Posts by GrimJack

The Senility Prayer

God grant me the senility

To forget the people

I never liked anyway.

The good fortune

To run into the ones I do,

And the eyesight

To tell the difference.

Well, I really thought I was sooo over Lady GaGa but GaGa and Beyonce - who could resist

The clerk on our floor keeps a tray of Jelly Bellys on the counter - I got one that tasted like buttered popcorn - that is just wrong (but then I got one that tasted like rotten egg -- that was wronger).

When you know what that odd pocket in coveralls is for (hint: what did carpenters use before there were tape measures)

Me thinks Grimjack is a wee bit bored

Nope! I have ADD, internet access, and insatiable curiosity.

Take a look at nano-batteries - scale these up in layers and the automobile becomes almost completely green.

OMG! How could you even consider Palin as VP?

More likely, if you actually willingly listened to Ummagumma, you probably don't remember the whole year or decade.

Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave Grooving with a Pict
Careful With That Axe Eugene

You must have been well past your teenage years and too old to remember Pink Floyd and their rock opera The Wall.

I saw pink floyd live - Dark Side of the Moon, and UMMA GUMMA and another one I was too stoned to remember what album tour it was.

...my 0.02 and a borrowed dime.

>can an electromagnetic field affect a neuron?
Yes. Google "transcranial magnetic stimulation"

>does an activated neuron generate an electromagnetic field
Yes.

>if so, is that field strong enough to affect neighboring neurons
Yes, but the affect is largely unknown and a subject of current research:
J Neurosci. 2010 Feb 3;30(5):1925-36.
The effect of spatially inhomogeneous extracellular electric fields on neurons.
Anastassiou CA, Montgomery SM, Barahona M, Buzsáki G, Koch C.

>does the field have enough energy to carry information
IMO, probably. It's also probably not reliable enough to be used by the nervous system. To stretch an analogy if you have a few spotty tv stations over broadcast or 150 channels over digital cable you'd probably choose the latter.

a computer can determine what picture the person is viewing 8 out of 10 times.
These types of studies (I haven't read the one in question) can overgeneralize to the point where you can say with 99% certainty that if two of your neighbors have their porch lights on it's a Thursday.

I overgeneralized for brevity's sake. The questions came from an article on the scientificblogging site

That pic is actually unrelated - it is of a performance artist who assigned different tones to the various signals coming off his brain. I searched but could not find any recording of the concert and most references lead to Scandinavian websites that don't have English translations.

If it worked before, was there something that changed at roughly the same time the USB ports stopped working?

This is what I found

The graphic displays the ink cartridge status when EPSON StatusMonitor was first opened. To update the ink cartridge status, click Update.
Epson cannot guarantee the quality or reliability of non-genuine ink. If non-genuine ink cartridges are installed, the ink cartridge status may not be displayed.
If any of the ink cartridges installed in the printer is broken, incompatible with the printer model, or improperly installed, EPSON StatusMonitor will not display an accurate status of the ink cartridge. Be sure to replace or reinstall any ink cartridge indicated by the EPSON StatusMonitor.

I was hoping that they might say something about resetting it but...

EEGs and MEGs and MRIs take pictures of out brains (images in jagged lines overlaid onto regions of the brain) to diagnose problems in the hardware. But when used in conjunction with specific pictures across different individuals, it appears that the pictures cause similar enough responses that a computer can determine what picture the person is viewing 8 out of 10 times.

Keep in mind (do you like that pun?) that the 3 devices are electromagnetic in nature whereas the brain is electrochemical in nature so this brings up a number of questions:
can an electromagnetic field affect a neuron?
does an activated neuron generate an electromagnetic fieldif so, is that field strong enough to affect neighboring neuronsdoes the field have enough energy to carry information
Keep in mind that the neuron carries an electrical signal from the dendrites (inputs) to the axon with branches (output). Neurotransmitters (chemicals) carry the signal from neuron to neuron (axon to dendrites) and each neuron has a minimum activation potential which dampens weak signals. With the average brain composed of 100 billion neurons with each having an average of 7,000 synaptic connections - about 400 trillion connections.

The neurons are shielded (by a myelin sheath but it is not a continuous sheath but a series of small sheaths) and the dendrites are not insulated.

I could go on but is anyone interested?

Some links:
http://cogprints.org/3190/1/solitons.pdf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/06/medicalresearch

I am actually going back and playing Far Cry (the original on my pc) again. The graphics suck but the gameplay is fantastic. All the levels have multiple ways to solve and I get to use grenade launchers, sniper rifles, and bazookas.

depending on what you call "humans" they were around from around 20.000 years ago or up to about 2 million years ago.

Ships certainly weren't around until maybe 10.000-15.000 years ago and those were hollowed out logs mostly until quite recently.

They were talking about rafts rather than ships; and the whole thing is still pretty much in the 'isn't this stuff cool' stage - there is a lot of research left to do.

Lensmen, to your stations - the Eddorians approach

I got this

I havent ever heard of the guy!!

