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Screw mice. Wouldn't it be much cooler to blend humans with sharks, a la Deep Blue Sea? That way, we could rule both land and sea!

Of course, we'd also need a lot more of these.

> Memorandum is an INFORMAL collection, in the US corporate world, minutes
> of a meeting are quite formal, and legally required in some cases. Referendum
> is generally accepted as a popular vote, as in of the people. This term is
> equally incorrect. Memorandum does come closer. But only slightly.

Let's see what the dictionary says about "minutes".

Merriam-Webster:
4 a : a brief note (as of summary or recommendation)
b : MEMORANDUM, DRAFT
c plural : the official record of the proceedings of a meeting

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:
6. A note or summary covering points to be remembered; a memorandum.

JURIST's browsable dictionary of basic U.S. legal terminology and Legal Dictionary:
Memorandum of a transaction or proceeding.

Sounds close enough for non-lawyers.

The State of the Art and Practice in Digital Preservation and
Research Challenges in Digital Archiving and Long-term Preservation

They're ultimately all ripoffs of Apple's Desk Accessories

Which was ripped off the Xerox Star.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/

but wouldent it be more intelligent to NOT put perl and other dynamic elements on your webpage if you are expecting a ./ effect? I would have also expected him to invest in a more commericalized system for camera control like NuSpectra They are pretty cool

There are some good arguments out there that say that shifting power to the smaller states was not what they really wanted. This is from the linked article:

The second (partially) wrong explanation: the electoral college was designed to protect the small states from dominance by the large. This is the explanation the respected commentator, Daniel Schorr, gave recently on National Public Radio. In all the debates over the executive at the Constitutional Convention, this issue never came up. Indeed, the opposite argument was more important. At one point the Convention considered allowing the state governors to choose the president but backed away from this in part because it would allow the small states to chose one of their own.

The correct explanation: to understand the origin of the electoral college we first must see the various methods of picking a president that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention considered. Initially, the president was to be elected by the Congress and serve for seven years. Some delegates wanted a single term for the president, but the majority were opposed to term limits -- they believed the best leaders should serve as long as the people wanted them to serve.

[...]

Thus, the delegates had to find another method of electing the president. On July 19, 1787 Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut proposed "electors" appointed by the state legislatures. Under Ellsworth's plan these would be apportioned on the basis of population, and thus the small states would have no special advantage.

At this point James Madison, a slaveholder from Virginia, weighed in. The most influential delegate, Madison argued that "the people at large" were "the fittest" to choose the president. But "one difficulty...of a serious nature" made election by the people impossible. Madison noted that the "right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes." In order to guarantee that the nonvoting slaves could nevertheless influence the presidential election, Madison favored the creation of the electoral college. Hugh Williamson of North Carolina was more open about the reasons for southern opposition to election by popular vote. He noted that under a direct election of the president, Virginia would not be able to elect her leaders president because "her slaves will have no suffrage." The same of course would be true for the rest of the South.

The electoral college also had the nice effect (and could be its reasoning) of giving white landowners from southern slave holding sates more power in elections than in other states as blacks were counted (as 3/5ths of a person) but were not allowed to vote. The net effect was Virginia got the most power in choosing a president. In the 1800 election, Thomas Jefferson would not have won if slaves were not counted. See http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/election/electionfink.h tm for more views and info on the history and reasoning of the electoral college.

The only Atari game I want to play again is 'Dungeon Master' - but that wasn't a console game as I recall. I used to play it on my Atari ST way back in 1988 or so.
Hark, mortal, you have been heard! Dungeon Master Java

That would be 'tyranny of the minority' right? So you are saying that my vote from California is worth less than someone else's vote and that is a good thing? Am I less of a person? What did I do to deserve this disenfranchisement? Can you back this up with historical evidence?

There is some good evidence that the 'real' reason for the electoral college was to give the whites in the slave holding south (and especially Virginia) more power in choosing our president. Maybe this should be another censored news story.

No, a "block universum" does not need to be deterministic, as Nuel Belnap shows in his 1992 "Branching Space-Time" article. Timespace is not "frozen from the infinite past to the infinite future, by definition". (Which does not mean I believe in time travel...)

