Other than the Smoking Unisys server, I mean. I'm one of the only people from our company not there, and our folks aren't sending us much in the way of info.
Darnit, next time *I'm* going to the conference and leaving them all behind!
I spent some time doing Software Testing, and according to our team lead, a bug/defect was not a Sevrity 1 unless the server was on fire. I never managed to find a sev 1 (though we did have a defect for a server that had fan burn up that I had to verify - never could reproduce it, though). It looks like these guys found one of the fun Sev 1s.:)
NetDirector does *NIX service configuration management across multiple servers on multiple Linux distros, Solaris, and BSD. And for SOX, it does change tracking and audit trailing, offers role-based management, change scheduling and rollback - all from a nifty Web-based GUI!
I've seen it in action and it's pretty cool. They have an online demo on their site. Personally, I've always just hand-edited config files (vi is your friend), but for a multiple-server environment, this looks like it would be a winner.
I'll chime in to being another MUSH success story. Pre-graphical RPGs, we had text RPGs that meant a lot of typing and a lot of reading. The great thing about these is that you *know* the person on the other end of the character is being a character, but the longer you play with them, the better a feel you get for the kind of person they are (through grammar, language, etc). I think a lot of this gets lost in graphical RPGs.
My husband and I met online and it was 2 years of casual chatting before we met in real life. It was 1 year of long distance dating and 2 years of living together before we actually got married. It wasn't easy or perfect, but we're coming up on our 9 year anniversary and I don't think I could have made such a good match any way else. I got to know *who* he was well before we met, and I think that strengthened our bond immensely.
I'm in the trial area and started filling out the form to be a tester, until it got to the system requirements, which were basically Windows XP/2000. I think ME might have been listed. They specifically said they don't support Macintosh or other OSes at this time.
I have to wonder if there's some Windows-only software that they're using for the connection, or if they just don't want the hassle of trying to deal with connection issues from other OSes. Does anyone have similar technology running under Linux?
Have you looked at Win4Lin? Win4Lin offers Windows 95 or 98 as an application on Linux, and the company that makes it (NeTraverse) also offers a thin-client multi-user solution (NeTraverse Server Standard Edition). You get the stability of Linux and the ability to use Windows apps as well.
I wonder if the military picked the acronym first, then hunted around for words to fit?
This sounds like yet another way for people to kill other people without even having to be in the same zip code. Seems to me it's easier to kill people if you don't have to look at them. I vote we go back to bashing at each other with swords - I have a strong feeling people have gotten so soft in the last hundred or so years that the amount of dead people would dwindle quickly. Besides, it's far harder to hide a 4 foot long bastard sword in one's backpack when going to school.
I know someone works for the company that hosts terraserver, and they're currently filtering out all requests to the area 51 images. Why? Probably the slashdot effect. Along with the image requests, the box managed to greatly increase in portscan activity when the article was posted on slashdot, and from what I understand, there's only one guy who has to handle all this increase in traffic and security.
I wonder if increased port-scanning is a problem with most slashdotted sites. It seems to me an undesireable side-effect of being linked to on slashdot.
You know, there are already a number of Star Wars based online RPG games that have been around for a number of years. Just because an RPG isn't graphical, doesn't make it any less of an enjoyable role playing experience. Some of the Star Wars MUSHes are some of the best MUSHes out there, with great role play. Though I haven't played on any of the big online RPGs, I would venture a guess that the level of role-playing is minimal, due to the constraints that a graphical interface is going to present. While, when your interface is plain text, the roleplay often approaches literary levels, and the world immersion (I think) is far more intense.
Actually, I rather thought it was Bruce's more recent involvement in the Hercules/Xena series that would have put him in association with Sam Raimi for this flick, not *just* his Evil Dead involvement. Bruce's been playing a somewhat geeky (and not really all that hunky-looking) King of Thieves, Autolyclus on both series. And given that Sam Raimi produces (or is is executive produces) and his brother Ted (I assume at least) plays Joxter in the series, these factors have kept Bruce in touch with Sam Ramimi recently enough for him to be considered seriously for Peter Parker.
As for how good a Peter Parker he'd be - I think he'd play it well, but somehow I don't see Peter Parker using the kind of sardonic humor Bruce Campbell seems known for. However, it *does* seem rather Spiderman-ish! But the voice... I don't know if I could get used to his voice as Spiderman *or* Peter Parker. (I used to watch Spiderfriends when I was a geeky kid, and I *adored* Peter Parker, partly because of his dreamy-nerdy voice!)
