Why climb, when paintball guns are available at WalMart and other handy stores?? Gives a whole new meaning to calling "Shotgun!!" Just lay a few paintballs on the display as you drive by...
There was a scrolling-message board attached to a big sign near where I live. The sign was advertising something like a new hotel/casino complex being build on the land behind the sign. The problem I had with it was that it uses red lamps (or giant red LEDs, maybe) and the message wasn't just static - it flashed on and off a few times for each 'page'. This made it look a lot like brake lights at the side of the road and, worse, it reflected off nearby vehicles, making it look like they were braking.
That was bad enough, but the crowning stupidity, for which (possibly) the board was legally shutdown, was that it was right at the top of a ramp onto the highway. So, you're roaring up the ramp (uphill!) trying to get up to highway cruising speed to merge with a couple of 18-wheelers, dividing your attention between other vehicles on the ramp and the oncoming juggernauts and suddenly there's this row of red, flashing lights demanding attention...
I swear, if it hadn't been shutdown within a couple of days, I might have made a special trip to WalMart to get a baseball bat or a can of spray paint... Dumbasses put the flashing sign at waist-height, too, so it wouldn't have been difficult to deal with.
Did no one tell this idiot that he has a choice over what he buys?
Isn't it possible that he doesn't actually buy all the stuff he's bitching about?? A little clicking around on the GlobeTechnology web site produced this about "The Chic Geek" column that Johnson writes:
The Chic Geek is dedicated to some of the more notable gadgets and technology the globetechnology.com team encounters, from awesome to oddball, during the course of its tech coverage.
The author, IAN JOHNSON, is editor of Globetechnology.com and has been covering technology for more than a decade. An avid video gamer and gadget enthusiast who builds PCs and small networks for fun, he spends FAR too much time with computers, according to his wife and children.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of his gadgets (maybe most of them) turned out to be freebies for review.
Now there's an idea - NASA could do this kind of shoot regularly, to make the moon ring like a bell. Whack it in different places and they'd build up a picture of the inner composition. Or did they do that enough already??
My daughter did it too - our solution was two foam rubber bricks taped together with an egg-shaped hole in the middle. Dropped off a two story building, it was one of the few survivors.
inability of society to think about something for more than a few moments
Not to mention the "bread and circuses" aspect of news reporting. The Romans found that the common people were easy to control provided they were fed and entertained. The Roman "circus" features of gladiators and wild animals killing minimally trained slaves is generally translated by today's media into reportage on murders, accidents and various wars around the world.
Thanks. I would, but the only camera I have (Pentax 35mm still camera) doesn't really need it...
Still, I suppose it might be worth pursuing the cheapness angle and get one of those $11 Dakota digital cameras, which apparently can be put into webcam mode using the Linux driver. One of those, with a homemade steadicam and a backpack laptop... However, my laptop battery's fucked, so I get about 3 minutes runtime when off mains power. Sigh... I have *got* to get a tax refund next year...:)
Even something the size of one of those little string-powered gyroscopes has a noticeable effect without too much weight. Mount one alongside the camera with a small motor to keep it spun up, and hang a coupla pounds of batteries instead of the weight. Run wires up the hollow pipe handle.
Could even put the motor down with the batteries and use some kind of flexible drive cable, similar to the cable that drives the speedometer in a car.
For example, when I was going to use the latest version Knoppix a bit, the entire OS froze when I tried to access my hard drive. Maybe it didn't support Serial ATA? So I tried to look this up, and it boiled down to having to know which SATA controller my motherboard had
Perhaps the "Microsoft-killer" will be better cooperation between hardware manufacturers and FOSS?? If they'd just put out Linux compatible drivers alongside the Windows drivers, then it would be easier to get people like you to switch. That's not meant to be a perjorative. By "people like you" I mean people who are prepared to check out Knoppix but are defeated by driver compatibility.
