The basic Voltron premise was to have standard villian create hair-brained scheme executed by horrifying giant monster/robot. Team Voltron goes off to fight this menace, nearly gets beaten, rises up again to heroic music, forms blazing sword, and lays the smack down - all while dealing with a touching interpersonal subplot.
Bad news folks. Voltron, the live-action movie has already been done. It's called Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and if I'm not mistaken, we all hated it.
If Microsoft pursues this case and loses in court it will set a precedent. Non-compete agreements (like the one I have signed) will be unenforceable in Washington state.
So I'll be keeping an eye on this just for reference. I like my job and don't intend to go fishing for people to hire me away. But it would be good to see the agreement tested.
So the title of the submission is: Low-Hanging Moon Explained... and the text of the submission itself says "There is still no agreed on explaination for why the moon appears bigger".
Who writes these titles? Do they even read the submission, let alone the article... (extra scorn if the submitter wrote the title)
Wacky. And I read the article too (before it got posted here). There's definitely no explanation... a couple theories, sure, but they debunk the theories right in the article.
If they can't fix the problem by allowing the real URL to be displayed then I have to ask what they are using this special character for?
I can't think of a good reason for having a special character in the first place that suppresses display of everything after it unless Microsoft needs it for some special purpose behind the scenes.
Can you just accidently end up with these things? Is it because the common controls they use have this "feature" which is needed in other applications and so IE just inherited it (if so, they could just distribute and use a different control)? Or do they actually make use of it someplace else in Explorer and need to keep it in?
I assume DNS is solid enough that citibank.com%01.haxor.org would fail and not pass on requests with that character? Or could haxor.org have their own DNS implementation that would handle that character when the lookup request arrived?
- StaticLimit
Re:I'd Be carefule if I were the hunters
on
ScavHunt211
·
· Score: 5, Funny
NASA has said that any one who is in poession of said parts will be liable for criminal conduct.
It seems to me that it's ALWAYS a bad idea to bet that top-of-the-line computing power by current standards is going to be a valuable commidity even next year.
How can IBM possibly expect to keep pace with distributed computing taking hold? Haven't they noticed that yesterday's supercomputers are getting clobbered by today's Beowulf clusters?
And further... what if the computing power increases in following Moore's law begins to exceed programmers' ability to waste CPU cycles? 5 years ago I knew my machine would be obsolete in 6 months... obsolete enough I'd have trouble running the latest stuff. Lately, I've been squeezing 2 years out a machine pretty easily and (XP aside) there's precious little software that I use other than games that truely requires top of the line software. Of course that doesn't mean that GM's crash modelling software doesn't need as much power as it can grab, but you don't have to look further than CGI movie rendering over the past 5 years to see how quickly power increases and how quickly cost decreases.
And frankly, "Talk to the hand" could use an update... it's getting a little stale. Now all we need a technological advance to give new meaning to "Voted off the island", "You ARE the weakest link", "Is that your final answer?" and "I'd like to phone a friend". Actually I suppose this could have some bearing on the last one...
Hey, it pays. Leaves me plenty of free time to code the hard-core stuff (not that I don't waste it playing CivIII instead...). I'm looking forward to doing some programming in Ja^H^H C#^H^H Java... whatever. I won't make excuses for programming in VB though, it's a quick, solid IDE for business application programming.
Yeah, I guess I'd be giving people too much credit to assume they could make the leap from "exposure to... memory allocation" to "understanding malloc". Though chances are if you're playing around with those concepts, you're doing it in C.
Even if Java is the primary language being taught in CS, I think that on a basic level, you really miss something if you don't get exposure to pointers and dynamic memory allocation and non-garbage collected languages. I love Java (and Visual Basic for that matter) all the more because I've been exposed to the things they take care of for me. I also had required classes in assembly, automata, and microelectronics so I have some concept of what's going on all the way down to the silicon. Of course the program I was in (at the University of Toledo) is Computer Science and Computer Engineering rolled into one.
I'm not saying I've malloc'd more than a couple times, or even done it correctly, but could certainly explain it and use it if I HAD to.
