Usually the first time a girl enters my room she is immediately drawn to my Titanium Powerbook. Soft coos are heard while she breathes in its elegant beauty and caresses its curves. "It's so thin!" she says.
Sounds like those ads I see on TV. Does it have wings, or a sphagnum moss pad?
In "One Law To Rule Them All" Michael Ames writes:
Asimov's phrase, "allow a human being to come to harm," if implemented fully, would turn humanity into a clutch of coddled infants, perpetually protected from harm, both physical and mental.
Which, in the last couple of "I, Robot" stories (the ones about Stephen Byerley and the Machines), becomes the whole point. Susan Calvin and Byerley both agree that this is for the best - though Calvin, a human, feels it's a wonderful thing while Byerley, (probably) a robot, isn't so sure.
And, somewhere in the gap between the "I, Robot" stories and "The Caves Of Steel", the Machines realise this - and decide humanity would be better off without them. IIRC, this is specifically mentioned somewhere else in Asimov's stories, though I can't for the life of me remember where...
How about just being a 30-something man trying to provide a comfortable existence for his family?
But to the others, the Slashdot-weenies living in a world of free limitless atom-perfect copying machines and Star Trek replicators, you're a (to use a popular analogy around here) buggy whip manufacturer. Who needs you, when everybody can just spend the rest of their lives living in the holodeck?
(Jesus H. Christ, kiddies, sometimes it seems like you've all read "Brave New World" but missed the whole point! Just feck off back to your soma-existance and dream nice dreams - leave the real world to the rest of us...)
Our game is about the American Dream of a normal life, and we strongly urge our players at every point in the video game NOT TO CONTINUE to do what they are doing!
Y'know, I always thought that the old Sierra game "Jones In The Fast Lane" was a less-extreme version of this.
Although, it was possible - though not easy - to win by concentrating on "happiness" over money, property, and job...
"Would you like Thousand Isl... I mean, 'secret sauce'... on that?"
If a tube goes bad, you pull it out, and stick a new one in.
And your new tube will definitely have different bias characteristics, input impedance, and output impedance, than the one you just pulled out, and so a different "sound" - and all different again from its equivalent in the other channel which, if it's a valve amp with any pretence at quality, will have been part of a matched set.
Of course, the same holds true for transistor amps too...
And you're off-base about the relative differences in servicing difficulty - for equivalent circuit functionality, they're about the same. With the exception that transistors don't have in-built pilot lamps;-)
Admittedly they're (NZ) de-militarizing and thus aiding terrorism...
You, my friend, have a very fucked-up view of this thing called "terrorism". Must come from that "you're either with us, or against us" crap your leader spouts all the time...
It's not something new, invented one September 11 a couple of years back, to scare Americans. In one form or another, it's been going on for hundreds if not thousands of years. Most recently, well before 11/09/2001, it's been used in Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, Israel, Jordan, Indonesia, Russia, Egypt, Germany... hell, you could even include the Rainbow Warrior sinking in Aukland, NZ, and the Hilton Hotel bombing in Sydney, Australia, in your list of terrorist incidents / actions.
Sit down, clear your mind, have a cuppa, and think about the word "terrorism", and how terrorism works. To get you started, I'll tell you this : it works by creating fear, aka "terror", out of all proportion to its actions.
Like killing just 3000 people, and getting a country of 220+ million so shit-scared that they're almost prepared to destroy everything they claim to stand for in order to protect themselves from what, so far, has proved to be a one-off event...
What these Joe Public (and even Joe Slashdot) morons don't grasp is that yes, it IS our property! When someone writes/sings/films/programs something, it IS THE PROPERTY OF THE PUBLIC.
I'd like to call bullshit on this.
Now, I'm as left-leaning as anybody here (probably more than most, since I'm not a Citizen of the Glorious People's Democratic Republic of America), but what you're saying there is that as soon as anything is put into physical form, it's public property.
Crap.
Now, if you were to make the argument that as soon as it's broadcast - that is, spread out en mass to anyone with the wherewithall to capture and interpret it - it becomes public property, I'd agree with you.
The problem is the content "creators" (the inverted commas signifying I mean the MPAA, RIAA, media conglomerates, and other leeches) aren't likely to be interested in a system where they create content but give up control as soon as they show it to people...
My favourite example of the exact opposite of this is cub's "Betti-Cola" (the Mint Records release anyway, not sure about the LD&K release). No compression, DNR, or clipping done during the CD mastering - the transients top out at exactly 100%. Every single bit is used to its fullest potential.
But most of the songs were recorded on what sounds like a 4-track cassette recorder, in cheap basement studios or someone's backyard - complete with absolutely horrendous earth loop hum and extraneous animal noises;-)
Still love the album though - "Satan sucks, but you're the best!"...
Your mention of McDonalds is interesting. I did some work in a McDonalds franchise the other day and the manager was telling me about their predictive order/cooking system - basically, the system that tells them what to cook and when, for the traffic expected in the next 10 minutes.
