Flood insurance and large styrofoam feet on your electronics, or, if you wanna get really ridiculously futuristic (and fictional...), some form of device to trigger inflation of rubber raft devices on the bottom of whatever expensive hardware you have.
Really though: How about one of those new M$ multi-touch coffee table computer dealies? Those looked pretty cool and seem futuristic enough for what you're looking for. Here's a Popular Mechanics article on it, if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Maybe offtopic, but I just saw a similarity in the random text produced in these spams and the outputs from a modified Markov algorithm I made in a CS class a while back (basing the next generated word off of the probability that said word follows the prior x number of words in the original text). A sample output run (set to analyze the three prior words) on the full text of the Hitchhiker's Guide produces similar pseudo-grammar:
"Yes, sir," said the
policeman hurriedly, "just don't let whatever it was that this device was in
fact still stuck there, "agree to buy anything at this point." "Probably not,"
replied Zaphod from wherever he was. "I think a bit of flexible writing stick,
and also some nutrients soaked into one of the places for a few seconds. There
was clearly no way he was feeling good. The air supported him, but let him
through. Two minutes later he opened and closed the hatchway again in response
to a command that caught him entirely by surprise. Chapter 20 Five figures
wandered slowly over the blighted land. Bits of it were dullish grey, bits of it
about.) Ford hurried over to the polished marble surfaces that contained the
instruments that the musicians would control from their ship, the massive
photon-ajuitar, the bass detonator and the Megabang drum complex. It was going
to find. He would just pick up the bag containing the Ashes. "I feel that very
strongly." Chapter 33 The sun was quite bright, but the day was hazy and vague.
"It'll take a while,' she said. Arthur still did not understand. He sat on a
chair in the lobby, under a kentia palm, and opened the box. The ground bore the
indentations of the spacecraft that had landed there only minutes before, but of
Random there was no conceivable consequence of not setting the bomb off that was
worse than the known consequence of setting it off, and he had a bird cage over
it, of course. With a cloth over the cage. Pretended he had a globe of the Earth
had closed finally and for ever above his head. "OK," said Fenchurch, "pull on
Of course you have to be careful. There's a certain risk that when the hydrogen and carbon combine you'll just end up with billions of barrels of vodka instead of brown-black goo and lord only knows how we'd manage to dispose of that.
College students!
Having seen this "easiness" from experience (immediately after upgrading frome IE6 to IE7):
If the user can navigate to Google, Google detects IE7 and comes up with a large flashing arrow pointing at the search bar and a button, and says "Would you like to make Google your default search engine?"
Thus the point is moot; if the user is capable enough to navigate to Google just once, they can click said button, and Google essentially does it for them. Simple as that.
And out came a browser that was almost, but not entirely, unlike Microsoft.
Well, if this is Thursday, and this is a terrible, stupid catastrophe... Ah, shit. The world is going to end, isn't it? Where did I put my sub-etha sense-o-matic...?
Well hell, if you do that, you don't need to write anything, or even have any files on the system. Heaven will anticipate any method calls or parameters and just do the work before you even call them. It's all been done for you.
Good point. I do believe it's anatomically impossible to have one's head in one's ass.
Bottom line, IMHO, is the efficiency/performance/reliability/security of the software depends more on the skill of the programming team than on anything innate.
Or President Bush lying about WMD's in front of the same nation. Or about Iraq seeking materials for nuclear nucular weaponry from Niger (see State of the Union, 1/28/03, or an article here, in which Bush stated "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.")
The only parties in the US that I can see opposing it (entire parties, that is) would be Libertarians and Socialists. (IE, far left on the personal-freedoms scale, and position on the economic-freedoms scale is irrelevant).
Actually, that too would be conditional on choosing the "correct" religion, which, in the eyes of nearly every religion is itself. Inevitably, only one (if any) will be "correct" so I find it more convenient to live by my own morals, and not those preached to me by others, and enjoy life while I'm doing it.