No, a "block universum" does not need to be deterministic, as Nuel Belnap shows in his 1992 "Branching Space-Time" article. Timespace is not "frozen from the infinite past to the infinite future, by definition". (Which does not mean I believe in time travel...)

Crispin

This is a bald-faced "Urban Myth" go back and review the facts of the 2000 election and you'll find the Supreme Court in reality ended up being a non-factor in the outcome of the election.

Actually, returning null when window.open() is blocked is the usual behavior for Firefox, and I assume for most other popup-blockers, as well. If memory serves, window.open() returns the window it creates so that you can further manipulate it from your code. Thus, no windows created --> null return value. Those of you with popup blockers can test the functionality here.

... but unfortunately, magic is required.

unreal cave

Worth noting is that CaveUT is freeware and open source. Speaking from personal experience as a user during a demo, it does an excellent job with low cost hardware. The cited link has a parts/price breakdown and well written instructions. The code is not abandoned and is frequently used for human subjects experiments.

As an aside, I've met Jeff. He's cool.

fishing in my weblinks....

unreal cave
projection links and type breakdowns
uaeu cave
elumens products are droool
fakespace
vrml 3d projection
not quite cave.... this is 3d projection
this one is further leading.....

io2tech

Looks like someone called Blair Powell has already created one

For a great convergence of geeks and poker, try the International Conference on Cognitive Modeling this summer, at which there will be a "pokerbot" competition. It's just what it sounds like, but if you'd like an overview (written for poker players), try my article from Card Player Magazine.

It's that the standards are positively byzantine, and so complicated to implement that it's simply not worth the effort.

No, most are actually pretty simple. Granted you have to first get through the language barrier (since these are specs, they have to use precise wording). However, the concepts aren't that difficult. HTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, and RDF are pretty easy to author. XML and CSS is also easy to parse (for the latter, see IE7 or my demo's source). Sometimes there are errors, but the W3C is pretty good at clarification and fixing errors, such as in the specifications: CSS level 2 revision 1, XML 1.0 third edition, HTML 4.01, and more. I don't understand why they are so confusing to you.

Or the CSS-only menus trick, which don't work in IE because it doesn't permit hover events on arbitrary elements.

CSS-only menus can now work in IE (demo only) thanks to a hack. IE is actually pretty extendable, but you're right that MS should have implemented better support for modern standards.

***There Is No Cheese***.

Or did somebody just move it?

Hey, I though you were dead!

Wireless transmission of energy was Nikola Tesla's dream, and he pulled it off at short distances. Too bad he died in 1943, and can't post to this thread. If he had found funding and support, we might only have to put up energy antennas to catch electricity, but then the power company couldn't send us a bill each month. That's why he never found enough funding his reasearch, and people called him crazy.

Asinine is defined as "Utterly stupid or silly." Doesn't that disqualify true statements? Caffeine is more toxic than plutonium.

If you use red lights to stop speeders, you using other vehicles to enforce the law. If I get the green light, I'd have to make sure I was being sent into harm's way. A fairer alternative is to install a road baricade that raises very quickly when the light turns red - drive through at your own risk then. Of course, you'd have to distribute this picture of what happens if you ignore it.

Interesting thing about drunk driving - it's only a felony if it causes injury, and murder is only in the 2nd degree if it's done during the commission of a felony. Sortof a catch-22.

Here's a link to the Flyspeck Project, briefly mentioned at the end of the article, which aims to give a formal proof of the theorem.

And, what does the U.S. being on the Security Council have to do with the U.N.'s resolution 687 being violated by Iraq?

As the resolution by the U.N. was for Iraq to follow, any violation was a matter for the U.N. Again, are we the U.N.? If we're so wound up about Iraq not following the U.N.'s resolution, why do we violate U.N. laws in attacking another country? The answer is simple, and the world knows it even if most of us Americans don't want to say the word: hypocrisy. Frankly, we've proven by a simple act of impatience that we don't wish to practice what we preach.

...why don't you find a legitimate legal authority that actually considers the recent invasion of Iraq as a contravention of international law?

