The company I worked for 12 years ago was licensed to get part of the Windows 3.1 code in order to interface our product with theirs. There must be 1000's of companies that do this and have been doing this. I'm amazed it took this long for someone to finally steal it and post it.
I call bullshit on that. I remember reading somewhere they're totally carved out of foam, and that they had some big guy wearing the machine, and the sigourney was just basically riding on his shoulders.
Well, maybe I'm wrong. Wouldn't be the first time my dad feed me a line of BS. But he did claim to see the prototype himself.
Re:Bring on the Aliens
on
Your Own Mecha
·
· Score: 3, Informative
If I remember correctly in the movie she did use a real robot that is in industrial use today.
Not sure who makes the thing though?
It's made by Caterpillar. My father works for them and just after Aliens came out he got to tour their main plant in Illinois. He got to see the loaders (or whatever they're called). They were fully functional prototypes and they let them use them in the movie in exchange for advertising. If you notice in the movie, Caterpillar's logo is on the machine. I don't know if they are in regular use now or not, I looked at their web site and didn't see them listed in their products section.
"Global cooling" was and still is the eventual result of a nuclear holocaust. Leonard Nimoy was talking about nuclear winter.
Nuclear winter was invented by Carl Sagan, with the political agenda of influencing nuclear disarmament policy. It was based on questionable science just as global warming is.
But I still think we need to change our habits of crapping in the nest. It will eventually bite us on the butt in one form or another.
But those would probably be the same fans who bitch about the Enterprise in Enterprise looking more advanced than the Enterprise in TOS.
But there was that episode in TNG when they found Scotty on the Dyson Sphere and he had the holodeck recreate the bridge and it was the exact same set used in the original series.
Maybe it can be explained as a phase of nostalgia that society was going through at the time. Like the chronometer that used the number wheels instead of digits like my childhood alarm clock.
The Klingon no ridge phase could be compared to the inflated boob and lip phase women are going through now. I bet 50 years from now they will just laugh at pictures of Pamela Anderson.
Why is there this perception that more sci-fi is is a bad thing? It's not like they are ripping off your religeon is it?
No. I am not a fanboy by any stretch. I have always been a lover of sci-fi or any good story that is exciting, entertaining, educational or just plain fun. But the key for me is originality. I can't stand it when a movie or tv show is made just to ride on the coattails of a piece of work that someone put true creativity into.
These media execs simply look at the numbers. If a space based adventure hits it big at the box office then let's whip out a few cheapo clones just to get people to watch. That's what upsets me.
I would love as much sci-fi as possible. But to be honest I don't believe even Star Wars qualifies as true sci-fi. It was simply a fairy tale set in space. But it was a hell of fun ride to watch at the time.
To me sci-fi is all about the story. You take an idea and place it in an unfamiliar environment like the future, another planet, space, whatever. This allows the idea you're trying to convey to stand out more clearly and can be explored with much greater depth. And if you can throw in a good space battle and an explosion or two, well that's just icing on the cake!
That is what made the original Star Trek such a good show. It really wasn't about space travel or the future. The show was mainly a vehicle for social commentary in a time when it wasn't okay to openly talk about racism, war or any anti-establishment idea in the mainstream media.
I was 13 when that show came out and was pissed off then at what a blatant ripoff of Star Wars that it was.
It was just the networks jumping onto the space opera bandwagon. No different than all the ridiculous movies that came out at that time doing the same thing.
There are so many wonderful sci-fi stories that could be made into a mini-series, I can't believe they would waste their time with that ridiculous show.
I thought they did a very good job with Dune. They should stick to projects that actually have a decent storyline.
Actually I think the dinghy to sailing ship comparison is very much in context. For thousands of years ships could never venture out of sight of the coastline and the sailors slept on shore at night. It took many technologies to be developed as well as thousands of years of experience with the sea to venture out beyond the sight of land.
