jamotto

Link quote:By TOM CHORNEAU, Associated Press Writer SACRAMENTO, Calif. - One of the state's biggest broadcasters has given 13 Republican county committees $325,000 worth of free air time to promote candidates on its radio and television stations throughout California. Pappas Telecasting Cos., which calls itself the largest privately held broadcast firm in the nation, made the donations earlier this month. Democrats complain the offer unfairly benefits GOP candidates in violation of federal law. An attorney representing Democratic Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, who is seeking re-election in a close race against Republican Dean Gardner, sent a letter Saturday to Pappas demanding equal time. Karen Getman, Parra's lawyer, also complained that campaign finance records do not clearly indicate how the time is being used. "That's one of the things that is so nefarious about this," said Getman, a former chairwoman of the state's Fair Political Practices Commission. A spokesman for Pappas said the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) has reviewed the donations and determined that they do not trigger provisions of federal law that require broadcasters to give all candidates equal broadcast time. The FCC did not respond to calls placed after hours Monday. Michael Angelos, company spokesman, said the donations are being given to county committees and not directly to any candidate. "The donations allow central committees to direct campaign ads to any candidate they wish," he said. Angelos said the company's CEO, Harry J. Pappas, decided to make the contributions that reflect his political views. The company owns 28 stations in 11 states and operates in most of California's major markets, according to the company's Web site. Gardner is the only candidate who has taken advantage of the gift, said his spokesman, Tim Clark. He said the campaign did not ask a lot of questions about where the donation was coming from. "We are in a tough fight," Clark said. "We said we would take anything we can get our hands on." The dispute follows the uproar over reports that Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. planned to require all 62 of its stations to air a program including documentary footage critical of John Kerry (news - web sites)'s opposition to the Vietnam War. The program that eventually aired last week devoted nearly as much coverage to the controversy as the documentary itself.That's sooo generous of them. The republican's must be stoked.

when are you going to join Remo?

Just wanted to say thanks

There is a file called "playmod.txt" in the zip file with instructions. I think, however that playmod does not work in UC?

Thanks, Grizzle will look into it.

quote:Originally posted by Darkness Incarnate: Okay I download it normally. But is it supposed to be a .zip file??Yes, should be called "uc_gbsIII.zip" and hold some 47 files and the MD5 checksum I get is 10FB3FA2B146F249E9D669182092DEF5 quote: And when I open it, is it supposed to ask if I want to install screensaves?mmm, some of the files extensions happen to be .scr which is also the same extension for most screensavers. I guess that what ever program you are using is trying to be too "clever" and is trying to auto install what is in the zip file. In this case it thinks it is dealing with screensavers.

quote:Originally posted by Wolferz: You are only a Star Trek geek if you know what LCARS stands for..... Library Computer Access and Retrieval System

It works now

quote:Originally posted by LostInSpace: Thanks. However, I can't seem to log on it times out at the connecting to server please wait screen.

it shows up in the server list, Lost.

Link quote:CONFLUENCE, Pa. - A man missed a mouse he was trying to shoot with a small-caliber handgun and wounded his girlfriend instead, state police said. Donald Rugg, 43, of Confluence, was trying to kill the rodent with a .22-caliber handgun when his girlfriend, Cathy Jo Harris, 38, apparently went into the line of fire and was hit in the arm early Tuesday morning, state police said. She was taken to Somerset Hospital where she was listed in fair condition Tuesday, said hospital spokesman Greg Chiappelli. Neither Rugg nor Harris could immediately be reached for comment. State police said they won't charge Rugg, but advised against people shooting firearms inside. A broom handle/mousetrap always works for me, times must be changing though.

quote:Originally posted by Fox__Trot: Same thing i do with all my old hardware give it to my friends who cant afford computer hardware but loves playing videogames. yeah he's got a 1.8ghz athalon xp 768mb of ddr ram (pc 2100) and a geforce 2 ultra card ... damn thats a midrange computerah, cool beans he should get a kick out of that graphic's card. I assume you decided on the X800?

just a few tidbits 1.)Bush's Ranch is worth 5 million. 2.)Bush files jointly with his wife. Kerry files separately.

