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for(int *p=0;;*(p++)=0);

The equivilent code in java would be:
Integer a = NULL;
int b = a.toInt();

Java uses references, not pointers. The difference is twofold: one, if you attempt to dereference a null pointer in java using the code above, you get a well-handled exception which either launches an error routine defined by the programmer or causes the program to terminate politely (as opposed to the messy crash you will get if you pull this in C++). Secondly you cannot do math with references-- with a reference, you can point it to something another reference already points to, or you can point it to a new object, or you can point it to NULL. With a pointer, you can just point it to any old thing anywhere in memory, or even just iterate over memory like the code at the top of this post does, and when you read the any-old-thing in question you'll just get garbage-- but your program will *think* it's reading a valid value, and operate on the garbage as if it was something important. Sometimes this results in catastrophe.

The downside to java's way of doing things is it's a bit simplistic-- you cannot have references to ints, floats, or other "base types" unless you put them inside a "wrapper object". This simplifies coding and reading but is a bit limiting at times.

Note, for the record, in C++, the term "null pointer" generally refers to any pointer that points to garbage-- in practice it doesn't always refer to NULL, which is memory address 0. Perhaps you should read some of the other documents on the "everything2" site i link above-- it has lots of good definitions of things. Hopefully that helps a little :)

super ugly ultraman

John Dean says he will reveal the identity of "Deep Link" in a posting to Everything2 during the premiere showing of Star Wars II: The Clone Wars, Coming to a Theater Near You!.

Choose wisely.

--Blair

-motardo

(and yes, i know that Everything 2 is part of the Keiretsu too.)

-motardo

(and yes, i know that Everything 2 is part of the Keiretsu too.)

Not swearing helps. . . .

It is not the time spent on them if you are just spewing out of your rectum, you have to CONVINCE the other side that you are right.

Think convincing arguments back from your primary education.

What? Weren't paying any attention in Elem/Mid/High school? That could be your problem right there. . . .

Seriously though, my ass capped out at 50 karma soon as I started COMPARING and CONTRASTING Microsoft and Linux, hell I didn't have to go out and bash either one of them, I just had to state how it was (or at least how I saw it and then convince others that is how it was. :) )

Take some basic improv classes, they always help, and then some poetry classes, Blicken Lights always help, even if they are just verbular. (damnit I am having fun bastardizing the English Language tonight.)

And above all else, fuck, just say whatever the hell you want to say, shit some of the idle pure CRAP that I have posted has gotten modded up to +5, even the shit that has been buried four or five layers deep in a thread has gotten modded up before.

Oh yah, and ALWAYS, I repeat, ALWAYS read the article first.

Learn to speed read if you must, trust me, it helps.

Read other comments before you post yours, odds are that witty retort you thought off will get a -2 redudent because it is exactly that, redudent along with the 4 other people above you who have already said it.

It is easier to get a +5 ---> 2 ---> +3 starting a thread, and to get a +4 staying at a +4 replying to an already existing post. You have more of a chance of sounding half assed intellgent if you already let somebody else do the thinking for you, all you have to do is follow the post to its logical conclusion (or even a bit beyond, heh) and then you can pretty much spout off whatever propaganda you want to (great for spreading Memes which is what I see being online as partialy being all about anyways. :) ) and still get modded up + something or other.

Especialy if you restate your base underlying "who the fucking hell could possibly disagree with that" opinion at the end of your post yet again.

Swear less.

Err..

Windows Media Audio

and

Windows Media Video.

Err..

Windows Media Audio

and

Windows Media Video.

A Microsoft executive told a federal judge today that the company should be allowed to make changes in its Windows operating system that impair the performance of other programs so long as the company believes it is acting in the best interest of Windows users.

The US govenment announced that it is now allowed to pass any laws, as long as they are in the best interest of its citizens. Everyone is now very happy (scroll down a bit).

Also, /. should shorten NYTimes, where free registration is required to NYTFRR in its stories. Less space wasted...

Yes, this is almost a copy of this. I'm pretty annoyed about the "Offtopic"...