Right now we can basically send humans off the 'shore' of earth, but not too far from it. This process is giving us the experience we need when we finally do venture outward. But of course one more ingredient is necessary, PROFIT.
Unless some find of incredible magnitude is discovered on Mars, what will ever convince any government or corporation to shell out the vast amounts of capital that a manned mission will require? Plus, say a successful colony is established. History shows that all successful colonies will eventually rebel against the very authority which sent them there to start with. Then there goes the return on the investment.
I say we stick with expendable probes for now. We have much left to do here in low earth orbit to keep us busy for many decades to come.
So anyone who believes in something that can be neither proved nor disproved is an idiot? Or just the people whose beliefs conflict with yours? I must say though, I'm very much inclined to respect the opinions of a karma whore who posts an e-mail which has been circulating for years rather than trying to add some original thought to the discussion.
Okay, so he can quote parts of a book that has been circulating for millennia to 'prove' his beliefs but I can't repost an e-mail which perfectly illustrates the ridiculousness of using bible quotes to prove a point?
I could take any random book from the library and take a fragment here and a fragment there and make any point I want. If you want to use a book to prove your position use the whole book, in context.
But I'm probably just an idiot.
If you pound people on the head with bible quotes to push your religion of hate, well then you are.
I found this on the Usenet a few years ago but I just love it and it applies so well to this idiot. --
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your site, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind then that Leviticus 18:22 clearly stated it to be an abomination to the Lord.
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how best to follow them.
A) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbours: they claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
B) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 2:17. In this day and age, what do you think a fair price for her would be?
C) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness. (Lev. 15:19-24) The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.
D) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
E) I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states that he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
F) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
G) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of the Lord if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20 or is there some wiggle room here?
H) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?
I) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean. May I still play football if I wear gloves?
J) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread. (It looks like some sort of cotton/poly blend.)
He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev. 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev 20:14.)
I know that you have studied these things extensively, so I'm confident that
The Bible also predicted that the middle east would be a thorn in the world's side. This has been true since the Crusades.
Actually the Europeans where the thorn in the Middle East's side during the Crusades. The Crusades where all about the raping and pillaging of the Holy Lands to 'rescue' them from the 'heathens'. The story of those times are still told to the children of that culture to this day and are the source of much of their hatred of the west.
The History Channel did a wonderful documentary about this misunderstood period of time hosted by Terry Jones. I highly recommend it.
The book of Revelation is not a book of prophecy but a social commentary of the persecution of Christians by Rome at the time it was written. It is full of codes and symbols in much the same manner that the secret societies of medieval Europe did to avoid persecution of the ruling powers.
The Beast was Emperor Nero and the code for his name was 666.
Of course people will see what they want to see. Look at how many people still think Elvis is alive!
Rumor has it that a few years ago when they were constructing a new FBI building in Pittsburgh, one of the FBI bigwhigs wanted to look into getting every computer in the building access through cable modems.
Maybe it was to make the agents appear as regular users when undercover. Plus by having regular ISP accounts they would be the recipients of some of the email scams and be more aware of them.
But are there as many unsolved boating accidents other places? There are a large number of accidents that have gone unexplained and that is why mystery surrounds that area.
I once saw a show where they picked a random part of the ocean near Europe which had the same traffic patterns as the Bermuda area. They then looked at all the past maritime records they could find and found the same percentage of unsolved accidents. The myth began from all the books written about the famous Flight 19 incident and just grew from there.
I agree that it used to be this way. I avoided any ATI product for years because of the horrible drivers and crappy customer support. Remember the old Paradise card? But I finally gave in and put the Radeon 9700 All-In-Wonder in my W2k box. I've had a few minor problems that were fixed with driver updates but other than that it's been working great.
I think maybe ATI is finally getting their act together. Which is nice since Nvidia seems to have dropped the ball.
