Doesn't this device somewhat defeat the purpose of PalmOS, which was simplicity, and just enough functionality to do scheduling and other PIM-type tasks? Yes and no; mostly no.
The pilot, III, &c, came with a small amount of memory, and therefore limited functionality. I've got a Vx, and while I still use it for more or less the same stuff, it's handy having a camera, extra IR, etc.
If this new machine can have up to 16Mb without affecting performance of all the simple apps that traditionalists know and love, so much the better. In fact, it would be a waste not to. If you want a simple PDA, buy an Palm III.
Of course, if we see emacs coming out for the clie, then it is time to worry.
The laser wouldn't, of course, but how do you keep debris from falling down into the whole you just (somewhat violently) made?
It doesn't have to be that violent. Properly done, the laser could slowly burn its way through to the lake, evaporating stuff instead of pulverising it. And permafrost is less likely to collapse, so all would be well.
Of course, if it can be done on Lake Vostok, it can be done on Europa.
Thus is Microsoft's greatest chance for increasing NT's uptime lost. Given that the typical spacecraft sees sixteen sunrises every 24 hours, MS would have been quite justified in saying that NT was able to stay up for a hundred days without bluescreening.
And if this OS is for use on spacecraft, shouldn't it be called floatlinux? I'll concede that FreeFallLinux probably wouldn't go over too well.
Even when that happens, though, the black hole still will emit x-rays and such, so it is still detectable.
If the black hole is wandering through the universe having eaten its host galaxy, it'd be damn hard to detect. Even if it's emitting Hawking radiation, this would in no way compare to the emissions of, eg, Cygnus X-1. 'Detectable' is the operative word, here; Chandra is looking back twelve billion years; it's not going to detect anything that isn't (wasn't?) truly spectacular. Sissy Hawking radiation would be damn hard to detect in our own galaxy, let alone one that died before the sun formed.
So what happens when half time of the superbowl comes and everyone flushes their toilets? I'm not positive about this, but I seem to remember reading about a new type of fibre that doesn't have holes in the side to let contaminants in. This is the sort they'll probably use.
Of course, it'll need to be specific. If they design it to filter shit, then thousands - nay, millions - of AOLusers will suddenly find their emails bouncing (sorry; BOUNCING).
If you want to talk about it amongst the rest of us well educated adults, then learn to hack English appropriately!
That's 'well-educated adults'. Does this matter? No. I knew what you meant. Just like you knew what the good commander meant. So while the grammar may have been a little, shall we say, tacoish, the message - the important bit - got through loud and clear. Lighten up.
And I'm pretty sure the verb is 'to lose', not 'lose'.
Elsewhere on Xyzzy's site you can find the original nanotech (and, indeed, MEMS to nano) talk; "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom". If you've read anything about Feynman, you're already a fan. If you haven't, this is a good place to start.
Morphing robots would be cool; however, later on in the article we find that she actually means 'modular'. While cool in and of itself, this is a bit of a disappointment. Instead of turning into Robert Patrick and trying to kill whiny kids, all it'll do is plug a shears into one of its appendages and mow the lawn. How downletting is that?
"But much as I like reading and museuming, I still like crushing the weak underfoot, and consider that aspect of my character - and social life - to be one of the many traits that make me the wonderful human being that I am today."
Was that a faceous remark? How are barbarism, savagery, violence, and acting like some hard ass navy seal officer good traits to propragate?
The remark was not facetious. You know as well as I do that when I'm hurtling through as castle, rocket launcher in hand, that I'm being neither barbaric nor savage. I'm not hurting anyone (some pride, perhaps), but all I'm doing is using my computer to interact with others. This is one aspect of my social life; I'd be a different person if I didn't play computer games. Whether that person would be better or worse is a subjective question; the answer would inevitably be 'it depends'.
*Pu-lease*. It's attitudes like this that I find sad. Are you telling me that you'd rather re-invent string manipulation functions than use the standard ones?
