Assimilate THIS, microshaft (lower-casing/deprecation of ms' name intentional/perpetual with me):
Here's a beta-to-gold-release-candidate for you ms, and it doesn't even take 1 page of feasibility studies:
One thum in your mouth; One thumb in your ass; Now, when I say, "SWITCH!"...
(you know the rest...)
(Now, why don't you come up with a BETTER, ORIGINAL idea from your ass without copying from another product, and why don't you make up technology that that helps the thumbless, instead of embracing and destroying others' works?)
In Bread and Circuses, the "God" Flavius Maximus and Septimus and others believed in or feared suited the religious powers that be. It purports that the God of Earth Humans is pervasive, enduring, and omnipresent such that even aliens of another world would value it/him/her just as supposedly "most" judeo-christians do or claim to.
M-5:
M-5, technologically-- and logically-- in that case, HAD to do itself in. After all, Daystrom imprinted his OWN belief system, his "memory engrams" onto M--5's core programming. That is why M-5 stated, after bullying queries by Kirk, "... murder is contrary to the laws of God and Man..." That is why when Kirk asked M-5, "And what is the punishment for murder", M-5 replied "This... unit... must... DIE", upon which time we get the dramatic "dew-dew-dew--doo-doo" sound piece. Then, of course, Shatner's lines--probably added by himself-- were "Scotty! Get to Engineering. Pull the PLUG. Pull the plug FAST!"
Planet Vulcan:
Since Spock's Pon Farr and other mystical or cultural issues or attributes were alluded to or partially seen in prior episodes or would have been discussed (since Nimoy and his character were principal pieces of TOS), it was obligatory to show off-worlder "mysticism". Again, as I mentioned in one of my prior follow-ups, it is NOT too terribly easy for Paramount and Trek to deal with HUMAN characters' religious mores that are parallel to our own. It's easy for them to have Sisko and Picard and Janeway IMPOSE upon or graft on to an issue or species their "script-edited" value, but as for the characters' day-to-day internal issues with God, humanity, manifest destiny, exploration and, it's only tossed in as a dramatic device, not as a tool to spend more than 15 seconds per episode with...
Yonada/Kalandrans?:
Diana Princess' homeland was ruled by women, and I believe a few Johnny Weismueller/Tarzan episodes tackled the issue of women. As long as it's not an episodic, 3 or 4 times per season (unless they're scantily-clad and escaping the body-parts censors), the studios and audience and elites won't complain, at least not too much...
"Stehhp-pin' ennn-to Eeden, Yah... Bwudder"
"No more trouble in my body or my mind...eat all the fruit and throw away the vine" surely harkens to Adam and Eve. But, hippies of the episode were an academy dropout, a son of an elitist, a few misfits, and otherss capable of acquiring a space vessel to escape a disillusioning existence among their other fellow humans. Even today, if there were a place to which escape were possible and yet far enough away to not be subject to the laws of their various countries, people would take the chance. Hell if I could find an unclaimed island and had resources, I'd set up a minimal government (set up as an entity under protection of a number of countries in and outside of the UN, ASEAN, SEATO, African Union, European Union, Asian Union, and others, JUST to show the US "it AINT gonna get every fricking thing it wants..."), an idealist/idyllic environment, and even build up a navy and DARE the US government to impose it's black-ships ports visits upon me. But, we KNOW how long my little idyllic plateau would last before being nuked, bombed, or shaved down a few dozen feet.
---- Further/deeper... Censors of the 60's were "ignorant" when it came to ST:TOS. Until Trek (and even a bit after Trek), despite a number of ground-breaking Sci-Fi films/movies and TV features (Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Night Gallery--if that can be included), some of these issues of metaphysical and religious value were not noticed. Because Trek was sci-fi, it apparently was not dreamed that religion, racism, class culture, elitism and so on could slip past the censors. Though the censors and some studio execs zeroed in on Spock's "devilish" ears, they particularly missed the anti-Vietnam sentiments, or did a good enough job pretending to not catch and cenor the anti-war statements/messages. ("Balance of Terror", "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
Now, maybe I'm going to be the "boy that cried wolf", but...
It's all to easy for "hollywierd" to pay lip service to a religion, a race, or somesuch, but it's also ALL to easy for them to dive into ALIEN religion practices because they're "off-world", not here in Iraq, Jerusalem, Ireland, or some reservation on North Dakota. Chakotay is a notable exception, but aside from him and Robert Beltran, it's hard for me to recall when Hollywood showed some balls in some of these aspects.
It's one thing for Marla McGivers/Gyvers to "refer" to Khan as "Sikh", and another for the studio (particularly in the 60's) to dress him/costume him and show him kneeling and praying, so instead, to possibly distract us, he's doing isometrics, summoning his powers borne by genetics.
But, humans being humans, particularly those in wealth and who care more about accumulating maldistributed wealth, in TODAY's world, we will not, except in theme-based productions, see a lot of Trek showing real-life religions, a Travis/Hoshi pairing, and so on. In REAL LIFE, I've met a number of Black/Asian pairings, and yet Star Trek, scurrying into a comfort zone, couldn't even recognize that.
There comes a time when scripts have to show reality, even in fiction, and not just cozily kiss ass for some market or demographic numbers. Many of today's youth tend to be more worldly (cuz mommy and daddy or even their own governments can send them abroad on student exchange programs, thankfully) and accepting (thanks to no major xenophobia and thanks to the US having bombed so many of the wrong targets in South East Asia that in atonement, not out of some superior/ideological-mindedness, it HAD to take in hundreds of thousands of emigrants-- I know, I have PLENTY of Asian friends whose homes were bombed or who have relatives who were bombed and weren't even the so-called designated targets...) that hopefully it will be just a matter of time until some remnants still in charge just "go away".
Final race-tone example: I recently watched a recent production of high school economics class students on KTEH/54. I was saddened that from the 30 minutes or so that I watched, the camera gave plenty of background face time to the non-African American and non-Asian students. The camera just dwelled on them for long enough to tell their opinion, but when the camera moved past them, it moved fairly FAST. For the non-minorities, fore- OR background, the camera was in nor hurry to pan/scan/zoom. That, my friend, exemplifies that if it's not a minority-produced show (forced in some ways to retaliate, or kiss up to upstage the mainstream productions not center staging a Denzel), the camera moves fast and the dialog is short.
We need to do something about it here, otherwise US minorities going overseas will CONTINUE to be shunned, ignored, or presumed to be drug dealers, non-contributors and the like, other than in music, sports, or a few niche areas.
I dislike having said this, to some extent, but it has to be said. Trek is ideal, and idealistic, but it ultimately will follow the money trail more than the Ideal Trail. That's PROBABLY why Berman (I believe it was him) or others dismissed DS9 as being "not really part of the Franchise..." Probably because Avery Brooks was in charge, a few women (Keiko, Neris, Jadzia and her lively-feisty-dilithium-powered-Worf-mounting replacement (interestingly, also Canadian), Cassidy, and a few I can't recall) almost outnumbered and out-ranked or out-brained some of the men. Ultimately, Sisko was "vaporized" into an "Emissary", pretty much removing him from corporeal status, and possibly killing off ANY decent theatrical presentation of DS9.
(Pops 10 vials of lithium...)
David Syes But, as I said before, this is present-day Earth.
the cast changed. There were occasional if fleeting references to String(fellow Hawk) and his bother, St.John ("sin-juhn") began flying the Airwolf.
It might be interesting, tho, as I pointed out in another commentary in this thread, to have multiple ships of the Enterprise type doing a combinatiof Voyager/BattleStar Galactica, except a bunch of UFP/Vulcan and other scientists would be moved to some "expanse" to set up the (Vulcan-feared) human manifest destiny type of outposts.
Then multiple ships and crews could be filmed. Logistically and politically, though, actors, their unions and reps might balk at the division/reduction of pay from doubling or tripling the sets and payroll.
They COULD try something like "UFO" (den-den-den-den deh-det-det-deh-deh-dett-deh-deh, deew-dee-deww deww,....)
And have aliens trying to interfere with things. But the main thing to learn from UFO is that it's OK to rotate cast and characters around, sort of like on real ships, despite the need to bring new reports up to speed. Or, they should just cover crew members lives and duties, not just fixate on 5 or 7 people with many moons between "a day in the life of a vital crewmember below decks..."
Then, again, they could always go out looking for Gracie's grandparents... and seek to relocate some "wolphins"...
No! They want Trek collapse to the deck, feet and shoulder blades flat, with torso elevated, teeth clenched, neck twisted, mouth open like the Nancy Crater Salt Vampire, fingers pointing out, body writhing for 25 seconds of screentime, to finally succumb to that blue-green stun beam fired by forces of evil against our hero now 72 second ago...and counting... Wait, CUT...RE-TAKE!...
I used to like the US production of Airwolf, a former Bellasarius production. It died in the US market, losing Jan Michael Vincent, Ernest Borgnine and a few other characters, but was resurrected in Canada. Having watched Airwolf since about 1983 or 1984, I was surprised when in 1988 in Bahrain at the Admin Support Unit lounge and saw Airwolf on TV. But, I was initially dismayed at the glassy-screen-like camera treatment and the character changes. But, actually, I ended up liking it a bit later, despite it moving up north and using different formatting/ratios. One thing I did later liked was that the cinematography was different: The camera angles and movements and even focal length seemed un-US-like. I like it. The show then seemed "quicker" and "grittier" in some aspects.
However, many US Trek fans and unions will probably bitch like hell at the move. If it can be moved to Canada, some will reason, then why can't the costs be brought down, and it kept here in the US. Well, maybe the Canadian studios do the same or better work for slightly less up-front cost. I dunno, but for a production to leave the US and go to another country, SOMEthing is being saved. Or, someone else wants the cachet of having Trek or (name your show) on their notched belt.
