I tend to think that many people will just say "I had better go on a diet so that it will fit me." From what I've seen while shopping with my wife many women already live in a fantasy land when it comes to clothes sizes.
How long before the representations are secretly tweaked (displaywaist = size 6) so that the shopper will "look good" in the clothes? And I can see the tie-ins with advertisers, with avatars saying things like:
"Hi shopper, this is what you look like now, but here's what you would look like (shrinks waist) if you go the XXX diet!".
I sometimes start dreaming computing problems in my sleep. When it's hot or I'm ill I'll often find myself dreaming infinite loops, which is not a pleasant!
I have also solved many major maths problems in my dreams. The problem is that when I go to read the proof I just can't seem to focus on the piece of paper in which it's written. Oh well, at least I can dream I'm a genius.
Here's your chance to improve your company's fortunes. Either drop a little botulinim toxin (botox) in the management staff's meals. Alternatively, add extra ethanol to their drinks and when they are drunk enough, extract the company's and their personal dark secrets from them. The beauty of it is, they won't remember a thing.
The Taylor-Hulse "Binary Pulsar" is a pulsar which probably has a neutron star companion. Only one of them is a pulsar. This new system is composed of two pulsars, which makes it unique.
Wrong. Hulse and Taylor's discovery was of a pulsar and companion neutron star. The companion was not a pulsar. This is the first known double pulsar system. One of the discoverers is a couple of doors down the corridor from me, so I can confirm this as true.
I find it a bit sad that Sawyer's books have big blurb's trumpeting how he is Canada's answer to xxx. UK SF also seems to have had an inferiority complex up until recently with cover quotes of how author Y has revitilised UK SF.
I am very surprised that Australian SF book covers have not done the same over the past decade. We are usually quite noisy about promoting Aussieness, to our eternal detriment.
I enjoyed reading Sawyer's Calculating God, but after seeing his website sfwriter.com I'm quite put off by this guy's self-promotion.
I have worked both in the private sector and (now) in a government organisation and I can say that I've seen incompetence in both realms. Market pressure does not not necessarily eradicate losers, because once they get enough money, they can feed off each other, creating industries of incompetence (marketing, management consultants;) ).
Self-congratulatory old-boys networks can last for a long time in business. Eventually, their businesses will collapse, but it can take a long time. In the meantime the end-user suffers.
Sometimes a public service can appear inefficient because it has a duty to cater for all citizens, rather then just a select few who can pay for a premium service. It might not be cost effective to print pamphlets in braille, but does the goverment have a right to deny basic information and services to the blind?
In Australia, a lot of IT contracts were outsourced to private companies, who were tremendously inefficient compared with the in-house staff. Or they lacked the specialised knowledge those staff possessed.
I think a lot of public services go wrong when they try to emulate business (uh oh, here come the buzzwords!).
I really wish that I could stop Sally Secretary from using Microsoft Office. My job would be much easier if they didn't use Office to publish documents to the web.
Working in an Australian government institution, I don't think our lives improved when MS software was pushed over the Unix technology many of us prefer.
It's unsurprising that a New Zealand researcher would come to this conclusion, because when they marry, they have to start thinking like sheep in order to communicate with their wives.
I spend about 4 hours travelling on trains everyday and my Zaurus has made a big difference to my productivity. I used to lug a laptop around with me, but it is heavy and slow to boot up (suspend not really working under Linux).
I sit in the train or lie in bed and use tckEditor to write PHP applications. It's extra hours of productivity that I would otherwise not have available to use when I need it (like right now).
When I want to test something I can run (an old version of) Apache, PHP and MySQL. I started teaching myself Python on the Zaurus.
I listen to Oggs on it.
Okay it's battery life may not be the best and perhaps some of the "productivity" apps could be improved. I hardly use them. But I don't think of the Zaurus as a tool for the paper shuffling executive. They have enough wanky gadgets already. I consider the Zaurus a very useful tool for the Linux developer. And I don't mind playing the odd game on it either!
Oracle8 - A Beginner's Guide by Abbey and Corey (1997) contains the following about NICs:
"This is HOT stuff. Ever since Larry Ellison, Oracle's CEO, stated talking about the NC computer [tautology!], the world is trembling."
OT, but still amusing:
"Oracle's recent agreement with Netscape positions it uniquely to dominate the World Wide Web. The real power of the Web is yet to be harnessed. Today most people are not very impressed with a majority of Web sites they visit. They are nothing more than static applications -- in other words, they are glorified billboards. When your Web site is able to harness the power of a database, watch out. Imagine a Web site that knew who you were and could tailor itself to your needs and wants. That would be a very powerful tool, indeed. Once again, Oracle Corporation sees the future and is positioning itself to get there first."
And finally, we have a section title that's about as far from the truth as you can get:
In Australia, the dominant carrier (Telstra) has had untimed fixed price local phone calls (currently 22c) for as long as I can remember. We also have caller pays mobile, though mobile numbers are distinguishable by 04xx numbers. Most people are on mobile contracts where they have a certain amount of calls included in their monthly bill and pay for excess usage.
It used to be that I would switch off my computer every night when it ran Windows 98 and below. Why? Because in the next day or two it would continue to needlessly fills its memory until crashed. Now I run things like Linux and Windows 2000 and I can leave them on all week.
Slashdot Mirror
Surely the mice won't all look like Mickey will they? So long and thanks for all the Nemo?
I tend to think that many people will just say "I had better go on a diet so that it will fit me." From what I've seen while shopping with my wife many women already live in a fantasy land when it comes to clothes sizes.
