It sucks.
by gTsiros on Saturday
It has 4 wheels. I fskcing hate car. They are incredibly inneficient.
>> "They have 4 seats...
The vehicle in the article has two seats.
>> "...while take a look out your window, how many of them are ocupied? 4? 3? 2?
And, I just looked out my window, and don't see any seats, occupied or not.
>> "Motorcycles are far more efficient at this."
Motorcycles are more efficient at what, you didn't say.
>> "The tires have a LOT of friction."
Good thing too, otherwise we would all be spinning and crashing into each other, eh? And motorcycles wouldn't be able to go around corners without falling over.
>> "In fact, the sportier the car, the larger footprint these tires have, having more friction and demanding more horsepower to spin."
Wow, you must be an real expert... now I know why those Top Fuel Dragsters have such huge rear tires, it's because of those high horsepower engines. I had no idea...
>> "Motorcycles are far more efficient at this..."
There you go again... more efficient at what?
>> "All of them have more or less the same very small footprint. The are is like the size of your palm."
Boy... you never seen a Harley rear tire have you? How small are your palms?
>> "Driving , contrary to riding, is unintuitive. Yes, i said unintuitive. Riding is intuitive,...
Oh yeah... riding is intuitive all right, you are such the expert. Below about 10mph, you turn the handlebars in the direction of the turn. After about 10 mph, you have to turn them the opposite direction! Truly 'intuitive'.
>> "...because when you turn, your body goes with the turn, and doesn't go away.
Good thing too, because you would fall off otherwise. Is that why we have seat belts in cars, to keep us in place when we go around corners? I always wondered about that...
>> "Also, you turn instictively, by looking at your path.
Man, I know what you mean... when I'm driving my sucky car, I always have to remember to drive around obstacles in my way too.
>> "This might turn for the bad tho, if you ever heard of "target fixation": there is an obstacle on your road which you want to avoid. if you make the kistake and look at it to avoid it... byebye...if you want to avoid it, you look at the PATH you want to take to avoid it."
You know... I was just thinking about that. Because motorcycles are so instinctive, everytime I rode mine and saw a pretty girl and looked at her, I wound up crashing right into them!!! Can you believe that? Now I don't have a motorcycle any more, because the court took it, and my motorcycle license away because of too much pretty girl target fixation. Now I have to drive a sucky car...
>> "How long did it take you to find out just how much to turn the steering wheel so as not to go out of course? How long for the bicycle/motorcycle? there.
Now that's a statement thats as clear as mud, if I ever saw one... but it makes perfect snese to me.
>> "Cars are space hogs. They are 3-4 times the size of a motorcycle.
Yeah, they sure are... there must be some kind of conspiracy thats prevented anyone from coming out with a car that can seat four, and still be as small as a motorcycle. Who do you think is behind it, the Japanese?
>> "Motorcycles don't collect crud under the seats,
I'll bet you 10 bucks you've never looked at the battery under your seat....
>> "...no way you lose a coin and try to find it (if you drop a coin while riding, you lost it for good!hehe).
Funny, when I dropped a quarter at the Golden Gate Bridge toll booth, I just bent over and picked it up.
>> "No way you can distract yourself by smoking/drinking/eating ice cream/reading newspaper (i've seen them all, you probably have seen worse)
Oh man... I've seen worse. You don't even want to know....
>> "With motorcycles, traffic jams don't exist.
What planet did you say you came from...
>> "Unless you don't dress properly (and contrary to common thoght you do NOT need to dress like an onion!!!
Boy! Am I glad about that... I used to get the weirdest looks around barbeque season...
>> "...there are very few specific clothes you need to wear, which are easy to remove.and they probably look cooler than a seatbelt.)
I must really be out of touch, when did seatbelts become a fashion accessory?
>> "you don't have to worry about rain/whatever.
Ah yes... I remember the days when I didn't worry about rain/whatever, but now that I have to drive a sucky car, I worry all the time. Do you think that's why road rage is so common?
>> "They are slower,
Yeah... my sucky car is sooooooooooooo slow, I can't even stand it!
>> "...less safe than motorcycles.
I'm not so sure about that one... I mean... when I stop and forget to put my foot down in my car, it doesn't fall over...
>> "(if you think i am getting insane on the "safer" part, do notice that i am talking about EVERYONES safety, not only the ones who is in the car but about those outside it.)
Think you can run that one by us again?
>> "The only reasons cars are better than motorcycles is because you can carry (where do you think "car" came from? "carriage". Yes, the thing with horses/cows) lots of stuff with them. And to carry your family. (if it has more than 2 persons , that is if you have children.*)
But wait... cars suck. You just said so... Oh, I get it now... cars suck until you have to carry something big, then they don't suck. Gotcha chief....
>> "Cars suck.
Are you speaking from personal experience, I mean did you actually get your (GASP) organ stuck in a carberator or something once?
>> "(*:just so you don't think i am a misanthrope or something, i want to have kids (even if you hear me sya otherwise under some circumstances- i'm fickle) and the fact that i ride a bike won't hinder me from having kids.)
Well... after reading your fine post, all I can say is.......... BUMMER.
