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I agree with m50d that it is not relevant for the reason he gives above.

The Gödel theorems are interesting for the study of the foundation of mathematics and more specifically for the study of the relation between logic and mathematics. Using it outside that field is at least tricky, and more often than not crackpottery.

Out of a set of axioms (or out of a set of hypothesis) you use deductive logic to prove some theorems which are true if the axioms are true. The axioms together with the theorems form a theory. The question of completeness is: can we construct a proof for every true stament in that theory, or do there exist true statements which cannot be proven. The question of (in)consistentcy is: can we construct a proof for a false statement? All this is about the internal properties of a theory.

Now back to your question: relativity theory and quantum mechanics have different sets of axioms. The axioms of relativity do not lead to theories which are in contradiction with other theorems of the same theory (I am not sure about this for general relativity, there are however several sets of axioms for special relativity which have proofs of consistency*). I guess the same holds for QM**. The problem is: theorems of relativity are in contradiction with theorems QM, so this is a problem between two theories. The problem is that both theories are very solid and well-tested on their own right. A theory which tries to combine relativity and QM on a logical level is Branching Space-Time by Nuel Belnap.

* For axioms of special relativity, check: - Optical geometry of motion, a new view of the theory of relativity by A. A. Robb, 1911
- A theory of time and space by A. A. Robb
- The absolute relations of time and space by A. A. Robb, 1921
- Geometry Of Time And Space by A. A. Robb, 1936
- Orthogonality and Spacetime Geometry by Robert Goldblatt, 1987 (this is a first oder theory, so it is both complete and consistent - however it is not categorical
- Independent axioms for Minkowski space-time by John W. Schutz, 1997. This theory is of second order, so it suffers from the problems caused by the Gödel theorems.

** Check Quantum Logic by J. von Neumann (yes, the guy of the "Von Neumann Concept") and G. Birkhoff.

I agree with m50d that it is not relevant for the reason he gives above.

The Gödel theorems are interesting for the study of the foundation of mathematics and more specifically for the study of the relation between logic and mathematics. Using it outside that field is at least tricky, and more often than not crackpottery.

Out of a set of axioms (or out of a set of hypothesis) you use deductive logic to prove some theorems which are true if the axioms are true. The axioms together with the theorems form a theory. The question of completeness is: can we construct a proof for every true stament in that theory, or do there exist true statements which cannot be proven. The question of (in)consistentcy is: can we construct a proof for a false statement? All this is about the internal properties of a theory.

Now back to your question: relativity theory and quantum mechanics have different sets of axioms. The axioms of relativity do not lead to theories which are in contradiction with other theorems of the same theory (I am not sure about this for general relativity, there are however several sets of axioms for special relativity which have proofs of consistency*). I guess the same holds for QM**. The problem is: theorems of relativity are in contradiction with theorems QM, so this is a problem between two theories. The problem is that both theories are very solid and well-tested on their own right. A theory which tries to combine relativity and QM on a logical level is Branching Space-Time by Nuel Belnap.

* For axioms of special relativity, check: - Optical geometry of motion, a new view of the theory of relativity by A. A. Robb, 1911
- A theory of time and space by A. A. Robb
- The absolute relations of time and space by A. A. Robb, 1921
- Geometry Of Time And Space by A. A. Robb, 1936
- Orthogonality and Spacetime Geometry by Robert Goldblatt, 1987 (this is a first oder theory, so it is both complete and consistent - however it is not categorical
- Independent axioms for Minkowski space-time by John W. Schutz, 1997. This theory is of second order, so it suffers from the problems caused by the Gödel theorems.

