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Tarnish his reputation? Forgive me, but isn't he emblematic of the mad genius? I don't mean just eccentric, but paranoid nut-so. His work wouldn't be so great without that factor, I don't think.

And for those of you who missed it, here's Robert Crumb's The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick

I agree, and Final Fantasy XIII is a good example. Square Enix always does something unique with each game in this franchise, and the fighting system takes some getting used to. This specific game feels like it's in tutorial mode for the first 12 hours or so, and I've had the manual out the entire time, looking for information, getting tips, figuring out how everything works.

I recently bought Torchlight from Steam and if there was a manual I could access, I didn't see it anywhere. So I looked it up on Google and found the full manual in PDF format on http://www.scribd.com/. I'm not sure if that's authorized or not, but something like that works just fine since it's a PC game, because I'm at the PC playing it. If it were a console game, this would really only be convenient if I had an iPad or laptop nearby, so I wouldn't have to run back and forth from TV to computer to look things up.

There is a certain art and value to well-produced game manuals that I would miss.

Has anyone noticed how industries have taken "green" to mean "give you less for the same price?"

Had space travel been in a coma, you'd have a point. But it hasn't. Instead we've actually had what all the space fans claim to have wanted for years - a routine workaday program. Turns out they were lying, what they want is stunts and spectaculars and big penile substitutes.

You know what made me realize you were wrong? The Challenger accident. No, not the accident itself, not even the bad decisions that led to the decision. Instead, it was how NASA responded in the aftermath. They sat on their tail for two years. There were important missions waiting to go. The problem was diagnosed within weeks of the accident (Wall Street supposedly had the responsible company nailed that same trading day). I realize now, that long wait wasn't to insure that the Shuttles were safe or even merely didn't have the old problem anymore, but because NASA valued the appearance of safety over doing real work. My further experiences with NASA over the past twenty five years has merely confirmed that initial suspicion.

That's how NASA lost the space fans over the decades. Because it became painfully clear that this routine, work-a-day program didn't actually do useful work, but through its consumption of NASA funding actually prevent useful work from happening. As the saying goes, the Shuttle sucked the oxygen out of the room for other projects both manned and unmanned.

He's part of the problem. But here's the "Official UFO Quiz" to test yourself on what you do know. http://www.scribd.com/doc/13586254/The-Official-UFO-Quiz

Michael Horn is a tireless, fast-talking promoter of Billy Meier who will argue with you endlessly trying to make you believe that the Billy Meier photographs are real. Actually, the pics have been proven fake many times. They've used garbage can lids, models, and props. They've lifted pictures from books--one of a dinosaur to 'prove' Billy traveled back in time. Besides being fake, it's about the silliest story you could ever read. If you want to make UFOs a laughingstock subject, this is the way to do it.

Horn can talk all he wants, but the fact is, he's flat out busted.

Two points:

1) They were armed. Regardless of what you can or can not see in the video, when ground forces arrived they confirmed the presence of multiple AKs and RPGs.

2) The journalists were not wearing appropriate ID, and the holding of a camera does not grant you protected status.

Read the report:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29468022/6-2nd-Brigade-Combat-Team-15-6-Investigation

I wish I could type harder to get this to show up in HUGE FREAKING LETTERS, since some troll-mod put you up +insightful.

They did have weapons, which were positively identified before the helicopter fired. The only ambiguity was that they did not identify the cameras as such. The journalists were NOT wearing identification vests. It was not a group of unarmed civilians. IT WAS NOT A GROUP OF UNARMED CIVILIANS!!!1!!eleventyone THEY WERE ABOUT TO ATTACK A CONVOY.

