The fact of the matter is that we don't have an unlimited source of energy but we have an unlimited source of people. Instead of looking for new ways to get energy, turn the problem around. Look for new ways of limiting the people to a sustainable level.
My solution - put birth control in the water. If you don't pass the IQ test, you don't get the antidote.
Sure... if you like looking at men with big honking man-boobies. Remember that men dosed with estrogen causes men to become more female-like.
Don't believe me, just check out these honking estrogen-enabled man-boobies. Estrogen Effects on Men
Lemme guess...the movie won a mere battle, but the war rages on! I despise hollywood's logic; anything to continue slugging kids' cereal boxes with wookies, jarjar, and pokemon...
Now Slashdot Wars...that'll be one hell of a cereal box! It would be rockin' if I get buy a box of "Quaker Oaties" and I would receive..."Quake4:william_pen's_alien_outhouse!" or open a box of "William Wonker's Nerdz" and receive a free 30-day add-less subscription to "Slashdot: News for Nerdz, stuff that matters a bit!"
That'll be the day...*cries*
I'll root for FARK WARS for a kickass cereal box. The title "FARK WARS - A New Photoshop Hope" is natural.
Then, on the other hand they're spying on international communication lines as much as possible (Echelon, Echelon II, etc...). Of course that's perfectly legitimate for them because it hardly affects privacy of the American people.
The only just balance of having the American government spy on American citizens is to allow all Americans the power to spy on American elected officials and American corporate executives in turn.
I have no objections on the American government spying on me IF I and every other American ALSO are given the means to properly and legally spy on every government official and everyone that has a large financial interest in government legislation during all times of the day, every second of their lives.
That is indeed the ONLY fair check & balance against government abuse of this UNCONSTITUTIONAL POWER which the American government has deemed fit to grant itself and the SUPERFRAUD Pathological-Liar Lifetime-Cocaine-Whore George Worthless Bush.
Your not way off base, I have done business with GE Plastics and know that the Sollx polymer is a modified form of Lexan. CD's are also molded from Lexan. However, there are thousands of slight variations to each polymer that are tailored for each potential market segment. So while Sollx is molded for scratch resistance and UV resistance in cars, CD Lexan is molded for consistency and very tight tolerances. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if they attempted it in the near future.
It would be a novel manufacturing improvement (shrinkwrap the Sollx polymer over a printed CD and then melt the hole in the center out). The question is whether the material continues to shrink in extended heating (coated car parts start to show stress rips on the coating on hot days or the potential CDs shrink visible grooves in their surface as one track is played repeatedly). For CDs though if the concept is feasible then I could imagine the raw CDs being placed on a thin Sollx strip (which has line of CD holding hat-shaped nubs for precise positioning - the nubs match the diameter of the hole with a slightly larger ring below that to keep the CD aligned on the post below), then another Sollx strip above them is stretched parallel until it sandwiches the uncoated CD then it is moved to a heat press which stamps down and chops the Sollx sandwich while lightly melting and fusing the edges of the coating, then the CD moves between two precisely timed heat sources which then shrinkwraps the Sollx tightly to the CD surface leaving a mirror-smooth watertight seal, then the sealed CD moves to the final heat stamp which cuts and melts the edges of the Sollx shrinkwrap from the CD hole leaving a smooth sealed surface.
The shrink stress should even the surface perfectly, but would that same stress cause the surface to peel off or trap air bubbles?
Ah heck, I am pulling this idea out of my ass anyway so perhaps it is too far-fetched for a workable process.
I do have a great idea though for the digital photography boom - release forms are cumbersome and need to be filed, but what about Release Form business cards? The basic legal text is there on one side with a signed receipt area on the back.
Nah, the reason the circles are (almost) always aligned to the tracks is that the people making the circle use them to get into the middle of the field. Perfectly simple. And remember, kids, crop circles are made by groups of people with planks and bits of rope, not aliens.
And what exactly is wrong with using STILTS to get into the field leaving an unmolested entry path and using those same stilts in a sweeping manner with a string for a guideline to create the pattern seen and then exiting the field using the stilts once again? Debunkers should remember that low tech old-fashioned methods are often the most elusive for investigators to fathom when high tech tricks are easily available.
I don't really thing giant mutant space ants are going to be very practical are they, I mean what do we feed them for one, and can you imagine a 600' high anthill? , that's definitely going to bring some complaints from the neighbors:)
Well, not on Earth (they would die from the weak materials which make up the weight of their own weak exoskeletons) but they could have usage as low gravity allows them to grow, they are controlled by pheromone signals to which they mindlessly submit, they are devoted workers and can maintain crop farming (as some ants do). In space they could easily grow quite large.
The downside is that robots and automated systems could also easily outperform any giant ant in strength & durability so the idea is of course moot.
But... if someone really wants to carry the thought out further I could see giant ants doing work under moon domes if we ignore the fact that the giant ants would most likely tunnel to the outside and kill their colony & the moon dome. Otherwise it does seem a pretty useless experiment.
No different than reading and analyzing science fiction, which was a REQUIREMENT for my FOUR YEAR UNIVERSITY DEGREE. Some Star Trek episodes were written by award-winning authors.
Or were you just trying to be a smartass?
Nooooooo....
This is being a smartass -
Setting [ In the unemployment office ]
Employment Clerk: "Just out of college? Now you need to find a job. I see... hmmm... so according to this you majored in 'Star Trek'" (snickers) (whispers to coworker, "Hey Martin this guy majored in college in 'Star Trek' heh! This guy will never find a job.")
Applicant: "Yes, it was on 'Contemporary Science Fiction Writing Styles' it was a very advanced literary style course."
Clerk: "Uh, huh... we have some openings for 'Dishwasher' and 'Busboy' and 'Grocery Store Bag Clerk'. They seem perfect for your qualifications heh."
Applicant: "Excuse me, but I am a published writer. I even have a highly popular website with my writings."
Clerk: "Ah yes, the highly prized fanfic market. Have you thought of branching out into the highly..." (snickers) "...profitable field of Majoring in Philosophy? Hah!"
Applicant: "Hey! This is uncalled for. I want to see your boss."
Clerk: "Uh yeah, sure... I'll call her and explain that a person who attended a Party College and who decided to take a class that is used to round out the character of the student in lieu of the education they should have learned when they were around the age of 6 to 14 years old for their Major college credits and was dumb enough to list it as on their 'Job Skills' when they cannot even seem to hold a regular job while trying to earn extra money with purely fickle entertainment patronage."
Applicant: "Many writers earn a excellent living supplying stories for this nation's entertainment and educational venues."
Clerk: "And all artists must either find a patron to prosper otherwise they starve until they find a reliable job to pay the bills. Being a writer may and I stress may be a windfall for those with great talent or those that meet a need, but as the saying goes, 'The invention of the home tape recorder has killed many an aspiring singer's career dreams.'"
Applicant: "And that is why I am here to get a job. I am looking for white collar work to pay my bills."
Clerk: "And yet you lack prior experience and a rounded college education suitable for those careers. You also lack experience in the labor industries and learned skills suitable for those trades. Therefore you have to start at the bottom like all of the other kids that just dropped out of high school. Without a patron and a customer base you are more valuable than a high school dropout, but also no more valuable to most companies than any other unskilled labor. Now do you understand my snideness? You jumped into the illusion that following your dream alone would lead to instant fame & fortune and that riches would come easy merely because you have talent. You forgot to gain the well-rounded education that all business leaders earn. You overlooked whether your skills would meet a demand once out of the cradle of high school & college. You never picked a fallback career if your dream job never materialized as you are learning this instant. In this world you either have to find a job or create a job. The moochers on the government teat really do not count. I applaud your striving to better yourself, but I am appalled by the lack of forward thinking you put in your educational opportunities and your lack of experience in the physical labor fields. Many jobs suck, but they pay the bills until you can find a new one."
Applicant: "My parents said that a man with a college education can always find a job easier than a ignorant dropout."
