As Top Gear pointed out, yes it is insanely expensive, insanely fast and insanely high tech. However, with oil prices and availability going the way it is, plus increased green awareness, the Veyron probably represents the pinnacle that petrol based cars will ever achieve. This is it.
They are also all sold at a considerable loss - they cost much more to build than they sell for. It's a final swansong excercise in ultimate car technology. Sure, they'll be cool and funky stuff along later but for this sort of vehicle, it's the top dog. As such, I admire it as an excercise is engineering and beauty.
However, it is also (to my mind) an obscene way to spend your money.
Indeed. For those that don't know, Curt has made it his life work to document and release as much Atari info and code and possible. He has forged links with developers and publishers and was responsible for the rereleased 2600 and 7800 consoles from a few years back as well as the current USB Atari original joystick for use with emulators. He has literally hundreds if not thousands of data cartridges, hard drives and floppies as well as many of Atari's original mainframes (well, vaxes) and the backups and is slowly going through it all. He has unearthed many Atari holy grails such as the details of the Amy sound chip and has huge numbers of prototypes of various canned projects.
I've got books going back to the 1920's at least that have adverts at the back for various semi-related products. I've not seen ads in the main book text before but adverts in general have been there for quite some time.
>I can't wait until there's a practical field procedure for generating a DNA profile
In the UK almost any visit to the police station will result in you being obliged to give a DNA sample. They've used the increasingly large sample database to mop up old crimes going back decades in some cases. I would suggest that in many cases such as murder, rape etc this is a Good Thing. However, it is easy to plant or fake DNA evidence and the courts and in turn jurors generally tend to treat any DNA evidence as magic proof of guilt and won't stop to think the person in the dock might not have done it.
>Tesco, so this is not an insubstantial amount of data.
You're not wrong - it's a very large and powerful chunk of data but alas Joe Public hasn't quite grasped that one yet and is happy to have their shopping habits tracked. Tescos has used this data to great effect with highly targetted ads and offers and probably selling on the data to 3rd parties. To be fair, some of it is also to the consumers benefit - when shoping online for groceries their wbesite will prompt 'you often buy xxx but haven't this time - did you want to?'
>then the government already have most, or all, of the info that would be stored on the I.D. card
Sort of. The ID card database is introducing the ID card as the primary key then using that to update and thus link all the disparate databases into one big searchable system. Right now, they'd have to trawl multiple systems and manually sift the data to get the big picture on you. If the ID database goes live, they'll have a single system that shows the lot and can then be used for data mining on whatever criteria they decide makes you a bit dodgy in their opinion.
A) Every other ID you cite is voluntary, this was going to be compulsory (eventually).
B) There was going to be a database behind it that allowed the government to data mine and track what you were up to in numerous areas. With a reasonable government, not neccessarily a problem but they could enact any number of new laws making something you did illegal such as reading political books, fishing or importing DVDs then use the system to scoop up the 'bad' guys.
C) As you say, there are already any number of ways of identifying yourself - driving licence, passport etc. Why have yet another at collosal cost to the tax payer?
As others have noticed, this is hardly new. I'm starting to think we just have too much knowledge these days. I've lost count of the number of 'discoveries' that are already known, both in IT and the wider areas of science and beyond. It's effectively impossible for people to fully grasp the entire sum of knowledge in their field with the result we're starting to spend time 'reinventing the wheel' to a depressing level.
>you arent CHARGED for reading the bible
Oh be quiet! You'll have the RIAA hanging around churches if they spot that one. 'Excuse me Sir, did you pay for todays sermon, we noted several lines from the Bible were read out in public'.
(before anyone jumps in about copyright running out, I do know. Duh).
>Christians have been around longer, so the only lies they tell are the ones that are not verifiably false.
Plus they've had time to bed down into the human psyche as givens so even considering querying them is almost taboo in many circles. I read an interesting piece on how children below a certain age pretty much believe anything you tell them and continue to believe these things even as adults (although new 'wierd' things need evidence to be believed by then). As such, religious families find passing on their religion to the kids to be fairly easy. That said, kids these days are far more street smart earlier so maybe that is starting to change.
Whilst in of itself, vi isn't a rich dev environment, I have to concur that to see a Vi guru use it in anger is something to behold. I used to work with a contractor that was a vi obsessive and the speed he could churn out code and the way he used to leverage features I didn't know even existed was awesome. I particularly liked the way he used to shell out to an OS call, get some data and pull it back into the edit.
After seeing what it could do I went straight out and bought a couple of heavyweight vi books but never really got the time it needed to properly learn.
You could have the most amazing docs the world has ever known - with passwords and clear instructions - ad the odds are about 20% that the next guy will even read them.
Yep. Wise words. I've known systems that have been documented over and over and no-one ever bothers to refer to the previous set.
This shouldn't be a troll - he's quite right. I know a fair few people that have written IT related books - probably 30 or 40 between them and they all say don't do it for the money, that it's one of the worst paid jobs, (based on word count) they've ever done. Compared to how long they take to write versus the payback, I'd agree with them. What most of them agree on is that it's a good vanity project and also helps get other non-book related writing work elsewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
At least you'd be assured of a half decent takaway meal when you got there.
As Top Gear pointed out, yes it is insanely expensive, insanely fast and insanely high tech. However, with oil prices and availability going the way it is, plus increased green awareness, the Veyron probably represents the pinnacle that petrol based cars will ever achieve. This is it.
