Geez, get off your high horse and drop the attitude. The parent post was speculating and didn't claim to have a monopoly on truth, but of course you can't accept that people who take LSD couldn't possibly experience synaesthesia because *you* have synaesthesia and it's not "like that." You seem to think that the condition you experience is *the* definition of synaesthesia and nothing more, and that's utterly wrong. Synaesthesia is when one type of stimulation evokes another. It is not "Interrobang's condition in which some stimulations evoke others sometimes in a peripheral sense that can be ignored."
Synaesthesia is an effect of LSD that occurs in certain dosages for certain people. Accept that. You've never done a hallucinogen as you've said and have absolutely no right to claim some sort of monopoly on synaesthesia like you seem to hell-bent on doing.
Let's think about it for a second. In your case, your synaesthesia effects are apparently mild and can be ignored. LSD affects the brain in various ways and it's perfectly possible that when it does cause synaesthesia (one of many, many effects), the other effects (such as intense emotional reactions to perceptions and hallucinations that result as a distortion / dissociation from what is being perceived) AMPLIFY the synaesthesia into something more vivid than you could ever imagine. LSD is a very complicated substance that acts on the brain in many ways. Oh, and then there's the fact that you've probably had this condition your entire life and are less likely to react to it in a dramatic fashion as someone who is zonked on acid. Synaesthesia is a documented effect of LSD use and whether or not it's "your kind of synaesthesia" doesn't make isn't synaesthesia at all.
The basic point of your post (pure LSD couldn't possibly cause bad trips, it just amplifies them) is still utterly wrong. You briefly said something about bad QC which would cover impurities such as other lysergic acid derivatives..but then when on to talk about cutting with "cheaper hallucinogens" (BS) and strychnine (BS).
Your basic point was this -- LSD doesn't cause bad trips. To take this further, this would mean that if one could take pure LSD-25, one would never have a bad trip. Bullshit. Set and setting. State of mind. No, the LSD doesn't cause the bad trip in and of itself, no more than a hamburger makes you fat in and of itself, but taking it at the wrong place at the wrong time does. And sometimes even if you are totally "up for it" you can have a bad trip.
Basically my gripe here is that you're implying that LSD can't cause negative experiences, it has to be something else. Of course it doesn't SOLELY cause bad experiences. It's a sum total effect. "I'm in a bad mood, I'm at some dumb loser's house, and here's some fucking acid, I'll take it I guess." It doesn't matter if it's 100% pure LSD or some mixture made with poor quality control, you're still gonna have a bad experience in such a situation unless you can really handle your shit.
The medical stuff you've read? Give me a break. This is a total load of urban legend crap. There is no reason to cut acid with rat poison or "cheaper hallucinogens." It's generally dried on blotter paper so there's really no point in "diluting" it for any reason. When sold in liquid form, it's often diluted with liquor. It's so incredibly potent (as in, 25 MILLIONTHS of a gram will cause baseline effects) that cutting it with fucking POISON or other hallucinogens would be EXPENSIVE, POINTLESS, AND STUPID.
Cutting agents don't cause bad trips. Adverse reactions to LSD cause bad trips. This could mean taking LSD on accident without knowing it, taking LSD in a bad setting, taking LSD in a bad state of mind, etc.
This is not to say that acid has never once been cut with strychnine. It has happened to be sure, but only because morons hear this urban legend and then do it themselves for some idiotic reason. In all reality there is no fucking reason to go out and buy rat poison in order to some how dilute a drug that is by weight the most powerful mind altering substance on earth and I'm utterly sick of this crap being propogated to this day as fact.
I take it you haven't done very large doses of acid if you don't believe that it's possible for a person to become completely dissociated from reality and experience full blown visual and auditory hallucinations. There's a reason they use anti-schizo drugs on "bad trip" patients in the E.R. Not to say that acid makes you go apeshit, but in large enough doses it will in fact sever your connection to reality.
Another thing; there's no such thing as "visual acid." LSD-25 is LSD-25. There are bound to be impurities in the drug such as LSA (the precursor) and other similar substances that are definitely less potent than the desired LSD-25 molecule, but this notion of some acid being "more visual" than others is silly. It's either strong due to purity / saturation / whatever, or it's weak due to impurity / low dosage, etc. It's like alcohol aficionados who claim one brand of tequila gets them more drunk than any other. Of course, when your dealer tells you "this is some seriously visual shit," the power of suggestion factors in immensely. As does your set and setting. Set and setting is tremendously influential; even with "weak hallucinogens" like pot. (Yes, I know pot isn't really officially categorized as anything, be it depressant, stimulant, etc, but weak hallucinogen would have to be the category in which it fits best, IMHO.)
The effect and extent of hallucinations associated with acid varies insanely based on dosage. Take a small enough amount and you'll barely notice, although you'll feel "high" and have auditory disturbances. Take more and you'll see visual distortions such as the ones you describe. Take yet more and you *will* see full-blown hallucinations, such as having long conversations with people who aren't there, for example (not that this example is something that happens to people regularly).
In essense your experience is directly proportional to the dosage and the setting in which you are immersed. Whether or not a "full blown" hallucination is really just a distortion of what you're actually seeing won't make a damned big of difference when you're blown out on a dozen hits or so and really can't make associations with reality. It will appear as real as light and day.
Perhaps you were a little over-zealous in advertising your geekiness, but completely suppressing it seems just as over-zealous to me. I met my best friend in high school because I was talking about Wolfenstein to another semi-friend who really didn't care what I was talking about at the time. My soon-to-be-best-friend overheard and his curiosity was piqued; Doom was already out at the time but he didn't know there were map and graphic editors for Wolf3D as well.