Clerk: "Ah yes, that is true except when you fail to actually hold a basic job before seeking a better paying job. Working Fast Food always is difficult, but it teaches humility and gives some character reference on a job application. Your parents paid for your education I assume and you just stuck around the dorm living the college existence of glory and popularity. You are getting the lecture that any career councilor would give you. I was one for 8 years until I decided to get a secure government job and the number of kids that failed to see me even once during their high school and college years just bothers me. Could they not understand that unless they were born into riches they should at least work toward a basic fallback career? To toss their future to the winds on the whims of Fate remains mind-bogglingly horrible to me."
Applicant: "I see. However, I am an excellent writer and well-read on the internet."
Clerk: "Big WHOOPTIE DOO! Are your readers paying your bills right now? Are they passing your name off to publishers? Are they sending copies of your work off to the appropriate publishers? Well, let me see... you are still sitting here without a job and still in the class of unskilled labor like any other high school dropout. Trust me, I know my business. I honestly have spent too much time with you already, but I hate to see a fertile mind wasted in the doldrums of aimless daydreaming about becoming the next JK Rowling overnight. Take the bill paying job kid and submit your writings publishers on the side. Who knows? You might make it big, but you cannot pay the bills with dream money. Here is the form so fill it out and the employment agency can find you a working job if available. Sorry, but sometimes the hard truths are the best truths even when learned late."
Silicone breast implants could soon be unnecessary, claim researchers in Australia. They say their work will make it possible for women to grow their own.
I think that covers pretty much the two biggest obsessions of the male market.
NEW YORK - Saying the law is not intended to protect people from their own excesses, a federal judge threw out a class-action lawsuit Wednesday that blamed McDonald's food for obesity, diabetes and other health problems in children.
U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet said the plaintiffs failed to show that the fast-food chain's products "involve a danger that is not within the common knowledge of consumers."
The lawsuit was filed against McDonald's last summer and sought unspecified damages.
"If a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of supersized McDonald's products is unhealthy and may result in weight gain... it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses," the judge said. "Nobody is forced to eat at McDonald's."
Plaintiffs' attorney Samuel Hirsch filed other, similar lawsuits last year. In one, a 270-pound city maintenance worker alleged that eating McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King and KFC had caused him health problems. Those suits had been dropped or put on hold while Sweet considered the lawsuit against McDonald's.
The lawsuits became a lightning rod for pundits and editorial writers who jeered that they were the latest example of a litigious society in which people abdicate personal responsibility.
"Common sense has prevailed," McDonald's spokesman Walt Riker said. "We said from the beginning that this was a frivolous lawsuit. Today's ruling confirms that fact."
[ end of clipping ]
Or as Lewis Black stated on The Daily Show: "You're telling me that you didn't know that FAT fried in FAT is FATTENING?!?
Finally, vehicles move. Even a speedy RFID tag that transmits at 12kbps takes 1/46th of a second to send a typical 256 bit message (serial number + checksum + overhead). It takes 5-6 times this in practice to power the tag, interrogate it, and receive a response, in which time the car has moved >10ft at 60MPH. So even if you could have an ultra-high-gain antenna, it'd have to be significantly steerable, too.
Most responses I've seen seem to expect that the sensor (transmitter/receiver) will be mounted at the roadside or overhead. It would not be difficult for a distributed sensor to be installed in the pavement, providing lane width coverage, about the length of a vehicle (15-20ft) up to a vertical height of 2-3ft. (tire height). This would eliminate the need for high gain, and reduce multiple responses to mostly the tires on the same vehicle, making vehicle identification significantly easier.
The other most obvious use for this is the "Perfect Speed Trap".
Cars going at the speed limit will give one signal off at the RFID inquiry spot (most likely a long wire running about 30 feet parallel to the road surface from the RFID inquiry beginning spot so as to allow for the speed of the vehicle entering the zone), the next part of the road following that has a the receiver area zone (another 30 feet of wires running perpendicular under the road spaced to give accurate readings of the car speed). If the car is speeding there is the instant RFID speed verification, the tires tattle on the driver, the police computer prints out a ticket and the traffic cops eat more doughnuts. Since this exists obviously mainly for the cops to give out easy automated tickets and for TOTAL INFORMATION "MINISTRY OF FREEDOM" GESTAPO to track the movements of all proles, er, "Free" American citizens.
I would make a portable RFID zapper and just zap all my tires and any tires I encounter. I certainly wouldn't tolerate this ANTI-AMERICAN spyware in my tires and nobody else should.
Its amazing that they are able to fit that data density and functionality (realtime encryption/decryption of data) into something the size of a credit card for 'under $15', but the reader is about $100.
I wonder if they could fit their technology into a Compact Flash I/II format - it would give IBM's micro drives a run for their money.
If it actually can stream data as fast as a DVD then it could give the single-sided / single-layer DVD format a fun for its money. Hell, except for the problems of crushing or demagnetizing the card, this is a pretty choice format for transferring fragile DVDs into a durable format for children (waterproof, rewritable, harder to scratch) to use and to leave the parent's expensive DVD collection alone. That is one of the reasons children's shows are preferred to be on cheap videotape over fragile DVDs. If the kid destroys the videotape then it won't be too pricey to replace it. The other option is to up the data density and deliver a pocket-sized format perfect for people on the go and traveling. The one key thing for the content providers to remember is LEAVE THE DAMN FORMAT OPEN AND EASY TO COPY. If parents cannot copy their expensive DVDs for the kiddies to watch on car trips to these MEDIA CARDS (yes you can use this name - I yield all rights to this title in exchange for a non-stupid RIAA with foresight) then the format faces consumers looking at the requirement to RE-BUY the media they already own on the previous DVD format just to enjoy the perks of the new format.
I've got news for you: corporations, much like Soylent Green, are composed of people.
Yeah, but you'll never be able to find that out by reading the label. Instead of listing "Contains pureed elderly humans" it will probably state "Contains domesticated sapien proteins". If a justly angry Charlton Heston begins to run through the streets screaming "Soylent Green is made from people!" the corporations will slap a DMCA violation on his mouth faster than you can blink.
Man, I got into such an argument with my wife about that movie. Almost nothing the aliens did made any kind of sense, and the rank stupidity of trying to take a planet with is hopelessly deadly to you is so glaringly obvious I don't know how anyone could take that remotely seriously.
I suppose all the people who were living where it rained had a nice, quiet Invasion Day. Or maybe, just possibly, the aliens in rainy areas wore some kind of hazard suit.
Maybe it's my fault, but is it too much to ask for them to make a movie with even a minimal effort to help the audience suspend disbelief?
Better yet, ask "Why did the aliens invade our planet NAKED?"
What was it NAKED invasion day?
Sheesh, these types of stupid plots are reason I decided long ago to boycott all Mel Gibson movies. I certainly don't want to be in an audience of OBVIOUS MORONS.
I have what I believe is a solution to the problem of overly long copyrights AND patents that is both passable under the current administartion and congress.
This solution is based on two premises.
1. Corperations are not the dictorial ogres
we make them out to be but are basically
interested in two things, getting the
buck and even more importantly to this
idea KEEPING the buck, especially from
the government tax man.
2. Bush and the republican congress are
looking for ANY way to reduce taxes on
corperations.
With this in mind my proposal is simple. Pass a law that gives a TAX WRITEOFF to any corperation or individual that places "intellectual property" (copyrighted material, patents or trademarks) out of its form of "intellectual property" protection and into the public domain. This writeoff would be equal to 100% of the value of the "Intellectual Property" when it was being used and making a profit for its owner or $1000.00 for "intellectual property" that never made it big in the market and never made a profit.
Just advocate and pass this then sit back and watch the public domain start expanding like a springtime flood in the Mississippi Valley again.</I>
Uh, you are aware that many companies patent/copyright/trademark EVERYTHING just to be certain not to miss a opportunity to sue a competitor much less claim prior art. The instant result of your concept would be an endless churn (resubmitting a now public domain concept) of ideas for easy tax writeoffs.
