Your minor quibble is incorrect: the "PC" in the "PC Load Letter" error stands for "Paper Cassette", not "Paper Cartridge".
I don't know what the original source is of that erroneous piece of information, but I've just corrected Wikipedia's article on the subject (they had "cartridge" also).
Don't believe me? Go to one of the many technical documents at the HP site itself. I don't understand why so many people are getting this wrong. Knowing that it stood for "printer cassette" is one of those pointless, geeky credentials I assumed more Slashdotters had.:-)
This is why the IRS itself should be the primary and controlling developer of software like this. Still open source, yes, so that there's at least some level of transparency that every government agency ought to be providing to the ones paying their salaries. It's time the IRS entered the 21st century.
It felt soooo good to give Verizon the boot.:-) Anyway, if you do go with Virgin Mobile, I have one more piece of advice:
You'll need a VM-compatible cell phone. You can see their current offerings online here, but I'd suggest taking a look at the phones at a store somewhere. Sprint cellphone stores might have them; RadioShack and Best Buy have them for certain. VM seems to feature phones by a few manufacturers only: Kyocera, UT Starcom (formerly Audiovox), and Nokia. I don't know about Nokia, but avoid the ones made by Kyocera. The one Kyocera model I tried had very poor sound quality.
The phone I have now -- actually I have 2 identical ones, one of which replaced my landline and stays at home 24/7 as a sort of backup line -- is the UT Starcom/Audiovox 8610. I looked at that link above and the equivalent listing at Best Buy's website and I can't believe it... they're down to $25-$29 in price. These little phones were worth it when I bought them for $80. It blows me away that I could get them now for $25. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier it has a dataport (other UT Starcom/Audiovox or Nokia offerings might also have a dataport... I don't know). Unfortunately UT Starcom dropped their datacable adapter for this model of phone. No problem though, as I picked up a 3rd party USB adapter cable that came with some uber-cheezy software that was compatible with this phone for about $25.
I should really post a review of this phone somewhere, complete with some of the simple tricks I've done with it. Hmmm...
- As a downside, the phone has a Virgin Mobile logo on the front.:( I don't think 30s engineer is their target demographic, so their company image doesn't exactly match what I'm trying to express all the time.
I had to post a reply after reading that.:-) I'm not an engineer, but I am technically-minded and in my 30s. Virgin Mobile has continued to be an easy choice for me for a few reasons, including...
1. Near-perfect anonymity. You don't even have to give Virgin Mobile a name when you activate your phone. Buy the phone with cash at a physical store, complete the activation of the new cell phone using another phone and their automated system (use a payphone and dial Virgin Mobile's 800 number to do that for a paranoia level of anonymity), and you're as close to being a completely anonymous cellphone owner as is possible today. Continue buying "top-up" cards with cash at physical stores, and you'll maintain that anonymity.
2. Awesome service reps. Let's face it, few places are perfect, but I've had the best luck with VM's call centers amongst those I call with any regularity. The staff are typically a younger bunch, but they're the bright kind of younger, you know?
3. They actually understand local number portability, and how to make it happen for their customers. I transferred my land line number (so long, Verizon bastards!) to a second VM cell phone. The transfer was completed in less than a week, and it worked flawlessly. The service rep (see above) I spoke with when arranging the transfer was absolutely on the ball.
4. Some of their phones have an easy hack for blacklisting incoming callers. Here's the cool part: if your VM phone can download ringtones, you may be able to set up a blacklist...
After I started receiving faxes from a pool of about 20 different phone numbers at all hours of the night, I phoned VM's customer service and asked if either the VM service itself or my phone supported blacklisting (i.e. block the fax machines that were calling me). The rep was apologetic and told me that no, unfortunately, neither the phone nor the service had that capability. So I asked him if my particular phone supported downloadable ringtones. A bit confused by the sudden change in topic, the rep said that yes, it indeed supported that. And so I asked if by any chance -- amongst the collection of thousands of ringtones VM outlines on their website -- if they happened to have one that played complete silence. The rep immediately got where I was going (see my comments above about bright service reps)... that with my particular phone's ability to assign specific ringtones to specific incoming phone numbers (provided there is callerID information), I could store the phone numbers of the fax machines that were calling me under a special group, say, "SILENCED MORONS", and then assign the silent ringtone to each one of them. At that point, if they ever call me again, sure the phone will light up and display the incoming call and phone number, but the phone will play the special ringtone -- COMPLETE SILENCE! That's about as good a blacklist as anyone could ask for.
