Try again. You are comparing the city of Atlanta to the entire Greater London metropolitan district.
If you want to compare apples to apples, try comparing the city of Atlanta to the City of London: 520,000 Atlantans as compared to 8000 Londoners, or 340,000 commuters.
Or try it this way: 5.4 Million in the Atlanta Metropolitan District, compared to 7.5 Million in Greater London.
I grant you, "Atlanta" is much larger than "London". Not as crowded, overall.
Using CAPS to designate the surname or family name is common usage in several international communities, especially those that have members which are from cultures which put the family name first.
I am not a resident of Washington State, but I might have signed this JUST BECAUSE it deserves to be in the public consciousness, whether I was in favor or opposed.
<opinion> I'm an evangelical Christian. I'm also a libertarian. This means that I hold personal views about behavior and morality that are different from my opinions about behavior and legality. Things I consider immoral may or may not be illegal, and the converse holds as well. But the state is about LEGALITY, not MORALITY.
I don't think the state should sponsor gay marriage, because I don't think the state should sponsor heterosexual marriage.
From the state's point of view, these should be considered as contracts between individuals, and the participants in the contract (NEITHER of whom is the state!) can call their relationship whatever they want. All the "benefits" applied to the contractual partners by the state should be applied indifferently to the gender of the participants in the contract. </opinion>
My personal experience is that the part of your thesis that isn't happening is Step 4:
4) Because people can find and buy the obscure stuff they want they'll spend less on the popular stuff they don't want as much. So the blockbusters will lose some of their sales to the obscure stuff.
It seems to me that blockbusters are getting bigger, AND the tail is getting longer. More money is being spent at both ends of the curve. This would imply that the curves in the New Scientist article graphic are incorrect: the long tail isn't stealing dollars from the blockbusters. It's not a zero-sum game.
Of course, throw in a tanking economy and all bets are off...
He went to the "Free University of Amsterdam". A theology school.
I can get a Phd in Theology in 5 minutes on the internet, and yes it would qualify as a 'Doctorate'. Because, you know, religion always gets a special pass.
I think that the Free University of Amsterdam is a "theological school" in approximately the same way that Harvard University is a "Congregationalist seminary"; i.e., not much any more. Of course, I've never been to either.
Besides, his doctorate is not in theology, and his C.V. seems to indicate that his peers approve of his work. As for "falsifiable tests or evidence", I wouldn't expect to find that in a news service article in the Vancouver Sun.
And while non-accredited degrees can be obtained quickly and easily on the Internet, most ThD/DD candidates spend just as much time in earning their degrees as you seem to imply they don't.
One of the greatest annoyances of Google (to those of us techies searching for answers) is "Expert's Exchange". Google gets to see the answers, but anyone searching for those answers doesn't get them, but is told to sign up and pay money for a "premium subscription".
Scroll down. The answers are at the bottom of the page. Those are the same ones Google sees.
"Habiru" probably did not refer to a specific tribe or group but was the Egyptian equivalent of "barbarians". The letter you refer to has nothing to do with Jews or Exodus.
And even if it did, how does that letter support the Exodus? It DOESN'T. Nobody doubts that the Jews lived in Canaan or that at various points Canaan was an Egyptian territory. What people doubt is the Exodus narrative. The "Jews", as a distinct tribe, were never slaves in Egypt. They never left Egypt en masse. They didn't wander through the Sinai for 40 years. They almost certainly didn't conquer Canaan and massacre the existing population.
You are making assertions of consensus where it does not exist. The Habiru may or may not be equivalent to the Hebrews; it certainly INCLUDED them. The Habiru CERTAINLY worked in Egypt; there are carvings and other documentation of them. The Habiru CERTAINLY fought in Canaan, in a time contemporaneous to the account in Joshua. To say that THOSE Habiru were CERTAINLY not THESE Habiru is unsupportable.
Also, referring to them collectively as "Jews" is really only accurate after the Babylonian exile, when the tribe of Judah was the primary one to return to Israel.
Most scholars consider Mark independent from "Q". You're the first I've heard say that Mark was based on "Q".
