MK48T02 from thomsom.  It has a timekeeper (clock) and 512 bytes of NVRAM which
has a lithium battery backup.  The battery has a life of ~10 years of poweroff
operation.  Installed in a car it could be left powered on continuously and not
draw much current.  The battery would only be used when your auto battery was
dead or had been removed.

In California they have a line on the transfer of ownership form which states
that the odometer mileage is correct.  If incorrect you are required to
fill in what you know (or guesstimate) to be the correct mileage.  If you
lie on this form and are caught you can be prosecuted and the buyer can
sue you for the value of the mileage differential.


Consumer Reports once wrote about the S-10 Blazer that it "shook and rattled
like a tired taxi cab".  There is one noise that is expecially irritating -
the back window squeaks.  I believe its because the whole tailgate assembly
and window are not solid.  Anyway, has anyone had the same problem, and have
you found any fixes?


I have the a CD-Technology drive with the Toshiba mechanism, and it is
supposedly the fast and best now.  It has an access of 200ms and a data
transfer rate 300Kb/sec.  It is multisession photo-cd compatible.  It is
available from educorp for $599, the CD-Technology one, and comes with two
mail in coupons for two free CDs.  I'm not sure if the cd's are good, since
I've only had the drive a little less than a month and had the cd's shipped
to my home address in california instead of here in maryland.  The
CD-technology drive has a separate power supply separated from the drive,
which supposedly gives it a longer life, and keeps it cleaner with no fan to
attract dust.  A Toshiba brand drive is also available, but I think the
CD-Technology is better, since you get the same mechanism, and at a slightly
lower price with two free CDs.

The Apple 300/330i Drive, Sony Mechanism, is around a 300ms access time I
think, and a data transfer rate of 300Kb/sec.  I know it is the slowest of the
three mentioned here.  It is not widely available, except through the apple
catalog, which is bad at a price of only $599.  It is also multi-session photo
cd compatible. I think the external model comes with 7 free cds, some of
which are pretty good.

The NEC drive has been out the longest.  it has an access time of 280ms and
a data transfer rate of 300Kb/sec.  it is available from many vendors around
$600 dollars, including Educorp.  It wasn't multi-sesssion photo-cd compatible
before, but I hear that the current version that is shipping is.  Owners of
the older drives can get an upgrade.  It does not come with any free cd's
unless you buy it in a bundle.

Of the three CD-Rom drives above, i think the best choices would be the
Apple drive and the CD-technology(toshiba) drive.  The apple drive for it's
compatibility with apple products and the cd-technology(toshiba) for it's
speed and performance.

BTW, the models of the drives are:

Apple: AppleCD 300 or AppleCD 300i (internal)

CD-Technology:  CD-T3401 (the Toshiba brand name model I'm not sure, but it
is also something like with 3401)

NEC:  CDR-74

I'm very happy with my drive.  And have had no compatibility problems
whatsoever.  If I am wrong about any of the above, do correct me, but I am
pretty sure of myself, even when I think I'm not.

Also, some of you out there might notice that I have the same last name as
the president of CD-Technology which happens to be in southern california,
my hometown.  However, I AM NOT a relative nor do I know the guy.  Liu is
just a common chinese name, especially in southern california, with the
enormous chinese community.  Besides, one of my doctors in california has
three Steve Liu's as patients and another Steve Liu comes to my school and
lives in the next dorm.  This is to show that Liu is very common.

Steve :-)


And another survivor claims he heard someone shouting "The fire's started!".
Odd terminology.  That's what one says when you know a fire is planned, not
when one occurs by accident.  We will have to wait and see what the evidence
shows, assuming one is willing to believe any evidence offered by the
"distrustful ones".

Neither.  Again I was merely addressing the sanity level of the players.
I agree that the BATF handled the affair badly from day one.  BTW, I heard
on the news today that the affadavit behind the no-knock warrant was unsealed
today.  Grenade launcher was the only thing on the list that I found
unusual.

Ambitious news reporters could use the documentary filmed by an Australian
in 1992 on the compound grounds to help identify survivors.  I, for one,
will check their stories for consistency with what I learned in a long
news story about that documentary.

Certainly there is some room for doubt.  I certainly reserve the right
to change my opinions when new evidence warrants such a change.  If I
were conspiratorially minded, however, I would never be able to change
my mind, because any evidence I disliked would have to be a lie
fabricated by the "distrustful ones".


--
My boss is interested in a new 300 series Mercedes Benz wagon.
Does anyone have any testimonial evidence and/or strong opinions
on this car (or line)?

Particularly, I would like to hear about power (manual t. only)
reliability, feel, and any unusually good or bad features of the
line.

She currently drives a VW Passat, and is being plagued by its
electrical problems.  The dealer claims there is nothing wrong,
even though the doors have a habit of locking and unlocking them-
selves while you are driving down the road.  The automatic shoulder
restraints also like to move back and forth as you move along.
She does not have the new, larger engine and is quite
dissatisfied with its lack of power.

The MB wagon would have to have more power and no peculiar problems
such as the Passat's electrical system.  She is also considering
a Saab 9000 (add some letters).  Any comparisons between the 9000
line and the Mercedes would be helpful.

Price is not an impediment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeremy J. Corry                    | Churchill claimed the traditions
jcorry@erasure_sl.cc.emory.edu     | of the navy are rum, mutiny, and
                          __       | sodomy.
                          \/
     My opinions are my own, but I probably got them from someone else.


Since the net has convinced me not to try FastMicro (if they
were still answering their phones) does anybody have any
opinions on Micron Computer, Inc?  Their 486VL Magnum got an
Editors Choice in the Jan 26th roundup of 486/66s.

Email and I'll sumarize.


Archive-name: cryptography-faq/part01
Last-modified: 1993/4/15

FAQ for sci.crypt, part 1: Overview

This is the first of ten parts of the sci.crypt FAQ. The parts are
mostly independent, but you should read this part before the rest. We
don't have the time to send out missing parts by mail, so don't ask.
Notes such as ``[KAH67]'' refer to the reference list in the last part.

Disclaimer: This document is the product of the Crypt Cabal, a secret
society which serves the National Secu---uh, no. Seriously, we're the
good guys, and we've done what we can to ensure the completeness and
accuracy of this document, but in a field of military and commercial
importance like cryptography you have to expect that some people and
organizations consider their interests more important than open
scientific discussion. Trust only what you can verify firsthand.
And don't sue us.

Many people have contributed to this FAQ. In alphabetical order:
Eric Bach, Steve Bellovin, Dan Bernstein, Nelson Bolyard, Carl Ellison,
Jim Gillogly, Mike Gleason, Doug Gwyn, Luke O'Connor, Tony Patti,
William Setzer. We apologize for any omissions.

If you have suggestions, comments, or criticism, please let the current
editors know by sending e-mail to crypt-comments@math.ncsu.edu.  We don't
assume that this FAQ is at all complete at this point.

Archives: sci.crypt has been archived since October 1991 on
cl-next2.cl.msu.edu, though these archives are available only to U.S. and
Canadian users. Please contact crypt-comments@math.ncsu.edu if you know of
other archives.

The sections of this FAQ are available via anonymous FTP to rtfm.mit.edu
as /pub/usenet/news.answers/cryptography-faq/part[xx].  The Cryptography
FAQ is posted to the newsgroups sci.crypt, sci.answers, and news.answers
every 21 days.

Table of contents:

1 Overview

2 Net Etiquette
* What groups are around? What's a FAQ? Who am I? Why am I here?
* Do political discussions belong in sci.crypt?
* How do I present a new encryption scheme in sci.crypt?

3 Basic Cryptology
* What is cryptology? Cryptography? Plaintext? Ciphertext? Encryption? Key?
* What references can I start with to learn cryptology?
* How does one go about cryptanalysis?
* What is a brute-force search and what is its cryptographic relevance?
* What are some properties satisfied by every strong cryptosystem?
* If a cryptosystem is theoretically unbreakable, then is it
  guaranteed analysis-proof in practice?
* Why are many people still using cryptosystems that are
  relatively easy to break?

4 Mathematical Cryptology
* In mathematical terms, what is a private-key cryptosystem?
* What is an attack?
* What's the advantage of formulating all this mathematically?
* Why is the one-time pad secure?
* What's a ciphertext-only attack?
* What's a known-plaintext attack?
* What's a chosen-plaintext attack?
* In mathematical terms, what can you say about brute-force attacks?
* What's a key-guessing attack? What's entropy?

5 Product ciphers
* What is a product cipher?
* What makes a product cipher secure?
* What are some group-theoretic properties of product ciphers?
* What can be proven about the security of a product cipher?
* How are block ciphers used to encrypt data longer than the block size?
* Can symmetric block ciphers be used for message authentication?
* What exactly is DES?
* What is triple DES?
* What is differential cryptanalysis?
* How was NSA involved in the design of DES?
* Is DES available in software?
* Is DES available in hardware?
* Can DES be used to protect classified information?
* What are "ECB", "CBC", "CFB", and "OFB" encryption?

6 Public-Key Cryptography
* What is public-key cryptography?
* What's RSA?
* Is RSA secure?
* How fast can people factor numbers?
* What about other public-key cryptosystems?

7 Digital Signatures and Hash Functions
* What is a one-way hash function?
* What is the difference between public, private, secret, shared, etc.?
* What are MD4 and MD5?
* What is Snefru?

