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Did it ever occur to you that maybe those environmentalists you make fun of are right?

Some Americans spend so much time being angry that an environmentally-conscious person has determined something they like to do is harmful that they never stop to wonder whether that person might actually be right.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe those environmentalists you make fun of are right?

Some Americans spend so much time being angry that an environmentally-conscious person has determined something they like to do is harmful that they never stop to wonder whether that person might actually be right.

Just in case anyone is curious.... here's the book to read if you want to improve your oo code 10 fold. It includes the above mentioned "decorator" pattern as well as about 20 others:

Design Patterns

This is the book that helped me move from writing Hello World type of oo applications to truly far reaching, extendable, and maintainable apps. Also, it made my applications more modular and therefore made the workload more easily distributed across a team of people... something that is very important to OSS developers and also something that they don't really teach you in school very well.

-pos


The truth is more important than the facts.

Yes. Vapourware is a product release/marketing method pioneered at Oracle, back when Larry Ellison was a hungry businessman, not the smug guy he is today.

The Oracle salespeople would sell a new feature for their database project, then stop by the developer's shop after the sale to tell them what they had to cobble together. Oracle was built on that kind of business practice, they won out against other (more ethical) vendors in that fashion.

It's well-documented in the book The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison (God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison). If you haven't read it, you need to. Puts Larry Ellision, the king of hate-Microsoft, into proper perspective.

How long have you been using Windows? Most people have been using DOS/ Windows for years and get into the rut of thinking that they are computer pros because they are Windows pros. Your Windows Expertise is based on years of training (conditioning), you have had years to get used to the Windows way. Linux is quite a bit different than Windows and many of you Computer Skills are really Windows skills.

You ARE a "Newbie", as green and raw as a recruit in basic. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can change you backwards slashes to forward slashes and dive in. Swallow you pride and read the newbie stuff, most likely you will learn a thing or two. Linux != Windows, and Windows experts are not automatically Linux Experts.

That said, here's a big tip: Don't just try to learn Linux. The sheer amount of Linux related stuff out there will overwhelm and confuse you. Find a goal, and try to do that one specific task. You will find that with focus and a specific goal you will learn much quicker. Research your goal and ask around the community about how to accomplish it. You will pick up the other stuff along the way.

Here's some resources you might consider, a while ago I used a book called Unix for Dos Users. I searched B&N. com and they had several titles that were similar. I don't know which one it was, but here are the results of that search. Also, from a systems administrators perspective, Essential Systems Administration is probably the best general Unix systems administration books around I've seen it on many administrators bookshelves and it never leaves mine. One other book I recommend is O'Reiliey's Unix in a Nutshell, it's a little more concise an Howto-ish than the Essential book above.

Also consider, GNU/ Linux is a HUGE phenomenon, despite the fact that the media claims Linux is a new thing; GNU has been building the tools that make up the core of the OS for over 20 years, and right now thousands of coders around the world are creating new stuff on a continual basis. After 5 years using Linux I still learn new (GNU?) tools and techniques on a regular basis. -- Dennis (Still learning)

How long have you been using Windows? Most people have been using DOS/ Windows for years and get into the rut of thinking that they are computer pros because they are Windows pros. Your Windows Expertise is based on years of training (conditioning), you have had years to get used to the Windows way. Linux is quite a bit different than Windows and many of you Computer Skills are really Windows skills.

You ARE a "Newbie", as green and raw as a recruit in basic. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can change you backwards slashes to forward slashes and dive in. Swallow you pride and read the newbie stuff, most likely you will learn a thing or two. Linux != Windows, and Windows experts are not automatically Linux Experts.

That said, here's a big tip: Don't just try to learn Linux. The sheer amount of Linux related stuff out there will overwhelm and confuse you. Find a goal, and try to do that one specific task. You will find that with focus and a specific goal you will learn much quicker. Research your goal and ask around the community about how to accomplish it. You will pick up the other stuff along the way.

