Slashdot Mirror

White light is made up of all colors... yellow, red, green, purple, orange... some you can't see... and blue.

Interestingly enough, birds actually can see some of the "some you can't see" part: https://tv.ku.edu/news/2006/01/27/new-ku-study-dec odes-the-birds-eye-view/

Phil Schrodt at the U of Kansas has been doing something similar for years using The Kansas Event Data System (and its new update, TABARI). He started using Reuters news summaries to feed the KEDS engine back in the 1990s.

Following Schrodt's work, Doug Bond and his brother, both recently of Harvard, produced the IDEAS database using machine-based coding.

These types of data can be categorized by keywords or topic, though the engines don't try to generate links. The resulting data can also be used for statistical analysis in a certain slashdotter's dissertation research...

Phil Schrodt at the U of Kansas has been doing something similar for years using The Kansas Event Data System (and its new update, TABARI). He started using Reuters news summaries to feed the KEDS engine back in the 1990s.

Following Schrodt's work, Doug Bond and his brother, both recently of Harvard, produced the IDEAS database using machine-based coding.

These types of data can be categorized by keywords or topic, though the engines don't try to generate links. The resulting data can also be used for statistical analysis in a certain slashdotter's dissertation research...

I'm a law student at the University of Kansas, where the outbreak hit a few weeks ago.

The outbreak hit despite the school's immunization policy, which has always required proof of two vaccinations against MMR.

It would seem, as a previous commenter suggests, and as some news reports corroborate, that the outbreak is affecting those already vaccinated.

""
Most of the current cases have been among people who were vaccinated. But that doesn't mean the vaccine has become less effective, Seward said.
No vaccine is capable of protecting everyone who receives it, she said. Five percent to 10 percent of people vaccinated for the mumps will fail to gain immunity.
These are probably the people who are becoming ill.
"The mumps vaccine is still protecting huge numbers of people," Seward said. "We would expect thousands of people to get sick if there wasn't good immunity in the community."
""
-The Kansas City Star

Sorry, buggered those URLs with trailing slashes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3505414.stm http://people.ku.edu/~jbrown/ecoli.html

These bacteria stories have been floating around for ages. Indeed there is one from 2004 here, on the BBC News site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3505414.stm/

My problem with this is that it doesn't matter how many millions of bacteria there are on anything you touch, its the kind of bacteria they are. For example, I'm certain dishcloths and kitchen utensils contain bundles of bacteria, as long as they aren't harmful, I'm not too bothered.

Here is a nice little thing about why E. Coli is both essential to humans, and deadly too: http://people.ku.edu/~jbrown/ecoli.html/

By the eye, what do you mean? A device to detect light? Or a device with an iris, cornea and retina? Light-sensitive cells exist in many simple forms and have evolved to more and more efficient versions of vision. There exist forms of life with simple and complex vision today. See this article about a PBS show on the subject. "The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch."

Here is more at this press release about the evolution of the human eye. '"It is not surprising that cells of human eyes come from the brain. We still have light-sensitive cells in our brains today which detect light and influence our daily rhythms of activity," explains Wittbrodt. "Quite possibly, the human eye has originated from light-sensitive cells in the brain. Only later in evolution would such brain cells have relocated into an eye and gained the potential to confer vision."'

And lots more links here. so please let's stop using the eye as an example. What next, bacterial flagella? That one is explained too. Next question?

Is it all figured out? No, but in science when we don't know it all we say that we are still looking, we don't say things we don't know must be explained by supernatural means, which is what ID does. It cops out with, "it must be something intelligent that designed it" instead of trying to understand the real reasons. Science may never find all the answers, it doesn't promise that it will but at least it doesn't have the answers BEFORE it has the QUESTIONS.

Come up to Kansas University in beautiful Lawrence Kansas. We would love to have you. We are going to need a couple of good CE post grads in a year or so. http://www.cresis.ku.edu/flashindex.htm As an aside I have been told you should get your under grad one place masters another and PHD yet another.

