Seriously, Moorcock is a fine author. He's had his crap periods (I've never been able to read
"The Time Of The Hawklords", and I'm a great Hawkwind fan....), but overall, Moorcock is
worth a read
Hmm. I never read the Time of the Hawklords book, however some of the songs Moorcock wrote for Hawkwind are OK. Better still are those he released as Michael Moorcock's Deep Fix - in particular "Good Girl/ Bad Girl."
As for Books the experimental Jerry Cornelius novels ("Cure for Cancer" et al.) still stand up very well, as do some of the novels from the 1980's.
Even the numerous Eternal Champion novels need no apology - books written in three days each (15,000 words a day) to finance a failing fiction magazine by a man whose marriage was failing at the same time.
Trying very hard to get back on topic, this review has prompted me to think about rereading some Bayley. As I don't go to conventions he is actually the only SciFi author I've ever met. In Liverpool 15 years ago I sat in with a group of philosophy students I knew whilst he talked to them about some of his ideas - many of those that are referred to in the review.
Of course before I do that I'll have to finish Ash - 900 pages down, 200 to go. Time to go offline and get reading:-)
The only thing that annoys me is the CivIII screenshot showing the leader of the Egyptians:
Cleopatra, a black African.
Cleopatra was a GREEK, folks! Not black.
For that matter, the other Egyptians weren't black either.
Leaving aside why you should get so worked up about the skin pigmentation of a character in a computer game, let's just look at some facts.
During the 9th century B.C.E. the Nubians from Northern Sudan conquered Egypt and ruled for some 50 years.
Under these black pharaohs there was something of an artistic renaissance in the region. I would dig you out some links but I've reached my limit for terminal time today (23 hours;-) and I've got a book to go and read
I set up a small horticultural business in the mid 90's, when x86 hardware was still relatively expensive. I purchased a Psion 3 to deal with all my mobile needs and perform office tasks.
As well as spreadsheets and word-processing, it handled email through a vt100 emulation program and a script for compuserve (who, along with cix, were the only isp to handle such a beast at the time).
The included software was pretty good and it could produce quite good output to an HP600. It even did the camera-ready artwork for my business cards.
Of course with a 16-bit processor it couldn't be persuaded to run Linux - I will pick up a second-hand psion 5 for that eventually - but what it did it did well, without ever falling over. The calender app was very good too.
Sadly my machine died a couple of months ago. What I shall miss most is the shareware cribbage app, which was a lot better than the bsd-games version. Guess I'll have to go out and find some real human beings to play with =o/
You have to remember that Hams preceded the 'net and all
these prefab gadgets that we got today, most of them had to build the majority of their gear from
scratch, or modify what they could get ahold of.
These are the TRUE pioneers of where we are at today with our phones and wireless commo.
Go read up on amateur radio at www.arrl.org and god willing, help you understand what these
ppl went thru to make it all happen.
...and in related news Apple [TM] yesterday served notice to every fruit seller in the country that the time had come to stop infringing upon its trademarked name.
Signs appeared at farmer's markets over the weekend, offering Malus domestica for sale. Apple [TM] responded swiftly that these fruit still had an "Apple-like theme."
To avoid costly litigation fruit-growers accross the temperate zones of the planet are currently grubbing up their orchards while tree nurseries are bulking up pear stocks and looking to a bumper year.
Some confused orchard owners are reported to be installing Linux PPC on their apple [TM] trees.
....cuts to shot of banner draped over a building in Cupertino, Ca., on which can be made out "All your trees are belong to us."....
Well it was there at the end of October last year (I remember installing it:o) -- but then it disappeared off the package list.
Does anyone know what happened to it?
- Derwen
(I *think* all of the old 5 digit numbers are gone now)
Nearly, I can think of two exchanges where they haven't - thus they have 10 digits (including the code) whilst the rest of the uk is on 11 digits.
There's nothing wrong with messing with the 'phone numbers as long as you do it *right*. Unfortunately (central) London has had it's code changed from 01 to 071 to 0171 to 0207 in the space of a decade. Many other towns have had as many changes. This means (for businesses) new letterheads, signs, repainted delivery vans, pulping obsolescent publicity material, never mind simple tasks like programming your internal telephone system (mentioned by someone earlier) - more of a problem is making sure all of your customers (eg those calling from overseas) can reach you. The cost and disruption is immense.
Change is often necessary - it's the doing it right part that eludes most telco's/ regulators.
The WHO are the people who successfully rid the world of smallpox
when posters are talking about how dubious some alternative health information is on the web.
