RE: The Case for a Marriage Ammendment to the Constitution
Jon Gabriel wrote: I agree that shaking people up and exposing them to an alternative worldview is a good thing. I read AlterNet and Ann Coulter on a regular basis for that precise reason. :) You deserve a medal for reading Ann Coulter on a regular basis. :) Ritu, who spaces out Varsha Bhonsle's columns over weeks and months ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: The Case for a Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
Julia Thompson wrote: BTW, my sister once told me that I'm not terribly good at being subtle. I've been working on it since. Do I succeed at times? Yes. Whenever you have unobservant audience. ;) Ritu GSV Ms. Subtlety ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Windo$e
I would say: Backup ... Backup ... Backup ... Backup ... and keep inventories so you can find out which backup might apply. I would call it an art since it doesn't really seem to be technology yet? Regards Armin Freiberg -- From: Russell Chapman[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ... I think this inconsistency is what really pisses people off. You can start a Win98 machine 5 times in 10 minutes and get different results every time... You can open the same Word document you opened yesterday and splat!. How do you diagnose/repair problems like that? ... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Stargate: Atlantis
--- Kevin Tarr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 12:04 AM 7/28/2003 -0400, you wrote: Read about this briefly in TV Guide today and found some stuff online. Most of the stuff online is dated 2001, but this article seems to be more recent... http://makeashorterlink.com/?D19B42865 Some older stories about this http://www.gateworld.net/news/archive/spinoffnews.shtml Are you posting to the correct forum? I thought this was a political message list. ;-) Well, it is ..of sorts. There are many people who feel strongly enough about the Farscape debacle and the issues SG1 has had with funding from Sci-Fi as well as many more issues with SFC (for your reading pleasure the soapbox portion of this message has been excluded), that they are refusing to watch and -new- series on Sci-Fi. I'm one of those people. = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On 28 Jul 2003 at 23:41, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 02:13 AM 7/29/03 +0100, William T Goodall wrote: My HP calculator has never crashed, although there are instructions in the manual for resetting it should that happen :) Neither have any of mine (at least 4 different models I can recall, all of which I still have and still use 3 of them at least on occasion), even during battery changes. Nor did any of the TI models I have owned, though the TI-59 had to go in for service when for some reason it stopped working entirely. Neither have any of the Casio models I have owned. Neither did the Sharp model I once dropped in the toilet: it worked fine after it dried out. I crashed my Casio. Entirely my fault, though. I managed to find one of the two ways you can make it crash via programs... (both are silly, but the one I did was pretty ludicrous..). Heh. Andy Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Windo$e (and how I deal with it)
On 29 Jul 2003 at 11:32, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am using W95 privately on my box that has the old scanner and printer (driver availability issue), W2K on my data-backup-box that has no screen attached and professionally NT on my ofice laptop and PC. The only thing I run Windows 95 on is my old Fujitsu Stylistic 1200 (a pen tablet PC, they're really wonderful little things...), but it's a custom install for them and it's VERY stable. I've considered several times putting 98lite on there, but 95 works, so... Andy Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 03:26 am, Jon Gabriel wrote: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of William T Goodall The Linksys WET11 I use to connect the G3 server to the network never crashes - but it doesn't do anything very complicated so it doesn't have any excuses. I loathe Linksys. I seriously hope that WET11 never breaks William. Our 5 month-old Linksys 4-port router broke a few weeks ago. Before that it required a restart every Monday morning like clockwork. Called tech support to get an RMA number. Figured that I'd send it back to the company and get a replacement because it was definitely broken. No lights and it wasn't routing anything anywhere. AND it was still under warranty. There should have been no problem. It all seemed so simple when I started. It seems Linksys has moved their toll-free tech support hotline. You now get India. Yes, *India*. And no one in the department has ever heard of a Mac, nor do they know how to diagnose a router when it's hooked up to one. Five minutes of Do Macs run Linux? We don't support that. Tech Guy Supervisor actually suggested I find a Windows computer to hook it up to so we could confirm it was broken. Linksys were recently acquired by Cisco I believe. So there might be a change for the better. Or worse... Pity about HP... What about them? They used to be a real computer company with their own RISC architecture (PA-RISC) who made Unix workstations for engineering that ran HP-UX. Now those and the AlphaStations they inherited from Compaq are legacy products they are phasing out to concentrate on becoming another clone box-shifter often confused with Packard-Bell :) -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ A bad thing done for a good cause is still a bad thing. It's why so few people slap their political opponents. That, and because slapping looks so silly. - Randy Cohen. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Brin : Hugo awards - unofficial poll
Brin mention. - 2003 HUGO AWARDS POLL It's time once again for Science Fiction Weekly's annual unofficial Hugo Awards poll! What were the best SF books, movies and stories of 2002? http://www.scifi.com/sfw/hugo/2003results.php ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Who Are the US's Allies? Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
At 01:14 AM 7/29/2003 -0400 David Hobby wrote: John D. Giorgis wrote: ... You are kidding about this. We had one true ally in this Britain. The other are either not major players or are anxious to please us (not a bad thing. Ahem. ... You have also forgotten Poland, which is the second-largest country in Europe O.K., second in what sense, then? Russia, Sweden, Finland, Norway... are all bigger by area. Russia, Germany, UK, France, Spain... have greater populations. Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, Spain,... have greater GDPs. (These from: http://www.geographyiq.com/ranking/rankings.htm) Sorry, I stand corrected on that one I've been reading too many articles lately on the future of the EU and how Poland *will be* the second-largest continental EU member in the near future, and got it confused in my mind. Nevertheless, the point remains that based on size, Poland should count as a major player. And despite you snide remarks about '''fluffing up, there is nothing fluffed up about calling Japan and Australia major players in foreign affairs. two glaring omissions from Bob's list. JDG ___ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. - George W. Bush 1/29/03 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 06:27 PM, Robert Seeberger wrote: A Speech From The Extremist Front: snipped Smith should stick to fiction. As for the base canard that FDR somehow conned the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor, well this is the kind of scum that scum scrape off the soles of their shoes. Toland's theory is full of holes and assumptions (well refuted by Gordon Prange) that don't stand up. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: SCOUTED: Leslie Townes Hope, 1903-2003
On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 02:31 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/27/entertainment/ main555724.shtml ___ As one who went to more than a few USO shows (alas we never got Hope), I thank Bob for all the work he did for the USO and for servicemembers worldwide. Thanks for the memories. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
On Sunday, July 27, 2003, at 09:07 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Erik wrote- Really? I have heard many people claim that everybody talks when tortured. In the movies, the tortures that are applied seem so tame and unimaginative. Perhaps I have an unusually sadistic imagination, but I can imagine tortures that I don't think anyone could possibly endure without talking. (They could give false information, of course, but the torturer would make it clear that their information would be spot-checked and if it did not check out the torturer would be back) Having met a few people that have been through SEER. (Search, Escape, Evasion and Resistance as best I can recall), torturers have imagination. Soldiers who go through training learn to plan to survive- what I recall participants saying is to try to survive 24-48 hours is the critical time. You learn a story close enough to your own that you won't get tripped up, and you give the info you have to protecting what you can. Dee ___ The Navy called it SERE (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape) and back in the 70's the instructors always said that you will talk eventually (or die), but that you should hold out as long as you can. SERE training is mainly provided to Special Ops and Aircrew (maybe the troopers of the 507th Maintenance Co. now wish they had had this training) and was developed in response to POW experiences in Korea and Vietnam. Not for the faint of heart. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 09:26 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 7/27/2003 6:43:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And its unclear that arrest is even the proper word to describe what the Chairman tried to do - since I don't think that even if the Chairman's request had been carried out that the Democratic Representatives would have been detained, placed in jail, or had charges filed against them. At any rate, caning another Congreesman, literally nearly to death, on the floor of Congress is far worse. Can we get real here. Once again this is not the 19th century. We are talking about a congressman of one party trying to have congressmen of the other party arrested. This is outragous behavior. It is not some little prank ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l Y'know, the Dems should have let themselves be arrested. Its not as if they were going to spend even an hour in a DC holding cell, and the adverse publicity for the Republicans would have been beneficial to the Democrats. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 09:16 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: --- Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oddly, the guy wasn't at all racist, as far as I could tell, and he was from Wisconsin, so I don't think it was about him protecting his southern pride. The only thing I can think of is that some favorite teacher taught him that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, and he'd latched into it and refused to let go despite the facts. The racism is in the past now, fortunately enough, but it's effects linger, of course. I would blame (and it is _blame_) the claim that the Civil War was not about race on the Lost Cause school of Southern historians, who were desperate to redeem their (genuinely) valiant struggle in an equally (genuinely) bad cause, and so decided to claim that it was about something other than slavery, and deified Robert E. Lee (surely the most overrated General in American history, much to the detriment of the truly extraordinary Grant, who can surely make a case for greatest non-Washington general in American history). I completely agree with you about Grant. My List of Great American Generals (in order): Washington Grant Sherman Marshall Vandergrift Gray Feel free to agree or not. Grant came from hardscrabble circumstances and personal failure to lead the greatest army of its time to complete victory. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Genetic fractions
Julia Thompson wrote: For example, how close I am to you? I imagine we might have a common ancestral by 1600 or so. Most of my ancestors at that point were in the British Isles. to the best of my knowledge. A few were in France. And those are the best candidates: France once invaded Maranhão, who was where the family of my monther's father come from [they were the local nobility]. OTOH, we might have some ancestor among the jews that came with the Dutch invasion of Pernambuco, and were latter exiled to New York when Portugal took it back. If you go to http://www.rootsweb.com and do a search The last time I got interested in genealogies, I was horrified at how much mercenary it had become in the Internet. It seems that it's a big source of income for some people. I'm probably related one way or another to over half the people who were in Virginia at the time of the American Revolution, including a number of scoundrels. :) That can't be prevented, can it? Some of mine were slave owners. AFAIK, no one was a slave trader, which is some degrees lower in the morality scale. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What is a homemaker worth?
