Rules for Being a ReptiliKlan

[The Fool]

<>

Rules for Being a Republican
 
You must believe that being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime
- unless you're a millionaire right wing radio personality; then, it's an
"illness" and requires prayer for "recovery". 

You must believe that those born to privilege achieve success all on
their own. 

You must believe that folks who work for their money should be taxed at a
higher rate than those who inherit theirs. 

You must agree that racking up huge amounts of debt to future generations
is worth the few thousand extra in tax breaks you give to your wealthy
"investors." 

You must believe that the US should pull out of the UN, but that our
highest national priority is enforcing UN resolutions against Iraq. 

You must believe that government should stay out of people's lives,
except to punish anyone having private sex with the "wrong" gender. 

You must believe that pollution is ok, so long as it's profitable. 

You must support prayer in schools, as long as no one is allowed to pray
to Allah or Buddha. 

You must believe that "Standing Tall for America" means firing your
workers and moving their jobs to India. 

You must believe that a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about her
own body, but that large multi-national corporations can be trusted to
make decisions affecting all mankind with no regulation whatsoever. 

You must love Jesus and believe that Jesus loves you, and that He shares
your hatred of  the poor, homosexuals, and the Clintons. 

You must hate the ACLU for representing convicted felons, and believe
they owed it to the country to bail out Oliver North. 

You must believe that the best way to increase the morale of the military
is to serve turkey and empty praise to the troops overseas, while cutting
their VA benefits. 

You must be willing to believe that group sex and drug use are degenerate
sins that can only be purged by running for office as a Republican. 

You must see the "wisdom" in keeping condoms out of schools, because
without condoms, there will be no sex among teenagers. 

You must agree that the best way to fight terrorism is to alienate our
allies, rattle our saber to the rest of the world and then demand their
cooperation and money. 

You must agree that government-run health care is a disaster, while
insurance companies only care about giving you the best darn health care
there is, damn the profit. You must also believe that providing health
care to Iraqis is good policy, while providing it to Americans is a
"Socialist plot." 

You must agree that the link between tobacco and cancer is "dubious,"
that claims of global warming are "junk science" and that creationism has
a sound scientific basis that should be part of all school curricula. 

You must believe that waging war with no security or exit strategy was
wrong in Vietnam but right in Iraq. 

You must agree that Saddam Hussein was a good guy when Reagan was sending
him arms, a bad guy when he invaded Kuwait, a good guy again when Cheney
did business with him at Halliburton, and then a bad guy again when Bush
decided that a war in Iraq would be a very lucrative deal for his
"investors." 

You must believe that the Bill of Rights is absolute in the case of the
Second Amendment, but the rest of the document is negotiable. 

You must agree that the adulterous affairs of Democrats require public
embarrassment and impeachment, while those of Republicans are a private
matter, and excusable because, well, "boys will be boys" (or girls) You
are also required to ascribe to the notion that the Clintons' business
deals are major breaches of the public trust, while the fact that Dick
Cheney is still being paid by Halliburton, which is now getting billions
of your tax dollars, is simply not a big deal. 

You must agree that lying about a country in order to start a war is
simply how you do business, and no one should be upset by it. 

You must believe that everything that Democrats do should be public
knowledge, but that the public has no right to know anything that
Republicans do. 

You must always deride a Democrat's changes of mind and philosophy as a
"flip-flop," while referring to those of fellow Republicans as "growth." 

You must openly support "state rights," except when John Ashcroft wants
to force local libraries to turn over their records or Tom DeLay wants to
impose new districts because he doesn't like election results. 

You must agree that the outcome of an election is always more important
than making sure everyone got to vote and that all votes were counted.  

You must agree that income tax cuts for the rich are good for the
economy, while payroll tax cuts for the working class are bad.
Furthermore, you must believe that making sure that the rich have a few
extra dollars in their pockets is good for the economy, while raising the
minimum wage is detrimental. 

You must believe that trade with Communist Cuba is wrong, while
increas

Fascist Censorship Spreads: Vichy Style

[The Fool]

<<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1620&ncid=1620&e=2&u=/sv
/20040824/tc_sv/yahoomustfacefrenchlegalaction>>

Yahoo must face French legal action

Tue Aug 24, 9:17 AM ET  

By Howard Mintz, Mercury News 

In a decision that could expose U.S.-based Web sites to free speech laws
of other nations, a federal appeals court on Monday found that Yahoo
could not escape legal action in France for violating a French ban on the
sale of Nazi-related items. 
 

A divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ( - ) concluded
that U.S. courts did not have blanket power to block foreign countries
from enforcing their laws against Web sites such as Yahoo, the latest
chapter in a case that has tested Internet free speech rights in
unsettled global legal terrain. 


The case stems from a fight over whether Yahoo could be sanctioned by the
French courts for allowing the sale of a host of Nazi items, including
copies of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and materials alleging that the gas
chambers of the Holocaust didn't exist. 


Reverses 2001 ruling The appeals court decision reversed a 2001 ruling by
a San Jose federal judge who found that Yahoo's First Amendment rights
protected the company against the orders of a French court. The 9th
Circuit, while noting that Yahoo could still raise its First Amendment
defense if French authorities turn to the U.S. courts to enforce their
orders, said obeying other nations' laws is the price of doing
international business. 


"Yahoo cannot expect both to benefit from the fact that its content may
be viewed around the world and to be shielded from the resulting costs,"
Judge Warren Ferguson wrote for a 2-1 majority. 


The 9th Circuit ruling did not directly address San Jose U.S. District
Judge Jeremy Fogel's free speech findings. Instead, the court found that
U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction to trump the orders of a foreign
court without that foreign government first bringing the dispute into the
American legal system. 


As a result, Yahoo, backed in the case by the American Civil Liberties
Union ( - ) and other free speech advocates, said the ruling would have
minimal impact. The company vowed to reassert its free speech arguments
if French officials attempt to enforce an earlier judgment that Yahoo
must pay fines for allowing the auction of Nazi memorabilia. 


Robert Vanderet, Yahoo's attorney, added that the company might still
appeal the 9th Circuit's ruling, but was satisfied it is narrow enough to
avoid major free speech obstacles. 


Richard Jones, the lawyer for two French human rights groups that sued
Yahoo to get the Nazi items removed, could not be reached Monday. But the
groups have argued in the past that Yahoo's position essentially foisted
American speech values on the rest of the world. 


French anti-hate laws In 2000, a French court sided with the groups and
found that Yahoo had violated French anti-hate laws when it allowed
online auction listings of about 1,000 Nazi-related items. The court
ordered Yahoo to face a $13,000-per-day fine if it didn't block access to
Nazi objects within France. 


Yahoo filed suit in San Jose against the two French human rights groups
that brought the case in Paris. Later, Yahoo removed a variety of the
disputed items only from its French subsidiary, saying it was responding
to customers, not the French court orders. Fogel then ruled that Web
sites operated by Yahoo are not subject to French laws, warning that the
French court orders posed a direct threat to Yahoo's First Amendment
rights. 


