The I-Appliance BBS is an interesting source of info on orphan devices whose business models shat the bed, beginning with the famous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Opener
"The writing is worse, reporting is worse, the arts are terrible and people actually build less and make less."
Cry me a fucking river. Being "poor" in the 1940s meant being a fucking sharecropper (there where plenty of White ones) not getting obese on food stamps.
The standard of living sucked by comparison with the present. The arts only matter to the wealthy or to snobs, now as then. Writing and reporting were frequently dishonest, although more dignified. Corruption was rife, racism was normal, medical care was wretched, life expectancy was lower. Now it is common for people to have multiple cars, many appliances, and far more useful stuff in general than in the '40s/'50s. Failure to enjoy that is a personal problem easily solved by removing head from arse.
"We're just shoved into boxes with sex and drugs but can't really ever get out of it, lest we bump into someone else's box."
Nobody is "shoved" into sex and drugs. They are a choice, and enjoyed properly they are Great Fun. As for not bumping into someone else's box, what does that mean? If where you live is crowded, take advantage of our very mobile society and GTFO as I did. The US is vast and choiceful.
"Certainly this is true in Detroit..."
Detroit is a city we don't need any more. It was built on an industrial model that was going obsolete in the 1950s. The smart people bailed early for the comfortable suburbs where they could have personal space.
Americans were socially conditioned to believe that cities should be clung to and preserved, but reality is that cities exist for a set of reasons and when those go away the city is pointless. Some obsolete cities are attempting controlled shrinkage, such as Youngstown, Ohio, but that doesn't work everywhere. Detroit has people clinging to the wreckage, but because it is better to build new factories than attempt to re-use ancient infrastructure business won't come back. There is no great consequence to abandoning obsolete Rust Belt cities. In a few years the memories they evoke will die with the people who hold them.
I'm fifty and, with all due respect, fuck nostalgia for landline phones (although their handpiece ergonomics and audio are excellent).
They were an information bottleneck, source of intel for some parents (not mine, fortunately for me), and didn't facilitate rapid communication within groups. I would have been delighted to have a cell phone (and computer of course) back in the ancient days of the 1970s.
Modern communication tech works fine for getting together. Now all the old fuckers I hang with email each other to plan biker runs, then have our cellphones with us for convenient commo. If you aren't having big fun with modern technology, you're doing it wrong.
"But, but, we are naive and idealistic! Any other life forms with advanced technology MUST agree with our moral constructs because morality must be universal."
One great way to avoid being nagged for favors is to take extra time to do them, then do them in a way the recipient won't ask again.
I solve most such Windows problems with a format/reinstall/no data rescue (I suspect teh virus ate it). Be nice to those who deserve nice, barter or get monies from nice folks who want too much work for free, but fuck the hell out of anyone who wants to take advantage of you. Fuck 'em with a snarl or with a smile as appropriate, but fuck 'em.
You'll find it quite satisfying. There is a reason BOFH is so popular. It reflects things many of us would like to do. You only live once, so have some fun.
". I don't know why they're doing it, perhaps that hard SciFi traditionally had a predominately male readership; while fantasy has broader appeal?"
Fantasy doesn't require much thought from the reader, while science does. The public, by and large, are anti-science (despite the fact science has given them almost everything of value in the modern world!), uneducated, and would rather fap to fantasy than think.
"How many of you use illegal drugs--which goes into the pocket of vicious and violent people."
Not if you grow your own, and do note that the War Against Some Drugs is what makes their market both profitable AND illegal, which ENSURES violence is a useful business practice.:)
"The unwashed masses would buy products made of dead baby carcasses."
I'm part of the "washed" masses and don't care who kills who in far-off barbaric lands.
Africans are making African choices to sell African mineral resources. It is not trollish to point that out. It's all them, not us. They make and perpetuate their own problems, and kill those who try to intervene (watch Black Hawk Down for what happens when do-gooders meddle where they shouldn't have bothered) because they don't care for benevolent colonialism.
I don't have a reason to care about people from primitive societies, and I do want cheap access to technology. When we accept that Africans inflict spectacular brutality on each other as a matter of course, and stop wanting them to be like us, we can advance our own interests and do business. If we don't exploit "conflict" resources someone more practical (and probably Chinese or Russian) certainly will.
"I just don't get the point. Everything Chrome OS runs can already be run by any other OS, so why not just use some other Linux distro that's not restricted to web apps?"
Browser appliances have always been wonderful if one asks those whose business model relies on them.:)
"Now what amazes me is that our daughter coughed for 2 days and then she was fine, while we are still sick after 3 weeks."
