OK, some I'm not a physicist, so if there are some here that can prove me wrong, fine, but in the meantime, there are certain things in UFO sighting stories that make me wonder about the whole thing.
* Many stories talk about how these things can go from 0 to really, really fast (and vice versa) in a heartbeat. Also hear a lot about 90 degree turns on a dime. With all those rapid/instantaneous changes in direction/speed, wouldn't our friends become green goo inside of their spaceships?
* No sonic boom?
* As someone else mentioned, no stealth technology (other than silence)?
Am I also the only one to notice that many of these sightings seem to be close to Air Force bases? Coincidence?
I'm personally of the inclination that most (if not all) of these are DOD experiments.
For example. What could shine in the sky, hover, move back & forth at incredible speeds, and stop and turn on a dime all silently & without creating a sonic boom?
I'm no fan of the R's or D's either, but Nader's got his own agendas as well.
I'd vote Republican, but they're big business suck-ups. I'd vote Democrat, but they're responsibility-shirking regulation-happy Santa Clauses. I'd vote Libertarian, but they're anarchists. I'd vote Reform Party, but all they care about is election reform (duh!). I wouldn't even consider voting US Taxpayer's Party. They scare the bejeezus out of me. I'd vote Independent, but there's nobody worth voting for.
I kind of feel sorry for the kids that Mom was more concerned with looking at her watch than to accompany her kid(s) to a movie. Seems like she was shooing them off rather than being a parent. Before ppl get bent out of shape, yes I understand that single-parenthood/dual income households is the norm (and pretty much a necessity nowadays), but you'd think she could wait until her day off to take them. Too many parents seem to view kids more as an inconvenience than a responsibility.
As far as the Ten Commandments thing goes... I'm a Buddhist. Would be OK for me to post the 4 Noble Truths/Noble Eightfold Path up on the wall of my classroom (assuming I were a teacher)? Just wondering....
OK. Maybe racing sims, but definitely no decent flight sims. Way too complex.
Plus many of us play the FPS shooters with a mouse/keyboard combo. I *hate* joysticks (which is essentially what those controllers are) and like to be able to remap the keyboard & mouse to suit my tastes.
*Maybe* consoles will offer a decent challenge when they have keyboard/mouse support (*my* keyboard and *my* mouse), support all those wonderful joystick/wheel/pedal devices that are out there (force-feedback anyone?) *and* offer lots of killer games that aren't available on the PC.
Until then, I'm sticking with my PC + 3dfx card. I'll be content with Q3 and HALO (when they come out) for quite some time to come.
Platform integration isn't something that open source software tackles very well.
KDE is attacking this very issue as we speak. The whole KOM/CORBA integration thing is to allow apps (such as KOffice and others) to be "KDE-aware".
M$ may take the lead on this, but the Open Source versions are coming... and they will be better.
The only thing that bothers me a little about the whole KDE-integration thing is that we sort of start down that path of desktop "lock-in". In order to use some of the latest & greatest apps, we'll have to be running a certain desktop, such as KDE.
Now, if these apps can be written in such a way as to run on other desktops (absent integration, obviously) I wouldn't have a big problem with it. But I'm doubting that that will be the end result.
OK. Folks, reality check. When we watch a football/basketball game, do we respect the guy on the losing team who whines about how the refs were unfair, or how they were decimated by injuries or otherwise makes excuses? No. We respect the guy who says, "They beat us fair & square, but we're gonna practice like crazy and take 'em down next year!".
NT beat Linux. Big woo. Did we really expect M$ to sit back on their laurels and let Linux eat into their profits? If you did, you're living in a dream world.
Let's look at the bright side, we're now officially in the big leagues. We're getting press coverage and M$ seems to be making it a priority to discredit Linux in favor of NT. However, that also means we have a responsibility to behave as big-leaguers. That means several things:
1. As of now, M$ is the enemy. THE ENEMY. Until now we've been able to sling barbs back & forth, but no one took it really seriously. It's pretty clear now that M$ is eyeing Linux the way they've eyed other would-be competitors. Since they can't buy & shelve Linux, they must resort to their only other tactic... destroy Linux. I guarantee you this is their goal. It's absolutely vital that we understand this & do everything in our power to stop it. That means....
