Slashdot Mirror
A Metric Ton of Quickies
Step right up ladies and gentlemen and behold, quickies so amazing, that you may not want to stare directly at them.
First up, a trio of Microsoft bits:
Ethan sent us an RFC for writing RFCs in Word.
Russ pointed us to a great entry contained within the microsoft knowledge base.
and an anonymous reader noted that boardwatch is selling
BillGatus of Borg posters again.
You may need a soundtrack for this one:
chisox sent a bit about Jem Finer composing a thousand year song (and a machine to play it). If generative music ain't your thing,
Jason noted that MC (Stephen) Hawking has made some of his R&B and Rap cuts available in MP3 format.
And while it isn't exactly music,
Several folks showed us the way to best learn about Semi Conductors:
have Britney Spears teach it.
wishus's submission is much less educational: he's kissing up to me by telling us that Sarcasta's latest update is
in depth study on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
If you need some images to enlighten and amuse,
B.D.Mills noted that stinky meat is back if you didn't get enough the first time,
Ant sent us the correct use
for the new mac cubes, and
danfairs sent us a picture of... well, a fire extinguisher.
table and chair pointed us to Political Arena, a Quake 3 modwhere you blow up the political candidates (is this treason once one of them gets elected?)
If blowing up Bush isn't enough stress reduction for you,
einstein has shown us how best to customize your case and void your warrenty in one swing. Of an axe.
Kartoffel wrote a CueCat interface for BeOS as well as a Mr T vs. CueCat Comic Strip.
Even more offensive then another Mr T vs. episode is a comic featuring
Admiral Ackbar debating Napster sent in by
georgeha.
Last of all, if you didn't know, Spinal Tap is back out in limited release. God what a great flick. Just figured I'd mention it ...
Is that a new network appliance? Does it run CE? ;>
That's cuz "economic liberty" is aka fiscal conservatism- IOW, if you look at the (silly, simplistic and wrong, but somewhat appropriate here) idea of "left" and "right", a Libertarian is more on the left in terms of social issues, but more on the right in terms of economic issues. Bush and Gore are centrists almost to the point where the differences are blurred (but not totally, and there are important differences!), so I'd expect a Lib to vote either way, if not for the Lib. party candidate.
For the record, IA(O)NAL (I am (obvioiusly) not a libertarian).
BTW, I love it when people call me a "dangerous liberal," please fire away =)
-- All hamsters are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Socrates was a hamster.
M$ is not offically doing this.
It is just some stupid "programmer."
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what, and emacs isn't overkill? ;)
--
My home page is theoretically available to six billion people.
Are you saying that each and every person with a web site has to take care to not offend anyone or, god forbid, center on the area in which they live?
You, sir, are an idiot.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
After reading far too many replies arguing about the metric vs standard system and quoting obscure and often irrelevant documents about the origins and specifics of these "standards" I just have one thing to say.
You guys are going to have sooo much egg on your face the next time Q takes it into his head to change the gravitational constant of the universe.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Whoops, meant spans per week squared.
-- Sig (120 chars) --
Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.
* Q
P.S. If you don't get this note, let me know and I'll write you another.
So when did we all decide that the government had to parent children? Since when did parents lose the responsibility to parent their own children?
You hit the nail on the head in saying that it is the parents responsibility to raise their children. That means if they want to control what their children buy/watch/play/hear, they can pay attention to what their children are doing, and not depend on government regulation to watch them.
There isn't any medium in common use today that would run for weeks (excepting generative stuff or some uses of MOD-type music), but there is one possibility I'd love to play with someday- streaming live music through mp3 to a CD writer. Using a basic data rate like the (borderline decent) 128K, a CD will hold over 10 hours of music- but to get really serious you have to use a DVD format, which could theoretically run for over six days! None of this would be generative at all- it would just be a hell of a long audio stream :) to record such music would take over 200 adat tapes, so the only sensible way to do the six day composition would be as one long live improvisation with teams of musicians stepping in and taking over for each other. Strings, drumheads and such things would have to be swapped out- or the whole thing could be synth-driven, avoiding the problems of physical instruments being played for six days nonstop :)
If you're willing to do generative music it's even simpler- write mod software that makes music out of raw data, give it a lot of instruments to play with and then give it 600 megs or so of data to play with, and run the program. It wouldn't be hard to make that go for 1000 years, in theory anyway ;)
The neat thing about this quickie-report is the effort and attention to making a musical thing that could literally go for a thousand years. That moves into the areas of engineering art as well as experimental music. Part of the 'music' is not just the (possibly limited) tunes it plays but knowing that the song is continuing, will still be unfolding past the lives of your grandchildren. It's like conceptual art- I hope this project follows through. I'd like to hear a bit of the music it makes :)
1000 kilos, or 1.1025 regular tons, or 2.205 pounds.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
The meter is defined one ten millionth (1/10000000) of the distance from the north pole to the equator through Paris. Why that's just so fucking intuitive and precise. Even if God is leading your surveying team. If I so much as take a piss on the ground along tha line, the distance changes, to say nothing of quakes and rain and wind erosion.
Now I'm sure the metric heads will jump up to correct my "error" and say the meter is x wavelengths of some krypton emission wavelength light. Well, the foot can be define by that same emission today too. So metric is not better for that.
Move on to the kilogram. What is the supreme, absolute reference standard for the metric unit of mass, the kilogram (shouldn't the base unit not have a "kilo" prefix?)? It's still a chunk of metal in a French vault. The same level of precision could again be done for the slug in the US system.
