This kind of regulation was long over due. People started to notice something when Viagra came about. There are some pretty desperate men out there that are will to break the law and put themselves at risk just to get a drug that *might* help them with ED.
You missed the point of this kind of regulation. You missed the point of medicine and perscriptions. The point is that unless you are ABSOLUTELY sure the functions of the body and the medicines invovled, something really bad can happen. Regulations like this make it the doctor's and pharmacy's responsibility to let us know these things. I know I don't know about the biochemical reactions when I take an antibiotic but I will trust my doctor and my pharmacy to tell me if there is a large side effect or anything else I should know about.
With these facts in hand, one can make an informed decision instead of just swallowing pills and hoping that the right combination makes you fell better.
If you don't believe this, then why not just hang out at eBay and stock up on your drugs now. Or maybe you do really trust those guys?
How can some of the people named in the suite answer the call to court if they aren't even in the State of California? I hope someone in California can show up and represent their interested....
You make it sound like writing code for any GPL project is bad. Why shouldn't a writer give back any improvements made to a GPL project? After all, the others who have contributed the GPL code did a lot of work for you.
Sitting on code that isn't submitted back only makes it useful to you. If you don't give back and share, the mainline code is going to advance and you're going to end up constantly patching or even better, some one else who isn't so selfish submits the same code fixes.
There are plenty of situations where the GPL is not feasible. I just happen to believe that OS-level and mid-level utilities are perfectly suited for GPLing.
I know I'm coming into the discussion late, but the thing I keep seeing from both camps are that...
1. Sun doesn't want to corupt the language.
2. Open Source is the best way to go for stable implementation.
That's great! As long as Sun makes some attempt for a stable, ANSI-ifed specification of Java, then who cares who implements it?! Let Sun have control of the Language Specification. Let the Open Source writers implement it. After all, isn't that how C and C++ came about?
Don't all Windows OS' Throw Out the bootloader? There are bootloaders out there other than LILO or the Microsoft one. What burns me up is the fact that MS fails to give you an option on install if you want to replace your current bootloader with their deficient one. Or if there is an option, it isn't obvious. We've all heard of security through obscurity, how about features through obscurity. They enhance the value of their software(in this case the bootloader) because they obscure any other options.
Isn't there a contradiction in the Theory of Reverse Time?
Just like in the place we live in, time and space are tied but we see it going in a "forward" direction. Reverse Time implies that that in such a place, time and space are tied together going in a "backward" direction. The contradiction is that space is never considered! If time is "backwards" then space must also be somehow "backwards." All we know about space and matter says that "space can be empty(devoid of matter) but no less." "Reverse Time" implies that space is less than empty which is a contradiction. Now there maybe a property of space that allows this, and if there is, lets hear it.:-)
Instead, I subscribe to the "Theory of Null Time". Singularities like black holes support this kind of idea. A singularity of space implies that all matter in a given space exists at one point which can only happen if you distort time into a singularity. A singulatiry of time implies that all matter in a given timeline exists in only one instance of time which can only happen if you distort space into a singularity.
The one thing both "Reverse Time" and "Null Time" try to do is explain the existence of "Dark Matter." I think both theories do it well but "Null Time" is a more coherent theory.
Any other theories or ideas on the subject? This kind of theoretical physics has facinated me much like philosophy.:-)
What is the difference between these sites and political cartoons found in all major newpaper's Editorial Section?
As long as these sites state clearly that they are satire(which is implied with political cartoons) then I can't see how the SEC can justify infringing on 1st Amendment Free Speach rights.
In a company as HUGE as IBM with so many buisness units, there is bound to be some point where one group goes one way while another goes another.
The fact is IBM loves Linux for the simple fact that they have all of this wonderful product that works only on their expensive AIX Unix workstations. With the advent of BSD and Linux, they can now push those products out onto a super cheap and super prevailent x86 platform(a platform which they don't have to worry about maintaining no less!).
Of course, there is another buisness unit that is interested in selling x86 hardware with Win2K on it. In both cases, this doesn't mean that IBM has a company wide policy of liking one OS or another.
It is wiser to have HTTP access first. On the server end, web servers handle heavy traffic better than ftp servers do. On the client end, all firewalls and security schemes are usually configured for transparent web browsing while FTP may or may not be configured and it isn't as transparent.
