Language evolves. Accept it or become one of those guys who is constantly yelling at kids to get of his lawn. Both are viable life choices.
Get off my damn lawn.
There's such a thing as proper diction, grammar and semantics. I might fail at it from time to time, but there is such a thing as not making up phrases out of whole cloth in order to appear intelligent or cool.
It's that same assclowns that use 'religiosity' to describe something of a spiritual or religious nature.
OK. Every time voting is brought up all the 'democracy is an illusion' wingnuts come out of the woodwork.
What is your resounding solution to the problem!? And don't say Anarchy or extreme Libertarianism which are both cop-outs to the supposed problem.
Paper Ballots were fine until people starting stuffing boxes when no one was looking. Then we didn't bother to compare totals between people and ballots. Then we tried to get fancy thus dangling chads and vague complex results. Don't get started on the whole Supreme Court ruling in 2000.
We just need something simple to register out vote. Keep it secure from tampering and be able to accurately verify a vote in the event of a recount. If you believe this can be done with a paper receipt, so be it. Just remember, the average poll worker age is around 72. Don't make it too complicated or there will be errors. If you design voting machines or systems, ask yourself: Can my mother/grandmother work this?
You want to talk about them damn politicians socially engineering the public? How about coming out of your shotgun shack, stop typing your manifesto and help work towards fixing the problem.
People collectively are dumb panicky animals. Individually the majority are actually quite intelligent. I've seen exception, but the rule usually holds true.
People don't want to know about or pay attention to politics for two reasons: 1) They are tired and frustrated of it 2) They don't want to be bothered learning about it
Easy plain text education would help the people suffering from the No. 2 problem. Broadcasting alternative reasonably unbiased locations where at least voting/candidate information can be found. This information is desperately needed at everyone's local elections. The Internet has been helping with this. I'm not saying blogs or podcasts, but look at the discussion we are having right now. Even websites that post a small profile of candidate and their views made my local election vote a more educated vote.
Major media networks had their time to distribute this information. They can no longer provide information in an accurate or unbiased fashion.
A viable third political party would help. I've been harping on/. about this since 2000. When I talk about viable party, I mean a political party that can have primaries in all 50 states if it so chooses. A party that is able to accept members like the other parties at any courthouse rather than registering 'Independent'. Also I mean a party that is an actual aggregate of it members' interests in a grassroots fashion and doesn't have a polarizing agenda like the Green or Libertarian party.
A great number of people suffering from the No. 1 problem might welcome a party that isn't bought and proposes ideas that make sense. I would cite Ron Paul, but you can't start in the current political morass with ideas that radical.
Now that my rambling is over what does anyone else propose?
Yeah anyway! You have to account for all those uncrashable space liners out there.
Asteroid! Dead ahead!
Even with the probability of an impact at 1 to 45,000. Shouldn't we be devoting more energy towards resolving the prevention of a strike instead of quibbling about the numbers.
It's like two fleas arguing about when a hairbrush might hit the dog.
I know we're a geek site, but c'mon. Bad Science aside. Don't we (as the human race) have anything to deal with a potential impact? It's not necessarily imminent, but I'm tired of close calls. On the plus side, this might be the push NASA needs to get us into space. Money and security!!
Join the space force! See all that you can see! Mine untold wealth in an off world colony! A chance to begin again . . .
Next, why can't we have an honest system of taxation. Governments provide services. If the public wants these services they have to pay for them. It costs X amount of dollars for these services. Don't want the services, then vote to get rid of them and pay less in taxes.
Before you get rid of a service, please at least look at the freaking long term cost. Hardcore Repubs want to rid services. To many damn freeloaders and government socialism. But damn it! My constituents better get that farm subsidy for . ..dirt. Hardcode Dems want to add all sorts of fluff that doesn't really help people. But we need a government art endowment for artist who make synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats!
List the services, list the costs. Based on your income, this is how much it costs you.
I'm sure cost breakdowns are publicly available, but I'm just too damn lazy to dig down that deep to find it on my state's level.
You MUST be young. There was a time when parents did have to be trained about child abduction.
There's at least 20+ years of child abduction awareness thanks to guys like John Walsh (of America's Most Wanted fame).
I can remember being taught in elementary school about not going with strangers. Don't go into vans. Watch for strangers sitting in parked cars for real long periods near the school or home.
