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Related links: * LDX@MIT
* Physics of magnetically confined fusion [pdf]
* The main principles of magnetic fusion
* Magnetic fusion experiments at LANL
* High density magnetic fusion
* Has a good bit on magnetic confinement
* Can a magnetic field be used to contain plasma?
* International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
* What's happening in fusion?
* Design of magnetic fields for fusion experiments [pdf]
* Wikipedia article on the topic
* Magnetized target fusion bibliography
* Plasma physics bibliography
* Databases for plasma physics

* Plasma physics laboratories
* List of plasma physicists
* Plasma on the internet

I purchased the book after reading this recent slashdot thread, where I believe Mr. O' Reilly mentioned it himself. My degrees are literature and poetry, so I probably have a slightly different aesthetic than most programmers. I'm leisurely working my way through the book and enjoying it. Most the examples provided don't strike me as breathtakingly beautiful so much as intelligent solutions to interesting problems.

One example I do find beautiful, after reading some of the explications of it, was this one mentioned a while back on slashdot:

Origin of Quake3's Fast InvSqrt()

I also find the algorithm here beautiful insofar as it elegantly solves a challenging problem that I was working on commonly faced by accountants:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Garage/3323 /aat/a_diop.html#diophant

By the way, for truly poetic code, see the works of Kay Ryan. Or Spenser's Faerie Queene.

They used fractal algorithms to generate terrain lifeforms, minerals, and in fact the whole universe.
Starflight I and II were written in Forth, using a custom compiler. Here is some old design documentation from Starflight.
It's interesting stuff.

I am in fact recreating the game (or, rather a game much like it using entirely original content) using many similar algorithms.
Check out my webpage.

Does anybody remember Starflight 1 and 2? Whole galaxies full of believable-enough planets fit on two 360KB floppy disks. Did these games do something similar to what the author of this article is still desperately trying to comprehend?

I don't want to start the everlasting monolithic/microkernel flame war up again, but I think it's pretty clear that it's only the pace at which hardware has advanced in the last decade or so that has allowed Linux to continue monolithically.

There's a lot to be said for the microkernel architecture, and if Moore's Law ever does start to level off, then I think we're going to see a move away from monolithic designs for good. It's just not practical to keep stuffing more features into a monolithic kernel if you're not constantly getting more and more memory to run it on, and only a very small body of users can be expected to ever compile their own. (True, you can always recompile a specialized version of a monolithic kernel, ripping out all the stuff you don't need, but this is a PITA and it only becomes harder as the thing gets bigger.)

Along with probably most other Linux users, I've always wondered how things would be if Tanenbaum had released MINIX under a free license earlier in the game (Torvalds has said at several points that had MINIX been more free, he probably would have simply modified it, keeping its architecture, but since Tanenbaum had no interest in "turn[ing] MINIX in BSD UNIX" [1]...the rest, of course, is history.)

Or perhaps more interestingly, what would have happened if a free version of BSD had been produced for low-end hardware just a little earlier than it actually was. (In reality, 386BSD came out in a working form in July 1992 [so sayeth Wikipedia], nine months after the first Linux release, and 4.4BSDLite didn't come out until '94 [2].) It seems to me that had "real UNIX" been available for low-end systems in the early 90s, much of the impetus to create a from-scratch clone would have disappeared. (Although, maybe not; perhaps the philosophical differences that drive Linux and the BSDs in different directions would have eventually caused a from-scratch rewrite.)

Ultimately I don't think either alternative would really have brought us out at much of a different place than we are right now, at least from an end-user's perspective; the majority of users don't really care about kernels as such anyway. But it's always fun to play 'what-if,' as long as one keeps in mind that although it's easy to fixate on how things could be better, it could always be far, far worse.

[1] Great archive of Torvalds / Tanenbaum Usenet discussions here. There's so much ego going on there, from both sides, ASCII text can barely contain it...
[2] I'm partial to fellow Slashdotter connorbd's BSD History, which is a good primer.

an interesting read
http://www.geocities.com/Berlet_archive/virgin.htm

I'd like to read the book soon.

http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/dnaid.htm

I've got a much shorter write up, but the idea could support a book-length description as well as a revolution in political economy.

WHY RE-INVENT THE WHEEL?

I re-implemented getopt, getopt_long, and getopt_long_only because there were noticable bugs in several versions of the GNU implementations, and because the GNU versions aren't always available on some systems (*BSD, for example.) Other systems don't include any sort of standard argument parser (Win32 with Microsoft tools, for example, has no getopt.)

I tried NoScript with Firefox in my knoppix remaster. Had to take it out, too much trouble to use Firefox with the NoScript extension, for the average user. Does work, however, and if you are enough of a geek, you'll get used to it. I doubt NoScript is needed with a livecd linux, but would be useful for Windows. Would turn the tables on "desktop adoption".
A linux desktop with Firefox such as I provide in the Remaster, is much easier to live with for non-techie users, compared to a Windows desktop with Firefox/NoScript.

Rapidweather

The solution to free market whack jobs -- really just private sector rent-seekers -- isn't public choice rent-seeking; it is to collect and then redistribute all economic rent -- that cannot be allocated to their true source as positive externalities (PE's like public domain technologies) -- equally to all segments of society. Anything else creates positive feedback loops that cut out positive sum innovators from the system.

