I can't comment on Spotlight, as I haven't used OSX for more than a couple of minutes, but from your description, it sounds a lot like Launchy Great app - it indexes your start menu so you can hit Alt-Space (by default, can be reassigned) and start typing the name of the app you want. Does auto-complete and you can also set up your own macros and pass variables.
For example, I have my work PC set up so I can type rdp (insert server name or IP) and open up Remote Desktop session to any of our servers.
I find it really handy on my laptop. (I hate touchpads) The only problem is that I have let my desktop become way too cluttered with program shortcuts I don't bother to clean up. I just never launch anything from the desktop anymore.
Ideal location for an electric car network. First, the islands are each relatively small-- thus, you won't have to worry about cars being driven out of state, and out of reach of the charging network.
That was my first thought, too. At least from the consumer's point of view, the biggest downside of electric cars is the limited range. On Hawaii's islands, driving distances are limited.
Another advantage that occurs to me is the tourism aspect. Obviously, the Hawaiian islands get a lot of it, and I think electric cars could fit in well. Imagine, instead of renting a car from one of the standard rental places, your hotel has a small fleet of electrics available. You can rent one for the duration of the stay, or simply check one out from the front desk as needed. The electrics have reserved spaces (with charging facilities) in the parking garage.
To be fair - the version they played was the Hendrix version, and yes, for me that was also the shark-jumping moment.
Spoiler alert: If you haven't yet watched the end of season 3, skip the rest of my post. I've got some bitching to do that I'm not going to hold in for the sake of what I'm presuming is a very small subset of/.ers who care about BSG, but not enough to be caught up at this point.
It's bad enough that a few "people" are apparently hearing Dylan/Hendrix. Never mind that we're light-years away from 1960's Earth, and they're apparently not hearing it through radio waves since nobody else can detect it. I can understand some sort of "signal" waking up the last remaining Cylon models, maybe even a musical signal, but a song from earth?
But the identity of the 4 just pissed me off. Sam and What's-her-name, who even cares? I never did like Sam's character anyway, and Roslin's aide was never an interesting character until after she was revealed as a Cylon. Tyrol didn't really surprise me, though it does mean that his and Cally's baby is another "hybrid", meaning that Hera isn't quite as unique as most of the series has made her out to be. (The other obvious possibility is that Cally was cheating on Tyrol, and I'm surprised that possibility hasn't been dragged up and had the angst wrung out of it.)
But Tigh? What? An old guy with a well-established history from back before the first Cylon war? At what point was this skinjob planted? How can they possibly explain this?
I'll be honest, I thought the show had jumped the shark when they first landed on New Caprica, though they did eventually manage to redeem themselves. I didn't hate the Baltar trial as much as I thought I would, but Lee's involvement still annoys me. I really like the concept of dissension among the Cylons, particularly about whether the humans should be wiped out. But the whole "Final Five" frenzy just seemed to come out of nowhere, and then it's suddenly the main conflict in the show. The show as a whole has gotten worse, the scheduling and constant hiatuses make it hard to follow, and the constant inexplicable new plot elements make my head and stomach spin.
For all my complaints, when the show starts back up, I will likely keep watching. Partly out of a sheer stubbornness - I hate to quit. But partly to see if the writers can manage to resurrect anything coherent out of this mess. In other words, there had better be a damn good explanation for what's happened.
Just FYI, The Jeffersons was a spin-off of All In The Family.
I couldn't remember the name of the Laverne and Shirley spin-off, and I didn't even know that Mork & Mindy was a spin-off. A quick check of Wikipedia shows that Laverne and Shirley had a 2-season animated version, but I doubt that was the spin-off that you were thinking of.
Apparently, Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy are both Happy Days spin-offs. And a final little trivia bit to bring us in a full circle - when the original Battlestar Galactica was canceled, Mork and Mindy was moved into its old time slot.
I will agree that HL2 did seem to be missing the "Holy Shit" moments that the first one had, (although for me, the final explosion and going into the broken reactor core in Ep1 were close.) I thought, though that the AI was really pretty good. At least for the enemies, wish the friendlies would learn to use cover more effectively.
I wouldn't necessarily say, though, that they "mucked the story and pacing." It does definitely have a different feel, because the setting is completely different. HL1 was all about Gordon Freeman, one man just trying to survive. HL2 was about Gordon Freeman, somewhat of a legend but still just one piece in a planet-wide war.
Wow, that's scary. As in, "I can see that happening in a few years," scary. And for some reason, it makes me want to buy a Tommy Hilfiger shirt, some Calvin Klein jeans, then sit around picking my nose in public.
