There you go. No need for the "this is not insightful" baloney. You didn't understand the context. That's fine. But it's not the fault of Slashdot -or- the moderation system.
And, now, we are at a disagreement. However, I bore of this thread, so I bid you adieu....
It's a highly politicized topic. One can easily trace the links: global warming/industrialization/fossil fuels/automobiles/SUVs/selfish conservatives. Or maybe it's global warming/savetheearth/treehuggers/anti-social liberals.
An objective scientist doing his job has no place in the arena by any of its participants no more than Socrates' objective criticisms of the Greeks were welcomed. In the end, they would rather force the hemlock than hear the truth....
Do forgive OP, but I cannot believe this got moded insightful. I myself have made a couple of other comments in this thread, but they do not deserve much of ranking, but they -- and comments by others -- surely deserve more ranking than this. The OP made the following "insightful" points:
1. This defensive system would cause psychological reactions: yea, it's war.
2. Then, a description of the events that would take place to cause this reaction is given: fire round at tank, round blows up, get scared and tell friends!
3. Then, a very brief point is made that the enemy would have discussions about #2 above.
I'm not just trying to be a troll here, but how on earth is this insightful and then, on top of that, a ranking of 5?...
I love/. for the threads, but examples like this show the flaws in the admin system....
Totally ad hoc here (I'm working), but RA isn't armor either. It's on top of what would traditionally be armor. It is a series of plates with explosives underneath channeled outward. When, say, an AT round hits it, it sends a reverse charge in the opposite direction negating, to an extent, the force of the round. In theory, it sounds the same (although, this new stuff sounds better as nothing gets near the tank).
To counter RA, AT rounds were then made to carry two stages in the round. The first round would trigger the RA and then the second round would pound on through the first detonation.
In any event, not arguing this isn't new. Am arguing that it isn't entirely something unheard of.... Of course, it sounds more like a tradional phalinx system used by naval vessels for decades....
Exactly. My first thought on reading the blurb was RA. Nothing new about that. I've not read the FA though, so maybe this is simply a new-and-improved.
In other news, new jets 'mysteriously' go upwards into the air instead of taking off from a runway!!!
"A new survey released at the Embedded Systems conference reveals that more than half of all current embedded design projects are running behind schedule."
"The survey -- dubbed the "2006 State of Embedded Market Survey" -- indicated that some 55 percent of current embedded design projects are late or have been cancelled."
How accurate can any survey be when over half the projects are late and/or are being canceled? Bad mojo in the field of EL and not a good time to take a survey on Embedded Linux me thinks. As was stated in the blurb, EL is everywhere....
The numbers aren't that far off from 2005, but what about the years before that? Project running behind schedule are a bit less from 2005, but cancelations are also a bit up. Dunno, maybe I'm just looking for something to weaken the argument that EL is losing ground. I've always seen it as the grass-roots to keep pushing what I see as the future of operating systems, Linux....
All religions are intolerant of each other, because each religion defines a mutually-exclusive lock on a God they believe exists....
That's a very generalistic and I could say uninformed view. People are intolerant, yes, but not necessarily religions. As a matter of fact, for the most part, the leading minds behind most religions teach tolerance, acceptance, love and the like. It's just not what the people who follow tend to practice.
Lewis stated that Christians should find some truth to their own faith in all religions, and Muslim teachings refer to Jews and Christians, respectfully, as "people of the book." There are very few instances where the hallmark figures in any world religions taught murder and killing as any means to further the faith, yet history is replete with it.
Even in godless systems, the leading thinkers behind it would have been appalled at how future figures would carry it out. Would Marx really have approved of the practices of Stalin or Mao Tse Tung?
Honestly, what system or government or religion has ever been perfect or lived up to what its founders wished? None. But such things are a testimony to the imperfect nature of humanity more than to the failure of the religion....
Still... your previous post was dripping with hubris. Pride cometh before the fall my friend.
As far as all this talk of dressing up or not.... I don't know. I'm 38 and was raised to say please and thank you and yes sir, yes ma'am. I can't shake those things. Yes, the world is changing, but I have found people still appreciate good manners and clean-cutness. I, too, had a time when I didn't care what I looked like. I was in an art field making an artist's living (i.e., very little). I now work for a large corporation where they have a dress code which requires a full suit with tie and jacket -- matching. They even sent us to a dress-code class. Looking-the-part is simply a fact of life like brushing your teeth, combing your hair and pressing your shirts. It's just what you do. Wtf it has to do with how smart you are I just don't get.
