I've always thought that Coleridge would have had a much, much better poem if someone -- anyone -- had interrupted him exactly after the fifth line, and he'd called it quits.
Don't even get me started on wished interruptions apropos the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
I don't really have any regrets. Yeah, it made me the freaky oddball outsider. It also didn't Disney-ize my imagination. I've subsequently been "re-educated" to the important bits of pop culture by my wife. We don't watch much TV, though. We had Netflix for a year, and it was fun. I saw a lot of classics that I'd missed out on.
I could go on at great lengths about the pros and cons of a TV-less existence, but I doubt anyone's really all that interested.
Once, many, many years ago, (for reference, I had just gotten a brand new Epson MX-80 printer for the mighty TRS-80 model I), I was working on some complex algorithm or another. I mean, in those days, a complex algorithm was pretty simple by today's standards, but didn't have much memory to work with, so you had to try to be clever.
In any case, went to sleep around 3am, exhausted. Immediately had a dream where the solution came to me. In the dream, I wrote it, tested it, and saved the file. But then I realized in the dream that I was asleep, so saving to a dream drive wouldn't work -- when I woke up again, it would be gone. So the solution was to print it. Somehow, in dream logic, the printout was more persistent.
The next morning, I knew I had to check the printer for something. Unfortunately, I found nothing there. I couldn't remember why I needed to check, although I felt really let down that there was no print out.
I gradually reconstructed the dream, and even got back to the solution I had come up with. Turned out to be incorrect, but got me on the right track...
My math is fuzzy when you fail to be specific? Hm. Well, I'm not interested in getting in a Slashdot pissing match.
If you're comfortable painting the Islamic world based upon demonstrations in countries like Syria and Iran, that's your prerogative.
(I'm not arguing that there aren't a lot idots doing violent things out there for all the wrong reasons. Are there a lot of idiots being whipped up by extremists in this case? Sure. Are there a lot of benighted and ignorant people in the Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and fill-in-the-blank communities who are trying to promote a Manichean world view of cultural war in order to consolidate their own power? Yup.)
There are on the order of 1 billion Muslims, worldwide. 500,000 demonstrators is only five 100ths of one percent. I think we can safely call that a minority.
If you look at, say, the anti-Iraq war demonstrations here in the US back in February of 2002, you'll see 475,000 demonstrators (this is taking the lowball estimates -- the number could have been as high as 750,000 nationwide). Considering there are 260 million Americans, that's a more than three times higher turnout. And these demonstrations were widely ridiculed as being a tiny minority composed mostly of "fringe elements" and "refugees from the 60s".
Also, keep in mind, that some of the biggest demonstations are in places like Syria and Iran, where participating in "spontaneous demonstrations" is often mandatory.
but it's not going to be enticing for people actually doing real work for at least 6 months.
Ouch.
I guess those of us who do things like, oh, write code should update then. After all, except during the rare compile, we're pretty much keyboard-I/O bound.
And I take it that the only "real work" is stuff that involves heavy number crunching, or moving pixels around?
As my girlfriend likes to say "The Big Mac is the most popular meal in America."
That being said, just because something is popular, one can't *necessarily* assume it's crap (which is my natural inclination, elitist bastard that I am).
For example, I love artist X. After I buy one or two albums, my price goes up for other artist X albums. So instead of buying them from the iTunes Store, I buy one from you, one from Alice, one from Bob, etc. You all sell them to me at cost, since I sell you albums by Artists Y, Q, G, and F, who are expensive for you but still cheap for me.
Obviously, this system is very fluid. We have to create networks of "cheapness," because after you proxy buy me two albums by artist X, it becomes just as expensive for you.
It's also predicated on the DRM being weak.
I think the upshot is that 1) the users would develop workarounds, and/or 2) people would say "fuck it!" and just go back to listening to live music.
So, the TRS-80 available in 1983 fit in a backpack?
Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying.
No?
Yes! Yes! That's what I'm saying! Yes! Yes they did!
You're talking about something totally different. Sure, it's interesting that Tandy eventually built a portable computer. How many did they sell?
Tandy built a portable computer in 1983 that had PDA functionality. That was all I was saying. I wasn't saying it was a Newton or a Palm or even a Sharp Wizard. I wasn't talking about the Pocket Computer line, either, which was actually made by Sharp, and was a "personal organizer" like the Wizards. I wasn't even slamming Apple (hey, the Model 102 is 11.8" x 8.5" x 1.9" -- compare to my 12" Powerbook at 10.9" x 8.6" x 1.2")
I'm not sure how many they sold. According to this site, their total sales were 200,000 computers that year, so probably not a whole hell of a lot. But, frankly, I don't see that as being the point.