Heck, even the Simpsons show has most of if not all of its artwork and animation done in South Korea. It costs a fraction of what it would in the US, and the Korean team is doing a great job, it seems.
To the dismay of a number of Trek fans, and maybe even the cast, as with Airwolf, some or all of the cast and characters might change. I wouldn't be surprised if some elites or idealists in Canada tweak Enterprise to be more CanaPrize, making Star Trek's vision of the future include MORE of the real world, instead of Hollywood's US-market-centric/pleasing view of the world.
For example:
Voyager had Harry Kim, cuz "we gotta please the economically powerful and politically savvy Asian community..." yet while Tom Paris was a misfit inmate who caused the death of Starfleet personnel, he was eventually promoted to Lieutenant on Voyager, the ship, not just the show. Clean-nosed, sometimes defiant Harry Kim? Oh, he's done what NO ensign wants to do/be: Remain ensign for SEVEN YEARS on the same ship. His not receiving a field promotion by Janeway was NOT a Federation/UFP/Starfleet issue. I DARE say it was a US-centric, hollywood "thing" about keeping Garret Wang's character "down". (No, Kim's being promoed AFTER Voyager destroyed/set back the Borg does NOT count, since his promotion was a cheesy-assed future-scene, not part of Voyagers' Fans chronology...)
Of course, that example won't fly when compared to DS9, since women were elevated, but aside from Cassidy Yates, most were not real-life ethnic minorities.
As for Enterprise, Mayweather seems to gleefully smile at the console, from most of the episodes I've seen. It is true he and Hoshi had their little moments, one of Hoshi's being to copulate with an alien and "exchange some language"...
I hope the Canadians take Trek where it's never been before: GLOBAL!
It would be nice to see an Indian in a turbin on duty, in uniform. It would be NICE to see a Black/Asian couple aboard ship, instead of the all-too-beaten/submission-forced Anglo/Sino pairings. It would be nice to see an Iraqi, or Greek, or person from Tuvalu or Vunuato and identified as such, on the ship. It would be nice to see crew members in their off-duty, and NOT just the main ensemble.
In Canada's hands, after about a year of some close-minded segment of the audience kvetching, Trek could TRULY improve, for instance, diving into details of a new and improved UN Security Council's fictional but pivotal role in rescuing the world from one-country-control, despite global markets theoretically dictating that one country cannot control the world.
Yeh, up to this point, Trek has been a franchise of US origin, and it is a venture/business driven by demographics. Well, it's time for WORLD demo
They probably did, and they'll probably try to claim prior art from way back to windoze 3.1 days...if not stopping at win98 se
Considering the past and represent behavior of this past recidivist, recalcitrant, intransigent, convicted monopolistist, why was Samuel's comment/remark marked as "flamebait"?
After all, this is microsoft/mshaft (say it in the tone of "THESE ARE ROMULANS! You show weakness, and they'll come back with not just ONE ship, but with EVERYTHING they've got! You're the expert modder who marked him flamebait; you KNOW this; why are you chopping him down?) (lower-casing/deprecation of ms' name intentional/perpetual with me...) we're talking about. Doesn't MATTER that ms "donates" (read: we'll donate you computersif you agree to never change the OS, just like we bend manufacturers over the barrel (even tho some are still trying to get to Linux after they've mostly dumped Solaris...) schloads of money or s/w with pre-arranged hardware drops. Once you've destroyed companies (bankrupted via vaporware, sued based on nebulous claims, lied to judge with fake video testimony in court, affecting possible outcomes of companies trying to make 3rd-party add-ons if the verdict lands in favor of 3rd-pty s/ware makers...)
What is soo ass-backwards in Amerika is that most stores, for "competitive reasons", particularly electronics stores, prohibit photography, recording, filming, etc. While I don't have a problem with prohibiting SOME snapping, I find it odd in a good way that in Japan, stores and flyers distributers use QR codes to imart or disseminate more information to CUSTOMERS.
Here, in the US, one can see QR codes or similar codes on UPS/Fedex packaging or delivery and warehouse settings. It's great for them, but when I go to a store and want to use buy a product that is not in stock, or I just want more manufacturer information that the underpaid staff can deliver on-demand, it would be NICE to whip out my cell and SCAN the QR code.
To be honest, one computer store (Laox, if I remember correct) employee in Akihabara asked me not to surf from the computer. Maybe it was for competitive reasons, as in I might find the same product cheaper or try to bargain in that store.... But, I told him I was looking for the new coffee shop or Linux-branded coffee shop/store in Akihabara and that I was wanting to find Mandrake Linux or TurboLinux. But, I'd already found what I needed before he asked me to stop. They weren't selling Linux goods at that store, but I think had I asked, he'd have not even let me. I have a feeling tho, had I asked, he WOULD have performed the search himself, just to satisfy himself that I was not going to buy something that he was already selling.
But, does ANYone here know of ANY 'Merkun store, whether appearal, electronics, household, and so on, that offers or allows CUSTOMER use of barcodes or QR codes? Maybe there could be some technological way to prevent people from "downloading the store's whole inventory", maybe by requiring the cell or scanning device to transmit a request code that is tied to the phone's ESN or FCC ID, or maybe the Customer could be handed a store-provided scanner that limits scan downloads. Then, at the end of shopping (assuming there's a way to prevent a person or team from coming in over 2-days' time and accomplishing the inventory download...), the customer could be handed a printout of the QR codes only, or the ancilliary information, or allowed to Bluetooth the codes into their phone.
(A neat cell, which doesn't make or take calls in the US, is the Sharp V402SH. It's generally available in Japan and other parts of Asia, plus, I believe, Europe. Some of the best damn phones are locked up in Japan, partly because, as for outsiders, "They wouldn't appreciate it, nor do they deserve it....."
Well, I LOVE the 402SH, and the upgraded models are even better. (Some of them permit gamers (playing so-designed games) to output their play on a LCD TV or display. One even lets the user RECORD the (analog-tuner-received) TV program they know they will miss (maybe due a meeting or such....)... pretty nifty stuff. I am not really impressed with much of the stuff I see here in the states, as it's mostly geared toward ripping another $9 or $10 here and there... besides, I don't have enough hours in the day to benefit from 100 channels of dodgy/slow-poke download content that has to chew up local storage space on MY phone. Why not just compress/burts stream the stuff. So much for Hollywierd considering to use BitTorrent to destroy the existence of TVs... Maybe, tho, they'll use BitTorrrent to burst programs to hand-helds and not require the recipient to waste camera and sound memo space to phones. OTOH, storing the content on the HH device would let the viewer catch the program later... assuming there's no expiry stamp on the file...)
As for the other poster who nearly was arrested for randomly looking up at the security cameras, he should note that it doesn't take just that to be descended upon by cops or loss prevention. When I was a teen in High School, in JROTC, we had a thing about tucking the "bill" of our green ball caps between our pants and shirt, held in place by the belt pressure. But, walking and torso movements gradually lift the hat up, an
These execs seem to sound like other people I once talked with about Open Source.
If you've not done so already, kindly enlighten them that they can hybridize the approach: Dual Licensing..
$$$$ for the Deluxe/fully-featured/full-access version (you HAVE been modularizing the incremental development feature sets, for the inevitable dual-license scenario, have you?...)
$$$$$ for the 24/7 support access, version of the above $$$$
$$-$0.00 for the less-than-fully-featured, no-24/7-support version which DOES included daily snapshots and user-initiated/managed upgrades.
I don't know WHY so many execs (well, I guess they're ill-informed, uninformed, or deceived by external forces such as news, lying sales reps, and being swamped by too much info to read in too few hours in a day...OR, worse, they're closeted ms-acolytes or stock-holders) have this "either/or" attitude toward Open Sourc, but fail to consider mixing the best of each and splitting the difference. Probably, the same single team could manage both versions of the product, so long as a superior version tracker and a decent in-house and customer-driven bugs/resolution base are all in sync...
to find in the near future that microsoft (lower-casing/deprecation of their name intentional/perpetual with me...) is using more than just BSD/FreeBSD code in their warez.
Would it be offensive to mshaft and RIAA acolytes for disguntled employees to dissolve their IP/NDA duties in the face of clear theft of GPL code?
Even more interesting would be if some disgruntled employees who leak it do it such a manner that it survives the sure-to-follow "inadmissible evidence due to illegal seizure and release of information in this case your honor" here in the US. Pliant, weak, feckless judges would probably spend the better part of 15 years before gettiing around to punishing (painfully punishing, that is, not just a tickle on the frenulum or feather on the cossix) mshaft for such infringements in the US, or in countries where ms can pay off governments to pressure or replace judges.
So, do any of you out there have proof that lurking, buried deep in ms code is stolen/masked/encrypted/bynarized GPL code?
IANAGPOOS (I am not a geo-physicist or other scientist), and I did not RTMFA, but what's to say the Gamma radiation will be particles size in wavelength?
I mean, what if the burst were/is sufficiently huge to initate a sort of "cascade" or wave of particles like a "gamma train"? Not as a conical intersection but as a rod or train-like intersection, almost piggy-backing us. (We'd not only lose the Ozone, but we'd all lose or "loose/n" (heheh) our only-remaining, other "O-zone".) I imagine with all the stellar flotsam from two colliding stars, there would be rippling or wave action in space. If that unlikely collision hit/s, and if it finds Earth, a 12-hour gamma train would coalesce or bathe the Earth sufficiently long to nullfy another 25% to 45% of the initially "unbathed" population. That is, the Earth would be orbiting in the wave bath assuming it arrived in sync with rather than tangental to Earths path in the solar system.
Even scarier, what if, as with unpredictable Tsunamis, a second or even third wave followed the first or second waves at slightly oblique angles but still managed to reach Earth only minutes or hours behind. There could an amplification effect, or hyper-concentration in some areas of the atmosphere or water table. (But, in the case of Tsunamis, somme fo the waves can take up to 4 hours to trail the iniitial devastation...)
