onoway

Would there be any earthly use for this talent? A human generating station? This from the Discovery Channel. Austin Richards, from Santa Barbara, California, is known as Dr. Megavolt. He is a physicist with a love of lightning. At eight years old he was fascinated for the first time by a Tessler Coil, which throws out miniature bolts of lightning. Austin was so intrigued he built his own Tessler Coil, which gives out 150,000-volt bursts of lightning that he channels across his body by wearing a Faraday suit. Austin’s aim is to construct a mega-coil that will shoot 35ft bolts from his hands and head.

In my choice, enjoyment vs winning, I think there is a balance that partnerships need to find that both are comfortable with.and this seems very difficult to achieve. To wish to enjoy the game doesn't at all mean a player is not competitive, but that his/her ultimate priority might be different than that of a player who wishes to win to the point that enjoyment of the game is secondary. I would assume this applies more the further down the scale you go from professional players...

Happy Birthday Rona. Thanks for all you do for IAC and I hope you have a blast today. B)

malignant narcissism? that's two, ..the first is just to clarify the degree...

I found another but unfortunately no lyrics, should have waite to post until I tracked the song down,not just the link sorry

I don't know if this is connected but I found this dated 1925 http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0015921/plotsummary

One of our early Prime Ministers. William Lyon McKenzie King was a highly successful politician ( PM from 1921-1930 & 1935-1948). U of Toronto and Harvard grad, he was responsible for some evolutionary policies (old age pensions, appointing the first woman senator) as well as a some disgraceful ones(internment and confiscation of property of Japanese Canadians in WW2). Wikipedia says: Privately, he was highly eccentric with his preference for communing with spirits, including those of Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, his dead mother, and several of his Irish Terrier dogs, all named Pat. He also claimed to commune with the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, American president and close friend.[32] He sought personal reassurance from the spirit world, rather than seeking political advice. Indeed, after his death, one of his mediums said that she had not realized that he was a politician. King asked whether his party would win the 1935 election, one of the few times politics came up during his seances. His occult interests were not widely known during his years in office, and only became publicized later, and have seen in his occult activities a penchant for forging unities from antitheses, thus having latent political import. In 1953 Time Magazine stated that he owned – and used – both a Ouija board and a crystal ball. In the 1970s biographers used the extensive diaries he kept during most of his life to delve deeper into his occult activities. One person he held seances with was Canadian Artist Homer Watson.

I was pleased with my results in the tourney and none of the opps did anything weird to me, in case anyone misunderstands. My (unknown) pard at one point, however, bid something that one of the opps did NOT understand and it really messed him around. He bid something that clearly demonstrated he had no idea what my pard's bid was indicating, and which would have led to a massive penalty for them. His pard tried to clarify/save. On his next turn he was taking forever to bid and obviously considering doing something more which would make things much worse for them, based on the misunderstanding of an artificial bid. I private messaged him as to what I THOUGHT the original bid meant ( I was right) so the game could continue, (probably breaking 45 rules by doing so). It was clear we could stomp them severely by taking advantage but what is the point? It seemed to me to continue to take advantage would be closer to cheating than I am comfortable in being. We still stomped them, as by then the damage was done, but at least we didn't leave someone with a bad feeling about the game. This is the scenario which makes me uncomfortable to have been given the official seal of approval

Many people use their profile to indicate what they play. I use this as a guide to what my pard is doing/will understand even if there has been nothing said. I assume most other people do this as well. It is not the place of people to teach other people how to play bridge in a tourney. However, this just seems to me to be in direct contradiction to the spirit of the game, and certainly does lead to people saying "no agreement" when they are playing as pairs as well, when there likely IS partnership understanding. Understood that it hurries the game up. It's less certain that it doesn't diminish the enjoyment/ the quality of play. I was just surprised to see such a point made of actively discouraging alerts. In tourneys I have been in 'til now, this may have been the policy, but it hasn't been hammered home several times during the tourney. Obviously it's nice to win, but it always bewilders me that some people go into these things as though their firstborn is at risk. To win a hand because your opps had no idea what you were doing seems to me to be a very shallow sort of victory. I thought it was one thing to say alerts were not required and another to say they were actively discouraged.

My mother and I used to go get our tea leaves read about twice a year. We would have been appalled at anyone thinking we took any of it seriously. Sometimes it was quite fun, when they drifted out of the usual and got creative. I didn't know I was a sailor in a former life, for example. :)

I was surprised tonight in a tourney at the announcement that since it was an indy "artificial bids need not be alerted, in fact alerts were discouraged, and if a bid was questioned the response was to be "no partnership agreement"." I have no quarrel with the tourney; it was well run and fun, and I was pleased with my results. But..this policy disturbs me. If you have two expert or even advanced playing against two intermediates and they use bids any advanced should know but are likely unknown to many intermediates, isn't it just expanding the handicap already faced by the intermediates? Aside from that, it seems to me to be encouraging a - to me - VERY bad habit of secrecy and obfuscation too many on BBO already practice. Is this just to speed up the game? Does anyone else find this a questionable policy?

This is not meant to be a smart ass comment, but are you asking people to play in the team before you put their name into the match? I have had people enroll me in a TM I knew nothing about and that will almost always get you a rejection. The only problem I have found is that people expect a substitution to be as instantaneous as it is for a tourney and if it is before the match actually starts, it needs to be explained that it will be a couple of minutes before they will get their invitation. Aside from that, I have had no problem..you can erase the name of the rejecting player and fill in the new name and BBO will try again immediately.