Since we don't have Q to compare, I speculate. There's no evidence either way, which is why I said "possibly".
John is where the virgin birth and other Hellenistic elements of the Jesus story are introduced.
Certainly John is the most Hellenistic. However, both Matthew (1:23) and Luke (1:26) include the detail of the virgin birth--John is more concerned with the pre-existence of Christ, and doesn't treat the birth at all.
Since we know without a shadow of a doubt that early Christian copyists were forgers (see Testimonium Flavianum) we really can't rule anything out.
You're painting with a very broad brush here. The Testimonium Flavianum may demonstrate that ONE early copyist was a forger, but most copyists COPIED. The New Testament is A) The BEST-attested work of antiquity, with over 30,000 manuscripts and fragments, and B) only 40 lines of the text (.25%) being in any question. The copyists did a good job.
Compare this with the second-place contender, Homer's Iliad, which has A) "only" 643 manuscripts and fragments, and B) has 764 lines in question (over 5%).
Nobody questions the textual integrity of the Iliad. The textual integrity of the New Testament is BETTER.
Whether you question the content or not is immaterial. The DOCUMENTS have been accurately transmitted.
Thank you for this stimulating discussion. If you are interested in continuing outside Slash comments, follow my userID (sfsp) to get my homepage address, where you can find my email address.
Which religions are you thinking of? The only really good example is the Book of Mormon. Most other religious have periodically revised their religious texts.
I'm sorry, but the Book of Mormon as originally published in 1820 has been drastically edited since that time. There are over 3000 documentable changes between the originally published edition and the current one, some of which go far beyond typographical errors and stylistic adjustments. In fact, all of the Standard Works of the LDS church (BoM, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price) have been revised since their original publications.
Some religions, sure. Judaism in particular. The Torah was re-written around 500BC to remove polytheistic references (as the Jews converted to monotheism) and to either re-wrote Genesis and Exodus to make Egyptians the bad guys (due to recent wars with them), or just made the story up at that time.
While I agree there is evidence to suggest some of these assertions, there is other evidence to suggest that these documents are what they claim to be: essentially contemporaneous accounts of historical events.
As an example, until recently critical thought concerning the Hebrew invasion of Canaan after the Exodus is that it could not have happened before about 1200 BC, while the internal dating seems to support a date around 1400 BC. But there exist copies of letters from the Egyptian governors of Canaan, requesting assistance from the Pharoah, to combat an invasion of the Habiru tribes around 1400 BC. The story apparently was NOT "made up at that time", and the internal dating appears to have been correct after all.
In short, you seem to assume that the "experts" are in consensus regarding the provenance of the text. That assumption is wrong.
The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew and Luke) were revised, most scholars believe they were based on an earlier document called "Q". John is in many ways a revision of the narrative in Mark. Now, that's not "many times", but they were revised.
First, the Synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They cover much the same ground in much the same way, with Matthew and Luke apparently drawing material from Mark and all three possibly referencing a hypothetical document called "Q". "Q" is supposedly a collection of sayings of Jesus, but no such early collection has ever been found.
John is separate from the Synoptics, and while some parallel passages exist, John includes mostly primary material which is not found in the other three. It is NOT a revision of Mark, although Matthew and Luke could be described that way.
While translations of the Bible are frequently revised, they are not being revised in the sense you seem to understand in your first paragraph. Those who perform Biblical translation do not rely on the most recent copy of the text, but the OLDEST copy of the text. Ideally, every translation would start with the documented, autograph copy the text, handwritten by John, Paul, Matthew, Ezra or Moses. (I am speaking hyperbolically-I am not interested in starting another thread about who wrote what. But I firmly believe that William Shakespeare actually wrote William Shakespeare's plays.) Since those autograph documents are unavailable, translators use the best that they have.
