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When they make one that can do leg-spin and offspin and throw a Googly they'll have something to show off about.

Don't worry they are subtle and you would not notice most of them

Subtle?

A single, charismatic patriarch leads a ragged caravan across the desolate reaches of space to a holy land spoken of in prophecy. Sound like anyone you know?

From the Britannica dictionary we get the following:

Main Entry: bel
Pronunciation: 'bel
Function: noun
Etymology: Alexander Graham Bell
Date: 1929
: ten decibels

And their encyclopedia entry states:

The unit in general use is the decibel (abbreviated db), equal to 0.1 bel.

2: No, of course you dont get the same properties as silk, you get the same properties as cotton. Silk is not a plant fiber, it comes from caterpillars. take a look at http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=69533&toci d=0

3: I and my girlfriend are Canadian, so this is not a problem.

Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw,

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. You're not a slave? You're required to join a union, yet you're not a slave? What happens when:

* You decide to get married/have a kid/make a big purchase like a house, and you want to negotiate a raise?
* You decide that your health benefits don't cut it, and you'd like more?
* Your union decides to go on strike, and the company (God bless their souls -- the very company that's employing you, in your case it's the taxpayers) decides they don't like your demands. You'll get strike pay and be forced to not work.

And you're not a slave ?

The union isn't a be-all end-all, but it serves a purpose

I'd like to know EXACTLY what purpuse you feel it serves. I think we at Slashdot could all use an education. Apparently, I'm missing the boat here -- after all you're getting a higher purpose for only $30 a month.

Unless you are a "superstar" who sacrifices his social life to keep completely up-to-date on the hottest tech fads, it is impossible to negotiate a good deal with a large corporation or government agency.

Apparently, you've been paying way too much attention to that propaganda they've been sending you. I'm a 26 year old. I'm married, and I have 2 beautiful kids. I've been in the 'building good software' business for 8 years. I didn't graduate from college, and I ain't no 'superstar' as you put it. Apparently, I was put on this earth to prove you wrong... just to be the 'monkey in the wrench' as it were... because I've earned every penny through hard work, sweat, and determination. I didn't have anyone negotiate for me, and nobody told me what to do. After all, isn't that what this country was founded on?

When concentrated, radium glows in the dark. Because of this property, it was once mixed with a paste of zinc sulfide to make a self-luminescent paint for watch, clock, and instrument dials. During the 1930s it was found, however, that exposure to radium posed a serious hazard to health: a number of the workers who routinely used the radium-containing luminescent paint developed anemia and, in some cases, bone cancer. The practice of employing radium in luminescent coatings was halted after the high toxicity of the material was recognized.

In February 1945 the emperor met with a group of senior statesmen to discuss steps that might be taken. When U.S. landings were made on Okinawa in April, the Koiso government fell. The problem of the new premier, Admiral Suzuki Kantaro , was not whether to end the war but how best to do it. The first plan advanced was to ask the Soviet Union, which was still at peace with Japan, to intercede with the Allies. The Soviet government had agreed, however, to enter the war; consequently, its reply was delayed while Soviet leaders participated in the Potsdam Conference in July.
( http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=109547&hoo k=319735#319735.hook )

and:

Postwar investigators concluded that neither the atomic bombs nor the Soviet entry into the war was central to the decision to surrender, although they probably helped to advance the date. It was determined that submarine blockade of the Japanese islands had brought economic defeat by preventing exploitation of Japan's new colonies, sinking merchant tonnage, and convincing Japanese leaders of the hopelessness of the war. Bombing brought the consciousness of defeat to the people. The destruction of the Japanese navy and air force jeopardized the home islands. Japan's largest armies, however, were never defeated, and this was responsible for the army's eagerness to fight on. By the end of the war, Japan's cities were destroyed, its stockpiles exhausted, and its industrial capacity gutted. The government stood without prestige or respect. An alarming shortage of food and rising inflation threatened what remained of national strength.
( same page as above )

and:

As the conference neared its conclusion, Truman, Attlee, and representatives of the Chinese Nationalist government issued the Potsdam Declaration , an ultimatum that called on Japan to surrender or face "prompt and utter destruction." Although it promised a peaceful government in accordance with "the freely expressed will of the Japanese people," the declaration did not specifically threaten the use of an atomic bomb or provide clear assurances that the emperor could retain his throne. Still gridlocked, the government in Tokyo responded with a statement by Prime Minister Suzuki Kantaro (who privately sought an end to the war) dismissing the ultimatum.
( http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=369910&hoo k=714681#714681.hook )

I haven't found any mention of specific requests for peace negotiations from the Japanese to the Americans as I had claimed. I may have been mistaken in this. Although as I said before, this was the way the events had been presented to me both in school and in WW2 documentaries, so I remain unsure. However, I think it is clear that there was no necessity to use the bomb to bring about the surrender and even the occupation of japan.