If you look at Mirecki's areas of expertise his irritation with fundamentalists becomes all the more understandable. His areas areas are Ancient Mediterranean Religion, Early Christianity, and Coptic Papyrology. That means that he knows a lot about about religion in the area in which Christianity developed about the origins of Christianity, and about branches of Christianity that either died out (e.g. gnosticism) or have followed a rather different course from the one that led to fundamentalism (e.g. Coptic Christianity). For someone with this background, the belief of fundamentalists that their interpretation of the particular compilation of texts that they consider holy is God's Truth must seem particularly crazy. I can't speak for him, but I bet that to him fundamentalists seem ignorant, naive, and arrogant even if one looks just at the religious texts and their interpretation, without concerning oneself with the conflict between fundamentalist beliefs and science.

Our tastes have dictate that we cook meat; texture, flavor and temperature are enhanced by many of our tried and trued cooking methods. We have come to like cooked foods better, but not because raw (or rare) meats will kill you. The current problem that the grandparent post complains about doesn't have to do with cooking the meat, but cooking the bacteria on the meat and the parasites in the meat. Meats are now overcooked (to the tastes of some) to make sure that we are not being served bacteria.

Where do these hazards come from? Some have always been there, like trichinosis in pigs. Some are new, like the increasing amount of E. coli on our beef. Why are we getting more bacteria on our beef? Modern slaughterhouses run their line speeds at rates that are too fast for the meat packers to assure that they aren't cutting into the intestines of the cows. Every time they do so, more bacteria enters our beef supply

Why not just walk up to a cow and take a bite out of their shoulder? It amounts to the same thing.

Actually, it's worse than that. Eating uncooked hamburger is the same as walking up to a cow and taking a big bite out of its rectum. Yes you get some meat, but you also get some "organ meat" and a whole raft of E. coli. Yum!

Who? Whom? It might help your career if you know the difference.
http://www.ku.edu/~edit/whom.html
Who refers to a subject, whom refers to an object.
You should have said: "Who is fooling whom?"
I offer this tip merely to help you advance your career, not to be a national socialist.

I taught an undergrad Astronomy discussion section at KU in 1989. The professor, Dr. Steven Shawl, set up the course structure to be one of Mastery Learning.

In the Mastery Learning method, the emphasis is on making sure the student has a completely solid understanding of a subject before moving on to the next subject. The point of this is to prevent the common situation (in my schooling, at least) of learning something and promptly forgetting it 10 minutes after the final exam.

In the mastery learning world, once you've mastered something, typically you've committed it to long term memory, understand the implications of things such that you can predict outcomes, etc.

Learning = Knowledge + Conceptual

There are two types of learning - concrete and theoretical. Concrete learning is memorizing facts; theoretical learning is understanding how those facts fit together. Different people learn differently; some naturally do one or the other more.

Montessori method focuses on inspiring people to learn the topics and subtopics that are the most interesting to them personally, tailoring the lesson plans to the individual student.

IIRC (from reading done on this and looking into it for my kids) Montessori students are, like home schooled students, often prone to difficulty adapting to highly structured learning environments. However, despite any adaptation problems, students tend to have much higher test scores.

I believe the mastery learning and Montessori teaching methods both touch on a common theme - avoiding the Open-brain-stuff-info-close-brain scenarios so common in American classrooms. The one-test-a-year methods of non-US school systems ironically provide more opportunity for mastery, because you can't "cram for the test" if you're cramming for 12 tests at the same time that demand a cumulative year's worth of knowledge. The downside to the once-a-year concept is the WAY HIGH pressure it places on students. I would wonder if the suicide rate in different countries correlates with testing standards...

Regardless, I'm a big fan of mastery learning because I saw what a great job it could do in helping our students have fun with the material and really gain confidence in themselves in the process.

link, http://qos.ittc.ku.edu/howto/index.html linux qos howto.

theres also several linux/bsd based easy to setup firewall/router distros.. some of them have to have qos support :). also some adsl modems have traffic shaping...

