Re: Hello (hello, hello)
Bus stop, wet day, she`s there, I say Please share my umbrella Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows Under my umbrella All that summer we enjoyed it Wind and rain and shine That umbrella, we employed it By August, she was mine Chorus: Every morning I would see her waiting at the stop Sometimes she`d shopped and she would show me what she bought Other people stared as if we were both quite insane Someday my name and hers are going to be the same That`s the way the whole thing started Silly but it`s true Thinkin` of a sweet romance Beginning in a queue Came the sun the ice was melting No more sheltering now Nice to think that that umbrella Led me to a vow ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Is it just me....
Ronn! said: Actually all I was hinting was that whenever troops get sent to keep the peace in some region of the world, 99% of the time the troops and the money come from the good ol' U—S—A . . . This is totally untrue. If we look at UN peacekeeping operations, the USA ranks 31st out of 107 contributing nations, providing a mere 372 out of a total of 73,034 UN peacekeepers. Now let's look at operations not under UN command. In Afghanistan, there are around 9000 troops in the NATO ISAF force. The largest contributors are Germany, France and Spain; there are 89 attached US troops. An additional 5,000 British troops in Afghanistan are not attached to ISAF. It seems there are also 2000 Canadian troops not under NATO command. The US deployment to Afghanistan is something like 21,000. In the Balkans, there are around 7000 troops from EUFOR. The only figure I could find for US deployment there was 250 troops. Even in Iraq, there are currently 133,000 US troops, but also 8000 British so the US is providing far less than 99% of the troops. Rich, who would be interested in more detailed and accurate figures than he could find in ten minutes of googling. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Is it just me....
Rich wrote: Rich, who would be interested in more detailed and accurate figures than he could find in ten minutes of googling. Well, here is the page for the UN operations from 1995 to 2006: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/ And I reckon the UN does do more than 1% of the peacekeeping missions. The US contribution there [and I found roughly the same figures there that you mentioned] is slightly more than 0.5% in terms of troops*. The financial contribution is more [30% in the years before 2000, and 27% ever since]. However, the source says that the payments are 'massively in arrears'. Am not sure how much has actually been paid. But even if we assume that most of the payments have been made, it is still way less than 99.9%. Ritu * - The biggest contributors here are the countries from the developing world. The top twenty contributors are from Africa and Asia, and the first three places are taken by the three countries on the subcontinent [Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, in that order]. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Semi-OTC Lasers
From: Robert G. Seeberger http://wickedlasers.com/ For the last few months you have been able to buy lasers that could pop balloons, melt trash bags, cut electrical tape, and melt through plastic. It is a fairly interesting advance in materials science that allows consumers to do such things with an over-the-counter product. (Of course, you aren't going to find these at your local electronics stores) The lasers here (especially the green ones) tout some amazing capabilities such as being visible(the priciest model) at 120 miles(193.12128 K)while using 3 volts of power supplied by everyday AA or AAA batteries that should last for 2 hours (2 metric hoursG) on a 100% duty cycle, even if the laser itself costs $2000 (1648 Euro/1129British pound). I expect that the price of lasers with this kind of capability will come down over time and that simultaneously, legislation to curb their availability and criminalize their misuse will occur. These kinds of lasers are somewhat dangerous toys in the hands of the well intentioned, but in the hands of crafty and mischievous malcontents. Thanks for that link. I got the 75mw Phoenix and well, its fantastic. I can see it on things several kms away, and it does look like it bounces of the moon. It is a perfect star pointer. Using my powers for good Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Is it just me....