Here's some resources you might consider, a while ago I used a book called Unix for Dos Users. I searched B&N. com and they had several titles that were similar. I don't know which one it was, but here are the results of that search. Also, from a systems administrators perspective, Essential Systems Administration is probably the best general Unix systems administration books around I've seen it on many administrators bookshelves and it never leaves mine. One other book I recommend is O'Reiliey's Unix in a Nutshell, it's a little more concise an Howto-ish than the Essential book above.

Also consider, GNU/ Linux is a HUGE phenomenon, despite the fact that the media claims Linux is a new thing; GNU has been building the tools that make up the core of the OS for over 20 years, and right now thousands of coders around the world are creating new stuff on a continual basis. After 5 years using Linux I still learn new (GNU?) tools and techniques on a regular basis. -- Dennis (Still learning)

How long have you been using Windows? Most people have been using DOS/ Windows for years and get into the rut of thinking that they are computer pros because they are Windows pros. Your Windows Expertise is based on years of training (conditioning), you have had years to get used to the Windows way. Linux is quite a bit different than Windows and many of you Computer Skills are really Windows skills.

You ARE a "Newbie", as green and raw as a recruit in basic. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can change you backwards slashes to forward slashes and dive in. Swallow you pride and read the newbie stuff, most likely you will learn a thing or two. Linux != Windows, and Windows experts are not automatically Linux Experts.

That said, here's a big tip: Don't just try to learn Linux. The sheer amount of Linux related stuff out there will overwhelm and confuse you. Find a goal, and try to do that one specific task. You will find that with focus and a specific goal you will learn much quicker. Research your goal and ask around the community about how to accomplish it. You will pick up the other stuff along the way.

Here's some resources you might consider, a while ago I used a book called Unix for Dos Users. I searched B&N. com and they had several titles that were similar. I don't know which one it was, but here are the results of that search. Also, from a systems administrators perspective, Essential Systems Administration is probably the best general Unix systems administration books around I've seen it on many administrators bookshelves and it never leaves mine. One other book I recommend is O'Reiliey's Unix in a Nutshell, it's a little more concise an Howto-ish than the Essential book above.

Also consider, GNU/ Linux is a HUGE phenomenon, despite the fact that the media claims Linux is a new thing; GNU has been building the tools that make up the core of the OS for over 20 years, and right now thousands of coders around the world are creating new stuff on a continual basis. After 5 years using Linux I still learn new (GNU?) tools and techniques on a regular basis. -- Dennis (Still learning)

Actually, someone has written a very good book entitled The Physics of Christmas which describes, among other things, how Santa could use warp technology to have all of the time he needs and move at whatever speed is required without vaporizing himself in the process. You can read a quick summary of some of the ideas here.

Well, it would help if I got the correct URL.

Let's try this again:

Just my being finnicky and maybe a bit old fashioned, but the link for the Dragon Book leads to Amazon.

Unless they've renounced their one-click shopping patent, I'm still boycotting them, and I remember that slashdot encouraged this not too long ago.

For those of you who still feel this way, you might try looking at the Dragon Book at Barnes and Noble, who also happen to offer a cheaper price by $7.

-Marcella

Couldn't find a link to it on The Onion's site, so here's a quote:
"Explorer 2, like its predecessor, had been headed for the sun, where it was to be the first spacecraft to land on a star. "We'd hoped to bring back and study sun rock," Toshikima said.
The straw ship had been equipped with a special reinforced wicker basket to hold the sun lava for its journey back to Earth. A straw-enforced robot arm was constructed to scoop the lava--which scientists say is as hot as the center of a nuclear holocaust--and place it in the basket.
The ship's debris is slated to be used as mulch."

Great stuff; I heartily reccomend both of their books.

--Psi

Max, in America, it's customary to drive on the right.

I have several series I am reading currently. I don't know when I would fit it in, but it looks like it would put me to sleep. I have enough with reading CS books, Dr. Who, Star Wars (New Jedi Order), and A fantacy series (I forget the name). They can't seem to write them fast enough for me.

For those of you who like Star Wars and technology, if you haven't check out Star Wars: New Jedi Order, you need to. The new "Evil Enimy" has only living technology. Including HUGE planet sized creatures used to move between galaxies and living fighting creatures for space. They have living breathign masks. There is going to be 22 novels in this series. All the hard cover books are major events in the series. The first in the series is Vector Prime.