As is mentioned above, the japanese did reject the ultimatum given to them at the Potsdam conference, but I think from all the other evidence it was pretty aparent that they would have very quickly sought some kind of end to the war.

I don't think that anyone can really lay blame on the american decision makers, but I think given the hindsight of history we can agree that the bomb was not necessary.

In February 1945 the emperor met with a group of senior statesmen to discuss steps that might be taken. When U.S. landings were made on Okinawa in April, the Koiso government fell. The problem of the new premier, Admiral Suzuki Kantaro , was not whether to end the war but how best to do it. The first plan advanced was to ask the Soviet Union, which was still at peace with Japan, to intercede with the Allies. The Soviet government had agreed, however, to enter the war; consequently, its reply was delayed while Soviet leaders participated in the Potsdam Conference in July.
( http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=109547&hoo k=319735#319735.hook )

and:

Postwar investigators concluded that neither the atomic bombs nor the Soviet entry into the war was central to the decision to surrender, although they probably helped to advance the date. It was determined that submarine blockade of the Japanese islands had brought economic defeat by preventing exploitation of Japan's new colonies, sinking merchant tonnage, and convincing Japanese leaders of the hopelessness of the war. Bombing brought the consciousness of defeat to the people. The destruction of the Japanese navy and air force jeopardized the home islands. Japan's largest armies, however, were never defeated, and this was responsible for the army's eagerness to fight on. By the end of the war, Japan's cities were destroyed, its stockpiles exhausted, and its industrial capacity gutted. The government stood without prestige or respect. An alarming shortage of food and rising inflation threatened what remained of national strength.
( same page as above )

and:

As the conference neared its conclusion, Truman, Attlee, and representatives of the Chinese Nationalist government issued the Potsdam Declaration , an ultimatum that called on Japan to surrender or face "prompt and utter destruction." Although it promised a peaceful government in accordance with "the freely expressed will of the Japanese people," the declaration did not specifically threaten the use of an atomic bomb or provide clear assurances that the emperor could retain his throne. Still gridlocked, the government in Tokyo responded with a statement by Prime Minister Suzuki Kantaro (who privately sought an end to the war) dismissing the ultimatum.
( http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=369910&hoo k=714681#714681.hook )

I haven't found any mention of specific requests for peace negotiations from the Japanese to the Americans as I had claimed. I may have been mistaken in this. Although as I said before, this was the way the events had been presented to me both in school and in WW2 documentaries, so I remain unsure. However, I think it is clear that there was no necessity to use the bomb to bring about the surrender and even the occupation of japan.

As is mentioned above, the japanese did reject the ultimatum given to them at the Potsdam conference, but I think from all the other evidence it was pretty aparent that they would have very quickly sought some kind of end to the war.

I don't think that anyone can really lay blame on the american decision makers, but I think given the hindsight of history we can agree that the bomb was not necessary.

The Pequistes who began rewriting French to be free of foreign influence (e.g., the state declared "web" to be, henceforth, "oueb") don't seem to be aware that enforcing the insular nature of Quebec French is the most efficient way they could possibly kill the language. No lingua franca, spoken by a large majority within its region, as is French, ever died because of foreign signage and loan-words. Take the below sentence, for example:

"Language is a constantly changing art"

The only words in that sentence that English didn't borrow from French are "is" and "a". "language, "constant", "change" and "art" are all French loan-words. Similarly, French borrowed them from Latin. The fact that French coexisted with English as a major language of England after the Norman conquest and lent it much of its vocabularly didn't impede English's eventual emergence as a trade language. In fact, becoming a trade language is specifically what saved English. If Quebec French attempts to isolate itself from trade and engineer a linguistic-supremicist "High French", it's sealing its own fate and assuring its demise.

I'm inclined to think that this is a troll, but it looks close enough to the real thing that I'll take the risk.

All she's saying is, she sees no difference between homosexuality, bestiality and incest, on a moral basis.

That's not all that she's saying, and shame on you for intimating that it is. She also makes the claim that homosexuality is a result of "biological error," and publicly denounced the American Psychiatric Association for removing homosexuality from its list of disorders.

