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The first result when googling "pi bible brim handbreadth" http://home.teleport.com/~salad/4god/pi.htm
The Bible does not indicate pi as 3, there is an added brim on the basin mentioned in that verse which people forget to take into account.

Cyclotron? Nah,...nobody will mind if I have a Titan II ICBM ( http://home.teleport.com/~boelling/titan.html ) installed in my backyard. You know, to ward off anyone who thinks they can just put a cyclotron wherever they feel like it. NoMorePoints.com

Absolutely not. The Church stays strictly out of politics, except where a serious moral issue is involved, and then only the moral at issue is taught, but the vote and the law is up to the members individually.

Explain Ezra Taft Benson's affilation with the Birch sociecty then; not to mention his political appointments. How about the bank that Joseph Smith founded to print money? Who was the governer of Navoo? What about the law of consecration and Brigham Young's confescation of all wealth (or the Nation of Deseret, for that matter)?

Including a majority of the Utah state government, of course. What of a church that routinely gets such perks as the land swap for the "reflecting pool" in downtown Salt Lake (complete with a censoship zone); or how about the temple ceremony, in which members swear to uphold their leaders on penalty of death? Here are some quotes by the church's prophets, seers and revelators on the subject.

On the contrary, the Church is only homogenous in that we share certain core beliefs.

Wow, that list doesn't even scratch the surface of what I was taught while growing up in the church:

• All religions apart from Mormonism are an "abomination" in the sight of God
• People of "dark skin" were less valiant in the pre-existence, so God cursed them in this life
• American Indians are really errant Jews, who lost the gospel when they rebeled against God
• There are three levels of heaven, and you can only get to the highest level by practicing polygamy; then you will be a God and have your own planet
• John the Beloved and the Three Nephites are eternal beings that roam the planet, even today, doing the work of God (and the prieshood needed to be restored through Joseph Smith... why exactly?)
• Joseph Smith could translate a common Egyptian Funeral Book, to find that it contained extensive writings by father Abraham
• Homosexuality is a disase that you must suffer for (I wonder when the 1978-esque "oops, my bad, blacks can have the priesthood now" gay revelation will come). Masturbation is almost as bad.

To be fair, the church has changed dramatically over the past 50 years, and it continues to evolve into a more mainstream puritanical protestant sect (I bet Joseph Smith is rolling in his grave). Most of the members are people of high quality; heck, all my extended family are still members. They are generally great people to know, associate with and love. Despite that, I just get ruffled when the church portrayed as something that it really isn't; I did enough of that on my 2-year mission with the ultra-simplistic 6 discussions.

If you are interested in apologetic responses to any of the above, feel free to visit the FAIR website.

The above is quoted from the Scrabble FAQ, which also has some discussion of legal issues related to Scrabble.

The above is quoted from the Scrabble FAQ, which also has some discussion of legal issues related to Scrabble.

Something similar happened back in 1990 with Good Morning America and DARKIES, which was edited to DARKENS for broadcast. The event is mentioned in 'Word Freak,' but here's a link anyway.

While I'm at it, here's a list (and one with definitions) of words removed between the second and third editions of the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary. The third edition is often referred to as the Expurgated Scrabble Player's Dictionary for just this reason.

Your Slashdot handle of "MoralHazard" suggests this way to look at it: limited liability for investors, no flow through bankruptcy for investors, and no criminal liability for investors, all create a "moral hazard" allowing investors to do less than proper dilligence and provide less than complete oversight for their investments. If equity investors' personal butts were on the line for each investment, one could hope investors would ensure corporate behavior met higher moral standards, or would otherwise find alternate investments they could be more sure of.

Current legalities aside, your point doesn't quite hold together morally IMHO. If someone gives money to an organization that repeatedly does immoral or illegal things, they almost surely should know how it is going to be used. Same of someone who buys stock in any corporation. If they invest money in a profit making organization in an equity position (part-owner) not knowing these things, then they are at least guilty of gross negligence. I think loans without equity or return in any way tied to corporate profits might have a slightly different moral flavor perhaps.