He's still writing SSR books ! The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus came out in September.

I get tired of hearing about the "fight" between C, C++, and Java (and now C#), as if those are the only three programming languages in existence.

I concur. I'm especially tired of hearing comparisons between C++ and Java, as though they were the only object oriented languages around. I'm actually quite surprised that Eiffel has not seen more widespread acceptance in the OO developer community (www.eiffel.com is the "official", Bertrand Meyer-endorsed home page of Eiffel, but I personally prefer SmallEiffel, because it's free). Eiffel is a superbly well-designed object oriented language, and there are compilers available for pretty much every platform under the sun. The "compilers" are really just Eiffel to C translators, which then pass the resulting C code to a C compiler. The result is very efficient programs (probably not as efficient as actual C code would be, but certainly more efficient than Java or C++).

An excellent book on the subject is Objects Unencapsulated, by Ian Joyner. It's the only book I've ever read that does a blow-by-blow comparison of C++, Java, and Eiffel. It's pretty dry reading though, unless you're heavily into the OO stuff (as I am).

Not to malign Java, there are some good ideas with that language, but for a pure OO language, I've yet to see anything more impressive than Eiffel.

--

SeekBooks - $10.68
Buy.com - $11.06
Amazon - $11.20
Borders - $11.90
Barnes and Noble - $12.60

Or for those who want an autographed copy, there's one here at eBay selling for $5.50.

Checking the URL, I'm not whoring for some affiliate programs. I did this for the karma.

Same book available from fatbrain.

Same book for less money at Barnes and Noble.

I must say I'm a little surprised to see such an obvious shill for amazon.com on /. -- especially since their price of $29.95 bites, compared the BN price of $22.75. For $30 you can this book from any number of other online book retailers.

Learn some real science, please.

THS
---

Learn some real science, please.

THS
---

Learn some real science, please.

THS
---

Learn some real science, please.

THS
---

Ha, I'm currently typing with pencils to give hands a rest. My point is, anything that keeps you hands off keyboard and mouse is a gift from god (while still using a computer, and no one handed jokes please). By the way, I just got the book Its not carpel tunnel Syndrome! and its a really good read. Do not go to a doctor about rsi before reading this book. For those of you with undamaged typing/mousing parts who dont take rsi seriously, START NOW
(sorry, you have to repair the link by hand, take space out)

I am starting to think that RMS wasn't all that far off

about a hundred bucks in this case.

CRC Checksum Failure.

Bagger Vance was a novel before it was a movie (published in '95). This site was registered three years after the book was published. Sounds like someone read the book, then got the URL. I think that true squatters should be gotten rid of, but all too often valid sites are taken down (and lost in the noise of all the other "Hey! This (real squatter) site was taken down!!").

Everyone who's read Archimedes' Revenge knows that approval voting is the civilized way to vote.

Speaking of the Pasadena area, it would be truly great to see a well-detailed Quake or Unreal map of the Gamble House, a local Arts and Crafts masterpiece. Or Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. You can find books of photos from the Gamble House, even see a video tour of Fallingwater, but being able to walk around like you would in a FPS would be the next-best thing to being there.

For example, consider the Vietnam conflict. Much has been written about this episode in US history, and much of what's been written reflects the author's personal or institutional agenda. What if we had access not only to the original Walter Cronkite newscasts, but also to BBC, French, Chinese, and Vietnamese daily television broadcasts for the same period? Or even an open-source archive of reporting from individuals (something like that described in "Mother of Storms" by John Barnes) I think something like this is a good first step towards removing the (often-unwanted) mediation that is so prevalent in modern culture.

Someone else mentioned the Gargoyles in Stephenson's "Snow Crash" who constantly uploaded everything to the Library of Congress and were paid by access. I say this is an excellent proposition, but privatize it and make a million. As television and video become part of the historical record, it's high time we stopped seeing these records as ephemera and begin giving them the respect they deserve. Even if they are stilted and mediated, they reflect current viewpoints and attitudes, just as blackface minstrels did in just over a century ago.