Judge Melvin Brunetti of the 9th Circuit dissented, saying that the
French court orders go directly to Yahoo's California-based business
operations and are fair game for the U.S. court system now, particularly
because Yahoo already faces fines for non-compliance. 


"The threat to Yahoo is concrete and growing daily," Brunetti wrote. 
---
"The world Orwell described does not require complete control of the
press, just a very large market share."
-Kuro5hin Poster
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Re: Definition of SF

[Alberto Monteiro]

Erik Reuter wrote:
> 
>> My question is this: what makes a book/story SF?
>
> Simple. It should be fiction, and it should involve science or something
> related to science in some major or minor way!
>
_Everything_ involves science or something related to science.

A friend of mine once defined SF as any story in the space-time.
Gulliver would be SF. Lord of the Rings would be SF. A biography 
of Caligula would be SF. A description of the pre-columbian
natives of Costa Rica would be SF. 60,000 km under the Sea would
be SF.

Which is a useless definition.

I like Heinlein's definition of speculative fiction as stories that are
based on a violation of a few known laws. SF would be those
that have a scientific explanation. Hard SF would be those whose
scientific explanation is scientifically valid.

A biography of Caligula or the description of the natives would
not be speculative fiction. Lord of the Rings would be speculative
fiction but not SF. Gulliver would be SF, and part of it would be
hard sf [according to science as known during that time]. 60,000 km
under the Sea would be hard sf.

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: marketing is evil, why it must be eradicated

[Keith Henson]

At 02:58 AM 24/08/04 -0700, you wrote:
On Aug 23, 2004, at 6:05 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
Isn't it Evil when marketing presents its lies as _imperatives_?
Hm.
I think it becomes evil the moment it tries to compel anyone to trade any 
part of his life for something he just doesn't need.

Asking someone to buy a book, for instance, is OK with me (for a lot of 
reasons) -- but trying to convince anyone that he Simply! Must! Have! some 
damn thing or another, when frankly ...

Okay, here's a concrete example. When I was 18 my dad gave me, for my BD 
gift, a membership in Amway. (Oy, yes, and verily gevalt as well.)

So anyway I'm at one of those endless pointless breakfast things with a 
"double diamond" or some bullshot [sic] distributor, and we get into an 
argument on an ethical point. Because the Amway catalog offered Minolta 
cameras for 35mm SLRs. Being a photo geek, and being an argumentative 
excrescence, even then, I heard something float by about how "Amway sells 
the best..." bla bla.

So I asked, knowing my shi'ite, how I could possibly justify my KNOWING 
that Nikon and Leica and Olympus ALL made better 35mm SLRs than Minolta. 
If some potential customer (this was Amway! Everyone, from the postman to 
the cop writing you a traffic ticket, was a potential customer) asked me 
what was the BEST camera he could buy -- how could I tell him "this hya 
Minolta, shweet", when in fact I knew better?

The answer? None! Save: "Well, tell him about this camera."
"But it's not the best…"
"Tell him about it…"
"But it's not the best…"
And cetera.
That, to me, is the evil of marketing. And why it should be eradicated.
This kind of BS is evil marketing.  Actually, Amway is mostly a 
cult.  http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Amway/  Scientology and Amway both 
redefine ethics.

If you want to know how cults like Amway can attach like a leech to your 
brain I can tell you, short version, long version (nine pages) or a 
pointer.  Take your choice if interested at all.

And if you're asking for volunteers for the firing squad, I can hit a dime 
at 100 yards.

That should be just fine, after recalculating angular differences for 
diameter relative to distance, for hitting a marketer's brain at 6 feet, 
using a Howitzer.
My wife has a comment on this.  Brainwashing shrinks brains.
Keith Henson
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Re: Alcohol and Kids Brains

[Deborah Harrell]

> Julia Randolph <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > William T Goodall wrote:
 
> > So this isn't a recipe thread then?
 
> Guess not.  
> 
> I was thinking more along the lines of "as a
> preservative for".  So's
> you can keep it in a jar on the shelf or something.

If you use the definition of "kid" = young goat, it
_could_ be a recipe; certainly scrambled calf brains
and eggs are on the Cajun menu, and Cajuns are
well-known for mixing alcohol with pretty much
anything...  

Debbi
There Are Far Worse Things Than Haggis Maru ;)



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Re: Definition of SF

[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:28:11PM +0100, William T Goodall wrote:

> A definition that excludes most published science fiction. Including
> much Hugo and Nebula winning material and the entire works of several
> major sf writers such as Jack Vance, Ursula K Le Guin, Philip K Dick,
> Lois McMaster Bujold, C J Cherryh, Michael Moorcock...

B, nope. Play again?


-- 
Erik Reuter   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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DeLong's 3 Important Court Cases

[The Fool]

<>

Most Important Court Case Ever? 
The Eleven-Year-Old is asking, "What was the most important court case
ever?" 

I have three possible candidates: 

1. Dred Scott v. Sanford: If Roger B. Taney had found for Scott, then
Stephen Douglas and company would have been able to say, "You don't have
to vote Republican in order to keep slavery from growing: it's already
constrained, already on the way to ultimate extinction." Had they turned
back the Republican challenge in the North in 1860, things would have
been very, very different thereafter. 


2. The Attainder of the Earl of Strafford: Had King Charles I not
consented to the attaint and execution of Strafford at the start of the
1640s, he would have had a powerful and competent Prime Minister when the
English Civil War started up in earnest. Had Strafford done his usual
superb job, Charles I would have won the English Civil War--and the
principal that Parliament's powers are held by the Grace of the King and
not by Right would have shaped English and world history thereafter. 


3. The Condemnation of Origen by the Second Council of Constantinople:
Origen maintained that Hell was (or would eventually be) empty: after
all, an infinite God with infinite power, infinite mercy, infinite
knowledge, infinite benevolence, and infinite patience must eventually be
able to teach every finite being the way to salvation--even Satan
himself. The condemnation of Origen removed the last possibility that
medieval Christianity--East as well as West--would be a tolerant religion
along the lines of "Big Raft" Buddhism, with a fundamental belief that
we're all going to get to Heaven eventually (although some of us are
ahead of others on the road). It put medieval Christianity firmly on the
side of teaching people that they need to be really, really scared. 


Other candidates? Any disagreements? 

-
"As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on
its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. . . . .
Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves
exterminating dissenters. . . . [T]he First Amendment to our Constitution
was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."
— West Va. State Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) (Jackson,
J.).

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Re: Definition of SF

[Alberto Monteiro]

William T Goodall wrote: 
>  
> A definition that excludes most published science fiction. Including  
> much Hugo and Nebula winning material and the entire works of  
> several major sf writers such as Jack Vance, Ursula K Le Guin,  
> Philip K Dick, Lois McMaster Bujold, C J Cherryh, Michael Moorcock... 
>  
This tendency to redefine words so that we create totally useless 
and self-centered new words is amazing. 
 
