Does any submitter/top posting authority at/. read Forbes? Use Google? Use MySQL to prevent dupe articles? Have pull/clout to get the dope straight from the horse's mouth within 4 hours of a major report event?
I guess I may be burning karma and grousing, but I'm willing to forfeit ALL my remaining karma, and any Meta Mod points to say the following:
I reported this FRIDAY, 15 July at 1207 (and I am sure the paper was printed before 6AM Friday, which means ), and even put it in my journal, and even bought the Friday paper to have a hard copy. I think it would have made better excitement than to wait for SUNDAY just to see ZDNet's blurb. I guess ZDN *could* have had a writeup on it first, but I "googled" keywords and Google turned up junk from 2 years prior, but not a single word for Friday. I guess nobody reads the papers fast enough to stir things up so Google caches things before the ZDN's word gets priority over Google.
TFA header/byline as timestamped on ZDN is:
"HP to slash approximately 15,000 jobs
By Dawn Kawamoto, and Michael Singer, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet News: July 16, 2005, 8:00 PM PT"
Saturday NIGHT, no less...
I suppose it *is* possible someone at/. gave me the benefit of the doubt and tried to pull teeth at HP and failed, or gave up with one, "We don't discuss layoff policy before the PR department has seen a designated newspaper publish it, and even after then, we refer inquiries to the published paper or our website after we've made it official on our website..."
To get a submission posted before the regulars, is it necessary to add more redundant verbiage and speculation than the FA itself? Or wait for ZDN and on-site papers to display the content?
But, maybe a sticky patch with liquid pepper that won't burn it's way back into the bloodstream and piss off the injured (umm, adding insult to injury...) should be the way forward.
There should be a public outcry against a $100 4"x4" patch. That's just too much money. Just as we paid $2,000 or more for milspec toilet seats, hammers and coffee pots, I imagine we'll be "bled to death" over simple taping gauze pads that could be pre-soaked in other liquid agents. I heard that urine works, too. Maybe every one could carry his/her own extra canteen to capture (and refresh or replenish) their own several ounces of urine.
However, if a bullet leaks several canteens and then urine is in short supply, there' be a literal "pissing contest" to prevent or delay excessive bleeding.
Well, as of about 12 Noon today, I heard that HP will be laying off some 10,000 to 25,000, purportedly according to the SJ Mercury News dated for today. I wonder if any poor layoffee of HP will be qualified for that job...
OTOH, maybe some of that cyber security will go toward defending the infrastructure from attacks from within, especially if more and more people keep getting laid off. If a sizable chunk of this round of layoffs is bulk AND immediate, and if even 1/2 of them are in silly conjob alley, the real estate market here could be in for a JOLT, "the Big One" the employees expect, and the "big one" the R/E industry wants to dismiss...
I would argue that the overlays shown in the Star Trek USS Enterprise Bridge Blueprints (a copy of which I purchased back in Sept '82) says, "Shows Every Button of Every Station and Their Functions: Complete Set of 10 Accurate 17" x 22" Blueprints of the Primary Bridge", (these drawings were drawn by Michael McMaster) could be considered precursors to this. The first set was drawn October 76. The STTNG console, as described by Michael Okuda and Wil Wheaton are a leap of generations past "Trek Classic."
We've already seen in the Trek Episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" a console control station with keyboard and switches being inserted after Lee Kelso appropriated it from the Vega cracking station. Later, that console style was changed for subsequent episodes, and apparently those changes on-screen seem to import/imply multi-function/demand-assignment control buttons. They're not for typing or composing documents, but they serve the purpose of entering single or a string of command sequences.
Now, in terms of recent Trek incarnations, it is plain and obvious that even tho Trek is fiction, it should not take a giant leap to consider that today's thin film and LCD panels *could* make it feasible to lighten up, slim down, and de-wire these control consoles and make them portable. (Even the USN today and for several years has been using Palm Pilots for crew maintenance of shipboard equipment, and their PDAs could surely use the docking cradles/keyboards...)
Where I am going with this is that between Trek of the 60s and technology of today, and with Trek already having mentioned multifunction keyboard overlays in the 60's drawings and the STTNG blueprints reiterating such things, where the consoles bring up the functions appropriate to security clearance, work tasks, emergencies, etc., this keyboard is not SOOOO terribly unique that it would enjoy a monopoly patent. It would probably face competition just as the innumerable PDAs' makers are facing competition, as so many hammers, socks, hair combs, nit removers, and even computer keyboards and other input devices have met competition. In other words, it's not a terribly large leap or extension of logic to say that a large, heavy, box and Mil-Spec connector cabled keyboard could be reduced to a wireless, lit-key, portable (walk-about) entry station, sending and receiving information via laser, Bluetooth or IR or WI-Fi (whatever works for the compartment, based on the proximity of RFI, EMI, generators, transformers, and such, unless the freq is above or below and therefore unaffected) signals. If there is contention or threat of suits in the court, an "innovator" then could simply create sliding tracks so that all those surplus monochrome LCDs languishing at WeirdStuff Computers could be put to use and maybe reopen a LCD assembly line. LCDs would be able to send several lines
I really do think the keyboard concept they show deserves *some* protection, but not at the preclusion or exclusion of other makers. It's not novel *enough*. It's not *non-obvious* enough. But, I would say that any investors who like the technology should at least give first round of financing and marketing assistance to these guys -- if they are truly the first to put in this much real-world effort. But, once their boards hit the streets and engineering bugs crop up, competitors waiting in the background will quickly exploit that.
These guys had better be prepared to fix their own flaws before their competitors fix them for them and help themselves to their competition while they are at it...
Nice board. Really. I just hope they enlist the help of Open Source developers and embed a Linux-kernel driver or module facility so that the user can assign ANY function to ANY key based on a combination of command sequence and mouse click on a feature of an app interface. It is still too hard for some people to dump the console output or even make a console tell them the hex and human string AND the command with an example. Comparing the console output needs to seamlessly and INTUITIVELY match the KDE key settings.
If they bring this board down to $50, I'd buy one, hands down (pun IS intended...)...
Maybe he had a gas-panic (heheh, think: Club Gaspanic...) attack and took two Bufferens but didn't call his doctor that morning.
So, his (gray-matter) buffer output was quartered and the inverse of the two Bufferens he took...
Still, I could never store and output that much information about something such as Pi.
I wonder if he has some degree of "Aspergers Disease/Syndrome". I read somewhere that programmers (and I presume others with analytical talent/mental storage capacity, who happen to be predisposed to excessive honesty, and are a threat to software companies (especially to those such as msoft), which cannot easily be trusted to be honest) have this condition. I wonder if some gene lab will find a way to "inject" Aspergers into select people to breed so-called or potentially smarter people.