After having worked on several electric cars (conversions), and being 'into" electric/hybrid vehicles for well over two decades, I can say nice effort, nice lines, but when can we buy one that's affordable?
And speaking of un-affordable, here's something pretty darn sweet that's been around since 1997.
I like this TZero better because it can be a pure electric around town, and for long trips you just hook up their very cool 'Long Ranger' hybrid trailer, which allows for continuous highway cruising.
>> I could see this extending digital cell service and mobile network connectivity far into rural areas...
This may work fine in an urban area, but apparently timothy has never lived in a rural area.
If he had, he would have realized that after 5pm, they "roll up the streets and everyone goes home, and the network is effectively dead, because nobody is on the road!
The Soviets were way ahead of the game in this area as long ago as the 60's, they were called Caspian Sea Monsters because they were tested in the Caspian Sea, and looked like neither plane, nor boat.
This web site has a very nice detailed article complete with many photos.
They were quite the strange beasties back then, heres another look at them.
And heres the WIG site (WIG is an abbreviation of Wing In Ground-effect), which is also a nice comprehensive resource about these interesting vehicles.
The model maker Revell even made a plastic model kit of one, some years ago.
Apparently, this type of aircraft hasn't found it's commercial niche yet, but it looks like this new application might work.
Ha! It's so great to see old tech making a comeback in this digital age!
As a reformed vinyl collector, I used to buy a music magazine in the late 70's - early 80's (?) called Flexipop which came with a flexible plastic record, that was usually a rare or otherwise different mix from the featured artist (one or two songs max).
These were really neat to trip out your friends with... "Hey, look at this new record I got...", while I'm rolling it into a tube, and then tossing it at them as it unrolls back into a record, which I would then pick up (blowing off any dust!) and place on this ancient analog device called a turntable, and play.
They worked great if you only played them a couple of times and then taped them, since playing them degraded the sound quality (goodby high end).
I did quite a search but could only find a few links to them, but here's a bit of info:
Of course, I do wonder about the archival properties of these new CD's, it does seem that they might be a bit more stable since it's digital media, vs analog. But then, CD's are pretty sensitive to scratches on their surface, so time will tell.
But my guess this is just another throw away medium for our short sighted society.
Then by all means please explainwhy this is, since my experience must have been a hallucination.
Because ten years ago a buddy of mine gave me an old 286 that he had overclocked to a screaming18Mhz(as I recall, it was a long time ago), it ran Win 3.1
Heh... y'all may joke about cats in Chinese food, but in the heart of SillyCon Valley the Tao Tao Cafe on Murphy St. in Sunnyvale CA, was closed down at least three times over the years for serving CAT.
I hope you won't think this is too catty, but man... was their food ever good .
I agree! Anyone who "knows their stuff" has no problem knowing what they see.
Here's my example.
I'm climbing through this cave with some friends near Cave City, CA, and slowly and carefully, downclimbing a 90 foot pit to see an indian skull at the bottom.
We arrived at the bottom of the pit, and while waiting for some stragglers, I decided to have a look around and discovered a tooth. So I hold it up to my caver/dentist buddy and say "look what I found."
He grabs it out of my fingers, looks at it for a few seconds, while twisting it, looking at all sides, and announces, "It's a lower left bicusped from a female between the ages of 13 to 16.".
We were all blown away by the sureness of his identification, but we knew he was right, even though he didn't know WHY we were all excited by his announcement.
You see, earlier in the day, before our dentist buddy was around, the cave owner whom I'm aquainted with, told us that when he bought the land, that along with it came an indian legend about a indian maiden who hadn't found a mate, so she went into this cave in search of the "marriage" spirit that supposedly dwelled there.
Well, she was never heard from again. My friend started to do a systematic search of his cave, and found an ancient skull and other human remains in the mud at the bottom of the 90 foot pit.
Then he invited some archaeologists from some college (can't remember which) and they identified the skull as belonging to a girl/woman between 13 and 20 years old! The skull dated to about 900 years ago. But the dentist didn't know any of this this, so he was the man of the hour that day.
People that know their stuff are fun to learn from.
OK (Big toke of Mendo's finest.), I'll agree... sorry I took it so personal (But it IS.).
>>I was pointing out some relatively minor calculations, not one datapoint, we had done in physics that seemed to cast some doubt on the claims of these individuals, which do seem to be a bit odd.
That's hardlydefinitive, and certainly not enough information for a layman to go around questioning anyone's mental state.
>>So, yes, I am quite a bit skeptical and I remain so despite your frothing at the mouth reply.
Yes, I was wrong to attack you, I apoligize.
>>I also did not claim to know it all. There have been several replies quite rightly pointing out some pertinent facts that I had not considered such as the change in the flux.
OK, but you still seem closed minded to the ** possibility ** that someone CAN be electrically sensitive, and not be "mentally unstable".
>
>>That comment wasn't meant to be taken seriously... well at least not totally.
Oh, I see, that explains everything.
>>Perhaps he has a mental disorder; I am being serious about that. As far as I can see, no one has seriously questioned this man's mental health,
I don't know where you live, but in every town that I've ever lived in, almost everyone knows who the so-called "crazies" are, and this guy isn't one of them. Yes, I live just up the road from Mendocino, or as I prefer to call it, Spendocino. I'm also not in any way associated with this guy though, because I feel it's a losing battle.
