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... GPS software also generates wrong results under acceleration to discourage DIY missile systems ...
You got a source for that assertion?

There's an International Trafficking in Arms Regulation which designates as weapons GPS systems "designed for producing navigation results above 60,000 feet altitude and at 1,000 knots velocity or greater" (i.e. for ICBMs) or "Designed or modified for use with unmanned air vehicle systems capable of delivering at least a 500 kg payload to a range of at least 300 km" (i.e. for cruise missiles). The second one is kind of pointless, since there's no way the GPS system can tell. The first one, though, is implemented in most GPS units. High altitude balloon experimenters and rocket guidance system companies have workarounds.

Yes, it is rocket science.

Many of the early political leaders of this country were surveyors, such as George Washington. Others were political philosophers or scientific farmers such as Franklin. Still others, like Lincoln, were amateur engineers.

A shift occurred near the end of the 19th century, but definitely by the late 20th century America lost its ability to elect a non-politician. Hoover was a mining engineer, but that is not what his claim to fame was. For a better example, there is no way Dwight D. Eisenhower could be elected today. It seems to me that only the career politician and not the technocrat has any possibility of being elected to high political office in the United States.

Certainly on the right there is a push against intellectualism. This is due to the (correct) perception of correlation between education and atheism. A well educated man would recognize that (1) God cannot be proven to exist and (2) humans have spent most of the non-agriculturally occupied time of the past 12000 years trying to prove that God exists therefore (3) God likely does not exist. An non-well uneducated man would think that Glenn Beck's chalkboard makes some sense.

I believe that this movement in the United States away from intellectualism is conscious. The embrace in the last election of "Joe Six-Pack" and the concern of the opinion of "Joe the Plumber" would seem to validate this belief. Who on earth would want to categorize themselves as "Joe Six-Pack"?

The premise of America in the past has been that the common man is inherently uncommon. He can make himself great through industry and intelligence. Instead, there is a embrace of the common anti-virtue. It's almost as an emergence of a permanent lower class. Typically, this change was multi-generational, but it could occur with one man.

Today, there are now people in the United States who cannot, for purely cultural reasons, cannot move up. They will not be able to attend college or find a job that pays well. There will be exceptions, but these will be few and far between; the sort of likelihood of a boy playing basketball and making it to the NBA.

Hi Bruce! You going to DCC this month?

The altitude limit isn't universal, and seems to be dependent on how the manufacturer reads the regs. Off the top of my head, I know the Garmin GPS 18 and 18x (with current firmware) and the Trimble Copernicus work at over 100,000'. As far as I know, nothing from SiRF does unless you have special firmware, and good luck getting those guys to even talk to you. Here's a table with some test results:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/wallio/GPSrcvrsvs60kft.htm

I use the GPS 18x myself, but that's mostly because I stock them and in Garmin binary mode I get high resolution Z velocity data which I can use to monitor ascent rate. You can get by with something lighter and cheaper.

Scott
N1VG

Check out Section 5, item (D), bullet (d) of the Radio Act of 1927, which created the Federal Radio Commission. The FRC morphed into the FCC in 1934. Specifically, the Secretary of Commerce is given the right to terminate the license of operators who transmit "profane or obscene words of language". You can view the text of the act here

This has been part of the FCC's mandate from the very beginning. It has been upheld by the courts, for instance in "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation".

That's why you had a civil war. People in the southern states were keeping slaves.

No, that is not why we had the civil war. Consider the order of events:

• 1861: Southern states secede; war begins
• 1863: The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect, declaring escaped slaves from southern, non-board states to be free. (This excludes slaves in northern and boarder states.)
• April 1865: South surrenders; war ends.
• December 1865: Thirteenth Amendment passed, outlawing slavery and finally freeing slaves in northern states.

Had outlawing slavery come first, before the secession and war, I would be much more inclined to believe that abolition was the cause of the American Civil War. As it is, emancipation was a strategic move to help the war effort.

Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley shows quite clearly the reason for the war:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.

