7/6     Wow, I got this in my http://movietickets.com e-mail today:
        Islam: What the West Needs to Know    (NR); NY/Wash/ATL
        ... this documentary demonstrates that Islam is a violent, expansionary
        ideology that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths,
        cultures, and systems of government.
        \_ Islam or Death  (In Michigan)
        http://lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060705/OPINION02/607050335&
           \_ Silly man, doesn't he realize that without cherry-picking the
              religious texts, there would be no western liberal (and that
              includes fundies, btw) Christianity?
              \_ That's a huge oversimplification of the situation.  The core
                 issue is not cherry picking.  It is that the other major
                 religions have all come to terms with the modern world but
                 Islam has not.  The world has all sorts of crazies but you
                 don't see large organised well funded groups of <insert any
                 religion but Islam here> running around suicide bombing
                 civilians in some hopeless effort to turn the world into
                 their idea of 8th century heaven.
                 \_ and selectively ignoring inconvenient bits of one's
                    religious texts is a key component of
                    "[coming] to terms with the modern world"
                    \_ Yes.  It has to be.  Is there a problem with that?
                       The alternative is the aggressive Islam we see today.
                       I much prefer people giving a wink and nod to people
                       cutting off heads and keeping women as 4th class non-
                       citizens.
                       \_ Yeah.  I'm curious how much of radical Islam has
                          to do with the fact that most of it's followers
                          are just really, really poor and uneducated.
                          \_ Most of radical Islam relies entirely on its
                             followers being illiterate and ignorant; if they
                             don't have to rely on Imams for instruction,
                             most people would reject radical Islam.
                             \_ Except the 9/11 suicide bombers, who were on
                                the whole well-educated and well-off.
                                \_ ... i.e., "most."
        \_ Sounds just like the Catholic Crusaders.

7/6     Got a serious problem. I ordered something with tracking number and
        according to USPS tracking it already arrived on 6/28. It is
        already 7/6 and I still haven't gotten anything. What is going
        on? FYI I live in a very secure place with sealed mailed boxes.
        What should I do at this point?
        \_ Tell USPS you didn't get it and ask them to find out who
           signed for it.

7/6     Are the Space Shuttles capable of taking off on a runway like an
        airplane, not to go into space but just to fly from one airport to
        another?
        \_ No.  The thrusters are designed solely for assistive thrust during
           vertical takeoff.  The space shuttle is a glider-shaped rocket.
           It is transported from one airport to another on the back of a
           specially modified 747 (see Moonraker)
           \_ I see.  I thought piggybacking on a 747 is because it's
              cheaper to fly with jet engines than with rockets.
              \_ cheaper, true.  But most likely it's because it's safer
                 and less complicated.
              \_ You know that big orange thing the orbiter is attached to
                 when the shuttle launches?  That's the fuel tank for its
                 main engines.  It contains the liquid hydrogen and liquid
                 oxygen fuel for the rocket engines at the tail of the
                 orbiter.  The orbiter itself doesn't contain a fuel tank for
                 those engines.  If you designed conventional atmospheric
                 flight capabilities into the orbiter, it would come at the
                 price of making the orbiter heavier (and every pound of weight
                 you add is a pound you take away from its payload capability,
                 or an exponential addition to the fuel needed to reach orbit).
                 Most of the time this is a nonissue, because the orbiter
                 usually lands at the same site where they launch it.  The
                 biggest problem this introduces is that the orbiter lands as
                 a glider, so you have to nail the landing every time (because
                 you can't fly around for another pass if something goes
                 wrong).  That's never been a problem, probably because the
                 pilots are really damn good, and thoroughly trained.
                 \_ I thought that the Shuttle basically can land itself.
                    \_ They recently (just this launch?) installed an autopilot
                       system that can in theory land it, but a glider is a
                       glider.  Bad gale of wind?  Slightly sticky aileron?
                       Better hope everything goes perfect the first time,
                       every time.
                       \_ Buran can launch and land by itself.
                 \_ So during re-entry the rocket engines at the tail of the
                    orbiter doesn't fire to slow down the orbiter?
                    \_ Nope, as pp noted, there's no fuel tank on the orbiter.
                       It's all about the heat tiles and aerobraking.
                 \_ When I was a kid, the shuttle age the fuel tank used to be
                    be white.  Why did they switch to orange afterwards?
                 \_ When I was a kid, the fuel tank used to be white.  Why did
                    they switch to orange afterwards?
                    \_ to save money on paint.  The External Tank just burns
                       up in the atmosphere after every launch (it is the only
                       part that isn't reused), so little point in a nice paint
                       job for it.
                        \_ money and weight!  every pound matters

7/6     http://csua.org/u/gcb (newsday.com)
        New York's highest court votes 4-2, finding law banning gay marriage
        complies with state constitution.  Affirming justices cite case law
        defining due-process-derived "fundamental rights" as ones that are
        "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" (1977).
        In the 2006 opinion:  "The right to marry is unquestionably a
        fundamental right. The right to marry someone of the same sex, however,
        is not 'deeply rooted'; it has not even been asserted until relatively
        recent times."
        Dissenting:  "Simply put, a history or tradition of discrimination -
        no matter how entrenched - does not make the discrimination
        constitutional. As history has well taught us, separate is inherently
        unequal."

7/6     I just got my macbook. Anyone have any luck using Parallels?

7/6     Finally, apartments under 300 grand in SF!
        http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2006/07/book_concern_bu_1.html
        \_ How Manhattanesque.
        \_ keywords: loft condo 300k manhattan SF real estate crash

7/6     I just got my macbook. Anyone have any experience using Parallels?
        Is it fast (compared to say, bootcamp)?
        \_ It won't be as fast as bootcamp -- the VM has a single CPU,
           not the dual core you get native -- but I've been using it
           and so far it's pretty snappy, particularly in full-screen
           mode.  And it's much more convenient -- lets you set up
           a shared folder to move files between the VM and the Mac.
           Two thumbs up. --dpassage
        \_ Bootcamp is wickedly fast on my Mini.  Parallel is a bit
           slower, but still feels very fast compared to VirtualPC
           (VPC for Windows is slower than Parallels).  One complaint
           I have is that on a MacBook, to suspend the VM, the swapping
           to hard disk takes quite some time when I have around 600MB
           to swap to hard disk.