They are also all sold at a considerable loss - they cost much more to build than they sell for. It's a final swansong excercise in ultimate car technology. Sure, they'll be cool and funky stuff along later but for this sort of vehicle, it's the top dog. As such, I admire it as an excercise is engineering and beauty.
However, it is also (to my mind) an obscene way to spend your money.
Back in the day, most if not all 6502 programmers books started out with tutorials on BCD maths - it was the best way as RAM was so limited.
Indeed. For those that don't know, Curt has made it his life work to document and release as much Atari info and code and possible. He has forged links with developers and publishers and was responsible for the rereleased 2600 and 7800 consoles from a few years back as well as the current USB Atari original joystick for use with emulators. He has literally hundreds if not thousands of data cartridges, hard drives and floppies as well as many of Atari's original mainframes (well, vaxes) and the backups and is slowly going through it all. He has unearthed many Atari holy grails such as the details of the Amy sound chip and has huge numbers of prototypes of various canned projects.
I've got books going back to the 1920's at least that have adverts at the back for various semi-related products. I've not seen ads in the main book text before but adverts in general have been there for quite some time.
>I can't wait until there's a practical field procedure for generating a DNA profile
In the UK almost any visit to the police station will result in you being obliged to give a DNA sample. They've used the increasingly large sample database to mop up old crimes going back decades in some cases. I would suggest that in many cases such as murder, rape etc this is a Good Thing. However, it is easy to plant or fake DNA evidence and the courts and in turn jurors generally tend to treat any DNA evidence as magic proof of guilt and won't stop to think the person in the dock might not have done it.
>Tesco, so this is not an insubstantial amount of data.
You're not wrong - it's a very large and powerful chunk of data but alas Joe Public hasn't quite grasped that one yet and is happy to have their shopping habits tracked. Tescos has used this data to great effect with highly targetted ads and offers and probably selling on the data to 3rd parties. To be fair, some of it is also to the consumers benefit - when shoping online for groceries their wbesite will prompt 'you often buy xxx but haven't this time - did you want to?'
>then the government already have most, or all, of the info that would be stored on the I.D. card
Sort of. The ID card database is introducing the ID card as the primary key then using that to update and thus link all the disparate databases into one big searchable system. Right now, they'd have to trawl multiple systems and manually sift the data to get the big picture on you. If the ID database goes live, they'll have a single system that shows the lot and can then be used for data mining on whatever criteria they decide makes you a bit dodgy in their opinion.
A) Every other ID you cite is voluntary, this was going to be compulsory (eventually).
B) There was going to be a database behind it that allowed the government to data mine and track what you were up to in numerous areas. With a reasonable government, not neccessarily a problem but they could enact any number of new laws making something you did illegal such as reading political books, fishing or importing DVDs then use the system to scoop up the 'bad' guys.
C) As you say, there are already any number of ways of identifying yourself - driving licence, passport etc. Why have yet another at collosal cost to the tax payer?
>I squirted milk out my nose when I read that.
Had you been drinking milk at the time or are you just really wierd?
i.e. the Intellivision reinvented - that too had overlays and a keypad. The main control 'disc' sucked though.
As others have noticed, this is hardly new. I'm starting to think we just have too much knowledge these days. I've lost count of the number of 'discoveries' that are already known, both in IT and the wider areas of science and beyond. It's effectively impossible for people to fully grasp the entire sum of knowledge in their field with the result we're starting to spend time 'reinventing the wheel' to a depressing level.
>eternal torment in the bowels
I've got that already after having a 'special edition' curry last night.
But think of the children!
Oh, wait, you are.
>you arent CHARGED for reading the bible
Oh be quiet! You'll have the RIAA hanging around churches if they spot that one. 'Excuse me Sir, did you pay for todays sermon, we noted several lines from the Bible were read out in public'.
(before anyone jumps in about copyright running out, I do know. Duh).
Can't see why on Earth this deserves a -1 mod. I'd say it's fairly much on the button.
>Christians have been around longer, so the only lies they tell are the ones that are not verifiably false.
Plus they've had time to bed down into the human psyche as givens so even considering querying them is almost taboo in many circles. I read an interesting piece on how children below a certain age pretty much believe anything you tell them and continue to believe these things even as adults (although new 'wierd' things need evidence to be believed by then). As such, religious families find passing on their religion to the kids to be fairly easy. That said, kids these days are far more street smart earlier so maybe that is starting to change.
Whilst in of itself, vi isn't a rich dev environment, I have to concur that to see a Vi guru use it in anger is something to behold. I used to work with a contractor that was a vi obsessive and the speed he could churn out code and the way he used to leverage features I didn't know even existed was awesome. I particularly liked the way he used to shell out to an OS call, get some data and pull it back into the edit.
After seeing what it could do I went straight out and bought a couple of heavyweight vi books but never really got the time it needed to properly learn.
Yep. Wise words. I've known systems that have been documented over and over and no-one ever bothers to refer to the previous set.
Strongly suggest you check out Star Raiders (1979) then.
>I suspect the IT manager lost his/her job pronto
Well yes, he's got nothing to manage now, apart from anything else.
This shouldn't be a troll - he's quite right. I know a fair few people that have written IT related books - probably 30 or 40 between them and they all say don't do it for the money, that it's one of the worst paid jobs, (based on word count) they've ever done. Compared to how long they take to write versus the payback, I'd agree with them. What most of them agree on is that it's a good vanity project and also helps get other non-book related writing work elsewhere.
You totally won that one dude.
So it does - excellent! (€)
Dude, it's not her face you want it locked on...