update from CNNCommander relieved of duty in Iraq

Link quote:By AMBER McDOWELL, Associated Press Writer NASHVILLE, Tenn. - People interested in an out-of-this-world post-death experience can "boldly go where no man has gone before" with a space memorial service that blasts their ashes into space. For $995, Space ServicesInc., will place a gram of a person's ashes in an aluminum capsule ÔÇö about the size of four dimes stacked together ÔÇö attach it to a rocket and send it into space. For $4,300 more, seven grams of ashes are transported in a lipstick-size container. "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, who orbited Earth for six years after his death in 1991, is the most famous client of Space Services. Part of the mission of "Star Trek: The Original Series" was "to boldly go where no man has gone before." "It's very compelling for people ... and we've helped open a new frontier," said Charlie Chafer, chief executive of the Houston-based firm. Space Services was among some 440 companies offering their services in Nashville on Tuesday at the annual National Funeral Directors Association Convention, which included booths hawking everything from caskets and hearses to burial gowns and "comfort music" that promotes "growing through grief." Space Services conducted its first "space funeral flight" in 1997 with Roddenberry's ashes and those of 23 participants from all walks of life, including a 4-year-old Japanese boy, a restaurateur from New York and a couple of former NASA scientists. In each flight, Chafer and his eight-person team place the ash-filled capsules in a tube and attach them inside a rocket scheduled to send a satellite into space. Once in orbit, the satellite peels off from the rocket's "last stage," which continues to circle the earth with the capsules inside. "We basically hitchhike," said Chafer, who buys unneeded space from companies that use the crafts to launch satellites ÔÇö typically at a cost of $30,000 a trip. The capsules normally stay in orbit between 10 and several hundred years before falling and "vaporizing like a shooting star," Chafer said. Four other trips followed the 1997 flight, culminating with the company's most recent launch in September 2001. Chafer said that trip, which included the remains of 50 people, was not successful because the capsule did not orbit Earth one full time. They'll get a second chance at no charge when flights resume this January with more than 100 scheduled participants ÔÇö the first of three launches planned for 2005. Chafer says he's seen an upswing in business as cremation has increased in popularity across the country and abroad. In 2002, about 28 percent of Americans chose cremation over traditional burial, and that number is expected to grow to almost 43 percent by 2025, according to the Cremation Association of North America. Eternal Ascent Society, a Crystal River, Fla.-based exhibitor at the convention, also was looking to capitalize on that growth. For $1,000, the company fills a 5-foot-wide helium balloon with about a pound of ash, which family members release into the air during a special ceremony, said George Hampton, whose mother and stepfather founded the company. Across the way from Eternal Ascent's booth, an Illinois-based company was using science to turn carbon from the cremation process into diamonds for the family of the deceased. The jewelry, which comes in either gold or blue, gives the family a way to "keep their loved one with them," said Rusty VandenBiesen, chief operating officer for LifeGem. "People find it a comfort," he said. "A new way to celebrate the life of a loved one."

Link quote:By Steve Connor, Science Editor 17 October 2004 The mind-altering power of advertising has been demonstrated in a remarkable study of the way in which brand recognition affects the workings of the human brain. A well-known label is so influential, say researchers, that it can alter consumers' perception of the product's taste. They believe the findings are particularly important given the role that sugared soft drinks have on the epidemic of childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes. The experiment, a laboratory-controlled version of the famous Pepsi Challenge, revealed that flavour seems to be the last thing that consumers rely on in their preference for Pepsi or Coca-Cola. When asked to taste blind, they showed no preference. However, when the participants were shown company logos before they drank, the Coke label, the more famous of the two, had a dramatic impact: three-quarters of the tasters declared they preferred Coke. At the same time the researchers found that the Coke label stimulated a huge increase in activity in parts of the brain associated with cultural knowledge, memory and self-image - so much that the scientists could use brain scans to predict which soft drink an individual was likely to prefer. The Pepsi label produced no such increase. It is believed to be the first time that brand marketing has been shown to have a direct effect on the brain's capacity to make a choice. Although the finding seems calculated to delight the marketing industry, it suggests that a handful of iconic brands have a particular hold on the public mind. Coca-Cola is so firmly established that it changed our perception of Christmas by persuading us that Santa Claus wears red. This "tradition" is believed to be largely the result of decades of December advertising in which Santa sported the company's corporate colour. The findings suggest there is no scientific basis for claims made during the Pepsi ad campaign in which testers purportedly chose Pepsi over Coke when they were not told what they were drinking. "We initially measured these behavioural preferences by administering double-blind taste tests," the researchers say in their study, published in the current issue of the journal Neuron. "We found that subjects split equally in their preference for Coke and Pepsi in the absence of brand information." The scientists chose Pepsi and Coke because the two drinks are almost indistinguishable in colour and taste yet many people express a definite preference for one or the other soft drink. "Everybody's heard of Coke and Pepsi. They have messages and, in the case of Coke, those message have insinuated themselves in our nervous system," Dr P Read Montague, director of the Brown Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at Baylor College in Houston, Texas, said. "There's a huge effect of the Coke label on brain activity related to the control of actions, the dredging up of memories and self-image. There is a response in the brain which leads to a behavioural effect." Simply looking at a person's brain scan, the scientists were able to predict which soft drink the individual concerned was likely to prefer. "We were stunned by how easy this was," Dr Montague said. The ventral putamen, which is involved in reward-related learning, was active when people drink Coke or Pepsi. This is expected as the brain treats the pleasant taste of sugared water as a reward. However, the scans also showed that the hippocampus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, areas of the brain involved in recalling emotions and cultural memories, were involved when the volunteers were exposed to the Coke brand. The Pepsi brand, meanwhile, had virtually no effect. Dr Montague said that the work can help to understand why people form eating or drinking habits that may not be good for their health. "We are not trying to figure out how to market something better. We want to be able to better understand how brains work so that we can cure more neurological disorders."

