Although the plastic has yellowed considerably, the calculator that got my dad through school still works perfectly! The leather holster for it has seen better days, however.
Yes, it is a slide rule - it's been years since I actually used it to calculate something, but it certainly is still functional.
Apart from that, my old TI-99/4A booted up last time I tried a few years back (Parsec!), but it's been in the attic ever since. It did run almost daily from 1979 until I got an Apple IIc in... 1985 or 1986 or so
Actually, Fox News does occassionally omit the partisian labels, and even switches them (http://mediamatters.org/blog/200906240026 - assumedly this is inadvertant, although folks more suspicious than I tend to infer malacious intent). That doesn't make the omission here any better, of course.
It's fair to say there has been a severe lack of civility on both sides of the aisle, highlighted mostly on the Republican side, I think (Cheney telling Leahy to Go F__k himself, the rep who shouted "you lie" during the presidential address, etc), although Rep. Grayson clearly enjoys lowering the standards himself.
Well, after the detox diet week (which was admittedly difficult), I went on a low-glycemic diet (which I plan on continuing pretty much indefinitely). It is, no doubt, the more important contributor to the weight loss.
I'm staying off the diet coke purely because I'm not craving it, not because I think it's necessarily integral to the weight I've lost. I do feel happier, have an easier time staying on task and have a better memory (well, at least as far as I remember). Some people would chalk that up to quitting aspartame, not caffiene, but either way, I feel better than I did:-).
I never drank coffee (never liked the taste or smell), but for years, I drank upwards of six 20oz bottles of diet coke daily. I accept that 120oz of soda/day makes me a caffeine lightweight by Slashdotter standards, but it still seemed like a lot.
I quit cold-turkey about 8 weeks ago on a Wednesday night as part of a "detox" diet (no caffeine, no oil, no fat, no carbs, no sugar - basicially veggies and water). Thursday morning was OK, surprisingly, but I had a headache by noontime. The headache lasted (never completely crippling, but *constant* throbbing behind my eyes) until the following Sunday morning.
I felt like I had very little energy for the whole week, which probably had more to do with my diet than the lack of caffeine. However, after a week or so, I actually felt better - I have better focus, more stamina, and actually got more shit done. I definitely feel better now (and have dropped 30 pounds, which doubtless helps). I haven't RTFA, so I don't know if the days-long headache is a typical response. YMMV, but based on my experience, I do recommend at least trying to cut back on caffeine (maybe not cold-turkey, though).
That's a tough one. I have 4 kids (ages 3, 5, 7, 9) and they've all asked the question at various points. Our shetland sheepdog died when our oldest was 6, which was tough. Essentially, as an agnostic (me) and a lapsed Catholic (my wife) we framed it as an on-going debate where no one really knows what happens when a person (or family pet) dies. I think it was more of a shock to my daughter that there were some things that grown-ups don't actually know.
We did touch on faith and how some people *believe* they know what happens, but stressed the fact that no one *really* knows what happens. We then had a short discussion about the main ideas (a. you go to heaven or hell, b. you get reincarnated, c. your existence just ends, d. none of the above). I told them what I personally believe, but made it clear that everyone ends up deciding for themselves at some point.
What was interesting is that my wife's side of the family is for the most part, pretty religous. A few months ago, by daughter was talking to my wife's Aunt about God, and kept asking her why she believed in God. I should mention my daughter is *extremely* persistent and pretty bright. Eventually she got the Aunt to admit it was, "because my parents brought me to church when I was a kid", which I believe is - with exceptions, of course - the main reason most people have the religious views they do.
Anyways, my take on it is that kids are pretty resilient - give them as much information as possible and answer questions honestly, and they'll figure things out. When I was younger (I'm 38 now), I always planned on teaching my kids to question authority and think for themselves. I still try to do that, but it's *much* more difficult when *I'm* the authority.
Back on subject - Mythbusters is a fave for TV, and Asimov's set of science books for kids is *phenomenal* (if a little outdated).
You'd think they would have paid more attention with a name like 'The Mountain That Moves'. There's also a great song called "Crashing Down" by the Canadian folk band Tanglefoot commemorating this. I had been interested enough about the disaster from the song to read about it, but hadn't read about the original name.
