Let us not forget that when Internet Explorer locks up and you chose to kill the application, your desktop explorer is also restarted/reset. Internet Explorer seems to have its claws running deep enough into the OS to justify the original article's comments..
I had the same experience. Starbucks does not get you to sign for anything less than $25.00
I've also found this to be the case elsewhere. At a local Wholesaler, they have self-checkout lines. One recent purchase I made was for over $2000.00 Nobody came out to verify signatures. I just slid the card through the reader, signed on the display and walked out with my new TV having had no interraction with anyone other than the receipt puncher at the door (they check your receipt and compare it to a few items in your cart and then punch a hole in the receipt.. or mark it with a marker). I'd hate to think about what damage could be done by someone with a stolen creditcard.
They didn't have them for home when I was young but I sure pumped enough quarters into the machines that I could have owned 'em all! Buy one of those cheap NAMCO type joystick boxes for the TV. (Bestbuy has them) Grab some rechargable batteries and plug it in. Pacman, Ms Pacman, Gallaga, etc. etc. I can still remember playing all of them for the first time and being awe-struck. Sure, they will not blow away the kids but you can show 'em how it's done!!
I know that you can dload ROMS and build your own cabinets etc. but this is a cheap, simple way to get the kids playing some of the arcade video games which we all grew up with.. (Well, not all of us..)
Well, programs were fine if everyone you wanted to talk to had a computer and if you were willing to use a computer to talk through. VOIP in its current form frees us of this requirement. I just recently subscribed to Vonage (a VOIP provider in the USA). Having moved recently from a city in Canada to the USA, I knew my wife and kids would be calling home often, ramping up my phone bills. So, I ordered up my Cable modem, ordered my Vonage and 3 days later opened the box that FedEx dropped off at my place and installed the VOIP router. As it is, you can plug a phone right into the VOIP router's phone jack and start talking but this limits you to the single phone (unless you get the cordless phones with multiple phones and one main base station. What I did was I disconnected the Telco from my local phone loop (the loop of phones in your house that all connect to the telco's line at a box in your basement). I then plugged the VOIP phoen connector into the wall phone jack. Since all phone jacks are on the same circuit, I was able to get dialtone from anywhere in the house. So, my family can use the phones plugged in to any phone jack in the house. (*** It is important that you disconnect the Telco from your phone lines as it could damage the VOIP router). One additional feature I ordered with my Vonage is a Virtual phone number. I ordered a phone number which is local to Toronto, Ontario (where I lived) which rings on my phone in the USA. All of my friends and relatives can now call that as a local number and pay no long distance (I can get up to about 4 or 5 virtual numbers in North America). I can call anywhere in the USA and Canada with no long distance. So, I pay $29.95 + about $1.50 tax each month and that's all..
The other great thing with VOIP is that I can take my router with me on vacation. As long as there's high-speed interent where I am (many hotels offer this), I can plug it in and receive calls made to my home number(s) and place calls as if I were calling from home..
So yes, VOIP really IS that interesting! I get every feature imaginable (voicemail, caller ID, 3 way calling, call forwarding, etc.) without paying a single penny extra. Wires? The only wires needed are between the cable modem, the VOIP router and a wireless base. Stick them in a corner somewhere if ya want!
What would be cool would be for people to mod these little toys. I'd love to see one which has sensors monitoring in sections around the sentry. Once a sensor was triggered, it conducts an IFF check. (IFF could be performed with RFID tags and a sensor.. friendlies would have the tag). If IFF is negative, the device swivels to the triggered section and initiates the firing sequence (of course the ability to swivel is a mod). With the above configuration it could loosely track a moving target based upon which sensor is triggered. Modding these in this manner more enjoyable (and safer) than adding the various shotguns, paint guns, blades and flame throwers other people mentioned.
" Radio stations would have to play what people wanted to hear."
You mean people DON'T want to listen to Britney Spears over and over on the radio?!? (or Hanson) I remember having to listen to Celine Dion singing 'My Heart Will Go On' over and over on the radio and it has made me hate that song with a passion.
Funny that Microsoft is advocating cheaper, lighter PC's while Micro$oft continues to bloat out their operating system requiring MORE RAM, MORE CPU, MORE Disk, etc. Add to the bloated OS the various flagship products contained within Office and it's easy to see why people 'need' the higher end hardware for basic office productivity. Ironically, the way that users could afford cheaper PC's with lower resources as advocated by Balmer, is to run Linux (and the users save on the cost of the OS and Applications to boot!). Heck, you could boot off Live CD's and use smaller capacity hard drives for storage. The additional benefit is a much more stable and secure platform for users.
