I have had to fly once during the past year, and I regretted every minute of it.
I am reminded of the Communist Trials, the stupidity of which we look back upon now and laugh at. In one airport run, I had to stand and watch both a girl who could barely see over the table on which her items were being rifled through get wanded, as well as my 80-year-old grandmother get "randomly searched" while sitting in her wheelchair. Upon seeing such unwarrented hysteria, I realized the terrorists had won.
And then there was the time I forgot my tickets with my group when I wanted to wander around the airport, just to see the sights (hey, it was a vacation, right?) Bad idea. Apparently only terrorists want to get past the security checkpoints to go to the gates.
And then there was the security checkpoint. Fortunately for me, I quickly learned which metal items in my pockets would set them off and which wouldn't. The rest of my party, however, wasn't so fortunate. One of them got a toenail clipper confiscated. Not the nail-file or the nail-clippers, mind you. Just the toenail clipper. Granted, my set got through the checkpoint without a hitch all four times.
So what am I going to do about all of this? Simple: It's a democratic country, so I'm going to vote against it by not flying whenever possible. I intend to drive to many places, and take a train to others. The upside is that in many cases for local trips, it will actually be more convenient and quicker, because I will not have the checkpoints to deal with, and I won't have to get a rental car.
It's a shame. When I was young, I very much looked forward to flying. Now I loathe it.
Giant Tribbles. There was actually a Star Trek: The Animated Series episode titled something along the lines of "More Troubles with Tribbles". In it, Tribbles grew to very large sizes.
Yes, I'm American. No, I haven't dealt with foreign currency to a great extent, other than the usual "Oooh... Canadian penny!". But let me tell you: Being able to tell at-a-glance what a bill is should have been done a long time ago.
Imagine you're writing a computer program to recognize the value of money. The process your program would go through is something akin to this:
1) Locate the bill in an X-Y plan from our current perspective.
2) Orient the bill. Which side is up?
3) Determine what we can and cannot see on this bill.
4) Determine if we can see one of the corners.
5) If we cannot, we must re-orient the bill and go back to step 2.
6) Determine where the edge is.
7) Grab the image a little bit away from that corner.
8) Read the value of the digit.
9) Look that image up in a table.
10) Get the value from the table. That is the value of this bill.
Now assume you're writing a program for color-coded bills. The logic may flow something like this:
1) Locate the bill in an X-Y plane from our current perspective.
2) Read in the RRGGBB value of this bill.
3) Look those values up in a table, matching the closest values.
4) Get the value from the table. That is the value from this bill.
The human brain operates in a similar manner: Orientation is difficult. And reading is much more difficult in adverse conditions, such as low-light or harsh weather (i.e. "I need to catch a cab! How much do I have?").
Colored money would be a good thing to have. Especially for us lazy Americans.
I remember looking through the manual of my TI (you remember, then half-inch-thick one?) taking note of what it could do. Mind you, this was during geometry (my parents figured they'd get me a graphing calculator early on.)
One of the biggest problems I had with it is that it would do the factoring of polynomials for me. You just put in [A]x^2+[B]x+[C] and it would give you all of the factors. Consequently, I was "solving" problems with imaginary numbers early on.
Eventually, I wanted to learn the formula that the calculator used so that I could do it for myself. Unfortunately, my teachers had no clue, and I didn't know how to get it.
The point of this long story is: I still don't know how to factor polynomials. And it's been a thorn in my side ever since.
Okay, so it's neither Linux, nor Apache, nor thttpd, but it's Palm, so it's not Microsoft, so it's not evil, right?
There exists a web server for Palm, which will serve up your memos, documents, addresses, and whatever else you want. And you can connect your Palm to the Internet through a cell phone (yay, 14.4Kbps.)
My friend decided to try buffer overflows on the thing, and it survived. Didn't even go down with a "ping -f", which I thought was fairly amazing.
