Evidently this is not your quote, but I wonder if the author has ever been to Singapore. It's one of the cleanest countries in the world. I know, I've been there, and many other SE Asian countries.
Put it this way, they're so concerned about keeping the city clean, that even chewing gum is banned.
So the bike lane is to blame for you being hit? Or you're to blame? What are you trying to say here?
If you were in the bike lane, and riding responsibly (following the law) I'm inclined to think that the person who hit you was at fault. Stand up for your rights. A bicycle does not belong on the sidewalk, it belongs on the road. If a bicycle lane is provided, all the better. Granted a bicycle could be unsafe on anything faster than, say a 45 MPH road, but otherwise it's perfectly safe and reasonable to ride on the road, as long as you follow the rules of the road. This means obeying stop signs and traffic lights, and stay as far to the right (in the US) as is practical for your own safety. In most states, a cyclist has the right to "take the lane" if he needs to protect his own safety.
Here is a comment I made on a similar story posted here recently.
Like the Segway, this thing doesn't belong on the sidewalk. If it can maintain the same speeds an avid cyclist can maintain (20-30 MPH) I could lve with it in a bike lane. Otherwise, it belongs in the road like any other moped/motercycle.
BTW, as if you couldn't tell, I'm an avid competitive cyclist.
Where does it say that the device is running Windows? All I could find is that there's a Windows based configuration utility, and a Windows based com port redirector.
Interesting. A few years ago, I started a bot project, but never completed it. I went through various forms of the "knowledge database" approach that you describe, as it seemed like the most straightforward approach. Unlike other popular bots at the time though, I wasn't building simple question/answer pairs ad infinitum, I was just making a database of knowledge itself. Really simple stuff like "I am a human" and "humans have two legs" and "red is a color", etc.
The plan was to build this immense database, then add an inferrence engine that could draw conclusions based on the available knowledge, and some sort of NLP on top to provide the input.
Anyway, in the midst of populating this database, I lost interest. It's refreshing to know now that aparently I was on the right track and that had I kept it up, the hardware would have stopped me before the limitations of my theory.
Ditto here. At my old job, I spent some time working in an old hanger at what used to be San Bernardino International airport, in California. On another note it's currently home to a couple of X-prize contestants, if I remember correctly.
Anyway, before either of these, it was some sort of Air Force base (I can't recall the name). Anyway, one night I had to work the overnight shift, which is incredibly boring, so I took a walk. Surrounding the hangar were what looked like old abandoned offices. Nothing special really. Then I found one office with some stairs leading up to higher levels. On the upper floors were barracks, instead of offices. Again, nothing special, considering this was a hanger. I figured the barracks were for pilots on alert or something.
Then I found a staircase that led down, way down. At the bottom were several interconnected rooms that looked quite similar to the NORAD scenes in War Games. Not nearly that large, but the same configuration: Huge displays on the front wall, rows of old terminals, cool map of the world on a side wall, red phones galore, etc. All abandoned, and all very spooky with cobwebs.
There were also 3 or four rooms completely filled with phone system racks and some sort of data equipment. I wasn't in IT at the time, so I really don't know what it was. Actually I did find a rack with an ISDN modem, still on with blinking lights.
Then I heard some sort of strange sound, and got the hell out of there as fast as I could. I spent the rest of the night sure that I was busted. I still don't know what that place was, but maybe I'll try to find out.
Yes they do, and that's how I got out of a bad charge on my account.
I went to the ATM and tried to make a withdrawal. The machine tried to give me the cash, but something went wrong mechanically, and the money never came out.
I disputed the charge, but since their systems said that I did make the withdrawal, they didn't want to give me my money back.
I told them I wanted to see the surveilance tape for my personal records. Well, they didn't let me see the tape, but I'm assuming they looked at it and saw that no money came out of the machine. A few days later, i had a credit for the withdrawal.
Websters defines piracy as: The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy. See it here.