The sad fact is, though, that MS would respond to such by simply dropping the XYZ Company's drivers, or perhaps by deliberately lagging behind and providing buggy drivers. After a couple of "examples" the rest would keep their drivers and/or APIs under wraps or risk going out of business.
This is not unlike the MSDOS tax (put DOS on every box, or forfeit your discount) levied against all PC manufacturers, so don't think they wouldn't do it.
Is there a way to get the EULA printed out to be able to send it to Legal? Or would I have to arrange to have Legal present for every MS installation? I lean towards the latter, as that would give Legal more to bitch about...
can't just take a disk off a friend with some data they saved from some proprietary Windows-based software and expect it to open in Linux
You can't even expect it to open in a different version of the same Windows program... This is Cringely's "treadmill", where he says that Microsoft's goal is to get people onto the MS treadmill, then crank up the speed so that those people don't have time to look at alternatives.
The example he gives is that of a company that puts their MS Office upgrade on hold while pursuing other projects. MS hands the CEO a "free" copy of the latest Office, whereupon any docs sent out by said CEO are unreadable by the rest of the company. After a number of "save it in XYZ format" complaints, he orders the Office upgrade.
And that's a bad thing? The $14 one shown here has a 2.5lb barbell weight attached. Why not make part of that weight a gyroscope and put the remainder into batteries/motor?
speed limits (for the most part--though there are exceptions) are set unreasonably low
There's a section of road like that near here. Dead straight, mostly level with visibility well over a mile, no stop signs and *two* lanes in each direction - speed limit is 40mph. The road that runs past my house is one lane each way, with stops signs every mile and bumpy enough that visibility is 1/2 mile - speed limit 50mph.
I really don't understand the logic behind that. I think the faster road has *more* neighborhoods off it than the slower one...
...would require an unfeasible number of police and police cars to maintain a regular presence...
There was a news item around here recently that talked about the local police force leaving cars parked up at the side of a busy street. As a deterrent, the empty car worked pretty well - by the time a speeding driver sees that it's empty. he's already slowed down to a sensible speed.
Problem was that people kept calling in to the precinct telling them about the "unattended" car, suggesting that the officer might be in trouble. So, now they're putting mannequins (or possibly inflatable dummies) in the cars.
I guess they don't even need to be fully operational cars - a basically white car, maybe with black doors and/or a shield and a light bar on the roof would do it.
Every day, dozens of stuntmen in Hollywood are shot, knifed, burnt and blown up, with surprisingly few deaths. What makes you think this particular footage is real??
Unless the machines are produced in a truly open fashion...
And even then, how is any random voter (geek or not) going to be reassured that the proper, open software is what's actually running on the machine he's touching??
I'm sure we can all think up tricky ways to very the code - maybe provide a "verify code" button which prompts for a passphrase, then generates a hash using that and the software, providing a printout that the voter could verify against a secure web page, using the same passphrase. That would work unless you're paranoid enough to think that maybe there's a second eprom in there that's actually handling the machine, checksumming against the original, unused version...
No, I think it's pencil-and-paper time again. Can anyone think of a really pressing need to use some kind of electronic vote machine, other than the "we can declare the result instantly!" reason?? I venture to suggest that voter confidence in an honest election ought to outweigh any "instant win!".
Sadly, society in this country has been pushed more and more towards instant gratification for minimal investment. Instead of wielding a pencil to make a mark you now barely have to touch the display. Instead of waiting a day or two for the results, you can watch the numerous "results" shows on TV as they attempt to predict the winners.
Election reforms I'd propose: 1) Pencil and paper ballots; 2) Absolute blackout of media coverage, at least until the polls close *all* over the country. None of that instant win crap on the East Coast while West Coast, Alaska & Hawaii voters are still making up their minds...
The Tatooine scenes were filmed in Tunisia. There is a town in Tunisia called "Tatahouine". Some of the interiors of Luke's house were filmed in a hotel in Tunisia, but the exterior is an actual home in the village of Matmata, where caves and craters have been inhabited for a long time.