And seriously, have you noticed how you deal with ideas that seem "odd" to you? You question the proponent's
state of mental health, before you question that your beliefs could be mistaken, or incomplete. That seems really odd to me.
>>he has simply gone around and gotten signatures based on his beliefs on a subject for which his credentials are dubious at best.
You say: "his credentials are dubious at best." Really? The man has written a book, how many books have you written? I'm much more likely to believe someone who has gone to all the trouble to research and write a book about something, than someone who hasn't.
>>As for X-Rays etc... they're close range. The intensity of an EMF decreases quite rapidly the further away from the source.
Again, you miss the big picture. You are working within a closed framework of ideas, accepting those ideas that seem to fit, and discarding those that don't. Even though, they may be completely valid ideas, even if they don't fit into your existing body of knowledge.
And thanks for not flaming me back, I owe you one.
>>I remember in physics class in high school, we figured out the strength of the EM field around a high voltage wire. We calculated that even as close at 50 feet (like wires suspended in the air), the earth's natural field was like 100 times stronger.
So just what does that prove? You have ONE data point in an issue that you know nothing else about, and yet you fool yourself in to thinking that you know it all, and judge others based on ONE data point?.
Humans DIDN'T evolve with all the additional EMF's that "modern" society seems to be "addicted" to. Yet, you have ONE data point, and you know it all?
Next time you laugh at those "poor crazy EMF people", you best be looking in the mirror, because YOU are the joke.
>>Since then, I've always viewed these claims of EM radiation problems with a skeptical eye.
Uh... it appears that you are deluding yourself about being "skeptical", based on your closing statement.
>>My own suspicions is that this guy had a few too many REMs to the skull from his dental X-Rays and is a candidate for therapy.:-D
Oh, and here you go, totally contradicting yourself. Or are only dental X-Rays bad for us, and NOT all of the other EMF's in our environment?
>> Has anyone told these folks that they are constantly bathed in microwave radiation from the Big Bang?
Haven't you figured out that we EVOLVED with that background radiation, but we DIDN'T with "human made" electromagnatic fields?
Apparently, you can't make the jump in logic to see that there could quite possibly be a REAL health issue here, pity that so many people are so CLOSED MINDED and "Knee Jerk Reactionary" to issues that they are unfamilier with.
>> They should move to another universe, provided they aren't already living in one...
I'll bet your forefathers were there telling Columbus that he'd sail off the edge of the earth too!
Back in '77 after the first "break-up" of Pacific Bell, I was a telecommunications tech at a small interconnect in Santa Clara, CA (i.e. Silicon Valley), one of three troubleshooters in the company, so I usually worked alone. We had no company uniforms or other identifying paraphernalia, but my tool belt was my "badge".
We sold state of the art (for the time. eh?) NEC microprocessor controlled, time division multiplex phone switches, and smaller office sized systems. Our switches kicked Pac Bell's ass, they ruled because the telcos in the USA we still in the dark ages.
Anyhow, my territorry was from San Francisco (and the rest of the Bay Area) to Montery, we had phone systems in many high tech companies, so I was steeped in the culture.
It didn't take me long to observe that I could go virtually anywhere in most of these companies, without question. Often even without a visitors security badge, company employees, and even security guards would open doors for me if my hands were full.
It seemed that my tool belt and butt set (Linemans test set) hanging off of it, was all I needed to have the run of the place. I started to play a "game", to see just how good their "security" was.
So here I am, this spikey haired punk rocker, in street clothes, but with my tool belt, butt set, and a professional attitude, walking up to a security guard and saying to him, "Hey, I need to look in that locked room over there to see if there is any phone equipment in there.".
They allways walked over and opened it for me without question, and then walked away reminding me to lock it when I was done. I did this just for grins at many of the companies I visited.
In those days, computers were still refrigerator sized, and filled large, lead lined, air conditioned rooms with raised floors, with lots of cabling under them, tended to, by clean-cut guys in long white lab coats (no kidding). And every company had a security guard at the door of these special rooms.
One day I screwed up my courage and decided to see if I could gain access to one, I had zero reasons to go in there, since there was never phone equipment in these rooms. I nervously walked up to the door, looked the security guard in the eye, and he glanced at my tool belt and test set, and opened the door for me without a word between us!
Next thing you know, I'm wandering around this large computer room, pretending to look like I know what I'm doing. None of the guys in there even pretended to notice me, I could have done what ever I wanterd, and nobody would have questioned what I was doing.
At work, I started to brag about how people were so easily manipulated by "normal" circumstances. None of my coworkers believed me, they were just like the people in these companies, they were non-observent.
One day, I needed some help, so I brought my boss along. We finished up our job and as we were walking out, I reminded him of my discovery, he said "bullshit!". So I said "follow me", and walked toward the big computer room.
The security guard didn't bat an eye, and unlocked the door for us without a word. I was the only one with a tool belt, my boss was also in street clothes, we could have been anybody, but the magic tool belt, butt set combo got me through again.