Any equity investor in any venture should (in theory, IMHO) have a moral obligation to oversee that venture. "I didn't know" IMHO really should not be an excuse in a world trying to hold people accountable for their deeds. If that would make certain ventures of various sizes impractical, so be it. If that makes corporate secrecy impossible, so be it. If that means many people should not prudently be stockholding corporate investors and should instead invest in other ways they can more easily monitor closer to home, so be it. Now it may be, as you suggest, that law outside of corporate law may excuse investors of criminal conduct, but nonetheless one could argue those laws are bad laws, and that people supporting profitmaking organizations that do criminal acts are guilty of at the very least gross negligence and should be held criminally liable, just like someone who puts in a pool without a fence is often held liable for gross negligence in creating an attractive nusiance if a toddler drowns there. And if that leads to a set of economic problems and then solutions (like an end to secrecy with transparent corporations and an end to passivity with active investors providing oversight lest they end up in jail) then so be it.

Just google on "corporate charter revocation" to see how active some of these ideas are becoming. See for example the links from: FreedomOrCapitalism Or see: Corporate Feudalims. It's not "guilt by association"; it is guilt by providing "aid and comfort" to people with immoral policies (even if they may or may not be illegal). From that last link: "Corporate feudalism is decidedly "unAmerican", and is a gross departure from American values. It represents the seizure of American government to serve a new purpose -- the promotion of corporate wealth and power. Opposing this corrosive new form of "privitized tyranny" is not "unAmerican". Neither is publicizing the abuses of the corporate lords around the world in Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Iran or Vietnam. America didn't do those things. You didn't do those things. An American government subverted by corporate oligarchs did those things, and lied to you about their true purpose. The "traitors" are the corporate "feudal lords" who stole our government and committed oppression and exploitation in our name. The 'traitors" are the one's who now seek to use debt and "free trade" to do to the US, what they have already done to Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. The traitors are the one's -- in the name of "liberty" no less -- who seek a government they say can do nothing for the people who live under it, but can only serve the interests of corporate fiefdoms. Patriots expose these corporate potentates. Patriots seek to restore democracy, subverted by

Strange. The first Google hit for Tom Lehrer Ph.D. is this biography, which says "In 1960 he stopped performing and devoted himself to his academic calling, returning to Harvard and earning his Ph.D.".

There is also Vulcan:

Vulcan Language Institute

Back in the mid 1960s, a brilliant electronic engineer had detected an odd signal embedded into television signal of The Ed Sullivan Show. Decoding the signal, he found messages saying "DRINK MORE SOFT DRINKS" and "SUPPORT THE VIETNAM WAR".

I was skimming for this kind of post, because I wanted to see if anyone posted this. And yours is as good as any post to tag along with.

He didn't just claim he translated them: he claimed he translated them with divine guidance, creating the most perfect book on earth. The trouble is that he copied sections of the King James Bible verbatim including mistranslations that have since been discovered from reviewing the Hebrew texts on which it was based. While Joe may not have infringed on any patents, he certainly was a plagiarist.

Actually, some of us learn Vulcan instead.

Digital modes do work on HF...see this link for info.

One of the oldest digital HF modes was FSK RTTY (radio teletype), which you could send text at 45 baud. It lead to AMTOR text at 100 baud. Then came PACTOR at 200 baud, still very popular, with built-in ARQ and compression. PACTOR begot PACTOR II and III, GTOR, CLOVER, PSK HF modes.

PSK31 is popular now, but is intended for human-to-human highly reliable communication at 31 baud.

You will notice that the Amateur digital modes are all extremely narrowband compared with DRM. Most Ham HF bands are so tight that putting a wide signal up like the shortwave AM stations do would take up most of the band. Most use of amateur HF bands are Morse Code and single sideband voice.

PACTOR-III is the fastest HF digital amateur mode, with speeds capable of up to 3kbps under excellent conditions.

I guess there always has to be opposition in all things. It's important to remember standing AGAINST something is not the same as standing FOR something.

teleport.com/~packham/
exmormon.org
Infidels
LDS4U: Beat the missionaries at their own game.
Utah Lighthouse Ministry

"Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet...When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go." (History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409)

The whole point of ACPI was to be a very flexible power management system, as well as a "configuration interface".

