> (3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors
We can make GTA an educational game... like "Grand Theft Auto: Reader Rabbit".
Literary Value Da Brute: "Lo, like two fucking ships passing in the night. Who the hell are you?" Stranger: "Call me Ishmael." Da Brute: "You sent me to hell and back, mofo. What a tangled fucking web you weave." Stranger: "Sammy paid me to screw you over, man! It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times!" Da Brute: "Fine, then I shall strike you down with great vengeance!" Stranger: "Et tu, Brute?" *blam* *blam*
Artistic Value Unscrupulous Collector: "Dude, here's the dig. You hijack the shipment and kill every motherfucker who gets in your way. Take all the Renoirs and the Monets, but burn all the Warhols - we don't need dat shit pollutin' our 'hood." Mission: Steal all Renoir and Monet paintings from the convoy. Destroy any Andy Warhol artwork with your weapons. Use your real-life art sense to determine which painting is which.
Scientific Value Big Don: "Alright, gangsta, heads up. We got a perfectly spherical mortar shell 12 centimeters in diameter that weigh 2500 grams, but our freaking mortar only delivers exactly 8000 square foot pounds of force-... No, I don't have a fucking conversion table between metric and english, you look that up yourself! Anyway, the rat we gotta nail is parked in between those two buildings 30 furlongs away, where the air pressure is 13.2 PSI instead of usual atmospheric constant 14.7, you got that? Anyway, he'll be there for only ten minutes, which gives you enough time to come up with a Second Order Linear Partial Differential Equation accounting for air resistance. Hey, mofo, if you miss this shot, we gonna shoot yo homies, cut up yo family, and rape yo gerbil." Mission: Hit the car with the perfectly spherical mortar shell. You have one shot.
I took your advice and began coding with my penis instead of my hands. Everyone in my office is avoiding my cubicle now. On the plus side, I finally got other people to stop using my keyboard.
> the best bits of the game could be turned into a hyper-brutal > Conan-esque movie with barely any treatment at all. Unlike > Doom or other game conversions
You underestimate the horror that is the Hollywood Engine, my friend. (And I say this to you as someone works at Fox.) What the fans generally get upset about is the fact the movie conversion process fundamentally changes the background, nay, the entire universe in which the storyline is set. In the case of Doom, producers were afraid that the very concept of demons would offend the religious right, so they centered the plot around "genetic manipulation" drivel instead. If we want to make God of War into a movie, we're going to give it the Doom treatment:
1) Kratos is not going to be a Spartan, but an American, with a capital A, which we all know means "from the US". Canadians, Mexicans, and Venzuelans need not apply for the title. On top of that, Kratos is going to be a commando, or a jet pilot, or common joe midwest farmer's son who dreams of leaving the planet to become an Imperial Storm Trooper. 2) There're no Greek gods or any of that mythology nonsense - we don't want to offend the religious mores of the current presidential administration. Having ancient and/or foreign gods might corrupt impressionable children who ought to be in a good Christian Church on Sunday anyway. 3) While on the topic of G*d, we can't name the movie, "G*d of War" - that would be offensive to our target audience. We're experimenting with "Lamb of War", "Savior of War", and "Lord of War". We like the last one, but Nicholas' lawyers are dangling the Sword of Damocles over our heads if we go anywhere near that one. 4) We're casting Angelina Jolie as Kratos. She has an excellent track record for portraying strong-willed video game characters on the silver screen, plus she was recently nominated The Vixen Most Likely To Be Mistaken For A Man of the year award. 5) One of our sponsors, Boston Hair Club for Men, has requested that Kratos not be bald. We will make sure he sports a mane of rich, dark, thick, smooth hair that cascades past his waistline when it is not billowing dramatically about during fight scenes. 6) Another sponsor, Microsoft, requests that we imply the original game is not available on any platform other than the XBox. In return, we are allowed to include cinematic sequences that show the main character unlocking Easter Eggs. Young viewers are encouraged to try any of these sequnces at home. 6b)...except for the part where Kratos jumps off the cliff. 7) Kratos is not angry over a destiny denied him. He's angry about the World Trade Center. However, we're not going to portray our studio^H^H^H^H^H hero as hating every Muslim out there, just the fanatic fundamentalists. We will make this distinction by providing him a wise-cracking Arab sidekick name Mohammed "Momo" Habib, played by Ali G, who genuinely cares about Kratos' cause. 8) Kratos also will face off against evil file-sharers, who threaten to destroy the livelihood of everyone who has had any contribution to our^h^h^h intellectual property.
