Many open-source projects need more than just programmers. If you have an artistic bent, whether it's musical or with actual artwork, look around and see if there are any open-source games that require input.

In my case, I contributed (as 'Pangloss') to an open-source remake and update of 'Elite' (the first open-ended 3D space trading and combat game) called Oolite. Once you learn a few things about the game, you start posting hints and tips for other people on the forum and before you know it you're getting involved in multi-participant submissions and developing planets like you're Slartibartfast...

According to the libertarian (and Koch-funded) Tax Foundation, California has paid more into federal coffers than it has taken in federal spending since 1986 ( http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html page 5). And its share that it has given has grown in relation to the amount that it has taken.

There are eighteen states that actually pay their own way, or better, according to the latest data they have collected

( http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html they're in the process of collecting funds for an updated look at more recent numbers). Seventeen of those states went for Obama / Biden in 2008.

One does not have to be a conservative to pass judgment on states leeching government money, but it helps perhaps to be in one when 94.4% of the states that do pay their own way went Democratic in the last Presidential election.

The question is therefore not "why is California spending so much more?", but why are the Red States outstripping California's spending with nothing to back up THEIR leeching ways, playing bootstrappy cowboy at the expense of people in LA, New York, Chicago, etc.?

...and as the rebuttal, you post a link from a pro-oil-and-gas drilling industry front group formed by the American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and dozens of additional industry organizations specifically set up for the purpose of denouncing legislation proposed by a representative from Colorado to regulate underground hydraulic fracturing fluids? A group funded by the El Paso Corporation, XTO Energy, Occidental Petroleum, BP, Anadarko, Marathon, EnCana, Chevron, Talisman, Shell, API, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Halliburton, Schlumberger and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association? A website registered by the PR firm Dittus Communications (now known as FD Americas Public Affairs) which boasts on its website that "energy clients have formed the backbone of FD Americas Public Affairs’ clientele for more than a decade."? With clients such as Alabama Power, American Energy Alliance, Center for Clean Air Policy, Consumer Energy Alliance, FutureGen, Georgia Power, Independent Petroleum Association of America, and the Institute for Energy Research?

And the phone number they have, (202) 346-8825, is the same phone number as the number for the previously mentioned Institute for Energy Research, an organization whose President (Robert L. Bradley) was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron and a former speechwriter for their old CEO Kenneth Lay... you mean THAT website?

I wonder why you posted anonymously...

No sex. Less space than a girlfriend. Lame.

I keed, I keed. Happy VD, all.

What?

Winston Smith and his viewscreen without an Off switch, is that you?!?

Conservatives, scientifically, are more scared of loud noises and scary pictures, were described as being frightened and easily offended as three year olds, and have a larger 'fear' center and smaller 'anticipation and decision-making' center

This isn't spin, it's established science. So seeing fear, anti-government sentiment, and a parroting of the Glenn Beckesque rhetoric that's unfortunately a large part of the news here in the US right now doesn't surprise me one bit.

New TRON movie? Dillinger had a combination computer / monitor / desk at ENCOM in 1982.

Word for word, that is.

Can timothy confirm if he's the same person that submitted this to Fark? Or is Fark stealing headlines (with the added advantage of making money from t-shirts of the headline, should anyone wish to buy one)?

Asimov stories featuring robots and deceit: one short story has a candidate that people think is a robot, but this islaid to rest when the candidate punches out a loud-mouthed yob at a function. Only at the end of the story, it's revealed the yob was also a humaniform robot. The candidate did not harm a human, but was also not exactly being truthful in all regards concerning the situation. However, since nobody thought to take the conspiracy idea a step further and accuse both the candidate AND the protesting reprobate of being robots, the robot was able to run with no further questions concerning his humanity and was elected. Wish I could remember the story's name.

There was another story, can't remember its name (help with these story titles please, people) where the android sees that a woman left at home is emotionally harmed because her husband pays her no attention. So it romances the woman in an attempt to alleviate the First Law conflict.

There's also the "Zeroth Law", where the robot would not allow the whole of human civilization to come to harm through action or inaction. Because there are so many conflicting desires in groups of people, and making one decision that helps one group may emotionally hurt a second group, the robots elect to withdraw and watch mankind from a distance as they colonize the galaxy. I remember this happens at the end of the Foundation trilogy.

We are all made of stars.

Sounds impressive, until you think of how many of these fragments were flying around in all directions.

Think of it as a More Dakka situation of stellar proportions.

And I don't just think it's products. The first time I noticed it was this spring. My wife and I had a long weekend in Boston, and for weeks afterwards I was receiving banner ads to buy Red Sox tickets (as a Yankees fan, ain't happening if they're not there). We didn't reserve the hotel room online, but we did do a lot of online tourism thanks to Google Maps StreetView. More recently, I was looking for a backup battery for my iPhone. An external portable charger that could top up the 'phone and then rechange itself either by wall socket or 12v in-car. My Google Desktop shows me I looked at TheNerds.net at a few, and I eventually bought the Griffin PowerJolt Reserve at Target. Every ad for TheNerds I've seen since has the PowerJolt on it. OK already, it's good, I just didn't buy it from you!

With the breaking news in the last 24 hours that the dangerous radical Saudi financing the 'Ground Zero' 'Mosque' through a series of charities was none other than the largest non-Murdoch shareholder of Fox News , is there a connection to any of these blogs and Alwaleed Bin Talal, the man Fox News itself says funds radical madrasses all over the world? Do any of these blogs have connections to members of think-tanks and PACs like The Heritage Foundation or FreedomWorks? Secretive organizations which appear often on a news channel funded by this same Saudi money that many on Fox News openly question may have financial ties to Iran?

Search YouTube for Star Wars revisited. A fan by the name of adywan has created his own Special Editions of the original trilogy ...including The Imperial March into the Battle of Yavin IV, as well as there actually being thirty Rebel ships to count (and a bucketload more in the dogfighting department) are included. Episode IV is available in its entirity in 13 parts.

As a teaser, here is the beginning of the battle (YouTube video) showing the DVD version and adywan's version. Notice the engines are now red instead of pink, the increase in ship numbers as mentioned above, and how the gas giant of Yavin is now viewable in cockpit scenes. The annoying discrepancy with the screen countdown (where '7 minutes' to the Rebel base was shown as 18 seconds, counting in 1/24ths of a second) has also been corrected.

40 Celsius is 104 Fahrenheit. Maybe room temperature in Arizona.