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Mitsubishi manufactures airplane parts and will start manufacturing wings/composites for Boeing. All of this is done with US supervision and approval. The F-15J is not a Japanese manufactured plane. This is a licensed airplane from an American corporation. They pay for the privilege to produce these planes. Not only that but the US withheld some of the technology from them. Please read the facts before opening your big mouth. You will note that Mitsubishi didn't even build the initial F-15J plans. Japan wanted to build its own airplane industry. It wanted design, develop and test home grown airplanes and was told by the US that that idea is a no go.

As for Japan's military, what exactly does it do? And what is 42.5 billion to Japan? Do you know how much it costs to fill up a non-nuclear ships?

Archived from The Onion

Besides composition has always been highly rule based, and even classics like Mozart toyed with generative music. There's a lot of music out there that is clearly composed in ways that closely resemble many of the methods used by generative music systems today. Beethovens "Ecossaisen" for instance closely follow the structure of a Cantor fractal. Composing music IS about combining patterns much more than about combining individual notes.

This page is a good overview of the fractal nature of composition.

I'd agree with you that using a computer for generating the music for a live performance would be a cop out if the computer was programmed with the full score from the start, instead of being used as an instrument that allows automation of repetitive elements.

Personally I see very little value in live performances of the actual music if the music is intended to just follow a score - what makes a live performance interesting to me is what goes into the presentation and/or any improvisation, not that someone demonstrates that they are capable of recreating the same tunes over and over in realtime.

Strangely enough, those aren't even the worst words by Jack Valenti. In a letter to the LA Times, he defended the killing of civilians in war time, especially ex-senator Bob Kerrey, who was part of a terrorist operation in Vietnam (killing civilians in VC territory to terrorize the opposition).

Make a system like I did so with the push of a button your stuff "disapears" behind the desk.

http://home.att.net/~andrebsd/desk.jpg thats the whole motor contraption to get my monitor to "disapear" when i dont want to see it...

http://home.att.net/~andrebsd/desk.wmv is a video of it actualy working (sorry for the wmv, but my webcam is cheap and dies with most software & it seems as though slashdot wont let me link to the second link [probily to close to the other one])

Incase your wondering, yes that is a garage door opener... so if you just make the panels that hold the stuff bigger, you can make more sutff "disapear" when you dont want it.

Hmm. This site has it "like the wind", but that's hardly authoritative. Can you cite a source? (Not that it really matters, but in future I'd like to know whether or not it's being quoted correctly!)

I had to stop this project, because I cannot afford to pay an army of lawyers every time someone wants to impose conditions on my work. Software developpers react very sensitively to this kind of terrorism. If European politicians legalise software patents in Europe, that will work as a disinscentive to software production in Europe.

All joking aside, isn't this the fear that people have of MicroSoft?
I think it was "the Onion" that made the biggest joke about it http://home.att.net/~jbcole/humor/Microsoft_patent s.htm

Kinda scary SCO is trying this for real.
Or maybe just kinda desperate.

i'm not a fan of the big corps in general. AT&T royally screwed me with a crappy DSL connection, pitiful upstream speed, non-documented port-blocking, an abysmal AUP once i started running servers, and a lock-in contract that they wouldn't let me out of even if i paid it off in full early.

But speakeasy's actually been pretty good. When the line was having some burn-in problems, they were willing to actually talk through the issues in full with me let me decide which tradeoffs i preferred to make to get things resolved. Now, if only their downstream could really provide the 6Mbps they sold it to me as instead of the 4Mbps which is what they can reliably provide... sigh. At least they explicitly let you do whatever you want with the connection you paid for.

I mailed to author of this arcticle. Mel is acronym from "Multi-Edit Lite" and it can be downloaded from Free DOS software page. Unfortunatelly, it is simple text editor, not a word processor. (and it's shareware, not freeware) :(

As for free DOS word processors, there is thing called "GalaxyWrite". Still working download link are in an old FreeDOS newsitem. It also mentions program called "AsEasyAs" - spreadsheet for DOS. Can't guarrantee anything, as I don't have tested them yet, but I hope this helps for somebody!