quote:Originally posted by Kalshion: Actually, we should give's the Japanese School System a try The thing I don't like about the Japanese school system is the overuse of entrance exams for elementary schools and high schools everybody should have equal opportunity to enroll, especially at above mentioned level of education.

Thanks for the link LostInSpace. Perhaps we should give the German's school system a try? An Overview of the German System of Education

Link quote:By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Intel Corp.'s chief executive on Tuesday decried the lack of attention by the presidential nominees to how the United States is losing its competitive edge over other nations on education, technological infrastructure and research and development. "This is what you don't see being debated by our two presidential candidates today," Craig Barrett told several thousand workers from the high-tech industry at the Gartner Symposium ITXPO at Walt Disney World. In the past decade, 3 billion people from India, China, Russia and Eastern Europe have joined the world economic system, Barrett said. Many of them have well-educated engineers and they're going to compete with the United States for jobs, he added. "What we're debating about instead is how we're going to protect a textile worker in South Carolina," Barrett said. "The future of the United States is not pillowcases." Unlike the Soviet Union's launching of Sputnik in 1957, which was a sudden wake-up call in the United States that the nation was falling behind technologically, the current decline has been incremental, said Barrett, who described Americans as "blase" about information technology. "The United States, unfortunately, is very good at ignoring incremental messages," he said. Barrett said the nearly $20 billion the United States annually spends on agricultural subsidies could be better spent on education and research and development. "What do you think the industry of the 21st century is going to be? Agriculture?" he said. "We're sending our workers into the marketplace with a disadvantage: their education. "We'll wake up to that eventually. I wish it was part of the debate. But you didn't see it in any of the three presidential debates."

quote:Originally posted by Kalshion: I'm guessing you havn't kept yourself up to the date on the latest scare tactic's that the democrat's have been spewing.. but that's for another thread [/QB] well the democrats have catch up with all the one's the republicans where spewing earlier this year.

Link some of their selling points are [*]Web forms have a hard time with your e-mail address [*]people have a hard time typing your e-mail address [*]Companies think the address is a fake [*]longest alphabetical address on Earth!