Anyway, the representative immediately got what I was trying to do, thought it was a pretty damn cool approach, and then proceeded to take about 15 minutes hunting through VM's massive database of ringtones. And guess what? He found one -- a ringtone consisting of pure silence. The rep pointed out that the only downside was that, like all their basic ringtones, it would cost $2.00 to download. I told the guy that was the best deal for some silence I'd ever been offered! Now I have my blacklist.:-)
Seriously. Virgin Mobile is awesome. I don't normally go out of my way to offer much praise for any corporation, but I've been so impressed by what I get for the money I spend with them, that even the occasional glitch I experience (rare) just
Be very, very careful. Do not trust the other people here who are waving their hands saying, "oh, it's perfectly legal under such and such circumstances."
Really, you need to talk to a lawyer, but you could at least start investigating the legality of the topic by reading a guide from The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press titled, "Can we Tape?"
One very brief excerpt from the linked page:
"...there are important questions of law that must be addressed first. Both federal and state statutes govern the use of electronic recording equipment. The unlawful use of such equipment can give rise not only to a civil suit by the 'injured' party, but also criminal prosecution."
In other words, if you don't know precisely what your rights are and what the rights are of each of the other parties involved (i.e. if you get transferred from one person to another, or worse, if you get transferred from one person to another that are in different call centers located in different places where different laws apply), the business you're interacting with could come down on you like a ton of bricks.
Talk to a lawyer, get a detailed answer from him or her in writing, and then tread carefully.
Then kick it up a notch. Write to your local newspaper, except not just about your particular situation. Start it off as a letter-to-the-editor about the growing problem of ewaste, and then bring up your situation as an example. Include a few lines about recycling old electronics as being "a valuable lesson for our children" or something to that effect and you're golden.
You've got the 800 pound gorilla on your side, dude. You get to use a variant of the old, "won't someone think of the children," line. Seriously... their crotches are bare, and you're standing there holding a nine-iron. Yeesh. Start swinging!
So... if everything is really so peachy in Iraq right now... why are we still over there now, in 2006, in full force? And why are US servicemen and women still dying at a steady rate?
Are you telling me it's because of the mass media?
Huh?
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Feel free to take a second pass at explaining... well, whatever it is that you think you're explaining.
I think everything you wrote has merit. But you missed a couple of things.
...urine, which is totally sterile...
At first perhaps, but after it's been sitting there for a while, it starts giving off a progressively stronger odor, doesn't it? Some type of active decomposition must be going on there, otherwise you wouldn't be smelling anything.
More than that however, the big point that you missed is that it is sterile in normal people. It's precisely the people who are leaking blood cells into their urine that I'd be the most worried about. No, you're not likely to step into a stall after someone like that has been through ahead of you, but when the next modern-day SARS, ebola, or bubonic plague occurs, it's precisely the morons out there that think that even a trivial effort to wash their hands and keep surfaces clean is actually a bad thing who will risk winding up spreading the new disease the most.
I'm not a gamer at all (at least not since I kicked a really bad addiction to the original Half-Life), so for all I know there are places similar to the following already out there, and have been for ages.
I wish that there was a really, really immersive gaming environment out in the real world somewhere, spanning 5+ acres (2+ hectares). I'm talking about something on par with a high-budget Hollywood set, only on a huge scale. Partly outdoors, partly indoors in mock laboratories or whatever, partly underground in mock bunkers, etc. If there was a real complex set up somewhere to look as impressive as your average Half-Life map, I'd be in to gaming again. And as a result getting some serious, serious exercise... actually running around and around for hours, clambering though the occasional stretch of ductwork, all the while working with a team over radio in an effort to foil the bad-guys, fragging a few of them when convenient.
