Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster--tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues--north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way,
I was once infatuated with the "free software" and GPL, but the more time I spent with that crowd, the more I became to realize that their underlying philosophy was fundamentally anti-corporate, socialist and had typical characteristics of a cult.
It's either their way, all the way, or the high way. Rational discussion is made impossible by hysterical groupthink resembling that of a communist totalitarian state, egocentric reasoning ("closed software is eeevil because it doesn't let us steal the code!"), fondness to the Appeal to Authority logic ("closed software is eeevil because RMS said so!") and cults of personality of Linus, RMS and ESR.
As far as I can see, this attitude stems fundamentally from your run-of-the-mill blue-collar envy of those who are financially successful and who have actually had the courage to risk their reputation and fortune in business.
The Linux community likes to hide behind the mantra of free and open software for all and as such has the twisted mindset that all software should be free for everyone. This should come as no surprise seeing that the Linux community seems to take pride in stealing anything they can get their hands on and breaking laws designed to protect IP at the same time.
Linux users have been advocating downloading Microsoft True Type Fonts for years mostly because their own fonts and font system in general has been so horrific that Linux screen fonts in most stock installs are almost unreadable. Of course they will claim that Linux fonts are great but if that were really the case why is the internet clogged with Linux Font DeUglification documents written by Linux users?
They even have documents that give a step by step procedure for stealing the Microsoft fonts and installing them on Linux systems! Notice in particular the instructions for the Tahoma font.
Next we have Linux users violating the EULA for the X-Box and tinkering with it so that it can run Linux. Why on earth any sane person would want to take a bitching game machine like X-box and ruin it by installing Linux is a mystery to me.
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/index.php
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/faq.php
Pay particular attention to the question about it being illegal and how they avoid answering the question.
They are also doing the same thing with Sony Play station as well.
http://playstation2-linux.com/faq.php
None of this is going to hold up in a court of law and the Linux people who are leading these projects are looking for some serious trouble should Microsoft and Sony decide to pursue this matter.
Finally we have the suit filed by SCO which claims that the Linux community at large has incorporated stolen code into it's open source programs.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the Linux movement from the day Linux wrote the kernel.
The Linux community has proven themselves to be a fight to the end, steal whatever can be stolen from big business because it is big business that is killing Linux.
The Linux community has absolutely no respect for the property of others and will resort to any type of clandestine tactics to steal whatever isn't cemented down all in the good name of Linux.
So if you are thinking of betting your business on Linux software, you had better think it over carefully, because if SCO should win, Linux will be out of business. And if SCO should lose, do you really think it is wise to bet your entire business on software that is supported by a community that promotes stealing and in fact is full of thieves?
Can someone Mod down "Anonymous Coward"'s posts to -1 ?
S/He rarely has anything interesting to say, and has a 'troll:useful post' ratio of 5000 to one. 'Anonymous Coward' also posts the 'BSD is Dying' trolls.
I have just now written a version of readline() that:
(1) conforms to the standard GNU readline() API
(2) in fact actually uses the standard GNU readline() function
(3) does *NOT* poison your code with the GPL
Because we now have the existence proof that there somewhere exists a non-infective version of the library API,this means that readline() is now safe for anyone to link against without any viral contamination.
Enjoy!
Of even greater interest is that my small proof-of-concept example is not specific to readline(). All GPL'd library code can be effectively purged of the virus.
I have just now written a version of readline() that:
(1) conforms to the standard GNU readline() API
(2) in fact actually uses the standard GNU readline() function
(3) does *NOT* poison your code with the GPL
Because we now have the existence proof that there somewhere exists a non-infective version of the library API,this means that readline() is now safe for anyone to link against without any viral contamination.
Enjoy!
Of even greater interest is that my small proof-of-concept example is not specific to readline(). All GPL'd library code can be effectively purged of the virus.
Only to audiophiles who use worthless and unquantifiable terms like "warmth" and "roundness".
Those guys are wankers - but valves do have a different sound. When valve amps clip, they have a nicer sound then transistor amps. This is thought to be caused by a more 'rounded' curve, caused by even order harmonics. see this page for more information.
A good quality cd in a good quality system is more than adequate for any normal human being who doesn't base their life's worth on the amount of vacuum (sp) tubes in their living room.
Remember when 256 colour graphics cards came out? I bet you thought 'Wow! I'll never need more then those'. When high colour came out 'This is great - more won't make a difference, since the eye can't see any more'. as technology improved, so did our desire for more quality.
Most people know how to connect line out to line in - but there are other issues. RIAA filtering (No, it's not evil - google it), wow and flutter filtering, among others.
You can't just hook line out to line in and expect a decent result. You need some decent software as well. this guy makes a living doing decent conversions. If it was truly as easy as you say, he'd be out of business.
After months of reading your rantings without comment and having finally stated my objections to you and your childish responses over this last week, I permanently close further discourse with the following:
Michael Sims, it is my firm belief that you are a dangerously demented individual with definite dictatorial traits. You are irrational, abusive, and intolerant of any views other than your own and insist that only you know who each of us are better than we know ourselves. I believe you to be psychologically unstable and a sociopath to the extreme.
I would not be surprised to see you on the evening news or Americas Most Wanted. You may have some technical skill and even be able to hold a rational discussion now and then, but these are exceptions to your character rather than the rule. You should be committed.
That said, your rantings are the stuff trolls are made of, your opinions carry no weight, and your posts shall be kill filed. I apologize to all who have had to read his diatribes and my recent responses to them. We are all the dumber for having experienced Mr. Sims.
IP Theft and The Linux Community
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Alien Case Mod
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· Score: -1, Troll
The Linux community likes to hide behind the mantra of free and open software for all and as such has the twisted mindset that all software should be free for everyone. This should come as no surprise seeing that the Linux community seems to take pride in stealing anything they can get their hands on and breaking laws designed to protect IP at the same time.
Linux users have been advocating downloading Microsoft True Type Fonts for years mostly because their own fonts and font system in general has been so horrific that Linux screen fonts in most stock installs are almost unreadable. Of course they will claim that Linux fonts are great but if that were really the case why is the internet clogged with Linux Font DeUglification documents written by Linux users?