With this system running, waste runs at around 1~2%. If the system fails, a good manager can keep waste down to 5~10%. If the system is down for a few hours, that difference is enough to wipe out that days profit.
Tour buses full of people stuff up the system too. As he said, his recurring nightmare involves a bus full of elderly tourists all wanting no pickles, extra cheese, etc;-)
My favourite from the past : The prediction, popular in the late 40's / early 50's, that mankind in the future would be bald - because everybody wore hats, we wouldn't need hair to protect/warm the head!
My favourite from the now : IP networking for everything. Face it kiddies, there's some things it just doesn't work well for...
Forget the flying cars - I drive the roads every day, and see too many people that have trouble working in two dimensions!
One solution to the last mile problem is to let individuals own it. Having individuals owning the wire to a neighborhood NOC and being able to rent services from anyone providing services to the NOC would distribute ownership of the last mile.
Isn't that pretty much how it worked before deregulation - in theory?
Very few people could afford to own the last mile. The few that could afford it, rent it out (at cost + profit) to the many that couldn't.
Sound like a phone company?
So, instead of this, government (all the people) owned it, and supplied the benefit to all.
Then, some bright spark somewhere decided to sell the ownership back to you. Or maybe not you, but the few that could afford it...
Okay, for one, at the whim of another government you can now have your privacy invaded due to suspicion of a crime that isn't even a crime in this country. This is giving up our right to due process, the right to illegal search and seizure and probably other stuff I haven't thought of yet. Next it puts people we don't pay or elect in control of our interests.
As a non-American, I have just one thing to say:
Welcome to the rest of the world.
If you don't like that sentiment, think of the Europeans and Australians held in Cuba by Americans because of actions in Afghanistan. How's it taste to eat your own dogfood?
His assessment of the situation was that they would lay down the first part, then attach the second part. When the third part was addded, it would be added in such a way that you couldn't remove the second part without removing the third part. The third part couldn't be removed until the fourth part was removed, etc. Then finally they would weld the last piece into place with a link all the way through to the first part.
They may have been planning this, but Sir William Lyons of Jaguar perfected it!
Ever tried to repair a leaking heater in an XJ6? I swear the heater core is laid down first, then the plenum box built around it, then the rest of the car built around that. Finished off by the dash pad and windscreen...
Either that, or he was running a work-for-the-dole program for unemployed contortionists...
Even on DVD; a 4th generation copy is like a movie that has had compression added 4 times, and each copy is progressively worse.
Most of the reason for that lies in the filtering done to get the bitrate down to an acceptable level for MPEG DVD. Noise is pretty random after all, doesn't compress well at all, so the more 'noise', the more bits you need to encode it all.
Ideally, you want the cleanest print possible before you add lossy compression.
Exactly. Though, if you are stuck with a nth generation print as source, a little judicious filtering can improve things dramatically.
Of course, there's DVDs out there that are mastered from shit prints with no attempt at cleanup at all, just relying on the smoothing effect of bitrate limitation. They're cheap and nasty for a reason...
If we can make an OS why couldn't we make a movie? Probably not cutting edge special effect monster blockbusters (not to begin anyway) but decent movies.
Ever seen any truly independent movies? Not the "Hollywood" independents like Miramax et al, but real independents?
It's already being done, has been for many many years, and a lot of it is better than the standard Hollywood explosive-laden fare. Not that there's anything wrong with watching Arnie or Bruce stop a helicopter rotor with his bare hands while simultaneously firing a rocket launcher at the baddies secret hideout (and through pure skill, causing no damage whatsoever! to the bus full of pre-schoolers and fluffy kittens right next to it.)
But more often than not, an intelligently written, well-told, well-produced movie is more satisfying to watch...
That said, they're not "opencontent" like you mean. However, if there was such a thing, the studio system would be forever in your debt (though not to the extent of providing money or publicity), because you'd be doing about 90% of their development work for them...
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You may laugh, but years ago an ex-instructor of mine started selling computers from the back of his wife's shop in a major suburban shopping centre.
What did she sell? Cane furniture and wicker baskets!
But by the time he retired (or maybe died; I'm not sure) a few years later, his computer shop was the biggest in that part of town...
And, somewhere in the gap between the "I, Robot" stories and "The Caves Of Steel", the Machines realise this - and decide humanity would be better off without them. IIRC, this is specifically mentioned somewhere else in Asimov's stories, though I can't for the life of me remember where...
Oh, wait. Nevermind...
(Jesus H. Christ, kiddies, sometimes it seems like you've all read "Brave New World" but missed the whole point! Just feck off back to your soma-existance and dream nice dreams - leave the real world to the rest of us...)
Although, it was possible - though not easy - to win by concentrating on "happiness" over money, property, and job...
"Would you like Thousand Isl
Of course, the same holds true for transistor amps too...
And you're off-base about the relative differences in servicing difficulty - for equivalent circuit functionality, they're about the same. With the exception that transistors don't have in-built pilot lamps
With the addendum : If you see Kurt Russell and Tim Curry, it's too late...
