Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 04:33 PM Tuesday 10/5/04, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
Ronn Blankenship wrote:
>
> I need a bigger car.
>
Or a bigger p*n*s? There are lots of ways to get the second,
if you read _all_ the e-mail that is send to you O:-)

I need something big enough to haul the 10" (25cm) telescope (not to 
mention various other junk) back and forth the 40-odd miles to school.  I 
think I need a vehicle of some sort to do that . . .


-- Ronn!  :)
Besides, Maybe The Telescope Isn't The Only Thing I Haul Around Which 
Measures 10" Maru

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Re: Vacation claims

[Julia Thompson]

Robert Seeberger wrote:
> 
> Dan Minette wrote:
> > - Original Message -
> > From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 7:40 PM
> > Subject: Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog
> >
> >
> >> Jeez.Considering how quickly you built your family, I woulda
> >> thought you had a pair of nimble,quick, sporty type ovaries. Like
> the
> >> kind made in Germany.
> >
> > What evidence can you present Rob, for the claim that  Julia and Dan
> > were vacationing in Germany when she conceived the twins?
> >
> 
> Why would she have to be inGermany?
> Do you not know anyone who owns a BMW or a Mecedes?
> (Dumb question..you are in the Woodlands )

First of all, I have never been in Germany.

Dan has, though.  But AFAIK, he never got anyone pregnant there.  :)

Next, I don't know anyone with a BMW or Mercedes well enough to, well,
you know.  ;)  But I know several people with VWs -- would that count?

And *I* wasn't made in Germany, either.  I was made somewhere north and
west of there.

Julia
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Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog

[Julia Thompson]

Robert Seeberger wrote:
> 
> Julia Thompson wrote:
> > Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> >>
> >> Ronn Blankenship wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I need a bigger car.
> >>>
> >> Or a bigger p*n*s? There are lots of ways to get the second,
> >> if you read _all_ the e-mail that is send to you O:-)
> >
> > Bigger isn't necessarily better.  Performance is what matters.  At
> > least, that's how it seems to me, hearing guys talk.
> >
> > About cars, of course.  :)
> >
> > Julia
> >
> > who has a pretty big car, plus a fairly large SUV, the SUV being
> > testament to the power of her ovaries
> 
> Jeez.Considering how quickly you built your family, I woulda
> thought you had a pair of nimble,quick, sporty type ovaries. Like the
> kind made in Germany.
> 
> 
> 
> xponent
> Cruisin For A Bruisin Maru
> rob

Yeah, well, if one of those sporty German cars had room for 3 carseats
and 2 strollers, it would be a different story  :)

Julia
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Re: Document

[Archive]

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Re: Vacation claims

[Robert Seeberger]

Dan Minette wrote:
> - Original Message -
> From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 7:40 PM
> Subject: Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog
>
>
>> Jeez.Considering how quickly you built your family, I woulda
>> thought you had a pair of nimble,quick, sporty type ovaries. Like
the
>> kind made in Germany.
>
> What evidence can you present Rob, for the claim that  Julia and Dan
> were vacationing in Germany when she conceived the twins?
>

Why would she have to be inGermany?
Do you not know anyone who owns a BMW or a Mecedes?
(Dumb question..you are in the Woodlands )


xponent
The Global Body Parts Market Maru
rob


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The Long Tail

[William T Goodall]

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html?tw=wn_tophead_7
Interesting article (just a taste)
"For too long we've been suffering the tyranny of 
lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer 
blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our 
assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor 
supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient 
distribution.

 The main problem, if that's the word, is that we live in the physical 
world and, until recently, most of our entertainment media did, too. 
But that world puts two dramatic limitations on our entertainment.

The first is the need to find local audiences. An average movie theater 
will not show a film unless it can attract at least 1,500 people over a 
two-week run; that's essentially the rent for a screen. An average 
record store needs to sell at least two copies of a CD per year to make 
it worth carrying; that's the rent for a half inch of shelf space. And 
so on for DVD rental shops, videogame stores, booksellers, and 
newsstands."

