Some advice.... this is for anyone in your age group who's reading this now... your body will change. Drugs that you can handle now with ease will have serious effects on you a year from now, two years from now and they will ruin your entire day maybe the entire week... and you'll lose your job, or ruin a relationship or simply do something dumb that you'll regret for a long time.
Be aware. Very aware. Keep notes on what you consider OK now and make sure you never exceed those limits later, cause they will be even more important then than they are now.
Liver function declines rapidly with age.... especially when you abuse it with all sorts of toxins and regular alcohol intake. You won't notice any change but it's happening regardless.
Enjoy your youth but don't fuck up your future by being naive... drugs legal and illegal will take a toll on your health... there has been 50 years and more of drug use by intelligent and thoughtful people... which means there is a lot of experience for you to draw upon, so do the research, pick your poisons and never under-estimate the value of a good detox month every once a year minimum.
Even when I was in high school... the rich kids had tutors their parents paid for... I didn't. I kicked their butts anyways cause tutors don't help with laziness or intelligence...
Still I got bit in the ass when I had to take a 7:30 am Trig/Pre-Calc course cause my schedule was full with other important AP classes that didn't have alternates available... AND the 'teacher' was a college prof who decided to take a break and teach teens... well, she assigned reading material and course work at least, there was little to no teaching actually happening and while the rest of the class learned from their tutors, I having expected to actually learn something in class... ended up with a 60% at the end of the first quarter and just dropped the class rather than deal with that bullshit, which the teacher probably thought was preparing us for college coursework (I was still in 11th grade mind you)...
Moral of the story is that there is more than ten ways to skin a cat... one being performance enhancing drugs... another being paid designated hitters, aka tutors... which is perfectly legit in the real world as well...
Second moral is, where do you draw the line? What is a legitimate competitive advantage that should be applauded and what is a crutch that will end up costing your peers and fellows millions of dollars when you can't live up to the expectations they've hired you to meet.... especially when you've been cutting corners and pulling in expensive experts to do all the heavy lifting to get you there to begin with????
Will a drug taking, tutor taught professional be able to make muster when deadlines are tight and budgets are non-existent? Personally I love seeing golden employees with paper medals of honor burn up in flames when they can't hold up under fire... except when it's my project that was depending on them that is.... which is when I really feel cheated.
This vortex is obviously due to the large numbers of GOOGLE watermarks floating around... I mean, when you zoom in close you can see them all over the place.... and the ocean artifacts... it's worse than JPG compression... no wonder...
My wife, who is caucasian french-italian, grew up in Santa Ana, CA which is one of the largest illegal mexican immigrant barrios in the nation. She is also Catholic and so was exposed not only to the families who lived near her (she didn't live in some gated community either) but also the larger community as a whole AND was very active in community service helping homeless, abused women, elderly, etc.
I've learned from her that yes, there are many good people who come to improve their lives or their family's situation... but there are just as many or more who come here to 'game' the system for all it's worth. Far from being ignorant or helpless... these people take advantage of every social program we have, several times over in fact, through clever loop-holes and blatant lies and fraud... and simply don't care because they have nothing to lose and everything they gain is sent out of the country back to Mexico where they plan to retire after a good decade or so of pilfering our tax money. With the 'income' they receive they can buy a 5 bedroom villa, multiple vehicles and put away enough savings to live very well in Mexico.
This isn't isolated cases.... it's rampant and the people are completely upfront about it if you aren't a government worker or police, etc.... they'll just laugh about it and wink a few times.
Which is what a leader should do. What kind of leadership is it when you sit back and debate the issues forever, long after a good choice has made itself obvious?
That is the republican nature I respect and the lack thereof I find in the Democratic party... who seem to all be armchair quarterbacks... taking credit or placing blame long after the action has been made...
You probably should argue it... cause it is a legitimate alternative comparatively.... seriously... let's give them our poor folk for their poor folk.. I'm cool with that as long as their poor folk are ready to work and feed themselves, beats us doing it for both. It's like saying that software bugs from a 3rd party app are the same as bugs in the OS... yes it's true they both suck but hey we can at least opt to not install the 3rd party software.