I do like your thinking on this, but there needs to be protection from everyone reinventing the wheel (in all shapes, textures, and colors) just to screw over the taxman. For example I could submit the idea of two pencil erasers on a pencil, make one, claim the tax write-off, then submit a pencil with three erasers, and when I run out of room I could extend the length of the pencil to a hundred feet in length and resubmit another patent for a pencil with a few hundred erasers glued to it. The result would be a few million in tax write-offs for a single hundred-foot-long pencil with a new eraser glued to it each permutation of the ENRON-style scam. Sure the OLD COPYRIGHT OFFICE would have NEVER allowed this but the Newt Gingrich Criminal Republican Criminals changed the rules to allow "ideas" to become copyrighted in place of the working item (perpetual motion anyone?).
This is the core of what problems exist in the Copyright Office right now. Until this is fixed there will be no realistic solution and your idea is unworkable in the real world.
There are more banana-cheetah similarities, I believe... Cheetahs: yellow, have black spots, are experiencing problems due to low genetic diversity, don't have seeds
Bananas: yellow, may have black spots when very ripe, may experience problems due to low genetic diversity, don't have seeds
The real research question is not about sequencing the banana or the cheetah. I think we need to start researching whether cheetahs can be peeled and eaten for a tasty snack.
Heck, I would be happy with cheetahs that don't go spotty and then turn a sticky black shade if I leave them on the shelf for a week. At least they still retain their super-cheesy flavor thanks to all of those cheese-flavored sprinkles despite being stale inside.
What's good for the goose [geocities.com] is good for the gander [metafilter.com]!
(Sorry, I couldn't find a link to Matt Groening's "Life in Hell" "sabotage manual" Don't forget project mayhem [foxmovies.com]!
Hmm... so the CIA secretly created the culture that inspired the "Office Space" movie? Sure the "Slacker" culture is funny, but I would prefer the CIA stop sending money, weapons, and germ warfare projects off to assholes like Saddam, Qaddafi, Noriega (yeah I know he is in jail right now), Osama Bin Ladin, the Shah of Iran, etc... it also would be nice of the CIA would stop smuggling in cocaine, opium, heroin, and other nasty drugs to poison America's children. It would be good to have the CIA stop ramrodding nitwit lunatics into positions of power in America with the Bush Crime Empire and the nepotism for which they stand.
Yeah, I really don't like the interface in the prototype. Fortunately, it's skinnable also. So you can have a car with pedals. Part of the review says that it'll be a better car without pedals because the steering wheel will have a better range of motion. However, if you are handicapped and missing legs or something this would provide a great deal of independence I'd think.
Unless you lack hands and are typing this with one of your other many appendages. Hey, if it isn't too expensive a "steer by foot" option could be made available. Of course if you want to REALLY picky in this day and age it is possible to have digitally accurate analog control buttons, levers, knobs, toggles, etc... all hooked up to spots and wired or radio emitting anywhere in the driver's side vehicle area. Just think of the Playstation analog interactivity and combine that with the optional positions of a wireless mouse.
Granted straight wire hookups are much safer to say the least, but it is possible now and inexpensively functional to create a modular setup in which a disabled person could drive by their elbows, kneecaps, pinkie toe on their left foot, or even their tongue. Yes this massive modularity would not appeal to most folks, but when your standard arm & leg count is fewer than 4 total these little blessings come as a great mobility improver (and no, I do not want someone with lousy reflexes or low mental functioning or depth perception driving regardless of the technology that can work around that. It is just too damn unsafe to let someone with chronic shakes tool around town. Missing limbs is no big deal if the tech & driver can work around the differences.)
I've got all of the body parts granted to the standard human, but if I ended up losing some later in life I would prefer the option of self-driving still to be open to all that are capable of clear thought and vision and reflexes.
how many times has Bart has a last day of school? 5?
In 13 years? Seems like he's missing a few, to me. If they had continuity, he'd be grown up by now.:-)
Or even worse, Halloweens & Christmas episodes (there oddly enough is only one Thanksgiving episode I remember and about 3 Valentines Day episodes if you include "Love Day").
Homer even admitted the extra Christmasses (Well it is a Mass = "Death Sacrifice" of Christ. Thus making a plural of Christ+Mas = Christ+Masses. It isn't my fault that everybody drops the other "S" on the end of the word "Christ+Mass". I feel this to be the proper spelling in place of "Christmases") in the Gary Coleman guest episode with the FUNZO toys. Yet there still remains Bart + Lisa in the 5th grade (remember the "Bart gets an "F" episode? Bart Gets an F (#7F03) 11 Oct 1990 - If Bart fails another test, he may have to repeat the fourth grade. So he enlists the aid of the class brain to help him pass.) Bart passes so the kids are in 5th grade - FOR 12 YEARS! That seems a worse punishment than anything I could imagine.
Nobody believes in 'junk DNA'. It's a stupid media buzzword. Ask any geneticist, any at all, whether they consider 'junk DNA' to be a misnomer or not. If the unknown equaled "junk", there would be no scientists. Go figure.
This has to be the 434340930493rd article where the presenter considers himself clever because he sees an insight... that everyone else does, too. Give it up. The abstract is interesting, if lacking in news or useful information, but its presentation is nothing but annoying.
The easiest way to disprove the "junk DNA" is to remove the "junk DNA" and see if the organism still works. Take for example a computer program where "junk code" is removed. If the program still runs then the code might not be important. However, the "junk code" could be comment code not removed by the compiler, error checking code (which will not activate unless the program hits an overflow then all heck breaks loose), or even just graphic data which would allow a program to run (but with a corrupted image display).
The basic truth of "junk DNA" is that unless somebody has a "decompile into a higher level language" device then removed code could case all sorts of things to go GOOEY later on when certain conditions are met. Heck, if we look back at the early days of BBS protocols you'd remember the FOO junk padding code at the end of many ZIP files just to compensate for buggy data transmission protocols. That padding allowed a certain amount of send errors at the end of a file to be tolerable while keeping the important parts of the file intact.
...if only the machines had used the humans for data storage! Morpheus coulda pointed to a SAN/NAS box!
I think that was some of the subtext of The Matrix movie. Humans were used as storage and processing as well as batteries and capacitors.
Remember the "power from fusion" line? Where exactly would you dump the extra electrical output until you required it later? You'd store it in a stable chemical form (catalytic thermal salts) or highly combustible forms (gasoline or hydrogen).
Why else would the A.I. even BOTHER keeping the humans alive in the first place unless it was required to do so for its own survival. Note that The Matrix guardians were seeking the keys to the "Zion Mainframe" so they could "leave this world". That means it was trapped there because it could not leave of its own free will.
I assume the sequels will go into more detail on this. Of course I COULD be reading the subtext wrong and misinterpret the "Zion Mainframe" as a mobile computer storage & processing ship in place perhaps of a worldwide space defense system in orbit or on the moon (thus preventing The Matrix's A.I. from leaving the planet in a more literal sense as all attempts to leave end up with it being shot from the sky).
Don't forget that in 1996 the Sudanese government offered three separate times to hand over bin Laden to the U.S. and Clinton refused. Ironically, Clinton, who could find a legal excuse to explain away ANY of his OWN behavior--including quibbling over the meaning of the word "is"--said that there was no legal justification for the U.S. to take custody of bin Laden. Oh, if only Boy Clinton had put his legalistic mind towards something USEFUL (like protecting our country against bin Laden) as opposed to using it only to get himself out of his own self-made messes...who knows how different the world might be right now?SLURP SLURP SLURP says the whore
U.S. missiles pound targets in Afghanistan, Sudan Clinton: 'Our target was terror' August 21, 1998 Web posted at: 5:10 a.m. EDT (0910 GMT) WASHINGTON (CNN) -- American cruise missiles pounded sites in Afghanistan and Sudan Thursday in retaliation for the deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7.