US units are easier to use because they divide EVENLY by many more factors than metric units. 1km or 1000m evenly divides by 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 20, 25, 40, 50, 100, 125, 200, 250, 500, and 1000 That's it. 16 factors. And very commonly needed ones like 3 are missing. 1 mile or 5280 feet divides evenly by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 20, 22, 24, 30, 32, 33, 40, 44, 48, 55, 60, 66, 80, 88, 96, 110, 120, 132, 160, 165, 176, 220, 240, 264, 330, 352, 440, 480, 528, 660, 880, 1056, 1320, 1760, 2640, and 5280. That's 48 factors. Far more useful.
It was probably for this reason that time and angular measurements didn't go metric (where do you see gradients except on road signs warning of inclines [100 grads is a right angle]). 360 degrees divides evenly by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 45, 60, 72, 90, 120, 180, and 360. 24 factors! Now that's convenient!
You could also add:
4 oz. bourbon whiskey
(But only if you're of legal age, of course.)
all mah bitchez on de street, Word 2 the Hawkman
The questionaire mentioned above can be found at the http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html, entitled, "World's Smallest Political Quiz."
As noted by the domain name (self-gov), this is a tool by libertarians. However, it is generally fair, if a bit simplistic. Ten questions: five on economic issues and five on social issues.
The four extents are Left-Liberal (social freedom over economic freedom), Right-Conservative (economic over social), Authoritarians (neither economic nor social individual freedom), and Libertarians (minimal central government).
The middle of the chart is, as you might predict, the Centrists, which represents nearly all elected officials in the US, regardless of their mud-slung labels.
They even break Authoritarians into left-authoritarians (socialists) and right-authoritarians (fascists).
I've made a Palm version of the same quiz, and it was made for the Newton a couple years back. Email me for a PalmOS/PocketC version.
[
Wait a second!!!
If I'm not mistaken I've already got a patent pending on that!
bemis
-shut up dude! i was just trying to impress your mom!
I never got the chance to see it. I sounded funny, what was it? Any mirrors?
-Derek
...is God. No wonder the Pogues were such a great band.
Is it bad that after looking at each Britney Spears picture for about 3 seconds each, I started reading the equations and trying to remember my Junior year semiconductors class?
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
It's still a joke. That adds credibility. Americans are not known for "getting" jokes though, so be my guest and take it seriously if you want.
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
"if blowing up Bush isn't enough stress reduction for you"
... well, you get the idea. Typical close-minded collegiate America.
I said it before and I'll say it again.
I have a strong objection to the ever-growing pattern of slashdotters assuming everyone here is a left-winged, christian hating, disgusted by anyone Republican
When I was just a wee geek lad, our kind clung to the idea that NO political party was good enough for our high ideals. Alas, I miss those days.
Macs are a booger to deal with...(hehehe)
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http://www.britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm gives a 404 error, now. Bummer. Did anyone mirror it?
Oh, go on, check out my job.
using Word to create a text-only output is a slippery slope
Hallelujah my brother.
You have hit the proverbial nail right on it's proverbial motherfucking head.
Once you start down the slippery slope there's no telling where you might end up. I've heard horrifying tales of people using advanced multi-user operating systems for playing nethack. There have even been rumors of people using turing-complete programming languages to print "hello world". Thank god those are only rumors.
--Shoeboy
It surprises me that this project gets as littly publicity as it does. Personally I believe that Jem Finer is a genious. He was a computer science major before he was recruited to play with the Pogues, a great irish band (check them out, if buyin CDs Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, If I should Fall From Grace With God, and Red Roses For Me are the best three albums.), and when the band broke up, he came up with this...I can't wait till it gets streamed
I'm hoping for something with a list of towns so I can pick the one closest to me.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Optimal is 15.400000001, but 15.4 is close enough. BUT IN THE NAME OF GOD DONT GO 15.5!!!!
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
______
Love Always,
Cobalt
Actually, here in Tokyo, the most frequent comment I hear about them is "Hmmm... Eki no haizara..."
(Trainstation ashtray)
They really do look quite the same.
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
first of all, rfc's usually are co-written by multiple vendors. no one really trusts the motivations of a single vendor.
secondly, rfc's usually seek to satisfy a need or inadequacy. tell me, what's so broken about using text to create rfc's?
and they wonder why they (M$) are called borg - sigh...
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Of course, at $18 per CD, the RIAA stands to make lots of money off this.
And, using MP3s or streaming techniques violates the RIAA's right to be the sole source of acoustic art in the world.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
If I nuke Cheney, is that considered homework?
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"Statuephiles" are messed up. The squishy parts are the best.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
I said the same thing below, but I signed my name to it.
You'll find that your opinions will get read here more often (although not always agreed to) if you take the time to login.
btw... there's more to life than the high school taught theories of left wing vs. right wing. For the rest of you reading this: just because we don't want to be liberals, don't assume that we're conservatives either. How linear you people think.
(read my post below)
oh, and by today's poll results, Taco is pissing off 40% of the readers... but I'm not sure if that represents total population or total voting population.
i guess it won't be available on napster. is the RIAA behind this too?
In metric it's spelled tonne!
Being from Barcelona has its rewards... and one is having had Unix Fire Extinguishers at work.
I can assure y'all that they exists and they are in use.
We never used them, thanks God!, but they were handy, just in case. (Yes, most of the programers used to be heavy smokers in Barcelona. And, no, there's no such word as "sue" there) God Bless Unix in all is variants. Cheers, Sinner P.S.: Can someone create a daemon called "fired" so we can control the excessive heat on overclocked boxes?Why is Slashdot ignoring the reports of Rob Malda and Andover's huge illegal campaign contribution to the Democratic party?