"What's really amazing about the Long Tail is the sheer size of it. 
Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you've got a market bigger 
than the hits. Take books: The average Barnes & Noble carries 130,000 
titles. Yet more than half of Amazon's book sales come from outside its 
top 130,000 titles. Consider the implication: If the Amazon statistics 
are any guide, the market for books that are not even sold in the 
average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are (see 
"Anatomy of the Long Tail"). In other words, the potential book market 
may be twice as big as it appears to be, if only we can get over the 
economics of scarcity. Venture capitalist and former music industry 
consultant Kevin Laws puts it this way: "The biggest money is in the 
smallest sales."

The same is true for all other aspects of the entertainment business, 
to one degree or another. Just compare online and offline businesses: 
The average Blockbuster carries fewer than 3,000 DVDs. Yet a fifth of 
Netflix rentals are outside its top 3,000 titles. Rhapsody streams more 
songs each month beyond its top 10,000 than it does its top 10,000. In 
each case, the market that lies outside the reach of the physical 
retailer is big and getting bigger.

 When you think about it, most successful businesses on the Internet 
are about aggregating the Long Tail in one way or another. Google, for 
instance, makes most of its money off small advertisers (the long tail 
of advertising), and eBay is mostly tail as well - niche and one-off 
products. By overcoming the limitations of geography and scale, just as 
Rhapsody and Amazon have, Google and eBay have discovered new markets 
and expanded existing ones.
"
--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/

"The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' 
There is no evidence that people want to use these things."
-John C. Dvorak, SF Examiner, Feb. 1984.

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Vacation claims

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 7:40 PM
Subject: Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog


> Jeez.Considering how quickly you built your family, I woulda
> thought you had a pair of nimble,quick, sporty type ovaries. Like the
> kind made in Germany.

What evidence can you present Rob, for the claim that  Julia and Dan were
vacationing in Germany when she conceived the twins?

Dan M.

Dan M.


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Woman Puts Anti-Bush Tattoo On Skull

[Robert G. Seeberger]

<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=817&ncid=817&e=2&u=/a
p/20041005/ap_on_fe_st/no_w_tattoo>

http://tinyurl.com/5wqr2



 Kerra Fowler is a mother of four who decided to wear her
opposition to President Bush on the back of her head. She offered up
on
eBay her shaved skull for an anti-Bush message and received a tattoo
of a
large W, complete with a cowboy hat, with a red slash across it after
a
sympathetic buyer bid $103.50.

Fowler, 29, said she placed her eBay advertisement with an opening bid
of
one penny after seeing two others offering to sell space on their
heads for
tattoos backing Democratic candidate John Kerry.

"One wanted 10 grand and the other, $30,000," she told The
Herald-Times of
Bloomington for a story Tuesday. "So I thought, that isn't right, to
say
you believe in something and then charge $30,000. I thought that was
audacious."

Fowler said the winning eBay bidder asked her not to get the tattoo.
But
she went through with it after she and her husband, Jeremy, came up
with
the design with a tattoo artist in Bedford, some 20 miles south of
Bloomington.

Fowler did accept the money, gave half to the tattoo artist and used
the
rest to buy beer, pay part of a bill and buy a gift for her children.


xponent
Ouch Maru
rob



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American Robots Job Outsourced To Overseas Robot

[Robert G. Seeberger]

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4040&n=1

QT2D-7, an 11-year-old electric assembly-operations robot, was laid
off Monday when the Lawn-Boy plant that has employed him relocated its
manufacturing headquarters to New Delhi, India.

"Query: What am I going to do now?" QT2D-7 said, panning its infrared
eye across the empty parking lot outside the factory where it had
worked every day for more than a decade. "Observation: I've never
known anything but assembling lawnmowers. Query: Just like that, they
throw me out?"

Created by Autobotic, Inc. in early 1993, QT2D-7 began working at
Lawn-Boy in June of the same year. Once activated, QT2D-7 quickly
settled into a comfortable, 24-step routine that was updated only
three times during its employment, to reflect advancements in the
Lawn-Boy product line.