So, the desert really ought to be convincing because, well, it reall is desert...
Ordinary, uncleansed water is much easier to obtain than safe, drinkable water.
But, using several of these pot devices, uncleansed water could be made relatively safe to drink. Set up first pot as described in the invention, then set up a second pot with a condensation coil. Arrange for airflow over first pot to pass through the coil in the second pot. Evaporated water will condense out of the chilled air into a container. You'd need to keep both pots damp, and it wouldn't provide a vast supply of water, but it ought to work.
Is this the same as the gas-powered fridge? Friend of mine had one on a narrow-boat on the Thames. It ran off the same gas bottle as the cooker. Just crack the valve and light a pilot light to burn off the escaping gas.
Mind you, I always assumed it worked by adiabatic expansion of the gas in a chamber in the ice box - kinda like a regular fridge, except that the refrigerant is burned off instead of being recompressed and pumped back around. the system.
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Why climb, when paintball guns are available at WalMart and other handy stores?? Gives a whole new meaning to calling "Shotgun!!" Just lay a few paintballs on the display as you drive by...
That was bad enough, but the crowning stupidity, for which (possibly) the board was legally shutdown, was that it was right at the top of a ramp onto the highway. So, you're roaring up the ramp (uphill!) trying to get up to highway cruising speed to merge with a couple of 18-wheelers, dividing your attention between other vehicles on the ramp and the oncoming juggernauts and suddenly there's this row of red, flashing lights demanding attention...
I swear, if it hadn't been shutdown within a couple of days, I might have made a special trip to WalMart to get a baseball bat or a can of spray paint... Dumbasses put the flashing sign at waist-height, too, so it wouldn't have been difficult to deal with.
Yeah, that's kinda where I was going with that... :)
Isn't it possible that he doesn't actually buy all the stuff he's bitching about?? A little clicking around on the GlobeTechnology web site produced this about "The Chic Geek" column that Johnson writes:
I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of his gadgets (maybe most of them) turned out to be freebies for review.
Now there's an idea - NASA could do this kind of shoot regularly, to make the moon ring like a bell. Whack it in different places and they'd build up a picture of the inner composition. Or did they do that enough already??
Didn't NASA come back with, "Sure thing bud! We'll forward a check to Eros right away. Good luck picking it up..."
Don't have to send all of him... Just a few representative parts, such as his head.
My daughter did it too - our solution was two foam rubber bricks taped together with an egg-shaped hole in the middle. Dropped off a two story building, it was one of the few survivors.
Not to mention the "bread and circuses" aspect of news reporting. The Romans found that the common people were easy to control provided they were fed and entertained. The Roman "circus" features of gladiators and wild animals killing minimally trained slaves is generally translated by today's media into reportage on murders, accidents and various wars around the world.
Still, I suppose it might be worth pursuing the cheapness angle and get one of those $11 Dakota digital cameras, which apparently can be put into webcam mode using the Linux driver. One of those, with a homemade steadicam and a backpack laptop... However, my laptop battery's fucked, so I get about 3 minutes runtime when off mains power. Sigh... I have *got* to get a tax refund next year... :)
Could even put the motor down with the batteries and use some kind of flexible drive cable, similar to the cable that drives the speedometer in a car.
Perhaps the "Microsoft-killer" will be better cooperation between hardware manufacturers and FOSS?? If they'd just put out Linux compatible drivers alongside the Windows drivers, then it would be easier to get people like you to switch. That's not meant to be a perjorative. By "people like you" I mean people who are prepared to check out Knoppix but are defeated by driver compatibility.
The sad fact is, though, that MS would respond to such by simply dropping the XYZ Company's drivers, or perhaps by deliberately lagging behind and providing buggy drivers. After a couple of "examples" the rest would keep their drivers and/or APIs under wraps or risk going out of business.
This is not unlike the MSDOS tax (put DOS on every box, or forfeit your discount) levied against all PC manufacturers, so don't think they wouldn't do it.
