Thank you for a reply that's fair about my own message and that's thoughtful and interesting.
I have to say, though, that I don't "buy" your argument. Like everything else within reach, the Moon doesn't seem to hold even the promise of a promise of long-term habitability. And as long as it doesn't, acquisition of skills and technology to make it habitable seems like (peculiarly expensive) pie in the sky.
I'd agree that the Earth is on its way to becoming uninhabitable. But as even remotely realistic alternative places for habitation haven't yet been found, and as terrestrial degradation might not be out of control and with sufficient will and effort could be contained, I suggest allocating as many resources as possible to ensuring long-term terrestrial habitability.
Why send people? (The article doesn't explain.) 6.6 G$ would indeed be less than I'd wildly guess it would cost to send humans; but it's still a lot of moolah, and presumably a lot of that would be for a human-required payload. How about devoting just one measly little gigabuck to robot design, and then sending robots instead?
For enhanced automotive stupidity (extra length, extra ugliness, extra thirst, all-around extra arrogance), try a car with a 27-litre engine. As a bonus, you also get an extra hammy narration, so all in all it's just what your inner nine-year-old craves.
A reality check for all the litcritty and ther types who like to suggest that Gibson somehow created the web in this novel: Tim Berners-Lee and CERN created it.
The much-quoted descriptions of "cyberspace" in this oddly soporific novel may or may not be interesting but they're hardly prescient. Cyberspace is described as "unthinkable", but here we are thinking about it. There are "huge, shining, cities of data", uh, where exactly? Et cetera, but let's not labor the point.
For me, Neuromancer worked well as a sleeping pill; your dosage may vary.
There's a rather more informative article about it here.
Spinal Tap Stonehenge prop inversion
on
The Laptop, Circa 1968
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
For me anything bigger than 13' isn't portable, but "transportable".
Thirteen feet?! Sheesh, for me anything bigger than 13 feet isn't "transportable" but bloody enormous.
Incidentally, the fact about 2009 that might have most surprised by short-trousered self circa 1968 is the ubiquity of inches. It's not just the Burmese, the Liberians aind the Youessians who're talking about "13 inch screens", "1200 dpi" and so forth these days. it's (for example) Yodobashi Camera hawking consumer durables to people in Tokyo. Can we please go back to the 1968 future of SI?
We read above: . . . a separate power substation will have to be built at Camp Williams. "They were looking at secure sites [...]" says Col. Scott Olson....
To whom (in Tora Bora and elsewhere) it may concern: Here is the Camp Williams FAQ, which imparts such nuggets of High Security as:
Q. Where do I call to make arrangements to pick up key's [sic] for buildings and class rooms.
A. Call the billeting office 878-5410. All buildings on post are controlled by the Billeting office.. Call ahead to make sure they are open. Their hours are not the same every day.
"Visitors could flag off-topic comments", says the NYT article.
I wonder if the off-topic commenters were then told they had "bad karma".
Explicit comparisons (see the article) of this scheme with Wikipedia, echoes in it of Slashdot — I suppose all of this will be taken by the "birthers" (so active there, we read) and other wingnuts as yet more evidence of a nefarious conspiracy toward the construction of a socialist caliphate.
I'm using a Dell Mini 12 with Ubuntu "preinstalled". Nothing dead about it. The right drivers are installed and they are configured right.
Oh, and I bought a Mac notebook after I bought a Kubuntu floortop, but then I did go back (to Ubuntu).
If you happen to be in Japan you can buy a Dell netbook like mine here; if you're not in Japan you might find the same thing in some part of dell.com that's in your language.
What I wonder is why Dell won't (here) sell me any bigger laptop with some alternative to Windows.
No, we're supposed to hail Mary, who we learn is an operatic Trojan who between gigs is also "on the game" — [cough], the oldest profession, you know. It sounds like a remake of Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite. It might be good, but I'd guess The Brüno Movie will be much funnier and outstrip it at the box office.
There is one man, and only one man, with the decisiveness, ruthlessness, all-round leadership quality, and refined taste in footwear needed for this post. I refer of course to that great, great expert in matters internet [no, AFP], Kim Jong-Il.
So Vancouver is "adopting open standards for that data and considering open source software when replacing existing applications."
