Not that I'm disagreeing, mind you, but if the U.S.of A isn't leading the world in aid, can
you tell me please, who is? I hope it's not the French. Please tell me it's not the French.
I could handle it if it's the Canadians, or the Saudi's (although I doubt that), but I think I'd just about die if the French were better than us at something.
Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how fantastic this would be for the world?
We could lift things (or people) into orbit without spending huge amounts of money on
risky attempts at rocketry, making space exploration a much more easily obtainable goal.
Imagine a fifth grade science project that's taken
into orbit for $1000.00. Not $40,000.00 per
pound, but much, much cheaper. Micro-satellites could be sent up in bunches, and deployed with
decaying orbits. Truely disposable, because they
are so cheap.
Imagine sending up lightweight inflatable modules for a space habitat, one every few hours. They could be joined together in orbit, then
attached to a small ion motor and sent to the
moon to establish a lunar base. The possibilities
are mind-boggling.
If the first one works, it will inspire others. We could build the second to extend
farther out, with a stronger (thicker) cable. The hub on the longer cable can be just inside GEO, with another cable leading outward to a small station a good distance outside. The outward station would feel positive g's (albiet very few of them) from centripedal force and could be used to slingshot payloads away from Earth. Pick the right time to release, and
with just a little bit of maneuvering, the package
can go just about anywhere.
If you think this can't be used as a weapon,
you need to read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
by Robert Heinlein. What comes up just might
come back down, and we could "throw rocks"
really well from geosynchronous orbit.
Oh, sure. Good Spelling makes one incredibly more knowlegeable. Now, the fact that most people who have been following the debate about DMCA have discovered that Lexmark put chips in their ink cartriges to keep people from being able to refill them, and that they have actually threatened DMCA lawsuits for people who offered to bypass the copyright(happy?)controls embedded in those chips, that part just slipped right by your superior intellect?
Don't fall into the trap of ignoring the issue at hand to attack a completely irrelevent side issue such as a misused word. It really does nothing for your image as an intellect.
autopr0n said, "Not a copyright access control, that's for sure. DMCA does not aply. "
The code that decides whether or not the cartrige is empty is COPYWRITED. It is also protected by a chip with a lame little encryption. The copywrite protection device does not have to be GOOD or EFFECTIVE, just present. Trying to bypass it is illegal. Comprende?
In response to the article about ADHD and dyslexia, let me say that I was so severely dyslexic while in early school that I didn't learn to write until the fourth grade. It wasn't that I was stupid, I just didn't understand why the letters needed to be any certain way or in any certain order.
I was taken out of public school, and put into a private school for dyslexics. In just ONE year, I went from a first grade reading and writing level, to an eighth grade reading and writing level.
A psycholgist that I've recently talked to about my son emphasized that dyslexia is NOT a disability. It is simply a different learning style that must be accounted for. Some of the best and brightest minds of our time would have been labled ADHD or dyslexic if the tests had been around when they were in school.
We need better teaching in our schools, and an understanding that everyone does not have the same attention span, not more drugs. There are some serious side effects from these drugs, and not all of the effects are obvious.
Please read the news article by Peter Jennings entitiled The Assassination of our youth. ABC News, September 15, 1999. This is all verifiable stuff, and it scares the hell out of me.
This was going to be my suggestion. I have a similar library, thousands of books. I enjoy both the light, fun books like Robert Lynn Asprin's Myth series (Another Fine Myth is the first book) and more serious works (Cryptonomicron, Lucifer's Hammer) but my all time favorite is Robert Jordan. I've never seen anyone who has built such depth into his characters and his world. Anyone who follows his Wheel of Time series can tell you exactly why Aiel don't use swords, or what the Three Fold Land does for them.
The details of the world are stunning, but pale in comparison to the effort he puts into developing his characters. His descriptions of the characters begin the process, and you can see them revealed bit by bit as the story unfolds.
I have found myself remembering quotes from the book to describe situations in my life many times. I mentally plagerize Jordan all the time.
The 10th book in the series just came out, and I haven't finished it yet so I don't know if it's the last one or if the story will just go on forever. It has been a long read, but well worth it!
I'll agree with William Gibson. Good work, not as flaky as other futurists. The first book I read of his was the Neuromancer, followed by Burning Chrome. Others are good too, but I can't remeber the titles.
"If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space" jdbear
Inconceivable
An anonymous coward writes:
this is inpertitent to the matter at hand
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
No, he's right. If there is a conviction, then there's a chance to get the law declared unconstitutional. Otherwise we're stuck with the law and all that implies...