Elsewhere, Schlessinger denies that her attitudes are in any way discriminatory:

In other words, AB 222 suggested that sexual orientation discrimination was the same and equal to racial and gender discrimination? How can that be? A behavior, the same as a born gender and a born race?
- Schlessinger, June 3 1999

In other words, homosexuality is a result of biological error, like, say, Tourette's Syndrome. Yet while we're taught to feel pity towards victims of the latter for their tendency to shout socially awkward things, homosexuality is somehow evil, and denying them rights and privileges available to straight people isn't discrimination. That's doublethink.

Yet, we are supposed to consider the second two deviant and evil, but the first is now a right, and is holy and pure. Why? It's absolute doublethink.
- Galvatron

Is it? Let's use Schlessinger's actual words here. She says that she's afraid of rights for homosexuals - wait, sorry, "sexual deviants" - because it may lead to other "rights" as well, specifically, rights for pedophiles (see the quote in my previous post). Maybe you don't see a fundamental moral difference between pedophilia and homosexuality, but I do: most people that I know do not hold pedophilia to be on an equal moral footing with sex between two consenting adults, regardless of their gender.

All this aside, however, it is ultimately uninteresting to me what Dr. Laura's opinion is on holiness or purity. If she wants to say that homosexuality is a sin, fine: I'm not going to dispute religious doctrine with her. Let her speak out against pedophilia, bestiality, pre-marital sex - fuck, I don't care if she wants to badmouth philately. But she shouldn't try to cloak her hatred of homosexuality in quasi-scientific justifications. She can have that damn cake, as far as I'm concerned: she just can't eat it too.

If you think the US is the first democratically-based government, then please realize it's only two hundred some years old. What you said doesn't seem to make sense. Anyway, China was a democracy (actually, a republic) here, here, and here.

Yes, radiotelephones were around for some time. An article at britannica.com reviews the history pretty well. This old wireless phone talk reminds me of the forgotten classic movie The Plot Against Harry (1969) (not Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry), where Harry was a small time gangster with a phone in his car. Great classic funny movie, check it out.

Some might say that herein lies the power & beauty of mathematics. If you present theorems in the most abstract manner possible, you suddenly become able to apply them to problems completely different from the original motivating application.

Presenting mathematics from "first principles" (i.e. axiomatic set theory) is nothing new. I doubt if it really helps teaching and comprehension though, especially not for engineers and physicists (who usually couldn't care less about set theory). The best maths teachers I had were the ones who managed to combine abstract theoretical rigour and motivating application in just the right balance

You and the skeptical colleague are both wrong.

If you re-enter the atmosphere at too great an angle, you will burn the hell up.

If you re-enter the atmosphere at too small an angle, you will skip like a stone off of the surface of the water.

The angle is -6.2 deg +/- 1 deg between the vehicle trajectory and the Earth's horizon.

See: This

-Says Russia got to the moon first

You're right. I do. So does anybody else who didn't get their history of lunar exploration off of commemorative postage stamps. I apologise for disseminating fact where it may be found to conflict with American nationalist propaganda. Should you, however, wish to endanger your grip on nationalist myth with historical matter of fact some time, you can go to Britannica's article on it or any other site which will tell you that, as I said, the Luna 9 lander was the first achieve a successful moon-landing. To quote Britannica

Luna 2 (launched Sept. 12, 1959) was the first spacecraft to strike the Moon, and Luna 3 (Oct. 4, 1959) made the first circumnavigation of the Moon and returned the first photographs of its far side. Luna 9 (Jan. 31, 1966) made the first successful lunar soft landing. Luna 16 (Sept. 12, 1970) was the first unmanned spacecraft to carry lunar soil samples back to Earth. Thank you.

-Says landing on the moon was a waste anyway

What, exactly, is wrong with saying that the landing was a waste? The landing, in and of itself, was utterly pointless, I maintain. The research involved was valuable, but that could have been done, regardless, for a fraction of the cost. The remaining cash was spent on hubris.

-Says "architecture" in Washington, D.C. is "nationalist" (Hope he's not talking about the Vietnam War Memorial or Tomb of the Unknowns, he'll be stoking up some angry vets).

What purpose does the Washington Monument serve for humanity? It's not even the world's largest phallic symbol (that would be the CN Tower in Toronto). The same goes for the rows upon rows of Corinthian columns that line Washington streets. They're quite pretty, but that's all they are...I'm getting into a debate about aesthetics here, so I'll stop.

-Says the US should be less "nationalist". Meanwhile, we're expected to be the policemen, firefighters, and EMTs of the world. You can't do that without being a world power.