I'm sure this has been a problem, since the first child walked out of the cave etc., but I can remember a time when this wasn't as prevalent. You could walk to town. You could even walk in town without some sick bastard trying to grab you.
Then with the way my parents and grandparents have told it, you could walk around at night. It seems too good to be true, but in that time it might have been possible if you didn't live directly in the bad part of town or in a criminal section of the city. Any old timers care to chime in on this?
I'm sure this is also paranoia from hyper reporting by news media. Abductions reported more frequently also contribute to the collective panic. The more conscientious among us could pull the statistic whether abductions have gone down or up in the past decades.
Internet safety training? Just give kids the basic concepts that don't touch on the specific technology.
Anyone can be anything on the Internet. Nobody knows you're a dog on the Internet. What makes a Confidence Scam. Spam, phishing Anything you put on the Internet doesn't go away just like YOUR PERMANENT RECORD!!
While i'm all for open trade, because it brings wealth to everyone, I would be super careful of signing anything with the USA if i was in charge.
Oh and can we please drop the retarded myth that when a job is sourced over seas that persons buying power vapourises. it's just not the case, and has been proven many times over since the industrial revolution.
Holy Crap!
Can we get some reference to back this up?!
The parents posters aren't talking immediate losses. This is down the road when all the US just becomes a blob of service industry employees and bloated corporate consumers. We still have direct manufacturing in the US, but how can a US manufacturer compete with someone who's willing to live one step above a mud hut?!
You ever been in manufacturing? Ever see entire plants and towns go under? People in lines looking for jobs and having to move out of their homes and live out of their cars or backwoods trailers?! And we're not talking Appalachia here. These are not lazy people either. They paid their taxes, held their mortgages and tried looking for other jobs until the money ran out.
It's one thing if a business goes bust. That's another issue to resolve. When a corporation moves overseas because they have to make shareholders happy even if it burns people. That's bad. It's hard to see this thing through the veil when everyone uses mutual funds investments through a brokerage company.
To individual American investors. Take a look at your investments. Do they burn their people like firewood to make profit?
One of my engineering friends was able to go to a private jesuit school before attending college.
They all had to take an art appreciation class. During the class some slides were shown of modern art. One slide had a canvas that was painted completely blue.
An exclamation from one of the resident smart asses said, "That's art? I could do that."
To which the instructor replied, "Yes. But were you the first one to do it?"
After learning the fundamentals, most artists I know are trying to find the 'next-best-thing'. What is there left to paint, draw, sculpt, carve, sing, film, or animate that hasn't been done before? That is the curse and blessing of post-modern age.
Also the saying, "I don't know art, but I know what I like." Most times the art I like is actually total crap. Regardless of the circumstances for its creation.
how about you try to understand why they hate us and why they have some valid grievances, not to justify any of their reactions however.
I'm sorry. They have just grievances? What are they? And how were they addressed and resolved by repeatedly bombing our boats, buildings and then flying planes into those buildings when just using bombs didn't work?
America is by no means innocent, but when you have an extremist group instigate a non conventional war against us I'm not even going to pretend they have a valid beef with us. Any position these folks have is an untenable need to impose strict interpretations of Sharia and the obsessive need to wipe out anyone who does not follow their belief.
If they want to stop all this crap, turn in their ringleaders, and come to the negotiating table, then I might think about it.
I've been listening and watching through media outlets other than US mainstream media. Al Qaeda had a chance to voice their opinion prior to slamming planes. I haven't heard anything other than missives for extremists to keep attacking the US, Israel and any other allies.
Dunno. Maybe it is because he's a lawyer who understands technical issues. He actually tries to tackle some legal issues we harp constantly on everyday at/.
Being a David in this age of Golliaths gets you some kudos.
To impeach, one must have evidence. How can one have evidence without investigation and tracking?
The best a single citizen can do is say - "Gee, yer honor. I know in my gut that Rep. Foobar is dirty and guilty of . . . "
Guilty of what? Violating his campaign promises? A possible ethical violation, but hardly a crime. And that's if the violation is clear cut. These days of semantic, hair splitting and defining was "is" is you can't really see much integrity. More spin than an atomic orbital level.
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
Nothing in there about being a lying, backstabbing, opportunistic money grubber as long as the Constitution and the US is defended.
