SourceForge.net: Project Info - Flat File DataBase (FFDB) for PHP: "Advanced PHP database for those without mySQL or similar dedicated databases. Supports many data types and advanced features through a simple PHP object API. Low-level implementation very efficient with indexes. Example code and database manager supplied."

FORWARD : Arts & Letters: "But in this new and important book, 'Stalin's Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953,' Jonathan Brent and Vladimir P. Naumov argue that the Doctor's Plot was much more than just another attack on Jews. Using government and secret police documents hitherto unavailable to researchers, Brent and Naumov assert that the plot was orchestrated by Stalin to justify a new purge of the party and the police and to prepare the country for a war with the United States. The choreography of the plot was extremely complex and tied together many different events: the heart attack of Politburo member A.S. Shcherbakov in 1945; the Lysenko affair, in which a crackpot biologist promised to revolutionize Soviet agriculture and successfully terrorized his fellow scientists; the death of Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov in 1948; the execution of the Leningrad Party leadership in 1950, and the arrest of Ministry of State Security head Abakumov in 1951. All this played out against a backdrop of rising tension with the United States and Stalin's rabid suspicion that all Soviet Jews were potential American agents."

Michael Dirda (washingtonpost.com): "In another cartoon, a pair of determined hunters peer down at a third who is elaborately tied up in the middle of the woods. One says to the other: 'It's Jim Wilkins, Dave. Same as the others. Trussed up like a Christmas present with his hunting license stuffed in his mouth. . . . I want this bear, Dave. I want him bad.' In still one more, a wolf sporting a polka dot dress lies on a psychiatrist's couch and confesses to his beak-nosed therapist: 'You know, it was just supposed to be a way to trick this little girl . . . but off and on, I've been dressing up as a grandmother ever since.'"

Telegraph | Arts | How could Hitler happen?: "Yet no wholly satisfactory explanation can ever be forthcoming, about how one of the most educated and cultured societies on earth bowed itself to the will of a group of gangsters, whose ambitions were not merely evil, but beyond rationality. Hitler's colossal ignorance of the world in which he lived was at least as remarkable as his emotional power over the people whom he led to disaster."

Telegraph | Arts | How could Hitler happen?: "Most remarkable was the speed of the process. As late as 1929, the Nazis remained a fringe party. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was merely Chancellor of a coalition government, in a Reichstag still dominated by non-Nazi conservatives. By July 14, the one man sure of his purposes amidst a nation stricken by bewilderment, he had become ruler of a one-party state."

Telegraph | Arts | How could Hitler happen?: "Hitler could claim greater democratic legitimacy than Stalin, yet one of the author's central themes is that at no time did a majority of the German people take an electoral decision to surrender to Hitler. He became Chancellor in 1932 after winning 13.7 million votes - 37.4 per cent of all those cast - against 13.1 million for the Social Democrats and Communists in the Reichstag elections. Many post-1945 Western governments have ruled without much larger popular support, however, and few people have questioned their legitimacy.

Evans's point about the Nazi minority is well-taken. But it was surely the manner in which Hitler destroyed democratic institutions once he gained power that was exceptional, not the fragile base of popular support that got him into the chancellery.

The Reichstag fire in February 1933, in the midst of a new election campaign, provided the Nazis with a unique opportunity to embark upon a hysterical, brilliantly-orchestrated propaganda campaign, matched by a state-sponsored reign of terror against the Left."

The Case Against the Democratic State: An Essay in Cultural Criticism: "Graham once more has a response. Why should one believe that persuasion can work only in a democracy? Why are 'the good despot and the liberal oligarchs'(p.55) immune to persuasion? 'The democrat . . . would be very unwise to play down the significance of voicing opinions, since this is the only way, between elections, that democracy is to be distinguished from elective dictatorship.'(p.55)"

Caltech Michelin Lecture: "In recent years, much has been said about the post modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct. We can take as an example the scientific reception accorded a Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist. "

Caltech Michelin Lecture: "Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups. In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it. If we were to address the land temperature records with such rigor, we would be well on our way to an understanding of exactly how much faith we can place in global warming, and therefore what seriousness we must address this. "

Caltech Michelin Lecture: "But it is impossible to ignore how closely the history of global warming fits on the previous template for nuclear winter. Just as the earliest studies of nuclear winter stated that the uncertainties were so great that probabilites could never be known, so, too the first pronouncements on global warming argued strong limits on what could be determined with certainty about climate change. The 1995 IPCC draft report said, 'Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced.' It also said, 'No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes.' Those statements were removed, and in their place appeared: 'The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on climate.' "

Caltech Michelin Lecture: "Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses? "

Caltech Michelin Lecture: "Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses? "

Caltech Michelin Lecture: "As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don't want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you'll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions. And we've given the EPA a bad lesson in how to behave in the future. We've told them that cheating is the way to succeed. "

