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Spin Dizzy's, baby! That's what I'm talking about.

I bought one of (WARNING-POPUP) these http://members.fortunecity.com/videotransfer/# a number of years back for about $30. There are schematics available on the internet for equivalent devices built with half a dozen cheap IC's.

I can't browse these at work to confirm...
The Barbie twins are not work safe. This law is not constitution safe.

http://www.chalo.net/models/barbie.htm
http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/montserrat/213/C elebs/BarbieGal1.html
http://public.logicacmg.com/~photoclub/images/othe rs/claire_lazarus/barbietwins.htm

PS - The one-page version of the article can be found at http://www.eweek.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=18381 8,00.asp

• Flakpanzer 38(t) - "Gepard"
• Sd.Kfz. 234/2 - "Puma"
• RakJPz 2 - "Jaguar"
• Sd.Kfz. 171 - "Panther"
• Sd.Kfz. 181 - "Tiger"
• KPz "Leopard"

This is the regular excuse, but it doesn't really work this way. Students aren't thought to apply critical thinking. They are thought to learn facts and formulas by heart, and to fit a specific mold the educational material has created.

It's not a coincidence that some of the greatest mathematicians of the 20-th century never were good at math in school. Actually Einstein was pretty bad at physics and math in school too.

Our brain has limited capacity[...]

In other words, the more you learn based on a "mold" applied to all students, the more limited you become in your views.

Instead we should be given our options and let us learn organically, based on what we're interested in and what makes sense in the context of each individual. This is how we're built to work.

Apparently though some people think they're smarter and want to force their "wisdom" on the people around them.

I may have to go with that blonde hotness scientist from Deep Blue Sea.

IIRC, that would be Saffron Burrows.

Definitely John Lithgow as Lord John Whorfin aka Dr. Emilio Lizardo! It takes a dedicated mad scientist to attack aligator clips to his own tongue.

http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/gernsback/207 /front5a.jpg

-Don

Have we got a video? Yes we've got a video!

As if proximity to the eyes isn't enough (the optic nerve is really part of the brain), brains need cooling. It would be difficult to adequately cool the brain if it was in the chest surrounded by a large mass of heat producing muscles and organs.

Some reason that cooling advantages of bipedelism permited the rapid growth in brain size of early humsans.

http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/human. html
http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/people/faculty/falk/radp apweb.htm

(These probably aren't the best referencs available but they came up in a quick google)

They forgot a few.

Remember Dylan?

Remember OpenDoc?

Apple //gs? Macintosh TV? eMate? Oh -- the KING of all Apple failures... Apple III?

I think that new sound system they introduced is a dud as well, but maybe the Cult of Mac will buy some.

Companies like Microsoft and Sun have always provided easily de-compiled languages for others to use, and not used them themselves.

(The links provided are just the first listed for the searches ".NET De-compile" and "Java De-compile". There are many de-compilers, and the ones linked are not necessarily the best.)

--
Movie claims overthrow of the U.S. government: Loose Change, 2nd Edition.

We have done a good job (IMHO) of keeping our nuclear power plants relatively safe, but that's mainly because the kid down the street can't build a nuclear power plant.

Tell it to this kid.

Of course, in WW2, it was the misuse of enigma that made it particularily easy to break --- It might only take one weather report to learn the daily subkey. Had Enigma been properly used, it would probably have been nearly unbreakable with WW2 era technology.

some of us have been using GUIs for at over 20 years you know

"From what I understand Octopi are easily smarter than a cat or a dog, so the one in the video might just be trying to play with the lights and thrusters.

I wouldn't go quite that far. Some dogs are pretty damn smart. This page suggests that they learn faster than a rat, but ultimately can't learn a skill as well. Additionally, one of the things that makes us treat dogs as "intelligent" is their ability to understand instructions from us. Octopuses are solitary animals, so they wouldn't have that ability. They're the geeks of the animal world. Wikipedia claims that they are "Suppposedly as smart as the average housecat", but doesn't source the claim.

