I worked during the holiday season in a warehouse that utilized these hand scanners. The scanners streamlined the clocking in/out line except for all of these 'underpaid and undervalued' employees who were unable to grasp the concept of (type in last 4 digits of ss#;insert hand;press enter). Let's keep in mind that, given the chance, most of these employees will cheat the system and do most anything they can to avoid actual work. It is truly sad, but that's a fact. In order to prevent people cheating the system, business are basically forced to use devices such as these to try to keep an accurate record of employees clocking in/out.
Besides, they already have your ss#, and all of your relevant tax information anyway.
...do exist in the local book store or library, just in case you've already read all of the other quality sci-fi suggestions.
If you are looking for something really humorous and you aren't thin-skinned when it comes to religious matters, try "Lamb: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore. It provides answers to classic questions such as, "what if Jesus learned kung fu?"
If you're looking for a more serious read and happen to like southern literature, go with Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men." It's extremely well written and very powerful.
Rather read something to ensure your personal paranoia when dealing with government officials and others in power? "The Trial"...Kafka.
Or, if you'd rather just sit around and laugh until mucus shoots out your nose: "Pure Drivel", by Steve Martin.
Although the aircraft looks very similar to a flying wing, I think that the revolution has to do with the integration of a flying wing design with what is normally referred to as a 'lifting body'. In a lifting body aircraft, there is no discernible wing, the entire fuselage serves to provide the lift (hence the name). The space program experimented with lifting bodies for a while in an effort to come up with a workable design for a reusable space shuttle. As I recall, one of the biggest drawbacks had to do with control issues. I would suppose that the integration of the two designs has solved those issues.
Although the long and overly drawn out discussion (that has been answered with direct-from-the-author info about 5 times over) is fascinating; I'd like to submit a question for Mr. Adams...
The Hitchhiker series, along with your Dirk Gently novels, all seem to contain running streams of information that could be interpreted as having deep meaning. Whether or not you intentionally included these apparent tidbits of wisdom to me is irrelevant. My question is, when you look at or think about your works in a literary sense, do you regard them as 'good literature'...books that should be considered 'classics' or do you just think of them as a big load of fluff that is fun to read?
...and...
If you do classify these books as serious literature and not fluff, what author(s) or book(s) do you like to think of your works as being on par with?
Slashdot Mirror
I worked during the holiday season in a warehouse that utilized these hand scanners. The scanners streamlined the clocking in/out line except for all of these 'underpaid and undervalued' employees who were unable to grasp the concept of (type in last 4 digits of ss#;insert hand;press enter). Let's keep in mind that, given the chance, most of these employees will cheat the system and do most anything they can to avoid actual work. It is truly sad, but that's a fact. In order to prevent people cheating the system, business are basically forced to use devices such as these to try to keep an accurate record of employees clocking in/out.
Besides, they already have your ss#, and all of your relevant tax information anyway.
...do exist in the local book store or library, just in case you've already read all of the other quality sci-fi suggestions.
If you are looking for something really humorous and you aren't thin-skinned when it comes to religious matters, try "Lamb: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore. It provides answers to classic questions such as, "what if Jesus learned kung fu?"
If you're looking for a more serious read and happen to like southern literature, go with Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men." It's extremely well written and very powerful.
Rather read something to ensure your personal paranoia when dealing with government officials and others in power? "The Trial"...Kafka.
Or, if you'd rather just sit around and laugh until mucus shoots out your nose: "Pure Drivel", by Steve Martin.
Enjoy!
Although the aircraft looks very similar to a flying wing, I think that the revolution has to do with the integration of a flying wing design with what is normally referred to as a 'lifting body'. In a lifting body aircraft, there is no discernible wing, the entire fuselage serves to provide the lift (hence the name). The space program experimented with lifting bodies for a while in an effort to come up with a workable design for a reusable space shuttle. As I recall, one of the biggest drawbacks had to do with control issues. I would suppose that the integration of the two designs has solved those issues.
In addition, the article conveniently fails to mention the multitude of automotive recalls that are instituted every year.
And, I'd guess that more people die due to automotive flaws than due to software flaws.
Although the long and overly drawn out discussion (that has been answered with direct-from-the-author info about 5 times over) is fascinating; I'd like to submit a question for Mr. Adams...
The Hitchhiker series, along with your Dirk Gently novels, all seem to contain running streams of information that could be interpreted as having deep meaning. Whether or not you intentionally included these apparent tidbits of wisdom to me is irrelevant. My question is, when you look at or think about your works in a literary sense, do you regard them as 'good literature'...books that should be considered 'classics' or do you just think of them as a big load of fluff that is fun to read?
...and...
If you do classify these books as serious literature and not fluff, what author(s) or book(s) do you like to think of your works as being on par with?
N_____