Regardless of your intent... remember, 10 billion dollars a year IS NOT BEING COLLECTED FROM ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS each year.
Yes they may pay a portion of that and yes they may be contributing to other areas with their sales tax, gas tax, etc... but they are still a drain on our economy that is not accounted for.
P.S. I love people.. all people... but some people choose to abuse systems put in place to provide emergency services, or choose to put themselves in situations where they must take advantage of such systems, with no regard to the stress they are placing upon said systems..
You sound like a compassionate person... but, you're not helping anyone by hiding your head in the sand. Sorry to be harsh. You have the ability to be a high-level director of operations for tens/hundreds of employed individuals, yet you avoid it actively because you don't want to feel guilty when hard decisions have to be made.
Suck it up! Be honest! Tell all the people who look up to you for leadership that you have a job to do and sometimes it's not easy and that you must be impartial.... and as objective as you can be... being human and all, with emotions and stuff...
They will either understand that you have to do what you have to do and that it's business... not personal, or they won't and there's nothing you could ever do to improve their understanding of abstract organizational mechanics.
If they do understand, then they will also appreciate your honesty and management style. You will gain loyalty on that day. They will goof off occasionally but when you ask them to get shit done... they'll do it with gusto.
Remember also that you have the upper hand with your boss/es... you control a big portion of their operating budget... that is substantial power. If you really know what you're doing.. tell them so, and tell them to go fsck themselves when they get in the way of good management... executives never make good managers... or employees... leaders yes, but they just don't understand process at all.... so tell them so and get on with the job at hand!
Suck it up! there are people out there who need a good supervisor and are suffering because their employer can't find one and has to settle for a bad one....
You know you're out there, you know you got suckered into buying a cheap $10 or $20 wireless webcam from X10 back in the late 90s.... now we all have a way to redeem ourselves;-p
If we all dig out our old, useless X10s and donate them to the Fed, we can surely cover the entire border with motion activated, web enabled video surveillance... there has got to be millions of these little buggers out there... all the fed would have to do is wire them up.
You're probably right... win some lose some. I just assumed that the average reader on/. probably wasn't a Happy Days watcher... Star Trek, Battlestar, sure... but Happy Days? Well maybe outside the US it was required or something, like American culture 101.
It's good to see that Henry Winkler aka Tha Fonz from Happy Days, has left a legacy grander than a thumbs up "ayhhhhh!" and "Jumping the Shark".
For those too young to remember Happy Days, The Fonz was the only one who could get the Juke Box (a music player) to work at the local hangout... and he did so by hitting it.... all sorts of ways, though I don't recall if he ever threw it off a balcony;-p
Hmmm there's no guarantee now and there won't be one in 10 years... so what are you waiting for? It's like looking at a good company's stock price and wondering if it's the right time to buy in... 2 years later and the stock that was at $13.56 is now floating around $63.56.... 2 years wasted on the sidelines. YMMV
Films are finally able to be made Indie style for low budgets and reap huge returns, because you can shoot one with what is now low-cost hardware and relatively low-cost editing suites of software.
Games will arrive at the same point when great game engines (which are starting to crop up) become available for relatively low-cost... ie: you can get a few people together with a good script, a good concept and some decent artists and create a game using off the shelf 3d engines and minorly tweaked, configured game mechanics systems.
Really the console gaming systems should be the target of choice for these ventures, given that they are not a moving target and that there is a lot of known variables.
What is needed is an API and a toolset that doesn't change every year. Then you'll see some game developers spin off and do an Indie game with a few friends and a small budget. Until then it's such a risky venture to develop for a platform that may change dramatically by the time you're ready to release the game, that no one can afford to try.
A computer has peripheral ports and software plugins.... like a printer or a scanner and of course application software.
Why can't our phones have the same options?
