Several years ago, I went looking for a new television, which was HD Ready. At the time, this meant having analog component video inputs: YPbPr and capable of accepting 720P and/or 1080i signals. There was no DVI (with HDCP), yet.
So, I go into this store, and I ask about such TVs, and all the sales droids yammer on about Sony with "ColorStream!"
WTF is ColorStream? Does that mean component video inputs, i.e. YPbPr that support 720P and 1080i inputs? "No," sales droid says, "ColorStream" gives you a better picture.
It was only by requesting the manual for the set in which I was interested, that I could verify that ColorStream meant YPbPr. And even then, I had do refer to the specification summary page.
I'm sure that many lost sales happen because some sales doofus doesn't know that the product they're flogging actually meets the customer's needs perfectly!
Tell me again who's the real winner when it takes a 5 billion dollar nuclear aircraft carrier to deploy a 20 million dollar plane flown by a pilot with a million dollar education, dropping a ten thousand dollar bomb just to kill some Iraqi kid hiding in a hole with a $20 russian surplus rifle?
When I hear "Star Wars", with no qualifier, and not used like an adjective, i.e. "Star Wars films", the original flick comes to mind. At the time it was commonly called just "Star Wars". There was no other (yet).
In fact, when SW:TESB and SW:ROTJ were released, we referred to the trilogy as "Star Wars", "The Empire Strikes Back", and "Return (was supposed to be 'Revenge', but Lucas desided Jedi weren't vengeful) of the Jedi". And yes, a pedant would have pointed out that the first film was then properly titled, "Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode IV)" (or was it ST, EP IV, ANH?. Somesuch, in any case).
The point is that the term "Star Wars" by itself carries a very strong connection to that first film among those members of the population who were kids/teens at the time. While the CGI reference should imply the more modern works, it fails to override that particular meme: it was a HUGE phenomenon at the time.
Much of the original "Star Wars" (Episode IV), used models, and not CGI. This was 1976, remeber: three years later I was fortunate to have a 10 Mb hard drive on loan: two 5 MB 14" platters, dimmed the lights when it spun up, was the size of a small beer fridge, and weighed around 300 lbs. They cost around US$14k at the time.
I had created derived works of GPL code in a commercial environment, that was redistributed to our customers. I made sure that we complied with the terms of the GPL, certainly distributing source to our customers, and going so far as to redistribute the tools necessary to reproduce our build and packaging environment -- though original works, I got permission to license them to our customers under the GPL.
Sadly, the buck stopped there.
You see, our customers paid handsomely for what we provided them and had desire to redistribute it. So, the changes stayed "locked up".
The saddest part was the build environment and packaging system we had developed that would ensure that source CDs of GPL or open source licensed code were produced alongside the installation CDs (not that reading the License field of an RPM.spec file is rocket science). In addition, I had made some mods to anaconda and sysinstall to make them clever about the installtion type: headless, or not, etc. We had a dongle that could be fitted on a serial port that told anaconda to "go ahead and blow away whatever was on the hard disk". This allowed for "safe" headless installs (most of the equipment was headless and so installs had to be completely automated).
Pity, all that good stuff (which wasn't really central to the product) wasn't shared openly.
The IOC has stupid rules that restrict the maximum amount of cover that a beach vollyball outfit can provide for female Olympic competitors. As in: "the width of the material covering the thigh shall not exceed so many centimeters."
Given that the skimpiness of the outfit has little to do with the performance of the athlete, many women have protested that this is blatant sexual objectification. I agree.
Of course the IOC is driven, like many organizations, by profit, and hence advertising dollars, and thus wants to attract as many eyeballs to the events as possible. Most of us guys like to watch women wearing skimpy outfits. Sex sells. Thus, the rules.
I do think, however, that this goes against the Olympic spirit of competition in sports, though. The IOC shouldn't be in the business of selling sex, but rather world-class sports.
Dunno. Maybe. Heck, I used to roll custom embedded Linux distros for in-house use (though, when "embeded" means on the meager 9 Gb SCSI disk, you're pushing the meaning of the word).
I'm sure you could look at LinuxDevices.com and find a distro you could put on that hardware, and then customize it, etc.
Of, for $150 buy the thing all ready configured for you. You decide how much your time is worth.
Europe and the US have similar cultures and similar stages of development.
Geez, no! The degree of individualism in the U.S. is much higher. It might be argued that there isn't commensurate responsibility that goes along with the freedoms one enjoys.
If a guy attacks you and tries to break your arm and you shoot him dead, he's the one to blame, not you.
Indeed.
Of course, if you get the law wrong, you might end up being the one frying: actions with irreversable consequences should come with serious responsibilities: if you're going to pull that trigger, you better know which side of the law you're on.
These days, that's a bit difficult: inside/outside, armed/unarmed intruder, State to State differences, etc. There's a problem with that: the law should be plain enough to be understood by the average person when the need to "take it into one's own hands" arises.