OK. I've said more than enough. But as a Mac guy who started as a TRS-80 guy, I get defensive when people bash my platforms.
With all due respect, it'd be easy to fit a TRS-80 Model 100 into a backpack. Perhaps you're thinking of the Model I or III, which were desktop machines? The Model 100 was a distant ancestor of the Notebook Computer. It even had a little LCD display.
Keep in mind, this was a pretty limited machine. Strangely, I remember it being released in 1984, while I see pages stating 1983 and 1985. So I guess my failing memory is splitting the difference.
I just have this recollection of the Macintosh and the Mod 100 coming around the same time, and thinking, "yeah, these computers? They're really getting pretty damn amazing. Next thing you know, we'll have megabyte disk drives."
Damn, and didn't Ansel Adams get awful tired carrying his four 8x10 View Cameras up to Inspiration Point! And I suspect Ed Weston had all sorts of problems lugging his three Centuries around the rocks of Point Lobos. But hey -- they had to prove they were Real Photographers.
Those suckers weigh in at around 12 pounds, although I believe that there is a Century Universal model that's less than 10 pounds.
OK. All kidding aside, I had a Minolta die on me during an around the world trip, which was why I resisted getting another autofocus camera for the subsequent ten years. Recently, my Nikon D70 just experienced a failure the week after I returned from a hiking trip in the Dolomites. That was good timing, since, not being a Real Photographer, I didn't have a backup with me.
I was just talking about how the "dominant format" of a given time falls out of dominance very quickly when it goes. Obviously, even when TRS80 was one of the big two or three formats, there were still only a few million of them out there (source: http://www.pegasus3d.com/total_share.html)
But look at 8-track audio tapes. At one time, they were quite popular. You could buy 'em in every dimestore. You can still play 'em, if you're willing to spend a lot of time and effort. But it's getting harder and harder. Audio cassettes are heading in that same direction. They're rarer and rarer.
As for the eBay/OCR situation: it might be possible. Every few months, there's a similar machine for sale. I've tried reading the disks in other machines, and haven't had much success. I think that the data integrity must be fading over time.
While it's true that it's not random, I'm kind of surprised at the vehemence of your reaction.
Part of traveling is, like it or not, being searched and taunted by police or other border officials.
I've had my bags searched in England, Thailand, Germany, (former) East Germany, Peru, the Netherlands, the US, and India. I've been frisked / body searched in Israel and Egypt.
Hell, I even had my bags searched on the train into Belgium when I was studying in Germany.
I'm not an especially strange guy. I don't work for the CIA, or have Nazi tatoos, or wear marijuana-leaf shirts. I did have long hair. The England situation was likely because I was wearing a stupid hat I'd bought at a flea market in Nuernberg.
I'm not so sure about all those places, but I still plan to visit Belgium again.
I was recently at a game where we played a seven stud game with a common wild card that they call "spit in the ocean." I had a full house (not very surprising; basically two pair in a hand of six cards) -- what was surprising was the THREE people who had four-of-a-kind, including a natural four aces!
Extremely unlikely? Yeah. But it happened. Whole lotta money changed hands on that round, lemme tell ya.
Slashdot Mirror
I've always thought that Coleridge would have had a much, much better poem if someone -- anyone -- had interrupted him exactly after the fifth line, and he'd called it quits.
Don't even get me started on wished interruptions apropos the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
I wasn't allowed to watch TV when growing up.
I don't really have any regrets. Yeah, it made me the freaky oddball outsider. It also didn't Disney-ize my imagination. I've subsequently been "re-educated" to the important bits of pop culture by my wife. We don't watch much TV, though. We had Netflix for a year, and it was fun. I saw a lot of classics that I'd missed out on.
I could go on at great lengths about the pros and cons of a TV-less existence, but I doubt anyone's really all that interested.
Not quite sure what good that antibacterial soap will be doing you in a viral pandemic. Maybe reducing secondary infections?
Bleach is good for breaking up viruses. UV works well. So does ordinary soap, from what I've read.
Heh.
...
I've had variants of this.
Once, many, many years ago, (for reference, I had just gotten a brand new Epson MX-80 printer for the mighty TRS-80 model I), I was working on some complex algorithm or another. I mean, in those days, a complex algorithm was pretty simple by today's standards, but didn't have much memory to work with, so you had to try to be clever.
