Tongue-tied guy calls the operator to place a call for him (this was back in the olden days).
"Opewater, please give me Susquehanna twee-twee-twee-twee."
The operator was amused by this, and asked the man to repeat the number several times as she called coworkers over to hear the guy say "twee-twee-twee-twee." The guy caught on, and said to the operator:
"Opewater, do you know Dictaphone?"
Operator says, "Why, yes, I am quite familiar with it."
TT Guy says, "Good. Then dictaphone up your ass and connect me to Susquehanna twee-twee-twee-twee."
I think what you have might be a disk from a Dictaphone or other dictation/transcriber machine.
I'd start by contacting Dictaphone http://www.dictaphone.com/ , then maybe Google for other Dictaphone contacts, perhaps a museum or broker of "antique" electronic gear.
I don't know that I have "made lots of money," but I own my house (two-story, log construction) and the 25 acres it sits on outright; no mortgage, and I paid cash for all of it from the proceeds of my engineering consulting business.
When I bid a job (clients were mega corps. such as Motorola, Texas Instruments, Datapoint, etc.), the bid was the price even if my costs or time exceeded the bid amount. I never invoiced for more than the bid amount.
Conversely, if my costs/time were less than the estimate on the bid, I invoiced for less than the bid amount.
Managers and controllers at my clients noticed this, even asked about it because they thought I had made an error. When I pointed out to them that making an accurate estimate bid was my responsibility and if I failed in tyhis it was my fault, not theirs, they were amazed. And they retained me long-term, partly for my honesty, mostly because I was good at what I did. (My business philosophy was and is, "Make a customer, not a sale.")
So, honesty paid off. I did not grow rich, but I own a comfortable home, run a few cattle, owe nothing except whatever is on my credit card, and generally have a pretty decent life--all without ripping off anybody.
FTFA: "Earlier this month SC reported some spammers are turning their back on the spam business. Self-d spam king Scott Richter has now been spam-free for over six months."
Seems incongruous to declare "spammers are turning their back on the spam business" in an article about a malicious new "brute force" spamming scheme that has grown "400 percent in the last twelve months according to a report from email filtering company Email Systems."
And and what does the writer of TFA base this notion, anyway? That one spammer (Richter) has been spam-free for six months?
"Figuring out why IE doesn't work with a page that looks good in every other browser is just not my idea of fun."
I wonder what would happen if all websites such as yours (and there are quite a few) started including the tag, "Best viewed with Firefox 1.0.6, Opera 7, or Safari" and inclusing links to download pages, with no mention of IE at all. More IE alternative downloads, you think? Or more pissed visitors who say, "Screw it."
I am not flaming or trolling. I truly wonder if websites (especially popular/high traffic sites) calling attention to better browsers in this manner would make a noticeable difference.
Taxing "luxuries" (a.k.a. "sin taxes") is preferable to taxing necessities. I smoke and drink alcohol, but have no gripe about taxes on tobacco and liquor because I can choose to pay or not pay the taxes by not buying those products. However, I have no choice when it comes to taxes on real property, automobiles, income, etc. Paying taxes on necessities is extortion, whereas paying taxes on luxuries is voluntary and the only fair form of taxation.
From the article: 'The third area, he said, is the most speculative. Some of the embryos were clearly ready to hatch, he said, but they have no teeth, "and that suggests to us that some form of parental care was required... not just protecting but active feeding." '
Speculating on whether hatchlngs were precocial or altricial based on absence of teeth is quite a stretch.
Among birds, most birds that spend most of their time on the ground walking are born precocial (feathered, able to walk and feed minutes after hatching). Birds that spend most of their time in trees and flying are altricial (naked, unable to fly, walk, or feed themselves and hence need parental nurturing fore some time).
However, coupled with other clues from the article, the altricial speculation seems more credible: "...the proportions of the limbs, neck and head suggest that as a baby and young animal this species walked on four legs, but as an adult it was able to walk on two legs some of the time." And, "...Mr. Reisz and colleagues reported that the Massospondylus hatchling was born four-legged with a relatively short tail, a horizontally held neck, long forelimbs and a huge head. As the animal matured, the neck grew faster than the rest of the body, but the forelimbs and head grew more slowly. The end result was a two-legged animal that looked very different from the four-legged embryo. Mr. Reisz suggested that the change from four- to two-legged could be a matter of balance related to the development of the animal's neck."
The long neck suggests adult animals were browsers rather than grazers. As such, young clearly could not feed except on very low-growing shrubs. On the other hand, perhaps the young grazed during development and gradually adapted to browsing. If so, it further erodes the altricial speculation.
Altricial young usually lack an ability critical to survival (e.g. flight among birds, foraging/hunting among mamallian carnivores and omnivores such as bears and chimpanzees) that involves both post-natal development and learning by minicry of the parents.
