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Everybody know you are supposed to use a Gerbil. Here are detailed instructions.

1. NASA didn't pay to develop the fisher space pen, Fisher did. They paid $2.95 for each of 400 of them
2. Once it became available the Russians purchased and used the Fisher space pen, as they feared broken pencil graphic contamination.
3. it's still availiable

1. NASA didn't pay to develop the fisher space pen, Fisher did. They paid $2.95 for each of 400 of them
2. Once it became available the Russians purchased and used the Fisher space pen, as they feared broken pencil graphic contamination.
3. it's still availiable

Where by "fact", you really mean "urban legend": http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

It might be seen from space, but hardly without a telescope.

Just like the Romans used chariots the size of a two horse's side by side, which left grooves which left it's mark of carriages which still existed centuries later and used as the width for the rails of train tracks and which were imported to the US which they blasted holes in mountains to fit and then they had to build the booster rockets for the space shuttle to fit through said mountains so the size of a space shuttle booster rocket is based on a horse's ass.

Ok, this is false but I still really like it so I apologize.

Actually, the 80-column format goes back a lot longer than the . IBM standardized on 80-column punched cards in 1928. Typewriters that do roughly 80 characters per line (with 1-inch margins) have always been common.

But that's all irrelevant. You're looking for one of those backward compatibility issues, like the QWERTY keyboard and those railroad tracks supposedly designed by the ancient Romans. You won't find one here. Sure, terminal emulators and text editors typically default to 80 columns — but they all let you change that default.

The fact is, when you're editing source code, you need to put some reasonable limit on your lines. If you don't, your code is a nightmare to maintain. Doesn't have to be 80 columns; I use (stops to look at his .vimrc) 70 columns. Do you want to make it longer? OK, make it 100 columns. Make it 150. But the longer you make it, the fewer people you will be able to share your code with.

Or are do you dislike having any limit? That would mean that you don't have any trouble reading source statements that wrap at random places. Well, goodie for you, but most of find that a pain. That's why software projects like you to use 80-column code lines. It has nothing to do with any fossilized VT100 meme.

As for "more verbose writing": if your prose is so nonconcise that you need longer input lines, you need to take a writing class.

I really don't get the issue here. Is it because you can never remember to hit ENTER? Neither can I. Or most people. That's why God invented typewriter bells and text editors with autoformat modes.

That might be the reason.

Its reflected in CDMA, VTOL, Left-side driving, 110 volts, etc.

The US military has perfected it and so has NASA [upside down pen at $400 each, when you could have used a pencil.]

This is disputed, though, by some people:

http://www.snopes.com/music/media/cdlength.asp

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

"your schools refuse to teach the crusades or holocaust for fear of offending Muslims."

False, wrong, incorrect, rubbish!

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/holocaust. asp

"Teaching of the Holocaust is already compulsory in schools at Key Stage 3 (ages 11 to 14), and it will remain so in the new KS3 curriculum from September 2008."

This is like a while back President Bush said he had the Beatles on his iPod, when there was no legal way to get them on there. Sure, It's funny, but thats this isn't gonna change anyone's minds and there is no way the RIAA is gonna after him.

"Conventional" wisdom now says that then president Lyndon B. Johnson messed up the designation in his public announcement and called it the SR-71 - and nobody wanted to correct the president...

I found this: http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennies.asp

I had also heard that anything below a dime could be refused for payment of debts. Nothing like finding a source, right?

Not exactly the same story, but related. It always interests me how old some of the urban legends -- true or not -- turn out to be.
http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.as p

I have an advantage here since I am actually in the meeting. For the reasons Declan in particular would be excluded, see my blog. Declan has a history of deliberately misrepresenting statements, in particular he was the origin of the myth that Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. We are talking about using technology to support E-Government. Many of the speakers do not have permission to speak to the press. Others such as myself do have press speaking rights, but are not speaking for our companies. The history of why we built the Web 15 years ago are not something my employer would or should share. Anyone could attend the workshop, there isn't even an entry fee. All you had to do is to register in advance, to submit a position paper and to agree that the statements made are not for attribution. This is incidentally the press terms that the IETF operates on, we do not speak for our employers at the IETF.