Since I read neither Russian nor Polish, I asked my husband to read the Russian, and a friend to read the Polish, and then the English. It was as good a translation as I thought! Hooray!

Kandel also has published work of his own., including In Between Dragons, a fable of the worlds that books create, and Captain Jack Zodiac, one of the best pastiches of both space opera and post-apocalyptic fiction. Sadly, both are out of print.

If you read Lem in English, you owe much of the texture to Kandel. He edited the recent Nebula Awards Showcase 2000 book with Gregory Benford and Michelle Brook. Read as much of Lem as you wish, but remember the translator.

Oh, yeah. That other really good translation. Ann Rice's Interview with a Vampire reads much better in French. If you can snatch up a copy of Entretien avec un Vampire, grab it!

To quote Chris Rock, "By the time I get my check, the government has already taken some of it! That's not 'paying taxes', that's check-jacking!"

I'm flattered to be called selfish

"Sharing" is when you choose to do it.

"Theft" is when someone does it agains your wishes"

Any charitable act loses all it's virtue, when it's made compulsory.

Charity, by definition, is a voluntary act. Clearly, taxes 'siezed' by the government don't qualify as charity, even if given to enormous, wasteful, inefficient government welfare programs.

I challenge you do show evidence of any of these monsrosities that even distribute more money than they consume in 'management overhead'.

If by by 'dealing with modern society', you mean 'providing for yourself and your family', then I don't doubt that someone who declares himself incapable would be a fervent supporter of such government dole programs.

How about taking a little responsibility for yourself.

"Ah, how to refute this? Let me count the ways:"

One of the functions of government is to factor in social obligations to its people, especially the ones who need the most help.

Just out of curiousity, I'm wondering why and how charity is a responsibility or function of the government, because I know it's not in the constitution. The more any government stops being a government and starts being a charity or wealth-redistribution facility, the more inefficient and unable to deal with true goverment issues -- like the establishment and enforcement of laws and national defense -- it will become.

A purely economical standpoint leads to a corporate strategy, not a national one. Or in
other words, a fascist state.

A fascist state is not based on the ultimate corporate strategy, but rather the ultimate social strategy. The ultimate involvement of the goverment in the lives of the people.

You do *not* want to maximize the total output of a national economy.
-snip-
As Brin explained, top-heavy taxation leads to redistribution of wealth through charitable giving.
You do want to maximize the output, but you want to keep it runnning in as efficient a way as possible. The reality is that if the richest paid a proportionate tax they would have much, much more money on hand, and they would redistribute the wealth themselves, much more efficiently than the government and its bureaucracies. You can deny this and say they are evil, idle rich if you want, but the history of the U.S. tells a different tale.

I suggest you read a book by Adam Smith entitled The Wealth of Nations...

But many gun owners (don't forget there are 60 million or so of them) believe that registration will precede confiscation, as it did in Australia and England.

... and Nazi Germany.

Everyone should read John Ross's book Unintended Consequences. Read the official review on Barnes & Noble, and then read the submitted reviews.

What the hell, I did look it in a book called, "Archi med es' Revenge" written by Paul Hoffman in 1988

In that book he devotes a chapter to the mathematics of voting. He constructed an example to show that if one candidate actually increases his popularity in the polls, it would cause him to lose an election using the "Plurality with Elimination" scheme.

This shows an example of the paradox in action.

--R

I tend to agree. Although lot's of Singapore's laws and policies have elicited ridicule or criticism in the west, they have, for the most part, been successful in creating a prosperous and surprisingly free society. For a forceful and rational discussion of Singapore's policies by the man who crafted many of them, read Lee Kuan Yew's new memoirs.

None of which can read/write BFS at this point, despite the fact that it's well documented in Practical File System Design with the Be File System by Dominic Giampaolo.

Grumble grumble complain complain...

Statements like this one are dumb to the degree of being frightening.

The statement might hold true for the old economy to a certain degree, where a lot of time and money had to go into R&D until an actual product would be manufactured.

