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<[email protected]> (in real life, Elias DAvidson) quotes A nutcase quoting a crackpot. Next time, post this to rec.humor, or perhaps alt.conspiracy.

I disagree. It think the average joe is interested/curious about spaceflight but sees it as an elitist activity. Not one which he is ever going to participate in. Why is the general public going to be interested in the technical details of long term space habitation? I like the idea of the study, but it should be released to other scientists and engineers who will be able to use it. If you want a general public document, you'll need a more general publication. As one working on Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems, engineering the microworld isn't the problem. The problem is understanding the basic chemical, biological and medical factors to be able to engineer them efficiently. For example, the only way we know how to produce food is from plants and animals. Food synthesis is not very far advanced. So we have to orbit a farm. Well that's obviously not very efficient, so we use technology to reduce the mass and grow plants hydroponically instead of using dirt. This is where the engineering comes in. But new technologies bring new basic questions that we don't have the answers to. Like, in dirt we can grow tomatoes and lettuce right beside each other, but in hydroponics it turns out that you can't do that. The lettuce growth is stunted when it's grown in the same hydroponic solution as tomatoes. So now you have to consider what other plants are going to have similar interactions. This means some basic applied scientific research. And that's what needs to be done with all technologies that have been developed so far. We also need to find out how they interact together. That's where we are now. First you need to do the literature search. There is a lot of information out there. Maybe we should just pick a specific area of long term habitation. This could be useful, especially if we make it available on the net. Then we can look at methods of analyzing the technologies. Unless there is an unbelievable outpouring of interest on this on the net, I think we should develop a detailed data base of the literature search first. Then if we accomplish that we can go on to real analysis. The data base itself could be useful for future engineers. That's my response Ken, what do you think?

Yes, and one thing to think about is the pricing on the 160M harddrive configuration. When I got my lowly classic II, the options were 40 or 80M harddrives, and it was clear that buying another 40M of harddrive space would cost *much* more than the difference in price between the two config- uartions. There is an analogous break in the LCIII/80 and 160 prices, and you will not regret spending the extra money for a larger harddrive. Particularly if you ever wind up wanting to use SoftPC, which sets up a several-MB (up to 30!) partition, or if you are generating large files with DTP software, or if you might ever want to check out a mac unix-like os, like MachTen, having the extra space will be helpful. when you are pricing used IIci's, look at the harddrive size they come with, and how much it would cost you to add more storage down the road... (Might be a useful bargaining strategy even if you see no reason to go over 80M, though I must admit that I am such a packrat that within 6 months of getting my computer, I was backing up a lot of stuff to floppies that I rarely use to because I was running out of space, without having started using DTP stuff, softPC or trying any unix os!)

While on my bike I wave to anyone who looks. Sort of like the "small town" or "wide open spaces" type thing that someone from Louisiana mentioned. (Like when I'm in Arkansas or Helena MT.) Kids are especially fun - both genders (Watch it Cliff!! :-) ) In the cage I usually wave to bikers. They usually don't wave back. My wife thinks it's strange but I don't care.

Xsun won't come up in color w/ this framebuffer! I am trying to use xkernel on some of these 4/110s I have a freshly built Statically linkes copy of Xsun that works just fine on cg6, cg4, bw2 type of framebuffers, but on the 4/110 that have this type of frame buffer all I get is Mono. cgtwo0 at vme24d16 0x400000 vec 0xa8 cgtwo0: Sun-3 color board, fast read Here is what I've tried. removing all the other /dev/cg* , /dev/bw , and /dev/fb and then selectivly recreating /dev/cgtwo0. Xsun comes up mono. recreating /dev/fb, comes up mono, I've tried Xsun & Xsun -dev /dev/cgtwo0. PS Xnews will come up in color but it's not statically linked, and the dynamically linked Xsun comes up in mono also. PPS Xsun was compiled on w/ gcc 2.3.3 on a system running 4.1.3 and the 4/110 is also running 4.1.3. Thanks n advance -- - .. the HIGHWAY is made out of LIME JELLO and my HONDA is a barbequeued OYSTER! Yum!

I am curious to known if there are any professional sports teams whose games are regularly broadcast on an FM station. The only one I am aware of is WYSP in Philadelphia who carries the Eagles' games. If you respond to me I will summarize for the list.

If anyone knows of such a site could they please send it to me also. thanks

... I had an ehum, interesting experience with the Rosicrucians, or at least Rosicrucians of some sort last Sunday. They had advertised that they were holding a lecture titled The Graal of the King -- the room of the heart (which rhymes in Swedish). Out of curiosity, I went to the lecture. There were four people there apart from the two Rosicrucians, one woman and two men apart from me. The Rosicrucians were male, both of them. First one of them told us about the Rosicrucians and Lectorium Rosicrucianum, which was founded in Harlem, NL in 1925. He read straight from a piece of paper, which I at that point was because he lacked experience in talking in front of people, but the other guy read, too, and he was used to holding speeches, I could tell. The first guy also said that the R:s are a mystical Christian order, and that they base their teachings on the teachings of the Kathars (English?) from the thirteenth century. The other guy took over, reading from his piece of paper in a fairy-tale teller's voice. What he said sounded like a load of crap to me. Of course that might be because I am unenlightened or something. What made me a bit suspicious, was the way they first said that we all contained something divine, and could find our way back to divinity, then that we couldn't become divine as the persons we are currently, but if we worked really hard we would reach eternal bliss. Maybe I've read too much RAW, but it sounded very much like the things he talks about in the chapter _How to robotize people and brainwash your friends_ in _Prometheus rising_. It was very interesting to watch the two Rosicrucians. The one holding the actual lecture, obviously was top dog, and the other one seemed to be a true believer. I got the impression that the top dog had more distance to the faith than the true believer, that he used it to gain power and admiration. He spoke like a fairy-tale teller, whenever he remembered. ;) The information brochure is at home. Should you want their address, please e-mail me. --Ceci

Pioneer CT-W601R Double Cassette Deck -Auto BLE Tuning -CD Deck Syncro Recording -music search, high speed dubbing, other standard features. Less than one year old. Excellent condition. $200 firm.

Ah - Palestine and the Arab Israeli conflict. Sounds interesting. This is misleading. I supposed Charles D. Smith characterizes the bombing of the King David Hotel as a civilian installation too. Any installation attacked by Etzel was linked to some sort of official function of the Mandatory government. What kind of CIVILIANS? I assume Charles D. Smith means completely innocent people who were intentionally targeted, right? Please provide examples. Nice strawman. In _The Revolt_ Begin does state that the *myth* of a massacre at Deir Yassin may have had the effect of scaring some Arabs into fleeing. However, nowhere does he claim that this was the result of any specific policy of the Etzel. Thus, if it did happen, it was not so intended. I think Arab calls for Palestinians to leave and fear of a war started by Arab hands had a greater effecton Arab migration than Deir Yassin. In fact these jewish TERRORIST groups managed Really. Nice use of caps. I like it. Very effective. Actually, according to many sources, including American diplomatic officials, the greatest encouragment for Arabs to leave their villages came from Arab leaders.

I think it was the reverse, the V4 being 2/3 of the V6. It was also the worst engine that Ford (Europe) have ever made - bloody awful reputation. It's most successful application being the Transit van. Saab gave up with this motor and then made the Triumph 1854 (half a Stag V8) under license (I believe), but with 2-litre capacity and perhaps a different arrangement for the cylinder head studs, before developing their own straight four from the Triumph.

Luke 10:16-18 He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me. And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.

Some of us aren't that fucking stupid you cock sucking asshole. That's why we haven't had our own little DD suaree. I'm soo impressed that you've had to spend your own precious little dollars to make up for your own stupid act. Now go fuck off. Friends killed by Drunk Driving Assholes like Andress Infante: 2 Children friends orphaned by Drunk Driving Assholes like Infante: 2 Now who's the self-righteous asshole, you weak willed fuck head?

COM files are limited to a total size of 64KB. Thus, win.cfn plus vgalogo.log plus your RLE file must be less than 64KB. Thus, your RLE file should be around 30KB. Rob ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ____ ___ ____ / \ Any resemblance between the above views and ================== / .clarku.edu \ want Clarkies to think about them.

The first few times I pillioned someone whose safety was a great concern to me (as opposed to brothers, etc.), I almost got us both killed on several occasions. I was surprised to discover that it is much safer to just drive than to distract yourself by trying to be unusually cautious and concerned. Abruptly adopting a novel set of thought patterns and riding strategies while piloting a bike is just asking for trouble. --

Why is Win 3.1 sometimes so finicky? I have a new DELL 486DX2/66mhz 8 megs RAM. Windows was working just great. I had a Bus mouse and mother board problem. DELL replaced the mouse, gave me a newer mouse driver for windows and replaced the motherboard. Just prior to this problem windows would ]only load up every other time. I would get the LOGO and either it would go on into windows or LOCK UP. This was very consistent EVERY OTHER TIME. Now with the new motherboard and all, it still does the same thing. The computer is less than one month old. At first it worked FINE! I can get into windows each time now with the win/s command. This forces Standard mode. Things seem to run slower. I mainly use windows apps, but in standard mode there is no virtual mem..... plus it is slower. I re-loaded windows, it still does the same thing. Should I first delete everything in all windows dir's? I did not because I have so much added in sub dir's etc. Really puzzling why ENHANCED MODE would not load each time but consistently every other time. Standard mode each time...... ANY THOUGHTS OR COMMENTS ??? C-ya..... /\/\artin

Three q's: 1) is it reliable? 2) how does it send the information from a MS Windows app over the X11 protocol? Does it just draw everything as graphics into one window, or does it use multiple windows and essentially work more cleverly? 3) If I want to run MS Word, for example, remotely, do I have to run a separate copy of MS Windows remotely, and then start MS Word from that, or can MS Word be started remotely on its own?

Just curious, how would the Clipper Chip system handle conference calls?

Bill, I think you have a misunderstanding about atheism. Lack of belief in God does not directly imply lack of understanding transcendental values. I hope you would accept the fact that for instance Buddhists appreciate issues related to non-empirical reasoning without the need to automatically believe in theism. I think reading a couple of books related to Buddhism might revise and fine tune your understanding of non-Christian systems. Cheers, Kent

: How do you know what kind of gas to buy ? Depending on the compression : ratio of your engine I heard. Ok, but what kind of gas goes for what kind : of compression. : : I'm asking this because I used to put 87 in my Hawk GT and the other day, : I changed because I wanted to see if there was a difference. And I don't : know if I'm being subjective or what, but it seems like the bike runs : better ! : Run your bike on the lowest octane that it will run smoothly on. Higher octane fuel is not "better" than lower octane gas. Pick up the last American Roadracing magazine. There's a short article in there about octane and the misconceptions many people make about the subject. Look at your owners manual. I believe it states 87 is just fine. ============================================================================== Erik Astrup AFM #422 DoD #683 1993 CBR 900RR * 1990 CBR 600 * 1990 Concours * 1990 Ninja 250

Atomic Energy Commision - Hmm, they would say this. The Earth may spew alot of substances into the atmosphere, but the quality of your toxic output can easily make up for the lack of quantity. Furthermore, the planet is a system of carbon, sulfur and other chemicals which have been acting for billions of years, we are but newcomers to the system - we must adapt and control in order to bring about stability. Also, two wrongs do not make a right, so continuing our practices despite overwhelming data is just ignorance in (non)action. Educated and open minded environmentalists do not.

I think all connections in Norway can handle touchtone dialing. The Oslo-region has one system, the rest of the country another system. (Almost right for pulsdialing.) Some phones have a little switch inside, so you are able to use them all over Norway, or you can just renumber the numbers on your phone.

John Girash writes... You can get WJR a LONG way away. The problem is that, because of those well known and beloved "contractual obligations", WJR will be doing Tiger baseball instead of the Wings playoff games for probably half the games the Wings could play. For this series, I know tonight's game and I believe games 5 and 6 (if necessay) will be bumped. Ron

: Since the law requires that wiretaps be requested by the Executive :Branch and approved by the Judicial Branch, it seems clear that one :of the key registering bodies should be under the control of the :Judicial Branch. I suggest the Supreme Court, or, regionally, the :Courts of Appeal. More specifically, the offices of their Clerks. I've got a better idea. We give one set to the KGB c/o Washington embassy, and the other set to the Red chinese.

Few simple points: Leadership: You are responsible for all that your subordinates do or fail to do. Law: Any deaths that occur as a result or during the commision of a crime are a felony against whoever dies during the incident, and whoever committed the crime establishing the incident is chargable for MURDER ONE. This is how criminals are charged with murder for the deaths of bystanders from police stray rounds and such. Someone dying of a heart attack is also considered a murder one, if it is in a situation caused by a crime.

Robin Lane Fox is a historian and a gardener. He has written several history books, perhaps a recent one you might remember is "The Search for Alexander". He has also written or edited several books on gardening.

(...) (...) Att man skulle bli tvyngen att {ndra premisserna kunde man inte lista ut p} f|rhand. Huvudsak att man inte flyttar *ner* fel lag. \stersund var en solklar fix som sagt, men V{stervik!! Att det beror p} Nyk|ping tror jag inte p}, man kunde ju lika g{rna "flytta ner" Roma till s|dra (iaf om man g}r efter bredgraderna). Mest r{ttvist vore att l}ta Tierp och V{stervik g|ra upp, men d} skulle Roma/Nyk|pinks vara eller inte vara i |stra ocks} avg|ras. Vad skulle de s{ga om det? Det st|rsta felet med }rets indelning {r *exakt* samma som f|rra }ret, fast v{rre. DET [R INTE R[TVIST INDELAT, sportligt sett. Vallentuna var en match fr}n att g} upp till Allsvenskan f|rra }ret ist{llet gick G{vle upp. Tror ni n}n av dem lyckas lika bra i }r? AIK, HIF, SSK och HIK ska sl}ss om tv} platser!! Om man hadde placerat dessa i var sin division skulle de vara sj{lvklara favoriter till en plats i Allsvenskan, men nu m}ste tv} ge vika. Var finns r{ttvisan i det? :-( Jag har h|rt att HIK har l{mnat in en protest till f|rbundet ang{ende indelningen i |stra. Mitt f|rslag vore att l}ta 3:orna i varje division kvalspela om tv} platser i Allsvenskan och efter jul skulle man kunna sl} ihop de fyra divisionerna till tv}, en s|der och en norr. P} s} s{tt bestraffas inte ett lag som kommer fr}n en trakt d}r det finns m{nga bra lag. En kul grej som jag |nskar att man inf|rde {r att l}ta vinnaren i Allsvenskan f} spela i SM-slutspelet. Det skulle bli en extra krydda till division ett ishockeyn om lagen k{nde att de var "inom r{ckh}ll" till SM-bucklan. Det skulle kanske p} sikt ocks} kunna minska skillnaderna mellan lag i elitserien och division ett. Vad s{js? -- /Marek ------------------------------------------------------------------- [email protected] | "Man skall inte anv{nda fr{mmande Ericsson Telecom AB | ord om man har en adekvat inhemsk System Design Division | vokabul{r disponibel" - Sweden - | Gunnar Emanuel Str{ng (1906-92)

Where is the best place to find classified type ads for used PC's? Several other computer makes have their own ".wanted" sections on the Usenet. What about PC's and compatibles? Where's the cheapest place nationally to buy used PC systems and laptops?