By following your advice to the letter, one would expect to never run into anyone with similar interests. Being isolated sucks, being trapped in one "nerd clique" and nothing else sucks too. Be balanced in your approach. Don't be overbearing about what you like to talk about, but don't completely stifle your interests for the sake of befriending people who wouldn't like you if they really knew you like an actual friend does.
I find it absolutely amazing that everyone who's replied to your posting so far has interpreted it as if to mean that you were ridiculing this salesperson for wanting to understand Java when in fact it's obvious that you respected his behavior, especially when you referred to the superior who canned him as "clueless." I'm pretty sure this has been pointed out already, but not in a direct reply.
I don't see why the RIAA would care. They may consider the act of individual listeners recording and distributing concert recordings piracy, but Clear Channel will likely charge $20-30 per recording, making a decent incoming in the process, "legitimizing" the act and thus rendering "piracy" in this case a non-issue.
Assuming these will be highest-possible-quality recordings (who knows) this of course would be a boon for so-called "bootleggers" who would no longer need to participate in the act of recording these shows but instead simply need to buy one copy and run off as many dupes as they need.
Re:Let's hope this means the end of veal
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Lab-Grown Steak
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· Score: 5, Insightful
This whole "animal protein is more complete and balanced" line of reasoning is hogwash. A proper, varied diet that includes protein-rich vegetarian foods such as beans, rice, and cereals will provide more than enough protein, and all of the amino acids a human needs. The whole "vegetarians don't get protein" argument is completely bunk, although there is such a thing as a "vegetarian" with a poor diet (who may not receive the proper balance of amino acids) just as there are omnivores with poor diets.
The only nutrient a hard-core vegan can't get from vegetable matter is vitamin B12, which is only necessary in small doses and sticks around in body tissue for decades. B12 can be taken in supplement form or can be found in fortified "nutritional yeast flakes."
Of course this is terribly off-topic, but you've completely missed the point. Entirely. The point is not that "by making fun of corporate culture, Scott Adams embraces it." Rather, the point is, "Scott Adams entrenches himself deeply in corporate culture and has commercialized every aspect of his creative existence, by making fun of the very environment in which he thrives." Duh. Think.
Except with Win XP / IE / etc, etc, since the source code is maintained only by Microsoft, the response time between being made aware of a security hole and actually patching it is bound to be much longer than in the open source world, where the code, warts and all, is free for all to see and update. I'm a Windows user mostly out of laziness, but I can admit that from a security standpoint, open source is definitely the way to go, and when it comes to security, UNIX beats Windows hands down. So, it would stand to reason that open-sourced UNIX OS's would be not only more "sturdy" as a rule, but more resilient and dextrous when it comes to adapting to new threats or fixing old flaws.
"Security through obscurity" never works in the long-term. No one expects Microsoft to release their source code, but it just makes sense that when the source code is right there for everyone to see, it's bound to be more secure. It's like those encryption contests where some no-name company has the "next great algorithm" but only has ciphertext to offer and refuses to disclose the algorithm itself. Either it's really damned good and they're afraid to let their secret out, which is pretty unlikely, or it really sucks. And even if it is good, no one can really take them seriously until they truly understand how the algorithm works. It's got to be disclosed to be trusted.
Re:Ahhh, the old screw you foreigner tax.
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Add-Ons Add Up
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· Score: 3, Insightful
While it is apparently true on the surface that many foreign police agencies are obviously corrupt, the situation isn't really much different here, it's just done in a much more civilized manner. In clearly poor countries such as Mexico, profit must be generated at the individual level. It is up to the underpaid policemen to subsidize their own life style, whether that means supporting a family or a cocaine habit.
In countries such as Mexico and Colombia where a lot of illegal drugs are produced / manufactured / distributed, the value of the drugs themselves is miniscule compared to what it is once it reaches our shores. We say that "other governments" have "corrupt" police forces, but consider that our own police agencies directly profit off of the drug trade. How so?
Duh. Through property forfeiture and seizure, of course. In some states, you can lose your car for simply having a joint in your possession and getting pulled over for a minor offense. You can just as easily lose your house and other assets if they can claim that you couldn't afford it without illicit drug sales. In most cases, no due process or even conviction is required. And what happens once that property is seized? It gets sold, and the money goes back to the police force. In many cases, this property was in fact purchased with drug money, and the police essentially turn that drug / blood money into their own, profiting from it. In many cases, this property was not in fact purchased with drug money, but it is still seized and auctioned anyway, and nobody is the wiser. Nothing can be done about it until enough people support ballot initiatives to reform this horrific practice.
Some might not call this "corruption" but the fact remains that by perpetuating this cycle, the police are essentially profiting directly off of the incredibly inflated drug trade in the US. As long as they continue to do so, there will be no true incentive to "end the war on drugs," but to perpetuate it for eternity. That's whole idea, isn't it? Not to actually "win a war," but to constantly justify a war either by pointing out its meager successes, or its persistent failures. "We can't give up now...almost there." Even if there was a way to win this "war," the government truly would not want to do so. Do you have any idea of how many electronic appliances, among other things, are purchased directly by foreign nationals with obvious drug trafficking connections? Our entire economy rests on a foundation of illegitimacy, of corruption, what have you. There's no turning back, at least from the perspective of those with the power to make a difference.
