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What an interesting response, makes sense! People don't want to pay for gas by driving to work so they find a way to do it at home. I wish I was able to work at home, and do school at home- but then I'd have no social life at all. Who knows, maybe in the future, everyone will be a turbo nerd, never leaving the house and relying on internet relationships to coax their lonliness! Curious? Check out Christopher Ruddy

All the Americans whining about the Freedom of Info Act would have a tantrum if they knew our gov't was photographing us 300x a day! Hey-if something happens and they're able to pin point who the perp was and bring about justice, then more power to them! Check out Christopher Ruddy

There's an intriguing discussion of geographic distribution of commerce in Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Stephen Johnson.

It's a great read, and it gave me all kinds of nonlinear insights into How The World Works that I hadn't really thought about before. It also definitely made me want to bust out Sim City again.

No, NA developers make dreck like Outlaw Volleyball

blech, what dreck.

I'm talking about sites having to conform to google's whims in order to appear anywhere near the top of a google search. I'm talking about legitimate sites, not even sites selling anything. Sites that simply choose to design their sites in one way or another can have their google rank turned to crap.

The 'whims' of Google's that you're complaining about are just common sense. Google says, make your page clear and informative. If your page is clear and informative, guess what? Google ranks it higher. If your page is clear and informative and has something interesting to say, other people will find it interesting and link to it. If other people link to it, guess what? Google ranks it higher. Google says, don't change your URLs too often. That's common sense, too. If you ceaselessly redesign your site, leaving old URLs dangling as 404 errors, you're hurting people who link to you, and you're hurting people who've bookmarked you. That's common sense, too. All my bookmarks to my bank's site no longer work, because every time they do a redesign they change their URLs, and leave the old ones dangling. Sooner or later, that's going to annoy me enough to make me change banks.

If you do a Google search for 'Simon Brooke', you'll find me at the top although my home page is just that, a personal home page, and has no 'optimisation'. Simon Brooke the Insurance Broker, with an expensive, professionally designed site, comes second. Then there's Simon Brooke the professional actor on IMDB, then a guy who's into aeroplanes, then Simon Brooke the author.

So with all those people with something to sell in the list, how come I and the aeroplane geek make the first page? My site is simple and has been there a long time (more than ten years now, and on the same URL for eight). In that time a lot of people have linked to it, and it doesn't suffer link rot. The plane geek's page gets ranked well because he has good pictures which presumably get linked to.

And that's the lesson for all you soi disant web designers out there. Users aren't impressed with your fancy, flash 'splash pages', and guess what? Google isn't either. Users aren't impressed with text as graphics, and guess what? Google isn't either. Users aren't impressed with vacuous marketing puff, and guess what? Google isn't either.

If you've got something interesting and different to say, and you say it clearly, and you say it consistently in the same place, Google will find you. Tricks and cheats aren't needed.

I'm talking about sites having to conform to google's whims in order to appear anywhere near the top of a google search. I'm talking about legitimate sites, not even sites selling anything. Sites that simply choose to design their sites in one way or another can have their google rank turned to crap.

The 'whims' of Google's that you're complaining about are just common sense. Google says, make your page clear and informative. If your page is clear and informative, guess what? Google ranks it higher. If your page is clear and informative and has something interesting to say, other people will find it interesting and link to it. If other people link to it, guess what? Google ranks it higher. Google says, don't change your URLs too often. That's common sense, too. If you ceaselessly redesign your site, leaving old URLs dangling as 404 errors, you're hurting people who link to you, and you're hurting people who've bookmarked you. That's common sense, too. All my bookmarks to my bank's site no longer work, because every time they do a redesign they change their URLs, and leave the old ones dangling. Sooner or later, that's going to annoy me enough to make me change banks.

