There you go. Might have been handy had ScentCone provided it, but I found it easily with a Google search on "'piracy' first use copyright infringement". It's a goodly informative, interesting read and quite news to me.
Thanks for the tips. I'll be glad when I'm able to stand for more than a few minutes without passing out - then I can take a bus to the re-sale shops (our city fathers in a burst of concern for bargain hunters - many of them very low income and living in and around down town - moved all those shops to out-lying areas, to better serve the citizens' needs), else they'd all be within crutching distance.
I've never tried the extent of external connectivity, but if an XP vm can talk to my printer, it should maybe talk to a scanner as well, so either way it oughta be OK.
Well, even as is, I enjoyed your site, found some interesting things to read. Yeah, we just do what we can, as spirit moves and wallet enables. And the meat bag cooperates, of course.
Checked out Nosferatu: Wrath a bit; watched a vid on youtube. Looks good.
I'm not big on shooters anymore, I'm mostly past anything that requires a lot of quick eye-hand stuff. Add to that, getting a decent mouse exhilarator in not happening. Haven't seen anything really good for mouse control since Silkmaus and the one built into one of the Codeheads (later CodeHead Technologies) utilities for the Atari ST.
An aside: I'm stilled pissed off at being unable to easily (or, at all) increase the size of the mouse cursor on my Ubuntu 12.10 desktop. WTF are the deadhead devs thinking? A larger cursor would help me in several ways, including quick aim and shoot.
(For that matter, in terms of basic good utilities, I've yet to see some of the simple, elegant functional equivalents of Hotwire or Maxifile for a PC.)
I have enough trouble these days working through the Amnesia series.
But I've been wearing glasses longer than having any kind time-teller. First thing upon waking is don glasses. Luckily for me, as myopia lessens with age, not quite so imperative for simple stuff. Find these days that I'll reach for my phone about as often as watch; it's a matter of which is closer/easier to grab, or some coin-toss my mind makes unawares. (Worse, having a choice of which to look at can slow things down because of the time it takes to choose. Funny how things can work, eh?)
Being on same page is good. Fewer assumptions can be good. Fetching the correct object is definitely good. Making a mistake is often not earth-shattering, tho, it's only an iteration to success.
Precision can sure be needful. A titration requires a certain kind and degree of precision, a hard-boiled egg, some, yes, but much less so. And so it goes.
If you don't mind, as one buddy to another, kicking back on the front porch on a sunny Saturday afternoon with a brewski and a bit of lazy conversation, consider, maybe, giving a glance at the range of "precision" and work from none to what's actually operationally needful. You ready for another beer? Is your can half-empty or half-full? (Hint: don't matter; you're ready or not, and "yeah, in a bit" works just fine. Trust me on this.
'Cuz sometimes "the train's running a little late" works easily as well as "the train's five minutes late". And "five minutes" in this case might easily handle plus or minus a minute. Or two. More precision might be useful if you want to go buy a paper and it's two minutes each way and a minute for the transaction and allow x minutes for traffic or dropping your change. Otherwise, fuggedaboutit. Turn off, relax, float downstream. Look about you. Marvel at the people, the way things are put together. Breathe. Ah, nevermind me, different strokes, go with the flow, however that is for you.
So my suggestion, just for grins, is from time to time as you have a spare moment, please consider the approach of lazy -> some degree of precision instead of the other way round. But either way, you may discover some interesting things - about you, and about the world around you. It's a trip, man, and I wish you well on the journey.
For descriptions? Oh, yeah, been there, no foolin'. To extent possible, given operational needs, looser is usually easier so long as the job gets done; or another term in the request will serve for making the distinction. Discovering color differences with your other can be fun when the pressure is off. I still get razzed for thinking peanut butter is green.
Please, good luck, travel well. As Bugs would say "unlax, Doc."
As an old-timer that grew up with watches being an assumed part of one's daily kit, congrats for recognizing that they can be useful, and also not assuming a stance but rather making a conscious choice.
As you may guess, I'm going to recommend an analog display. However, for timing formula or eggs, one might want an added digital display that includes seconds, rather than having to pay attention to the seconds hand. Having used both, I don't have much problem with either one, and watching a seconds hand can be easier than setting a count-down timer or alarm, if that's needful.
So, go to your local clock shop or mega-mart, pick something. Suggest going with a 'name' brand and selecting what suits your needs for least cost. Get a size and band (I still favor strap instead of bracelet, but whatever works) that fits your wrist comfortably. (I have to have good stainless alloy or titanium to avoid probs with severe 'nickel' allergy.) After a while you'll just get used to it, and it might even feel strange if you're not wearing it.
