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Declarative, Interfaces. NOW

If I really wanted to make a childish general accusation I'd say something like, for example...

Some people wish to distract from all the many valid, logical arguments about the problems with Windows by focusing attention instead on the small minority of rabid posters who make childish general accusations. Most people of that description don't have the knowledge of grammar to know that possessive pronouns such as "its" do not contain an apostrophe.

Oh come now. Being insolent requires more effort than that. Since you performed the function of "pseudo-dry intellectual humor," I will oblige you with the role of "grammar nazi."

The first mistake you made indicates you are an American, as we are notorious for botching our use of this particular verb tense. You should have used "You've made" or perhaps "You have made" instead of "You made." This is writing is traditionally considered to be present tense, and the present perfect tense is used to indicate action has begun in the past but is continuing to have an effect on the present.

Secondly, you have failed miserably (notice the present perfect tense) at using parallelism in your sentences. Parallelism is the concept of using similiar gramatical structures in each peice of your sentence in order to foster understanding. Observe the difference: You have made a reference to a situation where people are staring at you, which is often rejoindered with the drily humorous, "Why don't you take a picture, it'll last longer". I believe you'll find with only slight modification the level of ostentation is raised markedly.

The third and final point I wished to make is more of a quibble with your logic rather than a true grammar gaffe, so I do appologize for breaking with the rest of my post. I'm not entirely sure that your claim of an indirect reference is entirely accurate. As the connection between the situation and the device capable of fulfilling the edict given in the situation is the source of the humor in this context, I feel the reference is far more than indirect. I would say that it is core to the entire issue at hand.



For your convenience: An easy to follow color coded guide to the Present Perfect Tense

Additional information on parallel constructions in grammar

Please, mod this comment +5 Asshole.

(Notice the incongruity between the foul language in the last line and the elevated and condescending tone of the rest of the post? Many people find this amusing, while others find it brash and unpleasant.)

I get them at my local college's bookstore because it's the cheapest place in town.

Funnily enough, my University doesn't carry the paper. It's about 1/2 price at Camosun compared to the local merchants.

I liked the paper because nobody else used it - when the profs hand back a giant stack of white paper, you can grab the green and walk away.

As to the patent encumberedness, yes there are some patents governing JPEG2000, however it would appear the ISO/IEC have done their homework in this regard. From the last page of the standard, after listing people who hold patents related to the standard:

"The holders of these patent rights have assured the ISO and IEC that they are willing to negotiate licences under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions with applicants throughout the world. In this respect, the statements of the holders of these patents right are registered with the ISO and IEC."

I am not aware that any patent holder has sued over patent rights related issues in JPEG2000, and some of them (look at the JJ2000 copyright notice) agree not to mess with you over IP issues if you use their stuff in a JPEG2000 implementation. I'd like to think that they've become a little more wise about this sort of thing in the wake of the JPEG/GIF fiascoes.

But with all the mentions of XFree85 and XFree87, don't you think those would reach the 10,000 mark as well? (Slashdot, folks.) And why does actually searching for porn return real websites, and not just an 'adult content' block?

And anyways, why would they block things searched for over 10,000 times? That would make very common things like Employment and webmail. blocked as well?

And, to refer you to a comment already posted, a person would use MSN search if they were a windowsite (90+% or whatever) and they hear about Linux and XFree86. They search, and find porn, thus deferring them from open source.

Perhaps you're not paranoid enough.

Not many people realise this but in shakespeares time people known as memorisors were sent into plays to memorise the entire thing and create cheap knockoff plays (much like a cam rip) clicky

Piracy has been going on over the ages and the entertainment industry has yet to go bankrupt, the sooner they accept it as part of the business the sooner we can get back to watching our dvd-rips.

IMHO, The reason most people have problems with modern stereo equipment is simply because most of it is so POORLY set up. It's all set up with the BOSE methodology: No highs, no lows, MUST BE BOSE. Sometimes it's impossible to get a really good sound out of it (The H/K amp I bought just a couple of years ago is like this -- the too expensive piece of crap doesn't even have a contour button! As if I'm going to drive the amp at full volume all day or something!)

Worse yet, many of today's transistor/fet amps are designed like crap. Even *good* ones are. There is no way a class B amp is going to sound anything like a tube amp.

However, I think you'll find that if you are to compare a well designed, quailty, EXPENSIVE transistor amp to a tube amp, without looking at which one you're listening to, they'll be indistinguishable (assuming the transistor amp has been EQd to a similar spec as the distorted output of a tube amp).

Here's a bit more on the subject. And another bit more.

The one pointless things I do hear from a lot of audiophiles is that a tube amp handles overload better. So what? Most tube amps are going to explode if you draw much more than 50 watts RMS from them. A decent transistor/fet amp can easily supply 100 watts RMS at less than 0.1% THD. Why anyone would want to overload an amp, especially an expensive tube amp, is beyond me (then again, I'm not a musician, perhaps it's a useful characteristic?)

Most of the problem comes from the fact that a perfect reproduction of sound (usually done with a flat-EQ solid state amp) actually sounds rather crappy to human ears. People enjoy a boost of bass, and sometimes more treble (as long as it isn't crackling). Personally, I saved myself the bother and expense, and just bought myself a good EQ for that crappy H/K amp. Sounds as good as I'll ever want it to.

