My pet rat pissed on my keyboard. You don't ever want to have to crack open a rubber-membrane keyboard and wash rat-piss off the rubber. It's nasty!
Rum-n-coke...right down on the motherboard. The cpu fan sputtered and spat that shit all over the room. The video card flaked out for a second, but DOOM ][ kept right on runnig...I got blasted by a cyber-demon.
Once in college, one of the idiots in the CS program - we called him "The Gimp" - was putting together his computer. He had it all running with the win98 install cooking on the thing.... But it was in pieces on his workbench. When we walked in the room, he picked up the hard drive - which was plugged in and writing at the time - shook it at us very vigorously (making it go "CLANK CLANK GRRRRRRR CLANKCLANK!") and shouted "Look guys! I got a 40GB hard drive! and it's a Western Digital just like you said to order!" (This was back when 40gb was HUGE and western digital made good ide drives)
My uncle got a pentium 166 so hot, the solder that held the socket in place got squishy. He touched the plastic socket, because he could smell something burning, and it burnt his finger...AND the socket slit around in the melted solder just a little. He quickly powered down the machine and let it cool. He replaced the fans and heat sink compound and when he booted it back up, the bios said he had a 47Mhz pentium cpu. It was slow as hell, but it still worked.
60 fps on Q2 - that would be hard with decent hardware. At least you didn't say Unreal...
And to make it more suitable to this crowd, the challenges would be to build a computer out of crap in the yard in ten hours, then use it to get on slashdot, and the team that makes the most SOVIET RUSSIA, Natalie Portman/grits in pants, "is dead", and FP b1tc#3z! 3y3 0\/\/n3rz J00! posts in two hours wins.
Dark Energy: Properties: No mass. Does not interact with matter on a scale visible to the human eye in daylight. Has a minimum density at all points in space, even in vaccuum. may or may not be affected by gravity - no one knows yet. exerts minute amount of force over great distances and time - which adds up quickly to be great force.
Ether: Properties: No mass. Does not interact with matter on such as scale as to be observable to the human eye in daylight. Exists throughout all space (thereby having some minimum density that must be over zero). exerts minute force over great distances that quickly add up to great force. Is the medium of transport for light.
Didn't science fight like hell about a hundred years ago to throw out the notion of a sea of magical invisible goop that pervaded space? Didn't scientists throw out the notion of ether saying it was a bunch of superstitous bunk - that if you couldn't see it or taste it or touch it, it was best left to wizards and alchemists? They fight like hell to throw out ether, then they put a funny new name on it - not once, but several times (ether->quantum foam->zero point energy->dark energy) and want me to swallow it? I don't doubt there is a thing such as this - the idea makes the universe make more sense - but pick one side of the fence to stand on, boys, and stay there.
They spent some time in this article comparing the japanese manga market with american comics, and lamenting about the piss-poor sales of comics here in america. so...
Just in case someone from Marvel or DC is reading this, let me fix this little problem for you:
It's all about PRICE, bitch! I go to my local comic shop and look for a comic, and the average one costs like $2.50 to $3! What the hell? I've been a long time comic book fan, and I have to say - the X-men from issues 100-220 were the BEST comics ever printed, and even they weren't worth $2.50 a piece! Think about this a bit. Little Timmy Average High School Punk get his paycheck from Taco Bell. Timmy has a few hobbies. He likes movies, comics, video games, a collectible card game such as Magic: The gathering and surfing for pr0n on the web. Pr0n being free, it gets factored out. Now, he has to pay bills first, so he sets aside half his paycheck to cover things like car insurance, gas to get to work, and some lunch money. He's saving up for a PS2 because his parents couldn't afford one for christmas. Now - he's left with maybe forty dollars of disposable income that has to last two weeks. He knows his buddies will want to go to the movies each friday, so he sets aside twenty dollars. He also knows he wants to spend some money on stuff his mom won't get him - like cologne to impress the girlies, or maybe a pack of cigarettes, or maybe a six-pack of beer, or some other thing so he sets aside another ten dollars. That leaves him ten bucks to divide between his hobbies. He could either buy three comics, or some gaming paraphenalia. Let's say timmy likes the X-Men. Oh...wait...he can't follow the X-men.... There are like fifteen X-books a month, all costing $2.50 or more. And you have to read them ALL to get the story! So - looks like he'll sink his money into his game of choice, or maybe spend it on dinner at the mall food court.
Moral of the story: CUT THE DAMN PRICES OF THE BOOKS! go back to news print. use cheaper inking processes! Make the story carry the book instead of the expensive art! Damn you all! LISTEN TO ME! The suckage of the comics market is ALL YOUR FAULT! You priced them out of range for your audience! Yeah the stories suck, but that's not a problem! People will buy it if it's cheap enough! Get those books back down to under a buck and a half! Then worry about quality story!
