You oppose speed limits? Do you also oppose laws against drunk driving?
Speeding and drunk driving both immensely increase the risk that an accident will occur. The problem is, this accident often includes other drivers who weren't speeding or driving drunk. Bad idea to get rid of speed limits.
Anyway, most libertarians are against government protection of the environment, and are against the military to a large extent too. It's hard to argue with libertarians, because every one of you has slightly or largely different beliefs.
you can't sue anyone if you get Debian Linux and it erases all your important customer data. Why? Because it's free
So if I send you an e-mail with a HD-erasing virus I wrote(but tell you it's something else, a Tetris game, say), and you run it, and it destroys thousands of dollars worth of work, I can't be held liable?
Yeah, what Falwell basically said was that God will protect the Earth from global warming.
Later on it got even better, with Falwell saying that the Clinton scandal had caused an increase of oral sex in middle-school kids. I was ROTFL with that one.
The Christian Right is absolutely insane, and the country must be too to let them have one ounce of power.
Katz writes that internet access is "vital" to their social, educational and usefullness to society. Put that way, it is a wonder that any of us managed to survive prior to 1992.
Mr. Jones writes that the ability to drive a car is "vital" to a person's usefullness to, and ability to interact with, society. Put that way, it is a wonder that any of use managed to survive 100 years ago, when no one owned cars.
Actually, the government couldn't say "keep religion out of schools" this way.
Keeping religion out of schools means that schools don't try to indoctrinate children. That means no prayer or moment of silence in the morning, no reading the Bible as the word of God, no creationism in science class.
However, I'm pretty sure that if they had internet filters preventing children from accessing Christian material specifically, it would be unconstitutional and overturned by the Supreme Court in a heartbeat.
there are a lot of Mac users out there who are very disappointed by Apple's current offerings who are hoping that by hook or by crook MacOS X will work on CHRP PPC machines. there are currently some very interesting PPC motherboard ideas floating around.
if MacOS X will run on CHRP, I think you're going to see a whole lot of cheap, powerful clones.
1) the cube doesn't have gigabit Ethernet. it has 100Mbit ethernet. the new PowerMac G4s are the only Apple products with gigabit ethernet 2) a lot of what you're paying for with the Cube is the case. also, you're paying for the convection cooled design. if you're just going to stick fans on it, why bother getting a cube?
no, along the same product line, the hardware generally doesn't change according to flavor.
the new iMacs are set so that the low-end($799) machines don't allow users to buy all the flavors, but that's missing the point. if someone with the $799 machine wants features of the "Snow" machine, they have to $1499 because the Snow machine has many more features. it has nothing to do with the color. at any given price point, there is no feature difference between flavors
although in actuality they probably shouldn't even be called flavors any more, as Sage, Indigo, Ruby, Graphite and Snow aren't generally things consumed by humans
he's mentioning that it's a beige G3, because Apple calls all their PowerMac products the same damn thing. in fall '97 they released:
PowerMac G3 and the PowerMac G3
then in January '99, they released the PowerMac G3
The first "PowerMac G3" was a beige color desktop machine.
the second was a beige colored minitower machine
the third was a Blue and white colored minitower
for that reason, when talking about their G3, they try to specify exactly what system they have(there was also a rev 1 and rev 2 of each, which Mac users sometimes mention).
the same is true for other product lines too. people who get the new G4s are calling them gigabit G4s, or MP G4s. people with different revisions of PowerBooks refer to their size or weight, or the color of their keyboard. iMac users generally tell you what revision they were, as we had Rev a, b, c, and d, and then iMac DV, etc.
it might work better if Apple named their machines with numbers like they used to, but for now, just understand that when I say I have a Blue G3/300, I'm not trying to boast about my pretty case
So I can start a warez server distributing Photoshop and CodeWarrior, and as long as I remove the copyrighted material if Adobe or Metrowerks asks me to, I'm legally in the clear?
What Zeldman said about this guy when interviewed by Slashdot:
"why have you committed one of the cardinal sins of web design"
I've been designing websites for five years. I don't claim to be a genius and I'm far from the best designer on the planet, but your take on cardinal sins of a profession you do not participate in is about as meaningful as my comments on your programming decisions would be.
You are parroting Jakob Nielsen or some other expert whose work you've read. You haven't read my work on the same subject (no problem) and you don't know my work as a designer (no problem). Just as in programming, design is about decisions. A designer never sins. He/she makes informed decisions. If you get to know the work, you may understand why those decisions were made. If you never bother to engage with the work - if you merely believe that all design must conform with a small set of rules written by one or two people - you don't understand the nature of the thing you are criticizing. Especially if you spend all of five seconds looking at it, and then rush to be the first to post a rant. There are rules of grammar, too, and James Joyce threw them all out. True, I ain't him. But I am me. All designers make decisions, and if the entire web looked like http://www.useit.com I don't think that would be such a great thing. Anything that departs from the look of http://www.useit.com is violating at least a few of Jakob's "rules," and that's the nature of the beast.
Following a new Jupiter report that shoplifters are more likely to purchase items from retail stores than non-theifs, the United States has decriminalized all forms of theft.
BTW, this is what an Apple legal threat would look like:
-----------
From cpyrt@apple.com Fri Jul 7 20:56:43 2000 Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 17:28:28 -0700 From: Copyright Admin. To: Ryan Meader Subject: NOTICE OF INFRINGEMENT
*Apple Confidential* -NOT FOR POSTING OR REDISTRIBUTION-
Dear Ryan,
Re: www.macosrumors.com
It has been brought to our attention that you have posted an article on the above web site titled, 'Apple's "Cube" desktop Mac confirmed' (hereafter referred to as "the Article").
By posting the Article, you are improperly disclosing Apple's trade secrets. Apple believes that the person(s) who disclosed the information in the Article to you violated their non-disclosure agreement with Apple. Consequently, Apple has never authorized the information to be disclosed or published and your continued display of the Article could result in your company being held for violating Apple's proprietary rights. Your continued dissemination and use of this information is in violation of Apple's statutory and other rights.
We believe, in good faith, that the information posted is being used in a manner that is not authorized by Apple and that the information contained in this email is accurate. Therefore, Apple demands that you cease and desist from disseminating the Article posted at the referenced URL immediately, including any hyperlinks to other locations where the information or Article may be available from all web sites and servers under your control.