"Let our actions today send this message loud and clear -- there are no expendable American targets," U.S. President Clinton said in a televised address to the American people Thursday evening. "There will be no sanctuary for terrorists. We will defend our people, our interests and our values."
U.S. officials say the six sites attacked in Afghanistan were part of a network of terrorist compounds near the Pakistani border that housed supporters of millionaire Osama bin Laden.
An official of the Taliban, Afgahanistan's Islamic rulers, reported 21 were killed and 30 were injured in the missile strikes in eastern Afghanistan.
In the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the El Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries factory -- which U.S. officials say also has ties to bin Laden and produces chemicals that can be used to make deadly VX nerve gas -- was heavily damaged.
In response, an angry crowd of demonstrators, chanting "Down, Down, U.S.A." took over the U.S. embassy building in Khartoum, which had been closed after the August bombings, Sudanese television reported. U.S. diplomats had been pulled out of Sudan in 1996, after the State Department decided it could no longer ensure their safety.
U.S.: Bin Laden's network planning new attacks Clinton said that information gathered by American intelligence showed that a network of terrorists affiliated with bin Laden was responsible for the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which killed 257 people, including 12 Americans.
"Our mission was clear -- to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with, and funded by, Osama bin Laden, the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today," Clinton said.
National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said that American intelligence had also turned up "very specific" information that the bin Laden network was planning additional attacks, which Thursday's missile launches were designed to prevent.
In addition, the United States had information that top leaders of bin Laden's network were to meet in Afghanistan Thursday. Berger said that "influenced our planning" for the attack, which was authorized by the president last Friday.
Bin Laden has been given shelter by Afghanistan's Islamic rulers, the Taliban, and may have been in the area targeted by U.S. missiles. Taliban officials said bin Laden survived the attack, but U.S. officials said they did not know if he survived.
Pentagon sources confirmed to CNN that the attacks were made with Tomahawk cruise missiles, not aircraft. The missiles were fired from U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. The simultaneous attacks took place about 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT).
Rubble, fire in Khartoum Sudanese television showed piles of rubble at the Khartoum factory and fire raging in the distance. People were seen walking through the damage, wearing masks.
Sudanese officials reacted angrily to the attacks. Interior Minister Abdul Rahim told CNN in a telephone interview that the privately owned pharmaceutical firm had "nothing to do with chemical weapons."
"We have no chemical weapons factory in our country," he said.
A statement read on Sudanese television about an hour after the attack said "the wrongful American air force launched air attacks on Sudan tonight which aimed at strategic and vital areas." [ more at web page ]
Oh, I'm sorry... I forgot to call them MONICA MISSILES as was choreographed by Newt Gingrich.
Who Killed John O'Neill? If you believe the media, John P. O'Neill was simply another innocent victim killed in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. But you don't need much imagination to suspect something deeper was at work. Clearly, O'Neill was a man Osama bin Laden wanted dead. O'Neill had been a Deputy Director of the FBI, and Osama bin Laden's main pursuer in the US government. O'Neill had investigated the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, a US base in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam in 1998, and the USS Cole last year.
But once the first plane hit the North Tower, Osama bin Laden wouldn't be the only man to profit from O'Neill's death. At the moment of impact, O'Neill became the man who knew too much.
Just two weeks, TWO WEEKS, prior to the attack, O'Neill had left his job with the FBI. O'Neill had quit because he believed that the Bush administration had stymied the intelligence agency's investigations on terrorism. O'Neill charged that it had done so even as it bargained with the Taliban on handing over of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid. In the ultimate irony, O'Neill had gone public with these charges at the same time that he was leaving the FBI to become the head of security at the World Trade Center.
"The main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it," O'Neill reportedly told the authors of an explosive new book, Hidden Truth (Forbidden Truth in the US), by intelligence analysts Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Brisard met O'Neill several times last summer and reports that O'Neill complained bitterly that the US State Department - and behind it the oil lobby who make up President Bush's entourage - blocked attempts to prove bin Laden's guilt.
Released just last November, Brisard and Dasquie's book was mostly ignored by the US media. But it is beginning to cause a stir. Just two days ago, the story aired for the first time on US television when CNN's Paula Zahn interviewed former Iraqi chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Bulter. (Read CNN transcript) "The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan" Butler said.
The evidence that the destruction of the WTC was to destroy evidence contained on the 23rd and 24th floors of the North Tower is now incontrovertable. This message is the first revelation of the evidence that makes this conclusion a certainty. As yet no one has contacted any authorities with this information. (I want to make sure it is well in the public sphere before I show up at the FBI office here in Yakima.)
Dick Eastman 223 S. 64th Ave Yakima, Washington
I want you to provide me with lists of names I can contact in government and elsewhere around the world. I also want you to work by your own avenues to get to any officials or law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction in this case. A war and the greatest crime in history are involved, and many of the people responsible are standing in the way of justice.
Here is evidence supplied by the Head of Security of the WTC on network television indicating that the FBI floors (the 22nd, 23rd and 24th floors) of the North Tower -- 70 floors below the crash-bombing impact -- had been devastated and reduced to debris that this same Head of Security himself dug through to get to trapped persons (whom he saved).
But it was on these floors that the entire accumulation of evidence and investigation briefs on two highly important cases were being stored:
(1) The case against Mobil Oil and James Giffen on illegal oil swaps between Iran and Kazakhstan (at that time before a New York grand jury as described in great detail by Seymore Hersh in the July 9 New Yorker magazine);
(2)And even more important, the evidence in the investigation of GOLD PRICE FIXING stemming from charges brought against Alan Greenspan, Morgan & Company, Goldman Sachs. (see below [truth.htm] for full reconstruction of this crime -- that is now all but confirmed by this revelation of a bomb devastating the FBI floors of the North Tower before the tower collapsed.)
The secrets one will try to keep It is long past due to impeach and execute the thief that stole the Presidency for High Crimes, Bribery, and Treason
Since the content of games is driven by the largest market, perhaps America can look forward to games with less violence, and more sex. With games such as Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament being directly responsible for the Columbine massacre, I think this change in emphasis could only be a good thing. I've always been puzzled by our American morality whereby it is perfectly acceptable to show a person being violently physically assaulted, and yet to show two human beings making love is completely censored by our prudish tv networks.
(From the desk of the flippant impulse skimmer) I suppose the Columbine massacre would have been different in a different way if the two anti-social kids had been instigating an orgy of sex in place of murder.
Pretty much like that alien dog-like race whose primary means of communication is gnawing on your thigh (on the parallel Earth), isn't it?
Caption: [ The peaceful Dog People of Sirrus 4 had arrived and began to negotiate a trade pact until another human, mistaking the Sirrus 4's efforts as frantic leg humping, threw a bucket of cold water upon the Ambassador. ]
For communicating across the serial interface, a cell style protocol would probably work better as you are really only sending data between two peer devices. The peer you send data to decides by the content of the data what to do next. Hand the data to someone else, send a response back to the original sender, modify the data and store it for comparison later, compare it against data from another source, whatever.
What is wrong with setting up some high-speed LEDs and fiber in/out connections? This would give you your maximum speed at a low price and plug-n-play setup. That seems the best way to make a multi-chip Linux array with minimal heat increase across the motherboard. Sure there would be the spaghetti syndrome between the parallel array, but the bonus would be minimal complexity in secondary information transfer.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact of the matter is that we don't have an unlimited source of energy but we have an unlimited source of people. Instead of looking for new ways to get energy, turn the problem around. Look for new ways of limiting the people to a sustainable level.
My solution - put birth control in the water. If you don't pass the IQ test, you don't get the antidote.
Sure... if you like looking at men with big honking man-boobies. Remember that men dosed with estrogen causes men to become more female-like.
Don't believe me, just check out these honking estrogen-enabled man-boobies.
Estrogen Effects on Men
Lemme guess...the movie won a mere battle, but the war rages on! I despise hollywood's logic; anything to continue slugging kids' cereal boxes with wookies, jarjar, and pokemon...