I agree....it is a damn shame that the "Budget Slashing Happy" are in control. The short sighted nature of these kinds of politions, and the voters that put them in control, cause all sorts of problems. Sure...the populous wants their tax cut because they can't see how driving R&D projects like the HST results in better technology, better understanding of physics, and a better standard of living for all.
Even though it had problems, the HST is a resounding success! This piece of equipment is should be marked as one of best engineering in hardware of the 20th Century. Observations through the HST has advanced our understanding of physics and the nature of the Universe.
With that being said and the known problems with the HST, maybe it is time we put another Space Telescope into orbit? The current backlog for work on the HST is somewhere around 3 years. This current outage isn't going to help anything. I'm not sure about the orbital geometry...is there any place the HST can't look at because of its orbit? Another telescope at a different orbit may help look at different parts of space.
In the end, it can't hurt having another telescope up there.:-)
I honestly have no real opinion of what Mr. John Vranesevich has done or rumored to be done but his response to the/. questions is beyond 'hostile' and shows that he was never really serious about doing any interview.
I thought most of the questions were honest and, for its topic, were about well worded as you could make them but Mr. Vranesevich rejected them all as stupid and started to grandstand.
If 20/20, 60 Minutes, etc. ask him to do an interview, he showed up and acted like this they wouldn't take him serious and cast all sorts of doubt over his claims. Why should Slashdot be different?
I haven't been able to my hands on this hot little item, but it occured to me that if the mount functionality has been changed, could one get these SMB shares to mount through 'automount'? I could never figure out how to get 'automount' to work with 'smbmount'.
Does anyone have any ideas how to get this to work correctly?
Enough already! Already, many people have jumped up and said "I had problems installing" while others have said "I had no problems." This gets us nowhere and isn't real evidence anyways.
Just remember that most of us are "power users." We are willing to get through any problem assuming there is "a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel." On the other hand, most users aren't going to be as patient or driven to fix subtile problems. To say, "weak willed people shouldn't be using this" isn't a strength...it is a problem!
Both Linux and BSD have come a long way in making things eaiser to digest and figure out but there is room on both sides for improvement. Just because one person knows automatically where to find information on BSD drivers, doesn't mean my mom will. Just because I know how to setup an NAT in Linux doesn't mean my dad will figure it out right away either. Anything that facilitates novice user's understand is a good thing.
The one thing that has always troubled me about how NS always did things is that it seemed they were always more interested in getting their $75 bucks than regulating the domain names. They never considered the ramifications of granting anyone any string of numbers.
With that being said, why don't they 'file' for domain names? If I want to build a deck on my house, I have to go to City Hall and get a building permit...why should the internet be different? If you really want a domain name, the apply for it stating your intent. After you apply for the domain name, a pannel/council(hopefully constructed by region) weighs the application purely based on the application and the rules. Does a fanboy really need 'www.jenniferlovhewitt.com' or should it go toward a person with that name? They could also enforce rules that "buffer" around domain names. Anyone who has been to www.gamefaq.com instead of www.gamefaqs.com(or vice versa:->) can see the need something like this.
If any part of the Internet needs democracy, it would be this topic. I have no problem with someone who has a clearly stated purpose for having a domain name but if there is no real good reason for an individual to have the domain name, why give it to them? "Just because" isn't good enough.
Unfortunately, there is a "Cycle of Poverty" which results in population explosions. I seem to remember reading about this while studying Galbreith's(sp) economic theories.
It basically goes like this: a poor family starts out with a man and a woman who, without any other means, has to farm, not to make money but just to feed themselves('substence famring' I think it is called). Since they are pretty poor and can only afford to feed themselves, they can't hire help, expand their farm, or do anything else that would help lessen the burden on them. Farming with minimal tools is very back breaking work. Couple this with the suggestion that since they can't afford any other means of entertainment except for the one that they can provide with eachother(ie sex) and before long you have kids. This is great for the farm since the family get some free labor and suddenly they become more productive. For example, this family has 5 kids. This means 7 possible workers to help maintain the farm but they still aren't getting a head...only maintaining their status. The last problem comes when the parents die or become to old to maintain the farm. You now have 5 kids who are now adults who want same land. In the best case senerio, the land is split 5 ways, but this was only enough land for 7 to live on. What happens when the 5 kids start having families of their own? Couple this nightmare with various cultural practices, for instance only the eldest male gets all of the land and you have a grand mess. The cycle can repeat ad infinatum.
