For an extra $50,000, I'll type your new name into Google, and advise you of how many hits come back. If there are fewer than 50 hits, I'll research them and check to make sure that it's nothing anybody would care about.
Just by typing random names based on those sylables (and a few I left out, like "a" by itself). I had no trouble getting Google search rersults with fewer than 10 hits in some cases. An interesting side note--most of the hits came from character names used in online RPGs and/or Anime series. Is it possible that these corporate consultants are just geeks with a sense of humor?
Sakila. Avaya. Verizon. Aquent (used to be MacTemps). Akamai.
Oh sure, they always say it comes from someplace. Akamai, for example, is supposed to mean something in Hawaiian. I forget what. It doesn't really matter because all these names sound the same. I think there is a secret Perl script somewhere that they aren't telling us about.
I think it has two basic algorithms. One of them takes a regular word and changes the spelling according to an algorithm I've yet to decipher. The other, simpler algorithm uses the folling syllables:
av, ev, iv, al, el, il, ul, ti, te, vi, va, vey, ty, tra, tri (perhaps others) and strings them together randomly.
Try it. It's easy:
Aviva. Eltiva. Altria. Ultera. Tyvela.
Thank-you.
By reading this post, and using the information contained herein, you consent to pay an outrageous consulting fee to me for naming your company. Make checks payable to Steven Marthouse, 5308 Oldcastle Ln., Springfield VA 22151.
Reality check: A bowling ball weighs 16 lbs, and its terminal velocity is a heck of a lot more than 20 mph. You've made the mistake of assuming that it's proportional to weight. Remember Galileo's famous experiment?
An object is at terminal velocity when the aerodynamic forces acting upwards exactly cancel the gravitational force acting downwards. So, while weight does matter (compare beach ball and equally sized ice ball) It's not the only factor (compare goosefeather and b-b shot of equal weight).
That's why I speculated about the shape of the objects as they form. The density of the ice is going to be within a fairly confined range, so we have to consider some kind of weird shape thing. I don't think he can rule out thunderstorms either. If a thunderstorm produces a large ice glob with an airfoil shape, it could get carried a considerable distance by the jet stream before reaching low altitude and losing its "wings". I'd love to get my hands on the kind of computer that could simulate something like that.
I guess he could verify that by checking to see if the HD light is lit when he is experiencing his lags. This is the first I've heard of the Crusoe experiencing noticeable lags, and it seems likely that it's the HD doing it and not the CPU. After all, the ammount of CPU power required to display a menu is trivial, but when the menu's resources have to be loaded from the HD and something else is accessing it, I've seen Intel/AMD lag.
Not aware of anybody doing this, but it does make me wonder if people have ordered from Canada. I'm not sure how the duty works. If there is duty, forget about it. If you must order something from overseas, make sure not to use FedEX. I ordered something from the UK once that was sent FedEX. They charged duty to me in a separate bill (rather than adding it to the shipping cost that the merchant passed through to me), and wouldn't let me pay it with a credit card online unless I gave them my bank account number and signed away my firstborn. So, to pay a $9 duty, I had to get a money order (I stopped writing checks years ago) and use a stamp. That made it something like a $9.63... even more if you include my burned gasoline and wasted time. You would think that a company like FedEX would be more on the ball, realizing that consumers might get stuff through them and don't want an "account" with FedEX. FedEX is officially on my s*** list now.
/me recalls fondly the days of seeing how much info could be crammed onto a 3" by 5" index card. That was the standard ammount of info most professors allowed us to carry into a test that wasn't open-book. I probably learned as much making the card as I did doing any problem set. It forced you to decide what was really important.
for me is not whether or not ice can form. Of course it can form. The question in my mind is what kind of wind can sustain such a large glob?
Traditional hailstones form in the updrafts of thunderstorms--the more forceful the updraft, the larger the hailstones. This begs the question of what kind of wind is keeping these things aloft and allowing them to form. The answer could be easily found in a wind tunnel. What you need to know is the terminal velocity of these ice "blocks". I assume they are not actually blocks. That would just be too wierd.
Perhaps, there is some kind of ice structure that forms and has a very low terminal velocity... ice parachutes with thick centers? Then, as it falls through the atmosphere whatever it is that reduces the terminal velocity melts, leaving the "payload".