This may help:

Poetry Quotes

The year is 2023. High above the canyons of Manhattan, a crew of human and android steelworkers is approaching the halfway point in the construction of a new Tower of Babel. The Tower is the brainchild of billionaire Harry Gant, who is building it as a monument to humanity's power to dream. Meanwhile, in the streets and tunnels below, a darker game is afoot: a Wall Street takeover artist has been murdered, and Gant's ex-wife, Joan Fine, has been hired to find out why. Accompanying her is philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand, resurrected from the dead by computer and bottled in a hurricane lamp to serve as Joan's unwilling assistant. While Rand vainly attempts to tutor her in "the virtue of selfishness," Joan discovers that the murder is the key to a much larger mystery, one in which millions of lives may hang in the balance.

You can see what's stored in the RAM in Mozilla browsers by typing "about:cache?device=memory" into the address bar.
If it's using too much memory, you can try reducing the RAM cache by typing "about:config" into the address bar then look for the key "browser.cache.memory.capacity" and change the value to 1024 or something similar.
More here.

In the R/C jet community the Alpha 4 is considered the end-all charger. It handles NiCad, NiMH, and wet/gell cells and can handle packs of from 1 to 30 or so NiCad or NiMH cells. Most importantly the packs *never* get hot, even on its fastest charge rates. At least when I got hold of my alpha a few years back, it was basically the only charger that could actually do this. It will also do a peak charge at C/10 rate, to really baby your packs. Unfortunately they're built by a basement operation and there is always a huge backlog of orders. You have to get a used one off ebay for probably more than new price, which is kind of steep to start with. The other downside is that it will only charge at up to 1 amp, which is slow on very large packs.

Remember, after Reagan's tax cut revenues to the government DOUBLED. The surge in the economy caused by the tax cuts caused MORE money to be available, not less.

This statement is misleading, and not really a viable argument for tax cuts. See this analysis. There are plenty others with similar statements from Google.

Plus, you can't really evaluate the net effect of the tax cuts on the economy unless you also simultaneously evaluate the effect of the resultant debt that Reagan & Bush's "borrow & spend" policies have imposed on the U.S.

That doesn't mean that I disagree with you about being more careful about where that money is spent - I just think that "tax cuts = more revenue" is far too simplistic a mantra for national policy decisions, and tends to be used more as a means to trick people into going along with corrupt agendas.

an inch is exactly 2.54 it has changed over the years as also has what a meter is see the history of length. I can see how this causes problems.

Auto accidents still kill a tremendous number of people annually -- a lot more than "terrorists"

Higher speeds do not attribute to accidents. That's a huge myth. Most fatal auto accidents are attributed to intoxication. Google it.

The Onion already did it, years ago. (Sorry I couldn't find the actual onion link. Same article though.)

There are two solutions to the soot problem. There are diesel oxidation catalysts that get rid of much of the problem (cost ~$500/car), or soot filters that get rid of almost all of the problem (cost ~several $1000's per car).

You can also combine the two.

I think if biodiesel begins to take off, we can expect soot-reducing technologies to come down in price.

Yes, actually, there's a pretty wide variety of alternatives; ABA is *presented* as the only way to deal with autism, but it's not. (If it were, then my non-ABA-trained autistic butt wouldn't have a bachelor's degree from Berkeley. Note that I am what's known as a "classic" autie that even loses speech/literacy if too stressed, but because I know how to handle my autism, I can often function as if I were just an Asperger's autistic instead.)

I'm a bit too drained at this point to deal with writing a big post -- being autistic, sometimes language just doesn't work right -- but all I'd be doing is restating what others have said. So instead, I'll give you some of my favorite links on the subject. :)

Our Story: Life On The Spectrum Jypsy wrote about raising her autistic (as in "did not even speak until late in childhood") son Alex, with non-ABA methods, and their amazing success. She's supposed to update soon, as he's now a track & field star mainstreamed in high school with top grades.

Autistic Advocacy Essays about autism, including many explanations of why ABA is harmful and the preferred alternatives.

Autistics.org Library Essays on a variety of topics about how autistics are treated. (Autistics.org is a great place for info in general, but the Library is the best for quick learning.)

Autism and Assistive Technology One autistic discusses using assistive technology so she can live a fuller life rather than waste energy looking non-autistic.

If you're really interested in the topic, AutAdvo has a ton of parents & autistics that love explaining this, and would do a better job than I'm capable of this evening. :)

The Moon is about 356,614Km from the Earth at closest approach. China is home to about 1.3B people. A column of Chinese people, stacked in "human triangles" sitting on one another's shoulders (1m high), would reach the moon, leaving over 230M people. Half to clamber up (then down) to the Lunar surface, at a rate of about 1Km:h, reaching the surface in about 20 years, splitting their population evenly between the planets in under 4 years. And they only have to scale up their acrobat budgets, not that risky American rocket science.