That's about it for our minor changes. Watch for G*d of War coming to a theater near you next summer.
> Or perhaps use a color-changing car paint and a license plate switcher.
You don't need color-changing car paint. At relativistic speeds, the officer you are moving away from will phone his buddies to watch out for a dark red car which is very long. His buddies down the road will only see an oncoming *blue* car which is short but has elongated sides. A police chopper overhead will see you arrive at the officers ahead at the same time as the officer you just left, and will have to conclude there are two separate cars. If any officers decide to enter pursuit, you just turn around for a split second, and bam! Eighty subjective years will have gone by for the offending officers.
If any of this is confusing, just give me a call and we'll drive to Vegas together in my relativistically modified VW Bug... none of this jet engine crap. All I demand is that you're female and sexy.
You can spin any review to read favorably:
"It's [an] amazing...piece of...work...that keeps...you coming...back...for a long, long time. Ten...out of...ten...two...thumbs...up."
Original Text:
"It's amazing anyone would buy this piece of crap. It's not like I already work my ass off for barely enough cash that keeps the bills paid. Ubisoft, I watch you coming out with this trash every year. I'm returning this game back to the store where I got it, and won't be recommending any more Ubisoft games for a long, long time. The next time I see anyone tenuously pulling any money out of his pocket to buy your ill-gotten two-bit software, I'll tell him what I think before he thumbs his nose up at you.
Solomon
Nah, they've built up their "experience points" first. Over the course of their careers, they'll probably put most of their attributes into Stamina and Dexterity, while reducing their clientele's Speed and Accuracy.
Yo listen, every OS be Phat at one time or 'notha. But 'fore you know it, some geek brotha's gonna write some crappy-ass P.O.S. code fo' yo momma's script kiddies to pop a cap through, you dig? Then da top dog homies gotta post patches, like, before security be worse than ma 'hood. When ya got too many security patches to hang with, yo homies start pointin' yo fingas at da mofos what like wrote da Operatin' System ta begin with, accusin' dem of being da Man and shit. Soon "da Man" is gotta atone by releasin' a pimped out kernel and it starts all ova again. Ain't long before all yas be dissin' Linus or Bill or Theo, demandin' dey pay ya yo props before their Operatin' Systems come crawlin' back on yas computas like last month's biatch. Word.
"'cept in France, it ain't called a 2.6 kernel... They call it Windows." (apologies to Samuel L. Jackson)
I work in an office where stolen property is nearly a common occurance (a stranger came in and simply sauntered off with a petty cash box the day I started working there). To guard against this, I keep my Mac Decoy Pro in my desk.
What's a Mac Decoy Pro, you ask? It's an extra nonworking Macbook Pro. Looks just like the real functional thing, just sitting there waiting to be taken.
Where did I get it? Well, when I heard that Powerbooks were going to use Intel processors, I bought a Macbook Pro with the express intention of swapping out the hard drive, memory and processor: the first two I did with nary more than a dented/warped casing. The latter... well, my screwdriver slipped and broke several components off the main board. I tried the purchase just the notebook mainboard from Apple, but essentially, they told me to go screw myself*. So with a heavy heart and a sigh of resignation, I did what any self respecting geek would do: I played poker for an hour until I had enough to buy another Macbook Pro. I've reassembled the broken one, which I leave out in the open in my cubicle when I go home at night. If it gets stolen, then that's my alarm indicator that it's time to leave the company.
* I'm still wondering that "incredible level of service" I keep hearing from Mac users.
> Fortunately they've still got several million years
Umm, how many light years away is this? Sure, it might take million years for the *light* from the spectacle of them merging to reach us, but if they're millions of light years away (center of the galaxy?), they may have already merged.
I've always speculated as whether gravity travels like light. Would "gravity waves" from the merge be felt here on earth the instant it happened, or would it take the same amount of time as light/electromagnetic radiation to reach us?
...working 14 hours a day in an uber-restrictive office. Our IT manager blocks any URL with the word "game" in it, and he'll even do reverse look-up to make sure a numerical IP doesn't resolve to a URL with the word "game" in it. I couldn't read the comments the last time around, because it was listed under "games.slashdot.org". Thanks for the repeat.
