Makes sense. We had a guy down the hall at the University of Michigan in the early 90's who fooled around with locks. He somehow got an old, unneeded key to use like a blank, then proceeded to solder metal onto it and file metal off of it based on observations of some of our own room keys. Eventually he had his very own master key that opened at least 1/4 of the building. Maybe not *the* master key, but a housekeeping key at least. As with typical hacking, it was just to learn about how master keys work and to see if he could do it.
So you know how fast the serve was, so what? It doesn't materially improve the way the game is judged, it's just candy for people to say "ooh, that serve was 1 km/h faster than the last one!"
Now, if they had computer systems to register whether a ball lands in or out, or whether a player's hand touches the net, that would be something useful.
So I checked with a friend whose wife is Colombian on the meaning and connotations of hembra in Spanish:
"She says its use conveys its meaning, like most words in Spanish. If said
cordially, she believes most women (even those from Central America) would
consider it a compliment. If said with an insulting or condescending tone, it
would be kind of like calling them a whore. Not as bad as using 'puta' but
close enough."
I'm thinking this entire article was written mostly because the autho wanted to bash Microsoft for a problem that frankly has nothing to do with them specifically. At worst, it's a problem that any international corporation might face.
The appropriate acronym for DaimlerChrysler is DCX, not DCC. They seem to have a Yankee scholarship fund called the "DCC Fund," but that's the only place I've caught them using the wrong acronym.
Also, it's DaimlerChrysler, not Daimler-Chrysler. The hyphen is never correct.
The article gets the name right, if not necessarily the acronym.
No, seriously, until companies like Chrysler recently started showing "concepts" with the strict purpose of gauging public reaction to a shift in styling, concept cars were generally meant to explore the envelope.
And that's just what the Mercedes LifeJet, the (godawful) Ford 24-7 thingies, the GM Autonomy, and the Toyota PM do. Everyone knows they won't be built, and that's fine. If every concept car were intended for production, concept cars would be terribly boring.
And uh, top heavy... It stands up at low speed for outward visibility and compactness (e.g. parking), and it lowers at higher speeds for aerodynamic efficiency and stability.
I worked in automotive engine factories in Detroit for two years. We had a problem with a cylinder head casting from a South American supplier once that was a direct result of them not updating their tool drawing when they fixed the problem the first time. Since the print was never updated, when they built a new tool to cast the heads, they left in a certain ejector pin. Once again, the pin wore out, sand built up around the pin, and we ended up with a little hole in the cylinder head after we machined it.
We caught the hole on the assembly line via the standard air pressure testing, but the mistake ended up costing the supplier an entire warehouse full of scrap parts that they had shipped (by ship) to the U.S.
Moral of the story: Update the damn prints, people!
Ergo, no one's putting an engine in the wheel. They're putting a motor in the wheel. I once watched a Chrysler engine engineer chew out a student engineer for making this same transgression. It was rather amusing.
Mind you, people have put engines in wheels before. The Megola Sport was a front-drive German motorcycle in the '20's. 5 cylinder radial engine with the crankshaft rotating opposite the wheel's motion, nifty.
Take a walk through your local Wild Oats mega-chain or "whole foods" store or "health foods" store. You know, the ones selling the weird stuff that people pay a lot of extra money for.
Anyway, I was eating a bowl of cereal from such a store, and I read the ingredients, and they'd actually added caffeine to the stuff.
I'll check our store tonight and see if I can find the cereal again. It had a vaguely Indian spiritual leaderish name to it. And an Indian vaguely spiritual leader's photo on the back of the box. The stuff was oversweetened, though, so I wasn't too keen on it.
Here's the email they sent to their users.
on
mp3.com Acquired by CNet
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I was registered at the site, though never a paid user. This email was sent last night at about 9:00 pm CST.
-----
MP3.com Announcement
CNET Networks, Inc announced today that it has acquired certain assets of MP3.com, Inc.
Please be advised that on Tuesday, December 2, 2003 at 12:00 PM PST the MP3.com website will no longer be accessible in its current form.
CNET Networks, Inc. plans to introduce a new MP3 music service in the near future. If you would like to receive email updates on this service, including an invitation to a special members-only preview, please sign up here.
MP3.com is not transferring your personal information to CNET Networks, Inc. or any other third party.
On behalf of all of us at MP3.com we thank you for your patronage and continued support. It has been a privilege to host one of the largest and most diverse collections of music in the world. MP3.com wishes to express its sincere thanks to each of you for making us your premier destination for music online.
Sincerely, MP3.com
P.S. Remember that to receive email updates about CNET's new MP3 service and an invite to the members-only preview, you should sign up here today.