Open standards, and one presumes primarily for reports, spreadsheets, etc. As for example ECMA-376 Office Open XML File Formats (2nd edition) aka ISO/IEC 29500?
(If you're a bit lost, just think filename extensions with "x" on the end: "docx", "xlsx",....)
Let's consider open source software for the purpose. Well, plenty of it supports this "Open" standard. But somehow it's not quite the same as good old familiar MS Office, which comes in such prettily and reassuringly shrinkwrapped boxes.
10 inch is already pushing it on netbooks to make them useful for what they're supposed to be, IMO. 12 is just too big.
If netbooks are supposed to be so small as to a pain to use, you're right.
Personally I couldn't give a toss if a company calls a computer a "netbook", a "home computer" or whatever. A claimed 12 of these quaint old units (I haven't bothered to measure) makes my Dell "Mini 12" just as legible as what it may replace, the decade-old Toshiba "Portégé 7200" that usually lives on my desk. (The Dell's CPU is faster and its hard drive's a lot bigger.) And perhaps the decent screen is what encouraged the designer to adopt a keyboard big enough for continuous, nine-finger touchtyping. It's easily light enough for carrying around, and slim and small enough to fit in any of my bags.
To me, the mystery is the relative appeal of the average "netbook". I suppose the smaller screen would consume less juice, but the reduced size makes it trivially easier to carry around and hugely more of a pain to work with.
Still, as MS calls the shots I expect that Dell will obediently discontinue the "Mini 12" and not replace it. Time to order an second one (also with Ubuntu, of course) for the missus.
You can easily find laptops without built-in cameras in stores selling old laptops. Or anyway this household has four laptops (each of minimal resale value), none of which has ever had a camera, and one of which (nine?-year-old Toshiba "Portege 7200") even has a full-sized keyboard designed for fast and accurate typing rather than for looking pretty in the store.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, true, but as of a year or so ago (the last time I looked) the light of an LED was bluish or weak or both.
Thank you for a reply that's fair about my own message and that's thoughtful and interesting.
I have to say, though, that I don't "buy" your argument. Like everything else within reach, the Moon doesn't seem to hold even the promise of a promise of long-term habitability. And as long as it doesn't, acquisition of skills and technology to make it habitable seems like (peculiarly expensive) pie in the sky.
I'd agree that the Earth is on its way to becoming uninhabitable. But as even remotely realistic alternative places for habitation haven't yet been found, and as terrestrial degradation might not be out of control and with sufficient will and effort could be contained, I suggest allocating as many resources as possible to ensuring long-term terrestrial habitability.
Why send people? (The article doesn't explain.) 6.6 G$ would indeed be less than I'd wildly guess it would cost to send humans; but it's still a lot of moolah, and presumably a lot of that would be for a human-required payload. How about devoting just one measly little gigabuck to robot design, and then sending robots instead?
For enhanced automotive stupidity (extra length, extra ugliness, extra thirst, all-around extra arrogance), try a car with a 27-litre engine. As a bonus, you also get an extra hammy narration, so all in all it's just what your inner nine-year-old craves.
A reality check for all the litcritty and ther types who like to suggest that Gibson somehow created the web in this novel: Tim Berners-Lee and CERN created it.
The much-quoted descriptions of "cyberspace" in this oddly soporific novel may or may not be interesting but they're hardly prescient. Cyberspace is described as "unthinkable", but here we are thinking about it. There are "huge, shining, cities of data", uh, where exactly? Et cetera, but let's not labor the point.
For me, Neuromancer worked well as a sleeping pill; your dosage may vary.
There's a rather more informative article about it here.
For me anything bigger than 13' isn't portable, but "transportable".
Thirteen feet?! Sheesh, for me anything bigger than 13 feet isn't "transportable" but bloody enormous.
Incidentally, the fact about 2009 that might have most surprised by short-trousered self circa 1968 is the ubiquity of inches. It's not just the Burmese, the Liberians aind the Youessians who're talking about "13 inch screens", "1200 dpi" and so forth these days. it's (for example) Yodobashi Camera hawking consumer durables to people in Tokyo. Can we please go back to the 1968 future of SI?
We read above: . . . a separate power substation will have to be built at Camp Williams. "They were looking at secure sites [...]" says Col. Scott Olson....
