Slashdot Mirror
Steaming Pile of Sunday Quickies
Finally a chance to break in my cheesy little "Quickies"
icon *grin*. First up is
Miguel "Mr GNOME" de
Icaza who wrote in to point us at Open
Resources which looks like a pretty nice site.
NiceGuy wrote in to say that
Propaganda 6 is out if you happen to be
sick of your desktop- some of the finest textures I've seen
yet.
Rob Biggs wrote
in to say that Transmetta has
opened up their website. *cough*.
Aurik sent us linkage to
some geek toys like a
plasma fire saber and
mass drivers and rail guns
Jowey
wrote in to say that ReBoot has been
bought by the
cartoon network and will be re-aired. Now I gotta get a dish.
broken sent us a link
to the Pig Dance. Is
anyone else really sick of these?
Brian Fair sent us
linkage to a sticker that I guess you could
put on
your big truck if you have one. Those things amuse
me. I've seen them with Ford Logos and stuff, I guess it
was only a matter of time.
Ah well, thats it for me. I'm gonna wail on some
badly tuned power chords, watch Futurama and just take it
easy for a bit.
YES!!
(I need to get a life!)
Yep, I've been waiting to see the third season ever since ABC went stupid on us. It should be on CartoonNetwork in a couple of weeks.
I agree, I didn't like Beast Wars either, but they have made another show which looks like it has nice images, WarPlanets. I haven't been able to find it in the Nashville market, but it's on Mainframe's website.
Personally I'm a bit nostalgic for a couple of episodes of Automan and Airwolf. (I hope that didn't completely devalue my post.)
Are Canadians into diminutive names like that? To my US ears, "Beasties" sounds like one of those cute little fluffy-bear-intensive shows for five-year-olds, almost completely the opposite tone as implied by "Beast Wars" (which sounds like something one of those monster truck rally announcers would say with heavy reverb).
You're refering to the fourth head on the right from the door on the top shelf with the glasses
[gotta luv frezze frame] I don't think it looks like Bill, but others might think otherwise.
it's back to "this web page is not here yet"
Doh, gone!!!!
that did not take long....
tim...
Fun show, BTW. Tron with a plot, and they rip off D&D, the Road Warrior, X-Files.... Oh - and the Web (end of second season - saw it about two years ago at a con) seems to be Hell, with horrible monsters coming out of a portal trying to take over everything.
Certainly not BG. Hey Tux, where did you go? Heh.
I'd say this man is a genius, I wonder how much money he makes of it.
How many of you suckers missed it?
It's a completely computer-animated show about the inhabitants of computers. They use lots of the jargon, some wildly inappropriately (but I've always liked that "basic" seems to be slang for "stupid"), but you get used to that. There are viruses with great powers to posess and control the scenery, who are of course trying to take over everything. Meanwhile, every so often a game is loaded into some random sector, and the hapless sprites caught in it must play in the game and beat the User or die. The games poke fun at every genre of fantasy and science fiction, and some of them are just plain cool (I totally want to race hovercraft on a banked track!)
sigh...
:-)
And it's even an evaluation version
boo transmetta!
Besides, I thought their name was "transmeta", not "transmetta". And, in the source for the page, the meta tags show it was generated with a trial version of Visual Page for Windows. (!)
Why did the parent to this message get demoted? It was quick, to the point, and answered my question about the authenticity of the site.
:(
Not only that, but their webmeister is using the trial version of Visual Page for windowze. Ewww.
The way the light saber exherts force is similar to a traditional double-edged sword - it has a flat surface with sharp edges.
In one of the Star Wars books (aweful as they may be), Luke escaped a fortress by sticking his light saber in the wall at a slant and sliding down to the ground.
It says "Open Source is a trademark of OSI". It belongs to SPI still.
I think better wording for the quikie would be that it was picked-up not bought because mainframe still makes it. By the way if you guys lived in Canada you could see the 3rd season ha ha ha ha. Oh and Beasties does not suck I guess you have not seen the 2nd and 3rd seasons of that show ether. One more thing Shadow Raiders is also very cool but so far only has less than 10 episodes.
interesting...