And wow, man, congrats on bambino, all that entails. For all the adjustments and "it's _your_ turn" the whole schmeer is fascinating. Your life is enriched in ways unknown before - but you know this and are discovering. Best wishes.
Yeah, I think that's the thing that generally set most of the LucasArts games apart, they had great stories, with interesting characters, sets, wacky punny sideways puzzles, and you were invited to come along with the developers into their creation and have fun - not to beat your head against the wall solving arbitrary puzzles while plodding through yet another cranked out adventure.
The Lucas folks had time and budget to do a lot of thinking and could take the time to get things right. The sense of humor along with excellent writing still set them apart. Even if I never play another one I will treasure them, for their own sake and for the fun I had.
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
(a version often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
How thoughtful of you, AC, for stopping by with first post, professing your ignorance, then your willful ignorance, and finally your insupportable ignorance, bestowing said gifts on us all owing to your lack of interest, favoring us with your... ignorance. Gosh, golly, thank you, I'm sure.
Shame, really, that the résumé command hadn't a bit more scope.
If you read what I wrote you might have noticed that I stated that my phone serves as an alarm clock. I'd long thought that the term "alarm clock" carried with it the notion of clock by virtue of that word being in the term, which word I've taken to meaning an apparatus for displaying time of day.
Until now.
However, I then remembered that in '06 and '07 there was a website up in Canada that I went to that would call me at a specified time of day either once or more often according to a schedule I could set up.
Perhaps you were thinking of that or similar service, such that I wouldn't have the time of day available to be displayed on my phone but could still have it do as an alarm clock.
I have indeed read the manual, which I found on-line; thank you for mentioning that. My phone is old enough - a Motorola 408g, I think, and reconditioned to boot, such that a manual was not sent with it.
It's a real marvel of a phone, truly. I'm sure that is has far more computing power than my old slide rules, although I don't know what it does with it all. Comes with a camera which takes what I hope are decent pics but I don't really know about that. Although I've taken several, I've no way to get them elsewhere. No second storage chip, although I think there's room; no cable, nor Bluetooth anything to send to (hmm, should look to see if my laptop has that...); and although I did fail miserably once trying to email a pic to myself, that's not an option either because it's a costly thing. One day I should try to take away enough meaning from the manual to try again, perhaps when I get around to enabling voice mail, a thing I hope is still as simple as it was on the previous phone.
Any road, I figure you meant well and were trying to be helpful; I am sorry that I'm jumping on you. I'm confess to testy due to pain keeping me up for 36 hours and am very tired, with an hour to go to take the last of the day's pills. You're innocent but in the line of fire, so to speak, and your post set me off a bit. Plus, trying to write anything even minimally coherent is sufficient challenge to try my attention for another few minutes.
I'm going to try to be more clear in phrasing things. And no, I will not use that abominate hack phrase beloved by the thoughtless, "going forward", which I find even worse than the already bad "in future" - although the latter has by now some historical precedence and maybe, possibly, a legitimate usage somewhen.
If one can't tell a future tense when one stumbles over it, perhaps we need think anew on the meaning of literacy. But I'm hardly literate myself, floundering in a lake of tenses unidentifiable by me, being able to use them not through any knowledge apart from that gotten through reading and learning how to speak. I can just manage keep past, present and future in place.
So then, since one lives in present (where else, pray?), and cannot go backward except in mind's memory (unless Mr. Peabody is alive and well), perforce the only other direction available is the one which we move towards even if only by inertia, the future. Which arrives instanter by the instant as we all proceed graveward, plucking each delicious bit of living from the quantum frothy sea.
Wow, guys, thanks for the peek into how it is for you with time-telling. I've tried to guess about it, but had no way of knowing. I find it both interesting and just for me a wee bit troubling without knowing just why. When I stop to think about it for a while, I can maybe sneak up on how it is for youse - but it's still only a better-informed guess. Gives me something to think on, so thanks again.
I've had the same need for exactitude but only for particular cases, so I think I can understand that part of it. For me, though, a bit of slop is fine and comfortable when it's reasonable in my judgement. Reminds me a bit of the Russian saying, "Better is the enemy of good enough." (The Russians got it many centuries ago from the Chinese, which I've read and would dearly love to remember because the Chinese saying is elegantly subtle.)
So I'm thinking that, as with many things, it's a matter of what one grew up with, and one's mind makes whatever accommodation is needful. I think one reason analogue appeals to me more is that it reminds me of geometry, which I prefer to arithmetic.
