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There is one deal in Windows FreeCell that is unsolvable: 11982[1].

[1] FreeCell FAQ

And then there's Filk .

Go here for info on what files and how and where to put Real codecs on a Windows machine - presumably Xine docs can tell you where to put them for Xine...

I don't see how what a blogger posts could be any different from a person who posts a web-page discussing their personal beliefs or opinions. [...]

Exactly so! These "surprising" ramifications of posting derogatory or revealing comments about people have been appearing in courts ever since Netscape became popular. There is no difference for legal purposes between a blog and a hand-written web page. The difference is what you say.

It may only be that the whole purpose of a blog is to enter day-to-day personal details that runs them into this trouble more often than static pages of whatever a person's hobby interest happens to be. My flute-making pages (plug-plug-plug) aren't likely to get me into any trouble, but don't read my Slashdot journal!

What happened to you today? You probably went to work, had private conversations, and if you're lucky you got a little nookie too. Now since you didn't likely get the written consent of other participants to publish the procedings of your encounters, most countries' understanding of "privacy" would put you at legal risk if you do publish.

...no matter what media you choose.

-Rick

American Heritage Of Invention and Technology had terrific story on Pioneer 10 some years back. I found the text here on the personal web page of its author Mark Wolverton. Worth a read if you're interested.

From the article: PHP runs seamlessly under Windows, as do MySQL and Apache. WAMP anyone?

IMO this is what makes *AMP. Consistency between platforms. I use Apache, MySQL, and PHP religiously, and no matter what kind of machine I'm running everything on it is seamless.
I'm not saying this isn't true with other scripting languages, but being able to code on anything with a few tools no matter where I am is EXCEPTIONALLY nice.
PHP's use on large web application projects has been uncertain. Yahoo doesn't feel this way. Neither does Earthlink (WebMail)

But I suppose perception needs to change--you don't have to have a billion dollars [Article, still reading it. . .] in the bank to make a great web language. (*cough* M$ *cough*) Neither do you need a couple thousand to deploy a website with dynamic content.

...many of us get our internet access from part of the MPAA/RIAA conglomerate.

I'd love to be in the wrong about this.

Earthlink's founder, Sky Dayton, believes that a certain 1940s/1950s scifi author is a prophet, etc. I'm not aware of any other links of the company to that group, and I suspect with Earthlink growing to be one of the largest ISPs in the US it would be pretty difficult to make it a front for any religion. Indeed, I learnt about it when the link of the founder to that group was causing a lot of controversy a few years ago, so to some extent they have the spotlight on them to make sure they don't start doing anything wierd even if they wanted to.

There's also the excellent collection of dysfunctional Family Circus reviews.

Thank the lord for google:

http://home.earthlink.net/~mutantdog/index.html

Mutant Dog

Click on the Bil Keane icon for the archive.

so long as people demand 'the lowest price is the law', Quality will tend in a worse direction.

john

The Cds make even better ornaments after a small trip to the microwave oven.

But it's always the same, through all history the human has tried to become god, so now it's hte turn of the scientists, they didn't get their try, yet !

It's a pitty, they sould use their brains and concentrate on more useful things, like finding methods to better preserve the nature and to the other way round, trying to control it. We're not going to manage this cloning stuff, it's only accelerating our path to an even darker future.

the question of whether computers use intelligence the same way as humans use intelligence has long been determined through the 'chineese room'.

the point of John Searle's Chinese Room being is to see if 'understanding' is involved in the process of computation. if you can 'process' the symbols of the cards without understanding them (since you're using a wordbook and a programme to do it) - by putting yourself in the place of the computer, you yourself can ask yourself if you required understanding to do it:

Minds Brains and Programmes (The Original Chineese Room):
http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/84 /b bs00000484-00/bbs.searle2.html

the complementary question - 'is the human brain
a digital computer' is answered by the same author:

Is the Human Brain a Digital Computer (John Searle):
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Py104/ se arle.comp.html

Summary of the Argument:

1. On the standard textbook definition, computation is defined syntactically in terms of symbol manipulation.

2. But syntax and symbols are not defined in terms of physics. Though symbol tokens are always physical tokens, "symbol" and "same symbol" are not defined in terms of physical features. Syntax, in short, is not intrinsic to physics.