Voters in collective groups are scared and ignorant with short memories. The best we can do is watch these congressmen likes hawks and have everything open and transparent as possible.
When they realize their past will be accurately recorded for quality assurance you will see them starting to be afraid.
Hardware handshaking takes on a whole new meaning!
I was going to type a whole wild ass screed about why these researchers are detecting electrical signals instead of detecting neurotransmitter concentrations. I thought about it. They are trying to get the whole package: Motion and feeling which involves some complex sensory feedback for the limb user. Plus detecting neurotransmitter concentrations at any level and at any point in the body is more than a little nutty.
I just wonder if there couldn't be some joining yet between all these new "muscle like" artificial materials and the signal detection interfaces. Although it might be more difficult to get feedback developed. I keep falling into the trap of limb motion as a one shot deal. 1. I think. 2. There's a signal. 3. The muscle moves. But then what? Not profit! My brain needs the feedback to know that --I'm not crushing the can --My grip isn't too loose --The angle is correct --etc.
All the degree of motion questions which are the whole point and marvel of the article. I'm sure this is obvious to the learned members of/., but for us average joes it takes some thought to pry our minds from the bad science and psuedo science we see from the media.
But I can dream . . . Possibly in a future time there might be a completely artificial limb with an artificial material slapped onto a lightweight frame in blobs. These blobs contract like muscle groups through signals of various frequencies and gains. A fluid is given an impulse that excites and dissipates its energy to the muscle material which allows a contracted muscle to expand. Mind you, these muscle groups are encased in their own separate fluid. Don't need to have your bicep expand without having your tricep contract.
Then let the marketing begin. New Nike legs! Now approved for the 2048 Olympics on Mons Olympus!
Now this is/. I'm curious to see how many holes are in that pipe dream.
Re:Excession and Look to Windward?
on
Matter
·
· Score: 1
OK. I'm a big fan of Iain M. Banks culture novels. Although I actually started with Against A Dark Background.
* The Wasp Factory (1984)
* Walking on Glass (1985)
* The Bridge (1986)
* Espedair Street (1987)-adapted for BBC radio in 1998 (directed by Dave Batchelor)
* Canal Dreams (1989)
* The Crow Road (1992)-adapted for BBC TV in 1996 (directed by Gavin Millar)
* Complicity (1993)-filmed in 2000 (directed by Gavin Millar), retitled Retribution for its US DVD/video release
* Whit (1995)
* A Song of Stone (1997)
* The Business (1999)
* Dead Air (2002)
* The Steep Approach to Garbadale (2007)
Novels as Iain M. Banks
Much of Banks's science fiction deals with a vast interstellar civilization, the Culture, which he has developed in some detail over the course of seven novels and a number of short stories.
* Consider Phlebas (1987)
* The Player of Games (1988)
* Use of Weapons (1990)
* Excession (1996)
* Inversions (1998) (makes covert references to the protagonists being Culture citizens)
* Look to Windward (2000)
* Matter (2008)
His other, non-Culture, science fiction novels are:
* Against a Dark Background (1993)
* Feersum Endjinn (1994)
* The Algebraist (2004)
I thought those were only a myth! Anthropologists gave rumor to it, but I've seen one out in the wild!
The only way to top this would be a 2 digit ID or dare I say the unheard of 1 digit ID. Many around Sir Edmund's Hunting club call this animal mere poppycock! Balderdash! Flim Flam!
And that Phineas Phogg fellow still hasn't returned from his trip. 60 days and counting!
As for Arthur C. Clarke. meh.
No No, just kidding. Clarke was one of the foundation stones which hold aloft the hardcore SF genre.
OK mods. I don't know what people are toking, but that was called comedic timing. It's funny!
As for the topic, my Windows PC(still Win2K) has it, but it probably still has some viruses or spyware on it. AFAIK, Win Defender doesn't run under Win2K.
My Mac doesn't have A/V, but I also have a firewall/gateway and some other intrusion detection. The article author suggests a filtered email such as gmail, yahoo or hotmail. Hotmail and yahoo!?? Am I that old? I remember those two mail services throwing malware around like a manure spreader.
I think they're working on Onion Bunnies, so crunchy and... bonion-y... bonnioyum... !
These will of course make living sandwiches if you put an onion bunny on the back of a giant cow, perked up with some crisp tortoise pickles, sliced tomato zebra, and giant iceberg lettuce butterflies.