Apparently Desktop Nexus is hosting some pictures that violate Toyota's copyrights. However, Toyota can't just send a letter saying, "Take down all your pictures of Toyotas," for two reasons.
1) The claim is overly broad and would affect pictures to which Toyota doesn't own the copyrights. For example, I'm pretty sure this picture wasn't taken by Toyota: http://cars.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/11758/
2) As many others have said, it is the responsibility of Toyota to say which pictures it wants taken down, even if they are infringing. NBC owns the copyrights to Saturday Night Live, but they can't just tell YouTube, "Take down all your SNL clips," and expect YouTube to find them.
In the US, voters get to choose who they vote for. However, most voters choose not to by foregoing the party primaries, allowing others to select the short list. The primaries are where the important decisions are often made.
As another poster comments, the U.S. system was intentionally designed to limit the frequency at which you could replace your representatives.
For presidential elections, most of the primaries are irrelevant, too. Only the states with early primaries really matter, as once one candidate gets "momentum" and wins a few primaries, he or she is more likely to win later primaries because of the press buzz.
I really hate the staggered primary system. It means that early-voting states have undue influence on the rest of the nation, which means that states start pushing their primaries earlier and earlier. We'll never have a sensible farm policy as long as anyone with presidential aspirations is going to be afraid of pissing off Iowa. I'd love to see nationwide primaries, all on one day, or, barring that, round-robin primaries with the order randomly generated every election.
I also am to lazy to look up the exact quote, but I know it's "sewer rat", not "pig". Here's how I remember the exchange.
"Yeah, but bacon tastes *good*. Pork chops taste *good*." "Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'll never know 'cause I ain't gonna eat the filthy motherf*cker."
I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter...
You probably wouldn't need to worry about the extension cord and power supply. The hard drive motor is driven by the 12-volt line on the power cable. Just cut a connector off an old power supply, wire it up to a few batteries, plug it in, and open fire.
Good point - I hadn't thought of that. I suppose the best way to deal with that would be to have the paper be cut off and dropped into a bin - maybe one that rotates bingo-cage style to make sure they are randomized. The machines could even be designed so that 2 or more are placed back-to-back and all feed into the same bin.
It's a shame I didn't consider the anonymity aspect. Rolls of paper would be so much easier to deal with than bins full of little scraps.
***New Idea as I'm typing*** The paper is still scrolled on 2 rolls, but after each vote, the paper is scrolled a random number of "pages" in one direction or the other. (A page defined as the amount of paper needed to hold 1 person's vote) That way, the votes are still recorded on paper, but in a random order. During the scrolling, the paper-viewing window is obscured so the person can't see the votes of others.
I'd kill to have Christopher Eccleston back. One season (err, "series", sorry) was just not enough, it's not fair.
I *so* agree with you. Tennant did a really good job, but Eccleston was the best Doctor. (Yes, I do think he was better than Baker.) He had the perfect irreverent cheerfulness in nearly all dire situations, yet could rage against the Daleks like nobody's business. I always took it as the Doctor is usually just along for the ride and a few interesting puzzles, but he recognizes a real threat when he sees it.
There is already a system for dealing with that - the Provisional Ballot. IIRC, it was set up after the mess with the 2000 election and could easily be adapted to my system.
Anyone showing up to vote with a finger already dyed will be handed a provisional ballot. Poll workers take the provisional ballot and record the description of why their finger is already dyed, and the info from their drivers license. (or other government-issued photo ID) When the provisional ballots are evaluated, the ID will be compared with voter rolls to see if they were recorded as voting elsewhere. Stories such as, "They told us we had to dye our fingers to get on the bus," will be investigated, as will anyone found trying to vote more than once. Fake IDs would still be a problem, of course. I know some cities ban alcohol sales on election day - maybe draft the bartenders and bouncers to check IDs.
Anyone showing up without a valid ID will be turned away. I'm sorry, but if you can't prove you are who you say you are, than you can't vote. We're talking about the integrity of an election, here.
No kidding. It's pathetic that the restrictions for Vegas slot machines are stricter, and more strictly enforced, than electronic voting restrictions. Maybe we should put the Nevada Gaming Commission in charge of designing a system. But even I can think of a few basic suggestions.
Every machine has a paper tape that records all votes. Next to the main screen, there is a little window that the tape scrolls past. Part of the vote process includes "Look at the paper in the window next to the screen. Does the candidate shown match your selection? Press 'Yes' or 'No' to continue." Once they confirm their vote, the paper scrolls on and is saved in case of recount.
