Hardly missed it. I live in Baltimore, some 80 miles downstream. Strangely enough, despite all the press, neither streams of refugees nor hordes of mutants ever materialized. In fact, not a hell of a lot really happened, except that the safety systems ended up working and the containment building contained the problem, inelegantly but effectively. Peach Bottom keeps running, and so does Calvert Cliffs, and I don't have X-ray vision or super strength or anything.
Several horrifying disasters later? Chernobyl obviously qualifies, but what else did I miss?
Re:First they came for the Indians...
on
Shop Till It Drops
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· Score: 2
Well, it seems to me that if you know that the first item over the scanner is going to initiate the transaction, why slide your card before that point? But yes, in general it seems like there's some weird communication issues there -- I don't get why I tell the machine "credit" and then tell the cashier "credit" as well.
Now what happens if you tell the machine "credit" and the human "debit"?
(BTW, if your bank is like my bank, "debit" is costing you like $.75 each time. Try for a Visa check card -- credit transactions, which still come right out of checking just like debit, cost you nada.)
Re:First they came for the Indians...
on
Shop Till It Drops
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· Score: 2
I'm afraid you give me too much credit. I don't care if it's more efficient -- I just like to hear the machine say, "Ple..." because I was just too fast for it. I don't think the transaction actually goes any faster. It may even take longer.
Re:First they came for the Indians...
on
Shop Till It Drops
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· Score: 3, Funny
Look at grocery checkout lines - I'm sure you've all seen the image recognition lines that photograph and weigh your items and let you check them out yourselves.
Not in my town, unless bar-code scanners count as "image recognition". I imagine that camera over the touchscreen (I'm thinking of the A&P setup) is for security to glance over and see if you've tucked a steak into your pants.
Me, I like those things, but then again, I remember seeing a list of "Real Geek" qualities once, and I think number 3 was "Knowing that you could scan items faster than the clerk if only you had the chance". Well, now I have the chance.
My favourite game is to anticipate each step, so that I swipe my card through just as the machine starts its "Press 'Credit' on the card reader...", so that each sentence gets truncated to just the first syllable. It's a rich and full life I lead.:)
Which two letters? I was thinking "H" and "R", because there seem to be a number of people over there doing quite well with "HRH" in front of their names, but I wasn't sure if you counted that as two letters or three. "MD" seems to be pretty good too.
Really. Completely, totally, and stupidly absurd. My, aren't we absolute.
Tell me, if I buy a book on tape, is that to be listened to thrice daily? If I buy a reference work, am I disallowed from referring to it more than once a year? Maybe a classification based entirely on medium is a little rigid, huh?
Me, I have records that I don't listen to very often. Yes, a year might go by before I drag out some of them (I probably hit London Calling about every three months.) Others I listen to more frequently (although frankly, if you're listening to stuff three times a day I'm inclined to think that you either need more music in your life or a little therapy, but that's neither here nor there.)
I orginally simply asked a question, whether the two seem similar to you. Apparently they don't. Relax. Play something you haven't listened to for a while. Read a magazine.
I usually get paperbacks, or at least trade paperbacks, but there are times...recently I was buying yet another copy of Lord of the Rings, and I thought that it was about time I got it in hardback, since I had pretty much read the paper ones to death over they years. Ironically, about two days after I bought The Two Towers my wife's puppy shredded it, making it by far the shortest-lived copy.
Still, in spite of their bulk, weight, and expense, hardbacks are simply longer-lasting, by and large. I hate to look at some of the paperbacks I bought 25 years ago, and I have some from the 50's (granted, cheap editions) that shed papges like my dog sheds hair, whereas I have a few hardback books from ~1900 that are doing just fine.
Yes, many stores will take a book back under those circumstances (although I'm a little puzzled with Amazon: on the one hand, one can return "Any book in its original condition", but on the other hand, "We cannot accept returns of opened items"), but I wouldn't bank on it. Mostly I'm just curious how righteous you'd feel.