Precocial young (common in most mammalian herbivores) have essential abilities (feeding, mobility--to feed, keep up with herd, escape predators) from birth often as an adaptation to allow "following the food." It therefore seems unlikely that an herbivorous species would bear altricial young because it would tie parents to a location during post-natal development, and the copious quantities of vegetation required by such large animals would deplete immediate-area resources rather quickly.
Lack of teeth does not preclude suckling, another trait common among precocial herbivores.
True, but courts often do lok to precedents in other countries for guidance. Witness SCOTUS and its recent decision regarding capital punishment of minors.
Heh, "back in the day," an IT support tech at one of my client companies told me about this executive secretary who kept having problems with floppies going corrupt (this was a LONG time ago, and floppies were "it"). One day, he went to her office yet again and asked for the corrupted floppy itself, since all diagnostics indicated the drive was fine (he'd even gone so far as to install a 24-hour chart recorder on the AC power in her office to check for spikes/brownouts). She reached up on the side of a filing cabinet and retrieved the floppy, which was held in place with a refrigerator magnet.
"One might think that the denizens of/. *looks at submitter* would know and be inclined to point out the difference."
Yeah, well, I thought it was funny that a bunch of intelligent (to hear them tell it) journalists engaged in an email cluster-f**k without realizing what was up.
Maybe I should have submitted as "Laugh, It's Funny."
Heh, that reminds me of long-time Field & Stream magazine humor columnist Ed Zern. He always placed teasers at the end of his columns along the lines of, "Next Month: How to build a computer using only birchbark and the SoLunar Tables" http://www.solunar.com/ or "How to repair your outboard with a rock, a wet rag, and the SoLunar Tables."
The line between business and government gets more blurry every day. Consider the recent SCOTUS ruling that cities can exercise emminent domain and seize private property from one private citizen/entity and give it to another private citizen/entity in the name of commerce.
What if a double upper-limb amputee buys a season ticket? What about a paralytic? Do Goofy and Mickey lift the guy's hands and stick them into the scanner?
I wonder what happens if your fingers are bandaged due to an injury. Or if your finger geometry is permanently changed due to a broken bone, lost fingernail, or other injury.
Isn't someone offering a D/A receiver/converter that will connect to an analog TV? If you have a DVD or VCR with digital receiver capability, why couldn't manufacturers just include a D/A signal converter to accomplish the same thing? Thus, no one has to "throw away" their perfectly servicable analog TV.
The reason Man became the apex predator was because of the ability to think, reason, and plan. e.g. Homo sapiens figured out how to drive entire herds of herbivores over cliffs, eliminating the need for throwing or jabbing.
YOur post deserves an INSIGHTFUL mod, so in case you don't get it, here's one "Damned Insightful" for you.
Rather sad, all the energy and time spent on things that in the end mean nothing, while those around us are lonely or in pain, and it is within out power to help, but we do nothing.
"To me, there is no proof God(s) exist or don't exist."
That would make you an agnostic: gnostic (Gr.) one who knows; a (not) gnostic, one who doesn't know (whether God exists). See nacturation's post above re: atheist.
"I would expect a driver to know that the banging noise coming from under the hood is a problem, or when the car suddenly isn't handling right, maybe a tire's blown out, or that one at least should get the oil changed every 3,000 miles."
True. However, when one is accustomed to strange noises under the hood and strange handling characteristics (which manifest/change every time they change the air freshner hanging from the mirror), then another new noise or odd handling characteristic doesn't get much if any notice.
Further, if the LOW OIL light read "System lubrication properties are outside recommended specifications" or the TEMPERATURE light read "System coolant thermal properties above factory recommendation," how might the user/driver respond?
Retract your claws. I meant that had *I* mentioned "Linux" and "user-friendly" in the same post it would be redundant. i.e. Everyone knows Linux is not user-friendly to a non-geek, so pointing it out is redundant.
Well, I cowardly omitted any Linux reference to duck a TROLL or FLAMEBAIT mod. OTOH, mentioning Linux in a post about user-friendliness would actually merit a REDUNDANT label.
While I share your frustration with clueless users, it is unrealistic to expect them to learn what they perforce need to know in order to simply use their computer for what it was designed for (i.e. run apps, connect to "the internet" etc.). I know we hate car analogies here, nontheless, it is a bit like expecting a car owner to pass a mechanic certification test when all the guy wants to do is drive to work and back every day.
Slashdot Mirror
Tongue-tied guy calls the operator to place a call for him (this was back in the olden days).
"Opewater, please give me Susquehanna twee-twee-twee-twee."
The operator was amused by this, and asked the man to repeat the number several times as she called coworkers over to hear the guy say "twee-twee-twee-twee." The guy caught on, and said to the operator:
"Opewater, do you know Dictaphone?"