From this article doesn't appear to be what anyone else got. What I got out of the service was this: you put in what you can afford to spend, and ecollegebid gives you a list of universities that you can afford. Or that are willing to accept what you can afford. I, personally, think this is a great service. Of course, I also think you can get the same information from a good Financial Aid calculator and a copy of the Princeton Review. But then, maybe I'm wrong.
As to all the foreigners (and, apparently, americans) who don't seem to think anyone can get a university education in this country, I'd like to say, you are wrong. Governmental loans, school scholarships, grants - the funding is there if you want to go to school. And just because you're an A+ student whose parents work at McDonald's, doesn't mean you a) can't go to Yale or Harvard if you *really* want to, or b) are 'settling' if you go to UNC or Michigan State or UCLA. State schools often have better funding for those who can't afford it, and are less expensive to begin with - but they're not second best schools. I work for one of the big-name private universities, but I wouldn't want to go to school here. Yeah, the atmosphere is neat, but even with my tuition discount, I can get by cheaper at one of the other state schools in the area - and get a better education in the field that I'm interested in (which the private school doesn't even really offer to any degree!). So less expensive does not necessarily equate to worse. And I do believe that anyone who is motivated to get an education can find the money to do so.
It seems to me that these problems wouldn't be an issue if people would register domains as they should. The big three top-level domains were created with a specific purpose/market in mind..com should be registered for corporations and for-profit endevours (.com as in company)..org should be registered or organizations - non-profit, big-name organizations (like the American Cancer Society, Red Cross, etc), as well as the Triange Area Spider Silk Knitting Circle..net are for network providers - ISPs and those they provide for.
If people would register like this, it would make life far less confusing. As well, it would be nice if people *could* easilly register their local area domain name (ie: mur.rdu.nc.us) or even better, an individual or personal top-level domain address (mur.ind or mur.per or mur.tmd - this is my domain) which was specifically designed for personal web pages. Now, if they did something like this, they cold even stratify domain registration fees depending on the top-level domain you want -.org and.per(.ind, whatever) would be less expensive (or free, provided you keep up the paperwork), while.com and.net could be more expensive - which companies could afford to pay because they save all the money they're spending now going around suing people for domain names/trademark infringement!
Personally, I usually print out papers, projects, etc. that I'm writing for editing purposes. I find it harder on my eyes to read a computer monitor than a sheet of printed paper, and it's *far* easier to make editorial notes in the margins/line spacing when you're writing by hand. Erasing is still faster than backspacing (for me), and changing your mind is easier than having to cut and paste six or eight times.
When I've read through and edited things, then I go back and change them in the word processor. And print it out again, and go on from there. Editing is *far* easier on a hard copy than on a computer screen. Now, if I could make scribbles in the margins with a touch-sensitive screen and a pen, then *maybe* i'll stop doing that. But heck, it's only been the last few years that I actually can *compose* on a computer. Up until that point, I wrote everything long-hand first, then typed it, then went back to step A above in editing. So I'm saving *some* trees, at least.
Another note: when you're doing library searches, it's difficult to haul the monitor down the aisles with you. The librarians get upset if you mess too much with their computers, and the monitor cables aren't long enough anyway.
My husband called Qwest's 1-800# after being told that he could (finally - the first call to customer service yielded a 'you can only activate your account via our proprietary software'), and the guy on the phone told him to type some stuff in Win95. He faked it - taped some keys while he was on the phone, and when the guy told him to try it, he said he only had one phone line. So it was a few days later that we tried it - and, of course, it didn't work. Even escaping the funky characters in the username didn't help. The problem seems to be in the cl/username@qwestinternet.net that they assign - we keep getting an 'Invalid Login' error. I would assume the problem is in the fact that is *is* PAP and not PPP (which noone ever says), but we're not even getting past the login, so it seems to me it should be something else (unless the authentication is different between the two protocols). We're still working on trying to get it to work before going down the 'ditch Qwest and find another long distance carrier *again* road.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to get it working, please email me at mur@telebot.com. I don't want to discriminate against people who are so actively pro-M$ (especially when they're giving way-cool deals), and I still think that even the extra hassle is worth the $50+ savings/mo, but if it doesn't work *at all*, then they're cutting off a growing segment of the computing world for what? Ease of support? Lack of training? It's a pitifully easy thing to toss Linux on a test machine in the building somewhere, and let a couple of people play with it for a few days.
The article says that this is SOP when they find someone infringing on their trademark. And that they think that whenever someone hears that phrase, they think of AOL. But I have to wonder - Yes, when I *hear* 'You've got mail(male)', I think of the silly AOL thingie that pops up to tell you that mail has just arrived in your in-box. However, this is a *book*. It is *obvious* that it is not 'mail', but 'male' (I mean, duh, it's right there in print). Yes, the woman is obviously making a play on a trademarked phrase, but she's *not* using the phrase! And instead of thinking, "Oh, this must be AOL!", people will think, "Wow, that's a cute turn of a phrase! I must have this book!" which is what I would assume is what she intended.