Unlike APM (which was never properly documented and hence most BIOSes had unusual quirks/bugs resulting in bloated APM code in the kernel to try and handle all these problems), ACPI and the newer ACPI2.0 was thoroughly documented - see how big the specification document is. Unfortunately, for the ACPI 1.0 generation, it still seems so much hardware does not conform to the standard, and hence the power management mess is still around despite the good intentions of Intel & co.

2.3 saw the introduction of a primitive ACPI 1.0 implementation, and 2.4 saw this evolve into a more useful implementation, complete with AML interpreter, as well as better integration with device drivers.

Hopefully 2.5 shall see a *better* userspace interface, giving users more access to the true flexibility ACPI offers.

If the circumference measurement is from inside the brim (or something like that), you get a value for pi that is 0.073% accurate, well within the significant figures used by Hebrews for measuring at that time.

Not that the bible is a Mathematics text...

--LP

I've used the Super T-Comp before myself. It's a nice board. I've even build my own I/O expansion circuitry for it. Ray also provides full schematics, which were great at learning how such things are designed, and came in handy when I went to expand upon it.

See the Super T-COMP's site:
http://www.teleport.com/~raybutts/index.htm

I read all about this Trinity competition back when I was building my own robot project. I would have entered, had I not lived in Florida.

See my project, Chip II:
http://www.logicprobe.org/~octo/robot/

The "quantum computer" they're talking about isn't analagous to a PC, and may never be. As I understand the state of the technology today, a quantum computer would have to be purposefully built to solve a single problem, but once constructed, could solve the problem without actually examining the data. See this article about quantum bomb detection - it give an easier to understand example that describes the physics behind "conterfactual computation".

It took a bit of head scratching and squinting, but I did finally manage to figure out how the thing works.

It uses some of the same theory as I would expect the "quantum computer" to use. In this case, they use a bomb which has a trigger which is sensative to a single photon of light. A dud bomb will pass the photon, but a live bomb will stop it. The experiment shows how it is possible to detect, using quantum mechanics, whether a bomb is live or a dud, without actually exposing it to the photon of light, and thereby exploding it.

I'm sure this is a much simplified version of what they're planning for the computer, but it's described in terms that pretty much anyone can understand, even though it's not obvious at first.

.. is Dink Smallwood. It has "interesting" humor and lots of blood, but plays just like Zelda. Windoze only, I'm afraid.

"What has happened in the Internet industry to cause such a decline in not only sales, but in jobs as well?" Consolidation has happened, and it's going to keep happening. DSL and cable are putting mom-and-pop ISPs out of business left and right. For every cable sign-up, one person leave LocalISP Inc. forever. Each DSL signup makes it harder to run a cheap 56k modem-based operation. "...where is this going to end?" When there are a handful of huge national ISPs and a bunch of local, hacker-friendly "boutique" ISPs.

It's ironic that, as promised 50 years and more ago, machines and computers really are labor-saving devices, just not in the way we hoped. Machines don't save you from doing more labor, but they save your company from paying for more labor. As more dataflow gets automated, and as hardware and software get easier to use, less human intervention and ingenuity is required to keep things running (less in aggregate, I mean, not in depth).

The ISP apocolypse is similar to what has happened in nearly every other industry: start off with thousands of little operations which compete fiercly for customers and market share. Eventually only a few will be left. After a while the service stops being differentiated from company to company and they compete on price. Once that happens, the company with the best economics - the most efficient - wins.

Look at Earthlink; their slogan is, "We're 10% better than AOL." For most people that's enough. Sure, people reading this comment probably want shell access on a *nix box for their $20/month, but Joe Sixpack just wants something that's easy to use (i.e. limited in options and functionality so it doesn't confuse him).

Yes, it's very sad that so many good ISPs are going away. My personal favorite, Teleport, was based in Portland, Oregon for years. They were reliable, responsive, and hacker-friendly. The got bigger, got inhaled by OneMain which was promptly inhaled by Earthlink. My service went from "shell access to pine" to "pray that 50% of my mail makes it through" in less than a month. And now I'm stuck with Earthlink's port 25 blocking.

I just signed up with another local ISP. Hopefully they won't be bought too soon. :)

question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes

When I moved to San Francisco, I got my cable modem. Now I'm the LPB, playing with a ping of 30 or 40 most nights. I noticed right away that my score in it shot up to the top. I thought it was just the ping for a while.