I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to have a capture-the-flag or deathmatch game between multiple teams in a really detailed real-world environment like that. There would be a host of challenges to overcome (avoiding actual deaths would be one of those challenges). But it seems to me as though, with today's extreme sports and interest in Fear-Factor-esque physical challenges, there has to be some way to provide a level of real risk to the participants while still making survival likely.
If those flexible, transparent OLED displays ever become a reality, that would also provide an option for true HUDs, allowing for augmented reality to be blended into the environment. And if you wanted to practice with your team beforehand, a truly virtual version of the complex could be made available so that you could practice before meeting up to face your chosen competitors. I can't help but think something like this would rock, although I'm sure there are a slew of people out there who are going to tell me all the reasons why it wouldn't. (You there... reading this... that's your cue...)
I still have the original box for my copy of QuickBASIC V4.50, with the receipt inside. I bought it on Tuesday, June 26th, 1990, at 3:56:18 PM for $69.95 from Fry's Electronics in Fremont, California (it's listed as store #2 on the receipt). Yeah, I know. I'm shaking my head over the fact that somehow I still have that information.
Ahhh, those were the days!
Anyway, given that I was 14 at the time and didn't have much money, if TurboBASIC was within reach at Fry's or anywhere else, I find it unlikely that it was less than the $69.95 option for QuickBASIC. If it had been, I probably would have chosen it instead.
Sadly, the financial issue was the same reason why my first foray into Windows programming was with Visual Basic, and not Borland Delphi. I could get an educational discount on Microsoft stuff at my university's computer store, but not for Borland's Delphi (either that or the prices still worked out in Microsoft's favor, even if there was some kind of discount from Borland).
In hindsight I really wish I'd been able to go with Delphi, but having money left over for food was a more pressing issue back then (and still is, really).
I just wanted to drop in again and say "thank you" to everyone who has posted!! I've been checking every day for replies (and will continue to do so until this discussion gets closed).
I'm going to give this a shot.:-) I have way too much free time on my hands these days, so I really don't have anything to lose. Besides, at the very least it should be something of an adventure.:-)
Instead, how about stopping it from sticking around (reduce that CO2!!) -- or stopping it from arriving in the first place (find a clever way to create reflective, fluffy clouds).
I've been reading Slashdot for years and while there's always a ton of comments in the Mars articles about how great it would be terraform that planet, no one ever mentions doing so to Venus.
Why??
I look at the gravity situation and I really can't understand why people focus on Mars. Really. Does anyone ever look at the surface gravity of Mars before they start talking about terraforming it? It's only 38% of Earth's! (Compare that with freaking Mercury at 28%, or even the Moon at about 17%. ) What are your bones going to be doing in that environment after a few years?
But take a look at the surface gravity on Venus: it's 90% of Earth's.
Sure, you've got atmospheric pressures at the surface 90 times greater than on Earth. And the temperature averages 460 degrees Celsius. The atmosphere is about 96% carbon dioxide, and about 3% nitrogen. Then you've got trace amounts of sulfuric acid (tasty!), chlorine, and fluorine.
But seriously... why, after comparing the two planets, do people focus on Mars? I'm asking an honest question. From my perspective, Mars has so little to work with. Venus has plenty -- too much in fact. But think about it. Humans have proven themselves pretty good at destroying atmospheres. They're not so good at creating them. And in the case of Mars, you need to create an atmosphere. But in the case of Venus, you need to destroy it. Doesn't this make Venus a more natural candidate for human endeavours?
Surely there's a chance that, with our slowly evolving understanding of organisms that survive around deep-sea volcanic vents, and our ever-evolving ability to tweak natural organisms, that we could devise some kind of bacteria that could thrive on Venus and start capturing the carbon from the atmosphere. There's so much for it to work with there. All that tasty carbon dioxide! And hey, H2SO4... can't you get water out of that somehow? Crank things up with some additional hardware, and if you pull enough material out of the atmosphere, you start to reduce surface pressure.
And then there's that beautiful surface gravity.
Have I mentioned the surface gravity and how it's so close to that found here on Earth, unlike Mars?
I'm sure plenty of people far smarter than I ever will be have considered Venus and dismissed the idea after a few seconds of thought. But why? And why is Mars, with such wimpy gravity and such a scarce existing atmosphere given all the attention when it comes to dreams of terraforming?
