Slashdot Mirror

Your doom is at hand:

http://members.tripod.com/~beastwatch/

bah nevermind, this guy's just plain nutZ

Heh, there was a secret agreement in the non-aggression pact involving Poland between Germany and Russia, which was made so that Russia could have roughly half of it. This was to disorganize the Russian army (short notice) so that Germany could more easily defeat it. History is fun ... not the most reliable source, but a source nonetheless. I do not have time to find a better one.

Have you tried CNN.COM or The Palm Beach Post or Newsmax or The Washington Post or how about USA Today.

In case you think any of those are too Bush friendly try out the New York Times.

Outside of media sources there is also the Wiki entry.

As for the panhandle disenfranchisement try:

Newsmax again.

Or the US Senate investigation.

As for the disenfranchisement of voters through poorly created criminal lists try:

Common Dreams (reprinting a Palm Beach Post article)

John Lott (you can read the whole thing but his conclusion sections should do)

Essentially the criminal lists did little to affect the vote, and most calls of African American disenfranchisement (the Democrats backbone support) were actually due to a disproportionally high vote rejection rate in 'Black districts', not the lists. But as several reviews have shown, these were do to voter error in marking their ballots, not any particular attempt to actively disenfranchise them. And before you try to make a case that they used different style ballots in 'Black Districts' (which was the case in some areas) remember, those districts, being predominately Democrat, were run by Democratic election boards who designed those ballots.

There was a good site that summarizes all the various debates, but I can't seem to find it right now. If I do I'll reply with a link. As for the Supremes roll in all this, it's pretty much a a moot point but if you want to dig further at least 7 justices saw some problem with the way the Florida Supreme Court had ordered the count to go forward, and at least 3 saw the December 12th deadline as an important part of their decision. They vast majority had issues with the lower courts rulings but each of the SCJs had a different idea as to what the solution should be.

*Cough*Evils of Dungeons & Dragons *cough8 http://members.tripod.com/~limsk/pulling.htm [The Pulling report, about 80's D&D hysteria> No matter what, something will always be society's villain. Jazz music, comic books, rock music, D&D, video games. I suggest wait, and the blame will pass to... Golf?

I don't undertand why this opsession with getting fuel out of the ground when instead of gasoline one can use ethanol http://runningonalcohol.tripod.com/ Which requers no vehicle modification. Most gasoline now is 15% Ethanol. You probablythink that its hard to make it. Guess what--NO! it cost about $1.50 per gallon. One can make it at home,this is basicly alcohol. Similarly, with Biodiesel one canmake fuel very cheaply around from corn oil and the like. Not only can you use plants like corn, to produce the fuels which far,ers know how to grow,and we are not dependant on Saudi Arabia to get it. Bio-Fuels have much less of the pollution then fosil fuels. And what-ever pollution they do have,it is not really a "pollution" since it came from plants around us, and is part of bio-system (Unlike Oil which is NOT). So why we still using this expensive poison in our vehicles? The problem is not that people drive tanks on the street the pproblem is --fuel. Why should I care if people fuel up their $50K Hummer with biodisel?

That's simply untrue, and demonstrates a monstrously superficial understanding of civics. Lay off the Libertarian Kool-Aid for a minute and read this:

And this is what the 10th Amendment says:

Amendment X - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Let's see what Thomas Jefferson the author of the Declaration of Independence and signer of the Constitution of the USA says:

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:320

"We are a people capable of self-government, and worthy of it." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac Weaver, Jr., 1807. ME 11:220

"[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1813. ME 19:197

In his first Inaugural Address he says:

Still one thing more, fellow-citizens--a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

Thomas Paine, who worked with Thomas Jefferson on the DOI, even goes further:

"Government even in its best state is a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one..."

How about when James Madison specifically states congressional power is limited:

"[Congressional jurisdiction of power] is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." - James Madison, Federalist 14

If congressional power isn't limited by the constitution then how is it limited? OR when he says:

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined . . . to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce."

Or:

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." - James Madison, 1792

Regarding "general welfare" here's a webpage with more quotes from Founding Fathers, Is Welfare Unconstitutional?