Robert Seeberger wrote: (Overall, 13% of the nation's households include a stay-at-home spouse.) That's an amazing figure. I wonder what the figure was in 1953 or even 1963. I think www.census.gov might have the stabistics, if you're wondering. More than likely, the figure was double or triple or maybe even quadruple that 13% figure -- women just didn't get out and work that much forty or fifty years ago. My brother Paul was born in 1963, to a single income household! My dad was in graduate school at the time. Hey list, didja think you were all better off without me? I know I spread a blanket of pornographic thoughts around here, uh, c'est la vie. Mark ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
For they have uplifted those who are humble in origin...
Today's Userfriendly: http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/03jul/xuf005789.gif ...looks like the start of a series about an uplifted Night Pearl fish, which have recently been in the news. (They've been genetically modified to glow in the dark.) Photo here: http://makeashorterlink.com/?X15D25C65 :-) Jon Intelligent Sushi Maru Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Empire Of Lies
From: Gautam Mukunda [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] I agree it's a very good book - probably the best single-volume history of the war, actually. But I actually disagree with that conclusion. I don't think state's rights had anything to do with the war, actually. much snippage I'm not sure I have anything to add except that I agree with you completely. I guess another way of phrasing it was the South supported State's Rights when it aided slavery and supported expanding the Federal role when it aided the cause of slavery. - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: The Case for a Marriage Ammendment to the Constitution
From: Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: The Case for a Marriage Ammendment to the Constitution Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 14:32:30 +0530 Jon Gabriel wrote: I agree that shaking people up and exposing them to an alternative worldview is a good thing. I read AlterNet and Ann Coulter on a regular basis for that precise reason. :) You deserve a medal for reading Ann Coulter on a regular basis. :) LOL! I didn't buy her books though. She is just vile, isn't she. :( I'm waiting for her to come out with a book honoring Hitler and Goebbels for their tireless work at population control. *sigh* I wish anticoulter.com was still being updated. I miss that site. Ritu, who spaces out Varsha Bhonsle's columns over weeks and months Thank you! Until today I'd never heard of her. Just spent half an hour reading her columns on rediff.com. I don't agree with her opinions and conclusions about Muslims (in general, not just in India) but her perspective is... interesting. I *can* see why you wouldn't want to read them all at once though. Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 09:52 PM 7/28/03 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You are kidding about this. We had one true ally in this Britain. The other are either not major players or are anxious to please us (not a bad thing; it is refreshing that countries that owe their freedom to us feel gratitude but they would probably have agreed if we said we wanted to invade the moon). You been reading the _Weekly World News_ again? (That was a story on the cover of a recent issue.) Dang, I *knew* I was missing something by no longer going to the grocery store! (Dan, and now my mom, have taken over that shopping, because it's getting to be a bit much for me to put things into the cart and then unload it at the checkout, not to mention what happens when I've been walking around for a good solid 10-15 minutes) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
John Garcia wrote: On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 09:26 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 7/27/2003 6:43:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And its unclear that arrest is even the proper word to describe what the Chairman tried to do - since I don't think that even if the Chairman's request had been carried out that the Democratic Representatives would have been detained, placed in jail, or had charges filed against them. At any rate, caning another Congreesman, literally nearly to death, on the floor of Congress is far worse. Can we get real here. Once again this is not the 19th century. We are talking about a congressman of one party trying to have congressmen of the other party arrested. This is outragous behavior. It is not some little prank Y'know, the Dems should have let themselves be arrested. Its not as if they were going to spend even an hour in a DC holding cell, and the adverse publicity for the Republicans would have been beneficial to the Democrats. But the police sent to arrest them might have realized that there were no good grounds for arrest, and didn't do it for that reason. I was reading something earlier this month where the legality of DPS troopers in Texas arresting lawmakers to force a quorum was brought into question. Not sure when, though, and I'm hazy enough on the laws regarding elected officials and their duties to wonder if that's one of those things that would have to go through the courts to be settled, at least here. (Things can get a little weird in Texas politics) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Genetic fractions
Alberto Monteiro wrote: Julia Thompson wrote: For example, how close I am to you? I imagine we might have a common ancestral by 1600 or so. Most of my ancestors at that point were in the British Isles. to the best of my knowledge. A few were in France. And those are the best candidates: France once invaded Maranhão, who was where the family of my monther's father come from [they were the local nobility]. OTOH, we might have some ancestor among the jews that came with the Dutch invasion of Pernambuco, and were latter exiled to New York when Portugal took it back. Interesting. The French ancestor I know about was a Hugenot. If you go to http://www.rootsweb.com and do a search The last time I got interested in genealogies, I was horrified at how much mercenary it had become in the Internet. It seems that it's a big source of income for some people. Some people will do research for free, and just ask that the cost of copying mailing be reimbursed. A number of people won't even do that, it seems, which is kind of sad. If you're really stumped and need something looked up somewhere else, information not on the internet, it may be that the person best qualified to track down the information you need spends so much time doing that sort of thing that they either need to receive real reimbursement for their services, or not do it at all and have a more regular job. I have a friend who is pretty good at doing research on behalf of other people, but whenever someone suggests she turn pro, she shruggs it off. (If you wanted her to check out something in San Antonio or Houston, though, gas money might be appreciated if she hadn't planned on going there already.) Another thing is that some of the places that have information up on the internet and easily available really need to charge for subscriptions to pay for the servers, bandwidth, etc. ancestry.com has databases not searchable by those not paying; they have other databases free to all. But there are lots of scams out there, and the last place I'd look for professional help is from a spammer. :P If you had narrowed something down to one or two very specific places, I'd subscribe to mailing lists or post on message boards to see if some kind volunteer would be willing to spend some time looking for the relevant information at the place where local records are kept as my first step, and if information were sent snail-mail, do something to reimburse for actual expenses incurred. I'm probably related one way or another to over half the people who were in Virginia at the time of the American Revolution, including a number of scoundrels. :) That can't be prevented, can it? Some of mine were slave owners. AFAIK, no one was a slave trader, which is some degrees lower in the morality scale. In the 1860 census, one great-great grandfather is listed as having a wife, a number of children, and 2 or 3 slaves in the household. Looking at ages of everyone, I'd guess that the adult male slave wasn't working any harder than the father, and that the older sons were working that hard as well, but it doesn't change the fact that he owned slaves. I haven't looked hard enough at the census records on other ancestors to say anything one way or another on any of them. I know nothing about any slave traders in my family tree. Just people trying to weasel a Revolutionary War pension out of the government when, according to the rules, they didn't deserve it. The interesting thing about slave ownership is that most of the slaves were owned by people who owned a great many, but most of the slave owners had 4 or fewer slaves. So the average slave-owner experience was of having 1 to 4 slaves, and probably not treating them much worse than their own household members, but the average slave experience was of being one of a great multitude where more abuses were likely to occur. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Windo$e
Jon wrote: Have you thought of switching mice and software to see if the 'good' computer starts crashing? Seriously. It might be a driver problem with the mouse. Actually, I have. It made no difference. Other than that... I'd say you're right. It's definitely not you. :) But my not-so-expert experience over the years has been that a large minority of people don't know much about software maintenance or bother to learn. IMO, logically, they should make up at least a portion of those surveyed. Agreed. Reggie Bautista _ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
William T. Goodall wrote: The Linksys WET11 I use to connect the G3 server to the network never crashes - but it doesn't do anything very complicated so it doesn't have any excuses. I bought a Linksys 8-port router and switch about a year and a half ago and was never able to get it configured to talk to my ISP through the cable modem. Linksys tech support was worse than useless. Fortunately I had ordered the Linksys from Amazon.com, and they let me return it with no hassle at all. I bought a Netgear router/switch which configured with no trouble and has been working error-free since it was installed. And I got a free Netgear t-shirt in the box with it! Reggie Bautista Free is Good Maru _ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Windo$e
From: Reggie Bautista [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Windo$e Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 13:12:01 -0500 Jon wrote: Have you thought of switching mice and software to see if the 'good' computer starts crashing? Seriously. It might be a driver problem with the mouse. Actually, I have. It made no difference. Well.. have you tried kicking it? It won't help the problem, but it's *great* for frustration. :-) Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 07:27 pm, Reggie Bautista wrote: William T. Goodall wrote: The Linksys WET11 I use to connect the G3 server to the network never crashes - but it doesn't do anything very complicated so it doesn't have any excuses. I bought a Linksys 8-port router and switch about a year and a half ago and was never able to get it configured to talk to my ISP through the cable modem. Linksys tech support was worse than useless. Fortunately I had ordered the Linksys from Amazon.com, and they let me return it with no hassle at all. I bought a Netgear router/switch which configured with no trouble and has been working error-free since it was installed. And I got a free Netgear t-shirt in the box with it! The WET11 seemed to be the only (cheap) solution available at the time, and it has actually worked so far... I see Netgear now has the WGE1Ø1NA wireless ethernet bridge, but that wasn't available when I was looking. And I've heard of people having problems with Netgear stuff too, so ... Did the t-shirt fit? -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Windo$e