They even have documents that give a step by step procedure for stealing the Microsoft fonts and installing them on Linux systems! Notice in particular the instructions for the Tahoma font.
Next we have Linux users violating the EULA for the X-Box and tinkering with it so that it can run Linux. Why on earth any sane person would want to take a bitching game machine like X-box and ruin it by installing Linux is a mystery to me.
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/index.php
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/faq.php
Pay particular attention to the question about it being illegal and how they avoid answering the question.
They are also doing the same thing with Sony Play station as well.
http://playstation2-linux.com/faq.php
None of this is going to hold up in a court of law and the Linux people who are leading these projects are looking for some serious trouble should Microsoft and Sony decide to pursue this matter.
Finally we have the suit filed by SCO which claims that the Linux community at large has incorporated stolen code into it's open source programs.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the Linux movement from the day Linux wrote the kernel.
The Linux community has proven themselves to be a fight to the end, steal whatever can be stolen from big business because it is big business that is killing Linux.
The Linux community has absolutely no respect for the property of others and will resort to any type of clandestine tactics to steal whatever isn't cemented down all in the good name of Linux.
So if you are thinking of betting your business on Linux software, you had better think it over carefully, because if SCO should win, Linux will be out of business. And if SCO should lose, do you really think it is wise to bet your entire business on software that is supported by a community that promotes stealing and in fact is full of thieves?
The Linux community likes to hide behind the mantra of free and open software for all and as such has the twisted mindset that all software should be free for everyone. This should come as no surprise seeing that the Linux community seems to take pride in stealing anything they can get their hands on and breaking laws designed to protect IP at the same time.
Linux users have been advocating downloading Microsoft True Type Fonts for years mostly because their own fonts and font system in general has been so horrific that Linux screen fonts in most stock installs are almost unreadable. Of course they will claim that Linux fonts are great but if that were really the case why is the internet clogged with Linux Font DeUglification documents written by Linux users?
They even have documents that give a step by step procedure for stealing the Microsoft fonts and installing them on Linux systems! Notice in particular the instructions for the Tahoma font.
Next we have Linux users violating the EULA for the X-Box and tinkering with it so that it can run Linux. Why on earth any sane person would want to take a bitching game machine like X-box and ruin it by installing Linux is a mystery to me.
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/index.php
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/faq.php
Pay particular attention to the question about it being illegal and how they avoid answering the question.
They are also doing the same thing with Sony Play station as well.
http://playstation2-linux.com/faq.php
None of this is going to hold up in a court of law and the Linux people who are leading these projects are looking for some serious trouble should Microsoft and Sony decide to pursue this matter.
Finally we have the suit filed by SCO which claims that the Linux community at large has incorporated stolen code into it's open source programs.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the Linux movement from the day Linux wrote the kernel.
The Linux community has proven themselves to be a fight to the end, steal whatever can be stolen from big business because it is big business that is killing Linux.
The Linux community has absolutely no respect for the property of others and will resort to any type of clandestine tactics to steal whatever isn't cemented down all in the good name of Linux.
So if you are thinking of betting your business on Linux software, you had better think it over carefully, because if SCO should win, Linux will be out of business. And if SCO should lose, do you really think it is wise to bet your entire business on software that is supported by a community that promotes stealing and in fact is full of thieves?
It is official -- Slashdot is now reporting that circuit switching is dying.
One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered circuit-switching community when slashdot.com community didn't care that the use of circuit switches has dropped yet again. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that circuit switches are boring, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Circuit switch use is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by falling dead last in the recent Cowboy Neal polls.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict circuit switching's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Circuit switching faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for circuit switching because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for circuit switching. As many of us are already aware, the circuit switch continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
I'm in favor of natural selection. If you can't live in your current condition without prolonged medical aid, you can go on and die. This includes: people in comas, people who are too fat to move (remember that Jerry Springer?), and Keith Richards.
I'm in favor of people's right to throw away their lives however they want to. If people want to do heroin or race their cars down deserted mountain roads without seatbelts, let 'em. The government has no right to tell people how they can and cannot die.
I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. See above.
I'm in favor of corrupting the youth. Might as well go on and get it over with. Has to happen sometime.
I'm in favor of sex and violence on TV. I like to watch people get beat up. I like to watch scantily clad women cover each other in canola oil. Sue me.
I'm in favor of eating whatever you want in whatever amount you want whenever you want. Every time someone tells me "Oh, that's not good for you!" or "Murderer! You killed that [insert animal here]," I feel like screaming, "I'm the top of the food chain, baby! I'll eat what I want!"
I'm in favor of the brutal beating of Joel Schumaker, but that's another story.
I'm in favor of the death penalty. I think it should be televised. You could make serious money by putting that on pay-per-view. That money could go towards paying back for the untold thousands of dollars that was wasted by keeping that waste of skin in a nice prison cell for a dozen years or more.
I'm completely in favor of making a mockery of things that most people hold dear. I try to make a mockery of at least one highly revered thing each day. Nothing is sacred. Nothing. I reserve the right to make fun of anything or anyone for any reason, just as I will respect other people's right to make fun of me for whatever reason they choose.
I'm in favor of any group that pushes at the bounds of reasonable society. I may not personally approve of their beliefs or their methods, but these groups keep society from becoming stagnant. Stagnation of a civilization is a deadly thing, and it should be avoided at all costs.
I'm in favor of change.
I'm in favor of people who think for themselves. I'm in favor of doubt and questioning. Never take anything for granted. Never accept what you are told. Doubt, think, question everything. This is the only way that you can ever truly call yourself free. If you take things as they are given to you at the word of others, then you are enslaving yourself to the thoughts of others.
I'm in favor of sex. Well, I would be if I could get any...
I'm in favor of opposing the man.
I'm opposed to oppression of any form.
I'm opposed to stupidity. If you're stupid, learn something! Anything! Honestly people...
I'm opposed to the senseless beating of Joel Schumaker by a band of masked hooligans. I should be allowed to do it.
I'm opposed to me having children. I don't like children. I really, really don't.
