I've fond memories of an evening well-spent navigating the many corners of that particular maze. I want to hear more about the war between electricity and steam...
I already pay my cellphone provider for Eavesdropping-as-a-Service. Plus my cellphone features location tracking and camera surveillance features that Echo hardware lacks.
IT departments used to maintain an array of modems. Employees would dial in from home, using their own modem. No internet required, just plain old telephone service. This could work again. Network applications, web applications, and server applications would rediscover frugality. Folks might rediscover Opera and its Show/Cached/No Images popup menu. Or lynx. People with VoIP lines would be out of luck.
Of all my readings on managing employees, I still find The Art of Demotivation to be my favorite. It colors my every interaction with executives and employees.
Each person is responsible for their own psychological validation. Don't let your underlings burden you with their insatiable neediness. Show employees their cost to the company, not just their worth.
Every cog can be replaced.
I second the GreenCine fandom. I got sick of waiting for Netflix to stock all the anime and non-mainstream discs that I wanted to watch.
GreenCine has a much wider selection than Netflix. Plus, they have a 1-day turnaround policy: they always send out a disc the day they receive one from you. No more 3-day delay shenanigans like what Netflix seemed to do during high usage months. If you've ever been sick of waiting for Netflix to stock a disc, or just sick of Netflix in general, and you live within a day or two of GreenCine's San Francisco distribution center, it's worth checking them out.
I was going broke purchasing movies that Netflix would never stock, and my bookshelfs were overflowing with discs I'd likely never watch again. I've all but stopped purchasing DVDs now. "Am I really going to watch this more than once?" Only a few discs get a "yes."
If porn is a recession-proof industry, why are so few porn companies listed on the stock market? I would *much* rather see my retirement money being used to produce something of value like this, than wasted on WorldCom and Enron scandals.
By searching boycott lists from religious fundamentalist groups, it is possible to find some publicly traded porn companies. There is also the Vice Fund, but that is mostly drinking and gambling, not airbrushed silicone.
Where is the Vangard T&A 44DD Fund when you need it?
Sounds like a bargain! In exchange for a paltry $50M, they now have a confirmed list of 3.5 million music consumers, their names, email and physical addresses, birth dates, and last 4 digits of their social security numbers. I wonder how much they'll be recoup by reselling that list, or just using it themselves.
As much as I wanted to see the RIAA's wrists slapped for being naughty, it felt like *I* was going to be the one to suffer if I filled out that form.
For $100/year, you get stuff from Prince. Last year it was MP3 and QuickTime downloads, including his latest CD. This year it's physical CD shipments and first dibs on concert tickets.
You pay the artist (or The Artist), the money doesn't go through the RIAA's accounting filters, so once the bandwidth and purple guitar bills are paid, it's money in Prince's pocket (unless he's wearing those pants without a backside: no pockets).
When I watch language tapes, the first thing I do is record them into my TiVo. Then I can rewind and replay over and over until my feeble US ears finally start to make out the cryptic non-US words and phrases.
VCD and a player with a "back N seconds" button gets you the same feature, but without the analog-to-TiVo recording step.
If I got a quarter for each piece of junkmail in my inbox, it would cover having a pizza delivered to my house every day, and still have enough left over to get a few comics to read each day while I ate!
Eating pizza while reading comics? You'll get greasy fingerprints all over the pages!
I joined Netflix for anime. Rented and viewed everything they had in stock. After a month of nothing but waiting for "long wait", I dropped Netflix and switched to rentmydvd.com. Same service, same spotty anime stock, but they had some discs that netflix lacked. A couple months later, I'd seen everything anime they carried, and I dropped rentmydvd.com.
When I called rentmydvd.com to cancel, the service rep said that anime DVDs were made in much smaller production runs than mainstream DVDs. So rental stores have a much harder time buying stock. When I asked "why not just go animeplanet or amazon and buy a few copies", she replied that they could buy up all available stock of such titles and *still* not have enough rental stock to satisfy demand. If I wanted rental stores to carry anime, I need to call up the anime DVD production houses and convince them to make larger production runs.
The whole thing sounds a little fishy to me, could this really be true?
When choosing between an encrypted, region-coded DVD and an unencrypted, all-region DVD version of the same show, choose the unencrypted, all-region DVD version.
Few shows offer that choice.
Why would the CD reproduction industry behave differently than the DVD reproduction industry?
Oops. I meant "Let's try to avoid another Krystallnacht.", not "Let's try not to avoid another Krystallnacht. Yeesh. What good is the preview page if I don't read it more carefully!
Damn, I hate it when I miss something stupid like that.
So when do we start rounding up innocent US citizens and sending them to concentra...er...internment camps?
Tomorrow morning's news will be filled with reports of vandalism and violence against shops run by humans of Middle Eastern descent. Let's try not to avoid another Krystallnacht.
Yes. Remember the past. Don't repeat it.
