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Eudora email has a pgp plug in that works just fine. According to a PGP article so do Lookout Express, Pegasus and Groupwise.

Why? If you remember back to when HDTV was cutting edge and CRT's didn't get that high-res, the FCC demo'd the technology with a light-valve projector called the Eidophor 52HD (Greek for "light bearer") from Gretag which was capable of displaying the HD signal. Now, I know light-valve projectors are all but dead due to LCD and DMD/DLP units, but I wonder if they could resurrect the technology for these very-high-res units. In theory, a light-valve projector (being essentially an analog device) has no real qualms with whatever resolution you want--give it an analog signal, and it'll draw it!

I think I'm mistaken about SoftVoice's stuff in regards to the Mac and Amiga not being related though. Sorry about that. Been a long time since I did Amiga stuff, and I'd completely forgotten about the SoftVoice work.

I would like to help solidify your platform.

• Abortion: Spot on, man. Making abortion illegal has the direct result of teenagers in bathtubs with coathangers, which are far more of a burden on our health care system. Besides, there's supposed to be separation of church and state, and anti-abortion is a religious stance in most cases.
• Taxes: Please read up on the FairTax initiative. My favorite part is that it taxes consumption rather than earnings, so those who reuse/recycle/buy used goods/consume less will end up paying less taxes.
• Death Penalty: Abolish it. If even 0.001% of the criminals executed are innocent, it's too many. And statistics show that it costs less to keep a criminal in jail for the rest of their life, than it costs to execute them. From both a compassionate and fiscal stance, eliminating the death penalty makes sense.
• Gun Control: This is a tough one. Why should someone be denied the ability (right?) to defend themselves and their family simply because of a mistake they made in their past? And requiring a license makes it easy to "round up the guns" which the Nazis did in taking over power. A disarmed populace is an easily controlled populace. The 2nd Amendment is important; however, there needs to be a balance because otherwise violence may get out of hand. Long story short I think I'd leave it the way it currently is, or perhaps put less restrictions on it.
• Space Program: Another post had a quote from Jerry Pournelle with a great plan: the government would give a tax-free reward to the first American company to cross a specific finish line. Here's a link to that post.
• Prayer in School: Your later response is correct: prayer should not be mandatory, led by school officials, or otherwise forced on students; and also, students should not be prevented from praying (as long as they don't do it out loud).
• Education: Web cams in classrooms will go a long way toward bettering the teachers; if the teachers are graded by the students then teachers might "dumb down" their classes so the students like them better. But having the parents grade the teachers makes sense -- the parents can watch the teachers in action through the webcams, and can also judge how well their child is learning by asking their child questions. Funding should be increased, and by funding I mean teachers salaries should be doubled (or so). Give financial incentives to enter a teaching profession and we'll get better teachers. So we can finally do away with the old saying, "Those who can't do, teach. (And those who can't teach, teach gym.)"
• War in Iraq: I'd like to say get out now, stop wasting money. We've spent $75 billion, and Bush is now asking for $87 billion more. Iraq oil could generate $12 billion next year and $20 billion/year for the next two years (can't find the article, I read it last week). Given this, we would need to appropriate 100% of Iraq's oil revenues for ourselves for 7-10 years in order to "pay for" our military action. I don't think we're going to see that money, which is why I recommend getting out fast and letting the UN clean it up.
• War on Drugs: Pot should be legal, agreed -- then we'd spend far less money enforcing laws that a majority don't want in the first place; and we'd also enjoy increased tax revenue. Treat it just like alcohol: enjoy your body and mind on your own time, but if you're in

one of these when I was about 13.

I had Robie Sr and he kicked ass! :) You could play music with the cassette player in his torso, and you could also record movement sequences on said tape deck. You could talk through the remote control and have your voice come out through his head. In fact (wow, serious flashback!) I hacked my telephone and wired the audio into the mic in jack on Robie, so everyone I talked to on the phone had a robotic avatar of sorts.