There is much more than just a spark of interest in science and technology in Kansas. However, if you go out to the western part of the state, you might be inclined to disagree. I think you should check out the University of Kansas School of Engineering and the Information and Telecommunication Technology Center to get a better idea of what scientific activities are taking place in Kansas. There is much more going on than many people think.

There is much more than just a spark of interest in science and technology in Kansas. However, if you go out to the western part of the state, you might be inclined to disagree. I think you should check out the University of Kansas School of Engineering and the Information and Telecommunication Technology Center to get a better idea of what scientific activities are taking place in Kansas. There is much more going on than many people think.

Uh, check your facts budy. Here's a link since you obviously can't use google.

A better idea is to use UUIDs, where these problems have already been considered, and systematically handled. On Linux, just read from /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid.

This is old news. The Pentium chip first implemented unpredictability in its floating-point core.

My view is based on the scientific data that exists. I therefore want laws enacted to ban driving while using a cel phone. The more data that supports my view, the better.

http://www.psych.utah.edu/AppliedCognitionLab/Stra yerHFES04.pdf
http://www.hcra.harvard.edu/cellphones.html
http://www.utah.edu/unews/releases/03/jan/cellphon e.html
http://www.nsc.org/library/shelf/inincell.htm
http://www.ur.ku.edu/News/01N/JulyNews/July12/cell ular.html
http://www.icbc.com/Inside_ICBC/january2001news.ht ml

You sir, should be modded to the floor for your trollish ways.

A REAL geek would use Explosive Forming.

> Warren Delano (as in, Delano Roosevelt) got his money through the opium business.

Not amoral or unethical.

Really? The Chinese fought (and lost) two wars to kill the Opium trade because of the effects it was having on their people.

As prohibition was a crime, Joseph Kennedy's actions were not amoral, nor unethical.

Joseph Kennedy made his first round of cash by conspiring to inflate a stock's price, then selling it before investors got wind. And Prohibition wasn't a crime. Selling alcohol was the crime.

I'm sorry, is that supposed to be "amoral" or "unethical"?

Yes, you nitwit. There were several treaties later passed by the U.S. government to prevent the trade of alcohol with the Indians because of the disasterous effects it was having on their social order. They didn't do this because of the strong Indian Lobby, you know? They did it because it was unethical. Educate thyself.

Bill Gates is worse than Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer put together!

Oh, I get it now. Please, crawl back under your bridge and go back to eating little children.

Other people have replied attributing it to Ben Franklin, but this being the older quote is the more original.

The quote from Poor Richard's is: "Three may keep a Secret, if two of them are dead."

This quote goes back to Chaucer: "For iii may keep a counsel if twain be away."

A contemporary of Shakespeare, John Heywood also used a version of the Chaucer quote ("Three may keepe counsayle, if two be away") in his collection of proverbs (1562). The nurse in Romeo and Juliet presumably misquotes a proverb that would probably be familiar to the audience.

Shakespeare also wrote something similar in Titus Andronicus, act iv. sc. 2.:

The empress, the midwife, and yourself:
Two may keep counsel when the third's away:

Chaucer and Heywood could have been quoting a common saying so it's hard to know where Shakespeare may have heard it.

interesting things

The same is true at the University of Kansas. Also, students cannot connect to the campus network without registering their MAC address with the university and completing a security check involving the forced installation of antivirus software.

KU explicitly bans the use of any NAT devices or wireless AP's, citing network security issues. If you are caught, your network connection can (and usually will) be terminated. If they catch you, you can't deny it either, since they have your MAC address.

If something bad happens to your computer (i.e.: virus DoS'ing something) as a result of noncompliance with security procedures, the university will fine you, and not reactivate your port until you pay the fine and complete the security process.

So glad I don't live in student housing anymore.