I attribute a great deal of my success in programming to the ability to find the right things to cut and paste. But I also understand exactly what I'm cutting and pasting and can tweak it and extend it to bend it to my will as the situation requires!
The one thing I was most surprised to see left out was that Aragorn's sword was not reforged. The Sword Which Was Broken And Has Been Reforged (SWWBAHBR) is a really important part of the book and a major link to Aragorn's past. And he carried the sword with him (Gandalf's letter left at the Prancing Pony... also left out... mentioned the broken sword as a way to identify Aragorn).
Perhaps Jackson will reorder events to reforge the sword in the second or third movies since it was shown and mentioned in the first movie, but only in the sense of Aragorn feeling unworthy to wield it.
First Person Shooters (FPS) aren't the first thing I think of when I see this. It looks like it'd be more useful in First Person Bowling (FPB) sims. The hand-dryer-blower-thing is just that subtle element of realism that FPBs are always missing;)
If only Katz's little article were a rant about the middle ages. Then we could have references to the year 1337, cuz d00d, that would b l337!
- StaticLimit
What should be required to back up a story?
on
Message from Kabul
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I certainly wouldn't mind seeing some evidence, but I do think that in general, the Katz series of articles tend to be designed more towards provoking debate and seeding ideas than toward investigative reporting. It's a piece about the power of technology, not a master's thesis on broadband in Kabul with footnotes. I may be too trusting, but I don't think that Jon presents an entirely implausable scenario. How could this be proven if it were in fact true? Would email message headers do it? I doubt it.
The way I see it, sufficient proof would be full email headers, substantiating email from each member of the forwarding chain, photos of the much ballyhoo'd Commodore (preferably playing a downloaded copy of The Phantom Edit), and ISP records proving that movies could be (and had been) downloaded on the outskirts of Kabul. Or alternatively, I guess a video interview with the dude in Afganistan might suffice, though it's not like Jon can just hop on a flight to Kabul (unless he enlists in the special forces;).
Frankly, that's a pretty heavy burden of evidence to place on any journalist and especially here on Slash-(We'll post obvious product advertising literature sent from company email addresses)-dot. I'd be curious what sort of evidentiary standard reporters are generally held to at upstanding newspapers and magazines.
Screw on-topic! Let's start a thread...
What is reasonably required to back up a journalist's story? And especially here on Slashdot (Katz, Taco, rest-of-crew feel free to chime in [unlikely]... or mod down [more likely])
Thank you! It's certainly good to get the perspective of a professionally trained journalist (as I know you are from your assertion that Katz's article does not constitute journalism).
I would take serious issue with your suggestion that whether or not Katz's article raises issues that could be thought about or debated rests entirely on the legitimacy of an email from Afganistan!
It's really pretty shallow to suggest that the pervasiveness of technology, and the influence of American culture (in contrast to the influence of American bombs) is not an issue worthy of discussion. After all, its obvious that American culture and values (or lack thereof) is a major reason why al Queda and associates are so opposed to America. I think Katz definitely touches on the topic of American cultural imperialism here, among other things.
Numerous people have brought up the possibility that it's an Amiga, not a C64 (and there's no evidence to support either an Amiga OR a C64). As for bandwidth and electricity, I seriously doubt if anyone here on Slashdot has any clue what kind of capacity there is on the outskirts of Kabul (other than CNN-based guesses)... I know I don't.
And on your point that someone figured out that Junis responded to Katz while Katz was writing for Hotwired, then composed a hoax email, and forwarded to people in Islamabad who might forward to Katz (or spoofed the headers somehow), I can only say:
The helicopters are coming. Hide your guns and DO NOT DRINK THE WATER;)
I admit, after reading the first few lines and knowing that there are all sorts of stupid Sept 11 and Afganistan hoax emails going around, I was skeptical. But a lot of the criticism here ignores what Katz wrote.
a forwarded e-mail from Junis
routed to Kabul, then Islamabad, then London
Ok, so the people who said "How did he get Katz's email address!" didn't read that it was forwarded to John from someone in London.