But after talking with friends who converted from dial-up, I realized that it was because we had been modem users that made us so damn good. Being forced to get good with a bad ping made us great when that ping went away. Kinda like a runner who trains with weights on his feet.

I know I'm not the only one who's noticed this...am I?

The syndicates have done to comic strip art what the record companies have done to music. Family Circus is to comics as Boyzone is to music.

A worthwhile read is a speech given by Bill Watterson (creator of Calvin and Hobbes, who would not "sell out") called The cheapening of the comics.

It would be very hard to stay with those dimensions since you'd also have to fit at least a power supply, hard drive, dvd drive, and a couple PCI cards in there as well (audio, network). For a reasonably fast processor (such as would be requisite for good DivX/MP4 encoding/decoding) and the AIW card, a 300W power supply will be necessary. Again, ATX format PS is the most flexible so you've got another big chunk (roughly 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 x 6 inches - see ATX Specs). Also realize that you'll need a good heatsink for your CPU (I'd recommend a Duron or Thunderbird whose included heatsinks are 2 inches high). Using an NLX/Micro-ATX/FlexATX form factor (specs) buys some size, but limits peripheral/mobo choices. Also check out this quick form factor guide and comparison chart.

I haven't settled on a choice yet, but you might look at the following (these cases are typically about 17 x 17 x 6 inches, which is smaller than the Qbex you mention above). Key components are Abit KT7A, Athlon ~1GHz, ATI Radeon AIW, Pioneer DV-105S, IBM 75GXP HD, NetGear FA312, and Soundblaster Platinum.

• Lian-Li miniPC 31 - very spiffy aluminum case (black with silver) ... very pricey as well.
• SuperPower Landmark KS-699 - Small and decent looking, but will need to upgrade power supply and heat could be an issue.
• Palo Alto ATCX Convertible - Supports custom faceplates, buy without PSU (only 235W).
• CoolerMaster ATC 100 is similar to the Lian-Li, but slightly larger.
• Neoseeker has an interesting case listing, with collated reviews and rankings, but not a lot of independent data.
• If you get inspired to do a custom job, see HardOCP's article on case modding, which may be helpful.
• Slashdot has run many past articles on cool cases and quiet PCs (search for them, too many to link).
• Another tip: consider the Pioneer DV-105S or similar slot loading DVD drive, so you can orient horizontally.

Personally, I think the thing to concentrate on is the loudness of the unit, rather than its physical size (and, to a lesser extent its stylishness). I have a Tivo (Phillips HDR312 with 1 30G Quantum) and find it unacceptably loud when watching movies unless placed in an enclosed cabinet (its considerably more quiet than a PC). My focus on cases is just for something that can fit inside my audio cabinet and which can flow enough air (preferably out the back) to keep the system reasonably cool. If I get something really good together, I'll probably just build myself a custom case once its all settled out (but there is lots more important things to do for integration software, remote contol, DivX support, mp3 management, etc. first IMO). Remember you are also going to have a tangle of cables to deal with if you want good integration to an A/V receiver or multiple components.

Some other options to think about:

• Mac Cube, which is already compact, stylish, and quiet. Unfortunately, it lacks S-Video, tuner, and S/PDIF (digital audio) connections, costs quite a bit of money, and has limited software choices
• Laptop PC - compact and sometimes stylish, but may not have the horsepower for DivX and would probably require a lot more software to integrate functions, pricey (maybe buy used with dead LCD).
• Sony VAIO Slimtop or similar - small with many multimedia features, but you have to pay for LCD and don't have component flexibility.

Good luck, and please email me if you find anything else good or build software around the AIW and/or remote controls.

Regards, RJS

It would be very hard to stay with those dimensions since you'd also have to fit at least a power supply, hard drive, dvd drive, and a couple PCI cards in there as well (audio, network). For a reasonably fast processor (such as would be requisite for good DivX/MP4 encoding/decoding) and the AIW card, a 300W power supply will be necessary. Again, ATX format PS is the most flexible so you've got another big chunk (roughly 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 x 6 inches - see ATX Specs). Also realize that you'll need a good heatsink for your CPU (I'd recommend a Duron or Thunderbird whose included heatsinks are 2 inches high). Using an NLX/Micro-ATX/FlexATX form factor (specs) buys some size, but limits peripheral/mobo choices. Also check out this quick form factor guide and comparison chart.

