The character is drawn about 33 pixels tall. If he's of average height, then that means that 1 pixel maps to about 2 1/8 in (5.39 cm). The pulley above him is drawn about 431 pixels above ground, which would then be about 76 ft (23.22 m) up.

At 14% of Earth's gravity, gravitational acceleration on Titan would be at about 4.5 ft (1.37 m) per squared second.

That all means that he hits the ground at about 17.8 mph (28.7 kph) or less. That would be the speed associated with a normal fall of about 10.5 ft (3.2 m).

The Woman of Interest draws my attention to

That's right, folks. The US Federal government, which eats so much of the economy, wouldn't bother to expose this group; the state is too busy using its power to get more power. Instead, a relatively small private firm identified the perps in seven weeks.

If you're actually trying to install another version of Firefox, then click on the Firefox tag, as there may be an entry on that other version.

Firefox 3.5.2 has been released. I imagine that someone will soon provide an .rpm; but, for now, Red Hat users will have to install things from a tarball. Since a fair number of the hits to this 'blog are from searches as to how to install Firefox 3.0 under RHEL 5.x, I'm going to infer that people are and will be surfing the WWWeb for instructions on how to install Firefox 3.5 under RHEL 5.x.

My first piece of advice is that one not install Firefox 3.5.1. When I tried using it, it would do something that caused the Linux user account to be logged-out. However, I've being trying version 3.5.2, and so far I've not had that problem with it. [Up-Date (2009:08/17): Unfortunately, I have since had some problems with version 3.5.2 logging me out of the system, and on one occasion it screw-up the display resolution. But these problems have not been so frequent as to move me to stop using this version.] That said, here are the steps that I recommend:

1. Download the archive, firefox-3.5.n.tar.bz2.
2. The tarball contains a directory, firefox, which should be dropped-in as a sub-directory of something. If you want to ponder where, then study the FHS. As for me, as root, I put it in /opt:

   tar -xjvf firefox-3.5.n.tar.bz2 -C /opt/

   (Replace that n with the actual number from the archive that you downloaded.)
3. Make sure that you have compat-libstdc++-33 (a Gnome C++ compatibility library):

   rpm -qa | grep compat-libstdc++-33

   If not, then as root install it:

   yum install compat-libstdc++-33

4. To avoid conflicts with SELinux, as root run

   chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /opt/firefox/libxul.so

   (If you didn't install the directory in /opt, or renamed the firefox directory, then you'll need to modify the above final argument to chcon accordingly.)
5. You'll need a .desktop file for Firefox (though you may already have one). As root, edit/create /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop, ensuring that it reads

   [Desktop Entry]
   Categories=Application;Network;X-Red-Hat-Base;
   Type=Application
   Encoding=UTF-8
   Name=Firefox
   Comment='WWW browser'
   Exec='/opt/firefox/firefox'
   Icon='/opt/firefox/icons/mozicon128.png'
   Terminal=false

   (Again, if you didn't install in /opt, or changed the name of the firefox directory, then you'll need to change the above accordingly.)
6. Log out and back in or restart the system (to up-date the GUI).

I am amused by this eBay bid history:

I'll translate:

• On 27 July, at 11:30:10 PDT, seller posts item with an opening bid of $1.00 and some still unknown reserve price.
• At 19:36:05 PDT, first bidder enters a maximum bid of $6.16; this does not meet reserve price, so first bid is $1.00.
• On 29 Jul, at 12:45:05 PDT, second bidder enters a maximum bid of $5.00; entry automatically pushes bid of first bidder to $5.50.
• 10 seconds later, second bidder enters some maximum bid more than 50¢ than first bidder's maximum bid, and finds that his or her bid is now $6.66.
• 12 seconds later, second bidder enters some higher maximum bid, but his or her bid remains $6.66.
• Another 12 seconds later, second bidder enters some even higher maximum bid, but his or her bid remains $6.66.

If the second bidder were to enter a bid not less than the seller's reserve price, then his or her bid would become that. Otherwise, his or her bid will remain at $6.66 until some other bidder enters at least $7.16.

(BtW, I put the words reserve and maximum in quotes, because, as far as I'm concerned, eBay abuses each term, one way or another.)

Let's walk through what it would mean if insurers could not deny coverage to any applicant and could not charge higher premiums on the basis of preëxisting medical conditions.

The out-lays of insurers would of course increase, so the they will do one and likely both of two things:

• Increase premiums for all subscribers: Those without preëxisting conditions would pay more than previously, to off-set the out-lays for those with preëxisting conditions.
• Reduce coverage for all subscribers: The contractual liabilities of insurance companies would be reduced in the case of conditions that could be preëxisting, so that subscribers who developed such conditions after subscription would receive less treatment or face greater out-of-pocket expense.