Junis, a computer geek obsessed with Linux, had first e-mailed me years ago while I was writing for Hotwired
And it seems to me that the folks suggesting this is just another typical internet chain-email hoax missed the part where Junis had written to Katz before! Come on people. Just because you don't personally know anyone in Kabul, Islamabad, or London doesn't mean that a well known journalist (and he is well known, and respected, in geek journalist circles) wouldn't have enough connections to get an interesting email from someone in a newsworthy place.
Could it all be made up as a device for another article overusing the phrases "geek", "open-source", and other buzz-words about the pervasiveness of the net and the radical societal shifts brought about by the rise of the geeks? Sure.
Could the government be hiding evidence of alien landings at Roswell and poisoning our water with mind-control flouride so we won't notice the UN's silent black helicoptors when they come to impose the oppressive new world order and take our guns away? Um...sure.
Too many people want to validate conspiracy theories instead of debating the ideas Katz brings up.
Well packed? Maybe not, but COME ON MAN, LOOK AT THE CASE. That's a metal case! That's not just casual, "oops maybe I chucked that box into the truck a little hard" sort of damage.
I for one think that the extent of the damage would warrant the suggestion of using other shippers for computer equipment. Even if it wasn't well packed, and even if sufficient packaging could have prevented much of the damage (and this is certainly an EXCELLENT example of why one should take care in packing) that really looks like the damage goes well beyond the tolerances one should expect packages to withstand in the shipping process.
Lotsa good tips on packaging and the value of insurance, but cut the guy some slack (directed to all the posts, not just this one), its not like he shipped it to Afganistan by B-52.
You're only one semester from being done, but my best advice is:
Get an internship 3 semesters ago.
I think it's very important to get an idea of what you'll be doing when you get out of school. The type of programming you're doing now isn't necessarily representative of the type of projects and problems you'll find in the real world. Projects especially may be more rewarding when you're not working in groups that only have people at or below your own skill level. I found that the type of work I was doing and the people I was working with during my internships and the amount that I was able to learn "on the job" made me feel like college might just have been a waste of time.
Now I know better. The CS degree gave me the foundation that I use to solve problems and learn new technologies and I've found that people who didn't get a CS degree (or didn't put in several years of work towards one) just weren't able to think about problems on quite the same level.
So my advice to you requires a time machine, but maybe some other folks in their sophomore-junior year can take it and get summer internships or co-ops in the field. It pays better than McDonald's (I know, I did that too) and it's going to be more useful later in your career (unless you're desperately in need of "character building")
Maybe it will serve to kickstart the firewire device market.... or just free advertising
IANABM (not a business major?)... but when you want to kickstart a technology market or get your logo out there on people's bodies, you sell at a loss. You can't break into a market or build up a market selling luxury goods. If Apple wanted a bunch of cool firewire devices to push firewire, this would cost $250.
Now sure, I'll stop by the Apple site and check it out, but I stop by there every couple weeks anyway to marvel at the pretty things they sell (or download QuickTime again because I never install it when I rebuild my machine and I need to watch that Lord of the Rings trailer). But Apple doesn't make money from banner ads. They need to be happy with their niche market, or they need to compete on price, lose money, and drive out the competition. They've been in this niche for years, they make money there, and I think that's where they plan to stay.
The night "Enterprise" premiered, my TV was still in the garage, and we didn't have cable. My wife and I rushed to assemble a cabinet we got for the TV and hooked it up, but all we got was static.
"We need an antenna!", sez I. But we only had 15 minutes before it started, and where can we find something that will fit into the cable jack on the back and be a long, conductive thing...
We tried an old phone cable, but the wire inside was crap (one tiny strand braided with nylon or some crap), so I pulled out the CueCat... *snip* *snip* *strip* and I had a wire that fit right in, a long cord to act like an antenna... and a little cat-scanner-thing to set on top of the TV, which happened to be the position that gave us the best reception.
It may be very loose in its definition of terrorist, but the definition will certainly be refined and restricted in the courts. And I have faith in the general ability of the courts to resolve a competantly rigid definition over time. The unfortunate thing is that it will take the courts time to determine things like this and it will require plenty of test cases where a person's civil rights are violated by overly zealous authorities only to have decisions reversed and re-examined over a period of years by the courts.