My boss was blown away, and was also very nervous about being in this formerlly taboo computer room, so we exited. On the way out of the building, I couldn't resist, and stopped at random and asked the closest security guard to please open "that closet, over there", he of course, complied.
My boss was very impressed, but wasn't at all happy that I was doing this for "fun", and the next morning at work, I was admonished to never do "that" again.
I guess my point is, that people are easily fooled by normal seeming circumstances, and that security is often a Paper Tiger.
I recieved a Cue Cat quite unexpectedly, from Wired Magazine one day, and never considered hooking it up to my computer, because I like to read my magazines away from my computer.
However, I did use the nifty patch cord that came with the Cue Cat , to go from my computer sound card to my stereo system, so now I can enjoy my MP3's through my quality speakers.
Quite some time before the Cue Cat marketing blitz, Digimarc gave away a bunch of Intel CMOS cams, if one agreed to test their "Digimarc MediaBridge" technology for a year.
My girlfriend and I signed up, and got our cams, and each month went to their web site and answered questions about our use of their tech.
Before the year was up, the emails stopped coming, and I haven't heard from them for a long time now. Although they still seem to be in business.
I think their idea was a much better one than the Cue Cat, because it used the cam to "see" links embedded into images (a digital watermark of sorts), and the links were quite invisible.
I discovered two drawbacks to this technology, the obvious being, one needs to be reading their magazine next to their computer. And the other was the lighting needed to be strong, and even, for the links to function at all.
When I'm working at my computer the light level varies all the time, and the MediaBridge needed consistant lighting conditions. This I feel, isn't a "real world" tool for those reasons, good idea though.
>>don't discoutn the power usage of the antenna on your cell.
>>The downside of having the smaller batteries is the decrease in talk time due to the power consumed by the antenna.
Whoa... You need a quick lesson in radio my friend.
Antennas radiateRF (radio frequency) power, but neverconsume power.
The physical size of the antenna has nodirect effect on battery life at all.
Just thought you might want to know.
- 73
Re:CIA tried to do this once. only quietly.
on
Raising the Kursk
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Yeah, this was pretty cool...
My old man was one of the designers of the claw that picked up the Golf class sub, they called the claw "Clementine".
Unfortunately, due to ocean conditions at the time, they grabbed the sub wrong (Ahead of the conning tower.), and it broke in half while raising it.
All the Russian sailors bodies that were recovered, were given full honorable burial at sea, complete with Russian flags, and it was video taped to cover their asses, just in case the cover on this Black Op was blown.
Remember that the cover story was that the legendary Howard Hughes was doing ocean mining for manganese nodules, that are found at great depth in many parts of the worlds oceans.
They actually did some real mining runs as a part of the cover story, I still have several of these very cool manganese nodules, they look like little black cauliflowers.
It's a facinating story of real world spying, and covert operations.
After it was declassified, my father recieved a letter of thanks from the Prez, for his part in it, and a little "plaque".
At least two books were written about it, I read the one my dad had called "A Matter Of Risk", which is a great story.
From the above page: A Matter of Risk by Roy Varner & Wayne Collier, Ballantine Books 1978, ISBN 0-345-28639-1 First Edition May 1980.
Man, your new site is sooooo bright I need to wear my shades! With the NEW IMPROVED, Whiter Brighter White background, I can read all the troll's postings so much easier now.
The Old Dirty, Dingy, Slashdot pales in comparison.
Must be all the optical brighteners you added to the code, huh?
And how did you guys get all the fonts soooo smoooth? No more Ragged Jagged Edges for Slashdot, those NEW IMPROVED fonts just JUMP off the page at you! (Ouch!) Must be that new "state-of-the-art" di-fribfontulator algorhythm (4/4) you used, eh?
But wait, the Vibrant Colors in the headers... Wow! I only heard rumours about a beta version of the experi[mental] pixel bleaching algorithm. Boy, those colors are BRIGHT! You go, guys!
And to top it off, the new site seems to load about 60% faster, way out here on the Left Coast.
You pulled no [pun]ches with this new code did you? No more Dingy, Dirty, Slashdot, it's a Web Day Miracle!
Slashdot Mirror
It sucks. by gTsiros on Saturday It has 4 wheels. I fskcing hate car. They are incredibly inneficient.
>> "They have 4 seats...
The vehicle in the article has two seats.
>> "...while take a look out your window, how many of them are ocupied? 4? 3? 2?
And, I just looked out my window, and don't see any seats, occupied or not.
>> "Motorcycles are far more efficient at this."
Motorcycles are more efficient at what , you didn't say.
>> "The tires have a LOT of friction."
Good thing too, otherwise we would all be spinning and crashing into each other, eh? And motorcycles wouldn't be able to go around corners without falling over.
>> "In fact, the sportier the car, the larger footprint these tires have, having more friction and demanding more horsepower to spin."
Wow, you must be an real expert... now I know why those Top Fuel Dragsters have such huge rear tires, it's because of those high horsepower engines. I had no idea...
>> "Motorcycles are far more efficient at this..."
There you go again... more efficient at what?
>> "All of them have more or less the same very small footprint. The are is like the size of your palm."
Boy... you never seen a Harley rear tire have you? How small are your palms?