This is why the Dead Sea Scrolls (desperately trying to swerve back onto topic!!) were so important. When they were found, they were the oldest known extant Jewish copies of the majority of the Judaic scripture by about 1000 years. This is because of the impact of the Masoretic tradition on the transcription of the scripture. The Masoretes had involved rituals for copying of scripture, some based on their reverence for the name of God, and some designed to act as a checksum of each column, page, and book, so that when they had finished, they could say, "This is a PERFECT copy of the original." Since it was a perfect copy, the old, worn copy would usually be buried with h
Start with an unproven, unprovable, undocumented and undocumentable assertion about a conspiracy involving one of the pivotal figures in history. Add in a number of simplistic puzzles anyone with a 19th century education could solve (NONE of which involve ANYTHING da Vinci did). Use an obscure conservative branch of the Catholic church as the villain, because of course conservative Catholics MUST be conspiratorial villains.
And then write it in 4th grade-level English.
It's tripe. I bought the book at Goodwill, and threw it away after reading it. I didn't see any point in subjecting someone else to that dreck.
(Back on topic): Of course, the lack of SCIENCE books is basically because it's a list of FICTION...
"Solar eclipses in conjunction with a new moon are possibly enough to make it worth investigating this one..."
No, not really. Solar eclipses ALWAYS happen at the same time as the new moon. However, the fact that Mercury went retrograde 34 days before, as mentioned in the text of the poem; at the same season that Bootes is setting and the Pleiades are visible, as mentioned in the text of the poem; and that Venus is visible in the morning, as mentioned in the text of the poem; and that the sun is eclipsed, as mentioned in the text of the poem; and it ALL JUST HAPPENS to occur around the most probable estimate of the historical date of the events--THAT is what makes this worth investigating.
There is evidence of significant historical details being preserved in oral tradition. This might be one example.
Geez, 10 seconds at the Sun site gave me that. Do some research. There's even two "Michael Bolestra" listings in SuperPages.com for Baltimore, MD. One of them is probably him.
The countdown to climate-change catastrophe is spelt out by a task force of senior politicians, business leaders and academics from around the world...
So, who wrote the paper? Who did the research? Is this a political or scientific paper?
I mean, I don't doubt this because it's a "GLOBAL WARMING!!!" paper. I doubt it because, as the article clearly states, it's written primarily by politicians and businessmen, and will probably primarily serve political and business interests.
It's only my cynical, sarcastic nature that causes me to question whether those interests reflect Truth, Fact, or Right.
This would be nothing new for Michelin: the radial tire it invented in 1946 was not widely accepted in the United States until the 1970's.
...after the patent expired.
I remember seeing the same concept used for one of the mini-spares about 15 years ago. It will probably take 5 years more development to create a Tweel with the same characteristics of the good ol' pneumatic tire, and then 21 years for the patent to expire. After the patent has expired, everyone will start making them, and within 5 more years they will capture the automobile market.
I predict the end of the automobile pneumatic tire by 2036. Not much before.
Can you do the fancy stuff like toggle duplex printing (printing on both sides of the sheet) and change the print quality?
Use CUPS. From my workstation, using a networked HP5si: Duplexing, print quality, paper size, paper source all instantly configurable. Lots of what I print is reduced output (like mpage) to 4 pages per sheet, or 8 duplexed.
I even printed one book at 16 pages per sheet duplexed, although I keep a magnifier around for that one.
I've been using Linux as a desktop for a few months now and I can tell that, if all your business partners use Linux, then you don't need another OS. If some of them use Windows then you need Windows. The rest is propaganda, or marketing, or whatever you wish to call it.
I've been using Linux as a desktop for 6 years, 9 months now and I can tell that, even if all your coworkers and customers use Windows, you can use Linux 998 times out of a thousand.
I have good interior room, nice features, low pollution numbers, and 95 percent USA parts content. And some people are getting well over 300 thousand miles (480,000 km) on the original engines (lost-foam casting process). Before we talk about hybrids and other exotic solutions, consider going "back to basics" -- light weight but sturdy, small engine, good engineering and build quality, priced agressively. Over 14 million were made from 1991 - 2002, used units are coming down to the $5K to $8K range in my local market. As for mine, I'm satisfied. It's not for sale at any price.