The third season of reboot was excellent television. It looked great (I still haven't seen better handling of facial expressions outside of pixar); more importantly, it had a real story arc that made sense, was intelligently written and featured really, really good voice acting (!)... something that's as rare as gold in american TV animation. That's the reason ABC didn't show it- because of the more mature focus of the storyline and somewhat more violent nature of the show (anybody who saw the last episodes of reboot's second season knows exactly what I mean) ABC didn't know what to do with it and passed on it. But it retains a sizable cult following up in Canada because of it being so good, and I'd recommend it easily to any slashdotters reading this. :D
haven't you seen alot of those calvin stickers pissing on ford and chevy symbols? I see them all the time, how do those peopel get away with it then?
Great. That's the LAST thing needed on this earth.
I dislike Microsoft, but I dislike those stupid little pissing-Calvin stickers even more.
Anonymous Kevin
'nuff said.
WTF???
ergo quickies suck. Yup I see the connection now.
Very nice logo Rob, fits nicely into the whole tech/computer/net culture thing...
Posted by Nick The Nerd:
Did anyone else notice that their HTML source says that the page was made with Visual Page 2.0 for Windows - Trial Version
I gave up on the Dilbert show about midway through the premiere (this from a guy who has the books and so forth), but Futurama was worth seeing. I can't get excited about Simpsons anything anymore, but Futurama was a lot of fun. I may just have to add it to my minimalist weekly lineup of shows to watch.
bummer.
Trucks only?naw, I'll get one for my van, I'm still waiting for the "Honk if you hate microsoft", but that might get annoying, everyone honking at you.Maybe I'll go to kinkos and print some up.
I guess Transmeta has run out of funds and decided to force future buyers to sponsor CPU development ;-)
through insane advertisement.
There is Calvin propaganda everywhere. A couple years ago I picked up a shirt in DC that had a sulking Calvin and said, "Every day of my life I am forced to add another name to the list of people who really PISS ME OFF!" It reminded me of my personality so I got it. No biggie.
later.
Dyslexic.
This comment is brought to you by the drug caffiene, and the number 5.
Reboot has been running on Cartoon Network for a couple of weeks now (I have to watch it, I have three boys). They're showing the episodes in their original order. Season 1, Episode 11 "Talent Night," runs Monday afternoon.
According to the web site, there's a chance they may produce a new season, but it seems to be up in the air.
I can't wait to see the episode where Sailor Moon gets squished just as she's about to save Mainframe...hehehe.
slashdot broke my sig
Also, "There are no tyops [sic] in this web page."
I wonder if they're keeping track of how many hits they get on that supposedly "not here yet" page? Probably quite a number.
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
According to the book (ESB), Lukes stump was cauterized. Anyway, if a lightsaber leaves scorch marks on metal objects (the metal posts in ESB), I can't imagine it not cauterizing a wound (not necessarily perfectly, though).
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Now if he had one of Tux pissing on Microsoft, THAT I would put on my truck!
Heh, that's funny. Transmeta's (only two 't's) page still says, "This web page is not here yet."
Another interesting tidbit is that Transmetta's (three 't's) html source contains the line: <META NAME="GENERATOR" Content="Visual Page 2.0 for Windows - Trial Version">
But unfortunately there were no funny comments in the html. Thats the best thing about Transmeta's page.
I sincerly hope that Fearless Leader's employer would never use the tools of the enemy (grin).
No, that's an ad on transmetta's page. Note the extra t.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Posted by Flamburt:
I allways thought those stickers were a little trashy, but if anyone could make one of the mozilla lizard leaking on the IE's e logo, I'd plaster it on every vehicle I own.
Posted by DroneB:
heh
broken sent us a link to the Pig Dance. Is anyone else really sick of these?
I'm sick of seeing them on slashdot, if that's what you mean.
