from:"Robert G. Seeberger"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070514/en_nm/nbc_dc_3;_ylt=Au.KUkRIoWmf.JeQkornKdIE1vAI

http://tinyurl.com/2lwg5g



The struggling NBC network is turning to science fiction this fall in 
a bid to lift ratings and appease advertisers and investors, 
announcing several new dramas whose story lines range from robotics to 
time travel.
Taking the wraps off its fall prime-time schedule on Monday, NBC 
executives made it clear they were hoping to build on the success of 
the network's supernatural hit Heroes by introducing sci-fi dramas 
Journeyman, Chuck and The Bionic Woman for the 2007-08 broadcast 
season.

The lineup is crucial for NBC, which has languished in a ratings rut 
since longtime comedy favorites Friends and Frasier ended three 
years ago. The network trails in fourth place behind News Corp.'s Fox, 
CBS and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC in the Nielsen rankings.

I really feel great about what we're going to be rolling out today, 
NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly said during a conference call 
before the network officially unveils its new programming schedule to 
advertisers later on Monday.

We've got quality, and we're going to build out and add some breadth 
to our schedule, which is what we've needed, he added in introducing 
the lineup of five new dramas and one new comedy show.

The General Electric Co.-controlled broadcaster is kicking off the 
annual upfront advertising market, in which some $9 billion in 
prime-time commercial commitments for the 2007-08 broadcast will be 
booked.

Negotiations between advertisers and the networks are likely to take 
longer than usual this year as both sides try to find out how to best 
structure deals to fit the changing TV landscape.

The spread of digital video recorders and the broadcast of shows over 
the Internet have transformed the way Americans watch TV. Audience 
measurement standards are also changing. New ratings, slated for wide 
availability this year, will count how many people watch commercials 
or recordings of shows.

NBC executives have responded by aggressively pushing digital deals, 
saying on Monday that all programming will carry features such as 
virtual tours of show sets.

The company's move toward digital was underscored recently when parent 
NBC Universal reached a deal with News Corp. to launch this summer a 
free online video site featuring movies and TV shows. Analysts see the 
venture as an attempt to challenge Google Inc.'s highly popular 
YouTube.

FALL LINEUP

NBC's schedule will get close scrutiny, given the pressure it is under 
to improve ratings. Some Wall Street analysts have even floated the 
idea that GE spin off NBC Universal because of its lackluster 
performance.

New shows will include a remake of the 1970s series The Bionic 
Woman, a drama about a time-traveling journalist called Journeyman, 
and Chuck, about a young computer whiz who becomes a government 
agent after espionage secrets are downloaded into his brain.

NBC also has ordered a second season of its critically praised but 
low-rated teen football drama, Friday Night Lights, which won the 
prestigious Peabody Award last month.

Other shows coming back next season include weight-loss reality show 
The Biggest Loser, workplace satire The Office, network TV parody 
30 Rock, game show Deal or No Deal, blue-collar comedy My Name Is 
Earl, casino drama Las Vegas, hospital comedy Scrubs, medical 
melodrama ER, and the legal hours Law  Order and Law  Order: 
SVU.

Another Law  Order spinoff, Criminal Intent, will move to NBC 
Universal's USA cable network for original broadcasts. Repeats will 
then run on NBC, a reversal of the normal pattern where shows first 
air on broadcast and then move to cable.

NBC canceled the veteran coroner drama Crossing Jordan and a new 
series from The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin, Studio 60 on the 
Sunset Strip, while saying it has not yet decided on the fate of real 
estate mogul Donald Trump's The Apprentice.

Besides The Bionic Woman, Journeyman and Chuck, NBC is picking 
up a new cop drama, Life, about a wrongly imprisoned police officer 
returning to the force.

NBC is also picking up variety and game shows 1 Vs. 100 and The 
Singing Bee, which will run for eight and six weeks, respectively, in 
the fall.

Later in the year, NBC will roll out The Lipstick Jungle, based on a 
best-selling book by Sex and the City writer Candace Bushnell. It 
will also introduce the IT Crowd, a comedy about misunderstood 
techies, during the 2007-08 season.



***

The penultimate Heroes airs tonight, next week the finale.

It was a fun series this season!



xponent

Hiros Maru

rob


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Political Dementia

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/05/13/pulp_affection/

When asked recently by a Fox News interviewer to name his favorite 
novel, Mitt Romney's answer, the 1982 science-fiction epic 
Battlefield Earth, raised eyebrows across the political spectrum. As 
if reassuring the general public about his Mormonism wasn't enough of 
a hurdle for the GOP presidential hopeful, now Romney was praising a 
book by...L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology?

There must be something we can learn about Romney by examining this 
answer, wrote Slate's John Dickerson, capturing the sentiment of the 
pundit class. But after cracking a few jokes about the book's 
far-fetched plot -- in which a ragtag band of humans struggles to rid 
earth of its alien overlords -- and Hubbard's slipshod prose style, 
Dickerson shrugged his shoulders and lamely concluded: You simply 
need a deep level of weird to like 'Battlefield Earth.'

Unlike the other pundits and bloggers who've weighed in on this topic, 
Dickerson admits that he hasn't actually finished the book. But some 
of us who have devoured the 1,000-plus pages of Battlefield Earth 
bristle at the notion that there's something inherently kooky about 
doing so.

In fact, Battlefield Earth -- which touts the value of pulling 
yourself up by your bootstraps, overcoming the circumstances of your 
birth thanks to education and diligent effort, and fighting for a 
cause you believe in no matter how daunting the odds -- is precisely 
the kind of all-American novel that most of our politicians only 
pretend to admire.

Still, there's no denying it was a political gaffe. MSNBC talking-head 
Tucker Carlson told his viewers: I am concerned about what our 
potential president is putting into his brain. Voluntarily reading L. 
Ron Hubbard, as a novelist, I think it's a real red flag.

The damage-control team mobilized, and Romney soon announced that 
Hubbard's book was merely his favorite science-fiction novel, while 
his favorite novel was Twain's Huckleberry Finn, just the kind of 
safe choice he no doubt wishes he'd started with. This prompted the 
Boston Herald headline, Mitt's new flip-flop is out of this world.

And yet, Romney's favorite book doesn't suggest that he's a closet 
Scientologist. Battlefield Earth is straight-up pulp fiction, like 
the innumerable science fiction, fantasy, and adventure stories and 
novellas that Hubbard -- employing red-blooded pseudonyms like 
Lieutenant Scott Morgan, Joe Blitz, and Winchester Remington Colt --  
penned in the 1930s. Hubbard himself said that Battlefield had 
nothing to do with Scientology, the religion he developed out of 
Dianetics, a self-help technique he'd invented in the late '40s. This 
reader agrees: Unlike the symbolically loaded Narnia books of C.S. 
Lewis, for example, religious apologetics are nowhere in evidence in 
Battlefield.

Instead, the book's plot concerns Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, a primitive 
tribesman who learns, after he's captured in the ruins of Denver by a 
fearsome alien named Terl (played in the 2000 movie version by a 
dreadlock-sporting John Travolta), that earth was conquered by Terl's 
race 1,000 years ago. Jonnie decides to teach himself all of 
humankind's forgotten science, then use the knowledge to defeat the 
aliens. By the end of the story, Jonnie has not only freed the earth 
but united the rest of the universe in the interstellar struggle 
against tyranny.

True, the book isn't particularly well-written. I discovered it when I 
was 15, and although I was an omnivorous reader, even then I 
recognized that Hubbard was nowhere near as talented a stylist as 
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Dashiell Hammett, Philip K. Dick, or certain 
other pulp authors. That said, Battlefield is no worse than some of 
the lesser works of, say, science-fiction giant Robert Heinlein (who 
called it a terrific story).

Battlefield falls in a well-established sub-genre of speculative 
fiction known as post-apocalyptic. These novels center on an 
alternate reality in which life as we know it has been dramatically 
altered -- by flood, fire, famine, or by nuclear war, environmental 
catastrophe, a pandemic, meteorites, or even alien invaders. Indeed, 
it could easily be argued that fans of post-apocalyptic fiction are 
big-thinking idealists: Readers of Battlefield Earth and its ilk 
aren't weird; they're worried about where our society is headed, and 
whether we have what it takes to defend our way of life. The real 
weirdos are those who never give a thought to such things.

So what might Romney's bedside reading reveal about the former 
governor of Massachusetts? OK, maybe it indicates that he's an 
overgrown adolescent lost in fantasies about saving the world...or 
that his high school teacher should have introduced him to superior 
post-apocalyptic novels, like Nevil Shute's On the Beach, Kurt 
Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, or Walter M. Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for 
Leibowitz.

But it might also mean that Romney, despite

Re: Political Dementia


On 5/14/2007 4:51:51 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Hey! I read _Battlefield Earth_ when I was a teen too, and enjoyed 
 it. I
 am no more a Scientologist because of it today than back then. The 
 author
 of the article was right: the book was pure pulpy space opera...


Well, I agree, and I too read BE when I was young. (and liked it)
But I think the point is that the book barely makes the threshold for 
memorability since it  is pretty well crap from beginning to end, and 
would be completely forgotten if not for the efforts of those who 
purchase the same book over and over to achieve an end. You are aware 
of their system?

And so, how old is Mitt Romney anyway? Don't you think he is old 
enough to have grown a sense of taste?

And just where does the crap threshold lie?
I'd mark it above BE.


xponent
Opinions Maru
rob 


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Re: Political Dementia


On 5/14/2007 8:28:59 PM, Ronn! Blankenship 
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 At 05:38 PM Monday 5/14/2007, jon louis mann wrote:
 i don't
 understand why all these fantasy series are more popular with adult
 audiences...


 Perhaps because with all the FUD over things like GM food and 
 climate
 change in the news every day SF seems entirely too close to the
 frightening reality?


I think that is likely true.
But I think you also have to factor in the desire to not do too much 
thinking.
That mode is ever present to some degree, but I think we are in one of 
those periods where it has been more dominant. Take the lack of 
interest (with the recent exception of federal elections) in politics 
as an example.
Maybe it is that people don't want to be bothered with subjects that 
require the level of thought that might be considered work.

I don't believe that what I'm saying applies to everyone or even 
necessarily a majority, but enough people that one can identify the 
trend.
Of course my opinions are colored somewhat due to constant exposure to 
construction workers and other blue collar sorts. It is an odd 
occasion when I find myself in a discussion with a co-worker outside 
of the modern equivelents of neolithic conversational topics (hunting, 
fishing, guns, television, and cars).
It is an odd sort of orthodoxy.

xponent
Catholic Maru
rob 


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Encyclopedia of Life: Better Than Wikipedia?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/13/encyclopedia-of-life-better-than-wikipedia/


Formally announced during the week with funding of $12.5 million, 
Encyclopedia of Life ( http://www.eol.org/ ) aims to be an online 
reference source and database for every one of the 1.8 million species 
that are named and known on earth.
Encyclopedia of Life is a collaborative effort. Tens of thousands of 
citizen scientists with expertise around the world are responsible for 
the creation of content.

The Encyclopedia will be developed by bringing mashups of content from 
a wide variety of sources. This material will then be authenticated by 
scientists so that information listed is vetted and known to be 
authoritative. Data is then supplemented when and where new data is 
discovered in the field - from scientists across the globe - to ensure 
it stays current. Software tools will mine scientific literature in 
order to provide regular updates from external sources.

Encyclopedia of Life is being developed to serve as a comprehensive 
resource for everyone; scientist, teacher, student, media, any 
interested party. The Encyclopedia's goal is to become a valuable 
learning and teaching resource for anyone who has an interest in life 
on Earth.

But is it better than Wikipedia?

Thomas Goetz writes at Epidemix that Wikipedia sucks when it comes to 
Science topics, not for being inaccurate, but unapproachable. On 
science, there's a oneupmanship going on, and a topic will be honed to 
an ever-greater level of expertise. That's great for precision and 
depth, but horrible for the general user.

Without seeing more than screen shots of ,the final product at 
Encyclopedia of Life it's difficult to judge decisively whether the 
new comer will be superior to Wikipedia on Science, and yet it sounds 
far more approachable in terms of readability. Visually Encyclopedia 
of Life wins by a country mile.

Will Encyclopedia of Life be better than Wikipedia?





I welcome multiple sources for reseaching interesting subjects. There 
are just never enough of them.



xponent

By Way Of Introduction Maru

rob


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Shaping the future

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/05/shaping_the_future.html

Herein, the (choose your superlative) Charlie Stross cogitates on the 
future and what it may bring.
This folks, is one of those really good and interesting essays, the 
kind one waits around for years to read. There is a lot of meat in 
here to chew on.

Interestingly, several subjects we have discussed here recently get a 
going over or are mentioned.
How many essays have you read that mention the Singularity and 
Geocaching on the same page?
You might think Stross was lurking here G

(BTW, I just finished Accelerando and am in the middle of The Jennifer 
Morgue)

xponent
Submitted For Your Approval Maru
rob 


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Re: Shaping the future


On 5/13/2007 9:09:13 PM, Ronn! Blankenship 
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 At 08:50 PM Sunday 5/13/2007, Robert G. Seeberger wrote:
 Herein,



 Wherein?



 the (choose your superlative) Charlie Stross cogitates on the
 future and what it may bring.
 This folks, is one of those really good and interesting essays, the
 kind one waits around for years to read. There is a lot of meat in
 here to chew on.
 
 Interestingly, several subjects we have discussed here recently get 
 a
 going over or are mentioned.
 How many essays have you read that mention the Singularity and
 Geocaching on the same page?
 You might think Stross was lurking here G
 
 (BTW, I just finished Accelerando and am in the middle of The 
 Jennifer
 Morgue)



 Liked the latter better than the former.  Preferred _Iron Sunrise_ 
 to
 either.


It's all good baby!

xponent
Strossian Maru
rob 


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What happens to people when they get old?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frauenfelder/sets/72157600208546405/detail/

The kids at my daughter's pre-school were asked to describe what 
happens to people when they get old.


***

Some of these are pretty funny.



xponent
The Kids Are Alright Maru
rob 


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Re: Presented without comment.

2007-05-12 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 5/12/2007 1:26:38 PM, Ronn! Blankenship 
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 Throat cancer linked to virus spread by sex
 Cancer of the throat and tonsils can arise from infection with a
 sexually transmitted virus.
 http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070512/fob1.asp


Wel...That Sucks!



xponent
Minimal Added Value Maru
rob 


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Re: Irregulars Question: Screws

2007-05-11 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 5/11/2007 7:45:36 PM, Ronn! Blankenship 
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 Not that kind.  Get your mind out of the gutter.


 There are screws which have a hexagonal-shaped depression in the 
 head
 which require a tool which is variously called an Allen wrench or 
 a
 hex key to turn them.  Then there are some which have a hexagonal
 depression in the head but instead of being flat the bottom of the
 depression has a raised bump in the center, which means that a
 regular Allen wrench or hex key will not go far enough down into the
 depression to turn them.  (Which I think is the point.)  Any of you
 engineering types or handypersons know what the latter are properly
 called?  I need to open something to [attempt to] repair it, and it
 is held together with that type of screws, and since all I have are
 regular hex keys (some plain, some with ball ends), I need to know
 what kind of tool to get in order to remove and replace those
 screws.  I've tried searching on-line for things like hex key and
 bump together, with no luck so far . . .

 TIA.

Easy one!
What you have is an Allen Head Security Screw AKA Allen Head Tamper 
Resistant Screw.
That little bump is there to keep people (unqualified people you might 
say) out.
I have several security tip sets and they are somewhat hard to find. I 
know you can get them at Frys (well.an overpriced mediocre set), 
and I have found them at a couple of computer/electronics stores. (The 
kind of electronics store that sells resistors and capacitors mind 
you)
You won't find them at a hardware store.
http://www.brycefastener.com/?gclid=COaY7OXCh4wCFQlFUAoddxx86Q

But you can find them if you are persistant.

xponent
Tools Maru
rob 


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Sci-Fi Channel to add Anime Block

2007-05-06 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-05-05/sci-fi-channel-launches-anime-block

http://tinyurl.com/2wu6pt


Broadcasting  Cable reports that on June 11, the Sci Fi Channel will 
premiere Ani-Monday, a weekly two-hour block of anime programming. 
Episodes, films, and other content for the block will be provided by 
Manga Entertainment, a unit of Starz Media. Starz is the production 
company behind Sci Fi's original series Painkiller Jane. According to 
Sci Fi executive vice-president Dave Howe, this block is a part of an 
overall initiative to redefine Sci Fi as a lifestyle brand, not just 
a cable TV channel.

