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Goodguys Spring Nationals - First Time's A BlastWritten by on June 30, 2010 The Goodguys Spring Nationals In Scottsdale
The Goodguys show seasons ends in Scottsdale, Arizona. This year the Goodguys season began there too.
The Spring Nationals is a brand-new show for Goodguys. An inaugural event is a crapshoot sometimes. There's no way to know if it's going to be a great weekend or a bust. We headed to Scottsdale confident. For one thing, the Phoenix area (where Scottsdale is located) has an active automotive enthusiast scene. For another thing, Goodguys has been holding the Southwest Nationals here, with success, for years.
It's all about timing. Early spring is the perfect time of year for Goodguys to schedule its first of two national events at WestWorld of Scottsdale. It gives the "snowbirds" who spend the winter in Arizona a chance to show off their iron before Arizona turns blast-furnace hot and they head back to their summer homes in the east or north.
As it turns out, we had good weather and a good turnout. In addition to classic trucks, the Spring Nationals is open to '72 and earlier muscle cars, customs, and hot rods. It's also a magnet for vendors eager to get an early start on the outdoor show season. And with a special Trick Truck Corral designated for custom classic trucks (although you don't have to park there) and a special award for the Truck of the Year finalists, this is a very truck-friendly event. If you don't believe it, maybe a few pages of photos will convince you.
If you're still not convinced, check it out for yourself. The Spring Nats will be back in Scottsdale in 2011. If you can't wait that long, head to the Goodguys Southwest Nationals from November 19-21 at this same location.
More Photos From This Article View Slideshow
Denis Skufca paid nothing for a stock '52 Chevy 3100 in 2003. He boxed the frame, used suspension parts and the rearend from his Dakota, modified a '94 Chevy Fleetside bed to fit the cab, and painted it all screaming orange. The high-tech interior includes high-back buckets, center console, and modified '55 Chevy car dash. A small-block now powers Denis and Angela's pickup.The paint on Carl Townson's '56 GMC was glowing at this time of day. The exterior is highlighted by the Intro rims, which give a hint of the contemporary interior, which features VDO gauges and a billet steering wheel on a tilt column. For power, it's hard to beat a reliable 350, especially with a T5 five-speed behind it.Here's another blend of classic and contemporary-does anybody have a name for this style? On Adrian and Elisa Iraizoz' gold pearl '37 Chevy the classic part includes the all-steel body, windshield, hood, grille, and bumpers. The contempo stuff includes the graphics plus the 18s and 20s, custom leather interior with center and overhead consoles, and just about everything else.Hope you like red, because there was a lot of it in Scottsdale, including all over James Mabbutt's tomato-soup-toned '72 Chevy custom from Phoenix. The color continues into the interior and under the hood, where it's complemented by some chrome on the Chevy 350 engine and elsewhere. Shaving the sheetmetal gives the Chevy a longer look.Scott Jackson from Scottsdale bucked the trend and went with yellow for the paint color on his '49 Chevy 1/2-ton, equipped with 350 mill, American Racing Torq-Thrusts, and a ready to pounce stance-not to mention four-wheel disc brakes, a Lokar shifter, and a few "For Sale" signs.Pure classic, no contemporary describes Rodger Vierling's '57 Chevy, which comes from Mesa. Rodger kept his 3100 Longbed stock. The engine is a 235 six-cylinder and the paint is Indian Turquoise. Wide whites mounted on painted steelies-plus a matching pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror-deliver this pickup back to the '50s.The finalists for Goodguys' 2010 Truck of the Year include this '68 Chevy C10, built by Dakota Muscle Cars and owned until recently by Kevin Archer. Jason Marsh owns it now. The amazing '68 was customized with '06 BMW vents, brass custom trim, one-piece glass, and an Ultraleather interior with a '57 Chevy pickup dash and '55 Chevy wheel. It runs a dressed up 6.0-liter LS2 with a serpentine belt system and fabricated cover, and rides on a RideTech suspension.Even as it rolled past the paint vendor's tent, the "Bittersweet" gold body color (from competitor House of Kolor) on Russ Kemmit's '68 GMC got our attention. The truck was finished not long before the Spring Nationals. Engine and trans combo is a 383 Chevy and 700-R4 automatic. You can read a full feature on Russ' truck elsewhere in this issue.Another specimen of traditional styling in Scottsdale is Jim Andrews' '56 Ford F-100. The orange flames really pop against the deep burgundy paint. Look close to see some pinstriping on the nose of the hood and below the door handle. Cragar five-spokes fit the whole look. There's a 302 Ford behind that hood and a C4 behind that.
We wondered if the lettering was just some cool faux graphics, but Jerry and Rohanda Pignolo's '51 Ford really was a Seattle city truck and that's the preserved stenciling from 1951. Unlike the rest of the long-gone fleet, this got a 4-inch chop and 4-inch channel over Z'ed 'rails. The inline-six is fed by three Strombergs. The seat is covered with a Mexican blanket.It took Fernando Chavez two years to build this cool blue '72 Chevy. It's been finished for 10, but looks brand new. We think you'll agree when you see the feature in this very issue. There's a blown Chevy small-block between the front fenders. Fernando did most of the work himself, with help from friends.The monochrome gray on Rick Cohn's '58 GMC is highlighted by some tasteful traditional pinstriping on the hood. He replaced the grille and bumper with aftermarket repro pieces. "Mechanically, it's a '78 Camaro," he told us, including the ZZ4 crate engine. The GMC was update further with IFS, power front discs, power steering, A/C, and "yes, there's even a dome light!"Erin and Darren Gimblin live in Arizona, but wanted a "beach look" for their '57 Chevy, which they accomplished with some ocean blue satin paint, Baja seat covering, woven cane kick panels, bamboo bed liner (from Ikea), and a sea-level stance. Airbags drop the body and S-10 frame.There's all kinds of paint going on here on Joe McCarthy's 327-powered '49 Studebaker from the shiny steelies to the multi-toned body and bed, and the flames and pinstriping that state, "Yes, it is done." We also liked the red tuck 'n' roll upholstery on the bench seat, and the fact that Joe kept the distinctive Stude hood ornament.On the flip side, we also liked Alan Tudor's monochromatic seafoam green '50 Studebaker, especially with those contrasting red rims. The paint is a '68 Chevy color. Inside the well-detailed homebuilt truck is a custom dash with wood insert, overhead console, and Dakota bench covered in real and almost-real leather. The bed floor is diamond-plate.The award sign in the windshield of Gene Petersen's '57 Chevy says Trick Truck Corral Pick. The judges must've liked the ZZ4 crate engine and the Jeep Grand Cherokee seats covered in Ultraleather and the Bavarian walnut trim. Or the 18-inch rims from Coys Wheels. Or the stance from the C-notched rear and Mustang II frontend. This is the first truck for the lifelong muscle car guy.Ready for another Studebaker? Tom Noble treated his '49 to the full traditional custom sled treatment, complete with flat black paint, frenched headlights, and purple pinstriping to match the reverse steelies. Notice the "SUPERSTUDE" lettering on the hood and the SS emblem on the front fender that would later be adapted by Chevy for its Super Sport models.The Spring Nationals was the first trip out for Roger Bricker's freshly finished '67 Chevy. The odometer had just rolled into the triple digits. The 283 and Powerglide were replaced with a 350/350 combo. The interior is black and red tuck 'n' roll, with an old-style speaker still in the headliner. LMC Truck provided the Blazer 8-inch rims.
Cory Curtis, from Farmington, New Mexico, did a nice job on his '58 Apache Cameo, rolling on Boyd Coddington wheels. On the inside, there's a Grant steering wheel on a tilt column with column tach, and aftermarket gauges in the '58 dash.You couldn't squeeze a credit card between this low '54 Chevy Stepside and the pavement. Dark-green rims and white grille go good against the red primered paint of Jeremy Robinson's pickup, with some more traditional pinstriping on the hood. The engine is a 350 Chevy.A "rat rod Dodge" is what Wayne Zwolinski from Scottsdale calls his sinister (but in a friendly way) pickup, put together by Russ Ellis. With split 'bones, straight I-beam, suicide frontend, radical channel, Cadillac taillights, cheater slicks, weatherbeaten paint, and drive-in speakers, it does defy easy labels-although Wayne says it's titled as a '39 Dodge in the state of Arizona.Ahwatukee, Arizona resident Byron Smith is the original owner of this '61 Chevy Apache, purchased in Phoenix on September 10, 1961. Seventeen-year-old Byron paid $2,160 for all available options on the 283 truck with a four-speed tranny. The pickup was restored in 2005, with approximately 250,000 miles on the clock. The paint is Tampico turquoise and Cameo white.These Arizona trucks are the type of pristine survivors that get enthusiasts in the Rust Belt salivating. Jim Austin's '71 Chevy 1/2-ton, from Prescott, Arizona, is another one-owner truck and probably looks as nice, if not nicer than the day he bought it.Grant Zevenbergen was only 15 when he bought this '69 C10 and started working on it. Ten years later, he's still young enough to win the Young Guys award. He redid the entire suspension and dropped in a balanced and blueprinted 0.030-over 454 Rat motor, rated at 425 horsepower. Dropped spindles and a C-notched frame lower the Chevy.Pete and Darlene Dimuzio rode in gray tweed bucket seats on the trip from Gold Canyon, Arizona. The personality of their '48 Ford is enhanced by the slight rake, Boyds wheels, and sunshine-friendly red paint.Neal Ciochetti of Scottsdale started working on his '53 Ford F-100 when he bought it eight years ago. He kept the rear stock and added a Volare front clip. The hood and rear fenders are 'glass replacements and the remanufactured bed is deeper than stock. There's a Ford in that Ford-specifically a 351W engine.On Saturday, we watched Jason Berland toss this LS1-powered '72 C10 around the cones in the Street Challenge AutoCross event at the show. On Sunday we asked him about setting up the handling he used to run the course in 38 seconds to win the truck category. Some of the components are the 21/2-inch drop spindles and 1-inch drop springs in front, with a 5-inch drop rear spring. He also runs an adjustable Panhard bar. "The biggest thing is to keep it smooth and be easy on the gas."