8 Technical Miscellany
* How do I recover from lost passwords in WordPerfect?
* How do I break a Vigenere (repeated-key) cipher?
* How do I send encrypted mail under UNIX? [PGP, RIPEM, PEM, ...]
* Is the UNIX crypt command secure?
* How do I use compression with encryption?
* Is there an unbreakable cipher?
* What does ``random'' mean in cryptography?
* What is the unicity point (a.k.a. unicity distance)?
* What is key management and why is it important?
* Can I use pseudo-random or chaotic numbers as a key stream?
* What is the correct frequency list for English letters?
* What is the Enigma?
* How do I shuffle cards?
* Can I foil S/W pirates by encrypting my CD-ROM?
* Can you do automatic cryptanalysis of simple ciphers?
* What is the coding system used by VCR+?

9 Other Miscellany
* What is the National Security Agency (NSA)?
* What are the US export regulations?
* What is TEMPEST?
* What are the Beale Ciphers, and are they a hoax?
* What is the American Cryptogram Association, and how do I get in touch?
* Is RSA patented?
* What about the Voynich manuscript?


Why didn't you create 8 grey-level images, and display them for
1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128... time slices?

This requires the same total exposure time, and the same precision in
timing, but drastically reduces the image-preparation time, no?


A very simple question : it seems to me that the contraceptive
pill just prevents the ovule to nest in the vagina and forces it to
fall every month. But it does not prevent the fertilzation of the
ovule. Is it true ? If yes, is there a risk of extra-uterine
pregnancy, that is the development of the ovule inside the Fallopian
tube ?


	The VESA standard can be requested from VESA:
	VESA
	2150 North First Street, Suite 440
	San Jose, CA 95131-2029

	Ask for the VESA VBE and Super VGA Programming starndards.  VESA
	also defines local bus and other standards.

	The VESA standard only addresses ways in which an application
	can find out info and capabilities of a specific super VGA
	implementation and to control the video mode selection
	and video memory access.

	You still have to set your own pixels.

	VESA defines a "window" that is used to access video memory.
	This window is anchored at the spot where you want to write,
	and then you can write as far as the window takes you (usually
	64K).  Windows have granularities, so you can't just anchor
	them anywhere.  Also, some implementations allow two windows.

	This is VESA mode 101h.  There is a Set Display Start function
	that might be useful for scrolling.

	Your best bet is to write VESA for the info.  There have also
	been announcements on this group of VESA software.


Actually, fired-coach George Kingston was a third of the GM
triumvirate.  Now that the trio is now duo (Dean Lombardi and Chuck
Grillo), the Sharks are already on their 3rd "office of the GM". And a
4th is likely to happen before September; they'll either add the new
coach to the OofGM, or name a single GM. So your wager should be
amended to read that Sharks are likely to have their 5th GM before the
Panther's get their 2nd. Can't wait to see how the next season's NHL
Guide and Record Book lists the GM history of the Sharks.

Given the depth of next year's draft, the expansion draft rules, and
the reputation of their GMs, Anaheim and Miami look pretty good as the
first 90s expansion teams to win a Cup.  San Jose and Ottawa have
instability at the GM position, something that Philly, NYI, Edmonton,
and Calgary did not have when they won their first Cups. Pittsburgh
did, but they needed a quarter century.


From: Center for Policy Research <cpr>
Subject: rejoinder. Questions to Israelis

Dear Josh

I appreciate the fact that you sought to answer my questions.

Having said that, I am not totally happy with your answers.

1.   You did not fully answer my question whether Israeli ID cards
identify the holders as Jews or Arabs. You imply that U.S.
citizens must identify themselves by RACE. Is that true ? Or are
just trying to mislead the reader ? Do you know of any democratic
country where people are asked to reveal their ethnical or
religious identity to any public official who so requests ?

2.  The answer to the second question is evasive. There are all
kinds of maps issued.  They are not equivalent to State policy.
You did not respond to my question.

3.  Your answer to the third question (Israeli nuclear arsenal) is
interesting. You say that Israeli 'probably' stocks nuclear
weapons. What evidence have you for maintaining that ?

4.  My fourth question was answered by someone else who posted a
Ma'ariv article documenting such cases. I did not ask about cases
like Vanunu (everybody knew he was tried and imprisoned) but about
those about whom nobody even knows that they have been tried and
imprisoned.

5.  Thanks for clarifying the question concerning the legal status
of the inhabitants of the occupied territories. From it I
understand that there are two sets of laws in these ares, one for
the occupier (civil law) and one for the occupied (military law).
The law allows Israeli Arabs to settle in Hebron, it seems. If so,
why doesn't it allow Hebron Arabs to settle in Israel ?

6. Your answer to the question concerning rights to return
conflicts with what I was told, namely that hundreds of thousands
of non-Jews who left for some reason or other the area under
Israel control during the war of 1947-8, were prevented from
returning for the sole reason they were not Jews. Jews who also
left, for example to Europe, to avoid the clashes, were allowed to
return. How can you justify such discrimination, if this is true ?
Is the mere fact of a person leaving area of combat to seek refuge
somewhere else a reason for stripping him of his right to live in
his homeland ?

7.  Somebody answered my 7.question regarding Y. Rabin signing an
order for ethnical cleansing in 1948. According to that
information, Y. Rabin signed the order for the expulsion of all
inhabitants of Lydda and Ramleh, about 50,000 people.  These
expulsions were helped by massacres of civilians and other
atrocities which remind Bosnia. I was referred to a book by
Israeli journalist Benny Goodman called The Origin of the
Palestinian Refugee Problem, published by Cambridge University
Press. Is this book available in your library ?

8.  You maintain that there are some Israeli Arabs living in
Israeli kibbutzim. I wonder how many and where. There is very
little evidence available about that. As much as I know, many
Arabs are working *for* kibbutzim, even for many years, but are
not accepted as members. Could it be that kibbutzim do not want
Arabs ?

9.  My question about the lack of civil marriage in Israel was
whether it is true that the Israeli legislator intended to
discourage intermarriage. You did not address this question but
evaded it by saying that the 'entire religious establishment wants
to keep it what way'. I am certain that if only religious
communities in the U.S. would be asked, they would gladly abolish
civil marriage so that people would depend upon rabbis and priests
to officiate marriages. But Israel has always been ruled by a
secular majority. Your answer is not satisfactory.

I would be glad to have some more input from you after these
comments.


The answer to your first question is rather difficult to answer without
doing a lot of autopsies.  The second question is something that's been
known for some time.  It appears that within about 15 years of quitting
smoking a person's risk for developing lung cancer drops to that of the
person who never smoked (assuming you do not get lung cancer in the
interim!).  The risk to someone who smoked the equivalent of a pack per
day for 40 years is around 20 times as high as a non-smoker.  Still
rather low overall, but significant.  Personally, I'd be more concerned
about heart disease secondary to smoking -- it's much more common, and
even a small increase in risk is significant there.


[snip]
(the 3DO is not a 68000!!!)
[snip]

The 3DO box is based on an ARM RISC processor, one or two custom graphics
chips, a DSP, a double-speed CDROM, and 2MB of RAM/VRAM. (I'm a little
fuzzy on the breakdown of the graphics chips and RAM/VRAM capacity).

It was demonstrated at a recent gathering at the Electronic Cafe in
Santa Monica, CA. From 3DO, RJ Mical (of Amiga/Lynx fame) and Hal
Josephson (sp?) were there to talk about the machine and their plan. We
got to see the unit displaying full-screen movies using the CompactVideo codec
(which was nice, very little blockiness showing clips from Jaws and Backdraft)
... and a very high frame rate to boot (like 30fps).

Note however that the 3DO's screen resolution is 320x240.

CompactVideo is pretty amazing... I also wanted to point out that QuickTime
does indeed slow down when one dynamically resizes material as was stated
above... I'm sure if the material had been compressed at the large size
then it would play back fine (I have a Q950 and do this quite a bit). The
price of generality... personally I don't use the dynamic sizing of movies
often, if ever. But playing back stuff at its original size is plenty quick
on the latest 040 machines.

I'm not sure how a Centris/20MHz 040 stacks up against the 25 MHz ARM in
the 3DO box. Obviously the ARM is faster, but how much?


the last arab country was syria. but not all of them
migrated due to the jewish state economical and
securital dilemma!


[stuff deleted]

  Not only do you lose AccuColor, you also had to give up 1280x1024
non-interlaced mode, the wider 135 Mhz bandwidth and the Mac
and BNC inputs of the 5FG.

  Personally I am not bothered at all by the two lines in
trinitron tube.


Hi!

I have the following 2 CD's for sale. These are absolutely new and in
the original packing.

Artist		Album				Original	Sale
						 Price		 Price

Madonna		The Immaculate Collection 	$19.95+		$11.95

Pet Shop Boys	Discography			$19.95		$11.95

If you are interested, pls. contact me at:

			parikhma@ucunix.san.uc.edu

Thanks.


From article <Apr.15.00.58.22.1993.28891@athos.rutgers.edu>, by ruthless@panix.com (Ruth Ditucci):

I do hope that you are not suggesting that merely because a person
replies in an "acrid, angry and sarcastic" manner that this
demonstrates their 'non-christianity'?  The simple fact is that there
is not a Christian on the face of the planet (that I know of!) that is
perfect.  I have been known at times to have a fit of temper, or a
sulk, but this does not make me any the less a Christian.

