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When they mentioned projecting an image on the windshied all I could imagine was the Blue Screen of Death blocking my view suddenly and causing my actual death.


-Colin

It has to be literally 100 percent fool proof before an automaker will use it.

Well, looks like no matter how you build these systems, quantum uncertainty is going to prevent your product from comming to market.


-Colin

Tux babies, not Tux babes


-Colin

Pray tell, but how would you propose to block a link? Let's say that MS gives CNN a wad of cash to link every word Microsoft to Microsoft.com. How would you propose to block that?

On a more selfish level, I keep a weblog about London. If some local pub gave me a wad of cash (please!) to work them into my weekly articles and link to them, how would to write a plugin that could distinguish between the paid content an the article? You couldn't.


-Colin

Boy, if the hyperlinking habits of bloggers messed with google's pagerank algorithm, just imagine the damage this will do.


-Colin

::Smiles at the idea of a carrier pigeon bursting into flame as soon as a message is attatched to its leg because it now falls under the 'technology' category::


-Colin

True, but that doesn't mean it is magic.


-Colin

Magic is, by definition, what we don't understand.

That is such crap. I don't understand how international currency exchange rates work, but I don't say 'must be magic!'. Scientists don't know why the magnetic poles of the Earth reverse, but I doubt that any of them would suggest the reason is Magic until they learn something new.


-Colin

Scientists have yet to explain the phenomenon ... leading many people to look to supernatural causes

It really makes me sad when, if people don't understand something they assume it's magic. Why is it that so many people refuse to take 'we don't know yet' as an acceptable answer?

Science: 0
Magic: 1

:/


-Colin

Whoops. I guess that paragraph wasn't too clear. I ment that the price charged on the trian 4.95GBP/hr is greater that the min wage, which is, I believe, 4.10GBP/hr.


-Colin

Your reversed emoticon hurts my eyes :-)


-Colin

I don't know that much about how the technology works, but it seems to me that there is almost 0 new infrastructure necessary -- but everywhere I go in London, WiFi is outrageously expensive. Can someone with more technological knowledge than I explain this? Perhaps I'm missing some cost, but it seems to me that if they charged 1GBP/hour people would use it without thinking. But, when the cost is higher than the minimum wage, second thoughts arise.


-Colin

Cue the poo-flinging jokes in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... splat!


-Colin

News, the volunteers are expected to show their emotions in a chimp like fashion. This can be done by baring their teeth and by using submissive body language such as lowering their heads and crouching

And this is different from how human body language is used how?


-Colin

Luckily, good new non-blockbuster, non-sequel-generating movies come out now and then, such as Master and Commander

I guess you are not aware then that Master and Commander is the first in a series of twenty, yes twenty books.


-Colin

Arbitrary Actor: You know Chris, I can't but think that this whole idea of yours is expensive and dangerous.

Christopher Columbus: Yeah, you're right actually. Sod this, let's go for a pint,

And millions of Native Americans sigh in relief.


-Colin

From the slightly-ahead-of-its-time dept

So are you saying that in the future linux will be often installed on a dead badger?


-Colin

A common thing I've seen in these replacement stories is 'we didn't know we were training our replacements'. What I want to know is, did the replacements know they were being trained as replacements?


-Colin

virus companies, who appear to have gone quite literally bananas

So have they turned into bananas, or have they just gone to banana rich lands? Sorry, but I can't see how one can literally go bananas.


-Colin

This is why this happens in the UK and not in America. You see us free Americans have a right to carry guns, lots of em, thats why muggings dont happen in America.

Since I moved to London and not New York, my chances of being murdered dropped from 16.8 in 100,000 to 2.1 in 100,000. If you read this article, you will see that of the most murderous cities in the world, the first six are in the United States. Granted, this article doesn't directly address gun control, but I think it is some evidence against the "We are safer in the US because we have so many guns" argument.

Please stick to apple standard spelling. iPod not IPOD. : P


-Colin

Some sites in the blogging community are turning black in protest of this event while others are reporting the incident.

Well thank God the all powerful blog-o-sphere is finally using its power to do something instead of just creating a rebellion symbol/meme and linking to real news sources.

Oh wait.


-Colin

Should be under US ;)


-Colin

Exponential growth.


-Colin

If I (a person who lives in America and speaks US English; no born American (thank goodness)) were to go to England and converse with an Englishman; who would have the accent, me or him? The obvious answer, as a lot of Americans fail to realize, is me.

As someone who moved from the US to the UK, let me tell you that the British people here don't consider the language I speak to be English. It's American, and I better not forget it. : )

Where does the money go after Microsoft pays? To charity? To the gov't?


-Colin

So... when MS pays the 0.5Gigaeuro fine, who gets the money?


-Colin

Did any of you ACTUALLY made any money?, I mean not only virtually in your account, but actually received a check at your house? Thanks

I did. I got a cheque for about twenty dollars each month for about six months. I really couldn't believe it.


-Colin

Just this week I met up with some people from Orkut. I wrote about my experience for those interested.

