Re: Obama II
Here in Brazil, we had the impression that the Republicans chose the worst possible candidate, someone they put there to lose. Or maybe the Democrats voted in the Republican primaries to make him win. A big part of Romney's appeal was that as a tremendously successful businessman, he was afforded a large amount of economic credibility. And with almost 4 years now of the Great Recession under Obama's watch, the economy was the number one concern for many people and Obama was vulnerable on this issue. They then doubled-down on this by picking another economics-type guy as his running mate. And this was largely successful in that despite them providing very little in the way of hard numbers, they were often the winners of the who is better for the economy polls. Another part of Romney's appeal was that he had some moderate/centrist appeal as a moderate republican, having been elected governor of the largely democrat state of Masschusetts, and having passed the Romneycare health plan, which is often called the model for the Obamacare health plan. But those were both huge vulnerabilities for him in the primary process where some felt he wasn't conservative enough and Obamacare is a dirty word. Further, as a Mormon, Romney doesn't quite pass the WASP test so he basically had to tack hard right to build up his conservative cred to get the party nomination. The likely intention was to shift back to the center to hopefully get the moderates back on board once he had the nomination locked, but that never quite worked out. Romney never quite had the right's full trust, which likely wasn't helped when Romney's spokesman was asked back in March if Romney's shift to the far right would hurt him with moderates, and the spokesman replied: “Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again.” -- Thus begging the question from both moderates and the far right of what Romney really believes and stands for. Is he a flip-flopper - or worse, is he just always willing to say whatever it takes to get elected? Did anyone over there ever think that Mitt Romney had _any_ chance? Many of the pundits and talking heads of the right actually seemed to expect a landslide victory for Romney. Quite a few projected electoral college results around the reverse of the actual result: around 300+ for Romney, and around 206 for Obama. Liberals had high levels of schadenfreude watching the distressed Fox News coverage. http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/democratic-schadenfreude-gay-rights-allen-west-karl-rove-donald-trump.php And of course, a 2.5% difference in the number of popular votes for each candidate is quite a slim margin, particularly when the electoral college nonsense makes it possible for the loser of the popular vote to get elected. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Various Items
On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Jo Anne evens...@hevanet.com wrote: Odd. I didn't get the original post from Mauro -- I get the digest and it didn't come through. I did get one today, though, and am happy the list isn't completely dead. For me, Mauro's post got filtered in Gmail's spam box, along with Keith Henson's. I didn't know about either one until Damon's reply showed up. I can only comment on Cars 2 vs. the critics. First off, I didn't know it was panned. I enjoyed it, although it was a little heavy handed on the oil bad guys. I loved Finn McMissile (an Aston-Martin, no less), but then Michael Cain is always good. And what happened to Lightning's original GF? I was disappointed they didn't retire George Carlin's character as well as Paul Newman's. I thought Cars 2 was enjoyable, but a step down from Pixar's usual greatness. Mater's character arc was to shallow for me to have much feel for him beyond the comedy relief, and Lightning's accept your friends as they are subplot really felt forced. Not bad, but I didn't walk out with anywhere near the same level of feelings I had for, say Wall-E, TS3, The Incredibles, or even the original Cars. I suspect the critics' negative reaction is largely based on their high expectations for Pixar films being disappointed - I don't think it was the spy/sci-fi elements. About Lightning's original GF - I think she was still there. Sally is listed as played by Bonnie Hunt in both movies. She just has a sadly small role in the second one. For George Carlin's character - maybe they felt if they retired him as well as Doc, they'd have to acknowledge it in the story and two deaths to be somber over would be too much downer? -Bryon ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Asperger's - Autism
On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 8:23 AM, John Horn anar...@gmail.com wrote: Move to merge Asperger's, autism in diagnostic manual stirs debate http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/11/aspergers.autism.dsm.v/index.html?hpt=C2 - I was wondering what the folks here feel about this. I know we have some Aspie's here as well as parents of children with autism. As a parent of a child with Asperger's, it definitely concerns me. I think the concerns in the article about are right on about kids like my daughter. I undestand that Asperger's is on the same continuum as autism. I just don't see that she would have gotten the same support and services without that specific diagnosis. I guess if it still considered a separate diagnostic 'name' rather than mild/high functioning autism that might be OK. I don't know... My son was very recently (~2 months ago) diagnosed with Asperger's, though we've suspected as much for quite a while. From what I've read, Asperger's was always placed within the Autism spectrum, so this is more of a subcategory category naming issue than anything else. Or at least, I think the APA thinks that. I came across a New York Times article the other day (sorry, I don't have a link) that had more of a positive spin and basically explained the reasoning: IIRC, even within the Asperger's classification, there is such variation in symptoms that there are essentially no distinguishing factors from those associated with plain autism - they blur together. So the APA is thinking it's an artificial distinction. I don't know what to think, really - it's all too new to me, and we haven't really gotten anything in the way of support or services yet. -Bryon ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Getting ballpoint pen off laptop screen?
On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 5:52 PM, Julia ju...@zurg.net wrote: What's the best thing to do for that? And, just as importantly, what should be avoided at all costs? A few years back, my daughter wrote on my brand new $800 LCD monitor with a ballpoint pen. Water, screen wipes and soft cloths couldn't remove it all. I was sure it was permanently on there at that point. Then I saw something on the net that worked great: Add a small amount of water to a teaspoon or two of baking soda to make a paste. Using a soft cloth, rub the paste onto the pen marks in a circular motion until they are removed. Clean area with a clean damp cloth. The pen marks miraculously came out without leaving scoured area on the screen. I'm using that same monitor right now and I couldn't tell you where the pen marks were. You might want to test it in a tiny corner spot on your own monitor first, if you ever try this. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Foswiki up and running
On Sat, Jan 2, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Jim Sharkey templar...@excite.com wrote: Nick Arnett wrote: I'd like to hear if anybody strongly objects. I certainly do not object. It's been a long time. I don't post much myself these days, but I'd let him back on. But those who were primarily aggreived should probably have more say, if they are still around. IIRC he posted Julia's contact info online... perhaps it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask him to agree to refrain from such things in the future. -bryon ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Avatar
On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Doug Pensinger brig...@zo.com wrote: I saw Avatar last night in the Imax/3D format. It was by far the most awesome audio/visual experience I've ever had. The story was fair to good, but the eye candy was spectacular. I wouldn't have thought I could get vertigo while sitting in a comfortable arm chair. Cool; see it and pay the extra for Imax. I saw the IMAX 3D version yesterday as well. It's fantastic. I normally don't care for 3D movies, but a reviewer I trust that normally hates 3D said it was the first 3D movie that made him realize the potential it has, so I decided to give it a shot. After a minute or two to get used to it, it pretty much felt natural and doesn't make you think about the 3D. There's no comin' at ya! effects, as far as I remember. Even without the 3D, I suspect this will be a visually beautiful movie, but with the IMAX screen and 3D, it's awesome. I thought the story was good - not terribly original, but well-told. Probably my favorite movie this year. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Recursion in C, as told by Kernigan, Ritchie, and Lovecraft
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 5:32 AM, Alberto Monteiro
albm...@centroin.com.brwrote:
joke critic
The code is wrong:
void Cthulhu
(int Ia) {
if (Ia/10)
Cthulhu (IA/10);
putchar // ftagn!
(Ia % 10 + '0');
} // neblod zin!
// is a comment in C++ and, by the arcane magic known as backwards
compatibility, crept into C compilers
/joke critic
// comments are part of the C99 standard. (C1899 in this case, I suppose)
-bryon
___
http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Kid's telescope buying advice?
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 7:07 AM, Ronn! Blankenship ronn_blankens...@bellsouth.net wrote: SkyandTelescope.com - Homepage Equipment - Low-Cost Starter Scopes - http://www.skyandtelescope.com/equipment/home/69745547.html This was exactly the kind of article I had been looking for. The Orion 3 reflector was out of stock, but the slightly pricier Orion 70mm refractor just squeaks under the budget and was able to get spouse approval, so that's the one I ordered. A nicer, family telescope might be a good option in the future if any of our kids pick up on it, but right now besides budget, my wife is convinced that a delicate instrument like a telescope won't last long around our 3 kids (age 9 under). Thanks Charlie, Ronn Bruce for your help/advice! -Bryon ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Kid's telescope buying advice?
*Delurking* I could use some telescope purchasing advice, if anyone's interested in helping. My astonomy knowledge is quite limited. My 9 year old son asked for a telescope for Christmas (amongst a million other things). My mom bought him a $37 Toys-R-Us one which I think is likely little better than a toy, so I convinced her to return it and said I'd get him a better one. I'd love to encourage him in this direction and don't want to get something crappy that would turn him off, but at the same time, we've already bought stuff for him, my budget is quite limited, and I don't want to spend several hundreds on a telescope he might quickly lose interest in. A lot of the advice I found web searching basically says any telescope under $250 is junk and to buy a good set of binoculars instead. But then that's usually followed up by saying that you need to spend at least $100-$150 to find a decent set of binoculars. The problem with that advice is that binoculars likely won't really capture his imagination/interest and that $100 (or maybe $150) is the most I'd want to spend. But then most of this advice seems to be directed against toy/department store refraction telescopes marketed based on 675X super-magnification, while the ones I'm looking at are reflection-type and make no such claims: the Celestron PowerSeeker 114EQ and PowerSeeker 127EQ are both around $100. The few reviews I could find seem to be a mixed bag of people very delighted and very disappointed, which leaves me wary. Alternately, the Celestron Firstscope is quite cheap ($50), has some (almost suspiciously) good reviews, and seems aimed at kids. But it's a tabletop model (which seems like it'd be awkward if you'd have to bring a table with you to a park or into your back yard), and a few pictures I've seen of its output view make me wonder if the magnification is at the why bother level. We don't need to spot nebulas, etc - I'd just like him to be able to resolve enough extra detail looking at the moon, stars and other naked-eye objects that he might be motivated to explore further. Is that possible with a scope under $150? Or am I wasting my time? Would $200 or $250 do much better? Is giving him no telescope better than giving him a disappointing one? Thanks, -Bryon ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Cleaning flat screens, wuz Re: Physicists offer foundation for uprooting a hallowed principle of physics
On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Ronn! Blankenship ronn_blankens...@bellsouth.net wrote: At 03:14 PM Tuesday 1/6/2009, Euan Ritchie wrote: Lint-free cloth, NOT paper towels; spray one cloth with water or isopropyl alcohol, 70% (rubbing alcohol) or 91% (sold for sterilizing needles, etc.) 2-PrOH? Or custom strength (more dilute??)? use that to clean, and follow with a dry cloth. For simple things like finger smudges and dust a clean micro-fibre cloth does well. That's what I've been using. For worse I got a pack of wipes that are supposed to be for the purpose, but those are too expensive to keep using long-term. ($5-something for a pack of 20, iirc.) I once had to get pen ink marks off my LCD monitor: A few years back my son came and told me my daughter drew on the computer, so I went to investigate, thinking she had written on my computer case. Nope, had she made a number of blue ballpoint pen ink marks on the screen of my 2 month-old $800 LCD monitor. Doh! Monitor wipes and alcohol couldn't remove the ink marks. Fortunately, some googling resulted in a solution: - Make a thickish paste by adding some water to some baking soda. - Use your finger to apply some of the paste to the marks and gently rub it circularly over them. - Use a damp cloth to clean off the residue. - Repeat if necessary. I was amazed by how well this worked - the pen marks went away and the procedure didn't scratch up the screen or remove any of the monitor coatings. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Empire Of Dumpling
On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:19 PM, Rceeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.esquire.com/features/dean-kamen-1208 On the genius and what he is up to these days. Interesting article. Thanks for the link. I wonder why Kamen thinks the UN, assorted charities, etc, would be interested in funding the prototype-to-production effort (even if it is a successful prototype)? Clearly: 1) The effort is likely expensive and potentially risky, or else Kamen would just do it himself (or already have done it). 2) Charities generally aren't in the business of funding technological development - especially not the expensive/risky kind. He wants charities to pay him to develop a product he can then sell to them? That might be justifiable in the long-term view, but I doubt many would go for it, given more pressing demands for that same money. If Kamen can't figure out how to make production feasible but he really wants to help the world with those technologies, perhaps he should go the open-source route: publish the details of the technology and let other innovators try to take it the next step. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Speaking of unicorns
On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 9:04 PM, Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: At least, unicorns were mentioned in some other thread today http://www.democraticstuff.com/Unicorns-for-Obama-Photo-Button-p/bt23828.htm Another candidate has apparently gone a step further and put a uni on his ticket. ROAU. Here are some campaign pictures and logos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/sets/72157603724213121/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Proud and relieved
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 3:14 PM, Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am proud of what we have begun and look forward, yes, to what we can do. It's a historic event and while this sounds goofy to say - I'm proud to have taken part in it in some microscopic way. It's funny - 4.5 years ago I would never have thought this was possible, not any time soon. Then, watching Obama's 2004 convention speech with my wife, it didn't seem so unlikely and distant any more. I said to her wow, I can see him become president some day. (I didn't think it'd be as soon as 2008, though!) Obama's acknowledgement that we are at the beginning of what will be a hard slog I thought honest and realistic; I was glad to see him say this also. I was actually hoping he'd emphasize this further. So many people in the US and around the world have pinned their hopes and dreams to him - possibly unrealistically high expectations that I'd hate to see turn to disillusionment and bitterness when it turns out he's a mere human - and a politician, to boot. *McCain's concession speech was very much a class act; I did not think he would be a particularly good president, but he is a good man. The concession speech was definitely classy, and a reminder of the McCain of the 2000 campaign. I still wonder what would have happened if he had won instead of Bush back then, or even what would have happened if he hadn't sold his soul to the Republican base in 2004. It'll be interesting to see if he does try to be bi-partisan, but I'm guessing he's not going to have a lot of clout in the senate - he's certainly lost of lot of respect of the Dems, and the Reps are likely going to scapegoat him for losing the election by not being tough enough and conservative enough. -bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Early voting
I did the early voting thing on Friday down here in Orlando. Some of the locations were reporting 2+ hour waits, but it was about 45 minutes wait for me. I had the day off, so the wait wasn't bad, but I'm quite puzzled about the people waiting 2+ hours around here, or as long as 10+ hours in the Atlanta area, from the reports I've seen. Can there really be THAT many people unable to vote on election day, that they need to get on a line to wait 10 hours (or even 2+ hours) to vote? There's a ton more voting locations open on election day, and I've never had to wait more that 20 minutes or so to vote then. Even with the increased turnout this year, I can't imagine 10 hour lines on election day itself - particularly with the early vote being so popular this year. Anyone else do early voting? How long did you wait? Would you have waited 2+ hours to do it early? I was surprised by the lack of supporters or even signs at the voting location. I saw one small Obama sign and some local runners of either party along the road, and that's it. Maybe they save that stuff for election day. The local paper (Orlando Sentinel) reported last week that in early voting turnout, african-american turnout was up, as widely predicted, but the youth (under 35) turnout was actually quite a bit lower than expected - Obama's popularity among the younger crowd had been expected to drive up turnout. From what I saw, there weren't many under-35's at my location, either. (Sadly, I don't fall under the youth category, even with that broad definition.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Obama and the 'Drug Killer'
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 3:48 PM, John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/30/obama-drug-medicine-oped-cx_ch_1031hooper.html As I wrote in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: What complicates the picture is socialized medicine, which exists in almost every country outside the United States and even, with Medicare and Medicaid, in the United States. Because governments in countries with socialized medicine tend to be the sole bargaining agent in dealing with drug companies, these governments often set prices that are low by U.S. standards. This comes about because these governments have monopsony power--that is, monopoly power on the buyer's side--and they use this power to get good deals. These governments are, in effect, saying that if they can't buy it cheaply, their citizens can't get it. So the claim here is that Americans are almost solely subsidizing the drug development costs for the entire rest of the world? And by posting this, I assume you think this should remain status quo? Wow, you must really enjoy spreading our wealth around! Welcome to the liberal democratic elite! :-) Drugs are not too expensive in the U.S.; they're artificially cheap elsewhere. It's also not much of an exaggeration to say that new drugs are developed for, and as a result of, the American market because of its pricing flexibility. And yet the drug companies still sell those under priced drugs in those countries? Can't they just not sell them there if a fair price isn't met? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Redistribute the wealth