** Check Quantum Logic by J. von Neumann (yes, the guy of the "Von Neumann Concept") and G. Birkhoff.

It looks like more recent publications have resolved this: "The alga was identified as a specie belonging to the genus Trentepohlia. The region in Changanacherry from where the red rain was reported was found to be densely vegetated with plenty of lichen on trees, rocks and lampposts. Samples of lichen collected from there also were cultured in the microbiology laboratory of TBGRI. The study showed that the lichen collected from the site gave rise to algae similar to the ones cultured from the spores obtained from the rain water samples. The spores in the rainwater, therefore, most probably are of local origin." http://web.archive.org/web/20060613135746/http://www.geocities.com/iamgoddard/Sampath2001.pdf

Funny, when I started reading it, which was well before I got my low four-digit id, it was a news aggregator. Of course, their sources tended to be more things like OS-related blogs back then, but it was still an aggregator. Here's the earliest record the Internet Archive has: Jan 13, 1998. Everything there is a link to a news story or press release elsewhere.

I think the troll mod you got may have been a bit harsh, but the only alternative I see is that you're either severely confused or viewing the past through rose-colored glasses.

BTW, this other link explains better the position of Microsoft vs open source...

Mhhhmmm... I am skeptic (after all... I do science).

Until the guy who stated that Linux is a cancer because of the GPL is the CEO of the company, I won't believe that such a company is playing "nicely" with Open Source.

I see their current position just as their next towards eliminating this cancer in order to embrace, extend and extinguish.

Take a step back,think about what you just posted, and get a life.

What kind of argument is that? 'Get a life'? This is not relevant at all to the case at hand. Even if I didn't have a life, it still wouldn't be relevant.

Considering what goes on in the world today, is "what Microsoft did" so deserving of your wrath and your feeling of injustice?

Considering how many of the criminals that get their funding via Microsofts incomptence and Microsoft creating an insecure monopoly in computers, I'd say they're guilty of quite a lot. What Microsoft did was hinder development and destroy innovation, who knows how far ahead we would be if Microsoft didn't come along? They had a propelling effect in the start, but that effect dwarves the stifling effect they've had on the industry since.

The guy does good philanthropic work, and his business practices never killed or maimed anyone.

I never claimed they did either, I said they ruined peoples lives. You can do that without kill or maim, it's enough to drive someone out of buisness using underhanded tactics. Which Microsoft is a master at. http://web.archive.org/web/19991115213922/http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/dirtytricks.shtml This is just a few things, Microsoft has a long history of dirty tricks. And like Darl McBride, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer should serve hard time. However, the United States prefer to reward sociopaths and law breakers. For some insane reason. Why aren't people brought to justice for the shit they pull?

an unavailable Wayback Machine archived page.

You mean http://web.archive.org/web/20030414090619/http://www.geocities.com/uvb76/uvb76.html ? It's not unavailable, it's just that the Wikieditor got the URL wrong.

Here it is Google-translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.archive.org%2Fweb%2F20030414090619%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.geocities.com%2Fuvb76%2Fuvb76.html&sl=ru&tl=en

Sorry to reply to myself, but if anyone's interested in numbers stations, the Conet Project has put together a 4-CD set of recordings from various numbers stations around the world, which you can download for free here, or purchase here. It's a fantastic listen.

Did some peeking on the wayback machine... domain names that were registered before facebook launched: flybook.com sportsbook.com buybook.com computerbook.com skybook.com Perhaps the most damning, though.... Buddybook.com.. this is from way back in 1999: "Welcome to Buddy Book.com, an innovative internet address book which helps keep track of all your online experiences." http://web.archive.org/web/19991128035308/http://buddybook.com/ It's not that similar to facebook, true... but it's a 'social' thing, which by their own logic, seems to be close enough... whoever owns that site ought to sue them!

There's a lot of numbers stations around the world. The Conet project offers a selection of recordings from many of them (available on the Internet Archive). Unless you have some specific reason to believe that you tuned into this particular one, I would guess that you just picked up one at random.

Books have had advertisements in them for a long time. Magazines too. Usually the book advertisements were for more books, but the advertisements in magazines could be for anything.