>> "Driving , contrary to riding, is unintuitive. Yes, i said unintuitive. Riding is intuitive,...
Oh yeah... riding is intuitive all right, you are such the expert. Below about 10mph, you turn the handlebars in the direction of the turn. After about 10 mph, you have to turn them the opposite direction! Truly 'intuitive' .
>> "...because when you turn, your body goes with the turn, and doesn't go away.
Good thing too, because you would fall off otherwise. Is that why we have seat belts in cars, to keep us in place when we go around corners? I always wondered about that...
>> "Also, you turn instictively, by looking at your path.
Man, I know what you mean... when I'm driving my sucky car, I always have to remember to drive around obstacles in my way too.
>> "This might turn for the bad tho, if you ever heard of "target fixation": there is an obstacle on your road which you want to avoid. if you make the kistake and look at it to avoid it... byebye...if you want to avoid it, you look at the PATH you want to take to avoid it."
You know... I was just thinking about that. Because motorcycles are so instinctive, everytime I rode mine and saw a pretty girl and looked at her, I wound up crashing right into them!!! Can you believe that? Now I don't have a motorcycle any more, because the court took it, and my motorcycle license away because of too much pretty girl target fixation. Now I have to drive a sucky car...
>> "How long did it take you to find out just how much to turn the steering wheel so as not to go out of course? How long for the bicycle/motorcycle? there.
Now that's a statement thats as clear as mud, if I ever saw one... but it makes perfect snese to me.
>> "Cars are space hogs. They are 3-4 times the size of a motorcycle.
Yeah, they sure are... there must be some kind of conspiracy thats prevented anyone from coming out with a car that can seat four, and still be as small as a motorcycle. Who do you think is behind it, the Japanese?
>> "Motorcycles don't collect crud under the seats,
I'll bet you 10 bucks you've never looked at the battery under your seat....
>> "...no way you lose a coin and try to find it (if you drop a coin while riding, you lost it for good!hehe).
Funny, when I dropped a quarter at the Golden Gate Bridge toll booth, I just bent over and picked it up.
>> "No way you can distract yourself by smoking/drinking/eating ice cream/reading newspaper (i've seen them all, you probably have seen worse)
Oh man... I've seen worse. You don't even want to know....
>> "With motorcycles, traffic jams don't exist.
What planet did you say you came from...
>> "Unless you don't dress properly (and contrary to common thoght you do NOT need to dress like an onion!!!
Boy! Am I glad about that... I used to get the weirdest looks around barbeque season...
>> "...there are very few specific clothes you need to wear, which are easy to remove.and they probably look cooler than a seatbelt.)
I must really be out of touch, when did seatbelts become a fashion accessory?
>> "you don't have to worry about rain/whatever.
Ah yes... I remember the days when I didn't worry about rain/whatever, but now that I have to drive a sucky car, I worry all the time. Do you think that's why road rage is so common?
>> "They are slower,
Yeah... my sucky car is sooooooooooooo slow, I can't even stand it!
>> "...less safe than motorcycles.
I'm not so sure about that one... I mean... when I stop and forget to put my foot down in my car, it doesn't fall over...
>> "(if you think i am getting insane on the "safer" part, do notice that i am talking about EVERYONES safety, not only the ones who is in the car but about those outside it.)
Think you can run that one by us again?
>> "The only reasons cars are better than motorcycles is because you can carry (where do you think "car" came from? "carriage". Yes, the thing with horses/cows) lots of stuff with them. And to carry your family. (if it has more than 2 persons , that is if you have children.*)
But wait... cars suck. You just said so... Oh, I get it now... cars suck until you have to carry something big, then they don't suck. Gotcha chief....
>> "Cars suck.
Are you speaking from personal experience, I mean did you actually get your (GASP) organ stuck in a carberator or something once?
>> "(*:just so you don't think i am a misanthrope or something, i want to have kids (even if you hear me sya otherwise under some circumstances- i'm fickle) and the fact that i ride a bike won't hinder me from having kids.)
Well... after reading your fine post, all I can say is.......... BUMMER .
After having worked on several electric cars (conversions), and being 'into" electric/hybrid vehicles for well over two decades, I can say nice effort, nice lines, but when can we buy one that's affordable?
And speaking of un-affordable, here's something pretty darn sweet that's been around since 1997.
I like this TZero better because it can be a pure electric around town, and for long trips you just hook up their very cool 'Long Ranger' hybrid trailer, which allows for continuous highway cruising.
And it's quick too!
I want a TZero!
>> I could see this extending digital cell service and mobile network connectivity far into rural areas...
This may work fine in an urban area, but apparently timothy has never lived in a rural area.
If he had, he would have realized that after 5pm, they "roll up the streets and everyone goes home, and the network is effectively dead, because nobody is on the road!
"In CA you need an ID to use your credit card."
You must be joking right?
I'm a native Cali mannn, and I never sign the back of my credit cards.
Instead, I write where my signature is supposed to go: Check photo I.D..
Guess what?
Perhaps one out of a thousand people asks to look at my photo I.D.!
And out of those that do, most of them just ask me what it means as they hand it back to me!