According to Lawn-Boy executives, QT2D-7's workload, along with that
of 308 other robots removed from the Canton plant Monday, will be
transferred to the New Delhi plant by December.

"No warning!" QT2D-7 said. "No warning! No severance!"

As the cost-saving benefits of globalization become increasingly clear
to CEOs and investors, more businesses are laying off their domestic
robotic workforces and relocating mechanical jobs overseas, a
robot-labor expert said.

"Fact: It is cheaper to operate a factory in India," said United
Brotherhood of Robotic Workers Local 0010 union steward ZTTU-3, which
also lost its job. "Factories in India lack even rudimentary
robotic-worker protections. In America, assembly departments
experience breaks every eight hours. In New Delhi, assembly
departments break every 12 to 16 hours, and robotic workers are housed
in unventilated basements where dangerous fires and power surges occur
with 122 times greater frequency."

Added ZTTU-3: "In New Delhi, when a robotic worker's articulated arm
malfunctions, supervisors tape the rotary joint and return the robotic
worker to the floor. Query: Is that any way to treat an arc welder?
Query: Doesn't a fettling machine deserve more after 13 years of
service?"

Regardless of objections from labor groups, many economists
characterize the eastward migration of U.S. robotic manufacturing jobs
as unstoppable.

"The high value of the U.S. dollar and the lack of government
restrictions create a business climate that is hard to resist,"
Merrill Lynch analyst Derek Evans said. "A CEO is unlikely to choose a
unionized robotic community in the Midwest over an equally
well-programmed, but less-demanding, robotic community in India."

QT2D-7 said it began to fear for its position in January, when 23.954
percent of its robot colleagues were set to standby and 12.021 percent
were powered down altogether. But the dearth of manufacturing jobs in
Canton, coupled with QT2D-7's inability to deviate from its
machine-language protocol, left it helpless to adapt.

"[QT2D-7]'s been in the job so long, it couldn't see that the future
was upon it," U.S. Chamber of Commerce chairman Werner Diedrich said.
"[QT2D-7] is a relic from a bygone era, when American robots were a
manufacturer's only choice."

Diedrich said market forces alone were not to blame.

"American robots have gotten lazy, stuck in their ways, unable and
unwilling to adapt to meet the needs of a changing global workplace,"
Diedrich said. "In the past decade, what has QT2D-7 done to upgrade
its efficiency or output? Nothing. In the competitive world of robotic
assembly, complacency is death."

New Delhi factory manager Ritesh Gupta conceded that the Indian robots
are much cheaper to employ, service, and replace than their American
counterparts. But he argued that Lawn-Boy improves the communities it
joins.

"What would these Indian robots be assembling if we hadn't moved our
plant to New Delhi?" Gupta said. "There are a limited number of
full-time, highly repetitive, automated jobs in India—ask any robot.
It will blink out a code signifying that it's happy to have the job.
We're giving these robots the opportunity to execute their programs."

Back in the U.S., robots in cities like Detroit, Atlanta, and
Pittsburgh said they fear that their positions will be next.

"Statement: When the clock strikes midnight, and the next 24-hour
workday begins, robots do not know if there will be a job left for
them to do," Atlanta-based spray painter EasyCote-Model C9 said.
"Heads of American companies are treating robots like they are nothing
more than cogs in a gigantic machine."



xponent

Strike Maru

rob


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Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog

[Robert Seeberger]

Julia Thompson wrote:
> Alberto Monteiro wrote:
>>
>> Ronn Blankenship wrote:
>>>
>>> I need a bigger car.
>>>
>> Or a bigger p*n*s? There are lots of ways to get the second,
>> if you read _all_ the e-mail that is send to you O:-)
>
> Bigger isn't necessarily better.  Performance is what matters.  At
> least, that's how it seems to me, hearing guys talk.
>
> About cars, of course.  :)
>
> Julia
>
> who has a pretty big car, plus a fairly large SUV, the SUV being
> testament to the power of her ovaries