I'm not saying that a tube amp's distortion doesn't sound good to YOU, what I'm saying is that if I take a good recording of the output of a tube amp and play it on a flat-EQed solid state stereo, you'd likely be unable to tell the difference.

>Plus, Disk drives have a mean time to failure of what???...18 months or so?

Well, I can tell you this. To this day my original C64 diskettes are still in perfect and readable condition. This also includes the ones I chipped to be double sided (even though they weren't supposed to be). Perhaps it depends on what drive and media you use. Storage conditions are also a factor.

Considering your medical background and interest in comptuer science, you may find health informatics to be of interest. You will be able to leverage all of your experience as a physician while breaking in to the field of computer science.

I work closely with the Departments of Health Informatics at Dalhousie University and University of Victoria and have met many of the other people in the field in Canada. They are a good mix of doctors, nurses and computer scientists and are doing some very interesting and releveant work.

You can find more information at http://www.hiww.org/ and by searching for Health Informatics on Google.

"Health Information Science is the study of how health data are collected, stored and communicated; how those data are processed into health information suitable for administrative and clinical decision making; and how computer and telecommunications technology can be applied to support these processes." - UVIC

Health Information Sciences (HINF) is probably going to be a growth market in the coming years. With an aging baby boomers demographic, governments are going to be throwing more and more money at healthcare. As health needs grow, so does demand for information infrastructure. This is where HINF could be a good industry segment to get into. Up here in Canada, the government is throwing billions of dollars at health care these days, and it's only going to increase.

Since you're already a physician, you probably have a lot of domain knowledge that will be very useful when desiging software for the health industry. Having that domain knowledge is extremely valuable since you'll have a lot of insight in the processes, laws, and implications of the health industry.

You are quite correct; I don't think any educated person would disagree with your assertion that environmentalism is not a science.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 :

environmentalism
n 1: the philosophical doctrine that environment is more
important than heredity in determining intellectual
growth [ant: hereditarianism]
2: the activity of protecting the environemnt from pollution or
destruction

The inductive approaches to physics, biology, and chemistry are sciences. These form the basis of all scientific research concerning the environment of our planet.

To learn more about the scientific method you will want to read this article about Francis Bacon and his advocacy of an inductive method (which is now generally called "the scientific method"), and a more detailed article describing the scientific method in some detail.

Yes, I agree that it will be a long time before we see any of this stuff running a real-time flight control system. A more reasonable line of questioning might be "Was any of the modelling software used by Rutan's group based on Interval Arithmetic?"

For the record, while real-time systems may be a while off, there are several companies offering good commercial modeling software that are built on these concepts. The reason they aren't widely known is that they are used mostly by heavy industries like mining and oil companies.

Again (see other post in thread), I offer this link to Dr. van Emden's intro to the subject here at. I direct your attention to the "How" section that lists a few commercial products.

Yes, it's a very useful field.

Say you have an optimization problem that gives you too many solutions to evaluate with conventional numerical methods. Take for example an oil refinery that wishes to find the very best efficient and safe way of refining oil. There are many variables, equations, and nasty loop back cycles in this process. Traditional numerical analysis using floating point arithmetic will be struggling with errors carried over from each stage of the process, and will usually only find solutions near by to where you told it to start.

With interval arithmetic (and constraint processing) you will know that your answers are always correct. Any uncertainty will simply be reflected in a wider interval to contain the Real that is being approximated, the worst case being [-inf, inf].

Dr. Maarten van Emden over at the University of Victoria has a nice introduction page to the subject here at:. That is one of his current areas of research.

Here is a little quote also taken from Dr. van Emden.

"While this may seem to be of only theoretical interest, it is not. If one wants to solve systems of nonlinear inequalities or perform global optimization with side conditions of that form, interval constraints are more effective than conventional numerical methods."Quote source:

The University of Victoria is heading the Canadian half of this project. More information can be found at the Neptune Canada site.

• With digital you experiment a lot. You try, and try and try. You will explore new types of photography than you might have never imaged. E.g, many years ago I bought a set of extension tubes, but never used them; with the D60 I have a played a lot with them. I have also tried stitching (large photo). Even geeks. The lack of cost in taking a picture is a big factor in the ability to experiment.
• On the other hand, the lack of price makes you sloppy. What Cartier-Bresson called "shotgun photography" and should be relabelled "machine gun photography", in which the photographer hopes that one, out of a trillion will make it. The decisive moment is no longer waited for. Instead, you do "sampling photography". Understanding this tendency will make you think a bit more about each one of the photos you take.
• You can do digital photography with a film SLR. Get your pictures scanned instead of printed (by a good lab). I do it all the time and I really like the results. There is nicer contrast, and grain than in the digital ones (of course, you can always increase contrast with the gimp, but that is not the point).
• There are two areas in which I prefer film. B&W and Night photography. For those technically inclined: I believe that the reciprocity failure characteristic of film makes it perfectly suited for night photography because you don't overburn the highlights while you are starting to record shadows. The same does not apply to digital. I will prefer one roll of 35 mm film to a 256MB flash card. With respect to B&W, I think it is more of a problem of bit depth of displays than the actual technology. Again, I rather see a photo printed from film than from a file. But I have seen very good B&W printed from file (using a chemical process).