In any case, went to sleep around 3am, exhausted. Immediately had a dream where the solution came to me. In the dream, I wrote it, tested it, and saved the file. But then I realized in the dream that I was asleep, so saving to a dream drive wouldn't work -- when I woke up again, it would be gone. So the solution was to print it. Somehow, in dream logic, the printout was more persistent.
The next morning, I knew I had to check the printer for something. Unfortunately, I found nothing there. I couldn't remember why I needed to check, although I felt really let down that there was no print out.
I gradually reconstructed the dream, and even got back to the solution I had come up with. Turned out to be incorrect, but got me on the right track
My math is fuzzy when you fail to be specific? Hm. Well, I'm not interested in getting in a Slashdot pissing match.
If you're comfortable painting the Islamic world based upon demonstrations in countries like Syria and Iran, that's your prerogative.
(I'm not arguing that there aren't a lot idots doing violent things out there for all the wrong reasons. Are there a lot of idiots being whipped up by extremists in this case? Sure. Are there a lot of benighted and ignorant people in the Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and fill-in-the-blank communities who are trying to promote a Manichean world view of cultural war in order to consolidate their own power? Yup.)
There are on the order of 1 billion Muslims, worldwide. 500,000 demonstrators is only five 100ths of one percent. I think we can safely call that a minority.
If you look at, say, the anti-Iraq war demonstrations here in the US back in February of 2002, you'll see 475,000 demonstrators (this is taking the lowball estimates -- the number could have been as high as 750,000 nationwide). Considering there are 260 million Americans, that's a more than three times higher turnout. And these demonstrations were widely ridiculed as being a tiny minority composed mostly of "fringe elements" and "refugees from the 60s".
Also, keep in mind, that some of the biggest demonstations are in places like Syria and Iran, where participating in "spontaneous demonstrations" is often mandatory.
I've been dreaming of a system like this. Especially if it supports sync to a Palm/Treo.
And while we're at it, I'd like it to handle shared address book / address list functionality too.
This just in!
Advertisers lie.
Now please go back to your regularly scheduled programming. Thank you.
but it's not going to be enticing for people actually doing real work for at least 6 months.
Ouch.
I guess those of us who do things like, oh, write code should update then. After all, except during the rare compile, we're pretty much keyboard-I/O bound.
And I take it that the only "real work" is stuff that involves heavy number crunching, or moving pixels around?
As my girlfriend likes to say "The Big Mac is the most popular meal in America."
That being said, just because something is popular, one can't *necessarily* assume it's crap (which is my natural inclination, elitist bastard that I am).
I wouldn't worry about it too much.
All it would do is create an underground economy.
For example, I love artist X. After I buy one or two albums, my price goes up for other artist X albums. So instead of buying them from the iTunes Store, I buy one from you, one from Alice, one from Bob, etc. You all sell them to me at cost, since I sell you albums by Artists Y, Q, G, and F, who are expensive for you but still cheap for me.
Obviously, this system is very fluid. We have to create networks of "cheapness," because after you proxy buy me two albums by artist X, it becomes just as expensive for you.
It's also predicated on the DRM being weak.
I think the upshot is that 1) the users would develop workarounds, and/or 2) people would say "fuck it!" and just go back to listening to live music.
I was wondering who was throwing those damn rocks.
That's pretty durn spectacular.
Someone wanted first-post so badly that they submitted the story before the story happened.
Then the Slashdot "editors" happily posted it, without checking anything at all.
News for nerds? Stuff that may or may not be remotely real?
I guess I'll go back to relying on random made-up rumors for my news, 'cause I ain't gettin' it here.
This can be done even through the encryption because the encrypted data still carries the same probability aspects of the original data.
Um, thanks for playing.
Any encryption algorithm that produces results lacking statistical entropy is crap.
Bayesian analysis ain't gonna help you in this case.
I've seen TRS-80's, and I'd never seen one of these Model 100's.
That's why I provided that convenient link a few posts back. :)
OK. I'm cutting down on coffee now.
So, the TRS-80 available in 1983 fit in a backpack?
Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying.
No?
Yes! Yes! That's what I'm saying! Yes! Yes they did!
You're talking about something totally different. Sure, it's interesting that Tandy eventually built a portable computer. How many did they sell?