But, the fact is, appearance matters -- nothing can change this. If a cop pulls me over and is wearing sandals and cargo pants I'm going to be baffled. So would you. If my doctor walked into the room in a winston tank-top, same. I've visited the west coast and, yes, saw more people than on the east in gothic or other dress. I didn't judge them, but I found my east-coast suit and tie garnered the same "yes sir"s and nice treatment.
I put on a suit now 6 out of 7 days. I also shave daily. I keep my dress shoes polished, my nose hairs in check and teeth white. I do all of this for my career, my personal life, friends, family, etc. In recent years I became single again, and worked even harder on my appearance to a fault. After some time the ladies will confess to me how impressed they are with my appearance and tell stories of guys who didn't care about such.
I work hard on my manners too which I've always been taught to do. I always get the door. When I'm out to dinner with a lady and she leaves to use the restroom I stand. As she comes back, I stand again. It blows their mind.
Trust me, I am also crude and obnoxious, but I know when to turn it off and on.
Point being this: no matter how successful you are due to your lack of thought in clothing, it does mean something. The fact that you've made it a point to state how successful you are without it, really, speaks to this point.
James Bond would be far less badass in tie dye....
I graduated in '94 with my first degree and then in 2000 with the second. I simply never had a laptop, not that I didn't want one. I took all of my notes with pen/pencil and paper. I will say that I found the laptops other's used to be distracting at times. The clickity of the keyboards could be bothersome, but mainly, I noticed that people who brought laptops tended to do everything but take notes. It was also tempting to watch what they were doing if within eye-sight.
I prefer pen/paper myself. At the same time, I don't think a professor should mandate one or the other. I had an old professor in the early '90s who disliked word processors and computer-printed papers. He advocated the good ol' typewriter and acted boggled that people didn't prefer it -- I knew even back then that he was falling out of touch....
I grew up with Netware. I started my career in IT with Netware 3.x. You could load it on a box with 5MB of disk space and very little RAM. It made one hell of a print server and file server. NDS came out, and quickly we began setting up NW4.11 servers. I finally acquired a job at a multi-billion dollar corporation with 10s of 1000s of users and 1000s of computers. NDS was a champ. Group policies were a cinch. If you wanted to do something at any OU level, you could imagine it and do it easily. You could set a login script or permissions from the top or at any place down, all the way to a single user. It was understandable, flowing and made sense. It happened immediately. NW4.x servers could run tons of applications and not miss a lick. We had 300 sites nation-wide with a mix of 3.x and 4.x servers.
3.12 was a gem. Those damn things ran and ran. Only hardware would take it down. Most of the time problems stemmed around 3rd party backup software. Netware was never perfect, but to me it was as perfect as any NOS could be. People rail against Btrieve, but I supported it and never remembered it being that big a deal. We had 3.11 and.12 boxes that ran for years. The time they finally died was when the corporation decided to go to Windows and we turned 'em off. We had a running tally of the longest running box found. The winner had years of run-time on it.
There wasn't a single, solitary thing wrong with Netware and no good reason, either support or money, to switch off it.
We went to Windows. NT4 was liquid shit. The old Netware guys were boggled at why we did it and wtf management was on. They joked: "got an application? make another server." Literally, we had to build a new server per database, per application, per anything. For the first time we understood that you had to restart windows, so a priority became scheduling weekly restarts of Windows boxes for no other reason than to make sure they kept running well.
As our IT shop grew and younger blood came in, we were hiring sharp, young guys who had known nothing but Windows. NT4 being ancient to them. So our main Cisco switch seemed to be an issue one day, and what do they do? They restart it. It turned out not to be the switch, but you can see their mindset -- restarting is what you do when managing servers. It's what you do with Windows.
Active Directory comes out. We use it today, but it's improved little. I manage it ever hour, and am constantly faced with the awkwardness and inability to do things in it that I could easily do a decade ago in NDS.
A server shouldn't have a fucking GUI. A server shouldn't need restarting. A server should serve data and services and that's it. It should be reliable. A directory service, directory tree should not need constant massaging and developers to create things that were built-in to another DS years ago.
The last time I ranted like this, I got modded down, but that doesn't change the fact. Management migrates off of working platforms and onto Windows for no other reason than marketing....
