I bought a Commodore 64 to use as a prop keyboard. Back then a 64 was cheaper than a real keyboard. I fired it up but didn't really do much with it. In the late 1980s I bought a Brother word processor. It could store documents on 3 1/2 disks. It was an all in one machine and came with a built in daisey wheel printer. Worked fairly well but you couldn't store more than 20 or 30 pages on a disk. The first real machine I had was an 8086. I used it for word processing. I had an early version of Microsoft Word. Unlike later versions it worked quite well. Anything global took forever but it was still a huge jump up from a typewriter. I paid $200 to have 20 meg hard drive put in it. I now have a pen drive that holds 50X that and it cost less than $100 when I bought it. My PDA also holds a gig and the card for it was less than $100. The first decent machine was a 386 SX notebook with a whopping 4 meg of ram. I actually used it for Playmation, an early CG software. It's now called Animation Master. Hard to beleive I use to do animation on a machine like that.
My first notebook, a 386 with a B&W passive matrix, got so hot it warped the case. My current one isn't particularly powerful, I mostly run word processing software and some photoshop, but there's no overheating trouble. I have to blow out the fan area every couple of days but that's about it. I think cutting edge is always going to have heat issues. I'm more concerned these days with video support and hard drive speed than processor power. Those 5400 rpm hard drives are looking pretty whimpy and the on board video cards suck.
Sounds like it's a way of setting important memories. Being able to navigate a course is important to a rat's survival. It'd be interesting to see if this happens with all memories or just the most important for the rat to recall. Stress causes memories in humans to become more perminate. There was a study where people held their hand in ice cold water to see how it affected memory. The shock of the cold water increased retention dramatically. I'd be curious if the levels of stress hormones went up as well. Rerunning the memory may be a stress reaction to important information.
If you already pay a TV tax then it should cover all devices since you are only likely to watch one at a time. The tax is meant for the service not the item itself. It's completely rediculous at best since most aren't going to watch TV progams on their computer. You're telling me if I have a render farm I have to pay a TV tax on ten or twenty machines just in case I happen to watch Python reruns on one? Are the businesses going to get hit as well? Imagine some of the CG companies. When I was in New Zealand they dropped the TV tax. If they still had it could you imagine Weta getting hit with a tax on over 1,000 machines. There are plenty of British companies with hundreds of systems. What about them? Are servers excluded? Hey you can drop a TV tuner in one so why not? Sounds really poorly thought out and should cause a fair amount of chaos. Imagine if you are taxed per machine. How many old computer do you have laying around? I'm picturing a tidal wave of old hardware headed for British dumps.
Since toxoplasma makes rats unafraid of or even like cat urine, I think it's all a diabolical scheme by the cats. I used to think cats only tolerated us until they could figure out how to operate a can-opener, but now I've realised its a much more cunning scheme - to make humans the slaves of cats!
Old ladies are obviously the most affected after a lifetime of exposure, but its only a matter of time before we all become food suppliers and grooming slaves to our cat overlords. Just look what happens to people when you show them pictures of fluffy kittens, they go all gooey and unable to think straight - my girlfriend is a typical example, she defends her cats against any criticism, because they're so 'cute'.
We must act now, while some of us can still see what the cats are up to. We must destroy the cat menace!
Where have you been? We've been trying to tell you for years that cats are evil.
Signed "Commander of Canine Resistence, Los Angeles Chapter",
It's the gradual change that scares me. First it starts with things that people can justify easily until it seems like a normal part of life then how can you object to something so harmless. Besides it's for our own good. How long will it be before you need an implanted chip to use a fire arm? They are already pushing for chip activated pistols that would need a ring or wristband to be used. Next step would be implants. Who could object? How long before drivers licenses require inplant chips? No time soon but eventually. Indentity thieft may make people even demand it. Remember driving isn't a right. You want to do it you abide by the rules. How about credit cards? Banks loosing money to thieft may start pushing for chips to combat thieves. You want a credit card you get a chip. May be not for fifty years but I think such things are the future. DNA identity systems may make the credit card version unnessaccary but then we are constantly having our DNA checked. A job can require DNA scanners for identification but what is to stop the same machines from checking for genetic desease? Suddenly to keep health costs down companies start laying off high risk employees. All such systems are dangerous and will be abused. The real reason is never for your benefit and in the end will take away our rights.