Funny, that, the geometry. The only time I ever made a bank shot was in '76 under the influence of a pitcher of dark Pabst and a hit of acid. I saw all the shots as colored lines of laser light, won seven games in a row down at the local pool bar in a neighboring town. (And I'd won maybe three, four games in my life until then.) Even laboring under an almighty thirst from working stone quarry, with seven pitchers in hand my buddy and I were giving the stuff away. Oops, sorry, nothing to do with watches but it was one helluva piece of time.
Oh, yeah, one thing you can do with an analogue watch: if you can see where the Sun is, you can find North. (Or South, in the Southern Hemisphere.) I once used that method on a short eight-mile pioneering hike and it worked OK, not as good as a compass, but I made the rally point; there were other clues besides headings that helped, also.
I might point out that I have no need to be optimistic about humans getting off planet in a self-sustaining way; I have only to recognize a perceived necessity for doing so, if, that is, one decides that it might be a good thing for us to continue for a while. Best estimates I've seen are that over 99% of all species that have ever existed are now gone; somewhere years back I came across an estimate that, dinos and roaches and ferns notwithstanding, the average lifespan of a species was only around 800,000 years or so, and that estimate could be way off.
As with the reversal of the magnetic field, we're maybe a bit overdue. Theoretically we've a choice but I think it's already been made through default by the self-deluded self-satisfied sanctimonious sonsabitches who think that rounded corners are patentable, LiLo's sideboob is worthy of mention on a national news show, that Steamboat Willie (appropriated from his author way back when) won't make public domain in my lifetime is somehow justified by a perverted notion of intellectual property rights, that being groped or radiated is required for flying safely, unless you're rich, that the bulk of the important parts of human genome (some 60% or so on the "A" side, last I looked) have been patented, and so on and on ad nauseum. I sometimes wonder what the 1500 or so people who own the planet think about all this, if at all; after considering the past few centuries or so I think maybe they haven't much mind past sly and cunning because that's all they need.
Nope, the smart folks have decided. We live and die right here where we're supposed to be.
But who knows, in a century or ten we might could transfer our consciousness into some memory and gallivant Universe aboard machines; a while longer, maybe transcend any material grasp and swan about as cohering bundles of thoughtful energy.
As for the 100-year starship folks, those silly, childish almost-smart people, it'll give 'em something to do to keep them out from underfoot of the grown-ups.
Thank you. I'm enjoying looking at the script, am wondering where I can get a scanner I can afford, and had a look at your site as well. And thanks for the readme also. Now get some sleep. (grin) I've had two jobs at times, when I was younger, and it's decidedly not only no fun, but done too long a recipe for ungood juju. Good luck to you.
Belt and suspenders? Dunno, man, started wearing a watch in '61 or so, didn't get a cell until '06. Don't have (nor can afford) a smartphone, have just a phone that gets and makes calls and serves as an alarm clock.
Sure, but none were started as long-term projects. Rail and stock were a way to make money. From the standpoint of ideas, both were obvious and simple as well. Rail was a large enough risk that the long lines and the Transcontinental weren't pursued in full until after massive government grants and concessions. Stock markets followed from the earlier exchanges (and the re-writing of some law, IIRC) and were but an extension of them.
Human society is as much happy and necessary accident as they are a self-organizing means of getting stuff done. It is by no means a planned project, unless you care to speculate on the possible machinations of the 1600 or so people who own the planet.
I have looked a bit, over the years; I already gave examples of the things that came to mind. No doubt I've forgotten some and there could easily be many I've never learned of. Please keep in mind that I'm concerned with projects, not ongoing activities.
Take trans-ocean communications cables, for example. People have been laying them since, what, the US Civil War? Done because there was a market, because subscribers were lined up, and some funding was gotten in addition to out-of-pocket and stock-and-bond speculative issue, and entirely separate companies formed for that single purpose. Continued because there is still a market for the cables. They didn't say, for example, "We're gonna run a telegraph cable to Britain and where-ever else for a century and then see where we stand." Nor was that said for any of the examples you gave.
Ah, thanks for reminder on Surveyor, I'd quite forgotten. I followed the space program and related stuff a bit at the time, due to an abiding interest in it and similar things. Damn librarian quit on me years ago.
I take your point, but. While I agree that had it been thought of and encouraged, there could have been increased effort on the part of some of the companies and consortia involved. Boeing, Lockheed, McDonnell, Douglas, Sperry, Thiokol, and a raft of others likely would not have minded doing so IF they could have figured out how to make some money at it.
But there's the rub. While there were always some dreamers in the various companies, none of them (the companies) were about to put big bucks into something without obvious real and fairly quick payout likelihood. They were quite happy to contract with NASA et al but were not about to step out on their own.