David Hobby wrote: Eww! I think that is a pretty bad idea, at least for my part of the world. Just out of curiousity though, when you say 'language' do you mean just official languages or do the dialects also get to thump their chests and ask for a separate nation? Just languages! I'd even call Hindi and Urdu one language, if that helped. : ) *g* Depends on what you want to achieve really - it can certainly throw up a number of protests, marches, fiery speeches and the like. But we can always group Hindustani and its parent languages [Hindi and Urdu] together. :) Separate countries created this way could always decide to merge; I'm sure the three or four parts of Switzerland would. Yeah right. You create different states, make random politicians heads of state instead of mere heads of provinces/areas, and you expect them to give that up to merge...? Well, the PEOPLE would decide, in my system. It would just go to a popular vote. We can't trust politicians to decide things like this... Many countries exist for historical reasons, it's not clear to me that one should expend much energy trying to keep them together. What is wrong with historic reasons? Why should they be considered obviously inferior to linguistic or ethnic reasons? Historic reasons was my euphemism for somebody conquered all these places, and decided to call it a country. If history matters that much, the groups can always choose to stay together. I have never been a fan of keeping people in forcibly, but I do not share this love of dismemberment, David. :) Ritu-- I was overstating things to get a reaction, I guess. If a whole bunch of really different regions want to be one country, fine. On the other hand, what would be so wrong with them being many different countries, bound together as the countries in the EU are? I do agree with you, the people involved should get to decide. I'm not sure what the best mechanism for this would be. One could start by giving every linguistically (or however) distinct group its own homeland, ideally a place where they made up most of the population. (I'm not sure what to do with the Gypsies, for instance, assuming they'd want a homeland.) Who will 'give' these homelands? I'm presuming that the groups would already be in de facto possession of their homelands. Having to clear out the indigenous people to create a homeland for others is not an ideal solution! (This could now turn into an argument about Israel, but let's refrain.) And why is it a good idea to have distinct groups living in distinct localities? Well, it's not. It's something you would create if they demonstrated they can't share localities. But just having a homeland might take some pressure off of a group? Then once we have a rough idea of what the countries are, we get to negotiate their borders. Who is 'we' and who are 'they' whose borders 'we' get to negotiate? And why do 'we' get to negotiate 'their' borders? 'We' would include everybody involved. The group of neighboring countries, together with the outside power (hopefully the UN) who was trying to help produce a solution. You didn't think this was going to happen without an outside power intervening, did you? Some people would have to choose, then. If one was outside one's homeland, one could either move there, or stay where one was as a minority. Yeah, millions of muslims, sikhs, and hindus faced and made that choice in 1947. This might be a tangent, but here goes: The Hindus got India, the Muslims got Pakistan, and what region did the Sikhs get? Sikhs, along with Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, Chritians, Jews etc, got India. The demand was for a separate state for Muslims, and some of them got it and chose to move there. But more Muslims stayed in India than went to Pakistan, and there never was a demand for a separate homeland for Hindus. And neither was India ever meant for Hindus alone. There would have to be some carefully designed laws to stop minorities from being oppressed. Certainly they should always be able to get fair compensation for property they leave behind, and to then go to their homeland, or wherever. This is nice in theory but sometimes just doesn't work too well in practice. New nations are free to form their own constitutions, they are free to choose what rights they do or do not bestow upon their minorities. They are also free to choose just how often and how well these laws would be enforced. Property prices crash when the nation is in a turmoil due to a partition and relocation, government funds are tied up in protective and relief measures. New nations are also free to go to war with each other and then make it close to impossible for their new enemy's citizens to enter their nation. Ritu You have hit on
Re: Hello (hello, hello)
On Mar 25, 2006, at 6:56 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: On 3/24/06, Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Two strikes against this one: It's a song about music, which amounts to admitting that you have NOTHING left to write about but your job, and it's about the U.S.A., which says I am SUCH a loser that I have to kiss your national ass to get any airplay. So, I suppose if someone were to write a song claiming that they write the song that make the whole world sing, that would also be bad? Or would it be okay since he'd risen above jingoism? Would it be better or worse if he wrote songs that made young girls cry? And what if his songs made you dance and your heart take a chance? In the immoral words of Erik Reuter, please pay attention! :-) The songwriter in question would be quite well-covered in this thread: see recent entries for both Mandy and Copacabana. You may not know that there's a very fine archive for this community at www.mccmedia.com/pipermail/brin-l/. The thread goes back a couple of weeks, so take your time, enjoy a trip down musical memory lane (not to be confused with the Miracle Mile, which is mentioned in several songs not worth quoting, nor to be confused with Palisade Park). (Any bozo can copy and paste lyrics -- let's show some creativity, people.) And any number of us have done so. Do you have a point? And, to your point about creativity,l I didn't see anyone else mention Terpsichore... or post on-point lyrics to *his own song*. Dave I wrote /a/ song that made a middle-aged old girl laugh Land ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Seti at Home
Did anyone else get an email from [EMAIL PROTECTED] asking to participate in BOINC? We used to have a Brinellers group set up by Charlie Bell, IIRC. Thought on any of this anyone? Anyone? Amities, Jo Anne [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seti at Home
In a message dated 3/25/2006 2:17:53 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Did anyone else get an email from [EMAIL PROTECTED] asking to participate in BOINC? Boinc? Sounds like something Pinky would say. No email here. Vilyehm - Narf. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Seti at Home