Hey, be careful. The taking on one's own life is a crime. Encouraging others to commit a crime is in itself a crime. Using the Internet to commit a crime is also a crime. Talking about crime is probably a crime. Using the word crime so many times in a paragraph might be a crime, but looking up the list of crimes to see would involve getting past the security of the crime server, which is a violation of the DMCA (see, this is on topic!) and is a crime.
Don't be a criminal. Log off now!
Safe behind my bars
jdbear
Anyone can petition his (or her) representative to have a law repealed, but to force one out using our "checks and balances" system, you have to use the courts. The court will not try a case without an injured party. That party in many cases is the State (U.S. vs Dmitri, et al.) To get a law declaired unconstitutional, you have to have a person or corporation (an artifical person) to go to the court and declare that his constitutional rights have been voilated by the law.
Re:Table PC's are good for medical but what else?
on
Transmeta Needs Microsoft
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I spent three years working for a software company that specialized in tablet pc's for the pharmaceutical industry. Our program was wildly successful (within the small community that we supported.) Our software came in three flavors, one for laptops, one for pen tops (tablet PC), and one for the Sharp Zaurus. I preferred the Sharp, but most companies opted for the Laptop version. The Pen Top version worked better for the actual data capture application (we had a three page form that could be filled out by checking selections with a stylus, then a signature was captured in a box at the bottom.) The laptops were not able to capture the signatures, and took longer to fill out the forms, but they were cheaper and had color screens for playing Solitare.
IF the Tablet PC's were available back then for the same basic cost as a laptop, there would have been only one version of the software. It would have been a no brainer. The app worked much better on the tablets, but they were slower and much more expensive than the laptops, so they didn't sell as well.
Take this as a lesson, it doesn't matter that you have a better product, or that it's easier to use. If someone can get one almost as good for half the price, they usually will.
Why are you so blatently harrassing elderly, weight challenged children of single mothers who were able to rise above their unfortunate births to accumulate a little wealth to comfort them in thier old age? The poor things, having to live with the shame of being born illegitimate, growing up fat (undoubtably do to overeating in reaction to thier low self esteem.) You should be ashamed.
I tend to agree that the Old testament and the New don't seem to belong to the same religion sometimes. I really don't understand why "Thou Shall Not Kill," but then again, kill all those guys, and anyone who does this, and, oh yeah, kill him too.
By the way, I didn't say that Christianity was peaceful, just that Islam was not. Christians have a long and bloody history, especially when the Vatican rose to power. I do think that you need to review your history of the middle-east just before the spread of Islam, though. Just after the death of Mohommad, the Muslims decided that they needed to spread their faith, and they used the sword to do it. The first Crusades were to take the Holy Lands back. Other Crusades were because the soldiers sent on the first ones were more interested in rape and pillage than conquest, but that's another story. It was a bad time to live in the Middle-east for everyone. Kind of like now. I don't know if there will ever be peace in the region.
By the way, I am a Christian, and I believe God knows the truth, but we are VERY confused about it. We are perhaps as wrong as they are (whoever they are,) but what the heck? You've got to believe something!
- JDbear
Believe it or not, it will never end. I work for a large outsourcing company, and my client is an even large RBOC. We have litrally hundreds of help desk workers answering the phones and "handling" the requests that come in. I've seen their documentation, and it says explicitly that any question regarding and internet or intranet site should just be forwarded to my group. My group is about 20 System Administrators (certified Sun SysAdmins) who run about 400 Solaris boxes from E250's to E10K's. Not toys, and not PC's. We don't run cable, we don't format diskettes. Every day, however, I have to call someone and explain why the "internet is slow" or why AOL is down. I have people asking me to load Microsoft Excel on their Sun E3500 so they can view spreadsheets from their CDE session. My job is to keep the Web Servers, iPlanet Application servers, Oracle Database servers, etc, running, but the Help Desk is helpless when it comes to answering these type of questions, so they just forward them along. Truthfully, I am just as happy to get this kind of request, it's much easier to deal with than one of the Oracle DBA's asking me to tune his box so that he can fit his 50GB database on his 30GB storage array.... -jdbear
I don't know, he has a point. After all, have you ever read the koran? Mohammad was a raving lunatic from the get-go. In a single breath he would say how the Muslim would find a friend in the Christians, then he would go on to explain how a good Muslim should then "Kill all the infedel whenever you can." Read a bit of it first, then tell me how peaceful and loving the muslim faith is. After all, islam doesn't mean peace, as was explained by several muslim clerics shortly after September 11th, 2001. It actually means "Submission" and a Muslim is "One who submits."