I haven't settled on a choice yet, but you might look at the following (these cases are typically about 17 x 17 x 6 inches, which is smaller than the Qbex you mention above). Key components are Abit KT7A, Athlon ~1GHz, ATI Radeon AIW, Pioneer DV-105S, IBM 75GXP HD, NetGear FA312, and Soundblaster Platinum.

• Lian-Li miniPC 31 - very spiffy aluminum case (black with silver) ... very pricey as well.
• SuperPower Landmark KS-699 - Small and decent looking, but will need to upgrade power supply and heat could be an issue.
• Palo Alto ATCX Convertible - Supports custom faceplates, buy without PSU (only 235W).
• CoolerMaster ATC 100 is similar to the Lian-Li, but slightly larger.
• Neoseeker has an interesting case listing, with collated reviews and rankings, but not a lot of independent data.
• If you get inspired to do a custom job, see HardOCP's article on case modding, which may be helpful.
• Slashdot has run many past articles on cool cases and quiet PCs (search for them, too many to link).
• Another tip: consider the Pioneer DV-105S or similar slot loading DVD drive, so you can orient horizontally.

Personally, I think the thing to concentrate on is the loudness of the unit, rather than its physical size (and, to a lesser extent its stylishness). I have a Tivo (Phillips HDR312 with 1 30G Quantum) and find it unacceptably loud when watching movies unless placed in an enclosed cabinet (its considerably more quiet than a PC). My focus on cases is just for something that can fit inside my audio cabinet and which can flow enough air (preferably out the back) to keep the system reasonably cool. If I get something really good together, I'll probably just build myself a custom case once its all settled out (but there is lots more important things to do for integration software, remote contol, DivX support, mp3 management, etc. first IMO). Remember you are also going to have a tangle of cables to deal with if you want good integration to an A/V receiver or multiple components.

Some other options to think about:

• Mac Cube, which is already compact, stylish, and quiet. Unfortunately, it lacks S-Video, tuner, and S/PDIF (digital audio) connections, costs quite a bit of money, and has limited software choices
• Laptop PC - compact and sometimes stylish, but may not have the horsepower for DivX and would probably require a lot more software to integrate functions, pricey (maybe buy used with dead LCD).
• Sony VAIO Slimtop or similar - small with many multimedia features, but you have to pay for LCD and don't have component flexibility.

Good luck, and please email me if you find anything else good or build software around the AIW and/or remote controls.

Regards, RJS

Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb and risk pride in saying I intuitively disagree with you. I've taken physics, but I don't deal with fluid mechanics (disclaimer). The "weight" of the water or air is totally irrelevant, as far as I can understand. It's the viscosity... resistance to movement that's different.

When in water, you can lift much heavier things.. Partly due to boyancy, and partly because the dynamics of the fluid system can act like aerodynamic lift on steroids... Namely, movement in water will have a much greater lift than movement in air. This is because the same principles of flight are amplified in a thicker system (pressure differentials are more pronounced).

Being independant of the validity of atmospheric differences back then, thicker air would not have "impeded" life forms back then in any way other than to slow them down. And in my admitedly limited knowledge in this field, it should enhance their ability for flight and even motion of larger beasts..

The first part should be obvious. The second part, however, deals with the fact that they'd have a thicker cushion of air.. Greater resistance in the air acts like a soft pillow brushing against them.. Think about trying to run through water.. yes it's difficult - requiring lots of muscle / drag (which would facilitate an aerodynamic body even for ground creatures). When you run through water, however, you're less likely to fall flat down and smack your face hard against the ground, though thick air isn't as extreme as water. This property would enhance the life of massive creatures; It would deminish the negative effects of falling, and actually help them stand up (in the presence of any sort of breeze.. just as you can easily stand on your hands under water).

In my mind (mulling this over).. If it were the case that we had denser air back then, then it could only have helped the development of avions. It is possible that animals needed size back then to live (I'd have to brain storm to qualify this more), they developed the aerodyanmics of fish, etc.. Features would help in the general lift of their heavy bodies (being able to attain some sort of lift even in the simplest of breezes).. Some actually advanced to the point of take-off, others simply had incredible jumping capabilities... As the air thinned (along with any other natural catastrophys), the creatures needed to shrink in order to survive. Those that didn't died out.. Those that were left were more than suited for air flight. The turkey must have been one of the straglers, too large in our thin our to fly, but wasn't too large to be naturally selected for extinction.