Yeap I guess these people were real stupid and imbibed in "Libertarin Kool-Aid.

a comic:

Buzz Aldrin's Conspiracy Knockdown!

This article covers quite a few games - and these are just on one platform! (the ZX spectrum, in case it means something to you). Admittedly, some were ports of games that were released on other platforms, but still.

The worst has to be when a game ends on a cliffhanger but the sequel is never released. This isn't a problem that's unique to interactive media - this page lists many TV shows that were cancelled before a cliffhanger could be resolved.

A hobby horse with the speed of light, a broken brain and a hearty
"Hi Yo Silver!"
The Doc Ruuuby.
"Hi Yo Silver, awaaay!"
With his retarded Indian companion Dioscorea, the deranged, handwaving masked rider of slashdot, led the flames for law and order in the early internet.
Return with us now to those thrilling, obnoxious days of demented drivel.
The Doc Ruby rides again!
--
make jokes - not flames

Hehe, so an article comparing Google to MS is akin to a version of Goodwin's Law?

Jefferson called the Bible a DUNG HEAP.

He rewrote the Bible ripping out every single supposed miracle and any claim of divinity for Jesus. He considered Jesus to be a "great philosopher", and admired him the same way one would admire Mahatma Ghandi.

He rejected any claim of divinely insipred scripture by any religion. He called the bible stories of miracles and divine inspiration "fabulous and false" (fabulous as in being a fable).

You are projecting your own religious fantacy if you think Jefferson would be a "Bible thumper".

Would he for a minute allow the banning of prayer in public school

Straw man! An argument distorted to the extent of being an outright LIE.

Prayer is NOT banned in public schools. I am aware of no one ever trying to ban prayer in public schools (Yeah yeah, I'm sure someone somewhere sometime wanted to do so, but no one of any consequence and certainly not in any of the recent school prayer court battles). In fact students have a constitutionally guaranteed right to pray.

If you can look beyond the lying right wing propaganda you've been reading you'll see that NONE of the court cases they are screaming over is about preventing students from praying in school. NONE of them. Students have a right to pray in school and NO ONE in these cases is arguing otherwise. What the court cases have been about is that school officials acting in an official capacity as an agent of the government cannot ABUSE THE FORCE OF GOVERNMENT POWER to either promote or suppress student prayer.

Go ahead, proove me wrong. I defy you to find so much as a singe case that was NOT about school officials abusing their power to promote student prary. I defy you to find so much as a single case that actually targeted student prayer itself.

A principal abusing his govermental power to promote student prayer is just as unconstitutional as that principal abusing his power to prohibit students from praying in school. You have every right to object if I abuse my government teaching position to press my religious beliefs upon your children, and I have every right to object if you abuse your governent teaching position to press your religious beliefs upon my children.

The ACLU and other "dreaded left wing activists" supposedly trying to exterminate religion and supposedly attacking prayer is school actually SUPPORT the right to religious freedom. The ACLU website contains an invitation for students to contact the ACLU for assistance if any scool official interferes with their right to pray in school: "If a school official has told you that you can't pray at all during the school day, your right to exercise your religion is being violated. Contact your local ACLU for help." The ACLU fought and won a case forcing a school to include a student's Bible quote in the school yearbook. The ACLU jumped in to defend religious displays on government land - in defence of people preforming baptisms in a public park lake. If you look at cases of this sort you'll find that the objection is always to the use of government power for religion. Separation of Church and State restrictions upon the use of government power are the VERY MEANS of protecting our individual rights to religious freedom.

Now if we've gotten that Straw Man argument out of the way, lets get back to Jefferson's actual position on religion and government run schools. His position was to STRIP IT OUT OF GOVERNMENTAL SCHOOLS. He ripped it out every chance he got, and he was constantly BATTLING AGAINST every effort to introduce religion into government schools or into government itself. Here is a pretty good summary of Jeffersons religion-school activities.

Jefferson was constantly being attacked as being anti-religion, the exact same attacks we see coming from the right wing today. If you check the context of the most

"Synthesizers (at least Moog synthesizers) do NOT use manufactured effects and they do NOT use pre-recorded samples."

I think you will find that the first digital sampling synthesiser was the Fairlight.

