Why are people working harder? BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO. Back in the baby boomer days, a house was reasonably priced, credit was easy to get, things didn't cost an arm and a leg, and people were far more interested in "finding themselves", etc.
Nowadays, with credit nigh on impossible to get thanks to decades of fraud, housing prices that basically amount to the highest bidder, rent going through the roof, and even a cup of coffee costing $3, you've got to keep running just to stay in place. Check out the homeless, especially the WORKING homeless (they work hard, but $7 an hour won't pay the rent...)
I never chased the IPO millions because I wanted to live high on the hog - it was so I wouldn't have to stress out and worry and try and make enough money to pay for rent, a car, etc.
It isn't technology - it's housing prices like $275,000 for a two bedroom shoebox with no land. It's gas at 1.90 a gallon. It's rent at $1200 for a 2 bedroom place, if you're lucky to find one.
I could join an ashram, and evade the ratrace, but unless you inherit a pile or get vested stock, you're on the treadmill for life.
Makes no difference... addiction is something you can't discriminate against someone for. You could test your employee's blood and find that he's wired on smack a lot of the time - but so long as he does his job competently, doesn't possess or take drugs on company property, etc etc YOU CANNOT FIRE HIM.
In order to change the paradigm, you have to go up against an existing one.
Windows.
To answer the question: "Why hasn't someone come up with a new idea in OS's?" "Well, maybe it's cause Billy Boy would buy it or bankrupt it in days."
"Why hasn't someone come up with a ring-sized personal PDA cybersurf whatever---"? Well, let's look at a hypothetical scenario.
"Hey! We've come up with a 3-D, head-mounted portable/wearable networked holographic system that can store 976 terabytes on a storage system the size of a matchstick with a breakthrough GUI OS so intuitive and incredible that even a Kalahari bushman can figure out!"
"Does it run Microsoft Office? I don't see a floppy drive. We have millions of dollars invested in Windows technology. Can't we leverage it? Won't this run Windows? Can I play my PC copy of DOOM on it?"
*phone rings*
"Looks like Microsoft found out about our innovation. They're sending the first wave of attack lawyers over now."
I am here with the spacecraft, sir, the Indestructible II.
What happened to Indestructible Mark I? It fell apart, sir.
Seriously though, I hope this doesn't become a trend, building your own rocket. Could you imagine the pickup lines at Slashdot conventions five years from now?
Hey, wanna be a member of the 90 mile high club?
Isn't the average trip time about thirty seconds?
Uh...
Wow, that says more about you than I think you wanted to say...
Hey, is that Alan Cox? (ducks out back as her head turns)
Micro$haft has a few things up its sleeve with this.
1) If they contain the world's data, I'm sure FINDTIDBITS.EXE will be the first "don't tell the world we've done this" app they'll code in-house.
You thought they had control over the markets now, wait til they have business data for every company in its servers... "Why is Bill Gates buying Company X all the sudden, and why is he dumping Company Y? Wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that he can browse all the data from both companies...
2) They'll expect people to sign up (read: put their tax documents, resumes, important dox etc) at the LOW price. Then suddenly the prices go W-R-E-N-C-H and it's pay that $50 a month, or you won't have access to your data.
3) And you'll need it: we have this special agreement with the government that in the name of protecting people from the spread of international communism, or protecting the children, whatever buzzword works this month - the government has the back door to all our data (a little deal with the DOJ heh heh heh). The IRS is gonna show up on Friday.
We come out with a version of C#, Cocktothorpe, Chash, whatever. Open source, multiple operating systems, cross platform support, faster, better, quicker, etc but OOP! It has some "incompatibilities" with Micro$of+ Csh.
Turnabout's fair play - why don't we embrace, extend, extinguish?
Keep in mind, while we're bashing MFC and talking about object orientation, that MFC is NOT properly OO designed.
Microsoft actually inform its inner circle that yes, the proper thing to do in its framework design would have been to use inheritance and virtual functions, etc... but instead, it found that its code was faster when using MESSAGE MAPS and MACROS instead.
So guess what - the novice programmer, having been lured in by the gateway drug of Visual Basic (the "Lego" of Windows programming - just drag the BUTTON onto the FORM and double click on it to get the "Button Click" function) just sees MFC "classes" as the equivalent to those little thingies you drag and drop on Forms, only you use the ClassWizard instead of the GUI to do it.