Caltech Michelin Lecture: "Further evidence of the political nature of the whole project can be found in the response to criticism. Although Richard Feynman was characteristically blunt, saying, 'I really don't think these guys know what they're talking about,' other prominent scientists were noticeably reticent. Freeman Dyson was quoted as saying 'It's an absolutely atrocious piece of science but"

Caltech Michelin Lecture: "They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called 'Goldberger's filth parties.' Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light. "

Caltech Michelin Lecture: "Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. "

Caltech Michelin Lecture: "But Sagan and his coworkers were prepared, for nuclear winter was from the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. The first announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan in the Sunday supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized, high-profile conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear war was held in Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, the most famous and media-savvy scientists of their generation. Sagan appeared on the Johnny Carson show 40 times. Ehrlich was on 25 times. Following the conference, there were press conferences, meetings with congressmen, and so on. The formal papers in Science came months later.

This is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold. "

The Death of Horatio Alger: "The other day I found myself reading a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. It said that we are becoming a society in which the poor tend to stay poor, no matter how hard they work; in which sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago.

The name of the leftist rag? Business Week, which published an article titled 'Waking Up From the American Dream.' The article summarizes recent research showing that social mobility in the United States (which was never as high as legend had it) has declined considerably over the past few decades. If you put that research together with other research that shows a drastic increase in income and wealth inequality, you reach an uncomfortable conclusion: America looks more and more like a class-ridden society.

And guess what? Our political leaders are doing everything they can to fortify class inequality, while denouncing anyone who complains--or even points out what is happening--as a practitioner of 'class warfare.'

Let's talk first about the facts on income distribution. Thirty years ago we were a relatively middle-class nation. It had not always been thus: Gilded Age America was a highly unequal society, and it stayed that way through the 1920s. During the 1930s and '40s, however, America experienced what the economic historians Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo have dubbed the Great Compression: a drastic narrowing of income gaps, probably as a result of New Deal policies. And the new economic order persisted for more than a generation: Strong unions; taxes on inherited wealth, corporate profits and high incomes; close public scrutiny of corporate management--all helped to keep income gaps relatively small. The economy was hardly egalitarian, but a generation ago the gross inequalities of the 1920s seemed very distant."

As Folk Singer Supports Kerry, He Objects, Too: "Mr. Yarrow said that Mr. Kerry told him had seen information that justified the war. 'He said, `Peter, I'm on the intelligence committee,' ' Mr. Yarrow said. 'I know they have weaponry, nuclear weaponry, and I have the absolute assurance they'll go only with the United Nations. He was like everybody else "

Build your own Ogre(R): "Ogre Minis Construction Kit"

FM 23-10 Chptr 3 Marksmanship: "3-3. BREATH CONTROL
Breath control is important with respect to the aiming process. If the sniper breathes while trying to aim, the rise and fall of his chest causes the rifle to move. He must, therefore, accomplish sight alignment during breathing. To do this, he first inhales then exhales normally and stops at the moment of natural respiratory pause.
a. A respiratory cycle lasts 4 to 5 seconds. Inhalation and exhalation require only about 2 seconds. Thus, between each respiratory cycle there is a pause of 2 to 3 seconds. This pause can be extended to 10 seconds without any special effort or unpleasant sensations. The sniper should shoot during this pause when his breathing muscles relax. This avoids strain on his diaphragm.
b. A sniper should assume his firing position and breathe naturally until his hold begins to settle. Many snipers then take a slightly deeper breath, exhale, and pause, expecting to fire the shot during the pause. If the hold does not settle enough to allow the shot to be fired, the sniper resumes normal breathing and repeats the process.
c. The respiratory pause should never feel unnatural. If it is too long, the body suffers from oxygen deficiency and sends out signals to resume breathing. These signals produce involuntary movements in the diaphragm and interfere with the sniper's ability to concentrate. About 8 to 10 seconds is the maximum safe period for the respiratory pause. During multiple, rapid engagements, the breathing cycle should be forced through a rapid, shallow cycle between shots instead of trying to hold the breath or breathing. Firing should be accomplished at the forced respiratory pause. "

Major John Plaster on Police Sniper Training: "Patience and Discipline
By developing the qualities of patience and discipline through a concept referred to as, ``This is the last shot for the rest of my life,'' snipers become conditioned to regard each round fired in practice as a single, final event with an exact beginning, a definite end, and a standard for achievement. During range fire, they should individually remove each round from the cartridge box, load it, fire it, ``call'' it, observe the results through the spotting scope, and then record it.
Recording each shot individually is critical. Police snipers should each maintain a record book to note the history of their fire with a particular rifle. Not only does this help snipers to concentrate on each shot, but it also helps them identify minor deviations in the ``book'' data versus their rifle and ammunition. This generates information for the data card. For example, a sniper may learn that the first shot fired in practice--the so-called ``cold barrel zero''--could vary by several inches from subsequent shots. It's only through such exacting attention to detail that the sniper can develop into a precision marksman who focuses not on three-shot groups but on individual shots.
Snipers should pace their practice fire by mentally planning each shot, then analyzing it afterward. It is also useful to dry fire between each live-fire shot. Only five rounds should be fired into a single target to better focus the shooter's concentration. Also, accomplished marksmen should fire no more than 15-20 rounds total during a practice session to prevent them from sliding into undisciplined ``banging away.'' By habitually applying these proven techniques during practice fire, snipers develop the patience, concentration, and discipline critical for precision shooting. "

THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS / **** (R): "When people are building their careers, they need to prove they're better than their contemporaries. Those who win must then prove -- to themselves -- that they're as good as they used to be. Whether Remy was a good history professor is an interesting point (his son has to bribe three students to visit his bedside, but one of them later refuses to take the money). He certainly excelled in his lifestyle, as the lustiest and most Falstaffian of his circle, but every new conquest meant leaving someone behind -- and now, at the end, he seems to have left almost everyone behind."

Mac OS X: MySQL on Mac OS X: "You can now start mysql and perform a few important tasks, like setting a mysql password to protect the database itself. Note that, while starting the database requires system root privileges, actions within the database itself do not require system root privileges, but database root privileges. It is somewhat confusing that MySQL uses the account name 'root' for its all-powerful account, just as the system does, even though they are completely separate entities.

Starting mysql is accomplished with:"

MySQL Lists: mysql: Re: error 1130 : "Host xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx not allowed to connect this server" ?: "GRANT SELECT, SHOW DATABASES ON *.* TO 'root'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY PASSWORD > 'xxx'"

Airliner torn apart in crash impact - www.smh.com.au: "'All I can remember most is part of a child's leg floating still wearing its white sneaker. I could not make myself pick this up,' said Kazim, a technical search and rescue diver who rushed to the scene to help as soon as he heard the news.

'The rescuers were trying to chase away the sharks that were eating the bodies,' he said.

The smell was so bad most people helping in the clean-up operation got dizzy or vomited."

HotScripts.com :: PHP Scripts and Programs :: Database Tools (PHP Database Tools Scripts and Programs): "Enter your db information into the provided boxes, press a button, click the link and download your csv file. Very easy and you don't need to install anything. Script is available to download to run locally and securely on your own machine however. "

HotScripts.com :: PHP Scripts and Programs :: Database Tools (PHP Database Tools Scripts and Programs): "phpFriendlyAdmin is a remote database administration tool made specifically for non-technical people. After your database is set up, phpFriendlyAdmin is then configured to abstract database structure, making it easier for users to focus on manipulating content. Every field and table is given an alias and a description so as to bypass the complexity of interacting with database variables and offer a simplified form-driven approach to data entry. "

HotScripts.com :: PHP Scripts and Programs :: Database Tools (PHP Database Tools Scripts and Programs): "noSQL is a small set (7kb) of SQL-like PHP functions to manage a database in an SQL-like way without a SQL-server. Everything is stored in flat .csv-formatted files, so putting data into noSQL or getting data from noSQL inside a spreadsheet program works immediately. If you are too lazy to setup an SQL-server, or you simply don't have one right now but perhaps later in the future, use noSQL."

HotScripts.com :: PHP Scripts and Programs :: Database Tools (PHP Database Tools Scripts and Programs): "Instantly create PHP web database applications that let users view, sort, search and edit data of a MySQL database easily from a single web page. You can fully customize the look of the generated files using cascading style sheets. Ability to create foreign key fields that let you easily create dynamic data menus from several tables, and insure referential integrity. You have total control over how users can interact with your data. Easy creation of the database and tables without any SQL code. Ability to save data as CSV files that can be opened in Excel. Download your free trial now. "

HotScripts.com :: PHP Scripts and Programs :: Database Tools (PHP Database Tools Scripts and Programs): "With this tool you can easily create a web forms to insert/update/delete function. You can view the data in a short list view and in a detail view, can set up various form check functions such as super real time check. You can easily change the look and feel with using css files. "

HotScripts.com :: PHP Scripts and Programs :: Database Tools (PHP Database Tools Scripts and Programs): "Instantly create PHP web database applications that let users view, sort, search and edit data of a MySQL database easily from a single web page. You can fully customize the look of the generated files using cascading style sheets. Ability to create foreign key fields that let you easily create dynamic data menus from several tables, and insure referential integrity. You have total control over how users can interact with your data. Easy creation of the database and tables without any SQL code. Ability to save data as CSV files that can be opened in Excel. Download your free trial now. "

SourceForge.net: Project Info - Maui MySQL Browser

SourceForge.net: Project Info - XINA

MRBS: Index: "MRBS is a free, GPL, web application using PHP and MySQL/pgsql for booking meeting rooms. It's similar in concept to Netscape Calendar, but much cheaper!
Some features:
Web/Intranet based - Available from any workstation through a Browser
Simple to follow, Web based options and intuitive presentation
Flexible Repeating Bookings
Authentication with your existing user database (eg Netware, NT Domain, NIS etc.)
Ensures that conflicting entries cannot be entered
Reporting option
Selectable DAY / WEEK / MONTH views
Multiple auth levels (read-only, user, admin)
Multiple languages supported (translated to Czech, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish)
Stable and in use at many organizations
mySQL and Postgres support "