The poster wrote, "newly-acquired violin". New in what sense? Completely new? Or just a replacement or something?
I ask because I have a (possibly) related question: at what age is it too late to try to learn a musical instrument? About 20 years ago my parents forced me through a few years of piano lessons. To this day the best piano performance I've seen involved a baby grand piano, a trebuchet, and a couple hundred pounds of pyrotechnics.
That said, now at age 30, I really wish I'd had some kind of real exposure to the violin when I was younger. But now I am old and slow. And when I flip through the phone book looking for music lessons, it's all geared towards young kids. So as an old phogey, I presume it's just too late for me, right? I mean, where the heck does a non-kid start, if anywhere?
You raise a variety of good points, but I cannot resist posting one counter-point... primarily because I have years and years of my father's and grandfather's "back in my day" comments still rattling around in my head (argh!).
Find out what the average wage was 30 years ago or 40 years ago. Look in an old catalog, and look at what someone could purchase with their wages then, and compare it with average wages and what they can afford to purchase now.... People can pretty much afford much more of everything.
Oh really?
To answer your challenge: 30 or 40 years ago they could buy big, clunky stuff.
Solidly built.
Osmium was nervous.
It was heavy as hell, and it required at least one other person's help in order to get it up the stairs into the apartment, or off the back of a trailer before it gets pushed into the garden shed. Have I mentioned it's big? And heavy? Everything is metal. No plastic covers... or likely anything made of plastic, period. Screws are everywhere -- the thing practically begs to be opened. None of the plastic snap-connector, "clicks together once and will never come apart without breaking something," approach. Once you get the heavy metal cover off, the thing you're looking at is so damn big that you've got plenty of room to work in. And the internal components are actually large enough that a normal human can handle them! Amazing!
So, 30 or 40 years ago, you bought something:
1. That was expensive.
2. That was massive, and built like an f-ing tank.
3. That was disassemblable (is that even a word?)
4. That was made from smaller components that were sized such that they could be replaced by the owner, or by the guy who runs the fix-it shop down the road.
So even if the thing broke down (which was unlikely, given that it was overengineered to the point that it could probably have functioned on Venus for at least a few minutes), you stood a good chance of getting it fixed.
Now, what are you really referring to when you say people today are rich in the way that they can buy more stuff?
Oh that's right... they can buy a load of cheap plastic devices, that can't be opened, can't be repaired, and have short life-spans.
You've still got a point, but you can't make the comparison quite so cleanly. 30 or 40 years ago a certain widget cost $1000, and today's equivalent widget costs $100... but can you guarantee you're not going to need 10 of those modern versions to match the same lifespan of the older widget?
I know, I know... it's a vague, unfair comparison that's clearly not always going to be valid. But again, I don't think your original comparison on this point is entirely fair either.
Things were really different back then. I'm not sure you can make a direct comparison like that one with material goods today.
That Slashdot story about Peep was from way back in 2000 (not that there's anything wrong with that). You might be remembering a story here on Slashdot from about a year and a half ago, titled The Sound of Your Firewall. In a nutshell, it linked to a brief article on Linux Gazette about how to script this sort of thing. It's obviously a much simpler approach, but maybe it's one of the options you heard about. As a bonus, the Linux Gazette article also included a quick approach to getting your Caps/Scroll/Num lock lights to blink as indicators for network activity.
You can't have enough noise, and you can never have enough blinky lights...:-)
Time is running out for this Slashdot story; I don't know when it will be archived. I just wanted to reply in part to thank you for taking the time to write such a heartfelt and insightful post, and in part to let you know that at least one person read it who can appreciate it.
Slashdot Mirror
Europe was warmer, you could grow wine in regions you can't now. The middle East was a trading empire, Vikings were on the march, some Christians were planning the crusades. All things considered, you would probably be a poor peasant, half starving, and about to drop dead from plague or some other ailment at the ripe age of 30.
... so ... what exactly is the difference between 1000 years ago and today? Oh right ... we've got Slashdot! Go us! ;-)
Wait
Yeah, I know. My roommate laughed at me for not catching that. :-(
Paper cassette. PAPER!