You forgot a few details, like extremely low repair costs ("Hang another plastic panel on this door, Harry!"), high safety ratings (steel box construction, just like those Volvos), low insurance costs (low repair costs, plus who steals Saturns?), no exterior rust (plastic side panels, again), seats 5, good-sized trunk, 3000-mile pneumatic spare tire (no 50-mile donuts here, thanks), daytime headlights, and a body model that doesn't change for about 5 years, so parts are cheap. Not to mention that it looks just like all those other generically styled sedans by Lexus, Infiniti, Acura, Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. Plus, it's built in Kentucky.
I always thought that buying a used car could be safely summarized in 3 words: Nissan, Toyota, Honda. Imagine my surprise when I bought a GM. (Saturn is a GM subsidiary, and GM has incorporated many of their ideas into other product lines.)
1998 Saturn SL1, 5-speed manual, 78K miles, 35-40 MPG average. When I drive it into the ground in about 15 years, I'll buy another Saturn.
The story is in fact true, and happened much as described. However, the person in question was Sir Trude Lacklandia, First Lady Knight of the Society for Creative Anachronism. My wife (Lady Amanda de Spencer) and inlaws (Sir Robert and Sir Leah de Spencer) are all acquainted with her, and Lady Amanda has had the privilege of seeing the knife the scoundrel left behind. The actual line was, "I'll see your six and raise you thirty!"
Sometimes even the urban legends have a grain of truth.
Reminds me also of the time my wife was accosted on the campus of the University of Utah by a scoundrel with a knife, and her only armed with an umbrella. Of course, as a black belt in Kendo, she probably broke the guy's wrist with her improvised bokken...
Elvish was more like an academic excercize intended to more fully flesh out the world he created.
Actually, the world he created was more like an exercise intended to more fully flesh out the languages. Tolkien was a philologist, first and foremost. The "Hobbit" and "LOTR" stories were a tiny part of the corpus of works he created--epic poems, creation myths, all to give a framework to the seven or more languages he developed as a hobby.
"I sing now the tale of Achilles, Who gave the Acheans the willies. Help me render, O Muse, Of how Troy got the goose, And of battles which really were dillies."
Slashdot Mirror
Read this a long time ago and just recently figured out what the title was.. not sure where you would find it though. Full of Unix puns.
Baen Books.
Get it as a free download, or read it online. You can probably convince them to accept your money, too.
Baen does eBooks RIGHT.
http://www.baen.com/library/0671878468/0671878468.htm
Why is this a surprise? As a first estimate, 80% of everything is crud!
OK, so I'm conflating Pareto and Sturgeon, but the principle...
Try again. You are comparing the city of Atlanta to the entire Greater London metropolitan district.
If you want to compare apples to apples, try comparing the city of Atlanta to the City of London: 520,000 Atlantans as compared to 8000 Londoners, or 340,000 commuters.
Or try it this way: 5.4 Million in the Atlanta Metropolitan District, compared to 7.5 Million in Greater London.
I grant you, "Atlanta" is much larger than "London". Not as crowded, overall.
Yes, he developed lzexe, and other stuff.
Using CAPS to designate the surname or family name is common usage in several international communities, especially those that have members which are from cultures which put the family name first.
I have seen it frequently in Esperanto forums.
"A Canticle for Liebowitz"! Great book!
Emily had a gold tooth.
Disclaimer: I have not read the petition.
I am not a resident of Washington State, but I might have signed this JUST BECAUSE it deserves to be in the public consciousness, whether I was in favor or opposed.
<opinion>
I'm an evangelical Christian. I'm also a libertarian. This means that I hold personal views about behavior and morality that are different from my opinions about behavior and legality. Things I consider immoral may or may not be illegal, and the converse holds as well. But the state is about LEGALITY, not MORALITY.
I don't think the state should sponsor gay marriage, because I don't think the state should sponsor heterosexual marriage.
From the state's point of view, these should be considered as contracts between individuals, and the participants in the contract (NEITHER of whom is the state!) can call their relationship whatever they want. All the "benefits" applied to the contractual partners by the state should be applied indifferently to the gender of the participants in the contract.
</opinion>
Great movie!
4) Because people can find and buy the obscure stuff they want they'll spend less on the popular stuff they don't want as much. So the blockbusters will lose some of their sales to the obscure stuff.
