Oh, mother of dog! How and why did you ever find that site? Interesting, sure, but jebus!
It was a Slashdot story, but for the life of me, I can't find it anymore.
For a few days after the story broke, there were obscure references to the Mallard Ducks... it had all the makings of being the next Natalie Portman's Grits. Maybe the Slashdot editors quietly removed the story for that reason... it's not like the world needs *more* ways to troll Slashdot!
The neutron star is what's left over. If it's massive enough, an event horizon forms around the neutron star, turning it into a black hole.
That concept sparked a question... since the pressure increases with depth, what happens when the pressure at the very center crosses the line between degenerate matter and a singularity?
In other words, is there any way to conceive of a black hole at the center of a neutron star?
Or would the following events occur in rapid succession:
* Some pocket of swirling neutrons near the center gets dense enough to develop an event horizon.
* Any bit of matter close to the event horizon "falls" in, leaving a gap behind it (and a flash of radiation, right?).
* The unimaginable pressure pushes more and more matter into the growing singularity, and the event horizon grows.
* At some point, the whole neutron star collapses in a massive burst of gamma radiation, leaving behind a black hole, still sucking matter from its binary twin.
An alternative would be that the nascent black hole's radiation pressure would somehow keep the rest of the neutron star's core from falling into it. But at this point, I am so beyond my depth, I may as well be talking about the physics of the Kryptonite to be found under the iron crust.
From the article: "Working the ICANN process is like being nibbled to death by ducks," said Tom Galvin, VeriSign's vice president for government relations. "It takes forever, it doesn't make sense, and in the end we're still dead in the water."
Yeah. Nibbled to death by ducks. That sounds good.
Let me be clear : I'm not a total fan of GANDI. They started out as an `` ethical '' registrar (arguing against the high prices demanded for something so mundane as a record in a database and in some domain name servers) and then last year their employees had to drag the managers to court because they were screwing them and generally mismanaging the company egregiously.
I register almost all my domains with Gandi, except when I have to use Dotster (via NameWinner, which now seems to suck). The rise of the Euro has been a PITA, but they make it easy to transfer domains.
I tried Hostway (because they're a sponsor of my favorite whois), but quit using them when I realized they had several "we can charge you an indeterminate amount" clauses in their domain registration agreement. I can't find the ones I was concerned about (regarding transfer-outs), but here's one example:
Hostway has a zero tolerance policy for chargebacks. Any customer who disputes a credit card payment is subject to a fine, suspension and account termination at Hostway's discretion. A charge of $25.00 per chargeback will be assessed to all accounts that receive a chargeback.
And if you dispute the $25, will they add another $25, until they accumulate enough chargeback charges to reposess your house?
Even though Gandi's 12 Euro price has gone from us$10 to us$15.50, I'll take Gandi.
But like the AC poster, I'd like more info about their troubles, if you could find a URL...
fc - from your old DOS days - stands for file compare I'd check to see if it still exists in Windows,
I'll be darned. Works like a charm. All this time, I thought it was gone! Rate my original post "-1, D'oh!"
And the output is as wonderfully unhelpful as I remember from the late '80s: C:\>fc sql.ini sqlx.ini Comparing files sql.ini and SQLX.INI ***** sql.ini
[SRV1] ***** SQLX.INI
w00t
[SRV1] *****
I can only imagine trying to diff Windows versions with something like that. So fc is ok, but a fully interactive binary-compatible version would be Considered Harmful, according to Microsoft.
Was it ever called "diff" in the DOS days? Perhaps I've been corrupted by other systems' influences... while looking for a file to compare, I tried to use "ls".
He said tools were available that compared patched and unpatched versions of Windows to help vandals and criminals work out what was different.
"The guys who write the tools would not consider themselves to be criminals by any measure," he said, "but the tools are also being picked up by people with criminal intent."
I guess that explains why Windows doesn't include a "diff" function...
Can some astro-phys whiz tell me why there can be a buildup of atomic matter on the nuetron star? How can the baryons remain in atomic nuclei and not get incorporated as nuetrons into the nuetron star directly?
I'm not a astrophysicist (and I'm not even going to make up an acronym for the fact), but it seems like you could liken the situation to a planet, say Jupiter. At Jupiter's core, there's a dense ball of something. But out in the visible layers, we have wispy gas. When Galileo entered the planet, it didn't turn immediately into the sort of matter in the core. For that matter, we're on the surface of a planet with a molten iron interior, but I'm not melting (yet).