The _real_ problem here is: how can we _define_ Science Fiction in 
a simple way and that includes most of what most people consider 
Science Fiction. 
 
Then, run the definition to what most people consider Science Fiction 
and exclude some marginal cases. Run through what few or no people 
consider Science Fiction and include those cases. 
 
Definitions of terms that everybody use should agree with what 
most people use it - else it's a futile exercise of an egotrip :-P 
 
Alberto Monteiro 
 
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Re: Alcohol and Kids Brains

[Julia Randolph]

On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 23:33:45 +0100, William T Goodall
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> On 24 Aug 2004, at 10:26 pm, Deborah Harrell wrote:
> 
> So this isn't a recipe thread then?

Guess not.  

I was thinking more along the lines of "as a preservative for".  So's
you can keep it in a jar on the shelf or something.

 Julia
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Re: Alcohol and Kids Brains

[William T Goodall]

On 24 Aug 2004, at 10:26 pm, Deborah Harrell wrote:
So this isn't a recipe thread then?
--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
Those who study history are doomed to repeat it.
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Re: Definition of SF

[William T Goodall]

On 24 Aug 2004, at 10:54 pm, Dan Minette wrote:
- Original Message -
From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: Definition of SF

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:09:42PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
So, Stranger in a Strange Land is not Science Fiction?
I don't remember any science. Do you?
Doing a bit of research, I see that it won the 1962 Hugo award for best
science fiction.
And in 2001 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling won 
the Hugo award...

--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs.  -- Robert Firth
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Re: Definition of SF

[William T Goodall]

On 24 Aug 2004, at 10:31 pm, Erik Reuter wrote:
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:21:01PM +0100, William T Goodall wrote:
A definition that excludes most published science fiction. Including
much Hugo and Nebula wining material and the entire works of several
major sf writers...
Bzzzt, nope. Play again?
A definition that excludes most published science fiction. Including 
much Hugo and Nebula winning material and the entire works of several 
major sf writers such as Jack Vance, Ursula K Le Guin, Philip K Dick, 
Lois McMaster Bujold, C J Cherryh, Michael Moorcock...

It approximates a definition of hard sf, a field with a few dozen 
writers in it. Hal Clement, Robert Forward...

--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
'The true sausage buff will sooner or later want his own meat
grinder.' -- Jack Schmidling
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Re: Definition of SF

[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:54:04PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote:

> Doing a bit of research, I see that it won the 1962 Hugo award for
> best science fiction.

Bad year for science fiction, 1962.


-- 
Erik Reuter   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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Re: Definition of SF

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: Definition of SF


> On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:09:42PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> > So, Stranger in a Strange Land is not Science Fiction?
>
> I don't remember any science. Do you?

Doing a bit of research, I see that it won the 1962 Hugo award for best
science fiction.

Dan M.


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Re: Definition of SF

[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:21:01PM +0100, William T Goodall wrote:

> A definition that excludes most published science fiction. Including
> much Hugo and Nebula wining material and the entire works of several
> major sf writers...

Bzzzt, nope. Play again?


-- 
Erik Reuter   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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Re: Alcohol and Kids Brains

[Deborah Harrell]

> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 
> but this reminded me of something I read last week.
> Work has me reading/working through the book- 
> "Now, Discover Your Strengths"  which has a section 
> on why people should develop and excel in their
> strengths (versus offsetting their weaknesses- 
> unless they interfere with your strengths).  There
> is a part of the book that talks about how the brain
> of a 2ish month old infant grows synapses at an 
> incredible rate until about 6 months.  Until age 
> 3 synapses learn to communicate, but then 
> "neglected" synapses start to "fall into disrepair"-
> such that half are gone by age 16.  

"Pruning" is the term neurologists use, IIRC.  And it
continues in the pre/frontal cortex - executive
function territory - until approx. age 21 years.  So
the old standard of 'coming into ones majority' at 21
really did have a physiologic basis, even if they had
no idea of why.
 
> I wonder how alcohol in small sips, or even
> with meals would effect this? 

My educated guess is - adversely.  If I had kids I
wouldn't let them drink any alcohol until ~ 16, and
then only a little at table.  Then I guess I'd pray
that I'd fed them enough guilt and fear to keep them
relatively safe until they 'came of age,' after which
they hopefully would make their own decisions with
their executive-functions-finally-fully-engaged
brains.

Debbi
who suspects that her worst weaknesses do indeed
interfere with some of her strengths



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Re: Definition of SF

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: Definition of SF


> On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:09:42PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> > So, Stranger in a Strange Land is not Science Fiction?
>
> I don't remember any science. Do you?

Nope, but it is generally considered to be a classic work of science
fiction.  That's why I think the definition of SF isn't all that cut and
dried.

Dan M.


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Re: Definition of SF

[William T Goodall]

On 24 Aug 2004, at 10:09 pm, Dan Minette wrote:
- Original Message -
From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: Definition of SF

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 02:27:16PM -0400, Bryon Daly wrote:
Nuclear war.  IIRC, there's not much detail/specifics on the war
itself or the exact cause of widespread infertility beyond that.
In that case, I'd exclude it from science fiction. For it to be 
science
fiction, there should be at least a vague attempt at scientifically
explaining one of the main drivers of the plot, and preferably, there
should be some reference to scientists somewhere in the world world
working on fixing that problem.

A definition that excludes most published science fiction. Including 
much Hugo and Nebula wining material and the entire works of several 
major sf writers...


So, Stranger in a Strange Land is not Science Fiction?
Almost certainly not. It might be sf, but probably the best-fitting 
genre is fantasy.

--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"Mac OS X is a rock-solid system that's beautifully designed. I much 
prefer it to Linux." - Bill Joy.

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Re: The Mercies of The Vatican

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2004 5:42 PM
Subject: Re: The Mercies of The Vatican


> But then, that's *always* my problem when I come across the word
> "immoral" (or "moral"), which is why I prefer to think in terms of
> ethics. Morality, to me, suggests the presence of an all-powerful
> superbeing dictating absolutes, which is something I'd be hard-put to
> accept as even a rational conjecture.

Since there is no basis for "ought" in phenomenon, it is hard to envision
ethics being based on anything but unverifiable postulates. In other words,
the basis for ethics must be taken on faith.

For example, there is no experimental reason why rain "ought" to fall
during the week instead of on the weekend.  Both things do happen, both are
natural.

The same is true for human actions.  Both rape and self sacrifice for one's
kin occur.  Both can be evolutionarily favored.  One is immoral; one is
moral.

Dan M.