Not only is corruption inherently built into our system in this way among many others, but there are plenty of cases of "truly," directly corrupt officers who look the other way in certain cases, plant evidence in others, or just wreak havok in general on the so-called justice-system by looking out after their own interests before all others. It's human nature, after all.
So in the US we are fleeced in that we pay monstrous taxes to subsidize the federal and local police forces, who spend much of our money fighting a losing war in order to justify their bloated existence. Not only that, but we pay taxes to subsidized tobacco farmers, who produce one of the most addictive and dangerous (and widely used drugs) known to man! We constantly are asked to pay extra fees to support supposedly capitalistic enterprises that cannot support themselves due to their excessive, bloated, inherently un-capitalistic nature. We must subsidize failure on a regular basis, in order save face for those who would rather not admit such.
In Mexico it might be common to get shaken-down at the individual level and be forced to part with some hard-earned cash. In the US, we are fleeced systematically, every day. I have a Discover Card with "no annual fee," yet I was charged $6.08 in "finance charges" last month, when I kept a totally empty balance! That's one minor example, of course...but don't think the US is any more civilized simply because our money is transferred out of pocket electronically and in a stealthy fashion, whereas in other countries it must be yanked the old-fashioned way...
Correction: 'If you uphold these civil libertarian viewpoints, you should be appalled by the fact that Orrin Hatch was behind the so-called "Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act" that deigned to outlaw all information regarding the manufacture, production, and consumption of illegal drugs.'
Did I miss something, or did you just imply that electing Orrin Hatch "out of office" would be a bad thing, while in the same post imply that you are against the restriction of civil liberties insofar as people are entitled to use drugs, see hookers, be gay, and so on and so forth? If you uphold these civil libertarian viewpoints, you should be appalled by the fact that Orrin Hatch was behind the so-called "Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act" that deigned to outlaw all information regarding the manufacture, production, and consumption of legal drugs. This is the same Orrin Hatch who staunchly defends the "health food supplement" industry, which has killed far more people than marijuana ever will thanks to the fact that people completely misunderstand the simple fact that "herbal supplement" does not necessarily mean "harmless substance." In essense he is against all illegal drugs (though he veiled it behind "methamphetamine") while he stands behind legal but arugably equally dangerous substances such as ephedra and yohimbe (combine those two and watch your brain go pop). Orrin Hatch is a fucked up old buffoon, regardless of his views on IP laws and whatnot.
I have a cheap-o digital answering machine that I picked up for $15. I keep my ringer off or at least low, keep the volume at a decent level, and set the message to "You've reached blah blah, calls from solicitors will not be returned." This prevents most solicitors from ever getting a hold of me, but there have been a few obnoxious cases where they will rattle off their shpiel, and almost every time it is either due to a political campaign call (in Colorado I've noticed a heavy load of anti-Mike Feely campaigning; whether he's good or bad, his opponent is a scumbag who has sunk to the lowest possible level by calling people with live and automated messages, sending out endless fliers that all repeat the same drivel, etc) or a moronic satellite-dish salesperson. My favorite thing to do when this happens is to pick up the line while they're wasting the space on my machine, and scream "I SAID NO SOLICITORS!" and then hang up. Hopefully that gives them a sufficient jolt.
Personally I think it's rude to be excessively mean and nasty to telemarketers, especially in this crap economy; sure, there are plenty of better jobs they could be looking for, but it's the idiots who actually buy this stuff that perpetuate the cycle, and not the phone-slaves who feel the need to stick with whatever pays the bills. But when they deliberately waste the limited space on my machine after being told "calls from solicitors will not be returned," I feel they've crossed a line and deserve the worst.
Another fun thing to do with them is to let my girlfriend pick up the phone, and as she tries to gently wriggle her way out of the conversation without just slamming down the phone, I belt out in my best, loudest white-trash voice "Whattya doin' woman? Who you talkin' too!?" She whines in her best dimunitive dame voice and I yell at her to hang up the damned phone.
When I was younger and still lived with my parents, I'd just extract a bunch of WAV files from DOOM for DOS using DMAUD, and would create a little batch file to play them back in horrific sequence. *shotgun blast* *imp dies* *demon attack* *human death scream* etc...whoohoo.
I remember when I used to spend hours upon hours on IRC, to the point where my "IRC clique" had developed our own version of "l33t speak" called "Hehbonics," mainly due to the focus upon the word "heh" as the centerpoint of the vernacular. "Heh" can mean so many things...it can mean "that's funny," "I'm somewhat amused," "I'm disgusted but in a somewhat non-serious way," etc. It's great.
What I don't understand is this "U" bullshit. Is it that much harder to type "you" for Chrissake? I mean, the "y" "o" and "u" are separated by only the "i" key, for crying out loud. I never understood it. It doesn't look "cool," it looks dumb. All in all, it's kind of along the lines of "potato" and "poh-tot-oh," except I personally find it more pointless and foolish. The same goes for "R" instead o "are." U R GAY! HEE HEE! I mean, it's the same thing -- "a," "r," and "e," are so close together, it doesn't really matter. It just looks dumb.
Of course that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong. I see a difference between abbreviating say "read the fucking manual" to "RTFM" vs. abbreviating "YOU" to "U."
M R DUCKS! M R NOT DUCKS! O S M R. C D E D B D WINGS? O! M R DUCKS! U R G-D! I WILL M T MY NUTSAC!
Re:"I wasn't using my civil liberties, anyway"
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Want Freedom?
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· Score: 1
They've been selling that bumper sticker at GWBush.com for months now.