What is this "community" of which you speak?

I'm speaking of the OSS community and the crypto geek community, but mostly their intersection, a large chunk of which is the coderpunks community.

In summary, even if the source was open, it wouldn't make a difference, because there is no-one who has both the inclination and qualification to do it for free.

A) They implemented AES, which stood up to a great deal of scrutiny, both by professionals and crypto hobbyists, before it was accepted as a standard. It's not the crypto at fault here, it's their implementation of it. Anyone with even a basic understanding of crypto protocols (such as one gleans from reading "Applied Cryptography") would have found these holes, given access to the source.

B) That year of crypto I took while working on a math degree doesn't qualify me? That was a waste of time, then.

Some of us prefer a nice roomy engine compartment as opposed to something else. It's always more fun to work someplace where there's room for not only the item you're working on, but also your hands and the tools they're holding.

I have to turn to web-authors like Elf Sternberg (especially JournaL Entries stories: "Turing Attraction ", "Dormant Ghosts", "Honest Desires", "Separate Electricities", "Separate Responsibilities", "Separate, Together", "Cheyenne", "Dual Life", "Existence", "Vengeance Angel", "Rebellious Angel", "Local Effects") and DB Story among others to find writers consistently speculating on the more sexual, relationship, and self-willed aspects of robots we might possibly build. These authors, I should note, have decidedly different approaches to this subject -- which is why I like them both.

Do you include this type of fiction in your study of a future with robots in society, and what do you feel will make robots successful in a mass production, affordable sense for the average person?

(I'm reminded of the early days of home computers when one was told they should spend hundreds of $$$s for a machine to keep track of their recipies, when a small metal box holding 3x5 cards continues to be a better solution for most people to this day.)

Oh yeah, I even remember them using Apple II computers (not //c). I even remember subscribing to the magazines! I was totally into the computer programming stuff as a kid. :)

Now, I have the theme song in my head (from here):

Three
Two
One
CONTACT!

Contact, it's the reason
It's the moment
When everything happens . . .
CONTACT

Let's Make Contact!

Three
Two
One
CONTACT

This is completely offtopic and next time why don't you just PM me if you have questions? But for the record...

WTF are you shitting? The EverLED rules them all.

The LED Museum's EverLED review
FlashLightReviews.com's EverLED review
Feel free to search around on candlepowerforums.com to see what those guys think of it.

Underpowered? It's as bright as a stock 3 cell MagLite bulb! At that brightness the batteries still last at least three times as long! It's so rugged, as a demonstration I use my EverLED equipped MagLite to hammer nails into a board. And it pays for itself in batteries that you don't have to buy, not to mention the environmental considerations there. AND you can still adjust the beam focus, unlike most replacement LED bulbs. And as you've obviously noticed MOST LED flashlights are crap. The EverLED is made by hand in the USA. The EverLED is a premium product that belongs in a premium flashlight and comes at a premium price. You get what you pay for.

This is completely offtopic and next time why don't you just PM me if you have questions? But for the record...

WTF are you shitting? The EverLED rules them all.

The LED Museum's EverLED review
FlashLightReviews.com's EverLED review
Feel free to search around on candlepowerforums.com to see what those guys think of it.

Underpowered? It's as bright as a stock 3 cell MagLite bulb! At that brightness the batteries still last at least three times as long! It's so rugged, as a demonstration I use my EverLED equipped MagLite to hammer nails into a board. And it pays for itself in batteries that you don't have to buy, not to mention the environmental considerations there. AND you can still adjust the beam focus, unlike most replacement LED bulbs. And as you've obviously noticed MOST LED flashlights are crap. The EverLED is made by hand in the USA. The EverLED is a premium product that belongs in a premium flashlight and comes at a premium price. You get what you pay for.

Anything trying to be really ubercool should come with one plus a software or a slider (or 3?) to adjust the fsck of it.

My other favorite was a natural style PC Concepts keyboard with the built in touchpad. I'd love to have one just like that again only with all the fancy extra buttons you see on keyboards now. I refuse to buy a Microsoft one since they can't even adhere to standards in a simple keyboard layout and the 6 is on the wrong side. I just can't get used to that. Hell, I don't feel like I should *have* to get used to it anyway!