Actually, yes. Back in the good old days of 1990, I was working as a C programmer. I started a new job (working in DOS), and was given the most appalling libraries for screen manipulation to work with. Eventually, writing my own (for other areas as well) was the only way forward. Then I saw what was required for programming in Windows 3.x, and sort of lost interest. I don't want to imply that these experiences or typical, or that I'm a hard-code junkie who livez on the edge, but I'd prefer - any day - to use my own libraries rather than those of others. Of course, if I took up serious programming again today, I'd probably be forced to change my mind. I've no idea about the extended instructions in 286 assembler, let along PIV instructions.
I take umbrage with 'pure' code. I apologise, and withdraw the term. I shouldn't have used it. I meant code that was solely written by one person, who knew exactly what it did and why it was written to do it that way. I realise that this is no longer a practical view, in games as much as anything else.
Basically, my opinions, I have just come to realise, are sadly outdated. Back when I worked as a programmer for a living, I would use other people's code, but only if I could talk directly to them. There was no web and email wasn't nearly as ubiquitous at the time, so I was limited to code from people whom I knew (a lot of whom were better programmers than I). But if I used their code, I considered them to be co-authors of whatever I was writing.
To encapsulate: I was inaccurate, and my point was lost in my inaccuracies; you touched on part of that point in your comment on the disposable nature of game code. (This is probably no longer true but) if you write something yourself that does its job and goes out into the world (or is used by six people you know) then you've got something out there that is wholly your creation, and will be there as long as it's useful and not supplanted by something else. Granted, my Space Invaders the Text Adventure will never achieve world domination, but that wasn't its intent. It was something I wrote myself, to share with whomever wanted it. No-one would have thought the program cheapened if I'd used other libraries in its construction, but if I did I would have felt that I deserved all the credit for the program.
...but to say that games programming somehow transcends other software is wrong.
There are two ways to answer this; one is by paraphrasing the man himself. Games programming is one of the last bastions of 'pure' code; you can write from scratch, and optimisation counts. I stopped being interested in programming when Windows was becoming ubiquitous; I don't like using other people's libraries. So as Obi-wan would say, games programming does transcend; from a certain point of view.
As for the fulfilment: the big software that keeps hospitals running is first and foremost accountancy software. I've written this sort of thing, and it's soul-destroying work. Knowing that it was used in a hospital and was helping keep people alive would have made the pill a little less bitter, but not by much.
Are games trivial? Of course they are. How many people do you know who wouldn't benefit from reading a book or visiting a museum rather than fragging ass? But much as I like reading and museuming, I still like crushing the weak underfoot, and consider that aspect of my character - and social life - to be one of the many traits that make me the wonderful human being that I am today.
Is the absolute aim of each human to live longer, or to live better? If I wrote a game that brought enjoyment to millions, and pushed the envelope slightly so that future generations of games - and/or hostpital software - benefited from my insights into coding, then I'd feel pretty fulfilled.
Using computers often removes any opportunity for people to apply their own judgement
True; but it's not the whole story. You've got to remember that people are fundamentally lazy. Even if there were an 'override' key (presumably beside the 'any' key) on the keyboard, no-one in a credit agency would use it after the first month. You can tell people that they're allowed use their own judgement, but unless they know the applicant (or subject; whatever), they're not going to bother. They'll look at their big inbox, and process everything as fast as possible.
Does this make them assholes? Nimrods? Nah. Just human. This doesn't make the behaviour acceptable - I don't want to imply that - but it's pervasive. The only way out of this is for a conscientious credit agency to drum into their employees the significance of their work, and the vital importance of their reports to every subject. hands up who thinks that's going to happen?
...to implode Jupiter into a sun. During the process, millions of metric tons of C60 will be thrown throughout our galaxy, which we can then collect to use for building processors.