Jon wrote: Have you thought of switching mice and software to see if the 'good' computer starts crashing? Seriously. It might be a driver problem with the mouse. I replied: Actually, I have. It made no difference. Jon responded: Well.. have you tried kicking it? It won't help the problem, but it's *great* for frustration. :-) Percussive maintenance. Read the cartoon, tried that, didn't work. :-) What cartoon, you ask? http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010326 I have a copy hanging at my desk at work. Reggie Bautista _ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
From: Gautam Mukunda [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Why isn't anyone discussing this? Anyways, it's marvelous. Rowling has, once again, surpassed herself - this one is even better than the last. I must disagree. I was somewhat disappointed in #5. The plot was sort-of pointless, if you think about it. The great mystery of who would die was pretty obvious to me. And for both my wife and myself, there was ZERO emotional reaction when the death did happen. I do like how the books are becoming more mature and sophisticated as Rowling has gone on. I wonder how much of that is intentional or just a result of her maturing as a writer. Now that the kids are 16 or so, I've been wondering if there is some sort of anti-sex hex at Hogwarts! There must be! - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
William T Goodall wrote: Did the t-shirt fit? Actually, yes. They played it safe by using XL (extra large, not sure if they're labelled differently across the pond), so it's guaranteed to fit most, even if it is a little baggy (well, on my wife it's more like a nightshirt, but that's fun too :-). Reggie Bautista _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
--- Horn, John [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I must disagree. I was somewhat disappointed in #5. The plot was sort-of pointless, if you think about it. The great mystery of who would die was pretty obvious to me. And for both my wife and myself, there was ZERO emotional reaction when the death did happen. I do like how the books are becoming more mature and sophisticated as Rowling has gone on. I wonder how much of that is intentional or just a result of her maturing as a writer. Now that the kids are 16 or so, I've been wondering if there is some sort of anti-sex hex at Hogwarts! There must be! - jmh I have to admit that I _was_ a little surprised by who died. I thought right up until the final battle that it would be Hagrid - and by the time the battle started I was too caught up in it to even remember that someonme was supposed to die. I agree that it didn't, for some reason, have much emotional resonance for me either - not the death, anyways, although much else that Harry goes through does, often enough. MINOR SPOILERS! MINOR SPOILERS! MINOR SPOILERS! There. I don't know about the anti-sex hex. There was a vague implication of it during Book 4 (Fleur and what's-his-name, Roger Davies or something, were at least snogging away in the rose bushes after the dance). 16 is still pretty young. I know that's supposedly the median age for first sexual activity in the US, but, still, that seems young. I doubt that there will be any by other than implication during the books. I rather imagine that Harry's going to end up with Ginny Weasley, who will only be 16 at the _end_ of the 7th book as well. Although who knows, of course? My favorite moment in the book, though, by a lot, is the Minister of Magic's (I'm forgetting his name) attempt to arrest Dumbledore. I know you were a very good auror ?, but if you try to arrest me, I'm afraid that I'll have to hurt you. That setup was so perfect. For the first time we saw why Voldemort was _afraid_ of Dumbledore - that he was more than a kindly old geezer running a high school. I loved that - the action sequence, fine, it was good to see what Dumbledore is capable of, but that was, to me, far more effective. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Robotic Singularity
The Fool quoted: All of that is good, so these automated systems will proliferate rapidly. The problem is that these systems will also eliminate jobs in massive numbers. Yawn. More than 200 years after the Industrial Revolution, and the neoluddites are still using the same excuses as the luddites. No, let me be fair: this probably dates back from the Greeks, when some brilliant engineers were designing machines and paleoluddites complained that it cause a massive unemployment of slaves Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5
Gautam wrote: Why isn't anyone discussing this? Anyways, it's marvelous. Rowling has, once again, surpassed herself - this one is even better than the last. John H. replied: I must disagree. I was somewhat disappointed in #5. The plot was sort-of pointless, if you think about it. The great mystery of who would die was pretty obvious to me. And for both my wife and myself, there was ZERO emotional reaction when the death did happen. I liked #5, but it did feel very transitional to me. Both Harry and Ron go through events that could be major turning points in their lives. I suppose, if Rowling has a one-sentence synopsis of the five novels so far, it would be something like this: M I N O R S P O I L E R S 1) This is where Harry finds out he's a wizard and first learns of Voldemort. 2) This is where he learns more about Voldemort's history. 3) This is where he learns about Sirius and Dementors. 4) This is where Voldemort comes back. 5) This is where they convince everyone that Voldemort is really back. or 5) This is the one where we find out Harry isn't perfect. I think a lot of the fifth book is setup for the 6th and 7th, with the students learning a lot more about Defense Against the Dark Arts, the core group expanding somewhat, and some new characters being introduced who are sure to have big parts in the last two books. Also the fifth book adds some suspense to the series, in a way. In the first four, Harry really does no wrong. He breaks some rules here and there, but only because he is right about the threats facing him and the school. In the fifth one, Harry is very, very wrong about what's going on, and it costs him the life of someone dear to him. This is sure to be a big motivator in future books, and will make us (and probably Harry) start second-guessing Harry's conclusions and decisions. Now we have some doubt as to whether he will continue to be right. Maybe the one sentence synopsis of the sixth book will be: 6) This is the one where Harry has to re-learn self-confidence. Hopefully the seventh one will be: 7) This is the one where Harry defeats Voldemort. By the way, Rowling was speaking to a large group of kids and was asked if there might be more Harry Potter stories after the seventh book. Her response was something like, That would depend on whether Harry lives or not. I do like how the books are becoming more mature and sophisticated as Rowling has gone on. I wonder how much of that is intentional or just a result of her maturing as a writer. Harry has definitely become an angry young man in this fifth book, for sure. I think Rowling has paid very specific attention to showing the characters growing up. But her narrative style seems more sophisticated as well. I think it's a combination of both intention and her skills maturing. Now that the kids are 16 or so, I've been wondering if there is some sort of anti-sex hex at Hogwarts! There must be! Harry is 15 in the fifth book, I think, although I may be wrong, but you're probably right about the hex! There certainly doesn't seem to be any hex that prevents bullying, though, or at least there wasn't back when Sirius and Harry's dad were students. The amount of disillusionment that Harry goes through in this novel is pretty extreme. Reggie Bautista _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
A Socialist on the War in Iraq
http://www.normangeras.blogspot.com/2003_07_27_normangeras_archive.html#105948316257163866 And he's not even Christopher Hitchens. A really excellent article reiterating the points made by Michael Walzer (in an article I posted soon after September 11th) and many others. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
Here is a link to all of the Texas Redistricting Maps you could ever want: http://www.tlc.state.tx.us/research/redist/redist.htm I personally have to disagree with Dan's and Julia's characterizations of the Republicans' plan as being much worse than the judges plan - based on a first look of what I think is the Republican's plan. Essentially, the judgement of the level of gerrymandering centers entirely on three things - Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio as near as I can tell. The level of gerrymandering difference between the judges' plans and the Republicans' plans does not strike me as significant - merely different. The judges I am guessing tried to gerrymander some majority-minority districts. The Republicans tried to make a few more districts competitive for Republicans. I don't see a huge moral difference between those two (leaving aside tactics and timing.) JDG ---Original Message--- From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] One question I had about the Texas redistricting issue, I've seen the map of the proposed redistricting, but no maps of the current districts A map is at http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/static/pdf/planc01151m.pdf It appears to fit the descriptions of being somewhat gerrymandered, but nowhere close to the proposed Republican maps. Dan M. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
At 11:35 AM 7/29/03 +0100, Andrew Crystall wrote: On 28 Jul 2003 at 23:41, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 02:13 AM 7/29/03 +0100, William T Goodall wrote: My HP calculator has never crashed, although there are instructions in the manual for resetting it should that happen :) Neither have any of mine (at least 4 different models I can recall, all of which I still have and still use 3 of them at least on occasion), even during battery changes. Nor did any of the TI models I have owned, though the TI-59 had to go in for service when for some reason it stopped working entirely. Neither have any of the Casio models I have owned. Neither did the Sharp model I once dropped in the toilet: it worked fine after it dried out. I crashed my Casio. Entirely my fault, though. I managed to find one of the two ways you can make it crash via programs... (both are silly, but the one I did was pretty ludicrous..). Heh. So, share! What are the two ways? --Ronn! :) I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
At 12:19 PM 7/29/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: [snip] (Things can get a little weird in Texas politics) And Texas is hardly unique in that regard. --Ronn! :) I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Hello!
