Misson

Why, it's the long lost sequel to Jabberwocky! Either that or the galley for the next Harlequin romance.

Good luck with that argument. This is part of the reason I don't think we're there yet on vehicles as I said before. You have to make something that will satisfy what people really want. There are only a small fraction of the population that are going to sacrifice the freedom of owning their own transportation in the name of environmental consciousness. Independence is ingrained in the US culture. This is one of the reasons the politicians and various groups who promote GW are doing so - to try to convince people to sacrifice their independence (in more ways than just vehicles) basically in the name of protectionism and future safety. They are thinking in Win/Lose game theory terms. For them to win, we must all lose some of our independence and freedom of choice. I think that's part of the reason they're having such a hard time with the environmental cause. The whole anthropogenic GW theory is just that...a theory. One with all kinds of holes in it as I've pointed out elsewhere. When you try to shove it down people's throat...when you try to shove anything down people's throats...they resist. Especially intelligent, independent people. However, when solar gets into the competitive range of pricing...we will have a Win/Win scenario in game parlance. Until we get there, the environmentalists and politicians are fighting an uphill battle IMO, based on threats and fear which are often vague and practically untenable. This strategy rarely works in the market for very long, so they've turned to the government - which can make the protection of things vague and untenable into an institutionalized art form. Restrictions imposed by the government can be very hard to remove - even when their purpose is no longer valid. I don't see how this is a step forward, especially regarding a theory with so many possibilities for being incorrect.

Ah, two more phishing eCards. One from "Neighbor" and one from "Class Mate." I like that they capitalized them so that they look sort of like formal names. Got one this morning that I just liked the sender's name: From: Johnathon Yazzie Subject: It may strengthen your relationship with your partner. I wonder if he means my cat? Eww...I looked at the message. I hope he doesn't mean my cat! The cat would be awfully put out. (Like right out the screen window.) Johnathon Yazzie...hey William Red Wake! I think I know what I want to name my doctor character for PiP!

Now, see, I was just thinking that the other day, but I didn't want to say anything because I thought it would sound offensive. But you, Mr. and/or possibly Mrs. invarfodova just put it right out there without fear of reprisal! Good on ya', mate. (And good luck. Glad I didn't post it that way.)

This morning it was misting when I was out walking. Quite refreshing. Is this 100% humidity? I first came across a rain showerhead in Sydney and I had to have one. The trouble is, now that I have one, whenever I travel I wonder what's wrong with the showers in hotels. (The water feels like it's coming out in spears!)

I seem to recall reading that the version used in films 2 & 3 was materially different than the version used in film 1. (The practical version of which was actually a barge dressed up to look like the Pearl as most of you probably already know.) I don't know how different they were, but I remember reading that somewhere.

The vehicle thing...I personally don't think we're there yet. Someone has to find a better way to transport people that is acceptable to them and the only way to do that is to explore all these other, inefficient ways. (This is why the government getting to strongly behind any of them is a mistake. Then again, like a good Libertarian, I think the government pouring money into most private ventures is a mistake.) I think a lot of people are becoming more earth friendly aware, particularly in the upcoming generations as I said previously. This is what I suspect will be the force driving the adoption of green energy generation. Back when we were talking about GW, I indicated that whatever else it has done, it has brought environmental issues to the fore of many people's minds. That seems like a good thing to me. (It's allocating large chunks of our money to "combat" it (via taxation) that I am against.) I have read that in 50 years people will look back on this recent era of media-orchestrated fear mongering (GW, health scares, over-protectiveness and you name it) and laugh at how naive we all were.

Critical thinking is useful for many things, particle physics and economics are just two things that sort of stunned me when I tried to wrap my intuition around them. And if you think they're boring, you do so to your own peril, IMO. Especially economics. I personally think they're both quite fascinating. But that's a perceptive thing, I suppose... It's a blend of both in many things. According to most individuals I've talked with who are interested and willing to stretch their mind around the concept, they are masters of both. (Although there are certainly some people who claim (sometimes with great pride) to rely exclusively on one or the other. Boggles my mind why you would want to do that. "Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours." -R. Bach) In fact, according to most people who think about such things, they are masters - period. I know I sure am. As for pizza being the ubiquitously enjoyed food, I can pull ideas out of the air if I like. (I actually am one of those rare people who is not a huge fan of most pizzas. Dull stuff IMO. (Chicago deep dish is another matter, however.) Besides which, it makes my blood sugar go cwazy.)