It's a real shame that legislators feel they can just pen broad concepts into law and "let the legal system sort out what we actually meant" (that's my quote there, not someone else's;).
The things that would never pass on their own merits but get snuck into bills that everyone feels obliged to vote for no matter what... that's the main thing that's bugged me most about Congress. And I think it's a huge failing of the news media that fails to bring this to our attention! For the most part, I think it's because the media A) is lazy - they ask each side for a heavily biased 30 second sound bite and call it "balanced reporting", B) thinks Americans are stupid - they're so certain that Americans can't understand complex things like "pork-barrel" additions to bills that they just refuse to paint the details... it's all broad colorful strokes, and C) ratings obsessed - see point B and watch ten minutes of Hard Copy or something similar.
Sure it's built to withstand a nuclear attack (generally that means anything other than a direct hit)... but it's also probably a first tier target for... direct nuclear strikes. Of course, I'm SURE Russia has updated their target list over the years to remove this silo;).
This is a client-side browser issue. If we had a competative browser market, someone might find it useful to "innovate" a feature into the browser to disable popups, or cue up the popups and let the user decide whether to let them fire.
Was it Konquerer that put a similar feature into their browser? If so, big huge kudos to them.
Regardless, I don't see Microsoft champing at the bit to reduce end-user annoyance over this, and I'm surprised, because I can't imagine how the IE team can browse the web without getting fed up with that crap and saying "fsck (or maybe chkdsk) it! I'm going to "innovate" a way to stop this!".
Slashdot Mirror
The basic Voltron premise was to have standard villian create hair-brained scheme executed by horrifying giant monster/robot. Team Voltron goes off to fight this menace, nearly gets beaten, rises up again to heroic music, forms blazing sword, and lays the smack down - all while dealing with a touching interpersonal subplot.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113820/
Bad news folks. Voltron, the live-action movie has already been done. It's called Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and if I'm not mistaken, we all hated it.
- StaticLimit
If Microsoft pursues this case and loses in court it will set a precedent. Non-compete agreements (like the one I have signed) will be unenforceable in Washington state.
So I'll be keeping an eye on this just for reference. I like my job and don't intend to go fishing for people to hire me away. But it would be good to see the agreement tested.
- StaticLimit
So the title of the submission is: Low-Hanging Moon Explained... and the text of the submission itself says "There is still no agreed on explaination for why the moon appears bigger".
Who writes these titles? Do they even read the submission, let alone the article... (extra scorn if the submitter wrote the title)
Wacky. And I read the article too (before it got posted here). There's definitely no explanation... a couple theories, sure, but they debunk the theories right in the article.
- StaticLimit
If they can't fix the problem by allowing the real URL to be displayed then I have to ask what they are using this special character for?
I can't think of a good reason for having a special character in the first place that suppresses display of everything after it unless Microsoft needs it for some special purpose behind the scenes.
Can you just accidently end up with these things? Is it because the common controls they use have this "feature" which is needed in other applications and so IE just inherited it (if so, they could just distribute and use a different control)? Or do they actually make use of it someplace else in Explorer and need to keep it in?
I assume DNS is solid enough that citibank.com%01.haxor.org would fail and not pass on requests with that character? Or could haxor.org have their own DNS implementation that would handle that character when the lookup request arrived?
- StaticLimit
NASA has said that any one who is in poession of said parts will be liable for criminal conduct.
... and 155 points.
I want the giant sloth back
Dude, you should see me after a big lunch on a Wednesday... only coffee can change me back to a productive worker.
- StaticLimit
It seems to me that it's ALWAYS a bad idea to bet that top-of-the-line computing power by current standards is going to be a valuable commidity even next year.
How can IBM possibly expect to keep pace with distributed computing taking hold? Haven't they noticed that yesterday's supercomputers are getting clobbered by today's Beowulf clusters?