: A woman once told me her doctor told her that I : could catch, asymptomatically, her yeast infection : from her, then give it back to her, causing : a relapse. : Probably bogus, but if not, it's another reason to use : latex... : Steve It isn't bogus. I had chronic vaginal yeast infections that would go away with cream but reappear in about 2 weeks. I had been on 3 rounds of antibiotics for a resistant sinus infection and my husband had been on amoxicillin also for a sinus infection. After six months of this, I went to a gynecologist who had me culture my husband seminal fluid. After 7 days incubation he had quite a bit of yeast growth (it was confirmed by the lab). A round of Nizerol for him cleared both of us.

Ok, so you have proven you saw the right stuff. However, as I said above, it takes politics and PR to keep the bucks coming. "No politics, no bucks, no buck rogers." Yes this may be true in the case of the SCIENCE data coming from the spacecraft and other stuff about the operations. However, there is still stuff regarding regular operation that belongs to the company and they have ever legal right to keeping it theirs. But this does not mean that everything can or should be swept under the umbrella of company proprietory data. You can do the same here...you just have to wait a year. Safeguard internal company data are indeed supported by US law.

Sorry about confusing subject/summary/keywords!!! I am a postgrad researcher in ESL/applied linguistics at Edith Cowan University in Perth Western Australia... I DESPERATELY need help!!! I need to record the results of word processing sessions in windows - so that I can sit down and replay the results of my research subjects' wordprocessing behaviours - naturally, I can do this with the Windows macrorecorder - and 2 or 3 other apps in windows - BUT I CANNOT PAUSE/RESUME!!!! - i.e. all I can do is to ctrl/break to get out - this is useless for a researcher who needs to be able to pause the wordprocessing session he is replaying to make notes/annotations - and then RESUME from where he left off... I am just about to commence my research for my Masters thesis and would be EXTREMELY grateful for any assistance - if anyone can help could they mail me at: [email protected] Many thanks in advance...

I posted about a "pulse of (relaxation) electricity". I now think it more like a pulse of "relaxation" or comfort than a pulse of electricity. It is what you feel if you are overwhelmed by a feeling of comfort, such as seeing or thinking about something beautiful. Another thing. When you sleep, you lie down facing up, with your palms aside of you and facing down on the surface of the bed. Then you relax, and there start involuntary nerve firings inside your flesh. So, you feel a "shiver" below the surface of the skin (not heart-beat). Then this shiver increases, and comes up to your head, and the roam you hear loudens. (Note that you always hear a high-pitch when you lie down in bed; this is just the noise of your blood running in your ear.) This roam is different from the high pitch, but follows the shiver of your body. "Shiver" is not the word. It may be called a mild vibration or quake. What is this shiver and roam? Can I use this to induce out-of-body experience?

But why McGwire, and not Carter? I can see some justification for Bonds or Thomas, because they tend to have higher batting averages, but the major difference I see between McGwire and Carter is that Carter doesn't draw walks. Why aren't pitchers afraid to throw strikes to Carter?

"Freed om of Religion" has absolutely nothing to do with building a small arsenal and grooming 10-year old children to be your wife. "I'll come out as soon as I finish my manuscript on the Seven Seals." Oh, OK, David. I agree that Koresh was as much of a victim as a perpetrator; this because he grew up inside the cult, and engaged in a power struggle where his supporters helped inflate his ego. That doesn't change the fact that he was a loose fucking cannon with a shitload of serious weapons. Or that he was banging thirteen year olds and twisting their impressionable little minds. This was no MOVE fuck-up. A helicoptor was thermal-imaging the compound that afternoon and detected three fires erupting almost simultaneously. There were no CS CANISTERS... a specially modified Abrams was pupming the stuff in. No chance of starting a fire there. Kerosene lamps? Maybe one, but not three fires. No way. Koresh wasn't just talking out of his ass. I expected this to happen. Maybe they WANTED it to look like murder. He had 50+ days. I think this was coming the whole time. He didn't even put the children in the buried bus or the underground bunker during the CS seige. He put them up into the tower to die. Fuck all of you "Big Brother" paranoid freaks. The only good thing to come of any of this is that there will be one less group of crazoids to attract some of the more rootless members of our society.

I was wondering if anyone has ever seen/heard of a utility that converts any type of image format (gif,tiff,pcx,bmp,jpeg,etc.) to an ascii representation. I have seen some very sophiticated art in ascii format, but never was I able to find the author or any program that may have converted the data from a picture format. Any help or leads would be great. Thanks in advance. Danny Dunlavy

Last week's MacWEEK article by Ric Ford indicated that David Ramsey's Mac IIx has been running nicely with a Mac IIci ROM in it, offering clean 32-bit ROM code (liberating his IIx from the virtual memory nightmare caused by Apple's 32-bit System Enabler). Does anyone know of a source for these ROMs? Is it okay for a remanufacturer to resell only ROM chips from used machines? I know that copies cannot be made, but it seems to me that it would be okay to resell the original used ROM. (After all, reselling a used computer involves the sale of the ROM anyway, so what's the difference?). Needless to say, I'm interested in purchasing such a ROM. What would be a reasonably price to offer?

My reference is a 4 page essay in our local Star Tribute newspaper putting the whole conflict in perspective. I will readily admit that I am no authority in this area; however, other posteers asserted that *some* Muslims did join hands with Croats and Nazis in persecuting Serbs. In any case, past actions do not in any way validate or legitimize what is happending there now. I sincerely do apologize to the extent the author of the essay was wrong in making the assertion he made. Maybe, some student of history may put this in perspective. Satya Prabhakar

You should remember that in Adam's transgression, all men and women sinned, as Paul wrote. All of humanity cooperativley reblled against God in Adma's sin, thus, all are subject to it, and the sin is transmitted from generation to generation.

I remember seeing it several months ago, and it was marked as a joke. Funny how things circulate!

By night I'm an Amiga user. By day I work with windows. I'd be much more comfortable in windows if I had Two things. 1. A good Personal information manager. You know- a calendar, address book, reminder list etc... rolled into one clean interface. 2. A good file manager. Microsofts is very poor by my standards. How about one that has a left and right window and allows file operations between them. being able to launch programs from the same interface would be nice. as well as text reading and graphics viewing. Those who are familiar with Directory Opus on the Amiga know what I'm looking for. If anyone can steer me towards an FTP sight with these programs it would make my transition to windows a lot easier. Please reply via email as I rarely get to read this group. thanks so much! _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | why would he be such a jerk? i know that he doesn't smoke steve lombardi | drugs. and he doesn't do cocaine. and he doesn't shoot [email protected] | smack. and he doesn't even drink beer. Why would he be | such a fu*ker to me? --WEEN

Is it ok to take the car out of gear without using the clutch (while the car is turned off)? Thanks in advance. Please reply by mail.

Yes, one does. I examined a critique of the Book of Romans by I think, Benjamin Franklin once, a Deist. I found it amazing that Benjamin Franklin missed the whole boat. I also have the writings on Thomas Jefferson sitting on my shelf, and it is amazing how much he missed. I have studied Plato's Theory of Forms and Aristotelian Hylomorphesism. What a pile of junk. Jesus makes Plato and Aristotle look like kindergardeners. Psychology, the id, ego, superego by Freud? Elements of truth, but Jesus explained it far better and gave reasons. Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson are mere men. They can screw up the Bible just as well as any man. I do not put these men on a pedestal. And if I remember T.J.'s autobiography correctly, he thought Thomas Paine was the most unread man he ever met. Here's some more circular reasoning to you. Paul says to the Corinthians that "that the gospel will be foolishness to the world, because it is spiritually discerned." And so, people without the spirit of God haven't a clue to what the Bible is saying. From your point of view, that's incredibly circular and convenient. To me, it is mysteriously and supernaturally bizarre. I can see it, but you can't. This is not arrogance on my part. Trust me. It is as bizarre to you as it is to me. But nonetheless, it is a truth, explainable or not. Are any of you color blind to red and green? I am. Remember those dot tests they do at the optomologist's? They put pictures in front of you and you are supposed to identify the pattern in the dots? If your eyes are perfectly normal, you can see letters or numerals embedded in the dots. They are a slightly different color and stand out from the background. But if you are color blind to red and green, you will not see anything but gray-shaded dots. That is how a dot test appears to me. I do not see a pattern at all. A normal seeing person will see the patterns. And to him, I seem like a total anomaly. To him, I appear as if I am missing the universe or something. It is hard for him to understand why I can't see anything that to him is as plain as day. That it what it is like with the Bible, the Word of God, to the believer. The believer can see the meaning in the words. I can see how the patterns fit together. There is such depth. Such consistency. But then, on the other hand, I notice the non-believer. He doesn't see it. He thinks I am weird because he thinks I am seeing things. I look at him, and say, "No, you are weird. You do not see." Then it is time for a sanity check. I go to another Christian and say, "Do you see this." And they go, "Yes. It is an "X"". And I say, "Thank God, I see the "X" too." It is truly the strangest thing. It adds a little extra dimension to the phrase, "He will make the blind see, and the deaf hear."

Photographic SPRING CLEANING! Following is partial list, with more to come soon: -for EXAKTA: Tessar 2.8/50 lens, plus front cap, case Meyer Oreston 1.9/50 lens, plus front cap Spiratone TelXtender Model II, plus orig case Piesker & Co. (Berlin) extension bellows (4x-12x), in orig. box. Entire package for $30. plus shipping. -for PENTAX or other "universal" screw-mount cameras: Spiratone 3.5/35 lens, plus caps Fujinon 1.8/55 lens, orig. case Aetna Coligon 2.8/135 lens, plus caps Entire package $25. plus shipping. -enlarging lenses: Prinz 4.5/150 $10. El-Nikkor 4.0/50 $45. Rodenstock Ysaron 4.5/150 $75. -Busch Pressman Model C, 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 with Wollensak Velostigmat 4.5/101 in Rapax shutter, $85. -Hexacon SLR, with Tessar 2.8/50, plus case. Shutter is sluggish, but it's a "collectible", thus $25. -Rolleicord V, Synchro-Compur, Xenar 3.5/75, with case, orig. lens cap. Some fool got oil on the shutter blades, so shutter is sluggish. $60. -Olympus om2-N body, oil (?) in viewfinder, appears to work fine other- wise. No lens. $75. -Cotact printing frame, 35mm, 6 strips of 6@, lockdown plate-glass cover, excellent condition. $10. -Omega S.S. developing tank, (2) 35 mm reels $12. -Nikkor S.S. developing tank, (7) 120 reels $45. -Kodak Polycontrast filter set $10. Prices above exclusive of shipping. Conserve bandwith and don't come back with petty offers... HOWEVER, I will consider trades of "interesting" EXAKTA equipment for, or toward, any of the above.

My roommate left me his Playboy collection which he no longer wants, so I'm offering them to the general public. (THAT'S YOU!) MAKE AN OFFER FOR THE *ENTIRE COLLECTION* ** The Current Best Offer is $40 + shipping ** I will accept the best offer. (Offer does *NOT* include cheapest method of shipping from Bethlehem, PA) 1992: February (Supermodel Rachel Williams, World Tour, & POM Tanya Beyer) 1991: May (Shannon & Tracy Tweed & POM Carrie Jean Yazel) July (Tall girls, Miss Bulgaria, & POM Wendy Kaye) September (Barbi twins & POM Samantha Dorman) November (La Toya Jackson & POM Tonja Marie Christensen) December (Dian Parkinson from "The Price is Right" & POM Wendy Hamilton) 1990: July (Sharon Stone, Marilyn look-alike, & POM Jacqueline Sheen) October (Girls of the Big West, Gladiator Marisa Pare, & POM Brittany York) November (Teri Copley from "We Got It Made", Sex in Cinema, & POM Lorraine Olivia, stewardess) 1989: January (35th Anniversary Issue - Collector's Edition) February (Year in Sex, Rio's Grand, & POM Simone Eden) March (La Toya Jackson & POM Laurie Wood) August (Women of Wall St., Diana Lee from "License to Kill", & POM Gianna Amore) November (Donna Mills, Sex in Cinema '89, & POM Renee Tenison) 1988: August (Sunshine Girls & POM Helle Michaelsen) October (Girls of the Southwest Conference & POM Shannon Long) November (Women of Washington, Sex in Cinema '88, & POM Pia Reyes) December (Playmate Review, Sex Stars of '88, Lysette Anthony, & POM Kata Karkkainen) 1987: November (Jessica Hahn, Sex in Cinema '87, & POM Pam Stein) Also: *** Special Edition: "Playboy Presents: 100 Beautiful Women" *** --

What *exactly* does the American Constitution say about "the right to association" ? Homosexuals, whether Clayton likes it or not, are as much members of society as he is. As such they have the right to participate and have an equal opportunity to pursue their goals. No-one is saying that Clayton should be forced to associate with queerfolk in his private life (one suspects the gays in question would object also 8-) ), but by proclaiming the general right not to associate with them in the *public* sphere (which includes housing, hiring, etc), he's giving his right to non-association priority over their rights to equal access to opportunity. Historically, people can associate publically with disliked groups with very little ill-effect, however cutting a group off from normal commerce has a severe impact on their lives. Clayton, why exactly should your "right" to non-association in the public sphere take priority over homosexual's rights to equal opportunity ?

As long as a player is under contract to an organization, he is obligated to play only where that organization tells him to play or gives him permission to play. The Rangers are certainly within their rights to force Zubov and Andersson to report to Binghampton. It certainly does reflect a lack of class on the part of the Ranger organization, however. Is having Binghampton win the Calder Cup really more important to them than keeping their players happy?

Any utility that let you remap the keyboard under MS Win?

I think one only needs to scan Mr. Davidsson's bibliography to see what kind of objective sources he uses.

Sounds great. But how would something like this be done? Start up a news group for discussions of things like lobbying tecniques and how to get non-computer geeks as pissed-off as we are?

Mind posting those to the euro archive? We have a directory specifically for BMWs. ftp: 134.29.65.5 (Vax2.Winona.MSUS.EDU) user: euro pass: spooge cd bmw get and put as you please.

Have the rules for goalies' equipment changed? It seems that e.g. glove has become bigger and bigger all the time (and pads too), and the goalies are wearing "over size" jerseys. Am I dreaming? If you watch old photos or films let say about ten years back, I think the difference is quite obvious. Who is an expert on this, please let me know. (Or have the goalies become bigger?)