Liar.
If Rob's leftist editorial slant wasn't enough, he and his supporters at Andover had to go and illegally contribute US$134 000 to the coffers of Algore.
Common Cause has a searchable database of soft money contributions. Searches for "Andover", "Slashdot", and "Malda" reveal no contributions to any of the parties.
Mainstream sources (www.wired.com) are already reporting about this lapse in campaign finance.
A search of wired turns up no such articles.
Julius Stine, public policy analyst at the Kennedy School of Government was quoted as saying
A search of Kennedy School's website reveals no such person named "Stine" or "Stein".
Actually, "pure" water is easy for any chemist to make (at least, "pure enough"). As for the volume, any moron can build a container with a volume of 1 cm^3, even if the actual shape isn't cubic. And it's then easy to measure the weight of the liquid+container, substract the container's weight, and then build equivalent metallic masses.
1g is too difficult to weight ? Well, current weighting accuracy is more in the nanogram range these days... BESIDES, you can always take one thousand of these cubic centimetres, lump them together, and make a kilogram weight. And you won't have a weird fraction of whatnot in your way.
The original gauges stored in Pavillon Baltard are long since obsolete.... and never really useful, since physical definition (that is, definition using physical features available everywhere) is the whole point of the metric system.
You've never dealt with a third? Impossible.
Who cares to ? If .33 is not precise enough, .333 or .3333 will be. And that I can compare with .7351 or .23158
Except that no one uses mft or kft. A system is useful only if it has users....
Damn you! I was going to post that!
---
I am the dot in slashdot.org
No *wonder* all my french products are poorly made...
Oh wait, I own nothing french.
A program is a device used to convert data into error messages.
Does anyone know how to find out what venues This is Spinal Tap is playing? If it's close enough to me, I'd like to drive up and see it. But I'll be darned if I can find that information anywhere.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
nc
bah you Canadians.. Always confused between the rebellious US of A and your loyalties towards "Great" Britain.:)
A program is a device used to convert data into error messages.
But there are no other units of length in metric. I can do the same with feet. millifeet, kilofeet, megafeet. Had metric did that, they'd have their base 10 system and be compatible with existing measurments. Reasonable, yes? But noooo, they had to be an ass and come up with something totally incompatible. 1) it was not "Napoleanic" people. That undertaking was done in the early 1790's, way before Bonaparte was even talked about.
2) the first definition of the metre was indeed a decimal fraction of a meridian, and the measurement of the meridian was indeed made by measuring the Paris-Barcelona one. HOWEVER, choosing a meridian instead of, say, a parallel (such as the one going through Washington, DC) was not innocent. With even ten times the measuring accuracy of the era, all meridians (including the one going through OK city) lead to the defining the same length of a metre. The goal of the scientists who designed the unit was precisely so that "once everyone has adopted this system, no man needs to remember who adopted it first or invented it".
Quick rebuttal to your "compatibility" proposition (mft,ft,kft,...) : 1) at the time, there was no such thing as a "standard" foot. There was one per MINOR city in Europe. Yes. Every damn city here had its own system for lengths, masses, volumes (only time was more or less already standard, which is why "metric time" has never taken off and was totally abandoned around 1807. Well, the metric calendar had other design flaws, too). Usually, that per-city system was even more messy than the mess you use in the US. (and look, that mess makes NASA loose Mars probes. Damn morons). Being uncompatible, wiping out the unit mess of the older times was a design feature. Just before the French revolution, the little people was asked to write down doleances, so that the King could see what was urgent to improve. Believe it or not, those people were tired of converting everything but money when travelling a few dozen kms.
2) the mft,ft,kft is not a system. To make that a system competitive with metric, you have to build the rest of units, and express the physical constants in the new units. That means you have to choose which of the various ounces you'll drop to keep just one. And besides, why wouldn't other use yard or mile-based length units ? This is precisely why there is no other unit of length in the metric system : duplicates are evil, and both a loss of time and a loss of usefulness. 3) Why would you loose time designing that "decimal us" system ? You'd be an ass and come up with something totally incompatible. AND NOW, there is a definite, internationally agreed upon standard (which wasn't the case in 1793) : the metric one. Live with it.
Actually, it's no longer one ten-millionth.
.001L (1mL) of pure water at sea level.
.012 or a .038 or whatever.... (at least, for us civilized people it is).
It's now caluclated (like many calibrations) based on a specific number of wavelengths of the specific type of radiation given off by a certain material(I forget the details).
The kilogram is not, as you say, based on a lump of metal in a french vault, and is not the 'base unit'.
The GRAM is the base unit.
1 GRAM = weight of
1 ml = 1cubic centimeter.
a centimeter is 1/100th of a meter.
And perhaps, because you have been raised on it, you find obscure fractions easier to remember than pure decimals.. like, is a 3/16 greater or less than a 13/64? How much is the difference?
It's a lot easier to say it's a
Don't think I won't fight to support the rights of those who created that execrable Ackbar comic or the banal "look, pretty girl - isn't it funny that she's dumber than us!" Spears page; I don't call for the banning of such trifles.
Neither will I let them slide on this forum without comment, however. I think it's stupid, unfunny shit, and feel that such pages should reflect poorly on their authors, however smart they might be (or believe themselves to be).