Link to the write-up, not the node.

The US govenment announced that it is now allowed to pass any laws, as long as they are in the best interest of its citizens. Everyone is now very happy (scroll down a bit).

Also, /. should shorten NYTimes, where free registration is required to NYTFRR in its stories. Less space wasted...

He's going to modify the deflector array to emit a quasi-symmetric graviton polarity beam

All of this sounds like applying a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem

Unless he's going to get the Vorlons to tweak Thabo Mbeki's mind such that he stops believing that AIDS isn't caused by HIV, and starts pursuing a policy to stop AIDS infections.

In fact, I bet there are more evil uses of this technology than there could be benifits.

If you really feel that way, you must have a serious lack of imagination.

Utility Fog is just one of the creative ideas that has been come up with.

Go to the Foresight Institute web site and read Engines of Creation and Unbounding the Future if you want to see how much benefit is possible from molecular machines.

Nanotechnology can pose a great threat to our survival.

Nuclear weapons pose a great threat. Genetic engineering poses a great threat. New technology always brings new dangers along with new benefits.

The fact is, nanotechnology is coming. Attempts to stop it are futile - and will likely result in bringing around the bad effects originally predicted. Trying to stop or slow it isn't the right approach if you want to prevent it from being used in negative ways.

All it takes is one bozo to put an = where he should have put an == to turn the whole planet into grey goo. I've been programming for nearly two decades now, professionally for a decade. I've followed behind other programmers. I would not trust 99.999% of them (Including myself, by the way) to program nanomachines.

If the level of competency of engineers designing molecular machines is that horrid, then, well, we have nothing to worry about.

Molecular machines that would self-replicate out of control isn't exactly an EASY thing to create. It's not like someone making a machine to snatch CO2 molecules from the air will accidentally insert an extra line of code that will make it turn into something that creates grey goo. You have to set out to make such a machine - and there really is no use to making something that will replicate out of control from elements abundant in the environment.

There are multiple BASIC ways to prevent such a scenario - such as using a trace element in the machine that isn't widely available will make sure that you won't have widespread goo.

The nanotech books Engines of Creation and Unbounding the Future, both available on-line at the Foresight Institute, both discuss this issue in detail.

Runaway machines turning all matter into more machines created by accident are a far remote possibility. Now, ones created maliciously are a bit of a different story.

Disasterbation is a useless mental activity you should try to give up.

reminds me of an ornithopter. It's the idea played around by Da Vinci et al. that you could wield mechanical wings and flap around in the sky. Some people tried those things and crushed down pretty badly... just like this fscking processor that's yet another extension to sux86!

If only the personal papers of Roger Bacon (1214-1294) had survived

If they had, forget anything so outrageously expensive as $600, we would be able to build one of these solely using 13th century clockwork technology, and it would give us useful advice to boot

Umberto Eco (best know for his novel "The Name of the Rose") is a professor of semiotics. (Semiotics could be defined as the study of symbol systems and their interpretation, or a better definition). "Symbol systems and interpretation" - sound familiar? Our dear Professor of Theobiology is all about finding 'hidden meanings' and 'concealed connections'! Pokemon=evolution! chmod+base 8=satan! Steve Jobs' reality distortion field "mind control"(hmm, maybe he has a point on that last one... ;^) )

In his novel "Foucault's Pendulum" he tells the story of a publishing house editor who gets way in over his head working on a project on books on the occult. He and his friends keep finiding more and more wild connections between elements that at first seem unrelated, but when put together form a wild web. (If you read it, don't get bogged down in the hundreds of names, most aren't that important) Because the characters are willing to form connections between things that aren't really proveable, their world turns into a madhouse of hidden meanings and sinister powers. Sound familiar? Our dear Professor of Theobiology lives in just such a world.

For a more in depth (but not too dry) look at how and why connections between ideas should (and shouldn't) be made, look at Eco's essay "Interpretation and Overinterpretation" (A little more at this link). Basically, Eco is reacting to the excesses that can take place in the academic world.