This includes technology of course. Digital had every right to patent it's Alpha processor. They forked literally billions to research the technology and essentially bet the farm on the chip.

Now, when we come to patenting concepts (public key encryption is a nice example) then it's certainly not promoting innovation.

Patents on methods and algorithms are just a sign of an ever litigation friendlier corporate (and societal) culture. Companies like Rambus essentially suck out an economy without poring real value into it.

I really, really hope that 1 Click Parody is killed swiftly by the court.

I prefer Chandrasekhar's version, Newton's principia for the common reader. Surprise! It was a Christmas present from my handsome hubby.

We also have a facing pages latin/english version, but it is missing essential publication information.

So this thing has demonstrated intelligence because it reshaped its body to move most of its bulk as close to the nutrient source as possible?

Umm, when you get down to it, isn't that pretty much all that intelligence does? That is, isn't it the prime goal of intelligence to move closer to food to increase survival rates and be able to reproduce more than the less intelligent competitors?

I wouldn't be quick to state that the slime mold is intelligent, but I wouldn't be too ready to write off its accomplishments.

After all, Douglas Hofstadter makes the point in Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid that when dealing with artificial intelligence, the common definition of AI is whatever we can do that computers haven't accomplished yet. That is, once a computer beat a human at chess, then a lot of people quit using that as an indicator of AI. Let's not make that mistake here; give the little chap his credit!

Oh, how clever. They poorly blacked out the name of an author but left the name of his book.

Although I imagine "pdftotext" would also have done interesting things to the blackout...

And speaking of Them, where lies the trend in The War Between The Pitiful RIAA and the Splendid Universities?

neat reference timothy, i read that book in grade school and really enjoyed it. it's one of those items i keep checking used bookstores for, since it's been o.p. for about fifteen years.

---
the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties

Like for instance Communications test sets, Oscilloscopes , Debuggers, Protocol analysers, Logic Analyzers, and Engineering Books

I'm the MIS Director of an Internet firm. We went through a LOT of people in the department before I a) figured out how to find good people and b) learned how to manage them.

The books helped me the most:

How to Work for a Jerk: Your Success Is the Best Revenge teaches the different ways you can become a lousy manager and how to avoid them, while teaching you "suit" methods of dealing with those who outrank you. It also clues you in to the dirty tricks and false fronts those under you will use.

The One Minute Manager essentially tells you hot to avoid becoming a micromanager. It outlines the best practices for letting your staff be creative and do fulfilling work while keeping control of the situation.

Although published by the Borg. and obviously containing advice their OS division does not follow, the Software Project Survival Guide outlines how to run a software development project. It outlines the kinds of methods used by NASA. Propper up front planning, avoiding feature creep and a host of other plans to ensure that your programmers don't pull the heroic all night programming hauls but instead go home to play Quake and hunt for UnixChix after 5:00 comes around, while finishing the project on time and on budget with few bugs.

I'm the MIS Director of an Internet firm. We went through a LOT of people in the department before I a) figured out how to find good people and b) learned how to manage them.

The books helped me the most:

How to Work for a Jerk: Your Success Is the Best Revenge teaches the different ways you can become a lousy manager and how to avoid them, while teaching you "suit" methods of dealing with those who outrank you. It also clues you in to the dirty tricks and false fronts those under you will use.

The One Minute Manager essentially tells you hot to avoid becoming a micromanager. It outlines the best practices for letting your staff be creative and do fulfilling work while keeping control of the situation.

Although published by the Borg. and obviously containing advice their OS division does not follow, the Software Project Survival Guide outlines how to run a software development project. It outlines the kinds of methods used by NASA. Propper up front planning, avoiding feature creep and a host of other plans to ensure that your programmers don't pull the heroic all night programming hauls but instead go home to play Quake and hunt for UnixChix after 5:00 comes around, while finishing the project on time and on budget with few bugs.

I'm the MIS Director of an Internet firm. We went through a LOT of people in the department before I a) figured out how to find good people and b) learned how to manage them.

The books helped me the most:

How to Work for a Jerk: Your Success Is the Best Revenge teaches the different ways you can become a lousy manager and how to avoid them, while teaching you "suit" methods of dealing with those who outrank you. It also clues you in to the dirty tricks and false fronts those under you will use.