It seems to me that blockbusters are getting bigger, AND the tail is getting longer. More money is being spent at both ends of the curve. This would imply that the curves in the New Scientist article graphic are incorrect: the long tail isn't stealing dollars from the blockbusters. It's not a zero-sum game.
Of course, throw in a tanking economy and all bets are off...
He went to the "Free University of Amsterdam".
A theology school.
I can get a Phd in Theology in 5 minutes on the internet, and yes it would qualify as a 'Doctorate'. Because, you know, religion always gets a special pass.
I think that the Free University of Amsterdam is a "theological school" in approximately the same way that Harvard University is a "Congregationalist seminary"; i.e., not much any more. Of course, I've never been to either.
Besides, his doctorate is not in theology, and his C.V. seems to indicate that his peers approve of his work. As for "falsifiable tests or evidence", I wouldn't expect to find that in a news service article in the Vancouver Sun.
And while non-accredited degrees can be obtained quickly and easily on the Internet, most ThD/DD candidates spend just as much time in earning their degrees as you seem to imply they don't.
One of the greatest annoyances of Google (to those of us techies searching for answers) is "Expert's Exchange". Google gets to see the answers, but anyone searching for those answers doesn't get them, but is told to sign up and pay money for a "premium subscription".
Scroll down. The answers are at the bottom of the page. Those are the same ones Google sees.
"Habiru" probably did not refer to a specific tribe or group but was the Egyptian equivalent of "barbarians". The letter you refer to has nothing to do with Jews or Exodus.
And even if it did, how does that letter support the Exodus? It DOESN'T. Nobody doubts that the Jews lived in Canaan or that at various points Canaan was an Egyptian territory. What people doubt is the Exodus narrative. The "Jews", as a distinct tribe, were never slaves in Egypt. They never left Egypt en masse. They didn't wander through the Sinai for 40 years. They almost certainly didn't conquer Canaan and massacre the existing population.
You are making assertions of consensus where it does not exist. The Habiru may or may not be equivalent to the Hebrews; it certainly INCLUDED them. The Habiru CERTAINLY worked in Egypt; there are carvings and other documentation of them. The Habiru CERTAINLY fought in Canaan, in a time contemporaneous to the account in Joshua. To say that THOSE Habiru were CERTAINLY not THESE Habiru is unsupportable.
Also, referring to them collectively as "Jews" is really only accurate after the Babylonian exile, when the tribe of Judah was the primary one to return to Israel.
Most scholars consider Mark independent from "Q". You're the first I've heard say that Mark was based on "Q".
Since we don't have Q to compare, I speculate. There's no evidence either way, which is why I said "possibly".
John is where the virgin birth and other Hellenistic elements of the Jesus story are introduced.
Certainly John is the most Hellenistic. However, both Matthew (1:23) and Luke (1:26) include the detail of the virgin birth--John is more concerned with the pre-existence of Christ, and doesn't treat the birth at all.
Since we know without a shadow of a doubt that early Christian copyists were forgers (see Testimonium Flavianum) we really can't rule anything out.
You're painting with a very broad brush here. The Testimonium Flavianum may demonstrate that ONE early copyist was a forger, but most copyists COPIED. The New Testament is A) The BEST-attested work of antiquity, with over 30,000 manuscripts and fragments, and B) only 40 lines of the text (.25%) being in any question. The copyists did a good job.
Compare this with the second-place contender, Homer's Iliad, which has A) "only" 643 manuscripts and fragments, and B) has 764 lines in question (over 5%).
Nobody questions the textual integrity of the Iliad. The textual integrity of the New Testament is BETTER.
Whether you question the content or not is immaterial. The DOCUMENTS have been accurately transmitted.
Thank you for this stimulating discussion. If you are interested in continuing outside Slash comments, follow my userID (sfsp) to get my homepage address, where you can find my email address.
Which religions are you thinking of? The only really good example is the Book of Mormon. Most other religious have periodically revised their religious texts.
