I'm serious. Linus is being slowed down by having to work only part-time on Linux, devoting all those hours to Transmeta doing the heavy lifting for the internal translation work in the Crusoe. He needs to be free from monetary constraints in order to realize his true potential, the way Stallman has.
The options are to start up a trust fund, which would never work and wouldn't be consistent with Linus's libertarian politics. The second best option would be to start manufacturing and selling his own action-figure lineup. For the boys, there'd be Combat Linus with his dashing Finnish looks and two front-loading high-caliber automatic gcc's under each arm. For the girls, there'd be Dream Date Linus in a tuxedo with his pet penguin, Tux, on a leash. Kids could learn important spacial and social skills while also learning about the open-source and free-software movements. And geeks love toys, so adults would buy them too.
But most importantly, the proceeds would go to support Linus full-time. Think how much faster 2.4.0 could've come out if Linus could've devoted 14 hours per day to it. Just think about it.
Nevermind all the new whizbang features and those pretty graphics. That doesn't impress me. The part that impresses me is that they've managed to make the thing so damn small. Back when I was a kid in the thirties, trains were still steam-powered for the most part. When I got started with IBM in the early fifties, those machines were enormous: an entire room, sometimes two, just for a single computer with only a few hundered transistors, each individually programmable and each the size of, well, I can't remember what but they were big. You had to hire water buffalo to wade in your kiddy pool and splash water on them to keep them cool, if I recall correctly, which I probably don't. Or do I? I can't remember.
Even Microsoft made it small. That says a lot, since they're the experts in making stuff bloated. Or, how can I put it a different way. Microsoft's X-box is to Bill Gates what Eisenhower's tax cuts were to Eisenhower: they should've been huge, but in the end, they were the tiny little buggers, even too tiny. Wow, that really brings back the memories. I think.
More and more companies are starting these distributed computation projects that feed off newbies' altruistic intentions, but why? Are the companies' motives altruistic as well? Hardly. Whatever drug molecule you calculate will be instantly patented by the corporation without so much as a by-your-leave. At least with those key-cracking contests, the winner got a prize. Here, you just get the shaft, and Entropia Incorporated gets a cut.
I'm sick of corporations and I'm sick of patents. It's getting to the point where I feel like sabbotaging all patent-seeking enterprises, even if it means we'll never find an AIDS drug. You can't do good by doing evil first, no matter what Macchiaveli tells you.
A football scarf is a long (5-9ft) knitted scarf displaying the names of footballers (soccer-club players). They look like this. They're popular among football (soccer) fans in cold European climates: they let you root for the home club without having to take off your warm coat.
I remember back when we didn't have network security problems, because we didn't have networks yet. Just standalone mainframes chugging away (back when the market was still "6 computers in the world is all we'll ever need" or however it went; my memory's a bit fuzzy these days). It goes to show you how fast the pace of technological development has come. I tell you, each new innovation in technology brings new rewards and new concerns, and network security is one of those concerns.
What was I saying? Oh yeah, I'll just reread what I wrote (how much more convenient than talking, where you don't get that option!). I remember now. Network security is a tough nut to crack, because you have to plan ahead and anticipate new attacks. No matter how much you think you're on the ball, some wiseguy will come along and show you what-for. It's like politics that way, except the stakes are more personal, since it's your own coin collection they're trying to steal. Or was it your wheel password? I can't remember.
No, wait, it's your wheel password. You kids call it "root", these days, but I like to think that not everything old should be thrown away. Where would that leave me? It's so lonely.
What users want to see is innovation under liscenses, not innovation in liscenses. Removing most of troublesome issues with the ASPL means we can finally get down to the business of improving Darwin and not seeing our efforts squandered on a legally-insulting project.
If you're wondering why Apple went with its own liscense instead of using the BSD or GPL liscenses, then here's the answer:
They thought they needed different features, at first. Now they've learned, but don't want to lose complete face by dumping their own liscense alltogether. (Reliscensing old software is a pain, sometimes.)
Having their own liscense added prestige to Apple's projects. These weren't just any old projects; they were official Apple projects with an official Apple liscense
Controlling the liscense meant having legal autonomy with the liscensed product. Going with the GPL would mean opening themselves up to moral or legal criticism for not abiding by RMS's future versions and whims.
