Or add a dvd/cd changer -- tied to the system with a database. Why store the data on spinning iron oxide when you could just tell the changer to mount the right disk?
Sure, we can go to Mars in a year or two with Mars Direct... but consider:
Fourty some years ago there were several methods for getting to the moon under consideration - among them were:
Assembly in Orbit -- building the infrastructure to dock sufficient resources together in earth orbit and from there go to the moon.
"Moon Direct" -- a single rocket that could deliver two people to the moon. No in-space infrastructure needed, relativly cheap and fast.
We went with Moon Direct - and sent 12 (14 if you count Apollo 13) people to the moon. Since then nothing.
Perhaps if we had gone the other way, we would have built the space station in LEO first. Used it as a staging point for missions to the moon and been left with an easy jumping off point for further missions to the moon, mars, and beyond.
I fear that if Mars Direct is the way we get to mars, you will be able to count the missions to mars on the fingers of one hand.
Sorry... The ships were not unmanned. There were human crews connected by the ansibles. Makes Ender's end strategy all that more poignent.
SPOILER
Now Ender did not know that it was not a training simulation, and the crews would not be returning to the homes they left (relativistic time dilation).
Re:The problem is money
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eLection '04
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Not to mention resources.
Locally we use paper ballots and a computerized counting ballot box. This year we had three privacy booths but really all the equipment you need to cast your vote here is a black pen and your ballot.
Switching from our paper, pen, and computerized ballot box would mean going from 1 piece of specialized equipment in the polling station to at least three. (How much are these computerized ballot machines going to cost each?)
Plus, during peak voting times you currently do not have to use the privacy booth - you can vote where ever you feel comfortable in the polling room. Any semi-flat surface (desk, table, wall, wife's back...) will serve as the voting booth.
And system failures (short of flood and fire) do not destroy the ballots - they can easily be re-run through the counting machines.
There is a time and a place for fancy technology. I just am not convinced the voting booth is one of them.
Anti-aliasing is irrelevent... vector displays do not suffer from aliasing.
Now simulating vector displays on a raster device - that has aliasing issues, but a laser painting on the side of a wall is a pure vector display just like the displays on the old asteroids arcade games.
Can you imagine playing this on the side of Stone Mountain in Georgia....
Visor's Date Book+ lets you put the todos on the calender page. Even lets you select which catagories of todos get included and how many days in advance they show up.
Don't know how you would do this on a Palm though.
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Or add a dvd/cd changer -- tied to the system with a database. Why store the data on spinning iron oxide when you could just tell the changer to mount the right disk?
How about 1969?
There are those clipboard sized data pads in _2001: A Space Odyssey_. Trivial extension into a smaller form factor.
Because those are the rules for bidi languages... the text is right to left, numerics are left to right.
Foreign words (in non bidi languages) also go right to left.
To make life even more fun, the glyph for various Arabic letters changes depending on what letters are next to them.
The joys of internationalization.
Sure, we can go to Mars in a year or two with Mars Direct... but consider:
Fourty some years ago there were several methods for getting to the moon under consideration - among them were:
We went with Moon Direct - and sent 12 (14 if you count Apollo 13) people to the moon. Since then nothing.
Perhaps if we had gone the other way, we would have built the space station in LEO first. Used it as a staging point for missions to the moon and been left with an easy jumping off point for further missions to the moon, mars, and beyond.
I fear that if Mars Direct is the way we get to mars, you will be able to count the missions to mars on the fingers of one hand.
Sorry... The ships were not unmanned. There were human crews connected by the ansibles. Makes Ender's end strategy all that more poignent.
SPOILER
Now Ender did not know that it was not a training simulation, and the crews would not be returning to the homes they left (relativistic time dilation).
Not to mention resources.
Locally we use paper ballots and a computerized counting ballot box. This year we had three privacy booths but really all the equipment you need to cast your vote here is a black pen and your ballot.
Switching from our paper, pen, and computerized ballot box would mean going from 1 piece of specialized equipment in the polling station to at least three. (How much are these computerized ballot machines going to cost each?)
Plus, during peak voting times you currently do not have to use the privacy booth - you can vote where ever you feel comfortable in the polling room. Any semi-flat surface (desk, table, wall, wife's back...) will serve as the voting booth.
And system failures (short of flood and fire) do not destroy the ballots - they can easily be re-run through the counting machines.
There is a time and a place for fancy technology. I just am not convinced the voting booth is one of them.
Anti-aliasing is irrelevent... vector displays do not suffer from aliasing.
Now simulating vector displays on a raster device - that has aliasing issues, but a laser painting on the side of a wall is a pure vector display just like the displays on the old asteroids arcade games.
Can you imagine playing this on the side of Stone Mountain in Georgia....
Visor's Date Book+ lets you put the todos on the calender page. Even lets you select which catagories of todos get included and how many days in advance they show up.
Don't know how you would do this on a Palm though.
Charlie Chaplin was used for the original IBM PC.
He may have been used for the Jr and the XT too.
The link you are looking for is: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/righ t-to-read.html. Peter