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Senate District 20View Larger Details
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Assembly District 101View Larger Details
We are pleased that voters seized this once in a fifty-year opportunity to fix our state's rigged redistricting process and end the practice of drawing districts to favor incumbents, protect majority party control, and discourage competition. The constitution now guarantees New Yorkers fair redistricting rules and the ability to hold the legislature accountable to end partisan gerrymandering. It is a real change from the system we have now, and we look forward to following this enacted reform through to reality in 2021, when the … read more

subset: commoncrawl


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How can I minimise (n.y) (mod x), for known x and y, and for a given range of n?
($x$ and $y$ are actually the components of a 2D vector for a line for which I'm trying to generate a set of bounding integer points)
So, for example, if x = 61, y = 17, and n must be in the range 0 < n < 12, then minimum value of the modulo operation is at n = 11, i.e. (11 * 17) (mod 61) = 4.
If we changed the range to 0 < n < 9, the minimum value is then at n = 4, i.e. (4 * 17) (mod 61) = 7.
I need to be able solve this for arbitrary values, but within a known range (around +/- 3000000).
This is a practical question so if there is no direct solution (or if a direct solution is very complicated) then a numerical method may be preferrable.


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Is Russ Smith television's next reality star? According to the 6-foot junior guard, considered one of the most beloved, most unpredictable and wildest of Cards, he'd fare well on just about any TV show due to his intelligence, witty nature and his singing voice – Yep, Russ' got pipes.
"I watch a lot of reality TV shows," said Smith. "I feel like I'm funnier than everybody on (TV). I feel like I'm more interesting than everybody on those reality TV shows. I just want a shot," he laughed.
Surely, Smith's aspiration comes as no surprise to Coach Rick Pitino, who lovingly nicknamed Smith "Russdiculous" in honor of his capricious court play and funny antics.
But, have no fear. Smith's not ready to head to Hollywood quite yet. For now, his mind is focused on one thing, and one thing only: UofL basketball.
Coming off a season filled with both highs and lows, Smith made a name for himself as the spark plug off the bench Louisville needed to achieve such victories as a comeback win against Florida in the NCAA West Region Championship. However, at times, the king of sporadic play-making followed standout showings with two- and three-point finishes, only to rack up 20 or more points a game or two later.
"Me and coach (have) been working really hard at (improving on inconsistencies), and its tough but I'm willing to put the effort into it and make myself better," said Smith. "Coach has been drilling (instruction) in me the whole summer so I'm definitely trying to change it."
With a stacked team ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in several preseason polls, Smith will likely reprise his role as a sixth man, though the starting line-up is still anyone's guess. "(It) doesn't really matter to me to be honest," Smith said on whether he'll start or sub in. "As long as the team's doing well and I'm playing well and I'm contributing and everyone else is contributing and we're winning, that's all that matters."
Regardless of when he enters the game, Smith is often a key factor for the Cards. He's one of the nation's best thieves, who grabbed 87 steals last season, a Louisville single-season record.
Though, UofL lost to in-state rival Kentucky during the regular season, Smith also tallied a career-high 30 points (nearly half Louisville's point total) in the Wildcats' 69-62 win.
It's only natural Smith and the Cards would be hungry for vengeance after Kentucky beat them a second time during the season, this time in the NCAA Final Four. But, Smith assures he's only looking ahead one game at a time and envisioning the overall picture of a championship trophy in Atlanta in 2013.
"I really don't think about Kentucky or any other opponents until they come up on the schedule," he said. "I just think about hopefully winning the Big East regular season, the Big East Championship (and) a National Championship, Final Four. Those are things I think about, just getting to those points."


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Canaan Fair Speedways get visibility at Frank Maratta's Auto and Race-a-Rama show at the Big E
New Hampshire's Canaan Fair Speedways race teams put on their best suits and walked away with several best appearing awards at the Frank Maratta's Auto and Race-A-Rama Show held at the Big E in West Springfield, Mass. on Saturday and Sunday, March 2 and 3.
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A career in veterinary medicine gives students the opportunity to model the best in themselves through their compassionate attention to animals' health, welfare, and conservation. Never before has animal life been of greater interest to our increasingly urbanized society or of greater importance to our agricultural production of food. And, never before has our obligation to care for animals been higher.
Although not a requirement for veterinary school admissions, students pursuing veterinary medicine may major in biology with a preveterinary emphasis and receive the advising they need to be well-prepared for veterinary schools around the world. Early consultation with a preveterinary advisor either in the biology department or CLAS Academic Advising Center is strongly encouraged.
In addition to completing core biology courses, preveterinary medicine students take courses in:
Students become veterinarians, or professionals in related fields, such as:
"Because of small class sizes and a wonderful teaching environment, we look forward to students from Grand Valley."
View all Academic Programs offered by Grand Valley State University


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PRETORIA, South Africa (CNN) -- South African model Reeva Steenkamp was looking forward to Valentine's Day.
"What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow?" the 29-year-old asked her thousands of followers on Twitter a day before. "Get excited."
Steenkamp was killed early Thursday in a shooting at the Pretoria gated-community home of Olympian Oscar Pistorius, her boyfriend. He has been charged with murder. In keeping with South African law, Pistorius will be named officially as the suspect when he appears in court Friday.
Pistorius spokeswoman Kate Silvers said the athlete is "assisting the police with their investigation but there will be no further comment until matters become clearer later today."
Pistorius, nicknamed the "Blade Runner," made history when he became the first Paralympian to compete in the able-bodied Olympics last year. He ran on special carbon fiber blades affixed to his legs, which were amputated below the knees as a toddler because of a bone defect.
Capacity Relations, the agency that represents Steenkamp, announced her death. "She was the kindest, sweetest human being; an angel on earth and will be sorely missed," the agency said on Twitter.
The model was born in Cape Town and grew up in Port Elizabeth.
She later moved to Johannesburg, where she worked for various companies, including Toyota and cosmetics maker Avon.
Steenkamp, who had a law degree, also worked as a presenter for FashionTV in South Africa and as an FHM cover girl.
Her passion included cars and cooking, and she was set to appear in the "Tropika Island of Treasure" show on Saturday, according to the show's website.
"We are deeply saddened and extend our condolences to Reeva's family and friends," said a message on the show's website.
Fellow models also expressed their heartbreak.
"Heaven gained a beautiful angel," Lee-Ann Liebenberg tweeted.