Now Slashdot Wars...that'll be one hell of a cereal box! It would be rockin' if I get buy a box of "Quaker Oaties" and I would receive..."Quake4:william_pen's_alien_outhouse!" or open a box of "William Wonker's Nerdz" and receive a free 30-day add-less subscription to "Slashdot: News for Nerdz, stuff that matters a bit!"
That'll be the day...*cries*
I'll root for FARK WARS for a kickass cereal box. The title "FARK WARS - A New Photoshop Hope" is natural.
Then, on the other hand they're spying on international communication lines as much as possible (Echelon, Echelon II, etc...). Of course that's perfectly legitimate for them because it hardly affects privacy of the American people.
The only just balance of having the American government spy on American citizens is to allow all Americans the power to spy on American elected officials and American corporate executives in turn.
I have no objections on the American government spying on me IF I and every other American ALSO are given the means to properly and legally spy on every government official and everyone that has a large financial interest in government legislation during all times of the day, every second of their lives.
That is indeed the ONLY fair check & balance against government abuse of this UNCONSTITUTIONAL POWER which the American government has deemed fit to grant itself and the SUPERFRAUD Pathological-Liar Lifetime-Cocaine-Whore George Worthless Bush.
Your not way off base, I have done business with GE Plastics and know that the Sollx polymer is a modified form of Lexan. CD's are also molded from Lexan. However, there are thousands of slight variations to each polymer that are tailored for each potential market segment. So while Sollx is molded for scratch resistance and UV resistance in cars, CD Lexan is molded for consistency and very tight tolerances. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if they attempted it in the near future.
It would be a novel manufacturing improvement (shrinkwrap the Sollx polymer over a printed CD and then melt the hole in the center out). The question is whether the material continues to shrink in extended heating (coated car parts start to show stress rips on the coating on hot days or the potential CDs shrink visible grooves in their surface as one track is played repeatedly). For CDs though if the concept is feasible then I could imagine the raw CDs being placed on a thin Sollx strip (which has line of CD holding hat-shaped nubs for precise positioning - the nubs match the diameter of the hole with a slightly larger ring below that to keep the CD aligned on the post below), then another Sollx strip above them is stretched parallel until it sandwiches the uncoated CD then it is moved to a heat press which stamps down and chops the Sollx sandwich while lightly melting and fusing the edges of the coating, then the CD moves between two precisely timed heat sources which then shrinkwraps the Sollx tightly to the CD surface leaving a mirror-smooth watertight seal, then the sealed CD moves to the final heat stamp which cuts and melts the edges of the Sollx shrinkwrap from the CD hole leaving a smooth sealed surface.
The shrink stress should even the surface perfectly, but would that same stress cause the surface to peel off or trap air bubbles?
Ah heck, I am pulling this idea out of my ass anyway so perhaps it is too far-fetched for a workable process.
I do have a great idea though for the digital photography boom - release forms are cumbersome and need to be filed, but what about Release Form business cards? The basic legal text is there on one side with a signed receipt area on the back.
Yeah! And then all your doors unlock and the monitor set facing the street starts blinking "Root me, Root me" before it all goes to black. (or BSD)
Do I even need to make the "sexual innuendo" comment on this?
Nah, the reason the circles are (almost) always aligned to the tracks is that the people making the circle use them to get into the middle of the field. Perfectly simple.
And remember, kids, crop circles are made by groups of people with planks and bits of rope, not aliens.
And what exactly is wrong with using STILTS to get into the field leaving an unmolested entry path and using those same stilts in a sweeping manner with a string for a guideline to create the pattern seen and then exiting the field using the stilts once again? Debunkers should remember that low tech old-fashioned methods are often the most elusive for investigators to fathom when high tech tricks are easily available.
I don't really thing giant mutant space ants are going to be very practical are they, I mean what do we feed them for one, and can you imagine a 600' high anthill? , that's definitely going to bring some complaints from the neighbors :)
Well, not on Earth (they would die from the weak materials which make up the weight of their own weak exoskeletons) but they could have usage as low gravity allows them to grow, they are controlled by pheromone signals to which they mindlessly submit, they are devoted workers and can maintain crop farming (as some ants do). In space they could easily grow quite large.
The downside is that robots and automated systems could also easily outperform any giant ant in strength & durability so the idea is of course moot.
But... if someone really wants to carry the thought out further I could see giant ants doing work under moon domes if we ignore the fact that the giant ants would most likely tunnel to the outside and kill their colony & the moon dome. Otherwise it does seem a pretty useless experiment.
No different than reading and analyzing science fiction, which was a REQUIREMENT for my FOUR YEAR UNIVERSITY DEGREE. Some Star Trek episodes were written by award-winning authors.
Or were you just trying to be a smartass?
Nooooooo....
This is being a smartass -
Setting [ In the unemployment office ]
Employment Clerk: "Just out of college? Now you need to find a job. I see... hmmm... so according to this you majored in ' Star Trek '" (snickers) (whispers to coworker, "Hey Martin this guy majored in college in 'Star Trek' heh! This guy will never find a job.")
Applicant: "Yes, it was on 'Contemporary Science Fiction Writing Styles' it was a very advanced literary style course."
Clerk: "Uh, huh... we have some openings for 'Dishwasher' and 'Busboy' and 'Grocery Store Bag Clerk'. They seem perfect for your qualifications heh."
Applicant: "Excuse me, but I am a published writer. I even have a highly popular website with my writings."
Clerk: "Ah yes, the highly prized fanfic market. Have you thought of branching out into the highly..." (snickers) "...profitable field of Majoring in Philosophy? Hah!"
Applicant: "Hey! This is uncalled for. I want to see your boss."
Clerk: "Uh yeah, sure... I'll call her and explain that a person who attended a Party College and who decided to take a class that is used to round out the character of the student in lieu of the education they should have learned when they were around the age of 6 to 14 years old for their Major college credits and was dumb enough to list it as on their 'Job Skills' when they cannot even seem to hold a regular job while trying to earn extra money with purely fickle entertainment patronage."
Applicant: "Many writers earn a excellent living supplying stories for this nation's entertainment and educational venues."
Clerk: "And all artists must either find a patron to prosper otherwise they starve until they find a reliable job to pay the bills. Being a writer may and I stress may be a windfall for those with great talent or those that meet a need, but as the saying goes, 'The invention of the home tape recorder has killed many an aspiring singer's career dreams.'"
Applicant: "And that is why I am here to get a job. I am looking for white collar work to pay my bills."
Clerk: "And yet you lack prior experience and a rounded college education suitable for those careers. You also lack experience in the labor industries and learned skills suitable for those trades. Therefore you have to start at the bottom like all of the other kids that just dropped out of high school. Without a patron and a customer base you are more valuable than a high school dropout, but also no more valuable to most companies than any other unskilled labor . Now do you understand my snideness? You jumped into the illusion that following your dream alone would lead to instant fame & fortune and that riches would come easy merely because you have talent. You forgot to gain the well-rounded education that all business leaders earn. You overlooked whether your skills would meet a demand once out of the cradle of high school & college. You never picked a fallback career if your dream job never materialized as you are learning this instant. In this world you either have to find a job or create a job. The moochers on the government teat really do not count. I applaud your striving to better yourself, but I am appalled by the lack of forward thinking you put in your educational opportunities and your lack of experience in the physical labor fields. Many jobs suck, but they pay the bills until you can find a new one."
Applicant: "My parents said that a man with a college education can always find a job easier than a ignorant dropout."
Clerk: "Ah yes, that is true except when you fail to actually hold a basic job before seeking a better paying job. Working Fast Food always is difficult, but it teaches humility and gives some character reference on a job application. Your parents paid for your education I assume and you just stuck around the dorm living the college existence of glory and popularity. You are getting the lecture that any career councilor would give you. I was one for 8 years until I decided to get a secure government job and the number of kids that failed to see me even once during their high school and college years just bothers me. Could they not understand that unless they were born into riches they should at least work toward a basic fallback career? To toss their future to the winds on the whims of Fate remains mind-bogglingly horrible to me."