Please immediately remove the Article and confirm in writing by Monday, July 10, 2000 that you have removed the Article from your web site. Apple reserves its right to seek immediate equitable and other relief, including damages claims, should you fail to remove this material.
Thank your for your courtesy and immediate cooperation. I can be reached at (408) 974-9994 should you have any questions.
Sincerely, Sue Runfola Apple Computer, Inc. Legal
Sue Runfola Apple Legal Copyright Administration 1 Infinite Loop, MS: 38-I Cupertino, CA 95014
THIS TRANSMISSION MAY BE PRIVILEGED AND MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION INTENDED ONLY FOR THE PERSON(S) NAMED ABOVE. ANY OTHER DISTRIBUTION, RE-TRANSMISSION, COPYING OR DISCLOSURE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS TRANSMISSION IN ERROR, PLEASE NOTIFY ME IMMEDIATELY BY TELEPHONE OR RETURN E-MAIL, AND DELETE THIS FILE/MESSAGE FROM YOUR SYSTEM.
OK, lets say we're at Microsoft, and we know there's this guy called Charlie Brown who, by himself, has invented an incredible new OS and processor. In two weeks, Brown is going to release this system for $300, and it will be 10x faster than a 1GHz Athlon. MS predicts that it will devestate their business, and make their stock price drop by 80% over the next year.
Is it ethical for Microsoft to kill Charlie Brown?
Well you don't go trying to find it on the web. No one puts warez there. IRC, some newsgroups, Hotline, and Carracho(for Mac) all have lots of warez freely and publicly distributed, sometimes with no strings attached(i.e. they don't make you do anything - click a banner, upload first, etc - to get it).
Anyway, some people try to do the same type of thing to warez, mainly by infecting it with a virus. It doesn't work well though, for the same reason this and other things that degrade the music(like ads) won't work well: for warez or MP3s to spread, you need more than one person distributing them. That means that the person who recieves the file usually tries it out(uses the program or plays the song), sees if it works/is high quality, and then sends it to other people.
I was very interested at reading Uncle Festers reductive alkylation using aluminum amalgam to make meth. This was quite a while back and since I have come across similar methods using sodium cyanoborohydride for the reduction but mainly for synthesizing MDA & MDMA. I am pretty sure I can work out the reaction conditions for myself but would not like to give it a go without someone with experience to advise me first. I'm not quite up to deducing my own procedure. So if anyone can e-mail me or post up some info on using sodium cyanoborohydride for synthesizing methamphetamine I'd be infinitely grateful.
It is interesting that you mention Uncle Fester as a preamble to discussing the use of sodium cyanoborohydride for the reductive amination in the synthesis of MDA & MDMA. Actually sodium cyanoborohydride is most useful for the synthesis of MDMA and methamphetamine, less so for MDA. However, Uncle Fester says that sodium cyanoborohydride gives him poor yields and he dismisses its usefulness. Uncle Fester is wrong on this count and on other points. Sodium cyanoborohydride reductive amination of phenylacetone or 3,4MDP2P can give up to 98% yield in very large batches with no side reactions. Alexander Shulgin in PiHKAL discusses the use of sodium cyanoborohydride reductive amination but only for very small batches. In fairness to both authors it should be said that Fester is a good read but is often wrong, whereas Shulgin is a difficult read but is often deficient. Uncle Fester presents the use of activated aluminium for reductive amination and so does Shulgin. Aluminium may be the best way to go, but since I have not yet had the opportunity to try it, I am not in a position to comment.
Let us start with theory. Why do reductive amination at all? Many poor thinkers advocate the bromination of safrole with hydrobromic acid followed by amination with methylamine. What could be simpler? What could be more stupid? Chemists have been synthesising various amphetamines for nearly one hundred years now using various sophisticated approaches and only now is the simplistic route being promoted. The problems these people fail to address are two fold. 1) Hydrobromination of saffrole is problematic. 2) The nucleophilic potential of an amine goes up with the degree of substitution. That means the reaction will not stop at the secondary amine MDMA but will aminate one or two more bromosafrole molecules to give a tertiary or quaternary amine and not the product you want.
Reductive amination using sodium cyanoborohydride address this issue properly. Sodium borohydride is more accessible than sodium cyanoborohydride, but it will reduce the ketone to the secondary alcohol and so it is not used. Sodium cyanoborohydride used at neutral pH has the property that it will reduce the imine (Schiff base) formed between the ketone and methylamine much much faster that the imine. It is a selective reducing agent of the first rank.
For research purposes the place to start for primary literature is the Merck Index. The entry for will lead you to the original literature which details the synthesis of sodium cyanoborohydride and also the typical procedures used in reductive amination or other selective reductions. Sodium cyanoborohydride can be made by reacting equimolar quantities of sodium borohydride and hydrogen cyanide in THF. One gram of hydrogen cyanide can kill one hundred men so do not attempt this unless you are a first rank chemist like me. The hydrogen cyanide is made following a procedure found in Organic Synthesis, Collective Edition. Work at the 50 -100 gram scale in a distillation apparatus with ground glass joints. Emil Fischer established the practice where you must smoke cigarettes while you do this work. Nicotine accentuates the taste of HCN to give you an early warning of danger. In the absence of a fumehood wear scuba gear when disassembling the glassware. Store the liquid HCN frozen in the freezer. Combine equimolar quantities of NaBH4 and HCN in THF and allow the reaction to go to completion with the evolution of H2. Remove the THF with a rotary evaporator. If you do not own a rotary evaporator go out and buy one right now. The NaCNBH3 you made fresh is better than any you can buy. If you don't mind the heat, go out and buy the NaCNBH3 instead.
More theory: the reductive amination of the ketone can lead to higher amines but this can be overcome with the use a five times molar excess of methylamine. That means that for this reaction you are going to want to make a large quantity of methylamine hydrochloride. 40% aqueous methylamine is easy to get and work with. Take equimolar quantities of 40% MeNH2 and concentrated HCl and make them as cold as you can in a deep freeze. Do the next part outdoors, clandestine and at night to avoid detection. Combine the two cold liquids quickly in a 1000 ml beaker. It will get real hot real quick and a lot of MeNH3CL smoke will be given off but you can put a cover on the beaker and the smoke will dissipate real quick so the neighbours will be unaware of what you did. Take the solution inside cool it and then remove all the water with your rotary evaporator to yield a good crop of white methylamine hydrochloride as a cake in your flask.
