You *all* are wimps. Back in college, we would have marathons of drinking and football watching. Get a case of beer and a pair of Depends...first one to stand up loses.
Meh.
Back in *my* day, we'd watch marathons of The Prisoner. Seventeen hours plus one more for the alternate "Chimes of Big Ben," on a fourth generation PAL to NTSC transfer.
It wasn't a physical endurance challenge, but it was a hell of a mental one. By the time we got to "Fallout," we didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
And open office isn't good enough? besides, what's wrong with just using vi for word processing? Simple, reliable. if you are liike me and can spel prefect, vi will due everything you could evar want.
And if you don't like vi, I hear that there's a text editor in emacs.
I've never been able to find it, but I hear it's there.
Maybe I'm a little too close to this particular issue . . . but isn't it a little unfair to hate on Warwick Davis because of Jedi? I mean, until Jar Jar^H^H^H^H The Pod Race^H^H^H^H^H Episode One came along, I hated the Ewoks more than any other part of Star Wars, (even though I was in the target demographic) but it's not his fault the Ewoks were so lame.
I'm all for hating on Lucas, but Warwick Davis was playing a role that, at the time, would have been a very big deal. Remember how aniticipated Jedi was?
While releasing his books under a creative commons license worked well for him I wonder what would happen if a normal (read unfamous) person attempted the same thing. Would a CC license help an unknown writer or hurt their chances of getting a book deal?
IIRC, Cory was relatively unknown prior to the publication of Down and Out. He was known within circles of SF readers, but not so much in the coveted "mainstream."
By doing this crazy thing and releasing his book -- for free! -- online, he made some very big waves in the publishing world, and people started paying attention to him. As a result, Down and Out sold tons of dead tree copies, and I think the downloads are into the millions.
When I tried my hand at publishing, I wondered the same thing. Sure, some people may have known me because of my acting work, or because of my weblog, but I didn't know if it would translate into mainstream sales. While I didn't offer Dancing Barefoot for free download, it was mostly online already, scattered across two years of weblog entries. When my book was first shipping, I would get e-mails from people who said "I just read your site, liked what I saw, and consequently bought your book." Sure, it's not the same as giving away the whole book, but I think it's similar.
All those people who bought it (over 3000 in just under four months) caught the attention of O'Reilly, and now I have a three book deal with them. None of that would have happened without the Internet, so I think a CC license will definately HELP an unknown writer.
Also why dont the rover have some kind of wipers to stop the buildup?
I wondered the exact same thing, and asked all the scientists I spoke to at JPL (for TechTV) that very question. They said that the added weight, and potential for joints and servos to fail outweighed the possible benefit of wiping off the solar panels. One of them told me that they were effectively routing out milligrams of weight from various areas of the rovers to get the total down.
I didn't ask about the base station (because I didn't think of it -- that would have been a good question) but I imagine they'd say the same thing about weight vs. benefits.
To make the database even more interesting, the prophet (whoever that happens to be at the moment) can reassign wives at will. If you (assuming you are a guy) get out of line (question the prophet, etc.) then you lose your wives, your house, your kids, your shiny little thrown in heaven, your planet (apparently you get a planet full of people to worship you if you are sufficiently "righteous".). Krakhauer's book indicates that kids might switch owners several times in their lives.
To straighten the wives out in heaven, apparently women are built with a cool password encryption device. When you get sealed (which is different from getting married) the bishop assigns the girl a password. Having the password is more powerful than being married. Of course, the bishop knows all the passwords, which is scary...but I guess heaven needs sysadmins too. Joseph Smith had the secret password to a lot of other men's wives. He will get to take the wives in heaven. Joseph Smith will have one of the biggest harems. Not quite as big as Jesus' harem, but it will be a mighty impressive collection.
There is a baptizing the dead game that goes on. I am not sure what rights you get over the people who you baptize in proxy.
Okay, is there some sort of Beat $cientology and the Moonies for the wackiest "religion" merit badge or something?
I can't wait to see Xenu and Joseph Smith duke it out in Thunderdome on Pay Per View.
Did you by any chance ask them if Spirit and Opportunity use the same code, or if they were coded independently by two separate teams working on the same requirements?
No, I didn't. I should have, but instead I asked her which one would win in a fight. She said that they were twins, so it would be pretty even . . . then I asked her which one was the Evil Twin, and she laughed and said that was classified information.