At the end of my political activism that's what I had settled on as the solution and then wrote a white paper analyzing the consequences of the policy at the macro and microeconomic levels.

Non-innovative rent seekers are the problem, whether in the public or private sectors. When I say "the problem" I mean it -- they could quite possibly fry the biosphere.

If you want to convert an old cabinet, there are much easier solutions. Ultimarc, for example, produces several products that convert standard JAMMA interfaces to PC keyboard and video connections...Ultimarc's products, though, appear to allow for the joystick and buttons on a JAMMA cabinet to connect to a PS/2 interface and for the video connector to hook to VGA (refresh and resolutions on arcade machines are different from standard computer modes). They even sell an AGP or PCIe video card that appears to have a special RAMDAC so that you don't have to screw around with getting the weird video modes working....I've never used Ultimarc's stuff, so I have no idea how well it would work. Assuming it's decent, the formula would be pretty simple:

It all works very well indeed. I have an IPAC interface, an ArcadeVGA card, a video amplifier and an UltraStick 360 (USB arcade-style joystick mappable to analogue). This went into a two-player six button Electrocoin cabinet along with a P800, speakers and a wireless adapter for remote admin. The ArcadeVGA allows direct connection to a 15Khz monitor such as the Hanterax 9000 that came with my Electrocoin - no messing around. Resoldering the buttons to connect to the IPAC was easy, and the default IPAC controls map to the default MAME key configurations as well. Top it all off with a MAMEWah front end and my home arcade machine is doing very well for itself.

My only gripe isn't with Ultimarc, it's with the speakers I chose. They have excellent sound quality, no problem there, but they need switching by pressing two buttons simultaneously. I'd like to find some good speakers that can be left in an on position constantly, and will just react to whether power is being supplied or not. All suggestions welcome.

The other thing I'd like is a driver for the ArcadeVGA under Linux. At the moment my home arcade is based on Windows 2000 - the only install of Windows in the house, bar a virtual one I use for running Quicken. I'd like to move over to a Linux solution, but I've read mixed things about the ArcadeVGA under Linux. It works, but there appears to be an amount of faff getting the right resolutions recognised and avoiding that is exactly why I bought an ArcadeVGA in the first place.

All in all though - Ultimarc make excellent products which make refitting a cabinet into a MAME box an entirely straight forward affair. The owner has also been helpful advising me on a few things too. No connection, just a satisfied customer.

Cheers,
Ian

The proximate cause was that despite there being an obvious direction in place subsequent to the space race (remember the Apollo program?) that could have been followed through to space industrialization -- the launch service industry did not enjoy the same protection from government competition that the satellite industry enjoyed:

* (c) Private enterprise; access; competition

In order to facilitate this development and to provide for the widest possible participation by private enterprise, United States participation in the global system shall be in the form of a private corporation, subject to appropriate governmental regulation. It is the intent of Congress that all authorized users shall have nondiscriminatory access to the system; that maximum competition be maintained in the provision of equipment and services utilized by the system; that the corporation created under this chapter be so organized and operated as to maintain and strengthen competition in the provision of communications services to the public; and that the activities of the corporation created under this chapter and of the persons or companies participating in the ownership of the corporation shall be consistent with the Federal antitrust laws.

It wasn't until 1990, when a coalition of grassroots groups across the country lobbied hard for 3 years, that similar legislation got passed for launch services.

The fact that Malthusian paradigm didn't precisely follow the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" model doesn't change the reality of the Malthusian paradigm given a fundamentally limited biosphere undergoing its largest extinction event in 60 million years. The Club of Rome merely added academic fashion to the urgency of the Malthusian situation still facing the biosphere. The 1970s was the right time to start the drive for space industrialization based on a private launch service industry. It didn't happen, the pioneering culture that founded the US is being replaced by government policy with less pioneering cultures and now we're all facing some increasingly obvious difficulties -- not just pioneer American stock -- and not just humans.

The cost of getting silicon into space from the lunar surface would be orders of magnitude less than launching from earth due not only to the much shallower gravity well but also due to the absence of atmosphere.

No beanstalk needed.

At worst a Dyneema Rotovator might be needed but probably not even that.

First, the bulk of the materials are manufactured in space from lunar raw material transported to orbital facilities so you don't need to land those facilities on the lunar surface, and you don't have to worry about g-loading the raw materials you are sending to the orbital facilities.

Second, you don't manufacture everything in space -- only bulky materials like solar cells, reflectors, structural members and perhaps klystrons. Only residual materials (raw and manufactured) are of terrestria

From my collection:
* Nanotechnology information [archived] [2002]
* Bibliography of nanotechnology and nanoscience [pdf] [2004]
* Brad Hein's nanotechnology website
* Ned Seeman's DNA nanotech bibliography
* MEMS/nanotech reading list
* Even more publications in nanotechnology
* sci.nano archives
* The open micro/nano-manufacturing project
* Nanotech in scifi

And if anybody has links on nanomechanical synthesis, that'd be much appreciated. IIRC, nanolithography is one of the main areas of development, along with nonlinear optics to get the required precision manufacturing.

In Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, my livecd linux distro, I always set up Firefox _not_ to remember passwords.
I put Firefox 2.0.0.5 in the Remaster just last week.
Also, when the user closes Firefox, I have it set up so the entire ~/.mozilla is deleted. I presume that is where any password would reside. In the event of a Firefox crash, the ~/.mozilla is not deleted without an OK from the user. There is a dialog box that comes up and asks "Did you want to close Firefox?".
So, even though I do have Javascript enabled, I would assume from the discussion that the current, "in-use" password is safe. Usually, when I do online banking, I follow the recommendation to "close the browser", and with the above setup where ~/.mozilla is deleted, I should be safe.

Rapidweather

Right now I am running Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.5 on a Dual Pentium Pro machine, 200 MHZ, with about 800 total bogomips, 256 MB of RAM, the older kind, 72 pin.
Using my Knoppix remaster, link here.
Firefox performs very well, not slow at all. I'm using the 2.4 kernel, not the 2.6 one, so I gain a lot of speed that way.
Also, I can run the entire OS from a USB flash memory drive, here's the link on the setup. The usb drive will have 4 partitions, including a swap partition.
Firefox is a bit slower when running the OS from the SanDisk usb drive compared to a 7200 RPM hard drive.
It is cool to run the OS that way, nothing is "saved" on the hard drive, when done, just unplug the usb drive and put it in your pocket.
I find that most Pentium II's, AMD K6-2's will run my knoppix remaster if there is 128 MB of RAM or better.
These are "older" computers, some have the Windows 95 sticker on them, most were shipped with Win 98. These machines are dirt cheap. Lots of them have 4 to 6 GB hard drives.
Although my remaster is a livecd linux, with the USB drive, one can "install" linux without using a CDROM drive, even if you have to temporarily install a Belkin USB 2.0 5-Port PCI Card to gain access to the hard drive, link here on that.
A lot of these older computers are going to have slow or broken CDROM drives, so you do without.
Once you manage to get booted up using the USB drive, you can partition the hard drive with QTParted, copy the files there, and then use the loadlin/MSDOS menu to boot from the hard drive for normal use. You want to preserve the Windows installation so you'll have DOS.

Rapidweather

Some years ago I made a set of patches to the Dillo browser to support tabs and frames and other such things. I kept logs of the increase in memory use, binary size and other metrics. While the binary size and memory use went up a tiny little bit (several kilobytes) this should be offset against running several open windows or instances of a program. Compared to that using tabs actually saves memory, not to mention hassle when not using a tabbed window manager.

The one I'm on now is a dual pentium pro, with 256 MB of RAM. Once, I had it loaded up with so many cards that the power supply to motherboard connectors burned. I fixed that, with spare ones, soldered in, from another power supply. Point is, I am constantly working on this box, and so far, am able to fix it, due to it's size, compared to a laptop. Decided to put two power supplies in it, so they split the workload, and not all of the power goes through the weak motherboard connnectors. It's a gamble, alright. Last thing I added was a 5 port USB 2.0 card, so I could plug in my USB mouse, and my Sandisk cruzer USB drives. I'm able to run my knoppix remaster from one of those drives, I have it partitioned as follows:

• A partition for the main KNOPPIX folder, this is the CD.
  
• A partition for a persistent home directory, that works like a hard drive, automatically adding stuff as you go along.
  
• A separate partition as an "Extra Partition", that you can store things you want to put there, and as a
  swap area for GIMP and K3B.
  
• A linux swap partition, this always gets mounted, unless you decide to "swapoff -v /dev/sda7" or something like that.

The other desktop is a HP Pavilion 8250, cost me $20.00, was very clean, and I maxed out the RAM for only $51.00.
I put a used 40 GB HDD in it for the main drive, and have Fedora Core there. Works very well, runs Opera 9.21 just like a more expensive machine. Naturally, I can also dual boot my remaster, run from the hard drive, or from a USB drive, take your choice. These files are how I do that, it's a loadlin/MSDOS menu setup. You will notice that there are two tarballs there, the latest one, dated 06-22-07 includes the USB drive as a choice. A big readme is included, so you can get all the details.

In summary, there are lots of desktops out there, just when I think that I have located a really clean one, for practically nothing, another one comes along. So many are Windows 98 machines.
Once, I had an IBM PS-1, 32 MB of RAM, dirt slow 25 mhz bus, and I managed to put Redhat 6.1 on it. Here's a link to an older page of mine where I show a dial-up application I made to allow Redhat 6.1 to connect to the internet if one cannot run KDE very well, with KPPP. I was able to get RHL installed on a very small hard drive, about 250 MB. I paid $5.00 for the PS-1, got it at a thrift store, someone had put it in a closet for years, then donated it, very little wear and tear, practically new. Later, I figured out that one could make a nice lilo RHL 6.1 hard drive on a faster machine, then just plug it into the cables on an old dog like the PS-1, and be up and running in a few minutes.
So easy to get into the case on a PS-1, just grab the little button under the top-front, and pull, and off comes your case! Takes two seconds!
Endless fun for us to play with older desktops, they are plentiful and cheap. And, with something like my knoppix remaster, you can run Firefox 2.0.0.5 on many of them!

