If soldiers in training stop to eat their rations, would they have "Four squares and a meal"?
A really useful variation of this would be to put electric wires in them and use them for convict/incarceree conditioning. Just a mild shock. Hell, virtual prisons could be made. I can see it now, humans encased, wearing VR goggles,strapped in a tube, working on a virtual chain gang.
Imagine "Data's Day"... Tap-dancing might be tap-tossing...
How useful is this tech for tap-dancing, or crawling?
This might be useful for replacing tires on obstacle courses. It might be possible to simulated "tap-dancing in a minefield" -- if the tiles can eject or launch the user. Then, someone needs to learn how to land after being launched.
And, a few of these around burglar's escape routes might keep them treading on thin ice until the cops show up. OTOH, superfast treadmills in reverse of their path might keep escaping burglars still.
Occupants should be OK as longa as the glass is not sandwiching between the panes any xylene or carbon tetrachloride...
Maybe the makers can insert rods like the neon kind, or design self-shaping channels linke see-thru ant farms so that during holidays, at night, they can turn the buildings into art.
Or, they can camouflage the buildings in the US when we hit Condition Orange.
Or, this could be used for bicylists who want a transparent cocoon, but don't want the tan...
Or, battlefield troops could survive in the desert, "to a degree" (pun intended) while awaiting sunset for night movements, or for survival purposes... Dropping lots of these could confuse enemy targetting systems, as they might cause ordnance to be wasted on bogus targets...
"You could add another substance, like titanium dioxide, to fix it to the glass," he told New Scientist. "And you could use a dye that would cancel out the yellow."" Would going to Titanium Trioxide or Plutonium Heptide or Hexane Arsenide alleviate fears of Condition Yellow?"
One thing to consider is that some glass manufacturers used to or still warn against doing things such as placing foil or reflector surfaces on the INSIDE of dual-paned glass.
The reason is the reflected light builds up the heat inside the dual pane, raising the temp above the design level. In some cases the glass may explode due to the gas sandwiched between the panes.
Treating the inner pane may be a good idea, but if careless, ignorant, or reckless consumers put black film or silver film or foil on the panes, their "ass could be glass" if they happen to be nearby during an explosion.
This means that if states relax any restrictions on yellow tints, they could then trade up for yellow and disallow black.
A lot of "hot states" like NM, AZ, CO, west TX and so forth have cars travelling in CA, with way, WAY too-dark windows, even on the front/windshield. With this new glass treatment, people will have a harder time humping or doing whatever in the blacked-out windows. (Remember, in PUBLIC, there is NO guarantee of expectation of privacy, NONE!)
Also, cops don't have to fear being blasted as they approach suspicious dark cars.
But, what would this do to the Limo industry, where they can drive cars that allow passengers privacy to be hidden or act an ass, romping or getting drunk.
Motorcades and dignitaries, tho, would likely be readily identifiable, unless this glass can project glass-surface-level holograms to deceive onlookers.
Now, if they could only make a presidential car look like an almost inconspicuous jalopy...
You could try to break in and then plant some Trek-like "transport enhancers" in the walls.
Speaking of which, I can see a future where DHS takes home construction a tad further: Add mandatory sensors (active or passive, passive being where the wiring and plenums act as signal boosters or conductors to track motion, warmth, etc...) to new construction homes and offices so the LE (Law Enforcement) can "zero in on" or "zero-out" targets.
After about 100 replays, I turned the volume down.
Now, at maybe some 400 plays, it is starting to sound like Kirk is being gimped by Khan. More like agonizing pain, rather than exultation, ummm, exCLAMAtion...
I'll let'er whirl a little bit longer. I don't recall Janeway sounding this undignified, hehehe...
Should any medical devices run by windoze fail and kill somone, it could be likely shown that that ms has stashed away a few billion for hush-money, so microshaft doesn't get shafted when, I suspect, patients "enter the hospital and experience 'misadventure'" (hospitals don't like to say people "die" in hospitals; rather, they experience a misadventure. Sheesh, euphemisms...)
Do any of you remember or have any of you read the EULA.txt on your widows boxes or those under your command?:
10. NOTE ON JAVA SUPPORT. THE SOFTWARE MAY
CONTAIN SUPPORT FOR PROGRAMS WRITTEN
IN JAVA. JAVA TECHNOLOGY IS NOT FAULT
TOLERANT AND IS NOT DESIGNED,
MANUFACTURED, OR INTENDED FOR USE OR
RESALE AS ON-LINE CONTROL EQUIPMENT IN
HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENTS REQUIRING FAIL
-SAFE PERFORMANCE, SUCH AS IN THE
OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES,
AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION
SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL, DIRECT
LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES, OR WEAPONS
SYSTEMS, IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF JAVA
TECHNOLOGY COULD LEAD DIRECTLY TO
DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE
PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.
I seem to remember microsoft (name lower-casing/deprecation intentional) previously applying such legalese or verbiage to windoze itself.
So, what changed? Did the ms legal and marketing teams decide to deprecate the phrase in order to mollify/pacify companies whose legal teams were at odds with ms? If not that, then is ms claiming that windows 2k and xp are fit for duty for controlling aircraft, life support and real-time systems, but Java is not?
Now, when the first patient dies and it's traced to windoze, windoze can be tagged as:
"Into what would you like to be reincarnated today?"
Pretty soon, we'll see a market of "Collision Protection" card swipers. Get into a vehicular incident (there are RARELY any "accidents", hence we need to get rid of that "ego assuaging" term and call it what it is... an incident) and drivers will be compelled by state vehicle code to swipe one another's stripes. But, imagine nefarios staging accidents to swipe targetted victim's information. This could become the newest form of fraud, theft and abuse (or, a tool of extortion, bribery, blackmail, and robbery).