2. We have to come together in a much more concerted manner to make Linux the most rock-solid, high-performance OS out there. If we get beat in a test, fine. We'll redouble our efforts until Linux thrashes NT in performance tests. We *must* do this or M$ will win the ultimate war.
3. We need to be as effective at evangelizing as M$. To a large degree we have been, but now that we have the spotlight on us, it's absolutely imperative that we come across as intelligent, determined, *non-whining* & mature. The management types who see us and M$-marketing must see that we are more than a bunch a snot-nosed, pimply faced rude, crass hackers if he is going to entrust his business to us. That means we need to start putting our money where our mouth is. No more "M$ sucks, end of story", no more profanity, just cold, hard facts of how Linux is superior *as a package*.
Since I'm a coder, I'm more than willing to do my part to contribute to the performance-enhancement initiative. Other coders should do likewise. Non-coders can help too. Educate yourselves. Help with evangelization & documentation.
As trite as this sounds, part of what made Linux great is also it's biggest weakness. Linux is the product of distributed, unmanaged, collective intelligence. While that has freed us from stifling burocracy & promises made by markting types, it also makes us vulnerable. M$ has it's guns pointed at us, if we want Linux to survive, we're going to have to be a little more organized.
We all can contribute something. We just need to mobilize (and have a mobilization center).
On the public perception front, Pirates Of Silicon Valley did not help M$' image either. Gate$, Ballmer & their cronies were portrayed as nothing short of the colossal dsckheads that they are.
We've all known for quite some time that they're a bunch of lying, stealing, ruthless backstabbers (OK, not *everyone* who works there is, but the general corporate culture definitely is). Fortunately word's starting to get out to the average user as well.
While most of the posts here have been positive, I noticed a few ppl here upset that he seems to be talking himself up on his web site. I agree, he does seem to be harping on how he singlehandedly did a whole bunch of stuff, but think about it a little....
First off, the fact is that he *did* do everything he said.
Second, how would you feel after years of seeing people taking credit for achievements that never would have been possible without your work? It takes an incredible person to just let it go all the time. I've read several things about him as well as interviews & this is the first time I've heard him "talking himself up". My guess is that he was taken advantage of (as most generous people are), got fed up with other people taking credit for everything and giving him absolutely zilch and decided it was time to set the record straight.
You can only be humble & swallow your pride for so long. More power to him.
First off, I and a lot of the folks here are software engineers as well, so spare us your sermons from on-high.
>> Do you all genuinely think that we dismiss fiascos like this with an airy wave of the hand?
I can't speak for everyone else here, but speaking personally, yes I do.
>> If Outlook were ported to Linux...the e-mail servers would have been just as clogged.
Exactly. The bugs that you've injected into your poorly engineered SW could wreak havoc in the Linux/UNIX world as well. Don't do as any favors with a port.
>> The power to cut down a fifty-foot oak is the power to conduct the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as well.
No, what you guys are doing is akin to handing a loaded gun to everyone that walks into a bar and then saying "have fun, but don't shoot anybody".
Let's face it, how many people use 1/10 of the VBA/MAPI stuff to increase their productivity? I never have and nobody that I know in this field (and I know a lot) has either. The only people that use this stuff are the *virus writers*. But nooooooo, M$ needs an excuse (read "profits") to foist yet another version of their already bloated-to-critical-mass software upon us, so they add these useless "features", change the file formats so they're not backward compatible, and give our management a little song-and-dance about increased producivity. Eventually enough ppl buy the new version and everyone else is forced to do likewise in order to be able to exchange information.
So the fact is, this isn't about giving "power" to the user, because (the non-virus-writing) user doesn't use the VBA junk anyway. It's about marketing & profits.
OK. Color me stupid, but since I don't have the "hacker mentality" that they're alluding to, and since they don't come out & say how or what the cheat is, what exactly is it?
Are ppl hacking the results (I thought they were encrypted)? Is the client unsecure and so now ppl are using it as a backdoor into systems running it (God I hope not)? Are ppl copying the results files when they're almost complete, getting a new work unit, swapping the results out, and then sending them back to artificially inflate the numbers (most likely and probably easy to do since *we're all getting the same WU over & over*)?
Just got ADSL last Friday (from Southwestern Bell) and absolutely love it (and my friends hate me)! The only annoying thing about it was not being given a specific time during the day that they'd show up. They did take my pager number and paged me when they were on their way though.