As for the baud rate, when I was a kid, we used to be in a hurry to get to watch Ultraman, and so during Easter/Lent and other certain occasions of the year when praying the Rosary was required, I and I think my brother (and we got our sister in on the act, too) contrived a way to keep the Rosary from interfering with our Sunday morning and week-day afterschool show-watching (Lost in Space, Guldar, Ultraman):
PRAY FASTER! After all, having to pray one, two or three Rosaries for post-confession penance got to be sleep-inducing, and was interfering with TV time. So, we schemed that since God knows what we WILL do, and out to know what we THINK or WILL think, then despite our bit of "cheating", it out to be acceptable to God to pray at a faster ("Baud") rate. So, the typical "Our Father, who art in Heaven" eventually got truncated to "R F-ther Hwart Hvn..." and so on.
We managed to truncate the Rosary via LAZY compression, reducing the time praying it down to about 4-8 minutes instead of the 12-15. (Yep, we broke out the Timex and Casio watches and timed our praying by stopwatch...) We got crazy/bold enough to consider it probably acceptable if we just "THINK" the Rosary, and just be "done with it", heheh...
Years later, when I had to take naval teletype courses (high and low level--a major pain in my ass since being the only TTY repairman aboard my ship cost me a lot of sleep, while the CG's had more TT-628's somethings and those then-new PCs with windoze (this was mid-to-late 1988)), I realized (after hearing all those audio ticks and chirps from the converters and transmitters) that if I could probably pray to God at a million Baud...
"Though it is not yet updated to reflect the new record, the Pi-World-Ranking-List has the rules for participation and breaks down the ranking by world, continent, and country."
Get the "... breaks down the ranking by world, continent, and country."
Is that comma between world and country inserted by mistake?
I didn't know hyoo-mohns were competing with other non-indigenous, off-world sentient beings. (LOL!)
But, if you want to see a big "OOPS" of ground-breaking/earth-shattering proportions, see the/. posting of...
And, while I'm on observations and lame jokes, here's something that crossed my mind:
We've seen people pied in the face in games as well as famous "pie-bill" attacks.
But, I guess these pi- masters are doing the reverse: spitting "Pi" OUT of their face instead of taking it in. I wonder if their concentration would be broken if someone pied them as fast as they were dishing out their own "Pi"
OK....
Re:Probably this is just a trick by Merrill Lynch.
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A $251 Million Typo
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I know FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition) as in when a grenade frags your ass, or something/someone is passed through a meat shredder.
What an ominous/perilous name for a stocks trading company/house...
But, does Fubon now mean "F*cked Up By **Oops** Numbers"?
At first, I wondered what sized fishing craft they have to use to haul/reel in that fish. I wondered if they used a 50-foot boat or a supertanker. But any of those three probably would inundate a typical river.
WHy SHOULDN't this be attempted? After all, I guess, ummm, it *suits* their purposes...
Better not put a "pocket rocket" into that thing... it might blast off onto something...
Or, even just a wee-wee bit of pocket pool, and that suit could go shooting off or shooting on some new uncharted course...
Talk about USED clothing... Imagine if instead of it falling into and burning up in the atmosphere Uranus somehow enveloped that suit:
You've got RING around the Coh-lurh
And, if those clothes/that suit bump into another orbital device and damage it, I imagine it won't generate a lot of... "Goodwill", hehe
But, if we name the project "Pluto" and put a Macy's LOAD of asteroid-washed suits around a certain planet, we truly COULD state: "IN SPACE we have Plutonic rings around UrAnus"...
I'd rather campaing that buys ms and shuts it down. This would encourage greater interntional uptake of Linux/FLOSS AND simultaneously help create unrealized benefits of "taming the untamed" USA.
A hell of a LOT better than funding placement of IEDs, fueling global fear and plotting random or well-placed destruction of physical things. I say OBL should buy ms and gut it. The advantages are plentiful, the losses minimal (Linux and Apple can replace ms if push came to shove; the win devs can either hack it or crack up. It's time, one way or another, for the baton to be passed BY or wrenched FROM mshaft!
Once a millionaire, but no longer? NOT "millionaire".
Rape some one ONCE? Branded "rapist" for life.
Donate once for a good cause, but never again, even if wealthy? Get to be called a donor...
David Syes
Re:Corporate uses - military abuses...
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Trust in a Bottle
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But, I remember in 1986-is the "Nav" banning us from speaking to or discussing with the press anything having to do with paint in USN nuclear (particularly the missile) submarines.
Don't forget that tho he died circa 1985, the movie may have been in post-production or just wasn't circulated until after his death... maybe his agent needed to get one last check...
Re:Corporate uses - military abuses...
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Trust in a Bottle
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Right after posting this, it dawned on me that some may write in saying that it would be hard for an enemy to infiltrate the commercial manufacturing process and then in great, beneficial timing ship the oxytocin to the fleet or field and have it work as planned to disrupt military operations of a government.
But, considering that the BBC piece suggested potential abuse could come from politicians, imagine this:
A war is unpopular. The commander-in-chief of (pick a name of) the nation wants orders to be followed with little (as is typical) shipboard politicking and background guessing and second-guessing as the ship or unit approaches the launch zone. Now, the carefully-placed commanding officers and ship engineers COULD just release the right amounts of oxytocin into a ship's environmental controls (ventilation citdels plenums) or in tanks or airplanes where there are multiple people in the line of orders and actions and where any one failing to act or in which one dissenter can fould up an operation.
This could be a neat/nifty and devious way for commanders or commanders in chief to ensure that they increase the likelihood of their dastardly or well-intentioned orders are carried out with minimum backtalk... especially in the event "political" or "security" officers are able to filter the public news feed, blackout the crew-to-family electronic and paper mail, and sprinkle doses of pre-oxytocin disinformation prior to the launch point and oxytocin release point...
Interesting movie or fiction or reality possibilities.
Again, I reserve the right to treat this in a story, but I will not (and, by early publishing of this opinion, cannot) stop anyone from beating me to the punch. However I expect and assert (and defy ANY court on ANY land to invoke any Berne Treaty to deny my own fictional treatment of this idea.
David Syes
Re:Corporate uses - military abuses...
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Trust in a Bottle
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"So how will this new scent that increases trust be used. Don't be suprised if you walk by an advertising poster in a local shopping mall, and get a wiff of something that makes you really believe whatever the poster says. Je'n sait pas, mais je crois!! "
Anyone remember the Rock Hudson submarine movie around 1987? It was the one in which contaminated paint used on the bulkheads and hull of the fictional submarine drove the crew batty and caused them to launch missiles and start or nearly start WWIII.
It was a PR disaster for the USN since the navy came under scrutiny by idiotic or fear-whipping journalists who showed up at NSLB (Naval Station Long Beach) and other places, asking sailors about the risks. The USN promptly banned or restricted them from the base and then issued stern orders to ALL of us on the base not to talk to reporters about the subject.
Purportedly, the USN never has had to worry about such a thing (especially since a missile launch has several procedures and a number of nearly-perfect safeguards to prevent a single demented or two conspiring persons from launching without orders from NCA (National Command Authority).
However, if the conspirers so desired, there are ways to at least FIRE/LAUNCH the missiles, tho I suspect that in a perfect world, NCA or the USN could electronically countermand the missiles and make them self-destruct.