The botox also seems to work better/longer with subsequent usage. Of course, you can't tell that to the anti-botox crowd, who think that it's only used for cosmetics. It's even used by some cardiologists: they inject it into the intraventricular septum in people with Idiopathic Hypertrophic Subaortic Stenosis (IHSS)
Actually what they inject is pure ethanol. This creates a small heart attack with then kills a muscle which is partially blocking the Aorta valve. I know this because I have IHSS or HOCM (Hypertrophic Obstructive CardioMyopathy) as it is known now. I had the procedure done last year at the Mayo.
So now you're talking about games. Sorry, but they're in a class of their own. Crashes in games that take down the entire OS are not uncommon, because games are accessing hardware at a lower level than most other applications.
I was just using the game as a recent example. I've had many crashes from business apps. I've even had wordpad crash the machine. I've been supporting windows at the desktop for over 10 years now so I've had the opportunity to see it many times. And I am a fanatic about having the latest drivers and patches installed.
As far as games accessing the hardware directly, DirectX is supposed to provide access to the hardware through the OS. Sure it's more intense on the hardware, but it's supposed to work.
I have been using W2K for 3 years now and I have third party applications crash the OS daily. One current example is Eve-Online. That game is so buggy that I don't even get the BSOD, it just simply freezes to the point where only a hard boot will fix it. I also get innumerable errors that do things such as cause the sound to stop or some other weirdness that also requires a reboot to fix. And yes I am well aware of how to restart services and kill orphan processes.
I just did the reverse of that same trip last spring . Petaluma, CA to Rochester, MN. It has to be the most boring and barren drive I've ever taken. I stayed at Holiday Inn's all along the way and they all had broadband connections that you could pay in 24 hour chunks. It was about $10.00 as I remember but it worked very well. Didn't really have a need for a connection while driving so that worked just fine for me.
I would recommend a stop at the Spam Museum in Austin, MN. It's good for some laughs. That was about the only point of interest I saw along the whole way, except of course for Reno!
I remember a great game called Flashback from about 10 years ago. It advertised that it ran at 60fps because that is the speed that your brain 'sees' motion. I don't know how true that is but the game did seem incredibly smooth. Of course that was 10 years ago, it might not seem so great if I saw it now.
I've been buying Nvidia cards since 3DFX dropped the ball a few years ago. I have the TI4600 and was going to hold out for the next version but I broke down and bought the Radeon All-In-Wonder 9700 last week. I was never a fan of ATI in the past but they seem to have done it right this time.
Now that Nvidia has dropped the ball it looks like they will probably go the way of 3DFX. Gamers are just too finicky to wait for the next card when they can buy ATI's right now. And by the time it does come out I'm sure ATI will have another model that is just as good.
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The company I worked for 12 years ago was licensed to get part of the Windows 3.1 code in order to interface our product with theirs. There must be 1000's of companies that do this and have been doing this. I'm amazed it took this long for someone to finally steal it and post it.
My guess is because there is precious little left to explain, as most of our daily life has been easily described by science.
That's a bit of an arrogant view. There is a vast amount left to be explained. Enough to keep us busy for a long time to come.
I call bullshit on that. I remember reading somewhere they're totally carved out of foam, and that they had some big guy wearing the machine, and the sigourney was just basically riding on his shoulders.
Well, maybe I'm wrong. Wouldn't be the first time my dad feed me a line of BS. But he did claim to see the prototype himself.
If I remember correctly in the movie she did use a real robot that is in industrial use today.
Not sure who makes the thing though?
It's made by Caterpillar. My father works for them and just after Aliens came out he got to tour their main plant in Illinois. He got to see the loaders (or whatever they're called). They were fully functional prototypes and they let them use them in the movie in exchange for advertising. If you notice in the movie, Caterpillar's logo is on the machine. I don't know if they are in regular use now or not, I looked at their web site and didn't see them listed in their products section.
"Global cooling" was and still is the eventual result of a nuclear holocaust. Leonard Nimoy was talking about nuclear winter.
