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... does this mean I am about to get the Boot?

Don't tread on me, man!

Like on that one ep of SG1 that was on monday?

But the real tragedy ... [is] about the millions of people who could have benefited from Be's amazing and innovative software ...

Those benefits may still be realized, albeit a bit indirectly. The innovations in BeOS weren't sent to Earth by aliens; the ideas came from brilliant people, and those people are still around -- thinking up even better ideas, and putting them into practice all over the place. Consider also the many developers and users who have been inspired over the years by their Be experiences. I'd be willing to bet that conceptual descendants of the designs and decisions that shaped BeOS and BeIA will probably have a non-trivial impact on computing for some time to come.

Think of the (as beer) as a casting operation to the free word

Of course! It's not clear until it's expressed as a computer science concept, naturally.

It still doesn't feel natural to me, since I can't think of a case where the sense of "free" isn't implicitly understood. In most cases it's an object that is free(beer). Of course, you could talk about it being free(libre) to do something or other... but that would be anthropomorphizing an inanimate object, and they hate it when you do that.

Except, of course, (duh!) the concept of free(freedom/speech) software. Aha. Now I get it. Thanks to the Wikipedia article for spelling that out for me.

And finally, how can someone who has such a low slashdot ID not have picked these things up?

That why it was such a stupid question. I've been here since 1996... and the free beer has confused me for all 7 years.

The rest of it I understand a bit better, though I'm always curious about the etymologies of these things.

I have now also found a good explanation of the Soviet Russia bit, attributing it to Yakov Smirnoff.

And thanks to "glivings" for explaining that the whole "profit" thing comes from a SouthPark episode.

Now I'm just waiting for someone to write their PhD dissertation on /. culture... :)

- Peter

But what about the words the proofreader doesn't misspell commonly? Or when they check someone _else_'s work?

I see your first point. I assume that people that read a lot (offline) sort of "zone in" on spellings that "don't look right" and then check.

Same thing would apply regarding reviewing someone else's work if they're using Evelyn Woodski's Spd rdng tchnqus (old SNL skit).

I'm certain I'm not the only person here who thought of this when I read the article.

"No... all I've got are these 'action bills.'"

M.A.N.T.I.S.

So someone just ripped off M.A.N.T.I.S.?

Who wants to be an elderly super hero?

As I'm sure has already been pointed out to you:

1. Georgy's a woman.
2. 890,000 valid signatures (they actually collected, by some accounts, 1.6 million) is peanuts in a state of 33 million people. Only 2.6% of the entire population of the state had to sign in order to get the recall on the ballot. Spend enough time in the Republican strongholds of the central valley or Orange County, and you'll find those signatures no problem.
3. Darrell Issa, a hard-right Republican, spent nearly $1.8 million of his own money to hire people, perhaps illegally, to come in from out of state and collect signatures. Spend enough money and ask enough times outside of a supermarket and people will sign just about anything.
4. Your power bill was FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS last month because power companies asked Californians to de-regulate the market, got voter momentum by promising lower electricity bills in expensive slick commercials, and then abused the open market and illegally gouged prices high. Once that was done, they offered 'cut-rate' prices on long-term contracts, in order to lock in the high prices they wanted before they were caught manipulating the market. Once they had their high prices locked in, they let the market churn subside. Davis made the correct decision, and the right decision, even the smart decision, in signing those contracts, based on the information available to the general public in 2001. That as consumers most Californians were robbed by these contracts is knowledge only available now, in hindsight.*

Where you're right, and don't even know it, is when you say voter disgust with Davis is what paved the way to this recall tomfoolery. Given the choice between Bill "Tax Fraud" Simon and Gray "Prison Guard Union Bitch" Davis, most voters chose to give a de facto 'none of the above' vote and just stayed home last November. These incredibly low turnout figures influenced how many signatures were necessary to get the recall on the ballot, and in the end paved the way for what we see now.

Also as an aside: I think it's BRILLIANT the way the Republican party of CA. has found a way to attack Davis for the budget shortfall, when at the same time holding fast in the legislature against any tax increases in the senate, leading to the pathetic budget we currently have. Absolute genius in the way they managed to eat their cake and have it, too.

And finally: If Georgy would come out pro-gun, she'd be my ideal candidate. As it is, I'll take what she's offering. Definitely the choice my conscience will tell me to vote in October.