Obviously integrated hardware is going to be more compact, etc. as seen in the difference between laptop components and desktop... but with some thought put into modularized hardware the impact could be minimized for a line of phones.
For instance: Nokia could create a standard phone that is just a phone but has a front plane that can be upgraded with a larger screen, optional keypad, etc. and a backplane that includes a standardized port... this port would allow for plugging in a camera module, which could be upgraded to a premium camera module or later on in the product cycle a higher quality standard camera module... additionally, an MP3 player could be added in which also included a form of storage... additionally a large lcd screen could be added, maybe even a slide out keyboard as well...
Each new hardware component would come with software updates... and software could be added to allow for additionaly functionality... ie: with the LCD and Keyboard component you could get a PDA app.
Sure there are some limitations over an integrated and form/function designed single device... but of course they could offer units of this type as well for those who wanted to spend the money and weren't worried about their device becoming outdated withing a single product cycle.
For the rest of us, we could just get a new camera module instead of being stuck with the same 640 x 480 crappy camera quality that wowed us when we bought it but no longer gets used, cause it's just 640 x 480 and really what can you do with that except take bad photos?
You can get this drive: IBM Thinkpad 60GB HDD(STD)5400RPM - 08K9700 for $160.00 on sale now... it's not solid state but it does come with a surprise (note the STD acronymn;-)!!!!!!
"Life is like a box of chocolates, ya neva' know what you gonna get..."
Flash scales to fit it's container... you set it to 100% and it will fill your screen no matter what size it is.
You've got not clue what it is or what it's good for so stop with the mantra... it just proves your narrow POV.
BTW you're talking accessibility, not usability... and I'm absolutely certain at this point that you would not know a usable interface if it bit you in the ass.
Which cult of Perl did you graduate from anywho?
Back to VIM with you codemonkey... or would you prefer emacs.... nevermind, just type monkey type.
You could go get money from people who care... and take your government back. There is an election in 2 years. You have 2 years to get your shit together. Stop complaining, stop 'protesting' and start canvasing... go on a nationwide campaign, just like the politicians do. Set up a non-profit group.. call it something spiffy, like Americans for American Values... don't fall into the trap of only identifying with your core group of supporters, like say calling it the Independent Group or the Green Lovers or whatever...
So, go traveling... tell people what you're trying to do. Let them know how much you care. Convince them you are committed to your platform. Show them well thought out strategies for accomplishing your goals. Use real world numbers. Bring on board a bunch of like-minded experts in various fields of study... the environment, economics, political science, military history, aviation, energy etc. and convince them to write up proposals for improving their industries.
Now run for US Congress or Senate in your state... use the info you've acquired to wow your opponents and win over the electorate. Good you're now a powerful person with connections and new found opportunities.
Travel to other nations and gather international support for your US strategy. Gain access to foreign diplomats through their constituents. Draft agreements with foreign administrative bodies that you can bring back to the US as proof of international accord with your platform.
Do all this and then review it all while you're watching some idiot being elected President for his first term. Now compare what you have accomplished so far with what that guy did to get elected. Did you do enough? Probably not. That's okay, you've got 4 more years to work on it and you have a new standard to live up to and hopefully surpass.
Follow the new guy and his decisions and assign task groups from your newly formed election committee to monitor each relevant area of his policy. Ask the important questions and come up with resolutions that would improve upon the current administration. Send your resolutions to congress with the support of multiple experts in the field both domestic and foreign.
By this point you shouldn't need my roadmap for political success... and it's just a quick summary anyways... but you can see now the steps required to accomplish this task.
Have fun. This is the only way to do what you want done.
And PDFs require a PDF aware reader (on my system I have several), MSWord files require a viewer... some people use MSWord, HTML requires a browser... html without a browser is very difficult to read... there's all this markup in it that gets in the way of the content.... ad nauseum.
So what's your point? Flash needs something that understands it's markup? Sure, yes it does. Ya got me.
The SWF format has improved 3000% over the last 3 years. Text can now easily be rendered as text... selectable, copyable text... imported from an XML stream with fully formed tagsets and everything. Flash is still primarily about interactive graphics but Flex and OpenLazlo are about user interface.