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text: Dee-Jays BBQ Ribs and Grille in Weirton on Thursday, presented representatives of the Tony Teramana Cancer Center with a contribution of $3,500 following its annual "Power of Pink" fundraiser in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Among those taking part in the presentation were, from left, front, Jacqui DeFranco and Donna Brown from Dee-Jay's; Susan Miller, director of the Teramana Cancer Center; and Lynn Barbe, oncology patient advocate. In back are Dewey Guida and Michael Guida. -- Craig Howell


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The 5 Most Pointless Ways Big Budget Movies Blew Millions
Movie budgets have gotten so large that it's almost impossible to imagine just what it is they're spending these hundreds of millions on. Well, as with most Hollywood stories, the reality seems more unrealistic than even the worst special effect.
#5. Waterworld
You can't really examine some of the more interesting expenditures in Hollywood history without bringing up Kevin Costner's $175 million albatross. Cracked's covered some of the VFX work on this shitshow previously (they CGI'd his goddamn hairline?) but the tale of the single most expensive visual in the film is too full of schadenfreude to pass up:
Universal paid $22 million for a quarter-mile long set called "The Atoll," representing the floating junkpile that our piss-drinking, gilled Costner-Mutant finds himself on. Kevin convinced Universal that for the utmost verisimilitude, they had to film on the ocean. But instead of then just filming on the ocean, they built a massive tank...in the ocean, just off the coast of Hawaii.
And then they built a giant set that depleted all the available steel in Hawaii. It weighed 1000-tons, cost $22 million and contained approximately no bathrooms. The crew didn't like the idea of swimming and filming in their own filth, so costs rose as crewmembers had to be ferried back and forth to the island just to use the collection of port-a-potties outside their living quarters, which were old, uninsulated condominiums. By contrast, Costner slept in a villa, complete with a butler, a chef and private swimming pool while collecting a $14 million salary.
When it came time to shoot, they put the set they built in the tank they built. One thing they didn't take into account: Floating cities with no means of propulsion are hard to move. When a hurricane warning was issued in the middle of shooting, they had no choice but sit back while the fucking thing sank. Costner's career followed shortly.
#4. Watchmen
Alan Moore's magnum opus was largely considered to be unfilmable, and the snotty, pretentious negative nancies who went on record with that opinion were proved wrong in 2009: You COULD film Watchmen, if you had 130 million bucks on hand, and the balls of adamantium necessary to absorb the swift kicks from fanboys accepting nothing less than a sweet, slow porkbath from Alan Moore himself.
We can't be sure he wouldn't enjoy doing that.
Of that insane budget, $17 million went towards the realization of Dr. Manhattan. The motion-capture footage of Billy Crudup wearing space jammies was processed and finessed by squads of animators. Brilliant minds set to massaging light scatter algorithms and miniaturizing millions of tiny atomic reactions just under his translucent blue skin. And yes, it's true: There were people whose job it was to ensure Dr. Manhattans dick had proper jiggle physics. When one of your stars is a Giant Blue Superhero who is both figuratively and literally the world's biggest swinging dick, you'd better make sure that shit swings correctly. Especially when all 40-feet of it will be wagging in the breeze up on IMAX screens.
So much money could have been saved.
Maybe it was due to all that focus on tiny dermatological nuclear explosions, or finely calculated dick dangle algorithms, but it seems strange that they spent $17 million alone on Dr. Manhattan and they couldn't get his fucking mouth to work right. Jon Osterman isn't a very emotional character, but Jar Jar Binks's lips flapped more realistically than the Doc's did during most of Watchmen. And since actors tend to do their emoting through their face, rather than their groin, filmgoers probably would have been fine with allocating some of the cock budget towards an increased effort to make Manhattan a little less like an irradiated, well-hung muppet.
#3. Jaws
Bruce the animatronic shark is one of the most well-known and well beloved special effects in film history. There's even an independent documentary, The Shark is Still Working, that details the impact of that one special effect, and how it transformed Steven Spielberg from snot-nosed film brat to one of the princes of New Hollywood. One of the main focuses of that documentary? Spielberg and almost everyone on set thought Bruce was a fucking piece of shit. And to be fair, he pretty much was.
Bruce never knew.
Jaws wasn't scheduled to be a very expensive movie by modern standards, only $4 million. Spielberg (after being convinced he couldn't use real, trained sharks, a lesson further expanded upon in the unintentionally hilarious Deep Blue Sea) paid for three animatronic sharks, at a cost of $150,000 each, or roughly about quarter of the budget. The delays and repairs he had to make on the sharks, which had never been tested in the water, often sank like great white turds to the bottom of the ocean. In one instance, one of the sharks shorted out and exploded, inciting panic attacks so severe Spielberg would wake up on set completely paralyzed. Bruce ended up doubling the film's budget when it was all was said and done, and only appears in the film when they couldn't get decent free stock footage to replace him.
"Find stock footage of this, assholes!"
It's not as if Spielberg couldn't have seen this coming. The damn thing almost accidentally decapitated George Lucas during an after-hours set visit: While showing off his shark, Lucas stuck his pompadour'd head in between the jaws of Jaws, laughing as Spielberg worked a remote control that operated Bruce's gaping maw. Spielberg, channeling his inner Johnny Knoxville, clamped the jaw shut on Lucas. But the hydraulics broke, trapping Lucas neck-first. Spielberg and John Milius basically beat on the thing until the jaws popped back open, at which point Spielberg ran away from his own set like a little girl. It's a good thing it happened to young Lucas; if this occurred now, Bruce would have punctured George's goiter, loosing a tsunami of failgravy that would have drowned most of Southern California.


