Star Trek: The Next Generation was generally well-done, with interesting charcerters and only a few clunker episodes.

I found Deep Space 9 an interesting concept let down by unimaginative writing.

I found Voyager unwatchable. Janeway came across as an affirmative action bureaucrat. A Captain is a monarch, not a bureaucrat. Patrick Stewart had played Shakespearean kings, and played Picard the same way. It worked. What Janeway needed was a good desk.

Sliders was a really interesting premise that ran out of steam. The same story every week. Yawn.

The X Files also started out well and also ran out of steam, descending in to torture porn.

Didn't watch any of the others, so no comment.

...laura

Eh, I've had it happen to me... I won a small paper airplane competition (really more of an art project) years ago, in just one category out of several, and not really anything notable. But all of the news sites ran a little blurb with the headline "Engineer from $AEROSPACE_GIANT (NYSE:$BLAH) wins airplane competition"

I try not to assume too much these days, like that the corporate-controlled media isn't in it for the money if there's money to be made.

Plus, they subliminally put the word "dump" right there in the headline next to the company names, and you know all the robotic stock traders make trades automatically off of the incoming stream of news feeds.

Yeah, sounds like someone is tweaking the headline so they can pick up some cheap stock after it gets dumped.

From actually RTFA, it sounds like VG is just assuming responsibility for further testing. The accident sounds tragic, but it looks like it may have been the co-pilot's ... "fault" is a strong word, but they mentioned he unlocked the stabilizer a bit too early and then it automatically feathered when it wasn't supposed to.

SC may do good work, but these kinds of things happen, unfortunately. But it's really bad press for VG, and I can see their board upset about why they're letting a relatively "small" engineering outfit determine their fate. It sounds like VG should be in charge of this project and their own future now, for better or for worse. Now they're fully responsible for the risks and can certainly handle them differently.

There is strong encryption, and there is unbreakable encryption. They are not necessarily the same thing.

Strong encryption is theoretically breakable, but it is not computationally feasible to do so. What is computationally feasible changes with time. Look at how key-length standards for RSA have changed, for example.

One-time pad encryption, on the other hand, is not breakable. It doesn't matter how much computer power you throw at it: if you don't have the key, you can't read the message.

...laura

Does cherry picking old war stories usually work out well for you?

From their site, they intend to make all the essential parts for crash safety out of printed plastic.

Everything on the car that could be integrated into a single material piece has been printed. This includes the chassis/frame, exterior body, and some interior features. The mechanical components of the vehicle, like battery, motors, wiring, and suspension, are sourced from Renaultâ(TM)s Twizy, an electric powered city car.

Also on their site has the specs.

Motor - 5 bhp or 17 bhp, 42 lb-ft torque*

Top Speed - approx. 50mph*

The "*" indicating there should be a footnote explaining it, is missing.

Actually, their donor car (Renault Twizy) isn't even classified as a car. It's a quadcycle, and is not currently legal for road operation in the United States. From what I found elsewhere, Renault isn't even planning to make it available in the US, since it doesn't meet the road requirements here.

http://fark.com/ is as close to a bipartisan "internet tavern" as I've ever seen. They used to have a "political balance meter" to try to link to a roughly equal number of stories / threads with a "leftist" and "rightist" spin. Anyway, it's useful to (occasionally) see well-articulated thoughts and opinions from "the other side", or even just discussion of news events from different perspectives... stuff that more often devolves into flamewars or gets stuck or pigeonholed on other social media.

That said, yeah, I know next to nothing about Drew, but it sounds like he might be a good moderator of useful discussion. Over beer.

No, they always called it foobies, and moved that stuff to their own domain once they got "serious".

http://foobies.com/

They also used to have a "weeners" tag for the ladies (and dudes of a certain persuasion), but not sure what happened to all that content after they cleaned up.

I switched to the Kensington Expert Mouse trackball when it first came out many years ago. All versions have four buttons. The newer versions have added a scroll ring around the trackball. As a result, I have been able to avoid RSIs. The added benefit is that users of these trackballs have enhanced functionality in day-to-day operations, from programming, to browsing, to graphics work, and gaming.

Since you mentioned physical discomfort with a dangling ring finger I must stress that you try out the Kensington Expert Mouse (can be bought new as cheap as $60). The ring finger rests on the right button or the upper-right button depending on your preference.

They caught up a little by purchasing Amiga Corporation in 1984, but those used Motorola CPUs along with a family of custom integrated circuits that were developed well into the 1990s. Amiga was partially financed by Atari until Tramiel bought Atari.

So, Wirth's definition, and your changes can define 'programming' and it won't disagree with my definition.

Wirth is trying to provide an *academic* definition that is *all-inclusive* in it's language

My definition is the reverse...it seeks to simplify what's happening to the most essential.

I'm right. All programming involves controlling machines using symbols.

It's the best definition, and it doesn't disagree with Wirth's definition

For personal use?
You don't need an anti-virus program. It's a racket. Use the built-in protections for your OS, and learn some common sense. If you do something that gets you infected, wipe and reload your OS, and DON'T DO THAT AGAIN. Once you have a trimmed group of common, trusted applications and games and settings, you'll be cruising fine. You'll more likely be wiping and reloading your OS due to hardware failures every few years than from virus attacks. Notice that you will need to make backups and treat your computers as disposable. You'll be happier this way.

For work? CYA!
Find out what the company security policy is. Use/Buy one (and only one) that will take the liability WHEN (not if) a virus manages to sneak through. Make sure updates are turned on and up-to-date so they can't weasel out of liability coverage. That is all.

you are taking it too far

the difference is characters (aka symbols) stored in memory...not the act of 'print'ing a character on screen

it fully makes logical sense...you write code, store it in memory, computer executes it...the symbols you use are the 'langauge'

there are many people who claim to be 'coders' or 'programmers' who are not, but we can't let that determine how we talk/define this stuff

this really is the best way to understand programming