I've got a C-64, two C-128s, two Amiga 500s, and a souped-up (30MHz) Amiga 1200 with an outboard multiGB HD. A couple of years ago I needed to transfer some transcribed song lyrics from the 1200. I hooked it up and plugged it in. It booted up just fine and I managed to get the files copied to an MS-DOS DD floppy and into my PC without much trouble.
I saw the original airing of that episode ("Plato's Stepchildren") and I don't really remember there being much of a public controversy about it. Maybe there were some behind-the-scenes battles with the censors but that kind of thing never got publicized back then.
Trek probably wasn't the first to suggest FTL travel
Very true. The 1956 MGM movie "Forbidden Planet" had it (and made a bigger deal over it) ten years earlier. In fact that's where Gene Roddenberry got some of his ideas for Star Trek. The planet sensors, the crew personalities, phasers (blasters), etc.
Not like Apple had anything to do with the iPod.
IPOF, Apple did not originate the portable mp3 player, there were plenty being sold before Apple joined the party. Apple just miniaturized the hell out of it and gave it a pretty screen and intuitive OS.
The show was cancelled, there wasn't a huge fanbase.
But there was! The show was actually cancelled at the end of the second season. The only reason the show was brought back for a third season was because Paramount was inundated with fan mail imploring them to continue it. (It's rumored that the reason most of the third season shows were inferior was because Paramount didn't like being maneuvered by ST's fans and brought in less-skilled writers and producers just to stick it to them.)
It's just a TV show.
The reason Star Trek has had such a large cultural impact is more to do with its depiction of a smoothly managed interstellar civilization that found a way to (pretty much) do away with both poverty and evil than with its sham science. No doubt this is the way most people wished today's world was, a clean, orderly culture with most everyone content with their lives. And with replicators eliminating manufacturing and the need for money. A civilization based on plenty, rather than on scarcity like ours.
I hope you're not serious when you say "intelligent virtual creatures". They don't exist yet! And they won't for quite some time to come. Don't you mean "pseudo-intelligent virtual creatures" instead?
Re:Why is 1800 of 2000 trampoline accidents?
on
Bob Saget 2.0
·
· Score: 2, Informative
If true, all it means is that trampolines are dangerous.
Open-source software development and creativity aren't the issue here, security is. Any workable identity/financial system must be kept completely separate from other types of systems, all the way down to the hardware on individual computers. What good is financial software if it can be easily hacked? And "easily" is a relative term here - if the rewards are great enough then it won't be long before someone somewhere applies whatever amount of money is necessary to break it. Remember "Swordfish"? The only way to prevent this is to prevent any changes from being made to the system, by anyone. This requires that all PCs that access this network use specially sealed and tamper-proof hardware attached to the motherboard. Browser security plug-ins are not enough anymore, to be really safe security must extend all the way down into the chips themselves. Sounds like quantum computing to me.
You must be a programmer. I can understand your point-of-view. Really I can. "Information must be free, the best programs are open-source, etc." And you're right. But I was speaking from the point-of-view of a developer of a secure worldwide identity/financial system. This is a much different and more limited situation than commercial software creation. In this scenario, a lot of innovation and creativity is exactly what you don't want. What you want is a system that works, is 100% error-free and fills all the needs that you currently have or are likely to have in the near future. Then the system is locked down and cannot be changed except by something like a meeting of the United Nations Security Council (or something similar). The most important aspect (by far) of a system like this is security, not innovation. The best security is provided by a system which does not change too often.
Really? And just how would you get your personal scanner to check for all that?
PCs have been going down the wrong road ever since the first one came out. The only really 100% reliably secure payment scheme would require absolutely closed PCs, ones that didn't allow third-party software to run, as well as a rigidly-policed network. Any person/company that wanted to write software would have to be federally licensed and would be under extreme 24/7 monitoring. Anyone else would be locked out of the system using the net's & PC's hardware, with no hack-arounds possible. While this would tremendously stifle new program creation it would also eliminate all forms of malware and data theft. How different things would have been if only we'd taken this road! We might have had a fully-computerized world ten years ago!
Anti-anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would be different to match it. (Life WILL find its niche, no matter what.)