This guy wrote on every topic you can think of. While alive, he had books in every category in the book store.

He wrote I Robot and many others that made it to the big screen. They are now working on his epic Foundation trilogy.

I appear to be Gregory Benford - take a look for yourself

<table width='90%' border=1 cellpadding=8 align='center'><tr><td width='1%'><img src='http://paulkienitz.net/quizpix/skiffy_greg.jpg' width=200 height=200></td><td>I am:<blockquote><big><big><b>Gregory Benford</b></big></big></blockquote>A master literary stylist who is also a working scientist.</td></tr></table>
<center><p><br><b><a href='http://paulkienitz.net/skiffy.html'>Which science fiction writer are you?</a></b></p></center>

Looks like the insert did not work, sigh!

Here is an interesting update to the story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/science/16archeo.html?ref=science

The tools suggest that people were 'sea-faring' at least 130,000 year ago. The implications of stone age tools on Cyprus is astounding - language, navigation, enough organization to sustain island culture, language.... The tools are of the Acheulean style which was first developed 500,000 years ago - just something to think about.

This, too, is just wrong! It is another of the 'camel's nose' intrusions of the state into the privacy of the individual. It does not surprise me that it is in Texas but where else is there another bit of your privacy being stolen?

Wow, Hiromi is a wonder and such control of her piano

Well, if we take folding@home as a starting point then we can first look at what a protein is:

Proteins are an important class of biological macromolecules present in all biological organisms, made up of such elements as carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur. All proteins are polymers of amino acids.

Proteins are collections of amino acids and amino acids are collections of certain kinds of molecules. There are 20 types of naturally occurring amino acids; these amino acids bind together in chains to make proteins. A simple protein containing 40 amino acids has the possible primary structure composed of 40^20 (40 to the 20th power) possible combinations (not really true as there are rules about how the different amino acids can combine. What the protein is composed of is not the complete picture - there are rules on how amino acids combine into sub-structures - then there are rules how the proteins fold (its 3 dimensional structure - this is what folding@home is working on). There is a 4th level of complexity but you should get the picture that there is a bazillion possible ways to make up 1 small protein then you have to multiply that by a large (but finite) number of ways for sub-structures to form and multiply that by a not so large number of ways to fold the protein.

take a look

What a great songwriter/singer - Emmy the Great

http://threewordchant.com/2010/02/24/why-the-internet-will-fail-from-1995/

Thanks! I knew there was a missing piece but I got distracted.

Of course it is fake, but

it is still just so wrong.

Thanks for finding that link - I was thinking it was the product of some on-line printer that also makes bumper stickers.

A drop of water at 2000 frames per second dances to infinity (er, at least for average amounts of infinity they get smaller and smaller)

I was riding the 'crazies' bus north out of Seattle (the 358, people shoot at the drivers, a couple of the buses almost went off the Aurora Bridge); anyway, the bus was packed and I was sitting in the bendy seats of an articulate bus when I spotted the typical 'prohibited' stickers. You know, forbidden, rcw nnn.nnn.nn code stuff - you will be prosecuted and all that when I actually read the sticker and it read;
Gang Rape Strictly Prohibited. I could not believe it so I had to take a picture - sorry about the quality but the bus was crowded and no one was paying attention.

Plato was the first known writer about the Atlantis; he wrote about 300 BCE but he was quoting the Athenian lawgiver Solon (about 700BCE) about a story heard when he was in Egypt. This is not real good sourcing but it was supposed to be bigger than North Africa and the Near East combined and located in the Atlantic. Many scholars think that the myth of Atlantis comes from the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete which was destroyed in volcanic glory around 1500-1600 BCE - there is evidence of pottery from about 7000BCE found on Crete.

Most societies have legends of wonderful, idyllic societies in the past that were destroyed by (fill in your favorite vice).

How long have you been hanging around this place

I wish I coulda seen these guys live

You work for the Infernal Revenoo Service?

Yep! My first job in 18 months. I have to listen to whiney citizens all day but it is a paycheck (I'm being sardonic - we are the kinder, gentler IRS and do not send black helicopters until the 3rd balance due letter).

Can she fly a small plane? Does she pay her taxes?

I am thankful now that I don't have a window cube!!

Yeah! All the snow that should have been falling on Greenland and in the Arctic Circle and turning into glacier is falling further south and just running into the ocean. Oh, well - I live in Seattle so my hill is safe for a little while longer

The fastest typist in the world peaks at 225 wpm and a woman averaged 170 wpm over a 50 minute period.

Does getting killed by a "Jesus" bomb give you brownie points at the pearly gate?

Only if you are already a 'brownie'

Tesseylove might be one of those 'wire strippers'

I found this at whois:

WHOIS - m1cr0soft.com

Registrar: HICHINA ZHICHENG TECHNOLOGY LTD.
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Dates: Created 19-apr-2009 Updated 06-jun-2009 Expires 19-apr-2010
DNS Servers: DNS14.HICHINA.COM DNS15.HICHINA.COM

I was referred to grs.hichina.com; I'm looking it up there.