The first analog sampling synthesiser was the Mellotron.

Anyone know what the first digital synthesiser was?

That covers both meanings of "sample", as in a short sound or a single data point of a digital sequence.

Vermont Review: First off: Does your name rhyme with "vogue" or is like a Cow's "moo" plus a "G" at the end?
Dr. Robert Moog: It rhymes with vogue. That is the usual German pronunciation. My father's grandfather came from Marburg, Germany. I like the way that pronunciation sounds better than the way the cow's 'moo-g' sounds.

Last time I heard him, he said:

'C' is for Cookie, that's good enough for me,
'C' is for Cookie, that's good enough for me,
'C' is for Cookie, that's good enough for me,
Oh, Cookie, Cookie, Cookie starts with 'C'.

http://members.tripod.com/Tiny_Dancer/cookie.html

      -dZ.

Also, Papadopoulos et al introduced a Y-junction formation technique using branched nanochannel alumina templates (Papadopoulos, 2000).

It was just ~25 years ago that MCA went to the wall claiming that video cassettes would only be used to steal movies, and wanted fee assessed to every VCR and blank cassette sold as a proactive remedy. This went to the supreme court, who wisely (stangely enough) ruled that just because a technology can be used for illegal activities does not mean that it will be used for illegal activities. And told them to go away. Now we hear the rattle of that snake rearing its head again...

Funny, though, if they had won would they have the immense video market they have today?

However, why stop here? Other people are in great need of help after receiving a harsh sentence. So I suggest the USPTO should use the financial services of the Gambino family to handle the trademark registration payments on their web sites. After all, if they give business to one federally-convicted firm, why not support another?

The following are my favorite ways a Google/Apple partnership could be implemented:
- Lyric search with links to iTMS for purchase
- AdWords like contextual ads so when you are searching for Michael Jackson accquital news, you get links to buy "Thriller".
- Integrated Gmail recommendation system to suggest music to friends
- maps.iTunes.Google.com where you could find concerts in your area or by band and buy them only, complete with driving directions
- satellite version of the above
- hybrid maps/satellite version of the above
- 3D satellite model called "iTunes Earth" that would allows mapping of all instances of a particular song being played at that time around the world. Would be tied directly to NORAD to target high concentrations of bad pop like number one iTunes song "Just the Girl"

Ok, Robbin, with 2 'b's, is mentioned. But he was the firmware lead. It was Faddell's idea and Faddell is widely credited as "father of the iPod"

neat-o case!
a bit pricy, but great for a server!
noisy, true, but that's not the cases fault.
ALOT of airflow and strangly very dust repellent.
[pics]
http://emptyempty2.tripod.com/case1.JPG
http://emptyempty2.tripod.com/case2.JPG
http://emptyempty2.tripod.com/case3.JPG

neat-o case!
a bit pricy, but great for a server!
noisy, true, but that's not the cases fault.
ALOT of airflow and strangly very dust repellent.
[pics]
http://emptyempty2.tripod.com/case1.JPG
http://emptyempty2.tripod.com/case2.JPG
http://emptyempty2.tripod.com/case3.JPG

neat-o case!
a bit pricy, but great for a server!
noisy, true, but that's not the cases fault.
ALOT of airflow and strangly very dust repellent.
[pics]
http://emptyempty2.tripod.com/case1.JPG
http://emptyempty2.tripod.com/case2.JPG
http://emptyempty2.tripod.com/case3.JPG

So, In Firefox tab A, I have Google and tab B is Yahoo. Both searched on Kyzyl.