I've been spending a lot of time emailing people that have written me in the past couple of weeks. I know you've been out of the internet-loop for a while, and probably haven't checked your email in like 6 years so....
Just a tip, pal - that message about some hot Russian chick that wants you to look at her and her friends on her web cam....Well...
And the idea that Microsoft is tracking an email and will give you $100 if you forward it or some such...
And the tons and tons of email from all your friends with the subject "I Love You"...
And the guy in Uganda that needs help smuggling all his money, and has a cool offer for you...
AND the people who say they can make YOUR penis bigger....
Well - don't think all that is fan mail, okay... *wink wink*
What do you mean by robust? High pressure? High volume?
This idea seems like it wouldn't be good in applications that would require alot of negative head pressure - meaning applications where it has to work to draw its water in...like sucking water from the bottom of a well. It also - at first glance - appears that it wouldn't be well suited for applications that required alot of exhaust pressure - like pushing water from the bottom of a hill to the top. Too much pressure on the exhaust nozzle of the thing, if it is similar to a jet engine, would disrupt what's going on inside the pump (when the weight of the water it has to push becomes greater than the force it can exert, water flows backwards through the engine, and it stops working - same happens in a jet motor if it gets turned around and tries to fly backwards), and it would suddenly turn into a boiler instead of a pump. If it had to work too hard to intake water, steam would flow the wrong way, and *POOF* your pump turns into a boiler again.
In applications like a boat motor or some sort of sump pump where volume is the key, not pressure it would be fine. So - in this armchair physicist's opinion - this thing would be great for sucking water out of your basement, but not too good for pumping water in a fire truck.
However, the problem of cavatation is completely nullified - so that's cool. It will probably be an order of magnitude more efficient than conventional pumps once perfected, though it may not scale well.
First of all, the filtration process they just described in the most effective, most "high tech" filtration process used to process water. See, it works this way - OZONE is the MOST poisonous substance known to man. It's also one of the easiest to deal with. When that 03 hits the fecal coliform bacteria in the sewage (which has already had all solid matter removed from it in settling basins) they basically get oxidized to nothingness. Most cities do less treating worse water which you drink, every day. Drink soda? You're drinking city water mixed with syrup and bottled. Drink Sparklets/bottled water? They have even more lax rules when it comes to water quality. Most cities use a sand filter/chlorination deal to treat your water. While this does a good job on fecal bacteria, it won't even irritate cryptosporidia, which can cause all sorts of nice diseases.
So don't just start saying "EW EW! Nasty!" Next to using electrolysis (which is a really sub-optimal solution on the cost angle) this is the cleanest water you'd be able to find.
X-Wives.... They're a great and powerful force of evil hell-bent on ruining the lives of all connected to the X-Husband super-hero team. They will infiltrate your secret headquarters and take everything of any value, including, but not limited to, any secret identities your super-team may guard, all secret codes and cool hi-tech discoveries, all your funding, and even your dignity and self respect. And then you have to pay a "protection" fee every month to keep them from doing it again.
They are an insidious evil organization that shows no compassion, even to children, which they use as human shields and brainwash to their evil ways. They are ruled by The Harpy, the most evil and depraved X-Wife of them all, who sits on her perch in a deep underground cavern somewhere beneath Dallas, TX (because, as you might know, "All my Xs live in texas").
Next to the Dire Wraiths or maybe the minions of Darkseid, the X-Wives are the most evil organization in the universe.
First Appearance: Widely disputed. Best theories place their origin at the time of Moses from the Hebrew and chistian holy writings. People begged for the ability to divorce, God didn't like it, but he agreed, and thus the X-Wives were born. This may suggest a demonic origin.
Super Powers: X-Wife powers vary widely from specimen to specimen. Most have the ability to project a beam of pure hatred from their eyes that can chill the heart of even the strongest, most invulnerable warrior. Others are mindless berserkers. Still others are cold, calculating geniuses with a far-ranging network of minions.
Vulnerabilities: Due to their insanity and lack of a firm grip on reality, some X-wives can be outsmarted. However, this is dangerous, as the veteran, Elite X-Wives have a godlike cunning High doses of Thorazine, Lithium and Zoloft have been known to stun an X-Wife long enough to escape.
But what about Wolverine, the muscular X-Man with the metal claws that jut out from his fists? Wolverine has known many forms in his more than 40 years as a Marvel character.
Huh? Wolverine's first appearance was in Hulk 180, in 1974. He wasn't an X-man yet. That didn't happen till X-men #94/Giant Size X-Men #1....And that was in 1975. So....
2003 -1975 ------
>40
WTF?!?