Hello everyone, My name is Patrick Schlichtenmyer. I used to be a subscriber to this list a while back. I left because of other events transpiring in my life; recently I have been thinking of the list and I decided to drop in and see what's up. A little about me and my interests: My favorite authors are David Brin(duh!), Stephen Baxter, and J.R.R Tolkien. I could list many more, but these will suffice for now. I have recently got into the hobby of chainmailling. Not for any role-playing reason, but simply because (to my suprise) I enjoy doing it for its own sake. I have a nice patch of european 4in1 mail about 8 by 8 square inches that took me about 6 months to do(hey, I'm still learning! :)). I live in San Diego, California. I am a Roman Catholic. Subjects that I find interesting are quantum mechanics, philosophy, theology, archaeology, and astronomy to name a few. I am currently reading Kiln People by David Brin, and I am finding it very fascinating. I hope that was a decent introduction, and I hope to have many good discussions! Best Regards, Patrick Patrick Schlichtenmyer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Be Silly. Be honest. Be kind. -Ralph Waldo Emerson - Get your FREE email address at www.gogoworld.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
John D. Giorgis wrote: Here is a link to all of the Texas Redistricting Maps you could ever want: http://www.tlc.state.tx.us/research/redist/redist.htm I personally have to disagree with Dan's and Julia's characterizations of the Republicans' plan as being much worse than the judges plan - based on a first look of what I think is the Republican's plan. Essentially, the judgement of the level of gerrymandering centers entirely on three things - Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio as near as I can tell. The level of gerrymandering difference between the judges' plans and the Republicans' plans does not strike me as significant - merely different. The judges I am guessing tried to gerrymander some majority-minority districts. The Republicans tried to make a few more districts competitive for Republicans. I don't see a huge moral difference between those two (leaving aside tactics and timing.) Austin, as well. Plus, there are mostly-rural districts that will be split up and combined with suburbs, and the folks in the rural areas aren't happy about their political power being diluted that way. The messes in the cities, including Austin, could be enough to make a new map illegal. My biggest beef is that any map passed is going to be challenged in court, and the state will waste money I paid to it to defend the map, rather than using it on, oh, say, roads. Most of the districts are not competitive, period -- safe one way or the other. The notable exceptions are the 5 districts in which the voters are voting Republican for most everything *except* returning Democrats to Congress. If they'd just been courted to switch parties, that might have taken care of it, or at least improved it from the Republicans' point of view. That's just not going to work now -- I don't think any Texas Democrat in Congress wants to have anything to do with the Republicans due to the whole redistricting thing. Pity. Could have maybe gotten what almost everyone wanted with a minimum of time and money spent, and *good* feelings all around. Oh, and the Dems in NM are saying that they're not protesting the redistricing issue per se now, but the fact that the Texas Senate is breaking with a traditional rule *only* on the redistricting issue, and if that's dropped, they'll be back to Austin in a jiffy. (The local news anchors were a *little* skeptical) My wishlist on a redistricting map, in order (yes, I'm focusing on local issues mostly): 1) Doesn't go to court 2) Doesn't split Travis County any more than necessary due to population considerations 3) Has Williamson County all in one district Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
Welcome back Patrick! I remember you from my early days on the list. Have fun! xponent Return To Brinder Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
At 09:20 AM 7/29/2003 -0400, you wrote: On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 09:16 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: --- Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oddly, the guy wasn't at all racist, as far as I could tell, and he was from Wisconsin, so I don't think it was about him protecting his southern pride. The only thing I can think of is that some favorite teacher taught him that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, and he'd latched into it and refused to let go despite the facts. The racism is in the past now, fortunately enough, but it's effects linger, of course. I would blame (and it is _blame_) the claim that the Civil War was not about race on the Lost Cause school of Southern historians, who were desperate to redeem their (genuinely) valiant struggle in an equally (genuinely) bad cause, and so decided to claim that it was about something other than slavery, and deified Robert E. Lee (surely the most overrated General in American history, much to the detriment of the truly extraordinary Grant, who can surely make a case for greatest non-Washington general in American history). I completely agree with you about Grant. My List of Great American Generals (in order): Washington Grant Sherman Marshall Vandergrift Gray Feel free to agree or not. Grant came from hardscrabble circumstances and personal failure to lead the greatest army of its time to complete victory. john Didn't we (the list) have the discussion before? I'd put Pershing above Grant, remove Sherman, add Winfield Scott. I seriously don't know Vandergrift and Gray. Kevin T. - VRWC ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello everyone, My name is Patrick Schlichtenmyer. I used to be a subscriber to this list a while back. I left because of other events transpiring in my life; recently I have been thinking of the list and I decided to drop in and see what's up. Welcome back. :-) __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
Kevin Tarr wrote: At 09:20 AM 7/29/2003 -0400, John Garcia wrote: My List of Great American Generals (in order): Washington Grant Sherman Marshall Vandergrift Gray Feel free to agree or not. Grant came from hardscrabble circumstances and personal failure to lead the greatest army of its time to complete victory. john Didn't we (the list) have the discussion before? I'd put Pershing above Grant, remove Sherman, add Winfield Scott. I seriously don't know Vandergrift and Gray. *A* discussion was had. There was some disagreement. I don't know that anyone managed to change anyone else's mind on it. As long as people are trying to persuade, rather than browbeat or insult, I don't mind this particular discussion cropping up now and again. If I end up with questions on any of those generals, I can just jump into the thread and ask for a reading recommendation. :) If it's just posting lists and nothing stronger than I disagree, it's probably informative to people who have thought about this, tells them something about the folks they disagree with, and that isn't a bad thing. Julia who doesn't know anything about Winfield Scott, Vandergrift, OR Gray ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
I enjoyed #5 immensely. I especially liked the way Rowling developed Ginny Weasley - she's turning out to be a very interesting young witch. In general, I think, Rowling does much better with her good guys than with her villains. I also liked the way a lot of stuff that happened in this novel was prefigured in the preceding ones. It shows that she has done an excellent job of world-building and future history plotting. Tom Beck www.prydonians.org www.mercerjewishsingles.org I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last. - Dr Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
I made Scamorama!
We've all received those 419 emails, promising us that if we can help someone in Africa illegally move several million dollars out of the country, they'll give us 10%, or some rot like that. Of course, what happens is you pay thousands of dollars in processing fees and never see a cent, or worse, you travel to pick up the money and are kidnapped and held for ransom. I decided to have a little fun with a 419 scammer, and I've managed to string him along for about a week. I think Rev. Stanley Ward, KSC will be dealing with a lot of Mugus while he rests with the Brothers of Joshua Norton... http://www.scamorama.com/revstanley.html Adam C. Lipscomb [EMAIL PROTECTED] Read the blog. Love the blog. http://aclipscomb.blogspot.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
In a message dated 7/29/2003 3:19:28 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Hello everyone,
My name is Patrick Schlichtenmyer.
[Irish-German? Not that it matters unless you have to choose between beer or
guinness.]
I used to be a subscriber to this
list a while back. I left because of other events transpiring in my
life; recently I have been thinking of the list and I decided to drop
in and see what's up.
{Less flaming, more silly.]
A little about me and my interests: My favorite authors are David
Brin(duh!), Stephen Baxter, and J.R.R Tolkien. I could list many more,
but these will suffice for now.
[So you found all of the Tolkien references in the Jijo novels then.]
I have recently got into the hobby of chainmailling. Not for any
role-playing reason, but simply because (to my surprise I enjoy doing
it for its own sake. I have a nice patch of european 4in1 mail about 8
by 8 square inches that took me about 6 months to do(hey, I'm still
learning! :)).
I made two suits a chamaille, and a coif over the years.
Be sure to use two different sizes of pliers. The heavier pair is the anchor,
and you move the lighter pair.
What gague and I.D. is that patch?
I live in San Diego, California.
[A local to Brin. waves of suppressed envy]
I am a Roman Catholic.
{Only comment I have here is that I'm trying to write an Uplift story where
a wazoon does a spying job in the Washington National Cathedral by
wearing a gargoyle suit with a pricetag on his toe.]
Subjects that I find interesting are quantum mechanics,
{To the tuna advertising jingle.
Ask any Tytlal you happen to see, 'Draw me an angle and
divide it by three.']
philosophy,
{I once had a gaming barbarian named Azonips. He was a backwards thinker.]
theology,
[Pantheistic agnostic here. The more religions there are, the more fun it is
to say.I don't think so.but maybe.
In My Father's house are many mansions.. And I like to ring the
doorbell to them all and then run and hide in the bushes.]
archaeology
Find any gold chains embedded in lumps of coal?
Part of the Uplift dinosaur controversy.
, and astronomy to name a few.
[Ronn's job to comment here. I only had Bok for one semester.]
I am currently reading Kiln People by David Brin, and I am finding
it very fascinating.
[Brin always likes to write with multiple POV. Now he does it with only one
person.]
I hope that was a decent introduction, and I hope to have many good
discussions!
Best Regards,
Patrick
Ta.
William Taylor
Vilyehm Teighlore on
zMUD to avoid confusion
--
Now is the wienerdog
of our discoteque made
Gloria Swanson by this
wig of yarn.
___
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Hello! Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 15:15:56 -0700 (PDT) Hello everyone, My name is Patrick Schlichtenmyer. I used to be a subscriber to this list a while back. I left because of other events transpiring in my life; recently I have been thinking of the list and I decided to drop in and see what's up. Hiya! Welcome back! Pull up a thread and jump right in. :) Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
--- Kevin Tarr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 09:20 AM 7/29/2003 -0400, you wrote: On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 09:16 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: --- Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My List of Great American Generals (in order): Washington Grant Sherman Marshall Vandergrift Gray john Didn't we (the list) have the discussion before? I'd put Pershing above Grant, remove Sherman, add Winfield Scott. I seriously don't know Vandergrift and Gray. Kevin T. - VRWC Have to admit I don't know Vandergrift or Gray either, at least not at first thought. I think my list would look something like: Washington Grant Sherman Eisenhower Green Patton Franks Marshall Bradley Pershing Heavily weighting battlefield performance over overall impact (in which case you'd put Marshall and Pershing higher). The case for Washington is obvious and I've already made mine for Grant. Sherman, I think, might actually be the most impressive military figure of the war. His tactical abilities were astonishing - his campaigns in the South were consistently successful and consistently inflicted very high casualties on his opponents while his own armies took very low ones. Even more impressive (to me) is his strategic vision - he understood that breaking the will of the South was the only way to win the war. Finally, he was able to do it all without bitterness - after the war he offered surrender terms so generous that Congress repudiated them. Eisenhower again is obvious. Green was Washington's commander in the South during the American Revolution - the one who outmanuevered Cornwallis and had as much as anyone not named Washington to the eventual triumph. He's been somewhat forgotten, but a really remarkable figure. Patton needs no defense from me. Likewise Marshall and Bradley. Pershing I'll admit I really don't know enough about, so his low placement might be my own ignorance. If anyone has a good biography to recommend, I'd be very interested. Franks is, I think, a choice that might surprise people a little bit. I'm quite serious, though. Tommy Franks, as leader of CENTCOM, led the liberation of two countries at a cost of less than 500 allied lives. Where the Soviet Union and Iran were unable to make progress with years of effort, he won in weeks. In Afghanistan he smashed the Taliban using unconventional special forces tactics where the USSR failed completely. In Iraq he used a battle plan so daring that Patton himself would have quailed at it - and won a victory that _Dissent_, a leftist magazine, said can be compared only to Agincourt, and probably not even there. If that sort of performance, not once but _twice_, doesn't get you on the roster of America's greatest generals, what does? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Hello! Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 18:55:56 EDT lots of very groanworthy puns snipped You were keeping them all in reserve for a moment like this one, weren'tcha. :) *Zn!* Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: I made Scamorama!