Results (pleae pay attention because htmling this was a pain...):

Yahoo's first 5 entries:

* All Russia Hotels All Russian Hotels - We offer discount hotel reservation services online in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Russia, Ukraine, CIS and Baltic. www.allrussiahotels.com

* Tuva Travel Kyzyl city is the capital of Tuva Republic (Russia) Kyzyl city is positioned right in the center of Asia, which is proudly claimed by a local monument specifically dedicated to this fact. www.sokoltours.com

WEB RESULTS

1. Wikipedia: Kyzyl
Open this result in new window
Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia's article on 'Kyzyl' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyzyl

- More from this site - Save - Block

2. Weather Underground: Kyzyl, Russia Forecast
Open this result in new window Find the Weather for any City, State or ZIP Code, or Airport Code or Country. Email. Password. Maps. United States. International. Information. Refinance Rates. GoTo Meeting. Kyzyl Singles. Hosting Companies. Online deals! Vitamins. Internet Mall ... Updated: 8:00 AM KRAST on August 02, 2005. Observed at Kyzyl, Russia (History) Elevation: 2064 ft / 629 m ... Coming soon: Flash Stickers. Kyzyl, 63 F / 17 C ...
www.wunderground.com/global/stations/36096.html
- 64k - Cached - More from this site - Save - Block

3. AllRefer.com - Kyzyl (CIS And Baltic Political Geography) - Encyclopedia
Open this result in new window

3. AllRefer.com reference and encyclopedia resource provides complete information on Kyzyl, CIS And Baltic Political Geography. Includes related research links. ... By Alphabet : Encyclopedia A-Z - K. Kyzyl, CIS And Baltic Political Geography ... Kyzyl or Kizil[both: kizil'] Pronunciation Key, city (1989 pop ...
reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/K/Kyzyl
More from this site - Save - Block

Now, for the first five Google Results on Kyzyl:

Kyzyl'-administrative center of Republic of Tuva, Russia Kyzyl' Republic of Tuva,
|Central-Chernozemny| ... Republic Capital:, Kyzyl. Capital Population:, 91000( at 01/01/94) ...
members.tripod.com/~argun/kyzyl.htm
- 5k - Cached - Similar pages

Kyzyl on Encyclopedia.com
Kyzyl or Kizilboth: kzl, city (1989 pop. 85000), capital of Tuva Republic, S Siberian Russia, on the Yenisei River. It services motor transport and has ...
www.encyclopedia.com/html/K/Kyzyl.asp
- 47k - Cached - Similar pages

Kyzyl Travel Information. Photos, Stories and Diaries about Kyzyl
Sustainable Tourism for independent travellers (travelers) and backpackers. www.worldsurface.com/browse/location.asp?locationi d=5654
- 59k - Cached - Similar pages

Kyzyl, Tuva, Russia current local time
Kyzyl, Tuva, Russia - before placing a telephone call or making travel plans for a flight or hotel, get the current local time provided by ...
www.worldtimeserver.com/current_time_in_RU-TY.aspx ?city=Kyzyl
- 17k - C

Please, think of the kittens.

You might consider anything from the universe as a whole, to a small pond of water to be "isolated". Whether or not the universe of the small pond of water was disturbed by an outside force is pure speculation.

Nonsense. It's very easy to show that small ponds are affected by outside forces. As for the universe, the entire universe is believed to be a closed system and it will therefore, according to the second law of thermodynamics (which is of course a theory not an actual law) eventually rundown. This is called the Heat Death of the Universe. It has nothing to do with the fact that the Earth gets energy from the sun and that decreased entropy on earth is (over)matched by increasing entropy in the sun. Entropy increases in the overall system (the universe) but parts of it can show a decrease. Nothing at all would work if this was not true.

Oh, even one contradicted law should disproove a fact, even if the earth is NOT a closed system, what about the other laws? If I'm an alleged gangster with 4 alibi, and you disproove one, cant I get off on the other 3? Is a fact, a fact if it is contradicted by another?

You mean your claims about the so-called law of biogenesis and the so-called law of kinds? Creationist drivel is not an argument against science.

Maybe this: http://members.tripod.com/~Snowfall/Way_Easy_Guide .latest.html ?

Interesting that another censor was the veeps wife, Tipper Gore and the PMRC.

Blood-sucking remora like Thompson are the biggest dangers to further acceptance of gaming as a healthy passtime.

I've been working on a lame text-based adventure in Javascript, but it will never hold a candle to my previous text-based game.</blatant plug>

http://ladydeathtouch.tripod.com/invention/

Happy Happy Joy Joy!!!

Titus Andronicus had quite a bit of gore, I doubt anyone could have come close even with a BFG 9000.