Typical short-term solution. Jupiter is a cosmic vacuum cleaner, so it absorbs a lot of comets that would otherwise endanger Earth. If we blow up Jupiter, we'll have to use the carbon to give everyone on Earth a diamond coating so they'd survive an impact event. And we'd have to use lots more on diamond drills so holes could be made to cater to man's procreative/eliminative needs. Then we'd need more carbon to plug the hole that was left so it wouldn't make a draught. Projections indicate we'd run out of carbon in thirty-two years, four months.
So go ahead. Blow up Jupiter. But you'll be condemning humanity to forever going without sex or urination.
If you could be arsed registering. The story's here.
Speaking as someone who admins in a Cyber Cafe, I can say that the idea is cool, as long as you can overlook the mega-corporations aspect. Many customers come in with their Palm Pilots replete with passwords; if they could use their own machines it'd be great. I know I get sick of de-securing the password list on my pilot, looking it username and passwd, logging on and then going back five minutes after I left because I forgot to log off again.
If we have quantom computers what would keep us from using quantom enctyption... I'm not sure that the two go hand in hand. Whereas quantum computers would employ electron spin, quantum encryption relies on twinned particles. This, to my mind, is a completely separate project. The two are related, but once you've got a quantum computer there's no guarantee you'll be able to send joined particles reliably and quickly around the world.
where does that opinion come from, and does the sun shine there?
It's more of an impression than an opinion, one formed after reading lots of stuff on the internet (my sole source, sadly). I make no claims to expertivity (hence the final qualification); in fact, having scanned your page I'm willing to bow to your expertise on the subject. Whether the sun shines on my sources I'm not willing to speculate.
Just so you can sneer properly, I enclose some of the links from my bookmarks that have been visited on a number of occasions: The Cryptography Project Quantum Computing FAQ Quantum computing
There are more sites, but these are a fair representation. Were my conclusions wrong? Possibly. Was I reading the wrong sites? Maybe. Was looking on the web in the first place a wast of time? Dunno. But if I've helped you feel superior, then I can go home happy.
According to the BBC News report of the story Yahoo has banned the sale of Nazi items in accordance of their own TOC and not because of the French descision Call me cynical, but "Yahoo, the internet portal, says it will ban the sale of Nazi memorabilia from its auction sites, beginning from next week" -- how long have they been operating?
With what's currently known, public-key algorithms might be in trouble, but the secret-key stuff works just fine if we double the key lengths. 256-bit AES should be fine. Okay, I was a little over-zealous; my apologies for over-stating. However, I'm not willing to make a full retraction; full quantum computing is still decades away, and with the advances being made (be it distributed/brute force, whatever), by the time quantum computers are here keys will have at least quadrupled in length, and still be insecure. Probably.
If my network connection is down, how do I work offline? You don't. This is a long-term project; it's aimed at a time when everyone has an always-online PDA.
what happens when some secret service first succeeds in quantum computers... You're fucked. Let's face it; once quantum computing comes online, all cryptography is defunct. Distributed storage is only one tiny area that's got to worry.
how come Yahoo aren't capable of implementing a similar system?
Yahoo weren't asked to ban the items for people known to have a French address; they were asked to ban them from everyone in France. It's not that subtle a distinction. And AFAIR you don't have to be registered to browse; only to bid. By agreeing to this action, Yahoo have said that they'll block anyone in a certain territory from seeing what that government doesn't want them to see.
A question: if you had a picture of Falun Gong practitioners on your web site and you got an email from the Chinese government asking you to ensure that it wasn't available to anyone in China, would you ask your ISP to arrange the block?
No one is having their rights violated here. No one has a right to list items on Yahoos auctions and Yahoo is well within their rights to prohibit or allow whatever they want
Absolutely. However, when the Big Picture is taken into account, it becomes a bad thing. The important word here is 'precedent'. By agreeing to ban Nazi stuff, Yahoo are admitting that any country around the world can decide what a US site can display. Speaking as a denizen of Ireland, would I be within my rights to demand Yahoo remove all artefacts relating to Oliver Cromwell? What about governments that find democracy offensive?