On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 1:39 PM, John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Anecdote seen on the internet: Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read 'Vote Obama, I need the money.' I laughed. Once in the restaurant my server had on a 'Obama 08' tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference -- just imagine the coincidence. When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need -- the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful. At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient needed money more. I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application. The analogy is full of crap: 1) Obama's proposal raises the top two marginal tax rates and capital gains rate by a few percentage points, back to the Clinton-era level. At best, this is not taking the waiter's entire $10 - it'd be more like maybe $.50, and even then, only if the waiter was in the top few percent of the richest people in the country, and that money for the homeless person also went to pay for things like his town's police force, fire dept, hospital and schools. 2) Our current tax system under Bush, which McCain supports, is ALREADY a progressive tax system. The wealthy CURRENTLY pay more in taxes. Redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation is already going on and has been going on for probably at least 40-50 years. The argument here is about how much is appropriate, a debate about a few percentage points. And yet the republican reaction is like this: Top marginal tax rate of 35% on the richest 2% of Americans? Hell yeah, all god-loving America supporters stand behind this! Top marginal tax rate of 39.6% on the richest 2% of Americans? It's socialism! The freedom-hating commies are coming to take our livelihoods away! You can make an honest case that these tax higher rates are bad for the economy (though I'd disagree); there's certainly room for discussion and debate there. But these straw-man attacks like your anecdote and those calling Obama a socialist make reasoned debate impossible and frankly make it seem that those making the attacks are afraid they don't have a legitimate argument and have to resort to these tactics instead. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Redistribute the wealth
On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 5:24 PM, John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] this is not taking the waiter's entire $10 - it'd be more like maybe $.50, Ah, I see. Taking people's money to give to others is okay if you don't take too much. I'm not sure what your perspective is, here - are you against all forms of taxes? Because essentially this is what ANY sort of tax does, no? I dislike paying taxes, but I think government performs necessary functions that cost money, and an ala carte government is infeasible. So yes, I think taxes are unfortunately necessary and thus okay if they don't take too much. Do you have a better alternative? Is the current Bush/McCain taxation schedule also unacceptable to you, or are you only against Obama's tax plan? You anecdote, perfectly suited for something linked with a Heh on Instapundit, made me think the latter. But maybe you are a no-taxer or a flat taxer? is about how much is appropriate, a debate about a few percentage points. Right, a few trillion here, a few trillion there, not much difference. If it's a few trillions here or there in extra taxes collected, it's gotta be on hundred(s) of trillions in income, ie: it's still just a few percentage points - for the people reaping the pinnacle of benefit from our society. So I think they can spare it - the economy did quite fine with the same rates in the Clinton era, and I don't see a strong argument that Bush's cuts have somehow made things better. But these straw-man attacks like your anecdote and those calling Obama a socialist make reasoned debate impossible Wow, just because you make a straw-man attack and call Obama a socialist does not mean that I consider discussion with you impossible. I didn't make any straw man attacks or call Obama a socialist, so I'm not sure why you use the you above. As for making reasoned debate impossible, I meant in terms of broad public debate rather than personal discussion, but in any case, very difficult would probably be fairer to say than impossible. it seem that those making the attacks are afraid they don't have a legitimate argument and have to resort to these tactics instead. Don't worry, I don't think you are afraid or have no legitimate argument. Again, I haven't made any straw man attacks or called Obama a socialist, so I don't understand why you're turning this on me. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Redistribute the wealth
On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 7:30 PM, John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] are you against all forms of taxes? No. So to quote you from your last response: Ah, I see. Taking people's money to give to others is okay if you don't take too much. Since that's what taxes do, you think it's OK, also? Do you have a better alternative? Reduce spending. Good idea. But do you think McCain would be any better at that? Bush certainly wasn't a cost-cutter (vast understatement). And McCain's health care plan added new taxes on people's health care benefits in order to provide benefits to others. I.e.: taking peoples money to give to others. Why is McCain not deserving of the same over-the-top anecdote you posted? So I think they can spare it I think you can spare a lot more of your own money before you start sparing mine. So you rank among the very wealthiest people in America? Congratulations! No wonder you think a quarter million dollars is virtually none. :-) I didn't make any straw man attacks or call Obama a socialist, so I'm not sure why you use the you above. Wow, we have something in common then. The anecdote you posted depicts Obama as wanting to take ALL the money from the haves to give to the have-nots - i.e.: that he's a socialist. This is grossly and provably untrue and thus is a straw man. Then it knocks down the straw man by showing how upset his supporters would be if straw-man plan was applied to them. Ergo, I say the anecdote is a straw man attack on Obama. I never said you called Obama a socialist, but that's what the anecdote you posted essentially does. And that's generally the meme that accompanies these types of anecdotes. But my comments about ...resort to these tactics weren't intended to be directed at you personally, but at the campaigners and the originators/writers of this stuff - again I was thinking in terms of the broad public debate, and not your particular posting of this to the list. I'm sorry I wasn't clearer. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The silence of the ludites.
On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 2:02 PM, Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: scratches forehead Looks like the only one in... I'm still trying to figure out why he chose Palin as VP candidate: drill, abstinence only, 'Creationism,'* anti-science...what independents was she supposed to entice? Clearly, she was expected to attract all the proud Vagina Americans http://video.aol.com/video-detail/john-mccain-chooses-a-running-mate/1499541475/?icid=VIDLRVCOM06 out there. An absolutely cynical and politically self-serving move from the guy who claims he puts America first. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Spore
On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 3:57 AM, Max Battcher [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bryon Daly wrote: ... The used game market is almost entirely for console-based games, not PC games. So why, then, is the trade-in killing DRM targetted only at PC games? AFAIK, the Xbox 360 versions of Mass Effect and Bioshock are not saddled with the activation/install limits. I thought GameStop got out of used PC sales not because of DRM but due to a falling market at the time. We've had GameStop stores locally drop PC games entirely and I'm under the impression that GameStop would have dropped out nationally if it weren't for a sizeable chunk of Games for Windows marketing cash from Microsoft. I don't know if that is entirely true, but I'm willing to bet it's not far off the mark... Probably true. But my overall point here was that the nasty DRM fails to stop piracy in any serious way, and the supposed other reason was to stop the secondary sale market. Except that there is no appreciable secondary sale market. What are they actually achieving here? The remaining issue is that game consoles are locked down and there is no feasible access to creating your own discs, but CD and DVD duplication on the PC is easy and cheap... I might be mistaken, but I'm under the impression that someone with a PC can duplicate the console game disks as well. Not everyone with a console will have a PC, but I'd bet a huge hunk do. It wouldn't be quite as easy a process, but I'm betting it's done. Most modern labyrinthine DRM packages are hacks to make the PC market more like the console market. On the one hand the easy answer is to switch to sterile computing environments more like consoles (the trusted computing platforms) or to figure out better ways of dealing with piracy (potentially including outright ignoring it and accepting it as a natural loss)... but neither answer is actually easy and no one has a good solution just yet. PCs wouldn't be PCs if pushed into the monocultures that trusted computing implies, and no one has very good ideas that would work across the board when it comes to dissuading pirates or upselling pirated copies. Stardock seems to be doing quite well with their very minimal DRM. I take it that it does imply some sort of listening/promotion of gamer concerns... So maybe it just means gamers can strongly ask and companies shall strongly listen, but it's way better than the companies that ignore polls, public discussions, and sometimes censor free speech on their own forums to ignore their own problems. The fun part about listening is that it can lead to sympathizing and who knows where that could lead in some cases. Yes, I should have said that I believe they have their heart in the right place as far as the gamer's bill of rights. Any dialog at all is far better than none. It just struck me as funny that the rights were presented more as it'd be nice to haves. :-) This would be great, but I doubt it will ever happen. I think it will happen. I figure that at some point a) people are going to band together and demand there first sale doctrine rights in a court of law, or b) some company is going to open up this support, grab a bunch of sales from happy customers, and goad other companies to follow suit. Yeah, I guess either of those might do it, but again, I see the chance of either of those ever happening and working out as desired is extremely slim. Unfortunately I don't have a crystal ball, so all of this is entirely speculation, but I'm of the opinion that you talk about cool ideas long enough and you never know who will hear or how the ball will get rolling... Yes, definitely. I'm just worried there is so much consumer apathy to the issue that EA won't ever have to really listen and respond. -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Spore
On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 1:11 AM, Max Battcher [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On a side note however, I've been arguing that killing the current trade-in market (albeit preferably via DDNs rather than draconian DRM) will benefit gaming in the long run because the only remaining game-targeted retailer (GameStop) has degenerated into not much more than a pawn shop. You can't count on GameStop today to have a new copy of a game any more than 2 months old, much less 2 years, and because of that you can barely count on other retailers to have anything more in stock. GameStop has started to focus their stock of new games on games that are more likely to come back (be resold), and thus has perpetuated and exacerbated a mainstream accessible contemporary hits only mentality in gaming. That's true - GameStop is a repository of all sorts of IMHO unsavory practices, many of which revolve around the whole pawn shop mentality. Penny Arcade regularly complains about the whole we only stock enough to meet the preorders absurdity. And I really wouldn't shed a tear for Gamestop if it went away: I'm mainly a PC gamer, and Gamestop hardly carries PC games now, so I've long ago moved to Amazon and DDNs for my purchases. But here's more wierdness: according to this article http://www.gamespot.com/news/6136091.html, GameStop stopped doing *any* used PC game trade-in business back in 2005. The used game market is almost entirely for console-based games, not PC games. So why, then, is the trade-in killing DRM targetted only at PC games? AFAIK, the Xbox 360 versions of Mass Effect and Bioshock are not saddled with the activation/install limits. Has anyone ever seen a bookstore that had a used bookstore in the back and modified what it stocked up front based upon how many copies it had of the same book in used form in the back? It's absolutely bizarre... Agreed. Without any serious BM retail competition, they can apparently get away with that, at least until more people start shopping online. There is absolutely something to be said for always having the latest updates and having someone host an always available backup from a DDN... I have no problem using a DDN and at this point basically prefer it. In some ways, I do, too. Except I find it galling that I cannot trade/sell/gift/donate games purchsed that way. Not that I've ever actually traded a game in or have much desire to. But the way it takes away our fair use rights under the first sale doctrine. (FYI for anyone not familiar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine). I see the assult on used software as a slippery slope to attacks on used music/dvd resale and then eventually books. I already regularly see people assuming that they only have a license to listen to the music on the CD they bought, and do not actually own it. I still think that the DDNs could provide more features, though. I like Gas-Powered/Stardock's Gamer's Bill of Rights and think it is certainly a start, but there are other things that would be nice to see. I like it too, as a nice start. But it's realy pretty wishy-washy on its wording for many of the rights it lists: Several listed rights say Gamers have a right to demand . This is NOT the same as saying Gamers have a right to . All it boils down to is that we're allowed to *strongly ask* for . Gee thanks! For instance, I think the DDNs could promote healthy sorts of resale/trade-in. Yes, I noticed this was glaringly missing from the Gamer's Bill of Rights when I first saw it. Right now, I can let my brother play my Steam games by letting him borrow my login information (at my own risk, admittedly), but it would be nice if I could simply from Steam Loan these games to Steam friend x or Give these games to Steam friend y. Adding in simple arbitration for game trades could be cool and it would be simple from there to create an after-market for game trading and even use that to put extra money into the pockets of the DEVELOPERS, rather than, say, the GameStop Pawn Shop empire. This would be great, but I doubt it will ever happen. Mass Effect probably wouldn't have had as bad DRM if it weren't for EA buying Bioware/Pandemic. Score one more for nearly a monoculture in publishing and EA's weird love affair with DRM right now. I got Mass Effect for the 360. At the moment I'm favoring 360 purchases over PC purchases, for a variety of reasons, including not having to worry about DRM. Yes, I largely blame EA, another rather all-around repugnant company. On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 3:48 AM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: On 25/09/2008, at 10:51 AM, Bryon Daly wrote: I was planning on buying Spore, but the only 3 installations for a game you purchased deal is where I've drawn my line in the DRM sand. They've binned that policy now. No, not really. All they did really was bump up the limit to 5 installs. This comic http
Re: Spore
On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Who's playing? What are your screen names? I was planning on buying Spore, but the only 3 installations for a game you purchased deal is where I've drawn my line in the DRM sand. It's a real shame becase Electronic Arts seems to have decided all their new games will have this anti-feature, and they have a number of games I'm interested in coming out. The need to research the DRM situation for every game I buy is sadly killing what interest remains for my gaming hobby. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Spore
On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 9:42 PM, Max Battcher [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've heard that they have updated the limitation to 5 installs and added an ability to delist a (dead, old, whatever) system to regain an install. Supposedly EA has been listening and responding to the complaints. 3 installs, 5 installs, I'm not impressed. If your hard disk dies (like mine just did) or you change your hardware you still lose an install. And even if it was 20 installs, I object to it on principle. I purchased the game and should be able to do with it as I wish and not have to worry if their activation server will still be functional if I want to reinstall the game 5 or 10 years from now. Or give it to a friend when I'm done playing it. Or trade it in for another game like console gamers can freely do. The reality is that the draconian DRM really doesn't stop piracy at all. A cracked version was already available on the torrents the day before the game was on the store shelves. The pirates, of course, have that version and are never troubled by the DRM system. Only the actual paying customers who bought the game have to deal with the hassle and restrictions. So what the DRM is actually doing (and EA has more or less admitted this) is stomping the resale/trade-in market - pretty much the equivalent of if record companies tried to prevent you being able to sell your music CD's to a used record store or to donate them to a library. I'm not that interested in Spore as a game, but may pick it up when the price drops or if it winds up on GameTap or Steam. As far as I understand it, the Steam versions of the install-limited games have the same limits, plus the Steam DRM on top of it. At least, that's how it was with Bioshock on Steam. And I think Crysis Warhead is, also. If they remove that, I'd probably go that route also. I've delegated my DRM concerns to digital distribution networks and my consoles at this point. I've been buying much fewer games in retail, partly due to a loss of confidence in what amounts for games retailers, and what I do buy retail is generally (360, Wii) console discs. I've been a GameTap member for a while and I've been a Steam member for far longer. I'm on the mailing list for Greenhouse, which is slowly and carefully building a catalog, and I'm keeping an eye out for interesting content to come to Stardock's Impulse, and debating moving my CD key of Sins of a Solar Empire to an Impulse account. GOG.com looks interesting and I'm waiting on an invite. I like Stardock Central/Impulse and I've even come to appreciate Steam. They also have the effect of preventing trade/resale, but at least they offer the alternative benefits of not needing to preserve your game disks and some CD key printed on the back of a manual or CD sleeve, etc. And they don't presume to tell you how many times you can install the software you bought. I believe that all of the above services have better DRM and DRM policies than SecuRom and other DRM du jour products used in individual games and Agreed. often nowadays the same games with weird on disc DRM can be found in a digital distribution network with better DRM. I wish this were more often true. For example, I'm still waiting to see Mass Effect as a download without the install limit crap. -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What were they thinking? (MS Office 2007)
So... I upgraded to Microsoft Office 2007 recently. Can't do half of what I used to do because I can't find anything. They seem to have succeeded in making it harder to use. I can't find it now, but IIRC Penny Arcade's Tycho wrote saying that he found the new Office interface so beautiful he felt honored to use it, but everything took him twice as long to do in it. Once I started using it, I've found myself agreeing with him. Vi is easier than this. Remember, you can't spell EVIL without Vi. So, KR and frikkin Ken Thompson FTW. So? Is there a point forthcoming?? The world of computing has lots of with beardy, unshaven guys, in my experience. It's not reserved for the gurus. They're some famous examples, but I see unshaven guys all the time in IT, including most of the time when I look in a mirror. -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: A Family Tragedy
On Dec 18, 2007 10:52 PM, Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My family mourns today the death of Chase Taylor Williamson, my nephew, my sister Tracy's oldest child. Chase died hours after an automobile accident in the early hours of the morning. My condolences to you and your family, Rob. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Football or Pro Wrestling?