Read the report before you keep repeating this uninformed drek

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29468022/6-2nd-Brigade-Combat-Team-15-6-Investigation

You mean the guy turning around at 3:45 doesn't have an RPG? Look at http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201889.php

Now, some that guy is now behind that wall where the camera operator is crouching taking a picture of an allied APC http://www.scribd.com/doc/29487634/Centcom-FOIA?page=41 (possible it seems for bragging rights later based on that photogs other shots). If I were wanting to blow that up I'd crouch by the wall for cover to observe then move and fire - the pilots appear to believe the armed men are going to fire imminently and clearly become urgent to remove the threat. The taking of photos is the precursor to the RPG being used.

unprovoked - occurring without motivation or provocation
The men on the ground didn't shoot. They weren't close enough to swear at or give the finger. Hell there was no indication that they were aware of the helicopter.

For the 200th time today (it feels like) -- they weren't a threat to the Apache. They were a threat to the column of vehicles, already under fire, a block away. That's why the Apaches were called in for air support. Please go look at the lovely pictures from the reporter's camera that show just how close these guys with guns and RPGs were to the ground troops and a column of 4 unarmored humvees.

Link to the Report See page 41.

Do remember that the US gov pretty clearly lied about this action in cover up and refused to release the footage. That is pretty evil.

Really? Did you know that Reuters was shown the video on July 25th, 2007 in an off-the-record briefing? Did you know that their FOIA request is based not on, "this shows they were murdered," but rather Reuters filed it because they wanted to use it to show their reporters how not to get into that situation. Go look up the original Reuters articles on it. They admit they saw the video back in 2007.

The official report with footage from the video, pictures from the scene, and all the sworn testimony of the pilots and gunner is also available. Here it is. I've linked to the ground squad report above. The report here follows everything you see on the video exactly. It includes captured frames. There was no "cover-up" of what happened. They just didn't release the video.

The Army proceeded to put this entire incident through an investigation, and determined that the actions, given the circumstances, were vindicated. The video doesn't show you the convoy under fire for 49 minutes leading up to this video, it doesn't show you that they were taking small arms fire a block away when the insurgent with the RPG comes up on this corner that is giving a clear shot at the side of the humvee. (See the reporter's own photos from the corner, just before he was shot -- Page 41 above)

The only thing "indiscriminate" is that a bullet shot into a group doesn't seek out those who "deserve" it.

The gunner did the best he could with limited information, in a high-pressure situation, protecting ground troops who were under fire and apparently about to be RPG'ed. He used the best discrimination he could, and the investigation by the Pentagon agreed. The fact that we, here on Slashdot, don't, doesn't mean a hill of beans.

unprovoked - occurring without motivation or provocation
The men on the ground didn't shoot. They weren't close enough to swear at or give the finger. Hell there was no indication that they were aware of the helicopter.

For the 200th time today (it feels like) -- they weren't a threat to the Apache. They were a threat to the column of vehicles, already under fire, a block away. That's why the Apaches were called in for air support. Please go look at the lovely pictures from the reporter's camera that show just how close these guys with guns and RPGs were to the ground troops and a column of 4 unarmored humvees.

Link to the Report See page 41.

Do remember that the US gov pretty clearly lied about this action in cover up and refused to release the footage. That is pretty evil.

Really? Did you know that Reuters was shown the video on July 25th, 2007 in an off-the-record briefing? Did you know that their FOIA request is based not on, "this shows they were murdered," but rather Reuters filed it because they wanted to use it to show their reporters how not to get into that situation. Go look up the original Reuters articles on it. They admit they saw the video back in 2007.

The official report with footage from the video, pictures from the scene, and all the sworn testimony of the pilots and gunner is also available. Here it is. I've linked to the ground squad report above. The report here follows everything you see on the video exactly. It includes captured frames. There was no "cover-up" of what happened. They just didn't release the video.

The Army proceeded to put this entire incident through an investigation, and determined that the actions, given the circumstances, were vindicated. The video doesn't show you the convoy under fire for 49 minutes leading up to this video, it doesn't show you that they were taking small arms fire a block away when the insurgent with the RPG comes up on this corner that is giving a clear shot at the side of the humvee. (See the reporter's own photos from the corner, just before he was shot -- Page 41 above)

The only thing "indiscriminate" is that a bullet shot into a group doesn't seek out those who "deserve" it.