Try some facts: Japan experienced yearly increases in small pox following the introduction of compulsory vaccines in 1872. By 1892, there were 29,979 deaths, and all had been vaccinated. [1] Early in this century, the Philippines experienced their worst smallpox epidemic ever after 8 million people received 24.5 million vaccine doses; the death rate quadrupled as a result.[2]
As for
may soon succeed in eliminating polio
Improved sanitation and hygienic practices lead to a drastic reduction in this disease before mass vaccination was even introduced.
(1) Trevor Gunn, Mass Immunization, A Point in Question, p 15 (E.D. Hume, Pasteur Exposed-The False Foundations of Modern Medicine, Bookreal, Australia, 1989.)
(2) Physician William Howard Hay's address of June 25, 1937; printed in the Congressional Record.
.. relevant fact that the anti-WHO propaganda you linked to was compiled by a pro-tobacco organization funded by the tobacco industry.
OK, another example, vaccinations. The WHO are rather keen on assaulting everyones immune system with these foreign proteins.
Sure there are plenty of raving nutters who oppose the WHO. However that is no validation of WHO's actions. There are some very odd people opposing Micros~1, does that make free OS's wrong & Windows a stable, useful OS? Probably not.
Really? I think most people would want to find out more about any group that they were going to trust with their lives.
Bet you'd trust Jeb Bush to declare an election result, too;-p
The fact is that eventually something like this is going to become mandated due to environmental and resource concerns. Once that happens, the recycling and disposal costs will be built into the purchase cost.
Quite right. According to this register article, European legislation will soon demand that manufacturers fund recycling schemes and passing the cost directly to the consumer when they purchase a new PC may be the only way to do it.
Of course as IBM are putting hundreds of millions of bucks into Linux, does anyone mind them getting tax breaks on recycling?
They are still getting something good done, but I just don't believe their reasons are totally noble.
Hey, does it matter why they are doing it?
I expect the people involved along the way to enacting this policy ranged from noble idealists who wanted to reduce our heavy footprint upon the earth to cold-blooded marketroids who saw good PR. Any corporation is made up of a range of individuals. The point is that they are doing it.
Ok, enough is enough. I've just wasted some minutes on the distortions and half-truths of the article, here is one example:
We're a wicked throwaway society. Plastic packaging and fast-food containers may seem wasteful, but they actually save resources and reduce trash. The typical household in Mexico City buys fewer packaged goods than an American household, but it produces one-third more garbage, chiefly because Mexicans buy fresh foods in bulk and throw away large portions that are unused, spoiled or stale. Those apples in Dittersdorf's slide, protected by plastic wrap and foam, are less likely to spoil. The lightweight plastic packaging requires much less energy to manufacture and transport than traditional alternatives like cardboard or paper. Food companies have switched to plastic packaging because they make money by using resources efficiently. A typical McDonald's discards less than two ounces of garbage for each customer served -- less than what's generated by a typical meal at home.
Spoiled, stale or unused food (or any organic waste) is not garbage, it's potential fertilizer. To even talk of putting it in a landfill is madness. Whilst *some* packaging can be recycled - with some energy cost. Organic matter recycles itself! Just stack it up and wait a few weeks and you have compost.
Now can we get back to talking about computer parts?
I'm not sure if I understand. Will IBM pay you $30 or do you play IBM $30 to recycle your computer? It's actually unclear in the press release.
From the site: "for $29.99, which includes shipping. Customers will be able to box the system and ship it via UPS to Envirocycle -- a designated recycling center."
That sounds like you are making the payment to cover their shipping (& other) costs. It's a good scheme (as are the smaller ones mentioned by other posters), but are they only doing it in the US?
Sorting, transporting and handling several kinds of wastes instead of just one results in higher fuel and manufacturing consumption and thereby pollution.
Ah, but fuel/ energy use doesn't have to mean pollution. As well as renewable sources of electricity for plant (factory machinery), vehicle engines can be powered by biodiesel, alcahol or other such annually renewable resources.
However energy saving measures could drastically reduce the amount of energy we are using now and in the future.
Anyway you are talking garbage (ouch, bad pun). Recycling uses far less energy than manufacturing from raw materials, never mind the cost of clearing up pollutants if something is simply thrown away.
If only Timothy had waited 90 minutes before posting. He could have read a very interesting story about this, on a site which is well known for givings its readers two opportunities to read everything.
Sure, you can use stackable paper trays and file folders, but they're essentially storage. While your paperwork is in these devices, its not being used. When you need to access something in bin-4, you take it out and put it on your flat desktop.
A *flat* desktop? Is this normal? I haven't even seen my stackable trays under all my stacked up work for months.
As for the desk... well I know there was one under there when I joined the firm...
We had computers with limited graphics resources - so no games like the ones today. And most of all we had BASIC IN ROM !
