Comment Re:Who Cares? (Score 5, Informative) 584
Astroturf == Fake Grass
astroturf movement == fake 'grass roots' movement
astroturf movement == fake 'grass roots' movement
Comment Re:1972? (Score 1) 632
DEC TOPS-10, ASR-33 Teletype, Acoustic coupler for the modem [and a rotary dial phone to stick into the coupler].
Available languages were a BASIC interpreter, and PDP8 and 10 assemblers. You could call the operator to have your DEC tape mounted - but paper tape was more commonly used.
Comment Old age is relative (Score 2) 317
My Southwest Tech 6800 box is a museum piece, but my Osborne/1 [serial number 864] boots up nicely for its annual trial
Comment Re:What's the story on "Music" CD-Rs? (Score 1) 827
The 'Music' CD-R's theoretically pay a portion of the purchase price into a pool to 'compensate' artists. I somehow doubt that this actually happens.
Comment The Roads Must Roll? (Score 5, Insightful) 698
unintentionally blank
Comment Re:Being ridiculous (Score 2, Funny) 539
[disclaimer]I work for a cable provider but not Comcast[/disclaimer]
Last year, to support CableCard / mCard / Tru2Way [the technology has been renamed several times] deployment, we tried to get a Panasonic Tru2Way television for our development lab.
The distributor refused, as the local Cable company [that would be us] did not support Tru2Way
Doctor Slams Hospital's "Please" Policy 572
Administrators at England's Worthing Hospital are insisting that doctors say the magic word when writing orders for blood tests on weekends. If a doctor refuses to write "please" on the order, the test will be refused. From the article: "However, a doctor at the hospital said on condition of anonymity that he sees the policy as a money-saving measure that could prove dangerous for patients. 'I was shocked to come in on Sunday and find none of my bloods had been done from the night before because I'd not written "please,"' the doctor said. 'I had no results to guide treatment of patients. Myself and a senior nurse had to take the bloods ourselves, which added hours to our 12-hour shifts. This system puts patients' lives at risk. Doctors are wasting time doing the job of the technicians.'"
Sumo Wrestler Steals Cash Machine From Moscow Shop 43
timothy writes "Anyone skeevy and devious enough can buy online an ATM skimmer from some underhanded maker of same, but why not cut out the middleman, and just take the cash directly? (Also, if you're going to attempt to stop him, can I have your watch when you are dead?)"
Comment Re:Obligatory contrary "me too!" post (Score 1) 440
And how many of you OS9/Classic Mac apps ran on your Vista box?
Comment I was waiting for the movie reference (Score 1) 288
In the movie, Juror number 8 demonstrates that one piece of the People's evidence [a distinctive switchblade knife] was not unique, by purchasing a copy of it while on a break.
The electronic equivalent would probably be finding a picture [Amazon, ebay] and passing it around. This is much less dramatic than jabbing the duplicate into the table.
Comment Re:cablecard is dead (Score 2, Interesting) 222
The old CableCard standard was one way only. The newer 'MCard' and the OCAP / Tru2Way boxes are much more capable, and [speaking from the inside of the cable industry] a bit puzzling to deal with.
We are looking at revamping our entire provisioning infrastructure to permit the new generation boxes to function, but that has run into some comical snags. For example, we can't get a Pannasonic Tru2Way set delivered to our lab, because the distributor will only ship to areas served by a Tru2Way compatible cable provider. We're working on it, but we're not fully compatible.
Comment IDEA is now open source (Score 1) 151
Back in October, JetBrains announced that they were making Idea 'Community Edition' open source, covered by the Apache 2.0 license.
Comment Re:Waxing? (Score 1) 853
It's an odd and archaic usage, except for phases of the moon
waxing==growing
waning==shrinking
waxing==growing
waning==shrinking
Comment Re:Wow this is a day... (Score 1) 224
76116,3650
Used to hang out on Will Zachman's Canopus forum, using an off line CI$ agent called 'Golden Compass'
Comment Erasing the past (Score 1) 189
As I recall, the Saturn V tooling and plans were 'lost' during the Nixon administration.
Apollo 18's Saturn V was used for Skylab, and the last one ended up as a lawn ornament