Me, I think there should be only one form of criminal punishment: death. That would get a lot of stupid laws off the books.
I know this is a little off-topic, but with regards to common behavior involving firearms and self-defense as portrayed in movies and television, why is it that people will point a gun at someone's torso, and then hesitate long enough to find themselves in serious trouble?
Most people do not want to harm others, even if they are in harms way.
What's always come to mind is that were I in possession of a firearm in a situation in which I was being threatened, I could easily fire the weapon with no intent to kill.
This gets you on the wrong side of the law in many jurisdictions and it isn't so "easy". You probably won't get a second chance.
I agree that a non-lethal shot is preferable, from a moral perspective, but the situations in which this is legal, and more prudent, are extremely rare.
I agree with you. It's also why I prefer a shotgun. I just figured that someone was going to trot out the "a rifle is more accurate and easier to maim with, not kill" argument, and not dispute that, up front. "Easier", of course, is a relative term, and does not address the overall difficulty.
No, I have reread your post and *still* don't get what you're trying to say.
Germany's post-WWI Jews were hardly a socioeconomic underclass that was being subsidized via welfare (well, there were some poor Jews, of course, but certainly all believers of that faith weren't in above normal numbers).
I referred to the welfare practice of keeping people alive that refuse to support themselves, and continue to breed. Letting them "sink or swim" is certainly not the same as actively killing them.
The shot will go at a MUCH lower velocity than a bullet, and therefore won't pass through the wall to your kid's bedroom or your neighbors house.
If someone is REALLY in your house, and REALLY threatening your life, you will miss with a pistol. Even if you're great on the range and the guy is only on theother side of the room, you'll miss. A shotgun won't.
Exactly! Give the poster a prize!
Of course, you'll get even greater spread and lower velocity with a "sawed off" shotgun (I think some insane figure like a 10-1/2" barrel is still legal in Texas), not that I like that particular weapon.
But stopping errant shot is as important as trying to hit your target, yes.
The number of deaths attributable to firearms in the U.S. that are not criminally related is far smaller than the anti-gun loby would have you believe.
I rather like that the assholes are killing oneanother in greater numbers than they are killing innocent victims.
No. Hitler had a perverse idea of Germany's version of manifest destiny. He rounded up Jews not because they were a socioeconomic drag, but rather because they were preceived to unfairly prosper despite economic sanctions against Germany post-WWI.
Of course, he used propaganda films like "Das Ju" (sp?), (translated "The Jew"), to portray all Jews as economic ghetto-dwelling parasites to gain the support of non-Jews. Hitler sucessfully shunted the blame for Germany's economic hardships away from the external sanctions (which he eventually ignored - there were "voluntary" restrictions within them), and toward Jews.
Clearly his propaganda remains effective if you believe that.
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You, my anonymous friend, have never seen a Bang and Olufsen catalog from the mid 1980s.
So, I go into this store, and I ask about such TVs, and all the sales droids yammer on about Sony with "ColorStream!"
WTF is ColorStream? Does that mean component video inputs, i.e. YPbPr that support 720P and 1080i inputs? "No," sales droid says, "ColorStream" gives you a better picture.
It was only by requesting the manual for the set in which I was interested, that I could verify that ColorStream meant YPbPr. And even then, I had do refer to the specification summary page.
I'm sure that many lost sales happen because some sales doofus doesn't know that the product they're flogging actually meets the customer's needs perfectly!
You can never have enough overkill.
When I hear "Star Wars", with no qualifier, and not used like an adjective, i.e. "Star Wars films", the original flick comes to mind. At the time it was commonly called just "Star Wars". There was no other (yet).
In fact, when SW:TESB and SW:ROTJ were released, we referred to the trilogy as "Star Wars", "The Empire Strikes Back", and "Return (was supposed to be 'Revenge', but Lucas desided Jedi weren't vengeful) of the Jedi". And yes, a pedant would have pointed out that the first film was then properly titled, "Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode IV)" (or was it ST, EP IV, ANH?. Somesuch, in any case).
The point is that the term "Star Wars" by itself carries a very strong connection to that first film among those members of the population who were kids/teens at the time. While the CGI reference should imply the more modern works, it fails to override that particular meme: it was a HUGE phenomenon at the time.
To us old fogies, "Star Wars", without an explicit episode reference, implies the first one to hit theathers, i.e. "A New Hope".
Much of the original "Star Wars" (Episode IV), used models, and not CGI. This was 1976, remeber: three years later I was fortunate to have a 10 Mb hard drive on loan: two 5 MB 14" platters, dimmed the lights when it spun up, was the size of a small beer fridge, and weighed around 300 lbs. They cost around US$14k at the time.
I had created derived works of GPL code in a commercial environment, that was redistributed to our customers. I made sure that we complied with the terms of the GPL, certainly distributing source to our customers, and going so far as to redistribute the tools necessary to reproduce our build and packaging environment -- though original works, I got permission to license them to our customers under the GPL.