AND the first team in the majors to win 10 games! Yes! It'll never last, but God it's good while it's here! Well, there's a holiday in Massachusetts called Patriots' Day. Three things happen on Patriots' Day: almost all businesses are closed, the Sox play a morning game, and they run the Boston Marathon. Mike Jones | AIX High-End Development | [email protected]

Well, I know of one hack to sort of do this conversion. First get ghostscript and check out the gs_2asc.ps file that comes with it. It prints out some information about where each text string goes on the page, and maintains page counts. I've written a little C program to massage the output of gs -dNODISPLAY gs_2asc.ps somewhat, so that you can get all the ascii strings in the document. No guarantees that it won't break up words/sentences, though - I've used it with varying degrees of success. Anyways, try this out, it may do what you want. /* * massager: a filter for use with gs; does crude Postscript->ASCII conversion * * Usage: * cat file.ps | gs -dNODISPLAY gs_2asc.ps - | massager * * I print a <Ctrl-L> after each new page. * * Put the following source into massager.c and compile it: */ #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> main() { char line[1000], *p; while (fgets(line, sizeof(line), stdin) != NULL) if (line[0] == 'P') printf("\f\n"); else if (line[0] == 'S' && line[1] == ' ') { if ((p = strrchr(line, ')')) == NULL) continue; *p = '\0'; if ((p = strchr(line, '(')) == NULL) continue; for (p++; *p; p++) if (*p != '\\' || (p[1] != ')' && p[1] != '(')) putchar(*p); putchar('\n'); } return(0); }

I received a fax of a letter from Representative Markey (Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance) to Ron Brown (Secretary of Commerce). Since encryption and the Clipper chip are raised in this letter, I felt it would be of interest. I understand that on 29 April, Mr. Markey will be holding a hearing on the questions raised in this letter. There may also be a follow-on hearing dedicated to the clipper chip, but that's not definite. I've typed in the letter, which follows. Any errors in transcription are mine... --- Glenn Tenney [email protected] Amateur radio: AA6ER Voice: (415) 574-3420 Fax: (415) 574-0546 ------------------ letter of interest follows ---------------- April 19, 1993 The Honorable Ronald H. Brown Secretary Department of Commerce 14th and Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20236 Dear Secretary Brown: As you know, I have long been interested in the privacy and security of telecommunications transmissions and data in a networked environment. Recent reports concerning the Administration's endorsement of an electronic encryption standard, based upon "clipper chip" technology, have raised a number of related issues. The international competitiveness of U.S. high tech manufacturers and the software industry is a key factor that the government should consider when addressing issues of encryption and data security. As the nation moves forward in developing the national communications and information infrastructure, security of telecommunications transmissions and network data will be an increasingly important factor for protecting the privacy of users. The "hacker" community can compromise the integrity of telecommunications transmissions and databases linked by the network. The people and businesses that use the nation's telecommunications network and the personal computers linked through it increasingly are demanding that information be protected against unauthorized access, alteration, and theft. I am concerned that the Administration's plan may mean that to remain competitive internationally, U.S. companies would be compelled to develop two products -- one for U.S. government customers, and another for private, commercial users who may want a higher encryption standard. This may inadvertently increase costs to those U.S. companies hoping to serve both markets. To assist the Subcommittee's analysis of this issue, please respond to the following questions: 1. Has the encryption algorithm or standard endorsed by the Administration been tested by any entity other than NSA, NIST or the vendor? If so, please identify such entities and the nature of testing performed. If not, please describe any plans to have the algorithm tested by outside experts and how such experts will be chosen. 2. Under the Administration's plan, what entities will be the holders of the "keys" to decrypt scrambled data? What procedures or criteria will the Administration utilize to designate such key holders? 3. Does the encryption algorithm endorsed by the Administration contain a "trap door" or "back door," which could allow an agency or entity of the Federal government to crack the code? 4. It is clear that over time, changes in technologies used for communications will require new techniques and additional equipment. How will encryption devices adapt to the rapid advancement of telecommunications technology? 5. What additional costs would the proposed encryption place on the Federal government? What is the estimated cost to consumers and businesses which opt for the federal standard in their equipment? 6. What is the Commerce Department's assessment of the competitive impact of the Administration's endorsement of the "clipper chip" technology on U.S. exports of computer and telecommunications hardware and software products? I would appreciate your response by no later than close- of-business, Wednesday, April 28, 1993. If you have any questions, please have your staff contact Colin Crowell or Karen Colannino of the Subcommittee staff at (202) 226-2424. Sincerely, Edward J. Markey Chairman ###

So could the defenders in the Alamo. You're clearly missing the point here. Typically, I might add. If it were me, I doubt that *I* would have come out. BATF show up, start shooting at me, etc. Then they paint me a child-molesting murdering fanatic, call up TANKS, hundreds of automatic-armed goons. Restrict press access to two miles away.

Shaz, Hmm.. but the service indicators that I have works this way: There are 5 green,1 yellow, 1 red indicators. initially all green indicators will be on for few minutes when you start your car. The computer will actually "sense" how you drive your car and as time goes by the green indicators will start to go off one by one and then the yellow indicator will turn on and then the red indicator will go on. And you should get service when by the time green indicators are off. After service the mechanic(or you) will reset the service indicators and the computer starts counting again. So I expect to have a tool(or a procedure) to reset it so the green lights will come on and the yellow and red lights will go off. I wonder how people can do oil change themself without knowing how to reset the indicator. It's the first european car I have and changing oil at 15,000 miles is a surprise to me. and it's a big plus :-). But I wonder how that could happen since the oil lose its lubrication ability over time, I thought it's the oil and not the vehicle that determines how often we should change oil. Any BMW owner on the net? Response welcomed. PS. my initial question is "how do you seset the service indicator of a BMW"

"Hate messages" rather than "facts"? Sorry, but your argument falls flat on its face. SOME OF THE REFERENCES FROM EMINENT AUTHORS IN THE FIELD OF MIDDLE-EASTERN HISTORY AND EYEWITNESSES OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OF 2.5 MILLION MUSLIMS 1. "The Armenian Revolutionary Movement" by Louise Nalbandian, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1975 2. "Diplomacy of Imperialism 1890-1902" by William I. Lenger, Professor of History, Harward University, Boston, Alfred A. Knopt, New York, 1951 3. "Turkey in Europe" by Sir Charles Elliot, Edward & Arnold, London, 1900 4. "The Chatnam House Version and Other Middle-Eastern Studies" by Elie Kedouri, Praeger Publishers, New York, Washington, 1972 5. "The Rising Crescent" by Ernest Jackh, Farrar & Reinhart, Inc., New York & Toronto, 1944 6. "Spiritual and Political Evolutions in Islam" by Felix Valyi, Mogan, Paul, Trench & Truebner & Co., London, 1925 7. "The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia" by E. Alexander Powell, The Century Co., New York, London, 1924 8. "Struggle for Transcaucasia" by Feruz Kazemzadeh, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1951 9. "History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey" (2 volumes) by Stanford J. Shaw, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, 1977 10."The Western Question in Greece and Turkey" by Arnold J. Toynbee, Constable & Co., Ltd., London, Bombay & Sydney, 1922 11."The Caliph's Last Heritage" by Sir Mark Sykes, Macmillan & Co., London, 1915 12."Men Are Like That" by Leonard A. Hartill, Bobbs Co., Indianapolis, 1928 13."Adventures in the Near East, 1918-22" by A. Rawlinson, Dodd, Meade & Co., 1925 14."World Alive, A Personal Story" by Robert Dunn, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1952 15."From Sardarapat to Serves and Lousanne" by Avetis Aharonian, The Armenian Review Magazine, Volume 15 (Fall 1962) through 17 (Spring 1964) 16."Armenia on the Road to Independence" by Richard G. Hovanessian, University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 1967 17."The Rebirth of Turkey" by Clair Price, Thomas Seltzer, New York, 1923 18."Caucasian Battlefields" by W. B. Allen & Paul Muratoff, Cambridge, 1953 19."Partition of Turkey" by Harry N. Howard, H. Fertig, New York, 1966 20."The King-Crane Commission" by Harry N. Howard, Beirut, 1963 21."United States Policy and Partition of Turkey" by Laurence Evans, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1965 22."British Documents Related to Turkish War of Independence" by Gothard Jaeschke 1. Neside Kerem Demir, "Bir Sehid Anasina Tarihin Soyledikleri: Turkiye'nin Ermeni Meselesi," Hulbe Basim ve Yayin T.A.S., Ankara, 1982. (Ingilizce Birinci Baski: 1980, "The Armenian Question in Turkey") 2. Veysel Eroglu, "Ermeni Mezalimi," Sebil Yayinevi, Istanbul, 1978. 3. A. Alper Gazigiray, "Osmanlilardan Gunumuze Kadar Vesikalarla Ermeni Teroru'nun Kaynaklari," Gozen Kitabevi, Istanbul, 1982. 4. Dr. Kirzioglu M. Fahrettin, "Kars Ili ve Cevresinde Ermeni Mezalimi," Kardes Matbaasi, Ankara, 1970. T.C. Basbakanlik Osmanli Arsivi, Babiali, Istanbul: a) Yildiz Esas Evraki b) Yildiz Perakende c) Irade Defterleri d) Cemaat-i Gayr-i Muslime Defterleri e) Meclisi Vukela Mazbatalari f) Dahiliye Nezareti, Kalem-i Mahsus Dosyalari g) Dahiliye Nezareti, Sifre Defterleri h) Babiali Evrak Odasi: Siyasi Kartonlar i) Babiali Evrak Odasi: Muhimme Kartonlari T.C. Disisleri Bakanligi, Hazine-i Evrak, Defterdarlik a) Harb-i Umumi b) Muteferrik Kartonlar British Archives: a) Parliamentary Papers (Hansard): Commons/Lords b) Foreign Office: Confidential Print: Various Collections c) Foreign Office: 424/239-253: Turkey: Correspondence - Annual Reports d) Foreign Office: 608 e) Foreign Office: 371, Political Intelligence: General Correspondence f) Foreign Office: 800/240, Ryan Papers g) Foreign Office: 800/151, Curzon Papers h) Foreign Office: 839: The Eastern Conference: Lausanne. 53 files India Office Records and Library, Blackfriars Road, London. a) L/Political and Security/10/851-855 (five boxes), "Turkey: Treaty of Peace: 1918-1923" b) L/P & S/10/1031, "Near East: Turkey and Greece: Lausanne Conference, 1921-1923" c) L/P & S/11/154 d) L/P & S/11/1031 French Archives Archives du ministere des Affaires entrangeres, Quai d'Orsay, Paris. a) Documents Diplomatiques: Affaires Armeniens: 1895-1914 Collections b) Guerre: 1914-1918: Turquie: Legion d'Orient. c) Levant, 1918-1929: Armenie. Official Publications, Published Documents, Diplomatic Correspondence, Agreements, Minutes and Others A. Turkey (The Ottoman Empire and The Republic of Turkey) Akarli, E. (ed.); "Belgelerle Tanzimat," (istanbul, 1978). (Gn. Kur., ATASE); "Askeri Tarih Belgeleri Dergisi," V. XXXI (81), (Dec. 1982). ----; "Askeri Tarih Belgeleri Dergisi," V. XXXII (83), (Dec. 1983). Hocaoglu, M. (ed.); "Ittihad-i Anasir-i Osmaniye Heyeti Nizamnamesi," (Istanbul, 1912). Meray, S. L. (trans./ed.) "Lozan Baris Konferansi: Tutanaklar-Belgeler," (Ankara, 1978), 2 vols. Meray, S. L./O. Olcay (ed.); "Osmanli Imparatorlugu'nun Cokus Belgeleri; Mondros Birakismasi, Sevr Andlasmasi, Ilgili Belgeler," (Ankara, 1977). (Osmanli Devleti, Dahiliye Nezareti); "Aspirations et Agissements Revolutionnaires des Comites Armeniens avant et apres la proclamation de la Constitution Ottomane," (Istanbul, 1917). ----; "Ermeni Komitelerinin Amal ve Hareket-i Ihtilaliyesi: Ilan-i Mesrutiyetten Evvel ve Sonra," (Istanbul, 1916). ----; "Idare-i Umumiye ve Vilayet Kanunu," (Istanbul, 1913). ----; "Muharrerat-i Umumiye Mecmuasi, V. I (Istanbul, 1914). ----; "Muharrerat-i Umumiye Mecmuasi, V. II (Istanbul, 1915). ----; "Muharrerat-i Umumiye Mecmuasi, V. III (Istanbul, 1916). ----; "Muharrerat-i Umumiye Mecmuasi, V. IV (Istanbul, 1917). (Osmanli Devleti, Hariciye Nezareti); "Imtiyazat-i Ecnebiyye'nin Lagvindan Dolayi Memurine Teblig Olunacak Talimatname," (Istanbul, 1915). (Osmanli Devleti, Harbiye Nezareti); "Islam Ahalinin Ducar Olduklari Mezalim Hakkinda Vesaike Mustenid Malumat," (Istanbul, 1919). ----; (IV. Ordu) "Aliye Divan-i Harbi Orfisinde Tedkik Olunan Mesele-yi Siyasiye Hakkinda Izahat," (Istanbul, 1916). Turkozu, H. K. (ed.); "Osmanli ve Sovyet Belgeleriyle Ermeni Mezalimi," (Ankara, 1982). ----; "Turkiye Buyuk Millet Meclisi Gizli Celse Zabitlari," (Ankara, 1985), 4 vols. Russia Adamof, E. E. (ed.); "Sovyet Devlet Arsivi Belgeleriyle Anadolu'nun Taksimi Plani," (tran. H. Rahmi, ed. H. Mutlucag), (Istanbul, 1972). Altinay, A. R.; "Iki Komite - Iki Kital," (Istanbul, 1919). ----; "Kafkas Yollarinda Hatiralar ve Tahassusler," (Istanbul, 1919). ----; "Turkiye'de Katolik Propagandasi," Turk tarihi Encumeni Mecmuasi, V. XIV/82-5 (Sept. 1924). Asaf Muammer; "Harb ve Mesulleri," (Istanbul, 1918). Akboy, C.; "Birinci Dunya Harbinde Turk Harbi, V. I: Osmanli Imparatorlugu'nun Siyasi ve Askeri Hazirliklari ve Harbe Girisi," (Gn. Kur., Ankara, 1970). Akgun, S.; "General Harbord'un Anadolu Gezisi ve (Ermeni Meselesi'ne Dair) Raporu: Kurtulus Savasi Baslangicinda," (Istanbul, 1981). Akin, I.; "Turk Devrim Tarihi," (Istanbul, 1983). Aksin, S.; "Jon Turkler ve Ittihad ve Terakki," (Istanbul, 1976). Basar, Z. (ed.);"Ermenilerden Gorduklerimiz," (Ankara, 1974). ----; "Ermeniler Hakkinda Makaleler - Derlemeler," (Ankara, 1978). Belen, F.; "Birinci Dunya Harbinde Turk Harbi," (Ankara, 1964). Deliorman, A.; "Turklere Karsi Ermeni Komitecileri," (Istanbul, 1980). Ege, N. N. (ed.); "Prens Sabahaddin: Hayati ve Ilmi Mudafaalari," (Istanbul, 1977). Ercikan, A.; "Ermenilerin Bizans ve Osmanli Imparatorluklarindaki Rolleri," (Ankara, 1949). Gurun, K.; 'Ermeni Sorunu yahut bir sorun nasil yaratilir?', "Turk Tarihinde Ermeniler Sempozyumu," (Izmir, 1983). Hocaoglu, M.; "Arsiv Vesikalariyla Tarihte Ermeni Mezalimi ve Ermeniler," (Istanbul, 1976). Karal, E. S.; "Osmanli Tarihi," V. V (1983, 4th ed.); V. VI (1976, 2nd ed.); V. VII (1977, 2nd ed.); V. VIII (1983, 2nd ed.) Ankara. Kurat, Y. T.; "Osmanli Imparatorlugu'nun Paylasilmasi," (Ankara, 1976). Orel, S./S. Yuca; "Ermenilerce Talat Pasa'ya Atfedilen Telgraflarin Icyuzu," (Ankara, 1983). [Also in English translation.] Ahmad, F.; "The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics," (Oxford, 1969). Serdar Argic