No problem. You only need to first provide me with a method of proving the legitimacy of legality and authority other than with the strength of arms. Short of that, you'll have to simply settle for this.

The US has gone to war without the UN's approval before. The mere lack of UN approval does not make a war a violation of the UN charter.

Ah, now I see where the difference in opinion stems from. I was getting curious where you were getting your legal standing from. In this reality, not the simplistic Cowboys and Indians fantasy world Shrub appears to operate in, you're quite wrong. In reality, it actually is in violation of the U.N. charter to attack a country that isn't attacking you. By design, it is also against our own Constitution. That Constitution certainly is a bothersome document isn't it?

...because the US did have plenty of legitimate reasons to invade Iraq.

So says the U.S., but not the U.N. One more visible flouting of U.N. rules by the U.S. would've brought up the question of why the U.N. doesn't enforce it's laws against rogue acts such as that about to be perpetrated by one of its members. To compound the difficulty, what if those countries were two of the founding members (U.S. + U.K.)? What could they do, confront them directly in a military showdown? Not going to happen. Rather than protect a nation that was in violation of their resolution, they let one of their members tear that nation apart in appeasement, furthering their own slide towards irrelevancy.

*sigh* (again)

Shortness of breath can be associated with heart disease. Consider a checkup.

Bush's press harped on the one nuclear reason, which really was the only one that could have carried the war by itself if it had been true.

Despite the U.N.'s inspectors' protest that there was no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction as stated by the U.S., the impatient Shrub couldn't resist the opportunities presented. Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Blix was unwarrantably maligned by the Shrub administration, and the rest of the world remembers it even if we Americans don't.

you're not engaging in a reasonable discussion. You're resorting to childish name-calling...

Not agreeing with you doesn't warrant accusations of not engaging in reasonable discussion. Don't make the mistake of equating reasonableness with acquiescence. I at least try to provide reference for the arguments I make, whereas you haven't.

...and what is really unsupportable allegations of criminal malice on the part of the President.

Aside from his previous arrests, flagrant violation of International and U.S. Constitutional law is a criminal act. Not mere allegation, but now a fact in world and U.S. history.

Kennedy-assassination nut

And, what does the U.S. being on the Security Council have to do with the U.N.'s resolution 687 being violated by Iraq?

As the resolution by the U.N. was for Iraq to follow, any violation was a matter for the U.N. Again, are we the U.N.? If we're so wound up about Iraq not following the U.N.'s resolution, why do we violate U.N. laws in attacking another country? The answer is simple, and the world knows it even if most of us Americans don't want to say the word: hypocrisy. Frankly, we've proven by a simple act of impatience that we don't wish to practice what we preach.

...why don't you find a legitimate legal authority that actually considers the recent invasion of Iraq as a contravention of international law?

No problem. You only need to first provide me with a method of proving the legitimacy of legality and authority other than with the strength of arms. Short of that, you'll have to simply settle for this.

The US has gone to war without the UN's approval before. The mere lack of UN approval does not make a war a violation of the UN charter.

Ah, now I see where the difference in opinion stems from. I was getting curious where you were getting your legal standing from. In this reality, not the simplistic Cowboys and Indians fantasy world Shrub appears to operate in, you're quite wrong. In reality, it actually is in violation of the U.N. charter to attack a country that isn't attacking you. By design, it is also against our own Constitution. That Constitution certainly is a bothersome document isn't it?

...because the US did have plenty of legitimate reasons to invade Iraq.

So says the U.S., but not the U.N. One more visible flouting of U.N. rules by the U.S. would've brought up the question of why the U.N. doesn't enforce it's laws against rogue acts such as that about to be perpetrated by one of its members. To compound the difficulty, what if those countries were two of the founding members (U.S. + U.K.)? What could they do, confront them directly in a military showdown? Not going to happen. Rather than protect a nation that was in violation of their resolution, they let one of their members tear that nation apart in appeasement, furthering their own slide towards irrelevancy.

*sigh* (again)

Shortness of breath can be associated with heart disease. Consider a checkup.

Bush's press harped on the one nuclear reason, which really was the only one that could have carried the war by itself if it had been true.