Sorry, I just got ticked off at the incongruency (how's that for a $25 word?) between the careless mistakes in RotateLeftByte's post and his seemingly superfluous (there's another one!) claim to being a well-paid computer geek for 25+ years. Seems to me that someone who's been specializing in software and IT for so long should be precise enough to avoid making these kinds of errors. I know it's just a post but doesn't anybody care about their public image anymore? Like the old saying goes "Something worth doing is worth doing well". What I wouldn't give to have a job like his... Ah well, we all make choices, but sometimes the choices are made for us. Maybe when I was in school I should have soaked up the high-tech courses as well as I did the English courses. 'Course, when I was in school there *were* no high-tech courses!
Ummm... AFAIK Blu-Ray uses a blue laser, not an ultraviolet one. Although the use of a UV laser would increase capacity even more. However, increasing the frequency of the laser increases the development problems as well, such as the greater chance of undesired chemical changes in the disc medium due to the shorter wavelength used. Different kinds of EM radiation have different effects, y'know. I have no doubt that someone is working on this issue, though. We'll probably see the introduction of Blu-Ray's or HD-DVD's successor(s) based on this technology in a few short years.
For someone who's supposedly been a "professional software developer and systems integrator for the past 25+ years" your spelling (and grammar) is atrocious! I counted 23 errors in your post. In order:
"anythying" should be "anything"
"etc etc." should be "etc., etc."
"XBOX" should be "Xbox"
"matter.(This" should be "matter. (This"
"stats)" should be "stats.)"
"BLURay" should be "Blu-Ray"
"IN" should be "In"
"capacitied" should be "capacities"
"But, backup" should be "But backup"
"buy" should be "by"
"anywhere" should be "anything like"
"so, Well " should be "so? Well "
"don't:-" should be "don't:"
"DVD" should be "DVDs"
"PC's" should be "PCs"
"MP3's" should be "MP3s"
"PC's" should be "PCs"
"Ipod" should be "iPod"
"shoot'em up" should be "shoot'em-up"
"BluRay" should be "Blu-Ray"
"tat" should be "that"
"100Gb" should be "100GB"
"hat" should be "hat."
And I'm not even counting the lack of a period at the end of your sig. If you're going to boast about your geek status then please write like you deserve it.
Not it Ricoh makes good on their claim to handle all formats using just one lens. Previously, (like ivan256 mentioned above) you needed two lenses to do it. Getting by with just one lens has got to make the unit cheaper to manufacture. Now, what about CD-RAM? C'mon Ricoh, let's cover *ALL* the bases!
"Do we really want to live in a society where our backyard barbeques will be open to police scrutiny?"
Ah ha! A hunter who has a taste for endangered species! Caught ya!
You've got it backwards.
First of all, any eye-in-the-sky the police (or for that matter, the military) would use would not be able to discern what nationality the walker is since it would be seeing him from above, from a considerable height and probably in infrared as well. Maybe if the drone passed the word to a passing police cruiser the guy might have a problem.
Secondly, the police probably would wait until they had a few days of observation completed so they would know that the guy walks that way every weeknight. In fact after the first night they'd probably use the drone to backtrack him to his job and they would know that he only uses the railyard as a shortcut from work to home. Furthermore, the drone, viewing his actions from above, would certainly be able to show that he wasn't doing anything suspicious, like trying to gain entrance to a railcar or something.
Finally, if his boss does find out and penalizes him in some way, then it's the boss who has broken the law (and should be made to pay for it)! Corporate shenannigans and unfairnesses like this abound in our open society. This is one of the prices we pay for our freedom. This would be no different from any other case of false slander or guilt-by-association. The only difference is that it would be initiated by new technology.
All in all, those who don't break the law shouldn't have to worry about it. (And if things get so bad that they do, well, time for another revolution.)
I've got an improved version:
A biologist, a logician, a mathematician and a forensics expert are going to a conference in Edinburgh. None of them have been to Scotland before. As their train crosses the border into Scotland, the biologist spots a black sheep on a hillside.
"Look!" exclaims the biologist, "The sheep in Scotland are black".
The logician looks up and declares "No, not at all. At least ONE of the sheep in Scotland is black".
The mathematician looks up and says "No, at least half of one of the sheep in Scotland is black."
Meanwhile, the forensics expert doesn't say a word. He's too busy looking for the guy with the spray can.
Slashdot Mirror
No, no! At the risk of being down-modded permanently:
What were Steve Irwin's last words?:
"He spiked me!"