Are you guys serious? I think maybe you're thinking of Wing Commander II, or Wing Commander Privateer. A friend of mine got Wing Commander (the first version) for his 386/16. It ran pretty shitty, actually, but it was because he was using PC speaker audio! I had a 286/12 "Pack-Mate III" from Packard Bell with a COVAX Sound Master II Adlib compatible soundcard. Wing Commander ran FLAWLESSLY on this 286/12 with no slowdown, it was great! The only thing was, I had no EMS/XMS to speak of, so the little animation of the hang on the joystick and the video animations were gone.
I thought that was really cool of them to design the game in such a way where if you didn't have a completely high-end system, it omitted elements that weren't absolutely necessary for gameplay.
Anyone remember when Street Fighter II came out for the PC for the first time? High Tech expressions released it, and it was a classic example of a totally botched port. The characters jumped too high, it ran slowly, and sucked in general. Street Fighter II Turbo or some other variant came out shortly thereafter, and was far superior. Man, I yearn for those days.
Remember Red Baron? 286 = ok. Aces of the Pacific? 386 with 2 megs of RAM. *sigh* How about Budokan -- The Martial Spirit? Space Quest! I remember reading some old gaming magazine where it said "if you have a 286/12 with 40 megs of HDD space and a VGA monitor, you should be able to keep gaming for at least a year." What a relief that was to read...
It's actually supposed to be 2 liters/quarts per day, and as other posters have pointed out, this isn't necessarily true for everyone or even anyone. Much of what we eat contains large quantities of water, so you may easily get by with little more than 12-16 ounces (355-475ml) of fluid per day. Personally, I would say that regardless of what you drink or eat in a day, at least a pint or a full liter of pure water is a good thing, especially if you do any sort of exercise. Plain old water is a good thing in and of itself, as it tends to go "straight through" cleaning out your kidneys, bladder, bloodstream, etc. There's nothing like it after an intense workout, although gatorade/powerade/what have you is far quicker-absorbing and less likely to come out twenty minutes later.
Does the sound statement in TRS-80 basic work the same as the sound statement in Microsoft Quick/QBasic? In QBasic, the syntax is SOUND frequency_in_hertz, duration_in_hundredths_of_a_second... Since the human hearing range starts around 37 hz or so, this would be a clearly audible and obnoxious constant sound...
Indeed, the overpopulation issue might be irrelevant at this point, but the question still remains -- why should we focus on "disposable" technologies rather than make the best use out of the available resources? Whether or not overpopulation is an issue right now has no bearing on the fact that our resources are in fact limited, and we should be putting forth some sort of effort to recycling what can be recycling rather than wasting time and effort churning up more resources.
I for one would include maximizing the utility of our resources as an important component to technological progress. I can understand trying to make things inexpensive, but this whole "disposable culture" paradigm has not been constructed for the benefit of the consumer or the environment in which they live. It's just another way to get people to pay for the same thing more than once.
Why on earth would an _audio_ phile have a "projection room", or indeed 19" rackmount gear, or for that matter a PC? An audiophile is someone who cares about sound quality, that
infers nothing about video.
While we're quibbling over definitions, to "imply" is to express indirectly, whereas to "infer" is to draw conclusions. So, to describe someone as an "audiophile" would imply nothing about their video preferences...
No offense, but you'll need a lot more evidence than that to convince anybody of your story. I mean, maybe you're right, which would be quite interesting, but the accepted story is that it was written on a PC using text mode square-brackets to represent the pieces. Your website shows screen shots of a lovely, colorful, C64 version. The story on the front page indicates that a Russian programmer whipped it up and some Hungarians ported it to the C64, and attempts were made to essentially steal the credit from the Russian along with the rights to the game.
Your claims do nothing to address that. More evidence, please...
0 is always false. Anything but 0 is true. "Not 1" is -2, as opposed to "0" which you assumed it to be, which is not 0, therefore, "Not 1" is "true."
As for using "Now()" with Randomize... If you want a so-called "Random" seed, just call "Randomize" by itself, which uses "Timer" as the seed. You aren't supposed to use "Now()" with Randomize, as it's not a "numeric expression." (Try MSGBOX VAL(NOW()) to see why this happens, you are essentially seeding the generator with "6" every time.) Of course, the documentation isn't too clear about this, it says to use a "Variant or Numeric Expression." It would still be a bad idea, because it's only precise to the second, whereas Timer uses fractions of a second.
But using the system timer in this way still isn't a good idea for cryptography (nor is VB in general). This is why programs like PGP have you dance away at the keyboard in order to properly seed the generator.
As far as I recall, nothing has been done to stifle Ashcroft's right to speak freely. On the other hand, his words have been used against him by others exercising their rights to free speech, and rightfully so. He's an ardent "South sympathizer" regarding the civil war, because he's such a big fan of states' rights. Yet he has consistently stood against states' rights whenever he disagrees with the decisions the states make. Case in point; the Oregon assisted suicide measures, and medical marijuana in California. He's gone as far as to support efforts on the part of Bob Barr to invoke the "Supremacy Clause" of the constitution, over-ruling all states' rights (on matters he disagrees with, of course). He has subverted free speech by completely over-riding efforts on the part of Washington D.C. citizens to put forth medical marijuana initiatives on the ballot. In short, he's the worst kind of hypocrite, in the worst position to abuse his power by way of his utter disregard for the will of the people.