A guitar lessons ad from a 1930 Astounding Stories.
http://ia311203.us.archive.org/2/items/Astounding_Stories_of_Super_Science_1930/asf193001006a.png

That would have been around 2003:

In February 2003, AltaVista was bought by Overture Services, Inc.[10] In July 2003, Overture itself was taken over by Yahoo!.[11]

ref

However it's interesting to go back in time and look at altavista.com and yahoo.com :)

That would have been around 2003:

In February 2003, AltaVista was bought by Overture Services, Inc.[10] In July 2003, Overture itself was taken over by Yahoo!.[11]

ref

However it's interesting to go back in time and look at altavista.com and yahoo.com :)

When you don't have to wait for anything planning becomes a matter of resources, and time, far from being a barrier, becomes a resource in of itself.

And this is the future. Lafferty was a prophet.

Household income adjusted for inflation has been flat since the 70s. All this consumption was paid for by credit and cheap manufactured goods from China.

I'm all for simplifying, but the question is how to get there. A lot of powerful forces are arrayed against us simplifying. The Century of the Self might be a good film to watch now.

If I am a troll, so is he.

Unfortunately, Progressives believe that the ends justify the means on the way to their central-control-&-command, micromanaged Utopian fantasy. Progressives are deeply entrenched in both major parties. They have a long history of demonstrating no personal honor and view anyone else with honor as having a laughably foolish weakness to be exploited. They won't even think twice about attempting to silence any disagreement.

They know what's best. Anyone who disagrees has automatically, in Progressive minds, proven they are too stupid to be trusted to make decisions, and so they feel that by silencing opposing opinions they are simply reducing confusing "noise" that may cause the population to ask embarrassing/inconvenient questions that might slow the dawn of their glorious total reign.

And they are totally convinced that their ideas and policies will work THIS time, even though the same policies have FAILED disastrously over and over the many times throughout history that they've been tried. Read original-source history. None of this is new, and none of this has ever worked. You'd think that if they were really so smart, they would learn from past experience.

Peel the outside from a Progressive, you'll find a socialist/communist/fascist statist. Some lean Marx/Lenin, some Mao/Kim Jong Il, some Chavez/Castro or Mussolini. Most Progressives I've talked with incorporate elements of many, if not all of those failed systems in their ideology.

It matters little as they are all central-planning/central-control true believers that won't let facts, history, or opposition from the majority of people stop them if they can see an opportunity to seize control.

The Progressives in America are running plays (updated for current times) from the 1960s radical revolutionary manifesto titled; "You Don't Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows".

Check the authors. Gosh, it reads like a list of Obama's friends, associates, and advisors.

They think you are too stupid to read, or comprehend if you did, that their goal is total transformation from a capitalism-based democratic republic to a socialist police state.

Well, are you that stupid?

Mark Hurd's bio disappeared from HP's site:
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/bios/hurd.html

His motto was:
"Everything we do must be for the customer. If it's not, then we need to reconsider why we're doing it."
http://web.archive.org/web/20071226095057/http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/bios/hurd.html

He should have tried to respect it...

A typical book is in the range of 1-2MB of text, assuming you're representing actual letters, as opposed to scanned images of the text, and ignoring illustrations, pictures, etc. So if there are about 130 million books, that's about 200TB to store them uncompressed, maybe 50TB compressed. If you've got multiple versions that are almost identical (e.g. Third Printing from Paperback Publisher B has a different copyright page than First printing from Hardback Publisher A, and maybe a different cover page illustration and blurbs on the back cover), then the different versions add a percent or two.)

As correlation, Wikipedia says the Library of Congress has about 20 million books (in a collection of 100 million things), and The InterWebs say that the Library of Congress is about 20TB (not clear if that's just books or not.) So that says 130 million books would be about 130TB uncompressed; it fits on the back of the same envelope.

So for about $5000 of computer equipment, your town or school could have its own copy of The Library, with All The Books.
So far, The Internet Archive has digitized about a million books - you could probably fit that onto 1-2 BlueRay disks.