Installation was relatively straightforward, helped largely by the fact that I already had a Category 3 line to my computer room. I understand installation can take a lot longer if you don't have the right wiring since they have to re-wire everything.
As far as numbers go, I've downloaded a 24 M file in about 4 mins and a 1.7M file in about 19 seconds. I'm getting ping times on Quake3 Test between 35-50.
My "Basic" package is max 1.5 down and 128 up, which I appear to be getting (the bottlenecks now seem to be on the other end).
All told, I'm paying $50 for the ADSL and internet service and getting everything advertised (so far). Not bad.;)
4 is close. I think the Sith have been working a genetic engineering project to maximize their bodies' metachlorine counts, making them "Uber-Jedi". I think we'll learn that Anakin is the result of such an experiment.
I've been in the argument over #5 with a few people. I contend that the Sith don't play by Jedi rules, so the 1:1 relationship doesn't apply. You could fit it in, however, by having two "breeds" of Sith, each of the "warrior" breed (Maul) is trained/helped by one of the "wizard" breed (Sidious).
I think Palpatine is the mastermind of the whole project and thus the "father" (hint,hint) of all the clones.
That's a rational explantion, but that wouldn't result in a virgin birth (which is required to fulfill the prophesy) would it? Plus, that would be a pretty lame way to resolve a cliffhanger, dontcha think?
There's a much better explanation... One with more dramatic effect. One which would explain the unusually high metachlorine content. One which would permit Shmi to be a virgin when she gave birth to Anakin. One which fulfills the prophesy *and* has a purely scientific (i.e. non-divine intervention) explanation.
This is probably what Lucas intended, but I can't believe how many people are taking the "virgin birth" thing hook-line & sinker. Sure, I was as stunned as everybody else when it first came up, but there really is a rational explanation for it if you think about it a little.
All of this, the "virgin birth" & the introduction of the metachlorian concept are interrelated and a set-up for some bombshells that will be dropped in Ep. 2.
Ask yourself a few questions...
1. Could there be a scientific explanation for a "virgin birth"? 2. What do you think the Sith have been doing all these years after their "extinction"? 3. What might cause an unusual physical characteristic, which is directly related to one's ability to be in tune with the Force, to pop up apparently out of the clear blue? 4. Do you really think after a millennium there are only 2 Sith? Would only 2 Sith "reveal themselves" to a veritable army of light Jedi? 5. If your answer to #2 is "no", how might they replentish their numbers? 6. If the Sith were almost extinguished (presumably by the light Jedi), what would their "revenge" be? 7. How can the Senator & Sidious be the same without being the same? 8. How might parallellism between Ep. 4-6 play out in 1-3?
If you think about these questions for a while, you'll see that Ep. 1 is the perfect setup for a lot of *big* revelations in Eps. 2 & 3.
All of the main actors/actresses had to sign on for 3. I haven't read any spoilers or anything, but my money is on Qui-Gon getting killed in this one. Juts like Obi Wan in Episode 4.
So Liam would probably be on only for minor appearances as a guiding spirit. Kinda like Alec Guinness.
I'm still perplexed about the Yoda vs. Qui Gon training Obi Wan thing. But if the parallelism holds up, We'll see Yoda completing Obi Wan's training, just as he did for Luke (where Obi Wan started it, but could finish it).
One minor nit, the pickings aren't any better in law. In fact they're worse. I know, because I left law (as a lawyer) for greener pastures as a programmer. Jobs at law firms are extremely scarce. So, for every one lawyer who makes a decent living at a law firm, there are 10 (if not more) lawyers struggling to pay the rent.
Personally, I think that also explains the recent surge in spurious litigation. When a lawyer is trying just to pay the rent, he/she will take on the more marginal cases in hopes of gettingn lucky.
My advice to those of you thinking of going into law... don't.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, some I'm not a physicist, so if there are some here that can prove me wrong, fine, but in the meantime, there are certain things in UFO sighting stories that make me wonder about the whole thing.
* Many stories talk about how these things can go from 0 to really, really fast (and vice versa) in a heartbeat. Also hear a lot about 90 degree turns on a dime. With all those rapid/instantaneous changes in direction/speed, wouldn't our friends become green goo inside of their spaceships?