Despite the U.N.'s inspectors' protest that there was no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction as stated by the U.S., the impatient Shrub couldn't resist the opportunities presented. Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Blix was unwarrantably maligned by the Shrub administration, and the rest of the world remembers it even if we Americans don't.

you're not engaging in a reasonable discussion. You're resorting to childish name-calling...

Not agreeing with you doesn't warrant accusations of not engaging in reasonable discussion. Don't make the mistake of equating reasonableness with acquiescence. I at least try to provide reference for the arguments I make, whereas you haven't.

...and what is really unsupportable allegations of criminal malice on the part of the President.

Aside from his previous arrests, flagrant violation of International and U.S. Constitutional law is a criminal act. Not mere allegation, but now a fact in world and U.S. history.

Kennedy-assassination nut

And, what does the U.S. being on the Security Council have to do with the U.N.'s resolution 687 being violated by Iraq?

As the resolution by the U.N. was for Iraq to follow, any violation was a matter for the U.N. Again, are we the U.N.? If we're so wound up about Iraq not following the U.N.'s resolution, why do we violate U.N. laws in attacking another country? The answer is simple, and the world knows it even if most of us Americans don't want to say the word: hypocrisy. Frankly, we've proven by a simple act of impatience that we don't wish to practice what we preach.

...why don't you find a legitimate legal authority that actually considers the recent invasion of Iraq as a contravention of international law?

No problem. You only need to first provide me with a method of proving the legitimacy of legality and authority other than with the strength of arms. Short of that, you'll have to simply settle for this.

The US has gone to war without the UN's approval before. The mere lack of UN approval does not make a war a violation of the UN charter.

Ah, now I see where the difference in opinion stems from. I was getting curious where you were getting your legal standing from. In this reality, not the simplistic Cowboys and Indians fantasy world Shrub appears to operate in, you're quite wrong. In reality, it actually is in violation of the U.N. charter to attack a country that isn't attacking you. By design, it is also against our own Constitution. That Constitution certainly is a bothersome document isn't it?

...because the US did have plenty of legitimate reasons to invade Iraq.

So says the U.S., but not the U.N. One more visible flouting of U.N. rules by the U.S. would've brought up the question of why the U.N. doesn't enforce it's laws against rogue acts such as that about to be perpetrated by one of its members. To compound the difficulty, what if those countries were two of the founding members (U.S. + U.K.)? What could they do, confront them directly in a military showdown? Not going to happen. Rather than protect a nation that was in violation of their resolution, they let one of their members tear that nation apart in appeasement, furthering their own slide towards irrelevancy.

*sigh* (again)

Shortness of breath can be associated with heart disease. Consider a checkup.

Bush's press harped on the one nuclear reason, which really was the only one that could have carried the war by itself if it had been true.

Despite the U.N.'s inspectors' protest that there was no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction as stated by the U.S., the impatient Shrub couldn't resist the opportunities presented. Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Blix was unwarrantably maligned by the Shrub administration, and the rest of the world remembers it even if we Americans don't.

you're not engaging in a reasonable discussion. You're resorting to childish name-calling...

Not agreeing with you doesn't warrant accusations of not engaging in reasonable discussion. Don't make the mistake of equating reasonableness with acquiescence. I at least try to provide reference for the arguments I make, whereas you haven't.

...and what is really unsupportable allegations of criminal malice on the part of the President.

Aside from his previous arrests, flagrant violation of International and U.S. Constitutional law is a criminal act. Not mere allegation, but now a fact in world and U.S. history.

Kennedy-assassination nut

And, what does the U.S. being on the Security Council have to do with the U.N.'s resolution 687 being violated by Iraq?

As the resolution by the U.N. was for Iraq to follow, any violation was a matter for the U.N. Again, are we the U.N.? If we're so wound up about Iraq not following the U.N.'s resolution, why do we violate U.N. laws in attacking another country? The answer is simple, and the world knows it even if most of us Americans don't want to say the word: hypocrisy. Frankly, we've proven by a simple act of impatience that we don't wish to practice what we preach.

...why don't you find a legitimate legal authority that actually considers the recent invasion of Iraq as a contravention of international law?