It decided to come to shore.

http://lavender.fortunecity.com/judidench/584/it_c ame/images/icfb07.jpg

http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/niven/142/img/ rb5001.jpg

Thanks, I totally agree with your statement. Many of the new generation are not aware of what happened during those days. As an owner of a Laser 128 (which I loved to death) I followed with interest Apple's destruction of the many available Apple clones which were out there. Even after that, I purchased an Apple //gs, just to watch Steve Jobs destroy that platform too, as he pitted his own engineers against each other in a ridiculous internal power struggle which eventually killed the //gs. Many of my friends ask me why I won't buy anything from Apple anymore. Well, those are a few reasons why. They have a history of screwing over their customers.

Anyone who thinks Steve Jobs is a nice guy, or is looking out for your welfare is seriously misinformed.

THIS is the real Rembrandt!

"Their" is a plural possessive adjective and should not (in my opinion) be used to refer to a singular antecedent, in this case "copyeditor." Some people have pressed for various neuter singular possessives. None of these have caught on, with the exception of singular they, common in colloquial English. As you point out, it has been common for quite some time.

From a stylistic standpoint, I think using a singular pronoun emphasizes the individuality of the antecedent. I picked feminine because I like women. :-)

First Personal Computer
But if you mean a modern PC (personal microcomputer not sold in kit), it was french and named MICRAL. Ref.

Well, since Unix has *NEVER* had an objective study of it's desktop done, you will make history as a pioneer. Since it's survived so many smear campaigns, yours will, unfortunately, just add to the hot air. What, exactly, is the *point* of such a study, anyway? What does it change? I have yet to read a single such study that swayed my choices one iota.

Sadly, you're off on the wrong foot already. KDE-vs-Gnome. Hey, Dr Kinsey, there's just a few other test subjects you're failing to interview: http://xwinman.org/. So actually, you're flunking already. You are not doing a "Unix desktop study". You are doing a "KDE-vs-Gnome" study, and your results will no more be applicable to Unix in general than a study of Coke-vs-Pepsi would apply to all beverages.

It does not go without saying: Don't be paid Microsoft shills. Don't be paid by *anybody* for that matter.

Now, if I studied dogs, I wouldn't start with everything I know about cats and try to fit it all around that by comparing dogs with cats at every possible point. Similarly, Unix never gets taken as an operating system on it's own right. Everything is instead stated "It is not as good as or just like or better than Microsoft." How about judging something just once based on it's own merit, the way anybody studying anything else is expected to do in any other field? Consider your subject as if other operating systems did not exist. God knows, Microsoft is talked about in this manner.

Unfortunately, the focus will of course be on KDE and Gnome, the Heckyl and Jeckyl whose sole point of contention is "I'M a perfect clone of the Windows environment!" "No, I am!" "No, me!" "NO, ME!" So in fact, you're not the least bit interested in considering even KDE or Gnome on it's own right - this will be a Windows-impersonator contest. Never mind that counting from the invention of computers: http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Babbage.html, computers have been around for one hundred and eighty-two years, and only the last 20 years http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/windows.ht m has seen the existence of a desktop system known as Windows. For a ratio of 0.10989011 of computer's history, you are going to compare the one system whose sole claim is that it made a lot of money in the United States to two other desktops expressly written to mimic it.

I'm really sure the world will be enlightened.

Science Rules!

Heh.. This pretty much sums it up: http://members.fortunecity.com/moondusted/simpsons /Grandpa_bitch.wav

Yeah, just like George W. Bush had to "face the voters" after his abysmal first term and after starting the debacle in Iraq. The same man who considers Intelligent Design a theory as scientifically as valid as Evolution. Who has publically stated his support for teaching "the other side" (Intelligent Design).

...and who was raised by a father who said:

"Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are Atheists?

Bush: No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

Clearly, Apple should have provided guidelines to help keep everyone's iPod Nanos from getting scratched. I guess it falls to me to provide this valuable public service:

1. Do not keep iPod Nano in the same pocket as your keys.
2. Do not run over iPod Nano with your car: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nano.ars/3 .
3. Do not use iPod Nano to scratch off your lottery tickets. Invest in a quarter, instead.
4. Do not keep iPod Nano in the same pocket as your keys, dumbass: http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/tombstone/839/ show/70's_badluck.wav.
5. Do not gnaw nervously on iPod Nano.

and finally...