The suggestion on how to break this "Cycle of Poverty" is two fold.
1. Stop the population from expanding, maybe by any means possible.
2. Raise education levels.
The first suggestion is a no brainer. If a country has lower birth rates and the economy doesn't change, then average wealth and GNP have to go up.:-)
The second suggestion is more intruging. It seems to suggest that there is a causal link between level of education and birth rate. Indeed higher education levels have all sorts of good effects like spurring the economy and generally improves the standard of living. The elderly are living long. An interesting effect in the G7 countries(almost all of which have high average age in their populations which means their population is declining) is that young couples are putting off having kids till their older(they wait till their out of college or have their job setup). Another interesting effect is that they have less kids because, unlike 3rd world countries, having big families works against you. For instance, raising 2 kids is far cheaper than raising 5. All of these facts seem to be a negative feedback against the cycle.
I'm not claiming that either of these solutions are easy to accomplish. Both are nearly impossible to do without any money. I believe in my lifetime, I will see something really horrible happen to the world wide population becuase of the population expandsion. I would not be totally surprised if there is a truly epic famine that sweeps a large portion of the world that effects billions.
If you like what you see in "The Dream Hunters", then I recommend you checkout "Princess Mononoke"("Mononoke Hime") coming out this fall. Neil Gaiman wrote the English screenplay and did an excellent job of helping bring alive the English version of the film.
It is also interesting to note that Good Omens is listed in Gaiman's writer filmography. It maybe nothing, but wouldn't it be neat if "Good Omens" was made into a movie?:-)
It is simply amazing. Voyager 1 and 2 are simply one of the shining examples of Human Engineering that we have.
On one end, you have a machine that is for all intents and purposes free flying trying to track an object that is probably less than an arcsecond away from something that is now just another point of light(Earth and the Sun)...and all on 1970's hardware!
On the other end, the technology has improved 100 fold but the signals are week and so low bandwidth (160 bps, thats right, BITS!:-) )that it is still a mircle that these deep space arrays can pick out the signal from the other radiation out there.
Think about what has been accomplished with the Voyager Project. Think about trying to do it again with today's technology! These days, if a project like Voyager was proposed, it would get lost in the budget hacking frenzy in Washington DC. Where has the sense of accomplishment and discovery gone?
I knew that some people would be saying "Screw The SEC" but they forgot that it was eBay that is at fault here. Where does the lunacy on eBay stop? eBay and other online auctioning places have already become the breeding grounds for "grey area" capitalists. All sorts of media of copyrighted material is being heavily sold. Rare pieces of equipment and hardware show up without an explaination of where it came from. We've heard about other escapades(selling people, or things that no one can really own).
Would someone sell a kidney or organs on eBay? How about Urianium? How about drugs? The problem is that eBay take almost no responsiblity for what it features. Sotheby's and Christie's would always take the time to inspect the auctioned lots to make sure that the sale is legal...why doesn't eBay?
One of the things that struct me while working with Mainsoft's software is that it is very geared toward being a "lock-step" porting solution. You right all of your code on Windows and then move it over to Unix, use their stuff, and churn out a Unix application. This is great if your company works like that, but for many places, there is active development on both Windows and Unix(all sorts of flavors mind you:-) ). With Mainsoft, it was too hard to do active development with their stuff. For instance, many of the scripts you run once...what happens if the settings change(ie remove a file from the build, change compiler flags, etc.)? To make the system really work, you make the changes on Windows, and re-port your application. Not the best way to go about doing things....
But Carmack has correctly assested the state of NT and Linux as development platforms for games.
One of the things that Microsoft has done right is invest huge amounts of manhours and money into their dev tools and it shows. Their development IDE is probably the only product I will give high praises and this is coming from someone who is used to EMACS and gdb.:-)
I've always said that if Microsoft really wanted to rule the world, they should have tried to crossplatform all of their APIs and tools. Forget the OS....it is sometimes hard to install another OS on a machine but you can change libraries on the fly! They could have owned UI world everywhere. But then again, maybe this isn't a good thing.:-)
Who would sue for missuse of the Happy Fun Ball?:-)
Taken from www.happyfunball.com which was original the SNL skit, I've take the liberty of posting it here to avoid the/. effect.:-)
=============================
Happy FUN BALL!