Stitch? As in Lilo and...? (Stitch in the first movie was really cool. Then they kind of watered him down...)

I think we all have intuition to begin with...children are very intuitive if you watch them closely. But then we are taught to ignore it and rely (in Western cultures particularly) on critical thinking to the exclusion of intuition. Now, don't get me wrong here...critical thinking is also very important and can even trump intuition in many cases (Hey Phil. ) Intuition will just about completely fail you when trying to understand particle physics or large swaths of economics, for example. If you rely exclusively on critical thinking, however, you can easily become a sort of automaton and miss out on a lot of your fun of being. That'sa no good. It is particularly challenging to creativity, which is very intuitive. (I love creativity. It's one of my favorite things. Next to raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, of course.) It's yin and yang. You need both intuition and critical thinking. At least that's been my experience so far. And you can absolutely develop intuition. In fact, I don't think it's a matter of "developing" it at all...it's a matter of re-connecting to it and not blocking it (which is one of the faults of relying heavily on critical thinking). As for "Do we all share the same... *nearly any reference point*?" I think the answer is pretty much: NO. We can all agree (well, most of us) on certain broad principles. When you get to the details of the broad principles, though...that's where agreement seems to fail us as a species. For example, most people can agree that they like pizza, but just try and get three of them to agree on the toppings. (And none of this namby-pamby "cheese and pepperoni" crap. For most people, that's a cop out. We want some win/win pizza topping selection agreement here. ) ____________________ "What does it say?" "Well, go on and read it!" "You read it." "All right, I'll read it to you. Can you hear?" "I haven't heard anything yet. Did you say anything?" "Well, I haven't said anything worth hearing." "Well, that's-a why I didn't hear anything." "Well, that's why I didn't say anything." "Can you read it?" "I can read but I can't see it. I don't seem to have it in focus here. If my arms were a little longer, I could read it. You haven't got a baboon in your pocket, have ya? Here, here, here we are. Now I've got it. Now pay particular attention to this first clause because it's most important. It says the, uh, "The party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the party of the first part." How do you like that? That's pretty neat, eh?..." "No, that'sa no good." "What's the matter with it?" "I dunno. Let's hear it again." "It says the, uh, "The party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the party of the first part." "That sounds a little better this time." "Well, it grows on ya. Would you like to hear it once more?" "Uh, just the first part." "Whaddaya mean? The...the party of the first part?" "No, the first part of the party of the first part." "All right. It says the, uh, "The first part of the party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the first part of the party of the first part shall be known in this contract" - Look, why should we quarrel about a thing like this? We'll take it right out, eh?" "Yeah, ha, it's-a too long, anyhow. Now, what do we got left?" "Well, I got about a foot and a half. Now, it says, uh, "The party of the second part shall be known in this contract as the party of the second part." "Well, I don't know about that..." "Now what's the matter?" "I no like-a the second party, either." "Well, you shoulda come to the first party. We didn't get home 'til around four in the morning...I was blind for three days!"

If there is one thing I have learned, it is that you probably can't teach your cat tricks. They just don't seem to care what you want. If there is another thing I have learned, it that nearly nothing is all of anything. Throwing numbers around, with no real research to back me, I'd say it's about 80% perspective. I was just reading about a salesman named Bill Porter who has cerebral palsy. The man has back troubles, his right arm is nearly useless, he can barely use his hands because they are clenched, he suffers terrible migraines, speaks very slowly and looks more than a bit odd when he walks. This is a man who easily qualifies for federal aid and has been told as much by a government employment agency he once sought help finding a job from. So what does he decide? From his perspective, these are just the normal challenges of his life and he wants nothing whatsoever to do with a "free" living. So he chose to become a door-to-door salesman...and did that for over 30 years. (There's a really good movie about his life starring William H. Macy called Door to Door.) I think it's more about perspective than not. You can do most of things you believe you can do, but you almost never do anything you choose to believe you can't do. That's perspective. (And if someone with that much "against him" can succeed at the level he has, I think I can probably do alright if I also shift my perspective on occasion.)

http://pyracy.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10929

There's the reaaaaaalllly sarcastic movie site called the agony booth and I stumbled across their, er, recap? of a movie called Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny. It's quite long (11 pages), but you'll probably be falling out of your chair laughing by the end of it if you enjoy this sort of humor. I could hardly catch my breath by page 10. http://www.agonybooth.com/santa_bunny/ (Duchess, you simply must check this out. Seriously.)