Will this 'trademark infringement' idea hold up in court? If it was a look-and-feel copyright case (like the iMac clone idea which I personally don't think has much of a leg to stand on anyway if it doesn't actually run MacOS), I can see them having a case ("well, it's a homophone, and so it *sounds* the same, even if it's not the same word! Therefore it has the same 'look-and-feel' of our trademarked phrase!"). But in this case? I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds to me like AOL has no sense of humor.
Besides, isn't 'You've Got Mail' as generic nowadays as 'Kotex' or 'Xerox' or 'Kleenex'? I mean, if I bring the snail mail in from the mailbox, I'd like to think I can call through the house, "Honey! You've got mail!' without AOL suing.
Or, in this case, the cow or the horse or the pig or the goat...
There are people *now* who have their infants or children tattooed for identification - just in case they get kidnapped or killed or whatnot. Heck, my mom used to threaten to have my lip tattooed if I forgot to take some ID with me in case something bad happened. She never did, but the sentiment is out there - keep our kids safe by marking them perminantly with something that identifies them as *ours*.
I'm not advocating this, and I'd never do it to my kids, but I can understand the sentiment - especially when there are hundreds of kids stolen or lost every year, and at least twice as many parents who can't stand the not knowing. People have even gone so far as to implant digital tracking devices in dogs and cats - and extrapolate use of them on children!
It's scary, but it's only symptomatic of the world we live in. That's pretty darn scary, too.
Actually, Red Hat is currently leasing their building. They moved to their current location in Durham months before their IPO. And I imagine they'd rather use their IPO dollars to open their west coast and europe offices than to spend extra money relocating in the Triangle a second time in a year. Besides, a day's downtime and the time spent packing up machines costs *far* less, I'm sure, than finding new office space in the Triangle, and moving again.
A friend of mine works tech support at Red Hat, and they spent yesterday shutting down and boxing up desktops and stuff so that if the roof blows off the building, they can relocate the office quickly.
Why is this a possible problem? Apparently, Red Hat's roof is only rated up to sustained winds of 60mph. Considering the last forcast put us at winds of 80+ mph when it hits the Triangle, it might take a little extra time for Red Hat to get things rolling again. I hope they *have* someplace to relocate to.
I do look forward to reading this book, though it probably won't be until after Christmas, when I buy it for my husband. I greatly enjoyed Ender's Game and the subsequent books (though they were getting decidedly strange towards the end...) and will no doubt enjoy this one as well.
I also look forward to seeing Ender's Game on the big screen. Especially with Card writing the screenplay - even if Peter and Valentine take a back seat and a lot of other things don't happen due to time constraints, I'm sure it will be an excellent movie. Even if Jake Lloyd ends up playing Ender. I'm sure if anyone can write a screenplay to do the feel of the book justice, it's Card. I've always thought that authors whose books get turned into movies should have the final say on the screenplay, since it's their ideas that end up on the screen.
Have there been more than rumors that Ender's Shadow will be filmed either concurrently or just after Ender's Game? I heard something about that - that they would be released within a year of each other, telling the same story from different perspectives. *that* would make for interesting movie marketing - how well can you sell a sequel that is really the same story? Has it been done? Barring remakes, of course. If Shakespeare had written 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern' a year after 'Hamlet', would the crowds have been as large to see it?
The next few years in sci fi films will be *very* interesting.
Now *here's* a robot contest I can get into! My husband and I are avid Lego collectors, though we haven't had the cash to break down and get any of the Mindstorms bits yet. But I can seriously see this sort of robotic contest being far more widely popular than the Aibo soccer contest. It involves as much in the way of construction as programming, and if you're short on parts, you only need go to your local Toys R Us or Wal*Mart for more! And it's on the low end inexpensive enough for not only Universities but High School/Middle School science groups to get into!
How can we get the information to organize a league in the US? Then we could have World Series Lego Vollyball and really find out who's better - The Brits or us Colonials.
A lot of people are debating the whole 'of course there are planes out there, we can't be the only one' arguement. But look at it statistically - If we assume that the universe can be represented by a bell curve (no, I'm not going to get into new-fangled 'natural' statistical curves here), then the solar system could, probability-wise, fall anywhere inside that curve (from our starting sample size of 1, we have no reference where to place ourselves).
So we start looking at the universe. We find a lot of stars, but none with obvious planets. Instead of consigning the Solar System to one of the tail ends of the bell curve, we assume we don't have equipment sensitive enough to detect planets yet (which we didn't.)