* No sonic boom?
* As someone else mentioned, no stealth technology (other than silence)?
Am I also the only one to notice that many of these sightings seem to be close to Air Force bases? Coincidence?
I'm personally of the inclination that most (if not all) of these are DOD experiments.
For example. What could shine in the sky, hover, move back & forth at incredible speeds, and stop and turn on a dime all silently & without creating a sonic boom?
Lasers/holograms anyone?
I'm no fan of the R's or D's either, but Nader's got his own agendas as well.
:(
I'd vote Republican, but they're big business suck-ups.
I'd vote Democrat, but they're responsibility-shirking regulation-happy Santa Clauses.
I'd vote Libertarian, but they're anarchists.
I'd vote Reform Party, but all they care about is election reform (duh!).
I wouldn't even consider voting US Taxpayer's Party. They scare the bejeezus out of me.
I'd vote Independent, but there's nobody worth voting for.
Doesn't leave much.
You just can't ping it (no ping floods/smurf attacks). Try telnet. It'll give you a login prompt (which reminds you that you can't telnet in as root).
Couple of observations...
I kind of feel sorry for the kids that Mom was more concerned with looking at her watch than to accompany her kid(s) to a movie. Seems like she was shooing them off rather than being a parent. Before ppl get bent out of shape, yes I understand that single-parenthood/dual income households is the norm (and pretty much a necessity nowadays), but you'd think she could wait until her day off to take them. Too many parents seem to view kids more as an inconvenience than a responsibility.
As far as the Ten Commandments thing goes... I'm a Buddhist. Would be OK for me to post the 4 Noble Truths/Noble Eightfold Path up on the wall of my classroom (assuming I were a teacher)? Just wondering....
OK. Maybe racing sims, but definitely no decent flight sims. Way too complex.
Plus many of us play the FPS shooters with a mouse/keyboard combo. I *hate* joysticks (which is essentially what those controllers are) and like to be able to remap the keyboard & mouse to suit my tastes.
*Maybe* consoles will offer a decent challenge when they have keyboard/mouse support (*my* keyboard and *my* mouse), support all those wonderful joystick/wheel/pedal devices that are out there (force-feedback anyone?) *and* offer lots of killer games that aren't available on the PC.
Until then, I'm sticking with my PC + 3dfx card. I'll be content with Q3 and HALO (when they come out) for quite some time to come.
Good detective work! The pics pretty much speak for themselves.
Somebody post this up!
Platform integration isn't something that open source software tackles very well.
KDE is attacking this very issue as we speak. The whole KOM/CORBA integration thing is to allow apps (such as KOffice and others) to be "KDE-aware".
M$ may take the lead on this, but the Open Source versions are coming... and they will be better.
The only thing that bothers me a little about the whole KDE-integration thing is that we sort of start down that path of desktop "lock-in". In order to use some of the latest & greatest apps, we'll have to be running a certain desktop, such as KDE.
Now, if these apps can be written in such a way as to run on other desktops (absent integration, obviously) I wouldn't have a big problem with it. But I'm doubting that that will be the end result.
Does KOffice even run on GNOME?
Funny you mention that. This whole thing reminded me of that scene as well.
Now what we need to do is succeed where Apple failed... By proving that quality *does* matter.
OK. Folks, reality check. When we watch a football/basketball game, do we respect the guy on the losing team who whines about how the refs were unfair, or how they were decimated by injuries or otherwise makes excuses? No. We respect the guy who says, "They beat us fair & square, but we're gonna practice like crazy and take 'em down next year!".
NT beat Linux. Big woo. Did we really expect M$ to sit back on their laurels and let Linux eat into their profits? If you did, you're living in a dream world.
Let's look at the bright side, we're now officially in the big leagues. We're getting press coverage and M$ seems to be making it a priority to discredit Linux in favor of NT. However, that also means we have a responsibility to behave as big-leaguers. That means several things:
1. As of now, M$ is the enemy. THE ENEMY. Until now we've been able to sling barbs back & forth, but no one took it really seriously. It's pretty clear now that M$ is eyeing Linux the way they've eyed other would-be competitors. Since they can't buy & shelve Linux, they must resort to their only other tactic... destroy Linux. I guarantee you this is their goal. It's absolutely vital that we understand this & do everything in our power to stop it. That means....