No problem. You only need to first provide me with a method of proving the legitimacy of legality and authority other than with the strength of arms. Short of that, you'll have to simply settle for this.

The US has gone to war without the UN's approval before. The mere lack of UN approval does not make a war a violation of the UN charter.

Ah, now I see where the difference in opinion stems from. I was getting curious where you were getting your legal standing from. In this reality, not the simplistic Cowboys and Indians fantasy world Shrub appears to operate in, you're quite wrong. In reality, it actually is in violation of the U.N. charter to attack a country that isn't attacking you. By design, it is also against our own Constitution. That Constitution certainly is a bothersome document isn't it?

...because the US did have plenty of legitimate reasons to invade Iraq.

So says the U.S., but not the U.N. One more visible flouting of U.N. rules by the U.S. would've brought up the question of why the U.N. doesn't enforce it's laws against rogue acts such as that about to be perpetrated by one of its members. To compound the difficulty, what if those countries were two of the founding members (U.S. + U.K.)? What could they do, confront them directly in a military showdown? Not going to happen. Rather than protect a nation that was in violation of their resolution, they let one of their members tear that nation apart in appeasement, furthering their own slide towards irrelevancy.

*sigh* (again)

Shortness of breath can be associated with heart disease. Consider a checkup.

Bush's press harped on the one nuclear reason, which really was the only one that could have carried the war by itself if it had been true.

Despite the U.N.'s inspectors' protest that there was no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction as stated by the U.S., the impatient Shrub couldn't resist the opportunities presented. Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Blix was unwarrantably maligned by the Shrub administration, and the rest of the world remembers it even if we Americans don't.

you're not engaging in a reasonable discussion. You're resorting to childish name-calling...

Not agreeing with you doesn't warrant accusations of not engaging in reasonable discussion. Don't make the mistake of equating reasonableness with acquiescence. I at least try to provide reference for the arguments I make, whereas you haven't.

...and what is really unsupportable allegations of criminal malice on the part of the President.

Aside from his previous arrests, flagrant violation of International and U.S. Constitutional law is a criminal act. Not mere allegation, but now a fact in world and U.S. history.

Kennedy-assassination nut

And, where did you get that?

And the UN didn't even try a "no, don't bomb Iraq US" vote.

I think you mean the Security Council. And, where would that have gotten them, another flagrant disregard of international law from the U.S.? What would publicizing another violation from us get them? They certainly weren't going to attack us militarily on it like we were about to attack Iraq.

As for the rest of your critizisms: just because you don't agree with a reason doesn't make it dishonest. It might make it "wrong", but hardly not "honest."

Um, it's dishonest when it is meant to knowingly mislead. Not that I don't think that you believe the points you made were the reasons for our invasion. But, the Shrub administration and Faux News channel used these arguments to sway public opinion while all the time knowing these were not the real reasons. It is Shrub and Faux who were dishonest, not you for simply stating what they claimed. And, their biggest reason for invasion, Weapons of Mass Destruction (which ran on the news day and night and day and night and day...), had not been verified, only conjectured. The terrible result is that contemporary Iraq does have religious terrorists. We invited them there by removing the only remotely secular government in the Islamic region that was as evil as they were, and then providing them an unresistable opportunity to kill us as foreign invaders. So, yes, terrorists have now been reportedly flocking to Iraq in droves.

Rank-and-file Iraqi troops were convinced that, while their unit didn't have WMD, some more-secret unit of the Iraqi army did.

If we are to start fighting wars based on opinions, in spite of facts, then I feel sorry for any country that is not in line with our opinion. I also feel sorry for us should such a country feel desperately paranoid enough to treat us as we've preemptively treated others. In attacking, invading, and occupying a sovereign foreign country on unsubstantiated opinions, we've violated international law and our own constitution. Now that we've violated international law that we helped create, we are at worst criminals and best practicioners of vigilantism and at least hypocrites. What punishment should we expect? Or, is it that only other countries can behave criminally, and that we don't have to follow the rules we expect others to?

According to some reports, Saddam himself thought that he had WMD before the war.