The disaster would have been even more terrible if a brave soul hadn't been able to make his way across the fields over gigantic boulders left from the landslide to warn an oncoming passenger train that the tracks were blocked.
Proof positive: I'm a software engineer and my wife is an ER nurse - we have 2 girls and 2 boys. (and NO, we have no plans to increase the sample pool:-))
While I agree with you that it's possible to produce a passable first draft - even novel length - on the fly, I do think that science fiction, and the whole time-travel sub-genre in particular, is a case where the author absolutely should be as meticulous as possible. This may be only because often times the plot hinges on minor subtle details, but also because bad/implausible/unsupported/stupid science can really destroy would might've been an interesting read. To switch media for a moment, the movie Event Horizon, for example, might have been an enjoyable horror story, except I was expecting science fiction, and the too-many-to-list cringe-inducing technical errors annoyed me enough that I didn't enjoy it at all.
That said, assuming the reviewer was accurate (and I've no reason to doubt this), I would avoid the book based on that criteria, even though I generally love time travel stories - and I thank Bonker for posting it.
For good time travel, pick up any of Jack Finney's 'time' stories, and of Poul Anderson's or Simon Hawke's time travel adventure yarns (the Hawke books are light on 'science', but fun to read), and especially Gregory Benford's _Timescape_ and David Gerrold's _The Man Who Folded Himself_
Interestingly enough, Dr. Atkins was just released from the hospital - he had a cardiac arrest. Not to make fun of his medical condition, but as the guy who basically pioneered the "eat tons o' meat" diet, what are the odds that he'd develop heart trouble?
A couple of computer shows ago, someone was hawking custom hand-painted beige boxes - with landscapes, dragons, etc. It was an... interesting... look. Just the front bezel was painted. Sort of 70's retro in a way - it reminded me of all those van murals you used to see. He hasn't been at the last few shows I went to, so perhaps the idea never took off.
Cryptic passwords aren't all THAT hard to come up with. Weird thing about memory - if a group of words has rhythm or is rhymes (or both), then it's almost impossible to forget (everyone here remembers the theme to Gilligan's Island, right?).
Back at DEC, the max password lengths were ridiculously long (128 chars? someone out there remembers). So, my passwords were usually something like: onceuponamindightdreary - next month was twiceuponamidnightdreary and then thrice..., and then I went to the next verse.
Not terribly cryptic, but nowadays, I typically use the first characters of each word in a poem, or whatever. Example above yields Ouamd - which is a reasonable start - add a number and increment, and you're set for a while until you move to the next line. Song lyrics work just as well as old Edgar Allen's stuff of course.
Oh, and of course, I strive to use song lyrics I'm not listening to at the time:-)
I had an interesting discussion with a co-worker about why Microsoft products seem to, well, suck so much. More so by reputation than by practice I think, but they are still extremely buggy when measured by anyone's yardstick. Linux, on the other hand, had the reputation of being rock solid - and rightly so.
So, I'm sure there are talented developers working on both OS's and applications. Why this disparity?
It's all about ego. Open source developers can contribute code, and have it banged on by thousands of smart people around the world. If there's a bug, either one of the thousands suggests a fix, or the original contributor stays up for 4 days straight correcting the problem, because his/her tremedously huge ego (all developer's egos are tied to their code, trust me) won't let him/her rest until s/he does.
Compare that example to the 9-5 anonymous Microsoftian developer, and the difference is obvious. No huge potential testing pool, no truly individual contribution that can get his/her ego wrapped up in it. And so, no hard-wired desire to produce solid code
Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.:-)
Just reported on CNN - the remaining stories of tower 2 has collapsed. They're still worried about 1 Liberty Plaza collapsing further, and have evacuated rescue workers from that area.
Slashdot Mirror
Although the plastic has yellowed considerably, the calculator that got my dad through school still works perfectly! The leather holster for it has seen better days, however.
Yes, it is a slide rule - it's been years since I actually used it to calculate something, but it certainly is still functional.