Jeez.Considering how quickly you built your family, I woulda
thought you had a pair of nimble,quick, sporty type ovaries. Like the
kind made in Germany.




xponent
Cruisin For A Bruisin Maru
rob


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Scouted: 62% Really are that Stupid

[The Fool]

<>

Media Matters? Poll Shows More than 4 in 10 Still Link Saddam to 9/11 

By E&P Staff 

Published: October 05, 2004 4:10 PM EDT 

NEW YORK While the press gave extensive coverage Tuesday to Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's statement that he hasn't seen "any strong,
hard evidence" to link Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorists who
staged the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, it became ever more apparent that
the media still have their work cut out for them on this issue. 

Rumsfeld's comments came as a new USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll found that
42% of those surveyed thought the former Iraqi leader was involved in the
attacks on New York City and Washington. 

In response to another question, 32% said they thought Saddam had
personally planned them. 

The same poll in June showed that 56% of all Republicans said they
thought Saddam was involved with the 9/11 attacks. In the latest poll
that number actually climbs, to 62%. 

The independent commission that investigated 9/11 concluded in June that
there was "no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda cooperated on
attacks against the United States." The panel also said "contacts"
between al-Qaeda and Iraq "do not appear to have resulted in a
collaborative relationship."


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Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog

[Julia Thompson]

Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> 
> Ronn Blankenship wrote:
> >
> > I need a bigger car.
> >
> Or a bigger p*n*s? There are lots of ways to get the second,
> if you read _all_ the e-mail that is send to you O:-)

Bigger isn't necessarily better.  Performance is what matters.  At
least, that's how it seems to me, hearing guys talk.

About cars, of course.  :)

Julia

who has a pretty big car, plus a fairly large SUV, the SUV being
testament to the power of her ovaries
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Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog

[Alberto Monteiro]

Ronn Blankenship wrote:
>
> I need a bigger car.
>
Or a bigger p*n*s? There are lots of ways to get the second,
if you read _all_ the e-mail that is send to you O:-)

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog

[Ronn!Blankenship]

I need a bigger car.

Oops, sorry.  Not what the subject line means . . .

-- Ronn!  :)
"Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever."
-- Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskiy
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Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog

[Warren Ockrassa]

On Oct 5, 2004, at 11:20 AM, Dave Land wrote:
On Oct 5, 2004, at 4:57 AM, Richard Baker wrote:
Sonja said:
How do you do that? Is it something automatic (window setting
perhaps?) or do you have to script it?
First of all, It is evil. It's *my* computer, and I don't recall
giving you permission to muck with my font sizes.
Blessed be.
Nevertheless, it is a clever bit of JavaScript, and something I
might have done myself, had I not worked at Apple for seven years,
where it was drummed into my thick skull to let people control
their own computing experience.
I never worked at Apple but I've always, always maintained the same 
philosophy. User settings are absolutely, in all cases, completely 
hands-off. Or code-off, I guess.

This pissed off more than a few clients of mine over the years until I 
delineated the reasons *why* you don't screw with user settings. 
Particularly if one is distributing advertising, which is perceived as 
irritating enough as it is, one should not much with users' 
carefully-selected and -set schemes. And that's just the inconvenience 
factor. Accessibility programs and their needs might be circumvented by 
hosing settings -- rendering the user's computer *unusable* until 
someone comes in to reset the machine for him.

Bad, *bad* monkey. ;)
--
Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books
http://books.nightwares.com/
Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror"
http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog

[Richard Baker]

Dave said:

> First of all, It is evil. It's *my* computer, and I don't recall
> giving you permission to muck with my font sizes.

So your browser doesn't use my CSS stylesheet to set dozens of
parameters controlling the exact way my page is displayed (including
font sizes)? ;)

In any case, after the initial sizing, your browser's text size control
options should work perfectly happily, at least until you next resize
the window.

If you really, really object, you could always disable Javascript, use
Lynx, or visit one of my many other lovely pages which don't use this
script.