The One Minute Manager essentially tells you hot to avoid becoming a micromanager. It outlines the best practices for letting your staff be creative and do fulfilling work while keeping control of the situation.

Although published by the Borg. and obviously containing advice their OS division does not follow, the Software Project Survival Guide outlines how to run a software development project. It outlines the kinds of methods used by NASA. Propper up front planning, avoiding feature creep and a host of other plans to ensure that your programmers don't pull the heroic all night programming hauls but instead go home to play Quake and hunt for UnixChix after 5:00 comes around, while finishing the project on time and on budget with few bugs.

I'm the MIS Director of an Internet firm. We went through a LOT of people in the department before I a) figured out how to find good people and b) learned how to manage them.

The books helped me the most:

How to Work for a Jerk: Your Success Is the Best Revenge teaches the different ways you can become a lousy manager and how to avoid them, while teaching you "suit" methods of dealing with those who outrank you. It also clues you in to the dirty tricks and false fronts those under you will use.

The One Minute Manager essentially tells you hot to avoid becoming a micromanager. It outlines the best practices for letting your staff be creative and do fulfilling work while keeping control of the situation.

Although published by the Borg. and obviously containing advice their OS division does not follow, the Software Project Survival Guide outlines how to run a software development project. It outlines the kinds of methods used by NASA. Propper up front planning, avoiding feature creep and a host of other plans to ensure that your programmers don't pull the heroic all night programming hauls but instead go home to play Quake and hunt for UnixChix after 5:00 comes around, while finishing the project on time and on budget with few bugs.

Believe it or not, the book Corps Business: Management Principles of the U.S. Marines by David H. Freedman is excellent.

If you treat your people the way you want to be treated, you'll do fine. I've been in management nearly 20 years and I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who forget that as soon as they've been put in charge. Your #1 role as a new manager is to think ahead and make sure your people have what they need to do their job. You are also there to remove obstacles impeding the progress, as well as being a filter. You filter the BS coming down from management and the BS going up from your people. I really enjoy busting roadblocks but the filtering part wears me down at times.

Good luck! - Ken

This is a huge benefit.

open access will increase service?
i wonder.

right now my @Home cable connection is as fast as the LAN at work (of course, @Home is a kind of WAN, since i'm always on and can access information inside or outside, "installation" just means adding my computer to their network).

but every time i read an article talking about the higher demand for broadband i get nervous about ATT screwing up their growth projections and getting clogged like AOL a couple years ago. and what about these other ISPs? how much will the overall speed of the eventual infrastructure be limited by the aggregate of podunk operations' crappy hardware all accessing the lines simultaneously?
whenever anyone asks me if they should go with dsl or cable, i tell them, "definitely dsl. i have cable and the um, service is, er.. terrible, yeah. don't sign up for cable or you'll regret it -- and tell all your friends to tell all their friends not to sign up for cable either." (short-sighted i know, but i'll just jump ship in a few years if cable gets displaced anyway -- kinda like the internet analogue of Suburban Sprawl)

If, now, other ISPs are signing up users on the exact same infrastructure as my ATT service -- will they be required to report usage numbers to ATT? Since it is ATT that owns/manages the cables, won't they need to know this information in order to keep the architecture ahead of the population?
Maybe it won't matter. Since, unlike a dial-up which is a direct connection between your pc and the ISP, everyone will be on the same physical network -- what are the security issues as far as how ISPs might be able to track each others' traffic?


New .sig?? Slashdot Mantra: "Information wants to be Free"
FBI Mantra: "Information wants to be Freeh's"

---
the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties

Scientific test:

1. Go to http://ebooks.barnesandnoble.com and select "American Literature" from the free books in the left panel.
2. Download one of the free eBooks, let's say "The Big Town" by Ring Lardner.
3. Note that you don't have to activate your Microsoft Reader or Microsoft Wallet if you just want one of these free books--but you do need to download Microsoft Reader, so you must use it only on a Microsoft Windows machine.
4. Now visit the Eldritch Press site and download the same book in HTML form, http://www.eldritchpress.org/rl/bigtown.html --(note that the text and illustrations were produced by "circumventing" the Microsoft encryption scheme, demonstrating that it cannot work).
5. If you like, download the TrueType fonts Berling and Berling Italic.
6. Read the two books on your favorite computer and display.
7. Observe that the open book was actually proofread and errors corrected.
8. Help me make a table that compares the two, pro and con, feature by feature.

