nemo

that would put the spuds on par with the drinking water in DC

Just guessing here: A scale model of the web of communications between ordinary citizens and terror groups, thereby justifying the phone taps in place and the probe you're about to receive. The energy provided through the regenerative braking that we'd all be able to use if the big three detroit automakers would just release all those *secret* patents for hybrid automobiles and associated technology. The secret behind the movie "Cocoon"

that would be a lot of chips... how come you can't eat them after you listen to your stereo for a bit?

I ran across this water-powered clock over at ThinkGeek.com and was disappointed by the description of how it works. And why wouldn't something like this work on a larger scale? Thanks

Just a thought... I had a memory stick start to go bad a while back, and chased inconsistent errors all over my filesystem. The difference in our situations: my machine was already dual-booted - watching the same machine flip out in different operating systems narrowed the problem to hardware pretty quickly.

This just seemed relevant.

Google publishes APIs so that anyone (including the government) can use their search capabilities in whatever way they choose. Not using those APIs to do something creative is a problem on the part of the government, not Google. Nope.(pdf)

That's the thing - the censorship is based upon 'dirty word' algorithms, not actual content; therefore it is relatively easy to defeat. Google's logic on this appears to be: Appease the government enough to allow the service Let the users around the censorship as easily as possible Provide general population with far more information than they had access to before, despite the concessions required to get it to them For a company that tries to 'not be evil' it appears that they were faced with two choices that were both evil and attempted to choose the lesser.

I'd want to move away from physical movement for control / navigation of our little brain-in-a-box... Accidentally erasing a highlighted line of text due to a sneeze is bad enough, but an inadvertent rm -rf * from a bean burrito would drive me over the edge.:lol:

Without the help of any devices, you are taking about the computers of yesterday: the human mind. Essentially using meditation to set up peer-to-peer knowledge networks? I'm not extremely knowledgeable on the subject, but I've yet to see a 'mind reader' that truly was. I like the thoughts expressed earlier on this thread, about embedded devices, but I don't think embedded is the way to go; at least not completely. I'd be more for an interface (think wetwired USB) that would allow a device to be plugged in to the mind, but also removed and upgraded without surgery when required (Moore's Law would be pretty painful otherwise).

This was the purpose for .Net - write once, run anywhere. Unfortunately, as we've seen, unless you're writing something remarkably simple, each language has its own nuances that must be observed for your code to work properly. VB6 and VB .Net are not designed to be compatible - Microsoft essentially wrote a new language that was similar on the front end to VB (controls are identical with the addition of a few more) but almost completely different on the back end. MSDN will be your friend on that problem. I've pretty much resigned myself to three languages at this point: C (mostly Linux coding), VB .Net (Windows and some Mono environment stuff) and Java. The problem I have with the nosebleed-high level languages is that they take so much responsibility away from the programmer. I actually prefer to be responsible for the memory I use and then deallocate. I cannot stand errors in my program that point toward a library that I didn't write or implicitly include. I'd love to eventually play with C#, but at the moment, time is not something I've got an abundance of. Perhaps later.

Mmm... yeah - that's exactly what I was thinking:hihi: Awesome answer - thanks.

So I'm rolling up a tie-down strap (the ratcheting kind - Irish's got me moving appliances today), and I'm watching my quarter-turns get more and more productive as the roll becomes bigger. Now I'm curious - what is the formula for determining how productive each quarter turn will be? Assuming that the strap is 1mm thick, how do I know how much strap I will wind on my 47th turn, as opposed to my second? Thanks, Nemo

tartanism - your comment was already addressed by an admin earlier in this thread. getting back to the actual point of this thread, which appears to be whether capital punishment should be abolished, i find myself looking for a difference between life in prison without the possibility of parole and capital punishment. cost doesn't appear to be a significant argument. people say that CP is inhumane, but those same people look forward to the inmate getting gang raped for years and years - i'm not catching the humanity in that. it appears that once a person has committed a capital crime, society is simply looking for what it deems to be the best revenge possible.

