the one i'm thinking of was from TNG...the thing was superintelligent, and as a result, superbored. it sort of swallowed up riker, iirc, and wanted the rest of the crew to entertain it...
star trek had an episode similar to this, altho they didn't kill the life form.
someone else will have to help with the details, but i do remember that the crew scanned the planet and found no life, which later they had to revise as "no carbon based life found".
this issue has bothered me as well, when i hear that planets/environments are hostile to life. of course they might be hostile to our kind of life, but who knows what the hell is out there?
Re:Hammer, Feather, Freefall on the Moon: Revisite
on
5 Strangest Materials
·
· Score: 1
funny you mention that, i googled the GP's sig, out of curiosity, and the only two hits were the threads in your links...
I believe there will be more fragmentation and popularity will shift from site to site as it always has.
what about some kind of meta site that allows you to login once to check gmail, myspace, facebook, whatever else comes along?
then you could have an account on each of those, without having to log in to every one everytime. one login, and it concantates your friends, messages, whatever else is offered.
i had some friends who were traveling across the country on tour, in a rock band. they had converted their diesel van (a 15 passenger ford, if memory serves) for around 1500 bucks. the conversion tank/filter/box took up all the cargo space in the van, so they had to tow a trailer in which to put their amps, instruments, etc. the mileage still came out in their favor.
i would not have believed it if i hadn't seen them pouring filthy used oil into the tank inside the van.
some things they shared:
american fast food is about the worst place to get used oil, as they use the shit out of the oil before tossing it. asian, and middle eastern restaurants were the best, cleanest oil they had seen so far.
they got better gas mileage on the greasel than on the diesel.
the van had a switch up front, with which to change the lines from the greasel to the diesel. apparently the veg oil doesn't burn hot enough, and it was bad news to leave the van overnight with the veg oil in the lines. so before shutting it down for the night, they'd switch back to diesel, and let it run for 10 minutes. then in the morning, they'd switch it back to veggie oil after it warmed up.
the box in the back of the van did three things: it was a tank, in which to store the oil as it was processed, it floated out the water from the oil, (a sort of inline spit valve, not unlike on many wood instruments) and it filtered out the particulates. burnt fries, crispy shrimp tails, etc.
the filter was at the front of the line, so it was basically a big thick sock (they got them at home depot, and had to change them about 1000 miles. it was designed for some other use, but someone figured out it's capability to clean oil, and put it in there) turned inside out. they had also bought some ordinary kitchen strainers, which fit over the hole in the tank, and would grab the huge particles before they made it to the filter. once the strainers clogged, they could lift them out and tap them on the ground to get the particles out. much easier than changing the sock like filter.
they usually would go and ask for oil, but sometimes would need to refill after a show, which could be 2 or 3 am, so they'd just go poach it. most places paid to have the stuff taken away, so wouldn't care if you got caught taking it, but would generally assume you're up to no good if you were behind their restaurant in the middle of the night acting shady.
with 4 guys in the band, they had a system down. some places kept the used oil in a 55 gallon drum. for this, one would scoop, one would prep the empty 5 gallon plastic tubs, one would lift the tubs into the van, and one would pour the oil into the tank.
sometimes the places had the oil just sitting in the tubs they came in. one would either nab the full 5 gallon tubs, and put them in the van to be poured later, while another put empties in their place.
the back of the van was messy/oily, but this was their first trip with the conversion, so were still dialing in their storage system/process. next time i see them, i predict the van'll be much cleaner. as clean as a touring rock band's van can be, anyway....
i live in denver. they live in l.a. they drove from their home, up to vancouver, canada, and then over to denver, when i saw them. so far, on that tour, when i saw them, they had put one tank of gas in the van, and not even used the entire tank. this even includes a few hours running on diesel, as the water trap had some issues, and they had to drive around portland looking for someone who could fix it.
i was totally impressed. i haven't driven in almost a year, but i was convinced that if/when i do buy my next car, it'll be a diesel.
if anyone's interested in the conversion, and able to get to l.a., let me know, and i can put you in touch with the guy who did theirs.
Google should convert their huge parking lots into solar 'car ports' providing multiple benefits:
whoever designs/makes solar panels strong enough to weather car traffic will make millions. i had this idea
screw parking lots. turn the roads into solar collectors.