Uhh, in XP Home, Poland still doesn't exist.

Map of Europe for the uninitiated.

A screenshot I found (images.google.com) of Win2K.

Curiously, the Japanese version seems to have a Poland. The page it's on suggests that it's Win9x that has Poland. Meaning they actively removed Poland from the map?

It's worth noting that I never said you couldn't. I said it was HARD. If you look farther up the thread, I reiterated this point.

Why is it hard ? Open Visual Studio, make one or more DLL projects, then use these DLLs from the main project according to what you want to do. Making a DLL is nothing more than pressing a few buttons anyway.

10ms res on 2000/XP

Where did you read that? Windows NT provides 1 milisecond resolution. 10 milliseconds is the default timer interrupt granularity. By using the function 'timeBeginPeriod' the resolution can be set to 1 millisecond. Here is an example.

Furthermore, all waitable functions are guarranteed to return at 1-millisecond resolutions (even 'Sleep()'). I have personal experience with this, as I have used the waitable timer functions in many projects.

Finally, Windows have a hidden API ('NtSetTimerResolution') that you can set the timer resolution in nanoseconds. This is kernel stuff, though. And for profiling, you can't beat 'QueryPerformanceCounter' which returns number of clock ticks passed via the RTDSC instruction.

Most Unix systems have a hi-res timer that dives down to the nanosecond range

Which Unix systems are that ? Linux, for example, also starts with a 10 ms granularity, just like Windows (the link above actually saids that any granularity below 10 ms will result in degrading performance on Intel systems). High resolution POSIX timers is a kernel patch, and it is mostly offered in the context or real-time Linux systems.

Solaris also starts with a 10 ms granularity that can be adjusted. Solaris also offers a timer solution based on CPU timer instruction (RTDSC on 80x86).

OS X, not running on the Intel platform, has the benefit of not having the interrupt limitations of Windows, Linux and Solaris on 80x86.

You mean the documents that say "this timer is not actually accurate and is only useful in certain situations", or do you mean the documents that say "the resolution of this timer is dependent on how many processors are in the system".

The "this timer is not actually accurate and is only useful in certain situations" is valid for 'SetTimer' which sets a timer event for a window. This is because timer events are dispatched on the gui message queue.

The "the resolution of this timer is dependent on how many processors are in the system" is valid for all operating systems running on multiprocessor computers. Google it out, if you don't believe me.

Sorry, as far as the industry is concerned, Windows timing blows. Just about every other OS does a better job.

I've shown you that you overreact concerning Windows timers. The 80x86 platform has an archaic interrupt architecture, and that's where the problem is. And this problem concerns all systems, Windows or Unix, running on 80x86. Windows on Alpha have an 1-ms granularity, by default.

There are solutions though to overcome the problems. A nice solution is to use critical sections (that take nano seconds to lock/unlock) and 'QueryPerformanceCounter'). If you search the web, you can even find MFC-based classes for this.

Never before have the people of this great nation been so egregiously and shamelessly duped, misled and insulted
I am not saying precedent absolves guilt, I just wanted to point out that you probably shouldn't say never.

This is an simple dna-extraction example, in which the dna of a coli bacteria is extracted: DNA Extraction
I tried the test myself in college, and it wasn't any harmfull.

For your information, E. coli is a bactery which lives inside your intestines and are even necessary for us to remain healthy. However, there are some variants of this bacteria that are indeed very harful (E. coli O157:H7) but there is not a single article who reports that the bacteria in this case were deed the harmfull ones. read more

Your quote of the leading DNA researcher is indeed correct, given the fact that bactery can mutulate themselve very quickly, and become dangerous. We experience that in our everyday lives because this is the cause of rotten food. The professor had bacteria in a jar that you could as easely obtain by scraping in from your thongue. To me, that's no quite a basis for terorrism

It got the impresison that this news is jet another FUD to keep people under the constant pressure of the "biological threat".