MFC courses and books teach you just enough C++ to know that you use the class name as a type
CMFCClass theClass;
and dot notation to use functions therein
theClass.doSomething();
And here endeth the C++ lesson.
The tools are good to get people productive when doing repetitive tasks, but when used instead of understanding of how things work, trouble's a brewin.
1) Open Source - you can see what the code is you're running with. So if you have problems (why doesn't this work in NT but it works in 98?) you can actually step through what the OS is doing.
2) A purer environment - A lot of Windows programming is MFC twiddling. Yes you can end up messing with Win32 primitives directly, but a lot of the time a lot of the folks just want you to run the AppWizard and then tweak something undocumented like RectTracker.
I would NEVER have gotten to know C++ and OO design as well as I have without experience outside of Windows.
3) Your choice of development environments, windowing environments, et. al.
4) When was the last time you could email someone to explain part of the Windows kernel source to you?
1) The big shiny box gets customer attention. We like customer attention. The customer is paying for the box anyway, may as well make it nice... it certainly won't cost us.
2) Customer sees CD in jewel case, that's it, and thinks "This is OEM sofware, so I should get a break on the price." enter customer whining (come on, $500? It's just a little box!)- amazing how a $400 program is suddenly worth $50 in the mind's eye of the customer just cause it doesn't have a $2 box around it. If that $2 box makes it worth $400 in the customer eye, I want it.
3) Notice how in the olden days you got big printed manuals as well as the jewel case? Not any more - now it's on CD - big cost savings for them, no price break for the consumer.
4) You're paying for this in WAY more ways than you know.
1) Floor space costs money. 2) Shipping costs money - and it's done by cubic inches, as well as weight. 3) Inks, dyes, paper, plastic wrap, etc. costs money. Guess who pays for it? 4) It costs more for the employee to move 70 copies of large boxes than 70 jewel cases.
This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that will rocket Linux not only on the desktop, but PAST the desktop!
OK OK I don't know what the hip marketing term is, but the idea of having collaborations of developers working on a common COMPONENT platform (esp. distributed ones!) means more than cute little controls in Web pages - it means that Linux can finally start kicking some serious tail, building applications that span networks.
Here's my socket component! Great, add these common widgets, you have a distributed application that we can run across the Internet or all our educational or company networks.
It means that you'll start seeing hundreds more applications quick fast in a hurry as people start building bigger Lego blocks from the littler LEGO blocks...
Then all you'll need is some DLL so that Windoze and a shared library for Macs so that Macs can run these parts, and you'll start to see Linux take over beyond what we have now.
Linux shouldn't just catch up to the desktop - it should catapult beyond that into the Net sphere. Windows is already trying to move away from the desktop OS into distributed computing services with components, if Linux can get there first and better it'll own that space.
can be printed in its entirety within one page. How many graphics cards does Be support? Four? I've tried installing it on several machines, and the range of things it supports is EXTREMELY limited...
Computer geeks live for the exciting heart-pounding sound of a computer start up sound.
No, I am NOT talking about the Brian Eno New Age chord swell of Microsloth Windows - I'm talking about the beep-chugchugchugchug sound of an Apple II booting from floppy - one of those solid metal cases.
The fan gives out a pleasing, meditation assisting fluting noise. The hum of the machine is a friendly, purring cat type of noise. Even the high-pitched whine of the monitor, barely audible, is music.
I'm not sneaking up on an enemy ninja from behind with one of these things, I'm creating a brave new world. So bugger off if you want quiet. Go and live underwater. I for one enjoy the choral swell of my machines.
Here you go, my dear. What is it Ralph? 25 pounds of DNA. Uh, thanks, I guess....
But seriously though, I realise that the Scientific American was for Bio/Chem/Biochem geeks, but what's the practical upshot of this? Seriously, why would you bother making a "backup" of your DNA?
...of years, then why don't they have a technology and/or some kind of civilisation? It would seem to me that the zenith of evolution isn't being an inch long, hairy, and prone to being an utter nuisance by infesting everywhere.
No wonder the slack jawed yokel types in Kansas and Tennessee are upset at the idea of evolution. I agree - if evolution makes a large, ugly hairy bug we can't kill very well, then where can I vote against it?
Of course, even though they don't have much of a brain or technology or civilisation, at least they have culture - quite a few cultures, actually, which they'll be more than happy to transmit to your toothbrush at 2 am.
