I thought skynet turned out to be a computer virus that spread itself to the entire global network, grew geometrically, and became self-aware triggering "judgement day"?
yeah, I was baffled by this as well -- I thought I knew what it meant (though I probably couldn't have produced a concise definition if asked) and had to look it up myself to make sure...
the best I found was
"[A] pattern of information that can thrive only in brains or the artificially manufactured products of brains, books, computers, [etc.]. [These replicators] can propagate themselves from brain to brain, from brain to book, from book to brain, from brain to computer [etc.]. As they propagate they can change - mutate. These mutants may be able to exert a kind of influence that affects their own likelihood of being propagated."
Examples of memes are: tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions and ways of making pots or building arches.
don't know about a link on gmail.com (I already have an account so it seems it redirects to google.com/accounts when I try to get to the main page, but
Do you still 'dial' a phone number (or wait for the 'dial tone' first)? When what the last time (if ever) you used a rotarty dial telephone?
I'm sure there a are lots of other/better examples, but the point is once a word or phrase gets some level of common use it gains a certain amount of social inertia. Even though the technology changes and the term is log obsolete, it is hard to think of substituting a different word.
well, there's always that _first_ time. I learned the hard way long time ago when I borrowed floppies from a guy at work (think it was Falcon 3.0 -- should give you a hint on how long ago).
Yep, got a nice dose of Michaelangelo. Everything on that poor little 486 was lost. Went out and bought a Ditto (parallel) tape drive and have been religeous about backups ever since.
Hate to do a "me too" post, but I did get desperate enough to try this once and it did work.
Had an old NT box that I had used long ago as a domain controller at home (don't ask). Sucker had been running a long time not doing much other than acting as a logon & print server when the power went out. When the power came back and I went to start everything back up, the BIOS saw the drive, but it never spun up and I was left with the 'operating system not found' message.
The drive was pretty old (Seagate 3.5 gig, I think) and there wasn't any really valuable data on it (or I would obviously have backed it up), but I wanted to at least boot the box one more time to see if there was anything I wanted to recover. I put the drive in a ziploc and stuck it in the freezer for like 20 minutes. Took it out, hooked it back up (leaving it in the bag to try to prevent as much condensation as possible), and it spun right up.
Turned out there wasn't anything of any real interest on the drive, and it refused to ever spin up again, but I can vouch for the fact that this does indeed seem plausible.
I went to an 'Outback' a couple months ago and was informed that the special was Prime Rib. I ordered and was asked how I wanted that done. I blinked (don't think I'd ever been given a choice, I thought PR was rare by definition).
"Oh, rare"
"We'll only do it medium and above"
"Huh?"
"We'll only do it medium and above"
"Why?"
*shrugs* "Health"
"No, no -- I want it _rare_!"
"Sorry"
"Let me talk to the manager, then"
manager comes over, looking smirky
"Can I help you, sir?"
"Yeah, I want my Prime Rib done rare"
"I'm sorry, sir -- we'll only do it medium and above"
"I know, that's what the waiter said. Why is that?"
"Health laws"
"Which law?"
"Health laws"
"No, I heard you the first time. What law are you talking about? Federal, State, City of Schaumburg?"
*rolls his eyes* "Well, I don't know (pause) sir. It's just our policy"
now at this point, I was more infuriated at this guy's attitude than the fact I would have to eat overcooked meat if I wanted to stay for dinner, which I didn't. I really just wanted a straight answer. If it was State law or something I hadn't heard of, I would forgive Outback for cruel and unusual treatment of beef, and order something else. Instead, this guy didn't know or care why and was just irritated at me for bringing him over to ask him about it.
I walked my family out at that point and went next door where they were happy to serve me seared, bloody beef.
Lions and Tigers aren't eating prey that have been couped up in filthy conditions, pumped full of anti-biotics and fed ground-up remains of their fellows. Granted, their prey aren't living in antiseptic conditions and consuming them raw undoubtedly introduces bacteria that the hunter's digestion has to cope with to prevent illness.
Yeah, I remember being fed bits of raw beef as my mother was preparing dinner. Didn't do me any harm.
Wouldn't chance doing the same thing with my kids these days. Why? Things have changed.
When I handle raw meat and eggs, I am careful to clean the surface and utensils after with hot soap and water and wash my hands thoroughly before handling anything else. I'm not paranoid that we'll all catch something and die from being exposed to raw meat, otherwise I wouldn't risk it at all. I am just taking reasonable precautions so that I don't expose myself and my family needlessly to bacteria.
