The plural of "Lego" is indeed "Lego"... we all called them "Legos" as kids, but hey, we all ate library paste, too! Just because something is popular doesn't make it right.:-)
Something like this was printed on every single Lego catalog I had when I was younger: "Please refer to them as 'Lego bricks' or 'Lego toys,' and not 'Legos.'"
Those Herman Miller Aeron chairs are the most comfortable chairs I've ever used... it's like sitting on a cloud, or some sort of force field.
These days they're priced at up to $850-900, but every time I sit in one at work, that price seems a little bit cheaper to me. Considering the chair in front of my computer is probably the most-often-occupied seat in my home, I think it will be money well spent.
MD data storage was done, oh about 1995 or so. IIRC, the drives and media were damned expensive. This is my fault-- I didn't buy a near-$1000 MD music recorder/MD Discman bundle until late 1996-- which immediately preceeded a tremendous price-drop for all Sony MD products (D'oh!). Unfortunately, the price drop came too late to save the MD Data Drive. Sorry about that, everyone.
Anyway, the Iomega Zip came out in March or so of '95 as well, and provided the same advantages (sturdier high-capacity media & near HDD-speed) but without the steep price.
Now it's 2000, and Sony is still trying to find a niche for the MiniDisc other than placing it in movies like TimeCop and Strange Days where they need a futuristic-looking storage media.
Perhaps the time is right for MD Data to make a return. don't remember the exact capacity of MD Data discs, but if it's 100MB or more then MD Data should be a viable format to go from PC to portable MP3 player. (Note that Sony's current MD MP3 player is a half-assed piece of crap that does not work like a solid-state memory-using player.)
According to the MSNBC article, the infiltration was made possible by a Microsoft employee who received a Trojan horse in e-mail and activated it.
Didn't Microsoft take all of us "stupid users" to task for opening those "ILOVEYOU" messages in our mail some months ago?
I think it's great that their own employees are now officially just as dumb as they consider the great unwashed masses to whom they peddle their crapware, though I'm sure they'll publicly put a different spin on it.
I hope that those evil hackers made off with the Crown Jewels of Redmond, and that in a couple weeks people will be able to buy CDs of Windows and Office source code on the street in China for $5, or download it from Hotline.
It doesn't even matter if anyone does anything with it, just that millions upon millions of people will be able to possess it will keep Bill awake at night. So much the better if anti-competitive tricks are discovered to have been coded into it, whether that's admissible in court or not.
In the words of Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, "I've no sympathy at all..."
?
?on the history of Nintendo can be had if you get a hold of this book.
Nintendo did do a lot of underhanded stuff. I particularly remember them price-fixing the Advantage joystick, which remained at $40 for YEARS, I think even after the SNES came out. I simply did without until I picked a used one up at Funcoland for significantly cheaper, and then about 4 or 5 years ago my local Toys R Us blew out a pallet of them that must've been buried somewhere in the stockroom for chump change-- I think they were $2 or $3 apiece, brand new, in boxes that were so thick with dust you could write your name in it.
I hope the Psychlos didn't pick it up, otherwise they'll be here soon to kill us all for our gold, and John Travolta will be the Lord and Master of those who survive the holocaust!
Seriously, it is kind of sad to read about the demise of Pioneer 10, we all knew it would come one day, while hoping it never would. It is an incredible achievement that it lasted as long as it did. They sure don't build 'em like that anymore.
A $90 version of the clock you're talking about should be available at the Store of Knowledge in your local mega-mall. Or, just click the link to visit their online store and search for 'clock,' it'll show up in the results. (Sorry, the site won't let me link to a specific product's page).
It is kinda cool, but IMHO it is not worth $90.
I feel the same way... that modern games are, for lack of a better word, soulless. The graphics keep getting better, but most of the hot new games are more or less cookie-cutter first-person shooters. I was impressed with Doom back in '93 because the concept was refreshing and the game was genuinely fun (especially after a rough day at work). But then everything started to be based on the same engine, and I wasn't buying. Other people, however, seemingly failed to see that they were being sold the same game over and over, just with better graphics and more gore. Same thing happened in the arcades... after a certain point everything became a lame clone of Street Fighter and/or Mortal Kombat, and even worse, player skill was removed as part of what made the games fun-- some little kid could beat a seasoned player just by random button-mashing. Hell, even family-friendly Nintendo got on the "violent fighter" bandwagon with Killer Instinct, a game whose gameplay IMHO brought nothing new to the genre but whose graphics required the arcade console to have a hard drive to store them all.
Maybe it's because of my age, I mean, I grew up when Atari and ColecoVision ruled the landscape, back when gameplay really meant something. I get incensed nowadays when I see updated 3D "remakes" of the classics, because more often than not, they suck. But let's face it, the kids these days value the sizzle over the steak, so the game companies have to pander to that to make money.
I don't buy many computer games at all now. I keep Postal and Carmageddon around for blowing off steam after a rough day at work, and once in a while I'll dust off Doom. But for unwinding purposes, nothing beats a couple hours on my 2600, 5200, Vectrex, NES, Genesis, or 3DO (yes, I am a collector).