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U.S. Bank Business Edge Platinum Card Terms and Conditions
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Why are crazy people called nut jobs? Why are they called a job? Wiktionary is of no help here.
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Maybe looking at its origin will help. SlangDictionary.com defines "nut-job" as:
"Nut-case" being:
Thus, if "nut-job" was a mere variant of "nut-case", then, "job" would make sense. A "case" has two meanings:
The second meaning of "case" is synonymous with "job", and thus, in when "nut-case" was given a variation, its synonym "job" was taken and used. Thus, there would be a logical reason why "job" is used here.
This use is very similar to whack job and also similar to other slang uses of job such as "do a job on" or "a bank job" (meaning to rob a bank). Here, job just means something of a particular type.
"I got a new oven, one of those self-cleaning jobs."
"Use a real-dictionary, not one of those new-fangled online jobs."
You'll also find nut job used a lot in this same construction. "He's one of those right-wing conspiracy nut jobs."
Job here is used informally to refer to something of a certain kind. See for example the definition under object in the OALD or the definition under example in the CALD.
This one may be more closely related to "jobber," which means a "person who does a particular job," but also gained an extended sense of "guy," or "fellow," e.g., "See that jobber over there." Over time, jobber may have been truncated to "job."
I knew the etymology of "nut" from OED in that it can refer to the head. Etymology of "job" refers to "piece of work" from the 1550s (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=job). I would guess the way that we slangily use "piece of work" to mean someone who doesn't make sense, "nut job" would logically follow as it is shorter than "nut piece of work"...
As others have pointed out, this usage of "job" basically derives from "piece of work". It's not normally used of people, but it's been around a long time in slang. More commonly in the diminutive form jobbie, as in "A Blackberry is one of those hand-held jobbies".
All job really means here is "example" ("instance of"). In this slang usage there's no particular implication that the thing (or person, here) being referred to is either a task, or the end result of task-oriented labour.
Anyway, here's a chart to clarify that nutjob isn't really going anywhere...
I'm a firm believer many words like these function as compound words. I would think to define the term by it's constituent parts.
Thus, a definition of a nut job could be a label for a person who acts nutty, loony, weird, "out of touch with the main-stream". Plus this behavior is burdensome to the people who interact with the person--exhausting, demanding, unavoidable, persistent, etc. Its work to be their friend or acquaintance.
What makes the phrase interesting it the word "job" may seem to refer to the person defined by their actions. The uses I've heard (and found below) are not synonymous with "nutcase". Again, using the compound word comparison, "nut case" would be:
While "nut job":
Maybe nutjob is a gendered slang term?
Everyone was produced by a mother. That was a "job."
In the case of a "nut," the implication was that the "job" wasn't a very good one.
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Hi there, can anyone explain to me what the "Lefschetz Principle" is by some clear "classical" examples (not relying explicitly on model theory, say). Thanks !
Considering your choice of tags, it's plausible that you actually mean the Lefschetz principle. In its vaguest form, this principle says that algebraic geometry behaves "the same way" over $\mathbf C$, over an arbitrary algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, and over an arbitrary algebraically closed field of sufficiently large characteristic. This is typically used (e.g. in conjunction with GAGA) to deduce algebraic statements from things proved analytically over the complex numbers. See What does the Lefschetz principle (in algebraic geometry) mean exactly? for more information.
On the other hand, you might also be referring to H. Davenport, "On a principle of Lipschitz", 1951.
The simplest example of an application of the Lefschetz principle is to prove the residue theorem (in characteristic zero): The sum of the residues of a differential on a smooth projective curve is zero. If you are given a curve and a differential over a field of characteristic zero, there is a finitely generated field over $\mathbb{Q}$ where the curve, the differential, the poles and the residues there, are all defined, so take this field and embed it in $\mathbb{C}$. The residue theorem over $\mathbb{C}$ is, of course, an immediate consequence of Cauchy's theorem. You can even deduce the positive characteristic case from this with a bit more effort.
Harish-Chandra uses this buzzword also as a guiding principle in the sense: Every thing what is true for reductive Lie groups, should be expected to be true for $p$-adic reductive algebraic groups as well. I actually thought of asking a similar question a while back. I figured out later the same thing what Dan Petersen is mentioning, the terminology seems to originate from algebraic geometry.


text: I originally used a NN-SPH2L and upgraded about 1.5 yrs ago with the NN5L with RD16. It was large, robust and I figured versitile enough for any situation. Recently I purchased a Nikon D800 amd very much wanted to putting my classic and mint Nikon 8mm circular fisheye to work on a 360 pano. I was told recently that this combination: D800 with the Nikon 8mm Circular Fisheye were incompatible with my NN5L. I'm now left very unhappy? I have not even tied it since it is set for my D300 & Nikon 10.5mm set-up. Any ideas? :sad:


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A not uncommon thought in philosophy is that we should distinguish (in philosophy, anyway) between "sparse" ("real", "serious") and "abundant" ("ideal", "superficial") properties/classes and relations. The abundant ones are the things we get from axioms -- the comprehension scheme in the context of type theory, and set existence principles in the case of set theory. But if you are willing to countenance ideal classes (or relations or whatever), it might seem like just a prejudice to not also countenance ideal elements. Moreover, the history of mathematics is filled with examples of cases where we expanded our ontology by allowing for specific ideal objects like the square root of minus one. (Also, though its connection to my question is hardly clear, forcing is often seen as a means of adding ideal elements.) My general question is: what kinds of systems have been studied that include the idea of postulating ideal elements and/or allow for greater symmetry between the treatment of individuals and classes?
My first impression, having thought about the matter not too long, is that combining comprehension principles with principles allowing the postulation of ideal elements tends to lead to inconsistency. For instance, suppose we just have a two-sorted system, with individuals and sets of individuals, and even suppose that comprehension is restricted in the way it is in ZFC. So we have the scheme
(1) There is a set such that, for every individual $s$, $s$ is in it iff $s$ is in $X$ and $\phi(s)$.
Now add the "inverted" principle
(2) There is an individual such that, for every set $Y$, $Y$ contains it iff $Y$ contains $t$ and $\phi(Y)$.
Together they lead to a contradiction if we assume that some individual $t$ is in two sets, for by (1) we can form singleton $t$, and by (2) we can find a member of singleton $t$ that is in no set but singleton $t$. Here are three things one might be able to do. First, one might be able to symmetrically restrict both comprehension and inverse comprehension in some way that would result in them not being inconsistent with one another. Second, one might try to build a system using some powerful form of inverse comprehension but without any ordinary comprehension or with only some very weak form of ordinary comprehension. If that could be done, it would show that, although we cannot unrestrictedly have both ideal classes and ideal elements, the choice of which to have is somehow arbitrary. Third, one might might try to build up a model iteratively by alternately applying (forms of) comprehension and inverse comprehension to what one has gotten so far. Have any of these avenues been pursued? Also, are there any natural ways of "inverting" any of the other set existence principles used in set theory?


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17 weeks after losing contact with Hadley's Hope, a new team of Colonial Marines returns to LV-426. The rescue mission becomes a battle for survival against new dangers, new enemies and new species of Xenomorphs.
The Aliens are perfect killing machines, the nightmares of the galaxy. Our only hope for survival is the ultimate in military force. Are you ready to sign up with the Colonial Marines? Or fight as an Alien?
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Ends: 11:59 PM US Pacific Time: January 24, 2013


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TROY, AL – Troy University's eTroy online education portal had several graduate degree programs ranked a "best buy" by GetEducated.com, a consumer group that rates and ranks online colleges for cost and credibility.
Included in this year's designation were the online Master of Business Administration degree program, as well as masters degrees in Human Resources, Public Administration and Management. The designation means that each program was independently reviewed and found to offer a high quality distance program to online students at a cost rate well below the national average.
Also earning "best buy" designations were the online Master of Science in Criminal Justice program, and two Master of Science of Post-Secondary Education programs for Adult Education and Instructional Technology.
According to the group, more than a million online learners visit the GetEducated.com website annually seeking advice on which of the 355 online MBA degrees reviewed best meet their needs, according to Wyatt Christman, a public affairs representative for the group.
"We are pleased to spotlight your programs as "best buys" at a time when national concerns about the cost of a college education have reached critical levels," he said.


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I am aware that assigning the type of Type to be Type (rather than stratifying to a hierarchy of types) leads to an inconsistency. But does this inconsistency allow the construction of a well-typed term with no normal form, or does it actually allow a proof of False? Are these two questions equivalent?
Girard's paradox constructs a non-normalizing proof of False. You could read Hurken's "A simplification of Girard's paradox", or maybe Kevin Watkin's formalization in Twelf.
In general, these questions are not equivalent, though they often coincide. A "reasonable" type theory will by inspection have no normal proofs of False, and so then normalization implies consistency. The inverse (non-normalization => proof of False) is much less obvious, and it is certainly possible to construct reasonable paraconsistent type theories, where non-termination is confined under a monad and does not result in a proof of False.
It leads to a well-typed term, having no normal form, which is assigned the type False. You can find the term given explicitly in A simplification of Girard's paradox


text:
I use a variety of GTD-related systems that work smoothly for juggling many projects---as long as I have plenty of energy to pick out the right actions for 'now' and get cracking. However, when I sit down at the end of a long day, I tend to get stuck trying to muster the energy to get back into my system at all.
So, how do you make effective use of time available with "low energy"? And how do you get from "low energy" back into full productivity?


