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Ahhh, the arrogance of the human race... nukes are very big, yes, but only on a human scale. The Earth is very large. Very very large. Let's do the math here:

Earth's Land Surface Area:
45,000,000 sqare miles
Destructive Blast Radius of a 25-Megaton Airburst:
10.7 miles
Number of Nuclear Warheads in Stock at Height of Cold War:
61,000

10.7*10.7*3.1415926 = about 360 square miles
45,000,000/360 = 125,000 warheads

Sorry, even assuming an even spreading, assuming all warheads are 25MT (most are much smaller), and assuming all blasts are airbursts (they wouldn't be), even at the HEIGHT of the cold war there weren't enough nuclear weapons in existence (and only half of those were/are in any condition to be deployed) to blast even half the land area of the earth, much less blast it three times over.

I'm not saying that nuclear weapons are good, or that a nuclear war would be fun. I just can't stand the mindless parroting of hysterical hyperbole as if it were fact. I agree with the sentiment, but I don't agree with the presentation. Much of the Nuclear Disarmament crowd is dismissed as wild-eyed, irrational hippies. Why? Because they act like wild-eyed, irrational hippies. Ignoring the mathematical reality and instead believing a impossibly fantastic doomsday scenario doesn't help.

Entourage X just gave me a woody! Can't wait until they add Exchange Server support...

Couldn't possibly be all alpha numeric combinations. Let me sharpen my pencil here...

92 possible password characters (ASCII 32 - 124), max length for a password under NT is 14 characters. That works out to 3 octillion (10^27) combinations. According to Big Numbers, that's about three times the length of the universe in inches. No octabyte hard drives yet.

It's actually far worse than that, since the length of the password is variable.

I have seen some tools match parts of hashes, tho. That might be of some use.

The history of OS/2. OS/2 2.0 was the first 32-bit version.

You have to be reasonable though...

Why not just double it to 256-bits so that every atom in our galaxy can have 100 million addresses?

The parent poster is simply trying to be reasonable, though I'm not sure I would agree that 183 per person is enough. It would be nice to have more addresses so that you can organize things heirarchically (lots of addresses will get lost here). Also, NAT is a hack to get around the 32-bit limit so I wouldn't want to have to rely on it again. But I think that 64-bits is more than enough to handle our needs for a very long time. 64-bits isn't really that hard to type in either (xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx).

Doesn't sound like a very useful compiler. Programmers, being more or less human, make mistakes coding their input. It's stupid to assert that they just need to be more careful. Aside from simple human error (Sorry Dave!), programmers can misunderstand the language definition. Indeed, they have a hard time learning the language without a robust compiler to play with. I don't think you can call a compiler "robust" if its only error message is "segmentation fault"!

I'd be very impressed if Microsoft actually came out with a command-line only version. The fact that "it's a very tangled subsystem" makes me wonder how possible that would be.

They did already. It's called Microsoft LAN Manager. ;)

since mozdev.org doesnt have a 1.3 version of this you might want to look here/a. for an unofficial port by zzxc.

They are going in together with YAHOO. It seems that PacBell has a customer base in place as an ISP, and YAHOO would like to rape it. I have been with SBC for about five years as a PPP customer.. but now they are constantly sending me emails under the heading "action required" that direct me to the Yahoo download page .

Note this has to be downloaded to a Microsoft machine.

No linux support.

I do not like it at all that they insist me download software on my end that their end will talk to. I have no idea of any hidden agenda what the software on my end is doing, nor, under DMCA, is there really any way for me to even legally discuss whats going on.

So, it looks like I may have to change ISP only because Yahoo wants me held captive.

Does anybody have ideas for a good ISP? I am looking at www.copper.net .

This also makes reference.

> Interesting. Is there a formal proof of this somewhere? I don't recall having seen one.

The algorithm to do it is completely trivial, actually. You just construct a tree with every possible move branching out until completion. (Actually, I think it's a DAG, but that's not really the point.) With the complete game tree, you can basically do anything you want.

Essentially this algorithm has been used to solve simpler games: tic-tac-toe (you should try it; it's not that hard to do, actually), Connect-Four, etc.