Did you realize that all components and ui elements in both Flex and OpenLazlo are XML declarations? The whole thing is one big XML file with CDATA areas for data bindings to pull in more XML?
It just so happens that the flash plugin can read that XML, interpret a few of the nodes to mean "use this widget to display the following info, w/ the following styles applied", then render it and provide a stateful interface with live asynchronous interactivity.
Should someone write software that will turn this XML into an audible application or convert it for use in braille readers...hell yes, and they will.
I won't write anymore though.... You are ignorant and need to educate yourself before you can have an intelligent conversation about this topic.
When the speed of manufacturing improvements is such that the motherboard isn't out of date by the time a new GPU or CPU comes out that improves performance while maintaining the same heat signature... that's when upgrades in laptops and other small form factor PCs will happen standard.
Until then it will be up to 3rd party niche companies to provide upgrade paths to people who just need a little more performance out of their 2 year old laptop, if the OEMs will allow it.
I don't think this format is for going into your 'fuel tank'
This is the form that hydrogen would take while being transported to the fuel station and while at the fuel station. Then vaccuum or heat would discharge it into a gas form which would then get transferred to your car's fuel cell, the same way current hydrogen cars work (yes there are some out there).
Even if this were to be the form it was distributed in to your car, it would probably come as a self-contained package... ie: a tube or something that would allow the hydrogen to be discharged to the fuel cell for uptake as needed, then closed off again to avoid evaporation.
In any case, you won't be pumping micro-balls into your current form-factor fuel tank. It's obviously not appropriate for this fuel.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't used a mousepad since opticals were available... going on 10 years at least... what's next, buggywhips for our motor-coaches?
Some advice.... this is for anyone in your age group who's reading this now... your body will change. Drugs that you can handle now with ease will have serious effects on you a year from now, two years from now and they will ruin your entire day maybe the entire week... and you'll lose your job, or ruin a relationship or simply do something dumb that you'll regret for a long time.
Be aware. Very aware. Keep notes on what you consider OK now and make sure you never exceed those limits later, cause they will be even more important then than they are now.
Liver function declines rapidly with age.... especially when you abuse it with all sorts of toxins and regular alcohol intake. You won't notice any change but it's happening regardless.
Enjoy your youth but don't fuck up your future by being naive... drugs legal and illegal will take a toll on your health... there has been 50 years and more of drug use by intelligent and thoughtful people... which means there is a lot of experience for you to draw upon, so do the research, pick your poisons and never under-estimate the value of a good detox month every once a year minimum.
Even when I was in high school... the rich kids had tutors their parents paid for... I didn't. I kicked their butts anyways cause tutors don't help with laziness or intelligence...
Still I got bit in the ass when I had to take a 7:30 am Trig/Pre-Calc course cause my schedule was full with other important AP classes that didn't have alternates available... AND the 'teacher' was a college prof who decided to take a break and teach teens... well, she assigned reading material and course work at least, there was little to no teaching actually happening and while the rest of the class learned from their tutors, I having expected to actually learn something in class... ended up with a 60% at the end of the first quarter and just dropped the class rather than deal with that bullshit, which the teacher probably thought was preparing us for college coursework (I was still in 11th grade mind you)...
Moral of the story is that there is more than ten ways to skin a cat... one being performance enhancing drugs... another being paid designated hitters, aka tutors... which is perfectly legit in the real world as well...
Second moral is, where do you draw the line? What is a legitimate competitive advantage that should be applauded and what is a crutch that will end up costing your peers and fellows millions of dollars when you can't live up to the expectations they've hired you to meet.... especially when you've been cutting corners and pulling in expensive experts to do all the heavy lifting to get you there to begin with????
Will a drug taking, tutor taught professional be able to make muster when deadlines are tight and budgets are non-existent? Personally I love seeing golden employees with paper medals of honor burn up in flames when they can't hold up under fire... except when it's my project that was depending on them that is.... which is when I really feel cheated.