Now, here is where things could get interesting. Imagine if someone aerosolizes this "Trust Potion" and finds that it can be used in certain scenarios to induce military or police or government officials in a small, contained environment to take actions induced by external or subliminal input.
I don't think it will be EASY to do, but I imagine it's not *impossible*. Imagine, though, if conspirators stashed this stuff away and then released it into a ship's CIC during the heat of conflict. Whether or not the "agents"/"actors" who released it followed it up with suggestions or statements or persuasions, I imagine that some personnel would come to distrust their sensor readouts, orders from nearby officers, and even wonder if the external orders they received are real or fraudulent.
I imagine this will mean that a whole new round of security inspections will have to be done on the plants of commercial cleaners and suppliers of other products to not just the US services, but to ALL governments' services.
Interesting movie or fiction or reality possibilities.
I reserve the right to treat this in a story, but I will not (and, by early publishing of this opinion, cannot) stop anyone from beating me to the punch. However I expect and assert (and defy ANY court on ANY land to invoke any Berne Treaty to deny my own fictional treatment of this idea.
the lawyer factories, and a lot of dipshit investors or CEO who are way off base when it comes to their forgetting that, inevitably, most human-made things are based upon or inspired by many other things singly and in combination.
Trying to patent a football game is tenuous. Unless there is a patent on football, or on a "Hail Mary" move, the game itself is nothing more than a revenue conduit. I guess in time well have the "Football Royalty" police cracking down on neighborhood kids playin in an alleyway, on a park, or on the beach. Won't matter that they are not in a soccer stadium with sponsors and attendees...
It seems that Patent Protection to the exclusion of others improving upon or making an end-run around a lame or half-baked product is at best Patent Insanity.
The "old boy", "old premier", "old czar" networks must come down, and the publics of each and every powerful nation ought to rule, not be ruled.
It's NOT just the Europeans who "trash America". It's MANY nations. ANd, with good reason. And, unlike what 'dubya says, it has next to NOTHING to do with "freedom", "success", "wealth", or "our way of life" except that "our way of life" means trampling on others, compelling them to "be with us or agains us"; forces them to join the free enterprise world faster than they can cope; expects that 'merku is and shall forever BE the sole leader, second to none, and has rights to take land, minerals, assets and more with impunity, at will, and for the cheapest price around, and to hell with the fact that the minerals-owning tribespeople can't negotiate their way out of a paperbag; to hell with the babies who grow up to realize their ancestors or elders were duped or were myopic or were fools; to hell with any uprisings that the youth stage to break or nullify greed-oriented contracts the youngsers themselves cannot nor want to afford nor honor in perpetuity.
WHY is it that by a factor of THIRTY (30) 'merkuns inflate how much they give to overseas causes?
WHY is it that manifest destiny and God on the currency and so froth, forth, somehow preordain that "And America Shall Lead"?
WHY is it that as a nation WE have one HELL of a hard time introspecting when SHIT (like 9/11) happens to us and we have a prez who says, "Relax; Take the kids to Disneyworld..."?
WHY do we have a hard time taking criticism (don't TELL me about how much good we do, for we don't do SHIT without some strings attached and a little lubeless anal probing actions. Then, when puppets and spies we train and create come home to roost, our leaders play IGNORANT, the public generally IS IGNORANT, and all too many foreigners saw the writing on the wall a decade earlier, just as the DEA, FBI, CIA and others did when they warned the various presidents that Tel Aviv, Palestine, Belfast, and the like would be in the US; not "a matter of IF, but a matter of WHEN" and they predicted 20-25 years, which was only about 4-6 years off prediction. (SO, I'm not knocking ALL of the domestic security, just the dumbshit leaders who micromanage and get in the way of letting experts at least cull and analyze; I mean, why should the FBI and CIA daily briefs have a tough version for in-house assessments and dog-shit-wimp-ass version for feckless presidents? Give me a break...)
WHY is it that or so-called 'leader' has 'merkuns believing that the tsunami aid pledged by 'merka has been delivered (don't tell me about the CVNs on their posture maneuvers...)
WHY is it that 'merka has assloads of damn-near treasonous (don't tell me 'bout 'free market'/etc) business leaders who comfortably make a distinction between profiteering and acts tantamount to selling out and laying off loads of workers.
That said, tho, I have NO problem with the 1970's Weekly Reader predictions that energy, shopping, and work will change. I am ALL FOR automated checkout stands, despite what unions might want. I am ALL FOR hydro-power cars, even if it means plastics will be deprecated (even if IIII have to wave the wand to deprecate and eliminate 85% of our craving to plastics, derived from petroleum...) I am ALL FOR eliminating assloads of product-reproducing store fronts that by over 100 or 200 exceed the local purchasing ability local OR overseas.
We need to quickly reach the point of manufacture-on-demand and curtail that oil-guzzling mentality that has us looking princely with dozens of anchor stores in a metro area with redundant product and merchandising that migth be beneficial for lowering consumer prices, but also inflate and increase the dependency upon petroleum (wrappers, stockings, cups, tires, insulation, laptops, mice, cameras, shoe soles...
Moreover, I am absolutely insanely against mono-nation hegemony, imperialism, dictators, and the like. I firmly believe the US had better get
And Seven of MINE? When Anika appears, Kirk tries to hump her, but then her nanoprobes emasculate him with a nano-reach-a-round. Kirk is undone in his end-run.
He decides... 'Stryker, Stryker... STRIKE-HER!"
So, Krik jumps a timeline and makes a deal with The Guardian of Forever...
He kirk-like-falls onto and soils the bridge of Voyager just before Harry Kim is to be quantime-side-lined by the Vidiian ship destruction...
Janeway, in good makeup and a bit more voluptuous, sees womanizing Krik pulling up his trousers, after having nailed Edith Keeler (and making her keel over), and with her spritly, fast mind, gravelly gruffs at Krik:
Get OFF MY BRIDGE... you time-line-hopping Inseminator! I'm in no mood for Organ Donations... But, before you abscond, Decontaminate my DECK.
But, the price for refusing kirk was she had to never again hear from Mark, and to take a substitute Harry Kim whom she (umm, blame 20th century human/hollywood myopia and a twinge--no, make that a contemptible dose-- of racial/cultural insensitivy) never, EVER field promoted beyond Ensign. For the sake of the audience, Harry could have been promoted to Lieutenant (not just LT (j.g.!); hell, Star Fleet could always revert the promotion. But, given the record of the crew we've seen, most of them deserved two promotions. (Yeh, Harry got a promotion AND a ship, but only in another timeline--not the audience timeline.)
Meanwhile, Kirk, hops to another timeline, back in his own, holding that scruffy, hairy little dog in The Enemy Within, hollering "I WANNA LIVE". It would have been interesting if the special effects of the day allowed super-virile Kirk to kiss and (ass)ault his effective but less humpile instantiation whom (according to 20th century lesbians under pseudonyms) giddily and effectively wrote adult-rated trek pron, postulating Krik and Psock as lovers...