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Re: Definition of SF

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: Definition of SF


> On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 02:27:16PM -0400, Bryon Daly wrote:
> 
> > Nuclear war.  IIRC, there's not much detail/specifics on the war
> > itself or the exact cause of widespread infertility beyond that.
> 
> In that case, I'd exclude it from science fiction. For it to be science
> fiction, there should be at least a vague attempt at scientifically
> explaining one of the main drivers of the plot, and preferably, there
> should be some reference to scientists somewhere in the world world
> working on fixing that problem.

So, Stranger in a Strange Land is not Science Fiction?

Dan M. 

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Re: Definition of SF

[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:09:42PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote:

> So, Stranger in a Strange Land is not Science Fiction?

I don't remember any science. Do you?


-- 
Erik Reuter   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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Re: Cell phone SPAM

[Deborah Harrell]

> Warren Ockrassa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

  
> Do yourself a favor and pull the plug now. The grass
> is not just 
> greener on this side of the pasture; it's also
> calmer, much *much* 
> quieter, and there's a hell of a lot less
bullshtuff.

Reminds me of student days, when some were so proud of
their shiny new pagers...I knew them for electronic
dog leashes immediately.   :P

But I must say that, properly disciplined, cell phones
are useful: frex when your client needs to let you
know, as you're ten minutes into your one-hour drive
to her stable, that her horse is colicky and she must
cancel the lesson.  Almost 2 hours of extra time, not
to mention gasoline, 'saved.'  

BTW, it isn't clear to me how you _really_ feel about
the current US president...  ;)

Debbi
Pagers, Leashes And Bridles Maru   :)



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Re: Definition of SF

[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 02:27:16PM -0400, Bryon Daly wrote:

> Nuclear war.  IIRC, there's not much detail/specifics on the war
> itself or the exact cause of widespread infertility beyond that.

In that case, I'd exclude it from science fiction. For it to be science
fiction, there should be at least a vague attempt at scientifically
explaining one of the main drivers of the plot, and preferably, there
should be some reference to scientists somewhere in the world world
working on fixing that problem.


-- 
Erik Reuter   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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Re: The Mercies of The Vatican

[Warren Ockrassa]

On Aug 24, 2004, at 1:02 PM, Robert J. Chassell wrote:
I just talked with a former Dominican priest who prefaced his remarks
by saying that his knowledge is 30 years out of date, but then said
  * because of transubstantiation, the wine is the blood and
the bread is the flesh
Yes, transubstantiation is up there high in Catholic hooey, along with 
a triune god and a virgin mother and other equally impossible things.

My question is whether a Catholic vegetarian can take the eucharist. 
(And, by extension, whether ANY Catholic can take in on Fridays. Was 
Jesus made of fish? Or is he instead a special meat, a la Holy Cow? And 
who exactly decided fish is "not meat"?)

Thus, believers would know they are engaging in cannibalism each time
they partook of bread and/or wine in holy communion, but a
non-believing policeman out to make an arrest would only see them
drinking some wine and eating some bread.
You'd think either the ritual deicide or symbolic cannibalism would cue 
them in to the real roots of their cult.

Alas, no -- that requires critical thinking, which religion requires 
the absence of.

-- WthmO
The best way to be free from religious terrorism
is to be free from religion.
--
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Re: New Elements

[Deborah Harrell]

> Robert Seeberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > From: "Deborah Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > Robert Seeberger wrote:
> > > > From: "Deborah Harrell"
> > > > > "Robert G. Seeberger" wrote:

> > > > >  [XY]  Usage:  None really, except methane
> > > > > production  

> > > > Oh, I can think of *several* other things in
> > > > this category...   > > Looking forward to the Debra Sutra.
> > > Coming to a webcam near you  

> >  > slowly in one hand, or just ROTFLOL...>
 
> 

You must be thinking of Xena, or perhaps Catwoman, who
look good in body-leather; as for me, my only personal
leather accoutrements are boots, belts and handbags!
  ;}

> > Two chances of _that_...fat and slim!
 
> Ahhh.So you go both ways!

Drafters to pull carriages, hacks to ride out...?   ;)

> > Debbi
> > who is personally _very_ anti-PDA, more from a
> > 'horribly embarrassed' rather than a 'morally
> > outraged' standpoint...
 
> PDA?

Is this term no longer used?  I admit it _was_ back in
high school and college that we snickered about
shameless Public Displays of Affection.

Debbi
who _never_ engaged in any kissing on the street that
prompted a passing car of college boys to honk and
yell "Hey, get a room!" 



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Re: Alcohol and neuron function (was: The Mercies of The Vatican)

[Deborah Harrell]

> Gautam Mukunda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> This is the second message I've gotten from Dan M.
> dated Saturday, August 23rd of 1980.  Is something
> weird going on?
 

Ah-ha!  So I _did_ get Dan's posts, but as they were
at the "earliest" end of the line (456 messages in my
inbox), I didn't see them!

Thanks for clearing that little mystery up.

Debbi
Yes I Have Many Posts I Meant To Respond To, As Well
As A Large Number Of Medical Articles Backlogged Maru



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Re: The Mercies of The Vatican

[Robert J. Chassell]

I just talked with a former Dominican priest who prefaced his remarks
by saying that his knowledge is 30 years out of date, but then said

  * because of transubstantiation, the wine is the blood and 
the bread is the flesh

  * but you may perform the sacrament with
either the wine
or the blood
or both

My understanding is that the physics must be Aristotelian, that is to
say you can convert the _substance_ of one matter into another, such
as wine into blood, but not its _accidents_, which are the
characteristics of it that we humans perceive.

Thus, believers would know they are engaging in cannibalism each time
they partook of bread and/or wine in holy communion, but a
non-believing policeman out to make an arrest would only see them
drinking some wine and eating some bread.

-- 
Robert J. Chassell 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com  http://www.teak.cc
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Re: Definition of SF

[Warren Ockrassa]

On Aug 24, 2004, at 11:27 AM, Bryon Daly wrote:
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 13:13:13 -0400, Erik Reuter 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 12:44:51PM -0400, Bryon Daly wrote:
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 12:03:39 -0400, Erik Reuter 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 08:45:57PM +0900, G. D. Akin wrote:
My question is this: what makes a book/story SF?
Simple. It should be fiction, and it should involve science or 
something
related to science in some major or minor way!
So by this classification, would you consider Atwood's "The 
Handmaid's
Tale" not to be SF?
Haven't read it. Heard a couple things, not sure if they are true. 
Most
women infertile? Why? Was there a (at least somewhat) scientific
explanation given?
Nuclear war.  IIRC, there's not much detail/specifics on the war 
itself or the
exact cause of widespread infertility beyond that.
And the nuke thing is tenuous at best. I got the war, yes -- but 
infertility I read as being the result of bioweapons, not a nuke 
exchange.

Atwood is beautifully vague on this, because it really doesn't matter. 
What she posits is a world controlled, at least as far as Offred is 
concerned, entirely by men, all of whom are clearly of a particularly 
virulent stripe of Christian fundamentalism. Without specifying 
denominations, and going solely on what she wrote, I can say the likely 
culprits' church name would rhyme with Bouthern Craptists. (Or, if 
you're like me, "Ducking Bouthern Craptists.")