I programmed a sequence for him to wake me up each morning (using his built-in alarm clock) to roll over to my bed side and start yelling at me (in my own voice) to get out of bed. I used to have him hold my police scanner, too, and jacked the audio to the line in. I don't know, I guess everything seemed funnier when the sound was routed through a robot whose mouth lit up as a VU meter. That, and being able to turn his eyes on as headlights was pretty cool, too. I really tinkered with that thing, too. I figured out how to route my voice to his command channel, what pitch to shriek at to emulate commands from the remote, and how to cut the power to the remote with the voice channel open and use him to listen to neighbors' cordless phones. Man, I have been a geek for a long, long time.

[/me slams phone down on the beach and exits frame right]

Basically, it's a big remote controlled Robie Robot Jr that looks like a dinosaur. By the way, does anyone else remember the Radio Shack Robie Robot Jr, or was I the only person to get one as a kid when I was 6?

The best part about the "SCO to Shoot Babies" story is that someone posted it to a thread here at Slashdot, and Google News found it. A search at Google News for sco execs dumping stock brings up the story. Apparently their scraping engine looks for standard byline formats ("By John Doe. City, ST - Something is happening") and pulled the fake news story from the Slashdot article.

For awhile, it was even on the front page of Google News.

--
Rate Naked People! at Fuck Meter (not work-safe)

SCO Execs Dumping Stock
Slashdot - 2 hours ago
By Jeff Heard. Lindon, UT - The SCO Group announced the launch of a campaign to shoot 1% of all babies born in the US. "Statistically ...

This guy caught it when it was on Google's Top News page.

This is funny, but it shows that we need to take things like Google with a grain of salt. There's no human in the loop, and sometimes it shows.

The page has changed now, but I saved a copy.

It credits Slashdot, too. I've saved the page in case it changes later. Scroll down to the bit about SCO in the right-hand column.

"It's not about the bike"

Yes, Chris's Superman bike was banned by the UCI for the same reasons recumbents were banned in the 30's. Aerodynamics.

All those little changes only help riders such as Lance or Chris, beat other riders of the same caliber. The real change has been in sports physiology, diet, conditioning.

Put Major Taylor, the top racer at the turn of the century (and the best Black bike racer ever), on any new racing bike. Put Lance on any racing bike built in the last 40 years. With relevant gearing, Lance will smoke him. Conditioning, diet, physiology.

Same with running. You can't tell me that records are being broken because of better shoes.

Some disks were mastered with electron beams (RCA). RCA players also used a stylus, but the Phillips unit used a Helium-Neon laser.

I know it's gonna take the poor guy's site down, but here's a link to the 1977 Popular Science article talking about both players.

This cuts through the possibility of infinite regression, and also hints at a way of testing whether a universe is simulated. I personally have serious doubts that our universe, with its demonstrable complexity, could be simulated, since the simulator would have to be several orders of magnitude more complex, to be able to store the state of all particles.

There is a possible escape, mentioned in The Matrix, which is that the simulator "cheats" by not simulating to the same level of detail in all areas. Maybe Bishop Berkeley had the right idea to ask "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?". If the simulator cheats, then maybe not all falling trees do make a sound.

Translated into physics, this would mean that some unobserved actions might not totally follow the same laws as observed actions. I'll let the Quantum Mechanics experts see how well this fits their observations. If anything, I feel QM disproves the cheating simulator - since an observed particle with collapsed wave function needs less information to describe it than an uncollapsed set of possibilities. But maybe our universe needs more stress-testing to see if the simulation breaks down.

Anyway, our planet already contains 6,337,052,626 separate universes, and counting...

The people pictured are from the Atlanta team, there's also a Pasadena team that is putting a picture together. From left to right they are: Tom Tatom, Kate Trower, Bobby Arnold, Beth, Milliken, Larry Fine, and Louis Rush. People in Atlanta not pictured include our team lead Erich Hablutzel, Brian Greer, and the departmental manager, Mary Youngblood. The Pasadena crew includes Laura Truchon, Kenn Wilson, Brad Patton, Brian Majeska, Jesse Kolbert, Kevin Phillips.