Re:Warp drive silliness : somebody skipped math 10
on
Voyager Eulogy
·
· Score: 3
If we really want to debate how many Starfleet angels can dance on the head of a warp 10 pin, here’s some fodder from Star Trek Chronology. If we’re gonna geek out, we should geek out with authority.:-)
Recalibration of the warp scale
Starfleet used a different warp factor scale during the original Star Trek series (set in 2266-2269) than was in used during the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation (2364). The older warp scale was generally believed to designate speeds at the cube of the warp factor, so that a warp factor of two would indicate a speed of two to the third power, or eight times the speed of light. By the time of Captain Picard's Starship Enterprise-D a different mathematical formula was in used that established warp factor 10 to be an infinite value at the absolute top of the scale. (“Threshhold” [VGR] establishes warp factor 10 to be the mysterious transwarp phenomenon first mentioned in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.) It is not known why the warp scale was recalibrated, or when this happened.
The warp scale recalibration had actually been suggested by Star Trek: The Next Generation story consultant David Gerrold, who proposed an absolute warp 10 speed limit for story reasons. He felt that some original Star Trek series episodes relied too heavily on scenes in which artificial danger was created by having Scotty worried that the Enterprise might blow up because of a high warp speed. Gerrold wanted to prevent episodes of the new show from having the Enterprise-D crew endangered by ever-increasing warp speeds. Putting warp 10 at the absolute top of the scale accomplished this goal, and making the scale asymptotic made it possible for the occasional god-like entity to cross the galaxy in the space of a commercial break.
A second recalibration of the warp scale apparently occurred in Q’s anti-time future seen in “All Good things” (TNG), since we saw ships traveling at warp 13 in 2395. We know even less about this second recalibration, and frankly, we don’t even know if it will come to pass in the “real” Star Trek timeline.
So ST:TOS warp 9 would be 9=729 times the speed of light, and Voyager warp 10 would be the speed at which Voyager got back to the Alpha Quadrant and ended things so abuptly.
Do you really believe a man like Bezos who is now suspected for insider trading has any kind of morals at all...?
Uh, the man's suspected of the crime, not found guilty. Not all countries use the same constitution, but I still like to believe that we don't accept accusations as proof of guilt. Sure, he might be evil, he might be a really nice guy, or he might just be trying to do what's best for his company. I don't know the man, so I can't say.
As long as there are acceptable alternatives, the market will avoid stupid products.
If I have a choice between two similar cellphones, one that works everywhere, and one that self-destructs if I take it to Canada, I'll probably choose the non-self-destruct one. But if I'm offered $100 off the self-destruct phone, I might be willing to live with that limitation.
How much of a discount would typical consumers need in order to purchase a limited product? Is the manufacturer's gain in market control worth it?
Most of the play time of my youth was spent in the middle of a floor, surrounded by a vast sea of Lego building bricks. My friends and I would spend hours building things together. We'd combine our sets during sleepovers to construct huge [mansions | Moonbase Alpha | village | Ark II | whatever ].
It was through cooperation and construction that we turned a floor of blocks into something cool we could play with. Actually, we didn't much play with our creations: it was the act of creation that brought us all the joy.
Lego was our first introduction to the concept of specifications: when we'd each build different wings of a house, we'd phone each other up and make sure "The East Wing is 9 blocks tall and 40 dots wide, with a 4 dot door in the middle."
Slashdot Mirror
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I will really miss John Robertson's "Dark Room", A maze of little youtube clips linked together via annotations.
Mapping out the original 2012 maze was pleasant evenings' diversion. And I learned more about the war between steam and electricity.
The Dark Room: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"You awake to find yourself in a dark room."
I've fond memories of an evening well-spent navigating the many corners of that particular maze. I want to hear more about the war between electricity and steam...
I already pay my cellphone provider for Eavesdropping-as-a-Service. Plus my cellphone features location tracking and camera surveillance features that Echo hardware lacks.
IT departments used to maintain an array of modems. Employees would dial in from home, using their own modem. No internet required, just plain old telephone service.
This could work again.
Network applications, web applications, and server applications would rediscover frugality. Folks might rediscover Opera and its Show/Cached/No Images popup menu. Or lynx.
People with VoIP lines would be out of luck.
[sheep slaughter];
Of all my readings on managing employees, I still find The Art of Demotivation to be my favorite. It colors my every interaction with executives and employees. Each person is responsible for their own psychological validation. Don't let your underlings burden you with their insatiable neediness. Show employees their cost to the company, not just their worth. Every cog can be replaced.
Yep. Too bad the bank won't accept admiration in lieu of a mortgage payment.
Find a better job, then quit.
Or check on how your own elected official represented you: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll445.xml
I'm proud to say my own representative Barbara Lee voted against this distraction.
I second the GreenCine fandom. I got sick of waiting for Netflix to stock all the anime and non-mainstream discs that I wanted to watch.