So we design better equipment. We start finding some (a few) Gas giants orbiting stars. And we go, "Ah-hah! See, we're not alone! We must fall somewhere within the center of the normal curve!" Yet still the sample size is small compared to the number of stars - which would really shove 'stars with Gas Giants' to outside one or two standard deviations, and 'stars with earth-sized planets' even further out, with a single sample we know of.
Now we find a (possible) star with another earth-type planet (Class M? Class L? When are scientists going to look up the Star Trek regs and tell us what Class Mars is?), and we say, "We are definately not unique." But look at the statistics - even with *2* systems with earth-sized planets, your sample is *miniscule* compared to the billions of stars! We could very well be in the extreme tail of the bell curve, and actually *be* unique in the universe!
Until SETI produces results, or an alien shows up on Prime Time TV during the President's State of the Union address, I don't think anyone will be able to say for sure that we are not alone. I, for one, believe that we cannot be - I cannot concieve of such a lonely universe. But we really don't have any proof to the contrary. yet. So, while this is very important, don't loose perpective on what it really means about our place in the universe.
Part of the problem I see with this while thing (and with astronomy in general) is that, depending on how far away this star is (and the article never said), we're seeing this 'earth-sized' planet probably *millions* of years ago. What was Earth like millions of years ago? Even thousands of years ago? A lot can happen in the amount of time light takes to travel from a distant star to earth - species come and go, cultures rise and fall... For all we know some aliens might have already blown the place up for an interstellar highway!
I used to try to sell Palms in a college bookstore, and 90% of our units sold to professors, doctors, or departments. Why? Two reasons: Price and 'technology'.
Palms are simply priced out of the average college student's market. Even at $229 for the cheapest unit, there's no way a college student could afford it. Now, at $149 or even $179, a college kid could scrimp a little on bar funds or donate plasma a couple of times and pick one of these cool puppies up. Or ask for one for christmas and actually maybe get it. If the plug-ins (literally!) cost under a hundred for useful modules, then better still! Imagine - an HP Calculator module that turns your palm into a high-end graphic calculator. What Engineering/Physics geek wouldn't drool over one?
Now, that second reason, 'technology'? The problem with a high-tech toy like this is that a good portion of college students have problems running word processors in computer labs - they just don't have the technological savvy that lends one to go, 'Oooh! I have to have one of those!', mostly because they don't understand it, can't get it to work, could never learn the shorthand... A myriad of reasons. However, something like this - something that with a mere plug-in of a module, changes the unit into something else equally useful - as long as it's relativly intuitive for use, could sell very well in a college market.
Even at $150, I'd be willing to shell out money for a *very* good calendar/address book in a college market. It would have come in handy to keep track of assignments and phone numbers when I was in school. Here's to Handspring, and the hopes that they spark a market for inexpensive, easy-to-use handhelds that even a Freshman Sorority-pledge can use.
I resemble that remark! Not all people who's VCRs flash 12:00 are utter morons, you know - some people have good reasons to leave their VCR flashing midnight (or is it noon?)
My VCR flashes 12:00 - well, really it flashes AUTO. Why? Because it's one of those auto-time-sensing VCRs that pick the time off of the datastream running through it to the television. And, for some unknown reason, my current cable company apparently doesn't include the time in the data they feed me.
You say I could set the clock? Sure, but then when the wind blew my power out, I'd be right back to square one. When you loose power an average of 2-3 times a week, resetting the vcr is a low priority.
As for Kermie promoting the V-chip... I'm not sure about that. How many parents are actually going to *enjoy* being talked down to by a stuffed green frog? Even fewer than would enjoy being explained the process by their children, I'm sure. Parents are *not* idiots, in the main. Even those who want to rely on some technological doohicky to babysit what their kids watch on TV rather than actually spending the time one needs to with remote in hand to do it yourself. Or spending the time discussing with children what they see on TV and explaining real versus fantasy vs televison and what is right and wrong.
However, Kermit's career's been rather dead of late. I'm sure he felt that any job was better than *no* job, and maybe he thought if he got his face out there, and got to talk to a more mature audience, he'd actually get a shot at some of the leading man roles in *real* films. Can't you just see Kermit the Frog in Total Recall 2? Or how about in Matrix 2 & 3, as a bad guy, even. Kermit's so typecast as the fun-loving, happy-go-lucky, all-around-nice green guy, I'm sure he's itching to do something more evil.
Be sure to look for Kermit the Frog as Mini Me in Austin Powers III.
Slashdot Mirror
Other than the Smoking Unisys server, I mean. I'm one of the only people from our company not there, and our folks aren't sending us much in the way of info.
Darnit, next time *I'm* going to the conference and leaving them all behind!