Typically such works are trolls (of the traditional, desiring-to-provoke-response sort), but in these two examples, I strongly suspect the authors simply gave voice to their own preconceptions without thinking, proving themselves fools, or at least socially immature.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Gimme a break! Stereotypes are funny, and if you're offended by them you shouldn't be. Take the Simpsons for example. The geek on the show is a fat pale comic book store owner who enjoys looking at nude pictures of female Star Trek captains, and who has no interpersonal communication skills whatsoever. I find this generalization to be funny, and would in no way be offended by it. Likewise, should people be offended when someone is portrayed as a southern hick? Is this offensive to southerners?
:)
:)
The root of all such comments is not racism, sexism, or any other 'ism you want to add to the list. Sometimes they are just meant to be funny, and an oportunity for people to healthily laugh at themselves.
What one should have a problem with is car insurance companies with policies which state that unmarried males under certain ages cannot drive his vehicle, not when someone calls him a cappucino drinking, open source communist, unsocial, smelly computer geek, or when all computer geeks are associated with those traits
People are too quick to throw around the term "racism," and damn, that offends me
I guess I owe the guy below you an apology, since I now realize it was you who started this "un/in" debate. Miss Daisy would praise you for remembering her English lessons well, as in the "un is for verbs, in is for adjectives" rule, but I have some bad news for you, sunshine (have you read your Pink Floyd? That's where the sunshine came from). "Un" can be used for adjectives as well, otherwise where did "unlucky" come from? Webster's leaves it wide open, stating that "un" is a prefix meaning negation, with no restrictions where it may be applied.
Of course, if you can memorize the fact that one mile is 5279 feet, you may as well memorize a list of 5279 words to which the "un" prefix may apply. Myself, I would rather memorize the phones of 5279 girls. If, after calling all of them, I was UNlucky, then I would feel justified in calling a phone sex number.
Damn, I wanted to be logged in!
Oh well...
-Tralfamadorian
He who knows not, and knows he knows not is a wise man
The Gore and Bush models don't look anything like the real-life dudes. I certainly wouldn't expect them to be perfect, but you can't even recognize them!
Free Hans!
www.x-entertaiment.com is a wonderful site. I'm surprised it was metioned on here. Gotta love all those 80s articles.
kudos to you....
people that pass unsubstatiated rumors on the net give us all a bad name.
thank you for taking the time to prove this guy a bonehead.
Actually, "pure" water is easy for any chemist to make (at least, "pure enough"). As for the volume, any moron can build a container with a volume of 1 cm^3, even if the actual shape isn't cubic. And it's then easy to measure the weight of the liquid+container, substract the container's weight, and then build equivalent metallic masses.
1g is too difficult to weight ? Well, current weighting accuracy is more in the nanogram range these days... BESIDES, you can always take one thousand of these cubic centimetres, lump them together, and make a kilogram weight. And you won't have a weird fraction of whatnot in your way.
The original gauges stored in Pavillon Baltard are long since obsolete.... and never really useful, since physical definition (that is, definition using physical features available everywhere) is the whole point of the metric system.
That's all well and good, but the original poster was still right that the kilogram is still defined under the SI to be the mass of some particular piece of platinum-iridium in kept in a vault by somewhere in France by the BIPM.
...Just a thought :)
Did anyone go far enough down to see the C code for use with that Word/RFC thing? Blech! I am very glad I got out of Windows programming long ago. What the hell were they doing calling "_close" instead of just "close"? What ever happened to leading underscore identifiers being for *internal* things? I doubt a program that just converts a text file from one format to another really needs to be making low-level leading-underscore calls deep into the bowels of the libraries like that. What the hell is wrong with these people who program at Microsoft? That's like steering your car by going under the hood and manhandling the front wheels, as opposed to using that round thing that sticks out of the dashboard.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
But you have to file your courtcase under the pseudonym of Juan Valdez.
Oh damn, that's beautiful...
I haven't been to segfault in so long; probably not since they stopped the polls because of the petrified stuff... I'll have to check it out again.
Thanks!
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Vote Nader, fuck the democratic party. Its no party and hasn't been democratic since loco-foco days.
Or just become a nihilistic anarchist who funds his terrorist acts with the profits from meth and ex.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Haha, so funny :-))
But edlin is the product of Microsoft, not the IBM as I remember...
Donate free food to the hungry at The Hunger site.
...reminds me of my approach to all manner of engineering.
1) Measure with a micrometer.
2) Mark with chalk.
3) Cut with an axe.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"
Why in the world would you go to the trouble of making a new measurement system when the old one works? And why adopt a measurement system that is totaly different from the current one that's been in use for hundreds of years? Makes more sense to try to standardize the current system. Oh well. Leave it to the french to make absolutely no sense. At least standard has a real basis about where the measurements came from orignally...metric was just made up. "Oh, i have this chunk of metal here, let's make it the base measurement, okay?"
God was my copilot, but then we crashed on the top of a mountain and i had to eat him...
... you managed to get a 5 from finding a story where you could post the link to the game. Maybe I should have given you a 20 instead :)
US units are easier to use because they divide EVENLY by many more factors than metric units.
:)
Ah! I see that you have never had to work on your old Chevy. Now what's bigger than a 9/16 ? Screw all of that! With metic I can LOOK at the damn nut and know its a 14mm. If I guess wrong, it's most likley a 15mm.
Maybe i'm weird like that
--fatboy
Or what if the world spins the wrong way?