If you want your kids to have a *fun* computer for playing with, and a built in programming language and editor - get a Psion handheld. Little keys are easy for kids. There are many, many sites on programming for it, it's easy to learn OPL, and you can quickly make genuinely useful apps.
You can pick up a 3a for less than $100, with all the accessories. Most Linux distro's include connectivity software. And if you get tired of a Psion5 - you can install Linux on it!
- Derwen
As you can tell I had enough of unix. I have been a linux user for close to 2 years now but my main gripe is that I always have to upgrade every few months with new kde updates and gnome updates and each and every time I F*ck my system in the process. Sure you can use rpm -Uvh --force --nodeps but in return you can screw up your whole system just to updrage 1 or 2 packages! Unix is terrible in alot fo ways. One of freebsd's main developers wrote a huge portion of the 1.1 Linux kernel and he switched because of poor package managment. He said it was a nightmare trying to upgrade anything under linux.
Not wishing to start a distro war, but if you were running Debian then
#apt-get update
#apt-get dist-upgrade
Would solve most of your problems. The other day most Debian woody users found Xfree86 being upgraded automatically from 3.6 to 4 on their boxes, all automagically. I just had to change one word in a config file to then get mine to work.
As I said, I don't want to start a distro war, but the package management tools *are* out there.
- Derwen
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm. I never read the Time of the Hawklords book, however some of the songs Moorcock wrote for Hawkwind are OK. Better still are those he released as Michael Moorcock's Deep Fix - in particular "Good Girl/ Bad Girl."
As for Books the experimental Jerry Cornelius novels ("Cure for Cancer" et al.) still stand up very well, as do some of the novels from the 1980's.
Even the numerous Eternal Champion novels need no apology - books written in three days each (15,000 words a day) to finance a failing fiction magazine by a man whose marriage was failing at the same time.
Trying very hard to get back on topic, this review has prompted me to think about rereading some Bayley. As I don't go to conventions he is actually the only SciFi author I've ever met. In Liverpool 15 years ago I sat in with a group of philosophy students I knew whilst he talked to them about some of his ideas - many of those that are referred to in the review. :-)
Of course before I do that I'll have to finish Ash - 900 pages down, 200 to go. Time to go offline and get reading
- Derwen
During the 9th century B.C.E. the Nubians from Northern Sudan conquered Egypt and ruled for some 50 years. ;-) and I've got a book to go and read
Under these black pharaohs there was something of an artistic renaissance in the region. I would dig you out some links but I've reached my limit for terminal time today (23 hours
- Derwen
I tried out Mandrake a couple of years ago and it already shipped with BSDgames and several versions of Tetris.
Sheesh. What more could anyone possibly want?
- Derwen
Cash or cards all do the same damage.
Want to do some good with your spending power? Local Exchange Trading System ( LETS) supports your local community, not a"global" economy.
- Derwen
I set up a small horticultural business in the mid 90's, when x86 hardware was still relatively expensive. I purchased a Psion 3 to deal with all my mobile needs and perform office tasks.
As well as spreadsheets and word-processing, it handled email through a vt100 emulation program and a script for compuserve (who, along with cix, were the only isp to handle such a beast at the time).
The included software was pretty good and it could produce quite good output to an HP600. It even did the camera-ready artwork for my business cards.
Of course with a 16-bit processor it couldn't be persuaded to run Linux - I will pick up a second-hand psion 5 for that eventually - but what it did it did well, without ever falling over. The calender app was very good too.
Sadly my machine died a couple of months ago. What I shall miss most is the shareware cribbage app, which was a lot better than the bsd-games version. Guess I'll have to go out and find some real human beings to play with =o/
- Derwen
And should we take their action lieing down... ;-)
- Derwen
Hold on, hold on. Swipe me, I've broken my pencil
Signs appeared at farmer's markets over the weekend, offering Malus domestica for sale. Apple [TM] responded swiftly that these fruit still had an "Apple-like theme."
To avoid costly litigation fruit-growers accross the temperate zones of the planet are currently grubbing up their orchards while tree nurseries are bulking up pear stocks and looking to a bumper year.
Some confused orchard owners are reported to be installing Linux PPC on their apple [TM] trees.
In the case of Linux vs. Hurd, it's a matter of what works in practice, rather than theory. (And Torvalds said it gave Linux The Edge).
- Derwen
Well it was there at the end of October last year (I remember installing it :o) -- but then it disappeared off the package list.
Does anyone know what happened to it?
- Derwen
Damn it, man! did it never occur to you that they might just need companionship. Have you not an ounce of compassion in your body?