Last time we talked about Dinosaurs, I was pointed in the direction of "Saturn Theory", which is an interesting mental exercize in physics.. It's also good to turn everything you know upside down on occasion, just to keep you honest... So here's the first link I could find.

saturn theory

I would recommend Teleport. They are owned by OneMain which is in turned owned by EarthLink which is in turn owned by (corporate takeover of-the-day).

While they don't offer IMAP or secure POP, and their privacy policies are a bit limp, they DO offer UNIX shell access (inc. via SSH-- can you say "tunnel?"), and have great reliablility and redundancy. With a dialup, you're timed out after 8 hours.

Oh yeah, you get 50 megs storage space and a bunch of email addy's, too. They have DSL service in selected cities in the Pacific Northwest. If you're somewheres else in the county, they've got free national roaming in a whole slew of major cities. For the most part, it's a great deal.

If you do sign up, be sure and tell them that s-k-i-p-j-@-t-e-l-e-p-o-r-t-.-c-o-m sent you so that I can get a kickback. :-)

P.S.-- My karma is at level 13. Is that bad?

"...the present invention comprises a relatively thin polymeric flexible shield adherably mountable to a viewing screen. The shield is of generally rectangular configuration formed with convexly outwardly extending peripheral edges with a single extending tab directed outwardly of a corner of the intersection of two of the edges to enable and enhance manual grasping of the shield. The shield may be polarized to reduce glare in daylight viewing conditions and be further provided with a plurality of transparent adhesive strips for enhanced securement of the shield to a viewing screen... My invention resides not in any one of these features per se, but rather in the particular combination of all of them herein disclosed and claimed and it is distinguished from the prior art in this particular combination of all of its structures for the functions specified."

"...the present invention comprises a relatively thin polymeric flexible shield adherably mountable to a viewing screen. The shield is of generally rectangular configuration formed with convexly outwardly extending peripheral edges with a single extending tab directed outwardly of a corner of the intersection of two of the edges to enable and enhance manual grasping of the shield. The shield may be polarized to reduce glare in daylight viewing conditions and be further provided with a plurality of transparent adhesive strips for enhanced securement of the shield to a viewing screen... My invention resides not in any one of these features per se, but rather in the particular combination of all of them herein disclosed and claimed and it is distinguished from the prior art in this particular combination of all of its structures for the functions specified."

In general, I fully agree with you. People look back and only the see the good stuff, forgetting all the rubbish.

But hell, the 90's produced almost only sheer rubbish on the music scene. Seriously. Ask anyone you know to compile a list of the "the 20 greatest songs of .." lists for the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's. I'm sorry, but my mind draws a blank when I reach the 90's. The biggest hit of the 90's was probably the macarena, for pete's sake, and most people I know get extremely irritated now whenever anyone tries to play that song, hardly a classic.

The newspaper-comics industry is an example of an art that most definitely degenerated between 1920 and 2000. Try to find yourself a copy of "the smithsonian collection of newspaper comics", and read it. Compare what the artists produced in the first half of the century, with the tiny, overcommercialized, washed-out, watered-down, politically correct, family-friendly comic strips you read in the papers these days. Bill Watterson, of Calvin & Hobbes fame, is one of the few modern cartoonists who did a decent job (dilbert is good too, but that probably had more to do with the internet, since no publisher wanted to touch dilbert when Scott Adams started out). Check out Bill Watterson's speech "the cheapening of the comics" (http://www.teleport.com /~e nnead/ampersand/watterson.html). Compare garfield's first years to garfield now - became more and more commercial, selling more and more on "cute", creating a multi-million dollar industry on paraphernalia.

This isn't just the "good old days" nostalgic memory problem either. As I said, I agree with you fully, and one has to be very careful to differentiate between when such criticisms are "valid", and when it's just the "good old days" phenomenon.