Bah. Wolverine was cool way back in the day... Fighting the Brood, fighting the Sentinels, Fighting the Dire Wraiths, fighting various and sundry ninjas... But then...Then the 90s happened. All comic books went to HELL! (The Demon, which was already in Hell, stayed quite funny and entertaining) They stopped being about a great story with cool pictures and started being pinup books with pretty pictures and no story. Then - in an attempt to gain some story back, they try and be "edgy" and hip....and basically ruin comics.
At least Hugh Jackman does a good "old school" Wolverine in the movie. "You actually go out in public like this?" Cyclops: "You'd rather have yellow spandex?"
Well, that would work a little, but being able to dump the work dot-for-dot verbatim at a comic shop would raise more eyebrows. Imagine if little suzy and johnny come home from the comic shop with that piece of crap in hand.
As for myself, I don't think Disney should be all that embarassed about what the company did over fifty years ago. Every aspect of society was doing the same thing. It would be very stupid of us to try and judge something that happened 63 years ago by the standards of today. However, I'm also not dumb enough to think that groups of offended minorities wouldn't pounce on this.
Hell, I call my own son a "monkey" not dim-witted, but I do call him a monkey. Especially when he's bouncing around and making lots of noise. I'm just glad I got him to quit throwing feces when he got mad.....
exactly - and there are a number of companies chomping at the bit to publish this stuff just to throw some egg on disney's face. Hell, I know some church groups that would do it just to see the evil, "pro-homo" disney corp. choke on it. Whatever their reason, I hope they succeed.
Another reason Disney CAN'T lose their copyrights quite a few people are unaware of is alot more immediately more important to the Disney corporation: They can be quickly ruined by things they published in the 20s 30s and 40s.
Here's a fairly tame example of Disney's fears. They produced piles upon piles of literature that - while not meant to be degrading at the time - would be a serious embarassment if they were made widely known today. My grandfather has a few of the Donald Duck comics he used to get at his gas station in 1940s Dayton, Ohio. In these, Donald refers to various and sundry brown people as "porch monkeys" and "cotton pickin tar babies" - let alone the dozens of people of color portrayed in pitiful stereotype. Native Americans, negros, hispanics, etc. etc. all shown as lazy, drunken, slobs or as murderous psychopaths.
The least of Disney's worries is their animated/live action film "Song of the South" - which they have pulled from shelves. This movie actually celebrated the rich culture of blacks in the 19th century south and in treated the subject with respect. With the works I'm talking about, there was no respect present. Such as that shown in the example - the stereotyped character was put on display as an oddity.
that, I think, is Disney's major motivation for keeping an iron grip on copyright.
I've seen my uncle do it with "Mail Pouch" tobacco. I personally would never hold down a dog and cram a golf-ball sized wad of tobacco down his throat. The damn dog - which was sickly and skinny already - had gunk squirting out of both ends for about an hour. After two more treatments over the next week, the dog (a beagle) put on weight and appeared fine. That was 10 years ago. She's now an old, mostly deaf, hunting retiree of the ripe old age of 16. Spends her days laying next to the wood burning stove and eating hot dogs with my uncle. I don't think she's tried chewing tobacco since, though.
I'd still trust the goop in the bottle from the pet store (farm store, wal-mart, whatever)
Unless you modify it with the word "UP". As in: My dog ate road-kill and got all wormed up.
The typical cure for this is (if you have money) to get the wormer from the vet/wal-mart/pet store and hope... Or...(if you are poor and the dog means alot to you) you force feed the pooch a huge wad of "Chaw"... Chewing Tobacco.... Several times. It does the trick, but it's like chemotherapy - you're just hoping the worms die before the dog does.
Okay - maybe this is a Southern Redneck Hunting Dog thing...I dunno.
I look at the responses to this story and notice that the posts are divided into roughly two factions: 1/8th complain that "skeptics" are too eager to shoot down any new/unpopular idea (paraphrased VERY heavily)with various and sundry reasons.
7/8ths dog pile on the 1/8th with quite a bit of name calling - referring to "head up your ass", "religious zealot" and my favorite "just a loony".
There are huge holes in arguements on BOTH sides, and typically - the people who posted to this topic really should read up on logical thinking and practice it some more.
Shouting "Think logically, retarded bitch!" is just plain dumb. Insulting someone for religious beliefs is just plain dumb.
Besides - the world is alot more fun if you just DON'T ask for proof. Believe anything anyone says to you. It makes life oh-so-much more exciting.
I'm the guy that when he heard the old kids story about "step on a crack, break your momma's back" was found on the playground stamping on the broken sidewalk screaming "That's for beating me when my sister broke the car windshield and blamed it on me, you insensitive harpy!!!"
Love everyone on "Boxing Day"....? I thought it was "International Beat The Shit Out Of Everyone You See" day.... Oops...Oh well, looks like all my Cow-Orkers got their birthday spankings a little early this year....and in the face.