Rapidweather

The one I'm on now is a dual pentium pro, with 256 MB of RAM. Once, I had it loaded up with so many cards that the power supply to motherboard connectors burned. I fixed that, with spare ones, soldered in, from another power supply. Point is, I am constantly working on this box, and so far, am able to fix it, due to it's size, compared to a laptop. Decided to put two power supplies in it, so they split the workload, and not all of the power goes through the weak motherboard connnectors. It's a gamble, alright. Last thing I added was a 5 port USB 2.0 card, so I could plug in my USB mouse, and my Sandisk cruzer USB drives. I'm able to run my knoppix remaster from one of those drives, I have it partitioned as follows:

• A partition for the main KNOPPIX folder, this is the CD.
  
• A partition for a persistent home directory, that works like a hard drive, automatically adding stuff as you go along.
  
• A separate partition as an "Extra Partition", that you can store things you want to put there, and as a
  swap area for GIMP and K3B.
  
• A linux swap partition, this always gets mounted, unless you decide to "swapoff -v /dev/sda7" or something like that.

The other desktop is a HP Pavilion 8250, cost me $20.00, was very clean, and I maxed out the RAM for only $51.00.
I put a used 40 GB HDD in it for the main drive, and have Fedora Core there. Works very well, runs Opera 9.21 just like a more expensive machine. Naturally, I can also dual boot my remaster, run from the hard drive, or from a USB drive, take your choice. These files are how I do that, it's a loadlin/MSDOS menu setup. You will notice that there are two tarballs there, the latest one, dated 06-22-07 includes the USB drive as a choice. A big readme is included, so you can get all the details.

In summary, there are lots of desktops out there, just when I think that I have located a really clean one, for practically nothing, another one comes along. So many are Windows 98 machines.
Once, I had an IBM PS-1, 32 MB of RAM, dirt slow 25 mhz bus, and I managed to put Redhat 6.1 on it. Here's a link to an older page of mine where I show a dial-up application I made to allow Redhat 6.1 to connect to the internet if one cannot run KDE very well, with KPPP. I was able to get RHL installed on a very small hard drive, about 250 MB. I paid $5.00 for the PS-1, got it at a thrift store, someone had put it in a closet for years, then donated it, very little wear and tear, practically new. Later, I figured out that one could make a nice lilo RHL 6.1 hard drive on a faster machine, then just plug it into the cables on an old dog like the PS-1, and be up and running in a few minutes.
So easy to get into the case on a PS-1, just grab the little button under the top-front, and pull, and off comes your case! Takes two seconds!
Endless fun for us to play with older desktops, they are plentiful and cheap. And, with something like my knoppix remaster, you can run Firefox 2.0.0.5 on many of them!

Rapidweather

Strange, isn't it?

http://www.geocities.com/iloveballoons2001/index.h tml

So what you're saying is:

We have to pave the earth in order to save it

I've wound up breaking some rules, one of them is including a bunch of mouse cursor themes, that install in seconds.
Details are available in the Getting Started Guide for Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

And, yes, I have Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.5 already. Another rule broken, put a slightly out-of-date Firefox in there.

Also my remastering scripts really work, only one question is asked, what partition do you want to put your "Master Copy" in, so you can go to work on it, and when you're ready to make that new .iso, same question, what partition is your "Master Copy" in. (You might have several) Answer that, and soon, your .iso is ready for burning to a CD. Comes with complete instructions, too. Processing time on a P4 with 1 GB RAM is about 20-25 minutes, over an hour on a Pentium II. I've run it hundreds of times on a dual Pentium Pro. Never fails.
Perhaps I have broken a rule there, by allowing users to fork off their own distro, that would have some of the things they want in it.

Another rule broken is that I provide emelFM as a file manager, far superior in ease of use to Konqueror, but I have KDE and Konqueror too, it does have it's uses.

The rule that linux distros have so-so fonts is broken:

The web pages displayed in Mozilla Firefox running on the Remaster look better than they do when running Firefox on Windows Vista. I have the fonts, and that does the trick. OEM Knoppix scales down the included font packages, resulting in rough-looking web pages, not professional enough for me. My ~/.fonts.cache-1 is only 32 bytes because it simlinks to the real one of 304.70 KB in the CD, so my available /ramdisk does not take a hit because I have a lot of fonts installed. My default /ramdisk is only 564 (out of 199072 on this box), and stays that way if I use a "persistent home" partition. That's below 1% of /ramdisk.

I have fun stuff, too. My "Wallpaper Control Center" completely manages downloaded and built-in wallpaper images, has a large GUI, and over 35 different scripts to do the work. Nobody else has it, they have to manage their wallpaper collections the hard way. This is so fast, easy, foolproof, it's fun! Another rule broken, "nothing new".

And, a "more secure way of running linux", Check my Blog for how to run the Remaster directly from a Sandisk USB drive on an older computer. Free download of files needed to get started. Look them over to see what this is all about.