==========
Back around 2000 or 2001 I was listening to NPR, I believe.
The topic was about identity cards or such, and there was somewhere in the conversation the mention that east coast bars/night clubs would swipe the entrants' driver's license, ostensibly for 2 main reasons:
1. keep out the underaged 2. keep out those previously ejected
However, someone mentioned having mysteriously received "Happy Birthday" and "Thank you for being a repeat customer... Here is a free pass..."
One club being interviewed (I think it was in New York or Massachussets) sternly claimed it was not violating privacy information, and that anyway it had a right to identify and screen its customers or those attempting to enter, mainly to avoid underage drinking and other issues. They claimed they were not abusing information.
That set off bells of wariness and anger in me.
NO club or bar has any business recording the information on a mag stripe. To my mind, that stripe should only be read by government agencies, such as law enforcement or SSA (Social Securty Administration) or Motor Vehicles Depts (after all, they are issuing it) and maybe the vehicle owner's or user's insurer, or by medical emergency units trying to save someones life.
But, I had resolved to NEVER patronize a club or entertainment venue that tries to swipe my card. My mind is set that when I show it, I hold it and tilt it for the hologram to reveal itself, and I ask what they are going to do with it or whether it is going to be mag-read.
It's just too goddam bad, but bars have no reason to see the stripe's contents. They only need to have read-only, not read-record-compile rights. Marketing and advertising are an abuse of the DL, and screening and rejecting is just a smoke screen to justify their acts with minimal rejection by a sheepish crowd that cannot give up clubbing but can give up their privacy information.
Before 9/11, it was illegal for anyone, and almost any non-person entity to read and record and use this information for non-government reasons. The SSN use to be afforded this level of privacy until companies and colleges began abusing the hell out of it.
Should I evern patronize a facility that later is the instigator behind mail campaigning me for anything, I will find some section of law to sue them out of existence (not to get rich, but to punish them for information abuse).
Anyway, at the time, west coast clubs were testing it, but were not reported to have been crazy about it. I guess clubs are just trying to streamline things for the bouncers, but maybe they need better-paid or commited bouncers.
Come to think of it, many clubs hire/rent cops who stand there in uniform, intimidating would-be troublemakers to leave or behave. Given the presence of uniformed police, THEY should be the ones inspecting and determining the validity of the driver's license when presented. But, usually, the bars will confiscate it and call the police.
It's nice to see Toyota and Honda/Nissan and some others using February as their time of year to remind us of how many Black-invented auto parts there are (but, I'm sure none, not even US automakers) will admit how many of those patents were cheaply bought up...)
====== Didn't the US stick it's middle finger into Japan in 1852?
Perry and Mahan conducted a "contest" to offset British control over areas of China...
http://members.tripod.com/MickMc/perry.html
Just google:
commodore peery sailed into japan
Now, if only we can correct the high school and grade school books to amend that "In 1492, Colombus sailed the Ocean Blue" to show that China mastered ocean navigation of the Northern Hemisphere to within 2 degrees of any course set.
Moreover, every continent was mapped with great accuracy, and this was BEFORE 1421. Chinese artifacts are around California and other parts of the North 'Merikus, and other parts of the world.
Chinese and Native Americans also intermarried, and I now am begining to wonder if the Manifest Destiny and all its haste was somehow related to making sure China did not get an opportunity to reverse its (records-burning) decision about not occupying North America. I guess some would say China can still come back (with more voice than the nearly extincted Natives) and reclaim North America, but others will taunt "finders, keepers"...
I wonder if the US will try to "nationalize" Linux... WHOAA, stand by for HEAVY ROLLS! ====
Interesting what we learn when we leave high school. Anybody heard that school teachers have to swear allegiance to the president? Have to sign the patriot act or something like it... Interesting stuff... Do teachers in other nations have to take what amounts to a police/military oath to "defend and support the constitution and the president of the United States"? I was under that oath in my time in service. I suspect many of us who only served 4 years would not fight unless it was to ward off a real invasion, not go on an expedition...
David, why don't you show our friends the Genesis Cave (meaning, take our new friends for a walk...)...
Jim, let me show you something that will make you feel young, as when the world was new...
(Hmm, I wonder how many re-takes they had at THAT line...
("**ssay!" was yelled out in a theater when I watching ST2TWOK. I was shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Someon yelling such as that expletive in a Star Trek movie (In retrospect, tho, I could see it hollered out for Bond and P. Galore, heheh)
Such is the problem with hollywierd insisting on catering to a thematically challenged (US) populace that can't stand to see heroes die, that can't stand to live thru forced/regular ensemble changes. I find it refreshing that some European programming (not necessarily all, but some) change the characters out.
In a real navy (well, at least in the USN, surface ships), crew members rotate. In SOME billets, personnel might remain at a command (as specific ship or base, not referring to being "in command") for up to 3 years. Ship drivers (ship captains and officers near the level of captain) might be rotated afer 24-28 month, mainly due to "ticket-punching" and professional development, or for fleet requirements. Trek rarely took advantage of any of this, relying on the "deep space assignment" crutch. Transporter, time machines, and quantum slipstreams in speed advances could have eliminated this. (Yes, I can see the submarine/deep space analogy... But, on Earth, people can see you rotate/change commands.) And, no, rotating walk-ons to sit in a bridge chair for a few minutes of quick-pan, no-lens dwell time doesn't cut it.
Episodic series too heavily rely upon familiar, pretty, expensive faces. I guess pretty boys and pretty girls and their agents won't get rich on the usual sequel treadmill.