NOw, with respect to your question.
Unless you are a serious photographer, you will "waste" your money in a D60 instead of a 300D. The reasons are many:

• You might not understand some of the features you're missing: mirror lockup, second courtain flash synchronization, for example, and will never use them
• If you don't have a closet full of Canon EOS equipment, you are not gaining much compared to a fixed lens SLR, but you're paying more.
• The D60 weighs more than the 300D.
• The 300D only has one metering mode (I believe)
• Many of the Auto focus functions are not custimizable (AF Assist strobe, which I hate in the D60 is always on in the 300D)

But on the other hand, there is one reason why I would buy the 300D:

• The new EOS mount, allowing for the "shorter" cheaper lenses, such as the 18-55mm (which is mislabelled because it should be more like 28-88).
• The multiplier of the D60 makes it hard to take wideangle photos. I miss it a lot! But on the other hand I have superb closeups. So it is a tradeoff.

Photographers will always tell you that the camera does not make the photographer. Also, that you should invest your money not in the camera, but in the glass. That is why the EOS SLRs do such a good job. Mount a 85 1.8 on either one of these babies and see for yourself!
There is something funny about this. In the past, owning a Leica was a dream for many, because of its price. Now even a Leica looks cheap compared to some digital models. These days I am not affraid any mo

• With digital you experiment a lot. You try, and try and try. You will explore new types of photography than you might have never imaged. E.g, many years ago I bought a set of extension tubes, but never used them; with the D60 I have a played a lot with them. I have also tried stitching (large photo). Even geeks. The lack of cost in taking a picture is a big factor in the ability to experiment.
• On the other hand, the lack of price makes you sloppy. What Cartier-Bresson called "shotgun photography" and should be relabelled "machine gun photography", in which the photographer hopes that one, out of a trillion will make it. The decisive moment is no longer waited for. Instead, you do "sampling photography". Understanding this tendency will make you think a bit more about each one of the photos you take.
• You can do digital photography with a film SLR. Get your pictures scanned instead of printed (by a good lab). I do it all the time and I really like the results. There is nicer contrast, and grain than in the digital ones (of course, you can always increase contrast with the gimp, but that is not the point).
• There are two areas in which I prefer film. B&W and Night photography. For those technically inclined: I believe that the reciprocity failure characteristic of film makes it perfectly suited for night photography because you don't overburn the highlights while you are starting to record shadows. The same does not apply to digital. I will prefer one roll of 35 mm film to a 256MB flash card. With respect to B&W, I think it is more of a problem of bit depth of displays than the actual technology. Again, I rather see a photo printed from film than from a file. But I have seen very good B&W printed from file (using a chemical process).

NOw, with respect to your question.
Unless you are a serious photographer, you will "waste" your money in a D60 instead of a 300D. The reasons are many:

• You might not understand some of the features you're missing: mirror lockup, second courtain flash synchronization, for example, and will never use them
• If you don't have a closet full of Canon EOS equipment, you are not gaining much compared to a fixed lens SLR, but you're paying more.
• The D60 weighs more than the 300D.
• The 300D only has one metering mode (I believe)
• Many of the Auto focus functions are not custimizable (AF Assist strobe, which I hate in the D60 is always on in the 300D)

But on the other hand, there is one reason why I would buy the 300D:

• The new EOS mount, allowing for the "shorter" cheaper lenses, such as the 18-55mm (which is mislabelled because it should be more like 28-88).
• The multiplier of the D60 makes it hard to take wideangle photos. I miss it a lot! But on the other hand I have superb closeups. So it is a tradeoff.

Photographers will always tell you that the camera does not make the photographer. Also, that you should invest your money not in the camera, but in the glass. That is why the EOS SLRs do such a good job. Mount a 85 1.8 on either one of these babies and see for yourself!
There is something funny about this. In the past, owning a Leica was a dream for many, because of its price. Now even a Leica looks cheap compared to some digital models. These days I am not affraid any mo

• With digital you experiment a lot. You try, and try and try. You will explore new types of photography than you might have never imaged. E.g, many years ago I bought a set of extension tubes, but never used them; with the D60 I have a played a lot with them. I have also tried stitching (large photo). Even geeks. The lack of cost in taking a picture is a big factor in the ability to experiment.
• On the other hand, the lack of price makes you sloppy. What Cartier-Bresson called "shotgun photography" and should be relabelled "machine gun photography", in which the photographer hopes that one, out of a trillion will make it. The decisive moment is no longer waited for. Instead, you do "sampling photography". Understanding this tendency will make you think a bit more about each one of the photos you take.
• You can do digital photography with a film SLR. Get your pictures scanned instead of printed (by a good lab). I do it all the time and I really like the results. There is nicer contrast, and grain than in the digital ones (of course, you can always increase contrast with the gimp, but that is not the point).
• There are two areas in which I prefer film. B&W and Night photography. For those technically inclined: I believe that the reciprocity failure characteristic of film makes it perfectly suited for night photography because you don't overburn the highlights while you are starting to record shadows. The same does not apply to digital. I will prefer one roll of 35 mm film to a 256MB flash card. With respect to B&W, I think it is more of a problem of bit depth of displays than the actual technology. Again, I rather see a photo printed from film than from a file. But I have seen very good B&W printed from file (using a chemical process).

