I think this niche is already filled by the Sony Vaio TR series. At 1.4"x7.4"x10.6" the Sony is pretty darn small. The Sony has a 1 GHz pentium M,.5 GB DDR ram, and a 40 GB drive. It comes wireless equipped, and, no, I don't own one. Base model runs $2,200 US, which is probably a bit more than the VIA/MOMA will sell for, I'm sure.
Starsky and Hutch, Yes this is OT, maybe flamebait
on
H2G2 Film Website
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· Score: 2
>I mean, when hollywood can fuck up making a movie of Starsky and Hutch for flipsake, what chance have they got with this?
What, exactly, constitutes fucking up Starsky and Hutch? The teevee show sucked on virtually every level... bad acting, bad writing. If the movie sucks, it's just being faithful to the original. Some movies appear to be successful if being a great fit for MST3K is the goal.
[calls brother on phone]
Hi, we're going up to Smith and Morris Lakes on Friday. Three nights there then over to Alpine Lake. Two nights there than back out to the truck and home. Call you when I get back.
Re:The Confusion is a better read, if you can...
on
The Confusion
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· Score: 1
>My fear is that, if this is Empire, we end up getting Ewoks in Book 3.
Ewoks I can take. Gungans, and I get out the firearms.
Thanks for taking the time to write this thoughtful review. Can't say whether I agree with you or not, as The Confusion is waiting for me to finish Broken Angels. However, I liked Quicksilver and had some of the same feelings about it that you use to describe this work. I agree with your statement that Stephenson is maturing as a writer. His writing is getting more complex, and that can result in it being less easily read by many. Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon had the obvious geek hooks that suck in the/.er, but in these last two the geek factor is less obvious.
From reading Quicksilver, I agree with your statement that this could be a history of how money came to be what it is today. It also seems to be about the development or maturation of empiricism and how it came to be the dominant force in society. This is certainly relevant today with the rise of the neoluddite, anti-science faction on the American right. The Confusion is next in the pile, and I am looking forward to reading it.
>There really isn't enough diversity in music to support even a modest number of unique radio stations.
Out of a thousand stations: 10 AOR, 10 Hip Hop, 50 College Town Indie, 929 JEEEEEZUSSS Saves Send Money, and 1 guy broadcasting an audio tape of his girlfriend and him going at it on the kitchen table.
>>They love volunteers
>Actually, that statement is far from true. Volunteers generally cost more to train and manage than the amount spent on an employee.
As with many things, YMMV. You are certainly right in many cases. My experience with Red Cross and most other volunteer organizations is that maybe one volunteer in ten is the equivalent of a decent paid employee. OTOH it isn't always so. Our local Friends of the Library volunteer group is full of retired teachers, Seven Sisters graduate Junior League types and so on. Very competent, energetic people. Given the nasty budget cuts of the last few years, the place literally couldn't run without them.
Certainly, what I was suggesting requires a long-term commitment to work. Not every group is up to that, but some probably are. After all other groups from the local Harley Owners Group to the Rotary Club have ongoing projects that they support year in and year out, some of which take a lot of work.
>Most libraries are stuck with Windows simply because they don't have enough money to move away (it does COST money to get everything working with linux)
As geoffeg also notes, libraries are extremely crunched for money. They love volunteers for that reason. If a local linux users group worked out a long-term volunteer agreement with their local public library to help with their catalogue and IS systems, I'm sure it could result in switching their systems over to linux. It would take a bit of time and energy to earn trust and to help the librarians see the value, but I'm sure it could be a great way to help your local library and expose more people to linux at the same time.
It is well to keep in mind that past performance on machines with Microsoft's minimum requirements for the given OS has been crappy. You have always needed to step it up a couple of notches for things to be zippy. Just what I need, a 4 Ghz slug.
I think I better detour 'cross here and head on over to Big Leg Emma's house now.
>>About 80 percent of the organisms they found in the flaky scum were in the same genetic families as those known to infect wounds or cause problems for people with AIDS, cancer or other immune system disorders.
Let's not forget that potatoes and tomatoes are in the same genetic family (Solanaceae) as [gasp] Deadly Nightshade. And carrots are in the same genetic family (Umbeliferae) as [horrors] Poison Hemlock. And little Fluffy the Cockapoo over there is in the same genetic family (Canidae) as the dreadful Dire Wolf. Little sucker might turn on you at any minute.
>Who pays for "studies" like this? I predict if you follow the money, you'll find that this fine product is from the makers of Lysol and other fine household products.