You know, the Transmetta thing was sort of funny, until you realize that that stupid ad windows is getting hits on it like crazy thanks to this slashdot link.
sigs are a waste of space
Those plasma spheres and the flat panel Borg thing (and everything on that page) are VERY expensive. You can find just about everything there at about 25% of the price in any decently equipped novelty store.
Looks score 1 to me. If it was previously lower, I guess because it gave the joke away.
Anyway, I figured:
META NAME="GENERATOR" Content="Visual Page 2.0 for Windows - Trial Version"
...was unlikely for the real transmeta site...
:-)
dylan_-
--
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
Thanks for the link to Propaganda - they really are nice images. It's stuff like this why I read Slashdot. I'm just a little confused by the "for Linux" part - it just seems to be a bunch of JPG's, which can be used on any platform.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
-grin- That I would like to see. However, I am a little perturbed that this guy is worried about the legalities of using MS' logo but gives no thought to Bill Watterson and the use of his comic strip character. It has always been (and afaik still is) his desire to /not/ commercialize calvin. He has never authorized the use of any of his strip characters for use in mugs shirts caps or stickers of any kind.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
Pretentious? Come on. "just a comic strip"? I agree that that is exactly what it is. But it is also /his/ creation. Does he not have some say in what gets done with it? What if MS said, well, Linux is just an OS kernel...let's ignore the fact that it is licensed under GNU and make our own that's closed source and make lots of money from it. I bet you'd through a fit then wouldn't you.
His comic strip was a part of him. It was something that he loved doing and chose to share with the rest of us. He took pride in his work and did not wish to commercialize it. Personally, I too would love to let my kids have a stuffed Hobbes. But, out of respect for him and his wishes I wouldn't buy one even if I knew where one was.
I find it distastefull and extremely disrespectfull of the man and his work to flagrantly go against his decision.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
/me sees some evil fashion statements developing.
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
Why do I have a feeling that there will be protests from the Alcoholics Sensitivity Society for Evoking Sympathy (A.S.S.E.S.) or somesuch? Not very politically correct, after all...
-E.R.I.C.
Good point, hombre. It won't stop the thin-skinned legion of whiners from raising a fuss, though.
-Eric
Just curious, why is the symbol for quickies a vacuum cleaner? I don't understand the rational (of course, I can't think of a better suggestion, except perhaps a cheetah).
-Eric
-The Comic Book Guy, Simpsons Episode 4F12
That out of the way, I rather liked Futurama, although there was so much setup involved that I wonder if it'll have a running plot, or instead be as episodic as The Simpsons.
Some good throwaway gags, interesting use of cgi.... Ehh, I'll give it some time to develop; Simpsons blew until they realized that Homer was the heart of the show, not Bart.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Was there a point to the hamsters other then to laugh?
"We want to take over the world, but we don't want to do it tomorrow, it's OK if it's next week"-- Linus Torvalds
Is there a point to life is there a point to death is there a point to you asking me this question.
If life had a point wouldn's some kids already have killed themselfes on it and some one sued the maker?
okay this was a lame post
when will we actually see a shipping product instead of a stupid website?
---
Why is everyone so upset about the Calvin sticker thing? I personally think that what someone puts on their car (and spends the time to design) is their business any nobody (including /.'ers) has the right to say "his taste is bad, we shall punish him." As for those who want to eMail UnitedMedia about that one, get a life. If you spent half as much time doing something useful rather than playing "tattletale" like a 6 or 7 year old you would probably get a lot more done and become a productive citizen.
-R
... you guys are supposed to be debugging fiends, and half of you can't see the extra "t" in transmetta?! I'm so disappointed. :)
Even worse :)
Hmm... doesn't seem like it'd catch on too well.
Seriously, though - it wasn't at all bad for a premiere. Even the Simpsons stank in their first season, but Futurama doesn't look bad at all. I particularly liked the cameo by "blinky."
Never be the same? Transmeta-plus-stutter seems to _always_ be the same...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Man, I missed Airwolf's premier because I was already hooked on Automan. I ended up liking Airwolf better, though.