---
I am the dot in slashdot.org
I was following all the directions, just like he said, with the shot gun, and the axe, then he tells me not to do it. =)
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
TIME failed when they were taken over by Warner. Or was it the other way round?
did anyone actually see the picture of that thing? it looks like it has a pressurized tank hanging off a main tank. i can just picture a fire in the lab... no get the pin, wait pull the lever downward no ... you have to turn the nozzle topwise, no TOPWISE!
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Look, this is not an RFC, it's an Internet Draft. Anyone can submit an Internet Draft. I can submit an Internet Draft on the Frobnification of Foobars tomorrow if I want, and that won't mean the Frobnification of Foobars is in any way endorsed by anyone in the Internet standards process.
An Internet Draft shouldn't even be referred to. And if it is, it should always be indicated as WORK IN PROGRESS (in capitals). An Internet Draft is only valid for six months after last modification: when it expires, every copy should be deleted. Internet Drafts should not be archived. One should not adhere to the standards described in Internet Drafts, nor claim conformance to one. (Of course, these are the "official" guidelines. In practice, Internet Drafts are often followed if they come from a well-known or authoritative source like an IETF working group or the author of a previous RFC on the subject.)
Before an Internet Draft becomes an RFC, it must be accepted by the RFC Editor after approval from the IESG (Internet Engineering Steering Group).
In any case, M$ is not officially involved in this draft. Merely because the author is one of their employees does not mean they endorse it.
The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.
2F31
I figured you meant the USA, but then you said that industry in this country uses metric units and everybody knows that NASA's Mars disasters were caused because industry in the USA doesn't use metric units.
Industry in the UK has been metric for decades.
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
Do you realize the USA is the only country in the world where being against economic liberty gets you labeled "liberal"?
But I agree - it's rather lame that the US hasn't adopted the metric system yet. God knows they've tried - you still see the occasional dual-speed limit signs and references to "2 liter bottles" of this and that. Hell, I still have a ruler from Burger King from when I was a kid - you flip it one way and it had metric... Flip it the other, English. Don't ask why I still have it, lol.
ain't it?
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
is that MS operating systems don't come with the tools that lets you do this in one line:
cat mydosfile.txt | tr \r\n \n > myunixfile
and so you have to write 105 lines of code in the second-worst string handling language in the world.
(I might have the tr switches wrong. Bite me.)
--
Peter
Just for kicks.....
:)
An mp3 encoded at 128kbps for the 1000 year song
would be 526 terabytes. This may seem large now, but I would imagine that by the time the song is done recording, hundreds of terabytes will be considered inadaquate to hold even the most simple microsoft application.
For those of you burning that on CDs, thats approximately 809170 CDs. This is a pile of CD's that would stack about a mile and a half.
If the RIAA has sued everyone into oblivion and is still using regular CD audio at the time (this is not all that unreasonable) and they intend to sell each CD for $15 apiece.....
That would be 9710040 CDs for a grand total of $145,650,600.
Assuming a 2% annual inflation rate, in today's dollars that would be 36 cents. Not bad for a song thats 1000 years long.
oh well. Time to go to bed now.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
The metric system is superior not because the actual values are some god-given quantity butbecause it is easy to convert between units:
Examples:
1 liter = 1 cubic decimeter or 1/1000 cubic meters.
1000 meters = 1 kilometer
This is very helpful when doing physics or engineering.
Also there are some serious holes in your argument that there are more integer factors in 5280 than 1000. Why? 5280 is 5 times larger, therefore it will have more factors.
I do'nt know why I'm even responding to a troll like this.
-Coz
> scratch that again, make that spans per weekday squared
Sorry; I was trying too hard to be funny. "Rods per weekday" was supposed to be read as rods/week/day = rods/week*day = "rods per week day", a valid unit of acceleration.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The standard unit of mass is the kg, and the kg is defined as the mass of a platinum (I think) block stored in Paris. The block is meant to be exactly the same mass as 0.1m x 0.1m x 0.1m of pure water at maximum volume (i.e. 4 degrees C) at standard atmospheric pressure (sea-level, 1 Bar????). Unfortunatley for the idiots making the "block" they never noticed or were unable to discover with the current methods that they were about 0.04% out and hence the whole water idea had to be scrapped and the block was used instead. The question is why did the idiots not just stick with the physical definition and stuff the block!
As for the meter etc. It was created as 1/10e7 of the quarter circumference of the earth through both poles and Paris...however as this is patently absurd and useless it was actually the distance between two scratches held on a metal "ruler". This was subsequently re-expressed (and the definition of the width of the scratches etc. made moot) as both the distance travelled by a certain number of wavelengths of the red-orange emissions of krypton 69 (or some other isotope, I hate chemistry) AND the distance travelled by light in the micro fraction of a second it takes to go a meter (debate has ensued previously over which is the true definition of a meter but I believe it is the multiple of the wavelength of the Krypton).
The whole point of the metric system was to provide a scalable system without all the 12 of these or 16 or those or 3 of these makes a schnugelbindel, a consequence was meant to be the definition of all values by inrefutable physical quantities.....It failed. You could define the Imperial measures by similar means (reduce number of wavelngths and you have a yard, work out the volume of water for a pound) but they would still be a pig to work with when scaling (how big is 10e13 inches or 10e13 cm, I know my mind loves the latter and detests the former). Metric is about the number 10, not about definitions.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I didn't see my favorite candidite for president in the battle. Why not? If anybody is out-spoken/motivated/extreme/crazy enough to be weilding a BFG9000, it's Nader. Better yet, you could have a mod where Nader has the chance to level all the heads of big corporations.