I am not sure about this, but I believe that Analog Devices in Norwood, MA makes a relatively inexpensive acceleration sensor (primarily for use in auto air-bag systems). I do not know specs or anything else, but you might give them a call to find out more info. Z -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

[story deleted] Let me give you another story that actually happened to ME. We sell communications boards that use a 68000. They used to be high tech. Our agent in the UK sold a system to a company in CH which packaged it in a product for CZ (London-Bern-Prague). I telexed the Brits and told them the Swiss need to pass export paperwork through the US as, at the time, you needed an export lisence for these systems. Now I knew the NSA was watching this traffic (just like they are watching THIS traffic.) And what do you know... two weeks later an agent of the US government shows up in my office to remind me if we or our agents sold systems into the Evil Empire, we had better make sure the export lisences were handled properly. He was part of a FIVE man office in COLUMBUS OHIO!! who did this stuff based on sources he could not reveal. (I assume most of the time these guys sat around the office with their thumbs up their ass as there isn't that much stuff coming out of Columbus :) Wow, the electric utility in Prague sure is a big worry for these folks :) The point is, we have created a giant bureaucracy (NSA) with a budget bigger than the CIA's who, like all bureaucracies, fill their time looking for things to do. The Evil Empire is gone. The NSA is not. They will do something to fill their time and justify their budgets. (I just wish they too would sit around with their thumbs up their ass... but that is too much to hope for... they will spy on us and do things like skipjack and subvert people like Dorothy Denning.) Sigh...

Could someone explain where these names come from? I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason to name a planetoid "Smiley," but I'm equally sure that I don't know what that reason is. Read John le Carre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", "The Honorable Schoolboy" or "Smiley's People".

#[reply to [email protected] (Frank O'Dwyer)] # #>>The problem for the objectivist is to determine the status of moral #>>truths and the method by which they can be established. If we accept #>>that such judgements are not reports of what is but only relate to #>>what ought to be (see naturalistic fallacy) then they cannot be proved #>>by any facts about the nature of the world. # #>This can be avoided in at least two ways: (1) By leaving the Good #>undefined, since anyone who claims that they do not know what it is is #>either lying or so out of touch with humanity as to be undeserving of a #>reply. # #If the Good is undefined (undefinable?) but you require of everyone that #they know innately what is right, you are back to subjectivism. No, and begging the question. see below. #>(2) By defining the Good solely in terms of evaluative terms. # #Ditto here. An evaluative statement implies a value judgement on the #part of the person making it. Again, incorrect, and question-begging. See below. # #>>At this point the objectivist may talk of 'self-evident truths' # #Pretty perceptive, that Prof. Flew. # #>>but can he deny the subjectivist's claim that self-evidence is in the #>>mind of the beholder? # #>Of course; by denying that subject/object is true dichotomy. # #Please explain how this helps. I don't see your argument. I don't see yours. It seems to rest on the assertion that everything is either a subject or an object. There's nothing compelling about that dichotomy. I might just as well divide the world into subject,object, event. It even seems more sensible. Causation, for example, is an event, not a subject or an object. Furthermore, if subject/object were true dichotomy, i.e. Everything is either a subject or an object Then, is that statement a self-evident truth or not? If so, then it's all in the mind of the beholder, according to the relativist, and hardly compelling. Add to that the fact that the world can quickly be shoved in its entirety into the "subjective" category by an idealist or solipsist argument, and that we have this perfectly good alternate set of categories (subject, object, event) [which can be reduced to (subject, object, quality) without any logical difficulty] and why yes, I guess I *am* denying that self-evident truths are all in the mind of the beholder. #>>If not, what is left of the claim that some moral judgements are true? All of it. #>If nothing, then NO moral judgements are true. This is a thing that #>is commonly referred to as nihilism. It entails that science is of #>no value, irrepective of the fact that some people find it useful. How #>anyone arrives at relativism/subjectivism from this argument beats me. # #This makes no sense either. Flew is arguing that this is where the #objectivist winds up, not the subjectivist. Furthermore, the nihilists #believed in nothing *except* science, materialism, revolution, and the #People. I'm referring to ethical nihilism #>>The subjectivist may well feel that all that remains is that there are #>>some moral judgements with which he would wish to associate himself. #>>To hold a moral opinion is, he suggests, not to know something to be #>>true but to have preferences regarding human activity." # #>And if those preferences should include terrorism, that moral opinion #>is not true. Likewise, if the preferences should include noTerrorism, #>that moral opinion is not true. Why should one choose a set of #>preferences which include terrorisim over one which includes #>noTerrorism? Oh, no reason. This is patently absurd.... # #And also not the position of the subjectivist, as has been pointed out #to you already by others. Ditch the strawman, already, and see my reply #to Mike Cobb's root message in the thread Societal Basis for Morality. I've responded over there. BTW - I don't intend this as a strawman, but as something logically entailed by relativism (really any ethical system where values are assumed to be unreal). It's different to say "Relativists say..." than "relativism implies...".

Funny, the Manta's over in Europe look surprisingly like the Opel alluded to by the original poster.

How do you like it compared to OS/2 2.x?

american and european universities were full of Angry Young People(tm) that wanted to overthrow the government, and wouldn't think twice about lobbing a molotov cocktail at the national guard (military police in Europe.) Certainly, it would have been very bad form to take anything the System(tm) said at face value. This was in the end of the sixties and the begining of the seventies, I'm told. I was too young to remember. Something wrong happened along the way, I'm afraid. Maybe the west became just too comfortable, or maybe I was born too late :( Yours, disappointed with with the youth of today, PS: 1) Half smilies implied. 2) There *is* a difference between lining up 90 people against the wall and executing them, and causing their deaths through negligence/ imcompetence. I honestly hope we witnessed the latter. As they say, the alternative is too horrible to contemplate. 3) I'm sure the Abused Children(tm) from the compound are much safer now. --

True. No more risk than smaller stashes unless the stash is somehow confined so the heat from early ignitions could somehow bulk-heat the remainder. Two years ago this month my house and office burned. In my office was my reloading bench. On the top shelf next to the wooden ceiling was about 100 lbs of smokeless powder, 5 lbs of black powder, several thousand primers and a couple thousand loaded rounds, primarily in .45ACP, .30-20 and .308. The fire was extinguished before the area containing the reloading supplies were fully involved. There was about 1/2" of char on the joists, subsequently removed by sandblasting. Lots of heat in other words. None of the powder kegs ignited. One 1lb can of pistol powder ignited. No explosion, as the can opened at the seam as it was designed to do. The black powder cans were charred and got so hot the plastic lids completely melted and ran down inside. The smokless powder was contained mostly in 8 lb cardboard or metal kegs. The kegs were charred badly enough that the paper labels burned completely off and in the case of the metal cans, the plastic lids melted completely away. Many of the rounds cooked off. They were in close proximity to wood on all sides so the effects were easy to observe. In most cases with the rifle ammo, the cartridge cases ruptured in the middle. Many bullets were found still in the neck. Small shards of brass were lightly stuck into the wood. Lightly enough that brushing them with a fingertip would usually dislodge them. Primers generally popped out of the primer pockets. The .45ACP rounds that cooked off left empty cases and bullets laying around. No dents were observed above the storage area, indicating the bullets left the cases slowly enough not to be a hazard. Ordinary small arms ammo is NOT a hazard when cooking off regardless of what the FBI says. John