He's completely opposed to all legalization, even more medical purposes, yet blindly supports the tobacco industry. In short, he's a hypocrite who supports states' rights when it comes to the "right" to subjugate an entire class of people, but not when it comes to the decision to allow people to smoke the most effective anti-nausea, anti-wasting medicine known to man. I don't think the ACLU has done anything to stifle his right to make a complete buffoon of himself.
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Geez, get off your high horse and drop the attitude. The parent post was speculating and didn't claim to have a monopoly on truth, but of course you can't accept that people who take LSD couldn't possibly experience synaesthesia because *you* have synaesthesia and it's not "like that." You seem to think that the condition you experience is *the* definition of synaesthesia and nothing more, and that's utterly wrong. Synaesthesia is when one type of stimulation evokes another. It is not "Interrobang's condition in which some stimulations evoke others sometimes in a peripheral sense that can be ignored."
Synaesthesia is an effect of LSD that occurs in certain dosages for certain people. Accept that. You've never done a hallucinogen as you've said and have absolutely no right to claim some sort of monopoly on synaesthesia like you seem to hell-bent on doing.
Let's think about it for a second. In your case, your synaesthesia effects are apparently mild and can be ignored. LSD affects the brain in various ways and it's perfectly possible that when it does cause synaesthesia (one of many, many effects), the other effects (such as intense emotional reactions to perceptions and hallucinations that result as a distortion / dissociation from what is being perceived) AMPLIFY the synaesthesia into something more vivid than you could ever imagine. LSD is a very complicated substance that acts on the brain in many ways. Oh, and then there's the fact that you've probably had this condition your entire life and are less likely to react to it in a dramatic fashion as someone who is zonked on acid. Synaesthesia is a documented effect of LSD use and whether or not it's "your kind of synaesthesia" doesn't make isn't synaesthesia at all.
The basic point of your post (pure LSD couldn't possibly cause bad trips, it just amplifies them) is still utterly wrong. You briefly said something about bad QC which would cover impurities such as other lysergic acid derivatives..but then when on to talk about cutting with "cheaper hallucinogens" (BS) and strychnine (BS).
Your basic point was this -- LSD doesn't cause bad trips. To take this further, this would mean that if one could take pure LSD-25, one would never have a bad trip. Bullshit. Set and setting. State of mind. No, the LSD doesn't cause the bad trip in and of itself, no more than a hamburger makes you fat in and of itself, but taking it at the wrong place at the wrong time does. And sometimes even if you are totally "up for it" you can have a bad trip.
Basically my gripe here is that you're implying that LSD can't cause negative experiences, it has to be something else. Of course it doesn't SOLELY cause bad experiences. It's a sum total effect. "I'm in a bad mood, I'm at some dumb loser's house, and here's some fucking acid, I'll take it I guess." It doesn't matter if it's 100% pure LSD or some mixture made with poor quality control, you're still gonna have a bad experience in such a situation unless you can really handle your shit.
The medical stuff you've read? Give me a break. This is a total load of urban legend crap. There is no reason to cut acid with rat poison or "cheaper hallucinogens." It's generally dried on blotter paper so there's really no point in "diluting" it for any reason. When sold in liquid form, it's often diluted with liquor. It's so incredibly potent (as in, 25 MILLIONTHS of a gram will cause baseline effects) that cutting it with fucking POISON or other hallucinogens would be EXPENSIVE, POINTLESS, AND STUPID.
Cutting agents don't cause bad trips. Adverse reactions to LSD cause bad trips. This could mean taking LSD on accident without knowing it, taking LSD in a bad setting, taking LSD in a bad state of mind, etc.
This is not to say that acid has never once been cut with strychnine. It has happened to be sure, but only because morons hear this urban legend and then do it themselves for some idiotic reason. In all reality there is no fucking reason to go out and buy rat poison in order to some how dilute a drug that is by weight the most powerful mind altering substance on earth and I'm utterly sick of this crap being propogated to this day as fact.
Required reading...
I take it you haven't done very large doses of acid if you don't believe that it's possible for a person to become completely dissociated from reality and experience full blown visual and auditory hallucinations. There's a reason they use anti-schizo drugs on "bad trip" patients in the E.R. Not to say that acid makes you go apeshit, but in large enough doses it will in fact sever your connection to reality.
Another thing; there's no such thing as "visual acid." LSD-25 is LSD-25. There are bound to be impurities in the drug such as LSA (the precursor) and other similar substances that are definitely less potent than the desired LSD-25 molecule, but this notion of some acid being "more visual" than others is silly. It's either strong due to purity / saturation / whatever, or it's weak due to impurity / low dosage, etc. It's like alcohol aficionados who claim one brand of tequila gets them more drunk than any other. Of course, when your dealer tells you "this is some seriously visual shit," the power of suggestion factors in immensely. As does your set and setting. Set and setting is tremendously influential; even with "weak hallucinogens" like pot. (Yes, I know pot isn't really officially categorized as anything, be it depressant, stimulant, etc, but weak hallucinogen would have to be the category in which it fits best, IMHO.)
The effect and extent of hallucinations associated with acid varies insanely based on dosage. Take a small enough amount and you'll barely notice, although you'll feel "high" and have auditory disturbances. Take more and you'll see visual distortions such as the ones you describe. Take yet more and you *will* see full-blown hallucinations, such as having long conversations with people who aren't there, for example (not that this example is something that happens to people regularly).
In essense your experience is directly proportional to the dosage and the setting in which you are immersed. Whether or not a "full blown" hallucination is really just a distortion of what you're actually seeing won't make a damned big of difference when you're blown out on a dozen hits or so and really can't make associations with reality. It will appear as real as light and day.