I might return a book if the contents simply didn't match the jacket, in the sense that a book labeled Pearl Diving for Fun and Profit: A How To Guide turned out to be a book of motorcycle repair, but not a novel whose qualities are largely subjective. I don't think many people would return The Last of the Mohicans just because Cooper was a terrible writer, or The Castle because it's depressing, so why are so many people so much more aggressive when it comes to CD's, which typically cost less than good hardcovers?
The only way for me to know if I like a mystery novel is to buy it, get home, turn the lights on, lie back on my sofa, and read the whole book from start to finish. Then I'll be able to tell you if I like it. And if I don't, I want to be able to return it for a full refund.
I'm curious -- does this seem equally reasonable to you?
You want truly 50/50? Bet a color or odd/even on roulette.
Nope. You're forgetting the zeroes which, as I understand it, are neither red nor black, and neither even nor odd. Me, if I want to get rid of extra money, I just set fire to it at home and save myself the plane fare to Vegas.
You are speaking of a man who had been talking to a crudely decorated coconut and an inflatable toy, you know. (And somebody needs to talk to his continuity people...that toy was there for a segment before he found it.)
Nope. You want to use patented technology, or any other special feature, then add it, or hire someone else to add it for you, and use it all you want. Nobody is stopping you (with the possible exception of the patent holder, of course, but that's a different issue.)
Re:He's an Atari 2600 programmer ...
on
Atari 2600 Hacks
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· Score: 2
Black Mask was a mystery magazine, a mag in which the likes of Dashiell Hammet, Paul Cain, and Raymond Chandler were published.
Re:My (not-so-much) wild GUI ideas
on
GUIs for Everyone
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· Score: 2
Your first point reminds me of an article I recall from many moons ago. Niklaus Wirth (I think), one more professor, and two grad students had just about wrapped up a windowing OS (M'soft had just announced that nobody would ever do "another Windows", because Windows represented something like 10, 000 man-years of programming), and one of their comments was that they had tossed arbitrarily-sized windows, that by making all windows integer fractions of the screen they had been able to eliminate enormous masses of code. They also did away with pictoral icons, reasoning that everybody reads the little label anyway, so why waste horspower drawing the little picture?
But why is the risk assumed to have increased? The authority to use weapons of mass destruction hasn't changed. It's not like corporals are given atomic bombs to use as they see fit.
We used to flatten a city in an attempt to destroy a single ball bearing plant. Now we can often not only hit just the plant, but do so at night when the workers are at home. The motivation for hugely destructive weapons, like hydrogen bombs, is tremendously reduced.
I guess people just missed it. Nuclear weapons aren't expensive. They were attractive because they were cheap, and we're less likely to use them when we're willing to spend a few bucks. Take a deep breath and read that again.
A nuclear missle is expensive compared to a tank, or even a brigade of tanks, but compared to a division of tanks? Cheap! The US built a large nuclear arsenal because we were afraid of having to fight a huge conventional war with the USSR, and neither the American public nor, God knows, the European public, were willing to sustain the kind of massive forces that would have required. Millions of men, with millions of salaries, and gas, and food, and lodging, and ammunition -- no wonder we thought in terms of battlefield nukes. But we don't have to do that anymore, and we don't.
Do you think we're likely to destroy the world with Tomahawks? Those things carry a 1,000 pound warhead, or about 1/20 the explosives that were carried by a WW II B-17, a plane typically used several hundred at a time. It would take one hell of a lot of them to destroy Rhode Island, much less the world.
Let me put it another way: the Hiroshima bomb was about a 15-kiloton weapon. That makes Hiroshima a 30, 000 Tomahawk bomb. AFAIK, we neither have nor intend ever to manufacture as many as that.
Re:When will society and government learn
on
Spy Fly
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· Score: 2
No, it's meant to point out that the argument that weapons cause wars appears to be shaky. Nations who spend a great deal on weapons sometimes fight wars. Nations that don't have squat except sticks and clubs sometimes fight wars. The common thread to war appears not to be defense budgets.