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Sciences/Che mi stry/NuclearChemistry/NuclearWeapons/FirstChainRea ction/FirstNuclWeapons/DesignGadget.htm
Googling:
gamma bomb feasibility
produced:
http://www.google.com/search?q=gamma%20bomb%20fe as ibility&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Some of it's pretty interesting...
For those looking for ways of surviving a Gamma Blast, call up the Men Without (Tin Foil) Hats and strut tothe lyrics of....
"Safety Dance":
http://www.80smusiclyrics.com/artists/menwithout ha ts.htm
And, as the nuclear wind is catchin' up, and ever'thing's goint toshit, toss those Geiger counters and Reynolds Wrap tubes and change your tempo/beat to get to:
(Don't forget to guttarally make the throaty/kocking "Kha-tsu" instrument sound at the appropriate lines below...)
"Say we can dance, we can dance
Everything's out of control ("KT")
We can dance, we can dance
They're doing it from pole to pole ("KT")
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody look at your hands ("KT")
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody taken the chance
The safety dance
The safety dance
The safety dance"
========= (and, then queue up the vinyl for the track "Ant-Arc-ti-cahhh"" =========
==========
And, if you're on the wrong side of the shield, then recall "The Cure", and meow...
Has anyone made or designed a bomb that is specifically designed for close--range gamma irradiation. I suppose the neutron bomb could be called that, and we've heard about cesium, strontium and uranium and a few others, but is there any body of work that could be a genuine "Gamma Bomb"?
To extend that, is it possible for a "mad scientist" (or likely some actor such as a government) to position gamma bombs in fake orbital satellites? Or, even just in the cargo bay of a passenger jet? Imagine the US getting tired of some particular nation and modifying a passenger plane to "slip out" as parachute-floated, propeller directed gamma or neutron bomb over some hapless target. Probably for sci-fi.
But, if a Gamma Bomb could be made, what kind of noise and wind would a terrestrial and atmospheric detonation produce? And, if some nut pushed one down the 4,000 foot mantle-penetrating shaft, would it cause any unpredictable EM issues? I don't imagine it'd "rock us to the core" (pun in ten ded...), but could all that heat and pressure and some gamma waves/rays/particle bursts actually be of military or mad-scientist value?
I've been calling ms' crap the "digital crack of software."
But, along the lines of "crack", or being "cracked"...
To be truthful, I still use windoze 98, but I sequester the bitch, contain it inside Win4Lin, run on my Mandrake (err, not yet Mandriva, heeh?)) Linux boxen. That is because I NEED and am ADDICTED to Lotus SmartSuite. At least the addiction is in a smaller, less virus-targetted audience. And, I am not on SO/OO.o yet because they stubbornly and maddeningly refuse to fix the damned document master/container/link issue where when I link an external doc, I get a "rule" or box that does not show the flow of my docs. There is not even a decent 'Doc Skimmer'-like or page sorter view tool. The icons are not crisp and tight, still too gray/grey for my taste, and not as friendly/polished as the older, somewhat non-longer-feature-full SmartSuite.
Base, almost baseless for and debasing to, end users is nowhere near user-friendly. It's like SO/OO.o have their heads in the sand with mercury in their ears, and lead over their eyes... They m'f'ingly re-effing-FUSE to mimic SmartSuite to the extent legally possible in the name of diffusing Open Source OO.o to the community. It's like somebody at Sun/SO/OO.o is a mole for ms, stymying the would-e flattering mimicry of SmartSuite.
I hope IBM, in patent-revamping swing they're on, grants Sun & OO.o unfettered leeway speed their asses up in fixing and improving in SO/OO.o what needs correcting instead of adding yet MORE stuff that is not making it competitive enough to pull more users from ms orifice.
IBM/SUN, PLEASE purge the ms shills from your ranks and de-kink the problems going on. If SmartSuite is going to keep its limited government/corporate userbase, then PLEASE, at least, allow Open Source to benefit from as much SmartSuite featureset-copying as you can. IBM's going into the "services" sector anyway, and it's not as if anyone in IBM/Lotus really care to OpenSource SmartSuite.
Hell, IBM, if you gave ME the code, I could run a project and deploy some SmartSuite-based apps I cannot POSSIBLY effectivley with Open Source/Linux users until SmartSuite is ported, or I find and trust others to faithfully port/reproduce my work. And, I am not even a project manager or engineer. But, I have PASSION! PASSION! something that IBM/Lotus hhave ghasped away in resignation to a non-sweet 2.5% suite market share. I imagine the quirky OO.o/SO combination will surpass SmartSuite in under a year, and it STILL will lack what SmartSuite has has for over a decade:
--WordPro- A crisp, tight word processor --Approach- a polished, fine-as-hell end-user, yet reasonably powerful database front end
I HOPE MySQL can come out with an Approach-Like interface for the user side of things. That is, if IBM/Lotus don't get there first.
David Syes (swills 500 ccs of thorazine/bromidine combination...)
God, PLEASE, if you exist, give Brazil the senses not to buy into this microsoft (lower-casing/deprecation of their name intentional/perpetual with me...) "reduced-price-digital-crack" addiction. Open your arms and take them to our bosom and nurture them (oh, sorry, you probably have people thinking god is a man...)
Brazil, if you're listening, REGAIN your freedom and independence. Your national security, privacy, sovereignty and more are at stake when you use a so-called operating system the encryption keys of which have to be escrowed with UNITED STATES security agencies.
The Dishonesty of ``New Labour'' Crypto Policy... Previous message: The Swedes discover Lotus Notes has key escrow!... law enforcement agencies the technological capability to intercept such messages....
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ ukcrypto/1997-December/039896.html
- 4k - Cached - Similar pages
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I've seen those "men in black", once around 1994 at a company where I temped and they were there to pick up quarterly-escrowed keys. I joked, "WHo are THOSE guys? NSA comin' to pick up crypto?" Someone admonished me, with "SHHHHH!! That's EXACTLY who they are, and don't let them hear you..."
Now, surely, the NSA and other spook agencies in and outside of the US can crack your traffic in time, but YOU have right, a duty and an obligation to make it as freakin' hard for them as you can.
It's ONE thing to mandate escrowing of crypto agains your OWN populace, but to have an external entity impose that on you is nearly tantamount to war, de-facto demanding you make your systems more transparent and susceptible to monitoring, cracking, and inspecting-- remotely and nearly anonymously-- unless you baseline all your government facilities' packets and fingerpring for traffic doing weird things.
Use F/LOSS tools, get a grip on your future independence, and join the tech wagon instead of being a consumer-whore to the currently "OS" like so many other nations. Brazil, you HAVE to find your own national flavor of OS and partner with others just like Japan, Korea and China are. The crypto can be cracked, eventually, even in F/LOSS, but at least you don't have to develop a system that HAS to be reported to NSA before it even reaches your shores or backbone.
If you can't find yourselves getting off ms' digital crack, then at LEAST demand more transparency of the OS code and demand that ALL encryption be removed and made modular. DEMAND that ms indemnifies you and defrays any costs which its past, present and future trickery (convicted monopolist, ettc...) places upon you. Develop your own governmental and public-use encryption scheme, after you demand that their encryption modules be transparent so that F/LOSS modules can be dropped in. But, none of this will be useful if your students and adult users don't learn more about computers and personal responsibilities and limitations and duties to secure their systems, safeguard personal information, and learn rudimentary encryption or system-health tools.
Your future may very well depend on it.
Just "say no to digital crack", and be a little cleaner. Your future generations deserve to have their country not snagged hooked-line and sinker by an external hegemonic corporation. Sure, Central Amerrica and South America have historic government and enterprise issues dogging your lands from the past, but don't let an outsider money-groping convicted monopolist steer your country. I'm not saying this as a "rabid Open Source Looney", but as a person who believes in right over might, REGARDLESS of w
A big "OOPS" on my part. You reminded me of that which I forgot to include, as I was "on a roll" or "on a 'mission'"...
It is perfectly fine to me that once you coin or buy a name of a domain that some not in the registrar business is selling to you, you sell it when it is convenient or necessary. And, you should be able to take whatever the name fetches for you. As a benefit, it, as you indicate, makes administering your domains easier once you've disposed of them.
But, the loss of a domain name should not be a power of the registrars at all, unless the factually erroneously provided or reserved or assigned the name when someone else parked or reserved or is using it. Courts should never take it away or mandate its loss except when a case fraud, drug-dealing, child porn, id-theft or some other illegal activity warrants the seizure of the name.
Thanks, tho, for catching that.
And, as I mentioned earlier, if you can legitimately administer or manager or operate multiple, productive, functioning domains, more power to you. My main beef is when registrars park and give away a name on the basis of it being, in their eyes (for profit motive, I'm sure) "abandoned".
People just need to be more creative and work around taken names in a non-infringing way, such as capturing the essence of their activity. IF the company's mission changes so frequently that they need a nebulous site name, then they probably have some schizoid or identity crisis issues with their board, marketing or engineering team. Too bad marketing "buzz word" craze lets degreed people off the hook too easily.
I guess the mod-dunce on my comment won't be satisifed until the registrars do to him/her or to someone he/she CARES about what has happened to others..
I think I covered the real problems with these locks: Hypercapitalist acquisition of names and domains when people trip up. Registrar entities make excelllent vacuum cleaners for biz and some of or many of the marketing types who cannot enact or wake up their own imagination.
OTOH, the modder is beholden to the registrar system, I suppose.
(Sighs in profound incredulity at some creatures feigning intelligence or empathy...)
Who the hell even had the power to create a lease/lien situation on domains for these entities?
It is now time to change by FORCE the model in which site name registrants own and control their names.
For example, motorists in NO WAY surrender ownership of their to a toll booth operator when their car breaks down or runs out of gas on the road. The vehicle has a license, and it is allocated, issued, and annually or every two years checked by a DMV.