I agree! James Burke was great! His series 'The Day the Universe Changed" really captivated me years ago while I was in highschool. The way he told the stories of how seemingly insignificant inventions could have such a huge impact upon science and technology development left me eager to learn more. Connections were similar but Connections 2 failed to maintain the flavor of 'The Day the Universe Changed' and I couldn't keep interested enough to watch it all. If they can present science in an interesting manner, I believe the channel will do well. Heck, I think they should even bring back 'The Professor' from 'The Hilarious House of Frankenstein ' as well!;-)
"Cadbury/Schweppes may be giving away a the prize of a space flight under the cap of your next bottle of 7 Up"
Doesn't this sound like Willie Wonka? (Or at least along the lines of The Family Guy when Peter gets the silver scroll in his beer to visit the Partucket Patriot brewery..) I just want to go into space to see the Oompa-Loompas!
This would be the laser targeting assistance system he needs to hunt deer, squirrels and wabbits with his high-powered, fully automatic assault rifle with a 50 round drum and armor piercing rounds (well, those are pesky wabbits so let's include a mix of incendiary rounds in there).. At least, I am sure that this is how owning such a laser would be justified.. "We need it to help us hunt! It's our right!";-) Soon he'll have a laser strong enough to flash fry the animal before it hits the ground.. or at least in 45 seconds. (45 seconds? But I want it now!)
No need for this here on earth. Just use some of those empty 2L Coke bottles laying around your desk .
Don't use Mountain Dew bottles though! You'll get them mixed up.. (and prolly won't even notice)
Dang! You beat me to it.. I was thinking along the lines of..
"You can't bend Linux to your will until you realize one thing.. There is no Linux (The Dish stole it when it ran away with the spoon).
I remembered this link on/. a while back and dug it up. It's regarding the viscosity of pitch. I thought it was relevant given that people were speculating on the long times one would have to wait to see glass flow (which it does not) The article also has a link to the whole Glass is not a liquid fact as well...
"See, that's the kind of shit you learn reading Slashdot. I'm going to go shoot myself for being a massive fucking dork now."
You will not have to shoot yourself because you have become such a massive dork that you will now collapse into yourself. Eventually, not even your nerdiness will be able to escape the dork hole (created primarily from dork matter (and Mountain Dew) of course).
Slashdot Mirror
Let us not forget that when Internet Explorer locks up and you chose to kill the application, your desktop explorer is also restarted/reset. Internet Explorer seems to have its claws running deep enough into the OS to justify the original article's comments..
I had the same experience. Starbucks does not get you to sign for anything less than $25.00 I've also found this to be the case elsewhere. At a local Wholesaler, they have self-checkout lines. One recent purchase I made was for over $2000.00 Nobody came out to verify signatures. I just slid the card through the reader, signed on the display and walked out with my new TV having had no interraction with anyone other than the receipt puncher at the door (they check your receipt and compare it to a few items in your cart and then punch a hole in the receipt.. or mark it with a marker). I'd hate to think about what damage could be done by someone with a stolen creditcard.
As long as the test page includes the "dancing Jebus" from The Simpsons, I'm all for it!
They didn't have them for home when I was young but I sure pumped enough quarters into the machines that I could have owned 'em all! Buy one of those cheap NAMCO type joystick boxes for the TV. (Bestbuy has them) Grab some rechargable batteries and plug it in. Pacman, Ms Pacman, Gallaga, etc. etc. I can still remember playing all of them for the first time and being awe-struck. Sure, they will not blow away the kids but you can show 'em how it's done!! I know that you can dload ROMS and build your own cabinets etc. but this is a cheap, simple way to get the kids playing some of the arcade video games which we all grew up with.. (Well, not all of us..)
Well, programs were fine if everyone you wanted to talk to had a computer and if you were willing to use a computer to talk through. VOIP in its current form frees us of this requirement.
I just recently subscribed to Vonage (a VOIP provider in the USA). Having moved recently from a city in Canada to the USA, I knew my wife and kids would be calling home often, ramping up my phone bills. So, I ordered up my Cable modem, ordered my Vonage and 3 days later opened the box that FedEx dropped off at my place and installed the VOIP router. As it is, you can plug a phone right into the VOIP router's phone jack and start talking but this limits you to the single phone (unless you get the cordless phones with multiple phones and one main base station. What I did was I disconnected the Telco from my local phone loop (the loop of phones in your house that all connect to the telco's line at a box in your basement). I then plugged the VOIP phoen connector into the wall phone jack. Since all phone jacks are on the same circuit, I was able to get dialtone from anywhere in the house. So, my family can use the phones plugged in to any phone jack in the house. (*** It is important that you disconnect the Telco from your phone lines as it could damage the VOIP router).