Why does a world power have to be nationalist? Furthermore, why does a policeman of neighbouring regions have to be a world power? Nigeria and South Africa do more for peace in Africa than the US ever will. They are hardly world powers. Finally, the US presence in many of these "police actions" has hardly been met warmly by the world. The 1954 Guatemalan police actions stands as one of the great tragedies of modern Latin American history. I'm not singling the US out, however. As a Canadian, I believe Canadians, too, should be far less nationalistic (especially the French, who verge on Soviet-style cultural nationalism). Canadian participation in the NATO bombing of Serbia (as a result of reports of genocide which were almost completely false) is something I'm not at all proud of.

Note to Katz: go to Mongolia. Don't bring any techno-gizmos at all. Remain unwired for a month. Watch the traders and tribesmen. See how they interact.

Note to infonaut : Mongolia used to rule China.

--

Note to Katz: go to Mongolia. Don't bring any techno-gizmos at all. Remain unwired for a month. Watch the traders and tribesmen. See how they interact.

Note to infonaut : Mongolia used to rule China.

--

Let me get this right: When you have a power outage, you want to make sure that you can watch your really big TV, and use your "large speaker amp"? On my UPS, (yes that is a boat battery which it uses) I only have my 2 important systems and one 13 inch monitor. That way, it can last longer. I don't need my big MP3 machine or my 19 in. monitor running when the power goes out, I only need to be able to safely shut the important machines down if I have to. You put the bare minimum of stuff on a UPS.

For your purposes, I recommend an old mainstay of power backups: a nuclear reactor. That way, you only have to refuel it every 20 years or so, AND you don't need a connection to the lousy power grid!

Communism is where you must share what you have produced, with a gun to your head. If you refuse, you are thrown into jail or killed.

It's amazing how ignorant Americans are about politics. The former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics never claimed to be a Communist state; it claimed to be a state which aspired to, and sought to work towards, Communism. The particular flavour of Communism which it sought to work towards was Marxist, but Marx didn't invent Communism as an idea; it had wide currency in his period (see e.g the Paris Commune, and comtemporary papers by Anarchist theorist, Peter Kropotkin).

In Marx's time Communism was already over a thousand years old, and had been a feature of many of the heretical groups of the middle ages, and of extreme factions during the English Civil War

So, in summary, 'Communism' does not mean the Soviet system; 'Communism' does not mean Marxism-Leninism; and 'Communism' does not mean having a gun held to your head.

Is Open Source a communist idea? Yes, I'm perfectly sure it is. But it is most certainly not a Soviet idea or a Marxist idea.

If enough people trust it (and if this is really backed by gold there are no reasons not to) then paper money will become less standard (it won't disappear since it's legal tender) with potentially important consequences such as reduced importance of monetary policy as decided by the Federal Reserve.

I don't think so. It's viral. See this link.

...and a Scotsman invented the telephone in the US

Philipp Reis was a scotsman?

Reis, Johann Philipp

The real inventor of the telephone

SCNR

They won't be using an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile), they will be using a SLBM (sea-launched ballistic missile).

This Britannica article gives some general info on the subject and the differences between the two.

Details are important!

Once upon a time, money was based on physical assets. Now capital has become fiduciary - meaning it is not based on any physical assets at all. To explain, in the UK one Pound Sterling used to be one pound of gold by weight. Now it is just valued for its intrinsic value to people. If noone exchanges money fro gold, the intrinsic value of money is irrelevant. Everyone wants money, therefore money is valuable, QED.

Furthermore you are going on to draw conclusions from your lack of understanding about what/why money is what it is. I think that is why you say capital is not based on any physical assets - which is a total non sequitor, anyway. "Capital" is a short word for "the means of production." Capital goods are different from consumer goods - you don't get capital goods to consume them, you get them to make you more productive at making other goods. Anything that helps you to produce things can be a capital good. So factory equipment are factory goods. To the extent that you use them to make things, your household tools can also possibly be considered capital. A farm tractor is also capital. You can begin to see how the lack of capital is something that separates the poor countries from the rich ones. A farmer who has to plow with a mule may work harder than his (say) american counterparts, but since american farmers have more capital (tractors as opposed to mules), they are able to produce more.

It is nonsense for you to say that "capital will be pure ideas" in 25 years. Many physical, real-world tasks - like producing food - will still need to be done, and capital equipment will be used to do them. I think you've just been confused by the abstract, intangible nature of financial tools - money, bonds, stocks - which are used to allocate and transfer capital.

The only truth to your comments - a truth I think you stumbled on accidentally - is that knowledge is a type of capital. There are plenty of abstract types of capital like this - for instance, reputational capital. These types of capital are intangible but they are incredibly important - knowledge is necessary to make other types of physical capital, for instance.