Perhaps you were a little over-zealous in advertising your geekiness, but completely suppressing it seems just as over-zealous to me. I met my best friend in high school because I was talking about Wolfenstein to another semi-friend who really didn't care what I was talking about at the time. My soon-to-be-best-friend overheard and his curiosity was piqued; Doom was already out at the time but he didn't know there were map and graphic editors for Wolf3D as well.
By following your advice to the letter, one would expect to never run into anyone with similar interests. Being isolated sucks, being trapped in one "nerd clique" and nothing else sucks too. Be balanced in your approach. Don't be overbearing about what you like to talk about, but don't completely stifle your interests for the sake of befriending people who wouldn't like you if they really knew you like an actual friend does.
I find it absolutely amazing that everyone who's replied to your posting so far has interpreted it as if to mean that you were ridiculing this salesperson for wanting to understand Java when in fact it's obvious that you respected his behavior, especially when you referred to the superior who canned him as "clueless." I'm pretty sure this has been pointed out already, but not in a direct reply.
I don't see why the RIAA would care. They may consider the act of individual listeners recording and distributing concert recordings piracy, but Clear Channel will likely charge $20-30 per recording, making a decent incoming in the process, "legitimizing" the act and thus rendering "piracy" in this case a non-issue.
Assuming these will be highest-possible-quality recordings (who knows) this of course would be a boon for so-called "bootleggers" who would no longer need to participate in the act of recording these shows but instead simply need to buy one copy and run off as many dupes as they need.
This ain't too bad.
This whole "animal protein is more complete and balanced" line of reasoning is hogwash. A proper, varied diet that includes protein-rich vegetarian foods such as beans, rice, and cereals will provide more than enough protein, and all of the amino acids a human needs. The whole "vegetarians don't get protein" argument is completely bunk, although there is such a thing as a "vegetarian" with a poor diet (who may not receive the proper balance of amino acids) just as there are omnivores with poor diets.
The only nutrient a hard-core vegan can't get from vegetable matter is vitamin B12, which is only necessary in small doses and sticks around in body tissue for decades. B12 can be taken in supplement form or can be found in fortified "nutritional yeast flakes."
Of course this is terribly off-topic, but you've completely missed the point. Entirely. The point is not that "by making fun of corporate culture, Scott Adams embraces it." Rather, the point is, "Scott Adams entrenches himself deeply in corporate culture and has commercialized every aspect of his creative existence, by making fun of the very environment in which he thrives." Duh. Think.
Except with Win XP / IE / etc, etc, since the source code is maintained only by Microsoft, the response time between being made aware of a security hole and actually patching it is bound to be much longer than in the open source world, where the code, warts and all, is free for all to see and update. I'm a Windows user mostly out of laziness, but I can admit that from a security standpoint, open source is definitely the way to go, and when it comes to security, UNIX beats Windows hands down. So, it would stand to reason that open-sourced UNIX OS's would be not only more "sturdy" as a rule, but more resilient and dextrous when it comes to adapting to new threats or fixing old flaws.
"Security through obscurity" never works in the long-term. No one expects Microsoft to release their source code, but it just makes sense that when the source code is right there for everyone to see, it's bound to be more secure. It's like those encryption contests where some no-name company has the "next great algorithm" but only has ciphertext to offer and refuses to disclose the algorithm itself. Either it's really damned good and they're afraid to let their secret out, which is pretty unlikely, or it really sucks. And even if it is good, no one can really take them seriously until they truly understand how the algorithm works. It's got to be disclosed to be trusted.
While it is apparently true on the surface that many foreign police agencies are obviously corrupt, the situation isn't really much different here, it's just done in a much more civilized manner. In clearly poor countries such as Mexico, profit must be generated at the individual level. It is up to the underpaid policemen to subsidize their own life style, whether that means supporting a family or a cocaine habit.
In countries such as Mexico and Colombia where a lot of illegal drugs are produced / manufactured / distributed, the value of the drugs themselves is miniscule compared to what it is once it reaches our shores. We say that "other governments" have "corrupt" police forces, but consider that our own police agencies directly profit off of the drug trade. How so?
Duh. Through property forfeiture and seizure, of course. In some states, you can lose your car for simply having a joint in your possession and getting pulled over for a minor offense. You can just as easily lose your house and other assets if they can claim that you couldn't afford it without illicit drug sales. In most cases, no due process or even conviction is required. And what happens once that property is seized? It gets sold, and the money goes back to the police force. In many cases, this property was in fact purchased with drug money, and the police essentially turn that drug / blood money into their own, profiting from it. In many cases, this property was not in fact purchased with drug money, but it is still seized and auctioned anyway, and nobody is the wiser. Nothing can be done about it until enough people support ballot initiatives to reform this horrific practice.
Some might not call this "corruption" but the fact remains that by perpetuating this cycle, the police are essentially profiting directly off of the incredibly inflated drug trade in the US. As long as they continue to do so, there will be no true incentive to "end the war on drugs," but to perpetuate it for eternity. That's whole idea, isn't it? Not to actually "win a war," but to constantly justify a war either by pointing out its meager successes, or its persistent failures. "We can't give up now...almost there." Even if there was a way to win this "war," the government truly would not want to do so. Do you have any idea of how many electronic appliances, among other things, are purchased directly by foreign nationals with obvious drug trafficking connections? Our entire economy rests on a foundation of illegitimacy, of corruption, what have you. There's no turning back, at least from the perspective of those with the power to make a difference.
