We just got the Internet today, courtesy of Time Warner's ridiculously fast 50mbps cable service.  I gotta wonder how the hell they can make a cable connection rival FiOS like that.
Anyhow, don't expect me to start commenting a whole lot yet.  I'm gonna be spending what little free time I have just catching up on everything.  See you guys around! 

Helen pointed me at this:  The board of education for Prince George County in Maryland is intending on implementing a policy whereby they will lay claim to any and all copyrights on any creative act by a student or teacher, in school or out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/edu ... print.html]Washington Post article here.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... dents-work]Wired article here.
Or just Google on "maryland school copyright grab" for dozens more articles.
Frankly, it's not going to work -- the basics of copyright law are designed to prevent someone from swooping in and stealing a copyright like this.  They may make it part of the employment contract for the teachers, in which their creative efforts for the classroom become "work for hire" like so many writers have done for decades.  But they cannot simply claim the children's copyrights -- they have to negotiate with each child's legal guardians and get a signed agreement ceding the copyright.  If they try this, they're going to end up in a lot of legal trouble.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I'm sure that most people are aware: steam is now on linux.

To celebrate, they have a rather massive sale for most of the titles that run on linux. A few that I have greatly enjoyed:

FTL (50% off, $5)

Bastion (75% off, $3.75)

Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP (75% off, $4)

Spacechem (50% off, $5)
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

Can you use the stuff for armor? I remember a fanfic where a mech in mechwarrior was using it as a casing?
Edit: aside from the normal applications like coatings and catalytic converters, of course.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

Bushiroad, publishers of the Japanese CCG known as "Weiss Schwarz", released two boosters sets for the combined series of "To Aru Majutsu no Index" and "To Aru Kagaku no Railgun".  Each of the two sets was split between these two series.

I'm looking for a box of boosters for the second set, and hoping to pay a reasonable price (Original retail would be about $75 USD). If anyone should come across any...
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronom ... ussia.html

More information: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 96426.html

So there I was, walking through the woods, getting close to a footbridge, when suddenly, this dude in chinese martial arts togs appears!

"You!" he says. "I will ruin your happiness!" he says. (Well, actually he just said some alien jibbajabba that didn't match the way his lips moved, but subtitles appeared around his knees.)

Leaping to the head of the bridge, I used the end of it to reinforce the concept of 'boundary' as I used sorcery to create an invisible barrier, then smashed the two spans of the
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Inspired by Mal's RDM!Fenspace and a specific character comment in the original post.

Not intended to be mainline.... still too much of an 'I can do something cool and nobody else can do it and it has no point beyond making me look cool' vibe to it. But maybe interesting. Because I never thought of Mackie or the hardsuit cores that way until after seeing Mal's description...

Quote:It’s been five years or thereabouts since Mackie first awakened in the Knightwing’s computer. To cut a long story short, I was trying to wire up a cyber-interface to the cruiser, made a mistake with the bootloader of the system and caused it to try to boot from my brain instead of its own internal storage.

Oops.

The end result was Mackie wondering where his body went and a full-blown fandago-on-cerrebellum for myself. Which is why I remember growing up with someone who didn’t exist five years ago. Or being a thirteen year old girl in the boy’s locker room with nobody batting an eyelid about it.

And why I took the oath of venus three years ago.

Then managed to intentionally repeat the accident under controlled circumstances to creat the hardsuit cores. It took focus and concentration. Isolate those things I associate with Priss, bring them to the front of my mind and let all those Priss-y things flow through me.

It’s not a smart chip, it can’t think. But maybe it might be a way to create Knight Saber androids. That was my first idea. I could be Sylia, with a real Priss, a real Linna and a real Nene. But, on second thoughts, that was maybe just a little psychotic - a little dangerous. It got shelved quickly.

I found real women instead. Their personalities are close the original Sabers - the cores wouldn’t work properly otherwise. But they’re their own people. And it’s better because of it. It surprises people who think they know what to expect.

But the idea never really died.

After all, If I can conceive of making a Priss android.... maybe I can do more? If Mackie was born from an aspect of myself, then maybe I can make more than just an aspect?

