Interesting. Reminds me of my undergrad research astronomy research. Astronomers have to deal with this all the time, and there is existing software and procedures to handle it in a mostly-automated sort of way. Google for flat fields, dark frames, and bias frames to get the gory details.

Oh! That's "art". I get it.

Can I have my precious time back please? No? Sigh.

Er. Botanist?

Funny, I just discovered this rather amusing video of Christopher Judge of Stargate fame, learning about furries (and specifically, the subgenre that is into furry sex):

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=zB_1SK0I_sM

There's one in Vancouver too, at the intersection of Terminal and Main. I did a quick Google and found this article about it.

Um.

I might be naive, but seriously - how many times a week do you make pancakes? Often enough that having a can of "Batter Blaster" will improve your quality of life?

If so, please go find a good doctor who specializes in the cardio-vascular system. You'll need one soon.

Here's a wikipedia article on the Canadian Skill Testing Question. At least it ensures that our lottery players have a basic ability in mathematics. :)

CoffeeGeek: Sorry to hear that our laws make your life so difficult.

Mark,

Try installing to your HD (as you've already done), then manually copying the files to folder on an external drive. Once you've done that, make a symbolic link from where the files used to be on the internal, to their new home on the external. I'd be curious to know if that works.

braschlosan:

Notice all the steps you have to take in order to install this (including entering your admin password - something you should never do with software from an unfamiliar source)

Any computer - Windows, Mac, Linux, Commodore 64s, and even an Apple Newton, can run malware. Malware is just "software that does something bad". For instance, type this on any old Commodore 64 laying around (please make sure to have your only copy of Ghostbusters in the drive)

It's a great little program. It'll unlock hidden levels in the game.

10 OPEN1,8,15,”N0:”GOTCHA,4”:CLOSE 1
RUN

Now, that's malware. It says it does one thing (unlocking levels in a game) when in fact it will format the disk in the drive.

But, are you going to run it? Well, you probably don't have a C64 laying around. Even if you did, the C64 wouldn't just execute the code by itself. You'd have to type it in - manually take steps to run it.

Likewise, OS X is (so far) not vulnerable to those cute little auto-executing programs that plague Windows (mostly via Internet Explorer and Active X) ... sure, malware exists. Like I said it's easy enough to write on any platform. But the difference with the Mac (right now) is that you have to participate in the installation.

"No work sent (there was work for other platforms)"

So despite the fact that I have installed BOINC, it looks as though the Cosmology@Home project is a wee bit biased towards Windows (and possibly Linux) users eh?

Meh I say! I'll just go get an iPhone instead. ;)

LOL - that made me laugh ... also reminded me of a "Missing: Imaginary Friend" poster I saw on Robson St. in Vancouver back in 2001. I put a copy up on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dr_fyzziks/1734618602/