How about this pocket of ingenuity?

Sheesh, not this legend again. And maybe it's me, but Paul Fisher doesn't sound like a very Russian name.

(25% of its budget??)

Help him out. The myth is reviewed at snopes.com. Maybe his dad reads snopes just for stories to unload on him.

Of course, that's not a true story.

Your Dad needs Snopes.

Common sense includes not believing everything you hear!

-Peter

My Dad told me a story this afternoon about a woman who bought an RV, drove it on the highway, set the cruise control, went back to make breafast, and, of course, the RV crashed.

Or at least ones who don't believe every story dad tells them. There's no evidence to suggest any of this story is true, and every reason to believe it's flat out untrue.
http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp

I guess when it's your parents who tell you these whoppers, you wouldn't bother to check up on this urban legend with Snopes. You can take some consolation in the fact that Snopes points out that false rumors of this variety have been circulating since the late 1970's.

While I'm sure most of us want a physique like that, I don't know how many would be willing to pay the price....

Does he look like he actually gives a damn? He's happy and smiling. I can't believe how shallow your judgment of quality of life is.
C'mon, fess up... we really know it's you, Mariah.

mod parent informative

I asked Google about the McCoffee. And it told me 300 contradictory things, including that McCoffee was drunk by whoever was on the grassy knoll and if you look closely at footage of the moonlanding, you can see a McCoffee next to a "moonrock." Then Google showed me crotch shots of celebrities getting out of limmos holding McCoffee. In the corner, an Google ad appeared saying "Buy Hot McCoffee Lap from eBay!"

So I gave up on Google and asked Snopes.com. Snopes is the original urban legends guy from the days when Internet was e-mail and news groups. Think of him as Mythbusters long before beries became unfashionable again. Snopes pointed me at this, which he claims is an accurate summary of the incident:

http://www.caoc.com/CA/index.cfm?event=showPage&pg =facts

As Snopes says, the details of that case were exaggerated, but there's still a strong case for tort reform. I suspect Judge "No Pants" Pearson will be on poster. For an encore Pearson should sue himself for emotional distress for making an ass (no pun intended) out of himself.

http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

Hm, well it seems there are as many sites who claim the poem is about the Plague as those who claim it isn't. I suppose I could instead mention Roald Dahl's book, Danny, the Champion of the World, which singularly failed to create a generation of pheasant and salmon poachers, instead?

I did discover how to build fire balloons after reading that book though. Much fun.

For the person with the itchy moderation finger. It's a joke that references an old story about the American and Russian space programs.

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

I suspect you're joking or trolling, but the "billion-dollar space pen" is an urban myth.

Actually, that's been done before. Well, at least the headline, sorta. See Andrew Carlssin (wikipedia) and snopes

ah, rational pie...that's just an urban legend, you know. That was never a law, nor an attempt at law, in any US state. Check Snopes.com

In 1897 the Indiana House of Representatives unanimously passed a measure redefining the area of a circle and the value of pi. (House Bill no. 246, introduced by Rep. Taylor I. Record.) The bill died in the state Senate.

I use this as an example of when people aren't fully up on all of the details can cause people to skew their mindset one way or another. We all know that all the claims on the famous www.dhmo.org website are 100% accurate, but also that that 100% accuracy doesn't mean that it is the bugaboo that it is made out to be.

The problem is, you can frame just about anything in such a way as to extol the virtues or vices of just about anything, and get people to buy into their wholesomeness or unwholesomeness as needed.

All one needs to do is compare the rhetoric against GWB and in support of Al Gore, and compare each followers response to the Tale of Two Houses http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp

So, where I am going with this? Easy. It is easy to frame something that makes one thing look worse than it really is, or better than it really is. It happens all the time. Can we do better? Probably. Are we doing all we can? Probably not.