One of the points of being a Christian (as I perceive it) is to become
MORE LIKE Christ.  This statement inherently suggests that we ARE NOT
already like Christ.  Jesus never unrighteously lost his temper.  I
do.  Jesus was perfect.  I'm not.

You must understand that this is because Christians often forget to
treat others as our role-model - Christ - would.  This is because we are
human and falible.  I, for one, do not pretend to be infalible, and I
hope that my fellow-men will bear with me when I make mistakes.  This
surely is not too much to ask, when I make every effort to bear with
_them_.

And don't we know it!

Again I say, we are ALL human!

To my brethren, this:

Ms Duticci has a valid point and we as Christians ought to heed the
warning in her article.  We oftimes discredit ourselves and our
Saviour, in the way that we treat others.  Strive towards the goal set
us by our Lord, but in the meantime, remember :

     "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ..."

When you blow it - go easy on yourself.  Forgive yourself, as your
Father in heaven forgives you!  And remember - and this is something I
firmly beieve and cling to - one day, we shall see Him face to face,
and in that day, we shall (finally!) be perfected.

I look forward to seeing you there.

     RRRRR        OO       BBBBB          :
     R    R     OO  OO     B    B         :
     R     R   OO    OO    B    BB        :          Robert Pomeroy
     R   RR    O      O    B    B         :
     RRRR      O      O    BBBBB          :    u2i02@teach.cs.keele.ac.uk
     R  R      O      O    B    B         :
     R   R     OO    OO    B    BB        :              1993
     R    R     OO  OO     B    B         :
     R     R      OO       BBBBB          :

PS  If you want to draw anything to my attention, then please mail me
direct, because I don't often read the news...


No, Bobby.  Stalin killed millions in the name of Socialism.  Atheism was a
characteristic of the Lenin-Stalin version of Socialism, nothing more.
Another characteristic of Lenin-Stalin Socialism was the centralization of
food distribution.  Would you therefore say that Stalin and Lenin killed
millions in the name of rationing bread?  Of course not.

In earlier posts you stated that true (Muslim) believers were incapable of
evil.  I suppose if you believe that, you could reason that no one has ever
been killed in the name of religion.  What a perfect world you live in,
Bobby.

Bobby is referring to a rather obscure law in _The Good Atheist's
Handbook_:

Law XXVI.A.3: Give that which you do not believe in a face.

You must excuse us, Bobby.  When we argue against theism, we usually argue
against the Christian idea of God.  In the realm of Christianity, man was
created in God's image.


 [of who else but President of the United States William Jefferson Clinton.]

Tsk. Surely you don't wish for the Democrats to destroy our beloved country
just so your party can get some trivial political advantage? That's rather
a petty way to think. (Not that this pettiness doesn't extend all the way
to the U.S. Senate, I've noticed...)

While Bush was president, I kept hoping and praying that he'd wise up. I
couldn't stand the man, but I wish he'd done a decent job; if so, we might
not be in the mess we are now, and that would be a small price to pay for
suffering through another term of Republican control. Similarily, YOU should
be hoping and praying that Clinton does a good job. Even if you're certain
he won't.


	There should be no worries about the trans.

	Does this count?

$ cat dod.faq | mailx -s "HAHAHHA" jburnside@ll.mit.edu (waiting to press
							 return...)

Later,


No, that sounds pretty reasonable for that car and that city.

Unless you have an accident, you won't need more.  If you plan on
paying for the car with a credit card, check and see if your card
automatically covers rental cars.  Also, your own auto insurance may
cover rental cars also.

Most rental companies here offer extra insurance when you rent, and
require you to initial in several spots if you don't want it.  The
credit cards and personal auto insurance provide the same sort of
coverage that the rental agency is trying to sell.

I have never rented from Alamo, so I don't know if they follow this
same practice.

Yes.  It is a compact 2-door, probably a bit dull performance and
acceleration-wise, but very adequate.  It will have an automatic
transmission, AM/FM stereo, air conditioning, and possibly power
windows and door locks.

Joe


Sorry guys for this long article, but in fact it is mostly quotings..

well, if you just waited for 5 more lines you would have read my statement
"Secondly, surely israeli have human rights, but ..."

because they belong to the human race, or do you disagree on that too ?

I donot know about you, but it makes full sense to me.
Israelis are being killed because Israel is occupying , Let israel withdraw
and israeli blood will be saved. It isNOT the palestineans who undermined
the right of life of israelis, but it is israel which occupied and exposed
the life of its citizens to the the unconcluded war of 1967 !

More generally, the violence in the occupied terretories is part of the intifada,
and i had previously posted a "long" article about this issue, whom i finished
by an open question:
Suppose the Intifada stops, What is the motive for Israel to withdraw ?
donot tell hope for peace and this bullshit. Everybody in the world looks
and hopes for peace, so why isnot there any. hope of peace is necessary
but not sufficient motive.

As for the Arabian countries, their problems are an Arabian concern.
the Arabian people can deal with it themselves, if the west doesnot intervene.
As for Serbs, I donot think that those FUCKED UP RAPISTS (excuse my language
but it really hurts as much if I was in Bosnia itself) areNOT humans. Those
surely came from outer space or something. No human can allow himself
to see such attrocities than to participate in.

Ok.

My definition is the same as yours, but one has to look into the world politics.
In politics, a "solution" doesNOT imply "JUST solution".

It seems that it was problem in the definition of "solution".
I think a solution must be just, because otherwise it would never be lasting.
However, when politicians say a solution, they donot mean a just solution but
just a solution.


However, don't forget that the police in Chicago can carry just about
anything they want except for the Glock, which is not approved for
carry (Guess they figure all cops are like the Police Chief of Winnetka,
who happened to let off a stray round of 9mm. This is the same anti-gun
police chief that wanted full-auto Uzis for his patrol cars...).

Perhaps in the judgement of the majority of Chicago's finest, a close-to-
100% reliable weapon like a revolver is preferable to a 99.99% reliable
automatic. I note that in Germany, where certainly the 9mm semi-auto
handgun is king, some of the more elite police types want revolvers.

I don't think the issue is cost, because Chicago police certainly make
on the order of at least $40K/year.

Your presumption of "disadvantage" I think is not borne out by the
experiences of New York City's cops; there the cops usually come out
on top with their standard .38 Spl revolvers.

I've seen S&Ws, Rugers and Beretta 9mms in addition to the revolvers
carried by Chicago cops.... in the past, I've seen .45 M1911s; others
have seen Browning Hi-Powers...


I tried to e-mail you but it bounced so...

Hi there,

It might be that the X terminal doesn't support the "Postscript
Extensions to X" product.  I use the 'dxpsview' program on a
DECstation 5000 to view postscript files but when I moved to an
NCD X terminal, I couldn't use it any more.  So I ftp'd and
compiled GhostScript (GNU software).  Now we can view postscript
files on our X terminals.

Hope this helps.

Grant


Hi! Everyone,

Because no one has touched the problem I posted last week, I guess
my question was not so clear. Now I'd like to describe it in detail:

The offset of an ellipse is the locus of the center of a circle which
rolls on the ellipse. In other words, the distance between the ellipse
and its offset is same everywhere.

This problem comes from the geometric measurement when a probe is used.
The tip of the probe is a ball and the computer just outputs the
positions of the ball's center. Is the offset of an ellipse still
an ellipse? The answer is no! Ironically, DMIS - an American Indutrial
Standard says it is ellipse. So almost all the software which was
implemented on the base of DMIS was wrong. The software was also sold
internationaly. Imagine, how many people have or will suffer from this bug!!!
How many qualified parts with ellipse were/will be discarded? And most
importantly, how many defective parts with ellipse are/will be used?

I was employed as a consultant by a company in Los Angeles last year
to specially solve this problem. I spent two months on analysis of this
problem and six months on programming. Now my solution (nonlinear)
is not ideal because I can only reconstruct an ellipse from its entire
or half offset. It is very difficult to find the original ellipse from
a quarter or a segment of its offset because the method I used is not
analytical. I am now wondering if I didn't touch the base and make things
complicated. Please give me a hint.

I know you may argue this is not a CG problem. You are right, it is not.
However, so many people involved in the problem "sphere from 4 poits".
Why not an ellipse? And why not its offset?

Please post here and let the others share our interests
(I got several emails from our netters, they said they need the
summary of the answers).


I believe that in order to get at the innards of the new mouse,
you must remove the label on the bottom that says "Apple Desktop
Bus Mouse II"  There you should find two screws on either side.
I haven't tried it myself yet, but when I ran my fingernail
accross the label, these two divots appeared, and I can only assume
that these are the elusive screws in question.

cheers,
john


Chris, solid job at discussing the inherent Nazism in Mr. Davidsson's post.
Oddly, he has posted an address for hate mail, which I think we should
all utilize.  And Elias,

Wie nur dem Koph nicht alle Hoffnung schwindet,
Der immerfort an schalem Zeuge klebt?


	Whoah  whoah  whoah  WHOAH!!!   What?!?