What Trek might need is a revival of Voyager. I wish Harry Kim WAS a captain, not just some shoe-in to an alternate timeline that **suggested** (End Game) he **could** be a captain. After all, Paramount could conveniently find Captain Braxton of the Federation Timeship Aeon to aerate Kim and have Endgame just as (scriptwise) conveniently succeed with the demise of the Borg...
And, probably ALL same-face ensemble-based shows could stand to freshen up their actors/actresses and yield to changing values a bit more frequently, rather than forcing upon gullible or swayed audiences a constant face or actor.
They can digitize him out, or animate him in. Just as long as they don't "Anime" him in.
Heck, for all the work of animation, they may as well just digitize him from the 60's and animate him in. Might save a garbage scow load of Federation credits, or Triskelion quatloos...
Then he'll have to contaminate the ST:TNG timeline and get a Dr Pulaski Picard Heart. At least Picard's heart was from a foolish fight with a Naussican. Krik's, umm, Kirk's ticker will be from fooling around with the babe-lines...
But, will he be able to do the trademark "take-25-seconds-to-succumb-to-heavy-stun" quiver and be taken almost as seriously as back then?
Well, Bones did warn him about that Romulan Ale. I suspect Julie Newmar's Romulan Subcommander had an effect on Krik, umm, Kirk. The normal timeline got an advanced clone, and the REAL Krik, umm, Kirk, got fat on Romulan equivalent of Balut/raw/underground eggs. Maybe the Romulans figured out how to supersize their version of ostrich eggs. Or, they could just blame it on 1960 makeup that made it into 2259 or so, which then got recirculated, contaminating the timeline... No, wait, he ATE the cloaking device and could't pass it so Kirk had to shit another. (Kirk's and Spock's cabin/transporter room secret secret...)
Maybe the Triskelions can appear and bring back that loin-wrappin' wrestler, complete with his and hers matching "collars of obedience". WOuld love to see "bill/billy/willie/shat" trying to keep up with such a wrestler... (Contorted) "Will-you-STOP-qui-ver-ing-like-THAT??? I-CAN'T--make-YOU-be-the-FIRST-to-alert-at-the -FIRST-pain!"
What I wish for is this, even BEFORE the Linux distro is written to disk:
The various distro makers--especially the big ones with lots more hardware and other resources-- would write the install scripts to check for power management capabilities and then TEST the setting from CD or USB devices.
A hibernation partition (similar to IBM's) should be written to disk, maybe via repartitioning and data movement. With the 80 GB disks coming out, it would be nice if the USB hardware could repartition the newly-installed disk and then suck (or dd) over the legacy data to the corresponding partitions, or at least let the user do so after installation.
The monitor/display, input peripherals and more should also be initially checked.
Ideally, the install/tester routine would check for keyboard features and set those up, too.
Once all this stuff is tested, the machine should be in a scripted sleep, suspend, hibernate and other mode of testing PRIOR to the user committing to the distro.
For my own laptop, a Sony VAIO PCG FX-215 (with AMD CPU), 256 MB RAM, 15" LCD, DVD/ROM/CD-Burner, and 40 GB disk, I used to get just over 1 hour of battery life. A year later, it was down to 45 minutes. Now, it's barely got enough juice to play Frozen Bubble on the bus ride to work. Lately, it just blacks out even when the power monitor indicator indicates 50% power remaining.
I really am suspecting memory effect, since when my laptop is on AC, the battery is charging or trickling all the time. When the original batter fell to less than 10 minutes of usability, I resorted to my backup battery. It is the one that now sports 30 minutes of life. I am considering draining it to death, recharging it, then replacing it with the 5-minute-life battery for desktop/AC use, and then swapping back the 30-minute battery for bus or train use. Maybe though, it's already past salvation. Maybe that LI-ON battery already has irreversible memory effect.
My screen dimming doesn't respond. I am not skilled enough to successfully mess with hdparm or the other CPU speed-adujusting stuff, either. I just with the distros would check ALL that stuff, put the laptop in a "fake real operation moded" from CD or DVD or USB media device and let the user or owner of that machine test how much real value is left in their machine if it is to be untethered (on battery, not on AC).
I am really suspicious that BIOS, CPU, and battery makers are in cahoots with microsoft, hence, much of the best battery life being on windows boxes. I HAVE met a Linux user running an IBM Thinkpad, a really small, quiet one. He said he got 5 hours minimum.
However, I think that for Linux on laptops to REALLY go a greater stride, the BIOS, battery, and other power management features of laptops must be genericized (via reverse engineering) or less proprietarized (by willing/friendly hardware developers/resellers).
It would be a whole lot more confidence-inspiring if it were possible to shop for a laptop and NOT have to even think about suspend, hibernate, sleep, and other features many windows users can take for granted. Linux distributors need to aggressively show the capabilities of a user's laptop before the user spends the time installing only to be later heartbroken.
However, Katie Tarbox is probably reasonably intelligent and should have herself done the due diligence to see if an exact katie.com existed. She then would have probably been prudent, reasonable, and just in selecting or allowing via inspiration the selection of another name.
But, ultimately, her lawyer/s and peng-wine are likely the real culprits. They see and smell money and hot properties. They obviously see www.katie.com such a hot property they'd rather not spend the money to retitle and reprint the books and the circuit. (But, it still is possible that even Katie T herself may have realized the chance for a "land grab". Anyone is capable of doing almost anything. This isn't to say Katie T DID do this as a "land grab"/"domain grab" but I think a thoughtful judge would at least posit the line of questioning to determine any motive, intent, etc.
David Syes
Re:Now, THAT penguin deserves to be steamrolled!
on
The Saga of Katie.com
·
· Score: 1
OK, I'll bite. (Even tho kvetching over a 0-troll mod is surely to worsen the modding... -50, anyone?)