Psychics notwithstanding, how would anyone know what he thought? Let's leave Dione Warwick out of this.

And regardless of what he knew, the former Butcher of Baghdad certainly didn't act like a man with nothing to hide.

It's called international poker where world leaders try to gain every inch they can from other world leaders. A game he lost, as he didn't realize that we're crazier than we look. There's no excuse for Saddam's behavior towards his own people, and to a lesser extent towards the international community (we're in violation of quite a few international laws ourselves). His failure was to note that while Bush I was a sane and intelligent individual, that Bush II The Unelected barely graduated out of a university that under normal circumstances wouldn't have dreamt of letting him attend in the first place.

Because all of those nations are engaging in active and productive diplomacy with us.

You mean when N.Korea kicked nuclear inspectors out after our invasion of Iraq and now have a few nuclear warheads (you remember N.Korea, they sell missiles to disgruntled countries)? Or, perhaps Iran's declaration that they will be pursuing a nuclear program once they realized the U.S. can drop in on them anytime they want to. Or, how about Saudi

Unfortunately, I can not find a shred of evidence to support any of your claims. I honestly debated even responding, for one, because to do so effectively would require lots of references and I am feeling somewhat lazy, and two because I don't quite seem the point because IMHO the only way you could make the statements you have quite an emotional investment in the issue and I doubt any rational discussion would change this.

I am beginning to understand your confusion on the issue. Having followed and read the sole reference in your post, I myself am confused... is this really the source of your info or were you joking. For those to lazy to follow the link, here are some exerpts from this in-depth "analysis":

As AOL allows me to send out only 50 names or so at a time, I have only responded to those of you who question my existence or have asked for a clean, ungarbled copy of the "Layman's Guide" which I provide below.

further down the 'analysis' begins:

Q: I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand the recent Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore. Can you explain it to me?

A: Sure. I'm a lawyer. I read it. It says Bush wins, even if Gore got the most votes.

Q: But wait a second. The US Supreme Court has to give a reason, right?

A: Right.

To get you up to speed on what actually happened in 2000. I suggest the following, rather-unbiased law school FAQ. If you want to broaden your view and actually listen to an opposing viewpoint, you could try this obviously biased site. The main page of the site looks like they obviously have an agenda, but at least some the arguements are tracable, as opposed to your reference.

Of course, this is all moot as Bush would have won the election no matter how many times your recounted, even under the most Gore-favorable criteria. link (please read all of it) and link. (Is CNN part of the 'vast right wing conspiracy now too?')

Having spent the last couple hours looking reading up on this, I really am too tired now to respong to each of your assertions. However, I did want to highlight a few:

...the US Supreme Court then unconstitutionally intervened...

Pretty odd statement considering that the Supreme Court has the final say on constitutionality. By definition, the Supreme Court can not do anything "unconstitutional".

...The Florida Supreme Court tried to enforce existing Florida election law...

The Florida Supreme Court extended the deadline for performing recounts beyond the law, as passed by the legislature.

The problem was neither the butterfly ballot nor the 170,000 or 3% of Democratic-leaning voters (largely African-Americans) disenfranchised. The problem is that somewhat less than 0.01% of the ballots (less than 600 votes) may have been determined under ever-so-slightly different standards by judges and county officials recording votes under strict public scrutiny, as Americans have done for more than 200 years. The single judge overseeing the entire process might miss a vote or two.

I don't know what the heck you are trying to say here. If you are referring to the mass intimidations, and other irregularities, those have pretty much all been debunked IIRC.

They imposed a deadline of December 12 for the recount, whereas under normal federal election law Florida would have had until January 6 to complete the recount

We were talking about this just a couple of days ago, because they have been teaching it to the kids in school. You should always Sneeze into your elbow, doctors have been doing this for years.

I just spelled it the same way as the parent :)

I had actually read Little Snow-White and Sleeping Beauty in a fantasy literature class in college and could paraphase it pretty well from memory, not from recent googling.