> Nothing I'm aware of is realistically rated anywhere in the millions.
According to the instruction manual to my 1986 IBM keyboard (yes, keyboards used to have 28-page instruction manuals), every key except the space bar is rate for 20 million keypresses. Two decades later, I'm still counting. I predict I'll be done in 2048 AD, maybe 2500 AD if I lose count again. I've already had to start over twice.
> There are, however, instances where you dearly wish that you could put parentheses into English.
I wish it too. I heard a news item a few years back that said, verbatim, "Scott Peterson told Amber Frey that his wife Laci had died at a party in an attempt to solicit sex."
I almost crashed my car, laughing. For those of you whose first language isn't English, the actual statement should have been: "In an attempt to solicit sex at a party, Scott Peterson told Amber Frey that his wife Laci had died."
> I suppose one could jump off a cliff into a pile of rocks after asking God to save them as a test, but then they would never finish the final report.
Since "they" and "them" are plural words, you meant the rocks, right? My money would be on the outcome that the rocks were indeed saved, and no harm came to them. Hallelujah.
I tried to sue myself, but then I counter-sued for undue distress and emotional damage. I then added another lawsuit because I defamed my character, but unfortunately, I had a much better lawyer than I did, and I could not recoup damages once I won. I'm upset that the court awarded me judgement, but I'm afraid that I'll find other frivolous charges to sue myself with. My other suit is still pending, but my lawyer says I have a pretty good chance that I'll drop my charges if I'm willing to settle out of court. I'm currently demanding $500,000 but I'm negotiating to see if I'm willing to come down in my demands. So far, I'm not willing to budge, and I insist that I just don't have that kind of money readily available, but the worst case scenario is that I might garnish my wages for the next 20 years if I win the case. My best hope is to try to discredit me in front of the judge and make my lawsuit seem really stupid, or better yet, make me appear to be of unsound mind.
"Display" only opens up Image Magick. "All", "5176", and "Possibilities" aren't accepted as commands. Surely there are more commands in Unix that that! </sarcasm>
For fear of sounding like a true Roddenberry freak, Stardate moves slightly slower than earth days. What we perceive as an earth day is the cycle of time by which the earth has rotated so that the sun is in the same twice measured position of the sky. The problem with this measurement is that the earth itself has moved slightly less than a 1 degree arc around the sun (360 degrees/365 days = 1 degree), so that the earth has actually not made a complete revolution by the time one "day" has passed, 355 degrees, in fact.
Stardate assumes that a more external point of reference, like Alpha Centauri, instead of Sol. The beauty of Stardate is that there are almost exactly 360 days in the year - every day is a single degree around the sun. Also, a beacon planted on earth at a specific longitude could be read by an external source (starship?) at regular intervals independent of earth days (every 23 hours and 41 minutes).
I'll try to find it, but these came from a conversation with Roddenberry's original staff, before Rick Berman and staff bastardized the concept of Stardate in order to make it more "accessible". If anyone can help me corroborate with links, that would be great.
Unless you meant Anal Log Hole... but do you really want to subject them to your "Anal Log"? If so, I recommend we leave a couple on their doorstep, to show exactly what kind of law they are trying to legislate.
Aside from my laptop accessories, Every velcro-sealed compartment on my laptop contains shurikens or throwing knives. With the shurikens, I need some practice, but with knives, I'm accurately and deadly from a distance.
It's only naturally a security measure when you walk through bad neighborhoods on your way to work, and carry more than a few thousand dollars of equipment on you. I've chased off a would-be mugger before he limped away through this method.
It makes it hard to get through airport security, though. There's an incredible amount of explaining to do.
The doctor, Philip Mach, had a license to practice medicine in New Jersey but he provided prescriptions to people throughout the United States without ever evaluating them, both of which are big no-no's.
Since when can't you practice medicine in New Jersey?!? Oh wait, that's right: you don't want your mark seeking medical attention once you've capped both of his knees and given him a spiral fracture in his left arm. At least, not immediately. You want him to pay off his gambling debt first... and *then* you can drive him across the border to New York to seek treatment. I think I'm beginning to like New Jersey's medical laws...
Many sources believe that the fact that the Mayan Calendar ends in December 2012(tm)(c) will signal the end of the world.