Jack Thompson's Wikipedia Entry

Here's another article about him:

Exhibit 8: Is This Guy Nuts?

You know, I had somehow mangled that story up in my mind that Thompson was the one who bit a stripper, but it is still an interesting article.

I don't know why the gaming media is so quick to give this guy a platform, unless it is because he is good at discrediting his side of the debate.

Here is a link to the poem celebrating Bill Gates' life story.

Eric Johnson and Trevor Rabin come to mind immediately. Both do songwriting, composing (as in film scores), and improv guitar (mostly solos).

And some wikis to add flavor - Eric's wiki page and Trevor's wiki page.

I left mine at home

Warning: Non work-safe.

Gadget porn

And posted anonymously so as not to karma whore
Mirror

The cult recently opened one of their "temples" in California (of course). They have many local churches.

Like the Scientologists who have their "e-meter", these lego freaks have their or psuedo-technological props. They even have an mystic Oracle that you can ask questions on the internet. And just like the leader of the Scientologists, their leaders aspire to be JRR Tolkien. Not only that, these foul fiends have the temerity to rewrite the Bible.

And they are Holocaust revisionists, too boot

1. Exhibit A - one of their foul leaders proudly displays their trumped up "evidence"
2. Exhibit B
3. Exhibit C
4. Exhibit D
5. Exhibit E
6. Exhibit F

They worship strange, vile gods. And are building machines to take over the world.

No government is safe from the prying eyes of... people with eyes!

http://accelerationresearch.tripod.com/

> kill all the spammers, but pray for their souls.

Spammer's have souls?

http://evil-guide.tripod.com/career.html (at bottom)
http://evil-guide.tripod.com/

> kill all the spammers, but pray for their souls.

Spammer's have souls?

http://evil-guide.tripod.com/career.html (at bottom)
http://evil-guide.tripod.com/

I doubt that David Brin will be writing any Hollywood blockbusters soon. (His Uplift series, while it looks fascinating, doesn't look like it would lend itself to a ninety-minute BAM BAM KABOOM fest.

Serenity may be more your cup of tea, perhaps not. If the Firefly series floated your boat, the movie should as well.

His Dark Materials is being made into a series of movies. It's been described as a secular response to Narnia, but I haven't read it, so perhaps it's not what you're looking for.

Surprisingly, I really enjoyed Pitch Black . Vin Diesel apparently forgot how to act after that, but it's a pretty interesting story. You can read the screenplay; someone was kind enough to put it online. But that's not really that space opera-y.

--grendel drago

Ok, I stand corrected. Though Apple certainly borrowed a lot from early research. IBM also developed standards for the GUI.

Not really up to date, but kind of background information from when I was working in Akihabara. I had forgotten about the first one.

http://shanenj.tripod.com/gofj/gofj1.html
http://shanenj.tripod.com/gofj/gofj3.html

Already it's close to 10 years ago, but I still visit almost monthly. In the last couple of years there has been a *LOT* of construction and rebuilding going on, and the appearance of the neighborhood is changing drastically. I think it's mostly for the better, and in particular, the yakuza seem to be much less visible (though I suspect that may be part of a general campaign throughout Chiyoda-ku).

With regards to this article, I've never felt like the otaku were an absolute majority, though there are plenty of them around. As noted in the linked articles above, I've also never been very impressed by the rumors of bargains to be found in Akihabara. If there ever were such days, they had already ended before I worked there. Most of the "bargains" are obsolete and leftover junk. Also, I think a lot of the "bargains" some stolen stuff and pirate copies, and that kind of stuff has also become much less visible, too.

I think the main special thing about Akihabara is that they often test market new models there, so you can get stuff early. Of course the problem there is that the new models may have problems or may not succeed, so you can wind up with a lemon or orphan.

Not really up to date, but kind of background information from when I was working in Akihabara. I had forgotten about the first one.

http://shanenj.tripod.com/gofj/gofj1.html
http://shanenj.tripod.com/gofj/gofj3.html

Already it's close to 10 years ago, but I still visit almost monthly. In the last couple of years there has been a *LOT* of construction and rebuilding going on, and the appearance of the neighborhood is changing drastically. I think it's mostly for the better, and in particular, the yakuza seem to be much less visible (though I suspect that may be part of a general campaign throughout Chiyoda-ku).

