Yeah - crackpots do that. It sorta reminds me of that quote/joke/'source unknown truism': "Your Honor, I object to this evidence on the grounds that it makes my client look guilty."
Sorry it's OT, but so is the rest of my life - why should my/. posts be any different?
I suspect there is little if any interest in any sort of manned space program. Rather, this is a nice cover for a testing program to work the bugs out of the missle guidance systems Clinton sold to them in the 90's. Notice how the "capsule" is nicely affixed to the top of a "missle". Curious, that. Whether they actually get a man into space is secondary, the real insterest is in being able to control the rocket over long distances.
You are, of course correct. Indeed, such is the origin of "objections" in the courtroom -- you can't appeal if you didn't object in the first place.
[Disclaimer]: One of the unfortunate drawbacks of the internet as a participation media is that rapid-fire post-repost exchanges are fraught with such oversights and omissions due to a necessary lack of proofreading.
If the Constitution guaranteed an individual's right to unregulated gun ownership, the NRA would be challenging laws like this one and The Brady Bill in the Supreme Court. That is not happening because the NRA knows that they would lose any such challenge. That's why they spend their time and money lobbying (threatening, rewarding, and bribing) Congress to limit gun legislation. If you want to make claims about the Constitution, do some case law research before you do.
You can't just wake up one morning and decide to challenge something in the Supreme Court -- that ain't how it works.
You have to violate the law; then you have to be involved in a trial; Lose it; Appeal on the grounds that the law and/or procedure was not followed correctly; Lose that; Eventually, you appeal to the supreme court on the grounds that the law under which you were tried violates the constitution. **IF** the court decide your case merits consideration, **THEN** you get to do stuff like "challenge laws in the Supreme Court".
It would take the right combination of time, money, and circumstances to do what you propose they just run out and do. Inaction is not sufficient proof that their position is without merit.
Does.DOC support a "Read-Only" mode? Furthermore,.DOC does a horrible job with page layout (AFAIK, the rules it uses to flow text around embedded images and objects are documented only as lies) **and** you can only distribute, well, Word docs in that format, whereas anything that can be printed can be PDF'd.
I rather think of Acrobat PDF as being closer to the "Crystal Reports" end of the spectrum.
Yeah, I know, preaching to the choir -- just thinking out loud, I guess.
Ugh. IFYP. How about web sites with NO PHONE NUMBERS on their lame-ass "Contact Us" page. (no, the answer *wasn't* in the stupid FAQ.)
NOTE: By the way, **mad** props to Neilson for pointing out how really horrible some of the commercial FAQs are. I hadn't even elucidated that fact until I read his piece.
Nice point. The question you stirred up in *my* head is "what alternatives to PDF are there?"
Re:And why is this here?
on
Starcraft
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· Score: 2
Yeah, it sucks having to actually "touch" things.:)
Re:And why is this here?
on
Starcraft
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· Score: 2
The ancient astronaut theory, though not DEBUNKED, has often rested in shaky evidence, assumptions, and outright hoaxes.
One of the properties of a scientific theory is that in principle you can present evedence to refute it. What evidence could I present, in principle, that would refute this theory?
If there is none, then it's not a theory. I just a fairy tale, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny...
Ok, we're getting dangerously close to tickling one of my personal pet peeves, so before I fly off the handle and chastise a number of you in a gentlemanly fashion, let me just point out a couple of things:
1) A *LOT* of folks don't get this -- even a number of people who have some formal scientific training -- but PROCEDURES and EXPERIMENTAL METHODS are the only things that can be "scientific" or "not scientific" based on how they are conducted. When the words "scientific" and "unscientific" are used to describe theories, proofs, evidence, principles or explanations, there is almost always sloppy and incorrect thinking involved somewhere, regardless of what Hollywood is telling you.
2) The scientific method demands that any observations or evidence be accompanied by similar observations on appropriate control groups. Furthermore, such observations or evidence must be independently verified before any facutal conclusions can be drawn.
In short, we may or may not be observing visitors from other worlds, but until we have reproducible evidence and control groups, none of this can be considered science. BTW, so you don't think I'm picking on you just to be a jerk blowing off steam, Mathematics and Computer Programming aren't science either. The results are valid, but must be measured for correctness by a different yardstick than the scientific method.