History isn't over (let's not abuse the meaning of Fukuyama's words-that annoys him). Money will continue to exist. Physical forms of capital will continue to be important.

For great justice, before writing a couple of paragraphs about these topics you could at least take the time to learn the vocabulary first. I think you could benefit from reading some of DeSoto's books and articles.

To explain, in the UK one Pound Sterling used to be one pound of gold by weight.

pound sterling on brittanica.com

sterling on dictionary.com

Actually, a Pound Sterling was more typically a pound of silver, not gold, in value. Hence the term 'sterling silver.' The term 'sterling' refers to purity of gold or silver, but the Pound was of silver specifically.

The study of evolutionary relationships between genes and protein structures is a well established field called Phylogenetics.

You can get an idea of how organisms are related in evolutionary terms by comparing the DNA sequences of genes in different organisms. The classic example is cytochrome C, a protein which is vital to energy utilisation, and is found in every organism, from primates to bacteria.

If you compare the sequence of either the gene or the protein from two different spieces you will find that the sequences are not the same. Furthermore the similarity between species is not constant; chimp and human cytochrome C are almost identical, whereas human and yeast cytochrome C sequences shows a much greater number of differences. If you analyse the differences you will find that they are not random, but point to an ordered relationship between species.

The explanation for these observations is that silent mutations (ie ones which have no effect on the funtionality of the molecule) accrue at random over time. The longer the time since two species diverged, then the more random changes will occur in their gene sequences. By cross referencing the differences between many different genes for different species it is possible to build up an evolutionary tree based purely on gene sequences.(note that this is independant to the trees drawn up by comparing the fossil record, but comes to the same conclusion, a strong indication that evolutionary theory might just be true :-))

You can also try and workout a timeframe for evolution by estimating how often random mutations occur; however, this extension to the method is controvoersial, as it is not clear if mutation rates are stable across time or species.


Brittanic.com has an excellent summary, including pictures of evolutionary trees.

You need to raise the temperature of the magnetic coating above the Curie temperature (770 C for iron). But as the platters are probably aluminum, and the melting point of aluminum is around 660 C -- you're probably going to have to settle for melting the platters and stirring them up.

Be aware that melting aluminum in your wastebasket will damage your wastebasket. And you probably should not do this near your cubicle.

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/0/0,5716 ,121640,00.html

_Deirdre

It was a political landing, btw. We (the USA) can now lay more of a claim to it than anyone else.

Obviously there is no law governing this area properly (old exploratory laws will probably not hold sway in this case), but one can assume that with asteroids, and the mining that will eventually take place on them, whoever lands a probe first gets it.

Nasa just made a trillion dollars!

Crowded? If you put every human on the planet in Texas, everyone would have more square feet of space than you have in your dorm room. Don't get out much, do you?

I don't believe you, not even a tiny bit. According to Britannica, Texas is 266,807 square miles. That's 1,408,740,960 square feet. According to Ask Jeeves, the world's population is currently at 6,127,565,379 people. Dorm rooms are usually about 10 feet by 12 feet and are designed for two people, which works out to about 60 square feet per person. Without going into exact calculations we can immediately see that there would be under a square foot per person which directly contradicts your statement that each person would have more room than he does in his dorm.

Now if you take everyone on the planet and cram them into Ontario, Canada... There is signficantly more breathing room! Ontario occupies 412,581 square miles, or 2,178,427,680 square feet. That's almost twice the square footage per person. Ontario is only the second biggest province in Canada... Kinda puts Texas to shame considering it's twice as large!

Let's expand to the entire U.S. If you were to cram every person on the planet into the United States (3,679,192 square miles, or 19,426,133,760 square feet) you end up with a mere 3.17 square feet per person, or about 1/20 the room you'd have if you were in his dorm (assuming he has an average dorm room as given above).

Texas is the biggest state, sure... That don't mean shit when you're talking about six billion people though.

Yeah, I disagree with the status quo, the popular misconceptions of mathematics, and I am a troll, with posts that should be modded down? Have you ever considered that not only that you could be wrong, but an entire institution that you had faith in was also wrong? If your mathematics is so pure, so great, then why does it contain paradoxes, contradictions, undecidability and incompleteness? These things make your mathematics anything but exact, sure, true, or anything that it is supposed to be. It becomes nothing more than a religion.

After you mod my posts down, don't forget to mod down the entries of the Encyclopædia Britannica on Intuitionism.

Oh, and don't forget to mark one of the greatest founding fathers of modern computing as a troll too, because Kleene was also backed intuitionist ideas.
Some of you guys are so blind in your ignorance that you destroy good things - all the while, believing that you are fighting for the just.

