> If you lived in the Northeast US or Canada what were your memories of the August Blackout?"
My memory of the blackout was first: 'darn, my power went out. I wonder if someone hit a pole'.
With by the realization that power was out as far as I could see I switched to mild panic wondering if this was the beginning of a massive terrorist attack (I'm in New York). The phones were out, cell phones were out as well, I had no battery powered radios so there was no way of getting information. I was wondering how in the hell I would get my family off of an island with millions of people. I can't get off this island in any reasonable time under normal conditions.
So I filled up as many bottles as I could find with water and put them all in the basement. I figured if the infrastructure went to hell I would need water for my family. I figured I'd hear about any contamination in the water within a few days and we'd drink juice and soda until then.
Then I found out it was a blackout and we had a barbecue with the neighbors and the kids had a great time playing with their dad who for once wasn't working all day.
It's nice to remember once in a while that it doesn't take much to be happy.
> I'd say that, while that does seem quite inconsequential, at one point we thought that the flow of molasses couldn't be all that crucial either, until the lives of 21 people depended upon it.
After the explosion killed 21 people, crumpled an elevated train, and knocked over a fire station, I don't think anybody really cared how slowly the molasses flowed away from the scene.
>> The awful thing is that this is going to be just another reason for Congress to loot the NASA money bag.
> You're serious? Isn't it NASA that loots MY money bag? I'm all for exploration, but please spare me the pity party because Congress may want to save me a few BILLION dollars.
Rest assured, Congress won't be putting that money back in your pocket any time soon. Unless, of course, you are friends or secret business partners with a congressman, in which case you may be getting a few million in grants to study the rate that ketchup flows.
> Well IANAL, but I don't think your argument would stand in court!
HEY! You cant say IANAL either! Its got ANAL in it!
Re:Too expensive...
on
TiVo Will Die
·
· Score: 5, Funny
> The problem there is they have a limit of 10 TiVOs and will not transfer to any more after that repair. Not sure thats any good
Yeah, I can see that being a problem IF YOU HAVE A PET APE THAT REGULARLY THROWS YOUR TIVO AROUND THE ROOM. For the rest of us, I can't think of ANY consumer electronics device I have ever had to repair more than ONCE.
I never implied anything about non-volatile RAM. The article is about a mini-OS in ROM or PROM. It's not the same thing at all. Whatever they stick in that PROM will be obsolete in weeks. I don't want an OS in my boot PROM. As you said, the whole "BIOS" is a stupid idea. The boot PROM should be a minimal bit of code that knows enough to read data from a boot sector on a hard disk, a CDROM, and a floppy, then execute whatever it found on that boot sector. Leave the rest up to the OS. The right way to do what Phoenix is proposing (if it should be done at all) is to change the OS so that it has a 'fast boot mini-mode' that comes up right away without the entire 5 minutes of booting everything. But Phoenix doesn't make OSes, they make boot PROMs. So their solution is to put it in the boot PROM. I'm sure if this was "Subway"s idea they would put a mini-OS in a lean turkey sandwhich and issue a press release that it was a great idea.
Why just Outlook data? Why not extend this idea further. I dont USE Outlook, so I want my BIOS to enable me to check my Eudora mail, engage in ICQ, MSN-MSGR, and AIM chat, check the weather, stock quotes, movie times, and train schedules from my favorite web sites. To support all these things of course, my BIOS would need to bring up a sophisticated operating system... lets call it 'Bindows'. This 'Bindows' would be rather large, so it will need the ability to 'hibernate' quickly and wake up from hibernation quickly. Yes, this will be great. Much better than what we have now...
> I think you need to worry more about the other way around. Is there a way to hack it to keep HER from knowing how many ladies you're bagging on the side...
Hello? Slashdot to user: 'baggies' ladies in Everquest doesn't count.
> And if Japan makes the most advanced and versatile robots when they become needed, well then good for them for having the long-term vision and capital to invest for needs fifty years in advance.
> Engineering College... We are still learning C. Not C++, Not C#, Not Java, C
Because of this, after graduation you can expect to be unemployed because you don't know any modern programming languages. But perhaps you can learn Java and C++ on the unemployement line from all the unemployed Java and C++ programmers.
Slashdot Mirror
I just went through a large corpus of spam text looking for statistical irregularities, and I think I found something!
Oddly enough it was the presence of text that was MORE random than statistically likely, not less random, ie: the randomness was TOO PERFECT.
After intense analysis I have decoded the hidden plain-text. It reads:
"BUY OVALTINE"
What does that mean?
> If you lived in the Northeast US or Canada what were your memories of the August Blackout?"
My memory of the blackout was first: 'darn, my power went out. I wonder if someone hit a pole'.
With by the realization that power was out as far as I could see I switched to mild panic wondering if this was the beginning of a massive terrorist attack (I'm in New York). The phones were out, cell phones were out as well, I had no battery powered radios so there was no way of getting information. I was wondering how in the hell I would get my family off of an island with millions of people. I can't get off this island in any reasonable time under normal conditions.
So I filled up as many bottles as I could find with water and put them all in the basement. I figured if the infrastructure went to hell I would need water for my family. I figured I'd hear about any contamination in the water within a few days and we'd drink juice and soda until then.