1) The number of decals, T-shirts, etc. of that particular driver on sale at Wal Mart, Tennessean strip mall racin' memorabilia shops, etc.
2) The inebriation level of the audience.
3) How many teeth the average audience member has.
4) Amount of advertising revenue the driver has at that moment from snack foods, breakfast dishes at Denny's, etc
5) The number of "Stone Cold Steve Austin" shirts in the audience
6) Number of cases of "new, NASA grade surfractant synthetic polyamorous engine lubricant performance engine oil" audience members are considering buying even though audience members have on average 2 cars, one of which is held together with duct tape and Bondo and the other of which is on blocks in front of the trailer
7) Number of people that actually have the revelation that you're awarding someone a trophy for DRIVING IN A CIRCLE REAL FAST.
8) Number of people incensed at some weird ending (they have to pace lap the last three laps or something cause Jeff Gordon made someone clip him and he always does that, I hate Jeff Gordon yee haw ah seckind that, pass the Jack Danyils, etc)
It's called Techno. Advantage of that type of music is that you only need to play two keys on the cell phone - and if you mess up and skip a few times, call it a break beat.
Actually, you could have fun with this - program something like the Tocata and Fugue in D minor into it and have it play at random points in time, and pretend you have one of those Hong Kong bleach blonde boy phones.
Nope, can't have a simple ring, some people have to have "Flight of a Bumble Bee" playing everytime someone wants to call them. So...
for some real fun program something topical or just plain weird. "Ave Maria" and then hand it to the priest beside you on the subway ("it's for you.") Or "(I'm a) Loser" everytime you see one of these GAP types. ("paging you, sir.")
At a Microsoft meeting, Bill's whining about being set back five years in his plan to become Bill Vader... and suddenly "You can't always get what you want" comes blasting... ("Message for you, Bill.")
Or, when Microsoft gets its way, program it to play "U Can't Touch This" around the Judge overseeing the proceedings...
Yeah, and the next thing'd be "I'm sorry, Mr. Xfzyxl Splorch; I need the State on your address. It won't let me put Arcturus in. Which state is Arcturus in?"
"It's not in a state! It's up there!" (points to sky)
"OK, well, what's your ZIP code?"
"Arcturus doesn't have ZIP codes!"
(getting hufty)"Yeah, well, ah cain't do this without a state an' a ZIP code..."
Seems like "space mission" is now one of the options available on the "500 Electronic Projects" lab.
"Wilson! WHY IS THE SHUTTLE LAUNCH NOT ON SCHEDULE?"
"We've lost all the little white wires on the shag rug in the living room, sir."
Or worse, try going into Radio Shack for an ablation shield and having one of the three things happen...
1) They don't have any parts, but would you like to buy a "Genesis" brand Stereo for twice the cost of other brands? (conspiratorial wink) They've got Sony guts, you know".
2) Mall security shows up and demands to know which hacker group you're with. Radio Shack throws the FBI switch in a panic, worried that they've got another Mitnick on their hands.
3) The damn thing takes AA batteries, and that's the only bin of batteries that's empty.
I'd like to be able to use a chaingun against that little "I drop parchment notes all over the place" ponce at the end...
Instead of not being able to get to the island until you crack that "Price Is Right" game style code, just find the bio-suit and swim there.
Or, you know, it could backfire. Imagine multiplayer deathmatch Myst without weaponry? "ha har, I've got the book of matches! Now you're stranded!"
Could we ask for a realtime version of "Club Mode?" Never mind the stupid "patented and revolutionary "mood bar" technology" - let me at those pretentious caviar eater granola crunching limousine liberal philosopher kings with a BFG. It'd come on 764 CDs, but hey, that's less CDs than I get per month from AOL.
we'll be able to figure out how to get rid of those near constant "Clippy of the Internet" "Sign up for AOL Messaging Today!" ads that pop up when running certain versions of Netscape?
VASIMR - isn't that short for Vapid Americans Say Is Metric Required?
Or, in layman's terms, "Oh crap, they calculated it in inches even though the rest of the world put their contributions in in metric. Oh well, a few more billion dollars down the tube..."
Slashdot Mirror
Whereabouts is this?
Anywhere that is even remotely livable has that kind of problem!
you're blaming the wrong thing.
Why are people working harder? BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO. Back in the baby boomer days, a house was reasonably priced, credit was easy to get, things didn't cost an arm and a leg, and people were far more interested in "finding themselves", etc.