So now you are all set to do your reductive amination of your ketone. You start with either phenylacetone or with 3,4MDP2P. Organic Synthesis, Collective Edition describes to methods for making the phenylacetone. One involves the condensation of acetic anhydride with benzylcyanide using sodium ethoxide, the other, the tube furnace method from phenylacetic acid. Or you made the 3,4MDP2P from isosafrole, 30% H2O2 and formic acid following the "Japanese Method" detailed somewhere in Chemical Abstracts. You can also find more details of the methods by using DejaNews to wade through the last several years of this newsgroup.
More theory: sodium cyanoborohydride is a selective reducing agent and it evolves hydrogen at a slow rate in solution. So you do not want to want to react at reflux. Reductive amination with sodium cyanoborohydride is best done in methanol at room temperature. The reaction is mostly over in a day and a half and 98% yield can be achieved in three days of waiting. Starting with a given molar quantity of ketone use a 25-50% molar excess of NaCNBH3 based on moles of hydrogen and a five times molar quantity of MeNH3CL in sufficient methanol to bring everything into solution. The beauty of this reaction is that you do not need expensive glassware of fixed capacity. You can work at humungous scale using even a plastic garbage can.
After three days neutralize any unreacted NaCNBH3 using a calculated quantity of dilute HCl or acetic acid. Remove all of the methanol using your rotary evaporator. Then dissolve all of the cake in H2O. Add sufficient 5 N NaOH to cause the desired amine product to separate as a slightly brown layer floating on top of the aqueous layer. Here is where the work up can be slightly different depending on whether the product is methamphetamine or MDMA. The meth cook will sample the meth and continue his work in an energized manner for many more hours or days. Good meth cooks tend to be fastidious about the quality of the meth he makes and does. It is possible to just separate the top layer using a separatory funnel and to carry on. A better approach is to steam distill the amine out of the pot. The water in the aqueous layer is sufficient. The steam distillate is collected. Separation is enhanced by the addition of just sufficient 5 N NaOH. The floating amine layer is now clear. The top layer is removed with a separatory funnel an the bottom layer is washed a couple of times with a small quantity of ethyl ether which is combined with the top layer. You now have liquid meth with a small quantity of ether, a little dissolved water and perhaps some MeNH2 or unreacted ketone as a water white oily liquid. It is traditional to dry this over anhydrous NaSO4 or equivalent. Now set up your vacuum distillation apparatus with a water aspirator vacuum pump. If you do not own a distillation apparatus with ground glass joints go out and buy one right now. Depending on your vacuum the product will distill at 130 C or so and the liquid MDMA somewhat higher.
With the pure liquid meth it is now time to create the hydrochloride. Many people think it is possible to create crystal meth using gaseous hydrogen chloride. I have never seen this to be true. What is obtained instead is an amorphous product. Why bother. Instead use your HCL gas generator to produce a quantity of anhydrous methanolic HCL in the case of MDMA or you can use aqueous HCL for meth. Combine equimolar quantities of HCl solution and amine product in methanol to neutrality. Use your rotary evaporator to remove solvent to yield a white cake in your flask. This is crude though pure methamphetamine HCl or MDMA HCL.
It is now time to recrystallize your immensely valuable product. Dissolve the cake in the minimum quantity of hot isopropyl alcohol. Cool the IPA solution in the fridge. Crystallization may begin. Layer the solution on top with an equal quantity of anhydrous diethyl ether and put beaker into freezer overnight. I am told it is also possible to use methanol and MEK as solvent pairs. Overnight the ether layer will be seen to diffuse into the IPA and a massive crystallization has occurred. Stir if necessary. Some crystals will be needles upto one mm in length. You are laughing. Separate solvent from filter mass using a buchner filter and vacuum. Air dry for a while and then remove residual using a vacuum desiccator. You have a world class crystalline product. You have money in the bank.
I heard Lars say that every time a person downloads a Metallica song, it's lost revenue for them. That is just an outright lie.
First off, many of the people downloading a song start multiple downloads(to find a good connection), and some might have a previous copy, and are just trying to get a higher quality version. Also, since an album includes say 15 songs, you can't claim that each downloaded song represents one lost sale.
But most importantly, this whole notion rests on the assumption that if not for Napster, people would be buying the songs. That's not true. Many people could just switch back to FTP sites if Napster was gone, but even those who didn't would be unlikely to spend their money on the music. I download tons of music from Napster, but before that I'd only ever bought one CD. I didn't think buying a CD was worth it, so I never did. If I couldn't get the songs off the net, I just wouldn't listen to them at all.
I'd like to see the music industry put out some real proof of it's claims of lost revenue. I see nothing of the sort: they're revenue has actually been going up recently.
Slashdot had a story on that Arthur C. Clarke thing where he talked about the future(I don't have a link handy), and he mentioned the same thing(and gave the same cost, IIRC, $.40/kg)
He advocated using Buckytubes. BTW, his book, 3001, depicts something very similar. He calls it a "Space Elevator".
For most people, the main or the only reason to work is to make money. You make money to be able to buy food, clothes, and leisure items, for yourself and your family.
But what's the point of having money foe leisure if you have no time to spend it. I think 40 hours a week is pushing it. People who work 70 hrs+ are nuts. Spend time with family, friends, or just by yourself doing whatever you like to do. I have a feeling most people on Slashdot are already earning plenty of money. Is it really a good tradeoff use more of your time making money, and having less time to do anything enjoyable with your life?