I have the logs from the original KnightWing test. I have the logs from each core creation. I have an unused CPC from when Shinji was built. I have an old puppet I use daily. One night, it all just clicks and makes sense.

I know the risk to my sanity is probably pretty high. But its my risk, not anyone elses. And if this works....

The thought occurs to me that it might usher in a sort of revolution that would be a tsunami compared to the wave.

Then I get bounced off the back of a runaway Griffon, coming within a gnat’s fart of being killed outright. Not by an enemy’s bullet, or some supreme sacrifice in a moment of high drama, but a simple accident. A shave with mortality so close it leaves me bleeding, and facing a long repair.

It doesn’t matter how long you’re predicted to live, does it? There’re plenty of ‘immortal’ people live only in my memory.

That just crystallises my determination. If only to have a backup.

It gets shelved for six months or so. The Millenium moves in. Frigga comes alive once more for maybe the first time in a decade. The rock vibrates with life and industry as the mines wake up. I go racing, running the Asagiri team with Daryl as pilot.

It’s busy as fuck and I don’t have much time to really play around. Asagiri needs to build on its success, and the new residents from Venus are making demands from their landlord.

It’s a while before I finally get some free time.

I skip over it and put it on the long finger, finding other things to occupy. X-3, the next model from Asagiri. A tank with a Havoc powerplant.... a few other things. Most of which don’t see the light of day because …. well.... I’m just not that good at this sort of thing.

I finally get around to doing it just before Convention. It’ll be a hell of a storm when I tell everyone just what I’ve done.

One night, I mount the CPC in the puppet, hook it up and throw the switch. Okay... it’s a little more complicated than that. It takes a few hours of mediation before I’m ready. To do it right, I have to focus on what makes me me. I have to grab hold and bring them to the front and hold them in my mind.

My Panzer Kunst training helps.

But that doesn’t keep it from hurting. It’s a kick to the inside of the skull as everything goes haywire. It’s a barely controlled repeat of an accident. My hardware’s being driven in a direction it was never meant to go, firing neurons in one massive explosion that rolls through my mind.

I come to a few moments later. Nothing feels wrong... just a little headachy. I felt the same way after Mackie’s accident so it puts me on edge for a moment. A quick self-scan seems to suggest I’m fine.

But memory damage is insidious that way. It took three full days for me to realise exactly what’d happened after the Mackie incident.

The puppet looks at me. We both scan ourselves, making sure there’s no open connection between us. Interfaces come back negative. We’re seperate. Completely.

“It Worked!”

We both yell it in unison. I really am going to be famous. Like, real famous. This is big. This is verse shattering. I’m looking at myself, while looking at myself. But at the same time, it’s a whole new copy.

More than just a copy. From the first instant, a new person.

We start yelling this at each other, having a full blown brainstorm about where we’re going to go with the whole thing. We’re already pulling pie-in-the-sky predictions

But we haven’t really achieved anything if we can’t re-merge the fork. And really, it sucks being in such a basic body. I’d get used to it in time, but being human... or close to it.... is just too limiting really. I can’t stay.

I ask to merge back.

I know there’re philosophers who’ll call it suicide. Fuck them. Whatever memories the puppet formed will live on in me. Ultimately, we’re the same person after all. We both start laughing as we hook ourselves back up. It’s something that’ll break the legal system, isn’t it?

Merging is almost easier. Instead of booting it up, shut it down while we’re both connected.

It’s fun in a strange way.

To remember both sides of a conversation. Or to be in two places at once.

If I can copy once. I can copy twice. I can copy copies. One can die and all will still live. I can merge and copy. I can form the core of a gestalt mind, synchronised through multiple minds at once. I can copy to systems that aren’t human... to systems that’re beyond human even. Super-processors and hyper-AI. .

The train of thought accelerates, gaining thundering momentum. My mind is open.... I’ve kicked down the door and it’s time to loot the room of possibility.

I don’t just have to merge with copies of myself. I can do it with other people. And we can spawn new people in the same way, just another fork populated by an aspect of our mind. While we assimilate more and more into the gestalt.... the technoinstrumentality of a mind so vast that I’ve left all vestiges of who and what I was behind and become something more.