Whenever a government has taken away the tools a person could use to defend oneself, it has been a prelude to oppression, more often than not. Look into weapon/self defense control as practiced in Korea, China, Japan, various places in Africa, at various places in history and you will see it. Either that, or those in charge have something to fear from the populace.
Now - as to answer your question, I would turn to two reports (these would be 10-12 years old now) released by the Florida state police. Researchers for the Florida chapter of the FOP (fraternal order of Police) found that violent crime actually dropped in direct proportion to the number of "concealed carry" permits they issued.
Actually, I've found that most Police officers are supportive of private citizens owning and being trained in the safe and proper use of a firearm.
Over on the Microsoft Training site they have a bunch of lemmings shouting about how Microsoft training is just the cat's pajamas and can give you "challenging opportunities, quicker promotions, and a leadership role".
This training AIN'T cheap.
Now, on the other hand, this article post here on slashdot is uhm....basically saying that you have to hire a sysadmin to run your machine and that's the expensive part. They lead us to believe you'd have to pay the linux guy more. However if you compare These Numbers with These Numbers you'll see that the microsoft trained guys get paid more than the industry average.
So - I'm missing something here. Either Win2k doesn't need a sysadmin (yeah right...my ass) and Linux needs a small geek army, or the Microsoft Training (sounds like something Scientological - "Standard Tech" kinda stuff)is a bunch of bunk.
Microsoft is either lying about Win2k's total cost, or they're lying about the career prospects/validity/usefulness of their MCP training.....and all the industry surveys show that MCSEs make more money than linux geeks (cert-ed or not). That's damn well the case where I work.
So which one is it, Billy? Lying out the left side or the right side of your face....
It was also used as a dodge, because computers were still new when Herbert wrote the first book. He knew they'd make a big impact on the world, but was uncomfortable in predicting just what impact they'd make. The old saying of "Write what you know, not what you don't know." held true for him. Overall, I think it worked well.
AI was no big stretch, so he could talk about thinking machines - AI has been, since the first electronic computers in the 50s, something we would have "IN TEN YEARS". They're still saying that (or were last time I looked - maybe they wised up about it and realized even animal level intelligence is alot more complex than they thought back then.)
Build one of your own RIGHT NOW!
on
Fanwing Planes?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
****Warning**** I am not responsible for any severed arteries, eyes gouged out, or for you getting fired for doing this at work. It's all you baby!
1) Get the materials. Go get one of those plastic Bic ball point pens. The kind with the white tube. Then get a pair of scissors, a pocket knife, or a pair of needle nose pliers.
2) Remove cap from pen. Remove the black plastic cone from the "writing" end of the pen. This also pulls out the ink tube.
3) You now have a white plastic tube with a little black cap in the end. Get that cap out. Use the pocket knife, scissors, or the pliers to get the thing out. If you destroy the end of the white plastic tube, just cut it off clean again.
4)Now you have just a white plastic tube. Wee! This is your fanwing plane. You're about to make it fly using the same principle.
5) Clean off a table so there's nothing on top. Face one side of it. Put the pen tube near and parallel to the edge. Lock your thumbs under the edge of the table and place all 8 fingertips on the white tube.
6) Pressing down as hard as you can, roll your fingers back towards you.
7) If all goes well, the tube will spin very fast and fly through the air, doing loops and such.
I've actually got the things to fly twenty yards. And the do all kinds of twists and loops.
The principle that keeps the fanwing plane in the article in the air works here too - only with no control or stability.
While the human brain is usually not very good at such linear calculations, hence the popularity of a calculator, its true power lies in it's massively parallel processing.
Hold on there! Our brains are fine for huge linear calculations. Better than most calculators in fact. Autistic savants.... Rain Main. That kind of thing. There was a kid I knew in high school that could find cube roots for eight digit numbers nearly instantly but he couldn't recognize his brother's face in a picture.
My personal theory is this: Human brains are like a computer (about a million orders of mangitude more complex though). Most people have that all tied up in hardware dedicated to things like jobs, girl friends, football etc. etc. John, my autistic friend in high school, hadn't dedicated the hardware to anything in particular, but he still had it available. He was lacking in a lot of things, but sheer processing power and memory he had in spades.
As a side story, another friend of mine in high school had epilepsy, and it kept getting worse. He eventually had brain surgery where they severed his corpus callosum. After that, he couldn't add single digit numbers if he closed his right eye. If he closed his left, he couldn't recognize faces. Just kind of shows how the brain works as a parallel system.
Slashdot Mirror
My pet rat pissed on my keyboard. You don't ever want to have to crack open a rubber-membrane keyboard and wash rat-piss off the rubber. It's nasty!
Rum-n-coke...right down on the motherboard. The cpu fan sputtered and spat that shit all over the room. The video card flaked out for a second, but DOOM ][ kept right on runnig...I got blasted by a cyber-demon.