It's a passable book, worth the read though a bit irritating in places; 
and do yourself a favor and ignore the afterword. It really shouldn't 
have been included.

-- WthmO
The best way to be free from religious terrorism
is to be free from religion.
--
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Re: Definition of SF

[Warren Ockrassa]

On Aug 24, 2004, at 9:44 AM, Bryon Daly wrote:
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 12:03:39 -0400, Erik Reuter 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 08:45:57PM +0900, G. D. Akin wrote:
My question is this: what makes a book/story SF?
Simple. It should be fiction, and it should involve science or 
something
related to science in some major or minor way!
So by this classification, would you consider Atwood's "The Handmaid's
Tale" not to be SF?
I'd say not, but only conditionally -- that is, it's not SF in the same 
way that Orwell's _1984_ is not SF.

Dystopian futures are themselves a bit of a subgenre of SF, but I don't 
think they're necessarily classifiable per se as SF. While "Make Room! 
Make Room!"/_Soylent Green_ is often classified as SF, I don't think 
the genre categorization is valid. There's nothing in the movie, at any 
rate, that hints at spectacular future tech (cheesy arcade console 
games in home foyers notwithstanding). Making nutrient supplements out 
of corpses is not de facto SF; it's really recycling taken to its 
logical (and logically-supportable) conclusion.

Put another way I don't believe that something like Atwood's book -- 
which really needs, for the record, a rigorous culling of commas and a 
radical appendectomy -- is SF, nor is Bradbury's _F451_ (he would 
probably agree with me on that), nor _1984_. (For that matter, most of 
Ayn Rand's monotonous, indistinguishable diatribes fall into this 
non-category as well.)

So we know a little of what I think SF is not -- how about what it is, 
according to my majesty?

Well, we have slots and slots, hard SF, space opera, etc. -- and then 
there are the simply bizarre, such as _Space: 1999_, which in its first 
season had some of the most realistic moon-vehicle tech around (though 
everyone wore jumpsuits in crash-prone Eagles, go fig, and Alpha was 
built right on Luna's surface!) AND which dipped into fantasy, not too 
much unlike its two-decade late tangential heir, _Babylon 5_.

I like the SF/SF distinction: Science fiction and speculative fiction. 
Into the former I'd probably slot the works of at least one noted 
author on this list; into the latter I'd stuff most everything else 
clearly quasi-tech yet not fantasy, such as the rapidly 
self-destructing _Star Wars_ franchise.

The distinctions aren't all that arbitrary; verifiable or at least 
plausible science goes into scientifiction. Transporters, "subspace 
anomalies" and "blasters" that project visible beams ... the latter. 
(Though it gets contorted; _The Trouble with Tribbles_ is arguably one 
of the best Trek episodes ever and stands as a hallmark of SF as a 
genre; but the episode itself exists in a silly Trek franchise. 
Problem? That franchise did not exist in 1968, when the episode was 
written -- so then, it was most certainly SF, even if its storytelling 
vehicle, in later shambling incarnations, became goofy self-parodizing  
spec-fic.)

And the _Dr. Who_ thing is its own can of worms. Or, really, TARDIS. 
Very much a multidimensional and largely atemporal socio-artistic 
phenomenon that has had the balls to make it across four decades -- 
DECADES! -- of time in an era of intense international upheaval and 
notorious impermanence.

Oh yeah: Philip K. Dick. A subgenre unto himself.
As to why Atwood doesn't want her stuff labeled SF -- that's easy. L. 
Ron Hubbard wrote, according to Bridge Publications, SF. Would you 
really want your books to be genericized into the same category as such 
abjectly pulpish crap?

It takes Delany's orchids of brass or my own massive chutzpah (or 
Brin's feet etc. of clay) to willingly be part of the genre and STILL 
try to produce "literature" in the category.

And there it is. Delany, Brin and me all mentioned in the same 
sentence. I await the Fourth Horseman.

-- WthmO
This email is a work of fiction. Any similarity between its contents 
and any truth, entire or partial, is purely coincidental and should not 
be misconstrued.
--

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Re: Cell phone SPAM

[Warren Ockrassa]

On Aug 24, 2004, at 4:53 AM, Gary Nunn wrote:
Unfortunately, unlike email spam, the cell phone browser messages beep
at you until you read them or dismiss the notification.  They have a
captive audience.
Actually no they don't.
Remember life before Windows XP was released? Return to that era.
Place your cellular in the driveway and carefully, cautiously, back 
your vehicle over it, several times, even if -- ESPECIALLY if -- it 
(the phone) belongs to your employer. (If you lack a vehicle or 
employer, drop the phone in the toilet. If you lack a toilet, why the 
hell do you have a cellular phone, you idiot? Learn a few things about 
priorities before you get back into the welfare line.)

Presto. You're living in Warren's Cellular-Free World of Yesteryear. 
(Actually ca. 2000)

You'll discover life in here is good. No inane conversations comprised 
solely of "I'm at the grocery store … where are you" Hello? Hello?" No 
interruptions at movies or _Magic: The Gathering_ games from people 
with "urgent matters" such as "your newspaper's lying in the rain on 
the driveway." No, and I mean absolutely no, "emergency" calls from 
ANYone that cannot be handled by an answering machine, calls such as 
"the print job is running late and won't be delivered until next week" 
-- something over which you have no control anyway and so, strictly 
speaking, you did not need to know about immediately, "immediately" 
meaning halfway through _Finding Nemo_.

There is almost no personal contingency for which cellular phones are 
nearly totally unsuited. Those idiot devices have had millions 
redefining what "contingency" means -- and they are nearly all dead, 
dead wrong.

The few times cellular phones served a real contingency purpose to the 
common man have tended to be wrenching tragedies, such as when last 
messages to loved ones were left by doomed WTC victims or phones were 
ringing on the bodies of the victims of the Madrid attacks of early '04 
as rescuers carried them away, the phones' rings from relatives trying 
to call and see if their loved ones were all right.

Ultimately, when you get to tacks, you gotta admit the damned things 
really aren't that useful.

Do yourself a favor and pull the plug now. The grass is not just 
greener on this side of the pasture; it's also calmer, much *much* 
quieter, and there's a hell of a lot less bullshtuff.

("Oo, my boss makes me … I gotta for work…" Really? How did your 
position's work get done in the pre-cellular era? You'll actually be 
fired for refusing to carry a cellular 24/7 without overtime 
compensation? If so you signed a rotten employment contract, friend, 
and will do yourself a favor by finding a job where you are treated as 
a human being, not a permanently on-call answering service.

(Of course if one's sole purpose in having a cellular is ego 
gratification, one will persist in carrying them. And if such is the 
case, one needs to fess up and stop whining about how "awful" one's 
life is.)