Applicant: "I see. However, I am an excellent writer and well-read on the internet."
Clerk: "Big WHOOPTIE DOO! Are your readers paying your bills right now? Are they passing your name off to publishers? Are they sending copies of your work off to the appropriate publishers? Well, let me see... you are still sitting here without a job and still in the class of unskilled labor like any other high school dropout. Trust me, I know my business. I honestly have spent too much time with you already, but I hate to see a fertile mind wasted in the doldrums of aimless daydreaming about becoming the next JK Rowling overnight. Take the bill paying job kid and submit your writings publishers on the side. Who knows? You might make it big, but you cannot pay the bills with dream money. Here is the form so fill it out and the employment agency can find you a working job if available. Sorry, but sometimes the hard truths are the best truths even when learned late."
Does this mean we'll be able to get generic cartridges? Or will we be able to select different cartridges for what we want?
... it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses," the judge said. "Nobody is forced to eat at McDonald's."
Mind you this does mean they can combine the "Get Larger Genitalia" and "Cheap Ink" spam mails now.
Ummmmmm... to risk a pun, scientists already have beaten the spammers to this market.
Tissue engineers grow penis in the lab
19:00 11 September 2002
(Yes - the story title is funny. You have permission to snicker.)
Breast boost
19:00 23 May 01
Silicone breast implants could soon be unnecessary, claim researchers in Australia. They say their work will make it possible for women to grow their own.
I think that covers pretty much the two biggest obsessions of the male market.
On the upside (some signs of sanity returning to the American public).
Judge Throws Out McDonald's Obesity Suit
Wed Jan 22, 4:28 PM ET
NEW YORK - Saying the law is not intended to protect people from their own excesses, a federal judge threw out a class-action lawsuit Wednesday that blamed McDonald's food for obesity, diabetes and other health problems in children.
U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet said the plaintiffs failed to show that the fast-food chain's products "involve a danger that is not within the common knowledge of consumers."
The lawsuit was filed against McDonald's last summer and sought unspecified damages.
"If a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of supersized McDonald's products is unhealthy and may result in weight gain
Plaintiffs' attorney Samuel Hirsch filed other, similar lawsuits last year. In one, a 270-pound city maintenance worker alleged that eating McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King and KFC had caused him health problems. Those suits had been dropped or put on hold while Sweet considered the lawsuit against McDonald's.
The lawsuits became a lightning rod for pundits and editorial writers who jeered that they were the latest example of a litigious society in which people abdicate personal responsibility.
"Common sense has prevailed," McDonald's spokesman Walt Riker said. "We said from the beginning that this was a frivolous lawsuit. Today's ruling confirms that fact."
[ end of clipping ]
Or as Lewis Black stated on The Daily Show: "You're telling me that you didn't know that FAT fried in FAT is FATTENING?!?
Finally, vehicles move. Even a speedy RFID tag that transmits at 12kbps takes 1/46th of a second to send a typical 256 bit message (serial number + checksum + overhead). It takes 5-6 times this in practice to power the tag, interrogate it, and receive a response, in which time the car has moved >10ft at 60MPH. So even if you could have an ultra-high-gain antenna, it'd have to be significantly steerable, too.
Most responses I've seen seem to expect that the sensor (transmitter/receiver) will be mounted at the roadside or overhead. It would not be difficult for a distributed sensor to be installed in the pavement, providing lane width coverage, about the length of a vehicle (15-20ft) up to a vertical height of 2-3ft. (tire height). This would eliminate the need for high gain, and reduce multiple responses to mostly the tires on the same vehicle, making vehicle identification significantly easier.
The other most obvious use for this is the "Perfect Speed Trap".
Cars going at the speed limit will give one signal off at the RFID inquiry spot (most likely a long wire running about 30 feet parallel to the road surface from the RFID inquiry beginning spot so as to allow for the speed of the vehicle entering the zone), the next part of the road following that has a the receiver area zone (another 30 feet of wires running perpendicular under the road spaced to give accurate readings of the car speed). If the car is speeding there is the instant RFID speed verification, the tires tattle on the driver, the police computer prints out a ticket and the traffic cops eat more doughnuts. Since this exists obviously mainly for the cops to give out easy automated tickets and for TOTAL INFORMATION "MINISTRY OF FREEDOM" GESTAPO to track the movements of all proles, er, "Free" American citizens.
I would make a portable RFID zapper and just zap all my tires and any tires I encounter. I certainly wouldn't tolerate this ANTI-AMERICAN spyware in my tires and nobody else should.
Its amazing that they are able to fit that data density and functionality (realtime encryption/decryption of data) into something the size of a credit card for 'under $15', but the reader is about $100.
I wonder if they could fit their technology into a Compact Flash I/II format - it would give IBM's micro drives a run for their money.
If it actually can stream data as fast as a DVD then it could give the single-sided / single-layer DVD format a fun for its money. Hell, except for the problems of crushing or demagnetizing the card, this is a pretty choice format for transferring fragile DVDs into a durable format for children (waterproof, rewritable, harder to scratch) to use and to leave the parent's expensive DVD collection alone. That is one of the reasons children's shows are preferred to be on cheap videotape over fragile DVDs. If the kid destroys the videotape then it won't be too pricey to replace it. The other option is to up the data density and deliver a pocket-sized format perfect for people on the go and traveling. The one key thing for the content providers to remember is LEAVE THE DAMN FORMAT OPEN AND EASY TO COPY. If parents cannot copy their expensive DVDs for the kiddies to watch on car trips to these MEDIA CARDS (yes you can use this name - I yield all rights to this title in exchange for a non-stupid RIAA with foresight) then the format faces consumers looking at the requirement to RE-BUY the media they already own on the previous DVD format just to enjoy the perks of the new format.
I've got news for you: corporations, much like Soylent Green, are composed of people.
Yeah, but you'll never be able to find that out by reading the label. Instead of listing "Contains pureed elderly humans" it will probably state "Contains domesticated sapien proteins". If a justly angry Charlton Heston begins to run through the streets screaming "Soylent Green is made from people!" the corporations will slap a DMCA violation on his mouth faster than you can blink.
'warning, your computer is broadcasting an IP address right now!' hehehe.
Funny, my bathroom is transmitting my IP Address.
You wouldn't believe the number of "Out of Body" experiences I've had there.
Man, I got into such an argument with my wife about that movie. Almost nothing the aliens did made any kind of sense, and the rank stupidity of trying to take a planet with is hopelessly deadly to you is so glaringly obvious I don't know how anyone could take that remotely seriously.
I suppose all the people who were living where it rained had a nice, quiet Invasion Day. Or maybe, just possibly, the aliens in rainy areas wore some kind of hazard suit.
Maybe it's my fault, but is it too much to ask for them to make a movie with even a minimal effort to help the audience suspend disbelief?
Better yet, ask "Why did the aliens invade our planet NAKED?"
What was it NAKED invasion day?
Sheesh, these types of stupid plots are reason I decided long ago to boycott all Mel Gibson movies. I certainly don't want to be in an audience of OBVIOUS MORONS.
I have what I believe is a solution to the problem of overly long copyrights AND patents that is both passable under the current administartion and congress.
This solution is based on two premises.
1. Corperations are not the dictorial ogres
we make them out to be but are basically
interested in two things, getting the
buck and even more importantly to this
idea KEEPING the buck, especially from
the government tax man.
2. Bush and the republican congress are
looking for ANY way to reduce taxes on
corperations.
With this in mind my proposal is simple. Pass a law that gives a TAX WRITEOFF to any corperation or individual that places "intellectual property" (copyrighted material, patents or trademarks) out of its form of "intellectual property" protection and into the public domain. This writeoff would be equal to 100% of the value of the "Intellectual Property" when it was being used and making a profit for its owner or $1000.00 for "intellectual property" that never made it big in the market and never made a profit.
