Maybe the heat from the gravitational collapse is enough, when added to the gravitational collapse itself, to push a "near star" mass over the edge into fusion for a few million years or more.
> And Starfarers was like the Heaven's Gate of boardgames.
I wish I had known that before I had bought it.
This was about a year ago. I opened it at home, and immediately some pieces broke off when I tried to place rings on the space ships. Put it back in the box. To think, I could have had about 30 Big Macs for that price.
> They can make their own decisions. They don't > need the Bells. They don't need the > Administration, and they don't need me telling > them what kind of decision they should be making
As long as the munincipalities don't try to outlaw the Bells, etc. from providing, either.
Like they did with cable -- one cable company only, with kickbacks, poor service, no competition. Thanks, government!
> The patent holder is granted an artificial > monopoly by the government. This is further > enforced by social restrictions by the courts, > economic sanctions and violence by the police > and prison system.
Reminds me of having to pay taxes for the chronically lazy poor.
This never stopped a politician from trying to gain power by promising to step on the throats of the drug compaines, and I quote, "their unconscionable profits."
I hope to non-existant god this clueless power monger, well, that she doesn't get to be president in aught-eight.
And no votes for non-land-owners. Well, maybe this part wasn't so bad. Certainly no votes for people who get money, corporate, welfare, or otherwise, would be a good thing -- stop the conflict of interest.
Oh, I forgot the best part. The people who bought back the machinery for two cents on the dollar were the same factory owners who got paid that dollar in the first place.
> And they get to decide the value of the property.
Actually, this works against the government as much as with it.
Detroit condemned some old factories so a major auto company could put a huge expansion there. For months my dad watched as they moved old machinery into the old factories. Then came the condemnation. The city had to buy the factories and their contents.
Of course, a city has no use for old machines, so they auctioned them off. The people who bought them, got them for about two cents on the dollar.
No one went to jail for this miserable appraisal by the city.
It was estimated it would take the city 30+ years to earn back what it paid, by the increased tax revenue it would gain.
> Thats when I hear that the IM bot technology > is patented by ActiveBuddy. I had to stop > development. I wish they had a better model to > protect software inventions
Curiously, here's what ActiveBuddy had to say on the matter:
"We're glad they have such a fantastic model to protect software inventions."
That's not possible, but a language that doesn't use pointers per se could, and do, exist. Of course they really use pointers behind the scenes, complete with integrity, i.e. NULL checks, so you're not gaining anything.
Now a processor that zero-checked a pointer on memory deference, auto-built to skip the deference, combined with a language that supported it, would have the check in hardware......although zero check is one of the simplest ALU operations, and thus the same speed anyway. Nevermind.
I gave up doing atomic-level optimizations (loop and algorithm tightening is still OK) the day a buddy saw a compiler, when multiplying by 7, actually did a left shift of 3 followed by a subtraction, which were ALU rather than multiplication operations, and hence much faster.
Umm, he was nitpicking meaning? Isn't that grammar?
In any case, nitpicking nitpicking, he typo'd a missing space between "at" and "least", and should have used double quotes around his word examples rather than single.
Which, by the way, irritates the hell out of me that some idiots I work with have created "NULLPTR" as a #define. GOD DAMN YOU FOOLS! We already have a null pointer #define. It's called NULL. WTF will you use NULL for if not anywhere you would use NULLPTR?
"Suzie, it's Debbie. If we hug, we can soap each other's back at the same time. Don't worry. We're platonic, but good, friends, and I'm sure the frank touching of breasts won't induce new and unexpected feelings."
Slashdot Mirror
To paraphrase from a hundred years ago about electricity:
Senator: Internet? What use is the Internet?
Inventor: Senator, in 20 years, you'll be taxing it.
Looks like it's only taking about 10. Keep up the pressure on the feds to prevent taxation of Internet, friends!
My favorite government double-speak was a tax, I forget what it was, that was not an income tax, but it was merely proportional to your income.
Maybe the heat from the gravitational collapse is enough, when added to the gravitational collapse itself, to push a "near star" mass over the edge into fusion for a few million years or more.
On the other hand, why should a company be forced to continue supporting, via employment, those who would tear it down?
> And Starfarers was like the Heaven's Gate of boardgames.
I wish I had known that before I had bought it.
This was about a year ago. I opened it at home, and immediately some pieces broke off when I tried to place rings on the space ships. Put it back in the box. To think, I could have had about 30 Big Macs for that price.
Don't Break the Ice
Don't Spill the Beans
And what's that game with the Pop-o-Matic(TM)?