Slavery was wrong, and needed to be stopped. But it could have been stopped peacefully. Britain, France, and others did it.

Health care costs can reduced by about 50% by:

First, data mine insurance forms to obtain cost and performance data for health care providers, then make that data available on the Internet so consumers can shop wisely for health care.

Second, require a high deductible on any insurance that a consumer has.

Third, if a consumer can't afford health care at the time needed, the government provides a loan.

With this approach, a consumer has both the incentive to shop wisely for health care and the information needed to do so. Then, competition will drive down costs. This is the heart of the approach. More details would be needed to make it viable.

Taxes are so high that many mothers work. Many kids come home to an empty house, then find some comfort food to fill their emotional emptiness. Then sometime later, look in the mirror, see that they are gaining weight, and then eat some more comfort food. And that's why a lot of kids are fat. It's a good reason to put the government on a diet.

Enclaves with their own local government, laws and regulations would provide places where new ideas and approaches could be tried without significant risk to the rest of the nation. And then once shown to work, can be adopted nationwide. This is an end run around decades of liberal expansion of government, including regulations.

How one feels about the country, the government and one's prospects for the future influences how productive one is. If one feels powerless, trapped in a boring job, a cog in a bureaucratic machine, etc., one is likely to tune out and go thru the motions daily until one retires. On the other hand, if one feels good about things, one is likely to be engaged, productive and perhaps innovative.

There's more information and more ideas at:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/stanlass/theway.html

The funny thing about this question is that Abraham Lincoln's voice in real life was anything but the deep, resonant tone that he is usually given in the movies.

"Lincoln's voice was, when he first began speaking, shrill, squeaking, piping, unpleasant[...]" --William H. Herndon letter, July 19, 1887

You said:
"I keep hearing this from Lincoln bashers yet they never cite a source. Seriously, enough with the talking points and show where/when he said he was not interested in freeing the slaves."

You want a source? How about Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley where he says:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

But don't take my word for it; read the letter for yourself.

What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union;

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of similar bits of hilarity in any language, but feel free to have some fun at our expense. In any event, what you're describing is something quite different from the discussion at hand. The deliberate redefinition of language to serve a political agenda to the detriment of the individual is not the same as words that are used out of long-standing habit to describe an unpleasant bodily function.

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail.

Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862

You will find that a lot of the phrases used in B5 are allusions to something or other, either historical or literary. "Peace in our time", for example.

So I guess Lincoln was wrong about that "by the people, for the people, of the people" business.

Interesting, but I can't help but think, that is exactly what government wants: more demand for their services. This is a classic example of government creating problems (unfair patent law), which they will "solve" with even MORE government.

Wow. Umm. Okay.

So, you clearly are of Reagan's anti-government camp, and that's fine. But I hope you'll allow me to respond with a quote from an earlier (indeed, the first) Republican president, and give it due consideration:

"[...] It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

(I trust you will recognize this as Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.)

I assert that it is not government that is the problem. Government that is not accountable to the people is the problem.

This is our government. We the people constitute it, and we the people are responsible for it. Don't dismiss government, but take it back.

This idea once was written this way:

"[...] We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it [...]"

Now, personally, I'm a fan of the "alter" approach, rather than the "abolish" approach. My faith in the goodness of mankind is not so great that I would like to see anarchy.

Instead, I call on everyone reading this to work to alter our government to once again place the people first. I'm a libertarian leftist, so I think this means that people come before profit, that immortal corporations are not due the same rights under the law that natural persons enjoy, that government shall pass no law reducing the freedom of the people where no harm is done, that the Bill of Rights is not to be trifled with.

Verbal Kint once said, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." I have a corallary: "The greatest trick the forces of oppression ever pulled was convincing Americans that their government doesn't matter."

This land is your land.

Don't forget.

Calling it a simple program is probably a tad hyperbolic.

Besides, it sounds dangerous, like it might land you in federal pound-me-in-the-ass-prison.

This is seriously exactly what we need to solve the spam problem. Send as many of these bastards as possible to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

You can't argue with this one: There's no way they'd be hawking penis-enlargement pills after that.