I spent some time doing Software Testing, and according to our team lead, a bug/defect was not a Sevrity 1 unless the server was on fire. I never managed to find a sev 1 (though we did have a defect for a server that had fan burn up that I had to verify - never could reproduce it, though). It looks like these guys found one of the fun Sev 1s. :)
NetDirector does *NIX service configuration management across multiple servers on multiple Linux distros, Solaris, and BSD. And for SOX, it does change tracking and audit trailing, offers role-based management, change scheduling and rollback - all from a nifty Web-based GUI!
I've seen it in action and it's pretty cool. They have an online demo on their site. Personally, I've always just hand-edited config files (vi is your friend), but for a multiple-server environment, this looks like it would be a winner.
I'll chime in to being another MUSH success story. Pre-graphical RPGs, we had text RPGs that meant a lot of typing and a lot of reading. The great thing about these is that you *know* the person on the other end of the character is being a character, but the longer you play with them, the better a feel you get for the kind of person they are (through grammar, language, etc). I think a lot of this gets lost in graphical RPGs.
My husband and I met online and it was 2 years of casual chatting before we met in real life. It was 1 year of long distance dating and 2 years of living together before we actually got married. It wasn't easy or perfect, but we're coming up on our 9 year anniversary and I don't think I could have made such a good match any way else. I got to know *who* he was well before we met, and I think that strengthened our bond immensely.
I'm in the trial area and started filling out the form to be a tester, until it got to the system requirements, which were basically Windows XP/2000. I think ME might have been listed. They specifically said they don't support Macintosh or other OSes at this time.
I have to wonder if there's some Windows-only software that they're using for the connection, or if they just don't want the hassle of trying to deal with connection issues from other OSes. Does anyone have similar technology running under Linux?
Have you looked at Win4Lin? Win4Lin offers Windows 95 or 98 as an application on Linux, and the company that makes it (NeTraverse) also offers a thin-client multi-user solution (NeTraverse Server Standard Edition). You get the stability of Linux and the ability to use Windows apps as well.
...all I would do is try to get control of the .dot TLD.
.com site was really a company, and a .org site was really non-profit!)
Why would you want control of a TLD for the Department of Transportation? Oh, *I* get it... You're trying to get out of parking tickets!
(Oh for the days when TLDs actually *meant* something - when a
I wonder if the military picked the acronym first, then hunted around for words to fit?
This sounds like yet another way for people to kill other people without even having to be in the same zip code. Seems to me it's easier to kill people if you don't have to look at them. I vote we go back to bashing at each other with swords - I have a strong feeling people have gotten so soft in the last hundred or so years that the amount of dead people would dwindle quickly. Besides, it's far harder to hide a 4 foot long bastard sword in one's backpack when going to school.
I know someone works for the company that hosts terraserver, and they're currently filtering out all requests to the area 51 images. Why? Probably the slashdot effect. Along with the image requests, the box managed to greatly increase in portscan activity when the article was posted on slashdot, and from what I understand, there's only one guy who has to handle all this increase in traffic and security.
I wonder if increased port-scanning is a problem with most slashdotted sites. It seems to me an undesireable side-effect of being linked to on slashdot.
You know, there are already a number of Star Wars based online RPG games that have been around for a number of years. Just because an RPG isn't graphical, doesn't make it any less of an enjoyable role playing experience. Some of the Star Wars MUSHes are some of the best MUSHes out there, with great role play. Though I haven't played on any of the big online RPGs, I would venture a guess that the level of role-playing is minimal, due to the constraints that a graphical interface is going to present. While, when your interface is plain text, the roleplay often approaches literary levels, and the world immersion (I think) is far more intense.
Mur!
Jacinda@ChivalryMUSH
Actually, I rather thought it was Bruce's more recent involvement in the Hercules/Xena series that would have put him in association with Sam Raimi for this flick, not *just* his Evil Dead involvement. Bruce's been playing a somewhat geeky (and not really all that hunky-looking) King of Thieves, Autolyclus on both series. And given that Sam Raimi produces (or is is executive produces) and his brother Ted (I assume at least) plays Joxter in the series, these factors have kept Bruce in touch with Sam Ramimi recently enough for him to be considered seriously for Peter Parker.
As for how good a Peter Parker he'd be - I think he'd play it well, but somehow I don't see Peter Parker using the kind of sardonic humor Bruce Campbell seems known for. However, it *does* seem rather Spiderman-ish! But the voice... I don't know if I could get used to his voice as Spiderman *or* Peter Parker. (I used to watch Spiderfriends when I was a geeky kid, and I *adored* Peter Parker, partly because of his dreamy-nerdy voice!)