OPEN:

1. Blind readers can "read" it with text-to-speech synthesizers or Braille printers.
2. Reader can copy it and share it with a friend.
3. Since it's on one web page, searching and copying text is easy.
4. Text can be piped into another Unix-type program for word count, glossary, index, concordance, dictionary etymology or corpus, reformat for another computer program, computer translation aids, and whatever you can think of.
5. Cascading style sheets in HTML code make it easy to create a better layout, typography, or style.
6. It's possible to link to other works on the web such as other Ring Lardner stories or sites such as Eldritch Press's Lardner site.
7. ....what else?

CLOSED:

1. Works only on Microsoft Windows.
2. Have to have a credit card for Microsoft Passport
3. Locks book against blind readers
4. Proprietary user interface goes against all World Wide Web and Microsoft standards
5. Reader reveals private demographic information to publisher
6. Used bookstores go out of business if this technology widely adopted.
7. Encryption prevents fair use of a work in the public domain--not available to be cited in a student's paper, anthologized in a teacher's course book, and so on.
8. ....what else?

9. Note that I refuse to share any circumvention methods with others. I believe the DMCA makes such sharing illegal--at least until we can get that law overturned. However, the DMCA has been interpreted by Judge Kaplan in SDNY to mean that if you can figure out a way to circumvent, then you can do so in order to make fair use of the encrypted work.

   The reason I'm giving this information now is to warn authors not to believe what their publishers are telling them: that they should not publish online unless works are locked up in a format such as Microsoft Reader. Everybody should know now that there is no valid technology to prevent digital works from being read, shared, or copied. In fact, if it were possible, our civilization, built upon the open, real book, would be in danger of collapsing.

   But you knew that already, didn't you? After all, I pointed this out two years ago, in the 1998 interview with myself, Battle of the Books. But at the time, too many gadget freaks were willing to swallow Microsoft's line that the display technology was key to getting people to read books online. Okay, now that you've done the experiment, browse through the other 12,000 free online books NOT in Microsoft Reader format: The On-Line Books Page or Internet Public Library, just for the English-language ones. After all, you own them!

There are many horrors lurking in our homes and offices. Perusal of this article (text-only link here) could lead you to live out your life in a tent. However the "big, bad three" ( formaldehyde, benzene and trichloroethylene) are largely scrubbed from the air by plants. The book referred to above looks at the most effective. You are correct in thinking that Chlorophytum comosum (Thunb.) Jaccques (The spider plant) is particularly useful. An important point is that plants are an effective, low-tech solution, self-replicating and aesthetically-pleasing - this beats expensive, quick-fix high-tech solutions any time.

It should come as no surprise that vascular plants do this so well as they have been cleaning earth's atmosphere for hundreds of millions of years (and much longer in the case of their predecessors).
- Derwen

You've made my point for me, here. From www.dictionary.com:

• An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true.

That statement, the one core assumption upon which you base everything:

Only the physical exists

is just as dogmatic as

God Exists

Proving either one is a descent into metaphysical philosophy. Your evidence is, at the end, a circular argument. You've started with the assumption that only the physical exists, and then used it to build a system of beliefs which then supports the original statement.

For fun, from E. A. Poe:

• Take this kiss upon the brow!
  And, in parting from you now,
  Thus much let me avow-
  You are not wrong, who deem
  That my days have been a dream;
  Yet if hope has flown away
  In a night, or in a day,
  In a vision, or in none,
  Is it therefore the less gone?
  All that we see or seem
  Is but a dream within a dream.
  