Another problem is that most of the "absolute" moralities dictated by religions conflict with one another. This means that anyone who one religion says will go to heaven, another invariably says will not. Only one, if any, will be correct, and there must be thousands, from FSMism to Fundie Christianity, all of which tell you different things. The odds are against you either way, so to me it's more hopeful to just "believe" in nothing, and hope I'm right since my chances of picking the "right" religion are so slim.
I don't know about saving us from bombardment... somehow, I think Oprah's gravitation would cancel out any useful effects. Either that, or Bill O'Reilly's intellectual vacuum.
SM is sadism/masochism, the latter of which is recieving pleasure from pain. Regardless of whatever underlying psychological issues there are, some people do find it pleasurable. Masochism doesn't equate with insanity, so yes, the individuals' consent would still be valid.
The difference between SM and abuse is the relationship dynamic.
In a dominant/submissive relationship, the dominant person (the sadist, in this case) has power and control, but also respect and love for the submissive. In these cases, there is nearly always a safe word used, where if something goes too far or becomes unpleasant for either party, they say the safe word ane everything stops.
In an abusive relationship, the victim gets no pleasure from the abuse, and there are usually in fact psychological issues for both parties. For the victim, they are usually involving dependence or fear, and the abuser has power and control issues, probably resulting from some inadequacy complex. In an abusive relationship, the victim often feels trapped. They have no control over their situation (in their eyes), though they may not like it that way. In a S/M relationship, the submissive gets a rush from losing all control-- except for the fact that they have the safe word to rely on.
A sadist/dominant person isn't a criminal because even though they inflict pain, they are always willing to stop, and they always have that respect and love for the other person. Therein lies the fundamental difference.
Slashdot Mirror
Flood insurance and large styrofoam feet on your electronics, or, if you wanna get really ridiculously futuristic (and fictional...), some form of device to trigger inflation of rubber raft devices on the bottom of whatever expensive hardware you have. Really though: How about one of those new M$ multi-touch coffee table computer dealies? Those looked pretty cool and seem futuristic enough for what you're looking for. Here's a Popular Mechanics article on it, if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Nevermind a one-night stand; I'm looking for an all-out orgy. Dogpile, here I come.
Duke Nukem Forever will almost run on their architecture.
With a sign on the door that says "beware of the leopard".
Maybe offtopic, but I just saw a similarity in the random text produced in these spams and the outputs from a modified Markov algorithm I made in a CS class a while back (basing the next generated word off of the probability that said word follows the prior x number of words in the original text). A sample output run (set to analyze the three prior words) on the full text of the Hitchhiker's Guide produces similar pseudo-grammar:
"Yes, sir," said the
policeman hurriedly, "just don't let whatever it was that this device was in
fact still stuck there, "agree to buy anything at this point." "Probably not,"
replied Zaphod from wherever he was. "I think a bit of flexible writing stick,
and also some nutrients soaked into one of the places for a few seconds. There
was clearly no way he was feeling good. The air supported him, but let him
through. Two minutes later he opened and closed the hatchway again in response
to a command that caught him entirely by surprise. Chapter 20 Five figures
wandered slowly over the blighted land. Bits of it were dullish grey, bits of it
about.) Ford hurried over to the polished marble surfaces that contained the
instruments that the musicians would control from their ship, the massive
photon-ajuitar, the bass detonator and the Megabang drum complex. It was going
to find. He would just pick up the bag containing the Ashes. "I feel that very
strongly." Chapter 33 The sun was quite bright, but the day was hazy and vague.
"It'll take a while,' she said. Arthur still did not understand. He sat on a
chair in the lobby, under a kentia palm, and opened the box. The ground bore the
indentations of the spacecraft that had landed there only minutes before, but of
Random there was no conceivable consequence of not setting the bomb off that was
worse than the known consequence of setting it off, and he had a bird cage over
it, of course. With a cloth over the cage. Pretended he had a globe of the Earth
had closed finally and for ever above his head. "OK," said Fenchurch, "pull on
Of course you have to be careful. There's a certain risk that when the hydrogen and carbon combine you'll just end up with billions of barrels of vodka instead of brown-black goo and lord only knows how we'd manage to dispose of that. College students!