When I was in college I briefly delivered pizzas for Domino's. One month, their corporate newsletter had a sidebar describing how the Washington D.C. franchises could tell when something important/catastrophic/ominous was happening because orders to particular government buildings went through the roof as people worked late.
The day HDTV and SmartCards become a requirement is probably the day we stop watching TV shows altogether, though we'll likely keep the TV around for watching movies and playing games and the like. I don't know who they think they're kidding, but the crap they're trying to protect just isn't worth this kind of annoyance.
Case in point - Why do we need 14 channels of HBO in our cable package -- is it so we have more choice? No, it's because exclusivity deals and vertical ownership mean they have to be a Time-Warner billboard. Oh, that and the movies suck, so they have to have 14 channels of it to make it seem like you're getting your money's worth. When I was a kid, we got 1 HBO channel, but they ran primo movies every night, and it was generally worth the subscription fee. Now, it's 14 channels of Sex&City reruns and crap movies from the 80's and (early)90's. Screw them. Don't **EVEN** get me started on "Slowtime" - the premium cable network for morons and the terminally horny.
Now they want me to get a smart card and an encryption ID key for the priviledge of watching Will & Grace? Sorry. I'll do without - It's more fun playing with my wife anyway.
Ditto, and I always thought that STTNG stood out because it was one of the few SCI-FI shows (or movies, for that matter) that put the story ahead of the character interaction (also known as *plot* -- they're two different things, you know.) Sure, the characters fleshed out nicely and later on episodes were able to capitalize on that, but it was motivated by the story, and seldom forced. (Unlike DS9 and the the others, which went out of their way to manufacture stories and plot to justify their hurried and ridiculous character development.)
Author unknown, but it's a classic! (and for once, RELEVANT!)
Password selection rules CORPORATE DIRECTIVE NUMBER 88-570471
In order to increase the security of all company computing facilities, and to avoid the possibility of unauthorized use of these facilities, new rules are being put into effect concerning the selection of passwords. All users of computing facilities are instructed to change their passwords to conform to these rules immediately.
RULES FOR THE SELECTION OF PASSWORDS:
1. A password must be at least six characters long, and must not contain two occurrences of a character in a row, or a sequence of two or more characters from the alphabet in forward or reverse order. Example: HGQQXP is an invalid password. GFEDCB is an invalid password.
2. A password may not contain two or more letters in the same position as any previous password. Example: If a previous password was GKPWTZ, then NRPWHS would be invalid because PW occurs in the same position in both passwords.
3. A password may not contain the name of a month or an abbreviation for a month. Example: MARCHBC is an invalid password. VWMARBC is an invalid password.
4. A password may not contain the numeric representation of a month. Therefore, a password containing any number except zero is invalid. Example: WKBH3LG is invalid because it contains the numeric representation for the month of March.
5. A password may not contain any words from any language. Thus, a password may not contain the letters A, or I, or sequences such as AT, ME, or TO because these are all words.
6. A password may not contain sequences of two or more characters which are adjacent to each other on a keyboard in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal direction. Example: QWERTY is an invalid password. GHNLWT is an invalid password because G and H are horizontally adjacent to each other. HUKWVM is an invalid password because H and U are diagonally adjacent to each other.
7. A password may not contain the name of a person, place, or thing. Example: JOHNBOY is an invalid password.
Because of the complexity of the password selection rules, there is actually only one password which passes all the tests. To make the selection of this password simpler for the user, it will be distributed to all supervisors. All users are instructed to obtain this password from his or her supervisor and begin using it immediately.
Worse, her book reviews read like the summary on the coverflap -- there's *NO* *WAY* this chick is legit! There's probably a whole department of people at a marketing agency writing reviews under the gcooke pseudonym.
Which brings up my final point: It's not the lawyers that are driving the universe into the ground - it's the MARKETING folks!
BUT, in most contracts there is a "severence clause" (I might have the name wrong) that covers this sort of thing. Basically, it sez that if any portion of the contract is voided for any reason, then only that portion is voided - the rest of the contract remains fully in effect.
You entered: toothbrushes
Possible responses: toothbrush
Result: FAIL.
AAAAAAAAAARGH!!! I hate stupid word guessing programs that don't consistently account for common abbreviations and plurals!