I don't think the problem is with people making copies per se. The problem has always been and always will be with distribution. If you want to rip your favorite cd into mp3s and make 100 copies of those mp3s, theres nothing fundamentally wrong with that, but as soon as you start distributing (for sale or otherwise) someone else's copyrighted work, you are pirating, plain and simple.
I agree that the current laws do not apply well to cyberspace and digital mediums, but under current law, people who do this are pirates, and are breaking the law. Until someone changes the law, that's the way it will be.
Yes, Tillamook is one of the few others on the West coast, and is well known in the airship community.
On the east coast, there's the infamous Lakehurst, NJ (home of the Hindenburgh disaster), and another at Weeksville, NC. Weeksville is another that had a massive fire that destroyed a hanger. This one was a welding accident.
These things burn so often because they're huge and made of wood. I'm no scientist, but I've worked in several of these hangars around the world, and I'll tell you they're also full of dust and dried (indect, bird, bat) poop. AFAIK this is very prone to cumbustion as well.
In my many years of travels working as a flight crewman for a well known commercial airship company, I spent many many days in those massive blimp hangars.
They are truly national landmarks, and are breathtaking to see. Both inside and out, they are unbelievable. As the page says, they are the largest wooden structures in the world.
While I was there, MCAS Tustin was still operational, but there were talks of destroying at least one of the hangars. The other was to become either a museum or something else.
Now that The base has been officially closed, friends from the area said that those plans have been scrapped, and both hangars will be destroyed.
This is truly a shame, since these hangars have such history in them. Also, they are tremendously usefull for the current airship industry. Sometimes, the airship has to be hangared, and you can't exactly stuff one into a normal sized hangar. There aren't too many hangars this big left in the US, and it would be a terrible shame to destroy them.
Reminds me of that anecdote about the monkeys. IIRC it goes something like this.
Put six monkeys in a room, and hang some bananas from the ceiling. Then, put a ladder directly under the bananas. Wait until one of the monkeys tries to get a banana, and shock him with some electricity. Replace this monkey with a new monkey, and wait for another to go for the fruit, and get shocked.
Pretty soon, all of the monkeys will have been replaced, and none will go for the bananas. Without ever having been shocked, they'll know not to go for the fruit.
Well, maybe it went a little different than that, but you get the idea.
OK. Hehe. That's what I get for not checking your links.
I stand corrected, and I agree woth you completely. This is kinda like the issue about upgrading the old computers. Sure they're old, but they work fine, so what do they stand to gain from upgrading. The old parachute/capsule style reentry vehicles seemed to work fine (except for the exploding hatch bolts), so why change?
I was just a kid when the shuttle program was started, so I'm not sure why exactly they wanted a aircraft-type spacecraft rather than a rocket/capsule design, but I imagine it was mostly to make the concept of reusasbility easier and cheaper.
So anyway, you're right, I'm wrong, and I agree with you.
I understand what you're saying, and you're right parachutes could potentially save lives, but not in this case.
Forget the fact that you'd have a hard time exiting an aircraft (the space shuttle was an aircraft when it came apart) that has lost one wing and is likely tumbling horribly out of control. No, alive or dead your body would probably be pinned to some interior wall, as the craft spins and tumbles.
Forget the fact that at Mach 18+ when a wing rips off the entire craft tends to disintegrate rather quickly.
So, suppose you were able to get out of the craft in one piece, with your parachute intact. I suppose you have never had the pleasure of experiencing a Mach 18+ wind. Neither have I, and I hope no one ever will.
OK. Suppose you survived the initial wind shock and were now outside the craft, traveling at Mach 18+. Wouldn't you be subject to the same 2500F temperatures that the craft sustained? How you gonna survive that? You're not.
Not to mention the need for oxygen due to the freefall time necessary to get to a safe opening altitude and velocity, and I'm not sure, but at 200000 feet you might need some radiation protection as well.
As far as I know, the world altitude record parachute jump was made by Joeseph Kittinger from 102,800 feet in 1960, and this was from a balloon, not a fixed wing craft.
So, in short, nice try, but it would never in a million years have saved anyone in a situation like the Columbia faced.