In order to properly use this metaphore the following must be true:
1. A pre-reformer figured must be burned at the stake by Rome (John Huss):
2. A Luther figure must arise who, prior to converting to a 'reformed' faith beats himself with whips, sleeps on cold stone in discomfort and crawls over glass.
3. Post conversion, he nails a piece of paper to a castle-church door listing 99 problems he has with the establisment.
4. The peasants revolt in agreement with his claims, and he agrees to torture and kill them.
Oh, and finally, Chuck Norris causes the real break with a roundhouse kick....
Dude, you were consuming, conservatively (I went with your low figures), about four, 2 liter bottles of soda a day -- if we go with an average I bet you were downing 5 or 6!.... Holy geez pal! That's way much. As many posts in this thread indicate, it isn't the thing itself which causes health problems, it's the dosage. Too much of anything is a bad thing.... "All things in moderation." Now you're dealing with no soda at all. I bet I drink a can of diet coke 2 or 3 times a week. Even if I drank 3 cans a day it wouldn't be near what you were consuming.
About 3 years ago I was fat and out of shape. I started dieting and working out. I shed 50 pounds of fat and put on 10 pounds of muscle. I started getting stronger and increased, for example, my bench press by 30% or more. I got so into it -- eating right and exercising -- that I started suffering other health problems. Basically, my joints started going out. I was up to 3 workouts a day at one point. I now realize I was, again, not moderating things well. After nearly needing a shoulder operation and working hard to do things right, I'm now down to about 3 good workouts a week and feel better than ever. I continue to eat right, but I'm not a fanatic about it.
Oh, and too, sometimes I feel the news articles I submit just don't meet the very high, journalistic criteria of the/. admins, and then I see this coffee blurb....
And to think, I felt stupid for submitting the piece wherein Russian scientists are finding German tanks sunk deep into the bogs using metal detectors, the tanks having fully-functioning magnetos inside some 60 years later... ok, well now I feel stupid again I think....
I quit all other drugs in my life. The only thing I have left is coffee. They can take it when they pry it from my cold (well, warmed), dead fingers. I started drinking it in college and fell in love. It's the right way to start a morning. It doesn't offend with its smell like tobacco. It doesn't impair driving like alcohol. It is the primordial source of gathering in the break room. It is the basis for the original Terry Tate, Office Linebacker skit. It gives cops something to hold along with a donut. It provided cease fires during the Civil War as the south traded tobacco for coffee with the north. It is the foundation of eclectic, bohemian establishments wherein college kids make it, and other college kids drink it (coffee shops) and also birthed some of the first public access to the Internet outside of libraries. It is a primary staple product in many South American countries. It's something that (according to my systematics professor) the English don't make very well. It revs you up before anything you need revving up for. I use it before my workout too. It is best when freshly ground and french-pressed. It has created many wonderful cups that say things on them. It gives dentists something to clean during checkups. Wtf beat it up? Study says this/study says that.
Next: water -- a study shows too much of it can make your lungs stop producing needful oxygen....
Good article. This technology should prove useful as we seek to understand the mysterious forces behind plate techtonics. However, scientists claim publicly to need more understanding of earthquakes. Privately, they know they are caused, in large part, by Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks....
As I mentioned, walking into a store front.... If mail order is the option then the world's your oyster. There are times when you want to walk in, browse, pick up, hold, buy, go home and continue. Waiting for a shipment is a mild form of hell for most -- at times anyhow. And I live in a small enough town that radio shack is about all there is for these parts. I DO NOT want to wait days for my $3 battery to arrive for my watch when it dies. I want to walk in at lunch, buy it, and walk out. I had to use the radio shack here in town recently to do this. Walmart and Staples did not carry the specific battery my watch needed. They had tons of others for more popular watches I suppose, but now we get back to the whole shabang about demographics, marketing research, supply/demand, etc., and the fact that they shouldn't carry my watch battery as most people would own the other watches for the batteries they do carry anyhow....
Slashdot Mirror
There you go. No need for the "this is not insightful" baloney. You didn't understand the context. That's fine. But it's not the fault of Slashdot -or- the moderation system.
And, now, we are at a disagreement. However, I bore of this thread, so I bid you adieu....
Case in point....
