Sure, it's perfectly legal for companies to ask to see my reciept - and also perfectly legal for me to refuse. The only place I actually DO show my receipt upon request is Costco. Because it's a private club, they could presumably revoke my membership if I decided not to abide by their rules. No such issue involved at Fry's, however - and I think the one time anyone ever said anything to me there, I told them, "If you have reasonable cause to suspect me of shoplifting, then detain me until the police arrive. If not, I'm leaving." They promptly shut up and backed off, and I was on my way.
I admire folks like John Gilmore who are willing to inconvenience themselves in the name of confronting mindless obedience and the "herd mentality" like this. The closest I usually come to such civil disobedience is subjecting myself to being hand-searched and wanded at the airport, by refusing to "voluntarily" take off my shoes at the security checkpoint.
"Philip Morris is testing its own high-tech cigarette called Accord, which has been described as a cigarette encased in a kazoo-shaped lighter. Consumers buy a $40 kit that includes a battery charger, a puff-activated lighter that holds the cigarette, and a carton of special cigarettes. To smoke the cigarettes, a smoker sucks on the kazoolike box. A microchip senses the puff and sends a burst of heat to the cigarette. The process gives the smoker one drag and does not create ashes or smoke. An illuminated display shows the number of puffs remaining, and the batteries must be recharged after every pack."
The article also details much earlier (non-electric) "smokeless" cigarettes developed and even marketed, such as RJR's "Premier" all the way back in 1988.
"Last Friday night (Apr, 5, ~ 22:45 Eastern) I saw a light in the sky, probably a meteor of some kind. It traveled South to North and it was visible (at least I saw it) for 4 seconds. Its light changed from red to green. This was in Central North Carolina."
Hmm, red to green, in central North Carolina? Now, if you were in West Virginia, I'd say you were just startled by the traffic light...;)
"Why do people focus on totally subjective listening tests?"
Because these are lossy compression algorithms based on psychoacoustic modelling. The whole reason we find this level of lossy compression acceptable, is because it's based on how humans *perceive* sound. Not what is measurable by instruments or visible on a 'scope, but what our ears and brains tell us is actually important about the sound.
The reason to even bother with listener comparisons of different audio compression methods is largely due to their *subjective* qualitative differences. They simply *sound* different, because they each make different decisions about what part of a waveform is unimportant enough to discard.
Beauty is in the ear of the beholder, so to speak...;)
"Rumored?" I think they only did this for A Bug's Life as opposed to TS and TS2, but the DVD Collector's Edition of A Bug's Life itself even includes a "behind-the-scenes" feature about this process:
A Look At How The Film Was Recomposed From Its Original Widescreen Presentation To A Full-Frame Presentation For Home Video Release
I, too have a WDC SCSI card that I'd still be using to this day, were it not for it being instantly orphaned by Adaptec and unsupported by current drivers.
Sad irony, though...
- WDC sells their SCSI controller souls to Adaptec to break into the SCSI drive market;
- Adaptec buys WDC's controller business primarily to eliminate yet another competitor (Future Domain, anyone?);
- WDC finally caves in entirely and drops their remaining SCSI (drive) business.
With everything WDC's sold off or abandoned over the years (graphics, platter manufacturing, SCSI, etc.), I'm beginning to wonder what's left? Looks like they may end up like Tseng Labs, another company that couldn't keep up, and went out with a whimper - reduced to nothing but a name and a pile of cash looking for something new to do.:/
Slashdot Mirror
I always figured my interest in sex with flaming dead alien puppies was a little outside the mainstream, but now I know. Thanks, researchers!
Don't forget the old Microsoft Knowledge Base classic, "This behavior is by design."
Want to make a few bucks off your collection of free, user-submitted content? Just pull a CDDB.
Wait... so you're afraid to post your resume online?
Only on Monster.com...
More importantly, might this new Xenon run Xenix?
Sure, it's perfectly legal for companies to ask to see my reciept - and also perfectly legal for me to refuse. The only place I actually DO show my receipt upon request is Costco. Because it's a private club, they could presumably revoke my membership if I decided not to abide by their rules. No such issue involved at Fry's, however - and I think the one time anyone ever said anything to me there, I told them, "If you have reasonable cause to suspect me of shoplifting, then detain me until the police arrive. If not, I'm leaving." They promptly shut up and backed off, and I was on my way.
I admire folks like John Gilmore who are willing to inconvenience themselves in the name of confronting mindless obedience and the "herd mentality" like this. The closest I usually come to such civil disobedience is subjecting myself to being hand-searched and wanded at the airport, by refusing to "voluntarily" take off my shoes at the security checkpoint.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/cigarette/history2.ht ml
The article also details much earlier (non-electric) "smokeless" cigarettes developed and even marketed, such as RJR's "Premier" all the way back in 1988.If you do both, either your innovation or your graphics will be outdated by the time you finish.
In which case, you end up with Team Fortress 2 - at last report, scheduled for release in time for Christmas, 2029.
"Last Friday night (Apr, 5, ~ 22:45 Eastern) I saw a light in the sky, probably a meteor of some kind. It traveled South to North and it was visible (at least I saw it) for 4 seconds. Its light changed from red to green. This was in Central North Carolina."
;)
Hmm, red to green, in central North Carolina? Now, if you were in West Virginia, I'd say you were just startled by the traffic light...
Check out OpenNIC's OpenDNS:
OpenNIC: Configuring a Personal Computer
OpenNIC: Public Name Servers
"Why do people focus on totally subjective listening tests?"
;)
Because these are lossy compression algorithms based on psychoacoustic modelling. The whole reason we find this level of lossy compression acceptable, is because it's based on how humans *perceive* sound. Not what is measurable by instruments or visible on a 'scope, but what our ears and brains tell us is actually important about the sound.
The reason to even bother with listener comparisons of different audio compression methods is largely due to their *subjective* qualitative differences. They simply *sound* different, because they each make different decisions about what part of a waveform is unimportant enough to discard.
Beauty is in the ear of the beholder, so to speak...
"alphasucks.com" isn't even registered? After the recent selloff, I half expected to see this:
Registrant:
Compaq Computer Corporation (COMPAQ-DOM)
20555 State Highway 249, M020303
Houston, TX 77070
;)
A Look At How The Film Was Recomposed From Its Original Widescreen Presentation To A Full-Frame Presentation For Home Video Release
After all, they only "pledge to maintain your privacy while visting our site."
I don't know about you, but I'm not visiting their site right now. I guess I'm screwed. ;)
I, too have a WDC SCSI card that I'd still be using to this day, were it not for it being instantly orphaned by Adaptec and unsupported by current drivers.
:/
Sad irony, though...
- WDC sells their SCSI controller souls to Adaptec to break into the SCSI drive market;
- Adaptec buys WDC's controller business primarily to eliminate yet another competitor (Future Domain, anyone?);
- WDC finally caves in entirely and drops their remaining SCSI (drive) business.
With everything WDC's sold off or abandoned over the years (graphics, platter manufacturing, SCSI, etc.), I'm beginning to wonder what's left? Looks like they may end up like Tseng Labs, another company that couldn't keep up, and went out with a whimper - reduced to nothing but a name and a pile of cash looking for something new to do.