Nowadays, with credit nigh on impossible to get thanks to decades of fraud, housing prices that basically amount to the highest bidder, rent going through the roof, and even a cup of coffee costing $3, you've got to keep running just to stay in place. Check out the homeless, especially the WORKING homeless (they work hard, but $7 an hour won't pay the rent...)
I never chased the IPO millions because I wanted to live high on the hog - it was so I wouldn't have to stress out and worry and try and make enough money to pay for rent, a car, etc.
It isn't technology - it's housing prices like $275,000 for a two bedroom shoebox with no land. It's gas at 1.90 a gallon. It's rent at $1200 for a 2 bedroom place, if you're lucky to find one.
I could join an ashram, and evade the ratrace, but unless you inherit a pile or get vested stock, you're on the treadmill for life.
Makes no difference... addiction is something you can't discriminate against someone for. You could test your employee's blood and find that he's wired on smack a lot of the time - but so long as he does his job competently, doesn't possess or take drugs on company property, etc etc YOU CANNOT FIRE HIM.
In order to change the paradigm, you have to go up against an existing one.
Windows.
To answer the question: "Why hasn't someone come up with a new idea in OS's?" "Well, maybe it's cause Billy Boy would buy it or bankrupt it in days."
"Why hasn't someone come up with a ring-sized personal PDA cybersurf whatever---"? Well, let's look at a hypothetical scenario.
"Hey! We've come up with a 3-D, head-mounted portable/wearable networked holographic system that can store 976 terabytes on a storage system the size of a matchstick with a breakthrough GUI OS so intuitive and incredible that even a Kalahari bushman can figure out!"
"Does it run Microsoft Office? I don't see a floppy drive. We have millions of dollars invested in Windows technology. Can't we leverage it? Won't this run Windows? Can I play my PC copy of DOOM on it?"
*phone rings*
"Looks like Microsoft found out about our innovation. They're sending the first wave of attack lawyers over now."
Evenin' viewers!
I am here with the spacecraft, sir, the Indestructible II.
What happened to Indestructible Mark I? It fell apart, sir.
Seriously though, I hope this doesn't become a trend, building your own rocket. Could you imagine the pickup lines at Slashdot conventions five years from now?
Hey, wanna be a member of the 90 mile high club?
Isn't the average trip time about thirty seconds?
Uh...
Wow, that says more about you than I think you wanted to say...
Hey, is that Alan Cox? (ducks out back as her head turns)
I was exaggerating to make a point
Micro$haft has a few things up its sleeve with this.
1) If they contain the world's data, I'm sure FINDTIDBITS.EXE will be the first "don't tell the world we've done this" app they'll code in-house.
You thought they had control over the markets now, wait til they have business data for every company in its servers... "Why is Bill Gates buying Company X all the sudden, and why is he dumping Company Y? Wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that he can browse all the data from both companies...
2) They'll expect people to sign up (read: put their tax documents, resumes, important dox etc) at the LOW price. Then suddenly the prices go W-R-E-N-C-H and it's pay that $50 a month, or you won't have access to your data.
3) And you'll need it: we have this special agreement with the government that in the name of protecting people from the spread of international communism, or protecting the children, whatever buzzword works this month - the government has the back door to all our data (a little deal with the DOJ heh heh heh). The IRS is gonna show up on Friday.
That would lead to
g!c# (GnuNotCSharp)
Eventually a newer version will have to come out...
!C#++
whose GNU implementation would be g!c#++
Oh man, I can see it now
g!c#++ main.!c#++ main.!h#++
We come out with a version of C#, Cocktothorpe, Chash, whatever. Open source, multiple operating systems, cross platform support, faster, better, quicker, etc but OOP! It has some "incompatibilities" with Micro$of+ Csh.
Turnabout's fair play - why don't we embrace, extend, extinguish?
We can call it !C#
Keep in mind, while we're bashing MFC and talking about object orientation, that MFC is NOT properly OO designed.
Microsoft actually inform its inner circle that yes, the proper thing to do in its framework design would have been to use inheritance and virtual functions, etc... but instead, it found that its code was faster when using MESSAGE MAPS and MACROS instead.
So guess what - the novice programmer, having been lured in by the gateway drug of Visual Basic (the "Lego" of Windows programming - just drag the BUTTON onto the FORM and double click on it to get the "Button Click" function) just sees MFC "classes" as the equivalent to those little thingies you drag and drop on Forms, only you use the ClassWizard instead of the GUI to do it.