However, in our universe it is infeasible to solve chess this way. The algorithm is theoretically perfect, but chess has 10^123 states and our Universe contains only 10^81 atoms. I suppose you could store more than one bit per atom (the number of quarks is greater, and I guess you could manipulate their spins or something) but I think you need to store more than one bit of information per state also...in any case, devoting a significant portion of the Universe to this problem is not feasible. In fact, there might be a formal proof somewhere that this is impossible, based on thermodynamics/entropy calculations.

So if chess is solved, it will be through a different way.

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If you could turn every atom of the earth into a bit of storage, 64-bit addressing would still be enough to give every byte a unique address.

64 bits encode approximately 2*10^19 values.

On the other hand, there are between 10^48 and 10^51 atoms in the earth.

You, my friend, are off by a few orders of magnitude.

Click. Probably available at Best Buy (for sure available at Future Shop, maybe even RadioShack/Tandy).

You will want to check what type of connector these have, and wether or not it will accept a simple composite signal. This person may have some info for you.

Quick Victoria Building in Sydney.

The Cleveland Arcade

Etc. I'm sure there are many more, but this is not in any way a unique architectural style that was used.

"THIRD WORLD -- the economically underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, considered as an entity with common characteristics, such as poverty, high birthrates, and economic dependence on the advanced countries. The French demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the expression ("tiers monde" in French) in 1952 by analogy with the "third estate," the commoners of France before and during the French Revolution-as opposed to priests and nobles, comprising the first and second estates respectively. Like the third estate, wrote Sauvy, the third world is nothing, and it "wants to be something." The term therefore implies that the third world is exploited, much as the third estate was exploited, and that, like the third estate its destiny is a revolutionary one. It conveys as well a second idea, also discussed by Sauvy, that of non-alignment, for the third world belongs neither to the industrialized capitalist world nor to the industrialized Communist bloc. The expression third world was used at the 1955 conference of Afro-Asian countries held in Bandung, Indonesia. In 1956 a group of social scientists associated with Sauvy's National Institute of Demographic Studies, in Paris, published a book called Le Tiers-Monde. Three years later, the French economist Francois Perroux launched a new journal, on problems of underdevelopment, with the same title. By the end of the 1950's the term was frequently employed in the French media to refer to the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America."

Source: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/General/ThirdWor ld_def.html

See also:
http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/11-27-01askeds.ht ml

http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/oncwg.htm (slightly different take on the term)

I've seen the stamement that there're more positions in chess than atoms in the universe many times. It's false.

Some estimates of number of atoms in the (visible) universe courtesy of Google:

• 4e78 - 6e79
• 1e78 - 1e81
• 3e78

• An upper bound of the number of chess positions: assume each square can have 15 states (white pawn, black pawn, white rook, black rook, ..., empty). Number of board states: 15^64, or about 1.96e71.

  The vast majority of those states are invalid. I've seen estimates of as little as 1e40 valid boards.

There's actually about 10^81 atoms in the universe. There are about 10^120 possible boards of chess (including mirror images etc) see Chess -- from Mathworld and Atoms in the Universe.

Yes, I fully agree.

And this guy is saying that he thinks Microsoft has plans of upgrading the Windows Update service to check the keys (by reverse-engineering the product id) against a database of valid keys. If the key isn't listed, it would then be assumed to be illegal. This would stop key generators as well, unless they happen to generate keys of legit versions, which isn't very likely due to the huge number of combinations possible.

I also wonder how scripture literalists handle the "vaporware" problem of Christianity; people have been believing since the days when Jesus walked on this earth that their generation was the one that would see Jesus come back in glory. 2000 years (approximately 100 generations) has passed and it still hasn't happened yet. Not that there has been a lack of faith among belivers; 1844 comes to mind.

I know I handle the problem by saying "It does not matter when He comes or how he comes or what happens when he returns again; what matters is is I am ready for him coming again". What will really happen will be a profound surprise; the first century Jewish people were not expecting Jesus to be the messiah.

- Sam

As somebody who has built several tesla coils, I though I might be able to provide some information on this topic. A tesla coil is basically a high frequency transformer. They come in two varieties, traditional and solid state. A schematic for a traditional tesla coil can be found here. The main for a traditional tesla coil is usually a neon sign transformer, or NST as we call them. The capacitor is often a milspec jet engine ignition capacitor or a leyden jar made out of beer bottles. Solid state tesla coils are similar, except they use a less powerfull main transformer and use a flyback transformer (found on most tv's, although flyback's from the 50's and 60's work best, as they don't have as many safety devices) as the resonator. Just be forewarned, the information on the site I linked to is about 5 years out of date.