Hmm, is there any fan-trek that can find two actors of near likenes and for no money, lend a bent on that angle of bridge crew relationships?
Why do *I* get the feeling that this won't be available "off-line".
Imagine if some corporate or government espionage entities get subpoenas or inspection "rights" to the queries and translations in the Google and other online translation engines.
Imagine if entrepreneurial but not-yet-burnt-int-the-real-world types innocently place implicit trust in these systems, only to find out the handy-dandy idea they were translating "to go international" got ripped off and disseminated by larger, faster, lawyer-backed corporations.
Imagine a world where every off-line move you made or idea you formulated on your local PC (read: Linux PC or deprecated windoze PC) got intercepted or monitored by government agencies which had the self-accorded "right" to pre-empt your "publications" or periodicals or distributions of information.
Imagine a world where more companies slide under the sheets with governments when they realize there's a profit (in money or newly-accorded exemptions or such) in providing international espionage (*cough* domestic protection) enhancement.
(Slightly lifing thin, umm, tin-foil hat...)
If you don't do much electronic writing or distribution of information and don't fear governments and don't do marginally-interesting things, then fear not, I suppose.
(Letting thin-foil hat fall back down...)
But, if you're a rogue of types, and intent on translating them for global release, the next form of "defamation" or "discrediting" could come when the government-backed translation engine fatally alters your doc with "subtle" or "nuanced" changes in diction, grammar, word choice, and the like, or just makes the "hostile" or "ingrate" document look or sound "unprofessional" by introducing improperly spelt (spelled) worlds.
(Cocking tin/thin-foil hat again)
But, then, there always are available the various traditional brick-and-mortar (and pricey) translation services in major cities to which you can drive or overnight your documents. And, likely you can SUE them for bad effort, shoddy work, and the like so long as the product rendered is not beyond contractural protections.
(SLAMMING thin foil down, AGAIN)
Now, think of some company that can't innovate, yet steals or "co-opts" or "borrows" ideas from others and runs them out of business (ie, willing to "cut off their air supply"...), and you'll likely have Google out of business because it lacks the deep $60 Bn pockets...)
Imagine if the governments of some nations (which probably have a tight reign over their press corps) tell the media to put in copyright and expiry dates on their sites, in the cookies, and in the html formatting of news. The only way to then preserve content as you last saw it would be to take a screen shot of it or print it out immediately.
But, that won't solve any questions about immutible states of information.
Hmmm, maybe my tinfaryl hat needs some adjusting...
I saw exactly that, in Azabu-juban (a small part of Tokyo proper), in a Starbux near the hostel I booked. It was only a 6-minute walk from the hostel, but the plugs were blanked, labeled something like "No use customer".
So, rather than go there with my 5-minute-battery-life, 40-month-old Vaio, I walked- about 15 minutes to the next nearby Sbux, in Roppongi (not exactly Roppongi Hills, but the piece of the area slightly to the west, near McDonalds, and by Don Quixote (the one that seems to have avoided burning up or burning down...).
The Roppongi Starbux has VERy nice employees, and they are glad to have you there, as indicated by abundance of laptop-user available power outlets. But, they DO mentally photograph you and make sure you don't just sit down and squat away for hours. I made it a habit of purchasing my coffee and some thing to eat prior to going upstairs. Once I ordered, I tended to grab a table before losing a chance and ending up standing with my 30-lb backpack and holding my purchase.
They seem to have things down very well there, and often it was PACKED, particularly in the evenings.
I've also lived in the Portland, Oregon area, and per-block, I swear there must be numerically and variety-wise more coffee shops of corporate AND Mom-n-Pop type than in most places in the US.
I loathe the console. Maybe I'm ignorant, but when I played the PS/2 console at my friend's place, I almost instantly upon first use and then continually during subsequent sessions was frustrated with the limited number of buttons.
I watch him play, and he purportedly is an avid player, having Nintendo AND hexx boxx, with speakers and dozends of titles for almost each of the 3 platforms.
Now, when I watched him play, and he had to pick up some tool or change some feature, he had to press some combination that seemed to pause the game, stop action, and interrupt the smooth-play I was accustomed to with HL/CS/SOF.
Granted, it's been quite a year or more that I've played on my PC for a few minutes, and been since early 2001 that I played for hours-long sessions, but I find the keyboard (I'm a speed-typist most of my time behind the keyboard, or when I'm not surfing/reading or making database forms...) much more efficient for my own use. I can set up key combinations, and once I successfully or accurately recall the combo/keystroke I need, my game play improves dramatically and to a level I find thrilling and ecstatic.
I don't like pistols except at stand-up stations in arcades. I don't like consoles, unless I end up moving torpedoes or overhead dollies with a tethered remote control. Consoles, for now, just frustrate the hell out of me. I even tested out a floor demo in Ginza in Tokyo in December (or, maybe it was January... memory fades...) and after a few minutes, I was utterly stressed out. I couldn't WAIT to put the damn controller down and return the demo disk to the girl manning the check-in station. I wondered the hell why they didn't seem to offer the same title on a PC platform for those stubbornly resisting the console.
The only way I might accept a console is if it is integrated into a sort of (updated, faster, sturdy, and smarter) moving floor:
(actually, what may be better is a VERY large arc-or ball-like integrated surface having bearings, wheels, gears, or pinions/etc inside so that a computer can track the participants and move individul "skins"/"floors" to bring the players closer or farther... a holoprojector could impose visual/"physical" obstacles and visual/"physical" aids so the players can "run"; climbing and scaling and rappelling would be hard to simulate, tho, except with time and other "delays" to simulate negotiating objects and obstacles while an "enemy" might pursue, evade or camouflage him/herself from another player...) , a 3-D goggle set, and some sort of life-like rifle that has optically/IR-mated grenades, compasses and other equipment that requires me to simulate whipping out field equipment as I play or sim the software actions.
But, the keyboard does fall short in one area for me:
I love helicopter sims, particularly Longbow Apache from Janes, one that is out of circulation. If only someone makes a cheap, commercial-quality collective and stick assembly with foot pedals AND programs the sim to enable single and dual engine startup, failure, fire, stall, shutdown restart, and so on, as well as NOE flight, landing, left/right brakes, and so on... fuel management...
SONY! You better jump on this because I am NOT typing this here for mshaft's benefit!! De-smoke and overhaul the compartment smoke and deliver a product! Restore all casualties; restow all gear!
What is funny, to me, is that in the explanation section "And the OS is...", in the fourth para, the article was allowed to say the "L" word... Linux is fully spelt out...
Slashdot Mirror
Even Forbes posted by 12:25 PM Friday , beating ZDN/CNET by some 1.25 days.
http://www.forbes.com/markets/2005/07/15/hewlett-
Does any submitter/top posting authority at
I guess I may be burning karma and grousing, but I'm willing to forfeit ALL my remaining karma, and any Meta Mod points to say the following:
/. gave me the benefit of the doubt and tried to pull teeth at HP and failed, or gave up with one, "We don't discuss layoff policy before the PR department has seen a designated newspaper publish it, and even after then, we refer inquiries to the published paper or our website after we've made it official on our website..."