I'm sure some readers are sure that Paul Allen is just out to rape the SF world. Here's a true story that I hope will cast this project in a positive light.

There already is a Science Fiction Hall of Fame. It was started several years ago, sponsored by the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society (KaCSFFS) and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. Financial backing was primarily provided by KaCSFFS, with the bulk of the money raised in a benefit auction each Memorial Day weekend at ConQuesT. KU has never really embraced the SFHoF, declining to even provide a place to hang the plaque listing all the inductees.

Along comes Paul Allen and his project. Now, they could have very easily said "screw you, we'll do our own Hall of Fame!" But they didn't. Instead, they are taking over the Hall of Fame, with full acknowledgement of the history of the existing hall and inductees. After the 2004 induction ceremony, held at the Campbell Conference, responsibility for the Hall will be transferred.

Is this some huge financial windfall for KaCSFFS? No, we aren't getting a penny out of the deal. What we are getting is the acknowledgement of our past efforts, and the comfort of knowing that future inductions are going to be done by a group with the money and PR presence necessary to do it right.

Do you know who has been inducted in the past? Probably not. Our efforts have mostly fallen on deaf ears in the media. But I suspect that when the 2005 inductees are announced, you'll see the story on Slashdot!

I'm sure some readers are sure that Paul Allen is just out to rape the SF world. Here's a true story that I hope will cast this project in a positive light.

There already is a Science Fiction Hall of Fame. It was started several years ago, sponsored by the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society (KaCSFFS) and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. Financial backing was primarily provided by KaCSFFS, with the bulk of the money raised in a benefit auction each Memorial Day weekend at ConQuesT. KU has never really embraced the SFHoF, declining to even provide a place to hang the plaque listing all the inductees.

Along comes Paul Allen and his project. Now, they could have very easily said "screw you, we'll do our own Hall of Fame!" But they didn't. Instead, they are taking over the Hall of Fame, with full acknowledgement of the history of the existing hall and inductees. After the 2004 induction ceremony, held at the Campbell Conference, responsibility for the Hall will be transferred.

Is this some huge financial windfall for KaCSFFS? No, we aren't getting a penny out of the deal. What we are getting is the acknowledgement of our past efforts, and the comfort of knowing that future inductions are going to be done by a group with the money and PR presence necessary to do it right.

Do you know who has been inducted in the past? Probably not. Our efforts have mostly fallen on deaf ears in the media. But I suspect that when the 2005 inductees are announced, you'll see the story on Slashdot!

I'm sure some readers are sure that Paul Allen is just out to rape the SF world. Here's a true story that I hope will cast this project in a positive light.

There already is a Science Fiction Hall of Fame. It was started several years ago, sponsored by the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society (KaCSFFS) and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. Financial backing was primarily provided by KaCSFFS, with the bulk of the money raised in a benefit auction each Memorial Day weekend at ConQuesT. KU has never really embraced the SFHoF, declining to even provide a place to hang the plaque listing all the inductees.

Along comes Paul Allen and his project. Now, they could have very easily said "screw you, we'll do our own Hall of Fame!" But they didn't. Instead, they are taking over the Hall of Fame, with full acknowledgement of the history of the existing hall and inductees. After the 2004 induction ceremony, held at the Campbell Conference, responsibility for the Hall will be transferred.

Is this some huge financial windfall for KaCSFFS? No, we aren't getting a penny out of the deal. What we are getting is the acknowledgement of our past efforts, and the comfort of knowing that future inductions are going to be done by a group with the money and PR presence necessary to do it right.

Do you know who has been inducted in the past? Probably not. Our efforts have mostly fallen on deaf ears in the media. But I suspect that when the 2005 inductees are announced, you'll see the story on Slashdot!

Well spoken. It's nice to see some clear examples instead of "AMD sucks".

But, being the AMD fan I am, I must say that perhaps your problems are more due to bad luck than anything, since RMA rates for motherboards are significantly higher than other components.

