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Domain: sentex.net

Stories and comments across the archive that link to sentex.net.

Comments · 67

  1. Re:This is too funny... by manly_15 · · Score: 2 · on Slashback: Panama, Leeches, Comeuppance

    Here is the same thing I saw on a separate page on the site, in hopefully a less slashdotted form... ;-)

  2. Re:Why is this a surprise? by 3waygeek · · Score: 2 · on How An Andromeda Strain Might be Strained

    Dosage from Fiestaware pottery: 200 - 300 millirems per HOUR

    If you have some of that old pottery, get rid of it. It's orange, made with a uranium pigment. It's pretty dangerous stuff.

    Or you can keep using it and become a superhero.

  3. functional vs. artistic by the_Upsetter · · Score: 1 · on LoTR:LEGO Originals
    which is more geeky? I like the gun link better than the hobbit link.

    After all, isn't it cooler when the lego creations actually do something ?

  4. Re:With this annoucement by DickPhallus · · Score: 2 · on 10-Gigabit Ethernet Standard Approved

    The university of waterloo does this, this page explains it all:

    U of Waterloo tunnles

  5. Foundations, polystrata, three stars, a question by leonbrooks · · Score: 2 · on MS Cites National Security to Justify Closed Source
    I've often wondered why so many evolutionists are reluctant to question their foundations. Thanks for clearing that up for me!

    Maybe I can clear it up a little further.

    Or not....

    "Questioning my foundations" is what led me to reject creationism, and favor evolution, in the first place.

    And so what happened? You seem to have either stopped questioning too early, or to have based your conclusion on the strength or weakness of some individual's position, rather than on the strength or weakness of the available evidence itself.

    I started my thinking life as an evolutionist. I upset Mum badly one day (but she didn't show it then or ever) by mentioning some one-line wisdom I'd heard to her in a 'phone conversation: `a man needs religion like a fish needs a bicycle.' She started praying for me that day (and asked her church to as well), said nothing to me, and within two months I was studying the Bible, history and science with a variety of people and within six months was a committed Christian - although in such a completely different branch of Christianity to hers that I think Mum died not completely convinced that her prayers had been answered.

    One advantage that I've had is in directly witnessing several supernatural events, through my association at the time with a `white' witch (the basic difference is in purpose, not in methods). One of those takes a while to describe, involved two other sober people, and was deeply shocking. Another was watching some books leap out of a book-case unaided (I checked the book-case and books (and wall) all over, inside and out, carefully, and made sure that there was no mechanical trickery here) and several meters across the room. Even without that advantage, you can turn to one of the very many events which were clearly supernatural, witnessed by many people, and well documented (Lloyds subsequently came back at $500 PA and extended coverage to Guyana).

    I suspect that such events are not more prevalent today for several reasons, foremost among which are (1) any diety interested in wholehearted allegience would probably want it to depend on that nature of that diety, rather than on a `sugar-daddy' stream of miracles, and (2) there is apparently more than one source (direct or indirect) of supernatural effects, which opens the field more widely to fraud.

    I'd presumed upon the millions-of-years thing myself, and polystratic fossils are one of the more graphic and convincing observations which overturned that presumption for me. Of course, sans millions of years, materialism doesn't even give the appearence of being in the running.

    For example: the Yellowstone trees (so often cited as evidence of life over millions of years) combined with dendrochronology (also so often cited as proof of excessive amounts of time) are actually a fairly clear witness to the absence of those years, for the Yellowstone fossils are not only polystratic and bedded on different strata but also grew contemporaneously and show strong symptoms of having been emplaced by a mechanism essentially identical to that observed in Spirit Lake after the eruption.

    There are many, many other good polystratic examples to
    hand, including inclined trees, and also many half-hearted attempts to explain them away. One of the common `counterexamples' is a set of lycopods with root systems; an examination of the available samples indicates that these trees grew floating, or at least on an extremely spongey substrate, so it is reasonable to expect them to be disturbed and embedded complete with roots. Even ignoring this, it is still most unreasonable to expect even relatively short (1.2m, in the worst case) stumps to be fossilised upright and intact in an evolutionary scenario.

    It is the height of arrogance to assume that someone is closed minded just because they have reached a conclusion different from yours.

    Yah, and the height of stupidity as well. Given the number of viewpoints in the world, simple arithmetic tells you that most or all of your (and my) opinions are globally wrong in some way. (-:

    ...and don't get me started on `contextually wrong'! (-:

    After all, if we hold a view, it's usually because we think it is correct. Each side would do well to remember that this is true of the other side as well. I can't count the number of times I've been guilty of this error myself.

    If I was a Wemmick, I'd give you at least three stars for that statement. (-:

    Food-for-thought time.

    Five-year-old Mary was obliged to undergo an operation, and lost so much blood that it was necessary to resort to blood transfusion. The blood of thirteen-year-old brother Jimmy was found by test to match exactly the little patient's. "Will you give your sister some of your blood, Jim?" asked the doctor. Jimmy set his teeth. "Yes, sir, if she needs it." He was prepared for the transfusion. In the midst of the drawing of the blood, the doctor observed Jimmy growing paler and paler. "Are you ill, Jim?" he asked. "No, sir, but I'm wondering just when I'll die." "Die?" gasped the doctor. "Do you think people give their lives when they give a little blood?" "Yes, sir," replied Jimmy. "And you are giving your life for Mary's?" "Yes, sir," replied Jimmy.