:-)
And Airwolf could kick Blue Thunder's tail rotor *any* day.
Little Debian: America's #1 Snack Distro!
I think the answer is to be found in something Watterson wrote for one of his books -- something I found absurdly pretentious. Basically (if I remember correctly), he didn't want to "cheapen" his art by commercializing it.
Yes, I think that's pretentious. Without question Calvin & Hobbes was well done -- probably one of the best ever -- but let's not go pretending that it's anything other than what it is: a comic strip. As far as I'm concerned, Scott Adams is a genius for making as much money off Dilbert as he can, while he can. Not every comic can be a Blondie or Peanuts, which seem to be eternal money makers. Eventually they get cancelled. Why not make as much off it as you can? Sure, it's commercial, but so what? Once you're financially independent (thanks to sound business decisions) you can really devote your time and energy to making your "art" as good as it can possibly be, if you wish.
The whole argument as Watterson presented it seemed ridiculous -- like society owed him something. Sigh. But the man could draw, and I think it was the funniest strip I've ever seen.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
did anyone tape it and encode a realvideo version of it? i planned to see it, but sigh, was out of the house. argh.. also, futurama? anyone tape it and encode it?!?!?! :(
-- adraken
I got to see a de-classified video on the SDI project, and got to see a "real" railgun fire. Whoo-boy, that was cool. Those things fire at 24 miles a second and go through 5 feet of tempered steel like a hot knife through butter!
:)
Hey, I've always had a perverse fascination with powerful devices
----------
"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
Well, we slashdotted the ad page. I like the message:
..."
:-)
"Our server freaked out trying to create a web page for you.
Seriously, I thought it was a pretty good joke on us.
D
----
Why would we Slashdot readers want to download that stupid Transmetta page? It pops out a window with an advertising, now that sucks.
Azul.
The best was the badge number of the cyclops officer alien girl. '1BDI' - say it slowly five times.
All around it was thoroughly entertaining and densely packed with jokes. It will be interesting to see where they take it.
-josh
Am I the only one who thought he saw bill gates' head in the hall of criminals? It was really fast and I'm probally wrong, but it would be really cool if it was.
-matt
Old fortran!
-matt
btw, the link is www.transmetta.com, notice the extra t.
-matt
See subject
-matt
I'd rather see Bob use Glitch on Scooby Doo & Co.!
Well, think of it as the "sweep the floor special," only it's a bit more modern. :-)
I've never read so much during a cartoon. So many of those jokes were written down! But my absolute favorite part of the show was that the French people screamed "Seven" in English in the future!
This is so cool! ReBoot actually had a third season! I thought Mainframe switched to making that Beast Wars crap after the second. (Why did ABC never @%^*@%(@&$ show the third season?? ReBoot was one of the best series they had ever!)
Now if Cartoon Network would pick up the old SatAM Sonic the Hedgehog series, life would be perfect....
iSKUNK!
No end of fun here };-)
iSKUNK!
Wouldn't this fall under 'parody' of both Calvin
& Hobbes and Microsoft? If so, US copyright law
allows free use of their copyrighted material.
Any copyright attorneys on
As fate would have it I've been doing a little
newsletter called "Vacuum" for about a year now.
It's about one bezillionth the size of Slashdot, has less than two hundred regular readers, and comes out only 2x/mo (in a good month).
It has its share of quickies, but most of it
is more deliberate. A recent issue compared
the Slashdot effect to the impact that a
regular guided tour bus has on a city (the
tourists become part of the place they're touring).
thanks
Ed
emv@umich.edu
Now I see why Taco put the *cough* up there... I don't consider a site "open" if you can't get to first base without coughing up a steenking *cookie*... no thankee. This privacy nut will do his surfing elsewhere. Even msn.com isn't THAT bad.
I thought it was OK, but only just barely. Maybe they'll catch their stride after a couple of episodes.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
He's got bigger problems... :)
I was reading the introduction to one of his books (I'm not a fan; it was on someone's coffee table) where he was talking about the reasons for not merchandising. This guy really needs to get over the fact that what he was producing was a COMIC STRIP. It's not something that's destined to hang on the walls of the Louvre. It's not something holy that's going to be "lessened" or "cheapened" by having stuffed dolls and t-shirts all over the place.