The new block, which will air from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., is 
intended to directly compete with Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block. 
Broadcasting  Cable reports that through the first months of this 
year, Adult Swim has averaged 281,000 male viewers aged 18-34 during 
that timeslot. For the same age bracket and timeslot, Sci Fi Channel's 
average was 44,000 viewers.



http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6439376.html





In an attempt to lure younger viewers and expand the reach of its 
brand, Sci Fi Channel is launching Ani-Monday, a two-hour late-night 
block of anime programming. Set to premiere June 11, the slate will 
put the network in direct competition with Cartoon Network's 
late-night ratings powerhouse Adult Swim, which programs anime as 
well.

Running from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., the block will include acquired 
series, movies and shorts.

The content comes from Manga, one of three major U.S. anime 
distributors and a unit of Starz Media, which produces Sci Fi's 
live-action original Painkiller Jane, among other network shows.

Sci Fi, which signed a one-year deal with Starz, is aiming to better 
reach an 18- to 34-year-old male audience and convert those new 
viewers into fans of Sci Fi's other content.

If successful, the move would lower the network's median age 
(currently about 45) and hopefully attract more advertising from young 
male-targeting categories, like movies and electronics. Sci Fi would 
then likely work the formula across other nights.

The network recently got approval from parent company NBC Universal to 
start a business division, which is producing Sci Fi-branded comic 
books in partnership with Virgin Comics. Sci Fi is also considering 
feature films, videogames and mobile products.

This is part of a whole initiative to target a youth audience and 
figure out how we start to transform the Sci Fi brand away from just 
being a TV cable brand and more into a lifestyle brand that can move 
into other levels, says Executive VP/GM Dave Howe.

Sci Fi has been eyeing late night for years and enters the market at a 
time when the daypart has never been more competitive. Late-night ad 
revenue reached nearly $1 billion for broadcast alone last year, and 
cable networks are increasingly programming in that time period as 
well.

Sci Fi will most directly battle Adult Swim, which targets the same 
young-male audience and programs six nights a week for a total of 45 
hours. (Cartoon Network recently announced a move to expand the block 
to include Fridays.)

For 2007 to date, Adult Swim has averaged 281,000 viewers among men 
18-34 from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. for the six days it programs. For the 
same period, Sci Fi averaged 44,000 males age 18-34 from 11 p.m. to 1 
a.m. on those days. Currently, Sci Fi runs acquired movies during 
those hours. By comparison, the network averaged 121,000 males 18-34 
during prime hours 8-11 p.m.

Viacom's Comedy Central lures just as many 18-34 males as Cartoon with 
its Daily Show/Colbert Report late-night salvo.

And Turner's comedy-focused TBS has also added originals to its 
late-night hours over the past year, including half-hour comedies and 
last summer's experimental, live interactive game show Midnight Money 
Madness.





Is it just me, or is Sci-Fi as a lifestyle brand hilarious?

The blocks premier offering will be Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone 
Complex - Solid State Society. This is a movie, not a half hour 
series.



xponent

Up Too Early Maru

rob




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Re: Cost of conservation

2007-05-05 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 5/5/2007 6:41:18 PM, Andrew Crystall ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 
wrote:
 On 5 May 2007 at 13:20, Robert Seeberger wrote:

  My personal opinion is that we should not be encouraging the 
  burning
  of fuels at all (WRT automobiles). We should be encouraging 
  electric
  powered vehicles. Certainly, there is an issue with range that has 
  not

 That's not really a help. The power comes from mostly fossil-fuel
 burning power stations,

It doesn't have to. Here in Texas, we lead the US in wind power 
production and we do have nukes.nukes that are being expanded as 
we speak. If you want to get away from fossil fuels and oil cartel 
influence, then automobiles are a good place to start. (Even though 
they account for only 10% of carbon emissions.)


and the car performance really suffers.

Where do you get that idea? In every aspect but range, electrics offer 
superior performance. And range is on it's way to being conquered.


 Hydrogen-leeching fuel cells now, that extract hydrogen from petrol
 (and can thus use the existing infrastructure), to get roughly twice
 the efficientcy...THAT is a tech to push development of IMO.

The problem with fuel cells is that they are expensive, glitchy, and 
certain to be problematic for your average end user. I like fuel 
cells, but I see a lot of high hurdles for them to overcome. 
Impurities in fuels can ruin them. You have to deal with the process 
leftovers (What do you do with the leftover carbon from your daily 
commute?).
The worst thing about the kind of fuel cells you are promoting is that 
they are only a little better than ICengines and you are still 
importing oil.

To be fair, the situation here is somewhat different that the 
situation in Britain. If we were to go all electric magically 
overnight, we could generate electricity with natural gas for a number 
of years without importing much at all. I don't think the UK is in 
such a fortunate position (but I would be glad to know I am wrong in 
that).

One thing I have noted. the big auto makers are dragging their feet 
when it comes to alternatively powered vehicles, trying to shoehorn 
gasoline or diesel into the vehicles at any cost. A bit of googleing 
will show that there *are* alternatives that work, but don't get much 
notice.


xponent
Powered By Electrons Maru
rob 


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Re: Re Cost of conservation

2007-05-04 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 5/4/2007 7:53:47 PM, Ronn! Blankenship 
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 At 01:42 PM Friday 5/4/2007, Martin Lewis wrote:
 On 5/4/07, Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
   Indeed, Gautam made a good argument here that environmental 
   policy
 and
   environmentalist claims is a major contributor to the death of 1
   million/year due to malaria.  The US used DDT as part of its
 elimination of
   malaria.  No human deaths were attributed to DDT.  Instead, 
   there was
 an
   extremely strong correlation that, in all likelihood, was due to 
   the
 DDT
   use, between this use and the drop in the death rate.
 
   snip
 
   I can't quite tell, what is your exact claim about DDT here?
 
   Martin


 Using it saves human lives.  Banning it cost human lives.  Banning 
 it
 says that obviously the eggs of a few raptors in California are more
 valuable than the lives of myriads of little black human babies in
 sub-Saharan Africa.


I don't think it is a binary question at all.
DDT, like many other chemicals can be used safely (WRT wildlife *and* 
humans) if it is used judiciously and not just dumped on the landscape 
as a general pesticide.

I recall Gautam specifying DDT impregnated mosquito netting as a way 
to save many thousands of lives. Even if the netting were to be 
disposed of carelessly(after it has become useless for whatever 
reason), it would carry only a small payload into the ecosystem.

It seems to me that the real problem is the greed of the chemical 
industry, they promote ariel spraying of pesticides and other unsecure 
methods.
A secondary problem is the desire of farmers to protect a greater 
share of their yield from pests.
Both of these examples reveal a mindset that unjudiciously causes 
large amounts of useful chemicals to leak into areas (of the 
biosphere) that are owned by others and/or are beyond human control.

xponent
Rambling Maru
rob 


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Fake Sci-Fi Heroics 1979-1980

2007-04-28 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

This is an amazing story and is purportedly true. I've seen some 
corroborating evidence that supports the story from other sources.



http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/feat_cia.html

How the CIA used a fake science fiction film to sneak six Americans 
out of revolutionary Iran.

November 4, 1979, began like any other day at the US embassy in 
Tehran. The staff filtered in under gray skies, the marines manned 
their posts, and the daily crush of anti-American protestors massed 
outside the gate chanting, Allahu akbar! Marg bar Amrika!

Mark and Cora Lijek, a young couple serving in their first foreign 
service post, knew the slogans - God is great! Death to America! - 
and had learned to ignore the din as they went about their duties. But 
today, the protest sounded louder than usual. And when some of the 
local employees came in and said there was a problem at the gate, 
they knew this morning would be different. Militant students were soon 
scaling the walls of the embassy complex. Someone forced open the 
front gate, and the trickle of invaders became a flood. The mob 
quickly fanned across the 27-acre compound, waving posters of the 
Ayatollah Khomeini. They took the ambassador's residence, then set 
upon the chancery, the citadel of the embassy where most of the staff 
was stationed.

At first, the Lijeks hoped the consulate building where they worked 
would escape notice. Because of recent renovations, the ground floor 
was mostly empty. Perhaps no one would suspect that 12 Americans and a 
few dozen Iranian employees and visa applicants were upstairs. The 
group included consular officer Joseph Stafford, his assistant and 
wife, Kathleen, and Robert Anders, a senior officer in the visa 
department.

They tried to keep calm, and even to continue working. But then the 
power went out and panic spread throughout the building. The Iranian 
employees, who knew the revolutionary forces' predilection for firing 
squads, braced for the worst. There's someone on the roof, one 
Iranian worker said, trembling. Another smelled smoke. People began to 
weep in the dark, convinced the militants would try to burn down the 
building. Outside, the roar of the victorious mob grew louder. There 
were occasional gunshots. It was time to flee.

The Americans destroyed the plates used to make visa stamps, organized 
an evacuation plan, and ushered everyone to the back door. We'll 
leave in groups of five or six, the marine sergeant on duty said. 
Locals first. Then the married couples. Then the rest. The consulate 
building was the only structure in the compound with an exit on the 
street. The goal was to make it to the British embassy about six 
blocks away.

It was pouring rain when they opened the heavy roll-down steel doors. 
The street was mercifully empty. One group turned north, only to be 
captured moments later and marched back to the embassy at gunpoint.

Heading west, the Staffords, the Lijeks, Anders, and several Iranians 
avoided detection. They had almost reached the British embassy when 
they encountered yet another demonstration. A local in their group 
gave some quick advice - Don't go that way - and then she melted 
into the crowd. The group zigzagged to Anders' nearby apartment, at 
one point sneaking single-file past an office used by the komiteh, one 
of the gun-wielding, self-appointed bands of revolutionaries that 
controlled much of Tehran.

They locked the door and switched on Anders' lunch-box radio, a 
standard-issue escape and evade device that could connect with the 
embassy's radio network. Marines were squawking frantically, trying to 
coordinate with one another. Someone calling himself Codename Palm 
Tree was relaying a bird's-eye view of the takeover: There are rifles 
and weapons being brought into the compound. This was Henry Lee 
Schatz, an agricultural attach who was watching the scene from his 
sixth-floor office in a building across the street from the compound. 
They're being unloaded from trucks.

The Iran hostage crisis, which would go on for 444 days, shaking 
America's confidence and sinking President Jimmy Carter's reelection 
campaign, had begun. Americans would soon be haunted by Khomeini's 
grim visage, and well-armed Islamic militants would parade blindfolded 
hostages across the nightly news and threaten trials for the spies 
that they'd captured. Everyone remembers the 52 Americans trapped at 
the embassy and the failed rescue attempt a few months later that 
ended with a disastrous Army helicopter crash in the Iranian desert. 
But not many know the long- classified details of the CIA's 
involvement in the escape of the other group - thrust into a hostile 
city in the throes of revolution.

By 3 o'clock that afternoon, the five people huddled in Anders' 
one-bedroom apartment realized they were in serious trouble. As the 
militants seized control, there were fewer English speakers on the 
radio net. Codename Palm Tree had fled. After the last holdouts in the

CGI Nazi Mech Attack

2007-04-28 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Code Guardian, a CGI film by Marco Spitoni is a short film about an 
attack by Nazi Mechs during WW2.


http://www.cee-gee.net/Movies/Movies.htm

Or if you want it quick and don't mind the lower quality:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NWBKSO4DvWk
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3wfSHV4zYMwmode=relatedsearch=


This guys does some nifty work.


xponent
High Geek Value Maru
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HOW MANY LIST MEMBERS DOES IT TALE TO CHANGE A LIGHT BULB?

2007-04-28 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Per Judith Hanford:


HOW MANY LIST MEMBERS DOES IT TALE TO CHANGE A LIGHT BULB?


One to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been 
changed.

Fourteen to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how 
the light
bulb could have been changed differently.

Seven to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.

Seven more to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about 
changing light
bulbs.

Five to flame the spell checkers.

Three to correct spelling/grammar flames.

Six to argue over whether it's light bulb or lightbulb  
another six to
condemn those six as stupid.

Fifteen to claim experience in the lighting industry and give the 
correct
spelling.

Nineteen to post that this group is not about light bulbs and to 
please take
this discussion to a light bulb (or light bulb) forum.

Eleven to defend the posting to the group saying that we all use light 
bulbs and
therefore the posts are relevant to this group.

Thirty six to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, 
where to
buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this 
technique
and what brands are faulty.

Seven to post URLs where one can see examples of different light 
bulbs.

Four to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly and then post the 
corrected
URL.

Three to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant 
to this
group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group.

Thirteen to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety 
including all
headers and signatures, and add Me too.

Five to post to the group that they will no longer post because they 
cannot
handle the light bulb controversy.

Four to say didn't we go through this already a short time ago?

Thirteen to say do a Google search on light bulbs before posting 
questions
about light bulbs

Three to tell a funny story about their cat and a light bulb.

AND

One group lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and 
start it
all over again.



xponent
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Re: Ping?

2007-04-23 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 4/23/2007 9:19:33 PM, Nick Arnett ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 It's been so quiet... Just thought I'd make sure the list server is
 really
 working...


I know what you mean.
It feels strange when the list suddenly gets quiet like this.


xponent
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Baby Got Back - Gilbert and Sullivan Style

2007-04-23 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkJdEFf_Qg4mode=relatedsearch=


Pretty damn funny!
And well done to boot!


xponent
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Your Military Dollars At Work

2007-04-23 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEkYqL9n7vomode=relatedsearch=


Well..it is good to see our people having fun!



xponent
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I have a new hero

2007-04-18 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liviu_Librescu

Liviu Librescu (August 18, 1930 - April 16, 2007) was a Romanian-born 
Israeli professor, whose most recent position was Professor of 
Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Tech. His major research 
fields were Aeroelasticity and Unsteady aerodynamics. The 76 year-old 
Holocaust survivor was shot and killed in the Virginia Tech massacre 
while holding off the gunman at his lecture hall entrance so his 
students could escape.

Liviu Librescu was born in 1930 to a Jewish family in the city of 
Ploiesti, Romania. During World War II, his father, a lawyer, was 
interned in a labor camp in Transnistria  while Liviu Librescu lived 
in the ghetto of Focsani. He survived the Holocaust to become an 
accomplished scientist in Romania.

Librescu studied Aerospace Engineering at the Polytechnic University 
of Bucharest, graduating in 1952 and continuing with a master at the 
same university. He was awarded his Ph.D. in Fluid Mechanics in 1969 
at the Academia de Stiinte din România.

From 1953 to 1975 he worked as a researcher at Institute of Applied 
Mechanics, Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Institute of Fluid 
Mechanics and Aerospace Constructions of Academy of Science of 
Romania.

Under the Romanian communist regime at the time, he was unable to 
emigrate to Israel. Eventually, the government permitted him to leave, 
but only after a direct request was made by the Prime Minister of 
Israel Menachem Begin to President of Romania Nicolae Ceausescu.

Librescu emigrated to Israel in 1978. From 1979 to 1986 he was 
Professor of Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering at Tel-Aviv 
University.

From 1985 until his death, he served as Professor at Virginia Tech. He 
served as a member on the editorial board of seven scientific journals 
and was invited as a guest editor of special issues of five other 
journals. According to his wife, no other Virginia Tech professor has 
ever published more articles than Librescu.

Librescu is survived by his wife, Marilena, and his sons Joseph and 
Lionel.

At age 76, Librescu was among the thirty-two people who were murdered 
in the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007. He was killed during 
a class in the Norris Hall Engineering Building by a student (Cho 
Seung-hui, 23). Librescu held the door of his classroom shut while Cho 
was attempting to enter it; although he was shot through the door, he 
was able to prevent the gunman from entering the classroom until his 
students had escaped through the windows. A number of Librescu's 
students have called him a hero because of his actions, with one 
student, Asael Arad, saying that all the professor's students lived 
because of him. Librescu's son, Joe, said he had received e-mails 
from several students who said he had saved their lives and regarded 
him as a hero  whilst many newspapers also reported him as the hero of 
the massacre. His death came on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom 
Hashoah, in Israel and Judaism. According to the family wishes, he 
will be buried in Israel.