GreenCine has a much wider selection than Netflix. Plus, they have a 1-day turnaround policy: they always send out a disc the day they receive one from you. No more 3-day delay shenanigans like what Netflix seemed to do during high usage months. If you've ever been sick of waiting for Netflix to stock a disc, or just sick of Netflix in general, and you live within a day or two of GreenCine's San Francisco distribution center, it's worth checking them out.
I was going broke purchasing movies that Netflix would never stock, and my bookshelfs were overflowing with discs I'd likely never watch again. I've all but stopped purchasing DVDs now. "Am I really going to watch this more than once?" Only a few discs get a "yes."
If porn is a recession-proof industry, why are so few porn companies listed on the stock market? I would *much* rather see my retirement money being used to produce something of value like this, than wasted on WorldCom and Enron scandals.
By searching boycott lists from religious fundamentalist groups, it is possible to find some publicly traded porn companies. There is also the Vice Fund, but that is mostly drinking and gambling, not airbrushed silicone.
Where is the Vangard T&A 44DD Fund when you need it?
A Woman's Guide on How to Pee Standing
The girl at the next urinal is indeed a lot more common than you think.
Sounds like a bargain! In exchange for a paltry $50M, they now have a confirmed list of 3.5 million music consumers, their names, email and physical addresses, birth dates, and last 4 digits of their social security numbers. I wonder how much they'll be recoup by reselling that list, or just using it themselves.
As much as I wanted to see the RIAA's wrists slapped for being naughty, it felt like *I* was going to be the one to suffer if I filled out that form.
For $100/year, you get stuff from Prince. Last year it was MP3 and QuickTime downloads, including his latest CD. This year it's physical CD shipments and first dibs on concert tickets.
You pay the artist (or The Artist), the money doesn't go through the RIAA's accounting filters, so once the bandwidth and purple guitar bills are paid, it's money in Prince's pocket (unless he's wearing those pants without a backside: no pockets).
When I watch language tapes, the first thing I do is record them into my TiVo. Then I can rewind and replay over and over until my feeble US ears finally start to make out the cryptic non-US words and phrases.
VCD and a player with a "back N seconds" button gets you the same feature, but without the analog-to-TiVo recording step.
I joined Netflix for anime. Rented and viewed everything they had in stock. After a month of nothing but waiting for "long wait", I dropped Netflix and switched to rentmydvd.com. Same service, same spotty anime stock, but they had some discs that netflix lacked. A couple months later, I'd seen everything anime they carried, and I dropped rentmydvd.com.
When I called rentmydvd.com to cancel, the service rep said that anime DVDs were made in much smaller production runs than mainstream DVDs. So rental stores have a much harder time buying stock. When I asked "why not just go animeplanet or amazon and buy a few copies", she replied that they could buy up all available stock of such titles and *still* not have enough rental stock to satisfy demand. If I wanted rental stores to carry anime, I need to call up the anime DVD production houses and convince them to make larger production runs.
The whole thing sounds a little fishy to me, could this really be true?
When choosing between an encrypted, region-coded DVD and an unencrypted, all-region DVD version of the same show, choose the unencrypted, all-region DVD version.
Few shows offer that choice.
Why would the CD reproduction industry behave differently than the DVD reproduction industry?
Oops. I meant "Let's try to avoid another Krystallnacht.", not "Let's try not to avoid another Krystallnacht. Yeesh. What good is the preview page if I don't read it more carefully!
Damn, I hate it when I miss something stupid like that.
So when do we start rounding up innocent US citizens and sending them to concentra...er...internment camps?
Tomorrow morning's news will be filled with reports of vandalism and violence against shops run by humans of Middle Eastern descent. Let's try not to avoid another Krystallnacht.
Yes. Remember the past. Don't repeat it.
If we really want to debate how many Starfleet angels can dance on the head of a warp 10 pin, here’s some fodder from Star Trek Chronology. If we’re gonna geek out, we should geek out with authority. :-)
So ST:TOS warp 9 would be 9=729 times the speed of light, and Voyager warp 10 would be the speed at which Voyager got back to the Alpha Quadrant and ended things so abuptly.
As long as there are acceptable alternatives, the market will avoid stupid products.
If I have a choice between two similar cellphones, one that works everywhere, and one that self-destructs if I take it to Canada, I'll probably choose the non-self-destruct one. But if I'm offered $100 off the self-destruct phone, I might be willing to live with that limitation.
How much of a discount would typical consumers need in order to purchase a limited product? Is the manufacturer's gain in market control worth it?
Most of the play time of my youth was spent in the middle of a floor, surrounded by a vast sea of Lego building bricks. My friends and I would spend hours building things together. We'd combine our sets during sleepovers to construct huge [mansions | Moonbase Alpha | village | Ark II | whatever ].
It was through cooperation and construction that we turned a floor of blocks into something cool we could play with. Actually, we didn't much play with our creations: it was the act of creation that brought us all the joy.
Lego was our first introduction to the concept of specifications: when we'd each build different wings of a house, we'd phone each other up and make sure "The East Wing is 9 blocks tall and 40 dots wide, with a 4 dot door in the middle."