Once in college, one of the idiots in the CS program - we called him "The Gimp" - was putting together his computer. He had it all running with the win98 install cooking on the thing.... But it was in pieces on his workbench. When we walked in the room, he picked up the hard drive - which was plugged in and writing at the time - shook it at us very vigorously (making it go "CLANK CLANK GRRRRRRR CLANKCLANK!") and shouted "Look guys! I got a 40GB hard drive! and it's a Western Digital just like you said to order!" (This was back when 40gb was HUGE and western digital made good ide drives)
My uncle got a pentium 166 so hot, the solder that held the socket in place got squishy. He touched the plastic socket, because he could smell something burning, and it burnt his finger...AND the socket slit around in the melted solder just a little. He quickly powered down the machine and let it cool. He replaced the fans and heat sink compound and when he booted it back up, the bios said he had a 47Mhz pentium cpu. It was slow as hell, but it still worked.
60 fps on Q2 - that would be hard with decent hardware. At least you didn't say Unreal...
And to make it more suitable to this crowd, the challenges would be to build a computer out of crap in the yard in ten hours, then use it to get on slashdot, and the team that makes the most SOVIET RUSSIA, Natalie Portman/grits in pants, "is dead", and FP b1tc#3z! 3y3 0\/\/n3rz J00! posts in two hours wins.
Dark Energy:
Properties: No mass. Does not interact with matter on a scale visible to the human eye in daylight. Has a minimum density at all points in space, even in vaccuum. may or may not be affected by gravity - no one knows yet. exerts minute amount of force over great distances and time - which adds up quickly to be great force.
Ether:
Properties: No mass. Does not interact with matter on such as scale as to be observable to the human eye in daylight. Exists throughout all space (thereby having some minimum density that must be over zero). exerts minute force over great distances that quickly add up to great force. Is the medium of transport for light.
Didn't science fight like hell about a hundred years ago to throw out the notion of a sea of magical invisible goop that pervaded space? Didn't scientists throw out the notion of ether saying it was a bunch of superstitous bunk - that if you couldn't see it or taste it or touch it, it was best left to wizards and alchemists?
They fight like hell to throw out ether, then they put a funny new name on it - not once, but several times (ether->quantum foam->zero point energy->dark energy) and want me to swallow it? I don't doubt there is a thing such as this - the idea makes the universe make more sense - but pick one side of the fence to stand on, boys, and stay there.
They spent some time in this article comparing the japanese manga market with american comics, and lamenting about the piss-poor sales of comics here in america. so...
Just in case someone from Marvel or DC is reading this, let me fix this little problem for you:
It's all about PRICE, bitch! I go to my local comic shop and look for a comic, and the average one costs like $2.50 to $3! What the hell? I've been a long time comic book fan, and I have to say - the X-men from issues 100-220 were the BEST comics ever printed, and even they weren't worth $2.50 a piece!
Think about this a bit. Little Timmy Average High School Punk get his paycheck from Taco Bell. Timmy has a few hobbies. He likes movies, comics, video games, a collectible card game such as Magic: The gathering and surfing for pr0n on the web. Pr0n being free, it gets factored out. Now, he has to pay bills first, so he sets aside half his paycheck to cover things like car insurance, gas to get to work, and some lunch money. He's saving up for a PS2 because his parents couldn't afford one for christmas. Now - he's left with maybe forty dollars of disposable income that has to last two weeks. He knows his buddies will want to go to the movies each friday, so he sets aside twenty dollars. He also knows he wants to spend some money on stuff his mom won't get him - like cologne to impress the girlies, or maybe a pack of cigarettes, or maybe a six-pack of beer, or some other thing so he sets aside another ten dollars. That leaves him ten bucks to divide between his hobbies. He could either buy three comics, or some gaming paraphenalia.
Let's say timmy likes the X-Men. Oh...wait...he can't follow the X-men.... There are like fifteen X-books a month, all costing $2.50 or more. And you have to read them ALL to get the story!
So - looks like he'll sink his money into his game of choice, or maybe spend it on dinner at the mall food court.
Moral of the story: CUT THE DAMN PRICES OF THE BOOKS! go back to news print. use cheaper inking processes! Make the story carry the book instead of the expensive art! Damn you all! LISTEN TO ME! The suckage of the comics market is ALL YOUR FAULT! You priced them out of range for your audience!
Yeah the stories suck, but that's not a problem! People will buy it if it's cheap enough! Get those books back down to under a buck and a half! Then worry about quality story!
I've been spending a lot of time emailing people that have written me in the past couple of weeks.
I know you've been out of the internet-loop for a while, and probably haven't checked your email in like 6 years so....
Just a tip, pal - that message about some hot Russian chick that wants you to look at her and her friends on her web cam....Well...
And the idea that Microsoft is tracking an email and will give you $100 if you forward it or some such...