It's very clear to me, that people don't give a crap about credit card fraud.
I heard of this kind of thing many years ago.
The Soviets were way ahead of the game in this area as long ago as the 60's, they were called Caspian Sea Monsters because they were tested in the Caspian Sea, and looked like neither plane, nor boat.
This web site has a very nice detailed article complete with many photos.
They were quite the strange beasties back then, heres another look at them.
And heres the WIG site (WIG is an abbreviation of Wing In Ground-effect), which is also a nice comprehensive resource about these interesting vehicles.
The model maker Revell even made a plastic model kit of one, some years ago.
Apparently, this type of aircraft hasn't found it's commercial niche yet, but it looks like this new application might work.
AC, you are mistaken.
It's a line from the song "Fish", by the late, great, Throwing Muses, it's off of the "Lonely is an Eyesore" 4AD compilation record/CD.
DCD is a great band as well though.
Chill out baby, html is cool, and it's here to use, so I do.
I'll bet you're a real pain to live with, if you whine about stuff like this.
Don't like it? Don't read my posts
What's Old is new...
slash dot headline: "New, Flexible CDs Arrive"
Ha! It's so great to see old tech making a comeback in this digital age!
As a reformed vinyl collector, I used to buy a music magazine in the late 70's - early 80's (?) called Flexipop which came with a flexible plastic record, that was usually a rare or otherwise different mix from the featured artist (one or two songs max).
These were really neat to trip out your friends with... "Hey, look at this new record I got...", while I'm rolling it into a tube, and then tossing it at them as it unrolls back into a record, which I would then pick up (blowing off any dust!) and place on this ancient analog device called a turntable, and play.
They worked great if you only played them a couple of times and then taped them, since playing them degraded the sound quality (goodby high end).
I did quite a search but could only find a few links to them, but here's a bit of info:
Of course, I do wonder about the archival properties of these new CD's, it does seem that they might be a bit more stable since it's digital media, vs analog. But then, CD's are pretty sensitive to scratches on their surface, so time will tell.
But my guess this is just another throw away medium for our short sighted society .
Cool retro idea though.
>> "His post was a little confusing... "
Apparently so, for me anyhow...
My bad, oh well, time to smoke another bowl and chill out.
A 286 can't run Windows you say?
Then by all means please explain why this is, since my experience must have been a hallucination.
Because ten years ago a buddy of mine gave me an old 286 that he had overclocked to a screaming 18Mhz (as I recall, it was a long time ago), it ran Win 3.1
It may have been slow, but it worked just fine
Heh... y'all may joke about cats in Chinese food, but in the heart of SillyCon Valley the Tao Tao Cafe on Murphy St. in Sunnyvale CA, was closed down at least three times over the years for serving CAT .
I hope you won't think this is too catty, but man... was their food ever good .
BURRRRRP .
I agree! Anyone who "knows their stuff" has no problem knowing what they see.
Here's my example.
I'm climbing through this cave with some friends near Cave City, CA, and slowly and carefully, downclimbing a 90 foot pit to see an indian skull at the bottom.
We arrived at the bottom of the pit, and while waiting for some stragglers, I decided to have a look around and discovered a tooth. So I hold it up to my caver/dentist buddy and say "look what I found."
He grabs it out of my fingers, looks at it for a few seconds, while twisting it, looking at all sides, and announces, "It's a lower left bicusped from a female between the ages of 13 to 16.".
We were all blown away by the sureness of his identification, but we knew he was right, even though he didn't know WHY we were all excited by his announcement.
You see, earlier in the day, before our dentist buddy was around, the cave owner whom I'm aquainted with, told us that when he bought the land, that along with it came an indian legend about a indian maiden who hadn't found a mate, so she went into this cave in search of the "marriage" spirit that supposedly dwelled there.
Well, she was never heard from again. My friend started to do a systematic search of his cave, and found an ancient skull and other human remains in the mud at the bottom of the 90 foot pit.
Then he invited some archaeologists from some college (can't remember which) and they identified the skull as belonging to a girl/woman between 13 and 20 years old! The skull dated to about 900 years ago. But the dentist didn't know any of this this, so he was the man of the hour that day.
People that know their stuff are fun to learn from.
Hey Rob and Kathleen, I wish you both the BEST, and truly hope that you two can make the commitment work over the long haul.
It takes a lot of work to keep a relationship alive, happy, and sustainable, I hope that you can make it last many, many, years.
BEST WISHES!!!
Oh no, actually, ANGRY and FRUSTRATED is more like it.
But I know you just said that to distract everyone from your own psychosis.
>>I believe that you need to calm down.
OK (Big toke of Mendo's finest.), I'll agree... sorry I took it so personal (But it IS.).
>>I was pointing out some relatively minor calculations, not one datapoint, we had done in physics that seemed to cast some doubt on the claims of these individuals, which do seem to be a bit odd.
That's hardly definitive, and certainly not enough information for a layman to go around questioning anyone's mental state.
>>So, yes, I am quite a bit skeptical and I remain so despite your frothing at the mouth reply.
Yes, I was wrong to attack you, I apoligize.
>>I also did not claim to know it all. There have been several replies quite rightly pointing out some pertinent facts that I had not considered such as the change in the flux.
