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Stupid Department of Jetpack Suppression...

Agree?? When do you have an opportunity to agree to anything in jury service? You are required to show up on such-and-such date at such-and-such time. You may not wear shorts, tank tops, beach shoes or t-shirts, or any clothing with offensive language or logos. Don't do this, and for heaven's sake, don't do that! Jurors lose quite a bit of freedom when they get that notice in the mail.

Obligatory webcomic reference

Maybe this has already happened.

There's an easy way to tell...

1. Cross-link Facebook, Slashdot, Twitter, Second Life, Google Earth
2. Create detailed 3D body model for all Slashdotters
3. Render 3D models to latex masks.
4. Render 3D models to simulated virtual environment
5. Capture, drug and equip Slashdotters with goggles
6. Replace real-world Slashdotters with robot duplicates.
7. Profit!

Well, he didn't dirty his hands directly...

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/poyorick/botg2/series.php?view=archive&chapter=25600

You know, there's a comic out there called Supernatural Law (previously known as “Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre”); the main characters are two laywers, Alanna Wolff and Jeff Byrd, who specialize in being lawyers for movie monsters, witches, and the like.

One year as part of the Amazing Heroes Swimsuit Special, Batton Lash did a picture of Wolff and Byrd walking down toward a gigantic sea monster at the beach, while the narrator was going, “Who are these two lawyers? Why are they unafraid? Could it be...” followed by an off-panel scream. The punchline in the last panel had Alanna Wolff glaring at the rest of the crowd on the beach, the monster looking a little confused, and Jeff Byrd leanint in to say to the monster, “Sorry about my partner there, but she always swore she'd scream of anybody dragged out that chestnut about ‘Professional Courtesy’ again.”

Hmm, maybe it appeals more to people in certain areas. I still think Narbonic (starts here: http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic/series.php?view=archive&chapter=9763) is the perfect comic for any "true geek" programmer. The artist is a woman and not a programmer, so I have no idea how she got Dave's lines so perfect. She must've had a really close friend or significant other to get a lot of that material from.

Actually FTA, it's Kari Byron, Grant Imahara, and Tory Belleci who get to play with radiation. Presumably this means Kari will get to play Damsel in Distress while Grant builds a robotic suit for Tory to try to beat it up with. When they can't handle it, then we cut to Adam and Jamie as you suggest.

They'll also probably all be up for the Von Boom Award as well, but that's later.

A sister site, called WebComicsNation (http://www.webcomicsnation.com/), allows any budding comic artists start their own webcomics for a fee. Take that MIT!

Try looking up Apophenia; there's a fine line between creative genius and madness. Not that the twilight between can't be entertaining.

Kitty Litter and Pawn two of my favorites that nobody seems to know. And of course VG Cats.

It's what Enterprise *should* have been.

That would have been exciting. "Going where no man has gone before."

Ensign: So where are we going Captain?
Captain: To the Klingon home world.
Ensign: But that's 20 light years away, it'll take us 40 years just to get there!
Captain: You're right Ensign. And we only have 7 years before we're canned. Alright. We'll go to Jupiter station.
Ensign: Oh boy, that'll only take us several months!


Don't think that would have worked somehow.

For those that don't want to shill out $10 (plus shipping and handling) US for a comic they might or might not like (unfortunately the preview didn't really tell you much) here are a bunch of sci-fi comics that don't rely on a fad (and are free too) that you might enjoy:
* Storm Corps
* A Miracle of Science
* Kismet: Hunter's Moon
* Mozhaets
* Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life (WARNING: Humour)
* Twilight Agency
* Freefall (WARNING: Humour! But it is hard sci-fi. Confused how humour could mix with hard sci-fi? Read it and find out).
* Where Am I Now?

It might be Google.bucks, or it might be an unnamed earlier part in the public Master Plan a step or two before Google.Gov. A pity they can't roll THAT out at this point; they at least have some understanding of infrastructute....

I, for one, would welcome just about any new overlords, given the quality level of the current one. Frogs to Jove: King Stork has not been an improvement over King Log.

Coreopsis
Last Kiss
Walking Mage

Back in days of yore, Bell Labs and GE R&D did a lot of random research. Not a lot of what they researched made big money. Not all of it even ended up making money for the company that did the research-- many things fell by the wayside, and were picked up by others. But enough things made big money that they fed back into keeping the company profitable.

Google seems to be working in a similar mode. The good news is, this can make big bucks. The bad news is, there's a narrow operating region where this sort of thing works. But it's also very easy to kill. Investors who get too greedy and want to "focus on results", license-obsessed legal teams who think they should milk every dime out of every development instead of letting others who are willing to make innovations profitable also get rich by working really hard, managers who don't understand that if the guy who spends all but two days each year staring out the window admiring the birds also comes up with a billion dollar idea each year on those other two days then they should let the fucker STARE.

And it can be killed at the other end: employees who begin (or start of by) thinking the perks are the point instead of the work; the difficulty in thinning nice people who are not only unproductive but who distract the productive; the problems in maintaining a culture with staff who produce nifty shit, instead of just turning food into shit; and the difficulties of figuring out which ideas are billion dollar babies that should be kept in-house, which are multi-million dollar babies that should be licensed, and which are nifty stuff that you don't see what it's good for, but that you figure someone ought to be able to get rich off of it after enough work-- that you should let go.

They need to do three things:
1) Keep hiring brilliant people.
2) Keep the culture focused on invention and innovation, instead of slothful, litiginous, or short term payoff obsessed. This includes workers, managers, and stockholders.
3) Periodically identify ways to make some money off of some of what they're doing.

What they might do, if really clever, is hire some sociologists and specialists in the history of technology, have them go around and do cultural studies of successful and unsucessful innovation centers to try and isolate important factors, and try to figure out how to subtly encourage a culture that will continue to innovate, rather than turn and stagnate. Make a couple small spin-off research groups, and field test the ideas THERE, so they don't screw up the main company.

And once they isolate the formula,Pinky, they can proceed to take over the world!