On 11/4/07, Doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Did anyone else see the Pats/Colts game today. I stopped watching football a while back primarily because of the poor officiating, but the hype for today's game was irresistable. The officiating was as bad as ever. Come to find out that the Pat's missed covering the spread by 1/2 point. I wasn't able to see the game, but the forums are buzzing with how bad the officiating was in that game, particularly from the Pats fans, as the Pats bore the brunt of the bad calls. It's not usually that bad. The latest I heard was that the head referee was a rookie, so the NFL didn't bother ensure their A ref team was covering the biggest regular season game of the year. But I assume incompetence rather than anything underhanded. The NFL does listen to teams' complaints and review questionable calls, so presumably the lousy refs will evetually get booted. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Deathly Hallows - no spoilers
On 7/21/07, Jim Sharkey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam Mukunda wrote: It's amazing, wonderful, deeply moving, and not just everything I hoped for, but far more. Yes, it was an excellenet capstone to the series. There were a couple of parts that were underwhelming, such as the epilogue, but for the most part it was a great read. I just finished it, myself, and I have to say it was a great and very satisfying ending to the series. Ms Rowling seems to have taken great care to answer all the questions and leave no loose threads (at least none that occur to me yet). I also liked the epilogue (I also liked the Scouring of the Shire in the LoTR). While I enjoyed book 6, it had seemed too short and I had feared the same for book 7. I'm very glad to be able say that wasn't the case at all. -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Straczynski Fan Update
On 6/22/07, Jim Sharkey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Will do! Though I suspect that any juicy information will be posted to the Intarweb by any number of my fellow nerds about ten seconds after it's announced, so it may be old news by the time I get back and have time to send it out to you guys. :-) I don't follow JMS info on teh intarwebs like I used to, so it'll likely be news to me anyways. :-) I have to say I haven't been too enamored of JMS' comics work on titles he himself didn't create. I enjoyed Rising Stars and Midnight Nation a lot, but some of his work for Marvel has been kinda meh. I thought Rising Stars and Midnight Nation were great, also. I've never been a big Spiderman fan, though, so I haven't bothered with any of that stuff from him. Has he done anything comic-wise besides those? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Straczynski Fan Update
On 6/21/07, Jim Sharkey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mauro Diotallevi wrote: And there are still at least two, and possibly three major announcements yet to be made at Comic Con, which regardless of whether one is a TV or movie fan, an SF fan or a comics fan...are gonna pin people's ears back. Thanks for the info, Mauro! The Sharkey family is going to SDCC this year, so I'll try and keep my ears and eyes open for this announcement. Please report back here on any pin your ears back announcements! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Fake Sci-Fi Heroics 1979-1980
On 4/29/07, Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But overall, this story changes my perception of the potential success rate of conspiracies and the ability to keep them out of the public consciousness for long periods. Not for me. Per the Mendez version, the press were already hot on the trail of the existence of the 6 free in Iran. It took a promise of an post-rescue exclusive to a reporter to hold things back. And after the rescue, Canada's large role was immediately and widely acclaimed. So the who (the Canadians and the 6 trapped Americans), the what (the americnas exfiltrated under the noses of the Iranians with enormous Canadian help), and a significant part of the how (Canadians provided authentic passports to help them walk past security). What's left makes for a very interesting story and perhaps a made for TV movie, but is hardly a conspiracy-class secret. Aside from someone wanting to cash in on the story in some minor way, I don't see much motivation for people to spill the beans. Compare that to a 9-11 class conspiracy theory, in which people theoretically betrayed their own country and people, and where coming out with the truth in a credible way could literally topple the highest reaches of the goverment. All it would take is one guilty conscience, belated bout of patriotism, or disgruntled insider looking to make amends, become famous, or get revenge to blow it open. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Fake Sci-Fi Heroics 1979-1980
On 4/28/07, Robert G. Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is an amazing story and is purportedly true. I've seen some corroborating evidence that supports the story from other sources. Amazing story. Definitely seems true, because a quick google search turned up this: https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter99-00/art1.html This is a CIA historical study, written by Mendez himself. It's very readable and it adds a lot of details not covered in the Wired article. One fun tidbit: An ironic coda: by the time Studio Six folded several weeks after the rescue, we had received 26 scripts, including some potential moneymakers. One was from Steven Spielberg. -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Jobs on Music and DRM
On 2/6/07, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Except Bertelsmann are the masterminds behind all sorts of CD copy-protection quackery, such as the scheme that was cracked by marking the outer edge of the CD with a black magic marker. I'd also bet they were they driving force behind the Sony-BMG rootkit disaster. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly. Good for Jobs and Apple! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Digital Rights Management is evil
On 2/4/07, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 05/02/2007, at 2:24 AM, Gary Nunn wrote: Additionally, there's a limited number of times I can copy or move the file on my computer, then it self destructs and will no longer open. I'm also limited on the number of times I can print it. Hmmm, I wonder if the Mac's save to pdf option in the print options will allow you to get past that. :-) I doubt it. Even non-DRM'd pdf's that don't phone home can disable printing altogether, so I doubt they'd leave any sort of save-to-file loophole open in their nasty DRM system. I even tried printing one of the unprintable pdfs in a unix-based 3rd party pdf reader, and wasn't able to do it. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Week 9 NFL Picks
On 11/4/06, pencimen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JDG wrote: ... and only won because of a masterful performance by someone who will someday be regarded as the best QB in NFL History. He's got a long way to go to prove that to me. You can put up gaudy numbers and win a lot of regular season games (Dan Marino and the young John Elway) but you don't achieve greatness in football in the regular season. Montana, the mature Elway and Brady are head and shoulders above Manning by that measure. Keep in mind that Elway (and Steve Young) had the never won the big one monkey on their backs, too, until they won them. And I'd consider Marino one of the all-time top QB's despite his lack of a SB victory. I don't think a quarterback absolutely needs to have tremendous postseason success to be considered great (though it helps!), but perhaps it is a requirement to be considered the greatest. It's just that there's way, way too many other factors to winning in football to make SB victories a strict criteria for judging QB greatness. The surrounding team and coaching makes a huge difference. And there's a least a few of SB-winning QB's I can think of that certainly don't rank that high in the greatnessscale. I believe Peyton will eventually get his championship(s) and that criticism will disappear, but I don't think it's useful to annoint him (or any other active player) the greatest, until their career is over, or they have proven themselves so dominant in all aspects for such a long time that they could retired immediately and still be worthy of consideration. A recent ESPN article ( http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=smith_michaelid=2646827 ) pronounces that 10 years from now, the greatest QB debate will focus purely on Manning vs Brady. Way too soon to say that, IMHO. There's too many things that can happen between now and then. Remember that Drew Bledsoe was considered a lock for the Hall of Fame earlier in his career. As for the Colts-Pats game, I'm a Pats fan, and I think the Pats will run well against the Colts, but I think Bellichik's anti-Manning voodoo has worn off and Manning's going to do some serious scoring of his own, with the result being something like the Colts-Denver game. I also wonder if this will be something of a Milton Berle game (if you get the Bill Simmons reference) where both teams might want to hold something in reserve to have some surprises left if/when they meet again in the playoffs. Bragging rights and possibly home field advantages are on the line for this game, but I'm sure both coaches have their eye on on the bigger prize. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Paradox, or, Breaking the mind of logic
On 10/10/06, maru dubshinki [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now, the stranger appears to be absolutely useless, but nevertheless, removed from the picture the whole thing breaks down in the case where N = 2. What is the use of the useless stranger? The key here as I see it is that prior to the stranger's announcement, each of the blue-dot natives thinks that either: 1) he is red-dot and there is only the one blue-dot native, who in turn sees all red-dot natives 2) he is a blue-dot, and the other blue-dot also sees one blue-dot native. Similarly, the red dot natives see two blues, but can't be sure about themselves: they each think they could be blue or red and don't know for sure either way. So, for all the natives, seeing everyone else's color doesn't tell them anything about their own, without any extra information becoming available. So in the initial state, both the blue-dot natives cannot distinguish between cases 1 2 and do not act, and each red-dotters doesn't know for sure if there are two or three blue dotters (the two he sees, plus potentiall himself). But, once the stranger blabs, all the natives, particularly the blue-dot ones, knows that the blue-dot native he sees now has enough information to act, if he sees all red-dots as in case 1 above. If there was only 1 blue-dot, he would have seen every one else with reds and known he must be the blue and killed himself that first night. When everyone is still alive on the second day, both blue dotters know that case 1 above cannot be true, so case 2 must be correct, and thue they kill themselves that night. That is, assuming they all took the time to work out the logic and didn't just say yeah, we know and blow it off. Funny, if both blue dotters cheat on night 2 and didn't kill themselves, all the honest red dotters would assume they were a third blue-dotter, and kill themselves on night 3. -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Wealthy couples travel to U.S. to choose baby's sex
On 7/15/06, jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We weren't discussing abortion. Yes we are. We are talking about conceiving a number of children, and eliminating the children of the undesired sex. Personally, I think it's ridiculous for someone to go through the pain, expense and hassle of IVF just to ensure the desired sex for their child, particularly when there's a way to at least raise the odds without doing all that. Many fertility centers won't accept patients that have gender selection as their only reason. But I'm curious about your opinion here So your problem here is with IVF in general then? Because the general practice with IVF is to fertilize many eggs (15-20) and then just implant a small number of them (2-6). (The original article link is down, so I don't know if the article goes into the details at all). As I understand it, the sex selection is just another criteria for deciding which ones get implanted - either way, a bunch of embryos are eliminated. (Though, potentially they can be frozen and used at a later time). What if the abortion factor was eliminated? Right now, they can use sperm spinning to get about an 80% accuracy in selecting for boy or girl sperm which can be used in a more tradtional way that doesn't generate unwanted embryos. Lets say that they find a way to get this to 100% accuracy. Do you stil have the same objections? -bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When BatLeths Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have BatLeths
On 5/31/06, Horn, John [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Behalf Of Damon Agretto You guys and your swords. I'll take a pollaxe... Never bring a sword, batleth or a poleaxe to a gunfight! Amazingly, this guy did OK for himself with a pocket knife vs 4 attackers with a shotgun and pistol: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/0530marine.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When BatLeths Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have BatLeths
On 5/28/06, David Hobby [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Apparently that day is here: http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006240126,00.html BatLeth meant nothing to me, and it's not clear the thing is a very useful weapon. But the part I'm amazed at, is that swords/knives are outlawed? Can someone clarify this for me, I mean you have to be able to have kitchen knives, and maybe a machete for the garden? Anecdotal and mostly irrelevant story: Back during the original run of Babylon 5 (probably 9+ years ago, so forgive me if my memory is faulty), JMS (the series creator) discussed in the B5 newsgroup how the BBC censored part of a major scene involving use of a knife (where when Vir apologizes to G'Kar for the Centauri's crimes against the Narn, G'Kar pulls a knife, cuts his hand and as the blood drips, counts off dead, dead, dead ) IIRC, he mentioned another minor scene censored , apparently for being too disturbing, where a few characters were briefly held at knifepoint (no one cut or injured). I'd seen the scene refered to, and it was nothing shocking oand probably a lot less violent than some scenes on B5. JMS explained that in the UK, knives were considered especially horrifying, which brought on the censorship. When I saw this knife amnesty story, I was immediately reminded of the JMS's notes. Outlawed knives seems to fit with that. As far as how can knives be outlawed and still have kitchen knives...maybe not for longhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4581871.stm But aside from the nanny doctors calling for the kitchen knife ban, it seems the operative point to the law as described is public place, so presumably a knife in a kitchen an perhaps a machete in a garden are OK. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Water as fuel source?