And the tons and tons of email from all your friends with the subject "I Love You"...
And the guy in Uganda that needs help smuggling all his money, and has a cool offer for you...
AND the people who say they can make YOUR penis bigger....
Well - don't think all that is fan mail, okay... *wink wink*
What do you mean by robust? High pressure? High volume?
This idea seems like it wouldn't be good in applications that would require alot of negative head pressure - meaning applications where it has to work to draw its water in...like sucking water from the bottom of a well.
It also - at first glance - appears that it wouldn't be well suited for applications that required alot of exhaust pressure - like pushing water from the bottom of a hill to the top.
Too much pressure on the exhaust nozzle of the thing, if it is similar to a jet engine, would disrupt what's going on inside the pump (when the weight of the water it has to push becomes greater than the force it can exert, water flows backwards through the engine, and it stops working - same happens in a jet motor if it gets turned around and tries to fly backwards), and it would suddenly turn into a boiler instead of a pump.
If it had to work too hard to intake water, steam would flow the wrong way, and *POOF* your pump turns into a boiler again.
In applications like a boat motor or some sort of sump pump where volume is the key, not pressure it would be fine. So - in this armchair physicist's opinion - this thing would be great for sucking water out of your basement, but not too good for pumping water in a fire truck.
However, the problem of cavatation is completely nullified - so that's cool. It will probably be an order of magnitude more efficient than conventional pumps once perfected, though it may not scale well.
First of all, the filtration process they just described in the most effective, most "high tech" filtration process used to process water. See, it works this way - OZONE is the MOST poisonous substance known to man. It's also one of the easiest to deal with. When that 03 hits the fecal coliform bacteria in the sewage (which has already had all solid matter removed from it in settling basins) they basically get oxidized to nothingness.
Most cities do less treating worse water which you drink, every day. Drink soda? You're drinking city water mixed with syrup and bottled. Drink Sparklets/bottled water? They have even more lax rules when it comes to water quality. Most cities use a sand filter/chlorination deal to treat your water. While this does a good job on fecal bacteria, it won't even irritate cryptosporidia, which can cause all sorts of nice diseases.
So don't just start saying "EW EW! Nasty!" Next to using electrolysis (which is a really sub-optimal solution on the cost angle) this is the cleanest water you'd be able to find.
AMEN Brother! Preach on!
X-Wives.... They're a great and powerful force of evil hell-bent on ruining the lives of all connected to the X-Husband super-hero team. They will infiltrate your secret headquarters and take everything of any value, including, but not limited to, any secret identities your super-team may guard, all secret codes and cool hi-tech discoveries, all your funding, and even your dignity and self respect. And then you have to pay a "protection" fee every month to keep them from doing it again.
They are an insidious evil organization that shows no compassion, even to children, which they use as human shields and brainwash to their evil ways. They are ruled by The Harpy, the most evil and depraved X-Wife of them all, who sits on her perch in a deep underground cavern somewhere beneath Dallas, TX (because, as you might know, "All my Xs live in texas").
Next to the Dire Wraiths or maybe the minions of Darkseid, the X-Wives are the most evil organization in the universe.
First Appearance: Widely disputed. Best theories place their origin at the time of Moses from the Hebrew and chistian holy writings. People begged for the ability to divorce, God didn't like it, but he agreed, and thus the X-Wives were born. This may suggest a demonic origin.
Super Powers: X-Wife powers vary widely from specimen to specimen. Most have the ability to project a beam of pure hatred from their eyes that can chill the heart of even the strongest, most invulnerable warrior. Others are mindless berserkers. Still others are cold, calculating geniuses with a far-ranging network of minions.
Vulnerabilities: Due to their insanity and lack of a firm grip on reality, some X-wives can be outsmarted. However, this is dangerous, as the veteran, Elite X-Wives have a godlike cunning
High doses of Thorazine, Lithium and Zoloft have been known to stun an X-Wife long enough to escape.
But what about Wolverine, the muscular X-Man with the metal claws that jut out from his fists? Wolverine has known many forms in his more than 40 years as a Marvel character.
Huh?
Wolverine's first appearance was in Hulk 180, in 1974. He wasn't an X-man yet. That didn't happen till X-men #94/Giant Size X-Men #1....And that was in 1975.
So....
2003
-1975
------
>40
WTF?!?
Bah. Wolverine was cool way back in the day... Fighting the Brood, fighting the Sentinels, Fighting the Dire Wraiths, fighting various and sundry ninjas...
But then...Then the 90s happened. All comic books went to HELL! (The Demon, which was already in Hell, stayed quite funny and entertaining) They stopped being about a great story with cool pictures and started being pinup books with pretty pictures and no story. Then - in an attempt to gain some story back, they try and be "edgy" and hip....and basically ruin comics.
