Sophont

Яџѕѕіаиѕ. Yes, I know that spells Ytdzdziais, don't bother me with details. If Тетяіѕ can do it, I can too. "We went up a short incline. This brought us to an ordinary glass door. We knocked. We waited. We waited. We noticed the doorbell. We rang. We waited. Eventually we grew bold and entered. This brought us into a narrow hallway that had all the indications of being nothing more than drywall, veneer and ceiling tile. We said 'Hello....?' No one answered our question. We proceeded down the hallway flanked by doors, unsure as to whether the desire not to surprise someone for the sake of politeness overrode the rudeness of opening a closed door. At an impasse, we kept walking down the hallway, not opening any doors. But, we rapidly became trapped, when we realized that the only way out of this hallway was to open a door. Because it seemed the least likely to be the entrance to an office, bathroom or weird eastern European slave dungeon, we chose the last door the h...

Herald Sun: [06jul04] : "A KINDERGARTEN painting fetched a staggering $75,000 after a bidding war between two rich parents erupted at a school fundraising event. The colourful abstract of children and animals - painted by a preschool class at St Catherine's school, in Toorak - became an object of fierce competition when the rivals decided they both wanted it. Crazy John's mobile phone millionaire John Ilhan, who had two daughters at the school, confirmed the outlandish price was paid - but not by him. He pulled out when things 'got seriously out of hand'. Mr Ilhan said his eldest daughter, whose classmates all contributed to the painting, had her heart set on taking it home. Mr Ilhan described the work - 100cm by 70cm acrylic on canvas - as colourful and typical of infant art. 'There were a couple of children on it, a couple of animals and a flower, at least I think that's what they were,' Mr Ilhan said. 'Lots of blues and other colours....

Political Puzzle -- The Front Page : "I know you've done it -- we all have done it. Write a check that you didn't have the funds at the moment to cover, but were intending to deposit the next day. We were taking advantage of what is known as the bank 'float.' Well, that is coming to a rapid end. On October 25th, the 'Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act' otherwise known as the 'Check 21' law comes into effect. The current system relies on couriers to transport the actual paper check from bank to clearinghouse to bank before the funds are transfered. For a local check, this process could take up to three days, and up to ten days for an out of state check. People have been taking advantage of this 'float' system for a long time -- essentially giving themselves a 'loan' of money that they didn't actually have. Under Check 21, this system will be replaced with electronic means. The bank, upon receiving the instrument for ...

mainetoday.com : "When Andrew Fleming packed for college, he needed two cars: One for his clothes, computer and mini refrigerator, and the other for his red-tailed hawk Belle and all her gear. Hawks don´t always travel light. In Belle´s case, she needed her perch, food freezer and water tub, among other things. Fleming is not only a student at Unity College, but he´s also a student of falconry, the hunting of wild quarry using birds of prey. So when the freshman showed up at the central Maine campus, Belle was in tow. ........Falconers must have federal as well as state licenses. Maine has 20 licensed falconers, said Mark Stadley of the state Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department. Maine also requires a hunting license is the bird hunts, Stadley said. Novice falconers, who must be at least 16 in Maine, must pass an exam, have a mentor and maintain their apprentice´s status for two years. The next stage, general falconer, covers a minimum of five years. After seven ye...

The New York Times : "Mr. Kerry stepped boldly into the verbal minefield early, arriving at a front-porch session with supporters in Canonsburg, Pa., near Pittsburgh. As he likes to do, he brandished a bit of local color to show he wasn't just any interloping politician blowing through town. ...'Everybody told me, 'God, if you're coming to Canonsburg, you've got to find time to go to Toy's, and he'll take care of you,'' Mr. Kerry said, dropping the name of a restaurant his motorcade had passed on the way in. 'I understand it's my kind of place, because you don't have to - you know, when they give you the menu, I'm always struggling: Ah, what do you want? 'He just gives you what he's got, right?' Mr. Kerry added, continuing steadily off a gangplank of his own making: 'And you don't have to worry, it's whatever he's cooked up that day. And I think that's the way it ought to work, for confused...