NOw, with respect to your question.
Unless you are a serious photographer, you will "waste" your money in a D60 instead of a 300D. The reasons are many:

• You might not understand some of the features you're missing: mirror lockup, second courtain flash synchronization, for example, and will never use them
• If you don't have a closet full of Canon EOS equipment, you are not gaining much compared to a fixed lens SLR, but you're paying more.
• The D60 weighs more than the 300D.
• The 300D only has one metering mode (I believe)
• Many of the Auto focus functions are not custimizable (AF Assist strobe, which I hate in the D60 is always on in the 300D)

But on the other hand, there is one reason why I would buy the 300D:

• The new EOS mount, allowing for the "shorter" cheaper lenses, such as the 18-55mm (which is mislabelled because it should be more like 28-88).
• The multiplier of the D60 makes it hard to take wideangle photos. I miss it a lot! But on the other hand I have superb closeups. So it is a tradeoff.

Photographers will always tell you that the camera does not make the photographer. Also, that you should invest your money not in the camera, but in the glass. That is why the EOS SLRs do such a good job. Mount a 85 1.8 on either one of these babies and see for yourself!
There is something funny about this. In the past, owning a Leica was a dream for many, because of its price. Now even a Leica looks cheap compared to some digital models. These days I am not affraid any mo

• With digital you experiment a lot. You try, and try and try. You will explore new types of photography than you might have never imaged. E.g, many years ago I bought a set of extension tubes, but never used them; with the D60 I have a played a lot with them. I have also tried stitching (large photo). Even geeks. The lack of cost in taking a picture is a big factor in the ability to experiment.
• On the other hand, the lack of price makes you sloppy. What Cartier-Bresson called "shotgun photography" and should be relabelled "machine gun photography", in which the photographer hopes that one, out of a trillion will make it. The decisive moment is no longer waited for. Instead, you do "sampling photography". Understanding this tendency will make you think a bit more about each one of the photos you take.
• You can do digital photography with a film SLR. Get your pictures scanned instead of printed (by a good lab). I do it all the time and I really like the results. There is nicer contrast, and grain than in the digital ones (of course, you can always increase contrast with the gimp, but that is not the point).
• There are two areas in which I prefer film. B&W and Night photography. For those technically inclined: I believe that the reciprocity failure characteristic of film makes it perfectly suited for night photography because you don't overburn the highlights while you are starting to record shadows. The same does not apply to digital. I will prefer one roll of 35 mm film to a 256MB flash card. With respect to B&W, I think it is more of a problem of bit depth of displays than the actual technology. Again, I rather see a photo printed from film than from a file. But I have seen very good B&W printed from file (using a chemical process).

NOw, with respect to your question.
Unless you are a serious photographer, you will "waste" your money in a D60 instead of a 300D. The reasons are many:

• You might not understand some of the features you're missing: mirror lockup, second courtain flash synchronization, for example, and will never use them
• If you don't have a closet full of Canon EOS equipment, you are not gaining much compared to a fixed lens SLR, but you're paying more.
• The D60 weighs more than the 300D.
• The 300D only has one metering mode (I believe)
• Many of the Auto focus functions are not custimizable (AF Assist strobe, which I hate in the D60 is always on in the 300D)

But on the other hand, there is one reason why I would buy the 300D:

• The new EOS mount, allowing for the "shorter" cheaper lenses, such as the 18-55mm (which is mislabelled because it should be more like 28-88).
• The multiplier of the D60 makes it hard to take wideangle photos. I miss it a lot! But on the other hand I have superb closeups. So it is a tradeoff.

Photographers will always tell you that the camera does not make the photographer. Also, that you should invest your money not in the camera, but in the glass. That is why the EOS SLRs do such a good job. Mount a 85 1.8 on either one of these babies and see for yourself!
There is something funny about this. In the past, owning a Leica was a dream for many, because of its price. Now even a Leica looks cheap compared to some digital models. These days I am not affraid any mo

• With digital you experiment a lot. You try, and try and try. You will explore new types of photography than you might have never imaged. E.g, many years ago I bought a set of extension tubes, but never used them; with the D60 I have a played a lot with them. I have also tried stitching (large photo). Even geeks. The lack of cost in taking a picture is a big factor in the ability to experiment.
• On the other hand, the lack of price makes you sloppy. What Cartier-Bresson called "shotgun photography" and should be relabelled "machine gun photography", in which the photographer hopes that one, out of a trillion will make it. The decisive moment is no longer waited for. Instead, you do "sampling photography". Understanding this tendency will make you think a bit more about each one of the photos you take.
• You can do digital photography with a film SLR. Get your pictures scanned instead of printed (by a good lab). I do it all the time and I really like the results. There is nicer contrast, and grain than in the digital ones (of course, you can always increase contrast with the gimp, but that is not the point).
• There are two areas in which I prefer film. B&W and Night photography. For those technically inclined: I believe that the reciprocity failure characteristic of film makes it perfectly suited for night photography because you don't overburn the highlights while you are starting to record shadows. The same does not apply to digital. I will prefer one roll of 35 mm film to a 256MB flash card. With respect to B&W, I think it is more of a problem of bit depth of displays than the actual technology. Again, I rather see a photo printed from film than from a file. But I have seen very good B&W printed from file (using a chemical process).

