I work in a gov't lab, and we have lots of $100k instruments that are running Windows 95, 98 and XP. Many are not upgradeable, as the instruments are locked into specific proprietary I/O cards, mostly ISA. Most do not have USB. We bought a $50k instrument two years ago that had XP as the OS. I asked management why we would buy a new instrument that shipped with an obsolete operating system and was told "That's the way it came." I find it hard to believe that an instrument manufacturer can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of R&D money to improve their instruments and yet can not afford to update their software to run on non-obsolete operating systems.
The arrangement that Jonathan Coulton created is licensed under CC. They went so far as to lift the banjo tracks from the karaoke version. The killer is JoCo would probably have been fine with it if they had given him credit for the arrangement.
Creationists often use the argument "Scientists disagree on some of the finer points of evolution, therefore evolution must be false." Why don't scientists turn the argument around to "Creation stories disagree on many points, therefore all creation stories must be false?"
You're right, it's pretty stupid to have a computer for processing lift gate signals or a passenger presence system.
Also pretty stupid to have an electrical configuration for a car so complex that managing the data and specifications is a nightmare.
Ditto for a manufacturer to have 27 different models of carwith almost no interchangeable parts and "stone age" hardware.
I think there's plenty of stupid to go around.
I will admit that legislation has played a role in the increased complexity of cars, and the manufacturers have probably made a decent effort to comply, but it seems like more and more systems keep getting tacked on; how did we ever survive without real-time tire pressure monitoring? Side-cushion air bags? Multi-zone air conditioning with HEPA filtration? A "Check engine" light that comes on when the gas cap door is left open? Simply making something more complex does not make it better.
Yeah, it's unreasonable to expect the manufacturer of a $30k car to conform to industry standard connectors on the CPU. It's so much easier to create new ones and rearrange the pinout for every different model. What was I thinking?
It's B. S. that every single model of car has a different computer. $700 for a used 93 Toyota ECM that consists of maybe $15 worth of parts? Make a single, universal cpu that can be programmed for whatever car it's going in. Then I can go to the junkyard, get a box out of a wrecked Chrysler, have it reprogrammed at the dealer, and stick it in my Toyota. They can make their software proprietary, I don't care. Make the hardware open.
Imagine the state tech would be in if every computer manufacturer made its own cpu, motherboard, graphic processor, interface protocols, operating system and software, and they were all non-interchangeable between models. USB? Which flavor? The protocols would all be different: If you bought a flash drive to fit in a Dell laptop, it wouldn't work in a Dell desktop or any other model of Dell laptop, or anyone else's. Forget about any kind of networking. Software? You only get what the manufacturer loads on the machine. No upgrades, no third-party software. Oh, and if you buy a new machine, the software will all be different. Asinine? Yes. Unlike auto makers, tech manufacturers realized long ago that keeping every single thing proprietary wasn't a good business model.
If nothing else, imagine the cost savings to manufacturers if they adopted a universal hardware architecture.
Several years ago, I was looking at a particular.org domain for a nonprofit site. WHOIS reported that the domain had been registered, the registration had expired, and the domain was "pending deletion". I found out the registrar was dotregistrar, so I jumped through their hoops and paid them $20 a year for the priviledge of "backordering" the domain when they got around to deleting it. They said the "grace period" wasn't up yet (it's normally 15-90 days).
Fast forward three years - the domain is still a "pending delete", and I'm out $60. I tried contacting them one last time to find out what's going on. I'm still listed as #1 in the backorder list, but the domain hasn't been deleted. I say the hell with it and refuse to renew for a fourth year. The NEXT DAY, the domain has been registered to a new owner, who coincidentally, is a squatter whose sites are all registered with dotregistrar.
Either this is a really unlikely coincidence, or the whole "backorder" thing is a pretty blatant scam.
It's called "registrar lock" and it basically allows a registrar to hold on to a domain name as long as they want to until they "find the time to delete it." By "find the time to delete it" I mean "slip it to a business partner under the table", and by "waiting list" I mean "backorder."
"""""""""""".
About six years ago, I wanted a domain that was listed as a "pending delete." The domain had expired 2 years previously and had passed any grace period. In order to get in on the "waiting list" I had to send the controlling registrar (dotregistrar) $60 for nonrefundable "shares" to become a "member." I was first on the waiting list for three years when they informed me that my shares were about to "expire," and since three years had elapsed and the domain was still a pending delete, I opted to spend my remaining $15 on another domain rather than lose it. I was convinced of the scam at that point and was not going to give them any more money. The day after I quit paying to be first on the waiting list, the domain was suddenly registered to a domain squatter. Still is, except now it's "for sale." I complained to ICANN about this, but I might as well have sent my congressman a letter complaining about gas prices. The real killer is that I wanted the domain for a nonprofit I was working with at the time.
My parents had Popular Mechanics dating back to the 1930's that I used to read as a kid. I remember seeing articles on ion-powered aircraft from the 1940's, right alongside the articles about how everyone would have a helicopter in their garage by 1970.
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Orobanche uniflora -the official flower of the NYPD.