If you buy a terabyte sized hard drive, what's your solution if it fails? Presumably you bought it so you could store zillions of pictures, MP3s and movies on the thing... how badly will your day be ruined if it fails?

Some things stay the same! From Slashdot, 1998:

IBM announces a 25 gigger

Hardware Posted by Hemos on Wednesday November 11, @10:11AM
from the why-i-could-put-3/4-my-cd-collection dept.
Booker writes "So IBM announces a 25 gig hard drive... does the world need this yet? Unless this is in a RAID, would you really want to trust 25 gigs on a single drive? What would you use this for? 400+ hours of MP3s comes to mind... "

Agreed. One of the best movies I've ever seen is Roger Corman's Creature from the Haunted Sea. To make a short story even shorter, Corman had a few days left over after shooting The Little Shop of Horrors in Puerto Rico, so he recycled some unused scripts and the black-and-white feature was shot in 5 days, with locals appearing as extras. Later the film was colorized. If you guys like comedy, this is a must-see from 1961. As a bonus, it is in the PD!

One of the most popular science books ever printed was Physics for Entertainment, http://www.archive.org/details/physicsforentert035428mbp by Yakov Perelman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Perelman

During the great days of the Soviet Union, the Russian Foreign Languages Printing House translated it into every major language, and sold copies at third-world prices. Those devious Communists -- promoting socialism by distributing cheap science books! Many scientists, engineers and mathematicians working today were inspired to go into their careers by this book.

The most notable was Grigory Perelman (no relation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigory_Perelman who solved the last step of the Poincaré conjecture and was eccentric even by Slashdot standards. Grigory's father gave him Physics for Entertainment.

It used to sell for $3.99. Then it went out of print, and I tried to buy it, but it was going for $200. Now somebody reprinted it in a (probably) unauthorized edition, and it's also in the Internet Archive.

The Soviet publishing house had an army of editors translating Russian books into all the world's languages, and they probably did Fichtenholz if it's that good.

Dover Publications got started reprinting out-of-print and out-of-copyright science books, and as I recall, a lot of their trade list was Soviet books translated into English. At that time, the Soviet Union didn't believe in copyright, and they were happy to see their work reprinted. One thing the Soviets did well was science education. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Brin)

You might check out the old Dover catalog to see if there are any out-of-copyright English translations. Scan them and put them on the Internet.

Tried the Prelinger Archive?

http://www.archive.org/details/prelinger

She admitted it is fake. I do not agree with her that people loving it is an acceptable accuse for deception.

I don't disagree that 'Unbreakable Linux' is the support program, and 'Enterprise Linux' may have been it's product name from the very beginning. However the GP is sort of correct too, because 'Unbreakable Linux' was a slogan used before distro was released (i.e. for their support commitment to fix any bugs in the database on Linux), and it was utilised liberally in the marketing of the distro, overshadowing any other name. The term 'Enterprise Linux' in the November 09 FAQ was always proceeded with 'Redhat'; an answer to this terminology problem is provided in the FAQ archived 6 days later.

I don't disagree that 'Unbreakable Linux' is the support program, and 'Enterprise Linux' may have been it's product name from the very beginning. However the GP is sort of correct too, because 'Unbreakable Linux' was a slogan used before distro was released (i.e. for their support commitment to fix any bugs in the database on Linux), and it was utilised liberally in the marketing of the distro, overshadowing any other name. The term 'Enterprise Linux' in the November 09 FAQ was always proceeded with 'Redhat'; an answer to this terminology problem is provided in the FAQ archived 6 days later.

The excellent photo-journal of this girl who rides her motorcycle within the dead zone will answer all your questions, and then some.

Not a photo-journal.

It's more of a photo-novel. She didn't "ride solo on her bike through the dead zone" as the site would suggest.
See for yourself.