-only $14.95-
Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Happy Fun Ball.
Caution: Happy Fun Ball may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Happy Fun Ball Contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
Do not use Happy Fun Ball on concrete.
Discontinue use of Happy Fun Ball if any of the following occurs:
Itching
Vertigo
Dizziness
Tingling in extremities
Loss of balance or coordination
Slurred speech
Temporary blindness
Profuse sweating
Heart palpitations
If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Happy Fun Ball may stick to certain types of skin.
When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration...
Failure to do so relieves the makers of Happy Fun Ball, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.
Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
Happy Fun Ball has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.
I was definately pumped about watching the Matrix on September 18(note that it was supposed to be out on the Sept 21:-) ) but was somewhat shocked by all of the skipping. Of course, me and my roomate studied the problem because this was the first time my Pioneer DVL 700(or is DLV?) did anything like this.
After somewhat extensive tweaking and studying, we basically boiled the problem down to one feature on the DVD: "Follow The White Rabbit". Everytime FtWR feature would kick in(even though you didn't play that program) the DVD would skip causing a lag in the audio. It doesn't matter which audio/video track you are listening/watching....it always happens in the same FtWR spots.
Since I could get the player to do anything about this, I had to come up with a work around. The best thing I could come up with is just after the skipping, just backup the video a little bit. By seeking like this, it resyncs the audio and video. Not perfect, but unless I get a new player this is what has to be done to watch it. *sigh*
Makes me wish I bought the LD instead.:-(
Re:Try installing Slackware as a newbie!
on
CNN Installs Linux
·
· Score: 1
Heh...I know what you are talking about! The first versions of Linux I installed was Slackware. I got used to the boot disks, the shell install, and other Slackware-isms(getting the CDROM was an added speed up bonus!:-) ). Was I really surprised when I saw the latest installs for RH and Debian! I'm happy that the install process has progressed beyond this...I know I can do an install like Slackware but I don't think many others would be.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
This kind of regulation was long over due. People started to notice something when Viagra came about. There are some pretty desperate men out there that are will to break the law and put themselves at risk just to get a drug that *might* help them with ED.
You missed the point of this kind of regulation. You missed the point of medicine and perscriptions. The point is that unless you are ABSOLUTELY sure the functions of the body and the medicines invovled, something really bad can happen. Regulations like this make it the doctor's and pharmacy's responsibility to let us know these things. I know I don't know about the biochemical reactions when I take an antibiotic but I will trust my doctor and my pharmacy to tell me if there is a large side effect or anything else I should know about.
With these facts in hand, one can make an informed decision instead of just swallowing pills and hoping that the right combination makes you fell better.
If you don't believe this, then why not just hang out at eBay and stock up on your drugs now. Or maybe you do really trust those guys?
How can some of the people named in the suite answer the call to court if they aren't even in the State of California? I hope someone in California can show up and represent their interested....
You make it sound like writing code for any GPL project is bad. Why shouldn't a writer give back any improvements made to a GPL project? After all, the others who have contributed the GPL code did a lot of work for you.
Sitting on code that isn't submitted back only makes it useful to you. If you don't give back and share, the mainline code is going to advance and you're going to end up constantly patching or even better, some one else who isn't so selfish submits the same code fixes.
There are plenty of situations where the GPL is not feasible. I just happen to believe that OS-level and mid-level utilities are perfectly suited for GPLing.
...to make sure Microsoft pays the bill. NSI has every right to disable services for any deliquent client.
:-)
On the other hand, I think Monday will be amusing when people wake up and realize what has happened.
I know I'm coming into the discussion late, but the thing I keep seeing from both camps are that...
1. Sun doesn't want to corupt the language.
2. Open Source is the best way to go for stable implementation.
That's great! As long as Sun makes some attempt for a stable, ANSI-ifed specification of Java, then who cares who implements it?! Let Sun have control of the Language Specification. Let the Open Source writers implement it. After all, isn't that how C and C++ came about?