Also, is there any correlation between these things and anything else (like contrails?). If there is, then maybe we could use doppler RADAR to look for clear-air updrafts, and a telescope to view these things as they form. Of course, maybe these things are highly localized--little tornados in the upper atmosphere... maybe they are smaller than the resolution of the RADAR.
At any rate, I just hope these things stay away from my head.
Well, I think you've hit upon the crux of the matter but you didn't spell it out explicitly. The real problem is whatever quid pro quo Disney et. al. got from Congress. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court can't address that issue. All they can do is determine whether or not Congress acted within their authority. Arguments that they didn't can be made, but they are not as strong as the "Congress was bought" argument which might be useful in a less formal setting, such as a civil court or even a lower criminal court (especially one with a jury of ordinary citizens).
1. There/. goes again. MSFT tries to jump-start the economy by convincing the suits that they need surround sound. Maybe, just maybe, their neck-tie addled brains might be induced to increase capex (that's capital expenditure for those who've never watched CNBC) and kick-start the hi-tech sector but NoooOOOOooo. Slashdot has to point out their idiocy before they even have a chance. Waytogo Slashdot. Now all the geeks are gonna talk about it and when the weekly e-mail monitor reports go out to the suits they might get clued. Best thing is nobody says anything negative about this from now on.
2. This is the autoshow. Of course the funky-looking cars with Wankel-engine powered window cranks and video exhaust system diagnostics never make it to the show-room. These are the tech equivalent of concept cars. Oooooh... pretty. But everybody knows it's not the final product.
...meeting the "non-geek" challenge is harder. Most OSS I use on Windows is command-line. I've got to have InfoZIP's CLI zip utilities or my Windows box just isn't complete. Note, they have a GUI client called "Wize" or something like that, but unless it's improved a lot within the past few months I can't recommend it. Of course gzip and bzip2 or important too, but that's even more geeky than the CLI zip.
Then of course there is Gifsicle for making animated GIFs. I like it so much I'm willing to hold my nose on the GPL.
I wouldn't be afraid to recommend Apache for Windows at this point either. I actually found it *easier* to deal with than any "personal webserver" put out by MSFT. Maybe that's just me.
Of course, these are all CLI (or non-gui config for Apache). If you are serious about doing a commercial OSS for Windows CD, you need to include a 90-10 tutorial for your CLI software. By this, I mean giving the users examples that show the 10% of CLI options that provide 90% of the functionality. Gifsicle has at least 15 options (probably more), and I think I used about 3 of them to produce some killer animated GIFs.
Then of course there are the browser, office tools, GIMP etc. that others have suggested. However, none of that GUI OSS has lasted long on my machine. ABIword is the exception. I think I put it to actual use *once* to bang out a simple letter for my Dad. Nothing against ABIword; it's just that for some strange reason no GUI OSS has really worked its way into my heart.
Someone, somewhere, should be working on inexpensive reusable "films" that have the same resolution as traditional film. It just doesn't make sense to be buying new cameras everytime CCDs get cheaper. At the very least, someone needs to make the chips interchangeable, but I don't think that will happen anytime soon since the camera companies like things the way they are. So, what kind of brew of light sensitive chemicals, magnetism, and degaussing apparatus will give us cheap "digital film"? Only time will tell.
Of course your ISP isn't going to give out your identity. OTOH, how secure are your ISP's servers? How do you know that the "Nigerian" isn't a psychotic Russian mobster, or some guy just down the block with 25 bodies burried in his basement? How do you know how a criminal is going to react when you cost him money instead of the other way around? Has your ISP applied the latest patch to avoid whatever script-kiddie hack du jour is floating around? Are you willing to bet your life on it? I have to reiterate: NEVER TRY TO SCAM A SCAMMER. I think this is part of most government FAQs on the subject. By scamming the scammer, you are putting yourself in the criminal's world. They are comfortable there. Are you?
These guys are out to defraud, not to kill
So let me get this straight... you divine the motive and character of some criminal you've never met, and conclude he's harmless? That's poor security practice at best; a fatal mistake at worst.
As great as it might sound to make a bunch of spammers fly around the world, a reminder is in order.
These are crooks. They break laws. They're not nice people. They might be desperate. If they get mad, they might kill you.
OK, maybe you think you can conceal your identity. Maybe you think your black belt or that Beretta you carry under your suit jacket will pull you through in a pinch. Are you willing to bet your life on it?