The gunner did the best he could with limited information, in a high-pressure situation, protecting ground troops who were under fire and apparently about to be RPG'ed. He used the best discrimination he could, and the investigation by the Pentagon agreed. The fact that we, here on Slashdot, don't, doesn't mean a hill of beans.

Maximum effective range of RPG: ~1000m

Distance to humvee that Apache was providing air support for: ~100m

These are pictures (the last ones on the "roll") from the reporter's camera:

2nd BCT Investigation (Go to page 41 of 43)

$.08 per page. That's only really worthy of +4 informative if parent also post's his/her PACER login details.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29489974/Full-Text-Comcast-vs-FCC-Federal-Court-Ruling
Found Here by using the googles

Any court decision worth reading will almost always be hosted somewhere else within hours of showing up on PACER.

Here's some mirrors of the original document, in case the original site is slashdotted:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28853862/201001-acta

http://www.mediafire.com/?wdnjg2nrmne

http://rapidshare.com/files/367572656/201001_acta.pdf
http://hotfile.com/dl/34373604/038b957/201001_acta.pdf.html

yes, let's all wait for Apple to come to the rescue and ignore everybody else who's already trying to do that...
and of course, nothing is real unless Apple does it.

Scribd
http://www.scribd.com/

Amazon Self-Publish
http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller-account/mm-summary-page.html?topic=200260520

but you do know that publishers don't just "publish", right? editing is a crucial step and good or bad marketing can make or break an author.
Even authors like Doctorow who freely distributes their contents online have editors and publishers. A good combination of the two means that even trash like D*n Br*wn's D* V*nc* C*d* can become a bestseller.

Interesting, I must have missed that part...can you provide me with page/line numbers from the bill? here's a link if you don't have a copy handy: http://www.scribd.com/doc/28572002/Reconciliation-HR-4872-Full-Text

The US Commission on Civil Rights first flagged this issue. I remember at the time the Senate bill passed, the numbering they used no longer corresponded to the bill but I was able to find the section nonetheless. Unfortunately Scribd isn't playing well with gnash at the moment so I will have to try later from another computer. Stay tuned.

Pelosi has said this is only the first bill and that we should expect many more. I would assume that means trying to push for public options, and perhaps eventually build on the populist anger towards private insurance to remove it from most of the market. I think the push for socialized medicine is exactly what a large part of the Democratic party is fighting for, though by no means enough to win the day right now.

Remember though, a single-payer system affects only insurance companies. Private companies would still be building medical equipment, doctors would still run independent practices, and pharmaceutical companies would still exist. You could consider single-payer to be socialized insurance, but not socialized healthcare.

The bill empowers the DHHS to waive most of the fines for things like long-term care facilities' employees abusing patients if the facility serves an under-served population, and this is defined as rural areas or ethnic minorities. This is just Jim Crow under a new name: it means that facilities serving ethnic minorities are held to a lower standard, and African-American patients of them are not entitled to the same protections of the laws that white patients are. That's just wrong.

Interesting, I must have missed that part...can you provide me with page/line numbers from the bill? here's a link if you don't have a copy handy: http://www.scribd.com/doc/28572002/Reconciliation-HR-4872-Full-Text

Full bill: http://www.scribd.com/doc/28572002/Reconciliation-HR-4872-Full-Text

CBO report: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11355/hr4872.pdf

Get to reading!

It's possible to disable the ad. Link here.
IMO, the best part about Avira is its heuristics - they're miles better than all the others' and catch everything.

The book you're thinking of was by Abacus, The Anatomy of the 1541 Disk Drive. And, holy crap, it's online now!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/15985046/The-Anatomy-of-the-1541-Disk-Drive

Narus products have always been about telling you who is doing what with you, when and for how long on your network. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70914 http://www.scribd.com/doc/27629223/All-About-NSA-s-and-AT-amp-T-s-Big-Brother-Machine-The-Narus http://www.xchangemag.com/articles/631feature06.html http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/8/14724/28476 There has even been speculation that their products are at the core of "Carnivore" and/or "ESCHELON" http://www.texaskaos.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2496 Their primary customers are three letter agencies and the biggest of the big IP backbone providers. If you put devices capable of tracking every IP stream, encrypted or not, with source, destination, duration, size and QOS and you can start associating every stream with an identifiable person, adding to that the ability to extrapolate based upon types of user communities, net anonymity will certainly becaome lless possible. Now the question is, who watches the watchmen?