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jo Anne Sent: March 25, 2006 5:54 PM To: brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: Seti at Home Did anyone else get an email from [EMAIL PROTECTED] asking to participate in BOINC? We used to have a Brinellers group set up by Charlie Bell, IIRC. Thought on any of this anyone? Anyone? Amities, Jo Anne [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Well Jo Anne after my last format, I went to download the installer as normal and I received the BOINC software... it is not bad at all IMO. And it seems to runner faster then the previous client. Cheers Nick -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.3.1/292 - Release Date: 24/03/2006 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Semi-OTC Lasers
Andrew Paul wrote: From: Robert G. Seeberger http://wickedlasers.com/ For the last few months you have been able to buy lasers that could pop balloons, melt trash bags, cut electrical tape, and melt through plastic. It is a fairly interesting advance in materials science that allows consumers to do such things with an over-the-counter product. (Of course, you aren't going to find these at your local electronics stores) The lasers here (especially the green ones) tout some amazing capabilities such as being visible(the priciest model) at 120 miles(193.12128 K)while using 3 volts of power supplied by everyday AA or AAA batteries that should last for 2 hours (2 metric hoursG) on a 100% duty cycle, even if the laser itself costs $2000 (1648 Euro/1129British pound). I expect that the price of lasers with this kind of capability will come down over time and that simultaneously, legislation to curb their availability and criminalize their misuse will occur. These kinds of lasers are somewhat dangerous toys in the hands of the well intentioned, but in the hands of crafty and mischievous malcontents. Thanks for that link. I got the 75mw Phoenix and well, its fantastic. I can see it on things several kms away, and it does look like it bounces of the moon. It is a perfect star pointer. Using my powers for good Maru You are very welcome!G Being all sci-fi fans means that some of us are going to be futurists of some stripe. And if you are the kind of person who gets worked up about the future.well dammit, you just gotta have a laser! Now that you got the biggest stick on the block, I suppose we have to start treating you with respect..NOT! G xponent Wielders Of Coherent Beams Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seti at Home
Jo Anne wrote: Did anyone else get an email from [EMAIL PROTECTED] asking to participate in BOINC? We used to have a Brinellers group set up by Charlie Bell, IIRC. Thought on any of this anyone? Anyone? The Brinnellers is still an ongoing concern. But I don't know that Charlie pays it much attention anymore. Dave *was* at the top of the list before they did some re-organisation, but at the moment I seem to be the only active member. Somehow, that makes me Number1!!! (I'm the only one who shows up on the page for our team today.) http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=37807 Actually I was at 3 or 4 on the Brinneller team for the last while. Charlie *might* be able to get the list of contributors accurate again if I understand this Boinc setup correctly. xponent Boinc Boinc Boinc..Now Isn't That Fun! Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Anime tonight
Of course princess Mononoke is on right now. But the good news is that FullMetal Alchemist restarts with the first episode tonight. Everybody really should check this out. After 5 or 6 episodes not only will you be hooked, but you will find it tasty and filled with meaty goodness. (In other words, the story is complex enough to satisfy and is worthy of conversation.) xponent Just Ask Steve Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seti at Home
On Mar 26, 2006, at 11:27 AM, Robert Seeberger wrote: Jo Anne wrote: Did anyone else get an email from [EMAIL PROTECTED] asking to participate in BOINC? We used to have a Brinellers group set up by Charlie Bell, IIRC. Thought on any of this anyone? Anyone? The Brinnellers is still an ongoing concern. But I don't know that Charlie pays it much attention anymore. Nope. Don't have a 24/7 PC, just my laptop. Might run some distributed computing thang when my main pc arrives in oz. but may not. Charlie *might* be able to get the list of contributors accurate again if I understand this Boinc setup correctly. Unlikely! But I'll give it a go if/when I'm back on a desktop machine. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello (hello, hello)
Dave Land wrote: In the immoral words of Erik Reuter Typo, or Freudian slip? Reggie Tell Us How You Really Feel Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello (hello, hello)
On Mar 25, 2006, at 6:56 AM, Nick Arnett wrote: On 3/24/06, Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Two strikes against this one: It's a song about music, which amounts to admitting that you have NOTHING left to write about but your job, and it's about the U.S.A., which says I am SUCH a loser that I have to kiss your national ass to get any airplay. So, I suppose if someone were to write a song claiming that they write the song that make the whole world sing, that would also be bad? Or would it be okay since he'd risen above jingoism? Would it be better or worse if he wrote songs that made young girls cry? And what if his songs made you dance and your heart take a chance? In the immoral words of Erik Reuter, please pay attention! :-) The songwriter in question would be quite well-covered in this thread: see recent entries for both Mandy and Copacabana. You may not know that there's a very fine archive for this community at www.mccmedia.com/pipermail/brin-l/. The thread goes back a couple of weeks, so take your time, enjoy a trip down musical memory lane (not to be confused with the Miracle Mile, which is mentioned in several songs not worth quoting, nor to be confused with Palisade Park). (Any bozo can copy and paste lyrics -- let's show some creativity, people.) And any number of us have done so. Do you have a point? And, to your point about creativity,l I didn't see anyone else mention Terpsichore... or post on-point lyrics to *his own song*. Dave I wrote /a/ song that made a middle-aged old girl laugh Land ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hello (hello, hello)
On Mar 25, 2006, at 9:22 PM, Reggie Bautista wrote: Dave Land wrote: In the immoral words of Erik Reuter Typo, or Freudian slip? Friendly good humor, one would hope. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seti at Home
On Mar 25, 2006, at 1:24 PM, Jo Anne wrote: Did anyone else get an email from [EMAIL PROTECTED] asking to participate in BOINC? We used to have a Brinellers group set up by Charlie Bell, IIRC. Thought on any of this anyone? Anyone? I did get the letter, nicely customized and thanking me for the 7-2/3 years (about 4800 units processed) of CPU time I'd donated to the project so far. When I was an IT manager, I could commandeer a lot of CPUs. Anyway, I'm folding proteins these days. A little more down-to-earth; might just save lives. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