Librescu received many academic honors during his work at Virginia 
Tech, serving as chair or invited as a keynote speaker of several 
International Congresses on Thermal Stresses and receiving several 
honorary degrees. He was elected member of the Academy of Sciences of 
the Shipbuilding of Ukraine (2000) and Foreign Fellow of the Academy 
of Engineering of Armenia (1999). He was a recipient of Doctor Honoris 
Causa of the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest (2000), of the 1999 
Dean's Award for Excellence in Research, College of Engineering at 
Virginia Tech, and a laureate of the Traian Vuia Prize of the 
Romanian Academy (1972). He was a member of the Board of Experts of 
the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Scientific Research. 
He was awarded a Frank J. Maher Award for Excellence in Engineering 
Education (2005) and an ASME diploma expressing the deep appreciation 
for the valuable services in advancing the engineering profession.

Posthumously, Professor Librescu was commended by the President of 
Romania with the Star of Romania Order in the grade of Great Cross, 
as a token of high appreciation for the entire scientific and 
universitarian activity, as well as for his heroic acts during the 
tragic events of April 16th 2007 in the Virginia Polytechnic Institute 
and State University campus, when professor Librescu saved his 
students' lives at the cost of his own.



xponent

Partaking Of Greatness Maru

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Re: Virginia Tech shootings

2007-04-16 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 4/16/2007 5:28:20 PM, Julia Thompson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 Probably the best web coverage is going to be the Roanoke Times:

 http://www.roanoke.com/

 I initially heard about the shootings before 10AM here.  I figured 
 my
 mom was in no danger.

 After 11, there was a map available at Yahoo, informing me just what
 parts of the VT campus had had shooting incidents.  One of those is
 about half a mile from my
 mom's house.

 We tried to get in touch with her; phoning in to Blacksburg didn't
 get
 us anywhere.  Dan
 IM'ed a co-worker who lives there, and I e-mailed her.
 She was able to call us around 1:15.

 She's
 fine, physically.
 She's badly shaken.  When she e-mailed me, she
 told me she didn't know
 if any of the 20 students or 20-30 faculty she
 knew were among the casualties.
 She's going to take it very hard if
 she's lost anyone.


Earlier today on another list I wrote:

At the moment I am very sad, runinating over the events at Virginia
Tech this morning.
I'm thinking about the parents and families, friends, and classmates
of the victims who were so brutally murdered in what was a safe and
quiet college town.
Their suffering does not go unnoticed and uncared for.
Like many of us I am a parent and sometimes we parents worry
needlessly over our children or feel helpless when events spin beyond
our control. And at this moment the hateful certainty of some parents
pain is laid open for all to see.
That breaks my heart.

Tomorrow I turn 50. I hope to be able to speak about the good things
in life on my birthday.
Life is good. Sometimes the contrast makes us realize just how good
our lives are.


With the speed of a stolen kiss, loss.
rob



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The Eschaton Is Paved With Bee Corpses

2007-04-10 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Well..you might think so if one is to let ones self get worked up 
over this prematurely.

I've been hearing this story more and more frequently over the last 
few months.

It is a bit chilling.



http://darwiniana.com/2007/03/29/disappearing-bees/



A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers
worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually
assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture
and the economy could be enormous.

Is the mysterous decimation of bee populations in the US and Germany
a result of GM crops?

Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim scenarios. He
sits on the board of directors of the German Beekeepers Association
(DBIB) and is vice president of the European Professional Beekeepers
Association. And because griping is part of a lobbyist's trade, it is
practically his professional duty to warn that the very existence of
beekeeping is at stake.

The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the
varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread
practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and
practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to
Haefeker, is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering
in agriculture.

As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the
journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report)
with an Albert Einstein quote: If the bee disappeared off the
surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life
left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more
animals, no more man.

Mysterious events in recent months have suddenly made Einstein's
apocalyptic vision seem all the more topical. For unknown reasons,
bee populations throughout Germany are disappearing - something that
is so far only harming beekeepers. But the situation is different in
the United States, where bees are dying in such dramatic numbers that
the economic consequences could soon be dire. No one knows what is
causing the bees to perish, but some experts believe that the large-
scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor.

Felix Kriechbaum, an official with a regional beekeepers' association
in Bavaria, recently reported a decline of almost 12 percent in local
bee populations. When bee populations disappear without a trace,
says Kriechbaum, it is difficult to investigate the causes, because
most bees don't die in the beehive. There are many diseases that
can cause bees to lose their sense of orientation so they can no
longer find their way back to their hives.

Manfred Hederer, the president of the German Beekeepers Association,
almost simultaneously reported a 25 percent drop in bee populations
throughout Germany. In isolated cases, says Hederer, declines of up
to 80 percent have been reported. He speculates that a particular
toxin, some agent with which we are not familiar, is killing the 
bees.

Politicians, until now, have shown little concern for such warnings
or the woes of beekeepers. Although apiarists have been given a
chance to make their case - for example in the run-up to the German
cabinet's approval of a genetic engineering policy document by
Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer in February - their
complaints are still largely ignored.

Even when beekeepers actually go to court, as they recently did in a
joint effort with the German chapter of the organic farming
organization Demeter International and other groups to oppose the use
of genetically modified corn plants, they can only dream of the sort
of media attention environmental organizations like Greenpeace
attract with their protests at test sites.

But that could soon change. Since last November, the US has seen a
decline in bee populations so dramatic that it eclipses all previous
incidences of mass mortality. Beekeepers on the east coast of the
United States complain that they have lost more than 70 percent of
their stock since late last year, while the west coast has seen a
decline of up to 60 percent.

In an article in its business section in late February, the New York
Times calculated the damage US agriculture would suffer if bees died
out. Experts at Cornell University in upstate New York have estimated
the value bees generate - by pollinating fruit and vegetable plants,
almond trees and animal feed like clover - at more than $14 billion.

Scientists call the mysterious phenomenon Colony Collapse
Disorder (CCD), and it is fast turning into a national catastrophe
of sorts. A number of universities and government agencies have
formed a CCD Working Group to search for the causes of the
calamity, but have so far come up empty-handed. But, like Dennis
vanEngelsdorp, an apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of
Agriculture, they are already referring to the problem as a potential
AIDS for the bee industry.

One thing is certain: Millions of bees have simply vanished. In most
cases, all

From The State That Gave You Bush

2007-04-08 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

  By: Burnam H.C.R. No. 154


 HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The elemental source for initiating congressional
 impeachment proceedings is found in The Constitution, Jefferson's
 Manual, and Rules of the United States House of Representatives;
 Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice
 authorizes federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by 
joint
 resolution of a state or territorial legislature as a matter of
 privilege; and
WHEREAS, Precedent for employing this authority is
 well-established and documented in Hinds' Precedents of the House
 of Representatives of the United States; one such entry relates 
to a
 1903 joint resolution passed by the Florida state legislature
 requesting that the U.S. Congress impeach U.S. District Judge
 Charles Swayne that resulted in a senate trial; and
WHEREAS, Invoking this authority, the people of the state 
of
 Texas charge that President George W. Bush has violated the 
United
 States Constitution and other federal law and abused the power of
 his office to the extreme detriment of the country and the 
interests
 of its citizens, actions that constitute high crimes and
 misdemeanors; and
WHEREAS, President Bush conspired with others to defraud 
the
 United States of America by intentionally misleading the congress
 and the nation regarding an Iraqi threat to the American people 
to
 justify a war in direct defiance of the United Nations Security
 Council and in violation of Section 371, Title 18, United States
 Code; in so doing, President Bush and members of his
 administration:  1) overstated the offensive capabilities of 
Iraq,
 including that country's supposed possession of weapons of mass
 destruction, and manipulated and distorted intelligence relating
 to Iraq's weapons program during a plenary session of the United
 Nations and in direct contradiction to evidence gathered by
 international weapons inspectors; 2) manipulated public opinion 
by
 repeatedly and erroneously linking Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi
 government with the terrorist organization responsible for the
 attacks of September 11, 2001, al Qaeda; and 3) manipulated 
public
 opinion by stating in the State of the Union Address that Saddam
 Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium from 
Africa,
 despite confirmation from the Central Intelligence Agency and
 officials from foreign governments that the documents supporting
 these claims were forged; and
WHEREAS, The Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq 
in
 2003 was an unnecessarily reckless endeavor; while Saddam Hussein
 was a despotic leader who had used chemical weapons against Iran, 
as
 well as the Kurdish and Shia people, and required prudent and
 efficacious attention by the United States and the international
 community in order to maintain peace and stability in the Middle
 East, the invasion of Iraq, in fact, necessitated the removal of
 United Nations weapons inspectors who were on the ground in Iraq 
and
 uninhibited from performing their job of monitoring Iraq's 
weapons
 of mass destruction capabilities; in fact, during the 11 years
 before the invasion, the United States enforced a no-fly zone 
over
 60 percent of Iraq's airspace, significantly restricting the
 country's military movement and activity throughout its 
territory;
 and
WHEREAS, Indeed, Iraq posed no threat to the territory or
 people of the United States, yet the 2003 invasion of Iraq has
 resulted in the deaths of more than 3,200 American soldiers and a
 reported 59,000 Iraqi civilians, over 23,000 wounded American
 soldiers, and severely diminished American military readiness; 
the
 fiscal cost of the war will reach $500 billion by the end of 
2007;
 and
WHEREAS, In addition, to meet the needed manpower to 
execute
 the invasion, President Bush has federalized and deployed members
 of the Texas National Guard overseas, thereby subverting the 
power
 granted to congress under Section 8, Article 1, United States
 Constitution, to call forth the militia to execute the laws of 
the
 Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; regrettably,
 the illegal deployment of the Texas National Guard deprives the
 state of its primary mechanism for defense and emergency 
response,
 needlessly jeopardizing the safety of Texans; and
WHEREAS, Under the guise of the war on terror, the Bush
 Administration has held American citizens and citizens of other
 sovereign nations without charge or trial; despite these 
secretive
 detentions, the United States has been embarrassed by revelations
 of torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and evidence
 suggests

Re: Pernicious Evil Nonsense gets a Drubbing

2007-04-08 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 4/8/2007 9:43:57 PM, Ronn! Blankenship 
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 At 07:04 PM Sunday 4/8/2007, William T Goodall wrote:

 Easter is named after 'Easter Eggs' which are made of chocolate and
 eaten at this time of year.



 I have news for you:  those brown, ovoid things found under rabbits
 are _not_ made of chocolate . . .



I had an Uncle (who coincidentally died just a few weeks ago) who 
always told us those were smart pills. If you were to eat one, you 
would become smart enough to never eat another.
G

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Ferro-Magnetic Ballet

2007-04-02 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/02/ferrofluid_sculpture.html
Artists Sachiko Kodama and Yasushi Miyajima create magnificently 
surreal kinetic sculptures where a liquid filled with nanoscale 
ferromagnetic particles flows, rotates, and shapeshifts around a 
simple iron tower structure in response to shifts in a magnetic field. 
The piece is titled Morpho Towers - Two Standing Spirals 
(2006-2007). From the project description:
  This technique uses one electromagnet, and its iron core is extended 
and sculpted. The ferrofluid covers the sculpted surface of a 
three-dimensional iron shape that was made on an electronic NC lathe. 
The movement of the spikes in the fluid is controlled dynamically on 
the surface by adjusting the power of the electromagnet. The shape of 
the iron body is designed as helical so that the fluid can move to the 
top of the helical tower when the magnetic field is strong enough.

  The surface of the tower responds dynamically to its magnetic 
environment. When there is no magnetic field, the tower appears to be 
a simple spiral shape. But when the magnetic field around the tower is 
strengthened, spikes of ferrofluid are born; at the same time, the 
tower's surface dynamically morphs into a variety of textures ranging 
from soft fluid to minute moss, or to spiky shark's teeth, or again to 
a hard iron surface. The ferrofluid, with its smooth, black surface 
that seems to draw people in, reaches the top of the tower, spreading 
like a fractal, defying gravity.


A film of the display in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me5Zzm2TXh4

http://www.kodama.hc.uec.ac.jp/spiral/
Morpho Towers--Two Standing Spirals is an installation that consists 
of two ferrofluid sculptures that moves synthetically to music. The 
two spiral towers stand on a large plate that hold ferrofluid. When 
the music starts, the magnetic field around the tower is strengthened. 
Spikes of ferrofluid are born from the bottom plate and move up, 
trembling and rotating around the edge of the iron spiral.
The body of the tower was made by a new technique called ferrofluid 
sculpture that enables artists to create dynamic sculptures with 
fluid materials. This technique uses one electromagnet, and its iron 
core is extended and sculpted. The ferrofluid covers the sculpted 
surface of a three-dimensional iron shape that was made on an 
electronic NC lathe. The movement of the spikes in the fluid is 
controlled dynamically on the surface by adjusting the power of the 
electromagnet. The shape of the iron body is designed as helical so 
that the fluid can move to the top of the helical tower when the 
magnetic field is strong enough.
The surface of the tower responds dynamically to its magnetic 
environment.
When there is no magnetic field, the tower appears to be a simple 
spiral shape. But when the magnetic field around the tower is 
strengthened, spikes of ferrofluid are born; at the same time, the 
tower's surface dynamically morphs into a variety of textures ranging 
from soft fluid to minute moss, or to spiky shark's teeth, or again to 
a hard iron surface. The ferrofluid, with its smooth, black surface 
that seems to draw people in, reaches the top of the tower, spreading 
like a fractal, defying gravity.
The spikes of ferrofluid are made to rotate around the edge of the 
spiral cone, becoming large or small depending on the strength of the 
magnetic field. In this work the speed of this rotation can be 
controlled without motors or shaft mechanisms ? we simply control the 
magnetic power.
In this work, we are trying to activate analogue physical phenomena (= 
fluid) precisely by utilizing digital music metadata. To control the 
synchronization of the ferrofluid with the music playback in real 
time, time series metadata are added to the music beforehand. The 
metadata consist of musical information, such as beat position, chord 
progression, and melody block information, and ferrofluid control 
information such as DC bias voltage and AC pattern. Each data record 
has a time stamp that indicates the timing of presentation. All data 
are stored in time-series order.
These time series metadata must be accurate for precise control of 
timing, so as to cancel the time delay of fluid movement. By this 
correction, the time when the protuberance of the spike reaches its 
maximum size is coincident with the beat of the music. As a result, 
the rhythm of the fluid movement coincides with the musical rhythm. 
When there is no sound, the fluid falls down into the plate.
As there are two towers in the installation, complicated expressions 
of surfaces become possible. Each tower's surface pulsates, like one 
creature calling to the other.
Fluid moves synthetically with the music, as if it breathes, and the 
condition of the fluid's surface emerges as autonomous and complex. In 
this art we want to harmonize several opposing properties, such as 
hardness (iron) / softness (fluid) and freedom (desire for design) /

Top 10 Gay Animals

2007-04-02 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Because you always wondered and were too afraid your words would be 
mistaken for a pickup line to ask:
http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/index.php?url=cat=gayanimals

10
Bonobo Chimpanzees
Homosexuality has been documented in almost 500 species of animals, 
signaling that sexual preference is predetermined. Considered the 
closest living relative to humans, bonobos are not shy about seeking 
sexual pleasure. Nearly all of these peace-loving apes are bisexual 
and often resolve conflict by the make love, not war principle. They 
copulate frequently, scream out in delight while doing so, and often 
engage in homosexual activities. About two thirds of the homosexual 
activities are amongst females.

9
Japanese macaques
Female macaques form intense bonds with each other and are serially 
monogamous, meaning they only have one sexual partner at a time. 
However, they have several of these relationships during each breeding 
season. Female macaques engage in sexual activities such as genital 
stimulation and vocalize their delight in forms of cackling sounds. 
Males also take to homosexual play but tend to leave their partner 
soon after, making it what we call in the human world a one night 
stand.

8
Gray Whale
Splashing around in the water is brought to a completely new level in 
gray whales, where homosexual interactions are quite common. In 
slip-and-slide orgies, as many as five males roll around, splashing 
water, and rubbing their bellies against each other so that their 
genitals are touching.

