GPS, whether American, Russian, or EU, is first and foremost, a military asset for their respective owners.
The US military can elect to disable or cripple civilian GPS service to all devices other than their own when they deem it necessary to prevent its use by hostile forces. Presumably, GLONASS and the EU systems have the same capability.
History repeatedly shows that international political alliances vary over time. Just because we currently are at relative peace with the EU and Russia, that does not mean it will always be so in the decades to come. I'm not saying we will be in a hostile situation with either in the future, but it's not out of the realm of possibility, either.
The EU is building their own system not because they want to win a "pissing match" with the US or Russia. It would be foolish of them strategically to depend on a GPS that is under someone else's control.
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Not really "science-y", and has what I perceived as illogical leaps, but oh-so-dreary.
"The Light of Other Days" by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee. Scientific advancement commoditized and abused to no end results in a society where there is no privacy. At all.
"Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood. Scientific advancement without control destroys civilization. (No, I haven't read the sequel yet.)
If you're under 35, you have absolutely no reason to be commenting on this article for the following reasons:
You're too young to fully appreciate what it was like working on an all-in-one box in the early 80s...
The response I wish I could have written! Thank you!
The $300 C64 was a godsend for a poor kid in a world of $2000 IBM XT's and Apple II's. And those are 1985 dollars, which are *much* larger than today's 2011 dollars that these young whippersnappers use.
Agreed. I dl'd Second Life a couple months ago to see what all the fuss was about. Kinda neat for a few minutes, but every time I saw the icon on my desktop this question popped into my head:
"I need to start this program because....?"
Real life is full enough for me. I don't do SL, and I feel fulfilled enough with doing stuff with my wife and kids, working around the house, and trying to take care of the yardwork and intermitently trying to finish the basement. For escapism, I use books and movies.
For commercial software and share/freeware, I guess these guys have never been to VersionTracker. It's been around for years, covers Windows, Mac 8/9/X, and PalmOS. It may not have everything, but it has a lot.
For example, if you search on "Quark", the application comes up, as well as a ton of plug-ins ("XTensions" in Quark-speak).
Lego started its downhill slide a couple of decades ago.
Back in the (my) day, Lego just sold boxes full of rectangular blocks, mostly just red and white ones, with some gray flat plates and the occasional clear or triangular roof tiles. I made TWA jetliners, Apollo rockets (they had to be square, since I didn't have enough curved pieces), space ships, tanks, garages, bridges and tunnels for my Hot Wheels, etc.
The sets didn't include step-by-step instructions for making any of these things. AAMOF, I don't remember any instruction sheets at all.
Inspiration came from the pictures on the Lego box and the imaginations of my friends and myself.
Years ago, I looked back at my Legos and realized it was probably the most influential toy of my childhood. Hence, I wanted to pass this glorious experience on to my son. I spent, along with the help of many relatives, literally thousands of dollars on Lego for my boy.
We started with Duplo, then graduated up the Lego ladder. As time passed, the kits became, as others have noted here, very specific to themes, and highly specialized. Sometimes the pieces were so specialized that they would not work well with other kits.
I watched my son assemble these kits, following the supplied instructions exactly. He was very good at it, and he was very happy with the results he got. He also got to be very good at troubleshooting where he put in the wrong piece in Technics sets. This was a Good Thing(TM), I thought.
Then one day, while he was bored, I suggested that take apart some of his Lego and build something new from the pieces. He looked at me like I had three heads. He asked me where he could get instructions for assembling new objects, since he had already assembled all of the variations of the kits' instruction manuals.
I was crestfallen. It confirmed right then and there that Lego Corporate had, over the years, managed to remove all the imagination and excitement of Lego and kids being creative with simple chunks of plastic.
Then Mindstorms came out! I was so excited that I bought a set right away, plus a few (expensive) accessories for it. I gave it to my son, at the time 9 years old, for Christmas. Once he saw that it contained no instructions for specific projects he lost interest quickly.
Some may read my post and judge my son to be an unimaginitive drudge without capacity for creative thought. He isn't that at all. But he has been conditioned by Lego, through Lego products, to treat Lego as a step-by-step construction project, much like a 3D jigsaw puzzle.
Lego might as well print on the box "No Imagination Required!" on all their products.
Whoa: Dvorak comments given credence on /. ?!
on
Prepping For The 360
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· Score: 1
IMNSHO, anything John Dvorak writes any more seems to be trollish. Perhaps, back in the day, he had something to positively contribute, but now he just writes articles that appear to be designed to solely generate pagehits.
I learned my lesson years ago to skip any article with his byline because his prose is often incendiary and only loosely based on facts.
I propose a new moderation category: "TFA written by Dvorak -1"
Most of the techie widgets I have make use of NTP anyway. Those that don't can be OS or firmware updated on the fly to account for the the DST changes long before the spring of 2007. By this I mean my TiVo, computer OSes, and my Symbian-based cellphone.
So what if my eight-year-old Hitachi VCR can't adapt to the change in regulations? Big deal! All I use it for now is to provide my kids with additional ports for the PS2. It doesn't care what time it is.
Slashdot Mirror
Ham. It's what Christmas is all about.
Your comment is short-sighted.
GPS, whether American, Russian, or EU, is first and foremost, a military asset for their respective owners.
The US military can elect to disable or cripple civilian GPS service to all devices other than their own when they deem it necessary to prevent its use by hostile forces. Presumably, GLONASS and the EU systems have the same capability.
History repeatedly shows that international political alliances vary over time. Just because we currently are at relative peace with the EU and Russia, that does not mean it will always be so in the decades to come. I'm not saying we will be in a hostile situation with either in the future, but it's not out of the realm of possibility, either.