I realize "the world's oldest computer" makes for a good show piece in a museum, being inanimate and all, but I personally would rather see more recognition being given to the people who forged the revolution and not just the objects the people built. As someone who got started with IBM not too long after they did the translation hardware for the Nuremburg trials (back before "business machines" meant "computers"), I still get some weird looks in this industry dominated by young upstarts. Why can't we dig up Turing and put him on display? That'd be a lot more informative than a hunk of springs and diodes, if you ask me.
If you ask me... People don't seem to ask me much anymore. Please?
They had a little turf battle back in 1997 where bulk-mailer threatened to release five million AOL email addresses. It was all over the news at the time, because AOL was the big enemy on the horizon and it was fun to see them blackmailed. Now that I think of it, it still is. It takes something as evil as AOL to make spammers look nice by comparison.
Remember back in 1995(?) or so when AOL changed its terms of service to allow AOL to profit from charging businesses for access to AOL's mailing lists? The hypocrisy is revolting.
The latter is clearly a page-counting mechanism (or so it appears), but wouldn't the non-hypocritical thing to do still be to remove one's own webbugs before posting yet another exposé on the dangers of others' webbugs? At least for appearances' sake?
For those of you who don't remember, the televsion show Level 9 has been using Enlightenment on its futuristic-looking consoles since the show began, but it hasn't helped ratings too much. We may like seeing our egos massaged on tv when they use our stuff, but we're not willing to do our part to say thanks, it seems. I only hope the boxoffice sales for this new venture reflect a wiser assessment of our community.
Venture capital is a necessary evil, but that doesn't mean you have to let it completely run your life. Most of these sorts of lawsuits are bogus anyway, so you can safely assume you'll win if they ever come up. Therefore, the only thing you have to do is allay the psychosomatic fears of your VC cows, most effectively by lying at the meetings. Since they never actually visit the company headquarters, they'll never know the difference, and since productivity will be up because your employees will view you as the "good guy", the VC folks will be happy on two fronts. You just can't lose.
Lots of people are probably wondering how this is relevant to the rest of us who can't afford this big iron. Here's why: just because you can't afford one today doesn't mean you shouldn't keep up on the architecture, since what's expensive today will be cheap tomorrow, and the architecture will keep marching on, building upon past models when forging tomorrow's. I know those years I spent in my forties playing with a CP/M prepared me for today's NT machines twenty years later, and both will help me when the next big thing comes down the pipeline.
That's what people don't realize when they start attacking obscene amounts of wealth being tossed about by billionaires like so much used tissue. In previous centuries, if you wanted to be an artist then you got yourself a spot in the king's or duke's court. Even today, if you want money for your trade, then you go to the people who have money. It's that simple.
The government has always been fickle about giving money to space research in the aftermath of the cold war, and despite Clinton's recent calls for increases in funding, the new republican congress will be reluctant to increase and may even decrease Nasa's resources. So whom else can we turn to? You'd be upset if PizzaHut had another logo emblazoned on a rocket, so if you'll not court the corporations then you'll have to court the individuals. And it's not as though the research that goes into learning how to put rich people into orbit will be useless when we eventually get around to putting the rest of us there too.
Tito gets his thrill and we all benefit. What's the problem?
Property taxes don't cover it all, or necessarily any of it. That's why you see so much hoopla about how a new project is supposed to generate more commerce or increase jobs or bring in buyers from out of state. If property taxes were enough, then you wouldn't need any of that. But what people in government already know and what you have yet to learn, it seems, is that you can't squeeze blood from a turnip, and you can't squeeze cash out of a vacant plot of land. What are you going to do, tax the squirrels for their right to drag their bums across the dirt and up the trees? It's a losing proposition.
Right, but the flaw with your analogy is that once the signpost is up telling everyone where you live, there's no additional cost to keeping the signpost there.
Squatting on a real-life piece of land isn't without its costs to society: the government must defend your land against invasion, must likely keep it connected to public utilities, and must otherwise patrol it from tresspassers and fires. If you're not conducting any commerce with your land, you're actually *costing* the government money. It's the same with domain-name services.
That's what I think is missing in the current debate about domain expiration: why can't we question the whole enterprise altogether? If you own a plot of land in the real world, then that plot of land is yours forever, no matter what you do to it and no matter what others may want to do with it instead, until you sell it. Why shouldn't it be the same with domain names? It's not as though Coca Cola is going to disappear overnight any time soon, and whoever buys them out if they do would want to keep both the trademarks and the domain names.