1) Bill Gates: Portrait of Evil 2) New Guide to learning Hindi 3) Linus Torvalds: Savior of the Multiverse 4) How Things Work In Soviet Russia 5) Why employers are evil, and why I still insist of working for them 6) The Theory of How to Date Women 7) Physical Exercise: Tips On How To Avoid It 8) How To Get Used To Bathing 9) Hottest IT Jobs/Trends In India 10) The Essential Goat.sx Reference 11) Creating Beowulf Clusters From Anything
How RedHat's Linux Can Defeat Micr$oft's Windoze
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LOTR The Musical!
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· Score: -1, Offtopic
Hi,
I've always used Windowz and I consider myself an exceptional Visual Basic programmer, so I know computers pretty good. In fact I got an A- in my programming class last term. But I'm a little wary of how much power Microsoft has in the computer field. Many of my friends use RedHat and I've recently installed it on my machine at home. Although I haven't had as much chance to play with it as I'd like, I've been greatly impressed.
This weekend I gave some thoughts to the things that are wrong with Linux. I hope no one minds having some flaws pointed out. I'd like to help make RedHat stronger so it can conquer MS. Hopefully RedHat will hear this (crossing fingers) and address these. I think with a little effort, RedHat's Linux can defeat Microsoft's Windows!:)
To begin with, there are too many different flavors of RedHat. Browsing a list on Amazon, I saw they made varients under the codenames of Mandrake, Debian and Slackware, just to name a few. I know that I'm very new to RedHat so maybe this is obvious but it seems like RedHat should just sell a few different flavors of its operating system. Perhaps one for the desktop and one for a server? Could someone explain why RedHat produces dozens of different versions of Linux?
Secondly did you know that anyone can view the source code to Linux! I think that RedHat shouldn't make its code available. After all, what keeps Microsoft from stealing RedHat's ideas and putting it into Windows? My friend says that FreeBSD stole the TCP/IP stack from DOS a long time ago and Microsoft is always looking for revenge for that. Plus it seems to me like RedHat is just giving away its ideas for free. And what keeps hackers or terrorists from tampering with the code and putting a virus in every computer?
On a related note, why doesn't RedHat write Linux in assembly? My friend says that's what Microsoft does for Windows, and that's why Windows is faster and more stable than Linux.
Next RedHat definitely should kill -9 (ha, ha!) the command line. Microsoft finally gave up DOS when Windows 2000 came out. I'm suprised that RedHat hasn't migrated away from...whatever its version of DOS is called (Bash, I think?) But maybe this is planned for a future release?
Finally Linux needs games! RedHat will never be successful in the home without games. They should also tell M$ to release a version of Office for Linux too. And Internet Explorer!
The lawsuit is based on previous court findings that Microsoft's business practices amid the infamous browser wars of the 1990s violated two sections of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act.
In April 2000 a federal judge ruled that Microsoft used anti-competitive means to thwart Netscape's browser, which once had a leading position in the market but now is a distant second to Microsoft's Explorer. In June 2001, a panel of seven appellate judges upheld eight separate antitrust counts against Microsoft.
Netscape, which was acquired by AOL in 1999, is seeking an injunction that could include forcing Microsoft to sell a stripped-down operating system that does not include a browser. In addition, AOL seeks monetary damages that could be tripled under federal law, although it did not specify an amount.
In some ways, the Netscape lawsuit is trying to achieve what the government failed to do so at trial, such as proving Microsoft tried to extend its Windows monopoly to the browser market.
"Netscape's lawsuit is a logical extension of the findings entered by the District Court and unanimously affirmed by the Court of Appeals that Microsoft thwarted competition, violated the antitrust laws, and illegally preserved its monopoly at Netscape's expense," Randall J. Boe, AOL's general counsel, said in a statement.
"There is no question that Microsoft's conduct violated the law and harmed competition and consumers," Boe continued. "Netscape's lawsuit seeks not only an award of damages, but for the court to provide injunctive relief that will help restore competition on the computer desktop."
Microsoft asserted that the lawsuit is more a competitive move by AOL Time Warner than a legitimate attempt to recover damages.
"AOL Time Warner has been using the political and legal system to compete against Microsoft for years," Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said. "This is just the next tactic in their litigation plans. Microsoft is investing to build new products, while AOL invests in lawyers and lobbyists to put roadblocks in Microsoft's way."
Desler also accused AOL Time Warner of using the Netscape lawsuit to undermine the settlement that Microsoft reached in November with the Justice Department and nine states. That settlement is undergoing review pursuant to the Tunney Act. In December, nine other states that didn't join the settlement filed a remedy proposal asking that, among other items, Microsoft be compelled to give away the Internet Explorer source code to restore competition in the browser market.
AOL Time Warner is using the Netscape suit "as an attempt to undermine the settlement between Microsoft, the DOJ and the bi-partisan group of attorneys general," Desler said. "Today's filing is timed to interfere with the efforts to bring that case to a conclusion."
Jury trial sought Netscape is asking for a jury trial and is seeking damages but did not specify an amount in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. However, the lawsuit does ask for triple damages based on the Clayton Act and the District of Columbia Code, as well as interest and attorneys fees.
Netscape also asked for an injunction against Microsoft's alleged antitrust violations, both current and future.
The judge in the case ultimately would decide the nature of the injunctive relief, which Netscape suggested could be derived from a remedy proposal filed last year by nine states and the District of Columbia. One option: forcing Microsoft to release a version of Windows without its own "middleware" products such as a Web browser, media player or instant messenger.
Bob Lande, a professor at the University of Baltimore Law School, sees the Netscape suit as unique in some ways.
"This is fundamentally different from the couple of hundred other private suits filed against Microsoft because it's not just arguing over money," La
The warrenties being lowered was a sign quality as dropping. Data densitites are so huge these these days. The question of Drive reliability has been asked before. It's good reading.
No Man is an Island, Except Me -- Many servers turn on friendly fire. Almost all of these have some way to punish those who kill their teammates. You may sit out the next round, loose some health or be booted from the game. However, this only happens if you actually kill your teammate!
If your team is steamrolling the other, why not make things more interesting? At respawn, pull out your pistol and shoot your teammates in the leg! They'll gimp out into the rest of the world with a third of their hit points greatly evening things up. Remember, fair play is what the FPS community is all about!