3. This has the consequence that computation is not discovered in the physics, it is assigned to it. Certain physical phenomena are assigned or used or programmed or interpreted syntactically. Syntax and symbols are observer relative.

4. It follows that you could not discover that the brain or anything else was intrinsically a digital computer, although you could assign a computational interpretation to it as you could to anything else. The point is not that the claim "The brain is a digital computer" is false. Rather it does not get up to the level of falsehood. It does not have a clear sense. You will have misunderstood my account if you think that I am arguing that it is simply false that the brain is a digital computer. The question "Is the brain a digital computer?" is as ill defined as the questions "Is it an abacus?", "Is it a book?", or "Is it a set of symbols?", "Is it a set of mathematical formulae?"

5. Some physical systems facilitate the computational use much better than others. That is why we build, program, and use them. In such cases we are the homunculus in the system interpreting the physics in both syntactical and semantic terms.

6. But the causal explanations we then give do not cite causal properties different from the physics of the implementation and the intentionality of the homunculus.

7. The standard, though tacit, way out of this is to commit the homunculus fallacy. The humunculus fallacy is endemic to computational models of cognition and cannot be removed by the standard recursive decomposition arguments. They are addressed to a different question.

8. We cannot avoid the foregoing results by supposing that the brain is doing "information processing". The brain, as far as its intrinsic operations are concerned, does no information processing. It is a specific biological organ and its specific neurobiological processes cause specific forms of intentionality. In the brain, intrinsically, there are neurobiological processes and sometimes they cause consciousness. But that is the end of the story.

--

best regards,

john

you link to an article on Tesla's Fuelless Generator, here is that same article in a more complete form.

the secret journals of Phineas J. Magnetron

• I received these unusual documents from my uncle who -- perhaps inadvertently -- willed them to me along with an attic full of junk and dusty memorabilia. There were twenty-four books in all, every one of them labeled with a year on the spine and front cover. What captured my attention -- besides the mysterious code -- was that the years began with 1877.

  Magnetron's books appeared to be a journal of some kind, as each entry was preceded by a date written in a bold block lettering. Below each date were as many as 4,408 small numbers and letters, packed 64 characters per square inch with no spaces or identifiable punctuation. The only characters used were the numerals 0 through 9 and the letters A through F, leading the cryptographers to deduce that the code utilized a hexadecimal, or base 16 numbering system.

that's why i love apple products - in everything that's presented to the user - thought has been put into it.

'design is practical art'

john

Sure, the dead have no more use for a face than a liver. If you want my face, your desperation would no doubt elicit my sympathy (except that I'd be preoccupied with the whole being dead business).

...for what happened to IG Farben, considering that its successor entities are prosperous multinational giants to this day.

See The intro to the crimes and punishmant of I.G.Farben.

Nah, no one wants free software to go away except vendors of crappy closed source software. Free and Open software folks can have their differences but the commonality is much greater.

Since (almost) noone is making money doing it, the primary form of compensation is ego gratification.

What a crock, lots of people are making a good living with free software. Even pioneers such as RMS got by. Now that free software is universally recognized as superior to other software, there is a much larger demand. Show me someone who does not get some ego gratification from their job and I'll show you someone who should be doing something else.

If someone doesn't get their way, they throw a temper tantrum and go off on their own.

This is unique to free software? -Bangs his fist and insults a federal judge- Have you ever seen the monkeyboy dance? If your eyes don't convince you, just read this article. I would never ever want to work at a place like that. It looks like they treat each other worse than they treat the rest of the world.

The end result is forked code trees, huge amounts of duplicated effort, and projects that never go anywhere.

Said another way, free software could never make a working operating system, an easy to use GUI, it's chaos, blah, blah, bull shit on a stick This message posted with Mozilla and Windowmaker on X11 under Debian, software so superior to comercial junk I can never ever go back.