Sadly, the buck stopped there.
You see, our customers paid handsomely for what we provided them and had desire to redistribute it. So, the changes stayed "locked up".
The saddest part was the build environment and packaging system we had developed that would ensure that source CDs of GPL or open source licensed code were produced alongside the installation CDs (not that reading the License field of an RPM .spec file is rocket science). In addition, I had made some mods to anaconda and sysinstall to make them clever about the installtion type: headless, or not, etc. We had a dongle that could be fitted on a serial port that told anaconda to "go ahead and blow away whatever was on the hard disk". This allowed for "safe" headless installs (most of the equipment was headless and so installs had to be completely automated).
Pity, all that good stuff (which wasn't really central to the product) wasn't shared openly.
Given that the skimpiness of the outfit has little to do with the performance of the athlete, many women have protested that this is blatant sexual objectification. I agree.
Of course the IOC is driven, like many organizations, by profit, and hence advertising dollars, and thus wants to attract as many eyeballs to the events as possible. Most of us guys like to watch women wearing skimpy outfits. Sex sells. Thus, the rules.
I do think, however, that this goes against the Olympic spirit of competition in sports, though. The IOC shouldn't be in the business of selling sex, but rather world-class sports.
I'm sure you could look at LinuxDevices.com and find a distro you could put on that hardware, and then customize it, etc.
Of, for $150 buy the thing all ready configured for you. You decide how much your time is worth.
Save them the time to roll a flash-friendly distro?
Geez, no! The degree of individualism in the U.S. is much higher. It might be argued that there isn't commensurate responsibility that goes along with the freedoms one enjoys.
Indeed.
Of course, if you get the law wrong, you might end up being the one frying: actions with irreversable consequences should come with serious responsibilities: if you're going to pull that trigger, you better know which side of the law you're on.
These days, that's a bit difficult: inside/outside, armed/unarmed intruder, State to State differences, etc. There's a problem with that: the law should be plain enough to be understood by the average person when the need to "take it into one's own hands" arises.
Me, I think there should be only one form of criminal punishment: death. That would get a lot of stupid laws off the books.
Do not confuse private charity with the public dole.
Clearly someone who has not watched Kill Bill. :-)
Well, not oppressive, but how about stronger and invading?
Switzerland. pre-WWII. Germany never did invade, much to Hitler's annoyance.
Most people do not want to harm others, even if they are in harms way.
What's always come to mind is that were I in possession of a firearm in a situation in which I was being threatened, I could easily fire the weapon with no intent to kill.
This gets you on the wrong side of the law in many jurisdictions and it isn't so "easy". You probably won't get a second chance.
I agree that a non-lethal shot is preferable, from a moral perspective, but the situations in which this is legal, and more prudent, are extremely rare.
Yeah, so the punk can kill your kids AND get fed by your tax dollar!
Sounds like Canada has a criminal problem twice as bad as the U.S. That's what happens when you disarm law-abiding people.
I agree with you. It's also why I prefer a shotgun. I just figured that someone was going to trot out the "a rifle is more accurate and easier to maim with, not kill" argument, and not dispute that, up front. "Easier", of course, is a relative term, and does not address the overall difficulty.
Germany's post-WWI Jews were hardly a socioeconomic underclass that was being subsidized via welfare (well, there were some poor Jews, of course, but certainly all believers of that faith weren't in above normal numbers).
I referred to the welfare practice of keeping people alive that refuse to support themselves, and continue to breed. Letting them "sink or swim" is certainly not the same as actively killing them.
Y'all "ain't never" been to Texas, have y'all?
If someone is REALLY in your house, and REALLY threatening your life, you will miss with a pistol. Even if you're great on the range and the guy is only on theother side of the room, you'll miss. A shotgun won't.
Exactly! Give the poster a prize!
Of course, you'll get even greater spread and lower velocity with a "sawed off" shotgun (I think some insane figure like a 10-1/2" barrel is still legal in Texas), not that I like that particular weapon.
But stopping errant shot is as important as trying to hit your target, yes.
I rather like that the assholes are killing oneanother in greater numbers than they are killing innocent victims.
Which is pretty much what Hitler's creed was
No. Hitler had a perverse idea of Germany's version of manifest destiny. He rounded up Jews not because they were a socioeconomic drag, but rather because they were preceived to unfairly prosper despite economic sanctions against Germany post-WWI.
Of course, he used propaganda films like "Das Ju" (sp?), (translated "The Jew"), to portray all Jews as economic ghetto-dwelling parasites to gain the support of non-Jews. Hitler sucessfully shunted the blame for Germany's economic hardships away from the external sanctions (which he eventually ignored - there were "voluntary" restrictions within them), and toward Jews.
Clearly his propaganda remains effective if you believe that.
Hmmm.