If you do a Google search for 'Simon Brooke', you'll find me at the top although my home page is just that, a personal home page, and has no 'optimisation'. Simon Brooke the Insurance Broker, with an expensive, professionally designed site, comes second. Then there's Simon Brooke the professional actor on IMDB, then a guy who's into aeroplanes, then Simon Brooke the author.

So with all those people with something to sell in the list, how come I and the aeroplane geek make the first page? My site is simple and has been there a long time (more than ten years now, and on the same URL for eight). In that time a lot of people have linked to it, and it doesn't suffer link rot. The plane geek's page gets ranked well because he has good pictures which presumably get linked to.

And that's the lesson for all you soi disant web designers out there. Users aren't impressed with your fancy, flash 'splash pages', and guess what? Google isn't either. Users aren't impressed with text as graphics, and guess what? Google isn't either. Users aren't impressed with vacuous marketing puff, and guess what? Google isn't either.

If you've got something interesting and different to say, and you say it clearly, and you say it consistently in the same place, Google will find you. Tricks and cheats aren't needed.

Best part about this is that the author of the story wrote a book that details it that will be released soon. The book is titled: STATE OF WAR: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration

Interesting that the NY Times article doesn't mention anything about Risen's upcoming book that discuss this story and the other stories he will be releasing thru the venue of the New York Times. See http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?sid=33&p id=518822 for the book

Could this ground-breaking article have anything to do with the upcoming release of a book written by the author of the NY Times article, which happens to deal with this exact subject matter?

Before you start lashing out against the government, notice that the article states that the monitoring activities are of individuals believed to have possible ties to terrorist networks, and no mention is made if they're even US citizens.

Of course, you can say that they could technically monitor anyone they want as long as they made it a 'national security' matter, but then again, you are probably wearing tinfoil hats and living confortably in your tempest cages, so you have nothing to worry about.

http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?sid=33&p id=518822

The NY Times failed to reveal the conflict of interest. Additionally this stuff has been known to congress and the federal court involved.

I noticed the Pimsleur series you mentioned and have looked them up, they seem to have a good selection (interested in Russian language myself). I am interested in learning other languages via audio book. Other then Pimsleur (seemed pricey) are there any other Audio Books for learning a new language that someone would recommend?

They could make the game into an ad, like the old Cool Spot for NES or Darkened Skye for PC. Skye was even a pretty good game: it suffered from auto-aim problems, but the writing and voice acting was top-notch.

Richard Bach has 12 books, only one in movie (and way weaker than the book, as usual). Do you think I should wait? I don't think so...

Not entirely certain on software, but as far as books go The Arabic Alphabet by Awde and Samano got me reading and writing in a jiff! An excellent resource is Audio Forum who sell the kits that the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) uses to train its diplomats. I believe Saudi Arabic is one of the few courses that the FSI has released the material on CD-Rom. Other dialects, such as Iraqi and Palestinian (to name a couple) are also available. But Saudi, far as I know is almost the lingua franca of the middle-east. Could be off base on that point though. But the FSI courses (whether on prehisoric blech *tape* or CDs) have proven extremely useful. Pricey, in some cases. But thorough and useful. Some folks have spoken highly of Transparent Language, at the very least you might find some web links there. The Center for Applied Linguistics might also be of help to you. The The Pimsleur Method is pretty smokin' IMO. Flash cards are EXTREMELY useful to have/make yourse'f - well nigh indespensible in learning the written form of the language IMO. And finally, there are some I've known who've praised the "Talk Now!" approach.

Not entirely certain on software, but as far as books go The Arabic Alphabet by Awde and Samano got me reading and writing in a jiff! An excellent resource is Audio Forum who sell the kits that the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) uses to train its diplomats. I believe Saudi Arabic is one of the few courses that the FSI has released the material on CD-Rom. Other dialects, such as Iraqi and Palestinian (to name a couple) are also available. But Saudi, far as I know is almost the lingua franca of the middle-east. Could be off base on that point though. But the FSI courses (whether on prehisoric blech *tape* or CDs) have proven extremely useful. Pricey, in some cases. But thorough and useful. Some folks have spoken highly of Transparent Language, at the very least you might find some web links there. The Center for Applied Linguistics might also be of help to you. The The Pimsleur Method is pretty smokin' IMO. Flash cards are EXTREMELY useful to have/make yourse'f - well nigh indespensible in learning the written form of the language IMO. And finally, there are some I've known who've praised the "Talk Now!" approach.