I particularly love the honorable mention from middle school: "Dinosaur & Man Walked Together" - Donny Findlay (grade 6) *facepalm*
At the right temperature and pressure, a ring made from dry ice leads to frostbite and ring made from diamonds leads to sex. That's another advantage.
Having seen this "easiness" from experience (immediately after upgrading frome IE6 to IE7):
If the user can navigate to Google, Google detects IE7 and comes up with a large flashing arrow pointing at the search bar and a button, and says "Would you like to make Google your default search engine?"
Thus the point is moot; if the user is capable enough to navigate to Google just once, they can click said button, and Google essentially does it for them. Simple as that.
And out came a browser that was almost, but not entirely, unlike Microsoft.
Well, if this is Thursday, and this is a terrible, stupid catastrophe... Ah, shit. The world is going to end, isn't it? Where did I put my sub-etha sense-o-matic...?
Well hell, if you do that, you don't need to write anything, or even have any files on the system. Heaven will anticipate any method calls or parameters and just do the work before you even call them. It's all been done for you.
Good point. I do believe it's anatomically impossible to have one's head in one's ass. Bottom line, IMHO, is the efficiency/performance/reliability/security of the software depends more on the skill of the programming team than on anything innate.
article here
I know, I know. Preview. I mis-clicked.
Or President Bush lying about WMD's in front of the same nation. Or about Iraq seeking materials for nuclear nucular weaponry from Niger (see State of the Union, 1/28/03, or an article here, in which Bush stated "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.")
The only parties in the US that I can see opposing it (entire parties, that is) would be Libertarians and Socialists. (IE, far left on the personal-freedoms scale, and position on the economic-freedoms scale is irrelevant).
Actually, that too would be conditional on choosing the "correct" religion, which, in the eyes of nearly every religion is itself. Inevitably, only one (if any) will be "correct" so I find it more convenient to live by my own morals, and not those preached to me by others, and enjoy life while I'm doing it.
Another problem is that most of the "absolute" moralities dictated by religions conflict with one another. This means that anyone who one religion says will go to heaven, another invariably says will not. Only one, if any, will be correct, and there must be thousands, from FSMism to Fundie Christianity, all of which tell you different things. The odds are against you either way, so to me it's more hopeful to just "believe" in nothing, and hope I'm right since my chances of picking the "right" religion are so slim.
...I love you. You just made my day.
I agree with everything you've said, except you need an update on the article you posted: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/12/ 24/students_tall_tale_revealed/
The kid made it up. It was all a hoax.
I don't know about saving us from bombardment... somehow, I think Oprah's gravitation would cancel out any useful effects. Either that, or Bill O'Reilly's intellectual vacuum.
SM is sadism/masochism, the latter of which is recieving pleasure from pain. Regardless of whatever underlying psychological issues there are, some people do find it pleasurable. Masochism doesn't equate with insanity, so yes, the individuals' consent would still be valid. The difference between SM and abuse is the relationship dynamic. In a dominant/submissive relationship, the dominant person (the sadist, in this case) has power and control, but also respect and love for the submissive. In these cases, there is nearly always a safe word used, where if something goes too far or becomes unpleasant for either party, they say the safe word ane everything stops. In an abusive relationship, the victim gets no pleasure from the abuse, and there are usually in fact psychological issues for both parties. For the victim, they are usually involving dependence or fear, and the abuser has power and control issues, probably resulting from some inadequacy complex. In an abusive relationship, the victim often feels trapped. They have no control over their situation (in their eyes), though they may not like it that way. In a S/M relationship, the submissive gets a rush from losing all control-- except for the fact that they have the safe word to rely on. A sadist/dominant person isn't a criminal because even though they inflict pain, they are always willing to stop, and they always have that respect and love for the other person. Therein lies the fundamental difference.