Operator says, "Why, yes, I am quite familiar with it."
TT Guy says, "Good. Then dictaphone up your ass and connect me to Susquehanna twee-twee-twee-twee."
I think what you have might be a disk from a Dictaphone or other dictation/transcriber machine.
I'd start by contacting Dictaphone http://www.dictaphone.com/ , then maybe Google for other Dictaphone contacts, perhaps a museum or broker of "antique" electronic gear.
I don't know that I have "made lots of money," but I own my house (two-story, log construction) and the 25 acres it sits on outright; no mortgage, and I paid cash for all of it from the proceeds of my engineering consulting business.
When I bid a job (clients were mega corps. such as Motorola, Texas Instruments, Datapoint, etc.), the bid was the price even if my costs or time exceeded the bid amount. I never invoiced for more than the bid amount.
Conversely, if my costs/time were less than the estimate on the bid, I invoiced for less than the bid amount.
Managers and controllers at my clients noticed this, even asked about it because they thought I had made an error. When I pointed out to them that making an accurate estimate bid was my responsibility and if I failed in tyhis it was my fault, not theirs, they were amazed. And they retained me long-term, partly for my honesty, mostly because I was good at what I did. (My business philosophy was and is, "Make a customer, not a sale.")
So, honesty paid off. I did not grow rich, but I own a comfortable home, run a few cattle, owe nothing except whatever is on my credit card, and generally have a pretty decent life--all without ripping off anybody.
FTFA: "Earlier this month SC reported some spammers are turning their back on the spam business. Self-d spam king Scott Richter has now been spam-free for over six months."
Seems incongruous to declare "spammers are turning their back on the spam business" in an article about a malicious new "brute force" spamming scheme that has grown "400 percent in the last twelve months according to a report from email filtering company Email Systems."
And and what does the writer of TFA base this notion, anyway? That one spammer (Richter) has been spam-free for six months?
Where's the beef?
"Figuring out why IE doesn't work with a page that looks good in every other browser is just not my idea of fun."
I wonder what would happen if all websites such as yours (and there are quite a few) started including the tag, "Best viewed with Firefox 1.0.6, Opera 7, or Safari" and inclusing links to download pages, with no mention of IE at all. More IE alternative downloads, you think? Or more pissed visitors who say, "Screw it."
I am not flaming or trolling. I truly wonder if websites (especially popular/high traffic sites) calling attention to better browsers in this manner would make a noticeable difference.
Taxing "luxuries" (a.k.a. "sin taxes") is preferable to taxing necessities. I smoke and drink alcohol, but have no gripe about taxes on tobacco and liquor because I can choose to pay or not pay the taxes by not buying those products. However, I have no choice when it comes to taxes on real property, automobiles, income, etc. Paying taxes on necessities is extortion, whereas paying taxes on luxuries is voluntary and the only fair form of taxation.
So, bring on the sin taxes!
From the article: 'The third area, he said, is the most speculative. Some of the embryos were clearly ready to hatch, he said, but they have no teeth, "and that suggests to us that some form of parental care was required ... not just protecting but active feeding." '
Speculating on whether hatchlngs were precocial or altricial based on absence of teeth is quite a stretch.
Among birds, most birds that spend most of their time on the ground walking are born precocial (feathered, able to walk and feed minutes after hatching). Birds that spend most of their time in trees and flying are altricial (naked, unable to fly, walk, or feed themselves and hence need parental nurturing fore some time).
However, coupled with other clues from the article, the altricial speculation seems more credible: "...the proportions of the limbs, neck and head suggest that as a baby and young animal this species walked on four legs, but as an adult it was able to walk on two legs some of the time." And, "...Mr. Reisz and colleagues reported that the Massospondylus hatchling was born four-legged with a relatively short tail, a horizontally held neck, long forelimbs and a huge head. As the animal matured, the neck grew faster than the rest of the body, but the forelimbs and head grew more slowly. The end result was a two-legged animal that looked very different from the four-legged embryo. Mr. Reisz suggested that the change from four- to two-legged could be a matter of balance related to the development of the animal's neck."
The long neck suggests adult animals were browsers rather than grazers. As such, young clearly could not feed except on very low-growing shrubs. On the other hand, perhaps the young grazed during development and gradually adapted to browsing. If so, it further erodes the altricial speculation.
Altricial young usually lack an ability critical to survival (e.g. flight among birds, foraging/hunting among mamallian carnivores and omnivores such as bears and chimpanzees) that involves both post-natal development and learning by minicry of the parents.
Precocial young (common in most mammalian herbivores) have essential abilities (feeding, mobility--to feed, keep up with herd, escape predators) from birth often as an adaptation to allow "following the food." It therefore seems unlikely that an herbivorous species would bear altricial young because it would tie parents to a location during post-natal development, and the copious quantities of vegetation required by such large animals would deplete immediate-area resources rather quickly.