Not entirely certain on software, but as far as books go The Arabic Alphabet by Awde and Samano got me reading and writing in a jiff! An excellent resource is Audio Forum who sell the kits that the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) uses to train its diplomats. I believe Saudi Arabic is one of the few courses that the FSI has released the material on CD-Rom. Other dialects, such as Iraqi and Palestinian (to name a couple) are also available. But Saudi, far as I know is almost the lingua franca of the middle-east. Could be off base on that point though. But the FSI courses (whether on prehisoric blech *tape* or CDs) have proven extremely useful. Pricey, in some cases. But thorough and useful. Some folks have spoken highly of Transparent Language, at the very least you might find some web links there. The Center for Applied Linguistics might also be of help to you. The The Pimsleur Method is pretty smokin' IMO. Flash cards are EXTREMELY useful to have/make yourse'f - well nigh indespensible in learning the written form of the language IMO. And finally, there are some I've known who've praised the "Talk Now!" approach.

"Metagames show awareness of their nature as games [snip] they know that they're polygons on a screen"

"Are there other examples of titles which address the player in this awfully postmodern way?"

Darkened Skye (Review at The Adrenaline Vault) Not the best game I've ever played, but I continue to play it for this very reason. It doesn't take itself seriously. The main character (Skye) and her helper deamon (Draak) know very well that they are in a game. That and the fact that it's an interactive Skittles commercial.

At one point you have to jump into the mouth of a sea monster, and she (Skye) says something to the effect of "Well, quick saves are designed for times like this".

At another point you grab a hair pin from a wig while the owner of said wig looks on, and she states "Only in an adventure game would I be able to grab this hairpin in plain sight of the owner without the owner making a fuss... Oh, wait. This is an adventure game."

The game's wit is about its only saving grace...

Of course they developed it to be a game based around Skittles. But, Cool Spot put the 7-Up mascot in a crazy platform game with the focus on the mascot's adventures. The game that they based around Spot made sense for Spot.

On the other hand, in Darkened Skye, they wrapped a completely generic story around the Skittles. The game is still based around those Skittles, but you could call the Skittles runes or whatever fitting synonym you might have for runes and still have a game. It would have made just as much sense to give Skye a weapon made of Ball Park franks.

Also, I checked most of the Darkened Skye site, except for the Real videos and game demo, and the only place I saw mention of Skittles were in the Gamecube manual and the PC walkthrough (which are in the downloads section).

Of course they developed it to be a game based around Skittles. But, Cool Spot put the 7-Up mascot in a crazy platform game with the focus on the mascot's adventures. The game that they based around Spot made sense for Spot.

On the other hand, in Darkened Skye, they wrapped a completely generic story around the Skittles. The game is still based around those Skittles, but you could call the Skittles runes or whatever fitting synonym you might have for runes and still have a game. It would have made just as much sense to give Skye a weapon made of Ball Park franks.

Also, I checked most of the Darkened Skye site, except for the Real videos and game demo, and the only place I saw mention of Skittles were in the Gamecube manual and the PC walkthrough (which are in the downloads section).

This sounds just like the game I've been waiting for since the end of the 80s: The Last Ninja 4.. First releasedate was sometime in 2000, then the releasedate has drifted about half a year every 6 months... It was supposed to be released for the Game Cube Q4 2003, but I haven't heard a single word about it for a long time now...
SimonSays still says "September 2003" for the X-Box version but no more news there... Amazon says February 2004...
The story continues... ;)

Click here, go to photo gallery, next over to the last photo, which is of Hemingway at work on For Whom The Bell Tolls.

