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For your rapid downloading pleasure: http://extropy.demon.co.uk/moewe1_2test02.mov.torr ent

My first torrent. I hope this works.

Here's one that runs in: ANSI COBOL, ISO Pascal, ANSI Fortran, ANSI C (lint free), Postscript, Shell script, 8086 machine language.

But the second unit had failed in the identical manner a few milliseconds before. And why not? It was running the same software.

I have read that story before on a different site. Everybody keep this in mind before you assume redundant systems can protect you against software errors.

Above is a bad copy/update of this file.

I found the source code here.

Anyone else think of the cloudbusting machine from Kate Bush's music video of this song?

Obviously a top-tier military such as the US could easily blow up the island, but it's close proximity to England and the fact that England currently recognizes the sovereignty of the island might mean that England itself might react to some other nation attacking the island as a threat in their "backyard", much as the US considered the Soviet involvement with Cuba to be a threat.

So I think the main potential threats to Sealand are England and, as long as England remains our bitch, the US. If enough rich people in England and the US come to depend on Sealand in the same way they depend on Switzerland, it would make a military attack there unpopular. It would be very interesting to see what would happen if the US claimed (rightly or wrongly) that "terrorists" were using Sealand...

Also, the value of Sealand is not in it's physical incarnation (how much to a bunch of servers really cost?) but its legal status. Even if it were blown up, they could just build it up again (especially if they had distributed, encrypted backups, with a set of at least three people holding the keys with the usual provisions about never having all members present at the same time, etc...)

Although from this photo the whole thing looks a little low-rent...

Nice history on Times Roman and Times New Roman here

Alex

I was wondering the same thing and googled for information. Here's one article on the subject that gave me some good info.

Anyway, there are probably enough machines running in sync so the fireworks should be impressive at 1609Z.

Years ago, I improved my own typing speed and accuracy by transcribing phone conversations with friends. It just takes some practice.

Of course, if you are listening to this guy, you can disregard my advice.

No, negative temperatures on the Kelvin scale are possible, sort of. See this page or this page for example.

I've resurrected my Beeb recently and got into Repton 2 again, which rocks, as they say :-) I liked it much better than 1 and 3 (with the annoying fungus). Also ELITE of course.

Another favourite was Labyrinth, which featured a bizarre screen mode using remarkably only four colours to simulate many more with pixel patterns. Very cool game.

There are many great Beeb sites out there, particularly 8BS.com - see also my list of (mostly) Beeb games

Have fun!

>_

I've resurrected my Beeb recently and got into Repton 2 again, which rocks, as they say :-) I liked it much better than 1 and 3 (with the annoying fungus). Also ELITE of course.

Another favourite was Labyrinth, which featured a bizarre screen mode using remarkably only four colours to simulate many more with pixel patterns. Very cool game.

There are many great Beeb sites out there, particularly 8BS.com - see also my list of (mostly) Beeb games

Have fun!

>_

There are various reimplementations of Repton for Unix and Windows. This includes a version for the Linux console via SVGALib, for generic Unix / X11 through KDE (both 1.x and 3.x) and for both Windows, X11 and possibly OSX throught FX Repton using the FOX toolkit.

This is the site, at http://www.keelhaul.demon.co.uk/krepton/ and also of interest may be the Repton appreciation society.

Microvitec CUB monitor used with my BBC Micro Model B, from 1983 I think. Nice metal chassis, none of the cheap plastic of 'modern' monitors.

Just loading up ELITE now... ;-)

How about this Othello game or this game of noughts and crosses.

How about this Othello game or this game of noughts and crosses.

Ruby
Java
Python

Good times!

Read a bit about it here, it's quite good!

It makes more sense to use something that isn't ambiguous: CCYY-MM-DD
(International date format campaign)

Bah, who needs a CP/M emulator when you already have DOSEmu?