7
Kob Antelope
On average, females mount with other females a couple of times an hour 
during the mating season. Homosexual mounting encompasses almost 9 
percent of all sexual activities within these hoofed mammals in the 
wild. While courting, the pursuer sidles up behind a pal and raises 
her foreleg, touching the other female between her legs. This leggy 
foreplay ultimately leads to mounting.

6
American Bison
Homosexual mounting between males tends to be more common than 
heterosexual female-male copulation among American bison, especially 
because females only mate with the bulls about once a year. During 
mating season, males engage in same-sex activities several times a 
day. More than 55 percent of mounting in young males is with the same 
gender.

5
Walrus
Male walruses don't reach sexual maturity until they are four years 
old. During that time, they are most likely exclusively involved in 
same-sex relationships. The older males are typically bi-sexual, 
mating with females during breeding season and copulating with other 
males the rest of the year. Males rub their bodies together, embrace 
each other and even sleep together in water.

4
Guianan-Cock-of-the-Rock
Males of this stunning perching bird delight in homosexuality. Almost 
40 percent of the male population engages in a form of homosexual 
activity and a small percentage don't ever copulate with females.

3
Giraffes
Male courtships are frequent amongst these long-necked mammals. Often 
a male will start necking with another before proceeding to mount him. 
This affectionate play can take up to an hour. According to one study, 
one in every 20 male giraffes will be found necking with another male 
at any instant. In many cases, homosexual activity is said to be more 
common than heterosexual.

2
Bottlenose Dolphins
Homosexual activity occurs with about the same frequency as 
heterosexual play amongst these marine mammals. Male bottlenose 
dolphins are generally bisexual, but they go through periods of being 
exclusively homosexual. The homosexual activities of these mammals 
include oral sex during which time one dolphin stimulates the other 
with its snout. Males also rub their erect penises against the body of 
their partner.

1
Black Swan
Homosexual couples account for up to 20 percent of all pairings 
annually. Almost a quarter of all families are parented by homosexual 
couples that remain together for years. At times, male couples use the 
services of a female by mating with her. Once she lays a clutch of 
eggs, the wanna-be fathers chase her away and hatch the eggs. Other 
times, they just drive away heterosexual couples from their nests and 
adopt their eggs.



xponent
Visited By Gay Alleycats Maru
rob 


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Re: Ten years ago . . .

2007-03-26 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 3/26/2007 8:05:39 PM, Nick Arnett ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 On 3/26/07, Ronn! Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 wrote:
 
  . . . the bodies of 39 members of the
 Heaven's Gate techno-religious
  cult who had committed suicide were found inside a mansion in 
  Rancho
  Santa Fe, Calif.


 A few blocks from David Brin's
 house, for those who don't know that.


Wierd subject for sure.
The guy who discovered the comet's companion (that started the 
groups flipout) was a local radio personality who I used to listen to 
every morning. Well...because I knew Chuck Schramek would have 
something wierd to say. He died of cancer a few years later and then I 
ended up discovering that the writer of one of my all time favorite 
books went to high school with him.

I think that comet (Hale-Bopp?) was the only comet I've ever seen 
naked eye.


xponent
Strangeness Of Connections Maru
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Coalition Seeks Elimination of Incandescent Light Bulb

2007-03-19 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://enews.penton.com/enews/powerquality/power_quality_news_beat/2007_march_16_march_16_2007/display

http://tinyurl.com/2orhxz


A recent article in the New York Times reports that a coalition of 
industrialists, environmentalists, and energy specialists is banding 
together to try to eliminate the incandescent light bulb in about 10 
years.

In a recently announced agreement, the coalition members, including 
Philips Lighting, the largest manufacturer of incandescent light 
bulbs; the Natural Resources Defense Council; and two efficiency 
organizations, are pledging to press for efficiency standards at the 
local, state, and federal levels. The standards would phase out the 
ordinary screw-in bulb, technology that arose around the time of the 
telegraph and the steam locomotive, and replace it with compact 
fluorescents, light-emitting diodes, halogen devices, and other 
technologies that may emerge.


The article goes on to say that the agreement is a compromise among 
the participants. Some favored an outright ban on incandescent bulbs, 
like the one Australia said last month it would seek by 2009 or 2010. 
Philips, a unit of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands, has 
pledged with others doing business in Europe to seek a shift to more 
efficient lighting there, too.


The announcement commits coalition members to seek a market phaseout 
by 2016. General Electric, the largest American manufacturer of 
lighting, has recently been campaigning against the elimination of 
incandescent bulbs, and promising instead to bring out a new model 
that is twice as efficient as its current bulbs. The company is not 
part of the new coalition, but has allied itself with the Natural 
Resources Defense Council in another group called the United States 
Carbon Action Program, which seeks to control emissions of greenhouse 
gases through energy conservation.



xponent

A Good Idea Maru

rob


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Re: Found: Dougram (for Damon)

2007-02-24 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Eh! That's what listmates are for.G

On 2/23/2007 6:45:37 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 UmWOW. Thanks!

 Damon.
 --Original Message--
 From: Robert G. Seeberger
 Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: brin-L
 ReplyTo: Killer Bs Discussion
 Sent: Feb 18, 2007 2:34 AM
 Subject: Found: Dougram (for Damon)

 http://rip.atspace.org/

 Not a fansub like Damon was looking for but a raw. Next best thing I
 suppose, especially since there seems to be no other resources for
 this particular anime.

 Here, the series is called Dagram and the first 5 episodes are
 available for bittorrent.

 HTH!

 xponent
 In The Back Of My Mind Residing Maru
 rob

xponent
Nascent Hivemind Operation Maru
rob 

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Tim Hardaway gets what he deserves

2007-02-23 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://tvmakesyoustupid.com/2007/02/23/george-takeis-psa-for-the-win/

I'm sure everyone has heard about Hardaway's obnoxious rant and the 
controversy that followed. And I'm sure everyone has an opinion.

For once we did not require God to sort things out.
George Takei took care of business.
And boy is it funny!



xponent
In Praise Of Anti-Rants Maru
rob 


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Computer Eraser

2007-02-18 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/tersumus/

What would you use Control and Alt for?





xponent
Whacked Out Maru
rob 


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Railgun Weapon for the Navy

2007-02-18 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/012007/01172007/251373

Normally, new weaponry tends to make defense more expensive. But the 
Navy likes to say its new railgun delivers the punch of a missile at 
bullet prices.

A demonstration of the futuristic and comparatively inexpensive weapon 
yesterday at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren had Navy 
brass smiling.

The weapon, which was successfully tested in October at the King 
George County base, fires nonexplosive projectiles at incredible 
speeds, using electricity rather than gun powder.

The technology could increase the striking range of U.S. Navy ships 
more than tenfold by the year 2020.



[and a bit of video]

http://fredericksburg.com/News/Web/2007/012007/0130railgun



xponent

Dr Shockwave Maru

rob


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Found: Dougram (for Damon)

2007-02-17 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://rip.atspace.org/

Not a fansub like Damon was looking for but a raw. Next best thing I 
suppose, especially since there seems to be no other resources for 
this particular anime.

Here, the series is called Dagram and the first 5 episodes are 
available for bittorrent.



HTH!


xponent
In The Back Of My Mind Residing Maru
rob 


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Re: Endless Universe Made Possible By New Model

2007-02-01 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 1/31/2007 9:35:28 PM, Charlie Bell ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 On 01/02/2007, at 2:13 PM, Robert G. Seeberger wrote:


  IOW, will the daughter universes be as favorable for life as ours, 
  or
  will they be random iterations?

 Very tiny, almost unmeasurably small, bits of our universe are
 favourable to life. This whole fine tuning set of arguments 
 strikes
 me as looking at the whole thing arse-about-face. Life has done
 pretty well on one planet in the entire universe. Now, there's a
 convincing set of arguments that emergent properties might lead to
 life on many planetary bodies (and the evidence is starting to take
 shape that life may well have moved between bodies in our Solar
 System), but for now, we only know for sure that life exists on one
 planet. Anywhere.

 Even most of our planet is bloody dangerous for humans... This
 continent certainly is.


Heh!
I'm thinking more along the lines of Pi, C, or Planks Constant having 
differing values.


xponent
Columbia Memorial Maru
rob 


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Re: Endless Universe Made Possible By New Model

2007-02-01 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 2/1/2007 7:33:42 AM, Charlie Bell ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 On 01/02/2007, at 10:22 PM, Robert G. Seeberger wrote:

 
  Heh!
 
 I'm thinking more along the lines of Pi, C, or Planks Constant 
 having
  differing values.


 I know that's
 what you meant, but it still seems to be a wrong-way-
 round argument. Even if those constants were different, whatever the
 universe described was like (assuming there was at least some form 
 of
 matter and some form of chemistry)

Wellthat is pretty much what I was getting at, that chemistry 
might not be possible in some configurations. Or that even atoms might 
not be possible.
WRT that, I think it is a valid question.



might be able to form life on one
 tiny speck amongst all its vast space, and that life might say
 isn't
 it amazing, this universe seems perfect for life. To take
 Douglas
 Adams' puddle a step further, it's like a shower of rain in the
 middle of the Sahara and a tiny puddle formed in a hollow of rock
 saying that it seems to fit the hole perfectly, even as the rest of
 the desert is parched and the puddle itself is evaporating in the
 sirocco.


That is certainly true and I agree. If there is chemistry there is 
always some potential for life. But if there is no chemistry in a 
universe it would likely be an uninteresting place. (Though there 
could be room for some sort of sapience quite different from our own.)

I think I understand your objections. Such discussions tread quite 
close to the playground of the ID crowd and I'm not interested in 
their fanciful ontologies.

What I'm actually interested in knowing is if the daughter universes 
inherit the physical properties of the parent universe or if they 
are a complete reformulation of a timespace from scratch. For me, it 
is the difference between barely relevant and completely 
irrelevant.G


xponent
Continuui Maru
rob 


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Endless Universe Made Possible By New Model

2007-01-31 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Endless_Universe_Made_Possible_By_New_Model_999.html

A new cosmological model demonstrates the universe can endlessly 
expand and contract, providing a rival to Big Bang theories and 
solving a thorny modern physics problem, according to University of 
North Carolina at Chapel Hill physicists.
The cyclic model proposed by Dr. Paul Frampton, Louis J. Rubin Jr. 
distinguished professor of physics in UNC's College of Arts and 
Sciences, and co-author Lauris Baum, a UNC graduate student in 
physics, has four key parts: expansion, turnaround, contraction and 
bounce.

During expansion, dark energy -- the unknown force causing the 
universe to expand at an accelerating rate -- pushes and pushes until 
all matter fragments into patches so far apart that nothing can bridge 
the gaps. Everything from black holes to atoms disintegrates. This 
point, just a fraction of a second before the end of time, is the 
turnaround.

At the turnaround, each fragmented patch collapses and contracts 
individually instead of pulling back together in a reversal of the Big 
Bang. The patches become an infinite number of independent universes 
that contract and then bounce outward again, reinflating in a manner 
similar to the Big Bang. One patch becomes our universe.

This cycle happens an infinite number of times, thus eliminating any 
start or end of time, Frampton said. There is no Big Bang.

An article describing the model is available on the arXiv.org e-print 
archive and will appear in an upcoming issue of Physical Review 
Letters. The work was supported in part by a U.S. Department of Energy 
grant.

Cosmologists first offered an oscillating universe model, with no 
beginning or end, as a Big Bang alternative in the 1930s. The idea was 
abandoned because the oscillations could not be reconciled with the 
rules of physics, including the second law of thermodynamics, Frampton 
said.

The second law says entropy (a measure of disorder) can't be 
destroyed. But if entropy increases from one oscillation to the next, 
the universe becomes larger with each cycle. The universe would grow 
like a runaway snowball, Frampton said. Each oscillation will also 
become successively longer. Extrapolating backwards in time, this 
implies that the oscillations before our present one were shorter and 
shorter. This leads inevitably to a Big Bang, he said.

Frampton and Baum circumvent the Big Bang by postulating that, at the 
turnaround, any remaining entropy is in patches too remote for 
interaction. Having each causal patch become a separate universe 
allows each universe to contract essentially empty of matter and 
entropy. The presence of any matter creates insuperable difficulties 
with contraction, Frampton said. The idea of coming back empty is 
the most important ingredient of this new cyclic model.

This concept jolted Frampton when it popped into his head last 
October.

I suddenly saw there was a new way of solving this seemingly 
impossible problem, he said. I was sitting with my feet on my desk, 
half-asleep and puzzled, and I almost fell out of my chair when I 
realized there was a much, much simpler possibility.

Also key to Frampton and Baum's model is an assumption about dark 
energy's equation of state -- the mathematical description of its 
pressure and density. Frampton and Baum assume dark energy's equation 
of state is always less than -1. This distinguishes their work from a 
similar cyclic model proposed in 2002 by physicists Paul Steinhardt 
and Neil Turok, who assumed the equation of state is never less 
than -1.

A negative equation of state gives Frampton and Baum a way to stop the 
universe from blowing itself apart irreversibly, an end physicists 
call the Big Rip. The pair found that in their model, the density of 
dark energy becomes equal to the density of the universe and expansion 
stops just before the Big Rip.

New satellites currently under construction, such as the European 
Space Agency's Planck satellite, could gather enough information to 
determine dark energy's equation of state, Frampton said.

A copy of the paper may be downloaded here. ( 
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0610213 )



xponent

YoYoverse Maru

rob


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SKY-MAP.ORG

2007-01-31 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://sky-map.org/

GoogleEarth?
Heh!
I got the Universe Baby



xponent
Beauty in The Distance Maru
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Re: Endless Universe Made Possible By New Model

2007-01-31 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 1/31/2007 8:54:36 PM, Charlie Bell ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 On 01/02/2007, at 1:20 PM, Robert G. Seeberger wrote:

 
 
 This cycle happens an infinite number of times, thus eliminating 
 any
  start or end of time,
 Frampton said. There is no Big Bang.

 Um... I thought Big Bang theory
 doesn't rule out a prior Big Crunch.
 What they're doing is presenting a
 new model for collapse at the end
 of this universe, not changing the start point, as far as I
 understand it. Now, where's a physicist when we need one...


Yeah!
Where am them?
G
What I wonder is if the secondary cycles repeat the conditions of the 
parent cycle.
(As if they are seeds)
IOW, will the daughter universes be as favorable for life as ours, or 
will they be random iterations?


xponent
Always With the Questions Maru
rob
xponent 


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Re: What science fiction writer are you?

2007-01-30 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 1/30/2007 9:35:37 AM, Nick Arnett ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 Posted to a
 friend's blog... who discovered that he is David Brin.


I drew Asimov.




xponent
Robots Maru
rob 


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Flurb

2007-01-14 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.flurb.net/

Anyone seen this one yet?

It is an online magazine featuring Rucker, Shirley, Stross, Doctorow 
and a few others.

I figured there might be a bit of interest.


xponent
Son Of Flurbber Maru
rob 


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Caring for Your Introvert

2007-01-05 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch


Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet 
conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite 
presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and 
maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then 
needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or 
grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are 
just trying to be nice?
If so, do you tell this person he is too serious, or ask if he is 
okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to 
draw him out?

If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an 
introvert on your hands-and that you aren't caring for him properly. 
Science has learned a good deal in recent years about the habits and 
requirements of introverts. It has even learned, by means of brain 
scans, that introverts process information differently from other 
people (I am not making this up). If you are behind the curve on this 
important matter, be reassured that you are not alone. Introverts may 
be common, but they are also among the most misunderstood and 
aggrieved groups in America, possibly the world.

I know. My name is Jonathan, and I am an introvert.

Oh, for years I denied it. After all, I have good social skills. I am 
not morose or misanthropic. Usually. I am far from shy. I love long 
conversations that explore intimate thoughts or passionate interests. 
But at last I have self-identified and come out to my friends and 
colleagues. In doing so, I have found myself liberated from any number 
of damaging misconceptions and stereotypes. Now I am here to tell you 
what you need to know in order to respond sensitively and supportively 
to your own introverted family members, friends, and colleagues. 
Remember, someone you know, respect, and interact with every day is an 
introvert, and you are probably driving this person nuts. It pays to 
learn the warning signs.