2. We have to come together in a much more concerted manner to make Linux the most rock-solid, high-performance OS out there. If we get beat in a test, fine. We'll redouble our efforts until Linux thrashes NT in performance tests. We *must* do this or M$ will win the ultimate war.
3. We need to be as effective at evangelizing as M$. To a large degree we have been, but now that we have the spotlight on us, it's absolutely imperative that we come across as intelligent, determined, *non-whining* & mature. The management types who see us and M$-marketing must see that we are more than a bunch a snot-nosed, pimply faced rude, crass hackers if he is going to entrust his business to us. That means we need to start putting our money where our mouth is. No more "M$ sucks, end of story", no more profanity, just cold, hard facts of how Linux is superior *as a package*.
Since I'm a coder, I'm more than willing to do my part to contribute to the performance-enhancement initiative. Other coders should do likewise. Non-coders can help too. Educate yourselves. Help with evangelization & documentation.
As trite as this sounds, part of what made Linux great is also it's biggest weakness. Linux is the product of distributed, unmanaged, collective intelligence. While that has freed us from stifling burocracy & promises made by markting types, it also makes us vulnerable. M$ has it's guns pointed at us, if we want Linux to survive, we're going to have to be a little more organized.
We all can contribute something. We just need to mobilize (and have a mobilization center).
On the public perception front, Pirates Of Silicon Valley did not help M$' image either. Gate$, Ballmer & their cronies were portrayed as nothing short of the colossal dsckheads that they are.
We've all known for quite some time that they're a bunch of lying, stealing, ruthless backstabbers (OK, not *everyone* who works there is, but the general corporate culture definitely is). Fortunately word's starting to get out to the average user as well.
While most of the posts here have been positive, I noticed a few ppl here upset that he seems to be talking himself up on his web site. I agree, he does seem to be harping on how he singlehandedly did a whole bunch of stuff, but think about it a little....
First off, the fact is that he *did* do everything he said.
Second, how would you feel after years of seeing people taking credit for achievements that never would have been possible without your work? It takes an incredible person to just let it go all the time. I've read several things about him as well as interviews & this is the first time I've heard him "talking himself up". My guess is that he was taken advantage of (as most generous people are), got fed up with other people taking credit for everything and giving him absolutely zilch and decided it was time to set the record straight.
You can only be humble & swallow your pride for so long. More power to him.
Gassho!
Then only outlaws will have......
Oh, nevermind.
Gassho!
First off, I and a lot of the folks here are software engineers as well, so spare us your sermons from on-high.
/MAPI stuff to increase their productivity? I never have and nobody that I know in this field (and I know a lot) has either. The only people that use this stuff are the *virus writers*. But nooooooo, M$ needs an excuse (read "profits") to foist yet another version of their already bloated-to-critical-mass software upon us, so they add these useless "features", change the file formats so they're not backward compatible, and give our management a little song-and-dance about increased producivity. Eventually enough ppl buy the new version and everyone else is forced to do likewise in order to be able to exchange information.
>> Do you all genuinely think that we dismiss fiascos like this with an airy wave of the hand?
I can't speak for everyone else here, but speaking personally, yes I do.
>> If Outlook were ported to Linux...the e-mail servers would have been just as clogged.
Exactly. The bugs that you've injected into your poorly engineered SW could wreak havoc in the Linux/UNIX world as well. Don't do as any favors with a port.
>> The power to cut down a fifty-foot oak is the power to conduct the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as well.
No, what you guys are doing is akin to handing a loaded gun to everyone that walks into a bar and then saying "have fun, but don't shoot anybody".
Let's face it, how many people use 1/10 of the VBA
So the fact is, this isn't about giving "power" to the user, because (the non-virus-writing) user doesn't use the VBA junk anyway. It's about marketing & profits.
OK. Color me stupid, but since I don't have the "hacker mentality" that they're alluding to, and since they don't come out & say how or what the cheat is, what exactly is it?
Are ppl hacking the results (I thought they were encrypted)? Is the client unsecure and so now ppl are using it as a backdoor into systems running it (God I hope not)? Are ppl copying the results files when they're almost complete, getting a new work unit, swapping the results out, and then sending them back to artificially inflate the numbers (most likely and probably easy to do since *we're all getting the same WU over & over*)?