	That last paragraph just about killed me.  The Deuterocanonicals have
	ALWAYS been accepted as inspired scripture by the Catholic Church,
	which has existed much longer than any Protestant Church out there.
	It was Martin Luther who began hacking up the bible and deciding to
	REMOVE certain books--not the fact that the Catholic Church decided
	to add some much later--that is the reason for the difference between
	"Catholic" and "Protestant" bibles.


Is there an ftp site where I can get the MS speaker sound driver?  There's
a "sound.exe" file that claims to be the driver but I'm suspicious since
it's not a .drv file.

Thanks


It is appropriate to add what Himmler said other "inferior races"
and "human animals" in his speech at Posen and elsewhere:

From the speech of Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler, before SS
Major-Generals, Posen, October 4 1943
["Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression", Vol. IV, p. 559]
-------------------------------------------------------------------
One basic principal must be the absolute rule for the SS man: we
must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own
blood and to nobody else. What happens to a Russian, to a Czech,
does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer
in good blood of our type, we will take, if necessary by kidnapping
their children and raising them with us. Whether nations live in
prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we
need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest
to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion
while digging an anti-tank ditch interest me only in so far as
the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be rough
and heartless when it is not necessary, that is clear. We Germans,
who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude
towards animals, will also assume a decent attitude towards these
human animals. But it is a crime against our own blood to worry
about them and give them ideals, thus causing our sons and
grandsons to have a more difficult time with them. When someone
comes to me and says, "I cannot dig the anti-tank ditch with women
and children, it is inhuman, for it will kill them", then I
would have to say, "you are a murderer of your own blood because
if the anti-tank ditch is not dug, German soldiers will die, and
they are the sons of German mothers. They are our own blood".

Extract from Himmler's address to party comrades, September 7 1940
["Trials of Wa Criminals", Vol. IV, p. 1140]
------------------------------------------------------------------
If any Pole has any sexual dealing with a German woman, and by this
I mean sexual intercourse, then the man will be hanged right in
front of his camp. Then the others will not do it. Besides,
provisions will be made that a sufficient number of Polish women
and girls will come along as well so that a necessity of this
kind is out of the question.

The women will be brought before the courts without mercy, and
where the facts are not sufficiently proved - such borderline
cases always happen - they will be sent to a concentration camp.
This we must do, unless these one million Poles and those
hundreds of thousands of workers of alien blood are to inflict
untold damage on the German blood. Philosophizing is of no avail
in this case. It would be better if we did not have them at all -
we all know that - but we need them.


There is a new version of the RTrace ray-tracing package (8.2.0) at
asterix.inescn.pt [192.35.246.17] in directory pub/RTrace.
Check the README file.

RTrace now can use the SUIT toolkit to have a nice user interface.
Compile it with -DSUIT or modify the Makefile.
SUIT is available at suit@uvacs.cs.virginia.edu
I have binaries of RTrace with SUIT for SUN Sparc, SGI Indigo
and DOS/GO32.
Please contact me if interested.

****************************************

The MAC RTrace 1.0 port is in directory pub/RTrace/Macintosh
Thanks to Reid Judd (reid.judd@east.sun.com) and
Greg Ferrar (gregt@function.mps.ohio-state.edu).

****************************************

Small changes were done since version 8.1.0, mainly:

1. Now it is possible to discard backface polygons and triangles
   for fast preview...

2. The support program scn2sff has been reworked to use temp files.

****************************************

Here goes a short description of current converters from
CAD/molecular/chemistry packages to the SCN format.

The package programs are related as below (those marked with * have been
modified)

	       irit2scn
     IRIT ----------------|
                          |               NFF (nffclean, nffp2pp)
	        sol2scn   |                |
    ACAD11 ---------------|                | nff2sff
                          |                |
	        mol2scn	  v    scn2sff*    v	rtrace*
   ALCHEMY  -----------> SCN -----------> SFF ----------> PIC or PPM
			  ^      cpp                           |
	        pdb2scn   |                                 picmix
     PDB -----------------|                                 picblend
			  |                                 ppmmix*
	       chem2scn   |                                 ppmblend*
   CHEMICAL --------------|
                          |
                3ds2scn*  |
  3D STUDIO --------------|
                          |
                iv2scn*   |
 IRIS Inventor -----------|

****************************************

The DOS port of RTrace is in pub/RTrace/PC-386 (rtrac820.arj,
utils820.arj and image820.arj). See the README file there.
Requires DJGPP GO32 DOS extender (version 1.09 included), which can be
found in directory pub/PC/djgpp (and in many sites around netland).
There are also demo scenes, manuals and all the source code...

****************************************

Please feel free to get it and use it.
Hope you like it.


I think that NHLPA' 93 is the best video game available now.
of course many things could be done better, but i really appreciate that
the names of players are the real ones, no matter if it lacks some logos...
I am still playing it since November leading different teams to the finals
and making scorers from the same team compete for the top scoring:
Yesterday I won the title using Toronto against Hartford (4 games to two),
I played the playoffs in a 7 games fashion (5 minutes for each period) and
the best scorer and shooter was Gilmour (116 shots if I remember well)
--
_____________________________________________________

  Iskander AYARI


No.  Patrick Roy is the reason the game was lost, and Ron Hextall is the
reason Quebec won.  Everybody said it would come down to goaltending, that
goaltending was the key, etc etc.  Well, the key doesn't quite fit if you're
Montreal.  The Dionne penalty was kind of a cheesy call, but let's face it;
he literally left his feet to throw an elbow.  Blaming Stewart is just an
excuse to avoid facing the fact that Roy allowed what was one of the worst
goals he could possibly allow.  He even saw the whole shot, dammit.  Besides,
Stewart evened things up a bit by calling a Quebec penalty in OT.

Montreal played a solid game (although they still don't know how to clear
traffic in front of the net; the loss of Schneider will hurt even more).
Normally I would say that any team that blows a 2-goal lead with less than
five, let alone two, minutes to go in regulation time IN A PLAYOFF GAME
ESPECIALLY needs to be smacked upside their collective heads.  But I don't
think this was a team loss (although Keane should have been able to clear
the zone just prior to the first Quebec goal).  Roy is paid big money to
play.  He looked like a player in an industrial league on Sakic's shot.

Demers should start Racicot in the next game.  If not that, he should let
the damn team read the papers for the next day or two....and maybe this
article, if possible.

I didn't think the wrap-around was as bad as the second goal.  I also didn't
think Scott Young should have gotten around the defender (can't remember who)
in the first place.  But you are correct, it shouldn't have gone in
regardless.

Yep.  Moog looked bad on Mogilny's goal with five seconds left in the second,
IMO.  How about Neely though?   Holy shit, what a player.

Speaking of great players, man-oh-man can Quebec skate.  I haven't seen a
team so potent on the rush in a long time.  Watching them break out of their
zone, especially Sundin, is a treat to watch.  They remind me of the Red
Army.

But I still hate the team.

On the rest of the games:  Didn't St. Louis' winning goal come on a
powerplay?  Penalties will cost Chicago dearly, especially against Detroit.
Same goes for Calgary; very, very undisciplined.  When Marty McSorely is
waving guys to the bench to *avoid* fights, you know something's up.  New
Jersey was overmatched, Terreri's heroics notwithstanding.  Mario is
unbelievable, and Jagr for some reason shows up in the playoffs.  But I
hate that team anyway.


Giant's have a five man rotation of  John Burkett, Trevor Wilson,
Bill Swift, Jeff Brantley, and Bud Black/Dave Burba.  Black has
been put on the 15 day disables and Dave Burba will take his starts.


There is really nothing inherently wrong with it but they tried it just
a little over a decade ago, and noone showed up for the early rounds in
the playoffs...whereas soon after they went to the divisional set-up
arenas were mostly filled in the early rounds.

The empirical evidence of the last two decades is that more people will
show up to see the Bruins play the Sabre umpteen times than see the
Bruins play the Captials in the first round.

Maybe hockey has increased in popularity sufficiently that this will
no longer be the case.  The experiment is worthwhile with the uneven
distribution of the expansion teams, but I prefer the divisional
playoff.


Anyone in Europe got any advice for a US citizen whose going to be living
and working in Italy for a year and wants to buy a motorcycle there?  An
Italian friend just arrived here in Washington State to work for two years,
and she's finding it very very difficult to obtain car insurance.  So I
thought I'd ask...

I have a US license, with motorcycle endorsement (unlimited displacement),
and have had for 30 years.  I am also a Washington State Motorcycle Safety
instructor, if that info might help.

I will post a summary, even if it's just of my own personal experience in
buying a bike and getting it insured after I get to Italy.


To put it mildly.  As I watched the Flyers demolish Toronto last night, 4-0,
I realized that no matter how good the Leafs' #1 line may be, they'll need
one or two more decent lines to go far in the playoffs.  And, of course, a
healthy Felix Potvin.


FOR SALE !!!

      DECpc 325sxLP

   It's in very good condition, used for one year. It has

      - 25 Mhz Intel 386
      - 52 MB Hard Disk
      - Super Color VGA Monitor
      - 2-button mouse
      - 1.44 MG floppy disk drive

      Software:
    ------------

       - Microsoft Dos 5.0
       - Microsoft Windows 3.1
       - Microsoft Works for Windows 2.0
       - Borland Turbo Pascal 6.0
       - Borland Turbo C++ 3.0 for Dos


From: Center for Policy Research <cpr>
Subject: Ten questions about Israel

Ten questions to Israelis
-------------------------

I would be thankful if any of you who live in Israel could help to
provide
 accurate answers to the following specific questions. These are
indeed provocative questions but they are asked time and again by
people around me.

