And Iron Man was originally created (artistically, at least) by Don Heck. Kirby worked on some of the early Tales of Suspense, but Heck designed the basic premise of the character.
Jeff Atwood makes a valid point: writing software is craftsmanship and not engineering. And that's why there's so much crappy, buggy, bloated, nearly unusable software. It SHOULD be engineering.
And the most stable software ever written is engineered. And it's never crashed once. It's the flight control software for the Space Shuttle.
Agreed.
But what I can't figure out is why it's taking so long. Relational databases are nothing new and revolutionary. Nor is content indexing.
As WinFS is still NTFS at it's core, with a bunch of new APIs, it shouldn't be the big showstopper it appears to be.
And the other thing I can't figure is: why bother? There is already meta data fields in NTFS and very few people use them. And it seems that only a handful of software publishers both putting more than the most rudimentary data in them.
Many of the apps that would benefit from stuff like this, already have their own meta data search engines built in. So why clutter up the OS with this?
I agree that their older phones were far better than their current line. They were ugly, but very solid, and decent or exceptional battery life, and just kept working and working and working.
The company I work for just reissued us new cellphones, and they got stuck with some piece of crap Korean clamshell phone. Businesses buy the service, not the phone, so they don't care what the phone unit itself is like.
What plantform?
DOS Word had versions in 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, and 5.0 and 5.1
Mac Word had versions in several different iterations, I remember that 3.x was particularly buggy. Don't remember if there was a 4.x, but 5.1 was nice.
In Windows, there was Word 1, 1.1, 2.x and then they jumped to 6.0 to bring it into the same numbering sequence as the Mac version.
The asteroid belt. Mine the damn things, and a few comets too, and pay for all the rest of the exploration you'd ever want, manned or unmanned anywhere in the freaking solar system and beyond.
The net energy cost to get to the asteroid belt is actually less than for Mars because you wouldn't have a large gravity well that you'd have to climb back out of to return to Earth.
And on the return trip, you'd have more than just a bunch of science experiments with you--you'd have raw materials that can be used in industry. The comets may very well have compounds that are unknown on Earth, the asteroids may have precious metals. And if not, at least you'd have a large supply of iron and nickel that can be mined without destroying anymore of the Earth's biosphere.
And the whole living in space thing can be worked out just as easily heading out to the asteroids as it can be going to Mars.
How long before PCs become the preferred e-book reader platform? It's already been years for some applications.
Aircraft mechanics have been using wearable PCs for years for this sort of thing. The military has been using hardened PCs (laptops and palmtops) for years for electronic reference materials (and other uses).
I think they still have a long way to go, but tablet PCs are a move in the right direction. Not exactly the best e-book format, but better than PDAs.
In Nevada, the source code for any legal game is reviewed by the state Gaming Control Board before approval. So it's pretty tough (but not impossible!) for a programmer to add such twists.
And when a really big jackpot is hit, the casinos have internal audit personnel that tear the machine apart to check for any sort of tampering. At this time, they also review the chips to make sure they are approved chips.
Many Nevada casinos advertize 98% payback, but by law, the payout can be as low as something like 78% (not sure the exact amount, but it's down in the 70's); which means on the average, the casino makes a lot more money than just a few pennies. The payback for some table games is even worse (some are better... in Blackjack, the odds constantly shift back and forth between the player and the casino).
I work for a company that makes a computer system that interfaces to slot machines; I get to play slots everyday... A good job if you can get it;-)
I also have friends that work in casinos and for actual slot manufacturers. I'm not a mathmetics expert, nor even a gaming expert, but I do sorta know a bit about it.
If anyone's interested, you can check out all the rules and regulations at:
http://gaming.state.nv.us/
This episode was just a rip-off of the TNG episode where Riker got the hots for the "person" (although clearly played as a female) from the non-gendered race. He tried to interfere and Picard didn't even reprimand him... at least Trip got a "stern talking to".
A very very good point. Way too much code is written with little or no forethought and programmers would really benefit from learning to do stuff the "old-fashioned way."
I know people who routinely launch H, I, J, K, L, and M engines every weekend... Check out the Tripoli website for more about high-powered model rocketry.
www.tripoli.org
I had a 1988 Ford Festiva that ran just fine for over 12 years. I replaced batteries, tires, etc., but otherwise it was still purring along just fine when I sold it. Given that it was a cheapo econo-box, I never expected it to last three years.
I have a 20-year old credit card sized Casio calculator that works just fine.
Other things that I still marvel at: The B-52, U-2, and SR-71. I seriously doubt that the F-22 or the JSF will still be flying 40+ years from now.
Plain old paper seems to never die. As do black and white photographs. Paper's been around for THOUSANDS of years, and archelogists can still read what was written those milliena ago! Black and white photographs, properly developed and stored, will last several hundred years. Those digital pictures from your hot new digi-cam wouldn't be around in even 5 or 10 without constant maintenance...