This vortex is obviously due to the large numbers of GOOGLE watermarks floating around... I mean, when you zoom in close you can see them all over the place.... and the ocean artifacts... it's worse than JPG compression... no wonder...
My wife, who is caucasian french-italian, grew up in Santa Ana, CA which is one of the largest illegal mexican immigrant barrios in the nation. She is also Catholic and so was exposed not only to the families who lived near her (she didn't live in some gated community either) but also the larger community as a whole AND was very active in community service helping homeless, abused women, elderly, etc.
I've learned from her that yes, there are many good people who come to improve their lives or their family's situation... but there are just as many or more who come here to 'game' the system for all it's worth. Far from being ignorant or helpless... these people take advantage of every social program we have, several times over in fact, through clever loop-holes and blatant lies and fraud... and simply don't care because they have nothing to lose and everything they gain is sent out of the country back to Mexico where they plan to retire after a good decade or so of pilfering our tax money. With the 'income' they receive they can buy a 5 bedroom villa, multiple vehicles and put away enough savings to live very well in Mexico.
This isn't isolated cases.... it's rampant and the people are completely upfront about it if you aren't a government worker or police, etc.... they'll just laugh about it and wink a few times.
Which is what a leader should do. What kind of leadership is it when you sit back and debate the issues forever, long after a good choice has made itself obvious?
That is the republican nature I respect and the lack thereof I find in the Democratic party... who seem to all be armchair quarterbacks... taking credit or placing blame long after the action has been made...
You probably should argue it... cause it is a legitimate alternative comparatively.... seriously... let's give them our poor folk for their poor folk.. I'm cool with that as long as their poor folk are ready to work and feed themselves, beats us doing it for both. It's like saying that software bugs from a 3rd party app are the same as bugs in the OS... yes it's true they both suck but hey we can at least opt to not install the 3rd party software.
Regardless of your intent... remember, 10 billion dollars a year IS NOT BEING COLLECTED FROM ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS each year.
Yes they may pay a portion of that and yes they may be contributing to other areas with their sales tax, gas tax, etc... but they are still a drain on our economy that is not accounted for.
P.S. I love people.. all people... but some people choose to abuse systems put in place to provide emergency services, or choose to put themselves in situations where they must take advantage of such systems, with no regard to the stress they are placing upon said systems..
You sound like a compassionate person... but, you're not helping anyone by hiding your head in the sand. Sorry to be harsh. You have the ability to be a high-level director of operations for tens/hundreds of employed individuals, yet you avoid it actively because you don't want to feel guilty when hard decisions have to be made.
Suck it up! Be honest! Tell all the people who look up to you for leadership that you have a job to do and sometimes it's not easy and that you must be impartial.... and as objective as you can be... being human and all, with emotions and stuff...
They will either understand that you have to do what you have to do and that it's business... not personal, or they won't and there's nothing you could ever do to improve their understanding of abstract organizational mechanics.
If they do understand, then they will also appreciate your honesty and management style. You will gain loyalty on that day. They will goof off occasionally but when you ask them to get shit done... they'll do it with gusto.
Remember also that you have the upper hand with your boss/es... you control a big portion of their operating budget... that is substantial power. If you really know what you're doing.. tell them so, and tell them to go fsck themselves when they get in the way of good management... executives never make good managers... or employees... leaders yes, but they just don't understand process at all.... so tell them so and get on with the job at hand!
Suck it up! there are people out there who need a good supervisor and are suffering because their employer can't find one and has to settle for a bad one....
The original article is on IHT, my favorite news site...
m p3.php
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/01/yourmoney/
I didn't read the NYT article but seeing that the author listed is from IHT I assume they've just syndicated it, in full hopefully.
Trust me... any significant decision will always follow the money!
You know you're out there, you know you got suckered into buying a cheap $10 or $20 wireless webcam from X10 back in the late 90s.... now we all have a way to redeem ourselves ;-p
If we all dig out our old, useless X10s and donate them to the Fed, we can surely cover the entire border with motion activated, web enabled video surveillance... there has got to be millions of these little buggers out there... all the fed would have to do is wire them up.