One additional feature I ordered with my Vonage is a Virtual phone number. I ordered a phone number which is local to Toronto, Ontario (where I lived) which rings on my phone in the USA. All of my friends and relatives can now call that as a local number and pay no long distance (I can get up to about 4 or 5 virtual numbers in North America). I can call anywhere in the USA and Canada with no long distance. So, I pay $29.95 + about $1.50 tax each month and that's all..
The other great thing with VOIP is that I can take my router with me on vacation. As long as there's high-speed interent where I am (many hotels offer this), I can plug it in and receive calls made to my home number(s) and place calls as if I were calling from home..
So yes, VOIP really IS that interesting! I get every feature imaginable (voicemail, caller ID, 3 way calling, call forwarding, etc.) without paying a single penny extra. Wires? The only wires needed are between the cable modem, the VOIP router and a wireless base. Stick them in a corner somewhere if ya want!
What would be cool would be for people to mod these little toys. I'd love to see one which has sensors monitoring in sections around the sentry. Once a sensor was triggered, it conducts an IFF check. (IFF could be performed with RFID tags and a sensor.. friendlies would have the tag). If IFF is negative, the device swivels to the triggered section and initiates the firing sequence (of course the ability to swivel is a mod). With the above configuration it could loosely track a moving target based upon which sensor is triggered.
Modding these in this manner more enjoyable (and safer) than adding the various shotguns, paint guns, blades and flame throwers other people mentioned.
" Radio stations would have to play what people wanted to hear."
You mean people DON'T want to listen to Britney Spears over and over on the radio?!? (or Hanson)
I remember having to listen to Celine Dion singing 'My Heart Will Go On' over and over on the radio and it has made me hate that song with a passion.
Funny that Microsoft is advocating cheaper, lighter PC's while Micro$oft continues to bloat out their operating system requiring MORE RAM, MORE CPU, MORE Disk, etc. Add to the bloated OS the various flagship products contained within Office and it's easy to see why people 'need' the higher end hardware for basic office productivity.
Ironically, the way that users could afford cheaper PC's with lower resources as advocated by Balmer, is to run Linux (and the users save on the cost of the OS and Applications to boot!). Heck, you could boot off Live CD's and use smaller capacity hard drives for storage. The additional benefit is a much more stable and secure platform for users.
I agree! James Burke was great! His series 'The Day the Universe Changed" really captivated me years ago while I was in highschool. The way he told the stories of how seemingly insignificant inventions could have such a huge impact upon science and technology development left me eager to learn more. Connections were similar but Connections 2 failed to maintain the flavor of 'The Day the Universe Changed' and I couldn't keep interested enough to watch it all. ;-)
If they can present science in an interesting manner, I believe the channel will do well. Heck, I think they should even bring back 'The Professor' from 'The Hilarious House of Frankenstein ' as well!
"Cadbury/Schweppes may be giving away a the prize of a space flight under the cap of your next bottle of 7 Up"
Doesn't this sound like Willie Wonka? (Or at least along the lines of The Family Guy when Peter gets the silver scroll in his beer to visit the Partucket Patriot brewery..)
I just want to go into space to see the Oompa-Loompas!
This would be the laser targeting assistance system he needs to hunt deer, squirrels and wabbits with his high-powered, fully automatic assault rifle with a 50 round drum and armor piercing rounds (well, those are pesky wabbits so let's include a mix of incendiary rounds in there).. At least, I am sure that this is how owning such a laser would be justified.. "We need it to help us hunt! It's our right!" ;-)
Soon he'll have a laser strong enough to flash fry the animal before it hits the ground.. or at least in 45 seconds. (45 seconds? But I want it now!)
No need for this here on earth. Just use some of those empty 2L Coke bottles laying around your desk . Don't use Mountain Dew bottles though! You'll get them mixed up.. (and prolly won't even notice)
Dang! You beat me to it.. I was thinking along the lines of.. "You can't bend Linux to your will until you realize one thing.. There is no Linux (The Dish stole it when it ran away with the spoon).
http://science.slashdot.org/science/02/09/03/18262 22.shtml?tid=134
/. a while back and dug it up. It's regarding the viscosity of pitch. I thought it was relevant given that people were speculating on the long times one would have to wait to see glass flow (which it does not) The article also has a link to the whole Glass is not a liquid fact as well...
I remembered this link on
"See, that's the kind of shit you learn reading Slashdot. I'm going to go shoot myself for being a massive fucking dork now."
You will not have to shoot yourself because you have become such a massive dork that you will now collapse into yourself. Eventually, not even your nerdiness will be able to escape the dork hole (created primarily from dork matter (and Mountain Dew) of course).