NOw, with respect to your question.
Unless you are a serious photographer, you will "waste" your money in a D60 instead of a 300D. The reasons are many:

• You might not understand some of the features you're missing: mirror lockup, second courtain flash synchronization, for example, and will never use them
• If you don't have a closet full of Canon EOS equipment, you are not gaining much compared to a fixed lens SLR, but you're paying more.
• The D60 weighs more than the 300D.
• The 300D only has one metering mode (I believe)
• Many of the Auto focus functions are not custimizable (AF Assist strobe, which I hate in the D60 is always on in the 300D)

But on the other hand, there is one reason why I would buy the 300D:

• The new EOS mount, allowing for the "shorter" cheaper lenses, such as the 18-55mm (which is mislabelled because it should be more like 28-88).
• The multiplier of the D60 makes it hard to take wideangle photos. I miss it a lot! But on the other hand I have superb closeups. So it is a tradeoff.

Photographers will always tell you that the camera does not make the photographer. Also, that you should invest your money not in the camera, but in the glass. That is why the EOS SLRs do such a good job. Mount a 85 1.8 on either one of these babies and see for yourself!
There is something funny about this. In the past, owning a Leica was a dream for many, because of its price. Now even a Leica looks cheap compared to some digital models. These days I am not affraid any mo

• With digital you experiment a lot. You try, and try and try. You will explore new types of photography than you might have never imaged. E.g, many years ago I bought a set of extension tubes, but never used them; with the D60 I have a played a lot with them. I have also tried stitching (large photo). Even geeks. The lack of cost in taking a picture is a big factor in the ability to experiment.
• On the other hand, the lack of price makes you sloppy. What Cartier-Bresson called "shotgun photography" and should be relabelled "machine gun photography", in which the photographer hopes that one, out of a trillion will make it. The decisive moment is no longer waited for. Instead, you do "sampling photography". Understanding this tendency will make you think a bit more about each one of the photos you take.
• You can do digital photography with a film SLR. Get your pictures scanned instead of printed (by a good lab). I do it all the time and I really like the results. There is nicer contrast, and grain than in the digital ones (of course, you can always increase contrast with the gimp, but that is not the point).
• There are two areas in which I prefer film. B&W and Night photography. For those technically inclined: I believe that the reciprocity failure characteristic of film makes it perfectly suited for night photography because you don't overburn the highlights while you are starting to record shadows. The same does not apply to digital. I will prefer one roll of 35 mm film to a 256MB flash card. With respect to B&W, I think it is more of a problem of bit depth of displays than the actual technology. Again, I rather see a photo printed from film than from a file. But I have seen very good B&W printed from file (using a chemical process).

NOw, with respect to your question.
Unless you are a serious photographer, you will "waste" your money in a D60 instead of a 300D. The reasons are many:

• You might not understand some of the features you're missing: mirror lockup, second courtain flash synchronization, for example, and will never use them
• If you don't have a closet full of Canon EOS equipment, you are not gaining much compared to a fixed lens SLR, but you're paying more.
• The D60 weighs more than the 300D.
• The 300D only has one metering mode (I believe)
• Many of the Auto focus functions are not custimizable (AF Assist strobe, which I hate in the D60 is always on in the 300D)

But on the other hand, there is one reason why I would buy the 300D:

• The new EOS mount, allowing for the "shorter" cheaper lenses, such as the 18-55mm (which is mislabelled because it should be more like 28-88).
• The multiplier of the D60 makes it hard to take wideangle photos. I miss it a lot! But on the other hand I have superb closeups. So it is a tradeoff.

Photographers will always tell you that the camera does not make the photographer. Also, that you should invest your money not in the camera, but in the glass. That is why the EOS SLRs do such a good job. Mount a 85 1.8 on either one of these babies and see for yourself!
There is something funny about this. In the past, owning a Leica was a dream for many, because of its price. Now even a Leica looks cheap compared to some digital models. These days I am not affraid any mo

This not only provides additional user features such as on-screen algebraics, but also improves the general "feel" when using the stack interface.

See also the FAQ for more information.

Not true. Look up the term curve of growth in an astronomy textbook. At the edges of the absorbtion bands additional CO2 still has an effect. Radiative transfer is not an on/off thing.

This spring, I attended a presentation by Dr. Andy Schloss. A musician who maps instruments and sounds to his three-dimensional electronic sensor that he invented in the 80s, he does quite a few live performances and has thought of many applications for his instrument outside of the music world. More Details

When Not to Use An Apostrophe

My particular issue is with the statement:
"Naturally, irony was back within a few days, not least because of the myriad ironies contained within the attack itself (America having funded al-Qaida is ironic; America raining bombs and peanut butter on Afghanistan is ironic)."
Why is America's funding of al-Qaida ironic? It's not. America weren't funding them with any expectation that it would protect them from terrorist attacks. They weren't funding them with a view to reducing terrorism anywhere in the world. The outcome here isn't linked with any expectations. It's just a very black coincidence. Equally, why is the bombing of bombs and peant butter ironic? It's certainly contradictory, but ironic? I don't see the discrepancy between meaning and action there.

Personally, I think that the author might have benefitted from reading this article on the meaning of irony (and with useful links to a range of literary terms).

There were a few other areas that I didn't particularly agree with the article on, but a dissection of those does not make for a readable Slashdot comment. Still, I enjoyed it and it was definitely worthy of the label "News for Nerds". My brain has been pleasantly engaged (a thought, does Nerd necessarily == pedant?).

Oh, and btw, is the best use of irony in the article the statement in footnote 1?
"I would strongly urge you not to read any more footnotes, they are only here to make sure I don't get in trouble for plagiarising."
I am sure that successful irony shouldn't have to be flagged (as with the author's more fallible attempts in the main body of the article).