I never really got into Calvin and Hobbes (I'm a Dilbert/Far Side/Garfield kinda person), but after reading Mr. Watterson's little vendetta, I know I'll never go out of my way to read his strips.
-Chris
What is ReBoot? Is it a show about Windoze lusers?
Don't you read the previous posts before posting yourself?
Uh...vacuums suck, and sucking is one way of giving a quickie.
I have to wonder about gadgets made by a company that uses "Labeled as a dangerous device" as a selling point.
Still, they seem strangely compelling.
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
Ah, the sort of subtle humor that once characterized The Simpsons, but has long been missing...
:)
Did anyone else catch the label on Bender's beer bottle?
One night many years ago, I had a dream where I made a light saber in wood working class. It's been seven or eight years since I've had shop class. Anyways, in the dream, my lightsaber wouldn't cut anything, but it would melt wood. It was a weird effect, to say the least. :)
You're a suburbanite.
I just got a brand new truck a week ago ( http://www.clarkson.edu/~levyam/dakota.jpg ), and that sticker ROCKS! It'd go great on there.
Only one problem. There are some nasty copyright, etc. issues with Calvin. What if it was Tux instead?
You can't legally make money off Calvin & Hobbes. Watterson hasn't given anyone rights to it.
Special Award: "1998 -- The Worst Movie-Going Year EVER!" (New Category, Dis-Honoring The Worst Movie Trends of The Year):
IF YOU'VE SEEN THE TRAILER, WHY BOTHER TO SEE THE MOVIE?!? (Previews That Give Away The Film's ENTIRE Plot)
From http://www.razzies.com/1998.html.
checked the source code for "There are no hidden messages in this site" type comments.
I agree totally.
Lets email United Media and point it out to them..
...
Well, let me just quote him. I think it's pretty clear that this would have "pissed" him off: (emphasis mine)
"And making the whole issue even more absurd, when I didn't license, bootleg Calvin and Hobbes merchandise sprung up to feed the demand. Mall stores openly sold T-shirts with drawings illegally lifted from my books, and obscene or dug-related shirts were rife on college campuses. Only thieves and vandals have made money on Calvin and Hobbes merchandise."
I don't know, seems pretty clear that he wouldn't like some picture of Calvin urinating on various entities. Do you really doubt this?
(see my other comments in this thread)
--
--
Jason Eric Pierce
The point was not that he was making his own, the point was that he was gauging demand so he could make up some and sell them to everyone else.
Sorry you missed this.
--
--
Jason Eric Pierce
This is so ridiculous, it's hard to know where to start. But the basic principle is that you're down on this guy because he wasn't greedy. He made enough money to get through life and left it at that. Is that so hard to comprehend?
He also avoided being a hypocrite. His characters were always talking about how bad commercialism had become and how corporations manufactured our culture. So rather than completely sell out so he could have a mansion and a yacht, he chose to maintain his integrity.
It boggles the mind that you can fault the man for this.
Would you call Linus a genius if he accepted the millions I'm sure M$ would throw his way to stop working on Linux?
--
--
Jason Eric Pierce
Personally, I hope unitedmedia gets all over his ass about this. He's worried about Microsoft's trademark? No one who respects the integrity of C&H or who's ever read Waterson's comments in the C&H 10th anniversary treasury would even think about supporting crap like this.
--
--
Jason Eric Pierce
Ahhh, so because people are getting away with it, it's okay?
Sorry, I don't buy that. They get away with it because no one has reported them. ("Them" being the people who are selling it). There's also the fact that the bootlegging has become so rampant, there just isn't enough money to stamp it out.
--
--
Jason Eric Pierce
Also, does it cauterize? That would make sense, since Luke's arm is not gushing forth blood after getting his had cut off in Empire Strikes Back.