Yeah, I disagree with the status quo, the popular misconceptions of mathematics, and I am a troll, with posts that should be modded down? Have you ever considered that not only that you could be wrong, but an entire institution that you had faith in was also wrong? If your mathematics is so pure, so great, then why does it contain paradoxes, contradictions, undecidability and incompleteness? These things make your mathematics anything but exact, sure, true, or anything that it is supposed to be. It becomes nothing more than a religion.

After you mod my posts down, don't forget to mod down the entries of the Encyclopædia Britannica on Intuitionism.

Oh, and don't forget to mark one of the greatest founding fathers of modern computing as a troll too, because Kleene was also backed intuitionist ideas.
Some of you guys are so blind in your ignorance that you destroy good things - all the while, believing that you are fighting for the just.

Ideas similar to this were suspected of being researched in South Africa during the 80s.

Click here to read an article about this at britannica.

Don't be so sure that nobody would try to emulate this bacteria, there is a great deal of racial and religious hate out there.

Some people have said that anti-biotics can fight this, well if the bacteria made people of a certain race permanently infertile, an anti-biotic won't help in any way.

AFAIK Ceres has never been seen clearly enough to determine whether it is a spheroidal shape or not. In fact it transitted a star a while ago and the results indicated that it was surprisingly irregular. But I wouldn't exactly cry if Ceres counted as a planet anyway.

I'm not aware of any spheroidal asteroid that is smaller than Ceres either. If you have proof to the contrary, I would like to see it.

As for all your other points about pluto- so what. Every single body in the solar system appears to be completely different to every other.

Heinrich Hertz: Hertz lived from 1857 to 1894 and was the first to demonstrate experimentally the production and detection of Maxwell's waves. This discovery of course lead directly to radio. [more..]

Guglielmo Marconi: The Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi, repeated Hertz's experiments and eventually succeeded in getting secondary sparks over a distance of 30 feet (nine meters). [more..]

Nikola Tesla: Inventions related to radio ( the Supreme Court overturned Marconi's patent in 1943 in favor of Tesla) X-rays, the vacuum tube amplifier. [more..]

Lee De Forest: American inventor of the Audion vacuum tube, which made possible live radio broadcasting and became the key component of all radio, telephone, radar, television, and computer systems before the invention of the transistor in 1947. [more..]

Ernst F. W. Alexanderson: The engineer whose high-frequency alternator gave America its start in the field of radio communication. [more..]

It seems we can't truly give credit to any ONE inventor. For without all of the above, and countless others, I'm sure, radio and many other innovations would not be where they currently are. Hope these links help.

Britannica's demise would definitely not be in our best interest. Why can't the Nupedia people just work with Britannica? Only Nupedia's ego would lose.

__________________________________
"Is it a book you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?" --prosecuting lawyer, for the British government, arguing against permitting publication of D. H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterly's Lover" (1960)

Oh, that's just a myth. The legend is that it was an Italian architect who had his eyes gouged out. In any case, it didn't happen.
--

But the real question is, whatever happened to the Interpaedia? Remember, the web-based, user-written, free encyclopaedia? Sound familiar? It's what RMS is proposing, and it's what failed before. What is different this time? The only links I could find to the Interpaedia were a gopher link and an old broken link to an archived discussion.

That being said, I would love to see it work :)

The public's fear seems to center on government, not corporate, intrusions of privacy, although polls show that fear of companies misuse of personal data is growing rapidly.

Have you been studying your history?

England's history is filled to the brim with revolts by powerful barons (see Magna Carta , Oliver Cromwell ) against weak kings who were consequently unable to see their power (and thus the power of the State) constantly eroded. The net result is that during the industrial revolution, when the bourgeois seized economic power, they frowned upon the power of the state to interfere with their profits. The british empire is filled with private corporations that had their own armies to enforce their own justice over conquered lands (like the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company - which still exists to this day); of course in no way that "justice" is geared towards the well-being of the people who lived there first - for example, the HBC forbade indians to trade furs amongst themselves (as they did for thousands of years), but instead, they had to SELL them (for trinkets) to the HBC, and, of course, indians had to buy it from them if they needed furs).

The net result is a mindset which sees all evil in whatever the State does, and turns a blind eye to the worst abuses by private citizens, a, perhaps, every private citizens aspires to be a Bill Gates.

With such a mindset, it's no suprising that citizens see nothing wrong in being screwed by private enterprise (after all, they might, one day, become big enough to screw smaller fry) but jump to the ceiling each time the government steps in to protect smaller people.