OK, maybe you saw the title. "Now, THAT penguin deserves to be steamrolled!" and thought, "Ehh, instant troll. He hates Linux." Far from it: I have 5 computers, all with Linux. I run windoze 98 in an emulator (Win4Lin) because I am addicted to Lotus SmartSuite. I use Mandrake, and I've paid for all my copies that were boxed, or used a few from LXF issues, and then bought the boxed sets. I've bought at least 5 boxed DVD or CD versions, paying well over $600, gladly and proudly, since that is money and time not spent on microshaft. I've tried SuSE, Caldera, and others since 1999, yet I keep using Mandrake. I am elated I recently got to watch DVDs in my Mandrake-based laptop. Now, that question is put to issue, about where I stand on Linux. If in doubt, look my name up on the Linux database...
Now, as for Trolling...
Troll? Troll my ass. I am saying, in a terse nutshell, much of what is being said here by others. I am not regurgitating what they said. I am saying what I feel off the cuff. Nor is it really redundant, for it is not a word-for-word rip-off of others' writings.
I was not expecting a 5-ver, but I certainly was not thinking: "I'm gonna troll..."
Is the modder of my commentary a corporate troll/shill? I am not. I was born on the Presidio, delivered by a USMC captain, and I have the right to bash corporate america as does anyone else.
What Penguin is doing is wrong. Everyone/almost everyone here can agree. Penguin and that lawyer are riding on the coattails of sympathing for Katie T when from the very get-go her book's name infringed. That LAWYER of hers clearly knows. It AIN'T RIGHT. It's immoral, unethical to use the exact name. Again, "Katie T: Portrait of an Former Online Victim: see my site at www.katiet.com" would probably have gone a looooong way toward making all this a non-issue.
So, I hope someone mods with a bit of reality. The ONLY way to minimize these kinds of corporate abuse is to make sure it hurts the offending corporations. Not ALL corporations are this bad, and yes, I am a bit "over the top" by referring to "corporate America", but when one refers to "corporate America", it should be clear that a small, one-person corporation is not endowed with the warchest of a GE, Bechtel, AT&T, et cetera.
Troll? My eye. Mod with a slant toward the spirit, the content, and the INTENT, not with your gut, or your clouded opinion. My emotion is my, and my experiences are mine. I am commenting or sharing them, and maybe influencing others who think Katie Jones is being railroaded.
David Syes
Now, THAT penguin deserves to be steamrolled!
on
The Saga of Katie.com
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Now, THAT is one penguin I wouldn't mind seeing steamrolled.
First: Katie Jones, you REALLY ought to take revenge, not for revenge's sake, but to show corporate america that running rampant or roughshod over the world is NOT going to be tolerated. Here's what to do: Sell/license Katie.com to a porn company, such as Hustler. That would be approro, since the shyster lawyer and Penging are trying to hustle/horn you into "donating the name". To hell with them, just for that. Now... Don't forget to register you problem with the UN/WIPO, as well as ICANN, and the EFFF, as well as the ACLU. Try to contact Groklaw, and see if they'll help you out. It would be interesting to see if they'll accord ALL citizens of the WORLD the same basic protections we in the US are supposedly/purportedly granted by law or nature or divination.
Katie Tarbox, being of reasonable intelligence, could have named her book "Katie T.com: Portrait of an On-line Victim", or something to that effect. It is very likely the thought crossed her mind that there HAS to be a real katie.com out there. Couldn't she have checked?
He scheister/shyster lawyer IS of ABOVE REASONABLE intelligence (anyone taking a line of work that generates umpteen numbers of dollars really is not dumb by a longshot), yet like (whether or not the lawyer is or is not is up to the audience to determine) a DIPSH*T refuses to defuse the situation, namely by at least republishing future copies of the material with new covers, renaming the touring events, and the related publications as "Katie T.com". The book need not have followed the URL convention/naming format, but since katiet.com is Tarbox's site, WHY, WHY, the hell was the book not correspondingly named? "Katiet.com: Portrait of an Internet Victim" is not hard to deal with.
I'll TELL you why: Greed. Unadulterated, insatiable corporate GREED. Of course, Tarbox stands to silently acquire immense wealth if she remains silent and lets her shyster lawyer roll all over Jones. This is BS. This is an example of what the current cadge/cabal administration would allow to happen to ordinary citizens (especially of of non-US residency) when corporate america wants to save a buck, take a buck, or co-opt the lawfully-acquired properties of others.
Now, as for Penguin: I'LL NEVER AGAIN buy another penguin-published or advertised title or imprint EVER, EVER, again. Not, at least, until you HONORABLY, ethically, morally, and convincingly resolve this issue: RETITLE THE BOOK, and pull ALL store shelf copies (and re-cover the books), REGARDLESS OF YOUR COST! You incurred it, you FIX it.
I will also as widely as possible disseminate the word as widely as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
If soldiers in training stop to eat their rations, would they have "Four squares and a meal"?
A really useful variation of this would be to put electric wires in them and use them for convict/incarceree conditioning. Just a mild shock. Hell, virtual prisons could be made. I can see it now, humans encased, wearing VR goggles,strapped in a tube, working on a virtual chain gang.
David Syes
Imagine "Data's Day"... Tap-dancing might be tap-tossing...
How useful is this tech for tap-dancing, or crawling?
This might be useful for replacing tires on obstacle courses. It might be possible to simulated "tap-dancing in a minefield" -- if the tiles can eject or launch the user. Then, someone needs to learn how to land after being launched.