Slashdot Mirror
Not that I'm disagreeing, mind you, but if the U.S.of A isn't leading the world in aid, can
you tell me please, who is? I hope it's not the French. Please tell me it's not the French.
I could handle it if it's the Canadians, or the Saudi's (although I doubt that), but I think I'd
just about die if the French were better than us at something.
Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how fantastic this would be for the world?
We could lift things (or people) into orbit without spending huge amounts of money on
risky attempts at rocketry, making space exploration a much more easily obtainable goal.
Imagine a fifth grade science project that's taken into orbit for $1000.00. Not $40,000.00 per
pound, but much, much cheaper. Micro-satellites could be sent up in bunches, and deployed with
decaying orbits. Truely disposable, because they are so cheap.
Imagine sending up lightweight inflatable modules for a space habitat, one every few hours. They
could be joined together in orbit, then attached to a small ion motor and sent to the
moon to establish a lunar base. The possibilities are mind-boggling.
If the first one works, it will inspire others. We could build the second to extend
farther out, with a stronger (thicker) cable. The hub on the longer cable can be
just inside GEO, with another cable leading outward to a small station a good distance outside.
The outward station would feel positive g's (albiet very few of them) from centripedal force
and could be used to slingshot payloads away from Earth. Pick the right time to release, and
with just a little bit of maneuvering, the package can go just about anywhere.
If you think this can't be used as a weapon, you need to read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
by Robert Heinlein. What comes up just might come back down, and we could "throw rocks"
really well from geosynchronous orbit.
Oh, sure. Good Spelling makes one incredibly more knowlegeable. Now, the fact that most people who have been following the debate about DMCA have discovered that Lexmark put chips in their ink cartriges to keep people from being able to refill them, and that they have actually threatened DMCA lawsuits for people who offered to bypass the copyright(happy?)controls embedded in those chips, that part just slipped right by your superior intellect?
Don't fall into the trap of ignoring the issue at hand to attack a completely irrelevent side issue such as a misused word. It really does nothing for your image as an intellect.
jdbear
autopr0n said, "Not a copyright access control, that's for sure. DMCA does not aply. "
The code that decides whether or not the cartrige is empty is COPYWRITED. It is also protected by a chip with a lame little encryption. The copywrite protection device does not have to be GOOD or EFFECTIVE, just present. Trying to bypass it is illegal. Comprende?
In response to the article about ADHD and dyslexia, let me say that I was so severely dyslexic while in early school that I didn't learn to write until the fourth grade. It wasn't that I was stupid, I just didn't understand why the letters needed to be any certain way or in any certain order.
I was taken out of public school, and put into a private school for dyslexics. In just ONE year, I went from a first grade reading and writing level, to an eighth grade reading and writing level.
A psycholgist that I've recently talked to about my son emphasized that dyslexia is NOT a disability. It is simply a different learning style that must be accounted for. Some of the best and brightest minds of our time would have been labled ADHD or dyslexic if the tests had been around when they were in school.
We need better teaching in our schools, and an understanding that everyone does not have the same attention span, not more drugs. There are some serious side effects from these drugs, and not all of the effects are obvious.
Please read the news article by Peter Jennings entitiled The Assassination of our youth . ABC News, September 15, 1999. This is all verifiable stuff, and it scares the hell out of me.
This was going to be my suggestion. I have a similar library, thousands of books. I enjoy both the light, fun books like Robert Lynn Asprin's Myth series (Another Fine Myth is the first book) and more serious works (Cryptonomicron, Lucifer's Hammer) but my all time favorite is Robert Jordan. I've never seen anyone who has built such depth into his characters and his world. Anyone who follows his Wheel of Time series can tell you exactly why Aiel don't use swords, or what the Three Fold Land does for them.
The details of the world are stunning, but pale in comparison to the effort he puts into developing his characters. His descriptions of the characters begin the process, and you can see them revealed bit by bit as the story unfolds.
I have found myself remembering quotes from the book to describe situations in my life many times. I mentally plagerize Jordan all the time.
The 10th book in the series just came out, and I haven't finished it yet so I don't know if it's the last one or if the story will just go on forever. It has been a long read, but well worth it!
jdbear
I'll agree with William Gibson. Good work, not as flaky as other futurists. The first book I read of his was the Neuromancer, followed by Burning Chrome. Others are good too, but I can't remeber the titles.
"If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space"
jdbear
Inconceivable An anonymous coward writes: this is inpertitent to the matter at hand You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
No, he's right. If there is a conviction, then there's a chance to get the law declared unconstitutional. Otherwise we're stuck with the law and all that implies...