Then how are we supposed to use Microsoft products? I thougt all Microsofts products was more or less beta.
Depends the product. ME was more of a Beta, might even call that one an Alpha. Win 2000 was less of a Beta. NT 3.5 was actually pretty solid and was a rariety for Microsoft. Sadly NT 4.0 I had some stability trouble with but was still a good Beta. Win 95 was a definate Beta but still better than ME. Win 98 SE wasn't too bad. Not all Microsoft operating systems have been bad they just vary a lot on stability and compatibility.
I watch a lot of movies and had been planning to get Netflix. The article did make me change my mind. Their selection was the selling point not as much the unlimited. I can burn out a Blockbuster fairly fast since they have poor selections of movies. I would be likely to turn around films fast so the part that annoys me is getting sent to the back of the cue for new releases. Wildly unfair. It costs them money in postage so I understand wanting to limit returns but instead of throttling why not offer a service that takes that into account. Say their $9.95 a month plan plus a $1 service charge per film. That way if I rented no films in a month, a possibility due to work, I don't have to stress about wasted fees. Say the following month I go through 30 films so I get a $40 bill. I'd be happy with that. I used to love $1 days at video stores because I'd rent most anything for a $1. The really heavy users aren't getting all new releases anyway so you get older films rented and keep everyone happy. It's not unlimited but you have control over what you pay and it's still drastically lower than the old ripp off fees of Blockbuster. Blockbuster drove out the mom and pop places then ran their fees up so high it was ten years before I went back into a video store. For what I was paying them I might as well buy the film. Unlimited deals brought me back but their selection is so limited it's a catch-22, you can rent all you want but there's nothing you want to rent.
are they illegal? the ones like "23 yr old female seeks female to share rent, utilities"
I mean, I'd love to offer my services despite that damning gender clause
Yes and if you sued and won I think you'd have a better chance of getting laid at a lesbian biker convention. Sueing over gender discrimination isn't likely to endear you to your would be room mate.
Go to most any store, supermarkets especially. Now stand and stare at an item on the shelf. Even if the isle was empty before within a minute or so at the most some one will be looking at the same shelf. I've quite often had people muscle me out of the way or at least stand in front of me. They will tend to stand there as long as you do and quite often won't pick something from the shelf. It's pretty common to draw a crowd. Marketing companies have known about this effect for years and used it to market products by hiring people to stand and look at displays. Humans are very territorial and are by nature very concerned that they will miss out on something or some one else will get the bargin and not them. If you anounced on the radio that sales were exploding for an album by an unknown group and that the stores would be sold out before the end of the day people would line up so they wouldn't miss out knowing no more about the group than everyone else wanted the album. Advertising works for a reason. You create a craze by convincing people they are missing out. Remember Beanie Babies? People were desperate to get them yet they were nothing more than a small stuffed animal and effectively worthless.
Everyone is using CDs as a price comparison. Anyone out there a former Laser Disk fan? Fifteen years ago the base price for new releases was $35, with some running much more. Feature heavy disks could run twice as much. There were also collector disk sets running in the hundreds. Why on earth pay that much when a VHS tape could be gotten for $20 or less? Quality. The picture was excellent and the sound blew away DVDs. Even with a cheap sound system the sound was excellent and resembled what you heard in a theater. Initially the HiDef formats will be aimed at the collectors. Would I pay $50 for a film I like? Absolutely. In adjusted dollars it's still cheaper than Laser was and the quality will be much higher. The experience of going to a theater has gotten to bad due to cell phones and rude obnoxious people that I can't wait for HiDef disks and opening day HD broadcasts of films. The day most films are broadcast on Pay Per View HiDef opening day is the day I buy a Good DLP projection system and never set foot in a theater again.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?'
Is that where the saying Babbage in, Babbage out, came from?
Lego's home Kray super computer. Okay it's the size of a small city and takes a couple of hundred years to assemble but imagine all the geek points you'd get for assembling one!
Does it involve two tin cans and buttons? I believes I performed that test some thirty years ago. It acts as a primitive form of cell phone as I remember.