Some of you may remember Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite. He was the uncle that lived in his van, taping himself throwing a football to himself, and was constantly wishing he could go back in time so he could relive one of his football moments and his life would be perfect. I've been having some similar moments (except in my case, there was an ex gf I had in HS, parents kicked me out, and she thought I abandoned her, 20 years later I find her and she's still makes me sigh but she's married with kids, like I am)

So with my slightly smarter than Rico brain I've been exploring the possibility of time travel. I have no physics background, etc.

It started off with a dream I had. I saw what looked like torus's made of water flying past me, like distortion waves. After they passed, I was in the past. I think the inspiration came from the Atlas 5 rocket going through the sundog last month.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsDEfu8s1Lw&feature=player_embedded#

The next day I read up on bending time/space into a torus. I found out that at the speed of light, this is what happens to time/space naturally.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17397008/SPINORS-TWISTORS-QUATERNIONS-AND-THE-SPACETIME-TORUS-TOPOLOGY-Paper

I also know a bit about relativity. If I travel from earth at lightspeed, from my perspective on my spaceship time has stopped on earth.

So I started questioning what would happen if a torus of space time flew past me at the speed of light, and I was in the center of the torus as it passed. Would time stop around me while I remain in a normal time space? What if it went beyond light speed, would time begin to slowly go backwards?

If space/time travelling at 0 = our perceived passage of time.
If space/time travelling at 299,792,458 mph = time stopped
Then wouldn't space/time travelling at 599,584,916mph = our perceived passage of time in reverse?

Basically saying that at 599,584,916mph it would take me 22 years to get back to my sweetheart. If I wanted to get there in a few hours I'd be looking at getting space time to pass me by at 13,190,868,152,000mph

I'm not trying to say this is a valid theory, like I said I have no physics background at all. It's just something I've been thinking about a lot. The whole torus thing like I said, it was a dream and my thought was the reason you would want to bend space/time into a torus is to keep a region in the center of non bent time/space so you, the traveler would be safe.

Are you sure about that? I think you're right, but it's confusing. Supposedly, JFIF files are intended to have a gamma of 1.0. (JFIF stands for JPEG File Interchange Format and is the official name for what's inside a .JPG file.) Anyway, quoting from the JFIF spec:

A number of color spaces can be used: grayscale, RGB and CMYK are all common in prepress. For internet use, the color space can also be YCbCr as defined by CAIRN 601 (256 levels). The RGB components calculated by linear conversion from YCbCr shall not be gamma corrected (gamma = 1.0).

Now, that's the sound bite that suggests JFIF actually deals with linear light. But, if you carefully read the actual JFIF 1.02 spec and compare it to other resources, what sounds like "linear light" really isn't, and JPEGs really do encode "display-ready" pixels that are gamma corrected.

In the JFIF spec, it says:

The color space to be used is YCbCr as defined by CCIR 601 (256 levels). The RGB components calculated by linear conversion from YCbCr shall not be gamma corrected (gamma = 1.0). If only one component is used, that component shall be Y.

So far, it jibes with that first resource. A little later, on page 4, the JFIF spec gives a series of transformation functions between YCbCr and RGB. Mark your page, and flip with me to compare this to the referenced CCIR 601. Wikipedia has a nice summary here, assuming you don't want to send off to the ITU in Geneva for a copy of CCIR 601.