A friend just sent me a copy of this Fox News video: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/128967/water_as_fuel/ As he was telling me about it, I immediately thought perpetual motion scam, but watching the video and then checking out their web site http://hytechapps.com/index.html, it seems their claims aren't quite that outlandish, though I'm still pretty suspicious. Sadly the news report is fairly lightweight and fails to ask any probing questions or technical details. From poking around their web site, I've gather that what they claim - to have created an is a technique/device that can quickly and cheaply electrolyze water into an apparently new form of water they call Aquygen gas or HHO (but still just chemically H20 composition). - The HHO gas is stable but combustible, and with many unique properties, some of which are clear evidence that the gas has a structure other than a molecular structure, namely, that its chemical composition includes bonds beyond those of valence type. Whatever that means. - This electrolyzation process is faster and much more electrically efficient that the traditional method to break water into 2H and O gases. - The per-pound energy of the HHO gas is 10-12 times that of gasoline. - In testing, an estimated 4HP of (gas/water hybrid) engine power could produce enough HHO gas as a fuel supplement to provide a net 17HP gain. On the suspicious side: - In the news report, the guy claims he had the car running on just water (100 miles on 4 oz!) but now converted it to be hybrid gasoline/water. Why? Wouldn't a pure water powered car be 1000% more impressive? - These guy's whole rinky-dink garage-workshop feel and the slim technical information they do give out makes it seem like they're winging it, at best. - Wouldn't a chemical bonds beyond those of valence type be a pretty big scientific thing? Why no researchers besides that guy from Italy? On the legit side: - The news reports statements out them building a hummer for the army, demoing for Conngress, talking with automaker, etc, if true, makes me think they must have some credibility. I'd have to believe that before before the Army, automaker, etc gave them a second glance, they'd have to at least have passed a first- or second-order BS filter by some people a lot more knowledgeable than me. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Vader's collect call
A look at what happened when Darth Vader reported the Death Star mishap to the Emperor... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRQv4_xnjvAsearch=robot%20chicken%20darth%20vader ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Playing Ketchup was Re: Cold Pictures
On 2/21/06, Steve Sloan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm pretty good. I'm working out at Redstone Arsenal here in Huntsville, doing missile simulation-related work for a small contractor. I really like the job, and the people I work with. I Cool! Have you ever worked with/met any Lockheed people working on the JCM (Joint Common Missile) program? They do testing up at Redstone fairly often. I don't work on JCM myself, but I work with some of those guys regularly. Last fall I also worked with a helicopter crew from RTTC, which I think is based out of Redstone. And I just met a guy from RDEC who came down here to Orlando to talk about some radar work he's doing up there. Do you use CSF for your simulation? I've used that here - I think it's a great tool. Cheers, -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregulars: C++ Memory Allocation Wierdness
On 2/10/06, The Fool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So is this right?: It looks like it should successfully swap the byte order for you. You should be able to test it easily enough by writing the same number once with the swap and once without it into Mem. Then print out Mem (or view in the debugger) and see that they're reversed compared to each other. I'm still not sure why you want to make everything big endian, though. Is it just to make it easier to manipulate the individual bytes at some later point? Personally, instead of swapping every value I wrote into Mem, I'd probably code the byte manipulation routines to handle the little endian order. But that's probably more a matter of taste and your exact application than anything else. -bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregulars: C++ Memory Allocation Wierdness
On 2/10/06, The Fool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 2/9/06, The Fool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ok so this is what I've been doing: I'll cut down to the meat of it: *((int *) Mem[PutAt * __Int_Size__]) = PutMe; This looks reasonable. I presume that Mem[] is a char or byte array of some kind... Are you only writing ints into Mem[]? If you're going to mix data types in the same buffer, you'll need to consider data packing or padding, and possibly be aware of data alignment issues. --- The Data I'm Copying from isn't exactly contigous: I meant where you are writing the data to, not from. It looks from your code that you could potentially do something like: PutInt64(1,32); PutInt(2,567); // This int overwrites the upper 4 bytes of the int64 you just wrote or PutChar(1, 32); PutInt(2,567); // Maybe you don't care, but this leaves a 3-byte gap between the 1st char and the int I also mentioned you should be aware of data alignment: IIRC, bad data alignment only causes a performance hit on Intel, but you'll get a bus error on most other platforms. Your code looks like it will keep things aligned, though, so you should be OK there. Alberto also had a good point about the CurrentSize check. Also note that for PutAt==0, any CurrentSize value = 0 will get through the check. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregulars: C++ Memory Allocation Wierdness
On 2/9/06, The Fool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So I needed to create C++ class that would be used to create a static copy of some data the program already Uses (but sometimes changes), for which it would need to revert to its original state (it also non contiguous). It also needs to be able to 'fiddle' with the data at the byte/bit level. So I create part of the class, but when I tested it I got these weird results. It seemed to be putting say integer (32bit) data bytes backwards.. Sounds like an endian issue to me. Are you on a PC? Pentiums are little endian, so the LSByte is written first (ie: to the lowest address). Let's say you want to write the 32-bit hex integer value 0x76543210 to address 0. Most Significant Byte: 0x76 Least Significant Byte: 0x10 AddressByte --- 00 0x10 01 0x32 02 0x54 03 0x76 When the CPU reads an integer (or other 4-byte value), it automatically arranges the bytes around so they are MSB..LSB in the processor and the endian-ness is transparent to the user. But if you manipulate the individual bytes of a multi-byte value, you need to be aware of the endianness of the machine and deal with it accordingly. Now imagine the headaches when you have little endian hardware sharing raw data buffers with big endian hardware and welcome to my world. :-) I tried to be concise here - let me know if you want further elaboration. -Bryon Also, IIRC, a while back I posted the origin article of the big/little endian terms: On Holy Wars and a Plea For Peace if you're interested. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregulars: C++ Memory Allocation Wierdness
On 2/9/06, The Fool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Ok so this is what I've been doing:
I'll cut down to the meat of it:
*((int *) Mem[PutAt * __Int_Size__]) = PutMe;
This looks reasonable. I presume that Mem[] is a char or byte array of some
kind... Are you only writing ints into Mem[]? If you're going to mix data
types in the same buffer, you'll need to consider data packing or padding,
and possibly be aware of data alignment issues.
But you are telling me I need to create a union / structure fill it
with the value, manually flip the bytes around and then store it?
I'm not sure what byte manipulations you're trying to do, but I don't think
you need to manually flip anything as long as you know what data type you're
dealing with at a given address (ie: long, short, char) in your buffer . If
you read the data out as an int just like you wrote it in, you won't ever
see the endian swap:
ie:
int GotMe = *((int *) Mem[GetFrom *__Int_Size__]);
so if GetFrom == PutAt, GotMe == PutMe.
If you want to access the individual bytes, just keep the endian-ness in
mind:
// BYTE0_OFFSET == 0 // LSB byte
// BYTE3_OFFSET == 3 // MSB byte
unsigned char GotMeB0 = *((unsigned char *) Mem[(GetFrom *__Int_Size__) +
BYTE0_OFFSET]); // get LSByte
unsigned char GotMeB3 = *((unsigned char *) Mem[(GetFrom *__Int_Size__) +
BYTE3_OFFSET]); // get MSByte
Of course, using something like a union might make life easier. ie:
union
{
int intdata;
unsigned char bdata[4]; // bdata[0] is LSByte, bdata[3] is MSByte on a PC
} INTUNION;
INTUNION iu;
iu.intdata = *((int *) Mem[GetFrom *__Int_Size__]); // pull data out as
integer
iu.bdata[0] = (iu.bdata[0] BIT_MASK) | bit_val; // twiddle some bit in LS
Byte of integer
*((int *) Mem[GetFrom * __Int_Size__]) = iu.intdata; // write modified
integer back to Mem buffer
(caveat: I haven't compiled/tested the above to ensure correctness, but you
get the gist.)
It's possible to get a lot fancier, of course. My boss wrote a really slick
set of platform-independent templates to handle this type stuff along
with non-aligned data packing. On the other hand, at a previous employer,
we usually simply used a union of pointers of all types and just manipulated
the data with pointer offsets.
-Bryon
___
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Help me identify 80's cop show...
On 12/13/05, Gary Nunn [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I looked this up on IMDB and it is called Chiefs. Not the same one though. But feel free to keep sending ideas :-) I remember watching Chiefs with my mom back when it aired (in '83), and when the credits rolled, she got up, watched them closely and pointed to a name when it scrolled by. It was my father, credited as sound mixer. Somehow she had recognized his work despite us not having seen him for 10+ years. I just checked on IMDB myself to make sure I remember correctly (I do), and it turns out he's now the sound mixer for Law Order SVU, a show I watch regularly. wierd. I think my mom also watches it, I'll have to ask her if she noticed. -bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Michael Piller
On 11/3/05, Jim Sharkey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Robert G. Seeberger wrote: Of course, Piller also gave us Voyager, for which there isn't much excuse. But at least he gave us (in my opinion) the best pilot of any of the five Treks, even if subsequently it was all a bit of a mess. Quoted for truth. The Voyager pilot was so good, I quivered with anticipation of the series. Which, as it turned out, completely turned me off Star Trek for many years. You liked the Voyager pilot? Its ending really put me off when they could have used the array to return home but instead Janeway destroyed it. Not even a consideration of other possibilities, such as rigging a bomb to destroy the array immediately *after* they use it to return home. A simple timer would do. But no. The obvious contrivance just bugged me. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: DVD news
On 9/25/05, Matt Grimaldi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Be seeing you, No. 17, you wouldn't want to be unmutual, would you? -- No. 11 Who is Number 1? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Stopping hurricanes
On 9/8/05, Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Someone on another list made reference to this site: http://www.winwenger.com/hurrican.htm I'm currently reading Hurricane Watch (by Dr. Bob Sheets (former director of the National Hurricane Center) and Jack WIlliams) and it discusses some other theories and attempts at stopping/reducing hurricanes. (Not this particular idea, though) An experiment in the 60's with seeding hurricanes actually seemed like it might have had some effect at reducing the hurricane force, but political and liability considerations made it extremely difficult to find an acceptable hurricane to experiment on and the project was halted in the 80's. Anyway, some of the issues brought up in the book seem like they'd apply here. The article mentions the need for the system to cover thousands of square miles - that sounds way too low. Katrina looking like it could cover most of the whole Florida peninsula and a good bit of ocean around it, and Florida is 65K sq miles. And hurricanes generally move and take some time to die down once deprived of energy (like when they pass over land), so the cool region would probably have to be large enough to contain the storm for 24+ hours as it passes through. And even then, what would keep if from picking up speed again (as Katrina did after passing over Miami) - Some hurricanes that hit the Gulf/US start forming off the coast of West Africa - that's an awful lot of intervening warm ocean. I think they'd have to have multiple areas, covering hundreds of thousands (or millions) of miles. And the liability issues - imagine a storm getting weakened by this system, but then diverting to a less common path, picking up power again, and hitting, say Baltimore/DC with high damage. The hurricane might have went that way anyway, but that won't stop the lawsuits. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregulars Question: Copying Drives with Norton Ghost
On 8/26/05, Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Has anyone ever done this to copy the contents of the old drive to a new (larger) drive? I have been working on doing so for hours: a couple of times it has reported that it copied successfully, but the computer would not boot with the new drive as drive 0. Can anyone tell me the trick to getting it to work: I have tried a number of different combinations of settings and none has resulted in a new drive which will boot up. Isn't Ghost a disk imaging program? IIRC, it's intended to do drive backups by creating a sector-by-sector copy of the disk (as opposed to a file-by-file copy), which can then later be restored to those same sectors if data was corrupted. In that way, things like special boot sectors are preserved and restored. If the target disk isn't identical (ie: it doesn't have the same sector format (and cylinder/head count)) , all that boot stuff may not end up in the right places for the new bigger disk to be bootable. Aside from bootability, are the disk files readable at least? You might be better off using a standard disk backup program (of the file copy sort) - I think some of those are able to make the target disk bootable even if it doesn't match. I don't use Ghost, so I'm not an expert. Perhaps there's some options available to make it work the way you desire. Hopefully Doug's friends can help you there. -bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: FLCL and Paranoia Agent
On 8/21/05, The Fool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Daily: Detective Conan (case closed) (+sat sun) Southpark Totally Spies DragonballZ Uncut Inu-Yasha Reruns Futurama FullMetal Alchemist Coboy Bebop Fairly Oddparents The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (AKA Grim And Evil) Teen Titans Fairly Oddparents, but no Spongebob Squarepants? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Baxter's Manifold: books
I just recently read Stephen Baxter's first two Manifold books (Manifold: Time and Manifold:Space). I'm wondering if anyone here read them and what they thought of them. For me, overall I was rather disappointed - enough so that I probably won't bother with Manifold: Origin. Fortunately, I can do that without missing how it ends, because these books seem to be alternate universe stories where some of the characters stay the same, but (very) different unrelated things happen. The book cover descriptions don't make that clear at all. I found the science and many of the ideas pretty compelling at times, particularly in the first book (Manifold: Time), making it hard to put down at points. But the first ending fell flat for me, and by the middle of the second book I was starting to get annoyed (and its ending also fell flat, IMHO). A few other comments: Potential spoilers warning! Potential spoilers warning! Potential spoilers warning! Potential spoilers warning! - The first book starts in 2010, but inexplicably features technology and governmental changes (ie: smart cars/highways, the sea floor stuff, uplifted squid, California with its borders (the inter-state ones!) closed to non-whites) that seem quite out of place for such a near future setting. (They book is copyright 2000, but even if he wrote it in, say 1996, a lot of this stuff seems more 2050-ish (at best) than 2010-ish.) Why set a hard-SF book in such a near future if you're going to posit things that belong much further out. - The whole uplifted squid descending for a single parent colonizing the asteroid and then the Jupiter ones with billions of population bugged the heck out of me in too many ways to bother going into. Feh. - The endless NASA-bashing started to bug me - I wonder if the NASA guy he thanks in Manifold:Time knew he was going to do that (and later go grief for it from his coworkers) or if he was disgruntled himself and that's where Baxter got it from. Not that I think NASA is perfect, but Baxter makes it seem like hugely ambitious, but near flawless space missions can be slapped together in months from spare parts. Baxter's books were written pre-Columbia but even so the world's space mission failure rate is high enough to put a lie to that. - The biggest thing that bothered me, though, was Baxter's totally apathetic and just plain pathetic depiction of humanity's reaction to the events in space: Alien artifact on a near-earth asteroid? Yawn. Aliens colonizing/exploiting the asteroid belt? Ho-hum. Aliens on earth performing mysterious genetic experiments? Who cares.WTF? In the first book some of this apathy is (weakly) explained by the (improbable) Carter-catastrophe hysteria and the inexplicably precise 200 year apocalypse forecast. In the second book, though, there's not even that - it's just that no one except the few main characters cares. - Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Just call me Grampa
On 5/20/05, Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 20 May 2005 17:54:50 -0500, Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Doug Pensinger wrote: As of 5:25 or so this morning. My daughter gave birth to a healthy baby boy, 7 lb 4 oz., 20.5 in. (sorry Alberto). I rushed back early from a business trip in SLC so I could hold him in my arms. Congrats!!! Pics on the way? Thanks everyone, here are a couple of pics: http://tinyurl.com/9rkrl Beautiful baby! Congrats! -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Earth has developed a slight eccentricity in its orbit...