Your minor quibble is incorrect: the "PC" in the "PC Load Letter" error stands for "Paper Cassette", not "Paper Cartridge".
:-)
I don't know what the original source is of that erroneous piece of information, but I've just corrected Wikipedia's article on the subject (they had "cartridge" also).
Don't believe me? Go to one of the many technical documents at the HP site itself. I don't understand why so many people are getting this wrong. Knowing that it stood for "printer cassette" is one of those pointless, geeky credentials I assumed more Slashdotters had.
This is why the IRS itself should be the primary and controlling developer of software like this. Still open source, yes, so that there's at least some level of transparency that every government agency ought to be providing to the ones paying their salaries. It's time the IRS entered the 21st century.
And now, having long since left Yale, you spend your days reading and posting to Slashdot ... under the name "Breakfast Pants".
;-)
Oh yes, I can see clearly that procrastination hasn't hurt you at all.
It felt soooo good to give Verizon the boot. :-) Anyway, if you do go with Virgin Mobile, I have one more piece of advice:
... they're down to $25-$29 in price. These little phones were worth it when I bought them for $80. It blows me away that I could get them now for $25. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier it has a dataport (other UT Starcom/Audiovox or Nokia offerings might also have a dataport ... I don't know). Unfortunately UT Starcom dropped their datacable adapter for this model of phone. No problem though, as I picked up a 3rd party USB adapter cable that came with some uber-cheezy software that was compatible with this phone for about $25.
You'll need a VM-compatible cell phone. You can see their current offerings online here, but I'd suggest taking a look at the phones at a store somewhere. Sprint cellphone stores might have them; RadioShack and Best Buy have them for certain. VM seems to feature phones by a few manufacturers only: Kyocera, UT Starcom (formerly Audiovox), and Nokia. I don't know about Nokia, but avoid the ones made by Kyocera. The one Kyocera model I tried had very poor sound quality.
The phone I have now -- actually I have 2 identical ones, one of which replaced my landline and stays at home 24/7 as a sort of backup line -- is the UT Starcom/Audiovox 8610. I looked at that link above and the equivalent listing at Best Buy's website and I can't believe it
I should really post a review of this phone somewhere, complete with some of the simple tricks I've done with it. Hmmm...
- As a downside, the phone has a Virgin Mobile logo on the front. :( I don't think 30s engineer is their target demographic, so their company image doesn't exactly match what I'm trying to express all the time.
:-) I'm not an engineer, but I am technically-minded and in my 30s. Virgin Mobile has continued to be an easy choice for me for a few reasons, including...
... that with my particular phone's ability to assign specific ringtones to specific incoming phone numbers (provided there is callerID information), I could store the phone numbers of the fax machines that were calling me under a special group, say, "SILENCED MORONS", and then assign the silent ringtone to each one of them. At that point, if they ever call me again, sure the phone will light up and display the incoming call and phone number, but the phone will play the special ringtone -- COMPLETE SILENCE! That's about as good a blacklist as anyone could ask for.
:-)
I had to post a reply after reading that.
1. Near-perfect anonymity. You don't even have to give Virgin Mobile a name when you activate your phone. Buy the phone with cash at a physical store, complete the activation of the new cell phone using another phone and their automated system (use a payphone and dial Virgin Mobile's 800 number to do that for a paranoia level of anonymity), and you're as close to being a completely anonymous cellphone owner as is possible today. Continue buying "top-up" cards with cash at physical stores, and you'll maintain that anonymity.
2. Awesome service reps. Let's face it, few places are perfect, but I've had the best luck with VM's call centers amongst those I call with any regularity. The staff are typically a younger bunch, but they're the bright kind of younger, you know?
3. They actually understand local number portability, and how to make it happen for their customers. I transferred my land line number (so long, Verizon bastards!) to a second VM cell phone. The transfer was completed in less than a week, and it worked flawlessly. The service rep (see above) I spoke with when arranging the transfer was absolutely on the ball.
4. Some of their phones have an easy hack for blacklisting incoming callers. Here's the cool part: if your VM phone can download ringtones, you may be able to set up a blacklist...