The matrix that JFIF defines matches the non-scaling YPbPr matrix in the Wikipedia page. That makes sense: Rather than use the narrower [16, 235] range that CCIR 601 specifies for component video, JFIF does state that Y, Cb and Cr "are normalized so as to occupy the full 256 levels of an 8-bit binary encoding." And if you scroll down on the Wikipedia page, you'll see that they have the same matrix with JPEG-specific scale factors applied that match the JFIF spec.

But here's the kicker. Notice that the CCIR matrix uses R', G' and B'. The prime symbol means that the signal is not linear light! That is, the signal is gamma corrected and is intended to be displayed on a device with the corresponding gamma as-is with no further correction.

This interpretation is bolstered by Charles Poynton's Color FAQ which states plainly: "The prime symbols in this equation, and in those to follow, denote nonlinear components," and later states "Use prime symbols ( ' ) to denote all of your nonlinear components!" Interestingly, Poynton also notes "no practical image coding system employs linear colour differences."

So what does that really mean? It means that while the JFIF spec says "gamma = 1.0," what they really seem to have meant (and, what everyone seems to have done) is take data intended for direct display without further correction, and then encode it. The result is that no gamma correction needs to be applied to a decoded JFIF file before display, because it's already in display gamma.

At least, I think. But if you just skim the JFIF spec, you'd come away thinking it dealt with linear light.

You might be interested in reading the work of Oxford-trained researcher Jospeh P. Farrell, especially if you're not yet familiar with him.

There's also plenty on YouTube and various radio stations, interview wise..

He goes into the strangeness of the U.S. never testing the uranium bomb before actually dropping it on Japan, how a German submarine was capture (or given away as decoy while some head honchos escaped) wit on-board two Japanese people .. and infrared

I cannot copy/paste from it unfortunately, but check e.g. this book:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/4092510/Joseph-Farell-Reich-of-the-Black-Sun

If even a FRACTION of Farrell's work is correct, quite a few history books in school are missing some very, VERY big issues and a lot of high strangeness.

You really must preface that comment with IANAL... as it stands you are quite wrong. This essay describes in hefty detail mostly why http://www.scribd.com/doc/24956746/DJ-Ettinger-Legal-Status-of-the-IOC

Excerpt: "...they can seek relief as a plaintiff, or be named as a defendant in a sovereign nation's court of law..."

One day I thought, "What if one day Steven Hawking had the most blinding insightful revelation anyone has ever had, but it was just after all his muscle control was lost?"

So I wrote this. (Disclaimer: No physicists were actually harmed in the writing of this play.)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19550880/GUT-The-Grand-Unified-Theory-A-oneact-play-with-seven-blackouts

Related, Wakefield was recently found to have acted unethically by the General Medical Council. The full report is up on Scribd. Some analysis and summarizing, as well as some of the crazy response from the anti-vaccine community can be found at Orac's blog.

One of the problems is that Intel was proven to pay OEM's (Dell specifically) a large sum of money to delay the launch of Opteron based products. It's a long read but to get a better handle on this, I suggest reading New York's antitrust suit: http://www.scribd.com/doc/22112342/Nyag-v-Intel-Complaint-Final

For some, ( not me ) the fact you get to be first in line for the latest shiny object is worth the extra cost to them.

But what if said product could Change Your Life!

Facebook uses Alternative PHP Cache and has contributed a lot to the project.

Depends whether the Ares I sticks around or not. Given the administration's well known allergy to uttering the word "Ares" and given the recent outburst by a distraught senator from Alabama (his name rhymes with "Shelby") who happens to be a huge Ares booster, I'd say that Ares I is going out the door never to return. That's not part of the Bush plan.

Also keep in mind that while I don't think they've yet slid the schedule back for the Ares V, it's unlikely, with the delays to the Ares I, to fly in 2018.

Many Americans are focused with something else before 9/11 like Clinton was busy with Lewinsky during his term and Bush was pondering on his businesses in Texas when he assumed office. Thus, they ignored the threat of the terrorists and it was the reason why terrorism struck America by surprise. http://www.scribd.com/doc/23658247/Ultimate-Acai-Max-Review-Does-Ultimate-Acai-Max-Trial-Work

For those of you who are interested, you can read the original court complaint filing here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23175190/Complaint-filed112509

Wow, how did you get that link? Did you read the first sentence fragment of the summary or something?