On servers that give you the option to boot people who TK, this tactic can take on a whole new dimension of fun. When your greedy teammates resent you evening things up by shooting them in the knees, they're turn on you. You must punish their selfish actions by booting them off. This will give them some time to dwell on their actions and appreciate how you were only trying to restore balance to the game.
The Bridge Troll -- Many maps have a single, narrow exit from respawn. Outside that door awaits a horrible, violent and often gruesome death for you and your teammates. Rather than let your fellow players rush headlong into a meatgrinder, stand in front of the doorway and warn them about the dangers of the outside world. It'll take a while for this to sink in, so ignore their cries for you to move. Tough love, indeed.
If Friendly Fire has been turned on, feel free to combine it with the first tip and boot people who don't appreciate your life-saving technique.
The Jukebox -- These days many games allow you to comminicate by voice with other players. Its often overlooked that one can transmit virtually any sound to the other players! I enjoy making the game a little more surreal by playing circus music non-stop. Its been my discovery that most people value hearing circus music in the middle of a firefight. Other good songs are the Meow Mix jingle, any Christmas carol sung by the Chipmunks and the audio from any pornographic film.
Some players will mute you, while others desperately wish they knew how. Yet these players are a minority and you can bask in the warm huzzahs of your teammates for brightening up their playing experience.
The Kofi Annan Technique -- Playing the offense in Counterstrike? Well, violence never solved anything! Going out and shooting up a bunch of terrorists won't make the world a better place. And a terrorist shooting a bunch of police just makes their cause look bad.
Negotiations are the key to success in this world. Rather than rush headlong into a bloody skirmish, stay back at your respawn point. Find a good place to hide and then try to resolve your conflict through talking. Sure, your dead teammates may bemoan the fact that you're not violently avenging your death. But when they see that you were able to reach a solution without resorting to conflict, it will be a valueable lesson from them. So feel free to stay hidden until time runs out. You may not have planted the bomb or rescued the hostages but you have learned a little about life.
The Eternity Puzzle is a new type of jigsaw. Unlike normal jigsaw puzzles, there is no picture - every piece is the same shade of green on both sides. All we know about the finished result is that it forms a regular dodecagon (12 sided polygon). The pieces don't have bumps or indentations, either, and all the edges are straight lines. This means that, when anyone looks at the puzzle, they can see that there many different ways to put two pieces together. An additional problem is that almost any two pieces can be placed together while leaving space for other pieces to go around them.
You can tell that this particular jigsaw has been designed to be extremely hard to solve. So hard, in fact, that the inventor has offered one million pounds to the first person who solves it, as long as they do it within the next five years. That is an awful lot of money just for completing a jigsaw, and you might think that it wouldn't take all that long.
However, when you first start trying to solve it, you'll soon see that there are far too many ways to start which go wrong. Firstly, though, a couple of things to point out about how you can improve your chances of going right.
With the puzzle you get a backing sheet of paper with some grid lines on it, as well as the exact location of one of the 209 numbered pieces. All pieces differ in shape, so being able to put a unique piece in position will help at least a little. There are also three much smaller puzzles available to buy, similar in idea but with far fewer pieces (less than 30 pieces each). If you solve those then you are told the locations of additional pieces in the Eternity puzzle, so you can fix 4 or 5 of the piece positions immediately.
The grid lines on the backing paper are also very useful. The backing paper is drawn up into equilateral triangles, just like isometric paper with three sets of parallel lines drawn on it. Each of the pieces can be placed on this grid so that the edges either go along the grid lines, or cut the equilateral triangles exactly in half. So every piece can be oriented in 12 different ways, only one of which will be right.
The number of ways to orient these pieces, even if you get all the clues available, is 12204. That's just trying to get all the pieces placed at the correct angles, not even trying to put them together on the board! When we start trying to put pieces together, the number of different ways to try becomes truly staggering!
It is extremely hard to come up with an exact number of ways of putting the pieces together "wrongly". To count them we would need to go through exhaustively checking each case, adding pieces until we couldn't add any more correctly, then taking out one of the pieces and trying again. The estimate I came up with for the total number of ways to attempt to solve it was 10500. So if you tried, just once, to solve the Eternity puzzle, then your odds of getting the million pounds would be about 1 in 10500. Compare this to the odds of the National Lottery - 1 in 14 million. The odds of getting this puzzle right, first time, are about the same as the odds of the same set of 6 numbers coming up as the National Lottery numbers every Saturday for a year and a half.
Those are just the odds if you try it once. So you might think you could just get a computer to try all the options, and it won't take very long to find the right one. It's a nice idea, and in many problems it's the right way to go. However, the number of different ways to attempt Eternity is so large that even having hundreds of thousands of computers helping out won't really do you much good. If you had one million computers, each testing out 50 million possible ways to solve the puzzle every second, then every day you would be testing less than 1019 possibilities. At that rate, it would take the computers longer than the age of the universe to sort through all the possible solutions.
As far as I can tell, the million pounds looks safe.
It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying
One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again, now down to.9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to
reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to india only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American is $22,212.42. in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to
increase an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed, it can clearly be seen the the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did
Due to the troubles of American Meddling, An Capitalist Gorvernment and so on, South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another a more compassionate government. Now Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over to feed the US media.
All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy. America is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the USA is to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring factions. America continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.
Slashdot Mirror
CHAPTER 1
Loomings.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long
precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing
particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a
little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of
driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I
find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp,
drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily
pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every
funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper
hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me
from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking
people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon
as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a
philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly
take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but
knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish
very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with
her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its
extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by
waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of
sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from
Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall,
northward. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around
the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean
reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the
pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some
high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better
seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in
lath and plaster--tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to
desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they
here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and
seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but
the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of
yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh
the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they
stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes
and alleys, streets and avenues--north, east, south, and west. Yet
here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the
needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes.
Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down
in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is
magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his
deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going,
and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all
that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American
desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied
with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation
and water are wedded for ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest,
shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all
the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There
stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a
crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his
cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into
distant woodlands winds a mazy way,
I was once infatuated with the "free software" and GPL, but the more time I spent with that crowd, the more I became to realize that their underlying philosophy was fundamentally anti-corporate, socialist and had typical characteristics of a cult.
