C James

Hi, Mizuki!! Glad you decided to join us!!! The forums can be downright addictive once you get into them. Please feel free to ask if you have any questions, or need any help! Thanks again for joining us!

Thank you for joining us! It's a lot of fun. The forums are my favorite part of GA. I'd give up the stories before I gave up the forums. Xander posted some instructions(thanks!!), so all you have to do is choose a suitable image. It needs to be no larger than 90x90 pixels, and no larger then 50k. Any image-editing software should handle the size change. Or, try a google search on "avatars". Thanks for starting to post! It's always great to "meet" new people, especially ones with shared interests such as the stories here. Vic, someone with nearly a thousand posts has taken the plunge more than a few times! ROFL!! Donluca!?!?!?? Poor Dom... Even a moderator of his forum can't spell his name right... BTW, newbies, beware... Vic is the author of many notorious skits, often starring GA members. Be very, very careful, or you might end up in one! (they are actually a great read, and can be found in Dom's forum, under member stories and poetry).

If you want worse-than-useless advice, I'm the guy to ask on that subject! That's a very good point, Xandra! Thank you for joining us! It's a fun and friendly place... Thanks! Even me? Why, thanks! As for your question, a serious answer: I'm online a lot because I like to log in while I'm working. I work odd hours so that means I'm often working at the computer at, say, 2am, and if I feel like a change of pace I log in here. Or, for example, it's now 5pm, I've got a full night of work ahead of me (On a Friday night.. sigh) and I decided to take a break, so here I am.

To any lurkers reading this, I'd like to extend an invitation to come join in the fun and start posting! I lurked here for quite a while before starting to post, never realizing how much fun I was missing. So, to help get the new people started, I'd like to offer to give any advice that I can regarding posting at GA. Want to have an avatar but don't know how? It's easy! Just ask and I'll post instructions. Got any other questions? Fire away, and I'll do my best to answer...

Hi, Krista, and welcome to GA!! :king: BTW, Krista has posted stories to eFiction. I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but I plan on it.

Sorry you got the ticket, but thanks for sharing that hilarious story about your husband!

Happy 23rd, Rekop!!!

Type 1a supernova are indeed always white dwarf stars, with a binary companion from which they acquire mass, until they exceed the Chanrasekar limit. Interestingly, Type 1b and type 1c supernova are not, they are actually type II (core collapse) variants. The reason for this weird classification system, as far I as know, is that the classification system is based on spectral absorption lines (indicating concentrations, or lack thereof, of certain elements) and pre-dates the understanding of the mechanisms of the supernova types. Iron fusion would indeed be insufficient, as it uses more energy than it produces. If my (often faulty) memory serves, once a core becomes hot and dense enough for widespread iron fusion to occur, it sets of an accelerating cycle: the net loss of energy further decreases the equilibrium, allowing further contraction to occur. The contraction increases the temperature, causing more iron fusion and more energy loss, resulting in an ever accelerating rate of contraction. According to one theory (one I am fond of) once the inner core reaches the Chandraskar limit, it suddenly collapses, within seconds, dragging the surrounding core material with it. Once the neutron degeneracy limit is reached, it stops, and the rebounding material blows the outer layers of the star apart. Some energy would be derived from the sudden density wave causing a surge in fusion, but most of it would be from the rebound effect. I envy you your book collection!! I hope we don't get a chance to see a supernova at a much closer range. Anything under 1000 light years might not be pleasant. There is a type 1a candidate in HR 8210, about 140 light years out. I can't think of any other close candidates offhand. I hope you do get to retire to Australia and study the stars. There more than a few homes in my area (high mountains of Northern Arizona) that have telescope domes on them, as the night skys here are good for skywatching. I've been tying, unsuccessfully, to get to know a few armature astronomoers so I can have a look myself, but no luck so far.

OK, I'm a compulsive nit-picker, so I can't let this one (by the original article's writer) pass. "some"!?!?!?!? That's an impossible statement. A Type 1a supernova would, by definition, destroy the white dwarf that is causing the repeated explosions, ending the sequence. Thus, a type 1a supernova cannot be a recurrent phenomenon, as is implied above. The recurrent Novas being seen are definitely not supernovas. Incidentally, to give some reference for the scale of power involved in a type 1 supernova, a paperclip, converted entirely to energy (E=MC^2) would yield about 20 kilotons (the size of the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki). To get an idea of the scale of a type1 supernova, a good way is to estimate the amount of mass that is actually converted to energy. The mass is quite a bit larger than a paperclip: It's about ten times the mass of everything in Earth's solar system other than the sun. That's one very big bang. James, thanks for the articles! Even though I couldn't resist the urge to nit-pick, I really enjoyed them.