No Milk Please: "Double Whammy

It's a total scam of course, everything is full price right up to Christmas Day. The day after, everything is marked down 20, 30, even 40 percent. Worse, you didn't get a gift receipt to go with that reindeer-festooned sweater that you now have to return. The only thing you can exchange it for is a pair of socks. How can such a 'pretty' sweater now be worth a pair of socks? If all of us were really smart, we would only buy gifts from stores that have gift receipts. And if we are even smarter, we should 'return' everything the day after Christmas and 'buy' it back. Of course the stores are counting on the tryptophan-induced coma to last until after the clearance sale, where your sweater will be worth one sock, and you have to pay to get the other one. It's a double whammy. "

Justin's Links: "But before I can go to bed, I've got to have a decent draft done. Something I could dispatch with a reasonable amount of pride. Then I can wake up, spiff it just a bit, and mail it without having to re-enter the total research and writing zone, reinitializing my databanks and filling my frontal lobes with all the facts of this particular subject. I can just read my piece for writing and flow, taste last night on tomorrow's tongue, and make it smooth before dispatching my piece and heading into the rest of my day."

Amazon.com: Books: How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built: "Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn: What happens after they're built is as much a reflection of his life as it is about architecture. This potent clearly written essay provides valuable insights for a wider ranging audience while poking fun at established norms in the information age. Depreciatory of modernism casting doubt on the success of popular monuments paying homage to their creators, Brand does not limit his criticism of Wright for Falling Water in southwestern Pennsylvania or I.M. Pei's Media Lab Building at MIT. The strength of the book is the candid and thoughtful approach, interrelating complex issues with simple strands. Weaving a tale of old stuff in a new world, Brand proposes that buildings are most useful to their occupants and neighbors when they adapt."

Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog: "It might be too late for this, but take a good amount of time to investigate course options at college with 'enojyment' taking primacy. Some people can knuckle through things they don't enjoy by having their sights set firmly on the ends. I'm not one of those people, and I'm guessing you're not either.

Otherwise, and this was the crunch for me: fundamentally change your outlook on work. Easy, eh? What I have done is to view work (and, to an extent) my life as a series of discrete projects. It's almost a case of divide and conquer. Split up your courses into weekly and daily projects. Manage these so as to make sure you're covering everything you need to, but also, don't be afraid to be inventive with how you handle things. Adopt a point of view that *forces* each of these projects to be interesting or enjoyable to you."

Why do I need Custom Insoles?: "


Every foot is unique. Yet the shoe manufacturers make shoes for the 'average foot'. There is no such thing.
The foot is a complex biomechanical machine which requires proper support.
The only way to properly fit your foot is by measuring every contour and nuance perfectly. Archcrafters does that using our easy at-home measurement system ... The 'FootPrinter'.
Simply press your feet into the patented FootPrinter foot measurement system. Then just drop it in the mail...it even has prepaid postage! (US customers only)
Upon receipt of your foot impressions, ArchCrafters uses a unique computer scanning technique to record the contour. We then use a state of the art CAD/CAM manufacturing facility to custom grind an insole just for you."

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING / *** 1/2 (PG-13): "Enormous bestial Trolls pull back the springs for catapults to hurl boulders against the walls and towers of Minas Tirith, which fall in cascades of rubble (only to seem miraculously restored in time for a final celebration)."

Drew Curtis' FARK.com -- This week's archives: "William Shatner to record an album with Henry Rollins. And the sun became black as sackcloth, and the moon became as blood"

Script to Implement Red-Eye Removal Technique: "Listing 1. red-eye.scm

To use the script, simply select a few pixels in the red region of one pupil (i.e., draw a small outline with the rectangle selection tool), then run the script (RC/Script-Fu/Selection/Red Eye). Fill in the parameters, which correspond with the ones described above, and click OK. If the result is not satisfactory, click Undo (Ctrl Z) and retry the script with different values. Repeat with the other pupil. A second script included in the file (Script-Fu/Selection/Red Eye Desaturate) uses the red channel desaturate technique, and thus does not require Channel Mixer if you don't have it installed."

Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog: "A cheap version of the little 'chinese' balls that many guitarists diddle with for hand strength: film canisters. Take two canisters in you hand (kodak film if you've got small hands) and roll them over each other inside a ring made of your thumb and each of your fingers. It's great to keep your attention while driving."