I'd really love to see what tools they were using/are using still, when coding the vehicles.
I asked them this when I was at JPL last week. The rover software is coded in C, and most of the rover drivers use Red Hat. Julie Townsend told me that she uses Windows, and there's a fairly even mix of Mac, *nix, and Windows users across the whole project.
NASA has experience with uploading new software (including os) to deployed spacecraft to correct defects.
On Tuesday, I talked with some of the project scientists for a TechTV interview that's running next week on Screen Savers. One of the many things I learned from them was that they upload new software, and patches, and all that stuff with surprising frequency and ease.
The thing that really blew my mind was, in order to make their launch date, they just coded enough commands to get the thing there, and sent all the software to drive around and research stuff after the landing while the spacecraft was in transit.
I really hope they solve this current problem, and get the mission back on track. They are SUPER cool people at JPL who are working on this.
Worst Star Trek film ever. I should have been clear about that. I mean, my piles of shit "The Curse" and "Deep Core 2000" are significantly worse than even the worst of Star Trek, including the first two seasons of Voyager.
So, foreach "STV:TWME" in (@mypost) {"STV:TESTME11!"}
. . . Or something like that. I reverse polarity on stuff. I'm not a programmer. I'm more of a hardware guy.
...but if you were privy to the techniques they used to encode the scripts, wouldn't the other actors have that knowledge too? If so then the script could be modified to make it appear that it came from some other source.
Well, I don't think WFS needs to be defended. I wasn't accusing him of anything, so if it came off that way, allow me to correct myself.
*correct*
As to your suggestion, I suppose it's technically possible, though why anyone would want to go to the extreme lengths to falsify a script's ID is beyond me. We're talking about numerical codes on random pages, and the actor's (or sometimes character's) name stamped, by hand, across the center of every single page. If you watch the extended behind the scenes features on the LOTR DVDs, you can see them reading their sides, and each page is stamped "Sam" or "Frodo" or "Gollum," etc. (goddamn I'd do just about anything to get one of those!/geek)
Oh, and the encoding methods weren't exactly common knowledge. I was the only TNG cast member who read 2600 and TAP, if you get my drift.
I know for a fact that one of the major Hollywood talents has leaked his share of movies.
When they did Star Trek V: The Worst Movie EVAR!!1, the producers were hardcore about protecting the scripts. Each one was coded in various ways (starbase numbers were the most popular for TNG scripts -- I think I was "Starbase 28" or something like that, Patrick was "Starbase 21" or something . . . I know they used our call sheet number in some way.) including stamping the name of the script's legitimate owner in HUGE semi-transparent letters across each page.
Being a super-nerd, I really wanted a copy of that script. Even though their Enterprise was less than 200 yards from my Enterprise, the STV:TWME!!1 producers wouldn't let me have one, so I bought a bootleg at a convention.
You know whose script was bootlegged and photocopied a zillion times? William Fucking Shatner's, that's who. Now, I seriously doubt that WFS wanted his script to get out, since he was the director and everything, but somehow it did.
It's easy to find out who was the rightful owner of a script, screener, or whatever . . . but determining exactly who was responsible for releasing it into the wild is a bit more difficult.
(And the script was as bad as the movie, for those of you keeping score at home.)
Slashdot Mirror
You *all* are wimps. Back in college, we would have marathons of drinking and football watching. Get a case of beer and a pair of Depends...first one to stand up loses.
Meh.
Back in *my* day, we'd watch marathons of The Prisoner. Seventeen hours plus one more for the alternate "Chimes of Big Ben," on a fourth generation PAL to NTSC transfer.
It wasn't a physical endurance challenge, but it was a hell of a mental one. By the time we got to "Fallout," we didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
And open office isn't good enough? besides, what's wrong with just using vi for word processing? Simple, reliable. if you are liike me and can spel prefect, vi will due everything you could evar want.
And if you don't like vi, I hear that there's a text editor in emacs.
I've never been able to find it, but I hear it's there.
. . . are Americans more ignorant about the American politcal system than Europeans?
Gosh, I'd love to spend some time answering this, but I have Average Joe II on TIVO and I have to finish watching it to make room for American Idol.
Oh! Gotta go get the door. It's Domino's.
If you sit there too long, you head wil A Splode.