At least Hugh Jackman does a good "old school" Wolverine in the movie.
"You actually go out in public like this?"
Cyclops: "You'd rather have yellow spandex?"
Well, that would work a little, but being able to dump the work dot-for-dot verbatim at a comic shop would raise more eyebrows.
Imagine if little suzy and johnny come home from the comic shop with that piece of crap in hand.
As for myself, I don't think Disney should be all that embarassed about what the company did over fifty years ago. Every aspect of society was doing the same thing. It would be very stupid of us to try and judge something that happened 63 years ago by the standards of today.
However, I'm also not dumb enough to think that groups of offended minorities wouldn't pounce on this.
Hell, I call my own son a "monkey" not dim-witted, but I do call him a monkey. Especially when he's bouncing around and making lots of noise. I'm just glad I got him to quit throwing feces when he got mad.....
exactly - and there are a number of companies chomping at the bit to publish this stuff just to throw some egg on disney's face.
Hell, I know some church groups that would do it just to see the evil, "pro-homo" disney corp. choke on it.
Whatever their reason, I hope they succeed.
Pay attention on page 95 when Goofy refers to the young african boy as "Thuh dim-witted little monkey!"
They did this kind of thing constantly back in the 20s, 30s, and 40s....
(they being most everyone - not just Disney)
Another reason Disney CAN'T lose their copyrights quite a few people are unaware of is alot more immediately more important to the Disney corporation: They can be quickly ruined by things they published in the 20s 30s and 40s.
Here's a fairly tame example of Disney's fears. They produced piles upon piles of literature that - while not meant to be degrading at the time - would be a serious embarassment if they were made widely known today.
My grandfather has a few of the Donald Duck comics he used to get at his gas station in 1940s Dayton, Ohio. In these, Donald refers to various and sundry brown people as "porch monkeys" and "cotton pickin tar babies" - let alone the dozens of people of color portrayed in pitiful stereotype. Native Americans, negros, hispanics, etc. etc. all shown as lazy, drunken, slobs or as murderous psychopaths.
The least of Disney's worries is their animated/live action film "Song of the South" - which they have pulled from shelves. This movie actually celebrated the rich culture of blacks in the 19th century south and in treated the subject with respect.
With the works I'm talking about, there was no respect present. Such as that shown in the example - the stereotyped character was put on display as an oddity.
that, I think, is Disney's major motivation for keeping an iron grip on copyright.
I've seen my uncle do it with "Mail Pouch" tobacco. I personally would never hold down a dog and cram a golf-ball sized wad of tobacco down his throat.
The damn dog - which was sickly and skinny already - had gunk squirting out of both ends for about an hour. After two more treatments over the next week, the dog (a beagle) put on weight and appeared fine. That was 10 years ago. She's now an old, mostly deaf, hunting retiree of the ripe old age of 16. Spends her days laying next to the wood burning stove and eating hot dogs with my uncle.
I don't think she's tried chewing tobacco since, though.
I'd still trust the goop in the bottle from the pet store (farm store, wal-mart, whatever)
Unless you modify it with the word "UP". As in:
My dog ate road-kill and got all wormed up.
The typical cure for this is (if you have money) to get the wormer from the vet/wal-mart/pet store and hope... Or...(if you are poor and the dog means alot to you) you force feed the pooch a huge wad of "Chaw"... Chewing Tobacco.... Several times. It does the trick, but it's like chemotherapy - you're just hoping the worms die before the dog does.
Okay - maybe this is a Southern Redneck Hunting Dog thing...I dunno.
I guess this puts you in the "Head up your ass" column?
Just wanting to get the classification right.
Just because you believe someone doesn't mean you have to give them money.
And as for the appendix thing - Well, you Anonymous Coward you, Life isn't all roses. Sometimes it's manure.
I look at the responses to this story and notice that the posts are divided into roughly two factions:
1/8th complain that "skeptics" are too eager to shoot down any new/unpopular idea (paraphrased VERY heavily)with various and sundry reasons.
7/8ths dog pile on the 1/8th with quite a bit of name calling - referring to "head up your ass", "religious zealot" and my favorite "just a loony".
There are huge holes in arguements on BOTH sides, and typically - the people who posted to this topic really should read up on logical thinking and practice it some more.
Shouting "Think logically, retarded bitch!" is just plain dumb.
Insulting someone for religious beliefs is just plain dumb.
Besides - the world is alot more fun if you just DON'T ask for proof. Believe anything anyone says to you. It makes life oh-so-much more exciting.
I'm the guy that when he heard the old kids story about "step on a crack, break your momma's back" was found on the playground stamping on the broken sidewalk screaming "That's for beating me when my sister broke the car windshield and blamed it on me, you insensitive harpy!!!"
Love everyone on "Boxing Day"....?
I thought it was "International Beat The Shit Out Of Everyone You See" day....