From this article doesn't appear to be what anyone else got. What I got out of the service was this: you put in what you can afford to spend, and ecollegebid gives you a list of universities that you can afford. Or that are willing to accept what you can afford. I, personally, think this is a great service. Of course, I also think you can get the same information from a good Financial Aid calculator and a copy of the Princeton Review. But then, maybe I'm wrong.
As to all the foreigners (and, apparently, americans) who don't seem to think anyone can get a university education in this country, I'd like to say, you are wrong. Governmental loans, school scholarships, grants - the funding is there if you want to go to school. And just because you're an A+ student whose parents work at McDonald's, doesn't mean you a) can't go to Yale or Harvard if you *really* want to, or b) are 'settling' if you go to UNC or Michigan State or UCLA. State schools often have better funding for those who can't afford it, and are less expensive to begin with - but they're not second best schools. I work for one of the big-name private universities, but I wouldn't want to go to school here. Yeah, the atmosphere is neat, but even with my tuition discount, I can get by cheaper at one of the other state schools in the area - and get a better education in the field that I'm interested in (which the private school doesn't even really offer to any degree!). So less expensive does not necessarily equate to worse. And I do believe that anyone who is motivated to get an education can find the money to do so.
It seems to me that these problems wouldn't be an issue if people would register domains as they should. The big three top-level domains were created with a specific purpose/market in mind. .com should be registered for corporations and for-profit endevours (.com as in company). .org should be registered or organizations - non-profit, big-name organizations (like the American Cancer Society, Red Cross, etc), as well as the Triange Area Spider Silk Knitting Circle. .net are for network providers - ISPs and those they provide for.
.org and .per(.ind, whatever) would be less expensive (or free, provided you keep up the paperwork), while .com and .net could be more expensive - which companies could afford to pay because they save all the money they're spending now going around suing people for domain names/trademark infringement!
If people would register like this, it would make life far less confusing. As well, it would be nice if people *could* easilly register their local area domain name (ie: mur.rdu.nc.us) or even better, an individual or personal top-level domain address (mur.ind or mur.per or mur.tmd - this is my domain) which was specifically designed for personal web pages. Now, if they did something like this, they cold even stratify domain registration fees depending on the top-level domain you want -
Personally, I usually print out papers, projects, etc. that I'm writing for editing purposes. I find it harder on my eyes to read a computer monitor than a sheet of printed paper, and it's *far* easier to make editorial notes in the margins/line spacing when you're writing by hand. Erasing is still faster than backspacing (for me), and changing your mind is easier than having to cut and paste six or eight times.
When I've read through and edited things, then I go back and change them in the word processor. And print it out again, and go on from there. Editing is *far* easier on a hard copy than on a computer screen. Now, if I could make scribbles in the margins with a touch-sensitive screen and a pen, then *maybe* i'll stop doing that. But heck, it's only been the last few years that I actually can *compose* on a computer. Up until that point, I wrote everything long-hand first, then typed it, then went back to step A above in editing. So I'm saving *some* trees, at least.
Another note: when you're doing library searches, it's difficult to haul the monitor down the aisles with you. The librarians get upset if you mess too much with their computers, and the monitor cables aren't long enough anyway.
This is the author. Here's the story so far:
My husband called Qwest's 1-800# after being told that he could (finally - the first call to customer service yielded a 'you can only activate your account via our proprietary software'), and the guy on the phone told him to type some stuff in Win95. He faked it - taped some keys while he was on the phone, and when the guy told him to try it, he said he only had one phone line. So it was a few days later that we tried it - and, of course, it didn't work. Even escaping the funky characters in the username didn't help. The problem seems to be in the cl/username@qwestinternet.net that they assign - we keep getting an 'Invalid Login' error. I would assume the problem is in the fact that is *is* PAP and not PPP (which noone ever says), but we're not even getting past the login, so it seems to me it should be something else (unless the authentication is different between the two protocols). We're still working on trying to get it to work before going down the 'ditch Qwest and find another long distance carrier *again* road.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to get it working, please email me at mur@telebot.com. I don't want to discriminate against people who are so actively pro-M$ (especially when they're giving way-cool deals), and I still think that even the extra hassle is worth the $50+ savings/mo, but if it doesn't work *at all*, then they're cutting off a growing segment of the computing world for what? Ease of support? Lack of training? It's a pitifully easy thing to toss Linux on a test machine in the building somewhere, and let a couple of people play with it for a few days.