Beautiful old neighborhood in Detroit, hundreds of glorious, grand houses. It's a shame to hear it's been destroyed.
What? "Indian village," with a lower case "V?" Oops, nevermind.
I think Target's price was a little under $70. It's not at their website, unfortunately, so I couldn't confirm it there. Happy hunting, if you're looking for another one!
I saw HP 12C accounting calculators in blister packs at Target two weeks ago. I kid you not! That gets you the nice feedback keys and RPN, although it's not got the scientific/engineering functions you're probably used to. And it only shows one register in the display, which is a pain.
Happily, my own 48s is still ticking away.
Two workers assemble each Mustang Cobra's engine from the block up, sign it, then walk to the front of the line again to start a new one. Chrysler's Viper engine is assembled by 8 people, total, from dropping the block on the line to cold testing it at the end. Every worker is considered a repairman, since they can all do any of the other jobs on that line. (But generally they stick to one station for weeks at a time.)
They've been in production for quite some time.
on
Build-to-Order Cars?
·
· Score: 1
Plenty of models mentioned on the smart website, too. And yes, you can pop off the panels and pop in new ones with different colors. Just like on the Saturn ION's strip above the doors, on better-executed.
Except for the "travel on a budget" part. $200 entry fee last I heard. The drained the gas pumps 50 miles south when I was up that way in 2001 around the beginning of the festival. Sounds interesting enough, but it also seems like a magnet for affluent, pseudo-bohemian twenty-somethings from the west coast. (Which may or may not float your boat.)
I'd rather just go to an Art Car Parade, like the Orange Show in Houston.
They'd also have to change the interior shot to show a left-hand drive car for most markets. Plus they can only use it for markets with Accord Wagons (which excludes the U.S. these days). Plus there are undoubtedly minor differences in exterior trim that would have to be airbrushed in or out digitally on the car itself, at the end of the shot. But you're right for Japan, they could probably just change the voiceover. Then again, you could argue the same for most advertisements. Changing the voiceover is dirt cheap even if it's 60 seconds' worth instead of 5.
In Our Own Image - The Coming Revolution in Photography was written by Fred Ritchin in 1990. The second edition from 1999 is still available. From the overleaf:
... We must, however, come up with accepted strategies to control and profit from the new technology, so that we are not controlled by it. Otherwise, the media conglomerates, which can presently manipulate the verisimilitude of what is presented in the press with relative impunity, may be taking us back to the future of 1984.
It was a mighty fine read when I got the first edition at a photography gallery in Ottawa in 1994, and it would provide an excellent follow-up to anyone interested enough in this topic to read more. Within three years of my reading the book, digitally altered spy photos of prototype cars were making regular appearances in the automotive press, the idea being to show the car underneath the vinyl cladding/camoflage. For a while, the press made note of which photos were altered, but eventually they stopped bothering.
It's another April Fool's joke, it's just not Slashdot's. I did have to read the article a while to be sure, though.
Will the real Saddam please appear on Iraqi tv?
on
Strike on Iraq
·
· Score: 1
Saddam appeared on iraqi TV to condemn the US, and Iraqi missiles have been fired at Kuwait.
Am I the only person who thinks the guy who showed up on Iraqi tv was one of Saddam's many doubles? I listened to an NPR reporter make several notes about how Saddam didn't look well, he's usually dapper but wore glasses, he didn't talk as long as usual, etc. -- Yet she made no suggestion that the guy was just one of Saddam's doubles! Oy. I saw one photo of "his" announcement and figured him for a double.
(This is not to say I think he's already dead, but could we please have a small dose of skepticism?)
We have an Exxon near our office building where the person behind the counter will continue a conversation with a fellow employee throughout your transaction. In fact, she can do the whole thing without saying one word to you, and without making eye contact once.
Give me the vending machine over her, anyday. With the human, it could be indifference in general, it could be that my deodorant stopped working, it could be that my clothes aren't hip. At least I know that it doesn't care because it's a machine.
Do the Macromedia Flash players have MP3 decoding built into them? If so, wouldn't that mean Macromedia would have to start paying $0.75 per download of the player, even for someone upgrading from the version 5 to the version 6 player? Likewise, all new machines shipping with Internet Explorer with the Flash player pre-installed would cost Macromedia another $0.75, etc...
So unless Flash player is somehow using software external to itself in order to playback MP3s, Macromedia has to be sweating this, right?
Specifically, at the Detroit Auto Show. Around 2pm eastern time. It's not even a concept; it's just a test bed for various, interesting ideas in safety technology, like the see-through A-pillar that eliminates a big blind spot. That some of it is controlled by WinCE is just proof that wanted to throw the ideas together cheaply in a small space. WinCE does that just fine, but it sure as hell doesn't mean that if any of those ideas make it to production, they'll use WinCE. Lordy.