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This file and other text and image files from JPL missions are available from the JPL Info public access computer site, reachable by Internet via anonymous ftp to pubinfo.jpl.nasa.gov (128.149.6.2); or by dialup modem to +1 (818) 354-1333, up to 9600 bits per second, parameters N-8-1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Our Solar System at a Glance Information Summary PMS 010-A (JPL) June 1991 JPL 410-34-1 6/91 NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institue of Technology Pasadena, California For a printed copy of this publication contact the public mail office at the NASA center in your geographic region. INTRODUCTION From our small world we have gazed upon the cosmic ocean for untold thousands of years. Ancient astronomers observed points of light that appeared to move among the stars. They called these objects planets, meaning wanderers, and named them after Roman deities -- Jupiter, king of the gods; Mars, the god of war; Mercury, messenger of the gods; Venus, the god of love and beauty, and Saturn, father of Jupiter and god of agriculture. The stargazers also observed comets with sparkling tails, and meteors or shooting stars apparently falling from the sky. Science flourished during the European Renaissance. Fundamental physical laws governing planetary motion were discovered, and the orbits of the planets around the Sun were calculated. In the 17th century, astronomers pointed a new device called the telescope at the heavens and made startling discoveries. But the years since 1959 have amounted to a golden age of solar system exploration. Advancements in rocketry after World War II enabled our machines to break the grip of Earth's gravity and travel to the Moon and to other planets. The United States has sent automated spacecraft, then human-crewed expeditions, to explore the Moon. Our automated machines have orbited and landed on Venus and Mars; explored the Sun's environment; observed comets, and made close-range surveys while flying past Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. These travelers brought a quantum leap in our knowledge and understanding of the solar system. Through the electronic sight and other "senses" of our automated spacecraft, color and complexion have been given to worlds that for centuries appeared to Earth-bound eyes as fuzzy disks or indistinct points of light. And dozens of previously unknown objects have been discovered. Future historians will likely view these pioneering flights through the solar system as some of the most remarkable achievements of the 20th century. AUTOMATED SPACECRAFT The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) automated spacecraft for solar system exploration come in many shapes and sizes. While they are designed to fulfill separate and specific mission objectives, the craft share much in common. Each spacecraft consists of various scientific instruments selected for a particular mission, supported by basic subsystems for electrical power, trajectory and orientation control, as well as for processing data and communicating with Earth. Electrical power is required to operate the spacecraft instruments and systems. NASA uses both solar energy from arrays of photovoltaic cells and small nuclear generators to power its solar system missions. Rechargeable batteries are employed for backup and supplemental power. Imagine that a spacecraft has successfully journeyed millions of miles through space to fly but one time near a planet, only to have its cameras and other sensing instruments pointed the wrong way as it speeds past the target! To help prevent such a mishap, a subsystem of small thrusters is used to control spacecraft. The thrusters are linked with devices that maintain a constant gaze at selected stars. Just as Earth's early seafarers used the stars to navigate the oceans, spacecraft use stars to maintain their bearings in space. With the subsystem locked onto fixed points of reference, flight controllers can keep a spacecraft's scientific instruments pointed at the target body and the craft's communications antennas pointed toward Earth. The thrusters can also be used to fine-tune the flight path and speed of the spacecraft to ensure that a target body is encountered at the planned distance and on the proper trajectory. Between 1959 and 1971, NASA spacecraft were dispatched to study the Moon and the solar environment; they also scanned the inner planets other than Earth -- Mercury, Venus and Mars. These three worlds, and our own, are known as the terrestrial planets because they share a solid-rock composition. For the early planetary reconnaissance missions, NASA employed a highly successful series of spacecraft called the Mariners. Their flights helped shape the planning of later missions. Between 1962 and 1975, seven Mariner missions conducted the first surveys of our planetary neighbors in space. All of the Mariners used solar panels as their primary power source. The first and the final versions of the spacecraft had two wings covered with photovoltaic cells. Other Mariners were equipped with four solar panels extending from their octagonal bodies. Although the Mariners ranged from the Mariner 2 Venus spacecraft, weighing in at 203 kilograms (447 pounds), to the Mariner 9 Mars Orbiter, weighing in at 974 kilograms (2,147 pounds), their basic design remained quite similar throughout the program. The Mariner 5 Venus spacecraft, for example, had originally been a backup for the Mariner 4 Mars flyby. The Mariner 10 spacecraft sent to Venus and Mercury used components left over from the Mariner 9 Mars Orbiter program. In 1972, NASA launched Pioneer 10, a Jupiter spacecraft. Interest was shifting to four of the outer planets -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune -- giant balls of dense gas quite different from the terrestrial worlds we had already surveyed. Four NASA spacecraft in all -- two Pioneers and two Voyagers -- were sent in the 1970s to tour the outer regions of our solar system. Because of the distances involved, these travelers took anywhere from 20 months to 12 years to reach their destinations. Barring faster spacecraft, they will eventually become the first human artifacts to journey to distant stars. Because the Sun's light becomes so faint in the outer solar system, these travelers do not use solar power but instead operate on electricity generated by heat from the decay of radioisotopes. NASA also developed highly specialized spacecraft to revisit our neighbors Mars and Venus in the middle and late 1970s. Twin Viking Landers were equipped to serve as seismic and weather stations and as biology laboratories. Two advanced orbiters -- descendants of the Mariner craft -- carried the Viking Landers from Earth and then studied martian features from above. Two drum-shaped Pioneer spacecraft visited Venus in 1978. The Pioneer Venus Orbiter was equipped with a radar instrument that allowed it to "see" through the planet's dense cloud cover to study surface features. The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe carried four probes that were dropped through the clouds. The probes and the main body -- all of which contained scientific instruments -- radioed information about the planet's atmosphere during their descent toward the surface. A new generation of automated spacecraft -- including Magellan, Galileo, Ulysses, Mars Observer, the Comet Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) and Cassini -- is being developed and sent out into the solar system to make detailed examinations that will increase our understanding of our neighborhood and our own planet. The Sun A discussion of the objects in the solar system must start with the Sun. The Sun dwarfs the other bodies, representing approximately 99.86 percent of all the mass in the solar system; all of the planets, moons, asteroids, comets, dust and gas add up to only about 0.14 percent. This 0.14 percent represents the material left over from the Sun's formation. One hundred and nine Earths would be required to fit across the Sun's disk, and its interior could hold over 1.3 million Earths. As a star, the Sun generates energy through the process of fusion. The temperature at the Sun's core is 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit), and the pressure there is 340 billion times Earth's air pressure at sea level. The Sun's surface temperature of 5,500 degrees Celsius (10,000 degrees Fahrenheit) seems almost chilly compared to its core-temperature. At the solar core, hydrogen can fuse into helium, producing energy. The Sun also produces a strong magnetic field and streams of charged particles, both extending far beyond the planets. The Sun appears to have been active for 4.6 billion years and has enough fuel to go on for another five billion years or so. At the end of its life, the Sun will start to fuse helium into heavier elements and begin to swell up, ultimately growing so large that it will swallow Earth. After a billion years as a "red giant," it will suddenly collapse into a "white dwarf" -- the final end product of a star like ours. It may take a trillion years to cool off completely. Many spacecraft have explored the Sun's environment, but none have gotten any closer to its surface than approximately two-thirds of the distance from Earth to the Sun. Pioneers 5-11, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter, Voyagers 1 and 2 and other spacecraft have all sampled the solar environment. The Ulysses spacecraft, launched on October 6, 1990, is a joint solar mission of NASA and the European Space Agency. After using Jupiter's gravity to change its trajectory, Ulysses will fly over the Sun's polar regions during 1994 and 1995 and will perform a wide range of studies using nine onboard scientific instruments. We are fortunate that the Sun is exactly the way it is. If it were different in almost any way, life would almost certainly never have developed on Earth. Mercury Obtaining the first close-up views of Mercury was the primary objective of the Mariner 10 spacecraft, launched on November 3, 1973, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After a journey of nearly five months, which included a flyby of Venus, the spacecraft passed within 703 kilometers (437 miles) of the solar system's innermost planet on March 29, 1974. Until Mariner 10, little was known about Mercury. Even the best telescopic views from Earth showed Mercury as an indistinct object lacking any surface detail. The planet is so close to the Sun that it is usually lost in solar glare. When the planet is visible on Earth's horizon just after sunset or before dawn, it is obscured by the haze and dust in our atmosphere. Only radar telescopes gave any hint of Mercury's surface conditions prior to the voyage of Mariner 10. The photographs Mariner 10 radioed back to Earth revealed an ancient, heavily cratered surface, closely resembling our own Moon. The pictures also showed huge cliffs crisscrossing the planet. These apparently were created when Mercury's interior cooled and shrank, buckling the planet's crust. The cliffs are as high as 3 kilometers (2 miles) and as long as 500 kilometers (310 miles). Instruments on Mariner 10 discovered that Mercury has a weak magnetic field and a trace of atmosphere -- a trillionth the density of Earth's atmosphere and composed chiefly of argon, neon and helium. When the planet's orbit takes it closest to the Sun, surface temperatures range from 467 degrees Celsius (872 degrees Fahrenheit) on Mercury's sunlit side to -183 degrees Celsius (-298 degrees Fahrenheit) on the dark side. This range in surface temperature -- 650 degrees Celsius (1,170 degrees Fahrenheit) -- is the largest for a single body in the solar system. Mercury literally bakes and freezes at the same time. Days and nights are long on Mercury. The combination of a slow rotation relative to the stars (59 Earth days) and a rapid revolution around the Sun (88 Earth days) means that one Mercury solar day takes 176 Earth days or two Mercury years -- the time it takes the innermost planet to complete two orbits around the Sun! Mercury appears to have a crust of light silicate rock like that of Earth. Scientists believe Mercury has a heavy iron-rich core making up slightly less than half of its volume. That would make Mercury's core larger, proportionally, than the Moon's core or those of any of the planets. After the initial Mercury encounter, Mariner 10 made two additional flybys -- on September 21, 1974, and March 16, 1975 -- before control gas used to orient the spacecraft was exhausted and the mission was concluded. Each flyby took place at the same local Mercury time when the identical half of the planet was illuminated; as a result, we still have not seen one-half of the planet's surface. Venus Veiled by dense cloud cover, Venus -- our nearest planetary neighbor -- was the first planet to be explored. The Mariner 2 spacecraft, launched on August 27, 1962, was the first of more than a dozen successful American and Soviet missions to study the mysterious planet. As spacecraft flew by or orbited Venus, plunged into the atmosphere or gently landed on Venus' surface, romantic myths and speculations about our neighbor were laid to rest. On December 14, 1962, Mariner 2 passed within 34,839 kilometers (21,648 miles) of Venus and became the first spacecraft to scan another planet; onboard instruments measured Venus for 42 minutes. Mariner 5, launched in June 1967, flew much closer to the planet. Passing within 4,094 kilometers (2,544 miles) of Venus on the second American flyby, Mariner 5's instruments measured the planet's magnetic field, ionosphere, radiation belts and temperatures. On its way to Mercury, Mariner 10 flew by Venus and transmitted ultraviolet pictures to Earth showing cloud circulation patterns in the Venusian atmosphere. In the spring and summer of 1978, two spacecraft were launched to further unravel the mysteries of Venus. On December 4 of the same year, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter became the first spacecraft placed in orbit around the planet. Five days later, the five separate components making up the second spacecraft -- the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe -- entered the Venusian atmosphere at different locations above the planet. The four small, independent probes and the main body radioed atmospheric data back to Earth during their descent toward the surface. Although designed to examine the atmosphere, one of the probes survived its impact with the surface and continued to transmit data for another hour. Venus resembles Earth in size, physical composition and density more closely than any other known planet. However, spacecraft have discovered significant differences as well. For example, Venus' rotation (west to east) is retrograde (backward) compared to the east-to-west spin of Earth and most of the other planets. Approximately 96.5 percent of Venus' atmosphere (95 times as dense as Earth's) is carbon dioxide. The principal constituent of Earth's atmosphere is nitrogen. Venus' atmosphere acts like a greenhouse, permitting solar radiation to reach the surface but trapping the heat that would ordinarily be radiated back into space. As a result, the planet's average surface temperature is 482 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit), hot enough to melt lead. A radio altimeter on the Pioneer Venus Orbiter provided the first means of seeing through the planet's dense cloud cover and determining surface features over almost the entire planet. NASA's Magellan spacecraft, launched on May 5, 1989, has been in orbit around Venus since August 10, 1990. The spacecraft uses radar-mapping techniques to provide ultrahigh-resolution images of the surface. Magellan has revealed a landscape dominated by volcanic features, faults and impact craters. Huge areas of the surface show evidence of multiple periods of lava flooding with flows lying on top of previous ones. An elevated region named Ishtar Terra is a lava-filled basin as large as the United States. At one end of this plateau sits Maxwell Montes, a mountain the size of Mount Everest. Scarring the mountain's flank is a 100-kilometer (62-mile) wide, 2.5-kilometer (1.5-mile) deep impact crater named Cleopatra. (Almost all features on Venus are named for women; Maxwell Montes, Alpha Regio and Beta Regio are the exceptions.) Craters survive on Venus for perhaps 400 million years because there is no water and very little wind erosion. Extensive fault-line networks cover the planet, probably the result of the same crustal flexing that produces plate tectonics on Earth. But on Venus the surface temperature is sufficient to weaken the rock, which cracks just about everywhere, preventing the formation of major plates and large earthquake faults like the San Andreas Fault in California. Venus' predominant weather pattern is a high-altitude, high-speed circulation of clouds that contain sulfuric acid. At speeds reaching as high as 360 kilometers (225 miles) per hour, the clouds circle the planet in only four Earth days. The circulation is in the same direction -- west to east -- as Venus' slow rotation of 243 Earth days, whereas Earth's winds blow in both directions -- west to east and east to west -- in six alternating bands. Venus' atmosphere serves as a simplified laboratory for the study of our weather. Earth As viewed from space, our world's distinguishing characteristics are its blue waters, brown and green land masses and white clouds. We are enveloped by an ocean of air consisting of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen and 1 percent other constituents. The only planet in the solar system known to harbor life, Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of 150 million kilometers (93 million miles). Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest in the solar system, with a diameter just a few hundred kilometers larger than that of Venus. Our planet's rapid spin and molten nickel-iron core give rise to an extensive magnetic field, which, along with the atmosphere, shields us from nearly all of the harmful radiation coming from the Sun and other stars. Earth's atmosphere protects us from meteors as well, most of which burn up before they can strike the surface. Active geological processes have left no evidence of the pelting Earth almost certainly received soon after it formed -- about 4.6 billion years ago. Along with the other newly formed planets, it was showered by space debris in the early days of the solar system. From our journeys into space, we have learned much about our home planet. The first American satellite -- Explorer 1 -- was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on January 31, 1958, and discovered an intense radiation zone, now called the Van Allen radiation belts, surrounding Earth. Since then, other research satellites have revealed that our planet's magnetic field is distorted into a tear-drop shape by the solar wind -- the stream of charged particles continuously ejected from the Sun. We've learned that the magnetic field does not fade off into space but has definite boundaries. And we now know that our wispy upper atmosphere, once believed calm and uneventful, seethes with activity -- swelling by day and contracting by night. Affected by changes in solar activity, the upper atmosphere contributes to weather and climate on Earth. Besides affecting Earth's weather, solar activity gives rise to a dramatic visual phenomenon in our atmosphere. When charged particles from the solar wind become trapped in Earth's magnetic field, they collide with air molecules above our planet's magnetic poles. These air molecules then begin to glow and are known as the auroras or the northern and southern lights. Satellites about 35,789 kilometers (22,238 miles) out in space play a major role in daily local weather forecasting. These watchful electronic eyes warn us of dangerous storms. Continuous global monitoring provides a vast amount of useful data and contributes to a better understanding of Earth's complex weather systems. From their unique vantage points, satellites can survey Earth's oceans, land use and resources, and monitor the planet's health. These eyes in space have saved countless lives, provided tremendous conveniences and shown us that we may be altering our planet in dangerous ways. The Moon The Moon is Earth's single natural satellite. The first human footsteps on an alien world were made by American astronauts on the dusty surface of our airless, lifeless companion. In preparation for the human-crewed Apollo expeditions, NASA dispatched the automated Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter spacecraft to study the Moon between 1964 and 1968. NASA's Apollo program left a large legacy of lunar materials and data. Six two-astronaut crews landed on and explored the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972, carrying back a collection of rocks and soil weighing a total of 382 kilograms (842 pounds) and consisting of more than 2,000 separate samples. From this material and other studies, scientists have constructed a history of the Moon that includes its infancy. Rocks collected from the lunar highlands date to about 4.0-4.3 billion years old. The first few million years of the Moon's existence were so violent that few traces of this period remain. As a molten outer layer gradually cooled and solidified into different kinds of rock, the Moon was bombarded by huge asteroids and smaller objects. Some of the asteroids were as large as Rhode Island or Delaware, and their collisions with the Moon created basins hundreds of kilometers across. This catastrophic bombardment tapered off approximately four billion years ago, leaving the lunar highlands covered with huge, overlapping craters and a deep layer of shattered and broken rock. Heat produced by the decay of radioactive elements began to melt the interior of the Moon at depths of about 200 kilometers (125 miles) below the surface. Then, for the next 700 million years -- from about 3.8 to 3.1 billion years ago -- lava rose from inside the Moon. The lava gradually spread out over the surface, flooding the large impact basins to form the dark areas that Galileo Galilei, an astronomer of the Italian Renaissance, called maria, meaning seas. As far as we can tell, there has been no significant volcanic activity on the Moon for more than three billion years. Since then, the lunar surface has been altered only by micrometeorites, by the atomic particles from the Sun and stars, by the rare impacts of large meteorites and by spacecraft and astronauts. If our astronauts had landed on the Moon a billion years ago, they would have seen a landscape very similar to the one today. Thousands of years from now, the footsteps left by the Apollo crews will remain sharp and clear. The origin of the Moon is still a mystery. Four theories attempt an explanation: the Moon formed near Earth as a separate body; it was torn from Earth; it formed somewhere else and was captured by our planet's gravity, or it was the result of a collision between Earth and an asteroid about the size of Mars. The last theory has some good support but is far from certain. Mars Of all the planets, Mars has long been considered the solar system's prime candidate for harboring extraterrestrial life. Astronomers studying the red planet through telescopes saw what appeared to be straight lines crisscrossing its surface. These observations -- later determined to be optical illusions -- led to the popular notion that intelligent beings had constructed a system of irrigation canals on the planet. In 1938, when Orson Welles broadcast a radio drama based on the science fiction classic War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, enough people believed in the tale of invading martians to cause a near panic. Another reason for scientists to expect life on Mars had to do with the apparent seasonal color changes on the planet's surface. This phenomenon led to speculation that conditions might support a bloom of martian vegetation during the warmer months and cause plant life to become dormant during colder periods. So far, six American missions to Mars have been carried out. Four Mariner spacecraft -- three flying by the planet and one placed into martian orbit -- surveyed the planet extensively before the Viking Orbiters and Landers arrived. Mariner 4, launched in late 1964, flew past Mars on July 14, 1965, coming within 9,846 kilometers (6,118 miles) of the surface. Transmitting to Earth 22 close-up pictures of the planet, the spacecraft found many craters and naturally occurring channels but no evidence of artificial canals or flowing water. Mariners 6 and 7 followed with their flybys during the summer of 1969 and returned 201 pictures. Mariners 4, 6 and 7 showed a diversity of surface conditions as well as a thin, cold, dry atmosphere of carbon dioxide. On May 30, 1971, the Mariner 9 Orbiter was launched on a mission to make a year-long study of the martian surface. The spacecraft arrived five and a half months after lift-off, only to find Mars in the midst of a planet-wide dust storm that made surface photography impossible for several weeks. But after the storm cleared, Mariner 9 began returning the first of 7,329 pictures; these revealed previously unknown martian features, including evidence that large amounts of water once flowed across the surface, etching river valleys and flood plains. In August and September 1975, the Viking 1 and 2 spacecraft -- each consisting of an orbiter and a lander -- lifted off from Kennedy Space Center. The mission was designed to answer several questions about the red planet, including, Is there life there? Nobody expected the spacecraft to spot martian cities, but it was hoped that the biology experiments on the Viking Landers would at least find evidence of primitive life -- past or present. Viking Lander 1 became the first spacecraft to successfully touch down on another planet when it landed on July 20, 1976, while the United States was celebrating its Bicentennial. Photos sent back from the Chryse Planitia ("Plains of Gold") showed a bleak, rusty-red landscape. Panoramic images returned by the lander revealed a rolling plain, littered with rocks and marked by rippled sand dunes. Fine red dust from the martian soil gives the sky a salmon hue. When Viking Lander 2 touched down on Utopia Planitia on September 3, 1976, it viewed a more rolling landscape than the one seen by its predecessor -- one without visible dunes. The results sent back by the laboratory on each Viking Lander were inconclusive. Small samples of the red martian soil were tested in three different experiments designed to detect biological processes. While some of the test results seemed to indicate biological activity, later analysis confirmed that this activity was inorganic in nature and related to the planet's soil chemistry. Is there life on Mars? No one knows for sure, but the Viking mission found no evidence that organic molecules exist there. The Viking Landers became weather stations, recording wind velocity and direction as well as atmospheric temperature and pressure. Few weather changes were observed. The highest temperature recorded by either craft was -14 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) at the Viking Lander 1 site in midsummer. The lowest temperature, -120 degrees Celsius (-184 degrees Fahrenheit), was recorded at the more northerly Viking Lander 2 site during winter. Near-hurricane wind speeds were measured at the two martian weather stations during global dust storms, but because the atmosphere is so thin, wind force is minimal. Viking Lander 2 photographed light patches of frost -- probably water-ice -- during its second winter on the planet. The martian atmosphere, like that of Venus, is primarily carbon dioxide. Nitrogen and oxygen are present only in small percentages. Martian air contains only about 1/1,000 as much water as our air, but even this small amount can condense out, forming clouds that ride high in the atmosphere or swirl around the slopes of towering volcanoes. Local patches of early morning fog can form in valleys. There is evidence that in the past a denser martian atmosphere may have allowed water to flow on the planet. Physical features closely resembling shorelines, gorges, riverbeds and islands suggest that great rivers once marked the planet. Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos. They are small and irregularly shaped and possess ancient, cratered surfaces. It is possible the moons were originally asteroids that ventured too close to Mars and were captured by its gravity. The Viking Orbiters and Landers exceeded by large margins their design lifetimes of 120 and 90 days, respectively. The first to fail was Viking Orbiter 2, which stopped operating on July 24, 1978, when a leak depleted its attitude-control gas. Viking Lander 2 operated until April 12, 1980, when it was shut down because of battery degeneration. Viking Orbiter 1 quit on August 7, 1980, when the last of its attitude-control gas was used up. Viking Lander 1 ceased functioning on November 13, 1983. Despite the inconclusive results of the Viking biology experiments, we know more about Mars than any other planet except Earth. NASA's Mars Observer spacecraft, to be launched in September 1992, will expand our knowledge of the martian environment and lead to human exploration of the red planet. Asteroids The solar system has a large number of rocky and metallic objects that are in orbit around the Sun but are too small to be considered full-fledged planets. These objects are known as asteroids or minor planets. Most, but not all, are found in a band or belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Some have orbits that cross Earth's path, and there is evidence that Earth has been hit by asteroids in the past. One of the least eroded, best preserved examples is the Barringer Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona. Asteroids are material left over from the formation of the solar system. One theory suggests that they are the remains of a planet that was destroyed in a massive collision long ago. More likely, asteroids are material that never coalesced into a planet. In fact, if the estimated total mass of all asteroids was gathered into a single object, the object would be only about 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) across -- less than half the diameter of our Moon. Thousands of asteroids have been identified from Earth. It is estimated that 100,000 are bright enough to eventually be photographed through Earth-based telescopes. Much of our understanding about asteroids comes from examining pieces of space debris that fall to the surface of Earth. Asteroids that are on a collision course with Earth are called meteoroids. When a meteoroid strikes our atmosphere at high velocity, friction causes this chunk of space matter to incinerate in a streak of light known as a meteor. If the meteoroid does not burn up completely, what's left strikes Earth's surface and is called a meteorite. One of the best places to look for meteorites is the ice cap of Antarctica. Of all the meteorites examined, 92.8 percent are composed of silicate (stone), and 5.7 percent are composed of iron and nickel; the rest are a mixture of the three materials. Stony meteorites are the hardest to identify since they look very much like terrestrial rocks. Since asteroids are material from the very early solar system, scientists are interested in their composition. Spacecraft that have flown through the asteroid belt have found that the belt is really quite empty and that asteroids are separated by very large distances. Current and future missions will fly by selected asteroids for closer examination. The Galileo Orbiter, launched by NASA in October 1989, will investigate main-belt asteroids on its way to Jupiter. The Comet Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) and Cassini missions will also study these far-flung objects. Scheduled for launch in the latter part of the 1990s, the CRAF and Cassini missions are a collaborative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the federal space agencies of Germany and Italy, as well as the United States Air Force and the Department of Energy. One day, space factories will mine the asteroids for raw materials. Jupiter Beyond Mars and the asteroid belt, in the outer regions of our solar system, lie the giant planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. In 1972, NASA dispatched the first of four spacecraft slated to conduct the initial surveys of these colossal worlds of gas and their moons of ice and rock. Jupiter was the first port of call. Pioneer 10, which lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in March 1972, was the first spacecraft to penetrate the asteroid belt and travel to the outer regions of the solar system. In December 1973, it returned the first close-up images of Jupiter, flying within 132,252 kilometers (82,178 miles) of the planet's banded cloud tops. Pioneer 11 followed a year later. Voyagers 1 and 2 were launched in the summer of 1977 and returned spectacular photographs of Jupiter and its family of satellites during flybys in 1979. These travelers found Jupiter to be a whirling ball of liquid hydrogen and helium, topped with a colorful atmosphere composed mostly of gaseous hydrogen and helium. Ammonia ice crystals form white Jovian clouds. Sulfur compounds (and perhaps phosphorus) may produce the brown and orange hues that characterize Jupiter's atmosphere. It is likely that methane, ammonia, water and other gases react to form organic molecules in the regions between the planet's frigid cloud tops and the warmer hydrogen ocean lying below. Because of Jupiter's atmospheric dynamics, however, these organic compounds -- if they exist -- are probably short-lived. The Great Red Spot has been observed for centuries through telescopes on Earth. This hurricane-like storm in Jupiter's atmosphere is more than twice the size of our planet. As a high-pressure region, the Great Red Spot spins in a direction opposite to that of low-pressure storms on Jupiter; it is surrounded by swirling currents that rotate around the spot and are sometimes consumed by it. The Great Red Spot might be a million years old. Our spacecraft detected lightning in Jupiter's upper atmosphere and observed auroral emissions similar to Earth's northern lights at the Jovian polar regions. Voyager 1 returned the first images of a faint, narrow ring encircling Jupiter. Largest of the solar system's planets, Jupiter rotates at a dizzying pace -- once every 9 hours 55 minutes 30 seconds. The massive planet takes almost 12 Earth years to complete a journey around the Sun. With 16 known moons, Jupiter is something of a miniature solar system. A new mission to Jupiter -- the Galileo Project -- is under way. After a six- year cruise that takes the Galileo Orbiter once past Venus, twice past Earth and the Moon and once past two asteroids, the spacecraft will drop an atmospheric probe into Jupiter's cloud layers and relay data back to Earth. The Galileo Orbiter will spend two years circling the planet and flying close to Jupiter's large moons, exploring in detail what the two Pioneers and two Voyagers revealed. Galilean Satellites In 1610, Galileo Galilei aimed his telescope at Jupiter and spotted four points of light orbiting the planet. For the first time, humans had seen the moons of another world. In honor of their discoverer, these four bodies would become known as the Galilean satellites or moons. But Galileo might have happily traded this honor for one look at the dazzling photographs returned by the Voyager spacecraft as they flew past these planet-sized satellites. One of the most remarkable findings of the Voyager mission was the presence of active volcanoes on the Galilean moon Io. Volcanic eruptions had never before been observed on a world other than Earth. The Voyager cameras identified at least nine active volcanoes on Io, with plumes of ejected material extending as far as 280 kilometers (175 miles) above the moon's surface. Io's pizza-colored terrain, marked by orange and yellow hues, is probably the result of sulfur-rich materials brought to the surface by volcanic activity. Volcanic activity on this satellite is the result of tidal flexing caused by the gravitational tug-of-war between Io, Jupiter and the other three Galilean moons. Europa, approximately the same size as our Moon, is the brightest Galilean satellite. The moon's surface displays a complex array of streaks, indicating the crust has been fractured. Caught in a gravitational tug-of-war like Io, Europa has been heated enough to cause its interior ice to melt -- apparently producing a liquid-water ocean. This ocean is covered by an ice crust that has formed where water is exposed to the cold of space. Europa's core is made of rock that sank to its center. Like Europa, the other two Galilean moons -- Ganymede and Callisto -- are worlds of ice and rock. Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system -- larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto. The satellite is composed of about 50 percent water or ice and the rest rock. Ganymede's surface has areas of different brightness, indicating that, in the past, material oozed out of the moon's interior and was deposited at various locations on the surface. Callisto, only slightly smaller than Ganymede, has the lowest density of any Galilean satellite, suggesting that large amounts of water are part of its composition. Callisto is the most heavily cratered object in the solar system; no activity during its history has erased old craters except more impacts. Detailed studies of all the Galilean satellites will be performed by the Galileo Orbiter. Saturn No planet in the solar system is adorned like Saturn. Its exquisite ring system is unrivaled. Like Jupiter, Saturn is composed mostly of hydrogen. But in contrast to the vivid colors and wild turbulence found in Jovian clouds, Saturn's atmosphere has a more subtle, butterscotch hue, and its markings are muted by high-altitude haze. Given Saturn's somewhat placid-looking appearance, scientists were surprised at the high-velocity equatorial jet stream that blows some 1,770 kilometers (1,100 miles) per hour. Three American spacecraft have visited Saturn. Pioneer 11 sped by the planet and its moon Titan in September 1979, returning the first close-up images. Voyager 1 followed in November 1980, sending back breathtaking photographs that revealed for the first time the complexities of Saturn's ring system and moons. Voyager 2 flew by the planet and its moons in August 1981. The rings are composed of countless low-density particles orbiting individually around Saturn's equator at progressive distances from the cloud tops. Analysis of spacecraft radio waves passing through the rings showed that the particles vary widely in size, ranging from dust to house-sized boulders. The rings are bright because they are mostly ice and frosted rock. The rings might have resulted when a moon or a passing body ventured too close to Saturn. The unlucky object would have been torn apart by great tidal forces on its surface and in its interior. Or the object may not have been fully formed to begin with and disintegrated under the influence of Saturn's gravity. A third possibility is that the object was shattered by collisions with larger objects orbiting the planet. Unable either to form into a moon or to drift away from each other, individual ring particles appear to be held in place by the gravitational pull of Saturn and its satellites. These complex gravitational interactions form the thousands of ringlets that make up the major rings. Radio emissions quite similar to the static heard on an AM car radio during an electrical storm were detected by the Voyager spacecraft. These emissions are typical of lightning but are believed to be coming from Saturn's ring system rather than its atmosphere, where no lightning was observed. As they had at Jupiter, the Voyagers saw a version of Earth's auroras near Saturn's poles. The Voyagers discovered new moons and found several satellites that share the same orbit. We learned that some moons shepherd ring particles, maintaining Saturn's rings and the gaps in the rings. Saturn's 18th moon was discovered in 1990 from images taken by Voyager 2 in 1981. Voyager 1 determined that Titan has a nitrogen-based atmosphere with methane and argon -- one more like Earth's in composition than the carbon dioxide atmospheres of Mars and Venus. Titan's surface temperature of -179 degrees Celsius (-290 degrees Fahrenheit) implies that there might be water-ice islands rising above oceans of ethane-methane liquid or sludge. Unfortunately, Voyager's cameras could not penetrate the moon's dense clouds. Continuing photochemistry from solar radiation may be converting Titan's methane to ethane, acetylene and -- in combination with nitrogen -- hydrogen cyanide. The latter compound is a building block of amino acids. These conditions may be similar to the atmospheric conditions of primeval Earth between three and four billion years ago. However, Titan's atmospheric temperature is believed to be too low to permit progress beyond this stage of organic chemistry. The exploration of Saturn will continue with the Cassini mission. The Cassini spacecraft will orbit the planet and will also deploy a probe called Huygens, which will be dropped into Titan's atmosphere and fall to the surface. Cassini will use the probe as well as radar to peer through Titan's clouds and will spend years examining the Saturnian system. Uranus In January 1986, four and a half years after visiting Saturn, Voyager 2 completed the first close-up survey of the Uranian system. The brief flyby revealed more information about Uranus and its retinue of icy moons than had been gleaned from ground observations since the planet's discovery over two centuries ago by the English astronomer William Herschel. Uranus, third largest of the planets, is an oddball of the solar system. Unlike the other planets (with the exception of Pluto), this giant lies tipped on its side with its north and south poles alternately facing the sun during an 84-year swing around the solar system. During Voyager 2's flyby, the south pole faced the Sun. Uranus might have been knocked over when an Earth-sized object collided with it early in the life of the solar system. Voyager 2 found that Uranus' magnetic field does not follow the usual north-south axis found on the other planets. Instead, the field is tilted 60 degrees and offset from the planet's center, a phenomenon that on Earth would be like having one magnetic pole in New York City and the other in the city of Djakarta, on the island of Java in Indonesia. Uranus' atmosphere consists mainly of hydrogen, with some 12 percent helium and small amounts of ammonia, methane and water vapor. The planet's blue color occurs because methane in its atmosphere absorbs all other colors. Wind speeds range up to 580 kilometers (360 miles) per hour, and temperatures near the cloud tops average -221 degrees Celsius (-366 degrees Fahrenheit). Uranus' sunlit south pole is shrouded in a kind of photochemical "smog" believed to be a combination of acetylene, ethane and other sunlight-generated chemicals. Surrounding the planet's atmosphere and extending thousands of kilometers into space is a mysterious ultraviolet sheen known as "electroglow." Approximately 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) below Uranus' cloud tops, there is thought to be a scalding ocean of water and dissolved ammonia some 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) deep. Beneath this ocean is an Earth-sized core of heavier materials. Voyager 2 discovered 10 new moons, 16-169 kilometers (10-105 miles) in diameter, orbiting Uranus. The five previously known -- Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon -- range in size from 520 to 1,610 kilometers (323 to 1,000 miles) across. Representing a geological showcase, these five moons are half-ice, half-rock spheres that are cold and dark and show evidence of past activity, including faulting and ice flows. The most remarkable of Uranus' moons is Miranda. Its surface features high cliffs as well as canyons, crater-pocked plains and winding valleys. The sharp variations in terrain suggest that, after the moon formed, it was smashed apart by a collision with another body -- an event not unusual in our solar system, which contains many objects that have impact craters or are fragments from large impacts. What is extraordinary is that Miranda apparently reformed with some of the material that had been in its interior exposed on its surface. Uranus was thought to have nine dark rings; Voyager 2 imaged 11. In contrast to Saturn's rings, which are composed of bright particles, Uranus' rings are primarily made up of dark, boulder-sized chunks. Neptune Voyager 2 completed its 12-year tour of the solar system with an investigation of Neptune and the planet's moons. On August 25, 1989, the spacecraft swept to within 4,850 kilometers (3,010 miles) of Neptune and then flew on to the moon Triton. During the Neptune encounter it became clear that the planet's atmosphere was more active than Uranus'. Voyager 2 observed the Great Dark Spot, a circular storm the size of Earth, in Neptune's atmosphere. Resembling Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the storm spins counterclockwise and moves westward at almost 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) per hour. Voyager 2 also noted a smaller dark spot and a fast-moving cloud dubbed the "Scooter," as well as high-altitude clouds over the main hydrogen and helium cloud deck. The highest wind speeds of any planet were observed, up to 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) per hour. Like the other giant planets, Neptune has a gaseous hydrogen and helium upper layer over a liquid interior. The planet's core contains a higher percentage of rock and metal than those of the other gas giants. Neptune's distinctive blue appearance, like Uranus' blue color, is due to atmospheric methane. Neptune's magnetic field is tilted relative to the planet's spin axis and is not centered at the core. This phenomenon is similar to Uranus' magnetic field and suggests that the fields of the two giants are being generated in an area above the cores, where the pressure is so great that liquid hydrogen assumes the electrical properties of a metal. Earth's magnetic field, on the other hand, is produced by its spinning metallic core and is only slightly tilted and offset relative to its center. Voyager 2 also shed light on the mystery of Neptune's rings. Observations from Earth indicated that there were arcs of material in orbit around the giant planet. It was not clear how Neptune could have arcs and how these could be kept from spreading out into even, unclumped rings. Voyager 2 detected these arcs, but they were, in fact, part of thin, complete rings. A number of small moons could explain the arcs, but such bodies were not spotted. Astronomers had identified the Neptunian moons Triton in 1846 and Nereid in 1949. Voyager 2 found six more. One of the new moons -- Proteus -- is actually larger than Nereid, but since Proteus orbits close to Neptune, it was lost in the planet's glare for observers on Earth. Triton circles Neptune in a retrograde orbit in under six days. Tidal forces on Triton are causing it to spiral slowly towards the planet. In 10 to 100 million years (a short time in astronomical terms), the moon will be so close that Neptunian gravity will tear it apart, forming a spectacular ring to accompany the planet's modest current rings. Triton's landscape is as strange and unexpected as those of Io and Miranda. The moon has more rock than its counterparts at Saturn and Uranus. Triton's mantle is probably composed of water-ice, but the moon's crust is a thin veneer of nitrogen and methane. The moon shows two dramatically different types of terrain: the so-called "cantaloupe" terrain and a receding ice cap. Dark streaks appear on the ice cap. These streaks are the fallout from geyser-like volcanic vents that shoot nitrogen gas and dark, fine-grained particles to heights of 2 to 8 kilometers (1 to 5 miles). Triton's thin atmosphere, only 1/70,000th as thick as Earth's, has winds that carry the dark particles and deposit them as streaks on the ice cap -- the coldest surface yet found in the solar system (-235 degrees Celsius, -391 degrees Fahrenheit). Triton might be more like Pluto than any other object spacecraft have so far visited. Pluto Pluto is the most distant of the planets, yet the eccentricity of its orbit periodically carries it inside Neptune's orbit, where it has been since 1979 and where it will remain until March 1999. Pluto's orbit is also highly inclined -- tilted 17 degrees to the orbital plane of the other planets. Discovered in 1930, Pluto appears to be little more than a celestial snowball. The planet's diameter is calculated to be approximately 2,300 kilometers (1,430 miles), only two-thirds the size of our Moon. Ground-based observations indicate that Pluto's surface is covered with methane ice and that there is a thin atmosphere that may freeze and fall to the surface as the planet moves away from the Sun. Observations also show that Pluto's spin axis is tipped by 122 degrees. The planet has one known satellite, Charon, discovered in 1978. Charon's surface composition is different from Pluto's: the moon appears to be covered with water-ice rather than methane ice. Its orbit is gravitationally locked with Pluto, so both bodies always keep the same hemisphere facing each other. Pluto's and Charon's rotational period and Charon's period of revolution are all 6.4 Earth days. Although no spacecraft have ever visited Pluto, NASA is currently exploring the possibility of such a mission. Comets The outermost members of the solar system occasionally pay a visit to the inner planets. As asteroids are the rocky and metallic remnants of the formation of the solar system, comets are the icy debris from that dim beginning and can survive only far from the Sun. Most comet nuclei reside in the Oort Cloud, a loose swarm of objects in a halo beyond the planets and reaching perhaps halfway to the nearest star. Comet nuclei orbit in this frozen abyss until they are gravitationally perturbed into new orbits that carry them close to the Sun. As a nucleus falls inside the orbits of the outer planets, the volatile elements of which it is made gradually warm; by the time the nucleus enters the region of the inner planets, these volatile elements are boiling. The nucleus itself is irregular and only a few miles across, and is made principally of water-ice with methane and ammonia -- materials very similar to those composing the moons of the giant planets. As these materials boil off of the nucleus, they form a coma or cloud-like "head" that can measure tens of thousands of kilometers across. The coma grows as the comet gets closer to the Sun. The stream of charged particles coming from the Sun pushes on this cloud, blowing it back like a flag in the wind and giving rise to the comet's "tails." Gases and ions are blown directly back from the nucleus, but dust particles are pushed more slowly. As the nucleus continues in its orbit, the dust particles are left behind in a curved arc. Both the gas and dust tails point away from the Sun; in effect, the comet chases its tails as it recedes from the Sun. The tails can reach 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) in length, but the total amount of material contained in this dramatic display would fit in an ordinary suitcase. Comets -- from the Latin cometa, meaning "long-haired" -- are essentially dramatic light shows. Some comets pass through the solar system only once, but others have their orbits gravitationally modified by a close encounter with one of the giant outer planets. These latter visitors can enter closed elliptical orbits and repeatedly return to the inner solar system. Halley's Comet is the most famous example of a relatively short period comet, returning on an average of once every 76 years and orbiting from beyond Neptune to within Venus' orbit. Confirmed sightings of the comet go back to 240 B.C. This regular visitor to our solar system is named for Sir Edmond Halley, because he plotted the comet's orbit and predicted its return, based on earlier sightings and Newtonian laws of motion. His name became part of astronomical lore when, in 1759, the comet returned on schedule. Unfortunately, Sir Edmond did not live to see it. A comet can be very prominent in the sky if it passes comparatively close to Earth. Unfortunately, on its most recent appearance, Halley's Comet passed no closer than 62.4 million kilometers (38.8 million miles) from our world. The comet was visible to the naked eye, especially for viewers in the southern hemisphere, but it was not spectacular. Comets have been so bright, on rare occasions, that they were visible during daytime. Historically, comet sightings have been interpreted as bad omens and have been artistically rendered as daggers in the sky. The Comet Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) spacecraft will become the first traveler to fly close to a comet nucleus and remain in proximity to it as they both approach the Sun. CRAF will observe the nucleus as it becomes active in the growing sunlight and begins to have its lighter elements boil off and form a coma and tails. Several spacecraft have flown by comets at high speed; the first was NASA's International Cometary Explorer in 1985. An armada of five spacecraft (two Japanese, two Soviet and the Giotto spacecraft from the European Space Agency) flew by Halley's Comet in 1986. Conclusion Despite their efforts to peer across the vast distances of space through an obscuring atmosphere, scientists of the past had only one body they could study closely -- Earth. But since 1959, spaceflight through the solar system has lifted the veil on our neighbors in space. We have learned more about our solar system and its members than anyone had in the previous thousands of years. Our automated spacecraft have traveled to the Moon and to all the planets beyond our world except Pluto; they have observed moons as large as small planets, flown by comets and sampled the solar environment. Astronomy books now include detailed pictures of bodies that were only smudges in the largest telescopes for generations. We are lucky to be alive now to see these strange and beautiful places and objects. The knowledge gained from our journeys through the solar system has redefined traditional Earth sciences like geology and meteorology and spawned an entirely new discipline called comparative planetology. By studying the geology of planets, moons, asteroids and comets, and comparing differences and similarities, we are learning more about the origin and history of these bodies and the solar system as a whole. We are also gaining insight into Earth's complex weather systems. By seeing how weather is shaped on other worlds and by investigating the Sun's activity and its influence throughout the solar system, we can better understand climatic conditions and processes on Earth. We will continue to learn and benefit as our automated spacecraft explore our neighborhood in space. One current mission is mapping Venus; others are flying between worlds and will reach the Sun and Jupiter after complex trajectory adjustments. Future missions are planned for Mars, Saturn, a comet and the asteroid belt. We can also look forward to the time when humans will once again set foot on an alien world. Although astronauts have not been back to the Moon since December 1972, plans are being formulated for our return to the lunar landscape and for the human exploration of Mars and even the establishment of martian outposts. One day, taking a holiday may mean spending a week at a lunar base or a martian colony!