It's a highly politicized topic. One can easily trace the links: global warming/industrialization/fossil fuels/automobiles/SUVs/selfish conservatives. Or maybe it's global warming/savetheearth/treehuggers/anti-social liberals.
An objective scientist doing his job has no place in the arena by any of its participants no more than Socrates' objective criticisms of the Greeks were welcomed. In the end, they would rather force the hemlock than hear the truth....
Your reply is far more insightful than the OP. Seriously. And, concur on needing to study more -- always need more knowledge....
Do forgive OP, but I cannot believe this got moded insightful. I myself have made a couple of other comments in this thread, but they do not deserve much of ranking, but they -- and comments by others -- surely deserve more ranking than this. The OP made the following "insightful" points:
/. for the threads, but examples like this show the flaws in the admin system....
1. This defensive system would cause psychological reactions: yea, it's war.
2. Then, a description of the events that would take place to cause this reaction is given: fire round at tank, round blows up, get scared and tell friends!
3. Then, a very brief point is made that the enemy would have discussions about #2 above.
I'm not just trying to be a troll here, but how on earth is this insightful and then, on top of that, a ranking of 5?...
I love
Totally ad hoc here (I'm working), but RA isn't armor either. It's on top of what would traditionally be armor. It is a series of plates with explosives underneath channeled outward. When, say, an AT round hits it, it sends a reverse charge in the opposite direction negating, to an extent, the force of the round. In theory, it sounds the same (although, this new stuff sounds better as nothing gets near the tank).
To counter RA, AT rounds were then made to carry two stages in the round. The first round would trigger the RA and then the second round would pound on through the first detonation.
In any event, not arguing this isn't new. Am arguing that it isn't entirely something unheard of.... Of course, it sounds more like a tradional phalinx system used by naval vessels for decades....
Exactly. My first thought on reading the blurb was RA. Nothing new about that. I've not read the FA though, so maybe this is simply a new-and-improved.
In other news, new jets 'mysteriously' go upwards into the air instead of taking off from a runway!!!
But they are mostly behind schedule
"A new survey released at the Embedded Systems conference reveals that more than half of all current embedded design projects are running behind schedule."
"The survey -- dubbed the "2006 State of Embedded Market Survey" -- indicated that some 55 percent of current embedded design projects are late or have been cancelled."
How accurate can any survey be when over half the projects are late and/or are being canceled? Bad mojo in the field of EL and not a good time to take a survey on Embedded Linux me thinks. As was stated in the blurb, EL is everywhere....
The numbers aren't that far off from 2005, but what about the years before that? Project running behind schedule are a bit less from 2005, but cancelations are also a bit up. Dunno, maybe I'm just looking for something to weaken the argument that EL is losing ground. I've always seen it as the grass-roots to keep pushing what I see as the future of operating systems, Linux....
All religions are intolerant of each other, because each religion defines a mutually-exclusive lock on a God they believe exists....
That's a very generalistic and I could say uninformed view. People are intolerant, yes, but not necessarily religions. As a matter of fact, for the most part, the leading minds behind most religions teach tolerance, acceptance, love and the like. It's just not what the people who follow tend to practice.
Lewis stated that Christians should find some truth to their own faith in all religions, and Muslim teachings refer to Jews and Christians, respectfully, as "people of the book." There are very few instances where the hallmark figures in any world religions taught murder and killing as any means to further the faith, yet history is replete with it.
Even in godless systems, the leading thinkers behind it would have been appalled at how future figures would carry it out. Would Marx really have approved of the practices of Stalin or Mao Tse Tung?
Honestly, what system or government or religion has ever been perfect or lived up to what its founders wished? None. But such things are a testimony to the imperfect nature of humanity more than to the failure of the religion....
Still ... your previous post was dripping with hubris. Pride cometh before the fall my friend.
As far as all this talk of dressing up or not.... I don't know. I'm 38 and was raised to say please and thank you and yes sir, yes ma'am. I can't shake those things. Yes, the world is changing, but I have found people still appreciate good manners and clean-cutness. I, too, had a time when I didn't care what I looked like. I was in an art field making an artist's living (i.e., very little). I now work for a large corporation where they have a dress code which requires a full suit with tie and jacket -- matching. They even sent us to a dress-code class. Looking-the-part is simply a fact of life like brushing your teeth, combing your hair and pressing your shirts. It's just what you do. Wtf it has to do with how smart you are I just don't get.