1.      Is it true that the Israeli authorities don't recognize
Israeli nationality ? And that ID cards, which Israeli citizens
must carry at all times, identify people as Jews or Arabs, not as
Israelis ?

2.      Is it true that the State of Israel has no fixed borders
and that Israeli governments from 1948 until today have refused to
state where the ultimate borders of the State of Israel should be
?

3.      Is it true that Israeli stocks nuclear weapons ? If so,
could you provide any evidence ?

4.      Is it true that in Israeli prisons there are a number of
individuals which were tried in secret and for which their
identities, the date of their trial and their imprisonment are
state secrets ?

5.      Is it true that Jews who reside in the occupied
territories are subject to different laws than non-Jews?

6.      Is it true that Jews who left Palestine in the war 1947/48
to avoid the war were automatically allowed to return, while their
Christian neighbors who did the same were not allowed to return ?

7.      Is it true that Israel's Prime Minister, Y. Rabin, signed
an order for ethnical cleansing in 1948, as is done today in
Bosnia-Herzegovina ?

8.      Is it true that Israeli Arab citizens are not admitted as
members in kibbutzim?

9.      Is it true that Israeli law attempts to discourage
marriages between Jews and non-Jews ?

10.     Is it true that Hotel Hilton in Tel Aviv is built on the
site of a muslim cemetery ?

Thanks,


I'm sure the Pittsburgh group has published the baboon work, but I
don't know where.  In Chicago they were doing lobe transplants from
living donors, and I'm sure they've published.  I don't read the
transplant literature.  I just see the liver transplant patients
when they get into neurologic trouble (pretty frequent), so that
and the newspapers and scuttlebutt is the way I keep up with what
they are doing.  Howard Doyle works with them, and can tell you more.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  it is shameful to surrender it too soon."


No, Mathew is proposing a public defence mechanism, not treating the
electronic device as an impropriety on the wearer. What he is saying is that
the next step beyond what you propose is the permanent bugging of potential
criminals.  This may not, on the surface, sound like a bad thing, but who
defines what a potential criminal is? If the government of the day decides
that being a member of an opposition party makes you a potential criminal
then openly defying the government becomes a lethal practice, this is not
conducive to a free society.

Mathew is saying that implanting electronic surveillance devices upon people
is an impropriety upon that person, regardless of what type of crime or
what chance of recidivism there is. Basically you see the criminal justice
system as a punishment for the offender and possibly, therefore, a deterrant
to future offenders. Mathew sees it, most probably, as a means of
rehabilitation for the offender. So he was being cynical at you, okay?


Gerry Cheevers used to have a mask that had stitches painted all over
it.


Wasn't Ron Bloomberg, the former Yankee who got the first base hit
by a Designated Hitter, Jewish??


Western Digital 3.5" IDE 40 Meg Hard drive.
$95 or BO.
+ shipping


According to mdbs@ms.uky.edu, muslims tithe 1/6 of their income.

Perhaps there are some offshoots of Islam that impose this on their
followers.  But the standard tithe is 1/40 of one's net worth, once
a year.

The same writer also objects to the Bible for teaching that

 > "woman was created after man, to be his helper" etc.

This is presumably a reference to Genesis 2. Suppose that that
chapter had been written with the sexes reversed. We have God
creating woman, and then saying, "It is not good that woman should
be alone. I will make a help meet for her." Feminists would be
outraged. The clear implication would be that God had started at the
bottom and worked up, making first the plants, then the fish and
birds, then the beasts, then woman, and finally His masterpiece, the
Male Chauvinist Pig. The statement that woman is not capable of
functioning by herself, that she needs a man to open doors for her,
would have been seen as a particularly gratuitous insult. The fact
that the creation of woman from the dust of the ground was given
only briefly and in general, while the creation of the Man was given
in six times the number of words, would have been cited as evidence
of the author's estimate of the relative importance of the sexes.
The verdict would have been unequivocal. "No self-respecting woman
can accept this book as a moral guide, or as anything but sexist
trash!" I suggest that Moses, fearing this reaction, altered his
original draft and described the creation with Adam first and then
Eve, so as to appease Miriam and other radical feminists of the day.
For some reason, however, it did not work.


Your last remark is a contradiction, but I'll let that pass.

I was addressing the notion of the Great Commission, which
you deleted in order to provide us with dull little homilies.
Thank you, Bing Crosby.  Now you go right on back to sleep
and mommy and daddy will tuck you in later.

Oh, and how convenient his bible must have been to Michael
Griffin, how convenient his Christianity.  "Well, I'll just
skip the bit about not murdering people and loving the sinner
and hating the sin and all that other stuff for now and
concentrate on the part where it says that if someone is doing
something wrong, you should shoot him in the back several times
as he tries to hobble away on his crutches."

I'll leave the "convert or die" program of the missionaries and
their military escorts in the Americas for Nadja to explain as
she knows much more about it than I.

Must be awfully convenient, by the way, to offer platitudes
as you have done, David, rather than addressing the arguments.


1976 Montreal Olympics philatelic souvenirs:

1. Color-illustrated booklet in French/English containing all stamps
issued for the Games (mint never hinged) in slipcase, over $6.00
face value in stamps. $13.00 + $2.00 insured first class mailing

2. Unusual "desk pad holder" with Olympic rings on the cover and the
Montreal stadium inside. All the Canadian Olympic stamps are
displayed on the "cover" under heavy plastic. Again, over $6.00
face value. $11.00 + $2.50 insured first class mailing.


I thought I read that FastMicro was having some financial difficulties,
is this true?  I can't seem to find the posting about it and was wondering
if someone can confirm this.


Reasonably fancy.

Standard "voice" circuits run at 56kbps inter-exchange in the US.
Therefore, you need to achieve 4:1 to get standard voice quality.

If you're willing to give up some quality, you need only 2:1.  This is still
acceptable from a speech standpoint; it will be a little less faithful to
the original, but certainly intelligable.  That's all you really need for
this application.


 No one says you have to read any of it Ralph.. Go play in traffic.., or take
a nap... They work for me..


I finally got a 24 bit viewer for my POVRAY generated .TGA files.

It was written in C by Sean Malloy and he kindly sent me a copy.  He
wrote it for the same purpose, to view .TGA files using his SpeedStar 24.

It ONLY works with the SpeedStar 24 and I cannot send copies since it is
not my program.  I believe the author may release a version at a future
time when the program is more developed.   He may or may not comment on
this, as he pleases.

Thanks to all who were helpful.

Regards,


[remainder of message deleted]

Pardon me for replying to only a portion of your message :)

The reason we can say "God just exists" and can't say "The universe just
exists" is because the universe is a natural realm and is subject to natural
laws in general and the law of cause and effect in particular.  That is, we
observe in nature that every cause has an effect, and every effect was produced
by a cause.  The existence of the natural realm, as an effect itself, cannot be
its own cause; it must therefore have a supernatural cause.

God, on the other hand, is a supernatural being, and is therefore not subject
to such natural laws as the law of cause and effect.  As a supernatural being,
God's eternal existence does not imply a previous cause the way the existence
of a physical, natural cosmos does.  Thus, those who believe in the
supernatural have a valid basis for accepting the existence of uncaused
phenomena such as the eternal God, whereas those who deny the existence of the
supernatural are faced with the dilemma of a physical universe whose very
nature shows that it is not sufficient to explain its own existence.

This is, of course, an oversimplification of a complex topic, but I just wanted
to clarify some important differences between the supernatural (God) and the
natural (the universe), since you seem to mistake them as being
interchangeable.


	Finally you said what you dream about. Mediterranean???? That was new....
	The area will be "greater" after some years, like your "holocaust" numbers......

		*****
	Is't July in USA now????? Here in Sweden it's April and still cold.
	Or have you changed your calendar???

						    ****************
						    ******************
			    ***************

	NOTHING OF THE MENTIONED IS TRUE, BUT LET SAY IT's TRUE.

	SHALL THE AZERI WOMEN AND CHILDREN GOING TO PAY THE PRICE WITH
						    **************
	BEING RAPED, KILLED AND TORTURED BY THE ARMENIANS??????????

	HAVE YOU HEARDED SOMETHING CALLED: "GENEVA CONVENTION"???????
	YOU FACIST!!!!!

	Ohhh i forgot, this is how Armenians fight, nobody has forgot
	you killings, rapings and torture against the Kurds and Turks once
	upon a time!

Ohhhh so swedish RedCross workers do lie they too? What ever you say
"regional killer", if you don't like the person then shoot him that's your policy.....l

										i
										i
										i
	Confused?????								i
										i
        Search Turkish planes? You don't know what you are talking about.	i
        Turkey's government has announced that it's giving weapons  <-----------i
        to Azerbadjan since Armenia started to attack Azerbadjan
        it self, not the Karabag province. So why search a plane for weapons
        since it's content is announced to be weapons?

	If there is one that's confused then that's you! We have the right (and we do)
	to give weapons to the Azeris, since Armenians started the fight in Azerbadjan!