Music industry piracy subpoenas illegal - (United Press International): "'We are not unsympathetic either to the RIAA's concern regarding the widespread infringement of its members' copyrights, or to the need for legal tools to protect those rights,' the court wrote.
'It is not the province of the courts, however, to rewrite (copyright law) in order to make it fit a new and unforeseen Internet architecture, no matter how damaging that development has been to the music industry.'
The decision did not address the legality of the lawsuits that have already been filed against hundreds of individual computer users."

Correspondences - News By the People For People: Who captured Saddam Hussein?: "Well, the cat is out of the bag so to speak. Saddam Hussein was captured by Kurds, not US forces. Here is the story as best I can determine by looking through a number of articles (see full list at end of this post).
Hussein was betrayed to the Kurds by a member of the al-Jabour tribe because Hussein's son Uday had raped a daughter of the tribe. Saddam had previously paid 7 million pounds in blood money to the tribe with the warning that he would wipe out the entire tribe if it ever came out. (Sify report)
He was then handed over to the Kurdish Patriotic Front who negotiated a deal with US forces for political power before drugging and abandoning Hussein for pickup. Ultimately he ended up in the hands of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Jalal Talabani (Aljazeera)
Hussein could not escape the hole in which he was recovered because the entrance had been sealed."

PAYCHECK / ** (R): "OK, so the idea is for Michael and Rachel to stop Allcom before it can destroy the world. Destruction is likely, it's explained, because if world leaders could foresee that their enemies planned to use weapons of mass destruction, they would launch a pre-emptive strike to respond to the attack before it takes place. Those wacky sci-fi guys! Their way to derail this scenario, of course, involves a long motorcycle chase sequence and a martial-arts battle."

Mechwarrior 4 trial download (69mb)

Think Secret - Mini iPods, major iLife update focus of upcoming Expo keynote: "Reliable sources inside and outside of Apple have confirmed Apple will announce the new pocket-size iPods in a number of capacities and in various colors, including stripes. Capacities will be 2 and 4GB -- meaning users could store some 400 and 800 songs, respectively. Prices will start at around $100US, Think Secret has learned. It is not known if the new product line will be available immediately after introduction."

: "Alright, this baby is a classic. everyone knows that. It is also an old design so I would not expect it to preform like a truely modern air rifle. These expectations were fullfilled when I tested the Silver Streak. It is a pneumatic and pretty tough to pump, but still within reason.The pump lever is long which gives the needed leverage. The gun is brass and walnut and thus hefty. It looks great"

The Gratis Gamer

Google Search: mechwar freeware

Funagain Games: Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot card game (blue starter deck plus yellow booster deck)

sfbg.com

Cheap eats restaurant reviews

Crosman Airgun Forum: "with some polishing compound and a dremel polish all the contact surfaces from the trigger blade to the hammer, then replace the sear spring with a century or dynaline 9/32' x 1 1/8' x 0.028' spring.

if the trigger pull is still too high, order a trigger shoe."

Ask MetaFilter | Community Weblog

Select a Mirror

Google Search: frank wang california: "Frank Wang, (510) 523-2231, 2163 Lincoln Ave, Alameda, CA 94501 Yahoo! Maps MapQuest
Frank Wang, (626) 443-3987, 3815 Baldwin Ave, El Monte, CA 91731 "

Google Search: mark voigtlaender washington: "Mark and Lara Voigtlaender, (509) 464-3266, 5705 W Dorothy Ct, Spokane, WA 99208 "

Google Search: james beddoes utah: "James M Beddoes, (801) 501-8402, 9199 Peruvian Dr, Sandy, UT 84093 "

Google Search: duane griffin utah: "Duane and Heather Griffin, (801) 379-0605, 284 S 1680 W, Provo, UT 84601"

Google Search: kevin klundt utah: "Kevin and Becky Klundt, (801) 568-1846, 1420 W 8700 S, West Jordan, UT 84088"

Gawker : Peter Jennings: Out of the Loop?: "George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson were doing the live coverage on ABC when Saddam Hussein was busted in his little hidey-hole. Peter Jennings was claimed to be shooting a documentary with the police in Los Angeles, and therefore unavailable, but maybe he just needs a new beeper. A reader claims, that's 'total crap. My boyfriend was standing in the security line of LAX at around 4:30 AM, bullshitting with Peter.' They recall a conversation with Mr. Jennings as this:
BF 'So, big news today, huh.'

PJ 'How do you mean?'
BF 'You know, that they caught Saddam.'
PJ 'I'm sorry - What did you just say?'
BF 'I just heard it on NPR. They caught Saddam Hussein.'
PJ looks around stunned.
PJ 'Excuse me.'

Peter proceeded to flip the f*ck out - he leapt out of the security line, turned on his cell and started dialing/screaming."

Strom's Skeleton - The late segregationist's black daughter. By Diane McWhorter: "Strom's Skeleton
The late segregationist's black daughter.
By Diane McWhorter
Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2003, at 12:11 PM PT





Thurmond: curiouser and curiouser
In all the words spent on Strom Thurmond's life and times since his death last week, I have seen no acknowledgment of the most interesting of his sundry racial legacies. She is Essie Mae Washington Williams, a widowed former school teacher in her 70s, living in Los Angeles. Presumably she did not show up for any of the obsequies even though Strom Thurmond was almost certainly her father. Williams is black.

Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson present persuasive evidence in their 1998 biography, Ol' Strom, that Thurmond sired a daughter in 1925 with a black house servant named Essie 'Tunch' Butler, with whom he reputedly had an extended relationship. Though 'Black Baby of Professional Racist' would seem to sail over the man-bites-dog bar of what is news, the story has never really gotten traction. The particulars of this family saga simply do not fit into the 'redemption narrative' Americans tend to impose on our more regrettable bygones: Better that ol' Strom 'transformed' from the Negro-baiting Dixiecrat presidential candidate of 1948 to One of the First Southern Senators To Hire a Black Aide in 1971."

Montreal Gazette - Story - canada.com network: "'So each of these computerized soldiers is assessing the environment around them, drawing on a repertoire of military moves that have been taught them through motion capture - determining how they will combat the enemy, step over the terrain, deal with obstacles in front of them through their own intelligence - and there's 200,000 of them doing that.'

Basically, all the necessary information for decision-making was fed into this network of computers without determining for them whether they would win or lose.

But this attempt to ensure that they acted spontaneously almost sabotaged the the battleground sequences.

'For the first two years, the biggest problem we had was soldiers fleeing the field of battle,' Taylor said.

'We could not make their computers stupid enough to not run away.'
"

Democrats Go Off the Cliff

Eagle Mountain City: City Council: "In 1986, Mr. Madsen received his first invitation to travel to Central America; by 1988 he was involved in that region full time. Mr. Madsen traveled extensively in Central America during these Cold War years, working in the field - often in harms way -- and in Washington, to support freedom fighters and to bring down tyrannical socialist governments in the region. "

dooce: " It was on this second night that both of our hands started to bleed and the dog, high on chemical fumes, started barking in Russian. In a delirious moment before we fell into bed that second night I half-heartedly suggested that we leave a small square of solvent on the floor overnight, just to see what would happen, even though the directions on the side of the can say DO NOT LEAVE OVERNIGHT. When we woke the next morning we found that the solvent had turned the asphalt adhesive crust into butter, and that instead of five more days of scraping we were only going to have to do a couple hours of half-assed wiping, and then we both started crying: I love you, wood floors. I love you, wood floors."

dooce: "I had no idea the actual physical toll this project would take on my already ravaged and swollen body, or that I would become so desperate as to end up on my sliver-infested knees promising the Mormon God that if he would just make it end already I would stop telling my sister’s children that sacrament bread is laced with arsenic"

The New Yorker: Fact: "The problem with the way the U.S. has been fighting the Baathist leadership, he said, is �(a) we�ve got no intelligence, and (b) we�re too squeamish to operate in this part of the world.� Referring to the American retaliation against a suspected mortar site, the former official said, �Instead of destroying an empty soccer field, why not impress me by sneaking in a sniper team and killing them while they�re setting up a mortar? We do need a more unconventional response, but it�s going to be messy.�"

The New Yorker: Fact: "A new Special Forces group, designated Task Force 121, has been assembled from Army Delta Force members, Navy seals, and C.I.A. paramilitary operatives, with many additional personnel ordered to report by January. Its highest priority is the neutralization of the Baathist insurgents, by capture or assassination. "

The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town: "Other politicians have also failed to grasp the seriousness of the food-allergy issue. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is a board member of F.A.I., said that he had written to Jimmy Carter after Carter sent a letter to the airlines in defense of packaged peanuts as an in-flight snack. "

I wouldn't be real comfortable driving around with a TV sitting
unattached on top of the folded down seat, but our our TV/VCR unit
wedges nicely on the floor between the front seats. We keep a book
under the front edge to angle the screen up for better viewing and to
provide circulation under the unit. The only direction it would move
in an accident--if at all--is forward, at floor level. Safety is
absolutely a valid concern.

ongoing ? On Search: Robots: "All obvious stuff, now; but at that point maybe 100 people in the world had had that bomb go off in their head. I was so excited that I was physically shaking on and off for the next couple of days. I sold my CEO on the idea and spent six months writing the software, and in April 1995 the Open Text Index of the Web launched, and in January 1996 we did an IPO on NASDAQ, and Open Text is now a big, successful, profitable company (but no longer a search company)."