poynterextra.org : "The Poynter Institute, the Estlow Center for Journalism and New Media, and Eyetools Inc. in late 2003 took 46 Internet users and looked through their eyes -- utilizing sophisticated and non-intrusive 'eyetracking' equipment -- as they each spent an hour reading news websites and multimedia news content. We used the Eyetools Analysis Solution Suite to capture and process the data and looked to the company's experts to help us compile the initial findings. What we learned is the subject of this website."

Touch-screen voting : "In many ways, politics in the United States are unlike those in Venezuela. The South American nation last month held a recall election for President Hugo Chavez, who survived an attempted coup in 2002. But in another sense, that election may foreshadow the upcoming election in this country. The Venezuelan vote was conducted using electronic voting machines that generate a voter-verified paper trail. Chavez's opposition claimed that the victory, in which 59 percent voted to keep Chavez in power, was rigged. But international election monitors were able to conduct an audit by comparing the paper record to the electronic vote tallies. 'Without a paper trail to audit, there would have been no way to reach any closure on this situation,' said one American observer on the scene in Caracas, Venezuela's capital. 'There would be no paper trail, and you would be left with the assertion that some kind of manipulation happened. You have a safe ...

TheKCRAChannel.com : "With harsh criticism, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ordered the plug pulled on all touch-screen voting machines in the state because of concerns over security. A total of 14 counties and millions of voters were planning to use touch-screens on Election Day in November. The decision goes beyond the recommendations that an advisory panel made earlier this week. It means four California counties that use a specific model of touch-screen machine will definitely have to find another voting system, and 10 other counties that use similar systems will have to do the same, unless the makers of the machines take steps to guarantee every vote gets counted. 'I came about this close to banning outright and decertifying outright with no possibility of reprieve in those 10 counties, as well,' Shelley said. Shelley was upset because touch-screens, and specifically those made by a company called Diebold, have been accused of being vulnerable ...

FrontPage magazine.com - by Mark Steyn : "The scale of the UN Oil-for-Fraud programme is way beyond any of the corporate scandals that so excite the progressive mind. Oil-for-Food was designed to let the Iraqi government sell a limited amount of oil in return for food and other necessities for its people. Between 1996 and 2003, Saddam did more than $100 billion of business, all of it approved by Kofi Annan's Secretariat. In return, by their own official figures, $15 billion of food and health supplies was sent to Iraq. What proportion of this reached the sick and malnourished Iraqi children is anybody's guess. Coalition troops discovered stockpiles of UN food far from starving moppets. But let us assume there is an innocent explanation. Even so, by the UN's own account, Oil-for-Food seemed to involve an awful lot of oil for not much food. Where did all the other billions go? According to Kofi Annan himself, some $31 billion went on other 'humanitarian' sp...

UMHS Press Release : "UPDATE: On April 22, Yoda died peacefully in his cage at the U-M Medical School. He was four years and 12 days old. ANN ARBOR, MI -Yoda, the world's oldest mouse, celebrated his fourth birthday on Saturday, April 10, 2004 . A dwarf mouse, Yoda lives in quiet seclusion with his cage mate, Princess Leia, in a pathogen-free rest home for geriatric mice belonging to Richard A. Miller, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of pathology in the Geriatrics Center of the University of Michigan Medical School. Yoda sniffing his cage mate, Princess Leia. Dwarf mice always are housed with larger females to provide body warmth needed to protect smaller dwarf mice from freezing to death. Photo credit: Richard Miller, U-M Medical School Yoda was born on April 10, 2000 at the U-M Medical School . At 1,462-days-old, Yoda is now the equivalent of about 136 in human-years. The life span of the average laboratory mouse is slightly over two years." “Yoda is only the ...