You asserted that the probability of life randomly arising somewhere in the universe is unknown. That's certainly true for our current scientific state, since we can't yet claim to know all the intimate details of every single function of cellular life.

However we do know enough to make some interesting calculations. For example, all proteins in all living things known today are made up exclusively of 19 chiral and one non-chiral amino acid. On average, roughly 8% of bacterial protein amino acids are glycine (the non-chiral one). So in a smallish protein of only 450 amino acids, there are (0.92)*(450) or 414 chiral amino acids.

There is no natural process outside living cells that generates amino acids of one chirality; everything generates nicely racemic (equally L and R) mixtures.

It is fairly simple to calculate just how likely it would be to get just one protein to form randomly (proteins form sequentially, and since they need more than one copy of each amino acid, this must be done by the probstat model of "with replacement") from an unlimited supply of amino acids. To make the case easy, and to heavily tilt the odds towards the formation of proteins, let's ignore the energy gradient in aqueous solutions (which tends towards dissociation of proteins, not their assembly). So to calculate the odds of getting all 414 amino acids that are chiral to all be the correct chirality is one in 2^414 (or one in over 10^124).

To give some concept of that number, consider the assumptions made by fans of the Drake equation for example, and be generous. They estimate 200 billion (2*10^11) stars in our galaxy, and 20% of those having planets, with 3 to 5 possibly life-bearing bodies per star that has planets. Let's just say 10^12 possible planets, an order of magnitude higher than the upper limit of those Drake numbers. Also consider that the universe at 20 billion years is less than 10^18 seconds old. Let's say the earth has 10^50 atoms in it (slightly higher than estimates). So if you have one protein formed per each atom on every habitable planet in the galaxy (10^50*10^12 == 10^62) every millisecond since the big bang (10^18*10^3 = 10^21) you'd have 10^83 proteins formed. So the odds of getting one properly chiral protein by having 1000 formed per second per atom on all habitable planets and moons in our galaxy since the big bang would be 124-83 = one in 10^41. The universe is 10^28 inches across...

Now consider the odds of getting just one protein to have a particular sequence, which is immensely harder than the above which just focussed on getting the chirality alone correct. Plain fact is, random chance alone just will never be anywhere near adequate to explain the origin of life.

After a little googling, I semi-confirmed that the toolbar was (probably) added in Excel 3.0.

Excel 2.2 for OS/2 PM wihtout toolbars. The Mac and Windows versions should look very similar.

Funny? Insightful? Paranoid? Probably all of the above.

Legally it's quite a shrewd manuever to launch the offensive against a smaller target. BT can bully Prodigy and get a settlement, or, if they go to court, they won't be fighting the endless hoardes of lawyers that a company like AOL would throw at it.

Except that Prodigy is owned by SBC, one of the Baby Bells. They've got tons of bucks and lawyers.

You would think. But Prodigy is owned by SBC the parent company of Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell, Ameritech, Nevada Bell and SNET. And I would imagine that they have very deep pockets see link

Remember, there are only ~10^30 hydrogen atoms in the universe or something.

Try 10^78 (the vast majority of the universe is hydrogen).

> Read the Bible, it says so right there.

*sigh*

I'm tired of people that can't even be bothered to *read* the orginal Hebrew and double check the translation. Gen 1:2 uses the Hebrew word "hayah" which means "became". It is used in over 600 places in the Old Covenant.

Next time, use proper exegisis instead of taking the words at literal value.

Good explaination of the hebrew words:
http://members.nbci.com/doulos/howold_earth.html

Gap Theory:
http://pages.prodigy.net/oweber/gapq.htm

After searching on the net I could only find this, which doesn't back me up at all.

Thus I will concede that the crime is nowhere near as bad as I made out, but it is definately a problem, which needs to be solved somehow, and if security cameras help, then the loss of a small portion of your liberty is a small price to pay.