I'm sorry, but the Book of Mormon as originally published in 1820 has been drastically edited since that time. There are over 3000 documentable changes between the originally published edition and the current one, some of which go far beyond typographical errors and stylistic adjustments. In fact, all of the Standard Works of the LDS church (BoM, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price) have been revised since their original publications.
Some religions, sure. Judaism in particular. The Torah was re-written around 500BC to remove polytheistic references (as the Jews converted to monotheism) and to either re-wrote Genesis and Exodus to make Egyptians the bad guys (due to recent wars with them), or just made the story up at that time.
While I agree there is evidence to suggest some of these assertions, there is other evidence to suggest that these documents are what they claim to be: essentially contemporaneous accounts of historical events.
As an example, until recently critical thought concerning the Hebrew invasion of Canaan after the Exodus is that it could not have happened before about 1200 BC, while the internal dating seems to support a date around 1400 BC. But there exist copies of letters from the Egyptian governors of Canaan, requesting assistance from the Pharoah, to combat an invasion of the Habiru tribes around 1400 BC. The story apparently was NOT "made up at that time", and the internal dating appears to have been correct after all.
In short, you seem to assume that the "experts" are in consensus regarding the provenance of the text. That assumption is wrong.
The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew and Luke) were revised, most scholars believe they were based on an earlier document called "Q". John is in many ways a revision of the narrative in Mark. Now, that's not "many times", but they were revised.
First, the Synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They cover much the same ground in much the same way, with Matthew and Luke apparently drawing material from Mark and all three possibly referencing a hypothetical document called "Q". "Q" is supposedly a collection of sayings of Jesus, but no such early collection has ever been found.
John is separate from the Synoptics, and while some parallel passages exist, John includes mostly primary material which is not found in the other three. It is NOT a revision of Mark, although Matthew and Luke could be described that way.
While translations of the Bible are frequently revised, they are not being revised in the sense you seem to understand in your first paragraph. Those who perform Biblical translation do not rely on the most recent copy of the text, but the OLDEST copy of the text. Ideally, every translation would start with the documented, autograph copy the text, handwritten by John, Paul, Matthew, Ezra or Moses. (I am speaking hyperbolically-I am not interested in starting another thread about who wrote what. But I firmly believe that William Shakespeare actually wrote William Shakespeare's plays.) Since those autograph documents are unavailable, translators use the best that they have.
This is why the Dead Sea Scrolls (desperately trying to swerve back onto topic!!) were so important. When they were found, they were the oldest known extant Jewish copies of the majority of the Judaic scripture by about 1000 years. This is because of the impact of the Masoretic tradition on the transcription of the scripture. The Masoretes had involved rituals for copying of scripture, some based on their reverence for the name of God, and some designed to act as a checksum of each column, page, and book, so that when they had finished, they could say, "This is a PERFECT copy of the original." Since it was a perfect copy, the old, worn copy would usually be buried with h
You're not alone.
Start with an unproven, unprovable, undocumented and undocumentable assertion about a conspiracy involving one of the pivotal figures in history. Add in a number of simplistic puzzles anyone with a 19th century education could solve (NONE of which involve ANYTHING da Vinci did). Use an obscure conservative branch of the Catholic church as the villain, because of course conservative Catholics MUST be conspiratorial villains.
And then write it in 4th grade-level English.
It's tripe. I bought the book at Goodwill, and threw it away after reading it. I didn't see any point in subjecting someone else to that dreck.
(Back on topic): Of course, the lack of SCIENCE books is basically because it's a list of FICTION...
Petrushka opined,
"Solar eclipses in conjunction with a new moon are possibly enough to make it worth investigating this one..."
No, not really. Solar eclipses ALWAYS happen at the same time as the new moon. However, the fact that Mercury went retrograde 34 days before, as mentioned in the text of the poem; at the same season that Bootes is setting and the Pleiades are visible, as mentioned in the text of the poem; and that Venus is visible in the morning, as mentioned in the text of the poem; and that the sun is eclipsed, as mentioned in the text of the poem; and it ALL JUST HAPPENS to occur around the most probable estimate of the historical date of the events--THAT is what makes this worth investigating.