You know, what you're talking about reminds me a lot of coding in ASP:
"Mutations", where on one load it will be different than subsequent loads
"Tempermental Language", where arrays will reverse themselves, or it will give you an error to call a function as a sub, or vice versa, with or without parenthesis
"Inexplicable errors". Yes, I've had it croak on comments before. And completely empty lines.
Actually, the Segway was designed to address this very problem. It is 18 inches (about 46 centimeters, for you rest-of-the-world folk) wide, which is about the same size as the length of your collar from shoulder-to-shoulder.
So in reality, even while riding the Segway, you're still as wide as you would be walking.
I was curious just how often RedCode attacks. Sure, looking through the apache log files is nice, but it just didn't give me the sense of urgency... the quick succession at which attacks take place. So, I whipped up a quick perl script to play a noise every time I was "attacked". Needless to say, it's getting kind of annoying, but it still is incredible:
Anyone else think this thing looks like a space heater? Or possibly one of those LCD projectors. Although I must admit it looks better than Nintendo's glowing purple blob of a "Game Cube."
The thing is, they would be able to adapt because technology today continutes to make life easier. People from the 1900's would be able to adapt to life in the 1950's, but they would probably not like going back to the year 1850.
Similarly, I would find life in 1950 very difficult, but I bet I would fit right in with little adaptation to the year 2050.
The 4P has an even cooler one! In the ScanJet software directory, there's a folder called "MusicBox". There's an entire music box program for your scanner! And the music files are just regular text files. Hmm... an entire jukebox for a scanner?
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I have had to fly once during the past year, and I regretted every minute of it.
I am reminded of the Communist Trials, the stupidity of which we look back upon now and laugh at. In one airport run, I had to stand and watch both a girl who could barely see over the table on which her items were being rifled through get wanded, as well as my 80-year-old grandmother get "randomly searched" while sitting in her wheelchair. Upon seeing such unwarrented hysteria, I realized the terrorists had won.
And then there was the time I forgot my tickets with my group when I wanted to wander around the airport, just to see the sights (hey, it was a vacation, right?) Bad idea. Apparently only terrorists want to get past the security checkpoints to go to the gates.
And then there was the security checkpoint. Fortunately for me, I quickly learned which metal items in my pockets would set them off and which wouldn't. The rest of my party, however, wasn't so fortunate. One of them got a toenail clipper confiscated. Not the nail-file or the nail-clippers, mind you. Just the toenail clipper. Granted, my set got through the checkpoint without a hitch all four times.
So what am I going to do about all of this? Simple: It's a democratic country, so I'm going to vote against it by not flying whenever possible. I intend to drive to many places, and take a train to others. The upside is that in many cases for local trips, it will actually be more convenient and quicker, because I will not have the checkpoints to deal with, and I won't have to get a rental car.
It's a shame. When I was young, I very much looked forward to flying. Now I loathe it.
I happen to be using Mozilla v1.0 right now, and I happen to prefer it to Internet Explorer 1.0 or Mosaic 1.0.
Giant Tribbles. There was actually a Star Trek: The Animated Series episode titled something along the lines of "More Troubles with Tribbles". In it, Tribbles grew to very large sizes.
It's quite a simple problem, really:
RFC20063: IP-over-Ansible.
Yes, I'm American. No, I haven't dealt with foreign currency to a great extent, other than the usual "Oooh... Canadian penny!". But let me tell you: Being able to tell at-a-glance what a bill is should have been done a long time ago.
Imagine you're writing a computer program to recognize the value of money. The process your program would go through is something akin to this:
1) Locate the bill in an X-Y plan from our current perspective.
2) Orient the bill. Which side is up?
3) Determine what we can and cannot see on this bill.
4) Determine if we can see one of the corners.
5) If we cannot, we must re-orient the bill and go back to step 2.
6) Determine where the edge is.
7) Grab the image a little bit away from that corner.
8) Read the value of the digit.
9) Look that image up in a table.
10) Get the value from the table. That is the value of this bill.
Now assume you're writing a program for color-coded bills. The logic may flow something like this:
1) Locate the bill in an X-Y plane from our current perspective.