A 133-foot-long tractor-trailer with 192 tires and 16 axles [...] will take about five days to crawl about 17 miles...

Stuff like this is generally un/loaded in stages with multiple giant cranes. The engineer/builder of the structure provides detailed drawings and procedures for the lifting and manipulation of the load.

I used to have a small webpage about these big transport machines (often called "Schnabels" - this particular page is about Schnabel railroad cars), but passed it off to The Road Load Page.

Check it out if transporting heavy stuff interests you.

Paul

Didn't anyone ever tell you that a picture is worth a thousand words?

Draw me a picture of the Gettysburg address. Or one of Basho's haiku - that should only take about 1/100 of a picture, right?

For some things, pictures are very useful. For example, circuit digrams are great for figuring out electronics.

For other things, they're useless. You can't draw me a picture that explains why Tennyson's Ulysses is beautiful. (Any more than you could write prose or a poem that gets anywhere near Escher's drawing hands - witness the literal description on the linked page.)

Diagramming software is about as useful as diagramming a plots in a discussion of a novels, or the grammar of sentances - an occasional useful adjunct, but by no means the primary mode of presentation.

Languages are inherently linear.

To the contrary, programming languages took conditionals and iteration from natural language. In a written work, one can skip around amd cross-reference; prose is random-access. And viewing a diagram is just as linear - your attention only focuses on one element at a time, and you trace connections - lines - between them.

Sure, that's been happening for years.

All things considered, I'd much rather see a movie featuring Elf Sternberg's A.I.'s or DB_Story's fembots.

I mean, aren't there stories about robots doing anything else worth telling besides running amok and killing people.

(Note to producers of I.R. Hey, its been done.)

I seen to remember an early episode of King of the Hill where Hank sent Bobby on a "Snipe-hunt". It seems to be a long running practical joke in the south and at camps. Here's a link for you.

• Coffee Quotes
• Coffee Recipes
• More Coffee Recipes

I have tried some of them. They are another good reason for drinking lots of coffee.

Firefly Chinese-English Translations

I don't get it

John Kerry, D-Massachusetts: $163.6 million
Herb Kohl, D-Wisconsin: $111 million
John Rockefeller, D-West Virginia: $81.6 million
Jon Corzine, D-New Jersey: $71 million
Dianne Feinstein, D-California: $26.4 million

list

so much for the 'rich republicans'

more
According to a recent article on cnn.com, there are 40 millionaires in the U.S. Senate, according to their own financial statements.

Of these, the 5 richest are Democrats. Of the dozen richest, 10 are Democrats and 2 are Republicans. The richest (Democrat) senator is worth more than 6 times as much as the richest Republican senator.

Finally, since the remaining 60 senators must be worth less than $1M each, we can compute that the 3 richest senators (all Democrat) are worth more the the rest of the Senate combined!

A buddy of mine (who's a cameraman) gave me the "your speaker cables aren't the same length" line the other day when my bargain-basement DVD-ROM drive and mplayer decided to garble the audio playing a DVD. I almost looked-up the speed of electrical propagation in copper and gave him a lecture but decided to say "you may be right" instead.

First (quick) point: most of the US debt is owed to US citizens.

This is correct. However, the percentage owned by foreign entities has been rising as a percentage of the total.(reference)

It is much more fiscally responsible to balance the budget (erring slightly either way doesn't make a big difference), and reduce the effect of the debt due to (1) an increased GDP and (2) inflation (the time value of money decreases).

The idea of reducing the federal debt through "inflation" is ludicrous. Remember that the debt is earning interest as well. Increase GDP does not directly reduce the debt.

needs to read more articles where Nobel Laureate economists give their insight

Ok, lets look at some of the information in that article...

ROBINSON: What about option two, using the surplus to pay off the national debt?

FRIEDMAN: From a purely economic point of view that makes a great deal of sense. If it were feasible to take the whole surplus and use it to pay down the debt, I might well be in favor of it. The argument against doing that is political. Even if politicians say they are going to pay down the debt, the political pressures to spend it will be so strong that they will in fact spend it.

Notice that he says paying down the debt is a good idea and that political reasons stand in the way. I'm not arguing with that. The source of political opposition is in the electorate.