What is introversion? In its modern sense, the concept goes back to 
the 1920s and the psychologist Carl Jung. Today it is a mainstay of 
personality tests, including the widely used Myers-Briggs Type 
Indicator. Introverts are not necessarily shy. Shy people are anxious 
or frightened or self-excoriating in social settings; introverts 
generally are not. Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some 
of us do go along with Sartre as far as to say Hell is other people 
at breakfast. Rather, introverts are people who find other people 
tiring.

Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone. They 
often seem bored by themselves, in both senses of the expression. 
Leave an extrovert alone for two minutes and he will reach for his 
cell phone. In contrast, after an hour or two of being socially on, 
we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly 
two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn't antisocial. 
It isn't a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For 
introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as 
sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: I'm okay, you're 
okay-in small doses.

How many people are introverts? I performed exhaustive research on 
this question, in the form of a quick Google search. The answer: About 
25 percent. Or: Just under half. Or-my favorite-a minority in the 
regular population but a majority in the gifted population.

Are introverts misunderstood? Wildly. That, it appears, is our lot in 
life. It is very difficult for an extrovert to understand an 
introvert, write the education experts Jill D. Burruss and Lisa 
Kaenzig. (They are also the source of the quotation in the previous 
paragraph.) Extroverts are easy for introverts to understand, because 
extroverts spend so much of their time working out who they are in 
voluble, and frequently inescapable, interaction with other people. 
They are as inscrutable as puppy dogs. But the street does not run 
both ways. Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They 
assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome. They 
cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone; indeed, they often 
take umbrage at the suggestion. As often as I have tried to explain 
the matter to extroverts, I have never sensed that any of them really 
understood. They listen for a moment and then go back to barking and 
yipping.

Are introverts oppressed? I would have to say so. For one thing, 
extroverts are overrepresented in politics, a profession in which only 
the garrulous are really comfortable. Look at George W. Bush. Look at 
Bill Clinton. They seem to come fully to life only around other 
people. To think of the few introverts who did rise to the top in 
politics-Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon-is merely to drive home the 
point. With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, whose fabled 
aloofness and privateness were probably signs of a deep introverted 
streak (many actors,

Re: ADMIN: We're really back


On 1/3/2007 5:58:42 PM, Nick Arnett ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 The server is now comfortably resting in its new home... and after 
 just
 two
 small glitches, it is serving mail again.  (Glitch 1 -- bad cable to
 router;
 glitch 2 -- my ISP blocks port 25 by default, but unlike
 Dave's, they make
 it VERY easy to unblock it.)

 When you see this message, we should be back again and mostly, if 
 not
 complete, caught up.


I..
I think..
I think I can see
I think I can seeCleveland!


xponent
Or Montana Perhaps Maru
rob 


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The Conversion of John C Wright

John C Wright was once an athiest. He became a christian just a few
years ago.
I've read all his books and his religious views do not show through as
far as I recall.
But I find him to be a brilliant writer and the story of his religious
epiphany is very interesting.

*
http://johncwright.livejournal.com/59241.html

Why I am not a Deist.
I was asked a good question:
  I suppose I still don't really understand why you flipped from
fervent atheist to Christian. Not Deist, but *Christian*. Meaning you
went from not even believing in God - and I assume all supernatural
elements - to believing in a very specific story about Jesus.

Well, I don't like talking about this, but it would be dishonorable if
I avoided answering. I am Christian because I had a religious
experience with specifically Christian elements in it, albeit the
mystical unity of other religions was not absent. What I saw was as
simple as Love itself, and as mysterious. It was not some vague light
or misty sensation I met, but people to whom I spoke, a ghost, an
apostle, the Madonna, the Paraclete, the Messiah, and the Father. The
Holy Spirit entered my soul, I felt it happen, and something changed
inside me: grace was poured into my like wine into a tin cup, alchemic
wine that turns tin into gold.

I was taken on a journey outside of time, and saw the fine structure
of the universe, encountered a mind infinitely superior to my own, as
well as infinitely loving, and also was shown the secret roots of
thought, the somewhat Platonic place ideas live before they pop into
human awareness as ideas. I have had prayers answered. I saw millions
of spirits, a choir as large as a galaxy and as intricate as a formal
dance, bending all their efforts to save just one soul. The list just
goes on and on. I should say experiences. Plural. Not one, but six,
over a period of months, and continuing to the present day. I have
seen visions and experienced miracles, seen prayers answered, and had
things even stranger happen. One supernatural event would be enough to
convince an honest atheist that there was something in the universe
which could not fit into the materialistic, scientific model. I have
had half a dozen such experiences, each one different in nature,
duration, and kind from the other: An embarassment of evidence;
overwhelming; overkill.
You might think I am exaggerating or that I am very much out of my
mind: I do not blame you.


All I can report is that to myself I seem oriented as to time, place,
and person. I am not aware of any failure of my reasoning faculty, nor
do I see other evidence of hallucination or psychosis in my thought or
action. If anything, I seem better equipped to deal with life than
before, more human, more charitable. I actually try to be nice to
people, and, once in a blue moon, I am.

Also, if this is an hallucination, it more useful than sanity. For one
thing, this 'hallucination' resolves certain philosophical conundrums
that have haunted me for years, such as the mind-body problem or the
determinism-freewill paradox.

An aside: For those of you interested in such questions, I am in the
same school as Bishop Berkeley (Esse est percipi) and Boethius
(Consolatio Philosophiae). While mind and matter cannot be of the same
substance, surely mind and perception can and must be: for reason is
thought is about thought and perception is thought about objects.
Perceived objects (whose existance we know only by induction) follow
the laws of consistency for the same reason a syllogism follows the
laws of logic. When we see perceptions that do not flow from one to
another consistently, not shared in common with other men, we call it
dreaming.

Allow me to quote from that eminent Christian theologian, Puddleglum:

  'Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees
and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself... Then all I
can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal
more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of yours is
the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a
funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up
a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a
play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to
stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any
Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if
there isn't any Narnia.'

Speaking as a philosopher, one who has sworn upon Truth itself never
to turn aside from where Reason leads, all I can say it that
Christianity makes for better philosophy than philosophy itself. It is
a rational and self-consistent meaningful view of the world, one which
promotes virtue and honesty, as well as a philosophical attitude
toward suffering.


Pagan philosophy, like that of Aristotle and Plato, urge men to live
and die like great-souled men, like Stoics, and to live honestly

Literature Map + re: Literature Map

http://www.literature-map.com/david+brin.html

You can use this map to find writers you might like to read.
And what do you know?
All around Brin are writers I like a lot.


xponent
Spelurking Maru
rob

D Brin sez:

Some expected results... but also several different
misspellings of Michael Crichton, including one that's
closest in!  For many years O.S. Card and I have been
irked by the massive overlap in our readership...
though my own irk is with a wry smile.  All told?  I
am rather pleased by the company I keep.

The first thing I noted was *all* the Killer Bees present, plus
notables such as Niven, Clarke, Heinlein, Pohl(twice), Vance, and
Zelazny.
You have a misspelled Neal Stephenson there too.

Something of note is the page is not static, it changes somewhat with
every visit.
Iain Banks was on the page the first few times I visited but seems to
have disappeared and i think I saw Stross there once too.

One of the cooler items I see is Michael Chabon listed here. If anyone
has not read The Amazing Adventures Of Cavalier And Clay you are
missing out because it greatly deserves that Pulitzer it won.

I started playing a game with myself using this website. Think of an
author, one who is drasticly different from Brin. Frex:
I can get to Brin from Stephen King in 2 clicks.(Clarke,Brin)
I can get from Lovecraft to Brin in 2 clicks.(Banks,Brin)
I can get from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Brin in 3 clicks.(Bradbury,
Zelazny,Brin)
The idea is to find the greatest degree of separation while using only
the shortest possible paths. And you get to practice peer review!G

xponent
Not The Sites Intended Purpose Maru
rob



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Re: As cool as it gets

- Original Message - 
From: Robert G. Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: brin-L brin-l@mccmedia.com
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2006 7:46 PM
Subject: As Cool As It Gets

 http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=10id=3034

 A first look at the Silver Surfer from the upcoming Fantastic Four
 movie.

https://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/fantasticfourriseofthesilversurfer/large.html

And now a trailer.
In this, the Surfer is pursued through the city by the Human Torch.

Mind blowing!

xponent
Cooler Maru
rob

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As Cool As It Gets

2006-12-25 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=10id=3034

A first look at the Silver Surfer from the upcoming Fantastic Four 
movie.



xponent
Silver Angst Maru
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What The Bleep Do We Know?

2006-12-03 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Has anyone seen this?

I enjoyed it very much.
It is pretty broad, covering topics such as quantum wierdness, 
perception, mental health, and just who the hell is this God person 
anyway?

The movie is a wierd amalgam of documentary and personal drama set up 
to drive a commentary about transcendence and transformation.
Some of the commentators seemed pretty out there (as in 
pseudoscientific), but the overall thrust of the program seemed to hit 
some nails squarely on the head.

Wikipedia has an almost scathing review of the show which I have no 
argument with, but I did find it entertaining.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_bleep_do_we_know

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Re: Someone Must Tell Them

2006-11-21 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 11/21/2006 10:10:09 PM, jdiebremse ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
  When it becomes plain that the whole idea of terror is to scare
  someone, then a look at our *rhetorical* reactions shows that we 
  are
  not stiffening our spines and holding our jaws up sufficiently.

 And what happens when the whole idea of terror is to kill as many 
 people
 as possible?

* Islam will turn on the terrorists

*The world will unite against the terrorists to a degree far beyond 
anything seen today.



 In other words, in your mind, is the reason that no American city is
 currently a smoldering radioactive heap:

 a) A lack of will on the part of Al Qaeda, or

 b) A lack of means on the part of Al Qaeda ?



A  B
Live hostages are more useful than cremated ones.


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Together

2006-11-12 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

We all long to belong
We all need to be needed
Loneliness is our disease
Still we bite the hand that feeds
Where did we go wrong
Insecure and self-sufficient
Building up walls instead of bridges

Let our lonely hearts collide
We're made to live this life
Together
Together
Reach across this great divide
Cuz standing side by side is better
Together

All the pride we defend
Teaches us to pretend
Like we can make it on our own
But we were never made to walk alone

Let the lines between us disappear
It starts now
It starts here
Yeah


This is the song they play during the Heroes commercials. Sounds like 
they ought to be playing it to Congress.
It is a nice little bit of Christian rock by Krystal Meyers and the 
full song is quite nice and powerful.


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Re: Bad intelligence

2006-11-08 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 11/8/2006 8:34:23 PM, Nick Arnett ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:


 I just hope that all the talk from both sides about partnership 
 rather than
 partnership amounts to something more than politics as usual.


Did you mean partnership rather than partisanship?

If so, I would agree.

My thinking is that the election signals the need for a shift to the 
center.
Many of the new democrats elected are significantly more conservative 
than the democrats of old and it seems clear to me that people like 
Pelosi seem to understand that and will endevour to move accordingly. 
I have hope.
 The popularity of Obama now seems like a harbinger and less of a 
bubble phenomena as has been posited here.
I believe that the message to republicans is not that conservatism is 
undesirable, but that the extremes of conservatism are not places the 
country wants to go. The exact same message should be understood to 
apply to liberals/progressives/democrats.
The people of this country have for the greatest part grown tired of 
polemics and greatly desire to find a sweet spot where we can find 
balance.

The center is a place where we can all meet and there is a lot more 
room there for progress than there is at the extremes.
I do not see the sudden inclusion of so many democrats as a sign of 
major change. I see it as a sign of coming moderation. The only 
alternative to moderation is gridlock, and I don't think we can afford 
much more of the political fighting like we have seen over the last 
decade or so without finding a higher price than we care to pay.


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Justice Served - Saddam To Hang

2006-11-05 Thread Robert G. Seeberger



 Saddam Hussein and his half brother were convicted and sentenced 
Sunday to death by hanging for war crimes in the 1982 killings of 148 
people in the town of Dujail, as the visibly shaken former leader 
shouted God is great!

After the verdict was read, a trembling Saddam yelled out, Life for 
the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!

In addition to the former Iraqi dictator and Barzan Ibrahim, his half 
brother, the Iraqi High Tribunal convicted and sentenced Awad Hamed 
al-Bandar, the head of  Iraq's former Revolutionary Court, to death by 
hanging. Iraq's former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was 
convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.


Three other co-defendants were convicted of murder and torture and 
sentenced to

Three other co-defendants were convicted of murder and torture and 
sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

One defendant was acquitted for lack of evidence.





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Find The News Maru

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Heroes Spoilers as of 11/5

2006-11-05 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

WARNING***SPOILERS

(And not necessarily all that accurate - rob)






http://tvmakesyoustupid.wordpress.com/2006/10/31/heroes-mini-spoiler-palooza/

Zach, Claire's scruffy geekboy sidekick, is gay and will come out to 
her this season. This explains his No. believe me. response when she 
asked if he was flirting with her, and his choice of words when asking 
if Claire is going to Come out to her parents. It also explains why 
he's glommed onto her. How much more fabulous a best girlfriend could 
a high school gayboy in Odessa, TX ask for?

Nora Zehetner's character, the anviliciously named Eden, has the 
power of suggestion. She speaks it, and the listener believes it is 
his or her idea. This makes a rewatch of her scenes with Mohinder very 
interesting, and explains Mr. Bennett's line of We both know you can 
do better than that in this last episode a lot more meaningful. She 
will continue to supply Claire's dad with information about Isaac's 
visions of Claire.

Claire's dad isn't the bad guy, here, though he was set up as such. 
Not saying he's nice, either, but he's not hellbent on destruction of 
the heroes, he really does love Claire, and he's not the reason New 
York becomes a crater in five weeks (if Hiro's vision comes to pass). 
Think Stryker from The X-Men here. He doesn't always do nice things, 
but he isn't doing it to hurt people, least of all Claire.

By the way, for those of you who love to hate him, Jack Coleman, the 
cheerily creepy actor who plays her dad, has been upped to series 
regular as of episode 1.11, per TVGuide.com.

Zach is NOT going to stab Claire in the back as some people have 
speculated. In fact, he ends up in a heap of trouble because of her.

The eclipse is not what triggered everyone's superpowers. Nor was 
Mohinder's dad necessarily right about it all being due to genetics. 
In the coming weeks, we'll start to see other theories emerge about 
what's triggering these abilities in people all over the world - 
theories that have little to nothing to do with evolution. So Dr. 
Suresh may have been right about the effect, but not necessarily the 
cause. Were they the victims of secret government experiments? Or 
tampering from the future a la The 4400? Or something else?

Per an NBC interview, Greg Grunberg reveals that his character Matt 
Parkman failed the detective test three times because he has a secret 
about which he's ashamed: he has dyslexia.

Niki killed DL's crew in self defense - it had not been her intention 
to kill them all and frame DL (who really needs a new name, since on 
the DL is inner-city slang for secretly gay) but after the job was 
done, they turned on her and tried to make off with her share. She was 
in the process of laundering the money, which is why she didn't use it 
to pay off any of her debts and was keeping it in the attic.

Niki's id/ alter ego, Jessica, has super-strength. The question is - 
does Niki? Note my use of the present tense there - Niki is not dead 
(of course). However, who's in control of her body is up for grabs.

We'll find out a lot more about Sylar and his connection to the Suresh 
family in Episode 10.

Mohinder will be back after Papa Suresh's funeral (of course.) He 
finds the idea irresistable. And he may not be one of the normals - he 
starts having mysterious yet meaningful dreams.

Nathan's wife is physically incapacitated from an accident for which 
Nathan feels responsible. We'll learn more about this in the future 
eps, and someone may see Nathan fly - a liability to his campaign that 
may need to be dealt with.

It is a fact that Isaac does not need drugs to access his visions. He 
will discover this in Episode 1.08 and gain better control over his 
powers (and possibly finally kick the habit?) His paintings only show 
possible futures - not absolute ones. So what happens in his visions 
can be changed. By the way, we will not be seeing Isaac shoot up on 
screen any time soon - NBC execs have ixnayed that, and has shown 
concern about whether or not they're glorifying drug use.

We will see Future!Hiro as an intermittent recurring character, though 
his actual existence is in the distant future (whatever that means).



*

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Weekend Preview Maru

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Secret Wars Re-Enactment Society

2006-11-04 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.stomptokyo.com/chris/blog/2006/04/secret-wars-re-enactment-society.html

Something like Civil War re-enactment, Marvel style.