Rapidweather

Well, considering that we taxpayers pay the FBI via our income taxes to do something about threats of all kinds, then I suppose they can do what they want to get these threats stopped before something bad happens.
Apparently, they are talking about the Windows OS, namely XP, Vista and other Windows OS's.
Those can be infected, and as some have said, infected by the bad guys as well as the FBI.

How about livecd linux, such as Knoppix?

I have a remaster of Knoppix 3.4, in fact it is highly modified, one area is security.
Without trying to go through all of the details in this post, those interested can look over my
Getting Started Guide, that's placed in the CD, and on the internet. I fixed my remaster for that level of security primarily for those using the internet to do online banking, web purchases, bill payment, and investment website work such as with Merrill Lynch, etc.
If that is not enough, check my Blog for information on running the Remaster from a 2 or 4 GB SanDisk Ready Boost cruzer USB drive. When you can put all of it in your pocket as you walk away from your computer, that's secure!

Rapidweather

I'm using Comcast, only problem is how expensive it is, but I'm glad I don't have to use dialup.
Didn't know there was a problem with Firefox, I run my knoppix remaster all the time, on several computers, and use Firefox 2.0.0.4. (Also can use Opera and Flock).
When the Comcast man came and ran my cable, I did use XP, but could have booted that box into linux, and did, so he could see how that went. Very interested, and so I gave him a CD. I was able to answer a lot of questions for him that his customers ask.
I have some bad trees in my yard, always dropping big limbs, taking the cable line down. They always come and put it back up and give me no problems.
I have added a router, on my own, and have run several cables myself, still no problems.
When I had dial-up, that cost about half what cable internet does for not much speed.
For my knoppix remaster, I made a little interface to "connect" and "disconnect" the broadband, put that in the IceWM toolbar and the menu. Sometimes I forget to turn on the surge-protector for the cable modem and router, and that little application does the trick.
You know, IceWM will show you if you are connected on the toolbar, next to the cpu monitor.
Try all that with Fedora. I have set up one of my applications to run in Fedora Core, but have not gotten around to the "Broadband/Network Connection Control" as yet.
I have always written my own dial-up "wizards" and controls, too bad all that neat work now goes to waste on my computers.
Lots of details in this document, the Getting Started Guide that I put in the remaster.

Rapidweather

We have only two ways of getting information. One is through our personal experience as brought to us by our senses. We have lots of evidence that these senses can be deceived. The other way we get information is by communication from someone else. When someone tells you something, you either have to BELIEVE or not.

There is an additional path to knowledge: we can use reasoning. In the classic syllogism, "All men are mortal", "Socrates is a man", and the working of the syllogism are bits of information communicated to me; but the conclusion "Socrates is mortal" need not be.

A thought, emotion, the codes stored in DNA or a computer program, the arrangement of symbols on a page, all are carried by and as far as we can tell, bound to physical matter-energy forms. That doesn't mean that these things HAVE to be thus bound.

But we have no evidence that they appear in such unbound forms. What you're saying is equivalent to "As far as we can tell, objects in motion stay in motion and objects at rest stay at rest unless acted upon by some outside force, but that doesn't mean that things HAVE to be that way!" It may be true, in some we-can-never-know-for-certain way, that my car might rear up on it's back wheels and start dancing a jig, without any outside force. But we have no evidence to expect that; it is out of line with the pattern of observations we call "natural law", and anyone basing important decisions on a belief that cars are going to start dancing is not sane.

Planck said, "We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or that if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future." And that's true, in the philosophical sense; maybe the whole universe will turn to lime jello at noon GMT today, we can't rule it out. But if I told you that I know that this is going to happen, because my neighbor's cat had a dream about it (I know about the dream because I'm a pet psychic, you see), you'd say I was nuts.

You can BELIEVE that many call "supernatural" is irrational, but you can never KNOW that.

No, I can indeed listen to people's arguments and know that they are irrational. Rational and irrational are fairly well defined when applied to arguments.

(Note that it is entirely possible for the conclusion of an irrational argument to be true, after all: remember the old joke about why fire engines are red. And a rational argument can still have an incorrect conclusion, if based on faulty axioms or data.)

In a philosophical sense, I may say that it may be "possible" (though extremely unlikely) that some given miracle-story occurred, since I do not claim full understanding of the Universe. Maybe there are small invisible men from Alpha Centauri running around inside my walls, who are responsible for my missing socks. I can't prove they're not there. ("You don't seem them? I told you, they're invisible! That just strengthens the case that they exist!") Maybe Boddhidharma rose from the dead and was seen in the mountains of China carrying one sandal; I wasn't there. (Surely you don't think the story of Jesus is the only resurrection myth out there?) Maybe Miss Cleo can really see the future in her crystal ball and everyone who says she's a fraud is lying.

However, it would still be irrational to believe such extraordinary stories - to act under the asusmption that they are true - based on nothing more than the reports of ancient mythologies, or sparse and contradictory contemporary testimony, or easily-faked uncontrolled demonstrations. Extraordinary claims may turn out to be true, but believing in them without

Well, here is what I am using at this moment to post here:

http://rapidweatherlinux.blogspot.com/2007/06/sand isk-readyboost-usb-drive.html

All that is required when you shut down the computer is to take the usb drive with you, just unplug it, and put it in your pocket. Now, the computer does not have any of your personal financial files, they are stored on the usb drive. There is absolutely no trace left.