With regards to this article, I've never felt like the otaku were an absolute majority, though there are plenty of them around. As noted in the linked articles above, I've also never been very impressed by the rumors of bargains to be found in Akihabara. If there ever were such days, they had already ended before I worked there. Most of the "bargains" are obsolete and leftover junk. Also, I think a lot of the "bargains" some stolen stuff and pirate copies, and that kind of stuff has also become much less visible, too.

I think the main special thing about Akihabara is that they often test market new models there, so you can get stuff early. Of course the problem there is that the new models may have problems or may not succeed, so you can wind up with a lemon or orphan.

Apple is making the transition to Intel processors (which does NOT mean that MacOS X will run on commodity x86 hardware).

Why? Steve mentioned a lack of a PowerPC roadmap. Leander at Cult of Mac mentioned possible Intel DRM to enable iTunes for Movies. Everyone mentions that we haven't seen a PowerBook G5.

Why now? We all know that Apple's going to take it on the chin in the Mac hardware sales division. But Apple can take that hit right now. It has the well-known $4 billion in reserves. And it also has the iPod and iTMS - which have been bringing in a large percent of Apple's profits lately. With iPod running high for, well, the next year or so, that can prop up the Mac division through the transition slump.

http://michaelmarco.tripod.com/id17.html

"Clearly the list is fraudulent. Maddox is on the B list? I've never heard of most of the A list but I'd think getting a book deal off of having a well read blog would put you on the A list of blogging. Afterall, that's the point of having one."

I agree with you. I clicked on some of the "A List" links and found mostly news aggregation sites. One of the random "A List" clicks had the top posting as a link to The Onion, the second link on the same page to a CNN type story. Why does an amateur news aggregation site make "A list" while people who are making original material like Bruce Sterling and Maddox get delegated to the B list? The list doesn't even include Robert X. Cringely Robert X. Cringely, one of the original bloggers who blogged on the internet before these people who wrote this crappy list ever even knew what the internet was. I guess it doesn't matter because Cringely, Maddox and Sterling will keep writing their original material about relevant things while "Blogebrity" and it's "A list" keep writing about their toothpaste woes, or what brand of shoes they like, hoping for some venture capital so they can sell out without ever having contributed one iota of anything, original thought or otherwise, to society.

Or as Maddox would say, "It doesn't matter, bag my groceries"

The only area I could ever see Apple and Intel working together, would be a PDA type device, something that would benefit from a XScale.

OSX needs a PowerPC, an Intel version would break all software compatibility and require new development. Something that Apple would not do, not even for a low-cost option. This is why Apple's Mini uses a G4. If Apple wanted to commit suicie, they would siwtch to a X86 processor.

All of Apple's products are invested too heavily into Altivec, something that is not available with Intel's chips. This SIMD was co-developed by IBM, Motorola, and Apple. It's why Macs have such a huge performance advantage over PCs when it comes to things like encoding video. It's even used to assist in OSX's GUI acceleration along side the GPU. Even iTunes uses it.

Besides, Intel's desktop/workstation chips are not RISC, nor do the majority of their chips support 64-bit VM addressing, a feature that is available for the PowerPC, and is supported by Tiger. The only Intel option is an Itanium 2, an expensive pokey processor, that has been trumped by all other 64-bit options, including the G5 of course.

http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/cultofmac/index.blog? entry_id=1111006

High quality natural rubies, perhaps.

We've been making high quality synthetic rubies (red sapphires, aka crystalline aluminum oxide doped with chromium) for nearly a half-century (flux process, commercially since 1958) and lower quality for over a century (different processes, since 1902). The first lasers, in 1960, used optical quality synthetic ruby rods as the lasing medium.

(Historically, any red gem was called a ruby and many named "rubies" are really garnets, spinels, or other stones. The big ruby ("Black Prince's Ruby") in the British Crown is in fact a spinel. However, the Crown Jewels also contain the largest diamonds ever cut, from the 3000+ carat Cullinan found a century ago. Here's a link with more history and also pix of the Crown with the Black Prince's Spinel.)