Or, in her own words:
"I am being accused that it was more poetry in this story then reality. I partly accept this accusation, it still was more reality then poetry and it is why this site has millions of people visiting each month from the day when I put it online and I think I have right to say that people love it. "

These posts of mine lead to endless links about what is wrong with the current schooling system at all levels:
"[p2p-research] College Daze links (was Re: : FlossedBk, "Free/Libre and Open Source Solutions for Education")"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"[p2p-research] The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
"[p2p-research] Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

But key ideas can be found at these links:

      "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt
      http://www.disciplined-minds.com/

      "The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein, Vice Provost, Caltech
      http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

      "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream" by Noam Chomsky
      http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

      "University Secrets:Your Guide to Surviving a College Education" by
Robert D. Honigman
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060707100524/www.universitysecrets.com/us.htm
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060710145531/www.universitysecrets.com/table.htm

      "The Kept University"
      http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.htm

      "We're NOT Off to See the Wizard: REVISITING THE IDEA OF COLLEGE"
      http://unconventionalideas.wordpress.com/?s=wizard

      "The Underground History of American Education" by 1991 NYS Teacher of
the Year John Taylor Gatto
      http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

      "In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness " by Chris
Mercogliano, who spent thirty-five years teaching at the Albany Free School
      http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm

And there are many more I link to in the posts, but these are starting points.

It would take years to read through all the references I link to in the three posts (and it has. :-)

AERO is one place that catalogs most of the alternatives:
    http://www.educationrevolution.org/

These posts of mine lead to endless links about what is wrong with the current schooling system at all levels:
"[p2p-research] College Daze links (was Re: : FlossedBk, "Free/Libre and Open Source Solutions for Education")"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"[p2p-research] The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
"[p2p-research] Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

But key ideas can be found at these links:

      "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt
      http://www.disciplined-minds.com/

      "The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein, Vice Provost, Caltech
      http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

      "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream" by Noam Chomsky
      http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

      "University Secrets:Your Guide to Surviving a College Education" by
Robert D. Honigman
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060707100524/www.universitysecrets.com/us.htm
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060710145531/www.universitysecrets.com/table.htm

      "The Kept University"
      http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.htm

      "We're NOT Off to See the Wizard: REVISITING THE IDEA OF COLLEGE"
      http://unconventionalideas.wordpress.com/?s=wizard

      "The Underground History of American Education" by 1991 NYS Teacher of
the Year John Taylor Gatto
      http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

      "In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness " by Chris
Mercogliano, who spent thirty-five years teaching at the Albany Free School
      http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm

And there are many more I link to in the posts, but these are starting points.

It would take years to read through all the references I link to in the three posts (and it has. :-)

AERO is one place that catalogs most of the alternatives:
    http://www.educationrevolution.org/

You can use Google's Webpage removal tool and ask them to remove the outdated cached copies from the index, even if the website isn't yours. Besides, does Google Cache cache images?

As for the Internet Archive, you can do the same, provided your country recognizes the right to your own image, or you took the photos personally: http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php#20

There is absolutely nothing you would gain from deleting a slashdot account.

Your posts would not be deleted, as no other post is ever deleted without a grounded Cease&Desist or similar legal reason, your journal is public info as well. The only removable thing is your user description, which can be replaced with an empty string at a whim.

Thank you for the detailed opinion as to why you, personally, would have nothing to gain by deleting your own account on Slashdot.

But please realize that the fact that it's always been that way on Slashdot does not mean that it should be that way, and that others may have a different opinion than you.

I've been here a long time. There is far more personal detail about me on Slashdot than my Facebook page is likely ever to contain. Mostly, this is because I'm pseudo-anonymous here. I don't think I have enough publicly-available information on Slashdot that someone can pin my pseudonym down to who I really am, but it would doubtlessly be rather easy to do given access to Slashdot's non-public data.

Thankfully, Rob Malda, along with his handlers and peons, have over the years earned my trust that they will treat my non-public data with a reasonable amount of respect.