...But I personally would rather it go back in the form of lower taxes. The argument that people will make for paying back the debt is that, if you pay it back, the money will go to people who will invest it. The sellers of government securities will want to replace them with other assets, which will mean investment.

Friedman only cites one argument for paying down the national debt. The argument he cites is true, and I agree with that argument. I will deal with his opinion on it in a moment. First, consider the other reasons for paying down the debt which he did not cite: Reducing interest payments and obligations, reducing foreign ownership of american government debt and increasing our future capability to borrow in times of need.

Taken from here:

World War II required surge borrowing of an extra 72% of GDP (above the prior 50% debt ratio) to meet the surge production and economic shifts necessary to meet our war needs. Now, that really was not all that difficult, since the private sector's share of the economy's national income at that time was itself 80% of the economic pie, as shown in the

Government Spending Report. But now the private sector's share has been shrunk to 60% of the economic pie, leaving less capacity for a surge to war-time needs. Now, today's debt is 60% GDP (or, 72% of national income). Can you imagine trying to add another 72% on top to meet an equivalent war in the future, considering the smaller relative private sector? Who are we going to shift from peace-time production to war-time production - - our higher ratio of seniors, state & local government employees and welfare recipients? And who will loan us the additional $7.3 trillion, since we are already tapped out with record domestic and foreign borrowings today?

This challenge is covered in the chapter National Security Report.

Back to the article you cited...

FRIEDMAN: Solow's argument is a valid argument. But here's the question: Is it appropriate for the government to decide how much of the

First (quick) point: most of the US debt is owed to US citizens.

This is correct. However, the percentage owned by foreign entities has been rising as a percentage of the total.(reference)

It is much more fiscally responsible to balance the budget (erring slightly either way doesn't make a big difference), and reduce the effect of the debt due to (1) an increased GDP and (2) inflation (the time value of money decreases).

The idea of reducing the federal debt through "inflation" is ludicrous. Remember that the debt is earning interest as well. Increase GDP does not directly reduce the debt.

needs to read more articles where Nobel Laureate economists give their insight

Ok, lets look at some of the information in that article...

ROBINSON: What about option two, using the surplus to pay off the national debt?

FRIEDMAN: From a purely economic point of view that makes a great deal of sense. If it were feasible to take the whole surplus and use it to pay down the debt, I might well be in favor of it. The argument against doing that is political. Even if politicians say they are going to pay down the debt, the political pressures to spend it will be so strong that they will in fact spend it.

Notice that he says paying down the debt is a good idea and that political reasons stand in the way. I'm not arguing with that. The source of political opposition is in the electorate.

...But I personally would rather it go back in the form of lower taxes. The argument that people will make for paying back the debt is that, if you pay it back, the money will go to people who will invest it. The sellers of government securities will want to replace them with other assets, which will mean investment.

Friedman only cites one argument for paying down the national debt. The argument he cites is true, and I agree with that argument. I will deal with his opinion on it in a moment. First, consider the other reasons for paying down the debt which he did not cite: Reducing interest payments and obligations, reducing foreign ownership of american government debt and increasing our future capability to borrow in times of need.

Taken from here:

World War II required surge borrowing of an extra 72% of GDP (above the prior 50% debt ratio) to meet the surge production and economic shifts necessary to meet our war needs. Now, that really was not all that difficult, since the private sector's share of the economy's national income at that time was itself 80% of the economic pie, as shown in the

Government Spending Report. But now the private sector's share has been shrunk to 60% of the economic pie, leaving less capacity for a surge to war-time needs. Now, today's debt is 60% GDP (or, 72% of national income). Can you imagine trying to add another 72% on top to meet an equivalent war in the future, considering the smaller relative private sector? Who are we going to shift from peace-time production to war-time production - - our higher ratio of seniors, state & local government employees and welfare recipients? And who will loan us the additional $7.3 trillion, since we are already tapped out with record domestic and foreign borrowings today?

This challenge is covered in the chapter National Security Report.

Back to the article you cited...

FRIEDMAN: Solow's argument is a valid argument. But here's the question: Is it appropriate for the government to decide how much of the

First (quick) point: most of the US debt is owed to US citizens.

This is correct. However, the percentage owned by foreign entities has been rising as a percentage of the total.(reference)

It is much more fiscally responsible to balance the budget (erring slightly either way doesn't make a big difference), and reduce the effect of the debt due to (1) an increased GDP and (2) inflation (the time value of money decreases).