You're probably right... win some lose some. I just assumed that the average reader on /. probably wasn't a Happy Days watcher... Star Trek, Battlestar, sure... but Happy Days? Well maybe outside the US it was required or something, like American culture 101.
It's good to see that Henry Winkler aka Tha Fonz from Happy Days, has left a legacy grander than a thumbs up "ayhhhhh!" and "Jumping the Shark".
;-p
For those too young to remember Happy Days, The Fonz was the only one who could get the Juke Box (a music player) to work at the local hangout... and he did so by hitting it.... all sorts of ways, though I don't recall if he ever threw it off a balcony
Hmmm there's no guarantee now and there won't be one in 10 years... so what are you waiting for? It's like looking at a good company's stock price and wondering if it's the right time to buy in... 2 years later and the stock that was at $13.56 is now floating around $63.56.... 2 years wasted on the sidelines. YMMV
Films are finally able to be made Indie style for low budgets and reap huge returns, because you can shoot one with what is now low-cost hardware and relatively low-cost editing suites of software.
Games will arrive at the same point when great game engines (which are starting to crop up) become available for relatively low-cost... ie: you can get a few people together with a good script, a good concept and some decent artists and create a game using off the shelf 3d engines and minorly tweaked, configured game mechanics systems.
Really the console gaming systems should be the target of choice for these ventures, given that they are not a moving target and that there is a lot of known variables.
What is needed is an API and a toolset that doesn't change every year. Then you'll see some game developers spin off and do an Indie game with a few friends and a small budget. Until then it's such a risky venture to develop for a platform that may change dramatically by the time you're ready to release the game, that no one can afford to try.
A computer has peripheral ports and software plugins.... like a printer or a scanner and of course application software.
Why can't our phones have the same options?
Obviously integrated hardware is going to be more compact, etc. as seen in the difference between laptop components and desktop... but with some thought put into modularized hardware the impact could be minimized for a line of phones.
For instance: Nokia could create a standard phone that is just a phone but has a front plane that can be upgraded with a larger screen, optional keypad, etc. and a backplane that includes a standardized port... this port would allow for plugging in a camera module, which could be upgraded to a premium camera module or later on in the product cycle a higher quality standard camera module... additionally, an MP3 player could be added in which also included a form of storage... additionally a large lcd screen could be added, maybe even a slide out keyboard as well...
Each new hardware component would come with software updates... and software could be added to allow for additionaly functionality... ie: with the LCD and Keyboard component you could get a PDA app.
Sure there are some limitations over an integrated and form/function designed single device... but of course they could offer units of this type as well for those who wanted to spend the money and weren't worried about their device becoming outdated withing a single product cycle.
For the rest of us, we could just get a new camera module instead of being stuck with the same 640 x 480 crappy camera quality that wowed us when we bought it but no longer gets used, cause it's just 640 x 480 and really what can you do with that except take bad photos?
Just move to Japan... as long as you don't mind living in a 10 x 6 'apartment' you should be in heaven! ;-p
You can get this drive: IBM Thinkpad 60GB HDD(STD)5400RPM - 08K9700 for $160.00 on sale now... it's not solid state but it does come with a surprise (note the STD acronymn ;-)!!!!!!
"Life is like a box of chocolates, ya neva' know what you gonna get..."
You're such a rube...... again, ignorance.
Flash scales to fit it's container... you set it to 100% and it will fill your screen no matter what size it is.
You've got not clue what it is or what it's good for so stop with the mantra... it just proves your narrow POV.
BTW you're talking accessibility, not usability... and I'm absolutely certain at this point that you would not know a usable interface if it bit you in the ass.
Which cult of Perl did you graduate from anywho?
Back to VIM with you codemonkey... or would you prefer emacs.... nevermind, just type monkey type.