When the day comes that I feel like my trust has the potential to be violated, I want a button that says "Delete this account and everything associated with it," and I want it to work, at least within the confines of Slashdot. I expect this, in particular, from an organization such as Slashdot which has sometimes daily postings about privacy and abuses thereof.

I don't care if such a button is rendered somewhat meaningless by other web sites. I just want Slashdot to do the right thing and nuke my stuff on request, just like the editors here clearly expect everyone else to do.

Meanwhile, look down at the bottom of this very page. See the line that says Comments are owned by the Poster? That, too.

Here's the Slashdot snapshot from 1998 - Note that web.archive doesn't serve some of the older images, but site content and style is preserved :)

Don't worry, the internet does forget, and it forgets some of the best stuff, too. Back when I was an avid gamer thare was a very funny parody of Blue's News called "Yello There". A fellow names "Kneel Harriot" (who I later found out was a woman named Janet) updated it daily, and as far as I know there's only one instance of his site in the Wayback Machine at archive.org; "Kneel" and I often cross-posted, me using his character in stories at my site, the now-defunct "Springfield Fragfest" (which last time I looked was now a porn site). The only one one of his pages not missing is the one from the day people surfed to Yello There and found the Fragfest, and surfed to the Fragfest only to find Yello There.

There are a lot of the old sites that are gone without a trace. Most of the Fragfest is gone. My other site (also now defunct), mcgrew.info, is completely gone as well, although I think I have it in a hard drive on a shelf somewhere.

Somebody must have confused the internet with rock 'n' roll, because the internet does indeed forget. It just remembers a long time sometimes.

"our offices did not have naked porn stars running about"

What a shame, I expected something like this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070211214215/www.realroot.be/images/fotos/2_1.jpg :-)

Left 4 Dead still isn't available as a Mac title...and now this. Which is completely bizarre, because Alien Swarm was originally available for the Mac; it's based on UT2004...available for, oh, you know, 6 years?

Not to worry! I read this on Apple's website:

Leopard is the world's most advanced operating system. So advanced, it even lets you run Windows if there's a PC application you need to use. Just get a copy of Windows and start up Boot Camp, now included with Leopard. Setup is simple and straightforward -- just as you'd expect with a Mac.

[Source]

See? It's simple and straightforward!

But the US Govt I think is not capable of differentiating between the marijuana plant and the use of marijuana as a narcotic.

They used to be able to.
http://www.archive.org/details/Hemp_for_victory_1942_FIXED
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp_for_Victory

But the US Govt I think is not capable of differentiating between the marijuana plant and the use of marijuana as a narcotic.

They used to be able to differentiate.
http://www.archive.org/details/Hemp_for_victory_1942_FIXED

I've posted this as a potential answer on /. before though the original page on my site is no longer available. It's also been discussed here: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/05/secret_question.html (find cipher.php) I found my old page on the wayback machine...perhaps I'll move it back where it goes http://web.archive.org/web/20060715223129/http://levii.com/cipher.php I'd appreciate input on the method. You have your random card, your own ez phrase and you end up with properly complex passwords. I've implemented this in numerous business environements, and people seem very happy with the result. Every 60 days they choose a new ez passprase and/or get a new dynamically generated card.

Your right it is. A visit to the wayback machine found this page- http://web.archive.org/web/20070626092758/www.index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?tmpl=tm_info

Nn which is written -

The TM application is written in "C", and is based on an ISAM/Network database manager I wrote in the late 1980's. The code is highly portable, and versions exist for MS-DOS, Windows NT and several flavors of UNIX. I also run it on my HP Palmtop. The version running on this site is a Win32 console application.

Which just goes to show I should not trust either my memory or what people tell me. Sadly it also indicates the data is in an unknown and probably unique implantation of ISAM.

Or perhaps some hardcore jam band?