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BELTON (October 8, 2012)--The City of Belton's new Public Works Center will host a ribbon cutting and open house on Thursday.
From 3 p.m. until 5 p.m., residents will have an opportunity to tour the facility and view a presentation at 3:30 p.m.
Refreshments will be served.
The center is located at 1502 Holland Road.


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Progress Questioned
In the most recent issue of Commonweal, William Pfaff takes dead aim at the assumption of progress, which consciously or unconsciously underlies most American arguments both for and against the war in Iraq. He is right to do so. When we interpret historical events according to some abstract Hegelian principle of freedom or progress, we tend to confuse necessary realities with contingent ones and to over simplify global conflicts between radically different societies, re-narrating them as battles between good (i.e. progressive or modern) and bad (i.e. reactionary or non-modern) states. Pfaff is right to expose the too often unquestioned assumption that the U.S. represents the final good, that is, the end of history, and the notion that all people desire to live in Western democracies just like ours. Case in point, people should read the Iraqi constitution. It is not just like ours. It establishes, by and large, an Islamic Republic. Perhaps, Pfaff puts it best when he speaks as a Catholic, I do not believe in human progress. As a Christian, I expect no such collective improvement. The twentieth century and the horrors of WWII should have disabused us long ago of any nineteenth century Utopian notions of individual and collective moral progress, and yet, if we were to learn from the past, well, then, that would be a kind of progress, wouldnt it?
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I am as sceptical as anyone about progress generally. However I do believe that one can point to historical developments that are modestly progressive. Certainly the widespread recognition that slavery is intrinsically immoral took a long time but it has come about and may be considered an instance of moral progress. Likewise the recognition shared by most Christians and Jews, at least, that one has no right to force anyone profess particular religious beliefs nor to prevent anyone from doing so. Muslims aooear to be less enlightened in this matter. One might also point to progess in the natural sciences. consider that to be partly expakl
Apologies. I had thought I had erased the garbage at the end!
Diane Rehm interviewed Anthony Arthur, author of a new book about Upton Sinclair, part of the progressive movement of the early 20th century. It was pointed out by some callers that while Sinclair's "The Jungle" led to the formation of what is now the FDA, many "progressives" of Sinclair's time were anti-semitic, racist and misogynistic. Sinclair himself fell into one or more of those categories.Perhaps if we talked more about reform of "necessary realities" than about abstract "progress," we'd accomplish more and things would improve.If anyone wants to listen to the program about Upton Sinclair, it's archived at: http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/06/14.php#10722
If it probably weren't heretical to think so I would posit that there seems to be a created constant of violence in this world. It appears in certains places and ways only to disappear and show up in other places and ways. We learn to hide it, to euphamize it, and to lie about it. But there it is. On any honest accounting of it, our nation is among the violent that has ever been. 1.5 million a year vanish, only to be remember anonymously in our desperate prayers. May God have mercy on us all.
There was a telling sentence in the article: the war "that is taking place today is not between Islam and the West (or to be exact, a part of Islamic society and the United States), but between Western modernity and the values, assumptions, and ways of life of the nonmodern world."Mr. Pfaff makes distinctions between parts of Islamic society while still speaking of the United States singly. But our country has always been polarized about the war in the Iraq, and to some degree about many issues underlying the war on terror. If anything, the country seems now leaning toward a majority view that the Iraqi war was wrong, and not only this, but also that American attitudes going into the war were, as Mr. Pfaff says, arrogant and ignorant with regard to the country we occupied.I think the particular two-sided division laid out in the article is problematic. Yes, there is a global conflict between modernization and tradition. But that conflict cuts Islamic society in two (as Mr. Pfaff seems to acknowledge); and the West is divided as well, albeit not along a tradition/modern fault line. In the West, many people opposed to American imperialism blame Christianity as much as the Enlightenment. They see Islamic and Christian fundamentalism as being similar or the same, and what they want from both sides is people who can either criticize religion or leave it behind altogether.There are other problems with locating our arrogance in the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment did produce its own forms of arrogance, and Mr. Pfaff describes them well. Yet it was born in Europe, where anti-Americanism runs strong today. France, which practically gave birth to the Enlightenment, has been strongly opposed to the Iraqi war, and shares with much of Europe a deep distrust of George Bush's religiosity. By contrast, some support for the war came from Eastern European countries not normally associated with the Enlightenment; it was said before the invasion that these countries gave their support partly because they had lived so recently under atheist dictatorship. America is seen as a country that offers faith at least as much as it offers the Enlightenment. Its Europe, really, that is seen as the voice of sober reason.I think a better model would focus on the fact of American power, and the complex ways in which religion and power can corrupt each other. Mr. Pfaff's model, which rightly rejects the polarized division in which Westerners tell the world, "We are better than you," still draws a fault line between Westerners and the rest of the world. Across this divide, the two sides are still saying to each other, "Your civilization is the one that's at fault. That polarized way of looking at things has not been transcended, so we Americans, for example, either reject our superiority or embrace it; but nevertheless we go on comparing Us to Them.Mr. Pfaffs model rejects our superiority by judging our progress in the West as nonexistent; it does not affirm modernity as positive in any way. Never mind the value of Western civilization, but the whole idea of progress is jettisoned -- just because people in power have abused the concept.
Howdy folks-I'm a new visitor here, and impressed by the articles. I felt the need to drop a comment here. (I'm afraid my rhetorical skills are not as polished as some of the other posters, so please bear with my rather rough prose!)Kevin-I agree with the gist of your comment.In particular, I don't understand this passage:"Perhaps, Pfaff puts it best when he speaks as a Catholic, I do not believe in human progress. As a Christian, I expect no such collective improvement. The twentieth century and the horrors of WWII should have disabused us long ago of any nineteenth century Utopian notions of individual and collective moral progress..."First off, since when do Christians give up on their fellow man? We would be in a sorry state if Jesus and the apostles had felt this way! I'm not saying we will create heaven on earth with our efforts; that's why heaven is your reward for a good life! But does that preclude us from TRYING to improve things?I don't believe 19th century Utopianism had much of a Catholic component. I think, at least in my Catholic view, that progress is something different to Catholics. I also don't see how WWII should disabuse me of any notion that progress is unachievable. Was it horrible? Yes, war pretty much is horrible. But was it worth fighting for? To defend ourselves and our democracies from those who would seek to rule the world? To ultimately BRING democracy to the Axis powers, whom we now, almost always, can rely upon as our Allies? Can you possibly answer "no" to that?I can not.
Canadians were quoted as saying 'But we weren't even in Iraq" when they heard of the jihadist plot to take over their parliament and behead their prime minister. Canadians weren't 'uncritically defending Israel's security interests' as this article gives as a big reason for being in Iraq, a 'big lie' which shows that Jews are only acceptable if put in the ghetto you wish for them. If you enjoy 'big lies' you'll love this article.
William Pfaff takes great risks, generalizing about the decline and fall of modernity. He seems to me to romanticize the past and the less-developed present and to undervalue the enlightenment. The more you actually know about given periods in the past and the way ordinary people lived the less persuasive he seems. But I do think he is onto something in his comments on the selfish and ruthless nature of CEO capitalism and the toll the mindless rush to globalism is taking on workers. He expands on this theme and says a little more about the merits of stakeholder capitalism in France: The Childrens Hour, a piece he wrote recently for the New York Review of Books (May 11) : 40-43. He sees France as the canary in the coal mine of modern society, and thinks its pessimism about its own future, its doubts about the wisdom of globalization, likely to be well justified. He sees Frances tendency to look back toward an obsolete social and economic order as a premonitory appeal for a humane successor to an economic model that considers labor a commodity and extends price competition for that commodity to the entire world. He may have something there. At any rate, if you feel depressed about The U. S. A. after reading his Commonweal piece, try the NYRB piece and get depressed about France.