the stuff about the legal threat has been snipped ---------- Saturday, July 8
PowerMac "Cube" Update
As soon as our "Apple's 'Cube' Desktop Mac Confirmed" article (see below) was published yesterday, [snipped legal threat info]
Without further ado, the latest details culled from the past day's reports:
Several sources with long and distinguished track records now concur that this design is indeed the planned enclosure for "Mystic," the multiprocessor PowerMac G4 based on the UMA-2 motherboard chipset. The unconfirmed codename for the Cube enclosure is "Rubicon." Accurate measurements of the exact size of the Cube are still not available. However, thanks to a much clearer side-by-side comparison of the Cube and an iMac, a reasonable estimate would be 12 inches to a side -- slightly smaller than the front face of an iMac with its Elevator down. Although easy to overlook on first glance, the "front" side does contain a standard DVD-ROM drive. The outer door is a tremendous improvement over the hackish solution used in the last two generations of translucent Minitower PowerMacs; instead of swinging down and out of the way on a hinge, it moves directly in and out as part of a one-piece media tray. The bottom of the Cube is rubberized, removing the need for "feet" while keeping the machine firmly in place. When opened via a small latch on the side, the Cube is lit from within to allow easy viewing of the internals in low light. To allow for easy portage without disturbing the Cube's serene lines, handles are stowed in unobtrusive slots on the same side as the Ports pane. Beyond the internal DVD drive, there are no provisions for additional internal removable drives; Apple apparently plans to rely on the external USB and Firewire busses for these. ----------
Solipsism is defined as the theory that the self is the only reality. There is no word for solipsism when it's no longer just a theory. I'd ask one of you to invent one, but since I'm the only non-imaginary resident of the universe, I suppose I'll have to do it myself. I've always suspected nobody else was real. If even a few of you were real, I'd have some feelings for at least one of you, wouldn't I? Sympathy, empathy, some damn thing. And to those of you I've invented for the sole purpose of telling me that I do have those feelings but just don't recognize them: I know sympathy - I feel sorry for myself a lot. I'll often shoot myself off a few sympathy e-cards - sometimes as many as thirty in one day. This one is my favorite because the chinese symbol probably means something like "eat shit" and that makes me feel even worse, which gives me more reason to pass the time - what I now realize is most likely an eternity - by writing myself a few more sympathy e-cards.
What finally convinced me that my suspicions about the nature of reality are true? Everything that I wish for happens. I wanted Lord British to pay for Ultima IX, and he did. I wanted Daikatana to stink, and it does. I wanted Paul Steed to crash his private plane into the woods where it would flip over and he'd become stuck upside down, wedged in the cockpit window he'd partially smashed through. He wouldn't die, but would just hang there as all the fluids and organs in his body slowly settled into the space between his scalp and skull. After a few weeks, his head would look like an over-inflated water balloon out of which his withered body was sticking straight up - like a tootsie-pop. Everyone would wonder "what happened to Paul Steed?" A few people would look for him, but it would be The Mushroom's Kevin Murphy who'd actually find him. Paul Steed would see Murphy approaching and would try to say "Dude, don't touch my head!" But his mouth would be so dry that he'd barely be able to speak. "Dooooooooooooooooo" is all he'd manage to croak before Murphy gingerly pressed an index finger against the swollen head, popped it, and drowned beneath a tidal wave of Steed's rancid fluids.
That didn't happen. But only because I later ammended the wish to be that my dreaded arch-enemy Steed would be put somewhere where he'd pose no threat to my favorite make-believe person, Adrian Carmack, and that Murphy would quit The Mushroom to work somewhere even worse, like Gamepro. As you know, Steed was fired. What you might not have heard is that the dust hadn't even resettled on the places where Steed's trophies and Corvette pictures had been before Kevin Murphy announced his retirement. Am I God or what? What will I do next? How does "Game developer Jason Hall exiled to moon" strike you? Not that it matters.
I also wanted a new Doom. It should come as no surprise at this point that I got it. It's called Serious Sam and it's being developed by a group in Croatia. The amazingly fun demo - which I guess in Croatian is called an Alpha Test - is available on Croteam's home page. I'd kind of forgotten what it's like to have pure, adrenaline pumping fun while playing a game. Mike Wilson should postpone his public search for Steed and instead make sure Croteam gets into the U.S. before one of those talented kids steps on a landmine.
Open Letter To Game Developers
Hello gaming friends! What a week we've had! Many of you have written to ask us how we feel about Daikatana, the apparent internal strife at id, the closing of Looking Glass Studios, and the rather matter-of-fact shitcanning of Paul Steed. Where to start?
As far as problems inside id go, we'd just like to state for the record that we're firmly on whichever side of the issue Adrian Carmack is on. We'd hate to think that he may eventually get around to firing someone we do care about, such as himself, Adrian Carmack.
Speaking of which, we derive no pleasure from Paul Steed's loss of a job. Yes, he was my arch-nemesis. He was the Salieri to my Falco, the great Satan to my every major world religion, and the alleged Jon Benet Ramsey's parents to my Jon Benet Ramsey. But unlike millionaire slash billionaire Lord British, Steed was also a working man just trying to get by on this mixed up planet I'm forced to call Chetland. Like chubby John Goodman, he was made entirely of ham. He was attuned to the everyday desires of the common people, also like chubby John Goodman. It could be said that he was the chubby John Goodman of the gaming industry - a fat, foul-mouthed everyman who posed no real threat to anyone or anything other than the world's supply of pies. Godspeed, Paul Steed. You were a worthy adversary and a truly ginormous tub-o-lard.
As you've probably already heard or discovered for yourself, Daikatana is bad but not bad enough to warrant much clever outrage. It's both uninspired and uninspiring. The depressing fact is that the release of Daikatana and the firing of Steed have resulted in the unfortunate closing of two of gaming's most entertaining loudmouths. And with Looking Glass gone, we can't look forward to creating some controversy by badmouthing their next boring game designed for fancypants who consider themselves too good for regular fun.
This leaves us in something of a pickle. Without a worthy foe, I'm going to have to start cranking out more episodes of the Slugger. And by Christ I'll do it, too. What I'm saying is that one of you developers better get on the stick - the joystick! - and start making some stupid pronouncements regarding your upcoming stupid game. We really don't care which one of you it is. But in an attempt to focus our lobbying efforts, we'd like to officially request that 3D-Realms George Broussard open his big yap and take one for the team. The team being us and you, our dear readers. Both Duke Nuke'm and Max Payne are hugely delayed and have dumb names. So you've got a lot of material there, Mr. George Broussard. Now get to work!
Slashdot Mirror
You oppose speed limits? Do you also oppose laws against drunk driving?
Speeding and drunk driving both immensely increase the risk that an accident will occur. The problem is, this accident often includes other drivers who weren't speeding or driving drunk. Bad idea to get rid of speed limits.
Anyway, most libertarians are against government protection of the environment, and are against the military to a large extent too. It's hard to argue with libertarians, because every one of you has slightly or largely different beliefs.
if Gore vs. Bush is a choice you don't want to make, sign this petition to get Nader and Buchanan(and maybe Browne, too) into the debates:
c gi
http://green.votenader.org/cgi-bin/petition-sigs.