This brings us back to our Professor of Theobiology. In "The Name of the Rose", Eco used the conflict between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance to illustrate the distinction between two different modes of thought. The medieval monks were trapped in their way of thinking - full of hidden meanings and sinister connections. In contrast, the protagonist used reason and science to deal with the problems at hand (a series of murders).

All in all, it's rather frightening that here in the 21st century we're still trying to deal with the Taliban and our Professor of Theobiology.

That's nothing. I accidentally repeated myself four times in the chat window at Everything2, and five minutes later found every one of my writeups voted down to zero.

No point in complaining, though - they're imaginary points handed out by anonymous nobodies, after all. Keep whor^H^H^H^Hposting, I'm sure we'll both make twenty-five karma in no time.

Either way, you can count yourself the luckiest man alive that you just made two points with a story submission complaint. ;)

Here's some poetry I wrote about the demise of the Lone Gunmen's series in 2001.

I doubt he'll be needing it anymore.

Secondly, we're in full agreement that if the DCMA would/does prohibit the discussion of circumvention that would be/is unconsititutional.

Well, it may merely be narrowly constructed, which means that the rest of the law holds, but the part which is unconstitutional is interpreted in a way which makes it constitutional.

And thirdly, I only left out words because I was being lazy (and couldn't figure out how to copy/paste from the pdf)

In the future you might want to try "http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/ch12.html". Just a suggestion, not a complaint.

You seem to agree that the omitted words only restrict the paragraphs in question to cases where there is no circumvention of technological measures of copy protection.

As far as strict legal meaning, the omitted words don't really matter in our discussion, because the paragraph was of the form "You may", not "You may not". But the implication you were making was that there was already something in the law saying that you may not make information available to others, while the quoted text was referring to the rule that you may not reverse engineer, thus circumventing technological measures.

So the only point in question is: does copying DVDs involve the circumvention of technological measures?

Strictly, bit copying does not, but I don't see how that matters. Copying DVDs is already illegal under copyright infringement laws. Telling people how to copy DVDs is not (unless you are directly and knowingly profiting and thus can be found guilty under conspiracy or contributory copyright infringement laws).

P.S. My base belief that the DMCA prohibits discussion of means of circumvention comes, not from reading the law itself, but from a variety of published sources, e.g. the book "Digital Copyright."

Sure, it's a common strawman argument used against the DMCA. You misrepresent the actual law, then you use that misrepresentation to knock the law down.

If you want to attack the DMCA, you should attack the things the DMCA actually does. Distributing DeCSS over the internet is illegal. Creating and distributing software to crack Adobe copyright protections is illegal. Presenting a speech on how to break anti-piracy technologies (a la Felton) is not.

The children were sorely disappointed when the machine wouldn't acknowledge their parent-induced handicaps such as missing limbs and blindness.

When it comes to the Internet, blindness is a handicap (now that much of the web is moving to Flash and that Flash MX's accessibility features have not come into wide use), but not having legs isn't nearly as much of a handicap, especially when you can prop yourself up and use the computer that way.

my writeup on Provigil from Everything2:

Provigil, also known by its generic name of modafinil, is a wakefulness-promoting agent for the treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness. It is prescribed primarily for the treatment of EDS in persons with narcolepsy.

For nearly fifty years, the only medications available to treat narcolepsy were high-abuse-potential, amphetamine-based drugs such as Dexedrine and Ritalin. Unlike traditional stimulants, Provigil does not mediate wakefulness by a dopaminergic mechanism; furthermore, it is (also unlike amphetamine/methylphenidate) highly selective to the anterior hypothalamus, a region of the brain believed to regulate normal wakefulness.

Provigil improves one's ability to stay awake and participate in daily activities. In one study, its efficacy (measured using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale was documented at 20%, versus 7% placebo (p<0.001).

It works.