The idea of reducing the federal debt through "inflation" is ludicrous. Remember that the debt is earning interest as well. Increase GDP does not directly reduce the debt.

needs to read more articles where Nobel Laureate economists give their insight

Ok, lets look at some of the information in that article...

ROBINSON: What about option two, using the surplus to pay off the national debt?

FRIEDMAN: From a purely economic point of view that makes a great deal of sense. If it were feasible to take the whole surplus and use it to pay down the debt, I might well be in favor of it. The argument against doing that is political. Even if politicians say they are going to pay down the debt, the political pressures to spend it will be so strong that they will in fact spend it.

Notice that he says paying down the debt is a good idea and that political reasons stand in the way. I'm not arguing with that. The source of political opposition is in the electorate.

...But I personally would rather it go back in the form of lower taxes. The argument that people will make for paying back the debt is that, if you pay it back, the money will go to people who will invest it. The sellers of government securities will want to replace them with other assets, which will mean investment.

Friedman only cites one argument for paying down the national debt. The argument he cites is true, and I agree with that argument. I will deal with his opinion on it in a moment. First, consider the other reasons for paying down the debt which he did not cite: Reducing interest payments and obligations, reducing foreign ownership of american government debt and increasing our future capability to borrow in times of need.

Taken from here:

World War II required surge borrowing of an extra 72% of GDP (above the prior 50% debt ratio) to meet the surge production and economic shifts necessary to meet our war needs. Now, that really was not all that difficult, since the private sector's share of the economy's national income at that time was itself 80% of the economic pie, as shown in the

Government Spending Report. But now the private sector's share has been shrunk to 60% of the economic pie, leaving less capacity for a surge to war-time needs. Now, today's debt is 60% GDP (or, 72% of national income). Can you imagine trying to add another 72% on top to meet an equivalent war in the future, considering the smaller relative private sector? Who are we going to shift from peace-time production to war-time production - - our higher ratio of seniors, state & local government employees and welfare recipients? And who will loan us the additional $7.3 trillion, since we are already tapped out with record domestic and foreign borrowings today?

This challenge is covered in the chapter National Security Report.

Back to the article you cited...

FRIEDMAN: Solow's argument is a valid argument. But here's the question: Is it appropriate for the government to decide how much of the

First (quick) point: most of the US debt is owed to US citizens.

This is correct. However, the percentage owned by foreign entities has been rising as a percentage of the total.(reference)

It is much more fiscally responsible to balance the budget (erring slightly either way doesn't make a big difference), and reduce the effect of the debt due to (1) an increased GDP and (2) inflation (the time value of money decreases).

The idea of reducing the federal debt through "inflation" is ludicrous. Remember that the debt is earning interest as well. Increase GDP does not directly reduce the debt.

needs to read more articles where Nobel Laureate economists give their insight

Ok, lets look at some of the information in that article...

ROBINSON: What about option two, using the surplus to pay off the national debt?

FRIEDMAN: From a purely economic point of view that makes a great deal of sense. If it were feasible to take the whole surplus and use it to pay down the debt, I might well be in favor of it. The argument against doing that is political. Even if politicians say they are going to pay down the debt, the political pressures to spend it will be so strong that they will in fact spend it.

Notice that he says paying down the debt is a good idea and that political reasons stand in the way. I'm not arguing with that. The source of political opposition is in the electorate.

...But I personally would rather it go back in the form of lower taxes. The argument that people will make for paying back the debt is that, if you pay it back, the money will go to people who will invest it. The sellers of government securities will want to replace them with other assets, which will mean investment.

Friedman only cites one argument for paying down the national debt. The argument he cites is true, and I agree with that argument. I will deal with his opinion on it in a moment. First, consider the other reasons for paying down the debt which he did not cite: Reducing interest payments and obligations, reducing foreign ownership of american government debt and increasing our future capability to borrow in times of need.

Taken from here:

World War II required surge borrowing of an extra 72% of GDP (above the prior 50% debt ratio) to meet the surge production and economic shifts necessary to meet our war needs. Now, that really was not all that difficult, since the private sector's share of the economy's national income at that time was itself 80% of the economic pie, as shown in the

Government Spending Report. But now the private sector's share has been shrunk to 60% of the economic pie, leaving less capacity for a surge to war-time needs. Now, today's debt is 60% GDP (or, 72% of national income). Can you imagine trying to add another 72% on top to meet an equivalent war in the future, considering the smaller relative private sector? Who are we going to shift from peace-time production to war-time production - - our higher ratio of seniors, state & local government employees and welfare recipients? And who will loan us the additional $7.3 trillion, since we are already tapped out with record domestic and foreign borrowings today?