The EU is building their own system not because they want to win a "pissing match" with the US or Russia. It would be foolish of them strategically to depend on a GPS that is under someone else's control.
"The Light of Other Days" is by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, not with Gentry Lee. Send your complaints of my mis-attribution to my lawyer.
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Not really "science-y", and has what I perceived as illogical leaps, but oh-so-dreary.
"The Light of Other Days" by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee. Scientific advancement commoditized and abused to no end results in a society where there is no privacy. At all.
"Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood. Scientific advancement without control destroys civilization. (No, I haven't read the sequel yet.)
Remember when /. used to be first with news like this?
This story was in yesterday's news cycle. Doesn't make it less funny, though.
If you're under 35, you have absolutely no reason to be commenting on this article for the following reasons:
The response I wish I could have written! Thank you! The $300 C64 was a godsend for a poor kid in a world of $2000 IBM XT's and Apple II's. And those are 1985 dollars, which are *much* larger than today's 2011 dollars that these young whippersnappers use.
Great post, and all of Japan is constantly in our thoughts and hearts. May good luck come your way very soon!
And what does the SUB generation use?
MySpace.
Scammers having a hard time in this economic climate? Boo-fscking-hoo.
on April 1 at /.
Two hours now and no PinkDot. No jokes. Is this the April Fools' gag itself? That there is no spoon?
Barry White + Stephen Hawking, with a sore throat and stiff neck.
DeLoreans are the only car to have snow tires mounted on all four wheels as standard equipment.
DeLoreans have chronic alignment problems. They always veer toward the white line.
The best fashion statement of the era was to own a DeLorean with license plates made by John himself.
Ba-dum-bah!
Next newsflash: Cell phone cameras allow people to be easily observed in public places!
Agreed. I dl'd Second Life a couple months ago to see what all the fuss was about. Kinda neat for a few minutes, but every time I saw the icon on my desktop this question popped into my head: "I need to start this program because ....?"
Real life is full enough for me. I don't do SL, and I feel fulfilled enough with doing stuff with my wife and kids, working around the house, and trying to take care of the yardwork and intermitently trying to finish the basement. For escapism, I use books and movies.
For example, if you search on "Quark", the application comes up, as well as a ton of plug-ins ("XTensions" in Quark-speak).
Check all of today's stories to verify.
Say you turn on your TV and it's 3 minutes into something stupid, but the flag is enabled for the show itself! You can't change the channel!
I'm guessing that it's going to be quite some time before you subscribe. Quite a long time, in fact.
Will you cancel your subscription after your first successful post, should such an event ever actually occur?
; )
Back in the (my) day, Lego just sold boxes full of rectangular blocks, mostly just red and white ones, with some gray flat plates and the occasional clear or triangular roof tiles. I made TWA jetliners, Apollo rockets (they had to be square, since I didn't have enough curved pieces), space ships, tanks, garages, bridges and tunnels for my Hot Wheels, etc.
The sets didn't include step-by-step instructions for making any of these things. AAMOF, I don't remember any instruction sheets at all.
Inspiration came from the pictures on the Lego box and the imaginations of my friends and myself.
Years ago, I looked back at my Legos and realized it was probably the most influential toy of my childhood. Hence, I wanted to pass this glorious experience on to my son. I spent, along with the help of many relatives, literally thousands of dollars on Lego for my boy.
We started with Duplo, then graduated up the Lego ladder. As time passed, the kits became, as others have noted here, very specific to themes, and highly specialized. Sometimes the pieces were so specialized that they would not work well with other kits.
I watched my son assemble these kits, following the supplied instructions exactly. He was very good at it, and he was very happy with the results he got. He also got to be very good at troubleshooting where he put in the wrong piece in Technics sets. This was a Good Thing(TM), I thought.
Then one day, while he was bored, I suggested that take apart some of his Lego and build something new from the pieces. He looked at me like I had three heads. He asked me where he could get instructions for assembling new objects, since he had already assembled all of the variations of the kits' instruction manuals.
I was crestfallen. It confirmed right then and there that Lego Corporate had, over the years, managed to remove all the imagination and excitement of Lego and kids being creative with simple chunks of plastic.
Then Mindstorms came out! I was so excited that I bought a set right away, plus a few (expensive) accessories for it. I gave it to my son, at the time 9 years old, for Christmas. Once he saw that it contained no instructions for specific projects he lost interest quickly.
Some may read my post and judge my son to be an unimaginitive drudge without capacity for creative thought. He isn't that at all. But he has been conditioned by Lego, through Lego products, to treat Lego as a step-by-step construction project, much like a 3D jigsaw puzzle.
Lego might as well print on the box "No Imagination Required!" on all their products.
I learned my lesson years ago to skip any article with his byline because his prose is often incendiary and only loosely based on facts.
I propose a new moderation category: "TFA written by Dvorak -1"
Most of the techie widgets I have make use of NTP anyway. Those that don't can be OS or firmware updated on the fly to account for the the DST changes long before the spring of 2007. By this I mean my TiVo, computer OSes, and my Symbian-based cellphone.
So what if my eight-year-old Hitachi VCR can't adapt to the change in regulations? Big deal! All I use it for now is to provide my kids with additional ports for the PS2. It doesn't care what time it is.
MTV plays music videos? Which 3 1/2 minutes of the day do they do that? Please let me know so I can TiVo it.
From TFA:
"Looking good me thinks. Real good. In fact I wonder if ole Steve Jobs is looking for some one to design the new G6 when it comes out...."
My guess is "not a fscking chance."
"HOLY CRAP THAT'S HUGE!"
Thanks! That's the second time I've heard that today.