I found it interesting that in the Grimm version I have, Snow-White is the mother, but in every movie version I've seen, she's an evil step-mother (e.g., Snow White, A Tale of Terror, Disney version), so I did do a bit of google searching on the subject and found this, from which I quote:

"Some differences between the edition of 1812 and later versions:

Beginning with the edition of 1819, the Grimms add the statement that Snow-White's mother died during childbirth, and that her father remarried. Note that in the first edition, presumably the version closest to its oral sources, Snow-White's jealous antagonist is her own mother, not a stepmother.

Beginning with the edition of 1819, the poisoned apple is dislodged when a servant accidentally stumbles while carrying the coffin to the prince's castle."

The version in my book apparently was based on the original Grimm fairy tale, not the later edition (which makes sense, being a history of fantasy literature, but still surprised me a bit). I noticed while searching that some translations say heart, not liver and lungs, as well. The original would likely be liver and lungs, newer translations switching it to heart because it really was symbology for what gives one life, which I believe was still the liver at the time (which is where it gets its name, but I don't know how the lungs play in this - maybe taking life and breath?).

The fellow who [has appeared to have] solved the problem of three-dimensional sphere packing is named Tom Hales, late of Michigan, but now at Pitt.

Tom - if you're following this thread: Are you any relation to Stephen Hales?

"Kazaa and the Sherman Networks people would be better off moving to somewhere like Yemen, China or Cuba, where even though you don't have some rights, I doubt they go busting down doors over copyright."

Oh ya China, good idea, as long as you they did not facilitate the proliferation of information/material of which challenges the "Party".

"Between 1994 and the present, China's rules and regulations on the Internet became progressively more comprehensive, moving from efforts to regulate Internet business to restrictions on news sites and chat rooms. These regulations give the government wide discretion to arrest and punish any form of expression. For example, "topics that damage the reputation of the State" are banned, but an Internet user has no way of knowing what topics might be considered injurious." More here
They already banned google

Yemen sounds good too right?

Too bad they pretty much banned the Internet in Cuba.

"History teaches us that anyone who tries to get in the way of progress either gets a war against them or is bypassed. Or to put it in other terms "nature finds a way"."

You mean like all the wonderful progess we see in China?

The RIAA is dying - just a matter of time.

"The USA was built on some principles of being a new, golden land. It's heading for decline into conservatism and corruption. I think that China and India will be the new superpowers."

I suggest you read The Declaration of Independence

With Dell doing this they are really benefiting students that attend schools that have a deal with Microsoft. At my school all students can get Windows XP Pro for free from all of the computer labs on campus. Now if a student buys a Dell computer they can get one without Windows since they can get a copy of Windows free from school. We also have staff that will assist a student in installing Windows XP for free.

Seems like anything to save a couple bucks will be good for some students.

I'm less concerned about killing outright than shortening lifespans, making people ill decades after the fact, etc. Yes, chemical accidents can do this sort of thing, but the potentials for radioisotopes to do these sorts of things are higher. ... Of course the same CAN be said of coal fired plants, but you're just exchanging one for the other in that situation.

You're exchanging a higher output of radioisotopes and poisons for a lower output and less overall pollution. How can that *not* be a good thing? How can that *not* increase life-spans? I understand your fears of radioisotopes, but nuclear plants do not guarantee significant releases just by existing. Coal plants do. And no nuclear plant has *ever* killed 3500 people in one week and caused 14,000 illnesses. (link) The highest figures for illnesses *possibly* linked to Chernobyl get nowhere close.

though exposing us to radioisotopes in a launch disturbs me- that IS what you just said whether or not you realized it or not...

That's sort of what I said. As I tried to say, the materials would be most likely be encased in a similar black box technology as RTGs. RTGs have come crashing back the Earth and have (in all cases where black boxes where used) survived intact. In one instance the RTG was reused. Besides that, if any materials *did* accidentally get released into the ocean, they would produce less ecological damage than an oil spill and would disperse to such a degree as to be indistinguishable from the normal amounts of radioisotopes already in the environment. Alternatively, a solid chunk could make a very small area of the ocean uninhabitable until it is cleaned up. Not much worse than an underwater volcano.

they're pretty much all scaled up reactor designs from Nuke Subs. What's okay for a military rig and of a certain size isn't always going to be a good idea...