If this gives you even the least ammount of doubt, just leave it up to the pros--FBI, etc.
I dumped OE because of Nimda. Yeah, there's a patch but I still haven't gone back and secured it. I switched to Pegasus. I hate Pegasus, but I guess not as much as I hate sending away for the patch.
Doesn't the Chinese government retain power with popular soverignty? If so, why do they need to censor things
While it's true that governments ultimately derive their just power from the consent of the governed, it can take a bloody long time for the governed to give consent, or for the government to derive just power.
The same thing could be said of America, which had a really tough time with the Brittish prior to 1776, and well past 1812. Many lived their entire lives within the period of conflict between government and governed, with no real justice. Even longer if you were Black or NA Indian.
If we're so damn worried about the Iraqi regime, why aren't we equally worried about China's current regime
We are. It's just that Nixon decided to play China against the Soviet Union. Later, the policy became one of "constructive engagement". The argument goes that by trading and relating with the Chinese, we are more likely to influence their culture and ultimately liberate their people--hence the complaints about American hegemony from some Chinese. For such a large country, there may be no other practical solution. What do you want? A potentially nuclear conflict with China?
I've never commissioned a work of art, but I did on one occasion purchase an original canvas. The artist made it clear that I was purchasing the original, but not the right to reproduce. This was fine with me because I figured that if it were ever reproduced in some popular context, my original would become far more valuable. For example, IIRC the originals of Dogs Playing Poker have auctioned for upwards of $30,000-$40,000.
Now, this business of the artist coming back to borrow the work; that's just ridiculous. No way would I agree to let somebody randomly redecorate my living space.
Not long ago, I had a digital dupe (print-->scan-->print) of my parent's wedding picture taken. I had to do it that way because we didn't have the negative. It never even occured to me that I was obligated to seek out the photographer. The picture is 51 years old and was taken in Rhode Island. Not much to go on. Can anybody really expect me to do that? Frankly, it never occured to me that my parents (and by inheritance, me) didn't own the wedding picture.
Now, the logical solution IMHO, is to pay the photographer for the negatives and the IP rights not the prints. If the photographer is smart, he offers prints at or below cost for those who purchase his negatives, but for the photographer to retain IP rights for such things just doesn't make good sense. First, many people like myself would be unduly burdened to find the photographer at a later date. Second, the photographer has to store all those negatives which could become a huge liability. For most wedding pix, they won't be printed after a couple years. I seriously doubt that my parent's negatives are sitting in a climate controlled vault in Rhode Island. Odds are they were destroyed years ago, whereas if we had them they'd still be intact.
So, if I ever manage to get married, I will have to make sure that the photographer sells the negatives and the IP rights. How hard would it be to make such an arrangement? How many professional photographers would say "yes" if I said "I'm willing to pay what you make from the average wedding based on the traditional fee structure, plus 20%"?
Cow's milk isn't that big a leap. Human babies feed at the breast, calves feed at the utter. At some point, they probably decided to give cow's milk to a baby who's mother wasn't lactating. From there, it's just a matter of adults eating "baby food". In fact, this may have caused our evolution to move towards lactation failure as a more common condition. That could be a good thing. It might reduce the incidence of breast cancer. It's not such a good thing if you're a "breast man" but if all these things are based on the primal need to survive, some other female trait would probably step forward into the gap.
Now, I'd really like to know about the guy who said "Hey, here's some wet rotting grain. Let's drink it. Mmmmm.... bitter. Let's drink some more... hic! (later) Hey buds! Let's Party!!!"
I was at work, wondering when my boss would get to the punchline
Ditto here! I was on Slashdot and thought it was Yet Another Internet Hoax(TM). I guess that was part denial since it didn't have the flavor of your usual hoax. I had to turn on the TV to start believing it was real. I still had a hard time convincing myself it was real and that some hacker hadn't grabbed the satellite like they did in China. Yes, I knew it was real, but part of me kept saying "no". Later that night, I pulled out some old pictures of me and a friend standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, WTC in the background. I just stared at them for a while. It was real.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, that name is pretty gross.
p.s., If you don't get the joke, don't moderate this post.
For an extra $50,000, I'll type your new name into Google, and advise you of how many hits come back. If there are fewer than 50 hits, I'll research them and check to make sure that it's nothing anybody would care about.
