Good point! But although Mom was a librarian by profession, she was a packrat by nature. A lot of the information is organized in binders by family, but there is a lot of looseleaf stuff in bins that doesn't have any apparent structure. Much of it may even be scrap paper, but it's not a call that I'm qualified to make at this stage of the project.
I definitely want to find a document management software/structure that will let me maintain what order exists, while making it possible to add structure to the unorganized documents later on. I'd never seen the NNDB before; your comment and others makes me think that a system like it, or some other sort of wiki, might be very useful for linking the documents together.
Among humans, the "invention" of zero is a lot more than being able to count zero objects. It comes with at least some basic arithmetic, like 0+x=x, x-0=x, and perhaps even x*0=0. Without that, I'm also tempted to dismiss it as a "silly parrot trick".
They tried teaching the parrot math, but every time they got to x/0, the parrot exploded.
Ned Quinn stood back, wiped his hands, and admired the huge bank of dials, light and switches. Several years and many fortunes had gone into this project. Finally it was ready.
Ned placed the metal skullcap on his head and plugged the wires into the control panel. He turned the switch to ON and spoke:
"Pound Note."
There was a whirring sound. In the Receiver a piece of paper appeared. Ned inspected it. Real.
"Martini", he said.
A whirring sound. A puddle formed in the Receiver. Ned cursed silently. He had a lot to learn.
"A bottle of beer", he said.
The whirring sound was followed by the appearance of the familiar brown bottle. Ned tasted the contents and grinned.
Chuckling, he experimented further.
Ned enlarged the Receiver and prepared for his greatest experiment. He switched on the Materialiser, took a deep breath and said,
"Girl."
The whirring sound swelled and faded. In the Receiver stood a lovely girl. She was naked. Ned had not asked for clothing. She had freckles, a brace and pigtails. She was eight years old.
"Hell!" Said Quinn.
Whirr
The fireman found two charred skeletons in the smouldering rubble.
Q: Is Home Taping Killing Music?
A: Yes. Instead of making billions and billions and billions of dollars, the music industry is now making only billions and billions of dollars.
-Matt Groening
Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the French Culinary Institute in New York City on the 12th of January 2022. My pastry instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me this recipe. If...you'd like...to try...it...I...can...prepare...it...for...you..... .
Well, if you climb into space to the world where you live, you better be ready to beat a hasty retreat to the stars...because if this new planet's star starts burning and exploding, then the dust from this distant earth-like planet might just shower over everyone.
I'd love to stay and chat, but I'd better be home soon.
C'mon, surely someone else remembers the episode of Carl Sagan's series "Cosmos" where they did the relativistic motor scooter trick? In a small town in Italy, where the speed of light is only 40 km/hr (strictly enforced!) a young man leaves on a tour of the city at relativistic speeds, leaving his friend and younger brother behind. Sagan describes the effects of blue- and red-shifting, the contraction of the cyclist's length, and the dilation of time. It ends with the young man returning to the place he started, just a few minutes (in his frame of reference) after he left. Sadly, he finds all his friends gone, and only his once-younger brother, now an old man, still waiting for him.
I don't know why, but the bittersweet reunion of the two brothers, as well as the story of the late Wolf Vishniac in the "Blues for a Red Planet" episode, both make me cry.
Good thing the Gorn was a male! But I was wondering...if Kirk met a female computer, would he sleep with it, or try to blow it up? Or would he do both? And in which order? The mind boggles.
Story one: Once, millions of years ago, there was a creature that was almost-not-quite-a-chicken. It bred with another almost-not-quite-a-chicken, and through genetic recombination, produced an egg, a chicken egg, that would hatch to produce the first chicken. Before that egg, there were no true chickens, so the egg came first.
Story two: Once, hundreds of millions of years ago, there was an insect/fish/reptile that laid an egg. There were no chickens around, so again, the egg came first.
Obviously you never watched the original series, which was all about baseball. Remember "The Omega Glory"? Its talk about the "yangs" and the "kohms" is nothing but a thinly veiled reference to the New York Yankees and Commisky Park, home of the Chicago White Sox.
Remember the scene where Kirk holds up the flag and sings the national anthem? Remember the three-run homer by Sulu at the bottom of the fifth? Remember Spock and Sox commentator Harry Caray singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in the seventh inning stretch? Remember Scotty's cry of "Captain, my arm cannae take much more of this!"