DOSEmu can run CP/M-86 just fine. You can get the actual OS itself free and legal here, while this site explains how to run it under DOSEmu.

That's right.

Keep on consuming. I hear your Queen needs some new knickers, anyway.

Look, unless you're on the dole or running up huge debts that you never plan to pay off, buying more crap is a terrible idea. Christ, you advertise for Apple in your sig, do you really need to give them more?

Looks like our legislative bodies need to go back to nursery school; too many laws they pass involve trying to bell the cat.

Seriously, why not just pass a law making crime illegal? Then all the police can just go home and we'll live in a wonderous utopia. Oh, you say we live in a world where people who are already criminals are, by definition, aren't obeying the law and it's that simple? Well, start walking the walk; you act like criminals will just bend over, but it's not the criminals who have to BOGU.

I would have sent a black lab myself. Beagles never come back.

This must be a job for... Skylab!

(But seriously, I guess you're right. The last time anyone sent a beagle into space, she did indeed never come back.)

My contribution to this episode of the Tin Foil Hat Theater:

The article mentioned above, about strange theories behind the disappearance of the Russian Phobos 2 probe, mentions a "highly secret" photo that was the last image taken by this probe. The article speculates it's a shot of the spacecraft that destroyed the probe. I found the picture they're talking about.

If this is a spacecraft it would be about 20 km long, like a Culture GSV in the Iain Banks novels. More likely it's just a streak in an image created by a failing instrument.

It's funny though, there's a whole lot of web pages out there speculating that Phobos is an alien base or spacecraft. It seems to be a nexus for a whole lot of UFO speculation.

There are many many uses I can think of for old machines such as those you describe...

J R Stockton
..
2004-01-10 Sat - UNIX time_t $40000000 at 13:37:04 UTC.
2004-02-29 Sun - First "Leap Day" of c21 & M3.

Beat me to it!
Here's a nice link

I believe you interpreted the ruling perfectly.

"On March 19, 1998, Part VIII of the (Canadian) Copyright Act dealing with private copying came into force. Until that time, copying any sound recording for almost any purpose infringed copyright, although, in practice, the prohibition was largely unenforceable. The amendment to the Act legalized copying of sound recordings of musical works onto audio recording media for the private use of the person who makes the copy (referred to as "private copying"). In addition, the amendment made provision for the imposition of a levy on blank audio recording media to compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright in eligible sound recordings being copied for private use."

-- Copyright Board of Canada: Fact Sheet: Private Copying 1999-2000 Decision

Seems like sealand will be the one place to upload anything sooner or later.

If you're in the UK, Studiospares supply all the bits you need to bolt rack gear into your own housing, such as rack strips of various heights, nuts and bolts, and pre-made cases & flightcases by Buster Cases.
Note their directions to get the right width between the rackstrips:

Distance between vertical side supports should be 486mm. This provides correct alignment of the holes and leaves a 450mm opening.

Or you could go for a Designer Rack, even if just for ideas :)

I was lucky to save a server cabinet from the skip at work. At the risk of Slashdotting myself... it's here.

those that base their religion/philosophies on Science Fiction books.

Probably the biggest recent purported example of this is Osama Bin Laden's fascination with Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy. When it was translated to arabic, it was titled "Al-Qaida".

For reference, take a look at All Your Base... or War of the worlds. The original story was in the Ottawa Citizen (I couldn't find a link to the article).

Scary stuff when a 50 year old Sci-Fi novel could be considered as the base for a terrorist philosophy.

myke

"Pad three, please."

Moonhoax

For Windows NT 4.0
For Windows 95
For Windows NT/2000/XP
For DOS, Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP, OS/2, BeOS, MacOS...

For any question related to DeCSS or QTFairUse, you can reach Jon at jon.johansen@sealandgov.com

Here's a photo of his new place of residence incidentally ...

"Mysterious Cities of Gold."