After I started receiving faxes from a pool of about 20 different phone numbers at all hours of the night, I phoned VM's customer service and asked if either the VM service itself or my phone supported blacklisting (i.e. block the fax machines that were calling me). The rep was apologetic and told me that no, unfortunately, neither the phone nor the service had that capability. So I asked him if my particular phone supported downloadable ringtones. A bit confused by the sudden change in topic, the rep said that yes, it indeed supported that. And so I asked if by any chance -- amongst the collection of thousands of ringtones VM outlines on their website -- if they happened to have one that played complete silence. The rep immediately got where I was going (see my comments above about bright service reps)
Anyway, the representative immediately got what I was trying to do, thought it was a pretty damn cool approach, and then proceeded to take about 15 minutes hunting through VM's massive database of ringtones. And guess what? He found one -- a ringtone consisting of pure silence. The rep pointed out that the only downside was that, like all their basic ringtones, it would cost $2.00 to download. I told the guy that was the best deal for some silence I'd ever been offered! Now I have my blacklist.
Seriously. Virgin Mobile is awesome. I don't normally go out of my way to offer much praise for any corporation, but I've been so impressed by what I get for the money I spend with them, that even the occasional glitch I experience (rare) just
Be very, very careful. Do not trust the other people here who are waving their hands saying, "oh, it's perfectly legal under such and such circumstances."
Really, you need to talk to a lawyer, but you could at least start investigating the legality of the topic by reading a guide from The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press titled, "Can we Tape?"
One very brief excerpt from the linked page:
"...there are important questions of law that must be addressed first. Both federal and state statutes govern the use of electronic recording equipment. The unlawful use of such equipment can give rise not only to a civil suit by the 'injured' party, but also criminal prosecution."
In other words, if you don't know precisely what your rights are and what the rights are of each of the other parties involved (i.e. if you get transferred from one person to another, or worse, if you get transferred from one person to another that are in different call centers located in different places where different laws apply), the business you're interacting with could come down on you like a ton of bricks.
Talk to a lawyer, get a detailed answer from him or her in writing, and then tread carefully.
Beano?
Beyond geek: TTR ... Type Type Revolution?
Then kick it up a notch. Write to your local newspaper, except not just about your particular situation. Start it off as a letter-to-the-editor about the growing problem of ewaste, and then bring up your situation as an example. Include a few lines about recycling old electronics as being "a valuable lesson for our children" or something to that effect and you're golden.
... their crotches are bare, and you're standing there holding a nine-iron. Yeesh. Start swinging!
You've got the 800 pound gorilla on your side, dude. You get to use a variant of the old, "won't someone think of the children," line. Seriously
So ... if everything is really so peachy in Iraq right now ... why are we still over there now, in 2006, in full force? And why are US servicemen and women still dying at a steady rate?
... well, whatever it is that you think you're explaining.
Are you telling me it's because of the mass media?
Huh?
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Feel free to take a second pass at explaining
Aghast, Lara asks, "What plan?!"
One not effortless, so two vowels?
"Give me ISO 8601 or give me death!"
I think everything you wrote has merit. But you missed a couple of things.
...urine, which is totally sterile...
At first perhaps, but after it's been sitting there for a while, it starts giving off a progressively stronger odor, doesn't it? Some type of active decomposition must be going on there, otherwise you wouldn't be smelling anything.
More than that however, the big point that you missed is that it is sterile in normal people. It's precisely the people who are leaking blood cells into their urine that I'd be the most worried about. No, you're not likely to step into a stall after someone like that has been through ahead of you, but when the next modern-day SARS, ebola, or bubonic plague occurs, it's precisely the morons out there that think that even a trivial effort to wash their hands and keep surfaces clean is actually a bad thing who will risk winding up spreading the new disease the most.
Lighten up you old geezer!
;-)
I'm not a gamer at all (at least not since I kicked a really bad addiction to the original Half-Life), so for all I know there are places similar to the following already out there, and have been for ages.
... actually running around and around for hours, clambering though the occasional stretch of ductwork, all the while working with a team over radio in an effort to foil the bad-guys, fragging a few of them when convenient.
... reading this ... that's your cue...)