It's not something new, invented one September 11 a couple of years back, to scare Americans. In one form or another, it's been going on for hundreds if not thousands of years. Most recently, well before 11/09/2001, it's been used in Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, Israel, Jordan, Indonesia, Russia, Egypt, Germany
Sit down, clear your mind, have a cuppa, and think about the word "terrorism", and how terrorism works. To get you started, I'll tell you this : it works by creating fear, aka "terror", out of all proportion to its actions.
Like killing just 3000 people, and getting a country of 220+ million so shit-scared that they're almost prepared to destroy everything they claim to stand for in order to protect themselves from what, so far, has proved to be a one-off event...
Well, if I have to - but it's gonna be a big one, with spikes on it...
IIRC, one of them (RC5?) has about 4 different volume up/down codes too...
Now, I'm as left-leaning as anybody here (probably more than most, since I'm not a Citizen of the Glorious People's Democratic Republic of America), but what you're saying there is that as soon as anything is put into physical form, it's public property.
Crap.
Now, if you were to make the argument that as soon as it's broadcast - that is, spread out en mass to anyone with the wherewithall to capture and interpret it - it becomes public property, I'd agree with you.
The problem is the content "creators" (the inverted commas signifying I mean the MPAA, RIAA, media conglomerates, and other leeches) aren't likely to be interested in a system where they create content but give up control as soon as they show it to people...
Don't remember anything like that, though...
Then it's not "broadband over power lines" anymore, it's broadband over fibre.
:
Like the old joke
Q: What if peanut butter were made out of people?
A: Then it wouldn't be peanut butter anymore...
Don't despair, Hatta. I got the joke...
"+5, Informative" indeed...
My favourite example of the exact opposite of this is cub's "Betti-Cola" (the Mint Records release anyway, not sure about the LD&K release). No compression, DNR, or clipping done during the CD mastering - the transients top out at exactly 100%. Every single bit is used to its fullest potential.
;-)
But most of the songs were recorded on what sounds like a 4-track cassette recorder, in cheap basement studios or someone's backyard - complete with absolutely horrendous earth loop hum and extraneous animal noises
Still love the album though - "Satan sucks, but you're the best!"...
Your mention of McDonalds is interesting. I did some work in a McDonalds franchise the other day and the manager was telling me about their predictive order/cooking system - basically, the system that tells them what to cook and when, for the traffic expected in the next 10 minutes.
;-)
With this system running, waste runs at around 1~2%. If the system fails, a good manager can keep waste down to 5~10%. If the system is down for a few hours, that difference is enough to wipe out that days profit.
Tour buses full of people stuff up the system too. As he said, his recurring nightmare involves a bus full of elderly tourists all wanting no pickles, extra cheese, etc
My favourite from the past : The prediction, popular in the late 40's / early 50's, that mankind in the future would be bald - because everybody wore hats, we wouldn't need hair to protect/warm the head!
My favourite from the now : IP networking for everything. Face it kiddies, there's some things it just doesn't work well for...
Forget the flying cars - I drive the roads every day, and see too many people that have trouble working in two dimensions!
"There's nothing an agnostic can't do if doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not" - Monty Python.
Very few people could afford to own the last mile. The few that could afford it, rent it out (at cost + profit) to the many that couldn't.
Sound like a phone company?
So, instead of this, government (all the people) owned it, and supplied the benefit to all.
Then, some bright spark somewhere decided to sell the ownership back to you. Or maybe not you, but the few that could afford it...
It's how we refer to the British...
Welcome to the rest of the world.
If you don't like that sentiment, think of the Europeans and Australians held in Cuba by Americans because of actions in Afghanistan. How's it taste to eat your own dogfood?
Ever tried to repair a leaking heater in an XJ6? I swear the heater core is laid down first, then the plenum box built around it, then the rest of the car built around that. Finished off by the dash pad and windscreen...
Either that, or he was running a work-for-the-dole program for unemployed contortionists...
Exactly. Though, if you are stuck with a nth generation print as source, a little judicious filtering can improve things dramatically.
Of course, there's DVDs out there that are mastered from shit prints with no attempt at cleanup at all, just relying on the smoothing effect of bitrate limitation. They're cheap and nasty for a reason...
It's already being done, has been for many many years, and a lot of it is better than the standard Hollywood explosive-laden fare. Not that there's anything wrong with watching Arnie or Bruce stop a helicopter rotor with his bare hands while simultaneously firing a rocket launcher at the baddies secret hideout (and through pure skill, causing no damage whatsoever! to the bus full of pre-schoolers and fluffy kittens right next to it.)
But more often than not, an intelligently written, well-told, well-produced movie is more satisfying to watch...
That said, they're not "opencontent" like you mean. However, if there was such a thing, the studio system would be forever in your debt (though not to the extent of providing money or publicity), because you'd be doing about 90% of their development work for them...