And further... what if the computing power increases in following Moore's law begins to exceed programmers' ability to waste CPU cycles? 5 years ago I knew my machine would be obsolete in 6 months... obsolete enough I'd have trouble running the latest stuff. Lately, I've been squeezing 2 years out a machine pretty easily and (XP aside) there's precious little software that I use other than games that truely requires top of the line software. Of course that doesn't mean that GM's crash modelling software doesn't need as much power as it can grab, but you don't have to look further than CGI movie rendering over the past 5 years to see how quickly power increases and how quickly cost decreases.
- StaticLimit
Me too...
I'd also take issue with "folds up like an old-skool Transformer". It appears to have two hinged halves, one of which also rotates.
I have very strong memories of transforming vehicles from my childhood and we called things with 2 hinges and a swivel "Go-Bots".
- StaticLimit
...a way to pirate music that the artist hasn't even written yet
Too late...
The Beatles already did that to Oasis.
- StaticLimit
And frankly, "Talk to the hand" could use an update... it's getting a little stale. Now all we need a technological advance to give new meaning to "Voted off the island", "You ARE the weakest link", "Is that your final answer?" and "I'd like to phone a friend". Actually I suppose this could have some bearing on the last one...
- StaticLimit
(Visual Basic??:)
... memory allocation" to "understanding malloc". Though chances are if you're playing around with those concepts, you're doing it in C.
Hey, it pays. Leaves me plenty of free time to code the hard-core stuff (not that I don't waste it playing CivIII instead...). I'm looking forward to doing some programming in Ja^H^H C#^H^H Java... whatever. I won't make excuses for programming in VB though, it's a quick, solid IDE for business application programming.
Yeah, I guess I'd be giving people too much credit to assume they could make the leap from "exposure to
- StaticLimit
Even if Java is the primary language being taught in CS, I think that on a basic level, you really miss something if you don't get exposure to pointers and dynamic memory allocation and non-garbage collected languages. I love Java (and Visual Basic for that matter) all the more because I've been exposed to the things they take care of for me. I also had required classes in assembly, automata, and microelectronics so I have some concept of what's going on all the way down to the silicon. Of course the program I was in (at the University of Toledo) is Computer Science and Computer Engineering rolled into one.
I'm not saying I've malloc'd more than a couple times, or even done it correctly, but could certainly explain it and use it if I HAD to.
I attribute a great deal of my success in programming to the ability to find the right things to cut and paste. But I also understand exactly what I'm cutting and pasting and can tweak it and extend it to bend it to my will as the situation requires!
- StaticLimit
The one thing I was most surprised to see left out was that Aragorn's sword was not reforged. The Sword Which Was Broken And Has Been Reforged (SWWBAHBR) is a really important part of the book and a major link to Aragorn's past. And he carried the sword with him (Gandalf's letter left at the Prancing Pony ... also left out ... mentioned the broken sword as a way to identify Aragorn).
Perhaps Jackson will reorder events to reforge the sword in the second or third movies since it was shown and mentioned in the first movie, but only in the sense of Aragorn feeling unworthy to wield it.
- StaticLimit
First Person Shooters (FPS) aren't the first thing I think of when I see this. It looks like it'd be more useful in First Person Bowling (FPB) sims. The hand-dryer-blower-thing is just that subtle element of realism that FPBs are always missing ;)
- StaticLimit
If only Katz's little article were a rant about the middle ages. Then we could have references to the year 1337, cuz d00d, that would b l337!
- StaticLimit
I certainly wouldn't mind seeing some evidence, but I do think that in general, the Katz series of articles tend to be designed more towards provoking debate and seeding ideas than toward investigative reporting. It's a piece about the power of technology, not a master's thesis on broadband in Kabul with footnotes. I may be too trusting, but I don't think that Jon presents an entirely implausable scenario. How could this be proven if it were in fact true? Would email message headers do it? I doubt it.
;).