This is a livecd linux, being run from a partitioned usb drive. (Even the swap partition is included)

I did have a bank account broken into some years ago, so if I am developing and using a linux system like this, then I have a reason to do so.

In addition to using a removable usb drive, I run the web browsers, Firefox, Opera and Flock within a secure setup as detailed here:

http://www.geocities.com/rapidweather/getting_star ted.html

This document will need to be searched using Edit -> "Find in this page", keyword "Security and Control Script" to locate all of the text concerning the secure setups for the web browsers.

I also have the Guarddog firewall "on" by default with common protocols, the user does not have to do anything to enable it.

-- Rapidweather

Canadian pirates?

Barrett's Privateers?

http://www.geocities.com/~elainedues/lyrics.html

All the better for carrying women

(Don't ask how I know about OTS fetishes - an internet search went awry a few years ago* and I found myself on an OTS page. It took me over 5 minutes to work out what the blinking flip it was all about.)

*Your honour.

When talking about performance issues, certainly math plays a signficant role. However, when dealing with issues of human interaction with the computer, such as software maintenance and interface design, things get messy. One then enters into the realm of pyschology, which is a soft science and varies per individual. More on this:

http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/science.htm

Absence of faith, or the belief that it's not possible to decide on the given evidence, is agnosticism. Belief that God does not exist is atheism. If you mean the former, don't use the term "Athiest"

It's really semantics. Even agnosticism can imply two considerably (logically speaking) different positions. Classical agnosticism also makes an epistemologically unsound assertion: that one cannot know whether or not god exists. Modern agnostics however tend to simply say "I don't know based on available evidence." So now we have two definitions of agnostic.

One can be an atheist and still not assert the non-existence of god (a so-called weak atheist). In fact, it is not a contradiction to be both a theist and an agnostic, when one applies the classical definition of agnostic. I've also learned that, to some, agnosticism implies that one gives equal probability to the existence or non-existence of god, which is why I've begin to shy away from applying the term to myself.

It's therefore still possible for an atheist to conclude there is insufficient evidence to believe, and accordingly would adopt a world view that doesn't include God. This sounds a lot like agnosticism except when you consider that someone who says "I don't know if God exists but I believe he does" could get away with calling themselves agnostic, because agnosticism deals with the matter of knowledge, not of belief.

This essay represents my opinions decently. I've lately begun shying away from labels like these because people have such differing notions.

It makes you feel special.

Well, when you buy Windows, based on what we have read here about Vista, then the "bug information transmittals" go with the territory.
Sure, Windows is preinstalled on computers in the stores, but there are alternative operating systems you can use, that are fairly easy to run.
I'm talking about the "livecd" linux variety, of which there are many, many variations.
Mine is one, here is the Getting Started Guide, and you may view the screenshots, link below:
Several posters in this topic have said that the Vista "phone home" setup probably uses a lot of processing power, as does the nice looking Aero interface. Hence the move to dual core processors, and 1 or 2 GB of RAM.
I say, use your older computer, I am running my livecd linux OS on a HP Pavilion 8250, and it's really very nice. I paid $20.00 for this computer, snapped it up since it was so clean inside. Added RAM, $51.00, and an ethernet card, about $15.00.
I'm using Opera 9.10 right now, and also have Firefox 2.0.0.4 and Flock 0.7.14 that can be used. All three of these are set up to completely delete the entire ~/.opera, ~/.mozilla or ~/.flock when the browsers are closed. No trace of your web-surfing remains on the computer while it is running.
I have a blog that explains how to use a Sandisk cruzer usb drive, 2 or 4 GB to run the OS, and testing is ongoing (fun for me), using the HP computer mentioned above. Unplug the usb drive, put it in your pocket, and your files go with you. If you do online banking or credit card management, and save files as needed, then this is a good measure of protection for your data and files. One of the tests involves opening 20 image files with GIMP, and seeing if the little usb drive can handle that. It can, since I have a swap partition on the usb drive.

- Rapidweather

Toxic waste.

This is what I've heard, and I tend to believe it.

The place is a mess; tons of projects have been improperly disposed of, and many employees have become sick with what looks like heavy metal poisoning (the government has refused to reveal what it was they might have been exposed to, however, so many have been unable to get appropriate treatment).

Basically, because it's classified, there's no oversight, and because there's no oversight, the place is a disaster. "Area 51" is nothing but a neglected Superfund site where they fly airplanes.

[Sources: There was a 60 Minutes episode interviewing some very sick people, and there were satellite photos in Popular Mechanics (I know, it's a rag), also showing chemical pools, etc.]

________________________

And here's more info on the above:

For the fifth year in a row, President Bush has granted the Air Force an executive exemption from legal requirements to disclose information regarding solid or hazardous waste disposal operations at Area 51.

[...]