For those of you who are interested, you can read the original court complaint filing here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23175190/Complaint-filed112509

The FAA knew something was up the moment AAL11's transponder was switched off. Here's a segment of the timeline of ATC's activities that morning:

0825: controllers at Boston Center notified New England Regional Ops, ATC System Command Center, the Boston Center facility manager, and New York Center that they suspected AAL11 had been hijacked
0834: Boston Center contacted Cape Terminal Radar Approach and requested that they notify the military
0835: New England ROC notified Washington Operations Center of the suspected hijacking of AAL11
0836: Washington Ops notified the FAA's Civil Aviation Security Intelligence and initiated a teleconference with New England ROC and ATCSCC
0838: Boston Center notified NORAD of the hijacking
~0842: NORAD is notified of the hijacking of UAL175
0844: New York Center notified New York TRACON
0850: Newark Tower, who had a direct line of sight to the WTC, notified New York TRACON of a possible aircraft crash into the WTC
0855: controller-in-charge at New York Center advised the Ops Manager that UAL175 was also hijacked; CIC began to coordinate with controllers, who stated UAL175 was heading "right for the city;" CIC returned to Ops Manager and overheard a request for military aircraft to scramble

So you see, there was as you put it an insane amount of detail that the FAA had already collected at that point.

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/14353715/FAA-Draft-Report-The-Air-Traffic-Organizations-Response-to-the-September-11th-Terrorist-Attack

Boo apple.

The early home computers, including Apple, shipped with BASIC and a nicely bound manual with clear instructions on simple programming. This was the first step for many who are now players in the industry.

It's almost like the old days again. I hear current Apple products still ship with a book that's about as thick as the old programming manual that came with the Apple ][.

I believe it's called The License Agreement or something like that.

Boo apple. The early home computers, including Apple, shipped with BASIC and a nicely bound manual with clear instructions on simple programming. This was the first step for many who are now players in the industry.

Before taking more agressive action, I wanted to reach out to you because it struck me as odd that you would be running a site without licenses. [...] What's going on?

This quote is from the personal email by the RIAA vice president, read more here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/22140609/Bluebeat-TRO-Opposition-Ex-A
Read to the bottom of the conversation to find the nice way of kindly informing about the infringement without first sending the lawyer-hordes.

I would love to see him take such an open and inquiring attitude towards other pirates (a.k.a. normal consumers) and just listen to the community before unleashing his well known more agressive action.
And even if he let's his lawyers send the pages of ALL CAPS LEGALESE, it would be nice to include the "I hope you are doing well" from the top. :)

Wow. You got a PR rep to send you a publicly available document? I mean, you do realise that court filings are public, don't you? So, this PR rep, this women who is employed to facilitate Spring Design's communication with the public, sent you a copy of a publicly available document? Wow! Your social engineering is off the chart...

For those interested, that don't have 30 whole seconds to google for it themselves, here it is.

Incorrect.

My! Aren't we intrepid.

As for Carbolic Smoke, it clearly doesn't apply

Dealing with this first. It was cited to show that you don't need to know the identity of the party with whom you are contracting in order to be bound. All joking aside, what do you mean "it clearly doesn't apply!?" Not only does it show that, it shows that you should have learnt this in your very first contracts lecture!

The right to run the software is not one of the exclusive rights included in copyright (see 17 USC 106).

Not contested.

Furthermore, the right to make copies incidental to executing the software is specifically permitted to the owner of a copy of the software (17 USC 117).

Indeed under 117(1) "the owner of a copy of a computer program" is allowed to make a copy for "as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner." Thus images contained on one medium (eg. disk) that are loaded (copied) into another (eg. RAM) do not constitute the making of an infringing copy. As poor as the drafting may be, this at least is the clear intent of the provision.