From: Adam C. Lipscomb [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: I made Scamorama! Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 17:55:33 -0500 We've all received those 419 emails, promising us that if we can help someone in Africa illegally move several million dollars out of the country, they'll give us 10%, or some rot like that. Of course, what happens is you pay thousands of dollars in processing fees and never see a cent, or worse, you travel to pick up the money and are kidnapped and held for ransom. I decided to have a little fun with a 419 scammer, and I've managed to string him along for about a week. I think Rev. Stanley Ward, KSC will be dealing with a lot of Mugus while he rests with the Brothers of Joshua Norton... http://www.scamorama.com/revstanley.html You sir, are pure evil. I love it! (And I especially like the little detailed touches that make it all more real... the name of the hotel in Madrid, the photo of Jeb Bush and the 'living in sin' bit) :-D Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Robotic Singularity
The Fool quoted: All of that is good, so these automated systems will proliferate rapidly. The problem is that these systems will also eliminate jobs in massive numbers. Yawn. More than 200 years after the Industrial Revolution, and neoluddites still use the same excuse as the luddites. No, let me be fair: this complain probably went back to the Greeks, when some of their brilliant engineers started building machines, and paleoluddites complained that it would cause massive unemployment of slaves Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
In a message dated 7/29/2003 4:04:11 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: lots of very groanworthy puns snipped You were keeping them all in reserve for a moment like this one, weren'tcha. :) *Zn!* Jon Except for the doorbell ringing, it was all old stuff. Putting it altogether into one email was just a bit of recycling. In regards to your 'Zn!', the following is new. Ever eat a stroicca? Well, two actually, as the only time they're not poisonous is after they've mated and died in each other's fins. A great Gubru delicacy. The one dish that always makes or breaks a cook's reputation. What? You've never heard of it? I thought everyone knew about Gubru chef's pair a stroicca. William Taylor Posted via da nyet. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
From: Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] snip I didn't see anything about this [the attempt or whatever to bodily remove some Democrat Congresspersons from a Congressional library]; do you have an article or two? Thanks. Kneem and Julia, thanks for the links. Not adult behavior, and foolish to boot, as well as obstructionist and quite possibly illegal (but maybe just stupid?). Thread cross-over: that dueling in the halls of Congress is no longer acceptable behavior seems to go along with the 'evolution of morality' - or at least the evolution of *implementing* one's morals/ideals.* Debbi What Once Was 'Normal' Is Now Abhorrent Maru *Are ideals what one claims to believe as the highest, and morals how those beliefs are acted upon? Then ideals might be somewhat constant over time, while morals change over the centuries. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
Patrick wrote: Hello everyone, My name is Patrick Schlichtenmyer. I used to be a subscriber to this list a while back. I left because of other events transpiring in my life; recently I have been thinking of the list and I decided to drop in and see what's up. Your name seems familiar; I was probably a lurker last time you were active here. Welcome back! A little about me and my interests: My favorite authors are David Brin(duh!), Stephen Baxter, and J.R.R Tolkien. I could list many more, but these will suffice for now. I have recently got into the hobby of chainmailling. Not for any role-playing reason, but simply because (to my suprise) I enjoy doing it for its own sake. I have a nice patch of european 4in1 mail about 8 by 8 square inches that took me about 6 months to do(hey, I'm still learning! :)). My wife and I recently bought a small teddy bear wearing chainmail, and my wife got interested enough to try her hand at it. Have you done anything other than 4in1 mail? (And William, how about you?) I live in San Diego, California. KC MO here. I am a Roman Catholic. There are at least a few of us on the list, although I have to say my beliefs have moved a bit away from the mainstream of Roman Catholic thought. Subjects that I find interesting are quantum mechanics, philosophy, theology, archaeology, and astronomy to name a few. All of which have been mentioned here in the past month, I believe. You picked a good time to drop back by! I am currently reading Kiln People by David Brin, and I am finding it very fascinating. I hope that was a decent introduction, and I hope to have many good discussions! I'm looking forward to it! Best Regards, Patrick Reggie Bautista Let's See How Long Until He Ask About Maru Maru _ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
Hello everyone, My name is Patrick Schlichtenmyer. [Irish-German? Not that it matters unless you have to choose between beer or guinness.] A bit of both, and then some. From what I've been told, my ancestors had their fingers in about every corner in Europe. Although beer has never been an issue. ;-) I have recently got into the hobby of chainmailling. Not for any role-playing reason, but simply because (to my surprise I enjoy doing it for its own sake. I have a nice patch of european 4in1 mail about 8 by 8 square inches that took me about 6 months to do(hey, I'm still learning! :)). I made two suits a chamaille, and a coif over the years. Be sure to use two different sizes of pliers. The heavier pair is the anchor, and you move the lighter pair. What gague and I.D. is that patch? 16g 3/16 I.D. Patrick Schlichtenmyer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Be silly. Be honest. Be kind. -Ralph Waldo Emerson - Get your FREE email address at www.gogoworld.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
Reggie wrote: Your name seems familiar; I was probably a lurker last time you were active here. Welcome back! Thanks! My wife and I recently bought a small teddy bear wearing chainmail, and my wife got interested enough to try her hand at it. Have you done anything other than 4in1 mail? (And William, how about you?) I have tried euro 6in1 and 8in1 in various sizes and metals; as well as japanese 3in1. I have also tried my hand at a persian 6in1 chain. Patrick Patrick Schlichtenmyer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Be silly. Be honest. Be kind. -Ralph Waldo Emerson - Get your FREE email address at www.gogoworld.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
Tom Beck wrote: In general, I think, Rowling does much better with her good guys than with her villains. Generally true, but I *loved* Dolores Umbridge. Of course, I'm about the only person who liked Luna Lovegood among people I;ve talked to, so what do I know? :) Jim ___ Eliminate pop-ups before they appear! Visit www.PopSwatter.com now - It's FREE. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
In a message dated 7/29/2003 4:59:57 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Have you done anything other than 4in1 mail? (And William, how about you?) No. It's easy enough to learn, but I wasn't into Japanese or Persian style armour. Take note of the Return of the King posters now appearing in movie theaters. That's not a real suit of chainmaile. Rows of rings have been sewn onto something. There once was a children's book on knights that was s bad. It showed the seam up the back on all the suits of chainmaile because the artist was using movie props as models. 4 on 1 starts out rather mindlessly, Patrick. You make a big stack of 4 on 1 bobs and then connect them into a chain. It's only when you turn two chains into a patch that you have to start loooking at and laying out the rings for proper attachment. William Taylor Because 000 000 is the wrong hang. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Who Are the US's Allies? Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/28/2003 9:16:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ahem. You have forgotten Austalia, who was very much a true ally. You have also forgotten Japan, the leader of which essentially got his country's constitution ammended so that Japan could help us out in Iraq, and is a major player by any measure. You have also forgotten Poland, which is the second-largest country in Europe - which I guess you could argue is anxious to please us, but given that Poland is already in NATO and on the fast-track to the EU, is certainly in a different category than Bulgaria and Romania. You have also forgotten the Czech Republic, which is in a similar situation to Poland, with the exception of being a major player. Nevertheless, you have also forgotten Spain - the fourth-largest country in continental Europe, and is certainly a major player in the European Union. Yes of course I have forgotten these countries our traditional allies and stalwart military powers all. Poland is already an economic powerhouse in no need of political and economic support from us. I am not by the way denegating their support. I think some of it just real politik but some of it is legitimate graditude. Spain was with us as a country but its people were none too thrilled. Scandanavia was behind us of course. Now my point is not that these countries were right and we were wrong; I have already said that I support the war. My point is that we turned off many of our traditional allies and way to many people in Europe with our high handed arrogant actions before and after 911. Bush senior did not do this. He sent Baker around the world for months to build a coalition. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Who Are the US's Allies? Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/28/2003 9:16:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ahem. You have forgotten Austalia, who was very much a true ally. You have also forgotten Japan, the leader of which essentially got his country's constitution ammended so that Japan could help us out in Iraq, and is a major player by any measure. You have also forgotten Poland, which is the second-largest country in Europe - which I guess you could argue is anxious to please us, but given that Poland is already in NATO and on the fast-track to the EU, is certainly in a different category than Bulgaria and Romania. You have also forgotten the Czech Republic, which is in a similar situation to Poland, with the exception of being a major player. Nevertheless, you have also forgotten Spain - the fourth-largest country in continental Europe, and is certainly a major player in the European Union. Yes of course I have forgotten these countries our traditional allies and stalwart military powers all. Poland is already an economic powerhouse in no need of political and economic support from us. I am not by the way denegating their support. I think some of it just real politik but some of it is legitimate graditude. Spain was with us as a country but its people were none too thrilled. Scandanavia was behind us of course. Now my point is not that these countries were right and we were wrong; I have already said that I support the war. My point is that we turned off many of our traditional allies and way to many people in Europe with our high handed arrogant actions before and after 911. Bush senior did not do this. He sent Baker around the world for months to build a coalition. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
Generally true, but I *loved* Dolores Umbridge. Of course, I'm about the only person who liked Luna Lovegood among people I;ve talked to, so what do I know? :) A) I don't consider Umbridge to be completely a villain. She's certainly wrongheaded and even cruel and destructive. But she's not in the same category as Voldemort or Bellatrix Lestrange or even Lucius Malfoy. B) I like Luna, too, although I wish we'd had at least a mention of her in a previous book. Tom Beck www.prydonians.org www.mercerjewishsingles.org I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last. - Dr Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