It's worth noting, for instance, that with all the expensive high-tech stuff we have these days, our record for attempted genocide was considerably worse when the most sophisticated weapons possessed by the US were repeating rifles and infected blankets. On the face of it, possession of nuclear weapons has made us more, not less, careful of our actions in combat. Our standards have risen.
I find the outrage at the Chinese Embassy strike illuminating. Back in the halcyon days of World War II, before all the monkeys and buttons, keeping the bombs within a mile of the designated target was pretty good work. Mention of "the wrong building" would have elicited horse laughs from any bomber pilot, and "the wrong city" wasn't unknown.
Most of the recent increases in defense spending have been toward increasingly precise weapons that focus intense violence on smaller areas. The effect is to allow flexibility and choice. There is no "button", and hasn't been for years, because there are many options for military response besides simply pulling the pin and killing everybody. Doctor Strangelove wasn't a documentary.
Re:When will society and government learn
on
Spy Fly
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· Score: 3, Insightful
That you cannot invest all this money and effort, into destruction, without destroying the world as the result.
Hmmm...I have to point out that, so far, you're wrong. We've been spending all this money for almost 50 years and the world is still here. Is there a basis for your idea?
Re:destruction of the asteroid via nuclear means
on
A Rock Moves In Space
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· Score: 2
Yup, 466 miles sure sounds like space to me. OK, I've learned something (Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better!)
Re:destruction of the asteroid via nuclear means
on
A Rock Moves In Space
·
· Score: 2
"Nuclear weapons have been tested in space." Excuse me? Is this a typo, or have I missed something?
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Hardly missed it. I live in Baltimore, some 80 miles downstream. Strangely enough, despite all the press, neither streams of refugees nor hordes of mutants ever materialized. In fact, not a hell of a lot really happened, except that the safety systems ended up working and the containment building contained the problem, inelegantly but effectively. Peach Bottom keeps running, and so does Calvert Cliffs, and I don't have X-ray vision or super strength or anything.
Several horrifying disasters later? Chernobyl obviously qualifies, but what else did I miss?
Now what happens if you tell the machine "credit" and the human "debit"?
(BTW, if your bank is like my bank, "debit" is costing you like $.75 each time. Try for a Visa check card -- credit transactions, which still come right out of checking just like debit, cost you nada.)
I'm afraid you give me too much credit. I don't care if it's more efficient -- I just like to hear the machine say, "Ple..." because I was just too fast for it. I don't think the transaction actually goes any faster. It may even take longer.
Not in my town, unless bar-code scanners count as "image recognition". I imagine that camera over the touchscreen (I'm thinking of the A&P setup) is for security to glance over and see if you've tucked a steak into your pants.
Me, I like those things, but then again, I remember seeing a list of "Real Geek" qualities once, and I think number 3 was "Knowing that you could scan items faster than the clerk if only you had the chance". Well, now I have the chance.
My favourite game is to anticipate each step, so that I swipe my card through just as the machine starts its "Press 'Credit' on the card reader...", so that each sentence gets truncated to just the first syllable. It's a rich and full life I lead. :)
Which two letters? I was thinking "H" and "R", because there seem to be a number of people over there doing quite well with "HRH" in front of their names, but I wasn't sure if you counted that as two letters or three. "MD" seems to be pretty good too.
It looks like it does, yes. For sure you can query LDAP directories, but I'm less sure of being able to make changes to them.
Tell me, if I buy a book on tape, is that to be listened to thrice daily? If I buy a reference work, am I disallowed from referring to it more than once a year? Maybe a classification based entirely on medium is a little rigid, huh?
Me, I have records that I don't listen to very often. Yes, a year might go by before I drag out some of them (I probably hit London Calling about every three months.) Others I listen to more frequently (although frankly, if you're listening to stuff three times a day I'm inclined to think that you either need more music in your life or a little therapy, but that's neither here nor there.)
I orginally simply asked a question, whether the two seem similar to you. Apparently they don't. Relax. Play something you haven't listened to for a while. Read a magazine.
Still, in spite of their bulk, weight, and expense, hardbacks are simply longer-lasting, by and large. I hate to look at some of the paperbacks I bought 25 years ago, and I have some from the 50's (granted, cheap editions) that shed papges like my dog sheds hair, whereas I have a few hardback books from ~1900 that are doing just fine.