And so this brings me to a question... is there a site that gives statistics on RMA rates?

- - - - - - - - - -

P.S. - The following riposte is a cut and paste of a previous slashdot post:

Pentium Floating-point division bug [ku.edu] (it's close enough, isn't it?)
Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums [iss.net] Pentium crash codes
Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats [ddj.com] Unable to convert to int
Pentium III can't even start up [bbc.co.uk] You went faster with an 8088
SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash [zdnet.co.uk] Pretty blue screens abound.
PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage [macworld.com] Watch the task manager, Phil.
Yay, PIII MTH crashes! [com.com] Does MTH stand for Meth?
Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz [com.com] Fastest crashes ever.
Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz [com.com] More Xeon quality in a box.
Total Recall 4: CC820 [techweb.com] How many defects? Can't recall...
Pentium 4 overwriting data [zdnet.co.uk] Hope it wasn't something important.
Pentium 4 chipset bug [com.com] Fast video performance? Naaa.
P4 Oracle/Sun problems [indiana.edu] More workarounds than work
Itanium shipments halted [theinquirer.net] That's an expensive oops.

Just so nobody gets any ideas that Intel is perfect...

You don't. This article, The Dissemination of Art in the Technological Age explains many of the issues in the United States. The owner of public domain art, (i.e. copyright expired art, e.g. a 17th century painting), typically a museum, physically controls the art. Museums forbid unofficial photography, supplying the market only with official Museum owned or licensed photographs that are copyright starting at the shutter click (today), not the first brush stroke (e.g. 120 years ago), so the public domain art is locked up, and the market pays for the copyrighted (till a court case says otherwise) official image.

Mac refugee, paper MCSE, Linux wanna-be...

Isaac Asimov in a speech to the 1989 American Booksellers Association had a word of comfort for the traditionalists among us. He made a passionate defense of the survival of the book when he asked his audience to imagine a device that "can go anywhere, is totally portable. . . . Something that can be started and stopped at will [and] requires no electric energy to operate." This dream device is, of course, the book. "It will never be surpassed because it represents the minimum technology with the maximum interaction you can have."

(Quoted from Libraries in Science Fiction)

Mark

I don't think you know your history very well.

Ever heard of something called Iran-Contra? US did invade with the CIA (of course, I'm not implying that they invaded with their military). Check out this link: The history of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua.

While you are at it, here are all the US interventions in the last hundread years or so:

A history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean

A Brief History of U.S. Interventions: 1945 to the Present

Hope you learn something...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Biospice, Ecell, Dizzy,a more complete list

The blaring political incorrectness of the headline is so compelling, I have to comment. One never refers to a person by their disability. People aren't defined as "the disabled" as though their disability is the most significant part of their identity. The correct and respectful approach is to say "people with disabilities".

See Guidelines for Reporting and Writing about People with Disabilities for more info.

OK, keep in mind while reading the following that I'm a member of the ACLU. I'm going to touch on some of their less popular positions, though.

The ACLU tends to be fanatical on matters of speech, even when most people would not necessarily be on their side. The case that Bill O'Reiley likes to rail against is where they have helped defend the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA)... they really do believe that everybody has the right to say anything, no matter what it is and what might be done with that information.

They have also been famous in defending (and winning) the right of groups like the Ku Klux Klan and fascist Nazi-praising groups to march. Again, for them it's a bright line: no matter how vile the speech, the speaker has the right to say it.

They have also been very active in challenging the Bush Administration's position that they are able to keep suspected terrorists incommunicado for as long as they like.

I wouldn't necessarily want to live in a world where the ACLU positions always ended up prevailaing. I do, however, believe that they are a very necessary counterbalance to those interests that would drag us back to the bad old days of McCarthyism (I would ask Ann Coulter, "Have you no shame, Madame?") and other reactionary movements.

On September 11th, I sent money to two groups: the Red Cross and the ACLU.