Tom wrote: A) I don't consider Umbridge to be completely a villain. She's certainly wrongheaded and even cruel and destructive. But she's not in the same category as Voldemort or Bellatrix Lestrange or even Lucius Malfoy. B) I like Luna, too, although I wish we'd had at least a mention of her in a previous book. S P O I L E R S P A C E Just because Dolores' motives for her actions were not of the slay everyone and take over the world variety does not mean she's not a villain. Evil doesn't have to wear a black cape and cackle maliciously in order to be evil. I found her brand of banal self-centeredness far more chilling than Voldemort's megalomania. Additionally, her willingness to use the Dark Arts (the scarring pen, for exanmple) and to extract information with the Cruciatus Curse shows her true colors. I can see your point about Luna; I suppose she could have gotten a mention in passing at some point. But she is a Ravenclaw, and I don't recall any of Harry's classes being with them. One could assume she just never came up in conversation, and I'm willing to give JKR a pass on that one. Jim ___ Express Yourself - Share Your Mood in Emails! Visit www.SmileyCentral.com - the happiest place on the Web. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 01:19 PM, Julia Thompson wrote: John Garcia wrote: On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 09:26 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 7/27/2003 6:43:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And its unclear that arrest is even the proper word to describe what the Chairman tried to do - since I don't think that even if the Chairman's request had been carried out that the Democratic Representatives would have been detained, placed in jail, or had charges filed against them. At any rate, caning another Congreesman, literally nearly to death, on the floor of Congress is far worse. Can we get real here. Once again this is not the 19th century. We are talking about a congressman of one party trying to have congressmen of the other party arrested. This is outragous behavior. It is not some little prank Y'know, the Dems should have let themselves be arrested. Its not as if they were going to spend even an hour in a DC holding cell, and the adverse publicity for the Republicans would have been beneficial to the Democrats. But the police sent to arrest them might have realized that there were no good grounds for arrest, and didn't do it for that reason. I was reading something earlier this month where the legality of DPS troopers in Texas arresting lawmakers to force a quorum was brought into question. Not sure when, though, and I'm hazy enough on the laws regarding elected officials and their duties to wonder if that's one of those things that would have to go through the courts to be settled, at least here. (Things can get a little weird in Texas politics) Julia And the Capitol Police probably knew they couldn't arrest the Democrats. OTOH, had the police tried, I think that would have handed the Democrats a big stick to beat on the Republicans with. Assuming of course that they wanted to do so. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
S P O I L E R S P A C E Just because Dolores' motives for her actions were not of the slay everyone and take over the world variety does not mean she's not a villain. Evil doesn't have to wear a black cape and cackle maliciously in order to be evil. I found her brand of banal self-centeredness far more chilling than Voldemort's megalomania. Additionally, her willingness to use the Dark Arts (the scarring pen, for exanmple) and to extract information with the Cruciatus Curse shows her true colors. I think she's an interesting case for Rowling, whose villains usually seem to be kind of Johnny One-Notes. She and Fudge are well-intentioned but so wrong-headed as to be all but villains. However, they aren't. They are in between, which makes a nice change for Rowling. I mean, Draco Malfoy - how is he fooling anyone? Why does Snape, who clearly abhors Voldemort and all the Death Eaters, still show any favor at all to Slytherin just because it's his own house, when it is full of people who at the very least sympathize with Voldemort? Another gray area - Snape, not Draco. Interesting... Tom Beck www.prydonians.org www.mercerjewishsingles.org I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last. - Dr Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
Tom wrote: S P O I L E R S P A C E Why does Snape, who clearly abhors Voldemort and all the Death Eaters, still show any favor at all to Slytherin just because it's his own house, when it is full of people who at the very least sympathize with Voldemort? Keeping up appearances, I imagine. He uses Occlumency to hide his true feelings from Voldermort, and favors Slytherin to demonstrate his continuing loyalty. Or at least that is my theory. Jim ___ Eliminate pop-ups before they appear! Visit www.PopSwatter.com now - It's FREE. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 06:32 PM, Kevin Tarr wrote: At 09:20 AM 7/29/2003 -0400, you wrote: On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 09:16 PM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: --- Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oddly, the guy wasn't at all racist, as far as I could tell, and he was from Wisconsin, so I don't think it was about him protecting his southern pride. The only thing I can think of is that some favorite teacher taught him that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, and he'd latched into it and refused to let go despite the facts. The racism is in the past now, fortunately enough, but it's effects linger, of course. I would blame (and it is _blame_) the claim that the Civil War was not about race on the Lost Cause school of Southern historians, who were desperate to redeem their (genuinely) valiant struggle in an equally (genuinely) bad cause, and so decided to claim that it was about something other than slavery, and deified Robert E. Lee (surely the most overrated General in American history, much to the detriment of the truly extraordinary Grant, who can surely make a case for greatest non-Washington general in American history). I completely agree with you about Grant. My List of Great American Generals (in order): Washington Grant Sherman Marshall Vandergrift Gray Feel free to agree or not. Grant came from hardscrabble circumstances and personal failure to lead the greatest army of its time to complete victory. john Didn't we (the list) have the discussion before? I'd put Pershing above Grant, remove Sherman, add Winfield Scott. I seriously don't know Vandergrift and Gray. Kevin T. - VRWC We did have some discussion. Feel free to participate or not in this one. I once would have put Pershing on this list, but I've changed my mind based on his tactical performance in WWI. Archer Vandergrift won the Medal of Honor for his leadership of the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal, and was appointed Commandant of the Marine Corps shortly thereafter. He was primarily responsible for transforming the Corps from a small force that fought America's banana wars into the world's premier amphibious assault force at the end of WWII. Al Gray was Commandant of the Marine Corps in the 1990s, and was responsible for focusing the Corps on maneuver warfare, which they brilliantly carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq. As for Sherman, his march to the sea is a greater achievement than Scott's march on Mexico City. To give Scott his due, his work in the War of 1812 was brilliant and his plan for defeating the Confederacy in the Civil War (ridiculed at the time) was the correct strategy. But Sherman anticipated and conducted total (or industrialized) warfare decades before any other Western general. Indeed, had *any* of the French or British generals paid the slightest attention to his strategy and tactics, WWI might not have been so bloody. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: The Case for a Marriage Amendment to the Constitution
From: John D. Giorgis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Brown v. Board was a completely different example, involving an amendment that had been passed relatively recently in history, and in the Supreme Court overturning its previous interpretation. In the case of gay marriage, the USSC has never even ruled on the subject whatsoever. So...what you are saying is that it was never subjected to a test of it's constitutionally? Sounds like the USSC didn't wasn't chaning anything at all then... grin - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: I have returned from paradise
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] I would propose Irfanview, which has a nice Batch Process utility and is freeware for private use (I use it for my shkrinking of images for the website)... I'll put in another big recommendation for Irfanview. Wonderful for quick and dirty resizing, cropping, etc. Certainly not a Photoshop but doesn't take as long to open, either! - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When does it end? (RE: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words)
From: John D. Giorgis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] At 03:11 PM 7/24/2003 -0500 Horn, John wrote: I don't know. It is a scary proposition. We cannot defeat every terrorist in the world. We cannot? Then why is it that suicide bombing is almost unheard of almost everywhere in the world? It doesn't strike me that this problem is necessarily pervasive in humanity at all. Suicide bombing may not be terribly of but terrorism certainly isn't. Suicide bombing was almost unknown 20 years ago. But now a large number of people seem to think it is a good strategy. Perhaps it will spread. Perhaps it won't. (Personally, I think it is a very bad strategy but obviously there are a number of people in the Mid-East who would disagree.) I'm not sure what you are getting at here. Terrorism has existed for recorded history. Don't forget that when they win, terrorists are called freedom fighters or revolutionaries. We cannot stop every rogue state that wants to build a nuke or a biological bomb. I disagree with this as well. With intelligence, the US armed forces are likely to be able to launch successful preemptive strikes against any likely such rogue state for the next 100 years. So, are you saying that this war is going to last 100 years? I'm not sure I like that idea... - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
Tom wrote: S P O I L E R S P A C E Why does Snape, who clearly abhors Voldemort and all the Death Eaters, still show any favor at all to Slytherin just because it's his own house, when it is full of people who at the very least sympathize with Voldemort? Jim replied: Keeping up appearances, I imagine. He uses Occlumency to hide his true feelings from Voldermort, and favors Slytherin to demonstrate his continuing loyalty. Or at least that is my theory. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? I hadn't thought about that. And it may be that he really doesn't see the problems with the students in Slytherin (or with most of them, anyway); teachers can be notoriously blind to what's going on right beneath their noses. He obviously has problems with Harry because of Harry's father, despite what Harry himself has done and been through. Also, maybe Snape feels that Slytherin is a valid choice of house (as Dumbledore must also feel, since he hasn't gotten rid of Slytherin house), and why not have some loyalty to your own house? Maybe he thinks some of the students from that house are salvageable, and he wants to be an example of how one can be dark and moody and... well, Goth, for lack of a better term, and still not be a Voldemort sympathizer or follower. Reggie Bautista _ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
Someone wrote: S P O I L E R S P A C E Just because Dolores' motives for her actions were not of the slay everyone and take over the world variety does not mean she's not a villain. Evil doesn't have to wear a black cape and cackle maliciously in order to be evil. I found her brand of banal self-centeredness far more chilling than Voldemort's megalomania. Additionally, her willingness to use the Dark Arts (the scarring pen, for exanmple) and to extract information with the Cruciatus Curse shows her true colors. Tom replied: I think she's an interesting case for Rowling, whose villains usually seem to be kind of Johnny One-Notes. She and Fudge are well-intentioned but so wrong-headed as to be all but villains. However, they aren't. They are in between, which makes a nice change for Rowling. I definitely see Fudge as well-intentioned but wrong-headed (or just plain stubborn), but Umbridge seems much more... well, she seems a lot like Cruella DeVille to me, actually :-) Reggie Bautista Disney-R-Us Maru _ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't know enough about the non Civil War/Revolutionary War generals to have an educated opinion, but having read the McPherson, Shelby Foote and some of Caton's stuff, I have to wonder on what merits you rate Grant so highly. Tactically I'd have to rate Sherman and Stonewall Jackson higher. Grant seems to have been more of a bulldozer than anything else and Cold Harbor is a very troubling episode, IMO. Doug Well, my assessment of Grant starts with John Keegan's The Mask of Command. It's surely worth something that Keegan picked Grant as his exemplar of democratic military leadership. Beyond that, however - and granting you the disastrous mistake of Cold Harbor - I think that Grant's reputation as a bulldozer is wildly overstated. Grant's ability to make up for his initial mistakes at Shiloh - mistakes born, I think, of inexperience - strikes me as being quite remarkable. Even more impressive to me is his Vicksburg campaign, where his decision to abandon his lines of supply was a daring gamble in violation of all accepted military wisdom, redeemed by the fact that it worked (shades of Tommy Franks, I guess :-) His strategic concept of the war is, to me, the most impressive part of his accomplishments. Grant understood, as only Sherman and Lincoln did as well, that the obliteration of the Southern Army was the path to victory. That seems simple, but how many of his predecessors were able to figure it out? Finally, I think that Grant's reputation as a bulldozer isn't really substantiated by his results. His casualty rates were far below those of almost any other General in the war - far below Lee's, for example, and I think only Sherman among major Union officers did better by that critical metric. I agree with you on Stonewall Jackson's extraordinary tactical abilities, but he never (so far as I can tell) seems to have developed a strategic concept of how to win the war to go with them. It may not have been his place to do so, but that's why I didn't list him in the top rank with the others, all of whom did display that understanding, something which is, imo, the single most important attribute of a commanding general. All else - even operational skill - is secondary. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (not really spoiler free anymore)
