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For what it's worth, the needless injection was around before star trek, used in the smallpox-irradication mass vaccinations of the 60's and 70's. However groups have steadily dropped the use of liquid "hyposprays" because blood can backwash onto the jet head, potentially infecting people in line. In fact all of the military branches have dropped their use since 1997.

The technology is starting to make a comeback, however. Powder-based systems which opperate much more quickly don't have the risk of backwash, and have disposable heads (as do new designs for liquid media).

An even more interesting robot is the one at CMU that walks around talking to people & showing facial expressions... these roboguard robots don't seem all that advanced, especially after seeing robot museum guides, nurses, and lots of other cool robots.

Bill Gates' wife was responsible for the paper clip. Really, it's true. Melinda French Gates was a project lead on MS Bob (you have to remember MicroSoft Bob -- it was that cartoony software that slowed your machine to a crawl and insulted you while balancing your checkbook or reading email). When Bob was revealed to be the complete and utter turkey that it was always destined to be, guess what got some of the "usability and human interface" stuff? Office. Guess who happened to also be, ah, "seeing" The Boss? Melinda. Why wasn't Bob just canned, like any other project that wastes millions and failed completely? You have to wonder if Bill G wasn't getting pillow-talked into something. In fact, MS Bob was the first consumer product Bill Gates released personally. People do the strangest things for love.

Anyway, a lot of what Bob had to offer didn't get canned (as it should have). It got repuposed and wound up in other MS products. Take a look at the screenshot on this page. See that dog in the lower corner? That was Bob's dog Rex. (I wish they had a picture of the dragon named "Java"; I wonder if McNealy every knew about that?) Looks like that paper clip, eh? Bob's ghost is in other stuff, too. MS Agent had a re-incarnation.

Well this is all way OT. But I think the Bob fiasco sheds some light on what goes on at MS. There's really no reason to wonder about the pape clip. I'm sure Melinda will insist on touchy-feely stuff being included in every MS product. I love it when someone thinks for me...

-B

Pittsburgh isn't that depressing, and it's not always cloudy...

Besides, CMU's giving up on the grand plan of a west coast campus - at least for now:
CMU's westward expansion bogs down in slow economy

Here's another recently released study on cell phone use while driving:
CMU research has implications for talking on phone while driving

Pittsburgh isn't that depressing, and it's not always cloudy...

Besides, CMU's giving up on the grand plan of a west coast campus - at least for now:
CMU's westward expansion bogs down in slow economy

Here's another recently released study on cell phone use while driving:
CMU research has implications for talking on phone while driving

I strongly suspect that 'That's My Bush" will utterly destroy the cretin in the Whitehouse.

Actually, you do. Sort of. According to this story on the MLB site, each subscription gets you a $10 gift certificate at their online store. I can't say I really understand this. Maybe they're just trying to lessen the blow. I wonder if this deal is temporary, and if they will do the same next year.
I don't really understand the reasoning behind any of this. Hopefully all MLB wants is to improve the quality of online broadcasts, but I doubt it. It make me wonder how the individual teams will feel, as well as their flagship broadcasters. Apparently this has caught many people by surprise, including the media. Today's local paper in Pittsburgh even states here (2nd question) that you can listen online by going to the Pirates website (which of course has no mention of the Real Networks deal). Have to wonder what exactly is going on.

In any case, this doesn't really seem like a prudent thing to do, given the pending labor war next offseason. I hope they have some fans left once they get everything straightened out. Personally, this isn't doing much for my waning enthusiasm (of course, when your hometown team sucks it's hard to be positive, but hey at least they get a new ballpark this year).

I really wish we could see what was posted about this guy.

Nothing too exciting... From an article published last November, here's what happened.

Melvin sued the anonymous Web gossip after he posted a comment online declaring: "Judge Joan Orie Melvin has been lobbying the Ridge administration on behalf of a local attorney seeking the appointment by Gov. Ridge to fill the vacancy on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas created by the mandatory retirement earlier this month of Judge Robert Dauer. ..."

Kinda boring, really...

Agreed.

Someone kept pestering me to watch the re-runs of B5 on Sci-Fi (I missed the entire original run), and I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality and cohesiveness (it helps that it was almost entirely written by JMS instead of an army of vying authors). I've never liked DS9 or Voyager very much, and this new series doesn't sound promising either :/.

There's a report that the 13 Crusade episodes are getting shown on Sci-Fi (which JMS has apparently confirmed), as well as a possible new B5 movie (which is more realistic than Crusade itself being picked up as a production series I think).

I guess my point is that people looking for good sci-fi on TV don't have to settle for Star Trek or the dreck in Sci-Fi's original shows... (I also found it very amusing that TNN is getting the Next Generation re-run rights).

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
CMU experts helping CBS's 30 robotic cameras to work as one

Cliff is right: it is not better to type move all files beginning with the letter a to the directory called 'foo'" than to type "mv a* foo". I predict this one will be as much of a hit as Microsoft's Bob.