Actually, this one was funded by the National Institutes of Health. That makes it just stupid, rather than nefarious, I guess.
>What is so hard about using "em" as the base measurement for the layout? Also, the main content text size should always be 1em, i.e. not specified, allowing the browser's default size to be used.
Sheesh yes. This site also cranks my other pet peeve: contrast. Light grey text on white is hard to read, especially at smaller sizes. Here are some guidelines from Penn State:
Use a browser safe color palette (216 colors).
Use contrast. Dark text on pale background is better on a computer than light text on dark.
Avoid vibrating contrasts, especially red and green next to each other (color blindness) .
Use bright or different colors for emphasis.
Use the 3-Color Rule.
Never use colors from the opposite ends of the color spectrum together.
Nothing like dark red, eight point type on a black background to help my eyes.
>United States Patent 6,727,830 Lui,et al. April 27, 2004
Time based hardware button for application launch
This is totally nuts. There are so many examples of prior art running around that I can only think this is a belated April Fool's joke that got picked up. I've written and deleted about six more sentences that all came out either as raving anti-Microsoft flamebait, profanity, or both.
Seriously, does anyone see a valid aspect to this? I'm not a hardware engineer, but I sure can't see one.
>250 mph top speed is retarded because the only places you can really reach such a speed are on a banked oval track.
A banked oval wouldn't be the best spot, because of the downforce in the turns. You need to seriously beef up the suspension and then deal with the lift on the straights. I would personally recommend your nearest salt flat. Either that or I-80 between Battle Mountain and Winnemucca.
Maybe I would. I don't mind paying for services. I do have more than basic cable, I pay for an ISP, cell phone, etc. I guess I'm a little fuzzy on what I get for my $13.00 per month. I'm already paying the cable company for the content.
Is a DVR that I can just buy and hook up to my cable feed without having to pay an additional monthly subscription to the cable barons. Sort of like my VCR.
>>Do Christians use different standards of judging craft than non-Christians?
>Nope. We use units sold or dollars grossed, just like everyone else.
Personally, I use other standards to judge craft. High sales figures do not mean something is not crap. By my standards of literature, the Left Behind series is a steaming pile. Bad writing coupled to bad theology may sell to the uneducated, but that's not going to turn it into quality literature. As I recall, there is also a Biblical injunction against the love of money.
>I don't understand why they couldn't have anticipated this problem before they shipped the TVs, though. Isn't that what QA is for?
Dilbert: We have a serious flaw in our product that can be corrected with a cheap, quick swap-out of the Model 9 Frammish Board with the Model 9A. You want me to recall all 495,000 units that have shipped to our value-added resellers and make the change, right? Remember, I told you about this six months before any of these units shipped.
Pointy-Haired Boss: Noooo. Let's wait and see how many retail customers call and complain. We'll send some minimum wage guy out to swap out the card for the one's that somehow manage to call us.
>Today, California officials may recommend decertifying some or all of Dielbold's machines for the November General Election.
Sadly, this will include the Diebold optical scanners used in my county. Like much associated with this issue, this would be JPFN. The optically scanned ballots are much like the machine scored tests used in university classes everywhere. You fill in a bubble with a black felt pen to vote for a candidate. Simple, quick, readable with either the optical scanner or the Mark I eyeball in the event of a power failure.
I am totally at a loss to understand this rush to electronic voting. As a citizen, I demand that my vote be:
Secret
Subject to verifiable recount
Free from fraud
I realize that these are the ideal and that abuses have occurred under all forms of balloting yet used. However, the paper ballot and voting lists have stood the test of time. Reducing costs is not be a valid reason for mucking about with the very foundation of the democratic process.
They seem to have picked their winners and then picked some schlock for them to beat. To not even consider anything from Rio is idiotic. Several have mentioned the Karma. For flash players, the Cali has to be at least considered by anyone looking for one of these.
I own a Rio Nitrus. Some of the things I like about it are:
Form factor - size and weight of a large binder clip.
>how many have actually used high speed and know what a difference it makes?
I have a T3 connection at work. At home, my 56K is plenty. If I need to download and burn the latest Linux distro ISOs, download a 5GB.jpeg of the latest photo from Casini, or some such, I do it in the background at work. At home, I mainly am interested in text-based internet use. I do a lot from a Unix shell account; mail with pine and usenet with tin. When I am surfing the web, it is generally for text-based content, not visuals. For example, Slashdot is a site that is equally useable with broadband or dialup.