OK. Bizarre as this sounds. This statement is the king of funny. "Bonion-y" Priceless. Mods, this is the first time in 3 years I've laughed at a/. comment. There are many others, but this one is funny.
Actually, this whole set of comments has at least brought a smile to my face.
300 pound burgers.
The lowing mooo of giant whalecows on Mt. Fuji.
The harpooning of great whalecow herds by the land whalers in their wheeled whaling boats.
Milk that cow. Milk that cow. Don't care why. Don't care how.
Everybody kneel so he can milk that coooooowww!
Nothing like beating a genre into the ground. Did no one learn the lesson of Star Trek? I guess maybe they did. Squeeze your creation for all its worth until everyone, but the hardcore fans finally burn out.
That's what I feel. Burnt out. Sorry to be a killjoy, but this stuff is too soon. Lucas may have better spent his time on finishing the last half of the Book of Wills than keep tacking onto this.
More stories to tell? Sure. So let's once again have something that was a reasonable storyline and kill its continuity.
Slashdot Mirror
Language evolves. Accept it or become one of those guys who is constantly yelling at kids to get of his lawn. Both are viable life choices.
Get off my damn lawn.
There's such a thing as proper diction, grammar and semantics.
I might fail at it from time to time, but there is such a thing as not making up phrases out of whole cloth
in order to appear intelligent or cool.
It's that same assclowns that use 'religiosity' to describe something of a spiritual or religious nature.
OK. Every time voting is brought up all the 'democracy is an illusion' wingnuts come out of the woodwork.
/. about this since 2000.
What is your resounding solution to the problem!? And don't say Anarchy or extreme Libertarianism which are
both cop-outs to the supposed problem.
Paper Ballots were fine until people starting stuffing boxes when no one was looking. Then we didn't bother to
compare totals between people and ballots. Then we tried to get fancy thus dangling chads and vague complex results.
Don't get started on the whole Supreme Court ruling in 2000.
We just need something simple to register out vote. Keep it secure from tampering and be able to accurately verify
a vote in the event of a recount. If you believe this can be done with a paper receipt, so be it. Just remember,
the average poll worker age is around 72. Don't make it too complicated or there will be errors. If you design
voting machines or systems, ask yourself: Can my mother/grandmother work this?
You want to talk about them damn politicians socially engineering the public?
How about coming out of your shotgun shack, stop typing your manifesto and help work towards fixing the problem.
People collectively are dumb panicky animals.
Individually the majority are actually quite intelligent. I've seen exception, but the rule usually holds true.
People don't want to know about or pay attention to politics for two reasons:
1) They are tired and frustrated of it
2) They don't want to be bothered learning about it
Easy plain text education would help the people suffering from the No. 2 problem.
Broadcasting alternative reasonably unbiased locations where at least voting/candidate information can be found.
This information is desperately needed at everyone's local elections.
The Internet has been helping with this. I'm not saying blogs or podcasts, but look at the discussion we are having right now.
Even websites that post a small profile of candidate and their views made my local election vote a more educated vote.
Major media networks had their time to distribute this information.
They can no longer provide information in an accurate or unbiased fashion.
A viable third political party would help. I've been harping on
When I talk about viable party, I mean a political party that can have primaries in all 50 states if it so chooses.
A party that is able to accept members like the other parties at any courthouse rather than registering 'Independent'.
Also I mean a party that is an actual aggregate of it members' interests in a grassroots fashion and doesn't have
a polarizing agenda like the Green or Libertarian party.
A great number of people suffering from the No. 1 problem might welcome a party that isn't bought and proposes ideas
that make sense. I would cite Ron Paul, but you can't start in the current political morass with ideas that radical.
Now that my rambling is over what does anyone else propose?
Like Andy always said.
Get busy livin' or get Kraken.
Sorry Hoss. You forgot the sun still shines on the moon.
Without an atmosphere I would imagine it gets pretty toasty as well.
Should be enough to warm adhesive.
Bet your copper top virtualized ass we do!
.I mean.
This coffee machine doesn't power itself.
Er . .
There is no Matrix.
Move along citizen.
[sips coffee]
Yeah anyway! You have to account for all those uncrashable space liners out there.
Asteroid! Dead ahead!
Even with the probability of an impact at 1 to 45,000. Shouldn't we be devoting more energy towards
resolving the prevention of a strike instead of quibbling about the numbers.
