While I think massive destruction as a result of such a probe is unlikely I would rather we wait fo do such intrusive tests until we've colonized a few other worlds. We haven't even explored the space near us or our own oceans so why take that minor risk of destroying all humanity? In a way I feel the same way about things like nanotechnology. Anything that has the chance to be a global killing experiment should be done only after we've got a backup plan.:)
Well it was my impression that the Firebird naming problem wasn't a trademark issue (they aren't competing products) as much as project A not wanting to be confussed with project B. In this case I think a subtle word mangling could have made it okay to use. You could even try combinations like PhyerFish or similar concepts. My domain name Kavlon, for example, is a mangled reconcept of Avalon. Obviously you can't just use anything but Google makes the leg work easier. If it doesn't pass the Google test don't bother with the expensive legal legwork.:)
Only because they are retards and named themselves after an obvious competitors product. That'd be as if Mozilla tried to rename to EnterNetExplorer. There is always room for human stupidity.
My general approach when looking for a name is to Google all possibilities until I find one that returns 0 hits. If it isn't in Google then it doesn't exist - so is safe to use. Until I wrote this message 'Phyerburd' would have been an example. It's also interesting in that then any time you searh for that word you can be pretty sure that most the hits in Google relate to your use of the word. An easy indicator to watch your growth by.
I know my cellphone did this before 2000. Enter the first couple letters of a word on the keypad and it'd try to auto-complete with the most frequently word that started that way. Sure it wasn't on an e-comm site but it was the same exact concept. I know help systems have done it forever. The bash prompt and url widget in my browser does it too.
I noticed the downturn of Saturday morning even as I was growing up. When I was young it was great and as I got older it got worse and worse. For a while I thought it was me but then I noticed I still liked cartoons. With the coming of Cartoon Network and similar channels I knew that it definately wasn't be that'd changed. The cartoons they push at kids these days just tend to suck - especially the Saturday morning crap. Worst they've replaced most these time slots with news and religious shows. Sure the kids go to other channels and time slots to find cartoons but that is only because the Saturday morning as we know it has been flushed completely down the toilet.
I think network tv is missing the real market for Saturday morning cartoons - adults that grew up with it. I think a lot of us would tune in (with our own kids) to watch good cartoons. We could be spending a couple hours every Saturday morning with our kids just having a laugh. Some good cartoons like Looney Tunes. Toward the middle of the day fade the programming from animation into more grow up stuff. Bill Nye the Science Guy, Junkyard Wars, etc.. sort of educational things children and parents might watch together.
Actually, I think it was a Slashdot item -- a really long time ago. Google turned up a couple projects but they don't look like what I remember. I'm not sure if it's my memory that is foggy or just that the project isn't indexed by any of my search terms.:)
If you can do better then go forth and do so and make yourself some cash and get a little fame. If not then get over it. You don't have to pay to read - if you want to bitch then subscribe.
Actually, a couple years ago somebody did that. They had a calculator embeded in their skin as a tat.. and it really functioned. Boy would I have liked to have that in school. No more of my professors lame remarks "You won't always have a calculator with you so work the problems out by hand." If I remember right it used a similar kind of ink and had some method of implanting circuits under the skin. I was very impressed with the idea at the time but I haven't really heard anything more about it since.
Once they get to true color high-res steroscopic electronic wallpaper I plan on making my walls look like I'm swirling through space around planet sized naked women. Maybe I'll give my house voice commands like something off Star Trek so I can tell the house how to fly around these ladies. "House, 'Fly closer to Katie.. up, up, stop and hold orbital pattern around the left breast. Okay, take us to the Betty-quandrant - speed alpha warp.'" Why browse porn when you can float in space amongst it. Just don't get sucked into a black ho (are you man enough?).
I usually see these new tech articles and think to myself "Wow, things will be really different in 5-10 years." Asking for it to change dramaticly in even 2-3 years is asking a lot. Also as you say a lot of the changes are incremental so you fail to notice they are taking place. It's now pretty affordable for the average yokel (me) to have a terabyte of disk space at home, a tiny computer that is quiet, a nice lcd screen, and broadband. For the most part 3 years ago that stuff was available but cost a lot more. These new technologies are creeping out the door - mostly being sold to other companies - but they are emerging as real products. They still tend to cost a lot and be hard to find but they are showing up.