Kevin, the previous posts said what I was thinking, but far better than I could have. I'm fairly new here (joined in February, as I recall), and I quickly became a fan of your posts. You are so upbeat and positive that you cheer me up even when I'm down. Thank you, Kevin, for all that you do, and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

I love your car! Sorry to hear that the job search is taking a while. That can be so frustrating (I've been in that situation myself, after returning to the US from overseas). Thanks for the link about the Taiwanese guy who was poisoned and then hospitalized against his will. That's horrifying. I'm well aware of the cultural Chinese reverence for Family, especially parents, but IMHO that guy is both courageous and justified. If they did indeed do that to him, they aren't family worthy of the term. I share your disappointment that no criminal charges ensued.

The discussions are fun. I originally started coming to GA for the stories, but now the forums are my favorite part. I've even been known to post in them occasionally myself... As for who does, and who does not bite, well, don't worry about it too much, the ones who bite usually don't bite too hard or too often.

There is now! Here is the link. BTW, for those that don't know what the connection is, here is a short explanation: DKstories (dkstories) wrote a story called "phone call", and let's just say that the news item referenced fits perfectly. I don't know how he does it.. (this is by no means the first time he's shown prescience).

Welcome, Adrien-Luc! I think you will love the forums here, especially if you are an Author! You might want to have a peek in the "writer's corner" forum, as there is a lot of very helpful info in the posts there. It's aimed more at online writers, but there would be a lot of interest there for a novelist, IMHO. Don't be shy! We have a great bunch of people here! Welcome to GA! C James

That sucks! I know the feeling all too well. I'd put on a few (ok, more than a few, close to 20 ) extra pounds since college, and decided to get rid of them last year. I hated dieting!! I failed miserably (due to feeling hungry all the time) at several diets. I looked into Atkins, but hated the idea of all that cholesterol. So, I swapped out a lot of the cholesterol for monounsaturated fats and protein, and gave it a try. It worked great for me, and I dumped the weight in two months (and have kept it off). If you are a meat-eater, a low-carb approach might be worth looking into, and it sure does solve the appetite problem. (did for me anyway) As for your triple-bypass special, technically that's fine on a low-carb diet as long as you don't eat the bun. (fast-food buns are full of junk anyway, not to mention having about half the calories of the entire burger ). When I was on the diet and traveling, I'd order the burger without the bun (many places will do a lettuce wrap) and then wrap that in a low-carb burrito wrap. Another helpful thing is to get rid of ALL snack foods in your house. Convenience foods and diets don't mix. Drinking lots of ice water with a meal helped a lot, too. The best thing I found was to take up hobbies that are active. That way exercise is fun. Whatever you try, good luck to you. It's rough, as I know all too well.

I'll definitely second that! Any Authors care to weigh in???

No culture-shock problems? If so, great! Yes, even with my abysmal fashion sense, I can see how a red vynal suite might not go over so well at a job intervieiw! I can sympathize though.. I have an utter hatred for ties. I refuse to wear them EVER. I'm fortunate that I'm from Arizona, where the official state neckwear is a string (bolo) tie. I've got a nice one with a silver and turquoise hasp that I got on the Navajo reservation. That one really raises some eyebrows in Europe! However, my favorite, which is reserved only for very formal (and stuffy) occasions, such as formal nights on cruise ships, is a rhinestone cow skull. BTW, congrats on the weight loss!