The CPD is evil.
you can't sue anyone if you get Debian Linux and it erases all your important customer data. Why? Because it's free
So if I send you an e-mail with a HD-erasing virus I wrote(but tell you it's something else, a Tetris game, say), and you run it, and it destroys thousands of dollars worth of work, I can't be held liable?
Yeah, what Falwell basically said was that God will protect the Earth from global warming.
Later on it got even better, with Falwell saying that the Clinton scandal had caused an increase of oral sex in middle-school kids. I was ROTFL with that one.
The Christian Right is absolutely insane, and the country must be too to let them have one ounce of power.
Katz writes that internet access is "vital" to their social, educational and usefullness to society. Put that way, it is a wonder that any of us managed to survive prior to 1992.
Mr. Jones writes that the ability to drive a car is "vital" to a person's usefullness to, and ability to interact with, society. Put that way, it is a wonder that any of use managed to survive 100 years ago, when no one owned cars.
See? Your logic sucks.
Actually, the government couldn't say "keep religion out of schools" this way.
Keeping religion out of schools means that schools don't try to indoctrinate children. That means no prayer or moment of silence in the morning, no reading the Bible as the word of God, no creationism in science class.
However, I'm pretty sure that if they had internet filters preventing children from accessing Christian material specifically, it would be unconstitutional and overturned by the Supreme Court in a heartbeat.
www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
there are a lot of Mac users out there who are very disappointed by Apple's current offerings who are hoping that by hook or by crook MacOS X will work on CHRP PPC machines. there are currently some very interesting PPC motherboard ideas floating around.
if MacOS X will run on CHRP, I think you're going to see a whole lot of cheap, powerful clones.
1) the cube doesn't have gigabit Ethernet. it has 100Mbit ethernet. the new PowerMac G4s are the only Apple products with gigabit ethernet
2) a lot of what you're paying for with the Cube is the case. also, you're paying for the convection cooled design. if you're just going to stick fans on it, why bother getting a cube?
no, along the same product line, the hardware generally doesn't change according to flavor.
the new iMacs are set so that the low-end($799) machines don't allow users to buy all the flavors, but that's missing the point. if someone with the $799 machine wants features of the "Snow" machine, they have to $1499 because the Snow machine has many more features. it has nothing to do with the color. at any given price point, there is no feature difference between flavors
although in actuality they probably shouldn't even be called flavors any more, as Sage, Indigo, Ruby, Graphite and Snow aren't generally things consumed by humans
he's mentioning that it's a beige G3, because Apple calls all their PowerMac products the same damn thing. in fall '97 they released:
PowerMac G3 and the
PowerMac G3
then in January '99, they released the
PowerMac G3
The first "PowerMac G3" was a beige color desktop machine.
the second was a beige colored minitower machine
the third was a Blue and white colored minitower
for that reason, when talking about their G3, they try to specify exactly what system they have(there was also a rev 1 and rev 2 of each, which Mac users sometimes mention).
the same is true for other product lines too. people who get the new G4s are calling them gigabit G4s, or MP G4s. people with different revisions of PowerBooks refer to their size or weight, or the color of their keyboard. iMac users generally tell you what revision they were, as we had Rev a, b, c, and d, and then iMac DV, etc.
it might work better if Apple named their machines with numbers like they used to, but for now, just understand that when I say I have a Blue G3/300, I'm not trying to boast about my pretty case
So I can start a warez server distributing Photoshop and CodeWarrior, and as long as I remove the copyrighted material if Adobe or Metrowerks asks me to, I'm legally in the clear?
ha... too bad kuro5hin is gone
Yeah, that really sucks. I hope they get the fucker who was spamming them and put the site back up.
What Zeldman said about this guy when interviewed by Slashdot:
"why have you committed one of the cardinal sins of web design"
I've been designing websites for five years. I don't claim to be a genius and I'm far from the best designer on the planet, but your take on cardinal sins of a profession you do not participate in is about as meaningful as my comments on your programming decisions would be.
You are parroting Jakob Nielsen or some other expert whose work you've read. You haven't read my work on the same subject (no problem) and you don't know my work as a designer (no problem). Just as in programming, design is about decisions. A designer never sins. He/she makes informed decisions. If you get to know the work, you may understand why those decisions were made. If you never bother to engage with the work - if you merely believe that all design must conform with a small set of rules written by one or two people - you don't understand the nature of the thing you are criticizing. Especially if you spend all of five seconds looking at it, and then rush to be the first to post a rant. There are rules of grammar, too, and James Joyce threw them all out. True, I ain't him. But I am me. All designers make decisions, and if the entire web looked like http://www.useit.com I don't think that would be such a great thing. Anything that departs from the look of http://www.useit.com is violating at least a few of Jakob's "rules," and that's the nature of the beast.
Theft declared legal:
Following a new Jupiter report that shoplifters are more likely to purchase items from retail stores than non-theifs, the United States has decriminalized all forms of theft.
Therefore, I've posted my own copy here: http://home.rochester.rr.com/crayz/
BTW, this is what an Apple legal threat would look like:
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From cpyrt@apple.com Fri Jul 7 20:56:43 2000
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 17:28:28 -0700
From: Copyright Admin.
To: Ryan Meader
Subject: NOTICE OF INFRINGEMENT
*Apple Confidential*
-NOT FOR POSTING OR REDISTRIBUTION-
Dear Ryan,
Re: www.macosrumors.com
It has been brought to our attention that you have posted an article on the above web site titled, 'Apple's "Cube" desktop Mac confirmed' (hereafter referred to as "the Article").
By posting the Article, you are improperly disclosing Apple's trade secrets. Apple believes that the person(s) who disclosed the information in the Article to you violated their non-disclosure agreement with Apple. Consequently, Apple has never authorized the information to be disclosed or published and your continued display of the Article could result in your company being held for violating Apple's proprietary rights. Your continued dissemination and use of this information is in violation of Apple's statutory and other rights.
We believe, in good faith, that the information posted is being used in a manner that is not authorized by Apple and that the information contained in this email is accurate. Therefore, Apple demands that you cease and desist from disseminating the Article posted at the referenced URL immediately, including any hyperlinks to other locations where the information or Article may be available from all web sites and servers under your control.