Hoover Dam just keeps getting stronger and stronger... part of the magic of concrete.
With all the bio-tech and new pharmaeticals, it's amazing that the 100-year+ old ASPIRIN still has new uses.
I've still got some stainless steel pots that look brand new even after 25 years....
I could keep thinking of stuff, but many are already mentioned here.
Mr. Shatner,
Given that the mid '60s gave us any number of cult TV classics, could you see yourself playing some of these other roles? Perhaps as Batman or James West?
(I've always had this idea that you, Adam West, and Robert Conrad were versatile enough as actors that any one of you could have handled any of these roles. I think it'd be a hoot to have seen Conrad or West as Capt. Kirk and you or Conrad as Batman.)
I seem to remember reading something about the time Shatner's first TekWar novel came out that he wrote in long hand on yellow legal pads and had a secretary do his typing.
I imagine he might have upgraded to a computer since, but I have a hard time believing that he spends much time at the keyboard.
I use Windows at work because I have to. It's the platform that my company writes their product on. I'm a technical writer; can't document what I can't run.
Just this last weekend, I bought a new PC. First time I've had a MS OS in my house in ages. (My preferred machine is my TiBook running OSX.) I bought the new PC because I do a fair amount of work at home and need the compatiblity.
Even on Windows, I use a fair amount of Open Source stuff (Perl, TeX, OpenOffice, etc.).
Les
Yes, it's a matter of speed. Pioneer 10 was for a long time the furtherest man-made object, but Voyager 2 passed it about 10 years ago or so.
The Pioneer's were launched with less powerful rockets and didn't use as much gravitational slingshot.
Voyager 1 and 2 are simply faster.
Space is a very very large place and the Voyager craft are only about the size of an economy car. The odds of ever finding one of them are, well, astronomical. (sorry!)
The plutonium will last for thousand of years; the RTGs will continue generating power for a long time. But the decay will reach a point in about 20 years or so when the power level will fall below the point where they'll be able to power the transmitter enough to send signals back to Earth. It's really a matter more of the transmitter design than the RTGs.
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At the very least, then the Kirby estate should share the rights with the other creators. Where are Ditko's heirs, or Heck's?
And I wonder when all the Disney/Pixar/Marvel lawyers figure out The Incredibles ripped off the Fantastic Four?
And Iron Man was originally created (artistically, at least) by Don Heck. Kirby worked on some of the early Tales of Suspense, but Heck designed the basic premise of the character.
Jeff Atwood makes a valid point: writing software is craftsmanship and not engineering. And that's why there's so much crappy, buggy, bloated, nearly unusable software. It SHOULD be engineering. And the most stable software ever written is engineered. And it's never crashed once. It's the flight control software for the Space Shuttle.
Agreed. But what I can't figure out is why it's taking so long. Relational databases are nothing new and revolutionary. Nor is content indexing. As WinFS is still NTFS at it's core, with a bunch of new APIs, it shouldn't be the big showstopper it appears to be. And the other thing I can't figure is: why bother? There is already meta data fields in NTFS and very few people use them. And it seems that only a handful of software publishers both putting more than the most rudimentary data in them. Many of the apps that would benefit from stuff like this, already have their own meta data search engines built in. So why clutter up the OS with this?
I agree that their older phones were far better than their current line. They were ugly, but very solid, and decent or exceptional battery life, and just kept working and working and working. The company I work for just reissued us new cellphones, and they got stuck with some piece of crap Korean clamshell phone. Businesses buy the service, not the phone, so they don't care what the phone unit itself is like.
What plantform? DOS Word had versions in 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, and 5.0 and 5.1 Mac Word had versions in several different iterations, I remember that 3.x was particularly buggy. Don't remember if there was a 4.x, but 5.1 was nice. In Windows, there was Word 1, 1.1, 2.x and then they jumped to 6.0 to bring it into the same numbering sequence as the Mac version.
The asteroid belt. Mine the damn things, and a few comets too, and pay for all the rest of the exploration you'd ever want, manned or unmanned anywhere in the freaking solar system and beyond. The net energy cost to get to the asteroid belt is actually less than for Mars because you wouldn't have a large gravity well that you'd have to climb back out of to return to Earth. And on the return trip, you'd have more than just a bunch of science experiments with you--you'd have raw materials that can be used in industry. The comets may very well have compounds that are unknown on Earth, the asteroids may have precious metals. And if not, at least you'd have a large supply of iron and nickel that can be mined without destroying anymore of the Earth's biosphere. And the whole living in space thing can be worked out just as easily heading out to the asteroids as it can be going to Mars.
How long before PCs become the preferred e-book reader platform? It's already been years for some applications.
Aircraft mechanics have been using wearable PCs for years for this sort of thing. The military has been using hardened PCs (laptops and palmtops) for years for electronic reference materials (and other uses).