On another note, don't take the job. This time though, don't take it because you'll be forever marked by your superiors as "that troublesome guy who wouldn't go along with our policy".
Negotiating salary is one thing, and is expected in higher level positions, but arguing over their policy is another matter entirely, and likely won't go over well with the higher-ups at the company.
At the very least, if they cave-in, you'll have forever tarnished the all-important first impression.
That being said, I see absolutely no reason for an employer to stick their nose into my personal finances. They're trying to make a relation between your finances and your performance where there is no basis for one.
If your personal finances were indicative of your job performance or ability, you might as well go ahead and list them on your resume.
Don't be mad at these guys. I breifly looked over their claims at the USTPO, and it looks pretty valid to me.
So don't be mad at them for having the foresight to come up with this in 1991, and wanting to make some money.
If you're going to get mad, get mad at the USTPO for granting such broad stretching patents in the first place.
The system is in place for things like this to happen, and I really don't understand why people are continually surprised when this type of thing happens. It will continue to happen until the US government changes the way the patent process works.
That being said, it is pretty slimy to hold a patent for 12 years and just now start to enforce it, but again, our current patent system model encourages this behavior, so din't be surprised when it happens again.
On the other hand, if this never happened, Slashdot wouldn't be so busy.
Do you have any facts to back this accusation up? Why should anyone believe you? Not that I don't, but it's pretty suspicious to make such a strong accusation without posting even one peice of evidence.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't this outlaw NAT?
Think of all the poor little DSL routers out there.
Oh the humanity!!
Evidently this is not your quote, but I wonder if the author has ever been to Singapore. It's one of the cleanest countries in the world. I know, I've been there, and many other SE Asian countries.
Put it this way, they're so concerned about keeping the city clean, that even chewing gum is banned.
"However, many analysts believe a successfully Google IPO could rejuvenated Internet-company investments."
Yes, but many analysts also believe that a solid understansing of the English language and grammatical profeciency are even more important...
Interesting...You're probably right. Pretty scary, huh?
So the bike lane is to blame for you being hit? Or you're to blame? What are you trying to say here?
If you were in the bike lane, and riding responsibly (following the law) I'm inclined to think that the person who hit you was at fault. Stand up for your rights. A bicycle does not belong on the sidewalk, it belongs on the road. If a bicycle lane is provided, all the better. Granted a bicycle could be unsafe on anything faster than, say a 45 MPH road, but otherwise it's perfectly safe and reasonable to ride on the road, as long as you follow the rules of the road. This means obeying stop signs and traffic lights, and stay as far to the right (in the US) as is practical for your own safety. In most states, a cyclist has the right to "take the lane" if he needs to protect his own safety.
Here is a comment I made on a similar story posted here recently.
Like the Segway, this thing doesn't belong on the sidewalk. If it can maintain the same speeds an avid cyclist can maintain (20-30 MPH) I could lve with it in a bike lane. Otherwise, it belongs in the road like any other moped/motercycle.
BTW, as if you couldn't tell, I'm an avid competitive cyclist.
Where does it say that the device is running Windows? All I could find is that there's a Windows based configuration utility, and a Windows based com port redirector.
Yeah, not to mention another moron who's willing to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war for oil.
Interesting. A few years ago, I started a bot project, but never completed it. I went through various forms of the "knowledge database" approach that you describe, as it seemed like the most straightforward approach. Unlike other popular bots at the time though, I wasn't building simple question/answer pairs ad infinitum, I was just making a database of knowledge itself. Really simple stuff like "I am a human" and "humans have two legs" and "red is a color", etc.
The plan was to build this immense database, then add an inferrence engine that could draw conclusions based on the available knowledge, and some sort of NLP on top to provide the input.
Anyway, in the midst of populating this database, I lost interest. It's refreshing to know now that aparently I was on the right track and that had I kept it up, the hardware would have stopped me before the limitations of my theory.
Ditto here. At my old job, I spent some time working in an old hanger at what used to be San Bernardino International airport, in California. On another note it's currently home to a couple of X-prize contestants, if I remember correctly.