I've also heard "they" are behind a number of technological breakthroughs, also as of yet unknown to the general public... I'd have sworn I met one of "them" once, but all I remember is him putting his sunglasses on and asking me to look at this popsicle stick with a shiny light on one end...

So here’s the wrap-up: Nobody in the group got an elk I came close to being bear poo I discovered gravity is even more frightening at two miles up Our base camp was somewhere around 8000 feet, our hunting camp was in the neighborhood of 9000 feet, and my regular hunting spot was just over two miles elevation. We woke up each morning at 3, were out of the camp by 4, and up the mountain in time for sunrise. Climbing mountains at night was a new experience for someone who grew up in corn fields and spent his adult life near sea level, but the exhilaration of doing something new outweighed most of the exhaustion and the occasional concern about pebbles that never seemed to stop bouncing when kicked off the climbing trail. On my first day hunting, I was situated at the top of a meadow on the mountain with the wind in my face. Most of the morning was uneventful, and a little before 11, I decided to circle around the meadow, just inside the tree line, in search of a better spot. Something I should have been more concerned about at the time was a period of about 30 minutes when the forest seemed to go dead silent, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. Not long after the forest regained its voice, two guys from our group were nice enough to point out the remarkably large bear prints, claw marks and pile of former woodland creatures that had appeared 50 yards downwind of where I’d been sitting most of the morning. I’d passed that spot no more than ten minutes before things went silent. Since my perch that day had been on flat land with my back to the trees that separated me from the large furry eating machine, I decided to pick a better spot for the rest of the trip. The next day, I decided that I’d had enough of only being able to see a single meadow – I wanted to see everything. I climbed up to what appeared to be a high stand of trees and took a minute to survey my surroundings. The spot was a good one, and I could see well beyond the range of my rifle, but I could also see what appeared to be an even better spot a little further up. Not being one to settle for anything less than life-threateningly-stupid plans, I crawled up the mountain to the higher location. After a few minutes of enjoying the view at my new home in the heavens, I noticed a rock outcropping further up the mountain. Right about here is where most people tell me that red flags should have gone up in my mind. Apparently my flags are a little slower than most. I start the climb up. After a few minutes of clawing my way up the mountain, I reached the base of the outcropping. I couldn’t make it up the right side – it was grass covered soil and approaching a vertical incline. I couldn’t see the left side, and didn’t feel like investigating. I could, however, see a crack running up the middle that looked large enough for me to fit into. Nope, no flags yet. I thought to myself, “I’ve seen this on TV”, and started up. About half way up the outcropping, my left hand grabbed a small boulder that wasn’t as attached as I’d have preferred. As it fell down the mountain and I dangled momentarily, a number of things occurred to me: The people I see doing this on TV are generally wearing mountain-climbing gear. My present costume of cold-weather gear, rifle, sidearm, pack, water, 1000 gram Thinsulate boots and mittens might put me at a disadvantage for this little endevour. You never really realize how far you’ve gone up until you look down. Being happy with your life is much easier when the alternative is waiting for you at the bottom of a stupid idea. I should probably investigate a different way down the mountain, if I get the opportunity. The fact that I’m typing this lends itself to a happy ending: I did make it up to the top of the rock outcropping and I did manage to find a better way down the mountain. I even managed to take a few pictures while I was up there. An ironic little twist to this story is that the only I saw during the open hunting season was right after I’d finished my climb up the outcropping – it passed within 200 meters of a member of our group who didn’t notice it because he was sure he’d get to see me fall of the mountain. Nice.

C1ay, would you disband the Senate, or simply make their terms shorter?

remember the good old days when everything was done with vi?