MFC courses and books teach you just enough C++ to know that you use the class name as a type
CMFCClass theClass;
and dot notation to use functions therein
theClass.doSomething();
And here endeth the C++ lesson.
The tools are good to get people productive when doing repetitive tasks, but when used instead of understanding of how things work, trouble's a brewin.
1) Open Source - you can see what the code is you're running with. So if you have problems (why doesn't this work in NT but it works in 98?) you can actually step through what the OS is doing.
2) A purer environment - A lot of Windows programming is MFC twiddling. Yes you can end up messing with Win32 primitives directly, but a lot of the time a lot of the folks just want you to run the AppWizard and then tweak something undocumented like RectTracker.
I would NEVER have gotten to know C++ and OO design as well as I have without experience outside of Windows.
3) Your choice of development environments, windowing environments, et. al.
4) When was the last time you could email someone to explain part of the Windows kernel source to you?
1) The big shiny box gets customer attention. We like customer attention. The customer is paying for the box anyway, may as well make it nice... it certainly won't cost us.
2) Customer sees CD in jewel case, that's it, and thinks "This is OEM sofware, so I should get a break on the price." enter customer whining (come on, $500? It's just a little box!)- amazing how a $400 program is suddenly worth $50 in the mind's eye of the customer just cause it doesn't have a $2 box around it. If that $2 box makes it worth $400 in the customer eye, I want it.
3) Notice how in the olden days you got big printed manuals as well as the jewel case? Not any more - now it's on CD - big cost savings for them, no price break for the consumer.
4) You're paying for this in WAY more ways than you know.
1) Floor space costs money.
2) Shipping costs money - and it's done by cubic inches, as well as weight.
3) Inks, dyes, paper, plastic wrap, etc. costs money. Guess who pays for it?
4) It costs more for the employee to move 70 copies of large boxes than 70 jewel cases.
This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that will rocket Linux not only on the desktop, but PAST the desktop!
OK OK I don't know what the hip marketing term is, but the idea of having collaborations of developers working on a common COMPONENT platform (esp. distributed ones!) means more than cute little controls in Web pages - it means that Linux can finally start kicking some serious tail, building applications that span networks.
Here's my socket component! Great, add these common widgets, you have a distributed application that we can run across the Internet or all our educational or company networks.
It means that you'll start seeing hundreds more applications quick fast in a hurry as people start building bigger Lego blocks from the littler LEGO blocks...
Then all you'll need is some DLL so that Windoze and a shared library for Macs so that Macs can run these parts, and you'll start to see Linux take over beyond what we have now.
Linux shouldn't just catch up to the desktop - it should catapult beyond that into the Net sphere. Windows is already trying to move away from the desktop OS into distributed computing services with components, if Linux can get there first and better it'll own that space.
can be printed in its entirety within one page. How many graphics cards does Be support? Four? I've tried installing it on several machines, and the range of things it supports is EXTREMELY limited...
Computer geeks live for the exciting heart-pounding sound of a computer start up sound.
No, I am NOT talking about the Brian Eno New Age chord swell of Microsloth Windows - I'm talking about the beep-chugchugchugchug sound of an Apple II booting from floppy - one of those solid metal cases.
The fan gives out a pleasing, meditation assisting fluting noise. The hum of the machine is a friendly, purring cat type of noise. Even the high-pitched whine of the monitor, barely audible, is music.
I'm not sneaking up on an enemy ninja from behind with one of these things, I'm creating a brave new world. So bugger off if you want quiet. Go and live underwater. I for one enjoy the choral swell of my machines.
So you can amplify your DNA...
I didn't realise mine wasn't loud enough.
Here you go, my dear. What is it Ralph? 25 pounds of DNA. Uh, thanks, I guess....
But seriously though, I realise that the Scientific American was for Bio/Chem/Biochem geeks, but what's the practical upshot of this? Seriously, why would you bother making a "backup" of your DNA?
...of years, then why don't they have a technology and/or some kind of civilisation? It would seem to me that the zenith of evolution isn't being an inch long, hairy, and prone to being an utter nuisance by infesting everywhere.
No wonder the slack jawed yokel types in Kansas and Tennessee are upset at the idea of evolution. I agree - if evolution makes a large, ugly hairy bug we can't kill very well, then where can I vote against it?