    Mary and Jimmy are pseudonyms, but the story is true. If you had been Jimmy, would you have done the same?
  6. Re:yet another great hack! by eracerblue · · Score: 1 · on Building a Digicam from Scanner Elements

    From the Matthias Wandel's Link Section

    Slashdot - what a waste of time, but we all read it!

  7. The penny-macro shootout by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Building a Digicam from Scanner Elements
    I had to try it myself, and while my camera has colour, I have to admit that his monstrosity clearly has better resolution.

    His penny (from his Frankensteinbox)

    My penny (from a Sony FD91, me holding the penny a few millimeters away from the lens)

    Let's see some more penny photos out there.

  8. He *is* smart by PhysicsGenius · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Building a Digicam from Scanner Elements
    Just look at his Links section:

    Slashdot - what a waste of time, but we all read it!

  9. Re:fakes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on Building a Digicam from Scanner Elements

    You mean your previously virgin bum. Did he look like this and take pictures of you with his flatbed-scanner/digital camera?

  10. looks safe by neo8750 · · Score: 1 · on Building a Digicam from Scanner Elements
    I opened and closed the garage door while I took the shot above. Really makes it look like there's something gone very wrong with the garage door.

    Looking at the pic [http://www.sentex.net/] that looks like no under statement. It look it is designed to act as door from star-wars.

    [http://www.sentex.net/] I must say that looks like the safest prototype for a ejection seat =)

  11. looks safe by neo8750 · · Score: 1 · on Building a Digicam from Scanner Elements
    I opened and closed the garage door while I took the shot above. Really makes it look like there's something gone very wrong with the garage door.

    Looking at the pic [http://www.sentex.net/] that looks like no under statement. It look it is designed to act as door from star-wars.

    [http://www.sentex.net/] I must say that looks like the safest prototype for a ejection seat =)

  12. Re:Metadata Section by slim · · Score: 2 · on JPEG2000 Coming Soon
    Other replies to this were kind of hazy ("You can get at the metadata through Explorer")...


    JPEG allows arbitrary headers; one such header is the EXIF header which most digital cameras will include. This includes stuff like date and time taken, focal length, etc. The problem is that since it's an
    extension of JPEG rather than a mandatory part of the standard, any software is free to ignore the EXIF header, and neglect to preserve it when modifying the image. For example, take a JPEG from a digital camera, with date and time helpfully included in the EXIF header... run ImageMagick "mogrify" on it; perhaps to resize it or to change the JPEG compression ratio -- EXIF header disappears (you can use jhead to get around this.)

    My understanding of JPEG2000 is that the standard specifies a header containing XML metadata. Evidence here.

    I'm very keen on the concept. It makes sense that in a single (standard format) file I should be able to store a picture, technical details about it, free text annotation, etc. such that for example, a really simple bit of CGI could present it as an album.

  13. Wackiest Lego/KNex/Construx Creations? by __aaahtg7394 · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Build a Mindstorm Robot to Fly to ISS
    OK, this has inspired me to seek out the craziest, zaniest, wildest homebrew stuff made out of these. We all know about Lego Machine Guns, but how about a Homemade Ballpoint Plotter?

    with that in mind, what have you folks managed with legos?

  14. Once upon a time at the University of Waterloo by DataSquid · · Score: 2 · on Infiltration

    a very bright young lad who now works at RIM seemed to enjoy the service tunnels that run throughout campus. There's still many stories of them, and this page sums it up nicely. Oh, and dig around his site and learn how to make a nice digital camera from a flatbed scanner!

  15. Smitten by Windows (heh heh) by mr.ska · · Score: 1 · on Microsoft's IE 5.5 Flouts Industry Standards

    I don't like Bill.

  16. Re:Where'd you get that program? by kjr71 · · Score: 1 · on Hemos Gets Hitched
    > Is there a version of jhead for Win32?

    Sure. Check out http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/.

    Actually, for Windows there are tons of programs that extract this "EXIF" info from digicam JPEG files. It's great when learning how photograpy and cameras work.

  17. what fascism is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Bills to Restrict Campus Internet Access

    Fascism is more than just a "system of government" with certain characteristics. There is an entire philosophical system that provides the basis for it. It basically involves the idea of a nation of ethnically homogeneous people whose will is interpreted and implemented in the government by a single leader. Fascism celebrates movement and action, machismo, female fertility and submission, anti-homosexuality, the idea that the powerful have the right to dominate the weak, nationalism, and of course, a welfare state to assure that the people represented by the party do well materially. Another characteristic one sees is the "corporate state" which is a condition in which the government is run by and for big business.
    People at both sides of the American political spectrum accuse people at the other of being "fascists" because both main parties share a few ideas with real fascism.
    This is an article by Umberto Eco that discusses the characteristics of fascism.
    Enjoy.

    t.f.