Lack of teeth does not preclude suckling, another trait common among precocial herbivores.
My vote therefore goes for precocial.
...this http://www.realdoll.com/dolls.asp
True, but courts often do lok to precedents in other countries for guidance. Witness SCOTUS and its recent decision regarding capital punishment of minors.
Yet U.S. courts have ruled that ISPs are not common carriers (offshoot of VOIP litigation).
Heh, "back in the day," an IT support tech at one of my client companies told me about this executive secretary who kept having problems with floppies going corrupt (this was a LONG time ago, and floppies were "it"). One day, he went to her office yet again and asked for the corrupted floppy itself, since all diagnostics indicated the drive was fine (he'd even gone so far as to install a 24-hour chart recorder on the AC power in her office to check for spikes/brownouts). She reached up on the side of a filing cabinet and retrieved the floppy, which was held in place with a refrigerator magnet.
"One might think that the denizens of /. *looks at submitter* would know and be inclined to point out the difference."
Yeah, well, I thought it was funny that a bunch of intelligent (to hear them tell it) journalists engaged in an email cluster-f**k without realizing what was up.
Maybe I should have submitted as "Laugh, It's Funny."
Heh, that reminds me of long-time Field & Stream magazine humor columnist Ed Zern. He always placed teasers at the end of his columns along the lines of, "Next Month: How to build a computer using only birchbark and the SoLunar Tables" http://www.solunar.com/ or "How to repair your outboard with a rock, a wet rag, and the SoLunar Tables."
The line between business and government gets more blurry every day. Consider the recent SCOTUS ruling that cities can exercise emminent domain and seize private property from one private citizen/entity and give it to another private citizen/entity in the name of commerce.
Big government IS big business, and vice-versa.
What if a double upper-limb amputee buys a season ticket? What about a paralytic? Do Goofy and Mickey lift the guy's hands and stick them into the scanner?
I wonder what happens if your fingers are bandaged due to an injury. Or if your finger geometry is permanently changed due to a broken bone, lost fingernail, or other injury.
Isn't someone offering a D/A receiver/converter that will connect to an analog TV? If you have a DVD or VCR with digital receiver capability, why couldn't manufacturers just include a D/A signal converter to accomplish the same thing? Thus, no one has to "throw away" their perfectly servicable analog TV.
The reason Man became the apex predator was because of the ability to think, reason, and plan. e.g. Homo sapiens figured out how to drive entire herds of herbivores over cliffs, eliminating the need for throwing or jabbing.
YOu mean lawsuits like those filed by psychic (or is it psycho?) crackpot Uri Geller?
r /Uri_Geller.htm and Nintendo http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/ngeller.htm among others.
He has sued (and lost) book publishers http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/U/U
For years, one of Geller's favorite pastimes has been suing crackpot debunker the Amazing Randi http://www.randi.org/
YOur post deserves an INSIGHTFUL mod, so in case you don't get it, here's one "Damned Insightful" for you.
Rather sad, all the energy and time spent on things that in the end mean nothing, while those around us are lonely or in pain, and it is within out power to help, but we do nothing.
"To me, there is no proof God(s) exist or don't exist."
That would make you an agnostic: gnostic (Gr.) one who knows; a (not) gnostic, one who doesn't know (whether God exists). See nacturation's post above re: atheist.
"I would expect a driver to know that the banging noise coming from under the hood is a problem, or when the car suddenly isn't handling right, maybe a tire's blown out, or that one at least should get the oil changed every 3,000 miles."
True. However, when one is accustomed to strange noises under the hood and strange handling characteristics (which manifest/change every time they change the air freshner hanging from the mirror), then another new noise or odd handling characteristic doesn't get much if any notice.
Further, if the LOW OIL light read "System lubrication properties are outside recommended specifications" or the TEMPERATURE light read "System coolant thermal properties above factory recommendation," how might the user/driver respond?
Retract your claws. I meant that had *I* mentioned "Linux" and "user-friendly" in the same post it would be redundant. i.e. Everyone knows Linux is not user-friendly to a non-geek, so pointing it out is redundant.
Friends again?
Well, I cowardly omitted any Linux reference to duck a TROLL or FLAMEBAIT mod. OTOH, mentioning Linux in a post about user-friendliness would actually merit a REDUNDANT label.
While I share your frustration with clueless users, it is unrealistic to expect them to learn what they perforce need to know in order to simply use their computer for what it was designed for (i.e. run apps, connect to "the internet" etc.). I know we hate car analogies here, nontheless, it is a bit like expecting a car owner to pass a mechanic certification test when all the guy wants to do is drive to work and back every day.