On 5/8/05, Russell Chapman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Robert Seeberger wrote: Warren Ockrassa wrote: That doesn't change my opinion of the movie. It was bad. Bad, bad, bad. Still have not seen it myself. But you are the only person I've run across so far who dislikes it greatly. Oh, bad doesn't begin to describe it. I'm a fan of all things DNA, but my wife is a complete novice - never read the books, never seen the TV shows. And both of us hated it. delurking I just got back from seeing it. I thought it was OK; not great, but not terrible either. Disappointing in that I think it could have been better, or at least funnier than it was (In particular, the guide entries didn't strike me as funny as I remember them from the books or the tv show). I would certainly have filmed things differently and explained things better. But at the same time I don't think it's an easy book to bring to the screen. I was a fan of the books and enjoyed the cheesy BBC tv series (I never heard/read the radio series version) and I wasn't appalled by the changes, but it's been a very long time since I read the books, and I'm not a hardcore fan. I admit that if they had made the same scale of changes to the LOTR movies as to THGTTG, I'd probably have been outraged even if they had been cooked up by Tolkien himself. BTW, did anyone else pick up on the Zaphod/George-W-Bush thing? -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Oops, resend: Another irregular question . . .
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:29:37 -0600, Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: : the night this happened. So, you experts out there, any ideas on how to completely repair the problem(s), or at least recover the data? My sympathies. I've just had my computer crap out on me, (including a broken HD), as well, so I know the pain and inconvience... Steve's suggestions are good: check the jumpers and just try one drive at a time to eliminate the power supply as a potential issue. Also check to make sure your IDE cable is well seated at both ends. And check the power connector connection on the drives as well - those %^*$% molex 4-pin power connectors are the worst. Other thoughts: - What is saying the drive is an unknown device? The BIOS, or Windows when you boot with the working disk? - Most PC BIOS's allow you to go in and fiddle a bit with the IDE device detection, I know one of my old PC's BIOS had an option to autodetect the hard disk. It's worth trying to fiddle around in the BIOS if you haven't already tried. - Given that you've got 3 previously working drives all not responding at the same time, it makes me think it's a configuration/cabling/jumper problem rather than actual drive failures. Is there any way for you to try the drives on a different computer? - On my brand new PC (replacing the crapped out one), it wouldn't properly detect either of my (new/working) hard disks until I disabled the RAID option in the BIOS - does your PC support RAID, could the option for it have been accidentally activated somehow? - It's not likely to be a fix for you, but I'll mention it any, because I wish I had heard it earlier than I did. Sometimes disks die because of stiction as it's called, where the just disk won't spin up one day. That's happened to me a few times in the past, and it's catastrophic because there's no warning. Over at the Anandtech forums, I've seen a number of people swear that they've revived a dead disk by popping it in the freezer for a few hours, then immediately plugging it in, and it would spin up and work long enough to retrieve the data off it. I haven't tried it, but if the disk is dead anyway and you've lost valuable data, it might be worth a shot. - There is software that can pull lost data files and directories off even a reformatted disk (est $100), but if your computer won't recognize the drive at all, that won't help you. - If you're really desperate to get your data and all else fails, there are data recovery services that can very likely help. I've seen some as cheap as $200-500, but prices can go much, much higher. - Advice from someone who's been burned by lost data many different ways: Paranoia is good. Invest in a DVD recorder and some backup software, and try to back up at least semi-regularly. Good luck! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Thanks Byron
Glad to help! -bryon On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 15:55:04 EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 1/6/05 Bryon Daly supplied a link to a CD music ripper. Thanks. When I was told I needed to have my CD recording software Save As, it opened my eyes to how to do what I needed to do. (Or, as Clint Eastwood might have said, A software's gotta do what a user gotta tell it to do.) Thank you, Byron. Yours, MM ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Help, seeing a music CD's contents.
On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 21:19:14 -0700, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jan 4, 2005, at 8:49 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I am perplexed and my work is stopped by a simple difficulty. The music CD only shows 44byte files, not the larger music files. They're pointers to the actual files, which IIRC are written to disc in what's called Redbook Audio format. Yes, regular CD audio isn't stored on CD's in computer-friendly files and getting a truly exact digital copy isn't always as easy as you'd think. I don't know much about iTunes or MP3 rippers, but this free program, Exact Audio Copy, does a good job ripping music from CD's to .wav format. http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Invasion of the Factoids
FYI at least a few of these that I paused to check via snopes or google are false (golf, green coke, elbow), and I suspect at least a few others are as well (but am too lazy to research them all). Caveat lector, I suppose. :-) On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 20:41:44 -0600, Robert G. Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Many years ago, in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled Gentlemen Only . . . Ladies Forbidden . . . and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language. -- The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska -- The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone. - Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury. --- Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better. - Coca-Cola was originally green. --- It is impossible to lick your elbow. --- The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% (now get this...) The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38% The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400 The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000 Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair. The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910. The youngest pope was 11 years old. The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer. The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades - King David Hearts - Charlemagne Clubs -Alexander, the Great Diamonds - Julius Caesar 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 12,345,678,987,654,321 If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later. Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what? A. Their birthplace Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested? A. Obsession Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter A? A. One thousand Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common? A. All invented by women. Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil? A. Honey Q. Which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the year? A. Father's Day In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase goodnight, sleep tight. - It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month . . . which we know today as the honeymoon. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So, in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down. It's where we get the phrase mind your P's and Q's. Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. Wet your whistle is the phrase inspired by this practice. At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow. xponent Nutty Flavor Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Education - or lack thereof (was: Gay Marriage)
On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 21:00:43 -0500, Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It may be a cosmetic problem, but its also a real pain. I sometimes have problems with my *toes* hurting because the nails are too thick, and filing them down is tedious and time consuming (that said, I did get a Dremel mototool for Xmas, so that might help out...as long as I don't cut my toes off!). I've considered taking the curative to get rid of it, though with It's been done before... My wife got a pedicure a few weeks ago and was quite surprised when the man doing it whipped out a Dremel and promised he'd be done twice as fast that way. None of the women giving pedicures were using Dremels. He did a good job, though, and was done quickly, and with no dismemberments, etc. to speak of. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregulars question: hardware suckz :-/
On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 00:55:59 +, Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Keith Henson wrote: My CPU cooler is behaving strangely: it sometimes spins, other times doesn't. Which means that I have to chance the damned thing. Problem: is there any way to _remove_ it without breaking everything? Typically you can release the spring that holds it on with a screwdriver and take the whole assembly off. And where is it located? I'm 2000 miles away from my PC now, so I can't check it out to be sure, but I believe that my CPU fan has two thin u-shaped wire clips that hook underneath the heat sink and then hook onto the edges of the fan itself to hold it down. A small screwdriver can pop them off. (Some heat sinks use a separate sturdier set of clips to hold the heat sink itself onto the CPU socket. I heartily recommend not removing the heat sink itself if you're not sure what you're doing. You can pretty easily damage the CPU if you force things trying to put the hsf back on.) Other fans screw onto the heat sink, and I think for most of them you can remove the fan without removing the heat sink. If it uses mega-screws that hold the whole hsf combo to the mobo, be very careful. There's a million varieties of CPU heat sink and fan combo, so there's no one or two ways they're put together. You'll have to go take a closer look at your setup to know for sure what kind you have. Also make sure you get the right replacement fan. Most CPU fans are 60mm (smaller than the case-mounted fans), but some are 80mm (80mm fans are the typical case fans). My heat sink allowed either size fan because it came with clips for both sizes, but you'll probably need to stick to the size you already have. Good luck! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Ellison's I, Robot screenplay book included with Costco I, Robot movie DVD
In a rather mystifying turn of events, Harlan Ellison's screenplay for an I, Robot movie (completely rejected by the producer) is being included in a Costco-only special edition of the I, Robot movie DVD. I've avoided the movie, because I knew I'd be disappointed by its utter lack of adherence to the novel, but this DVD set would be worth getting, if only I had a costco membership http://harlanellison.com/heboard/unca.htm (His post is on the second page now) HARLAN ELLISON - Wednesday, December 15 2004 10:53:42 COLLECTORS OF ELLISONIA ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT You'll have to hurry if you want to include this one (or...these two) in your Ellison collection. Simon Schuster, who distribute the new trade paperback edition of myIsaac's I, ROBOT: THE ILLUSTRATED ORIGINAL SCREEENPLAY, called Byron Preiss at iBooks some many months ago (I knew nothing of this till yesterday when Len Wein was at Costco and called me on his cell-phone and said...well, I'll get to that in a moment). And the person at Simon Schuster told Byron that 20th Century-Fox wanted to include the book in with its release of the Will Smith movie. A one-off special packaging deal with Costco only, and Costco (or 20th)(???) wanted to buy many mucho copies of the book. I knew nothing of this, as I said, till...well...gimme a moment. No one remembered to let me in on this decision, but Byron had to remind SS, so THEY would remind 20th, that Harlan's heart had been broken when his script was blown off and ignored by Alex Proyas, the director; that Harlan had been assiduous in NOT commenting publicly about the film; that Harlan had distanced himself absolutely from the project; that Harlan had repeatedly refused interviews in which the two cinematic entities would be compared; that Byron assumed Harlan DESPISED the movie; that Harlan's screenplay bore no slightest resemblance to the Will Smith vehicle; and that anyone reading the book would know that in a second, not to mention that Harlan's introduction was merciless in blaming the apparat at Warners for sinking the project. All of these Byron recounted, suggesting SS go back to 20th, who ought to go back to Costco, to make SURE DEAD CERTAIN they all knew what they were doing. Which they did. And they all said, Yes, we know the book, and we want to package it together with the first release of the movie. So Byron said, Go ahead. But though my imprimateur EDGEWORKS ABBEY and Byron Preiss's Visual Communications are allegedly partners in reissuing some of my books, he simply forgot--in the press of troubling heavier publishing matters--to relay the deal to me. Even though my name is a registered trademark, and that little r in a circle is next to my name all over the book, and the book makes it very clear -- on cover and per indicia -- that this volume has but NOTHING to do with the 20th Century-Fox film production. And Simon Schuster, and 20th Century-Fox, and Costco ambulate along, unilaterally, without my knowing what was about to become a marketing reality. It's good I didn't know. I would've said no. And I would've been precipitate, and I would've been wrong. So, yesterday, Len Wein calls from Costco, and he says, I imagine you know all about this, but have you seen the 'long-box' promotion of the I,ROBOT movie with your book packaged in? Mouth agape, I said I hadn't. So Len bought three of them (two in wide-screen, one in full-screen) and Sharon took him $60 and picked them up, and it's a handsome, beautiful package that does what I couldn't have paid a PR firm a million bucks to do, and does it not only without costing me a cent, but which will bring me a much-needed royalty; it also protects my trademark-registered name, HARLAN ELLISON: It circulates to an enormous middle-class audience -- Costco shoppers -- that would very likely never even know my work, or myIsaac's version of the robot stories, as well as Mark Zug's gorgeous paintings, a contrarian view of what that film COULD HAVE been. It buoys my heart, it spreads the propaganda, it gives life to a work I spent a full year writing. It is a nifty pretty package, and my name is same size as Will Smith's on the long-box! Frabjous day, calloo callay So. There are two new collectables out there, if you feel so inclined. A wide-screen and a full-screen. $20 each. Get 'em while they exist, because when they're gone, folks, they're gone. And no, not I, not HERC, nor Webderland will be offering them. They're at Costco, and I'm outta here. Yr. pal, Harlan ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Earthsea in Clorox by Ursula K. Le Guin
I was disappointed I missed the Earthsea movie, but not so much, anymore: http://trashotron.com/agony/columns/2004/12-15-04.htm Earthsea in Clorox by Ursula K. Le Guin 1. Background: my (non)involvement with this production. For people who wonder why I sold out to Halmi, or let them change the story -- you may find some answers here. The producers (not yet including Robert Halmi Sr.) approached us with a reasonable offer. My dramatic agency at that time was William Morris. The contract of course gave me only the standard status of consultant -- which means exactly what the producers want it to mean, almost always little or nothing. The agency could not improve this clause. But the purchasers talked as if they genuinely meant to respect the books and to ask for my input when planning the film. As I had scripted the first two books myself, with Michael Powell, years ago, and also worked with another scriptwriter to plan his script of the first book, I was in a position to be useful to them. I knew some of the difficulties in carrying this story over to film. And some of the possibilities that could be fulfilled, too, the things a movie can do that a novel can't. It was an exciting prospect. They were talking at that time of a large-scale theater movie, although the possibility of a TV miniseries was mentioned. They said that they had already secured Philippa Boyen (who scripted The Lord of the Rings) as principal scriptwriter, and reported that she was eager to work on an Earthsea film. As the script was, to me, all-important, her presence was the key factor in my decision to sell them the option to the film rights. Time went by. By the time they got backing from the Sci Fi Channel for a miniseries -- and Robert Halmi Sr. had come aboard -- they had lost Boyen. That was a blow. But I had just seen Mr Halmi's miniseries Dreamkeeper with its stunning Native American cast, so I said to them in a phone conversation, hey, maybe Mr Halmi will cast some of those great actors in Earthsea! -- Oh, no, I was told -- Mr Halmi had found those people impossible to work with. Well, I said, you do realise that almost everybody in Earthsea is 'those people,' or anyhow not white? I don't remember what their answer to that was -- it may have used that wonderful weasel word colorblind -- but it wasn't reassuring, because I do remember saying to my husband, oh, gee, I bet they're going to have a honky Ged. . . This was in the spring of 2004. They moved very fast then, because if they didn't get into production, they would lose their rights to the property. Early in this period they contacted me in a friendly fashion, and I responded in kind; I asked if they'd like to have a list of name pronunciations; and I said that although I knew well that a film must differ greatly from a book, I hoped they were making no unnecessary changes in the plot or to the characters -- a dangerous thing to do, since the books have been known to millions of people for over 30 years. To this they replied that the TV audience is much larger, and entirely different, and changes to a book's story and characters were of no importance to them. They then sent me several versions of the script -- and told me that shooting had already begun. In other words, I had been absolutely cut out of the process. I withdrew my offered pronunciation guide (so Ogion, which rhymes with bogy-on, is Oh-jee-on in the film.) Having looked over the script, I realised they had no understanding of what the two books are about, and no interest in finding out. All they intended was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic MacMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence. (And faith -- according to Mr Halmi. Faith in what? Who knows? Who cares?) Larry Landsman, who looks after the book end of things at Sci Fi and has been very kind, sent me an early CD of the film, so I saw it some weeks before it was aired. There was nothing I could do about it at that point, and I said nothing negative in public. It seemed mean-spirited to bash the thing it before other people had a chance to see it. Anyhow, what's the use whining? Take the money and run, as whoever it is said. Someday, somebody would make a real Earthsea movie. . . But then Mr. Lieberman published a statement telling people what Ursula (whom he has never met) intended by the books. That changed the situation. They were taking advantage of my silence by sticking words in my mouth. I put a reply on my web site, and since then have spoken freely to interviewers who have asked my opinion of the production. My principal feeling about it is one of sadness, loss. An opportunity thrown away, at great expense. I'm sorry for the actors. They all tried hard. I'm sorry for the people who think they've seen Earthsea, but saw a stale, senseless rehash of bits of other fantasy films instead. I'm very sorry for my