What we need is not a system of forced-expiration but a system of monitored and centralized *sales* of unwanted domains. If people no longer want their old domains, then they could put them up for sale to the highest bidder, and people *would* do it, since they're not deriving much benefit from their unused domains any more than people derive benefit from vacant plots of land. And a system of *voluntary* conferral of deeds to domain names would be much more consistent with the libertarian ideals of property that our nation was founded on. It'd be a shame to turn our backs on the founding fathers and their universal and perpetual principles of government now, just because we happen to be in the "new millennium" -- their ideas apply now as much as ever.
It's fitting that beer should happen in space. After all, it's one of the oldest beverages in the world, even older than wine, so the irony of its juxtaposition with modern spaceflight is even more apparent. It's especially fitting that it should be announced today, since today is the winter solstice and beer played an important role in so many druidic cults that hold the solstice in such high regard. I'm just left wondering why they didn't get more sponsorship from Budweiser or another big brand.
Join the Mars Society. Philip Dembo, the chairman, is conducting a drive to mobilize support. Make sure this project isn't canned like some others; governments can be fickle, and the funding might not be there tomorrow (just ask the folks at the supercollider). And when you leave, make sure you stop at the giftshop and buy something -- 5% of proceeds go towards helping conquer Mars.
We're not going to lose the moon. All that'll happen is the moon's orbit around the earth will be synchronized with the earth's rotation. And I don't think the moon appreciates your kind of fear-mongering, no sir.
There's a limiting factor, right? Once we get down to the size of electrons, won't we have to find some new way to power these things?
It's funny, really. When I was a kid, the whole world was concentrating on making things bigger and bigger, taller and taller. The Empire State building, the Sears Tower, and now even that new building in Koala Lampur, Malaysia. But now it looks like the trend is in the opposite direction. How soon until the Guinness Book of World Records has an entry for "smallest building"? And once we master nanotechnology, we'll have probably already mastered genetic engineering, so we'll have little people to inhabit those buildings. What fun! I loved the Wizard of Oz as a child, and I hope to live to see real life munchkins.
Yeah I've heard of cosplay, but I've found such parties quite boorish. Especially, since the people involved don't ever bother learning any Japanese before they start appropriating the culture:
Me: Osewaninarimasu. Tokyo kara denwa o shite orimasu, Peter to moushimasu ga, Tanaka Taro-san wa irashaimasuka?
(Lovely party. Did Peter start holding them when he came back from Tokyo?)
Guy in sailormoon suit: Ummm, what?
Me: Tadaima Taro wa Singapore e shuuchoo shite orimasu.
(It's at least better than the ones in Singapore.)
Guy in sailormoon suit: You misunderstand. I don't speak Japanese.
Me: Kare ga modottara, denwa suruyoni tsutaite kudasai.
(If you don't speak it, then you should stop wearing that silly costume.)
Guy in sailormoon suit: *motioning to his buddy, Phil, in a Hello Kitty suit* Do you understand what he's saying?
Me: Sumimasen ga watashi wa Nihongo wa hanashimasen. Dozo Eigo de onegaishimasu.
(Look, you guys are lame. Maybe you should be studying.)
And so on. It's unfortunately typical when it comes to cultural importation like this. People should really get a grasp of the fundamentals before they try to derive the nuts-and-bolts benefits.
Parnell: I go to Utah every year. Friend of mine was the designer of the MX missile racetrack basing mode. A hundred thousand miles of railroad track in a big loop through Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. Bombs were going to hide in locomotive sheds. That way, the red team would never know exactly where they were. I still go out to Utah, just to think about the way things might have been.
Otto: Sir, I represent the Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation, and....
Parnell: Radiation, yes indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked gogglebox do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense! Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They oughta have them too. When they cancelled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was literally bursting. The next day nothing, swept away. But I'll show them. I had a lobotomy in the end.
Otto: Lobotomy? Isn't that for loonies?
Parnell: Not at all. Friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb. Did you ever hear of the neutron bomb? Destroys people, but leaves buildings standing. Fits in a suitcase, so small, no one knows it's there until Blammo! Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead! It's so immoral working on the thing, it can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. So, he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again.
At least, to the times they imagine -- i.e., without all the plague and famine and pestilence and hard work. People worship the past out of unease with the present.
Americans' fascination with ancient Japanese culture fascinates me in the same way that Japan's fascination with American karaoke does. We all seem to want to be in each others shoes, eating the grass on the other side of the fence, so to speak.