From what I've read about neutron stars, they're not undifferentiated neutrons all the way out, anyway. As I recall, they're suspected of having a crust of iron -- the end-of-the-line element in nucleosynthesis.
It's not a big step to go from there to an "atmosphere" of super-dense helium that builds up over time until the pressure is enough to spark nuclear fusion. Then, you have the leftover carbon layered on top of the iron, with more helium piling on top of it.
After a certain number of He fusion explosions, you'd have a lot of super-dense carbon... and the next He explosion sparks the C to fuse. Eventually, it seems like you end up with Fe ash, and you're back where you started.
It's too bad such cool events are so long ago and far away. On the other hand, if they were nearer and more recent, we'd fry before we could enjoy the view...
you can do it programmatically fairly easily by appending an XmlWhitespace object after each XmlNode. You can retreive one of these from an XmlDocument by calling the doc.CreateWhitespace(sting whitespace) method.
Unfortunately, the CreateWhitespace method appears to be a.NET enhancement. MSXML 3 and 4 don't support it... or maybe I'm just missing it. I hope I'm just missing something obvious!
Either live with it, or split out the XML-generation code into a separate module. The world and his dog has long since learned to separate out logic code and database-access code so that it's possible to change DBMS by just rewriting the database-access module rather than the entire application - exactly the same thing applies with XML.
Well, in this case, I did right -- the code I'd have to rewrite is the logic that creates my XML file, not the database access that retrieves the data.
I'll tell my dog that you agreed with him. We had quite a fight over the issue during the code walkthru! Looks like I'll be sleeping outside tonight.
Have you tried setting the preserveWhiteSpace property?
Yes, but it didn't help in my situation. I'm creating an XML document from scratch, and preserveWhiteSpace only seems to be helpful if I were reading an XML file that already has whitespace.
I think he was less concerned about the carriage return in the CRLF than he was about something often called pretty printing, and in particular being able to simply have an end-of-line immediately after each element.
Exactly. In fact, the problem is that I'm sending the XML to mainframe-based legacy apps... they have problems with variable-length records in the first place, and this was a real headache! On the other hand, we were able to justify the lack of pretty-print line terminators by saying "It's the XML standard, look it up."
But if we *do* figure out how to add the whitespace, it'll probably break the mainframe apps that now expect none. Dealing with mainframe data is one way to find a new appreciation for PCs, and even for Microsoft.
I've had the unfortunate experience of attempting to generate XML using Microsoft's MSXML object. What a piece of crap! In an attempt to completely abstract the format, the objects are obfuscated beyond reason. Even the simplest things require ridiculous complexity: just to escape-out special characters requires instantiating a new "entity" element in the middle of the text string element.
And I still haven't figured out how to make the thing give me a CRLF at the end of each element. No, XML doesn't require the whitespace, but it would have sure made it easier for my clients to read the file!
But the worst part is that I *succeeded* in using MSXML. Now, if I wanted to go back to just writing a text file (which I do!), I can't -- my code is tangled up in the objects to the point that it would take a complete rewrite.
That's the simple reason why, every time I hear about Microsoft doing something with XML -- like this proposal to use XML as part of email identification -- I cringe in ph33r.
At first, I was thinking that "the Royal Dutch Mint" was a near-scam outfit like our homegrown Franklin Mint, churning out overpriced kitch like "The F-14 Tomcat Stars & Stripes" ($120 for a gaudy model airplane) and the $195 "Tribute to Leadership Commemorative Medal Collection", inspired by "President Reagan's most memorable speeches -- from his inaugural address to his moving farewell." 'Scuse me while I shudder in ph33r.
But as far as I can tell, these folks are the real thing -- they issue real money, *and* kitchy overpriced collectibles. Pretty cool. But it doesn't look like the three-image coins are going to turn up in the local arcade -- unless someone's kid gets into Dad's coin collection again.
Actually, scientific studies (which seem to be widely accepted as true) show that men are better at spatial relationships, and interpretting 3-d objects.
I keep hearing that, but my wife can fit an entire house full of assorted-sized junk into a single 10x20x8 three-dimensional area -- she demonstrated this ability when we moved last year and put our stuff in storage. She can pack the trunk to within an inch of its life, where I'm lucky to figure out how to get the suitcase in.
We may not be statistically relevant... but then, neither are the top athletes in any sport.
As for pool and darts -- aren't those as much social events more than anything, at least at the beginner level? It would be nice to think that this "new" sport could avoid the glass ceiling at the entry point.