And, a few of these around burglar's escape routes might keep them treading on thin ice until the cops show up. OTOH, superfast treadmills in reverse of their path might keep escaping burglars still.
Cat-scratch fever?
David Syes
what if THEY jump?
From the single picture, THIS looks like a whole new type of Connect Four, or that plastic word puzzle the name of which I forget.
David Syes
Occupants should be OK as longa as the glass is not sandwiching between the panes any xylene or carbon tetrachloride...
Maybe the makers can insert rods like the neon kind, or design self-shaping channels linke see-thru ant farms so that during holidays, at night, they can turn the buildings into art.
Or, they can camouflage the buildings in the US when we hit Condition Orange.
Or, this could be used for bicylists who want a transparent cocoon, but don't want the tan...
Or, battlefield troops could survive in the desert, "to a degree" (pun intended) while awaiting sunset for night movements, or for survival purposes... Dropping lots of these could confuse enemy targetting systems, as they might cause ordnance to be wasted on bogus targets...
"You could add another substance, like titanium dioxide, to fix it to the glass," he told New Scientist. "And you could use a dye that would cancel out the yellow."" Would going to Titanium Trioxide or Plutonium Heptide or Hexane Arsenide alleviate fears of Condition Yellow?"
Someone chime in/correct me, but...
One thing to consider is that some glass manufacturers used to or still warn against doing things such as placing foil or reflector surfaces on the INSIDE of dual-paned glass.
The reason is the reflected light builds up the heat inside the dual pane, raising the temp above the design level. In some cases the glass may explode due to the gas sandwiched between the panes.
Treating the inner pane may be a good idea, but if careless, ignorant, or reckless consumers put black film or silver film or foil on the panes, their "ass could be glass" if they happen to be nearby during an explosion.
David Syes
So, would a fanny up on the pane give rise to a new meaning to...
"yer ass is GLASS"?
Remember any of the food dyes?
I wonder how long before there is a scam or fact that "chemically artificially tinting light" can lead to cancer...
The automotive and construction industries would have a FIT!
This means that if states relax any restrictions on yellow tints, they could then trade up for yellow and disallow black.
A lot of "hot states" like NM, AZ, CO, west TX and so forth have cars travelling in CA, with way, WAY too-dark windows, even on the front/windshield. With this new glass treatment, people will have a harder time humping or doing whatever in the blacked-out windows. (Remember, in PUBLIC, there is NO guarantee of expectation of privacy, NONE!)
Also, cops don't have to fear being blasted as they approach suspicious dark cars.
But, what would this do to the Limo industry, where they can drive cars that allow passengers privacy to be hidden or act an ass, romping or getting drunk.
Motorcades and dignitaries, tho, would likely be readily identifiable, unless this glass can project glass-surface-level holograms to deceive onlookers.
Now, if they could only make a presidential car look like an almost inconspicuous jalopy...
David Syes
You could try to break in and then plant some Trek-like "transport enhancers" in the walls.
Speaking of which, I can see a future where DHS takes home construction a tad further: Add mandatory sensors (active or passive, passive being where the wiring and plenums act as signal boosters or conductors to track motion, warmth, etc...) to new construction homes and offices so the LE (Law Enforcement) can "zero in on" or "zero-out" targets.
David Syes
After about 100 replays, I turned the volume down.
Now, at maybe some 400 plays, it is starting to sound like Kirk is being gimped by Khan. More like agonizing pain, rather than exultation, ummm, exCLAMAtion...
I'll let'er whirl a little bit longer. I don't recall Janeway sounding this undignified, hehehe...
David SYes
DAMN!
I wish this topic had been up Friday when I still had mod points. I'd have given it a FUNNY!
This is AWESOME!!!!
I wonder if Wil (W) would get a kick out of this.
David Syes
Should any medical devices run by windoze fail and kill somone, it could be likely shown that that ms has stashed away a few billion for hush-money, so microshaft doesn't get shafted when, I suspect, patients "enter the hospital and experience 'misadventure'" (hospitals don't like to say people "die" in hospitals; rather, they experience a misadventure. Sheesh, euphemisms...)
Do any of you remember or have any of you read the EULA.txt on your widows boxes or those under your command?:
10. NOTE ON JAVA SUPPORT. THE SOFTWARE MAY
CONTAIN SUPPORT FOR PROGRAMS WRITTEN
IN JAVA. JAVA TECHNOLOGY IS NOT FAULT
TOLERANT AND IS NOT DESIGNED,
MANUFACTURED, OR INTENDED FOR USE OR
RESALE AS ON-LINE CONTROL EQUIPMENT IN
HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENTS REQUIRING FAIL
-SAFE PERFORMANCE, SUCH AS IN THE
OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES,
AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION
SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL, DIRECT
LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES, OR WEAPONS
SYSTEMS, IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF JAVA
TECHNOLOGY COULD LEAD DIRECTLY TO
DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE
PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.
I seem to remember microsoft (name lower-casing/deprecation intentional) previously applying such legalese or verbiage to windoze itself.
So, what changed? Did the ms legal and marketing teams decide to deprecate the phrase in order to mollify/pacify companies whose legal teams were at odds with ms? If not that, then is ms claiming that windows 2k and xp are fit for duty for controlling aircraft, life support and real-time systems, but Java is not?
Now, when the first patient dies and it's traced to windoze, windoze can be tagged as:
"Into what would you like to be reincarnated today?"
David Syes
Hmmm...
Pretty soon, we'll see a market of "Collision Protection" card swipers. Get into a vehicular incident (there are RARELY any "accidents", hence we need to get rid of that "ego assuaging" term and call it what it is... an incident) and drivers will be compelled by state vehicle code to swipe one another's stripes. But, imagine nefarios staging accidents to swipe targetted victim's information. This could become the newest form of fraud, theft and abuse (or, a tool of extortion, bribery, blackmail, and robbery).