Add some laser show and spinning glow sticks to go with the trippy sound and beat, and you're all set to get into a trance every now and then.

You can use the Wayback Machine to get a partial snapshot of the site. Try http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe, then follow the links on the archived page. If you vary the URL a bit, you might see even more missing data.

It's even worse than that. You can go down to the local grocery store, buy a $5 Visa/MasterCard gift card, and register it online with ANY details you'd like. This is also why you should not rely on a credit card for age verification.

Not only that, but the last time I looked at credit card protocols, they didn't even have the capability of sending the cardholder's name! Street address? Yes. Zip code? Yes. CVV/CVC? Yes. Name? No.

Want proof? Check out IBM's VisaNet API. There's no way to pass in a customer name. Or you could look at the actual protocol (although it's served off archive.org so it's sllloooowwww and unreliable).

What I imagine might be going on is that some credit card processors provide an API for sending a name, but the name gets dropped once it hits the credit card network. The merchants THINK the name is being verified, but instead any old name is silently accepted.

Before I did that though, I did a little digging to find out how many other projects BP has in the Gulf of Mexico just to see if maybe they have a high percentage rate of success and this is just one of hundreds or something,
It turns out BP has only 9 (admittedly huge) projects in the Gulf of Mexico. Source
(count the number of projects in the ride hand column)

I had to find that in the way back machine because BP took down the page listing their Gulf of Mexico projects. They even still link
to it (again, look at the column on the right "Gulf of Mexico Facilities) but they broke the link. It's funny, when I peruse that page (via the way back machine) BP brags about their "new and untested" tech that they use to go to "unprecedented depths". It looks like their a little ashamed of it now.

Anyway, after seeing that they only have 9 facilities in the Gulf maybe this well is better sealed off. I went looking for a reason to trust BP with reopening this well and getting the oil and gas they went there for but a 1 in 9 failure rate is not impressive. Seal that sucker off.

If binaural beats are supposed to exist only in the brain, why, when I play back the files linked to on wikipedia do I hear the beat fluctuation when I listen to only one of my earphones at a time? Is VLC mixing the left and right tracks and not telling me? Is it happening on my mac? Or is the file not a real beats file?

No, they're discussing viruses and bacteria. Nowhere do they use the incorrect term "virii" in a failed attempt to look intelligent.

Some of my early-day mistakes were to sign up on innocent-sounding sites for joke e-mails, IQ tests, and free-greeting-card sites ... and my e-mail during warranty registration to legit companies that later sold my address to shady partners. I even signed up for email "news" at an anime site even though they promised all content was pending as they were "still awaiting delivery of our giant robots." I realized I'd been had, but they did put up a legit page 5 years later, and I'm sure they sold my email addy many times over in those five years, even if their promise for news was never fulfilled.

A quick web search for my email address surprised me with a single site cloning my [defunct Geocities] page where I naively used it a decade ago. It's good to see from your post that I don't get as much SPAM as I deserve for my paranoia-free Windows 98 days :)

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

Read the Byte article about Simon: http://web.archive.org/web/19990221174856/byte.com/art/9412/sec11/art3.htm Some of the things mentioned sound eerily reminiscent of the iPhone (esp. the part about phones not being sold for over $500 and most people expecting them for free, no handwriting recognition, battery life). If IBM kept at it they might have become a significant player in the cell phone market. This paragraph is a hoot:

But perhaps Simon's biggest phone perk is that it can act like a pager. When a call comes in and goes unanswered, the caller can leave a phone number, which is recorded in Simon's pager menu. Simon then beeps and darkens the Phone Pager button. It can store up to nine numbers, which you call back with a one-touch selection.

you'll never need more than nine.

The only app that consistently reminds me that I need more RAM is preview.app, MacOSX's pdf reader. I'm addicted to Americana-- and a thousand page book with illustrations gobbles ram like crazy.

Look no further than CmdrTaco for the largest cavern in the world: As seen here.