trying to understand this, why then would someone travel, perhaps, thousands of light years to abduct some stranger on a farm or isolated spot and give him an anal probe?

food coloring, flavoring, and preservatives. If you see things like FD&C-anything, BHA, BHT, TBHQ, etc. in the ingredients list, it's derived from petroleum. Suffice it to say that it's bad for your neurology, but how bad depends on your genetics. See Feingold Association for details.

And then there's sulfite preservatives, which aren't synthetic but certainly overused...

All cloning does is decrease genetic diversity and lead to bovine versions of the Clone Wars. One day, when the right code is transmitted to their RFID tags, the cows will turn on their protectors and /.'ers will hastily print banners saying "I for one welcome our bovine overlords"...

The problem is that Google has a monopoly on web search

As it is, Google is using its web search monopoly as leverage to promote its non-search products...

I wonder how hard it would be to design a website that was so awful that it actually caused physical illness...

Uh Oh... too bad

In theory a problem for all the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em (*ahem* confuse 'em?)" school of search destinations, but.. Google will never enforce the patent, so its probably moot...
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graphically speaking

The US systemis filled with mediocre teachers because of the low pay. I spent my school days bored out of my mind...

Teachers are very well paid for what they do, which is to prevent most their students from ever discovering personal power. Every single one of your classmates was "bored out of [their] mind" too - you just managed to find a way to make something of yourself, in spite of the government's attempt to dumb you down too. Most of our peers aren't quite so fortunate, for whatever reason.

Read Gatto's essay The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher, or his book The Underground History of American Education (available for free online at his website).

Or one of Holt's books - How Children Fail or How Children Learn, for example (incidentally, is that your picture on the schoolbus? :).

The government school experiment is a good example of a cascading system failure. The first teachers came from classical american education, where learning was the learner's responsibility. The first school reform was to transfer responsibility for educational institutions from "the public" to "the government", and it's been all downhill from there.

The government school is corrupt because it places all responsibility for learning on the teacher. The first generation of government school students did well because their teachers had been "properly educated" in the traditional American manner. But every generation of teachers has been a little bit worse than the one before, because the system Doesn't teach children that it's their responsibility to teach themselves whatever they want to learn.

Now, 150 years later, many new teachers are frickin idiots. I had a date some years back with a girl who'd just gotten her teaching certificate, and felt sorry for whoever ended up in her class.

All part of a grand scheme to depower 'the masses' (that is, 'us').

Yeah, and they've gotten tons of feedback on it in their own blog. I gave up on them and switched to AOL TV too. I've never used AOL for anything before. Go figure.

Which monopoly was that?