Yeah, I've got the Saturn (bought mostly for Virtua Fighter) and PlayStation (for hockey sims only, now that MAME is so good I no longer need the arcade classics collections). But as far as I'm concerned, the most bang for the buck when it comes to gameplay can be found in the games that are old enough to vote, the ones that can run in the amount of memory contained in one of those musical greeting cards today.
~Philly
In the book Skunk Works there's a pretty good account of how the Lockheed guys had unbelievable problems working with titanium during the construction of the SR-71.
They had to develop special procedures and tools, and eventually got good enough working with it to efficiently mass-produce the Blackbird, but the book also mentions that their tools were ordered destroyed when the project was end-of-lifed, and most if not all of the guys who developed those procedures are probably worm food by now. It is workable, but if all the handling information was destroyed, the procedures will have to be rediscovered.
Microsoft's $150M was not a handout, as you make it sound. They purchased $150M worth of non-voting stock. Which, I might add, is worth about a jillion bucks these days.
Oh, great. So, in theory, our local PBS stations could one day make our computers go to their pledge drive donation web page, and not let us close the browser window or do anything else on them until we cough up some "support by viewers like you."
I would love to be watching a Discovery channel show about say, penguins, and be linked to a site that has more in depth information about penguins.
Now, that, on the other hand, is a good idea. Anything would improve that annoying animation/sound effect cue that Discovery uses currently. What would be cool would be a new standard button on remotes that would light up or something when you could press it for more info about what was on the screen. There has to be some sort of user control over what cues would load up a site on that user's computer.
Point is, there were a lot of better ways to implement this CueCat idea, and I've been able to think of about three now since the debate over it began here.
Yeah, that's another thing. How nice of Wired to completely ignore that not all of their readers have a Wintel PC lying around to use this on. I'd expect better of them, considering their colophon reads like the Macintosh Product Guide.
But getting back to the matter at hand, I think DC is a bunch of schmucks for doling out those C&Ds to the guys who are hacking the CueCrap. If my dentist gives me a free toothbrush, can I expect him to sue if he finds out I'm using it to scrub mildew off the tile grout in my shower stall? Bottom line is, there are always gonna be people who tinker with stuff whether it's meant to be tinkered with or not, and no damned lawyer will ever stop that from happening.
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The plural of "Lego" is indeed "Lego"... we all called them "Legos" as kids, but hey, we all ate library paste, too! Just because something is popular doesn't make it right. :-)
Something like this was printed on every single Lego catalog I had when I was younger: "Please refer to them as 'Lego bricks' or 'Lego toys,' and not 'Legos.'"
~Philly
Those Herman Miller Aeron chairs are the most comfortable chairs I've ever used... it's like sitting on a cloud, or some sort of force field.
These days they're priced at up to $850-900, but every time I sit in one at work, that price seems a little bit cheaper to me. Considering the chair in front of my computer is probably the most-often-occupied seat in my home, I think it will be money well spent.
MD data storage was done, oh about 1995 or so. IIRC, the drives and media were damned expensive. This is my fault-- I didn't buy a near-$1000 MD music recorder/MD Discman bundle until late 1996-- which immediately preceeded a tremendous price-drop for all Sony MD products (D'oh!). Unfortunately, the price drop came too late to save the MD Data Drive. Sorry about that, everyone.
Anyway, the Iomega Zip came out in March or so of '95 as well, and provided the same advantages (sturdier high-capacity media & near HDD-speed) but without the steep price.
Now it's 2000, and Sony is still trying to find a niche for the MiniDisc other than placing it in movies like TimeCop and Strange Days where they need a futuristic-looking storage media.
Perhaps the time is right for MD Data to make a return. don't remember the exact capacity of MD Data discs, but if it's 100MB or more then MD Data should be a viable format to go from PC to portable MP3 player. (Note that Sony's current MD MP3 player is a half-assed piece of crap that does not work like a solid-state memory-using player.)
~Philly
But what if they purged the e-mail and logs. and only had ones dating back three months? Those pesky purges have been known to happen, y'know.
~Philly
According to the MSNBC article, the infiltration was made possible by a Microsoft employee who received a Trojan horse in e-mail and activated it.
Didn't Microsoft take all of us "stupid users" to task for opening those "ILOVEYOU" messages in our mail some months ago?
I think it's great that their own employees are now officially just as dumb as they consider the great unwashed masses to whom they peddle their crapware, though I'm sure they'll publicly put a different spin on it.
I hope that those evil hackers made off with the Crown Jewels of Redmond, and that in a couple weeks people will be able to buy CDs of Windows and Office source code on the street in China for $5, or download it from Hotline.
It doesn't even matter if anyone does anything with it, just that millions upon millions of people will be able to possess it will keep Bill awake at night. So much the better if anti-competitive tricks are discovered to have been coded into it, whether that's admissible in court or not.
In the words of Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, "I've no sympathy at all..."