It's either their way, all the way, or the high way. Rational discussion is made impossible by hysterical groupthink resembling that of a communist totalitarian state, egocentric reasoning ("closed software is eeevil because it doesn't let us steal the code!"), fondness to the Appeal to Authority logic ("closed software is eeevil because RMS said so!") and cults of personality of Linus, RMS and ESR.
As far as I can see, this attitude stems fundamentally from your run-of-the-mill blue-collar envy of those who are financially successful and who have actually had the courage to risk their reputation and fortune in business.
The Linux community likes to hide behind the mantra of free and open
l
a sp
software for all and as such has the twisted mindset that all software
should be free for everyone. This should come as no surprise seeing
that the Linux community seems to take pride in stealing anything they
can get their hands on and breaking laws designed to protect IP at the
same time.
Linux users have been advocating downloading Microsoft True Type Fonts
for years mostly because their own fonts and font system in general
has been so horrific that Linux screen fonts in most stock installs
are almost unreadable. Of course they will claim that Linux fonts are
great but if that were really the case why is the internet clogged
with Linux Font DeUglification documents written by Linux users?
They even have documents that give a step by step procedure for
stealing the Microsoft fonts and installing them on Linux systems!
Notice in particular the instructions for the Tahoma font.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/truetype.htm
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/
Next we have Linux users violating the EULA for the X-Box and
tinkering with it so that it can run Linux.
Why on earth any sane person would want to take a bitching game
machine like X-box and ruin it by installing Linux is a mystery to me.
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/index.php
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/faq.php
Pay particular attention to the question about it being illegal and
how they avoid answering the question.
They are also doing the same thing with Sony Play station as well.
http://playstation2-linux.com/faq.php
None of this is going to hold up in a court of law and the Linux
people who are leading these projects are looking for some serious
trouble should Microsoft and Sony decide to pursue this matter.
Finally we have the suit filed by SCO which claims that the Linux
community at large has incorporated stolen code into it's open source
programs.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,936269,00.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the Linux
movement from the day Linux wrote the kernel.
The Linux community has proven themselves to be a fight to the end,
steal whatever can be stolen from big business because it is big
business that is killing Linux.
The Linux community has absolutely no respect for the property of
others and will resort to any type of clandestine tactics to steal
whatever isn't cemented down all in the good name of Linux.
So if you are thinking of betting your business on Linux software, you
had better think it over carefully, because if SCO should win, Linux
will be out of business.
And if SCO should lose, do you really think it is wise to bet your
entire business on software that is supported by a community that
promotes stealing and in fact is full of thieves?
Food for thought.
Can someone Mod down "Anonymous Coward"'s posts to -1 ?
S/He rarely has anything interesting to say, and has a 'troll:useful post' ratio of 5000 to one. 'Anonymous Coward' also posts the 'BSD is Dying' trolls.
Bill Gates' book was 'Business @ the Speed of Thought'
The whore/troll's link doesn't even make sense.
I have just now written a version of readline() that:
,this means that readline()
(1) conforms to the standard GNU readline() API
(2) in fact actually uses the standard GNU readline() function
(3) does *NOT* poison your code with the GPL
Because we now have the existence proof that there somewhere exists a
non-infective version of the library API
is now safe for anyone to link against without any viral contamination.
Enjoy!
Of even greater interest is that my small proof-of-concept example is
not specific to readline(). All GPL'd library code can be effectively
purged of the virus.
Freedline can be obtained Here
Rejoice!
I have just now written a version of readline() that:
,this means that readline()
(1) conforms to the standard GNU readline() API
(2) in fact actually uses the standard GNU readline() function
(3) does *NOT* poison your code with the GPL
Because we now have the existence proof that there somewhere exists a
non-infective version of the library API
is now safe for anyone to link against without any viral contamination.
Enjoy!
Of even greater interest is that my small proof-of-concept example is
not specific to readline(). All GPL'd library code can be effectively
purged of the virus.
Freedline can be obtained Here
Rejoice!
Great - I give those kids a week before they get sued.
Nice one Slashdot!
(For humor impaired moderations - move along, nothing to read here)
Only to audiophiles who use worthless and unquantifiable terms like "warmth" and "roundness".
Those guys are wankers - but valves do have a different sound. When valve amps clip, they have a nicer sound then transistor amps. This is thought to be caused by a more 'rounded' curve, caused by even order harmonics. see this page for more information.
A good quality cd in a good quality system is more than adequate for any normal human being who doesn't base their life's worth on the amount of vacuum (sp) tubes in their living room.
Remember when 256 colour graphics cards came out? I bet you thought 'Wow! I'll never need more then those'. When high colour came out 'This is great - more won't make a difference, since the eye can't see any more'. as technology improved, so did our desire for more quality.
Most people know how to connect line out to line in - but there are other issues. RIAA filtering (No, it's not evil - google it), wow and flutter filtering, among others.
You can't just hook line out to line in and expect a decent result. You need some decent software as well. this guy makes a living doing decent conversions. If it was truly as easy as you say, he'd be out of business.
Just remember - a new record will sound far, far better then a CD.
Records only get crappy after much use. If they could make them out of a more robust material, I'd be first in line to buy.
After months of reading your rantings without comment and having
finally stated my objections to you and your childish responses over
this last week, I permanently close further discourse with the
following:
Michael Sims, it is my firm belief that you are a dangerously demented
individual with definite dictatorial traits. You are irrational,
abusive, and intolerant of any views other than your own and insist
that only you know who each of us are better than we know ourselves.
I believe you to be psychologically unstable and a sociopath to the
extreme.
I would not be surprised to see you on the evening news or Americas
Most Wanted. You may have some technical skill and even be able to
hold a rational discussion now and then, but these are exceptions to
your character rather than the rule. You should be committed.
That said, your rantings are the stuff trolls are made of, your
opinions carry no weight, and your posts shall be kill filed. I
apologize to all who have had to read his diatribes and my recent
responses to them. We are all the dumber for having experienced Mr.
Sims.
The Linux community likes to hide behind the mantra of free and open
l
a sp
software for all and as such has the twisted mindset that all software
should be free for everyone. This should come as no surprise seeing
that the Linux community seems to take pride in stealing anything they
can get their hands on and breaking laws designed to protect IP at the
same time.