6. Maybe think about investing in a $20 ultra-thin case for iPod Nano: http://www.speckproducts.com/nano-skintight.html.

FWIW, in my experience, there are two kinds of people in this world. Those who know how to take care of personal electronics and those who casually throw their new toys in with their spare change. I've had the same iPod for almost 2.5 years now. Still runs fine, still without scratches, and I've taken it jogging, biking, to work, to the bathroom, across state lines, etc. I guess some people just can't have nice things.

I don't know the price but since their wristwatches start at around USD$8,000 and go up to over $200k, I suspect you could buy a very nice car for the price. Patek make rolex look like cheap crap (which is mostly true).

Or, as in the infamous McDonalds hot coffee case to which you are perhaps alluding, the company may have known about the problem for years and refused to do anything about it. The details of this case are documented all over the web, and they are quite striking.

See, for example,

http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/vivienne/438/r ants139.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Liebeck
http://friends.macjournals.com/mattd/hotcoffeemyth

Am I the only one who finds it a bit sad that this poor creature got entangled with the bait, and was only able to get away (after several hours) by ripping off a tentacle?

No, you're not the only one. Cephalopods are very interesting and possibly intelligent creatures, and this giant squid amputee certainly has a bigger brain than any of the posters who offhandedly dismiss your empathy (not withstanding the brain matter that has been lost along with its limb--squids' brains extend into their "arms").

Whether or not it would be capable of creating more cogent responses to your post than them is still open to debate.

Googling for "squid intelligence" led me to this very interesting, if inconclusive article. Unfortunately I couldn't find the article posted on any "reputable" online news source... I'm afraid it's probably plagiarized from some print publication. But here's the link:

You can surely find out far more about cephalopods if you are interested... including those articles I've read before which suggest their intelligence rivals those of dogs. And yes, I do feel some empathy when I see a three-legged dog.

Granted while I couldn't agree more that there's no way Topher could possibly match the physique of Venom, I think they were trying to match him with Eddie Brock more than Venom.. They seem to go for a more character based story in these films than a "Throw these guys in costumes and have 'em brawl" approach. And I can see Topher looking like Eddie, but he seriously needs to pack on a few lbs before he's a bad mofo like Venom. That was Venom's appeal, just a big massive badass. Then again, they could always throw someone else in the Venom suit.. I'm on your side on this one, I think he's way too small for the role, but Raimi seems to know what he's doing, Green Goblin, Doc Oc, Hobgoblin, Spidey, all very well cast, even when you initially thought "what the ...!?"

But Wachowski brothers are plagiarists.

Example: http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/niven/142/recy cleb/rb40.html

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - pot head and castaway Gilligan was found dead in his North Carolina hospital room home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy him or Maynard G. Krebs, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

Sorry to say it, but yes Windows IS 20 years old.

http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/windows.ht m

bah...if the bears show up, homer simpson has the solution
funny episode t'was

That's already been done!

For those of you who don't get it, one of the nicknames of the F-16 is "Viper".

Yet another post that won't be seen and enjoyed because of my bad karma....

And I also know that the indicators that suggest a person has BDP are different from the indicators that suggest a person is psychopathic. Both are clinical terms with specific meanings. While there may be overlap between people that meet the criteria for each disorder, if women were truly psychopathic, they would be diagnosed as such alongside the diagnosis of BPD rather than be given the diagnosis of BPD instead of being determined to be psychopathic.

Aluminum? How Space Age. Ultra-modern, Information Age technology demands the return of the Magnesium Alloy cases. And if you douse them in lighter fluid and place them on top of a natural gas burner, they burh quite nicely. ;-)

Where's one's sense of history and perspective?

Berkeley Systems' GeoWorks was in many ways much nicer than Windows, ``run(ing) with a crispness Windows can only dream of on a 386'' (and was quite usable even on a lowly 8086).

http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/geos.htm

VisiOn was tracking quite nicely as well, but was undone by MS FUD.

PenPoint was way cool as well.

and of course, while MS was busy w/ Windows 3.1, NeXT had NeXTStep.