Tamper resistant hardware and cryptographically signed firmware. There has to be a way to verify that the software on the machine is what it should be. This means being able to read the firmware with an external device, as obviously you can't simply trust any internally-run checksumming.
Store the votes in a secure fashion - no freakin' Access Databases on a CF card, in other words.
While I'm ranting on the subject of honest elections, it's time to require a photo ID for voting. You can't enter a Federal building, board a plane, or buy a beer without a photo ID, you shouldn't be able to help decide the future of the country unless you can prove you have the right to do so.
Also, just before you enter the voting booth, you dip your index finger in dye. I got this idea from a news story about the first free election in Afghanistan - it mentioned women proudly showing their stained finger in defiance of Taliban threats against any woman who dared to vote. If Afghanistan can come up with a way to make sure nobody votes twice, surely the US can make a few steps to ensure fair elections.
Oh so true. Such a well-made mod, and it added so much to the game. Only complaints: I really didn't like the staff much myself, and for some reason I always found the last level impossible without using guns. (Haven't played for awhile, but if I remember correctly, the suit-wearing goons don't get stunned when you start hitting them - they just keep shooting. Don't know if it's intended or a bug.)
How about designing the cars with the batteries mounted to the undercarriage? You'd have to have an industry standard for the battery shape and size, as well as for the power connection and whatever clips, bolts, etc attach the battery, but any battery exchange system is going to require that anyway.
Imagine a battery-swap machine that you drive on to. Your old battery is disconnected and moved out of the way, a new one is lifted into place and secured. It could work almost like an automatic car wash - drive forward until the light turns red. Sit for a couple of minutes while the machine does its work.
Normally I'm not a grammar Nazi, but I can't help pointing out grammar mistakes in posts correcting the grammar of others.
His and her are already possessive. His' and her's are incorrect - neither contain apostrophes, and even without an apostrophe, "hers password" is incorrect.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't comment on Spotlight, as I haven't used OSX for more than a couple of minutes, but from your description, it sounds a lot like Launchy Great app - it indexes your start menu so you can hit Alt-Space (by default, can be reassigned) and start typing the name of the app you want. Does auto-complete and you can also set up your own macros and pass variables.
For example, I have my work PC set up so I can type rdp (insert server name or IP) and open up Remote Desktop session to any of our servers.
I find it really handy on my laptop. (I hate touchpads) The only problem is that I have let my desktop become way too cluttered with program shortcuts I don't bother to clean up. I just never launch anything from the desktop anymore.
Ideal location for an electric car network. First, the islands are each relatively small-- thus, you won't have to worry about cars being driven out of state, and out of reach of the charging network.
That was my first thought, too. At least from the consumer's point of view, the biggest downside of electric cars is the limited range. On Hawaii's islands, driving distances are limited.
Another advantage that occurs to me is the tourism aspect. Obviously, the Hawaiian islands get a lot of it, and I think electric cars could fit in well. Imagine, instead of renting a car from one of the standard rental places, your hotel has a small fleet of electrics available. You can rent one for the duration of the stay, or simply check one out from the front desk as needed. The electrics have reserved spaces (with charging facilities) in the parking garage.
To be fair - the version they played was the Hendrix version, and yes, for me that was also the shark-jumping moment.
Spoiler alert: If you haven't yet watched the end of season 3, skip the rest of my post. I've got some bitching to do that I'm not going to hold in for the sake of what I'm presuming is a very small subset of /.ers who care about BSG, but not enough to be caught up at this point.
It's bad enough that a few "people" are apparently hearing Dylan/Hendrix. Never mind that we're light-years away from 1960's Earth, and they're apparently not hearing it through radio waves since nobody else can detect it. I can understand some sort of "signal" waking up the last remaining Cylon models, maybe even a musical signal, but a song from earth?
But the identity of the 4 just pissed me off. Sam and What's-her-name, who even cares? I never did like Sam's character anyway, and Roslin's aide was never an interesting character until after she was revealed as a Cylon. Tyrol didn't really surprise me, though it does mean that his and Cally's baby is another "hybrid", meaning that Hera isn't quite as unique as most of the series has made her out to be. (The other obvious possibility is that Cally was cheating on Tyrol, and I'm surprised that possibility hasn't been dragged up and had the angst wrung out of it.)
But Tigh? What? An old guy with a well-established history from back before the first Cylon war? At what point was this skinjob planted? How can they possibly explain this?