Hence one of the many reasons why "professional" video gaming will never and should never be taken seriously. What a joke. Its not a sport. Oh good, someone can click faster than someone else, well good for them, try applying it to something real.
By that same logic: "Oh good, someone can run swing a fat stick better than someone else, try applying it to something real." Obviously, the concept of "professional" baseball gaming will never be taken seriously, either.
Of course, swinging a stick with great precision is handy when you're a hunter-gatherer. But last time I wanted a pork chop, I went to the store, not out to the woods. And guess what -- that pork chop was labelled with a bar code, and I purchased it using my debit card and pin.
By clicking buttons.
What was that about applying my skills to something real?
The imbalance between men and women was clear to see, with almost 50 male teams taking part, compared with just seven female squads. And as in the world of sport, there were separate competitions for each gender.
Separate competitions? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
Boys' and girls' real-world sports are separated early on because of physical attributes. Physically, girls have different abilities from boys. And there are other physical attributes that cause both genders to become... distracted.
But online? Who knows -- who cares -- about your real-world attributes? For crying out loud, that's what makes gaming great for us geeks -- we don't have to be muscular, or fit, or even easily mobile! I'd probably lose 10-to-1 against Stephen Hawking at BZFlag.
So in a world where physical ability and differences are irrelevant, what justification could there possibly be for a gender-segregated gaming tournament?
Perhaps the organizers have a cynical ulterior motive? If I were a top-level girl geek, I'd turn down an invitation to such a demeaning event -- so all they'd get would be the second-rate girl teams. And then they can say "but look, they're clearly not in the same league."
"My toilet clogged up this morning...could that be terrorism?"
Everyone's seized on this as the reply point, so I'll join in.
In Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the central computer system (aka "Mike") was in control of everything, from environmental controls to plumbing. One of the tricks that the rebels used to get physical access to Mike was to have him back up the Warden's toilet. As I recall, Mike would cause the pumps to resonate, and fountain the toilets "to the ceiling". Easier in 1/6 gee than on Earth, but probably just as messy.
So if the governor ever calls up Tom Ridge about the toilets, he's not being silly -- he's just a sci-fi geek.
If a CPU can understand your code, so can a human. The solution to this problem are licenses, not obfuscators.
Now, I've had my comments in this vein modded "Interesting", but the "Funny" mods usually arrive soon after. It's always good for a laugh, +2 Interesting on a robotics story where I link to a Short Circuit page.
But this takes the cake. +5 Interesting for a comment that says [spoiler alert?] that the best way to make a program secure from reverse engineering is to make it unrunnable. And that the licenses we love to hate are the solution.
Great post, funny as all get-out. I had to re-read it to get it, which made it even better.
I'm glad the poster got some karma points, but it's time to add some Funny mods to the mix now. Put... down... the... crakpipe...
Handy link, thanks. I have trouble even playing something as bandwidth-friendly as BZFlag on my slow, rural home connection. A "light" MMRPGOOGOOGAAGAA (whatever) would be excellent.
Unfortunately, the "Buy" links are in Russian, and I don't know "????????? ??????" from "?????????????????". My knowledge of Russian is limited to the similarity between "Toys [R] Us" and "Tet[r]is" (reverse characters in []).
2004 DW, for instance, must be named after an underworld diety because it is in a Pluto-like orbit.
I can't imagine that this "rule" could hold. If the Kuyper Belt contains more objects than the Asteroid Belt, I would think we'd run out of ancient gods of the underworld.
We might be able to extend the idea by naming trans-Plutonian objects after fallen angels and demons, but I'm afraid some of my fellow Christians -- the ones whose belief system depends on a demonic opponent -- would be seriously troubled by the idea.
But if they were to name the t-p's after demons, I'd choose this one in honor of all the geeks out there:
Ornias Assumes the shape of a Woman to appease Men Plays with Men in their Sleep; Offspring of Uriel; Fears Iron
I honestly have no idea what M1 and M2 are, so can you please explain them to me?
Moderation (M1) and Meta-Moderation (M2). Both are explained in the Moderation FAQ.
But if you do need to explain this to me (and you do), what does say about you post?
I'm afraid it means that I've gone from a complete Slashdot newbie to a jargon-spouting 1337 veteran in just a year and a half. Somehow, I don't know what to make of that...
Nothing like being moderated up for encouraging people to break the law.
It's almost as good as building a highly profitable company around the concept! As long as "Encouraging people to break the law" is legal in most states, I think Slashdot is the least of the real world's concerns.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude! It worked! You just helped me solve one of our most annoying glitches.