Got HTML? Want LaTeX? Try html2latex
Just for the record, a metric ton is 10% less than a short ton. In my humble opinion, these quickies are much closer to a full short ton (2000 lbs)
The more you scare people.....the more they will pay.
Metric Tonne.
Imperial Ton.
Thank you,
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Interesting idea. I tend to come out as Centrist because most of the questions are poorly framed. You only get information out of the quiz when someone picks an extreme opinion. For example, "Drug laws do more harm than good. Repeal them." I assume this refers to the prescription system in general as well as "narcotics." But that is not a relevant question in politics today. The relevant question is whether smoking marijuana should be legal.
Now, I understand and agree with their general sentiment. But the degree is crucial, and I am simply not that extreme. I think marijuana use should be legal, but I think opiates should be controlled, so I come out as a fascist (well, social conservative) on that question.
And it is the same for the rest of the quiz. Although I agree with all of their values (except the minimum wage one, which I can't believe at all), the Libertarian position is just too extreme on each one.
And so although I know I am in fact liberal to centrist on most issues, I answer 'N' or 'M' to all of them and end up Authoritarian.
If that is what they want to call me, so be it. Although I won't call myself Authoritarian, I know where I stand with respect to them!
Furthermore, the whole 2d spectrum is becoming increasingly outdated. The missing component is to what degree freedoms are granted to corporations as well as to individuals. I expect this issue will only become more important in the next few years.
Rather than Individual vs. Government, it is menage a trois: Individual vs. Corporation vs. Government. Most people will simplify this as Individual vs. Corporation, with the Government a free lance to be wielded by either side. For this reason I expect the Greens to be much more relevant than the Libertarians.
So, BSOD=Banana Screen of Death???
This was doubly funny since I had a Choco-Banana shake for breakfast this morning.
Here's my recipe in case you don't want to risk the Banana Screen of Death.
1 Banana, peeled
5-7 Ice Cubes
5 oz, Soy Chocolate Milk
2 oz, Liquid Non-Dairy Creamer
1-1/2 scoops Soy Protein Powder
Blend Ice & liquids until ice fully crushed.
Add Banana & Protein Powder and blend and still smooth.
Drink within 12-15.4 seconds to avoid 'brain freeze'.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
... Penis is upsidedown!
LOOK! IT IS!
http://www.x-entertainment.com/messages/345.html
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
That was actually an April fool's joke on a local radio station about 25 years ago. They called it "Norman-caller time" or something like that, and people fell for it in droves. I wish I could recount memories of the people blowing a collective nut over it, but I wasn't born yet.
If you have never read any RFCs, I sugest you get the book 'TCP/IP Blueprints' by Burk, Bligh, Lee, et al., SAMS Publishing 1997, ISBN 0-672-31055-4, and take a look at page 368, Appendix A - item A.2.2. - "April Fool Spoof RFCs", and learn what this RFC is all about.
To avoid this, turn off "auto formatting" Tools Autocorrect On the property pages 'AutoFormat' and 'AutoFormat As You Type', turn off all of the auto formatting options.
This is a S.O.P.
I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
LOL!
Spears does silicon eh? who'da thunk it...hey, wait, someone's e key's mebbe a little less punchy then it oughta be.
Fight crime, shoot back.
I've heard that the definition of a conservative is liberal who has been mugged. So who's going to mug Taco, so we can get a little balance around here. :-)
My Weblog
Damn! Here I was thinking that Windows was perfectly optimized for keeping recipes.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
No, use attoparsecs per microfortnight like everyone else.
dave
Whatever. I've seen at least 4 different links to that site in the last couple of weeks and I dont even visit propaganda. You think much too highly of yourselves and the influence of your site.
We get to choose to join whatever side of whatever debate is going on. Makes it really fun in these kinds of flamewars. Excuse me, now, I've got to go walk 2.5 km from college to my apartment...
Yes YOU Americans are right. It is 2387 ferbles to the rod, and that's the way it should be.
This sig intentionally left blank.
I just want an EDitor!! Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!!
ROTFLMFAO! Somehow I always imagine the short bad guy from the Princess Bride saying that part...
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Actually, there trying to get "the industry" to market items accordng to there various rating system.
A great many countries regulate what there minors can purchase and/or view. Quite frankly, I think doing this for minors is a good thing. It gives parents and guardians some way to know what there children are doing. It is the parents responsibility to raise there children. With this kind of regulation is in place, it allows the parents to control what there children our viewing. If there cool with thre children playing/watching/hearing various violent madia, then they can purchase the items.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The meter is defined one ten millionth (1/10000000) of the distance from the north pole to the equator through Paris.
I don't know what century you're getting your information from, but the standard for the meter is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 second. Seems like that would be pretty damn precise to me. As for intuitiveness, the meter is the base unit for length (you have to define a unit somewhere along the way), and the other units are multiples of 10, how simple can you get?
...5 is right out.
1...2...4
Three, sir!
Three!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I don't know how many people followed the link to the Admiral Akbar roundtable discussion, but it was the most offensive stereotypical crap I've seen since the Amos and Andy marathon was on TCM. Is Samuel L Jackson, one of the baddest ass mofos around gonna say "Lidden here, sucka"? I think not. As funny as it seems, I'm serious about this. If Slashdot links to that will they also link to a KKK rant on how the white man has been opressed by the MPAA and RIAA because of their Jew leaders, blah blah blah? It's not funny. Samuel L Jackson is a black man, but he's very articulate. Slashdot is not "News for Clansmen. Stuff that's racially insensitive."