Please immediately remove the Article and confirm in writing by Monday, July 10, 2000 that you have removed the Article from your web site. Apple reserves its right to seek immediate equitable and other relief, including damages claims, should you fail to remove this material.
Thank your for your courtesy and immediate cooperation. I can be reached at (408) 974-9994 should you have any questions.
Sincerely, Sue Runfola Apple Computer, Inc. Legal
Sue Runfola Apple Legal Copyright Administration 1 Infinite Loop, MS: 38-I Cupertino, CA 95014
Phone: (408) 974-9994 Email: copyright@apple.com Fax: (408) 974-5436
THIS TRANSMISSION MAY BE PRIVILEGED AND MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION INTENDED ONLY FOR THE PERSON(S) NAMED ABOVE. ANY OTHER DISTRIBUTION, RE-TRANSMISSION, COPYING OR DISCLOSURE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS TRANSMISSION IN ERROR, PLEASE NOTIFY ME IMMEDIATELY BY TELEPHONE OR RETURN E-MAIL, AND DELETE THIS FILE/MESSAGE FROM YOUR SYSTEM.
OK, lets say we're at Microsoft, and we know there's this guy called Charlie Brown who, by himself, has invented an incredible new OS and processor. In two weeks, Brown is going to release this system for $300, and it will be 10x faster than a 1GHz Athlon. MS predicts that it will devestate their business, and make their stock price drop by 80% over the next year.
Is it ethical for Microsoft to kill Charlie Brown?
Well you don't go trying to find it on the web. No one puts warez there. IRC, some newsgroups, Hotline, and Carracho(for Mac) all have lots of warez freely and publicly distributed, sometimes with no strings attached(i.e. they don't make you do anything - click a banner, upload first, etc - to get it).
Anyway, some people try to do the same type of thing to warez, mainly by infecting it with a virus. It doesn't work well though, for the same reason this and other things that degrade the music(like ads) won't work well: for warez or MP3s to spread, you need more than one person distributing them. That means that the person who recieves the file usually tries it out(uses the program or plays the song), sees if it works/is high quality, and then sends it to other people.
For that reason, this isn't going to work.
How to Make MDMA
I was very interested at reading Uncle Festers reductive alkylation using aluminum amalgam to make meth. This was quite a while back and since I have come across similar methods using sodium cyanoborohydride for the reduction but mainly for synthesizing MDA & MDMA. I am pretty sure I can work out the reaction conditions for myself but would not like to give it a go without someone with experience to advise me first. I'm not quite up to deducing my own procedure. So if anyone can e-mail me or post up some info on using sodium cyanoborohydride for synthesizing methamphetamine I'd be infinitely grateful.
It is interesting that you mention Uncle Fester as a preamble to discussing the use of sodium cyanoborohydride for the reductive amination in the synthesis of MDA & MDMA. Actually sodium cyanoborohydride is most useful for the synthesis of MDMA and methamphetamine, less so for MDA. However, Uncle Fester says that sodium cyanoborohydride gives him poor yields and he dismisses its usefulness. Uncle Fester is wrong on this count and on other points. Sodium cyanoborohydride reductive amination of phenylacetone or 3,4MDP2P can give up to 98% yield in very large batches with no side reactions. Alexander Shulgin in PiHKAL discusses the use of sodium cyanoborohydride reductive amination but only for very small batches. In fairness to both authors it should be said that Fester is a good read but is often wrong, whereas Shulgin is a difficult read but is often deficient. Uncle Fester presents the use of activated aluminium for reductive amination and so does Shulgin. Aluminium may be the best way to go, but since I have not yet had the opportunity to try it, I am not in a position to comment.
Let us start with theory. Why do reductive amination at all? Many poor thinkers advocate the bromination of safrole with hydrobromic acid followed by amination with methylamine. What could be simpler? What could be more stupid? Chemists have been synthesising various amphetamines for nearly one hundred years now using various sophisticated approaches and only now is the simplistic route being promoted. The problems these people fail to address are two fold. 1) Hydrobromination of saffrole is problematic. 2) The nucleophilic potential of an amine goes up with the degree of substitution. That means the reaction will not stop at the secondary amine MDMA but will aminate one or two more bromosafrole molecules to give a tertiary or quaternary amine and not the product you want.
Reductive amination using sodium cyanoborohydride address this issue properly. Sodium borohydride is more accessible than sodium cyanoborohydride, but it will reduce the ketone to the secondary alcohol and so it is not used. Sodium cyanoborohydride used at neutral pH has the property that it will reduce the imine (Schiff base) formed between the ketone and methylamine much much faster that the imine. It is a selective reducing agent of the first rank.
For research purposes the place to start for primary literature is the Merck Index. The entry for will lead you to the original literature which details the synthesis of sodium cyanoborohydride and also the typical procedures used in reductive amination or other selective reductions. Sodium cyanoborohydride can be made by reacting equimolar quantities of sodium borohydride and hydrogen cyanide in THF. One gram of hydrogen cyanide can kill one hundred men so do not attempt this unless you are a first rank chemist like me. The hydrogen cyanide is made following a procedure found in Organic Synthesis, Collective Edition. Work at the 50 -100 gram scale in a distillation apparatus with ground glass joints. Emil Fischer established the practice where you must smoke cigarettes while you do this work. Nicotine accentuates the taste of HCN to give you an early warning of danger. In the absence of a fumehood wear scuba gear when disassembling the glassware. Store the liquid HCN frozen in the freezer. Combine equimolar quantities of NaBH4 and HCN in THF and allow the reaction to go to completion with the evolution of H2. Remove the THF with a rotary evaporator. If you do not own a rotary evaporator go out and buy one right now. The NaCNBH3 you made fresh is better than any you can buy. If you don't mind the heat, go out and buy the NaCNBH3 instead.
More theory: the reductive amination of the ketone can lead to higher amines but this can be overcome with the use a five times molar excess of methylamine. That means that for this reaction you are going to want to make a large quantity of methylamine hydrochloride. 40% aqueous methylamine is easy to get and work with. Take equimolar quantities of 40% MeNH2 and concentrated HCl and make them as cold as you can in a deep freeze. Do the next part outdoors, clandestine and at night to avoid detection. Combine the two cold liquids quickly in a 1000 ml beaker. It will get real hot real quick and a lot of MeNH3CL smoke will be given off but you can put a cover on the beaker and the smoke will dissipate real quick so the neighbours will be unaware of what you did. Take the solution inside cool it and then remove all the water with your rotary evaporator to yield a good crop of white methylamine hydrochloride as a cake in your flask.