He ain't using no carpernters pencil. This is just more legend built around the man, you know, the gruff outdoorsy type who shuns the technological trappings of modern society.

Anyhow, this fella's writing is terrible, you posted two textbook examples of purple prose. Gratuitous overuse of the language simply for its own sake, distracting from the piece rather than adding to it.

However, does any of this matter? Or is it just a longwinded "MS is ghey I like vi better!" troll?

Clive Cussler, on top of writing the really good (to me, anyway) Dirk Pitt books, is an avid hunter/finder of wrecks. This book The Sea Hunters Goes into depth on what he had to go through to find and bring up some of the historic wrecks he was involved in, as well as some quasi-fictional accounts of the ships last hours before sinking. Kinda neat stuff. More interesting is the levels of beurocracy and government meddling and even downright seizure he had to deal with in some cases. I highly reccomend this book to anyone interested in learning what really goes on in finding/salvaging ships. Maeryk

I see that there're some new books in the Joy of Cooking series:

From the makers of The Joy of Cooking comes a series of beautifully illustrated books that focus on a variety of well-loved culinary subjects. Taken from the pages of The Joy itself, with helpful additions and illustrations, these are sure to inform both the culinary novice and professional.

They now apparently have books specifically on Chicken, Cookies, and so on. Are those any good?

I see that there're some new books in the Joy of Cooking series:

From the makers of The Joy of Cooking comes a series of beautifully illustrated books that focus on a variety of well-loved culinary subjects. Taken from the pages of The Joy itself, with helpful additions and illustrations, these are sure to inform both the culinary novice and professional.

They now apparently have books specifically on Chicken, Cookies, and so on. Are those any good?

I see that there're some new books in the Joy of Cooking series:

From the makers of The Joy of Cooking comes a series of beautifully illustrated books that focus on a variety of well-loved culinary subjects. Taken from the pages of The Joy itself, with helpful additions and illustrations, these are sure to inform both the culinary novice and professional.

They now apparently have books specifically on Chicken, Cookies, and so on. Are those any good?

It's only been updated six times. Not bad for a cook book that's been around since 1931.

Supposedly the 1997 revision introduced more ethnic cuisines to reflect their grow in popularity since the previous revision in 1975.

La Technique by Jacque Pepin is also good for basics.

It's only been updated six times. Not bad for a cook book that's been around since 1931.

Supposedly the 1997 revision introduced more ethnic cuisines to reflect their grow in popularity since the previous revision in 1975.

La Technique by Jacque Pepin is a good book for basics.

All right. I read this post and had a shit fit. This person either has ZERO clue or is a member of one of the above mentioned organizations who for some silly reason are extremely against ferrets.

First off, you need to understand that there are 2 types of Ferret. There is the domestic ferret that has been around for more than a thousand years. As an example, Queen Elizabeth I, raised ferrets and gave them away as gifts. You can see other examples here.

The other type of ferret is the North American Black Footed Ferret. This is the wild version and is illegal to own because it is an endangered species. It is also "the rarest native mammal in the United States...".

Yes, in California and Hawaii, they are illegal. However, according to various reports,(none of which I can find right now) there are no "Feral" Ferret populations in the USA. I will find the reports and post a response. Also, Domestic Ferrets are legal in all continental states including Alaska, and excepting California.

I don't have documentation concerning cable chewing but I will find it. From personnal experience, I have zero problems with my ferrets chewing on cables. I have network cables, power cables, video cables and other stuff laying all about and the majority of them are hot. I have yet to find a breaker tripped and a crispied critter attached to anything.

Let's start listing some facts....