Geeks are thought of as young white males. Will they also be thought of as young racist white males? Shouldn't we reach out to people of other races, lifestyles, genders, etc? At least try to develope some form of social conscience and think of how inclusive we are as a group. Do you think no minorities read Slashdot? Do you think nobody would be offended by such an obvious stereotype?
It was not funny, it was offensive to me and I'm a young white male, and things like this can cast us in a bad light. Have some responsibility, and sensitivity.
and memepool.com
had it on August 19!
what, oh what is the world coming too!
I just don't feel safe anymore, in a world where this kind of thing can happen...
</sarcasm>
-------------------- the list is long. dirac angestung gesept
Some other amusing entries in the knowledgebase are Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music and Sometimes Barney Starts Playing Peekaboo on His Own.
--
The shareholder is always right.
Over in the New York Times, we see that Al Gore and Joe Lieberman are calling for regulation by the FTC and legislation to punish the entertainment industry for marketing violent material to minors. It would be called false and deceptive marketing, similar to the tobacco cases. At least Bush is somewhat skeptical, saying he "prefers" self-regulation to federal censorship. (Still not making a ringing denunciation of censorship, though.) I would think trying to make advertising violent movies, music, and video games to minors basically illegal would be something for Slashdot to care about.
While people exclaim, "RFCs are just ASCII files!" they should also realize that they are annoyingly, frustratingly, carefully formatted files.
Page breaks, page numbers, page references, avoidance of anything outside seven-bit ASCII, requirements for \r\n\r\n instead of \r\n\n, footnotes, bibliography, and so on.
Now it's starting to look like a useful thing to have a few of those references and footnotes automatically renumbered.
Emacs (or vi, or Perl, or whatever) could use a template or reference-manipulator like this to generate conformant output, too. It's just that some people don't use Emacs.
[
Source: Rooters | Published: Tuesday Septmber 12, 8:33AM
Sunnyvale CA, June 12: Popular microcomputer systems vendor "VA Linux Systems, Inc." is poised to dominate the text-entry market with a computer program that automatically verifies the spelling of words entered by the computer user. Dubbed "The Orthographic Verifieralator", the software will cross-check each word entered by the user, with an "electronic dictionary" and produce a harsh "bing-BONNNG" noise when a mistake is detected.
"Sweet Jesus, I was about to run this page through Babelfish." remarked VA honcho Larry Augustin as he browsed the main page of "Slashdot" - a popular on-line forum for meritocrats. "Clearly there is no shortage of typographical boo-boos in the world. Our product will destroy typos, it will ANNIHILATE them, it will PICK 'EM UP and THROW 'EM!, THEN SIT ON 'EM! AND THEM EAT 'EM AND THEN POO 'EM OUT! AND THEN EAT 'EM AGAIN! AARGH!" screamed Augustin in like a totally Pepsi-max fashion.
But will computer users appreciate a patronizing program that constantly reminds them of their gross inability to form proper diction? "Don't gimme any Mark Twain bullshit. There's only one way to spell any given word and our product will know it and enforce it. If the typo is particularly humorous, it will be mailed to our server so we can read it and go 'Ho-ho, what a dumb-bunny'".
But avid computer user Bowie J. Poag claims that he came up with the concept of an automatic spelling checker two years ago and, when he approached VA with the idea, was told in no uncertain terms "Go away Ploppy-Pants, that's a dumb idea". "And now they're touting it as their own." says Poag "What a complete bitch.". Avid VA person Chris DiBona disagrees, "What Poagie suggested was completely different. Upon detection of a typographical mistake, our program goes 'bing-BONNNG' whereas Poagie's original design detailed that the computer should wobble violently and say 'I AM GOING TO EAT YOU!'"
Company information: VA Linux Systems was founded in 1993 as "VA Resaerch". In 1999 the name was changed to "VA Liunx Systms", and one week later to "VA Linux Systems" to reflect the "dynamic, changing, and careless-typing nature of the on-line community".
A comedy/rap band on MP3.com called "No Time" has had a bit of fun at Dr. Hawking's expense. Go to their page and listen to "No Time Presents Steven Hawking".
Oh wait it bad mouths al gore. Nevermind we'll just sweep it under the rug and make anti bush comments. In case you haven't noticed by some of the AC's, Malda seems to be a left winger.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I thought the only physics formula she knew was:
"Hit me baby one more time!"
?
Hmm...
thank you for taking the time to prove this guy a bonehead.
Actually, you should be skeptical. What if I submitted the original flame myself just so that I could refute it? Or worse, what if you are really my 2nd troll account and I'm waging a solitary three-way troll-fest? What if all of Slashdot was a conspiracy... nah.
That reminds me though. Why do we have the flamebait mod? It's redundant; anything that's flamebait is also a troll. Just think of the origin of those terms. What does a fisherman troll with? Bait!
Perhaps just "flame" would be more appropriate? Or maybe we should replace it with something new? We could have a poll:
New -1 mod:
From: patl@athena.mit.edu (Patrick J. LoPresti)t e.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bl oom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!patl
/bin/ed
/usr/ucb/vi
/usr/bin/emacs
Message-ID:
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Subject: The True Path (long)
Date: 11 Jul 91 03:17:31 GMT
Path: ai-lab!mintaka!olivea!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-sta
Newsgroups: alt.religion.emacs,alt.slack
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 95
Xref: ai-lab alt.religion.emacs:244 alt.slack:1935
When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi
*and* Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like,
'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'. So I use the editor
that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time.
Ed, man! !man ed
ED(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual ED(1)
NAME
ed - text editor
SYNOPSIS
ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]
DESCRIPTION
Ed is the standard text editor.