  I stand amid the roar
  Of a surf-tormented shore,
  And I hold within my hand
  Grains of the golden sand-
  How few! yet how they creep
  Through my fingers to the deep,
  While I weep- while I weep!
  O God! can I not grasp
  Them with a tighter clasp?
  O God! can I not save
  One from the pitiless wave?
  Is all that we see or seem
  But a dream within a dream?
  

My point is, you are asking me to prove something outside your system of beliefs, using only those things within your beliefs. While this is sometimes possible, it can be quite impossible.

For example, if I were to state that I believed the whole world was but some sort of process analagous to a dream to some outside, greater universe, and that nothing in our world really existed, it would be easy, trivial, really, to build a self-consistent set of beliefs around that original dogma. But in the end, that original statement is still a dogma, a starting point which cannot truly be justified or proven in and of itself.

Go on, try to prove me wrong, using arguments and constructs from my system of beliefs. That's exactly what you are asking me to do for you, (and, to throw a self referential loop, what I'm trying to do. :)

On a slight tangent, have you ever read Sophie's World? Excellent read.

• Satanist (I don't think I've seen anyone here say this today, but you know what I'm talking about.)
• Heathen (Well, okay, maybe definitions 1a and 1b.)
• Believes in ancient Greek or Roman gods. Man I hear this almost as often as I hear 'Satanists! Aaah!'. No, I don't pray to Zeus. Hercules is a character played by Kevin Sorbo. There may be strains of Pagans that have been in contact with beings they perceive to be an ancient god, either by choice or not, but this is not the norm, as far as my experience has been.
• All about dungeons and dragons bullshit (e.g., the "mystical religions" thread I saw a while ago). I'm Pagan, and yes I've played D&D. No, I don't own a broadsword and invoke the spirits of dead dragons. Not since '97... ;-)
• A hedonist that may or may not wish to attend "Burning Man". Also, merely by attending Burning Man, this would not make me a Pagan. Maybe just a pyro and/or exhibitionist. And/or Pagan or whatever.
• Into sacrifices, covens, spells and "magick" (with a 'k' mind you). Wicca is a Pagan religion. Wicca don't do sacrifices either (that old rumor lends itself back to the Satanism misconception), but it is the most common form of Paganism. This does not mean that a Pagan is necessarily Wicca. Kind of like the definitions of squares and rectangles.
• Technophiles. Many Pagans I know don't know how to turn a computer on, merely due to circumstance (just not 'into it', etc.), and not because they're Pagan. Indeed I have 'techno-Pagan' friends too, but not because of one or the other.

• 'Earth dweller' or 'country dweller', for one (following that link, skipping the nonsensical definitions presented in favor of the etymological details below them).
• A person who is in tune with nature and the elements, whether they believe they can manipulate them in anti-Newtonian ways or not.
• A person who believes that the changing seasons (e.g., Earth's relative position in its orbit) and the position of the moon relative to that collectively govern certain functions of the human body, particularly the female body (moon-thly menstruation, anyone?). The gravitic patterns do indeed change during this period, and aren't we smaller bodies being enacted upon by the gravities of larger ones?
• Typically (hopefully) someone who follows a simple tenet (akin to the simple rules of Bhuddist or monastic life), "It harm none, do what thou wilt". For the impaired, this just means "do whatever you're going to do, as long as you don't hurt anybody"
• Not necessarily a militant "anti-Christian". I have flamebait-style opinions of just about every religion, including subsets of Paganism, that I'm just not going to get into. I am going to say that I do indeed have some pretty Christan friends, including the guy who runs an Internet-only Christian Metal station (my shameless plug for the day). You have to respect a guy like that.
• Someone that may believe that they have the ability either within themselves or through divination of someone they perceive to be more powerful than they (such as Goddess, or perhaps Odin) to manipulate reality. Consider for a moment that the definition of 'magic' (however the hell you make up rules to explain when to spell it with a 'k') is this: the willed manipulation of reality, by any means. This definition can include a lot of things, such as illusionary mirror tricks by David Copperfield, the perception of extradimensional (e.g., "astral") travel, and turning enemies into lawn furniture (or at least scaring the shit out of them so they'll stop trying to get you fired from your job, for example).