Today is a good day for all anti-spam activists!

There's another set of archives of stuff from the unix-haters list at this website. It's a bunch of stuff that didn't make the handbook, and is not as interesting in general (more repetitive), etc. However, if you're at an academic environment and there's crufty old stuff (say, like the zephyr IM system) sitting around, or you've been in the unix admin business for a while..., you're bound to find some mention of numerous design and implementation bogosities in your (least) favorite packages.

The Null Object pattern provides an alternative to using null to indicate the absence of an object to delegate an operation to. Using null to indicate the absence of such an object requires a test for null before each call to the other object's methods. Instead of using null, the Null Object pattern uses a reference to an object that doesn't do anything.

The null instance of whatever class your labels variable is could do the locale stuff. (Or maybe it wouldn't work in your case; it's hard to say without the context.)

Depends on if Quantum Computers become practical in that timeframe. If they do, RSA (and a lot of other crypto algorithms) become useless.

Um, no.

From the Crypto Mini-FAQ:

Q: Will quantum computers make all this crypto obsolete?

Not in our lifetimes. Quantum cryptography along a single fiber optic
strand has been demonstrated, and claims to offer provable security
in a certain narrow academic sense, like the one-time pad. But to be
practical, it has to be combined with conventional cryptography, in
which case the quantum operations do not add much.

Quantum computers threaten the future of RSA in about the same way
that cold fusion threatens to solve the world's energy problems. It
would require huge theoretical and practical breakthroughs. Even if
that happens, people could just shift to AES-256 and other algorithms.
In the meantime, Moore's Law is a bigger threat to RSA.

Comics Worth Reading

There're some 50+ text adventure/interactive fiction pieces released each year, a handful of which I'd buy if they came in a nice box with nice goodies.

Only a very few are _sold_, and even those are downloadable. The non-commerciality allows for experimentation and diversity. Interactive fiction is thriving.

Dang, good writing stands out like a sore thumb on slashdot. Here's the ref

The shows a unit labled 'Single Wide'. I wonder what that implies for the future

Not sure. Here's a double wide, though. You can pick one up today, for low, low prices.

No they are really quite distinct. The issue of effeciency is that some appliations are only possible where there is enough energy converted. Thus the Sunraycer had to have a really long tail to absord enough energy. So we aren't going to have solar powered cars in any meaningful way with the current effeciency regardless of the cost. So the point also is that most commercial buildings will have a tough time producing their enough energy from solar even in AZ or NM.

As for cost that is really the thing that is keeping widespread implemenation from occuring in the sunny climates.

And as for Lomborg's idea about Moore's Law, the breakthrough will come when the price makes it effective even if the prices drop after your purchase. Just look at computers, we buy them even though they are dropping at an even faster rate. You make a calculation and if it makes sense then buy. After that point it is a sunk cost.

Perhaps the average consumer does not need more than a web browser and a word processor, but much of business requires specific applications. My industry, architecture, can not use the computer without CAD software. Thus our choice of operating systems is restricted by the offerings of CAD. (And since AutoCAD currently reigns supreme in this industry, we're stuck on Windows for a long time.)

All this talk about Linux distributions is child's play, what we really need are apps, then we can discuss suitability of distributions. I can not understand why no one seems to realize this. Enterprise level CAD and accounting software would swing huge numbers of users (personal or business) to any flavor of Linux. (Like the construction industry, maybe 5 percent the total US GDP.)

(BTW, if anybody is interested in starting a GPL, GTK+ CAD project, please drop me a line... I'm not an experienced programmer but I can do graphics, documentation, HTML, whatever, to help a serious effort. You can check CAD on Linux for more on me and my (admittedly old) research into CAD on Linux.)

