McDonald's changed their menu to make money, not because of pressure campaigns. They realized that people were trying to eat healthier, so they give you a nice, healthy bed of lettuce and greens.
Then they pile on some fried chicken and 400calorie dressing. And charge you more by unit weight for it than just about anything else on the menu.
Not exactly what you're looking for, but paintball might be a good substitute.
In a single 15 minute round of paintball, a tournament player can fire in excess of 1000 paintballs. Some players go on with 1600+ rounds. (10 pods of ~150 rounds each + a hopper of 120-150)
These things can fire at rates in excess of 20 balls a second. To compare a M16 usually fires 10 times a second at full auto.
You can use a camera to take a picture of a computer screen. This is more of a threat than a photocopier, I would think. At least a camera can be discreet.
Instead of telling them that an nice comfortable "airbag" pops out during a catastropic accident, tell them that a steel spike shoots out. People might think twice about tailgating.
Ok, they didn't get rid of the books, they just moved them to a different library.
And no, I don't think books will be going anywhere soon. Currently, computers are not a viable replacement for books... they're just a useful augmentation.
Case in point: I have a subscription to O'reily's Safari. It's an excellent tool for finding some tidbit or for browsing a tutorial for a new language. i.e. One-time reads. However, my reference books (Nutshell, etc.) are dogeared, annotated hardcopies at my desk.
The only thing I can see replacing books is something that combines the power of computers with the low overhead and form factor of books. This ePaper (trademarked? maybe?) type stuff is what I'm talking about. Imagine a book about the size of your average Dan Brown bestseller (not Neal Stephenson... too big) You turn to the first page and it's your Biology textbook. Hmm, not what you wanted. Tap your margin and get a nice list of what books you have in your library. You want to pick up where you left off in Quicksilver. The page blurs, and viola, the first page is now 2/3 of the way through the (much larger) book, with a little tab where you marked the last line you were on.
Time passes, though, and you have to study for that biology test coming up. You tap the line your on, and place a book dart. Then you pick your biology book. You're on chapter 3, so you just FLIP through until you're on chapter 3 (or jump to it using the interface). You get the section on the peculiarty of ADP and look at the margin where YOU'D WRITTEN SOME NOTES! Hmmm, let's take a closer look at these notes. You tap them and your notes expand to take up the entire page, while the textbook slides over to the left (or right, for you southpaws).
Unfortunately, you still have to pay $250 for the damn textbook. Unless you get the softcover ones exported to India for $30, like I used to
When you can have that level of functionality AND a reasonably sized electronic library available, then you can begin to phase out hardcopies. I long for that day. Not because I don't like books, quite the contrary, but so I don't have to carry the weight of the 2-3 books and laptop I carry around with me on a daily basis.
The only other exciting piece of keyboard technology I've seen recently was from the now-defunct Fingerworks.
They produced a line of ergonomic keyboards that were, in essence, a large touchpad. I understand that there was a fairly steep learning curve, though.
A combination of their tech (supposedly purchased by a large, unnamed company) and some OLEDs would be amazing. It'll never happen, of course, but cool anyway.
The IP law firm Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe is suing Akashic Inc. for 1.436e17000 violations of US and International Copyright Law.
Akashic Inc is accused of "rampant distribution of every single piece of copyrighted material concievable throughout the history and future of humankind."
Timothy Leary from Akashic Inc. commented that "I have no doubt that we will emerge triumhant in no less than 99.9% of all possible universes in which the case is currently active."
I built a similar system recently, but I used an ASUS A8N SLI-Deluxe motherboard. There's a tiny 3cm fan on the northbridge that runs at >8000RPM. By far the noisiest thing in my case.
Other people seem to be having a similar problem with this board. Top notch otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
As in "You'll pay dearly for that..."
--Compulsion
McDonald's changed their menu to make money, not because of pressure campaigns. They realized that people were trying to eat healthier, so they give you a nice, healthy bed of lettuce and greens.