--

The public's fear seems to center on government, not corporate, intrusions of privacy, although polls show that fear of companies misuse of personal data is growing rapidly.

Have you been studying your history?

England's history is filled to the brim with revolts by powerful barons (see Magna Carta , Oliver Cromwell ) against weak kings who were consequently unable to see their power (and thus the power of the State) constantly eroded. The net result is that during the industrial revolution, when the bourgeois seized economic power, they frowned upon the power of the state to interfere with their profits. The british empire is filled with private corporations that had their own armies to enforce their own justice over conquered lands (like the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company - which still exists to this day); of course in no way that "justice" is geared towards the well-being of the people who lived there first - for example, the HBC forbade indians to trade furs amongst themselves (as they did for thousands of years), but instead, they had to SELL them (for trinkets) to the HBC, and, of course, indians had to buy it from them if they needed furs).

The net result is a mindset which sees all evil in whatever the State does, and turns a blind eye to the worst abuses by private citizens, a, perhaps, every private citizens aspires to be a Bill Gates.

With such a mindset, it's no suprising that citizens see nothing wrong in being screwed by private enterprise (after all, they might, one day, become big enough to screw smaller fry) but jump to the ceiling each time the government steps in to protect smaller people.

--

The public's fear seems to center on government, not corporate, intrusions of privacy, although polls show that fear of companies misuse of personal data is growing rapidly.

Have you been studying your history?

England's history is filled to the brim with revolts by powerful barons (see Magna Carta , Oliver Cromwell ) against weak kings who were consequently unable to see their power (and thus the power of the State) constantly eroded. The net result is that during the industrial revolution, when the bourgeois seized economic power, they frowned upon the power of the state to interfere with their profits. The british empire is filled with private corporations that had their own armies to enforce their own justice over conquered lands (like the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company - which still exists to this day); of course in no way that "justice" is geared towards the well-being of the people who lived there first - for example, the HBC forbade indians to trade furs amongst themselves (as they did for thousands of years), but instead, they had to SELL them (for trinkets) to the HBC, and, of course, indians had to buy it from them if they needed furs).

The net result is a mindset which sees all evil in whatever the State does, and turns a blind eye to the worst abuses by private citizens, a, perhaps, every private citizens aspires to be a Bill Gates.

With such a mindset, it's no suprising that citizens see nothing wrong in being screwed by private enterprise (after all, they might, one day, become big enough to screw smaller fry) but jump to the ceiling each time the government steps in to protect smaller people.

--

The public's fear seems to center on government, not corporate, intrusions of privacy, although polls show that fear of companies misuse of personal data is growing rapidly.

Have you been studying your history?

England's history is filled to the brim with revolts by powerful barons (see Magna Carta , Oliver Cromwell ) against weak kings who were consequently unable to see their power (and thus the power of the State) constantly eroded. The net result is that during the industrial revolution, when the bourgeois seized economic power, they frowned upon the power of the state to interfere with their profits. The british empire is filled with private corporations that had their own armies to enforce their own justice over conquered lands (like the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company - which still exists to this day); of course in no way that "justice" is geared towards the well-being of the people who lived there first - for example, the HBC forbade indians to trade furs amongst themselves (as they did for thousands of years), but instead, they had to SELL them (for trinkets) to the HBC, and, of course, indians had to buy it from them if they needed furs).

The net result is a mindset which sees all evil in whatever the State does, and turns a blind eye to the worst abuses by private citizens, a, perhaps, every private citizens aspires to be a Bill Gates.

With such a mindset, it's no suprising that citizens see nothing wrong in being screwed by private enterprise (after all, they might, one day, become big enough to screw smaller fry) but jump to the ceiling each time the government steps in to protect smaller people.

--

The public's fear seems to center on government, not corporate, intrusions of privacy, although polls show that fear of companies misuse of personal data is growing rapidly.

Have you been studying your history?

England's history is filled to the brim with revolts by powerful barons (see Magna Carta , Oliver Cromwell ) against weak kings who were consequently unable to see their power (and thus the power of the State) constantly eroded. The net result is that during the industrial revolution, when the bourgeois seized economic power, they frowned upon the power of the state to interfere with their profits. The british empire is filled with private corporations that had their own armies to enforce their own justice over conquered lands (like the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company - which still exists to this day); of course in no way that "justice" is geared towards the well-being of the people who lived there first - for example, the HBC forbade indians to trade furs amongst themselves (as they did for thousands of years), but instead, they had to SELL them (for trinkets) to the HBC, and, of course, indians had to buy it from them if they needed furs).