I agree, at first glance, this would also appear to permit the purchaser of physical medium containing an OS to install (copy) the OS sans licence. You have to remember, however, the 117 only protects the owner of the copy. And you probably don't have unfettered ownership of it. Have a look at that cardboard box, does it anywhere contain indicating that your use for the product is subject to entering into a licence agreement? Being the careful guy you are, when you bought that box, you of course read that licence agreement. I mean who would hand over their money knowing that use was subject to an agreement without first checking it out, right? ;) Pay especial attention to the first clause!

This very point of law is currently before the court in Apple v Pystar. However, both you and Pystar face the same problem: there is ample authority suggesting that purchasers of physical media containing software, the use of which is expressed as being subject to licence, are not owners, but mere licencees, and are thus not protected by 117 (eg. Wall Data , MAI Systems , Adobe v Stargate , the last not being about 117 itself, but about the licencee status of purchaser.)

This, in turn, is the point of law on which MDY will be appealing in MDY v Blizzard. One should of course never second guess a court's decision, but it would be surprising if either MDY or Psystar were able to prevail against what appears to be the established authority. One thing I will predict, however, is that if these cases end as previous authority suggests they will, there will be a howl of idignation from slashdotters who have at best read the statutory provisions, but are otherwise bosltered only by their ignorance of the law surrounding them.

The shiny plastic disc is a copy of the software (17 USC 101).

Agreed, but note also under 202 that "Ownership of a copyright ... is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied." It would seem a strange result if a specific exception such as 117 were able to be used as a backdoor to undermine this basic principle of copyright law! This is why 117, in speaking of "owner[s] of cop[ies]," confuses matters. It should have been preferred to grant exceptions to lawful users of said computer programs, irregardles of whether they are owners or mere licencees. Which only goes to show that one should never elect a non-lawyer into the legislature! ;)

Therefore I have the right to run it.

I feel for you dude! That must have fe

It look like we are both right:

From the NOVA 'The Elegant Universe' transcript:

"In fact, if an atom were enlarged to the size of the solar system, a string would only be as large as a tree!" http://www.scribd.com/doc/185276/NOVA-The-Elegant-Universe-Transcript, jump to page 26 or keyword search for "solar system".

I find this similarity and difference between the book and the video interesting. While Greene doesn't specifically reference the distance in the video as being measured in Planck Length, the concept of enlarging an atom on a cosmic scale and using a tree as the reference as to the size of a string is nearly the exact same example at that used in the book. It's clear the intent is the same since the string theory subject matter is the same. Does the measuring in this example start at the heliopause or the termination shock?

In think both expressions captures the essence of the distances involved, but when you take something as inherently tiny as an atom and enlarge it to the size of our solar system measured across the heliosphere to the termination shock, we're still talking about incredible vast distances, and this just an atom which we're unable to view with any clarity using scanning tunneling microscopes. The distance analogy might as well be expressed as "can we see an atom on Pluto from the Earth".

Having the expression be "if an atom were enlarged to the size of the universe" is incomprehensible. Yet perhaps it's matched to the insurmountable task that string theorists have before them to provide a testable prediction. By suggesting that an atom be expanded to the size of the universe and the observer is then required to look for a specific tree to mark a unit of measurement is again suggesting an equally impossible and untestable and unfathomable concept. Yet with the universe example, no one will ever have that opportunity to say, "yes, I can see that Planck Length example that Brian Greene used is correct. From where I sit in my chair here at the edge of the universe, my calibrated equipment can detect that tree" is absurd.

Again I reference a quote from 'The Elegant Universe' video, this one made by S. James Gates Jr. from the University of Maryland on page 14 of the transcript I linked above, "If String Theory fails to provide a testable prediction, then no one should believe it."

At one point you are left with something you can't ever verify - and that's where facts end and belief begins.

Ah, the false millenium meme. Here is a play relative to that but set in 1900:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13330493/Double-Naught-A-Play-in-One-Act

Why does the name of Michael J. Fox appears at the top of the contract?