Commenting on an ancient manuscript is a lot different than knowing whether the chip in your computer functions correctly (and I am not an expert in computer technology, as you can see what I spend my time studying). However, how would an average user know that a chip is bad, even if things were going wrong on their computer? They would need greater knowledge than that just knowing how to turn it on and run a few programs. Likewise, how can you know what the quality of a manuscript is with poor sources, and when you cannot even read the language (much less do so even if you had access to a reliable copy of the manuscript).

But history proves you wrong, AC. Before 1963 works were only protected by copyright for 28 years, unless they were renewed. Many of them were not: It's a Wonderful Life is a prominent example, but there's also some Loeb classics translations, other films, music, etc. If people and companies chose not to renew the copyrights when it was unprofitable to do so back before 1968, why would they bother to "renew" them under this law?

And, needless to say, with this law you wouldn't have to risk being sued to use some 52-year-old material that was genuinely abandoned. You would be able to know that it was in the public domain, if it was, and know that the copyright holder actively wanted to keep the copyright, otherwise. You wouldn't have to test the waters by risking a lawsuit, as in the scenario you describe.

Lynx is a product of the Distributed Computing Group within Academic Computing Services of The University of Kansas. Lynx was originally developed by Lou Montulli, Michael Grobe, and Charles Rezac. Garrett Blythe created DosLynx and later joined the Lynx effort as well. Currently it is being maintained by members of the Internet community. Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee and the other CERN World Wide Web wizards for the WWW client library code and all of their other work on the WWW project. Thanks to NCSA and the Mosaic developers, and to everyone out in netland who has contributed to Lynx's development either directly (through comments or bug reports) or indirectly (through inspiration and development of other systems). Also a special thanks to Foteos Macrides who ported much of Lynx to VMS, and to Earl Fogel of the University of Saskatchewan. Earl developed a UN*X/VMS version of Peter Scott's HYTELNET using the hypertext engine HYPERREZ. HYPERREZ was developed by Neil Larson of MaxThink and served as the infrastructure for the early versions of Lynx which did not use the WWW libraries and had their own hypertext format.

Actually, the random number generator is the math coprocessor. And they are not even the first to think about this: such techniques were pioneered by Intel in the first Pentiums

I've found a list of 'Required Reading' for KU's english department. The list is here if you're interested.

Other Resource from KU's English Dept. are Here and include lots of info for the english teacher of science fiction, even at the High School level.

Literary analysis of Sci Fi is similar to many other kinds of analysis, with the added issue of bringing people into a complex and scientific environment (and problems / solutions involved therewith), believablity, the role of coincidence (as Dostoyevsky said, the quality == less coincidences), etc.

I've found a list of 'Required Reading' for KU's english department. The list is here if you're interested.

Other Resource from KU's English Dept. are Here and include lots of info for the english teacher of science fiction, even at the High School level.

Literary analysis of Sci Fi is similar to many other kinds of analysis, with the added issue of bringing people into a complex and scientific environment (and problems / solutions involved therewith), believablity, the role of coincidence (as Dostoyevsky said, the quality == less coincidences), etc.

This isnt an isolated incident, rather its a trend. Big state universities are a target for hack attacks unfortunately.

Kansas University was hit hard in late January. SEVIS was pilfered, Student Exchange Visitor Information System; part of the Patriot Act)

Info here.

It's pretty easy. If you want to create a link, you do this:

<a href="URL">Link text</a>.

The <a> means anchor (although people rarely use it as an anchor). It tells the web browser there is a link coming. The href="URL" tells the browser where the link points. The </a> indicates the end of the anchor.

To make a new paragraph, just toss a <p> at the front of the paragraph. To make a new line, place a <br> for break at the beginning of the line.