And you're wrong about Meiji. Meiji isn't just a city in Japan. It's an entire culture. Enormous numbers of Japanese boys are named "Meiji" out of deference to that culture. Whatever Meiji used to be, it's today something else entirely. It doesn't surprise me to hear the name surfacing in the context of anime.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm serious. Linus is being slowed down by having to work only part-time on Linux, devoting all those hours to Transmeta doing the heavy lifting for the internal translation work in the Crusoe. He needs to be free from monetary constraints in order to realize his true potential, the way Stallman has.
The options are to start up a trust fund, which would never work and wouldn't be consistent with Linus's libertarian politics. The second best option would be to start manufacturing and selling his own action-figure lineup. For the boys, there'd be Combat Linus with his dashing Finnish looks and two front-loading high-caliber automatic gcc's under each arm. For the girls, there'd be Dream Date Linus in a tuxedo with his pet penguin, Tux, on a leash. Kids could learn important spacial and social skills while also learning about the open-source and free-software movements. And geeks love toys, so adults would buy them too.
But most importantly, the proceeds would go to support Linus full-time. Think how much faster 2.4.0 could've come out if Linus could've devoted 14 hours per day to it. Just think about it.
Nevermind all the new whizbang features and those pretty graphics. That doesn't impress me. The part that impresses me is that they've managed to make the thing so damn small. Back when I was a kid in the thirties, trains were still steam-powered for the most part. When I got started with IBM in the early fifties, those machines were enormous: an entire room, sometimes two, just for a single computer with only a few hundered transistors, each individually programmable and each the size of, well, I can't remember what but they were big. You had to hire water buffalo to wade in your kiddy pool and splash water on them to keep them cool, if I recall correctly, which I probably don't. Or do I? I can't remember.
Even Microsoft made it small. That says a lot, since they're the experts in making stuff bloated. Or, how can I put it a different way. Microsoft's X-box is to Bill Gates what Eisenhower's tax cuts were to Eisenhower: they should've been huge, but in the end, they were the tiny little buggers, even too tiny. Wow, that really brings back the memories. I think.
More and more companies are starting these distributed computation projects that feed off newbies' altruistic intentions, but why? Are the companies' motives altruistic as well? Hardly. Whatever drug molecule you calculate will be instantly patented by the corporation without so much as a by-your-leave. At least with those key-cracking contests, the winner got a prize. Here, you just get the shaft, and Entropia Incorporated gets a cut.
I'm sick of corporations and I'm sick of patents. It's getting to the point where I feel like sabbotaging all patent-seeking enterprises, even if it means we'll never find an AIDS drug. You can't do good by doing evil first, no matter what Macchiaveli tells you.
A football scarf is a long (5-9ft) knitted scarf displaying the names of footballers (soccer-club players). They look like this. They're popular among football (soccer) fans in cold European climates: they let you root for the home club without having to take off your warm coat.
I remember back when we didn't have network security problems, because we didn't have networks yet. Just standalone mainframes chugging away (back when the market was still "6 computers in the world is all we'll ever need" or however it went; my memory's a bit fuzzy these days). It goes to show you how fast the pace of technological development has come. I tell you, each new innovation in technology brings new rewards and new concerns, and network security is one of those concerns.
What was I saying? Oh yeah, I'll just reread what I wrote (how much more convenient than talking, where you don't get that option!). I remember now. Network security is a tough nut to crack, because you have to plan ahead and anticipate new attacks. No matter how much you think you're on the ball, some wiseguy will come along and show you what-for. It's like politics that way, except the stakes are more personal, since it's your own coin collection they're trying to steal. Or was it your wheel password? I can't remember.
No, wait, it's your wheel password. You kids call it "root", these days, but I like to think that not everything old should be thrown away. Where would that leave me? It's so lonely.
If you're wondering why Apple went with its own liscense instead of using the BSD or GPL liscenses, then here's the answer:
Good for you, Apple. You warm an old man's heart.
I realize "the world's oldest computer" makes for a good show piece in a museum, being inanimate and all, but I personally would rather see more recognition being given to the people who forged the revolution and not just the objects the people built. As someone who got started with IBM not too long after they did the translation hardware for the Nuremburg trials (back before "business machines" meant "computers"), I still get some weird looks in this industry dominated by young upstarts. Why can't we dig up Turing and put him on display? That'd be a lot more informative than a hunk of springs and diodes, if you ask me.
If you ask me... People don't seem to ask me much anymore. Please?