Anecdotes/= data, but this appears to be pretty common. I've had post-flu bronchitis for a couple of weeks and some others locally for more than a month.
"60% of the population of the Netherlands live below sea level. Are they all stupid too?"
The Dutch don't live in an area plagued by hurricanes, they don't have much alternative due to crowding (which is what drove land reclamation in the first place), and they don't live in a willfully culturally backward and infamously corrupt state.
The US has vast amounts of land. No one "needs" to live in New Orleans, below sea level or otherwise. (Do note that the old French Quarter wasn't wiped out because they didn't fucking build in a flood zone!)
Katrina was a "perfect storm" of the most backward culture and people in the US insisting on staying in their slums so they could die in droves. They had time for crime, violence, and drugs. They had time for sloth and ignorance. They didn't devote appropriate time to prepare, and they suffered the consequences. Katrina flushed some slums, big deal. They'll be rebuilt to humor the stupid, and will get zapped again one day.
"If we find a rogue nation with a lone nuke or two, we attack with conventional weapons, because the risk incurred by escalation is too great."
Unless they are not rational actors and escalate anyway.
Atmospheric testing thoroughly demonstrated that smallish nuclear wars are a practical, if unfortunate, proposition.
For example. if a "rogue state" does take out a US city or two, we can exterminate them both to defeat them and to make the desolation an example to others. The reason MAD is a credible way to deter rational actors is that it imposes an unacceptable risk of counter-value destruction.
Irrational actors may launch anyway, and the way to deal with irrational actors who act is to wipe them out so they cannot act at all.
BTW, great nations can lose tens of millions of dead, many cities, and still recover as did the Soviet Union. That isn't a desirable experience, but it's been done and proves large nations can sustain immense damage.
If a cultural enemy (the ultimate irrational actor) such as an Islamic state starts a nuclear exchange, the appropriate response would be to kill such an astounding number of their people that they can't plead "Got Mit Uns". Imaginary celestial friends do fall out of favor when they are not perceived to protect their worshippers. Titrated conventional force cannot do that job.
The hungry are by and large hungry specifically because their cultures, societies, beliefs, and religions are degenerate. Otherwise, their only interest would be in forming secular modern states that deserve to survive. All I see are ululating mobs of vermin whose shit cultures I am told to respect because it is Politically Correct.
I wouldn't feed the hungry of the world if I could do it with a wave of the hand.
"$1M missile vs firing a laser. I do not know how much it costs to fire a chemical laser but I bet it is a lot cheaper than firing a missile."
Missiles require purchase in bulk, inspections while in (expensive) storage, transportation to the combat theater, many personnel to maintain, load, and unload them (if a missile isn't fired, it will be returned to storage) and in general a vast support chain to keep them available to shoot. Once an aircraft is empty of ordnance, it must return to base for weapons reload.
Lasers don't look spendy at all given the cumulative effort and expense of getting a conventional missile to target.
The FEAR is stupid. It is the product of American popular culture, which worships the stupid, fails to attack stupidity and ignorance, and out of "political correctness" fails to impress the duty to oneself not to be willfully ignorant. Our religions rule by fear and, as Alan Watts pointed out, institutionalize guilt as a virtue. If you think for yourself you are a sinner.
Americans wantonly and morbidly wallow in stupid beliefs, and I would like to see more of those who do actually die by their own hands. The number of idiots who kill themselves can never, never be enough. Get it right people, for as Frank Zappa once sang:
"You say there ain't no use in livin' It's all a waste of time 'n you wanna throw your life away, well People that's just fine Go ahead on 'n get it over with then Find you a bridge 'n take a jump Just make sure you do it right the first time 'cause nothin's worse than a suicide Chump"
Slashdot Mirror
"Has our Navy gone from suck to blow?"
Don't ask, don't tell!
Selling fake/incorrect components should be prosecuted as sabotage, because defective components can degrade vital systems and cause casualties.
Compare the demographics of North Dakota and Texas...
"The attempt was a bust if I recall right."
The I-Appliance BBS is an interesting source of info on orphan devices whose business models shat the bed, beginning with the famous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Opener
http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl
I could care less if someones business model fails, and if they gimme free stuff I'll happily put it to use.
"The writing is worse, reporting is worse, the arts are terrible and people actually build less and make less."
Cry me a fucking river. Being "poor" in the 1940s meant being a fucking sharecropper (there where plenty of White ones) not getting obese on food stamps.