Apart from that, my old TI-99/4A booted up last time I tried a few years back (Parsec!), but it's been in the attic ever since. It did run almost daily from 1979 until I got an Apple IIc in... 1985 or 1986 or so
[x] One parrot
[x] One keg of grog (duty free)
[x] Marks the spot
Billerica? You mean good old "bricka"? :-)
Actually, Fox News does occassionally omit the partisian labels, and even switches them (http://mediamatters.org/blog/200906240026 - assumedly this is inadvertant, although folks more suspicious than I tend to infer malacious intent). That doesn't make the omission here any better, of course.
It's fair to say there has been a severe lack of civility on both sides of the aisle, highlighted mostly on the Republican side, I think (Cheney telling Leahy to Go F__k himself, the rep who shouted "you lie" during the presidential address, etc), although Rep. Grayson clearly enjoys lowering the standards himself.
Well, after the detox diet week (which was admittedly difficult), I went on a low-glycemic diet (which I plan on continuing pretty much indefinitely). It is, no doubt, the more important contributor to the weight loss.
I'm staying off the diet coke purely because I'm not craving it, not because I think it's necessarily integral to the weight I've lost. I do feel happier, have an easier time staying on task and have a better memory (well, at least as far as I remember). Some people would chalk that up to quitting aspartame, not caffiene, but either way, I feel better than I did :-).
I never drank coffee (never liked the taste or smell), but for years, I drank upwards of six 20oz bottles of diet coke daily. I accept that 120oz of soda/day makes me a caffeine lightweight by Slashdotter standards, but it still seemed like a lot.
I quit cold-turkey about 8 weeks ago on a Wednesday night as part of a "detox" diet (no caffeine, no oil, no fat, no carbs, no sugar - basicially veggies and water). Thursday morning was OK, surprisingly, but I had a headache by noontime. The headache lasted (never completely crippling, but *constant* throbbing behind my eyes) until the following Sunday morning.
I felt like I had very little energy for the whole week, which probably had more to do with my diet than the lack of caffeine. However, after a week or so, I actually felt better - I have better focus, more stamina, and actually got more shit done. I definitely feel better now (and have dropped 30 pounds, which doubtless helps). I haven't RTFA, so I don't know if the days-long headache is a typical response. YMMV, but based on my experience, I do recommend at least trying to cut back on caffeine (maybe not cold-turkey, though).
That's a tough one. I have 4 kids (ages 3, 5, 7, 9) and they've all asked the question at various points. Our shetland sheepdog died when our oldest was 6, which was tough. Essentially, as an agnostic (me) and a lapsed Catholic (my wife) we framed it as an on-going debate where no one really knows what happens when a person (or family pet) dies. I think it was more of a shock to my daughter that there were some things that grown-ups don't actually know.
We did touch on faith and how some people *believe* they know what happens, but stressed the fact that no one *really* knows what happens. We then had a short discussion about the main ideas (a. you go to heaven or hell, b. you get reincarnated, c. your existence just ends, d. none of the above). I told them what I personally believe, but made it clear that everyone ends up deciding for themselves at some point.
What was interesting is that my wife's side of the family is for the most part, pretty religous. A few months ago, by daughter was talking to my wife's Aunt about God, and kept asking her why she believed in God. I should mention my daughter is *extremely* persistent and pretty bright. Eventually she got the Aunt to admit it was, "because my parents brought me to church when I was a kid", which I believe is - with exceptions, of course - the main reason most people have the religious views they do.
Anyways, my take on it is that kids are pretty resilient - give them as much information as possible and answer questions honestly, and they'll figure things out. When I was younger (I'm 38 now), I always planned on teaching my kids to question authority and think for themselves. I still try to do that, but it's *much* more difficult when *I'm* the authority.
Back on subject - Mythbusters is a fave for TV, and Asimov's set of science books for kids is *phenomenal* (if a little outdated).
You'd think they would have paid more attention with a name like 'The Mountain That Moves'. There's also a great song called "Crashing Down" by the Canadian folk band Tanglefoot commemorating this. I had been interested enough about the disaster from the song to read about it, but hadn't read about the original name.