Ahh, delightful irony. That would be the point, then, wouldn't it?
In other words, you have to be smarter than the tools you use, so it's pretty stupid to put a computer that is *not* intelligent in charge of deciding the intelligence of others.
This is refreshing - I've been saying this for a while now. I'll even bet MS has Office running on Linux in a lab somewhere in their unbelievably-secret-R&D department. Have you ever known MS to *not* hedge their bets? They'd have bougth Linux outright several years ago if that were possible.
Slashdot Mirror
The receptionist's fingernails.
Marty's clothes, IIRC
Yeah - crackpots do that. It sorta reminds me of that quote/joke/'source unknown truism': "Your Honor, I object to this evidence on the grounds that it makes my client look guilty."
Sorry it's OT, but so is the rest of my life - why should my
Hrumph.
I suspect there is little if any interest in any sort of manned space program. Rather, this is a nice cover for a testing program to work the bugs out of the missle guidance systems Clinton sold to them in the 90's. Notice how the "capsule" is nicely affixed to the top of a "missle". Curious, that. Whether they actually get a man into space is secondary, the real insterest is in being able to control the rocket over long distances.
You are, of course correct. Indeed, such is the origin of "objections" in the courtroom -- you can't appeal if you didn't object in the first place.
[Disclaimer]: One of the unfortunate drawbacks of the internet as a participation media is that rapid-fire post-repost exchanges are fraught with such oversights and omissions due to a necessary lack of proofreading.
Oh, yeah, that and IANAL.
Yeah, we definitely have to stop this water thing in it tracks -- pretty soon everyone will want it!
Yeah, but how many frames per second does it do with FSAA?
**NOTE:
If the Constitution guaranteed an individual's right to unregulated gun ownership, the NRA would be challenging laws like this one and The Brady Bill in the Supreme Court. That is not happening because the NRA knows that they would lose any such challenge. That's why they spend their time and money lobbying (threatening, rewarding, and bribing) Congress to limit gun legislation. If you want to make claims about the Constitution, do some case law research before you do.
You can't just wake up one morning and decide to challenge something in the Supreme Court -- that ain't how it works.
You have to violate the law; then you have to be involved in a trial; Lose it; Appeal on the grounds that the law and/or procedure was not followed correctly; Lose that; Eventually, you appeal to the supreme court on the grounds that the law under which you were tried violates the constitution. **IF** the court decide your case merits consideration, **THEN** you get to do stuff like "challenge laws in the Supreme Court".
It would take the right combination of time, money, and circumstances to do what you propose they just run out and do. Inaction is not sufficient proof that their position is without merit.
Not the same?
.DOC support a "Read-Only" mode? Furthermore, .DOC does a horrible job with page layout (AFAIK, the rules it uses to flow text around embedded images and objects are documented only as lies) **and** you can only distribute, well, Word docs in that format, whereas anything that can be printed can be PDF'd.
Does
I rather think of Acrobat PDF as being closer to the "Crystal Reports" end of the spectrum.
Yeah, I know, preaching to the choir -- just thinking out loud, I guess.
Ugh. IFYP. How about web sites with NO PHONE NUMBERS on their lame-ass "Contact Us" page. (no, the answer *wasn't* in the stupid FAQ.)
NOTE: By the way, **mad** props to Neilson for pointing out how really horrible some of the commercial FAQs are. I hadn't even elucidated that fact until I read his piece.
Nice point. The question you stirred up in *my* head is "what alternatives to PDF are there?"
Yeah, it sucks having to actually "touch" things. :)
The ancient astronaut theory, though not DEBUNKED, has often rested in shaky evidence, assumptions, and outright hoaxes.
One of the properties of a scientific theory is that in principle you can present evedence to refute it. What evidence could I present, in principle, that would refute this theory?
If there is none, then it's not a theory. I just a fairy tale, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny...
Ok, we're getting dangerously close to tickling one of my personal pet peeves, so before I fly off the handle and chastise a number of you in a gentlemanly fashion, let me just point out a couple of things:
1) A *LOT* of folks don't get this -- even a number of people who have some formal scientific training -- but PROCEDURES and EXPERIMENTAL METHODS are the only things that can be "scientific" or "not scientific" based on how they are conducted. When the words "scientific" and "unscientific" are used to describe theories, proofs, evidence, principles or explanations, there is almost always sloppy and incorrect thinking involved somewhere, regardless of what Hollywood is telling you.