OK, but you still seem closed minded to the ** possibility ** that someone CAN be electrically sensitive, and not be "mentally unstable".
>
>>That comment wasn't meant to be taken seriously... well at least not totally.
Oh, I see, that explains everything.
>>Perhaps he has a mental disorder; I am being serious about that. As far as I can see, no one has seriously questioned this man's mental health,
I don't know where you live, but in every town that I've ever lived in, almost everyone knows who the so-called "crazies" are, and this guy isn't one of them. Yes, I live just up the road from Mendocino, or as I prefer to call it, Spendocino. I'm also not in any way associated with this guy though, because I feel it's a losing battle.
And seriously, have you noticed how you deal with ideas that seem "odd" to you? You question the proponent's state of mental health, before you question that your beliefs could be mistaken, or incomplete. That seems really odd to me.
>>he has simply gone around and gotten signatures based on his beliefs on a subject for which his credentials are dubious at best.
You say: "his credentials are dubious at best." Really? The man has written a book, how many books have you written? I'm much more likely to believe someone who has gone to all the trouble to research and write a book about something, than someone who hasn't.
>>As for X-Rays etc... they're close range. The intensity of an EMF decreases quite rapidly the further away from the source.
Again, you miss the big picture. You are working within a closed framework of ideas, accepting those ideas that seem to fit, and discarding those that don't. Even though, they may be completely valid ideas, even if they don't fit into your existing body of knowledge.
And thanks for not flaming me back, I owe you one.
>>There has never been a single piece of hard evidence for low-intensity radio waves causing the symptoms he and others describe.
You might want to do a Google search before you make such, ignorant statements again, it makes you look like a fool.
You also might want to look at these links which document just what you claim doesn't eixist.
- There are at least 60 studies listed here: Reported Biological Effects From Radiofrequency Non-Ionizing Radiation
- Mobile Phone Electromagnetic Fields Affect Body Cells
You need to hold it there MUCH longer...
>>I remember in physics class in high school, we figured out the strength of the EM field around a high voltage wire. We calculated that even as close at 50 feet (like wires suspended in the air), the earth's natural field was like 100 times stronger.
So just what does that prove? You have ONE data point in an issue that you know nothing else about, and yet you fool yourself in to thinking that you know it all, and judge others based on ONE data point?.
Humans DIDN'T evolve with all the additional EMF's that "modern" society seems to be "addicted" to. Yet, you have ONE data point, and you know it all?
Next time you laugh at those "poor crazy EMF people", you best be looking in the mirror, because YOU are the joke.
>>Since then, I've always viewed these claims of EM radiation problems with a skeptical eye.
Uh... it appears that you are deluding yourself about being "skeptical", based on your closing statement.
>>My own suspicions is that this guy had a few too many REMs to the skull from his dental X-Rays and is a candidate for therapy. :-D
Oh, and here you go, totally contradicting yourself. Or are only dental X-Rays bad for us, and NOT all of the other EMF's in our environment?
>> Has anyone told these folks that they are constantly bathed in microwave radiation from the Big Bang?
Haven't you figured out that we EVOLVED with that background radiation, but we DIDN'T with "human made" electromagnatic fields?
Apparently, you can't make the jump in logic to see that there could quite possibly be a REAL health issue here, pity that so many people are so CLOSED MINDED and "Knee Jerk Reactionary" to issues that they are unfamilier with.
>> They should move to another universe, provided they aren't already living in one...
I'll bet your forefathers were there telling Columbus that he'd sail off the edge of the earth too!
Heh... what a great job!
Back in '77 after the first "break-up" of Pacific Bell, I was a telecommunications tech at a small interconnect in Santa Clara, CA (i.e. Silicon Valley), one of three troubleshooters in the company, so I usually worked alone. We had no company uniforms or other identifying paraphernalia, but my tool belt was my "badge".
We sold state of the art (for the time. eh?) NEC microprocessor controlled, time division multiplex phone switches, and smaller office sized systems. Our switches kicked Pac Bell's ass, they ruled because the telcos in the USA we still in the dark ages.
Anyhow, my territorry was from San Francisco (and the rest of the Bay Area) to Montery, we had phone systems in many high tech companies, so I was steeped in the culture.
It didn't take me long to observe that I could go virtually anywhere in most of these companies, without question. Often even without a visitors security badge, company employees, and even security guards would open doors for me if my hands were full.
It seemed that my tool belt and butt set (Linemans test set) hanging off of it, was all I needed to have the run of the place. I started to play a "game", to see just how good their "security" was.
So here I am, this spikey haired punk rocker, in street clothes, but with my tool belt, butt set, and a professional attitude, walking up to a security guard and saying to him, "Hey, I need to look in that locked room over there to see if there is any phone equipment in there.".
They allways walked over and opened it for me without question, and then walked away reminding me to lock it when I was done. I did this just for grins at many of the companies I visited.
In those days, computers were still refrigerator sized, and filled large, lead lined, air conditioned rooms with raised floors, with lots of cabling under them, tended to, by clean-cut guys in long white lab coats (no kidding). And every company had a security guard at the door of these special rooms.