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30 Apr 2008 2:00 PM #1
Using a bug database?
Darrell and co... has anyone thought about using a bug database (there are so many good ones) to better manage and track the state of bugs?
I'm finding bugs I've raised have not even had a reply (some are many days old) so I'm not sure if 1) it was missed or 2) it was ignored or 3) it is being worked on... I dont think the forums is working very effectively.
Something to think about and certainly would help Ext-GWT and ExtJS I'm sure !!
30 Apr 2008 4:09 PM #2
It's been requested before and is something we may still consider. We mainly use the forums currently so that bug posts and help posts stay in the same context for searchability, etc. There are many times where a bug post can help solve a help issue and vice versa. However, it does make management a challenge, so as I said, we may consider going to a true bug tracker.
With that said, a bug tracker, in itself, will not necessarily solve the problems you mentioned. A new bug report sitting in TRAC in "needs review" status is no better than a forum post with no replies...
30 Apr 2008 5:58 PM #3
As a user, I could always post to the forum about Bug #nnnnn and request feedback on likely turn around etc...
1 May 2008 8:23 PM #4
Brian, I highly recommend JIRA - there is no better issue tracking system out there. Forget Trac (it's barely useable, and so are most of the other ones - free or commercial).
An added bonus with JIRA is that you can easily generate detailed release notes, road maps, etc (besides providing all kinds of cool insight into development process to the community).
There is a ton of open and commercial community projects out there using JIRA (Spring, most of Apache stuff, Grails etc).


text:
"250th Annual Zombie Run for the Cure" T-Shirt for $7.99
Zombitis currently affects millions of adults worldwide, and it is spreading fast. Symptoms include impaired reflexes, stiffness in the limbs, difficulty speaking, and an insatiable hunger for raw human entrails
13 Comments add a comment
haha, awesome! just bought one!
@flashyphoenix: I did too!
why don't they come in kid's sizes? :(
I really wish they would have a technical shirt option for prints like these.
Dang; no M or L, sigh...
"Zombitis currently affects..."
WTF is zombitis? That sounds scary.
@m2swim: swelling of the zombie?
Seriously, only 3XL? Guess the Boomers out there are stoked, but I doubt they do much running...
awww sold out :(
@flamingonut: I got a large. They must have gone pretty fast.
Basically a switch and bait ad. Must of had 10 or so odd sized shirts.
@rocam81: i don't think so. when i bought, all sizes were available. the sale has been up for at least 10 hours. its a popular shirt since its zombies & funny. also, its called "Bait and Switch", which doesn't apply here since, there's nothing to switch you to.
edit: 13 hours.
Out of stock.


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Are the default objects supported by
My keyword in VB.net is a kind of singleton? If not, what is the difference?
Again is this "default object" feature is something useful? If yes, then why it is not implemented in other languages like C#?
It is not a Singleton.
Visual Basic provides language/compiler support with the
Visual Basic has a somewhat different language philosophy than C# does. Originally, VB was to be the "applications" language, and C# was to be the "systems" language. Since then, the two languages have converged, and the feature sets of the two are almost indistinguishable, with a few notable differences (this being one, XML Literals being another).
I am quite certain that, if you asked Eric Lippert or one of the other members of the C# compiler team, they would tell you that implementing new features is a tug-of-war between available resources and feature importance, and that this particular feature just never hit threshold.
Navigate The .NET Framework And Your Projects With The My Namespace
My Namespace
And the
Nevertheless its implementation is easy to replicate in your own


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I am developing an app and I think HTML and JavaScript are better for the future, but I cannot find any tutorials (I need the app to use the system theme).
Are there bindings for Unity, message menu and notification, couchdb and so on?
I am developing an app and I think HTML and JavaScript are better for the future, but I cannot find any tutorials (I need the app to use the system theme).
Are there bindings for Unity, message menu and notification, couchdb and so on?
A good starting point for bindings and APIs on Ubuntu can be found on developer.ubuntu.com. I don't have any experience with it, but you will probably also want to look into Gjs, the Javascript bindings for GNOME.
Depending on what you are trying to do, you could just build the app like any HTML + JS app and then throw it into a Webkit view. It's extremely simple to do in python:
You can develop using HTML + Javascript for the interface by using an embedded WebKit frame in a Gtk window (this is easiest to do in Python). The hardest part is communicating with the system from your HTML/Javascript application.
You can do this by passing messages between Javascript and Python. You will, however, have to write the system logic as Python functions but this is pretty easy to do.
Here is a simple example showing communication between Python and Javascript. In the example, the HTML/Javascript displays a button, that when clicked sends an array
The only python code you really need to pay attention to here is the code from
To run this make sure
As far as accessing the platform directly, you should check out Seed.
You might also take a look at UserWebKit, the Python3 library that provides the key functionality used by the Novacut and Dmedia UI (it's built atop UserCouch and Microfiber, BTW).
I developed BAT, which is a tiny tool for building desktop applications with HTML, JS and CSS.
I wrote an article about it on my blog.
Well you could include a language that can run shell commands like php and this way take advantage of stuff like installing apps from a webpage and executing some commands (Like detecting which theme to use and what CSS to use depending on the system theme). For example you have this two questions which might help:
Can a server handle simultaneous shell commands? (Which talks about executing multiple commands)
Run a line command from a web (Clicking in a webpage link) (Which talks about clicking on a link and installing an app from the software center)
For a way to learn what theme is used you could parse the ubuntu file where it has the value for the default theme and depending on it modify the CSS of the site to reflect the new theme.
Questions about theme and where to find it can be found here:
What file I need to edit to change the text color in a theme?
Editing GTK theme (adding a border)
All of this (and more if you use the search) help you know where to look when parsing and what files you can check to see what theme the system is using and what to use in the web page then.
Yes, you can write apps in pure html/css/js and yes binding are available for JS using GObject introspection. Take a look at GnomeSeed https://live.gnome.org/Seed
SeedKit: https://live.gnome.org/SeedKit
Tutorial: https://live.gnome.org/Seed/Tutorial
Now we have AppJS -- https://github.com/milani/appjs !
As they said, "It uses Chromium as the core (so that the latest HTML5 APIs are supported) and Node.js as the backbone."


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Right now I am using the standard fermtech plastic auto siphon, but it already broke and it's a pretty flimsy and poorly designed way to siphon beer (the plastic piece in the tip broke and it can't force any pressure to start the siphon). Does anyone know of a better siphon that might actually last longer? I was trying to search google and forums for a metal auto siphon, but couldn't find anything. I like the ease of using an auto siphon, but I want one that won't break.
I just use a siphoning tube. I let it sit in either boiling water for a minute or a sanitizer solution for a few minutes, then fill it with said liquid. It's way easier with sanitizer than boiling water, since sanitizer doesn't boil your hands...
As long as the "from" container is higher than the "to" container - for example, kettle on the counter, carboy on the floor - it's pretty easy to start the siphon.
I pinch the "to" side of the siphon, get a cup ready to grab the water, and put the "from" part in the originating container. Once it's in, release the pinch, drain the siphoning liquid into the prepared cup, and then quickly put the "to" end of the tube in the receiving container.
Just keep an eye on the originating tube end to make sure it stays below the level of the liquid, without sticking it into the trub and clogging it / getting all the trub.
This solution is cheap. It's just the cost of the tubing. It can be messy, but after a few tries you get pretty good at it. Helps to have a friend too. Extra hands and you don't need a long wingspan.
I'd advise about 3-4' of tubing.
I'm going to go with the combination of a stainless steel racking cane and a carboy cap. You can either use breath pressure or CO2 to get the siphon going. I'm going to try using CO2 pressure entirely, and no siphoning, so as to stop having to lug full carboys around.
I'll update here when I know how it goes.
Still using the auto-siphon and the lugging. Next to my Therminator, it's my favorite piece of equipment, and the most used, and I've never had issues with flimsiness.
I don't know of any metal autosiphons, but there are stainless steel racking canes out there.
My racking cane has lasted a long long time and its plastic though. Maybe there are differences in plastic construction vendor to vendor.
Good luck.