The standard of living sucked by comparison with the present. The arts only matter to the wealthy or to snobs, now as then. Writing and reporting were frequently dishonest, although more dignified. Corruption was rife, racism was normal, medical care was wretched, life expectancy was lower. Now it is common for people to have multiple cars, many appliances, and far more useful stuff in general than in the '40s/'50s. Failure to enjoy that is a personal problem easily solved by removing head from arse.
"We're just shoved into boxes with sex and drugs but can't really ever get out of it, lest we bump into someone else's box."
Nobody is "shoved" into sex and drugs. They are a choice, and enjoyed properly they are Great Fun.
As for not bumping into someone else's box, what does that mean? If where you live is crowded, take advantage of our very mobile society and GTFO as I did. The US is vast and choiceful.
"Certainly this is true in Detroit..."
Detroit is a city we don't need any more. It was built on an industrial model that was going obsolete in the 1950s.
The smart people bailed early for the comfortable suburbs where they could have personal space.
Americans were socially conditioned to believe that cities should be clung to and preserved, but reality is that cities exist for a set of reasons and when those go away the city is pointless. Some obsolete cities are attempting controlled shrinkage, such as Youngstown, Ohio, but that doesn't work everywhere. Detroit has people clinging to the wreckage, but because it is better to build new factories than attempt to re-use ancient infrastructure business won't come back. There is no great consequence to abandoning obsolete Rust Belt cities. In a few years the memories they evoke will die with the people who hold them.
Not all porn actresses are "stars", but the term has stuck and sounds much better than "boring meat sockets".
I'm fifty and, with all due respect, fuck nostalgia for landline phones (although their handpiece ergonomics and audio are excellent).
They were an information bottleneck, source of intel for some parents (not mine, fortunately for me), and didn't facilitate rapid communication within groups. I would have been delighted to have a cell phone (and computer of course) back in the ancient days of the 1970s.
Modern communication tech works fine for getting together. Now all the old fuckers I hang with email each other to plan biker runs, then have our cellphones with us for convenient commo. If you aren't having big fun with modern technology, you're doing it wrong.
(Earnest frothing ensues.)
"But, but, we are naive and idealistic! Any other life forms with advanced technology MUST agree with our moral constructs because morality must be universal."
Lower Life Forms, Comfy Planet, Free Food!
One great way to avoid being nagged for favors is to take extra time to do them, then do them in a way the recipient won't ask again.
I solve most such Windows problems with a format/reinstall/no data rescue (I suspect teh virus ate it). Be nice to those who deserve nice, barter or get monies from nice folks who want too much work for free, but fuck the hell out of anyone who wants to take advantage of you. Fuck 'em with a snarl or with a smile as appropriate, but fuck 'em.
You'll find it quite satisfying. There is a reason BOFH is so popular. It reflects things many of us would like to do. You only live once, so have some fun.
"The geek has been saying this since Slashdot was a pup but every time the web appliance makes it entry in the market it tanks."
That's because people quickly tire of their limitations once they learn more about using a computer.
As for oldsters who don't know how to use a computer, most of them will (literally) be dead soon. That's not exactly a growth market.
". I don't know why they're doing it, perhaps that hard SciFi traditionally had a predominately male readership; while fantasy has broader appeal?"
Fantasy doesn't require much thought from the reader, while science does. The public, by and large, are anti-science (despite the fact science has given them almost everything of value in the modern world!), uneducated, and would rather fap to fantasy than think.
"How many of you use illegal drugs--which goes into the pocket of vicious and violent people."
Not if you grow your own, :)
and do note that the War Against Some Drugs is what makes their market both profitable AND illegal, which ENSURES violence is a useful business practice.
"The unwashed masses would buy products made of dead baby carcasses."
I'm part of the "washed" masses and don't care who kills who in far-off barbaric lands.
Africans are making African choices to sell African mineral resources. It is not trollish to point that out. It's all them, not us. They make and perpetuate their own problems, and kill those who try to intervene (watch Black Hawk Down for what happens when do-gooders meddle where they shouldn't have bothered) because they don't care for benevolent colonialism.
I don't have a reason to care about people from primitive societies, and I do want cheap access to technology. When we accept that Africans inflict spectacular brutality on each other as a matter of course, and stop wanting them to be like us, we can advance our own interests and do business. If we don't exploit "conflict" resources someone more practical (and probably Chinese or Russian) certainly will.
"I just don't get the point. Everything Chrome OS runs can already be run by any other OS, so why not just use some other Linux distro that's not restricted to web apps?"