One day I screwed up my courage and decided to see if I could gain access to one, I had zero reasons to go in there, since there was never phone equipment in these rooms. I nervously walked up to the door, looked the security guard in the eye, and he glanced at my tool belt and test set, and opened the door for me without a word between us!
Next thing you know, I'm wandering around this large computer room, pretending to look like I know what I'm doing. None of the guys in there even pretended to notice me, I could have done what ever I wanterd, and nobody would have questioned what I was doing.
At work, I started to brag about how people were so easily manipulated by "normal" circumstances. None of my coworkers believed me, they were just like the people in these companies, they were non-observent.
One day, I needed some help, so I brought my boss along. We finished up our job and as we were walking out, I reminded him of my discovery, he said "bullshit!" . So I said "follow me", and walked toward the big computer room.
The security guard didn't bat an eye, and unlocked the door for us without a word. I was the only one with a tool belt, my boss was also in street clothes, we could have been anybody, but the magic tool belt, butt set combo got me through again.
My boss was blown away, and was also very nervous about being in this formerlly taboo computer room, so we exited. On the way out of the building, I couldn't resist, and stopped at random and asked the closest security guard to please open "that closet, over there", he of course, complied.
My boss was very impressed, but wasn't at all happy that I was doing this for "fun", and the next morning at work, I was admonished to never do "that" again.
I guess my point is, that people are easily fooled by normal seeming circumstances, and that security is often a Paper Tiger.
I hope you'll use a condom while your fucking all those people, cause I sure wouldn't want you to breed...
I recieved a Cue Cat quite unexpectedly, from Wired Magazine one day, and never considered hooking it up to my computer, because I like to read my magazines away from my computer.
However, I did use the nifty patch cord that came with the Cue Cat , to go from my computer sound card to my stereo system, so now I can enjoy my MP3's through my quality speakers.
I wonder if some of you are aware of Digimarc?
Quite some time before the Cue Cat marketing blitz, Digimarc gave away a bunch of Intel CMOS cams, if one agreed to test their "Digimarc MediaBridge" technology for a year.
My girlfriend and I signed up, and got our cams, and each month went to their web site and answered questions about our use of their tech.
Before the year was up, the emails stopped coming, and I haven't heard from them for a long time now. Although they still seem to be in business.
I think their idea was a much better one than the Cue Cat, because it used the cam to "see" links embedded into images (a digital watermark of sorts), and the links were quite invisible.
I discovered two drawbacks to this technology, the obvious being, one needs to be reading their magazine next to their computer. And the other was the lighting needed to be strong, and even, for the links to function at all.
When I'm working at my computer the light level varies all the time, and the MediaBridge needed consistant lighting conditions. This I feel, isn't a "real world" tool for those reasons, good idea though.
>>don't discoutn the power usage of the antenna on your cell.
>>The downside of having the smaller batteries is the decrease in talk time due to the power consumed by the antenna.
Whoa... You need a quick lesson in radio my friend.
Antennas radiate RF (radio frequency) power, but never consume power.
The physical size of the antenna has no direct effect on battery life at all.
Just thought you might want to know.
- 73
Yeah, this was pretty cool...
My old man was one of the designers of the claw that picked up the Golf class sub, they called the claw "Clementine".
Unfortunately, due to ocean conditions at the time, they grabbed the sub wrong (Ahead of the conning tower.), and it broke in half while raising it.
All the Russian sailors bodies that were recovered, were given full honorable burial at sea, complete with Russian flags, and it was video taped to cover their asses, just in case the cover on this Black Op was blown.
Remember that the cover story was that the legendary Howard Hughes was doing ocean mining for manganese nodules, that are found at great depth in many parts of the worlds oceans.
They actually did some real mining runs as a part of the cover story, I still have several of these very cool manganese nodules, they look like little black cauliflowers.
It's a facinating story of real world spying, and covert operations.
After it was declassified, my father recieved a letter of thanks from the Prez, for his part in it, and a little "plaque".
At least two books were written about it, I read the one my dad had called "A Matter Of Risk" , which is a great story.
From the above page: A Matter of Risk by Roy Varner & Wayne Collier, Ballantine Books 1978, ISBN 0-345-28639-1 First Edition May 1980.
Man, your new site is sooooo bright I need to wear my shades! With the NEW IMPROVED, Whiter Brighter White background, I can read all the troll's postings so much easier now.
The Old Dirty, Dingy, Slashdot pales in comparison.
Must be all the optical brighteners you added to the code, huh?
And how did you guys get all the fonts soooo smoooth? No more Ragged Jagged Edges for Slashdot, those NEW IMPROVED fonts just JUMP off the page at you! (Ouch!) Must be that new "state-of-the-art" di-fribfontulator algorhythm (4/4) you used, eh?
But wait, the Vibrant Colors in the headers... Wow! I only heard rumours about a beta version of the experi[mental] pixel bleaching algorithm. Boy, those colors are BRIGHT! You go, guys!
And to top it off, the new site seems to load about 60% faster, way out here on the Left Coast.
You pulled no [pun]ches with this new code did you? No more Dingy, Dirty, Slashdot, it's a Web Day Miracle!