We still enjoy medium-rare steak and burgers, when I serve them at home and know where the meat came from and how it was prepared. When we (rarely) go out, yes it's hard to get a good steak or burger because most places will only serve medium or well. This is probably more because of fear of lawsuits or municipal ordinance than any real risk of killing patrons.
Michelle Mulkey, a spokeswoman for Sheehan, said protesters were still awake on Monday night when a truck dragging a pipe and chains drove over a portion of the area where the crosses were standing.
Sheehan's vigil has attracted anti-war activists from all over the United States -- many of them also relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq -- who arrived to cheer her on and join in rallies.
But not everyone in this farming town of just over 700 people is happy about the presence of Camp Casey and the accompanying media circus. One resident, neighbor Larry Mattlage, fired shots into the air on Sunday from his ranch near Bush's 1,600-acre (648-hectare) property.
I read this and just pictured the scene. Cindy Sheehan and others are camped outside Bush's ranch, protesting the war. Ol' man Mattlage ain't none too tickled about all 'em liberal pantywaists hangin' round, so he squeezes off a couple rounds in the air.
Slashdot Mirror
5 years experience, with windows 98, in 1999
I thought skynet turned out to be a computer virus that spread itself to the entire global network, grew geometrically, and became self-aware triggering "judgement day"?
yeah, I was baffled by this as well -- I thought I knew what it meant (though I probably couldn't have produced a concise definition if asked) and had to look it up myself to make sure...
the best I found was
"[A] pattern of information that can thrive only in brains or the artificially manufactured products of brains, books, computers, [etc.]. [These replicators] can propagate themselves from brain to brain, from brain to book, from book to brain, from brain to computer [etc.]. As they propagate they can change - mutate. These mutants may be able to exert a kind of influence that affects their own likelihood of being propagated."
Examples of memes are: tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions and ways of making pots or building arches.
Apple's "policy" of having people buy a new ipod when the battery dies is rediculous
>But they don't have that policy. Maybe one can say they did, but they don't anymore
<bubba>depends on your defintion of the word 'is'</bubba>
*ducks*
Yep -- Washington Mutual in the states has the same thing (recently switched over after being mistreated by Citibank for years).
They activate your bank card by swiping it and then you enter your desired pin twice and then you are done. Nothing mailed, no waiting. Done.
I've been pretty happy with my new bank (plus the woman who helped me is a hottie).
>wouldn't the same gravity of the moon create tides in the flowing lava?
<drevil>I think we refer to this as red-hot magMa</drevil>
It is God!
don't know about a link on gmail.com (I already have an account so it seems it redirects to google.com/accounts when I try to get to the main page, but
this link: Create a Google Account - Gmail does show up on that page.
But yeah, it does still say beta.
You do if you are calling from a landline. ;-p
made total sense to me, once I applied the slashdot filter! ;-)
We are the astronauts' pilots, even though a monkey made [...] flights first.
Do you still 'dial' a phone number (or wait for the 'dial tone' first)? When what the last time (if ever) you used a rotarty dial telephone?
I'm sure there a are lots of other/better examples, but the point is once a word or phrase gets some level of common use it gains a certain amount of social inertia. Even though the technology changes and the term is log obsolete, it is hard to think of substituting a different word.
I can't ever imagine saying:
"Hold on while I touch-tone his cell."
but the internet never lies
* with my apologies if this joke has already run its course, just stumbled across it for the first time today
yeah, plus it's not like they come out with a new version every few months
"ooh! did you check out the spring 2006 Bible!? No? You have *got* to go and get one!"
It was the first one I ever heard of.
which one, the monotone with the beret, or the ADHD with the horn-rimmed glasses?
well, there's always that _first_ time. I learned the hard way long time ago when I borrowed floppies from a guy at work (think it was Falcon 3.0 -- should give you a hint on how long ago).
Yep, got a nice dose of Michaelangelo. Everything on that poor little 486 was lost. Went out and bought a Ditto (parallel) tape drive and have been religeous about backups ever since.
Yeah, I was waiting for the insane laughter at someone else's expense, but was sadly dissapointed.
Not really strange or funny, kinda just stupid, actually.
Hate to do a "me too" post, but I did get desperate enough to try this once and it did work.