Further, the culture and mindset were simply different - different enough to preclude the serious possibility. It wasn't a matter of gummint staying out of their way. On their own, they wouldn't have done any of the space stuff without NASA and Air Force contracts, excepting perhaps communications satellites and some of the weather and eventual other Earth-monitoring birds - and even then, not until the government had paved the way and proven their utility. An exception, I believe, was Telstar, put together by a consortium of biz and gov.
An example of aerospace companies' hesitance to get into things, Boeing didn't get serious about building the 707 until two things happened: the Brits showed that jetliners could make money; several airlines asked Boeing to build some and offered pre-orders as incentive.
"I have been wondering whether it would be worth open sourcing the script...."
Please do. Unless you deem it worthwhile to spiffy it up and try to make some moola, I think it'd be great to share your script. It could be useful to some, could be instructive to those wannting to learn, to see how someone else has done something; any possible embarrassment you might feel about it being 'a bit hacky' you might could toss off to 'having character'. Heck, after your description I'd like to see it, even tho I haven't done any real coding in years.
Seems to me putting the OCR text in the comment field is a fine and good thing. An obvious thing to some, perhaps, but an elegant usage to me.
@Rinsari, below - the link you gave throws a cert warning in Opera, could just be my settings.
Yup, I do. The battery was replaced, not recharged. Somewhere I've got a fine $20 Timex that was usually good for about two and a half years between batteries.
I remember watches that had to be wound every day. I also remember when self-winding watches came into the consumer market. So long as you moved around a bit every day they worked fine. The arm you wore them on got a little bit stronger as well.
I've noticed the past decade or so that people who grow up with much more exposure to digital clocks seem to have a bit of difficulty with interval and passage of time.
If it's 10:11 am and I've got to be somewhere at 10:45, a glance at my old-fashioned* watch and it's a no-brainer to grasp that I've got about a half hour to get there. It's almost funny to ask a digital kid how long we've got to the appointment and watch him stop to do the math.
Analog approximation, one side of brain, done. Digital, one side of brain to the other and back.
Years ago I came across a good article on testing done to help choose analog or digital output for certain kinds of data when designing gauges and displays in cockpits and nuke plants, e.g. The folks who did the study referenced, among others, much of the same material used at PARC when designing GUI. I sure would not mind if people designing our current 'digital experience' displayed more awareness of these kinds of studies.
*Well, not so old-fashioned; it's got solar cells on the watch face keeping charged a battery which powers a quartz-oscillator and motor which drives the hands. I will say the pebble looks pretty neat, but I'll keep with what I've got.
About the 100-year spaceship - if I recall a-rightly, the tasking involving DARPA was for one or more experiments to find out if humans were capable of conducting a concerted "long-range" effort at anything at all. The century spaceship effort is useful as it gathers interest, thought, and publicity - and who knows what it will bring in a hundred years? The real test is whether or not that project or any other can survive that long.
(sorry, I can't find the link I had to the original stuff; y'all with good search-fu ought to be able to find it)
Were it possible, I wouldn't mind sticking around long enough to see. The only long efforts that worked that come to mind off-hand are some of the cathedrals, unless you want to count Stonehenge and the Great Wall.
First four-engine aircraft -> first four-engine operational airliner, first four-engine operational bomber (a conversion from the airliner.) He did this in 1913, 1914.
Later, he designed and built the first successful, operational helicopter.
What's the big deal with H.H.? He had a couple of semi-successful (and that, by some, is a stretch).
HK-1 -> H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" never came close to contract, and it's only flight (mostly ground effect) was two years after the war ended. It was a remarkable aircraft, to be sure, but hardly a success. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules
Glomar Explorer - along with a slew of project names - was indeed quite an achievement, but pretty much failed (depending on whose account you read, even after all this time) in its mission. Later attempts to use it for its ostensible purpose never, so far as I can see, got anywhere. Unlike the H-4, it was designed and built in good time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSF_Explorer
If you want to count his movie with Jane Russell, go ahead.
Slashdot Mirror
And your linked chevron went belly-up per Microsoft last August.
Don't know about the rest, can't comment; but I wouldn't be surprised they would want to help people keep their OS current.
There's a rich field of puns available, aye. One I liked from the first article linked was at the end:
Dr. Reid agreed that Clarity had applications in many fields. “It could permeate biology,” he said.
(only trick is one had to read the article, which describes the method....)
http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/2009/04/piracy-as-copyright-infringement.html
There you go. Might have been handy had ScentCone provided it, but I found it easily with a Google search on "'piracy' first use copyright infringement". It's a goodly informative, interesting read and quite news to me.