Perhaps the IOC(tm)(c), armed with its cadre of lawyers and time travel technology, decided to sue them for actually using this year. Ancient Mayan astronomers, upon marking December 21st, 2012(tm)(c), on their calendars may have been assaulted by futuristic IOC(tm)(c) lawyers, possessing knowledge of the future(tm)(c), which would allow them to sue based on laws that did not yet exist(United States Patent #836,236,582,353,873,122). These impeccably dressed lawyers would be conceived as demons, as they rampaged mercilessly through the Mayan empire, bringing suit to every individual who had the audacity to own a Mayan Calendar that included the year 2012(tm)(c). Like SCO(tm), the IOC(tm)(c) Lawyers selected a time period when every Mayan citizen had a calendar that included 2012(tm)(c), so as to maximize the targets they could bring suit against (i.e. everyone in the Empire).
It is well known that the Mayan Empire died out almost overnight. In order to conduct a full scale invasion of this magnitude, one would require two time-travelling lawyers for every man, woman, and child in the Mayan Empire. The IOC(tm)(c) does indeed have this kind of manpower, with plenty to spare. It is suspected that the IOC(tm)(c) has conducted such temporal legal blitzkriegs against other peoples, such as Aztec Empire, the American Colonial town of Roanoke, and the crew of the fishing ship High Aim 6, for court rulings not mentioned here, because they will not exist until 2036(tm).
Is there any identity associated with your prints, in this case? What if you want to pay for your admission in cash, and you left your wallet back in the hotel room?
After all, the whole point of cash is to allow you to conduct anonymous financial transacations, is it not?
Slashdot Mirror
> (3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors
We can make GTA an educational game... like "Grand Theft Auto: Reader Rabbit".
Literary Value
Da Brute: "Lo, like two fucking ships passing in the night. Who the hell are you?"
Stranger: "Call me Ishmael."
Da Brute: "You sent me to hell and back, mofo. What a tangled fucking web you weave."
Stranger: "Sammy paid me to screw you over, man! It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times!"
Da Brute: "Fine, then I shall strike you down with great vengeance!"
Stranger: "Et tu, Brute?"
*blam* *blam*
Artistic Value
Unscrupulous Collector: "Dude, here's the dig. You hijack the shipment and kill every motherfucker who gets in your way. Take all the Renoirs and the Monets, but burn all the Warhols - we don't need dat shit pollutin' our 'hood."
Mission: Steal all Renoir and Monet paintings from the convoy. Destroy any Andy Warhol artwork with your weapons. Use your real-life art sense to determine which painting is which.
Scientific Value
Big Don: "Alright, gangsta, heads up. We got a perfectly spherical mortar shell 12 centimeters in diameter that weigh 2500 grams, but our freaking mortar only delivers exactly 8000 square foot pounds of force-... No, I don't have a fucking conversion table between metric and english, you look that up yourself! Anyway, the rat we gotta nail is parked in between those two buildings 30 furlongs away, where the air pressure is 13.2 PSI instead of usual atmospheric constant 14.7, you got that? Anyway, he'll be there for only ten minutes, which gives you enough time to come up with a Second Order Linear Partial Differential Equation accounting for air resistance. Hey, mofo, if you miss this shot, we gonna shoot yo homies, cut up yo family, and rape yo gerbil."
Mission: Hit the car with the perfectly spherical mortar shell. You have one shot.
Solomon
> ok ok... s/hands/penis/ ...better?
I took your advice and began coding with my penis instead of my hands. Everyone in my office is avoiding my cubicle now. On the plus side, I finally got other people to stop using my keyboard.
Solomon
I, for one, welcome our right wing, overly religious, paranoid Republican overlords-...
Umm, I'm already six years late for that statement, aren't I?
Solomon
> the best bits of the game could be turned into a hyper-brutal
...except for the part where Kratos jumps off the cliff.
> Conan-esque movie with barely any treatment at all. Unlike
> Doom or other game conversions
You underestimate the horror that is the Hollywood Engine, my friend. (And I say this to you as someone works at Fox.) What the fans generally get upset about is the fact the movie conversion process fundamentally changes the background, nay, the entire universe in which the storyline is set. In the case of Doom, producers were afraid that the very concept of demons would offend the religious right, so they centered the plot around "genetic manipulation" drivel instead.