So the buck-per-bang price of insurance (and probably the absolute price) would increase. This would occur regardless of whether subscription were mandatory, but I think that the consequent increase in price would be greater were coverage not mandatory.

In the absence of requiring people to purchase coverage, fewer people would buy insurance voluntarily. Those most likely to reduce their demand for insurance would be the less affluent and those who perceived themselves as relatively healthy. A significant share of the latter would indeed be relatively healthy, and their departure would mean that the average out-lay per subscriber would increase, which would push-up costs. The departure of the less affluent would tend to push-down out-lays, as the less affluent tend to lead less healthy life-styles, but it would be unreasonable to expect the less affluent to depart in sufficient numbers to restore the lower price, and I'm not aware of anyone advocating a strategy of pricing the poor out of the insurance market.

In fact, without compulsory subscription, it becomes less reasonable to subscribe until one actually needs treatment. Coverage would no longer function as insurance because it needn't be purchased on a precautionary basis. Instead, subscription would simply be a buy-in for some programme of medical care. When the expected cost of needed medical care were less than the buy-in price, one should not purchase a subscription; when the expected cost of needed care were greater, one should buy a subscription.

The proposal is to make subscription compulsory, in which case it's not clear why insurance companies should continue to be involved at all. Insurance premiums would have been replaced with a tax (regardless of whether it were called a tax or called a user fee or called a premium), and the insurance companies would be functioning as extensions of the state. Possibly a bona fide insurance could be offered to supplement coverage provided under the proposal, but it remains none-the-less unclear what legitimate reason there might be for using insurance companies to collecting a tax or to reïmburse those who provided state-mandated coverage. I'm inclined to interpret the intent in part to be to buy-off the insurance companies, giving them what will seem a guaranteed source of revenue, and in part to give a private-sector façade to a state monopsony.

Returning to the issue of the increase in buck-per-bang price, a consequence is going to be that most people who would insure in the absence of the proposed measures are going to have less coverage in their presence, unless they are required to have as much or more coverage than before, at the greater prices implied by not imposing higher fees on those with preëxisting conditions.

After some vacillation over the question of to which of two journals next to submit my paper, I have submitted it to a game theory journal which has published at least one other article attempting to operationalize incomplete preferences. (I think that attempt rather less satisfactory than mine.)

I have, alternately, been considering submitting to an older journal, based in Europe, which focusses primarily on mathematical microëconomic theory, but I decided both that they would be more likely to reject the paper as too specialized, and that my paper would be less widely read if published there.

Good L_rd! In response to my submission, the editor of the third journal responded

While I find the paper interesting, I feel it is too specialized a topic for a general audience journal such as [ours].

The thing is that, unlike the previous two journals, which cover economics in general, this is a journal of microëconomics. Yet, like the editor of the previous journal, the editor still feels that the paper is too specialized for the audience. (Though, as noted, this third journal was recommended by that editor of the second.)

I need to figure-out just who won't think it too specialized.

I stopped actively collecting comic books in my very late teens. But I held onto my collection, and hope to keep it to the end of my life. And for many years it had a gap in it that greatly annoyed me; specifically, I needed Giant-Sized Conan #3, in mint condition, to plug a hole. Whenever I would go into comic book stores, and the couple of times that I went to San Diego Comic-Con, I would look for that specific issue, in that condition. A few weeks ago, I finally managed to obtain a copy.

---

At the end of April of last year, I announced

I have secured at least one complete exemplar of every variety of [working Mannheim slide-rule tie-clips] that was made for resale.

but retracted that claim about a week later. I am going to be so bold as to make the claim again. Actually, I obtained an exemplar of the missing sort some time ago, but its indicator wasn't in the best condition. The exemplar that arrived to-day was as-new, in its original box (whose exterior is a bit abraded) and with its original instructions (as-new).

I'm not sure how to count the sorts of clips in this collection, as there are minor variations, but I'd say that I have thirteen or fourteen sorts.

I have submitted my paper to a third journal, that recommended by the editor who rejected it at the previous journal.

This third journal is one from an association which, like many, charges a lower submission fee to its members. Even with the annual dues and on the assumption that I only made one submission in a year, I would still save money, so I joined. However, after I registered and paid, I learned that it could take up to four weeks for my membership information to be recorded and provided to me. Hence, this delay between submissions. I'm not sure that the money saved was worth that delay.