Not only is corruption inherently built into our system in this way among many others, but there are plenty of cases of "truly," directly corrupt officers who look the other way in certain cases, plant evidence in others, or just wreak havok in general on the so-called justice-system by looking out after their own interests before all others. It's human nature, after all.
So in the US we are fleeced in that we pay monstrous taxes to subsidize the federal and local police forces, who spend much of our money fighting a losing war in order to justify their bloated existence. Not only that, but we pay taxes to subsidized tobacco farmers, who produce one of the most addictive and dangerous (and widely used drugs) known to man! We constantly are asked to pay extra fees to support supposedly capitalistic enterprises that cannot support themselves due to their excessive, bloated, inherently un-capitalistic nature. We must subsidize failure on a regular basis, in order save face for those who would rather not admit such.
In Mexico it might be common to get shaken-down at the individual level and be forced to part with some hard-earned cash. In the US, we are fleeced systematically, every day. I have a Discover Card with "no annual fee," yet I was charged $6.08 in "finance charges" last month, when I kept a totally empty balance! That's one minor example, of course...but don't think the US is any more civilized simply because our money is transferred out of pocket electronically and in a stealthy fashion, whereas in other countries it must be yanked the old-fashioned way...
Correction: 'If you uphold these civil libertarian viewpoints, you should be appalled by the fact that Orrin Hatch was behind the so-called "Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act" that deigned to outlaw all information regarding the manufacture, production, and consumption of il legal drugs.'
Did I miss something, or did you just imply that electing Orrin Hatch "out of office" would be a bad thing, while in the same post imply that you are against the restriction of civil liberties insofar as people are entitled to use drugs, see hookers, be gay, and so on and so forth? If you uphold these civil libertarian viewpoints, you should be appalled by the fact that Orrin Hatch was behind the so-called "Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act" that deigned to outlaw all information regarding the manufacture, production, and consumption of legal drugs. This is the same Orrin Hatch who staunchly defends the "health food supplement" industry, which has killed far more people than marijuana ever will thanks to the fact that people completely misunderstand the simple fact that "herbal supplement" does not necessarily mean "harmless substance." In essense he is against all illegal drugs (though he veiled it behind "methamphetamine") while he stands behind legal but arugably equally dangerous substances such as ephedra and yohimbe (combine those two and watch your brain go pop). Orrin Hatch is a fucked up old buffoon, regardless of his views on IP laws and whatnot.
I have a cheap-o digital answering machine that I picked up for $15. I keep my ringer off or at least low, keep the volume at a decent level, and set the message to "You've reached blah blah, calls from solicitors will not be returned." This prevents most solicitors from ever getting a hold of me, but there have been a few obnoxious cases where they will rattle off their shpiel, and almost every time it is either due to a political campaign call (in Colorado I've noticed a heavy load of anti-Mike Feely campaigning; whether he's good or bad, his opponent is a scumbag who has sunk to the lowest possible level by calling people with live and automated messages, sending out endless fliers that all repeat the same drivel, etc) or a moronic satellite-dish salesperson. My favorite thing to do when this happens is to pick up the line while they're wasting the space on my machine, and scream "I SAID NO SOLICITORS!" and then hang up. Hopefully that gives them a sufficient jolt.
Personally I think it's rude to be excessively mean and nasty to telemarketers, especially in this crap economy; sure, there are plenty of better jobs they could be looking for, but it's the idiots who actually buy this stuff that perpetuate the cycle, and not the phone-slaves who feel the need to stick with whatever pays the bills. But when they deliberately waste the limited space on my machine after being told "calls from solicitors will not be returned," I feel they've crossed a line and deserve the worst.
Another fun thing to do with them is to let my girlfriend pick up the phone, and as she tries to gently wriggle her way out of the conversation without just slamming down the phone, I belt out in my best, loudest white-trash voice "Whattya doin' woman? Who you talkin' too!?" She whines in her best dimunitive dame voice and I yell at her to hang up the damned phone.
When I was younger and still lived with my parents, I'd just extract a bunch of WAV files from DOOM for DOS using DMAUD, and would create a little batch file to play them back in horrific sequence. *shotgun blast* *imp dies* *demon attack* *human death scream* etc...whoohoo.
I remember when I used to spend hours upon hours on IRC, to the point where my "IRC clique" had developed our own version of "l33t speak" called "Hehbonics," mainly due to the focus upon the word "heh" as the centerpoint of the vernacular. "Heh" can mean so many things...it can mean "that's funny," "I'm somewhat amused," "I'm disgusted but in a somewhat non-serious way," etc. It's great.
What I don't understand is this "U" bullshit. Is it that much harder to type "you" for Chrissake? I mean, the "y" "o" and "u" are separated by only the "i" key, for crying out loud. I never understood it. It doesn't look "cool," it looks dumb. All in all, it's kind of along the lines of "potato" and "poh-tot-oh," except I personally find it more pointless and foolish. The same goes for "R" instead o "are." U R GAY! HEE HEE! I mean, it's the same thing -- "a," "r," and "e," are so close together, it doesn't really matter. It just looks dumb.
Of course that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong. I see a difference between abbreviating say "read the fucking manual" to "RTFM" vs. abbreviating "YOU" to "U."
M R DUCKS! M R NOT DUCKS! O S M R. C D E D B D WINGS? O! M R DUCKS! U R G-D! I WILL M T MY NUTSAC!
They've been selling that bumper sticker at GWBush.com for months now.