For registrars to have a mafioso grip on domain names is insane, thievery, and unctuous. It ought to be ILLEGAL for a registrar to take the name of a defunct site operator or to sell it.
However, the registrars will cry foul, and will also say they invest time, energy, research, and other resources into setting up and activating domains for users. Well, to me, that's no justification for locking an account.
But, this BS stance can be alleviated simply by charging the applicant/registrant $10 more for an insurance fee that their domain will NEVER be locked, blocked, or obstructed and that the registrant can change to any registrar at any time, without any DNS-excusing mumbo-jumbo.
Registrars should be forced to operate under a "toll road analogy" in which derelict or broken-down or abandoned vehicles (sites/domains) are tagged, warned, then towed, but NOT owned by the registrar. However, as is typical in modern corruption, sometimes tow companies are as unctuous as rogue and self-serving policy makers can be. SO, we need an electronic grave yard or tow yard which the site's owner can come to reclaim their site. SO, the boneyard/graveyard/towyards also are prohibited, under this model, from hijacking and extorting or bulk-selling off domain names.
Yet, there IS the problem of cybersquatters and of those who don't in timely fashion reasonably respond to questions by other companies and domain holders about potential infringement of name or likeness. If people would be more reasonable about being a "player in the field" instead of impeding competitors who are doing a legitimate, fair job of competing, and if instead of unfairly sidling up to a domain name for unfair purposes people would cease or desist their acts, the registrars would by default be rightfully stripped of some of the inexplicable and far-ranging powers they wield over domain holders.
I would propose that anyone registering for a domain would need to show intent or proof to use the domain imminently (as in under 10 to 20 days time). If they need more time, they could PARK the domain, provided it is for marketing or tactical reasons and not for mere cybersquatting or extortion purposes.
I would propose that the domain contact details require that an identifiable person be physically cataloged if that person can appear before a local office. Otherwise, the business or non-profit or research entity registering a domain should be electronically tied to a city, county, state or federal employer/business registry. This would make it possible for legit companies to establish fair-play appearances.
Individuals, or entities not actually doing business but intending to later convert to profit or non-profit business status, such as bloggers, certain reporters, and information sites should be required to personally register the domain via some utility-like office in their community (unless facial anonymity is a paramount requirement, in the case of authors or publishers of factual but contentious/controversial intellectual material/stories).
That said, some measures may make my above suggestions irrelevant or partially covered. But, there also needs to be an implemented method to deter individuals and business or marketing entities from just making up and registering a warchest/ database of names that never get used, never get surrendered, and clog up the domain registration systems. Maybe an activity counter (possibly Google could do this but ONLY for a country in which that government ALLOWS Google to do this:) to in
hehehe, SOMEone was gettin' "railroaded"... ahhh've been werrkin' ohn da wrell-wroad... juss to slip the time awayyy....
Talk about a "rail job"... I wonder if that rat had a "derailure" to "slip" into low gear to get off/out in the nick of time... Then again, the track bed is so solid that they probably stay on it just so the train amplifies vibration...
For some reason related to "libpng" errors on my system, I could not RE-visit a number of the links in my post above.
But, I forgot to mention a few more of my observations of the Tokyo metro system. It seems that, unlike the US in some ways, the Japanese employment mentality is that a job can be made for almost anyone. Even though the trains do fine with a human MONITOR and the trains are automated and the stations camera-monitored (I saw NO video surveillance on Japanese/Tokyo trains, and that says a LOT about what the hell is going on in US society as goes crime/vandalism, and so forth), there tend to be light-flasher/lantern operator men who raise and lower their lights to signal to the driver that the doors can be closed. I don't know if it's for nostalgia, employment, or real safety, but I never saw anyone accidentally get stuck in a door. BUt, I saw people trying to beat the door to close.
As for privacy and safety, there are the occasional "feel-ups", where some dirty males will grope or feel on women. On one line it got to where the management or board now designates "Women-Only" cars during parts of the day... But, a number of other lines won't do it for fear of admitting there's a problem, I suppose.
As for litter, I DID see a beer can on a JR line, and since I found it odd, I tokk a picture of it for myself.
The Japanese landmass and population considerations result in there being up to 10 to 15 side-by-side tracks, and I've had a number of times on the JR line in Shibuya/Shinjuku areas seen at least 2 trains on either side of me going in opposite and same directions at different speeds. Some are purely station-skipping commuter or express or special lines. There is not usually a price difference to ride an express line; I rode one from Miyamaedaira to Shinjuku and another from Yokohama to Shinjuku. The difference is that you have to time which ride you take and be at a station where the train will stop. It saved me up to 30 minutes from Yokoyam. That train made roughly 6 stops over the distance whereas normal lines stop at every station for about 20 seconds to 30 seconds and roar out.
Japan's rail system probably uses as much electricity as all of the US. I was amazed at the torque of the engines, speed of the trains, number of cars in a single hookup (up to 15 I think I once counted, and it was HAULING ASS down that track... if they'd put wings on it...), the frequency of arrivals (at least every 2 to 5 minutes during peak and no more than about 6 to 8 or 12 minutes off-peak or on less-traveled subway lines.
Also, what is cool is that it is easily possible to make or take cell calls underground. Toei-Oedo line, which I rode a lot, is about 40 meters beneath the street, some 5 or 7 escalator changes deep. I understand that most Japanese avoid that line, given the depth below ground, whereas most of the other lines are about 20 meters or shallower. I guess earthquake-caused entrapment is a frightening thing, or maybe fear of another gas attack and the ensuing stampede... Incidentallly, it's nearly impossible to find refuse/garbage containers in stations below ground, but, you'll very easily see goods kiosks, as well as food and beverage vending machines, as well as recycling and cup recovery machines.
As for rats, which I gather NYC has some cat-sized rats and Nokia-sized roaches (probably bigger than those in Florida and the Gulf of Mexico/Atlantic islands), I only saw ONE rat underground (or, surface, for that matter), somewhere on the Asakusa line when I was leaving Ueno. I only saw it's eyes, and it was, like so many other things there, miniature. It probably was more afraid of hyoomons and light and than the tracks noise as the train approaches...
And, in the interests of honesty, as much as I support and like public transit in Japan, and feel the US ought to have similar, deep and wide penetration of such lines, I do feel the urge to get a car when I can afford one. But, I've dispensed with a vehicle as of Feb 2003. Sometimes, I use my
The NY experiment or conversion is not even worth an "it's about time...". and barely worth a "yawn". Probably unions kept this delayed for as long as it is... Hyuumons have a way of delaying automation, but then management/CEOs have a way with wiping out jobs for a frickin' bottom line, too... Of course, we can recall the Standard Oil and other companies that systematically bought up almost every single city rail car line to encourage the gas-swilling privately-owned vehicle (POV). (I think the POV (and lack of rapid communications and intra/interstate driver's license checking) is one of the single-largest factors in the US infidelity/divorce rate, thanks to the POV's enabling traveling salesmen to have a wife or lover in multiple cities, much like sailors having a girl (or, umm, boy, heheh) in every port.)
I seriously doubt there is a single rail system in the US that compares to some overseas, particularly to the multiple systems in Tokyo that that share the same track. The Shinjuku station along services over 2 million passengers a day, if I recall, and I used that and other stations there.
The trains have an operator in front, and sometime, but not always, have an operator or safety monitor in the back control station. Generally, the person in back is there to ensure there are no pax stuck in the doors as the cute alert tunes chime away that the train is moving. Heck, even inside the trains there are (on the JR Line, at least) really cool plasma or LCD monitors that show in color any number of commercials/adverts, and the moving block diagram of the train, its next station arrival, and delays information in English and Japanese. I wonder if Spanish or other languages will be on the NY system, or if their system is only going as far as testing the repacability of operators. I seriously doubt many US lines would survive vandalism. Of course, I gather, NY has trains that run all night long, and sometimes, for me it was an incovenience in Tokyo to have to rush to the train before 12:30, to get back to my bunk, but other lines ran until about 1AM or 1:30. I hardly saw any litter on the Japanese trains, and cannot recall seeing ANY graffiti or torn seats. The stations themselves are different,, but when you have over 2 million users a day passing through or going to shop in the multi-use centers, any city would have a few torn posters here and there. BART seems OK, by my comparisons to Tokyo's lines (all of these I rode):
Don't post these ideas to ms encarta... they'll lay claim to them, try to patent them, and then enjoin you from using your ideas elsewhere... And, if they can't patent-infringement you out of the running, they'll keep lawyer-bombing you until you give up...
(takes off extra layers of tin foil hat (leaving on about two thick layers...)...)
Slashdot Mirror
Assimilate THIS, microshaft (lower-casing/deprecation of ms' name intentional/perpetual with me):
Here's a beta-to-gold-release-candidate for you ms, and it doesn't even take 1 page of feasibility studies:
One thum in your mouth;
One thumb in your ass;
Now, when I say, "SWITCH!"...
(you know the rest...)
(Now, why don't you come up with a BETTER, ORIGINAL idea from your ass without copying from another product, and why don't you make up technology that that helps the thumbless, instead of embracing and destroying others' works?)
Sun God:
In Bread and Circuses, the "God" Flavius Maximus and Septimus and others believed in or feared suited the religious powers that be. It purports that the God of Earth Humans is pervasive, enduring, and omnipresent such that even aliens of another world would value it/him/her just as supposedly "most" judeo-christians do or claim to.
M-5:
M-5, technologically-- and logically-- in that case, HAD to do itself in. After all, Daystrom imprinted his OWN belief system, his "memory engrams" onto M--5's core programming. That is why M-5 stated, after bullying queries by Kirk, "... murder is contrary to the laws of God and Man..." That is why when Kirk asked M-5, "And what is the punishment for murder", M-5 replied "This... unit... must... DIE", upon which time we get the dramatic "dew-dew-dew--doo-doo" sound piece. Then, of course, Shatner's lines--probably added by himself-- were "Scotty! Get to Engineering. Pull the PLUG. Pull the plug FAST!"