I just put a five-spot in your "Slashdot Subscriber" pot as a reward. Enjoy the pre-release stories! Sorry if you would have preferred cash...
Oh, mother of dog! How and why did you ever find that site? Interesting, sure, but jebus!
It was a Slashdot story, but for the life of me, I can't find it anymore.
For a few days after the story broke, there were obscure references to the Mallard Ducks... it had all the makings of being the next Natalie Portman's Grits. Maybe the Slashdot editors quietly removed the story for that reason... it's not like the world needs *more* ways to troll Slashdot!
The neutron star is what's left over. If it's massive enough, an event horizon forms around the neutron star, turning it into a black hole.
That concept sparked a question... since the pressure increases with depth, what happens when the pressure at the very center crosses the line between degenerate matter and a singularity?
In other words, is there any way to conceive of a black hole at the center of a neutron star?
Or would the following events occur in rapid succession:
* Some pocket of swirling neutrons near the center gets dense enough to develop an event horizon.
* Any bit of matter close to the event horizon "falls" in, leaving a gap behind it (and a flash of radiation, right?).
* The unimaginable pressure pushes more and more matter into the growing singularity, and the event horizon grows.
* At some point, the whole neutron star collapses in a massive burst of gamma radiation, leaving behind a black hole, still sucking matter from its binary twin.
An alternative would be that the nascent black hole's radiation pressure would somehow keep the rest of the neutron star's core from falling into it. But at this point, I am so beyond my depth, I may as well be talking about the physics of the Kryptonite to be found under the iron crust.
From the article:
"Working the ICANN process is like being nibbled to death by ducks," said Tom Galvin, VeriSign's vice president for government relations. "It takes forever, it doesn't make sense, and in the end we're still dead in the water."
Yeah. Nibbled to death by ducks. That sounds good.
Mallard Ducks.
Well, we can dream, at least...
I register almost all my domains with Gandi, except when I have to use Dotster (via NameWinner, which now seems to suck). The rise of the Euro has been a PITA, but they make it easy to transfer domains.
I tried Hostway (because they're a sponsor of my favorite whois), but quit using them when I realized they had several "we can charge you an indeterminate amount" clauses in their domain registration agreement. I can't find the ones I was concerned about (regarding transfer-outs), but here's one example:And if you dispute the $25, will they add another $25, until they accumulate enough chargeback charges to reposess your house?
Even though Gandi's 12 Euro price has gone from us$10 to us$15.50, I'll take Gandi.
But like the AC poster, I'd like more info about their troubles, if you could find a URL...
fc - from your old DOS days - stands for file compare
I'd check to see if it still exists in Windows,
I'll be darned. Works like a charm. All this time, I thought it was gone! Rate my original post "-1, D'oh!"
And the output is as wonderfully unhelpful as I remember from the late '80s:
C:\>fc sql.ini sqlx.ini
Comparing files sql.ini and SQLX.INI
***** sql.ini
[SRV1]
***** SQLX.INI
w00t
[SRV1]
*****
I can only imagine trying to diff Windows versions with something like that. So fc is ok, but a fully interactive binary-compatible version would be Considered Harmful, according to Microsoft.
Was it ever called "diff" in the DOS days? Perhaps I've been corrupted by other systems' influences... while looking for a file to compare, I tried to use "ls".
He said tools were available that compared patched and unpatched versions of Windows to help vandals and criminals work out what was different.
"The guys who write the tools would not consider themselves to be criminals by any measure," he said, "but the tools are also being picked up by people with criminal intent."
I guess that explains why Windows doesn't include a "diff" function...
Can some astro-phys whiz tell me why there can be a buildup of atomic matter on the nuetron star? How can the baryons remain in atomic nuclei and not get incorporated as nuetrons into the nuetron star directly?
I'm not a astrophysicist (and I'm not even going to make up an acronym for the fact), but it seems like you could liken the situation to a planet, say Jupiter. At Jupiter's core, there's a dense ball of something. But out in the visible layers, we have wispy gas. When Galileo entered the planet, it didn't turn immediately into the sort of matter in the core. For that matter, we're on the surface of a planet with a molten iron interior, but I'm not melting (yet).
From what I've read about neutron stars, they're not undifferentiated neutrons all the way out, anyway. As I recall, they're suspected of having a crust of iron -- the end-of-the-line element in nucleosynthesis.
It's not a big step to go from there to an "atmosphere" of super-dense helium that builds up over time until the pressure is enough to spark nuclear fusion. Then, you have the leftover carbon layered on top of the iron, with more helium piling on top of it.