The way I see it, sufficient proof would be full email headers, substantiating email from each member of the forwarding chain, photos of the much ballyhoo'd Commodore (preferably playing a downloaded copy of The Phantom Edit), and ISP records proving that movies could be (and had been) downloaded on the outskirts of Kabul. Or alternatively, I guess a video interview with the dude in Afganistan might suffice, though it's not like Jon can just hop on a flight to Kabul (unless he enlists in the special forces
Frankly, that's a pretty heavy burden of evidence to place on any journalist and especially here on Slash-(We'll post obvious product advertising literature sent from company email addresses)-dot. I'd be curious what sort of evidentiary standard reporters are generally held to at upstanding newspapers and magazines.
Screw on-topic! Let's start a thread...
What is reasonably required to back up a journalist's story? And especially here on Slashdot (Katz, Taco, rest-of-crew feel free to chime in [unlikely]... or mod down [more likely])
- StaticLimit
Thank you! It's certainly good to get the perspective of a professionally trained journalist (as I know you are from your assertion that Katz's article does not constitute journalism).
;)
I would take serious issue with your suggestion that whether or not Katz's article raises issues that could be thought about or debated rests entirely on the legitimacy of an email from Afganistan!
It's really pretty shallow to suggest that the pervasiveness of technology, and the influence of American culture (in contrast to the influence of American bombs) is not an issue worthy of discussion. After all, its obvious that American culture and values (or lack thereof) is a major reason why al Queda and associates are so opposed to America. I think Katz definitely touches on the topic of American cultural imperialism here, among other things.
Numerous people have brought up the possibility that it's an Amiga, not a C64 (and there's no evidence to support either an Amiga OR a C64). As for bandwidth and electricity, I seriously doubt if anyone here on Slashdot has any clue what kind of capacity there is on the outskirts of Kabul (other than CNN-based guesses)... I know I don't.
And on your point that someone figured out that Junis responded to Katz while Katz was writing for Hotwired, then composed a hoax email, and forwarded to people in Islamabad who might forward to Katz (or spoofed the headers somehow), I can only say:
The helicopters are coming. Hide your guns and DO NOT DRINK THE WATER
- StaticLimit
I admit, after reading the first few lines and knowing that there are all sorts of stupid Sept 11 and Afganistan hoax emails going around, I was skeptical. But a lot of the criticism here ignores what Katz wrote.
a forwarded e-mail from Junis
routed to Kabul, then Islamabad, then London
Ok, so the people who said "How did he get Katz's email address!" didn't read that it was forwarded to John from someone in London.
Junis, a computer geek obsessed with Linux, had first e-mailed me years ago while I was writing for Hotwired
And it seems to me that the folks suggesting this is just another typical internet chain-email hoax missed the part where Junis had written to Katz before! Come on people. Just because you don't personally know anyone in Kabul, Islamabad, or London doesn't mean that a well known journalist (and he is well known, and respected, in geek journalist circles) wouldn't have enough connections to get an interesting email from someone in a newsworthy place.
Could it all be made up as a device for another article overusing the phrases "geek", "open-source", and other buzz-words about the pervasiveness of the net and the radical societal shifts brought about by the rise of the geeks? Sure.
Could the government be hiding evidence of alien landings at Roswell and poisoning our water with mind-control flouride so we won't notice the UN's silent black helicoptors when they come to impose the oppressive new world order and take our guns away? Um...sure.
Too many people want to validate conspiracy theories instead of debating the ideas Katz brings up.
- StaticLimit
Well packed? Maybe not, but COME ON MAN, LOOK AT THE CASE. That's a metal case! That's not just casual, "oops maybe I chucked that box into the truck a little hard" sort of damage.
I for one think that the extent of the damage would warrant the suggestion of using other shippers for computer equipment. Even if it wasn't well packed, and even if sufficient packaging could have prevented much of the damage (and this is certainly an EXCELLENT example of why one should take care in packing) that really looks like the damage goes well beyond the tolerances one should expect packages to withstand in the shipping process.
Lotsa good tips on packaging and the value of insurance, but cut the guy some slack (directed to all the posts, not just this one), its not like he shipped it to Afganistan by B-52.
- StaticLimit
You're only one semester from being done, but my best advice is:
Get an internship 3 semesters ago.