It's like two fleas arguing about when a hairbrush might hit the dog.
I know we're a geek site, but c'mon. Bad Science aside. Don't we (as the human race) have anything to deal with a potential impact?
It's not necessarily imminent, but I'm tired of close calls. On the plus side, this might be the push NASA needs to get us into space.
Money and security!!
Join the space force!
See all that you can see!
Mine untold wealth in an off world colony! A chance to begin again . . .
First I want to say this: Those bastards!
.dirt.
Next, why can't we have an honest system of taxation.
Governments provide services. If the public wants these services they have to pay for them.
It costs X amount of dollars for these services. Don't want the services, then vote to get rid of them
and pay less in taxes.
Before you get rid of a service, please at least look at the freaking long term cost.
Hardcore Repubs want to rid services. To many damn freeloaders and government socialism. But damn it! My constituents better get that farm subsidy for . .
Hardcode Dems want to add all sorts of fluff that doesn't really help people. But we need a government art endowment for artist who make synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats!
List the services, list the costs.
Based on your income, this is how much it costs you.
I'm sure cost breakdowns are publicly available, but I'm just too damn lazy to dig down that deep to find it on my state's level.
My jumbling fumbling rant is over.
You MUST be young. There was a time when parents did have to be trained about child abduction.
There's at least 20+ years of child abduction awareness thanks to guys like John Walsh (of America's Most Wanted fame).
I can remember being taught in elementary school about not going with strangers. Don't go into vans. Watch for strangers
sitting in parked cars for real long periods near the school or home.
I'm sure this has been a problem, since the first child walked out of the cave etc., but I can remember a time
when this wasn't as prevalent. You could walk to town. You could even walk in town without some sick bastard trying
to grab you.
Then with the way my parents and grandparents have told it, you could walk around at night. It seems too good to be true,
but in that time it might have been possible if you didn't live directly in the bad part of town or in a criminal section of the city.
Any old timers care to chime in on this?
I'm sure this is also paranoia from hyper reporting by news media. Abductions reported more frequently also contribute
to the collective panic. The more conscientious among us could pull the statistic whether abductions have gone down
or up in the past decades.
Internet safety training? Just give kids the basic concepts that don't touch on the specific technology.
Anyone can be anything on the Internet. Nobody knows you're a dog on the Internet.
What makes a Confidence Scam. Spam, phishing
Anything you put on the Internet doesn't go away just like YOUR PERMANENT RECORD!!
Treads aren't nice to asphalt, and Michigan already has the worst-maintained roads in the nation...
I don't think you've been to Pennsylvania. You can practically define our state border when the road goes from paved to craptastic.
Our state's geologic formation is the pothole.
As for the tank, just consider it the best of both worlds. An off road RV.
Although the charge per axle on the toll roads is murder.
timmarhy said
While i'm all for open trade, because it brings wealth to everyone, I would be super careful of signing anything with the USA if i was in charge.
Oh and can we please drop the retarded myth that when a job is sourced over seas that persons buying power vapourises. it's just not the case, and has been proven many times over since the industrial revolution.
Holy Crap!
Can we get some reference to back this up?!
The parents posters aren't talking immediate losses. This is down the road when all the US just becomes a blob of service industry employees and bloated corporate consumers.
We still have direct manufacturing in the US, but how can a US manufacturer compete with someone who's willing to live one step above a mud hut?!
You ever been in manufacturing? Ever see entire plants and towns go under? People in lines looking for jobs and having to
move out of their homes and live out of their cars or backwoods trailers?!
And we're not talking Appalachia here. These are not lazy people either. They paid their taxes, held their mortgages and tried
looking for other jobs until the money ran out.
It's one thing if a business goes bust. That's another issue to resolve.
When a corporation moves overseas because they have to make shareholders happy even if it burns people. That's bad.
It's hard to see this thing through the veil when everyone uses mutual funds investments through a brokerage company.
To individual American investors. Take a look at your investments. Do they burn their people like firewood to make profit?
I know the answer.
One of my engineering friends was able to go to a private jesuit school before attending college.
They all had to take an art appreciation class. During the class some slides were shown of modern art.
One slide had a canvas that was painted completely blue.
An exclamation from one of the resident smart asses said, "That's art? I could do that."