Surprise endingG

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Two Guys

2006-11-04 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Two Philly Union guys with attitude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQhQaQyn-ekmode=relatedsearch=


There are several of these clips and some of them are pretty funny.



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Are You Ready For Some (Political) Football?

2006-10-29 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://mysite.verizon.net/kamaris2/


(All the appropriate hyperlinks are on the site)


Why the Elections Matter, A Football Translation
OK, all you undecideds, listen up.
The World Series is over, and maybe you can pay a little attention to 
another national pastime, the upcoming midterm national elections.
What? Oh. The NBA is in preseason, hockey is back, and of course, it's 
football season.
Right.
So let me put this in terms you can understand.
America's team is in real trouble, and you can help them out.
Are you ready for some (political) football?
With LOTS of yummy links?

Like I said, all is not well with America's team. After the hotly 
contested and still mystifying 2000 draft, the whole league was 
predicting great success, but things began to go awry almost 
immediately. For starters, though there were no other teams with 
anything like the home team's sheer power, several, notably the 
Jihadis, were working on crafty plays to take advantage of our 
overconfidence. While the early games of the season were focused on 
drastically lowering the price of skyboxes and adding chemicals to the 
snacks, our opponents were probing weaknesses in our vaunted defensive 
line.
In retrospect, several other early season changes have proven costly 
as well. Making the second stringers practice out in the parking lot 
sure felt good, but the resulting injuries have hurt us in the long 
run. Renaming the team from the Raiders to the Patriots was confusing 
enough, but then changing it again to the Angels really alienated many 
of our fans. Perhaps the Separation of Sports principle is a sound 
one, after all. Replacing the marching band with a choir wasn't as 
inspirational to the fans as we originally thought, either. Making the 
cheerleaders wear business suits and blanketing the TV with them was 
supposed to add respectability to a playing style that has, in the 
past, been a bit too physical for general audiences.  As it turns out, 
the fans want what they've always wanted from the cheerleaders - meat.
Coach Rove's play calling, so effective in past seasons, seems to be 
stuck in a serious rut. First there was that disastrous 8-6-01 PDB 
play that led to a very costly fumble, and before you know it, 
America's team had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of a 
pathetic, rag-tag Pop Warner team that didn't even have uniforms. 
Instead of rethinking strategies, Coach Rove kept up his same 
aggressive style: run right on first, second, and third downs, then 
throw a Hail Mary pass on fourth down. Aside from being utterly 
predictable, this one-dimensional game plan resulted in an astonishing 
lack of yardage.  The almost universal lack of experience in the first 
string, notably the offensive line, has proven to be another 
liability. Throughout the 2000 draft, and the even brighter 2002 
draft, all of our acquisitions talked forcefully about knocking the 
other teams off the ball, off the field, and into early retirement. 
But as it turns out, it's helpful to have actually played before. It 
gives players a better sense of the discipline and training required 
to win games in this league. Our fortunes seemed to be looking up 
earlier in the season, when the league looked the other way regarding 
some significant changes in the rules that were designed to help the 
team win the games it always felt it should win. Widening the right 
side of the field by another 100 yards certainly aided the 
play-calling style of Coach Rove, and the new rule about stopping play 
every time quarterback Bush fumbled the snap was a big help, indeed. 
Because Bush's experience on the field was limited to being a 
cheerleader, allowing him to pick his own referees, always play 
offense, and spot the ball anywhere on the field were also beneficial 
changes.
But lady luck just doesn't seem to be on our side. There was that play 
where Bill Frist, a highly-touted receiver, ran out of bounds and 
collided with that hapless family in the Florida emergency game. Nose 
tackle Dick Cheney took aggression to a whole new level when he played 
the Texas game with a gun, (and used it on a teammate), guard Tom 
DeLay, safety Duke Cunningham, cornerback Bob Ney, and publicist Jack 
Abramoff have all been caught up in a betting scandal, to say nothing 
of the recent wide receiver problems, or that disastrous game at the 
Superdome. Now it turns out those prayer circles on the fifty yard 
line, such a fan favorite after games, are actually circle jerks. At 
this point, even the water boy is in trouble!
These events, and so many others, have finally led to a change among 
the fans. Where they used to come in droves and cheer wildly, even 
before the game, now there is a sense they come to see a ghastly 
spectacle, like staring at a train wreck.So what is America's team to 
do? Well, remember those second stringers? The ones practicing without 
pads out on the asphalt? They're ready to play. They're tough, they're 
battle hardened, and they

RE: Gay Unions in NJ

2006-10-27 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 10/27/2006 8:16:31 AM, Ritu ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 Charlie wrote:

  Until very recently it had to be in a registry office, if it
 wasn't
  in a church. But again, you have to have a wedding.

 Over here, the simplest way is to garland each other in the 
 registrar's
 office and then sign the register. The elaborate ways last for 
 weeks,
 with the actual ceremony going upto 7-8 hours.


Garland?...is that what they are calling it these days?
G


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Obama's New Rules

2006-10-27 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.slate.com/id/2152252?GT1=8702


Political assumptions can remain constant for long periods and then 
change very quickly. And so they have in the approximately 10 days 
since the publication of Barack Obama's book The Audacity of Hope. In 
the brief time he's been on book tour, Obama has overthrown much of 
the reigning conventional wisdom about what's likely to happen in the 
2008 campaign, how shrewd politicians ought to behave, and what the 
informal rules of the American system really are. Consider the 
following statements thought true by the political class in early 
October but called into question by month's end.
1. Hillary Clinton is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
There was a basis for thinking this until Oct. 18, the day Obama 
appeared on Oprah. Hillary has raised a formidable amount of money, 
lined up extensive backing, and has the Democrats' best political 
thinker for a spouse. Obama's bigger advantage is that the party is 
actually excited about him and thinks he could win. Based on an 
unscientific reading of Democratic enthusiasm, Obama, not Hillary, 
will be the de facto Democratic front-runner the day he declares 
himself a candidate. If Obama chooses not to run, he could still sap 
Hillary's strength, the way Colin Powell did Bob Dole's in 1996, by 
reminding primary voters that their most promising candidate isn't in 
the race.

2. John McCain can beat anyone the Democrats put up.
Our sense right now is that McCain would beat any Democrat including 
Hillary Clinton, and Clinton would beat any Republican except for 
McCain. Thus spake political guru Mark Halperin of ABC News and John 
Harris of the Washington Post in their book, The Way to Win. Obama 
upsets that equation because of his crossover appeal to independents 
and moderate Republicans. Like John McCain, the candidate he would be 
most likely to face in 2008 if he won the Democratic nomination, Obama 
attracts support more through his style, personality, and biography 
than by his specific positions. Last week, New York Times columnist 
David Brooks, a long-standing McCain fan, nearly announced his 
defection to Obama in an admiring column($). As for McCain himself, he 
would evidently prefer to run against Clinton than Obama.

3. Democrats have a problem with religion.
In 2000 and 2004, evangelical Christians and regular churchgoers voted 
overwhelmingly for George W. Bush. Neither Al Gore nor John Kerry was 
comfortable talking about his faith or employing a religious idiom, 
leading many to conclude that Democrats were doomed to function as the 
secular party in a still-religious nation. Obama is the rare Democrat 
who talks easily about faith and values, and who does so without 
upsetting those offended by the mixture of religion and politics. In a 
thoughtful speech last summer that also forms the basis of a chapter 
of his book, Obama explained his own religious motivation and defended 
the use of spiritual language in a political context. He argues that 
his party should explicitly try to win over the spiritual followers of 
more moderate evangelical leaders such as Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes. 
Obama hasn't closed the Democrats' religious gap, but he has initiated 
a productive conversation about how to narrow it.

4. Old liberalism is dead.
Closely allied to the assumption that Democrats can't win because 
they're too secular is the view that they can't win if they're too 
liberal. This assumption has steered Hillary Clinton toward the 
center, following her husband. I tend to share this view myself. But 
somehow it doesn't seem to apply to Obama, who has excited centrist 
Democrats and many moderate Republicans while steering clear of the 
Democratic Leadership Council and earning a perfect-100 score from 
Americans for Democratic Action in his first year in the Senate. Obama 
began his political career as a community organizer and civil rights 
lawyer in Chicago. He is close to unions and voted against CAFTA, the 
most recent free-trade agreement to come before Congress. His domestic 
policies are consistently liberal on issues like national health care 
and affirmative action (though he supports the death penalty in 
certain circumstances and has not come out for gay marriage). He was a 
big dove on the Iraq war. None of this seems off-putting to people who 
would dismiss almost any other candidate with Obama's views.

5. Extreme partisanship works.
Obama can thrive as a liberal because of another paradox: the 
resonance of his moderate, deliberative style and calls for common 
ground. The lesson of recent elections seemed to be that 
bipartisanship was dead. Congressional gerrymandering, the rise of the 
Section 527 loophole, and a more partisan media have all contributed 
to the current, polarized environment. Obama rejects all of this. The 
main theme of his book is that something has gone wrong with American 
politics because of how divided, absolutist, and bitter it has become. 
He

Re: Gay Unions in NJ

2006-10-26 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 10/26/2006 10:12:44 PM, Ronn!Blankenship 
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 At 09:30 PM Thursday 10/26/2006, Jim Sharkey wrote:

  Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
  Finite amount of time in the day, perhaps?
 
 What, you don't have your own TARDIS?  :-p
 
 Jim


 I thought I did, but it turns out that the crescent moon symbol on
 the door meant something else . . .


That is a TURDIS.
They sell 'em at Wal-Mart


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Heroes

2006-10-23 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Are you guys watching this show?

So far it has been great!



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Simpsons take on Iraq war

2006-10-22 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2006/10/simpsons-pitch-tent-in-antiwar-camp.php


Anyone who thinks Hollywood is run by a liberal cabal won't change his 
mind after watching The Simpsons' annual Halloween special. The 
episode, which airs Nov. 5, concludes with an Iraq war satire that may 
rank as the most pointed political statement the show has ever made. 
In the segment, aliens invade Springfield to prevent mankind from 
obtaining weapons of mass disintegration, but their mission, called 
Operation Enduring Occupation, turns into a quagmire. You said we 
would be greeted as liberators! accuses one alien.

We were looking for an ending to the episode, and it just kind of 
suggested itself, says Simpsons executive producer Al Jean. I'd like 
to take credit for being adventuresome, but I think we're expressing a 
viewpoint 69 percent of the country agrees with.

Perhaps...but in the past, the show's writers have usually been 
careful to maintain an ironic distance from the hot-button issues 
they've tackled, including abortion and evolution. The Halloween 
segment, in contrast, feels remarkably earnest, right up to its final 
line: This sure is a lot like Iraq will beJean makes no 
apologies for the sobering tone of the segment: When you read the 
headlines, it's just so sad for everybody over there.That line may 
not make it to the air; some of the writers want it cut, says Jean, 
though not because it's politically loaded. The debate is whether 
people already get it and we're being too obvious, he adds.

He says there was little concern about alienating conservative 
viewers, and no interference from Fox (whose conservative corporate 
chairman, Rupert Murdoch, has lately been accused of drifting to the 
left). They didn't have any objection to this, he says.

In fact, he says, if The Simpsons doesn't weigh in on more political 
controversies, it's partly because it takes a full year for a script 
to get filmed and broadcast. It's actually a good inner check on us.


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How to be:

2006-10-15 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/Dem_Rep_compare.html


A nice little bit of glurge to prepare you for the upcoming 
elections!G



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Re: Someone Must Tell Them

2006-09-27 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 9/27/2006 2:01:04 PM, Richard Baker ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 Dave said:

  A couple of weeks ago, she sent me the following, which sums up 
  some
  thoughts I've been having lately about what's wrong with the 
  current
 
 administration's approach to terrorism -- it gives the terrorists 
 just
  what they want: for us to be afraid. For us to lose our freedoms 
  in
  the name of a little illusory safety. For us to be _not_ US.

 One of the most striking things about the July 7 attacks was how
 utterly unterrified we all were. I know people who were very close 
 to
 the bombing attacks and their response was uniformly calm and
 practical. In fact, those attacks seemed to cause more anxiety and
 fear on the other side of the Atlantic than they did here.

 I think a positive first step would be switching nomenclature from
 terrorist to idiot, for calling them terrorists tends to suggest
 that we're
 terrified of them or at least potentially so. Besides,
 news stories that start
 A group of idiots demonstrated their
 stupidity by blowing themselves up...
 are so much less glamorous
 from their point of view.

 Rich
 ROU Global War On Idiocy

I don't know how it may appear from over there, but on 9/11 I was 
angry. Heck I was angry on July 7 and after Madrid and Bali too.
I think the only times I felt much in the way of fear was in regard to 
the Anthrax cases and the sniper case, those things just seemed more 
likely to grow where it could harm people I knew and cared about.
I don't think I actually can remember anyone who was frightened, but I 
do remember lots of folks who were royally pissed off.
Perhaps it was different in other parts of the country, but even if 
Americans do not uniformly project calm I would suggest that the fear 
that was sensed was coming from the administration and the news 
media's attempts to whip up a frenzy of ad sales.
Overall I agree that we should change the nomenclature.
Perhaps we should stop calling that group Al Qaeda and start calling 
them Al Kato.
(After Clousseau's sparring partnerG)

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Re: What plans???

2006-09-25 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 9/25/2006 5:44:39 PM, Nick Arnett ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 On 9/25/06, Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  Iraq will not sink the US.

 We're sure as heck stuck in it.


Well.. I understand why most people would say that. But in 
fact we could leave any time we wanted to. if we possessed 
the will to do so.
The fact that we are still there and likely to remain for a good while 
tells me that we are concerned more with how we look to the rest of 
the world and more importantly how we would view ourselves if we did 
indeed leave after creating (to a great degree the situation there is 
result of our actions) a very messy situation.

To clarify my remark that you respond to, Iraq will not cause the 
downfall of the US.
But because we disdain having anything less than the most positive 
self-image, we will continue to tell ourselves (in our weird national 
dialogue/monologue via the unique American metaconsciousness) that 
great gobs of tar are the merest of smudges, and if anyone gives 
notice of our La Brea coif we will point out the stains remaining from 
their own historical tarbaby encounters.
(I often wonder if our national metaconsciousness is incapable of 
appreciating irony)


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I Recommend...........

2006-09-09 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Once upon a time, there lived a nameless monster.
The monster was dying to have a name so badly.
So the monster decided to set out on a journey to find itself a name.
But the world was such a large place.
So the monster split into two and went on to two separate journeys.
One went to the East and the other went to the west.
The monster that went to the east found a village.

There was a blacksmith at the village entrance.
Mr.Blacksmith, please give me your name said the monster.
I can't give you my name replied the blacksmith.
If you give me your name I will jump inside you and make you stronger 
in return. said the monster.
Really? I'll give you my name if you can make me stronger., the 
blacksmith told the monster.
The monster jumped inside the blacksmith.
The monster became Otto the blacksmith.
Otto the blacksmith was the strongest man in the village.
But one day he said:
Look at me! Look at me!
The monster inside of me has grown this big!
*Chomp, chomp, munch, munch, gobble, gobble, gulp*
The hungry monster ate Otto from the inside out.

The monster then went back to become a monster without a name.
Even though he jumped inside Hans the shoemaker
*Chomp, chomp, munch, munch, gobble, gobble, gulp*
He went back to being a monster without a name again.
Even though he jumped inside Thomas the hunter.
*Chomp, chomp, munch, munch, gobble, gobble, gulp*
He still went back to being a monster without a name.
The monster then went to a castle to find a wonderful name.
Inside the castle, there was a very sick boy.
I'll make you stronger if you give me your name said the monster
In reply, the boy told him I'll give you my name if you can cure my 
illness and make me stronger.
So the monster jumped inside the boy.
The boy became very healthy.

The King was delighted.
The prince is well! The prince is well! said the King.
The monster became fond of the boy's name.
He also grew fond of his life inside the castle.
That's why he endured even when he became hungry.
Every day, even when his stomach became very empty, he endured.
But then he became so hungry
Look at me! Look at me! said the boy.
The monster inside of me has grown this big!
The boy then ate his father, servants, and everyone.
*Chomp, chomp, munch, munch, gobble, gobble, gulp*
Because everyone was gone
The boy left on a journey
He walked and walked for days.