I do not do a lot of gaming over the net, but if I did more, broadband would be a necessity. Also, if I lacked broadband access at work, I would definitely have it at home. Of course, that would mean choosing between the evil of DSL from SBC or the evil of cable from Cox. I wonder if there is service availavble from Cthulhu.net?
Slashdot Mirror
I think this niche is already filled by the Sony Vaio TR series. At 1.4"x7.4"x10.6" the Sony is pretty darn small. The Sony has a 1 GHz pentium M, .5 GB DDR ram, and a 40 GB drive. It comes wireless equipped, and, no, I don't own one. Base model runs $2,200 US, which is probably a bit more than the VIA/MOMA will sell for, I'm sure.
>I mean, when hollywood can fuck up making a movie of Starsky and Hutch for flipsake, what chance have they got with this?
What, exactly, constitutes fucking up Starsky and Hutch? The teevee show sucked on virtually every level... bad acting, bad writing. If the movie sucks, it's just being faithful to the original. Some movies appear to be successful if being a great fit for MST3K is the goal.[calls brother on phone] Hi, we're going up to Smith and Morris Lakes on Friday. Three nights there then over to Alpine Lake. Two nights there than back out to the truck and home. Call you when I get back.
>My fear is that, if this is Empire, we end up getting Ewoks in Book 3.
Ewoks I can take. Gungans, and I get out the firearms.Thanks for taking the time to write this thoughtful review. Can't say whether I agree with you or not, as The Confusion is waiting for me to finish Broken Angels. However, I liked Quicksilver and had some of the same feelings about it that you use to describe this work. I agree with your statement that Stephenson is maturing as a writer. His writing is getting more complex, and that can result in it being less easily read by many. Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon had the obvious geek hooks that suck in the /.er, but in these last two the geek factor is less obvious.
From reading Quicksilver, I agree with your statement that this could be a history of how money came to be what it is today. It also seems to be about the development or maturation of empiricism and how it came to be the dominant force in society. This is certainly relevant today with the rise of the neoluddite, anti-science faction on the American right. The Confusion is next in the pile, and I am looking forward to reading it.
I believe they are similar to those recently announced for the next version of Windows.
- Have a product
- that is involved in sales
- to customers
- generating revenue
SCO seems to have none of these things.>There really isn't enough diversity in music to support even a modest number of unique radio stations.
Out of a thousand stations: 10 AOR, 10 Hip Hop, 50 College Town Indie, 929 JEEEEEZUSSS Saves Send Money, and 1 guy broadcasting an audio tape of his girlfriend and him going at it on the kitchen table."Greed is good."
>And if you're on IRC, remember, you're evil.
First, that's Doctor Evil to you.Second, one wonders what sort of fit the NYT would have if someone ever tells them about Usenet.
>>They love volunteers
As with many things, YMMV. You are certainly right in many cases. My experience with Red Cross and most other volunteer organizations is that maybe one volunteer in ten is the equivalent of a decent paid employee. OTOH it isn't always so. Our local Friends of the Library volunteer group is full of retired teachers, Seven Sisters graduate Junior League types and so on. Very competent, energetic people. Given the nasty budget cuts of the last few years, the place literally couldn't run without them.>Actually, that statement is far from true. Volunteers generally cost more to train and manage than the amount spent on an employee.
Certainly, what I was suggesting requires a long-term commitment to work. Not every group is up to that, but some probably are. After all other groups from the local Harley Owners Group to the Rotary Club have ongoing projects that they support year in and year out, some of which take a lot of work.
>Most libraries are stuck with Windows simply because they don't have enough money to move away (it does COST money to get everything working with linux)
As geoffeg also notes, libraries are extremely crunched for money. They love volunteers for that reason. If a local linux users group worked out a long-term volunteer agreement with their local public library to help with their catalogue and IS systems, I'm sure it could result in switching their systems over to linux. It would take a bit of time and energy to earn trust and to help the librarians see the value, but I'm sure it could be a great way to help your local library and expose more people to linux at the same time.It is well to keep in mind that past performance on machines with Microsoft's minimum requirements for the given OS has been crappy. You have always needed to step it up a couple of notches for things to be zippy. Just what I need, a 4 Ghz slug.
I think I better detour 'cross here and head on over to Big Leg Emma's house now.
To get this sort of lashup requires the unique combination of prudery, stupidity, and incompetence that you only get at the Federal level.
>>About 80 percent of the organisms they found in the flaky scum were in the same genetic families as those known to infect wounds or cause problems for people with AIDS, cancer or other immune system disorders.