Energy to build a new computer: 18,100 MJ ~= 5,000 kwh. Source. Fossil fuels assumed to be 45 MJ per kg, the value for gasoline.

Proposed ROI payback period is $300/$70 ~= 4 years, saving $70 per year. Electricity cost in the US for residential customers is $0.104 per kwh. Source. This means he expects energy savings of around 675 kwh per year.

Expected EROI payback period is: 5,000 / 675 ~= 7.4 years.

I have to admit to being pretty surprised by that number. Usually, energy to manufacture is a fairly small portion of the retail price. Not so for computers, I guess.

A screenplay about a young woman who suffers a telomerase problem:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13561852/Breakfast-in-the-Next-Century-an-original-screenplay

much like a public library but over the web.

#1 Check out a book, get a 90 day period to read it.
#2 After 90 days return it, or renew it for another 90 days.
#3 After the check out time expires the PDF DRM locks you out of the book, but you can click renew and renew it if another copy is available, if not wait until a copy is available.

Google Books is a good start, it could easily be turned into an ebook library. Scribd.com has many free eBooks plus eBooks people can publish and other people can buy. It used to be flooded with pirated eBooks, but they cleaned it up I think. It could become an eBook library as well.

You should listen to your customers, but do so understanding most requests aren't for what they're asking for, it's for a more fundamental desire...

That's fine. But the Innovator's Dilemma is a wholly unrelated to that form of customers not knowing what they want. Here is an excellent introduction to the Innovator's Delemma. The article talks about the rapid changes in the hard drive industry over.

This article isn't about customers not knowing what they want. It's about how over time, who your customers are can radically change as brand new markets emerge. For example, hard disk business with mainframes was all about cost per megabyte. But in the new desktop computer market, the criteria by which things are judged is totally different than just cost per megabyte. Overall cost for the unit is more important, and physical size. A mainframe customer wouldn't be interested in a drive that costs more per megabyte but is smaller and has an overall lower price per unit-- but a desktop customer would be interested. The topic of the article is that if you exclusively listen to your customers without contemplating how the world is changing, you can sink yourself. Same situation with the newspaper industry: over-focus on existing markets and existing business lines can cause you to not see the opportunity in emerging markets, as the Rocky Mountain News learned.

It was a hoot as usual.

The past couple of years I have had to get orchestra seats, down on the floor in front of the stage. These used to be the least desirable seats, as occupants had no cover from the constant barrage of paper airplanes. Now they try to limit the planes to two designated times, but there is a lot of random traffic anyway.

When the very MILFy Russian blonde doc pulled not one but two emergency bras from under her tight black velvet dress and put them on the faces of four actual Nobel laureates, the crowd went wild. Good times.

NB: In case you want to read a screenplay in which the Ig Nobel ceremony is a pivotal plot point:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13651346/The-EightFoot-Bride-an-original-screenplay

Actually, looking at this Morgan Stanley presentation, it seems that $25 for today's CPM is overly optimistic. They're quoting a figure of $18 for 2008's, and the trend has been ever-downwards.

Did what we call a "manif" (manifestation/protest march). That is quite different from rioting (going in the street to steal and make damage).

There weren't any deaths, burned cars, or other violence?

Although I do not exclude there is a minority of thugs which always take the occasion to riot, the intention of the crushing majority was only to protest agaisnt that law.

The rioters may of been a minority but there were some protesters who supported them and some rioters supported protesters. Perhaps I could have phrased what I wanted to say better though, so I'll try again. The government in France wanted to boost youth employment, even today France has a high unemployment rate for youth. But the youth protested against making it easier for businesses to fire bad employees who are youth, as if a job was an entitlement not something earned. If you want more employment of youth you want to make it easier to fire those youth who are poor workers. Even today Youth unemployment is high in almost all of Europe.

Falcon

That it not entirely correct.

Magnetic monopoles have been observed.

The problem is that most student are told that magnetic monopoles haven't been observed,
and very few student check to see if that is correct.

Check out chapter 5 in
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4445/quaternionic-electrodynamics
for references to the articles.

Also available here