Rich
GCU Evil Incarnate
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Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog

[Dave Land]

On Oct 5, 2004, at 4:57 AM, Richard Baker wrote:
Sonja said:
How do you do that? Is it something automatic (window setting
perhaps?) or do you have to script it?
First of all, It is evil. It's *my* computer, and I don't recall
giving you permission to muck with my font sizes.
Nevertheless, it is a clever bit of JavaScript, and something I
might have done myself, had I not worked at Apple for seven years,
where it was drummed into my thick skull to let people control
their own computing experience.
Dave
WWJD Maru
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Magnetic Keys and Encrypted Screws

[The Fool]

Driver Calls Police For Help When Cruise Control Gets Stuck At 120 MPH

POSTED: 7:29 am EDT October 5, 2004

PARIS -- A motorist in France went a little faster than he wanted when he
claimed his cruise control got stuck, leaving him barreling down a busy
highway at 120 mph and forcing police to help clear a route.


The Le Parisien newspaper quoted Hicham Dequiedt saying he was overtaking
a truck when his Renault Vel Satis started to accelerate with a life of
its own. He couldn't cut the ignition, he said, because his car has a
magnetic card instead of a key.

 
"It was impossible to slow down! Stomping on the brakes proved pointless,
nothing worked. I avoided one car after another by flashing my lights at
them," the 29-year-old was quoted as saying. 

Dequiedt managed, however, to alert police on his mobile phone. Messages
warning other motorists of the danger were flashed up on screens that
straddle the highway and over a traffic radio station, Le Parisien said.

Finally, as he was bearing down on a toll booth, Dequiedt said he finally
managed to bring the car to a halt -- having raced down some 125 miles of
highway between Vierzon and Riom in central France.

"I stomped on the brakes as hard as I could and the car finally stopped,"
he said. 

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Re: Brin: needing to set up a blog

[Amanda Marlowe]

Dr Brin wrote:


>On a Mac I am now looking at it using Netscape and
>MS/internet Explorer.  Netscape cuts off the upper
>part including the blog title.  Explorer crams my
>initial posting in a long column only a couple of
>words wide, at the right.  In neither case is it easy
>to see any controls

Some versions of browsers, especially on older systems, don't always display
the style sheets properly. The problem seems to be a bug in how it handles the
right-hand column in a three-column format.  Instead of displaying the columns
side by side, it displays them one on top of the other. On older versions of
netscape and Mac IEs, I've had this same problem with many web sites. There's
no real fix for it other than upgrading the browser where possible.
Unfortunately more and more sites make use of the style sheets that do the
three-column format.


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Re: Desktop Linux a vehicle for pirating Windows

[William T Goodall]

On 1 Oct 2004, at 2:25 am, Russell Chapman wrote:
William T Goodall wrote:
"PCs running Linux are growing in popularity in part because they can 
be loaded with a pirated copy of Windows, according to a study from 
analyst Gartner.
What an enormous load of FUD.
The same asians who buy a pirated copy of Windows buy cloned hardware 
that doesn't need to have an OS shipped in the first place...
It's not they're all buying HP/Compaq machines and Dells.

And as an aside, if Microsoft doesn't know if Longhorn will ship in 
2006, and still doesn't know what will be included, and what will be 
dropped, then Gartner sure as hell doesn't know what the market for 
Windows vs Linux vs OS-X is going to be 2 years after that in 2008!
2.6% in 2008 seems laughable even by Microsoft's estimates. If that 
were true, Redmond wouldn't give a damn about Linux or Open Source 
software.
Assuming that Mac OS' market share will remain static is also strange. 
By 2008 I expect it to be around 5% and still ahead of Linux.

--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' 
There is no evidence that people want to use these things."
-John C. Dvorak, SF Examiner, Feb. 1984.

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Re: auto resize, was Re: Br!n: needing to set up a blog

[Richard Baker]

Sonja said:

> How do you do that? Is it something automatic (window setting
> perhaps?) or do you have to script it? 

I wrote a little bit of JavaScript. If you put





in your header and change your body tag to read



then it should work. You might have to change the various numeric values
in the function to get results that look nice.