If we want to make God of War into a movie, we're going to give it the Doom treatment:
1) Kratos is not going to be a Spartan, but an American, with a capital A, which we all know means "from the US". Canadians, Mexicans, and Venzuelans need not apply for the title. On top of that, Kratos is going to be a commando, or a jet pilot, or common joe midwest farmer's son who dreams of leaving the planet to become an Imperial Storm Trooper.
2) There're no Greek gods or any of that mythology nonsense - we don't want to offend the religious mores of the current presidential administration. Having ancient and/or foreign gods might corrupt impressionable children who ought to be in a good Christian Church on Sunday anyway.
3) While on the topic of G*d, we can't name the movie, "G*d of War" - that would be offensive to our target audience. We're experimenting with "Lamb of War", "Savior of War", and "Lord of War". We like the last one, but Nicholas' lawyers are dangling the Sword of Damocles over our heads if we go anywhere near that one.
4) We're casting Angelina Jolie as Kratos. She has an excellent track record for portraying strong-willed video game characters on the silver screen, plus she was recently nominated The Vixen Most Likely To Be Mistaken For A Man of the year award.
5) One of our sponsors, Boston Hair Club for Men, has requested that Kratos not be bald. We will make sure he sports a mane of rich, dark, thick, smooth hair that cascades past his waistline when it is not billowing dramatically about during fight scenes.
6) Another sponsor, Microsoft, requests that we imply the original game is not available on any platform other than the XBox. In return, we are allowed to include cinematic sequences that show the main character unlocking Easter Eggs. Young viewers are encouraged to try any of these sequnces at home.
6b)
7) Kratos is not angry over a destiny denied him. He's angry about the World Trade Center. However, we're not going to portray our studio^H^H^H^H^H hero as hating every Muslim out there, just the fanatic fundamentalists. We will make this distinction by providing him a wise-cracking Arab sidekick name Mohammed "Momo" Habib, played by Ali G, who genuinely cares about Kratos' cause.
8) Kratos also will face off against evil file-sharers, who threaten to destroy the livelihood of everyone who has had any contribution to our^h^h^h intellectual property.
That's about it for our minor changes. Watch for G*d of War coming to a theater near you next summer.
Solomon Chang
> Or perhaps use a color-changing car paint and a license plate switcher.
You don't need color-changing car paint. At relativistic speeds, the officer you are moving away from will phone his buddies to watch out for a dark red car which is very long. His buddies down the road will only see an oncoming *blue* car which is short but has elongated sides. A police chopper overhead will see you arrive at the officers ahead at the same time as the officer you just left, and will have to conclude there are two separate cars. If any officers decide to enter pursuit, you just turn around for a split second, and bam! Eighty subjective years will have gone by for the offending officers.
If any of this is confusing, just give me a call and we'll drive to Vegas together in my relativistically modified VW Bug... none of this jet engine crap. All I demand is that you're female and sexy.
Solomon
Actually, they misspelled "SNES". I knew Nintendo was up to something!
You can spin any review to read favorably:
"It's [an] amazing...piece of...work...that keeps...you coming...back...for a long, long time. Ten...out of...ten...two...thumbs...up."
Original Text:
"It's amazing anyone would buy this piece of crap. It's not like I already work my ass off for barely enough cash that keeps the bills paid. Ubisoft, I watch you coming out with this trash every year. I'm returning this game back to the store where I got it, and won't be recommending any more Ubisoft games for a long, long time. The next time I see anyone tenuously pulling any money out of his pocket to buy your ill-gotten two-bit software, I'll tell him what I think before he thumbs his nose up at you. Solomon
Nah, they've built up their "experience points" first. Over the course of their careers, they'll probably put most of their attributes into Stamina and Dexterity, while reducing their clientele's Speed and Accuracy.
Solomon
Actually, they misspelled Phat.
Yo listen, every OS be Phat at one time or 'notha. But 'fore you know it, some geek brotha's gonna write some crappy-ass P.O.S. code fo' yo momma's script kiddies to pop a cap through, you dig? Then da top dog homies gotta post patches, like, before security be worse than ma 'hood. When ya got too many security patches to hang with, yo homies start pointin' yo fingas at da mofos what like wrote da Operatin' System ta begin with, accusin' dem of being da Man and shit. Soon "da Man" is gotta atone by releasin' a pimped out kernel and it starts all ova again. Ain't long before all yas be dissin' Linus or Bill or Theo, demandin' dey pay ya yo props before their Operatin' Systems come crawlin' back on yas computas like last month's biatch. Word.