It's also important, IMO, to point out that Yahoo are not 'taking a positive step'. They are, as the headline points out, knuckling under. They fought this all the way in the French courts, and they lost. What they're doing is complying with French law (which is the right thing to do, probably), but they're not doing this because it's the Right Thing To Do.
Censorship issues aside, I'm looking forward to what happens when Yahoo's blocking fails (as it inevitably will). Will the be viewed as contempt of court, or will the French tacitly recognise that they're demanding the impossible?
I don't think Crouching Tiger was inspired by the Matrix; both films had the action choreographed by Yuen Woo Ping. You might remember him from such films as Drunken Master, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and oodles since. It's not available yet over here, but I'm really, really, really looking forward to it.
On the subject of O Brother Where Art Thou (the only film mentioned to have been released thus far in Ireland), I've got to echo the opinion of millions; the Coen brothers (like Ang Lee) can do no wrong.
The only question is whether I'll see all these films in the cinema, or whether the US DVDs will be available first.
Re:Intelligent Satellite Teams for Space Systems
on
Pushing The Envelope
·
· Score: 1
Wouldn't nano-satellites encountering space dust be equivalent to regular satellites encountering asteroids?
Yes and no. If a nano satellite got whacked, it'd be disastrous for that satellite. But there are two things to consider:
It's a lot harder to hit a teeny satellite with a teeny grain of dust than it is to hit, for example, the ISS.
Nanosatellites would be sent up, not singly, but in their thousands (m/billions?). So if you lose one, or ten, or a hundred, it's no biggie.
So, whether you agree with their choices or not, it's not necessarily a crock that their favorite 10 of the millennium are all from a single century
Yeah, but it's still a bit suspicious. Have you noticed that all of the CDs and videos were from the 20th century as well?
As for the complaints about Backstreet Boys et al: these were voted on by amazon customers. Therefore, you knew before reading the list that it'd be dominated, not just by the 1900s, but by the 1990s. There's no such thing as a definitive 'best of' list, and there's definitely no such thing as a definitive 'best of' list in which the public can vote easily.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't this device somewhat defeat the purpose of PalmOS, which was simplicity, and just enough functionality to do scheduling and other PIM-type tasks?
Yes and no; mostly no.
The pilot, III, &c, came with a small amount of memory, and therefore limited functionality. I've got a Vx, and while I still use it for more or less the same stuff, it's handy having a camera, extra IR, etc.
If this new machine can have up to 16Mb without affecting performance of all the simple apps that traditionalists know and love, so much the better. In fact, it would be a waste not to. If you want a simple PDA, buy an Palm III.
Of course, if we see emacs coming out for the clie, then it is time to worry.
The laser wouldn't, of course, but how do you keep debris from falling down into the whole you just (somewhat violently) made?
It doesn't have to be that violent. Properly done, the laser could slowly burn its way through to the lake, evaporating stuff instead of pulverising it. And permafrost is less likely to collapse, so all would be well.
Of course, if it can be done on Lake Vostok, it can be done on Europa.
Thus is Microsoft's greatest chance for increasing NT's uptime lost. Given that the typical spacecraft sees sixteen sunrises every 24 hours, MS would have been quite justified in saying that NT was able to stay up for a hundred days without bluescreening.
And if this OS is for use on spacecraft, shouldn't it be called floatlinux? I'll concede that FreeFallLinux probably wouldn't go over too well.
Even when that happens, though, the black hole still will emit x-rays and such, so it is still detectable.
If the black hole is wandering through the universe having eaten its host galaxy, it'd be damn hard to detect. Even if it's emitting Hawking radiation, this would in no way compare to the emissions of, eg, Cygnus X-1. 'Detectable' is the operative word, here; Chandra is looking back twelve billion years; it's not going to detect anything that isn't (wasn't?) truly spectacular. Sissy Hawking radiation would be damn hard to detect in our own galaxy, let alone one that died before the sun formed.
So what happens when half time of the superbowl comes and everyone flushes their toilets?