Ah, the good old days, before ST:Voyager and MLB:Free Agents. Sigh.
Because they're rovers, Identical rovers, you will find... They look alike, they rove alike, They even calibrate alike! (Should I put this alpha-particle X-ray spectrometer in you...or you? Whoooaaaa!) You will lose your mind! When rovers...are two of a kind!
As a great admirer of Albert Einstein and his scientific and social works, I believe you should find a more appropriate icon for stories which are almost certainly pseudoscience masquerading as science.
I nominate a picture of a spoon, neatly bent at a 90 degree angle, for these stories.
Congratulations on mentioning three stock Slashdot criticisms
Wow, it's like that old "You Bet Your Life" show, where you say the magic word, and the duck comes down and gives you fifty bucks. Except instead of the duck, it's you. And instead of fifty bucks, it's your annoyance. Come to think of it, "You Bet Your Life" was a lot better.
Honestly, what is the obsession with Microsoft Bob and Clippy around here? I don't get it or find it funny.
It's a little-known fact that Clippy doesn't really go away when you click "just type the letter without help". He returns to a background process, where he lives with his wife, two kids, and the "Search Companion" Dog. Microsoft Bob lives there, too...well, he actually lives in a virtual cardboard box behind the "bowling alley" thread.
It's kinda like the Matrix, only less resource-intensive, and without as much "whoa" time.
It could always be worse. If Voyager had a gay episode, it would entail Janeway being exposed to a high concentration of lesbion particles, with the only treatment being a highly experimental, highly dangerous hot tub session with Chakotay...on the Holodeck!
Slashdot Mirror
Good point! But although Mom was a librarian by profession, she was a packrat by nature. A lot of the information is organized in binders by family, but there is a lot of looseleaf stuff in bins that doesn't have any apparent structure. Much of it may even be scrap paper, but it's not a call that I'm qualified to make at this stage of the project.
I definitely want to find a document management software/structure that will let me maintain what order exists, while making it possible to add structure to the unorganized documents later on. I'd never seen the NNDB before; your comment and others makes me think that a system like it, or some other sort of wiki, might be very useful for linking the documents together.
Thanks,
Dexter Riley
Among humans, the "invention" of zero is a lot more than being able to count zero objects. It comes with at least some basic arithmetic, like 0+x=x, x-0=x, and perhaps even x*0=0. Without that, I'm also tempted to dismiss it as a "silly parrot trick".
They tried teaching the parrot math, but every time they got to x/0, the parrot exploded.
A LOT TO LEARN (R T Kurosaka)
The Materialiser was completed.
Ned Quinn stood back, wiped his hands, and admired the huge bank of dials, light and switches. Several years and many fortunes had gone into this project. Finally it was ready.
Ned placed the metal skullcap on his head and plugged the wires into the control panel. He turned the switch to ON and spoke:
"Pound Note."
There was a whirring sound. In the Receiver a piece of paper appeared. Ned inspected it. Real.
"Martini", he said.
A whirring sound. A puddle formed in the Receiver. Ned cursed silently. He had a lot to learn.
"A bottle of beer", he said.
The whirring sound was followed by the appearance of the familiar brown bottle. Ned tasted the contents and grinned.
Chuckling, he experimented further.
Ned enlarged the Receiver and prepared for his greatest experiment. He switched on the Materialiser, took a deep breath and said,
"Girl."
The whirring sound swelled and faded. In the Receiver stood a lovely girl. She was naked. Ned had not asked for clothing. She had freckles, a brace and pigtails. She was eight years old.
"Hell!" Said Quinn.
Whirr
The fireman found two charred skeletons in the smouldering rubble.
I, for one, welcome our new von Neumann probe overlor--hey, quit it! Stop eating my leg...aaaarrrggghhh!!!
Q: Is Home Taping Killing Music?
A: Yes. Instead of making billions and billions and billions of dollars, the music industry is now making only billions and billions of dollars.
-Matt Groening
Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the French Culinary Institute in New York City on the 12th of January 2022. My pastry instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me this recipe. If...you'd like...to try...it...I...can...prepare...it...for...you..... .
Well, if you climb into space to the world where you live, you better be ready to beat a hasty retreat to the stars...because if this new planet's star starts burning and exploding, then the dust from this distant earth-like planet might just shower over everyone.