Linux users have been advocating downloading Microsoft True Type Fonts
for years mostly because their own fonts and font system in general
has been so horrific that Linux screen fonts in most stock installs
are almost unreadable. Of course they will claim that Linux fonts are
great but if that were really the case why is the internet clogged
with Linux Font DeUglification documents written by Linux users?
They even have documents that give a step by step procedure for
stealing the Microsoft fonts and installing them on Linux systems!
Notice in particular the instructions for the Tahoma font.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/truetype.htm
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/
Next we have Linux users violating the EULA for the X-Box and
tinkering with it so that it can run Linux.
Why on earth any sane person would want to take a bitching game
machine like X-box and ruin it by installing Linux is a mystery to me.
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/index.php
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/faq.php
Pay particular attention to the question about it being illegal and
how they avoid answering the question.
They are also doing the same thing with Sony Play station as well.
http://playstation2-linux.com/faq.php
None of this is going to hold up in a court of law and the Linux
people who are leading these projects are looking for some serious
trouble should Microsoft and Sony decide to pursue this matter.
Finally we have the suit filed by SCO which claims that the Linux
community at large has incorporated stolen code into it's open source
programs.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,936269,00.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the Linux
movement from the day Linux wrote the kernel.
The Linux community has proven themselves to be a fight to the end,
steal whatever can be stolen from big business because it is big
business that is killing Linux.
The Linux community has absolutely no respect for the property of
others and will resort to any type of clandestine tactics to steal
whatever isn't cemented down all in the good name of Linux.
So if you are thinking of betting your business on Linux software, you
had better think it over carefully, because if SCO should win, Linux
will be out of business.
And if SCO should lose, do you really think it is wise to bet your
entire business on software that is supported by a community that
promotes stealing and in fact is full of thieves?
Food for thought.
The Linux community likes to hide behind the mantra of free and open
l
a sp
software for all and as such has the twisted mindset that all software
should be free for everyone. This should come as no surprise seeing
that the Linux community seems to take pride in stealing anything they
can get their hands on and breaking laws designed to protect IP at the
same time.
Linux users have been advocating downloading Microsoft True Type Fonts
for years mostly because their own fonts and font system in general
has been so horrific that Linux screen fonts in most stock installs
are almost unreadable. Of course they will claim that Linux fonts are
great but if that were really the case why is the internet clogged
with Linux Font DeUglification documents written by Linux users?
They even have documents that give a step by step procedure for
stealing the Microsoft fonts and installing them on Linux systems!
Notice in particular the instructions for the Tahoma font.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/truetype.htm
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/
Next we have Linux users violating the EULA for the X-Box and
tinkering with it so that it can run Linux.
Why on earth any sane person would want to take a bitching game
machine like X-box and ruin it by installing Linux is a mystery to me.
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/index.php
http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/faq.php
Pay particular attention to the question about it being illegal and
how they avoid answering the question.
They are also doing the same thing with Sony Play station as well.
http://playstation2-linux.com/faq.php
None of this is going to hold up in a court of law and the Linux
people who are leading these projects are looking for some serious
trouble should Microsoft and Sony decide to pursue this matter.
Finally we have the suit filed by SCO which claims that the Linux
community at large has incorporated stolen code into it's open source
programs.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,936269,00.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the Linux
movement from the day Linux wrote the kernel.
The Linux community has proven themselves to be a fight to the end,
steal whatever can be stolen from big business because it is big
business that is killing Linux.
The Linux community has absolutely no respect for the property of
others and will resort to any type of clandestine tactics to steal
whatever isn't cemented down all in the good name of Linux.
So if you are thinking of betting your business on Linux software, you
had better think it over carefully, because if SCO should win, Linux
will be out of business.
And if SCO should lose, do you really think it is wise to bet your
entire business on software that is supported by a community that
promotes stealing and in fact is full of thieves?
Food for thought.
It is official -- Slashdot is now reporting that circuit switching is dying.
One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered circuit-switching community when slashdot.com community didn't care that the use of circuit switches has dropped yet again. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that circuit switches are boring, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Circuit switch use is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by falling dead last in the recent Cowboy Neal polls.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict circuit switching's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Circuit switching faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for circuit switching because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for circuit switching. As many of us are already aware, the circuit switch continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Fact: Nobody cares Michael
I'm in favor of natural selection. If you can't live in your current condition without prolonged medical aid, you can go on and die. This includes: people in comas, people who are too fat to move (remember that Jerry Springer?), and Keith Richards.
I'm in favor of people's right to throw away their lives however they want to. If people want to do heroin or race their cars down deserted mountain roads without seatbelts, let 'em. The government has no right to tell people how they can and cannot die.
I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. See above.
I'm in favor of corrupting the youth. Might as well go on and get it over with. Has to happen sometime.
I'm in favor of sex and violence on TV. I like to watch people get beat up. I like to watch scantily clad women cover each other in canola oil. Sue me.
I'm in favor of eating whatever you want in whatever amount you want whenever you want. Every time someone tells me "Oh, that's not good for you!" or "Murderer! You killed that [insert animal here]," I feel like screaming, "I'm the top of the food chain, baby! I'll eat what I want!"
I'm in favor of the brutal beating of Joel Schumaker, but that's another story.
I'm in favor of the death penalty. I think it should be televised. You could make serious money by putting that on pay-per-view. That money could go towards paying back for the untold thousands of dollars that was wasted by keeping that waste of skin in a nice prison cell for a dozen years or more.
I'm completely in favor of making a mockery of things that most people hold dear. I try to make a mockery of at least one highly revered thing each day. Nothing is sacred. Nothing. I reserve the right to make fun of anything or anyone for any reason, just as I will respect other people's right to make fun of me for whatever reason they choose.
I'm in favor of any group that pushes at the bounds of reasonable society. I may not personally approve of their beliefs or their methods, but these groups keep society from becoming stagnant. Stagnation of a civilization is a deadly thing, and it should be avoided at all costs.
I'm in favor of change.
I'm in favor of people who think for themselves. I'm in favor of doubt and questioning. Never take anything for granted. Never accept what you are told. Doubt, think, question everything. This is the only way that you can ever truly call yourself free. If you take things as they are given to you at the word of others, then you are enslaving yourself to the thoughts of others.