Are you guys serious? I think maybe you're thinking of Wing Commander II, or Wing Commander Privateer. A friend of mine got Wing Commander (the first version) for his 386/16. It ran pretty shitty, actually, but it was because he was using PC speaker audio! I had a 286/12 "Pack-Mate III" from Packard Bell with a COVAX Sound Master II Adlib compatible soundcard. Wing Commander ran FLAWLESSLY on this 286/12 with no slowdown, it was great! The only thing was, I had no EMS/XMS to speak of, so the little animation of the hang on the joystick and the video animations were gone.
I thought that was really cool of them to design the game in such a way where if you didn't have a completely high-end system, it omitted elements that weren't absolutely necessary for gameplay.
Anyone remember when Street Fighter II came out for the PC for the first time? High Tech expressions released it, and it was a classic example of a totally botched port. The characters jumped too high, it ran slowly, and sucked in general. Street Fighter II Turbo or some other variant came out shortly thereafter, and was far superior. Man, I yearn for those days.
Remember Red Baron? 286 = ok. Aces of the Pacific? 386 with 2 megs of RAM. *sigh* How about Budokan -- The Martial Spirit? Space Quest! I remember reading some old gaming magazine where it said "if you have a 286/12 with 40 megs of HDD space and a VGA monitor, you should be able to keep gaming for at least a year." What a relief that was to read...
It's actually supposed to be 2 liters/quarts per day, and as other posters have pointed out, this isn't necessarily true for everyone or even anyone. Much of what we eat contains large quantities of water, so you may easily get by with little more than 12-16 ounces (355-475ml) of fluid per day. Personally, I would say that regardless of what you drink or eat in a day, at least a pint or a full liter of pure water is a good thing, especially if you do any sort of exercise. Plain old water is a good thing in and of itself, as it tends to go "straight through" cleaning out your kidneys, bladder, bloodstream, etc. There's nothing like it after an intense workout, although gatorade/powerade/what have you is far quicker-absorbing and less likely to come out twenty minutes later.
Does the sound statement in TRS-80 basic work the same as the sound statement in Microsoft Quick/QBasic? In QBasic, the syntax is SOUND frequency_in_hertz, duration_in_hundredths_of_a_second... Since the human hearing range starts around 37 hz or so, this would be a clearly audible and obnoxious constant sound...
Indeed, the overpopulation issue might be irrelevant at this point, but the question still remains -- why should we focus on "disposable" technologies rather than make the best use out of the available resources? Whether or not overpopulation is an issue right now has no bearing on the fact that our resources are in fact limited, and we should be putting forth some sort of effort to recycling what can be recycling rather than wasting time and effort churning up more resources.
I for one would include maximizing the utility of our resources as an important component to technological progress. I can understand trying to make things inexpensive, but this whole "disposable culture" paradigm has not been constructed for the benefit of the consumer or the environment in which they live. It's just another way to get people to pay for the same thing more than once.
While we're quibbling over definitions, to "imply" is to express indirectly, whereas to "infer" is to draw conclusions. So, to describe someone as an "audiophile" would imply nothing about their video preferences...
No offense, but you'll need a lot more evidence than that to convince anybody of your story. I mean, maybe you're right, which would be quite interesting, but the accepted story is that it was written on a PC using text mode square-brackets to represent the pieces. Your website shows screen shots of a lovely, colorful, C64 version. The story on the front page indicates that a Russian programmer whipped it up and some Hungarians ported it to the C64, and attempts were made to essentially steal the credit from the Russian along with the rights to the game.
Your claims do nothing to address that. More evidence, please...
0 is always false. Anything but 0 is true. "Not 1" is -2, as opposed to "0" which you assumed it to be, which is not 0, therefore, "Not 1" is "true."
As for using "Now()" with Randomize... If you want a so-called "Random" seed, just call "Randomize" by itself, which uses "Timer" as the seed. You aren't supposed to use "Now()" with Randomize, as it's not a "numeric expression." (Try MSGBOX VAL(NOW()) to see why this happens, you are essentially seeding the generator with "6" every time.) Of course, the documentation isn't too clear about this, it says to use a "Variant or Numeric Expression." It would still be a bad idea, because it's only precise to the second, whereas Timer uses fractions of a second.
But using the system timer in this way still isn't a good idea for cryptography (nor is VB in general). This is why programs like PGP have you dance away at the keyboard in order to properly seed the generator.
As far as I recall, nothing has been done to stifle Ashcroft's right to speak freely. On the other hand, his words have been used against him by others exercising their rights to free speech, and rightfully so. He's an ardent "South sympathizer" regarding the civil war, because he's such a big fan of states' rights. Yet he has consistently stood against states' rights whenever he disagrees with the decisions the states make. Case in point; the Oregon assisted suicide measures, and medical marijuana in California. He's gone as far as to support efforts on the part of Bob Barr to invoke the "Supremacy Clause" of the constitution, over-ruling all states' rights (on matters he disagrees with, of course). He has subverted free speech by completely over-riding efforts on the part of Washington D.C. citizens to put forth medical marijuana initiatives on the ballot. In short, he's the worst kind of hypocrite, in the worst position to abuse his power by way of his utter disregard for the will of the people.
He's completely opposed to all legalization, even more medical purposes, yet blindly supports the tobacco industry. In short, he's a hypocrite who supports states' rights when it comes to the "right" to subjugate an entire class of people, but not when it comes to the decision to allow people to smoke the most effective anti-nausea, anti-wasting medicine known to man. I don't think the ACLU has done anything to stifle his right to make a complete buffoon of himself.