But, the fact is, appearance matters -- nothing can change this. If a cop pulls me over and is wearing sandals and cargo pants I'm going to be baffled. So would you. If my doctor walked into the room in a winston tank-top, same. I've visited the west coast and, yes, saw more people than on the east in gothic or other dress. I didn't judge them, but I found my east-coast suit and tie garnered the same "yes sir"s and nice treatment.
I put on a suit now 6 out of 7 days. I also shave daily. I keep my dress shoes polished, my nose hairs in check and teeth white. I do all of this for my career, my personal life, friends, family, etc. In recent years I became single again, and worked even harder on my appearance to a fault. After some time the ladies will confess to me how impressed they are with my appearance and tell stories of guys who didn't care about such.
I work hard on my manners too which I've always been taught to do. I always get the door. When I'm out to dinner with a lady and she leaves to use the restroom I stand. As she comes back, I stand again. It blows their mind.
Trust me, I am also crude and obnoxious, but I know when to turn it off and on.
Point being this: no matter how successful you are due to your lack of thought in clothing, it does mean something. The fact that you've made it a point to state how successful you are without it, really, speaks to this point.
James Bond would be far less badass in tie dye....
I graduated in '94 with my first degree and then in 2000 with the second. I simply never had a laptop, not that I didn't want one. I took all of my notes with pen/pencil and paper. I will say that I found the laptops other's used to be distracting at times. The clickity of the keyboards could be bothersome, but mainly, I noticed that people who brought laptops tended to do everything but take notes. It was also tempting to watch what they were doing if within eye-sight.
I prefer pen/paper myself. At the same time, I don't think a professor should mandate one or the other. I had an old professor in the early '90s who disliked word processors and computer-printed papers. He advocated the good ol' typewriter and acted boggled that people didn't prefer it -- I knew even back then that he was falling out of touch....
I grew up with Netware. I started my career in IT with Netware 3.x. You could load it on a box with 5MB of disk space and very little RAM. It made one hell of a print server and file server. NDS came out, and quickly we began setting up NW4.11 servers. I finally acquired a job at a multi-billion dollar corporation with 10s of 1000s of users and 1000s of computers. NDS was a champ. Group policies were a cinch. If you wanted to do something at any OU level, you could imagine it and do it easily. You could set a login script or permissions from the top or at any place down, all the way to a single user. It was understandable, flowing and made sense. It happened immediately. NW4.x servers could run tons of applications and not miss a lick. We had 300 sites nation-wide with a mix of 3.x and 4.x servers.
.12 boxes that ran for years. The time they finally died was when the corporation decided to go to Windows and we turned 'em off. We had a running tally of the longest running box found. The winner had years of run-time on it.
3.12 was a gem. Those damn things ran and ran. Only hardware would take it down. Most of the time problems stemmed around 3rd party backup software. Netware was never perfect, but to me it was as perfect as any NOS could be. People rail against Btrieve, but I supported it and never remembered it being that big a deal. We had 3.11 and
There wasn't a single, solitary thing wrong with Netware and no good reason, either support or money, to switch off it.
We went to Windows. NT4 was liquid shit. The old Netware guys were boggled at why we did it and wtf management was on. They joked: "got an application? make another server." Literally, we had to build a new server per database, per application, per anything. For the first time we understood that you had to restart windows, so a priority became scheduling weekly restarts of Windows boxes for no other reason than to make sure they kept running well.
As our IT shop grew and younger blood came in, we were hiring sharp, young guys who had known nothing but Windows. NT4 being ancient to them. So our main Cisco switch seemed to be an issue one day, and what do they do? They restart it. It turned out not to be the switch, but you can see their mindset -- restarting is what you do when managing servers. It's what you do with Windows.
Active Directory comes out. We use it today, but it's improved little. I manage it ever hour, and am constantly faced with the awkwardness and inability to do things in it that I could easily do a decade ago in NDS.
A server shouldn't have a fucking GUI. A server shouldn't need restarting. A server should serve data and services and that's it. It should be reliable. A directory service, directory tree should not need constant massaging and developers to create things that were built-in to another DS years ago.
The last time I ranted like this, I got modded down, but that doesn't change the fact. Management migrates off of working platforms and onto Windows for no other reason than marketing....
You went through all of that for i-robot?...