Don't all Windows OS' Throw Out the bootloader? There are bootloaders out there other than LILO or the Microsoft one. What burns me up is the fact that MS fails to give you an option on install if you want to replace your current bootloader with their deficient one. Or if there is an option, it isn't obvious. We've all heard of security through obscurity, how about features through obscurity. They enhance the value of their software(in this case the bootloader) because they obscure any other options.
Isn't there a contradiction in the Theory of Reverse Time?
:-)
:-)
Just like in the place we live in, time and space are tied but we see it going in a "forward" direction. Reverse Time implies that that in such a place, time and space are tied together going in a "backward" direction. The contradiction is that space is never considered! If time is "backwards" then space must also be somehow "backwards." All we know about space and matter says that "space can be empty(devoid of matter) but no less." "Reverse Time" implies that space is less than empty which is a contradiction. Now there maybe a property of space that allows this, and if there is, lets hear it.
Instead, I subscribe to the "Theory of Null Time". Singularities like black holes support this kind of idea. A singularity of space implies that all matter in a given space exists at one point which can only happen if you distort time into a singularity. A singulatiry of time implies that all matter in a given timeline exists in only one instance of time which can only happen if you distort space into a singularity.
The one thing both "Reverse Time" and "Null Time" try to do is explain the existence of "Dark Matter." I think both theories do it well but "Null Time" is a more coherent theory.
Any other theories or ideas on the subject? This kind of theoretical physics has facinated me much like philosophy.
What is the difference between these sites and political cartoons found in all major newpaper's Editorial Section?
As long as these sites state clearly that they are satire(which is implied with political cartoons) then I can't see how the SEC can justify infringing on 1st Amendment Free Speach rights.
In a company as HUGE as IBM with so many buisness units, there is bound to be some point where one group goes one way while another goes another.
The fact is IBM loves Linux for the simple fact that they have all of this wonderful product that works only on their expensive AIX Unix workstations. With the advent of BSD and Linux, they can now push those products out onto a super cheap and super prevailent x86 platform(a platform which they don't have to worry about maintaining no less!).
Of course, there is another buisness unit that is interested in selling x86 hardware with Win2K on it. In both cases, this doesn't mean that IBM has a company wide policy of liking one OS or another.
It is wiser to have HTTP access first. On the server end, web servers handle heavy traffic better than ftp servers do. On the client end, all firewalls and security schemes are usually configured for transparent web browsing while FTP may or may not be configured and it isn't as transparent.
I agree....it is a damn shame that the "Budget Slashing Happy" are in control. The short sighted nature of these kinds of politions, and the voters that put them in control, cause all sorts of problems. Sure...the populous wants their tax cut because they can't see how driving R&D projects like the HST results in better technology, better understanding of physics, and a better standard of living for all.
Even though it had problems, the HST is a resounding success! This piece of equipment is should be marked as one of best engineering in hardware of the 20th Century. Observations through the HST has advanced our understanding of physics and the nature of the Universe.
:-)
With that being said and the known problems with the HST, maybe it is time we put another Space Telescope into orbit? The current backlog for work on the HST is somewhere around 3 years. This current outage isn't going to help anything. I'm not sure about the orbital geometry...is there any place the HST can't look at because of its orbit? Another telescope at a different orbit may help look at different parts of space.
In the end, it can't hurt having another telescope up there.
I thought most of the questions were honest and, for its topic, were about well worded as you could make them but Mr. Vranesevich rejected them all as stupid and started to grandstand.
If 20/20, 60 Minutes, etc. ask him to do an interview, he showed up and acted like this they wouldn't take him serious and cast all sorts of doubt over his claims. Why should Slashdot be different?
I haven't been able to my hands on this hot little item, but it occured to me that if the mount functionality has been changed, could one get these SMB shares to mount through 'automount'? I could never figure out how to get 'automount' to work with 'smbmount'.
Does anyone have any ideas how to get this to work correctly?
Enough already! Already, many people have jumped up and said "I had problems installing" while others have said "I had no problems." This gets us nowhere and isn't real evidence anyways.
Just remember that most of us are "power users." We are willing to get through any problem assuming there is "a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel." On the other hand, most users aren't going to be as patient or driven to fix subtile problems. To say, "weak willed people shouldn't be using this" isn't a strength...it is a problem!