Though you go to elaborate lengths to avoid it, this entire statement of yours is from start to finish a statement of faith. I'm not sure why you wish so much to avoid just admitting it, but it's really not a bad thing.

In the first place, you have faith in your eyes (that they function properly) and other faculties, that they are reliable. In the second place, you have faith in your ability to determine whether something can be faked. In the third place, you have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow.

But it's not. There's a difference that I'm trying to describe.

I don't know the sun will rise, but I have to better guess, and I'm powerless to control it, so I might as well act as if it will.

To me, faith in the sun rising would be the belief that it *would* rise. Instead, I realize that there are things which could keep this from happening, however unlikely, and that I'll never *know* what will happen. Like I'll never *know* with absolute certainty that I'm not a brain in a jar being fed simulated inputs.

You *know* there's a god. I don't *know* there isn't, but it seems so unplausible that I'm going to act as if there isn't.

Please describe for me a way that a man living in the first century, with no available technology, is able to suddenly appear in the middle of a closed room - twice, and how he is able to to ascend into the sky, and how he is able to arrange for angels to immediately appear and talk to his followers.

Describe how Uri Geller, with no technology beyond that of Jesus, is able to bend a spoon by lightly rubbing his fingers on it. (Hint: He cheats.)

Describe the closed room. Was the door locked? Was it brightly lit (doubtful)? was it large? Was it empty, or full of furniture?

Describe the ascension. Did he rocket upwards on a pillar of fire, or slowly float up? Did he vanish slowly into a haze of smoke?

I ask because these are all things that influence how these miracles could be performed by a stage magician. I don't know that this is what happened, but I know a friend who can pull oranges out of people's ears, who can "throw" his voice, and other tricks. No gadgets needed.

Furthermore, I can say similar things: when a man believes that God doesn't exist, it makes it easier to fool him.

Well, I'll give you that one. Whenever someone expects a certain result they're more likely to find it, god or not-god.

Why not my religion? ;-) But seriously: I'll give you the same kind of answer that you gave me when I challenged you for making reason the ultimate authority: what else is there? Blind faith in reason?

Why not your religion? Because there are hundreds, including divisions in the major ones, and to me they all seem about as likely.

There's also the Invisible Pink Unicorn, which I've seen just as much evidence for.

And I think you misintepret my use of reason. I think that there's nothing that can't be logically and scientifically examined. It could be that we don't have the tools to tell anything (and may never), but you can still devise tests and perform them. I've never seen a single flaw in the method.

Do I have a blind faith? Well, I'd say that a blind faith in reason would be saying that reason could be me the answers to everything. I think some things don't have useful answers (The meaning of life, can god create a rock so big he can't lift it, etc), and I think that some thing are unknowable, like how the universe was created.

But, I don't think there are any problems with the idea of reasoning everything out. You yourself said that you think the bible withstands intense scrutiny, if you read the original, etc, etc. Does this not imply that reason could be used to pick a god?

And I don't think that belief in god helps here though. Where did god come from? If he always existed, why couldn't the universe just always have existed?

If you read the analyses, there's some advice for beating chess computers.

Chess computers have large opening databases. If they can make a database move, while the human has to think, the computer gets the edge due to the reduced amount of time they need to make a database move.

During the games, Kasparov tried to play unusual moves in the opening to knock the computer out of its database as early as possible. One example from game 2 is Kasparov's move 8...Re8, which is annotated with "This move by Kasparov had never been played before in this exact position." This knocked Fritz out of its opening database, and forced it to calculate.

A more striking example of the way to beat chess computers is the great wall of pawns that dominated game 3. Chess computers cannot evaluate such positions properly. If you built a wall of pawns like that, and snuck your forces behind them, you are a good chance of winning because the computer cannot calculate deeply enough.

Some more info here and here.

Why didn't anyone ever think of that before? Oh wait, they did. It's called Morse Code.

I know that this is a a little different -- morse code can be used to make any word, not just 400 as is the case with the language mentioned in the article, but still... What's the big deal?