Then they pile on some fried chicken and 400calorie dressing. And charge you more by unit weight for it than just about anything else on the menu.
--Compulsion
Not exactly what you're looking for, but paintball might be a good substitute.
In a single 15 minute round of paintball, a tournament player can fire in excess of 1000 paintballs. Some players go on with 1600+ rounds. (10 pods of ~150 rounds each + a hopper of 120-150)
These things can fire at rates in excess of 20 balls a second. To compare a M16 usually fires 10 times a second at full auto.
--Compulsion
I'd prefer not to use windows at all.
"violence never solved anything"
If you're having that problem, you're not using enough violence.
You can use a camera to take a picture of a computer screen. This is more of a threat than a photocopier, I would think. At least a camera can be discreet.
Instead of telling them that an nice comfortable "airbag" pops out during a catastropic accident, tell them that a steel spike shoots out. People might think twice about tailgating.
Stop looking at /. and get back to work then, you slacker!
Ok, they didn't get rid of the books, they just moved them to a different library.
And no, I don't think books will be going anywhere soon. Currently, computers are not a viable replacement for books... they're just a useful augmentation.
Case in point: I have a subscription to O'reily's Safari. It's an excellent tool for finding some tidbit or for browsing a tutorial for a new language. i.e. One-time reads. However, my reference books (Nutshell, etc.) are dogeared, annotated hardcopies at my desk.
The only thing I can see replacing books is something that combines the power of computers with the low overhead and form factor of books. This ePaper (trademarked? maybe?) type stuff is what I'm talking about. Imagine a book about the size of your average Dan Brown bestseller (not Neal Stephenson... too big) You turn to the first page and it's your Biology textbook. Hmm, not what you wanted. Tap your margin and get a nice list of what books you have in your library. You want to pick up where you left off in Quicksilver. The page blurs, and viola, the first page is now 2/3 of the way through the (much larger) book, with a little tab where you marked the last line you were on.
Time passes, though, and you have to study for that biology test coming up. You tap the line your on, and place a book dart. Then you pick your biology book. You're on chapter 3, so you just FLIP through until you're on chapter 3 (or jump to it using the interface). You get the section on the peculiarty of ADP and look at the margin where YOU'D WRITTEN SOME NOTES! Hmmm, let's take a closer look at these notes. You tap them and your notes expand to take up the entire page, while the textbook slides over to the left (or right, for you southpaws).
Unfortunately, you still have to pay $250 for the damn textbook. Unless you get the softcover ones exported to India for $30, like I used to
When you can have that level of functionality AND a reasonably sized electronic library available, then you can begin to phase out hardcopies. I long for that day. Not because I don't like books, quite the contrary, but so I don't have to carry the weight of the 2-3 books and laptop I carry around with me on a daily basis.
The only other exciting piece of keyboard technology I've seen recently was from the now-defunct Fingerworks. They produced a line of ergonomic keyboards that were, in essence, a large touchpad. I understand that there was a fairly steep learning curve, though. A combination of their tech (supposedly purchased by a large, unnamed company) and some OLEDs would be amazing. It'll never happen, of course, but cool anyway.
The IP law firm Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe is suing Akashic Inc. for 1.436e17000 violations of US and International Copyright Law.
Akashic Inc is accused of "rampant distribution of every single piece of copyrighted material concievable throughout the history and future of humankind."
Timothy Leary from Akashic Inc. commented that "I have no doubt that we will emerge triumhant in no less than 99.9% of all possible universes in which the case is currently active."
Please don't feed the trolls.
Actually, MS can make quite a few assumptions regarding the hardware underneath. Now Linux, on the other hand...
In retrospect, I'm not sure if this would work.
Feel free to track my package. You have about the time it takes for the capacitor to charge on my degausser.
Other people seem to be having a similar problem with this board. Top notch otherwise.
As opposed to what? Dirty Underwear?