	Shoot down with what? Armenian bread and butter? Or the arms and personel
	of the Russian army?


Shouldn't have.  But he may need to see the shrink about why he
wanted to kill himself.  Depressed people can be succesfully treated
usually.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  it is shameful to surrender it too soon."


Several years ago, while driving a cage, a dog darted out at a quiet
intersection right in front of me but there was enough distance
between us so I didn't have to slow down. However, a 2nd dog
suddenly appeared and collided with my right front bumper and
the force of the impact was enough to kill that Scottish Terrier.

Apparently, it was following the 1st dog. Henceforth, if a dog
decides to cross the street, keep an eye out for a 2nd dog as
many dogs like to travel in pairs or packs.

I've yet to experience a dog chasing me on my black GL1200I which
has a pretty loud OEM horn (not as good as Fiamms, but good enuff)
but the bike is large and heavy enough to run right over one of
the smaller nippers while the larger ones would have trouble
getting my leg between the saddlebags and engine guards. I'd
def feel more vulnerable on my '68 Trump as that'd be easier
leg chewing target for those mongrels.

If there's a persistent dog running after bikers despite
complaints to the owner I wouldn't be adverse to running
over it with my truck as a dogs life isn't worth much IMHO
compared to a child riding a bike who gets knocked to the
ground by said dog and dies from a head injury.

Any dog in the neighborhood that's vicious or a public menace
running about unleashed is fair game as road kill candidate.


Just to inform the readers of newsrc Sony has just introduced a new DATman,
the TCD-D7 which is smaller and less expensive than the D3.  Also, the D7
has a coaxial jack which the D3 lacks.  Oh, the D3 has always been
available through mail-order houses for less than $700 dollars new... with
the new model coming out, I suspect the now obsolete D3 will be selling for
even less.


Two-part question:

1)  What is Windows NT - a 'real' windows OS?

2)  This past weekend, a local 'hacker' radio show metioned a new product
    from Microsoft called 'Chicago' if I recall.  Anyone know what this is?

That is it -

Thanks a heap.

- Alan


Actually, that is no longer true. In the last few years Congress has
ammended laws to provide whatever is needed. Note that both Spacehab
and Comet are funded this way.

The problems aren't legal nor technical. The problem is NASA's culture.

  Allen


each


I'm looking for software (hopefully free and runs on Unix box) which will
keep track of statistics for my company softball team (batting avg. etc.).

If you know of any please post or respond to me by e-mail. Many thanks.


}>}So stop dodging the question.  What is hypocritical about my
}>}criticizing bad arguments, given that I do this both when I agree
}>}with the conclusion and when I disagree with the conclusion?
}>
}>You are the one who has claimed to possess the fruits of precognition,
}>telepathy, and telempathy.  Divine it yourself.
}
}Another dodge.  Oh well.  I'm no match for your amazing repertoire
}of red herrings and smoke screens.
}
}You asked for an apology.  I'm not going to apologize for pointing out
}that your straw-man argument was a straw-man argument.  Nor for saying
}that your list of "bible contradictions" shows such low standards of
}scholarship that it should be an embarrassment to anti-inerrantists,
}just as Josh McDowell should be an embarrassment to the fundies.  Nor
}for objecting various times to your taking quotes out of context.  Nor
}for pointing out that "they do it too" is not an excuse. Nor for calling
}your red herrings and smoke screens what they are.

How about the following inaccurate, unsubstantiated accusations:
In 8257@blue.cis.pitt.edu
	- but no "threat" produced
	- display of telepathy
	- in spite of no "threat" produced, nor forecast ever happening (precognition?)
	- in spite of claimed threat never being given
	- in spite of it never happening.  telepathy or precognition?
	- unsubstantiated and untrue.  more telepathy?  Or maybe telempathy?
	- unsubstantiated again.  Seems to be a habit...

Having more trouble with reality, it appears.  Why get bothered with the facts when
you appear to have the products of paranatural divination methods?


I remember seeing an artical on large-engine oil
requirements, and one of the ways of prolonging
the life of the oil was to run through a heated
un-presurized chamber to allow water and volitiles
to boil off. This made such long-term usage of
oil practical.

Isn't the Discovery channel great!?!


After IBM had invented the DES and the NBS had advertised for proposals,
but before IBM had decided to respond, I argued strenuously that they
should not; they should keep it proprietary.

The biggest proponent of proposing was Dr. Lewis Branscomb.  Dr. Branscomb
was the IBM Chief Scientist and had come to IBM from NBS.  Fortunately
for all of us, Dr. Branscomb understood the answer to the above question
much better than I.  He realized how difficult it would be to gain
acceptance for any cryptographic mechanism.  Because of the necessary
complexity, publicity would not be sufficient and neither would
authority.  In fact, it has taken both of those plus more than 15
years.

We have also had independence.  The DES was solicited by NBS, invented
and proposed by IBM, and vetted by NBS.  It has also been examined and
vetted by experts like Adi Shamir, who are not subject to influence by
any of these.

Even now, there are still people posting on this list who do not trust
the DES in spite of all the time, all of the analysis, and all of the
public scrutiny.

(Of course, it is just this point that NIST misses when it attempts to
gain acceptance for a novel mechanism, developed in secret, on the basis
of authority alone.)

We had a long thread here about whether or not the NSA can "break" the
DES.  That is a silly question.  At some cost and in some time they
can "break" anything.  The important question is at what cost and in
what time.

The fundamental strength of the DES and RSA are not nearly so important
as what we know about their strength.  As long as we understand the
cost and duration for an attacker, then we can use them in a safe way.
At this point, we may never replace either because of the inability of
any successor to overcome this knowledge gap.

DES and RSA are among the most significant inventions of the century
and the most important inventions in the history of cryptography.
We are damned lucky to have them.


Could someone please send me the basics of the NASP project:
1. The proposal/objectives
2. The current status of the project/obstacles encountered
3. Chance that the project shall ever be completed
or any other interesting information about this project.

Any help will be much appreciated


	(2) is a corrallary of (1).

	The negation of (2) would contridict (1).

  (2) Is a corrallary of (1)

  The negation of (2) would contradict (1).
--

       "Satan and the Angels do not have freewill.
        They do what god tells them to do. "


Another program which produces this effect is:
- SpyGlass Transform 2.1 (while contouring a big 257*257 array).

Thanks for any information about this problem,


#There is a big difference between running one's business
#affairs, and actively ripping people off.

And charging homosexuals more becuase people think that AIDS is a "gay
disease" is actively ripping people off.


Bottom line:  I did it and it worked.

Some 'tips and techniques' are included here:

I found that I needed some smaller sockets to undo the shocks.
And a can of WD40 helped...

The sockets needed were metric (exact fit) but I was able to use
some SAE sockets...  13/16 and 15/16 are rather close to 21 and 24mm...
It CAN be fun having a Canadian Ford ...

Didn't have to undo the end bolts/bushings.  Just the 2 U bolts on
each side and the shock absorber.  Jacking up the frame some more
(had to put the spare tire on the garage floor and put a wooden
platform on top of that to get the 'floor jack' high enough to
raise the frame ... I't one TALLL truck...) lifted the spring
free of the axel.  Taking out the block gave me enough room to
undo the pin holding the spring pack together.

The spring pack was held together with a nut on top and a round head
on the other end....  No wrench head...  Vice Grips worked fine...
I soaked the nut with WD40 and it came right off.

Flipped the bottom spring and then...

I donno ... I'm a little more sore today than after working on a
1911A1 ...

A 1.5 foot pipe cheater was a real help.  Torque spec for the U bolt
nuts is 150 to 200 ft-lbs (!).   A 1911-A1 doesn't have that kind of
torque spec ...

It was a 'challenge' to get the 'pack bolt' back in the spring pack.
Squeeze pack with two hands, hold bolt with third, put nut on
with fourth while picking up wrench and vice grips with fifth
and sixth hands ...  I used some string to tie the pack together
while holding the pin in for alignment... then I could let go
to get the {nut, wrench, Vice Grips...}.

Getting the pin back lined up with the lift block was a challenge too...
until I discovered that the axel had 1) Tilted and/or 2) rolled forward.

One the drivers side, a bottle jack under the front of the differential
tilted it back in line enough for the pin head to drop into the right
hole.  On the passenger side, I had to wrestle the wheel into rolling
forward about 1/2 inch to get things to line up.  Spent more than an
hour working on getting the pin head into the hole in the lift block
with levers and ropes and impliments of distruction before I took a
break and thought about WHY it wasn't lined up anymore (since it HAD
been lined up before, and *I* didn't move it, something ELSE must
have ... hmmm, axle no longer constrained not to move ... hmmm, move
it back... hmmm...).

After that, it was all much easier to 'close up'.

BTW, the ride is now softer, but not quite as soft as I was hoping for.
At least it now sits level..

--

E. Michael Smith  ems@apple.COM

'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has
 genius, power and magic in it.'  -  Goethe


}
}>  Drugs are banned, please tell me when this supply will dry up?
}
}Drugs are easier to manufacture, easier to smuggle, easier to hide.
}
}No comparison.

You, sir, are an ignorant fool who knows nothing about either the drug
business or the gun business.

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now!

Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of ISIL,
The International Society for Individual Liberty,
1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 864-0952; FAX: (415) 864-7506; 71034.2711@compuserve.com


I just bought an actix graphics engine 32 plus with 2 megs.