Just got ADSL last Friday (from Southwestern Bell) and absolutely love it (and my friends hate me)! The only annoying thing about it was not being given a specific time during the day that they'd show up. They did take my pager number and paged me when they were on their way though.
;)
Installation was relatively straightforward, helped largely by the fact that I already had a Category 3 line to my computer room. I understand installation can take a lot longer if you don't have the right wiring since they have to re-wire everything.
As far as numbers go, I've downloaded a 24 M file in about 4 mins and a 1.7M file in about 19 seconds. I'm getting ping times on Quake3 Test between 35-50.
My "Basic" package is max 1.5 down and 128 up, which I appear to be getting (the bottlenecks now seem to be on the other end).
All told, I'm paying $50 for the ADSL and internet service and getting everything advertised (so far). Not bad.
Now, matters are worse....
You've gone off and started an "I'm smarter than you are" flame war. Nice going. ;)
Exactly my thinking except 4 & 5.
4 is close. I think the Sith have been working a genetic engineering project to maximize their bodies' metachlorine counts, making them "Uber-Jedi". I think we'll learn that Anakin is the result of such an experiment.
I've been in the argument over #5 with a few people. I contend that the Sith don't play by Jedi rules, so the 1:1 relationship doesn't apply. You could fit it in, however, by having two "breeds" of Sith, each of the "warrior" breed (Maul) is trained/helped by one of the "wizard" breed (Sidious).
I think Palpatine is the mastermind of the whole project and thus the "father" (hint,hint) of all the clones.
That's a rational explantion, but that wouldn't result in a virgin birth (which is required to fulfill the prophesy) would it? Plus, that would be a pretty lame way to resolve a cliffhanger, dontcha think?
There's a much better explanation... One with more dramatic effect. One which would explain the unusually high metachlorine content. One which would permit Shmi to be a virgin when she gave birth to Anakin. One which fulfills the prophesy *and* has a purely scientific (i.e. non-divine intervention) explanation.
Another question to ponder...
What might slaves be used for besides labor?
This is probably what Lucas intended, but I can't believe how many people are taking the "virgin birth" thing hook-line & sinker. Sure, I was as stunned as everybody else when it first came up, but there really is a rational explanation for it if you think about it a little.
All of this, the "virgin birth" & the introduction of the metachlorian concept are interrelated and a set-up for some bombshells that will be dropped in Ep. 2.
Ask yourself a few questions...
1. Could there be a scientific explanation for a "virgin birth"?
2. What do you think the Sith have been doing all these years after their "extinction"?
3. What might cause an unusual physical characteristic, which is directly related to one's ability to be in tune with the Force, to pop up apparently out of the clear blue?
4. Do you really think after a millennium there are only 2 Sith? Would only 2 Sith "reveal themselves" to a veritable army of light Jedi?
5. If your answer to #2 is "no", how might they replentish their numbers?
6. If the Sith were almost extinguished (presumably by the light Jedi), what would their "revenge" be?
7. How can the Senator & Sidious be the same without being the same?
8. How might parallellism between Ep. 4-6 play out in 1-3?
If you think about these questions for a while, you'll see that Ep. 1 is the perfect setup for a lot of *big* revelations in Eps. 2 & 3.
All of the main actors/actresses had to sign on for 3. I haven't read any spoilers or anything, but my money is on Qui-Gon getting killed in this one. Juts like Obi Wan in Episode 4.
So Liam would probably be on only for minor appearances as a guiding spirit. Kinda like Alec Guinness.
I'm still perplexed about the Yoda vs. Qui Gon training Obi Wan thing. But if the parallelism holds up, We'll see Yoda completing Obi Wan's training, just as he did for Luke (where Obi Wan started it, but could finish it).
One minor nit, the pickings aren't any better in law. In fact they're worse. I know, because I left law (as a lawyer) for greener pastures as a programmer. Jobs at law firms are extremely scarce. So, for every one lawyer who makes a decent living at a law firm, there are 10 (if not more) lawyers struggling to pay the rent.
Personally, I think that also explains the recent surge in spurious litigation. When a lawyer is trying just to pay the rent, he/she will take on the more marginal cases in hopes of gettingn lucky.
My advice to those of you thinking of going into law... don't.
Peace!