Throughout my life (since age seven), I've suffered fainting spells, depression, and even seizures, all of which had a hugely negative impact on both my grades and my social life - and which went undiagnosed until age twenty, when a correct diagnosis of narcolepsy brought medication and treatment. The medication has had a profoundly positive effect - I can concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time, can stay awake and alert for more than just an hour or two, can study and retain knowledge - all things that the disease had debilitating effects on for nearly all of my life. I do not feel it to be an exaggeration to say that much of my academic, social, and emotional life before Provigil was more representative of the disease than of my own personality and intellect.

sleep 2 hours a day and feel great

I'm REALLY curious about trying that new sleep pattern, but oddly enough, I don't have the time to try it!

To my mind E2 and h2g2 are two such projects, attempting to "contain absolutely everything worth knowing about anything." Look at those to see what this encyclopaedia might look like.

If you're not so keen on that, then tell us - who would you have moderate and index this encyclopaedia? What criteria would you use to screen a potential moderator? Do you have more right than, say, someone from Yemen to choose these things?

It's a fine idea, and a useful one. The bitch is in the implementation.

Or an in-browser app that automatically Google-linked everything in a page? Like M$'s proposed auto-linking, but populist. True hypertext.

Good luck! Don't count on feeling lucky d;-)

But these "contracts" are almost never written. They are decrees delivered from the raised dais of management, usually in the form of a memo.

True, but most people don't have real employment contracts at all. Usually employers can fire employees for any non-discriminatory reason, and at most all they get is two weeks severance pay. If you want to be able to speak freely and still keep your job, you need to get that put into your employment contract.

To expect to isolate someone from all "personal" conversations during the work day is an unjust exercise of control, basically for the sake of control. It really has next to nothing to do with the company or the work.

Possibly, although there are certainly some circumstances where allowing any unaudited outside communication is dangerous. But the point is that you chose that job. No one is forcing you to work there.

It certainly doesn't give the employer the right to the contents of that conversation.

Unless your employment contract that you signed says that the company reserves to right to record any communication you send over their network (or some lawyerly version of that).

For most of the people in this country, a job is a necessity.

Sure, but a job in a particular industry, let alone a particular company, is not a necessity. If you and your coworkers aren't good at negotiating employment contracts, maybe you should think about hiring someone else to negotiate your employment contracts for you.

No person, employer or otherwise, should be empowered, either by necessity or choice, to deny the basic rights of another person.

What are these basic rights exactly? It seems to me like you've made just about every contract illegal.

If you want to have rights in this society, you have to stand up for them. There are still good places to work here in the United States. They may not pay as well as selling your soul to the company (who are waiting there to sell plasticware), but for some people it's well worth the cut in pay to gain the increase in personal freedom.

Some people don't like the idea of being told that they can't copy music they created or others have made freely available.

"They created"? Eventually, it'll become impossible to write new songs. United States courts have defined copyright infringement on a musical work as the use of a "substantially similar" melody of at least four consecutive notes that are substantially similar to the melody of a copyrighted musical work. Given that there are only about 36,000 possible runs of four notes under a possible model of the "substantially similar" standard (transpose melodies to start on middle C, fold rests into previous note, fold notes outside an 11-note range inward an octave, quantize durations to short/medium/long, last note is always long), I'm afraid that the day will come when composers will no longer be able to write new music without accidentally stepping on a copyright.

Ok, one letter in favor of the Hollings bill, thousands and thousands opposed. That'll win 'em over...

Make that ten million dollars in favor of the Hollings bill and ten thousand opposed.

There is so many different ways of trying to explain NGE. Is it Foucault's Pendulum with mechas? Is it the Red Chamber Dream with Hebrew cosmology instead of Buddhist? Or is it just a heap of anime cliches? I still don't know, and I am a pretty dedicated Eva-no-Otaku. But I tried to explain it here:

Why I love Neon Genesis Evangelion

I believe the hulls are actually more traditional GRP composites, its just that usually when a boat reaches around 50 foot long you normally build in steel because whilst GRP and similar is great for small light hulls, it gets progressively more difficult to fabricate as the size goes up.

The UK Navy minesweeper fleet was nick named the Tupperware Fleet - Presumably RubberMaid Fleet elsewhere!