To which the instructor replied, "Yes. But were you the first one to do it?"
After learning the fundamentals, most artists I know are trying to find the 'next-best-thing'.
What is there left to paint, draw, sculpt, carve, sing, film, or animate that hasn't been done before?
That is the curse and blessing of post-modern age.
Also the saying, "I don't know art, but I know what I like."
Most times the art I like is actually total crap. Regardless of the circumstances for its creation.
how about you try to understand why they hate us and why they have some valid grievances, not to justify any of their reactions however.
I'm sorry. They have just grievances? What are they?
And how were they addressed and resolved by repeatedly bombing
our boats, buildings and then flying planes into those buildings when just using bombs didn't work?
America is by no means innocent, but when you have an extremist group instigate a non conventional war against us I'm not
even going to pretend they have a valid beef with us. Any position these folks have is an untenable need to impose
strict interpretations of Sharia and the obsessive need to wipe out anyone who does not follow their belief.
If they want to stop all this crap, turn in their ringleaders, and come to the negotiating table, then I might think about it.
I've been listening and watching through media outlets other than US mainstream media. Al Qaeda had a chance to voice
their opinion prior to slamming planes. I haven't heard anything other than missives for extremists to keep attacking
the US, Israel and any other allies.
There still is an US and THEM.
Dunno. /.
Maybe it is because he's a lawyer who understands technical issues.
He actually tries to tackle some legal issues we harp constantly on everyday at
Being a David in this age of Golliaths gets you some kudos.
To impeach, one must have evidence.
.naw no no no no. Yes.
How can one have evidence without investigation and tracking?
The best a single citizen can do is say -
"Gee, yer honor. I know in my gut that Rep. Foobar is dirty and guilty of . . . "
Guilty of what? Violating his campaign promises? A possible ethical violation, but hardly a crime.
And that's if the violation is clear cut. These days of semantic, hair splitting and defining was "is" is
you can't really see much integrity. More spin than an atomic orbital level.
The oath of office
as plucked from http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Oath_Office.htm
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend
the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;
that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion;
and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
Nothing in there about being a lying, backstabbing, opportunistic money grubber as long as the Constitution and the US is defended.
Voters in collective groups are scared and ignorant with short memories.
The best we can do is watch these congressmen likes hawks and have everything open and transparent as possible.
When they realize their past will be accurately recorded for quality assurance you will
see them starting to be afraid.
I am bitter. .
Hardware handshaking takes on a whole new meaning!
/., but for us average joes it takes some thought
/. I'm curious to see how many holes are in that pipe dream.
I was going to type a whole wild ass screed about why these researchers are detecting electrical signals
instead of detecting neurotransmitter concentrations. I thought about it. They are trying to get
the whole package: Motion and feeling which involves some complex sensory feedback for the limb user.
Plus detecting neurotransmitter concentrations at any level and at any point in the body is more than a little nutty.
I just wonder if there couldn't be some joining yet between all these new "muscle like" artificial materials
and the signal detection interfaces. Although it might be more difficult to get feedback developed.
I keep falling into the trap of limb motion as a one shot deal. 1. I think. 2. There's a signal. 3. The muscle moves. But then
what? Not profit!
My brain needs the feedback to know that
--I'm not crushing the can
--My grip isn't too loose
--The angle is correct
--etc.
All the degree of motion questions which are the whole point and marvel of the article.
I'm sure this is obvious to the learned members of
to pry our minds from the bad science and psuedo science we see from the media.
But I can dream . . .
Possibly in a future time there might be a completely artificial limb with an artificial material slapped
onto a lightweight frame in blobs. These blobs contract like muscle groups through
signals of various frequencies and gains. A fluid is given an impulse that excites and dissipates its energy
to the muscle material which allows a contracted muscle to expand. Mind you, these muscle groups are encased in their
own separate fluid. Don't need to have your bicep expand without having your tricep contract.
Then let the marketing begin. New Nike legs! Now approved for the 2048 Olympics on Mons Olympus!
Now this is
OK. I'm a big fan of Iain M. Banks culture novels.
Although I actually started with Against A Dark Background.