I'm not positive about this, but I seem to remember reading about a new type of fibre that doesn't have holes in the side to let contaminants in. This is the sort they'll probably use.
Of course, it'll need to be specific. If they design it to filter shit, then thousands - nay, millions - of AOLusers will suddenly find their emails bouncing (sorry; BOUNCING).
If you want to talk about it amongst the rest of us well educated adults, then learn to hack English appropriately!
That's 'well-educated adults'. Does this matter? No. I knew what you meant. Just like you knew what the good commander meant. So while the grammar may have been a little, shall we say, tacoish, the message - the important bit - got through loud and clear. Lighten up.
And I'm pretty sure the verb is 'to lose', not 'lose'.
Elsewhere on Xyzzy's site you can find the original nanotech (and, indeed, MEMS to nano) talk; "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom". If you've read anything about Feynman, you're already a fan. If you haven't, this is a good place to start.
Morphing robots would be cool; however, later on in the article we find that she actually means 'modular'. While cool in and of itself, this is a bit of a disappointment. Instead of turning into Robert Patrick and trying to kill whiny kids, all it'll do is plug a shears into one of its appendages and mow the lawn. How downletting is that?
"But much as I like reading and museuming, I still like crushing the weak underfoot, and consider that aspect of my character - and social life - to be one of the many traits that make me the wonderful human being that I am today."
Was that a faceous remark? How are barbarism, savagery, violence, and acting like some hard ass navy seal officer good traits to propragate?
The remark was not facetious. You know as well as I do that when I'm hurtling through as castle, rocket launcher in hand, that I'm being neither barbaric nor savage. I'm not hurting anyone (some pride, perhaps), but all I'm doing is using my computer to interact with others. This is one aspect of my social life; I'd be a different person if I didn't play computer games. Whether that person would be better or worse is a subjective question; the answer would inevitably be 'it depends'.
*Pu-lease*. It's attitudes like this that I find sad. Are you telling me that you'd rather re-invent string manipulation functions than use the standard ones?
Actually, yes. Back in the good old days of 1990, I was working as a C programmer. I started a new job (working in DOS), and was given the most appalling libraries for screen manipulation to work with. Eventually, writing my own (for other areas as well) was the only way forward. Then I saw what was required for programming in Windows 3.x, and sort of lost interest. I don't want to imply that these experiences or typical, or that I'm a hard-code junkie who livez on the edge, but I'd prefer - any day - to use my own libraries rather than those of others. Of course, if I took up serious programming again today, I'd probably be forced to change my mind. I've no idea about the extended instructions in 286 assembler, let along PIV instructions.
I take umbrage with 'pure' code. I apologise, and withdraw the term. I shouldn't have used it. I meant code that was solely written by one person, who knew exactly what it did and why it was written to do it that way. I realise that this is no longer a practical view, in games as much as anything else.
Basically, my opinions, I have just come to realise, are sadly outdated. Back when I worked as a programmer for a living, I would use other people's code, but only if I could talk directly to them. There was no web and email wasn't nearly as ubiquitous at the time, so I was limited to code from people whom I knew (a lot of whom were better programmers than I). But if I used their code, I considered them to be co-authors of whatever I was writing.
To encapsulate: I was inaccurate, and my point was lost in my inaccuracies; you touched on part of that point in your comment on the disposable nature of game code. (This is probably no longer true but) if you write something yourself that does its job and goes out into the world (or is used by six people you know) then you've got something out there that is wholly your creation, and will be there as long as it's useful and not supplanted by something else. Granted, my Space Invaders the Text Adventure will never achieve world domination, but that wasn't its intent. It was something I wrote myself, to share with whomever wanted it. No-one would have thought the program cheapened if I'd used other libraries in its construction, but if I did I would have felt that I deserved all the credit for the program.
...but to say that games programming somehow transcends other software is wrong.