True, but you're comparing apples to oranges. You could buy a computer like the one you bought in the 80s for less than $10 today. And computers as a product have matured to the point where the price is fairly acceptable to the average consumer. When desk-top computers first came out they were much more expensive than most people were willing to pay but once the price dropped to the point where mainstream acceptance occurred, the product took off. Solar is a young product, not yet matured, so I believe the price will continue to fall because of volume component purchase savings, and production technology improvements. This will continue to occur until the price becomes acceptable to the average consumer. At that point, the price will stabilize, while technology will continue to improve as it has done with computers. Unless something better than solar comes along, that is. On top of all that, accepting your proposition that a complete rig is $1800 today as it was in the 80s, when you consider inflation, it is much cheaper to buy a computer today than it was in the 80s. For example, spending $1800 in 1989 would be roughly equivalent to spending $2950 today (from The Inflation Calculator which is based on the US Gov't Consumer Price Index). Spending $1800 in 1981 would be roughly equivalent to $4250 today. So even if the numbers are the same, the net effect would be that the computer is cheaper in today's dollars. Which I think will happen as solar starts becoming more mainstream. It's how the market works in the US (and, increasingly, worldwide). If consumers start to embrace something, all other things being equal, more companies will produce it, more creative minds will be brought to bear on the problems of production and cheaper ways will be found to make it. So the effective price will drop. It's basically what happened with computers in the Introduction and Growth stages of their product lifecycle curves (I would say solar power is in the early Growth stage at this point. Some of the newer designs are in the Introduction stage.) As globalization has improved, this process keeps happening faster and faster. Good points. I believe the glass issue is probably less of a problem than you might think. Modern manufacturers take this into account by using high-impact resistant glass and other, similar precautions. I can't speak intelligently to the insurance issue because I haven't looked into it. In my thought projection of a possible solar future, you will be able to buy these reasonably-sized solar panels that more or less plug into some sort of master bus system on your roof. When one gets destroyed or ceases to function, you will be able to unplug and replace it. As for efficiency, one possibility is that the things will have some sort of feedback in them to advise the homeowner when they are not working properly. Besides, we basically have the same problem of efficiency with standard heating systems, don't we? I could dramatically increase the efficiency of my hot water system by regularly cleaning the fins on the heat registers, but...well...you know. (Although I do clean them once a year...) I used to have a forced air system and then you had the issue of maintaining the furnace regularly (which I imagine most people don't) and replacing the air filter at least monthly.

There is no denying that an anthropogenic Global Warming effect does exist. Even the skeptical scientists will grant you that one. The real question is how much of an impact it actually has. Most of the skeptics say it is minimal, at best. As Jack says, the Sun is the primary cause of global temperature (actually, it's most if not all of it). Even the most ardent environmentalists (well, maybe not the evangelists) will admit that. However, there is a Greenhouse effect caused by the gases in the atmosphere that trap the sun's heat and cause more warming than would otherwise exist. In fact, without these gases, the earth would probably not be habitable in many places - perhaps not at all. See, there's a far larger non-anthropogenic portion of the Greenhouse Effect that's been around for much longer than we have. So can we have an impact by changing our behavior? Definitely. Is it significant? Probably not. The measurement of the anthropogenic portion of Global Warming is sketchy and contains known errors in calculation. It also fails to take many other factors that effect the global temperature into account. See this thread for more on that. As I've said before, I think this recent surge in concern represents political elements grabbing for more funding by playing on fear. (There's a lot of governmental money to be procured by getting the populace worked up about something. A good scare can create an entire cottage industry - look at some of the money being made off the terrorism gig.)

It depends on which self you're being.