If you've been trying to obtain more than a "frown" from scientists on questioning evolution then you'll know about some of the slightly better than normal critiques, like that made by creationist Timothy Wallace countering a representative article written by evolutionist Mark Isaak on the talk.origins website.

Those criticisms were then countered in turn by (open-minded evolutionist) Wayne Duck, and throughout his response you can see his open-minded scientific position quite clearly. Where Wallace makes a point using clear logic, he accepts it, rather than simply rubbishing the criticisms with more rhetoric. Note in particular the final page, in which Duck could not be more clear as to the status of evolution as a scientific theory: ultimately, while the huge weight of supporting evidence for evolution is still entire universes away from being a complete picture, it is believed by scientists to be reliable only because there is currently no other theory that comes anywhere even remotely near to providing as scientifically complete a model with substantiating evidence as does evolution. But, as he says, that could change tomorrow. It's unlikely.

Jordan has even bigger geek creds: King Abdullah had a cameo on Star Trek! Okay, so it was Voyager, but still.

And some of Indy III was shot there. They're almost guaranteed to switch.

Worse still, if you have a script that generates an arbitrary number of 4:33 .mp3s of nothing, you can violate John Cages copyright in truly efficient fashion.
Now, if the product is a copyright violation, is the script itself a violation as well? What does the I-ANAL crowd think?

Not only that, here's a pic of the Ahtlon-fan him(?)self! http://www.mindspring.com/~bstretch/

Agreed, and I dont think it would be possible for this guy's picture to fit his comment any more than it does.

I missed the 3rdly in my post, it wasn't chrisd that has the dual 2400+, it is Brian Stretch.

Nick Cave edition iPod (plays music, but you hear only silence)

I think you meant John Cage.

By the way, here's his signature, for free no less.

PureFiction writes "Peer networks are gaining some attention these days given advances in much more decentralized search architectures and swarming distribution networks. Research has indicated that these decentralized networks are resistant to legal and technological attacks. The continued proliferation of broadband and wireless networking will ensure pervasive deployment of distributed peer networking infrastructure that will drive significant innovations in personal and community digital communications services."

When modeling or building, there's an accepted 5 to 6 ratio on stud vs height. See my dimensions guide. So a 6 studs by 6 studs by 5 bricks (or 4 bricks, 2 plates, one tile) should do the trick (within accepted Lego tolerances).

You might get a slightly different ratio if you use calipers, but wouldn't that apply to any discrete building material? Think "tolerances".

Preface
The X-Windows Disaster
Some quotes
The Unix Hater's Mailinglist archive
Additional Unix-Hater's information

Adventure Clone for PC

", Dan Burk, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Law, says it is perfectly legal to patent any kind of automated technique, such as Amazon's One-Click patent and Priceline's reverse auction patent. Additionally, he says, "Improvements on known technologies are patentable." "

These are not quite true.

You cannot Patent any kind of automated technique!!! Why? Because I said so, and so does Father physics and Mother nature!!!!)

Nor Can you Patent improvements on Known Technology... as a general statement this is untrue in the class of technology consisting a core basis of Physical Phenonmenon, Natural Law and abstract concepts, to name a few ....

Another example is the ECMA-335 document. The Common Language Infrastructure, which is in essence the sum total of programming concepts and datatypes integrated in a non-conflicting manner.
Much of which has such a level of prior art that it is not patentable, and that does extend to "improvements".

Actually most accessibility features are quite cheap, especially if they're done at time of construction. Average cost for a new home with basic access is $200.

Somehow, I forgot some URLs. Here are Adam Cadre's games, and Emily Short's ones (scroll down a bit).

Uh...so, like how do I get to the installer? Through your ISP of course! My ISP is AOL.

This is not a catch-22, as you don't have to download the client software through the Internet but rather through the Postnet. Simply ask your ISP to send you a bisk[1]. Stick it in your computer's CD-ROM drive, and it'll mount the filesystem. Then, from nautilus or konqueror, open the CD and find the little "linux-install" icon. Open it, and You've Got Spam!