But there is a reason for it. Not everyone can afford a top of the line Architect to design an highly efficient home, nor the "carbon offsets" and energy from renewable sources. One day it will be feasible and necessary, even for people like China and India.

My first thought was the good ol' modem tax. It's a dup from the last millenium!

you can freely play the tune... only the words are copyright, the tune is public domain... which is madness really as the words are useless on their own... Frankly, I blame the corporations for getting their sticky paws into the mess by extending the terms of copyright, those words should have passed into the public domain a long time ago... I'd like to see a redress of the length of the term... 25 years for the composition and 15 for the performance... that should encourage the performers and composers to keep performing and composing and not to sit back on their arses collecting the royalty checks...

Shall we outlaw whistling next?

Maybe. If you do it for cash, yes. Tab sites are commercial enterprises (note the banner ads). See this: http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp.

'cause he actually particapated in a failed coupe back in '92(Ars has already updated their article to show this). His goal isn't shutting down those who were necessarily against him, it's bringing as much as he can under governement control. He's recently enacted a bill where the private oil companies must give up at least 60%+ of the operations in the country(these were private companies that had already bought the rights, set up machinery, trained workers, and made Venzuela the oil producer it is today). He is flat out nationializing the country. While alot of what he is doing is helping his people, particularly those who usually suffer the most under government, it's not necessarily better for them in the long run.

Also, boycotting Citgo is hardly effective. They are just a gasoline distributer for Venezuela. The oil from the country goes out to all the sellers, except those who refuse to do so. Here is a good explantion.

Nazi leader Hermann Goering, interviewed by Gustave Gilbert during the Easter recess of the Nuremberg trials, 1946 April 18, quoted in Gilbert's book 'Nuremberg Diary.'

Goering: "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship."

Gilbert: "There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

Goering: "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Although this quote was indeed spoken by Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering during the course of the Nuremburg Trials, it was not part of the trial records, since these remarks were made privately by Goering in a conversation with prison psychologist and U.S. Army Captain Gustave M. Gilbert that took place in Goering's jail cell.

The quote cited above does not appear in transcripts of the Nuremberg trials because although Goering spoke these words during the course of the proceedings, he did not offer them at his trial. His comments were made privately to Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail. Gilbert kept a journal of his observations of the proceedings and his conversations with the prisoners, which he later published in the book Nuremberg Diary. The quote offered above was part of a conversation Gilbert held with a dejected Hermann Goering in his cell on the evening of 18 April 1946, as the trials were halted for a three-day Easter recess.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

...but you've been Snoped:
Cash Cow

of being a sex offender when they are innocent. Like anyone named Brian Peppers who does not live in Ohio or something.

Anyone who says Aspartame cannot cause damage is an idiot. It can and it DOES in certain people, and apparently does not affect others as much. Obviously there is some genetic component here.

You should get yourself into a clinical study. Here is a list of a bunch of sources describing how fears about aspartame are unwarranted based on the research.

I emphasize based on the research, because if there is any such effect as you are describing among the general population, they haven't been able to pin it down. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it probably does mean one of two things: 1. you are somehow different from the people in these studies, or 2. the cause of your problems is something other than aspartame. The statistics are way not favor of your explanation.

Aspartame, a dipeptide composed of phenylalanine and aspartic acid linked by a methyl ester bond, is not absorbed, and is completely hydrolysed in the intestine to yield the two constituent amino acids and free methanol. Opponents of aspartame suggest that the phenylalanine and methanol so released are dangerous. In particular, they assert that methanol can be converted to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, and thus cause metabolic acidosis and neurotoxicity.