After a certain number of He fusion explosions, you'd have a lot of super-dense carbon... and the next He explosion sparks the C to fuse. Eventually, it seems like you end up with Fe ash, and you're back where you started.
It's too bad such cool events are so long ago and far away. On the other hand, if they were nearer and more recent, we'd fry before we could enjoy the view...
you can do it programmatically fairly easily by appending an XmlWhitespace object after each XmlNode. You can retreive one of these from an XmlDocument by calling the doc.CreateWhitespace(sting whitespace) method.
.NET enhancement. MSXML 3 and 4 don't support it... or maybe I'm just missing it. I hope I'm just missing something obvious!
Unfortunately, the CreateWhitespace method appears to be a
Either live with it, or split out the XML-generation code into a separate module. The world and his dog has long since learned to separate out logic code and database-access code so that it's possible to change DBMS by just rewriting the database-access module rather than the entire application - exactly the same thing applies with XML.
Well, in this case, I did right -- the code I'd have to rewrite is the logic that creates my XML file, not the database access that retrieves the data.
I'll tell my dog that you agreed with him. We had quite a fight over the issue during the code walkthru! Looks like I'll be sleeping outside tonight.
Have you tried setting the preserveWhiteSpace property?
Yes, but it didn't help in my situation. I'm creating an XML document from scratch, and preserveWhiteSpace only seems to be helpful if I were reading an XML file that already has whitespace.
Thanks, though!
I think he was less concerned about the carriage return in the CRLF than he was about something often called pretty printing, and in particular being able to simply have an end-of-line immediately after each element.
Exactly. In fact, the problem is that I'm sending the XML to mainframe-based legacy apps... they have problems with variable-length records in the first place, and this was a real headache! On the other hand, we were able to justify the lack of pretty-print line terminators by saying "It's the XML standard, look it up."
But if we *do* figure out how to add the whitespace, it'll probably break the mainframe apps that now expect none. Dealing with mainframe data is one way to find a new appreciation for PCs, and even for Microsoft.
I've had the unfortunate experience of attempting to generate XML using Microsoft's MSXML object. What a piece of crap! In an attempt to completely abstract the format, the objects are obfuscated beyond reason. Even the simplest things require ridiculous complexity: just to escape-out special characters requires instantiating a new "entity" element in the middle of the text string element.
And I still haven't figured out how to make the thing give me a CRLF at the end of each element. No, XML doesn't require the whitespace, but it would have sure made it easier for my clients to read the file!
But the worst part is that I *succeeded* in using MSXML. Now, if I wanted to go back to just writing a text file (which I do!), I can't -- my code is tangled up in the objects to the point that it would take a complete rewrite.
That's the simple reason why, every time I hear about Microsoft doing something with XML -- like this proposal to use XML as part of email identification -- I cringe in ph33r.
Gee, I didn't know you could get karma by being stupid.
You must be new here. Welcome to Slashdot! Enjoy your visit.
At first, I was thinking that "the Royal Dutch Mint" was a near-scam outfit like our homegrown Franklin Mint, churning out overpriced kitch like "The F-14 Tomcat Stars & Stripes" ($120 for a gaudy model airplane) and the $195 "Tribute to Leadership Commemorative Medal Collection", inspired by "President Reagan's most memorable speeches -- from his inaugural address to his moving farewell." 'Scuse me while I shudder in ph33r.
But as far as I can tell, these folks are the real thing -- they issue real money, *and* kitchy overpriced collectibles. Pretty cool. But it doesn't look like the three-image coins are going to turn up in the local arcade -- unless someone's kid gets into Dad's coin collection again.
So basically you are saying there should be competitive grocery shopping? Yeah your stupid.
Well, competitive grocery shopping might be a bit nuts.
But competitive grammar? You're on!
Actually, scientific studies (which seem to be widely accepted as true) show that men are better at spatial relationships, and interpretting 3-d objects.
I keep hearing that, but my wife can fit an entire house full of assorted-sized junk into a single 10x20x8 three-dimensional area -- she demonstrated this ability when we moved last year and put our stuff in storage. She can pack the trunk to within an inch of its life, where I'm lucky to figure out how to get the suitcase in.
We may not be statistically relevant... but then, neither are the top athletes in any sport.
As for pool and darts -- aren't those as much social events more than anything, at least at the beginner level? It would be nice to think that this "new" sport could avoid the glass ceiling at the entry point.