Crispin Cowan
-----
Immunix: Free Hardened Linux
Chief Scientist, WireX

I honestly can't say that, from my experience (not very considerable since I'm only 17 and not even in college yet), women haven't had it too rough. At least not in the college admissions process. It seems to me as if colleges (using Carnegie Mellon, #1 in CS) are actually going after those few female future computer scientists. I would have loved to have gone to Carnegie Mellon for CS, but I was waitlisted, and when I was accepted, they couldn't reevaluate my financial package (I still would've had to pay almost $20,000), so I had to choose Case Western Reserve University. Women at CMU SCS (School of Computer Science) are not so rare anymore. They've increased from under 10% of the incoming class in 1995 to almost 40% of the incoming class of 2000. By the way, the national standard is under 10% of women gain engineering-related degrees, including CS. The article which I got my statistics from says that CMU is "bucking the national trend". Now, high school seniors, the last time I checked, can choose their own school. So CMU is somehow attracting far more women than they used to, and more importantly, far more women than the rest of the schools in America. They do this by some good methods: by the Women@SCS Support Group, set up to nurture women through their four years in the SCS. Men don't have this advantage, but I can see that discrimination might discourage the women...I guess. This is OK. But by offering an exclusive scholarship to women (and another exclusive scholarship to minorities, though that's semi-offtopic), they persuade women in by lowering their exhorbitant $34,000 yearly cost to a reasonable rate...for women. White males are only considered for one third of the available merit scholarships. Contrast this with women, who are considered for more, or all, if they're of minority racial background. This I have a problem with.
I'm reminded of a statement from a student at the Boston Latin School, one of the most competitive secondary schools in America, and somewhat diverse: "It should be merit only that gets us here, and merit only that lets us stay." That was bravely said by a female minority student. Obviously, it's still possible to be female and smart. Let's just realize that...and realize as well that I am against gender bias at a young age. This is the one place I'm not sure about. But if there are teachers out there telling the little girls, "Why don't you try sewing instead," when they pick up a keyboard, well they should be ready with a response, "My daddy told me that girls can do anything boys can do, and I think they can do it better." My point is, parents, if it wasn't common sense, tell your children that they can do anything, regardless of gender! And give them pride...so when somebody thinks they can't do it, and tries to tell them so, they know that they can, and they will "show them." That's how I was brought up. I'm afraid I can't lend an air of true authority to this story, as I'm just a white male. But I know if I was a girl, I wouldn't let anyone tell me what I could or couldn't do.
Links:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Article
Women@SCS

I honestly can't say that, from my experience (not very considerable since I'm only 17 and not even in college yet), women haven't had it too rough. At least not in the college admissions process. It seems to me as if colleges (using Carnegie Mellon, #1 in CS) are actually going after those few female future computer scientists. I would have loved to have gone to Carnegie Mellon for CS, but I was waitlisted, and when I was accepted, they couldn't reevaluate my financial package (I still would've had to pay almost $20,000), so I had to choose Case Western Reserve University. Women at CMU SCS (School of Computer Science) are not so rare anymore. They've increased from under 10% of the incoming class in 1995 to almost 40% of the incoming class of 2000. By the way, the national standard is under 10% of women gain engineering-related degrees, including CS. The article which I got my statistics from says that CMU is "bucking the national trend". Now, high school seniors, the last time I checked, can choose their own school. So CMU is somehow attracting far more women than they used to, and more importantly, far more women than the rest of the schools in America. They do this by some good methods: by the Women@SCS Support Group, set up to nurture women through their four years in the SCS. Men don't have this advantage, but I can see that discrimination might discourage the women...I guess. This is OK. But by offering an exclusive scholarship to women (and another exclusive scholarship to minorities, though that's semi-offtopic), they persuade women in by lowering their exhorbitant $34,000 yearly cost to a reasonable rate...for women. White males are only considered for one third of the available merit scholarships. Contrast this with women, who are considered for more, or all, if they're of minority racial background. This I have a problem with.
I'm reminded of a statement from a student at the Boston Latin School, one of the most competitive secondary schools in America, and somewhat diverse: "It should be merit only that gets us here, and merit only that lets us stay." That was bravely said by a female minority student. Obviously, it's still possible to be female and smart. Let's just realize that...and realize as well that I am against gender bias at a young age. This is the one place I'm not sure about. But if there are teachers out there telling the little girls, "Why don't you try sewing instead," when they pick up a keyboard, well they should be ready with a response, "My daddy told me that girls can do anything boys can do, and I think they can do it better." My point is, parents, if it wasn't common sense, tell your children that they can do anything, regardless of gender! And give them pride...so when somebody thinks they can't do it, and tries to tell them so, they know that they can, and they will "show them." That's how I was brought up. I'm afraid I can't lend an air of true authority to this story, as I'm just a white male. But I know if I was a girl, I wouldn't let anyone tell me what I could or couldn't do.
Links:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Article
Women@SCS

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article is here:
http://www.post-gazett e.com/healthscience/20000616lunar2.asp