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6 Insane Attempts to Communicate With the Future
#3. The Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages
When the astronauts of Apollo 11 made their famous trek to the moon, they carried along some souvenirs for our lunar neighbor to remember them by: an American flag, a plaque inscribed with the statement "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind," and page after page of messages of goodwill from people all over the world.
And then we declared world peace and no one died ever again.
But you obviously can't carry a huge stack of paper with you to the moon -- the pages would get all floaty as soon as you let go of them. So to solve this conundrum, NASA developed the Apollo 11 goodwill messages. Those pages upon pages of paper letters were each photographed, reduced 200 times to a size much smaller than the head of a pin and etched onto a silicon disc about the size of a 50-cent piece via the same process still used to construct the circuit boards present in all your personal electronic devices today.
And then that was shrunk and hidden in the body of a flea, and then they lost the flea. And we've forgotten our point.
At the top of the disc is the inscription "Goodwill messages from around the world brought to the moon by the astronauts of Apollo 11." Around the rim is the statement "From Planet Earth -- July 1969." The disc now rests in a protective aluminum capsule on the moon's Sea of Tranquility, waiting for some future lunar explorer to stumble across it and wish he had a microscope so he could read the damn thing.
So What Message Was Worth All This Trouble to Send?
The microscopic statements carried on the disc are from Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon and from the leaders of 73 other countries around the world. Some of the statements are handwritten, some are typed and many are in the author's native language. An especially ornate message from the Vatican is signed by Pope Paul VI.
"Dear aliens, you don't exist. Also, you're going to hell. Regards, Pope."
The messages from foreign leaders overwhelmingly congratulate the United States and its astronauts on their accomplishments, and the overall sentiment is that the moon landing would usher in the beginning of a new era of brotherhood and peace among all nations of the world. Prophetic, right?
But buried deep within all the "congratulations this" and "peace on Earth that," we'd have to say that this gem of a snippet from the statement of William Tubman, president of Liberia, is the one thing on there that really captured our interest:
"I ask them to bear this message to the inhabitants of the moon if they find any there."
"All those other countries are dicks. Give your lasers to Liberia."
Yeah, we're totally with Tubman on this one. World peace is a nice sentiment and all, but we like to imagine that the Moonlings are up there playing heads or tails with this thing to see who gets to laser our asses first.
#2. The 10,000 Year Clock
Deep inside the bowels of a mountain in western Texas lies something so strange, so utterly bizarre, that it will leave you shaking your head in disbelief.
It's a clock. A really, really big clock.
Take this, make it around 1,000 times larger ...
... and stick it in here.
No, you didn't just stumble into the premise for the worst horror movie ever. We're talking about the 10,000 Year Clock, a project that is currently underway as one of the main focuses of the Long Now Foundation and is funded to the tune of $42 million by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.
The clock is the brainchild of Danny Hillis, who had this idea back in 1995 (or 01995, as "long-thinkers" like to call it):
"I want to build a clock that ticks once a year. The century hand advances once every one hundred years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium. I want the cuckoo to come out every millennium for the next 10,000 years."
We understand if you're literally trembling with excitement at the thought of seeing this thing in action. And we have great news -- getting to it is as easy as taking a daylong hike to a hollowed out mountain on Bezos' land in Texas and traversing huge underground chambers filled with gigantic dials and gears. And bring your own light source, because they don't have one. We'd suggest one of those torches that line the walls of every cave or tomb in the movies.
Or if you're anything like us (i.e., far too lazy for that shit), you can see scale prototypes at the Science Museum of London or at the Long Now Museum & Store in San Francisco.
It's a really large clock shrunk down. Basically it's a normal clock.
So What Message Was Worth All This Trouble to Send?
Why put such an enormous amount of effort into something so seemingly random and that so few people will ever see? Is it to send a message to future generations that we ... could build really big clocks?
Actually, the goal of the project is to inspire current and future generations to do more long-term thinking.
Life is fleeting and inconsequential! Yay, time!
Wait, that's it? Long-term thinking? All of this cash couldn't go toward cancer research or something? Funny you asked, because someone else did also, and here's what Hillis had to say about that ridiculous idea:
"I think this is the most important thing I can work on. More than cancer. Over the long run, I think this will make more difference to more people."
Well, when you put it that way ... yeah, we'd still rather have a cure for cancer. Thanks for the big stupid clock, though!
Or the dwarf catapult or whatever.
#1. The Immortality Drive
Part publicity stunt for one of the biggest MMORPG flops ever, all "Look at me! Look at me!" stunt by Richard "Lord British" Garriott, the Immortality Drive was a microchip encoded with digitized DNA information personally delivered by Garriott to the International Space Station for safekeeping.
"I've got your DNA right here. No seriously, it's right here in my pocket."
Operation Immortality, as the project was referred to in the campaign leading up to the drive's eventual delivery to the ISS, was "a project to collect and archive the very best of what humanity is and has accomplished." Garriott and video game company NCsoft spent the months leading up to the spaceflight promoting the project, running contests to give Tabula Rasa players a chance to have their DNA sequences included on the drive and collecting surveys from gamers to determine the final data that would make its way up into space. Because as we all know, if there's any one group that completely embodies the best of what humanity is, it's MMORPG players.
You can pose all you like, handsome stock guy. You're still shitting in the middle of a raid.
And in October of 2008, at a reported cost of $30 million, Garriott became the sixth paying space traveler in history when he hitched a ride to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft with the very future of humanity in tow.
So What Message Was Worth All This Trouble to Send?
The goal of Operation Immortality was to preserve the genetic code of the very cream of the human crop, should the human race ever go poof! and need to be replicated from a backup copy in the future. So which humans are the best of the best, according to Garriott and company?
Hint: Sir Captain Lieutenant McNotYou.
Men whose DNA sequences were stored on the drive include Richard Garriott himself (duh), Stephen Hawking (theoretical physicist), Stephen Colbert (comedian), Scott Johnson (Olympic gold medalist), Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel (pro gamer), Matt Morgan (American Gladiator and pro wrestler) and somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 others, mostly writers (one of whom was a Cracked writer -- the old dead-tree version, that is) and musicians.
Women who were included were Jo Garcia (Playboy's Cyber Girl of the Year for 2008), Lucy Hawking (Stephen's daughter) and a couple other television writers.
Something seems a bit askew there, but we can't quite put our finger on it.
Oh, only one Playmate. That must be it.
So we can all rest in peace knowing that in the future ensured by the Immortality Drive, the human race will have our post-apocalyptic entertainment needs covered in spades. But it's probably a good thing that we will have mastered a non-sexual means to propagate the species.
For more completely insane projects, check out 6 Insane Do It Yourself Projects That Put Yours to Shame and 5 Projects You Won't Believe the US Government Is Working On.