Just by typing random names based on those sylables (and a few I left out, like "a" by itself). I had no trouble getting Google search rersults with fewer than 10 hits in some cases. An interesting side note--most of the hits came from character names used in online RPGs and/or Anime series. Is it possible that these corporate consultants are just geeks with a sense of humor?
Sakila. Avaya. Verizon. Aquent (used to be MacTemps). Akamai.
Oh sure, they always say it comes from someplace. Akamai, for example, is supposed to mean something in Hawaiian. I forget what. It doesn't really matter because all these names sound the same. I think there is a secret Perl script somewhere that they aren't telling us about.
I think it has two basic algorithms. One of them takes a regular word and changes the spelling according to an algorithm I've yet to decipher. The other, simpler algorithm uses the folling syllables:
av, ev, iv, al, el, il, ul, ti, te, vi, va, vey, ty, tra, tri (perhaps others) and strings them together randomly.
Try it. It's easy:
Aviva. Eltiva. Altria. Ultera. Tyvela.
Thank-you.
By reading this post, and using the information contained herein, you consent to pay an outrageous consulting fee to me for naming your company. Make checks payable to Steven Marthouse, 5308 Oldcastle Ln., Springfield VA 22151.
Reality check: A bowling ball weighs 16 lbs, and its terminal velocity is a heck of a lot more than 20 mph. You've made the mistake of assuming that it's proportional to weight. Remember Galileo's famous experiment?
An object is at terminal velocity when the aerodynamic forces acting upwards exactly cancel the gravitational force acting downwards. So, while weight does matter (compare beach ball and equally sized ice ball) It's not the only factor (compare goosefeather and b-b shot of equal weight).
That's why I speculated about the shape of the objects as they form. The density of the ice is going to be within a fairly confined range, so we have to consider some kind of weird shape thing. I don't think he can rule out thunderstorms either. If a thunderstorm produces a large ice glob with an airfoil shape, it could get carried a considerable distance by the jet stream before reaching low altitude and losing its "wings". I'd love to get my hands on the kind of computer that could simulate something like that.
I guess he could verify that by checking to see if the HD light is lit when he is experiencing his lags. This is the first I've heard of the Crusoe experiencing noticeable lags, and it seems likely that it's the HD doing it and not the CPU. After all, the ammount of CPU power required to display a menu is trivial, but when the menu's resources have to be loaded from the HD and something else is accessing it, I've seen Intel/AMD lag.
Not aware of anybody doing this, but it does make me wonder if people have ordered from Canada. I'm not sure how the duty works. If there is duty, forget about it. If you must order something from overseas, make sure not to use FedEX. I ordered something from the UK once that was sent FedEX. They charged duty to me in a separate bill (rather than adding it to the shipping cost that the merchant passed through to me), and wouldn't let me pay it with a credit card online unless I gave them my bank account number and signed away my firstborn. So, to pay a $9 duty, I had to get a money order (I stopped writing checks years ago) and use a stamp. That made it something like a $9.63... even more if you include my burned gasoline and wasted time. You would think that a company like FedEX would be more on the ball, realizing that consumers might get stuff through them and don't want an "account" with FedEX. FedEX is officially on my s*** list now.
/me recalls fondly the days of seeing how much info could be crammed onto a 3" by 5" index card. That was the standard ammount of info most professors allowed us to carry into a test that wasn't open-book. I probably learned as much making the card as I did doing any problem set. It forced you to decide what was really important.
for me is not whether or not ice can form. Of course it can form. The question in my mind is what kind of wind can sustain such a large glob?
Traditional hailstones form in the updrafts of thunderstorms--the more forceful the updraft, the larger the hailstones. This begs the question of what kind of wind is keeping these things aloft and allowing them to form. The answer could be easily found in a wind tunnel. What you need to know is the terminal velocity of these ice "blocks". I assume they are not actually blocks. That would just be too wierd.
Perhaps, there is some kind of ice structure that forms and has a very low terminal velocity... ice parachutes with thick centers? Then, as it falls through the atmosphere whatever it is that reduces the terminal velocity melts, leaving the "payload".
Also, is there any correlation between these things and anything else (like contrails?). If there is, then maybe we could use doppler RADAR to look for clear-air updrafts, and a telescope to view these things as they form. Of course, maybe these things are highly localized--little tornados in the upper atmosphere... maybe they are smaller than the resolution of the RADAR.