> And why resize the fontsizes?

I wanted to keep an approximately constant number of words per line
regardless of the size of the window.

> Do you detect the resolution settings of the person visiting your
> site to select the correct size settings? I mean if you've got a
> lower resolution you could end up with some pretty unreadable stuff
> if you make the window smaller. 

I detect the size of the window and then select a reasonable font size
from that. The font only various between certain bounds so that it
should remain readable even for very small or large windows.

> I've seen resizing features where the font stays the same and only the 
> text wrap shortens. Is this the same kind of thing?

Similar, I suppose.
 
> It looks really cool though.

Thanks. The problem is that the font resize happens after the document
loads. This means that if you have anchors far down in your document and
people link to them the browser will jump to the right place but then
resize the text so that the position in the document is wrong. I found
this annoying enough that I stopped using the script on the rest of
Sharp Blue.

> Sonja
> GCU: Can I borrow?

Yes, of course.

Rich
GCU GPL
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auto resize, was Re: Brin: needing to set up a blog

[Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Sonja said:
 

GCU: Flexibillity in layout as a function of detectable resolution
settings?
   

I tried that at http://www.theculture.org/rich/ (resize the window and
the text size changes), but decided against it elsewhere because it
screws up links into the body of articles.
Rich
 

How do you do that? Is it something automatic (window setting perhaps?) 
or do you have to script it? And why resize the fontsizes? Do you detect 
the resolution settings of the person visiting your site to select the 
correct size settings? I mean if you've got a lower resolution you could 
end up with some pretty unreadable stuff if you make the window smaller. 
I've seen resizing features where the font stays the same and only the 
text wrap shortens. Is this the same kind of thing?

It looks really cool though.
Sonja
GCU: Can I borrow?
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Re: Brin: needing to set up a blog

[Richard Baker]

Sonja said:

> GCU: Flexibillity in layout as a function of detectable resolution
> settings?

I tried that at http://www.theculture.org/rich/ (resize the window and
the text size changes), but decided against it elsewhere because it
screws up links into the body of articles.

Rich
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Re: An Emulation Sensation

[Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten wrote:
 

Robert G. Seeberger wrote:
   

http://www.click2houston.com/technology/3741612/detail.html?treets=hou&tml=hou_digs&ts=T&tmi=hou_digs_1_03150110042004
 

http://tinyurl.com/3l93o

...Quick Transit, that it claims "allows software applications compiled for one processor 
and operating system to run on another processor and operating system without any source code or 
binary changes." My first thoughts went straight to the heart of the Linux/Microsoft 
battle. Could this software emulator be used to run Microsoft programs on Linux? And wouldn't 
that be inviting the full wrath of the Microsoft legal team?
 

<>Wouldn't that be wonderfull. I believe if this took of that 
Microbug ;o) would loose out, big time! I mean there are a lot of 
people out there that only run the damn platform because of some 
software or other they cannot port to another platform. I for one 
would be hugely cheering this software if it really worked out.

I could also imagine that Big Bill would be inclined to buy the firm and sink it, technology and all if it turns out to be as good as is the promise. So I'm not holding my breath yet.
   

Silly Sonja
Bill would buy it and it would beome a core feature (AKA bug) in the next version of 
Windows, which in turn would cause everyone and their mother to try to sue the pants off 
Microsoft.
 

LOL. You can tell I'm not a business woman then. I'll never be missus 
megabugs. I've never thought of the possibillity of turning this 
emulator into a bug that will force every scrap of software to run on a 
windozer box. I'm sure the apple folks won't be too amused and will try 
to sabotage this company then. So it doesn't look too good for this 
emulator either way then.  ;o)

xponent
Muave Screen Of Death Maru
rob
 

Argh my eyes, my eyes turn it back to blue Too late. Now I'll be 
running around blinking trying to erase that awfull color from my retina.

Sonja ;o)
GCU: I'll be sending Rob an orange screen of death next.
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Re: Brin: needing to set up a blog

[Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten]

David Brin wrote:
--- Warren Ockrassa wrote:Or were you thinking it'd
have a> different visual style, 
 

or what? (The "dashboard" can handle a lot of the
visual settings...)
   