I work in a gov't lab, and we have lots of $100k instruments that are running Windows 95, 98 and XP. Many are not upgradeable, as the instruments are locked into specific proprietary I/O cards, mostly ISA. Most do not have USB. We bought a $50k instrument two years ago that had XP as the OS. I asked management why we would buy a new instrument that shipped with an obsolete operating system and was told "That's the way it came." I find it hard to believe that an instrument manufacturer can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of R&D money to improve their instruments and yet can not afford to update their software to run on non-obsolete operating systems.
The arrangement that Jonathan Coulton created is licensed under CC. They went so far as to lift the banjo tracks from the karaoke version. The killer is JoCo would probably have been fine with it if they had given him credit for the arrangement.
specifically, the license Jonathan Coulton uses, allows for noncommercial use. Anyone want to argue that this is non-commercial use?
The last thing I want to hear at my doctor's office is "we're getting a new computer system."
that's sure to annoy my coworkers.
Creationists often use the argument "Scientists disagree on some of the finer points of evolution, therefore evolution must be false." Why don't scientists turn the argument around to "Creation stories disagree on many points, therefore all creation stories must be false?"
is the name of my Antoine Dodson cover band.
Also pretty stupid to have an electrical configuration for a car so complex that managing the data and specifications is a nightmare.
Ditto for a manufacturer to have 27 different models of carwith almost no interchangeable parts and "stone age" hardware.
I think there's plenty of stupid to go around.
I will admit that legislation has played a role in the increased complexity of cars, and the manufacturers have probably made a decent effort to comply, but it seems like more and more systems keep getting tacked on; how did we ever survive without real-time tire pressure monitoring? Side-cushion air bags? Multi-zone air conditioning with HEPA filtration? A "Check engine" light that comes on when the gas cap door is left open? Simply making something more complex does not make it better.
Yeah, it's unreasonable to expect the manufacturer of a $30k car to conform to industry standard connectors on the CPU. It's so much easier to create new ones and rearrange the pinout for every different model. What was I thinking?
It's B. S. that every single model of car has a different computer. $700 for a used 93 Toyota ECM that consists of maybe $15 worth of parts? Make a single, universal cpu that can be programmed for whatever car it's going in. Then I can go to the junkyard, get a box out of a wrecked Chrysler, have it reprogrammed at the dealer, and stick it in my Toyota. They can make their software proprietary, I don't care. Make the hardware open. Imagine the state tech would be in if every computer manufacturer made its own cpu, motherboard, graphic processor, interface protocols, operating system and software, and they were all non-interchangeable between models. USB? Which flavor? The protocols would all be different: If you bought a flash drive to fit in a Dell laptop, it wouldn't work in a Dell desktop or any other model of Dell laptop, or anyone else's. Forget about any kind of networking. Software? You only get what the manufacturer loads on the machine. No upgrades, no third-party software. Oh, and if you buy a new machine, the software will all be different. Asinine? Yes. Unlike auto makers, tech manufacturers realized long ago that keeping every single thing proprietary wasn't a good business model. If nothing else, imagine the cost savings to manufacturers if they adopted a universal hardware architecture.
Several years ago, I was looking at a particular .org domain for a nonprofit site. WHOIS reported that the domain had been registered, the registration had expired, and the domain was "pending deletion". I found out the registrar was dotregistrar, so I jumped through their hoops and paid them $20 a year for the priviledge of "backordering" the domain when they got around to deleting it. They said the "grace period" wasn't up yet (it's normally 15-90 days).
Fast forward three years - the domain is still a "pending delete", and I'm out $60. I tried contacting them one last time to find out what's going on. I'm still listed as #1 in the backorder list, but the domain hasn't been deleted. I say the hell with it and refuse to renew for a fourth year. The NEXT DAY, the domain has been registered to a new owner, who coincidentally, is a squatter whose sites are all registered with dotregistrar.
Either this is a really unlikely coincidence, or the whole "backorder" thing is a pretty blatant scam.
It's called "registrar lock" and it basically allows a registrar to hold on to a domain name as long as they want to until they "find the time to delete it." By "find the time to delete it" I mean "slip it to a business partner under the table", and by "waiting list" I mean "backorder." """""""""""".
About six years ago, I wanted a domain that was listed as a "pending delete." The domain had expired 2 years previously and had passed any grace period. In order to get in on the "waiting list" I had to send the controlling registrar (dotregistrar) $60 for nonrefundable "shares" to become a "member." I was first on the waiting list for three years when they informed me that my shares were about to "expire," and since three years had elapsed and the domain was still a pending delete, I opted to spend my remaining $15 on another domain rather than lose it. I was convinced of the scam at that point and was not going to give them any more money. The day after I quit paying to be first on the waiting list, the domain was suddenly registered to a domain squatter. Still is, except now it's "for sale." I complained to ICANN about this, but I might as well have sent my congressman a letter complaining about gas prices. The real killer is that I wanted the domain for a nonprofit I was working with at the time.
My parents had Popular Mechanics dating back to the 1930's that I used to read as a kid. I remember seeing articles on ion-powered aircraft from the 1940's, right alongside the articles about how everyone would have a helicopter in their garage by 1970.
Looks like Trogdor has made it into Buffy. On the lips of the whiny geek, no less. How appropriate.
will the government come and confiscate the wreckage and bodies, then tell the public that it was just a ... oh crap.
instead of a writer, what would your spam be like? I'm glad you're not, but jeez - spam is so dull and boring - what would you do to liven it up?