Reggie Bautista wrote: Tom wrote: S P O I L E R S P A C E Why does Snape, who clearly abhors Voldemort and all the Death Eaters, still show any favor at all to Slytherin just because it's his own house, when it is full of people who at the very leastsympathize with Voldemort? Jim replied: Keeping up appearances, I imagine. He uses Occlumency to hide his true feelings from Voldermort, and favors Slytherin to demonstrate his continuing loyalty. Or at least that is my theory. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? I hadn't thought about that. That's not really how I thought of it, Reggie. I was looking at it more from a standpoint of what if that little prat Malfoy tells Daddy that Snape is acting funny? It could draw suspicion. And it may be that he really doesn't see the problems with the students in Slytherin (or with most of them, anyway); Also, maybe Snape feels that Slytherin is a valid choice of house (as Dumbledore must also feel, since he hasn't gotten rid of Slytherin house), and why not have some loyalty to your own house? That's probably also part of it. And of course sticking it to Harry and the Gryffindors is always a big bonus, I'm sure. Maybe he thinks some of the students from that house are salvageable, and he wants to be an example of how one can be dark and moody and... well, Goth, for lack of a better term, and still not be a Voldemort sympathizer or follower. That's a good point I hadn't thought about. Ambition is not, in and of itself, an evil trait, and it is the one Slytherin most valued. If you can point those ambitious kids along the right path, you've got a better chance of keeping them from the Dark Arts than you would if you sent them off on their own. Jim ___ Eliminate pop-ups before they appear! Visit www.PopSwatter.com now - It's FREE. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
From: Jim Sharkey [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 20:38:47 -0400 (EDT) Tom Beck wrote: In general, I think, Rowling does much better with her good guys than with her villains. Generally true, but I *loved* Dolores Umbridge. Of course, I'm about the only person who liked Luna Lovegood among people I;ve talked to, so what do I know? :) I like Looney too. :) Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Robotic Singularity
- Original Message - From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 9:18 AM Subject: Re: Robotic Singularity The Fool quoted: All of that is good, so these automated systems will proliferate rapidly. The problem is that these systems will also eliminate jobs in massive numbers. Yawn. More than 200 years after the Industrial Revolution, and neoluddites still use the same excuse as the luddites. No, let me be fair: this complain probably went back to the Greeks, when some of their brilliant engineers started building machines, and paleoluddites complained that it would cause massive unemployment of slaves No it isn't. xponent Times Three Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
Jim Sharkey wrote: Tom wrote: S P O I L E R S P A C E Why does Snape, who clearly abhors Voldemort and all the Death Eaters, still show any favor at all to Slytherin just because it's his own house, when it is full of people who at the very least sympathize with Voldemort? Keeping up appearances, I imagine. He uses Occlumency to hide his true feelings from Voldermort, and favors Slytherin to demonstrate his continuing loyalty. Or at least that is my theory. I would say used occlumency. I believe that Voldermort knows exactly where Snape stands now. In the other books, this was given as a reason why Dumbledore trusted Snape--they both knew that Voldermort would kill Snape if he won. But Snape still has many flaws, he is another mixed character. As for the no-sex hex, my impression is that Harry is pretty out of it. There could be orgies at Hogwart's, for all Harry knew. Maybe he'll ask Hermionie in Book 6, and it will turn out that she's know about them for years. (And not told Harry and Ron, to give them more time to concentrate on their studies.) I kept hoping that Harry's anger would be partially explained as psychic overflow from Voldermort. I guess that it still could be, but the evidence so far points to Harry being a rather large jerk... ---David ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: I have returned from paradise
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would propose Irfanview, which has a nice Batch Process utility and is freeware for private use (I use it for my shkrinking of images for the website)... I agree. IrfanView is an excellent program. I use it as my main image viewer because it's so fast, and has so little overhead. http://www.irfanview.com That's why I highly recommend it on my site: http://www.sloan3d.com/software.html __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Who Are the US's Allies? Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
Ahem. ... You have also forgotten Poland, which is the second-largest country in Europe O.K., second in what sense, then? Russia, Sweden, Finland, Norway... are all bigger by area. ... Sorry, I stand corrected on that one ... And despite you snide remarks about '''fluffing up, That was based on Poland. It did give the sense that you were trying to make the list sound bigger than it was, meaning that you knew it needed it. Actually, I'm not sure how Spain is 4th largest in Continental Europe, either, but let's let that slide. ---David ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Take note of the Return of the King posters now appearing in movie theaters. That's not a real suit of chainmaile. Rows of rings have been sewn onto something. According to the Fellowship DVD special features, the chain mail is actually made of painted plastic rings, but they do connect them together by hand, like real chain mail. __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 12:18:22 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote: But that seems to be _your_ argument. If we understand why they are angry at us and seek to act in such a way as to assuage their anger, they won't attack us any more. What you _want_ the US to do anyways seems to accord precisely with this. Do you feel more comfortable (or safe) never asking this question? Dean ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Windo$e
On the subject, from Top Five today: == Can I micro-size that for you? TOPFIVE.COM'S LITTLE FIVERS -- WORK http://www.topfive.com/fivers.shtml == Originally published September 4, 2002 MEMO FROM THE PREZ: You know, it's the little differences. Like in Europe, do you know what they call Microsoft Word? Le Microsoft Word. And Internet Explorer is called a Royale with 128-bit encryption. The Top 9 Differences Between Working at McDonald's and Working at Microsoft 9 McDonald's: Runs a promotional game based on Monopoly. Microsoft: Runs a monopoly. 8 One is only interested in getting product to the customer quickly without regard to quality. The other sells hamburgers. 7 McDonald's: Employs many 16-year-old female virgins. Microsoft: Employs many 31-year-old male virgins. 6 Products of Microsoft employees expedite delivery of computer viruses; at McDonald's, they stick to biological viruses. 5 You take pride that the best-selling product at Microsoft has a higher nutritional value. 4 McDonald's: Do you want to super-size for an extra 59 cents? Microsoft: Upgrade now for $129 or your software will stop working. 3 After three years full-time with your burger buddies, how much are your stock options worth, fry boy? 2 Microsoft: Blue Screen of Death. McDonald's: Blank Face of Teen Apathy. and the Number 1 Difference Between Working at McDonald's and Working at Microsoft... 1 McDonald's customers won't put up with bugs in their product. [ Copyright 2003 by Chris White] [ http://www.topfive.com ] == Selected from 21 submissions from 5 contributors. Today's Top 5 List authors are: -- Kenn McCracken, Birmingham, AL -- 1 (Employee of the week!) James Knowles, Bellingham, WA-- 2, 7 William Wickart, Hillsboro, OR -- 3, 5, Banner Tag Peter Heltzer, Buffalo Grove, IL -- 4, 9 Richard W. Lipp, Lenexa, KS -- 6, 8 Emily Evans, Kansas City, MO -- Topic Wade Kwon, Birmingham, AL-- President CEO == [ TOPFIVE.COM'S LITTLE FIVERS ] [Top 10 lists on a variety of subjects ] [ http://www.topfive.com ] == [ Copyright 2003 by Chris White All rights reserved. ] [ Do not forward, publish, broadcast, or use ] [ in any manner without crediting TopFive.com ] == [ To complain to the HR department: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] [ Have friends who might like to subscribe to this list? ] [ Refer them to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] == ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
At 09:41 PM 7/28/2003 -0400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You (e) ask the British to provide documenation of their claim. If they do so you can include it in the SOU. Actually, Bush *did* do that, and Britain said that they completely stand by their intelligence with the highest degree of confidence. Which of course brings us back to a, b, c, or d - all of which would be consistent with not using it in the State of the Union?Care to give it one more shot Bob?How about you, Nick? JDG ___ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. - George W. Bush 1/29/03 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 12:18:22 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote: But that seems to be _your_ argument. If we understand why they are angry at us and seek to act in such a way as to assuage their anger, they won't attack us any more. What you _want_ the US to do anyways seems to accord precisely with this. Do you feel more comfortable (or safe) never asking this question? Dean What question? There isn't a question mark in the above statement. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (no spoilers)
From: David Hobby [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim Sharkey wrote: Tom wrote: S P O I L E R S P A C E Why does Snape, who clearly abhors Voldemort and all the Death Eaters, still show any favor at all to Slytherin just because it's his own house, when it is full of people who at the very least sympathize with Voldemort? Keeping up appearances, I imagine. He uses Occlumency to hide his true feelings from Voldermort, and favors Slytherin to demonstrate his continuing loyalty. Or at least that is my theory. I think that Snape, while being against Voldemort, is still basically a product of Slytherin, and thus is largely bound to be a jerk in any case, even if he isn't evil. Has anyone from Slytherin been protrayed in a positive manner at all, in any of the books? I can't think of any examples. As for the no-sex hex, my impression is that Harry is pretty out of it. There could be orgies at Hogwart's, for all Harry knew. Maybe he'll ask Hermionie in Book 6, and it will turn out that she's know about them for years. (And not told Harry and Ron, to give them more time to concentrate on their studies.) Well, we have to keep in mind that the HP books are still considered children's books. Even if they have a lot of adult appeal and an increasingly dark story that makes it less suitable for kids, there's going to be tons of 10-12 year olds hooked into the series, reading them. I extremely doubt that any of the series will feature anything more than kissing. I kept hoping that Harry's anger would be partially explained as psychic overflow from Voldermort. I guess that it still could be, but the evidence so far points to Harry being a rather large jerk... I read an interview with JKR, and her intention was to make Harry more realistic and less of a saint. 16 years olds can be moody jerks at times, and with all the stuff Harry's been put through, it's fairly understandable. I'd argue we probably should have seen gradual evidence of this sooner in the series, but what can you do? I'm guessing though, that Harry will work out his issues and come around by the end of book 6. _ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello!