Isn't it about time we start calling the shuttle the Albatross? It was a bad idea from day one. Heavy lift rockets are more efficent and more dependable. Now science is going to suffer while we continue to throw good money after bad. If the Russians can get astronauts in orbit for 20 mill a pop isn't it more cost effective to pay so they can hitch a ride and dump the shuttle? In truth the 20 mill was paying most of the flight costs, third world economy with first world technology. They may not be able to carry the payload but they still have heavy lift rockets so even that could be somewhat resolved until we could restart a heavy lift program. The shuttle's safty record makes them a massive risk. Isn't this more about the government trying to save face and not crawling to the Russians for help than about science and saving lives? Before the shuttle NASA had a perfect inflight record. Now the shuttle flights seem to be a ticking timebomb.
What is this "bathroom cleaning" you speak of? I'm intrigued and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
It involves harsh chemicals and manual labor. I read about it in a history book. People did it to avoid having to move every few months. I've heard that people that adopt the practise have even gotten their security deposits back when they do move. It's just a rumor I heard so I don't know if it's true.
There are two subgroups to the "Tasty" group, the "Fast" and the "Slow" groups. The Fast animal group tends to be greasier and often deep fried. The Slow group tend to be healthier but not as tasty. It's not clear how wild animals in the Fast group came to be deep fried but it's thought to be a survival adaptation. Of coarse the Intellegent Design faction claim that God simply made them that way. I third theory involves natives with deep fryers but both sides have discounted that theory as rediculous.
Sure sounds easier than increasing gas mileage and cutting greenhouse emissions. Amazing some of the bone head solutions for avoiding dealing with the real issue. I remember a proposal of digging tunnels in the mountains around LA to blow the smog out. Gee let's spend tens of billions so we don't have to be responsible and cut emissions. When LA actually starting passing laws against polution it got radically better. Then a little thing called the SUV showed up and most of the gains were lost. Back in the late 70s you could hardly see the mountains at all for months at a time. By the early 90s heavy smog days were rare. Ten years later they are common again. We can make a difference it just requires effort and responsibility. People don't want to make sacrifics or accept change. Well things are changing so you better get used to it.
I was wondering why my mp3-collection was suddenly trying to sell me penis-lengthening pills!
Wait'll the next version comes out. They'll be collecting credit card numbers and automatically billing your account so you won't even have to order the enlarging pills they'll simply show up in your mailbox along with the bank notice that your account is empty.
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I bought a Commodore 64 to use as a prop keyboard. Back then a 64 was cheaper than a real keyboard. I fired it up but didn't really do much with it. In the late 1980s I bought a Brother word processor. It could store documents on 3 1/2 disks. It was an all in one machine and came with a built in daisey wheel printer. Worked fairly well but you couldn't store more than 20 or 30 pages on a disk. The first real machine I had was an 8086. I used it for word processing. I had an early version of Microsoft Word. Unlike later versions it worked quite well. Anything global took forever but it was still a huge jump up from a typewriter. I paid $200 to have 20 meg hard drive put in it. I now have a pen drive that holds 50X that and it cost less than $100 when I bought it. My PDA also holds a gig and the card for it was less than $100. The first decent machine was a 386 SX notebook with a whopping 4 meg of ram. I actually used it for Playmation, an early CG software. It's now called Animation Master. Hard to beleive I use to do animation on a machine like that.
Wasn't there a Japanese movie about that? Godzilla verses Slimydra or something?
Define used?
My first notebook, a 386 with a B&W passive matrix, got so hot it warped the case. My current one isn't particularly powerful, I mostly run word processing software and some photoshop, but there's no overheating trouble. I have to blow out the fan area every couple of days but that's about it. I think cutting edge is always going to have heat issues. I'm more concerned these days with video support and hard drive speed than processor power. Those 5400 rpm hard drives are looking pretty whimpy and the on board video cards suck.
Sounds like it's a way of setting important memories. Being able to navigate a course is important to a rat's survival. It'd be interesting to see if this happens with all memories or just the most important for the rat to recall. Stress causes memories in humans to become more perminate. There was a study where people held their hand in ice cold water to see how it affected memory. The shock of the cold water increased retention dramatically. I'd be curious if the levels of stress hormones went up as well. Rerunning the memory may be a stress reaction to important information.