There is evidence of significant historical details being preserved in oral tradition. This might be one example.
Moving to New Hampshire.
http://www.freestateproject.org/
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.oles ker08mar08,1,76004.column?ctrack=1&cset=true
Geez, 10 seconds at the Sun site gave me that. Do some research. There's even two "Michael Bolestra" listings in SuperPages.com for Baltimore, MD. One of them is probably him.
So, who wrote the paper? Who did the research? Is this a political or scientific paper?
I mean, I don't doubt this because it's a "GLOBAL WARMING!!!" paper. I doubt it because, as the article clearly states, it's written primarily by politicians and businessmen, and will probably primarily serve political and business interests.
It's only my cynical, sarcastic nature that causes me to question whether those interests reflect Truth, Fact, or Right.
I remember seeing the same concept used for one of the mini-spares about 15 years ago. It will probably take 5 years more development to create a Tweel with the same characteristics of the good ol' pneumatic tire, and then 21 years for the patent to expire. After the patent has expired, everyone will start making them, and within 5 more years they will capture the automobile market.
I predict the end of the automobile pneumatic tire by 2036. Not much before.
Use CUPS. From my workstation, using a networked HP5si: Duplexing, print quality, paper size, paper source all instantly configurable. Lots of what I print is reduced output (like mpage) to 4 pages per sheet, or 8 duplexed.
I even printed one book at 16 pages per sheet duplexed, although I keep a magnifier around for that one.
Steve
I've been using Linux as a desktop for 6 years, 9 months now and I can tell that, even if all your coworkers and customers use Windows, you can use Linux 998 times out of a thousand.
Using Debian since 1.2.1 and counting...
Steve
Actually, I believe that:
1) The inside of the mailbox is OWNED by the US government;
2) The envelope is owned (sometimes jointly) by the sender and the recipient of the letter;
3) The paper is owned (sometimes jointly) by the sender and the recipient of the letter.
That's why it takes a warrant to intercept mail, and interference with the mails is a Federal offense.
You forgot a few details, like extremely low repair costs ("Hang another plastic panel on this door, Harry!"), high safety ratings (steel box construction, just like those Volvos), low insurance costs (low repair costs, plus who steals Saturns?), no exterior rust (plastic side panels, again), seats 5, good-sized trunk, 3000-mile pneumatic spare tire (no 50-mile donuts here, thanks), daytime headlights, and a body model that doesn't change for about 5 years, so parts are cheap. Not to mention that it looks just like all those other generically styled sedans by Lexus, Infiniti, Acura, Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. Plus, it's built in Kentucky.
I always thought that buying a used car could be safely summarized in 3 words: Nissan, Toyota, Honda. Imagine my surprise when I bought a GM. (Saturn is a GM subsidiary, and GM has incorporated many of their ideas into other product lines.)
1998 Saturn SL1, 5-speed manual, 78K miles, 35-40 MPG average. When I drive it into the ground in about 15 years, I'll buy another Saturn.
The story is in fact true, and happened much as described. However, the person in question was Sir Trude Lacklandia, First Lady Knight of the Society for Creative Anachronism. My wife (Lady Amanda de Spencer) and inlaws (Sir Robert and Sir Leah de Spencer) are all acquainted with her, and Lady Amanda has had the privilege of seeing the knife the scoundrel left behind. The actual line was, "I'll see your six and raise you thirty!"
Sometimes even the urban legends have a grain of truth.
Reminds me also of the time my wife was accosted on the campus of the University of Utah by a scoundrel with a knife, and her only armed with an umbrella. Of course, as a black belt in Kendo, she probably broke the guy's wrist with her improvised bokken...
Actually, the world he created was more like an exercise intended to more fully flesh out the languages. Tolkien was a philologist, first and foremost. The "Hobbit" and "LOTR" stories were a tiny part of the corpus of works he created--epic poems, creation myths, all to give a framework to the seven or more languages he developed as a hobby.
"I sing now the tale of Achilles,
Who gave the Acheans the willies.
Help me render, O Muse,
Of how Troy got the goose,
And of battles which really were dillies."
-Gordon R. Dickson and Poul Anderson