The Psychology of Shooting - 8/98: "to achieve great PERFORMANCE, one must not 'think' at all!!' What this means is that you must be extremely analytical and cognitive in the effort of learning and perfecting the skill of shooting in order to come up with a good technique. But, when actually performing, you must let the mind/body combination operate on the subconscious level, and so do what it was trained to do without the interference of the conscious mind. And, all effort and focus is to be on execution of the act of firing a shot or a series in perfect conformance with the model you derived from all that cognition and rehearsal - not what the results of this execution might yield. "

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Inaugural Speeches from Our Action Heroes: "He-Man
Although I realize that I was not elected by a majority, I pledge to represent the interests of all. I have also retained many of my father's advisers to guide my way.
I will cut taxes, balance the budget, and rid the world of Skeletor. Skeletor is evil. Skeletor does not believe in free trade. Perhaps my words are too moralistic, too black and white. But look at him—his face is a skull! He sits on a throne made of bones. This is an evil man, working in evil times. And I know, from various intelligence sources, including my trusted aide Man-at-Arms and my Security Adviser Generic-Noun-Name, that Skeletor has been working on a new weapon: a weapon that could destroy the nation. You in the media don't believe me. Some have cynically reported that I am using fear to gain votes. If any members of the press corps wish to find out what Skeletor is up to, they can take a trip to Castle Grayskull, expenses paid from my Mattel stock options. Any takers? I didn't think so. "

moovl: built with Processing

Wow!

Beyond the Beyond: "In November 1999, as Milosevic is still in power,
Suba falls asleep in his Brazilian home studio,
drops a lit cigarette, and then gallantly dies of
smoke inhalation while trying to rescue Bebel
Gilberto's original tapes from the rising flames! "

Works in the public domain in Australia fifty years after the author's death

DVD Ripping on OS X: "Appleguru's quick but very usable DVD Rip Tutorial:"

Amazon.com: Books: Houdini's Box : The Art of Escape: "'We cannot describe ourselves without also describing what we need to escape from, and what we believe we need to escape to,' argues psychoanalyst Phillips"

Fun Supply's Talon ( Gunpower Stealth ) Forum: "A Mars bar brought home from work is far more meaningful to women than a diamond ring.

Women like small details and men think that making a big splash is better. It is not in their eyes. Be romantic, be gentle and be kind.

When she notices what is going on, you simply tell her that you are learning from a bunch of airgunners.

She will never object to another airgun."

Crosman Airgun Forum: "I found, what turned out to be, the perfect match to the Sherwin paint. It is called

U-Fix-It
Satin Finish Paint
For Exterior Trim.

$7.99 a can.
P/N 47-1023-0

This stuff should be tough as nails, as it is for exterior automotive trim, which can take quite a beating from handling and weather. "

Tribe.net: Tribe Discussion: boingboing: "I read Ann Landers* with a cynical but devoted eye for many years, and I can attest without hesitation that the most useful thing she ever wrote was this piece of advice: 'If you want to get someone to talk, ask them about themselves'. "

Street Tech :: hardware beyond the hype: "Going to the Moon is a fool's errand. In peacetime the space program gives the nation direction and provides money for industrial and technological innovation that spurs achievements in a wide selection of sectors. In war time, and when the country is in deep financial trouble, proposing to go to the moon is an obvious ploy to turn attention away from our problems and turn them towards easier successes. It worked for Kennedy, but that was a different time. We were in a cold war, and funding the space race was a way to make ourselves look like a peaceful nation while channeling money into technology that would benefit both civilian space tech and military tech as well. But this isn't the 60's and Bush isn't Kennedy. Not by a moon-shot."

Entertainment Story - canada.com network: "The samurai, who have protected the Emperor for centuries, are obsolete in this new scheme, and Algren finds himself suppressing 'another tribal uprising,' as he puts it in his journal (he journals to relax, and also to provide more Moses voice-over). Yet, when finally face to face with the great Samurai leader, Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe), Algren discovers not a savage, but a holy man. Watanabe is a star in Japan, and with his trash-pail-sized skull, he is charismatic as hell, looming over Cruise, The Littlest Samurai. In more ways than one, Algren comes to look up to his Buddhist friend who can appreciate pink flower blossoms as well as he can slice a man's head off with a wrist-flick."

Entertainment Story - canada.com network: "The man may be good with a sword, but his arsenal of weaponry really starts with that tightly held muscular jaw, the slight flinch, the eye water. All these tics are Cruise's way of communicating with us, as a monkey might, that he just wants to be a decent man, goddammit."

XS-B3-1 AK47 air rifle: "Weight, total
Length, total
Barrel length
Action
Stock
Pull
Grip
Sight
Safety
Base
Trigger
Cocking effort
Piston seal
Metal finish
Accuracy
Recommended pellets
7.25 lb.
35' stock open 24' stock closed
14 inches
Side lever-cocking, single-shot action.
Metal folding AK style.
12.25'
Pistol grip
Hooded adjustable front. Rear adj. for elevation.
Manual trigger safety.
scope rail
Non adjustable
20 pounds
Leather
Blued
1' or less @30 yd.
Chinese 7.6 gr. flathead match for .177
Daisy Maxspeed for .22"

24" Barrel .22 cal. -- PyramydAir.com: "The new 24-inch barrel from AirForce, maker of the Talon and Talon SS air rifles, has added a 24-inch Lothar Walther barrel to their line. The new barrel can be fitted to either rifle in about five minutes and immediately changes the nature of the rifle. It takes the .22-caliber Talon SS from 26 foot-pounds maximum to over 42 foot-pounds, depending on what pellet is used. The new barrel is a premium choked Lothar Walther airgun barrel that delivers extreme accuracy with quality pellets like JSB and H&N. By adding the new barrel to a standard SS, the shooter gains an entirely new air rifle suitable for hunting larger airgun game like woodchucks and raccoons at much longer ranges than most air rifles are capable of."