On November 10th, there were approximately 13 search warrants issued in New York City and Rochester, New York and Austin, Texas against companies believed to be in the business of selling electronic surreptitious intercept devices, in violation of federal law. Ramsey Electronics was one of those companies. ["we raided so many places, somebody MUST have been doing something illegal, but notice how I'm not really SAYING anything here."]
If something's illegal, it's illegal. [Unless of course its a Federal Law Enforcement agency breaking the law, some of us remember the drug running involved with Iran-Contra]
Sometimes you can only act upon things when you're informed of them. ["we were bored and needed to keep our arrest/conviction rates high to receive funding. We've already closed down everybody selling grow lights and rousted all the DeadHeads dropping acid."] There's a task force in New York City that's been investigating this for a few years now. [A FEW YEARS(!?). How long does it take to "investigate" a clock-camera? Good job guys] They've been shutting down companies or preventing companies from selling these things, and they've been taking several criminal pleas because of this. [I've read "winning at any cost" and understand how the feds obtain convictions.] These people have been pleading guilty in Federal court. [And that's the point isn't it.. plead guilty. Haven't made our society any safer, but you have your conviction rate to worry about] San Francisco now has a task force. [and this relates to our story HOW?] Other cities are joining in, trying to stop the manufacture and distribution of this equipment. ["We've harassed the indoor gardening business into extinction and need to justify our jobs". This looks like job security for the next 10 years or so]
I don't know how to answer that. [no kidding] Use is use. [thanks for the lesson in the BLEEDING OBVIOUS] If you place a device in a clock, and you put that clock on the wall, and you monitor someone's conversation that you're not a part of, I think that surreptitious use speaks for itself. [this is bullshit, its perfectly legal to monitor my babysitter isn't it?] Clock, smoke detector, or picture frame, you're taking that device out of its primary use in order to secretly intercept someone else's conversation. [so a picture frame is no longer frames a picture? a clock isn't there to tell time anymore?, interesting take on reality there bub] We're not necessarily looking for kits or components. [but hey, if I can twist the law to mean kits, i'll prosecute and take the plea bargain] We're looking for items like clocks, smoke detectors and picture frames. [which TOTALLY fails to explain why you raided HOBBY PARTS SHOP. Braappp. Game Over. Thanks for playing!]

On the positive side for Silicon Valley. It does have a lot of young professional people in my age group (25+), there are a lot of stores (Fry's, Weird Stuff, Halted) geared towards my interests, and I'm constantly surrounded by the Industry and learning a lot for it. It is exciting to walk down the street and run into Trimble technologies while seeing the military planes flying into Moffett airfield next to Lockheed, or get lost and find myself in Netscape's compound. Or just play the driving game of how many times you see Sun/HP/Cisco buildings in your 10 mile commute home. The place is also very dynamic and powerful when reading the San Jose Mercury News and seeing familiar companies that either you've worked for or know friends who are listed among the technologically elite. But most of all, it's great to sit around with a bunch of friends discussing the latest finds in computing over a glass of wine. I love it!

However, on my return home, I have noticed a few things I do miss. For one, last night I had a bunch of my old friends over -- non-geeks in a large part so far less homogenous than those I am hanging out with in the Valley. The topics never touched computers or money, but strayed from politics to philosophy and morality and back touching a number of issues current and historical. The variety of opinions on the subject were from people with vastly different personal experiences and I realized just how homogenous the Valley can be and where this is, at times, a disadvantage.

Also, I miss working at pair Networks. It is not a company looking for IPOs and Get Rich Quick, so they are all earnest in keeping the company together and the people on board. It makes for a more bonded *team* of employees, and less sense of temporary company holdings. (Not to mention that pair is doing very well, it often makes me reflect if I did make the right decision in leaving). The problem is that so many of the companies out in the Valley are oriented towards selling out and making money that many of them have lost the sense of personal touch. Even the employee resources step into offices with the attitude of temporary staying power. That makes for a lot more sense of transience and less settled.

I could mention the issue of cost-of-living, but that's been discussed to death here and elsewhere. Though, I will note that I drove down a street yesterday looking at brick 3-story 1890 homes that sell for 1/5 the cost of a 1950's post-WWII tract house with maybe 2 bedrooms in Sunnyvale.

Lastly, everyone is a workaholic in Silicon Valley. To the point where one of the first articles I read in the San Jose Mercury News was a headline Sunday Paper about "How to Know You're a Workaholic" pointing to a big branch of Workaholic's Anonymous. The culture there reflects this greatly in that the valley shuts down after 9pm, and going to the movies is the biggest thing to do (and not much else). Or hosting a LAN party. :)

Summing up: I do miss a lot about Pittsburgh -- for personal reasons not applicable to this discussion, I am not moving back, however I will encourage those who remain to recognize the advantages they do have. Silicon Valley is not for everyone, but neither are Pittsburgh-like places. Seriously consider the options, and reflect on the advantages you do have where you are at. I am glad that I moved 5 months ago, but I do sorely miss a lot of the things I left behind.

(btw, on a less serious note, one word: snow)

As for NetSol -- So what happens when their competition overwhelms them with competence? Will the license plates then read, "The state formerly known as the Internet C@pital"?

(Former Pissburgher now on the left coast)