I think they still have a long way to go, but tablet PCs are a move in the right direction. Not exactly the best e-book format, but better than PDAs.
In Nevada, the source code for any legal game is reviewed by the state Gaming Control Board before approval. So it's pretty tough (but not impossible!) for a programmer to add such twists. And when a really big jackpot is hit, the casinos have internal audit personnel that tear the machine apart to check for any sort of tampering. At this time, they also review the chips to make sure they are approved chips. Many Nevada casinos advertize 98% payback, but by law, the payout can be as low as something like 78% (not sure the exact amount, but it's down in the 70's); which means on the average, the casino makes a lot more money than just a few pennies. The payback for some table games is even worse (some are better... in Blackjack, the odds constantly shift back and forth between the player and the casino). I work for a company that makes a computer system that interfaces to slot machines; I get to play slots everyday... A good job if you can get it ;-)
I also have friends that work in casinos and for actual slot manufacturers. I'm not a mathmetics expert, nor even a gaming expert, but I do sorta know a bit about it.
If anyone's interested, you can check out all the rules and regulations at:
http://gaming.state.nv.us/
I agree. Yes, I think this is an analogue to "hacking", but taken in another direction.
This episode was just a rip-off of the TNG episode where Riker got the hots for the "person" (although clearly played as a female) from the non-gendered race. He tried to interfere and Picard didn't even reprimand him... at least Trip got a "stern talking to".
I've got two; one black, one gunmetal. One's on my belt, the other's in the car.
A very very good point. Way too much code is written with little or no forethought and programmers would really benefit from learning to do stuff the "old-fashioned way."
I know people who routinely launch H, I, J, K, L, and M engines every weekend... Check out the Tripoli website for more about high-powered model rocketry. www.tripoli.org
I had a 1988 Ford Festiva that ran just fine for over 12 years. I replaced batteries, tires, etc., but otherwise it was still purring along just fine when I sold it. Given that it was a cheapo econo-box, I never expected it to last three years. I have a 20-year old credit card sized Casio calculator that works just fine. Other things that I still marvel at: The B-52, U-2, and SR-71. I seriously doubt that the F-22 or the JSF will still be flying 40+ years from now. Plain old paper seems to never die. As do black and white photographs. Paper's been around for THOUSANDS of years, and archelogists can still read what was written those milliena ago! Black and white photographs, properly developed and stored, will last several hundred years. Those digital pictures from your hot new digi-cam wouldn't be around in even 5 or 10 without constant maintenance... Hoover Dam just keeps getting stronger and stronger... part of the magic of concrete. With all the bio-tech and new pharmaeticals, it's amazing that the 100-year+ old ASPIRIN still has new uses. I've still got some stainless steel pots that look brand new even after 25 years.... I could keep thinking of stuff, but many are already mentioned here.
I thought DEC had VMS running on MIPS processors at one point, but never brought it to market... (I might be wrong, it's been a whole lotta years!)
Good points about the Skunkworks. And it points out that quality is more about work ethic and commitment than about tools.
Mr. Shatner, Given that the mid '60s gave us any number of cult TV classics, could you see yourself playing some of these other roles? Perhaps as Batman or James West? (I've always had this idea that you, Adam West, and Robert Conrad were versatile enough as actors that any one of you could have handled any of these roles. I think it'd be a hoot to have seen Conrad or West as Capt. Kirk and you or Conrad as Batman.)
I seem to remember reading something about the time Shatner's first TekWar novel came out that he wrote in long hand on yellow legal pads and had a secretary do his typing. I imagine he might have upgraded to a computer since, but I have a hard time believing that he spends much time at the keyboard.
I use Windows at work because I have to. It's the platform that my company writes their product on. I'm a technical writer; can't document what I can't run. Just this last weekend, I bought a new PC. First time I've had a MS OS in my house in ages. (My preferred machine is my TiBook running OSX.) I bought the new PC because I do a fair amount of work at home and need the compatiblity. Even on Windows, I use a fair amount of Open Source stuff (Perl, TeX, OpenOffice, etc.). Les
but our IS tech at work has about 10 gadgets hanging from his belt. Except for his short height and large waistline, he'd be just like Batman!
Yes, it's a matter of speed. Pioneer 10 was for a long time the furtherest man-made object, but Voyager 2 passed it about 10 years ago or so. The Pioneer's were launched with less powerful rockets and didn't use as much gravitational slingshot. Voyager 1 and 2 are simply faster.
Space is a very very large place and the Voyager craft are only about the size of an economy car. The odds of ever finding one of them are, well, astronomical. (sorry!)
The plutonium will last for thousand of years; the RTGs will continue generating power for a long time. But the decay will reach a point in about 20 years or so when the power level will fall below the point where they'll be able to power the transmitter enough to send signals back to Earth. It's really a matter more of the transmitter design than the RTGs.