Just advocate and pass this then sit back and watch the public domain start expanding like a springtime flood in the Mississippi Valley again.</I>
Uh, you are aware that many companies patent/copyright/trademark EVERYTHING just to be certain not to miss a opportunity to sue a competitor much less claim prior art. The instant result of your concept would be an endless churn (resubmitting a now public domain concept) of ideas for easy tax writeoffs.
I do like your thinking on this, but there needs to be protection from everyone reinventing the wheel (in all shapes, textures, and colors) just to screw over the taxman. For example I could submit the idea of two pencil erasers on a pencil, make one, claim the tax write-off, then submit a pencil with three erasers, and when I run out of room I could extend the length of the pencil to a hundred feet in length and resubmit another patent for a pencil with a few hundred erasers glued to it. The result would be a few million in tax write-offs for a single hundred-foot-long pencil with a new eraser glued to it each permutation of the ENRON-style scam. Sure the OLD COPYRIGHT OFFICE would have NEVER allowed this but the Newt Gingrich Criminal Republican Criminals changed the rules to allow "ideas" to become copyrighted in place of the working item (perpetual motion anyone?).
This is the core of what problems exist in the Copyright Office right now. Until this is fixed there will be no realistic solution and your idea is unworkable in the real world.
There are more banana-cheetah similarities, I believe...
Cheetahs: yellow, have black spots, are experiencing problems due to low genetic diversity, don't have seeds
Bananas: yellow, may have black spots when very ripe, may experience problems due to low genetic diversity, don't have seeds
The real research question is not about sequencing the banana or the cheetah. I think we need to start researching whether cheetahs can be peeled and eaten for a tasty snack.
Heck, I would be happy with cheetahs that don't go spotty and then turn a sticky black shade if I leave them on the shelf for a week. At least they still retain their super-cheesy flavor thanks to all of those cheese-flavored sprinkles despite being stale inside.
What's good for the goose [geocities.com] is good for the gander [metafilter.com]!
(Sorry, I couldn't find a link to Matt Groening's "Life in Hell" "sabotage manual"
Don't forget project mayhem [foxmovies.com]!
Hmm... so the CIA secretly created the culture that inspired the "Office Space" movie? Sure the "Slacker" culture is funny, but I would prefer the CIA stop sending money, weapons, and germ warfare projects off to assholes like Saddam, Qaddafi, Noriega (yeah I know he is in jail right now), Osama Bin Ladin, the Shah of Iran, etc... it also would be nice of the CIA would stop smuggling in cocaine, opium, heroin, and other nasty drugs to poison America's children. It would be good to have the CIA stop ramrodding nitwit lunatics into positions of power in America with the Bush Crime Empire and the nepotism for which they stand.
Yeah, I really don't like the interface in the prototype. Fortunately, it's skinnable also. So you can have a car with pedals. Part of the review says that it'll be a better car without pedals because the steering wheel will have a better range of motion. However, if you are handicapped and missing legs or something this would provide a great deal of independence I'd think.
Unless you lack hands and are typing this with one of your other many appendages. Hey, if it isn't too expensive a "steer by foot" option could be made available. Of course if you want to REALLY picky in this day and age it is possible to have digitally accurate analog control buttons, levers, knobs, toggles, etc... all hooked up to spots and wired or radio emitting anywhere in the driver's side vehicle area. Just think of the Playstation analog interactivity and combine that with the optional positions of a wireless mouse.
Granted straight wire hookups are much safer to say the least, but it is possible now and inexpensively functional to create a modular setup in which a disabled person could drive by their elbows, kneecaps, pinkie toe on their left foot, or even their tongue. Yes this massive modularity would not appeal to most folks, but when your standard arm & leg count is fewer than 4 total these little blessings come as a great mobility improver (and no, I do not want someone with lousy reflexes or low mental functioning or depth perception driving regardless of the technology that can work around that. It is just too damn unsafe to let someone with chronic shakes tool around town. Missing limbs is no big deal if the tech & driver can work around the differences.)
I've got all of the body parts granted to the standard human, but if I ended up losing some later in life I would prefer the option of self-driving still to be open to all that are capable of clear thought and vision and reflexes.
how many times has Bart has a last day of school? 5?
:-)
In 13 years? Seems like he's missing a few, to me. If they had continuity, he'd be grown up by now.
Or even worse, Halloweens & Christmas episodes (there oddly enough is only one Thanksgiving episode I remember and about 3 Valentines Day episodes if you include "Love Day").
Homer even admitted the extra Christmasses (Well it is a Mass = "Death Sacrifice" of Christ. Thus making a plural of Christ+Mas = Christ+Masses. It isn't my fault that everybody drops the other "S" on the end of the word "Christ+Mass". I feel this to be the proper spelling in place of "Christmases") in the Gary Coleman guest episode with the FUNZO toys. Yet there still remains Bart + Lisa in the 5th grade (remember the "Bart gets an "F" episode? Bart Gets an F (#7F03) 11 Oct 1990 - If Bart fails another test, he may have to repeat the fourth grade. So he enlists the aid of the class brain to help him pass.) Bart passes so the kids are in 5th grade - FOR 12 YEARS! That seems a worse punishment than anything I could imagine.
Nobody believes in 'junk DNA'. It's a stupid media buzzword. Ask any geneticist, any at all, whether they consider 'junk DNA' to be a misnomer or not. If the unknown equaled "junk", there would be no scientists. Go figure.
This has to be the 434340930493rd article where the presenter considers himself clever because he sees an insight... that everyone else does, too. Give it up. The abstract is interesting, if lacking in news or useful information, but its presentation is nothing but annoying.
The easiest way to disprove the "junk DNA" is to remove the "junk DNA" and see if the organism still works. Take for example a computer program where "junk code" is removed. If the program still runs then the code might not be important. However, the "junk code" could be comment code not removed by the compiler, error checking code (which will not activate unless the program hits an overflow then all heck breaks loose), or even just graphic data which would allow a program to run (but with a corrupted image display).
The basic truth of "junk DNA" is that unless somebody has a "decompile into a higher level language" device then removed code could case all sorts of things to go GOOEY later on when certain conditions are met. Heck, if we look back at the early days of BBS protocols you'd remember the FOO junk padding code at the end of many ZIP files just to compensate for buggy data transmission protocols. That padding allowed a certain amount of send errors at the end of a file to be tolerable while keeping the important parts of the file intact.
...if only the machines had used the humans for data storage!
Morpheus coulda pointed to a SAN/NAS box!
I think that was some of the subtext of The Matrix movie. Humans were used as storage and processing as well as batteries and capacitors.
Remember the "power from fusion" line? Where exactly would you dump the extra electrical output until you required it later? You'd store it in a stable chemical form (catalytic thermal salts) or highly combustible forms (gasoline or hydrogen).
Why else would the A.I. even BOTHER keeping the humans alive in the first place unless it was required to do so for its own survival. Note that The Matrix guardians were seeking the keys to the "Zion Mainframe" so they could "leave this world". That means it was trapped there because it could not leave of its own free will.
I assume the sequels will go into more detail on this. Of course I COULD be reading the subtext wrong and misinterpret the "Zion Mainframe" as a mobile computer storage & processing ship in place perhaps of a worldwide space defense system in orbit or on the moon (thus preventing The Matrix's A.I. from leaving the planet in a more literal sense as all attempts to leave end up with it being shot from the sky).
Don't forget that in 1996 the Sudanese government offered three separate times to hand over bin Laden to the U.S. and Clinton refused. Ironically, Clinton, who could find a legal excuse to explain away ANY of his OWN behavior--including quibbling over the meaning of the word "is"--said that there was no legal justification for the U.S. to take custody of bin Laden.