* I say "most" because, like a few other municipalities, the town in which I live chose to maintain its own municipal power authority instead of trusting PG&E, so while you're paying $400, I'm paying $65. Thank you, bitch. Suck it dry!

As I'm sure has already been pointed out to you:

1. Georgy's a woman.
2. 890,000 valid signatures (they actually collected, by some accounts, 1.6 million) is peanuts in a state of 33 million people. Only 2.6% of the entire population of the state had to sign in order to get the recall on the ballot. Spend enough time in the Republican strongholds of the central valley or Orange County, and you'll find those signatures no problem.
3. Darrell Issa, a hard-right Republican, spent nearly $1.8 million of his own money to hire people, perhaps illegally, to come in from out of state and collect signatures. Spend enough money and ask enough times outside of a supermarket and people will sign just about anything.
4. Your power bill was FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS last month because power companies asked Californians to de-regulate the market, got voter momentum by promising lower electricity bills in expensive slick commercials, and then abused the open market and illegally gouged prices high. Once that was done, they offered 'cut-rate' prices on long-term contracts, in order to lock in the high prices they wanted before they were caught manipulating the market. Once they had their high prices locked in, they let the market churn subside. Davis made the correct decision, and the right decision, even the smart decision, in signing those contracts, based on the information available to the general public in 2001. That as consumers most Californians were robbed by these contracts is knowledge only available now, in hindsight.*

Where you're right, and don't even know it, is when you say voter disgust with Davis is what paved the way to this recall tomfoolery. Given the choice between Bill "Tax Fraud" Simon and Gray "Prison Guard Union Bitch" Davis, most voters chose to give a de facto 'none of the above' vote and just stayed home last November. These incredibly low turnout figures influenced how many signatures were necessary to get the recall on the ballot, and in the end paved the way for what we see now.

Also as an aside: I think it's BRILLIANT the way the Republican party of CA. has found a way to attack Davis for the budget shortfall, when at the same time holding fast in the legislature against any tax increases in the senate, leading to the pathetic budget we currently have. Absolute genius in the way they managed to eat their cake and have it, too.

And finally: If Georgy would come out pro-gun, she'd be my ideal candidate. As it is, I'll take what she's offering. Definitely the choice my conscience will tell me to vote in October.

* I say "most" because, like a few other municipalities, the town in which I live chose to maintain its own municipal power authority instead of trusting PG&E, so while you're paying $400, I'm paying $65. Thank you, bitch. Suck it dry!

In case anyone is wondering what I'm talking about... :)

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServ let/showid-146/epid-113449/

Taken from the site itself..

By the way, this last and final episode ties in neatly w/ this episode

you mean Dave Coulier

Wasn't the supposedly the one Alanis was singing about in You Oughta Know?

Space Island One must have had a tiny budget but still worked well.

So, I'm not the only person who watched that. I'm still convinced that those little robots were just Red Dwarf's scutters with a new paint job.

Were they intentionally trying to make it look like ARK II???? ( WARNING: LINK CONTAINS MONK-IDITY! )

I'm a canuck, and the the first I heard about snipe hunting was on the T.V. show "Cheers", in an old episode.

Sam: What's new Normie?
Norm: Terrorists Sam, they've taken over my stomach. They're demanding beer.

Jeez, i miss that show

by the fact that Starbuck is played by
Katee Sackhoff.

Yummy.

Another botched attempt by the navy at cloaking, like the Philadelphia Experiment, only this time it was a fighter and it rematerialized in the ship just like The Pegasus in that one episode of TNG.

Not just that! Jack Wagner played Dr. Peter Burns on Melrose Place. That guy sure gets around.

However, I am left wondering how this might have turned out if the uncle's DNA had been at the scene for a perfectly innocent reason that he could not justify, or if the DNA match was just a coincidence.

Mr. Garrison's working for Apple now?

TVTome is to TV series as IMDB is to movies. Its got pretty much anything you want to know about TV shows including epislode lists and guides.

Eek the Cat.

I remember when I saw The Wizard as a kid, I thought it was the perfect movie.

When I was a kid I actually thought "The Powers of Matthew Star" was a good TV show.

Now Max and Liz will never be safe! :(

TV Tome has a ton of useful TV show info also.