I've got a C-64, two C-128s, two Amiga 500s, and a souped-up (30MHz) Amiga 1200 with an outboard multiGB HD. A couple of years ago I needed to transfer some transcribed song lyrics from the 1200. I hooked it up and plugged it in. It booted up just fine and I managed to get the files copied to an MS-DOS DD floppy and into my PC without much trouble.
Oooh, sarcastic today, aren't we? Seriously, TBFTGO?GI (There but for the grace of (insert whatever) go I.) More power to you, man.
Actually, it's 7 series if you count both the animated series (gag!) and the new internet-only "New Voyages" series (has potential).
A few minor clarifications:
the first interracial kiss
I saw the original airing of that episode ("Plato's Stepchildren") and I don't really remember there being much of a public controversy about it. Maybe there were some behind-the-scenes battles with the censors but that kind of thing never got publicized back then.
Trek probably wasn't the first to suggest FTL travel
Very true. The 1956 MGM movie "Forbidden Planet" had it (and made a bigger deal over it) ten years earlier. In fact that's where Gene Roddenberry got some of his ideas for Star Trek. The planet sensors, the crew personalities, phasers (blasters), etc.
Not like Apple had anything to do with the iPod.
IPOF, Apple did not originate the portable mp3 player, there were plenty being sold before Apple joined the party. Apple just miniaturized the hell out of it and gave it a pretty screen and intuitive OS.
The show was cancelled, there wasn't a huge fanbase.
But there was! The show was actually cancelled at the end of the second season. The only reason the show was brought back for a third season was because Paramount was inundated with fan mail imploring them to continue it. (It's rumored that the reason most of the third season shows were inferior was because Paramount didn't like being maneuvered by ST's fans and brought in less-skilled writers and producers just to stick it to them.)
It's just a TV show.
The reason Star Trek has had such a large cultural impact is more to do with its depiction of a smoothly managed interstellar civilization that found a way to (pretty much) do away with both poverty and evil than with its sham science. No doubt this is the way most people wished today's world was, a clean, orderly culture with most everyone content with their lives. And with replicators eliminating manufacturing and the need for money. A civilization based on plenty, rather than on scarcity like ours.
I hope you're not serious when you say "intelligent virtual creatures". They don't exist yet! And they won't for quite some time to come. Don't you mean "pseudo-intelligent virtual creatures" instead?
If true, all it means is that trampolines are dangerous.
Open-source software development and creativity aren't the issue here, security is. Any workable identity/financial system must be kept completely separate from other types of systems, all the way down to the hardware on individual computers. What good is financial software if it can be easily hacked? And "easily" is a relative term here - if the rewards are great enough then it won't be long before someone somewhere applies whatever amount of money is necessary to break it. Remember "Swordfish"? The only way to prevent this is to prevent any changes from being made to the system, by anyone. This requires that all PCs that access this network use specially sealed and tamper-proof hardware attached to the motherboard. Browser security plug-ins are not enough anymore, to be really safe security must extend all the way down into the chips themselves. Sounds like quantum computing to me.
You must be a programmer. I can understand your point-of-view. Really I can. "Information must be free, the best programs are open-source, etc." And you're right. But I was speaking from the point-of-view of a developer of a secure worldwide identity/financial system. This is a much different and more limited situation than commercial software creation. In this scenario, a lot of innovation and creativity is exactly what you don't want. What you want is a system that works, is 100% error-free and fills all the needs that you currently have or are likely to have in the near future. Then the system is locked down and cannot be changed except by something like a meeting of the United Nations Security Council (or something similar). The most important aspect (by far) of a system like this is security, not innovation. The best security is provided by a system which does not change too often.
PCs have been going down the wrong road ever since the first one came out. The only really 100% reliably secure payment scheme would require absolutely closed PCs, ones that didn't allow third-party software to run, as well as a rigidly-policed network. Any person/company that wanted to write software would have to be federally licensed and would be under extreme 24/7 monitoring. Anyone else would be locked out of the system using the net's & PC's hardware, with no hack-arounds possible. While this would tremendously stifle new program creation it would also eliminate all forms of malware and data theft. How different things would have been if only we'd taken this road! We might have had a fully-computerized world ten years ago!
Anti-anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would be different to match it. (Life WILL find its niche, no matter what.)