For some reasons we humans think that it is our place to control everything. I doubt that space advertising is any worse than any other kind advertising, but it will be a lot harder to escape, and is probably the most blatant example yet of our disregard for the fact that we are not in fact creaters of the universe. Annoying little species, aren't we?

I have a 486/33 IBM clone with two serial ports (com1, com2) and mouse port. Both the serial ports are directly sitting on the mother board. I tried to install a 2400 buad Hayes internal modem, but it doesnt work. Once I dial any number the system locks. I do not hear any click or ring before it the system hangs. The modem has a 2 pin dip switch to select the appropriate port. Once I change the settings on the dip switch, the system starts working again. Then I bought a 2400 baud Hayes external modem and checked the system. It works fine with both the serial ports. The internal modem has been checked on another machine and it works fine, but does not work on my machine. Can anyone please help me to find the problem.

I believe he was well out of baseball by the time he died. Uh, he also has been charged with chasing his wife in a car, and smashing it into a tree, as well as carrying a loaded firearm in his car. And the speeding reported was over 100 mph; reckless driving. Actually, I hadn't heard about this; thanks. I don't know what you were reading or watching, but I sure saw a LOT about that, and about Dykstra's poker games. Most of the writing was along the lines of how incredibly stupid and selfish it was, and how he'd hurt the team by wracking himself and the catcher up, etc. ESPN raised questions about his judgement, etc. The print media here in the SF area questioned why disciplinary action wouldn't be taken against Dykstra, and one article pointed out that if Lenny wanted to kill himself, there were ways that wouldn't endanger other people's lives. Then there was Dykstra himself being quoted on how stupid it was, etc. Mike

I have noticed that newspapers don't even know what a fundamentalist is; at the least, they confuse new evangelicals and fundamentalists. In this news group, the liberals don't even know what a fundamentalist is (crying out "legalist" at anyone who believes and obeys God's Word). A fundamentalist would train their children in the way God proscribes, not in the way that man proscribes. This would not include life threatening beatings but would include corporal punishment. To the liberals, I cry out infidel at anyone who does not believe God's Word. Signature follows: "Your statutes are wonderful: therefore I obey them." Psalm 119:129 ========================================================================= David L. Hanson Any opinions expressed are my own! [As most people here know, I believe fundamentalist is sufficiently ill-defined that I advise using some more specific term. I think many people use it to cover people who believe in inerrancy and a number of related concepts (e.g. denial of evolution). While the original fundamentals movement was somewhat more specific, I would think most people who accept inerrancy would actually support the whole original agenda. (It included a list of key traditional doctrines, e.g. the virgin birth.) The term is now being used by the press to describe aggressive conservative religions in general, most typically those who are attempting to legislate religion. Legalism is yet another ill-defined term. However there is some reason for its use in this context. In fact the common theological definition is the believe that salvation is through the Law. I hope no one here believes that our conservative contributors hold this view. However there is a basic difference in approach over what we expect to get out of the Bible. The conservative approach expects to find specific behavioral rules. Generally the posters advocating this approach talk about the relevant passages from Paul's letter as God's Law. The liberal approach expects to find general principles, but it regards specific behavioral rules subject to change depending upon the culture and other things. It's easy to see why a liberal would regard the conservative approach as legalism. It's hard to know quite what other term to use. The issue in this case is not inerrancy, because no one is saying that Paul made a factual error. Rather, the question is whether his statements are to be taken as Law. Calling the positive answer legalism seems obvious enough terminology. I haven't seen any good alternative.

The garbage started hitting the field well before the Sunday game. It started on Thursday or Friday (I can't recall which games I *didn't* watch on TBS). Deion was getting pelted with trash the whole time, it seemed. The announcers talked about the change in the seating in the bleachers, and how that made it easier for the events that transpired. I actually thought at the start of the Sunday slugfest that since it was a Sunday daygame the crowd would be a little different, more refined. Surprise?

For Sale: Selmer Mark VII Tenor Saxophone Used for College Jazz Band Performances. I will include a copy of "The New Real Book" whick is a collection of Jazz Classics and various other standards. (paid $30 for it). Other extras included. Asking $1100 We can discuss shipping and COD charges. send me some e-mail or call me 303-224-4317 (home) or 303-491-7585 (school) -- ****************************************************************************** Davis [email protected]

[deleted] Not to flame (REALLY), but thats an abominable viewpoint (while were on the subject of abominations). If we followed the "redistiribution of wealth" (and by the way, ist that what Clinto and the Democrats are trying to do...), EVERYONE would starve in short order. Not only is it impossoble to organize a fair distribution that depends on every (wo)man's altruism (can you say black market under communisim anyone?), but the current methods of resource production are entirely energy dependant. There are not enough sources of cheap capital (aside from human capital) to allow us to stop looking at space a an excellent source of materials and realestate. More directly, perhaps you mioght consider the fact that BILLIONS are spent by TV companies, and their sponsors, (ABC, NBC, CBS...) on the SUPERBOWL, the OLYMPICS, and even on monday night baseball games. Perhaps we should boycott those games? If DC-X and company get finished, and there is a market for it, those "abominable" space will probably be much more cost effective for the companies, and those starving children. More people buy products, the company hires more workers, end result fewer children die of starvation. --

Julie, it doesn't necessarily follow that you should use it (MSG or something else for that matter) simply because you are not allergic to it. For example you might not be allergic to (animal) fats, and like their taste, yet it doesn't follow that you should be using them (regularly). MSG might have other bad (or good, I am not up on knowledge of MSG) effects on your body in the long run, maybe that's reason enough not to use it. Altho' your example of the ulcer is funny, it isn't an appropriate comparison at all.

Yeah, really, no shit! Like that jerk Loch Faircloth that couldn't win an election as a democrat so he switches to republican the year before this past election and takes Terry Sanford out with his bitch and moan campaigning typical of NC senate/house/gubner races. I swear, I'd kick Jesse Helms in the head if I ever got the chance. Maybe then he'd get a fucking clue as to how the rest of the world lives.