I wish that there was a really, really immersive gaming environment out in the real world somewhere, spanning 5+ acres (2+ hectares). I'm talking about something on par with a high-budget Hollywood set, only on a huge scale. Partly outdoors, partly indoors in mock laboratories or whatever, partly underground in mock bunkers, etc. If there was a real complex set up somewhere to look as impressive as your average Half-Life map, I'd be in to gaming again. And as a result getting some serious, serious exercise
I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to have a capture-the-flag or deathmatch game between multiple teams in a really detailed real-world environment like that. There would be a host of challenges to overcome (avoiding actual deaths would be one of those challenges). But it seems to me as though, with today's extreme sports and interest in Fear-Factor-esque physical challenges, there has to be some way to provide a level of real risk to the participants while still making survival likely.
If those flexible, transparent OLED displays ever become a reality, that would also provide an option for true HUDs, allowing for augmented reality to be blended into the environment. And if you wanted to practice with your team beforehand, a truly virtual version of the complex could be made available so that you could practice before meeting up to face your chosen competitors. I can't help but think something like this would rock, although I'm sure there are a slew of people out there who are going to tell me all the reasons why it wouldn't. (You there
I still have the original box for my copy of QuickBASIC V4.50, with the receipt inside. I bought it on Tuesday, June 26th, 1990, at 3:56:18 PM for $69.95 from Fry's Electronics in Fremont, California (it's listed as store #2 on the receipt). Yeah, I know. I'm shaking my head over the fact that somehow I still have that information.
Ahhh, those were the days!
Anyway, given that I was 14 at the time and didn't have much money, if TurboBASIC was within reach at Fry's or anywhere else, I find it unlikely that it was less than the $69.95 option for QuickBASIC. If it had been, I probably would have chosen it instead.
Sadly, the financial issue was the same reason why my first foray into Windows programming was with Visual Basic, and not Borland Delphi. I could get an educational discount on Microsoft stuff at my university's computer store, but not for Borland's Delphi (either that or the prices still worked out in Microsoft's favor, even if there was some kind of discount from Borland).
In hindsight I really wish I'd been able to go with Delphi, but having money left over for food was a more pressing issue back then (and still is, really).
I just wanted to drop in again and say "thank you" to everyone who has posted!! I've been checking every day for replies (and will continue to do so until this discussion gets closed).
:-) I have way too much free time on my hands these days, so I really don't have anything to lose. Besides, at the very least it should be something of an adventure. :-)
I'm going to give this a shot.
How about not moving it anywhere?
Instead, how about stopping it from sticking around (reduce that CO2!!) -- or stopping it from arriving in the first place (find a clever way to create reflective, fluffy clouds).
I've been reading Slashdot for years and while there's always a ton of comments in the Mars articles about how great it would be terraform that planet, no one ever mentions doing so to Venus.
... why, after comparing the two planets, do people focus on Mars? I'm asking an honest question. From my perspective, Mars has so little to work with. Venus has plenty -- too much in fact. But think about it. Humans have proven themselves pretty good at destroying atmospheres. They're not so good at creating them. And in the case of Mars, you need to create an atmosphere. But in the case of Venus, you need to destroy it. Doesn't this make Venus a more natural candidate for human endeavours?
... can't you get water out of that somehow? Crank things up with some additional hardware, and if you pull enough material out of the atmosphere, you start to reduce surface pressure.
Why??
I look at the gravity situation and I really can't understand why people focus on Mars. Really. Does anyone ever look at the surface gravity of Mars before they start talking about terraforming it? It's only 38% of Earth's! (Compare that with freaking Mercury at 28%, or even the Moon at about 17%. ) What are your bones going to be doing in that environment after a few years?
But take a look at the surface gravity on Venus: it's 90% of Earth's.
Sure, you've got atmospheric pressures at the surface 90 times greater than on Earth. And the temperature averages 460 degrees Celsius. The atmosphere is about 96% carbon dioxide, and about 3% nitrogen. Then you've got trace amounts of sulfuric acid (tasty!), chlorine, and fluorine.
But seriously
Surely there's a chance that, with our slowly evolving understanding of organisms that survive around deep-sea volcanic vents, and our ever-evolving ability to tweak natural organisms, that we could devise some kind of bacteria that could thrive on Venus and start capturing the carbon from the atmosphere. There's so much for it to work with there. All that tasty carbon dioxide! And hey, H2SO4
And then there's that beautiful surface gravity.