From TV Tome:

"For millions of years earth was fertile and rich. Then polution(sic) and waste began to take their toll. Civilization fell into ruin. This is the world of the 25th century. Only a handful of scientists remain. Men, who have vowed to rebuild what has been destroyed...This is their achievement...Ark II, a mobile storehouse of scientific knowledge, manned by a highly trained crew of young people. Their mission: to bring the hope of a new future to mankind. Ark II log, entry #1 - I Jonah, Ruth, Samuel and Adam are fully aware of the dangers we face as we venture into unknown, maybe even hostile areas. But, we're determined to bring the promise of a new civilization to our people and our planet."

Ooh, and a cheesy picture here.

I thought they'd call it "W"..

Either that or V++.

Now, between this sequel and catching the other half of that Buck Rogers 2-parter I missed when it first aired things are looking up in the esoteric 80's sci-fi TV department. Now I just need Automan, Manimal, and The Phoenix, and I'm all set.

I thought they'd call it "W"..

Either that or V++.

Now, between this sequel and catching the other half of that Buck Rogers 2-parter I missed when it first aired things are looking up in the esoteric 80's sci-fi TV department. Now I just need Automan, Manimal, and The Phoenix, and I'm all set.

Perhaps if we're lucky, we'll receive the first episode of their SCI-FI series - "Pale Men From Earth!"

yeah, or their version of the "I love Lucy" show....

Hey, maybe if we're really, really lucky we'll be able to tune in on "Earth"

You missed the episode that was on 40 minutes ago, they accidentally dialed into a planet that was being consumed by a blackhole and then they couldn't shut down the gate, time dialation, sucking etc ensued.

Dilbert already invented Shock Pants almost 3 years ago.

Consider the "First Evil" arc. They started that one over four years ago!!! Yeah, I know we you like the way he plants clues and goes for a slow buildup. So do I. But that buildup looks like the workers were drunk and AWOL half the time!

The whole series is full of stuff like that. My favorite villain in all of genre fiction is Glorificus, The Fashion Queen from Another Dimension. But I was only able to enjoy her arc by nodding at the plot inconsistencies you could drive a truck through. A willing fan can do that for a while (hence Star Trek), but Buffy fans have less patience.

I think if Joss Whedon is going to remain a major player (and I do hope he manages to revive Firefly) he's gonna have to rethink his working style. TV and movies are collaborative media, yet he insists that all the big insights be his and his alone. That prevents people from hijacking his vehicles (as happened with the Buffy movie) but also prevents people from telling him when his clothes are no invisible, but missing. No wonder Buffy got so far off track.

Reminds me of Species 8472 from Star Trek Voyager

Yogi Bear, Godzilla (ack!),Snagglepus, Atomic Ant, the Tom and Jerry from the age (the oroginals are *classic*) and the many derivatives and re-packaging such as The Jetsons, Galaxy Goofups gave the impression that Hanna Barbera had a crap factory somewhere.

Yeah, some of those shows are pretty bad, but without the Hanna Barbera crap factories, we wouldn't have Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

The cartoon Family Guy also paid tribute to Yakov in the episode There's Something About Paulie

"Give up the ham. Powerful words." (?)

Get over yourself.
You sound like Frank Grimes from the Simpsons. For more info please see the following
link and link.
Oh, and you thought we couldn't lear anything from the Simpsons!

Jack, is that you?

There are a ton of sites to answer not only this question, but the same question for MANY other shows as well. I won't remind you that a google search for firefly space western may turn up some infromative pages, but will point you to TV Tome.

:-)

First Casualty

This sounds like a good use for the brown noise.

The spin-off that everybody's chomping at the bit about is most likely Ripper (Alternative title:The Watcher), which is going to be primarily about Giles.

Filming for Ripper starts this May, and if all goes well it will air on UPN September 2004. (Source: tvtome.com)

Actually, the best appearance I've seen of the Segway so far was on the Policy episode of Sealab 2021. However it was only there to show how much damage a moron with a high credit limit can do.

Actually, the best appearance I've seen of the Segway so far was on the Policy episode of Sealab 2021. However it was only there to show how much damage a moron with a high credit limit can do.

Herman's head was a great show!

A couple of great links about the show:
A Complete Overview

A Big Resource

What was the name of that bad star-trek like show that was set in the ocean?

Could you be thinking of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea? That had much of the same music and sound effects as ST:TOS, as well as the same overall feel.