I reported this FRIDAY, 15 July at 1207 (and I am sure the paper was printed before 6AM Friday, which means ), and even put it in my journal, and even bought the Friday paper to have a hard copy. I think it would have made better excitement than to wait for SUNDAY just to see ZDNet's blurb. I guess ZDN *could* have had a writeup on it first, but I
"googled" keywords and Google turned up junk from 2 years prior, but not a single word for Friday. I guess nobody reads the papers fast enough to stir things up so Google caches things before the ZDN's word gets priority over Google.
TFA header/byline as timestamped on ZDN is:
"HP to slash approximately 15,000 jobs
By Dawn Kawamoto, and Michael Singer, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet News: July 16, 2005, 8:00 PM PT"
Saturday NIGHT, no less...
I suppose it *is* possible someone at
To get a submission posted before the regulars, is it necessary to add more redundant verbiage and speculation than the FA itself? Or wait for ZDN and on-site papers to display the content?
Karma Purged/forsaken....
But, maybe a sticky patch with liquid pepper that won't burn it's way back into the bloodstream and piss off the injured (umm, adding insult to injury...) should be the way forward.
There should be a public outcry against a $100 4"x4" patch. That's just too much money. Just as we paid $2,000 or more for milspec toilet seats, hammers and coffee pots, I imagine we'll be "bled to death" over simple taping gauze pads that could be pre-soaked in other liquid agents. I heard that urine works, too. Maybe every one could carry his/her own extra canteen to capture (and refresh or replenish) their own several ounces of urine.
However, if a bullet leaks several canteens and then urine is in short supply, there' be a literal "pissing contest" to prevent or delay excessive bleeding.
Well, as of about 12 Noon today, I heard that HP will be laying off some 10,000 to 25,000, purportedly according to the SJ Mercury News dated for today. I wonder if any poor layoffee of HP will be qualified for that job...
OTOH, maybe some of that cyber security will go toward defending the infrastructure from attacks from within, especially if more and more people keep getting laid off. If a sizable chunk of this round of layoffs is bulk AND immediate, and if even 1/2 of them are in silly conjob alley, the real estate market here could be in for a JOLT, "the Big One" the employees expect, and the "big one" the R/E industry wants to dismiss...
Interesting times we live in...
I would argue that the overlays shown in the Star Trek USS Enterprise Bridge Blueprints (a copy of which I purchased back in Sept '82) says, "Shows Every Button of Every Station and Their Functions: Complete Set of 10 Accurate 17" x 22" Blueprints of the Primary Bridge", (these drawings were drawn by Michael McMaster) could be considered precursors to this. The first set was drawn October 76. The STTNG console, as described by Michael Okuda and Wil Wheaton are a leap of generations past "Trek Classic."
We've already seen in the Trek Episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" a console control station with keyboard and switches being inserted after Lee Kelso appropriated it from the Vega cracking station. Later, that console style was changed for subsequent episodes, and apparently those changes on-screen seem to import/imply multi-function/demand-assignment control buttons. They're not for typing or composing documents, but they serve the purpose of entering single or a string of command sequences.
Now, in terms of recent Trek incarnations, it is plain and obvious that even tho Trek is fiction, it should not take a giant leap to consider that today's thin film and LCD panels *could* make it feasible to lighten up, slim down, and de-wire these control consoles and make them portable. (Even the USN today and for several years has been using Palm Pilots for crew maintenance of shipboard equipment, and their PDAs could surely use the docking cradles/keyboards...)
Where I am going with this is that between Trek of the 60s and technology of today, and with Trek already having mentioned multifunction keyboard overlays in the 60's drawings and the STTNG blueprints reiterating such things, where the consoles bring up the functions appropriate to security clearance, work tasks, emergencies, etc., this keyboard is not SOOOO terribly unique that it would enjoy a monopoly patent. It would probably face competition just as the innumerable PDAs' makers are facing competition, as so many hammers, socks, hair combs, nit removers, and even computer keyboards and other input devices have met competition. In other words, it's not a terribly large leap or extension of logic to say that a large, heavy, box and Mil-Spec connector cabled keyboard could be reduced to a wireless, lit-key, portable (walk-about) entry station, sending and receiving information via laser, Bluetooth or IR or WI-Fi (whatever works for the compartment, based on the proximity of RFI, EMI, generators, transformers, and such, unless the freq is above or below and therefore unaffected) signals. If there is contention or threat of suits in the court, an "innovator" then could simply create sliding tracks so that all those surplus monochrome LCDs languishing at WeirdStuff Computers could be put to use and maybe reopen a LCD assembly line. LCDs would be able to send several lines
I really do think the keyboard concept they show deserves *some* protection, but not at the preclusion or exclusion of other makers. It's not novel *enough*. It's not *non-obvious* enough. But, I would say that any investors who like the technology should at least give first round of financing and marketing assistance to these guys -- if they are truly the first to put in this much real-world effort. But, once their boards hit the streets and engineering bugs crop up, competitors waiting in the background will quickly exploit that.
These guys had better be prepared to fix their own flaws before their competitors fix them for them and help themselves to their competition while they are at it...
Nice board. Really. I just hope they enlist the help of Open Source developers and embed a Linux-kernel driver or module facility so that the user can assign ANY function to ANY key based on a combination of command sequence and mouse click on a feature of an app interface. It is still too hard for some people to dump the console output or even make a console tell them the hex and human string AND the command with an example. Comparing the console output needs to seamlessly and INTUITIVELY match the KDE key settings.
If they bring this board down to $50, I'd buy one, hands down (pun IS intended...)...
Maybe he had a gas-panic (heheh, think: Club Gaspanic...) attack and took two Bufferens but didn't call his doctor that morning.
So, his (gray-matter) buffer output was quartered and the inverse of the two Bufferens he took...
Still, I could never store and output that much information about something such as Pi.
I wonder if he has some degree of "Aspergers Disease/Syndrome". I read somewhere that programmers (and I presume others with analytical talent/mental storage capacity, who happen to be predisposed to excessive honesty, and are a threat to software companies (especially to those such as msoft), which cannot easily be trusted to be honest) have this condition. I wonder if some gene lab will find a way to "inject" Aspergers into select people to breed so-called or potentially smarter people.
As for the baud rate, when I was a kid, we used to be in a hurry to get to watch Ultraman, and so during Easter/Lent and other certain occasions of the year when praying the Rosary was required, I and I think my brother (and we got our sister in on the act, too) contrived a way to keep the Rosary from interfering with our Sunday morning and week-day afterschool show-watching (Lost in Space, Guldar, Ultraman):
PRAY FASTER! After all, having to pray one, two or three Rosaries for post-confession penance got to be sleep-inducing, and was interfering with TV time. So, we schemed that since God knows what we WILL do, and out to know what we THINK or WILL think, then despite our bit of "cheating", it out to be acceptable to God to pray at a faster ("Baud") rate. So, the typical "Our Father, who art in Heaven" eventually got truncated to "R F-ther Hwart Hvn..." and so on.
