(in a long Apple-vs-Microsoft article)

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“Over time, proprietary standards always lose because industry standards always win because you get more for less,” said Michael A. George, the general manager of Dell’s consumer business. Dell has just introduced a 5-gigabyte music player, using the Windows standard, for $199, some $50 less than Apple’s iPod Mini, which has 4 gigabytes.

Am I the only one who spots the irony in this?

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God is een ouwe lul met een lange baard die ook niet vies is van een Geitje hier en daar. Zo, pak me nu maar op, want minister Donner van justitie wil kijken of de wet niet wat aangescherpt kan worden om godslastering strafbaar te stellen.

A deserted street in the western part of Fallujah, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004. About 80 percent of the city was said to be under U.S. control, with insurgents pushed into a narrow corner. But the battle has claimed at least 24 American lives and wounded about 170 U.S. troops, and violence has now spread to other Sunni Muslim areas of Iraq.(AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

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Ever wonder what YOU can do to help????
The answer is here on this page. Now YOU can wear the current threat level on your chest, like a sign or a message, alerting your communities and neighbors to the current Danger. What better way to kill Terror!

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Let me address this issue by invoking another physics principle: conservation of mass. More specifically, let me talk about the conservation of carbon atoms. When you digest food, its carbon atoms enter your blood. Unless they are expelled from your body, they add to your weight. But here is the salient observation: the only effective way your body has to get rid of digested carbon is to combine it with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, and then expel it through your lungs. Unless you breathe out the carbon, you gain weight.

Here are some numbers, taken from books on exercise physiology. Fat, protein, and sugar all contain about 0.1 gram of carbon per food calorie consumed. So if you digest 2,000 calories of food (a typical daily diet for adults) then you take in about 200 grams of carbon. At rest, each breath exhales about 0.5 liter of air containing about 1 percent carbon, for about five milligrams per breath. After a day at 12 breaths per minute, you get rid of about 120 grams of carbon. That’s less than you ate, so you’ll gain weight.

But few of us spend the whole day resting. Walking increases your respiration by a factor of two to three. Running at eight kilometers per hour (five miles per hour) increases it by a factor of eight to 10. Put together a nice combination, and you’ll lose all the carbon you consumed, and your weight will be stable. Walking, running, and being active does increase your metabolism–the rate at which you burn calories–and it increases your breathing rate too.

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s part of sweeping “economic restructuring” implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations — including seeds the Iraqis themselves developed over hundreds of years. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo: Pay Monsanto, or starve.

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Political tempers are running hot even after the election. On Saturday, Gary Jimenez discovered two tires slashed on his Volvo station wagon with its four anti-Bush bumper stickers. Lest he miss the point, the vandals left a note on the windshield that said: “We voted . . . Now you can either move to another country (maybe France, Germany, Iran or Pakistan will take you) or stop your whiney belly aching. This country was founded by righteous God-fearing men of integrity like George W. Bush. Now, take off these bumper stickers. We don’t want to see them again.”