I don't know whetrher it's safe to say this on Slashdot, where rabid Simpsons fans congregate, but Futurama is a much better sow than the Simpsons, and I'm really hoping that it will be resurrected in some form since no one has paid to make new episodes. A Futurama movie would be splendiforous!

Doonesbury's always had 5. And other serious strips.

Someone has enumerated Simpsons finger jokes.

Supposedly the Simpsons God had five fingers.

Um, why in the world would a songwriter get $0.08 for distribution of a song by US law ?!?

I can understand if the RIAA, or some guild or union has a rule or a bylaw to that effect. But that doesn't make sense to me for two reasons.

1) What reason would the Government of the United States of America have to get involved with something stupid like this. Not only paying songwriters, but setting a specific price by law? WTF? In 50 years when inflation makes that worth even less than it is now, will congress change the law to 20 cents?

2) Define a songwriter. If I write a stupid song about my trip to Walmart (let's call it Ode to Church Road), and then I perform it with my PC's mic, and share it via Gnutella. Does that make me a songwriter? If someone then downloads it, am I then automatically entitled to 8 cents? If I write a stupid song and then perform it, can I share the file loaded with keywords for porn and movies and other artists, so that unsuspecting people download it, and then rake in the money 8 cents at a time? Sure, by US law any time anyone writes a note on a napkin, that is automatically copyrighted, but that's a little different. That's just saying "you created this, so you own it". It's not saying "you created it, now someone got a copy you are owed $0.08."

This just doesn't make sense to me. You could be right, but can you provide any links or anything to back up this claim?

I did find a few links that say US law has a *CAP* on what a songwriter can charge in royalties of 8 cents per song. But that's not the same thing. That doesn't mean that a songwriter has to get paid at all. It just says that 8 cents is the most he or she can charge.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not defending copyright violation. If I rip my copy of Dr. Dre's The Chronic to MP3 and "share" it. Then that's illegal. Regardless of songwriter fees or not. Dre (or his record label at the time, or someone who is not me) owns the copyright on that album. I have received no licensee in writing, verbal, or implied to redistribute his works.

But, your example with the indy bands is flawed. Many indy bands write their own music. In which case, they don't have to charge anything for it. If they want to distribute it for free, they can do so, since the $0.08 figure is a maximum, not a minimum (unless you know something I don't, which I haven't completely discounted). What happens if My indy band (let's call them "Don't Throw Knives At Me", I like that name) wants to do a punk cover of The Unknown Stunt Man (theme to the TV show, The Fall Guy, written by David Somerville, Gail Jensen & Glen Larson and originally performed by Lee Majors)? Does my shitty indy band have to contact Somerville & company, or pay up to $0.08 for every song pressed? Well, as far as I can tell, yes. But my knowledge in this area it limited.

So where am I going with this rant? If someone breaks the law, you go after them. Simple. If Don't Throw Knives At Me records a punk cover of The Unknown Stuntman, we either owe the songwriter up to $0.08 per physical copy that gets distributed, or we have to work out a special deal with them. But if *I* write "Ode To Church Road", and perform it with Don't Throw Knives At Me, then I don't owe myself any money unless I say I do, which is stupid, because then I'd have to pay income tax on what I paid myself and I'd wind up loosing money ( :

As to how one verifies that I didn't unconsciously plagiarize another song, that's stupid too. In this case, the burden of proof is on any accuser. The artist doesn't have to prove that each and every work they ever write is original. That's like having to prove documentation to prove that something I'm selling on ebay isn't stolen. It may or may not be a good idea, but it's not required. It can't be unless someone makes an accusation. And even then, I believe the burden of proof is on the accuser, is it not?

One last tangent:

I find this 8 cent law interesting. Until I read your post and did some digging, I was not previously aware of it. What I find interesting it the fact that it only applies to physical media, yet it applies to MP3s and other digital file based media. I'm assuming this is because unlike a radio broadcast (to which this statute does not apply) when you share via MP3, a new, permanent copy is made. But how is this different from me tape recording the song off of the radio (which is legal, I believe because of time shifting rulings, please correct me if I'm wrong)? Does a songwriter technically have to get a royalty off of that too?

Again, I'm not 100% sure on any of these points, this is just how it appears to me, based on the information I was able to gather and my ability to interpret it. Any lawyers in the house with relevant experience care to chime in?

Sources:
Texas Tech University
House.gov