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Back around 2000 or 2001 I was listening to NPR, I believe.
The topic was about identity cards or such, and there was somewhere in the conversation the mention that east coast bars/night clubs would swipe the entrants' driver's license, ostensibly for 2 main reasons:
1. keep out the underaged
2. keep out those previously ejected
However, someone mentioned having mysteriously received "Happy Birthday" and "Thank you for being a repeat customer... Here is a free pass..."
One club being interviewed (I think it was in New York or Massachussets) sternly claimed it was not violating privacy information, and that anyway it had a right to identify and screen its customers or those attempting to enter, mainly to avoid underage drinking and other issues. They claimed they were not abusing information.
That set off bells of wariness and anger in me.
NO club or bar has any business recording the information on a mag stripe. To my mind, that stripe should only be read by government agencies, such as law enforcement or SSA (Social Securty Administration) or Motor Vehicles Depts (after all, they are issuing it) and maybe the vehicle owner's or user's insurer, or by medical emergency units trying to save someones life.
But, I had resolved to NEVER patronize a club or entertainment venue that tries to swipe my card. My mind is set that when I show it, I hold it and tilt it for the hologram to reveal itself, and I ask what they are going to do with it or whether it is going to be mag-read.
It's just too goddam bad, but bars have no reason to see the stripe's contents. They only need to have read-only, not read-record-compile rights. Marketing and advertising are an abuse of the DL, and screening and rejecting is just a smoke screen to justify their acts with minimal rejection by a sheepish crowd that cannot give up clubbing but can give up their privacy information.
Before 9/11, it was illegal for anyone, and almost any non-person entity to read and record and use this information for non-government reasons. The SSN use to be afforded this level of privacy until companies and colleges began abusing the hell out of it.
Should I evern patronize a facility that later is the instigator behind mail campaigning me for anything, I will find some section of law to sue them out of existence (not to get rich, but to punish them for information abuse).
Anyway, at the time, west coast clubs were testing it, but were not reported to have been crazy about it. I guess clubs are just trying to streamline things for the bouncers, but maybe they need better-paid or commited bouncers.
Come to think of it, many clubs hire/rent cops who stand there in uniform, intimidating would-be troublemakers to leave or behave. Given the presence of uniformed police, THEY should be the ones inspecting and determining the validity of the driver's license when presented. But, usually, the bars will confiscate it and call the police.
David Syes
Speaking of burning records...
It's nice to see Toyota and Honda/Nissan and some others using February as their time of year to remind us of how many Black-invented auto parts there are (but, I'm sure none, not even US automakers) will admit how many of those patents were cheaply bought up...)
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Didn't the US stick it's middle finger into Japan in 1852?
Perry and Mahan conducted a "contest" to offset British control over areas of China...
http://members.tripod.com/MickMc/perry.html
Just google:
commodore peery sailed into japan
Now, if only we can correct the high school and grade school books to amend that "In 1492, Colombus sailed the Ocean Blue" to show that China mastered ocean navigation of the Northern Hemisphere to within 2 degrees of any course set.
Moreover, every continent was mapped with great accuracy, and this was BEFORE 1421. Chinese artifacts are around California and other parts of the North 'Merikus, and other parts of the world.
Chinese and Native Americans also intermarried, and I now am begining to wonder if the Manifest Destiny and all its haste was somehow related to making sure China did not get an opportunity to reverse its (records-burning) decision about not occupying North America. I guess some would say China can still come back (with more voice than the nearly extincted Natives) and reclaim North America, but others will taunt "finders, keepers"...
I wonder if the US will try to "nationalize" Linux... WHOAA, stand by for HEAVY ROLLS!
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Interesting what we learn when we leave high school. Anybody heard that school teachers have to swear allegiance to the president? Have to sign the patriot act or something like it... Interesting stuff... Do teachers in other nations have to take what amounts to a police/military oath to "defend and support the constitution and the president of the United States"? I was under that oath in my time in service. I suspect many of us who only served 4 years would not fight unless it was to ward off a real invasion, not go on an expedition...
I'm hungry... Is there something to eat?
...
HOW can you talk about FOOD, at a time like THIS?
First order of business: Survival...
Mother, we can't just STAND here.
Oh, yes we can...
David, why don't you show our friends the Genesis Cave (meaning, take our new friends for a walk...)
Jim, let me show you something that will make you feel young, as when the world was new...
(Hmm, I wonder how many re-takes they had at THAT line...
("**ssay!" was yelled out in a theater when I watching ST2TWOK. I was shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Someon yelling such as that expletive in a Star Trek movie (In retrospect, tho, I could see it hollered out for Bond and P. Galore, heheh)
David Syes
Kirk:
f e. . Kirk-is-now-on-his-back-fighting-for-his-lieeee-if eeffe...)
Writhing on back
(Sound: Kirk-wrestle-fight music)
duh-duh duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh-duh-duh-duh..
duh-duh duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh-duh
(Kirk-is-now-on-his-back-fighting-for-his-lie-i
Kirk:
You're--bee--ing--tooo---ROUGH!
Such is the problem with hollywierd insisting on catering to a thematically challenged (US) populace that can't stand to see heroes die, that can't stand to live thru forced/regular ensemble changes. I find it refreshing that some European programming (not necessarily all, but some) change the characters out.