Reviewing Toolbar - Microsoft Word Forums - WordForums.com // Microsoft Word Forum // Free Microsoft Word Help and Support: "Sub ReviewDisable()
System.Cursor = wdCursorIBeam
If MsgBox('Click Yes to disable Reviewing toolbar.' & vbCr & _
'Click No to re-enable.', vbYesNo, 'Disable Reviewing
toolbar') = vbYes Then
CommandBars('Reviewing').Enabled = False
Else
CommandBars('Reviewing').Enabled = True
End If
End Sub

Copy and paste it into the Immediate Windows of the Visual Basic (Macro)
Editor."

Shared Governance at UC: "Shared Governance at UC: An Historical Review

John A. Douglass
University of California - Santa Barbara
10.23.95

Two major features in the historical development of the University of California distinguished it from other major public research universities. The first is the university's unusual status as a constitutionally designated public trust -- a designation shared by only five other major public universities. The second is the University of California's tradition of shared-governance: the concept that faculty should share in the responsibility for guiding the operation and management of the university, while preserving the authority of the university's governing board, the Regents, to ultimately set policy. Both of these organizational features of California's land-grant university, combined with a massive investment by tax payers to expand enrollment and academic programs, has resulted in a university enterprise of international distinction and vital service to the people of California. As in so many other aspects of the university's operation, the concept of shared governance has evolved over time, often in reaction to significant internal and external challenges, and revolving around the development of the Academic Senate. Reflecting the dynamics of decision making within a growing and multi-campus university, the root of the contemporary notion of shared governance has emerged not only from the formal delegation of authority to the Senate, but also from informal modes of involving faculty in the management of the nation's largest land-grant university. The following briefly outlines four periods in the evolution of shared governance in the University of California. The intent is to provide context to the contemporary debate among faculty, Regents, students and administrators, regarding the role of faculty in university governance and management.
"

Short Stories by Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game: "'If that's true, sir, then at least we all know that Ender is making it possible for the others of his age to be playing in the park.'

'And Jesus died to save all men, of course.' Graff sat up and looked at Anderson almost sadly. 'But we're the ones,' Graff said, 'we're the ones who are driving in the nails.' "

Chicago Sun-Times - Entertainment: "I feel liberated in films where I have absolutely no idea what will happen next. Lena and Barry are odd enough that anything could happen in their relationship. A face-to-face meeting with the Utah porn king (Anderson regular Philip Seymour Hoffman) and another meeting with the four blond brothers are equally unpredictable. And always there is Barry's quick, terrifying anger, a time bomb ticking away beneath every scene."

A Whole Lotta Features: "Make no mistake, last month PVRblog made a lot of money from Adsense. When was the last time you heard someone say they received a check for advertising on their hobby site that could be used to purchase a fully loaded Aeron chair? Sounds like something you might have heard in 1998, no? Well it's true today, and I hope a lot more people meet with the same success.
"

MSN Money - 9 ways to look rich but live cheap

Digital FM Transmitter

New look at dark accusations: "Besides the pictures, Dworin was suspicious of the setup he found in Jackson’s bedroom.
Dworin: “You had to approach the bedroom by a hallway. And in going down this hallway, it sets off an alarm in Jackson’s bedroom.”
Mankiewicz: “Which suggests what to you?”
Dworin: “To me, it suggested that it was a warning in case something was occurring that was improper, that that activity would stop.”"

Squirrel_Fishing: "Kentucky has a two week spring squirrel season, immediately following the first breeding season, around the first of June. This is a great time to hunt from a boat since there are many young squirrels who have never been hunted, and they are not the least cautious of a boat cruising up and down the shore."

Disturbing.

Educational Technology Email Lists

The Guts of a New Machine: "What I had been hoping to do was catch a glimpse of what's there when you pull back all those layers -- when you penetrate the aura, strip off the surface, clear away the guts. What's under there is innovation, but where does it come from? I had given up on getting an answer to this question when I made a jokey observation that before long somebody would probably start making white headphones so that people carrying knockoffs and tape players could fool the world into thinking they had trendy iPods.

Jobs shook his head. ''But then you meet the girl, and she says, 'Let me see what's on your iPod.' You pull out a tape player, and she walks away.'' This was an unanticipated, and surprisingly persuasive, response. That's thinking long-term, I said. ''No,'' said Steve Jobs. ''That's being an optimist.'' "