The article says that this is SOP when they find someone infringing on their trademark. And that they think that whenever someone hears that phrase, they think of AOL. But I have to wonder -
Yes, when I *hear* 'You've got mail(male)', I think of the silly AOL thingie that pops up to tell you that mail has just arrived in your in-box. However, this is a *book*. It is *obvious* that it is not 'mail', but 'male' (I mean, duh, it's right there in print). Yes, the woman is obviously making a play on a trademarked phrase, but she's *not* using the phrase! And instead of thinking, "Oh, this must be AOL!", people will think, "Wow, that's a cute turn of a phrase! I must have this book!" which is what I would assume is what she intended.
Will this 'trademark infringement' idea hold up in court? If it was a look-and-feel copyright case (like the iMac clone idea which I personally don't think has much of a leg to stand on anyway if it doesn't actually run MacOS), I can see them having a case ("well, it's a homophone, and so it *sounds* the same, even if it's not the same word! Therefore it has the same 'look-and-feel' of our trademarked phrase!"). But in this case? I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds to me like AOL has no sense of humor.
Besides, isn't 'You've Got Mail' as generic nowadays as 'Kotex' or 'Xerox' or 'Kleenex'? I mean, if I bring the snail mail in from the mailbox, I'd like to think I can call through the house, "Honey! You've got mail!' without AOL suing.
Or, in this case, the cow or the horse or the pig or the goat...
There are people *now* who have their infants or children tattooed for identification - just in case they get kidnapped or killed or whatnot. Heck, my mom used to threaten to have my lip tattooed if I forgot to take some ID with me in case something bad happened. She never did, but the sentiment is out there - keep our kids safe by marking them perminantly with something that identifies them as *ours*.
I'm not advocating this, and I'd never do it to my kids, but I can understand the sentiment - especially when there are hundreds of kids stolen or lost every year, and at least twice as many parents who can't stand the not knowing. People have even gone so far as to implant digital tracking devices in dogs and cats - and extrapolate use of them on children!
It's scary, but it's only symptomatic of the world we live in. That's pretty darn scary, too.
Actually, Red Hat is currently leasing their building. They moved to their current location in Durham months before their IPO. And I imagine they'd rather use their IPO dollars to open their west coast and europe offices than to spend extra money relocating in the Triangle a second time in a year. Besides, a day's downtime and the time spent packing up machines costs *far* less, I'm sure, than finding new office space in the Triangle, and moving again.
A friend of mine works tech support at Red Hat, and they spent yesterday shutting down and boxing up desktops and stuff so that if the roof blows off the building, they can relocate the office quickly.
Why is this a possible problem? Apparently, Red Hat's roof is only rated up to sustained winds of 60mph. Considering the last forcast put us at winds of 80+ mph when it hits the Triangle, it might take a little extra time for Red Hat to get things rolling again. I hope they *have* someplace to relocate to.
I do look forward to reading this book, though it probably won't be until after Christmas, when I buy it for my husband. I greatly enjoyed Ender's Game and the subsequent books (though they were getting decidedly strange towards the end...) and will no doubt enjoy this one as well.
I also look forward to seeing Ender's Game on the big screen. Especially with Card writing the screenplay - even if Peter and Valentine take a back seat and a lot of other things don't happen due to time constraints, I'm sure it will be an excellent movie. Even if Jake Lloyd ends up playing Ender. I'm sure if anyone can write a screenplay to do the feel of the book justice, it's Card. I've always thought that authors whose books get turned into movies should have the final say on the screenplay, since it's their ideas that end up on the screen.
Have there been more than rumors that Ender's Shadow will be filmed either concurrently or just after Ender's Game? I heard something about that - that they would be released within a year of each other, telling the same story from different perspectives. *that* would make for interesting movie marketing - how well can you sell a sequel that is really the same story? Has it been done? Barring remakes, of course. If Shakespeare had written 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern' a year after 'Hamlet', would the crowds have been as large to see it?
The next few years in sci fi films will be *very* interesting.
Now *here's* a robot contest I can get into! My husband and I are avid Lego collectors, though we haven't had the cash to break down and get any of the Mindstorms bits yet. But I can seriously see this sort of robotic contest being far more widely popular than the Aibo soccer contest. It involves as much in the way of construction as programming, and if you're short on parts, you only need go to your local Toys R Us or Wal*Mart for more! And it's on the low end inexpensive enough for not only Universities but High School/Middle School science groups to get into!
How can we get the information to organize a league in the US? Then we could have World Series Lego Vollyball and really find out who's better - The Brits or us Colonials.
A lot of people are debating the whole 'of course there are planes out there, we can't be the only one' arguement. But look at it statistically - If we assume that the universe can be represented by a bell curve (no, I'm not going to get into new-fangled 'natural' statistical curves here), then the solar system could, probability-wise, fall anywhere inside that curve (from our starting sample size of 1, we have no reference where to place ourselves).