The net result is a mindset which sees all evil in whatever the State does, and turns a blind eye to the worst abuses by private citizens, a, perhaps, every private citizens aspires to be a Bill Gates.

With such a mindset, it's no suprising that citizens see nothing wrong in being screwed by private enterprise (after all, they might, one day, become big enough to screw smaller fry) but jump to the ceiling each time the government steps in to protect smaller people.

--

There's also something nice about not having 30 cubic feet of space in a dorm room taken up by VHS tapes, cds, encyclopedia volumes, DVDs and other so called meatspace products. I doubt that you can accurately say that everyone or at least a critical number of people value a jewel case that's 5x the thickness of a cd taking up so much room. Trying to reduce the bulk of meatspace products?

• VHS? Try Hi8 instead; the tapes are much smaller, and the resolution is remarkably better.
• CD and DVD cases? There are CD wallets for that.
• Encyclopedia? Why bother? Britannica is already online and supported by ads.
• Mouse pad? Use a trackball.
• CD/DVD/etc? Try reading free books online. In fact, The Time Machine by H. G. Wells[?] is what led me to start collecting those blasted Precious Moments figurines, but that's another node.

Haha, I see you are trying to be funny too.
I suppose you know just as well as I do, that Orwell was an Englishman.

I was going to email this, but you've (wisely) left your email out of your user profile, but try going to Britannica.com - they sell the Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD/DVD. The site itself is some wanky portal site, but the Encyclopaedia is still promoted on the front page, and from tick-list on the the Compare Britannica 2001 page:

Entire text of 32 vol. Encyclopædia Britannica : Tick (for all versions)

So they still seem to be in business - although I think they nearly went out of business, as they originally sold the CD version of their Encyclopaedia at about £400 (it's less than £90 now). But then, that's what Encarta cost when it first came out (although most people don't believe that anymore), but Britannica were asking £400 when MS had already dropped the Encarta price to the usual £40-70 you pay these days.

Er...that's it really. Thought you might like to know - I have no connection with Britannica, and have not actually used the CD/DVD version myself, so caveat emptor.

Tim

PS. Why did you think they were out of business? Even www.encyclopaediabritannica.com takes you to that web page...

I was going to email this, but you've (wisely) left your email out of your user profile, but try going to Britannica.com - they sell the Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD/DVD. The site itself is some wanky portal site, but the Encyclopaedia is still promoted on the front page, and from tick-list on the the Compare Britannica 2001 page:

Entire text of 32 vol. Encyclopædia Britannica : Tick (for all versions)

So they still seem to be in business - although I think they nearly went out of business, as they originally sold the CD version of their Encyclopaedia at about £400 (it's less than £90 now). But then, that's what Encarta cost when it first came out (although most people don't believe that anymore), but Britannica were asking £400 when MS had already dropped the Encarta price to the usual £40-70 you pay these days.

Er...that's it really. Thought you might like to know - I have no connection with Britannica, and have not actually used the CD/DVD version myself, so caveat emptor.

Tim

PS. Why did you think they were out of business? Even www.encyclopaediabritannica.com takes you to that web page...

I was going to email this, but you've (wisely) left your email out of your user profile, but try going to Britannica.com - they sell the Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD/DVD. The site itself is some wanky portal site, but the Encyclopaedia is still promoted on the front page, and from tick-list on the the Compare Britannica 2001 page:

Entire text of 32 vol. Encyclopædia Britannica : Tick (for all versions)

So they still seem to be in business - although I think they nearly went out of business, as they originally sold the CD version of their Encyclopaedia at about £400 (it's less than £90 now). But then, that's what Encarta cost when it first came out (although most people don't believe that anymore), but Britannica were asking £400 when MS had already dropped the Encarta price to the usual £40-70 you pay these days.

Er...that's it really. Thought you might like to know - I have no connection with Britannica, and have not actually used the CD/DVD version myself, so caveat emptor.

Tim

PS. Why did you think they were out of business? Even www.encyclopaediabritannica.com takes you to that web page...

Note that a lot of people use the RBL in just that way. For my users, I have it set up so that headers are added to each message indicating which lists (ORBS, MAPS RBL, MAPS DUL, MAPS RSS) the message matches. That way they can filter it as they please.

But we're considering moving to the more extreme version, where all traffic gets dropped. Why? Because the people on the RBL are not good neighbors, and we don't want to have anything to do with them. I don't want to hear from a spammer; neither do I want spam-friendly ISPs using the stuff I offer to the world.

As I mentioned elsewhere, this is analogous to the ancient greek concept of ostracism.