It's been 15 years since Bill Gates wrote his book, The Road Ahead, in which he talks about how technology would shape the future. In the intervening years, technology has changed most aspects of our lives for better or worse. So how did Bill Gates do on his predictions? The Atlantic takes a look at the good and bad of some of his prognostications. Overall, it appears Bill let optimism guide his thoughts, except when it came to the Internet"

Go ahead, get on my case about harping about the evils of smoking. You may like to smoke, but I don't want you around me when you do. And if do you come around me, take a shower first. Just don't expect a good night kiss.

With that out of the way, it seems the country with the largest amount of smokers has potentially come up with a use for the filters of used cigarettes. You drop them in water, extract the volatiles from the water and use those volatiles to coat the inside of oil pipes and prevent them from rusting.

Weird, huh? Use known carcinogens to prevent pipes which carry oil from springing leaks. Who knew?!

Short Flash vid...
http://en.tackfilm.se/?id=1273610622233RA56

Canadian pre-orders started today.

64 GB WiFi version ordered, should be here by May 28. No need for the 3G version, I can tether with MyWi on the iPhone.

My dad picked up the similar model on a trip to the US last week. Was playing with it on the weekend, awesome device. Perhaps not magical but still most impressive.

you're too lazy to write porn.

Yes, on rare occasions I write porn. Not well and not often, but enough to satisfy some people who frequent Literotica.

Currently, I am caught up on work stuff, too lazy to study for my quiz on Saturday and too bored to continue working on one of three different stories.

People talk about depression being bad (I'm not depressed). It's not. It's the boredom.

if there was one time I could take a piss and not have someone else stop by. It's not that I'm shy, but dealing with people all day makes one want a moment of peace and quiet.

Standing there and having someone else come in and go take a dump with noises like something from Dr. Seuss does not allow one to decompress. Nor is it possible when someone comes in and tries to talk to you (yes ladies, there is a code in the bathroom). Of course there's always 'The Whistler'. Annoying is the word that comes to mind.

Peace and quiet are one of the two reasons bathrooms exist. If only solitude would be a third reason.

With Sunday being Pi Day, CNN is running a quick blurb about the whole affair. That's not what caught my eye (don't care about the day anyway).

No, what caught my attention was the picture they use(d) to accompany the story. For your reference.

If only...

The first Ghost Article in many, many months shows some strange behind-the-scenes SlashCode action. When I reload the original page URL, I get the generic "Nothing to see here, move along". But when I click on the "title" link, the one in the header before the comments section, the page that results has the full article title. It's not just echoing the text in the URL, either... otherwise it would say "Man HIV Free" instead of "Man HIV-Free". That implies that the ghost is still in the database... somewhere.

Man HIV-Free 2 Years After Stem Cell Treatment
Date: 26 Feb 2010
Orig link: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/02/26/1637249
Title link: http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/02/26/1637249/Man-HIV-Free-2-Years-After-Stem-Cell-Treatment
Posted by kdawson in The Mysterious Future!
from the good-genes dept.

kkleiner writes

"According to a recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine, a stem cell transplant performed in Germany has unexpectedly removed all signs of HIV from a 42-year-old American patient. The unnamed white male was treated two years ago for leukemia with a dose of donor stem cells, and his HIV RNA count has dropped to zero and remained there since. While the treatment was for leukemia, Dr. Gero Hutter and colleagues at the Charite Universitatsmedizen in Berlin had selected the stem cell donor for his HIV-resistant genes. While there are still many questions unanswered, this is the first such case of stem cells treating HIV that has been reported in a publication of the caliber of the NEJM."

This was the headline for a story on The Japan Times Online web site:

JBA sketches out plan for bj-league, JBL merger

It makes you think, don't it?

Here we go again. The annual Cosplay gathering in Tokyo and lots of pictures to show how folks imitate their favorite characters. Those wacky Japanese, what won't they do? Apparently full body shots because with few exceptions, the pictures are headshot only.

As a side note, the girl in blue hair in the main picture is somehow, intriguing. If only that shade of blue was natural (and she lived closer to me).

On a second related note, the group pictures of what appear to be flight attendants (towards the bottom), or maybe Macross show girls, is reason enough to smile (except for the one who looks bored).

Every time I hear some religious wacko spouting off about not allowing people who are born gay to marry because it would destroy the "traditional" sense of marriage, I have often remarked to myself, "Fine. If marriage between a man and a woman is so sacred, so traditional, let's outlaw divorce."

Now, someone has proposed doing just that! The full story and the story behind the story may be found at this link.