One day the boy met the monster that went west
I have a name said the boy.
It's a wonderful name.
And then the monster that went west said...
I don't need a name.
I'm happy even if I don't have a name.
Because we're monsters without names.
The boy ate the monster that went west.
Even though he now had a name
There was no one left to call him by his name.
Johan.
It is a wonderful name.







xponent

Monster Maru

rob


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FW RE: Fly The Flag

2006-09-08 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Ann Holland wrote:
 Remember to honor those who have served and this great country we
 have the privilege to live in!!!  God Bless America!


Earlier today I was informed that I would be working at Chase Tower on
Monday and Tuesday.
Later it dawned upon me that on 9/11 (Monday) I would be working in
the tallest building west of the Mississippi.


Tha..rilling!


Ah well...I'm a child of the Cold War, I was well schooled in how
to put my head between my legs and kiss my ass goodbye. We called it
Duck and Cover.
It all likelihood 9/11 will pass just like any other day and the only
trouble I will find will be for not kissing the boss' ass. (I'm a
firm believer that ones own hind end leaves less of a crappy
aftertaste and fewer emotional scars)

I too recommend flying the flag on 9/11.
Not so much for patriotism's sake, but as an act of defiance!
I want to tell the world that no matter who the president is, no
matter who the enemy is, we will spit in your eye if you think to harm
us.
You might knock us down, but there is no way you can make us stay
down.
And our greatest strength, absolutely the source of our greatness, is
that while you may be our enemy today, you can be our friend tomorrow.
And if you doubt that, then look through the history books at all who
were our enemies in the past and see who are our allies today.
We are not better than you, we just operate under a better system, and
you'd better believe we believe in all those pretty words we repeat
with great frequency.
Everyone is born equal, with inalienable rights, and you don't kiss
the butt of Kings or Dukes because the rich and powerful are an
immoral lot, likely to be carriers of STDs and nobody wants to get
AIDS.
So fly your flag proudly and keep your lips out of dark places (at
least until that pharmaceutical breakthrough) and pray that Osama's
ilk have not looked west of the Mississippi.at least for my
sake.G

xponent
Kissassins Maru
rob 


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Blows Against the Empire?

2006-09-04 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

Is this the result of trying to protect our children from themselves?
For every action there is a counter-reaction?
For every measure, a counter-measure?


*

http://www.slate.com/id/2148583/fr/rss/

Parents, brace yourselves. With those words, Oprah Winfrey 
introduced news of a teenage oral-sex craze in the United States. In 
the Atlantic Monthly, Caitlin Flanagan wrote, The moms in my set are 
convincedthey're certain; they know for a factthat all over the 
city, in the very best schools, in the nicest families, in the 
leafiest neighborhoods, 12- and 13-year-old girls are performing oral 
sex on as many boys as they can.

Are they right? National statistics on teen fellatio have only 
recently been collected, but the trend seems to be real. Johns Hopkins 
University Professor Jonathan Zenilman, an expert in sexually 
transmitted infections (and father of former Slate intern Avi 
Zenilman), reports that both the adults and the teenagers who come to 
his clinic are engaging in much more oral sex than in 1990. For men 
and boys as recipients it's up from about half to 75 to 80 percent; 
for women and girls, it's risen from about 25 percent to 75 to 80 
percent.

In some quarters, that might be regarded as progress, but how you feel 
about it probably depends on whether you are a teenager or a parent of 
teenagers. I am more than a decade away from being either and so 
regard myself as a neutral in this debate. Moreover, as an economist, 
I feel uniquely qualified to opine on why it is happening.

Now, there is no shortage of explanations: Perhaps everyone just 
thought that if it was good enough for Bill Clinton and Monica 
Lewinsky, it was good enough for them. But an economic explanation 
would instead start with the premise that this is a response to 
changing incentives. What sort of incentives have changed?

Schoolchildren are now bombarded with information about the risks of 
sex, particularly HIV/AIDS. Oral sex can be safer than penetrative 
sex: It dramatically reduces the risk of contracting HIV and reduces 
the effects of some other sexually transmitted infections (although 
you can still pick up herpes, warts, and thrush). An infection that 
might have made a girl infertile instead gives her a sore throat.

The rest is basic economics. When the price of Coca-Cola rises, 
rational cola-lovers drink more Pepsi. When the price of penetrative 
sex rises, rational teenagers seek substitutes. Perhaps we shouldn't 
be surprised that even as the oral-sex epidemic rages, the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention reports that the percentage of teenage 
virgins has risen by more than 15 percent since the beginning of the 
1990s. Those who are still having sex have switched to using 
birth-control methods that will also protect them from sexually 
transmitted infections. Use of the contraceptive pill is down by 
nearly a fifth, but use of condoms is up by more than a third. The 
oral-sex epidemic is a rational response to a rise in the price of the 
alternative.

Now, this is a glib explanation. A real economist would want a tighter 
hypothesis and serious data to back it up. That economist might well 
be Thomas Stratmann, who, with law professor Jonathan Klick, has 
pushed the idea of the rational teenage sex drive. Their hypothesis is 
that if teenagers really did think about the consequences of their 
actions, they would have less risky sex if the cost of risky sex went 
up. They discovered a very specific source of that higher risk: In 
some states, there are abortion-notification or -consent laws, which 
mean that teenagers can't get an abortion without at least one parent 
being informed or giving consent. If teenagers are rational, such 
laws would discourage risky sex among teens, relative to adults.

Klick and Stratmann claim to have found evidence of exactly this. 
Wherever and whenever abortion-notification laws have been passed, 
gonorrhoea rates in the teenage and adult populations start to 
diverge. When it becomes more troublesome to get an abortion, 
teenagers seem to cut back on unprotected sex.

Economic nerds may be interested to know that the Klick-Stratmann 
statistical technique owes much to the one used by Steven 
Freakonomics Levitt and John Donohue to show a link between 
legalized abortion in the 1970s and lower crime in the 1990s.

The rest of us may be wondering what to make of it all. On the one 
hand, good news: Teenagers are finding safer ways to get their kicks. 
On the other, it suggests that teenagers believe one of the most 
serious consequences of an unwanted pregnancy is that their parents 
will find out. If teenagers are avoiding unsafe sex, it may not be for 
the best reasons.



**

William Saletan argued ( http://www.slate.com/id/2126643/  )  that we 
should be concerned more with the rise in anal sex than oral sex among 
young people.

RE: Planet No More

2006-08-24 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 8/24/2006 7:33:58 PM, John D. Giorgis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 --- John  Horn wrote:
  What I don't understand is why they couldn't just say
 here are the
  new rules and Pluto gets grandfathered in as an exception...???

 I think the question is - why would they want to?

 I think that the term planet is most useful if it clearly defines 
 some
 well-defined set of objects.  It seems like the astronomers settled 
 upon
 a definition for a distinct set of objects, and Pluto simply
 doesn't fit
 that definition.I don't know what useful purpose would be
 served by
 grandfathering, other than sentimentality...


It all seems pretty silly to me.
If a body has enough mass to reform itself into (roughly) a sphere 
then it should be considered a planet. I rather liked the division of 
major and minor worlds that was being discussed a week or two ago.
It seems to me that the idea that 30 is an unwieldy number (just to 
create an example mind you), and that 8 or 9 is a teachable number 
is hogwash. I could name the planets in order from the sun when I was 
4 years old, but I doubt I could find very many people during a 
typical day (a typical working day for me) who could do so, even 
though I know we were all taught this at some time or another. (I 
actually posed this question a few years ago and got zero correct 
answers)
John sees one kind of sentimentality, I see a sentimentality for ones 
own youthful education in play.

Let me make a prediction:
(and keep in mind how *I* would prefer to define a planet)
At some point in the future a body that is multiples of earth's mass 
will be discovered that does not orbit any other body (excepting 
perhaps the galactic center and even then it will not be a regular 
orbit), it will resemble the terrestrial planets only colder.

It will be called a planet.
And that will break this new definition.
(If one reads the article, and presuming it is accurate, one will 
understand why it would)


xponent
Planet Ceres Maru
rob 


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The Great Race 2008

2006-08-17 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.greatrace2008.com/

Alternative fuel and hybrid-powered automobiles will compete in an 
around-the-world race next February--the centennial of the Greatest 
Auto Race--to prove the viability of new automotive technologies. The 
Great Race World 35,000 km, New York to Paris 2008 offers a $1 
million Innovation Prize to the Innovation Technology division winner. 
A $500,000 prize will go to the winner of the Classic division, which 
includes cars from 1969 or earlier. The race will start in New York 
and is expected to finish in Paris 80 days later.



xponent

Vrooom Maru

rob


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U.S. Wind Energy Capacity Reaches 10,000 MW

2006-08-16 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://powerelectronics.com/power_systems/awea_wind_energy_081606/

U.S. wind energy installations now exceed 10,000 MW in generating
capacity, and produce enough electricity on a typical day to power the
equivalent of over 2.5 million homes, the American Wind Energy
Association (AWEA) announced today.

Wind energy is providing new electricity supplies that work for our
country's economy, environment, and energy security, said AWEA
Executive Director Randall Swisher. With its current performance,
wind energy is demonstrating that it could rapidly become an important
part of the nation's power portfolio.

As the U.S. wind energy advances beyond the 10,000-MW level, AWEA
released several figures and statistics to illustrate some of the
economic, environmental, and energy security benefits of wind power
development.

For example, according to the release, wind energy was the
second-largest source of new power generation in the country in 2005
after natural gas. It is likely be so again in 2006, according to the
Energy Information Administration.

The release also stated Americas wind resource potential is
vasttheoretically more than twice enough to meet current U.S.
electricity supply needs. President Bush said earlier this year that
wind could meet 20% of the countrys electricity supply (the share
that nuclear power provides today).

AND:

Diesel Engines Jumpstart Ultracapacitor Applications

http://powerelectronics.com/passive_components_packaging_interconnects/alcoa_maxwell_ultracapacitor_081606/

http://tinyurl.com/modmz

Alcoa AFL Automotive and Maxwell Technologies will collaborate on the
development of a cold start system for commercial transportation
vehicles. The companies will incorporate Maxwell's BOOSTCAP
ultracapacitors with AFL's power management system to develop an
efficient engine starting system.

Increasingly strict environmental regulations preclude the ability of
operators to allow their trucks to idle overnight. More than 20 states
have enacted or are proposing regulations that prohibit running diesel
truck engines overnight to power heating, cooling, entertainment and
other driver-comfort features.

However, running those loads on battery power can leave the batteries
with insufficient power to start the vehicle, especially in cold
weather. With the AFL-Maxwell cold starting system, the
ultracapacitor pack would provide what amounts to an on-board
jump-start capability, explained Allen Zwierzchowski, President,
Worldwide Components AFL Automotive.

The BOOSTCAP ultracapacitor series supports a short-circuit current
within the range of 3.5 kA to 4.8 kA, which greatly exceeds the
current consumption of a diesel starter motor. Furthermore, according
to Michael Sund, VP of Marketing for Maxwell, the ultracapacitors
would be maintenance free for the life of the vehicle.

At present, the design for the cold starting system is expected to
require three 16-V BOOSTCAP modules. The BOOSTCAP modules can operate
within a temperature range between -40°C to 65°C. When operating
within this specific range, the capacitors can support over one
million charge and discharge cycles. To maintain this reliability, the
systems ultracapacitors will not be placed within the engine
compartment.

Once the cold starting system has matured for commercial vehicles, the
technology could be extended to consumer vehicles, such as RVs. Sund
stated research is also being done within the consumer auto industry
to develop this capability.

Sund continued that another potential benefit of this system is a
reduction in battery size without a reduction in cranking current
capacity, nor would weight, size or cost penalties be incurred in the
overall system. This might lead to advantages in other types of
vehicles, especially general aviation aircraft. However, neither
Maxwell nor AFL has suggested this is a potential application.

Yet another potential application deals with boosting the cranking
voltage of a 12-V battery to 28 V through the use of a BOOSTCAP module
in series with the battery during cranking. According to John Miller,
V.P. of Advanced Transportation Applications at Maxwell, a BMOD2600
module (430 F, 16 V) in series with a standard 12-V lead-acid battery
could provide that capability. While the voltage of the ultracapacitor
stage will decay faster than a second lead acid battery would, the
decay is manageable for this application.

Sund cited industry data showing that last year, approximately 253,000
class 8 trucks and nearly 90,000 class 7 trucks were purchased in the
U.S. alone. With such a huge potential market and possibly larger
aftermarket, the adoption of the cold engine starting system could
potentially revolutionize the motor vehicle industry. For truck
drivers and other traveling motorists who would no longer hear the
continuous idling of diesel engines, this revolution would be
literally silent.

xponent

Odd Interests

Bulwer-Lytton 2006

2006-07-12 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2006.htm

An opening sentence containing a burrito, an angel and a shovel was 
judged appalling enough to win the annual Bulwer-Lytton literary 
parody prize on Tuesday.
Retired mechanical designer Jim Guigli of California was proclaimed 
winner of the contest, which challenges entrants to submit their worst 
opening sentence of an imaginary novel.

Guigli's winning entry read: Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office 
studying the light from his one small window falling on his super 
burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said 
you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did 
exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and 
lick the shovel clean.

Guigli's powers of invention and his determination to succeed -- he 
submitted 60 different entries -- also won him a dishonorable 
mention in the historical fiction category.

My motivation for entering the contest was to find a constructive 
outlet for my dementia, Guigli quipped.

The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest was started in 1982 by the English 
Department at San Jose State University to honor the Victorian 
novelist who opened his 1830 novel Paul Clifford with what were to 
become the immortal words, It was a dark and stormy night.

It began as a quiet campus affair and now attracts thousands of 
entries from around the world. But the grand prize winner receives 
only a pittance and other winners must content themselves with 
becoming household names, organizers say.

The 2006 runner-up, Stuart Vasepuru from Scotland, played with one of 
the most famous pieces of dialogue from the Clint Eastwood movie 
Dirty Harry.

I know what you're thinking, punk, hissed Wordy Harry to his new 
editor, you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or 
only five?' -- and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this 
excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language 
in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, 
you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' --  
well do you, punk?



xponent

Cribbed From Yahoo News Maru

rob


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Re: An Inconvenient Truth

2006-07-11 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 7/11/2006 8:48:13 AM, jdiebremse ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
  but because every MW of
  wind power used is that many barrels of Middle Eastern oil we
 won't
  need to purchase til later.

 Actually, this is unlikely.

 Let's
 say that increased use of wind power results in a decrease in the
 price of oil (this too is unlikely since little oil is used for
 electricity generation compared to coal and natural gas).   This
 decrease in the price of oil, would cause a little less oil to be
 supplied.   However, since the oil produced in the Middle East is
 produced extraordinarily cheaply there, the oil that is no longer
 supplied is unlikely to be Middle Eastern.   Rather, the displaced 
 oil
 is likely to be expensively produced oil from marginal fields in
 developed countries like the US.   Thus, if
 one's interest in
 alternative energy is to reduce reliance upon Middle Eastern oil, 
 this
 is is, alas, exceedingly unlikely in the medium term, at least until
 such time as those alternative sources can produce oil more cheaply
 than not just the global market price of oil, but more cheaply than 
 the
 Middle Eastern price of oil.

I have no problem with your reasoning here, but I was talking about 
something different. If you generate power by some other means than 
the use of oil, then you are not using oil for that particular amount 
of work. That means you do not have to buy that bit of oil in the 
first place.
That is a savings.

But yes, you are correct. If enough alternatives to fossil fuels are 
used to generate power, then supply should increase and prices should 
lower to whatever degree. I think any oil we don't buy will just go to 
some other customerIndia or China frex. So it may be a good idea 
to increase our reserve by buying oil now and storing it in some salt 
dome or such.
So perhaps we should invest in alternatives and use up *their* oil as 
it suits us.
(Christ that sounds so cynical, but perhaps it is simply realistic)


xponent
Opeckers Maru
rob 


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Re: An Inconvenient Truth

2006-07-11 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 7/11/2006 5:09:43 PM, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro 
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 Robert G. Seeberger wrote:
 
  But yes, you are correct. If enough alternatives to fossil fuels 
  are
  used to generate power, then supply should increase and prices 
  should
  lower to whatever degree. I think any oil we don't buy will just 
  go to
  some other customerIndia or China frex. So it may be a good 
  idea
  to increase our reserve by buying oil now and storing it in some 
  salt
  dome or such.
  So perhaps we should invest in alternatives and use up *their* oil 
  as
  it suits us.
  (Christ that sounds so cynical, but perhaps it is simply 
  realistic)
 
 Or maybe you should not hinder companies that want to drill oil
 in the deep waters of the Mexican Gulf :-P


When did I ever hinder anyone bro?


xponent
Willfully Obtuse Maru
rob 


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Re: Introductions

2006-07-10 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 7/10/2006 5:04:03 PM, Charlie Bell ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 On 11/07/2006, at 1:00 AM, Robert Seeberger wrote:
 
  Gee.Are you married to another Burke of the Culturelist?
  *That* would be just too entertainingG

 No, he's not a Burke anymore.