Area 51's annual exemption stems from lawsuits filed in 1996 on the behalf of two former civilian employees at the facility. Both employees, Robert Frost and Wally Kasza, died of illnesses attributed to inhalation of smoke from toxic materials being disposed of at Area 51.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuits, Frost v. Perry and Kasza v. Browne, claimed that the Air Force and EPA had violated the RCRA by illegally burning Area 51's hazardous waste in open pits.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/blgrooml ake.htm

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/b ases022.html

I found this hidden within the value of Pi expressed in base 11...

http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/dnaid.htm

You had a commercially available computer before 1984 that had a mouse and a bit-map display and folders and icons? Or you got one in 1984 that wasn't from Apple?

DNA is a totally different thing that doesn't look at all like something humans designed except in that it stores data digitally. Much noise has been made about doing math on DNA to figure out if it is intelligently designed, but nobody has managed to pull it off.

Nobody has managed to find anything with SETI either (so far). Does that make it "non-scientific"?

It's not hard to figure out why that is. We don't have anything to compare it to.

We could look for bitmaps, statistical anomalies (lots of one of the four bases), encodings of Pi, etc. True, we don't currently do this, but we don't broadcast lasers into space nor build Dyson Spheres, yet SETI or SETI-like programs have considered looking for those also. Thus, the "we do it now" criteria is excessive, or else we flunk those also.

More on this:

http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/dnaid.htm

• We'll comment later.
  
• We'll break that method up into smaller more logical chunks later.

I have to comment while I cook it up, or I don't know what is supposed to do what.
  Maybe I can polish it up some, maybe a lot, while I get it to do what I want.
So what code I do write gets commented up pretty good. I don't do anything like anybody else does, so most of my applications are unusual to say the least. If you have the time, you can look through this document for details on some of my stuff.
  Here's the Blog, where I discuss other projects also.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go look through the Comcast TV guide to find the Larry King - Paris Hilton interview.

Rapidweather

I do have this setup, been tested with a 2 GB USB drive, but requires an older computer that has a USB port, and a small hard drive with MSDOS or Windows 3.1, 95 or 98 on it. Works well with 128 MB of RAM, and a 266 MHZ or better processor. None of those computers can boot directly from a USB drive, so we have to have a MSDOS and loadlin setup with a selection menu that comes up, started from the C:\autoexec.bat file.
You can carry the USB drive around with you, and plug it into a specially prepared computer, and you have linux. (See screenshots, below) For starters, you get Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4, Opera and Flock for web browsers. Details are in the Getting Started Guide.
The files you need for the computer are here.
There is a Readme packaged in the tarball.

Also, you will need a copy of the CD, obtainable here.

Rapidweather

Opera used to have an advertisement area on the right side of the toolbar, now a blank area. All of the control buttons are still over on the left side. I wonder when they will fix that. Opera is a very good browser, and I have placed it in my Knoppix remaster for a long time now. I have it loaded up with a bunch of RSS feeds. Opera handles these better than Firefox 2.0.0.4, you get a summary of the story in Opera, in Firefox you only get the title of the story, and sometimes that is shortened. Much better in Opera. Also, Opera continues to notify you when new stories are downloaded, using a pop-up notice on the right-bottom of whatever desktop you are on. I have 4 in IceWM, my default WM.

- Rapidweather

Oh, no, they were doing it as a "test". They know there is an interest out there in linux, and wanted to prove a point or something. Looks like someone at Microsoft is trying to come up with something new, probably because of too many meetings, where one is supposed to offer up new ideas. After all, Vista is "married" to the hardware, and there are all kinds of decent linux distros out there that run on almost anything. Right now, I am running my knoppix remaster (screenshots below) on a usb drive, here is my blog post with details, downloads on exactly how that is done.
So many of the computers in existence today are not able to boot directly from a usb drive, so I came up with a method to briefly use the installed hard drive, Windows or MSDOS, to get the OS up and running from the usb drive in a few seconds. I use loadlin and a menu.
I can see where Microsoft would want to test the waters, Ubuntu can be run as a livecd linux, so they point everyone in that direction, as a test, of course.
My problem with Ubuntu is that they use a newer, current kernel, which runs slowly, if at all, on many of the older computers still around today.
I have experienced boot times of 10 minutes to get to the desktop.
In my remaster, I use the 2.4 kernel from Knoppix 3.4, which runs very well on 128MB RAM, and 400 MHZ processor. A lot of Windows 98 boxes were made, quite a few running Pentium II's, at 266 MHZ, and capable of using several 128 MB memory sticks. Those machines come with usb ports, just what I need to plug in my usb drive, and get linux up and running, with the latest web browsers, firewall, GIMP, emelFM, and other applications made just for my remaster, details here. Security? Just power down, unplug the usb drive, and put it in your pocket.

"That said, large windmills cannot be attached to the side of buildings."

What, like this?
http://www.geocities.com/yosemite/1001/uk/pits2.jp g :-)

Perhaps Dell's reluctance to sell Ubuntu Dell's to Business has something to do with the level of support Ubuntu requires vs Windows. There's a lot of tinkering being enjoyed by all us linux users, I get a big kick myself out of creating applications for my Knoppix remaster, Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. (See screenshots, below)
Windows, on the other hand, is pretty much tinker-proof, nobody knows the source code, let alone fix anything by rewriting the scripts that make it up. If I have something that does not work like I want it to in my Remaster, then I get to it, and fix it like I want.

