wouldn’t it be great if i HAD SOME FUCKING COFFEE?!?!?!?

Here’s how to prepatch your XP Setup CD once, and never have to install SP2 on your computer again, especially for those people out there who still only have an XP service pack 1 disc.

………how to completely rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation without losing data, and without having to reinstall user software, reformat, or otherwise destructively alter the setup……

WHAT: A way to make objects invisible. The trick is to use metamaterial, a complex hybrid structure of metal and insulator that makes light move around an object like air flowing over an airplane wing. In a process called refraction, these materials interact with light in such a way that it travels faster through the metamaterial than it does through a vacuum, the famed c in Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Properly tuned, the light emerges from the shield as if there were no object present. But unfortunately for would-be spies, it’s very difficult to make cloaking devices that work on more than one wavelength of light at a time.

WHY: Military stealth. A B-2 bomber isn’t truly invisible to radar. It just absorbs and redirects the radar waves, making the plane much harder to spot (its radar signature is the size of a pigeon rather than an aircraft). A bomber, tank or building covered in a radar-sensitive metamaterial shield would literally disappear from radar screens.

WHEN: For certain applications, commercial deploy- ment could be within a decade. The best-studied metamaterials work only on microwaves. Duke University physicist David R. Smith hopes to shield a toaster-size object from microwave frequencies within the next six months. Metamaterials that work on visible light—which isn’t a single frequency but a spectrum of frequencies—are at a more primi- tive state. A specific meta- material design would be required to redirect each frequency in the visible range, and integrating that many components into a device might take 10 years for the initial lab demonstration alone.

WHO: The mathematical models were developed independently by two groups, the first led by Ulf Leonhardt at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the second by Smith with John Pendry of Impe- rial College London. Smith could soon prove the concept experimentally.

FAQs

Has anyone made a metamaterial?
Yes. Scientists in the U.S. and the U.K. have made metamaterials with what’s called a negative index of refraction. Generally, these metamaterials are coiled metal wires surrounded by air or another insulator and affect only microwave radiation. Can the cloaking be perfect? Almost. Any metamaterial absorbs a little bit of light and therefore casts a slight shadow.

Could an actual cloak ever hide a person?
Yes, but current designs would work only if you painted yourself all one color. A cloak, which for comfort’s sake needs to be pretty thin, could bend radiation of just a single frequency, so it could only hide an object of one color. There’s a possibility, though, that a thick shell could include a wider variety of metamaterials and broaden the invisibility to multiple frequencies.

What would the inside of the cloak look like?
If a cloak worked over the entire spectrum, the lack of light would make the inside black, and you wouldn’t be able to see outside. No one knows exactly what would happen if you turned on a flashlight inside the cloak.

The movie Predator features invisibility in the camouflage of an alien hunter. Guess what? It was a fairly realistic fictional presentation of the phenomenon, says physicist David R. Smith.

Engineer Susumu Tachi of Tokyo University demonstrates an “invisibility” cloak. Instead of bending light, it projects an image of a background onto the wearer’s front.

A video simulation of an invisibility-equipped Aston Martin.

……….below is a brief statement I have written in response to those who perpetrate the relentless propaganda about MDMA, but I would appreciate any *brief* corrections or additions that you might have to offer:

MDMA (ecstasy) stimulates dopamine release at low doses and serotonin release at high doses.

Neurotoxic effects are often exaggerated, and can be blocked by administering a SSRI shortly after taking MDMA.

The doses required to achieve neurotoxicity in many of the animal studies is often at least five times the doses used by humans on a milligram per kilogram basis.

Studies of past MDMA users which have demonstrated some slight memory impairments have always included poly-substance abusers so it is never clear whether MDMA was by itself responsible for the deficit.

The neurotoxicity findings are definitely cause for concern-abusing lots of MDMA all the time doesn’t sound like a very good idea, but these findings certainly don’t demonstrate that MDMA has an unacceptable level of toxicity to prohibit its use in psychotherapy, or even to pose a significant risk to occasional users.

Ecstasy has been around in popular use for twenty years, and in fact, there has not been an epidemic of depression or any other serotonin-related health problems among past MDMA users.

The Ricaurte Lab, which produced many of these findings and takes in a lot of government “drug war” money to demonize MDMA, recentlyhad to retract an article they published in Science. In this non-human primate study, they claimed that one dose of MDMA could cause permanent Parkinson’s-like symptoms by damaging dopamine-releasing neurons. In their retraction, they claimed that their MDMA bottle actually contained methamphetamine, and blamed the drug company. The drug company responded that this sort of mix-up simply never happens. Many respected scientists called this a major scandal and called for an investigation.

In fact, recently, an article published at nature.com reported how ecstasy was an effective therapy for Parkinson’s disease in mice: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050801/full/050801-3.html . MDMA was the
most effective among 60 different compounds tried.

However, many users do report a mild to moderate rebound depression for a few days after MDMA use, which can be reduced by either taking tryptophan supplements before the trip or an SSRI near the peak of the trip. Interestingly, depressed patients on SSRIs have a reduced effect of ecstasy, presumably because their serotonin receptors are already down regulated.

Your ability to achieve your own happiness is the key measure of your success, of how well you are doing as a person.

You learn the key to happiness that has been the same through all of history. You learn how to dispel the two myths that may be holding you back and how to achieve more happiness in everything you do.

Dedicate Yourself to Your Best Talents

The key to happiness is this: dedicate yourself to the development of your natural talents and abilities by doing what you love to do, and doing it better and better in the service of a cause that is greater than yourself.

This is a big statement and a big commitment. Being happy requires that you define your life in your own terms and then throw your whole heart into living your life to the fullest. In a way, happiness requires that you be perfectly selfish in order to develop yourself to a point where you can be unselfish for the rest of your life.

Please Yourself First

In Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano is asked why he is so intensely individualistic and unconcerned with the opinions and judgments of others. He replies with these wonderful words: “I am what I am because early in life I decided that I would please at least myself in all things.”

Your happiness likewise depends upon your ability to please at least yourself in all things. You can be happy only when you are living your life in the very best way possible. No one can define happiness for you. Only you know what makes you happy. Happiness is an inside job.

Your Happiness is Up to You

The biggest myth about happiness is when people say that it is not legitimate or correct for you to put your happiness ahead of everyone else’s. Throughout my life, I’ve met people who have said that it is more important to make other people happy than it is to make yourself happy. This is nonsense.

The fact is that you can’t give away to anyone else what you don’t have for yourself. Just as you can’t give money to the poor if you don’t have any, you can’t make someone else happy if you yourself are miserable.

The very best way to assure the happiness of others is to be happy yourself and then to share your happiness with them. Suffering and self-sacrifice merely depress and discourage other people. If you want to make others happy, start by living the kind of life and doing the kind of things that make you happy.