There are two ways to answer this; one is by paraphrasing the man himself. Games programming is one of the last bastions of 'pure' code; you can write from scratch, and optimisation counts. I stopped being interested in programming when Windows was becoming ubiquitous; I don't like using other people's libraries. So as Obi-wan would say, games programming does transcend; from a certain point of view.
As for the fulfilment: the big software that keeps hospitals running is first and foremost accountancy software. I've written this sort of thing, and it's soul-destroying work. Knowing that it was used in a hospital and was helping keep people alive would have made the pill a little less bitter, but not by much.
Are games trivial? Of course they are. How many people do you know who wouldn't benefit from reading a book or visiting a museum rather than fragging ass? But much as I like reading and museuming, I still like crushing the weak underfoot, and consider that aspect of my character - and social life - to be one of the many traits that make me the wonderful human being that I am today.
Is the absolute aim of each human to live longer, or to live better? If I wrote a game that brought enjoyment to millions, and pushed the envelope slightly so that future generations of games - and/or hostpital software - benefited from my insights into coding, then I'd feel pretty fulfilled.
Using computers often removes any opportunity for people to apply their own judgement
True; but it's not the whole story. You've got to remember that people are fundamentally lazy. Even if there were an 'override' key (presumably beside the 'any' key) on the keyboard, no-one in a credit agency would use it after the first month. You can tell people that they're allowed use their own judgement, but unless they know the applicant (or subject; whatever), they're not going to bother. They'll look at their big inbox, and process everything as fast as possible.
Does this make them assholes? Nimrods? Nah. Just human. This doesn't make the behaviour acceptable - I don't want to imply that - but it's pervasive. The only way out of this is for a conscientious credit agency to drum into their employees the significance of their work, and the vital importance of their reports to every subject. hands up who thinks that's going to happen?
...to implode Jupiter into a sun. During the process, millions of metric tons of C60 will be thrown throughout our galaxy, which we can then collect to use for building processors.
Typical short-term solution. Jupiter is a cosmic vacuum cleaner, so it absorbs a lot of comets that would otherwise endanger Earth. If we blow up Jupiter, we'll have to use the carbon to give everyone on Earth a diamond coating so they'd survive an impact event. And we'd have to use lots more on diamond drills so holes could be made to cater to man's procreative/eliminative needs. Then we'd need more carbon to plug the hole that was left so it wouldn't make a draught. Projections indicate we'd run out of carbon in thirty-two years, four months.
So go ahead. Blow up Jupiter. But you'll be condemning humanity to forever going without sex or urination.
Use CryptoPad!
By george, where as that program been all my life? My humble thanks. (I found it here, BTW).
If you could be arsed registering. The story's here.
Speaking as someone who admins in a Cyber Cafe, I can say that the idea is cool, as long as you can overlook the mega-corporations aspect. Many customers come in with their Palm Pilots replete with passwords; if they could use their own machines it'd be great. I know I get sick of de-securing the password list on my pilot, looking it username and passwd, logging on and then going back five minutes after I left because I forgot to log off again.
If we have quantom computers what would keep us from using quantom enctyption...
I'm not sure that the two go hand in hand. Whereas quantum computers would employ electron spin, quantum encryption relies on twinned particles. This, to my mind, is a completely separate project. The two are related, but once you've got a quantum computer there's no guarantee you'll be able to send joined particles reliably and quickly around the world.
where does that opinion come from, and does the sun shine there?
It's more of an impression than an opinion, one formed after reading lots of stuff on the internet (my sole source, sadly). I make no claims to expertivity (hence the final qualification); in fact, having scanned your page I'm willing to bow to your expertise on the subject. Whether the sun shines on my sources I'm not willing to speculate. Just so you can sneer properly, I enclose some of the links from my bookmarks that have been visited on a number of occasions:
The Cryptography Project
Quantum Computing FAQ
Quantum computing
There are more sites, but these are a fair representation. Were my conclusions wrong? Possibly. Was I reading the wrong sites? Maybe. Was looking on the web in the first place a wast of time? Dunno. But if I've helped you feel superior, then I can go home happy.