Then I found out it was a blackout and we had a barbecue with the neighbors and the kids had a great time playing with their dad who for once wasn't working all day.
It's nice to remember once in a while that it doesn't take much to be happy.
> The mikmod site disappeared a few months ago, it has now been replaced with Girls In Underwear Pics.
Great site. They offer "Undies filled with hot fresh cum." I hate sites with undies filled with the cold, stale stuff.
Somebody actually gets paid to write that stuff...
> Too many people are watching TV ... these same people ... don't like Bush
What, eating the three Billy Goats Gruff wasn't enough for you? You're still hungry?
> guy had died after drinking approximately 48 cans of coke
I know a guy who died after tying his shoelaces. Deadly stuff, shoelaces.
I would hazard a guess that you are NOT an actuary.
> I am patenting my ASS.
At this very instant I am reading this from the bathroom while infringing on your patent.
Sue me.
Hurry, call your consultants!
The Int32b (integers overflowing after they fill up 32 bits) crises is upon us!
Insurance companies, start calling Google to offer Int32b coverage!
So, can we put the same mutation into Apes and watch the resulting hilarity?
This is great. I will be able to play Tempest and Qix in my workstation desktop background.
Nice work!
Umm... and I can... um...
I can play asteroids! Yeah! That's great too!
> I'd say that, while that does seem quite inconsequential, at one point we thought that the flow of molasses couldn't be all that crucial either, until the lives of 21 people depended upon it.
After the explosion killed 21 people, crumpled an elevated train, and knocked over a fire station, I don't think anybody really cared how slowly the molasses flowed away from the scene.
>> The awful thing is that this is going to be just another reason for Congress to loot the NASA money bag.
> You're serious? Isn't it NASA that loots MY money bag? I'm all for exploration, but please spare me the pity party because Congress may want to save me a few BILLION dollars.
Rest assured, Congress won't be putting that money back in your pocket any time soon. Unless, of course, you are friends or secret business partners with a congressman, in which case you may be getting a few million in grants to study the rate that ketchup flows.
Without a standards based ansible this device is worthless to me. Try again Archos - I only want to carry ONE device.
> Well IANAL, but I don't think your argument would stand in court!
HEY! You cant say IANAL either! Its got ANAL in it!
> The problem there is they have a limit of 10 TiVOs and will not transfer to any more after that repair. Not sure thats any good
Yeah, I can see that being a problem IF YOU HAVE A PET APE THAT REGULARLY THROWS YOUR TIVO AROUND THE ROOM.
For the rest of us, I can't think of ANY consumer electronics device I have ever had to repair more than ONCE.
> Well, I thought it was kind of obvious, anyways.
:-)
So did I, but then again I wrote it.
I never implied anything about non-volatile RAM. The article is about a mini-OS in ROM or PROM. It's not the same thing at all. Whatever they stick in that PROM will be obsolete in weeks. I don't want an OS in my boot PROM. As you said, the whole "BIOS" is a stupid idea. The boot PROM should be a minimal bit of code that knows enough to read data from a boot sector on a hard disk, a CDROM, and a floppy, then execute whatever it found on that boot sector. Leave the rest up to the OS.
The right way to do what Phoenix is proposing (if it should be done at all) is to change the OS so that it has a 'fast boot mini-mode' that comes up right away without the entire 5 minutes of booting everything. But Phoenix doesn't make OSes, they make boot PROMs. So their solution is to put it in the boot PROM. I'm sure if this was "Subway"s idea they would put a mini-OS in a lean turkey sandwhich and issue a press release that it was a great idea.
Why just Outlook data? Why not extend this idea further. I dont USE Outlook, so I want my BIOS to enable me to check my Eudora mail, engage in ICQ, MSN-MSGR, and AIM chat, check the weather, stock quotes, movie times, and train schedules from my favorite web sites. To support all these things of course, my BIOS would need to bring up a sophisticated operating system... lets call it 'Bindows'. This 'Bindows' would be rather large, so it will need the ability to 'hibernate' quickly and wake up from hibernation quickly.
Yes, this will be great.
Much better than what we have now...
From the instructions on a portable porn viewing device in the near future:
"To begin, touch your unit to the porn server".
Many users will be misinterpreting that instruction... but having their own kind of fun anyway.
> I think you need to worry more about the other way around. Is there a way to hack it to keep HER from knowing how many ladies you're bagging on the side...
Hello? Slashdot to user: 'baggies' ladies in Everquest doesn't count.
> And if Japan makes the most advanced and versatile robots when they become needed, well then good for them for having the long-term vision and capital to invest for needs fifty years in advance.
I, for one, welcome our Japanese robot overlords!
> I suspect that the first industrialised nation that develops autonomous fighting machines will take over the world
Sure, until the robots start pushing and shoving, then we're all in trouble!
> Engineering College ... We are still learning C. Not C++, Not C#, Not Java, C
Because of this, after graduation you can expect to be unemployed because you don't know any modern programming languages.
But perhaps you can learn Java and C++ on the unemployement line from all the unemployed Java and C++ programmers.
Dance mailman, dance!
zzzzzap!
> Anybody else thought...what a nice place to hide a bomb" when he saw that huge flowerpot
Get help.
Get help now.
What the hell is that?
> Please don't start up a hosting company.
Followed by a link to reseller accounts for starting a hosting company!!!!