2) The scientific method demands that any observations or evidence be accompanied by similar observations on appropriate control groups. Furthermore, such observations or evidence must be independently verified before any facutal conclusions can be drawn.
In short, we may or may not be observing visitors from other worlds, but until we have reproducible evidence and control groups, none of this can be considered science. BTW, so you don't think I'm picking on you just to be a jerk blowing off steam, Mathematics and Computer Programming aren't science either. The results are valid, but must be measured for correctness by a different yardstick than the scientific method.
When I was in college I briefly delivered pizzas for Domino's. One month, their corporate newsletter had a sidebar describing how the Washington D.C. franchises could tell when something important/catastrophic/ominous was happening because orders to particular government buildings went through the roof as people worked late.
Has ask slashdot turned into a fscking software problems/bug report board?
Please be a little more selective; job ads, hormones, wtf news for nerds? - you're better than this guys...
Yeah, what do you think this is, Fark? Next we'll have stuff like "Photoshop this Star Trek convention to add Lego LotR characters."
Yeah, Charlie Sheen's career.
The day HDTV and SmartCards become a requirement is probably the day we stop watching TV shows altogether, though we'll likely keep the TV around for watching movies and playing games and the like. I don't know who they think they're kidding, but the crap they're trying to protect just isn't worth this kind of annoyance.
Case in point - Why do we need 14 channels of HBO in our cable package -- is it so we have more choice? No, it's because exclusivity deals and vertical ownership mean they have to be a Time-Warner billboard. Oh, that and the movies suck, so they have to have 14 channels of it to make it seem like you're getting your money's worth. When I was a kid, we got 1 HBO channel, but they ran primo movies every night, and it was generally worth the subscription fee. Now, it's 14 channels of Sex&City reruns and crap movies from the 80's and (early)90's. Screw them. Don't **EVEN** get me started on "Slowtime" - the premium cable network for morons and the terminally horny.
Now they want me to get a smart card and an encryption ID key for the priviledge of watching Will & Grace? Sorry. I'll do without - It's more fun playing with my wife anyway.
Ditto, and I always thought that STTNG stood out because it was one of the few SCI-FI shows (or movies, for that matter) that put the story ahead of the character interaction (also known as *plot* -- they're two different things, you know.) Sure, the characters fleshed out nicely and later on episodes were able to capitalize on that, but it was motivated by the story, and seldom forced. (Unlike DS9 and the the others, which went out of their way to manufacture stories and plot to justify their hurried and ridiculous character development.)
Author unknown, but it's a classic! (and for once, RELEVANT!)
Worse, her book reviews read like the summary on the coverflap -- there's *NO* *WAY* this chick is legit! There's probably a whole department of people at a marketing agency writing reviews under the gcooke pseudonym.
Which brings up my final point: It's not the lawyers that are driving the universe into the ground - it's the MARKETING folks!
Have you ever checked out the software user-reviews on Spyware Central ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H uhhh, I mean download.com? Talk about pimping for the man!
IANAL!
BUT, in most contracts there is a "severence clause" (I might have the name wrong) that covers this sort of thing. Basically, it sez that if any portion of the contract is voided for any reason, then only that portion is voided - the rest of the contract remains fully in effect.
If you're in the US, why not take 'em to small claims court?
You entered: toothbrushes
Possible responses: toothbrush
Result: FAIL.
AAAAAAAAAARGH!!! I hate stupid word guessing programs that don't
consistently account for common abbreviations and plurals!
Ahh, delightful irony. That would be the point, then, wouldn't it?
In other words, you have to be smarter than the tools you use, so it's pretty stupid to put a computer that is *not* intelligent in charge of deciding the intelligence of others.
This is refreshing - I've been saying this for a while now. I'll even bet MS has Office running on Linux in a lab somewhere in their unbelievably-secret-R&D department. Have you ever known MS to *not* hedge their bets? They'd have bougth Linux outright several years ago if that were possible.
This is not yet a strong enough reason to move to Dallas, though.
Yeah, they're gonna have to throw in something *important* like downloadable ring tones or a Hello Kitty screensaver.