Cripes! I forgot about that.

Anyways...he is a great fellow!!


xponent
Spelunking Maru
rob 


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Ted Stevens - Internet Dummy

2006-07-06 Thread Robert G. Seeberger

From the Bonehead Of The Day mailing list:



Internet For Dummies


What does it take to become the prestigious chairman of the Commerce,
Science and Transportation committee of the US Senate?  Well,
technically, not much.

US Senator Ted Stevens (Alaska) speaking from personal experience
(along with his amazing explanation of how the Internet works), on why
the Internet is so slow and why his staff's Internet response time is
measured, not in seconds, like it is for you and me, but for them in
days (beginning with what happened that fateful day he tried
downloading the internet [sic]):

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10
o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet
commercially ... the internet is not something you just dump something
on. It's not a truck.  It's a series of tubes.  And if you don't
understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you
put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by
anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous
amounts of material.

So there you have it, from the horses mouth (which end is up?), from
the person looking out for you and me, everything you download gets
stuffed into a tube somewhere, behind someone else's internet, waiting
for its turn to be downloaded.

So, now you know that When you download music, a news video, read this
story, or update your virus scanner information, or whatever, you are
shamelessly tying up one of the Internet tubes for a long time and so
someone like Stevens will not get his internet downloaded until your
internet download finishes, maybe days later.

If you want to become totally depressed listen to Steven's total flow
of unrelated, detached and unconnected statements, peppered with
misused phrases that he heard somewhere, like streaming, during his
speech before our wise members of Congress:
http://media.publicknowledge.org/stevens-on-nn.mp3

But please be aware that while you listen to his speech, someone's
internet is waiting for you to finish listening.  You can be so
selfish sometimes.

**

xponent
Simply Brilliant Maru
rob 


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Re: Physics Prof Finds Thermate in WTC Physical Samples

2006-07-03 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 7/3/2006 7:39:30 PM, Damon Agretto ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 To veer slightly pedantic, ISTR I-beams are actually extruded...

Sure, but the trusses on the ends are welded on.

Basically, the architect orders beams to a specification and the 
manufacturer custom makes them. Any parts beyond the basic I (read 
that as a Roman I/numeral-one) are welded on and heat treated for 
strength.


xponent
Works Around This Stuff Maru
rob 


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Re: Physics Prof Finds Thermate in WTC Physical Samples

2006-07-03 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 7/3/2006 10:11:19 PM, Warren Ockrassa ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 
wrote:
 On Jul 3, 2006, at 5:16 PM, Robert Seeberger wrote:

  One glaring example that we missed was bolt hole tearing. This 
  is
  where force causes the bolt hole to deform til it slips around the
  supporting bolt.

 It's also astonishingly painful.


Yeah, it's pretty low on my list of things to do before I die.
G
Which brings me to the surgery I had several years ago.

xponent
I'm Sitting On It Maru
rob 


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Re: SCOUTED: Bush is Not Incompetent

2006-07-01 Thread Robert G. Seeberger


On 7/1/2006 11:22:34 AM, Julia Thompson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 Dan Minette wrote:

  But, that's mostly hindsight. Looking forward, I see only one 
  Democrat on
  the national scene who gets it: Barack Obama. He had some 
  interesting
  statements on the way Democrats deal with people of faith 
  yesterday.  I can
  provide links if people want.

 This person wants, anyway.  :)  TIA!


Yes, same here!

Ever since the DNC speech he gave during the last presidential 
election I have been won over by him.
He *gets* it and I do not limit it to only matters concerning people 
of faith.
I would fully be behind him if he ran for President.


xponent
He Gets Promoted If The Dems Are Smart Maru
rob 


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RE: Physics Prof Finds Thermate in WTC Physical Samples

On 6/30/2006 3:28:51 PM, Dan Minette ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 
wrote:
  -Original Message-
  From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 On
  Behalf Of Robert Seeberger
  Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 3:20 PM
  To: Killer Bs Discussion
  Subject: Re: Physics Prof Finds Thermate in WTC Physical Samples

  Robert G. Seeberger wrote:

   . A stiffer join means that force is
   transmitted through the structure more efficiently, so weakening
   vibrations could have sundered the lower parts of the structure
   before
   the actual wave of collapse reached a particular level.

  Let me clarify myself a bit here.
  I'm proposing that there is a damaging kinetic shockwave that runs
  ahead of the actual wave of collapse weakening structural members 
  to
  the degree that the collapse wave progresses almost unimpeded.

 Ah, that does make sense.  If one thinks of the force on a steel 
 beam when
 thousands of tons fall on it, one can think of a significant shock 
 wave
 traveling at the speed of sound.  That speed in steel is about 6000
 meters/sec and close to 20,000 feet/sec.

The question I think is, is this a real effect?
As I'm visualizing things, and incorporating the speed of sound info 
you provide, the vibrational shock runs ahead of the collapse wave by 
a very great distance (in a structure of this size it would be 
rebounding throughout the surviving structure during the entire event, 
essentially hammering every weak link until failure.) bouncing top to 
bottom with the chaotic vibratory forces being swamped by the resonant 
vibratory forces that are reinforced with every cycle. The resonant 
cycles would have an effect that is quite different than the general 
collapse that evidences mostly lateral shearing forces in that they 
produce much more longitudinal shear.
The only way I can think of to prove such a hypothesis is to sample 
bolts from the upper building and compare them to bolts sampled from 
the lower building. The upper building should show evidence of more 
lateral shear and the lower longitudinal shear.
Does this make sense?
And am I using the terminology correctly?
(I'm not exactly sure about terms used for lateral and longitudinal 
shear)

Of course, this is just intuitive guessing and we all know what value 
that has.G
(I'm aware that the kind of resonance I'm speaking of may well be 
simply a matter of chance peculiar to the specific building and its 
engineering and not some general rule that could be applied in all 
such events)

xponent
Comic Book Logic Maru
rob 

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Introductions (Was:Re: SCOUTED: Bush is Not Incompetent)


On 6/30/2006 3:48:49 PM, Chris Frandsen ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:


Howdy Chris!

Don't feel like the Lone Texas RangerG

Dan and I live in opposite ends of Houston and Julia is in Austin.
There are several former Texas posters here and may still be a few 
current members still hanging around.

I live in Lampsens former district that was swallowed by Delays 
district, so I'm with you on the redistricting. It has been a topic of 
conversation here in the past, so we are at least familiar with the 
subject.

We have a couple of new people!
So how about we regulars introduce ourselves?

Hi, my name is Rob and I'm a recovering bonehead.G
I work as an electrician with some oilfield industry quality control 
in my past.
I build my own PCs because I like em better that way.
I'm a 40 year + Sci-Fi reader, but I learned to read when I was 4.
My first Sci-Fi book was either Tom Swift and his Jetmarine or the War 
Of The Worlds, I can never decide which was first.
For many years I collected comics, tropical fish, rocks, and for a 
number of years grew a kidney stone that I passed just a couple of 
years ago. (I have it saved in a test tube and named it Jr)
I'm opinionated and somewhat obstinate, but I think I respond well to 
a well thought out argument.
I write poetry and lyrics when I'm in the mood, and have album (albums 
that no one ever heard of) credits for lyrics. ( 
http://www.amycd.com )
I'm becoming a big fan of Anime and am a devoted watcher of Adult Swim 
on Saturday nights. (well.OKToonami tooG)
I'm the proud father of an 11 year old who is brilliant and everything 
I might have been and never was.
When I grow up, I want to be one of the good guys.


xponent
Amalgamated Texas Maru
rob 


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Introductions (Was:Re: SCOUTED: Bush is Not Incompetent)


On 6/30/2006 3:48:49 PM, Chris Frandsen ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:


Howdy Chris!

Don't feel like the Lone Texas RangerG

Dan and I live in opposite ends of Houston and Julia is in Austin.
There are several former Texas posters here and may still be a few 
current members still hanging around.

I live in Lampsens former district that was swallowed by Delays 
district, so I'm with you on the redistricting. It has been a topic of 
conversation here in the past, so we are at least familiar with the 
subject.

We have a couple of new people!
So how about we regulars introduce ourselves?

Hi, my name is Rob and I'm a recovering bonehead.G
I work as an electrician with some oilfield industry quality control 
in my past.
I build my own PCs because I like em better that way.
I'm a 40 year + Sci-Fi reader, but I learned to read when I was 4.
My first Sci-Fi book was either Tom Swift and his Jetmarine or the War 
Of The Worlds, I can never decide which was first.
For many years I collected comics, tropical fish, rocks, and for a 
number of years grew a kidney stone that I passed just a couple of 
years ago. (I have it saved in a test tube and named it Jr)
I'm opinionated and somewhat obstinate, but I think I respond well to 
a well thought out argument.
I write poetry and lyrics when I'm in the mood, and have album (albums 
that no one ever heard of) credits for lyrics. ( 
http://www.amycd.com )
I'm becoming a big fan of Anime and am a devoted watcher of Adult Swim 
on Saturday nights. (well.OKToonami tooG)
I'm the proud father of an 11 year old who is brilliant and everything 
I might have been and never was.
When I grow up, I want to be one of the good guys.


xponent
Amalgamated Texas Maru
rob 


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How cool is this?

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/spider-man_3/

Way cool!



xponent
Next Year Maru
rob 


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Vatican to open all archives from 1922 to 1939

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006063000555.html

Pope Benedict has decided to open all Vatican archives from 1922 to 
1939, giving new insight into what the Catholic Church knew and did as 
Europe saw the rise of Nazism in Germany and the Spanish Civil War.
The Vatican said on Friday it would open its central files, known as 
the Secret Archives, and files of its Secretariat of State for the 
pontificate of Pope Pius XI on September 18.

In a short announcement, it said the opening would make available for 
historical research ... all documentary sources until February 1939 
that are stored in different series of the Archives of the Holy See.

The part of the archives likely to provide new insight is that 
regarding Spain, said a Vatican source who asked not to be named. The 
Church was linked to the Nationalist forces of General Francisco 
Franco in the 1936-1939 civil war.

Historians have long pressed the Vatican to open its wartime archives 
to answer questions about what it knew about the Nazi slaughter of 
Jews in Europe. Critics accuse Pope Pius XII of failing to help save 
Jews, a charge his supporters deny.

But the Vatican usually opens archives papacy by papacy, and Cardinal 
Eugenio Pacelli was elected pope in February 1939.

CATHOLIC-JEWISH SORE POINT

Under pressure to counter criticism from historians and Jewish groups, 
the Vatican published selected files concerning its pre-war relations 
with Germany, including correspondence from Pacelli when he was papal 
ambassador in Germany, in 2003.

It said more organizational work had to be done in the archives before 
the rest of the files could be opened.

Another Vatican source, who also requested anonymity, said the newly 
accessible files would include documents about the Nazis but that most 
information on the Vatican's relations with Germany had already been 
published.

The archives issue remains a sore spot for Catholics and Jews because 
many Jewish historians believe Pius turned a deaf ear to reports about 
the Holocaust.

A rabbi confronted Pope Benedict with a call for the opening of all 
wartime archives when the German-born Pontiff visited his synagogue in 
Cologne last August.

For us, a complete opening of the Vatican archives covering the 
period of World War Two, sixty years after the end of the Shoah 
(Holocaust), would be a further sign of historical conscience and 
would also satisfy critics, Rabbi Abraham Lehrer said.

You grew up in Germany during a terrible time, he told Benedict 
during the first papal visit to a synagogue in Germany. We not only 
see in you the head of the Catholic Church but also a German who is 
aware of his historical responsibility.



xponent

Revelations 20:06 Maru

rob


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Truthdigger of the Week

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060630_truthdigger_week_john_paul_stevens/

Truthdig salutes the 86-year-old Supreme Court Justice who wrote the 
majority opinion in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which struck down as illegal 
the military tribunals Bush set up to try Guantanamo detainees. But 
more importantly, this decision, in the words of a Yale law professor, 
effectively undermines the Administrations strongest claims about 
Presidential power, and may constitute the legal framework to 
necessary to halt the more egregious of Bushs civil 
liberties-infringing programslike warrantless wiretapping and holding 
terrorism suspects without trial.

While Stevens Hamdan opinion appears on its surface to be merely 
concerned with statutory interpretation, it effectively undermines the 
Administrations strongest claims about Presidential power. Justice 
Kennedys concurrence makes the constitutional points more explicitly, 
and that is why, I predict, his concurrence will become as important 
as the majority opinion itself.

In particular, Hamdan undermines the Administrations arguments for 
the NSAs power to engage in domestic surveillance. As you may recall, 
the Administration offered two arguments for why it did not have to 
conform with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The 
first is that the September 18th, 2001 Authorization of the Use of 
Military Force (AUMF) provided independent statutory authority to spy 
on citizens outside of the limits in FISA; the second was that FISA is 
unconstitutional to the extent that it limits the Presidents Article 
II powers as Commander-in-Chief to engage in wartime surveillance. 
(Note that FISA already has built-in exceptions for wartime which the 
NSA program does not comply with.)

Hamdan undermines both of these arguments. The President could-- and 
did-- argue that the AUMF gave him authority to establish military 
commissions any way he liked. Second, the President could argue that 
he had inherent authority under Article II to establish military 
commissions under whatever rules he chose and that to the extent that 
Congress limited his discretion it acted unconstitutionally. Therefore 
courts should construe all Congressional statutes (and the Geneva 
Conventions) to avoid clashing with the Presidents discretion.

The Court rejected both of these positions in Hamdan. It held that 
Neither [the AUMF or the Detainee Treatment Act] expands the 
President's authority to convene military commissions. . . .[T]here is 
nothing in the text or legislative history of the AUMF even hinting 
that Congress intended to expand or alter the authorization set forth 
in Article 21 of the UCMJ. Cf. Yerger, 8 Wall., at 105 (Repeals by 
implication are not favored). Together, the UCMJ, the AUMF, and the 
DTA at most acknowledge a general Presidential authority to convene 
military commissions in circumstances where justified under the 
`Constitution and laws,' including the law of war.


If the AUMF is silent about the issue of military commissions, it is 
equally silent about expanding Presidential power to engage in 
domestic surveillance. As before, repeals by implication are not 
favored. Instead, Hamdan suggests that there is Presidential power to 
engage in domestic surveillance within the scope afforded by Congress, 
i.e., within FISA itself.


Kennedy's concurrence is equally important on this point: [T]he 
President has acted in a field with a history of congressional 
participation and regulation. . . .While these laws provide authority 
for certain forms of military courts, they also impose limitations, at 
least two of which control this case. If the President has exceeded 
these limits, this becomes a case of conflict between Presidential and 
congressional action-- a case within Justice Jackson's third category 
[where Presidential power is at its lowest ebb], not the second or 
first. The NSA program also occurred in a field with a history of 
congressional participation and regulation, indeed, a field of 
congressional regulation that occurred in response to a history of 
Presidential abuses of power. Kennedy's argument, based on Youngstown, 
is thus equally applicable to the NSA program: Where the President 
goes outside FISA, he is acting at the lowest ebb of his powers.


What about the President's inherent powers under Article II as 
Commander-in-Chief? Don't they override Congressional limitations? No, 
said the Court in Hamdan in a footnote: Whether or not the President 
has independent power, absent congressional authorization, to convene 
military commissions, he may not disregard limitations that Congress 
has, in proper exercise of its own war powers, placed on his powers. 
See Youngstown Sheet  Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 637 (1952) 
(Jackson, J., concurring). The Government does not argue otherwise.


Put another way, when we say that the President has inherent authority 
to do something, we don't mean that his authority

George Bush, Alcoholic - Part 5