2) Read in the RRGGBB value of this bill.
3) Look those values up in a table, matching the closest values.
4) Get the value from the table. That is the value from this bill.
The human brain operates in a similar manner: Orientation is difficult. And reading is much more difficult in adverse conditions, such as low-light or harsh weather (i.e. "I need to catch a cab! How much do I have?").
Colored money would be a good thing to have. Especially for us lazy Americans.
Not that this would be a bad thing. There are more Monopoly bills printed every year by Parker Brothers than US Currency printed by the US Government.
I remember looking through the manual of my TI (you remember, then half-inch-thick one?) taking note of what it could do. Mind you, this was during geometry (my parents figured they'd get me a graphing calculator early on.)
One of the biggest problems I had with it is that it would do the factoring of polynomials for me. You just put in [A]x^2+[B]x+[C] and it would give you all of the factors. Consequently, I was "solving" problems with imaginary numbers early on.
Eventually, I wanted to learn the formula that the calculator used so that I could do it for myself. Unfortunately, my teachers had no clue, and I didn't know how to get it.
The point of this long story is: I still don't know how to factor polynomials. And it's been a thorn in my side ever since.
Okay, so it's neither Linux, nor Apache, nor thttpd, but it's Palm, so it's not Microsoft, so it's not evil, right?
There exists a web server for Palm, which will serve up your memos, documents, addresses, and whatever else you want. And you can connect your Palm to the Internet through a cell phone (yay, 14.4Kbps.)
My friend decided to try buffer overflows on the thing, and it survived. Didn't even go down with a "ping -f", which I thought was fairly amazing.
Good hevens! I do believe you just described "Schrodinger's Casette Tape"!
You know, what you're talking about reminds me a lot of coding in ASP:
"Mutations", where on one load it will be different than subsequent loads
"Tempermental Language", where arrays will reverse themselves, or it will give you an error to call a function as a sub, or vice versa, with or without parenthesis
"Inexplicable errors". Yes, I've had it croak on comments before. And completely empty lines.
Does anyone else remember Waldo, the CG Muppet? Let's hope he doesn't make it into a patch of OpenOffice.
"It looks like you're writing a letter! Whoopeee!"
Actually, the Segway was designed to address this very problem. It is 18 inches (about 46 centimeters, for you rest-of-the-world folk) wide, which is about the same size as the length of your collar from shoulder-to-shoulder.
So in reality, even while riding the Segway, you're still as wide as you would be walking.
I was curious just how often RedCode attacks. Sure, looking through the apache log files is nice, but it just didn't give me the sense of urgency... the quick succession at which attacks take place. So, I whipped up a quick perl script to play a noise every time I was "attacked". Needless to say, it's getting kind of annoying, but it still is incredible:
/var/log/your-access.log | grep XXXXXXXXXXXXX | cut -d \" \" -f 1 | wc -l > attacks_b"); /dev/null");
#!/usr/bin/perl
while(1) {
system("cat
$returnval = system("diff attacks_a attacks_b >
if(0!=$returnval) {
system("cp -f attacks_b attacks_a");
system("play buzzer2.aiff &");
}
sleep(1);
}
Anyone else think this thing looks like a space heater? Or possibly one of those LCD projectors. Although I must admit it looks better than Nintendo's glowing purple blob of a "Game Cube."
The thing is, they would be able to adapt because technology today continutes to make life easier. People from the 1900's would be able to adapt to life in the 1950's, but they would probably not like going back to the year 1850.
Similarly, I would find life in 1950 very difficult, but I bet I would fit right in with little adaptation to the year 2050.
This was actually posted in the poll (Read Here.) Seeing as this is slashdot, you can't expect the facts in that document to go unchallenged.
The 4P has an even cooler one! In the ScanJet software directory, there's a folder called "MusicBox". There's an entire music box program for your scanner! And the music files are just regular text files. Hmm... an entire jukebox for a scanner?