The Dell-Ubuntu-Windows situation might be compared to a Automobile dealership, that has a sports car on the showroom floor to "attract sales traffic", but does not really want to wind up fixing these cars constantly, since they are being bought by "boy racers", and others that are running the tar out of them.
The dealers will go to any lengths to get traffic in the showrooms, they will have a NASCAR racer displayed out front, even have a driver signing autographs.
The dealership is only making money if they sell cars to a bunch of old ladies that just drive the cars like they were supposed to be, and not racing them around.

Are we "racing linux around", trying to get it to break, overheat, and spin out in the curve? Sure we are. We all laugh at the "blue screen of Death". Same thing happens in Linux, but it does not go to a "blue screen". We can back out, and "kill" the offending process, and bring the system back up to normal, without a reboot. You just have to know how to do it, just like a race car owner has to know how to get the most out of his car.
Is Dell doing the race car out front thing by offering "Ubuntu"? Are they just keeping the linux zelots "happy", but not really wanting to have thousands of business support calls on Ubuntu systems, which could be a nightmare. For Vista, Dell offers that neat restoration Image that is made just as the machine leaves the factory floor, with all of your software, so you can "restore" your Vista Dell machine to "factory fresh" condition if it gets fouled up. Usually by adding software, such as LabVIEW 7.1 that is not really Vista compatible, but designed for XP. That can bring a Vista box to a real "no boot" condition fast!
As far as the linux tinkering goes, just look at my Getting Started Guide, it really tends to show that I have tinkered Knoppix into something that no longer remotely resembles the original Knoppix 3.4 in many ways. (One can actually do some work with it now)
My latest fun thing is having it run off Sandisk USB drives, both 2 and 4 GB.
Check my blog for information on that. (I'm running it now from a 4 GB USB drive, persistent home, swap, everything needed to ditch the HD )
Dell wouldn't want to have to do "support" for my Remaster any more than they do for Ubuntu.

Elvira.

The perfect girl for your average computer nerd. Not at all standoffish. She's unusual, but so down-to-earth.
Who wouldn't feel right at home with her? A little off the wall for her to be hawking some complicated computer software, I have no idea what is was supposed to do from the advertisement. Must have been something from the old days before Netscape, when computers were supposed to do "office" and "business" stuff.
To see how far we have come, the decendants of Netscape are used everyday, all day in every office and business out there. Nevermind that the new-found purpose is to look on the internet for nice-looking girls like Elvira.
To prove my point, here are a few links to Elvira images for your enjoyment:

• Here's one. Appears to be an autographed picture of Elvira, no doubt sent to some lonely nerd.
  
• This one appears to be another advertisement featuring Elvira.
  
• In this shot, an impersonator does Elvira, right down to the creepy eye-plastic-surgery, which by the way would be a good conversation starter topic for anyone lucky enough to get a date with Elvira.
  
• Here we have Elvira on/in a game. Perhaps some of you have wasted your money on this one.
  
• Supposedly this is a picture of Elvira's car, apparently a T-Bird, with some spooky changes.
  
• Out selling vacuum cleaners, and you ring this doorbell, get greeted by Elvira and friends.
   

• This one was taken in 2003, you can tell it's really Elvira, because of the little dagger on her belt, with the red and green gemstones. (Elvira has been in show business for a while now, and she is not as young as she used to be, but who cares)
  
• Here is a photo of Elvira with her pet snake. Lots of wannabe Elvira's felt they had to have a snake too, mostly a bad idea, only Elvira herself knows how to handle the little varmits.
  
• OK, here's the best for last, showing lots of Elvira's legs, and her car. As you can see, that's a real car, based on a T-Bird, and those are real legs too.
  
• Here's a screenshot of some Elvira software. I have no idea what it does, and am returning to the image above, much more interesting.
  
  
  -- Rapidweather

The unnamed bullying "Cork Ireland Professor" in the Wall Street Journal article must regret using ReputationDefender, who succeeded in having him named as Professor Ivan Perry at http://www.geocities.com/stuartdneilson/Reputation DefenderInc.htm http://bulliedacademics.blogspot.com/2007/01/reput ation-defender-to-consider-bullied.html http://bulliedacademics.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_ar chive.htmlhttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/81398> http://www.iol.ie/~stuartneilson/bullying/ http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=6377 57&mc=4&forum_id=2

That is impressive results for a few dollars.

Surely, you must be referring to
Jesux ??

OK. Sorry- I won't call you surely anymore...

Oh, that Fortify? I'm talking about this one, which I assumed from the context of the question.

I don't know if you've used or seen fortify but I found it a wonderful tool to not warn and resolve memory issues in C++.

It is very fast, compiles switches into nothing and incredibly helpful.

-- Snip
Fortify is a powerful C++ debugging aid. Detects and pinpoints memory related bugs. It supports alloc/calloc/realloc/strdup/free and new/delete. It traps memory leaks, writes beyond and before memory blocks, writes to freed memory, free twice, freeing memory never allocated, and removes all randomness from reading uninitialized or free memory.

Klingons don't use weak safety-oriented languages like C++.