I am not impressed...

I have been having all sorts of problems with the board.  Various lock-ups
in windows, problems with the screen not centering, no flexibilty in choosing
synch rates for a monitor, buggy windows drivers, lack of 1024x768x64k driver,

If anyone else has one of these cards, please e-mail me...

Looks like i'm going to try the ati ultra plus...


To answer your irrelevant question, yes a person of color is human,
but I still don't know what you mean by human being and you have
merely begged the question without responding.  By trying to inject
the notion of race into the discussion, you muddy the waters without
adding any insight whatever.  The same parallel question could
be "Is a polydactyl person a human being?"  You still have not
answered what you mean by human being.  Please do so.

You won't answer the question and instead drag in irrelevancies.
If you want a definition of human being that does not depend on
the vagaries of law, but holds solid whatever the law may rule,
provide it for me.

More irrelevancies.  As Larry Margolis pointed out, the law
has made special exceptions in order to include fetuses, but does
not follow your version of human being.  And as he pointed out,
brain death is not a means of determining who has the rights
of the living, but rather who has died.  There is a significant
difference.

What I am wondering now is, has your argument so failed you that
you feel it necessary to drag out irrelevancies and leave the
thread you started?  You got answers to your questions when
you began baiting me, if you recall, after you had made some
ridiculous remarks about Adrienne Regard and, having been corrected,
changed the subject with your remarks about having a discussion
of substance.  If you really wanted a discussion of substance,
why then do you disregard logic and substance in order to toss
silly accussations, e.g. "It really doesn't matter to you..."
If it matters to you, then why not define human being and seek
some substance?  You're not going to convince a logical person
of the rightness of your position unless you apply some logic
and show some meaning to your words.

As others point out, one is sacrificed for the other depending on
which has the better chance at survival.  Again, your analogy
fails.  Not precedence, but possession makes a difference here.
A woman's womb is indisputably her own.  Also, I see you ignore
my statement that you would grant rights to a fetus that would
not be granted a born human being.  Was that due to its inconvenience?

Is it?  Please cite a precedent and the basis of the ruling.

You simply assert things without any support.  Your analogy is
not accurate and your assertions are unsupported.  Try this on
for size.  It is not murder for one Siamese twin to kill
the other in the womb.  There.  We now have equal arguments.
But the idea is illogical.  For one Siamese twin to kill the
other in the womb would likely be to kill itself as well.  The
systems are dependent on each other for life.  I'm still struggling
to see anything analagous here and failing to do so.

Your argument is from Fantasy Island.  Your comparison is a total
failure, as I have demonstrated already, and has no basis in
reality, neither legally nor medically.  And for you to assert
that it is not a perfect comparison because of the impossible,
that of coercion or oppression, is ridiculous.  As I said,
you give the analogy too little credit for failure.  On the one
hand you start this by saying you want to take a real, rather than
a hypothetical, situation, then you fly off into Siamese twins
murdering one another in the womb or coercing or oppressing each
other in the womb when the reality of the situation you describe
in now way matches your version.  As I said before, decisions
are made regarding which twin lives and dies in situations where
they cannot both survive.  And, furthermore, as I have already said,
there is a difference between an equal claim to organs and a claim
that is unequal.  You seem to be asserting that a fetus has a
claim on a woman's womb.  When the fetus is born, what happens to
its claim?  And by what reason do you assert its claim?

You haven't answered the question.  The situations are not analagous.

Again you avoid the question.  Dependence can be transferred, and
it is not as slow as you seem to think.

Yes, and I'd hate to have been the one to tell Dr Gunn's children that
he was murdered by a religious, "pro-life" fanatic.  Please do
try to stay relevant.

Clever comeback.  I congratulate you on the readiness of your wit.

What happened to that claim to bodily organs where life is at stake?
Why does this parent now have an indisputable right to his or her
kidney when previously the parent did not, by your standards?  What
is different about the two situations?  I see I have to spell this
out for you since the meaning was too subtle for you.  In the one
case you do not recognize a difference between a fetus and a born
child (you ask why a born child cannot be abandoned but a fetus
can), and in this case you recognize a significant difference
between the fetus and born child where the lives of the two are at
stake.  You can't have it both ways.  Action and inaction are
irrelevant to the principle, but you are wrong about the inaction
anyway.  Ask any of the numerous women who post here and have
borne children how inactive their pregnancy was.  To have a
healthy, live child, a woman does more than hang out, eat as
she chooses, plays volleyball like she always did, drinks at
parties with her friends, etc.  She behaves very differently, and
the provision of her resources to a fetus may be no more voluntary
than the beating of her heart, but it is far from inactive.


Hi,
         I have a friend who is working on 2-d and 3-d object recognition. He is looking
for references describing algorithms on the following subject areas:

Thresholding
Edge Segmentation
Marr-Hildreth
Sobel Operator
Chain Codes
Thinning - Skeletonising

If anybody is willing to post an algorithm that they have implemented which demonstrates
any of the above topics, it would be much appreciated.

Please post all replies to my e-mail address. If requested I will post a summary to the
newsgroup in a couple of weeks.

Thanks in advance for all replies


  >   unsealed, it is CLEAR that Clinton and Reno supported an
   >  ILLEGAL raid.  Did they not KNOW this?

 >    NO authority to use helicopters.

	Sorry, I missed all this!  Can you please give an update on
	the warrant?  I hadn't heard that it was unsealed.  There
	was no authority for a "no-knock?"  This is news.  How about
	an OK for a wiretap?


After reading my local paper today, I found out that the Phillies
started the 1964 season at 10-2.  I am not as old as 1964, but I've
heard many talk about the serious choke job the Phillies did that
season. They were ahead of the Cardinals by 15 games that season in
mid-August.  They managed to lose a bunch from then on and the
Cardinals took the division.  15!!! games ahead and lost it.... I
hope this season is MUCH different.


I've seen this verse used to back up this idea:

"...He has also set eternity in the hearts of men..."  (Ecclesiastes 3:11)


We really should try to be as understanding as we can for Brad, because it
appears killing is all he knows.


A listmember (D Andrew Killie, I think) wrote, in response to the
suggestion that genocide may sometimes be the will of God:

 > Any God who works that way is indescribably evil,
 > and unworthy of my worship or faith.

Nobuya "Higgy" Higashiyama replied (as, in substance, did others):

 > Where is your source of moral standards by which you judge God's
 > behavior?

It is often argued that we have no standing by which to judge God's
actions.  Who is the clay to talk back to the potter? But we find a
contrary view in Scripture. When God proposes to destroy the city of

 + Suppose that there are some good men in the city.
 + Will you destroy the righteous along with the wicked?
 + Far be it from you, Lord, to do such a thing!
 + Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

I am told that the Hebrew is actually a bit stronger than this, and
can perhaps be better rendered (dynamic equivalence) as

 + Shame on you, Lord, if you do such a thing!

There are those who say that the definition of "good" is "whatever
God happens to want." But if that is so, then the statement that God
is good has no meaning.  It simply says that God does what He wants.
That being the case, no one can either love or obey God because He
is good. The only motive left for obeying Him is that He is
powerful. Just as it makes sense to obey a dictator, even when he
tells you to round up all Jews and exterminate them, because if you
defy him you might end up in the gas chamber yourself, so it makes
sense to obey God, because He has the power to punish you if you
don't. This ethical theory I take to be in radical contradiction to
Genesis 18 and to Christianity in general.

Any theory that makes our moral judgements worthless makes any
further discussion of morality (or of the goodness of God)
meaningless. However, it does not follow that our moral judgements
are always infallible in particular cases, still less our judgements
in particular cases about the course of action most likely to
achieve a good result.

When I read the Scriptural accounts of the actions of God in
history, those actions often seem to me very different from what I
might expect of a God who loves us and desires what is best for us.
Moreover, leaving the Scriptures aside, and considering the natural
world, I find that Nature is often very different from what I might
"Those who believe that the Author of Nature is also the Author of
the Scriptures must expect to find in the Scriptures the same sort
of difficulties that they find in Nature.")

Now, that some such difficulties should exist is not in itself an
argument against the existence, power, wisdom, and goodness of God.
On the contrary, their ABSENCE would be such an argument. Suppose
that I am watching Bobby Fisher play chess, and suppose that every
time he makes a move, I find myself nodding and saying: "Good move!
Just what I was expecting him to do.  Same move I would have made if
I were playing." That would be a sign that Fisher is no better a
chess player than myself. Given that he is better, I expect that at
least some of his moves will have me thinking, "Now, what do suppose
induced him to do that?" or even, "Boy, that was a real slip -- he's
just thrown the game away!" Similarly, if God understands the
workings of the universe better than I do, it is to be expected that
sometimes it will look to me as if He has made a mistake.

One difference between Fisher at the chessboard and God at the
controls of the universe is that I can see the end of the chess
game. If Fisher wins, I revise my earlier inference that it was
carelessness that made him lose his queen 23 moves earlier.
However, if he loses, and particularly if I can see that there was a
time when he had an opportunity for a checkmate in two moves and did
not take it, then I know that he is not as good a player as I had
thought.

With God, on the other hand, I shall not in this life see the total
result of some of His actions. Therefore, my grounds for judging
that I have seen a bad move on His part must always be far shakier
than my grounds for making a similar judgement about Fisher.