Maybe I'm a little too close to this particular issue . . . but isn't it a little unfair to hate on Warwick Davis because of Jedi? I mean, until Jar Jar^H^H^H^H The Pod Race^H^H^H^H^H Episode One came along, I hated the Ewoks more than any other part of Star Wars, (even though I was in the target demographic) but it's not his fault the Ewoks were so lame.
I'm all for hating on Lucas, but Warwick Davis was playing a role that, at the time, would have been a very big deal. Remember how aniticipated Jedi was?
Someone get on the interocitor, and call Klaatu. I think we need him and Gort to pay us a visit.
I have been wondering when the military was going to take care of that surveillance satellite operated by Major League Baseball.
[obscure]
Me too. These coat hangers just aren't working as well as they once did.
[obscure +1/2]
I thought they did consider it... just because they rejected it doesn't mean they didn't consider it, right? :P
Well, Disney must have looked at the offer, and rejected it because it was clearly . . . Mickey Mouse.
Thank you. Thank you. Try the overpriced hamburgers and soggy fries while you wait to ride Splash Mountain.
Well, all that acid on Europa certainly explains David Bowman's trip during Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite.
While releasing his books under a creative commons license worked well for him I wonder what would happen if a normal (read unfamous) person attempted the same thing. Would a CC license help an unknown writer or hurt their chances of getting a book deal?
IIRC, Cory was relatively unknown prior to the publication of Down and Out. He was known within circles of SF readers, but not so much in the coveted "mainstream."
By doing this crazy thing and releasing his book -- for free! -- online, he made some very big waves in the publishing world, and people started paying attention to him. As a result, Down and Out sold tons of dead tree copies, and I think the downloads are into the millions.
When I tried my hand at publishing, I wondered the same thing. Sure, some people may have known me because of my acting work, or because of my weblog, but I didn't know if it would translate into mainstream sales. While I didn't offer Dancing Barefoot for free download, it was mostly online already, scattered across two years of weblog entries. When my book was first shipping, I would get e-mails from people who said "I just read your site, liked what I saw, and consequently bought your book." Sure, it's not the same as giving away the whole book, but I think it's similar.
All those people who bought it (over 3000 in just under four months) caught the attention of O'Reilly, and now I have a three book deal with them. None of that would have happened without the Internet, so I think a CC license will definately HELP an unknown writer.
Also why dont the rover have some kind of wipers to stop the buildup?
I wondered the exact same thing, and asked all the scientists I spoke to at JPL (for TechTV) that very question. They said that the added weight, and potential for joints and servos to fail outweighed the possible benefit of wiping off the solar panels. One of them told me that they were effectively routing out milligrams of weight from various areas of the rovers to get the total down.
I didn't ask about the base station (because I didn't think of it -- that would have been a good question) but I imagine they'd say the same thing about weight vs. benefits.
To make the database even more interesting, the prophet (whoever that happens to be at the moment) can reassign wives at will. If you (assuming you are a guy) get out of line (question the prophet, etc.) then you lose your wives, your house, your kids, your shiny little thrown in heaven, your planet (apparently you get a planet full of people to worship you if you are sufficiently "righteous".). Krakhauer's book indicates that kids might switch owners several times in their lives.
To straighten the wives out in heaven, apparently women are built with a cool password encryption device. When you get sealed (which is different from getting married) the bishop assigns the girl a password. Having the password is more powerful than being married. Of course, the bishop knows all the passwords, which is scary...but I guess heaven needs sysadmins too. Joseph Smith had the secret password to a lot of other men's wives. He will get to take the wives in heaven. Joseph Smith will have one of the biggest harems. Not quite as big as Jesus' harem, but it will be a mighty impressive collection.
There is a baptizing the dead game that goes on. I am not sure what rights you get over the people who you baptize in proxy.
Okay, is there some sort of Beat $cientology and the Moonies for the wackiest "religion" merit badge or something?
I can't wait to see Xenu and Joseph Smith duke it out in Thunderdome on Pay Per View.
Utah built a thing called MATRIX
Dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb-dummmbbbb
They promise that they won't abuse it
Dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb-dummmbbbb
Did you by any chance ask them if Spirit and Opportunity use the same code, or if they were coded independently by two separate teams working on the same requirements?