Of course, even though they don't have much of a brain or technology or civilisation, at least they have culture - quite a few cultures, actually, which they'll be more than happy to transmit to your toothbrush at 2 am.
Why bother?
Seems to me that that kind of thing is for people too dumb to figure out the rules to a tractor pull.
Heck, I'd watch that if I could see readouts of:
1) The number of decals, T-shirts, etc. of that particular driver on sale at Wal Mart, Tennessean strip mall racin' memorabilia shops, etc.
2) The inebriation level of the audience.
3) How many teeth the average audience member has.
4) Amount of advertising revenue the driver has at that moment from snack foods, breakfast dishes at Denny's, etc
5) The number of "Stone Cold Steve Austin" shirts in the audience
6) Number of cases of "new, NASA grade surfractant synthetic polyamorous engine lubricant performance engine oil" audience members are considering buying even though audience members have on average 2 cars, one of which is held together with duct tape and Bondo and the other of which is on blocks in front of the trailer
7) Number of people that actually have the revelation that you're awarding someone a trophy for DRIVING IN A CIRCLE REAL FAST.
8) Number of people incensed at some weird ending (they have to pace lap the last three laps or something cause Jeff Gordon made someone clip him and he always does that, I hate Jeff Gordon yee haw ah seckind that, pass the Jack Danyils, etc)
It's called Techno. Advantage of that type of music is that you only need to play two keys on the cell phone - and if you mess up and skip a few times, call it a break beat.
Actually, you could have fun with this - program something like the Tocata and Fugue in D minor into it and have it play at random points in time, and pretend you have one of those Hong Kong bleach blonde boy phones.
Nope, can't have a simple ring, some people have to have "Flight of a Bumble Bee" playing everytime someone wants to call them. So...
for some real fun program something topical or just plain weird. "Ave Maria" and then hand it to the priest beside you on the subway ("it's for you.") Or "(I'm a) Loser" everytime you see one of these GAP types. ("paging you, sir.")
At a Microsoft meeting, Bill's whining about being set back five years in his plan to become Bill Vader... and suddenly "You can't always get what you want" comes blasting... ("Message for you, Bill.")
Or, when Microsoft gets its way, program it to play "U Can't Touch This" around the Judge overseeing the proceedings...
Yeah, and the next thing'd be "I'm sorry, Mr. Xfzyxl Splorch; I need the State on your address. It won't let me put Arcturus in. Which state is Arcturus in?"
"It's not in a state! It's up there!" (points to sky)
"OK, well, what's your ZIP code?"
"Arcturus doesn't have ZIP codes!"
(getting hufty)"Yeah, well, ah cain't do this without a state an' a ZIP code..."
Seems like "space mission" is now one of the options available on the "500 Electronic Projects" lab.
"Wilson! WHY IS THE SHUTTLE LAUNCH NOT ON SCHEDULE?"
"We've lost all the little white wires on the shag rug in the living room, sir."
Or worse, try going into Radio Shack for an ablation shield and having one of the three things happen...
1) They don't have any parts, but would you like to buy a "Genesis" brand Stereo for twice the cost of other brands? (conspiratorial wink) They've got Sony guts, you know".
2) Mall security shows up and demands to know which hacker group you're with. Radio Shack throws the FBI switch in a panic, worried that they've got another Mitnick on their hands.
3) The damn thing takes AA batteries, and that's the only bin of batteries that's empty.
I'd like to be able to use a chaingun against that little "I drop parchment notes all over the place" ponce at the end...
Instead of not being able to get to the island until you crack that "Price Is Right" game style code, just find the bio-suit and swim there.
Or, you know, it could backfire. Imagine multiplayer deathmatch Myst without weaponry? "ha har, I've got the book of matches! Now you're stranded!"
Could we ask for a realtime version of "Club Mode?" Never mind the stupid "patented and revolutionary "mood bar" technology" - let me at those pretentious caviar eater granola crunching limousine liberal philosopher kings with a BFG. It'd come on 764 CDs, but hey, that's less CDs than I get per month from AOL.
we'll be able to figure out how to get rid of those near constant "Clippy of the Internet" "Sign up for AOL Messaging Today!" ads that pop up when running certain versions of Netscape?
VASIMR - isn't that short for Vapid Americans Say Is Metric Required?
Or, in layman's terms, "Oh crap, they calculated it in inches even though the rest of the world put their contributions in in metric. Oh well, a few more billion dollars down the tube..."
Or "The mother of all fireworks..."