Slashdot Mirror
Makes sense. We had a guy down the hall at the University of Michigan in the early 90's who fooled around with locks. He somehow got an old, unneeded key to use like a blank, then proceeded to solder metal onto it and file metal off of it based on observations of some of our own room keys. Eventually he had his very own master key that opened at least 1/4 of the building. Maybe not *the* master key, but a housekeeping key at least. As with typical hacking, it was just to learn about how master keys work and to see if he could do it.
v, i, v, down arrow, enter. Of course you have to have visited it once for this to work...
Really, a dog with any bark will do. It doesn't have to be a "scary" bark at all, just audible to the burglar.
So you know how fast the serve was, so what? It doesn't materially improve the way the game is judged, it's just candy for people to say "ooh, that serve was 1 km/h faster than the last one!"
Now, if they had computer systems to register whether a ball lands in or out, or whether a player's hand touches the net, that would be something useful.
So I checked with a friend whose wife is Colombian on the meaning and connotations of hembra in Spanish:
"She says its use conveys its meaning, like most words in Spanish. If said cordially, she believes most women (even those from Central America) would consider it a compliment. If said with an insulting or condescending tone, it would be kind of like calling them a whore. Not as bad as using 'puta' but close enough."
I'm thinking this entire article was written mostly because the autho wanted to bash Microsoft for a problem that frankly has nothing to do with them specifically. At worst, it's a problem that any international corporation might face.
The appropriate acronym for DaimlerChrysler is DCX, not DCC. They seem to have a Yankee scholarship fund called the "DCC Fund," but that's the only place I've caught them using the wrong acronym.
Also, it's DaimlerChrysler, not Daimler-Chrysler. The hyphen is never correct.
The article gets the name right, if not necessarily the acronym.
No, seriously, until companies like Chrysler recently started showing "concepts" with the strict purpose of gauging public reaction to a shift in styling, concept cars were generally meant to explore the envelope.
And that's just what the Mercedes LifeJet, the (godawful) Ford 24-7 thingies, the GM Autonomy, and the Toyota PM do. Everyone knows they won't be built, and that's fine. If every concept car were intended for production, concept cars would be terribly boring.
And uh, top heavy... It stands up at low speed for outward visibility and compactness (e.g. parking), and it lowers at higher speeds for aerodynamic efficiency and stability.
I worked in automotive engine factories in Detroit for two years. We had a problem with a cylinder head casting from a South American supplier once that was a direct result of them not updating their tool drawing when they fixed the problem the first time. Since the print was never updated, when they built a new tool to cast the heads, they left in a certain ejector pin. Once again, the pin wore out, sand built up around the pin, and we ended up with a little hole in the cylinder head after we machined it.
We caught the hole on the assembly line via the standard air pressure testing, but the mistake ended up costing the supplier an entire warehouse full of scrap parts that they had shipped (by ship) to the U.S.
Moral of the story: Update the damn prints, people!
Ergo, no one's putting an engine in the wheel. They're putting a motor in the wheel. I once watched a Chrysler engine engineer chew out a student engineer for making this same transgression. It was rather amusing.
Mind you, people have put engines in wheels before. The Megola Sport was a front-drive German motorcycle in the '20's. 5 cylinder radial engine with the crankshaft rotating opposite the wheel's motion, nifty.
Take a walk through your local Wild Oats mega-chain or "whole foods" store or "health foods" store. You know, the ones selling the weird stuff that people pay a lot of extra money for.
Anyway, I was eating a bowl of cereal from such a store, and I read the ingredients, and they'd actually added caffeine to the stuff.
I'll check our store tonight and see if I can find the cereal again. It had a vaguely Indian spiritual leaderish name to it. And an Indian vaguely spiritual leader's photo on the back of the box. The stuff was oversweetened, though, so I wasn't too keen on it.
I was registered at the site, though never a paid user. This email was sent last night at about 9:00 pm CST.
-----
MP3.com Announcement
CNET Networks, Inc announced today that it has acquired certain assets of MP3.com, Inc.
Please be advised that on Tuesday, December 2, 2003 at 12:00 PM PST the MP3.com website will no longer be accessible in its current form.
CNET Networks, Inc. plans to introduce a new MP3 music service in the near future. If you would like to receive email updates on this service, including an invitation to a special members-only preview, please sign up here.
MP3.com is not transferring your personal information to CNET Networks, Inc. or any other third party.
On behalf of all of us at MP3.com we thank you for your patronage and continued support. It has been a privilege to host one of the largest and most diverse collections of music in the world. MP3.com wishes to express its sincere thanks to each of you for making us your premier destination for music online.