I think it's very important to get an idea of what you'll be doing when you get out of school. The type of programming you're doing now isn't necessarily representative of the type of projects and problems you'll find in the real world. Projects especially may be more rewarding when you're not working in groups that only have people at or below your own skill level. I found that the type of work I was doing and the people I was working with during my internships and the amount that I was able to learn "on the job" made me feel like college might just have been a waste of time.
Now I know better. The CS degree gave me the foundation that I use to solve problems and learn new technologies and I've found that people who didn't get a CS degree (or didn't put in several years of work towards one) just weren't able to think about problems on quite the same level.
So my advice to you requires a time machine, but maybe some other folks in their sophomore-junior year can take it and get summer internships or co-ops in the field. It pays better than McDonald's (I know, I did that too) and it's going to be more useful later in your career (unless you're desperately in need of "character building")
- StaticLimit
Maybe it will serve to kickstart the firewire device market. ... or just free advertising
IANABM (not a business major?)... but when you want to kickstart a technology market or get your logo out there on people's bodies, you sell at a loss. You can't break into a market or build up a market selling luxury goods. If Apple wanted a bunch of cool firewire devices to push firewire, this would cost $250.
Now sure, I'll stop by the Apple site and check it out, but I stop by there every couple weeks anyway to marvel at the pretty things they sell (or download QuickTime again because I never install it when I rebuild my machine and I need to watch that Lord of the Rings trailer). But Apple doesn't make money from banner ads. They need to be happy with their niche market, or they need to compete on price, lose money, and drive out the competition. They've been in this niche for years, they make money there, and I think that's where they plan to stay.
- StaticLimit
The night "Enterprise" premiered, my TV was still in the garage, and we didn't have cable. My wife and I rushed to assemble a cabinet we got for the TV and hooked it up, but all we got was static.
"We need an antenna!", sez I. But we only had 15 minutes before it started, and where can we find something that will fit into the cable jack on the back and be a long, conductive thing...
We tried an old phone cable, but the wire inside was crap (one tiny strand braided with nylon or some crap), so I pulled out the CueCat... *snip* *snip* *strip* and I had a wire that fit right in, a long cord to act like an antenna... and a little cat-scanner-thing to set on top of the TV, which happened to be the position that gave us the best reception.
- StaticLimit
It may be very loose in its definition of terrorist, but the definition will certainly be refined and restricted in the courts. And I have faith in the general ability of the courts to resolve a competantly rigid definition over time. The unfortunate thing is that it will take the courts time to determine things like this and it will require plenty of test cases where a person's civil rights are violated by overly zealous authorities only to have decisions reversed and re-examined over a period of years by the courts.
;).
It's a real shame that legislators feel they can just pen broad concepts into law and "let the legal system sort out what we actually meant" (that's my quote there, not someone else's
The things that would never pass on their own merits but get snuck into bills that everyone feels obliged to vote for no matter what... that's the main thing that's bugged me most about Congress. And I think it's a huge failing of the news media that fails to bring this to our attention! For the most part, I think it's because the media A) is lazy - they ask each side for a heavily biased 30 second sound bite and call it "balanced reporting", B) thinks Americans are stupid - they're so certain that Americans can't understand complex things like "pork-barrel" additions to bills that they just refuse to paint the details... it's all broad colorful strokes, and C) ratings obsessed - see point B and watch ten minutes of Hard Copy or something similar.
- StaticLimit
Sure it's built to withstand a nuclear attack (generally that means anything other than a direct hit)... but it's also probably a first tier target for... direct nuclear strikes. Of course, I'm SURE Russia has updated their target list over the years to remove this silo ;).
- StaticLimit
This is a client-side browser issue. If we had a competative browser market, someone might find it useful to "innovate" a feature into the browser to disable popups, or cue up the popups and let the user decide whether to let them fire.
Was it Konquerer that put a similar feature into their browser? If so, big huge kudos to them.
Regardless, I don't see Microsoft champing at the bit to reduce end-user annoyance over this, and I'm surprised, because I can't imagine how the IE team can browse the web without getting fed up with that crap and saying "fsck (or maybe chkdsk) it! I'm going to "innovate" a way to stop this!".
- StaticLimit