SPI will survive this little tussle and free softare will survive SPI.

my own pop up blocker, from earthlink (for free, from them) for earthlink users:

linky linky

all i had to do was hit the 'off' button, and refresh

worked out well, they have truely foiled my browsing popup blocking program...

what will i do now?

There is a really good Java HTML component called WebWindow (http://home.earthlink.net/~hheister/). The designer focused on memory consuption, which makes it a great option for mobile devices. And since Microsoft seems to be losing ground at least on the mobile phone market, this could become another competitor.

watching it change is like watching evolution in motion

it doesn't change - people change it.

and the people have changed it well - way to go pine!

j.

I recall a profile of a guy during the 1996 election named Clinton Gore. He had a heckuva time making dinner reservations, because people simply wouldn't believe him.

My mom had a friend named Horny. He changed it after his father died.

Astonishingly, I do not see a web page yet dedicated to embarassing names. No, here's one (1000+ -- this must be where the Car Talk guys get their stuff). One study claimed that juvenile delinquents with embarassing names were in trouble four time more often.

Oh, I goofed on Chanda Lear's name. It is Chrystal Chanda Lear.

-- Natalie Clad

i) human memory is not a fixed capacity. it varies with how much you make use of it.

ii) also, there is a QUALITATIVE difference between events AS WE HAVE EXPERIENCED THEM, and as they are recorded on a videostream. the *experience* you recall when someone snapped a photo of you (it was hot, and uncomfortable), is not the thing that is recorded in the photograph. the external image and the inner experience are qualitatively different - one is full of MEANING, and one is a DIGITIZATION - so no database of this type could really be a replacement for the type of experiential memories that we inherently contain.

iii) memory is like a muscle - the more you force yourself to remember all the stuff, the better your memory gets - and the more you rely on exeternal gadgets to 'remember' stuff for you - the more your inherent memory power Atrophies.

so if you want to have a bad memory - rely on external devices to remember things FOR YOU - you'll end up dependent on them, because you will have given-up your inherent abilities to do so. than you will be royally screwed if your external device gets the screen of death - you won't even know what you lost!

cheers!!
john

The compiler Aldor for Axiom is available for download. Axiom was developed at a number of places, including IBM, and it being released as open-source is something that has only been finalized in the last couple of months, so the distribution is just beginning to be more widely available.

For lots more, check out the Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature.

--| piracy or copyright? the third solution |---

The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack;
and the Strength of the Pack is the Wolf.
(Rudyard Kipling)

- copyright exists to ensure musicians get paid.

- the other side is that once an artist produces something,
it goes beyond them and many benefit.

- between consumers and producers now stands record companies

- but paying artists is only a step on the way to gaining profit.
in practice, many musicians (who play instruments) starve, while
marketing bimbos (spice girls) thrive - this is wrong.

- a fundemental qualitative difference between physical and
electronic goods is - if i have an apple and give you an apple,
i no longer have an apple; but if i have an idea and give you an idea,
we BOTH have an idea. therefore you cannot treat electronic things as
if they were actually physical goods, because they aren't!

- still, you must compensate producers of the original bits.
so what to do?

> MUSICIANS ASSOCIATIONS:
- the physical distributors and merchandisers pay into the musician's
pool that pays and feeds the musicians.

- the musicians pool distributes it equitably among its active producers.

- from the pool comes more new music. which is given away for free.
unlimited digital copies for everyone, never again a dime paid for
anything that's just DATA.

- distributors get fresh music, and sell and package more STUFF.

- distributors pay back a percentage of sales back into the pool.

- so it comes back and feeds itelf (the most important part).

> RESULTS:
- so all software is free - you get mindshare from it.

- but if you make a physical whose value lies on the free music on it,
then a percentage goes back.

- but the artist is not paid direct - it goes to the musician's pool,
which doles out shares each month by percentage of overall downloads
from a service such as Napster.

> SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED:

Q: won't physical distribution go away
when we move to total digital distribution?