Cheerio,
BB

There are some that say "it's" == a contraction of "it is"... "always." There are some that say that "it's" has a possessive quality, such as "it has" (look [m-w.com] it up).

No, there aren't. The "it has" referenced by Merriam-Webster is not possessive, it's a contraction of "it" and the present perfect tense of "to be" (not the third person singular simple present tense of "to have"), usually used in front of a past participle of another verb as in "It's been fun". "it's" *never* indicates possession when used correctly.

These radicals maintain the belief that language is a means of communication, and if the thought is communicated then the language is successful. BTW, IIRC, FWIW, IMHO, (IANAL) these radicals have been reported to use "it's" in a non-sanctioned, perfectly understandable, possessive way.

'N othr radkls no crrect spelng studpi, cuz u cn unnerstnd n-e way.

The fact that you may, at times, be able to communicate effectively in spite of poor grammar and spelling in no way devalues them. The rules of usage exist to facilitate communication and reduce confusion. If you spend a couple of minutes thinking about, I'm sure you can construct a sentence in which replacing "its" with "it's" produces a sensible statement, but with a different meaning.

Don't confuse illiteracy with intelligent and purposeful rulebreaking. The latter often has merit; the former is merely regrettable.

There are some that say "it's" == a contraction of "it is"... "always." There are some that say that "it's" has a possessive quality, such as "it has" (look [m-w.com] it up).

No, there aren't. The "it has" referenced by Merriam-Webster is not possessive, it's a contraction of "it" and the present perfect tense of "to be" (not the third person singular simple present tense of "to have"), usually used in front of a past participle of another verb as in "It's been fun". "it's" *never* indicates possession when used correctly.

These radicals maintain the belief that language is a means of communication, and if the thought is communicated then the language is successful. BTW, IIRC, FWIW, IMHO, (IANAL) these radicals have been reported to use "it's" in a non-sanctioned, perfectly understandable, possessive way.

'N othr radkls no crrect spelng studpi, cuz u cn unnerstnd n-e way.

The fact that you may, at times, be able to communicate effectively in spite of poor grammar and spelling in no way devalues them. The rules of usage exist to facilitate communication and reduce confusion. If you spend a couple of minutes thinking about, I'm sure you can construct a sentence in which replacing "its" with "it's" produces a sensible statement, but with a different meaning.

Don't confuse illiteracy with intelligent and purposeful rulebreaking. The latter often has merit; the former is merely regrettable.

Those who are just interested in learning japanese check out jwpce (text editor for typing japanese), Kanji gold (flash card program), Pera Pera Penguin(PDF files covering different japanese phrases)

Read about this a while back. This is really interesting. After the end of the cold war, the navy deployed this shop in the Mediterranean to search for greek ship wrecks. They found thousands of ships, cargo, etc, all well-preserved after thousands of years by the cold depths of the medi.

A UVic researcher is among a National Geographic Society team of oceanographers, engineers and archeologists that used a nuclear submarine to discover the largest concentration of ancient shipwrecks ever found in the deep sea. Dr. John Peter Oleson (Greek and Roman Studies) viewed the site off southern Italy and examined artifacts retrieved from 2,500 feet beneath an ancient Mediterranean Sea trade route by the remotely operated submersible Jason.

More on it here.

Then read about Richard Gere's Ass Zoo!

tcd004

"I've got a friend who has a friend that works in the USPO and he was telling me how ridiculous it is to work there."

Well, I have a friend of a friend of a friend whose girlfriend's mother's uncle said differently. I certainly wouldn't use your source for the basis of opinion; Would you use my source? I, however, was an examiner at the USPTO for several years, so I think that I have a good idea of what it's like to work there and how the system works.

"His boss is involved in all sorts of payoffs and dirt - I literally couldn't believe the stories he was telling."

Then don't be a fool and believe them. All of the people that I know at the USPTO are hard working professionals. And, no, I'm not a shill. Noone I know of is the recipient of payola. In fact, the law forbids examiners from taking gifts, and employees sign an acknowledgment as to such. They are constrained, however, by law and many in the slashdot community don't know what the law is (and I'm not talking statutes, but case law).

"One tactic lots of patent filers like to use is to send in a 25 page document, and the first 24 pages are garbage designed to lull the reviewer to sleep, then they slip in a couple of paragraphs that involve what they're really trying to patent at the end."

Patent examination involves reading the claims first, not the specification. A patent application doesn't read like a novel, and is not meant to. The examiner looks at the specification to see if the claims are supported under 35 U.S.C. 112, and does the prior art search on the claims. The examiner also creates a prosecution history with the applicant, so that the scope of terms is defined in that application history. Notice, however, that in the examination process if the claims are not supported by the specification, then they will be rejected. Thus the impetus to put as much as you can into the specification so that the scope of the invention is supported as fully as possible. It is not for the purpose of lulling anyone to sleep.

The same goes for claiming. The applicant is entitled to claim what they believe is the scope of their invention. If they have overstepped the bounds, then it is the examiner's job to reel it in. This is the reason that claims are written broad ->narrower ->narrower still ->etc. ->narrowest. Patent claiming is analogous working with Venn diagrams. The trick is not drafting a set of claims that are outside of your invention and into the prior art. If something slips past the examiner (they're only human), then the courts can set it straight.