Re: our steep slide
On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 17:11:26 -0500, Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Dec 17, 2004 at 03:48:13PM -0600, Dan Minette wrote: If SS were privatized, limiting investments to fairly conservative funds doesn't seem like a bad idea. IIRC, a general investment in an SP fund has outperformed most other funds over the last 10 years. That's the right general idea, but not general enough. It should be limited to very broad-based index funds. The SP500 is only large companies and does not include REITs. The Wilshire 5000 would be a much better option. And the foreign offering should be based on as broad an index as possible -- the MSCI EAFE is not really broad enough, in my opinion. The bonds funds should also be index funds covering just about all types of bonds. There should be at least an intermediate term bond index fund, a very short term bond index fund, and a foreign bond index fund. One question first to see if I'm on the right page: if SS was privatized and hooked into the stock market, that would mean that my SS tax money would go into an account in my name and be invested (somehow) in the market, and that the government couldn't use that money to pay out benefits to other people (as is the case now)? Is that correct? If so, that begs the question: what about the people receiving benefits currently under the old plan? Are they grandfathered in? If so, where does the money come from to pay for them?I'm guessing new taxes? Also, what about people who've been paying into the old system for 10, 20, or 30+ years - they've paid a lot into the old system, money that is, technically, theirs, I believe. I suspect the answer is tough luck? If that's all the case, it seems to me that initially a lot of money will flow into the stock/bond markets, and very little will flow out until the people that actually paid into this new private system start retiring and pulling money out. The sheer amount of money that would be pumped into the market at the start makes me wonder how the market could handle it. If the privatization works as I think, that would mean essentially around $526 billion (amount collected in SS taxes in 2002) would start to flow into the stock/bond market *yearly*. (Over time, that would be effectively reduced by people pulling money out, but that would likely take years to become a large percentage) From what I've read, managed mutual funds like Fidelity's Magellan become incredibly unwieldy once they get large. Magellan is currently at ~$63B and hit ~$104B a few years back and used to be the largest. (The Vanguard 500 index is at $81B, and the Wilshire 5000 index fund (WFIVX) is at ~$110B), That $63B, $81B, or $110B is the total net assets for the fund. The thought of some government flunky running a fund that gets that much money (or double or triple) to invest *every year* is frightening. It would mean incredible, almost unstoppable power to move the market not just on individual stocks, but on broad sectors or even the market as a whole. Having the SS investment money tied to a big, broad index is less scary, but when we're talking $500B* to invest per year, that's a lot of money to be pumped into virtually every stock on the market, every year. (Of course by/before 2018, things are going to likely start drying up, but I'm thinking near-term behavior). With that much money potentially being pumped into broad stock indices, it seems like even the bad or unworthy companies will benefit because 1) index funds don't make many judgements about a stock's quality and 2) there's not enough worthy stocks to handle it all. So it seems to me that a switch to privatization will likely inflate the entire stock market drastically in the near term- potentially an extremely good time to have outside money invested in the market. -bryon * I don't know what % of that $526B would likely be put into stocks vs bonds, but I'll gloss over that factor, since even a 50-50 split would be a huge pump into the stock market. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregular Question: DVD?RW
On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 16:27:47 + (UTC), Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Back in 1984, I suffered an `rm -rf *' while in root. I was using a computer that cost $50,000, running software that cost another $50,000 for one license. (This was before I discovered software freedom.) I also had a good printer. Worst/most embarrassing for me was one time I was planning to install some new version of the linux OS on my home box, and I decided to scrap almost everything on my system first for a fresh start. After clearing much out, I decided I'd scrag the whole /usr directory with rm -fr /usr. After that seemed like it was taking too long, I realized that I still had my work account directory remotely mounted in /usr (over the internet, before we had much security in place), and now it (including several of my project development trees) was busily being deleted via my home pc. Almost everything in my work account was hosed before I caught it. Fortunately most of it was recoverable via backup, but it was quite embarrassing explaining what happened to to our admins. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregular Question: DVD±RW
On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 09:48:36 -0500, Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Dec 12, 2004 at 07:58:11AM -0600, Ronn Blankenship wrote: In looking at DVD burners and the blank discs for them, I have noticed that some are labeled DVD-RW while others are labeled DVD+RW. So, naturally, I wonder, (1) What's the difference? Physically different formats. If you REALLY want to know the details, it is easy to find on the web. Aside from player compatibility, the most notable differences are that the + formats tend to support faster speeds sooner, and IIRC the + formats support lossless linking and addressing during recording, while I don't think the - formats do. That makes the + format more able to support stuff like plextor's burn-proof writing as well as more flexible data formats, like Mount Rainier support. IMHO, + is superior if you have to choose between them (ie: when you're buying blanks) This site has some FAQ's that go into the details (though they're obviously biased in favor of +): http://www.dvdplusrw.org (2) Which, if either, is preferable? They are similar in utility. Since you can get a drive that can handle all the formats +R, -R, +RW, -RW, it isn't a big deal which you choose, unless you need to be compatible with someone else's drive. I suggest you get a drive that can handle both +/-, and then choose the media based on what is the easiest to find and/or the cheapest. Good advice. I will add that some DVD players and possibly even some DVD-ROMs will not equally support all the recordable formats, or even different brand disks in the same format! Also, not all writers can write at maximum speed on all disks of that rating. You may have to experiment with different brands and formats to see what your equipment handles best. It's a rather sorry state of affairs. For example, my 8x Plextor writer, which I bought a year ago, has a web page which lists brands of DVD+/-R(W) disks are known to work at certain speeds with their drive. They list exact product lot numbers, and make no guarantees that different product numbers of the same product will have the same results. Most of the brands they list are very hard to find at the local compusa or staples. I've used other brands with some success, but don't get full write speed that often. My question to everyone: anyone know/use a decent Windows backup program? I have NTI backup now, and it's horribly horribly, unbelievably slow, regardless of media used. I'm talking a 1.5 GB/hour record rate - just insanity. Cheers, -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: So it begins.... Evangelicals to Bush: Payback Time
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:36:18 -0500, Matthew and Julie Bos [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 11/30/04 4:34 PM, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/etc/quiz.html I did, and got. 16 - Your score rates you as high-grade non-homophobic. I did too! 10 - Your score rates you as high-grade non-homophobic. I got a 24 which is also high-grade non-homophobic 5 here. They need more rating variety. I wanna be something like über 1337 non-homophobic. :-) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: U.S. Vehicles Are Behind the Curve in Skid Safety
On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 16:18:09 +, William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://tinyurl.com/43o4j In a study released this fall, the highway safety agency compared crash statistics for SUVs and other vehicles that had a stability-control system with the experience of identical models that lacked the technology. It found that SUVs with stability control had 63% fewer fatal single-vehicle crashes. Cars with the systems had 30% fewer such crashes, which include spinouts and rollovers. Researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit testing organization, have estimated that at least 7,000 lives could be saved each year if all vehicles were equipped with stability control systems. Although stability control has been available on some U.S. models since the late 1990s, fewer than 10% of new vehicles sold here have the systems, compared with about half in Europe. In the U.S. market, more emphasis has been put on such options as satellite navigation and elaborate sound systems than on stability control equipment. Blame the %$#*^^ marketers. Last I looked, stability control was hardly offered on anything but high end luxury and flagship-level vehicles here. Even traction control isn't widely available, and that's been around far longer. If available, I would have taken traction and/or stability control in a second over a GPS system or a fancy sound system for my minivan. My guess is that they make more money by keeping these things as luxury items than they would if they were commonplace. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Capture streaming video from the net?
On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 12:10:00 -0700, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But the fact stands that it was open source code running on Macintosh that accomplished what could not otherwise be done. ... unless you were running that same open source under Linux, Windows, or Solaris. :-) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: THE INCREDIBLES and Dr. Brin's Salon Essays (SPOILERS)
Potential spoilers On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:38:48 -0800 (PST), Chad Underkoffler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some spoilerspace for discussion of THE INCREDIBLES: Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 17:20:47 -0600 From: Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] So, what did you see that reminded you of Brin's essays? Okay. Two primary scenes, one secondary. Essays in mind are the Salon essays on LotR and Star Wars, plus Otherness. SCENE 1: After Dash vs. his teacher, Helen and Dash are in the car driving home. Helen says, Everybody is special, then Dash says, Which is another way of saying no one is. SCENE 2: Syndrome is monologing at the captured Mr. Incredible about his plans vis-a-vis the Omnidroid. He says that when he gets bored of heroing, he'll sell his inventions so that everyone can be super. And when everyone is super, no one will be. SCENE 3: Bob and Helen fighting over Dash's Grade 4 graduation. Bob says, They keep coming up with new ways to celebrate mediocrity! Now, in the context of the movie, Scene 1 is intended to be taken as true. However, Scene 2 is intended to be taken as false. Why? (Scene 3 supports Scene 1, I think.) We finally got a chance to see the movie. (We loved it!) I see all three of these scenes reinforcing the same point, which is a different one than Dr. Brin's Salon essays. (Though more on that in a bit). The theme I see here in all three scenes is that it is wrong to try to suppress talents so that no one stands out and everyone can be equally special. Dash and Bob (the good guys) want to use their special talents for good, while the bad guy wants a level playing field where everyone is special and therefore no one is special. Perhaps there's some social commentary in there about self-esteem building trends where everyone is rewarded for participating, rather than for success, but I don't think the movie goes much deeper than that. I have some thoughts that when Syndrome is using the word super he means super-powered -- note that during his Incrediboy phase, he's talking about cool stuff and powers and catchphrases, not helping people. Contrast Mr. Incredible's actions before the wedding -- on a tear of do-gooding -- and even during his underground days as Bob Parr, Insurance Guy. Certainly Buddy/Syndrome is fixated on the power aspect, rather than the hero aspect. He's a hero, through and through. Sure, he gets a thrill from it. But he doesn't lord it over folks, doesn't necessarily think he's better than them, or more fit to rule, or anything. Indeed, in hero mode, he's incredibly (heh) inclusive in his discussions, with a lot of use of we and us and whatnot. I pose that Bob -- and the audience -- are meant to interpret Syndrome's use of the word super as super-hero, which is what makes his statement to be taken as false. Could be, but I didn't notice anything that would reinforce that point. Bob, friends, and family are all elites, and the elites are the ones doing all the (super) hero-ing. Normals really make no key contributions*. Those elites are quite noble and upstanding, but they are elites nonetheless. Syndrome's Scene 2 goal was to essentially render them non-elite by effectively raising everyone else to their level. * ie: notice how the military was fighting the robot (albeit ineffectively), but disappears entirely as soon as the super heroes show up? Now, there's no arguing that the Incredibles are fantastically-gifted, and that most people will never be able to mimic their abilities. They are only held in check by their morality and ethics. This is what related the movie to the SW article Dr. Brin did. How is the Incredibles different, or is it the same issue there? Different, I think. IIRC, Dr. Brin's SW articles argue against the Romantic notion that the elites (whether they be benevolent super heroes or a noble king) will take care of things for the rest of us, while he supports the Enlightenment idea that the common man is empowered to take care of himself. The supers have government backing, like the Jedi. They have abilities far beyond human, like the Jedi. They are -- at least early on -- a law unto themselves. Yet they are different: they back away from the public eye when the public no longer wants them. Additionally, and interesting thing: the non-powered guy here -- Syndrome -- is a genius of such a level as to create devices more powerful than supers and also amass a gigantic fortune. He is merely unlimited by any morality. Does that change the Jedi-read above? Possibly. I can almost read this movie as anti-Brin. If you take Syndrome to represent the non-super-powered guy here who wants to empower eveyone, he's essentially the Enlightenment side being depicted as the bad guy who is fighting on the side of Mediocrity, while the noble Romantic elites save us and prevail. But I actually see Syndrome as an elite also, given his genius and his attainment of super powers
Re: Capture streaming video from the net?
On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:04:30 -0800, Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Okay, web wizards... I'd like to capture the video (for time-shifting purposes, of course) of a story about Wes that was on one of the Houston television stations. Anybody who can figure out how to do it wins a big thank-you from me. There's a link to their video page here: http://www.khou.com/news/local/galveston/stories/khou041115_cd_friendswoodsoldier.5e2ea3d4.html But it uses a perl script that does redirection that we haven't quite figured out. I'm not a web wizard by any means but I've made some progress: The stream is actually sourced from: mms://beloint.wmod.llnwd.net/a125/o1/www.khou.com/soldier_1115.wmv That mms: is the Microsoft Media Server protocol. Googling, I found this page: http://www.metaproducts.com/mp/mpSupport_User_Forums_Message.asp?id=5817 That mentions a beta version but the link is no longer valid. I downloaded the trial version of OEP, and was able to download the file, but I get only the sound and no video, which is the same problem that the person in the above message is asking about. I tried using the recommended settings, but no luck. I've uploaded the file soldier_1115.wmv to my web site, if you want to investigate the sound-only version (perhaps my media player is the culprit and not the file!): http://users.rcn.com/daly5/soldier_1115.wmv I've fiddled with OEP further and searched their forums a bit but no luck. But you could probably pursue it further by asking the people at the OEP forum for some help. I hope this helps! -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Capture streaming video from the net?