Also it should be noted with development guys that they either take one of two personalities.. the cautious "It'll be ready in 30 years." guys and the gungho "Tomorrow we're all going to have jet packs." guys. Obviously the later make more interesting news sources because only ubergeeks plan 30 years into the future. I guess I'm both. I'm very gungho about what I'm doing now but am already looking into what I might be working on in 30 years. Nobody quotes me for articles though.:)
That's why I'm thinking about getting an LCD monitor for home. I have a nice little mini-itx system that takes up little space and little electricty and a big freaking monitor twice it's size that sits here gulping down electricity. A good LCD would put my computers total electricty needs below that of many monitors alone.
It'd also free up desk space and make it much easier to move the whole setup around when I feel like it. I use this system as my on-the-go server. Throw it in the car and wherever I go it can act as a server for me. It has WiFi hooked up so just plug it into the ethernet and it's ready to act as my gateway. A LCD would eliminate hauling a big ass monitor with it.:)
Maybe they should issue goggles to everyone when riding. It'd help people like me keep my glasses on too. I guess a windshield would kill the experience ?
I see it misused it almost the exact same way a couple times a week. Everyone understands what someone means when it is used that way. I see this exact same nitpick at least once a week. That seems like a shift to me.
People are stupid. We should all talk in binary.:)
This is a problem for me. I'm 6'6 and barely fit into some rides.. they take some effort to squeze into. I'd imagine there are some I wouldn't fit in. I'm paranoid about the clearence of any rides that let your legs hang free. Overall, it's a good thing I'm not much of a thrill ride fan.:)
Meanings change. Considering how often ironic is misused you can just assume it's meaning has shifted to include these other uses. If the majority of people use it that way then that is it's meaning.:)
Am I the only person who doesn't 'get' rollercoasters. You pay a fortune to ride them and most don't go any faster than you can go in a car. I'm paranoid about lossing my glasses so I take them off and then I can't see anything so for me it's a little wind on my face and a few bumps and it's over. My eyes are bad enough that I can't see anything and anyway I'm not afraid of heights. I've never really noticed Gforce as much of a factor when riding.. I guess I've been on car rides (with some crazy drivers) that were worse. I wouldn't ride if I didn't think the ride was safe. Being I think the ride is safe it doesn't really excert any fear factor. Is this worth waiting in line for an hour and paying $20 a ride?
The last coaster I road was Speed in Las Vegas. It doesn't even go very high or fast or do any loops or anything. My main worry while riding was 'what if a bug hits me in the eye'. The NY NY coaster looked a little better but was quite expensive. The Stratosphere sounded okay but again was expensive and everyone said it kind of sucked. I no longer even remember the name of the last coaster I road before that.
For me at least I'd have a lot more fun on water rides and things of that nature. I'd like to try skydiving because that seems it'd be a much better rush than a coaster. If I could find a good solution for my glasses maybe the coasters would be more fun.
The best solution is to fire back with your own mod points or if you don't have any try to attach a comment that will reference the original so that people will still notice it. It's a democracy so everybody has their chance to make the place work or suck. If you use your mod points well meta moderation will eventually give you more chances to moderate. I actually think Slashdot has a pretty good system if more people would just use it.:)
I don't like breakfast (of any kind) but I still love that bit of the story. I like my books long. The longer the better. There is no hurry to reach the end. I'm reading to relax afterall. I purposely read at a fraction of my full speed so that I can enjoy the details more. I can read a 1000 page technical manual in a night but I usually take about a week of evenings to read a good fiction book like Crytonomicon. I paid good money for that damn book so it better not be over after an hour of reading.:)
I like the books the way they are. They are written by someone that is obviously a geek of sorts. They remind me a lot of conversations I might have with friends (such as descriptions of cereal and how sex relates to productivity). I would be quite upset if they dropped these details on the floor. They bring the characters and story to life for me.
As a Stephenson fan I'll say that of Gibson's work Idoru was the least lame. Gibson is more of a Star Trek writer than Stephenson and has a typical darker outlook. Much more cyberpunk. Not really my thing. Stephenson is more post-Cyberpunk.
I think the problem is that these books all need sequels. They are more like a slice of time than a real story and as we all know real life doesn't just converge into satisfactory endings. I never really minded as I'd much rather see more of the story than an ending. I liked how he tied Snow Crash into The Diamond Age without actually making them a continuation of the same story.
Neal Stephenson is more of a post-cyberpunk author than cyberpunk (as contrasted with say Gibson). Cyberpunk typically has a dim gritty view of our technological future while post-cyberpunk is a sort of passing through the storm into a bright - if frightening - future.
Just because a story is set in the past doesn't mean that it isn't sci fi. Every future has a past and to find out how you get to that future you have to study the past. You could say that books like Crytonomicon are the history of our future.