They had a little turf battle back in 1997 where bulk-mailer threatened to release five million AOL email addresses. It was all over the news at the time, because AOL was the big enemy on the horizon and it was fun to see them blackmailed. Now that I think of it, it still is. It takes something as evil as AOL to make spammers look nice by comparison.
Remember back in 1995(?) or so when AOL changed its terms of service to allow AOL to profit from charging businesses for access to AOL's mailing lists? The hypocrisy is revolting.
Load slashdot and check your source. Scroll down and look for this:
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The latter is clearly a page-counting mechanism (or so it appears), but wouldn't the non-hypocritical thing to do still be to remove one's own webbugs before posting yet another exposé on the dangers of others' webbugs? At least for appearances' sake?
For those of you who don't remember, the televsion show Level 9 has been using Enlightenment on its futuristic-looking consoles since the show began, but it hasn't helped ratings too much. We may like seeing our egos massaged on tv when they use our stuff, but we're not willing to do our part to say thanks, it seems. I only hope the boxoffice sales for this new venture reflect a wiser assessment of our community.
Venture capital is a necessary evil, but that doesn't mean you have to let it completely run your life. Most of these sorts of lawsuits are bogus anyway, so you can safely assume you'll win if they ever come up. Therefore, the only thing you have to do is allay the psychosomatic fears of your VC cows, most effectively by lying at the meetings. Since they never actually visit the company headquarters, they'll never know the difference, and since productivity will be up because your employees will view you as the "good guy", the VC folks will be happy on two fronts. You just can't lose.
Lots of people are probably wondering how this is relevant to the rest of us who can't afford this big iron. Here's why: just because you can't afford one today doesn't mean you shouldn't keep up on the architecture, since what's expensive today will be cheap tomorrow, and the architecture will keep marching on, building upon past models when forging tomorrow's. I know those years I spent in my forties playing with a CP/M prepared me for today's NT machines twenty years later, and both will help me when the next big thing comes down the pipeline.
That's what people don't realize when they start attacking obscene amounts of wealth being tossed about by billionaires like so much used tissue. In previous centuries, if you wanted to be an artist then you got yourself a spot in the king's or duke's court. Even today, if you want money for your trade, then you go to the people who have money. It's that simple.
The government has always been fickle about giving money to space research in the aftermath of the cold war, and despite Clinton's recent calls for increases in funding, the new republican congress will be reluctant to increase and may even decrease Nasa's resources. So whom else can we turn to? You'd be upset if PizzaHut had another logo emblazoned on a rocket, so if you'll not court the corporations then you'll have to court the individuals. And it's not as though the research that goes into learning how to put rich people into orbit will be useless when we eventually get around to putting the rest of us there too.
Tito gets his thrill and we all benefit. What's the problem?
Property taxes don't cover it all, or necessarily any of it. That's why you see so much hoopla about how a new project is supposed to generate more commerce or increase jobs or bring in buyers from out of state. If property taxes were enough, then you wouldn't need any of that. But what people in government already know and what you have yet to learn, it seems, is that you can't squeeze blood from a turnip, and you can't squeeze cash out of a vacant plot of land. What are you going to do, tax the squirrels for their right to drag their bums across the dirt and up the trees? It's a losing proposition.
Right, but the flaw with your analogy is that once the signpost is up telling everyone where you live, there's no additional cost to keeping the signpost there.
Squatting on a real-life piece of land isn't without its costs to society: the government must defend your land against invasion, must likely keep it connected to public utilities, and must otherwise patrol it from tresspassers and fires. If you're not conducting any commerce with your land, you're actually *costing* the government money. It's the same with domain-name services.
That's what I think is missing in the current debate about domain expiration: why can't we question the whole enterprise altogether? If you own a plot of land in the real world, then that plot of land is yours forever, no matter what you do to it and no matter what others may want to do with it instead, until you sell it. Why shouldn't it be the same with domain names? It's not as though Coca Cola is going to disappear overnight any time soon, and whoever buys them out if they do would want to keep both the trademarks and the domain names.
What we need is not a system of forced-expiration but a system of monitored and centralized *sales* of unwanted domains. If people no longer want their old domains, then they could put them up for sale to the highest bidder, and people *would* do it, since they're not deriving much benefit from their unused domains any more than people derive benefit from vacant plots of land. And a system of *voluntary* conferral of deeds to domain names would be much more consistent with the libertarian ideals of property that our nation was founded on. It'd be a shame to turn our backs on the founding fathers and their universal and perpetual principles of government now, just because we happen to be in the "new millennium" -- their ideas apply now as much as ever.