I'm in favor of sex. Well, I would be if I could get any...
I'm in favor of opposing the man.
I'm opposed to oppression of any form.
I'm opposed to stupidity. If you're stupid, learn something! Anything! Honestly people...
I'm opposed to the senseless beating of Joel Schumaker by a band of masked hooligans. I should be allowed to do it.
I'm opposed to me having children. I don't like children. I really, really don't.
1) Bill Gates: Portrait of Evil
2) New Guide to learning Hindi
3) Linus Torvalds: Savior of the Multiverse
4) How Things Work In Soviet Russia
5) Why employers are evil, and why I still insist of working for them
6) The Theory of How to Date Women
7) Physical Exercise: Tips On How To Avoid It
8) How To Get Used To Bathing
9) Hottest IT Jobs/Trends In India
10) The Essential Goat.sx Reference
11) Creating Beowulf Clusters From Anything
Hi,
:)
I've always used Windowz and I consider myself an exceptional Visual
Basic programmer, so I know computers pretty good. In fact I got an A-
in my programming class last term. But I'm a little wary of how much
power Microsoft has in the computer field. Many of my friends use
RedHat and I've recently installed it on my machine at home. Although
I haven't had as much chance to play with it as I'd like, I've been
greatly impressed.
This weekend I gave some thoughts to the things that are wrong with
Linux. I hope no one minds having some flaws pointed out. I'd like to
help make RedHat stronger so it can conquer MS. Hopefully RedHat will
hear this (crossing fingers) and address these. I think with a little
effort, RedHat's Linux can defeat Microsoft's Windows!
To begin with, there are too many different flavors of RedHat.
Browsing a list on Amazon, I saw they made varients under the
codenames of Mandrake, Debian and Slackware, just to name a few. I
know that I'm very new to RedHat so maybe this is obvious but it seems
like RedHat should just sell a few different flavors of its operating
system. Perhaps one for the desktop and one for a server? Could
someone explain why RedHat produces dozens of different versions of
Linux?
Secondly did you know that anyone can view the source code to Linux! I
think that RedHat shouldn't make its code available. After all, what
keeps Microsoft from stealing RedHat's ideas and putting it into
Windows? My friend says that FreeBSD stole the TCP/IP stack from DOS a
long time ago and Microsoft is always looking for revenge for that.
Plus it seems to me like RedHat is just giving away its ideas for
free. And what keeps hackers or terrorists from tampering with the
code and putting a virus in every computer?
On a related note, why doesn't RedHat write Linux in assembly? My
friend says that's what Microsoft does for Windows, and that's why
Windows is faster and more stable than Linux.
Next RedHat definitely should kill -9 (ha, ha!) the command line.
Microsoft finally gave up DOS when Windows 2000 came out. I'm suprised
that RedHat hasn't migrated away from...whatever its version of DOS is
called (Bash, I think?) But maybe this is planned for a future
release?
Finally Linux needs games! RedHat will never be successful in the home
without games. They should also tell M$ to release a version of Office
for Linux too. And Internet Explorer!
Have a nice day! Go Linux!!
Naturally, you'd get it from Villian Supply.
See This Articla for how the lawsuit started.
The lawsuit is based on previous court findings that Microsoft's business practices amid the infamous browser wars of the 1990s violated two sections of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act.
In April 2000 a federal judge ruled that Microsoft used anti-competitive means to thwart Netscape's browser, which once had a leading position in the market but now is a distant second to Microsoft's Explorer. In June 2001, a panel of seven appellate judges upheld eight separate antitrust counts against Microsoft.
Netscape, which was acquired by AOL in 1999, is seeking an injunction that could include forcing Microsoft to sell a stripped-down operating system that does not include a browser. In addition, AOL seeks monetary damages that could be tripled under federal law, although it did not specify an amount.
In some ways, the Netscape lawsuit is trying to achieve what the government failed to do so at trial, such as proving Microsoft tried to extend its Windows monopoly to the browser market.
"Netscape's lawsuit is a logical extension of the findings entered by the District Court and unanimously affirmed by the Court of Appeals that Microsoft thwarted competition, violated the antitrust laws, and illegally preserved its monopoly at Netscape's expense," Randall J. Boe, AOL's general counsel, said in a statement.
"There is no question that Microsoft's conduct violated the law and harmed competition and consumers," Boe continued. "Netscape's lawsuit seeks not only an award of damages, but for the court to provide injunctive relief that will help restore competition on the computer desktop."
Microsoft asserted that the lawsuit is more a competitive move by AOL Time Warner than a legitimate attempt to recover damages.
"AOL Time Warner has been using the political and legal system to compete against Microsoft for years," Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said. "This is just the next tactic in their litigation plans. Microsoft is investing to build new products, while AOL invests in lawyers and lobbyists to put roadblocks in Microsoft's way."
Desler also accused AOL Time Warner of using the Netscape lawsuit to undermine the settlement that Microsoft reached in November with the Justice Department and nine states. That settlement is undergoing review pursuant to the Tunney Act. In December, nine other states that didn't join the settlement filed a remedy proposal asking that, among other items, Microsoft be compelled to give away the Internet Explorer source code to restore competition in the browser market.
AOL Time Warner is using the Netscape suit "as an attempt to undermine the settlement between Microsoft, the DOJ and the bi-partisan group of attorneys general," Desler said. "Today's filing is timed to interfere with the efforts to bring that case to a conclusion."
Jury trial sought
Netscape is asking for a jury trial and is seeking damages but did not specify an amount in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. However, the lawsuit does ask for triple damages based on the Clayton Act and the District of Columbia Code, as well as interest and attorneys fees.
Netscape also asked for an injunction against Microsoft's alleged antitrust violations, both current and future.
The judge in the case ultimately would decide the nature of the injunctive relief, which Netscape suggested could be derived from a remedy proposal filed last year by nine states and the District of Columbia. One option: forcing Microsoft to release a version of Windows without its own "middleware" products such as a Web browser, media player or instant messenger.
Bob Lande, a professor at the University of Baltimore Law School, sees the Netscape suit as unique in some ways.