One of the biggest pushes in nuclear science is to stop treating reactors like large coal plants. Instead, small module-style reactors (say 6-10 megawatts) should be interspersed throughout the population. These reactors would require minimal maintenance and would simply be pulled and rebuilt every few years. The advantages are smaller, safer reactor designs and standardized maintenance. The disadvantages include possible contamination of heavily populated areas and fear of terrorists acquiring fissible materials. I haven't yet made up my mind how I feel about the idea.

As for space access, an ION rocket, powered by a high-output fission or fusion reactor, using something benign to our environment as the propellant would be one way of boosting to orbit that I'd be plugging for. But, in order for that to work, we need a safe design for the reactor that produced the desirable output. Once in orbit, etc. you can probably use just about any thrust scheme you want to, including the one you just described.

A GCNR rocket is better suited to liftoffs once other nuclear rockets with a higher Isp are developed. (e.g. High powered ION, Nuclear Salt, Orion) Once in space, the difficulties with reactor safety lessen thanks to the ability to either eject the reactor at any time, or possibly not even *use* a reactor! (Both Nuclear Salt and Orion use fission as a direct propulsion method and require no extra energy conversion as is done in ION and GCNR rockets.)

And remember, with nuclear power (even the relatively low Isp of GCNR) we have enough energy to spare to add safety systems like auto-ejection systems.

For you foreigners, this is a 'Pitt'.

It all boils down to this...
Pitt versus Penn State
Culture versus Agriculture

... and we have a supercomputers

For you foreigners, this is a 'Pitt'.

It all boils down to this...
Pitt versus Penn State
Culture versus Agriculture

... and we have a supercomputers

Oh, please....Now you are dragging us off topic. Must we bring this into the disucssion? Let's discuss the degree mills that private schools are. Think of all the idiot "Legacies" that were admitted to Ivy League schools. If their Daddy hadn't already graduated from that school, that Legacy wouldn't have been accepted. In fact, that Legacy, in many cases, isn't even smart enough to get out of high school. Because of the "Legacy" admission, many more qualified students are rejected and sent to state schools, instead.

Don't you dare refer to State Schools as "Degree Mills". In most cases, the education is better than in private schools. Think of the following quality public schools. University of Michigan, University of Texas, the SUNY system in New York.

In case you think I am just grumbing because I was rejected from private school, I want to state that for the record, I went to a private school for my undergraduate degree, Case Western Reserve University. For my graduate degree, I went to a public school, the University of Pittsburgh.

haha!

And for those that will miss the reference when the story is surely ammended:

"Sunday is the one hundreth anniversary of the birth of John Von Neumann, the man with one of the strongest claims to the title of Father of Modren Computing. Although, as noted at the time by Mark Stanley of Freefall, several sources indicate that it may have been December 3rd."

LOL!

And for those that will miss the reference when the story is surely ammended:

"Sunday is the one hundreth anniversary of the birth of John Von Neumann, the man with one of the strongest claims to the title of Father of Modren Computing. Although, as noted at the time by Mark Stanley of Freefall, several sources indicate that it may have been December 3rd."

Some trolls are funny. Remember the little plastic ones that have their hair sticking straigh up? Those are funny.

You must be thinking of the decidedly un-funny trolls from "The Hobbit" or perhaps from Billy Goats Gruff, the latter of which is perhaps tragic.

yeah, this is one of the things in mutt i really like. in case someone is wondering this is what it looks like:
screen shot
at least after i've configured things a bit.

If not for one of those snots we wouldn't have much Kafka to read. Sometimes going against an author's wishes is the right thing to do. Sometimes.

I can't be the only one to immediately think of this

How do we know these guys aren't just making this all up???

I seriously suggest you take a course on the philosophy of science. Not ethics of science, that's interesting but not the same. I took it out of interest and it ended up being the most important course I took. The philosophy of science teaches you how we can know if we know what we know, how we can know it and why we can know it works better than junk like Astrology. Having to disprove astrology is harder than it sounds.

If you don't think you need a course guided by a professor (guidance is advised), check out these references. In the end you'll find that we cannot say for certain that we know anything but that we exist (existentialism, see a lexicon.