"'cept in France, it ain't called a 2.6 kernel... They call it Windows."
(apologies to Samuel L. Jackson)
Solomon Chang
I work in an office where stolen property is nearly a common occurance (a stranger came in and simply sauntered off with a petty cash box the day I started working there). To guard against this, I keep my Mac Decoy Pro in my desk.
What's a Mac Decoy Pro, you ask? It's an extra nonworking Macbook Pro. Looks just like the real functional thing, just sitting there waiting to be taken.
Where did I get it? Well, when I heard that Powerbooks were going to use Intel processors, I bought a Macbook Pro with the express intention of swapping out the hard drive, memory and processor: the first two I did with nary more than a dented/warped casing. The latter... well, my screwdriver slipped and broke several components off the main board. I tried the purchase just the notebook mainboard from Apple, but essentially, they told me to go screw myself*. So with a heavy heart and a sigh of resignation, I did what any self respecting geek would do: I played poker for an hour until I had enough to buy another Macbook Pro. I've reassembled the broken one, which I leave out in the open in my cubicle when I go home at night. If it gets stolen, then that's my alarm indicator that it's time to leave the company.
* I'm still wondering that "incredible level of service" I keep hearing from Mac users.
Solomon
> Fortunately they've still got several million years
Umm, how many light years away is this? Sure, it might take million years for the *light* from the spectacle of them merging to reach us, but if they're millions of light years away (center of the galaxy?), they may have already merged.
I've always speculated as whether gravity travels like light. Would "gravity waves" from the merge be felt here on earth the instant it happened, or would it take the same amount of time as light/electromagnetic radiation to reach us?
...working 14 hours a day in an uber-restrictive office. Our IT manager blocks any URL with the word "game" in it, and he'll even do reverse look-up to make sure a numerical IP doesn't resolve to a URL with the word "game" in it. I couldn't read the comments the last time around, because it was listed under "games.slashdot.org". Thanks for the repeat.
Solomon
> Nothing I'm aware of is realistically rated anywhere in the millions.
According to the instruction manual to my 1986 IBM keyboard (yes, keyboards used to have 28-page instruction manuals), every key except the space bar is rate for 20 million keypresses. Two decades later, I'm still counting. I predict I'll be done in 2048 AD, maybe 2500 AD if I lose count again. I've already had to start over twice.
Solomon Kevin Chang
> There are, however, instances where you dearly wish that you could put parentheses into English.
I wish it too. I heard a news item a few years back that said, verbatim,
"Scott Peterson told Amber Frey that his wife Laci had died at a party in an attempt to solicit sex."
I almost crashed my car, laughing. For those of you whose first language isn't English, the actual statement should have been:
"In an attempt to solicit sex at a party, Scott Peterson told Amber Frey that his wife Laci had died."
Damn those clause modifiers.
Solomon Chang
> I suppose one could jump off a cliff into a pile of rocks after asking God to save them as a test, but then they would never finish the final report.
Since "they" and "them" are plural words, you meant the rocks, right? My money would be on the outcome that the rocks were indeed saved, and no harm came to them. Hallelujah.
Solomon
> Sue yourself, idiot.
I tried to sue myself, but then I counter-sued for undue distress and emotional damage. I then added another lawsuit because I defamed my character, but unfortunately, I had a much better lawyer than I did, and I could not recoup damages once I won. I'm upset that the court awarded me judgement, but I'm afraid that I'll find other frivolous charges to sue myself with. My other suit is still pending, but my lawyer says I have a pretty good chance that I'll drop my charges if I'm willing to settle out of court. I'm currently demanding $500,000 but I'm negotiating to see if I'm willing to come down in my demands. So far, I'm not willing to budge, and I insist that I just don't have that kind of money readily available, but the worst case scenario is that I might garnish my wages for the next 20 years if I win the case. My best hope is to try to discredit me in front of the judge and make my lawsuit seem really stupid, or better yet, make me appear to be of unsound mind.
Solomon Chang
I only get the following message:
Display all 5176 possibilities? (y or n)
"Display" only opens up Image Magick. "All", "5176", and "Possibilities" aren't accepted as commands. Surely there are more commands in Unix that that! </sarcasm>
Solomon
For fear of sounding like a true Roddenberry freak, Stardate moves slightly slower than earth days. What we perceive as an earth day is the cycle of time by which the earth has rotated so that the sun is in the same twice measured position of the sky. The problem with this measurement is that the earth itself has moved slightly less than a 1 degree arc around the sun (360 degrees/365 days = 1 degree), so that the earth has actually not made a complete revolution by the time one "day" has passed, 355 degrees, in fact.