Obviously the chances of this happening are remote to non-existent. But, for those of you in California, or know someone from California, you might want to toss this tidbit their way and have them sign the petition anyway. What's the worse thing that can happen? The people agree and outlaw marriage?

As an aside, and related to this story, as some of the religious wackos spout on this subject that procreation is why marriage is the way it is, then they wouldn't be opposed to testing every man and woman who wanted to get married to see if a) they are capable of having kids and b) if they are going to have kids. If they can't have kids because God has made either partner sterile or otherwise incapable of producing offspring, or if the couple are not going to have kids, then they shouldn't be allowed to marry. Right?

That would certainly stop people like Rush and Elizabeth Taylor hopping from marriage to marriage.

That is not a misprint or some spoof. The title is exactly what this film is all about.

Enjoy!

It's one thing to hear and chuckle about the Peter Principle. It's quite another to be the victim of its main thrust.

It appears that my time with the government will soon be coming to an end. We have known for some time that our large room would be redesigned to accommodate more people (i.e. an influx of contractors). What we didn't know was the specifics.

We thought we would be forced to use the same desk configuration that the current crop of contractors use which is roughly a 6 foot desk set in a 4 foot space (essentially a 24 square foot space). That was bad because in our group we use our extra desk space to image/work on machines as well as other items.

I was just told that the new size of our cube will be 4x4.

I want everyone who reads this to trace out a 4x4 area, place your chair in it, then a PC, a pad of scratch paper, pens, pencils, a phone, extra notepads and miscellaneous papers. You see the issue, don't you?

My current space is somewhat luxurious in that it is approximately 48 square feet with plenty of desk space to put machines I am working on, lay out papers with notes I want to keep handy, my supplies and other miscellaneous items. In addition, because I sit next to a large support pillar, I have a small tabletop on which I can store other items if the need arises.

Now, if you take away all that workable space just to hire more people for friends of the governor*, where do you propose we do our work? That's right, in a separate room, away from our desks which means we can't answer our phones or email which means any calls we get won't be answered in a timely manner which means we'll hear about it from the higher ups when things don't run as smoothly (not that it is now, but I digress).

Many people have talked about working in a cubical farm and certainly Scott Adams has had years worth of material on the subject. However, this must be very near the top of outright stupidity when it comes to a work environment.

I've already told the supervisor who told me about the new plan that I'll be giving quitting if they go to this format, so it looks like I only have a few more months of employment. I could go to the Union** and file a complaint but since I'm not a formal member***, they'll probably ignore me unless I pony up more protection money.

Now, there is a possible out. I applied for a low-level managerial position so if that comes through, I can avoid this but, the office I will be placed is still half the size of where I am now. But at least I'll be getting experience so I can finally move out of here.

So, anyone looking for a low-level project manager or jack-of-all-trades?

*It is a well known fact that Deloitte Consulting, who gets the vast majority of state contracts, has people who worked with and for the governor. Their contracts run for years and cost the state tens of millions of dollars, all because the contracts do not specify that state workers should be taught what the contractors are doing, thus, the contractors stay around near indefinitely.

As point of fact, our current ERP software project is 102% over budget and there is at least another year to go before it approaches some semblance of closure.

**The Union makes a big stink about protecting the workers, but has over the last decade, when contract negotiations have come up, continued to give away more and more "benefits" while insuring the incompetent can't get fired. Next to the mafia, they're great at sucking money from people.

***There are two classes of non-managerial employees working for the state. Full Union members and fair-share members. I am of the latter. Essentially, we pay a fee to the Union for getting us our jobs, our benefits and salaries and all the other sundries. Fair-share member fees are determined by a formula but it is less than a full Union membership.

Officially, the Union must represent fair-share employees with the same diligence they do full Union employees. In practice, you're generally laughed at or told to join the Union first before they'll file a complaint.

Digitimes has another reason for Windows 7 sales to be low.

PC replacement demand is not driven significantly by the consumer market, but rather enterprise and government purchases ... most enterprises in Europe and North America are expected to start planning annual purchasing budgets for the year in March and April of 2010, actual replacement demand is not expected to spur until the second half of the year.

Companies and government might buy computers next year, but they should already be buying orders placed in March and April of this year. There are already accounts of corporate rejection of Windows 7, so that OS is not likely to have anything to do with corporate buying and government won't be a big market because UAC still does not meet government security standards . Back in January, retailers at CES remembered being "burnt by Vista" and saw nothing to change their minds about the contracting PC market. Perhaps OEMs and retailers could deliver the gnu/linux netbooks and desktops that people actually want to buy.