Let's not forget that potatoes and tomatoes are in the same genetic family (Solanaceae) as [gasp] Deadly Nightshade. And carrots are in the same genetic family (Umbeliferae) as [horrors] Poison Hemlock. And little Fluffy the Cockapoo over there is in the same genetic family (Canidae) as the dreadful Dire Wolf. Little sucker might turn on you at any minute.>Who pays for "studies" like this? I predict if you follow the money, you'll find that this fine product is from the makers of Lysol and other fine household products.
Actually, this one was funded by the National Institutes of Health. That makes it just stupid, rather than nefarious, I guess.>What is so hard about using "em" as the base measurement for the layout? Also, the main content text size should always be 1em, i.e. not specified, allowing the browser's default size to be used.
Sheesh yes. This site also cranks my other pet peeve: contrast. Light grey text on white is hard to read, especially at smaller sizes. Here are some guidelines from Penn State:- Use a browser safe color palette (216 colors).
- Use contrast. Dark text on pale background is better on a computer than light text on dark.
- Avoid vibrating contrasts, especially red and green next to each other (color blindness) .
- Use bright or different colors for emphasis.
- Use the 3-Color Rule.
- Never use colors from the opposite ends of the color spectrum together.
Nothing like dark red, eight point type on a black background to help my eyes.>United States Patent 6,727,830 Lui,et al. April 27, 2004 Time based hardware button for application launch
This is totally nuts. There are so many examples of prior art running around that I can only think this is a belated April Fool's joke that got picked up. I've written and deleted about six more sentences that all came out either as raving anti-Microsoft flamebait, profanity, or both.Seriously, does anyone see a valid aspect to this? I'm not a hardware engineer, but I sure can't see one.
>250 mph top speed is retarded because the only places you can really reach such a speed are on a banked oval track.
A banked oval wouldn't be the best spot, because of the downforce in the turns. You need to seriously beef up the suspension and then deal with the lift on the straights. I would personally recommend your nearest salt flat. Either that or I-80 between Battle Mountain and Winnemucca.Maybe I would. I don't mind paying for services. I do have more than basic cable, I pay for an ISP, cell phone, etc. I guess I'm a little fuzzy on what I get for my $13.00 per month. I'm already paying the cable company for the content.
Is a DVR that I can just buy and hook up to my cable feed without having to pay an additional monthly subscription to the cable barons. Sort of like my VCR.
>>Do Christians use different standards of judging craft than non-Christians?
Personally, I use other standards to judge craft. High sales figures do not mean something is not crap. By my standards of literature, the Left Behind series is a steaming pile. Bad writing coupled to bad theology may sell to the uneducated, but that's not going to turn it into quality literature. As I recall, there is also a Biblical injunction against the love of money.>Nope. We use units sold or dollars grossed, just like everyone else.
>I don't understand why they couldn't have anticipated this problem before they shipped the TVs, though. Isn't that what QA is for?
Dilbert: We have a serious flaw in our product that can be corrected with a cheap, quick swap-out of the Model 9 Frammish Board with the Model 9A. You want me to recall all 495,000 units that have shipped to our value-added resellers and make the change, right? Remember, I told you about this six months before any of these units shipped.Pointy-Haired Boss: Noooo. Let's wait and see how many retail customers call and complain. We'll send some minimum wage guy out to swap out the card for the one's that somehow manage to call us.
>Today, California officials may recommend decertifying some or all of Dielbold's machines for the November General Election.
Sadly, this will include the Diebold optical scanners used in my county. Like much associated with this issue, this would be JPFN. The optically scanned ballots are much like the machine scored tests used in university classes everywhere. You fill in a bubble with a black felt pen to vote for a candidate. Simple, quick, readable with either the optical scanner or the Mark I eyeball in the event of a power failure.I am totally at a loss to understand this rush to electronic voting. As a citizen, I demand that my vote be:
- Secret
- Subject to verifiable recount
- Free from fraud
I realize that these are the ideal and that abuses have occurred under all forms of balloting yet used. However, the paper ballot and voting lists have stood the test of time. Reducing costs is not be a valid reason for mucking about with the very foundation of the democratic process.I own a Rio Nitrus. Some of the things I like about it are:
>how many have actually used high speed and know what a difference it makes?
I have a T3 connection at work. At home, my 56K is plenty. If I need to download and burn the latest Linux distro ISOs, download a 5GBI do not do a lot of gaming over the net, but if I did more, broadband would be a necessity. Also, if I lacked broadband access at work, I would definitely have it at home. Of course, that would mean choosing between the evil of DSL from SBC or the evil of cable from Cox. I wonder if there is service availavble from Cthulhu.net?