Tandy built a portable computer in 1983 that had PDA functionality. That was all I was saying. I wasn't saying it was a Newton or a Palm or even a Sharp Wizard. I wasn't talking about the Pocket Computer line, either, which was actually made by Sharp, and was a "personal organizer" like the Wizards. I wasn't even slamming Apple (hey, the Model 102 is 11.8" x 8.5" x 1.9" -- compare to my 12" Powerbook at 10.9" x 8.6" x 1.2")
I'm not sure how many they sold. According to this site, their total sales were 200,000 computers that year, so probably not a whole hell of a lot. But, frankly, I don't see that as being the point.
OK. I've said more than enough. But as a Mac guy who started as a TRS-80 guy, I get defensive when people bash my platforms.
With all due respect, it'd be easy to fit a TRS-80 Model 100 into a backpack. Perhaps you're thinking of the Model I or III, which were desktop machines? The Model 100 was a distant ancestor of the Notebook Computer. It even had a little LCD display.
http://www.8bit-micro.com/trs-laptop.htm
Keep in mind, this was a pretty limited machine. Strangely, I remember it being released in 1984, while I see pages stating 1983 and 1985. So I guess my failing memory is splitting the difference.
I just have this recollection of the Macintosh and the Mod 100 coming around the same time, and thinking, "yeah, these computers? They're really getting pretty damn amazing. Next thing you know, we'll have megabyte disk drives."
Damn, and didn't Ansel Adams get awful tired carrying his four 8x10 View Cameras up to Inspiration Point! And I suspect Ed Weston had all sorts of problems lugging his three Centuries around the rocks of Point Lobos. But hey -- they had to prove they were Real Photographers.
Those suckers weigh in at around 12 pounds, although I believe that there is a Century Universal model that's less than 10 pounds.
OK. All kidding aside, I had a Minolta die on me during an around the world trip, which was why I resisted getting another autofocus camera for the subsequent ten years. Recently, my Nikon D70 just experienced a failure the week after I returned from a hiking trip in the Dolomites. That was good timing, since, not being a Real Photographer, I didn't have a backup with me.
It was George Carlin.
... and you can quote me on this:
... with real potential."
"Other people's fetishes are weird."
If you're part of our current administration, you can replace the word "weird" with "disgusting," "deviant," or "illegal."
If you're a new-ager, you can replace the word "weird" with "misdirected," "unhealthy," or "disrespectful."
If you're a broad-minded individual, you can replce the word "weird" with "hilarious," "creative," or "interesting
If you're a pornographer, you can replace the word "weird" with "profitable."
In no case can you apply the phrase to your own fetishes, which, by definition, are hot.
Really? Any you could recommend or provide a link to?
Nope. I wasn't suggesting that.
I was just talking about how the "dominant format" of a given time falls out of dominance very quickly when it goes. Obviously, even when TRS80 was one of the big two or three formats, there were still only a few million of them out there (source: http://www.pegasus3d.com/total_share.html)
But look at 8-track audio tapes. At one time, they were quite popular. You could buy 'em in every dimestore. You can still play 'em, if you're willing to spend a lot of time and effort. But it's getting harder and harder. Audio cassettes are heading in that same direction. They're rarer and rarer.
As for the eBay/OCR situation: it might be possible. Every few months, there's a similar machine for sale. I've tried reading the disks in other machines, and haven't had much success. I think that the data integrity must be fading over time.
While it's true that it's not random, I'm kind of surprised at the vehemence of your reaction.
Part of traveling is, like it or not, being searched and taunted by police or other border officials.
I've had my bags searched in England, Thailand, Germany, (former) East Germany, Peru, the Netherlands, the US, and India. I've been frisked / body searched in Israel and Egypt.
Hell, I even had my bags searched on the train into Belgium when I was studying in Germany.
I'm not an especially strange guy. I don't work for the CIA, or have Nazi tatoos, or wear marijuana-leaf shirts. I did have long hair. The England situation was likely because I was wearing a stupid hat I'd bought at a flea market in Nuernberg.
I'm not so sure about all those places, but I still plan to visit Belgium again.
Indeed.
I was recently at a game where we played a seven stud game with a common wild card that they call "spit in the ocean." I had a full house (not very surprising; basically two pair in a hand of six cards) -- what was surprising was the THREE people who had four-of-a-kind, including a natural four aces!
Extremely unlikely? Yeah. But it happened. Whole lotta money changed hands on that round, lemme tell ya.
I have a bunch of old DSDD 40-track hard-sector TRS-80 5.25" floppy disks (NEWDOS/80v2 format) that I'd love be able to read.
... uh ... well, OK, twenty to twenty-five years old.
Unless I want to build custom hardware, I don't believe it can be done...
And those are only