You could go get money from people who care... and take your government back. There is an election in 2 years. You have 2 years to get your shit together. Stop complaining, stop 'protesting' and start canvasing... go on a nationwide campaign, just like the politicians do. Set up a non-profit group.. call it something spiffy, like Americans for American Values... don't fall into the trap of only identifying with your core group of supporters, like say calling it the Independent Group or the Green Lovers or whatever...
So, go traveling... tell people what you're trying to do. Let them know how much you care. Convince them you are committed to your platform. Show them well thought out strategies for accomplishing your goals. Use real world numbers. Bring on board a bunch of like-minded experts in various fields of study... the environment, economics, political science, military history, aviation, energy etc. and convince them to write up proposals for improving their industries.
Now run for US Congress or Senate in your state... use the info you've acquired to wow your opponents and win over the electorate. Good you're now a powerful person with connections and new found opportunities.
Travel to other nations and gather international support for your US strategy. Gain access to foreign diplomats through their constituents. Draft agreements with foreign administrative bodies that you can bring back to the US as proof of international accord with your platform.
Do all this and then review it all while you're watching some idiot being elected President for his first term. Now compare what you have accomplished so far with what that guy did to get elected. Did you do enough? Probably not. That's okay, you've got 4 more years to work on it and you have a new standard to live up to and hopefully surpass.
Follow the new guy and his decisions and assign task groups from your newly formed election committee to monitor each relevant area of his policy. Ask the important questions and come up with resolutions that would improve upon the current administration. Send your resolutions to congress with the support of multiple experts in the field both domestic and foreign.
By this point you shouldn't need my roadmap for political success... and it's just a quick summary anyways... but you can see now the steps required to accomplish this task.
Have fun. This is the only way to do what you want done.
And PDFs require a PDF aware reader (on my system I have several), MSWord files require a viewer... some people use MSWord, HTML requires a browser... html without a browser is very difficult to read... there's all this markup in it that gets in the way of the content.... ad nauseum.
So what's your point? Flash needs something that understands it's markup? Sure, yes it does. Ya got me.
The SWF format has improved 3000% over the last 3 years. Text can now easily be rendered as text... selectable, copyable text... imported from an XML stream with fully formed tagsets and everything. Flash is still primarily about interactive graphics but Flex and OpenLazlo are about user interface.
Did you realize that all components and ui elements in both Flex and OpenLazlo are XML declarations? The whole thing is one big XML file with CDATA areas for data bindings to pull in more XML?
It just so happens that the flash plugin can read that XML, interpret a few of the nodes to mean "use this widget to display the following info, w/ the following styles applied", then render it and provide a stateful interface with live asynchronous interactivity.
Should someone write software that will turn this XML into an audible application or convert it for use in braille readers...hell yes, and they will.
I won't write anymore though.... You are ignorant and need to educate yourself before you can have an intelligent conversation about this topic.
When the speed of manufacturing improvements is such that the motherboard isn't out of date by the time a new GPU or CPU comes out that improves performance while maintaining the same heat signature... that's when upgrades in laptops and other small form factor PCs will happen standard.
Until then it will be up to 3rd party niche companies to provide upgrade paths to people who just need a little more performance out of their 2 year old laptop, if the OEMs will allow it.
Now we finally know what ENERGON cubes were made of...... and why they were plentiful on Cybertron but scarce on Earth.... palladium.
Man those crazy Japanese animators had it all figured out, way back in the 80s
amazing!
I don't think this format is for going into your 'fuel tank'
This is the form that hydrogen would take while being transported to the fuel station and while at the fuel station. Then vaccuum or heat would discharge it into a gas form which would then get transferred to your car's fuel cell, the same way current hydrogen cars work (yes there are some out there).
Even if this were to be the form it was distributed in to your car, it would probably come as a self-contained package... ie: a tube or something that would allow the hydrogen to be discharged to the fuel cell for uptake as needed, then closed off again to avoid evaporation.
In any case, you won't be pumping micro-balls into your current form-factor fuel tank. It's obviously not appropriate for this fuel.