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When you ask if people believe in "life on other planets", you'll get two camps (usually): 1.) The religious nutters who believe God created man once, and broke the mold, and 2.) Abductee nutters who believe aliens are living among us already.

All kidding aside... life exists elsewhere, its how WE came to exist HERE, in this time. It may not be bipedal, humanoid life, but its certainly life. Single-cellular organisms living at -400F on some distant planet is still life. Just because it isn't hovering around in a little saucer causing traffic jams in Mexico doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Also.. even if there was intelligent, bipedal humanoid life elsewhere, why would they be interested in us?

Maybe they're just as prehistoric in their space travels as us. Maybe they're so far ahead of us that they see us like we see an anthill in Africa. Who knows..

We also seem to keep trying to find life in places "similar" to our own. Why is it impossible to believe that a planet billions of light years away from the Sun could house intelligent life? Maybe they don't seek us out, because "Nothing that close to the Sun could survive...", just like we don't believe life could exist so far out in the blackness away from the Sun.

Imagine what a society of cells, left to evolve undisturbed for 2 million years (WITHOUT any Ice Age to reboot the process), would evolve to... Imagine what our society could do in the next 2 million years (if we don't blow ourselves up first)

Carl Sagan, a brilliant astronomer, was also a devoutly religious person. He believed in life on other planets. There's even a great mathematical equation (Drake's Equation) that sums it up really well.

Lastly, for those who haven't READ it, grab a copy of "Contact: A Novel" by Sagan. Its quite different from the movie... and well worth the read for how in-depth it goes into the interesting paradox about Religion, Science, Extraterrestrial Life and many other issues. Its worth the few dollars to read, if you're interested in debating this topic from any angle.

In short, life DOES exist elsewhere... but are we prepared to find it? Are we prepared for it to find us?

Really funny episode... There are some tiny screencaps of it here: http://my.voyager.net/~ckarath/blog0409.html#04091 8d

Let's point out a few more facts. You don't need 50% to win. You need 50% of the populace who bothers to vote, which is about 40-60% of the populace. So let's be charitable and say you need about 30% to win; IN A TWO PARTY ELECTION.

97X was the only good station in town. I cried when I found out they sold their broadcast license. I desperately want to like the new station, especially because many of the old DJs are still there, but it just doesn't seem like they're playing the same mix of stuff as before. They used to have the weirdest, coolest playlists. Thanks to them, I discovered the Disposable Heros of Hipoprisy and Michael Franti, amongst many others. Now, it seems like all I listen to are the two college radio stations (thank god for the X-Star network, Father what's-his-name at Xavier, the Regents of NKU, Echos, the BBC, NPR, and PRI) and the one classical station in town (and it's "only" decent, but not stellar like the long lamented and the dearly departed WNIB, both formerly in sweet home Chicago).

Ah well. Clear Channel and friends can suck on chocolate salty balls for all I listen to them any more. At least there's still Shoutcast and streamripper and iTunes+iPod.

Check it out!

How to make an H-Bomb

Here in Cowtown we are indeed serv(ic)ed by Time Warner Cable. But it isn't the only one in this area, much less in the entire State. We ain't that small. :)

You mean DUKWs? That's what the Army called them long before they were pressed into tourist duty

...a duck. Maybe slower but also ALOT more stable...

I think that it is more intended to be used against unexploded bomblets from cluster bombs, such as the ones used to take out runways. There is a "tool" that was used in the gulf war to detonate buried mines. The M60 Armored Vehicle Launched Mine Clearing Line Charge. A tank would fire a long line of explosive out over the mine field, and detonate it when it hits the ground. It would clear a path wide enough to drive tanks through. Obviously not practical for widespread mine clearing. Here are some pics I found:

pic1
pic 2
pic 3

Oh no! I'm deep-linking!

Now if only they'd bring back Rocko's Modern Life, fixing the censored parts, too.

The technicolor 3-strip camera used this method. This camera was used for such films as "Gone With the Wind" and "Wizard of Oz". I uploaded a photo of the camera and a photo of it's description.

The technicolor 3-strip camera used this method. This camera was used for such films as "Gone With the Wind" and "Wizard of Oz". I uploaded a photo of the camera and a photo of it's description.

Ok. First, X10 is fairly nifty, but you have a few issues to deal with. X10 basically works by encoding little data pulses over the zero crossing of the AC sine wave. There are a few problems here. First, is that a lot of houses are wired with multiple phases wherein the actual phase angle of the power is different (usually in increments of 120degrees). This munts the signals somewhat. Power conditioner wreak havok on those little pulses as well, as will certain forms of lighting ballast equipment. X-10 does have a phase-coupler that should help somewhat , but at that point you enter electrician-world.X-10 isn't really my strongpoint, but I do know that well thought out systems can be pretty fun. Clipsal stuff probably is a better option too. Oh, and watch out for your 50hz vs 60hz issues.
However, one of the nifty things you can do, if you are electrically minded, is get one of those Basic-stamp PIC thingers and build a nice clean RS-232 interface to X-10 and use some standard serial IO cmds on your *ix or windoze boxen to programatically control your stuff
Also for the harware hacker, IR stuff is pretty easy to manage too. There are plenty of net schematics/sourcecode combo's for IR learner/sender stuff. Controls VCR,TV's,DVD's,STEREO's,PROJECTORS,VIDCONF CODECS and even some light dimmers.
If you are cashed up however, the only way to go is to put in a Panja Netlinx system. This little sucker is a Coldfire processor based computer thinger that has 6xRS232 ports, perhaps around 10 IR sender ports, 6 Relay outs, 100mbit netport, AXlink, and basically interfaces to just about anythink. All programmed in some nutty little C type language. Panja just also sponsered some sortsa opensource thing. Hoping it worked for em. Panja basically rock and as yeah, specialising in there stuff keeps me well employed for a living. Nifty that. Chuck in a coupla touchscreens, and invite geek lasses over for the ultimate "Gosh I'm kitted up" schmooze.
There is also crestron, which do a simmilar thing. I prefer Panja, but that's probably more familiarity more than anything

Anyway;- Hyperlinks
Big page of nifty home automation links.
Panja
Crestron
Your own pc(sorry)

infinet was then bought by large regional provider by the name of voyager in either early '99 or '00. as of late, the company has switched hands yet again, now owned by corecomm, which swallowed voyager whole.

through the process, my email account never changed... the tech support got better, since it moved from a 8am-4pm long-distance number to a 24/7 toll-free number.... and my shell still works. not only that, but our homepage space has grown from 5mb to 20mb, and we can have up to three email accounts per subscription.

the coolest thing, for me at least, is the ability to use my isp all over the state, because there is a local number all over ohio. whenever kent state's internet goes down (which happens much too frequently) i can plug my modem into the phone line and get on at 56k.

i can understand the arguement against consolidation and such... but for me, the situation has been a winning one. gradually better, and more accessable tech support, more email accounts, more local numbers, more web space, et cetera.

You know, if we conveniently place sensitive terminals next to "molecular digitizing lasers", maybe we can store intruders on a zip disk and upload them to the Game Grid.... for the dumber crackers, we might be able to fit them onto a floppy.




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Spindletop Blackbird, the GNU/Linux Cube.