We managed to truncate the Rosary via LAZY compression, reducing the time praying it down to about 4-8 minutes instead of the 12-15. (Yep, we broke out the Timex and Casio watches and timed our praying by stopwatch...) We got crazy/bold enough to consider it probably acceptable if we just "THINK" the Rosary, and just be "done with it", heheh...
Years later, when I had to take naval teletype courses (high and low level--a major pain in my ass since being the only TTY repairman aboard my ship cost me a lot of sleep, while the CG's had more TT-628's somethings and those then-new PCs with windoze (this was mid-to-late 1988)), I realized (after hearing all those audio ticks and chirps from the converters and transmitters) that if I could probably pray to God at a million Baud...
Just some rambling/mutually-colliding thoughts...
Well, YOUR "oops" is not so "astronomical"...
/. posting of...
t id=187&tid=128&tid=98
Check out the poster's article's description:
"Though it is not yet updated to reflect the new record, the Pi-World-Ranking-List has the rules for participation and breaks down the ranking by world, continent, and country."
Get the "... breaks down the ranking by world, continent, and country."
Is that comma between world and country inserted by mistake?
I didn't know hyoo-mohns were competing with other non-indigenous, off-world sentient beings. (LOL!)
But, if you want to see a big "OOPS" of ground-breaking/earth-shattering proportions, see the
"A $251 Million Typo"
http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/07/02/0852234.shtml?
Now, therein lies on helluva big "OOPS!"...
And, while I'm on observations and lame jokes, here's something that crossed my mind:
We've seen people pied in the face in games as well as famous "pie-bill" attacks.
But, I guess these pi- masters are doing the reverse: spitting "Pi" OUT of their face instead of taking it in. I wonder if their concentration would be broken if someone pied them as fast as they were dishing out their own "Pi"
OK....
I know FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition) as in when a grenade frags your ass, or something/someone is passed through a meat shredder.
What an ominous/perilous name for a stocks trading company/house...
But, does Fubon now mean "F*cked Up By **Oops** Numbers"?
These URLs (from the previous posts) show that in some places you really CAN say, "We've got BIGGER fish to fry..." (DOH!)
T CATFISH/GiantCatfish.jpg
5 15_030515_giantcatfish.html
http://ftp2.nationalgeographic.com/pressroom/GIAN
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0
At first, I wondered what sized fishing craft they have to use to haul/reel in that fish. I wondered if they used a 50-foot boat or a supertanker. But any of those three probably would inundate a typical river.
OK, some bad one-liners...
"In SPACE, nobody can hear that suit scream..."
WHy SHOULDN't this be attempted? After all, I guess, ummm, it *suits* their purposes...
Better not put a "pocket rocket" into that thing... it might blast off onto something...
Or, even just a wee-wee bit of pocket pool, and that suit could go shooting off or shooting on some new uncharted course...
Talk about USED clothing... Imagine if instead of it falling into and burning up in the atmosphere Uranus somehow enveloped that suit:
You've got RING around the Coh-lurh
And, if those clothes/that suit bump into another orbital device and damage it, I imagine it won't generate a lot of... "Goodwill", hehe
But, if we name the project "Pluto" and put a Macy's LOAD of asteroid-washed suits around a certain planet, we truly COULD state: "IN SPACE we have Plutonic rings around UrAnus"...
I'd rather campaing that buys ms and shuts it down. This would encourage greater interntional uptake of Linux/FLOSS AND simultaneously help create unrealized benefits of "taming the untamed" USA.
A hell of a LOT better than funding placement of IEDs, fueling global fear and plotting random or well-placed destruction of physical things. I say OBL should buy ms and gut it. The advantages are plentiful, the losses minimal (Linux and Apple can replace ms if push came to shove; the win devs can either hack it or crack up. It's time, one way or another, for the baton to be passed BY or wrenched FROM mshaft!
David Syes
Who wants to start a sig list?
Once a millionaire, but no longer? NOT "millionaire".
Rape some one ONCE? Branded "rapist" for life.
Donate once for a good cause, but never again, even if wealthy? Get to be called a donor...
David Syes
But, I remember in 1986-is the "Nav" banning us from speaking to or discussing with the press anything having to do with paint in USN nuclear (particularly the missile) submarines.
Don't forget that tho he died circa 1985, the movie may have been in post-production or just wasn't circulated until after his death... maybe his agent needed to get one last check...
Right after posting this, it dawned on me that some may write in saying that it would be hard for an enemy to infiltrate the commercial manufacturing process and then in great, beneficial timing ship the oxytocin to the fleet or field and have it work as planned to disrupt military operations of a government.
But, considering that the BBC piece suggested potential abuse could come from politicians, imagine this:
A war is unpopular. The commander-in-chief of (pick a name of) the nation wants orders to be followed with little (as is typical) shipboard politicking and background guessing and second-guessing as the ship or unit approaches the launch zone. Now, the carefully-placed commanding officers and ship engineers COULD just release the right amounts of oxytocin into a ship's environmental controls (ventilation citdels plenums) or in tanks or airplanes where there are multiple people in the line of orders and actions and where any one failing to act or in which one dissenter can fould up an operation.
This could be a neat/nifty and devious way for commanders or commanders in chief to ensure that they increase the likelihood of their dastardly or well-intentioned orders are carried out with minimum backtalk... especially in the event "political" or "security" officers are able to filter the public news feed, blackout the crew-to-family electronic and paper mail, and sprinkle doses of pre-oxytocin disinformation prior to the launch point and oxytocin release point...
Interesting movie or fiction or reality possibilities.
Again, I reserve the right to treat this in a story, but I will not (and, by early publishing of this opinion, cannot) stop anyone from beating me to the punch. However I expect and assert (and defy ANY court on ANY land to invoke any Berne Treaty to deny my own fictional treatment of this idea.
David Syes
"So how will this new scent that increases trust be used. Don't be suprised if you walk by an advertising poster in a local shopping mall, and get a wiff of something that makes you really believe whatever the poster says. Je'n sait pas, mais je crois!! "
Anyone remember the Rock Hudson submarine movie around 1987? It was the one in which contaminated paint used on the bulkheads and hull of the fictional submarine drove the crew batty and caused them to launch missiles and start or nearly start WWIII.
It was a PR disaster for the USN since the navy came under scrutiny by idiotic or fear-whipping journalists who showed up at NSLB (Naval Station Long Beach) and other places, asking sailors about the risks. The USN promptly banned or restricted them from the base and then issued stern orders to ALL of us on the base not to talk to reporters about the subject.
Purportedly, the USN never has had to worry about such a thing (especially since a missile launch has several procedures and a number of nearly-perfect safeguards to prevent a single demented or two conspiring persons from launching without orders from NCA (National Command Authority).