Oops...Oh well, looks like all my Cow-Orkers got their birthday spankings a little early this year....and in the face.
Whenever a government has taken away the tools a person could use to defend oneself, it has been a prelude to oppression, more often than not.
Look into weapon/self defense control as practiced in Korea, China, Japan, various places in Africa, at various places in history and you will see it.
Either that, or those in charge have something to fear from the populace.
Now - as to answer your question, I would turn to two reports (these would be 10-12 years old now) released by the Florida state police. Researchers for the Florida chapter of the FOP (fraternal order of Police) found that violent crime actually dropped in direct proportion to the number of "concealed carry" permits they issued.
Actually, I've found that most Police officers are supportive of private citizens owning and being trained in the safe and proper use of a firearm.
Over on the Microsoft Training site they have a bunch of lemmings shouting about how Microsoft training is just the cat's pajamas and can give you "challenging opportunities, quicker promotions, and a leadership role".
This training AIN'T cheap.
Now, on the other hand, this article post here on slashdot is uhm....basically saying that you have to hire a sysadmin to run your machine and that's the expensive part. They lead us to believe you'd have to pay the linux guy more.
However if you compare These Numbers with These Numbers you'll see that the microsoft trained guys get paid more than the industry average.
So - I'm missing something here. Either Win2k doesn't need a sysadmin (yeah right...my ass) and Linux needs a small geek army, or the Microsoft Training (sounds like something Scientological - "Standard Tech" kinda stuff)is a bunch of bunk.
Microsoft is either lying about Win2k's total cost, or they're lying about the career prospects/validity/usefulness of their MCP training.....and all the industry surveys show that MCSEs make more money than linux geeks (cert-ed or not). That's damn well the case where I work.
So which one is it, Billy? Lying out the left side or the right side of your face....
General Protection Fault in module Mitralvalve32.dll.
You may be able to continue normally. Press any key to continue.
*presses key*
General Protection Fault in module SuperiorVenaCava32.dll
You may be able to continue normally. Press any key to continue.
*presses key*
WARNING!!! System Resources Dangerously Low. It is reccomended you save your work and restart the system.
It was also used as a dodge, because computers were still new when Herbert wrote the first book. He knew they'd make a big impact on the world, but was uncomfortable in predicting just what impact they'd make.
The old saying of "Write what you know, not what you don't know." held true for him.
Overall, I think it worked well.
AI was no big stretch, so he could talk about thinking machines - AI has been, since the first electronic computers in the 50s, something we would have "IN TEN YEARS". They're still saying that (or were last time I looked - maybe they wised up about it and realized even animal level intelligence is alot more complex than they thought back then.)
****Warning****
I am not responsible for any severed arteries, eyes gouged out, or for you getting fired for doing this at work. It's all you baby!
1) Get the materials.
Go get one of those plastic Bic ball point pens. The kind with the white tube. Then get a pair of scissors, a pocket knife, or a pair of needle nose pliers.
2) Remove cap from pen. Remove the black plastic cone from the "writing" end of the pen. This also pulls out the ink tube.
3) You now have a white plastic tube with a little black cap in the end. Get that cap out. Use the pocket knife, scissors, or the pliers to get the thing out. If you destroy the end of the white plastic tube, just cut it off clean again.
4)Now you have just a white plastic tube. Wee! This is your fanwing plane. You're about to make it fly using the same principle.
5) Clean off a table so there's nothing on top. Face one side of it. Put the pen tube near and parallel to the edge. Lock your thumbs under the edge of the table and place all 8 fingertips on the white tube.
6) Pressing down as hard as you can, roll your fingers back towards you.
7) If all goes well, the tube will spin very fast and fly through the air, doing loops and such.
I've actually got the things to fly twenty yards. And the do all kinds of twists and loops.
The principle that keeps the fanwing plane in the article in the air works here too - only with no control or stability.
Enjoy, and don't get in trouble.
Hold on there!
Our brains are fine for huge linear calculations. Better than most calculators in fact.
Autistic savants....
Rain Main. That kind of thing.
There was a kid I knew in high school that could find cube roots for eight digit numbers nearly instantly but he couldn't recognize his brother's face in a picture.
My personal theory is this: Human brains are like a computer (about a million orders of mangitude more complex though). Most people have that all tied up in hardware dedicated to things like jobs, girl friends, football etc. etc.
John, my autistic friend in high school, hadn't dedicated the hardware to anything in particular, but he still had it available. He was lacking in a lot of things, but sheer processing power and memory he had in spades.
As a side story, another friend of mine in high school had epilepsy, and it kept getting worse. He eventually had brain surgery where they severed his corpus callosum. After that, he couldn't add single digit numbers if he closed his right eye. If he closed his left, he couldn't recognize faces. Just kind of shows how the brain works as a parallel system.