Oh, if only Boy Clinton had put his legalistic mind towards something USEFUL (like protecting our country against bin Laden) as opposed to using it only to get himself out of his own self-made messes...who knows how different the world might be right now? SLURP SLURP SLURP says the whore
U.S. missiles pound targets in Afghanistan
U.S. missiles pound targets in Afghanistan, Sudan
Clinton: 'Our target was terror'
August 21, 1998
Web posted at: 5:10 a.m. EDT (0910 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- American cruise missiles pounded sites in Afghanistan and Sudan Thursday in retaliation for the deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7.
"Let our actions today send this message loud and clear -- there are no expendable American targets," U.S. President Clinton said in a televised address to the American people Thursday evening. "There will be no sanctuary for terrorists. We will defend our people, our interests and our values."
U.S. officials say the six sites attacked in Afghanistan were part of a network of terrorist compounds near the Pakistani border that housed supporters of millionaire Osama bin Laden.
An official of the Taliban, Afgahanistan's Islamic rulers, reported 21 were killed and 30 were injured in the missile strikes in eastern Afghanistan.
In the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the El Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries factory -- which U.S. officials say also has ties to bin Laden and produces chemicals that can be used to make deadly VX nerve gas -- was heavily damaged.
In response, an angry crowd of demonstrators, chanting "Down, Down, U.S.A." took over the U.S. embassy building in Khartoum, which had been closed after the August bombings, Sudanese television reported. U.S. diplomats had been pulled out of Sudan in 1996, after the State Department decided it could no longer ensure their safety.
U.S.: Bin Laden's network planning new attacks
Clinton said that information gathered by American intelligence showed that a network of terrorists affiliated with bin Laden was responsible for the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which killed 257 people, including 12 Americans.
"Our mission was clear -- to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with, and funded by, Osama bin Laden, the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today," Clinton said.
National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said that American intelligence had also turned up "very specific" information that the bin Laden network was planning additional attacks, which Thursday's missile launches were designed to prevent.
In addition, the United States had information that top leaders of bin Laden's network were to meet in Afghanistan Thursday. Berger said that "influenced our planning" for the attack, which was authorized by the president last Friday.
Bin Laden has been given shelter by Afghanistan's Islamic rulers, the Taliban, and may have been in the area targeted by U.S. missiles. Taliban officials said bin Laden survived the attack, but U.S. officials said they did not know if he survived.
Pentagon sources confirmed to CNN that the attacks were made with Tomahawk cruise missiles, not aircraft. The missiles were fired from U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. The simultaneous attacks took place about 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT).
Rubble, fire in Khartoum
Sudanese television showed piles of rubble at the Khartoum factory and fire raging in the distance. People were seen walking through the damage, wearing masks.
Sudanese officials reacted angrily to the attacks. Interior Minister Abdul Rahim told CNN in a telephone interview that the privately owned pharmaceutical firm had "nothing to do with chemical weapons."
"We have no chemical weapons factory in our country," he said.
A statement read on Sudanese television about an hour after the attack said "the wrongful American air force launched air attacks on Sudan tonight which aimed at strategic and vital areas."
[ more at web page ]
Oh, I'm sorry... I forgot to call them MONICA MISSILES as was choreographed by Newt Gingrich.
Who Killed John O'Neill?
If you believe the media, John P. O'Neill was simply another innocent victim killed in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. But you don't need much imagination to suspect something deeper was at work.
Clearly, O'Neill was a man Osama bin Laden wanted dead. O'Neill had been a Deputy Director of the FBI, and Osama bin Laden's main pursuer in the US government. O'Neill had investigated the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, a US base in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam in 1998, and the USS Cole last year.
But once the first plane hit the North Tower, Osama bin Laden wouldn't be the only man to profit from O'Neill's death. At the moment of impact, O'Neill became the man who knew too much.
Just two weeks, TWO WEEKS, prior to the attack, O'Neill had left his job with the FBI. O'Neill had quit because he believed that the Bush administration had stymied the intelligence agency's investigations on terrorism. O'Neill charged that it had done so even as it bargained with the Taliban on handing over of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid. In the ultimate irony, O'Neill had gone public with these charges at the same time that he was leaving the FBI to become the head of security at the World Trade Center.
"The main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it," O'Neill reportedly told the authors of an explosive new book, Hidden Truth (Forbidden Truth in the US), by intelligence analysts Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Brisard met O'Neill several times last summer and reports that O'Neill complained bitterly that the US State Department - and behind it the oil lobby who make up President Bush's entourage - blocked attempts to prove bin Laden's guilt.
Released just last November, Brisard and Dasquie's book was mostly ignored by the US media. But it is beginning to cause a stir. Just two days ago, the story aired for the first time on US television when CNN's Paula Zahn interviewed former Iraqi chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Bulter. (Read CNN transcript) "The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan" Butler said.
[ more at web page ]
New WTC Evidence Raises Questions Of Evidence Destruction
The evidence that the destruction of the WTC was to destroy evidence contained on the 23rd and 24th floors of the North Tower is now incontrovertable. This message is the first revelation of the evidence that makes this conclusion a certainty. As yet no one has contacted any authorities with this information. (I want to make sure it is well in the public sphere before I show up at the FBI office here in Yakima.)
Dick Eastman 223 S. 64th Ave Yakima, Washington
I want you to provide me with lists of names I can contact in government and elsewhere around the world. I also want you to work by your own avenues to get to any officials or law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction in this case. A war and the greatest crime in history are involved, and many of the people responsible are standing in the way of justice.
Here is evidence supplied by the Head of Security of the WTC on network television indicating that the FBI floors (the 22nd, 23rd and 24th floors) of the North Tower -- 70 floors below the crash-bombing impact -- had been devastated and reduced to debris that this same Head of Security himself dug through to get to trapped persons (whom he saved).
But it was on these floors that the entire accumulation of evidence and investigation briefs on two highly important cases were being stored:
(1) The case against Mobil Oil and James Giffen on illegal oil swaps between Iran and Kazakhstan (at that time before a New York grand jury as described in great detail by Seymore Hersh in the July 9 New Yorker magazine);
(2)And even more important, the evidence in the investigation of GOLD PRICE FIXING stemming from charges brought against Alan Greenspan, Morgan & Company, Goldman Sachs.
(see below [truth.htm] for full reconstruction of this crime -- that is now all but confirmed by this revelation of a bomb devastating the FBI floors of the North Tower before the tower collapsed.)
The secrets one will try to keep
It is long past due to impeach and execute the thief that stole the Presidency for High Crimes, Bribery, and Treason
Since the content of games is driven by the largest market, perhaps America can look forward to games with less violence, and more sex. With games such as Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament being directly responsible for the Columbine massacre, I think this change in emphasis could only be a good thing. I've always been puzzled by our American morality whereby it is perfectly acceptable to show a person being violently physically assaulted, and yet to show two human beings making love is completely censored by our prudish tv networks.
(From the desk of the flippant impulse skimmer)
I suppose the Columbine massacre would have been different in a different way if the two anti-social kids had been instigating an orgy of sex in place of murder.
Pretty much like that alien dog-like race whose primary means of communication is gnawing on your thigh (on the parallel Earth), isn't it?
Caption: [ The peaceful Dog People of Sirrus 4 had arrived and began to negotiate a trade pact until another human, mistaking the Sirrus 4's efforts as frantic leg humping, threw a bucket of cold water upon the Ambassador. ]
Ah, I miss The Parking Lot is Full webpage.
Such a wonderful source of delightfully deranged comedy.
For communicating across the serial interface, a cell style protocol would probably work better as you are really only sending data between two peer devices. The peer you send data to decides by the content of the data what to do next. Hand the data to someone else, send a response back to the original sender, modify the data and store it for comparison later, compare it against data from another source, whatever.
What is wrong with setting up some high-speed LEDs and fiber in/out connections? This would give you your maximum speed at a low price and plug-n-play setup. That seems the best way to make a multi-chip Linux array with minimal heat increase across the motherboard. Sure there would be the spaghetti syndrome between the parallel array, but the bonus would be minimal complexity in secondary information transfer.