a friend who worked @ nhtsa told me the audi investigation showed gas pedals mangled by the operators, who insisted they were braking;-\

keep 'em in the dark, feed 'em shit, then can 'em;-\

that was a cdc 6400 in 1968

i started on punchcards in college on a cdc mainframe: drop the deck in the tray outside the machine room, operator periodically runs them, puts the output in the out tray, hours later...

i improved my turnaround by dating 1 of the operators;-)

probably;-)

lucky 4 me i won't be around that long;-}

http://www.theguardian.com/the...

and having an imaginary friend means u r never alone, very comforting...

al got it wrong: god_is_the dice of the universe;-) "acts of god" are all random events...and in texas football is a religion, based on a random event generator: the points on the oblate spheroid guarantee random bounding, unlike roundball;-)

indeed one can be moral w/o religion, but most people need help, and what better way to motivate them than thru fear of eternal damnation...words create images in our imaginations;-}

the bible also sez get ur drinking water _upstream_ from ur latrine, so of course all religions evolved thru natural selection;-) in a pre-literate world how do u pass on such survival tips? oral traditions wrap them in mnemonic narratives, and how better to enforce their practice than gods' gonna zap u (b4 lightning was understood, which wasn't all that long ago*) if u don't?-)

the downside is when those narratives are elevated to blind obedience/conformity...

*like the response of an undamped resonant system to a step function: we're still oscillating to the introduction of fire ffsake...prometheus caused global warming;-)

i've always thought singing was the mechanism for the physical bennies: improves breathing/blood oxygenation...and where else can u sing out loud in public w/o appearing loony;-)

i forget: the 1st pres. on 24 was black, the 2nd a woman, but were they the same or opposite parties? are we doomed to follow a fox storyline?

anything the ex(yay!)atty general of virginia (of transvaginal ultrasound fame) is automatically suspect...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

under ITAR, the government classifies software as arms, which are not restricted to the 18th century, thus the right of individuals to keep & bear software is covered under the 2nd amendment as well as the 1st. but to bear s/w it must execute on h/w; thus any mechanism to remove h/w from the control of their owners is in violation of the 2nd...i don't understand why the tbaggers aren't all over this, but i imagine it's because it's more compliucated to undersand than burning snow;-}

they shouldn't be allowed to refuse to pay for blood transfusions either...