So now you are all set to do your reductive amination of your ketone. You start with either phenylacetone or with 3,4MDP2P. Organic Synthesis, Collective Edition describes to methods for making the phenylacetone. One involves the condensation of acetic anhydride with benzylcyanide using sodium ethoxide, the other, the tube furnace method from phenylacetic acid. Or you made the 3,4MDP2P from isosafrole, 30% H2O2 and formic acid following the "Japanese Method" detailed somewhere in Chemical Abstracts. You can also find more details of the methods by using DejaNews to wade through the last several years of this newsgroup.
More theory: sodium cyanoborohydride is a selective reducing agent and it evolves hydrogen at a slow rate in solution. So you do not want to want to react at reflux. Reductive amination with sodium cyanoborohydride is best done in methanol at room temperature. The reaction is mostly over in a day and a half and 98% yield can be achieved in three days of waiting. Starting with a given molar quantity of ketone use a 25-50% molar excess of NaCNBH3 based on moles of hydrogen and a five times molar quantity of MeNH3CL in sufficient methanol to bring everything into solution. The beauty of this reaction is that you do not need expensive glassware of fixed capacity. You can work at humungous scale using even a plastic garbage can.
After three days neutralize any unreacted NaCNBH3 using a calculated quantity of dilute HCl or acetic acid. Remove all of the methanol using your rotary evaporator. Then dissolve all of the cake in H2O. Add sufficient 5 N NaOH to cause the desired amine product to separate as a slightly brown layer floating on top of the aqueous layer. Here is where the work up can be slightly different depending on whether the product is methamphetamine or MDMA. The meth cook will sample the meth and continue his work in an energized manner for many more hours or days. Good meth cooks tend to be fastidious about the quality of the meth he makes and does. It is possible to just separate the top layer using a separatory funnel and to carry on. A better approach is to steam distill the amine out of the pot. The water in the aqueous layer is sufficient. The steam distillate is collected. Separation is enhanced by the addition of just sufficient 5 N NaOH. The floating amine layer is now clear. The top layer is removed with a separatory funnel an the bottom layer is washed a couple of times with a small quantity of ethyl ether which is combined with the top layer. You now have liquid meth with a small quantity of ether, a little dissolved water and perhaps some MeNH2 or unreacted ketone as a water white oily liquid. It is traditional to dry this over anhydrous NaSO4 or equivalent. Now set up your vacuum distillation apparatus with a water aspirator vacuum pump. If you do not own a distillation apparatus with ground glass joints go out and buy one right now. Depending on your vacuum the product will distill at 130 C or so and the liquid MDMA somewhat higher.
With the pure liquid meth it is now time to create the hydrochloride. Many people think it is possible to create crystal meth using gaseous hydrogen chloride. I have never seen this to be true. What is obtained instead is an amorphous product. Why bother. Instead use your HCL gas generator to produce a quantity of anhydrous methanolic HCL in the case of MDMA or you can use aqueous HCL for meth. Combine equimolar quantities of HCl solution and amine product in methanol to neutrality. Use your rotary evaporator to remove solvent to yield a white cake in your flask. This is crude though pure methamphetamine HCl or MDMA HCL.
It is now time to recrystallize your immensely valuable product. Dissolve the cake in the minimum quantity of hot isopropyl alcohol. Cool the IPA solution in the fridge. Crystallization may begin. Layer the solution on top with an equal quantity of anhydrous diethyl ether and put beaker into freezer overnight. I am told it is also possible to use methanol and MEK as solvent pairs. Overnight the ether layer will be seen to diffuse into the IPA and a massive crystallization has occurred. Stir if necessary. Some crystals will be needles upto one mm in length. You are laughing. Separate solvent from filter mass using a buchner filter and vacuum. Air dry for a while and then remove residual using a vacuum desiccator. You have a world class crystalline product. You have money in the bank.
I heard Lars say that every time a person downloads a Metallica song, it's lost revenue for them. That is just an outright lie.
First off, many of the people downloading a song start multiple downloads(to find a good connection), and some might have a previous copy, and are just trying to get a higher quality version. Also, since an album includes say 15 songs, you can't claim that each downloaded song represents one lost sale.
But most importantly, this whole notion rests on the assumption that if not for Napster, people would be buying the songs. That's not true. Many people could just switch back to FTP sites if Napster was gone, but even those who didn't would be unlikely to spend their money on the music. I download tons of music from Napster, but before that I'd only ever bought one CD. I didn't think buying a CD was worth it, so I never did. If I couldn't get the songs off the net, I just wouldn't listen to them at all.
I'd like to see the music industry put out some real proof of it's claims of lost revenue. I see nothing of the sort: they're revenue has actually been going up recently.
Slashdot had a story on that Arthur C. Clarke thing where he talked about the future(I don't have a link handy), and he mentioned the same thing(and gave the same cost, IIRC, $.40/kg)
He advocated using Buckytubes. BTW, his book, 3001, depicts something very similar. He calls it a "Space Elevator".
For most people, the main or the only reason to work is to make money. You make money to be able to buy food, clothes, and leisure items, for yourself and your family.