Is there a way to get the EULA printed out to be able to send it to Legal? Or would I have to arrange to have Legal present for every MS installation? I lean towards the latter, as that would give Legal more to bitch about...
You can't even expect it to open in a different version of the same Windows program... This is Cringely's "treadmill", where he says that Microsoft's goal is to get people onto the MS treadmill, then crank up the speed so that those people don't have time to look at alternatives.
The example he gives is that of a company that puts their MS Office upgrade on hold while pursuing other projects. MS hands the CEO a "free" copy of the latest Office, whereupon any docs sent out by said CEO are unreadable by the rest of the company. After a number of "save it in XYZ format" complaints, he orders the Office upgrade.
Is that a typo, or a piece of camera-operators jargon I haven't heard before?
And that's a bad thing? The $14 one shown here has a 2.5lb barbell weight attached. Why not make part of that weight a gyroscope and put the remainder into batteries/motor?
There's a section of road like that near here. Dead straight, mostly level with visibility well over a mile, no stop signs and *two* lanes in each direction - speed limit is 40mph. The road that runs past my house is one lane each way, with stops signs every mile and bumpy enough that visibility is 1/2 mile - speed limit 50mph.
I really don't understand the logic behind that. I think the faster road has *more* neighborhoods off it than the slower one...
There was a news item around here recently that talked about the local police force leaving cars parked up at the side of a busy street. As a deterrent, the empty car worked pretty well - by the time a speeding driver sees that it's empty. he's already slowed down to a sensible speed.
Problem was that people kept calling in to the precinct telling them about the "unattended" car, suggesting that the officer might be in trouble. So, now they're putting mannequins (or possibly inflatable dummies) in the cars.
I guess they don't even need to be fully operational cars - a basically white car, maybe with black doors and/or a shield and a light bar on the roof would do it.
Every day, dozens of stuntmen in Hollywood are shot, knifed, burnt and blown up, with surprisingly few deaths. What makes you think this particular footage is real??
Maryland as well, huh? In Comal County, in 2002, three candidates for three different posts each got exactly 18,181 votes.
And even then, how is any random voter (geek or not) going to be reassured that the proper, open software is what's actually running on the machine he's touching??
I'm sure we can all think up tricky ways to very the code - maybe provide a "verify code" button which prompts for a passphrase, then generates a hash using that and the software, providing a printout that the voter could verify against a secure web page, using the same passphrase. That would work unless you're paranoid enough to think that maybe there's a second eprom in there that's actually handling the machine, checksumming against the original, unused version...
No, I think it's pencil-and-paper time again. Can anyone think of a really pressing need to use some kind of electronic vote machine, other than the "we can declare the result instantly!" reason?? I venture to suggest that voter confidence in an honest election ought to outweigh any "instant win!".
Sadly, society in this country has been pushed more and more towards instant gratification for minimal investment. Instead of wielding a pencil to make a mark you now barely have to touch the display. Instead of waiting a day or two for the results, you can watch the numerous "results" shows on TV as they attempt to predict the winners.
Election reforms I'd propose: 1) Pencil and paper ballots; 2) Absolute blackout of media coverage, at least until the polls close *all* over the country. None of that instant win crap on the East Coast while West Coast, Alaska & Hawaii voters are still making up their minds...
How about oriface, as in "shoving it down their throats until they choke"...
According to Stars Wars Trivia at IMDB:
So, the desert really ought to be convincing because, well, it reall is desert...But, using several of these pot devices, uncleansed water could be made relatively safe to drink. Set up first pot as described in the invention, then set up a second pot with a condensation coil. Arrange for airflow over first pot to pass through the coil in the second pot. Evaporated water will condense out of the chilled air into a container. You'd need to keep both pots damp, and it wouldn't provide a vast supply of water, but it ought to work.
Mind you, I always assumed it worked by adiabatic expansion of the gas in a chamber in the ice box - kinda like a regular fridge, except that the refrigerant is burned off instead of being recompressed and pumped back around. the system.