Slashdot Mirror
No. Was The Core any good? It looked kind of sucky but that was just my first impression. :)
While I think massive destruction as a result of such a probe is unlikely I would rather we wait fo do such intrusive tests until we've colonized a few other worlds. We haven't even explored the space near us or our own oceans so why take that minor risk of destroying all humanity? In a way I feel the same way about things like nanotechnology. Anything that has the chance to be a global killing experiment should be done only after we've got a backup plan. :)
Well it was my impression that the Firebird naming problem wasn't a trademark issue (they aren't competing products) as much as project A not wanting to be confussed with project B. In this case I think a subtle word mangling could have made it okay to use. You could even try combinations like PhyerFish or similar concepts. My domain name Kavlon, for example, is a mangled reconcept of Avalon. Obviously you can't just use anything but Google makes the leg work easier. If it doesn't pass the Google test don't bother with the expensive legal legwork. :)
Have you ever used SCO Linux (Caldera)? Those poor users have worse troubles than being sued by SCO.
Only because they are retards and named themselves after an obvious competitors product. That'd be as if Mozilla tried to rename to EnterNetExplorer. There is always room for human stupidity.
My general approach when looking for a name is to Google all possibilities until I find one that returns 0 hits. If it isn't in Google then it doesn't exist - so is safe to use. Until I wrote this message 'Phyerburd' would have been an example. It's also interesting in that then any time you searh for that word you can be pretty sure that most the hits in Google relate to your use of the word. An easy indicator to watch your growth by.
I know my cellphone did this before 2000. Enter the first couple letters of a word on the keypad and it'd try to auto-complete with the most frequently word that started that way. Sure it wasn't on an e-comm site but it was the same exact concept. I know help systems have done it forever. The bash prompt and url widget in my browser does it too.
I noticed the downturn of Saturday morning even as I was growing up. When I was young it was great and as I got older it got worse and worse. For a while I thought it was me but then I noticed I still liked cartoons. With the coming of Cartoon Network and similar channels I knew that it definately wasn't be that'd changed. The cartoons they push at kids these days just tend to suck - especially the Saturday morning crap. Worst they've replaced most these time slots with news and religious shows. Sure the kids go to other channels and time slots to find cartoons but that is only because the Saturday morning as we know it has been flushed completely down the toilet.
I think network tv is missing the real market for Saturday morning cartoons - adults that grew up with it. I think a lot of us would tune in (with our own kids) to watch good cartoons. We could be spending a couple hours every Saturday morning with our kids just having a laugh. Some good cartoons like Looney Tunes. Toward the middle of the day fade the programming from animation into more grow up stuff. Bill Nye the Science Guy, Junkyard Wars, etc.. sort of educational things children and parents might watch together.
Actually, I think it was a Slashdot item -- a really long time ago. Google turned up a couple projects but they don't look like what I remember. I'm not sure if it's my memory that is foggy or just that the project isn't indexed by any of my search terms. :)
If you can do better then go forth and do so and make yourself some cash and get a little fame. If not then get over it. You don't have to pay to read - if you want to bitch then subscribe.
Actually, a couple years ago somebody did that. They had a calculator embeded in their skin as a tat.. and it really functioned. Boy would I have liked to have that in school. No more of my professors lame remarks "You won't always have a calculator with you so work the problems out by hand." If I remember right it used a similar kind of ink and had some method of implanting circuits under the skin. I was very impressed with the idea at the time but I haven't really heard anything more about it since.
Once they get to true color high-res steroscopic electronic wallpaper I plan on making my walls look like I'm swirling through space around planet sized naked women. Maybe I'll give my house voice commands like something off Star Trek so I can tell the house how to fly around these ladies. "House, 'Fly closer to Katie.. up, up, stop and hold orbital pattern around the left breast. Okay, take us to the Betty-quandrant - speed alpha warp.'" Why browse porn when you can float in space amongst it. Just don't get sucked into a black ho (are you man enough?).
I usually see these new tech articles and think to myself "Wow, things will be really different in 5-10 years." Asking for it to change dramaticly in even 2-3 years is asking a lot. Also as you say a lot of the changes are incremental so you fail to notice they are taking place. It's now pretty affordable for the average yokel (me) to have a terabyte of disk space at home, a tiny computer that is quiet, a nice lcd screen, and broadband. For the most part 3 years ago that stuff was available but cost a lot more. These new technologies are creeping out the door - mostly being sold to other companies - but they are emerging as real products. They still tend to cost a lot and be hard to find but they are showing up.