Although a 330 ml can of aspartame-sweetened soft drink will yield about 20 mg methanol, an equivalent volume of fruit juice produces 40 mg methanol, and an alcoholic beverage about 60-100 mg. The yield of phenylalanine is about 100 mg for a can of diet soft drink, compared with 300 mg for an egg, 500 mg for a glass of milk, and 900 mg for a large hamburger (1). Thus, the amount of phenylalanine or methanol ingested from consumption of aspartame is trivial, compared with other dietary sources. Clinical studies have shown no evidence of toxic effects and no increase in plasma concentrations of methanol, formic acid, or phenylalanine with daily consumption of 50 mg/kg aspartame (equivalent to 17 cans of diet soft drink daily for a 70 kg adult) (1, 2).

Ah yes, aspartame, the health bugaboo du jour among internet users.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

Read through that, including all of the links at the bottom. Why not talk about dihydrogen monoxide while you're at it? It's responsible for everything from leukemia to water poisoning. It's so dangerous that it will literally eat away unprotected metal if exposed for a number of years. It's like an acid! Now that's powerful stuff - and powerful dangerous!

For what it's worth I'm not surprised to hear about the link between aspartame and migraines.

People looking for a connection between something they suspect to be dangerous and any potential health issues - no matter how anecdotal - are never surprised to find those connections. And those anecdotes will eventually form a "proven" theory in their minds.

This does not constitute scientific proof of anything, however. But it is the way these internet rumors get started.

Your headaches drinking diet soda were likely caused by either caffeine (which restricts blood flow) or the placebo effect. (Nobody ever thinks they're affected by the placebo effect - as if they're somehow smarter than everybody else. But the placebo effect exists, it's well documented and acknowledged by every reputable scientist.)

As for sodium benzoate, I would suspect that the FDA hasn't done anything about it because there's nothing that needs to be done about it. Not that I think the FDA never makes mistakes or isn't occasionally beholden to corporate interests, but sodium benzoate is an additive that's been used since the early 1900's and, like many such internet health bugaboos, is a naturally occuring substance in "healthy" foods you probably eat every day - including (according to Wikipedia) cranberries, prunes, greengage plums, cinnamon, ripe cloves, and apples. If it were dangerous, there are plenty of scientists out there who'd have figured it out long before now. Even if you don't believe that, you have to at least agree that over 100 years of use of this additive, we'd have seen at least some these alleged effects by now in the general populace, yes?

With all the health scares out there, you'd think our very lives were being cut short by chemical additives. Yet people continue to live longer, healthier lives even as we use more products containing these additives. I'm not saying it isn't better to eat natural foods - I try to do so myself as much as possible. But it does nothing other than add to your stress level (which does reduce lifespan) to constantly be worrying about the possible negative effects of the stuff in your food, especially when it's been neither scientifically proven nor peer-reviewed.

And with regard to diet soda specifically, there is no even alleged effect of aspartame or sodium benzoate - no matter how crackpot - that is worse than the proven health effects of drinking all the empty calories in a non-diet soda. Obesity directly kills hundreds of thousands of people every single year, yet we are constantly looking for ways to mentally justify continuing on that path. "All these chemicals are dangerous!" No, what's dangerous is being fat. So if you are (unjustifiably) worried about diet soda, your alternative is to drink 100% juice or water. Going back to drinking regular soda instead of diet because you're worried about your health just makes you a hypocrite - or an idiot.

How about pop and junk food? One Twinkie for me -- one for my horse...er my Honda.

The problem is that the car's brain box would suffer from diminished capacity

If you did read the article you would have seen that half of it was quoting the government report.

It doesn't matter how much of the article quotes, when they mislead you on the important bits.

See:

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2 048161,00.html
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/holocaust. asp

We're talking about one school, but the Daily Mail mislead you into thinking this is widespread. They also don't mention that it's non-compulsory, and that the Government plans to address the issue by making it compulsory.

There may be a real issue here that kids are brainwashed with religion, but I wouldn't trust the Daily Mail's version of events, and also this problem doesn't just go for Islam - oddly, the Daily Mail never seems to complain that all state schools much have daily Christian preaching and worship (and they'd probably be the first to complain if it ended!)

Read all the facts...

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/holocaust. asp

Snopes says that it is true that one history department in northern UK did stop teaching it for that exact reason.