Thanks for the tips. I'll be glad when I'm able to stand for more than a few minutes without passing out - then I can take a bus to the re-sale shops (our city fathers in a burst of concern for bargain hunters - many of them very low income and living in and around down town - moved all those shops to out-lying areas, to better serve the citizens' needs), else they'd all be within crutching distance.
I've never tried the extent of external connectivity, but if an XP vm can talk to my printer, it should maybe talk to a scanner as well, so either way it oughta be OK.
Well, even as is, I enjoyed your site, found some interesting things to read. Yeah, we just do what we can, as spirit moves and wallet enables. And the meat bag cooperates, of course.
Amen.
Checked out Nosferatu: Wrath a bit; watched a vid on youtube. Looks good.
I'm not big on shooters anymore, I'm mostly past anything that requires a lot of quick eye-hand stuff. Add to that, getting a decent mouse exhilarator in not happening. Haven't seen anything really good for mouse control since Silkmaus and the one built into one of the Codeheads (later CodeHead Technologies) utilities for the Atari ST.
An aside: I'm stilled pissed off at being unable to easily (or, at all) increase the size of the mouse cursor on my Ubuntu 12.10 desktop. WTF are the deadhead devs thinking? A larger cursor would help me in several ways, including quick aim and shoot.
(For that matter, in terms of basic good utilities, I've yet to see some of the simple, elegant functional equivalents of Hotwire or Maxifile for a PC.)
I have enough trouble these days working through the Amnesia series.
Oh, jeez, yes.
But I've been wearing glasses longer than having any kind time-teller. First thing upon waking is don glasses. Luckily for me, as myopia lessens with age, not quite so imperative for simple stuff. Find these days that I'll reach for my phone about as often as watch; it's a matter of which is closer/easier to grab, or some coin-toss my mind makes unawares. (Worse, having a choice of which to look at can slow things down because of the time it takes to choose. Funny how things can work, eh?)
Being on same page is good. Fewer assumptions can be good. Fetching the correct object is definitely good. Making a mistake is often not earth-shattering, tho, it's only an iteration to success.
Precision can sure be needful. A titration requires a certain kind and degree of precision, a hard-boiled egg, some, yes, but much less so. And so it goes.
If you don't mind, as one buddy to another, kicking back on the front porch on a sunny Saturday afternoon with a brewski and a bit of lazy conversation, consider, maybe, giving a glance at the range of "precision" and work from none to what's actually operationally needful. You ready for another beer? Is your can half-empty or half-full? (Hint: don't matter; you're ready or not, and "yeah, in a bit" works just fine. Trust me on this.
'Cuz sometimes "the train's running a little late" works easily as well as "the train's five minutes late". And "five minutes" in this case might easily handle plus or minus a minute. Or two. More precision might be useful if you want to go buy a paper and it's two minutes each way and a minute for the transaction and allow x minutes for traffic or dropping your change. Otherwise, fuggedaboutit. Turn off, relax, float downstream. Look about you. Marvel at the people, the way things are put together. Breathe. Ah, nevermind me, different strokes, go with the flow, however that is for you.
So my suggestion, just for grins, is from time to time as you have a spare moment, please consider the approach of lazy -> some degree of precision instead of the other way round. But either way, you may discover some interesting things - about you, and about the world around you. It's a trip, man, and I wish you well on the journey.
For descriptions? Oh, yeah, been there, no foolin'. To extent possible, given operational needs, looser is usually easier so long as the job gets done; or another term in the request will serve for making the distinction. Discovering color differences with your other can be fun when the pressure is off. I still get razzed for thinking peanut butter is green.
Please, good luck, travel well. As Bugs would say "unlax, Doc."
As an old-timer that grew up with watches being an assumed part of one's daily kit, congrats for recognizing that they can be useful, and also not assuming a stance but rather making a conscious choice.
As you may guess, I'm going to recommend an analog display. However, for timing formula or eggs, one might want an added digital display that includes seconds, rather than having to pay attention to the seconds hand. Having used both, I don't have much problem with either one, and watching a seconds hand can be easier than setting a count-down timer or alarm, if that's needful.
So, go to your local clock shop or mega-mart, pick something. Suggest going with a 'name' brand and selecting what suits your needs for least cost. Get a size and band (I still favor strap instead of bracelet, but whatever works) that fits your wrist comfortably. (I have to have good stainless alloy or titanium to avoid probs with severe 'nickel' allergy.) After a while you'll just get used to it, and it might even feel strange if you're not wearing it.