No sig.
haven't missed it yet! I'm on the west coast, so it has not even been on yet. There's no way in hell I am going to miss it though.
did i miss the point of the pigs? IS THERE a point to the pigs?
-- First post (by a female living in a state that begins with M and does not end in a vowel with a birthday that falls
...sucks! :-)
I know, that was bad.
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
barzok wrote:
> There are some nasty copyright, etc. issues with Calvin.
I don't think there are. Calvins creator (Bill Watterson, IIRC) just doesn't want any Calvin merchandize.
-- Abigail
I wanna know how Luke was able to switch his lightsaber into "baseball bat mode" (as my friends and I call it) in RoTJ. He looked like Mark McGwire when he was hitting all those guys into sarlac on Tatooine ;)
Oh man do I have a story to tell...
For the past 9 years I've lived with computers all around me. At first I had the black background of the VT terminals and Apple IIs. Next I migrated to the multifinder on a MacPlus. This was a big transition for me, with the new 'grey' background and all. I mean, who would ever want such a fancy background.
Well... I soon got over my shock at seeing that horrible grey. Later, when Windows and MacOS 7 came out, I was able to switch back to lovely solid colors. I mean, those are the bomb. Don't get me wrong, but solid is cool. It doesn't clutter a thing. It reflects zero personnality. It's blah!
That is, until I saw propaganda. I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, just to think that I was being un-American with my desktop! For all I know, my desktop color was the cause for the war in Kosovo right now. Well, I'm glad to be rid of my old plain desktop.
I suggest to all you conservatives who live for the green on black to go to propaganda. Check it out, you'll learn something.
Speaking of the 300,000 V generator, you might find this unbeleivable, but it still might not be harmful to people. Why? Because it's the current, not the voltage, that kills. This is (if I remember right) the principle of the VanDeGraff (sp?) generators you'll find at science museums. They statically generate a huge voltage, which causes your hair to stand on end (I thought it was 1,000,000 volts... am I wrong?), but so little current, you couldn't hurt yourself on one... unless you let go and released the static energy all at once on a grounded object (this would be the reason why you have to still hold on for a moment after the experiment. they dischage the energy slowly from you... still very little current).
;-)
So, you might ask why a 12 V car battery shouldn't hurt you if you touched both of its terminals, but a live electrical socket could, even though the battery has more current. This is because Ohm's law prevents it. People's resistance varies wildly, but mine was 400k the other day, from finger to finger. This means that the 12 V battery could only ever push 30 uA through me (Current = Voltage / Resistance). At 120V, it's 300 uA, 240V 600uA, etc... The higher the current, the more dangerous. Of course, these calculations are inaccurate, since Ohms' law doesn't necessarialy apply to liquids, but it's a good start.
If I remember right, 10 mA is the sense threshold, 30 mA pain, 100 mA fibrilation, +300 mA burning. Interestingly enough, our teacher told us that 100-300 mA is the most dangerous zone, since above 300 mA "all" that happens is internal and external burning... between 100-300 mA your heart beats very irregularly and might as well be stopped. Another jolt of electricity is required to start it working properly again... Hence those zapper thingies parmedics apply to heart attack and fibrillation victims.
Funny I remember this stuff. I had hoped I'd never need it (I usually forget stuff I don't need...
Lastly, on to why the battery makes your tounge tingle, but not your finger. If you measure the resistance of your tounge (may be bad... don't sue me for any effects it causes. mind you, if you've licked 9v batteries, you're probably OK), you'll find it much lower than that of fingers. Lower resistance means more current. More current, more "danger. I bet you'll find the resistance of your toungue to be in the 1k - 10k range...
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
[Warning: Offensive, moderately out-of-normal-slashdot-character post following.]
:-)
OK.
I'm not one to bitch about CmdrTaco's posting methods usually, but I just gotta say:
Fully functional lightsaber-like portable plasma unit for *SEVENTY BUCKS* and it's just a *QUICKIE*? Oh my. I know of Star Wars addicts who would buy three: Two for the wall in the classic sword formation, and one for doing things that are illegal in the state of Alabama.