However, if the conspirers so desired, there are ways to at least FIRE/LAUNCH the missiles, tho I suspect that in a perfect world, NCA or the USN could electronically countermand the missiles and make them self-destruct.
Now, here is where things could get interesting. Imagine if someone aerosolizes this "Trust Potion" and finds that it can be used in certain scenarios to induce military or police or government officials in a small, contained environment to take actions induced by external or subliminal input.
I don't think it will be EASY to do, but I imagine it's not *impossible*. Imagine, though, if conspirators stashed this stuff away and then released it into a ship's CIC during the heat of conflict. Whether or not the "agents"/"actors" who released it followed it up with suggestions or statements or persuasions, I imagine that some personnel would come to distrust their sensor readouts, orders from nearby officers, and even wonder if the external orders they received are real or fraudulent.
I imagine this will mean that a whole new round of security inspections will have to be done on the plants of commercial cleaners and suppliers of other products to not just the US services, but to ALL governments' services.
Interesting movie or fiction or reality possibilities.
I reserve the right to treat this in a story, but I will not (and, by early publishing of this opinion, cannot) stop anyone from beating me to the punch. However I expect and assert (and defy ANY court on ANY land to invoke any Berne Treaty to deny my own fictional treatment of this idea.
David Syes
the lawyer factories, and a lot of dipshit investors or CEO who are way off base when it comes to their forgetting that, inevitably, most human-made things are based upon or inspired by many other things singly and in combination.
Trying to patent a football game is tenuous. Unless there is a patent on football, or on a "Hail Mary" move, the game itself is nothing more than a revenue conduit. I guess in time well have the "Football Royalty" police cracking down on neighborhood kids playin in an alleyway, on a park, or on the beach. Won't matter that they are not in a soccer stadium with sponsors and attendees...
It seems that Patent Protection to the exclusion of others improving upon or making an end-run around a lame or half-baked product is at best Patent Insanity.
The "old boy", "old premier", "old czar" networks must come down, and the publics of each and every powerful nation ought to rule, not be ruled.
It's NOT just the Europeans who "trash America". It's MANY nations. ANd, with good reason. And, unlike what 'dubya says, it has next to NOTHING to do with "freedom", "success", "wealth", or "our way of life" except that "our way of life" means trampling on others, compelling them to "be with us or agains us"; forces them to join the free enterprise world faster than they can cope; expects that 'merku is and shall forever BE the sole leader, second to none, and has rights to take land, minerals, assets and more with impunity, at will, and for the cheapest price around, and to hell with the fact that the minerals-owning tribespeople can't negotiate their way out of a paperbag; to hell with the babies who grow up to realize their ancestors or elders were duped or were myopic or were fools; to hell with any uprisings that the youth stage to break or nullify greed-oriented contracts the youngsers themselves cannot nor want to afford nor honor in perpetuity.
WHY is it that by a factor of THIRTY (30) 'merkuns inflate how much they give to overseas causes?
WHY is it that manifest destiny and God on the currency and so froth, forth, somehow preordain that "And America Shall Lead"?
WHY is it that as a nation WE have one HELL of a hard time introspecting when SHIT (like 9/11) happens to us and we have a prez who says, "Relax; Take the kids to Disneyworld..."?
WHY do we have a hard time taking criticism (don't TELL me about how much good we do, for we don't do SHIT without some strings attached and a little lubeless anal probing actions. Then, when puppets and spies we train and create come home to roost, our leaders play IGNORANT, the public generally IS IGNORANT, and all too many foreigners saw the writing on the wall a decade earlier, just as the DEA, FBI, CIA and others did when they warned the various presidents that Tel Aviv, Palestine, Belfast, and the like would be in the US; not "a matter of IF, but a matter of WHEN" and they predicted 20-25 years, which was only about 4-6 years off prediction. (SO, I'm not knocking ALL of the domestic security, just the dumbshit leaders who micromanage and get in the way of letting experts at least cull and analyze; I mean, why should the FBI and CIA daily briefs have a tough version for in-house assessments and dog-shit-wimp-ass version for feckless presidents? Give me a break...)
WHY is it that or so-called 'leader' has 'merkuns believing that the tsunami aid pledged by 'merka has been delivered (don't tell me about the CVNs on their posture maneuvers...)
WHY is it that 'merka has assloads of damn-near treasonous (don't tell me 'bout 'free market'/etc) business leaders who comfortably make a distinction between profiteering and acts tantamount to selling out and laying off loads of workers.
That said, tho, I have NO problem with the 1970's Weekly Reader predictions that energy, shopping, and work will change. I am ALL FOR automated checkout stands, despite what unions might want. I am ALL FOR hydro-power cars, even if it means plastics will be deprecated (even if IIII have to wave the wand to deprecate and eliminate 85% of our craving to plastics, derived from petroleum...) I am ALL FOR eliminating assloads of product-reproducing store fronts that by over 100 or 200 exceed the local purchasing ability local OR overseas.
We need to quickly reach the point of manufacture-on-demand and curtail that oil-guzzling mentality that has us looking princely with dozens of anchor stores in a metro area with redundant product and merchandising that migth be beneficial for lowering consumer prices, but also inflate and increase the dependency upon petroleum (wrappers, stockings, cups, tires, insulation, laptops, mice, cameras, shoe soles...
Moreover, I am absolutely insanely against mono-nation hegemony, imperialism, dictators, and the like. I firmly believe the US had better get
And Seven of MINE? When Anika appears, Kirk tries to hump her, but then her nanoprobes emasculate him with a nano-reach-a-round. Kirk is undone in his end-run.
He decides... 'Stryker, Stryker... STRIKE-HER!"
So, Krik jumps a timeline and makes a deal with The Guardian of Forever...
He kirk-like-falls onto and soils the bridge of Voyager just before Harry Kim is to be quantime-side-lined by the Vidiian ship destruction...
Janeway, in good makeup and a bit more voluptuous, sees womanizing Krik pulling up his trousers, after having nailed Edith Keeler (and making her keel over), and with her spritly, fast mind, gravelly gruffs at Krik:
Get OFF MY BRIDGE... you time-line-hopping Inseminator! I'm in no mood for Organ Donations... But, before you abscond, Decontaminate my DECK.
But, the price for refusing kirk was she had to never again hear from Mark, and to take a substitute Harry Kim whom she (umm, blame 20th century human/hollywood myopia and a twinge--no, make that a contemptible dose-- of racial/cultural insensitivy) never, EVER field promoted beyond Ensign. For the sake of the audience, Harry could have been promoted to Lieutenant (not just LT (j.g.!); hell, Star Fleet could always revert the promotion. But, given the record of the crew we've seen, most of them deserved two promotions. (Yeh, Harry got a promotion AND a ship, but only in another timeline--not the audience timeline.)
Meanwhile, Kirk, hops to another timeline, back in his own, holding that scruffy, hairy little dog in The Enemy Within, hollering "I WANNA LIVE". It would have been interesting if the special effects of the day allowed super-virile Kirk to kiss and (ass)ault his effective but less humpile instantiation whom (according to 20th century lesbians under pseudonyms) giddily and effectively wrote adult-rated trek pron, postulating Krik and Psock as lovers...