This challenge is covered in the chapter National Security Report.

Back to the article you cited...

FRIEDMAN: Solow's argument is a valid argument. But here's the question: Is it appropriate for the government to decide how much of the

12/31/1980 $930,210,000,000.00
The Debt after Reagan's first term:

12/31/1984 $1,662,966,000,000.00 (+.6 trillion)
The Debt when Bush I got in:

09/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.16 (+1.6 trillion for Reagan in eight years)
When Bush I left and Clinton got in:

09/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66 (+1.4 trillion for Bush I in four years)
The Debt after Clinton's first term:

09/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73 (+1.1 trillion)
The Debt when Clinton left office:

09/30/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86 (+1.6 trillion for Clinton in 8 years)
The Current debt:

02/10/2004 $7,012,102,110,400.63 (+1.3 trillion for Bush II in 3 years)
All of the last few presidents have been steadily increasing the debt by huge margins, it's nothing new (unfortunately).
See Government Debt or Official Current US Debt

Wait just one second!

I thought THIS is the last page of the internet

The Pinto did get a semi-bum rap on the rear-end/gas tank issue. Other cars of the time were even worse, but got no bad press because they were so rare. Check out the rear of the Opel GT:

http://home.att.net/~johncline/opel_gt.htm

Very snazzy-looking car, but look at those tiny rear bumpers and the gas cap right at the edge of the spoiler. You don't want to get rear-ended in one of those.

Since this may be the first exposure many /.ers have to some serious model railroading, I thought I'd broaden the perspective a little bit from the old standby HO (though not to at all belittle the beautiful work of Jack Burgess).

Some stuff I've been drooling over lately:

West-Side Locomotive Works

garden railroading images like this one

and of course my favorite model train company, Lehmann Gross Bahn

Enjoy, and add your own links!

> No, it doesn't. It's a cartoon devil.

No, it's not. It's a series of daemons putting up a flag, reminicent of the famous photo of Iwo Jima. Check the links.

> It doesn't offend anyone. Really.

I don't know, if I was Japanese, I'd probably be offended. A lot of American soldiers killed a lot of Japanese. When it was all over there were only 250 Japanese prisoners out of the original 22,000 defenders of the island. The rest were killed. General Kuribayashi commited suicide (hari kari). The Marines lost 7,000 killed and 19,000 wounded. International conflict is not comfortable thing to talk about, and not a good idea for a world-wide logo.

Also, have you ever heard the fates of these soldiers in that famous photo? Three of the men were killed in combat within days of the flag raising. Not exactly inspiring for a logo, either.

> If it were hanging on a cross or wearing a
> turban, *then* maybe it'd need changing.

Cross, probably. Turban? A lot of cultures have turbans. What's wrong with a turban? Keeps your hair up, head shaded from the sun, is a symbol of wisdom, and a cool place to store your cobra...! No, wait, skip the last one.

I was expecting something showcasing technology like the 5 watt Luxeon Star LEDs, instead, it just looks like Lucky the Leprechaun shat all over the place.

Despite the bad example (and color scheme, ugh.) this site shows, LEDs really are coming into their own for uses in lighting and will be a very interesting technology to watch in the coming years. The LED Museum has a great listing and reviews of LED based lighting products, from flashlights to Xmas lights.

I do believe LEDs can be effectively used for lighting. I was given a 1 watt Luxeon Star-based flashlight this Christmas and after using it in instead of an incandescent flashlight, I have to say I am very impressed. The Luxeon puts out a pure white light (very similar to HID headlights) which makes objects being illuminated appear more clearly and it projects an even beam with no dark shadowy spots. If for nothing else, this article should be a reason to check out what's available in LED lighting - you might be pleasantly surprised.

Not the bough. It's not a tree. The analogy is to a ship. When one armed ship wants to warn another ship, a common way to do it is to fire a shot across their bow (the front of the ship). This is a warning that is very difficult to ignore. Firing a warning shot across a large branch of a tree is... well... less effective.