[1] "Bisk" refers to a copy of client software for any online service that uses a proprietary dialer and does not use standard PPP, especially such a copy distributed without charge (and often unsolicited) through the postal service.

A history and discussion of the piece can be found here.

Monkeys with four asses
Woman with two asses
And, finally,
God with two asses

Did you get that this was a pun?

Here's what I was talking about, although if you're not a goatse.cx fan you might find the images disturbing.

RealTimeBattle is cool. BTW, you can write your Bots in any language since communication is done using stdio.

I wrote a bot for RealTimeBattle once ("Defensive Attack" - funny that this beast is still available) and found it to be real fun. I was a bit distracted that for the IBM project you could only use Java. With new experiments like this, I like to be able to use the language I'm best in.

CAD!

Linux is terribly lacking good CAD software, let alone Free CAD software. Please see my CAD Pages for the full scoop. (BTW, if anybody is interested in starting a serious Free Software CAD project, please contact me!)

Aren't Mindspring and Earthlink the same company?

Basics set of action constants for Autocoding and general automation by end users

And be sure to understand what preparation means Cornering the Autocoding market

The best place to hide something is right out in the open.

>A crime victim using a firearm in self-defense is over 2/3 less likely to be harmed than one using another weapon.

A december 1999 study by the justice policy institute shows that America's prisons are overflowing with criminals. There are now more criminals behind bars in the USA than there are in most of the EU (if not all). Out of every 4 people you pass on the street, one of them has been to prison. Out of every 3 black people you pass on the street, one will be in jail shortly.

You talk of a country that needs to defend itself with firearms. People outside of your country see a justice system that is out of control, and we know that arming your entire country will not solve the problem. If it hasn't curbed the problem yet, why should be believe you?

What you need is a justice system that works for you. If you feel vigilante justice by the barrel of a gun is perfect for your country, why not take a look at how well that is working for other countries. Ask a friend from a third world country who would have punished him for a a serious crime.

You'll notice it isn't the police, or the justice system.

Its the people.

Vigilante justice by the barrel of a gun is the system that works for third world countries. I can guarantee you that the USA will never join the top 5 best countries to live in as long as people believe that justice should be metered out on the spot with a firearm in the potential victims hands.

>because if I or someone I know commits suicide, it is because said person made a conscious, considered decision to do so, and I respect that decision

Bullshit. Have you ever talked to someone that was saved from their suicide death? Have you ever asked them if they were in a proper state of mind to make that decision?

I think the answer is a resounding no.

>and indeed, I've found people in Texas, one of the more heavily armed of the states, to be far more trusting of their neighbors than residents of California, which has among the strongest gun control

Are people more trusting, or are they infact worried that a show of distrust and, as follows, disrespect might be met with hot lead?

What you speak of is infact the opposite of what your founding fathers wanted for this country. They wanted a peaceful country, where guns were to be used as a defence against invasion by an unlawful government. People in your country have twisted their meaning from a defence against the King of England invading, to a defence against a robber on the street.

For shame that people in your own country haven't read the true meaning written into the very lifeblood of your own country.

Allow me to quote the constitutional right being twisted by the very members of your own country:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

You, a single entity, are not a militia.

This is a militia (thanks, dictionary.com):

1. An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.
2. A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.
3. The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.

First off, the founding fathers of your country wanted you to keep guns available to you in the event an emergency happened. Clearly, a militia, which would be a citizens army, does not respond to individual crimes.

Second off, a militia is clearly not a single entity.

So why do you all have guns and want to use them to defend your individual selves? Do none of you read the foundations that made your country which everyone appears to hold so dearly?

>Those who would gain a little safety by giving up their rights -- and so depriving their children and grandchildren of those same rights -- I cannot forgive them, and much less can I become one.