Planet Vulcan:
Since Spock's Pon Farr and other mystical or cultural issues or attributes were alluded to or partially seen in prior episodes or would have been discussed (since Nimoy and his character were principal pieces of TOS), it was obligatory to show off-worlder "mysticism". Again, as I mentioned in one of my prior follow-ups, it is NOT too terribly easy for Paramount and Trek to deal with HUMAN characters' religious mores that are parallel to our own. It's easy for them to have Sisko and Picard and Janeway IMPOSE upon or graft on to an issue or species their "script-edited" value, but as for the characters' day-to-day internal issues with God, humanity, manifest destiny, exploration and, it's only tossed in as a dramatic device, not as a tool to spend more than 15 seconds per episode with...
Yonada/Kalandrans?:
Diana Princess' homeland was ruled by women, and I believe a few Johnny Weismueller/Tarzan episodes tackled the issue of women. As long as it's not an episodic, 3 or 4 times per season (unless they're scantily-clad and escaping the body-parts censors), the studios and audience and elites won't complain, at least not too much...
"Stehhp-pin' ennn-to Eeden, Yah... Bwudder"
"No more trouble in my body or my mind...eat all the fruit and throw away the vine" surely harkens to Adam and Eve. But, hippies of the episode were an academy dropout, a son of an elitist, a few misfits, and otherss capable of acquiring a space vessel to escape a disillusioning existence among their other fellow humans. Even today, if there were a place to which escape were possible and yet far enough away to not be subject to the laws of their various countries, people would take the chance. Hell if I could find an unclaimed island and had resources, I'd set up a minimal government (set up as an entity under protection of a number of countries in and outside of the UN, ASEAN, SEATO, African Union, European Union, Asian Union, and others, JUST to show the US "it AINT gonna get every fricking thing it wants..."), an idealist/idyllic environment, and even build up a navy and DARE the US government to impose it's black-ships ports visits upon me. But, we KNOW how long my little idyllic plateau would last before being nuked, bombed, or shaved down a few dozen feet.
---- Further/deeper...
Censors of the 60's were "ignorant" when it came to ST:TOS. Until Trek (and even a bit after Trek), despite a number of ground-breaking Sci-Fi films/movies and TV features (Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Night Gallery--if that can be included), some of these issues of metaphysical and religious value were not noticed. Because Trek was sci-fi, it apparently was not dreamed that religion, racism, class culture, elitism and so on could slip past the censors. Though the censors and some studio execs zeroed in on Spock's "devilish" ears, they particularly missed the anti-Vietnam sentiments, or did a good enough job pretending to not catch and cenor the anti-war statements/messages. ("Balance of Terror", "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
Now, maybe I'm going to be the "boy that cried wolf", but ...
It's all to easy for "hollywierd" to pay lip service to a religion, a race, or somesuch, but it's also ALL to easy for them to dive into ALIEN religion practices because they're "off-world", not here in Iraq, Jerusalem, Ireland, or some reservation on North Dakota. Chakotay is a notable exception, but aside from him and Robert Beltran, it's hard for me to recall when Hollywood showed some balls in some of these aspects.
It's one thing for Marla McGivers/Gyvers to "refer" to Khan as "Sikh", and another for the studio (particularly in the 60's) to dress him/costume him and show him kneeling and praying, so instead, to possibly distract us, he's doing isometrics, summoning his powers borne by genetics.
But, humans being humans, particularly those in wealth and who care more about accumulating maldistributed wealth, in TODAY's world, we will not, except in theme-based productions, see a lot of Trek showing real-life religions, a Travis/Hoshi pairing, and so on. In REAL LIFE, I've met a number of Black/Asian pairings, and yet Star Trek, scurrying into a comfort zone, couldn't even recognize that.
There comes a time when scripts have to show reality, even in fiction, and not just cozily kiss ass for some market or demographic numbers. Many of today's youth tend to be more worldly (cuz mommy and daddy or even their own governments can send them abroad on student exchange programs, thankfully) and accepting (thanks to no major xenophobia and thanks to the US having bombed so many of the wrong targets in South East Asia that in atonement, not out of some superior/ideological-mindedness, it HAD to take in hundreds of thousands of emigrants-- I know, I have PLENTY of Asian friends whose homes were bombed or who have relatives who were bombed and weren't even the so-called designated targets...) that hopefully it will be just a matter of time until some remnants still in charge just "go away".
Final race-tone example: I recently watched a recent production of high school economics class students on KTEH/54. I was saddened that from the 30 minutes or so that I watched, the camera gave plenty of background face time to the non-African American and non-Asian students. The camera just dwelled on them for long enough to tell their opinion, but when the camera moved past them, it moved fairly FAST. For the non-minorities, fore- OR background, the camera was in nor hurry to pan/scan/zoom. That, my friend, exemplifies that if it's not a minority-produced show (forced in some ways to retaliate, or kiss up to upstage the mainstream productions not center staging a Denzel), the camera moves fast and the dialog is short.
We need to do something about it here, otherwise US minorities going overseas will CONTINUE to be shunned, ignored, or presumed to be drug dealers, non-contributors and the like, other than in music, sports, or a few niche areas.
I dislike having said this, to some extent, but it has to be said. Trek is ideal, and idealistic, but it ultimately will follow the money trail more than the Ideal Trail. That's PROBABLY why Berman (I believe it was him) or others dismissed DS9 as being "not really part of the Franchise..." Probably because Avery Brooks was in charge, a few women (Keiko, Neris, Jadzia and her lively-feisty-dilithium-powered-Worf-mounting replacement (interestingly, also Canadian), Cassidy, and a few I can't recall) almost outnumbered and out-ranked or out-brained some of the men. Ultimately, Sisko was "vaporized" into an "Emissary", pretty much removing him from corporeal status, and possibly killing off ANY decent theatrical presentation of DS9.
(Pops 10 vials of lithium...)
David Syes
But, as I said before, this is present-day Earth.
the cast changed. There were occasional if fleeting references to String(fellow Hawk) and his bother, St.John ("sin-juhn") began flying the Airwolf.
....)
e 56 0cb1a2pa35?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=UFO+%28TV+seri es%29&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc03a
5 04 15/ap_on_sc/wholphin_birth
It might be interesting, tho, as I pointed out in another commentary in this thread, to have multiple ships of the Enterprise type doing a combinatiof Voyager/BattleStar Galactica, except a bunch of UFP/Vulcan and other scientists would be moved to some "expanse" to set up the (Vulcan-feared) human manifest destiny type of outposts.
Then multiple ships and crews could be filmed. Logistically and politically, though, actors, their unions and reps might balk at the division/reduction of pay from doubling or tripling the sets and payroll.
They COULD try something like "UFO" (den-den-den-den deh-det-det-deh-deh-dett-deh-deh, deew-dee-deww deww,
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=
And have aliens trying to interfere with things. But the main thing to learn from UFO is that it's OK to rotate cast and characters around, sort of like on real ships, despite the need to bring new reports up to speed. Or, they should just cover crew members lives and duties, not just fixate on 5 or 7 people with many moons between "a day in the life of a vital crewmember below decks..."
Then, again, they could always go out looking for Gracie's grandparents... and seek to relocate some "wolphins"...
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/200
No! They want Trek collapse to the deck, feet and shoulder blades flat, with torso elevated, teeth clenched, neck twisted, mouth open like the Nancy Crater Salt Vampire, fingers pointing out, body writhing for 25 seconds of screentime, to finally succumb to that blue-green stun beam fired by forces of evil against our hero now 72 second ago...and counting... Wait, CUT...RE-TAKE!...
I used to like the US production of Airwolf, a former Bellasarius production. It died in the US market, losing Jan Michael Vincent, Ernest Borgnine and a few other characters, but was resurrected in Canada. Having watched Airwolf since about 1983 or 1984, I was surprised when in 1988 in Bahrain at the Admin Support Unit lounge and saw Airwolf on TV. But, I was initially dismayed at the glassy-screen-like camera treatment and the character changes. But, actually, I ended up liking it a bit later, despite it moving up north and using different formatting/ratios. One thing I did later liked was that the cinematography was different: The camera angles and movements and even focal length seemed un-US-like. I like it. The show then seemed "quicker" and "grittier" in some aspects.
However, many US Trek fans and unions will probably bitch like hell at the move. If it can be moved to Canada, some will reason, then why can't the costs be brought down, and it kept here in the US. Well, maybe the Canadian studios do the same or better work for slightly less up-front cost. I dunno, but for a production to leave the US and go to another country, SOMEthing is being saved. Or, someone else wants the cachet of having Trek or (name your show) on their notched belt.
Heck, even the Simpsons show has most of if not all of its artwork and animation done in South Korea. It costs a fraction of what it would in the US, and the Korean team is doing a great job, it seems.
To the dismay of a number of Trek fans, and maybe even the cast, as with Airwolf, some or all of the cast and characters might change. I wouldn't be surprised if some elites or idealists in Canada tweak Enterprise to be more CanaPrize, making Star Trek's vision of the future include MORE of the real world, instead of Hollywood's US-market-centric/pleasing view of the world.
For example:
Voyager had Harry Kim, cuz "we gotta please the economically powerful and politically savvy Asian community..." yet while Tom Paris was a misfit inmate who caused the death of Starfleet personnel, he was eventually promoted to Lieutenant on Voyager, the ship, not just the show. Clean-nosed, sometimes defiant Harry Kim? Oh, he's done what NO ensign wants to do/be: Remain ensign for SEVEN YEARS on the same ship. His not receiving a field promotion by Janeway was NOT a Federation/UFP/Starfleet issue. I DARE say it was a US-centric, hollywood "thing" about keeping Garret Wang's character "down". (No, Kim's being promoed AFTER Voyager destroyed/set back the Borg does NOT count, since his promotion was a cheesy-assed future-scene, not part of Voyagers' Fans chronology...)