I've submitted a story 3 times about RSA encryption being cracked. It has been cracked using a Feed Forward Neural Network, and any RSA encrypted message up to 1024 characters can be broken using the software within 2 weeks. There is no limit to the keysize the software will handle, but currently it is optimized for 1024 bits. I have a copy of the software which was at one time hosted on my webserver and available to the general public for analysis.

As it stands, the software requires some small changes but is very close to a working copy. Email me if you want a copy, or talk to this guy.

Betamax died because, when it and VHS first started competing in the late '70s, blank videotapes were very expensive, and the first Beta tapes (L-500) were only one hour long while the first VHS tapes (T-120) were two hours long. One hour just wasn't long enough for movies or many TV recording applications. Both formats had only one tape speed when they started, but even when the 2:1 (LP on VHS and BII on Beta) and 3:1 (EP and BIII) speeds were introduced, VHS still had longer recording times (6 hours on a T-120 vs. 4.5 hours for Beta on an L-750 -- simple mathematics). Maybe it would have been smarter if Beta's slowest tape speed offered 4:1 compression instead of 3:1, as then it would have equalled VHS's recording time.

It's a very common myth that "Sony did not license Beta." Beta was as much open standard as was VHS. It's just that it didn't have as many licensees as VHS, and Sony was always the dominant maker of Beta machines. Third-party makers of Betamax VCRs included: Sanyo (remember the "Betacords"?), NEC, Zenith, Toshiba, Marantz, Sears, Pioneer, Realistic, and Aiwa. Of all the Betas sold, 76% were by Sony. Sanyo was the next most popular with 11%.

A better analysis of the home videotape format wars can be found here.

A short history of the Beta format and a list of the licensees and most popular models can be found here.

"Well, well, well. Less than twenty-four hours 'til Ragnarok and I haven't a stitch to wear."

Billions of people around the globe are thinking this very thought. Don't be part of the mass of cannon fodder awaiting their fate on January 1st. I'd like to help others survive and prosper after the Y2K "situation" by describing the preparations I've made over the past year for tonight's Big Event.

1. The Car
Nothing says "I'm a survivor!" like a cool set of wheels, which is why I have a 1971 Plymouth HemiCuda with a 426ci/425hp V8.
I took out the rear window and rear seats, and welded in two 55-gallon drums as reserve fuel tanks.
I filled the trunk with cement so I could ram other vehicles in reverse during "Road Warrior"-type scenarios.
Due to the weight of the cement in the trunk, I had to replace the rear shocks with solid steel bars, so the suspension is pretty stiff, but boy does it have some range!
I've mounted a 20mm cannon (originally from a AH-1 Cobra helicopter) - that I bought on eBay for $35K - to the roof of the car so it faces forward.
It fires when the left turn signal is activated.
I use a Xybernaut wearable PC for aiming, and I adapted the anti-wobble feature of my camcorder to stabilize the cannon during vehicle movement and firing.
There is a radiacmeter attached to the grill, so I'll know when I'm approaching former urban areas.
I didn't have time to cut a hole in the hood to accommodate the huge intake of the supercharger attached to the engine, so I just left the hood off.
The exhaust system has been removed as a vestigial performance-hindering remnant of a civilized era.

2. The Duds
I have a fire-resistant Nomex jumpsuit dyed to match desert terrain, as all terrain will soon be desert terrain.
For formal occasions, black leather chaps are acceptable, but the buttless kind will make you the laughing-stock of Bartertown.
Accessorize with low-slung pistol holster, gas mask, and black leather jackboots.
Bandoleers are in this year, but only for survivors with crew-served weapons.
Fine-grain leather driving gloves will assist you in controlling your vehicle when driving through fallout-blighted areas.

3. Food
Pound-for-pound, dry dog food has ten times the nutritional value of boiled potatoes, and it can be stored longer, too!
Dog food for older dogs is often packed with fillers that you just don't need, but Puppy Chow is geared towards growing dogs, and has more than enough nutrition.
I'm towing a U-Haul trailer full of it, with a few cases of surplus MREs from the Gulf War for special occasions.

I hope I've provided some insight into the preparations necessary for surviving the coming hard times.
I am interested in having a traveling companion to help with driving.
Any fertile females interested in repopulating the planet should contact me at TheSurvivor@militia.mt.us

It was written by Donald R. Woods and James M. Lyon in 1972.