"He later got put on a committee that was trying to track fraud and they figured out that some really high percentage (don't remember exactly, but it was over half) of the patents are frivolous and completely bunk."

That is complete bovine sh*t. A patent system based on "over half" of the patents being "frivilous and completely bunk" would never support the weight of the costs involved. Your friend's friend may not see the value of a given patent application, but my friend's, friend's, friend's, girlfriend's mother's uncle surely did, and that is why he filed his application.

Why not read a short story or two

His Saddam Hussein Germ Warfare novel is inexplicably out of print.

I'm sick and tired of all of these attacks on Robert Novak. Robert is just a man, a good man, a noble man.

The only thing Robert Novak wanted was to be able to UPS people cats, dogs and other companions at a reasonable price. He had an excelent busness idea that could of changed the world. Unfortunatly, his business was the victim of a world campaign to stop him from making people happy.

American history is littered with cases like this, I mean look at McCarthyism for example.

Robert Novak is a true hero because he is able to stand up for his rights and fight back at the greedy, evil lobby that killed his company.

I am proud to support Robert Novak. For more information, please visit my website!

Indeed, if you have read through the different Folio and Quarto texts you will find a great many variations of the spellings of common words. You'll also find a great many variations of lines and scenes. Quartos are named such because the scribes would write on paper that was then folded in quaters into a book form. Folios have a similar naming origin that I can't remember off the top of my head (something like a collection of loose paper sheets).

Quarto 1 of Hamlet is many many lines / pages shorter and more visceral than what we consider Hamlet today. The Hamlet that Mel Gibson and Kenneth Brannagh put on is actually a conflation of the Quarto 1 text and the Folio. What's interesting about this is that the Q1 Hamlet is much more direct. Many famous lines are different in Q1. For example:

To be, or not to be, I there's the point,
To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all:
No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes,
For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,
And borne before an euerlasting Iudge,
From whence no passenger euer retur'nd,
The vndiscouered country, at whose sight
The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd.
[...]

Recognize that one? Read more of it here: Quarto 1 of Hamlet.

You see it also scans as a regular iambic pentameter line. The usual first line we all think of:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer [...]

is 11 beats, or a feminine ending (the word "question" could be allided I guess to make it 10 beats), which is an interesting switch.
See the usual version of Hamlet.

In Q1, this soliloquy also comes in much earlier in the play (plotwise, things are rearranged). This makes the Q1 Hamlet much more decisive, and only shows him wavering in his resolve for a moment in comparison to the ponderous Folio Hamlet we all know and love.

Also we misspell some of the "old letters" used in these texts. For example "ye olde shoppe" would really be "the olde shoppe" because what we take as a letter "y" is really something called a "thorn" and represented the "th" combination.

What's interesting about these texts to which I refer is that they were almost unilaterally NOT written by Shakespeare. Some were written from the cue scripts he wrote (or had written), some were written from people who remembered seeing the shows, and some were altered by the actors like Burbage. Anaphoratic constructions in Hamlet are often attributed to Burbage (I think). He liked to repeat what he considered powerful lines, over and over and over (3x). These appear mostly in the Folio version.

Take some time one day and pull out a Variorum edition of your favorite play and start reading the footnotes. You'll see scholars bickering about what's "more correct" etc. It's pretty fascinating.

TTFN...

Michael Whiticar, one of the principal researchers, was interviewed on CBC newsworld at noon today.

In this interview he said that while there are other undersea methane hydrate ice in other parts of the world, this site is unique. If I heard him properly, its size dwarfed other sites. If I heard him properly, other sites are formed by biological activity, whereas this was due to the leaking of petroleum fractions.

Michael Whiticar, one of the principal researchers, was interviewed on CBC newsworld at noon today.

In this interview he said that while there are other undersea methane hydrate ice in other parts of the world, this site is unique. If I heard him properly, its size dwarfed other sites. If I heard him properly, other sites are formed by biological activity, whereas this was due to the leaking of petroleum fractions.

Michael Whiticar, one of the principal researchers, was interviewed on CBC newsworld at noon today.

In this interview he said that while there are other undersea methane hydrate ice in other parts of the world, this site is unique. If I heard him properly, its size dwarfed other sites. If I heard him properly, other sites are formed by biological activity, whereas this was due to the leaking of petroleum fractions.

The University of Victoria has some more info on these deposits here.

The University of Victoria has some more info on these deposits here.

Here. Learn something.

these guys created a program to add extra info to images by watermarking them.

they explain how they do it:
1) a frequency transform
2) add watermark
3) inverse frequency transform

...and have the equations to prove it...

shouldn't be too difficult to do similar things with audio.

woo... salivate at the thought of all the hidden info that might be already encoded in images and cds you see every day!!

Things would not get sucked back into the Earth's core, the best you could realistically hope for is some recycling/mixing in the mantle.

Earth cut-away

Sorry I could not find a diagram depicting mantle flow; also mantle flow is a current "hot-topic", nobody can say for certain what the flow looks like. This means it would be very difficult to predict when/if the stuff would come back up in a nearby oceanic ridge, hot-spot (Hawaii, etc.) or volcano (volcano's go hand-in-hand with subducting plates, read trenches).

This means the risks are still too high/unknown, just as in the case with the "booster rocket to the sun" idea. Both excellent ideas but until we can minimize the risk let's bury it in Nevada's backyard.