At any rate, I just hope these things stay away from my head.
Well, I think you've hit upon the crux of the matter but you didn't spell it out explicitly. The real problem is whatever quid pro quo Disney et. al. got from Congress. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court can't address that issue. All they can do is determine whether or not Congress acted within their authority. Arguments that they didn't can be made, but they are not as strong as the "Congress was bought" argument which might be useful in a less formal setting, such as a civil court or even a lower criminal court (especially one with a jury of ordinary citizens).
IIRC, In the local language taklamakan means "you go in you don't come out".
1. There /. goes again. MSFT tries to jump-start the economy by convincing the suits that they need surround sound. Maybe, just maybe, their neck-tie addled brains might be induced to increase capex (that's capital expenditure for those who've never watched CNBC) and kick-start the hi-tech sector but NoooOOOOooo. Slashdot has to point out their idiocy before they even have a chance. Waytogo Slashdot. Now all the geeks are gonna talk about it and when the weekly e-mail monitor reports go out to the suits they might get clued. Best thing is nobody says anything negative about this from now on.
2. This is the autoshow. Of course the funky-looking cars with Wankel-engine powered window cranks and video exhaust system diagnostics never make it to the show-room. These are the tech equivalent of concept cars. Oooooh... pretty. But everybody knows it's not the final product.
...meeting the "non-geek" challenge is harder. Most OSS I use on Windows is command-line. I've got to have InfoZIP's CLI zip utilities or my Windows box just isn't complete. Note, they have a GUI client called "Wize" or something like that, but unless it's improved a lot within the past few months I can't recommend it. Of course gzip and bzip2 or important too, but that's even more geeky than the CLI zip.
Then of course there is Gifsicle for making animated GIFs. I like it so much I'm willing to hold my nose on the GPL.
I wouldn't be afraid to recommend Apache for Windows at this point either. I actually found it *easier* to deal with than any "personal webserver" put out by MSFT. Maybe that's just me.
Of course, these are all CLI (or non-gui config for Apache). If you are serious about doing a commercial OSS for Windows CD, you need to include a 90-10 tutorial for your CLI software. By this, I mean giving the users examples that show the 10% of CLI options that provide 90% of the functionality. Gifsicle has at least 15 options (probably more), and I think I used about 3 of them to produce some killer animated GIFs.
Then of course there are the browser, office tools, GIMP etc. that others have suggested. However, none of that GUI OSS has lasted long on my machine. ABIword is the exception. I think I put it to actual use *once* to bang out a simple letter for my Dad. Nothing against ABIword; it's just that for some strange reason no GUI OSS has really worked its way into my heart.
Are you sure it wasn't these guys?
Someone, somewhere, should be working on inexpensive reusable "films" that have the same resolution as traditional film. It just doesn't make sense to be buying new cameras everytime CCDs get cheaper. At the very least, someone needs to make the chips interchangeable, but I don't think that will happen anytime soon since the camera companies like things the way they are. So, what kind of brew of light sensitive chemicals, magnetism, and degaussing apparatus will give us cheap "digital film"? Only time will tell.
Of course your ISP isn't going to give out your identity. OTOH, how secure are your ISP's servers? How do you know that the "Nigerian" isn't a psychotic Russian mobster, or some guy just down the block with 25 bodies burried in his basement? How do you know how a criminal is going to react when you cost him money instead of the other way around? Has your ISP applied the latest patch to avoid whatever script-kiddie hack du jour is floating around? Are you willing to bet your life on it? I have to reiterate: NEVER TRY TO SCAM A SCAMMER. I think this is part of most government FAQs on the subject. By scamming the scammer, you are putting yourself in the criminal's world. They are comfortable there. Are you?
These guys are out to defraud, not to kill
So let me get this straight... you divine the motive and character of some criminal you've never met, and conclude he's harmless? That's poor security practice at best; a fatal mistake at worst.
As great as it might sound to make a bunch of spammers fly around the world, a reminder is in order.
These are crooks. They break laws. They're not nice people. They might be desperate. If they get mad, they might kill you.
OK, maybe you think you can conceal your identity. Maybe you think your black belt or that Beretta you carry under your suit jacket will pull you through in a pinch. Are you willing to bet your life on it?