I know a lot of people on slashdot make fun of social networks, but trust me, if you are new to a city and don't know many people there, it's nice to join a network of (mostly) real people as opposed to some anonymous bulliten board.

-Colin

It's about damn time. This carpal tunnel syndrome is really affecting my WarCraft III games.


-Colin

Wow, I forgot all about AllAdvantage. I still have an old website on fortunecity.com plugging that service. (I sadly want to gain control of that site again, but I forgot my username/password)

As I remember it, you didn't get paid for clicking on the ads, AllAdvantage displayed a banner ad on the bottom of your computer and paid you to `look' at it. But all it really kept track of was if the mouse was moving.

I had a friend send me a script to move the mouse around while I slept, but AA cought on to that pretty quickly.

So, I just tied my mouse to a rotating fan. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best.


-Colin

The Natural History Museum didn't include pluto as a planet. That's good enough for me.

-Colin

Clyde Tombaugh (the man who discovered Pluto)'s

Best. Misuse of an apostrophe. Ever

-Colin

Using your backassward logic, it seems more logical to devote your CPU time to researching automotive traffic patterns, so you don't get killed in an auto accident or get hit by a bus.

If there was a project that I could devote my CPU cycles that could reduce the possibility of me getting into a car accident, then I would drop folding@home for dontgethitbyacar@home. What's backassward about risk assesment?


-Colin

An old rule of thumb is that the user experience is noticeably better if the performance doubles.

So if they make every new release 7% faster I'll never notice?

How tragic!


-Colin

folding@home

I used to run seti@home instead of folding@home, but then one day I realized I needed to switch. While finding extraterrestrial life would be the most important development in human history to date, the chances of finding it in my lifetime are very small.

On the other hand, the chances of my getting cancer or any of the other of the diseases folding@home works on is very great. Plus, if folding@home cures any of these diseases, it will extend my life and increase the chances that extraterrestrials will be found within my lifetime.


-Colin

Given that you have to select an E-mail to delete it, how are users supposed to protect themselves from this one?

Easy, I'll just select and delete it really fast.


-Colin

A conversation I had with a friend:

``Alright, lets go to the bar.''

``Sure, but first I need to go to the bank on high street.''

``Why? That one is two block in the opposite direction, there's a bank the way we are going that's on the same system so it won't charge you any fees.''

``I know, but that one has one of those old black-and-green displays. You can't trust something like that. The other bank has an ATM with color and animation.''

It really upsets me to know that things like that actually matter to people.


-Colin

Wow,

I've never been addressed by name on slashdot. Very arresting.

Anyway, you are right. I didn't really think how this was a situation that would burn itself out because it was too deadly. Should have picked an illness with a little more oomph.


-Colin

Allow me to alliterate:

Witty Worm Wrecks Windows


-Colin

"With all these hard drive problems, the infection rates are going to shrink pretty quickly as all these affected machines grind themselves to a halt," Stewart said.

Well thanks Stewart. I'm glad to know I won't have to worry about the infection rate of AIDS once most people have AIDS.


-Colin

Most infected computers will have to be rebuilt from scratch unless their owners instead decide to buy new ones

I didn't know worms were so powerful now that they could melt a computer into a pile of toxic sludge. : /


-Colin

did they "normalize" the field by throwing out those who had two PhD's for parents?

What an efficent way to hurt those who's parents both have PhDs and are honest people.


-Colin

I had this happen to me on a website where I was already a customer.

It really startled the hell out of me the first time. Anyway, I was at the site because I was looking through their help files to resolve a problem I was having. Once it became clear that I had already given them money and was looking for help, the guy just vanished.

So not only did they interupt me when I was fine on my own, they left me with a bad feeling knowing they are clearly more interested in getting new customers than helping old ones.


-Colin

Now I'll have to say `just browsing' on every webpage I visit and in every brick and morter store I visit.

Thanks a lot.


-Colin

Just because I need to xerox something doesn't mean I have to use that company. The world needed a verb that means `to look for something on the internet' and now it has one.


-Colin

Anyone else think slashdot should always include a BitTorrent seed when pointing to a huge file?


-Colin

This is bad, bad news. Now the game is one day closer to being finished which means it's one day closer to when I can buy it, which means it's one day closer to the day I won't be able to leave my computer ever again.

Blizzard game are like the purest of drugs. I got hooked on WarCraft I by a free demo in the store (the first one is always free) and I've been a junkie ever since.

My lowest moment ever was turning down sex with my girlfriend the first week that Warcraft III came out because I didn't want to step away from the game. I fear it will be even worse with World of Warcraft. : (

-Colin

But all the major location based services only work in the US.

I declair a race: First one to search the world.

Ready...

Set...

Go!


-Colin

For comparison, the dumbed down movie versions are:

1) They cannot hurt us

2) They must do what we say.

3) They can defend themselves.

Asimov also had a Zeroth Law: A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

The movie's Zeroth Law is: Rules are made to be broken.

: (

-Colin