>Not to mention the fact that one side of the
>moon faces the sun at all times! Any solar
>collectors on Earth are subject to day/night
>cycles. The moon would rarely be impacted, when
>the lunar eclipses happen.

Doh! One side of the moon always faces the EARTH! (synchronous rotation). We had never seen the far side of the moon until we sent something "back there" to take pictures.

So: that being the case, is it really possible that one side of the moon is always bathed in the light of the sun? If so, then how did we ever get visible pictures of the OTHER SIDE of the moon? Did we use a gigantic flashbulb, or something? ;)

Map of the entire surface including the far side

The Far Side of the Moon Consider how this picture would look if it had been taken during a "full moon:" since during a full moon the entire side of the moon that is facing the Earth is lit up, only the portion of the moon in this photograph that is said to be visible from Earth (see the pic's caption) would have any sunlight on it.

Far Side of the Moon, with animation showing the same side of the moon always toward the Earth. This doesn't show where the sun is in relation to the animation; but figure that the sun is way off the screen from the animation...the darkened part of the moon in the animation is representing the side of the moon we never see from Earth, NOT how the light hits the moon (the Earth does not illuminate the moon, although it does sometimes reflect a little of the sun's light onto the dark portion of the quarter moon...)

So, taking this into account, will it be useful to build these lasers on the moon, especially the power plant?

Apollo 11 Laser Ranging Retroreflector Experiment. "Laser beams are used because they remain tightly focused for large distances. Nevertheless, there is enough dispersion of the beam that it is about 7 kilometers in diameter when it reaches the Moon and 20 kilometers in diameter when it returns to Earth. Because of this very weak signal, observations are made for several hours at a time. By averaging the signal for this period, the distance to the Moon can be measured to an accuracy of about 3 centimeters (the average distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 385,000 kilometers)."

Add to this, the fact that the moon wobbles...

Ah yes, here's a thought... ;)

The effect of gravitational lensing depends on our alignment to the source. In a perfect or near perfect alignment (the case here), we see many rings and arcs. Slightly off we see arclets, followed by weak distortions. The closer to perfect alignment the better, as the magnification effect is stronger and rings, arcs, and mulitple images allow the calulation of mass and distance to both the source and the lensed matter.

You can find better explanations and animated examples by searching a bit on google.

While they have the ability, unfortunatly it's almost impossible to use them properly, at least using NT and Office 97. In order to run Office 97 on NT, your NT system directory must be world writable. Once you allow this, then any user can replace any DLL, and get any privlage they want.

Read this thourogly and take the cop to court. That's what I would do. But I'm not a lawyer, so YMMV. Oh, and that is Canadian, but I wouldn't be surprised if much of that is still good advice in the US (just apply your local laws instead of the Canadian ones). Although I wouldn't trust Canadian technicalities being valid in the US.

I hope you aren't planning on taking the computer science program at UBC? I have been informed by my colleagues that SFU's is magnitudes better (I don't know by experience myself; I went to UVic...)

Now, as for UBC Engineering, they're okay - at least they've learned how to suspend VW Beetles off of bridges. :)

"Students in a B.Eng. program should make themselves fully aware of the APEGBC Code of Ethics (http://www.apeg.bc.ca/about/act_code.htm) and apply its principles in their work."

It does apply to them. If it didn't why do they even mention it?

Ummmm. Why do they mention it? They don't mention it. UBC Engineering isn't even a B.Eng. program. It's a B.A.Sc. program for undergrads. This is a nitpick, but you're the one who started down that path of quoting little facts. Go back. Re-read the article, now go to the correct school's website before you start quoting things! It's UBC, not UVic!

"Professional Engineers and Professional Geoscientists shall act at all times ... and with fidelity to the public needs"

Note the part where it says "at all times". It does not say "when being paid" or "when working". Doing something like this is not showing "fidelity to the public needs".

Undergraduate students are not Professional Engineers. Even after graduating, there is a process to go through (not the least of which involves paying regular dues) to become and remain Professional Engineers.

Check out FairTunes for an example of how some Canadians are rewarding artists without stifling the free music scene.

I can't say the response in Canada to MP3s has been too much different in nature than the US, although it's probably less heavy-handed.

At the University of British Columbia (yes, that's in Canada, in Vancouver), Napster is officially persona non grata, but it's not actually blocked, and they don't seem to care unless you're pigging bandwidth. The University of Victoria has been less lenient, and has forced some students to uninstall Napster while campus security watched, with the threat of suspension if caught using Napster again. I'm not too sure about other universities in Canada, but I suspect they're somewhere between UBC and UVic.

Remember, Canada doesn't have the DMCA, or UCITA, and the MPAA and RIAA aren't based here. That's got to count for something, too :-)

I suppose there are... I can think of at least one. :)

I recently did a scultpure that utilized the tricks that Edward Land did... if you don't know about Land's experiment, you should. It's an eye-opening (sorry) experience.

Check out a write I did he re. View a short animation that explains it all here (Shockwave required).

Another really trippy experiment to try is this:

Grab a friend and go to a mirror. Then have your friend face you, and look at your eyes (one and then the other). Then look into the mirror at your reflection, and look from one eye to the other. Notice a difference? This will freak you out.

Email me if you want to know whats going on.... I dont want to spoil it, its too freaky. :)