Ferrocement Hulls (to give them thier proper name) were reasonably common for 'home build'. You form the hull using a matrix of steel rods and then usually 'spray' the concrete into this matrix, effectively giving you a cast reinforced concrete hull. Whilst these are strong, they are bulkier than steel hulls and can shatter/crack in impacts where steel would just bend or split. These sort of hulls can be quite large, and the concrete sets into a single very strong monocoque structure.

Whilst ferocement hulls do sound wierd, heavier than water steel hulls still work - what is important is that the hull wieghs less than the volume of the water it displaces (Archemedies Principal)

What is wierd is 'floating concrete' that looks like a fine matrix breeze(UK)/cinder(US) building block, but floats because it is mainly air - freaky when you pick the block up and it weighs so little!!!

Best line from Total Recall:

Ahahaha! You think this is the real Quaid? It is!. I also kinda like "See you at the party, Richter".

Tesla's autobiography is up on E2.

That's pretty interesting. I'd never heard of that before!
Godwin's Law

See E2 lag problems and (potential) solutions for why...

"Stupid bots
One perl script written without any sleep()s in it can take up more resources than 100 normal users. They can be auto-noders, auto-linkers, personal statistics managers, chatter-bots, etc etc. Also, a wide array of data-harvester bots have visited us, and the only one allowed to stay is Google's. Once detected, they're fairly easy to weed out -- via IP's, User Agents, query patterns, etc -- but until then they can ruin the party."

Tom.

So I run Teoma searches for Everything, Everything 2, and E2. None of them finds the site I'm looking for. On the other hand, Google searches for Everything, Everything 2, and E2 leave me Feeling Lucky.

Nathan, this is unacceptable.

So I run Teoma searches for Everything, Everything 2, and E2. None of them finds the site I'm looking for. On the other hand, Google searches for Everything, Everything 2, and E2 leave me Feeling Lucky.

Nathan, this is unacceptable.

Okay, we all hate ads. Animated banner ads are a shameless attempt to burn a little ad-shaped hole in your brain, dumping their talentless, artless ad copy right down your optic nerve and into your delicate brain. But let's face it, a lot of websites which could not ordinarily afford to exist are paid for in this manner.

Also, for those who remember the web before search engines, you know, in that supposed golden age, you couldn't FIND anything. I mean, it usually looked like there wasn't that much content out there, but I doubt that was ever true, at least once the universities started taking it seriously, well ahead of everyone else. You could have a good time browsing around, but if you wanted information on a specific topic you had to get lucky, or follow an awful lot of links.

Let's especially not forget the fact that google caches things, so as long as people put their information in ordinary HTML (A trend which is becoming less and less common these days) google will hang onto the data for some time, making the web more persistent.

Sure, commercialization hurts, but someone has to pay for all this bandwidth, all these sites, the hosting... Suck it up. Enjoy the fact that all you have to pay for is your connection. It's worth remembering that access outside of a university or corporation used to be hellishly expensive. Compu$erve charged by the minute, and didn't even have internet access for the longest time, though there was internet mail.

So it's cheaper and faster today than it's ever been. There's more content, useful and not, and more search engines (though google is the only one I use any more, since they're least offensive and most useful) to find information inside of it. Sure, the fact that any asshole can put together a webpage means there's more useless crap, but it also means you have access to data you wouldn't otherwise see.

And for those who cannot find anything to read on the web: Become involved in a community site. Slashdot is just one example, and perhaps not the best, because it's (ostensibly) news-driven. That, plus a blip on the radar every time Katz squats and squeezes out another pearl. But there are sites like Everything2 which can keep you busy for many hours if you're possessed of the necessary pedanticism. Hell, even livejournal can hold your interest.