Link quote:Wal-mart wants every CD you buy to cost less than ten bucks. And the nation's largest retailer -- which moved a quarter of a trillion dollars' worth of goods last year -- usually gets its way. Suppliers who don't accede to Wal-Mart's "everyday low price" mantra often find their products bounced from the chain's stores, excluded from being sold to the 138 million people who shop at a Wal-Mart store every week. In the past decade, Wal-Mart has quietly emerged as the nation's biggest record store. Wal-Mart now sells an estimated one out of every five major-label albums. It has so much power, industry insiders say, that what it chooses to stock can basically determine what becomes a hit. "If you don't have a Wal-Mart account, you probably won't have a major pop artist," says one label executive. Along with other giant retailers such as Best Buy and Target, Wal-Mart willingly loses money selling CDs for less than $10 (they buy most hit CDs from distributors for around $12). These companies use bargain CDs to lure consumers to the store, hoping they might also grab a boombox or a DVD player while checking out the music deals. Less-expensive CDs are something consumers have been demanding for years. But here's the hitch: Wal-Mart is tired of losing money on cheap CDs. It wants to keep selling them for less than $10 -- $9.72, to be exact -- but it wants the record industry to lower the prices at which it purchases them. Last winter, Wal-Mart asked the industry to supply it with choice albums -- from new releases from alternative rockers the Killers to perennial classics such as Beatles 1 -- at favorable prices. According to music-industry sources, Wal-Mart executives hinted that they could reduce Wal-Mart's CD stock and replace it with more lucrative DVDs and video games. "This wasn't framed as a gentle negotiation," says one label rep. "It's a line in the sand -- you don't do this, then the threat is this." (Wal-Mart denies these claims.) As a result, all of the major labels agreed to supply some popular albums to Wal-Mart's $9.72 program. "We're in such a competitive world, and you can't reach consumers if you're not in Wal-Mart," admits another label executive. Tensions are not as high now as they were last winter, but making sure Wal-Mart is happy remains one of the music industry's major priorities. That's because if Wal-Mart cut back on music, industry sales would suffer severely -- though Wal-Mart's shareholders would barely bat an eye. While Wal-Mart represents nearly twenty percent of major-label music sales, music represents only about two percent of Wal-Mart's total sales. "If they got out of selling music, it would mean nothing to them," says another label executive. "This keeps me awake at night." Wal-Mart would not directly comment on tensions with the labels, but Gary Severson, Wal-Mart's senior vice president and general merchandise manager in charge of the chain's entertainment section, did allude to the dispute about music prices. "The labels price things based on what they believe they can get -- a pricing philosophy a lot of industries have," he says. "But we like to price things as cheaply as we possibly can, rather than charge as much as we can get. It's a big difference in philosophy, and we try to help other people see that." Virtually no industry executives would publicly comment about their company's relationship with Wal-Mart. But off the record, many record-industry executives shared their concerns. "I don't think there is a music supplier in America who really enjoys doing business with Wal-Mart," says one major-label rep. No one in the music business ever expected Wal-Mart to become the most powerful force in record retailing. In the past, the business was shared among smaller local and regional chains such as Musicland, which once had an estimated ten percent of the market. But as Wal-Mart and other national discount operations such as Target and Best Buy have grown -- approximately half of all major-label music is sold through these three -- an estimated 1,200 record stores have closed in the past two years, according to market-research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail. Last February, Tower Records, with ninety-three stores, declared bankruptcy and is now up for sale; Musicland has already changed owners, with many local outposts shuttered. Wal-Mart is like no traditional record seller. Unlike a typical Tower store, which stocks 60,000 titles, an average Wal-Mart carries about 5,000 CDs. That leaves little room on the shelf for developing artists or independent labels. There's also scant space for catalog albums, which now represent about forty percent of all sales. At a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Thorton, Colorado, for example, there were no copies of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street or Nirvana's Nevermind. While most of the latest hits were priced at $13.88, some records -- from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack to the latest by Yellowcard -- were displayed for $9.72. Says Severson, "Paying fifteen dollars for a piece of music is a difficult value equation for customers." For the music industry, having such a dominant retailer is like being stuck in a bad marriage. Whereas traditional music retailers took advertising money from the labels to push new releases in Sunday newspaper circulars, Wal-Mart barely advertises locally. It relies on national campaigns, where it promotes its own low-price policy. "Wal-Mart has no long-term care for an individual artist or marketing plan, unlike the specialty stores, which were a real business partner," says one former distribution executive. "At Wal-Mart, we're a commodity and have to fight for shelf space like Colgate fights for shelf space." In the same way that Wal-Mart made it difficult for local mom-and-pop retailers to compete with its low prices, it has hurt smaller music stores. "When you're buying CDs for twelve dollars and selling them for ten like Wal-Mart, it makes the rest of us look like we're gouging the customer, when we're not," says Don Van Cleave, head of the Coalition for Independent Music Stores, a retail consortium. "It's supertough to compete with that price point." Even online, Wal-Mart sells songs for eighty-eight cents, compared with ninety-nine cents at the market leader, Apple iTunes Music Store. Getting Wal-Mart excited about carrying a record is at the top of every label's to-do list, but it's harder than it sounds. There is an immense cultural chasm between slick industry executives and Severson's team of three music buyers at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Only one of the three had ever worked in music retailing -- until that person moved to a new division in August and was replaced by someone who previously bought Wal-Mart's salty snacks. (Wal-Mart also relies on buyers at its two distribution companies, Handleman and Anderson Merchandisers, who purchase records as well as stock the Wal-Mart stores.) "Content-wise, Wal-Mart is limited about what they sell," says one label chieftain. "Wal-Mart is Middle America's shopping headquarters, with different buying habits and consumer tastes than those who live in Manhattan and L.A." When founder Sam Walton christened the first Wal-Mart in 1962, music was never a priority -- it wasn't an everyday, easy-to-stock product like light bulbs, since the Top Ten changed so much. The chain also had specific objections to music. Walton wanted all stores to remain family-friendly, and in the rural South, rock & roll had the potential to turn away many customers. In 1986, the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart led one such campaign to ban music from Wal-Mart, saying rock fostered "adultery, alcoholism, drug abuse, necrophilia, bestiality and you name it." Albums and magazines about rock (including Rolling Stone) were temporarily pulled from the Wal-Mart shelves. Wal-Mart's wariness about music ended once the music industry adopted a voluntary advisory sticker on albums deemed to contain adult language or sexual content. Today, before any new album is released, someone at each label is charged with asking, "Do we have any Wal-Mart issues?" If an advisory sticker is placed on an album, the label will put out a clean version about ninety percent of the time. Since the edited version of a hit record usually averages only about ten percent of a record's total sales, they do it mostly to keep Wal-Mart happy. Wal-Mart has loosened up a bit, too. Eminem's albums, stickered or not, are not carried by the chain, but it does sell the 8 Mile soundtrack. And it carries an edited version of 50 Cent's debut. Since the labels are so adept at self-policing, though, censorship controversies are now rare. "There have been examples in the past, but it's not a current issue," says Severson. Wal-Mart has also urged the labels to create exclusive new products that would lower music prices. In a short-lived test, Universal excerpted seven songs from existing albums by acts such as Sum 41 and Ashanti and sold them at Wal-Mart for $7. Few other labels wanted to participate. "They proposed it to a bunch of artists and managers, but everyone was worried that we are sending a message that instead of the sixteen-track album we sold, those nine extra songs were filler," says a label executive. Some record executives think they can survive Wal-Mart's push. They argue that the hottest acts will always command a premium price. "50 Cent sold 7 million copies," says one rep, "and I guarantee that many of those sold for fifteen, sixteen dollars." And they believe that Wal-Mart will want to carry those hits because they draw customers. "If they can't find a record at Wal-Mart, people will go elsewhere," says one executive. "We should play hardball." But each label is watching the others to see if any make major concessions to Wal-Mart's demands for lower prices. A label that gives in could gain shelf space at the expense of another. "If you lose an account, one of your rivals could get more product in the store and get one up on everyone else," says a major-label rep. "You have to tread cautiously." The tug of war between the labels and Wal-Mart isn't going away soon. The chain is aggressively opening new stores -- fifty-seven in October -- including some in urban areas. So unless it makes good on its threat to cut back on its music section, it will continue to grow as the top record store and become even more powerful. Laments one industry rep, "There is some impending doom associated with us not helping them." Price War: Does a CD have to cost $15.99? Major labels insist that the low prices mass retailers such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy demand are impossible for them to achieve. But Best Buy senior vice president Gary Arnold counters, "The record industry needs to refine their business models, because the consumer is the ultimate arbitrator. And the consumer feels music isn't properly priced." Labels point to roster cuts and layoffs as evidence that they can't sell CDs cheaper. This breakdown of the cost of a typical major-label release by the independent market-research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail shows where the money goes for a new album with a list price of $15.99. $0.17 Musicians' unions $0.80 Packaging/manufacturing $0.82 Publishing royalties $0.80 Retail profit $0.90 Distribution $1.60 Artists' royalties $1.70 Label profit $2.40 Marketing/promotion $2.91 Label overhead $3.89 Retail overhead ...and the evil empire rolls on