(not sure if anyone else has had this idea or not, but it occurred to me one time driving thru middle-of-nowhere, utah, that someone, at some time, was out there with an asphalt crew, laying this freeway for years on end.
i'd be interested in talking with anyone who's interested in this, as it makes for interesting speculative fiction/campfire talk/etc.
hell, if Lockheed could create something which does the same thing and uses the same mundane process and chemicals, they can charge $5,000 per can, and the government may be interested.
twas in the mississippi delta.
i'm aware that there are areas of the south where there is more integration than i made it sound like in my above post. the white private/black public divide perhaps isn't as prevalent as i made it seem, but in the area where we lived, there seemed to be at least one "academy" for every public school.
no, no one was forced to go to private school. but think about this. you have white kids. you have the option of putting the kids in public school, where there's little to no money for programs, materials or teachers; or to private school, where there's plenty of all of those. and you can afford to send them to private school. which would you choose?
now, imagine you have black kids. you have the option of sending the public school, where there's no money for programs, materials, or teachers; or not sending them to school at all. the private schools may claim to be openminded and desegregated, but why then aren't there any black kids in them, or any white kids in the public schools?
i dunno which south you're talking about, but the one i lived in had private schools for the whites, and public schools for the blacks.
i was involved in a higher education program while i was there, and part of my job included taking our students (mostly high school dropouts, all of them were black, in this case) to get their library cards at the public library. some had never set foot in the library. or knew they could check out books for free. one time, i was showing a group of students the newspaper archive for our town of about 400 people. they got into looking up the history of the homecoming court, for whatever reason. going back to 1965, the entire court was black. in 1964, 100% white. what happened that made it all switch? the academies(private schools) came along and the white kids suddenly had their own schools back.
when was i there? 2001.
yeah, there are some districts--think the ones with money--who try to integrate, and some who have done ahalf decent job. but the segregation is still so ingrained and institutionalized that it'll be around for many more years to come.
Slashdot Mirror
link please.
the one i'm thinking of was from TNG...the thing was superintelligent, and as a result, superbored. it sort of swallowed up riker, iirc, and wanted the rest of the crew to entertain it...
star trek had an episode similar to this, altho they didn't kill the life form. someone else will have to help with the details, but i do remember that the crew scanned the planet and found no life, which later they had to revise as "no carbon based life found". this issue has bothered me as well, when i hear that planets/environments are hostile to life. of course they might be hostile to our kind of life, but who knows what the hell is out there?
funny you mention that, i googled the GP's sig, out of curiosity, and the only two hits were the threads in your links...
I believe there will be more fragmentation and popularity will shift from site to site as it always has.
what about some kind of meta site that allows you to login once to check gmail, myspace, facebook, whatever else comes along? then you could have an account on each of those, without having to log in to every one everytime. one login, and it concantates your friends, messages, whatever else is offered.
as long as clones are outlawed, only outlaws will clone...
it's still gross.
1. kick stikypad. 2. profit!!!
am i the only one who's frustrated lately by many magazine's purposeful lack of page numbers?
that joke. i do not think it works like you think it doesn't.
please explain how hunting using a rifle is what "man was built to do".
I have *three* English degrees...and two ipods. and how much student loan debt?
Can't trust any of those sites that just post news from other sources.. I mean.. who would want that!?
how is this different than different papers printing the exact stories--word for word--from the AP or UPI?
i didn't rtfa, but
i had some friends who were traveling across the country on tour, in a rock band. they had converted their diesel van (a 15 passenger ford, if memory serves) for around 1500 bucks. the conversion tank/filter/box took up all the cargo space in the van, so they had to tow a trailer in which to put their amps, instruments, etc. the mileage still came out in their favor.
i would not have believed it if i hadn't seen them pouring filthy used oil into the tank inside the van.
some things they shared:
american fast food is about the worst place to get used oil, as they use the shit out of the oil before tossing it. asian, and middle eastern restaurants were the best, cleanest oil they had seen so far.
they got better gas mileage on the greasel than on the diesel.
the van had a switch up front, with which to change the lines from the greasel to the diesel. apparently the veg oil doesn't burn hot enough, and it was bad news to leave the van overnight with the veg oil in the lines. so before shutting it down for the night, they'd switch back to diesel, and let it run for 10 minutes. then in the morning, they'd switch it back to veggie oil after it warmed up.
the box in the back of the van did three things: it was a tank, in which to store the oil as it was processed, it floated out the water from the oil, (a sort of inline spit valve, not unlike on many wood instruments) and it filtered out the particulates. burnt fries, crispy shrimp tails, etc.