In general, whiners need to spend their time developing content. I like E2 because it's a resource which can help people well into the future, and which helps me now. I also develop my own content; I run one of the larger drinking game sites on the internet (hyperlogos.org) which I should really spend more time on, but I'm too busy putting work into E2 :)

More pages, more search engines, more content, faster connections. When I started using webpages, modems were the standard, and MANY MANY sites were on nothing faster than a 28.8k modem, including The Circus where I lived - And we had a Class C from scruz.net at the time. :)

If you want to make nice, solid, constantly evolving software, go with Open-Source. Otherwise, if you're like the rest of the worl, you'll want to make money along with nice software (hopefully). Then, you'll go wtih Closed-Source proprietary, patented software.

The problem with patented software is that the patents that the USPTO has issued in the last 20 years are so d*ng broad that instead of "promot[ing] the progress of science and useful arts," they have precisely the opposite effect. For instance: data compression by dynamically building a character-to-string dictionary? Patent 4,558,302. Falling blocks puzzle game whose goal is to remove a specified initial set of colored or shaded blocks from the playfield (in other words, B-type Columns)? Patent 5,265,888. Image analysis by blocks against a smaller version of the same image? Patent 5,065,447. Heck, even topological sorting and XOR drawing were once patented in the U.S.

And don't count on waiting for the patents to expire. Just as Hollywood managed to get a Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act passed with tons of soft money and (possibly mandatory) individual contributions, watch the pharmaceutical industry propose a Cherilyn LaPierre Patent Term Extension Act.

Sure there are a small set of notes, and only so many ways you can arange any two notes in any tempo. After two notes, it is all in the arrangement, and composition.

The Yes! We have no bananas! case set the precedent that four notes is enough to get a songwriter sued in the United States. Given that there are only about 30,000 ways to combine four notes in the Western music theory (reply if you want a more detailed explanation of the math), it appears that the only reason songwriters haven't exhausted the melody space is that the big "all your right are belong to us" publishers have entered into cross-licensing agreements with one another. This is part of why you should write your legislators and request a repeal of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

Sure there are a small set of notes, and only so many ways you can arange any two notes in any tempo. After two notes, it is all in the arrangement, and composition.

The Yes! We have no bananas! case set the precedent that four notes is enough to get a songwriter sued in the United States. Given that there are only about 30,000 ways to combine four notes in the Western music theory (reply if you want a more detailed explanation of the math), it appears that the only reason songwriters haven't exhausted the melody space is that the big "all your right are belong to us" publishers have entered into cross-licensing agreements with one another. This is part of why you should write your legislators and request a repeal of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

"I never said you need TinkerTool to see file extensions..."

So, let me get this straight; you mentioned TinkerTool, totally unrelatedly, to make people think you had heaps of OS X experience? Bravo, genius. I have friends that were using TT after owning a Mac for 4 hours. For the record, it's no elite secret guru tool.

"just like you thought I didn't have or know (i could) how to turn on file extensions..."

Perhaps if your writing didn't portray you as an idiot, people wouldn't treat you that way?

"hey I even have a nice toolbar that I set up the way I want..."

Woah dude, your skills just keep sounding better and better! Do you mean you've found the legendary VersionTracker? Wow, I thought a site full of applications and utilities to make Mac OS X do extra things was nothing more then an absurd liberal myth.

"after all you just might learn something..."

The only thing you're teaching is how to use too many full stops in one post.

"I am more than willing to bet I have used OS X far longer than you... heck I go back to the Server X 1.0 days..."

/me glances at his NeXT Cube, then at you, then back at his NeXT Cube.

Whatever dude, whatever you want to think. There are people out there with more experience with you, just remember that.

As for your .sig

"Linux users are usually confused; they adopt Linux because it's popular "and cool" and hide their ignorance."

Ignorance hides best behind knowledge. You lack knowledge, and try hiding behind poorly written drivel instead.

I personally have not used a Linux system for well over a year, but I find your .sig to describe yourself more then the Linux admins I know.

Next time you feel like insulting people, try getting out in the real world sometime. Oh, and brushing up on your writing skills wouldn't be the worst thing you could do either.

How about bogo-sort? I especially like the variant where "... Implementation of step 2 is left as an exercise for the reader"

...I got you babe...