Of course, that example won't fly when compared to DS9, since women were elevated, but aside from Cassidy Yates, most were not real-life ethnic minorities.
As for Enterprise, Mayweather seems to gleefully smile at the console, from most of the episodes I've seen. It is true he and Hoshi had their little moments, one of Hoshi's being to copulate with an alien and "exchange some language"...
I hope the Canadians take Trek where it's never been before: GLOBAL!
It would be nice to see an Indian in a turbin on duty, in uniform. It would be NICE to see a Black/Asian couple aboard ship, instead of the all-too-beaten/submission-forced Anglo/Sino pairings. It would be nice to see an Iraqi, or Greek, or person from Tuvalu or Vunuato and identified as such, on the ship. It would be nice to see crew members in their off-duty, and NOT just the main ensemble.
In Canada's hands, after about a year of some close-minded segment of the audience kvetching, Trek could TRULY improve, for instance, diving into details of a new and improved UN Security Council's fictional but pivotal role in rescuing the world from one-country-control, despite global markets theoretically dictating that one country cannot control the world.
Yeh, up to this point, Trek has been a franchise of US origin, and it is a venture/business driven by demographics. Well, it's time for WORLD demo
They probably did, and they'll probably try to claim prior art from way back to windoze 3.1 days...if not stopping at win98 se
Considering the past and represent behavior of this past recidivist, recalcitrant, intransigent, convicted monopolistist, why was Samuel's comment/remark marked as "flamebait"?
After all, this is microsoft/mshaft (say it in the tone of "THESE ARE ROMULANS! You show weakness, and they'll come back with not just ONE ship, but with EVERYTHING they've got! You're the expert modder who marked him flamebait; you KNOW this; why are you chopping him down?) (lower-casing/deprecation of ms' name intentional/perpetual with me...) we're talking about. Doesn't MATTER that ms "donates" (read: we'll donate you computersif you agree to never change the OS, just like we bend manufacturers over the barrel (even tho some are still trying to get to Linux after they've mostly dumped Solaris...) schloads of money or s/w with pre-arranged hardware drops. Once you've destroyed companies (bankrupted via vaporware, sued based on nebulous claims, lied to judge with fake video testimony in court, affecting possible outcomes of companies trying to make 3rd-party add-ons if the verdict lands in favor of 3rd-pty s/ware makers...)
David Syes
What is soo ass-backwards in Amerika is that most stores, for "competitive reasons", particularly electronics stores, prohibit photography, recording, filming, etc. While I don't have a problem with prohibiting SOME snapping, I find it odd in a good way that in Japan, stores and flyers distributers use QR codes to imart or disseminate more information to CUSTOMERS.
Here, in the US, one can see QR codes or similar codes on UPS/Fedex packaging or delivery and warehouse settings. It's great for them, but when I go to a store and want to use buy a product that is not in stock, or I just want more manufacturer information that the underpaid staff can deliver on-demand, it would be NICE to whip out my cell and SCAN the QR code.
To be honest, one computer store (Laox, if I remember correct) employee in Akihabara asked me not to surf from the computer. Maybe it was for competitive reasons, as in I might find the same product cheaper or try to bargain in that store.... But, I told him I was looking for the new coffee shop or Linux-branded coffee shop/store in Akihabara and that I was wanting to find Mandrake Linux or TurboLinux. But, I'd already found what I needed before he asked me to stop. They weren't selling Linux goods at that store, but I think had I asked, he'd have not even let me. I have a feeling tho, had I asked, he WOULD have performed the search himself, just to satisfy himself that I was not going to buy something that he was already selling.
But, does ANYone here know of ANY 'Merkun store, whether appearal, electronics, household, and so on, that offers or allows CUSTOMER use of barcodes or QR codes? Maybe there could be some technological way to prevent people from "downloading the store's whole inventory", maybe by requiring the cell or scanning device to transmit a request code that is tied to the phone's ESN or FCC ID, or maybe the Customer could be handed a store-provided scanner that limits scan downloads. Then, at the end of shopping (assuming there's a way to prevent a person or team from coming in over 2-days' time and accomplishing the inventory download...), the customer could be handed a printout of the QR codes only, or the ancilliary information, or allowed to Bluetooth the codes into their phone.
(A neat cell, which doesn't make or take calls in the US, is the Sharp V402SH. It's generally available in Japan and other parts of Asia, plus, I believe, Europe. Some of the best damn phones are locked up in Japan, partly because, as for outsiders, "They wouldn't appreciate it, nor do they deserve it....."
Well, I LOVE the 402SH, and the upgraded models are even better. (Some of them permit gamers (playing so-designed games) to output their play on a LCD TV or display. One even lets the user RECORD the (analog-tuner-received) TV program they know they will miss (maybe due a meeting or such....)... pretty nifty stuff. I am not really impressed with much of the stuff I see here in the states, as it's mostly geared toward ripping another $9 or $10 here and there... besides, I don't have enough hours in the day to benefit from 100 channels of dodgy/slow-poke download content that has to chew up local storage space on MY phone. Why not just compress/burts stream the stuff. So much for Hollywierd considering to use BitTorrent to destroy the existence of TVs... Maybe, tho, they'll use BitTorrrent to burst programs to hand-helds and not require the recipient to waste camera and sound memo space to phones. OTOH, storing the content on the HH device would let the viewer catch the program later... assuming there's no expiry stamp on the file...)
As for the other poster who nearly was arrested for randomly looking up at the security cameras, he should note that it doesn't take just that to be descended upon by cops or loss prevention. When I was a teen in High School, in JROTC, we had a thing about tucking the "bill" of our green ball caps between our pants and shirt, held in place by the belt pressure. But, walking and torso movements gradually lift the hat up, an
These execs seem to sound like other people I once talked with about Open Source.
If you've not done so already, kindly enlighten them that they can hybridize the approach: Dual Licensing..
$$$$ for the Deluxe/fully-featured/full-access version (you HAVE been modularizing the incremental development feature sets, for the inevitable dual-license scenario, have you?...)
$$$$$ for the 24/7 support access, version of the above $$$$
$$-$0.00 for the less-than-fully-featured, no-24/7-support version which DOES included daily snapshots and user-initiated/managed upgrades.
I don't know WHY so many execs (well, I guess they're ill-informed, uninformed, or deceived by external forces such as news, lying sales reps, and being swamped by too much info to read in too few hours in a day...OR, worse, they're closeted ms-acolytes or stock-holders) have this "either/or" attitude toward Open Sourc, but fail to consider mixing the best of each and splitting the difference. Probably, the same single team could manage both versions of the product, so long as a superior version tracker and a decent in-house and customer-driven bugs/resolution base are all in sync...
David Syes
to find in the near future that microsoft (lower-casing/deprecation of their name intentional/perpetual with me...) is using more than just BSD/FreeBSD code in their warez.
Would it be offensive to mshaft and RIAA acolytes for disguntled employees to dissolve their IP/NDA duties in the face of clear theft of GPL code?
Even more interesting would be if some disgruntled employees who leak it do it such a manner that it survives the sure-to-follow "inadmissible evidence due to illegal seizure and release of information in this case your honor" here in the US. Pliant, weak, feckless judges would probably spend the better part of 15 years before gettiing around to punishing (painfully punishing, that is, not just a tickle on the frenulum or feather on the cossix) mshaft for such infringements in the US,
or in countries where ms can pay off governments to pressure or replace judges.
So, do any of you out there have proof that lurking, buried deep in ms code is stolen/masked/encrypted/bynarized GPL code?
IANAGPOOS (I am not a geo-physicist or other scientist), and I did not RTMFA, but what's to say the Gamma radiation will be particles size in wavelength?
I mean, what if the burst were/is sufficiently huge to initate a sort of "cascade" or wave of particles like a "gamma train"? Not as a conical intersection but as a rod or train-like intersection, almost piggy-backing us. (We'd not only lose the Ozone, but we'd all lose or "loose/n" (heheh) our only-remaining, other "O-zone".) I imagine with all the stellar flotsam from two colliding stars, there would be rippling or wave action in space. If that unlikely collision hit/s, and if it finds Earth, a 12-hour gamma train would coalesce or bathe the Earth sufficiently long to nullfy another 25% to 45% of the initially "unbathed" population. That is, the Earth would be orbiting in the wave bath assuming it arrived in sync with rather than tangental to Earths path in the solar system.
Even scarier, what if, as with unpredictable Tsunamis, a second or even third wave followed the first or second waves at slightly oblique angles but still managed to reach Earth only minutes or hours behind. There could an amplification effect, or hyper-concentration in some areas of the atmosphere or water table. (But, in the case of Tsunamis, somme fo the waves can take up to 4 hours to trail the iniitial devastation...)
David Syes
I guess I should have done the Gamma Google:
e mi stry/NuclearChemistry/NuclearWeapons/FirstChainRea ction/FirstNuclWeapons/DesignGadget.htm
e as ibility&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
t ha ts.htm
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Sciences/Ch
Googling:
gamma bomb feasibility
produced:
http://www.google.com/search?q=gamma%20bomb%20f
Some of it's pretty interesting...
For those looking for ways of surviving a Gamma Blast, call up the Men Without (Tin Foil) Hats and strut tothe lyrics of....
"Safety Dance":
http://www.80smusiclyrics.com/artists/menwithou
And, as the nuclear wind is catchin' up, and ever'thing's goint toshit, toss those Geiger counters and Reynolds Wrap tubes and change your tempo/beat to get to:
(Don't forget to guttarally make the throaty/kocking "Kha-tsu" instrument sound at the appropriate lines below...)