I do think that overcommercialization of any art form does lead to more generic, trite crap. It happened to comics (although the underground comics movement did breathe a little fresh air into the industry, until underground went commercial - similar to alternative music - alternative music was originally a type of backlash against commercialization of music - until the record companies figured it out and commercialized "alternative".)

The problems many musicians and the public have with record companies are surprisingly similar to many of the problems had with comic strip syndicates.

I can't help but think of how essentially geeky X-Plane really is- I _do_ think it's the best flight sim out there, but then I do things like read 'Wide-Body: the making of the Boeing 747' for fun and then design a plane a bit larger than a Lear Jet, as plausibly as possible, with two GE high-bypass fanjets dwarfing the fuselage and hurling it through the air at up to Mach 1, and then flight-test it and fix the aerodynamic problems :)

_Most_ people want to shoot down stuff or play airline pilot, not design airplanes using blade element modelling. It's very much like games like RoboWar (not an official link, a design page)- the popular appeal of something this geeky is basically nil, but for those who are willing to be captivated by the technical challenge, the depth of the game becomes phenomenal. It's like that with X-Plane, because it's basically a full-on blade element modelling aerodynamic simulator with killer eye candy for $80, something the real aircraft designers would have killed for (as an initial rough-draft tool) twenty years ago.

To be playing with this sort of thing on a home computer is beyond anything I could have imagined as a kid drawing pictures of weird airplanes instead of doing homework :)

Have you ever used the internet to learn about your religion?

Other members experiences?

History and events?

Quite interesting.

"The truth shall set ye free"
"The gift of the Holy Ghost to discern truth from deception"

http://www.adherents.com/largecom/co m_lds.html - demographic stats, pretty detailed, but old (1990)

http://www.xmission.com/~count ry/reason/mormhist.htm - Mormon history by a mormon historian who had unprecedented access to church historical documents before they were again sealed (pretty much) back up in the archives.

http://www.teleport.com/~packham/templ es.htm - Temple info

Etc.

Hmm.. i bet AOL is working on a "Sunday Services" program. LOL

Here's the full spec in PDF format.

      I was surfing around a little while back when I decided to see if I could find a sliderule for sale somewhere. (yes..I AM a nerd :) During my search I ran across refrences to a mechanical calculator called the Curta.
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp According to this web page, the Curta was designed and built by a gentleman named Curt Herzstark of Austria. Although several prototypes were made, the first production began in April, 1947. The last Curta was made in November, 1970 but they were still sold until early 1973. Over the course of about 20 years approximately 80,000 of the Curta I and 60,000 of the Curta II were constructed.
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Additional links, articles, and pictures of this awesome little device can be found here and at Curta.org
I gotta say..The Curta is one sexy little calculator :) thanks to Bruce Flamm at the first link for some of the info.

Before we get a lot of half-thought out replies, everybody should go out and read the series of books Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. The series deals, as accurately as possible, with the colonization and terraforming of Mars. Mr. Robinson is a stickler for detail; in fact, it gets a little boring at times (I never thought I would read so much about the geology of Mars). On the other hand, he's a stickler for scientific detail, and addresses some key points, such as:

"Can we develop a reasonable atmosphere?" It's tricky--Mars's crust and elemental makeup is different, it has a low gravity, and has greater elevation variation than Earth. A good atmosphere at sea level may mean the majority of the world has an atmosphere similar to the top of Everest.

We've done some nasty stuff to Earth. Is it right to ruin the natural state of ANOTHER planet, too?

Water. Is there water on mars, anyway, and if there's not, what can we do?

Surviving in low gravity.

Lots more. In any case, I'm sure many questions will be raised by people commenting on this story. I'm just as sure that the majority of them are at least mentioned in the RGB Mars books. Go do yourself a favor if you're interested in this story, and check these books out.

If you have some time and are curious about Scientology, the following are interesting:

A Piece of Blue Sky and Lonesome Squirrel.

L. Ron Hubbard's "legacy" is an interest example of the weirdness of the human mind. Want more? Check out The Kooks' Museum, Donny Kossy's excellent look into the minds of the truly weird.