The site's featured track is for the movie Groundhog Day, which repeatedly plays a song by Sonny and Cher (stage name of Salvatore Bono and Cherilyn LaPierre), both of whom have voiced support for perpetual copyright.

If you want to watch the movies dubbed on the site without the revenue from your DVD purchases supporting the political agenda of Hollywood, then for every dollar you spend on entertainment, make a matching contribution to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (I'm a card-carrying member myself.)

[Alternatives to Slashdot:] Everything2.com

Everything 2 is more like Wikipedia than it is like Slashdot.
Read more: Is E2 just like Slashdot?

Juro5hin.com

You mean Kuro5hin.org. If you really want a first post, take your time; you have 20 seconds, after all.

By the way, if you cross K5 with a bit of E2, you get .5e.

[Alternatives to Slashdot:] Everything2.com

Everything 2 is more like Wikipedia than it is like Slashdot.
Read more: Is E2 just like Slashdot?

Juro5hin.com

You mean Kuro5hin.org. If you really want a first post, take your time; you have 20 seconds, after all.

By the way, if you cross K5 with a bit of E2, you get .5e.

This certainly smacks of pseudoscience. It's not the fact that it claims a new effect (not previously accepted by mainstream science) that makes is pseudoscience. It's the fact that details are light, confirming independant work is non-existant, and primarly the fact that they jump to the most outlandish conclusion first. In real scientific work, you first rule out all the explainations based on previously understood phenomina before you claim you've found a new phenominon. Also, you don't try to present new, only marginally accepted (or completely unaccepted) theories as incontrivertable fact. This "build your own" site seems to give sketchy details about the science and experimental details and claims completely unaccepted theories as fact. That is why they are pseudoscientific. No reasonable effort has been made to rule out other explainations.

I'll also point out that no matter what crazy mechanism you claim for the drive, the idea of it being reactionless would violate conservation of momentum, something which NO other theory does and which goes against common sense; thus, it would require extraordinary proof, which is not provided. I mean, for one thing, they could simply have tested the thing in an air-tight enclosure set on a scale, measuring weight. If it was truely "reactionless", then when the device took off, its weight would be effectively gone and the system inside the enclosure would get lighter. They haven't shown this, and I have a good idea why. Sounds unreasonable, doesn't it?

In actuality, I think this is, as others have observed, an ion drive of a sort. The high potential between the foil and the wire on the device cause charge distribution on the foil, causing the part of the foil at the bottom of the craft to accumulate a bulk of negative charge. The fact that it's a sharp edge (thin foil), makes it easy disipate this charge by releasing ions there. There are many classroom science demos that demonstrate this with a high voltage applied to a sharp metal point. They claim it's amazing that it still works in vacuum, but it really isn't. As long as it's attached to an external power supply, the power supply feeds in charge which is used essentially as a propellant. Even without an external power supply, as long as ions of the opposite charge are also released, in order to avoid a net charge. Ion drives have been used for thrusters in space for a while now.

Now that explaination may be wrong. Explaining it isn't the point. The point is, I wouldn't beleive it's antigravity or anything similar until I'm satisfied that all mundane explainations have been ruled out. Jumping to that conclusion is just pseudoscience. Keep an open mind, but not so open that you let your brain fall out.

This certainly smacks of pseudoscience. It's not the fact that it claims a new effect (not previously accepted by mainstream science) that makes is pseudoscience. It's the fact that details are light, confirming independant work is non-existant, and primarly the fact that they jump to the most outlandish conclusion first. In real scientific work, you first rule out all the explainations based on previously understood phenomina before you claim you've found a new phenominon. Also, you don't try to present new, only marginally accepted (or completely unaccepted) theories as incontrivertable fact. This "build your own" site seems to give sketchy details about the science and experimental details and claims completely unaccepted theories as fact. That is why they are pseudoscientific. No reasonable effort has been made to rule out other explainations.