In a real navy (well, at least in the USN, surface ships), crew members rotate. In SOME billets, personnel might remain at a command (as specific ship or base, not referring to being "in command") for up to 3 years. Ship drivers (ship captains and officers near the level of captain) might be rotated afer 24-28 month, mainly due to "ticket-punching" and professional development, or for fleet requirements. Trek rarely took advantage of any of this, relying on the "deep space assignment" crutch. Transporter, time machines, and quantum slipstreams in speed advances could have eliminated this. (Yes, I can see the submarine/deep space analogy... But, on Earth, people can see you rotate/change commands.) And, no, rotating walk-ons to sit in a bridge chair for a few minutes of quick-pan, no-lens dwell time doesn't cut it.
Episodic series too heavily rely upon familiar, pretty, expensive faces. I guess pretty boys and pretty girls and their agents won't get rich on the usual sequel treadmill.
What Trek might need is a revival of Voyager. I wish Harry Kim WAS a captain, not just some shoe-in to an alternate timeline that **suggested** (End Game) he **could** be a captain. After all, Paramount could conveniently find Captain Braxton of the Federation Timeship Aeon to aerate Kim and have Endgame just as (scriptwise) conveniently succeed with the demise of the Borg...
And, probably ALL same-face ensemble-based shows could stand to freshen up their actors/actresses and yield to changing values a bit more frequently, rather than forcing upon gullible or swayed audiences a constant face or actor.
David Syes
Actually,
They can digitize him out, or animate him in. Just as long as they don't "Anime" him in.
Heck, for all the work of animation, they may as well just digitize him from the 60's and animate him in. Might save a garbage scow load of Federation credits, or Triskelion quatloos...
David Syes
NO,
Then he'll have to contaminate the ST:TNG timeline and get a Dr Pulaski Picard Heart. At least Picard's heart was from a foolish fight with a Naussican. Krik's, umm, Kirk's ticker will be from fooling around with the babe-lines...
David Syes
Or, Romulans BARING "parting" "gifts"....
Well,
But, will he be able to do the trademark "take-25-seconds-to-succumb-to-heavy-stun" quiver and be taken almost as seriously as back then?
Well, Bones did warn him about that Romulan Ale. I suspect Julie Newmar's Romulan Subcommander had an effect on Krik, umm, Kirk. The normal timeline got an advanced clone, and the REAL Krik, umm, Kirk, got fat on Romulan equivalent of Balut/raw/underground eggs. Maybe the Romulans figured out how to supersize their version of ostrich eggs. Or, they could just blame it on 1960 makeup that made it into 2259 or so, which then got recirculated, contaminating the timeline... No, wait, he ATE the cloaking device and could't pass it so Kirk had to shit another. (Kirk's and Spock's cabin/transporter room secret secret...)
Maybe the Triskelions can appear and bring back that loin-wrappin' wrestler, complete with his and hers matching "collars of obedience". WOuld love to see "bill/billy/willie/shat" trying to keep up with such a wrestler... (Contorted) "Will-you-STOP-qui-ver-ing-like-THAT??? I-CAN'T--make-YOU-be-the-FIRST-to-alert-at-the -FIRST-pain!"
Just my two quatloos...
What I wish for is this, even BEFORE the Linux distro is written to disk:
The various distro makers--especially the big ones with lots more hardware and other resources-- would write the install scripts to check for power management capabilities and then TEST the setting from CD or USB devices.
A hibernation partition (similar to IBM's) should be written to disk, maybe via repartitioning and data movement. With the 80 GB disks coming out, it would be nice if the USB hardware could repartition the newly-installed disk and then suck (or dd) over the legacy data to the corresponding partitions, or at least let the user do so after installation.
The monitor/display, input peripherals and more should also be initially checked.
Ideally, the install/tester routine would check for keyboard features and set those up, too.
Once all this stuff is tested, the machine should be in a scripted sleep, suspend, hibernate and other mode of testing PRIOR to the user committing to the distro.
For my own laptop, a Sony VAIO PCG FX-215 (with AMD CPU), 256 MB RAM, 15" LCD, DVD/ROM/CD-Burner, and 40 GB disk, I used to get just over 1 hour of battery life. A year later, it was down to 45 minutes. Now, it's barely got enough juice to play Frozen Bubble on the bus ride to work. Lately, it just blacks out even when the power monitor indicator indicates 50% power remaining.
I really am suspecting memory effect, since when my laptop is on AC, the battery is charging or trickling all the time. When the original batter fell to less than 10 minutes of usability, I resorted to my backup battery. It is the one that now sports 30 minutes of life. I am considering draining it to death, recharging it, then replacing it with the 5-minute-life battery for desktop/AC use, and then swapping back the 30-minute battery for bus or train use. Maybe though, it's already past salvation. Maybe that LI-ON battery already has irreversible memory effect.
My screen dimming doesn't respond. I am not skilled enough to successfully mess with hdparm or the other CPU speed-adujusting stuff, either. I just with the distros would check ALL that stuff, put the laptop in a "fake real operation moded" from CD or DVD or USB media device and let the user or owner of that machine test how much real value is left in their machine if it is to be untethered (on battery, not on AC).
I am really suspicious that BIOS, CPU, and battery makers are in cahoots with microsoft, hence, much of the best battery life being on windows boxes. I HAVE met a Linux user running an IBM Thinkpad, a really small, quiet one. He said he got 5 hours minimum.
However, I think that for Linux on laptops to REALLY go a greater stride, the BIOS, battery, and other power management features of laptops must be genericized (via reverse engineering) or less proprietarized (by willing/friendly hardware developers/resellers).
It would be a whole lot more confidence-inspiring if it were possible to shop for a laptop and NOT have to even think about suspend, hibernate, sleep, and other features many windows users can take for granted. Linux distributors need to aggressively show the capabilities of a user's laptop before the user spends the time installing only to be later heartbroken.