"Say we can dance, we can dance
Everything's out of control ("KT")
We can dance, we can dance
They're doing it from pole to pole ("KT")
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody look at your hands ("KT")
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody taken the chance
The safety dance
The safety dance
The safety dance"
========= (and, then queue up the vinyl for the track "Ant-Arc-ti-cahhh"" =========
==========
And, if you're on the wrong side of the shield, then recall "The Cure", and meow...
"WHYY CAUN"T IIII BEEE YOOO?!" (Simply Elegant.... hehe)
Has anyone made or designed a bomb that is specifically designed for close--range gamma irradiation. I suppose the neutron bomb could be called that, and we've heard about cesium, strontium and uranium and a few others, but is there any body of work that could be a genuine "Gamma Bomb"?
To extend that, is it possible for a "mad scientist" (or likely some actor such as a government) to position gamma bombs in fake orbital satellites? Or, even just in the cargo bay of a passenger jet? Imagine the US getting tired of some particular nation and modifying a passenger plane to "slip out" as parachute-floated, propeller directed gamma or neutron bomb over some hapless target. Probably for sci-fi.
But, if a Gamma Bomb could be made, what kind of noise and wind would a terrestrial and atmospheric detonation produce? And, if some nut pushed one down the 4,000 foot mantle-penetrating shaft, would it cause any unpredictable EM issues? I don't imagine it'd "rock us to the core" (pun in ten ded...), but could all that heat and pressure and some gamma waves/rays/particle bursts actually be of military or mad-scientist value?
I've been calling ms' crap the "digital crack of software."
But, along the lines of "crack", or being "cracked"...
To be truthful, I still use windoze 98, but I sequester the bitch, contain it inside Win4Lin, run on my Mandrake (err, not yet Mandriva, heeh?)) Linux boxen. That is because I NEED and am ADDICTED to Lotus SmartSuite. At least the addiction is in a smaller, less virus-targetted audience. And, I am not on SO/OO.o yet because they stubbornly and maddeningly refuse to fix the damned document master/container/link issue where when I link an external doc, I get a "rule" or box that does not show the flow of my docs. There is not even a decent 'Doc Skimmer'-like or page sorter view tool. The icons are not crisp and tight, still too gray/grey for my taste, and not as friendly/polished as the older, somewhat non-longer-feature-full SmartSuite.
Base, almost baseless for and debasing to, end users is nowhere near user-friendly. It's like SO/OO.o have their heads in the sand with mercury in their ears, and lead over their eyes... They m'f'ingly re-effing-FUSE to mimic SmartSuite to the extent legally possible in the name of diffusing Open Source OO.o to the community. It's like somebody at Sun/SO/OO.o is a mole for ms, stymying the would-e flattering mimicry of SmartSuite.
I hope IBM, in patent-revamping swing they're on, grants Sun & OO.o unfettered leeway speed their asses up in fixing and improving in SO/OO.o what needs correcting instead of adding yet MORE stuff that is not making it competitive enough to pull more users from ms orifice.
IBM/SUN, PLEASE purge the ms shills from your ranks and de-kink the problems going on. If SmartSuite is going to keep its limited government/corporate userbase, then PLEASE, at least, allow Open Source to benefit from as much SmartSuite featureset-copying as you can. IBM's going into the "services" sector anyway, and it's not as if anyone in IBM/Lotus really care to OpenSource SmartSuite.
Hell, IBM, if you gave ME the code, I could run a project and deploy some SmartSuite-based apps I cannot POSSIBLY effectivley with Open Source/Linux users until SmartSuite is ported, or I find and trust others to faithfully port/reproduce my work. And, I am not even a project manager or engineer. But, I have PASSION! PASSION! something that IBM/Lotus hhave ghasped away in resignation to a non-sweet 2.5% suite market share. I imagine the quirky OO.o/SO combination will surpass SmartSuite in under a year, and it STILL will lack what SmartSuite has has for over a decade:
--WordPro- A crisp, tight word processor
--Approach- a polished, fine-as-hell end-user, yet reasonably powerful database front end
I HOPE MySQL can come out with an Approach-Like interface for the user side of things. That is, if IBM/Lotus don't get there first.
David Syes
(swills 500 ccs of thorazine/bromidine combination...)
God, PLEASE, if you exist, give Brazil the senses not to buy into this microsoft (lower-casing/deprecation of their name intentional/perpetual with me...) "reduced-price-digital-crack" addiction. Open your arms and take them to our bosom and nurture them (oh, sorry, you probably have people thinking god is a man...)
... Previous message: The Swedes discover Lotus Notes has key escrow! ... law enforcement agencies the technological capability to intercept such messages. ...
Brazil, if you're listening, REGAIN your freedom and independence. Your national security, privacy, sovereignty and more are at stake when you use a so-called operating system the encryption keys of which have to be escrowed with UNITED STATES security agencies.
See:
Roger Clarke's Crypto-Confusion
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/Cry pt oConf.html
---
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcr yp to/1997-December/039896.htmlhttp://www.chiark.gree nend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/1997-December/03989 6.html
The Dishonesty of ``New Labour'' Crypto Policy
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ ukcrypto/1997-December/039896.html
- 4k - Cached - Similar pages
------
I've seen those "men in black", once around 1994 at a company where I temped and they were there to pick up quarterly-escrowed keys. I joked, "WHo are THOSE guys? NSA comin' to pick up crypto?" Someone admonished me, with "SHHHHH!! That's EXACTLY who they are, and don't let them hear you..."
Now, surely, the NSA and other spook agencies in and outside of the US can crack your traffic in time, but YOU have right, a duty and an obligation to make it as freakin' hard for them as you can.
It's ONE thing to mandate escrowing of crypto agains your OWN populace, but to have an external entity impose that on you is nearly tantamount to war, de-facto demanding you make your systems more transparent and susceptible to monitoring, cracking, and inspecting-- remotely and nearly anonymously-- unless you baseline all your government facilities' packets and fingerpring for traffic doing weird things.
Use F/LOSS tools, get a grip on your future independence, and join the tech wagon instead of being a consumer-whore to the currently "OS" like so many other nations. Brazil, you HAVE to find your own national flavor of OS and partner with others just like Japan, Korea and China are. The crypto can be cracked, eventually, even in F/LOSS, but at least you don't have to develop a system that HAS to be reported to NSA before it even reaches your shores or backbone.
If you can't find yourselves getting off ms' digital crack, then at LEAST demand more transparency of the OS code and demand that ALL encryption be removed and made modular. DEMAND that ms indemnifies you and defrays any costs which its past, present and future trickery (convicted monopolist, ettc...) places upon you. Develop your own governmental and public-use encryption scheme, after you demand that their encryption modules be transparent so that F/LOSS modules can be dropped in. But, none of this will be useful if your students and adult users don't learn more about computers and personal responsibilities and limitations and duties to secure their systems, safeguard personal information, and learn rudimentary encryption or system-health tools.
Your future may very well depend on it.
Just "say no to digital crack", and be a little cleaner. Your future generations deserve to have their country not snagged hooked-line and sinker by an external hegemonic corporation. Sure, Central Amerrica and South America have historic government and enterprise issues dogging your lands from the past, but don't let an outsider money-groping convicted monopolist steer your country. I'm not saying this as a "rabid Open Source Looney", but as a person who believes in right over might, REGARDLESS of w
A big "OOPS" on my part. You reminded me of that which I forgot to include, as I was "on a roll" or "on a 'mission'"...
It is perfectly fine to me that once you coin or buy a name of a domain that some not in the registrar business is selling to you, you sell it when it is convenient or necessary. And, you should be able to take whatever the name fetches for you. As a benefit, it, as you indicate, makes administering your domains easier once you've disposed of them.
But, the loss of a domain name should not be a power of the registrars at all, unless the factually erroneously provided or reserved or assigned the name when someone else parked or reserved or is using it. Courts should never take it away or mandate its loss except when a case fraud, drug-dealing, child porn, id-theft or some other illegal activity warrants the seizure of the name.
Thanks, tho, for catching that.
And, as I mentioned earlier, if you can legitimately administer or manager or operate multiple, productive, functioning domains, more power to you. My main beef is when registrars park and give away a name on the basis of it being, in their eyes (for profit motive, I'm sure) "abandoned".
People just need to be more creative and work around taken names in a non-infringing way, such as capturing the essence of their activity. IF the company's mission changes so frequently that they need a nebulous site name, then they probably have some schizoid or identity crisis issues with their board, marketing or engineering team. Too bad marketing "buzz word" craze lets degreed people off the hook too easily.
David Syes
I guess the mod-dunce on my comment won't be satisifed until the registrars do to him/her or to someone he/she CARES about what has happened to others..
I think I covered the real problems with these locks: Hypercapitalist acquisition of names and domains when people trip up. Registrar entities make excelllent vacuum cleaners for biz and some of or many of the marketing types who cannot enact or wake up their own imagination.
OTOH, the modder is beholden to the registrar system, I suppose.
(Sighs in profound incredulity at some creatures feigning intelligence or empathy...)
As for Michael O'Hare, when I looked at a site about him, my first thought was, "Damn, they could have used HIM to play Archer..."
http://www.teamohare.com/moh/michael.html
Not that it would have made any real difference for Enterprise.
I guess "maximally/maxially profitable" means actors will eventually be digitized away...
registrars.
Who the hell even had the power to create a lease/lien situation on domains for these entities?
It is now time to change by FORCE the model in which site name registrants own and control their names.
For example, motorists in NO WAY surrender ownership of their to a toll booth operator when their car breaks down or runs out of gas on the road. The vehicle has a license, and it is allocated, issued, and annually or every two years checked by a DMV.
For registrars to have a mafioso grip on domain names is insane, thievery, and unctuous. It ought to be ILLEGAL for a registrar to take the name of a defunct site operator or to sell it.
However, the registrars will cry foul, and will also say they invest time, energy, research, and other resources into setting up and activating domains for users. Well, to me, that's no justification for locking an account.