And wow, man, congrats on bambino, all that entails. For all the adjustments and "it's _your_ turn" the whole schmeer is fascinating. Your life is enriched in ways unknown before - but you know this and are discovering. Best wishes.
Yeah, I think that's the thing that generally set most of the LucasArts games apart, they had great stories, with interesting characters, sets, wacky punny sideways puzzles, and you were invited to come along with the developers into their creation and have fun - not to beat your head against the wall solving arbitrary puzzles while plodding through yet another cranked out adventure.
The Lucas folks had time and budget to do a lot of thinking and could take the time to get things right. The sense of humor along with excellent writing still set them apart. Even if I never play another one I will treasure them, for their own sake and for the fun I had.
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
(a version often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
How thoughtful of you, AC, for stopping by with first post, professing your ignorance, then your willful ignorance, and finally your insupportable ignorance, bestowing said gifts on us all owing to your lack of interest, favoring us with your... ignorance. Gosh, golly, thank you, I'm sure.
Shame, really, that the résumé command hadn't a bit more scope.
If you read what I wrote you might have noticed that I stated that my phone serves as an alarm clock. I'd long thought that the term "alarm clock" carried with it the notion of clock by virtue of that word being in the term, which word I've taken to meaning an apparatus for displaying time of day.
Until now.
However, I then remembered that in '06 and '07 there was a website up in Canada that I went to that would call me at a specified time of day either once or more often according to a schedule I could set up.
Perhaps you were thinking of that or similar service, such that I wouldn't have the time of day available to be displayed on my phone but could still have it do as an alarm clock.
I have indeed read the manual, which I found on-line; thank you for mentioning that. My phone is old enough - a Motorola 408g, I think, and reconditioned to boot, such that a manual was not sent with it.
It's a real marvel of a phone, truly. I'm sure that is has far more computing power than my old slide rules, although I don't know what it does with it all. Comes with a camera which takes what I hope are decent pics but I don't really know about that. Although I've taken several, I've no way to get them elsewhere. No second storage chip, although I think there's room; no cable, nor Bluetooth anything to send to (hmm, should look to see if my laptop has that...); and although I did fail miserably once trying to email a pic to myself, that's not an option either because it's a costly thing. One day I should try to take away enough meaning from the manual to try again, perhaps when I get around to enabling voice mail, a thing I hope is still as simple as it was on the previous phone.
Any road, I figure you meant well and were trying to be helpful; I am sorry that I'm jumping on you. I'm confess to testy due to pain keeping me up for 36 hours and am very tired, with an hour to go to take the last of the day's pills. You're innocent but in the line of fire, so to speak, and your post set me off a bit. Plus, trying to write anything even minimally coherent is sufficient challenge to try my attention for another few minutes.
I'm going to try to be more clear in phrasing things. And no, I will not use that abominate hack phrase beloved by the thoughtless, "going forward", which I find even worse than the already bad "in future" - although the latter has by now some historical precedence and maybe, possibly, a legitimate usage somewhen.
If one can't tell a future tense when one stumbles over it, perhaps we need think anew on the meaning of literacy. But I'm hardly literate myself, floundering in a lake of tenses unidentifiable by me, being able to use them not through any knowledge apart from that gotten through reading and learning how to speak. I can just manage keep past, present and future in place.
So then, since one lives in present (where else, pray?), and cannot go backward except in mind's memory (unless Mr. Peabody is alive and well), perforce the only other direction available is the one which we move towards even if only by inertia, the future. Which arrives instanter by the instant as we all proceed graveward, plucking each delicious bit of living from the quantum frothy sea.
Cheers, and thanks. I'm off to Nod.
And some hot sauce. And beer. Definitely. Flip you for the first case and bag of charcoal.
Wow, guys, thanks for the peek into how it is for you with time-telling. I've tried to guess about it, but had no way of knowing. I find it both interesting and just for me a wee bit troubling without knowing just why. When I stop to think about it for a while, I can maybe sneak up on how it is for youse - but it's still only a better-informed guess. Gives me something to think on, so thanks again.
I've had the same need for exactitude but only for particular cases, so I think I can understand that part of it. For me, though, a bit of slop is fine and comfortable when it's reasonable in my judgement. Reminds me a bit of the Russian saying, "Better is the enemy of good enough." (The Russians got it many centuries ago from the Chinese, which I've read and would dearly love to remember because the Chinese saying is elegantly subtle.)
So I'm thinking that, as with many things, it's a matter of what one grew up with, and one's mind makes whatever accommodation is needful. I think one reason analogue appeals to me more is that it reminds me of geometry, which I prefer to arithmetic.