I did some deep research and I think I have found an obscure patent that this one is a duplicate of.

When you come in on Monday and you're not feeling real well, does anyone ever say to you, "Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays?"

Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked saying something like that, man.

With thanks to this guy.

Watch it, buddy. While you're in Des Moines (pronounced Deh Moyn), check out the NetINS folks, who sponsored a class on the Internet back in 1995 where I first learned about SLIP, Trumpet Winsock, and Eudora, and knocked around on the "graphical Web" with NCSA Mosaic for a while, back when all we had was text-mode service. They've been at this game for a while, mmkay?

The Shuttle is the ONLY American Manned Space Vehicle that did NOT have an Emergency Egress or Emergency Escape System at the time of construction.

Didn't Columbia have a couple of ejection seats on the flight deck? They may have been removed at some point, but I'd swear it had them through at least the first few flights. The model I built years ago has a couple of small hatches above the seats.

(A little bit of googling turned up this link, which mentioned that Columbia's ejection seats were the same basic type as those used on the SR-71. This link says that the seats were removed sometime in the mid-80s as part of its conversion from a test vehicle to an operational shuttle.)

The Farnsworth Image Dissector sensed the whole image at once, turning it into a collimated beam of electrons. But then it deflected the collimated beam over a scanning aperture, only using a tiny portion of the beam at a time. This approach is very insensitive. The incoming light energy is divided by the number of pixels. Image dissectors thus only work with brighly lit scenes. Very brightly lit scenes. Even with a big lens, you needed bright sunlight. Early versions were hopeless, but by adding some photomultiplier stages, Farnsworth managed to increase the sensitivity a bit. But it was still lousy. Image dissectors are still used today for looking into furnaces, but not for much else.

Zworklin's Iconoscope, on the other hand, accumulated light over a whole frame time, and scanned it off a photosensitive plate with a scanning electron beam. Iconoscopes didn't have a photomultiplier stage, and they, too, produced a weak signal.

After much litigation, licensing, and years of work, RCA Labs finally produced the image orthicon, a complex and expensive tube that combined the photosensitive plate of the iconoscope with the photomultiplier stages of the image dissector. This, at last, produced a usable TV camera tube.

This reminds me of those people who become so attached to their pets that when the pets die they have them freeze-dried.

there is more information regarding the release (such as special comments from the author) here

You'd better hope your debugger doesn't start singing this ditty.

• Gain insight into the minds of the ancients (Plato would not let anyone into his school who hadn't mastered the geometry of the Elements),
• Improve your reasoning skills (Abraham Lincoln read Euclid when he decided to supplement his education later in life), and
• Be exposed to some of the most beautiful things that mathematics - or any academic pursuit - has to offer ("Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare." --Edna St. Vincent Millay)

You just have to run winlite against a windows 9x machine to totally remove IE to see that microsoft is full of crap. An article on this very topic is here.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&saf e=off&q=Jurisline

As I recall... And I Am Not A Lawyer...
Westlaw prints the law books lawyers use... they 'added value' to the legal decisions judges wrote by putting in PAGE NUMBERS. This pagination was used as an attempt to defend their monopoly over the distribution of the content of the law as lawyers used that pagination to cite the law and the pagination was proprietary, value added content. Including the pagination in any duplication of the public domain work was (?is) illegal under copyright law. (I thought this was solved be the removal of the pagination).

Jurisline.com attempted an end run of the Reed Elsevier (/Lexis) publishing empire's hold over online access to public domain law (Reed ironically swiped the data from Westlaw). Apparently Jurisline lost while Elsevier/Lexis got away with it:

http://www.ambar.org/journal/aug00/nstartup.html

Jurisline's attempt to make this info freely available over the net is well chronicled at:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/trhalvorson/law/jur isline.shtml

As mentioned by other posters, the notion that changing the law would be an unlawful derivitive work of copyrighted material is Kafkaesque hilarious - only the original creator, not necessarily an elected legislator, could change the law...
A curious requiem for Douglas Adams, I hope his spirit (and executors!) accept what I believe is fair and fitting use of a portion of his work:

"""
"People of Earth, your attention
please," a voice said, and it was
wonderful. Wonderful perfect
quadrophonic sound with
distortion levels so low as to make
a brave man weep. "This is
Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the
Galactic Hyperspace Planning
Council," the voice continued. "As
you will no doubt be aware, the
plans for development of the
outlying regions of the Galaxy
require the building of a
hyperspatial express route through
your star system, and regrettably
your planet is one of those
scheduled for demolition. The
process will take slightly less that
two of your Earth minutes. Thank
you." The PA died away.
Uncomprehending terror settled on
the watching people of Earth. The
terror moved slowly through the
gathered crowds as if they were
iron fillings on a sheet of board and
a magnet was moving beneath
them. Panic sprouted again,
desperate fleeing panic, but there
was nowhere to flee to. Observing
this, the Vogons turned on their
PA again. It said: "There's no point
in acting all surprised about it. All
the planning charts and demolition
orders have been on display in
your local planning department on
Alpha Centauri for fifty of your
Earth years, so you've had plenty
of time to lodge any formal
complaint and it's far too late to
start making a fuss about it now."
"""
-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Exemptions may be made for fair 'non-infringing' use through the Library of Congress. In a hurry all I could find was:

http://www.ala.org/washoff/Rulemaking.PDF

Providing access to the Law the Citizen is required to abide by seems like a sensible exemption -- allowing unfettered access to this particular class of work through the web seems essential for the 21st Century Citizenry to uphold their civic responsibilities and be Law Abiding Citizens.

Law Links:
http://www.FindLaw.com
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

p.s. just because .Gov created/stewards it doesn't mean some politician or bureaucrat can't Sell it Cheap to one of their friends. (i.e. public lands for drilling/logging/railroads, air waves/spectrum for radio, the RIAA's attempt to make musicians creative efforts 'works for hire' in the middle of the night )-:

http://www.HavenWorks.com/
"Vote and be vigilant"
- http://www.HavenWorks.com/hermit/

I reserve the right to change my mind, especially when new or better evidence is brought to light. -Haven Hermit
j-)

So who is more American, Ben Franklin or Bill Gates?"

Or Abraham Lincoln, who was awarded patent 6469 for a device to lift boats over shoals?

"[patent laws have] secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things."

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/ed ucation/patent.htm

Forgery is already a crime in the physical realm. Why, then, should it not be also a crime in the digital?

Indeed. Incidentally, while it may or may not be a crime to forge spam, it's a misdemeanor of the first degree to use a computer without authorization. (18 USC 2701.) I'm surprised this one isn't used more often. The "victim" of the crime would be the site used as a spam relay, and the result (overload of the system), being something any reasonable person would expect, could be construed as malice, resulting in the act being a felony, since obviously they are using the other person's system with the intent of avoiding their own system being wiped out by spam.

A number of cases have shown that relay hijacking and use of trademarks in spam is trademark infringement.

I think the argument that "forging spam" is itself a crime is somewhat bogus, I don't know why they don't go forward with some state version of the "Unlawful Use of Computers" statute, as this is a slam-dunk, while this "forged spam is crime" argument is pretty thin.

Forgery generally refers to the forgery of documents for the benefit of the forger. This is a trickier claim to make. (Definition of forgery here.)

Douglas Adams announced some time ago that he was officially retiring from answering questions about the number 42. This is from the alt.fan.douglasadams FAQ:
X.42. Number games
Yes, six times nine equals fifty-four. Yes, six times nine equals 42 in base thirteen, and we don't want to know about the implications that has on the number of fingers cavemen must have had.

Douglas has himself said:

"The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden, and thought '42 will do'. I typed it out. End of story."


--GnrcMan--

So you don't ask questions that have already been asked, here is the alt.fan.douglas-adams FAQ and the alt.fan.douglas-adams MFAQ

HTH HAND

Hear Linus Torvald's say it himself.