Absolutely! Nothing stupid about it IMO. "Creepy" is a feeling manufactured in our heads. Most feelings are not what I think of as being reliable guides to behavior. (Now, we could talk about intuitions, which I consider to different in that they're grounded in practical experience and learning, but this particular strain of the conversation is already off track from its original point. )

I second that. Even when I didn't get the product, PayPal reimbursed me. I've purchased a lot of stuff of eBay and usually been quite happy. (Including the soundtrack for Muppet Treasure Island for a fairly reasonable price. It's ususally absurdly expensive.)

Yes, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm thinking of. Montana, eh? Your comments imagining the people walking around the town a long time ago is my idea of a ghost. We had some ghost hunters out searching an old theatre where the group I work with built a haunted house one year. They had all kinds of wild ideas and suppositions and it really got to some of the teenage workers. (Some of them wouldn't work certain haunts alone - a pain when we didn't have adequate manpower. ) It did create some really good press coverage, though. Our attendance was up that year.

I've always wanted to see a honest-to-gosh ghost town. (Not one where there are "ghosts" (of which I am skeptical in the extreme), but one of those long deserted places in the west. There is something beautiful in the austere, desolate, crumbling abandoned buildings to me. I used to go out of my way just to drive by the long-abandoned Michigan Central Train building in downtown Detroit. (Hey, there's a Wiki entry for it! Who'da thunk? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Central_Station)

Solar costs have already fallen quite a bit as the technology of gathering and storage has improved. It will most likely continue to do so as awareness and concern increases. I personally suspect that if solar becomes the replacement energy source of choice, the panels will be replaceable. Perhaps they will be like roof replacements - done every 10-30 years (which will then require cleaning as you suggest) ...or perhaps they'll be more like televisions- every 3-5 years. This means the cost of the panels will have to fall dramatically, but why wouldn't it? Solar cells are a technology product. Look at the inflation adjusted price of VCRs or DVD players or any other technology product. If your DVD player fails after 3 years, you can replace it with an equivalent DVD player for a fraction of the original cost. (Although we often trade up to a better product instead.) Oddly, that means we'll probably be throwing them by the gross into landfills eventually...

That's more thoughtlessness than bad luck. The ATMs usually swallow them back up, so all you should have to do is call the bank on Monday and either retrieve it (if it's your bank) or have them issue a new one (if it's another bank - I think some ATM machines destroy them if it's not their bank card to avoid liability). Can you tell I've done this before?

I may be seeing more than is there, but I don't think it's quite that harsh. More like mocking the formality of the outfit. Compare it to the informality of the chair and the setting. I also sense a also a tad, a very small amount, of insecurity in there - especially in the hands and posture. It's a wonderful photo IMO.

This is one of those photos I have always liked. It's a photo of Helen Wills Moody, a very successful tennis player who won 31 Grand Slam titles and 2 Olympic gold medals in the 1920s and 30s. Wills was an introvert who was quite detached - she rarely showed emotion, ignored her opponents, and took little interest in or notice of the crowd. You can sense this in the photo, but there is much more there. Something deeper. I've always thought this photo had that odd "Mona Lisa" bemused look about it.

That's part of it, certainly. But I've been told what they really accomplish is having links to their sites on legitimate sites means the webcrawlers rank them higher in their search sites. See, Google ranks sites based on the results of what their webcrawler 'bots turn up. (Webcrawlers follow links from one page to another.) If there are a lot of links to a site, Google ranks them higher when someone does a search on their site. The links the webcrawlers find are also weighted by the legitimacy of a site. So if your site is ranked highly on Yahoo!'s search site, you get lots of "credit" - making a strong case for a high ranking of your site. (This stops people from creating a bunch of sham sites that are just links to their crappy porn site and getting lots of cred for their massive numbers of links.) So if these SPAMmers flood forums with their links, they get loads of "legitimate" links. The ranking game is a really curious animal. Point being, by putting their links on our site, they get a two-fer. Some people may follow the links, but, far more importantly, the web crawlers may credit them with having more legitimate links and rank them higher. A couple dozen people may seem them here, but if they're ranked on the first page of Google when someone searches for "Britney Spears naked," tens and probably hundreds of thousands of people will see them. Most people don't get past the first page of a Google search, so the first page is prime real estate. See how it works?