Domain Name ..................... m1cr0soft.com
Name Server ..................... dns14.hichina.com
dns15.hichina.com
Registrant ID ................... hc992362914-cn
Registrant Name ................. soft M1cr0
Registrant Organization ......... M1cr0soft
Registrant Address .............. USA SAMOA
Registrant City ................. US
Registrant Province/State ....... US
Registrant Postal Code .......... 000000
Registrant Country Code ......... AS
Registrant Phone Number ......... +01.0467634823 -
Registrant Fax .................. +01.0467634824 -
Registrant Email ................ *********@m1cr0soft.com
Administrative ID ............... hc992362914-cn
Administrative Name ............. soft M1cr0
Administrative Organization ..... M1cr0soft
Administrative Address .......... USA SAMOA
Administrative City ............. US
Administrative Province/State ... US
Administrative Postal Code ...... 000000
Administrative Country Code ..... AS
Administrative Phone Number ..... +01.0467634823 -
Administrative Fax .............. +01.0467634824 -
Administrative Email ............ *********@m1cr0soft.com
Billing ID ...................... hc992362914-cn
Billing Name .................... soft M1cr0
Billing Organization ............ M1cr0soft
Billing Address ................. USA SAMOA
Billing City .................... US
Billing Province/State .......... US
Billing Postal Code ............. 000000
Billing Country Code ............ AS
Billing Phone Number ............ +01.0467634823 -
Billing Fax ..................... +01.0467634824 -
Billing …

You know, sometimes you should take the source into account when asking questions. Or go look at sites that rank used car reliability (like). Google on "used car reliability ratings" and bypass both Edmunds and Consumer Reports because they will not tell you anything until you subscribe.

The unmistakable sound of tinnitus...Yet again! Will I ever learn not to remove my ear-plugs at rehearsal??!

Currently trying to drown out the insanity-inducing high pitched noise with a bit of Rondellus - "Sabbatum". An estonian folk band doing an album of Black Sabbath covers using medieval instruments with the song titles and lyrics translated into latin...The description sounds really odd, but it really works! It's a bit wierd, but very chilled out! Some unusual, but great choices of songs on there too!! Not your typical Sabbath tribute!

Found a youtube version - thanks, never heard of them. Almost Gregorian - nope, it is Gregorian, wow!

Every once in a while I go back and take a refresher course - I learned on the purely mechanical typewriters. You pushed a key down and a Rube Goldbergian series led to a piece of lead at the end of a moment-arm hit the paper with some ribbon in the way. The key depressed a full inch.

But I digress

Try this site - this is where I refresh my skills.

Don't know where to put this so - here works. I first saw this short film in 1980 at SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival); it is a wonderful use of space, time and Tango. I had been looking for this film since I discovered Google. It is on a .rus website - hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Includes brief nudity

Sometimes the basics are best - Hindi Zahra

It sounds like your computer is telling you what is wrong; go here to help understand what the beeping during POST means.

My wife said "Ipad?? does it come with wings? Is it only useful 5 days a month?"

Despite the current spate of bad news - older Toyota Corollas are pretty good deal. I bought a Corolla Al-trac brand new in 1988 and drove it until 2006 when it got totaled. I'd say a Toyota or a Honda in your price range would be from the '90s; they won't have airbags or anti-lock brakes but they would get you to and from college. Look for a 'hupty', go looking with a friend, drive the car, ask why they are selling it, ask for the records they kept for the car, don't be rushed by 'we have a firm offer coming to buy it in an hour', always be prepared to walk away from the deal, don't carry cash with you, if you feel uncomfortable walk away. If you spend $500 on a car and it gets you through a year or 2 of college for about $500 in repairs, you are better off than spending $3000 on a newer car that is trouble free.

Right now I am driving a 1996 LeBaron that was given to me when my Corolla was totaled; it is a pig, everyone laughs at my 'plush-mobile' old ladies car but it does not cost me anything in maintenance and it survived a fight with a deer in WI. I'll probably drive it until it falls apart, which will be years from now.

Sean Connery wore a toupee in every James Bond film that he starred in, beginning with Dr. No in 1962.

My favorite of his films was ZarDoz

No, "greenies" is the correct term. It's a religion, nothing more or less.
They're not "environmentally conscious" at all, they just go through the moves of buying their carbon credits in order to feel good.

nah - it is not a religion, that is the only thing the troglodytes can think of to insult people they don't agree with but can't find a real argument so they stoop (as in stoopid) to throwing pointless twaddle around.

Tom Waits (how did he get that voice without spending 50 years drinking and smoking?).

Wanna hear something scary? Tom Waits sings Disney

Peking duck - we have friends with a small farm who raise ducks, chickens, geese, and rabbits. Any bird named 'Steve' goes to 'freezer camp' (any duck, goose, or chicken that is male is called Steve) so we invited Steve to dinner and baked him.