So your post would look something like this in HTML:

Just a few links on the subject;
<br><a href="http://www.pafko.com/trips/norway/n10/"> about the sabotage</a>
<br><a href="http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/heavy.htm ">about heavy water and it's use</a>
<br><a href="http://www.lawzone.com/half-nor/haukelid.htm ">about Knut Haukelid; another of the heroes from Telemark</a>
<br><a href="http://www.390th.org/warstories/Rjukan.htm"> about how the USAF tried and failed to knock out the heavy water plant</a>

Yeah! I know proper HTML.

All of that would look something like this:

Just a few links on the subject;
about the sabotage
about heavy water and it's use
about Knut Haukelid; another of the heroes from Telemark
about how the USAF tried and failed to knock out the heavy water plant

Yeah! I know proper HTML.

Considering all the people who put up links without proper HTML markup, Slashdot should set up a quick HTML primer for people.

In case you're curious, for bold, you would type:

<b> bold</b>

For italics, you would type:

<i> italics</i>

To indent a section of text:

<p>
<blockquote>

indented text

</blockquote>

To learn more, look at an HTML quick reference guide.

Funny that the Romans were using this "invention" more than 1700 years earlier. :-)

But, if what you *really* want is a projector...

First, think about the color of the surface you are projecting on - notice that in the image you provided, the surface was dark, and the image was *very* bright. In fact, just from the picture I think it was too bright, it would probably dazzle you to actually use it in real life. A projector may or may not work well on such a surface, unless the image it was projecting had mostly light colors (whitish). Otherwise, you would want your surface to be something lighter (like a tan or grey color) - which may mean changing your countertop.

Once that issue is out of the way, all you have to do is build the projector (easier said than done, BTW). A simple projector is nothing more than an image source, and a convex (magnifying) lens. Simple "project-a-picture" projectors found at arts/crafts supply stores use this system. It works OK, but isn't the best (see numerous examples online and on ebay about 100 inch TV plans) - but may work well for your application. If you really want to do this right, look up information and discussion about "triplet projection lenses" - these are lens systems that are designed for projection, and tend to have everything set up to make the image projected clear and undistorted. Unfortunately, you will tend to find new triplet assemblies to be rather pricey - which is where surplus comes in. There are people out there building such projectors (for TV projection mainly) - the projectors thus built tend to be big, but in a theater-type setting, it doesn't matter as much (other than asthetics). But this is because the builders are trying to get a huge picture, and so need a lens with a large focal length, which increases the size of the projector (unless you are adept with mirrors and folding the light path - which is outside the scope of most builders). However, since you would be projecting a much shorter distance, you can get away with a smaller lens, and hence a smaller enclosure for the projector you build.

Here are a couple of sites to get you started:

Alan's DIY Projector

Apogee, Inc.

The first one is a guy who sells triplet lenses on eBay, but provides the plans and such for free. The second is a source I found for surplus lenses, and they have a few low focal length lenses that might fit the bill for what you are wanting to do. It also might be possible to build your own custom triplet assembly from lenses picked out of an Edmund Scientific catalog, but it will be pricey.

For an LCD, to keep the size down, use something like a smaller 5 or 6 inch LCD - these can be found surplus, or you can use something like that used for "in-dash" auto video systems. You will have to disassemble the LCD in order to add a bright backlight system (which is a whole discussion in and of itself - look at the sites off of Alan's links and you will see what has been tried, and how well it works - don't forget about heat issues and the LCD, too!). Hook up a VGA to TV converter, stick to a low-res display with larger fonts, and you are set.

Mouse pointer issues can be a problem here, but I would suggest a variation on what I described first, except instead of a clear glass inset in the counter, get a white or light color porcelain (ok, I I think I mangled that word) cutting "board", make the rabbets wider to hold the board better, and install a stainless steel "splash guard" around the seam, and seal it. Project down onto this. It can act as a "screen", and serve as a useful cutting board for cooking (ok, I am thinking "kitchen computer" here - where it seems the picture you provided was aimed at). Otherwise, inset a light panel of similar countertop or desk material instead.

I hope this helps - sometimes I wonder why I am not paid for this...

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