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First. I would like to invite everyone to a special Zazen & Talk by my Dharma Bro. BRAD WARNER, to be live streamed from Treeleaf this Sunday June 5th (and available any time after). Brad will introduce his new book, DON'T BE A JERK, ...Read More »
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The 5 Biggest Mistakes Women (Like Me!) Make On The Internet
I was an ugly duckling growing up. Not a movie ugly duckling that is hot if she just takes off her glasses and wears a prom dress, but a certified socially-unaware dork. For girls like me, the Internet was like turn-of-the-century America was to immigrants. We leapt for our computers with visions of a world where the streets are paved with male nerds that had never seen a woman and would crown us queen upon receiving proof of ovaries.
However, just like immigrants were disappointed to find nothing but workhouses and Godfather Part II flashbacks waiting for them, socially awkward females found our hopes dashed by a surprisingly jaded and unenthusiastic Internet. It still happens every day, as new girls hop on the Web, bright-eyed and naive, with a handful of coy webcam close-ups and fragile dreams.
Their journey of disillusionment begins with the most disappointing reality of all:
#5. You Are Not Unique
I mean, yes, every person is unique and valuable as a human being and all that, but not to the Internet, and certainly not just by virtue of being female. One of the first forums I joined was a gaming forum. OK, it was a Final Fantasy forum. I was just looking for some tips on beating Emerald Weapon, OK? That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I ended up using the Lucky 7s trick. If you care, you probably know what it is already.
Anyway, I stuck around, and ended up participating in the forum at large. As I got used to it, I decided to let everyone know I was a girl, because I thought people would find this very surprising, as they were all nerdy gamer guys.
Because I was too subtle to come out and say, "HI EVERYONE I AM A GIRL," I went with something coy like, "I'm applying to schools, oh by the way, this one might give me a scholarship for being a girl," or "What do you think of my new haircut (insert picture)?" or maybe, "Pardon the typos, my boobs keep bouncing off the keyboard." I don't remember exactly, it was a while ago.
"Hello fellow car forum members, here's a picture of the Nissan 350Z I just bought. Isn't it a great car?"
Whatever clue I dropped was apparently plenty clear because about 20 girls replied saying, "Wow, you're a girl? It's so GREAT to have other girls on this forum!"
While it may not have been the response I was looking for, I've seen this happen enough since then to know I dodged a bullet here. If I'd posted my picture, they would have posted their much, much cuter and girlier pictures. Had I gone with the less subtle, "Any other girls here?" I would have been forced to pretend I was happy to see all these other more attractive girls, matching their false enthusiasm with an even more over the top. "Oh my GOD, it is so GREAT to see another GIRL HERE!! ^_^ ;0) We'll all be SUCH great FRIENDS! Kekeke!" Every time I see it happen, some manner of disappointment ensues.
The Internet is even less like The Bachelorette than the real world. Somehow.
So exactly how rare are we delicate flowers of the Internet? A government study shows women have been represented on the Internet in the same percentages as we're represented in the real world since at least 2001. Great.
#4. You Can't Control Men With Sex Appeal
The Hollywood cliche has a pretty girl or made-over ugly duckling walking into a room for the first time, and guys standing speechless, shocked into silence by her beauty and the anomalous gust of slow motion wind that it just caused in the room. Well, if that's not happening to you already in real life, it's not going to start happening on the Internet.
First of all, see the previous point. There's way too much competition. Secondly, a lot of guys may come to the Internet looking for sex, but unfortunately for you, if all you're offering is a virtual, screen based proxy of sex, they've already found plenty of that. There's an abundance of porn and pictures of women who are hotter than you. I mean, they're paid to be. You can't compete with that.
You may be pretty, but are you control-the-wind pretty? Because she's just a Google Image Search Away, and she's wearing a small drape.
It's easy to mistakenly be flattered by requests like "pix plz" or "show us your boobs." While you envision men sitting at their keyboard, desperately drooling over the possibility of seeing your pictures, they used to the very next keystroke to go back to surfing a gallery of anal porn.
As desperate as you may be to read these words, trust me it's not worth it.
Even if you do follow through on giving him a look at what you're wearing or not wearing every five minutes, that's not as fun for him as you may think. There is, after all, a real life equivalent for that:
Yeah, don't expect the online version to turn out any better.
#3. Expecting People To Treat You Better
Or expecting your opinions to count more. I admit I used to think that every topic would benefit from "a fresh female perspective." That might be true if the topic is workplace discrimination or dating. But when someone is talking about Conan O'Brien versus Jay Leno, or whether we should get out of Iraq, there's absolutely no need for me to say, "If I may chime in as a woman..."
If I may offer a different opinion from a woman's perspective, I feel the Icelandic volcano ash is perfectly safe to fly through.
Once I went into a debate about something indirectly gender related and proceeded to educate everyone in a know-it-all fashion with some stuff I vaguely remembered reading in a Time magazine sidebar graphic, assuming everyone else would be completely ignorant on the subject since they were mostly male. Then a guy came along and corrected me with links to actual facts and information on the subject.
Which do you think the people in that argument found more valuable: My female perspective which just happened to be fresh because I was making it up, or some guy having actual facts and sources? I know, right? But for some reason everyone sided with the guy.
Anyway, it's going to be especially tempting for anyone who hasn't spent a lot of time in real world social settings to think she has an automatic bonus somewhere due to being born with breasts. I used to expect people to go, "Wow, she is very funny/artistic/whatever I was trying to impress people with. AND she's a woman!"
OK, so first of all, that goes against this whole equality thing us women have been aspiring to ever since the concept of feminism was invented by the Spice Girls in the early 90s. If I write a good article, make a good argument, or draw a good picture, why should it count more than a male doing the same thing?
Not only is it not morally fair, the world just doesn't work like that, online and off. There are too many females on the Internet for anyone to think you are the rare one that can draw or play video games while simultaneously having female anatomy. Now if you got drafted into the NFL or got a girl pregnant (or both), that might be something.
And not this NFL either.


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Nobody Lives Forever
Losing a Child
Money Morsel
Parents with a child who dies can find information, support, and encouragement from Compassionate Friends, a nonprofit organization formed to help bereaved parents and other relatives. You can find Compassionate Friends at www.compassionatefriends.org.
Losing a child is no doubt nearly every parent's greatest fear, and the most awful experience a parent can ever face. And yet, nearly 20 percent of all parents do at one point or another experience the death of a child. Government statistics estimate that 228,000 children and young adults die every year in the United States. That number doesn't include miscarriages, stillbirths, or the deaths of children who are 40 years or older.
Losing a child defies the natural cycle of life. It destroys the dreams we have for our children, and steals the legacy we'd planned on leaving behind at our deaths. It's emotionally devastating and can destroy parents who don't have the benefits of strong support systems.
A parent who loses a child may become withdrawn, perhaps because she's unable to be around other children without feeling the terrible loss of her own child. She may become bitter and resentful toward relatives and friends who still have children. If she's married, she may on some level blame her husband for the death. Or she may blame herself.
Parents believe they should take care of their children. When a child dies, it's natural to feel a tremendous sense of failure, betrayal, and loss.
Although losing a child does not normally have the direct financial implications that losing a spouse would, there can be indirect effects.
Parents who experience the death of a child may find themselves unable to go back to work when their bereavement leave ends. Or they may go back to work and find that they're totally ineffective at doing their jobs.
Employers generally are sympathetic toward employees who lose a child, but the degree to which they're willing to bend for an employee will vary. A bereaved employee who is finding it difficult to satisfactorily complete his work should seek counseling. Ask the human resources department what benefits may be available to cover counseling or other bereavement services.
When Friends Die
Losing friends to death is a clear and unrelenting sign of our own mortality. We expect that we'll lose grandparents, parents, and older relatives, but having a friend of about the same age die is a real slap in the face.
As difficult as it is to lose a friend, remember that you'll need to be as supportive as possible to the members of his family, who probably are feeling the loss even more strongly than you are. If there are children still living at home, you could offer to keep an eye on the kids while the surviving spouse takes care of business or if she needs a break.
Try to keep surviving family members involved with the activities they enjoyed before the death, but don't push them to participate before they're ready to. And don't get so busy caring for your friend's family that you push away your own feelings of grief for your loss.
Death is an extremely difficult part of life, but a part of life, nonetheless. Facing the fact that we certainly will one day be affected by death can help us be a bit more prepared to deal with it when it occurs.
More on: Family Finances
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance in Your 40s and 50s © 2002 by Sarah Young Fisher and Susan Shelly. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book visit the Idiot's Guide web site or call 1-800-253-6476.