Browser appliances have always been wonderful if one asks those whose business model relies on them. :)
"Science, religion, what's the difference, it both requires faith to believe in the world they propose."
Scientific assertions are testable, superstition is not, and your assertion is contemptibly stupid.
"Now what amazes me is that our daughter coughed for 2 days and then she was fine, while we are still sick after 3 weeks."
Anecdotes /= data, but this appears to be pretty common. I've had post-flu bronchitis for a couple of weeks and some others locally for more than a month.
Everyone who modded this "Interesting", please obtain a clue about missiles, launch systems, and warheads.
This is a geek forum, not 4chan.
Most of you have had much longer to give it a go.
"60% of the population of the Netherlands live below sea level. Are they all stupid too?"
The Dutch don't live in an area plagued by hurricanes, they don't have much alternative due to crowding (which is what drove land reclamation in the first place), and they don't live in a willfully culturally backward and infamously corrupt state.
The US has vast amounts of land. No one "needs" to live in New Orleans, below sea level or otherwise. (Do note that the old French Quarter wasn't wiped out because they didn't fucking build in a flood zone!)
Katrina was a "perfect storm" of the most backward culture and people in the US insisting on staying in their slums so they could die in droves. They had time for crime, violence, and drugs. They had time for sloth and ignorance. They didn't devote appropriate time to prepare, and they suffered the consequences. Katrina flushed some slums, big deal. They'll be rebuilt to humor the stupid, and will get zapped again one day.
"If we find a rogue nation with a lone nuke or two, we attack with conventional weapons, because the risk incurred by escalation is too great."
Unless they are not rational actors and escalate anyway.
Atmospheric testing thoroughly demonstrated that smallish nuclear wars are a practical, if unfortunate, proposition.
For example. if a "rogue state" does take out a US city or two, we can exterminate them both to defeat them and to make the desolation an example to others. The reason MAD is a credible way to deter rational actors is that it imposes an unacceptable risk of counter-value destruction.
Irrational actors may launch anyway, and the way to deal with irrational actors who act is to wipe them out so they cannot act at all.
BTW, great nations can lose tens of millions of dead, many cities, and still recover as did the Soviet Union. That isn't a desirable experience, but it's been done and proves large nations can sustain immense damage.
If a cultural enemy (the ultimate irrational actor) such as an Islamic state starts a nuclear exchange, the appropriate response would be to kill such an astounding number of their people that they can't plead "Got Mit Uns". Imaginary celestial friends do fall out of favor when they are not perceived to protect their worshippers. Titrated conventional force cannot do that job.
The hungry are by and large hungry specifically because their cultures, societies, beliefs, and religions are degenerate.
Otherwise, their only interest would be in forming secular modern states that deserve to survive. All I see are ululating mobs of vermin whose shit cultures I am told to respect because it is Politically Correct.
I wouldn't feed the hungry of the world if I could do it with a wave of the hand.
"$1M missile vs firing a laser. I do not know how much it costs to fire a chemical laser but I bet it is a lot cheaper than firing a missile."
Missiles require purchase in bulk, inspections while in (expensive) storage, transportation to the combat theater, many personnel to maintain, load, and unload them (if a missile isn't fired, it will be returned to storage) and in general a vast support chain to keep them available to shoot.
Once an aircraft is empty of ordnance, it must return to base for weapons reload.
Lasers don't look spendy at all given the cumulative effort and expense of getting a conventional missile to target.
It's not a "lack" of marketing savvy, it's actual resentment of marketing coupled with an annoying fondness for cutesy stupid fucking names.
Now and then a product succeeds that happens to have a cutesy stupid fucking name, which is seen as validation by CSFN fans.
The FEAR is stupid. It is the product of American popular culture, which worships the stupid, fails to attack stupidity and ignorance, and out of "political correctness" fails to impress the duty to oneself not to be willfully ignorant. Our religions rule by fear and, as Alan Watts pointed out, institutionalize guilt as a virtue. If you think for yourself you are a sinner.
Americans wantonly and morbidly wallow in stupid beliefs, and I would like to see more of those who do actually die by their own hands. The number of idiots who kill themselves can never, never be enough. Get it right people, for as Frank Zappa once sang:
"You say there ain't no use in livin'
It's all a waste of time
'n you wanna throw your life away, well
People that's just fine
Go ahead on 'n get it over with then
Find you a bridge 'n take a jump
Just make sure you do it right the first time
'cause nothin's worse than a suicide
Chump"