Well, actually, this one's easy. It's their job. The NSA is supposed to develop cryptosystems. If the government chooses to go ahead and sell those cryptosystems to the masses, so be it. This sounds a lot like slamming the competition, not a cry for justice. These guys are way out on a limb, if I read that right. They've commited their new algorithm to silicon before it's been made public. What are they gonna do if Shamir writes a paper showing how to crack the entire class of algorithms in 5 minutes with a slide rule and a pencil? If they weren't busy throwing muck to smear their competitors, I'd feel kinda sorry for 'em. Still do, a little.

Still thinking you have all the answers, eh? Jim -- [email protected]

I read in MacWeek that some developers are getting NuBUS cards from apple with pre-release PowerPC chips on them. Does this mean that when the chip is released, those of us with old apples will be able to take advantage of the PowerPC RISC technology just by inserting a card? I don't know anything about hardware, so can someone tell me how much of a cludge this would be?

I just read a clari article about how, among the other weapons the BD had purched, they had two "Barrett 50-caliber armor-piercing rifles." How the hell do you use an armor-piercing rifle? Run up to a tank and try to stab it? Once again, ignorance prevails amongst the media . . .

Check out a program called PC-Xview. I've used it before, and from what I can tell, it's exactly what you're looking for. Last I checked, you should be able to find it for about $160 a copy. -Eric

I'd like to put internal disks in a Mac II. I understand that ones needs a special "jumper" cable to acheive this. Does anyone know a source for these? Thanks, Mike Pazzani ([email protected])

I heard he had a strained abdominal muscle or something like that.

[Someone asked about Biblical support for the image of Satan as a fallen angel. Rev 12:7-9 and Enoch have been cited. --clh] There is also a verse in Luke(?) that says He[Jesus] saw Satan fall from Heaven. It's something like that. I don't have my Bible in front of me or I would quote it directly, but it's a pretty obvious reference to Satan's expulsion. Justin

85'Mazda GLC - 58K miles - charcoal grey, 4-dr - automatic transmission - A/C , Stereo System with 4-way speaker - rear window defrost, cruise control - New water pump, front tires, headlight, heat shield. - 1 year old battery and transmission. - Well Maintained with all Records of purchase and service. - Inspection done in Feb'93 - Good Condition - Reason for selling : Moving out of Austin. $ 2500.00 (negotiable) Must see to appreciate. call or leave message on answering machine at 477-9429 or email to [email protected]

It should be noted that belief in God is in itself no more a behavoral imperative than lack of belief. It is religion which causes the harm, not the belief in God.

What is the real story here? Can I hook up any PC SVGA Montitor to the Centris internal video? Do I need to make my own cable if it doesn't not come with one? Has apple released a Tech note with the pinouts for doing such? The reasoj I ask is that it seems the prices for SVGA are lower than that of their mac counterparts... --mike ************************** having been discusse essentially adnausium the answer is yes. at least for the 600x400 configuration. you can get an adaptor called Mac VGA -Q from James engineering (510) 525 7350 and this will let you display 600x400 and 800x600 if the monitor is capable. I think the 800x600 requires 56Khz horizontal sync. I use this on my sony 1604. (gives a slightly wider screen than the 832x624 adaptor.

All are gone except 3 and 5. Go ahead - make me an offer I can't refuse! 1. Large padded Cordura bag SORRY, SOLD, AWAITING CHECK. 2. Small "Nikon" shoulder bag. SORRY, GONE. 3. Small "Nikon"* belt pouch. Khaki. Similar to an Army ammo pouch - belt clips, etc. Holds flash or small zoom, lens cleaner, etc. Great for your extra lens when you don't want to tote a shoulder bag. I think it can hold a small Walkman and some tapes. $5. + $1. postage. 4. Domke belt pouch ... SORRY, GONE. 5. Coast camera bag - tan, brown strap/trim. Main and front pocket, 10"x9x4.5 and 10x6.5x1.5 respectively. Can hold AF slr with small zoom plus flash or even an 8mm or compact-VHS video camcorder! Material looks like Gore-Tex but I don't think it is. I think it can also hold your portable CD player with a bunch of discs, headphones, AC, etc. $15. + $3. postage. TERMS: Payment in advance by money order/bank check, or cash. /|/| /||)|/ /~ /\| |\|)[~|)/~ | Everyone's entitled to MY opinion. / | |/ ||\|\ \_|\/|_|/|)[_|\\_| | [email protected] ========Imagination is more important than knowledge. - Albert Einstein=======

What if....... What if the FBI thought that tear gas would force the Davidians out; at least the mothers and the children, so they (the FBI) did not bother to think about the effect of tear gas on young children...... What if the FBI knew they killed several of the children by using tear gas......(let`s assume the FBI knew via their listening devices) What if the FBI saw fire accidently break out at one end of the building, e.g. by an upset oil lamp....... What if the FBI thought they could finally force the rest of the Davidians out AND also destroy the evidence that they (the FBI) had killed the children by starting a fire at the other end...... What if the FBI miscalculated and not many of the rest of the Davidians made it out.......?????

I suspect that splits such as these are the result of positioning. An outfielder who is fast and gets a good jump would be expected to catch a lot of balls, preventing both singles and doubles, and also cut off more uncatchable balls, turinging doubles into singles. However, a fielder who plays shallow will catch more short flies and fewer long flies; this means that he will allow fewer singles but more doubles. Has anyone seen these players' positioning? Do Butler and Felix play deep, and Lankford, Martinez, and Wilson shallow, or is this a park effect? I thought Butler liked to play shallow.

You sure? This maybe a chronic syndrome. If it persists, we may have to banish you to the "Cub-crazy Sanatarium" in north Chicago... :-):-):-)

From: Center for Policy Research <cpr> Subject: Help Palestinian education HOW TO HELP PALESTINIAN EDUCATION (From 'Educational Network', No. 11, April 1993, publ. by Ramallah Friends Schools, P.O.Box 66, Ramallah, West Bank, via Israel Tel. 972-2-956230, Fax. 972-2-956231) Many of our readers have written to us asking how individuals and organizations can help Palestinian education. We have compiled a list of suggestions to guide you. If you are interested in pursuing one or more of these suggested activities, the Educational Network can aid you by /coordinating/ the initial contacts, /following up/, and /providing any other support/ you may need. 1. Link your teachers' union with a teachers' union here --- linkage should be based on a shared pedagogical enterprise. 2. Get your union to actively support the right of Palestinian teachers in the Occupied Territories to form unions: a. through the International Labor Organization (if your union is a member) b. contacting other international unions which have supported our right to form a union -- we can supply names and addresses. 3. Establish a SCHOLARSHIP FUND for one or more Palestinian students to study at a Palestinian university or school -- or establish a scholarship fund for a Palestinian student or teacher to study at a university abroad. 4. Reproduce and publish information about Palestinian education: a. for your union membership; b. for the outside community. The Educational Network can supply up-to-date information and statistics. 5. Send delegations of teachers to visit the Occupied Territories during periods when our schools are in session. The Network can arrange an itinerary, make hotel and local travel arrangements, and provide a guide for the visit. 6. Sponsor Palestinian teachers to visit your city for an educational tour: a. to see schools and speak with educators in order to learn about progressive pedagogical ideas and experiences; b. to speak about the conditions of Palestinian education. The Network will coordinate from Palestine. 7. Establish teacher-exchange programs for one year in which a Palestinian teacher from a private school teaches at a public or private school abroad while a teacher from that school spends a year in a Palestinian private school. 8. Send an experienced educator to the Occupied Territories to give workshops (all-day workshops or two- day workshops) on innovative teaching techniques. The Network will pay for the person's food, lodging, and travel while in Palestine, and will serve as guide. 9. Set up a pen-pal program with a Palestinian school in either English or French. 10. Set up a sister-school program with a Palestinian school which would actively involve teachers as well as students at both schools -- a great tool for building international understanding and mutual sensitivity. 11. Keep the Educational Network informed about important educational conferences so that we can send a Palestinian teacher to attend. 12. Send to the Educational Network articles or other writings or books dealing with innovative approaches and ideas in the field of education so that we can then disseminate the information locally.

------------------------------------------- It's already in the hands of a monopoly of the rich because of capitalism of land. Other than government land, saved for posterity and the eco-system as well as government function, the remaining land is owned by a smaller percentage of the people than ever before. The game of capitalism is almost won. The game has only to be declared over and we will have to take matters into our own hands and redistribute it again fairly, or else be enslaved in return for a place to live. Here in central California, already, fewer than 30% own all the property and 5% of them own 90% of it. That's twice what it was twenty years ago. Rents are so high that you pay 60% of your income for rent. If you just have a McJob, all you can afford is one room, if that. Some 30% of minimum wage workers are homeless. Unless you both have degrees in technical fields and are working in them, (in the midst of 30% unemployment in high tech jobs!), you will never own anything but a used car if you choose to have more than one child!!! And everywhere else you could afford there are no jobs. The only way to get there is to save and not consume any more than you have to, clothing used, food poor. No movies, no entertainment,, ect. for about five to seven years, and then, if you've saved $20,000, if you can get together that much, and that's ignoring your kids and working two jobs, then you can buy a home in Arkansas or Missouri outright and live somewhere where they flood every other year! That's an exaggeration if you pay close attention to the flood lines on other people's houses and find a sturdy hill, then you can buy one up there! Also buy a rowboat. Missouri's not so bad, if you like the sensation of sleeping in a sweatbox in summer and your car freezing solid in winter. They really do put those heaters into the dipstick hole to keep them warm enough to start with ether!:) Shit, kill the rich and redistribute the livable property. Kill all of them! -RSW --------------------------------------------- The land is simply granted to people who live on it now. Extra is kept for the future. You get to stay where you are without paying rent. Land that supports others becomes property of the state. Farmers are welcome to plant crops that people need according to demand and ability and soil quality. If you want to grow sourgum because you always did, and you aren't doing a good job, then we let another farmer grow sorghum, and you grow something else. When people die the land they were entitled to use goes into the public holdings. No one can sell land, but they can trade places with anybody. No one can lease land. The government will locally distribute the use of the land not used for residences. Residences that are insufficient to the families living there can be traded to the public for a larger house and yard according to need and availability. The local land council who vow to live on their land till death to avoid profit ties will decide fairness subject to review by the state and federal land councils. It will cost no more than any fucking thing costs now with fucking assed rent going down a deep dark hole to the owners! Anyone can submit a request for a larger house or land to start a business on, depending on a valid business plan and community needs. Heavy equipment is subject to seizure for the public good or as needed. Heavy equipment operators are encouraged to keep and maintain their own machine and to operate it at a reasonable salary in service to the community. Companies who own many machines are to be divided among the appropriate equipment operators and the rest to be let to valid operators on a need basis. Cost of upkeep is charged. A guild of heavy machine operators is recognized for safety and training's sake. Their council is a subcouncil to the community council. Etc. Etc. Etc. It isn't so hard to think of a better system than we have. All you have to do is realize that the system we have now is not sacrosanct, in fact it's a rigged game that steals you blind and is the most unfair any system could be already!!!!!!!! The trick is to realize that the old rich have been making the rules behind your back and that it's time to kick them off the merry-go-round. Tax the rich to death. They are the ones that converted your 60's school lunch program into the joke it is today. They are the ones who always cut education. They are the ones who always raise the rent when you get a raise. They are the ones who should be not just dislodged but killed for their abuse. I have trouble justifying the death penalty for a poor kid who killed and didn't know why not. I have no trouble justifying the death penalty for the rich who steal countless human lives to feed their greed! Have you paid rent most of your life? Then you have been enslaved, percentage wise, most of your life. We used to be serfs. Now we are called renters, and we are still enslaved to somebody who claims to own land they don't use and make us pay them for it when they did nothing to own it. Most rents in California are enough to buy the apartment house, paynthe taxes and the insurance and have a little left over to travel with! I have seen the books! I know what my landlord pays and to whom! I know what I pay her. I am being forced to buy her a building and then I will be let out at the other end with nothing, when I had as much right as her to live on this planet! And her child will have the money to likewise enslave my child. I hope I find out when I am going to die. I can make things just a little happier form me to be able to destroy her life as she destroyed mine. And maybe I can take a few other landlords with me, and their heirs. That would be worth it. Then to be able to die before they can do anything to me. That's a poor man's dream. Sleep tight, bastard landlords. You don't know the trouble you are buying yourself as you sleep on my heirs money in your mattress! -RSW

Right. Most definitely. This may be the root of the confusion... Please consider the following hypothetical with an open mind. Note that I am *not* (yet) saying that it has anything to do with the question at hand. Suppose we have a simplified Lotto game. You pick a number from 1-10 and win if that number is drawn. Suppose we have a large population of people who play this game every week. In the first year of the game, approximately 1/4 of the population will win 7 or more times. In the second year of the game, 1/4 of those 7-time winners will again be 7-time winners. In the third year of the game, 1/4 of those who won 7 or more times in each of the first two years will win 7 again. Suppose I started with 1024 people in my population. After three years, I have 32 people who have consistently, in each of the last three years, won 140% or more the number of times expected. Do we expect them to be big winners in the fourth year of the game? No. Because we know there is no skill involved. Nothing about these "consistent winners" can influence their chances of winning. But suppose we *don't* know whether or not there is a chance that skill might be involved. Perhaps some of the people in our population are psychic, or something. How would we test this hypothesis? We can look for correlations in the population. Now most of the population will show zero correlation. But our psychics should show a high positive correlation (even if they aren't very good psychics, they should still manage to win 7 or more times most years). Net result? A small positive correlation over the entire population. Well, zero correlation is zero correlation. You mention that Sabo has hit poorly in the clutch over the last 3(?) years. But if we look at the past, we find that clutch patterns are just as likely to reverse as they are to remain consistent. The length of the streak doesn't seem to make a difference to the probability that the player will be clutch or choke the next year. Is there any reason to expect *this* streak to be different from past streaks? Now if it were true that "75% of all three-year streaks remained true to form", then we might have something useful. But then we wouldn't have zero correlation. Instead we have "50% of all three-year streaks remain true to form, and 50% of all three-year streaks reverse". You look at those numbers and say "three year choke streak implies more likely to choke this year". But it would be equally valid to look at those numbers and say "three year choke streak implies more likely to be clutch this year", since the probabilities are split 50-50 each way. Then we would have something useful. And we would also have a positive correlation. But for every individual that exhibits such a pattern and holds true, there is another who exhibits such a pattern and then reverses.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As far as I know, a save opportunity is when it is 7th inning or beyond, and the batter on deck can either tie or win the ball game. For example If it is the bottom of the 8th inning and Clemens is pithching. The Red Sox are leading 4-1 and Clemens has just givin up a hit. So, there is a man on first, the batter, and the batter on deck could tie the game with a homer. If Jeff Russel came in, (The Red Sox reliever), and finished the game without allowing the tieing or losing run to score, he would get the save and Clemens would get the win. Thats how I beleive it works.