How long before the representations are secretly tweaked (displaywaist = size 6) so that the shopper will "look good" in the clothes? And I can see the tie-ins with advertisers, with avatars saying things like:
"Hi shopper, this is what you look like now, but here's what you would look like (shrinks waist) if you go the XXX diet!".
Just wait until the kids start hacking it!
I sometimes start dreaming computing problems in my sleep. When it's hot or I'm ill I'll often find myself dreaming infinite loops, which is not a pleasant!
I have also solved many major maths problems in my dreams. The problem is that when I go to read the proof I just can't seem to focus on the piece of paper in which it's written. Oh well, at least I can dream I'm a genius.
Here's your chance to improve your company's fortunes. Either drop a little botulinim toxin (botox) in the management staff's meals. Alternatively, add extra ethanol to their drinks and when they are drunk enough, extract the company's and their personal dark secrets from them. The beauty of it is, they won't remember a thing.
Muhahahaha!
"The Dish" is currently very busy tracking and communicating with the Mars spacecraft, but it is primarily a science instruments, one of the world's great radio telescopes.
Animations of the evolution and current state of the pulsar system are available.
The Taylor-Hulse "Binary Pulsar" is a pulsar which probably has a neutron star companion. Only one of them is a pulsar. This new system is composed of two pulsars, which makes it unique.
Wrong. Hulse and Taylor's discovery was of a pulsar and companion neutron star. The companion was not a pulsar. This is the first known double pulsar system. One of the discoverers is a couple of doors down the corridor from me, so I can confirm this as true.
I just hope they never outsource their advertising and finances to Nigeria! :)
And here I was thinking that an "Enterprise" desktop was about being a Star Trek fan!
Seems to me that much of open source development is done outside of the US anyway, especially in Europe. Hell, Linux was a Finnish export!
I wonder if the esteemed Dr M believes that it is another Jewish conspiracy.
From what I've read it is based somewhat on the Soyuz design, but a substantial portion is "homegrown" in China.
I find it a bit sad that Sawyer's books have big blurb's trumpeting how he is Canada's answer to xxx. UK SF also seems to have had an inferiority complex up until recently with cover quotes of how author Y has revitilised UK SF.
I am very surprised that Australian SF book covers have not done the same over the past decade. We are usually quite noisy about promoting Aussieness, to our eternal detriment.
I enjoyed reading Sawyer's Calculating God, but after seeing his website sfwriter.com I'm quite put off by this guy's self-promotion.
I have worked both in the private sector and (now) in a government organisation and I can say that I've seen incompetence in both realms. Market pressure does not not necessarily eradicate losers, because once they get enough money, they can feed off each other, creating industries of incompetence (marketing, management consultants ;) ).
Self-congratulatory old-boys networks can last for a long time in business. Eventually, their businesses will collapse, but it can take a long time. In the meantime the end-user suffers.
Sometimes a public service can appear inefficient because it has a duty to cater for all citizens, rather then just a select few who can pay for a premium service. It might not be cost effective to print pamphlets in braille, but does the goverment have a right to deny basic information and services to the blind?
In Australia, a lot of IT contracts were outsourced to private companies, who were tremendously inefficient compared with the in-house staff. Or they lacked the specialised knowledge those staff possessed.
I think a lot of public services go wrong when they try to emulate business (uh oh, here come the buzzwords!).
I really wish that I could stop Sally Secretary from using Microsoft Office. My job would be much easier if they didn't use Office to publish documents to the web.
Working in an Australian government institution, I don't think our lives improved when MS software was pushed over the Unix technology many of us prefer.
It's unsurprising that a New Zealand researcher would come to this conclusion, because when they marry, they have to start thinking like sheep in order to communicate with their wives.
(Sorry! I like New Zealand. Really!)
I spend about 4 hours travelling on trains everyday and my Zaurus has made a big difference to my productivity. I used to lug a laptop around with me, but it is heavy and slow to boot up (suspend not really working under Linux).
I sit in the train or lie in bed and use tckEditor to write PHP applications. It's extra hours of productivity that I would otherwise not have available to use when I need it (like right now).
When I want to test something I can run (an old version of) Apache, PHP and MySQL. I started teaching myself Python on the Zaurus.
I listen to Oggs on it.
Okay it's battery life may not be the best and perhaps some of the "productivity" apps could be improved. I hardly use them. But I don't think of the Zaurus as a tool for the paper shuffling executive. They have enough wanky gadgets already. I consider the Zaurus a very useful tool for the Linux developer. And I don't mind playing the odd game on it either!
It wouldn't be this Gareth Powell would it? :)
One that filters out all talkback and boyband/britney clone pop.
Elminate that and you've cleared up a large chunk of the spectrum!
Oracle8 - A Beginner's Guide by Abbey and Corey (1997) contains the following about NICs:
OT, but still amusing:
And finally, we have a section title that's about as far from the truth as you can get:
In Australia, the dominant carrier (Telstra) has had untimed fixed price local phone calls (currently 22c) for as long as I can remember. We also have caller pays mobile, though mobile numbers are distinguishable by 04xx numbers. Most people are on mobile contracts where they have a certain amount of calls included in their monthly bill and pay for excess usage.
It used to be that I would switch off my computer every night when it ran Windows 98 and below. Why? Because in the next day or two it would continue to needlessly fills its memory until crashed. Now I run things like Linux and Windows 2000 and I can leave them on all week.
Think of all the power I waste.
But isn't a dream of many net users to crap anywhere and anytime and especially on slashdot? :)