Hence one of the many reasons why "professional" video gaming will never and should never be taken seriously. What a joke. Its not a sport. Oh good, someone can click faster than someone else, well good for them, try applying it to something real.
By that same logic: "Oh good, someone can run swing a fat stick better than someone else, try applying it to something real." Obviously, the concept of "professional" baseball gaming will never be taken seriously, either.
Of course, swinging a stick with great precision is handy when you're a hunter-gatherer. But last time I wanted a pork chop, I went to the store, not out to the woods. And guess what -- that pork chop was labelled with a bar code, and I purchased it using my debit card and pin.
By clicking buttons.
What was that about applying my skills to something real?
The imbalance between men and women was clear to see, with almost 50 male teams taking part, compared with just seven female squads. And as in the world of sport, there were separate competitions for each gender.
Separate competitions? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
Boys' and girls' real-world sports are separated early on because of physical attributes. Physically, girls have different abilities from boys. And there are other physical attributes that cause both genders to become... distracted.
But online? Who knows -- who cares -- about your real-world attributes? For crying out loud, that's what makes gaming great for us geeks -- we don't have to be muscular, or fit, or even easily mobile! I'd probably lose 10-to-1 against Stephen Hawking at BZFlag.
So in a world where physical ability and differences are irrelevant, what justification could there possibly be for a gender-segregated gaming tournament?
Perhaps the organizers have a cynical ulterior motive? If I were a top-level girl geek, I'd turn down an invitation to such a demeaning event -- so all they'd get would be the second-rate girl teams. And then they can say "but look, they're clearly not in the same league."
"My toilet clogged up this morning...could that be terrorism?"
Everyone's seized on this as the reply point, so I'll join in.
In Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the central computer system (aka "Mike") was in control of everything, from environmental controls to plumbing. One of the tricks that the rebels used to get physical access to Mike was to have him back up the Warden's toilet. As I recall, Mike would cause the pumps to resonate, and fountain the toilets "to the ceiling". Easier in 1/6 gee than on Earth, but probably just as messy.
So if the governor ever calls up Tom Ridge about the toilets, he's not being silly -- he's just a sci-fi geek.
If a CPU can understand your code, so can a human. The solution to this problem are licenses, not obfuscators.
Now, I've had my comments in this vein modded "Interesting", but the "Funny" mods usually arrive soon after. It's always good for a laugh, +2 Interesting on a robotics story where I link to a Short Circuit page.
But this takes the cake. +5 Interesting for a comment that says [spoiler alert?] that the best way to make a program secure from reverse engineering is to make it unrunnable. And that the licenses we love to hate are the solution.
Great post, funny as all get-out. I had to re-read it to get it, which made it even better.
I'm glad the poster got some karma points, but it's time to add some Funny mods to the mix now. Put... down... the... crakpipe...
Handy link, thanks. I have trouble even playing something as bandwidth-friendly as BZFlag on my slow, rural home connection. A "light" MMRPGOOGOOGAAGAA (whatever) would be excellent.
Unfortunately, the "Buy" links are in Russian, and I don't know "????????? ??????" from "?????????????????". My knowledge of Russian is limited to the similarity between "Toys [R] Us" and "Tet[r]is" (reverse characters in []).
2004 DW, for instance, must be named after an underworld diety because it is in a Pluto-like orbit.
I can't imagine that this "rule" could hold. If the Kuyper Belt contains more objects than the Asteroid Belt, I would think we'd run out of ancient gods of the underworld.
We might be able to extend the idea by naming trans-Plutonian objects after fallen angels and demons, but I'm afraid some of my fellow Christians -- the ones whose belief system depends on a demonic opponent -- would be seriously troubled by the idea.
But if they were to name the t-p's after demons, I'd choose this one in honor of all the geeks out there:
Ornias
Assumes the shape of a Woman to appease Men
Plays with Men in their Sleep; Offspring of Uriel; Fears Iron
I honestly have no idea what M1 and M2 are, so can you please explain them to me?
Moderation (M1) and Meta-Moderation (M2). Both are explained in the Moderation FAQ.
But if you do need to explain this to me (and you do), what does say about you post?
I'm afraid it means that I've gone from a complete Slashdot newbie to a jargon-spouting 1337 veteran in just a year and a half. Somehow, I don't know what to make of that...
Nothing like being moderated up for encouraging people to break the law.
It's almost as good as building a highly profitable company around the concept! As long as "Encouraging people to break the law" is legal in most states, I think Slashdot is the least of the real world's concerns.