The Seattle Times : Secret Service agents questioned a high-school student here about anti-war drawings he turned in to his art teacher. One of them depicted President Bush's head on a stick. Another pencil-and-ink drawing depicted Bush as a devil launching a missile, with a caption reading 'End the war" ....The artwork was apparently part of an assignment to keep a notebook of drawings, according to Kevin Cravens of Richland, who said he was a family friend of the boy who was investigated. The drawing that drew the most attention showed a man in what appeared to be Middle Eastern-style clothing, holding a rifle. He also was holding a stick with the oversize head of President Bush on it. The student said the head was enlarged because it was intended to be an effigy, Cravens said. The caption called for an end to the war in Iraq.

OTOFTC Article : "'So you want to know how Take One for the Country started?'. McDonough leans back in her chair, 'It was back in February of 2003, when a lot of troops were leaving Ft. Benning. My girlfriends and I were partying at a bar frequented by soldiers. At some point one my friend leaves with a young soldier. The next day we questioned her and commented that the soldier didn't seem her 'type'. My friend just shrugged and said, 'Hey, his unit was going to ship out in a few days, so I decided to take one for the country', I knew right then and there that this was an incredible idea, so I started Operation Take One for the Country'. McDonough energetically describes exactly what Operation Take One for the Country does, 'First, a military operation would not be a military operation unless we used an acronym, in this case, Op T.O.F.T.C., or as we say 'To-FutK'. Essentially we organize, discreetly, single girls to frequent bars...

bookofhook.com : "When you've invested a lot of effort and made a huge gamble, only to see minimal payoff, it's hard to sit back and objectively analyze why things didn't work out the way you had planned and hoped for. But in order to learn and grow then writing a postmortem helps. With Pyrogon ceasing further development of new titles (but continuing to sell and support existing products for the indefinite future), I thought it would be a good time to sit back and reflect on what went right and what went wrong. The Beginning Pyrogon was started in 2001 as a co-venture between myself (Brian Hook), and Rosie Cosgrove, a fellow coworker from Sony On-line Entertainment. We had sufficient funds of our own to do our own thing for maybe six months, which we felt was plenty of time (oh, the naivete...) to get funding and start a new new game development house."

The Guardian : "Provided that a duchess can see eye-to-eye with the Home Office on growing cannabis, strychnine and cocaine, Britain is about to get the most venomous and hallucinogenic garden it has ever seen. Harking back to medieval times, but with a toxic arsenal that a witch or apothecary could only dream of, the project includes shrubs and creepers so potentially nasty that the designers have suggested growing some of them in cages. Visitors will be kept at a distance from the flowerbeds, with marked boundaries and supervisors enforcing a no-touching policy. The dell at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland will lie under a perpetual miasma of 'deliberately spooky' mist, enlivened by a copper snake rearing from a grotto and hissing vapour, triggered by sensors as visitors creep past. 'It should be quite an experience,' said Caroline Holmes, the garden's poison plant consultant, who takes a gleeful relish in her subject. 'The plants will be f...

Scientific American : "The supermarket is a great place to study human behavior, Trinkaus says. In a 1993 report, he described 75 visits in which he watched the same checkout lane for 15-minute stints. He stood off to the side, holding a shopping cart so as not to attract attention, discreetly keeping records with a handheld counter. He discovered that only 15 percent of the shoppers obeyed the 10-item limit; most exceeded the limit by two items. In a follow-up report in 2002, just 7 percent of the buyers obeyed the limit, and the violators purchased 14 items, on average. People also split large orders in half to meet the posted limit. Shoppers were no better behaved in the bakery department; 90 percent of the shoppers used their hands rather than tongs to select items. The availability of tissue paper helped, but not by much: 60 percent still used their hands. Trinkaus claims that 'all my studies point in the same direction - that things are changing for the worse" in...