The disaster would have been even more terrible if a brave soul hadn't been able to make his way across the fields over gigantic boulders left from the landslide to warn an oncoming passenger train that the tracks were blocked.
Proof positive: I'm a software engineer and my wife is an ER nurse - we have 2 girls and 2 boys. (and NO, we have no plans to increase the sample pool :-))
While I agree with you that it's possible to produce a passable first draft - even novel length - on the fly, I do think that science fiction, and the whole time-travel sub-genre in particular, is a case where the author absolutely should be as meticulous as possible. This may be only because often times the plot hinges on minor subtle details, but also because bad/implausible/unsupported/stupid science can really destroy would might've been an interesting read. To switch media for a moment, the movie Event Horizon, for example, might have been an enjoyable horror story, except I was expecting science fiction, and the too-many-to-list cringe-inducing technical errors annoyed me enough that I didn't enjoy it at all.
That said, assuming the reviewer was accurate (and I've no reason to doubt this), I would avoid the book based on that criteria, even though I generally love time travel stories - and I thank Bonker for posting it.
For good time travel, pick up any of Jack Finney's 'time' stories, and of Poul Anderson's or Simon Hawke's time travel adventure yarns (the Hawke books are light on 'science', but fun to read), and especially Gregory Benford's _Timescape_ and David Gerrold's _The Man Who Folded Himself_
Are we sure he's a CS Prof? He sounds more like a Professor of Marketing...
Interestingly enough, Dr. Atkins was just released from the hospital - he had a cardiac arrest. Not to make fun of his medical condition, but as the guy who basically pioneered the "eat tons o' meat" diet, what are the odds that he'd develop heart trouble?
Here: http://hometown.aol.com/lcenergy/cheap_hydrogen_py str.html
:-)
Someone more science-minded than myself can probably debunk them in a matter of minutes, but that's the first hit for "cheap hydrogen" on Google
A couple of computer shows ago, someone was hawking custom hand-painted beige boxes - with landscapes, dragons, etc. It was an... interesting... look. Just the front bezel was painted. Sort of 70's retro in a way - it reminded me of all those van murals you used to see. He hasn't been at the last few shows I went to, so perhaps the idea never took off.
Cryptic passwords aren't all THAT hard to come up with. Weird thing about memory - if a group of words has rhythm or is rhymes (or both), then it's almost impossible to forget (everyone here remembers the theme to Gilligan's Island, right?).
:-)
Back at DEC, the max password lengths were ridiculously long (128 chars? someone out there remembers). So, my passwords were usually something like:
onceuponamindightdreary - next month was twiceuponamidnightdreary and then thrice..., and then I went to the next verse.
Not terribly cryptic, but nowadays, I typically use the first characters of each word in a poem, or whatever. Example above yields Ouamd - which is a reasonable start - add a number and increment, and you're set for a while until you move to the next line. Song lyrics work just as well as old Edgar Allen's stuff of course.
Oh, and of course, I strive to use song lyrics I'm not listening to at the time
Ah... my mistake. It was that *other* cyborg professor. Silly of me, eh?
Good Salon article at http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/10/20/cybor g/ if anyone's interested in more...
I had an interesting discussion with a co-worker about why Microsoft products seem to, well, suck so much. More so by reputation than by practice I think, but they are still extremely buggy when measured by anyone's yardstick. Linux, on the other hand, had the reputation of being rock solid - and rightly so.
So, I'm sure there are talented developers working on both OS's and applications. Why this disparity?
It's all about ego. Open source developers can contribute code, and have it banged on by thousands of smart people around the world. If there's a bug, either one of the thousands suggests a fix, or the original contributor stays up for 4 days straight correcting the problem, because his/her tremedously huge ego (all developer's egos are tied to their code, trust me) won't let him/her rest until s/he does.
Compare that example to the 9-5 anonymous Microsoftian developer, and the difference is obvious. No huge potential testing pool, no truly individual contribution that can get his/her ego wrapped up in it. And so, no hard-wired desire to produce solid code
Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. :-)
Just reported on CNN - the remaining stories of tower 2 has collapsed. They're still worried about 1 Liberty Plaza collapsing further, and have evacuated rescue workers from that area.