I'd love to stay and chat, but I'd better be home soon.
...where does Ted fit in?
C'mon, surely someone else remembers the episode of Carl Sagan's series "Cosmos" where they did the relativistic motor scooter trick? In a small town in Italy, where the speed of light is only 40 km/hr (strictly enforced!) a young man leaves on a tour of the city at relativistic speeds, leaving his friend and younger brother behind. Sagan describes the effects of blue- and red-shifting, the contraction of the cyclist's length, and the dilation of time. It ends with the young man returning to the place he started, just a few minutes (in his frame of reference) after he left. Sadly, he finds all his friends gone, and only his once-younger brother, now an old man, still waiting for him.
I don't know why, but the bittersweet reunion of the two brothers, as well as the story of the late Wolf Vishniac in the "Blues for a Red Planet" episode, both make me cry.
Yeah, it would suck to have a flip-top scalp like Data had...
Sorry, pal. I lost my hope after watching "Episode II".
Good thing the Gorn was a male!
But I was wondering...if Kirk met a female computer, would he sleep with it, or try to blow it up? Or would he do both? And in which order? The mind boggles.
The egg came first.
Story one: Once, millions of years ago, there was a creature that was almost-not-quite-a-chicken. It bred with another almost-not-quite-a-chicken, and through genetic recombination, produced an egg, a chicken egg, that would hatch to produce the first chicken. Before that egg, there were no true chickens, so the egg came first.
Story two: Once, hundreds of millions of years ago, there was an insect/fish/reptile that laid an egg. There were no chickens around, so again, the egg came first.
My thoughts exactly. The Federation truly believes in equality among the races...Kirk will beat you up, regardless of species.
Obviously you never watched the original series, which was all about baseball. Remember "The Omega Glory"? Its talk about the "yangs" and the "kohms" is nothing but a thinly veiled reference to the New York Yankees and Commisky Park, home of the Chicago White Sox.
Remember the scene where Kirk holds up the flag and sings the national anthem?
Remember the three-run homer by Sulu at the bottom of the fifth?
Remember Spock and Sox commentator Harry Caray singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in the seventh inning stretch?
Remember Scotty's cry of "Captain, my arm cannae take much more of this!"
Ah, the good old days, before ST:Voyager and MLB:Free Agents. Sigh.
...just a thought.
Because they're rovers,
Identical rovers, you will find...
They look alike, they rove alike,
They even calibrate alike!
(Should I put this alpha-particle X-ray spectrometer in you...or you? Whoooaaaa!)
You will lose your mind!
When rovers...are two of a kind!
Identical Rovers! Tuesdays at 8 on SCTV!
As a great admirer of Albert Einstein and his scientific and social works, I believe you should find a more appropriate icon for stories which are almost certainly pseudoscience masquerading as science.
I nominate a picture of a spoon, neatly bent at a 90 degree angle, for these stories.
Congratulations on mentioning three stock Slashdot criticisms
Wow, it's like that old "You Bet Your Life" show, where you say the magic word, and the duck comes down and gives you fifty bucks. Except instead of the duck, it's you. And instead of fifty bucks, it's your annoyance. Come to think of it, "You Bet Your Life" was a lot better.
Honestly, what is the obsession with Microsoft Bob and Clippy around here? I don't get it or find it funny.
Well, then, you've come to the right place.
It's a little-known fact that Clippy doesn't really go away when you click "just type the letter without help". He returns to a background process, where he lives with his wife, two kids, and the "Search Companion" Dog. Microsoft Bob lives there, too...well, he actually lives in a virtual cardboard box behind the "bowling alley" thread.
It's kinda like the Matrix, only less resource-intensive, and without as much "whoa" time.
Throw in Dean Stockwell, and maaaayybe I'd watch it.
"Sam...uh, I mean, Johnathan, Ziggy says there's an 82.3 percent chance of your being cancelled again!"
without line breaks, my
seventeen syllables will
not a haiku make
Don't laugh! Our forecast: eleven thousand degrees! Crispy critters, all
Only red and blue.
It could always be worse. If Voyager had a gay episode, it would entail Janeway being exposed to a high concentration of lesbion particles, with the only treatment being a highly experimental, highly dangerous hot tub session with Chakotay...on the Holodeck!