Funny, that, the geometry. The only time I ever made a bank shot was in '76 under the influence of a pitcher of dark Pabst and a hit of acid. I saw all the shots as colored lines of laser light, won seven games in a row down at the local pool bar in a neighboring town. (And I'd won maybe three, four games in my life until then.) Even laboring under an almighty thirst from working stone quarry, with seven pitchers in hand my buddy and I were giving the stuff away. Oops, sorry, nothing to do with watches but it was one helluva piece of time.
Oh, yeah, one thing you can do with an analogue watch: if you can see where the Sun is, you can find North. (Or South, in the Southern Hemisphere.) I once used that method on a short eight-mile pioneering hike and it worked OK, not as good as a compass, but I made the rally point; there were other clues besides headings that helped, also.
Well, I think were at apples and oranges.
I might point out that I have no need to be optimistic about humans getting off planet in a self-sustaining way; I have only to recognize a perceived necessity for doing so, if, that is, one decides that it might be a good thing for us to continue for a while. Best estimates I've seen are that over 99% of all species that have ever existed are now gone; somewhere years back I came across an estimate that, dinos and roaches and ferns notwithstanding, the average lifespan of a species was only around 800,000 years or so, and that estimate could be way off.
As with the reversal of the magnetic field, we're maybe a bit overdue. Theoretically we've a choice but I think it's already been made through default by the self-deluded self-satisfied sanctimonious sonsabitches who think that rounded corners are patentable, LiLo's sideboob is worthy of mention on a national news show, that Steamboat Willie (appropriated from his author way back when) won't make public domain in my lifetime is somehow justified by a perverted notion of intellectual property rights, that being groped or radiated is required for flying safely, unless you're rich, that the bulk of the important parts of human genome (some 60% or so on the "A" side, last I looked) have been patented, and so on and on ad nauseum. I sometimes wonder what the 1500 or so people who own the planet think about all this, if at all; after considering the past few centuries or so I think maybe they haven't much mind past sly and cunning because that's all they need.
Nope, the smart folks have decided. We live and die right here where we're supposed to be.
But who knows, in a century or ten we might could transfer our consciousness into some memory and gallivant Universe aboard machines; a while longer, maybe transcend any material grasp and swan about as cohering bundles of thoughtful energy.
As for the 100-year starship folks, those silly, childish almost-smart people, it'll give 'em something to do to keep them out from underfoot of the grown-ups.
Thank you. I'm enjoying looking at the script, am wondering where I can get a scanner I can afford, and had a look at your site as well. And thanks for the readme also. Now get some sleep. (grin) I've had two jobs at times, when I was younger, and it's decidedly not only no fun, but done too long a recipe for ungood juju. Good luck to you.
Belt and suspenders? Dunno, man, started wearing a watch in '61 or so, didn't get a cell until '06. Don't have (nor can afford) a smartphone, have just a phone that gets and makes calls and serves as an alarm clock.
Sure, but none were started as long-term projects. Rail and stock were a way to make money. From the standpoint of ideas, both were obvious and simple as well. Rail was a large enough risk that the long lines and the Transcontinental weren't pursued in full until after massive government grants and concessions. Stock markets followed from the earlier exchanges (and the re-writing of some law, IIRC) and were but an extension of them.
Human society is as much happy and necessary accident as they are a self-organizing means of getting stuff done. It is by no means a planned project, unless you care to speculate on the possible machinations of the 1600 or so people who own the planet.
I have looked a bit, over the years; I already gave examples of the things that came to mind. No doubt I've forgotten some and there could easily be many I've never learned of. Please keep in mind that I'm concerned with projects, not ongoing activities.
Take trans-ocean communications cables, for example. People have been laying them since, what, the US Civil War? Done because there was a market, because subscribers were lined up, and some funding was gotten in addition to out-of-pocket and stock-and-bond speculative issue, and entirely separate companies formed for that single purpose. Continued because there is still a market for the cables. They didn't say, for example, "We're gonna run a telegraph cable to Britain and where-ever else for a century and then see where we stand." Nor was that said for any of the examples you gave.
Ah, thanks for reminder on Surveyor, I'd quite forgotten. I followed the space program and related stuff a bit at the time, due to an abiding interest in it and similar things. Damn librarian quit on me years ago.
I take your point, but. While I agree that had it been thought of and encouraged, there could have been increased effort on the part of some of the companies and consortia involved. Boeing, Lockheed, McDonnell, Douglas, Sperry, Thiokol, and a raft of others likely would not have minded doing so IF they could have figured out how to make some money at it.