A: i do not believe the vision that sales of physical goods will diminish
towards zero and be replaced entirely by digital distribution.
as digital distribution goes up, the value-added of merchandising
of 'physical' stuff based around the content will go up. SOMETHING
THAT IS PHYSICAL IS SCARCE, and its value (unlike digital) lies in
that not everyone can have it. thus, collectors will pay a premium
to have something TANGIBLE and official from the band over just a
download of the song.

when anyone can get a copy of a song downloaded for free,
then the merchandisers will 'add value' to the product through
unique packaging, and by inventing desirable things to provide
in addition to 'just the data'. for example:

- you get a printed booklet and poster with your CD - looks nicer
than if you burn it yourself.

- you have all sorts of merchandise: books, fanzines, t-shirts,
it is up to the ingenuity of the merchandisers to make money
off of this stuff - and when they do - a percentage (like a sales tax)
goes back to the musician's pool, and gets divided up by percentage of
P2P (or insert your service here) downloads that month.

- i can download a copy of any of shakespeare's works TODAY FOR FREE
from PROJECT GUTENBURG - but i still go out to amazon to order a
copy. why? i COULD download it and print it myself on my inkjet
printer, but it would cost me more to download and print then to buy
a copy that's already nicely packaged by a bookseller. in essence:
the 'data' of the book is free, but i'm paying for more than just
the content, i'm also paying for the convenience (over printing on
my own inkjet), and the PRESENTATION.

> Economic Basis for Musician's Associations:

see: http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/St einer-Social.html

--

And my own Falcon Desktop page(menus only work in IE)

The Falcon still is a remarkable machine, full gui and tcp/ip stack plus webbrowser and a few other goodies would all fit on a floppy. Maybe one day I will get some time to scan in the reviews from ST Format and ST user. MultiTos added a BSD based multitasking kernel which was only 64k(Apple was not the first to create a consumer based *nix computer MINT)TOS

Then check out the A.N.A.L.O.G. Preservation Project.

If you don't like it, don't read it..

I find it odd that the self proclaimed eliteists like yourself get so confused and frustrated over something meant to be funny or a simple spelling or grammer mistake. This guy is doing something to raise awareness of an issue, he also is the maintainer of the IPFILTER FAQ and a few other projects in his spare time. What have you done for anyone but yourself lately?

Try this link for the PDF, make sure IE downloads a ".pdf.gz" (not a ".pdf"), and run the file through GZIP. Acrobat should display it properly then.

Please help me understand this initiative by not making up words. Yes, I can guess the meaning, but if that's the purpose (i.e. to keep the audience guessing) then why not just post random text? If the goal is to demonstrate you k3wlne55, then post in haCk15h. If the goal is to convey an idea, sway public opinion, convince a group of skeptics, form a consensus, and ultimately, build a coalition, you might want to consider restricting your phraseology to a more mainstream subset of English.

This is only a suggestion.

Also, the PDF seems to be broken. It won't display on my system. (Anyone else have that problem?)

Overall, pretty impressive.

The version on the USENIX site seems at least to have the correct spelling in the title, but you need a password to download the PDF there.

Sorry, a bit OT:

I thought I recognized that URL ... go look at http://home.earthlink.net/~jaymzh666/ ... it's one of the IPFilter guys! Good going, Phil! Thanks for all your work supporting IPFilter! (And props to Darren, if you read this)

and be sure, like many members of the audience, to fix the sites you administer!

We'll, I'd sure like to know why Over-Zelous Security Administrators Are Breaking The Internet, but it appears that some Under-Zelous Systems Administrator has broken your site

Over-zelous MSS activists are breaking the PDF!

the first major high-end 3D package to be comercially ported to LINUX was HOUDINI from sidefx. alias' maya and sidefx Houdini are like the pepsi-coke of high-end 3D.

they've also got a free 'Houdini Apprentice' programme, so you can try it - works on Linux!

they used Houdini to animate gandalf's fireworks, and animate the rushing river horses in lord of the rings. they've used it in the star trek movies, Terminator 3D, and just about every sci-fi effects flick out there - check it out:

www.sidefx.com

a lot of the most interesting highend 3D technologies started with HOUDINI - Procedural Motion and Graphics OP networks were invented by
the Programmers at Side Effects.

some of the things you can do with their 3D animation
software (Houdini 5.5) are:

- In-Viewport editing generates procedural 'memory' of construction history.
- Support of multiple geometry types: 3D NURBS, Bezier, Mesh, Poly, L-systems (itterative geometry), and Metaballs.
- Procedural 3D Surface Modelling (SOPs > "Noun").
- Procedural Waveform/Motion, Audio, and Channel Editing (CHOPs > "Verb").
- Procedural Particle Systems (POPs) for simulating Smoke, Fire, and Gases.
- Procedural Shader generation (SHOPs).
- Procedural 2D Compositing (COPs).
- Softbody Inverse Kinematics & Character / Facial Animation capabilities.
- Organic modelling of plant growth over time via L-systems algorithms.
- Integrated Metabolic, NURBS, and Polygonal Sub-Division Surface modelling.
- Integrated VEX RenderMan-like shading language for mantra Renderer.
- Integrated Scripting and Expression Languages.
- Integrated RenderFarm capabilities.
- Extensive Scripting support in: hscript, tcl, etc.

they've also got an offshoot for doing cool realtime 3D graphics ('TOUCH' - used on the RUSH tour this summer) at:

www.derivativeinc.com

cheers!

john.

I'd rather call you old ;-) AFAIK taxonomic names have, except for in the very early days, been arbritarliy chosen. Especially if genera consist of many species it can be very hard to come up with a useful and descriptive name.

For taxonomic curiosities, see this link.

why is there this stereotype that a 'geek room' has to
be messy and fully of crap?

what about the 'neat geek' ?

i spend endless time at this desk tinkering and working on the computer.
i use a soldering-iron, i've etched my own circuit boards, disassembled
computers and CRTs (replacing analogue boards on a Mac+), and soldered
together with resin-core solder and built a theramin, written code,
built web-sites, ripped tunes, made mixes, read slashdot faithfully,
spent endless hours downloading, archiving, and organising data;
and in every manner possible, have tried to fully integrate technology
in a fully artistic way into my living - there is not a single component that
hasn't had thought put into it -- all here:

GeekRoom-Front.jpg

GeekRoom-Side.jpg

the apparent simplicity and cleanliness of this space belies the
inordinate amount of work that goes into making a well-used geek-room
so spare and uncluttered. there's several hundred CD's, a firewire hard
drive, burner, audio-amplifiers, with USB hubs and surge-protected
powerbar hidden behind the desk (with cables bound together with elastics).
there's a high-power HeNe Laser power supply, coils of wire, soldering iron,
toolkit, VOM and DMM, a scanner, boxes of data CDs and ZIP disks. the
hard drive and burner are neatly stacked in the left and right flanking
drawers under the desk. and to either side are a pair of loudspeakers
for audio work and listening to MP3s. when i undertake to dissassemble a
machine, and get the parts all spread over the desk - the whole METHOD of
doing so is well thought-out, and done with care, so that even in the
procedure, everything is done neatly.

so once again, just because its messy, doesn't make it geek.

there are neat geeks too, which are just as devoted to technology,
and do just as much tinkering as any of you.

best regards,

john

why is there this stereotype that a 'geek room' has to
be messy and fully of crap?

what about the 'neat geek' ?

i spend endless time at this desk tinkering and working on the computer.
i use a soldering-iron, i've etched my own circuit boards, disassembled
computers and CRTs (replacing analogue boards on a Mac+), and soldered
together with resin-core solder and built a theramin, written code,
built web-sites, ripped tunes, made mixes, read slashdot faithfully,
spent endless hours downloading, archiving, and organising data;
and in every manner possible, have tried to fully integrate technology
in a fully artistic way into my living - there is not a single component that
hasn't had thought put into it -- all here:

GeekRoom-Front.jpg

GeekRoom-Side.jpg

the apparent simplicity and cleanliness of this space belies the
inordinate amount of work that goes into making a well-used geek-room
so spare and uncluttered. there's several hundred CD's, a firewire hard
drive, burner, audio-amplifiers, with USB hubs and surge-protected
powerbar hidden behind the desk (with cables bound together with elastics).
there's a high-power HeNe Laser power supply, coils of wire, soldering iron,
toolkit, VOM and DMM, a scanner, boxes of data CDs and ZIP disks. the
hard drive and burner are neatly stacked in the left and right flanking
drawers under the desk. and to either side are a pair of loudspeakers
for audio work and listening to MP3s. when i undertake to dissassemble a
machine, and get the parts all spread over the desk - the whole METHOD of
doing so is well thought-out, and done with care, so that even in the
procedure, everything is done neatly.

so once again, just because its messy, doesn't make it geek.

there are neat geeks too, which are just as devoted to technology,
and do just as much tinkering as any of you.

best regards,

john

why is there this stereotype that a 'geek room' has to
be messy and fully of crap?

what about the 'neat geek' ?

i spend endless time at this desk tinkering and working on the computer.
i use a soldering-iron, i've etched my own circuit boards, disassembled
computers and CRTs (replacing analogue boards on a Mac+), and soldered
together with resin-core solder and built a theramin, written code,
built web-sites, ripped tunes, made mixes, read slashdot faithfully,
spent endless hours downloading, archiving, and organising data;
and in every manner possible, have tried to fully integrate technology
in a fully artistic way into my living - there is not a single component that
hasn't had thought put into it -- all here:

GeekRoom-Front.jpg

GeekRoom-Side.jpg

the apparent simplicity and cleanliness of this space belies the
inordinate amount of work that goes into making a well-used geek-room
so spare and uncluttered. there's several hundred CD's, a firewire hard
drive, burner, audio-amplifiers, with USB hubs and surge-protected
powerbar hidden behind the desk (with cables bound together with elastics).
there's a high-power HeNe Laser power supply, coils of wire, soldering iron,
toolkit, VOM and DMM, a scanner, boxes of data CDs and ZIP disks. the
hard drive and burner are neatly stacked in the left and right flanking
drawers under the desk. and to either side are a pair of loudspeakers
for audio work and listening to MP3s. when i undertake to dissassemble a
machine, and get the parts all spread over the desk - the whole METHOD of
doing so is well thought-out, and done with care, so that even in the
procedure, everything is done neatly.

so once again, just because its messy, doesn't make it geek.

there are neat geeks too, which are just as devoted to technology,
and do just as much tinkering as any of you.

best regards,

john

Its amazing no one ever thought of this before you!

O wait:

It began modestly in 1757 with one small sawmill. Less than 140 years later, Niagara Falls became the world's leading producer of electrical power.

Leo Brodie mentions that Thinking Forth is back in print, and he may be revising Starting Forth.

Oh, one interesting fact, "the .NET version required 14,004 lines of code, while the Java version featured 2,096."

.NET | J2EE
User Interface: 1,002 5,567
Middle Tier: 795 6,187
Data Tier: 197 197
Configuration: 102 2,053
Total: 2,096 14,004

I agree with you thats its a waste of time. The pdf basically says that .NET is far faster, cheaper, and uses fewer lines of code than J2EE. It also says that for best results, you should use .Net 1.1 and Windows.NET Server 2003 (Hmm, is that a version that hasnt been released yet?).

BTW, ive put up a mirror in case thier server crashes:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rgbrenner/j2eedotnetben ch.pdf

there is a nail stuck in a piece of stone for 200 years.
the nail has fused itself into the stone.

there is a glass window pane, it has slowly melted
into a warbled surface, so the light passing through
it and coming into my room is no longer uniform.

the smaller you make it,
the less long it will last.

the 0.20 micron chips will last longer
than the nano-chips made 10 years later.

cheers!
john

John Leo, in US News and World Report, wrote in an article about Postmodernism, "A professor once wrote this about Tonya Harding's attack on Nancy Kerrigan: 'This melodrama parsed the transgressive hybridity of unnarrativized representative bodies back into recognizable heterovisual codes.' Possible English translation: Maybe Tonya had Nancy's leg smashed because she was attracted to her. If so the media wouldn't tell.
The professor was writing in 'pomobabble' - the jargon of postmodernism'..."

The Postmodernism Generator Leo cites in the article (create your own Postmodern article!) has been moved.