Saw an article some time ago that someone in Chicago area had turned a very large basement into a holding tank of water and used a heat exchange system in it. He claimed that pulling the heat in winter turned it all to ice and the process reversed itself for air conditioning in the summer. I would think moulds might be a problem and not sure how you could estimate the size of holding tank you would need but it sounded like a nifty solution. Someone at the end of the article suggested rock or brick might work. The problem with most of these "green solutions" is that they are so horrendously expensive to implement.. I looked into this last year and to install geothermal system here is close to 10x more expensive than going with a more traditional form of heating, and I don't remember if that even included the excavation work.

All sorts of stuff being done re housing materials now. I found this site to be interesting. Following some of the associated articles suggests a fair amount of new/pending developments for buildings, the first relating to kenberg's link but from another part of the world. http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/04/14/dyesol-solar-windows/ Windmill farms are not without their own ecological problems, noise being one. The development of better batteries would be very helpful as well, to address the problems with the ones we presently have. I have been trying to follow small developments and found that there are some funky things being done with savonius rotor type and homescale diy projects using recycled plastic barrels for the one and cut pvc pipe for the other. Not sure how much energy either of these will provide..they certainly provide some. We need fridges and stoves that use much less power instead of trying to find ways to feed the suckers. There are some serious questions being raised about the socalled energy efficiency of new appliances. Still looking for help with the transportation question though..read years ago about a guy in England running his car on the methane from the manure from his flock of chickens, and recently I've seen photos of people supposedly with balloons of methane on motorized bicycles..do people really DO that? Isn't methane apt to explode if it has access to air and there is any sort of spark?

and another, -6.12 econ -5.44 social

One side issue here is a straight across the board tax makes life difficult for farmers and truckers and almost everyone who lives in a rural area. It's very well and good to say take a bicycle or walk, but when it is 37 miles or more to the nearest store that simply isn't an option, unless of course you have nothing else to do with your time. (like play bridge?) An across the board tax will help to speed up the flight of the rural to the urban and put even more pressure on farmers, possibly speeding the transition to more factory farms as the family farms get turned into subdivisions.I'm not convinced that paving land to support more houses and strip malls is necessarilly a good thing. This is what's happening here, at any rate. Some might see nothing alarming about this, I'm not so sure. This isn't a plea for the status quo, just a thought that although a straight tax is a simple and straightforward solution, it does have implications beyond punishing the use of a car to go pick up a pack of cigarettes and a movie. Maybe we will (should?) get back to the times when stores had hitching posts out the front. (Now if anyone wants to buy a horse....):huh:

a side comment no doubt but..I have never understood how people who are adamantly opposed to pro choice are blissfully unconcerned about the life that children have who already exist outside somebody else's body. It also bewilders me how someone who thinks it is murder to abort a two month old fetus is perfectly accepting (if not eager), of the murder of a doctor who may do abortions as part of his practice. Hundreds of thousands of children already live in hunger squalor neglect, abuse and illiteracy. When no child has to suffer under those conditions, when a child is something that society values and cherishes and will care for properly if the parent is unable or unwilling to do so, then perhaps it is a discussion worthy of considering, as a sort of punishment. But then what of the father? Hardly fair to punish only the woman who got pregnant with a child she doesn't love, want or feel she can care for the way every child born deserves. Of course a side issue to THAT is what sort of care such a woman might be likely to take of herself and the developing fetus..fetal alcohol syndrome anyone? as an example. As long as the "no choice" people don't consider anything beyond the 9 month mark they will be imo simply the sort of people who secretly believe slavery is really not so unreasonable (as long as it isn't them being the slaves).

Maybe it's unnecessary. However, even as non Americans we had a glimmer of what it was like to be black not so very long ago. My mother told me about Marion Anderson coming to Vancouver to do a concert and not being allowed to go into the hotel through the front doors. (At least there was a howl about it and they changed their policy). So I think that this is an achievement which deserves some recognition for being as remarkable as it is in such a relatively short period of time. I would equate it in Canada somewhat to electing a Cree or Ojibwa person as Prime Minister, and we are I think a LONG way from that. It's nice to have something to celebrate, there are few enough reasons these days it seems.

There are a number of ways to get onto an "enemy " list but the easiest (most common) way is to take off in the middle of a tourney . This causes a problem for TD's who have to look for subs, and the others at the table, who have to wait for a sub. A lot of the regular tourney TD's will share lists between clubs so a runner might soon find him/herself blacklisted from a number of tourneys if s/he has vanished from one.

Most of the clubs have instructions on their "doors" as to how to apply if they accepting new members etc. If you go to the list of private clubs and click on the club you are interested in, the notice will likely tell you what you need to know. Alternatively, you can ask the TD of the tourneys for the info. If you are in tourney area 7 or 8 minutes before the start they will usually have time to answer a short question or two.

Teams generally involve 8 people who are divided into two teams. They play a fixed number of boards, parameter choices are laid out when you go to create a team match. Matches can be totally casual one shot deals or more structured. BBO IAC (private club) is running teams matches series and has desks where people can list their name as looking for a partner or a pairs desk looking for another pair to form a team. If you want to know about the mechanics of setting up a team match, catch me online and I will be happy to help.

Isn't Sarah Palin supposed to be a university graduate? of journalism? this seems a VERY weird bit of non knowlege given the circumstances (not even considering the political situation she found herself in)

"inhumane? survival of the fittest " It seemed that what he was saying, was clustering eventually leads to views of us vs them. To follow this further , then, that view potentially can lead to ideas of just what the "fittest" might be and how much value the "other" (or not fittest) has and that can lead to things such as the holocaust. It was a fascinating video thanks for sharing

It's beginning to look more and more as though the economy is not the only thing down for the count in the U.S. these days....

I keep running across this stuff. It would seem from these clips that there is something to it, but would like somebody with more expertise in these areas (doesn't take much!) to give their opinion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsvw_zX8ogM&NR=1 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDHT0hBgVOw&feature=related