So we start looking at the universe. We find a lot of stars, but none with obvious planets. Instead of consigning the Solar System to one of the tail ends of the bell curve, we assume we don't have equipment sensitive enough to detect planets yet (which we didn't.)
So we design better equipment. We start finding some (a few) Gas giants orbiting stars. And we go, "Ah-hah! See, we're not alone! We must fall somewhere within the center of the normal curve!" Yet still the sample size is small compared to the number of stars - which would really shove 'stars with Gas Giants' to outside one or two standard deviations, and 'stars with earth-sized planets' even further out, with a single sample we know of.
Now we find a (possible) star with another earth-type planet (Class M? Class L? When are scientists going to look up the Star Trek regs and tell us what Class Mars is?), and we say, "We are definately not unique." But look at the statistics - even with *2* systems with earth-sized planets, your sample is *miniscule* compared to the billions of stars! We could very well be in the extreme tail of the bell curve, and actually *be* unique in the universe!
Until SETI produces results, or an alien shows up on Prime Time TV during the President's State of the Union address, I don't think anyone will be able to say for sure that we are not alone. I, for one, believe that we cannot be - I cannot concieve of such a lonely universe. But we really don't have any proof to the contrary. yet. So, while this is very important, don't loose perpective on what it really means about our place in the universe.
Part of the problem I see with this while thing (and with astronomy in general) is that, depending on how far away this star is (and the article never said), we're seeing this 'earth-sized' planet probably *millions* of years ago. What was Earth like millions of years ago? Even thousands of years ago? A lot can happen in the amount of time light takes to travel from a distant star to earth - species come and go, cultures rise and fall... For all we know some aliens might have already blown the place up for an interstellar highway!
I used to try to sell Palms in a college bookstore, and 90% of our units sold to professors, doctors, or departments. Why? Two reasons: Price and 'technology'.
Palms are simply priced out of the average college student's market. Even at $229 for the cheapest unit, there's no way a college student could afford it. Now, at $149 or even $179, a college kid could scrimp a little on bar funds or donate plasma a couple of times and pick one of these cool puppies up. Or ask for one for christmas and actually maybe get it. If the plug-ins (literally!) cost under a hundred for useful modules, then better still! Imagine - an HP Calculator module that turns your palm into a high-end graphic calculator. What Engineering/Physics geek wouldn't drool over one?
Now, that second reason, 'technology'? The problem with a high-tech toy like this is that a good portion of college students have problems running word processors in computer labs - they just don't have the technological savvy that lends one to go, 'Oooh! I have to have one of those!', mostly because they don't understand it, can't get it to work, could never learn the shorthand... A myriad of reasons. However, something like this - something that with a mere plug-in of a module, changes the unit into something else equally useful - as long as it's relativly intuitive for use, could sell very well in a college market.
Even at $150, I'd be willing to shell out money for a *very* good calendar/address book in a college market. It would have come in handy to keep track of assignments and phone numbers when I was in school. Here's to Handspring, and the hopes that they spark a market for inexpensive, easy-to-use handhelds that even a Freshman Sorority-pledge can use.
I resemble that remark! Not all people who's VCRs flash 12:00 are utter morons, you know - some people have good reasons to leave their VCR flashing midnight (or is it noon?)
My VCR flashes 12:00 - well, really it flashes AUTO. Why? Because it's one of those auto-time-sensing VCRs that pick the time off of the datastream running through it to the television. And, for some unknown reason, my current cable company apparently doesn't include the time in the data they feed me.
You say I could set the clock? Sure, but then when the wind blew my power out, I'd be right back to square one. When you loose power an average of 2-3 times a week, resetting the vcr is a low priority.
As for Kermie promoting the V-chip... I'm not sure about that. How many parents are actually going to *enjoy* being talked down to by a stuffed green frog? Even fewer than would enjoy being explained the process by their children, I'm sure. Parents are *not* idiots, in the main. Even those who want to rely on some technological doohicky to babysit what their kids watch on TV rather than actually spending the time one needs to with remote in hand to do it yourself. Or spending the time discussing with children what they see on TV and explaining real versus fantasy vs televison and what is right and wrong.
However, Kermit's career's been rather dead of late. I'm sure he felt that any job was better than *no* job, and maybe he thought if he got his face out there, and got to talk to a more mature audience, he'd actually get a shot at some of the leading man roles in *real* films. Can't you just see Kermit the Frog in Total Recall 2? Or how about in Matrix 2 & 3, as a bad guy, even. Kermit's so typecast as the fun-loving, happy-go-lucky, all-around-nice green guy, I'm sure he's itching to do something more evil.
Be sure to look for Kermit the Frog as Mini Me in Austin Powers III.