David Syes
Not necessarily Katie T v. Katie J.
However, Katie Tarbox is probably reasonably intelligent and should have herself done the due diligence to see if an exact katie.com existed. She then would have probably been prudent, reasonable, and just in selecting or allowing via inspiration the selection of another name.
But, ultimately, her lawyer/s and peng-wine are likely the real culprits. They see and smell money and hot properties. They obviously see www.katie.com such a hot property they'd rather not spend the money to retitle and reprint the books and the circuit. (But, it still is possible that even Katie T herself may have realized the chance for a "land grab". Anyone is capable of doing almost anything. This isn't to say Katie T DID do this as a "land grab"/"domain grab" but I think a thoughtful judge would at least posit the line of questioning to determine any motive, intent, etc.
David Syes
OK, I'll bite. (Even tho kvetching over a 0-troll mod is surely to worsen the modding... -50, anyone?)
OK, maybe you saw the title. "Now, THAT penguin deserves to be steamrolled!" and thought, "Ehh, instant troll. He hates Linux." Far from it: I have 5 computers, all with Linux. I run windoze 98 in an emulator (Win4Lin) because I am addicted to Lotus SmartSuite. I use Mandrake, and I've paid for all my copies that were boxed, or used a few from LXF issues, and then bought the boxed sets. I've bought at least 5 boxed DVD or CD versions, paying well over $600, gladly and proudly, since that is money and time not spent on microshaft. I've tried SuSE, Caldera, and others since 1999, yet I keep using Mandrake. I am elated I recently got to watch DVDs in my Mandrake-based laptop. Now, that question is put to issue, about where I stand on Linux. If in doubt, look my name up on the Linux database...
Now, as for Trolling...
Troll? Troll my ass. I am saying, in a terse nutshell, much of what is being said here by others. I am not regurgitating what they said. I am saying what I feel off the cuff. Nor is it really redundant, for it is not a word-for-word rip-off of others' writings.
I was not expecting a 5-ver, but I certainly was not thinking: "I'm gonna troll..."
Is the modder of my commentary a corporate troll/shill? I am not. I was born on the Presidio, delivered by a USMC captain, and I have the right to bash corporate america as does anyone else.
What Penguin is doing is wrong. Everyone/almost everyone here can agree. Penguin and that lawyer are riding on the coattails of sympathing for Katie T when from the very get-go her book's name infringed. That LAWYER of hers clearly knows. It AIN'T RIGHT. It's immoral, unethical to use the exact name. Again, "Katie T: Portrait of an Former Online Victim: see my site at www.katiet.com" would probably have gone a looooong way toward making all this a non-issue.
So, I hope someone mods with a bit of reality. The ONLY way to minimize these kinds of corporate abuse is to make sure it hurts the offending corporations. Not ALL corporations are this bad, and yes, I am a bit "over the top" by referring to "corporate America", but when one refers to "corporate America", it should be clear that a small, one-person corporation is not endowed with the warchest of a GE, Bechtel, AT&T, et cetera.
Troll? My eye. Mod with a slant toward the spirit, the content, and the INTENT, not with your gut, or your clouded opinion. My emotion is my, and my experiences are mine. I am commenting or sharing them, and maybe influencing others who think Katie Jones is being railroaded.
David Syes
Now, THAT is one penguin I wouldn't mind seeing steamrolled.
First: Katie Jones, you REALLY ought to take revenge, not for revenge's sake, but to show corporate america that running rampant or roughshod over the world is NOT going to be tolerated. Here's what to do: Sell/license Katie.com to a porn company, such as Hustler. That would be approro, since the shyster lawyer and Penging are trying to hustle/horn you into "donating the name". To hell with them, just for that. Now... Don't forget to register you problem with the UN/WIPO, as well as ICANN, and the EFFF, as well as the ACLU. Try to contact Groklaw, and see if they'll help you out. It would be interesting to see if they'll accord ALL citizens of the WORLD the same basic protections we in the US are supposedly/purportedly granted by law or nature or divination.
Katie Tarbox, being of reasonable intelligence, could have named her book "Katie T.com: Portrait of an On-line Victim", or something to that effect. It is very likely the thought crossed her mind that there HAS to be a real katie.com out there. Couldn't she have checked?
He scheister/shyster lawyer IS of ABOVE REASONABLE intelligence (anyone taking a line of work that generates umpteen numbers of dollars really is not dumb by a longshot), yet like (whether or not the lawyer is or is not is up to the audience to determine) a DIPSH*T refuses to defuse the situation, namely by at least republishing future copies of the material with new covers, renaming the touring events, and the related publications as "Katie T.com". The book need not have followed the URL convention/naming format, but since katiet.com is Tarbox's site, WHY, WHY, the hell was the book not correspondingly named? "Katiet.com: Portrait of an Internet Victim" is not hard to deal with.
I'll TELL you why: Greed. Unadulterated, insatiable corporate GREED. Of course, Tarbox stands to silently acquire immense wealth if she remains silent and lets her shyster lawyer roll all over Jones. This is BS. This is an example of what the current cadge/cabal administration would allow to happen to ordinary citizens (especially of of non-US residency) when corporate america wants to save a buck, take a buck, or co-opt the lawfully-acquired properties of others.
Now, as for Penguin: I'LL NEVER AGAIN buy another penguin-published or advertised title or imprint EVER, EVER, again. Not, at least, until you HONORABLY, ethically, morally, and convincingly resolve this issue: RETITLE THE BOOK, and pull ALL store shelf copies (and re-cover the books), REGARDLESS OF YOUR COST! You incurred it, you FIX it.
I will also as widely as possible disseminate the word as widely as possible.
David Syes