In order to properly use this metaphore the following must be true:
1. A pre-reformer figured must be burned at the stake by Rome (John Huss):
2. A Luther figure must arise who, prior to converting to a 'reformed' faith beats himself with whips, sleeps on cold stone in discomfort and crawls over glass.
3. Post conversion, he nails a piece of paper to a castle-church door listing 99 problems he has with the establisment.
4. The peasants revolt in agreement with his claims, and he agrees to torture and kill them.
Oh, and finally, Chuck Norris causes the real break with a roundhouse kick....
I flattened the threshold and did a search. I am quite disappointed. Not a single chuck norris joke....
Dude, you were consuming, conservatively (I went with your low figures), about four, 2 liter bottles of soda a day -- if we go with an average I bet you were downing 5 or 6!.... Holy geez pal! That's way much. As many posts in this thread indicate, it isn't the thing itself which causes health problems, it's the dosage. Too much of anything is a bad thing.... "All things in moderation." Now you're dealing with no soda at all. I bet I drink a can of diet coke 2 or 3 times a week. Even if I drank 3 cans a day it wouldn't be near what you were consuming.
About 3 years ago I was fat and out of shape. I started dieting and working out. I shed 50 pounds of fat and put on 10 pounds of muscle. I started getting stronger and increased, for example, my bench press by 30% or more. I got so into it -- eating right and exercising -- that I started suffering other health problems. Basically, my joints started going out. I was up to 3 workouts a day at one point. I now realize I was, again, not moderating things well. After nearly needing a shoulder operation and working hard to do things right, I'm now down to about 3 good workouts a week and feel better than ever. I continue to eat right, but I'm not a fanatic about it.
Again, all things in moderation....
Thanks for the tips. I might follow-up. I love coffee and all things about it.
Oh, and too, sometimes I feel the news articles I submit just don't meet the very high, journalistic criteria of the /. admins, and then I see this coffee blurb....
... ok, well now I feel stupid again I think....
And to think, I felt stupid for submitting the piece wherein Russian scientists are finding German tanks sunk deep into the bogs using metal detectors, the tanks having fully-functioning magnetos inside some 60 years later
I quit all other drugs in my life. The only thing I have left is coffee. They can take it when they pry it from my cold (well, warmed), dead fingers. I started drinking it in college and fell in love. It's the right way to start a morning. It doesn't offend with its smell like tobacco. It doesn't impair driving like alcohol. It is the primordial source of gathering in the break room. It is the basis for the original Terry Tate, Office Linebacker skit. It gives cops something to hold along with a donut. It provided cease fires during the Civil War as the south traded tobacco for coffee with the north. It is the foundation of eclectic, bohemian establishments wherein college kids make it, and other college kids drink it (coffee shops) and also birthed some of the first public access to the Internet outside of libraries. It is a primary staple product in many South American countries. It's something that (according to my systematics professor) the English don't make very well. It revs you up before anything you need revving up for. I use it before my workout too. It is best when freshly ground and french-pressed. It has created many wonderful cups that say things on them. It gives dentists something to clean during checkups. Wtf beat it up? Study says this/study says that.
Next: water -- a study shows too much of it can make your lungs stop producing needful oxygen....
Scientists know that the pinnacle of evolution is chuck norris....
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake! You're not your fucking khakis!
Good article. This technology should prove useful as we seek to understand the mysterious forces behind plate techtonics. However, scientists claim publicly to need more understanding of earthquakes. Privately, they know they are caused, in large part, by Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks....
Drat. Now I got all of this yankee-righteous-indignation in me, and nothing to do with it....
It's hard for me to fathom that someone actually wasted a mod point on that comment....
As I mentioned, walking into a store front.... If mail order is the option then the world's your oyster. There are times when you want to walk in, browse, pick up, hold, buy, go home and continue. Waiting for a shipment is a mild form of hell for most -- at times anyhow. And I live in a small enough town that radio shack is about all there is for these parts. I DO NOT want to wait days for my $3 battery to arrive for my watch when it dies. I want to walk in at lunch, buy it, and walk out. I had to use the radio shack here in town recently to do this. Walmart and Staples did not carry the specific battery my watch needed. They had tons of others for more popular watches I suppose, but now we get back to the whole shabang about demographics, marketing research, supply/demand, etc., and the fact that they shouldn't carry my watch battery as most people would own the other watches for the batteries they do carry anyhow....