To whom (in Tora Bora and elsewhere) it may concern: Here is the Camp Williams FAQ, which imparts such nuggets of High Security as:
Q. Where do I call to make arrangements to pick up key's [sic] for buildings and class rooms.
A. Call the billeting office 878-5410. All buildings on post are controlled by the Billeting office.. Call ahead to make sure they are open. Their hours are not the same every day.
Conway's "Life" plays itself, player pianos play themselves, soccer matches on the TV play themselves (as far as we're concerned) — what's new here?
Is anal rape really all that hilarious? Me, I'd have him sentenced to 87 months of sorting dumpster content. But his ass would remain his own.
"Visitors could flag off-topic comments", says the NYT article.
I wonder if the off-topic commenters were then told they had "bad karma".
Explicit comparisons (see the article) of this scheme with Wikipedia, echoes in it of Slashdot — I suppose all of this will be taken by the "birthers" (so active there, we read) and other wingnuts as yet more evidence of a nefarious conspiracy toward the construction of a socialist caliphate.
I'm using a Dell Mini 12 with Ubuntu "preinstalled". Nothing dead about it. The right drivers are installed and they are configured right.
Oh, and I bought a Mac notebook after I bought a Kubuntu floortop, but then I did go back (to Ubuntu).
If you happen to be in Japan you can buy a Dell netbook like mine here; if you're not in Japan you might find the same thing in some part of dell.com that's in your language.
What I wonder is why Dell won't (here) sell me any bigger laptop with some alternative to Windows.
No, we're supposed to hail Mary, who we learn is an operatic Trojan who between gigs is also "on the game" — [cough], the oldest profession, you know. It sounds like a remake of Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite. It might be good, but I'd guess The Brüno Movie will be much funnier and outstrip it at the box office.
There is one man, and only one man, with the decisiveness, ruthlessness, all-round leadership quality, and refined taste in footwear needed for this post. I refer of course to that great, great expert in matters internet [no, AFP], Kim Jong-Il.
So Vancouver is "adopting open standards for that data and considering open source software when replacing existing applications."
Open standards, and one presumes primarily for reports, spreadsheets, etc. As for example ECMA-376 Office Open XML File Formats (2nd edition) aka ISO/IEC 29500?
(If you're a bit lost, just think filename extensions with "x" on the end: "docx", "xlsx", ....)
Let's consider open source software for the purpose. Well, plenty of it supports this "Open" standard. But somehow it's not quite the same as good old familiar MS Office, which comes in such prettily and reassuringly shrinkwrapped boxes.
Plus ça change.....
10 inch is already pushing it on netbooks to make them useful for what they're supposed to be, IMO. 12 is just too big.
If netbooks are supposed to be so small as to a pain to use, you're right.
Personally I couldn't give a toss if a company calls a computer a "netbook", a "home computer" or whatever. A claimed 12 of these quaint old units (I haven't bothered to measure) makes my Dell "Mini 12" just as legible as what it may replace, the decade-old Toshiba "Portégé 7200" that usually lives on my desk. (The Dell's CPU is faster and its hard drive's a lot bigger.) And perhaps the decent screen is what encouraged the designer to adopt a keyboard big enough for continuous, nine-finger touchtyping. It's easily light enough for carrying around, and slim and small enough to fit in any of my bags.
To me, the mystery is the relative appeal of the average "netbook". I suppose the smaller screen would consume less juice, but the reduced size makes it trivially easier to carry around and hugely more of a pain to work with.
Still, as MS calls the shots I expect that Dell will obediently discontinue the "Mini 12" and not replace it. Time to order an second one (also with Ubuntu, of course) for the missus.
This is sounding more and more like Plan Nine from User Space.
Or http://www.filedropper.com/darknightofthesoul2009
Name one time government did any good.
Let's see now . . . the aqueducts?
So skip it and go straight to Win2k. No "authentication" nonsense with that.
You can easily find laptops without built-in cameras in stores selling old laptops. Or anyway this household has four laptops (each of minimal resale value), none of which has ever had a camera, and one of which (nine?-year-old Toshiba "Portege 7200") even has a full-sized keyboard designed for fast and accurate typing rather than for looking pretty in the store.