Good question. I find myself wondering at what point does being the minority allow you to control the majority by virtue of potential discrimination claims from the minority? We've both seen that happen. When one <insert ethnic / religious / sexual affiliation> person joins a group of <insert different ethnic / religious / sexual affiliation> people, everyone is supposed to act and think differently - else they are being oppressive, abusive or discriminatory. Nobody is pushing for separate-but-equal idiocy, but the ability of a single person to effectively govern the majority through the threat of discrimination claims has outpaced any proportional representation formerly required; it is now far more effective to be in a minority of some kind than the majority. Abuse is bad. Tolerance is good. The road goes both ways.

On a structural level, what would be wrong with simply assuming that the current flooding will happen again? The city will be rebuilt, the levee system will remain, and there will be more hurricanes. Learning from the present construction methods and similar sinking feelings in Venice and other parts of the world, why not simply require commercial buildings to be built with the idea that they will, at some point, become temporary islands? Residential housing will always be focused on getting the most bang for your buck (while the weather is good), but commercial structures are generally held to a higher standard anyway. I was talking about retiring to the Gulf coast with someone the other day. My idea was to build a four-story, reinforced structure that would withstand a Category 5 storm and use it as a sporting goods / convenience store during the nice weather and have it be one of the few buildings standing after a storm. Set up agreements with local government to supply law enforcement with materials during an emergency at a fixed price (billed later), and you can be the only store in town to survive a storm and have the only police force in the area not subject to the same lack of supplies as everyone else. After reading the news recently, my only modifications would be a desalinization capability that can be set up on the roof, and a few gun turrets at the corners. If NO had a handful of buildings that were capable of remaining intact and waterproof to retain emergency supplies, I've got to believe things would have been easier on the post-storm rescue personnel. A quick Google search indicates that bedrock is between 40 - 70 feet below NO. I'm thinking that gives you plenty of space to put a parking garage below your store for revenue during the good weather, a cost-effective way to ensure your foundation is built upon something that won't slide out from underneath it, and plenty of storage space during a storm (assuming you can seal the entrances effectively). Hmm... NemoMart. Maybe... :lol:

That's what I was trying to get at - any _forced_ religion (or the forced absence thereof) is barred by the Constitution. The contemporary view that Christmas decorations on a school bus are illegal has no base in the Constitution. My personal views on the subject of the Constitution are that the 10th Amendment is not a hoax, and that the Constitution is a living document - if the issue is worth changing the Constitution, then do so; otherwise measure it with the Constitution as it stands now. If the Constitution does not address your implied right to worship your God, stand on your head or eat a bologna sandwich on Thursday, then it is not unconstitutional :lol: . Local laws are another story, but this thread is about the Supreme Court, so that's where this particular rant will stay. :) Thanks, by the way, I like that site too.

The other "problems" they're working on are even more interesting... MS is no longer supporting Unix Services for Windows - instead insisting that it be built into the operating system for better compatibility :lol: . What this means to the average enterprise that has US4W implemented: upgrade your enterprise to the latest MS offering (AFAIK this technology is not even in Vista yet) or watch your apps go the way of NT 4.0. Seems to me that this would be a reasonable time to consider alternative operating systems at the enterprise server level.

Exactly. He was not forced to attend any church. That would be the separation of church and state that the Constitution speaks of; as opposed to the common view that the Constitution requires the abolition of religion. An interesting explaination from an oft quoted site is here. Those who do not learn from history... apparently get plenty of air time on any major network.

Alex, At some point I'll tell you about a birthday I spent getting drunk with a camel. Until then, I'm hoping you enjoy your birthday. nemo

Hi, My name is nemo. I know nothing of cleaner fuel, but I would be happy to join you in collecting money for the pursuit of *Solar*. I have a few questions before joining the team... Why, do you, place,, commas, randomly through, your, text,? Did the world*s leading authorities on *Solar* actually send their resumes to ****************@aol.com*? Aren*t the world*s leading authorities on solar energy plants? Can I get more than two toppings on the deep dish financial package, and do they deliver? Are the words *technology*, *authority*, *corporate*, and *cleaner* considered proper nouns in Wales? Can I get the 4th of July off as a holiday? You can reach me at home, work or play, as long as I*m at wherever you are trying to reach me. nemo