Sincerely,
MP3.com
P.S. Remember that to receive email updates about CNET's new MP3 service and an invite to the members-only preview, you should sign up here today.
Beautiful old neighborhood in Detroit, hundreds of glorious, grand houses. It's a shame to hear it's been destroyed. What? "Indian village," with a lower case "V?" Oops, nevermind.
I think Target's price was a little under $70. It's not at their website, unfortunately, so I couldn't confirm it there. Happy hunting, if you're looking for another one!
I saw HP 12C accounting calculators in blister packs at Target two weeks ago. I kid you not! That gets you the nice feedback keys and RPN, although it's not got the scientific/engineering functions you're probably used to. And it only shows one register in the display, which is a pain. Happily, my own 48s is still ticking away.
Two workers assemble each Mustang Cobra's engine from the block up, sign it, then walk to the front of the line again to start a new one. Chrysler's Viper engine is assembled by 8 people, total, from dropping the block on the line to cold testing it at the end. Every worker is considered a repairman, since they can all do any of the other jobs on that line. (But generally they stick to one station for weeks at a time.)
Plenty of models mentioned on the smart website, too. And yes, you can pop off the panels and pop in new ones with different colors. Just like on the Saturn ION's strip above the doors, on better-executed.
Except for the "travel on a budget" part. $200 entry fee last I heard. The drained the gas pumps 50 miles south when I was up that way in 2001 around the beginning of the festival. Sounds interesting enough, but it also seems like a magnet for affluent, pseudo-bohemian twenty-somethings from the west coast. (Which may or may not float your boat.) I'd rather just go to an Art Car Parade, like the Orange Show in Houston.
They'd also have to change the interior shot to show a left-hand drive car for most markets. Plus they can only use it for markets with Accord Wagons (which excludes the U.S. these days). Plus there are undoubtedly minor differences in exterior trim that would have to be airbrushed in or out digitally on the car itself, at the end of the shot. But you're right for Japan, they could probably just change the voiceover. Then again, you could argue the same for most advertisements. Changing the voiceover is dirt cheap even if it's 60 seconds' worth instead of 5.
In Our Own Image - The Coming Revolution in Photography was written by Fred Ritchin in 1990. The second edition from 1999 is still available. From the overleaf:
It was a mighty fine read when I got the first edition at a photography gallery in Ottawa in 1994, and it would provide an excellent follow-up to anyone interested enough in this topic to read more. Within three years of my reading the book, digitally altered spy photos of prototype cars were making regular appearances in the automotive press, the idea being to show the car underneath the vinyl cladding/camoflage. For a while, the press made note of which photos were altered, but eventually they stopped bothering.
It's another April Fool's joke, it's just not Slashdot's. I did have to read the article a while to be sure, though.
Saddam appeared on iraqi TV to condemn the US, and Iraqi missiles have been fired at Kuwait.
Am I the only person who thinks the guy who showed up on Iraqi tv was one of Saddam's many doubles? I listened to an NPR reporter make several notes about how Saddam didn't look well, he's usually dapper but wore glasses, he didn't talk as long as usual, etc. -- Yet she made no suggestion that the guy was just one of Saddam's doubles! Oy. I saw one photo of "his" announcement and figured him for a double.
(This is not to say I think he's already dead, but could we please have a small dose of skepticism?)
Oops! Reading comprehension is everything. Didn't notice the one-time fees there.
We have an Exxon near our office building where the person behind the counter will continue a conversation with a fellow employee throughout your transaction. In fact, she can do the whole thing without saying one word to you, and without making eye contact once.
Give me the vending machine over her, anyday. With the human, it could be indifference in general, it could be that my deodorant stopped working, it could be that my clothes aren't hip. At least I know that it doesn't care because it's a machine.
Do the Macromedia Flash players have MP3 decoding built into them? If so, wouldn't that mean Macromedia would have to start paying $0.75 per download of the player, even for someone upgrading from the version 5 to the version 6 player? Likewise, all new machines shipping with Internet Explorer with the Flash player pre-installed would cost Macromedia another $0.75, etc...
So unless Flash player is somehow using software external to itself in order to playback MP3s, Macromedia has to be sweating this, right?
Specifically, at the Detroit Auto Show. Around 2pm eastern time. It's not even a concept; it's just a test bed for various, interesting ideas in safety technology, like the see-through A-pillar that eliminates a big blind spot. That some of it is controlled by WinCE is just proof that wanted to throw the ideas together cheaply in a small space. WinCE does that just fine, but it sure as hell doesn't mean that if any of those ideas make it to production, they'll use WinCE. Lordy.