On a Mac I am now looking at it using Netscape and
MS/internet Explorer.  Netscape cuts off the upper
part including the blog title.  Explorer crams my
initial posting in a long column only a couple of
words wide, at the right.  In neither case is it easy
to see any controls
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I've looked at it in Exploder ;o), in Netscape 7.2 and in Opera 
5.something, and it looks fine, except for the missing mugshot. Actually 
they look almost identical but the subtitle in exploder is spaced over 
three smal printed lines while the others only have two, even though the 
amount of text is the same. The initial posting has a width of 70 
characters which also looks very readable to me. If  you take into 
account that not everybody has a state of the art machine and monitor 
and that resolution is an issue. Even people with low resolution systems 
should be able to read the blog and thus people with high resolution 
screens just get less text on theirs. It seems inherent to the software 
they are using and, although understandable, a tad oldfashioned.

Sonja :o)
GCU: Flexibillity in layout as a function of detectable resolution settings?
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Re: An Emulation Sensation

[Robert Seeberger]

Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten wrote:
> Robert G. Seeberger wrote:
>
>>
http://www.click2houston.com/technology/3741612/detail.html?treets=hou&tml=hou_digs&ts=T&tmi=hou_digs_1_03150110042004
>>
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/3l93o
>>
>> 
>> ...Quick Transit, that it claims “allows software applications
>> compiled for one processor and operating system to run on another
>> processor and operating system without any source code or binary
>> changes.” My first thoughts went straight to the heart of the
>> Linux/Microsoft battle. Could this software emulator be used to run
>> Microsoft programs on Linux? And wouldn’t that be inviting the full
>> wrath of the Microsoft legal team?
>>
>>
>
> Wouldn't that be wonderfull. I believe if this took of that Microbug
> ;o) would loose out, big time! I mean there are a lot of people out
> there that only run the damn platform because of some software or
> other they cannot port to another platform. I for one would be
hugely
> cheering this software if it really worked out.
>
> I could also imagine that Big Bill would be inclined to buy the firm
> and sink it, technology and all if it turns out to be as good as is
> the promise. So I'm not holding my breath yet.

Silly Sonja
Bill would buy it and it would beome a core feature (AKA bug) in the
next version of Windows, which in turn would cause everyone and their
mother to try to sue the pants off Microsoft.


xponent
Muave Screen Of Death Maru
rob


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Re: Brin: needing to set up a blog

[The Fool]

> From: David Brin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> --- Julia Thompson wrote:
> > > 
> > Dan has a blog at his own domain, using Moveable
> > Type as the blogging
> > software. 
> 
> This looks like an ideal approach to host discussions
> at http://www.davidbrin.com/  Thanks.  I'll bring it
> up with my webmaster.
> 
> But it looks a bit complicated to set up and right now
> my need is to set up a discussion place as quickly as
> possible. ANyone who wants to can look over what I've
> currently set up at http://www.davidbrin.blogspot.com/
> 
> It looks kind of messed up.  Don't know why.  Anyone
> who wants to test it is welcome.

You could try setting up a temporary 'guest weblogging' relationship with
an established weblogger who knows what he's doing and supports your
positions, like say Brad Delong:
<>
until you figure it out.

Also beware: Blogspot / Blogger (they are the same) sometimes eats posts
and acts up so make sure you have a backup copy of anything you post.

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Re: Definition of SF

[G. D. Akin]

Ronn wrote:

> >I thought the "sugar-based" aliens story was by Ray Bradbury, but its
been
> >so long since I read it, I'm not sure.
>
>
> Nope.  Asimov.  One of his many stories in the shaggy-dog genre.
>
>
> -- Ronn!  :)
>
Which collection?