Hmm, is there any fan-trek that can find two actors of near likenes and for no money, lend a bent on that angle of bridge crew relationships?
Reminds me of:
"We have bicycles for boys with adjustable seats."
Who/what has "adjustable seats"? Boys or bicycles?
That was the topic of sentence structure, word choice, and sensible description of the subject vs the object...
Why do *I* get the feeling that this won't be available "off-line".
Imagine if some corporate or government espionage entities get subpoenas or inspection "rights" to the queries and translations in the Google and other online translation engines.
Imagine if entrepreneurial but not-yet-burnt-int-the-real-world types innocently place implicit trust in these systems, only to find out the handy-dandy idea they were translating "to go international" got ripped off and disseminated by larger, faster, lawyer-backed corporations.
Imagine a world where every off-line move you made or idea you formulated on your local PC (read: Linux PC or deprecated windoze PC) got intercepted or monitored by government agencies which had the self-accorded "right" to pre-empt your "publications" or periodicals or distributions of information.
Imagine a world where more companies slide under the sheets with governments when they realize there's a profit (in money or newly-accorded exemptions or such) in providing international espionage (*cough* domestic protection) enhancement.
(Slightly lifing thin, umm, tin-foil hat...)
If you don't do much electronic writing or distribution of information and don't fear governments and don't do marginally-interesting things, then fear not, I suppose.
(Letting thin-foil hat fall back down...)
But, if you're a rogue of types, and intent on translating them for global release, the next form of "defamation" or "discrediting" could come when the government-backed translation engine fatally alters your doc with "subtle" or "nuanced" changes in diction, grammar, word choice, and the like, or just makes the "hostile" or "ingrate" document look or sound "unprofessional" by introducing improperly spelt (spelled) worlds.
(Cocking tin/thin-foil hat again)
But, then, there always are available the various traditional brick-and-mortar (and pricey) translation services in major cities to which you can drive or overnight your documents. And, likely you can SUE them for bad effort, shoddy work, and the like so long as the product rendered is not beyond contractural protections.
(SLAMMING thin foil down, AGAIN)
Now, think of some company that can't innovate, yet steals or "co-opts" or "borrows" ideas from others and runs them out of business (ie, willing to "cut off their air supply"...), and you'll likely have Google out of business because it lacks the deep $60 Bn pockets...)
(Thin foil worn out now...)
David Syes
this.
Imagine if the governments of some nations (which probably have a tight reign over their press corps) tell the media to put in copyright and expiry dates on their sites, in the cookies, and in the html formatting of news. The only way to then preserve content as you last saw it would be to take a screen shot of it or print it out immediately.
But, that won't solve any questions about immutible states of information.
Hmmm, maybe my tinfaryl hat needs some adjusting...
I saw exactly that, in Azabu-juban (a small part of Tokyo proper), in a Starbux near the hostel I booked. It was only a 6-minute walk from the hostel, but the plugs were blanked, labeled something like "No use customer".
So, rather than go there with my 5-minute-battery-life, 40-month-old Vaio, I walked- about 15 minutes to the next nearby Sbux, in Roppongi (not exactly Roppongi Hills, but the piece of the area slightly to the west, near McDonalds, and by Don Quixote (the one that seems to have avoided burning up or burning down...).
The Roppongi Starbux has VERy nice employees, and they are glad to have you there, as indicated by abundance of laptop-user available power outlets. But, they DO mentally photograph you and make sure you don't just sit down and squat away for hours. I made it a habit of purchasing my coffee and some thing to eat prior to going upstairs. Once I ordered, I tended to grab a table before losing a chance and ending up standing with my 30-lb backpack and holding my purchase.
They seem to have things down very well there, and often it was PACKED, particularly in the evenings.
I've also lived in the Portland, Oregon area, and per-block, I swear there must be numerically and variety-wise more coffee shops of corporate AND Mom-n-Pop type than in most places in the US.
I loathe the console. Maybe I'm ignorant, but when I played the PS/2 console at my friend's place, I almost instantly upon first use and then continually during subsequent sessions was frustrated with the limited number of buttons.
s .asp?NewsNum=203
I watch him play, and he purportedly is an avid player, having Nintendo AND hexx boxx, with speakers and dozends of titles for almost each of the 3 platforms.
Now, when I watched him play, and he had to pick up some tool or change some feature, he had to press some combination that seemed to pause the game, stop action, and interrupt the smooth-play I was accustomed to with HL/CS/SOF.
Granted, it's been quite a year or more that I've played on my PC for a few minutes, and been since early 2001 that I played for hours-long sessions, but I find the keyboard (I'm a speed-typist most of my time behind the keyboard, or when I'm not surfing/reading or making database forms...) much more efficient for my own use. I can set up key combinations, and once I successfully or accurately recall the combo/keystroke I need, my game play improves dramatically and to a level I find thrilling and ecstatic.
I don't like pistols except at stand-up stations in arcades. I don't like consoles, unless I end up moving torpedoes or overhead dollies with a tethered remote control. Consoles, for now, just frustrate the hell out of me. I even tested out a floor demo in Ginza in Tokyo in December (or, maybe it was January... memory fades...) and after a few minutes, I was utterly stressed out. I couldn't WAIT to put the damn controller down and return the demo disk to the girl manning the check-in station. I wondered the hell why they didn't seem to offer the same title on a PC platform for those stubbornly resisting the console.
The only way I might accept a console is if it is integrated into a sort of (updated, faster, sturdy, and smarter) moving floor:
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-New
(actually, what may be better is a VERY large arc-or ball-like integrated surface having bearings, wheels, gears, or pinions/etc inside so that a computer can track the participants and move individul "skins"/"floors" to bring the players closer or farther... a holoprojector could impose visual/"physical" obstacles and visual/"physical" aids so the players can "run"; climbing and scaling and rappelling would be hard to simulate, tho, except with time and other "delays" to simulate negotiating objects and obstacles while an "enemy" might pursue, evade or camouflage him/herself from another player...)
, a 3-D goggle set, and some sort of life-like rifle that has optically/IR-mated grenades, compasses and other equipment that requires me to simulate whipping out field equipment as I play or sim the software actions.
But, the keyboard does fall short in one area for me:
I love helicopter sims, particularly Longbow Apache from Janes, one that is out of circulation. If only someone makes a cheap, commercial-quality collective and stick assembly with foot pedals AND programs the sim to enable single and dual engine startup, failure, fire, stall, shutdown restart, and so on, as well as NOE flight, landing, left/right brakes, and so on... fuel management...
SONY! You better jump on this because I am NOT typing this here for mshaft's benefit!! De-smoke and overhaul the compartment smoke and deliver a product! Restore all casualties; restow all gear!
David Syes
What is funny, to me, is that in the explanation section "And the OS is...", in the fourth para, the article was allowed to say the "L" word... Linux is fully spelt out...
In Soviet Russia, POWER outs YOU!