It's fitting that beer should happen in space. After all, it's one of the oldest beverages in the world, even older than wine, so the irony of its juxtaposition with modern spaceflight is even more apparent. It's especially fitting that it should be announced today, since today is the winter solstice and beer played an important role in so many druidic cults that hold the solstice in such high regard. I'm just left wondering why they didn't get more sponsorship from Budweiser or another big brand.
Join the Mars Society. Philip Dembo, the chairman, is conducting a drive to mobilize support. Make sure this project isn't canned like some others; governments can be fickle, and the funding might not be there tomorrow (just ask the folks at the supercollider). And when you leave, make sure you stop at the giftshop and buy something -- 5% of proceeds go towards helping conquer Mars.
They're doing their part to make sure the sun never sets on the British Empire. Next year, I hear they plan to land a probe on the sun itself.
We're not going to lose the moon. All that'll happen is the moon's orbit around the earth will be synchronized with the earth's rotation. And I don't think the moon appreciates your kind of fear-mongering, no sir.
There's a limiting factor, right? Once we get down to the size of electrons, won't we have to find some new way to power these things?
It's funny, really. When I was a kid, the whole world was concentrating on making things bigger and bigger, taller and taller. The Empire State building, the Sears Tower, and now even that new building in Koala Lampur, Malaysia. But now it looks like the trend is in the opposite direction. How soon until the Guinness Book of World Records has an entry for "smallest building"? And once we master nanotechnology, we'll have probably already mastered genetic engineering, so we'll have little people to inhabit those buildings. What fun! I loved the Wizard of Oz as a child, and I hope to live to see real life munchkins.
It's good to see Debian got the tree up in time for Christmas. Soon we'll be decking the halls with boughs of Woody.
Yeah I've heard of cosplay, but I've found such parties quite boorish. Especially, since the people involved don't ever bother learning any Japanese before they start appropriating the culture:
Me: Osewaninarimasu. Tokyo kara denwa o shite orimasu, Peter to moushimasu ga, Tanaka Taro-san wa irashaimasuka?
(Lovely party. Did Peter start holding them when he came back from Tokyo?)
Guy in sailormoon suit: Ummm, what?
Me: Tadaima Taro wa Singapore e shuuchoo shite orimasu.
(It's at least better than the ones in Singapore.)
Guy in sailormoon suit: You misunderstand. I don't speak Japanese.
Me: Kare ga modottara, denwa suruyoni tsutaite kudasai.
(If you don't speak it, then you should stop wearing that silly costume.)
Guy in sailormoon suit: *motioning to his buddy, Phil, in a Hello Kitty suit* Do you understand what he's saying?
Me: Sumimasen ga watashi wa Nihongo wa hanashimasen. Dozo Eigo de onegaishimasu.
(Look, you guys are lame. Maybe you should be studying.)
And so on. It's unfortunately typical when it comes to cultural importation like this. People should really get a grasp of the fundamentals before they try to derive the nuts-and-bolts benefits.
Parnell: I go to Utah every year. Friend of mine was the designer of the MX missile racetrack basing mode. A hundred thousand miles of railroad track in a big loop through Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. Bombs were going to hide in locomotive sheds. That way, the red team would never know exactly where they were. I still go out to Utah, just to think about the way things might have been.
Otto: Sir, I represent the Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation, and....
Parnell: Radiation, yes indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked gogglebox do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense! Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They oughta have them too. When they cancelled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was literally bursting. The next day nothing, swept away. But I'll show them. I had a lobotomy in the end.
Otto: Lobotomy? Isn't that for loonies?
Parnell: Not at all. Friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb. Did you ever hear of the neutron bomb? Destroys people, but leaves buildings standing. Fits in a suitcase, so small, no one knows it's there until Blammo! Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead! It's so immoral working on the thing, it can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. So, he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again.
At least, to the times they imagine -- i.e., without all the plague and famine and pestilence and hard work. People worship the past out of unease with the present.
Americans' fascination with ancient Japanese culture fascinates me in the same way that Japan's fascination with American karaoke does. We all seem to want to be in each others shoes, eating the grass on the other side of the fence, so to speak.
And you're wrong about Meiji. Meiji isn't just a city in Japan. It's an entire culture. Enormous numbers of Japanese boys are named "Meiji" out of deference to that culture. Whatever Meiji used to be, it's today something else entirely. It doesn't surprise me to hear the name surfacing in the context of anime.