Nuclear winter was invented by Carl Sagan, with the political agenda of influencing nuclear disarmament policy. It was based on questionable science just as global warming is.
But I still think we need to change our habits of crapping in the nest. It will eventually bite us on the butt in one form or another.
But those would probably be the same fans who bitch about the Enterprise in Enterprise looking more advanced than the Enterprise in TOS.
But there was that episode in TNG when they found Scotty on the Dyson Sphere and he had the holodeck recreate the bridge and it was the exact same set used in the original series.
Maybe it can be explained as a phase of nostalgia that society was going through at the time. Like the chronometer that used the number wheels instead of digits like my childhood alarm clock.
The Klingon no ridge phase could be compared to the inflated boob and lip phase women are going through now. I bet 50 years from now they will just laugh at pictures of Pamela Anderson.
No. I am not a fanboy by any stretch. I have always been a lover of sci-fi or any good story that is exciting, entertaining, educational or just plain fun. But the key for me is originality. I can't stand it when a movie or tv show is made just to ride on the coattails of a piece of work that someone put true creativity into.
These media execs simply look at the numbers. If a space based adventure hits it big at the box office then let's whip out a few cheapo clones just to get people to watch. That's what upsets me.
I would love as much sci-fi as possible. But to be honest I don't believe even Star Wars qualifies as true sci-fi. It was simply a fairy tale set in space. But it was a hell of fun ride to watch at the time.
To me sci-fi is all about the story. You take an idea and place it in an unfamiliar environment like the future, another planet, space, whatever. This allows the idea you're trying to convey to stand out more clearly and can be explored with much greater depth. And if you can throw in a good space battle and an explosion or two, well that's just icing on the cake!
That is what made the original Star Trek such a good show. It really wasn't about space travel or the future. The show was mainly a vehicle for social commentary in a time when it wasn't okay to openly talk about racism, war or any anti-establishment idea in the mainstream media.
I was 13 when that show came out and was pissed off then at what a blatant ripoff of Star Wars that it was.
It was just the networks jumping onto the space opera bandwagon. No different than all the ridiculous movies that came out at that time doing the same thing.
There are so many wonderful sci-fi stories that could be made into a mini-series, I can't believe they would waste their time with that ridiculous show.
I thought they did a very good job with Dune. They should stick to projects that actually have a decent storyline.
Actually I think the dinghy to sailing ship comparison is very much in context. For thousands of years ships could never venture out of sight of the coastline and the sailors slept on shore at night. It took many technologies to be developed as well as thousands of years of experience with the sea to venture out beyond the sight of land.
Right now we can basically send humans off the 'shore' of earth, but not too far from it. This process is giving us the experience we need when we finally do venture outward. But of course one more ingredient is necessary, PROFIT.
Unless some find of incredible magnitude is discovered on Mars, what will ever convince any government or corporation to shell out the vast amounts of capital that a manned mission will require? Plus, say a successful colony is established. History shows that all successful colonies will eventually rebel against the very authority which sent them there to start with. Then there goes the return on the investment.
I say we stick with expendable probes for now. We have much left to do here in low earth orbit to keep us busy for many decades to come.
Satan?
Okay, so he can quote parts of a book that has been circulating for millennia to 'prove' his beliefs but I can't repost an e-mail which perfectly illustrates the ridiculousness of using bible quotes to prove a point?
I could take any random book from the library and take a fragment here and a fragment there and make any point I want. If you want to use a book to prove your position use the whole book, in context.
But I'm probably just an idiot.
If you pound people on the head with bible quotes to push your religion of hate, well then you are.
I found this on the Usenet a few years ago but I just love it and it applies so well to this idiot.
--
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your site, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind then that Leviticus 18:22 clearly stated it to be an abomination to the Lord.
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how best to follow them.
A) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbours: they claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
B) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 2:17. In this day and age, what do you think a fair price for her would be?
C) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness. (Lev. 15:19-24) The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.
D) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
E) I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states that he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
F) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
G) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of the Lord if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20 or is there some wiggle room here?
H) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?
I) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean. May I still play football if I wear gloves?
J) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread. (It looks like some sort of cotton/poly blend.)
He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev. 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev 20:14.)
I know that you have studied these things extensively, so I'm confident that
you can help. Thanks.
Actually the Europeans where the thorn in the Middle East's side during the Crusades. The Crusades where all about the raping and pillaging of the Holy Lands to 'rescue' them from the 'heathens'. The story of those times are still told to the children of that culture to this day and are the source of much of their hatred of the west.
The History Channel did a wonderful documentary about this misunderstood period of time hosted by Terry Jones. I highly recommend it.
The book of Revelation is not a book of prophecy but a social commentary of the persecution of Christians by Rome at the time it was written. It is full of codes and symbols in much the same manner that the secret societies of medieval Europe did to avoid persecution of the ruling powers.
The Beast was Emperor Nero and the code for his name was 666.
Of course people will see what they want to see. Look at how many people still think Elvis is alive!
Maybe it was to make the agents appear as regular users when undercover. Plus by having regular ISP accounts they would be the recipients of some of the email scams and be more aware of them.
I once saw a show where they picked a random part of the ocean near Europe which had the same traffic patterns as the Bermuda area. They then looked at all the past maritime records they could find and found the same percentage of unsolved accidents. The myth began from all the books written about the famous Flight 19 incident and just grew from there.
You think that's bad? Try wiping with one!
I agree that it used to be this way. I avoided any ATI product for years because of the horrible drivers and crappy customer support. Remember the old Paradise card? But I finally gave in and put the Radeon 9700 All-In-Wonder in my W2k box. I've had a few minor problems that were fixed with driver updates but other than that it's been working great.
I think maybe ATI is finally getting their act together. Which is nice since Nvidia seems to have dropped the ball.
Actually what they inject is pure ethanol. This creates a small heart attack with then kills a muscle which is partially blocking the Aorta valve. I know this because I have IHSS or HOCM (Hypertrophic Obstructive CardioMyopathy) as it is known now. I had the procedure done last year at the Mayo.
I was just using the game as a recent example. I've had many crashes from business apps. I've even had wordpad crash the machine. I've been supporting windows at the desktop for over 10 years now so I've had the opportunity to see it many times. And I am a fanatic about having the latest drivers and patches installed.
As far as games accessing the hardware directly, DirectX is supposed to provide access to the hardware through the OS. Sure it's more intense on the hardware, but it's supposed to work.
I have been using W2K for 3 years now and I have third party applications crash the OS daily. One current example is Eve-Online. That game is so buggy that I don't even get the BSOD, it just simply freezes to the point where only a hard boot will fix it. I also get innumerable errors that do things such as cause the sound to stop or some other weirdness that also requires a reboot to fix. And yes I am well aware of how to restart services and kill orphan processes.
Yes, Win9x was worse but not by much.
-----
I remember a great game called Flashback from about 10 years ago. It advertised that it ran at 60fps because that is the speed that your brain 'sees' motion. I don't know how true that is but the game did seem incredibly smooth. Of course that was 10 years ago, it might not seem so great if I saw it now.
I've been buying Nvidia cards since 3DFX dropped the ball a few years ago. I have the TI4600 and was going to hold out for the next version but I broke down and bought the Radeon All-In-Wonder 9700 last week. I was never a fan of ATI in the past but they seem to have done it right this time.
Now that Nvidia has dropped the ball it looks like they will probably go the way of 3DFX. Gamers are just too finicky to wait for the next card when they can buy ATI's right now. And by the time it does come out I'm sure ATI will have another model that is just as good.
Bye Nvidia, it's been nice knowing ya!
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Just project it onto your belly. Might even be kinda fun!
---
I thought he was at his best in the remake of Mr Smith Goes To Washington.