I'll also point out that no matter what crazy mechanism you claim for the drive, the idea of it being reactionless would violate conservation of momentum, something which NO other theory does and which goes against common sense; thus, it would require extraordinary proof, which is not provided. I mean, for one thing, they could simply have tested the thing in an air-tight enclosure set on a scale, measuring weight. If it was truely "reactionless", then when the device took off, its weight would be effectively gone and the system inside the enclosure would get lighter. They haven't shown this, and I have a good idea why. Sounds unreasonable, doesn't it?

In actuality, I think this is, as others have observed, an ion drive of a sort. The high potential between the foil and the wire on the device cause charge distribution on the foil, causing the part of the foil at the bottom of the craft to accumulate a bulk of negative charge. The fact that it's a sharp edge (thin foil), makes it easy disipate this charge by releasing ions there. There are many classroom science demos that demonstrate this with a high voltage applied to a sharp metal point. They claim it's amazing that it still works in vacuum, but it really isn't. As long as it's attached to an external power supply, the power supply feeds in charge which is used essentially as a propellant. Even without an external power supply, as long as ions of the opposite charge are also released, in order to avoid a net charge. Ion drives have been used for thrusters in space for a while now.

Now that explaination may be wrong. Explaining it isn't the point. The point is, I wouldn't beleive it's antigravity or anything similar until I'm satisfied that all mundane explainations have been ruled out. Jumping to that conclusion is just pseudoscience. Keep an open mind, but not so open that you let your brain fall out.

I am a troll so I won't attempt to give you some clues on the mother's health or even the fact that these docs actually suggest but don't force the mothers to act in any way that would actually shock them.

I am sure they have some good reasons for such suggestions. Nestle doesn't gain a significant part of its revenue, there.

Maybe some fame at all.

But I like the fact you expect somebody to change your mind.

Now, if you want to be scared of something, just try this or this.

Now tell me, are Nestle *that* evil ???

FUCK THE MODERATORS !!!
DO NOT MOD ME UP OR I'LL FLAMEBAIT UNTIL I GET TO -1 AGAIN!!!

Me too, until I got a Cease and Desist order from the Tetris company!

As long as you don't call it TETRIS®, you should be fine. Games in and of themselves cannot be copyrighted, and falling tetrominoes aren't patented in the US or the EU. Call it something weird like BinaryBlocks Game or freepuzzlearena or something, and The Tetris Company will have no grounds for a trademark lawsuit. Sorry Henk...

> While the age of consent in many states is 18, it isn't uniform for all 50 states. It's 16 for several states, and some have conditions, such as 17, but 14 if you're less than 5 years apart.

The site you mentioned (ageofconsent.com) didn't mention the 5 years apart bit, so I'll try and explain it. In some states it is an exception, in others it is a defense (NOT an exception).

In Oregon, ORS 163.345 says that if the only reason consent could not be obtained was because of age, then "it is a defense the actor was less than three years older than the victim at the time of the alleged offense." (Also note that this does not apply to rape in the first degree (ORS 163.375), where the victim is under 12.)

In states such as Oregon, statutory rape is statutory rape regardless of the age of the other actor (and both actors can be charged if they're both under the legal age of consent). What you're talking about is age as a defense. According to my criminal law teacher, this means that the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove the age difference.

Maryland's law surprised me (since everything is a crime in Maryland). While actually getting to the text is a challenge, you can try this. Anyway, article 27, section 463 defines second degree rape. Subsection three (3) says "a person is guilty of rape if the person engages in vaginal intercourse with another person who is under 14 years of age and the person performing the act is at least four years older than the victim." So, I guess, it *is* an exception in Maryland.

Hope that clears this up a little...

(disclaimer: IANAL. I took a criminal law class in high school... oh, and I was in mock trial)

Pinocchio does not belong to Disney!

I knew that, but Disney's Pinocchio does belong to Disney. The last non-Disney feature film to feature Pinocchio (that is, New Line's The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996) starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas as the wooden boy, which incidentally stayed closer to the novel than Disney's version did) flopped at the box office because American consumers do not want Pinocchio; they want Disney's Pinocchio.

I dare you to name one good Disney movie that they didn't rip off from someone else

Fantasia.