Right, and this is why the viewer was supposed to make the assumption that the AI had emotions programmed in. No stupidity here.
Remember the discussion in 2001. HAL was programmed to sound emotional, since it made it easier to talk to him. Whether he actually felt emotions was much harder to say.
...laura
the horsepower per hour of engine life? That thing looks like it'll last 20 hours before it needs rebuilding.
A point the story ignores. Any idiot can get buttloads of power out of an engine if it doesn't have to do so for very long. Two-stroke engines are particularly good for this if fuel consumption and exhaust emissions are minor considerations.
...laura
My biggest scope is an 18" dob, made by the now-defunct Starsplitter. It looks a lot like an Obsession 18", and uses Obsession accessories.
While large, with the wheelbarrow handles it's easy to move around and set up. When I bought it I refurbished it, including redoing the teflon bearings in the mount. A local industrial plastics shop sold me an offcut of real virgin GE sheet teflon. The result is pure dobsonian: rock steady, stays where it's pointed. And perfectly balanced: it moves with one finger.
Jupiter's moons are different colours and are non-stellar. Titan is an interesting colour. M13 has a friend, NGC 6207.
...laura
As a city dweller public transport and the occasional rental car were all I needed for a long time.
A few years ago I got a nice bonus from my employers and bought a little car to see what I might do with it. I can't say it's changed my driving habits all that much: I still take the bus to work, but drive on weekends. The price of gasoline is certainly a factor, but will have to be quite a bit more before I cut back further on driving. I'd love to drive an electric car, but the infrastructure isn't there. I live in an apartment and have nowhere to plug one in, despite numerous discussions with the building management.
There are a few destinations around here (like downtown Vancouver) where I still prefer to take the bus, because the traffic and parking are impossible.
...laura
I remember that morning. I was watching the launch on TV as I was getting ready to go to work, and had to head out during a launch hold. Later that morning one of our part-time folks came in and asked if we had heard about Challenger? I felt myself go grey and took the rest of the day off.
Every generation has events where everybody remembers exactly where they were. I wasn't born when Sputnik 1 was launched, and I was a bit young to remember Kennedy. But I do remember Apollo 8, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Challenger, Lady Di and 9/11. Funny that four of those events are related to space...
Side note: a shame the pictures only show the left SRB, not the right one that caused all the trouble.
...laura
A few years ago I was doing some development that involved AES encryption, and needed to create some test tools.
One evening I was watching some program about the misdeeds of some computer hacker, and the screen background was perl. It mentioned Crypt::Rijndael.
I had my test tool the next morning...
...laura
None of the above, in other words...
I have a license for driving cars (British Columbia class 5) and a license for flying airplanes (PPL). I'm working on my commercial license.
In Canada a pilots license is a little booklet that looks like a passport. Your license, ratings and medical, all in one document.
...laura
If you exchange your Foundation credits for kalganids you get a lot of kalganids. Sounds like a good deal to me!
What good are quatloos? All you can do is place bets with them. I'm confused.
...laura, probably showing her age
I make sure that my vacations are out of cell coverage, so my cellphone is irrelevant. I turn it off for the duration. All the better to hear the wind rustling through the leaves, the birds calling, and so on. One favourite getaway includes howler monkeys whooping it up at dawn. So be it.
I take my iPad with me. I can read stuff on it if I want to. At the airport yesterday I checked the weather via the airport's
WiFi, did my own forecast
of the flight conditions and compared that with the airline's briefing on turbulence and stuff. Nailed it.
My employers have emergency contact information, but they understand that if they call me it had better be an emergency. The one time they called me (in 14 years) it really was. My boss is of the same mindset on this stuff, so it's cool.
...laura
A few years ago I moved to a new place and needed to line up a new home for a very sweet stray cat who had turned up on my doorstep. So he went to live with my Mom in the country.
At first he was puzzled by his new surroundings, but eventually he figured things out. It took him about six weeks to go from playing with mice the other cat brought in, to catching his own and playing with them, to discovering they were edible. And much tastier than cat food. Crunch crunch crunch.
...laura
I bought a trackpad for my Mac earlier this year on a whim, and I love it. I know, drinking the kool-aid and all that. So sue me...
...laura
Indeed. That will, eventually, kill YouTube far more effectively than intrusive ads or changes in terms of service.
I first noticed playback issues earlier this year. Everybody is complaining about it. The support forums are full of platitudes about updating plugins and flushing one's cache. None of which makes any difference: YouTube is broken. And if it doesn't actually work, i.e. deliver content, the advertising is going to be irrelevant.
My preferred browser is Chrome, BTW. If YouTube doesn't work properly with Google's own browser, we're in big trouble.
...laura
I use Chrome as the lesser of two evils. Face it: everybody who is in the browser business has an agenda.
Almost makes me fond of the AOL days, it's so frustrating.
I remember a flight (circa 1995) when I got an AOL trial floppy disk with my complimentary bag of peanuts and lousy coffee.
...laura
When Nelson Mandela turned 70 there was quite a bit of coverage in the news here. He was still in jail, so I called Cape Town information, got the number, phoned the jail and left a message ("Happy Birthday!") for him.
The man who answered the phone sounded like he'd been on the phone a lot that day. He was also very careful to take down my name and where I was calling from. I suspect that until the government changed there would have been little point in trying to get a visa to visit South Africa...
...laura
The technology to autonomously deliver payloads with high accuracy has been around for a long time. I remember years ago people staring wide-eyed when I pointed out that the same technology that delivers bombs could be adapted to deliver more useful things like food and medical supplies. And now goodies from Amazon & Co.
As a pilot I wonder about the aeronautical issues. The authorities are clearly up in the air
on the subject (pun intended...
...laura
To do nothing is to be nothing.