Anyway, before either of these, it was some sort of Air Force base (I can't recall the name). Anyway, one night I had to work the overnight shift, which is incredibly boring, so I took a walk. Surrounding the hangar were what looked like old abandoned offices. Nothing special really. Then I found one office with some stairs leading up to higher levels. On the upper floors were barracks, instead of offices. Again, nothing special, considering this was a hanger. I figured the barracks were for pilots on alert or something.
Then I found a staircase that led down, way down. At the bottom were several interconnected rooms that looked quite similar to the NORAD scenes in War Games. Not nearly that large, but the same configuration: Huge displays on the front wall, rows of old terminals, cool map of the world on a side wall, red phones galore, etc. All abandoned, and all very spooky with cobwebs.
There were also 3 or four rooms completely filled with phone system racks and some sort of data equipment. I wasn't in IT at the time, so I really don't know what it was. Actually I did find a rack with an ISDN modem, still on with blinking lights.
Then I heard some sort of strange sound, and got the hell out of there as fast as I could. I spent the rest of the night sure that I was busted. I still don't know what that place was, but maybe I'll try to find out.
Yes they do, and that's how I got out of a bad charge on my account.
I went to the ATM and tried to make a withdrawal. The machine tried to give me the cash, but something went wrong mechanically, and the money never came out.
I disputed the charge, but since their systems said that I did make the withdrawal, they didn't want to give me my money back.
I told them I wanted to see the surveilance tape for my personal records. Well, they didn't let me see the tape, but I'm assuming they looked at it and saw that no money came out of the machine. A few days later, i had a credit for the withdrawal.
Interesting....thanks for the info. Actually, I got out of the business a while after that happened, so I never heard that info before.
You still have Uno's? I love that place. AFAIK, they left South Florida a long time ago...Ahhhh the memories.
Websters defines piracy as:
The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy. See it here.
I don't think the problem is with people making copies per se. The problem has always been and always will be with distribution. If you want to rip your favorite cd into mp3s and make 100 copies of those mp3s, theres nothing fundamentally wrong with that, but as soon as you start distributing (for sale or otherwise) someone else's copyrighted work, you are pirating, plain and simple.
I agree that the current laws do not apply well to cyberspace and digital mediums, but under current law, people who do this are pirates, and are breaking the law. Until someone changes the law, that's the way it will be.
Yes, Tillamook is one of the few others on the West coast, and is well known in the airship community.
On the east coast, there's the infamous Lakehurst, NJ (home of the Hindenburgh disaster), and another at Weeksville, NC. Weeksville is another that had a massive fire that destroyed a hanger. This one was a welding accident.
These things burn so often because they're huge and made of wood. I'm no scientist, but I've worked in several of these hangars around the world, and I'll tell you they're also full of dust and dried (indect, bird, bat) poop. AFAIK this is very prone to cumbustion as well.
Be sure to check out this page.
In my many years of travels working as a flight crewman for a well known commercial airship company, I spent many many days in those massive blimp hangars.
They are truly national landmarks, and are breathtaking to see. Both inside and out, they are unbelievable. As the page says, they are the largest wooden structures in the world.
While I was there, MCAS Tustin was still operational, but there were talks of destroying at least one of the hangars. The other was to become either a museum or something else.
Now that The base has been officially closed, friends from the area said that those plans have been scrapped, and both hangars will be destroyed.
This is truly a shame, since these hangars have such history in them. Also, they are tremendously usefull for the current airship industry. Sometimes, the airship has to be hangared, and you can't exactly stuff one into a normal sized hangar. There aren't too many hangars this big left in the US, and it would be a terrible shame to destroy them.
Reminds me of that anecdote about the monkeys. IIRC it goes something like this.
Put six monkeys in a room, and hang some bananas from the ceiling. Then, put a ladder directly under the bananas. Wait until one of the monkeys tries to get a banana, and shock him with some electricity. Replace this monkey with a new monkey, and wait for another to go for the fruit, and get shocked.