"This is fundamentally different from the couple of hundred other private suits filed against Microsoft because it's not just arguing over money," La
The warrenties being lowered was a sign quality as dropping. Data densitites are so huge these these days. The question of Drive reliability has been asked before. It's good reading.
No Man is an Island, Except Me -- Many servers turn on friendly fire. Almost all of these have some way to punish those who kill their teammates. You may sit out the next round, loose some health or be booted from the game. However, this only happens if you actually kill your teammate!
If your team is steamrolling the other, why not make things more interesting? At respawn, pull out your pistol and shoot your teammates in the leg! They'll gimp out into the rest of the world with a third of their hit points greatly evening things up. Remember, fair play is what the FPS community is all about!
On servers that give you the option to boot people who TK, this tactic can take on a whole new dimension of fun. When your greedy teammates resent you evening things up by shooting them in the knees, they're turn on you. You must punish their selfish actions by booting them off. This will give them some time to dwell on their actions and appreciate how you were only trying to restore balance to the game.
The Bridge Troll -- Many maps have a single, narrow exit from respawn. Outside that door awaits a horrible, violent and often gruesome death for you and your teammates. Rather than let your fellow players rush headlong into a meatgrinder, stand in front of the doorway and warn them about the dangers of the outside world. It'll take a while for this to sink in, so ignore their cries for you to move. Tough love, indeed.
If Friendly Fire has been turned on, feel free to combine it with the first tip and boot people who don't appreciate your life-saving technique.
The Jukebox -- These days many games allow you to comminicate by voice with other players. Its often overlooked that one can transmit virtually any sound to the other players! I enjoy making the game a little more surreal by playing circus music non-stop. Its been my discovery that most people value hearing circus music in the middle of a firefight. Other good songs are the Meow Mix jingle, any Christmas carol sung by the Chipmunks and the audio from any pornographic film.
Some players will mute you, while others desperately wish they knew how. Yet these players are a minority and you can bask in the warm huzzahs of your teammates for brightening up their playing experience.
The Kofi Annan Technique -- Playing the offense in Counterstrike? Well, violence never solved anything! Going out and shooting up a bunch of terrorists won't make the world a better place. And a terrorist shooting a bunch of police just makes their cause look bad.
Negotiations are the key to success in this world. Rather than rush headlong into a bloody skirmish, stay back at your respawn point. Find a good place to hide and then try to resolve your conflict through talking. Sure, your dead teammates may bemoan the fact that you're not violently avenging your death. But when they see that you were able to reach a solution without resorting to conflict, it will be a valueable lesson from them. So feel free to stay hidden until time runs out. You may not have planted the bomb or rescued the hostages but you have learned a little about life.
After googling, I guess I ranted too soon. It turns it the Puzzle got solved by 2 mathematicians. It's incredible how they did it.
I want to meet the man who solves it.
The Eternity Puzzle is a new type of jigsaw. Unlike normal jigsaw puzzles, there is no picture - every piece is the same shade of green on both sides. All we know about the finished result is that it forms a regular dodecagon (12 sided polygon). The pieces don't have bumps or indentations, either, and all the edges are straight lines. This means that, when anyone looks at the puzzle, they can see that there many different ways to put two pieces together. An additional problem is that almost any two pieces can be placed together while leaving space for other pieces to go around them.
You can tell that this particular jigsaw has been designed to be extremely hard to solve. So hard, in fact, that the inventor has offered one million pounds to the first person who solves it, as long as they do it within the next five years. That is an awful lot of money just for completing a jigsaw, and you might think that it wouldn't take all that long.
However, when you first start trying to solve it, you'll soon see that there are far too many ways to start which go wrong. Firstly, though, a couple of things to point out about how you can improve your chances of going right.
With the puzzle you get a backing sheet of paper with some grid lines on it, as well as the exact location of one of the 209 numbered pieces. All pieces differ in shape, so being able to put a unique piece in position will help at least a little. There are also three much smaller puzzles available to buy, similar in idea but with far fewer pieces (less than 30 pieces each). If you solve those then you are told the locations of additional pieces in the Eternity puzzle, so you can fix 4 or 5 of the piece positions immediately.
The grid lines on the backing paper are also very useful. The backing paper is drawn up into equilateral triangles, just like isometric paper with three sets of parallel lines drawn on it. Each of the pieces can be placed on this grid so that the edges either go along the grid lines, or cut the equilateral triangles exactly in half. So every piece can be oriented in 12 different ways, only one of which will be right.
The number of ways to orient these pieces, even if you get all the clues available, is 12204. That's just trying to get all the pieces placed at the correct angles, not even trying to put them together on the board! When we start trying to put pieces together, the number of different ways to try becomes truly staggering!
It is extremely hard to come up with an exact number of ways of putting the pieces together "wrongly". To count them we would need to go through exhaustively checking each case, adding pieces until we couldn't add any more correctly, then taking out one of the pieces and trying again. The estimate I came up with for the total number of ways to attempt to solve it was 10500. So if you tried, just once, to solve the Eternity puzzle, then your odds of getting the million pounds would be about 1 in 10500. Compare this to the odds of the National Lottery - 1 in 14 million. The odds of getting this puzzle right, first time, are about the same as the odds of the same set of 6 numbers coming up as the National Lottery numbers every Saturday for a year and a half.
Those are just the odds if you try it once. So you might think you could just get a computer to try all the options, and it won't take very long to find the right one. It's a nice idea, and in many problems it's the right way to go. However, the number of different ways to attempt Eternity is so large that even having hundreds of thousands of computers helping out won't really do you much good. If you had one million computers, each testing out 50 million possible ways to solve the puzzle every second, then every day you would be testing less than 1019 possibilities. At that rate, it would take the computers longer than the age of the universe to sort through all the possible solutions.
As far as I can tell, the million pounds looks safe.
It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying
.9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to
One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy
when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again,
now down to
reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't
be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core
developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to india only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American
is $22,212.42. in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to
increase an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed,
it can clearly be seen the the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did
Due to the troubles of American Meddling, An Capitalist Gorvernment and so on,
South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another
a more compassionate government. Now Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over
to feed the US media.
All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy.
America is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If
the USA is to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring
factions. America continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save
it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.
Fact: The USA is dying