On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:57:15 -0500, Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The stream is actually sourced from: mms://beloint.wmod.llnwd.net/a125/o1/www.khou.com/soldier_1115.wmv Let me just add how I got to that info, in case it might help. The video link at the khou site points to a tiny 1K file named soldier_1115.wmv. This is actually a html-ish text file. I've uploaded it to my site (http://users.rcn.com/daly5/wes_vid.txt), but it's small enough to paste here: asx version=3.0 BANNERBAR = FIXED PREVIEWMODE = NO titlewww.khou.com/soldier_1115.wmv/title entry ref href=mms://beloint.wmod.llnwd.net/a125/o1/www.khou.com/soldier_1115.wmv/ /entry /asx ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: A miracle in the offing?
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 00:44:19 -0800 (PST), kerri miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- kerri miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm biased against the Lib. party, because my exposure to them has been in the form of kooky nutters, not well-spoken people who have well-thunk positions; c'mon, their presidential candidate this year vowed to bomb the UN on the 8th day of his administration... Oh what fun 10 minutes of googling reveals. Yeah, it seems Badnarik's a bit of a nutter. I remember seeing that he refused to get a driver's license (but drove anyway), and I also think that he refused to pay income tax at one point at least. It seems he ended up with the libertarian party nomination largely because they have an odd selection process that allowed one of the two main contenders to get eliminated, and then his supporters went to dark horse Badnarik rather than his rival. Some sort of backroom deal was involved. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Magic Re: Yu-Gi-Oh is evil, why it must be eradicated
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 10:50:41 -0600, Horn, John [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sheesh. I used to play Magic and most of what you guys just wrote was completely unintelligible to me. The game must have changed a lot (or gained a lot more jargon) in the past few years. The last expansion I played with was Fallen Empires and a bit of Ice Age. That's just about when I tried to get into (and quickly got out of) MtG. Fortunately for me, I didn't have a group of friends playing, to boost the habit, and more fortunately, my interest peaked at a point where it was extremely hard to buy any cards besides the Fallen Empires boosters. Apparently, they were ramping up for the new 4th rev (I think) sets which weren't available yet, but almost all the 3rd revs had run out. By the time cards were plentiful again, my interest was already somewhat declining, so I didn't spend nearly as much as I might have otherwise. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Wish me luck...
On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 01:30:01 -0400, Bryon Daly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 21:01:23 +0900, G. D. Akin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Good luck! WOW them. Thanks guys! I'm not sure if I wow'ed 'em, but it went pretty well, I think. I should hear back sometime next week, hopefully. Heh. Lockheed told me back that week they were interested in hiring me, but then they took until today to actually give me the offer. In the meantime, I had to turn down a good offer locally here without even knowing any $ details of the Orlando job. (They needed an answer - instead I could have taken the Boston job and passed on the Florida one, but my wife would have never let me forget it!) But anyway, it looks like I'll be packing the family and heading south in the next few months. Woot! Any Brin-L'ers in the Orlando area? -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Green Car Sets Speed Record
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 20:36:25 -0600 (CST), Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Alberto Monteiro wrote: Running on liquefied petroleum gas, one of the least polluting fuels, :-)) Ah! Ignorance is Bliss! LGP is widely known in Brazil as kitchen gas, because 80% or so of the cooking is done with it. Is this _advanced_ technology? Heck, we are trying hard to replace LGP [which Brazil consumes more than it produces] by Natural Gas, which is even greener, and may reduce that deficit. We use LPG for cooking, hot-water heaters and central heating. There's no natural gas line to our house, so we use the LPG instead. A lot of people in this area who aren't served by natural gas lines to the house do this. LPG is better known as propane, isn't it? The stuff of gas BBQ grills? A quick google found this page: http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/activitybook/fs-propane.html with these factoids (among others): -Propane emits 60% lower carbon monoxide and 50% lower reactive hydrocarbons than gasoline. -Engines run by propane are cleaner and last longer. Propane vehicles can have as much as double the engine life of gasoline vehicles. Propane reduces lubricant contamination by fuel and has little to no carbon build up in combustion chambers or pistons. -Premium gasoline has octane ratings of 91-92. Propane's octane rating is 104. -There are 3.5 million propane vehicles worldwide. In the U.S., more than 350,000 vehicles are fueled by propane. -Propane is the third most widely used motor fuel, ranking behind gasoline and diesel. From Rob's original post: 'Green' does not have to mean slow - last week the car set a new speed record of 315 km/h. A speed record for what exactly? Green vehicles? (That's less than 200 MPH (sorry I'm stuck on English units), and some (expensive) production sports cars can go that fast and certainly some purpose-built race cars can.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Bush $200 bill charges dropped
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/11/15/funny.money.ap/index.html Snippet: GREENSBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Charges have been dropped against a woman who paid for clothes with a fake $200 bill that featured President Bush's picture and the serial number DUBYA4U2001. also: A clerk at a Fashion Bug clothing store also apparently was fooled by the funny money. Which reminds me of the old Taco Bell/$2 bill story I've linked before, at the other end of the spectrum: http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/2-at-Taco-Bell.html ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: A miracle in the offing?
On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 19:16:38 -0800 (PST), kerri miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- d.brin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've never been prouder to be a libertarian, see below: That's not something I knew about you. Would you care to share your thoughts on the Libertarian candidate this past election? Dr. Brin was a keynote speaker at the 2002 Libertarian Party National Convention; there's a transcript of his speech on his site: http://www.davidbrin.com/libertarianarticle1.html It's worth reading, IMHO. I sent a link to a somewhat libertarian-leaning friend of mine, and his reaction was David Brin for President!. Also: The subject lacks the Brin:, so Dr. Brin may not have seen your reply unless you CC'd him directly. -bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
How the Grinch Stole Marriage
How the Grinch Stole Marriage by Mary Ann Horton, Lisa and Bill Koontz (with apologies to Dr. Suess.) Every Gay down in Gayville liked Gay Marriage a lot.. But the Grinch, who lived just east of Gayville, did NOT!! The Grinch hated happy Gays! The whole Marriage season! Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason. It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right. It could be, perhaps, his Florsheims were too tight. But I think the most likely reason of all was His heart and brain were two sizes too small. And they're buying their tuxes! he snarled with a sneer, Tomorrow's the first Gay Wedding! It's practically here! Then he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, I MUST find some way to stop Gay Marriage from coming! For, tomorrow, he knew... All the Gay girls and boys would wake bright and early. They'd rush for their vows! And then! Oh, the Joys! Oh, the Joys! And THEN they'd do something he liked least of all! Every Gay down in Gayville the tall and the small, would stand close together, all happy and blissing. They'd stand hand-in-hand. And the Gays would start kissing! I MUST stop Gay Marriage from coming! ...But HOW? Then he got an idea! An awful idea! THE GRINCH GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA! I know what to do! The Grinch laughed in his throat. And he went to his closet, grabbed his sheet and his hood. And he chuckled, and clucked, with a great Grinchy word! With this beard and this cross, I look just like our Lord! All I need is a Scripture... The Grinch looked around. But, true Scripture is scarce, there was none to be found. Did that stop the old Grinch...? No! The Grinch simply said, With no Scripture on Marriage, I'll fake one instead! It's one man and one woman, the Grinch falsely said. Then he broke in the courthouse. A rather tight pinch. But, if Georgie could do it, then so could the Grinch. The little Gay benefits hung in a row. These bennies, he grinned, are the first things to go! Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most uncanny, around the whole room, and he took every benny! Health care for partners! Doctors for kiddies! Tax rights! Adoptions! Pensions and Wills! And he stuffed them in bags. Then the Grinch, with a chill, Stuffed all the bags, one by one, in his bill. Then he slunk to the kitchen, and stole Wedding Cake. He cleaned out that icebox and made it look straight. He took the Gay-bar keys! He took the Gay Flag. Why, that Grinch even took their last Gay birdseed bag! And NOW! grinned the Grinch, I will pocket their Rings. And the Grinch grabbed the Rings, and he started to shove when he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove. He turned around fast, and off flew his hood. Little Lisa-Bi Gay behind him sadly stood. The Grinch had been caught by small Lisa-Bi. She stared at the Grinch and said, My, oh, my, why? Why are you taking our Wedding Rings? WHY? But, you know, that old Grinch was so smart and so slick He thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick! Why, my sweet little tot, the fake Shepherd sneered, The judges are evil, the other states weird. I'll fix the rings there and I'll bring them back here. It was quarter past dawn... All the Gays, still a-bed, all the Gays still a-snooze when he packed up and fled. Pooh-Pooh to the Gays! he was grinch-ish-ly humming. They're finding out now no Gay Marriage is coming! Their mouths will hang open a minute or two then the Gays down in Gayville will all cry Boo-Hoo! He stared down at Gayville! The Grinch popped his eyes! Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise! Every Gay down in Gayville, the tall and the small, was kissing! Without any bennies at all! He HADN'T stopped Marriage from coming! IT CAME! Somehow or other, it came just the same! And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling: How could it be so? It came without lawyers, no papers to sort! It came without licenses, came without courts! And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! Maybe Marriage, he thought, doesn't come from the court. Maybe Marriage...perhaps... comes right from the heart. Maybe Marriage comes from all the words the Gays say. Words like Husband, like Wedding, and Spouse who is Gay. And what happened then...? Well...in Gayville they say that the Grinch's small brain grew three sizes that day! And the Gays had their Weddings. They promised for life. They swore to be faithful, to Wife and her Wife. The Husbands were happy, to each other they vowed To be Out and be Honest, be Gay and be Proud. They told all their neighbors and friends of their Spouse, They told of their Marriage and sharing their house. They said We got Married. They shouted it loud. Their marital status was Married and Proud. And the minute his heart didn't feel quite so tight, He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light. And he brought back the rings, cake and Gay birdseed bags!
Re: Lost: the TV series
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 22:50:16 -0600 (CST), Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Gautam Mukunda wrote: Yes, in January. Until this season it was the only decent show ABC had. Guess the only show I'm following this season isn't decent, then. :) (NYPD Blue.) My wife and I used to follow NYPD Blue closely, but we gave up on it a few years ago after Andy became tragedy central - they killed off his wife and his partner, made him struggle with his alcoholism, and then had his kid get really sick (and I'm probably missing a thing or two) - and then we said enough. I like Andy a lot, and he's a good actor, but it got to be too much. And then there was also the patented NYPD Blue stilted speech pattern used by Medavoy and James that started driving me nuts after Rick Schroder came on and was doing it. We tapered off watching it after that and it's been quite a while since any episodes. Has it improved any? I was thinking that the constant tragedy they were surrounding Andy with must have settled down by now, but I just saw some comedian joking that people should be diving out of the way when they see Andy coming, so perhaps not. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Lost: the TV series
On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 09:56:09 -0600 (CST), Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 13 Nov 2004, Bryon Daly wrote: Has it improved any? I was thinking that the constant tragedy they were surrounding Andy with must have settled down by now, but I just saw some comedian joking that people should be diving out of the way when they see Andy coming, so perhaps not. It hasn't improved any as far as Andy being tragedy central, but I've been watching for years, this is the last season, and if there's gonna be a train wreck at the end, I want to see everything leading up to it. :) Train wreck, eh? Might be worth watching... :-) Do you at least see any previews? Not really - to be honest, until you said you still watch NYPD Blue, I wasn't sure it was still running! Between all the CSI and Law Order variants plus occasionally Monk, we don't spend much time watching ABC, I guess! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Awesome prank item
It's potty humor (literally), but I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Introducing RoboDump: http://triggur.org/robodump/ I want one! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: School Talent Show Draws Secret Service
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:29:57 -0500, Gary Nunn [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I suppose that the government could start banning the public performance of songs that they might consider subversive... We certainly don't want anyone practicing free speech and dissing the federal government I saw a different version of this story that explains more about why exactly the secret service showed up. It had nothing to do with dissing the government. I can't find the article now, but basicallly the secret service receieved several complaint calls saying the students had *changed* the song lyrics so that the end of the song called for *Bush to be killed*, and the radio show call-ins also said something along those lines. The school principal was quoted as saying the secret service was basicaly practicing due diligence in responding to the reports. (I think they're pretty much obligated to do so). Maybe the people complaining overreacted and got it all wrong about the Bush-killing thing, but I don't think you can pin the blame here on some Orwellian government free speech crackdown. http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=247437page=1 School Talent Show Draws Secret Service Colorado Band Singing Dylan Song Seen as Threatening President Bush - Parents and students say they are outraged and offended by a proposed band name and song scheduled for a high school talent show in Boulder this evening, but members of the band, named Coalition of the Willing, said the whole thing is being blown out of proportion. The students told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver they are performing Bob Dylan's song Masters of War during the Boulder High School Talent Exposé because they are Dylan fans. They said they want to express their views and show off their musical abilities. But some students and adults who heard the band rehearse called a radio talk show Thursday morning, saying the song the band sang ended with a call for President Bush to die. Threatening the president is a federal crime, so the Secret Service was called to the school to investigate. Students in the band said they're just singing the lyrics and not inciting anyone to do anything. The 1963 song ends with the lyrics: You might say that I'm young. You might say I'm unlearned, but there's one thing I know, though I'm younger than you, even Jesus would never forgive what you do ... And I hope that you die and your death'll come soon. I will follow your casket in the pale afternoon. And I'll watch while you're lowered down to your deathbed. And I'll stand o'er your grave 'til I'm sure that you're dead. 'We Were Just Singing' The students told KMGH they never threatened the president and never changed the lyrics to the song. It's just Bob Dylan's song. We were just singing Bob Dylan's song ... If you think it has to do with Bush that's because you're drawing your own conclusions. We never conveyed that Bush was the person we were talking about, said Allysse Wojtanek-Watson, a singer for the band. She never said anything about killing Bush ... It's crazy, it's chaos. We have nothing in there it says about killing Bush, band leader Forest Engstrom told KMGH. The principal of the school said he stands behind the students. Never was it rehearsed or auditioned with a change of lyrics. I want to be very clear about that, Boulder principal Ron Cabrera said. Cabrera said Secret Service agents questioned him for 20 minutes and took a copy of the lyrics. They did not ask to speak to any of the students but they did question a teacher who had supervised a student protest that was held at the school last weekend. Despite the controversy, the Boulder School District said it will allow the students to perform this evening. Boulder High School has expectations for the appropriateness of talent show acts and those expectations are communicated to the performers. Over the course of the rehearsals, the faculty has worked with the performers to create a show that falls within those expectations. School staff have monitored the performance and spoken with the students and are satisfied that the performance is simply student expression and not a threat against anyone, Boulder Schools spokeswoman Susan Cousins said in a statement. During the rehearsals for the show, teachers Jim Vacca and Jim Kavanaugh played backup in the band at the students' request but the teachers decided not to perform this evening because they don't want to detract from the students' performance, Cousins said. The band had at one point considered calling itself The TaliBand, but the students decided against it after discussing with Vacca whether the name would be offensive to some people, she said. Promoting a 'Leftist View?' Vacca praised a group of 70 students after they camped out overnight in the school library last week to protest the results of the presidential election and to announce their worries about the
Re: More electoral outrage