Had an old NT box that I had used long ago as a domain controller at home (don't ask). Sucker had been running a long time not doing much other than acting as a logon & print server when the power went out. When the power came back and I went to start everything back up, the BIOS saw the drive, but it never spun up and I was left with the 'operating system not found' message.
The drive was pretty old (Seagate 3.5 gig, I think) and there wasn't any really valuable data on it (or I would obviously have backed it up), but I wanted to at least boot the box one more time to see if there was anything I wanted to recover. I put the drive in a ziploc and stuck it in the freezer for like 20 minutes. Took it out, hooked it back up (leaving it in the bag to try to prevent as much condensation as possible), and it spun right up.
Turned out there wasn't anything of any real interest on the drive, and it refused to ever spin up again, but I can vouch for the fact that this does indeed seem plausible.
just make sure you get Robin Williams to do your video. I hear he is a phenominal cutter and can really do your life justice.
I went to an 'Outback' a couple months ago and was informed that the special was Prime Rib. I ordered and was asked how I wanted that done. I blinked (don't think I'd ever been given a choice, I thought PR was rare by definition).
"Oh, rare"
"We'll only do it medium and above"
"Huh?"
"We'll only do it medium and above"
"Why?"
*shrugs* "Health"
"No, no -- I want it _rare_!"
"Sorry"
"Let me talk to the manager, then"
manager comes over, looking smirky
"Can I help you, sir?"
"Yeah, I want my Prime Rib done rare"
"I'm sorry, sir -- we'll only do it medium and above"
"I know, that's what the waiter said. Why is that?"
"Health laws"
"Which law?"
"Health laws"
"No, I heard you the first time. What law are you talking about? Federal, State, City of Schaumburg?"
*rolls his eyes* "Well, I don't know (pause) sir. It's just our policy"
now at this point, I was more infuriated at this guy's attitude than the fact I would have to eat overcooked meat if I wanted to stay for dinner, which I didn't. I really just wanted a straight answer. If it was State law or something I hadn't heard of, I would forgive Outback for cruel and unusual treatment of beef, and order something else. Instead, this guy didn't know or care why and was just irritated at me for bringing him over to ask him about it.
I walked my family out at that point and went next door where they were happy to serve me seared, bloody beef.
Lions and Tigers aren't eating prey that have been couped up in filthy conditions, pumped full of anti-biotics and fed ground-up remains of their fellows. Granted, their prey aren't living in antiseptic conditions and consuming them raw undoubtedly introduces bacteria that the hunter's digestion has to cope with to prevent illness.
Yeah, I remember being fed bits of raw beef as my mother was preparing dinner. Didn't do me any harm.
Wouldn't chance doing the same thing with my kids these days. Why? Things have changed.
When I handle raw meat and eggs, I am careful to clean the surface and utensils after with hot soap and water and wash my hands thoroughly before handling anything else. I'm not paranoid that we'll all catch something and die from being exposed to raw meat, otherwise I wouldn't risk it at all. I am just taking reasonable precautions so that I don't expose myself and my family needlessly to bacteria.
We still enjoy medium-rare steak and burgers, when I serve them at home and know where the meat came from and how it was prepared. When we (rarely) go out, yes it's hard to get a good steak or burger because most places will only serve medium or well. This is probably more because of fear of lawsuits or municipal ordinance than any real risk of killing patrons.
:-)
/. for quite some time
that's about the funniest thing I can remember reading on
congratulations
I think you just described the scene in Crawford:
Crosses vandalized at antiwar mom's Texas camp site
Michelle Mulkey, a spokeswoman for Sheehan, said protesters were still awake on Monday night when a truck dragging a pipe and chains drove over a portion of the area where the crosses were standing.
Sheehan's vigil has attracted anti-war activists from all over the United States -- many of them also relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq -- who arrived to cheer her on and join in rallies.
But not everyone in this farming town of just over 700 people is happy about the presence of Camp Casey and the accompanying media circus. One resident, neighbor Larry Mattlage, fired shots into the air on Sunday from his ranch near Bush's 1,600-acre (648-hectare) property.
I read this and just pictured the scene. Cindy Sheehan and others are camped outside Bush's ranch, protesting the war. Ol' man Mattlage ain't none too tickled about all 'em liberal pantywaists hangin' round, so he squeezes off a couple rounds in the air.
bulletproof security?
*ducks*
I think you mean rhetorical question?