It’s all open in front of me. Astounding. Thrilling. Enticing.

If I can do it. Anyone can.

We can all go together when we go.

Only we won’t. Because it’s not really repeatable, is it? It’s a quirk of my hardware. Maybe it might be doable by other cybers, maybe it relies on some unique and deep glitch deep inside my hardware. It’d take hard research and analysis by smarter minds than me to figure out for sure. My mind falls back to a conversation I had ten years previously, just a stray recollection that stops me dead in my tracks. It seemed so flippant and easy at the time.

But if I go. I go alone. And what good is infinity, with no-one to share it with?

Nothing but infinite solitude and loneliness awaits. I don’t want that.

I stand there in my workshop, looking at the now dead again puppet. I can’t quite put my feelings into words. I’m not a philosopher.... I’m not that eloquent really. It’s terrifying. It feels like a form of death. Leaving behind people I know will never be able to follow me, and going beyond the mortal into something else that defies description.

And so, standing on the event horizon of the singularity, I step back and close the veil once more. I’m not ready to go just yet. I have unfinished business.

I fork myself once more - proving beyond doubt that I’ve got a personally repeatable method - and I promise myself it will be the final time. There’s just one thing I have to do first.

I dress myself in a full shiny battle-bikini and leave myself looking jealously on with a promise to merge back when it’s all done and hide the chip. I chop the logs and my working notes off from the main system, hiding them on a jump-drive safe from any would-be drive-by hacker

I smile at everyone I pass, enjoying a few compliments along the way. What can I say, I’ve always liked Dirty Pair? It feels like a strange sort of freedom, to have cool air on my skin - actual skin - and no software hiding in the back of my mind to ruin it.There’s no network. Nothing except the body. It’s quiet. And I already know what I’m wearing to the next con.

Eventually, someone will figure it out. I’m not so naive to be certain I’m the only cyber capable of doing it. Eventually, someone will find a way for the ordinary people to go for it too. The wave likes life. It might be a while though. And I know the Yudkowsky crowd would have a cat if they found I’d done this and never said a word.

But I have to keep it quiet.

Ford’s asleep in bed. I strip, and slip in beside her but she isn’t in the mood. I’m not bothered, I’m just glad to be able to lie beside her and fall asleep without being interrupted by a software system breaking the link.

I work through the night, tidying up, hiding the evidence. The only thing left to do is remerge, and then run a script to delete everything left.

Morning. I sleep in and I merge back with a smile on my faces hiding the inert chip. Nobody suspects a thing. Ultimately, nobody will ever know. No Prizes. No accolades. But there’re some things more important than that. Because if she can’t go with me, I’ll stay with her as long as I can.

It strikes me that in a century or two someone’ll find it and the copy on it will be woken up once more to a nasty surprise and a rewrite of the history books. But probably not.

Ultimately, there’s time enough for the singularity. It can wait. But time enough for love?

ASP.NET web page, C# codebehind, Jquery and Javascript in use.
I've added an ASP dropdownlist to a div that Jquery turns into a pop-up dialog.  I want to read the selectedvalue for the drop down, but regardless of what I select and where I try to read it, it's always "0".
Autowireup is on, the drop down's EnableViewState is true (and the page's settings are compatible with it).  Its contents are set with a mix of explicit listitem adds plus a databind, which happens on pageload, and only if not a postback.
Although the ASP.NET documentation says that its OnSelectedIndexChanged event should fire regardless of whether AutoPostback is true or not; if it's false, the event fires when something else returns control to the server side.  Which is good, because I can't have it autopostback without breaking something else on the page.  But I've never gotten it to fire at all, even when I let the stuff that would get broken break. 
Everything I try -- Jquery, plain Javascript, codebehind -- all I ever see is "0".  Even if I try to capture it on the client side in an OnClientClick event.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?  If so, got a solution?
Thanks.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

...has a great headline on the Pope's resignation:
POPE GIVES GOD TWO WEEKS' NOTICE!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.