Pretty soon, all of the monkeys will have been replaced, and none will go for the bananas. Without ever having been shocked, they'll know not to go for the fruit.
Well, maybe it went a little different than that, but you get the idea.
WooHoo! Lucky for me I work for a web hosting firm:
[Boss walks in]"Hey what the hell is that on your monitor?...Porno?"
[Me]"Um, yes, boss, it's really great pr0n."
[Boss]"Is the site one of our customers?"
[Me]"Yep."
[Boss walks out]"Send me the URL."
OK. Hehe. That's what I get for not checking your links.
I stand corrected, and I agree woth you completely. This is kinda like the issue about upgrading the old computers. Sure they're old, but they work fine, so what do they stand to gain from upgrading. The old parachute/capsule style reentry vehicles seemed to work fine (except for the exploding hatch bolts), so why change?
I was just a kid when the shuttle program was started, so I'm not sure why exactly they wanted a aircraft-type spacecraft rather than a rocket/capsule design, but I imagine it was mostly to make the concept of reusasbility easier and cheaper.
So anyway, you're right, I'm wrong, and I agree with you.
I understand what you're saying, and you're right parachutes could potentially save lives, but not in this case.
Forget the fact that you'd have a hard time exiting an aircraft (the space shuttle was an aircraft when it came apart) that has lost one wing and is likely tumbling horribly out of control. No, alive or dead your body would probably be pinned to some interior wall, as the craft spins and tumbles.
Forget the fact that at Mach 18+ when a wing rips off the entire craft tends to disintegrate rather quickly.
So, suppose you were able to get out of the craft in one piece, with your parachute intact. I suppose you have never had the pleasure of experiencing a Mach 18+ wind. Neither have I, and I hope no one ever will.
OK. Suppose you survived the initial wind shock and were now outside the craft, traveling at Mach 18+. Wouldn't you be subject to the same 2500F temperatures that the craft sustained? How you gonna survive that? You're not.
Not to mention the need for oxygen due to the freefall time necessary to get to a safe opening altitude and velocity, and I'm not sure, but at 200000 feet you might need some radiation protection as well.
As far as I know, the world altitude record parachute jump was made by Joeseph Kittinger from 102,800 feet in 1960, and this was from a balloon, not a fixed wing craft.
So, in short, nice try, but it would never in a million years have saved anyone in a situation like the Columbia faced.
On another note, don't take the job. This time though, don't take it because you'll be forever marked by your superiors as "that troublesome guy who wouldn't go along with our policy".
Negotiating salary is one thing, and is expected in higher level positions, but arguing over their policy is another matter entirely, and likely won't go over well with the higher-ups at the company.
At the very least, if they cave-in, you'll have forever tarnished the all-important first impression.
That being said, I see absolutely no reason for an employer to stick their nose into my personal finances. They're trying to make a relation between your finances and your performance where there is no basis for one.
If your personal finances were indicative of your job performance or ability, you might as well go ahead and list them on your resume.
Don't be mad at these guys.
I breifly looked over their claims at the USTPO, and it looks pretty valid to me.
So don't be mad at them for having the foresight to come up with this in 1991, and wanting to make some money.
If you're going to get mad, get mad at the USTPO for granting such broad stretching patents in the first place.
The system is in place for things like this to happen, and I really don't understand why people are continually surprised when this type of thing happens. It will continue to happen until the US government changes the way the patent process works.
That being said, it is pretty slimy to hold a patent for 12 years and just now start to enforce it, but again, our current patent system model encourages this behavior, so din't be surprised when it happens again.
On the other hand, if this never happened, Slashdot wouldn't be so busy.
I did indeed yawn, just thinking about it while reading your post.
your post was really insightful. I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense.
I love BeOS, but even I'll admit it. That was pretty funny, nice one.
Do you have any facts to back this accusation up? Why should anyone believe you? Not that I don't, but it's pretty suspicious to make such a strong accusation without posting even one peice of evidence.
Despite your claims, why should anyone believe you?
Do you have any facts to back this up?