But there's the rub. While there were always some dreamers in the various companies, none of them (the companies) were about to put big bucks into something without obvious real and fairly quick payout likelihood. They were quite happy to contract with NASA et al but were not about to step out on their own.
Further, the culture and mindset were simply different - different enough to preclude the serious possibility. It wasn't a matter of gummint staying out of their way. On their own, they wouldn't have done any of the space stuff without NASA and Air Force contracts, excepting perhaps communications satellites and some of the weather and eventual other Earth-monitoring birds - and even then, not until the government had paved the way and proven their utility. An exception, I believe, was Telstar, put together by a consortium of biz and gov.
An example of aerospace companies' hesitance to get into things, Boeing didn't get serious about building the 707 until two things happened: the Brits showed that jetliners could make money; several airlines asked Boeing to build some and offered pre-orders as incentive.
"I have been wondering whether it would be worth open sourcing the script...."
Please do. Unless you deem it worthwhile to spiffy it up and try to make some moola, I think it'd be great to share your script. It could be useful to some, could be instructive to those wannting to learn, to see how someone else has done something; any possible embarrassment you might feel about it being 'a bit hacky' you might could toss off to 'having character'. Heck, after your description I'd like to see it, even tho I haven't done any real coding in years.
Seems to me putting the OCR text in the comment field is a fine and good thing. An obvious thing to some, perhaps, but an elegant usage to me.
@Rinsari, below - the link you gave throws a cert warning in Opera, could just be my settings.
Yup, I do. The battery was replaced, not recharged. Somewhere I've got a fine $20 Timex that was usually good for about two and a half years between batteries.
I remember watches that had to be wound every day. I also remember when self-winding watches came into the consumer market. So long as you moved around a bit every day they worked fine. The arm you wore them on got a little bit stronger as well.
I've noticed the past decade or so that people who grow up with much more exposure to digital clocks seem to have a bit of difficulty with interval and passage of time.
If it's 10:11 am and I've got to be somewhere at 10:45, a glance at my old-fashioned* watch and it's a no-brainer to grasp that I've got about a half hour to get there. It's almost funny to ask a digital kid how long we've got to the appointment and watch him stop to do the math.
Analog approximation, one side of brain, done. Digital, one side of brain to the other and back.
Years ago I came across a good article on testing done to help choose analog or digital output for certain kinds of data when designing gauges and displays in cockpits and nuke plants, e.g. The folks who did the study referenced, among others, much of the same material used at PARC when designing GUI. I sure would not mind if people designing our current 'digital experience' displayed more awareness of these kinds of studies.
*Well, not so old-fashioned; it's got solar cells on the watch face keeping charged a battery which powers a quartz-oscillator and motor which drives the hands. I will say the pebble looks pretty neat, but I'll keep with what I've got.
About the 100-year spaceship - if I recall a-rightly, the tasking involving DARPA was for one or more experiments to find out if humans were capable of conducting a concerted "long-range" effort at anything at all. The century spaceship effort is useful as it gathers interest, thought, and publicity - and who knows what it will bring in a hundred years? The real test is whether or not that project or any other can survive that long.
(sorry, I can't find the link I had to the original stuff; y'all with good search-fu ought to be able to find it)
Were it possible, I wouldn't mind sticking around long enough to see. The only long efforts that worked that come to mind off-hand are some of the cathedrals, unless you want to count Stonehenge and the Great Wall.
If you want an example of someone who really did things in, for example, aviation, you might start with Igor Sikorsky.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sikorsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_Russky_Vityaz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_Ilya_Muromets
First four-engine aircraft -> first four-engine operational airliner, first four-engine operational bomber (a conversion from the airliner.) He did this in 1913, 1914.
Later, he designed and built the first successful, operational helicopter.
What's the big deal with H.H.? He had a couple of semi-successful (and that, by some, is a stretch).
HK-1 -> H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" never came close to contract, and it's only flight (mostly ground effect) was two years after the war ended. It was a remarkable aircraft, to be sure, but hardly a success.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules
Glomar Explorer - along with a slew of project names - was indeed quite an achievement, but pretty much failed (depending on whose account you read, even after all this time) in its mission. Later attempts to use it for its ostensible purpose never, so far as I can see, got anywhere. Unlike the H-4, it was designed and built in good time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSF_Explorer
If you want to count his movie with Jane Russell, go ahead.
If you refer to later accomplishments of Hughes Aircraft/Medical/Aerospace, sure. There was the Galileo probe and the AIM-4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_Aircraft_Company
Howard Hughes was many things but I don't see any purpose in comparing him to Elon Musk other than, maybe, grins.
Or $20B (of Google's ~$48B C.O.H.) gets them voting stake @ 5% each....