I'll be honest, I thought the show had jumped the shark when they first landed on New Caprica, though they did eventually manage to redeem themselves. I didn't hate the Baltar trial as much as I thought I would, but Lee's involvement still annoys me. I really like the concept of dissension among the Cylons, particularly about whether the humans should be wiped out. But the whole "Final Five" frenzy just seemed to come out of nowhere, and then it's suddenly the main conflict in the show. The show as a whole has gotten worse, the scheduling and constant hiatuses make it hard to follow, and the constant inexplicable new plot elements make my head and stomach spin.
For all my complaints, when the show starts back up, I will likely keep watching. Partly out of a sheer stubbornness - I hate to quit. But partly to see if the writers can manage to resurrect anything coherent out of this mess. In other words, there had better be a damn good explanation for what's happened.
Just FYI, The Jeffersons was a spin-off of All In The Family.
I couldn't remember the name of the Laverne and Shirley spin-off, and I didn't even know that Mork & Mindy was a spin-off. A quick check of Wikipedia shows that Laverne and Shirley had a 2-season animated version, but I doubt that was the spin-off that you were thinking of.
Apparently, Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy are both Happy Days spin-offs. And a final little trivia bit to bring us in a full circle - when the original Battlestar Galactica was canceled, Mork and Mindy was moved into its old time slot.
I will agree that HL2 did seem to be missing the "Holy Shit" moments that the first one had, (although for me, the final explosion and going into the broken reactor core in Ep1 were close.) I thought, though that the AI was really pretty good. At least for the enemies, wish the friendlies would learn to use cover more effectively.
I wouldn't necessarily say, though, that they "mucked the story and pacing." It does definitely have a different feel, because the setting is completely different. HL1 was all about Gordon Freeman, one man just trying to survive. HL2 was about Gordon Freeman, somewhat of a legend but still just one piece in a planet-wide war.
One nit to pick - the original Half-Life wasn't a DOS game. It ran under Windows.
Wow, that's scary. As in, "I can see that happening in a few years," scary. And for some reason, it makes me want to buy a Tommy Hilfiger shirt, some Calvin Klein jeans, then sit around picking my nose in public.
Brilliant! Would have modded you up if I hadn't already posted.
...And a lot of cars
Apparently Desktop Nexus is hosting some pictures that violate Toyota's copyrights. However, Toyota can't just send a letter saying, "Take down all your pictures of Toyotas," for two reasons.
1) The claim is overly broad and would affect pictures to which Toyota doesn't own the copyrights. For example, I'm pretty sure this picture wasn't taken by Toyota: http://cars.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/11758/
2) As many others have said, it is the responsibility of Toyota to say which pictures it wants taken down, even if they are infringing. NBC owns the copyrights to Saturday Night Live, but they can't just tell YouTube, "Take down all your SNL clips," and expect YouTube to find them.
In the US, voters get to choose who they vote for. However, most voters choose not to by foregoing the party primaries, allowing others to select the short list. The primaries are where the important decisions are often made.
As another poster comments, the U.S. system was intentionally designed to limit the frequency at which you could replace your representatives.
For presidential elections, most of the primaries are irrelevant, too. Only the states with early primaries really matter, as once one candidate gets "momentum" and wins a few primaries, he or she is more likely to win later primaries because of the press buzz.
I really hate the staggered primary system. It means that early-voting states have undue influence on the rest of the nation, which means that states start pushing their primaries earlier and earlier. We'll never have a sensible farm policy as long as anyone with presidential aspirations is going to be afraid of pissing off Iowa. I'd love to see nationwide primaries, all on one day, or, barring that, round-robin primaries with the order randomly generated every election.
I also am to lazy to look up the exact quote, but I know it's "sewer rat", not "pig". Here's how I remember the exchange.
"Yeah, but bacon tastes *good*. Pork chops taste *good*."
"Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'll never know 'cause I ain't gonna eat the filthy motherf*cker."
Surely you mean the depletion of his "precious bodily fluids"
I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter...
You probably wouldn't need to worry about the extension cord and power supply. The hard drive motor is driven by the 12-volt line on the power cable. Just cut a connector off an old power supply, wire it up to a few batteries, plug it in, and open fire.
Good point - I hadn't thought of that. I suppose the best way to deal with that would be to have the paper be cut off and dropped into a bin - maybe one that rotates bingo-cage style to make sure they are randomized. The machines could even be designed so that 2 or more are placed back-to-back and all feed into the same bin.