Have I mentioned the surface gravity and how it's so close to that found here on Earth, unlike Mars?
I'm sure plenty of people far smarter than I ever will be have considered Venus and dismissed the idea after a few seconds of thought. But why? And why is Mars, with such wimpy gravity and such a scarce existing atmosphere given all the attention when it comes to dreams of terraforming?
Where's the love and the dreams for Venus?
The poster wrote, "newly-acquired violin". New in what sense? Completely new? Or just a replacement or something?
I ask because I have a (possibly) related question: at what age is it too late to try to learn a musical instrument? About 20 years ago my parents forced me through a few years of piano lessons. To this day the best piano performance I've seen involved a baby grand piano, a trebuchet, and a couple hundred pounds of pyrotechnics.
That said, now at age 30, I really wish I'd had some kind of real exposure to the violin when I was younger. But now I am old and slow. And when I flip through the phone book looking for music lessons, it's all geared towards young kids. So as an old phogey, I presume it's just too late for me, right? I mean, where the heck does a non-kid start, if anywhere?
You raise a variety of good points, but I cannot resist posting one counter-point ... primarily because I have years and years of my father's and grandfather's "back in my day" comments still rattling around in my head (argh!).
... People can pretty much afford much more of everything.
... or likely anything made of plastic, period. Screws are everywhere -- the thing practically begs to be opened. None of the plastic snap-connector, "clicks together once and will never come apart without breaking something," approach. Once you get the heavy metal cover off, the thing you're looking at is so damn big that you've got plenty of room to work in. And the internal components are actually large enough that a normal human can handle them! Amazing!
... they can buy a load of cheap plastic devices, that can't be opened, can't be repaired, and have short life-spans.
... but can you guarantee you're not going to need 10 of those modern versions to match the same lifespan of the older widget?
... it's a vague, unfair comparison that's clearly not always going to be valid. But again, I don't think your original comparison on this point is entirely fair either.
Find out what the average wage was 30 years ago or 40 years ago. Look in an old catalog, and look at what someone could purchase with their wages then, and compare it with average wages and what they can afford to purchase now.
Oh really?
To answer your challenge: 30 or 40 years ago they could buy big, clunky stuff.
Solidly built.
Osmium was nervous.
It was heavy as hell, and it required at least one other person's help in order to get it up the stairs into the apartment, or off the back of a trailer before it gets pushed into the garden shed. Have I mentioned it's big? And heavy? Everything is metal. No plastic covers
So, 30 or 40 years ago, you bought something:
1. That was expensive.
2. That was massive, and built like an f-ing tank.
3. That was disassemblable (is that even a word?)
4. That was made from smaller components that were sized such that they could be replaced by the owner, or by the guy who runs the fix-it shop down the road.
So even if the thing broke down (which was unlikely, given that it was overengineered to the point that it could probably have functioned on Venus for at least a few minutes), you stood a good chance of getting it fixed.
Now, what are you really referring to when you say people today are rich in the way that they can buy more stuff?
Oh that's right
You've still got a point, but you can't make the comparison quite so cleanly. 30 or 40 years ago a certain widget cost $1000, and today's equivalent widget costs $100
I know, I know
Things were really different back then. I'm not sure you can make a direct comparison like that one with material goods today.
That Slashdot story about Peep was from way back in 2000 (not that there's anything wrong with that). You might be remembering a story here on Slashdot from about a year and a half ago, titled The Sound of Your Firewall. In a nutshell, it linked to a brief article on Linux Gazette about how to script this sort of thing. It's obviously a much simpler approach, but maybe it's one of the options you heard about. As a bonus, the Linux Gazette article also included a quick approach to getting your Caps/Scroll/Num lock lights to blink as indicators for network activity.
:-)
You can't have enough noise, and you can never have enough blinky lights...
Time is running out for this Slashdot story; I don't know when it will be archived. I just wanted to reply in part to thank you for taking the time to write such a heartfelt and insightful post, and in part to let you know that at least one person read it who can appreciate it.