:)
Also it should be noted with development guys that they either take one of two personalities.. the cautious "It'll be ready in 30 years." guys and the gungho "Tomorrow we're all going to have jet packs." guys. Obviously the later make more interesting news sources because only ubergeeks plan 30 years into the future. I guess I'm both. I'm very gungho about what I'm doing now but am already looking into what I might be working on in 30 years. Nobody quotes me for articles though.
That's why I'm thinking about getting an LCD monitor for home. I have a nice little mini-itx system that takes up little space and little electricty and a big freaking monitor twice it's size that sits here gulping down electricity. A good LCD would put my computers total electricty needs below that of many monitors alone.
:)
It'd also free up desk space and make it much easier to move the whole setup around when I feel like it. I use this system as my on-the-go server. Throw it in the car and wherever I go it can act as a server for me. It has WiFi hooked up so just plug it into the ethernet and it's ready to act as my gateway. A LCD would eliminate hauling a big ass monitor with it.
Maybe they should issue goggles to everyone when riding. It'd help people like me keep my glasses on too. I guess a windshield would kill the experience ?
I see it misused it almost the exact same way a couple times a week. Everyone understands what someone means when it is used that way. I see this exact same nitpick at least once a week. That seems like a shift to me.
:)
People are stupid. We should all talk in binary.
This is a problem for me. I'm 6'6 and barely fit into some rides.. they take some effort to squeze into. I'd imagine there are some I wouldn't fit in. I'm paranoid about the clearence of any rides that let your legs hang free. Overall, it's a good thing I'm not much of a thrill ride fan. :)
Meanings change. Considering how often ironic is misused you can just assume it's meaning has shifted to include these other uses. If the majority of people use it that way then that is it's meaning. :)
Am I the only person who doesn't 'get' rollercoasters. You pay a fortune to ride them and most don't go any faster than you can go in a car. I'm paranoid about lossing my glasses so I take them off and then I can't see anything so for me it's a little wind on my face and a few bumps and it's over. My eyes are bad enough that I can't see anything and anyway I'm not afraid of heights. I've never really noticed Gforce as much of a factor when riding.. I guess I've been on car rides (with some crazy drivers) that were worse. I wouldn't ride if I didn't think the ride was safe. Being I think the ride is safe it doesn't really excert any fear factor. Is this worth waiting in line for an hour and paying $20 a ride?
The last coaster I road was Speed in Las Vegas. It doesn't even go very high or fast or do any loops or anything. My main worry while riding was 'what if a bug hits me in the eye'. The NY NY coaster looked a little better but was quite expensive. The Stratosphere sounded okay but again was expensive and everyone said it kind of sucked. I no longer even remember the name of the last coaster I road before that.
For me at least I'd have a lot more fun on water rides and things of that nature. I'd like to try skydiving because that seems it'd be a much better rush than a coaster. If I could find a good solution for my glasses maybe the coasters would be more fun.
The best solution is to fire back with your own mod points or if you don't have any try to attach a comment that will reference the original so that people will still notice it. It's a democracy so everybody has their chance to make the place work or suck. If you use your mod points well meta moderation will eventually give you more chances to moderate. I actually think Slashdot has a pretty good system if more people would just use it. :)
I don't like breakfast (of any kind) but I still love that bit of the story. I like my books long. The longer the better. There is no hurry to reach the end. I'm reading to relax afterall. I purposely read at a fraction of my full speed so that I can enjoy the details more. I can read a 1000 page technical manual in a night but I usually take about a week of evenings to read a good fiction book like Crytonomicon. I paid good money for that damn book so it better not be over after an hour of reading. :)
I like the books the way they are. They are written by someone that is obviously a geek of sorts. They remind me a lot of conversations I might have with friends (such as descriptions of cereal and how sex relates to productivity). I would be quite upset if they dropped these details on the floor. They bring the characters and story to life for me.
As a Stephenson fan I'll say that of Gibson's work Idoru was the least lame. Gibson is more of a Star Trek writer than Stephenson and has a typical darker outlook. Much more cyberpunk. Not really my thing. Stephenson is more post-Cyberpunk.
I think the problem is that these books all need sequels. They are more like a slice of time than a real story and as we all know real life doesn't just converge into satisfactory endings. I never really minded as I'd much rather see more of the story than an ending. I liked how he tied Snow Crash into The Diamond Age without actually making them a continuation of the same story.
Neal Stephenson is more of a post-cyberpunk author than cyberpunk (as contrasted with say Gibson). Cyberpunk typically has a dim gritty view of our technological future while post-cyberpunk is a sort of passing through the storm into a bright - if frightening - future.
Just because a story is set in the past doesn't mean that it isn't sci fi. Every future has a past and to find out how you get to that future you have to study the past. You could say that books like Crytonomicon are the history of our future.