The Indian Ten Commandments : I see posters with 'The Indian Ten Commandments:' 1. Remain close to the great spirit. 2. Show great respect for your fellow beings. 3. Be truthful and honest at all times. 4. Do what you know to be right. 5. Look after the well being of mind and body. 6. Treat the Earth and all that dwells there on with respect. 7. Take full responsibility for your actions. 8. Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good. 9. Work together for the benefit of all mankind. 10. Give assistance and kindness whenever needed. These sound cute. But unless these are a brand-new collection developed especially for modern cosmopolitan American Indians, they are also spectacularly ignorant. Don't people remember that the American Indians come from many different tribes, with wildly different cultures and religions? If you want to list religious commands, you should specify which tribe they came from. For example:...

Herald Sun : "Cafe owner Chris Phillips chose an unusual medium to create art - the cafe lattes he serves by the trayful at his Richmond cafe. 'When you pour the milk in and the cream hits, it's just like a blank canvas on which to paint,' the 36-year old said. Mr Phillips and fiancee Bernadette Farrugia started Flavors of Lakhoum in Swan St five years ago and he dabbled with the idea while pouring coffee. 'Sometimes you see swirls and patterns when you're pouring the coffee in, and one day I was pouring it and I saw an eye appear,' he said. 'From there I just drew in a mouth and ears. I've been slowly practising since then, but have got pretty good in the last few months - every month I find ways to add more detail.' The pictures usually only take about 30 seconds, meaning your coffee doesn't suffer for the sake of art."

jwz : "Robert Lefkowitz looked at the old question of whether software is a product or a service by turning to an even older field: horse studs. In days of yore, if you had a mare that you wanted bred with a high-quality horse, you paid for the 'service' of the stallion's owner bringing it over and performing the deed. Nowadays, it's all about artificial insemination. So instead you browse through, ahem, a seed catalog, and purchase however many milliliters of semen from whichever stallion strikes your fancy. Now of course, if you had sufficiently small tweezers (and modern technology does), you could make millions of horse babies from even a tiny sample of semen. But, according to the law and to the terms that you purchase the semen under, you are buying not a product (the semen itself) but... a service. You own the physical material, but you do not own the rights to it. You license the genetic material of the stallion. You perform your own artificial insemi...

THE MAD ADVENTURES OF RABBI JACOB is a comic masterpiece that BOX OFFICE called 'one of the funniest movies from any country' upon its initial theatrical release in 1973. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER described the performance of French comedy superstar Louis de Fun�s as 'reminiscent of Jerry Lewis!' Now a new generation of movie lovers can finally discover this lost comic treasure that the L.A. HERALD EXAMINER called 'a truly entertaining film.' PREORDER: March 23, 2004 - STREET: April 13, 2004 THE INTERNATIONAL SMASH HIT BEAUTIFULLY RESTORED Victor Pivert is a very tolerant man - provided you are white, Catholic, and French. To everyone else, he is a shameless racist, who believes foreigners should go back where they came from. On his way to his daughter's wedding, Victor uncovers a group of scheming Arab revolutionaries. After Victor is discovered, he hides himself by dressing up as a rabbi, leading to one madcap scene after another. THE MAD ADVENTU...

Discover Wizmark , the interactive urinal communicator, its advertising you can't help, but look at. An idea so original it has everyone talking. Wizmark is based on one unwritten rule; when using a urinal, never stare at the person next to you. Every male knows that when he is using a urinal, he can look anyway he wants, except left or right. realizing this unwritten code, the appeal of the concept is that it's assures your ad will effectively reach the elusive male audience. Wizmark is undoubtedly the perfect advertising medium for men of all ages. One-of-a-kind, fully functional interactive devices, Wizmark can talk, sing, or even flash promotional messages. The large anti-glare, water-proof viewing screens are strategically located just above the drain to ensure guaranteed viewing without interruptions. Using the elements of surprise and humor in a truly unique location, Wizmark, and your ad, will make a lasting impression on every male that sees it."