Sorry, I just got ticked off at the incongruency (how's that for a $25 word?) between the careless mistakes in RotateLeftByte's post and his seemingly superfluous (there's another one!) claim to being a well-paid computer geek for 25+ years. Seems to me that someone who's been specializing in software and IT for so long should be precise enough to avoid making these kinds of errors. I know it's just a post but doesn't anybody care about their public image anymore? Like the old saying goes "Something worth doing is worth doing well". What I wouldn't give to have a job like his... Ah well, we all make choices, but sometimes the choices are made for us. Maybe when I was in school I should have soaked up the high-tech courses as well as I did the English courses. 'Course, when I was in school there *were* no high-tech courses!
Ummm... AFAIK Blu-Ray uses a blue laser, not an ultraviolet one. Although the use of a UV laser would increase capacity even more. However, increasing the frequency of the laser increases the development problems as well, such as the greater chance of undesired chemical changes in the disc medium due to the shorter wavelength used. Different kinds of EM radiation have different effects, y'know. I have no doubt that someone is working on this issue, though. We'll probably see the introduction of Blu-Ray's or HD-DVD's successor(s) based on this technology in a few short years.
For someone who's supposedly been a "professional software developer and systems integrator for the past 25+ years" your spelling (and grammar) is atrocious! I counted 23 errors in your post. In order: "anythying" should be "anything" "etc etc." should be "etc., etc." "XBOX" should be "Xbox" "matter.(This" should be "matter. (This" "stats)" should be "stats.)" "BLURay" should be "Blu-Ray" "IN" should be "In" "capacitied" should be "capacities" "But, backup" should be "But backup" "buy" should be "by" "anywhere" should be "anything like" "so, Well " should be "so? Well " "don't:-" should be "don't:" "DVD" should be "DVDs" "PC's" should be "PCs" "MP3's" should be "MP3s" "PC's" should be "PCs" "Ipod" should be "iPod" "shoot'em up" should be "shoot'em-up" "BluRay" should be "Blu-Ray" "tat" should be "that" "100Gb" should be "100GB" "hat" should be "hat." And I'm not even counting the lack of a period at the end of your sig. If you're going to boast about your geek status then please write like you deserve it.
Not it Ricoh makes good on their claim to handle all formats using just one lens. Previously, (like ivan256 mentioned above) you needed two lenses to do it. Getting by with just one lens has got to make the unit cheaper to manufacture. Now, what about CD-RAM? C'mon Ricoh, let's cover *ALL* the bases!
What sales?
"Do we really want to live in a society where our backyard barbeques will be open to police scrutiny?" Ah ha! A hunter who has a taste for endangered species! Caught ya!
You've got it backwards. First of all, any eye-in-the-sky the police (or for that matter, the military) would use would not be able to discern what nationality the walker is since it would be seeing him from above, from a considerable height and probably in infrared as well. Maybe if the drone passed the word to a passing police cruiser the guy might have a problem. Secondly, the police probably would wait until they had a few days of observation completed so they would know that the guy walks that way every weeknight. In fact after the first night they'd probably use the drone to backtrack him to his job and they would know that he only uses the railyard as a shortcut from work to home. Furthermore, the drone, viewing his actions from above, would certainly be able to show that he wasn't doing anything suspicious, like trying to gain entrance to a railcar or something. Finally, if his boss does find out and penalizes him in some way, then it's the boss who has broken the law (and should be made to pay for it)! Corporate shenannigans and unfairnesses like this abound in our open society. This is one of the prices we pay for our freedom. This would be no different from any other case of false slander or guilt-by-association. The only difference is that it would be initiated by new technology. All in all, those who don't break the law shouldn't have to worry about it. (And if things get so bad that they do, well, time for another revolution.)
Uhhh... Which Bush are you referring to? George the Father or George the Son? (Actually, it's a bit too late for either one.)
I've got an improved version: A biologist, a logician, a mathematician and a forensics expert are going to a conference in Edinburgh. None of them have been to Scotland before. As their train crosses the border into Scotland, the biologist spots a black sheep on a hillside. "Look!" exclaims the biologist, "The sheep in Scotland are black". The logician looks up and declares "No, not at all. At least ONE of the sheep in Scotland is black". The mathematician looks up and says "No, at least half of one of the sheep in Scotland is black." Meanwhile, the forensics expert doesn't say a word. He's too busy looking for the guy with the spray can.