But, this BS stance can be alleviated simply by charging the applicant/registrant $10 more for an insurance fee that their domain will NEVER be locked, blocked, or obstructed and that the registrant can change to any registrar at any time, without any DNS-excusing mumbo-jumbo.
Registrars should be forced to operate under a "toll road analogy" in which derelict or broken-down or abandoned vehicles (sites/domains) are tagged, warned, then towed, but NOT owned by the registrar. However, as is typical in modern corruption, sometimes tow companies are as unctuous as rogue and self-serving policy makers can be. SO, we need an electronic grave yard or tow yard which the site's owner can come to reclaim their site. SO, the boneyard/graveyard/towyards also are prohibited, under this model, from hijacking and extorting or bulk-selling off domain names.
Yet, there IS the problem of cybersquatters and of those who don't in timely fashion reasonably respond to questions by other companies and domain holders about potential infringement of name or likeness. If people would be more reasonable about being a "player in the field" instead of impeding competitors who are doing a legitimate, fair job of competing, and if instead of unfairly sidling up to a domain name for unfair purposes people would cease or desist their acts, the registrars would by default be rightfully stripped of some of the inexplicable and far-ranging powers they wield over domain holders.
I would propose that anyone registering for a domain would need to show intent or proof to use the domain imminently (as in under 10 to 20 days time). If they need more time, they could PARK the domain, provided it is for marketing or tactical reasons and not for mere cybersquatting or extortion purposes.
I would propose that the domain contact details require that an identifiable person be physically cataloged if that person can appear before a local office. Otherwise, the business or non-profit or research entity registering a domain should be electronically tied to a city, county, state or federal employer/business registry. This would make it possible for legit companies to establish fair-play appearances.
Individuals, or entities not actually doing business but intending to later convert to profit or non-profit business status, such as bloggers, certain reporters, and information sites should be required to personally register the domain via some utility-like office in their community (unless facial anonymity is a paramount requirement, in the case of authors or publishers of factual but contentious/controversial intellectual material/stories).
That said, some measures may make my above suggestions irrelevant or partially covered. But, there also needs to be an implemented method to deter individuals and business or marketing entities from just making up and registering a warchest/ database of names that never get used, never get surrendered, and clog up the domain registration systems. Maybe an activity counter (possibly Google could do this but ONLY for a country in which that government ALLOWS Google to do this:) to in
hehehe, SOMEone was gettin' "railroaded"... ahhh've been werrkin' ohn da wrell-wroad... juss to slip the time awayyy....
Talk about a "rail job"... I wonder if that rat had a "derailure" to "slip" into low gear to get off/out in the nick of time... Then again, the track bed is so solid that they probably stay on it just so the train amplifies vibration...
For some reason related to "libpng" errors on my system, I could not RE-visit a number of the links in my post above.
But, I forgot to mention a few more of my observations of the Tokyo metro system. It seems that, unlike the US in some ways, the Japanese employment mentality is that a job can be made for almost anyone. Even though the trains do fine with a human MONITOR and the trains are automated and the stations camera-monitored (I saw NO video surveillance on Japanese/Tokyo trains, and that says a LOT about what the hell is going on in US society as goes crime/vandalism, and so forth), there tend to be light-flasher/lantern operator men who raise and lower their lights to signal to the driver that the doors can be closed. I don't know if it's for nostalgia, employment, or real safety, but I never saw anyone accidentally get stuck in a door. BUt, I saw people trying to beat the door to close.
As for privacy and safety, there are the occasional "feel-ups", where some dirty males will grope or feel on women. On one line it got to where the management or board now designates "Women-Only" cars during parts of the day... But, a number of other lines won't do it for fear of admitting there's a problem, I suppose.
As for litter, I DID see a beer can on a JR line, and since I found it odd, I tokk a picture of it for myself.
The Japanese landmass and population considerations result in there being up to 10 to 15 side-by-side tracks, and I've had a number of times on the JR line in Shibuya/Shinjuku areas seen at least 2 trains on either side of me going in opposite and same directions at different speeds. Some are purely station-skipping commuter or express or special lines. There is not usually a price difference to ride an express line; I rode one from Miyamaedaira to Shinjuku and another from Yokohama to Shinjuku. The difference is that you have to time which ride you take and be at a station where the train will stop. It saved me up to 30 minutes from Yokoyam. That train made roughly 6 stops over the distance whereas normal lines stop at every station for about 20 seconds to 30 seconds and roar out.
Japan's rail system probably uses as much electricity as all of the US. I was amazed at the torque of the engines, speed of the trains, number of cars in a single hookup (up to 15 I think I once counted, and it was HAULING ASS down that track... if they'd put wings on it...), the frequency of arrivals (at least every 2 to 5 minutes during peak and no more than about 6 to 8 or 12 minutes off-peak or on less-traveled subway lines.
Also, what is cool is that it is easily possible to make or take cell calls underground. Toei-Oedo line, which I rode a lot, is about 40 meters beneath the street, some 5 or 7 escalator changes deep. I understand that most Japanese avoid that line, given the depth below ground, whereas most of the other lines are about 20 meters or shallower. I guess earthquake-caused entrapment is a frightening thing, or maybe fear of another gas attack and the ensuing stampede... Incidentallly, it's nearly impossible to find refuse/garbage containers in stations below ground, but, you'll very easily see goods kiosks, as well as food and beverage vending machines, as well as recycling and cup recovery machines.
As for rats, which I gather NYC has some cat-sized rats and Nokia-sized roaches (probably bigger than those in Florida and the Gulf of Mexico/Atlantic islands), I only saw ONE rat underground (or, surface, for that matter), somewhere on the Asakusa line when I was leaving Ueno. I only saw it's eyes, and it was, like so many other things there, miniature. It probably was more afraid of hyoomons and light and than the tracks noise as the train approaches...
And, in the interests of honesty, as much as I support and like public transit in Japan, and feel the US ought to have similar, deep and wide penetration of such lines, I do feel the urge to get a car when I can afford one. But, I've dispensed with a vehicle as of Feb 2003. Sometimes, I use my
overseas rail systems.
.h tm
NY rail has nothing on:
(For me to be somewhat semi-balanced, I managed to include a general subway lines link for subways:
http://www.reed.edu/~reyn/transport.html
of the world... but, the remaining links are of Tokyo Area...)
Pictures of train cars:
http://hisaai.at.infoseek.co.jp/Tokyo/car_e g.html
http://hisaai.at.infoseek.co.jp/Tokyo/index_eg.h tm l
Tickets & ticket machines & "wicket machines":
http://hisaai.at.infoseek.co.jp/Tokyo/ticket_eg. ht ml
Rail chimes/audio tunes:
Interesting tech site I stumbled upon while trying to find the metro stations' audible alerts/tones...:
http://www.byz.org/~rbanks/movableType/webLog/tr en ds/archives/cat_2_network_mobility.html
(see: "CNN: Almost a Million Koreans Bank by Phone")
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000927038823/
Tokyo Metro 2002:
http://www.christopherholt.com/subjects/japan-06
Tokyo Big Sight:
http://www.bigsight.jp/english/access/
Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro_Ma runouch i_Line
Japan Guide:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2017.html
Visiting Odaiba & Daiba
http://wikitravel.org/en/Tokyo/Odaiba
====
Now, for my commentary...
The NY experiment or conversion is not even worth an "it's about time...". and barely worth a "yawn". Probably unions kept this delayed for as long as it is... Hyuumons have a way of delaying automation, but then management/CEOs have a way with wiping out jobs for a frickin' bottom line, too... Of course, we can recall the Standard Oil and other companies that systematically bought up almost every single city rail car line to encourage the gas-swilling privately-owned vehicle (POV). (I think the POV (and lack of rapid communications and intra/interstate driver's license checking) is one of the single-largest factors in the US infidelity/divorce rate, thanks to the POV's enabling traveling salesmen to have a wife or lover in multiple cities, much like sailors having a girl (or, umm, boy, heheh) in every port.)
I seriously doubt there is a single rail system in the US that compares to some overseas, particularly to the multiple systems in Tokyo that that share the same track. The Shinjuku station along services over 2 million passengers a day, if I recall, and I used that and other stations there.
The trains have an operator in front, and sometime, but not always, have an operator or safety monitor in the back control station. Generally, the person in back is there to ensure there are no pax stuck in the doors as the cute alert tunes chime away that the train is moving. Heck, even inside the trains there are (on the JR Line, at least) really cool plasma or LCD monitors that show in color any number of commercials/adverts, and the moving block diagram of the train, its next station arrival, and delays information in English and Japanese. I wonder if Spanish or other languages will be on the NY system, or if their system is only going as far as testing the repacability of operators. I seriously doubt many US lines would survive vandalism. Of course, I gather, NY has trains that run all night long, and sometimes, for me it was an incovenience in Tokyo to have to rush to the train before 12:30, to get back to my bunk, but other lines ran until about 1AM or 1:30. I hardly saw any litter on the Japanese trains, and cannot recall seeing ANY graffiti or torn seats. The stations themselves are different,, but when you have over 2 million users a day passing through or going to shop in the multi-use centers, any city would have a few torn posters here and there. BART seems OK, by my comparisons to Tokyo's lines (all of these I rode):
-sakusa
-Mita
-Shinjuku
-Ooedo
-JR Yamanote
-JR
-Toei Streetcar/Arakawa
Don't post these ideas to ms encarta... they'll lay claim to them, try to patent them, and then enjoin you from using your ideas elsewhere... And, if they can't patent-infringement you out of the running, they'll keep lawyer-bombing you until you give up...
(takes off extra layers of tin foil hat (leaving on about two thick layers...)...)
Hmm, I have a take on this:
You can lead a full-bladder horse to an electric fence; how long before it pisses on it?
David Syes
I should have posted my previous comment here...
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