According to the BBC News report of the story Yahoo has banned the sale of Nazi items in accordance of their own TOC and not because of the French descision
Call me cynical, but "Yahoo, the internet portal, says it will ban the sale of Nazi memorabilia from its auction sites, beginning from next week" -- how long have they been operating?
With what's currently known, public-key algorithms might be in trouble, but the secret-key stuff works just fine if we double the key lengths. 256-bit AES should be fine.
Okay, I was a little over-zealous; my apologies for over-stating. However, I'm not willing to make a full retraction; full quantum computing is still decades away, and with the advances being made (be it distributed/brute force, whatever), by the time quantum computers are here keys will have at least quadrupled in length, and still be insecure. Probably.
If my network connection is down, how do I work offline?
You don't. This is a long-term project; it's aimed at a time when everyone has an always-online PDA.
what happens when some secret service first succeeds in quantum computers...
You're fucked. Let's face it; once quantum computing comes online, all cryptography is defunct. Distributed storage is only one tiny area that's got to worry.
how come Yahoo aren't capable of implementing a similar system?
Yahoo weren't asked to ban the items for people known to have a French address; they were asked to ban them from everyone in France. It's not that subtle a distinction. And AFAIR you don't have to be registered to browse; only to bid. By agreeing to this action, Yahoo have said that they'll block anyone in a certain territory from seeing what that government doesn't want them to see.
A question: if you had a picture of Falun Gong practitioners on your web site and you got an email from the Chinese government asking you to ensure that it wasn't available to anyone in China, would you ask your ISP to arrange the block?
No one is having their rights violated here. No one has a right to list items on Yahoos auctions and Yahoo is well within their rights to prohibit or allow whatever they want
Absolutely. However, when the Big Picture is taken into account, it becomes a bad thing. The important word here is 'precedent'. By agreeing to ban Nazi stuff, Yahoo are admitting that any country around the world can decide what a US site can display. Speaking as a denizen of Ireland, would I be within my rights to demand Yahoo remove all artefacts relating to Oliver Cromwell? What about governments that find democracy offensive?
It's also important, IMO, to point out that Yahoo are not 'taking a positive step'. They are, as the headline points out, knuckling under. They fought this all the way in the French courts, and they lost. What they're doing is complying with French law (which is the right thing to do, probably), but they're not doing this because it's the Right Thing To Do.
Censorship issues aside, I'm looking forward to what happens when Yahoo's blocking fails (as it inevitably will). Will the be viewed as contempt of court, or will the French tacitly recognise that they're demanding the impossible?
I don't think Crouching Tiger was inspired by the Matrix; both films had the action choreographed by Yuen Woo Ping. You might remember him from such films as Drunken Master, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and oodles since. It's not available yet over here, but I'm really, really, really looking forward to it.
On the subject of O Brother Where Art Thou (the only film mentioned to have been released thus far in Ireland), I've got to echo the opinion of millions; the Coen brothers (like Ang Lee) can do no wrong. The only question is whether I'll see all these films in the cinema, or whether the US DVDs will be available first.
Yes and no. If a nano satellite got whacked, it'd be disastrous for that satellite. But there are two things to consider:
It's a lot harder to hit a teeny satellite with a teeny grain of dust than it is to hit, for example, the ISS.
Nanosatellites would be sent up, not singly, but in their thousands (m/billions?). So if you lose one, or ten, or a hundred, it's no biggie.
So, whether you agree with their choices or not, it's not necessarily a crock that their favorite 10 of the millennium are all from a single century
Yeah, but it's still a bit suspicious. Have you noticed that all of the CDs and videos were from the 20th century as well?
As for the complaints about Backstreet Boys et al: these were voted on by amazon customers. Therefore, you knew before reading the list that it'd be dominated, not just by the 1900s, but by the 1990s. There's no such thing as a definitive 'best of' list, and there's definitely no such thing as a definitive 'best of' list in which the public can vote easily.