Both Linux and BSD have come a long way in making things eaiser to digest and figure out but there is room on both sides for improvement. Just because one person knows automatically where to find information on BSD drivers, doesn't mean my mom will. Just because I know how to setup an NAT in Linux doesn't mean my dad will figure it out right away either. Anything that facilitates novice user's understand is a good thing.
The one thing that has always troubled me about how NS always did things is that it seemed they were always more interested in getting their $75 bucks than regulating the domain names. They never considered the ramifications of granting anyone any string of numbers.
:->) can see the need something like this.
With that being said, why don't they 'file' for domain names? If I want to build a deck on my house, I have to go to City Hall and get a building permit...why should the internet be different? If you really want a domain name, the apply for it stating your intent. After you apply for the domain name, a pannel/council(hopefully constructed by region) weighs the application purely based on the application and the rules. Does a fanboy really need 'www.jenniferlovhewitt.com' or should it go toward a person with that name? They could also enforce rules that "buffer" around domain names. Anyone who has been to www.gamefaq.com instead of www.gamefaqs.com(or vice versa
If any part of the Internet needs democracy, it would be this topic. I have no problem with someone who has a clearly stated purpose for having a domain name but if there is no real good reason for an individual to have the domain name, why give it to them? "Just because" isn't good enough.
Unfortunately, there is a "Cycle of Poverty" which results in population explosions. I seem to remember reading about this while studying Galbreith's(sp) economic theories.
:-)
It basically goes like this: a poor family starts out with a man and a woman who, without any other means, has to farm, not to make money but just to feed themselves('substence famring' I think it is called). Since they are pretty poor and can only afford to feed themselves, they can't hire help, expand their farm, or do anything else that would help lessen the burden on them. Farming with minimal tools is very back breaking work. Couple this with the suggestion that since they can't afford any other means of entertainment except for the one that they can provide with eachother(ie sex) and before long you have kids. This is great for the farm since the family get some free labor and suddenly they become more productive. For example, this family has 5 kids. This means 7 possible workers to help maintain the farm but they still aren't getting a head...only maintaining their status. The last problem comes when the parents die or become to old to maintain the farm. You now have 5 kids who are now adults who want same land. In the best case senerio, the land is split 5 ways, but this was only enough land for 7 to live on. What happens when the 5 kids start having families of their own? Couple this nightmare with various cultural practices, for instance only the eldest male gets all of the land and you have a grand mess. The cycle can repeat ad infinatum.
The suggestion on how to break this "Cycle of Poverty" is two fold.
1. Stop the population from expanding, maybe by any means possible.
2. Raise education levels.
The first suggestion is a no brainer. If a country has lower birth rates and the economy doesn't change, then average wealth and GNP have to go up.
The second suggestion is more intruging. It seems to suggest that there is a causal link between level of education and birth rate. Indeed higher education levels have all sorts of good effects like spurring the economy and generally improves the standard of living. The elderly are living long. An interesting effect in the G7 countries(almost all of which have high average age in their populations which means their population is declining) is that young couples are putting off having kids till their older(they wait till their out of college or have their job setup). Another interesting effect is that they have less kids because, unlike 3rd world countries, having big families works against you. For instance, raising 2 kids is far cheaper than raising 5. All of these facts seem to be a negative feedback against the cycle.
I'm not claiming that either of these solutions are easy to accomplish. Both are nearly impossible to do without any money. I believe in my lifetime, I will see something really horrible happen to the world wide population becuase of the population expandsion. I would not be totally surprised if there is a truly epic famine that sweeps a large portion of the world that effects billions.
If you like what you see in "The Dream Hunters", then I recommend you checkout "Princess Mononoke"("Mononoke Hime") coming out this fall. Neil Gaiman wrote the English screenplay and did an excellent job of helping bring alive the English version of the film.
:-)
It is also interesting to note that Good Omens is listed in Gaiman's writer filmography. It maybe nothing, but wouldn't it be neat if "Good Omens" was made into a movie?
It is simply amazing. Voyager 1 and 2 are simply one of the shining examples of Human Engineering that we have.
:-) )that it is still a mircle that these deep space arrays can pick out the signal from the other radiation out there.
On one end, you have a machine that is for all intents and purposes free flying trying to track an object that is probably less than an arcsecond away from something that is now just another point of light(Earth and the Sun)...and all on 1970's hardware!