If you already pay a TV tax then it should cover all devices since you are only likely to watch one at a time. The tax is meant for the service not the item itself. It's completely rediculous at best since most aren't going to watch TV progams on their computer. You're telling me if I have a render farm I have to pay a TV tax on ten or twenty machines just in case I happen to watch Python reruns on one? Are the businesses going to get hit as well? Imagine some of the CG companies. When I was in New Zealand they dropped the TV tax. If they still had it could you imagine Weta getting hit with a tax on over 1,000 machines. There are plenty of British companies with hundreds of systems. What about them? Are servers excluded? Hey you can drop a TV tuner in one so why not? Sounds really poorly thought out and should cause a fair amount of chaos. Imagine if you are taxed per machine. How many old computer do you have laying around? I'm picturing a tidal wave of old hardware headed for British dumps.
The planet's name is Haliburton and they already get tens of billions in subsides each year.
Where have you been? We've been trying to tell you for years that cats are evil.
Signed "Commander of Canine Resistence, Los Angeles Chapter",
"Long live the revolution!"
Look on the brightside. At least we know now what's driving the current administration.
It's the gradual change that scares me. First it starts with things that people can justify easily until it seems like a normal part of life then how can you object to something so harmless. Besides it's for our own good. How long will it be before you need an implanted chip to use a fire arm? They are already pushing for chip activated pistols that would need a ring or wristband to be used. Next step would be implants. Who could object? How long before drivers licenses require inplant chips? No time soon but eventually. Indentity thieft may make people even demand it. Remember driving isn't a right. You want to do it you abide by the rules. How about credit cards? Banks loosing money to thieft may start pushing for chips to combat thieves. You want a credit card you get a chip. May be not for fifty years but I think such things are the future. DNA identity systems may make the credit card version unnessaccary but then we are constantly having our DNA checked. A job can require DNA scanners for identification but what is to stop the same machines from checking for genetic desease? Suddenly to keep health costs down companies start laying off high risk employees. All such systems are dangerous and will be abused. The real reason is never for your benefit and in the end will take away our rights.
That isn't the scary part it's the terrabyte of ram it requires.
Depends the product. ME was more of a Beta, might even call that one an Alpha. Win 2000 was less of a Beta. NT 3.5 was actually pretty solid and was a rariety for Microsoft. Sadly NT 4.0 I had some stability trouble with but was still a good Beta. Win 95 was a definate Beta but still better than ME. Win 98 SE wasn't too bad. Not all Microsoft operating systems have been bad they just vary a lot on stability and compatibility.
I watch a lot of movies and had been planning to get Netflix. The article did make me change my mind. Their selection was the selling point not as much the unlimited. I can burn out a Blockbuster fairly fast since they have poor selections of movies. I would be likely to turn around films fast so the part that annoys me is getting sent to the back of the cue for new releases. Wildly unfair. It costs them money in postage so I understand wanting to limit returns but instead of throttling why not offer a service that takes that into account. Say their $9.95 a month plan plus a $1 service charge per film. That way if I rented no films in a month, a possibility due to work, I don't have to stress about wasted fees. Say the following month I go through 30 films so I get a $40 bill. I'd be happy with that. I used to love $1 days at video stores because I'd rent most anything for a $1. The really heavy users aren't getting all new releases anyway so you get older films rented and keep everyone happy. It's not unlimited but you have control over what you pay and it's still drastically lower than the old ripp off fees of Blockbuster. Blockbuster drove out the mom and pop places then ran their fees up so high it was ten years before I went back into a video store. For what I was paying them I might as well buy the film. Unlimited deals brought me back but their selection is so limited it's a catch-22, you can rent all you want but there's nothing you want to rent.
Yes and if you sued and won I think you'd have a better chance of getting laid at a lesbian biker convention. Sueing over gender discrimination isn't likely to endear you to your would be room mate.