I might return a book if the contents simply didn't match the jacket, in the sense that a book labeled Pearl Diving for Fun and Profit: A How To Guide turned out to be a book of motorcycle repair, but not a novel whose qualities are largely subjective. I don't think many people would return The Last of the Mohicans just because Cooper was a terrible writer, or The Castle because it's depressing, so why are so many people so much more aggressive when it comes to CD's, which typically cost less than good hardcovers?
I'm curious -- does this seem equally reasonable to you?
Nope. You're forgetting the zeroes which, as I understand it, are neither red nor black, and neither even nor odd. Me, if I want to get rid of extra money, I just set fire to it at home and save myself the plane fare to Vegas.
The whole point of engineering is cost -- using the minimum resources to maximum effect. Designing without cost is called "magic".
Huh...didn't get that. OK, I'll watch for it to be on again, and see if it makes more sense to me. Thanks.
You are speaking of a man who had been talking to a crudely decorated coconut and an inflatable toy, you know. (And somebody needs to talk to his continuity people...that toy was there for a segment before he found it.)
Nope. You want to use patented technology, or any other special feature, then add it, or hire someone else to add it for you, and use it all you want. Nobody is stopping you (with the possible exception of the patent holder, of course, but that's a different issue.)
Tell me about it. :(
No you're not, although I like "How Long" more.
Black Mask was a mystery magazine, a mag in which the likes of Dashiell Hammet, Paul Cain, and Raymond Chandler were published.
Ah, thank Google. I think it was Oberon.
We used to flatten a city in an attempt to destroy a single ball bearing plant. Now we can often not only hit just the plant, but do so at night when the workers are at home. The motivation for hugely destructive weapons, like hydrogen bombs, is tremendously reduced.
I guess people just missed it. Nuclear weapons aren't expensive. They were attractive because they were cheap, and we're less likely to use them when we're willing to spend a few bucks. Take a deep breath and read that again.
A nuclear missle is expensive compared to a tank, or even a brigade of tanks, but compared to a division of tanks? Cheap! The US built a large nuclear arsenal because we were afraid of having to fight a huge conventional war with the USSR, and neither the American public nor, God knows, the European public, were willing to sustain the kind of massive forces that would have required. Millions of men, with millions of salaries, and gas, and food, and lodging, and ammunition -- no wonder we thought in terms of battlefield nukes. But we don't have to do that anymore, and we don't.
Do you think we're likely to destroy the world with Tomahawks? Those things carry a 1,000 pound warhead, or about 1/20 the explosives that were carried by a WW II B-17, a plane typically used several hundred at a time. It would take one hell of a lot of them to destroy Rhode Island, much less the world.
Let me put it another way: the Hiroshima bomb was about a 15-kiloton weapon. That makes Hiroshima a 30, 000 Tomahawk bomb. AFAIK, we neither have nor intend ever to manufacture as many as that.
It's worth noting, for instance, that with all the expensive high-tech stuff we have these days, our record for attempted genocide was considerably worse when the most sophisticated weapons possessed by the US were repeating rifles and infected blankets. On the face of it, possession of nuclear weapons has made us more, not less, careful of our actions in combat. Our standards have risen.
I find the outrage at the Chinese Embassy strike illuminating. Back in the halcyon days of World War II, before all the monkeys and buttons, keeping the bombs within a mile of the designated target was pretty good work. Mention of "the wrong building" would have elicited horse laughs from any bomber pilot, and "the wrong city" wasn't unknown.
Most of the recent increases in defense spending have been toward increasingly precise weapons that focus intense violence on smaller areas. The effect is to allow flexibility and choice. There is no "button", and hasn't been for years, because there are many options for military response besides simply pulling the pin and killing everybody. Doctor Strangelove wasn't a documentary.
Yup, 466 miles sure sounds like space to me. OK, I've learned something (Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better!)
"Nuclear weapons have been tested in space." Excuse me? Is this a typo, or have I missed something?