1. Ferrets are very litter box trainable. In fact they are very fastidious about using the litter box. The only times that they miss are if the boxes haven't been scooped or if they are 2 far away from one. The reason for this is that the ferret intestinal tract is very short (usually about 3 to 4 hours) and they normally need to go to the box as soon as they wake up. So let them do their thing and THEN play with them. Now, to be honest there is a draw back. You will need many litter boxes depending on the size of your home. My lady and I live in a condo that is 1045sq ft and we have 12 litter boxes for 6 ferrets. We had 9 at one time hence that number of litter boxes. If you have a small apartment then I would recommend about 4-5 boxes.

2. Ferrets are not hard to train. Simply look at all the movies and commercials they have been in. Beast Master (Movie and series), Kindergarten Cop, Dr. Dolittle 2*, Doritos.. Just to name a few. Also, Everything Ferret has very good articles on house training ferrets.

3. As to the question of cages, I know from personnal experience that ferrets do not mind cages at all. Now understand that you can't just toss a ferret in an empty cage and expect it to be happy. This is your pet not a convict. Put bedding, blankets, toys and what not in there to keep them happy. A couple good books to read are "Ferrets" by Dr. Wendy Winsted, TFH Publications and "Ferrets: A complete Owners Guide" by Chuck and Fox Morton, published by Barron's. Also,see the links at the end of this post for more information.

4. Ferrets are neither Nocturnal(awake at night) or Diurnal(awake during the day). They sleep 14-18 hours a day and, from personnal experience, they adjust to your schedule. PetSmart has a wonderfull section about ferrets here.

5. Anytime Humans attempt to control their environment disaster normally results. Prime example is here. New Zealand does have a ban on ferrets. The primary problem they had there was that there were no natural predators. But I digress.

This post could go on and on. The bottom line is do your research. Ferrets DO make wonderfull pets but as with any animal, preparations must be made and a certain amount of knoweledge must be gathered. Go to your favorite search engine and type in Ferret. If I have missed anything (probably alot) post it and let me know!

Ferrets Anonymous

The National Ferret Welfare Society

The American Ferret Association

Richard Bach (who owns ferrets), author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, has written two books about Ferrets. Air Ferrets Aloft and Rescue Ferrets at Sea. Go here and type Ferrets in the search.

And yes, there is a Ferret Cam!

* Dr. Dolittle 2 referred to the ferret as a weasel. However it was a ferret. Weasels are much harder to train and have a nasty temper.

Uh ... it's a Cussler thing ....

If anyone if unnerved by this event, you should read Clive Cussler's "Atlantis Found" which deals with an evil organization attempting to cause a similar event in order to take over the world. Good escapist reading.

Even if you didn't read the books or play the games, you should see it. It's a very good movie. Having read many Rogue Warrior books and played Delta Force before makes the whole thing a little easier to understand. Of course if you absolutely hated the books and the games, you might as well just stay away.

My opinion? Fukuyama would be correct if people actually did act rationally. But, having grown up among many fundamentalists (of the good, Christian variety :-), I know that people will often do things against their own best interests in the name of their religions, their cultures, and their personal identities. It's not even clear that there is any apparent march toward traditional, western rationality - look at how quickly things devolved in Yugoslavia.

Today, there are enough cultural (Notice how that word starts with "cult"? Same Greek root!) differences and irrationality about to make Huntington's thesis look more believable at this time.

... too bad they became one of the victims
of "the past year's stock market decline".

Shades of Burn Rate...

When Davies was working on his ideas about pakets it came to his attention that another researcher, Paul Baran, had the same ideas. Baran had published a number of reports working for RAND on this topic.

It is often stated that Internet was built like it is to withstand a nuclear attack. This was not a concern for Davies and this team, but was indeed one of the reasons Baran was trying to come up with a new architecture. So Internet as we know it today has nothing much to do with nuclears, but it makes a good story I guess. :)

This is all described in the book Where Wizards Stay up Late. A fine read for anyone who is interested in the history of Internet and the people that made it happen.

/bootsy