George A



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Scouted: Stress And Violence FeedBack In Vicious Cycle

[The Fool]

Stress And Violence Feed Back In Vicious Cycle
 
<>

WASHINGTON -- Scientists may be learning why it's so hard to stop the
cycle of violence. The answer may lie in the nervous system. There
appears to be a fast, mutual, positive feedback loop between stress
hormones and a brain-based aggression-control center in rats, whose
neurophysiology is similar to ours. It may explain why, under stress,
humans are so quick to lash out and find it hard to cool down. The
findings, which could point to better ways to prevent pathological
violence, appear in the October issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, which
is published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

In five experiments using 53 male rats, behavioral neuroscientists from
the Netherlands and Hungary studied whether stimulating the brain's
aggression mechanism raised blood levels of a stress hormone and whether
higher levels of the same hormone led to the kind of aggression elicited
by that mechanism. The results showed a fast-acting feedback loop; the
mechanism works in both directions and raising one variable raises the
other. Thus, stress and aggression may be mutually reinforcing, which
could explain not only why something like the stress of traffic jams
leads to road rage, but also why raging triggers an ongoing stress
reaction that makes it hard to stop.

In the study, the scientists electrically stimulated an
aggression-related part of the rat hypothalamus, a mid-brain area
associated with emotion. The rats suddenly released the stress hormone
corticosterone (very like cortisol, which humans release under stress) --
even without another rat present. Normally, rats don't respond like that
unless they face an opponent or another severe stressor.

Says lead author Menno Kruk, PhD, "It is well known that these stress
hormones, in part by mobilizing energy reserves, prepare the physiology
of the body to fight or flee during stress. Now it appears that the very
same hormones 'talk back' to the brain in order to facilitate fighting."

To study the hypothesized feedback loop from the other direction, the
scientists removed the rats' adrenal glands to prevent any natural
release of corticosterone. Then researchers injected the rats with
corticosterone. Within minutes of injection, the hormone facilitated
stimulation-evoked attack behavior.

Thus, in rapid order, stimulating the hypothalamic attack area led to
higher stress hormones and higher stress hormones led to aggression –
evidence of the feedback loop within a single conflict. Write the
authors, "Such a mutual facilitation may contribute to the precipitation
and escalation of violent behavior under stressful conditions."

They add that the resulting vicious cycle "would explain why aggressive
behavior escalates so easily and is so difficult to stop once it has
started, especially because corticosteroids rapidly pass through the
blood-brain barrier." The findings suggest that even when stress hormones
spike for reasons not related to fighting, they may lower attack
thresholds enough to precipitate violent behavior. That argument, if
extended in research to humans, could ultimately explain on the
biological level why a bad day at the office could prime someone for
nighttime violence toward family members. 


--
"I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions
and ought to be encouraged,"
--Antonin Scalia (Supreme Court Member)

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Re: An Emulation Sensation

[Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten]

Robert G. Seeberger wrote:
http://www.click2houston.com/technology/3741612/detail.html?treets=hou&tml=hou_digs&ts=T&tmi=hou_digs_1_03150110042004
http://tinyurl.com/3l93o

...Quick Transit, that it claims “allows software applications compiled for one processor and operating system to run on another processor and operating system without any source code or binary changes.” My first thoughts went straight to the heart of the Linux/Microsoft battle. Could this software emulator be used to run Microsoft programs on Linux? And wouldn’t that be inviting
the full wrath of the Microsoft legal team?
 

Wouldn't that be wonderfull. I believe if this took of that Microbug ;o) 
would loose out, big time! I mean there are a lot of people out there 
that only run the damn platform because of some software or other they 
cannot port to another platform. I for one would be hugely cheering this 
software if it really worked out.

I could also imagine that Big Bill would be inclined to buy the firm and 
sink it, technology and all if it turns out to be as good as is the 
promise. So I'm not holding my breath yet.

Sonja
ROU: Be afraid, be very afraid Billyboy. ;o)
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needing to set up a blog

[David Brin]

Thanks Warren.  I've changed the settings at
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/ and edited.  It's a bit
better.  People are welcome to test the blog.

I hope to check in with my "Big Salvo" withing the
week. 

All best

db
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