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:32:23 -0800, d.brin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was outraged to learn that Diebold won't allow any outsiders to look at the code programmed into their machines, claiming that it's proprietary. I think that at the very least this should be challenged: the Diebold code should have independent oversight, just as a hand count has independent oversight. They can't claim that they have exclusive access to the vote-counting source code. Of course, even if it was open code, it'd be hard to verify that the code installed on *all* machines actually was the open code. These machines are deliberately made in order to have no audit trail, no possibility of checking for error or fraud, and they were deliberately placed in heavily democratic counties. The deliberate intentional lack of an audit trail puzzles and disturbs me greatly. And the shades of purple maps remind us that democrats remain a disenfranchised 40% in much of rural America, while republicans were a large minority in all but the largest urban areas. This is the exact topic that we just recently had a discussion here about. I favor allocating the electoral votes proportionally to candidate's voting percentage. I did some analysis on the 2000 election and discovered two things: - the disenfranchised percentage of dems and republicans seems to work out fairly closely, which is probably why not much issue is made of this. - If a proportional system was used in 2000, most likely Gore would be president: By my calculations (see my spreadsheet here:http://users.rcn.com/daly5/EVprop.xls ): Bush would have gotten 267 electoral votes, Gore would have gotten 266 electoral votes, and Nader would have gotten 5 electoral votes. Presumably Nader's votes would go to Gore, giving Gore 272 votes and the win. -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin: Kiln people aside
On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:43:05 -0600, Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bryon Daly wrote: On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:22:11 -0800 (PST), David Brin experiences a la Arnold's promised Mars adventure in The Running Man. Total Recall Doh! What he said! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin: Purple America
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 17:49:10 -0800 (PST), Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Since we've heard a lot about Red States and Blue States I thought posting a link to this graphic would be interesting. I'd been planning on making it myself, but luckily someone much better at computers beat me to it. Robert Vanderbei created a map of the US shaded down to the county level and shades each county according to the vote shares. Note just how purple the country looks. http://www.kieranhealy.org/files/misc/purple_america_2004_small.gif I just found this site which maps the election results on a state population cartogram, which gives a better feel for the population proportions: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ (Apologies if someone already posted this link and I missed it). Most interesting is the version of a purple map done as a population cartogram: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/cartlinearlarge.png On this map, you can really see how split the support is, even in most of the solid Bush and Kerry states. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin: Kiln people aside
On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:22:11 -0800 (PST), David Brin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote some cool kiln speculations. I already did deal with religious conservative opposition to kilning and with sexual variations. The alien idea though is one that I was intending to deal With. I mean, how could you tell? Pregnancy. Interesting. It's been a while since I read KP, (and I don't have it handy to recheck things), so excuse me if I get some things wrong, but here's some thoughts/questions: - Likely no sport or activity would be too extreme... 0.5% chance of survival down that slope? Sure, lets go for it! Thrill seekers today already push limits to find new thrills. In a world where (ditto) death has no consequence, thrill seekers will need to go to unprecedented extremes. Also, with dittos removal the possibility of serious injury or death to the main person, might that result in people becoming extremely risk-adverse with their real body? (ie: only dittos do serious mountain/rock climbing any more) Or might thrill seekers take on a macho culture where you're a wimp if you don't use your real body? - It could be much more easy for humans to survive and exploit resources in places that they could not easily do so now, by creating custom bodies that could survive. For example, ultra deep-sea underwater mining/drilling or perhaps lunar or asteroid mining. Also, exploring the solar system might be a lot easier if it's possible to pack a sleeper ship with frozen dittos. - You mentioned religious conservative opposition - but about those who would see the soul as proof of at least some level of religion? (Sorry, I can't remember if that was already dealt with in KP). The word soul is loaded with religious connotations and baggage, but IIRC in KP it seems mostly to be thought of as a secular thing. Do religions make a distinction between their concept of an immortal but undetectable religious soul and a secular, detectable non-religious one? I see two reactions: how dare they claim they discovered and can manipulate the human soul! and at last - concrete proof of our religion!. I also would have though that a corporation would shy away from using a word like soul in the first place becase of the religious connotations, and instead push a term that captured a similar secular meaning without the baggage, thus perhaps avoiding some controversy. Perhaps anima, or psyche, or maybe something from the Zen world perspective. - What if technology was found that enabled analog recording a soul (and later restoration to a ditto or the main) to some % level of fidelity? That seems like near-immortality. What if certain parts of a soul could be digitized, (manipulated!), and stored/restored - say just (certain) memories or knowledge? This could enable things like instant learning (languages, expert skills), or give virtual experiences a la Arnold's promised Mars adventure in The Running Man. - Lastly, a question: Would the bad guy's experiment have actually worked and propelled him to near-godhood if everything had gone off as planned, mass-deaths and all? Cheers, -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Nerd From Hell is back from the dead!
On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:55:06 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi ya'll. You probably did not notice that I dropped out of the list for some time - about 7 months. If you remember, I last left the list after announcing that I was diagnosed with Cancer, and was starting treatment. Well I am glad to say that THAT'S over with. It was tough, and if anyone has gone though it, you know what I mean. So now I am back, feeling better, and a bit more fiendish. So for those that are a bit curious about my treatment I will give the gory details: Great news! Welcome back, Chad! -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Grandbaby!
On Mon, 08 Nov 2004 20:17:34 -0800, Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: After an enjoyable late evening Friday with David Brin, David Land and a few others who aren't on the list, I got up Saturday morning and headed to Modesto, where my wife already was, to help get things ready for her baby (our fourth grand-child), who was due around Thanksgiving. We headed home Saturday, but went right back Sunday morning because she started having a lot of contraction-ish pain during the night. I'm happy to announce that the newest member of our extended family (but only a bit newer than my sister's daughter born a couple of weeks ago in Pittsburgh) arrived at 5:50 yesterday. Mom and baby are fine. The little one is tentatively named Carly Annamarie Valenzuela, but daddy wasn't party to that decision, so it's still up in the air. Congratulations, Nick! I didn't know you even had kids, never mind 4 gandkids. -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Shifting Gears: Talking about THE INCREDIBLES?
On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 05:19:44 -0800 (PST), Chad Underkoffler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To shift gears from politics, I have a question: what's the protocol for discussing books and movies on this list? Politics only! There will be absolutely no discussion of books and movies on this list! Especially Brin-related ones! Just kidding! Just post your thoughts on the movie, I'd like to hear them because I'm really looking forward to seeing The Incredibles with my wife at some point when we can get a baby sitter. (Yeah, we're going to leave the kids home to go see it). Don't worry about what's on-topic for this list, no one will scold you for being off-topic. In general, at worst, no one will have anything to say and you just won't get any responses. I saw THE INCREDIBLES twice this weekend (it's fantastic, IMAO), and there are aspects in the movie that I'd like to discuss here, because they seem to touch on aspects of Dr. Brin's Salon articles on LotR and Star Wars. Sounds interesting. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Purple America
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 22:16:18 -0600 (CST), Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 6 Nov 2004, Gautam Mukunda wrote: http://www.kieranhealy.org/files/misc/purple_america_2004_small.gif I'd like to know what's up with the black counties, though. From the orignal site: http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/ Counties shown in black represent either missing election data or a mismatch between the US Census data and the USA Today data. For example, the New England states' election return data is given for each municipality and/or district rather than for each county. Hence, it couldn't be easily matched with the county boundaries. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: It seems over...
On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 21:01:07 -0800 (PST), Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What's your evidence? Mine is pretty simple. Right now we're at war. Turnout was high. In 1968 we were at war. Turnout was high. In 1864 we were in the middle of a Civil War, and turnout was _unbelievably_ high. Presumably people are not happy in the US when we are at war. When people are unhappy they vote. In 1988 and 1996, by contrast, we were not at war and the economy was booming, and turnout was low. I think I have a story here that has considerable empirical support. Do you think it is unhappiness explicitly at being at war that drives the high turnout? What about other types of unhappiness, such as the economic misery of the Great Depression or in 1980? If those weren't high-turnout periods, perhaps it's not unhappiness itself, but the inherent serious nature of war that makes people more inclined to vote because they are more aware of and concerned about their leadership? I know I certainly cared far, far more about leadership direction and especially foreign policy this year than I did in, say, 2000. Did WWI, WWII, and the Korean War also have high voter turnouts? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: It seems over...
On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 21:59:28 -0700, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When was the last time a president was really a man of the people, as opposed to someone ludicrously rich, born to privilege, and utterly out of touch with workaday realities? Clinton doesn't count? While certainly not poor, I don't think he'd count as any of those things. Geo HW Bush, recall, was astonished to discover that laser scanners were used in grocery store checkouts, which indicates how long it had been since he'd personally shopped for groceries. Not true: http://www.snopes.com/history/american/bushscan.htm ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Arafat dead?
On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 09:05:38 -0800 (PST), Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I suspect Mossad... Why? Failing health at 75 isn't so unusal. The Israelis could have killed him any time they wanted, so why now? I had gotten the impression a while back that Arafat no longer had much control over the terrorist factions, or at least that's what Israel believed. There doesn't seem to be much reason to assassinate him at this point. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: It seems over...
On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:31:46 -0700, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 4, 2004, at 1:49 AM, Bryon Daly wrote: On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 21:59:28 -0700, Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When was the last time a president was really a man of the people, as opposed to someone ludicrously rich, born to privilege, and utterly out of touch with workaday realities? Clinton doesn't count? While certainly not poor, I don't think he'd count as any of those things. Hmm. While he purportedly champions The Masses, he *is* a lawyer and he *is* wealthy. Hard to call on that one. I'd have to examine his record of actions with that question in mind. True about him being a wealthy lawyer, but I don't believe he fell into the ludicrously rich category (though I'm not sure about that). I am pretty sure he wasn't born to priveledge, though. That's something I think helped normal people identify with him, which Kerry lacked. I think that we'd be hard-pressed to find any senators or governors who weren't at least somewhat removed from the everyday reality of things like grocery shopping. But it would be nice to have a president who was a man of the people as you said. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: It seems over...
On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:35:02 -0800 (PST), kerri miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm pretty depressed right now, living in a country that wants to legislate me out of existence, an administration that lies to me and encourages hate and violence toward my tribe. I weep, and today can no longer find the strength to care. Disillusioned, angry, tired.. where to start? I'm not welcome in Red States - in parts of them I can be killed (and I point You can take maybe heart in the fact that in many red states, the margin of victory was only 5-10%. But on the other hand, that was the margin for many blue states as well. The whole red/blue state thing distorts perceptions of a lot of states, IMHO - particularly the swing states. anyone who thinks that's hyperbole remember Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena). Americans had the truth shown to them, and they chose lies, division, and incompetance. How do you change that? Living in the NorthWest, who went astoundingly Blue, I've no opportunity to make a difference or change the direction of my country. What happens now - are the Dems going to realign around an idealogue who can keep them chugging along until the next time they're doomed to failure? We shut up, held our noses about Kerry, and what did it get us? So what is your recommendation for the democrats next time? A centrist like Clinton? Or going for something like getting back to the roots of the party or Dean's democratic wing of the Democrat party? Interesting link I found while googling the Dean quote - it's from last year but suggests a new (old) direction for Democrats: http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=127subid=900056contentid=251690 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Predicted electoral votes listed by state....
On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 22:37:48 -0600, Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Try reading this as it is very very interesting: http://www.electoral-vote.com/info/votemaster-faq.html As soon as I saw his name (Andrew Tannenbaum), I thought Gee - is that the Andrew S. Tannenbaum who wrote the Computer Networks textbook I used in college (and later taught from as a TA in grad school)?. Yep, it is. He may or may not know a lot about proper polling methodology, but he certainly knows computer networking. My favorite bit of geek humor from his book (paraphrased, since I can't find the exact quote right now) : Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of magnetic tapes driving down the highway. -Bryon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Electoral College (Was: Re: 2004 Presidential Race Analysis)
On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:53:23 -0800 (PST), Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: : who apologizes if somebody already said this, and felt a teeny bit smug about avoiding the long lines to vote today (although a wait of 1.25 hours last Fri, in Early Voting, was hardly better!) :) Holy cow - 75 mins? I walked in, waited for the lady in front of me to get her ballot from the people checking addresses, got my ballot, voted, turned it in and left. Total time: ~7 mins including reading the short ballot questions and marking the ballot. Dinnertime is the right time to go vote, apparently. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The real translation of Osama's rant
On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 13:36:51 -0800, d.brin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This from Stefan Jones. It's circulating on Slashdot: --- ((Translation may be suspect.)) Anyone catch the Osama translation sketch on SNL this weekend? Some pretty funny bits. I tried to find it (or a transcript) online, but no luck. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Shocked shocked
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:08:59 -0400, Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Whine, whine, whine. If you just paid attention, you wouldn't have to whine about it. It is strange how people confuse paying attention with intelligence. Just curious: If he was unfamiliar with Casablanca and the shocked, shocked quote, how would paying greater attention (preumably you mean to the list conversation) have enabled him to answer his question for himself? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bay Area Residents Question
On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:39:13 +1000, Russell Chapman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi fellow Brinellers Can anyone who lives in the Bay area help me? I am working out my schedule for the Christmas holidays, and many of my friends have recommended I rent a bicycle and ride over the Golden Gate and around the bay in a big circle. This sounds great, but I differ from them in 3 key areas: - I am not as fit as they are - I have a significant fear of heights - I am travelling in January. I don't know how wide the bikepath on the bridge is, or how cold the Golden Gate gets in January, but I'd hate to get started and find myself clinging to a pole somewhere in an attack of vertigo. Should I plan on a nice drive instead? Quite a while back when I was somewhat fitter, and semi-regularly cycling (though by no means a good cyclist), I rented a mountain bike when I was in SF for a convention. I didn't go across the GG bridge, but instead rode out to an neat area almost underneath the bridge - some kind of historical site, I think. (Presidio comes to mind, but I'm not sure of that.) Pretty neat views of the bridge from near water level, and from the surrounding hills, and quite scenic in general in some places. The ride was quite hilly and was probably about 4 hours including some wrong turns and some stops to look around and take pictures, etc. Perhaps something like that might be more interesting to you since it'd avoid the windy, high-up bridge and wouldn't be a 100+ mile trip. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