~Philly
? ?on the history of Nintendo can be had if you get a hold of this book.
Nintendo did do a lot of underhanded stuff. I particularly remember them price-fixing the Advantage joystick, which remained at $40 for YEARS, I think even after the SNES came out. I simply did without until I picked a used one up at Funcoland for significantly cheaper, and then about 4 or 5 years ago my local Toys R Us blew out a pallet of them that must've been buried somewhere in the stockroom for chump change-- I think they were $2 or $3 apiece, brand new, in boxes that were so thick with dust you could write your name in it.
~Philly
I hope the Psychlos didn't pick it up, otherwise they'll be here soon to kill us all for our gold, and John Travolta will be the Lord and Master of those who survive the holocaust!
Seriously, it is kind of sad to read about the demise of Pioneer 10, we all knew it would come one day, while hoping it never would. It is an incredible achievement that it lasted as long as it did. They sure don't build 'em like that anymore.
~Philly
A $90 version of the clock you're talking about should be available at the Store of Knowledge in your local mega-mall. Or, just click the link to visit their online store and search for 'clock,' it'll show up in the results. (Sorry, the site won't let me link to a specific product's page). It is kinda cool, but IMHO it is not worth $90.
~Philly
I feel the same way... that modern games are, for lack of a better word, soulless. The graphics keep getting better, but most of the hot new games are more or less cookie-cutter first-person shooters. I was impressed with Doom back in '93 because the concept was refreshing and the game was genuinely fun (especially after a rough day at work). But then everything started to be based on the same engine, and I wasn't buying. Other people, however, seemingly failed to see that they were being sold the same game over and over, just with better graphics and more gore. Same thing happened in the arcades... after a certain point everything became a lame clone of Street Fighter and/or Mortal Kombat, and even worse, player skill was removed as part of what made the games fun-- some little kid could beat a seasoned player just by random button-mashing. Hell, even family-friendly Nintendo got on the "violent fighter" bandwagon with Killer Instinct, a game whose gameplay IMHO brought nothing new to the genre but whose graphics required the arcade console to have a hard drive to store them all.
Maybe it's because of my age, I mean, I grew up when Atari and ColecoVision ruled the landscape, back when gameplay really meant something. I get incensed nowadays when I see updated 3D "remakes" of the classics, because more often than not, they suck. But let's face it, the kids these days value the sizzle over the steak, so the game companies have to pander to that to make money.
I don't buy many computer games at all now. I keep Postal and Carmageddon around for blowing off steam after a rough day at work, and once in a while I'll dust off Doom. But for unwinding purposes, nothing beats a couple hours on my 2600, 5200, Vectrex, NES, Genesis, or 3DO (yes, I am a collector).
Yeah, I've got the Saturn (bought mostly for Virtua Fighter) and PlayStation (for hockey sims only, now that MAME is so good I no longer need the arcade classics collections). But as far as I'm concerned, the most bang for the buck when it comes to gameplay can be found in the games that are old enough to vote, the ones that can run in the amount of memory contained in one of those musical greeting cards today. ~Philly
In the book Skunk Works there's a pretty good account of how the Lockheed guys had unbelievable problems working with titanium during the construction of the SR-71.
They had to develop special procedures and tools, and eventually got good enough working with it to efficiently mass-produce the Blackbird, but the book also mentions that their tools were ordered destroyed when the project was end-of-lifed, and most if not all of the guys who developed those procedures are probably worm food by now. It is workable, but if all the handling information was destroyed, the procedures will have to be rediscovered.
Microsoft's $150M was not a handout, as you make it sound. They purchased $150M worth of non-voting stock. Which, I might add, is worth about a jillion bucks these days.
...(although I hear PBS is going to use it)...
Oh, great. So, in theory, our local PBS stations could one day make our computers go to their pledge drive donation web page, and not let us close the browser window or do anything else on them until we cough up some "support by viewers like you."
I would love to be watching a Discovery channel show about say, penguins, and be linked to a site that has more in depth information about penguins.
Now, that, on the other hand, is a good idea. Anything would improve that annoying animation/sound effect cue that Discovery uses currently. What would be cool would be a new standard button on remotes that would light up or something when you could press it for more info about what was on the screen. There has to be some sort of user control over what cues would load up a site on that user's computer.
Point is, there were a lot of better ways to implement this CueCat idea, and I've been able to think of about three now since the debate over it began here.
Yeah, that's another thing. How nice of Wired to completely ignore that not all of their readers have a Wintel PC lying around to use this on. I'd expect better of them, considering their colophon reads like the Macintosh Product Guide.
But getting back to the matter at hand, I think DC is a bunch of schmucks for doling out those C&Ds to the guys who are hacking the CueCrap. If my dentist gives me a free toothbrush, can I expect him to sue if he finds out I'm using it to scrub mildew off the tile grout in my shower stall? Bottom line is, there are always gonna be people who tinker with stuff whether it's meant to be tinkered with or not, and no damned lawyer will ever stop that from happening.