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hello everyone, My name is Patrick Schlichtenmyer. I used to be a subscriber to this list a while back. I left because of other events transpiring in my life; recently I have been thinking of the list and I decided to drop in and see what's up. Heh. When I say the one-word subject Hello! and the gogoworld domain, my first thought was Oh no, I'm starting to get spam on this email account! Fortunately, I opened the message to read it anyway! Anyway, welcome! -bryon _ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Empire Of Lies
Gautam Mukunda wrote: Well, my assessment of Grant starts with John Keegan's The Mask of Command. It's surely worth something that Keegan picked Grant as his exemplar of democratic military leadership. Beyond that, however - and granting you the disastrous mistake of Cold Harbor - I think that Grant's reputation as a bulldozer is wildly overstated. Sounds like a must read... it's in the (ever lengthening) queue. Grant's ability to make up for his initial mistakes at Shiloh - mistakes born, I think, of inexperience - strikes me as being quite remarkable. Even more impressive to me is his Vicksburg campaign, where his decision to abandon his lines of supply was a daring gamble in violation of all accepted military wisdom, redeemed by the fact that it worked (shades of Tommy Franks, I guess :-) I agree that Vicksburgh was brilliant - his most outstanding achievement and probably what got him the command. Foote tells of a relapse of his alcoholism during the siege, IIRC, but Foote definitely has a (slight) Southern bias and I haven't read anything else about the incident. His strategic concept of the war is, to me, the most impressive part of his accomplishments. Grant understood, as only Sherman and Lincoln did as well, that the obliteration of the Southern Army was the path to victory. That seems simple, but how many of his predecessors were able to figure it out? Finally, I think that Grant's reputation as a bulldozer isn't really substantiated by his results. His casualty rates were far below those of almost any other General in the war - far below Lee's, for example, and I think only Sherman among major Union officers did better by that critical metric. Not to lionize Lee, but direct comparisons probably aren't a good metric. One has to consider the North's considerable advantages in battle a few of which were greater numbers, better technology, and the superior condition of its troops. The one advantage the South had was that it was consistently on the defensive in its own territory. Even so, Grant did not always win the war of numbers. In the Wilderness campaign, despite outnumbering Lee 5-3, Grant lost something like 17% while Lee lost less than 13% This was followed by Spotsylvania where Grant lost an incredible 33% to Lee's 18%. Subsequently, at the lopsided Cold Harbor Grant lost 12% (7,000 in under an hour), Lee 4%. This series of battles in May 1864 is probably where Grant gets his bulldozer reputation. Union Casualties for the month were ~52,000 while the Confederates suffered ~23,000. I agree with you on Stonewall Jackson's extraordinary tactical abilities, but he never (so far as I can tell) seems to have developed a strategic concept of how to win the war to go with them. It may not have been his place to do so, but that's why I didn't list him in the top rank with the others, all of whom did display that understanding, something which is, imo, the single most important attribute of a commanding general. All else - even operational skill - is secondary. True, but I still have to wonder how well he would have done had he rather than Lee succeeded the wounded Johnson (not that he was even considered by Davis). Jackson had just completed his fantastically successful Valley campaign and though I haven't read anything that states this, I've always wondered if Jackson didn't resent not being chosen after proving himself so worthy. The historians I have read attribute his inexplicably poor performance in the peninsula campaign shortly thereafter to lack of sleep, but I didn't find their arguments very convincing. Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Harry Potter 5 (not really spoiler free anymore)
Thanks for changing the header , Jim. Doug ~halfway through. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of John D. Giorgis ... Which of course brings us back to a, b, c, or d - all of which would be consistent with not using it in the State of the Union?Care to give it one more shot Bob?How about you, Nick? I don't know what you are after, but I think I've been overly kind to the administration in saying that this statement should have been more carefully verified. After all, it is now clear that the White House revisited this fact after it had already been discredited by the CIA, and persuaded the NSC to come up with the new wording. Why didn't Bush say but the CIA disagrees, when it is obvious that the White House knew that? That's an inexcusable withholding of information, unless we are to put greater stock in British intelligence than our own, in which case something is wrong indeed. So we have the most important political leader in the world, in his most important speech, arguing for the most important decision a nation can make -- and he leaves out the fact that our own intelligence assessment disagrees with what he is saying? That's outrageous. The administration's explanation that the CIA failed to catch the bogus information in review is ludicrous unless they'd have us believe that the White House came up with the intelligence on its own, completely independently of our own intelligence apparatus, and the reviews, done by people who are the world's leading experts on the issues, somehow didn't notice it. Phooey. Not only would that be dumb, it would require them to deliberately bypass or manipulate a rigorous system designed to prevent exactly that. I guess I'll say a bit more about why I know about the process. I used to be the product manager for the language analysis software that the NSC uses to decide which intelligence documents they need to read. Most of our customers used it to find documents that were relevant to their interests, but the NSC does just the opposite -- they use it to make sure they don't miss anything. As they review documents, they add key words about the subject of the document to their filter. Thus, the software filters out documents that tell them about things they already know about, so that they can read everything else -- this is a system for ensuring that they don't miss anything that relates to their focus area. Exactly who and how many people brief the president is classified, so I can't say that these are the very people who deliver intelligence to Bush. I can say that they are totally key to the process. (All I'm jeopardizing here, if anything, is my White House press clearance, which I haven't used in a long darn time.) There is someone on the NSC who is responsible for Iraq. There's someone who is responsible for Niger. There is someone who tracks nuclear issues. There is no way these people -- whose job it is to vette intelligence for the President -- could simply goof up like that, given their rigorous system for ensuring that they don't miss any subjects that appear in our intelligence. Are we to believe that Ambassador Joe Wilson's report from his trip to Niger did not make its way into the system, even though he says his reports went to the State Department and the CIA, but an unconfirmed British intelligence report did? It is strange, to say the least, that the DCI is taking the fall for this supposed mistake, since the NSC staff works for Condoleezza Rice. And now we have reports that the NSC's weapons guy, Bob Joseph, did know about it and said it was not credible. So did the State Department, in direct response to an administration claim that the Iraqis had a nuclear program. I've realized that there's a strong emotional component to this for me, which I suspect is shared by many others who grew up in the 60s. I had nightmares about nuclear war, lots of them, as a child. I can remember the Cuban missile crisis, vaguely, and certainly remember all of the fear in our country, the people building bomb shelters, etc. We practiced civil defense drills at school and our basement was a fallout shelter. As a result, Bush's mention of the possibility of Iraq with nuclear weapons touched a nerve. The idea of those nightmares arising again was one of the things that brought me to reluctantly support the war, and by no means a minor reason. Raising the specter of nuclear terrorism certainly was effective, which makes the omission of the rest of the story all that more egregious. When manipulation of intelligence can make its way into the State of the Union, it is very hard to imagine that it isn't being manipulated in many other areas, too. As I read the coverage of this issue, I see more and more evidence that that's exactly what's been going on. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
- Original Message - From: John D. Giorgis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 9:57 PM Subject: Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words At 09:41 PM 7/28/2003 -0400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You (e) ask the British to provide documenation of their claim. If they do so you can include it in the SOU. Actually, Bush *did* do that, and Britain said that they completely stand by their intelligence with the highest degree of confidence. Which British? The worker bees, or top management. That seems like an issue that the boys and girls in the trenches should work out together and then put forth a joint understanding to both Blair and Bush. If there is uncertainty, then the statement doesn't belong in the State of the Union message. There are many advantages to being as strong minded and focused on one's goal as Bush is. One disadvantage is that one tends to discard data that is inconsistant with one's certainty and highlight that which agrees. We do know that there was also conflict between the certainty at the top and the understanding in the trenches in GB. My view is that Bush and Blair had an understanding of Hussein through which they filtered all the information that they had. I think part of their understanding, his willingness to kill and torture countless thousands, was spot on. But, it definately appears that their assessment of the WMD was wrong. It is hard to imagine hundreds of tons of deliverables, 45 minutes away from delivery that were quickly hidden or taken into Syria without us being able to trace them. Again, it looks like a classic case of management overruling the experts in the trenches. My suggestion for the proper action for Bush seems clear to me. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