8oP
Nearly, I can think of two exchanges where they haven't - thus they have 10 digits (including the code) whilst the rest of the uk is on 11 digits.
There's nothing wrong with messing with the 'phone numbers as long as you do it *right*. Unfortunately (central) London has had it's code changed from 01 to 071 to 0171 to 0207 in the space of a decade. Many other towns have had as many changes. This means (for businesses) new letterheads, signs, repainted delivery vans, pulping obsolescent publicity material, never mind simple tasks like programming your internal telephone system (mentioned by someone earlier) - more of a problem is making sure all of your customers (eg those calling from overseas) can reach you. The cost and disruption is immense.
Change is often necessary - it's the doing it right part that eludes most telco's/ regulators.
of statements like this
when posters are talking about how dubious some alternative health information is on the web.
Try some facts:
Japan experienced yearly increases in small pox following the introduction of compulsory vaccines in 1872. By 1892, there were 29,979 deaths, and all had been vaccinated. [1] Early in this century, the Philippines experienced their worst smallpox epidemic ever after 8 million people received 24.5 million vaccine doses; the death rate quadrupled as a result.[2]
As for
Improved sanitation and hygienic practices lead to a drastic reduction in this disease before mass vaccination was even introduced.
(1) Trevor Gunn, Mass Immunization, A Point in Question, p 15 (E.D. Hume, Pasteur Exposed-The False Foundations of Modern Medicine, Bookreal, Australia, 1989.) (2) Physician William Howard Hay's address of June 25, 1937; printed in the Congressional Record.
OK, another example, vaccinations. The WHO are rather keen on assaulting everyones immune system with these foreign proteins.
Sure there are plenty of raving nutters who oppose the WHO. However that is no validation of WHO's actions. There are some very odd people opposing Micros~1, does that make free OS's wrong & Windows a stable, useful OS? Probably not.
Really? I think most people would want to find out more about any group that they were going to trust with their lives. ;-p
Bet you'd trust Jeb Bush to declare an election result, too
Quite right. According to this register article, European legislation will soon demand that manufacturers fund recycling schemes and passing the cost directly to the consumer when they purchase a new PC may be the only way to do it.
Of course as IBM are putting hundreds of millions of bucks into Linux, does anyone mind them getting tax breaks on recycling?
Hey, does it matter why they are doing it?
I expect the people involved along the way to enacting this policy ranged from noble idealists who wanted to reduce our heavy footprint upon the earth to cold-blooded marketroids who saw good PR. Any corporation is made up of a range of individuals. The point is that they are doing it.
Ok, enough is enough . I've just wasted some minutes on the distortions and half-truths of the article, here is one example:
Spoiled, stale or unused food (or any organic waste) is not garbage, it's potential fertilizer. To even talk of putting it in a landfill is madness. Whilst *some* packaging can be recycled - with some energy cost. Organic matter recycles itself! Just stack it up and wait a few weeks and you have compost.
Now can we get back to talking about computer parts?
From the site: "for $29.99, which includes shipping. Customers will be able to box the system and ship it via UPS to Envirocycle -- a designated recycling center."
That sounds like you are making the payment to cover their shipping (& other) costs. It's a good scheme (as are the smaller ones mentioned by other posters), but are they only doing it in the US?
Ah, but fuel/ energy use doesn't have to mean pollution . As well as renewable sources of electricity for plant (factory machinery), vehicle engines can be powered by biodiesel, alcahol or other such annually renewable resources.
However energy saving measures could drastically reduce the amount of energy we are using now and in the future.
Anyway you are talking garbage (ouch, bad pun). Recycling uses far less energy than manufacturing from raw materials, never mind the cost of clearing up pollutants if something is simply thrown away.
Hey do I put my comments here, or do I wait for one of you to repost this story in an hour or two?
A *flat* desktop? Is this normal? I haven't even seen my stackable trays under all my stacked up work for months. ... well I know there was one under there when I joined the firm ...
As for the desk
If you want your kids to have a *fun* computer for playing with, and a built in programming language and editor - get a Psion handheld. Little keys are easy for kids. There are many, many sites on programming for it, it's easy to learn OPL, and you can quickly make genuinely useful apps.
You can pick up a 3a for less than $100, with all the accessories. Most Linux distro's include connectivity software. And if you get tired of a Psion5 - you can install Linux on it!
- Derwen
Not wishing to start a distro war, but if you were running Debian then
#apt-get update
#apt-get dist-upgrade
Would solve most of your problems. The other day most Debian woody users found Xfree86 being upgraded automatically from 3.6 to 4 on their boxes, all automagically. I just had to change one word in a config file to then get mine to work.
As I said, I don't want to start a distro war, but the package management tools *are* out there.
- Derwen