If this gives you even the least ammount of doubt, just leave it up to the pros--FBI, etc.
The penalty should be 1337 lashes.
I dumped OE because of Nimda. Yeah, there's a patch but I still haven't gone back and secured it. I switched to Pegasus. I hate Pegasus, but I guess not as much as I hate sending away for the patch.
Doesn't the Chinese government retain power with popular soverignty? If so, why do they need to censor things
While it's true that governments ultimately derive their just power from the consent of the governed, it can take a bloody long time for the governed to give consent, or for the government to derive just power.
The same thing could be said of America, which had a really tough time with the Brittish prior to 1776, and well past 1812. Many lived their entire lives within the period of conflict between government and governed, with no real justice. Even longer if you were Black or NA Indian.
If we're so damn worried about the Iraqi regime, why aren't we equally worried about China's current regime
We are. It's just that Nixon decided to play China against the Soviet Union. Later, the policy became one of "constructive engagement". The argument goes that by trading and relating with the Chinese, we are more likely to influence their culture and ultimately liberate their people--hence the complaints about American hegemony from some Chinese. For such a large country, there may be no other practical solution. What do you want? A potentially nuclear conflict with China?
Free porn? Wow! This is just what the Internet needs! coughUSENETcough.
I've never commissioned a work of art, but I did on one occasion purchase an original canvas. The artist made it clear that I was purchasing the original, but not the right to reproduce. This was fine with me because I figured that if it were ever reproduced in some popular context, my original would become far more valuable. For example, IIRC the originals of Dogs Playing Poker have auctioned for upwards of $30,000-$40,000.
Now, this business of the artist coming back to borrow the work; that's just ridiculous. No way would I agree to let somebody randomly redecorate my living space.
Not long ago, I had a digital dupe (print-->scan-->print) of my parent's wedding picture taken. I had to do it that way because we didn't have the negative. It never even occured to me that I was obligated to seek out the photographer. The picture is 51 years old and was taken in Rhode Island. Not much to go on. Can anybody really expect me to do that? Frankly, it never occured to me that my parents (and by inheritance, me) didn't own the wedding picture.
Now, the logical solution IMHO, is to pay the photographer for the negatives and the IP rights not the prints. If the photographer is smart, he offers prints at or below cost for those who purchase his negatives, but for the photographer to retain IP rights for such things just doesn't make good sense. First, many people like myself would be unduly burdened to find the photographer at a later date. Second, the photographer has to store all those negatives which could become a huge liability. For most wedding pix, they won't be printed after a couple years. I seriously doubt that my parent's negatives are sitting in a climate controlled vault in Rhode Island. Odds are they were destroyed years ago, whereas if we had them they'd still be intact.
So, if I ever manage to get married, I will have to make sure that the photographer sells the negatives and the IP rights. How hard would it be to make such an arrangement? How many professional photographers would say "yes" if I said "I'm willing to pay what you make from the average wedding based on the traditional fee structure, plus 20%"?
Their only real mistake there was to allow people on the plane. Sooner or later they'll figure that out, and then air travel will be really secure.
Cow's milk isn't that big a leap. Human babies feed at the breast, calves feed at the utter. At some point, they probably decided to give cow's milk to a baby who's mother wasn't lactating. From there, it's just a matter of adults eating "baby food". In fact, this may have caused our evolution to move towards lactation failure as a more common condition. That could be a good thing. It might reduce the incidence of breast cancer. It's not such a good thing if you're a "breast man" but if all these things are based on the primal need to survive, some other female trait would probably step forward into the gap.
Now, I'd really like to know about the guy who said "Hey, here's some wet rotting grain. Let's drink it. Mmmmm.... bitter. Let's drink some more... hic! (later) Hey buds! Let's Party!!!"
I was at work, wondering when my boss would get to the punchline
Ditto here! I was on Slashdot and thought it was Yet Another Internet Hoax(TM). I guess that was part denial since it didn't have the flavor of your usual hoax. I had to turn on the TV to start believing it was real. I still had a hard time convincing myself it was real and that some hacker hadn't grabbed the satellite like they did in China. Yes, I knew it was real, but part of me kept saying "no". Later that night, I pulled out some old pictures of me and a friend standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, WTC in the background. I just stared at them for a while. It was real.