---
Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first
alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed
because it's ED!
"Ed is the standard text editor."
And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929
-rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990
Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed.
Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog
message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K;
and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!
"Ed is the standard text editor."
Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:
golem> ed
?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?
---
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is
generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm
the novice with verbosity.
"Ed is the standard text editor."
Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.
ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED
AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS
BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN
SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!
When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless
help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!!
Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED!
ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!
TEXT EDITOR.
When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their
"edlin" on a UNIX standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely
you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.
Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on. If you
are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should
not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE
SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE
FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!
?
Now that I've seen a picture of one of those Mac Cubes in action, (as it were) I can't believe no one mentioned (or took a picture of) the obvious use for it!
It's a TOASTER! It always was a toaster, and it always will be! Forget NeXT, forget the Amiga, the Cube is the right boxy shape, *and* it has the slots for BREAD!
That's awesome; I want one of those to go with those iMac aquariums Apple sells. In fact, why don't they ditch the whole computer line and go into home furnishings?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
No he's not.
The lawyers got fubared again.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I wouldn't say a measurement system is to blame anyway, more like incompetent adminstration. But the US doesn't have a monopoly on that!
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
Isaac Asimov proposed this with the day as the base unit (since we humans have 1-day internal rythms, it would be more useful when going into space than say a Earth year or a Moon month).
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
I accidently dropped them on my toe and am illeterate so i couldn't see the warning and now i have carpal tunnel in my spleen....can i sue?
The anti-salmon
Does this mean we now get the Choco-Banana Screen of Death? Because the all the Blueberry Screens of Death were starting to make my teeth hurt. Maybe this way I'll get some vitamins...
-- I'll be more enthusiastic about thinking outside the box when there's evidence of thinking going on inside it.
If microsoft cannot make a virtual appliance work right, how are they supposed to make a real one work right?
I am not looking forward to embedded NT. No matter what they say, we'll all be rebooting our toasters...
"Honey, we need more bread!"
Silly Rabbit: tricks are for kids.
I first saw that Brittney Spears page as a link from Specialized Bicycles home page. It's part of a flash animation that says "Innovate or Die." If you click on the innovate link, it takes you into their site. So of course I clicked on the Die to see where it went. I thought it was a joke that they put together. The fact that it's "real" is even funnier. God, when will this world run out of crack?
-----
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
If metric and powers of 10 is so great whay did metric TIME fail so miserably? Where are the 10 hour days? Of 100 minutes each?
I hear Service Pack 1 to Microsoft Extinguish© is now available. It's a box of baking soda that takes 5 minutes to open.
-dwd-
A while back (possibly the last 2 days, who knows?) some one posted something about how the editors are posting stupid little comments at the end of their topics, or whatever. I agree and with this you can see that they are taking pot-shots at authority figures (whether you like them or not: Gates, Bush, Gore, etc.)
Please make them stop!!!!
Dictionary -- Wether - casterated male goat.
After field testing this last weekend with my (sadly) out of town girlfriend, I fully concur that the squishy parts are indeed the best.
On the other hand, to quote a fictional correspondent in Monty Python, "who hasn't wanted to make love to a naked, petrified, happy Natalie Portman? I know I have".
I can't believe taco didn't post the formation of the karma whore fantasy league.
--Shoeboy
Gotta love that bit about "wait approximately 12-15.4 seconds". So I guess 15.2 seconds is close enough? What's approximate about 15.4 seconds?
______
Love Always,
Cobalt
Nope...not there. Maybe you meant INcoherent?
WHICH dictionary did you check? I looked it up in my "Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary - Unabridged - (Simon and Schuster)" and it's there, in page 1984.
WHOM did I call "bolthead"? This word means, according to the supracited (look it up!) dictionary, "1. a long, straight-necked glass flask, used by early chemists. 2. the end of a bolt opposite the threaded end". The closest thing to this word I used was "bolt head", with the same meaning as "2." above. Loser!(*)
(*)lös'êr, n 1. a person or thing that loses...
Furlongs per fortnight for me; for the uninformed, 65mph ~= 1.54761904762fu/fo.
Oh, and acceleration would be in spans per week
-- Sig (120 chars) --
Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.
* Q
P.S. If you don't get this note, let me know and I'll write you another.
The source code in the RFC won't compile on my Linux box with GCC! I don't think the Microsoft would ever be biased against other compilers, would they?!?!?
Q: How do you know when you have a monopoly?
A: When you have your own IETF RFC template.
> My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.
Do you measure the acceleration in spans per weekday?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
--
Heh, I guess you are right, I fucked up! It's NASA that uses metric units, and the industry uses medieval units, right?
And I guess I fucked up in the bolt head thing as well, 10mm is a much more common bolt head size than 9mm, which means the 3/8" wrench wouldn't fit. But 9mm is a common pistol gauge, which means you sonsofabitches can go put a hole in your head(s)!
Hanging recipes? Bah, that's nothing!
What do you do if your Windows box randomly plays classical music?
-----
Gawd that was funny.
If any of you liked that, then you might find this site humorous:
Multiple Regression with Ren & Stimpy
Cheers...
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Shouldn't that be a metric tonne?
You can never put too much water in a nuclear reactor.
Oh, man! I think that's a fine name for a reliable fire extinguisher... A lot better than Microsoft Extinguish©, v1.0!!
;)
That's pretty funny, that picture. I kinda thought it looked like one myself when they came out. LOL!
Perhaps it was too popular. ;^)