Stardate assumes that a more external point of reference, like Alpha Centauri, instead of Sol. The beauty of Stardate is that there are almost exactly 360 days in the year - every day is a single degree around the sun. Also, a beacon planted on earth at a specific longitude could be read by an external source (starship?) at regular intervals independent of earth days (every 23 hours and 41 minutes).
I'll try to find it, but these came from a conversation with Roddenberry's original staff, before Rick Berman and staff bastardized the concept of Stardate in order to make it more "accessible". If anyone can help me corroborate with links, that would be great.
Solomon Chang
> Oh, I know, I know: the anal-og hole!
Actually, "Ogg" has 2 G's.
Unless you meant Anal Log Hole... but do you really want to subject them to your "Anal Log"? If so, I recommend we leave a couple on their doorstep, to show exactly what kind of law they are trying to legislate.
Solomon Chang
Aside from my laptop accessories, Every velcro-sealed compartment on my laptop contains shurikens or throwing knives. With the shurikens, I need some practice, but with knives, I'm accurately and deadly from a distance.
It's only naturally a security measure when you walk through bad neighborhoods on your way to work, and carry more than a few thousand dollars of equipment on you. I've chased off a would-be mugger before he limped away through this method.
It makes it hard to get through airport security, though. There's an incredible amount of explaining to do.
Solomon Chang
In case the above link gets slashdotted, you can find a lower-resolution mirror in: /usr/lib/xscreensaver/galaxy
You can change other parameters as well, such as number of galaxies, their size, even their colors!
Solomon Chang
From the effin' description:
The doctor, Philip Mach, had a license to practice medicine in New Jersey but he provided prescriptions to people throughout the United States without ever evaluating them, both of which are big no-no's.
Since when can't you practice medicine in New Jersey?!? Oh wait, that's right: you don't want your mark seeking medical attention once you've capped both of his knees and given him a spiral fracture in his left arm. At least, not immediately. You want him to pay off his gambling debt first... and *then* you can drive him across the border to New York to seek treatment. I think I'm beginning to like New Jersey's medical laws...
Solomon "The Collector" Chang
Many sources believe that the fact that the Mayan Calendar ends in December 2012(tm)(c) will signal the end of the world.
Perhaps the IOC(tm)(c), armed with its cadre of lawyers and time travel technology, decided to sue them for actually using this year. Ancient Mayan astronomers, upon marking December 21st, 2012(tm)(c), on their calendars may have been assaulted by futuristic IOC(tm)(c) lawyers, possessing knowledge of the future(tm)(c), which would allow them to sue based on laws that did not yet exist(United States Patent #836,236,582,353,873,122). These impeccably dressed lawyers would be conceived as demons, as they rampaged mercilessly through the Mayan empire, bringing suit to every individual who had the audacity to own a Mayan Calendar that included the year 2012(tm)(c). Like SCO(tm), the IOC(tm)(c) Lawyers selected a time period when every Mayan citizen had a calendar that included 2012(tm)(c), so as to maximize the targets they could bring suit against (i.e. everyone in the Empire).
It is well known that the Mayan Empire died out almost overnight. In order to conduct a full scale invasion of this magnitude, one would require two time-travelling lawyers for every man, woman, and child in the Mayan Empire. The IOC(tm)(c) does indeed have this kind of manpower, with plenty to spare. It is suspected that the IOC(tm)(c) has conducted such temporal legal blitzkriegs against other peoples, such as Aztec Empire, the American Colonial town of Roanoke, and the crew of the fishing ship High Aim 6, for court rulings not mentioned here, because they will not exist until 2036(tm).
Solomon Kevin Chang
over a chick who's recent roles included playing a pregnant teenage piece of white trash camping out at WalMart...
Yeah, I wasn't too fond of Star Wars Episode III either...
Solomon Chang
Is there any identity associated with your prints, in this case? What if you want to pay for your admission in cash, and you left your wallet back in the hotel room?
After all, the whole point of cash is to allow you to conduct anonymous financial transacations, is it not?
Solomon Kevin Chang