Whew! That was fun!
-- WthmO
Why men should not drive while using cellular phones:
You can't steer when you're trying to handle TWO tiny devices.
--
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Re: Definition of SF

[Bryon Daly]

On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 13:13:13 -0400, Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 12:44:51PM -0400, Bryon Daly wrote:
> > On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 12:03:39 -0400, Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 08:45:57PM +0900, G. D. Akin wrote:
> > >
> > > > My question is this: what makes a book/story SF?
> > >
> > > Simple. It should be fiction, and it should involve science or something
> > > related to science in some major or minor way!
> >
> > So by this classification, would you consider Atwood's "The Handmaid's
> > Tale" not to be SF?
> 
> Haven't read it. Heard a couple things, not sure if they are true. Most
> women infertile? Why? Was there a (at least somewhat) scientific
> explanation given?

Nuclear war.  IIRC, there's not much detail/specifics on the war itself or the 
exact cause of widespread infertility beyond that.  It's been 16+ years since I 
read it, so here's a synopsis stolen from Amazon:

"Margaret Atwood's story is set in the future after the United States
has undergone a nuclear war and the government has been destroyed. In
place now is a strict and dangerous political scene, where any type of
crime can result in an execution and a public hanging on The Wall. Not
only that, but women are made secondhand citizens and are no longer
able to hold jobs, make money, read or write.

The Handmaid's Tale is told through the eyes of Offred in the former
state of Massachusets, now called the Republic of Gilead. Offred is a
Handmaid, or a surrogate mother of sorts, who is appointed to an
infertile couple in order to get pregnant and help boost the
population. However, it isn't as easy as that since the only legal way
to get pregnant is the old-fashioned way, which causes jealousy and
tension throughout the household. And with the rigorous government,
Offred isn't allowed to complain or refuse unless she wants to be
shipped off to clean up toxic nuclear waste for the rest of her life."
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Re: Definition of SF

[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 12:44:51PM -0400, Bryon Daly wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 12:03:39 -0400, Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 08:45:57PM +0900, G. D. Akin wrote:
> > 
> > > My question is this: what makes a book/story SF?
> > 
> > Simple. It should be fiction, and it should involve science or something
> > related to science in some major or minor way!
> 
> So by this classification, would you consider Atwood's "The Handmaid's
> Tale" not to be SF?

Haven't read it. Heard a couple things, not sure if they are true. Most
women infertile? Why? Was there a (at least somewhat) scientific
explanation given?


-- 
Erik Reuter   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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Re: Definition of SF

[Bryon Daly]

On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 12:03:39 -0400, Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 08:45:57PM +0900, G. D. Akin wrote:
> 
> > My question is this: what makes a book/story SF?
> 
> Simple. It should be fiction, and it should involve science or something
> related to science in some major or minor way!

So by this classification, would you consider Atwood's "The Handmaid's
Tale" not to be SF?

It's been a long time since I read it, but I don't recall there being
much science involved.  I'm thinking "speculative ficiton" would be a
much more apt description for it than science fiction.
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wow something Scotty would be proud of

[Nick Lidster]

Glass breakthrough
11 August 2004

Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to make bulk
quantities of glass from alumina for the first time. Anatoly Rosenflanz and
colleagues at 3M in Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy
alumina (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce strong
glass with good optical properties. The method avoids many of the problems
encountered in conventional glass forming and could, say the team, be
extended to other oxides (A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761).

Glass is formed when a molten material is cooled so quickly that its
constituent atoms do not have time to align themselves into an ordered
lattice. However, it is difficult to make glasses from most materials
because they need to be cooled -- or quenched -- at rates of up to 10
million degrees per second.

Silica is widely used in glass-making because the quenching rates are much
lower, but researchers would like to make glass from alumina as well because
of its superior mechanical and optical properties. Alumina can form glass if
it is alloyed with calcium or rare-earth oxides, but the required quenching
rate can be as high as 1000 degrees per second, which makes it difficult to
produce bulk quantities.

Rosenflanz and colleagues started by mixing around 80 mole % of powdered
alumina with various rare-earth oxide powders -- including lanthanum,
gadolinium and yttrium oxides. Next, they fed the powders into a
high-temperature hydrogen-oxygen flame to produce molten particles that were
then quenched in water. The resulting glass beads, which were less than 140
microns across, were then heat-treated -- or sintered -- at around 1000°C.
This produced bulk glass samples in which nanocrystalline alumina-rich
phases were dispersed throughout a glassy matrix. The new method avoids the
need to apply pressures of 1 gigapascal or more, as is required in existing
techniques

The 3M scientists characterised the glasses using optical microscopy,
scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis, and
tested the strength of the materials with hardness and fracture toughness
tests. They found that their samples were much harder than conventional
silica-based glasses and were almost as hard as pure polycrystalline
alumina.

Moreover, over 95% of the glasses were transparent (see figure) and had
attractive optical properties. For example, fully crystallized alumina-rare
earth oxide ceramics showed high refractive indices if the grains were kept
below a certain size.

Author
Belle Dumé is Science Writer at PhysicsWeb



http://physicsweb.org/article/news/8/8/9


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Re: Definition of SF

[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 08:45:57PM +0900, G. D. Akin wrote:

> My question is this: what makes a book/story SF?

Simple. It should be fiction, and it should involve science or something
related to science in some major or minor way!


-- 
Erik Reuter   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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Re: Cell phone SPAM

[Dave Land]

On Aug 24, 2004, at 4:53 AM, Gary Nunn wrote:
I guess it had to start some time. Yesterday I received my first
unsolicited spam message on my cell phone.
Nextel sent me a browser message advertising additional cell services
that I had not previously subscribed to with them. Complete with the
obligatory "Press here to unsubscribe from these messages".
And, unfortunately, since you have a business relationship with Nextel,
it's not SPAM.
I get 'em from AT&T on my Blackberry, as well.
Dave
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Re: Alcohol and neuron function (was: The Mercies of The Vatican)

[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:20:47AM +, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> Erik Reuter wrote:
> >
> > Didn't notice the -p option the first time. Here are ncal's assumed
> > switching dates on the ncal version on my Linux box:
> >
> I have a crude version of cal, with just a fixed idiot date for the switch :-(
> 
> >  BE Belgium1582-12-14  LN Latin  -05-31
> 
> Cool! I didn't know that LN was Latin! 
> 
> >  FR France 1582-12-09  SE Sweden 1753-02-17
> 
> Did you test for the years 1700, 1704, etc in Sweden? They did a
> screw up that ended up with a Feb 30 in one of these years
> 
> Alberto Monteiro

ncal is not that smart, it is just localizing the switchover from Julian
to Gregorian, it doesn't have special days by country:

>ncal -s SE Feb 1700
February 1700
Mo 5 12 19 26
Tu 6 13 20 27
We 7 14 21 28
Th  1  8 15 22 29
Fr  2  9 16 23
Sa  3 10 17 24
Su  4 11 18 25


-- 
Erik Reuter   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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Re: Definition of SF

[William T Goodall]

On 24 Aug 2004, at 12:45 pm, G. D. Akin wrote:
On another list a few months, we were discussing Margaret Atwood's "The
Handmaid's Tale"
and "Oryx and Crake".  Someone mentioned that Ms Atwood was adamant 
about
her works being NOT Science Fiction (apparently, if they are mainstream
novels, they sell better))

One member disagreed and even offered to explain to Ms. Atwood why 
those
works are SF.