1. How can you help best?
   • What would you like to do?
   • What experience do you have?
   
   
2. What time commitment can you make to the project?

• The Linux Educational Needs Posting Pages
• The Local Linux in Schools Project Website

1. How can you help best?
   • What would you like to do?
   • What experience do you have?
   
   
2. What time commitment can you make to the project?

• The Linux Educational Needs Posting Pages
• The Local Linux in Schools Project Website

Well said. The poor people that will have attempted to go for a product -- or to simply invest in a new company -- when/if LinuxOne gets its IPO, are the innocents, and they are going to get sneered down at by those of us in the More Fortress-like Position of knowing the technology.

That's not really fair to them, is it?

OK, besides that point, there's another point that I wanted to make. We actually don't have a responsibility, necessarily, to protect them; it's actually a MORAL obligation, instead. I'm nitpicking, I know, but it's an important hair-split and someone has to make it. Some of us will be so amazed that they even selected LinuxOne at all that they will be recalcitrant to help out; so on the whole, it will become less `obligation' and more `moral duty.'

Lastly, to all of you who believe that getting the SEC or anyone else is a use of government power that is unnecessary in the United States -- I have to ask you a simple question. "Did you say the same thing when the government went after Microsoft? Or do you do this in the same light as Woodrow Wilson, who once said (I'm paraphrasing here), `Never get involved when your enemies are destroying themselves.' I personally support the government's actions in both -- they are, after all, charged with the protection of the citizens' rights, and if the government does not, then as John Locke envisioned in his _Second Treatise on Government_, the people must rebel. Because their fundamental rights are not being protected.

Email me at: wesleym@teleport.com.

-buster
---------------
insert snappy sig here

Well, cheab rackmount chassis is just not to be found :(

For DIYers: look at ATX specifications: http://www.teleport.com/~ffsupprt. That should help a lot.

You can find mechanical specs for AT/ATX motherboards in the ATX form factor section of the Platform Developer site. I believe the dimension you're looking for, the distance between PCI cards, is .8" (20.32mm).

• Cholula is apparently the site of the Temanapa Pyramid, a "major religious center before the Spanish arrived".
• Apparently this involves Chihuahuas somehow. "Drop the Chalupa-cabra! Don't be a fool!"
• Apparently Cholula was a holy city
• And there's a volcano there.
• And Chewbaca is a wookie
• Therefore, my client is an alien!

Definitely agree with you here -- some of the best scifi is about how lives / society are affected. Morality. Ethical dilemmas. The politics of everyday. Ursula K. LeGuin is particularly adept at this type of scifi.

Now THERE'S a writer, dammit! Woo-hoo! Read, and
be enlightened. heh.

"Sneak shameless hangman rope gangster government leaders into Frankenstein living death eternal
slavery, I now go to death for your lowest deadly felony crime against me. Frankenstein Earphone Radio
parroting puppet gangster slave do not dare to repeat any part of this truthful message. For like Mr. Francis
E. Dec, Esquire, you too are expendable and you too can be beaten bloodily by the gangster police and
dragged in chains into a windowless telephone booth type prison cell and put into maximum security
insanity prison for undetectable extermination, and by the lowest gangsterism, namely, the law, character
assassinated for life as an insane, criminal menace to this worse Gangster Communism. Now that your
terrified, trembling delirium has subsided have your computer subdivision play out my letter, and you, reread
my letter FOR YOUR ONLY HOPE FOR A FUTURE. Francis E. Dec, Esquire, 29 Maple Street,
Hempstead, NY."

dr. j
"hey, where's my $100?"

try here

first this is wilson's site.
and for more on R. Buckminster Fuller
also bob wilson's The Illuminati Papers explains Quantum physics, etc in easy to digest terms...
PBS.org has some info. on bucky. ( try seaching for "Buckminster Fuller" )
wish i had more time to write but i should be working...

nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE

The ATX specification can be found here:

http://www.teleport.com/~atx/spec/index .htm

(Boy I hope this message get moderated up.
That would be keen.)

PS-ON is an active low signal that turns on all of the main power rails including 3.3V, 5V, -5V, 12V, and -12V power rails. When this signal is held high by the PC board or left open circuited, outputs of the power rails should not deliver current and should be held at a zero potential with respect to ground. Power should be delivered to the rails only if the PS-ON signal is held at ground potential. This signal should be held at +5VDC by a pull-up resistor internal to the power supply.

There's also more info on ATX at http://www.teleport.com/~atx/