Hurm. Maybe that explains it. Malda has a better grasp of the Dark Side of the Force than the rest of us...
Another clip from that site: One of the Railgun capacitors has a kilowatt capacity and, *I QUOTE*, will "Explode Small Wires".
Another device will create 300,000 volts of usable current--i.e. not a stun gun. I wonder what that would do to your tounge; 9 volt batteries are already pretty tingly. (Note to PsychoGeek Community: You're better off with the aforementioned lightsaber.)
Very cool--they have a hand-held negative ion generator. What's cool about these things is that the static stream can be modulated to do some really funky things. Place a large metal mixing bowl on top of a negative ion generator, in contact with the leads. Fill with salt or flour. Slooooowwly put your hand in, and the salt/flour will literally fly off the bottom of the bowl and coat your hand. Get too close to the bowl and you'll get a small shock though
Of course, if you think that's bad, turns out these guys will, for a hundred dollars, sell you a small, easily concealable hand shocking unit--no, not a buzzer, actually a small shock unit. Too bad shocks can hurt you sometimes more than they hurt the target, or else certain crimes would become much more interesting. (Imagines attempted rapist yelping away after picking the wrong target.)
Quote:
"Plasma Guns"
"Projects high frequency waves capable of igniting lights and producing energy fields without wires or contact! Excellent for testing neon or fluorescent tubes without removal from this sockets."
'Nuff said on that one.
"Caution Man-Trapping Is Illegal!!"
--Notice on stun guns from this site. Am I the only one who gets this hilariously updated image of the old Caveman-Get-Girl-By-Bonking-Her-On-Head, then Cavegirl-Get-Man-By-Bonking-New-Man-On-Head scene? Heh baby, I've got your ExplosiveSparkDischarge(TM) right here...
From the Big F'in Potato Gun Department: "Beer Can Mortar"...hurm, launch me a six pack from a state where twenty year olds can drink...
Alas, I'll have to suffice with the Neon Geekware that these guys peddle. Nice stuff, I gotta say--eighty bucks for a neon clock that changes through two sets of two colors as time goes on. Changing from pink to blue, though? Great, I already have to mention to out-of-staters that, even though I'm from San Francisco, I still prefer women...
I can just *see* Rob: "What part of Commander *TACO* *don't* you understand?"
Being a geek has its perks.
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
But unfortunately there were no funny comments in the html. Thats the best thing about Transmeta's page
It's the ONLY thing in the transmeta web page
United Media can get all over his ass about this for all I care (though I doubt they will, since it isn't hurting their Calvin & Hobbes sticker business).
.
I doubt that Waterson gives a whit about them either. His objections to licensing the image were
a) It would take his time and attention from drawing the best comic strip he could,
b) It would necessarily put him under pressures to water down the strip to make it more palatable to potential licensees, and
c) Seeing the characters shilling for products would simply degrade their impact in the strips.
A case in point is that other comic strip that's used to sell Met Life insurance here in the U.S. Does anyone else find it in the least ironic that A Charlie Brown Christmas complains about how Christmas is getting too commercial in between the Dolly Madison Bakery commercials? (Make no mistake, Peanuts was deep and intellectual for a comic strip back in the '60s, much more so than it is anymore.)
While I'm not exactly ecstatic about these guys trying to make a buck on Waterson's creation, I don't see these stickers similarly degrading the impact of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. When I was in college, I saw an ad advertising a rock band appearance at a local bar. It had Calvin going apoplectic shouting "Rock and Roll!!!" while Hobbes strummed a guitar in the background. Probably not exactly what Waterson had in mind, but not nearly as out of line as shilling for milk
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This was definately NOT "newsworthy" material.. It's bad enough I have to see ads here and elsewhere, but to knowningly direct th Slashdot Effect to a domain-name pirate with POP UP ADS is pretty obscene.
:-(
Now, if there had been something even remotely funny about the page that would have been an interesting diversion. But this guy just made a killing at our expense.