No, I didn't. I should have, but instead I asked her which one would win in a fight. She said that they were twins, so it would be pretty even . . . then I asked her which one was the Evil Twin, and she laughed and said that was classified information.
I'd really love to see what tools they were using/are using still, when coding the vehicles.
I asked them this when I was at JPL last week. The rover software is coded in C, and most of the rover drivers use Red Hat. Julie Townsend told me that she uses Windows, and there's a fairly even mix of Mac, *nix, and Windows users across the whole project.
So, slax.org seems to have been slashdotted before the actual story was posted? Hmmm, I'd say that's a rather curious temporal anomaly? :-)
I suggest modifying the forward http array to emit an inverse slashdotyon pulse into the heart of the anomaly.
I'll be in Ten Forward if you need me.
NASA has experience with uploading new software (including os) to deployed spacecraft to correct defects.
On Tuesday, I talked with some of the project scientists for a TechTV interview that's running next week on Screen Savers. One of the many things I learned from them was that they upload new software, and patches, and all that stuff with surprising frequency and ease.
The thing that really blew my mind was, in order to make their launch date, they just coded enough commands to get the thing there, and sent all the software to drive around and research stuff after the landing while the spacecraft was in transit.
I really hope they solve this current problem, and get the mission back on track. They are SUPER cool people at JPL who are working on this.
Put Wil Wheaton on the next week (maybe let Kirk kill Wesley Crusher? ahh, the visuals), that's another additional 200,000 viewers above normal.
Dude.
I would totally kick his ass, using the patented "pull the toupee over his eyes" maneuver, perfected (but never used) by Kahn.
Oh dear god.
Worst Star Trek film ever. I should have been clear about that. I mean, my piles of shit "The Curse" and "Deep Core 2000" are significantly worse than even the worst of Star Trek, including the first two seasons of Voyager.
So, foreach "STV:TWME" in (@mypost)
{"STV:TESTME11!"}
. . . Or something like that. I reverse polarity on stuff. I'm not a programmer. I'm more of a hardware guy.
...but if you were privy to the techniques they used to encode the scripts, wouldn't the other actors have that knowledge too? If so then the script could be modified to make it appear that it came from some other source.
/geek)
Well, I don't think WFS needs to be defended. I wasn't accusing him of anything, so if it came off that way, allow me to correct myself.
*correct*
As to your suggestion, I suppose it's technically possible, though why anyone would want to go to the extreme lengths to falsify a script's ID is beyond me. We're talking about numerical codes on random pages, and the actor's (or sometimes character's) name stamped, by hand, across the center of every single page. If you watch the extended behind the scenes features on the LOTR DVDs, you can see them reading their sides, and each page is stamped "Sam" or "Frodo" or "Gollum," etc. (goddamn I'd do just about anything to get one of those!
Oh, and the encoding methods weren't exactly common knowledge. I was the only TNG cast member who read 2600 and TAP, if you get my drift.
It was bad compared to what? All those good Star Trek movies? Heh...
/shatner
"Lllleeeeewwwwwwwppppp!!!!"
I know for a fact that one of the major Hollywood talents has leaked his share of movies.
When they did Star Trek V: The Worst Movie EVAR!!1, the producers were hardcore about protecting the scripts. Each one was coded in various ways (starbase numbers were the most popular for TNG scripts -- I think I was "Starbase 28" or something like that, Patrick was "Starbase 21" or something . . . I know they used our call sheet number in some way.) including stamping the name of the script's legitimate owner in HUGE semi-transparent letters across each page.
Being a super-nerd, I really wanted a copy of that script. Even though their Enterprise was less than 200 yards from my Enterprise, the STV:TWME!!1 producers wouldn't let me have one, so I bought a bootleg at a convention.
You know whose script was bootlegged and photocopied a zillion times? William Fucking Shatner's, that's who. Now, I seriously doubt that WFS wanted his script to get out, since he was the director and everything, but somehow it did.
It's easy to find out who was the rightful owner of a script, screener, or whatever . . . but determining exactly who was responsible for releasing it into the wild is a bit more difficult.
(And the script was as bad as the movie, for those of you keeping score at home.)
Oh, don't even get me started.
I almost want to move to Vegas now.
There are some other reasons to move to Vegas, too, you know.
I didn't think that it was possible for me to hate spammers more than I already do.
Turns out I was wrong.