the filter was at the front of the line, so it was basically a big thick sock (they got them at home depot, and had to change them about 1000 miles. it was designed for some other use, but someone figured out it's capability to clean oil, and put it in there) turned inside out. they had also bought some ordinary kitchen strainers, which fit over the hole in the tank, and would grab the huge particles before they made it to the filter. once the strainers clogged, they could lift them out and tap them on the ground to get the particles out. much easier than changing the sock like filter.
they usually would go and ask for oil, but sometimes would need to refill after a show, which could be 2 or 3 am, so they'd just go poach it. most places paid to have the stuff taken away, so wouldn't care if you got caught taking it, but would generally assume you're up to no good if you were behind their restaurant in the middle of the night acting shady.
with 4 guys in the band, they had a system down. some places kept the used oil in a 55 gallon drum. for this, one would scoop, one would prep the empty 5 gallon plastic tubs, one would lift the tubs into the van, and one would pour the oil into the tank.
sometimes the places had the oil just sitting in the tubs they came in. one would either nab the full 5 gallon tubs, and put them in the van to be poured later, while another put empties in their place.
the back of the van was messy/oily, but this was their first trip with the conversion, so were still dialing in their storage system/process. next time i see them, i predict the van'll be much cleaner. as clean as a touring rock band's van can be, anyway....
i live in denver. they live in l.a. they drove from their home, up to vancouver, canada, and then over to denver, when i saw them. so far, on that tour, when i saw them, they had put one tank of gas in the van, and not even used the entire tank. this even includes a few hours running on diesel, as the water trap had some issues, and they had to drive around portland looking for someone who could fix it.
i was totally impressed. i haven't driven in almost a year, but i was convinced that if/when i do buy my next car, it'll be a diesel.
if anyone's interested in the conversion, and able to get to l.a., let me know, and i can put you in touch with the guy who did theirs.
Google should convert their huge parking lots into solar 'car ports' providing multiple benefits:
whoever designs/makes solar panels strong enough to weather car traffic will make millions. i had this idea screw parking lots. turn the roads into solar collectors. (not sure if anyone else has had this idea or not, but it occurred to me one time driving thru middle-of-nowhere, utah, that someone, at some time, was out there with an asphalt crew, laying this freeway for years on end. i'd be interested in talking with anyone who's interested in this, as it makes for interesting speculative fiction/campfire talk/etc.
hell, if Lockheed could create something which does the same thing and uses the same mundane process and chemicals, they can charge $5,000 per can, and the government may be interested.
twas in the mississippi delta. i'm aware that there are areas of the south where there is more integration than i made it sound like in my above post. the white private/black public divide perhaps isn't as prevalent as i made it seem, but in the area where we lived, there seemed to be at least one "academy" for every public school.
no, no one was forced to go to private school.
but think about this. you have white kids. you have the option of putting the kids in public school, where there's little to no money for programs, materials or teachers; or to private school, where there's plenty of all of those. and you can afford to send them to private school. which would you choose?
now, imagine you have black kids. you have the option of sending the public school, where there's no money for programs, materials, or teachers; or not sending them to school at all. the private schools may claim to be openminded and desegregated, but why then aren't there any black kids in them, or any white kids in the public schools?
i dunno which south you're talking about, but the one i lived in had private schools for the whites, and public schools for the blacks.
i was involved in a higher education program while i was there, and part of my job included taking our students (mostly high school dropouts, all of them were black, in this case) to get their library cards at the public library. some had never set foot in the library. or knew they could check out books for free. one time, i was showing a group of students the newspaper archive for our town of about 400 people. they got into looking up the history of the homecoming court, for whatever reason. going back to 1965, the entire court was black. in 1964, 100% white. what happened that made it all switch? the academies(private schools) came along and the white kids suddenly had their own schools back.
when was i there? 2001.
yeah, there are some districts--think the ones with money--who try to integrate, and some who have done ahalf decent job. but the segregation is still so ingrained and institutionalized that it'll be around for many more years to come.
you should check out "idiot son of an asshole", by nofx, then.
You can't not love our President :)
yes i can. and do.
cos the majority of myspace profiles have symphonies as the primary song?
i don't think they send you to rape-me-in-the-ass prison for stuff like this.
If you call a one page form with only 6 half-page width lines a ton... a 3 page form on a single page?
addicted, or insane? isn't the definition something like "doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result?