Journeyman's story is here: http://www.iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/thejourneyman/

OK, I think I see your method: Cut and paste from the page into Word. I've done that with a few non-GA stories where they either use a cursive or Gothic font, or have the background color too close to the text color. Thanks, Bob! Thanks! I've been using the "make available offline" feature in the IE bookmarks when I want to save a story to my laptop. I'm lazy so having to save each page of a 30 chapter story would drive me crazy(er). I also have a software program that "grabs" an entire website and makes a copy on your HD, though I haven't used it for this. I'm curious about the legalities here: many stories have a "do not copy" warning. However, anytime you view a HTML page, you ARE making a copy: in your browser cache. My gripe about flash is that it's lacking a very important feature: a way to turn it off by defualt! I suspect that the reason for this is that it's mainly used for adds. So, if I don't want annoying (and bandwidth-wasting) adds, I can't have it installed. As you might guess, I share your feelings about popups and the like. I HATE them. I run two popup blockers, plus block the worst offenders (and major add servers) with my hosts file. I also disable the internal windows messenger, as it's an annoyance for adds. DSL is a type of broadband: Broadband merely means a high speed connection (dialup modem speeds, for example, are not broadband). DSL comes in over a phone line but is not an analog modem. One big drawback with DSL is that it's only available in limited areas: basically within 12 miles of a phone company main switching station. That means that if you are in a rural area, you are likely out of range (as I am). There is no cable TV in my area, so cable in no option either (though it is a bit more widely available than DSL) .

Connection speed has nothing to do with my extreme dislike for flash, and my refusal to have it on my computer. I connect via a microwave transceiver (my only option for Internet here) and my throughput rates are better than cable or DSL (though the lag times are slightly longer). The reason I can't stand flash is that it's mainly used for adds: moving adds. I can't stand moving graphics on a page (I set IE and Firefox to not display moving GIFS or similar) as they are incredibly distracting. So, for me, it's just far better to uninstall it and never have to deal with it. BTW, good point on the offline availability issue! How is that normally done? The only way I know of is to use the "make available offline" feature on the bookmarks. Is there a better one? If so, I'd love to know it, as that would be incredibly handy for a laptop.

OK, a few suggestions: Have you tried clearing all the IE related caches? Have you tried disabling any anti-spyware, anti-virus, or firewall programs? (just to test!) Have you tried a full defrag, plus a check for corrupt files? Are you on a home network? Did you make any changes immediately prior to the problem occurring?

One suggestion (or beg): Please don't start using macromedia flash! I stripped that thing from my system and blocked most of it's install sites with my hosts file, but I still often get the "do you want to install?" window, plus a delay for every page that has it (the delay unfortunately applies every time I try and load a page that has flash on it, whether it's source is blocked in my hosts file or not).

My own two cents worth: I can see why this needed to be done, due to the increasing number of forums. It's a slight inconvenience (all of one click) but it does make the main board a little easier to navigate. One thing that I'd like to see (but would probably be too difficult to implement) would be a way for the user to sort the forums.

I've long had a serious interest in geopolitics, and history is part of that. I'm not really knowledgeable at all about knives, nor about martial arts. My knowledge of the Ghurkas (and thus their knives) is from reading about the 18th century wars in the area. The Ghurkas and the British (actually, the East India Tea Company) fought a war, and though the Ghurkas lost, they so impressed the British that Nepal (the ruling family is Gurkha) became the UK's oldest ally in the region, and to this day the British Army has Ghurkas as both soldiers and officers. I often read the english-language version (online) of local papers worldwide, as that IMHO is the best way to acquire a good "ground truth" feel for the area, and see things from their perspective. I'm not really up on the 18th century weaponry, though. I am much more familiar with modern weaponry, mainly US and Russian, with a prime focus on aerospace weapons systems (such as aircraft, tactical and strategic missiles, and their associated countermeasures). I have an interest in physics which comes in handy for this. As for travel: I describe myself as a travel addict. So far, I've traveled extensively on every continent except Antarctica. I enjoy "off the beaten path" destinations the most, such as Ushuaia, Argentina (on the southern shore of Terra Del Fuego) and I especially liked the Falkland Islands. In the far east, I think I enjoyed Macao the most (back when it was Portuguese), Though I also greatly enjoyed Korea, Hong Kong, and the Indian Ocean coast of Thailand. I've been to China but I wouldn't rank it among my favorite places. I've only changed planes in Taiwan, but it is somewhere I'd like to see. In Europe I've traveled a great deal (including living there for a while), and have seen some of Eastern Europe too. Tallin, Estonia is among my favorites, though St. Petersburg Russia was another. In Western Europe there are too many to pick from, but a highlight has to be Gibraltar. When I present my passport at customs, I often get some very interesting questions regarding some of the stamps in it. LB, sorry for blathering about myself on your blog... I hope all is going well with your new car, and your situation with your folks.