On the other end, the technology has improved 100 fold but the signals are week and so low bandwidth (160 bps, thats right, BITS!
Think about what has been accomplished with the Voyager Project. Think about trying to do it again with today's technology! These days, if a project like Voyager was proposed, it would get lost in the budget hacking frenzy in Washington DC. Where has the sense of accomplishment and discovery gone?
Checkout The Voyager Project Home Page while you are at it.
I knew that some people would be saying "Screw The SEC" but they forgot that it was eBay that is at fault here. Where does the lunacy on eBay stop? eBay and other online auctioning places have already become the breeding grounds for "grey area" capitalists. All sorts of media of copyrighted material is being heavily sold. Rare pieces of equipment and hardware show up without an explaination of where it came from. We've heard about other escapades(selling people, or things that no one can really own).
Would someone sell a kidney or organs on eBay? How about Urianium? How about drugs? The problem is that eBay take almost no responsiblity for what it features. Sotheby's and Christie's would always take the time to inspect the auctioned lots to make sure that the sale is legal...why doesn't eBay?
One of the things that struct me while working with Mainsoft's software is that it is very geared toward being a "lock-step" porting solution. You right all of your code on Windows and then move it over to Unix, use their stuff, and churn out a Unix application. This is great if your company works like that, but for many places, there is active development on both Windows and Unix(all sorts of flavors mind you :-) ). With Mainsoft, it was too hard to do active development with their stuff. For instance, many of the scripts you run once...what happens if the settings change(ie remove a file from the build, change compiler flags, etc.)? To make the system really work, you make the changes on Windows, and re-port your application. Not the best way to go about doing things....
But Carmack has correctly assested the state of NT and Linux as development platforms for games.
:-)
:-)
One of the things that Microsoft has done right is invest huge amounts of manhours and money into their dev tools and it shows. Their development IDE is probably the only product I will give high praises and this is coming from someone who is used to EMACS and gdb.
I've always said that if Microsoft really wanted to rule the world, they should have tried to crossplatform all of their APIs and tools. Forget the OS....it is sometimes hard to install another OS on a machine but you can change libraries on the fly! They could have owned UI world everywhere. But then again, maybe this isn't a good thing.
Taken from www.happyfunball.com which was original the SNL skit, I've take the liberty of posting it here to avoid the
=============================
Happy FUN BALL!
-only $14.95-
avoid prolonged exposure to Happy Fun Ball.
speeds.
rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
Discontinue use of Happy Fun Ball if any of the following occurs:
If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter
and cover head.
Happy Fun Ball may stick to certain types of skin.
When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be returned to its special
container and kept under refrigeration...
Failure to do so relieves the makers of Happy Fun Ball, Wacky Products
Incorporated, and its parent company Global Chemical Unlimited, of any
and all liability.
Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an unknown glowing substance
which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
Happy Fun Ball has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is
also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
Happy Fun Ball comes with a lifetime guarantee.
Happy Fun Ball
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!
I was definately pumped about watching the Matrix on September 18(note that it was supposed to be out on the Sept 21 :-) ) but was somewhat shocked by all of the skipping. Of course, me and my roomate studied the problem because this was the first time my Pioneer DVL 700(or is DLV?) did anything like this.
:-(
After somewhat extensive tweaking and studying, we basically boiled the problem down to one feature on the DVD: "Follow The White Rabbit". Everytime FtWR feature would kick in(even though you didn't play that program) the DVD would skip causing a lag in the audio. It doesn't matter which audio/video track you are listening/watching....it always happens in the same FtWR spots.
Since I could get the player to do anything about this, I had to come up with a work around. The best thing I could come up with is just after the skipping, just backup the video a little bit. By seeking like this, it resyncs the audio and video. Not perfect, but unless I get a new player this is what has to be done to watch it. *sigh*
Makes me wish I bought the LD instead.
Heh...I know what you are talking about! The first versions of Linux I installed was Slackware. I got used to the boot disks, the shell install, and other Slackware-isms(getting the CDROM was an added speed up bonus! :-) ). Was I really surprised when I saw the latest installs for RH and Debian! I'm happy that the install process has progressed beyond this...I know I can do an install like Slackware but I don't think many others would be. :-)