> They can make their own decisions. They don't
> need the Bells. They don't need the
> Administration, and they don't need me telling
> them what kind of decision they should be making
As long as the munincipalities don't try to outlaw the Bells, etc. from providing, either.
Like they did with cable -- one cable company only, with kickbacks, poor service, no competition. Thanks, government!
I am in favor of full compensation. However, this also includes takings by value deflation caused by reclassification for environmental reasons.
But no, that's ok.
> The patent holder is granted an artificial
> monopoly by the government. This is further
> enforced by social restrictions by the courts,
> economic sanctions and violence by the police
> and prison system.
Reminds me of having to pay taxes for the chronically lazy poor.
What was your point again?
This never stopped a politician from trying to gain power by promising to step on the throats of the drug compaines, and I quote, "their unconscionable profits."
I hope to non-existant god this clueless power monger, well, that she doesn't get to be president in aught-eight.
So was slavery.
And no votes for women.
And no votes for non-land-owners. Well, maybe this part wasn't so bad. Certainly no votes for people who get money, corporate, welfare, or otherwise, would be a good thing -- stop the conflict of interest.
The missing thought from all this is that things (may) continue to improve, but that it will be in spite of politicians instead of because of them
That's a lot of the stuff heavy-handed socialism relies on. Where's Ayn Rand when you need an education?
Oh, I forgot the best part. The people who bought back the machinery for two cents on the dollar were the same factory owners who got paid that dollar in the first place.
> And they get to decide the value of the property.
Actually, this works against the government as much as with it.
Detroit condemned some old factories so a major auto company could put a huge expansion there. For months my dad watched as they moved old machinery into the old factories. Then came the condemnation. The city had to buy the factories and their contents.
Of course, a city has no use for old machines, so they auctioned them off. The people who bought them, got them for about two cents on the dollar.
No one went to jail for this miserable appraisal by the city.
It was estimated it would take the city 30+ years to earn back what it paid, by the increased tax revenue it would gain.
Yes, but they argue "increased tax income" is a valid "public use".
Live by the populist sword, die by the populist sword. Serves you right.
> Thats when I hear that the IM bot technology
> is patented by ActiveBuddy. I had to stop
> development. I wish they had a better model to
> protect software inventions
Curiously, here's what ActiveBuddy had to say on the matter:
"We're glad they have such a fantastic model to protect software inventions."
Bzzzzt! Thanks for playing!
Ummm.
Wow.
Oh, wait, "marxist". Got it. Move along now.
That's not possible, but a language that doesn't use pointers per se could, and do, exist. Of course they really use pointers behind the scenes, complete with integrity, i.e. NULL checks, so you're not gaining anything.
...although zero check is one of the simplest ALU operations, and thus the same speed anyway. Nevermind.
Now a processor that zero-checked a pointer on memory deference, auto-built to skip the deference, combined with a language that supported it, would have the check in hardware...
> camelCaseIsThis (internal visibility)
> PascalCaseIsThis (public visibility)
camelToeIsThis (public visibility)
I gave up doing atomic-level optimizations (loop and algorithm tightening is still OK) the day a buddy saw a compiler, when multiplying by 7, actually did a left shift of 3 followed by a subtraction, which were ALU rather than multiplication operations, and hence much faster.
Umm, he was nitpicking meaning? Isn't that grammar?
In any case, nitpicking nitpicking, he typo'd a missing space between "at" and "least", and should have used double quotes around his word examples rather than single.
==true and ==false can cause bugs if what you happen to be using isn't a C++ bool but some BOOL that's #defined as an int somewhere.
Proper naming helps out here.
Keep in mind people also follow other standards that say DON'T PUT CONSTANTS ON THE RIGHT in a Boolean expression.
Hence instead of:
if (!DeviceIsFunctioning)
you get the "improved" crap of:
if (false == DeviceIsFunctioning)
where rules pile on each other to make things even less intelligible. Now throw in some Hugarian munging, and life is grand!
> People that honestly believe that "if it's
> well written it doesn't NEED comments"
They are lazy, and lack attention to detail. This is a mental escape on their part that assuages their small-frog egos.
Which, by the way, irritates the hell out of me that some idiots I work with have created "NULLPTR" as a #define. GOD DAMN YOU FOOLS! We already have a null pointer #define. It's called NULL. WTF will you use NULL for if not anywhere you would use NULLPTR?
"Suzie, it's Debbie. If we hug, we can soap each other's back at the same time. Don't worry. We're platonic, but good, friends, and I'm sure the frank touching of breasts won't induce new and unexpected feelings."