I remember years ago (c. 15) playing a game called 'Pick Up Artist' on the C64 or Amiga. Fairly primitive, but fun for about 4 seconds, or slightly longer if you were playing it with some mates. Might have been this one. Was released in the UK at least.

I can't imagine a game like that becoming really popular, though it might attract some interest as a coin-op or a web based game.

Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers cannot write in English.

When there's a cop sitting at the side of the road, everyone goes a pretty much the speed limit. This is something I wish was taught in civics lessons in every school in the country: it is the probability that law breaking will be detected and punished that matters most to deterrence, not the severity of the punishment.

Take a look at the way that the Panopticon worked. It's a classic 18th Century prison design that ensured that every prisoner had a feeling of being watched, without actually knowing for certain whether they were or not.

The net effect is that you get the same effect of watching all the prisoners, without actually having to undergo all the tedium of actually watching.

In the UK, only a small percentage of speed cameras actually contain any film or emit radar. However, except for drivers with radar detectors, the effect of one on driver speed is the same as a fully operational camera. Only the police don't have to spend time/money collecting and developing film.

Blimey. Stanley Unwin isn't dead after all.

Any system administrator or helpdesk person worth their weight in gold has a special page in their excuse calendar just for this event: "SOLAR FLARES"

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, I'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET YOU ALL MORNING?!"

I hate it when they shout at me early in the morning. It always puts me in a bad mood. You know what I mean.

"Ah, yes. Well, there's been some solar activity this morning, it always disrupts electronics..." I say, sweet as a sugar pie.

Also keep close by:

• Static from nylon underwear
• Static from plastic slide rulers ("Please, leave the technical diagnosis to me... Now, is there a plastic ruler somewhere on or in the desk?" ... "Right. You've got a static buildup on your hard-drive caused by the changing electrostatic field generated by the ruler - the same one that makes bits of paper stick to it when you rub it up and down your arm...")

Honestly, it's like shooting a fish in a barrel. Twice. With an Elephant Gun. At point blank range. In the head.

Please don't shoot me for cut-and-paste. Gotta introduce the BOFH somehow...

I migrated from a Cobalt RaQ setup after many many frustrating moments with the whole net appliance idea in general.

I also needed the migration to be as smooth as possible, including all user auth, mail boxes/folders, lists and aliases.

I decided to go with MySQL based authentication on Postfix, Courier-IMAP, Apache, and ProFTPd, all running on Debian. I Wrote a little web front end using PHP for user administration, and voila, we now have a much more flexible system. All MySQL auth patches and plugins are available in Debian's apt archive.

Check out how-tos on the subject here, here, and here.

It took a little effort to get all of this working, but a little effort went a long way. I was basically able to duplicate the RaQ's functionality on a Debian system that I had full control over as far as software updates, kernel and hardware.

To top it all off, I replicated the config and used Heartbeat to make this into a high availability pair.

Have you tried the MM patches though? Not trying to be pushy or anything, just wondering...

If not, have you reported it to LKML?

The Apollo LEM massed almost 15,000 kg. The gold comes from a mylar ("Kapton", to be precise)-foil thermal blanket used as insulation, which replaced a rigid heatshield as part of a redesign to save mass. They were not, however, structural elements of the LEM.

Here's a link to some rebuttals of some of the more common moan hoax arguments.

It is fairly common for a pseudoscientific argument to rebut some "fact" that's not even true in the first place. The lack of explanation for how gold foil could be used for lander walls doesn't necessarily mean that the lander didn't have walls! Never assume that questions posed by cranks are even well-formed in the first place.

"this magnificent galaxy is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full moon."

The moon's diameter is 2140 miles. This equates to a galaxy less than 450 miles wide. How many stars can you fit into such a Minnesota-sized galaxy? How can you make it small enough to be accidentally swallowed by a small dog?

But it did get posted at HuSi.