But what's the point of having money foe leisure if you have no time to spend it. I think 40 hours a week is pushing it. People who work 70 hrs+ are nuts. Spend time with family, friends, or just by yourself doing whatever you like to do. I have a feeling most people on Slashdot are already earning plenty of money. Is it really a good tradeoff use more of your time making money, and having less time to do anything enjoyable with your life?
the stuff about the legal threat has been snipped
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Saturday, July 8
PowerMac "Cube" Update
As soon as our "Apple's 'Cube' Desktop Mac Confirmed" article (see below) was published yesterday, [snipped legal threat info]
Without further ado, the latest details culled from the past day's reports:
Several sources with long and distinguished track records now concur that this design is indeed the planned enclosure for "Mystic," the multiprocessor PowerMac G4 based on the UMA-2 motherboard chipset. The unconfirmed codename for the Cube enclosure is "Rubicon." Accurate measurements of the exact size of the Cube are still not available. However, thanks to a much clearer side-by-side comparison of the Cube and an iMac, a reasonable estimate would be 12 inches to a side -- slightly smaller than the front face of an iMac with its Elevator down. Although easy to overlook on first glance, the "front" side does contain a standard DVD-ROM drive. The outer door is a tremendous improvement over the hackish solution used in the last two generations of translucent Minitower PowerMacs; instead of swinging down and out of the way on a hinge, it moves directly in and out as part of a one-piece media tray. The bottom of the Cube is rubberized, removing the need for "feet" while keeping the machine firmly in place. When opened via a small latch on the side, the Cube is lit from within to allow easy viewing of the internals in low light. To allow for easy portage without disturbing the Cube's serene lines, handles are stowed in unobtrusive slots on the same side as the Ports pane. Beyond the internal DVD drive, there are no provisions for additional internal removable drives; Apple apparently plans to rely on the external USB and Firewire busses for these.
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Here's two things they posted about Steed:
Seriously, What The Fuck Is Going On?
Solipsism is defined as the theory that the self is the only reality. There is no word for solipsism when it's no longer just a theory. I'd ask one of you to invent one, but since I'm the only non-imaginary resident of the universe, I suppose I'll have to do it myself. I've always suspected nobody else was real. If even a few of you were real, I'd have some feelings for at least one of you, wouldn't I? Sympathy, empathy, some damn thing. And to those of you I've invented for the sole purpose of telling me that I do have those feelings but just don't recognize them: I know sympathy - I feel sorry for myself a lot. I'll often shoot myself off a few sympathy e-cards - sometimes as many as thirty in one day. This one is my favorite because the chinese symbol probably means something like "eat shit" and that makes me feel even worse, which gives me more reason to pass the time - what I now realize is most likely an eternity - by writing myself a few more sympathy e-cards.
What finally convinced me that my suspicions about the nature of reality are true? Everything that I wish for happens. I wanted Lord British to pay for Ultima IX, and he did. I wanted Daikatana to stink, and it does. I wanted Paul Steed to crash his private plane into the woods where it would flip over and he'd become stuck upside down, wedged in the cockpit window he'd partially smashed through. He wouldn't die, but would just hang there as all the fluids and organs in his body slowly settled into the space between his scalp and skull. After a few weeks, his head would look like an over-inflated water balloon out of which his withered body was sticking straight up - like a tootsie-pop. Everyone would wonder "what happened to Paul Steed?" A few people would look for him, but it would be The Mushroom's Kevin Murphy who'd actually find him. Paul Steed would see Murphy approaching and would try to say "Dude, don't touch my head!" But his mouth would be so dry that he'd barely be able to speak. "Dooooooooooooooooo" is all he'd manage to croak before Murphy gingerly pressed an index finger against the swollen head, popped it, and drowned beneath a tidal wave of Steed's rancid fluids.
That didn't happen. But only because I later ammended the wish to be that my dreaded arch-enemy Steed would be put somewhere where he'd pose no threat to my favorite make-believe person, Adrian Carmack, and that Murphy would quit The Mushroom to work somewhere even worse, like Gamepro. As you know, Steed was fired. What you might not have heard is that the dust hadn't even resettled on the places where Steed's trophies and Corvette pictures had been before Kevin Murphy announced his retirement. Am I God or what? What will I do next? How does "Game developer Jason Hall exiled to moon" strike you? Not that it matters.
I also wanted a new Doom. It should come as no surprise at this point that I got it. It's called Serious Sam and it's being developed by a group in Croatia. The amazingly fun demo - which I guess in Croatian is called an Alpha Test - is available on Croteam's home page. I'd kind of forgotten what it's like to have pure, adrenaline pumping fun while playing a game. Mike Wilson should postpone his public search for Steed and instead make sure Croteam gets into the U.S. before one of those talented kids steps on a landmine.
Open Letter To Game Developers
Hello gaming friends! What a week we've had! Many of you have written to ask us how we feel about Daikatana, the apparent internal strife at id, the closing of Looking Glass Studios, and the rather matter-of-fact shitcanning of Paul Steed. Where to start?
As far as problems inside id go, we'd just like to state for the record that we're firmly on whichever side of the issue Adrian Carmack is on. We'd hate to think that he may eventually get around to firing someone we do care about, such as himself, Adrian Carmack.
Speaking of which, we derive no pleasure from Paul Steed's loss of a job. Yes, he was my arch-nemesis. He was the Salieri to my Falco, the great Satan to my every major world religion, and the alleged Jon Benet Ramsey's parents to my Jon Benet Ramsey. But unlike millionaire slash billionaire Lord British, Steed was also a working man just trying to get by on this mixed up planet I'm forced to call Chetland. Like chubby John Goodman, he was made entirely of ham. He was attuned to the everyday desires of the common people, also like chubby John Goodman. It could be said that he was the chubby John Goodman of the gaming industry - a fat, foul-mouthed everyman who posed no real threat to anyone or anything other than the world's supply of pies. Godspeed, Paul Steed. You were a worthy adversary and a truly ginormous tub-o-lard.
As you've probably already heard or discovered for yourself, Daikatana is bad but not bad enough to warrant much clever outrage. It's both uninspired and uninspiring. The depressing fact is that the release of Daikatana and the firing of Steed have resulted in the unfortunate closing of two of gaming's most entertaining loudmouths. And with Looking Glass gone, we can't look forward to creating some controversy by badmouthing their next boring game designed for fancypants who consider themselves too good for regular fun.
This leaves us in something of a pickle. Without a worthy foe, I'm going to have to start cranking out more episodes of the Slugger. And by Christ I'll do it, too. What I'm saying is that one of you developers better get on the stick - the joystick! - and start making some stupid pronouncements regarding your upcoming stupid game. We really don't care which one of you it is. But in an attempt to focus our lobbying efforts, we'd like to officially request that 3D-Realms George Broussard open his big yap and take one for the team. The team being us and you, our dear readers. Both Duke Nuke'm and Max Payne are hugely delayed and have dumb names. So you've got a lot of material there, Mr. George Broussard. Now get to work!
I have the text files for all five books in the HitchHiker's "trilogy". Total size: 1.13 megs.
So I expect I could get a lot more than 200,000 pages of text onto a 1 gig HD.