My question is this:  what makes a book/story SF?
Any definitions appreciated.
Hugo Gernsback :  "By 'scientifiction' I mean the Jules Verne, H.G. 
Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story -- a charming romance 
intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision . . . Not only 
do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading -- they 
are always instructive. They supply knowledge . . . in a very palatable 
form . . . New adventures pictured for us in the scientifiction of 
today are not at all impossible of realization tomorrow . . . Many 
great science stories destined to be of historical interest are still 
to be written . . . Posterity will point to them as having blazed a new 
trail, not only in literature and fiction, but progress as well."

John W. Campbell Jr : "Scientific methodology involves the proposition 
that a well-constructed theory will not only explain away known 
phenomena, but will also predict new and still undiscovered phenomena. 
Science fiction tries to do much the same -- and write up, in story 
form, what the results look like when applied not only to machines, but 
to human society as well."

 J.O. Bailey: "A piece of scientific fiction is a narrative of an 
imaginary invention or discovery in the natural sciences and consequent 
adventures and experiences . . . It must be a scientific discovery -- 
something that the author at least rationalizes as possible to 
science."

 Judith Merril: "Speculative fiction: stories whose objective is to 
explore, to discover, to learn, by means of projection, extrapolation, 
analogue,hypothesis-and-paper-experimentation, something about the 
nature of the universe, of man, or 'reality' . . . I use the term 
'speculative fiction' here specifically to describe the mode which 
makes use of the traditional 'scientific method' (observation, 
hypothesis, experiment) to examine some postulated approximation of 
reality, by introducing a given set of changes -- imaginary or 
inventive -- into the common background of 'known facts', creating an 
environment in which the responses and perceptions of the characters 
will reveal something about the inventions, the characters, or both."

Brian Aldiss: "science fiction is the search for a definition of man 
and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but 
confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast 
in the Gothic or post-Gothic mode"

Darko Suvin : "a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient 
conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and 
cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework 
alternative to the author's empirical environment".

Robert Scholes : "the tradition of speculative fiction is modified by 
an awareness of the universe as a system of systems, a structure of 
structures, and the insights of the past century of science are 
accepted as fictional points of departure. Yet structural fabulation is 
neither scientific in its methods nor a substitute for actual science. 
It is a fictional exploration of human situations made perceptible by 
the implications of recent science. Its favourite themes involve the 
impact of developments or revelations derived from the human or 
physical sciences upon the people who must live with those revelations 
or developments."

Leslie Fiedler : "the myth of the end of man, of the transcendence or 
transformation of the human -- a vision quite different from that of 
the extinction of our species by the Bomb, which seems stereotype 
rather than archetype".

Alvin Toffler :  (sf)  "by dealing with possibilities not ordinarily 
considered -- alternative worlds, alternative visions -- widens our 
repertoire of possible responses to change".

Marshall McLuhan : "Science fiction writing today presents situations 
that enable us to perceive the potential of new technologies."

Kim Stanley Robinson : (sf was) "an historical literature . . . In 
every sf narrative, there is an explicit or implicit fictional history 
that connects the period depicted to our present moment, or to some 
moment of our past."

Damon Knight :  "Science fiction is what we point to when we say it"
 Norman Spinrad:  "Science fiction is anything published as science 
fiction".

--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my 
telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my 
telephone." - Bjarne Stroustrup

Re: Alcohol and neuron function (was: The Mercies of The Vatican)

[Ray Ludenia]

Erik Reuter wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 05:40:23AM -0400, Erik Reuter wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:49:19AM +0100, William T Goodall wrote:
>> 
>>> Just noticed that the cal command line command and iCal (the GUI
>>> calendar program on Mac OS X) start to disagree around the 1752
>>> Gregorian Reformation :) Going backwards that is. Oops...
>> 
>> I think that iCal is probably not switching between Julian and Gregorian
>> on the right date.
>> 
>> man cal gives this option on my Linux box:
>> 
>>   -s country_code
>>Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at the date
>>associated with the country_code.  If not specified, ncal tries
>>to guess the switch date from the local environment or falls
>>back to September 2, 1752. This was when Great Britain and her
>>colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar.
> 
> Didn't notice the -p option the first time. Here are ncal's assumed
> switching dates on the ncal version on my Linux box:

> AU Australia  1752-09-02

This must have caused considerable consternation and confusion. Who
consulted the Australians living there at the time?

Regards, Ray.



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Cell phone SPAM

[Gary Nunn]

I guess it had to start some time. Yesterday I received my first
unsolicited spam message on my cell phone.  

Nextel sent me a browser message advertising additional cell services
that I had not previously subscribed to with them. Complete with the
obligatory "Press here to unsubscribe from these messages".

Unfortunately, unlike email spam, the cell phone browser messages beep
at you until you read them or dismiss the notification.  They have a
captive audience.





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Definition of SF

[G. D. Akin]

On another list a few months, we were discussing Margaret Atwood's "The
Handmaid's Tale"
and "Oryx and Crake".  Someone mentioned that Ms Atwood was adamant about
her works being NOT Science Fiction (apparently, if they are mainstream
novels, they sell better))

One member disagreed and even offered to explain to Ms. Atwood why those
works are SF.

My question is this:  what makes a book/story SF?

Any definitions appreciated.

George A



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Re: Alcohol and neuron function (was: The Mercies of The Vatican)

[Alberto Monteiro]

Erik Reuter wrote:
>
> Didn't notice the -p option the first time. Here are ncal's assumed
> switching dates on the ncal version on my Linux box:
>
I have a crude version of cal, with just a fixed idiot date for the switch :-(

>  BE Belgium1582-12-14  LN Latin  -05-31

Cool! I didn't know that LN was Latin! 

>  FR France 1582-12-09  SE Sweden 1753-02-17

Did you test for the years 1700, 1704, etc in Sweden? They did a
screw up that ended up with a Feb 30 in one of these years

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Alcohol and neuron function (was: The Mercies of The Vatican)

[Alberto Monteiro]

William T Goodall wrote:
>
> Just noticed that the cal command line command and iCal (the GUI
> calendar program on Mac OS X) start to disagree around the 1752
> Gregorian Reformation :) Going backwards that is. Oops...
>
It's a horrible annoyance, isn't it? They should _at least_ use
the locale variables to make it right. It would be interesting to
see if they would add a Feb 30 to Year 1708 in Sweden :-)

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: marketing is evil, why it must be eradicated

[Warren Ockrassa]

On Aug 23, 2004, at 6:05 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
Isn't it Evil when marketing presents its lies as _imperatives_?
Hm.
I think it becomes evil the moment it tries to compel anyone to trade 
any part of his life for something he just doesn't need.