     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****

In the book of Genesis, we read that Joseph's ten older brothers,
who (with good reason) found  him insufferable, conspired to sell
him into slavery in Egypt. There he eventually became Viceroy, and
when there was a famine in Canaan, he was able to provide for his
family. When his brothers nervously apologized, he told them: "Do
not worry. You meant to do me evil, but God turned it into good."

        The history of the Jews is largely a history of events
   that look like catastrophes that threaten the continued
   survival of the religion, or the people, or both. But,
   amazingly, those events turn out to be the saving of the Jews
   and of Judaism.
        The sale of Joseph by his brothers looked like the breakup
   of the family.  But in fact, it ended with a reconciliation of
   the quarrel between them. The famine that drove the family out
   of Canaan looked like a misfortune for them.  But in fact, if
   they had stayed in Canaan, they would almost certainly have
   intermarried with the Canaanites and been assimilated into
   their culture.  Their oppression by the Egyptians a few
   generations after their arrival in Egypt again looked like a
   disaster. But God used it to bring them out of Egypt, and into
   the Promised Land.
        Here the people built a Temple, and regularly offered
   sacrifices. But the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and Judea,
   destroyed Temple and city and countryside, and deported most of
   the people to Babylon. You might have thought that that would
   be the end of the people and the religion. But it was not.
   Living in Canaan, the people had been under constant danger of
   assimilation.  Again and again, they had turned from the
   worship of the LORD to the worship of the Canaanite fertility
   cults, with their ritual prostitution and ritual human
   sacrifice. The Babylonian captivity put a stop to that. Never
   again did the Jews show any interest in polytheism or idolatry.
   Neither the worship of the Canaanites mor that of the
   Babylonians ever again had a foothold among them.
        Nor is that all. Judaism had been in danger of becoming
   simply a system of sacrifices and Temple observances. The only
   prescribed acts of worship consisted of coming to Jerusalem
   every so often and offering a sacrifice. During the Captivity,
   with the Temple gone, the Jews invented the synagogue, a place
   of meeting for reading and study and discussion of the
   Scriptures. They came to realize clearly, what they were in
   danger of forgetting while they continued to live in Judea,
   that God is not simply a local or tribal deity, not just the
   controller of the land of Canaan, or the patron of the Jewish
   people, but the Creator of the world, and the Ruler and Judge
   of all humans everywhere.
        Time passed, and the Babylonian Empire was replaced by
   that of the Persians, and then that of the Greeks, or rather
   the Macedonians. The ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, was determined
   to stamp out Judaism, and to this end he made the reading and
   the study of the Torah punishable by death. Again, one might
   think that this would be the end of Judaism. But it was not.
   The people met for worship, and instead of reading the Torah
   portion appointed for the day, they would read some passage
   from the prophets that had a similar theme, and then discuss
   that.  Before this time, the Torah, the so-called Five Books of
   Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy)
   were the only books read and studied in the synagogue.  If it
   had not been for Antiochus, the books of the prophets would
   probably have been forgotten altogether. His hatred for Judaism
   saved them.

        [Other examples here omitted for brevity's sake.]

        Some of you may remember that Julie Andrews first became
   famous as Eliza Doolittle in the stage production of MY FAIR
   LADY. When Warner Brothers undertook to make a movie of it,
   everyone expected that Julie, who had been so magnificent on
   stage, would play the same role in the movie. Instead, the
   studio decided to go with an established screen star, and cast
   Audrey Hepburn.  Julie Andrews was naturally crushed. But she
   later realized that if she had played the screen role, she
   would have been type-cast for life as an Elize Doolittle type.
   It would have been a disaster for her. As it was, Walt Disney
   offered her the role of Mary Poppins, and she won an Oscar for
   it.  At the presentation, she stood there, smiling, and looking
   at Walt Disney, she said, "And now, my special thanks to the
   man who made all this possible -- JACK WARNER!" It was the most
   memorable line of the evening.
        In a similar spirit, we Jews might thank the men who in
   the providence of God have preserved Judaism, and kept it alive
   to this day, beginning with Joseph's brothers, and continuing
   with two Pharaohs, with Nebuchadnezzar, with Antiochus
   Epiphanes....

After the formal meeting had broken up, one woman came up to him
privately and said, "You were talking about the Holocaust, weren't
you?" He answered, "If that is an example that came to your mind,
then you are right, I was talking about it to you. But I would not
talk about it to everyone, for not everyone can bear it." I assume
that he meant that, without the Holocaust, there would have been no
state of Israel.

Someone hearing the rabbi's lecture might leap to the conclusion
that God is dependent on the wickedness of men to accomplish His
purposes -- or at least that the rabbi thought so. He might then  go
on to suppose that the wickedness is in fact God's doing -- that He
stirred up Joseph's brothers to a murderous hate against him, and
that when the Israelites were in Egypt, God hardened Pharaoh's
heart, so that he oppressed the people, and would not let them go.
And this raises questions about how an action can be considered
wicked and at the same time be considered something that God has
brought about.

I suggest another way of looking at it. Consider a sculptor who has
a log of wood from which he proposes to carve a statue. But the log,
instead of having a smooth even grain throughout, has a large knot
that spoils the appearance of the surface. The sculptor considers
the wood for a while, and then carves a statue that features the
knot, that makes that particular interruption in the grain and color
of the wood correspond to some feature of the statue, so that
observers will say: "How fortunate the sculptor was in finding a
piece of wood with a knot like that in just the right place. Its
presence is the crowning touch, the thing that makes the statue a
great work of art." In reality, the knot, far from being what the sculptor was
looking for, was a challenge to his skill. If the wood had not
contained that flaw, he would still have made a great work of art,
but a different one. So, if Joseph's brothers had not sold him, God
would still have brought about His purposes for the Jewish people,
but He would have done so in another manner. If Judas had not
betrayed Jesus, if Caiaphas and his fellow leaders had not rejected
Jesus, but had rather acknowledged Him as the Annointed of God, if
Pilate had followed his conscience rather than his fears and had set
Jesus free, it might appear that there would have been no
Crucifixion, and therefore no Redemption, and therefore no
Salvation. Not so. God did not need Judas' sin to redeem us. If
Judas had done right, then God in Christ would still have reconciled
the world to Himself.  We do not know how, just as we do not know
how Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine Chapel if its
interior had instead been shaped like Grand Central Station, and
just as we do not know how Bobby Fisher would have won his fourth
game agianst Spassky if Spassky had refused the exchange of bishops
and had attacked Fisher's knight instead (don't bother to look up
the game in question--I am making up this example, but the point is
none the less valid).

Thus, we may say both (1) that God used, say, the cowardice of
Pilate to accomplish His purposes, and (2) that the said cowardice
was not God's doing, and that Pilate would not have thwarted God's
plans by behaving justly and courageously.

What, then, are we to make of the place where God says to Moses, "I
will harden Pharaoh's heart, so that he will not let the people go"?
Some Christians have taken this to mean that Pharaoh was a puppet
with God pulling the strings, and that his stubbornness and cruelty
were not his own work, but the work of God in him. I suppose rather
that what God was telling Moses was something like this: "If you see
that Pharaoh is not willing to let the people go, do not be
discouraged, or suppose that the situation is out of my control. My
purposes will not be thwarted. If Pharaoh chooses to hear you and
let the people go, well and good. If he does not, I will fit his
resistance into my plans, and fit it so perfectly that future
historians and theologians will suppose that I would have been
thrown for a loss if Pharaoh had obeyed me."

To return to the question that started this all off. Is it possible
that the Serbs, in slaughtering the Moslems of Bosnia, are
instruments of God's will?
     First point. What they are doing is wrong, just as what
Joseph's brothers did was wrong, just as what Judas did was wrong.
They intend it for evil. If God somehow brings good out of it, that
does not make them any less subject to just condemnation and
punishment.
     Second point. Of course, God will bring good out of it. But not
the same good that He would have brought if the Serbians had
refrained from the sins of robbery and rape and murder. Nor does the
good He purposes excuse us from the duty of doing what is right.


We have recently purchased a Tektronix xterminal, and I'm having
a problem with it. We have a graphics widget that we wrote to
display waveforms, and it doesn't work on the xterminal. the buttons,
etc, all show up, and it seems to take the 'right' amount of time to
draw, but nothing is visible in the graphics window. I
have no clue as to where to start looking: the program works fine
on all our suns (3s and 4s, color and B&W). could anyone suggest a
line of attack for this problem?

TekXpress XP380 color xterminal running 6.0.0. host is a Sun IPX
running SunOS 4.1.3 and X11R5, PL17.


  Note the clause "more forcibly", above.     My point is that they have
  made a few pro-forma, perfunctory remarks, and sent in a few C-130's and
  so forth, but it's clearly not something they're losing much sleep over.
  They're just going through the motions, while Moslems are being "ethnically
  cleansed" out of what used to be Yugoslavia.   The US has been speaking
  out far more loudly than the Moslem nations in the UN and other world
  forums.

  Precisely.   Humanitarian concerns were not the primary justification
  for US involvement in the Gulf - oil and geopolitics were.  If the
  the Kuwaitis didn't have oil (and assuming Iraq still saw fit to
  invade them) I doubt you would have seen Operation Desert Storm.