William

I posted an excellent introductory referrence on the subject for someone else like a year ago, but I'm finding it exceedingly frustrating trying to Google a suitable source today. The ultimate refference is a mathematical proof called the Schemata Theorem prooving the exact nature of the effect, but it is littered with obscene equations and obscure terminology and effectively unreadable. There are tons of other sources, but generally still not appropriate for an introductory explanation, and almost universally addressing the practical application of it for genetic algorithms on computers and in a digital realm and leaving the biological signifigance obscure if you don't already understand it.

Perhaps the best introductory refference is the July 1992 Scientific American article "Genetic Algorithms". Hundreds of papers on the subject cite that as a refference, but the article itself does not appear to be online. The Scientific American online archive only goes back to 1993, one year short. [sarcasm] Figures. [/sarcasm]

One of the best online links I found is this one, but I do not really recommend it.

I spend so long Googling and reading through unsuitable refferences that it probably would have been quicker to write the damn thing myself. ARRRG! I think I can explain the concept such that you'll see the logic as self validating, and I can explain it in a very concrete biological setting.

First let me give an almost silly simplified example. Lets say we're talking about frogs. Lets say there's an available mutant ovary gene that puts it into egg-laying overdrive and provides four times as many offspring as normal. Lets say there's mutant behavior gene that causes it to carelessly lay eggs in unprotected places and half the eggs get eaten. Lets say there's mutant heart gene that causes a 25% chance of dying of a heart attack before adulthood.
On average any frog carrying the first gene will have 4 times as many offspring.
On average any frog carrying the second gene will have 0.5 as many offspring.
On average any frog carrying the third gene will have 0.75 as many offspring.

Now lets look at a frog that carries all three genes. If it doesn't die (0.75) it will have (4) times as many eggs that live (0.5) of the time, for an average of 1.5 times as many offspring as usual. This particular frog tested the effect of all three genes in parallel and blended the effects into the single result, the number of offspring it actually has. The fact that the effects are blended does not change the fact that each effect is there and does, within each individual, influence the reproduction of the gene causing each effect. Across the entire population with a variety mixes of genes, each gene will on average have the stated influence on each frog carrying it, independantly of the presence or absence of the other genes.

An individual contributes, in parallel, some effort towards measuring each of its genes. If you have N genes you have N effects contributing in parallel to the final measurement, the number of offspring of this individual. However this is not even the parallelism I am talking about, there is a far larger multiplier to come...

But first we need to define schema (plural schemata). A schema is a pattern, a string that may contain a wildcard in some positions.
The schema ???? would match any four letter word.
The schema t??? would match any four letter word that starts with 't'.
The schema t??t would match any four letter word that starts and ends with 't'.
The schema that would match only the exact word 'that'.

The order of a schema is the number of specified(non-wildcard) positions in the pattern. There are 16 schemata that apply to the word "that".
1 schema of order 4:
that
4 schema of order 3:
tha?
th?t
t?at
?hat
6 schema of order 2:
th??
t?a?
?at?
t??t
?h?t
??at

I want to wake up this morning with 50 hot grits replies to this comment

Natalie apparently has some troubling hot grits here.

This petrified me and I have since lost interest.

Just don't send Steve Buscemi...he'll get the Space Madness again!

Pats kittens? :)

I nominate that quote from Beavis.

Can be heard (for a while) at:
http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/loxwood/38/fir efire.wav

From here.

Let's hope MS Access gets the bid, because I'm pretty sure the #2 contender is evil giant robots. And trust me, that would be a very bad thing, especially for those of us with a few DNA replication errors.

I had never seen the Dark Crystal, so I googled it up. Egads man, you are right!
Billie Piper
Gelfling heroine

Like this?

You got your CD drive's later. CD's existed before 200 MB hard drives. You obviously also don't remember the 1x CD drives that were available earlier. Sure, there were 540 MB drives by 1994, but there were CD drives back in 1987 too. Microsoft Bookshelf came out on CD in 1987. Just because you didn't have one at the time doesn't mean it didn't exist.
http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/reach/435/storag e.html

One very good option is Breadbox Ensemble. If you remember the old GeoWorks this is where it now lives. I have a very old 486 laptop that couldn't even run Win95 on it. I got Breadbox Ensemble running ontop of DOS 7.{whatever} and it's really nice.