Asking someone to buy a book, for instance, is OK with me (for a lot of 
reasons) -- but trying to convince anyone that he Simply! Must! Have! 
some damn thing or another, when frankly ...

Okay, here's a concrete example. When I was 18 my dad gave me, for my 
BD gift, a membership in Amway. (Oy, yes, and verily gevalt as well.)

So anyway I'm at one of those endless pointless breakfast things with a 
"double diamond" or some bullshot [sic] distributor, and we get into an 
argument on an ethical point. Because the Amway catalog offered Minolta 
cameras for 35mm SLRs. Being a photo geek, and being an argumentative 
excrescence, even then, I heard something float by about how "Amway 
sells the best..." bla bla.

So I asked, knowing my shi'ite, how I could possibly justify my KNOWING 
that Nikon and Leica and Olympus ALL made better 35mm SLRs than 
Minolta. If some potential customer (this was Amway! Everyone, from the 
postman to the cop writing you a traffic ticket, was a potential 
customer) asked me what was the BEST camera he could buy -- how could I 
tell him "this hya Minolta, shweet", when in fact I knew better?

The answer? None! Save: "Well, tell him about this camera."
"But it's not the best…"
"Tell him about it…"
"But it's not the best…"
And cetera.
That, to me, is the evil of marketing. And why it should be eradicated. 
And if you're asking for volunteers for the firing squad, I can hit a 
dime at 100 yards.

That should be just fine, after recalculating angular differences for 
diameter relative to distance, for hitting a marketer's brain at 6 
feet, using a Howitzer.

-- WthmO
"Egalitarianism" does NOT mean
"Rule by the least common denominator".
--
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Re: Alcohol and neuron function (was: The Mercies of The Vatican)

[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 05:40:23AM -0400, Erik Reuter wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:49:19AM +0100, William T Goodall wrote:
> 
> > Just noticed that the cal command line command and iCal (the GUI
> > calendar program on Mac OS X) start to disagree around the 1752
> > Gregorian Reformation :) Going backwards that is. Oops...
> 
> I think that iCal is probably not switching between Julian and Gregorian
> on the right date.
> 
> man cal gives this option on my Linux box:
> 
>   -s country_code 
>Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at the date
>associated with the country_code.  If not specified, ncal tries
>to guess the switch date from the local environment or falls
>back to September 2, 1752. This was when Great Britain and her
>colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar.

Didn't notice the -p option the first time. Here are ncal's assumed
switching dates on the ncal version on my Linux box:

 AL Albania1912-11-30  IT Italy  1582-10-04
 AT Austria1583-10-05  JP Japan  1918-12-18
 AU Australia  1752-09-02  LI Lithuania  1918-02-01
 BE Belgium1582-12-14  LN Latin  -05-31
 BG Bulgaria   1916-03-18  LU Luxembourg 1582-12-14
 CA Canada 1752-09-02  LV Latvia 1918-02-01
 CH Switzerland1655-02-28  NL Netherlands1582-12-14
 CN China  1911-12-18  NO Norway 1700-02-18
 CZ Czech Republic 1584-01-06  PL Poland 1582-10-04
 DE Germany1700-02-18  PT Portugal   1582-10-04
 DK Denmark1700-02-18  RO Romania1919-03-31
 ES Spain  1582-10-04  RU Russia 1918-01-31
 FI Finland1753-02-17  SI Slovenia   1919-03-04
 FR France 1582-12-09  SE Sweden 1753-02-17
 GB United Kingdom 1752-09-02  TR Turkey 1926-12-18
 GR Greece 1924-03-09 *US United States  1752-09-02
 HU Hungary1587-10-21  YU Yugoslavia 1919-03-04
 IS Iceland1700-11-16


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Re: Alcohol and neuron function (was: The Mercies of The Vatican)

[Erik Reuter]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:49:19AM +0100, William T Goodall wrote:

> Just noticed that the cal command line command and iCal (the GUI
> calendar program on Mac OS X) start to disagree around the 1752
> Gregorian Reformation :) Going backwards that is. Oops...

I think that iCal is probably not switching between Julian and Gregorian
on the right date.

man cal gives this option on my Linux box:

  -s country_code 
   Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at the date
   associated with the country_code.  If not specified, ncal tries
   to guess the switch date from the local environment or falls
   back to September 2, 1752. This was when Great Britain and her
   colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar.


Here is the default cal output for 1752, which guesses when to switch
from Julian to Gregorian (it did indeed guess 1752 Sep 2):

 1752

  January   February   March
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
  1  2  3  4 1   1  2  3  4  5  6  7
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11   2  3  4  5  6  7  8   8  9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18   9 10 11 12 13 14 15  15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25  16 17 18 19 20 21 22  22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 31 23 24 25 26 27 28 29  29 30 31

   April  May   June
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
  1  2  3  4  1  2  1  2  3  4  5  6
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11   3  4  5  6  7  8  9   7  8  9 10 11 12 13
12 13 14 15 16 17 18  10 11 12 13 14 15 16  14 15 16 17 18 19 20
19 20 21 22 23 24 25  17 18 19 20 21 22 23  21 22 23 24 25 26 27
26 27 28 29 3024 25 26 27 28 29 30  28 29 30
  31
July August  September
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
  1  2  3  4 1 1  2 14 15 16
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11   2  3  4  5  6  7  8  17 18 19 20 21 22 23
12 13 14 15 16 17 18   9 10 11 12 13 14 15  24 25 26 27 28 29 30
19 20 21 22 23 24 25  16 17 18 19 20 21 22
26 27 28 29 30 31 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
  30 31
  October   November  December
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
 1  2  3  4  5  6  71  2  3  4  1  2
 8  9 10 11 12 13 14   5  6  7  8  9 10 11   3  4  5  6  7  8  9
15 16 17 18 19 20 21  12 13 14 15 16 17 18  10 11 12 13 14 15 16
22 23 24 25 26 27 28  19 20 21 22 23 24 25  17 18 19 20 21 22 23
29 30 31  26 27 28 29 3024 25 26 27 28 29 30
31





-- 
Erik Reuter   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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marketing is evil, why it must be eradicated

[Alberto Monteiro]

Isn't it Evil when marketing presents its lies as _imperatives_?

  Eat at McDonalds!

This should subject them to be sued: why on Earth do they have
the right to _order_ us to eat there? Imperatives should only
be allowed when there is no other choice:

  Don't cross the railway when the light is red

  Vaccinate your kids against polio

  Do not feed the pidgeons

Alberto Monteiro

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