Hey, be careful. The taking on one's own life is a crime. Encouraging others to commit a crime is in itself a crime. Using the Internet to commit a crime is also a crime. Talking about crime is probably a crime. Using the word crime so many times in a paragraph might be a crime, but looking up the list of crimes to see would involve getting past the security of the crime server, which is a violation of the DMCA (see, this is on topic!) and is a crime. Don't be a criminal. Log off now! Safe behind my bars jdbear
Anyone can petition his (or her) representative to have a law repealed, but to force one out using our "checks and balances" system, you have to use the courts. The court will not try a case without an injured party. That party in many cases is the State (U.S. vs Dmitri, et al.) To get a law declaired unconstitutional, you have to have a person or corporation (an artifical person) to go to the court and declare that his constitutional rights have been voilated by the law.
I spent three years working for a software company that specialized in tablet pc's for the pharmaceutical industry. Our program was wildly successful (within the small community that we supported.) Our software came in three flavors, one for laptops, one for pen tops (tablet PC), and one for the Sharp Zaurus. I preferred the Sharp, but most companies opted for the Laptop version. The Pen Top version worked better for the actual data capture application (we had a three page form that could be filled out by checking selections with a stylus, then a signature was captured in a box at the bottom.) The laptops were not able to capture the signatures, and took longer to fill out the forms, but they were cheaper and had color screens for playing Solitare.
IF the Tablet PC's were available back then for the same basic cost as a laptop, there would have been only one version of the software. It would have been a no brainer. The app worked much better on the tablets, but they were slower and much more expensive than the laptops, so they didn't sell as well.
Take this as a lesson, it doesn't matter that you have a better product, or that it's easier to use. If someone can get one almost as good for half the price, they usually will.
JDBear
Hey, Wouldn't the "Right to remain Silent" guaranteed in the Constitution cancel out the copywrite on Silence? After all, it's a Civil Right!
Why are you so blatently harrassing elderly, weight challenged children of single mothers who were able to rise above their unfortunate births to accumulate a little wealth to comfort them in thier old age? The poor things, having to live with the shame of being born illegitimate, growing up fat (undoubtably do to overeating in reaction to thier low self esteem.) You should be ashamed.
I tend to agree that the Old testament and the New don't seem to belong to the same religion sometimes. I really don't understand why "Thou Shall Not Kill," but then again, kill all those guys, and anyone who does this, and, oh yeah, kill him too. By the way, I didn't say that Christianity was peaceful, just that Islam was not. Christians have a long and bloody history, especially when the Vatican rose to power. I do think that you need to review your history of the middle-east just before the spread of Islam, though. Just after the death of Mohommad, the Muslims decided that they needed to spread their faith, and they used the sword to do it. The first Crusades were to take the Holy Lands back. Other Crusades were because the soldiers sent on the first ones were more interested in rape and pillage than conquest, but that's another story. It was a bad time to live in the Middle-east for everyone. Kind of like now. I don't know if there will ever be peace in the region. By the way, I am a Christian, and I believe God knows the truth, but we are VERY confused about it. We are perhaps as wrong as they are (whoever they are,) but what the heck? You've got to believe something! - JDbear
Believe it or not, it will never end. I work for a large outsourcing company, and my client is an even large RBOC. We have litrally hundreds of help desk workers answering the phones and "handling" the requests that come in. I've seen their documentation, and it says explicitly that any question regarding and internet or intranet site should just be forwarded to my group. My group is about 20 System Administrators (certified Sun SysAdmins) who run about 400 Solaris boxes from E250's to E10K's. Not toys, and not PC's. We don't run cable, we don't format diskettes. Every day, however, I have to call someone and explain why the "internet is slow" or why AOL is down. I have people asking me to load Microsoft Excel on their Sun E3500 so they can view spreadsheets from their CDE session. My job is to keep the Web Servers, iPlanet Application servers, Oracle Database servers, etc, running, but the Help Desk is helpless when it comes to answering these type of questions, so they just forward them along.
Truthfully, I am just as happy to get this kind of request, it's much easier to deal with than one of the Oracle DBA's asking me to tune his box so that he can fit his 50GB database on his 30GB storage array....
-jdbear
I don't know, he has a point. After all, have you ever read the koran? Mohammad was a raving lunatic from the get-go. In a single breath he would say how the Muslim would find a friend in the Christians, then he would go on to explain how a good Muslim should then "Kill all the infedel whenever you can."
Read a bit of it first, then tell me how peaceful and loving the muslim faith is. After all, islam doesn't mean peace, as was explained by several muslim clerics shortly after September 11th, 2001. It actually means "Submission" and a Muslim is "One who submits."