It's a shame I didn't consider the anonymity aspect. Rolls of paper would be so much easier to deal with than bins full of little scraps.
***New Idea as I'm typing***
The paper is still scrolled on 2 rolls, but after each vote, the paper is scrolled a random number of "pages" in one direction or the other. (A page defined as the amount of paper needed to hold 1 person's vote) That way, the votes are still recorded on paper, but in a random order. During the scrolling, the paper-viewing window is obscured so the person can't see the votes of others.
I'd kill to have Christopher Eccleston back. One season (err, "series", sorry) was just not enough, it's not fair.
I *so* agree with you. Tennant did a really good job, but Eccleston was the best Doctor. (Yes, I do think he was better than Baker.) He had the perfect irreverent cheerfulness in nearly all dire situations, yet could rage against the Daleks like nobody's business. I always took it as the Doctor is usually just along for the ride and a few interesting puzzles, but he recognizes a real threat when he sees it.
There is already a system for dealing with that - the Provisional Ballot. IIRC, it was set up after the mess with the 2000 election and could easily be adapted to my system.
Anyone showing up to vote with a finger already dyed will be handed a provisional ballot. Poll workers take the provisional ballot and record the description of why their finger is already dyed, and the info from their drivers license. (or other government-issued photo ID) When the provisional ballots are evaluated, the ID will be compared with voter rolls to see if they were recorded as voting elsewhere. Stories such as, "They told us we had to dye our fingers to get on the bus," will be investigated, as will anyone found trying to vote more than once. Fake IDs would still be a problem, of course. I know some cities ban alcohol sales on election day - maybe draft the bartenders and bouncers to check IDs.
Anyone showing up without a valid ID will be turned away. I'm sorry, but if you can't prove you are who you say you are, than you can't vote. We're talking about the integrity of an election, here.
The problem is the USA's implementation.
No kidding. It's pathetic that the restrictions for Vegas slot machines are stricter, and more strictly enforced, than electronic voting restrictions. Maybe we should put the Nevada Gaming Commission in charge of designing a system. But even I can think of a few basic suggestions.
Every machine has a paper tape that records all votes. Next to the main screen, there is a little window that the tape scrolls past. Part of the vote process includes "Look at the paper in the window next to the screen. Does the candidate shown match your selection? Press 'Yes' or 'No' to continue." Once they confirm their vote, the paper scrolls on and is saved in case of recount.
Tamper resistant hardware and cryptographically signed firmware. There has to be a way to verify that the software on the machine is what it should be. This means being able to read the firmware with an external device, as obviously you can't simply trust any internally-run checksumming.
Store the votes in a secure fashion - no freakin' Access Databases on a CF card, in other words.
While I'm ranting on the subject of honest elections, it's time to require a photo ID for voting. You can't enter a Federal building, board a plane, or buy a beer without a photo ID, you shouldn't be able to help decide the future of the country unless you can prove you have the right to do so.
Also, just before you enter the voting booth, you dip your index finger in dye. I got this idea from a news story about the first free election in Afghanistan - it mentioned women proudly showing their stained finger in defiance of Taliban threats against any woman who dared to vote. If Afghanistan can come up with a way to make sure nobody votes twice, surely the US can make a few steps to ensure fair elections.
I wonder how many results for both searches point to grammar wars like this one.
Oh so true. Such a well-made mod, and it added so much to the game. Only complaints: I really didn't like the staff much myself, and for some reason I always found the last level impossible without using guns. (Haven't played for awhile, but if I remember correctly, the suit-wearing goons don't get stunned when you start hitting them - they just keep shooting. Don't know if it's intended or a bug.)
Sounds like a job for an auto-dialer.
Keeping the weight low and centered...
How about designing the cars with the batteries mounted to the undercarriage? You'd have to have an industry standard for the battery shape and size, as well as for the power connection and whatever clips, bolts, etc attach the battery, but any battery exchange system is going to require that anyway.
Imagine a battery-swap machine that you drive on to. Your old battery is disconnected and moved out of the way, a new one is lifted into place and secured. It could work almost like an automatic car wash - drive forward until the light turns red. Sit for a couple of minutes while the machine does its work.
Normally I'm not a grammar Nazi, but I can't help pointing out grammar mistakes in posts correcting the grammar of others.
His and her are already possessive. His' and her's are incorrect - neither contain apostrophes, and even without an apostrophe, "hers password" is incorrect.
Overheard at NASA:
"Dammit, who's turn was it to pay the Dish Network bill?"
Seems like your app would be really handy for DJs. Was that what you had in mind?