Go to most any store, supermarkets especially. Now stand and stare at an item on the shelf. Even if the isle was empty before within a minute or so at the most some one will be looking at the same shelf. I've quite often had people muscle me out of the way or at least stand in front of me. They will tend to stand there as long as you do and quite often won't pick something from the shelf. It's pretty common to draw a crowd. Marketing companies have known about this effect for years and used it to market products by hiring people to stand and look at displays. Humans are very territorial and are by nature very concerned that they will miss out on something or some one else will get the bargin and not them. If you anounced on the radio that sales were exploding for an album by an unknown group and that the stores would be sold out before the end of the day people would line up so they wouldn't miss out knowing no more about the group than everyone else wanted the album. Advertising works for a reason. You create a craze by convincing people they are missing out. Remember Beanie Babies? People were desperate to get them yet they were nothing more than a small stuffed animal and effectively worthless.
Everyone is using CDs as a price comparison. Anyone out there a former Laser Disk fan? Fifteen years ago the base price for new releases was $35, with some running much more. Feature heavy disks could run twice as much. There were also collector disk sets running in the hundreds. Why on earth pay that much when a VHS tape could be gotten for $20 or less? Quality. The picture was excellent and the sound blew away DVDs. Even with a cheap sound system the sound was excellent and resembled what you heard in a theater. Initially the HiDef formats will be aimed at the collectors. Would I pay $50 for a film I like? Absolutely. In adjusted dollars it's still cheaper than Laser was and the quality will be much higher. The experience of going to a theater has gotten to bad due to cell phones and rude obnoxious people that I can't wait for HiDef disks and opening day HD broadcasts of films. The day most films are broadcast on Pay Per View HiDef opening day is the day I buy a Good DLP projection system and never set foot in a theater again.
Is that where the saying Babbage in, Babbage out, came from?
Lego's home Kray super computer. Okay it's the size of a small city and takes a couple of hundred years to assemble but imagine all the geek points you'd get for assembling one!
Does it involve two tin cans and buttons? I believes I performed that test some thirty years ago. It acts as a primitive form of cell phone as I remember.
Isn't it about time we start calling the shuttle the Albatross? It was a bad idea from day one. Heavy lift rockets are more efficent and more dependable. Now science is going to suffer while we continue to throw good money after bad. If the Russians can get astronauts in orbit for 20 mill a pop isn't it more cost effective to pay so they can hitch a ride and dump the shuttle? In truth the 20 mill was paying most of the flight costs, third world economy with first world technology. They may not be able to carry the payload but they still have heavy lift rockets so even that could be somewhat resolved until we could restart a heavy lift program. The shuttle's safty record makes them a massive risk. Isn't this more about the government trying to save face and not crawling to the Russians for help than about science and saving lives? Before the shuttle NASA had a perfect inflight record. Now the shuttle flights seem to be a ticking timebomb.
It involves harsh chemicals and manual labor. I read about it in a history book. People did it to avoid having to move every few months. I've heard that people that adopt the practise have even gotten their security deposits back when they do move. It's just a rumor I heard so I don't know if it's true.
There are two subgroups to the "Tasty" group, the "Fast" and the "Slow" groups. The Fast animal group tends to be greasier and often deep fried. The Slow group tend to be healthier but not as tasty. It's not clear how wild animals in the Fast group came to be deep fried but it's thought to be a survival adaptation. Of coarse the Intellegent Design faction claim that God simply made them that way. I third theory involves natives with deep fryers but both sides have discounted that theory as rediculous.
Sure sounds easier than increasing gas mileage and cutting greenhouse emissions. Amazing some of the bone head solutions for avoiding dealing with the real issue. I remember a proposal of digging tunnels in the mountains around LA to blow the smog out. Gee let's spend tens of billions so we don't have to be responsible and cut emissions. When LA actually starting passing laws against polution it got radically better. Then a little thing called the SUV showed up and most of the gains were lost. Back in the late 70s you could hardly see the mountains at all for months at a time. By the early 90s heavy smog days were rare. Ten years later they are common again. We can make a difference it just requires effort and responsibility. People don't want to make sacrifics or accept change. Well things are changing so you better get used to it.
Next week we'll show you how to make a cell phone call with two frying pans and a piece of tin foil.
Wait'll the next version comes out. They'll be collecting credit card numbers and automatically billing your account so you won't even have to order the enlarging pills they'll simply show up in your mailbox along with the bank notice that your account is empty.