For one of those rare times, I'm gonna karma ho'
Straight from the Wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks
Novels as Iain Banks
* The Wasp Factory (1984)
* Walking on Glass (1985)
* The Bridge (1986)
* Espedair Street (1987)-adapted for BBC radio in 1998 (directed by Dave Batchelor)
* Canal Dreams (1989)
* The Crow Road (1992)-adapted for BBC TV in 1996 (directed by Gavin Millar)
* Complicity (1993)-filmed in 2000 (directed by Gavin Millar), retitled Retribution for its US DVD/video release
* Whit (1995)
* A Song of Stone (1997)
* The Business (1999)
* Dead Air (2002)
* The Steep Approach to Garbadale (2007)
Novels as Iain M. Banks
Much of Banks's science fiction deals with a vast interstellar civilization, the Culture, which he has developed in some detail over the course of seven novels and a number of short stories.
* Consider Phlebas (1987)
* The Player of Games (1988)
* Use of Weapons (1990)
* Excession (1996)
* Inversions (1998) (makes covert references to the protagonists being Culture citizens)
* Look to Windward (2000)
* Matter (2008)
His other, non-Culture, science fiction novels are:
* Against a Dark Background (1993)
* Feersum Endjinn (1994)
* The Algebraist (2004)
Enjoy!
A three digit ID poster!!!
I thought those were only a myth!
Anthropologists gave rumor to it, but I've seen one out in the wild!
The only way to top this would be a 2 digit ID or dare I say
the unheard of 1 digit ID. Many around Sir Edmund's Hunting
club call this animal mere poppycock! Balderdash! Flim Flam!
And that Phineas Phogg fellow still hasn't returned from his trip.
60 days and counting!
As for Arthur C. Clarke. meh.
No No, just kidding. Clarke was one of the foundation stones
which hold aloft the hardcore SF genre.
OK mods. I don't know what people are toking, but that
was called comedic timing. It's funny!
As for the topic, my Windows PC(still Win2K) has it, but it probably still has
some viruses or spyware on it. AFAIK, Win Defender doesn't run under Win2K.
My Mac doesn't have A/V, but I also have a firewall/gateway and some other intrusion detection.
The article author suggests a filtered email such as gmail, yahoo or hotmail.
Hotmail and yahoo!??
Am I that old? I remember those two mail services throwing malware around like a manure spreader.
SPIDER PIG,
SPIDER PIG.
Does whatever a SPIDER PIG does.
Can he swing,
From a web?
No he cant.
He's a pig.
LOOK OOOUUUTTT!!!!
He is a SPIDER PIG!!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Don't forget to tip your waitress on the way out!
Man, it's a slow Monday.
P.S. Even for a free news site this new format blows goats off the mountain.
I think they're working on Onion Bunnies, so crunchy and ... bonion-y ... bonnioyum ... !
/. comment.
These will of course make living sandwiches if you put an onion bunny on the back of a giant cow, perked up with some crisp tortoise pickles, sliced tomato zebra, and giant iceberg lettuce butterflies.
OK. Bizarre as this sounds. This statement is the king of funny. "Bonion-y" Priceless.
Mods, this is the first time in 3 years I've laughed at a
There are many others, but this one is funny.
Actually, this whole set of comments has at least brought a smile to my face.
300 pound burgers.
The lowing mooo of giant whalecows on Mt. Fuji.
The harpooning of great whalecow herds by the land whalers in their wheeled whaling boats.
OK. There might not be any mods left, but c'mon! Not only was this statement funny
and on topic, but geek related.
Laugh!
Well citizen.
.setup for a Brown Suit
I wear a Black Suit.
I'm not prog. .
Allow me to check.
. . . . . . .
suitObj.01 = "Black Suit"
Yes. Definitely the Black Suit.
So I'm basically going for an "Agent Smith" sort of look?
I usually do. Then again the Matr. . ur . . I mean Agency work normally requires it.
Ghod schmod!
Kneel before Zod!
Lucas is gonna . . .
Milk that cow.
Milk that cow.
Don't care why.
Don't care how.
Everybody kneel so he can milk that coooooowww!
Nothing like beating a genre into the ground. Did no one learn the lesson of Star Trek?
I guess maybe they did. Squeeze your creation for all its worth until everyone, but the hardcore fans finally burn out.
That's what I feel. Burnt out. Sorry to be a killjoy, but this stuff is too soon.
Lucas may have better spent his time on finishing the last half of the Book of Wills than keep tacking onto this.
More stories to tell? Sure. So let's once again have something that was a reasonable storyline and kill its continuity.