Link quote:PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Betty Hill, whose tale of being abducted by aliens launched her to fame and became the subject of a best-selling book and television movie, has died. She was 85. Hill died at her home Sunday after a battle with lung cancer. Hill claimed that she and her husband, Barney, were abducted by extraterrestrials in New Hampshire's White Mountains on a trip home from Canada in 1961. The Hills were puzzled when they arrived home and noticed Betty's torn and stained dress, Barney's scuffed shoes, shiny spots on their car, stopped watches and no memory of two hours of the drive. Under hypnosis three years later, they recounted being kidnapped and examined by aliens. The couple gained international notoriety after going public with their story, traveling across the country to give speeches and making numerous television and radio appearances. Their story also became the focus of John G. Fuller's 1966 best-selling book, "Interrupted Journey," and a television movie starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons. Hill retired from UFO lecturing in her 70s and complained that the quest for knowledge about extraterrestrials had become tainted with commercialism. Too many people with "flaky ideas, fantasies and imaginations" were making UFO and abduction reports, she told The Associated Press in a 1991 interview. "If you were to believe the numbers of people who are claiming this, it would figure out to 3,000 to 5,000 abductions in the United States alone every night," she said. "There wouldn't be room for planes to fly." She also said media had fueled UFO fiction. "The media presented them as huge craft, all brightly lighted and flashing, but they are not," she said in a 1997 AP interview. "They are small, with dim lights, and many times they fly with no lights." Hill had gone a bit commercial herself, trying to fight UFO fantasies with a 1995 self-published book, "A Common Sense Approach to UFOs." Before devoting her life to UFOs, Hill had been a state social worker specializing in adoptions and training foster parents. Her husband died in 1969.