As I have proved above, Benjamin Franklin didn't want it to be this way. Sorry, no dice. Benjamin Franklin was clearly speaking about 1st Amendment rights, and should be turning over in his grave like a roast on a spit right now.

>Further, allowing concealed handguns demonstrably reduces crime.

A lie which I have previously demonstrated to be a falsehood. And I provided links to my sources as well.

>Hence, using the US and Israel as data points

The US has no known nation actively attacking it. Show me where the American gaza strip is. If you think its in New York, tell me if its happened since.

Didn't think so.

Canada is the closest cousin to the US as far as law, attitude, wars, and culture goes, and it is the most valid comparison one can make. If you think the US is anything like Israel, why don't you go over there and announce you're a Palestinian?

At least in the US if you announce you are black or jewish (the people who seem to be on the most recently hated list for the US) you won't get killed (except by a handgun wielding maniac). And if you do, your government will do everything in its power to protect you, unlike Israel.

A Red Herring, if I do say to myself.

>Likewise, screaming and running away from a rapist is far more dangerous than using a firearm in defense.

Using a firearm in self defence is more likely to result in your death rather than your rape. The majority of American firearm owners are untrained and would more likely miss or graze the attacker than kill them. And if they aren't dead, guess who will be?

Oh, and last but not least, my numbers are coming from an unbiased source. A book with the title "Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda" sounds more like propaganda itself than an unbiased source. Did the writer of this book compile these numbers himself, or did he provide sources of government checked and verified information? Or at least sources of third party, uninvolved information?

Likely not.

The only first world country with such a lax set of gun control laws is also the country that you are most likely to end up in jail in. And it isn't even in the top 5 best countries to live in to boot. Yet your gun controlling cousins are. Explain to me the problem so serious that even your guns can't solve it.

The attitude that guns make America a safe, good place to live in isn't shared by the other 95% of the world, sorry. In fact, a now (sadly) outdated quote repeated on the Simpsons stating that a gun is more likely to kill a family member than a robber goes to show there's a lot of people living in your own country that disagree with you.

But, know what? I don't care all that much. I feel safe in my low crime country. I have walked in our largest cities without arms in the middle of the night, and the only people attacking me are people with their paper begging cups.

But, after a trip to Atlanta, the murder capital of the USA (at the time I was so informed by the news -- if it wasn't #1, I sure as hell wouldn't want to go where #1 is), I suppose I would feel like I have to carry a gun. And, as usual, control through violence sparks more violence, and so the cycle goes. Some cities on spin cycle, and some are on rinse.

I'll keep my city on rinse, thank you very much. And I'll keep my freedoms and essential liberties by being able to go where I want, and do what I want, and think what I want, as long as I don't kill anyone. And, if I really have a need to fire a handgun (and God only knows why) I'll be a police officer or a soldier. So, in effect, you lose no rights, except for the right to be a loose cannon. The majority of the world echoes back that this is a good thing, not a bad thing.

And if you're an American passerby reading this thread, I'm quite sorry for dragging your country through the mud. There's many, many, many great reasons to be an American, probably more than there are to be a Canadian, but a lack of crime through arming the populace simply isn't one of them.

But I'll pass on the multicart. Looks like it wouldn't pass the FCC on radiated emissions.

This guy should have gotten some PCBs made so he could avoid the mess.

RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen said in a statement that Berman's bill was "an innovative approach," adding that "it makes sense to clarify existing laws to ensure that copyright owners--those who actually take the time and effort to create an artistic work--are at least able to defend their works from mass piracy."

And all this time I thought musical artists were the ones creating music and not the RIAA. Now we see what Hilary really thinks of the people she's supposed to be representing... Lets not forget that when you sell your soul to the RIAA, you no longer own any music you've created. Here's the proof. Or is Lars readying to "pilfer the grabasses"?

Try this one for $9.

It's serial (not USB) so that might be a downside, but it has linux support too !

I've been using one on my mp3 player box, and it's great!